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 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
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 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
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 1883 
 
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GEORGE MACDONALD'S WRITINGS. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD AND STEEL. 
 
 " A mine of original and quaint similitudes. Their 
 deep perceptions of human nature are certainly remark- 
 able." — The Century Magazine. 
 
 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood. 
 
 The Seaboard Parish. A Sequel to Annals of a Quiet 
 Neighborhood. 
 
 Guild Court. A London Story. 
 
 Alec Forbes of Howglen. 
 
 Robert Falconer. 
 
 The Vicar's Daughter. An Autobiographical Story. 
 
 Paul Faber, Surgeon. 
 
 Thomas Wingfold, Curate. 
 
 Wilfrid Cumbermede. An Autobiographical Story. 
 
 Sir Gibbie. 
 
 St. George and St. Michael. A Novel. 
 
 i The Portent. A Story. 
 
 ( Phantastes. A Faerie Romance for Men and Women. 
 —David Elginbrod. 
 
 Adela Cathcart. 
 
 Malcolm. 
 
 The Marquis of Lossie. 
 --Warlock O' Glenwarlock. A Homely Romance. 
 
 Mary Marston. 
 
 SOLD SEPARATELY. 
 
 18 Volumes, i2mo, Cloth (in box), per set, §27.00. 
 Cloth, per volume, $1.50. 
 
 May be obtained of all Booksellers or, tuill be sent, pre- 
 paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers. 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, 
 
 9 Lafayette Place, New YokIc. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/guildcourtlondonOOmacd 
 

 GUILD COURT 
 
 A LONDON STORY 
 
 By GEORGE MAC DONALD 
 
 Author of "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," "THE SEABOARD 
 PARISH," Etc., Etc., Etc. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, 
 
 9 Lafayette Place. 
 
 1883. 
 
, 
 
Guild Court. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WALK TO THE COUNTING-HOUSE. 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 n 
 
 Ik the month of November, not 
 many years ago, a young man was walk- 
 ing from Highbury to the City. It was 
 one of those grand mornings that dawn 
 only twice or thrice in the course of 
 the year, and are so independent of 
 times and seasons that November even 
 comes in for its share. And it seemed 
 as if young Thomas Worboise had at 
 his toilet felt tne influences of the 
 i weather, for he was dressed a trifle 
 more gayly than was altogether suit- 
 able for the old age of the year. Nei- 
 ther, however, did he appear in har- 
 mony with the tone of the morning, 
 which was something as much beyond 
 the significance of his costume as the 
 great arches of a cathedral upheaving 
 a weight of prayer from its shadowed 
 heart toward the shadowless heavens 
 are beyond the petty gorgeousnoss of 
 the needlework that adorns the vain 
 garments of its priesthood. It was a lofty blue sky, with 
 multitudes of great clouds half way between it and the earth, 
 among which, as well as along the streets, a glad west wind 
 was reveling. There was nothing much for it to do in the 
 woods now, and it took to making merry in the clouds and 
 the streets. And so the whole heaven was full of church 
 
 ~ 
 
 3 
 
 % 
 
4: Guild Court. 
 
 windows. Every now and then a great bore in the cloudy 
 mass would shoot a sloped cylinder of sun-rays earthward, like 
 an eye that saw in virtue of the light it shed itself upon the 
 object of its regard. G-ray billows of vapor with sunny heads 
 tossed about in the air, an ocean for angelic sport, only that 
 the angels could not like sport in which there was positively 
 no danger. Where the sky shone through it looked awfully 
 sweet and profoundly high. But although Thomas enjoyed 
 the wind on his right cheek as he passed the streets that 
 opened into High Street, and although certain half sensations, 
 half sentiments awoke in him at its touch, his look was often- 
 est down at his light trowsers or his enameled boots, and never 
 rose higher than the shop windows. 
 
 As he turned into the churchyard to go eastward, he was 
 joined by an acquaintance a few years older than himself, 
 whose path lay in the same direction. 
 
 " Jolly morning, ain't it, Tom ? " said he. 
 
 "Ye-es," answered Thomas, with something of a fashion- 
 able drawl, and in the doubtful tone of one who will be care- 
 ful how he either praises or condemns anything. "Ye-es. 
 It almost makes one feel young again." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! How long is it since you enjoyed the pleas- 
 ing sensation last ? " 
 
 "None of your chaff, now, Charles." 
 
 "Well, upon my word, if you don't like chaff, you put 
 yourself at the wrong end of the winnower." 
 
 "I never read the Georgics." # 
 
 "Yes, I know I was born in the country — a clod-hopper, 
 no doubt ; but I can afford to stand your chaff, for I feel as 
 young as the day I was born. If you were a fast fellow, now, 
 I shouldn't wonder ; but for one like you, that teaches in the 
 Sunday-school and all that, I am ashamed of you, talking like 
 that. Confess now, you don't believe a word of what you 
 cram the goslings with." 
 
 " Charles, you may make game of me as you like, but I 
 won't let you say a word against religion in my presence. 
 You may despise me if you like, and think it very spoony of 
 me to teach in the Sunday-school, but — well, you know well 
 enough what I mean." 
 
 " I can guess at it, old fellow. Come, come, don't think to 
 humbug me. You know as well as I do that you don't believe 
 a word of it. I don't mean you want to cheat me or any one 
 else. I believe you're above that. But you do cheat yourself. 
 What's the good of it all when you don't feel half as merry as 
 
The Walk to, the Counting-House. 5 
 
 I do on a bright morning like this ? I never trouble my head 
 about that rubbish. Here am I as happy as I care to be — for 
 to-day, at least, and 'sufficient unto the day,' you know." 
 
 Thomas might have replied, had he been capable of so 
 replying, that although the evil is sufficient for the day, the 
 good may not be. But he said something very different, 
 although with a solemnity fit for an archbishop. 
 
 " There's a day coming, Charles, when the evil will be 
 more than sufficient. I want to save my soul. You have a 
 soul to save, too." 
 
 "Possibly," answered Charles, with more carelessness than 
 he felt ; for he could not help being struck with the senten- 
 tiousness of Thomas's reply, if not with the meaning contained 
 in it. As he was not devoid of reverence, however, and had 
 been spurred on to say what he had said more from the sense 
 of an undefined incongruity between Thomas's habits, talk 
 included, and the impression his general individuality made 
 upon him, than from any wish to cry down the creed in which 
 he took no practical interest, he went no farther in the direc- 
 tion in which the conversation was leading. He doubled. 
 
 " If your soul be safe, Tom, why should you be so gloomy ?" 
 
 ' ' Are there no souls to save but mine ? There's yours now." 
 
 "Is that why you put on your shiny trot-boxes and your 
 lavender trousers, old fellow ? Come, don't be stuck up. ■ I 
 can't stand it." 
 
 "As you please, Charles : I love you too much to mind your 
 making game of me." 
 
 " Come, now," said Charles Wither, " speak right out as I 
 am doing to you. You seem to know something I don't. If 
 you would only speak right out, who knows if you mightn't 
 convert me, and save my soul, too, that you make such a fuss 
 about. For my part, I haven't found out that I have a soul 
 yet. What am I to do with it before I know I've got it ? 
 But that's not the point. It's the trousers. When I feel 
 miserable about myself — " 
 
 "Nonsense, Charles ! you never do." 
 
 " But I do, though. I want something I haven't got often 
 enough ; and, for the life of me, I don't know what it is. 
 Sometimes I think it's a wife. Sometimes I think it's free- 
 dom to do whatever I please. Sometimes I think it's a bottle 
 of claret and a jolly good laugh. But to return to the trousers." 
 
 "Now leave my trousers alone. It's quite disgusting to 
 treat serious things after such a fashion." 
 
 " I didn't know trousers were serious things — except to old 
 
6 Guild Court. 
 
 grandfather Adam. But it's not about your trousers I was 
 talking. It was about my own." 
 
 " I see nothing particular about yours." 
 
 "That's because I'm neither glad nor sorry." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Now you come to the point. That's just what I wanted 
 to come to myself, only you wouldn't let me. You kept shy- 
 ing like a half -broke filly." 
 
 " Come now, Charles, you know nothing about horses, I am 
 very sure." 
 
 Charles Wither smiled, and took no other notice of the 
 asseveration. 
 
 " What I mean is this," he said, "that when I am in a seri- 
 ous, dull-gray, foggy mood, you know — not like this sky — " 
 
 But when he looked up, the sky was indeed one mass of 
 leaden gray. The glory of the unconditioned had yielded to 
 the bonds of November, and — Ichabod. 
 
 "Well," Charles resumed, looking down again, "I mean 
 just like this same sky over St. Luke's Work-house here. 
 Lord ! I wonder if St. Luke ever knew what kind of thing 
 he'd give his medical name to ! When I feel like that, I never 
 dream of putting on lavender trousers, you know, Tom, my 
 boy. So I can't understand you, you know. I only put on 
 such like — I never had such a stunning pair as those — when I 
 go to Eichmond, or — " 
 
 " Of a Sunday, I believe," said Worboise, settled. 
 
 " Of a Sunday. Just so. The better day, the better deed, 
 you know, as people say ; though, I dare say, you don't 
 think it." 
 
 "When the deed is good, the day makes it better. When 
 the deed is bad, the day makes it worse," said Tom, with a 
 mixture of reproof and "high sentence," which was just pure 
 nonsense. 
 
 How much of Thomas's depression was real, and how much 
 was put on — I do not mean outwardly put on without being 
 inwardly assumed — in order that he might flatter himself with 
 being in close sympathy and harmony with Lord Byron, a 
 volume of whose poems was at the time affecting the sym- 
 metry of his handsome blue frock-coat, by pulling down one 
 tail more than the other, and bumping against his leg every 
 step he took — I cannot exactly tell. At all events, the young 
 man was — like most men, young and old — under conflicting 
 influences ; and these influences he had not yet begun to har- 
 monize in any definite result. 
 
The Walh to the Counting-House. 7 
 
 By the time they reached Bunhill Fields, they were in a 
 gray fog ; and before they got to the counting-house, it had 
 grown very thick. Through its reddish mass the gaslights 
 shone with the cold brilliance of pale gold. 
 
 The scene of their daily labor was not one of those grand 
 rooms with plate-glass windows which now seem to be consid- 
 ered, if not absolutely necessary to commercial respectability, 
 yet a not altogether despicable means of arriving at such. It 
 was a rather long, rather narrow, rather low, but this morning 
 not so dark room as usual — for the whole force of gas-burners 
 was in active operation. In general it was dark, for it was 
 situated in a narrow street, opening off: one of the principal 
 city thoroughfares. 
 
 As the young men entered, they were greeted with a low 
 growl from the principal clerk, a black-browed, long-nosed 
 man. This was the sole recognition he gave them. Two 
 other clerks looked up with a good-morning and a queer 
 expression in their eyes. Some remarks had been made about 
 them befere they entered. And now a voice came from the 
 penetralia : 
 
 "Tom, I want you." 
 
 Tom was disposing of his hat and gloves with some care. 
 
 "You hear the governor, Mr. "Worboise, I suppose ?" said 
 Mr. Stopper, the head clerk, in the same growling voice, only 
 articulated now. 
 
 " Yes, I hear him," answered Thomas, with some real and 
 some assumed nonchalance. "I do hear him, Mr. Stopper." 
 
 Through a glass partition, which crossed the whole of the 
 room, Mr. Boxall, "the governor," might be seen at a writing- 
 table, with his face toward the exoteric department. All that 
 a spectator from without could see, as he went on writing, was 
 a high forehead, occupying more than its due share of a coun- 
 tenance which, foreshortened, of course, from his position at 
 the table, appeared otherwise commonplace and rather insig- 
 nificant, and a head which had been as finely tonsured by the 
 scythe of Time as if the highest ecclesiastical dignity had 
 depended upon the breadth and perfection of the vacancy. 
 The corona which resulted was iron-gray. 
 
 When Thomas was quite ready he walked into the inner room. 
 
 " Tom, my boy, you are late," said Mr. Boxall, lifting a face 
 whose full view considerably modified the impression I have 
 just given. There was great brilliance in the deep-set eyes, 
 and a certain something, almost merriment, about the mouth, 
 hovering lightly over a strong upper lip, which overhung and 
 
8 Guild Court. 
 
 almost hid a disproportionately small under one. His chin 
 was large, and between it and the forehead there was little 
 space left for any farther development of countenance. 
 
 "Not very late, I believe, sir," answered Thomas. "My 
 watch must have misled me." 
 
 " Pull out your watch, my boy, and let us see." 
 
 Thomas obeyed. 
 
 "By your own watch, it is a quarter past," said Mr. Boxall. 
 
 "I have been here five minutes." 
 
 "I will not do you the discredit of granting you have spent 
 that time in taking off your hat and gloves. Your watch is 
 five minutes slower than mine," continued Mr. Boxall, pulling 
 out a saucepan of silver, "and mine is five minutes slower 
 than the Exchange. You are nearly half an hour late. You 
 will never get on if you are not punctual. It's an old-fash- 
 ioned virtue, I know. But first at the office is first at the 
 winning-post, I can tell you. You'll never make- money if 
 you're late." , \^ 
 
 " I have no particular wish — I don't want to make money," 
 said Thomas. 
 
 "But I do," rejoined Mr. Boxall, good-naturedly; "and 
 you are my servant, and must do your 'part," 
 
 Thereat Thomas bridled visibly. 
 
 "Ah! I see," resumed the merchant 4 "you don't like the 
 word. I will change it. There's no masters or servants now- 
 adays ; they are all governors and employees. What they gain 
 by the alteration, I am sure I don't know." 
 
 I spell the italicized word thus, because Mr. Boxall pro- 
 nounced employes exactly as if it were an English word ending 
 in ees. 
 
 Mr. Worboise's lip curled. He could afford to be contempt- 
 uous. He had been to Boulogne, and believed he could make 
 a Frenchman understand him. He certainly did know two of 
 the conjugations out of — I really don't know how many. His 
 master did not see what the curl indicated, but possibly his 
 look made Thomas feel that he had been rude. He sought to 
 cover it by saying — 
 
 " Mr. Wither was as late as I was, sir. I think it's very 
 hard I should be always pulled up, and nobody else." 
 
 " Mr. Wither is very seldom late, and you are often late, 
 my boy. Besides, your father is a friend of mine, and I want 
 to do my duty by him. I want you to get on." 
 
 " My father is very much obliged to you, sir." 
 
 "So he tells me," returned Mr. Boxall, with remarkable 
 
The Walk to the Counting-House. 9 
 
 good humor. We expect you to dine with us to-morrow, 
 mind." 
 
 "Thank you, I have another engagement," answered 
 Thomas, with dignity, as he thought. 
 
 Now at length Mr. Boxall's brow fell. But he looked more 
 disappointed than angry. 
 
 "I am sorry for that, Tom. I wished you could have 
 dined with us. I won't detain you longer. Mind you don't 
 ink your trousers." 
 
 Was Thomas never to hear the last of those trousers ? He 
 began to wish he had not put them on. He made his bow, 
 and withdrew in chagrin, considering himself disgraced before 
 his fellows, to whom he would gladly have been a model, if he 
 could have occupied that position without too much trouble. 
 But his heart smote him — gently,- it must be confessed — for 
 having refused the kindness of Mr. Boxall, and shown so much 
 resentment in a matter wherein the governor was quite right. 
 
 Mr. Boxall was a man who had made his money without 
 losing his money's worth. Nobody could accuse him of hav- 
 ing ever done a mean, not to say a dishonest thing. This 
 would not have been remarkable, had he not been so well rec- 
 ognized as a sharp man of business. The more knowing any 
 jobber about the Exchange, the better he knew that it was 
 useless to dream of getting an advantage over Mr. Boxall. 
 But it was indeed remarkable that he should be able to steer 
 so exactly in the middle course that, while he was keen as an 
 eagle on his own side, he should yet be thoroughly just on the 
 other. And, seeing both sides of a question with such mar- 
 velous clearness, in order to keep his own hands clean he was 
 not driven from uncertainty to give the other man anything 
 more than his right. Yet Mr. Boxall knew how to be gener- 
 ous upon occasion, both in time and money : the ordinary 
 sharp man of business is stingy of both. The chief fault he 
 had was a too great respect for success. He had risen himself 
 by honest diligence, and he thought when a man could not 
 rise it must be either from a want of diligence or of honesty. 
 Hence he was a priori ready to trust the successful man, and 
 in some instances to trust him too much. That he had a 
 family of three daughters only — one of them quite a child — 
 who had never as yet come into collision with any project or 
 favorite opinion of his, might probably be one negative cause 
 of the continuance of his openheartedness and justice of 
 regard. 
 
 Thomas Worboise's father had been a friend of his for many 
 
10 Guild Court. 
 
 years— at least so far as that relation could be called friendship 
 which consisted in playing as much into each other's hands in 
 the way of business as they could, dining together two or 
 three times in the course of the year, and keeping an open 
 door to each other's family. Thomas was an only son, with 
 one sister. His father would gladly have brought him up to 
 his own profession, that of the law, but Thomas showing con- 
 siderable disinclination to the necessary studies, he had placed 
 him in his friend's counting-house with the hope that that 
 might suit him better. Without a word haying been said on 
 the subject, both the fathers would have gladly seen the son of 
 the one engaged to any daughter of the other. They were 
 both men of considerable property, and thought that this 
 would be a pleasant way of determining the future of part of 
 their possessions. At the same time Mr. Boxall was not quite 
 satisfied with what he had as yet seen of Tom's business char- 
 acter. However, there had been no signs of approximation 
 between him and either of the girls, and therefore there was 
 no cause to be particularly anxious about the matter.. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE ISTVALID MOTHEE. 
 
 To account in some measure for the condition in which we 
 find Tom at the commencement of my story, it will be better 
 to say a word here about his mother. She- was a woman of 
 weak health and intellect, but strong character; was very re- 
 ligious, and had a great influence over her son, who was far 
 more attached to her than he was to his father. The daugh- 
 ter, on the other hand, leaned to her father, an arrangement 
 not uncommon in families. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which my story commences, 
 office hours were long over before Tom appeared at home. 
 He went into his mother's room, and found her, as usual, re- 
 clining on a couch, supported by pillows. She was a woman 
 who never complained of her sufferings, and her face, per- 
 haps in consequence of her never desiring sympathy, was hard 
 and unnaturally still. Nor were her features merely still — 
 they looked immobile, and her constant pain was indicated 
 
The Invalid Mother. 11 
 
 only by the absence of all curve in her upper lip. When her 
 son entered, a gentle shimmer of love shone out of her 
 eyes of troubled blue, but the words in which she addressed 
 him did not correspond to this shine. She was one of those 
 who think the Deity jealous of the amount of love bestowed 
 upon other human beings, even by their own parents, and 
 therefore struggle to keep down their deepest and'' holiest emo- 
 tions, regarding them not merely as weakness but as positive 
 sin, and likely to be most hurtful to the object on which they 
 are permitted to expend themselves. 
 
 "Well, Thomas," said his mother, "what has kept you so 
 late ?" 
 
 11 Oh ! I don't know, mother," answered Tom, in whose at- 
 tempted carelessness there yet appeared a touch of anxiety, 
 which caught her eye. 
 
 " You do know, Tom ; and I want to know." 
 
 "I waited and walked home with Charles Wither." 
 
 He did not say, " I waited to walk home." 
 
 " How was he so late ? You must have left the office hours 
 ago." 
 
 "He had some extra business to finish." 
 
 It was business of his own, not office business ; and Tom 
 finding out that he would be walking home a couple of hours 
 later, had arranged to join him that he might have this ac- 
 count to give of himself. 
 
 " You know I do not like you to be too much with that 
 young man. He is not religious. In fact, I believe him to be 
 quite worldly. Does he ever go to church ? " 
 
 "I don't know, mother. He's not a bad sort of fellow." 
 
 " He is a bad sort of fellow, and the less you are with him 
 the better." 
 
 " I can't help being with him in the office, you know, 
 mother." 
 
 " You need not be with him after office hours." 
 
 " Well, no ; perhaps not. But it would look strange to 
 avoid him." 
 
 "I thought you had more strength of character, Thomas." 
 
 "I — I — I spoke very seriously to him this morning, 
 mother." 
 
 " Ah ! That alters the case, if you have courage to speak 
 the truth to him." 
 
 At that moment the door opened, and the curate of St. 
 Solomon's was announced. Mrs. Worboise was always at 
 home to him, and he called frequently, both because she was 
 
12 Guild Court 
 
 too great an invalid to go to church, and becanse they sup- 
 posed, on the ground of their employing the same religious 
 phrases in their conversation, that they understood each other. 
 He was a gentle, abstracted youth, with a face that looked as 
 if its informing idea had been for a considerable period sat 
 upon by something ungenial. With him the profession had 
 become everything, and humanity never had been anything, if 
 not something bad. He walked through the crowded streets 
 in the neighborhood with hurried step and eyes fixed on the 
 ground, his pale face rarely brightening with recognition, for 
 he seldom saw any passing acquaintance. When he did, he 
 greeted him with a voice that seemed to come from far-off 
 shores, but came really from a bloodless, nerveless chest, that 
 had nothing to do with life, save to yield up the ghost in eter- 
 nal security, and send it safe out of it. He seemed to recog- 
 nize none of those human relations which make the blood 
 mount to the face at meeting, and give strength to the grasp 
 of the hand. He would not have hurt a fly ; he would have 
 died to save a malefactor from the gallows, that he might give 
 him another chance of repentance. But mere human aid he 
 had none to besto w ; no warmth, no heartening, no hope. 
 
 Mr. Simon bowed solemnly, and shook hands with Mrs. 
 Worboise. 
 
 "How are you to-night," Mrs. Worboise ?" he said, glanc- 
 ing round the room, however. For the only sign of humanity 
 about him was a certain weak admiration of Amy Worboise, 
 who, if tried by his own tests, was dreadfully unworthy even 
 of that. For she was a merry girl, who made great sport of 
 the little church-mouse, as she called him. 
 
 Mrs. Worboise did not reply to this question, which she 
 always treated as irrelevant. Mr. Simon then shook hands 
 with Thomas, who looked on him with a respect inherited 
 from his mother. 
 
 " Any signs of good in your class, Mr. Thomas ? " he asked. 
 
 The question half irritated Tom. Why, he could not have 
 explained even to himself. The fact was that he had begun 
 to enter upon another phase of experience since he saw the 
 curate last, and the Sunday-school was just a little distasteful 
 to him at the moment. 
 
 " No," he answered, with a certain slightest motion of the 
 head that might have been interpreted either as of weariness 
 or of indifference. 
 
 The clergyman interpreted it as of the latter, and proceeded 
 to justify his question, addressing his words to the mother. 
 
The Invalid Mother. 13 
 
 " Your son thinks me too anxious about the fruits of his 
 labor, Mrs. "Worboise. But when we think of the briefness 
 of life, and how soon the night comes when no man can 
 work, I do not think we can be too earnest to win souls for our 
 crown of rejoicing when He comes with the holy angels. 
 First our own souls, Mr. Thomas, and then the souls of others." 
 
 Thomas, believing every word that the curate said, made 
 notwithstanding no reply, and the curate went on. 
 
 " There are so many souls that might be saved, if one were 
 only in earnest, and so few years to do it in. We do not strive 
 with God in prayer, Mrs. Worboise. We faint and cease from 
 our prayers and our endeavors together." 
 
 " That is too true," responded the lady. 
 
 " I try to do my best," said Thomas, in a tone of apology, 
 and with a lingering doubt in his mind whether he was really 
 speaking the absolute trnth. But he comforted himself with 
 saying to himself, " I only said 'I try to do my best ; ' I did 
 not say, ' I try my best to do my best. ' " 
 
 " I have no reason to doubt it, my young friend," returned 
 the curate, who was not ten years older than his young friend. 
 .'"I only fancied — no doubt it was but the foolish fancy of my 
 own anxiety— that you did not respond quite so heartily as 
 usual to myremark." 
 
 The mother's eyes were anxiously fixed on her son during 
 the conversation, for her instincts told her that he was not 
 quite at his ease. She had never given him any scope, never 
 trusted him, or trained him to freedom ; but, herself a pris- 
 oner to her drawing-room and bedroom, sought with all her 
 energy and contrivance, for which she had plenty of leisure, 
 to keep, strengthen, and repair the invisible cable by which 
 she seemed to herself to hold, and in fact did hold, him, even 
 when he was out of her sight, and himself least aware of the 
 fact. 
 
 As yet again Thomas made no reply, Mr. Simon changed 
 the subject. 
 
 " Have you much pain to-night, Mrs. Worboise ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I can oear it," she answered. " It will not last forever." 
 
 " You find comfort in looking to the rest that remaineth," 
 responded Mr. Simon. " It is the truest comfort. Still, your 
 friends would gladly see you enjoy a little more of the pres- 
 ent — " world, Mr. Simon was going to say, but the word was 
 unsuitable ; so he changed it — " of the present — ah ! dispen- 
 sation," he said. 
 
14 Guild Court. 
 
 " The love of this world bringeth a snare," suggested Mrs. 
 Worboise, believing that she quoted Scripture. 
 
 Thomas rose and left the room. He did not return till the 
 curate had taken his leave. It was then almost time for his 
 mother to retire. As soon as he entered he felt her anxious 
 pale-blue eyes fixed upon him. 
 
 "Why did you go, Thomas ?" she asked, moving on her 
 couch, and revealing by her face a twinge of sharper pain than 
 ordinary. " You used to listen with interest to the conversa- 
 tion of Mr. Simon. He is a man whose conversation is in 
 Heaven." 
 
 " I thought you would like to have a little private talk with 
 him, mamma. You generally do have a talk with him 
 alone. " 
 
 " Don't call it talk, Thomas. That is not the proper word 
 to use." 
 
 " Communion then, mother," answered Thomas, with the 
 feeling of aversion a little stronger and more recognizable than 
 before, but at the same time annoyed with himself that he thus 
 felt. And, afraid that he had shown the feeling which he did 
 recognize, he hastened to change the subject and speak of one 
 which he had at heart. 
 
 " But, mother, dear, I wanted to speak to you about some- 
 thing. You mustn't mind my being late once or twice a week 
 now, for I am going in for German. There is a very good 
 master lives a few doors from the counting-house ; and if you 
 take lessons "in the evening at his own lodgings, he charges so 
 much less for it. And, you know, it is such an advantage 
 nowadays for any one who wants to get on in business to know 
 German ! " 
 
 " Does Mr. Wither join you, Thomas ?" asked his mother, 
 in a tone of knowing reproof. 
 
 " No, indeed, mother," answered Thomas ; and a gleam of 
 satisfaction shot through his brain as his mother seemed satis- 
 fied. Either, however, he managed to keep it off his face, or 
 his mother did not perceive or understand it, for the satisfac- 
 tion remained on her countenance. 
 
 "I will speak to your father about it," she answered. 
 
 This was quite as much as Thomas could have hoped for : he 
 had no fear of his father making any objection. He kissed 
 his mother on the cheek — it was a part of her system of 
 mortifying the flesh with its affections and lusts that she never 
 kissed him with any fervor, and rarely allowed those straight 
 lips to meet his — and they parted for the night. 
 
Expostulation. 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EXPOSTULATION". 
 
 Thomas descended to breakfast, feeling fresh and hopeful. 
 The weather had changed during the night, and it was a clear, 
 frosty morning, cold blue cloudless sky and cold gray leafless 
 earth reflecting each other's winter attributes. The sun was 
 there, watching from afar how they could get on without him ; 
 but, as if they knew he had not forsaken them, they were both 
 merry. Thomas stood up with his back to the blazing fire, 
 and through the window saw his father walking bareheaded in 
 the garden. He had not returned home till late the night 
 before, and Thomas had gone to bed without seeing him. 
 Still he had been up the first in the house, and had been at 
 work for a couple of hours upon the papers he had brought 
 home in his blue bag. Thomas walked to the window to show 
 himself, as a hint to his father that breakfast was ready. Mr. 
 Worboise saw him, and came in. Father and son did not 
 shake hands or wish each other good-morning, but they nod- 
 ded and smiled, and took their seats at the table. As Mr. 
 Worboise sat down, he smoothed, first with one hand, then 
 with the other, two long side-tresses of thin hair, trained like 
 creepers over the top of his head, which was perfectly bald. 
 Their arrangement added to the resemblance his forehead 
 naturally possessed to the bottom of a flat-iron, set up on the 
 base of its triangle. His eyebrows were very dark, straight, 
 and bushy, his eyes a keen hazel ; his nose straight on the 
 ridge, but forming an obtuse angle at the point ; his mouth 
 curved upward, and drawn upward by the corners' when he 
 smiled, Avhich gave him the appearance of laughing down at 
 evsrything ; his chin now is remarkable. And there, reader, 
 I hope you have him. I ought to have mentioned that no one 
 ever saw his teeth, though to judge from his performances at 
 the table, they were in serviceable condition. He was consid- 
 erably above the middle hight, shapeless rather than stout, 
 and wore black clothes. 
 
 "You're going to dine at the Boxall's to-night, I believe, 
 Tom ? Mr. Boxall asked me, but I -can't go. I am so busy 
 with that case of Spender & Spoon." 
 
 "No, father. I don't mean to go," said Tom. 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Mr. Worboise, with some surprise, and 
 
16 Guild Court. 
 
 more than a hint of dissatisfaction. " Your mother hasn't 
 been objecting, has she ? " 
 
 " I am not aware that my mother knows of the invitation," 
 answered Tom, trying to hide his discomfort in formality of 
 speech. 
 
 "Well, /said nothing about it, I believe. But I accepted 
 for you at the same time that I declined for myself. You saw 
 the letter — I left it for you." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I did." 
 
 " Well, in the name of Heaven, what do you mean ? You 
 answer as if you were in the witness-box. I am not going to 
 take any advantage of you. Speak out, man. Why won't you 
 go to Boxall's?" 
 
 " Well, sir, to tell the truth, I didn't think he behaved 
 quite well to me yesterday. I happened to be a few minutes 
 late, and — " 
 
 " And Boxall blew you up ; and that's the way you take to 
 show your dignified resentment ! Bah ! " 
 
 " He ought to behave to me like a gentleman." 
 
 "But how is he, if he isn't a gentleman ? He hasn't had 
 the bringing up you've had. But he's a good, honest fellow, 
 and says what he means. " 
 
 "That is just what I did, sir. And you have always told 
 me that honesty is the best policy." 
 
 " Yes, I confess. But that is not exactly the kind of hon- 
 esty I mean," returned Mr. Worboise with a fishy smile, for 
 his mouth was exactly of the fish type. " The law scarcely 
 refers to the conduct of a gentleman as a gentleman." 
 
 This was obscure to his son, as it may be to the reader. 
 
 " Then you don't want me to behave like a gentleman ?" said 
 Tom. 
 
 " Keep your diploma in your pocket till it's asked for," 
 answered his father. " If you are constantly obtruding it on 
 other people, they will say you bought it and paid for it. A 
 gentleman can afford to put an affront in beside it, when he 
 knows it's there. But the idea of good old Boxall insulting 
 a son of mine is too absurd, Tom. You must remember you 
 are his servant." 
 
 " So he told me," said Tom, with reviving indignation. 
 
 " And that, I suppose, is what you call an insult, eh ? " 
 
 " Well, to say the least, it is not a pleasant word to use." 
 
 " Especially as it expresses a disagreeable fact. Come, 
 come, my boy. Better men then you will ever be have had to 
 sweep their master's office before now. But no reference is 
 
Expostulation. 17 
 
 made to the fact after they call the office their own. You go 
 and tell Mr. Boxall that you will be happy to dine with him 
 to-night if he will allow you to change your mind." 
 
 "But I told him I was engaged." 
 
 "Tell him the engagement is put off, and you are at his 
 service." 
 
 " But — " began Tom, and stopped. He was going to say 
 the engagement was not put off. 
 
 " But what ?" said his father. 
 
 "I don't like to do it," answered Tom. "He will take it 
 for giving in and wanting to make up. " 
 
 " Leave it to me, then, my boy," returned his father, 
 kindly. " I will manage it. My business is not so very press- 
 ing but that I can go* if I choose. I will write and say that a 
 change in my plans has put it in my power to be his guest, 
 after all, and that I have persuaded you to put off your engage- 
 ment and come with me." 
 
 "But that would be — would not be true," hesitated 
 Tom. 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! I'll take the responsibility of that. Be- 
 sides, it is true. Your mother will make a perfect spoon of 
 you — Avith the help of good little Master Simon. Can't I 
 change my plans if I like ? We must not offend Boxall. He 
 is a man of mark — and warm. I say nothing about figures — 
 I never tell secrets. I don't even say how many figures. But 
 I know all about it, and venture to say, between father and 
 son, that he is warm, decidedly warm — possibly hot," concluded 
 Mr. Worboise, laughing. 
 
 " I don't exactly understand you, sir," said Tom, medita- 
 tively. 
 
 " You would understand me well enough if you had a mind 
 to business," answered his father. 
 
 But what he really meant in his heart was that Mr. Boxall 
 had two daughters, to one of whom it was possible that his son 
 might take a fancy, or rather — to express it in the result, which 
 was all that he looked to — a marriage might be brought about 
 between Tom and Jane or Mary Boxall ; in desiring which he 
 thought he knew what he was about, for he was Mr. Boxall's 
 man of business. 
 
 " I won't have you offend Mr. Boxall, anyhow," he con- 
 cluded. " He is your governor." 
 
 The father had tact enough to substitute the clerk's pseu- 
 donym for the obnoxious term. 
 
 " Very well, sir ; I suppose I must leave it to you," an- 
 
 2. 
 
18 Guild Court. 
 
 swered Tom ; and they finished their breakfast without re- 
 turning to the subject. 
 
 When he reached, the counting-house, Tom went at once to 
 Mr. Boxall's room, and made his apologies for being late again, 
 on the ground that his father had detained him while he wrote 
 the letter he now handed to him. Mr. Boxall glanced at the 
 note. 
 
 " I am very glad, Tom, that both your father and you have 
 thought better of it. Be punctual at seven." 
 
 " Wife must put another leaf yet in the table," he said to 
 himself, as Thomas retired to his desk. " Thirteen's not 
 lucky, though ; but one is sure to be absent." 
 
 No one was absent, however, and number thirteen was the 
 standing subject of the jokes of the evening, especially as the 
 thirteenth was late, in the person of Mr. Wither, whom Mr. 
 Boxall had invited out of mere good nature ; for he did not 
 care much about introducing him to his family, although his 
 QDnduct in the counting-house was irreproachable. Miss Wor- 
 boise had been invited with her father and brother, biit whether 
 she stayed at home to nurse her mother or to tease the curate, 
 is of no great importance to my history. 
 
 The dinner was a good, well-contrived, rather antiquated 
 dinner, within the compass of the house itself ; for Mrs. Box- 
 all only pleased her husband as often as she said that they 
 were and would remain old-fashioned people, and would have 
 their own maids to prepare and serve a dinner — "none of those 
 men-cooks and undertakers to turn up their noses at every- 
 thing in the house ! " But Tom abused the whole affair with- 
 in himself as nothing but a shop-dinner ; for there was Mr. 
 Stopper, the head-clerk, looking as sour as a summons ; and 
 there was Mr. Wither, a good enough fellow and gentleman- 
 like, but still of the shop ; besides young Weston, of whom 
 nobody could predicate any thing in particular, save that he 
 stood in such awe of Mr. Stopper, that he missed the way to 
 his mouth in taking stolen stares at him across the table. Mr. 
 Worboise sat at the hostess's left hand, and Mr. Stopper at 
 her right ; Tom a little way from his father, with Mary Box- 
 all, whom he had taken down, beside him ; and many were 
 the underbrowed glances which the head- clerk shot across the 
 dishes at the couple. 
 
 Mary was a very pretty, brown-haired, white-skinned, blue- 
 eyed damsel, whose charms lay in harmony of color, general 
 roundness, the smallness of her extremities, and her simple 
 kind-heartedness. She was dressed in white muslin, with 
 
Expostulation. 19 
 
 ribbons precisely the color of her eyes. Tom could not help 
 being pleased at having her beside him. She was not difficult 
 to entertain, for she was willing to be interested in anything ; 
 and while Tom was telling her a story about a young lad in 
 his class at the Sunday-school, whom he had gone to see at 
 his wretched home, those sweet eyes filled with tears, and Mr. 
 Stopper saw it, and choked in his glass of sherry. Tom saw 
 it too, and would haye been more overcome thereby, had it not 
 been for reasons. 
 
 Charles Wither, on the opposite side of the table, was neg- 
 lecting his own lady for the one at his other elbow, who was 
 Jane Boxall — a fine, regular-featured, dark-skinned young 
 woman. They were watched with stolen glances of some 
 anxiety from both ends of the table, for neither father nor 
 mother cared much about Charles Wither, although the 
 former was too kind to omit inviting him to his house occa- 
 sionally. 
 
 After the ladies retired, the talk was about politics, the 
 money-market, and other subjects quite uninteresting to Tom, 
 who, as I have already said, was at this period of his history 
 a reader of Byron, and had therefore little sympathy with 
 human pursuits except they took some abnormal form — such 
 as piracy, atheism, or the like — in the person of one endowed 
 with splendid faculties and gifts in general. So he stole away 
 from the table, and joined the ladies some time before the 
 others rose from their wine ; not, however, before he had him- 
 self drunk more than his gravity. of demeanor was quite suffi- 
 cient to ballast. He found Mary turning over some music, 
 and as he drew near he saw her laying aside, in its turn, 
 Byron's song, " She walks in beauty." 
 
 " Oh ! do you sing that song, Miss Mary ?" he asked with 
 emjwessement. 
 
 " I have sung it several times," she answered ; "but I am 
 afraid I cannot sing it well enough to please you. Are you 
 fond of the song ? " 
 
 " I only know the words of it, and should so much like to 
 hear you sing it. I never heard it sung. Do, Miss Mary." 
 
 " You will be indulgent, then ? " 
 
 " I shall have no chance of exercising that virtue, I know. 
 There." 
 
 He put the music on the piano as he spoke, and Mary, ad- 
 justing her white skirts and her white shoulders, began to 
 sing- the song with taste, and, what was more, with simplicity. 
 Her voice was very pleasant to the ears of Thomas, warbling 
 
20 Guild Court. 
 
 one of the songs of the man whom, against his conscience, he 
 could not help regarding as the greatest he knew. So much 
 moved was he, that the signs of his emotion would have been 
 plainly seen had not the rest of the company, while listening 
 more or less to the song, been employing their eyes at the same 
 time with Jane's portfolio of drawings. All the time he had 
 his eyes upon her white shoulder : stooping to turn the last 
 leaf from behind her, he kissed it lightly. At the same mo- 
 ment the door opened, and Mr. Stopper entered. Mary 
 stopped singing, and rose with a face of crimson and the 
 timidest, slightest glance at Tom, whose face flushed up in 
 response. 
 
 It was a foolish action, possibly repented almost as soon as 
 done. Certainly, for the rest of the evening, Thomas sought 
 no opportunity of again approaching Mary. I do not doubt it 
 was with some feeling of relief that he heard his father say 
 it was time for them to be going home. 
 
 None of the parents would have been displeased had they 
 seen the little passage between the young people. Neither was 
 Mary offended at what had occurred. While she sat singing, 
 she knew that the face bending, over her was one of the hand- 
 somest — a face rather long and pale, of almost pure Greek cut- 
 line, with a high forehead, and dark eyes with a yet darker 
 fringe. Nor, although the reader must see that Tern had 
 nothing yet that could be called character, was his face there- 
 fore devoid of expression ; for he had plenty of feeling, and 
 that will sometimes shine out the more from the very absence 
 of a characteristic meaning in-the countenance. Hence, when 
 Mary felt the kiss, and glanced at the face whence it had fallen, 
 she read more in the face than there was in it to read, and the 
 touch of his lips went deeper than her white shoulder. They 
 were both young, and as yet mere electric jars charged with 
 emotions. Had they both continued such as they were now, 
 there could have been no story to tell about them ; none such, 
 at least, as I should care to tell. They belonged to the com- 
 mon class of mortals who, although they are weaving a history, 
 are not aware of it, and in whom the process goes on so slowly 
 that the eye of the artist can find in them no substance suffi- 
 cient to be woven into a human creation in tale or poem. 
 How dull that life looks to him, with its ambitions, its love- 
 making, its dinners, its sermons, its tailors' bills, its weariness 
 over all — without end or goal save that toward which it is 
 driven purposeless ! Not till a hope is born such that its full- 
 filment depends upon the will of him who cherishes it, does a 
 
Expostulation. 21 
 
 man begin to develop the stuff out of which a tale can be 
 wrought. For then he begins to have a story of his own — it 
 may be for good, it may be for evil — but a story. Thomas's 
 religion was no sign of this yet ; for a man can no more be 
 saved by the mere reflex of parental influences than he will 
 be condemned by his inheritance of parental sins. I do not 
 say that there is no interest in the emotions of such young 
 people ; but I say there is not reality enough in them to do 
 anything with. They are neither consistent nor persistent 
 enough to be wrought into form. Such are in the condition 
 over which, in the miracle-play, Adam laments to Eve after 
 their expulsion from Paradise — 
 
 " Oure hap was hard, oure ivytt was nesche (soft, tender) 
 To paradys whan we were brought." 
 
 Mr. Boxall lived in an old-fashioned house in Hackney, with 
 great rooms 'and a large garden. Through the latter he went 
 with Mr. Worboise and Tom to let them out at a door in the 
 wall, which would save them a few hundred yards in going to 
 the North London Railway. There were some old trees in 
 the garden, and much shrubbery. As he returned he heard a 
 rustle among the lilacs that crowded about a side-walk, and 
 thought he saw the shimmer of a white dress. When he 
 entered the drawing-room, his daughter Jane entered from 
 the opposite door. He glanced round the room : Mr. Wither 
 was gone. This made Mr. Boxall suspicious and restless ; for, 
 as I have said, he had not confidence in Mr. Wither. Though 
 punctual and attentive to business, he was convinced that he 
 was inclined to be a fast man ; and he strongly suspected him 
 of being concerned in betting transactions of different sorts, 
 which are an abomination to the man of true business associa- 
 tions and habits. 
 
 Mr. Worboise left the house in comfortable spirits, for 
 Providence had been propitious to him for some months past, 
 and it mattered nothing to him whether or how the wind 
 blew.- But it blew from the damp west cold and grateful upon 
 Thomas's brow. The immediate influence of the wine he had 
 drunk had gone off, and its effects remained in discomfort and 
 doubt. Had he got himself into a scrape with Mary Boxall ? 
 He had said nothing to her. He had not committed himself 
 to anything. And the wind blew cooler and more refreshing 
 upon his forehead. And then came a glow of pleasure as ho 
 recalled her blush and the glance she had so timidly lifted 
 
22 Guild Court. 
 
 toward his lordly face. That was something to be proud of ! 
 Certainly he was one whom women — I suppose he said girls 
 to himself —were ready to — yes — to fall in love with. Proud 
 position ! Enviable destiny ! Before he reached home the 
 wind had blown away every atom of remorse with the sickly 
 fumes of the wine ; and although he resolved to be careful 
 how he behaved to Mary Boxall in future, he hugged his own 
 handsome idea in the thought that she felt his presence, andj 
 was — just a little — not dangerously — but really a little in love 
 with him. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 GUILD COUKT. 
 
 The office was closed, the shutters were up in the old- 
 fashioned way on the outside, the lights extinguished, and 
 Mr. Stopper, who was always the last to leave, was gone. The 
 narrow street looked very dreary, for most of its windows were 
 similarly covered. The shutters, the pavements, the kennels, 
 everything shone and darkened by fits. For it was a blowing 
 night, with intermittent showers, and everything was wet, and 
 reflected the gaslights in turn, which the wind teased into all 
 angles of relation with neighboring objects, tossing them about 
 like flowers ready at any moment to be blown from their stems. 
 Great masses of gray went sweeping over the narrow section of 
 the sky that could be seen from the pavement. 
 
 [Now and then the moon gleamed out for one moment and 
 no more, swallowed the next by a mile of floating rain, dusky 
 and shapeless. Fighting now with a fierce gust, and now 
 limping along in comparative quiet, with a cotton umbrella 
 for a staff, an old woman passed the office, glanced up at the 
 shuttered windows, and, after walking a short distance, turned 
 into a paved archway, and then going along a narrow passage, 
 reached a small paved square, called. Guild Court. Here she 
 took from her pocket a latch-key, and opening a door much 
 in want of paint, but otherwise in good condition, entered, 
 and ascended a broad, dusky stair-case, with great landings, 
 whence each ascent rose at right angles to the preceding. 
 The dim light of the tallow candle, which she had left in a 
 corner of the stair-case as she descended, and now took up 
 
Guild Court. 23 
 
 with her again, was sufficient to show that the balusters were 
 turned and carved, and the hand-rail on the top of them broad 
 and channeled. When she reached the first floor, she went 
 along a passage, and at the end of it opened a door. A cheer- 
 ful fire burned at the other end of a large room, and by the 
 side of the fire sat a girl, gazing sd intently into the glowing 
 coals, that she seemed unaware of the old woman's entrance. 
 When she spoke to her, she started and rose. 
 
 " So you're come home, Lucy, and searching the fire for a 
 wishing-cap, as usual ! " said the old lady, cheerily. 
 
 The girl did not reply, and she resumed, with a little change 
 of tone — 
 
 " I do declare, child, I'll never let him cross the door again, 
 if it drives you into the dumps that way. Take heart of 
 grace, my girl ; you're good enough for him any day, though 
 he be a fine gentleman. He's no better gentleman than my 
 son, anyhow, though he's more of a buck." 
 
 Lucy moved about a little uneasily ; turned to the high 
 mantel-piece, took up some trifle and played with it nervously, 
 set it down with a light sigh, the lightness of which was prob- 
 ably affected ; went across the room to a chest of drawers, in 
 doing which she turned her back on the old woman ; and then 
 only replied, in a low pleasant voice, which wavered a little, 
 as if a good cry were not far off — 
 
 " I'm sure, grannie, you're always kind to him when he 
 comes." 
 
 " I'm civil to him, child. Who could help it ? Such a fine, 
 handsome fellow ! And has got very winning ways with him, 
 too ! That's the mischief of it ! I always had a soft heart to 
 a frank face. A body would think I wasn't a bit wiser than 
 the day I was born." 
 
 And she laughed a toothless old laugh which must once have 
 been very pleasant to her husband to hear, and indeed was 
 pleasant to hear now. By this time she had got her black 
 bonnet off, revealing a widow's cap, with gray hair neatly 
 arranged down the sides of a very wrinkled old face. Indeed 
 the wrinkles were innumerable, so that her cheeks and fore- 
 head looked as if they had been crimped with a penknife, like 
 a piece of fine cambric frill. But there was not one deep rut 
 in her forehead or cheek. Care seemed to have had nothing 
 at all to do with this condition of them. 
 
 " Well, grannie, why should you be so cross with me for 
 liking him, when you like him just as much yourself ? " said 
 Lucy, archly. 
 
24 Guild Court. 
 
 11 Cross with you, child ! I'm not cross with you, and you 
 know that quite well. You know I never could be cross with 
 you even if I ought to be. And I didn't ought now, I'm sure. 
 But I am cross with him ; for he can't be behaving right to 
 you when your sweet face looks like that." 
 
 "*|ibw clon't, grannie, else I shall have to be cross with you. 
 Don't say a word against him. Don't now, dear grannie, or 
 you and I shall quarrel, and that would break my heart. " 
 
 " Bless the child ! I'm not saying a word for or against him. 
 I'm afraid you're a great deal too fond of him, Lucy. What 
 hold have you on him now ? " 
 
 " What hold, granny ! " exclaimed Lucy, indignantly. " Do 
 you think if I were going to be married to him to-morrow, 
 and he never came to the church — do you think I would lift 
 that bonnet to hold him to it ? Indeed, then, I wouldn't. " 
 
 And Lucy did not cry, but she turned her back on her 
 grandmother as if she would rather her face should not be 
 seen. 
 
 " What makes you out of sorts, to-night, then, lovey ? " 
 
 Lucy made no reply, but moved hastily to the window, 
 made the smallest possible chink between the blind and the 
 window-frame, and peeped out into the court. She had 
 heard a footstep which she knew ; and now she glided, quiet 
 and swift as a ghost, out of the room, closing the door behind 
 her. 
 
 " I wonder when it will come to an end. Always the same 
 thing over again, I suppose, to the last of the world. It's no 
 use telling them what we know. It won't make one of them 
 young things the wiser. The first man that looks at them 
 turns the head of them. And I must confess, if I was young 
 again myself, and hearkening for my John's foot in the court, 
 I might hobble — no, not hobble then, but run down the stairs 
 like Lucy there, to open the door for him. But then John 
 was a good one ; and there's few o' them like him now, I 
 doubt." 
 
 Something like this, I venture to imagine, was passing 
 through the old woman's mind when the room door opened 
 again, and Lucy entered with Thomas Worboise. Her face 
 was shining like a summer now, and a conscious pride sat on 
 the forehead of the young man which made him look far 
 nobler than he has yet shown himself to my reader. The last 
 of a sentence came into the room with him. 
 
 " So you see, LuCy, I could not help it. My father — How 
 do you do you do, Mrs. Boxall ? What a blowing night it is ! 
 
Guild Court. 25 
 
 But you have a kind of swallow's nest here, for hardly a breath 
 gets into the court when our windows down below in the 
 counting-house are shaking themselves to bits. " 
 
 It was hardly a room to compare to a swallow's nest. It 
 was a very large room indeed. The floor, which was dark with 
 age, was uncarpetecl, save just before the fire, which blazed 
 brilliantly in a small kitchen-range, curiously contrasting with 
 the tall, carved chimney-piece above it. The ceiling corre- 
 sponded in style, for it was covered with ornaments — 
 
 All made out of the carver's brain. 
 
 And the room was strangely furnished. The high oak settle 
 of a farm-house stood back against the wall not far from the 
 fire, and a few feet from it a tall, old-fashioned piano, which 
 bore the name of Broadwood under the cover. At the side of 
 the room farthest from the fire stood one of those chests of 
 drawers, on which the sloping lid at the top left just room for 
 a glass-doored book-case to stand, rivaling the piano in hight. 
 Then there was a sofa, covered with chintz plentifully be- 
 sprinkled with rose-buds ; and in the middle of the room a 
 square mahogany table, called by upholsterers a pembrohe, I 
 think, the color of which was all but black with age and man- 
 ipulation, only it could not be seen n:w because it was covered 
 with a check of red and blue. A few mahogany chairs, 
 seated with horse hair, a fire-screen in faded red silk, a wooden 
 footstool and a tall backed easy-chair, covered with striped 
 stuff, almost completed the furniture of the nondescript 
 apartment. 
 
 Thomas "Worboise carried a chair to the fire, and put his 
 feet on the broad-barred bright kitchen fender in front of it. 
 
 "Are your feet wet, Thomas ?" asked Lucy with some gen- 
 tle anxiety, and a tremor upon his name, as if she had not yet 
 got quite used to saying it without a Mr. before it. 
 
 " Oh no, thank you. I don't mind a little wet. Hark how 
 the wind blows in the old chimney up there ! It'll be an awk- 
 ward night on the west coast, this. I wonder what it feels 
 like to be driving right on the rocks at the Land's End, or 
 some such place." 
 
 "Don't talk of such things in that cool way, Mr. Thomas. 
 You make my blood run cold," said Mrs. Boxall. 
 
 " He doesn't mean it, you know, grannie," said Lucy medi- 
 tating. 
 
 "But I do mean it. I should like to know how it feels," 
 
26 Guild Court. 
 
 persisted Thomas — "with the very shrouds, as taut as steel 
 bars, blowing out in the hiss of the nor'wester." 
 
 " Yes, I dare say ! " returned the old lady, with some indig- 
 nation. " You would like to know how it felt so long as your 
 muddy boots was on my clean fender ! " 
 
 Thomas did not know that the old lady had lost one son at 
 sea, and had another the captain of a sailing-vessel, or he 
 would not have spoken as he did. But he was always wanting 
 to know how things felt. ' Had not his education rendered it im- 
 possible for him to see into the state of his own mind, he might, 
 questioned as to what he considered the ideal of life, have re- 
 plied, " A continuous succession of delicate and poetic sensa- 
 tions." Hence he had made many a frantic effort after relig- 
 ious sensations. But the necessity of these was now somewhat 
 superseded by his growing attachment to Lucy, and the sensa- 
 tions consequent upon that. 
 
 Up to this moment, in his carriage and speech, he had been 
 remarkably different from himself, as already shown in my 
 history. For he was, or thought himself, somebody here ; and 
 there was a freedom and ease about his manner, amounting, 
 in fact, to a slight though not disagreeable swagger, which 
 presented him to far more advantage than he had in the pres- 
 ence of his father and mother, or even of Mr. Boxall and Mr. 
 Stopper. But he never could bear any one to be displeased 
 with him except he were angry himself. So when Mrs. Box- 
 all spoke as she did, his countenance fell. He instantly re- 
 moved his feet from the fender, glanced up at her face, saw 
 that she was really indignant, and, missing the real reason of 
 course, supposed that it was because he had been indiscreet in 
 being disrespectful to a cherished article of housewifery. It 
 was quite characteristic of Tom that he instantly pulled his 
 handkerchief from his pocket, and began therewith to restore 
 the brightness of the desecrated iron. This went at once to 
 the old lady's heart. She snatched the handkerchief out of 
 his hand. 
 
 " Come, come, Mr. Thomas. Don't ye mind an old woman 
 like that. To think of using your handkerchief that way ! 
 And cambric too ! " 
 
 Thomas looked up in surprise, and straightway recovered 
 his behavior. 
 
 " I didn't think of your fender," he said. 
 
 " Oh, drat the fender ! " exclaimed Mrs. Boxall, with more 
 energy than refinement. 
 
 And so the matter dropped, and all sat silent for a few mo- 
 
More about Guild Court. 27 
 
 merits, Mrs. Boxall with her knitting, and Tom and Lucy be- 
 side each other with their thoughts. Lucy presently returned 
 to their talk on the stair-case. 
 
 " So you were out at dinner on Wednesday, Thomas ? " 
 
 " Yes. It was a great bore, but I had to go. — Boxall's, you 
 know. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Boxall ; but that's how fel- 
 lows like me talk, you know. I should have said Mr. Boxall. 
 And I didn't mean that he was a bore. That he is not, though 
 he is a little particular — of course. I only meant it was a bore 
 to go there when I wanted to come here." 
 
 " Is my cousin Mary very pretty ? " asked Lucy, with a 
 meaning in her tone which Thomas easily enough understood. 
 
 He could not help blushing, for he remembered, as well he 
 might. And she could not help seeing, for she had eyes, very 
 large ones, and at least as loving as they were large. 
 
 "Yes, she' is very pretty," answered Thomas; "but not 
 nearly so pretty as you, Lucy." 
 
 Thomas, then, was not stupid, although my reader will see 
 that he was weak enough. And Lucy was more than half sat- 
 isfied, though she did not half like that blush. But Thomas 
 himself did not like either the blush or its cause. And poor 
 Lucy knew nothing of either, only meditated upon another 
 blush, quite like this as far as appearance went, but with a 
 different heart to it. 
 
 Thomas did not stop more than half an hour. "When he 
 left, instead of walking straight out of Guild Court by the 
 narrow paved rjassage, he crossed to the opposite side of the 
 court, opened the door of a more ancient-looking house, and 
 entered. Reappearing — that is, to the watchful eyes of Lucy 
 manoeuvring with the window-blind — after about two minutes, 
 he walked home to Highbury, and told his mother that he 
 had come straight from his German master, who gave him 
 hopes of being able, before many months should have passed, 
 to write a business letter in intelligible German. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MORE ABOUT GUILD COURT. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall was the mother of Richard Boxall, the 
 governor " of Thomas Worboise. Her John had been the 
 
28 Guild Court. 
 
 possessor of a small landed property, which he farmed himself, 
 and upon which they brought up a family of three sons and 
 one daughter, of whom Richard was the eldest, and the daugh- 
 ter Lucy the youngest. None of the sons showed the least 
 inclination to follow the plow or take any relation more or 
 less dignified toward the cultiyation of the ancestral acres. 
 This aversion, when manifested by Richard, occasioned his 
 father considerable annoyance, but he did not oppose his de- 
 sire to go into business instead of farming ; for he had found 
 out by this time that he had perpetuated in his sons a certain 
 family doggedness which he had inherited from one ancestor 
 at least — an obstinacy which had never yet been overcome by 
 any argument, however good. He yielded to the inevitable, 
 and placed him in a merchant's office in London, where Rich- 
 ard soon made himself of importance. When his second son 
 showed the same dislike to draw his livelihood . directly from 
 the bosom of the earth, and revealed a distinct preference for 
 the rival element, with which he had made some acquaintance 
 when at school at a sea-port at no great distance from his home, 
 old John Boxall was still more troubled, but gave his consent 
 — a consent which was, however, merely a gloomy negation of 
 resistance. The cheerfulness of his wife was a great support 
 to him under what he felt as a slight to himself and the whole 
 race of Boxalls ; but he began, notwithstanding, to look upon 
 his beloved fields with a jaundiced eye, and the older he grew 
 the more they reminded him of the degenerate tastes and 
 heartlessness of his boys. When he discovered, a few years 
 after, that his daughter had pledged herself, still in his eyes a 
 mere child, to a music-master who visited her professionally 
 from the next town, he flew at last into a terrible rage, which 
 was not appeased by the girl's elopement and marriage. He 
 never saw . her again. Her mother, however, was not long in 
 opening a communication with her, and it was to her that, 
 Edward, the youngest son, fled upon occasion of a quarrel 
 with his father, whose temper had now become violent as well 
 as morose. He followed his second brother's example, and 
 went to sea. Still the mother's cheerfulness was little abated ; 
 for, as she said to herself, she had no reason to be ashamed of 
 her children. None of them had done any thing they had to 
 be ashamed of, and why should she be vexed ? She had no 
 idea Lucy had so much spirit in her. And if it were not for 
 the old man, who was surely over-fond of those fields of his, 
 she could hold up her head with the best of them ; for there 
 was Dick — such a gentleman to be sure ! and John, third mate 
 
More about Guild Court. 29 
 
 already ! and Cecil Burton sought after in London, to give his 
 lessons, as if he were one of the old masters ! The only thing 
 was that the wind blew harder at night since Ned went to sea ; 
 and a boy was in more danger than a grown man and a third 
 mate like John. 
 
 And so it proved ; for one night when the wind blew a new 
 hay-rick of his father's across three parishes, it blew Edward's 
 body ashore on the west coast. 
 
 Soon after this a neighboring earl, who had the year before 
 paid off a mortgage on his lands, proceeded in natural process 
 to enlarge his borders ; and while there was plenty that had 
 formerly belonged to the family to repurchase, somehow or 
 another took it into his head to begin with what might seem 
 more difficult of attainment. But John Boxall was willing 
 enough to part with his small patrimony — for he was sick of 
 it — provided' he had a good sum of ready money, and the 
 house with its garden and a paddock, by way of luck -penny, 
 secured to him for his own life and that of his wife. This was 
 easily arranged. But the late yeoman moped more than ever, 
 and died within a twelvemonth, leaving his money to his wife. 
 As soon as he was laid in his natural inheritance of land cubi- 
 cal, his wife went up to London to her son Richard, who was 
 by this time the chief manager of the business of Messrs. 
 Blunt & Baker. To him she handed over her money to use 
 for the advantage of both. Paying her a handsome percent- 
 age, he invested it in a partnership in the firm, and with this 
 fresh excitement to his energies, soon became, influentially, 
 the principal man in the company. The two other partners 
 were both old men, and neither had a son or near relative 
 whom he might have trained to fill his place. So in the 
 course of a few years, they, speaking commercially, fell asleep, 
 and. in the course of a few more, departed this life, commer- 
 cially and otherwise. It was somewhat strange, however, that 
 all this time Richard Boxall had given his mother no written 
 acknowledgment of the money she had lent him, and which 
 had been the foundation of his fortune. A man's faults are 
 sometimes the simple reverses of his virtues, and not the 
 results of his vices. 
 
 When his mother came first to London, he had of course 
 taken her home to his house and introduced her to his wife, 
 who was a kind and even warm-hearted woman. But partly 
 from prudence, partly from habit, Mrs. Boxall, senior, would 
 not consent to become the permanent guest of Mrs. Boxall, 
 junior, and insisted on taking a lodging in the neighborhood. 
 
30 Guild Court. 
 
 It was not long, however, before she left the first, and betook 
 herself to a second ; nor long again before she left the second, 
 and betook herself to a third. For her nature was like a fresh, 
 bracing wind, which, when admitted within the precincts of a 
 hot-house, where everything save the fire is neglected, proves 
 a most unwelcome presence, yea, a dire dismay. Indeed, ad- 
 mirably as she had managed and borne with her own family, 
 Mrs. Boxall was quite unfit to come into such habitual con- 
 tact with.another household as followed from her occupying a 
 part of the same dwelling. Her faith in what she had tried 
 with success herself, and her repugnance to whatever she had 
 not been accustomed, to, were such that her troublesomeness 
 when she became f amiliar 4 was equal to the good nature which 
 at first so strongly recommended her. Hence her changes of 
 residence were frequent. 
 
 Up to the time when he became a sleeping partner, Mr. 
 Blunt had resided in Guild Court — that is, the house door was 
 in the court, while the lower part of the house, forming the 
 offices of the firm, was entered from what was properly a lane, 
 though it was called Bagot Street. As soon as mother and 
 son heard that Mr. Blunt had at length bought a house in the 
 country, the same thought arose in the mind of each — might 
 not Mrs. Boxall go and live there ? The house belonged to 
 the firm, and they could not well let it, for there was more 
 than one available connection between the two portions of the 
 building, although only one had lately been in use, a door, 
 namely, by which Mr. Blunt used to pass immediately from 
 the glass-partitioned part of the co.nnting-house to the foot of 
 the oak staircase already described ; while they used two of 
 the rooms in the house as places of deposit for old books and 
 papers, for which there was no possible accommodation in the 
 part devoted to active business. Hence nothing better could 
 be devised than that Mrs. Boxall, senior, should take up her 
 abode in the habitable region. This she made haste to do, ac- 
 companied by a young servant. With her she soon quarreled, 
 however, and thereafter relied upon the ministrations of a 
 charwoman. The door between the house and the counting- 
 house was now locked, and the key of it so seldom taken from 
 the drawer of Mr. Boxall, that it came to be regarded almost 
 as a portion of the wall. So much for the inner connection of 
 Guild. Cotirt and Bagot Street. 
 
 Some years after Mrs. Boxall removed to London, Mr. Bur- 
 ton, the music-master, died. They had lived from hand to 
 mouth, as so many families of uncertain income are compelled 
 
More about Guild Court. 31 
 
 to do, and his unexpected death left his wife and child without 
 the means of procuring immediate necessities. Inheriting the 
 narrowness and prejudices of his descent and of his social po- 
 sition to a considerable degree, Mr. Boxall had never come to 
 regard his sister's match with a music-master as other than a 
 degradation to the family, and had, in his best humors, never 
 got further in the humanities of the kingdom of heaven, than 
 to patronize his brother-in-law ; though if size and quality go 
 for anything in existence itself, as they do in all its accidents, 
 Eichard Boxall was scarcely comparable, honest and'just man 
 as he was, to Cecil Burton ; who, however, except that he was 
 the father of Lucy, and so in some measure accounts for her, 
 is below the western horizon of our story, and therefore need 
 scarcely be alluded to again. This behavior of her brother 
 was more galling to Mrs. Burton than to her husband, who 
 smiled down any allusion to it ; and when she was compelled 
 to accept Richard's kindness in the shape of money, upon the 
 death of Mr. Burton, it was with a bitterness of feeling which 
 showed itself plainly enough to wound the self-love of the 
 consciously benevolent man of business. But from the first 
 there had been the friendliest relations between the mother 
 and daughter, and as it was only from her determination to 
 avoid all ground of misunderstanding, that Mrs. Boxall had 
 not consented to take up her abode with the Burtons. Conse- 
 quently, after the death of Mr. Burton, the mother drew yet 
 closer to the daughter, while the breach between brother and 
 sister was widened. 
 
 Two years after the death of her husband, Mrs. Burton 
 followed him. Then Mrs. Boxall took her grandchild Lucy 
 home to Guild Court, and between the two there never arose 
 the question of which should be the greater. It often happens 
 that even a severe mother becomes an indulgent grandmother, 
 partly from the softening and mellowing influences of time, 
 partly from increase of confidence in child-nature generally, 
 and perhaps also, in part, from a diminished sense of responsi- 
 bility in regard to a child not immediately her own. Hence 
 grandparents who have brought up their own children well 
 are in danger of spoiling severely those of their sons and 
 daughters. And such might have been the case with Mrs. 
 Boxall and Lucy, had Lucy been of a more spoilable nature. 
 But she had no idea of how much she had her own way, nor 
 would it have made any difference to her if she had known 
 it. There was a certain wonderful delicacy of moral touch 
 about her in the discrimination of what was becoming, as well 
 
32 Guild Court. 
 
 as of what was right, which resulted in a freedom the legalist 
 of society would have called boldness, and a restraint 
 which the same judge would have designated particularity ; 
 for Lucy's ways were not, and could not be, her ways, the one 
 fearing and obeying, as she best could, existing laws hard to 
 interpret, the other being a law unto herself. The harmonies 
 of the music by which, from her earliest childhood, her grow- 
 ing brain had beer interpenetrated, had, by her sweet will, 
 been transformed into harmonies of thought, feeling, and ac- 
 tion. She was not clever, but then she did not think she was 
 clever, and therefore it was of no consequence ; for she was 
 not dependent upon her intellect for those judgments which 
 alone are of importance in the reality of things, and in 
 which clever people are just as likely to go wrong as any 
 other body. She had a great gift in music — a gift which 
 Thomas Worboise had never yet discovered, and which, at this 
 period of his history, he was incapable of discovering, for he 
 had not got beyond the toffee of the drawing-room sentiment 
 — the song which must be sent forth to the universe from the 
 pedestal of ivory shoulders. But two lines of a ballad from 
 Lucy Barton were worth all the music, "She walks in 
 beaucy," included, that Mary Boxall could sing or play. 
 
 Lucy had not seen her cousins for years. Her uncle Bich- 
 ard, though incapable of being other than satisfied that the 
 orphan should be an inmate of the house in Guild Court, could 
 not, or at least did not, forget the mildly defiant look with 
 which she retreated from his outstretched hand, and took her 
 place beside her mother, on the sole occasion on which he 
 called upon his sister after her husband's death. She had 
 heard remarks — and being her mother's, she could not ques- 
 tion the justice of them. Hence she had not once, since she 
 had taken up her abode with her grandmother, been invited 
 to visit her cousins ; and there was no affectation, but in 
 truth a little anxiety, in the question she asked Thomas Wor- 
 boise about Mary Boxall's beauty. But, indeed, had she 
 given her uncle no such offense, I have every reason to believe 
 that her society would not have been much courted by his 
 family. "When the good among rich relations can be loving 
 without condescension, and the good among poor relations can 
 make sufficient allowance for the rich, then the kingdom of 
 heaven will be nigh at hand. Mr. Boxall shook hands with 
 his niece when he met her, asked her after his mother, and 
 passed on. 
 
 But Lucy was not dependent on her uncle, scarcely on her 
 
More about Guild Court. 33 
 
 grandmother, even. Before her mother's death, almost child 
 as she still was, she had begun to give lessons in music to a 
 younger child than herself, the daughter of one of her father's 
 favorite pupils, who had married a rich merchant ; and these 
 lessons she continued. She was a favorite with the family, 
 who were Jews, living in one of the older quarters of the west 
 end of London ; and they paid her handsomely, her age and 
 experience taken into account. Every morning, except Satur- 
 day, she went by the underground railway to give- an hour's 
 lesson to Miriam Morgenstern, a gorgeous little eastern, whom 
 her parents had no right to dress in such foggy colors as she 
 wore. 
 
 Now a long farewell to preliminaries. 
 
 Lucy was just leaving her home one morning to go to her 
 pupil, and had turned into the nagged passage which led from 
 the archway into the court, when she met a little girl of her 
 acquaintance, whom, with her help, I shall now present to my 
 readers. She was a child of eight, but very small for her age. 
 Her hair was neatly parted and brushed on each side of a large, 
 smooth forehead, projecting over quiet eyes of blue, made yet 
 quieter by the shadow of those brows. The rest of her face 
 was very diminutive. A soberness as of complete womanhood, 
 tried and chastened, lay upon her. She looked as if she had 
 pondered upon life and its goal, and had made up her little 
 mind to meet its troubles with patience. She was dressed in 
 a cotton frock printed with blue rose-buds, faded by many 
 waters and much soap. When she spoke, she used only one 
 side of her mouth for the purpose, and then the old-fask- 
 ionedness of her look rose almost to the antique, so that you 
 could have fancied her one of the time-belated good people that, 
 leaving the green forest-rings, had wandered into the city and 
 become a Christian at a hundred years of age. 
 
 " Well, Mattie," said Lucy, "how are you this morning ? " 
 
 *' I am quite well, I thank you, miss," anwered Mattie. "I 
 don't call this morning. The church clock struck eleven five 
 minutes ago." 
 
 This was uttered with a smile from the half of her mouth 
 which seemed to say, " I know you want to have a little fun 
 with me by using wrong names for things because I am a little 
 girl, and little girls can be taken in ; but it is of no use with 
 me, though I can enjoy the joke of it." 
 
 Lucy smiled too, but not much, for she knew the child. 
 
 " What do you call the morning, then, Mattie ? " she 
 asked. 
 
34 Guild Court. 
 
 " Well,"— she almost always began her sentences with a Well 
 — "I call it morning before the sun is up." 
 
 " But how do you know when the sun is up ? London is so 
 foggy, you know, Mattie." 
 
 " Is it ? I didn't know. Are there places without fog, 
 miss ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; many." 
 
 " Well, about the sun. I always know what he's about, 
 miss. I've got a almanac." 
 
 "But you don't understand the almanac, do you ?" 
 
 " Well, I don't mean to say I understand all about it, but I 
 always know what time the sun rises and goes to bed, you 
 know. " 
 
 Lucy had found she was rather early for the train, and from 
 where she stood she could see the clock of St. Jacob's, which 
 happened to be a reliable one. Therefore she went on to 
 amuse herself with the child. 
 
 " But how is it that we don't see him, if he gets up when 
 the almanac says, Mattie ? " 
 
 "Well, you see, miss, he sleeps in a crib. And the sides of 
 it are houses and churches, and St. Paulses, and the likes of 
 that." 
 
 "Yes, yes ; but some days we see him, and others we don't. 
 We don't see him to-day, now." 
 
 "Well, miss, I dare say he's cross some mornings, and 
 keeps the blankets about him after he's got his head up." 
 
 Lucy could not help thinking of Milton's line — for of the 
 few poems she knew, one was the " Ode on the Nativity " — 
 
 So, when the Sun in bed, 
 Curtain'd with cloudy red, 
 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave. 
 
 But the child laughed so queerly, that it was impossible to tell 
 whether or how much those were her real ideas about the 
 sunrise. 
 
 " How is your father ?" Lucy asked. 
 
 "Do you mean my father or my mother ?" 
 
 "I mean your father, of course, when I say so." 
 
 " Yes, but I have a mother, too." 
 
 Lucy let her have her way, for she did not quite understand 
 her. Only she knew that the child's mother had died two or 
 three years ago. 
 
 " Well," resumed the child, "my father is quite well, thank 
 
More about Guild Court 35 
 
 God ; and so is my mother. There he is, looking down at 
 us." 
 
 "Who do you mean, Mattie ?" asked Lucy, now be- 
 wildered. 
 
 " Well, my mother," answered the child, with a still odder 
 half smile. 
 
 Lucy looked up, and saw — hut a little description is neces- 
 sary. They were standing, as I have said already, in the 
 flagged passage which led to, and post-officially considered, 
 formed part of Guild Court. The archway from Bagot Street 
 into this passage was as it were tunneled through a house 
 facing the street, and from this house a wall, stretching inward 
 to the first house in the court proper, formed one side of the 
 passage. About the middle, this wall broke into two work- 
 shops, the smallest and strangest ever seen out of the east. 
 There was no roof visible — that lay behind the curtain-wall ; 
 but from top to bottom of the wall, a bight of about nine 
 feet, there was glass, divided in the middle so as to form two 
 windows, one above the other. So likewise on the right-band 
 side of the glass were two doors, or hatches, one above the 
 other. The tenement looked as if the smallest of rooms bad 
 been divided into two horizontally by a floor in the middle, 
 thus forming two cells, which could not have been more than 
 five feet by four, and four feet in hight. In the lower, how- 
 ever, a little hight had been gained by sinking the floor, to 
 which a single step led down. In this under cell a cobbler sat, 
 hammering away at his lap-stone — a little man, else he could 
 hardly have sat there, or even got in without discomfort. 
 Every now and then he glanced up at the girl and the child, 
 but never omitted a blow in consequence. Over his head, on 
 the thin floor between, sat a still smaller man, cross-legged 
 like a Turk, busily " plying his needle and thread." His hair, 
 which standing straight up gave a look of terror to his thin, 
 pale countenance, almost touched the roof. It was the only 
 luxuriance about him. As plants run to seed, he seemed to 
 have run to hair. A calm, keen eye underneath its towering 
 forest, revealed observation and peacefulness. He, too, occa- 
 sionally looked from his work, but only in the act of drawing 
 the horizontal thread, when his eyes had momentary furlough, 
 moving in alternate oscillation with his hand. At the moment 
 when the child said so, he was looking down in a pause in 
 which he seemed for the moment to have forgotten his work 
 in his interest in the pair below. He might be forty, or fifty 
 or sixty — no one could tell which. 
 
36 Guild Court 
 
 Lucy looked up, and said, " That is Mr. Spelt ; that is not 
 your mother." 
 
 " Well, but I call him my mother. I can't have two fathers, 
 you know. So I call Mr. Spelt my mother ; and so he is." 
 
 Here she looked up and smiled knowingly to the little tailor, 
 who, leaning forward to the window, through which, reaching 
 from roof to floor of his cage, his whole form was visible, 
 nodded friendlily to the little girl in acknowledgment of her 
 greeting. But it was now time for Lucy to go. 
 
 As soon as she had disappeared beyond the archway, Mattie 
 turned toward the • workshops. Mr. Spelt saw her coming, 
 aud before she had reached them, the upper half of the door 
 was open, and he was stretching down his arms to lift her 
 across the shoemaking region, into his own more celestial 
 realm of tailoring. In a moment she was sitting in the farth- 
 est and snuggest corner, not cross-legged, but with her feet 
 invisible in a heap of cuttings, from which she was choosing 
 what she would — always with a reference to Mr. Spelt— for 
 the dressing of a boy-doll which he had given her. 
 
 This was a very usual proceeding — so much so that Mattie 
 and the tailor sat for nearly an hour without a word passing 
 between them beyond what sprung from the constructive exi- 
 gencies of the child. Neither of them was given to much utter- 
 ance, though each had something of the peculiar gift of the 
 Ancient Mariner, namely, "strange power of speech." They 
 would sit together sometimes for half a day without saying a 
 word ; and then again there would be an oasis of the strangest 
 conversation in the desert of their silence — a bad simile, for 
 their silence must have been a thoughtful one to blossom into 
 such speech. But the first words Mattie uttered on this occa- 
 sion, were of a somewhat mundane character. She heard a 
 footstep pass below. She was too far back in the cell to see 
 who it was, and she did not lift her eyes from her work. 
 
 "When the cat's away, the mice will play," she said. 
 
 "What are you thinking about, Mattie ?" asked the tailor. 
 
 " Well, wasn't that Mr. Worboise that passed ? Mr. Box- 
 all must be out. But he needn't go there, for somebody's 
 always out this time o' day." 
 
 " What do you mean, Mattie ? " again asked the tailor. 
 
 " Well, perhaps you don't understand such things, Mr. 
 Spelt, not being a married man." 
 
 Poor Mr. Spelt had had a wife who had killed herself by 
 drinking all his earnings ; but perhaps Mattie knew nothing 
 about that. 
 
More about Guild Court. 37 
 
 "No more I am. You must explain it to me." 
 
 " Well, you see, young people will be young people." 
 
 "Who told you that ?" 
 
 " Old Mrs. Boxall says so. And that's why Mr. Worboise 
 goes to see Miss Burton, / know. I told you so," she added, 
 as she heard his step returning. But Thomas bore a huge 
 ledger under his arm, for which Mr. Stopper had sent him 
 round to the court. Very likely, however, had Lucy been at 
 home, he might haye laid a few minutes more to the account 
 of the errand. 
 
 " So, so ! " said the tailor. " That's it, is it, Mattie ? " 
 
 "Yes; but- we don't say anything about such things, you 
 know." 
 
 " Oh, of course not," answered Mr. Spelt ; and the conver- 
 sation ceased. 
 
 After a long pause, the child spoke again. 
 
 " Is God good to you to-day, mother ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mattie. God is always good to us." 
 
 " But he's better some days than others, isn't he ? " 
 
 To this question the tailor did not know what to reply, and 
 therefore, like a wise man, did not make the attempt. He 
 asked her instead, as he had often occasion to do with Mattie, 
 what she meant. 
 
 " Don't you know what I mean, mother ? Don't you know 
 God's better to us some days than others ? Yes ; and he's 
 better to some people than he is to others. " 
 
 " I am sure he's always good to you and me, Mattie." 
 
 "Well, yes ; generally." 
 
 "Why don't you say always?" 
 
 " Because I'm not sure about it. Now to-day it's all very 
 well. But yesterday the sun shone in the window a whole hour. " 
 
 " And I drew down the blind to shut it out," said Mr. Spelt, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "Well," Mattie went on, without heeding her friend's 
 remark, " he could make the sun shine every day, if he liked. 
 — I suppose, he could," she added, doubtfully. 
 
 "I don't think we should like it, if he did," returned Mr. 
 Spelt, " for the drain down below smells bad in the hot 
 weather." 
 
 " But the rain might come — at night, I mean, not in the 
 day-time, and wash them all out. Mightn't it, mother ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but the heat makes people ill. And if you had such 
 hot weather as they have in some parts, as I am told, you 
 would be glad enough of a day like this." 
 
38 Guild Court. 
 
 " Well, why haven't they a day like this, when they want 
 it ? " 
 
 " God knows," said Mr. Spelt, whose magazine was nearly 
 exhausted, and the enemy pressing on vigorously. 
 
 "Well, that's what I say. God knows, and why doesn't he 
 help it?" 
 
 And Mr. Spelt surrendered, if silence was surrender. Mat- 
 tie did not press her advantage, however, and the besieged 
 plucked up heart a little. 
 
 " I fancy perhaps, Mattie, he leaves something for us to do. 
 You know they cut out the slop-work at the shop, and I can't 
 do much more with that but put the pieces together. But 
 when a repairing job comes in, I can contrive a bit then, and 
 I like that better." 
 
 Mr. Spelt's meaning was not very clear, either to himself or 
 to Mattie. But it involved the shadow of a great truth — that 
 all the discords we hear in the universe around us, are God's 
 trumpets sounding a reveille to the sleeping human will, which 
 once working harmoniously with his, will soon bring all things 
 into a pure and healthy rectitude of operation. Till a man 
 has learned to be happy without the sunshine, and therein 
 becomes capable of enjoying it perfectly, it is well that the 
 shine and the shadow should be mingled, so as God only knows 
 how to mingle them. To effect the blessedness for which 
 God made him, man must become a fellow-worker with 
 God. 
 
 After a little while Mattie resumed operations. 
 
 " But you can't say, mother, that God isn't better to some 
 people than to other people. He's surely gooder to you and 
 me than he is to Poppie." 
 
 "Who's Poppie ?" asked Mr. Spelt, sending out a flag of 
 negotiation. 
 
 "Well, there she is — down in the gutter, I suppose, as 
 usual," answered Mattie, without lifting her eyes. 
 
 The tailor peeped out of his house-front, and saw a bare- 
 footed child in the court below. What she was like I shall 
 take a better opportunity of informing my reader. For at 
 this moment the sound of strong nails tapping sharply reached 
 the ear of Mr. Spelt and his friend. The sound came from a 
 window just over the archway, hence at right angles to Mr. 
 Spelt's workshop. It was very dingy with dust and smoke, 
 allowing only the outline of a man's figure to be seen from the 
 court. This much Poppie saw, and taking the tapping to be 
 intended for her, fled from the court on soundless feet. But 
 
More about Guild Court. 39 
 
 Mattie rose at once from her corner, and, laying aside cuttings 
 and doll, stuck her needle and thread carefully in the bosom 
 of her frock, saying : 
 
 " That's my father a-wanting of me. I wonder what he 
 wants now. I'm sure I don't know how he would get on 
 without me. And that is a comfort. Poor man ! he misses 
 my mother more than I do, I believe. He's always after me. 
 Well, I'll see you again in the afternoon if I can. And, if 
 not, you may expect me about the same hour to-morrow." 
 
 While she thus spoke she was let down from the not very 
 airy hight of the workshop on to the firm pavement below ; 
 the tailor stretching his arms with her from above, like a bird 
 of prey with a lamb in his talons. The last words she spoke 
 from the ground, her head thrown back between her shoulders 
 that she might look the tailor in the face, who was stooping 
 over her like an angel from a cloud in" the family Bible. 
 
 "Very well, Mattie," returned Mr. Spelt ; "you know your 
 own corner well enough by this time, I should think." 
 
 So saying, he drew himself carefully into his shell, for the 
 place was hardly more, except that he could just work without 
 having to get outside of it first. A soft half smile glimmered 
 on his face ; for although he was so used to Mattie's old- 
 fashioned ways, that they scarcely appeared strange to him 
 now, the questions that she raised were food for the little 
 tailor's meditation — all day long, upon occasion. For some 
 tailors are given to thinking, and when they are they have 
 good opportunity of indulging their inclinations. And it is 
 wonderful what a tailor's thinking may come to, especially if 
 he reads his N ew Testament. Now, strange perhaps to tell, 
 though Mr. Spelt never went to church, he did read his New 
 Testament. And the little tailor was a living soul. He was 
 one of those few who seem to be born with a certain law of 
 order in themselves, a certain tidiness of mind, as it were, which 
 would gladly see all the rooms or regions of thought swept 
 and arranged ; and not only makes them orderly, but prompts 
 them to search after the order of the universe. They would 
 gladly believe in the harmony of things ; and although the 
 questions they feel the necessity of answering take the crudest 
 forms and the most limited and individual application, they 
 yet are sure to have something to do with the laws that govern 
 the world. Hence it was that the partial misfit of a pair of 
 moleskin or fustian trowsers — for seldom did his originality 
 find nobler material to exercise itself upon — would make him 
 quite miserable, even though the navvy or dock-laborer might 
 
•40 Guild Court. 
 
 be perfectly satisfied with the result, and ready to pay the 
 money for them willingly. But it was seldom, too, that he 
 had even such a chance of indulging in the creative element 
 of the tailor's calling, though he might have done something 
 of the sort, if he would, in the way of altering. Of that 
 branch of the trade, however, he was shy, knowing that it was 
 most frequently in request with garment unrighteously come 
 by ; and Mr. Spelt's thin hands were clean. 
 
 He had not sat long after Mattie left him, before she reap- 
 peared from under the archway. 
 
 "No, no, mother," she said, "I ain't going to perch this 
 time. But father sends his compliments, and will you come 
 and take a dish of tea with him and me this afternoon .? " 
 
 "Yes, Mattie ; if you will come and fetch me when the 
 tea's ready." 
 
 "Well, you had better not depend on me ; for I shall have 
 a herring to cook, and a muffin to toast, besides the tea to 
 make and set on the hob, and the best china to get out of the 
 black cupboard, and no end o' things to see to." 
 
 "But you needn't get out the best china for me, you know." 
 
 " Well, I like to do what's proper. And you just keep 
 your eye on St. Jacob's, Mr. Spelt, and at five o'clock, when 
 it has struck two of them, you get down and come in, and 
 you'll find your tea a-waiting of you. There ! " 
 
 With which conclusive form of speech, Mattie turned and 
 walked back through the archway. She never ran, still less 
 skipped as most children do, but held feet and head alike 
 steadily progressive, save for the slightest occasional toss of 
 the latter, which, as well as her mode of speech, revealed the 
 element of conceit which had its share in the oddity of the 
 little damsel. 
 
 When two strokes of the five had sounded in the ears of Mr. 
 Spelt, he laid his work aside, took his tall hat from one of the 
 corners where it hung on a peg, leaped lightly from his perch 
 into the court, shut his half of the door, told the shoemaker 
 below that he was going to Mr. Kitely's to tea, and would be 
 obliged if he would fetch him should anyone want him, and 
 went through the archway. There was a door to Mr. Kitely's 
 house under the archway, but the tailor preferred going 
 round the corner to the shop door in Bagot Street. By this 
 he entered Jacob Kitely's domain, an old book-shop, of which 
 it required some previous knowledge to find the way to the 
 back premises. For the whole cubical space of the shop was 
 divided and subdivided into a labyrinth of book-shelves, those 
 
More about Guild Court. 41 
 
 in front filled with decently if not elegantly bound books, and 
 those behind with a multitude innumerable of books in all 
 conditions of dinginess, mustiness, and general shabbiness. 
 Among these Jacob Kitely spent his time patching and mend- 
 ing them, and drawing up catalogues. He was not one of 
 those booksellers who are so fond of their books that they can- 
 not bear to part with them, and therefore when they are for- 
 tunate enough to lay their hands upon a rare volume, the 
 highest pleasure they know in life, justify themselves in keep- 
 ing it by laying a manuscript price upon it, and considering it 
 so much actual property. Such men, perhaps, know some- 
 thing about the contents of their wares ; but while few sur- 
 passed Jacob in a knowledge of the outside of books, from the 
 proper treatment of covers in the varying stages of dilapida- 
 tion, and of leaves when water-stained or mildewed or dry- 
 rotted to the different values of better and best editions, cut 
 and uncut leaves, tall copies, and folios shortened by the 
 plow into doubtful quartos, he never advanced beyond the 
 title-page, except when one edition differed from another, and 
 some examination was necessary to determine to which the 
 copy belonged. And not only did he lay no fancy prices upon 
 his books, but he was proud of selling them under the market 
 value — which he understood well enough, though he used the 
 knowledge only to regulate his buying. The rate at which he 
 sold was determined entirely by the rate at which he bought. 
 Do not think, my reader, that I have the thinnest ghost of a 
 political economy theory under this : I am simply and only 
 describing character. Hence he sold his books cheaper than 
 any other bookseller in London, contenting himself with a 
 profit proportioned to his expenditure, and taking his pleas- 
 ure in the rapidity with which the stream of books flowed 
 through his shop. I have known him take threepence off the 
 price he had first affixed to a book, because he found that he 
 had not advertised it, and therefore it had not to bear its 
 share of the expense of the catalogue. 
 
 Mr. Spelt made his way through the maze of books into the 
 back shop, no one confronting him, and there found Mr. 
 Kitely busy over his next catalogue, which he was making out 
 in a school-boy's hand. 
 
 "How are you, Spelt ?" he said, in an alto voice, in which 
 rung a certain healthy vigor, amounting to determination. 
 " Just in time, I believe. My little woman has been busy in 
 the parlor for the last hour, and I can depend upon her to the 
 minute. Step in." 
 
42 Guild Court. 
 
 "Don't let me interrupt you," suggested Mr. Spelt, meekly, 
 and reverentially even, for he thought Mr. Kitely must be a 
 very learned man indeed to write so much about books, and 
 had at home a collection of his catalogues complete from the 
 year when he first occupied the nest in the passage. I had 
 forgot to say that Mr. Kitely was Mr. Spelt's landlord, and 
 found him a regular tenant, else he certainly would not have 
 invited him to tea. 
 
 " Don't let me interrupt you," said Mr. Spelt. 
 
 "Not at all," returned Mr. Kitely. "I'm very happy to 
 see you, Spelt. You're very kind to my Mattie, and it pleases 
 both of us to have you to tea in our humble way. " 
 
 His humble way was a very grand way indeed to poor Spelt — 
 and Mr. Kitely knew that. Spelt could only rub his nervous, 
 delicate hands in token that he would like to say something in 
 reply if he could but find the right thing to say. What hands 
 those were, instinct with life and expression to the finger nails ! 
 No hands like them for fine-drawing. He would make the 
 worst rent look as if there never had been a rough contact 
 with the nappy surface. 
 
 The tailor stepped into the parlor, which opened out of the 
 back shop sideways, and found himself in an enchanted region. 
 A fire — we always see the fire first, and the remark will mean 
 more to some people than to others — a most respectable fire 
 burned in the grate, and if the room was full of the odor of 
 red herrings, possibly objectionable per se, where was the harm 
 when they were going to partake of the bloaters ? A conse- 
 quential cat lay on the hearth-rug. A great black oak cabi- 
 net, carved to repletion of surface, for which a pre-Kaphaelite 
 painter would have given half the price of one of his best 
 pictures, stood at the end of the room. This was an accident, 
 for Mr. Kitely could not appreciate it. But neither would he 
 sell it when asked to do so. He was not going to mix trades, 
 for that was against his creed ; the fact being that he had 
 tried so many things in his life that he now felt quite respect- 
 able from having settled to one for the rest of his days. But 
 the chief peculiarity of the room was the number of birds that 
 hung around it in cages of all sizes and shapes, most of them 
 covered up now that they might go to sleep. 
 
 After Mattie had bestowed her approbation upon Mr. Spelt 
 for coming exactly to the hour, she took the brown tea-pot 
 from the hob, the muffin from before the fire, and three 
 herrings from the top of it, and put them all one after another 
 upon the table. Then she would have placed chairs for them 
 
More about Guild Court. 43 
 
 all, but was prevented by the gallantry of Mr. Spelt, and only 
 succeeded in carrying to the head of the table her own high 
 chair, on which she climbed up, and sat enthroned to pour out 
 the tea. It was a noteworthy triad. On opjDosite sides of the 
 table sat the meek tailor and the hawk-expressioned bookseller. 
 The latter had a broad forehead and large, clear, light eyes. 
 His nose — I never think a face described when the nose is for- 
 gotten : Chaucer never omits it — rose from between his eyes 
 as if intending to make the true Eoman arch, but having 
 reached the keystone, held on upon the same high level, and 
 did not descend, but ceased. He wore no beard, and bore his 
 face in front of him like a banner. A strong pediment of 
 chin and a long, thin-lipped mouth completed an expression 
 of truculent good nature. Plenty of clear-voiced speech, a 
 breezy defiance of nonsense in every tone, bore in it a certain 
 cold but fierce friendliness, which would show no mercy to 
 any weakness you might vaunt, but would drag none to the 
 light you abstained from forcing into notice. Opposite to him 
 sat the thoughtful, thin-visaged, small man, with his hair on 
 end ; and between them the staid, old-maidenly child, with 
 her hair in bands on each side of the smooth solemnity of her 
 face, the conceit of her gentle nature expressed only in the 
 turn-up of her diminutive nose. The bookseller behaved to 
 her as if she had been a grown lady. 
 
 "Now, Miss Kitely," he said, "we shall have tea of the 
 right sort, shan't we ? " 
 
 "I hope so," answered Mattie, demurely. "Help Mr. Spelt 
 to a herring, father. " 
 
 "That I will, my princess. There, Mr. Spelt! There's a 
 herring with a roe worth millions. To think, now, that every 
 one of those eggs would be a fish like that, if it was only let 
 alone !" 
 
 "It's a great waste of eggs, ain't it, father ?" said Mattie. 
 
 " Mr. Spelt won't say so, my princess," returned Mr. Kitely, 
 laughing. "He likes 'em." 
 
 " I do like them," said the tailor. 
 
 "Well, I dare say they're good for him, and it don't hurt 
 them much," resumed Mattie, reflectively. 
 
 "They'll go to his brains, and make him clever," said 
 Kitely. "And you wouldn't call that a waste, would you, 
 Mattie ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I think Mr. Spelt's clever enough 
 already. He's too much for me sometimes. I confess I can't 
 always follow him." 
 
44 Guild Court. 
 
 The father burst into a loud roar of laughter, and laughed 
 till the tears were running down his face. Spelt would haye 
 joined him but for the reverence he had for Mattie, who sat 
 unmoved on her throne at the head of the table, looking down 
 with calm benignity on her father's passion, as if laughter 
 were a weakness belonging to grown-up men, in which they 
 were to be condescendingly indulged by princesses, and little 
 girls in general. 
 
 " Well, how's the world behaving to you, Spelt ? " asked the 
 bookseller, after various ineffectual attempts to stop his laugh- 
 ter by the wiping of his eyes. 
 
 " The world has never behaved ill to me, thank God," an- 
 swered the tailor. 
 
 " Now, don't you trouble yourself to say that. You've got 
 nobody to thank but yourself." 
 
 "But I like to thank God," said Mr. Spelt, apologetically. 
 " I forgot that you wouldn't like it." 
 
 " Pshaw ! pshaw ! I don't mind it from you, for I believe 
 you're fool enough to mean what you say. But, tell me this, 
 Spelt — did you thank God when your wife died ? " 
 
 " I tried hard not. I'm afraid I did, though," answered 
 Spelt, and sat staring like one who has confessed, and awaits 
 his penance. 
 
 The bookseller burst into another loud laugh, and slapped 
 his hand on his leg. 
 
 "You have me there, I grant, Spelt." 
 
 But his face grew sober as he added, in a lower but still loud 
 voice — 
 
 " I was thinking of my wife, not of yours. Folk say she was 
 a rum un." 
 
 "She was a splendid woman," said the tailor. "She 
 weighed twice as .much as I do, and her fist — " Here he 
 doubled up his own slender hand, laid it on the table, and 
 stared at it, with his mouth full of muffin. Then, with a 
 sigh, he added, " She was rather too much for me, sometimes. 
 She was a splendid woman, though, when she was sober." 
 
 " And what was she when she was drunk ? " 
 
 This grated a little on the tailor's feelings, and he answered 
 with spirit — 
 
 "A match for you or any other man, Mr. Kitely." 
 
 The bookseller said, "Bravo, Spelt !" and said no more. 
 
 They went on with their tea for some moments in silence. 
 
 " Well, princess ! " said Mr. Kitely at last, giving an aim- 
 less poke to the conversation. 
 
More about Guild Court 45 
 
 " Well, father," returned Mattie. 
 
 Whereupon her father turned to Spelt and said, as if resum- 
 ing what had passed before — 
 
 " Now tell me honestly, Spelt, do you believe there is a 
 God?" 
 
 "I don't doubt it." 
 
 "And I do. Will you tell me that, if there was a God, he 
 would have a fool like that in the church over the way there, 
 to do nothing but read the service, and a sermon he bought 
 for eighteenpence, and — " 
 
 " From you ?" asked Spelt, with an access of interest. 
 
 " No, no. I was too near the church for that. But he 
 bought it of Spelman, in Holywell Street. Well, what was I 
 saying ? " 
 
 "You was telling us what Mr. Potter did for his money." 
 
 "Yes, yes. I don't know anything else he does but 
 stroke his Piccadilly weepers, and draw his salary. Only I 
 suppose they have some grand name for salary nowadays, out 
 of the Latin Grammar or the Roman Antiquities, or some such, 
 to make it respectable. Don't tell me there's a God, when he 
 puts a man like that in the pulpit. To hear him haw-haw ! " 
 
 The bookseller's logic was, to say the least of it, queer. But 
 Spelt was no logician. He was something better, though in a 
 feeble way. He could jump over the dry-stone fences and the 
 cross-ditches of the logician. He was not one of those who 
 stop to answer arguments against going home, instead of mak- 
 ing haste to kiss their wives and children. 
 
 "I have read somewhere — in a book I dare say you mayn't 
 have in your collection, Mr. Kitely — they call it the New Tes- 
 tament — " 
 
 There was not an atom of conscious humor in the tailor as 
 he said this. He really thought Mr. Kitely might have con- 
 scientious scruples as to favoring the sale of the New Testa- 
 ment. Kitely smiled, but said nothing. 
 
 "I've read" — the tailor went on — "that God winked at 
 some people's ignorance. I dare say he may wink at Mr. 
 Potter's." 
 
 " Anyhow, I wouldn't like to be Mr. Potter," said the book- 
 seller. 
 
 "No, nor I," returned Spelt. "But just as I let that poor 
 creature, Dolman, cobble away in my ground-floor — though he 
 has never paid me more than half his rent since ever he 
 took it—" 
 
 " Is that the way of it ? Whew ! " said Mr. Kitely. 
 
46 Guild Court. 
 
 " About and about it," answered the tailor. " But that's 
 not the point." 
 
 " What a fool you are then, Spelt, to — " 
 
 " Mr. Kitely," interposed the tailor with dignity, " do I pay 
 your rent ? " 
 
 "You've got my receipts, I believe," answered the book- 
 seller, offended in his turn. 
 
 " Then I may make a fool of myself, if I please," returned 
 Spelt, with a smile which took all offense out of the remark. 
 " I only wanted to say that perhaps God lets Mr. Potter hold 
 the living of St. Jacob's in something of the same way that I 
 let poor Dolman cobble in my ground-floor. No offense, I 
 hope." 
 
 "None whatever. You're a good-natured, honest fellow, 
 Spelt ; and don't distress yourself, you know, for a week or so. 
 Have half a herring more ? I fear this is a soft roe." 
 
 " No more, I thank you, Mr. Kitely. But all the clergy 
 ain't like Mr. Potter. Perhaps he talks such nonsense because 
 there's nobody there to hear it." 
 
 " There's plenty not there to do something for for his 
 money," said Kitely. 
 
 " That's true," returned the tailor. " But seeing I don't go 
 to church myself, I don't see I've any right to complain. Do 
 you go to church, Mr. Kitely ? " 
 
 "I should think not," answered the bookseller. "But 
 there's some one in the shop." 
 
 So saying, he started up and disappeared. Presently voices 
 were heard, if not in dispute, yet in difference. 
 
 " You won't oblige me so far as that, Mr. Kitely?" 
 
 "No, I won't. I never pledge myself. I've been too often 
 taken in. No offense. A man goes away and forgets. Send 
 or bring the money, and the book is yours ; or come to-morrow. 
 I dare say it won't be gone. But I won't promise to keep it. 
 There ! " 
 
 " Very well, I won't trouble you again in a hurry." 
 
 "That is as you please, sir," said the bookseller, and no 
 reply followed. 
 
 "That's Mr. Worboise," said Mattie, "I wish father 
 wouldn't be so hard upon him." 
 
 " I don't like that young man," said Kitely, reentering. 
 "My opinion is that he's a humbug." 
 
 "Miss Burton does not think so," said Mattie, quietly. 
 
 "E h, what, princess ? " said her father. " Eh ! ah ! well ! 
 well ! " 
 
Tlie Morning of Christmas Day. 47 
 
 "You don't give credit, Mr. Kitely?" said the tailor. 
 
 "No, not to my own father. I don't know, though, if I 
 had the old boy back again, now he's dead. I didn't behave 
 over well to him, I'm afraid. I wonder if he's in the moon, 
 or where he is, Mr. Spelt, eh ? I should like to believe in God 
 now, if it were only for the chance of saying to my father, 
 ' I'm sorry I said so-and-so to you, old man.' Do you think 
 he'll have got over it by this time, Spelt ? You know all about 
 those things. But I won't have a book engaged and left and 
 not paid for. I'd rather give credit and lose it, and have done 
 with it. If young Worboise wants the book he may come for 
 it to-morrow." 
 
 " He always pays me — and pleasantly," said Spelt. 
 
 " Of course," said Mattie. 
 
 "I don't doubt it," said her father; "but I like things 
 neat and clean. And I don't like him. He thinks a deal of 
 himself." 
 
 " Surely he's neat and clean enough," said Spelt. 
 
 " Now, you don't know what I mean. A man ought always 
 to know what another man means before he makes his remarks. 
 I mean, I like a book to go out of my sight, and the price of 
 it to go into my pocket, right slick off. But here's Dolman 
 come to fetch you, Spelt," said the bookseller, as the cobbler 
 made his appearance at the half -open door of the parlor. 
 
 "No, I ain't," said Dolman. "I only come to let the 
 guv'nor know as I'm a going home." 
 
 " Where's that ? " asked Kitely. 
 
 " Leastways, I mean going home with a pair o' boots," 
 answered Dolman, evasively, wiping his nose with the back of 
 his hand. 
 
 " Ah !" said the bookseller. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MORNING OF CHRISTMAS DAT. 
 
 It is but justice to Thomas Worboise to mention that he 
 made no opportunities of going to his " governor's " house 
 after this. But the relations of the families rendered it im- 
 possible for him to avoid seeing Mary Boxall sometimes. Nor 
 
4:8 Guild Court. 
 
 did he make any great effort to eyade such meetings : and it 
 must be confessed that it was not without a glow of inward 
 satisfaction that he saw her confusion and the rosy tinge that 
 spread over her face and deepened the color of her eyes when 
 they thus happened to meet. For Mary was a soft-hearted 
 and too impressible girl. ".I never said anything to her/' 
 were the words with which he would now and then apply an 
 unction to his soul, compounded of self-justification and self- 
 flattery. But he could not keep an outward appearance of 
 coolness correspondent to the real coldness of his selfish heart, 
 and the confusion which was only a dim reflection of her own 
 was sufficient to make poor Mary suppose that feelings similar 
 to her own. were at work in the mind of the handsome youth. 
 Why he did not say anything to her had not yet begun to 
 trouble her, and her love was as yet satisfied with the ethereal 
 luxuries of dreaming and castle-building. 
 
 It had been arranged between Amy Worboise and the Boxall 
 girls, that if Christmas Day were fine, they would persuade 
 their fathers to go with them to Hampstead Heath in the 
 morning. How much of this arrangement was owing to sly 
 suggestion on the part of Mary in the hope of seeing Tom, I 
 do not know. I believe Jane contrived that Charles Wither 
 should have a hint of the possibility. It is enough that the 
 plan was accepted by the parents, and that the two families, 
 with the exception of Mrs. Boxall, who could not commit the 
 care of the Christinas dinner to the servants, and the invalid 
 Mrs. Worboise, who, iudeed, would always have preferred the 
 chance of a visit from Mr. Simon to the certainty of sunshine 
 and extended prospect, found themselves, after morning ser- 
 vice, on the platform of the Highbury railway station, whence 
 they soon reached Hampstead. 
 
 The walk from the station, up the hill to the top of the 
 heath, was delightful. It was a clear day, the sun shining 
 overhead, and the ground sparkling with frost under their 
 feet. The keen, healthy air Drought color to the cheeks and 
 light to the eyes of all the party, possibly with the sole excep- 
 tion of Mr. Worboise, who, able to walk uncovered in the 
 keenest weather, was equally impervious to all the gentler in- 
 fluences of Nature . He could not be said to be a disbeliever 
 in Nature, for he had not the smallest idea that she had any 
 existence beyond an allegorical one. What he did believe in 
 was the law, meaning by that neither the Mosaic nor the 
 Christian, neither the law of love nor the law of right, but 
 the law of England as practiced in her courts of justice. 
 
The Morning of Christmas Day. 49 
 
 Therefore he was not a very interesting person to spend a 
 Christmas morning with, and he and Mr. Boxall, who was 
 equally a helieyer in commerce, were left to entertain each 
 other. 
 
 Mary Boxall was especially merry ; Amy Worboise roguish 
 as usual ; Jane Boxall rather silent, but still bright-eyed, for 
 who could tell whom she might meet upon the heath ? And 
 with three such girls Tom could not be other than gay, if not 
 brilliant. True, Lucy was alone with her old grandmother in 
 dingy Guild Court ; but if she loved him, was not that enough 
 to make her or any other woman happy ? And he could not 
 help it, besides. And why should he not improve the shining 
 hour because Lucy had no flowers to gather honey from ? Be- 
 sides, was he not going to meet her the very next day, after 
 much contrivance for concealment ? So he was resolved to be 
 merry and "freuen sich des Lebens." 
 
 They reached the flag-staff. The sun was getting low, and 
 clouds were gathering behind him. Harrow-on-the-Hill was 
 invisible, but the reservoir gleamed coldly far across the heath. 
 A wind was blowing from the northwest ; all London lay south 
 and east in clearness wonderful, for two or three minutes. 
 Then a vapor slowly melted away the dome of St. Paul's, and, 
 like a spirit of sorrow, gathered and gathered till that which 
 was full of life to those who were in it, was but a gray cloud 
 to those that looked on from the distant hight. Already the 
 young people felt their spirits affected, and as if by a common 
 impulse, set off to walk briskly to the pines above the " Span- 
 iards." They had not gone far, before they met Charles 
 Wither sauntering carelessly along — at least he seemed much 
 surprised to see them. He turned and walked between Jane 
 and Amy, and Mary and Tom were compelled to drop behind, 
 so as not to extend their line unreasonably and occupy the 
 whole path. Quite unintentionally on Tom's part, the distance 
 between the two divisions increased, and when he and Mary 
 reached the pines, the rest of the party had vanished. They 
 had in fact gone down into the Vale of Health, to be out of the 
 wind, and return by the hollow, at the suggestion of Charles 
 "Wither, who wished thus to avoid the chance of being seen by 
 Mr. Boxall. When he had taken his leave of them, just as 
 they came in sight of the flag-staff, where Mr. Worboise and 
 Mr. Boxall had appointed to meet them on their return from the 
 pines, Jane begged Amy to say nothing about having met him. 
 
 " Oh," said Amy, with sudden and painful illumination, " I 
 am so sorry to have been in the way." 
 
50 Guild Court 
 
 " On the contrary, dear Amy, I should not have known 
 what to say to papa, except you had been with me. I am so 
 much obliged to you." 
 
 Thus there was clearly trouble in store for Mr. Boxall, who 
 had never yet known what it was not to have his own way — in 
 matters which he would consider of importance at least. 
 
 The two gentlemen had gone into Jack Straw's to have a 
 glass of wine together, in honor of Christmas Day ; and while 
 they were seated together before a good fire, it seemed to Mr. 
 Boxall a suitable opportunity for entering on a matter of business. 
 
 " What will you say to me, Worboise, when I tell you that 
 I have never yet made a will ? " 
 
 "I needn't tell you what I think, Boxall. You know well 
 enough. Very foolish of you. Very imprudent, indeed. And 
 I confess I should not have expected it of you, although I had 
 a shrewd suspicion that such was the case." 
 
 " How came you to suspect it ? " 
 
 " To tell the truth; I could not help thinking that as our 
 friendship was not of yesterday, you would hardly have asked 
 any one else to draw up your will but your old friend. So you 
 see it was by no mysterious exercise of intelligence that I came 
 to the conclusion that, not being an unkind or suspicious man, 
 you must be a dilatory, and, excuse me, in this sole point, a 
 foolish man." 
 
 " I grant the worst you can say, but you shall say it only till 
 to-morrow — that is, if you will draw up the will, and have it 
 ready for me to sign at any hour you may be at leisure for a 
 call from me." 
 
 "I can't undertake it by to-morrow ; but it shall be ready 
 by the next day at twelve o'clock," 
 
 " That will do perfectly. I must remain ' a foolish man ' 
 for twenty-four hours longer — that is all." 
 
 " You won't be much the worse for that, except you have 
 an attack of apoplexy to fix you there. But, joking apart, 
 give me my instructions. May I ask how much you have to 
 leave ?" 
 
 " Oh ; somewhere, off and on, about thirty thousand. It 
 isn't much, but I hope to double it in the course of a few 
 years, if things go on as they are doing." 
 
 Mr. Worboise had not known so much about his friend's 
 affairs as he had pretended to his son. When he heard the 
 amount, he uttered a slight •" Whew ! " But whether it meant 
 that the sum fell below or exceeded his expectations, he gave 
 Mr. Boxall no time to inquire. 
 
TJie Morning of Christmas Day. 51 
 
 " And how do you want the sum divided ? " he asked. 
 
 "I don't want it divided at all. There's no occasion what- 
 ever to mention the sum. The books will show my property. 
 I want my wife, in the case of her surviving me, to have the 
 whole of it." 
 
 " And failing her ?" 
 
 "My daughters, of course — equally divided. If my wife 
 lives, there is no occasion to mention them. I want them to 
 be dependent upon her as long as she lives, and so hold the 
 family together as long as possible. She knows my wishes 
 about them in everything. I have no secrets from her." 
 
 "I have only to carry out instructions. I have no right to 
 offer any suggestions." 
 
 " That means that you would suggest something. Speak 
 out, man." 
 
 " Suppose your daughters wished to marry ? " 
 
 "I leave all that to their mother, as I said. They must be 
 their own mistresses some day." 
 
 " Well, call on me the day after to-morrow, and I shall have 
 the draught at least ready." 
 
 When the two girls reached the flag-staff, their parents 
 were not there. Jane was glad of this, for it precluded ques- 
 tioning as to the point whence they had arrived. As they 
 stood waiting, large snow-flakes began to fall, and the wind 
 was rising. But they had not to wait long before the gentle- 
 men made their appearance, busily conversing, so busily, in- 
 deed, that when they had joined the girls, they walked away 
 toward the railway station without concerning themselves to 
 ask what had become of Mary and Thomas. 
 
 When they reached the railway station, Mr. Boxall became 
 suddenly aware that two of their party were missing. 
 
 " Why, Jane, where's Mary ? And where's Tom ? Where 
 did you leave them ? " 
 
 " Somewhere about the pines. I thought they would have 
 been back long ago." 
 
 The two fathers looked at each other, and each seeing that 
 the other looked knowing, then first consented, as he thought, 
 to look knowing himself, 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Worboise, " they're old enough to take 
 care of themselves, I suppose. I vote we don't wait for 
 them." 
 
 " Serve them right," said Mr. Boxall. 
 
 ' ' Oh, don't, papa," interposed Jane. 
 
 " Well, Jane, will you stop for them ? " said her father. 
 
52 Guild Court. 
 
 But a sudden light that flashed into Jane's eyes made him 
 change his tone. He did not know why, but the idea of 
 Charles Wither rose in his mind, and he made haste to prevent 
 Jane from taking advantage of the proposal. 
 
 "Come along," he said. "Let them take care of them- 
 selves. Come along." 
 
 The suspicion had crossed him more than once, that Mr. 
 Wither and Jane possibly contrived to meet without his 
 knowledge, and the thought made him writhe with jealousy ; 
 for it lay in his nature to be jealous of everyone of whom his 
 wife or his daughters spoke well — that is, until he began to 
 like him himself, when the jealousy, or what was akin to it, 
 vanished. But it was not jealousy alone that distressed him, 
 but the anxiety of real love as well. 
 
 By the time they reached Camden Road station, the ground 
 was covered with snow. 
 
 When Tom and Mary arrived at the pines, I have said they 
 found that the rest of their party had gone. 
 
 " Oh, never mind," said Mary, merrily ; " let us run down 
 into the hollow, and wait till they come back. I dare say 
 they are not far oft They will never go without us." 
 
 Partly from false gallantry, partly from inclination, Thomas 
 agreed. They descended the bank of sand in a quite opposite 
 direction from that taken by Jane and her companions, and 
 wandered along down the heath. By this time the sky was 
 all gray and white. Long masses of vapor were driving over- 
 head with jagged upper edges. They looked like lines of 
 fierce warriors stooping in their eager rush to the battle. But 
 down in the hollows of the heath all was still, and they wan- 
 dered on for some time without paying any heed to the signs 
 of the coming storm. Does my reader ask what they talked 
 about ? Nothing worthy of record, I answer ; although every 
 word that Thomas uttered seemed to Mary worth looking into 
 for some occult application of the sort she would gladly have 
 heard more openly expressed. At length, something cold fell 
 upon her face, and Thomas glancing that moment at her 
 countenance, saw it lying there, and took it for a tear. She 
 looked up : the sky was one mass of heavy vapor, and a multi- 
 tude of great downy snow-flakes was settling slowly on the 
 earth. In a moment they were clasped hand in hand. The 
 pleasure of the snow, the excitement of being shut out from 
 the visible, or rather the seeing world, wrapped in the skirts 
 of a storm with a pretty girl for his sole companion, so wrought 
 upon Thomas, who loved to be moved and hated to will, that 
 
The Morning of Christmas Day. 53 
 
 he forgot Lucy, and stood in delight gazing certainly at the 
 falling snow, and not at Mary Boxall, but holding her hand 
 tight in his own.. She crept closer to him, for a little gentle 
 fear added to her pleasure, and in a moment more his arm was 
 about her — to protect her, I dare say, he said to himself. 
 
 Now, be it understood that Thomas was too much in love 
 with himself to be capable of loving any woman under the sun 
 after a noble and true fashion. He did not love- Lucy a great 
 deal better than he loved Mary. Only Mary was an ordinary 
 pretty blonde, and Lucy was dark, with great black eyes, and 
 far more distinguished in appearance than Mary. Besides, she 
 was poor, and that added greatly to the romance of the thing ; 
 for it made it quite noble in him to love her, and must make 
 her look up to him with such deserved admiration, that — 
 without reckoning the fact that the one was offered him, and 
 the other only not forbidden because there was as yet no 
 suspicion of his visits in Guild Court; — there was positively no 
 room to hesitate in choice between them. Still the preference 
 was not strong enough to keep his heart from beating fast 
 when he found the snow-storm had closed him in with Mary. 
 He had sense enough, however, to turn at once in order to 
 lead her back toward the road. But this was already a matter 
 of difficulty, for there was no path where the storm found 
 them, and with the gathering darkness the snow already hid 
 the high road across the heath ; so that the first question was 
 in what direction to go to find it. They kept moving, how- 
 ever, Mary leaning a good deal on Tom's arm, and getting 
 more and more frightened as no path came in view. Even 
 Tom began to be anxious about what was to come of it, and 
 although he did his best to comfort Mary, he soon found that, 
 before the least suspicion of actual danger, the whole romance 
 had vanished. And now the snow not only fell rapidly, but 
 the wind blew it sharply in their faces, and blinded them yet 
 more than merely with its darkness — not that this mattered 
 much as to the finding the way, for that was all hap-hazard 
 long ago. 
 
 After wandering, probably in a circuitous fashion, for more 
 than an hour, Mary burst out crying, and said she could not 
 walk a step farther. She would have thrown herself down had 
 not Tom prevented her. With the kindest encouragement; — 
 though he was really down-hearted himself — he persuaded her 
 to climb a little hight near them, which with great difficulty 
 she managed to do. From the top they saw a light, and 
 descending the opposite side of the hill, found themselves in a 
 
54 Guild Court. 
 
 road, where an empty cab stood by the door of a public-house. 
 After trying to persuade Mary to have some refreshment, to 
 which she refused to listen, insisting on being taken to hei 
 mother, Thomas succeeded in getting the cabman to drive 
 them to the station. In the railway carriage, Mary lay like 
 one dead, and although he took off both his coats to wrap 
 about her, she seemed quite unconscious of the attention. It 
 was with great difficulty that she reached her home ; for there 
 was no cab at the hackney station, and the streets were by this 
 time nearly a foot deep in snow. 
 
 Thomas was not sorry to give her up to her mother. She 
 immediately began to scold him. Then Mary spoke for the 
 first time, saying, with great effort : 
 
 "Don't, mother. If it had not been for Thomas, 1 should 
 have been dead long ago. He could not help it. Good-night, 
 Tom." 
 
 And she feebly held up her face to kiss him. Tom stooped 
 to meet it, and went away feeling tolerably miserable. He 
 was wet and cold. The momentary fancy for Mary was quite 
 gone out of him, and he could not help seeing that now he had 
 kissed her before her mother he had got himself into a scrape. 
 
 Before morning Mary was in a raging fever. 
 
 That night Charles Wither spent at a billiard-table in Lon- 
 don, playing, not high but long, sipping brandy and water all 
 the time, and thinking what a splendid girl Jane Boxall was. 
 But in the morning he looked all right. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 POPPIE. 
 
 Thomas woke the next morning with a well-deserved sense 
 of something troubling him. This too was a holiday, but he 
 did not feel in a holiday mood. It was not from any fear that 
 Mary might be the worse for her exposure, neither was it from 
 regret for his conduct toward her. What made him uncom- 
 fortable was the feeling rather than thought that now Mrs. 
 Boxall, Mary's mother, had a window that overlooked his 
 premises, a window over which he had no legal hold, but 
 which, on the contrary, gave her a ^iold over him. It was a 
 
Poppie. 55 
 
 window, also, of which she was not likely, as he thought, to 
 neglect the advantage. Nor did it console him to imagine 
 what Lucy would think, or — which was of more weight with 
 Thomas — say or do, if she should happen to hear of the affair 
 of yesterday. This, however, was very unlikely to happen ; for 
 she had not one friend in common with her cousins, except 
 just her lover. To-day being likewise a holiday, he had ar- 
 ranged to meet her at the Marble Arch, and take her to that 
 frightful source of amusement, Madame Tussaud's. Her 
 morning engagement led her to that neighborhood, and it was 
 a safe place to meet in — far from Highbury, Hackney, and 
 Bagot Street. 
 
 The snow was very deep. Mrs. Boxall tried to persuade 
 Lucy not to go. But where birds can pass, lovers can pass, 
 and she was just finishing her lesson to resplendent little 
 Miriam as Thomas got out of an omnibus at Park Street, that 
 he might saunter up on foot to the Marble Arch. 
 
 The vision of Hyde Park was such as rarely meets the eye 
 of a Londoner. It was almost grotesquely beautiful. Even 
 while waiting for a lovely girl, Thomas could not help taking 
 notice of the trees. Every bough, branch, twig, and shoot 
 supported a ghost of itself, or rather a white shadow of itself 
 upon the opposite side from where the black shadow fell. The 
 whole tree looked like a huge growth of that kind of coral 
 they call brain-coral, and the whole park a forest of such co- 
 ralline growths. But against the sky, which was one canopy 
 of unf alien snow, bright with the sun behind it, the brilliant 
 trees looked more like coral still, gray namely, and dull. 
 
 Thomas had not sauntered and gazed for more than a few 
 minutes before he saw Lucy coming down Great Cumberland 
 Street toward him. Instead of crossing the street to meet her, 
 he stood and watched her approach. There was even some 
 excuse for his coolness, she looked so picturesque flitting over 
 the spotless white in her violet dress, her red cloak, her grebe 
 muff. I do not know what her bonnet was ; for if a bonnet 
 be suitable, it allows the face to show as it ought, and who 
 can think of. a bonnet then ! But I know that they were a 
 pair of very dainty morocco boots that made little holes in the 
 snow across Oxford Street toward the Marble Arch where 
 Thomas stood, filled, I fear, with more pride in the lovely fig- 
 ure that was coming to Mm than love of her. 
 
 " Have I kept you waiting long, Thomas ? " said Lucy, with 
 the sweetest of smiles, her teeth white as snow in the summer 
 flush of her face. 
 
56 Guild Court. 
 
 " Oh !. about ten minutes," said Thomas. It wasn't five. 
 " "What a cold morning it is ! " 
 
 " I don't feel it much," answered Lucy. " I came away the 
 first moment I could. I am sorry I kept you waiting. " 
 
 " Don't mention it, Lucy. I should be only too happy to 
 wait for you as long every morning," said Thomas, gallantly, 
 not tenderly. 
 
 Lucy did not relish the tone. But what could she do ? A 
 tone is one of the most difficult things to fix a complaint 
 upon. Besides, she was not in a humor to complain of any 
 thing if she could help it. And, to tell the truth, she was a 
 little afraid of offending Thomas, for she looked up to him ten 
 times more than he deserved. 
 
 " How lovely your red cloak looked — quite a splendor — cross- 
 ing the snow ! " he continued. 
 
 And Lucy received this as a compliment to herself, and 
 smiled again. She took his arm — for lovers will do that 
 sometimes after it is quite out of fashion. But, will it be be- 
 lieved ? Thomas did not altogether like her doing so, just 
 because it was out of fashion. 
 
 " What a delightful morning it is," she said. " Oh ! do 
 look at the bars of the railing." 
 
 " Yes, I see. The snow has stuck to them. But how can 
 you look at such vulgar things as iron stanchions when you 
 have such a fairy forest as that before you ? " said the reader 
 of Byron, who was not seldom crossed by a feeling of dismay 
 at finding Lucy, as he thought, decidedly unpoetical. He 
 wanted to train her in poetry,- as, with shame let it flow from 
 my pen, in religion. 
 
 " But just look here," insisted Lucy, drawing him closer to 
 the fence. " You are short-sighted, surely, Thomas. Just 
 look there." 
 
 e ' Well, I see nothing but snow on both sides of the paling- 
 bars," returned Thomas. 
 
 " JSTow I am sure you are short-sighted. It is snow on the 
 one side, but not on the other. Look at the lovely crystals." 
 
 On the eastern quarter of each upright bar the snow had 
 accumulated and stuck fast to the depth of an inch : the wind 
 had been easterly. The fall had ceased some hours before 
 morning, and a strong frost had set in. That the moisture in 
 the air should have settled frozen upon the iron would not 
 have been surprising ; what Lucy wondered at was, that there 
 should be a growth, half an inch long, of slender crystals, like 
 the fungous growth commonly called mold, only closer, 
 
Popple. 57 
 
 standing out from the bar horizontally, as if they had grown 
 through it, out of the soil of the snow exactly opposite to it on 
 the other side. On the one side was a beaten mass of snow, 
 on the other a fantastic little forest of ice. 
 
 "I do not care about such microscopic beauties," said 
 Thomas, a little annoyed that she whom ho thought unpoeti- 
 cal could find out something lovely sooner than he could ; for 
 he was of those in whom a phantasm of self-culture is one of 
 the forms taken by their selfishness. They regard this culture 
 in relation to others with an eye to superiority, and do not 
 desire it purely for its own sake. " Those trees are much 
 more to my mind, now." 
 
 "Ah, but I do not love the trees less. Come into the park, 
 and then we can see them from all sides." 
 
 " The snow is too deep. There is no path there." 
 
 " I don't mind it. My boots are very thick." 
 
 " No, no ; come along. We shall get to Madame Tus- 
 saud's before there are many people there. It will be so much 
 nicer." 
 
 "I should like much better to stay here awhile," said Lucy, 
 half vexed and a little offended. 
 
 But Thomas did not heed her. He led the way up Oxford 
 Street. She had dropped his arm, and now walked by his 
 side. 
 
 " A nice lover to have ! " I think I hear some of my girl 
 readers say. But he was not so bad as this always, or even 
 gentle-tempered Lucy would have quarreled with him, if it 
 had been only for the sake of getting rid of him. The weight 
 of yesterday was upon him. And while they were walking up 
 the street, as handsome and fresh a couple as you would find 
 in all London, Mary was lying in her bed talking wildly about 
 Thomas. 
 
 Alas for the loving thoughts of youth and maidens, that go 
 out like the dove from the ark, and find no room on the face 
 of the desired world to fold their wings and alight ! Olive- 
 leaves they will gather in plenty, even when they are destined 
 never to build a nest in the branches of the olive tree. Let 
 such be strong notwithstanding, even when there are no more 
 olive-leaves to gather, for God will have mercy upon his youths 
 and maidens, and they shall grow men and women. Let who 
 can understand me. 
 
 Having thus left the beauties of nature behind them for the 
 horrible mockery of art at Madame Tussaud's, Thomas became 
 aware from Lucy's silence that he had not been behaving well 
 
58 Guild Court. 
 
 to her. He therefore set about being more agreeable, and be- 
 fore they reached Baker Street she had his arm again, and they 
 were talking and laughing gayly enough. Behind them, at 
 some distance, trotted a small apparition "which I must now 
 describe, 
 
 It was a little girl, perhaps ten years old, looking as wild as 
 any savage in Canadian forest. Her face was pretty, as far as 
 could be judged through the dirt that variegated its surface. 
 Her eyes were black and restless. Her dress was a frock, of 
 what stuff it would have been impossible to determine, scarcely 
 reaching below her knees, and rent upward into an irregular 
 fringe of ribbons that frostily fanned her little legs as she fol- 
 lowed the happy couple, in a pair of shoes much too large for 
 her, and already worn into such holes as to afford more refuge 
 for the snow than for her feet. Her little knees were very 
 black, and oh ! those poor legs, caked and streaked with 
 dirt, and the delicate skin of them thickened and cracked with 
 frost and east winds and neglect ! They could carry her 
 through tbe snow satisfactorily, however — with considerable 
 suffering to themselves, no doubt. But Poppie was not bound 
 to be miserable because Poppie's legs were anything but com- 
 fortable ; there is no selfishness in not being sorry for one's 
 own legs. Her hair, which might have been expected to be 
 quite black, was mingled With a reddish tinge from exposure 
 to the hot sun of the preceding summer. It hung in tangled 
 locks about her, without protection of any sort. Hw strange 
 the snow must have looked upon it ! ISTo doubt she had 
 been out in the storm. Her face peeped out from among 
 it with the wild innocence of a gentle and shy but 
 brave little animal of the forest. Purposely she followed 
 Lucy's red cloak. But this was not the first time she had fol- 
 lowed her ; like a lost pup, she would go after this one and 
 that one — generally a lady — for a whole day from place to 
 place, obedient to some hidden drawing of the heart. Shehadi 
 often seen Lucy start from Guild Court, and had followed her 
 to the railway ; and, at length, by watching first one station 
 and then another, had found out where she went every morn- 
 ing. Knowing then that she could find her when she pleased, 
 she did not follow her more than twice a week or so, sometimes 
 not once — just as the appetite woke in her for a little of her 
 society. But my reader must see more of her before he or she 
 will be interested enough in her either to please me or to care 
 to hear more about the habits of this little wild animal of the 
 stone forest of London. She had never seen Lucy with a gen- 
 
Poppie. 59 
 
 tleman before. I wonder if she had ever in her little life 
 walked side by side with anybody herself ; she was always trot- 
 ting behind. This was the little girl whom Miss Matilda 
 Kitely, her father's princess, called Poppie, and patronized, al- 
 though she was at least two years older than herself, as near as 
 could be guessed. Nor had she any other name ; for no one 
 knew where she had come from, or who were her parents, and 
 she herself cared as little about the matter as anybody. 
 
 The lovers were some distance ahead of Poppie, as they had 
 been all the way, when they entered the passage leading to the 
 wax works. The instant she lost sight of them so suddenly, 
 Poppie started in pursuit, lost one of her great shoes, and, in- 
 stead of turning to pick it up, kicked the other after it— no great 
 loss — and scampered at full barefooted speed over the snow, 
 which was here well trodden. They could hardly have more than 
 disappeared at the further end when she arrived at the entrance. 
 
 Poppie never thought about might or might not, but only 
 about could or could not. So the way being open, and she 
 happening to have no mind that morning to part with her com- 
 pany before she was compelled, she darted in to see whether 
 she could not get another peep of the couple. Not only was the 
 red cloak a fountain of warmth to Poppie's imagination, but 
 the two seemed so happy together that she felt in most desira- 
 ble society. 
 
 Thomas was in the act of paying for admission at the turn- 
 stile, when she caught sight of them again. The same mo- 
 ment that he admitted them, the man turned away from his 
 post. In an instant Poppie had crept through underneath, 
 dodged the man, and followed them, taking care, however, 
 not to let them see her, for she had not the smallest desire 
 to come to speech with them. 
 
 The gorgeousness about her did not produce much effect 
 upon Poppie's imagination. What it might have produced was 
 counteracted by a strange fancy that rose at once under the 
 matted covering of that sunburnt hair. She had seen more 
 than one dead man carried home upon a stretcher. She had 
 seen the miserable funerals of the poor, and the desolate coffin 
 put in the earth. But she knew that of human beings there 
 were at least two very different breeds, of one of which she 
 knew something of the habits and customs, while of the other 
 she knew nothing, except that they lived in great houses, from 
 which they were carried away in splendid black carriages, 
 drawn by ever so many horses, with great black feathers grow- 
 ing out of their heads. What became of them after that she 
 
60 Guild Court. 
 
 had not the smallest idea, for no doubt they would be disposed 
 of in a manner very different from the funerals she had 
 been allowed to be present at. When she entered the wax- 
 work exhibition the question was solved. This was one of the 
 places to which they carried the grand people after they were 
 dead. Here they set them up, dressed in their very best, to 
 stand there till — ah, till when, Poppie ? That question she 
 made no attempt to answer. She did not like the look of the 
 dead people. She thought it a better way to put them in the 
 earth and have done with them, for they had a queer look, as if 
 they did not altogether like the affair themselves. And when 
 one of them stared at her, she dodged its eyes, and had enough 
 to do between them all and the showman ; for though Poppie 
 was not afraid of anybody, she had an instinctive knowledge 
 that it was better to keep out of some people's way. She fol- 
 lowed the sight of her friend, however, till the couple went into 
 the "chamber of horrors," as if there was not horror enough 
 in seeing humanity imitated so abominably in the outer room. 
 
 Yes, I am sorry to say it, Lucy went into that place, but 
 she did not know what she was doing, and it was weeks before 
 she recovered her self-respect after it. However, as Thomas 
 seemed interested, she contrived to endure it for a little while 
 — to endure, I do not mean the horror, for that was not very 
 great — but the vulgarity of it all. Poppie lingered, not dar- 
 ing to follow them, and at length, seeing a large party arrive, 
 began to look about for some place of refuge. In the art of 
 vanishing she was an adept, with an extraordinary proclivity 
 toward holes and corners. In fact, she could hardly see a 
 hole big enough to admit her without darting into it at once 
 to sea if it would do — for what, she could not have specified 
 — but for general purposes of refuge. She considered all such 
 places handy, and she found one handy now. 
 
 Close to the entrance, in a recess, was a couch, and on this 
 couch lay a man. He did not look like the rest of the dead 
 people, for his eyes were closed. Then the dead people went 
 to bed sometimes, and to sleep. Happy dead people — in abed 
 like this ! For there was a black velvet cover thrown over the 
 sleeping dead man, so that nothing but his face was visible ; 
 and to the eyes of Poppie this pall looked so soft, so comfort- 
 able, so enticing ! It was a place to dream in. And could 
 there be any better hiding-place than this ? If the man was 
 both dead and sleeping, he would hardly object to having her 
 for a companion. But as she sent one parting peep round the 
 corner of William Pitt or Dick Turpin, after her friends, ere 
 
Poppie. 61 
 
 she forsook them to lie down with the dead, one of the attend- 
 ants caught siglrfc of her, and advanced to expel the dangerous 
 intruder. Poppie turned and fled, sprang into the recess, 
 crept under the cover, like a hunted mouse, and lay still, the 
 bed-fellow of no less illustrious a personage than the Duke of 
 Wellington, and cold as he must have been, Poppie found him 
 warmer than her own legs. The man never thought of fol- 
 lowing her in that direction, and supposed that she had 
 escaped as she had managed to intrude. 
 
 Poppie found the place so comfortable that she had no in- 
 clination to change her quarters in haste. True, it was not 
 nice to feel the dead man when she put out foot or hand ; but 
 then she need not put out foot or hand. And Poppie was not 
 used to feeling warm. It was a rare sensation, and she found 
 it delightful. Every now and then she peeped from under the 
 mortclotli — for the duke was supposed to be lying in state — to 
 see whether Thomas and Lucy were coming. But at length, 
 what with the mental and physical effects of warmth and com- 
 fort combined, she fell fast asleep, and dreamed she was in a 
 place she had been in once before, though she had forgotten 
 all about it. From the indefinite account she gave of it, I can 
 only conjecture that it was the embodiment of the vaguest 
 memory of a motherly bosom ; that it was her own mother's 
 bosom she recalled even thus faintly, I much doubt. But 
 from this undefined bliss she was suddenly aroused by a rough 
 hand and a rough voice loaded with a curse. Poppie was used 
 to curses, and did not mind them a bit — somehow they never 
 hurt her — but she was a little frightened at the face of indig- 
 nant surprise and wrath which she saw bending over her when 
 she awoke. It was that of one of the attendants, with a police- 
 man beside him, for whom he had sent before he awoke the child, 
 allowing her thus a lew moments of unconscious blessedness, with 
 the future hanging heavy in the near distance. But the duke 
 had slept none the less soundly that she was by his side, and had 
 lost none of the warmth that she had gained. It was well for 
 Ruth that there were no police when she slept in Boaz's barn ; still 
 better that some of the clergymen, who serve God by reading 
 her story on the Sunday, were not the magistrates before 
 whom the police carried her. With a tight grasp on her arm, 
 Poppie was walked away in a manner uncomfortable certainly 
 to one who was accustomed to trot along at her own sweet 
 will — and a sweet will it was, that for happiness was content 
 to follow and keep within sight of some one that drew her, 
 without longing for even a word of grace — to what she had 
 
62 Guild Court. 
 
 learned to call the jug, namely, the police prison ; but my 
 reader must not spend too much of his stock of sympathy upon 
 Poppie ; for she did not mind it much. To be sure in such 
 weather the jug was very cold, but she had the memories of 
 the past to comfort her, the near past, spent in the society of 
 the dead duke, warm and consoling. When she fell asleep on 
 the hard floor of the lock-up, she dreamed that she was dead 
 and buried, and trying to be warm and comfortable, as she 
 ought to be in her grave, only somehow or another she could 
 not get things to come right ; the wind would blow through 
 the chinks of her pauper's coffin ; and she wished she had been 
 a duke or a great person generally, to be so grandly buried as 
 they were in the cemetery in Baker Street. But Poppie was 
 far less to be pitied for the time, cold as she was, than Mary 
 Boxall, lying half asleep and half awake and all dreaming in 
 that comfortable room, with a blazing fire, and her own mother 
 sitting beside it. True, likewise, Poppie heard a good many 
 bad words and horrid speeches in the jug, but she did not heed, 
 them much. Indeed, they did not even distress her, she was 
 so used to them ; nor, upon occasion, was her own language 
 the very pink of propriety. How could it be ? The vocabu- 
 lary in use in the houses she knew had ten vulgar words in it 
 to one that Mattie, for instance, would hear. But whether 
 Poppie, when speaking the worst language that ever crossed 
 her lips, was lower, morally and spiritually considered, than 
 the young lord in the nursery, who, speaking with articulation 
 clear cut as his features, and in language every word of which 
 is to be found in Johnson, refuses his brother a share of his 
 tart and gobbles it up himself, there is to me, knowing that if 
 Poppie could swear she could share, no question whatever. 
 G-od looks after his children in the cellars as well as in the 
 nurseries of London. 
 
 Of course she was liberated in the morning, for the police 
 magistrates of London are not so cruel as some of those coun- 
 try clergymen who, not content with preaching about the jus- 
 tice of G-od from the pulpit, must seat themselves on the 
 magistrate's bench to dispense the injustice of men. If she 
 had been brought before some of them for sleeping under a 
 hay-stack, and having no money in her pocket, as if the night 
 sky, besides being a cold tester to lie under, were something 
 wicked as well, she would have been sent to prison ; for, in- 
 stead of believing in the blessedness of the poor, they are of 
 Miss Kilmansegg's opinion, "that people with nought are 
 naughty." The poor little thing was only reprimanded for 
 
Mr. Simon's Attempt. 63 
 
 being where she had no business to be, and sent away. But 
 it was no wonder if, after this adventure, she should know 
 Thomas again when she saw him ; nay, that she should some- 
 times trot after him for the length of a street or so. But he 
 never noticed her. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 mk. simon's attempt. 
 
 The next day the sun shone brilliantly upon the snow as 
 Thomas walked to the counting-house. He was full of pleas- 
 ant thoughts, crossed and shadowed by a few of a different 
 kind. He was not naturally deceitful, and the sense of hav- 
 ing a secret which must get him into trouble if it were dis- 
 covered, and discovered it must be some day, could not fail to 
 give him uneasiness notwithstanding the satisfaction which 
 the romance of the secrecy of a love affair afforded him. 
 Nothing, however, as it seemed to him, could be done, for he 
 was never ready to do anything to which he was neither led 
 nor driven. He could not generate action, or, rather, he had 
 never yet begun to generate action. 
 
 As soon as he. reached Bagot Street, he tapped at the glass 
 door, and was admitted to Mr. Boxall's room. He found 
 him with a look of anxiety upon a face not used to express 
 that emotion. 
 
 " I hope Miss Mary — " Thomas began, with a little hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 " She's very ill," said her father, "very ill, indeed. It was 
 enough to be the death of her. Excessively imprudent." 
 
 Now Mary had been as much to blame, if there was any 
 blame at all, for the present results of the Christmas morning, 
 as Thomas ; but he had still generosity enough left not to say 
 so to her father. 
 
 " I am very sorry," he said. "We were caught in the snow, 
 and lost our way." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. I oughtn't to be too hard upon young 
 people," returned Mr. Boxall, remembering, perhaps, that he 
 had his share of the blame in leaving them so much to them- 
 selves. 
 
64: Guild Court. 
 
 "I only hope she may get through it. But she's in a bad 
 way. She was quite delirious last night." 
 
 Thomas was really concerned for a moment, and looked so. 
 Mr. Boxall saw it, and spoke more kindly. 
 
 "I trust, however, that there is not any immediate danger. 
 It's no use you coming to see her. She can't see anybody but 
 the doctor." 
 
 This was a relief to Thomas. But it was rather alarming 
 to find that Mr. Boxall clearly expected him to want to go to 
 see her. 
 
 " I am very sorry," he said again ; and that was all he could 
 find to say. 
 
 "Well, well," returned his master, accepting the words as 
 if they had been an apology. "We must do our work, any- 
 how. Business is the first thing, you know." 
 
 Thomas took this as a dismissal, and retired to the outer 
 office, in a mood considerably different from that which Mr. 
 Boxall attributed to him. 
 
 A clerk's duty is a hard one, and this ought to be acknowl- 
 edged. Neither has he any personal interest in the result of the 
 special labor to which he is for the time devoted, nor can this la- 
 bor have much interest of its own beyond what comes of getting 
 things square, and the sense of satisfaction which springs from 
 activity, and the success of completion. And it is not often 
 that a young man is fortunate enough to have a master who 
 will not only appreciate his endeavors, but will let him know 
 that he does appreciate them. There are reasons for the latter 
 fact beyond disposition and temperament. The genial em- 
 ployer has so often found that a strange process comes into 
 operation in young and old, which turns the honey of praise 
 into the poison of self-conceit, rendering those to whom it is 
 given disagreeable, and ere long insufferable, that he learns to 
 be very chary in the administration of the said honey, lest 
 subordinates think themselves indispensable, and even neglect 
 the very virtues which earned them the praise. A man must 
 do his duty, if he would be a free man, whether he likes it or 
 not, and whether it is appreciated or not. But if he can re- 
 gard it as the will of God, the work not fallen upon him by 
 chance, but given him to do, understanding that every thing 
 well done belongs to His kingdom, and every thing ill done to 
 the kingdom of darkness, surely even the irksomeness of his 
 work will be no longer insuperable. But Thomas had never 
 been taught this. He did not know that his day's work had 
 anything to do with the saving of his soul. Poor Mr. Simon 
 
Mr. Simon's Attempt 65 
 
 gave him of what he had, like his namesake at the gate of the 
 temple, but all he had served only to make a man creep; it 
 could not make him stand up and walk. "A servant with 
 this clause," — that is the clause, "for thy sake," — wrote 
 George Herbert : 
 
 " A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 But Mr. Simon could not understand the half of this, and 
 nothing at all of the essential sacredness of the work which 
 God would not give a man to do if it were not sacred. Hence 
 Thomas regarded his work only as drudgery ; considered 
 it beneath him ; judged himself fitter for the army, and had 
 hankerings after gold lace. He dabbled with the fancy that 
 there was a mistake somewhere in the arrangement of mun- 
 dane affairs, a serious one, for was he not fitted by nature to 
 move in some showy orbit, instead of being doomed to rise in 
 Highbury, shine in Bagot Street, and set yet again in High- 
 bury ? And so, although he did not absolutely neglect his 
 work, for he hated to be found fault with, he just did it, not 
 entering into it with any spirit ; and as he was clever enough, 
 things went on with tolerable smoothness. 
 
 That same evening, when he went home from his German 
 lesson of a quarter of an hour, and his interview with Lucy of 
 an hour and a quarter, he found Mr. Simon with his mother. 
 Thomas would have left the room ; for his conscience now 
 made him wish to avoid Mr. Simon — who had pressed him so 
 hard with the stamp of religion that the place was painful, 
 although the impression was fast disappearing. 
 
 " Thomas," said his mother, with even more than her usual 
 solemnity, " Thomas, come here. We want to have some con- 
 versation with you." 
 
 " I have not had my tea yet, mother." 
 
 " You can have your tea afterward. I wish you to come 
 here now." 
 
 Thomas obeyed, and threw himself with some attempt at 
 nonchalance into a chair. 
 
 ''Thomas, my friend," began Mr. Simon, with a tone — how 
 am I to describe it ? I could easily, if I chose to use a con- 
 temptuous word, but I do not wish to intrude on the region of 
 the comic satirist, and must therefore use a periphrase — with 
 5 
 
66 Guild Court 
 
 the tone which corresponds to the long face some religious 
 people assume the moment the conversation turns toward 
 sacred things, and in which a certain element of the ludicrous, 
 because affected, goes far to destroy the solemnity, " I am un- 
 easy about you. Do not think me interfering, for I watch for 
 your soul as one that must give an account. I have to give an 
 account of you, for at one time you were the most promising 
 seal of my ministry. But your zeal has grown cold ; you are 
 unfaithful to your first love ; and when the Lord cometh as 
 a thief in the night, you will be to him as one of the luke- 
 warm, neither cold nor hot, my poor friend. He will spue you 
 out of his mouth. And I may be to blame for this, though at 
 present I know not how. Ah, Thomas ! Thomas ! Do not let 
 me have shame of you at his appearing. The years are fleet- 
 ing fast, and although he delay his coming, yet he will come ; 
 and he will slay his enemies with the two-edged sword that 
 proceedeth out of his mouth." 
 
 Foolish as Mr. Simon was, be was better than Mr. Potter, if 
 Mr. Kitely's account of him was correct ; for he was in earn- 
 est, and acted upon his belief. But he knew nothing of human 
 nature, and as Thomas grew older, days, even hours, had 
 widened the gulf between them, till his poor feeble influences 
 could no longer reach across it, save as unpleasant reminders 
 of something that had been. Happy is the youth of whom a 
 sensible, good clergyman has a firm hold — a firm human 
 hold, I mean — not a priestly one, such as Mr. Simon's. But 
 if the clergyman be feeble and foolish, the worst of it is, that 
 the youth will transfer his growing contempt for the clergy- 
 man to the religion of which he is such a poor representative. 
 I know another clergyman — perhaps my readers may know 
 ! him too — who, instead of lecturing Thomas through the me- 
 j dium of a long string of Scripture phrases, which he would 
 have had far too much reverence to use after such a fashion, 
 would have taken him by the shoulder, and said, " Tom, my 
 boy, you've got something on your mind. I hope it's nothing 
 wrong. But whatever it is, mind you come to me if I can be 
 of any use to you." 
 
 To such a man there would have been a chance of Tom's 
 making a clean breast of it — not yet, though — not before he 
 got into deep water. But Mr. Simon had not the shadow of 
 a chance of making him confess. How could Thomas tell 
 such a man that he was in love with one beautiful girl, and 
 had foolishly got himself into a scrape with another ? 
 
 By this direct attack upon him in the presence of his 
 
Mr. Simon's Attempt. 67 
 
 mother, the man had lost the last remnant of his influence 
 over him, and/ in fact, made him feel as if he should like to 
 punch his head, if it were not that he could not bear to hurt 
 the meek little sheep. He did not know that Mr. Simon had 
 been rather a bruiser at college — small and meek as he was — 
 only that was before his conversion. If he had cared to def eud 
 himself from such an attack, which I am certain he would 
 not have doubled fist to do, Thomas could not have stood one 
 minute before him. 
 
 " Why do you not speak, Thomas ? " said his mother, gently. 
 
 "What do you want me to say, mother ?" asked Thomas 
 in return, with rising anger. He never could resist except his 
 temper came to his aid. 
 
 "Say what you ought to say," returned Mrs. Worboise, 
 more severely. 
 
 " What ought I to say, Mr. Simon ? " said Thomas, with a 
 tone of mock submission, not so marked, however, that Mr. 
 Simon, who was not sensitive, detected it. 
 
 " Say, my young friend, that you will carry the matter to 
 the throne of grace, and ask the aid — " 
 
 But I would rather not record sacred words which, whatever 
 they might mean in Mr. Simon's use of them, mean so little 
 in relation to my story. 
 
 Thomas, however, was not yet so much of a hypocrite as his 
 training had hitherto tended to make him, and again he sat 
 silent for a few moments, during which his mother and her 
 friend sat silent likewise, giving him time for reflection. 
 Then he spoke, anxious to get rid of the whole unpleasant affair. 
 
 "I will j>romise to think of what you have said, Mr. Simon." 
 
 " Yes, Thomas, but how will you think of it ? " said his 
 mother. 
 
 Mr. Simon, however, glad to have gained so much of a 
 concession, spoke more genially. He would not drive the 
 matter further at present. 
 
 "Do, dear friend, and may He guide you into the truth. 
 Eemember, Thomas, the world and the things of this world 
 are passing away. You are a child no longer, and are herewith 
 called upon to take your part, for God or against him — " 
 
 And so on, till Thomas grew weary as well as annoyed. 
 
 "Will you tell me what fault you have to find with me ?" 
 he said at last. " I am regular at the Sunday-school, I am sure." 
 
 "Yes, that we must allow, and heartily," answered Mr. 
 Simon, turning to Mrs. Worboise as if to give her the initia- 
 tive, for he thought her rather hard with her son ; "only I 
 
68 Guild Court. 
 
 would just suggest to you, Mr. ^Thomas — I don't ask you the 
 question, but I would have you ask yourself — whether your 
 energy is equal to what it has been ? Take care lest, while 
 you teach others, you yourself should be a castaway. Kemem- 
 ber that nothing but faith in the merits — " 
 
 Thus started again, he went on, till Thomas was forced loose 
 from all sympathy with things so unmercifully driven upon 
 him, and vowed in his heart that he would stand it no longer. 
 
 Still speaking, Mr. Simon rose to take his leave. Thomas, 
 naturally polite, and anxious to get out of the scrutiny of those 
 cold blue eyes of his mother, went to open the door for him, 
 and closed it behind him with a sigh of satisfaction. Then 
 he had his tea and went to his own room, feeling wrong, and 
 yet knowing quite well that he was going on to be and to do 
 wrong. Saintship like his mother's and Mr. Simon's was out 
 of his reach. 
 
 Perhaps it was. But there were other things essential to 
 saintship that were within his reach — and equally essential to 
 the manliness of a gentleman, which he would have been con- 
 siderably annoyed to be told that he was in much danger of 
 falling short of, if he did not in some way or other mend his 
 ways, and take heed to his goings. 
 
 The next morning mother and pastor held a long and, my 
 reader will believe, a dreary consultation over the state of 
 Thomas. I will not afflict him with a recital of what was said 
 and resaicl a dozen times before they parted. If Mr. "Worboise 
 had overheard it, he would have laughed, not heartily, but 
 with a perfection of contempt, for he despised all these things, 
 and would ha\e despised better things, too, if he had known 
 them. 
 
 The sole result was that his mother watched Thomas with 
 yet greater assiduity; and Thomas began to feel that her 
 eyes were never off him, and to dislike them because he feared 
 them. He felt them behind his back. They haunted him in 
 Bagot Street. Happy with Lucy, even there those eyes fol- 
 lowed him, as if searching to find out his secret ; and a vague 
 fear kept growing upon him that the discovery was at hand. 
 Hence he became more and more cunning to conceal his visits. 
 He dreaded what questions those questioning eyes might set 
 the tongue asking. For he had not yet learned to lie. He 
 prevaricated, no doubt ; but lying may be a step yet further on 
 the downward road. 
 
 One good thing only came out of it all : he grew more and 
 more in love with Lucy. He almost loved her. 
 
Business. 69 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 BUSINESS. 
 
 For some days Mr. Boxall was so uneasy about Mary that 
 he forgot his appointment with Mr. Worboise. At length, 
 however, when a thaw had ^et in, and she had begun to 
 improve, he went to call upon his old friend. 
 
 "Ah, Boxall! glad to see you. What a man you are to 
 make an appointment with ! Are you aware, sir, of the value 
 of time in London, not to say in this life generally ? Are you 
 aware that bills are due at certain dates, and that the man who 
 has not money at his banker's to meet them is dishonored — 
 euphemistically shifted to the bill ? " 
 
 Thus jocosely did Mr. Worboise play upon the well-known 
 business habits of his friend, who would rather, or at least 
 believed he would rather, go to the scaffold than allow a bill of 
 his to be dishonored. But Mr. Boxall was in a good humor, 
 too, this morning. 
 
 "At least, Worboise," he answered, "I trust when the said 
 bill is dishonored, you may not be the holder." 
 
 "Thank you. I hope not. I don't like losing money." 
 
 " Oh, don't mistake me ! I meant for my sake, not yours." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because you would skin the place before you took the 
 pound of flesh. I know you ! " 
 
 Mr. Worboise winced. Mr. Boxall thought he had gone too 
 far, that is, had been rude. But Mr. Worboise laughed aloud. 
 
 "You flatter me, Boxall," he said. " I had no idea I was 
 such a sharp practitioner. But you ought to know best. 
 We'll take care, at all events, to have this will of yours right." 
 
 • So saying, he went to a drawer to get it out. But Mr. Box- 
 all still feared that his friend had thought him rude. 
 
 " The fact is," he said, " I have been so uneasy about Mary." 
 
 "Why? What's the matter ?" interrupted Mr. Worboise, 
 stopping on his way across the room. 
 
 " Don't you know ? " returned Mr. Boxall, in some surprise. 
 " She's never got over that Hampstead Heath affair. She's 
 been in bed ever since." 
 
 " God bless me !" exclaimed the other. "I never heard a 
 word of it. What was it ? " 
 
 So Mr. Boxall told as much as he knew of the story, and 
 any way there was not much to tell. 
 
70 Guild Court. 
 
 " Never .heard a word of it ! " repeated the lawyer. 
 
 The statement made Mr. Boxall more uneasy than he cared 
 to show. 
 
 " But I must be going," he said ; "so let's have this trouble- 
 some will signed and done with." 
 
 " Not in the least a troublesome one, I assure you. Eather 
 too simple, I think. Here it is." 
 
 And Mr. Worboise began to read it over point by point to 
 his client. 
 
 "All right," said the latter. "Mrs. Boxall to have every- 
 thing to do with it as she pleases. It is the least I can say, 
 for she has been a good wife to me." 
 
 ' ' And will be for many years to come, I hope," said Mr. 
 "Worboise. 
 
 "I hope so. Well, go on." 
 
 Mr. Worboise went on. 
 
 "All right," said his client again. " Failing my wife, my 
 daughters to have everything, as indeed they will whether my 
 wife fails or not — at last, I mean, for she would leave it to 
 them, of course." 
 
 " Well," said the lawyer, "and who comes next ? " 
 
 " Nobody. Who do you think ?" 
 
 "It's rather a short — doesn't read quite business-like. Put 
 in any body, just for the chance — a poor one, ha ! ha ! with such 
 a fine family as yours." 
 
 " Stick yourself in then, old fellow ; and though it won't do 
 you any good, it will be an expression of my long esteem and 
 friendship for you." 
 
 " What a capital stroke ! " thought Mr. Boxall. " I've 
 surely got that nonsense out of his head now. He'll never 
 think of it more. I was country-bred." 
 
 " Thank you, old friend," said Mr. Worboise, quietly, and 
 entered his own name in succession. 
 
 The will was soon finished, signed, and witnessed by two of 
 Mr. Worboise's clerks. 
 
 " Now what is to be done with it ?" asked Mr. Worboise. 
 
 " Oh, you take care of it for me. You have more storage— 
 for that kind of thing, I mean, than I have. I should never 
 know where to find it." 
 
 " If you want to make any alteration in it, there's your box, 
 you know." 
 
 " Why, what alteration could I want to make in it ? " 
 
 " That's not for me to suppose. You might quarrel with 
 me though, and want to strike out my name." 
 
Business. 71 
 
 " True. I might quarrel with my wife too, mightn't I, and 
 strike her name out ? " 
 
 " It might happen." 
 
 " Yes ; anything might happen. Meantime I am content 
 with sufficient probabilities." 
 
 " By the way, how is that son of mine getting on ?" 
 
 " Oh, pretty well. He's regular enough, and I hear no 
 complaints of him from Stopper ; and Ms sharp enough, I 
 assure you." 
 
 " But you're not over-satisfied with him yourself, eh ? " 
 
 " Well, to speak the truth, between you and me, I don't 
 think he's cut out for our business." 
 
 " That's much the same as saying he's of no use for busi- 
 ness of any sort. " 
 
 " I don't know. He does his work fairly well, as I say, but 
 he don't seem to have any heart in it." 
 
 " Well, what do you think he is fit for now ? " 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know. You could easily make a fine 
 gentleman of him." 
 
 Mr. Boxall spoke rather bitterly, for he had already had 
 flitting doubts in his mind whether Tom had been behaving 
 well to Mary. It had become very evident since her illness 
 that she was very much in love with Tom, and that he should 
 be a hair's-breadth less in love with her was offense enough to 
 rouse the indignation of a man like Mr. Boxall, good-natured 
 as he was ; and that he had never thought it worth while even 
 to mention the fact of her illness to his father, was strange to 
 a degree. 
 
 " But I can't afford to make a fine gentleman of him. I've 
 got his sister to provide for as well as my fine gentleman. I 
 don't mean to say that I could not leave him as much, perhaps 
 more than you can to each of your daughters ; but girls are so 
 different from boys. Girls can live upon anything ; fine 
 gentlemen can't." And here Mr. Worboise swore. 
 
 "Well, it's no business of mine," said Mr. Boxall. "If 
 there's anything I can do for him, of course, for your sake, 
 Worboise — " 
 
 " The rascal has offended him somehow," said Mr. Worboise 
 to himself. " It's that Hampstead business. Have patience 
 with the young dog," he said, aloud. " That's all I ask you 
 to do for him. Who knows what may come out of him 
 yet ? " 
 
 '" That's easy to do. As I tell you, there's no fault to find 
 with him," answered Mr. Boxall, afraid that he had exposed 
 
72 N Guild Court 
 
 some feeling that had better have been hidden. " Only one 
 must speak the truth." 
 
 With these words Mr. Boxall took his leave. 
 
 Mr. Worboise sat and cogitated. 
 
 "There's something in that rascal's head, now;" he said to 
 himself. "His mother and that Simon will make a spoon of 
 him. I want to get some sense out of him before he's trans- 
 lated to kingdom-come. But how the deuce to get any sense 
 out when there's so precious little in ! I found seventeen vol- 
 umes of Byron on his book-shelves last night. I'll have a talk 
 to his mother about him. Not that that's of much use ! " 
 
 To her husband Mrs. Worboise always wore a resigned air, 
 believing herself unequally yoked to an unbeliever with a bond 
 which she was not at liberty to break, because it was enjoined 
 upon her to win her husband by her chaste conversation coup- 
 led with fear. Therefore when he went into her room that 
 evening, she received him as usual with a look which might 
 easily be mistaken, and not much mistaken either, as ex- 
 pressive of a sense of injury. 
 
 "Well, my dear," her husband began, in a conciliatory, 
 indeed jocose, while yet complaining tone, "do you know 
 what this precious son of ours has been about ? Killing Mary 
 Boxall in a snow-storm, and never telling me a word about it. 
 I suppose you know the whole story, though ? You might 
 have told me." 
 
 "Indeed, Mr. Worboise, I am sorry to say I know nothing 
 about Thomas nowadays. I can't understand him. He's 
 quite changed. But if I were not laid on a couch of suffering 
 — not that I complain of that — I should not come to you to 
 ask what he was about. I should find out for myself." 
 
 "I wish to goodness you were able." 
 
 "Do not set your wish against His will," returned Mrs. 
 Worboise, with a hopeless reproof in her tone, implying that it 
 was of no use to say so, but she must bear her testimony not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 "Oh! no, no," returned her husband; "nothing of the 
 sort. Nothing further from my intention. But what is to 
 be done about this affair ? You know it would please you as 
 well as me to see him married to Mary Boxall. She's a good 
 girl, that you know." 
 
 " If I were sure that she was a changed character, there is noth- 
 ing I should like better, I confess — that is, of worldly interest." 
 
 " Come, come, Mrs. Worboise. I don't think you're quite 
 fair to the girl." 
 
Business. 73 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Worboise ? " 
 
 " I mean that just now you seemed in considerable doubt 
 whether or not your son was a changed character, as 
 you call it. And yet you say that if Mary Boxall were a 
 changed character, you would not wish anything more — that 
 is, of worldly interest — than to see him married to Mary 
 Boxall. Is that fair to Mary Boxall ? I put the question 
 merely." 
 
 " There would be the more hope for him ; for the Scripture 
 says that the believing wife may save her husband." 
 
 Mr. Worboise winked inwardly to himself. Because his 
 wife's religion was selfish, and therefore irreligious, therefore, 
 religion was a humbug, and therefore his conduct might be as 
 selfish as ever he chose to make it. 
 
 "But how about Mary ? Why should you wish her, if she 
 was a changed character, to lose her advantage by marrying 
 one who is not so ? " 
 
 " She might change him, Mr. Worboise, as I have said al- 
 ready," returned the lady, decisively ; "for she might speak 
 with authority to one who knew nothing about these things. " 
 
 " Yes. But if Thomas were changed, and Mary not — what 
 then?" 
 
 Mrs. Worboise murmured something not quite audible about 
 "I and the children whom God hath given me." 
 
 "At the expense of the children he hasn't given you ! " said 
 Mr. Worboise, at a venture ; and chuckled now, for he saw his 
 victory in her face. 
 
 But Mr. Worboise's chuckle always made Mrs. Worboise 
 shut up, and not another word could he get out of her that 
 evening. She never took refuge in her illness, but in an ab- 
 solute dogged silence, which she persuaded herself that she was 
 suffering for the truth's sake. 
 
 Her husband's communication made her still more anxious 
 about Thomas, and certain suspicions she had begun to enter- 
 tain about the German master became more decided. In her 
 last interview with Mr. Simon, she had hinted to him that 
 Thomas ought to be watched, that they might know whether 
 he really went to his German lesson or went somewhere else. 
 But Mr. Simon was too much of a gentleman not to recoil 
 from the idea, and Mrs. Worboise did not venture to press it. 
 When she saw him again, however, she suggested — I think I 
 had better give the substance of the conversation, for it would 
 not in itself be interesting to my readers — she suggested her 
 fears that his German master had been mingling German 
 
74 Guild Court. 
 
 theology with his lessons, and so corrupting the soundness of 
 his faith. This seemed to Mr. Simon very possible indeed, 
 for he knew how insidious the teachers of such doctrines are, 
 and, glad to do something definite for his suffering friend, he 
 offered to call upon the man and see what sort of person he 
 was. This offer Mrs. Worboise gladly accepted, without think- 
 ing that of all men to find out any insidious person, Mr. Simon, 
 in his simplicity, was the least likely. 
 
 But now the difficulty arose that they knew neither his name 
 nor where he lived, and they could not ask Thomas about him. 
 So Mr. Simon undertook the task of finding the man by in- 
 quiry in the neighborhood of Bagot Street. 
 
 "My friend." he said, stepping the next morning into Mr. 
 Eatery's shop,— he had a way of calling everybody his friend, 
 thinking so to recommend the Gospel. 
 
 "At your service, sir," returned Mr. Kitely, brusquely, as 
 he stepped from behind one of the partitions in the shop, and 
 saw the little clerical apparition which had not even waited to 
 see the form of the human being to whom he applied the sacred 
 epithet. 
 
 " I only wanted to ask you," drawled Mr. Simon, in a drawl 
 both of earnestness and unconscious affectation, " whether you 
 happen to know of a German master somewhere in this neigh- 
 borhood." 
 
 " Well, I don't know," returned Mr. Kitely, in a tone that 
 indicated a balancing rather than pondering operation of the 
 mind. For although he was far enough from being a Scotch- 
 man, he always liked to know why one asked a question, before 
 he cared to answer it. "I don't know as I could recommend 
 one over another." 
 
 " I am not in want of a master. I only wish to find out one 
 that lives in this neighborhood." 
 
 "I know at least six of them within a radius of one-half 
 mile, taking my shop here for the center of the circle," said 
 Mr. Kitely, consequentially. "What's the man's name you 
 want ? " 
 
 " That is what I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Then how am I to tell you, sir ? " 
 
 " If you will oblige me with the names and addresses of 
 those six you mention, one of them will very likely be the man 
 I want." 
 
 "I dare say the clergyman wants Mr. Moloch, father," said 
 a voice from somewhere in the neighborhood of the floor, " the 
 foreign gentleman that Mr. Worboise goes to see, up the court." 
 
Business. 75 
 
 " That's the very man, my child," responded Mr. Simon. 
 " Thank you very much. Where shall I find him ? " 
 
 "I'll show you," returned Mattie. 
 
 "Why couldn't he have said so before?" remarked Mr. 
 Kitely to himself with indignation. " But it's just like them." 
 
 By them he meant clergymen in general. 
 
 " What a fearful name — Moloch ! " reflected Mr. Simon, as 
 he followed Mattie up the court. He would have judged it a 
 name of bad omen, had he not thought omen rather a wicked 
 word. The fact was, the German's name was Molken, a very 
 innocent one, far too innocent for its owner, for it means only 
 whey. 
 
 Herr Molken was a ne'er-do-weel student of Heidelberg, a 
 clever fellow, if not a scholar, whose bad habits came to be too 
 well known at home for his being able to indulge them there 
 any longer, and who had taken refuge in London from certain 
 disagreeable consequences which not unfrequently follow aber- 
 rant efforts to procure the means of gambling and general dis- 
 sipation. Thomas had as yet spent so little time in his com- 
 pany, never giving more than a quarter of an hour or so to his 
 lesson, that Molken had had no opportunity of influencing 
 him in any way. But he was one of those who, the moment 
 they make a new acquaintance, begin examining him for the 
 sake of discovering his weak points, that they may get some 
 hold of him. He measured his own strength or weakness by 
 the number of persons of whom at any given time he had a 
 hold capable' of being turned to advantage in some way or other 
 in the course of events. Of all dupes, one with some intellect 
 and no principle, weakened by the trammels of a religious sys- 
 tem with which he is at strife, and which therefore hangs 
 like a millstone about his neck, impedes his every motion, 
 and gives him up to the mercy of his enemy, is the most 
 thorough prey to the pigeon-plucker ; for such a one has 
 no recuperative power, and the misery of his conscience makes 
 him abject. Molken saw that Tom was clever, and he seemed 
 to have some money — if he could get this hold of him in any 
 way, it might be " to the welfare of his advantage." 
 
 The next lesson fell on the evening after Mr. Simon's visit 
 in Guild Court, and Mr. Molken gave Thomas a full account 
 of the "beseek" he had had from "one soft ghostly," who 
 wanted to find out something about Thomas, and how he had 
 told him that Mr. Worboise was a most excellent and religious 
 young man ; that he worked very hard at his German, and 
 that he never spent less (here Mr. Molken winked at Thomas) 
 
76 Guild Court. 
 
 than an hour and a half over Krummacher or some other re- 
 ligious writer. All this Mr. Simon had faithfully reported to 
 Mrs. Worboise, never questioning what Mr. Molken told him, 
 though how any one could have looked at him without finding 
 cause to doubt whatever he might say, I can hardly imagine. 
 For Mr. Molken was a small, wiry man, about thirty, with 
 brows overhanging his eyes like the eaves of a Swiss cottage, 
 and rendering those black and wicked luminaries blacker and 
 more wicked still. His hair was black, his beard was black, 
 his skin was swarthy, his forehead was large ; his nose looked 
 as if it had been made of putty and dabbed on after the rest 
 of his face was finished ; his mouth was sensual ; and, in 
 short, one was inclined to put the question in the gospel — 
 Whether hath sinned, this man or his parents ? He could, 
 notwithstanding, make himself so agreeable, had such a win- 
 ning carriage and dignified deference, that he soon disarmed 
 the suspicion caused by his appearance. He had, besides, 
 many accomplishments, and seemed to know everything — at 
 least to a lad like Thomas, who could not detect the assump- 
 tion which not unfrequently took the place of knowledge. He 
 manifested, also, a genuine appreciation of his country's poetry, 
 and even the short lessons to which Thomas submitted had 
 been enlivened by Herr Molken's enthusiasm for Goethe. If 
 those of his poems which he read and explained to Thomas 
 were not of the best, they were none the worse for his pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Now he believed he had got, by Mr. Simon's aid, the hold 
 that he wanted. His one wink, parenthetically introduced 
 above, revealed to Thomas that he was master of his secret, 
 and Thomas felt that he was, to a considerable degree, in his 
 hands. This, however, caused him no apprehension. 
 
 His mother, although in a measure relieved, still cherished 
 suspicions of German theology which the mention of Krum- 
 macher had failed to remove. She would give her son a direct 
 warning on the subject. So, when he came into her room that 
 evening, she said : 
 
 " Mr. Simon has been making some friendly inquiries about 
 you, Thomas. He was in the neighborhood, and thought he 
 might call on Mr. Moloch — what a dreadful name ! Why have 
 you nothing to say to me about your studies ? Mr. Simon 
 says you are getting quite a scholar in German. But it is a 
 dangerous language, Thomas, and full of errors. Beware of 
 yielding too ready an ear to the seductions of human philos- 
 ophy and the undermining attacks of will- worship." 
 
Mother ana Daughter. 77 
 
 Mrs. Worboise went on in this strain, intelligible neither to 
 herself nor her son, seeing she had not more than the vaguest 
 notion of what she meant by German theology, for at least 
 five minutes, during which Thomas did not interrupt her 
 once. By allowing the lies of his German master to pass thus 
 uncontradicted, he took another long stride down the inclined 
 plane of deceit. 
 
 After this he became naturally more familiar with Mr. 
 Molken. The German abandoned books, and began to teach 
 him fencing, in which he was an adept, talking to him in Ger- 
 man all the while, and thus certainly increasing his knowledge 
 of the language, though not in a direction that was likely 
 within fifty years to lead him to the mastery of commercial 
 correspondence in that tongue. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 
 
 Mr. Boxall, with some difficulty, arising from reluctance, 
 made his wife acquainted with the annoyance occasioned him 
 by the discovery of the fact that Tom Worboise had not even 
 told his father that Mary was ill. 
 
 "I'm convinced," he said, "that the young rascal has only 
 been amusing himself — flirting, I believe, you women call it." 
 
 "I'm none so sure of that, Eichard," answered his wife. 
 "You leave him to me." 
 
 "Now, my dear, I won't have you throwing our Mary in 
 any fool's face. It's bad enough as it is. But I declare I 
 would rather see her in her grave than scorned by any man." 
 
 "You may see her there without before long," answered his 
 wife, with a sigh. 
 
 " Eh ! What ! She's not worse, is she ? " 
 
 " No ; but she hasn't much life left in her. I'm afraid it's 
 settling on her lungs. Her cough is something dreadful to 
 hear, and tears her to pieces." 
 
 " It's milder weather, though, now, and that will make a 
 difference before long. Now, I know what you're thinking 
 of, my dear, and I won't have it. I told the fellow she wasn't 
 fit to see anybody." 
 
78 Guild Court. 
 
 " Were you always ready to talk about me to everyone that 
 came in your way, Kichard ? " asked his wife, with a good- 
 humored smile. 
 
 "I don't call a lad's father and mother any one that comes 
 in the way — though, I dare say, fathers and mothers are in 
 the way sometimes," he added, with a slight sigh. 
 
 "Would you have talked about me to your own father, 
 Richard?" 
 
 "Well, you see, I wasn't in his neighborhood. But my 
 father was a — a — stiff kind of man to deal with." 
 
 "Not worse than Mr. Worboise, depend upon it, my dear." 
 
 ' ' But Worboise would like well enough to have our Mary 
 for a daughter-in-law." 
 
 " I dare say. But that mightn't make it easier to talk to 
 him about her — for Tom, I mean. For my part, I never 
 did see two such parents as poor Tom has got. I declare 
 it's quite a shame to sit upon that handsome young lad — and 
 amiable — as they do. He can hardly call his nose his own. 
 I wouldn't trust that Mr. Worboise, for my part, no, not if 
 I was drowning." 
 
 "Why, wife!" exclaimed Mr. Boxall, both surprised and 
 annoyed, "this is something new. How long — " 
 
 But his wife went on, regardless. 
 
 "And that mother of his ! It's a queer kind of religion that 
 ■freezes the life out of you the moment you come near her. 
 How ever a young fellow could talk about his sweetheart to 
 either of them is more than I can understand — or you either, 
 my dear. So don't look so righteous over it." 
 
 Mrs. Boxall's good-natured audacity generally carried every- 
 thing before it, even with more dangerous persons than her 
 own husband. He could not help — I do not say smiling, but 
 trying to smile ; and though the smile was rather a failure, 
 Mrs. Boxall chose to take it for one. Indeed, she generally 
 put lier husband into good humor by treating him as if he 
 were in a far better humor than he really was in. It never 
 does any good to tell a man that he is cross. If he is, it 
 makes him no better, even though it should make him vexed 
 with himself ; and if he isn't cross, nothing is more certain to 
 make him cross, without giving him a moment's time to con- 
 sult the better part of him. 
 
 Within the next eight days, Mrs. Boxall wrote -to Tom as 
 follows : 
 
 "My Dear Me. Thomas — Mary is much better, and you 
 
Mother and Daughter. 79 
 
 need not be at all uneasy about the consequences of your expe- 
 dition to the North Pole on Christmas Day. I am very sorry 
 I was so cross when you brought her home. Indeed, I believe 
 I ought to beg your pardon. If you don't come and see us 
 soon, I shall fancy that I have seriously offended you. But I 
 knew she never could stand exposure to the weather, and I 
 suppose that was what upset my temper. Mary will be pleased 
 to see you. — I am, ever yours sincerely, Jane Boxall." 
 
 Tom received this letter before he left for town in the 
 morning. What was he to do ? Of course he must go and 
 call there, as he styled it, but he pronounced it a great bore. 
 He was glad the poor girl was better ; but he couldn't help it, 
 and he had no fancy for being hunted up after that fashion. 
 What made him yet more savage was, that Mr. Boxall was 
 absolutely surly — he had never seen him so before — when he 
 went into his room upon some message from Mr. Stopper. He 
 did not go that day nor the next. 
 
 On the third evening he went ; — but the embarrassment of 
 feeling that he ought to have gone before was added to the dis- 
 like of going at all, and he was in no enviable condition of 
 mind when he got off the Clapton omnibus. Add to this that 
 an unrelenting east wind was blowing, and my reader will 
 believe that Tom Worboise was more like a man going to the 
 scaffold than one going to visit a convalescent girl. 
 
 There was something soothing, however, in the glow of 
 warmth and comfort which the opening door revealed. The 
 large hall, carpeted throughout, the stove burning in it most 
 benevolently, the brightness of the thick stair-rods, like veins 
 of gold in the broad crimson carpeting of the generously wide 
 stair-case — all was consoling to Thomas, whose home was one 
 of the new straight-up-and-down, stucco-faced abominations 
 which can never be home-like except to those who have been 
 born in them — and no thanks to them, for in that case a 
 rabbit-hutch will be home-like. Mrs. Boxall was one of those 
 nice, stout, kindly, middle-aged women who have a positive 
 genius for comfort. Now there is no genius in liking to be 
 comfortable ; but there is some genius in making yourself com- 
 fortable, and a great deal more in making other people comfort- 
 able. This Mrs. Boxall possessed in perfection ; and you felt 
 it the moment you entered her house, which, like her person, 
 summer and winter, was full of a certain autumnal richness — 
 the bloom of peaches and winter apples. And what was 
 remarkable was, that all this was gained without a breath of 
 
80 Guild Court 
 
 scolding to the maids. She would ring the bell ten times an 
 hour for the same maid, if necessary. She would ring at 
 once, no matter how slight the fault; — a scrap of paper, 
 a cornerful of dust, a roll of flue upon that same stair-carpet — 
 but not even what might make an indulgent mistress savage — 
 a used lucifer match — would upset the temper of Mrs. Box- 
 all. "Why do I linger on these trifles, do you ask, reader ? 
 Because I shall have to part with Mrs. Boxall soon ; and — 
 shall I confess it ? — because it gives me a chance of reading a 
 sly lecture to certain ladies whom I know, but who cannot 
 complain when I weave it into a history. My only trouble 
 about Mrs. Boxall is, to think in what condition she must 
 have found herself when she was no longer in the midst of 
 any of the circumstances of life — had neither house nor clothes, 
 nor even the body she had been used to dress with such ma- 
 tronly taste, to Took after. 
 
 It was with a certain tremor that Tom approached the door 
 of Mary Boxall's room. But he had not time to indulge it, as 
 I fear he might have done if he had had time, for, as I have 
 said, he prized feelings, and had not begun even to think 
 about actions. 
 
 What a change from the Mary of the snow-storm ! She lay 
 on a couch near the fire, pale and delicate, with thin white 
 hands, and altogether an altered expression of being. But 
 her appearance of health had always been somewhat boastful. 
 Thomas felt that she was far lovelier than before, and ap- 
 proached her with some emotion. But Mary's illness had 
 sharpened her perceptions. There was no light in the room 
 but that of the fire, and it lightened and gloomed over her still 
 face, as the clouds and the sun do over a landscape. As the 
 waters shine out and darken again in the hollows, so her eyes 
 gleamed and vanished, and in the shadow Thomas could not 
 tell whether she was looking at him or not. But then Mary 
 was reading his face like a book in a hard language, which yet 
 she understood enough to read it. Very little was said between 
 them, for Mary was sad and weak, and Thomas was sorrowful 
 and perplexed. She had been reckoning on this first visit 
 from Thomas ever since she had recovered enough to choose 
 what she would think about ; and now it was turning out all 
 so different from what she had pictured to herself. Her poor 
 heart sank away somewhere, and left a hollow place where it 
 had used to be. Thomas sat there, but there was a chasm 
 between them, not such as she any longer sought to cross, but 
 which she would have wider still. She wished he would go. 
 
Mother and Daughter. 81 
 
 A few more commonplaces across the glimmering fire, and it 
 sank, as if sympathetic, into a sullen gloom, and the face of 
 neither was visible to the other. Then Thomas rose with the 
 effort of one in a nightmare dream. Mary held out her hand 
 to him. He took it in his, cold to the heart. The fire gave 
 out one flame which flickered and died. In that light she 
 looked at him — was it reproachfully ? He thought so, and felt 
 that her eyes were like those of one trying to see something at 
 a great distance. One pressure of her hand, and he left her. 
 He would gladly have shrunk into a nutshell. "Good-by, 
 Thomas," " G-ood-by, Mary," were the last words that passed 
 between them. 
 
 Outside the room he found Mrs. Boxall. 
 
 " Are you going already, Mr. Thomas ? " she said, in an un- 
 certain kind of tone. 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Boxall," was all Tom had to reply with. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall went into her daughter's room, and shut the 
 door. Thomas let himself out, and walked away. 
 
 She found Mary lying staring at the fire, with great dry eyes, 
 lips pressed close together, and face even whiter than before. 
 
 " My darling child ! " said the mother. 
 
 "It's no matter, mother. It's all my own foolish fault. 
 Only bed again will be so dreary now." 
 
 The mother made some gesture, which the daughter under- 
 stood. 
 
 " No, mother ; don't say a word. I won't hear a word of 
 that kind. I'm a good deal wiser already than I used to be. 
 H I get better, I shall live for you and papa." 
 
 A dreadful fit of coughing interrupted her. 
 
 " Don't fancy I'm going to die for love," she said, with a 
 faint attempt at a smile. "I'm not one of that sort. If I 
 die, it'll be of a good honest cough, that's all. Dear mother, 
 it's nothing, I declare." 
 
 Thomas never more crossed that threshold. And ever after, 
 Mr. Boxall spoke to him as a paid clerk, and nothing more. 
 So he had to carry some humiliation about with him. Mr. 
 Stopper either knew something of the matter, or followed the 
 tone of liis principal. Even Charles Wither was short with 
 him after awhile. I suppose Jane told him that he had be- 
 haved very badly to Mary. So Tom had no friend left but Lucy, 
 and was driven nearer to Mr. Molken. He still contrived to 
 keep his visits at Guild Court, except those to Mr. Molken, a 
 secret at home. But I think Mr. Stopper had begun to sus- 
 pect, if not to find him out. 
 
 6 
 
82 Guild Court. 
 
 I have not done with the Boxalls yet, though there is hence- 
 forth an impassable gulf between Tom and them. 
 
 As the spring drew on, Mary grew a little better. With the 
 first roses, Uncle John Boxall came home from the Chinese 
 Sea, and took up his residence for six weeks or so with his 
 brother. Mary was fond of Uncle John, and his appearance 
 at this time was very opportune. A more rapid improvement 
 was visible within a few days of his arrival. He gave himself 
 up almost to the invalid ; and as she was already getting over 
 her fancy for Tom, her love for her uncle came in to aid her 
 recovery. 
 
 "It's the smell of the salt water," said he, when they re- 
 marked how much good he had done her ; " and more of it 
 would do her more good yet." 
 
 They thought it better not to tell him anything about Tom. 
 But one day after dinner, in a gush of old feelings, brought on 
 by a succession of reminiscences of their childhood, Eichard 
 told John all about it, which was not much. John sWore, and 
 kept pondering the matter over. 
 
 CHAPTEK XL 
 
 MATTIE FOE POPPIE. 
 
 One bright morning, when the flags in the passage were 
 hot to her feet, and the shoes she had lost in the snow-storm 
 had not the smallest chance of recurring to the memory of 
 Poppie, in this life at least, Mattie was seated with Mr. Spelt 
 in his workshop, which seemed to the passer-by to be sup- 
 ported, like the roof of a chapter-house, upon the single pillar 
 of Mr. Dolman, with his head for a capital — which did not, 
 however, branch out in a great many directions. She was not 
 dressing a doll now, for Lucy had set her to work upon some 
 garments for the poor, Lucy's relation with whom I will ex- 
 plain by and by. 
 
 "I've been thinking, mother," she said — to Mr. Spelt, of 
 course — " that I wonder how ever G-od made me. Did he cut 
 me out of something else, and join me up, do you think ? If 
 he did, where did he get the stuff ? And' if he didn't, how 
 did he do it?" 
 
Mattie for Popple. 83 
 
 " Well, my dear, it would puzzle a wiser head than mine to 
 answer that question," said Mr. Spelt, who plainly judged 
 ignorance a safer refuge from Mattie than any knowledge he 
 possessed upon the subject. Her question, however, occa- 
 sioned the return, somehow or other, of an old suspicion which 
 he had not by any means cherished, but which would force 
 itself upon him now and then, that the splendid woman, Mrs. 
 Spelt, "had once ought" to have had a baby, and, somehow, 
 he never knew what had come of it. She got all right again, 
 and the baby was nowhere. 
 
 " I wish I had thought to watch while God was a-making of 
 me, and then I should have remembered how he did it," Mat- 
 tie resumed. "Ah ! but I couldn't," she added, checking 
 herself, "for I wasn't made till I was finished, and so I 
 couldn't remember." 
 
 This was rather too profound for Mr. Spelt to respond to in 
 any way. Not that he had not a glimmering of Mattie's 
 meaning, but that is a very different thing from knowing what 
 to answer. So he said nothing, except what something might 
 be comprised in a bare assent. Mattie, however, seemed bent 
 on forcing conversation, and, finding him silent, presently 
 tried another vein. 
 
 "Do you remember a conversation we had, in this very 
 place" — that was not wonderful, anyhow — " some time ago — ■ 
 before my last birthday — about God being kinder to some peo- 
 ple than to other people ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, I do," answered Mr. Spelt, who had been thinking 
 about the matter a good deal since. Are you of the same mind 
 still, Mattie?" 
 
 " Well, yes, and no," answered Mattie. I think now there 
 may be something in it I can't quite get at the bottom of. Do 
 you know, mother, I remembered all at once, the other day, 
 that when I was a little girl, I used to envy Poppie. Now, 
 where ever was there a child that had more of the blessings of 
 childhood than me ? " 
 
 " What made you envy Poppie, then, Mattie ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, my father's shop was rather an awful place, 
 sometimes. I never told you, mother, what gained me the 
 pleasure of your acquaintance. Ever since I can remember — 
 and that is a very long time ago now — I used now and then to 
 grow frightened at father's books. Sometimes, you know, 
 they were all quiet enough. You would generally expect 
 books to be quiet, now wouldn't you ? But other times — well, 
 they wouldn't be quiet. At least, they kept thinking all about 
 
84 Guild Court. 
 
 me, till my poor head couldn't bear it any longer. That al- 
 ways was my weak point, you know." 
 
 Mr. Spelt looked with some anxiety at the pale face and 
 great forehead of the old little woman, and said : 
 
 " Yes, yes, Mattie. But we've got over ail that, I think, 
 pretty well by now." 
 
 " Well, do you know, Mr. Spelt, I have not even yet got 
 over my fancies about the books. Very often, as I am falling 
 asleep, 1 hear them all thinking ; — they can hardly help it, 
 you know, with so much to think about inside them. I don't 
 hear them exactly, you know, for the one thinks into the 
 other's thinks — somehow, I can't tell — and they blot each 
 other out like, and there is nothing but a confused kind of a 
 jumble in my head till I fall asleep. Well, it was one day, 
 very like this day — it was a hot summer forenoon, wasn't it, 
 mother ? — I was standing at that window over there. And 
 Poppie was playing down in the court. And I thought what 
 a happy little girl she was, to go where she pleased in the sun- 
 shine, and not need to put on any shoes. Father wouldn't let 
 me go where I liked. And there was nothing but books every- 
 where. That was my nursery then. It was all round with 
 books. And some of them had dreadful pictures in them. 
 All at once the books began talking so loud as I had never 
 heard them talk before. And I thought with myself — 'I 
 won't stand this any longer. I will go away with Poppie.' 
 
 "Sol ran down stairs, but because I couldn't open the door 
 into the court, I had to watch and dodge father among the 
 book-shelves. And when I got out, Poppie was gone — and 
 then, what next, mother ?" 
 
 " Then my thread knotted, and that always puts me out of 
 temper, because it stops my work. And I always look down 
 into the court when I stop. Somehow that's the way my eyes 
 do of themselves. And there I saw a tiny little maiden star- 
 ing all about her as if she had lost somebody, and her face 
 looked as if she was just going to cry. And I knew who she 
 was, for I had seen her in the shop before. And so I called 
 to her and she came. And I asked her what was the matter." 
 
 "Well, and I said, 'It's the books that will keep talking :' 
 didn't I?" 
 
 " Yes. And I took you up beside me. But you was very 
 ill after that, and it was long before you came back again after 
 that first time." 
 
 This story had been gone over and over again between the 
 pair ; but every time that Mattie wanted to rehearse the one 
 
Mattie for Poppie. 85 
 
 adventure of her life, she treated it as a memory that had just 
 returned upon her. How much of it was an original impres- 
 sion and how much a rewriting by the tailor upon the blotted 
 tablets of her memory, I cannot tell. 
 
 " Well, where was I ? " said Mattie, after a pause, laying 
 her hands on her lap and looking up at the tailor with eyes of 
 inquiry. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know, Mattie," answered Mr. Spelt. 
 
 " I was thinking, you know, that perhaps Poppie has her 
 share of what's going on, after all. " 
 
 "And don't you think," suggested her friend, "that per- 
 haps God doesn't want to keep all the good-doing to himself, 
 but leaves room for us to have a share in it ? It's very nice 
 work that you're at now — isn't it Mattie ? " 
 
 "Well, it is." 
 
 "As good as dressing dolls ?" 
 
 "Well, it's no end of better." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because the dolls don't feel a bit better for it, you know." 
 
 " And them that'll wear that flannel petticoat will feel bet- 
 ter for it, won't they ? " 
 
 "That they will, /know." 
 
 " But suppose everybody in the world was as well off as you 
 and me, Mattie — you with your good father, and — " 
 
 "Well, my father ain't none so good, just. He swears 
 sometimes." 
 
 " He's good to you, though, ain't he ?" 
 
 "I don't know tbat either, mother : he spoils me," answered 
 Mattie, who seemed to be in a more than usually contradictory 
 humor this morning. 
 
 " Supposing, though, that everybody had a father that 
 spoiled them, you wouldn't have any such clothes to make, you 
 know." 
 
 " But they wouldn't want them." 
 
 " And you would be forced to go back to your dolls as have 
 no father or mother and come across the sea in boxes." 
 
 " I see, I see, mother. Well, I suppose I must allow that it 
 is good of God to give us a share in making people comfort- 
 able. You see he could do it himself, only he likes to give us 
 a share. That's it, ain't, it mother ? " 
 
 " That's what I mean, Mattie." 
 
 "Well, but you'll allow it does seem rather hard that I 
 should have this to do now, and there's Poppie hasn't either 
 the clothes to wear or to make." 
 
86 Guild Court 
 
 " Can't you do something for Poppie, then ? " 
 
 " Well, I'll think about it, and see what I can do." 
 
 Here Mattie laid aside her work, crept on all fours to the 
 door, and peeped over into the passage below. 
 
 " Well, Poppie," she began, in the intellectually condescend- 
 ing tone which most grown people use to children, irritating 
 some of them by it considerably, — " Well, Poppie, and how do 
 you do ? " 
 
 Poppie heard the voice, and looked all round, but not seeing 
 where it came from, turned and scudded away under the arch. 
 Though Mattie knew Poppie, Poppie did not know Mattie, did 
 not know her voice at least. It was not that Poppie was 
 frightened exactly — she hardly ever was frightened at any- 
 thing, not even at a policeman, but she was given to scudding ; 
 and when anything happened she did not precisely know what 
 to do with, she scudded ; at least if there was no open drain 
 or damaged hoarding at hand. But she did not run far this 
 time. As soon as she got under the shelter of the arch, she 
 turned behind a sort of buttress that leaned against the book- 
 seller's house, and peeped back toward the court. 
 
 At that moment Lucy came out of the house. She came 
 down the passage, and as Mattie was still leaning over the 
 door, or the threshold, rather, of the workshop, she saw her, 
 and stopped. Thereupon Poppie came out of her "coign of 
 vantage," and slowly approached, just like a bird or a tame 
 rabbit— only she was not by any means so tame as the latter. 
 
 "Are you getting on with that petticoat, Mattie ? " said Lucy. 
 
 " Yes, miss, I am. Only not being used to anything but 
 boys' clothes, I am afraid you won't like the tailor's stitch, miss." 
 
 "Never mind that. It will be a curiosity, that's all. But 
 what do you think, Mattie ? The kind lady who gives us this 
 work to do for the poor people, has invited all of us to go and 
 spend a day with her." 
 
 Mattie did not answer. Lucy thought she did not care to 
 go. But she was such an oddity that she wanted very much to 
 take her. 
 
 " She has such a beautiful garden, Mattie ! And she's so 
 kind." 
 
 Still Mattie made no reply. Lucy would try again. 
 
 " And it's such a beautiful house, too, Mattie ! I'm sure 
 you would like to see it. And," she added, almost reduced to 
 her last resource, " she would give us such a nice dinner, / 
 know ! " 
 
 This at length burst the silence, but not as Lucy had expected. 
 
Mattie for Poppie. 87 
 
 " Now that's just what I'm determined I will not stand," 
 said the little maid. 
 
 " What do you mean, Mattie ? " exclaimed Lucy, surprised 
 and bewildered. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I mean, and that soon enough," said 
 Mattie. " It's all very kind of Mrs. Morgingturn to ask you 
 and me, what are well-to-do people, and in comfortable cir- 
 cumstances, as people say, to go and spend this day or that 
 with her. And do you know, Mr. Spelt " — here Mattie drew 
 herself in and turned her face right round from Lucy to the 
 tailor, for the side of her mouth which she used for speech was 
 the left, and the furthest from Spelt; — " it just comes into my 
 head that this kind lady who gives me petticoats to make in- 
 stead of doll's trousers, is doing the very thing you read about 
 last night out of the New Testament before I went into bed. 
 It's so nice now there's light enough to read a little before we 
 part for the night ! ain't it, mother ? " 
 
 " I know, I know," said the tailor in a low voice, not wish- 
 ing to intrude himself into the conversation. 
 
 "What did Mr. Spelt read to you, Mattie ?" asked Lucy. 
 
 " He read about somebody — " 
 
 It was very remarkable how Mattie would use the name of 
 God, never certainly with irreverence, but with a freedom that 
 seemed to indicate that to her he was chiefly if not solely an 
 object of metaphysical speculation or, possibly, of investiga- 
 tion ; while she hardly ever uttered the name of the Saviour, 
 but spoke of him as Somebody. And I find that I must yet 
 further interrupt the child herself to tell an anecdote about 
 her which will perhaps help my reader to account for the fact 
 I am about to finish telling. She was not three years old 
 when she asked her mother, a sweet, thoughtful woman, in 
 many ways superior to her husband , though not intellectually 
 his equal — who made the tree in Wood Street ? Her mother 
 answered, of course, " God made it, my pet ; " for by instinct, 
 she never spoke of her God without using some term of en- 
 dearment to her child. Mattie answered — "I would like it 
 better if a man made it " — a cry after the humanity of God — 
 a longing in the heart of the three years' child for the Messiah 
 of God. Her mother did not know well enough to tell her 
 that a man, yes, the man did make them — "for by Him all 
 things were made ; " — but Mattie may have had some unde- 
 fined glimmering of the fact, for, as I have said, she always 
 substituted Somebody for any name of the Lord. I cannot 
 help wishing that certain religious people of my acquaintance 
 
88 Guild Court 
 
 would, I do not say follow queer little Mattie's example, but 
 take a lesson from queer little Mattie. 
 
 "He read about somebody saying you shouldn't ask your 
 friends and neighbors who could do the same for you again, 
 but you should ask them that couldn't, because they hadn't a 
 house to ask you to, like Poppie there." 
 
 Lucy looked round and saw the most tattered little scare- 
 crow — useless even as such in the streets of London, where 
 there are only dusty little sparrows and an occasional raven — 
 staring at — I cannot call it a group — well, it was a group ver- 
 tically, if not laterally — and not knowing or caring what to 
 make of it, only to look at Lucy, and satisfy her undefined and 
 undefinable love by the beholding of its object. She loved 
 what was lovely without in the least knowing that it was lovely, 
 or what lovely meant. And while Lucy gazed at Poppie, with 
 a vague impression that she had seen the child before, she 
 could not help thinking of the contrast between the magnifi- 
 cent abode of the Morgensterns — for magnificent it was, even 
 in London — and the lip of the nest from which the strange 
 child preached down into the world the words " friends and 
 neighbors." 
 
 But she could say nothing more to Mattie till she had told, 
 word for word, the whole story to Mrs. Morgenstern, who, 
 she knew, would heartily enjoy the humor of it. Nor was 
 Lucy, who loved her Lord very truly, even more than she 
 knew, though she was no theologian like Thomas, in the least 
 deterred from speaking of Somebody, by the fact that Mrs. 
 Morgenstern did not receive him as the Messiah of her nation. 
 If he did not hesitate to show himself where he knew he would 
 not be accepted, why should she hesitate to speak his name? 
 And why should his name not be mentioned to those who, al- 
 though they had often been persecuted in his name by those 
 who did not understand his mind, might well be proud that 
 the man who was conquering the world by his strong, beauti- 
 ful will, was a Jew. 
 
 But from tbe rather severe indisposition of her grandmother, 
 she was unable to tell the story to Mrs. Morgenstern till the 
 very morning of the gathering. 
 
A Comparison. 89 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A COMPAEISOST. 
 
 Can I hope to move my readers to any pitiful sympathy 
 with Mrs. Worboise, the whole fabric of whose desires was thus 
 gliding into an abyss ? That she is not an interesting woman, 
 I admit ; but, at the same time, I venture to express a doubt 
 whether our use of the word uninteresting really expresses 
 anything more than our own ignorance. If we could look into 
 the movements of any heart, I doubt very much whether that 
 heart would be any longer uninteresting to us. Come with 
 me, reader, while I endeavor, with some misgiving, I confess, 
 to open a peep into the heart of this mother, which I have 
 tried hard, though with scarcely satisfactory success, to under- 
 stand. 
 
 Her chief faculty lay in negations. Her whole life was a 
 kind of negation — a negation of warmth, a negation of impulse, 
 a negation of beauty, a negation of health. "When Thomas 
 was a child, her chief communication with him was in nega- 
 tives. "You must not; you are not ; do not;" and so on. 
 Her theory of the world was humanity deprived of God. 
 Because of something awful in the past, something awful lay 
 in the future. To escape from the consequences of a condition 
 which you could not help, you must believe certain things after 
 a certain fashion — hold, in fact, certain theories with regard 
 to the most difficult questions, on which, too, you were incapa- 
 ble of thinking correctly. Him who held these theories you 
 must regard as a fellow-favorite of heaven ; who held them not 
 you would do well to regard as a publican and a sinner, even if 
 he should be the husband in your bosom. All the present had 
 value only of reference to the future. All your strife must be 
 to become something you are not at all now, to feel what you 
 do not feel, to judge against your nature, to regard everything 
 in you as opposed to your salvation, and God, who is far away 
 from you, and whose ear is not always ready to hear, as your 
 only deliverer from the consequences he has decreed ; and this 
 in virtue of no immediate relation to you, but from regard to 
 another whose innocent suffering is to our guilt the only 
 counterpoise weighty enough to satisfy his justice. All her 
 anxiety for her son turned upon his final escape from punish- 
 ment. She did not torment her soul, her nights were not 
 sleepless with the fear that her boy should be unlike Christ, 
 
90 Guild Court. 
 
 that he might do that which was mean, selfish, dishonest, 
 cowardly, vile, but with the fear that he was or might be 
 doomed to an eternal suffering. 
 
 Now, in so far as this idea had laid hold of the boy, it had 
 aroused the instinct of self-preservation mingled with a repel- 
 lent feeling in regard to God. All that was poor and common 
 and selfish in him was stirred up on the side of religion ; all 
 that was noble (and of that there was far more than my reader 
 will yet fancy) was stirred up against it. The latter, however, 
 was put down by degrees, leaving the whole region, when the 
 far outlook of selfishness should be dimmed by the near urgings 
 of impulse, open to the inroads of the enemy, enfeebled and 
 ungarrisoned. Ah ! if she could have told the boy, every time 
 his soul was lifted up within him by anything beautiful, or 
 great, or true, " That, my boy, is God — God telling you that 
 you must be beautiful, and great, and true, else you cannot be 
 His child ! " If, every time he uttered his delight in flower or 
 bird, she had, instead of speaking of sin and shortcoming, 
 spoken of love and aspiration toward the Father of Light, the 
 God of Beauty ! If she had been able to show him that what 
 he admired in Byron's heroes, even, was the truth, courage, 
 and honesty, hideously mingled, as it might be, with cruelty 
 and conceit and lies ! But almost everything except the Epis- 
 tles seemed to her of the devil and not of God. She was even 
 jealous of the Gospel of God, lest it should lead him astray 
 from the interpretation she put upon it. She did not under- 
 stand that nothing can convince of sin but the vision of holi- 
 ness ; that to draw near to the Father is to leave self behind ; 
 that the Son of God appeared that by the sight of himself he 
 might convince the world of sin. But then hers was a life 
 that had never broken the shell, while through the shell the 
 worm of suffering had eaten, and was boring into her soul. 
 Have pity and not contempt, reader, who would not be like her. 
 She did not believe in her own love, even, as from God, and 
 therefore she restrained it before the lad. So he had no idea 
 of how she loved him. If she had only thrown her arms about 
 him, and let her heart out toward him, which surely it is right 
 to do sometimes at least, how differently would he have list- 
 ened to what she had to say ! His heart was being withered 
 on the side next his mother for lack of nourishment : there 
 are many lives rained because they have not had tenderness 
 enough. Kindness is not tenderness. She could not repre- 
 sent God to the lad. If, instead of constantly referring to the 
 hell that lies in the future, she had reminded him of the begin- 
 
A Comparison. 91 
 
 nings of that hell in his own bosom, appealing to himself 
 whether there was not a faintness there that indicated some- 
 thing wrong, a dull pain that might grow to a burning agony, 
 a consciousness of wrong-doing, thinking, and feeling, a sense 
 of a fearful pit and a miry clay within his own being from 
 which he would gladly escape, a failing even from the great- 
 ness of such grotesque ideals as he loved in poetry, a meanness, 
 paltriness, and at best insignificance of motive and action, — ■ 
 and then told him that out of this was God stretching forth 
 the hand to take and lift him, that he was waiting to exalt him 
 to a higher ideal of manhood than anything which it had 
 entered into his heart to conceive, that he would make him 
 clean from the defilement which he was afraid to confess to 
 himself because it lowered him in his own esteem, — then per- 
 haps the words of his mother, convincing him that God was 
 not against him but for him, on the side of his best feelings 
 and against his worst, might have sunk into the heart of the 
 weak youth, and he would straightway have put forth what 
 strength he had, and so begun to be strong. For he who acts 
 has strength, is strong, and will be stronger. But she could 
 not tell him this : she did not know it herself. Her religion 
 was something there, then ; not here, now. She would give 
 Mr. Simon a five-pound note for his Scripture-reading among 
 the poor, and the moment after refuse the request of her 
 needle-woman from the same district who begged her to raise 
 her wages from eighteen pence to two shillings a day. Eelig- 
 ion — the bond between man and God — had nothing to do with 
 the earnings of a sister, whose pale face told of "penury and 
 pine " a sadder story even than that written upon the counte- 
 nance of the invalid, for to labor in weakness, longing for rest, 
 is harder than to endure a good deal of pain upon a sofa. 
 Until we begin to learn that the only way to serve God in any 
 real sense of the word is to serve our neighbor, we may have 
 knocked at the wicket-gate, but I doubt if we have got one 
 foot across the threshold of the kingdom. 
 
 Add to this condition of mind a certain uncomfortable effect 
 produced upon the mother by the son's constantly reminding 
 her of the father whom she had quite given up trying to love, 
 and I think my reader will be a little nearer to the understand- 
 ing of the relation, if such it could well be called, between the 
 two. The eyes of both were yet unopened to the poverty of 
 their own condition. The mother especially said that she was 
 "rich, and had need of nothing," when she was "wretched, 
 and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." But she 
 7 
 
92 Guild Court 
 
 had a hard nature to begin with, and her pain occupied her all 
 the more that she neither sought nor accepted sympathy. And 
 although she was none the less a time-server and a worldly- 
 minded woman that she decried worldliness and popery, and 
 gave herself to the saving of her soul, yet the G-od who makes 
 them loves even such people and knows all about them ; and it 
 is well for them that he is their judge and not we. 
 
 Let us now turn to another woman — Mrs. Morgenstern. I 
 will tell you what she was like. She was a Jewess and like a 
 Jewess. But there is as much difference between Jewesses as 
 there is between Englishwomen. Is there any justice in fix- 
 ing upon the lowest as the type 9 How does the Scotchman like 
 to have his nation represented : by the man outside the 
 tobacco-shop, or by the cantankerous logician and theologian 
 so well known to some of us ? There is a Jewess that flaunts 
 in gorgeous raiment and unclean linen ; and there is a Jewess 
 noble as a queen, and pure as a daisy — fit to belong to that 
 nation of which Mary the mother was born. Mrs. Morgenstern 
 was of the latter class — tall, graceful, even majestic in the 
 fashion of her form and carriage. Every feature was Jewish, 
 and yet she might have been English, or Spanish, or German, 
 just as well. Her eyes were dark — black, I would say, if I 
 had ever seen black eyes — and proud, yet with a dove-like veil 
 over their fire. Sometimes there was even a trouble to be seen 
 in them, as of a rainy mist amid the glow of a southern sky. 
 I never could be quite sure what this trouble meant. She was 
 rich, therefore she had no necessity ; she was not avaricious, 
 and therefore she had no fear of dying in the work- 
 house. She had but one child, therefore she was neither 
 wearied with motherhood, nor a sufferer from suppressed ma- 
 ternity, moved by which divine impulse so many women take 
 to poodles instead of orphans. Her child was healthy and act- 
 ive, and gave her no anxiety. That she loved her husband, 
 no one who saw those eastern eyes rest upon him for a mo- 
 ment could doubt. What, then, could be the cause of that 
 , slight restlessness, that gauzy change, that pensive shadow ? 
 I think that there was more love in her yet than knew how 
 to get oiit of her. She would look round sometimes — it was a 
 peculiar movement — just as if some child had been pulling at 
 her skirts. She had lost a child, but I do not think that was 
 the cause. And however this may be, I do believe that noth- 
 ing but the love of God will satisfy the power of love in any 
 woman's bosom. But did not Bebecca — they loved their old 
 Jewish names, that family — did not Bebecca Morgenstern 
 
Mottle's Microcosm. 93 
 
 love God 2. Truly I think she did — but not enough to satisfy 
 herself. And I venture to say more : I do not believe she 
 could love him to the degree necessary for her own peace till 
 she recognized the humanity in him. But she was more under 
 the influences emanating from that story of the humanity of 
 God than she knew herself. At all events she was a most hu- 
 man and lovely lady, full of grace and truth, like Mary before 
 she was a Christian ; and it took a good while, namely all her 
 son's life and longer, to make her one. Eebecca Morgenstern 
 never became a Christian. But she loved children, whether 
 they were Christians or not. And she loved the poor, whether 
 they were Christians or not ; and, like Dorcas, made and 
 caused to be made, coats and garments for them. And, for my 
 part, I know, if I had the choice, whether I would appear be- 
 fore the Master in the train of the unbelieving Mrs. Morgen- 
 stern or that of the believing Mrs. Worboise. And as to self- 
 righteousness, I think there is far less of that among those 
 who regard the works of righteousness as the means of 
 salvation, than among those by whom faith itself is degraded 
 into a work of merit — a condition by fulfilling which they be- 
 come fit for God's mercy ; for such is the trick which the old 
 Adam and the Enemy together are ready enough to play the 
 most orthodox, in despite of the purity of their creed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 mattie's microcosm. 
 
 Although Mrs. Boxall, senior, was still far from well, yet 
 when the morning of Mrs. Morgenstern's gathering dawned, 
 lovely even in the midst of London, and the first sun-rays, 
 with green tinges and rosy odors hanging about their golden 
 edges, stole into her room, reminding her of the old paddock 
 and the feeding cows at Bucks Horton, in Buckingham, she 
 resolved that Lucy should go to Mrs. Morgenstern's. So the 
 good old lady set herself to feel better, in order that she might 
 be better, and by the time Lucy, who had slept in the same 
 room with her grandmother since her illness, awoke, she was 
 prepared to persuade her that she was quite well enough to 
 let her have a holiday. 
 
94 Guild Court. 
 
 " But how am I to leave you, grannie, all alone ? " objected 
 Lucy. 
 
 " Oh ! I dare say that queer little Mattie of yours will come 
 in and keep me company. Make haste and get your clothes 
 on, and go and see." 
 
 Now Lucy had had hopes of inducing Mattie to go with her, 
 as I indicated in a previous chapter ; but she could not press 
 the child after the reason she gave for not going. And now 
 she might as well ask her to stay with her grandmother. So 
 she went round the corner to Mr. Kitely's shop, glancing up 
 at Mr. Spelt's nest in the wall as she passed, to see whether 
 she was not there. 
 
 When she entered the wilderness of books she saw no one ; 
 but peeping round one of the many screens, she spied Mattie 
 sitting with her back toward her and her head bent downward. 
 Looking over her shoulder, she saw that she had a large fold- 
 ing plate of the funeral of Lord Nelson open before her, the 
 black shapes of which, with their infernal horror of plumes — 
 the hateful flowers that the buried seeds of ancient paganism 
 still shoot up into the pleasant Christian fields — she was study- 
 ing with an unaccountable absorption of interest. 
 
 " What have you got there Mattie ? " asked Lucy. 
 
 " Well, I don't ezackly know, miss," answered the child, 
 looking up, very white-faced and serious. 
 
 " Put the book away and come and see grannie. She wants 
 you to take care of her to-day, while I go out." 
 
 "Well, miss, I would with pleasure ; "but you see father is 
 gone out, and has left me to take care of the shop till he comes 
 back." 
 
 " But he won't be gone a great while, will he ? " 
 
 "No, miss. He knows I don't like to be left too long with 
 the books. He'll be back before St. Jacob's strikes nine — that 
 I know." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll go and get grannie made comfortable ; and 
 if you don't come to me by half -past nine, I'll come after you 
 again." 
 
 "Do, miss, if you please ; for if father ain't come by that 
 time — my poor head — " 
 
 "You must put that ugly book away," said Lucy, "and 
 take a better one." 
 
 "Well, miss, I know I oiightn't to have taken this book, 
 for there's no summer in it ; and it talks^ like the wind at 
 night." 
 
 "Why did you take it, then ?" 
 
Matties Microcosm. 95 
 
 " Because Syne told me to take it. But that's just why I 
 oughtn't to ha' taken it." 
 
 And she rose and put the book in one of the shelves over 
 her head, moving her stool when she had done so, and turning 
 her face toward the spot where the book now stood. Lucy 
 watched her uneasily. 
 
 " What do you mean by saying that Syne told you ? " she 
 asked. " Who is Syne ? " 
 
 "Don't you know Syne, miss ? Syne is — you know ' Lord 
 Syne was a miserly churl ' — don't you ? " 
 
 Then, before Lucy could reply, she looked up in her face, 
 with a smile hovering about the one side of her mouth, and 
 said : 
 
 " But it's all nonsense, miss, when you're standing there. 
 There isn't no such person as Syne, when you're there. I 
 don't believe there is any such person. But," she added with 
 a sigh, "when you're gone away — I don't know. But I think 
 he's up stairs in the nursery now," she said, putting her hand 
 to her big forehead. " No, no ; there's no such person." 
 
 And Mattie tried to laugh outright, but failed in the at- 
 tempt, and the tears rose in her eyes. 
 
 " You've got a headache, dear," said Lucy. 
 
 "Well, no," answered Mattie. "I cannot say that I have 
 just a headache, you know. But it does buzz a little. I hope 
 Mr. Kitely won't be long now." 
 
 " I don't like leaving you, Mattie ; but I must go to my 
 grandmother," said Lucy, with reluctance. 
 
 "Nevermind me, miss. I'm used to it. I used to be afraid 
 of Lord Syne, for he watched me, ready to pounce out upon 
 me with all his men at his back, and he laughed so loud to see 
 me run. But I know better now. I never run from him now. 
 I always frown at him, and take my own time and do as I like. 
 I don't want him to see that I'm afraid, you know. And I do 
 think I have taught him a lesson. Besides, if he's very 
 troublesome, you know, miss, I can run to Mr. Spelt. But I 
 never talk to him about Syne, because when I do he always 
 looks so mournful. Perhaps he thinks it is wicked. He is so 
 good himself, he has no idea how wicked a body can be." 
 
 Lucy thought it best to hurry away, that she might return 
 the sooner ; for she could not bear the child to be left alone in 
 such a mood. And she was sure that the best thing for her 
 would be to spend the day with her cheery old grandmother. 
 But as she was leaving the shop, Mr. Kitely came in, his large, 
 bold, sharp face fresh as a north wind without a touch of east 
 
96 Guild Court. 
 
 in it. Lucy preferred her request about Mattie, and lie grant- 
 ed it cordially. 
 
 "I'm afraid, Mr. Kitely," said Lucy, "the darling is not 
 well. She has such strange fancies." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," returned the bookseller, with mingled 
 concern at the suggestion and refusal to entertain it. " She's 
 always 'been a curious child. Her mother was like that, you 
 see, and she takes after her. Perhaps she does want a little 
 more change. I don't think she's been out of this street, now, 
 all her life. But she'll shake it off as she gets older, I have 
 no doubt." 
 
 So saying, he turned into his shop, and Lucy went home. 
 In half an hour she went back for Mattie, and leaving the two 
 together, of whom the child, in all her words and ways, seemed 
 the older, set out for the West End, where Mrs. Morgenstern 
 was anxiously hoping for her appearance, seeing she depend- 
 ed much upon her assistance in the treat she was giving to 
 certain poor people of her acquaintance. By any person but 
 Mattie, Mrs. Morgenstern would have been supposed to be lit- 
 erally fulfilling the will of our Lord in asking only those who 
 could not return her invitation. 
 
 CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 THE JEWESS AND HER NEIGHBORS. 
 
 Mrs. Morgenstern" looked splendid as she moved about 
 among the hot-house plants, arranging them in the hall, on 
 the stairs, and in the drawing-rooms. She judged, and judged 
 rightly, that one ought to be more anxious to show honor to 
 poor neighbors by putting on her best attire, than to ordinary 
 guests of her own rank. Therefore, although it was the morn- 
 ing, she had put on a dress of green silk, trimmed with brown 
 silk and rows of garnet buttons, which set off her dark com- 
 plexion and her rich black hair, plainly braided down her 
 face, and loosely gathered behind. She was half a head taller 
 than Lucy, who was by no means short. The two formed a 
 beautiful contrast. Lucy was dark-haired,, and dark-eyed as 
 well as Mrs. Morgenstern, but had a smaller face and features, 
 regular to a rare degree. Her high, close-fitting dress of black 
 
The Jewess and her Neighbors. 97 
 
 silk, with a plain linen collar and cuffs, left her loveliness all 
 to itself. Lucy was neither strikingly beautiful nor remark- 
 ably intellectual : when one came to understand what it was 
 that attracted him so much, he found that it was the wonder- 
 ful harmony in her. As Wordsworth prophesied for his Lucy 
 that "beauty born of murmuring sound 'should' pass into 
 her face," so it seemed as if the harmonies which flowed from 
 her father's fingers had molded her form and face, her mo- 
 tions and thoughts, after their own fashion, even to a harmony 
 which soothed before one knew that he was receiving it, and 
 when he had discovered its source, made him ready to quote 
 the words of Sir Philip Sidney — 
 
 Just accord all music makes : 
 
 In thee just accord excelleth. 
 
 Where each part in such peace dwelleth, 
 
 Each of other beauty takes. 
 
 I have often wondered how it was that Lucy was capable of 
 so much ; how it was, for instance, that, in the dispensing of 
 Mrs. Morgenstern's bounty, she dared to make her way into 
 places where no one but herself thought it could be safe for 
 her to go, but where not even a rude word was ever directed 
 against her or used with regard to her. If she had been as 
 religious as she afterward became, I should not have won- 
 dered thus ; for some who do not believe that God is any- 
 where in these dens of what looks to them all misery, will 
 dare everything to rescue their fellow-creatures from impend- 
 ing fate. But Lucy had no theories to spur or to support her. 
 She never taught them any religion ; she was only, without 
 knowing it, a religion to their eyes. I conclude, therefore, 
 that at this time it was just the harmony of which I have 
 spoken that led her, protected her, and, combined with a dim 
 consciousness that she must be doing right in following out 
 the loving impulses of her nature, supported her in the disa- 
 greeable circumstances into which she was sometimes brought. 
 
 While they were thus busy with the flowers, Miriam joined 
 them. She had cast her neutral tints, and appeared in a 
 frock of dark red, with a band of gold in her dusky hair, som- 
 berly rich. She was a strange-looking child, one of those 
 whose coming beauty promises all the more that it has as yet 
 reached only the stage of interesting ugliness. Splendid eyes, 
 olive complexion, rounded cheeks, were accompanied by a 
 very unfinished nose, and a large mouth, with thick though 
 7 
 
98 - Guild Court. 
 
 finely-modeled lips. She would be a glory some day. She 
 flitted into the room, and flew from flower to flower like one 
 of those black and red butterflies that Scotch children call 
 witches. The sight of her brought to Lucy's mind by contrast 
 the pale face and troubled brow of Mattie, and she told Mrs. 
 Morgenstern about her endeavor to persuade the child to come, 
 and how and why she had failed. Mrs. Morgenstern did not 
 laugh much at the story, but she yery nearly did something 
 else. 
 
 "Oh! do go and bring little Mattie," said Miriam. "I 
 will be very kind to her. I will give her my doll's house ; for 
 I shall be too big for it next year." 
 
 " But I left her taking care of my grandmother," said Lucy, 
 to the truth of whose character it belonged to make no con- 
 cealment of the simplicity of the household conditions of her- 
 self and her grandmother. "And," she added, "if she were 
 to come I must stay, and she could not come without me." 
 
 " But I'll tell you what — couldn't you bring the other — the 
 little Poppie she talks about ? I should like to show Mattie 
 that we're not quite so bad as she thinks us. Do you know 
 this Poppie ? " said Mrs. Morgenstern. 
 
 Then Lucy told her what she knew about Poppie. She 
 had been making inquiries in the neighborhood, and though 
 she had not traced the child to head-quarters anywhere, every- 
 body in the poor places in which she had sought information 
 knew something about her, though all they knew put together 
 did not come to much. She slept at the top of a stair here, 
 in the bottom of a cupboard there, coiling herself up in 
 spaces of incredible smallness ; but no one could say where 
 her home was, or, indeed, if she had any home. Nor, if she 
 wanted to find her, was it of much consequence whether she 
 knew her home or not, for that would certainly be the last 
 place where Poppie would be found. 
 
 "But," she concluded, "if you would really like to have 
 her, I will go and try if I can find her. I could be back in an 
 hour and a half or so." 
 
 "You shall have the brougham." 
 
 "No, no," interrupted Lucy. "To go in a brougham to 
 look for Poppie would be like putting salt on a bird's tail. 
 Besides, I should not like the probable consequences of seating 
 her in your carriage. But I should like to see how that wild 
 little savage would do in such a place as this. " 
 
 " Oh, do go," cried Miriam, clapping her hands. "It will 
 be such, fun 1" 
 
The Jewess and her Neighbors. 99 
 
 Lucy ran for her bonnet, with great doubts of success, yet 
 willing to do her best to find the child. She did not know 
 that Poppie had followed her almost to Mrs. Morgenstern's 
 door that very morning. 
 
 Now what made Lucy sufficiently hopeful of finding Poppie 
 to start in pursuit of her, was the fact that she had of late 
 seen the child so often between Guild Court and a certain 
 other court in the neighborhood of Shoreditch. But Lucy 
 did not know that it was because she was there that Poppie 
 was there. She had not for some time, as I have said, paid 
 her usual visits at Mrs. Morgen stern's because of her grand- 
 mother's illness ; and when she did go out she had gone only 
 to the place I have just mentioned, where the chief part of 
 her work among the poor lay. Poppie haunting her as she 
 did, where Lucy was there she saw Poppie. And, indeed, if 
 Poppie had any ties to one place more than a hundred others, 
 that place happened to be Staines Court. 
 
 When Lucy came out of Mrs. Morgenstern's, if she had 
 only gone the other way, she would have met Poppie coming 
 round the next corner. After Lucy had vanished, Poppie had 
 found a penny in the gutter, had bought a fresh roll with it 
 and given the half of it to a child younger than herself, whom 
 she met at the back of the Marylebone police station, and after 
 contemplating the neighboring church-yard through the rail- 
 ings while they ate their roll together, and comparing this 
 resting-place of the dead with the grand Baker Street Ceme- 
 tery, she had judged it time to scamper back to the neigh- 
 borhood of Wyvil Place, that she might have a chance of 
 seeing the beautiful lady as she came out again. As she 
 turned the corner she saw her walking away toward the sta- 
 tion, and after following her till she entered it, scudded off 
 for the city, and arrived in the neighborhood of Guild Court 
 before the third train reached Farringdon Street, to which 
 point only was the railway then available. 
 
 Lucy walked straight to Staines Court, where she was glad 
 of the opportunity of doing some business of loving kindness 
 at the same time that she sought Poppie. The first house she 
 entered was in a dreadful condition of neglect. There were 
 hardly more balusters in the stairs than served to keep the 
 filthy hand-rail in its place ; and doubtless they would by and 
 by follow the fate of the rest, and vanish as fire- wood. One 
 or two of the stairs, even, were torn to pieces for the same pur- 
 pose, and the cupboard doors of the room into which Lucy 
 entered had vanished, with half the skirting board and some 
 
100 Guild Court. 
 
 of the flooring, revealing the joists, and the ceiling of the 
 room below. All this dilapidation did not matter much in 
 summer weather, but how would it be in the winter — except 
 the police condemned the building before then, and because 
 the wretched people who lived in it could get no better, decreed 
 that so far they should have no shelter at all ? Well, when 
 the winter came, they would just go on making larger and 
 larger holes to let in the wind, and fight the cold by burning 
 their protection against it. 
 
 In this room there was nobody. Something shining in a 
 dingy sunbeam that fell upon one of the holes in the floor, 
 caugbt Lucy's eye. Sbe stooped, and putting in her hand, 
 drew out a bottle. At the same moment she let it fall back 
 into the hole, and started with a sense of theft. 
 
 "Don't touch Mrs. Flanaghan's gin bottle, lady. She's a 
 good 'un to swear, as you'd be frightened to hear her. She 
 gives me the creepers sometimes, and I'm used to her. She 
 says it's all she's got in the world, and she's ready to die for 
 the <ould bottle.'" 
 
 It was Poppie's pretty, dirty face and wild, black eyes that 
 looked round the door-post. 
 
 Lucy felt considerably relieved. She replaced the bottle 
 carefully, saying as she rose : 
 
 "I didn't mean to steal it, Poppie. I only saw it shining, 
 and wanted to know what it was. Suppose I push it a little 
 further in, that the sun mayn't be able to see it ? " 
 
 Poppie thought this was fun, and showed her white teeth. 
 
 " But it was you I was looking for — not in that hole, you 
 know," added Lucy, laughing. 
 
 " I think I could get into it, if I was to put my clothes off," 
 said Poppie. 
 
 Lucy thought it would be a tight fit indeed, if her clothes 
 made any difference. 
 
 " Will you come with me ? " she said. " I want you." 
 
 "Yes, lady," answered Poppie, looking, though, as if she 
 would bolt in a moment. 
 
 " Come, then," said Lucy, approaching her where she stood 
 still in the doorway. 
 
 But before she reached her, Poppie scudded, and was at the 
 bottom of the stair before Lucy recovered from the surprise of 
 her sudden flight. She saw at once that it would not do to 
 make persistent advances, or show the least desire to get a 
 hold of her. 
 
 When she got to the last landing-place on the way down, 
 
The Jewess and her Neighbors. 101 
 
 there was Poppie's face waiting for her in the door below. 
 Careful as one who fears to startle a half-tamed creature with 
 wings, Lucy again approached her ; but she vanished again, 
 and she saw no more of her till she was at the mouth of the 
 court. There was Poppie once more, to vanish yet again. In 
 some unaccountable way she seemed to divine where Lucy was 
 going, and with endless evanishments still reappeared in front 
 of her, till she reached the railway station. And there was 
 no Poppie. 
 
 For a moment Lucy was dreadfully disappointed. She had 
 not yet had a chance of trying her powers of persuasion upon 
 the child ; she had not been within arm's length of her. And 
 she stood at the station door, hot, tired, and disappointed — 
 with all the holiday feeling gone out of her. 
 
 Poppie had left her, because she had no magic word by 
 which to gain access to the subterranean regions of the guarded 
 railway. She thought Lucy was going back to the great house 
 in Wyvil Place ; but whether Poppie left her to perform the 
 same journey on foot, I do not know. She had scarcely lost 
 sight of Lucy, however, before she caught sight of Thomas 
 Worboise, turning the corner of a street a hundred yards off. 
 She darted after him, and caught him by the tail of his coat. 
 He turned on her angrily, and shook her off. 
 
 " The lady," gasped Poppie ; but Thomas would not listen, 
 and went on his way. Poppie in her turn was disappointed, 
 and stood "like one forbid." But at that -very moment her 
 eye fell on something in the kennel. She was always finding- 
 things, though they were generally the veriest trifles. The 
 penny of that morning was something almost awful in its 
 importance. This time it was a bit of red glass. Now Poppie 
 had quite as much delight in colored glass as Lord Bacon had, 
 who advised that hedges in great gardens should be adorned 
 on the top here and there "with broad plates of round, colored 
 glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon," only as she had less of 
 the ways and means of procuring what she valued, she valued 
 what she could lay her hands upon so much the more. She 
 darted at the red shine, wiped it on her frock, sucked it clean 
 in her mouth, as clean as her bright ivories, and polished it 
 up with her hands, scudding all the time, in the hope that 
 Lucy might be at the station still. Poppie did not seek to 
 analyze her feelings in doing as she did ; but what she wanted 
 was to give Lucy her treasure-trove. Sbe never doubted that 
 what was valuable to her would be valuable to a beautiful lady. 
 As little did she imagine how much value, as the gift of a 
 
102 Guild Court. 
 
 ragged little personage like herself, that which was all but 
 worthless would acquire in the eyes of a lady beautiful as Lucy 
 was beautiful, with the beauty of a tender human heart. 
 
 Lucy was sitting in the open waiting-room, so weary and 
 disappointed that little would have made her cry. Sbe had 
 let one train go on the vague chance that the erratic little 
 maiden might yet show herself, but her last hope was almost 
 gone when, to her great delight, once more she spied the odd 
 creature peeping round the side of the door. She had presence 
 of mind enough not to rise, lest she should startle the human 
 lapwing, and made her a sign instead to come to her. This 
 being just what Poppie wished at the moment, she obeyed. 
 She darted up to Lucy, put the piece of red glass into her 
 hand, and would have been off again like a low-flying swallow, 
 had not Lucy caught her by the arm. Once caught, Poppie 
 never attempted to struggle. On this occasion she only showed 
 her teeth in a rather constrained smile, and stood still. Lucy, 
 however, did not take her hand from her arm, for she felt that 
 the little phenomenon would disappear at once if she did. 
 
 "Poppie," she said, "I want you to come with me." 
 
 Poppie only grinned again. So Lucy rose, still holding her 
 by the arm, and went to the ticket-window and got two sec- 
 ond-class tickets. Poppie went on grinning, and accompanied 
 her down the stairs without one obstructive motion. 
 
 When they were fairly seated in the carriage, and there was 
 no longer any danger of her prisoner attempting to escape, 
 Lucy thought of the something Poppie had given her, at 
 which she had not even looked, so anxious was she to secure 
 her bird. When she saw it, she comprehended it at once — 
 the sign of love, the appeal of a half -savage sister to one of her 
 own kind, in whom she dimly recognized her far-off ideal ; 
 even then not seeking love from the higher, only tendering 
 the richest human gift, simple love, unsought, unbought. 
 Thus a fragment dropped by some glazier as he went to mend 
 the glass door leading into a garden, and picked out of the 
 gutter by a beggar girl, who had never yet thought whether 
 she had had a father or a mother, became in that same girl's 
 hands a something which the Lord himself, however some of 
 his interpreters might be shocked at tbe statement, would 
 have recognized as partaking of the character of his own eu- 
 charist. And as such, though without thinking of it after 
 that fashion, it was received by the beautiful lady. The tears 
 came into her eyes. Poppie thought she had offended or dis- 
 appointed her, and looked very grave. Lucy saw she had 
 
The Jewess and her Neighbors. 103 
 
 misunderstood her. There was no one in the carriage with 
 them. She stooped and kissed her. Then the same tears 
 came, almost for the first time since she had been an infant, 
 into Poppie's eyes. But just then the train moved off, and 
 although the child by no remark and no motion evinced aston- 
 ishment any more than fear, she watched everything with the 
 intensity of an animal which in new circumstances cannot 
 afford to lose one moment of circumspection, seeing a true 
 knowledge of the whole may be indispensable to the retention 
 of its liberty ; and before they reached King's Cross, her eyes 
 were clear, and only a channel on each cheek, ending in a little 
 mud-bank, showed that just two tears had flowed half way 
 down her cheeks and dried there undisturbed in the absorption 
 of her interest. 
 
 Before they reached Baker Street station, Lucy had begun 
 to be anxious as to how she should get her charge through the 
 streets. But no sooner were they upon the stairs, than Lucy 
 perceived by the way in which Poppie walked, and the way in 
 which she now and then looked up at her, that there was no 
 longer any likelihood that she would run away from her. 
 When they reached the top, she took her by the hand, and, 
 without showing the slightest inclination to bolt, Poppie trot- 
 ted alongside of her to Mrs. Morgenstern's door. Having 
 gained her purpose, Lucy's weariness had quite left her, and 
 her eyes shone with triumph. They made a strange couple, 
 that graceful lady and that ragged, bizarre child, who would, 
 however, have shown herself lovely to any eyes keen enough to 
 see through the dirt which came and went according to laws 
 as unknown to Poppie as if it had been a London fog. 
 
 Lucy knocked at the door. It was opened by a huge porter 
 in a rich livery, and shoulder-knots like the cords of a coffin, 
 as if he were about to be lowered into his grave standing. He 
 started at sight of the little city Bedouin, but stood aside to 
 let them enter, with all the respect which, like the rest of his 
 class, he ever condescended to show to those who, like Miss 
 Burton, came to instruct Miss Morgenstern, and gave him, so 
 much their superior, the trouble of opening the door to them. 
 The pride of the proudest nobleman or parvenu-millionaire 
 is entirely cast in the shade by the pride of his servants, justi- 
 fying the representation of Spenser, that although Orgoglio is 
 the son of Terra by iEolus, he cannot be raised to his full 
 giantship without the aid of his foster-father Ignaro. Lucy, 
 however, cared as little for this form of contempt as imper- 
 vious little Poppie by her side, who trotted as unconcerned 
 
104 Guild Court. 
 
 over the black and white lozenges of the marble floor as over 
 the ordinary slabs of Guild Court, or the round stones of 
 Staines Court, and looked up the splendid stair-case which 
 rose from the middle of the round hall till it reached its side, 
 and then branched into two that ran circling and ascending 
 the wall to the floor above, its hand-rails and balusters shirjing 
 with gold, and its steps covered with a carpet two yards wide, 
 in which the foot sank as if in grass, with as much indiffer- 
 ence as if it were the break-neck stair-case I have already de- 
 scribed as leading to the abode of Mistress Flanaghan. But' 
 her little bare feet were not destined to press such a luxurious 
 support ; better things awaited them, namely, the grass itself ; 
 for the resplendent creature whose head and legs were equally 
 indebted to the skill of the cunning workman, strode on be- 
 fore them, and through a glass door at the back, to a lawn 
 behind, such as few London dwellings have to show. They 
 might have thought that they had been transported by en- 
 chantment to some country palace, so skillfully were the 
 neighboring houses hidden by the trees that encircled the 
 garden. Mrs. Morgenstern, with a little company of her 
 friends, was standing in the middle of the lawn, while many 
 of her poorer neighbors were wandering about the place en- 
 joying the flowers, and what to them was indeed fresh air, 
 when Lucy came out with the dirty, bare-legged child in her 
 hand. All eyes turned upon her, and a lovelier girl doing 
 lovelier deed would have taken more than that summer morn- 
 ing to discover. 
 
 But Lucy had the bit of red glass in her mind, and, with- 
 out heeding hostess or friends for the moment, led Poppie 
 straight toward a lovely rose-tree that stood in full blossom on 
 one side of the lawn. How cool that kindly humble grass 
 must have felt to the hot feet of the darling ! But she had no 
 time to think about it. For as she drew near the rose-tree, 
 her gaze became more and more fixed upon it ; when at length 
 she stood before it, and beheld it in all its glory, she burst 
 into a very passion of weeping. The eyes of the daughter of 
 man became rivers, and her head a fountain of waters, filled 
 and glorified by the presence of a rose-tree. All that were 
 near gathered about, till "Lucy, Poppie, and the rose-tree were 
 the center of a group. Lucy made no attempt to stay the 
 flow of Poppie's tears, for her own heart swelled and swelled 
 at the sight of the child's feelings. Surely it was the pres- 
 ence of God that so moved her : if ever bush burned with fire 
 and was not consumed, that rose-bush burned with the pres- 
 
TJw Jewess and Tier Neighbors. 105 
 
 ence of God. Poppie had no handkerchief ; nor was there 
 continuity of space enough in her garments to hold a pocket : 
 she generally carried things in her mouth when they were 
 small enough to go in. And she did not even put her hands 
 to her face to hide her emotion. She let her tears run down 
 her stained cheeks, and let sob follow sob unchecked, gazing 
 ever through the storm of her little world at the marvel in 
 front of her. She had seen a rose before, but had never seen 
 a rose-tree full of roses. At last Lucy drew her handkerchief 
 from her pocket, and for the first time in her life Poppie had 
 tears wiped from her face by a loving hand. 
 
 There was one man, and only one, in the company — Mr. 
 Sargent, a young barrister. He was the first to speak. He 
 drew near to Lucy and said, in a half whisper : 
 
 "Where did you find the little creature, Miss Burton ?" 
 
 " That would be hard to say," answered Lucy, with a smile. 
 " Is'n't she a darling ? " 
 
 "You are a darling, anyhow," said Mr. Sargent, but neither 
 to Lucy nor to any one but himself. He had been like one of 
 the family for many years, for his father and Mr. Morgenstern 
 had been intimate, and he had admired Lucy ever since she 
 went first to the house ; but he had never seen her look so 
 lovely as she looked that morning. 
 
 Certain harmonious circumstances are always necessary to 
 bring out the peculiar beauty both of persons and things — a 
 truth recognized by Emerson in his lovely poem called " Each 
 and All," but recognized imperfectly, inasmuch as he seems to 
 represent the beauty of each as dependent on the all not mere- 
 ly for its full manifestation, but for its actual being ; a truth 
 likewise recognized by Shakespeare, but by him with absolute 
 truth of vision — 
 
 The nightingale, if she should sing by day, 
 When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
 No better a musician than the wren. 
 How many things by season seasoned are 
 To their right praise and true perfection ! 
 
 It was to the praise of Lucy's beauty that in this group she 
 should thus look more beautiful. The rose-tree and the splen- 
 dor of Mrs. Morgenstern did not eclipse her, because her 
 beauty was of another sort, which made a lovely harmony of 
 difference with theirs. Or perhaps, after all, it was the rag- 
 ged child in her hand that gave a tender glow to her presence 
 unseen before. 
 
106 Guild Court. 
 
 Little Miriam pulled at her mamma's skirt. She stooped to 
 the child. 
 
 " Somebody has lost that one," said Miriam, pointing shyly 
 to Poppie. " She looks like it. " 
 
 " Perhaps," said her mother. But the answer did not sat- 
 isfy Miriam. 
 
 " You told me you had lost a little girl once," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Morgenstern had never yet uttered the word death in 
 her hearing. As to the little dead daughter, she had to the 
 sister said only that she had lost her. Miriam had to inter- 
 pret the phrase for herself. 
 
 "Yes, dear child," answered her mother, not yet seeing 
 what she was driving at. 
 
 " Don't you think, mamma," pursued Miriam, with the 
 tears rising in her great black eyes, " that that's her ? I do. 
 I am sure it is my little sister." 
 
 Mrs. Morgenstern had the tenderest memories of her lost 
 darling, and turned away to hide her feelings. Meantime a 
 little conversation had arisen in the group. Lucy had let go 
 her hold of Poppie, whose tears had now ceased. Miriam 
 drew near, shyly, and possessed herself of the hand of the va- 
 grant. Her mother turned and saw her, and motherhood 
 spoke aloud in her heart. How did it manifest itself ? In 
 drawing her child away from the dirt that divided their hands ? 
 That might have proved her a dam, but would have gone far 
 to disprove her motherhood. 
 
 "What shall we do with her, Miriam ?" she said. 
 
 "Ask nurse to wash her in the bath, and put one of my 
 frocks on her." 
 
 Poppie snatched her hand from Miriam's, and began to 
 look about her with wild-eyed search after a hole to run into. 
 Mrs. Morgenstern saw that she was frightened, and turned 
 away to Lucy, who was on the other side of the rose-tree, 
 talking to Mr. Sargent. 
 
 " Couldn't we do something to make the child tidy, Lucy ? " 
 she said. 
 
 Lucy gave her shoulders a little shrug, as much as to say she 
 feared it would not be of muoh use. She was wrong there, for 
 if the child should never be clean again in her life, no one 
 could tell how the growth of moral feeling migbt be aided in 
 her by her once knowing what it was to have a clean skin and 
 clean garments. It might serve hereafter, in her conscious- 
 ness, as a type of something better still than personal cleanli- 
 ness, might work in aid of her consciousness as a vague re- 
 
The Jewess and Tier Neighbors. 107 
 
 minder of ideal purity — not altogether pleasant to her igno- 
 rant fancy, and yet to be — faintly and fearingly — desired. But 
 although Lucy did not see much use in washing her, she 
 could not help wondering what she would look like if she 
 were clean. And she proceeded to carry out her friend's 
 wishes. 
 
 Poppie was getting bored already with the unrealized world 
 of grandeur around her. The magic of the roses was all gone, 
 and she was only looking out for a chance of scudding. Yet 
 when Lucy spoke to her she willingly yielded her hand, per- 
 haps in the hope that she was, like Peter's angel, about to 
 open the prison-doors, and lead her out of her prison. 
 
 Lucy gave an amusing account of how Poppie looked 
 askance, with a mingling of terror and repugnance, at the 
 great bath, half full of water, into which she was about to be 
 plunged. But the door was shut, and there was not even a 
 chimney for her to run up, and she submitted. She looked 
 even pleased when she was at length in the midst of the water. 
 But Lucy found that she had undertaken a far more difficult 
 task than she had expected — especially when she came to her 
 hair. It was nearly two hours, notwithstanding repeated mes- 
 sages from Mrs. Morgenstern and tappings at the door of the 
 bath-room by Miriam, before she was able to reproduce the lit- 
 tle savage on whom she had been bestowing this baptism of 
 love. 
 
 When she came down at last, the company, consisting of 
 some of Mrs. Morgenstern's more intimate friends, and a 
 goodly number of clients if not exactly dependents, was seated 
 at luncheon in the large dining-room. Poppie attracted all 
 eyes once more. She was dressed in a last year's summer frock 
 of Miriam's, and her hair was reduced to order ; but she had 
 begun to cry so piteously when Lucy began to put stockings 
 upon her, that she gave it up at once, and her legs were still 
 bare. I presume she saw the last remnants of her freedom 
 vanishing in those gyves and fetters. But nice and clean as 
 she looked, she certainly had lost something by her decent 
 garments. Poppie must have been made for rags and rags for 
 Poppie — they went so admirably together. And there is noth- 
 ing wicked in rags or in poverty. It is possible to go in rags 
 and keep the Ten Commandments, and it is possible to ride in 
 purple and fine linen and break every one of them. Nothing, 
 however, could spoil the wildness of those honestly furtive 
 eyes. 
 
 Seated beside Lucy at the table, she did nothing but first 
 
108 Guild Court. 
 
 stare, then dart her eyes from one to another of the company 
 with the scared expression of a creature caught in a trap, and. 
 then stare again. She was evidently anything but comfortable. 
 When Lucy spoke to her she did not reply, but gazed appeal- 
 ingly, and on the point of crying, into her eyes, as if to say, 
 "What have I done to be punished in this dreadful manner ?" 
 Lucy tried hard to make her eat, but she sat and stared and 
 would touch nothing. Her plate, with the wing of a chicken 
 on it, stood before her unregarded. But all at once she 
 darted out her hand like the paw of a wild beast, caught 
 something, slipped from her chair, and disappeared under the 
 table. Peeping down after her, Lucy saw her seated on the 
 floor, devouring the roll which had been put by the side of her 
 plate. Judging it best not to disturb her, she took no more 
 notice of her for some time, during which Poppie, having dis- 
 covered a long row of resplendent buttons down the front of 
 her dress, twisted them all off with a purpose manifested as 
 soon as the luncheon was over. When the company rose from 
 their seats, she crawled out from under the table and ran to 
 Miriam, holding out both her hands. Miriam held out her 
 hands to meet Poppie's, and received them full of the buttons 
 off her own old frock. 
 
 " Oh ! you naughty Poppie," said Lucy, who had watched 
 her. "Why did you cut off the buttons ? Don't you like 
 them ? " 
 
 " Oh ! golly ! don't I just ? And so does she. Tuck me 
 up if she don't ! " 
 
 Poppie had no idea that she had done anything improper. 
 It was not as buttons, but per se, as pretty things, that she 
 admired the knobs, and therefore she gave them to Miriam. 
 Having said thus, she caught at another tommy, as she would 
 have called it, dived under the table again, and devoured it at 
 her ease, keeping, however, a sharp eye upon her opportunity. 
 Finding one when Lucy, who had remained in the room to 
 look after her, was paying more attention to the party in the 
 garden, she crawled out at the door, left open during the pro- 
 cess of taking away, and with her hand on the ponderous lock 
 of the street door, found herself seized from behind by the 
 porter. She had been too long a pupil of the London streets not 
 to know the real position of the liveried in the social scale, and 
 for them she had as little respect as any of her tribe. She 
 therefore assailed him with such a torrent of bad language, 
 scarcely understanding a word that she used, that he declared 
 it made his " 'air stand on hend," although he was tolerably 
 
The Jewess and her Neighbors. 109 
 
 familiar with such at the Spotted Dog round the corner. 
 Finding, however, that this discharge of cuttle-fish ink had 
 no effect upon the enemy, she tried another mode — and, with 
 a yell of pain, the man fell hack, shaking his hand, which 
 bore the marks of four sharp incisors. In one moment Pop- 
 pie was free, and scudding. Thus ended her introduction to 
 civilized life. 
 
 Poppie did not find it nice. She preferred all London to 
 the biggest house and garden in it. True, there was that 
 marvelous rose-tree. But free-born creatures cannot live upon 
 the contemplation of roses. After all, the thing she had been 
 brought up to — the streets, the kennels with their occasional 
 crusts, pennies, and bits of glass, the holes to creep into, and 
 the endless room for scudding— was better. And her unsuit- 
 able dress, which did attract the eyes of the passers — being 
 such as was seldom seen in connection with bare hair and legs — • 
 would soon accommodate itself to circumstances, taking the 
 form of rags before a week was over, to which change of con- 
 dition no care of Poppie's would interpose an obstacle. For, 
 like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, she had no 
 care. She did not know what it meant. And possibly the 
 great One who made her may have different ideas about respect- 
 ability from those of dining aldermen and members of Parlia- 
 ment from certain boroughs that might be named. 
 
 At the porter's cry Lucy started, and found to her dismay 
 that her charge was gone. She could not, however, help a 
 certain somewhat malicious pleasure at the man's discomfiture 
 and the baby-like way in which he lamented over his bitten fin- 
 ger. He forgot himself so far as to call her " the little devil " — 
 which was quite in accordance with his respectable way of 
 thinking. Both Mrs. Morgenstern and Lucy, after the first 
 disappointment and vexation were over, laughed heartily at 
 the affair, and even Miriam was worked up to a smile at last. 
 But she continued very mournful, notwithstanding, over the 
 loss of her sister, as she would call her. 
 
 Mr. Sargent did his best to enliven the party. He was a 
 man of good feeling, and of more than ordinary love for the 
 right. This, however, from a dread of what he would have 
 called sentimentality, he persisted in regarding as a mere pecu- 
 liarity, possibly a weakness. If he made up his mind to help 
 any one who was wronged, for which it must be confessed he 
 had more time than he would have cared to acknowledge, he 
 would say that he had " taken an interest in such or such a 
 case;" or that the case involved " points of interest," which 
 
110 Guild Court. 
 
 he was " willing to see settled." He never said that he wanted 
 to see right done : that would have been enthusiastic, and un- 
 worthy of the cold dignity of a lawyer. So he was one of those 
 false men, alas too few ! who always represent themselves as 
 inferior to what they are. Many and various were the jokes 
 he made upon Poppie and Jeames, ever, it must be confessed, 
 with an eye to the approbation of Miss Burton. He declared, 
 for instance, that the Armageddon of class-legislature would 
 be fought between those of whom the porter and Poppie were 
 the representatives, and rejoiced that, as in the case of the 
 small quarrel between Fitz James and Eoderick Dhu, Poppie 
 had drawn the first blood, and gained thereby a good omen. 
 And Lucy was pleased with him, it must be confessed. She 
 never thought of comparing him with Thomas, which was well 
 for Thomas. But she did think he was a very clever, gentle- 
 manly fellow, and knew how to make himself agreeable. 
 
 He offered to see her . home, which she declined,, not even 
 permitting him to walk with her to the railway. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE TWO OLD WOMEF. 
 
 She found the two old women, of whom Mattie still seemed 
 the older, seated together at their tea. Not a ray of the after- 
 noon sun could find its way into the room. It was dusky and 
 sultry, with a smell of roses. This, and its strange mingling 
 of furniture, made it like a room over a broker's in some coun- 
 try town. 
 
 "Well, Miss Burton, here you are at last! "said Mattie, 
 with a half smile on the half of her mouth. 
 
 "Yes, Mattie, here I am. Has grandmother been good to 
 you ? " 
 
 " Of course she has — very good. Everybody is good to me. 
 I am a very fortunate child, as my father says, though he 
 never seems to mean it. " 
 
 "And how do you think. your patient is? "asked Lucy, 
 while Mrs. Boxall sat silent, careful not to obstruct the amuse- 
 ment which the child's answers must give them. 
 
 " Well, I do not think Mrs. Boxall is worse. She has been very 
 
The Two Old Women. Ill 
 
 good, and has done everything I found myself obliged to rec- 
 ommend. I would not let her get up so soon as she wanted 
 to." 
 
 " And what did you do to keep her in bed ? " asked Lucy. 
 
 " Well, I could not think of a story to tell her just then, so 
 I got the big Bible out of the bookcase, and began to show 
 her the pictures. But she did not care about that. I think 
 it was my fault, though, because I was not able to hold the 
 book so that she could see them properly. So I read a story 
 to her, but I do not think I chose a very nice one." 
 
 Mrs. Boxall made a deprecating motion with her head and 
 hands, accompanied by the words — 
 
 " She will say what she thinks — Bible or Prayer-book." 
 
 " Well, and where's the harm, when I mean none ? Who's 
 to be angry at that ? I will say," Mattie went on, "that it 
 was an ugly trick of that woman to serve a person that never 
 did her any harm ; and I wonder at two sensible women like 
 Mrs. Boxall and Deborah sticking up for her." 
 
 " Is it Jael she means, grannie ? " asked Lucy, very softly. 
 
 " Yes, it is Jael she means," answered Mattie for herself, 
 with some defiance in her tone. 
 
 "For my part," she continued, "I think it was just like 
 one of Syne's tricks." 
 
 " Have you seen Mr. Spelt to-day, Mattie ? " asked Lucy, 
 desirous of changing the subject, because of the direction the 
 child's thoughts had taken. 
 
 "Well, I haven't," answered Mattie, "and I will go and 
 see now whether he's gone or not. But don't you fancy that 
 I don't see through it for all that, Miss Burton," she contin- 
 ued. " I shouldn't have been in the way, though — not much, 
 for I like to see young people enjoying themselves." 
 
 "What do you mean, Mattie ?" asked Lucy with a bewil- 
 derment occasioned rather by the quarter whence the words 
 proceeded than by the words themselves ; for she did expect 
 to see Thomas that evening. 
 
 Mattie vouchsafed no reply to the question, but bade them 
 good-night, the one and the other, with an evident expression 
 of hauteur, and marched solemnly down the stairs, holding 
 carefully by the balusters, for she was too small to use the 
 hand-rail comfortably. 
 
 Mr. Spelt's roost was shut up for the night : he had gone to 
 take some work home. Mattie therefore turned toward her 
 father's shop. 
 
 In the archway she ran against Thomas, or, more properly, 
 
112 .. Guild Court 
 
 Thomas ran against her, for Mattie never ran at all, so that 
 he had to clasp her to prevent her from falling. 
 
 "Well, you needn't be in such a hurry, Mr. Thomas, though 
 she is a-waiting for you. She won't go till you come, 1 
 know." 
 
 "You're a cheeky little monkey," said Thomas, good na- 
 turedly. But the words were altogether out of tune with the 
 idea of Mattie, who again felt her dignity invaded, and walked 
 into the shop with her chin projecting more than usual. 
 
 " Come, my princess," said her father, seating himself in an 
 old chair, and taking the child on his knee. " I haven't seen 
 my princess all day. How's your royal highness this night ? " 
 
 Mattie laid her head on his shoulder, and burst into tears. 
 
 "What's the matter with my pet ?" said her father, fond- 
 ling and soothing her with much concern. "Has anybody 
 been unkind to you ? " 
 
 "No, Mr. Kitely," said the child, "but I feel that lonely ! 
 I wish you would read to me a bit, for Mr. Spelt ain't there, 
 and I read something in the Bible this morning that ain't 
 done me no good." 
 
 " You shouldn't read such things, Mattie," said the book- 
 seller. " They ain't no good. I'll go and get a candle. Sit 
 you there till I come back." 
 
 "No, no, father. Don't leave me here. I don't like the 
 books to-night. Take me with you. Carry me." 
 
 The father obeyed at once, took his child on his arm, got a 
 candle from the back room, for the place was very dusky — he 
 did not care to light the gas this time of the year — and sat 
 down with Mattie in a part of the shop which was screened 
 from the door, where he could yet hear every footstep that 
 passed. 
 
 "What shall I read now, my precious ?" he asked. 
 
 " Well, I don't think I care for anything but the New Testa- 
 ment to-night, father." 
 
 "Why, you've just been saying it disagreed with you this 
 very morning," objected Mr. Kitely. 
 
 " No, father. It wasn't the New Testament at all. It was 
 the very old Testament, I believe ; for it was near the begin- 
 ning of it, and told all about a horrid murder. I do believe," 
 she added, reflectively, " that that book grows better as it gets 
 older — younger, I mean." 
 
 The poor child wanted some one to help her out of her Bible 
 difficulties, and her father certainly was not the man to do so, 
 for he believed nothing about or in it. Like many other chil- 
 
The Two Old Women. 113 
 
 dren far more carefully taught of man, she was laboring under 
 the misery of the fancy that everything related in the Old 
 Testament without remark of disapprobation is sanctioned by 
 the divine will. If parents do not encourage their children to 
 speak their minds about what they read generally, and espe- 
 cially in the Bible, they will one day be dismayed to find that 
 they have not merely the strangest but the most deadly notions 
 of what is contained in that book — as, for instance, besides the 
 one in hand, that God approved of all the sly tricks of Jacob — 
 for was not he the religious one of the brothers, and did not 
 all his tricks succeed ? They are not able without help to 
 regard the history broadly, and see that just because of this 
 bad that was in him, he had to pass through a life of varied 
 and severe suffering, punished in the vices which his children 
 inherited from himself, in order that the noble part of his 
 nature might be burned clean of the filth that clung to it. 
 
 Such was Mr. Kitely's tenderness over his daughter, increased 
 by some signs he had begun to see of the return of an affection 
 of the brain from which he had been on the point of losing 
 her some years before, that he made no further opposition, 
 but, rising again, brought an old "breeches Bible "from a 
 shelf, and, taking her once more on his knee, supported her 
 with one hand and held the book with the other. 
 
 "Well, I don't know one chapter from another," reflected 
 Mr. Kitely aloud. "I wonder where the child would like me 
 to read. I'm sure I can't tell what to read." 
 
 "Read about Somebody," said Mattie. 
 
 " From the peculiar expression she gave to the word, her 
 father guessed at her meaning, and opening the gospel part of 
 the book at random, began to read. 
 
 He read, from the Gospel by St. Matthew, the story of the 
 Transfiguration, to which Mattie listened without word or 
 motion. He then went on to the following story of the luna- 
 tic and apparently epileptic, boy. As soon as he began to read 
 the account of how the child was vexed, Mattie said conclu- 
 sively : 
 
 " That was Syne, /know him. He's been at it for a long 
 time." 
 
 "'And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of 
 him ; and the child was cured from that very hour,' " the 
 bookseller went on reading in a subdued voice, partly because 
 he sat in his shop with the door open, partly because not 
 even he could read "the ancient story, ever new "without 
 feeling a something he could not have quite accounted for if 
 
114 Guild Court. 
 
 ho had thought of trying. But the moment he had read those 
 words, Mattio cried : 
 
 "There, I knew it!" 
 
 It must he remembered that Mattie had not read much of 
 the New Testament, Mr. Spelt alone had led her to read any. 
 Everything came new to her, therefore ; every word was like 
 the rod of Moses that drew the waters of response. 
 
 "What did you know, princess ?" asked her father. 
 
 " I knew that Somebody would make him mind what he was 
 about — I did. I wonder if he let a flash of that light out on 
 him that*he shut up inside him again. I shouldn't wonder if 
 that was ifc. I know Syne couldn't stand that — no, not for a 
 moment. I think I'll go to bed, Mr. Kitely." 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 ON" THE EIVEK. 
 
 Notwithstanding the good-humored answer Thomas had 
 made to Mattie, her words stuck to him and occasioned him 
 a little discomfort. For if the bookseller's daughter, whose 
 shop lay between the counting-house and the court, knew so 
 well of his visits to Lucy, how could he hope that they would 
 long remain concealed from other and far more dangerous 
 eyes. This thought oppressed him so much, that instead of 
 paying his usual visit to Mr. Molken, he went to Mrs. Boxall's 
 at once. There, after greetings, he threw himself on the 
 cushions of the old settle, and was gloomy. Lucy looked at 
 him with some concern. Mrs. Boxall murmured something 
 about his being in the doldrums — a phrase she had learned 
 from her son John. 
 
 " Let's go out, Lucy," said Thomas ; " it is so sultry." 
 
 Lucy was quite ready in herself to comply. For one reason, 
 she had something upon her mind about which she wanted to 
 talk to him. But she objected. 
 
 " My grandmother is not fit to be left alone, Thomas," she 
 said, regretfully. 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! " said Thomas. . ,, 
 
 "Never mind me, child," interposed the old woman. 
 ' ' You'll make me wish myself in my grave, if you make me 
 
On the River. 115 
 
 come between young people. You go, my dear, and never 
 mind me. You needn't be gone a great while, you know." 
 
 "Oh, no, grannie; I'll be back in an hour, or less, if you 
 like," said Lucy, hastening to put on her bonnet. 
 
 "No, no, my dear. An hour's in reason. Anything in 
 reason, you know." 
 
 So Lucy made the old lady comfortable in her arm-chair, 
 and went out with Thomas. 
 
 The roar of the city had relaxed. There would be no more 
 blocks in G-racechurch Street that night. There was little 
 smoke in the air, only enough to clothe the dome of St. Paul's 
 in a faintly rosy garment, tinged from the west, where the sun 
 was under a cloud. The huge mass looked ethereal, melted 
 away as to a shell of thicker air against a background of slate- 
 color, where a wind was gathering to flow at sunset through 
 the streets and lanes, cooling them from the heat of the day, 
 of the friction of iron and granite, of human effort, and the 
 thousand fires that prepared the food of the city-dining popu- 
 lation. Crossing the chief thoroughfares, they went down the 
 lanes leading to the river. Here they passed through a sultry 
 region of aromatic fragrance, where the very hooks that hung 
 from cranes in doorways high above the ground, seemed to 
 retain something of the odor of the bales they had lifted from 
 the wagons below during the hot sunshine that drew out their 
 imprisoned essences. By yet closer ways they went toward the 
 river, descending still, and at length, by a short wooden stair, 
 and a long wooden way, they came on a floating pier. There 
 the wind blew sweet and cooling and very grateful, for the 
 summer was early and fervid. Down into the east the river 
 swept away, somber and sullen, to gurgle blindly through the 
 jungle of masts that lay below the bridge and crossed the hori- 
 zontal lines of the sky with their delicate spars, and yet more 
 delicate cordage. Little did Thomas think that one of those 
 masts rose from a vessel laden, one might say, with his near, 
 though not his final fate — a fate that truth might have averted, 
 but which the very absence of truth made needful and salutary. 
 A boat was just starting up the river toward the light. 
 
 "Let's have a blow," said Thomas. 
 
 " That will be delightful," answered Lucy, and they went 
 on board. First one wheel, then the other, then both to- 
 gether, dashed the Stygian waters of the Thames into a white 
 fury, and they were moving up the stream. They went for- 
 ward into the bows of the boat to get clear of the smoke, and 
 sat down. There were so few on board that they could talk 
 
116 Guild Court. 
 
 without being overheard. But they sat silent for some time ; 
 the stillness of the sky seemed to have sunk into their hearts. 
 For that was as pure over their heads as if there had been no 
 filthy Thames beneath their feet ; and its light and color illu- 
 minated the surface of the river, which was not yet so vile that 
 it could not reflect the glory that fell upon its face. The tide 
 was against them, and with all the struggles of the little 
 steamer they made but slow way up the dark, hurrying water. 
 Lucy sat gazing at the banks of the river, where the mighty 
 city on either hand has declined into sordid meanness, skele- 
 ton exposure ; where the struggles of manufacture and com- 
 merce are content to abjure their own decencies for the sake 
 of the greater gain. Save where the long line of Somerset 
 House, and the garden of the Temple asserted the ancient 
 dignity of order and cleanliness, the whole looked like a mean, 
 tattered, draggled fringe upon a rich garment. Then she 
 turned her gaze down on the river, which, as if ashamed of 
 the condition into which it had fallen from its first estate, 
 crawled fiercely away to hide itself in the sea. 
 
 " How different," she said, looking up at Thomas, who had 
 been sitting gazing at her all the time that she contemplated 
 the shore and the river — '" How different things would be if 
 they were only clean ! " 
 
 "Yes, indeed," returned Thomas. "Think what it would 
 be to see the fishes — the salmon, say — shooting about in clear 
 water under us, like so many silver fishes in a crystal globe ! 
 If people were as fond of the cleanliness you want as they are 
 of money, things would look very different indeed ! " 
 
 I have said that Thomas loved Lucy more and more. Partly 
 a cause, partly a consequence of this, he had begun to find out 
 that there was a poetic element in her, and he flattered him- 
 self that he had developed it. No doubt he had had a share 
 in its development, but it was of a deeper, truer, simpler kind 
 than his own, and would never have been what it was, in rap- 
 port always with the facts of nature and life, if it had been 
 only a feminine response to his. Men like women to reflect 
 them, no doubt ; but the woman who can only reflect a man, 
 and is nothing in herself, will never be of much service to 
 him. The woman who cannot stand alone is not likely to 
 make either a good wife or mother. She may be a pleasant 
 companion so far as the intercourse of love-making goes, no 
 doubt — scarcely more ; save, indeed, the trials that ensue upon 
 marriage bring out the power latent in her. But the remark 
 with which Thomas responded to Lucy was quite beyond his 
 
On the Paver. 117 
 
 usual strain. He had a far finer nature underneath than his 
 education had allowed to manifest itself, and the circumstances 
 in which he was at the moment were especially favorable to 
 his best. Casca, on his first appearance in Julius Ccesar, talks 
 blunt and snarling prose : in the very next scene, which is a 
 fearfully magnificent thunder-storm, he speaks poetry. "He 
 was quick mettle when he went to school," and the circum- 
 stances brought it out. 
 
 " I wish the world was clean, Thomas, all through," said 
 Lucy. 
 
 Thomas did not reply. His heart smote him. Those few 
 words went deeper than all Mr. Simon's sermons, public and 
 private. For a long time he had not spoken a word about re- 
 ligion to Lucy. Nor had what he said ever taken any hold 
 upon her intellect, although it had upon her conscience ; for, 
 not having been brought up to his vocabulary, and what might 
 be called the technical phrases if not slang of his religion, it 
 had been to her but a vague sound, which yet she received as 
 a reminder of duty. Some healthy religious teaching would 
 be of the greatest value to her now. But Mr. Potter provided 
 no food beyond the established fare ; and whatever may be 
 said about the sufficiency of the church-service, and the use- 
 lessness of preaching, I for one believe that a dumb ass, if the 
 Lord only opens his mouth, may rebuke much madness of 
 prophets, and priests too. But where there is neither honesty 
 nor earnestness, as in the case of Mr. Potter, the man is too 
 much of an ass for even the Lord to open his mouth to any 
 useful purpose. His heart has to be opened first, and that 
 takes time and trouble. 
 
 Finding that Thomas remained silent, Lucy looked into his 
 face, and saw that he was troubled. This brought to the 
 point of speech the dissatisfaction with himself which had 
 long been moving restlessly and painfully in his heart, and of 
 which the quiet about him, the peace of the sky, and that 
 sense of decline and coming repose, which invades even the 
 heart of London with the sinking sun, had made him more 
 conscious than he had yet been. 
 
 "Oh, Lucy," he said, "I wish you would help me to be 
 good." 
 
 To no other could he have said so. Mr. Simon, for instance, 
 aroused all that was most contrarious in him. But Lucy at this 
 moment seemed so near to him that before her he could be 
 humble without humiliation, and could even enjoy the con- 
 fession of weakness implied in his appeal to her for aid. 
 
118 Guild Court. 
 
 She looked at him with a wise kind of wonder in her look. 
 For a moment she was silent. 
 
 " I do not know how I can help yon, Thomas, for you know 
 better about all such things than I do. But there is one thing 
 I want very much to speak to you about, because it makes me 
 unhappy — rather — not very, you know." 
 
 She laid his hand upon his. He looked at her lovingly. 
 She was encouraged, and continued : 
 
 " I don't like this way of going on, Thomas. I never quite 
 liked it, but I've been thinking more about it, lately. I 
 thought you must know best, but I am not satisfied with 
 myself at all about it." 
 
 " What do you mean, Lucy ?" asked Thomas, his heart be- 
 ginning already to harden at the approach of definite blame. 
 It was all very well for him to speak as if he might be improved 
 — it was another thing for Lucy to do so. 
 
 " Do not be vexed with me, Thomas. You must know what 
 I mean. I wish your mother knew all about it," she added, 
 hastily, after a pause. And then her face flushed red as a 
 sunset. 
 
 " She'll know all about it in good time," returned Thomas, 
 testily ; adding, in an undertone, as if he did not mean to 
 press the remark, although he wanted her to hear it : " You 
 do not know my mother, or you would not be so anxious for 
 her to know all about it." 
 
 " Couldn't you get your father to tell her, then, and make 
 it easier for you ? " 
 
 "My father," answered Thomas, coolly, " would turn me 
 out of the house if I didn't give you up ; and as I don't mean 
 to do that, and don't want to be turned out of the house just 
 at present, when I have nowhere else to go, I don't want to 
 tell him." 
 
 "I can't go on in this way, then. Besides, they are sure to 
 hear of it, somehow." 
 
 " Oh, no, they won't. Who's to tell them ? " 
 
 "Don't suppose I've been listening, Tom, because I heard 
 your last words," said a voice behind them — that of Mr. 
 Wither. "I haven't been watching you, but I have been 
 watching for an opportunity of telling you that Stopper is 
 keeping far too sharp a look-out on you to mean you any good 
 by it. I beg your pardon, Miss Boxall," he resumed, taking 
 off his hat. "I fear I have been rude ; but, as I say, I was 
 anxious to tell Mr. Worboise to be cautious.' I don't see why 
 a fellow should get into a scrape for want of a hint. " 
 
On the River. 119 
 
 The manner with which Wither spoke to her made poor 
 Lucy feel that there was not merely something unfitting, but 
 something even disreputable, in the way her relation to Thomas 
 was kept up. She grew as pale as death, rose, and turned to 
 the side of the vessel, and drew her veil nervously over her face. 
 
 "It's no business of mine, of course, Tom. But what I tell 
 you is true. Though if you take my advice," said Wither, 
 and here he dropped his voice to a whisper, "this connection 
 is quite as fit a one to cut as the last ; and the sooner you do 
 it the better, for it'll make a devil of a row with old Boxall. 
 You ought to think of the girl, you know. Your own gov- 
 ernor's your own lookout. There's none of it any business of 
 mine, you know." 
 
 He turned with a nod and went aft ; for the steamer was 
 just drawing in to the Hungerford pier, where he had to go 
 ashore. 
 
 For a few minutes not a word passed between Thomas and 
 Lucy. A sudden cloud had fallen upon them. They must 
 not go on this way, but what other way were they to take ? 
 They stood side by side, looking into the water, Thomas hu- 
 miliated and Lucy disgraced. There was no comfort to be got 
 out of that rushing blackness, and the mud banks grew wider 
 and wider. 
 
 Lucy was the first to speak, for she was far more capable 
 than Tom. 
 
 " We must go ashore at the next pier," she said. 
 
 " Very well," said Tom, as if he had been stunned into sul- 
 lenness. "If you want to get rid of me because of what that 
 fellow said — " 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! " said Lucy, and burst out crying. 
 
 " Well, what do you want, Lucy ?" 
 
 " We must part, Tom," sobbed Lucy. 
 
 "Nonsense ! " said Tom, nearly crying himself, for a great, 
 painful lump had risen in his throat. 
 
 " We can love each other all the same," said Lucy, still sob- 
 bing ; " only you must not come to see me any more — that is 
 — I do not mean — never any more at all — but till you have 
 told them — all about it. I don't mean now, but some time, 
 you know. When will you be of age, Tom ? " 
 
 " Oh, that makes no difference. As long's I'm dependent, 
 it's all the same. I wish I was my own master. I should soon 
 let them see I didn't care what they said." 
 
 Silence again followed, during which Lucy tried in vain to 
 stop her tears by wiping them away. A wretched feeling 
 
120 Guild Court 
 
 awoke in her that Thomas was not manly, could not resolve — 
 or rather, could not help her when she would do the right 
 thing. She would have borne anything rather than that. It 
 put her heart in a rise. 
 
 The boat stopped at the Westminster pier. They went on 
 shore. The sun was down, and the fresh breeze that blew, 
 while it pleasantly cooled the hot faces that moved westward 
 from their day's work, made Lucy almost shiver with cold. 
 For loss had laid hold of her heart. They walked up Parlia- 
 ment Street. Thomas felt that he must say something, but 
 what he should say he could not think. He always thought 
 what he should say — never what he should do. 
 
 "Lucy, dear," he said at last, "we won't make up our 
 minds to-night. Wait till I see you next. I shall have time 
 to think about it before then. I will be a match for that 
 sneaking rascal, Stopper, yet." 
 
 Lucy felt inclined to say that to sneak was no way to give 
 sneaking its own. But she said neither that nor anything 
 else. 
 
 They got into an omnibus at Charing Cross, and returned — 
 deafened, stupefied, and despondent—into the city. They 
 parted at Lucy's door, and Thomas went home, already much 
 later than usual. 
 
 What should he do ? He resolved upon nothing, and did 
 the worst thing he could have done. He lied. 
 
 "You are very late to-night, Thomas," said his mother. 
 " Have you been all this time with Mr. Moloch ?" 
 
 "Yes, mother," answered Thomas. 
 
 And when he was in bed he comforted himself by saying 
 there was no such person as Mr. Moloch. 
 
 When Lucy went to bed, she prayed to God in sobs and cries 
 of pain. Hitherto she had believed in Thomas without a ques- 
 tion crossing the disk of her faith ; but now she had begun to 
 doubt, and the very fact that she could doubt was enough to 
 make her miserable, even if there had been no ground for the 
 doubt. My readers must remember that no one had attempted 
 to let her into the secrets of his character as I have done with 
 them. His beautiful face, pleasant manners, self-confidence, 
 and, above all, her love, had blinded her to his faults. For, 
 although I do not in the least believe that Love is blind, yet I 
 must confess that, like kittens and some other animals, he has 
 his blindness nine days or more, as it may be, from his birth. 
 But once she had begun to suspect, she found ground for sus- 
 picion enough. She had never known grief before — not even 
 
On the River. 121 
 
 when her mother died — for death has not anything despicable, 
 and Thomas had. 
 
 What Charles Wither had told Thomas was true enough. 
 Mr. Stopper was after him. Ever since that dinner-party at 
 Mr. Boxall's he had hated him, and bided his time. 
 
 Mr. Stopper was a man of forty, in whose pine-apple whisk- 
 ers and bristly hair the first white streaks of autumn had 
 begun to show themselves. He had entered the service of 
 Messrs. Blunt & Baker some five-and-twenty years before, and 
 had gradually risen through all the intervening positions to 
 his present post. Within the last year, moved by prudential 
 considerations, he had begun to regard the daughters of his 
 principal against the background of possible marriage ; and as 
 he had hitherto, from motives of the same class, resisted all 
 inclinations in that direction, with so much the more force 
 did his nature rush into the channel which the consent of his 
 selfishness opened for the indulgence of his affections. For 
 the moment he saw Mary Boxall with this object in view, he 
 fell in love with her after the fashion of such a man, beginning 
 instantly to build, not castles, but square houses in the air, in 
 the dining-rooms especially of which her form appeared in 
 gorgeous and somewhat matronly garments amid ponderous 
 mahogany, seated behind the obscuration of tropical plants at 
 a table set out a la Russe. His indignation, when he entered 
 the drawing-room after Mr. Boxall's dinner, and saw Thomas 
 in the act of committing the indiscretion recorded in that part 
 of my story, passed into silent hatred when he found that 
 while his attentions were slighted, those of Thomas, in his eyes 
 a mere upstart — for he judged everything in relation to the 
 horizon of Messrs. Blunt & Baker, and every man in relation 
 to himself, seated upon the loftiest summit within the circle 
 of that horizon — not even offered, but only dropped at her feet 
 in passing, were yet accepted. 
 
 Among men Mr. Stopper was of the bull-dog breed, saga- 
 cious, keen-scented, vulgar, and inexorable ; capable of much 
 within the range of things illuminated by his own interests, 
 capable of nothing beyond it. And now one of his main ob- 
 jects was to catch some scent — for the bull-dog has an excel- 
 lent nose — of Thomas's faults or failings, and follow such up 
 the wind of his prosperity, till he should have a chance of 
 pulling him down at last. His first inclination toward this 
 revenge was strengthened and elevated into an imagined execu- 
 tion of justice when Mary fell ill, and it oozed out that her 
 illness had not a little to do with some behavior of Thomas's. 
 
122 Guild Court. 
 
 Hence it came that, both consciously and unconsciously, Mr. 
 Stopper was watching the unfortunate youth, though so cau- 
 tious was Thomas that he had not yet discovered anything of 
 which he could make a definite use. Nor did he want to 
 interrupt Thomas's projects before he found that they put him 
 in his power. 
 
 So here was a weak and conceited youth of fine faculties and 
 fine impulses, between the malign aspects of two opposite stars — 
 watched, that is, and speculated upon by two able and unprin- 
 cipled men ; the one, Mr. Molken, searching him and ingrati- 
 ating himself with him, "to the end to know how to worke 
 him, or winde him, or governe him," which, Lord Bacon goes 
 on to say, "proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, 
 and not entyre and ingenuous ; " the other, Mr. Stopper, 
 watching his conduct, not for the sake of procuring advantage 
 to himself, but injury to Thomas. The one sought to lead 
 him astray, that he might rob him in the dark ; the other 
 sought a chance of knocking him down, that he might leave 
 him lying in the ditch. And they soon began to play into 
 each other's hands. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CAPTAIN BOXALL'S PKOPOSAL. 
 
 About three weeks before the occurrences last recorded, the 
 following conversation took place between Richard and John 
 Boxall over their wine : 
 
 " "I tell you what, brother," said the captain, "you're addling 
 good brains with overwork. You won't make half so much 
 money if you're too greedy after it. You don't look the same 
 fellow you used to." 
 
 "I hope I'm not too greedy after money, John. But it's 
 my business, as your's is to sail your ship." 
 
 " Yes, yes. I can't sail my ship too well, nor you attend to 
 your business too well. But if I was to sail two ships instead 
 of one, or if I was to be on deck instead of down at my dinner 
 when she was going before the wind in the middle of the 
 Atlantic, I shouldn't do my best when it came" on to blow hard 
 in the night." 
 
Captain BoxaWs Proposal. 123 
 
 " That's all very true. But I dou't think it applies to me. 
 I never miss my dinner, by any chance." 
 
 " Don't you turn your blind eye on my signal, Dick. You 
 know what I mean well enough. I've got a proposal to make — 
 the jolliest thing in the world." 
 
 " Go on. I'm listening." 
 
 "Mary ain't quite so well again — is she now ?" 
 
 ft Well, I don't think she's been getting on so fast. I sup- 
 pose it's the spring weather." 
 
 " Why, you may call it summer now. But she ain't as I 
 should like to see her, the darling." 
 
 "Well, no. I must confess I'm sometimes rather uneasy 
 about her." 
 
 "And there's Jane. She don't look at home, somehow." 
 
 For some time Richard had been growing more and more 
 uneasy as the evidence of his daughter's attachment to Charles 
 Wither became plainer. Both he and his wife did the best 
 they could to prevent their meeting, but having learned a lit- 
 tle wisdom from the history of his father's family, and know- 
 ing well the hastiness of his own temper, he had as yet man- 
 aged to avoid any open conflict with his daughter, who he 
 knew had inherited his own stubbornness. He had told his 
 brother nothing of this second and now principal source of 
 family apprehension ; and the fact that John saw that all was 
 not right with Jane, greatly increased his feeling of how much 
 things were going wrong. He made no reply, however, but 
 sat waiting what was to follow. Accumulating his arguments 
 the captain went on. 
 
 " And there's your wife ; she's had a headache almost every 
 day since I came to the house." 
 
 "Well, what are you driving at, John ?" said his brother, 
 with the more impatience that he knew all John said was true. 
 
 "What I'm driving at is this," answered the captain, 
 bringing-to suddenly. "You must all make this next voyage 
 in my clipper. It'll do you all a world o' good, and me too." 
 
 " Nonsense, John," said Eichard, feeling however that a 
 faint light dawned through the proposal. 
 
 " Don't call it nonsense till you've slept upon it, Dick. The 
 ship's part mine, and I can make it easy for you. You'll have 
 to pay a little passage-money, just to keep me right with the 
 rest of the owners ; but that won't be much, and you're no 
 screw, though I did say you were too greedy after the money. 
 I believe it's not the money so much as the making of it that 
 fills your head." 
 
124: Guild Court. 
 
 "Still, you wouldn't have me let the business go to the 
 dogs?" 
 
 "No fear of that, with Stopper at the head of affairs. I'll 
 tell you what you must do. You must take him in." 
 
 "Into partnership, do you mean ?" said Eichard, his tone 
 expressing no surprise, for he had thought of this before. 
 
 " Yes, I do. You'll have to do it some day, and the sooner 
 the better. If you don't, you'll lose him, and that you'll find 
 won't be a mere loss. That man'll make a dangerous enemy. 
 Where he bites he'll hold. And now's a good time to serve 
 yourself and him too. " 
 
 " Perhaps you're right, brother," answered the merchant, 
 emptying his glass of claret and filling it again instantly, an 
 action indicating a certain perturbed hesitation not in the 
 least common to him. " I'll turn it over in my mind. I cer- 
 tainly should not be sorry to have a short holiday. I haven't 
 had one to speak of for nearly twenty years, I do believe." 
 
 John judged it better not to press him. He believed from 
 what he knew of himself and his brother too that good advice 
 was best let alone to work its own effects. He turned the con- 
 versation to something indifferent. 
 
 But after this many talks followed. Mrs. Boxall, of course, 
 was consulted. Although she shrunk from the thought of a 
 sea voyage, she yet saw in the proposal a way out of many dif- 
 ficulties, especially as giving room for time to work one of his 
 especial works — that of effacement. So between the three the 
 whole was arranged before either of the young people was 
 spoken to on the subject. Jane heard it with a rush of blood 
 to her heart that left her dark face almost livid. Mary re- 
 ceived the news gladly, even merrily, though a slight paleness 
 followed and just indicated that she regarded the journey as 
 the symbol and sign of severed bonds. Julia, a plump child of 
 six, upon whose condition no argument for the voyage could 
 be founded, danced with joy at the idea of going in Uncle 
 John's ship. Mr. Stopper threw no difficulty in the way of 
 accepting a partnership in the concern, and thus matters were 
 arranged. 
 
 John Boxall had repeatedly visited his mother during the 
 six weeks he spent at his brother's house. He seldom saw 
 Lucy, however, because of her engagement at the Morgen- 
 sterns', until her grandmother's sickness kept her more at 
 home. Then, whether it was that Lucy expected her uncle 
 to be prejudiced against her, or that he really was so preju- 
 diced, I do not know, but the two did not take much to each 
 
The Tempter. 125 
 
 other. Lucy considered her uncle a common and rough-looking 
 sailor ; John Boxall called his niece a fine lady. And so they 
 parted. 
 
 On the same day on -which Thomas and Lucy had their hloiv 
 on the river, the Ningpo had cleared out of St. Katharine's 
 Dock, and was lying in the Upper Pool, all but ready to drop 
 down with the next tide to Gravesend, where she was to take 
 her passengers on board. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE TEMPTEE. 
 
 The next day, Thomas had made up his mind not to go 
 near Guild Court ; but in the afternoon Mr. Stopper himself 
 sent him to bring an old ledger from the floor above Mrs. 
 Boxall's. As he got down from his perch, and proceeded to get 
 his hat — 
 
 " There's no use in going round such a way," said Mr. Stop- 
 per. " Mr. Boxall's not in ; you can go through his room. 
 Here's the key of the door. Only mind you lock it when you 
 come back." 
 
 The key used to lie in Mr. Boxall's drawer, but now Mr. 
 Stoper took it from his own. Thomas was uot altogether 
 pleased at the change of approach, though why, he would 
 hardly have been able to tell. Probably he felt something as 
 a miser would feel, into whose treasure-cave the new gallery of 
 a neighboring mine threatened to break. He was, as it were, 
 exposed upon the flank. Annoyance instantly clouded the 
 expression of eagerness which he had not been able to conceal ; 
 and neither the light nor the following cloud escaped Mr. 
 Stopper, who, although the region of other men's thoughts 
 was dark as pitch to him in the usual relation he bore to 
 them, yet the moment his interests or — rare case — his feelings 
 brought him into the contact of opposition with any man, all 
 the man's pregnable points lay bare before him. 
 
 Thomas had nothing to do but take the key and go. He 
 had now no opportunity of spending more than one moment 
 with Lucy. When the distance was of some length, he could 
 cut both ways, and pocket the time gained ; now there was 
 
126 Guild Court. 
 
 nothing to saye upon. Nevertheless, he sped up the stairs as 
 if he would overtake old Time himself. 
 
 Rendered prudent, or cunning, by his affections, he secured 
 the ordered chaos of vellum before he knocked at Mrs. Boxall's 
 door, which he then opened without waiting for the response 
 to his appeal. 
 
 "Lucy! Lucy! "he said; "I have but one half minute, 
 and hardly that." 
 
 Lucy appeared with the rim of a rainy sunset about her eyes. 
 The rest of her face was still as a day that belonged to not one 
 of the four seasons — that had nothing to do. 
 
 "If you have forgotten yesterday, Thomas, I have not," 
 she said. 
 
 " Oh ! never mind yesterday," he said. " I'm coming in 
 to-night ; and I can stay as long as I please. My father and 
 mother are gone to Folkestone, and there's nobody to know 
 when I go home. Isn't it jolly ? " 
 
 And without waiting for an answer, he scudded like Poppie. 
 But what in Poppie might be graceful, was not dignified in 
 Thomas ; and I fear Lucy felt this, when he turned the corner 
 to the stair-case with the huge ledger under his arm, and his 
 coat flying out behind him. But she would nob have felt it 
 had she not had on the preceding evening, for the first time, 
 a peep into his character. 
 
 As he reentered the counting-house he was aware of the 
 keen glance cast at him by Stopper, and felt that he reddened. 
 But he laid the ledger on the desk before him, and perched 
 again with as much indifference as he could assume. 
 
 Wearily the hours passed. How could they otherwise pass 
 with figures, figures everywhere, Stopper right before him at 
 the double desk, and Lucy one story removed and inaccessible ? 
 Some men would work all the better for knowing their treasure 
 so near, but Thomas had not yet reached such a repose. In- 
 deed, he did not yet love Lucy well enough for that. People 
 talk about loving too much ; for my part, I think all the mis- 
 chief comes of loving too little. 
 
 The dinner-hour at length arrived. Thomas, however, was 
 not in the way of attempting to see Lucy at that time. He 
 would have said that there was too much coming and going of 
 the clerks about that hour : I venture to imagine that a quiet 
 enjoyment of his dinner had something to do with it. Now, 
 although I can well enough understand a young fellow in love 
 being as hungry as a hawk, I cannot quite understand his 
 spending an hour over his dinner when the quarter of it would 
 
The Tempter. 127 
 
 be enough, and the rest might give him if but one chance of 
 one peep at the lady. On the present occasion, however, see- 
 ing he had the whole evening in prospect, Thomas may have 
 been quite right to devote himself to his dinner, the news- 
 paper, and anticipation. At all events, he betook himself to 
 one of the courts off* Cornhill, and ascended to one of those 
 eating-houses which abound in London city, where a man may 
 generally dine well, and always at moderate expense. 
 
 Now this was one of the days on which Thomas usually vis- 
 ited Mr. Molken. But as he had missed two lessons, the 
 spider had become a little anxious about his fly, and knowing 
 that Thomas went to dine at this hour, and knowing also 
 where he went, he was there before him, and on the outlook 
 for his entrance. This was not the sort of place the German 
 generally frequented. He was more likely to go prowling 
 about Thames Street for his dinner ; but when Thomas en- 
 tered, there he was, signaling to him to take his place beside him. 
 
 Thomas did not see that in the dark corner of an opposite 
 box sat Mr. Stopper. He obeyed the signal, and a steak was 
 presently broiling for him upon the gridiron at the other end 
 of the room. 
 
 "You vas not come fore your lesson de letst time, Mistare 
 Verbose," said Molken. 
 
 " No," answered Thomas, who had not yet made a confidant 
 of Mr. Molken. "I was otherwise engaged." 
 
 He spoke quite carelessly. 
 
 " Ah ! yes. Oddervise," said Molken, and said no more. 
 
 Presently he broke into a suppressed laugh, which caused 
 Thomas, who was very sensitive as to his personal dignity, to 
 choke over his tankard of bitter ale, with which he was con- 
 soling himself for the delay of his steak. 
 
 "What is it you find so amusing, Mr. Molken ?" he asked. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," returned Molken. " It was very rude ; 
 but I could not help it. I will tell you one story I did see last 
 night. I am a man of de vorld, as you know, Mr. Verbose. " 
 
 My reader must excuse me if I do not keep to the repre- 
 sentation of the fellow's German-English. It is hardly worth 
 doing, and I am doubtful, besides, whether I can do it well. 
 
 "lam a man of the world," said Molken, "and I was last 
 night in one of those shops, what you call them — paradise ; 
 no, the other thing — hell — where they have the spinning 
 thing — the Roulette — and the Eouge et Noir, and ccetera. I 
 do not mean to say that I was gambling. Oh, no ! I was at 
 the bar having a glass of Judenlip, when lo ! and behold ! 
 
128 Guild Court 
 
 down through the green door, with a burst, comes a young 
 man I knew. He was like yourself, Mr. Worboise, a clerk in 
 a counting-house." 
 
 Thomas winced, but said nothing. He regarded his busi- 
 ness as he ought to have regarded himself, namely, as some- 
 thing to be ashamed of. 
 
 " Well, he comes up to me, and he says, ' Herr Molken, we 
 are old friends ; will you lend me a sovereign ? ' ' No/ I said, 
 'Mr. — ,' — I forget the young man's name, but I did know 
 him — ' I never lend money for gambling purposes. Get the 
 man who won your last sovereign to lend you another. For 
 my own jtart, I've had enough of that sort of thing.' For you 
 see, Mr. Thomas, I have gambled in my time — yes, and made 
 money by it, though I spent it as foolishly as I got it. You 
 don't think I would spend my time in teaching Ich hake, Du 
 hast, if I hadn't given up gambling. But university men, 
 you know, learn bad habits." 
 
 " What did he say to that ? " asked Thomas. 
 
 " He swore and turned away as if he was choking. But the 
 fact was, Mr. Verbose, I hadn't a sovereign in my possession. 
 I wasn't going to tell him that. But if I had had one, he 
 should have had it ; for I can't forget the glorious excitement 
 it used to be to see the gold lying like a yellow mole-hill on the 
 table, and to think that one fortunate turn might send it all 
 into your own pockets." 
 
 " But he didn't choke, did he ?" said Thomas, weakly try- 
 ing to be clever. 
 
 " No. And I will tell you how it was that he didn't. ' By 
 Jove ! ' he Gried. Now I had seen him fumbling about his 
 waistcoat as if he would tear his heart out, and all at once dive 
 his two forefingers into a little pocket that was meant to hold 
 a watch, only the watch had gone up the spout long ago. ' By 
 Jove ! ' he said — that's the right swear, isn't it, Mr. Verbose ? 
 — and then he rushed through the green door again. I followed 
 him, for I wanted to see what he was after. In half an hour 
 he had broken the bank. He had found a sovereign in that 
 little pocket. How it got there the devil only knew. He 
 swept his money into his pockets and turned to go. I saw 
 the people of the house getting between him and the door, 
 and I saw one of the fellows — I knew him — -who had lost 
 money all the evening, going to pick a quarrel with him. For 
 those gamblers have no honor in them. So I opened the door 
 as if to leave the room, and pretending to hesitate as if I had 
 left something, kept it open, and made a sign to him to bolt, 
 
The Tempter. 129 
 
 which he understood at once, and was down-stairs in a mo- 
 ment, and I after him. Now let me tell you a secret," con- 
 tinued Molken, leaning across the table, and speaking very- 
 low and impressively — " that young man confessed to me that 
 same evening, that when I refused him the sovereign, he had 
 just lost the last of two hundred pounds of his master's 
 money. To-day I hope he has replaced it honestly, as he 
 ought ; for his winnings that night came to more than seven 
 hundred." 
 
 " But he was a thief," said Thomas, bluntly. 
 
 " Well, so he was ; but no more a thief than many a re- 
 spectable man who secures his own and goes on risking other 
 people's money. It's the way of the world. However, as I 
 told you, / gave it up long ago. There ivas a time in my life 
 when I used to live by it." 
 
 " How did you manage that ? " 
 
 " There are certain rules to be observed, that's all. Only 
 you must stick to them. For one thing, you must make up 
 your mind never to lose more than a certain fixed sum any 
 night you play. If you stick to that, you will find your win- 
 nings always in excess of your losses." 
 
 " How can that be ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't pretend to account for it. Gaming has its 
 laws as well as the universe generally. Everything goes by 
 laws, you know — laws that cannot be found out except by ex- 
 periment ; and that, as I say, is one of the laws of gambling." 
 
 All this time Mr. Stopper had been reading Mr. Molken's 
 face. Suddenly Tom caught sight of his superior ; the warn- 
 ing of Wither rushed back on his mind, and he grew pale as 
 death. Molken perceiving the change, sought for its cause, 
 but saw nothing save a stony gentleman in the opposite box 
 sipping sherry, and picking the ripest pieces out of a Stilton. 
 
 " Don't look that way, Molken," said Tom, in an under- 
 tone. "That's our Mr. Stopper." 
 
 "Well, haven't we as good a right to be here as Mr. Stop- 
 per ? " returned Molken, in a voice equally inaudible beyond 
 the table, but taking piercing eyeshots at the cause of Tom's 
 discomposure. 
 
 The two men very soon had something like each other's 
 measure. They could each understand his neighbor's ras- 
 cality, while his own seemed to each only a law of nature. 
 
 "You generally pay, don't you ? " added Molken. 
 
 Tom laughed. 
 
 "Yes, I do generally, and a penny to the cook besides, 
 9 
 
130 Guild Court. 
 
 which, I will be bound, he does not. But that's nothing to 
 the point. He hates me, though why, I'm sure I don't — I 
 can only guess." 
 
 "Some girl, I suppose," said Molken, coolly. 
 
 Thomas felt too much nattered to endeavor even . to dilute 
 the insinuation ; and Molken went on : 
 
 " Well, but how can the fellow bear malice ? Of course, he 
 must have seen from the first that he had no chance with you. 
 I'll tell you what, Worboise ; I have had a good deal of expe- 
 rience, and it is my conviction, from what I have seen of you, 
 that you are one of the lucky ones — one of the elect, you 
 know— born to it, and can't help yourself." 
 
 Tom pulled out his watch. 
 
 " Half an hour to spare yet," he said. " Come up to the 
 smoking-room." 
 
 Having ordered a bottle of Ehine wine, Tom turned to 
 Molken, and said : 
 
 "What did you mean by saying that I was one of the lucky 
 ones ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't you know there are some men born under a 
 lucky star — as they would have said in old times ? What the 
 cause is, of course I don't know, except it be that Heaven 
 must have some favorites, if only for the sake of variety. At 
 all events, there is no denying that some men are born to luck. 
 They are lucky in everything they put their hands to. Did 
 you ever try your luck in a lottery, now ? " 
 
 " I did in a raffle, once." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I won a picture." 
 
 "I told you so ! And it would be just the same whatever 
 you tried. You are cut out for it. You have the luck-mark 
 on you. I was sure of it." 
 
 " How can you tell that ? " asked Tom, lingering like a fly 
 over the sweet poison, and ready to swallow almost any ab- 
 surdity that represented him as something different from the 
 run of ordinary mortals, of whom he was, as yet at least, a 
 very ordinary specimen. 
 
 " Never you mind how I can tell. But I will tell you this 
 much, that I have experience ; and your own Bacon says that 
 the laws of everything are to be found out by observation and 
 experiment. I have observed, and I have experimented, and 
 I tell you you are a lucky one." 
 
 Tom stroked the faintest neutrality of a coming mustache, 
 ponderingly and pleasedly, and said nothing. 
 
The Tempter. 131 
 
 " By the by, are you coming to me to-night ? " asked 
 Molken. 
 
 " No — o," answered Tom, still stroking his upper lip with 
 the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, "I think not. I 
 believe I have an engagement to-night, somewhere or other." 
 
 He took out his pocket-book, and pretended to look. 
 
 "Yes. I can't have my lesson to-night." 
 
 " Then I needn't stop at home for you. By the way, have 
 you a sovereign about you ? I wouldn't trouble you, you 
 know, only, as I told you, I haven't got one. I believe your 
 quarter is out to-night." 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon ; I ought to have thought of that. 
 I have two half-sovereigns in my pocket, and no more, I am 
 sorry to say. Will one of them do for to-night ? You shall 
 have more to-morrow. " 
 
 " Oh, thank you ; it's of no consequence. Well, I don't 
 know — I think I will take the ten shillings, for I want to go 
 out this evening. Yes. Thank you. Never mind to-morrow, 
 except it be convenient. " 
 
 Tom settled the bill, and put the change of the other half- 
 sovereign in his pocket. Molken left him at the door of the 
 tavern, and he went back to the counting-house. 
 
 "Who was that with you at the Golden Fleece, Tom ?" 
 asked Mr. Stopper, as he entered ; for he took advantage of 
 his position to be as rude as he found convenient. 
 
 Taken by surprise, Tom answered at once : 
 
 "Mr. Molken." 
 
 " And who is he ? " asked Stopper, again. 
 
 " My German master," answered Tom. 
 
 The next moment he could have knocked his head against 
 the wall with indignation at himself. For, always behindhand 
 when left to himself, he was ready enough when played upon 
 by another to respond and repent. 
 
 " He's got a hangdog phiz of his own," said Mr. Stopper, as 
 he plunged again into the business before him, writing away as 
 deliberately as if it had been on parchment instead of fools- 
 cap ; for Stopper was never in a hurry, and never behind. 
 
 Tom's face flushed red with wrath. 
 
 " I'll thank you to be civil in your remarks on my friends, 
 Mr. Stopper." 
 
 Mr. Stopper answered with a small puff of windy breath 
 from distended lips. He blew, in short. Tom felt his eyes 
 waver. He grew almost blind with rage. If he had followed 
 his inclination, he would have brought the ruler beside him 
 
132 . Guild Court. 
 
 down, with a terrible crack, on the head before him. " Why 
 didn't he ?" does my reader inquire? Just because of his in- 
 capacity for action of any sort. He did not refrain in the pity 
 that disarms some men in the midst of their wrath, nor yet 
 from the sense that vengeance is God's business, and will be 
 carried out in a mode rather different from that in which man 
 would prosecute his. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HOW TOM SPENT THE EVENING. 
 
 When Tom left the office he walked into Mr. Kitely's shop, 
 for he was afraid lest Mr. Stoj^per should see him turn up to 
 Guild Court. He had almost forgotten Mr. Kitely's behavior 
 about the book he would not keep for him, and his resent- 
 ment was gone quite. There was nobody in the shop but 
 Mattie. 
 
 " Well, chick," said Thomas, kindly, but more condescend- 
 ingly than suited Miss Matilda's tastes. 
 
 "Neither chick nor child," she answered promptly ; though 
 where she got the phrase is a mystery, as indeed is the case 
 with almost all the sayings of such children. 
 
 " What are you, then ? A fairy ?" 
 
 " If I was, I know what I would do. Oh, wouldn't I just ! 
 I should think I would ! " 
 
 " Well, what would you do, little Miss What's-your-name ? " 
 
 " My name is Miss Kitely ; but that's neither here nor 
 there. Oh, no ! it's not me ! Wouldn't I just ! " 
 
 " Well, Miss Kitely, I want to know what you would do if 
 you were a fairy ? " 
 
 "I would turn your eyes into gooseberries, and your tongue 
 into a bit of leather a foot long ; and every time you tried to 
 speak your long tongue would slap your blind eyes and make 
 you cry." 
 
 " What a terrible doom!" returned Thomas, offended at 
 the child's dislike to him, but willing to carry it off. 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you've made Miss Burton's eyes red, you naughty 
 man ! / know you. It must be you. Nobody else could 
 make her eyes red but you, and you go and do it." 
 
How Tom Spent the Evening. 133 
 
 ' Thomas's first movement was of anger ; for he felt, as all 
 who have concealments are ready to feel, that he was being un- 
 comfortably exposed. He turned his back on the child, and 
 proceeded to examine the books on a level with his face. While 
 he was thus engaged, Mr. Kitely entered. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Worboise ? " he said. "I've got an- 
 other copy of that book you and I fell out about some time ago. 
 I can let you have this one at half the price." 
 
 It was evident that the bookseller wanted to be conciliatory. 
 Thomas, in his present mood was inclined to repel his ad- 
 vances, but he shrank from contention, and said : 
 
 " Thank you. I shall be glad to have it. How much is 
 it?" 
 
 Mr. Kitely named the amount, and, ashamed to appear 
 again unable, even at the reduced price, to pay for it, Thomas 
 pulled out the last farthing of the money in his pocket, which 
 came to the exact sum required, and pocketed the volume. 
 
 "If you would excuse a man who has seen something of the 
 world — more than was good for him at one time of his life — 
 Mr. Worboise," said Mr. Kitely, as he pocketed the money, 
 " I would give you a hint about that German up the court. 
 He's a clever fellow enough, I dare say — perhaps too clever. 
 Don't you have anything to do with him beyond the German. 
 Take my advice. I don't sit here all day at the mouth of the 
 court for nothing. I can see what comes in my way as well as 
 another man." 
 
 " What is there to say against him, Mr. Kitely ? I haven't 
 seen any harm in him." 
 
 " I'm not going to commit myself in warning you, Mr. 
 Worboise. But I do warn you. Look out, and don't let him 
 lead you into mischief." 
 
 "I hope I am able to take care of myself, Mr. Kitely," said 
 Thomas, with a touch of offense. 
 
 " I hope you are, Mr. Worboise," returned the bookseller, 
 dryly; "but there's no offense meant in giving you the 
 hint." 
 
 At this moment Mr. Stopper passed the window. Thomas 
 listened for the echo of his steps up the archway, and as none 
 came, he knew that he had gone along the street. He waited, 
 therefore, till he thought he must be out of sight, and then 
 sped uneasily from the shop, round the corner, and up to Mrs. 
 Boxall's door, which the old lady herself opened for him, not 
 looking so pleased as usual to see him. Mr. Molken was watch- 
 ing from the opposite ground-floor window. A few minutes 
 
134 Guild Court. 
 
 after, Mr. Stopper repassed the window of Mr. Kitely's shop, 
 and went into the counting-house with a pass-key. 
 
 Thomas left Mrs. Boxall to shut the door, and rushed 
 eagerly up the stairs, and into the sitting-room. There he 
 found the red eyes of which Mattie had spoken. Lucy rose 
 and held out her hand, but her manner was constrained, and 
 her lips trembled as if she were going to cry. Thomas would 
 have put his arm round her and drawn her to him, but she 
 gently pushed his arm away, and he felt as many a man has 
 felt, and every man, perhaps, ought to feel, that in the gent- 
 lest repulse of the woman he loves there is something terribly 
 imperative and absolute. 
 
 " Why, Lucy !" he said, in a tone of hurt ; "what have I 
 done ?" 
 
 "If you can forget so soon, Thomas," answered Lucy, "I 
 cannot. Since yesterday I see things in a different light alto- 
 gether. I cannot, for your sake any more than my own, allow 
 things to go on in this doubtful way." 
 
 "Oh ! but, Lucy, I was taken unawares yesterday; and to- 
 day, now I have slept upon it, I don't see there is any such 
 danger. I ought to be a match for that brute Stopper, any- 
 how." 
 
 Yet the brute Stopper had outreached him, or, at least, 
 "served him out," three or four times that very day, and he 
 had refused to acknowledge it to himself, which was all his 
 defense, poor wretch. 
 
 " But that is not all the question, Thomas. It is not right. 
 At least, it seems to me that it is not right to go on like this. 
 People's friends ought to know. I would not have done it if 
 grannie hadn't been to know. But then I ought to have 
 thought of your friends as well as my own." 
 
 "But there would be no difficulty if I had only a grand- 
 mother," urged Thomas, "and one as good as yours. I 
 shouldn't have thought of not telling." 
 
 "I don't think the difficulty of doing right makes it unnec- 
 essary to do it," said Lucy. 
 
 "I think you might trust that to me, Lucy," said Thomas, 
 falling back upon his old attempted relation of religious in- 
 structor to his friend. 
 
 Lucy was silent for a moment ; but after what she had gone 
 through in the night, she knew that the time had come for 
 altering their relative position if not the relation itself. 
 
 "No, Thomas," said she; "I must take my own duty into 
 my own hands. I will not go on this way." , 
 
How Tom Spent the Evening. 135 
 
 "Do you think then, Lucy, that in affairs of this kind a 
 fellow ought to do just what his parents want ? " 
 
 "No, Thomas. But I do think he ought not to keep such 
 things secret from them." 
 
 "Not even if they are unreasonable and tyrannical ? " 
 
 "No. A man who will not take the consequences of loving 
 cannot be much of a lover." 
 
 "Lucy !" cried Thomas, now stung to the heart. 
 
 " I can't help it, Thomas," said Lucy, bursting into tears ; 
 " I must speak the truth, and if you cannot bear it, the worse 
 for me — and for you, too, Thomas." 
 
 "Then you mean to give me up?" said Thomas, patheti- 
 cally, without, however, any real fear of such an unthinkable 
 catastrophe. 
 
 "If it be giving you up to say I will not marry a man who 
 is too much afraid of his father and mother to let them know 
 what he is about, then I do give you up. But it will be you 
 who give me up if you refuse to acknowledge me as you 
 ought." 
 
 Lucy could not have talked like this ever before in her life. 
 She had gone through an eternity of suffering in the night. 
 She was a woman now. She had been but a girl before. Now 
 she stood high above Thomas. He was but a boy still, and 
 not beautiful as such. She was all at once old enough to be 
 his mother. There was no escape from the course she took ; 
 no dodging was possible. This must be. But she was and 
 would be gentle with poor Thomas. 
 
 "You do not love me, Lucy," he cried. 
 
 "My poor Thomas, I do love you ; love you so dearly that I 
 trust and pray you may be worthy of my love. Go and do as 
 you ought, and come back to me — like one of the old knights 
 you talk about," she added, with the glimmer of a hopeful 
 smile, " bringing victory to his lady." 
 
 "I will, I will," said Thomas, overcome by her solemn 
 beauty and dignified words. It was as if she had cast the 
 husk of the girl, and had come out a saving angel. But the 
 perception of this was little more to him yet than a poetic 
 sense of painful pleasure. 
 
 "I will, I will," he said. "But I cannot to-night, for my 
 father and mother are both at Folkestone. But I will write to 
 them — that will be best." 
 
 " Any way you like, Thomas. I don't care how you do it, 
 so it is done." 
 
 All this time the old lady, having seen that something was 
 
136 Guild Court. 
 
 wrong, had discreetly kept out of the way, for she knew that 
 the quarrels of lovers at least are most easily settled between 
 themselves. Thomas now considered it all over and done 
 with, and Lucy, overjoyed at her victory, leaned into his 
 arms, and let him kiss her ten times. Such a man, she ought 
 not, perhaps — only she did not know better — to have allowed 
 to touch her till he had done what he had promised. To 
 some people the promise is the difficult part, to others the 
 performance. To Thomas, unhappily, the promising was 
 easy. - 
 
 They did not hear the door open. It was now getting dark, 
 but the two were full in the light of the window, and visible 
 enough to the person who entered. He stood still for one 
 moment, during which the lovers unwound their arms. Only 
 when parting, they became aware that a man was in the room. 
 He came forward with hasty step. It was Eichard Boxall. 
 Thomas looked about for his hat. Lucy stood firm and quiet, 
 waiting. 
 
 " Lucy, where is your grandmother ? " 
 
 " Up stairs, uncle, I believe." 
 
 " Is she aware of that fellow's presence ? " 
 
 c ' You are not very polite, uncle," said Lucy, with dignity. 
 e ' This is my friend, Mr. Worboise, whom I believe you know. 
 Of course I do not receive visitors without my grandmother's 
 knowledge." 
 
 Mr. Boxall choked an oath in his throat, or rather the oath 
 nearly choked him. He turned and went down the stair 
 again ; but neither of them heard the outer door close. 
 Thomas and Lucy stared at each other in dismay. 
 
 The facts of the case were these, as near as I can guess. 
 The Ningpo had dropped down to Gravesend, and the Boxalls 
 had joined her there. But some delay had arisen, and she 
 was not to sail till the next morning. Mr. Boxall had re- 
 solved to make use of the time thus gained or lost, and had 
 come up to town. I cannot help believing that it was by con- 
 trivance of Mr. Stopper, who had watched Tom and seen him 
 go up the court, that he went through the door from his pri- 
 vate room, instead of going round, which would have given 
 warning to the lovers. Possibly he returned intending to see 
 his mother ; but after the discovery he made, avoided her, 
 partly because he was angry and would not quarrel with her 
 the last thing before his voyage. Upon maturer consideration, 
 he must have seen that he had no ground for quarreling with 
 her at all, for she could have known nothing about Tom in 
 
How Tom Spent the Evening. 137 
 
 relation to Mary, except Tom had told her, which was not at 
 all likely. But before he had had time to see this, he was on 
 his way to Gravesend again. He was so touchy as well as obsti- 
 nate about everything wherein his family was concerned, that 
 the sight of Tom with his Mary's cousin was enough to drive 
 all reflection out of him for an hour at least. 
 
 Thomas and Lucy stood and stared at each other. Thomas 
 stared from consternation ; Lucy only stared at Tom. 
 
 " Well, Thomas," she said at last, with a sweet, watery smile ; 
 for she had her lover, and she had lost her idol. She had got 
 behind the scenes, and could worship no more ; but Dagon 
 was a tine idea, notwithstanding his fall, and if she could not 
 set him up on his pedestal again, she would at least try to give 
 him an arm-chair. Fish-tailed Dagon is an unfortunate choice 
 for the simile, I know, critical reader ; but let it pass, and the 
 idea that it illustrates being by no means original, let the figure 
 at least have some claim to the distinction. 
 
 " Now he'll go and tell my father," said Tom ; " and I wish 
 you knew what a row my mother and he will make between 
 them." 
 
 " But why, Tom ? Have they any prejudice against me ? 
 Do they know there is such a person ? " 
 
 " I don't know. They may have heard of you at your uncle's." 
 
 "Then why should they be so very angry ?" 
 
 "My father because you have no money, and my mother 
 because you have no grace." 
 
 " No grace, Tom ? Am I so very clumsy ?" 
 
 Thomas burst out laughing. 
 
 "I forgot," he said. "You were not brought up to my 
 mother's slang. She and her set use Bible words till they 
 make you hate them." 
 
 " But you shouldn't hate them. They are good in them- 
 selves, though they be wrong used. " 
 
 " That's all very well. Only if you had been tried with 
 them as I have been, I am afraid you would have had to give 
 in to hating them, as well as me, Lucy. I never did like that 
 kind of slang. But what am I to do with old Boxall — I beg 
 your pardon — with your uncle Ei chard ? He'll be sure to 
 write to my father before he sails. They're friends, you know." 
 
 "Well, but you will be beforehand with him, and then it 
 won't matter. You were going to do it at any rate, and the 
 thing now is to have the start of him," said Lucy, perhaps not 
 sorry to have in the occurrence an additional spur to prick the 
 sides of Thomas's intent. 
 
138 Guild Court. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; that's all very well," returned Thomas, dubiously, 
 as if there was a whole world behind it. 
 
 "Now, dear Tom, do go home at once, and write. You 
 will sa^e the last post if you do," said Lucy, decidedly ; for 
 she saw more and more the necessity, for Thomas's own sake, 
 of urging him to action. 
 
 " So, instead of giving me a happy evening, you are going 
 to send me home to an empty house ! " 
 
 " You see the thing must be done, or my uncle will be 
 before you," said Lucy, beginning to be vexed with him for 
 his utter want of decision, and with herself for pushing him 
 toward such an act. Indeed, she felt all at once that perhaps 
 she had been unmaidenly. But there was no choice except 
 to do it, or break off the engagement. 
 
 Now, whether it was that her irritation influenced her tone 
 and infected Tom with like irritation, or that he could not 
 bear being thus driven to do what he so much disliked, while 
 on the whole he would have preferred that Mr. Boxall should 
 tell his father and so save him from the immediate difficulty, 
 the evil spirit in him arose once more in rebellion, and, like 
 the mule that he was, he made an effort to unseat the gentle 
 power that would have urged him along the only safe path on 
 the mountain-side. 
 
 "Lucy, I will not be badgered in this way. If you can't 
 trust me, you won't get anything that way." 
 
 Lucy drew back a step and looked at him for one moment ; 
 then turned and left the room. Thomas waited for a min- 
 ute ; then, choosing to arouse a great sense of injury in his 
 bosom, took his hat, and went out, banging the door behind 
 him. 
 
 Just as he banged Lucy's door, out came Mr. Molken from 
 his. It was as if the devil had told a hawk to wait, and he 
 would fetch him a pigeon. 
 
 "Coming to have your lesson after all?" he asked, as 
 Thomas, from very indecision, made a step or two toward him. 
 
 " No ; I don't feel inclined for a lesson to-night." 
 
 "Where are you going, then ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," answered Tom, trying to look nohow 
 in particular. 
 
 " Come along with me, then. I'll show you something of 
 life after dark." 
 
 " But where are you going ? " 
 
 " You'll see that when we get there. You're not afraid, are 
 you ? " 
 
Sow Tom Spent the Evening. 139 
 
 " Not I," answered Tom ; " only a fellow likes to know 
 where he's going. That's all." 
 
 " Well, where would you like to go ? A young fellow like 
 you really ought to know something of the world he lives in. 
 Y ou are clever enough, in all conscience, if you only knew a 
 little more." 
 
 " Go on, then. I don't care. It's nothing to me where I 
 go. Only," Tom added, "I have no money in my pocket. 
 I spent my last shilling on this copy of Goethe's poems." 
 
 "Ah, you never spent your money better! There was a 
 man, now, that never contented himself with hearsay ! He 
 would know all the ways of life for himself — else how was he 
 to judge of them all ? He would taste of everything, that he 
 might know the taste of it. Why should a man be ignorant 
 of anything that can be known. Come along. I will take 
 care of you. See if I don't ! " 
 
 " But you can't be going anywhere in London for nothing. 
 And I tell you I haven't got a farthing in my purse." 
 
 " Never mind that. It shan't cost you anything. Now I 
 am going to make a clean breast of it, as you English call it ; 
 though why there should be anything dirty in keeping your 
 own secrets I don't know. I want to make an experiment 
 with you." 
 
 " Give me chloroform, and cut me up ?" said Tom, reviving 
 as his quarrel with Lucy withdrew a little into the back- 
 ground. 
 
 " Not quite that. You shall neither take chloroform, nor 
 have your eyes bandaged, nor be tied to the table. You can 
 go the moment you have had enough of it. It is merely for the 
 sake of my theory. Entirely an experiment." 
 
 " Perhaps, if you told me your theory, I might judge of the 
 nature of the experiment." 
 
 " I told you all about it the other day. You are one of those 
 fortunate mortals doomed to be lucky. Why, I knew one — 
 not a gambler, I don't mean that — whose friends at last would 
 have nothing to do with him where any chance was concerned. 
 If it was only sixpenny points, they wouldn't play a single 
 rubber of whist with him except he was their partner. In 
 fact, the poor wretch was reduced to play only with strangers, 
 — comparative strangers I mean, of course. He won every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Then what do you want with me ? Out with it." 
 
 "1 only want to back you. You don't understand the 
 thing. You shan't spend a farthing. I have plenty." Here 
 
140 Guild Court. 
 
 Molken pulled a few sovereigns from his pocket as he -went on, 
 and it never occurred to Tom to ask how he had them, seeing 
 he was so hard-up at dinner-time. " It's all for my theory of 
 luck, 1 assure you. I have given up practical gambling, as I 
 told you, long ago. It's not right. I have known enough 
 about it, I confess to you — you know we understand each 
 other ; but I confess too — my theory — I am anxious about 
 that." 
 
 All this time they had been walking along, Thomas paying 
 no heed to the way they went. He would have known little 
 about it, however, well as he thought he knew London, for 
 they had entered a region entirely unknown to him. 
 
 " But you haven't told me, after all," he said, "where you 
 are going." 
 
 " Here," answered Molken, pushing open the swing-door of 
 a public-house. 
 
 The next morning Thomas made his appearance in the 
 office at the usual hour, but his face was pale and his eyes 
 were red. His shirt-front was tumbled and dirty, and he had 
 nearly forty shillings in his pocket. He never looked up from 
 his work, and now and then pressed his hand to his head. 
 This Mr. Stopper saw and enjoyed. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HOW LUCY SPEI^T THE KIGHT. 
 
 Whef Lucy left the room, with her lover — if lover he 
 could be called — alone in it, her throat felt as if it would burst 
 with the swelling of something like bodily grief. She did not 
 know what it was, for she had never felt anything like it be- 
 fore. She thought she was going to die. Her grandmother 
 could have told her that she would be a happy woman if she 
 did not have such a swelling in her throat a good many times 
 without dying of it ; but Lucy strove desperately to hide it 
 from her. She went to her own room and threw herself on 
 her bed, but started up again when she heard the door bang, 
 
How Lucy Spent the Night. 141 
 
 "flew to the window, and saw all that passed between Molken 
 and Thomas till they left the court together. She had never 
 seen Molken so full in the face before; and whether it was 
 from this full view, or that his face wore more of the spider 
 expression upon this occasion, I do not know — I incline to the 
 latter, for I think that an on-looker can read the expression of 
 two countenances better, sometimes, than those engaged in 
 conversation can read each other's — however it was, she felt a 
 dreadful repugnance to Molken from that moment, and be- 
 came certain that he was trying in some way or other to make 
 his own out of Thomas. With this new distress was mingled 
 the kind but mistaken self-reproach that she had driven him 
 to it. Why should she not have borne with the poor boy, who 
 was worried to death between his father and mother and Mr. 
 Stopper and that demon down there ? He would be all right 
 if they would only leave him alone. He was but a poor boy, 
 and, alas ! she had driven him away from his only friend — for 
 such she was sure she was. She threw herself on her bed, but 
 she could not rest. All the things in the room seemed press- 
 ing upon her, as if they had staring eyes in their heads ; and 
 there was no heart anywhere. 
 
 Her grandmother heard the door bang, and came in search 
 of her. 
 
 " What's the matter, my pet ?" she asked, as she entered 
 the room and found her lying on the bed. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, grannie," answered Lucy, hardly knowing 
 what she said. 
 
 Si You've quarrelled with that shilly-shally beau of yours, I 
 suppose. Well, let him go — he's not much." 
 
 Lucy made no reply, but turned her face toward the wall, as 
 mourners did ages before the birth of King Hezekiah. Gran- 
 nie had learned a little wisdom in her long life, and left 
 her. She would get a cup of tea ready, for she had great 
 faith in bodily cures for mental aches. But before the tea 
 was well in the tea-pot Lucy came down in her bonnet and 
 shawl. 
 
 She could not rest. She tossed and turned. What could 
 Thomas be about with that man ? What mischief might he 
 not take him into ? Good women, in their supposed ignorance 
 of men's wickedness, are not unfrequently like the angels, in 
 that they understand it perfectly, without the knowledge soil- 
 ing one feather of their wings. They see it clearly — even from 
 afar. Now, although Lucy could not know so much of it as 
 many are compelled to know, she had some acquaintance with 
 
142 Guild Court. 
 
 the lowest castes of humanity, and the vice of the highest is 
 much the same as the vice of the lowest, only in general worse 
 — more refined, and more detestable. So, by a natural process, 
 without knowing how, she understood something of the kind 
 of gulf into which a man like Molken might lead Thomas, and 
 she could not bear the thoughts that sprung out of this under- 
 standing. Hardly knowing what she did, she got up and put 
 on her bonnet and shawl, and went down stairs. 
 
 " Where on earth are you going, Lucy ?" asked her grand- 
 mother, in some alarm. 
 
 Lucy did not know in the least what she meant to do. She 
 had had a vague notion of setting out to find Thomas some- 
 where, and rescue him from the grasp of Moloch, but, save for 
 the restlessness with which her misery filled her, she could 
 never have entertained the fancy. The moment her grand- 
 mother asked her the question, she saw how absurd it would 
 be. Still she could not rest. So she invented an answer, and 
 ordered her way according to her word. 
 
 " I'm going to see little Mattie," she said. "The child is 
 lonely, and so am I. I will take her out for a walk." 
 
 "Do then, my dear. It will do you both good," said the 
 grandmother. " Only you must have a cup of tea first." 
 
 Lucy drank her cup of tea, then rose, and went to the book- 
 shop. Mr. Kitely was there alone. 
 
 "How's Mattie to-night, Mr. Kitely ? Is she any better, do 
 you think ? " she asked. 
 
 " She's in the back room there. I'll call her," said the book- 
 seller, without answering either of Lucy's questions. 
 
 " Oh ! I'll just go in to her. You wouldn't mind me taking 
 her out for a little walk, would you ?" 
 
 " Much obliged to you, miss," returned the bookseller, 
 heartily. "It's not much amusement the poor child has. 
 I'm always meaning to do better for her, but I'm so tied 
 with the shop that—/ don't know hardly how it is, but some- 
 how we go on the same old way. She'll be delighted." 
 
 Lucy went into the back parlor, and there sat Mattie, 
 with her legs curled up beneath her on the window-sill, read- 
 ing a little book, thumbed and worn at the edges, and brown 
 with dust and use. 
 
 "Well, Miss Burton," she cried, before Lucy had time to 
 speak, " I've found something here. I think it's what people 
 call poetry. I'm not sure ; but I'm sure it's good, whatever 
 it is. Only I can't read it very well. Will you read it to me, 
 please, miss ? I do like to be read to." 
 
How Lucy Spent the Night. 143 
 
 "I want you to come out for a walk with me, Mattie," said 
 Lucy, who was in no humor for reading. 
 
 Wise Mattie glanced up in her face. She had recognized 
 the sadness in her tone. 
 
 " Read this first, please, Miss Burton," she said. " I think 
 it will do you good. Things will go wrong. I'm sure it's 
 very sad. And I don't know what's to be done with the world. 
 It's always going wrong. It's just like father's watch. He's 
 always saying there's something out of order in its inside, and 
 he's always a-taking of it to the doctor, as he calls the watch- 
 maker to amuse me. Only I'm not very easy to amuse," re- 
 flected Mattie, with a sigh. " But," she resumed, " I wish 
 I knew the doctor to set the world right. The clock o' St. 
 Jacob's goes all right, but I'm sure Mr. Potter ain't the doc- 
 tor to set the world right, any more than Mr. Derry is for Mr. 
 Kitely's watch." 
 
 The associations in Mattie's mind were not always very clear 
 •either to herself or other people ; they were generally just, 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 " But you have never been to Mr. Potter's church to know, 
 Mattie." 
 
 " Oh ! haven't I, just ? Times and times. Mr. Spelt has 
 been a-taking of me. I do believe mother thinks I am going 
 to die, and wants to get me ready. I wonder what it all 
 means ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, Mattie ! " said Lucy, already turned a little 
 aside from her own sorrow by the words of the child. ' ' You 
 must put on your hat and come out with me." 
 
 " My bonnet, miss. Hats are only fit for very little girls. 
 And I won't go till you read this poetry to me — if it be 
 poetry. " 
 
 Lucy took the book, and read. The verses were as follows : 
 
 As Christ went into Jericho town, 
 'Twas darkness all, from toe to crown, 
 
 About blind Bartimeus. 
 He said, Our eyes are more than dim, 
 And so, of course, we don't see Him, 
 
 But David's Son can see us. 
 
 Cry out, cry out, blind brother, cry ; 
 Let not salvation dear go by ; 
 
 Have mercy, Son of David. 
 Though they were blind, they both could hear— 
 They heard, and cried, and he drew near ; 
 
 And so the blind were saved. 
 
144: - Guild Court. 
 
 Jesus Christ, ! I'm deaf and blind, 
 Nothing comes through into my mind, 
 
 I only am not dumb. 
 Although I see thee not, nor hear, 
 
 1 cry because thou may'st be near ; 
 Son of David, come. * 
 
 A finger comes into my ear ; 
 
 A voice comes through the deafness drear ; 
 
 Poor eyes, no more be dim. 
 A hand is laid upon mine eyes ; 
 I hear, I feel, I see, I rise — 
 
 'TisHe, I follow Him. 
 
 Before Lucy had finished reading the not very poetic lines, 
 they had somehow or other reached her heart. For they had 
 one quality belonging to most good poetry — that of directness 
 or simplicity ; and never does a mind like hers — like hers, I 
 mean, in truthfulness — turn more readily toward the. unseen, 
 the region out of which even that which is seen comes, than . 
 when a rain-cloud enwraps and hides the world around it, 
 leaving thus, as it were, only the passage upward open. She 
 closed the little book gently, laid it down, got Mattie's bonnet, 
 and, heedless of the remarks of the child upon the poem, put 
 it on her, and led her out. Her heart was too full to speak. 
 As they went through the shop — 
 
 "A pleasant walk to you, ladies," said the bookseller. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Kitely," returned his daughter, for Lucy 
 could not yet speak. 
 
 They had left Bagot Street, and were in one of the principal 
 thoroughfares, before Lucy had got the lump in her throat 
 sufficiently sAvallowed to be able to speak. She had not yet 
 begun to consider where they should go. When they came out 
 into the wider street, the sun, now near the going down, was 
 shining golden through a rosy fog. Long shadows lay or flit- 
 ted about over the level street. Lucy had never before taken 
 any notice of the long shadows of evening. Although she was 
 a town girl, and had therefore had comparatively few chances, 
 yet in such wide streets as she had sometimes to traverse they 
 were not a rare sight. In the city, to be sure, they are much 
 rarer. But the reason she saw them now was that her sorrow- 
 ful heart saw the sorrowfulness of the long shadows out of the 
 rosy mist, and made her mind observe them. The sight 
 brought the tears again into her eyes, and yet soothed her. 
 They looked so strange upon that wood-paved street, that 
 they seemed to have wandered from some heathy moor and 
 
How Lucy Spent the Night. 145 
 
 lost themselTes in the labyrinth of the city. Even more than 
 the scent of the hay in the early morning, floating into the si- 
 lent streets from the fields round London, are these long shad- 
 ows to the lover of nature, convincing him that what seems 
 the unnatural Babylon of artifice and untruth, is yet at least 
 within the region of nature, contained in her bosom and sub- 
 jected to her lovely laws ; is on the earth as truly as the grassy 
 field upon which the child sees with delighted awe his very 
 own shadow stretch out to such important, yea, portentous, 
 length. Even hither come the marvels of Nature's magic. 
 Not all the commonplaces of ugly dwellings, and cheating 
 shops that look churches in the face and are not ashamed, can 
 shut out that which gives mystery to the glen far withdrawn, 
 and loveliness to the mountain-side. From this moment Lucy 
 began to see and feel things as she had never seen or felt them 
 before. Her weeping had made way for a deeper spring in 
 her nature to flow — a gain far more than sufficient to repay 
 the loss of such a lover as Thomas, if indeed she must lose' 
 him. 
 
 But Mattie saw the shadows too. 
 
 " Well, miss, who'd have thought of such a place as this ! 
 I declare it bewilders my poor head. I feel every time a horse 
 puts his foot on my shadow as if I must cry out. Isn't it 
 silly ? It's all my big head — it's not me, you know, miss." 
 
 Lucy could not yet make the remark, and therefore I make 
 it for her — how often we cry out when something steps on our 
 shadow, passing yards away from ourselves ! There is not a 
 phenomenon of disease — not even of insanity — that has not its 
 counterpart in our moral miseries, all springing from want of 
 faith in God. At least, so it seems to me. That will ac- 
 count for it all, or looks as if it would ; and nothing else 
 does. 
 
 It seems to me, too, that in thinking of the miseries and 
 wretchedness in the world we seldom think of the other side. 
 We hear of an event in association with some certain individ- 
 ual, and we say — " How dreadful ! How miserable ! " And 
 perhaps we say — "Is there — can there be a God in the earth 
 when such a thing can take place ? " But we do not see into 
 the region of actual suffering or conflict. We do not see the 
 heart where the shock falls. We neither see the proud bracing 
 of energies to meet the ruin that threatens, nor the gracious 
 faint in which the weak escape from writhing. We do not see 
 the abatement of pain which is Paradise to the tortured ; we 
 do not see the gentle upholding in sorrow that comes even 
 10 
 
146 Guild Court. 
 
 from the ministrations of nature— not to speak of human 
 nature — to delicate souls. In a word, we do not see, and the 
 sufferer himself does not understand, how God is present every 
 moment, comforting, upholding, heeding that the pain shall 
 not be more than can be borne, making the thing possible and 
 not hideous. I say nothing of the peaceable fruits that are to 
 spring therefrom ; and who shall dare to say where they shall 
 not follow upon such tearing up of the soil ? Even those long 
 shadows gave Lucy some unknown comfort, flowing from 
 Nature's recognition of the loss of her lover ; and she clasped 
 the little hand more tenderly, as if she would thus return her 
 thanks to Nature for the kindness received. 
 
 To get out of the crowd on the pavement Lucy turned aside 
 into a lane. She had got half way down it before she dis- 
 covered that it was one of those through which she had passed 
 the night before, when she went with Thomas to the river. She 
 turned at once to leave it. As she turned, right before her 
 ' stood an open church door. It was one of those sepulchral 
 city churches, where the voice of the clergyman sounds ghostly, 
 and it seems as if the dead below were more real in their pres- 
 ence than the half dozen worshipers scattered among the 
 pews. 
 
 On this occasion, however, there were seven present when 
 Lucy and Mattie entered and changed the mystical number to 
 the magical. 
 
 It was a church named outlandishly after a Scandinavian 
 saint. Some worthy had endowed a week-evening sermon 
 there after better fashion than another had endowed the poor 
 of the parish. The name of the latter was recorded in golden 
 i letters upon a black tablet in the vestibule, as the donor of 
 £200, with the addition in letters equally golden, None of 
 which was ever paid by his trustees. 
 
 I will tell you who the worshipers were. There was the 
 housekeeper in a neighboring warehouse, who had been Li a 
 tumult all the day, and at night-fall thought of the kine- 
 browsed fields of her childhood, and went to church. There 
 was an old man who had once been manager of a bank, and 
 had managed it ill both for himself and his company ; and 
 having been dismissed in consequence, had first got weak in 
 the brain, and then begun to lay up treasure in heaven. 
 Then came a brother and two sisters, none of them under 
 seventy. The former kept shifting his brown wig and taking 
 snuff the whole of the service, and the latter two wiping, 
 with yellow silk handkerchiefs, brown faces inlaid with coal- 
 
How Lucy Spent the Night. 147 
 
 dust. They could not agree well enough to live together, for 
 their father's will was the subject of constant quarrel. They 
 therefore lived in three lodgings at considerable distances apart. 
 But every night in the week they met at this or that church 
 similarly endowed, sat or knelt or stood in holy silence or 
 sacred speech for an hour and a half, walked together to the 
 end of the lane discussing the sermon, and then separated till 
 the following evening. Thus the better parts in them made a 
 refuge of the house of God, where they came near to each 
 other, and the destroyer kept a little aloof for the season. 
 These, with the beadle and his wife, and Lucy and Mattie, 
 made up the congregation. 
 
 Now, when they left the lane there was no sun to be seen ; 
 but when they entered the church, there he was — his last rays 
 pouring in through a richly stained window, the only beauty 
 of the building. This window — a memorial one — was placed 
 in the northern side of the chancel, whence a passage through 
 houses, chimneys, and churches led straight to the sunset, 
 down which the last rays I speak of came speeding for one 
 brief moment ere all was gone, and the memorial as- faded and 
 gray as the memory of the man to whom it was dedicated. 
 
 This change from the dark lane to the sun-lighted church 
 laid hold of Lucy's feelings. She did not know what it made 
 her feel, but it aroused her with some vague sense of that 
 sphere of glory which enwraps all our lower spheres, and she 
 bowed her knees and her head, and her being worshiped, if her 
 thoughts were too troubled to go upward. The prayers had 
 commenced, and she kneeled, the words " He pardoneth and 
 absolveth," were the first that found luminous entrance into 
 her soul ; and with them came the picture of Thomas as he 
 left the court with the man of the bad countenance. Of him, 
 and what he might be about, her mind was full ; but every 
 now and then a flash of light, in the shape of words, broke 
 through the mist of her troubled thoughts, and testified of the 
 glory-sphere beyond ; till at length her mind was so far calmed 
 that she became capable of listening a little to the discourse of 
 the preacher. 
 
 He was not a man of the type of Mr. Potter of St. Jacob's, 
 who considered himself possessed of worldly privileges in vir- 
 tue of a heavenly office not one of whose duties he fulfilled in 
 a heavenly fashion. Some people considered Mr. Fuller very 
 silly for believing that he might do good in a church like this, 
 with a congregation like this, by speaking that which he know, 
 and testifying that which he had seen. But he did actually 
 
148 Guild Court. 
 
 believe it. Somehow or other — I think because he was so 
 much in the habit of looking up to the Father — the prayers 
 took a hold of him once more every time he read them ; and 
 he so delighted in the truths he saw that he rejoiced to set 
 them forth — was actually glad to talk about them to any one 
 who would listen. When he confessed his feeing about con- 
 gregations, he said that he preferred 'twelve people to a thou- 
 sand. This he considered a weakness, however ; except that 
 he could more easily let his heart out to the twelve. 
 
 He took for his text the words of our Lord, " Come unto me, 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden." He could not see the 
 strangers, for they sat behind a pillar, and therefore he had no 
 means for discovering that each of them had a heavy-laden 
 heart ; Lucy was not alone in trouble, for Syne had been hard 
 upon Mattie that day. He addressed himself especially to the 
 two old women before him, of whose story he knew nothing, 
 though their faces were as well known to him as the pillars of 
 the church. But the basin into which the fountain of his 
 speech flowed was the heart of those girls. 
 
 No doubt presented itself as to the truth of what the 
 preacher was saying ; nor could ■ either of them have given a 
 single argument from history or criticism for the reality of the 
 message upon which the preacher founded his exhortation. The 
 truth is not dependent ujjon proof for its working. Its rela- 
 tion to the human being is essential, is in the nature of things ; 
 so that if it be but received in faith — that is, acted upon — it 
 works its own work, and needs the buttressing of no argu- 
 ments any more than the true operation of a healing plant is 
 dependent upon a knowledge of Dioscorides. My reader must 
 not, therefore, suppose that I consider doubt an unholy thing ; 
 on the contrary, I consider spiritual doubt a far more precious 
 thing than intellectual conviction, for it springs from the 
 awaking of a deeper necessity than any that can be satisfied 
 from the region of logic. But when the truth has begun to 
 work its own influence in any heart, that heart has begun to 
 rise out of the region of doubt. 
 
 When they came from the church, Lucy and Mattie walked 
 hand in hand after the sisters and brother, and heard them 
 talk. 
 
 "He's a young one, that! "said the old man. "He'll 
 know a little better by the time he's as old as' I am." 
 
 " Well, I did think he went a little too far when he said a 
 body might be as happy in the work'us as with thousands of 
 pounds in the Bank of England." 
 
How Lucy Spent the Night. 149 
 
 " I don't know," interposed the other sister. "He said it 
 depended on what you'd got inside you. Now, if you've got a 
 bad temper inside you, all you've got won't make you happy." 
 
 "Thank you, sister. You're very polite, as usual. But, 
 after all, where should we have been but for the trifle we've 
 got in the bank ? " 
 
 " You two might ha' been living together like sisters, in- 
 stead of quarreling like two cats, if the money had gone as it 
 ought to," said the old man, who considered that the whole 
 property belonged of right to him. 
 
 By this time they had reached the end of the lane, and, 
 without a Word to each other, they separated. 
 
 " Syne," said Mattie, significantly. Syne was evidently her 
 evil incarnation. Lucy did not reply, but hastened home with 
 her, anxious to be alone. She did not leave the child, how- 
 ever, before she had put her to bed, and read again the hymn 
 that had taken her fancy before they went out. 
 
 I will now show my reader how much of the sermon re- 
 mained upon Lucy's mind. She sat a few minutes with her 
 grandmother, and then told her that she felt better, but would 
 like to go to bed. So she took her candle and went. As soon 
 as she had closed the door, she knelt down by her bedside, and 
 said something like this — more broken, and with long pauses 
 between — but like this : 
 
 " Jesus Christ, I come. I don't know any other way to 
 come. I speak to thee. Oh, hear me. I am weary and heavy 
 laden. Gi"ve me rest. Help me to put on the yoke of thy 
 meekness and thy lowliness of heart, which thou sayest will 
 give rest to our souls. I cannot do it without thy help. Thou 
 couldst do it without help. I cannot. Teach me. Give me 
 thy rest. How am I to begin ? How am I to take thy yoke 
 on me ? I must be meek. I am very troubled and vexed. 
 Am I angry ? Am I unforgiving ? Poor Thomas ! Lord 
 Jesus, have mercy upon Thomas. He does not know what he 
 is doing. I will be very patient. I will sit with my hands 
 folded, and bear all my sorrow, and not vex Grannie with it ; 
 and I won't say an angry word to Thomas. But, Lord, 
 have mercy upon him, and make him meek and lowly of 
 heart, I have not been sitting at thy feet and learning of 
 thee. Thou canst take all my trouble away by making 
 Thomas good. I ought to have tried hard to keep him in the 
 way his mother taught him, and I have been idle and self- 
 indulgent, and taken up with my music and dresses. I have 
 not looked to my heart to see whether it was meek and lowly 
 
150 Guild Court. 
 
 like thine. Lord, thou hast given me everything, and I 
 have not thought about thee. I thank thee that thou hast 
 made me miserable, for now I shall be thy child. Thou canst 
 bring Thomas home again to thee. Thou canst make him 
 meek and lowly of heart, and give rest to his soul. Amen." 
 
 Is it any wonder that she should have risen from her knees 
 comforted ? I think not. She was already — gentle and good 
 as she had always been — more meek and lowly. She had be- 
 gun to regard this meekness as the yoke of Jesus, and there- 
 fore to will it. Already, in a measure, she was a partaker of 
 his peace. 
 
 Worn out by her suffering, and soothed by her prayer, she 
 fell asleep the moment she laid her head upon the pillow. 
 And thus Lucy passed the night. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 MORE SHUFFLING. 
 
 Tom went home the next night with a racking headache. 
 Gladly would he have gone to Lucy to comfort him, but he 
 was too much ashamed of his behavior to her the night before, 
 and too uneasy in his conscience. He was, indeed, in an ab- 
 ject condition of body, intellect, and morals. He went at 
 once to his own room and to bed ; fell asleep ; woke in the 
 middle of the night miserably gnawed by "Don Worm, the 
 conscience ; " tried to pray, and found it did him no good ; 
 turned his thoughts to Lucy, and burst into tears at the recol- 
 lection of how he had treated her, imagining over and over 
 twenty scenes in which he begged her forgiveness, till he fell 
 asleep at last, dreamed that she turned her back upon him, 
 and refused to hear him, and woke in the morning with the 
 resolution of going to see her that night and confessing every- 
 thing. 
 
 His father had come home after he went to bed, and it was 
 with great trepidation that he went down to breakfast, almost 
 expecting to find that he knew already of his relation to Lucy. 
 But Eichard Boxall was above that kind of thing, and Mr. 
 Worboise was evidently free from any suspicion of the case. 
 
More Shuffling. 151 
 
 He greeted his son kindly, or rather frankly, and seemed to be 
 in good spirits. 
 
 " Our friends are well down the Channel by this time, with 
 such a fair wind," he said. " Boxall's a lucky man to be able 
 to get away from business like that. I wish you had taken a 
 fancy to Mary, Tom. She's sure to get engaged before she 
 comes back. Shipboard's a great place for 'getting engaged. 
 Some hungry fellow, with a red coat and an empty breeches- 
 pocket, is sure to pick her up. You might have had her if 
 you had liked. However, you may do as well yet ; and you 
 needn't be in a hurry now. It's not enough that there's as 
 good fish in the sea : they must come to your net, you know." 
 
 Tom laughed it off, went to his office, worked the weary day 
 through, and ran round to Guild Court the moment he left 
 business. 
 
 Lucy had waked in the night as well as Tom ; but she had 
 waked to the hope that there was a power somewhere — a power 
 working good, and upholding them that love it ; to the hope 
 that a thought lived all through the dark, and would one day 
 make the darkness light about her ; to the hope that a heart 
 of love and help was at the heart of things, and would show 
 itself for her need. When, therefore, Tom knocked — timidly 
 almost — at the door, and opened it inquiringly, she met him 
 with a strange light in her pale face, and a smile flickering 
 about a lip that trembled in sympathy with her rain-clouded 
 eyes. She held out her hand to him cordially, but neither 
 offered to embrace — Thomas from shame, and Lucy from a 
 feeling of something between that had to be removed before 
 things could be as they were — or rather before their outward 
 behavior to each other could be the same, for things could not 
 to all eternity be the same again : they must be infinitely better 
 and more beautiful, or cease altogether. 
 
 Thomas gave a look for one moment full in Lucy's eyes, 
 and then dropped his own, holding her still by the consenting 
 hand. 
 
 "Will you forgive me, Lucy?" he said, in a voice partly 
 choked by feeling, and partly by the presence of Mrs. Boxall, 
 who, however, could not hear what passed between them, for 
 she sat knitting at the other end of the large room. 
 
 " Oh, Tom !" answered Lucy, with a gentle pressure of his 
 hand. 
 
 Now, as all that Tom wanted was to be reinstated in her 
 favor, he took the words as the seal of the desired reconcilia- 
 tion, and went no further with any confession. The words, 
 
152 Guild Court. 
 
 however, meaning simply that she loved him and wanted to 
 love him, ought to have made Tom the more anxious to con- 
 fess all — not merely the rudeness of which he had been guilty 
 and which had driven her from the room, but the wrong he 
 had done her in spending the evening in such company ; for 
 surely it was a grievous wrong to a pure girl like Lucy to spend 
 the space between the last and the next pressure of her hand 
 in an atmosphere of vice. But the cloud cleared from his 
 brow, and, with a sudden reaction of spirits, he began to be 
 merry. To this change, however, Lucy did not respond. The 
 cloud seemed rather to fall more heavily over her countenance. 
 She turned from him, and went to a chair opposite her grand- 
 mother. Tom followed, and sat down beside her. He was 
 sympathetic enough to see that things were not right between 
 them after all. But he referred it entirely to her uneasiness 
 at his parents' ignorance of their engagement. 
 
 Some of my readers may think that Lucy, too, was to blame 
 for want of decision ; that she ought to have refused to see 
 Thomas even once again, till he had made his parents aware 
 of their relation to each other. But knowing how little sym- 
 pathy and help he had from those parents, she felt that to be 
 severe upon him thus would be like turning him out into a 
 snow-storm to find his way home across a desolate moor ; and 
 her success by persuasion would be a better thing for Thomas 
 than her success by compulsion. No doubt, if her rights alone 
 had to be considered, and not the necessities of Thomas's moral 
 nature, the plan she did not adopt would have been the best. 
 But no one liveth to himself — not even a woman whose dignity 
 is in danger — and Lucy did not think of herself alone. Yet, 
 for the sake of both, she remained perfectly firm in her pur- 
 pose that Thomas should do something. 
 
 " Your uncle has said nothing about that unfortunate rencon- 
 tre, Lucy," said Tom, hoping that what had relieved him 
 would relieve her. " My father came home last night, and the 
 paternal brow is all serene." 
 
 " Then I suppose you said something about it, Tom ?" said 
 Lucy, with a faint hope dawning in her heart. 
 
 "Oh! there's time enough for that. I've been thinking 
 about it, you see, and I'll soon convince you," he added, hur- 
 riedly, seeing the cloud grow deeper on Lucy's face. " I must 
 tell you something which I would rather not' have mentioned." 
 
 "Don't tell me, if you ought not to tell me, Tom," said 
 Lucy, whose conscience had grown more delicate than ever, 
 both from the turning of her own face toward the light, and 
 
More Shuffling. 153 
 
 from the growing feeling that Tom was not to be trusted as a 
 guide. 
 
 " There's no reason why I shouldn't," returned Tom. " It's 
 only this — that my father is vexed with me because I wouldn't 
 make love to your cousin Mary, and that I have let her slip 
 out of my reach now ; for, as he says, somebody will be sure 
 to snap her up before she comes back. So it's just the worst 
 time possible to tell him anything unpleasant, you know. I 
 really had far better wait till the poor girl is well out to sea, 
 and on 2 my father's mind ; for I assure you, Lucy, it will be 
 no joke when he does know. He's not in any mood for the 
 news just now, I can tell you. And then my mother's away, 
 too, and there's nobody to stand between me and him." 
 
 Lucy made no reply to his speech, uttered in the eagerness 
 with which a man, seeking to defend a bad position, sends one 
 weak word after another, as if the accumulation of poor argu- 
 ments would make up for the lack of a good one. She sat for 
 a long minute looking down on a spot in the carpet — the sight 
 of which ever after was the signal for a pain-throb ; then, in 
 a hopeless tone, said, with a great sigh : 
 
 " I've done all I can." 
 
 The indefiniteness of the words frightened Thomas, and he 
 began again to make his position good. 
 
 " I tell you what, Lucy," he said ; "I give you my promise 
 that before another month is over — that is to give my father 
 time to get over his vexation — I will tell him all about it, and 
 take the consequences." 
 
 Lucy sighed once more, and looked dissatisfied. But again 
 it passed through her mind that if she were to insist further, 
 and refuse to see Thomas until he had complied with her just 
 desire, she would most likely so far weaken, if not break, the 
 bond between them, as to take from him the only influence 
 that might yet work on him for good, and expose him entirely 
 to such influences as she most feared. Therefore she said no 
 more. But she could not throw the weight off her, or behave 
 to Thomas as she had behaved hitherto. They sat silent for 
 some time — Thomas troubled before Lucy, ' Lucy troubled 
 about Thomas. Then, with another sigh, Lucy rose and 
 went to the piano. She had never done so before when 
 Thomas was with her, for he did not care much about her 
 music. Now she thought of it as the only way of breaking 
 the silence. But what should she play ? 
 
 Then came into her memory a stately, sweet song her father 
 used to sing. She did not know where he got either the 
 
154 Guild Court. 
 
 words or the music of it. I know that the words are from 
 Petrarch. Probably her father had translated them, for he 
 had been much in Italy, and was a delicately gifted man. But 
 whose was the music, except it was his own, I do not know. 
 And as she sang the words, Lucy perceived for the first time 
 how much they meant, and how they belonged to her ; for in 
 singing them she prayed both for herself and for Thomas. 
 
 I am so weary with the burden old 
 
 Of foregone faults, and power of custom base, 
 
 That much I fear to perish from the ways, 
 
 And fall into my enemy's grim hold. 
 
 A mighty friend, to free me, though self-sold 
 
 Came, of his own ineffable high grace, 
 
 Then went, and from my vision took his face. 
 
 Him now in vain I weary to behold. 
 
 But still his voice comes echoing below : 
 
 O ye that labor ! see, here is the gate ! 
 
 Come unto me — the way all open lies ! 
 
 What heavenly grace will — what love — or what fate — 
 
 The glad wings of a dove on me bestow, 
 
 That I may rest, and from the earth arise ? * 
 
 Her sweet tones, the earnest music, and the few phrases he 
 could catch here and there, all had their influence upon Tom. 
 They made him feel. And with that, as usual, he was con- 
 tent. Lucy herself had felt as she had never felt before, and, 
 therefore, sung as she had never sung before. And Tom was 
 astonished to find that her voice had such power over him, 
 and began to wonder how it was that he had not found it out 
 before. He went home more solemn and thoughtful than he 
 had ever been. 
 
 Still he did nothing. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 A COMING EVENT. 
 
 Thus things went on for the space of about three weeks. 
 Tom went to see Lucy almost every night, and sometimes 
 stayed late ; for his mother was still from home, and his father 
 was careless about his hours so long as they were decent. 
 
 * Petrarch's sixtieth Sonnet 
 
A Coming Event. 155 
 
 Lucy's face continued grave, but lost a little of its trouble ; 
 for Tom often asked her to sing to him now, and she thought 
 she was gaining more of the influence over him which she so 
 honestly wished to possess. As the month drew toward a 
 close, however, the look of anxiety began to deepen upon her 
 countenance. 
 
 One evening, still and sultry, they were together as usual. 
 Lucy was sitting at the piano, where she had just been sing- 
 ing, and Tom stood beside her. The evening, as the Italian 
 poets would say, had grown brown, and Mrs. Boxall was just 
 going to light the candles, when Tom interposed a request for 
 continued twilight. 
 
 " Please, grannie," he said — for he too called her grannie — 
 " do not light the candles yet. It is so sweet and dusky — just 
 like Lucy here." 
 
 "All very well for you," said Mrs. Boxall ; "but what is to 
 become of me ? My love-making was over long ago, and I 
 want to see what I'm about now. Ah ! young people, your 
 time will come next. Make hay while the sun shines." 
 
 "While the candle's out, you mean, grannie," said Tom, 
 stealing a kiss from Lucy. 
 
 " I hear more than you think for," said the cheery old wom- 
 an. "I'll give you just five minutes' grace, and then I 
 mean to have my own way. I am not so fond of darkness, I 
 can tell you." 
 
 "How close it is !" said Lucy. "Will you open the win- 
 dow a little wider, Tom. Mind the flowers." 
 
 She came near the window, which looked down on the little 
 stony desert of Guild Court, arid sank into a high-backed 
 chair that stood beside it. 
 
 "lean hardly drag one foot after another," she said, "I 
 feel so oppressed and weary." 
 
 "And I," said Tom, who had taken his place behind her, 
 leaning on the back of her chair, "am as happy as if I were 
 in Paradise." 
 
 " There must be thunder in the air," said Lucy. " I fancy 
 I smell the lightning already. Oh, dear ! " 
 
 "Are you afraid of lightning, then ?" asked Thomas. 
 
 " I do not think I am exactly ; but it shakes me so ! I can't 
 explain what I mean. It affects me like a false tone on the 
 violin. No, that's not it. I can't tell what it is like." 
 
 A fierce flash broke in upon her words. Mrs. Boxall gave a 
 scream. 
 
 " The Lord be about us from harm !" she cried. 
 
156 Guild Court. 
 
 Lucy sat trembling. 
 
 Thomas did not know how much she had to make her trem- 
 ble. It is wonderful what can be seen in a single moment 
 under an intense light. In that one flash Lucy had seen Mr. 
 Molken and another man seated at a table, casting dice, with 
 the eagerness of hungry fiends upon both their faces. 
 
 A few moments after the first flash, the wind began to rise, 
 and as flash followed flash, with less and less of an interval, 
 the wind rose till it blew a hurricane, roaring in the chimney 
 and through the archway as if it were a wild beast caged in 
 Guild Court, and wanting to get out. 
 
 When the second flash came, Lucy saw that the blind of 
 Mr. Molken's window was drawn down. 
 
 All night long the storm raved about London. Chimney- 
 pots clashed on the opposite pavements. One crazy old house, 
 and one yet more crazy new one, were blown down. Even the 
 thieves and burglars retreated to their dens. But before it 
 had reached its worst Thomas had gone home. He lay awake 
 for some time listening to the tumult and rejoicing iu it, for it 
 roused his imagination and the delight that comes of behold- 
 ing danger from a far-removed safety — a selfish pleasure, and 
 ready to pass from a sense of our own comfort into a com- 
 placent satisfaction in the suffering of others. 
 
 Lucy lay awake for hours. There was no more lightning, 
 but the howling of the wind tortured her — that is, drew dis- 
 cords from the slackened strings of the human instrument — 
 her nerves ; made "broken music in her sides." She reaped 
 this benefit, however, that such winds always' drove her to her 
 prayers. On the wings of the wind itself, she hastened her 
 escape " from the windy storm and tempest." When at last 
 she fell asleep, it was to dream that another flash of light- 
 ning — when or where appearing she did not know — revealed 
 Thomas casting dice with Molken, and then left them lapt in 
 the darkness of a godless world. She woke weeping, fell 
 asleep again, and dreamed that she stood in the darkness once 
 more, and that somewhere near Thomas was casting dice with 
 the devil for his soul, but she could neither see him nor cry to 
 him, for the darkness choked both voice and eyes. Then a 
 hand was laid upon her head, and she heard the words — not in 
 her ears, but in her heart — " Be of good cheer, my daughter." 
 It was only a dream ; but I doubt if even-^I must not name 
 names, lest I should be interpreted widely from my meaning — 
 the greatest positivist alive could have helped waking with 
 some comfort from that dream, nay, could have helped deriving 
 
Mattie's Illness. 157 
 
 a faint satisfaction from it, if it happened to return upon him 
 during the day. "But in no such man would such a dream 
 arise," my reader may object. "Ah, well," I answer, because 
 I haye nothing more to say. And perhaps even in what I 
 have written I may have been doing or hinting some wrong to 
 some of the class. It is dreadfully difficult to be just. It is 
 far easier to be kind than to be fair. 
 
 It was not in London or the Empire only that that storm 
 raged that night. From all points of the compass came re- 
 ports of its havoc. Whether it was the same storm, however, 
 or another on the same night, I cannot tell ; but on the next 
 morning save one, a vessel passing one of the rocky islets be- 
 longing to the Cape Verde group, found the fragments of a 
 wreck floating on the water. The bark had parted amidships, 
 for, on sending a boat to the island, they found her stern lying 
 on a reef, round which little innocent waves were talking like 
 human children. And on her stern they read her name, 
 Ningpo, London. On the narrow strand they found three 
 bodies : one, that of a young woman, vestureless and broken. 
 They buried them as they could. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 mattie's illness. 
 
 The storm of that night beat furiously against poor Mattie's 
 window, and made a dreadful tumult in her big head. When 
 her father went into her little room, as was his custom every 
 morning when she did not first appear in his, he found her 
 lying awake, with wide eyes, seemingly unaware of what was 
 before them. Her head and her hand were both hot ; and 
 when her father at length succeeded in gaining some notice 
 from her, the words she spoke, although in themselves intelli- 
 gible enough, had reference to what she had been going through 
 in the night, in regions far withdrawn, and conveyed to him 
 no understanding of her condition further than that she was 
 wandering. In great alarm he sent the char-woman (whose 
 morning visits were Mattie's sole assistance in the house, for 
 they always had their dinner from a neighboring cook-shop) 
 
158 Guild Court. 
 
 to fetch the doctor, while he went up the court to ask Lucy to 
 come and see her. 
 
 Lucy was tossing in a troubled dream when she woke to 
 hear the knock at the door. Possibly the whole dream passed 
 between the first and second summons of the bookseller, who 
 was too anxious and eager to shrink from rousing the little 
 household. She thought she was one of the ten yirgins ; but 
 whether one of the wise or foolish she did not know. She had 
 knocked at a door, and as it opened, her lamp went out in the 
 wind it made. But a hand laid hold of hers in the dark, and 
 would have drawn her into the house. Then she knew that 
 she was holding another hand, which at first she took to be 
 that of one of her sisters, but found to be Thomas's. She clung 
 to it, and would have drawn him into the house with her, but 
 she could not move him. And still the other hand kept draw- 
 ing her in. She woke in an agony just as she was losing her 
 hold of Thomas, and heard Mr. Kitely's knock. She was out 
 of bed in a moment, put on her dressing-gown and her shoes, 
 and ran down stairs. 
 
 On learning what was the matter she made haste to dress, 
 and in a few minutes stood by Mattie's bedside. But the child 
 did not know her. When the doctor came, he shook his head, 
 though he was one of the most undemonstrative of his profes- 
 sion ; and after prescribing for her, said she must be watched 
 with the greatest care, and gave Lucy urgent directions about 
 her treatment. Lucy resolved that she would not leave her, 
 and began at once to make what preparations were necessary 
 for carrying out the doctor's instructions. Mattie took the 
 medicine he sent ; and in a little while the big eyes began to 
 close, sui.k and opened again, half closed and then started 
 wide open, to settle their long lashes at last, after many slow 
 flutterings, upon the pale cheek below them. Then Lucy 
 wrote a note to Mrs. Morgenstern, and left her patient to run 
 across to her grandmother to consult with her how she should 
 send it. But when she opened the door into the court, there 
 was Poppie, who of course flitted the moment she saw her, but 
 only a little way off, like a bold bird. 
 
 "Poppie, dear Poppie !" cried Lucy, earnestly, "do come 
 here. I want you." 
 
 " Bio wed if I go there again, lady ! " said Poppie, without 
 moving in either direction, 
 
 " Come here, Poppie. I won't touch you— I promise you. 
 I wouldn't tell you a lie, Poppie," she added, seeing that she 
 made no impression on the child. 
 
Mattie's Illness. 159 
 
 To judge by the way Poppie came a yard nearer, she did 
 not seem at all satisfied by the assurance. 
 
 " Look here, Poppie. There's a little girl — you know her 
 — Mattie — she's lying very ill here, and I can't leave her. Will 
 you take this letter for me — to that big house in Wyvil Place 
 — to tell them I can't come to-day ? " 
 
 " They'll wash me," said Poppie, decisively. 
 
 " Oh, no, they won't again, Poppie. They know now that 
 -you don't like it." 
 
 "They'll be giving me something I don't want, then. I 
 know the sort of them. " 
 
 " You needn't go into the house at all. Just ring the bell, 
 and give the letter to the servant." 
 
 Poppie came close up to Lucy. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, lady : I'm not afraid of him. He won't 
 touch me again. If he do, I'll bite worser next time. But I 
 won't run errands for nothink. Nobody does, miss. You 
 ain't forgotten what you guv me last time ? Do it again, and 
 I'm off." 
 
 "A good wash, Poppie — that's what I gave you last time." 
 
 " No, miss," returned the child, looking up in her face 
 beseechingly. "You know as well as me." And she held up 
 her pretty grimy mouth, so that her meaning could not be 
 mistaken. " Old Mother Flanaghan gave me a kiss once. 
 You remember her gin-bottle, don't you, miss ? " she added, 
 still holding up her mouth. 
 
 For a moment Lucy did hesitate, but from no yielding to 
 the repugnance she naturally felt at dirt. She hesitated, 
 thinking to make a stipulation on her side, for the child's 
 good. 
 
 " I tell you what, Poppie," she said ; " I will kiss you every 
 time you come to me with a clean face, as often as you like." 
 
 Poppie's dirty face fell. She put out her hand, took the 
 letter, turned, and went away slowly. 
 
 Lucy could not bear it. She darted after her, caught her, 
 and kissed her. The child, without looking round, instantly 
 scudded. 
 
 Lucy could hardly believe her eyes, when, going down at 
 Mr. Kitely's call, some time after, she found Poppie in the 
 shop. 
 
 "She says she wants to see you, miss," said Kitely. "I 
 don't know what she wants. Begging, I suppose." 
 
 And so she was. But all her begging lay in the cleanness 
 and brightness of her countenance. She might have been a 
 
160 Guild Court 
 
 little saint but for the fact that her aureole was all in her face, 
 and around it lay a border of darkness that might be felt. 
 
 " Back already !" said Lucy, in astonishment. 
 
 "Yes, lady. I didn't bite him. I throwed the letter at 
 him, and he throwed it out again ; and says I, pickin' of it 
 up, 'You'll hear o' this to-morrow, Plush.' And says he, 
 ' Give me that letter, you wagabones.' And I throwed it at 
 him again, and he took it up and looked at it, and took it in. 
 And here I am, lady," added Poppie, making a display of her 
 clean face. 
 
 Lucy kissed her once more, and she was gone in a moment. 
 
 While Mattie was asleep Lucy did all she could to change 
 the aspect of the place. 
 
 " She shan't think of Syne the first thing when she comes 
 to herself," she said. 
 
 With the bookseller's concurrence, who saw the reason for 
 it the moment she uttered it, she removed all the old black 
 volumes within sight of her bed, and replaced them with the 
 brightest bindings to be found in the shop. She would rather 
 have got rid of the books altogether ; but there was no time 
 for that now. Then she ventured, finding her sleep still en- 
 dure, to take down the dingy old chintz curtains from her 
 tent bed, and replace them with her own white dimity. These 
 she then drew close round the bed, and set about cleaning the 
 window, inside and out. Her fair hands were perfectly fit for 
 such work, or any other labor that love chose to require of 
 them. "Entire affection hateth nicer hands," is one of the 
 profoundest lines in all Spenser's profound allegory. But she 
 soon found that the light would be far too much for her little 
 patient, especially as she had now only white curtains to screen 
 her. So the next thing was to get a green blind for the win- 
 dow. Not before that was up did Mattie awake, and then 
 only to stare about her, take her medicine, and fall asleep 
 again ; or, at least, into some state resembling sleep. 
 
 She was suffering from congestion of the brain. For a week 
 she continued in nearly the same condition, during which 
 time Lucy scarcely left her bedside. And it was a great 
 help to her in her own trouble to have such a charge to fulfill. 
 
 At length one morning, when the sun was shining clear and 
 dewy through a gap between the houses of the court, and Lucy 
 was rising early according to her custom— she lay on a sofa in 
 Mattie's room — the child opened her eyes and saw. Then she 
 closed them again, and Lucy heard her murmuring to herself : 
 . "Yes, I thought so. I'm dead. And it is so nice; I've 
 
Matties Illness. 161 
 
 got white clouds to my bed. And there's Syne cutting away 
 with all his men — just like a black cloud — away out of the 
 world. Ah ! I see you, Syne ; you ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself for worrying me as you've been doing all this time. 
 You see it's no use. You ought really to give it up. He's 
 too much for you, anyhow." 
 
 This she said brokenly and at intervals. The whole week 
 had been filled with visions of conflict with the enemy, and 
 the Son of Man had been with her in those visions. The spir- 
 itual struggles of them that are whole are the same in kind as 
 those of this brain-sick child. They are tempted and driven 
 to faithlessness, to self-indulgence, to denial of God and of his 
 Christ, to give in — for the sake of peace, as they think. And 
 I, believing that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered, 
 and that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without our 
 Father, believe that the Lord Christ — I know not how, be- 
 cause such knowledge is too wonderful for me — is present in 
 the soul of such a child, as certainly as in his Church, or in the 
 spirit of a saint who, in his name, stands against the whole 
 world. There are two ways in which He can be present in the 
 Church, one in the ordering of the confluence and working of 
 men's deeds, the other in judgment : but he can be present in 
 the weakest child's heart, in the heart of any of his disciples, 
 in an infinitely deeper way than those, and without this deeper 
 presence, he would not care for the outside presence of the 
 other modes. It is in the individual soul that the Spirit 
 works, and out of which he sends forth fresh influences. And 
 1 believe that the good fight may be fought amid the wildest 
 visions of a St. Anthony, or even in the hardest confinement 
 of Bedlam. It was such a fight, perhaps, that brought the 
 maniacs of old time to the feet of the Saviour, who gave them 
 back their right mind. Let those be thankful who have it to 
 fight amid their brothers and sisters, who can return look for 
 look and word for word, and not among the awful visions of 
 a tormented brain. 
 
 " As thick and numberless 
 As the gay motes that people the sunbeams." 
 
 Lucy did not venture to show herself for a little while, but 
 at length she peeped within the curtain, and saw the child 
 praying with folded hands. Ere she could withdraw, she 
 opened her eyes and saw her. 
 
 " I thought I was in heaven ! " she said ; " but I don't mind, 
 11 
 
162 Guild Court. 
 
 if you're there, miss. I've been seeing you all through it. 
 But it's all over now," she added, with a sigh of relief." 
 
 " You must be very still, dear Mattie," said Lucy. " You 
 are not well enough to talk yet." 
 
 " I am quite well, miss ; only sleepy, I think." And before 
 Lucy could answer, she was indeed asleep once more. 
 
 It was quite another fortnight before Lucy ventured to give 
 up her place to her grandmother. During this time, she saw 
 very little of Thomas — only for a few minutes every evening 
 as he left the place — and somehow she found it a relief not to 
 see more of him. 
 
 All the time of Mattie's illness, Mr. Spelt kept coming to in- 
 quire after her. He was in great concern about her, but he 
 never asked to see her. He had a great gift in waiting, the 
 little man. Possibly he fared the better, like Zaccheus, who 
 wanted only to see, and was seen. But perhaps his quietness 
 might be partly attributed to another cause — namely, that 
 since Mattie's illness he had brooded more upon the suspicion 
 that his wife had had a child. I cannot in the least determine 
 whether this suspicion was a mere fancy or not ; but I know 
 that the tailor thought he had good grounds for it ; and it 
 does not require a very lawless imagination to presume the thing 
 possible. 
 
 Every day of those three weeks, most days more than once 
 or twice even, Poppie was to be seen at one hour or other in 
 Guild Court, prowling about — with a clean face, the only part 
 of her, I am all but certain, that was clean — for. the chance of 
 seeing Lucy. Prom what I know of Poppie, I cannot think 
 that it was anxiety about Mattie that brought her there. I do 
 not doubt that she was selfish — prowling about after a kiss 
 from Lucy. And as often as Lucy saw her she had what she 
 wanted. 
 
 But if Lucy did not see her sometimes, at least there was 
 one who always did see her from his nest in the — rock, I was 
 going to say, but it was only the wall. I mean, of course, Mr. 
 Spelt. He saw her, and watched her, until at length, as he 
 plied his needle, the fancy which already occupied his brain 
 began to develop itself, and he wondered whether that Poppie 
 might not be his very lost child. Nor had the supposition 
 lasted more than five minutes before he passionately believed, 
 or at least passionately desired to believe it, and began to devise 
 how to prove it, or at least to act upon it. 
 
Fishing for a Daughter. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 FISHING FOE A DAUGHTEK. 
 
 Mr. Spelt sat in his watch-tower, #ver the head of patiently 
 cobbling Mr. Dolman, reflecting. He too was trying to cob- 
 ble — things in general, in that active head of his beneath its 
 covering of heathery hair. But he did not confine his efforts 
 to things in general — one very particular thing had its share 
 in the motions of his spirit— how to prove that Poppie was 
 indeed his own child. He had missed his little Mattie much, 
 and his child-like spirit was longing greatly after some child- 
 like companionship. This, in Mattie's case, he had found did 
 him good, cleared his inward sight, helped him to cobble things 
 even when her questions showed him the need of fresh patch- 
 ing in many a place where he had not before perceived the 
 rent or the thin-worn threads of the common argument or 
 belief. And the thought had come to him that perhaps 
 Mattie was taken away from him to teach him that he ought 
 not, as Mattie had said with regard to Mrs. Morgenstern, to 
 cultivate friendship only where he got good from it. The very 
 possibility that he had a child somewhere in London seemed 
 at length to make it his first duty to rescue some child or other 
 from the abyss around him, and they were not a few swimming 
 in the vast vortex. 
 
 Having found out that Mrs. Flanaghan knew more about 
 Poppie than anyone else, and that she crept oftener into the 
 bottom of an empty cupboard in her room than anywhere else, 
 he went one morning to see whether he could not learn some- 
 thing from the old Irishwoman. The place looked very differ- 
 ent tben from the appearance it presented to Lucy the day she 
 found it inhabited by nobody, and furnished with nothing but 
 the gin-bottle. 
 
 When the tailor opened the door, he found the room swarm- 
 ing with children. Though it was hot summer weather, a 
 brisk fire burned in the grate ; and the place smelt strongly of 
 reesty bacon. There were three different groups of children 
 in three of the corners : one of them laying out the dead body 
 of a terribly mutilated doll ; another, the tangle-haired mem- 
 bers of which had certainly had no share in the bacon but the 
 smell of it, sitting listlessly on the floor, leaning their backs 
 against the wall, apparently without hope and without God in 
 the world ; one of the third group searching for possible crumbs 
 
164: Guild Court. 
 
 where she had just had her breakfast, the other two lying ill of 
 the measles on a heap of rags. Mrs. Flanaghan was in the act 
 of pouring a little gin into her tea. The tailor was quick- 
 eyed, and took in the most of this at a glance. But he thought 
 he saw something more, namely, the sharp eyes of Poppie 
 peeping through the crack of the cupboard. He therefore 
 thought of nothing more but a hasty retreat, for Poppie must 
 not know he came after her. 
 
 " Good-morning to you, Mrs. Flanaghan," he said, with 
 almost Irish politeness. Then, at a loss for anything more, 
 he ventured to add — " Don't you think, ma'am, you'll have 
 too much on your hands if all them children takes after the 
 two in the corner ? They've got the measles, ain't they, 
 ma'am ?" 
 
 "True for you, sir," returned Mrs. Flanaghan, whom the 
 gin had soothed after the night's abstinence. " But we'll soon 
 get rid o' the varmint," she said, rising from her seat. 
 " Praise G-od the Father ! we'll soon get rid o' them. Get 
 out wid ye !" she went on, stamping with her foot on the 
 broken floor. " Get out ! What are ye doin' i' the house 
 when ye ought to be enjoyin' yerselves in the fresh air ? Glory 
 be to God ! — there they go, as I tould you. And now what'U 
 I do for yerself this blessed marnin' ? " 
 
 By this time the tailor had made up his mind to inquire 
 after a certain Irishman, for whom he had made a garment of 
 fustian, but who had never appeared to claim it. He did not 
 expect her to know anything of the man, for he was consid- 
 erably above Mrs. Flanaghan's level, but it afforded a decent 
 pretext. Mrs. Flanaghan, however, claimed acquaintance 
 with him, and begged that the garment in question might be 
 delivered into her hands in order to reach him, which the 
 tailor, having respect both to his word and his work, took care 
 not to promise. 
 
 But as he went to his workshop, he thought what a gulf he 
 had escaped. For suppose that Mrs. Flanaghan had been 
 communicative, and had proved to his dissatisfaction that the 
 girl was none of his ! Why, the whole remaining romance of 
 his life would have been gone. It was far better to think that 
 she was or might be his child, than to know that she was not. 
 And, after all, what did it matter whether she was or was not ? 
 — thus the process of thinking went on in the' tailor's brain — 
 was she not a child ? What matter whether his own or some one 
 else's ? God must have made her all the same. And if he 
 were to find his own child at last, neglected and ignorant and 
 
Fishing for a Daughter. 165 
 
 vicious, could he not pray better for her if he had helped the 
 one he could help ? Might he not then say, " Lord, they 
 took her from me, and I had no chance with her, but I did. 
 what I could — I caught a wild thing, and I tried to make 
 something of her, and she's none the worse for it — do Thou 
 help my poor child, for I could not, and Thou canst. I give 
 thee back thine, help mine." Before he had reached his 
 perch, he had resolved that he would make no further inquiry 
 whatever about Poppie, but try to get a hold of her, and do 
 for her what he could. For whether he was her father or not, 
 neither case could alter the facts, that she was worth helping, 
 and that it would be very hard to get a hold of her. All that 
 Poppie could know of fathers would only make her more un- 
 willing to be caught if she had a suspicion that Mr. Spelt laid 
 such a claim to her ; and he would therefore scheme as if 
 their nearest common relations were "the grand old gardener 
 and his wife," and with the care which the shy startling na- 
 ture of Poppie, to use a Chaucerian word, rendered necessary. 
 Tailors have time to think about things ; and no circum- 
 stances are more favorable to true thought than those of any 
 work which, employing the hands, leaves the head free. Be- 
 fore another day had passed Mr. Spelt had devised his bait. 
 
 The next morning came— a lovely morning for such fishing 
 as he contemplated. Poppie appeared in the court, prowling 
 as usual in the hope of seeing Lucy. But the tailor appeared 
 to take no notice of her. Poppie's keen eyes went roving 
 about as usual, wide awake to the chance of finding some- 
 thing. Suddenly she darted at a small object lying near the 
 gutter, picked it up, put it in her mouth, and sucked it with 
 evident pleasure. The tailor was as one who seeing sees not. 
 Only he plied his needle and thread more busily, casting down 
 sidelong glances in the drawing of the same. And there was 
 no little triumph, for it was the triumph of confidence for the 
 future, as well as of success for the present, in each of those 
 glances. Suddenly Poppie ran away. 
 
 The morning after she was there again. Half involuntarily, 
 I suppose, her eyes returned to the spot where she had found 
 the bull's-eye. There, to the astonishment even of Poppie, 
 who was very seldom astonished at anything, lay another — a 
 larger one, as she saw at a glance, than the one she had found 
 yesterday. It was in her mouth in a moment. But she gave 
 a hurried glance round the court, and scudded at once. Like 
 the cherub that sat aloft and saw what was going to come of 
 it all, the little tailor drew his shortening thread, and smiled 
 
166 Guild Court 
 
 somewhere inside his impassive face, as he watched the little 
 human butterfly, with its torn wings, lighting and flitting as 
 in one and the same motion. 
 
 The next morning there again sat Mr. Spelt at his work — 
 working and watching. "With the queerest look of inquiry 
 and doubtful expectation, Poppie appeared from under the 
 archway, with her head already turned toward El Dorado — 
 namely, the flag-stone upon which the gifts of Providence had 
 been set forth on other mornings. There — could she, might 
 she, believe her eyes ?— lay a splendid polyhedral lump of rock, 
 white as snow, and veined with lovely red. It was not quartz 
 and porphyry, reader, but the most melting compound of 
 sugar and lemon-juice that the sweet inventing Genius — why 
 should she not have the name of a tenth muse ? Polyhedia, 
 let us call her— had ever hatched in her brooding brain, as she 
 bent over melting sugar or dark treacle, "in linked sweetness 
 long drawn out." This time Poppie hesitated a little, and 
 glanced up and around. She saw nobody but the tailor, and 
 he was too cunning even for her. Busy as a bee, he toiled 
 away lightly and earnestly. Then, as if the sweetmeat had 
 been a bird for which she was laying snares, as her would-be 
 father was laying them for her, she took two steps nearer on 
 tiptoe, then stopped and gazed again. It was not that she 
 thought of stealing, any more than the birds who take what 
 they find in the fields and on the hedges ; it was only from a 
 sort of fear that it was too good fortune for her, and that 
 there must be something evanescent about it — wings some- 
 where. Or perhaps she vaguely fancied there must be some 
 unfathomable design in it, awful and inscrutable, and there- 
 fore glanced around her once more — this time all but surpris- 
 ing the tailor, with uplifted head and the eager eyes of a 
 fowler. But the temptation soon overcame any suspicion 
 she might have. She made one bound upon the prize, and 
 scudded as she had never scudded before. Mr. Spelt ran his 
 needle in under the nail of his left thumb, and so overcame 
 his delight in time to save his senses. 
 
 And now came a part of the design which Mr. Spelt regarded 
 as a very triumph of cunning invention. That evening he 
 drove two tiny staples of wire — one into Mr. Dolman's door- 
 post close to the ground; the other into his own. The next 
 morning, as soon as he arrived, he chose a thread as near the 
 color of the flag-stones that paved the passage as he could find, 
 fastened one end with a plug of toffee into a hole he bored 
 with his scissors in another splendor of rock, laid the bait in 
 
Fishing for a Daughter. 167 
 
 the usual place, drew the long thread through the two eyes of 
 the staples, and sat down in his lair with the end attached to 
 the little finger of his left hand. 
 
 The time arrived about which Poppie usually appeared. 
 Mr. Spelt got anxious — nervously anxious. She was later than 
 usual, and he almost despaired ; but at length, there she was, 
 peeping cautiously round the corner toward the trap. She 
 saw the bait — was now so accustomed to it that she saw it 
 almost without surprise. She had begun to regard it as most 
 people regard the operations of nature — namely, as that which 
 always was so and always will be so, and therefore has no 
 reason in it at all. But this time a variety in the phenomenon 
 shook the couch of habitude upon which her mind was settling 
 itself in regard to the saccharine bowlders ; for, just as she 
 stooped to snatch it to herself and make it her own, away it 
 went as if in terror of her approaching fingers — but only to 
 the distance of half a yard or so. Eager as the tailor was — 
 far more eager to catch Poppie than Poppie was to catch the 
 lollypop — he could scarcely keep his countenance when he saw 
 the blank astonishment that came over Poppie's pretty brown 
 face. Certainly she had never seen a living lollypop, yet mo- 
 tion is a chief sign of life, and the lollypop certainly moved. 
 Perhaps it would have been wiser to doubt her senses first, but 
 Poppie had never yet found her senses in the wrong, and 
 therefore had not learned to doubt them. Had she been a 
 child of weak nerves, she might have recoiled for a moment 
 from a second attempt, but instead of that she pounced upon 
 it again so suddenly that the Archimago of the plot was 
 unprepared. He gave his string a tug only just as she seized 
 it, and, fortunately, the string came out of the plugged hole. 
 Poppie held the bait, and the fisherman drew in his line as 
 fast as possible, that his fish might not see it. 
 
 The motions of Poppie's mind were as impossible to analyze 
 as those of a field-mouse or hedge-sparrow. This time she 
 began at once to gnaw the sugar, staring about her as she did 
 so, and apparently in no hurry to go. Possibly she was men- 
 tally stunned by the marvel of the phenomenon, but I do not 
 think so. Poppie never could be much surprised at anything. 
 Why should anything be surprising ? To such a child every- 
 thing was interesting — nothing overwhelming. She seemed 
 constantly shielded by the divine buckler of her own exposure 
 and helplessness. You could have thought that God had said to 
 her, as to his people of old, "Fear not thou, Poppie," and 
 therefore Poppie did not fear, and found it answer. It is a 
 
168 Guild Court. 
 
 terrible doctrine that would confine the tender care of the 
 Father to those that know and acknowledge it. He carries 
 the lambs in his bosom, and who shall say when they cease to 
 be innocent lambs and become naughty sheep ? Even then he 
 goes into the mountains, and searches till he finds. 
 
 Not yet would the father aspirant show his craft. When he 
 saw her stand there gnawing his innocent bait, he was sorely 
 tempted to call, in the gentlest voice, " Poppie, dear ; " but, 
 like a fearful and wise lover, who dreads startling the maiden 
 he loves, he must yet dig his parallels and approach with guile. 
 He would even refine upon his own cunning. The next morn- 
 ing his bait had only a moral hook inside, that is, there was no 
 string attached. But now that happened which he had all 
 along feared. A child of the court—in which there were not 
 more than two, I think— whom Mr. Spelt regarded, of course, 
 as a stray interloper, for had she not enough of the good things 
 already ? — spied the sweetmeat, and following the impulses of 
 her depraved humanity, gobbled it up without ever saying, 
 like heathen Cassius, " By your leave, gods." Presently after 
 Poppie appeared, looked, stared — actually astonished now — 
 and, with fallen face, turned and went away. Whether she 
 or her cunning enemy overhead was the more disaj)pointed, I 
 will not venture to determine, but Mr. Spelt could almost 
 have cried. Four-and-twenty long tedious hours of needle 
 and thread must pass before another chance would arrive — 
 and the water so favorable, with the wind from the right 
 quarter just clouding its surface, and the fly so taking ! — it 
 was hard to bear. He comforted himself, however, by falling 
 back upon a kind of divine fatalism with which God had 
 endowed him, saying to himself, "Well, it's all for the best," 
 — a phrase not by any means uncommon among people de- 
 voutly inclined ; only there was this difference between most 
 of us and Mr. Spelt, that we follow the special aphorism with 
 a sigh, while he invariably smiled and brightened up for the 
 next thing he had to do. To say things are all right and yet 
 gloom does seem rather illogical in you and me, reader, does it 
 not ? Logical or illogical, it was not Spelt's way anyhow. He 
 began to whistle, which he never did save upon such occasions 
 when the faithful part of him set itself to conquer the faith- 
 less. 
 
 But he would try the bait without the line-once more. Am 
 I wearying my reader with the process ? I would not will- 
 ingly do so, of course. But I fancy he would listen to this 
 much about a salmon any day, so I will go on with my child. 
 
Mr. Fuller. 169 
 
 Poppie came the next morning, notwithstanding her last dis- 
 appointment, fonnd the bull's-eye, for such I think it was this 
 time, took.it, and sucked it to nothing upon the spot — did it 
 leisurely, and kept looking about — let us hope for Lucy, and 
 that Poppie considered a kiss a lovelier thing still than a lolly- 
 
 The next morning Mr. Spelt tried the string again, watched 
 it better, and by a succession of jerks, not slow movements, 
 lest, notwithstanding the cunning of the color, she should see 
 the string, drew her step by step in the eagerness of wonder, as 
 well as of that appetite which is neither hunger nor thirst, 
 and yet concerned with the same organs, but for which we 
 have, so far as I am aware, no word, I mean the love of sweets, 
 to the very foot of his eyrie. When she laid hold of the object 
 desired at the door-post, he released it by a final tug against 
 the eye of the staple. Before she could look up from securing 
 it, another lump of rock fell at her feet. Then she did look 
 up, and saw the smiling face of the tailor looking out (once 
 more like an angel over a cloudy beam) over the threshold, if 
 threshold it could properly be called, of his elevated and stair- 
 less door. She gave back a genuine whole-faced smile, and 
 turned and scudded. The tailor's right hand shuttled with 
 increased vigor all the rest of that day. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 ME. FULLER. 
 
 One evening Lucy was sitting as usual with Mattie, for the 
 child had no friends but her and grannie ; her only near rela- 
 tive was a widowed sister of her father, whom she did not like. 
 She was scarcely so well as she had been for the last few days, 
 and had therefore gone early to bed, and Lucy sat beside her 
 to comfort her. By this time she had got the room quite trans- 
 formed in appearance — all the books out of it, a nice clean 
 paper up on the walls, a few colored prints from the Illustra- 
 ted London News here and there, and, in fact, the whole made 
 fit for the abode of a delicate and sensitive child. 
 
 " What shall I read to-night, Mattie ? " she asked. For 
 Mattie must always have something read to her out of the New 
 
170 Guild Court. 
 
 Testament before she went to sleep ; Mr. Spelt had inaugura- 
 ted the custom. 
 
 "Oh, read about the man that sat in his Sunday clothes," 
 said Mattie. 
 
 "I don't know that story," returned Lucy. 
 
 " I wish dear mother was here," said Mattie, with the pet- 
 tishness of an invalid. " He would know what story I mean — 
 that he would." 
 
 " Would you like to see Mr. Spelt ? " suggested Lucy. " He 
 was asking about you not an hour ago." 
 
 "Why didn't he come up, then ? I wonder he never comes 
 to see me." 
 
 "I was afraid you weren't strong enough for it, Mattie. 
 But I will run and fetch him now, if he's not gone. " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; do, please. I know he's not gone, fori have not 
 heard his step yet. I always watch him out of the court when 
 I'm in bed. He goes right under me." 
 
 Lucy went, and Mr. Spelt came gladly. 
 
 " Well, mother," said Mattie, holding out a worn little cloud 
 of a hand, " how do you do ? " 
 
 Mr. Spelt could hardly answer for emotion. He took the 
 little hand in his, and it seemed to melt away in his grasp, till 
 he could hardly feel it. 
 
 " Don't cry, mother. I am very happy. I do believe I've seen 
 the last of old Syne. I feel just like the man that had got his 
 Sunday clothes on, you know. You see what a pretty room 
 Miss Burton has made, instead of all those ugly books that 
 Syne was so fond of : well, my poor head feels just like this 
 room, and I'm ready to listen to anything about Somebody. 
 Eead about the man in his Sunday clothes." 
 
 But Mr. Spelt, no less than Lucy, was puzzled as to what 
 the child meant. 
 
 "I wish that good clergyman that talked about Somebody's 
 burden being easy to carry, would come and see me," she said. 
 " I know he would tell me the story. He knows all about 
 Somebody." 
 
 " Shall I ask Mr. Potter to come and see you ? " said Spelt, 
 who had never heard of Mr. Fuller by name, or indeed any- 
 thing about him, but what Mattie had told him before she was 
 taken ill. 
 
 "I don't mean Mr. Potter — you know well enough. He's 
 always pottering," said the child, with a laugh. 
 
 She had not yet learned to give honor where honor is not 
 due ; or, rather, she had never been young enough to take 
 
Mr. Fuller. 171 
 
 seeming for being, or place for character. The consequence 
 was that her manners and her modesty had suffered — not her 
 reverence or her heart. 
 
 " I want to see the gentleman that really thinks it's all 
 about something," she resumed. "Do you know where he 
 lives, Miss Burton ? " 
 
 " No," answered Lucy, "but I will find out to-morrow, and 
 ask him to come and see you." 
 
 " Well, that will be nice," returned Mattie. " Read to me, 
 Mr. Spelt — anything you like. " 
 
 The little tailor was very shy of reading before Lucy, but 
 Mattie would hear of nothing else, for she would neither allow 
 Lucy to read, nor yet to go away. 
 
 " Don't mind me, Mr. Spelt," said Lucy, beseechingly. "We 
 are all friends, you know. If we belong to the Somebody Mat- 
 tie speaks about we needn't be shy of each other." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Mr. Spelt could refuse no longer. He 
 read about the daughter of Jairus being made alive again. 
 
 "Oh,. dear me !" said Mattie. "And if I had gone dead 
 when Syne was tormenting of me, He could have come into 
 the room, and taken me by the hand and said, ' Daughter, get 
 up.' How strange it would be if He said, 'Daughter' to me, 
 for then He would be my father, you know. And they say 
 He's a king. I wonder if that's why Mr. Kitely calls me prin- 
 cess. To have Mr. Kitely and Somebody," she went on mus- 
 ingly, "both for fathers is more than I can understand. 
 There's something about godfathers and godmothers in the 
 Catechism, ain't there, Miss Burton ? " Then, without, wait- 
 ing for a reply, she went on, " I wish my father would go and 
 hear what that nice gentleman — not Mr. Potter — has got to 
 say about it. Miss Burton, read the hymn about blind Barti- 
 meus, and that'll do mother good, and then I'll goto sleep." 
 
 The next day, after she came from the Morgensterns', Lucy 
 went to find Mr. Fuller. She had been to the week-evening 
 service twice since Mattie began to recover, but she had no 
 idea where Mr. Fuller lived, and the only way she could think 
 of for finding him was to ask at the warehouses about the 
 church. She tried one after another, but nobody even knew 
 that there was any service there — not to say where the evening 
 preacher lived. With its closed, tomb-like doors, and the 
 utter ignorance of its concerns manifested by the people of the 
 neighborhood, the great ugly building stood like some mauso- 
 leum built in honor of a custom buried beneath it, a monu- 
 ment of the time when men could buy and sell and worship 
 
172 Guild Court. 
 
 God. So Lucy put off further inquiry till the next week- 
 evening service, for she had found already that Mr. Fuller 
 had nothing to do with the Sunday services in that church. 
 
 How she wished that she could take Thomas with her the 
 next time she went to receive Mr. Fuller's teaching ! She had 
 seen very little of Thomas, as I have said, and had been so 
 much occupied with Mattie, that she did not even know 
 whether he had fulfilled his promise about telling his father. 
 I suspect, however, that she had been afraid to ask him, fore- 
 boding the truth that he had in fact let his promise lapse in 
 time, and was yet no nearer toward its half redemption in act, 
 which was all that remained possible now. And, alas ! what 
 likelihood was there of the good seed taking good root in a 
 heart where there was so little earth ?_ 
 
 Finding Mr. Kitely in his shop door, Lucy stopped to ask 
 after Mattie, for she had not seen her that morning. And 
 then she told him what she had been about, and her want of 
 success. 
 
 " What does the child want a clergyman for ? " asked Mr. 
 Kitely, with some tone of dissatisfaction. " Im sure you're 
 better than the whole lot of them, miss. Now I could listen 
 to you — " 
 
 " How do you know that ? " retorted Lucy, smiling ; for 
 she wanted to stop the eulogium upon herself. 
 
 " Because I've listened to you outside the door, Miss Burton, 
 when you was a-talking to Mattie inside." 
 
 " That wasn't fair, Mr. Kitely." 
 
 "No more it wasn't, but it's done me no harm, nor you 
 neither. But for them parsons ! — they're neither men nor 
 women. I beg their pardons — they are old wives." 
 
 " But are you sure that you know quite what you are talking 
 about ? I think there must be all sorts of them as well as of 
 other people. I wish you would come and hear Mr. Fuller 
 some evening with Mattie and me when she's better. You 
 would allow that he talks sense, anyhow." 
 
 " I ain't over hopeful, miss. And to tell the truth, I don't 
 much care. I don't think there can be much in it. It's 
 all an affair of the priests. To get the upper hand of people 
 they work on their fears and their superstitions. But I don't 
 doubt some of them may succeed in taking themselves in, and 
 so go on like the fox that had lost his tail, trying to make 
 others cut off theirs too." 
 
 Lucy did not reply, because she had nothing at hand to say. 
 The bookseller feared he had hurt her. 
 
Mr. Fuller. 173 
 
 " And so you couldn't find this Mr. Fuller ? Well, you 
 leave it to me. I'll find him, and let you know in the after- 
 noon." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Kitely. Just tell Mattie, will you ? I 
 must run home now, but I'll come in in the afternoon to hear 
 how you have succeeded." 
 
 About six o'clock, Lucy reentered Mr. Kitely's shop, re- 
 ceived the necessary directions to find the "parson," ran up 
 to tell Mattie that she was going, for the child had not come 
 down stairs, and then set out. 
 
 To succeed she had to attend to Mr. Kitely's rather minute 
 instructions ; for although the parsonage lay upon the bank 
 of one of the main torrents of city traffic, it was withdrawn 
 and hidden behind shops and among offices, taverns, and 
 warehouses. After missing the most direct way, she arrived 
 at last, through lanes and courts, much to her surprise, at the 
 border of a green lawn on the opposite side of which rose a tree 
 that spread fair branches across a blue sky filled with pearly 
 light, and blotted here and there with spongy clouds that had 
 filled themselves as full of light as they could hold. The 
 other half of the branches of the same tree spread themselves 
 across the inside of a gable, all that remained of a tavern that 
 was being pulled down. The gable was variegated with the 
 incongruous papers of many small rooms, and marked with 
 the courses of stairs and the holes for the joints of the floors ; 
 and this dreariness was the background for the leaves of the 
 solitary tree. On the same side was the parsonage, a long, 
 rather low, and country-looking house, from the door of which 
 Lucy would not have been surprised to see a troop of children 
 burst with shouts and laughter, to tumble each other about 
 upon the lawn, as smooth, at least, if not as green, as any of 
 the most velvety of its kind. One side of the square was 
 formed by a vague, commonplace mass of dirty and expression- 
 less London houses — what they might be used for no one 
 could tell — one of them, probably, an eating-house — mere 
 walls with holes to let in the little light that was to be had. 
 The other side was of much the same character, only a little 
 better ; and the remaining side was formed by the long barn- 
 like wall of the church, broken at regular intervals by the 
 ugly windows, with their straight sides filled with parallelo- 
 grams, and their half -circle heads filled with trapeziums— the 
 ugliest window that can be made, except it be redeemed with 
 stained glass, the window that makes the whole grand stretch 
 of St. Paul's absolutely a pain. The church was built of 
 
174: Guild Court 
 
 brick, nearly black below, but retaining in the upper part of 
 the square tower something of its original red. All this Lucy 
 took in at a glance as she went up to the door of the parson- 
 age. 
 
 She was shown into a small study, where Mr. Fuller sat. 
 She told him her name, that she had been to his week-evening 
 service with Mattie, and that the child was ill and wanted to 
 see him. 
 
 "Thank you very much," said Mr. Fuller. "Some of the 
 city clergymen have so little opportunity of being useful ! I 
 am truly grateful to you for coming to me. A child in my 
 parish is quite a godsend to me — I do not use the word irrev- 
 erently — I mean it. You lighten my labor by the news. Per- 
 haps I ought to say I am sorry she is ill. I dare say I shall 
 be sorry when I see her. But meantime, I am very glad to be 
 useful." 
 
 He promised to call the next day ; and, after a little more 
 talk, Lucy took her leave. 
 
 Mr. Fuller was a middle-aged man, who all his conscious 
 years had been trying to get nearer to his brethren, moved 
 thereto by the love he bore to the Father. The more anxious 
 he was to come near to God, the more he felt that the high- 
 road to God lay through the forest of humanity. And he had 
 learned that love is not a feeling to be called up at will in the 
 heart, but the reward as the result of an active exercise of the 
 privileges of a neighbor. 
 
 Like the poor parson loved of Chaucer, " he waited after no 
 pomp ne reverence ; " and there was no chance of preferment 
 coming in search of him. He was only a curate still. But 
 the incumbent of St. Amos, an old man, with a grown-up 
 family, almost unfit for duty, and greatly preferring his little 
 estate in Kent to the city parsonage, left everything to him, 
 with much the same confidence he would have had if Mr. 
 Fuller had been exactly the opposite of what he was, paying 
 him enough to live upon — indeed, paying him well for a curate. 
 It was not enough to marry upon, as the phrase is, but Mr. 
 Fuller did not mind that, for the only lady he had loved, or 
 ever would love in that way, was dead ; and all his thoughts 
 for this life were bent upon such realizing of divine theory 
 about human beings, and their relation to God and to each 
 other, as might make life a truth and a -gladness. It was 
 therefore painful to him to think that he was but a city 
 curate, a being whose thirst after the relations of his calling 
 among his fellows reminded himself of that of the becalmed 
 
Mr. Fuller. 175 
 
 mariner, with "water, water everywhere, but water none to 
 drink." He seemed to have nothing to do with them, nor 
 they with him. Perhaps not one individual of the crowds 
 that passed his church every hour in the week would be within 
 miles of it on the Sunday ; for even of those few who resided 
 near it, most forsook the place on the day of rest, especially in 
 the summer ; and few indeed were the souls to whom he could 
 offer the bread of life. He seemed to himself to be greatly 
 overpaid for the work he had it in his power to do — in his own 
 parish, that is. He had not even any poor to minister to. 
 He made up for this by doing his best to help the clergyman 
 of a neighboring parish, who had none but poor ; but his heart 
 at times burned within him to speak the words he loved best 
 to speak to such as he could hope had the ears to hear them ; 
 for among the twelve people — a congregation he did not always 
 have — that he said he preferred to the thousand, he could 
 sometimes hardly believe that there was one who heard and 
 understood. More of his reflections and resolutions, in regard 
 to this state of affairs, we shall fall in with by and by. Mean- 
 time, my reader will believe that this visit of Lucy gave him 
 pleasure and hope of usefulness. The next morning he was in 
 Mr. Kitely's shop as early as he thought the little invalid would 
 be able to see him. 
 
 "Good-morning, sir," said Mr. Kitely, brusquely. "What 
 can I do for you this morning ? " 
 
 If Mr. Fuller had begun looking at his books, Kitely would 
 have taken no notice of him. He might have stayed hours, 
 and the bookseller would never have even put a book in his 
 way ; but he looked as if he wanted something in particular, 
 and therefore Mr. Kitely spoke. 
 
 "You have a little girl that's not well, haven't you ?" re- 
 turned Mr. Fuller. 
 
 " Oh ! you're the gentleman she wanted to see. She's been 
 asking ever so often whether you wasn't come yet. She's quite 
 impatient to see you, poor lamb ! " 
 
 While he spoke, Kitely had drawn nearer to the curate, 
 regarding him with projecting and slightly flushed face, and 
 eyes that had even something of eagerness in them. 
 
 " I would have come earlier, only I thought it would be 
 better not," said Mr. Fuller. 
 
 Mr. Kitely drew yet a step nearer, with the same expression 
 on his face. 
 
 " You won't put any nonsense into her head, will you, sir ?" 
 he said, almost pleadingly. 
 
176 Guild Court 
 
 "Not if I know it," answered Mr. Fuller, with a smile of 
 kind humor. "I would rather take some out of it." 
 
 "For you see," Kitely went on, "that child never com- 
 mitted a sin in her life. It's all nonsense ; and I won't have 
 her talked to as if she was a little hell-cat." 
 
 "But you see we must go partly by what she thinks herself; 
 and I suspect she won't say she never did anything wrong. 
 I don't think I ever knew a child that would. But, 
 after all suppose you are right, and she never did anything, 
 wrong — " 
 
 " I don't exactly say that, you know," interposed Mr. Kitely, 
 in a tone of mingled candor and defense. "I only said she 
 hadn't committed any sins. " 
 
 ' ' And where's the difference ? " asked Mr. Fuller, quietly. 
 
 " Oh ! you know quite well. Doing wrong, you know — 
 why, we all do wrong sometimes. But to commit a sin, you 
 know — I suppose that's something serious. That comes in the 
 way of the Ten Commandments." 
 
 "I don't think your little girl would know the difference." 
 
 " But what's the use of referring to her always ? " 
 
 "Just because I think she's very likely to know best. Chil- 
 dren are wise in the affairs of their own kingdom." 
 
 "Well, I believe you're right ; for she is the strangest child 
 I ever saw. She knows more than any one would think for. 
 Walk this way, sir. You'll find her in the back room." 
 
 "Won't you come, too, and see that I don't put any non- 
 sense into her head ? " 
 
 "I must mind the shop, sir," objected Kitely, seeming a 
 little ashamed of what he had said. 
 
 Mr. Fuller nodded content, and was passing on, when he 
 bethought himself, and stopped. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Kitely," he said, " there was just one thing I was 
 going to say, but omitted. It was only this : that suppose you 
 were right about your little girl, or suppose even that she had 
 never done anything wrong at all, she would want God all the 
 same. And we must help each other to find Him." 
 
 If Mr. Kitely had any reply ready for this remark, which 
 I doubt, Mr. Fuller did not give him time- to make it, for he 
 walked at once into the room, and found Mattie sitting alone 
 in a half twilight, for the day was cloudy. Even the birds 
 were oppressed, for not one of them was singing. A thrush 
 hopped drearily about under his load of speckles, and a rose- 
 ringed paroquet, with a very red nose, looked ashamed of the 
 quantity of port- wine he had drunk. The child was reading 
 
Mr. Fuller. 177 
 
 the same little old book mentioned before. She laid it down, 
 and rose from the window-sill to meet Mr. Fuller. 
 
 "Well, how do you do, sir ?" she said. "I am glad you 
 are come." 
 
 Any other child of her age Mr. Fuller would have kissed, 
 'but there was something about Mattie that made him feel it 
 an unfit proceeding. He shook hands with her and offered 
 her a white camellia. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Mattie, and laid the little transfig- 
 uration upon the table. 
 
 "Don't you like flowers ?" asked Mr. Fuller, somewhat dis- 
 appointed. " Isn't it beautiful now ? " 
 
 "Well, where's the good ?" answered and asked Mattie, as 
 if she had been a Scotchwoman. "It will be ugly before to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Oh, no ; not if you put it in water directly." 
 
 " Will it live forever, then ? " asked Mattie. 
 
 "No, only a few days." 
 
 "Well, where's the odds, then ? To-morrow or next week 
 — where's the difference ? It looks dead now when you know 
 it's dying." 
 
 "Ah!" thought Mr. Fuller, "I've got something here 
 worth looking into." What he said was, "You dear child ! " 
 
 "You don't know me yet," returned Mattie. "I'm not 
 dear at all. "I'm cross and ill-natured. And I won't be 
 petted." 
 
 " You like the birds, though, don't you ?" said Mr. Fuller. 
 
 " Well, yes. Mr. Kitely likes them, and I always like what 
 he likes. But they are not quite comfortable, you know. 
 They won't last forever, you know. One of them is dead since 
 I was taken ill. And father meant it for Miss Burton." 
 
 "Do you like Miss Burton, then ?" 
 
 " Yes, I do. But she'll live forever, you know. I'll tell 
 you something else I like." 
 
 " What is that, my child ?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm no such a child ! But I'll tell you what I like. 
 There." 
 
 And she held out the aged little volume, open at the hymn 
 about blind Bartimeus. 
 
 " Will this live forever, then ? " he asked, turning the vol- 
 ume over in his hand, so that its withered condition suggested 
 itself at once to Mattie. 
 
 "Now you puzzle me," answered Mattie. "But let me 
 think. You know it's not the book I mean ; it's the poem. 
 12 
 
178 Guild Court. 
 
 Now I have it. If I know that poem by heart, and I live for- 
 ever, then the poem will live forever. There ! " 
 
 " Then the book's the body, and the poem the soul," said 
 Mr. Fuller. 
 
 " One of the souls ; for some things have many souls. I 
 have two, at least." 
 
 Mr. Fuller felt instinctively, with the big forehead and the 
 tiny body of the child before him, that they were getting on 
 rather dangerous ground. But he must answer. 
 
 " Two souls ! That must be something like what King 
 David felt, when he asked God to join his heart into one. 
 But do you like this poem ? " he hastened to add. " May I 
 read it to you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; please do. I am never tired of hearing it. It 
 will sound quite new if you read it." 
 
 So Mr. Fuller read slowly — "As Jesus went into Jericho 
 town." And from the way Mattie listened, he knew what he 
 must bring her next — not a camellia, but a poem. Still, how 
 sad it was that a little child should not love flowers ! 
 
 " When were you in the country last, Miss Kitely ? " 
 
 " I never was in the country that I know of. My name is 
 Mattie." 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to go, Mattie ? " 
 
 " No I shouldn't— not at all." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, because — because it's not in my way, you see." 
 
 "But surely you have some reason for not liking the 
 country." 
 
 " Well, now, I will tell you. The country, by all I can hear, 
 is full of things that die, and I don't like that. And I think 
 people can't be nice that like the country." 
 
 Mr. Fuller resolved in his heart that he would make Mattie 
 like the country before he had done with her. But he would 
 say no more now, because he was not sure whether Mattie 
 as yet regarded him with a friendly eye ; and he must be a 
 friend before he could speak about religion. He rose, there- 
 fore, and held out his hand. 
 
 Mattie looked at him with dismay. 
 
 " But I wanted you to tell me about the man that sat at 
 Somebody's feet in his Sunday clothes." 
 
 Happily for his further influence with, her, Mr. Fuller 
 guessed at once whom she meant, and taking a New Testa- 
 ment from his pocket, read to her about the demoniac, who 
 sat at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. He 
 
Mr. Fuller. 179 
 
 had not known her long before he discovered that all these 
 stories of possession had an especial attraction for Mattie — she 
 evidently associated them with her own visions of Syne and 
 his men. 
 
 " Well, I was wrong. It wasn't his Sunday clothes," she 
 said. " Or, perhaps, it was, and he had torn the rest all to 
 pieces." 
 
 " Yes ; I think that's very likely," responded Mr. Fuller. 
 
 " I know — it was Syne that told him, and he did it. But 
 he wouldn't do it any more, would he, after he saw Some- 
 body?" 
 
 " I don't think he would," answered Mr. Fuller, under- 
 standing her just enough to know the right answer to make. 
 " But I will come and see you again to-morrow," he added, 
 " and try whether I can't bring something with me that you 
 will like." 
 
 " Thank you," answered the old-fashioned creature. " But 
 don't be putting yourself to any expense about it, for I am not 
 easy to please." And she lifted her hand to her head and 
 gave a deep sigh, as if it was a very sad fact indeed. " I wish 
 I was easier to please," she added, to herself ; but Mr. Fuller 
 heard her as he left the room. 
 
 " She's a very remarkable child that, Mr. Kitely — too much 
 so, I fear," he said, reentering the shop. 
 
 "I know that," returned the bookseller, curtly, almost 
 angrily. "I wish she wasn't." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I only wanted — " 
 
 " No occasion at all," interrupted Mr. Kitely. 
 
 " I only wanted," Mr. Fuller persisted, "to ask you whether 
 you do not think she had better go out of town for a while." 
 
 " I dare say. But how am I to send her ? The child has 
 not a relation but me — and an aunt that she can't a-bear ; and 
 that wouldn't do — would it, sir ? She would fret herself to 
 death without someone she cared about." 
 
 " Certainly it wouldn't do. But mightn't Miss — I forget 
 her name — " 
 
 "Miss Burton, I dare say you mean." 
 
 " I mean Miss Burton. Couldn't she help you ? Is she 
 any relation of yours ? " 
 
 " None whatever. Nor she's not like it. I believe she's 
 a stray, myself." 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Kitely ? " asked Mr. Fuller, quite 
 bewildered now. 
 
 "Well, sir, I mean that she's a stray angel," answered Mr. 
 
180 Guild Court. 
 
 Kitely, smiling; "for she ain't like anyone else I know of 
 but that child's mother, and she's gone back to where she 
 came from — many's the long year." 
 
 "I don't wonder at your thinking that of her if she's as 
 good as she looks," returned Mr. Fuller. And bidding the 
 bookseller good-morning, he left the shop and walked home, 
 cogitating how the child could be got into the country. 
 
 Next morning he called — earlier, and saw Lucy leaving the 
 court just as he was going into the shop. He turned and 
 spoke to her. 
 
 " Fancy a child, Miss Burton," he said, "that does not 
 care about flowers — and her heart full of religion too ! How 
 is she to consider the lilies of the field ? She knows only birds 
 in cages; she has no idea of the birds of the air. The poor 
 child has to lift everything out of that deep soul of hers, and 
 the buckets of her brain can't stand such hard work." 
 
 ' ' I know, I know," answered Lucy. " But what can I do ? " 
 
 "Besides," Mr. Fuller continued, "what notion of the sim- 
 ple grandeur of God can she have when she never had more 
 than a peep of the sky from between these wretched houses ? 
 How can the heavens declare the glory of God to her ? You 
 don't suppose David understood astronomy, and that it was 
 from a scientific point of view that he spoke, when he said 
 that the firmament showed his handiwork ? That was all he 
 could say about it, for the Jewish nation was net yet able to 
 produce a Buskin. But it was, nevertheless, the spiritual 
 power of the sky upon his soul — not the stars in their courses, 
 but the stars up there in their reposeful depth of blue, their 
 'shining nest' — which, whatever theory of their construction 
 he might have, yet impressed him with an awe, an infinitude, 
 a shrinking and yet aspiring — made his heart swell within him, 
 and sent him down on his knees. This little darling knows 
 nothing of such an experience. We must get her into the 
 open. She must love the wind that bloweth where it listeth, 
 and the clouds that change and pass. She can't even like 
 anything that does not last forever ; and the mind needs a 
 perishing bread sometimes as well as the body — though it 
 never perishes when once made use of, as Mattie told me yes- 
 terday. But I beg your pardon ; I am preaching a sermon, I 
 think. What a thing it is to have the faults of a profession in 
 addition to those of humanity ! It all comes to this — you 
 must get that child, with her big head and her big conscience, 
 out of London, and give her heart a chance." 
 
 "Indeed, I wish I could," answered Lucy. "I will do 
 
Mr. Fuller. 181 
 
 what I can, and let you know. Are you going to see her now, 
 Mr. Fuller?" 
 
 "Yes, I am. I took her a flower yesterday, but I have 
 brought her a poem to-day. I am afraid, however, that it is 
 not quite the thing for her. I thought I could easily find her 
 one till I began to try, and then I found it very difficult 
 indeed." 
 
 They parted — Lucy to Mrs. Morgenstern's, Mr. Fuller to 
 Mattie. 
 
 I will give the hymn — for the sake, in part, of what Mattie 
 said, and then I will close the chapter. 
 
 " Come unto me," the Master says. 
 But how ? I am not good ; 
 No thankful song my heart will raise, 
 Nor even wish it could. 
 
 I am not sorry for the past, 
 
 Nor able not to sin ; 
 The weary strife would ever last 
 
 11 once I should begin. 
 
 Hast thou no burden then to bear ? 
 
 No action to repent ? 
 Is all around so very fair ? 
 
 Is thy heart quite content ? 
 
 Hast thou no sickness in thy soul ? 
 
 No labor to endure ? 
 Then go in peace, for thou art whole, 
 
 Thou needest not His cure. 
 
 Ah ! mock me not. Sometimes I sigh ; 
 
 I have a nameless grief, 
 A faint, sad pain — but such that I 
 
 Can look for no relief. 
 
 Come then to Him who made thy heart ; 
 
 Come in thyself distrest ; 
 To come to Jesus is thy part, 
 
 His part to give thee rest. 
 
 New grief, new hope He will bestow, 
 
 Thy grief and pain to quell ; 
 Into thy heart Himself will go, 
 
 And that will make thee well. 
 
 When Mr. Fuller had finished the hymn, he closed the book 
 and looked toward Mattie. She responded — with a sigh — 
 
182 Guild Court. 
 
 "Well, I think I know what it means. You see I hare 
 such a big head, and so many things come and go just as they 
 please, that if it weren't for Somebody I don't know what I 
 should do with them all. But as soon as I think about Him, 
 they grow quieter and behave better. But I don't know all 
 that it means. Will you lend me the book, Mr. Fuller ? " 
 
 All the child's thoughts took shapes, and so she talked like 
 a lunatic. Still, as all the forms to which she gave an ob- 
 jective existence were the embodiments of spiritual realities, 
 she could not be said to have yet passed the narrow line that 
 divides the poet from the maniac. But it was high time that 
 the subjects of her thoughts should be supplied from without, 
 and that the generating power should lie dormant for a while. 
 And the opportunity for this arrived sooner than her friends 
 had expected. * 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 THE NINGPO IS LOST. 
 
 Lucy was so full of Mattie and what Mr. Fuller had said 
 that she told Mrs. Morgenstern all about it before Miriam had 
 her lesson. After the lesson was over, Mrs. Morgenstern, who 
 had, contrary to her custom, remained in the room all the 
 time, said : 
 
 " Well, Lucy, I have been thinking about it, and I think I 
 have arranged it all very nicely. It's clear to me that the 
 child will go out of her mind if she goes on as she's doing. 
 Now, I don't think Miriam has been quite so well as usual, 
 and she has not been out of London since last August. 
 Couldn't you take her down to St. Leonard's — or I dare say 
 you would like Hastings better ? You can go on with your 
 lessons there all the same, and take little Mattie with you." 
 
 "But what will become of my grandmother ? " said Lucy. 
 
 " She can go with you, can't she ? I could ask her to go 
 and take care of you. It would be much better for you to 
 have her, and it makes very little difference to me, you know." 
 
 " Thank you very much," returned Lucy, "but I fear my 
 grandmother will not consent to it. I will try her, however, 
 and see what can be done. Thank you a thousand times, dear 
 
TJie Ningpo is Lost. 183 
 
 Mrs. Morgenstern. Wouldn't you like to go to Hastings, 
 Miriam ? " 
 
 Miriam was delighted at the thought of it, and Lucy was 
 not without hopes that if her grandmother would not consent 
 to go herself, she would at least wish her to go. Leaving 
 Mattie out of view, she would be glad to be away from Thomas 
 for a while, for, until he had done as he ought, she could not 
 feel happy in his presence ; and she made up her mind that 
 she would write to him very plainly when she was away — per- 
 haps tell him positively that if he would not end it, she must. 
 I say perhaps, for ever as she approached the resolution, the 
 idea of the poor lad's helpless desertion arose before her, and 
 she recoiled from abandoning him. Nothing more could be 
 determined, however, until she saw her grandmother. 
 
 But as she was going out she met Mr. Sargent in the hall. 
 He had come to see her. 
 
 This very morning the last breath of the crew and passen- 
 gers of the Ningpo had bubbled up in the newspapers ; and all 
 the world who cared to know it knew the fact, that the vessel 
 had been dashed to pieces upon a rock of the Cape Verde Isl- 
 ands ; all hands and passengers supposed to be lost. This the 
 underwriters knew but a few hours before. Now it was known 
 to Mr. Stopper and Mr. Worboise, both of whom it concerned 
 even more than the underwriters. Mr. Stopper's first feeling 
 was one of dismay, for the articles of partnership had not been 
 completed before Mr. Boxall sailed. Still, as he was the only 
 person who understood the business, he trusted in any case to 
 make his position good, especially if he was right in imagining 
 that old Mrs. Boxall must now be heir-at-law — a supposition 
 which he scarcely allowed himself to doubt. Here, however, 
 occurred the thought of Thomas. He had influence there, 
 and that influence would be against him, for had he not in- 
 insulted him ? This he could not help yet. He would wait 
 for what might turn up. 
 
 What Mr. Worboise's feelings were when first he read the 
 paragraph in the paper I do not know, nor whether he had not 
 an emotion of justice, and an inclination to share the property 
 with Mrs. Boxall. But I doubt whether he very clearly rec- 
 ognized the existence of his friend's mother. In his mind, 
 probably, her subjective being was thinned by age, little re- 
 gard, and dependence, into a thing of no account — a shadow 
 of the non-Elysian sort, living only in the waste places of 
 human disregard. He certainly knew nothing of her right to 
 any property in the possession of her son. Of one of his feel- 
 
184 Guild Court. 
 
 ings only am I sure : lie became more ambitious for his son, 
 in whom lie bad a considerable amount of the pride of pater- 
 nity. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall was the last to hear anything of the matter. 
 She did not read the newspapers, and, accustomed to have 
 sons at sea, had not even begun to look for news of the Ningpo. 
 
 " Ah, Miss Burton/' said Mr. Sargent, ' ' I am just in time. 
 I thought perhaps you would not be gone yet. Will you come 
 into the garden with me for a few minutes ? I won't keep 
 you long." 
 
 Lucy hesitated. Mr. Sargent had of late, on several occa- 
 sions, been more confidential in his manner than was quite 
 pleasant to her, because, with the keenest dislike to false 
 appearances, she yet could not take his attentions for granted, 
 and tell him she was engaged to Thomas. He saw her hesita- 
 tion, and hastened to remove it. 
 
 " I only want to ask you about a matter of business," he 
 said. " I assure you I won't detain you." 
 
 Mr. Sargent knew something of Mr. Wither, who had very 
 "good connections," and was indeed a favorite in several pro- 
 fessional circles ; and from him he had learned all about 
 Lucy's relations, without even alluding to Lucy herself, and 
 that her uncle and whole family had sailed in the Ningpo. 
 Anxious to do what he could for her, and fearful lest, in their 
 unprotected condition, some advantage should be taken of the 
 two women, he had made haste to offer his services to Lucy, 
 not without a vague feeling that he ran great risk of putting 
 himself in the false position of a fortune-hunter by doing so, 
 and heartily abusing himself for not having made more definite 
 advances before there was any danger of her becoming an heir- 
 ess ; for although a fortune was a most desirable tiling in Mr. 
 Sargent's position, especially if he wished to marry, he was 
 above marrying for money alone, and, in the case of Lucy, with 
 whom he had fallen in love — just within his depth, it must be 
 confessed — while she was as poor as himself, he was especially 
 jealous of being unjustly supposed to be in pursuit of her pros- 
 pects. Possibly the consciousness of what a help the fortune 
 would be to him made him even more sensitive than he would 
 otherwise have been. Still he would not omit the opportunity 
 of being useful to the girl, trusting that his honesty would, 
 despite of appearances, manifest itself sufficiently to be believed 
 in by so honest a nature as Lucy Burton. 
 
 "Have you heard the sad news ?" he said, as soon as they 
 were in the garden. 
 
The Ningpo is Lost. 185 
 
 " No," answered Lucy, without much concern ; for she did 
 not expect to hear anything about Thomas. 
 
 "I thought not. It is very sad. The Ningpo is lost." 
 
 Lucy was perplexed. She knew the name of her uncle's 
 vessel ; hut for a moment she did not associate the thing. In 
 a moment, however, something of the horror of the fact 
 reached her. She did not cry, for her affections had no great 
 part in anyone on board of the vessel, but she turned very 
 pale. And not a thought of the possible interest she might 
 have in the matter crossed her mind. She had never associ- 
 ated good to herself with her uncle or any of his family. 
 
 "How dreadful!" she murmured. "My poor cousins! 
 What they must all have gone through ! Are they come 
 home ? " 
 
 "They are gone home," said Mr. Sargent, significantly. 
 "There can be but little doubt of that, I fear." 
 
 "You don't mean they're drowned ?" she said, turning her 
 white face on him, and opening her eyes wide. 
 
 "It is, not absolutely certain ; but there can be little doubt 
 about it." 
 
 He did not show her the paragraph in the Times, though 
 the paper was in his pocket : the particulars were too dread- 
 ful. 
 
 " Are there any other relations but your grandmother and 
 yourself ? " he asked, for Lucy remained silent. 
 
 "I don't know of any," she answered. 
 
 " Then you must come in for the property." 
 
 " Oh, no. He would never leave it to us. He didn't like 
 me, for one thing. But that was my fault, perhaps. He was 
 not over- kind to my mother, and so I never liked him." 
 
 And here at length she burst into tears. She wept very 
 quietly, however, and Mr. Sargent went on. 
 
 ' ' But you must be his heirs-at-law. Will you allow me to 
 make inquiry — to do anything that may be necessary, for you ? 
 Don't misunderstand me," he added, pleadingly. " It is only 
 as a friend — what I have been for a long time now, Lucy." 
 
 Lucy scarcely hesitated before she answered, with a restraint 
 that appeared iike coldness : 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Sargent. The business cannot in any 
 case be mine. It is my grandmother's, and I can, and will, take 
 no hand in it." 
 
 "Will you say to your grandmother that I am at her ser- 
 vice ? " 
 
 " If it were a business matter, there is no one I would more 
 
186 Guild Court 
 
 willingly — ask to help us ; but as you say it is a matter of 
 friendship, I must refuse your kindness." 
 
 Mr. Sargent was vexed with himself, and disappointed with 
 her. He supposed that she misinterpreted his motives. Be- 
 tween the two, he was driven to a sudden, unresolved action of 
 appeal. 
 
 "Miss Burton," he said, "for God's sake, do not misun- 
 derstand me, and attribute to mercenary motives the offer I 
 make only in the confidence that you will not do me such an 
 injustice." 
 
 Lucy was greatly distressed. Her color went and came for 
 a few moments, and then she spoke. 
 
 "Mr. Sargent, I am just as anxious that you should under- 
 stand me ; but I am in a great difficulty and have to throw 
 myself on your generosity." 
 
 She paused again, astonished to find herself making a 
 speech. But she did not pause long. 
 
 " I refuse your kindness," she said, "only because I am not 
 free to lay myself under such obligation to you. Do not ask 
 me to say more," she added, finding that he made no reply. 
 
 But if she had looked in his face, she would have seen that 
 he understood her perfectly. Honest disappointment and 
 manly suffering were visible enough on his countenance. But 
 he did not grow ashy pale, as some lovers would at such an 
 utterance. He would never have made, under any circum- 
 stances, a passionate lover, though an honest and true one ; for 
 he was one of those balanced natures which are never all in one 
 thing at once. Hence the very moment he received a shock, 
 was the moment in which he began to struggle for victory. 
 Something called to him, as Una to the Red-Cross Knight 
 when face to face with the serpent Error : 
 
 "Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee." 
 
 Before Lucy's eyes and his met, he had mastered his counten- 
 ance at last. 
 
 " I understand you, Miss Burton," he said, in a calm voice, 
 which only trembled a little — and it was then that Lucy ven- 
 tured to look at him — " and I thank you. Please to remember 
 that if ever you need a friend, I am at your service." 
 
 Without another word, he lifted his hat and wBnt away. 
 
 Lucy hastened home full of distress at the thought of her 
 grandmother's grief, and thinking all the way how she could 
 
Of Useful Odds and Ends. 187 
 
 convey the news with least of a shock ; but when she en- 
 tered the room, she found her already in tears, and Mr. Stop- 
 per seated by her side comforting her with commonplaces. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 OF USEFUL ODDS AND ENDS. 
 
 During all this time, when his visits to Lucy were so much 
 interrupted by her attendance upon Mattie, Thomas had not 
 been doing well. In fact, he had been doing gradually worse. 
 His mother had, of course, been at home for a long time now, 
 and Mr. Simon's visits had been resumed. But neither of 
 these circumstances tended to draw him homeward. 
 
 Mrs. Worboise's health was so much improved by her so- 
 journ at Folkestone, that she now meditated more energetic 
 measures for the conversion of her son. What these measures 
 should be, however, she could not for some time determine. At 
 length she resolved that, as he had been a good scholar when at 
 school — proved in her eyes by his having brought borne prizes 
 every year — she would ask him to bring his Greek Testament 
 to her room, and help her to read through St. Paul's Epistle 
 to the Romans with the fresh light which his scholarship would 
 cast upon the page. It was not that she was in the least diffi- 
 culty about the Apostle's meaning. She knew that' as well at 
 least as the Apostle himself ; but she would invent an inno- 
 cent trap to catch a soul with, and, if so it might be, put it 
 in a safe cage, whose strong wires of exclusion should be wad- 
 ded with the pleasant cotton of safety. Alas for St. Paul, his 
 mighty soul, and his laboring speech, in the hands of two 
 such ! The very idea of such to read him, might have scared 
 him from his epistle — if such readers there could have been in a 
 time when the wild beasts of the amphitheatre kept the Chris- 
 tianity pure. 
 
 "Thomas, " she said, one evening, "I want you to bring 
 your Greek Testament, and help me out with something." 
 
 "0, mother, I can't. I have forgotten all about Greek. 
 What is it you want to know ? " 
 
 " I want you to read the Romans with me." 
 
188 Guild Court 
 
 "Oh! really, mother, I can't. It's such bad Greek, you 
 know." 
 
 " Thomas ! " said his mother, sepulchrally, as if his hasty 
 assertion with regard to St. Paul's scholarship had been a sin 
 against the truth St. Paul spoke. 
 
 " Well, really, mother, you must excuse me. I can't. Why 
 don't you ask Mr. Simon ? He's an Oxford man." 
 
 To this Mrs. Worboise had no answer immediately at hand. 
 From the way in which Thomas met her request my reader 
 will see that he was breaking loose from her authority — 
 whether for the better or the worse does not at this point seem 
 doubtful, and yet perhaps it was doubtful. Still he was not 
 prepared to brave her and his father with a confession, for 
 such it appeared to him to be, of his attachment to Lucy. 
 
 Since he could see so little of her, he had spent almost all 
 the time that used to be devoted to her with Molken. In conse- 
 quence, he seldom reached home in anything like what he had 
 been accustomed to consider decent time. When his mother 
 spoke to him on the subject he shoved it aside with an "Ah ! 
 you were in bed, mother, "prefacing some story, part true, part 
 false, arranged for the occasion. So long as his father took 
 no notice of the matter he did not much mind. He was afraid 
 of him still ; but so long as he was out of bed early enough in 
 the morning, his father did not much care at what hour he 
 went to it : he had had his own wild oats to sow in his time. 
 The purity of his boy's mind and body did not trouble him 
 much, provided that, when he came to take his position in the 
 machine of things, he turned out a steady, respectable pinion, 
 whose cogs did not miss, but held — the one till the other 
 caught. He had, however, grown ambitious for him within 
 the last few days — more of which by and by. 
 
 In the vacancy of mind occasioned by the loss of his visits 
 to Lucy — for he had never entered heartily into any healthy 
 pursuits in literature, art, or even amusement — Thomas had, 
 as it were, gradually sauntered more and more into the power 
 of Mr. Molken ; and although he had vowed to himself, after 
 his first experience, that he would never play again, himself 
 not being to himself a very awe-inspiring authority, he had 
 easily broken that vow. It was not that he had any very 
 strong inclination to play — the demon of play had not quite 
 entered into him : it was only that whatever lord asserted 
 dominion over Thomas, to him Thomas was ready to yield 
 that which he claimed. Molken said, " Come along," and 
 Thomas went along. Nor was it always to the gambling-house 
 
Of Useful Odds and Ends. 189 
 
 that he followed Molken ; but although there was one most 
 degrading species of vice from which his love to Lucy — for he 
 loved Lucy with a real though not great love — did preserve 
 him, there were several places to which his friend took him 
 from which he could scarcely emerge as pure as he entered 
 them. I suspect — thanks to what influence Lucy had with 
 him, to what conscience he had left in him, to what good his 
 mother and Mr. Simon had taught him, in a word, to the care 
 of God over him — Mr. Molken found him rather harder to 
 corrupt than, from his shilly-shally ways, he had expected. 
 Above all, the love of woman, next to the love of G-od, is the 
 power of God to a young man's salvation ; for all is of God, 
 everything, from first to last — nature, providence, and grace — 
 it is all of our Father in Heaven ; and what God hath joined 
 let not man put asunder. 
 
 His gambling was a very trifle as far as money went : an 
 affair of all but life and death as far as principle was concerned. 
 There is nothing like the amount of in-door gambling that 
 there used to be ; but there is no great improvement in taking 
 it to the downs and the open air, and making it librate on the 
 muscles of horses instead of on the spinning power of a top or 
 the turning up of cards. And whoever gambles, whether at 
 rouge-et-noir or at Fly-away versus Staywell, will find that the 
 laws of gambling are, like those of the universe, unalterable. 
 The laws of gambling are discontent, confusion, and loss upon 
 everyone who seeks to make money without giving money's 
 worth. It will matter little to the grumbler whether the retri- 
 bution comes in this world, he thinking, like Macbeth, to 
 "skip the life to come," or in the next. He will find that 
 one day is with the Lord, as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day. 
 
 But for Thomas, the worst thing in the gambling, besides 
 the bad company it led him into, was that the whole affair fell 
 in so with his natural weakness. Gambling is the employment 
 fitted for the man without principles and without will, for his 
 whole being is but, as far as he is concerned, the roulette-ball 
 of chance. The wise, on the contrary, do not believe in For- 
 tune, yield nothing to her sway, go on their own fixed path 
 regardless " of her that turneth as a ball," as Chaucer says. 
 They at least will be steady, come to them what may. Thomas 
 got gradually weaker and weaker, and, had it not been for 
 Lucy, would soon have fallen utterly. But she, like the lady 
 of an absent lord, still kept one fortress for him in a yielded 
 and devastated country. 
 
190 . Guild Court. 
 
 There was no newspaper taken in at Mr. "Worboise's, for he 
 always left home for his office as soon as possible. So, when 
 Thomas reached the counting-house, he had heard nothing of 
 the sad news about his late master and his family. But the 
 moment he entered the place he felt that the atmosphere was 
 clouded. Mr. Wither, whose face was pale as death, rose from 
 the desk where he had been sitting, caught up his hat, and 
 went out. Thomas could not help suspecting that his entrance 
 was the cause of Mr. Wither's departure, and his thoughts 
 went back to last night, and he wondered whether his fellow- 
 clerks would cut him because of the company he had been in. 
 His conscience could be more easily pricked by the apprehen- 
 sion of oyert disapprobation than by any other goad. None 
 of them took any particular notice of him ; only a gloom as of 
 a funeral hung about all their faces, and radiated from them 
 so as to make the whole place look sepulchral. Mr. Stopper 
 was sitting within the glass partition, whence he called for 
 Mr. "VVorboise, who obeyed with a bad grace, as anticipating 
 something disagreeable. 
 
 "There! "said Mr. Stopper, handing him the newspaper, 
 and watching him as he read. 
 
 Thomas read, returned the paper, murmured something, and 
 went back with scared face to the outer room. There a con- 
 versation arose in a low voice, as if it had been in the presence 
 of the dead. Various questions were asked and conjectures 
 hazarded, but nobody knew anything. Thomas's place was 
 opposite the glass, and before he had been long seated he saw 
 Mr. Stopper take the key of the door of communication from 
 a drawer, unlock the door, and with the Times in his hand 
 walk into Mrs. Boxall's house, closing the door behind him. 
 This movement was easy to understand, and set Thomas 
 thinking. Then first the thought struck him that Lucy and 
 her grandmother would come in for all the property. This 
 sent a glow of pleasure through him, and he had enough ado 
 to keep the funeral look which belonged to the occasion. 
 Now he need not fear to tell his father the fact of his engage- 
 ment — indeed, he might delay the news as long as he liked, 
 sure that it would be welcome when it came. If his father 
 were pleased, he did not care so much for his mother. But 
 had he known how much she loved him, he could not ha^e 
 got so far away from her as he was now. If, on the other 
 hand, he had fallen in with her way of tbings,-she would have 
 poured out upon him so much repressed affection that he 
 would have known it. But till he saw as she saw, felt as she 
 
Of Useful Odds and Ends. 191 
 
 felt, and could talk as she talked, her motherhood saw an 
 impervious barrier between her and him — a barrier she labored 
 hard to remove, but with tools that could make no passage 
 through an ever-closing mist. 
 
 ; I cannot help thinking that if he had told all now, the 
 knowledge of his relation to Lucy would have been welcomed 
 by his father, and would have set everything right. I cannot 
 but believe that Mr. Worboise's mind was troubled about the 
 property. With perfect law on his side, there was yet that 
 against him which all his worldliness did not quite enable him 
 to meet with coolness. But the longer the idea of the prop- 
 erty rested upon his mind, the more, as L it had been the red- 
 hot coin of the devil's gift, it burned and burrowed out a nest 
 for itself, till it lay there stone-cold and immovably fixed, and 
 not to be got rid of. Before many weeks had passed he not 
 only knew that it was his by law, but felt that it was his by 
 right — his own by right of possession, and the clinging of his 
 heart-strings around it — his own because it was so good that 
 he could not part with it. Still it was possible that something 
 adverse might turn up, and there was no good in incurring 
 odium until he was absolutely sure that the fortune as well as 
 the odium would be his ; therefore he was in no haste to pro- 
 pound the will. 
 
 But, as I have said, he began to be more ambitious for his 
 son, and the more he thought about the property, the more 
 he desired to increase it by the advantageous alliance which he 
 had now no doubt he could command. This persuasion was 
 increased by the satisfaction which his son's handsome person 
 and pleasing manners afforded him ; and a confidence of man- 
 ner which had of late shown itself, chiefly, it mUst be con- 
 fessed, from the experience of the world he had had in the 
 company he of late frequented, had raised in his father's mind 
 a certain regard for him which he had not felt before. There- 
 fore he began to look about him and speculate. He had not 
 the slightest suspicion of Thomas being in love ; and, indeed, 
 there was nothing in his conduct or appearance that could 
 have aroused such a suspicion in his mind. Mr. Worboise 
 believed, on the contrary, that his son was leading a rather 
 wild life. 
 
 It may seem strange that Thomas should not by this time 
 have sunk far deeper into the abyss of misery ; but Molken 
 had been careful in not trying to hook him while he was only 
 nibbling ; and, besides, until he happened to be able to lose 
 something worth winning, he rather avoided running him into 
 
192 Guild Court 
 
 any scrape that might disgust him without bringing any con- 
 siderable advantage to himself. 
 
 There was one adverse intelligence, of whom Mr. Worboise 
 knew nothing, and who knew nothing of Mr. Worboise, ready 
 to pounce upon him the moment he showed his game. This 
 was Mr. Sargent. Smarting, not under Lucy's refusal so 
 much as from the lingering suspicion that she had altogether 
 misinterpreted his motives, he watched for an opportunity of 
 proving his disinterestedness ; this was his only hope ; for he 
 saw that Lucy was lost to him. He well knew that in the 
 position of her and her grandmother, it would not be surpris- 
 ing if something with a forked tongue or a cloven foot should 
 put its head out of a hole before very long, and begin to creep 
 toward them ; and therefore, as I say, he kept an indefinite 
 but wide watch, in the hope which I have mentioned. He 
 had no great difficulty in discovering that Mr. Worboise had 
 been Mr. Boxall's man of business, but he had no right to 
 communicate with him on the subject. This indeed Mr. 
 Stopper, who had taken the place of adviser in general to Mrs. 
 Boxall, had already done, asking him whether Mr. Boxall had 
 left no will, to which he had received a reply only to the effect 
 that it was early days, that there was no proof of his death, 
 and that he was prepared to give what evidence he possessed 
 at the proper time — an answer Mrs. Boxall naturally enough, 
 with her fiery disposition, considered less than courteous. Of 
 this Mr. Sargent of course was not aware, but, as the only 
 thing he could do at present, he entered a caveat in the Court 
 of Probate. 
 
 Mr. Stopper did his best for the business in the hope of one 
 day having not only the entire management as now, but an 
 unquestionable as unquestioned right to the same. If he ever 
 thought of anything further since he had now a free entrance 
 to Mrs. Boxall's region, he could not think an inch in that 
 direction without encountering the idea of Thomas. - 
 
 It Avas very disagreeable to Thomas that Mr. Stopper, whom 
 he detested, should have this free admission to what he had 
 been accustomed to regard as his peculium. He felt as if the 
 place were defiled by his presence, and to sit as he had some- 
 times to sit, knowing that Mr. Stopper was overhead, was 
 absolutely hateful. But, as I shall have to set forth in the 
 next chapter, Lucy was not at home ; and that mitigated the 
 matter very considerably. For the rest, Mr. Stopper was on 
 the whole more civil to Thomas than he had hitherto been, 
 and appeared even to put a little more confidence in him than 
 
Mattie in tlie Country. 193 
 
 formerly. The fact was, that the insecurity of his position 
 made him conscious of vulnerability, and he wished, to be 
 friendly on all sides, with a vague general feeling of strength- 
 ening his outworks. 
 
 Mr. Wither never opened his mouth to Thomas upon any 
 occasion or necessity, and from several symptoms it appeared 
 that his grief, or rather perhaps the antidotes to it, were drag- 
 ging him down hill. 
 
 Amy Worboise was not at home. The mother had seen 
 symptoms ; and much as she valued Mr. Simon's ghostly min- 
 istrations, the old Adam in her rebelled too strongly against 
 having a curate for her son-in-law. So Amy disappeared for 
 a season, upon a convenient invitation. But if she had been 
 at home, she could have influenced events in nothing ; for, as 
 often happens in families, there was no real communication 
 between brother and sister. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MATTIE IK THE COUNTEY. 
 
 I isrow return to resume the regular thread of my story. 
 
 I do not know if my reader is half as much interested in 
 Mattie as I am. I doubt it very much. He will, most prob- 
 ably, like Poppie better. But big-headed, strange, and con- 
 ceited as Mattie was, she Avas altogether a higher being than 
 Poppie. She thought ; Poppie only received impressions. If 
 she had more serious faults than Poppie, they were faults that 
 belonged to a more advanced stage of growth ; diseased, my 
 reader may say, but diseased with a disease that fell in with, 
 almost belonged to, the untimely development. All Poppie's 
 thoughts, to speak roughly, came from without ; all Mattie's 
 from within. To complete Mattie, she had to go back a little, 
 and learn to receive impressions too ; to complete Poppie, she 
 had to work upon the impressions she received, and, so to 
 speak, generate thoughts of her own. Mattie led the life of a 
 human being ; Poppie of a human animal. Mattie lived ; 
 Poppie was there. Poppie was the type of most people ; Mat- 
 tie of the elect. 
 
 Lucy did not intend, in the sad circumstances in which she 
 13 
 
194 Guild Court. 
 
 now was, to say a word to her grandmother about Mrs. Mor- 
 genstern's proposal. But it was brought about very naturally. 
 As she entered the court she met Mattie. The child had been 
 once more to visit Mr. Spelt, but had found the little nest so 
 oppressive that she had begged to be put down again, that she 
 might go to her own room. Mr. Spelt was leaning over his 
 door and his crossed legs, for he could not stand up, looking 
 ' anxiously after her ; and the child's face was so pale and sad, 
 and she held her little hand so pitifully to her big head, that 
 Lucy could not help feeling that the first necessity among her 
 duties was to get Mattie away. 
 
 After the fresh burst of her grandmother's grief at sight of 
 her was over, after Mr. Stopper had gone back to the counting- 
 house, and she had fallen into a silent rocking to and fro, 
 Lucy ventured to speak. 
 
 "They're gone home, dear grannie," she said. 
 
 "And I shan't stay long behind them, my dear," grannie 
 moaned. 
 
 "That's some comfort, isn't it, grannie ?" said Lucy, for 
 her own heart was heavy, not for the dead, but for the living ; 
 heavy for her own troubles, heavy for Thomas, about whom 
 she felt very despondent, almost despairing. 
 
 " Ah ! you young people would be glad enough to have the 
 old ones out of the way," returned Mrs. Boxall, in the petu- 
 lance of grief. " Have patience, Lucy, have patience, child ; 
 it won't be long, and then you can do as you like." 
 
 "Oh, grannie, grannie !" cried Lucy, bursting into tears. 
 "I do everything I like now. I only wanted to comfort you," 
 she sobbed. " I thought you would like to go too. / wish I 
 was dead." 
 
 " You, child !" exclaimed Mrs. Boxall ; "why should you 
 wish you was dead ? You don't know enough of life to wish 
 for death." Then, as Lucy went on sobbing, her tone changed 
 — for she began to be concerned at her distress. " What is 
 the matter with my darling ? " she said. " Are you ill, 
 Lucy?" 
 
 Then Lucy went to her and kissed her, and knelt down, and 
 laid her head in the old woman's lap. And her grannie 
 stroked her hair, and spoke to her as if she had been one of 
 her own babies, and, in seeking to comfort her, forgot her 
 own troubles for the moment. 
 
 "You've been doing too much for other people, Lucy," she 
 said. " We must think of you now. You must go to the 
 sea-side for awhile. You shan't go about giving lessons any 
 
Mattie in the Country. 195 
 
 more, my lamb. There is no need for that any more, for they 
 say all the money will be ours now." 
 
 And the old woman wept again at the thought of the source 
 of their coming prosperity. 
 
 " I should like to go to the country very much, if you would 
 go too, grannie." 
 
 " No, no, child, I don't want to go. I don't want any do- 
 ing good to." 
 
 " But I don't like to leave you, grannie," objected Lucy. 
 
 ."Never mind me, my dear. I shall be better alone for 
 awhile. And I dare say there will be some business to at- 
 tend to." 
 
 And so they went on talking, till Lucy told her all about 
 Mrs. Morgenstern's plan, and how ill poor Mattie looked, and 
 that she would be glad to go away for a little while herself. 
 Mrs. Boxall would not consent to go, but she even urged Lucy 
 to accept the proposed arrangement, and proceeded at once to 
 inquire into her wardrobe, and talk about mourning. 
 
 Two days after, Lucy and Mattie met Mrs. Morgenstern and 
 Miriam at the London Bridge railway station. Mattie looked 
 quite dazed, almost stupid, with the noise and bustle ; but 
 when they were once in motion, she heaved a deep sigh, and 
 looked comforted. She said nothing, however, for some time, 
 and her countenance revealed no surprise. Whatever was out 
 of the usual way always oppressed Mattie — not excited her ; 
 and, therefore, the more surprising anything was, the less did 
 it occasion any outward shape of surprise. But as they flashed 
 into the first tunnel, Lucy saw her start and shudder ere they 
 vanished from each other in the darkness. She put out her 
 hand and took hold of the child's. It was cold and trembling ; 
 but as she held it gently and warmly in her own, it grew 
 quite still. By the time the light began to grow again, her 
 face was peaceful, and when they emerged in the cutting be- 
 yond, she was calm enough to speak the thought that had 
 come to her in the dark. With another sigh — ■ 
 
 " I knew the country wasn't nice," she said. 
 
 " But you don't know what the country is yet," answered 
 Lucy. 
 
 "I know quite enough of it," returned Mattie. " I like 
 London best. I wish I could see some shops." 
 
 Lucy did not proceed to argue the matter with her. She 
 did not tell her how unfair she was to judge the country by 
 what lay between her and it. As well might she have argued 
 with Thomas that the bitterness of the repentance from which 
 
196 Guild Court. 
 
 he shrank was not the religion to which she wanted to lead 
 him ; that religion itself was to him inconceivable, and could 
 but be known when he was in it. She had tried, this plan 
 with him in their last interview before she left. She had her- 
 self, under the earnest teaching of Mr. Fuller, and in the il- 
 lumination of that Spirit for which she prayed, learned many 
 a spiritual lesson, had sought eagerly, and therefore gained, 
 rapidly. For hers was one of the good soils, well prepared 
 beforehand for the seed of the redeeming truth of God's love, 
 and the Sonship of Christ, and his present power in the hu- 
 man soul. And she had tried, I say, to make Thomas believe 
 in the blessedness of the man whose iniquities are pardoned, 
 whose sins are covered, to whom the Lord imputeth not his 
 transgressions ; but Thomas had replied only with some of the 
 stock phrases of assent. A nature such as his could not think 
 of law and obedience save as restraint. While he would be 
 glad enough to have the weight of conscious wrong-doing lifted 
 off him, he could not see that in yielding his own way and 
 •taking God's lay the only freedom of which the human being, 
 made in the image of God, is capable. 
 
 Presently Mattie found another argument upon her side, 
 that is, the town-side of the question. She had been sitting 
 for half an hour watching the breath of the snorting engine, 
 as it rushed out for a stormy flight over the meek fields, fal- 
 tered, lingered, faded, melted, was gone. 
 
 "I told you so," said Mattie; "nothing lasts in the coun- 
 try." 
 
 "What are you looking at now ? " asked Lucy, bending for- 
 ward to see. 
 
 "Those white clouds," answered Mattie. "Fve been ex- 
 pecting them to do something for ever so long. And they 
 never do anything, though they begin in such a hurry. The 
 green gets the better of them somehow. They melt away into 
 it, and are all gone." 
 
 " But they do the grass some good, I dare say," returned 
 Lucy — " in hot weather like this especially." 
 
 " Well, that's not what they set out for, anyhow," said Mat- 
 tie. " They look always as if they were just going to take 
 grand shapes, and make themselves up into an army, and go 
 out and conquer the world." 
 
 "And then," suggested Lucy, yielding to the fancy of the 
 child, "they think better of it, and give themselves up, and 
 die into the world to do it good, instead of trampling it under 
 their feet and hurting it." 
 
Mattie in the Country. 197 
 
 "But how do they come to change their minds so soon ?" 
 asked Mattie, beginning to smile ; for this was the sort of in- 
 tellectual duel in which her little soul delighted. 
 
 " Oh, I don't think they do change their minds. I don't 
 think they ever meant to trample down the world. That was 
 your notion, you know, Mattie." 
 
 " Well, what do you think they set out for ? Why do they 
 rush out so fiercely all at once ? " 
 
 "I will tell you what I think," answered Lucy, without 
 perceiving more than the faintest glimmering of the human 
 reality of what she said, "I think they rush out of the hot 
 place in which they are got ready to do the fields good, in so 
 much pain, that they toss themselves about in strange ways, 
 and people think they are fierce and angry when they are only 
 suffering — shot out into the air from a boiling kettle, you 
 know, Mattie." 
 
 "Ah! yes; I see," answered Mattie. "That's it, is it? 
 Yes, I dare say. Out of a kettle ? " 
 
 Miriam had drawn near, and was listening, but she could, 
 make little of all this, for her hour was not yet come to ask, or 
 to understand such questions. 
 
 "Yes, that great round thing in front of us is just a great 
 kettle," said Lucy. 
 
 " Well, I will look at it when we get out. I thought there 
 wasn't much iu the country. I suppose we shall get out again, 
 though. This isn't all the country, is it ? " 
 
 Before they reached Hastings, Mattie was fast asleep. It was 
 the evening. She scarcely woke when they stopped for the 
 last time. Lucy carried her from the carriage to a cab, and 
 when they arrived at the lodgings where they were expected, 
 made all haste to get her to bed and asleep. 
 
 But she woke the earlier in the morning, and the first thing 
 she was aware of was the crowing of a very clear-throated cock, 
 such a cock as Henry Vaughan must have listened to in the 
 morning of the day when he wrote 
 
 " Father of lights! what sunnie seed, 
 What glance of day hast thou confined 
 Into this bird ? To all the breed 
 This busie Ray thou hast assigned ; 
 Their magnetisme works all night, 
 And dreams of Paradise and light." 
 
 She could not collect her thoughts for some time. She 
 was aware that a change had taken place, but what was 
 
198 Guild Court. 
 
 it ? "Was she somebody else ? What did they use to call 
 her ? Then she remembered Mr. Spelt's shop, and knew that 
 she was Mattie Kitely. What then had happened to her ? 
 Something certainly had happened, else how could the cock 
 crow like that ? She was now aware that her eyes were open, 
 but she did not know that Lucy was in another bed in the 
 same room watching her — whence afterward, when she put 
 Mattie's words and actions together, she was able to give this 
 interpretation of her thoughts. The room was so different 
 from anything she had been used to, that she could not under- 
 stand it. She crept out of bed and went to the window. 
 There was no blind to it, only curtains drawn close in 
 front. 
 
 Now my reader must remember that when Mattie went to 
 the window of her own room at home she saw into Guild 
 Court. The house in which they now were was half way up 
 one of the hills on the sides of which great part of Hastings is 
 built. The sun was not shining upon the window at this hour 
 of the morning, and therefore did not obstruct the view. 
 Hence when Mattie went between the curtains she saw nothing 
 but that loveliest of English seas — the Hastings sea, — lying 
 away out into the sky, or rather, as it appeared to her unaccus- 
 tomed gaze, piled up like a hill against the sky, which domed 
 it over, vast and blue, and triumphant in sunlight — just a few 
 white sails below and a few white clouds above, to show how 
 blue the sea and sky were in this glory of an autumn morning. 
 She saw nothing of the earth on which she was upheld ; only 
 the sea and the sky. She started back with a" feeling that she 
 could never describe ; there was terror, and loneliness, and 
 helplessness in it. She turned and flew to her bed, but instead 
 of getting into it, fell down on her knees by the side of it, 
 clutched the bed-clothes, and sobbed and wept aloud. Lucy 
 was by her side in a moment, took her in her arms, carried 
 her into her own bed, and comforted her in her bosom. 
 
 Mattie had been all her life sitting in the camera-obscura of 
 her own microcosm, watching the shadows that went and 
 came, and now first she looked up and out upon the world be- 
 yond and above her. All her doings had gone on in the world 
 of her own imaginings ; and although that big brain of hers 
 contained — no, I cannot say contained, but what else am I to 
 say ?— a being greater than all that is seen, heard, or handled, 
 yet the outward show of divine imagination which now met 
 her eyes might well overpower that world within her. I fancy 
 that, like. the blind to whom sight is given, she did not at 
 
Mattie in the Country. 199 
 
 first recognize the difference between herself and it, but felt 
 as if it was all inside her and she did not know what to do 
 with it. She would not have cried at the sight of a rose, as 
 Poppie did. I doubt whether Mattie's was altogether such a 
 relined nature as Poppie's — to begin with : she would have 
 rather patronized the rose-tree, and looked down upon it as a 
 presuming and rather unpleasant thing because it bore dying 
 children ; and she needed, some time or other, and that was 
 noio, just such a sight as this to take the conceit out of her. 
 Less of a vision of the eternal would not have been sufficient. 
 Was it worth while ? Yes. The whole show of the universe 
 was well spent to take an atom of the self out of a child. God 
 is at much trouble with us, but he never weighs material ex- 
 pense against spiritual gain to one of his creatures. The 
 whole universe existed for Mattie. There is more than that 
 that the Father has not spared. And no human fault, the 
 smallest, is overcome, save by the bringing in of true, grand 
 things. A sense of the infinite and the near, the far yet im- 
 pending, rebuked the conceit of Mattie to the very core, and 
 without her knowing why or how. She clung to Lucy as a 
 child would cling, and as, all through her illness, she had 
 never clung before. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Mattie, dear ?" asked Lucy, 
 but asked in vain. Mattie only clung to her the closer, and be- 
 gan a fresh utterance of sobs. Lucy therefore held her peace for 
 some time and waited. And in the silence of that waiting she 
 became aware that a lark was singing somewhere out in the 
 great blue vault. 
 
 "Listen to the lark singing so sweetly," she said at length. 
 And Mattie moved her head enough to show that she would 
 listen, and lay still a long while listening. At length she said, 
 with a sob : 
 
 " What is a lark ? I never saw one, Miss Burton." 
 
 "A bird like a sparrow. You know what a sparrow is, 
 don't you, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes. I have seen sparrows often in the court. They 
 pick up dirt." 
 
 "Well, a lark is like a sparrow; only it doesn't pick up 
 dirt, and sings as you hear it. And it flies so far up into the 
 sky that you can't see it — you can only hear the song it scat- 
 ters down upon the earth." 
 
 " Oh, how dreadful ! " said Mattie, burying her head again 
 as if she would shut out hearing and sight and all. 
 
 "What is it that is dreadful ? I don't understand you, Mattie." 
 
200 Guild Court 
 
 "To fly up into that awful place up there. Shall we have 
 
 to do that when we die ? " 
 
 "It is not an awful place, dear. God is there, you 
 know." 
 
 "But I am frightened. And if God is up there, I shall be 
 frightened at him too. It is so dreadful ! I used to think 
 that God could see me when I was in London. But how he 
 is to see me in this great place, with so many things about, 
 cocks and larks, and all, I can't think. I'm so little ! I'm 
 hardly worth taking care of. " 
 
 "But you remember, Mattie, what Somebody says — that 
 God takes care of every sparrow." 
 
 "Yes, but that's the sparrows, and they're in the town, you 
 know," said Mattie, with an access of her old fantastic per- 
 versity, flying for succor, as it always does, to false logic. 
 
 Lucy saw that it was time to stop. The child's fear was 
 gone for the present, or she could not have talked such non- 
 sense. It was just as good, however, as the logic of most of 
 those who worship the letter and call it the word. 
 
 "Why don't you speak, Miss Burton ?" asked Mattie at 
 length, no doubt conscience-stricken by her silence. 
 
 "Because you are talking nonsense now, Mattie." 
 
 " I thought that was it. But why should that make you 
 not speak ? for I need the more to hear sense." 
 
 "No, Mattie. Mr. Fuller says that when people begin to 
 talk falsely, it is better to be quite silent, and let them say 
 what they please, till the sound of their own nonsense makes 
 them ashamed." 
 
 "As it did me, Miss Burton, as soon as you wouldn't speak 
 any more." 
 
 "He says it does no good to contradict them then, for they 
 are not only unworthy to hear the truth — that's not it — if 
 they would hear it — but they are not fit to hear it. They are 
 not in a mood to get any good from it ; for they are holding 
 the door open for the devil to come in, and truth can't get in 
 at the same door with the devil." 
 
 " Oh, how dreadful ! To think of me talking like Syne ! " 
 said Mattie. " I won't do it again, Miss Burton. Do tell me 
 what Somebody said about God and the sparrows. Didn't he 
 say something about counting their feathers ? I think I 
 remember Mr. Spelt reading that to me one night." 
 
 "He said something about counting your hairs, Mattie." 
 
 " Mine f " 
 
 "Well, he said it to all the people that would listen to him. 
 
Mattie in the Country. 201 
 
 I dare say there were some that could not believe it be- 
 cause they did not care to be told it." 
 
 "That's me, Miss Burton. But I won't do it again. 
 Well — what more ? " 
 
 " Only this, Mattie : that if God knows how many hairs you 
 have got on your head — " 
 
 " My big head," interrupted Mattie. " Well ? " 
 
 " Yes, on your big head — if God knows that, you can't think 
 you're too small for him to look after you." 
 
 " I will try not to be frightened at the big sky any more, 
 dear Miss Burton ; I will try." 
 
 In a few minutes she was fast asleep again. 
 
 Lucy's heart was none the less trustful that she had tried to 
 increase Mattie's faith. He who cared for the sparrows would 
 surely hear her cry for Thomas, nay, would surely look after 
 Thomas himself. The father did not forget the prodigal son 
 all the time that he was away ; did not think of him only when 
 he came back again, worn and sorrowful. In teaching Mattie 
 she had taught herself. She had been awake long before her, 
 turning over and over her troubled thoughts till they were all 
 in a raveled sleeve of care. Now she too fell fast asleep in her 
 hope, and when she awoke, her thoughts were all knit up again 
 in an even resolve to go on and do her duty, casting her care 
 upon Him that cared for her. 
 
 And now Mattie's childhood commenced. She had "had 
 none as yet. Her disputatiousness began to vanish. She 
 could not indulge it in the presence of the great sky, which 
 grew upon her till she felt, as many children and some con- 
 science-stricken men have felt — that it was the great eye of 
 God looking at her ; and although this feeling was chiefly as- 
 sociated with awe at first, she soon began to love the sky, and 
 to be sorry and oppressed upon cloudy days when she could no 
 longer look up into it. 
 
 The next day they went down to the beach, in a quiet place, 
 among great stones, under the east cliff. Lucy sat down on 
 one of them, and began to read a book Mr. Fuller had lent 
 her. Miriam was at a little distance, picking up shells, and 
 Mattie on another stone nearer the sea. The tide was rising. 
 Suddenly Mattie came scrambling in great haste over all that 
 lay between her and Lucy. Her face was pale, scared, and 
 eager. 
 
 " I'm so frightened again ! " she said ; " and I can't help it. 
 The sea ! What does it mean ? " 
 
 " What do you mean, Mattie ? " returned Lucy, smiling. 
 
202 Guild Court. 
 
 " Well, it's roaring at me, and coming nearer and nearer, as 
 if it wanted to swallow me up. I don't like it." 
 
 " You must not be afraid of it. God made it, you know." 
 
 11 Why does he let it roar at me, then ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Perhaps to teach you not to be afraid." 
 
 Mattie said no more, stood a little wbile by Lucy, and then 
 scrambled back to her former place. 
 
 The next day, they managed with some difficulty to get up 
 on the East Hill ; Mattie was very easily worn out, especially 
 with climbing. She gazed at the sea below her, the sky over 
 her head, the smooth grass under her feet, and gave one of 
 her great sighs. Then she looked troubled. 
 
 "I feel as if I hadn't any clothes on," she said. 
 
 "How is that, Mattie ?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I feel as if I couldn't stand steady — 
 as if I hadn't anything to keep me up. In London, you know, 
 the houses were always beside to hold a body up, and keep 
 them steady. But here, if it weren't for Somebody, I should 
 be so frightened for falling down — I don't know where ! " 
 
 Lucy smiled. She did not see then how exactly the child 
 symbolized those who think they have f ai th in God, and yet 
 when one of the swaddling bands of system or dogma to which 
 they have been accustomed is removed, or even only slackened, 
 immediately feel as if there were no God, as if the earth un- 
 der their feet were a cloud, and the sky over them a color, 
 and nothing to trust in anywhere. They rest in their swad- 
 dling bands, not in God. The loosening of these is God's gift 
 to them that they may grow. But first they are much afraid. 
 
 Still Mattie looked contemptuously on the flowers. Wan- 
 dering along the cliff, they came to a patch that was full of 
 daisies. Miriam's, familiarity with the gorgeous productions 
 of green-house and hot-house had not injured her capacity for 
 enjoying these peasants of flowers. She rushed among them 
 with a cry of pleasure, and began gathering them eagerly. 
 Mattie stood by with a look of condescending contempt upon 
 her pale face. 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to gather some daisies too, Mattie?" 
 suggested Lucy. 
 
 " Where's the use ?" said Mattie. " The poor things'll be 
 withered in no time. It's almost a shame to gather them, I 
 do think." 
 
 " Well, you needn't gather them if you don't" want to have 
 them," returned Lucy. "But I wonder you don't like them, 
 they are so pretty." 
 
Mattie in the Country. 203 
 
 " But they don't last. I don't like things that die. I had 
 a little talk with Mr. Fuller about that." 
 
 Now Mr. Fuller had told Lucy what the child had said, and 
 this had resulted in a good deal of talk . Mr. Fuller was a great 
 lover of Wordsworth, and the book Lucy was now reading, the 
 one he had lent her, was Wordsworth's Poems. She had not 
 found what she now answered, either in Wordsworth's poems 
 or in Mr. Fuller's conversation, but it came from them both, 
 mingling with her love to God, and her knowledge of the 
 Saviour's words, with the question of the child to set her mind 
 working with them all at once. She thought for a moment, 
 and then said : 
 
 " Listen, Mattie. You don't dislike to hear me talk, do 
 you ?" 
 
 " No, indeed," answered Mattie. 
 
 " You like the words I say to you, then ? " 
 
 ' i Yes, indeed," said Mattie, wondering what would come 
 next. 
 
 "But my words die as soon as they are out of my mouth." 
 
 Mattie began to see a glimmering of something coming, and 
 held her peace and listened. Lucy went on. 
 
 " Well, the flowers are some of God's words, and they last 
 longer than mine." 
 
 " But I understand your words. I know what you want to 
 say to me. And I don't know the meaning of them." 
 
 " That's because you haven't looked at them long enough. 
 You must suppose them words in God's book, and try to read 
 them and understand them." 
 
 "I will try," said Mattie, and walked soberly toward Mir- 
 iam. 
 
 But she did not begin to gather the daisies as Miriam was 
 doing. She lay down in the grass just as Chaucer tells us he 
 used to do in the mornings of May for the same purpose — to 
 look at the daisy — "leaning on my elbow and my side" ; and 
 thus she continued for some time. Then she rose and came 
 slowly back to Lucy. 
 
 "I can't, tell what they mean," she said. "I have been 
 trying very hard, too." 
 
 " I don't know whether I understand them or not, myself. 
 But I fancy we get some good from what God shows us even 
 when we don't understand it much." 
 
 " They are such little things !" said Mattie. "I can hardly 
 fancy them worth making." 
 
 " God thinks them worth making, though, or he would not 
 
204 Guild Court 
 
 make tliem. He wouldn't do anything that he did not care 
 about doing. There's the lark again. Listen to him, how 
 glad he is. He is so happy that he can't bear it without sing- 
 ing. If he couldn't sing it would break his heart, I fancy. 
 Do you think God would have made his heart so glad if he did 
 not care for his gladness, or given him such a song to sing — for 
 he must have made the song and taught it to the lark — the 
 song is just the lark's heart coming out in sounds — would he 
 have made all the lark if he did not care for it ? And he 
 would not have made the daisies so pretty if their prettiness 
 was not worth something in his eyes. And if God cares for 
 them, surely it is worth our while to care for them too. 5 ' 
 
 Mattie listened very earnestly, went back to the daisies, and 
 lay down again beside a group of them. Miriam kept running 
 about from one spot to another, gathering them. What Mat- 
 tie said, or what Miriam replied, I do not know, but in a little 
 while Mattie came to Lucy with a red face — a rare show in her. 
 
 " I don't like Miss Miriam," she said. "She's not nice at all." 
 
 "Why, what's the matter ?" asked Lucy, in some surprise, 
 for the children had got on very well together as yet. " What 
 has she been doing ? " 
 
 " She doesn't care a bit for Somebody. I don't like her." 
 
 "But Somebody likes her." 
 
 To this Mattie returned no answer, but stood thoughtful. 
 The blood withdrew from her face to its fountain, and she 
 went back to the daisies once more. 
 
 The following day she began to gather flowers as other chil- 
 dren do, even to search for them as for hidden treasures. 
 And if she did not learn their meaning with her understanding, 
 she must have learned it with her heart, for she would gaze 
 at some of them in a way that showed plainly enough that she 
 felt their beauty ; and in the beauty, the individual loveliness 
 of such things, lies the dim lesson with which they faintly 
 tincture our being. No man can be quite the same he was 
 after having loved a new flower. 
 
 Thus, by degrees, Mattie's thought and feeling were drawn 
 outward. Her health improved. Body and mind reacted on 
 each other. She grew younger and humbler. Every day her 
 eyes were opened to some fresh beauty on the earth, some new 
 shadowing of the sea, some passing loveliness in the heavens. 
 She had hitherto refused the world as a thing she had not 
 proved ; now she began to find herself at home-in it, that is, 
 to find that it was not a strange world to which she had come, 
 but a home ; not, indeed, the innermost, sacredest room of the 
 
Poppie in Town. 205 
 
 house where the Father sat, but still a home, full of his pres- 
 ence, his thoughts, his designs. Is it any wonder that a child 
 should prosper better in such a world than in a catacomb filled 
 with the coffined remains of thinking men ? I mean her 
 father's book-shop. Here, God was ever before her in the 
 living forms of his thought, a power and a blessing. Every 
 wind that blew was his breath, and the type of his inner 
 breathing upon the human soul. Every morning was filled 
 with his light, and the type of the growing of that light which 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And there 
 are no natural types that do not dimly work their own spiritual 
 reality upon the open heart of a human being. 
 
 Before she left Hastings, Mattie was almost a child. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 POPPIE IK TOWN. 
 
 Between Mr. Spelt's roost and the house called No. 1 of 
 Guild Court there stood a narrow house, as tall as the rest, 
 which showed by the several bell-pulls, ranged along the side of 
 the door, that it was occupied by different households. Mr. Spelt 
 had for some time had his eye upon it, in the hope of a vacancy 
 occurring in its top chambers, occupying which he would be 
 nearer his work, and have a more convenient home in case he 
 should some day succeed in taming and capturing Poppie. 
 Things had been going well in every way with the -little tailor. 
 He had had a good many more private customers for the last 
 few months, began in consequence to look down from a grow- 
 ing hight upon slop-work, though he was too prudent to drop 
 it all at once, and had three or four pounds in the post-office 
 savings-bank. Likewise his fishing had prospered. Poppie 
 came for her sweets as regularly as a robin for his crumbs in 
 winter. Spelt, however, did not now confine his bait to sweets ; 
 a fresh roll, a currant bun, sometimes — when his longing for 
 his daughter had been especially strong the night before, even 
 a Bath bun — would hang suspended by a string from the aerial 
 threshold, so that Poppie could easily reach it, and yet it should 
 be under the protection of the tailor from chance maraud- 
 ers. And every morning as she took it, she sent a sweet smile 
 
206 Guild Court 
 
 of thanks to the upper regions whence came her aid. Though 
 not very capable of conversation, she would occasionally answer 
 a few questions about facts — as, for instance, where she had 
 slept the last night, to which the answer would commonly be, 
 "Mother Flanaghan's ; " but once, to the tailor's no small 
 discomposure, was "The Jug." She did not seem to know 
 exactly, however, how it was that she got incarcerated : there 
 had been a crowd, and somebody had prigged something, and 
 there was a scurry and a running, and she scudded as usual, 
 and got took up. Mr. Spelt was more anxious than ever to 
 take her home after this. But sometimes, the moment he 
 began to talk to her she would run away, without the smallest 
 appearance of rudeness, only of inexplicable oddity ; and Mr. 
 Spelt thought sometimes that he was not a single step nearer 
 to the desired result than when he first baited his hook. He 
 regarded it as a good omen, however, w r hen, by the death of 
 an old woman and the removal of her daughter, the topmost 
 floor of the house, consisting of two small rooms, became 
 vacant ; and he secured them at a weekty rental quite within 
 the reach of his improved means. He did not imagine how 
 soon he would be able to put them to the use he most desired. 
 One evening, just as the light was fading and he proceeded 
 to light a candle to enable him to go on with his work, he 
 heard the patter of her bare feet on the slabs, for his ear was 
 very keen for this most pleasant of sounds, and. looking down, 
 saw the child coming toward him, holding the bottom of her 
 ragged frock up to her head. He had scarcely time to be alarmed 
 before she stopped at the foot of his shop, looked up pale as 
 death, with a dark streak of blood running through the paleness, 
 and burst into a wail. The little man was down in a moment, 
 but before his feet reached the ground Poppie had fallen upon 
 it in a faint. He lifted the child in his arms with a strange 
 mixture of pity and horror in his big heart, and sped up the 
 three stairs to his own dwelling. There he laid her on his bed, 
 struck a light, and proceeded to examine her. He found a 
 large and deep cut in her head, from which the blood was still 
 flowing. He rushed down again, and fortunately found Dol- 
 man on the point of leaving. Him he sent for the doctor, and 
 returned like an arrow to his treasure. Having done all he 
 could, with the aid of his best Sunday shirt, to stop the bleed- 
 ing, he waited impatiently for the doctor's arrival, which 
 seemed long delayed. Before he came the child began to re- 
 vive ; and, taught by the motion of her lips, he got some water 
 and held to them. Poppie drank and opened her eyes. When 
 
Popple in Town. 207 
 
 she saw who was bending over her, the faintest ghost of a smile 
 glimmered about her mouth, and she closed her eyes again, 
 murmuring something about Mother Flanaghan. 
 
 As far as he could gather from piecing together what the 
 child said afterward, Mr. Spelt came to the conclusion that 
 Mrs. Flanaghan had come home a little the worse for "cream 
 of the valley," and wanted more. Poppie hapj)ened to be 
 alone in her room when she came, for we have seen that she 
 sometimes forgot to lock the door, if, indeed, there was a lock 
 on it. She had nothing to care for, however, but her gin- 
 bottle ; and that she thought she hid safely enough. Whether 
 she had left it empty or not, I do not know, but she found it 
 empty when she neither desired nor expected to find it so ; and. 
 coming to the hasty and stupid conclusion that poor Poppie 
 was the thief — just as an ill-trained child expends the rage of 
 a hurt upon the first person within his reach — she broke the 
 vile vessel upon Poppie's head with the result we have seen. 
 But the child had forgotten everything between that and her 
 waking upon Mr. Spelt's bed. 
 
 The doctor came and dressed her wound, and gave directions 
 for her treatment. 
 
 And now Mr. Spelt was in the seventh heaven of delight — he 
 had a little woman of his own to take care of. He was thirty- 
 nine years of age ; and now, for the first time in his life, saw a 
 prospect of happiness opening before him. No — once before, 
 when he led the splendid Mrs. Spelt home from church, he 
 had looked into a rosy future ; but the next morning the pros- 
 pect closed, and had never opened again till now. He did 
 not lie down all that night, but hovered about her bed, as if 
 she had been a creature that might any moment spread out 
 great wings and fly away from him forever. Sometimes he 
 had to soothe her with kind words, for she wandered a good 
 deal, and would occasionally start up with wild looks, as if to 
 fly once more from Mother Flanaghan with the gin- bottle 
 bludgeon uplifted in her hand ; then the sound of Mr. Spelt's 
 voice would instantly soothe her, and she would lie down again 
 and sleep. But she scarcely spoke ; for at no time was Poppie 
 given to much speech. 
 
 When the light came, he hurried down-stairs to his shop, 
 got his work and all his implements out, carried them up, and 
 sat with them on the floor where he could see Poppie's face. 
 There he worked away busily at a pair of cords for a groom, 
 every now and then lifting his eyes from his seam to look down 
 into the court, and finding them always met by the floor. 
 
208 Guild Court 
 
 Then his look would go up to the bed, seeking Poppie's pale 
 face. He found he could not get on so fast as usual. Still he 
 made progress ; and it was a comfort to think that by working 
 thus early he was saving time for nursing his little white 
 Poppie. 
 
 When at length she woke, she seemed a little better ; but 
 she soon grew more feverish, and soon he found that he must 
 constantly watch her, for she was ready to spring out of bed 
 any moment. The father-heart grew dreadfully anxious before 
 the doctor came ; and all that day and the next he got very 
 little work done, for the poor child was really in danger. In- 
 deed it was more than a week before he began to feel a little 
 easy about her ; and ten days yet passed before she was at all 
 able to leave her bed. 
 
 And herein lay the greatest blessing both for Spelt and 
 Poppie. I doubt if anything else could have given him a 
 reasonable chance, as we say, of taming the wild animal. Her 
 illness compelled her into such a continuance of dependent as- 
 sociation with him, that the idea of him had time to grow into 
 her heart ; while all her scudding propensities, which pre- 
 vented her from making a quiet and. thorough acquaintance 
 with anybody, were not merely thwarted, but utterly gone, 
 while she remained weak. The humanity of the child had there- 
 fore an opportunity of developing itself ; obstructions removed, 
 the well of love belonging to her nature began to pulse and to 
 flow, and she was, as it were, compelled to love Mr. Spelt ; so 
 that, by the time old impulses returned with returning health, 
 he had a chance against them. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXX 
 
 ME. FULLER 1ST HIS CHURCH. 
 
 Mr. Fuller's main bent of practical thought was how to 
 make his position in the church as far as possible from a sine- 
 cure. If the church was a reality at all, if it represented a vi- 
 tal body, every portion of it ought to be instinct with life. Yet 
 here was one of its cells, to speak physiologically, all but in- 
 active — a huge building of no use all the week, and on Sun- 
 days filled with organ sounds, a few responses from a sprink- 
 
Mr. Fuller in his Church. 209 
 
 ling of most indifferent worshipers, and his own voice reading 
 prayers and crying "with sick assay" sometimes — to move 
 those few to be better men and women than they were. Now, 
 so far it was a center of life, and as such well worthy of any 
 amount of outlay of mere money. But even money itself is a 
 holy thing ; and from the money point alone, low as that is, it 
 might well be argued that this church was making no adequate 
 return for the amount expended upon it. Not that one thought 
 of honest comfort to a human soul is to be measured against 
 millions of expense ; but that what the money did might well 
 be measured against what the money might do. To the com- 
 mercial mind such a church suggests immense futility, a judg- 
 ment correct in so far as it falls short of its possibilities. To 
 tell the truth, and a good truth it is to tell, Mr. Fuller was 
 ashamed of St. Amos's, and was thinking day and night how 
 to retrieve the character of his church. 
 
 And he reasoned thus with himself, in the way mostly of 
 question and answer : 
 
 "What is a Sunday?" he asked, answering himself — "A 
 quiet hollow scooped out of the windy hill of the week." 
 " Must a man then go for six days shelterless ere he comes to 
 the repose of the seventh ? Are there to be no great rocks to 
 shadow him between ? — no hiding-places from the wind to let 
 him take breath and heart for the next struggle ? And if 
 there ought to be, where are they to be found if not in our 
 churches? — scattered like little hollows of sacred silence 
 scooped out of the roar and bustle of our cities, dumb to the 
 questions — What shall we eat ? what shall we drink ? and 
 wherewithal shall we be clothed ? — but, alas ! equally dumb to . 
 the question — Where shall I find rest, for I am weary and 
 heavy-laden ? These churches stand absolute caverns of silence 
 amid the thunder of the busy city — with a silence which does 
 not remind men of the eternal silence of truth, but of the 
 carelessness of heart wherewith men regard that silence. 
 Their work is nowhere till Sunday comes, and nowhere after 
 that till the next Sunday or the next saint's day. How is this ? 
 Why should they not lift up the voice of silence against the 
 tumult of care ? against the dissonance of Comus and his 
 crew ? How is it that they do not — standing with their glit- 
 tering, silent cocks and their golden, unopening keys high 
 uplifted in sunny air ? Why is it that their cocks do not 
 crow, and their keys do not open ? Because their cocks are 
 busy about how the wind blows, and their keys do not fit their 
 own doors. They may be caverns of peace, but they are cav- 
 14 
 
210 Guild Court. 
 
 ems without entrance — sealed fountains — a mockery of the 
 thirst and confusion of men." "But men do not want en- 
 trance. What is the use of opening the doors of our churches 
 so long as men do not care to go in ? Times are changed now." 
 " But does not the very word Revelation imply a something 
 coming from heaven — not certainly before men were ready for 
 it, for God cannot be precipitate — but before they had begun 
 to pray for it ? " Mr. Fuller remembered how his own father 
 used always to compel his children to eat one mouthful of any 
 dish he heard them say at table that they did not like — where- 
 upon they generally chose to go on with it. " But they won't 
 come in." " How can you tell till you try, till you fulfill the 
 part of the minister (good old beautiful Christian word), and 
 be 'the life o' the building ?'" " Presumption ! Are not the 
 prayers everything?" "At least not till you get people to 
 pray them." "You make too much of the priest." "Leave 
 him for God, and the true priest has all the seal of his priest- 
 hood that he wants." At least so thought Mr. Fuller. " What 
 is the priest ? " he asked, going on with the same catechism. 
 "Just a man to be among men what the Sunday is among the 
 work-days of the week — a man to remind you that there is a 
 life within this life, or beyond and about it, if you like that 
 mode better — for extremes meet in the truest figures — that 
 care is not of God, that faith and confidence are truer, simpler, 
 more of common sense than balances at bankers' or preference 
 shares. He is a protest against the money-heaping tendencies 
 of men, against the desire of rank or estimation or any kind 
 of social distinction. With him all men are equal, as in the 
 Church all have equal rights, and rank ceases on the threshold 
 of the same, overpowered by the presence of the Son of Mary, 
 who was married to a carpenter — overpowered by the presence 
 of the God of the whole earth, who wrote the music for the 
 great organ of the spheres, after he had created them to play 
 the same." Such was the calling of the clergyman, as Mr. 
 Fuller saw it. Bather a lofty one, and simply a true one. If 
 the clergyman cannot rouse men to seek his God and their 
 God, if he can only rest in his office, which becomes false the 
 moment he rests in it, being itself for a higher end ; if he has 
 no message from the infinite to quicken the thoughts that 
 cleave to the dust, the sooner he takes to grave-digging or any 
 other honest labor, the sooner will he get into the kingdom of 
 heaven, and the higher will he stand in it. But now came the 
 question — from the confluence of all .these considerations, 
 "Why should the church be for Sundays only ? And of all 
 
Mr. Fuller in his Church. 211 
 
 places in the world, what place wanted a week-day reminder 
 of truth, of honesty, of the kingdom of heaven, more than 
 London ? Why should the churches be closed all the week, 
 to the exclusion of the passers-by, and open on the Sunday to 
 the weariness of those who entered ? Might there not be too 
 much of a good thing on the Sunday, and too little of it on a 
 week-day?" Again Mr. Fuller said to himself, "What is a 
 parson ? " and once more he answered himself, that he was a 
 man to keep the windows of heaven clean, that its light might 
 shine through upon men below. What use, then, once more, 
 could he make of the church of St. Amos ? 
 
 And again, why should the use of any church be limited to 
 the Sunday ? Men needed religious help a great deal more 
 on the week-day than on the Sunday. On the Sunday, sur- 
 rounded by his family, his flowers, his tame animais, his 
 friends, a man necessarily, to say the least of it, thinks less of 
 making great gains, is more inclined to the family view of 
 things generally ; whereas, upon the week-day, he is in the 
 midst of the struggle and fight ; it is catch who can, then, 
 through all the holes and corners, highways and lanes of the 
 busy city : what would it not be then if he could strike a five 
 minutes' — yea, even a one minute's — silence into the heart of 
 the uproar ? if he could entice one vessel to sail from the 
 troubled sea of the streets, shops, counting-houses, into the 
 quiet haven of the church, the doors of whose harbor stood 
 ever open ? There the wind of the world would be quiet be- 
 hind them.. His heart swelled within him as he thought of 
 sitting there keeping open door of refuge for the storm-tossed, 
 the noise-deafened, the crushed, the hopeless. He would not 
 trouble them with many words. There should be no long prayers. 
 " But," thought he, " as often as one came in, I would read 
 the collect for the day ; I would soothe him with comfort out 
 of Handel or Mendelssohn, I would speak words of healing for 
 the space of three minutes. I would sit at the receipt of such 
 custom. I would fish for men — not to make churchmen of 
 them — not to get them under my thumb " — (for Mr. Fuller 
 used such homely phrases sometimes that certain fledgling 
 divines feared he was vulgar) — " not to get them under the 
 Church's thumb, but to get them out of the hold of the devil, 
 to lead them into the presence of Him who is the Truth, and 
 so can make them free." 
 
 Therefore he said to himself that his church, instead of 
 accumulating a weary length of service on one day, should be 
 open every day, and that there he would be ready for any soul 
 
212 Guild Court 
 
 upon which a flash of silence had burst through the clouds 
 that ever rise from the city life and enyelop those that have 
 their walk therein. 
 
 It was not long before his cogitations came to the point of 
 action ; for with men of Mr. Fuller's kind all their meditations 
 have action for their result : he opened his church — set the 
 door to the wall, and got a youth to whom he had been of 
 service, and who was an enthusiast in music, to play about 
 one o'clock, when those who dined in the city began to go in 
 search of their food, such music as might possibly waken the 
 desire to see what was going on in the church. For he said to 
 himself that the bell was of no use now, for no one would heed 
 it ; but that the organ might fulfill the spirit of the direction 
 that "the curate that ministereth in every parish church shall 
 say the morning and evening prayer — where he ministereth, 
 and shall cause a bell to be tolled thereunto a convenient time 
 before he begins, that the people may come to hear God's 
 word and to pray with him." 
 
 Over the crowded street, over the roar of omnibuses, carts, 
 wagons, cabs, and all kinds of noises, rose the ordered sounds 
 of consort. Day after day, day after day, arose the sounds of 
 hope and prayer ; and not a soul in the streets around took 
 notice of the same. Why should they ? The clergy had lost; 
 their hold of them. They believed that the clergy were given 
 to gain and pleasure just - as much as they were themselves. 
 Those even of the passers-by who were ready to acknowledge 
 worth where they saw it, were yet not ready to acknowledge 
 the probability of finding it in the priesthood ; for their expe- 
 rience, and possibly some of their prejudices, were against it. 
 They were wrong ; but who was to blame for it ? The clergy 
 of the eighteenth century, because so many of them were 
 neither Christians nor gentlemen ; and the clergy of the pres- 
 ent century, because so many of them are nothing but gentle- 
 men — men ignorant of life, ignorant of human needs, ignorant 
 of human temptations, yea, ignorant of human aspirations ; 
 because in the city pulpits their voice is not uplifted against 
 city vices — against speculation, against falsehood, against 
 money-loving, against dishonesty, against selfishness ; because 
 elsewhere their voices are not uplifted against the worship of 
 money and rank and equipage ; against false shows in dress 
 and economy ; against buying and not paying ; against envy 
 and emulation ; against effeminacy and mannishness ; against 
 a morality which consists in discretion. Oh ! for the voice of 
 a St. Paul or a St. John ! But it would be of little use : 
 
Mr. Fuller in his Church. 213 
 
 such men would have small chance of being heard. They 
 would find the one-half of Christendom so intent upon saving 
 souls instead of doing its duty, that the other half thought it 
 all humbug. The organ sounded on from day to day, and no 
 one heeded. 
 
 But Mr. Fuller had the support of knowing that there were 
 clergymen east and west who felt with him ; men who, how- 
 ever much he might differ from them in the details of belief, 
 yet worshiped the Lord Christ, and believed him to be the 
 King of men, and the Saviour of men whose sins were of the 
 same sort as their own, though they had learned them in the 
 slums, and not at Oxford or Cambridge. He knew that there 
 were greater men, and better workers than himself, among the 
 London clergy ; and he knew that he must work like them, 
 after his own measure and fashion, and not follow the multi- 
 tude. And the organ went on playing — I had written pray- 
 ing — for I was thinking of what our Lord said, that men 
 ought always to pray, and not to faint. 
 
 At last one day, about a quarter past one o'clock, a man 
 came into the church. Mr. Fuller, who sat in the reading- 
 desk, listening to the music and praying to God, lifted up his 
 eyes and saw Mr. Kitely. 
 
 The bookseller had been passing, and, having heard the 
 organ, thought he would just look in and see what was doing 
 in the church. For this church was a sort of link between 
 him and his daughter now that she was away. 
 
 The moment he entered Mr. Fuller rose, and knelt, and 
 began to read the collect for the day, -in order that Mr. Kitely 
 might pray with him. As soon as his voice arose the organ, 
 which was then playing very softly, ceased ; Mr. Kitely knelt, 
 partly, it must be allowed, out of regard for Mr. Fuller ; the 
 organist came down and knelt beside him ; and Mr. Fuller 
 went on with the second and third collects. After this he 
 read the Epistle and the Gospel for the foregoing Sunday, and 
 then he opened his mouth and spoke — for not more than three 
 minutes, and only to enforce the lesson. Then he kneeled 
 and let his congregation depart with a blessing. Mr. Kitely 
 rose and left the chapel, and the organist went back to his 
 organ. 
 
 Now all this was out of order. But was it as much out of 
 order as the omission of prayer altogether, which the Church 
 enjoins shall be daily ? Times had changed : with them the 
 order of prayer might possibly be changed without offense. 
 At least Mr. Fuller was not such a slave to the letter as to 
 
214 Guild Court. 
 
 believe that not to pray at all was better than to alter the form 
 by choice of parts. And although in the use of prayers the 
 Church had made great changes upon what had been first 
 instituted, he did not care to leave present custom for the 
 sake merely of reverting to that which was older. He had no 
 hope of getting business men to join in a full morning service — 
 even such as it was at first — upon any week-day. 
 
 Mr. Kitely dropped in again before long, and again Mr. 
 Fuller read the collect and went through the same form of 
 worship. Thus he did every time any one appeared in the 
 church, which was very seldom for the first month or so. But 
 he had some friends scattered about the city, and when they 
 knew of his custom they would think of it as they passed his 
 church, until at length there were very few days indeed upon 
 which two or three persons did not drop in and join in the 
 collects, Epistle, and G-ospel. To these he always spoke for a 
 few minutes, and then dismissed them with the blessing. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 A DEEAET ONE. 
 
 " Couldn't you get a holiday on Saturday, Tom ? " said 
 Mr. Worboise. " I mean to have one, and I should like to 
 take you with me." 
 
 "I don't know, father," answered Tom, who did not regard 
 the proposal as involving any great probability of enjoyment ; 
 " my holiday is coming so soon that I should not like to ask 
 for it, especially as Mr. Stoj)per — " 
 
 "What about Mr. Stopper? Not over friendly, eh? He 
 is not a bad fellow, though, is Stopper. I'll ask for you, if 
 you like that better." 
 
 " I would much rather you wouldn't, father." 
 
 "Pooh, pooh ! nonsense, man ! It's quite a different thing 
 if I ask for it, you know." 
 
 Thomas made no further objection, for he had nothing at 
 hand upon which to ground a fresh one ; nor, indeed, could 
 he well have persisted in opposing what seemed a "kind wish of 
 his father. It was not, however, merely because they had 
 little to talk about, and that Thomas always felt a considerable 
 
A Dreary One. 215 
 
 restraint in his father's presence — a feeling not very uncom- 
 mon to young men — but he lived in constant dread of some- 
 thing coming to light about Lucy. He feared his father much 
 more than he loved him ; not that he had ever been hardly 
 treated by him ; not that he had ever even seen him in a pas- 
 sion, for Mr. Worboise had a very fair command of his tem- 
 per ; it was the hardness and inflexibility read upon his face 
 from earliest childhood, that caused fear thus to overlay love. 
 If a father finds that from any cause such is the case, he ought 
 at once to change his system, and to require very little of any 
 sort from his child till a new crop has begun to appear on the 
 ill-farmed ground of that child's heart. 
 
 Now the meaning of the holiday was this : Mr. Worboise 
 had a city-client — a carpet-knight — by name Sir Jonathan 
 Hubbard, a decent man, as the Scotch would say ; jolly, com- 
 panionable, with a husky laugh, and frienaly unfinished coun- 
 tenance in which the color was of more weight than the 
 drawing — for, to quote Chaucer of the Franklin, " a better 
 envined man," either in regard of body or cellar, " was no- 
 where none ; " upon Sir Jonathan's sociability Mr. Worboise 
 had founded the scheme of the holiday. Not that he 
 intended to risk any intrusion — Mr. Worboise was far too 
 knowing a man for that. The fact was that he had appointed 
 to wait upon his client at his house near Bickley on that day 
 — at such an hour, however, as would afford cover to his pre- 
 tense of having brought his son out with him for a holiday in 
 the country. It was most probable that Sir Jonathan would 
 invite them to stay to dinner, and so to spend their holiday with 
 him. There was no Lady Hubbard alive, but there was a Miss 
 Hubbard at the head of the house ; and hence Mr. Worboise's 
 strategy. Nor had he reckoned without his host, for if Sir 
 Jonathan was anything he was hospitable ; things fell out as 
 the lawyer had forehoped, if not foreseen. Sir Jonathan was 
 pleased with the young fellow, would not allow him to wait 
 companionless in the drawing-room till business was over — 
 sent, on the contrary, for his daughter, and insisted on the 
 two staying to dinner. He was one of those eaters and drink- 
 ers who have the redeeming merit of enjoying good things a 
 great deal more in good company. Sir Jonathan's best port 
 would seem to him to have something the matter with it if he 
 had no one to share it. If, however, it had come to the ques- 
 tion of a half-bottle or no companion, I would not answer for 
 Sir Jonathan. But his cellar would stand a heavy siege. 
 
 Thomas was seated in the drawing-room, which looked cold 
 
216 Guild Court. 
 
 and rather cheerless ; for no company was expected, and I 
 presume Miss Hubbard did not care for color, save as reflected 
 from her guests, seeing she had all her furniture in pinafores. 
 How little some rich people know how to inherit the earth ! 
 The good things of it they only uncover when they can make, 
 not receive, a show. 
 
 My dear reader — No, I will not take a liberty to which I 
 have no right ; for perhaps were he to see me he would not like 
 me, and possibly were I to meet him I should not like him : I 
 will rather say My Reader, without the impertinence or the 
 pledge of an adjective — have a little patience while I paint 
 Miss Hubbard just with the feather-end of my pen. I shall 
 not be long about it. 
 
 Thomas sat in the drawing-room, I say, feeling vacant, for 
 he was only waiting, not expecting, when the door opened, 
 and in came a fashionable girl — rather tall, handsome, bright- 
 eyed, well-dressed, and yet— What was it that Thomas did not 
 like about her ? Was it that she was dressed in the extreme 
 of the fashion ? I will not go on to say what the fashion was, 
 for before I had finished writing it, it would have ceased to 
 be the fashion ; and I will not paint my picture knowingly 
 with colors that must fade the moment they are laid on. To 
 be sure she had ridden the fashion till it was only fit for the 
 knacker's yard ; but she soon made him forget that, for she 
 was clever, pleasant, fast— which means affectedly unrefined, 
 only her affectation did no violence to fact — and altogether 
 amusing. 1 believe what Thomas did not like about her at 
 first was just all wherein she differed from Lucy. Yet he 
 could not help being taken with her ; and when his father 
 and Sir Jonathan came into the room, the two were talking 
 like a sewing-machine. 
 
 "Laura, my dear," said the knight, "I have prevailed on 
 Mr. Worboise to spend the day with us. You have no en- 
 gagement, I believe ?" 
 
 "Fortunately, I have not, papa." 
 
 1 ' Well, I'll just give orders about dinner, and then I'll take 
 our friends about the place. I want to show them my new 
 stable. You had better come with us." 
 
 Sir Jonathan always ordered the dinner himself. He 
 thought no woman was capable of that department of the 
 household economy. Laura put on her hat — beautiful with a 
 whole king-fisher — and they went out into the grounds to the 
 stable — trim as her drawing-room — where her favorite horse 
 ate apples out of her pocket ; from the stable to the hot' 
 
A Dreary One. 217 
 
 houses and kitchen-garden ; then out at a back door into the 
 lane — shadowy with trees — in which other colors than green 
 were now very near carrying the vote of the leaves. Sweet 
 scents of decay filled the air, waved about, swelling and sink- 
 ing, on the flow of a west wind, gentle and soft, as if it had 
 been fanned from the wings of spring when nearest to sum- 
 mer. Great white clouds in a brilliant sky tempered the heat 
 of the sun. What with the pure air, the fine light, and the 
 handsome girl by his side, Thomas was in a gayer mood than 
 had been his for many a long day. Miss Hubbard talked 
 plenteously — about balls and theatres and Mansion House din- 
 ners, about Eotten Bow, and St. James's ; and although of all 
 these Thomas knew very little, yet being quick and sympa- 
 thetic, he was able to satisfy the lady sufficiently to keep her 
 going. He was fortunate enough, besides, to say one or two 
 clever things with which she was pleased, and to make an 
 excellent point once in a criticism upon a girl they both knew, 
 which, slighting her, conveyed, by no very occult implication, 
 a compliment to Miss Hubbard. By the time they had reached 
 this stage of acquaintanceship, they had left stout Sir Jona- 
 than and Mr. Worboise far behind ; but Miss Hubbard was not 
 in the least danger. of being made uncomfortable by any 
 squeamish notions of propriety ; and, having nothing more 
 amusing to do, and being out already, she proposed that they 
 should go home by a rather longer road, which would lead them 
 over a hill whence they would get a good view of the country. 
 
 " Do you like living in the country, Miss Hubbard ?" 
 
 " Oh ! dear no. London for me. I can't tell what made 
 papa come to this dull place." 
 
 "The scenery is very lovely, though." 
 
 " People say so. I'm sure I don't know. Scenery wasn't 
 taught where I went to school." 
 
 " Were you taught horses there ? " asked Thomas, slyly. 
 
 "No. That comes by nature. Do you know I won this 
 bracelet in a handicap last Derby ? " she said, showing a very 
 fine arm as well as bracelet, though it was only the morning, 
 so-called. 
 
 Miss Hubbard had no design upon Thomas. How could she 
 have ? She knew nothing about him. She would have done 
 the same with any gentleman she liked well enough to chatter 
 to. And if Thomas felt it and thought that Laura Hubbard 
 was more entertaining than sober Lucy Burton, he made up to 
 Lucy for it in his own idea by asserting to himself that, after 
 all, she was far handsomer than Miss Hubbard, handsome as 
 
218 Guild Court. 
 
 she was. Yet I should never think of calling Lucy handsome. 
 She was lovely — almost beautiful, too. Handsome always in- 
 dicates more or less vulgarity — no, I mean commonness — in 
 my ears. And certainly, whatever she might be capable of, 
 had she been blessed with poverty, Miss Hubbard was as com- 
 mon as she was handsome. Thomas was fool enough to revert 
 to Byron to try his luck with that. She soon made him 
 ashamed of showing any liking for such a silly thing as poetry. 
 That piqued him as well, however. 
 
 "You sing, I suppose ?" he said. 
 
 " Oh, yes, when I can't help it — after dinner, sometimes." 
 
 "Well, you sing poetry, don't you ?" 
 
 " I don't know. One must have some words or other just 
 to make her open her mouth. I never know what they're 
 about. Why should I ? Nobody ever pays the least attention 
 to them — or to the music either, except it be somebody that 
 wants to marry you." 
 
 But why should I go further with the record of such talk ? 
 It is not interesting to me, and, therefore, can hardly be so to 
 my reader. Even if I had the art to set it forth aright, I hope 
 I should yet hold to my present belief, that nothing in which 
 the art is uppermost is worth the art expended upon 
 it. 
 
 Thomas was a little shocked at her coolness, certainly; but 
 at the same time that very coolness seemed a challenge. Be- 
 fore they had reached the house again, he was vexed to find 
 he had made no impression upon Miss Hubbard. 
 
 Farewell to such fencing. By the time he had heard her 
 sing, and his father and he were on their way home again, I 
 am glad to say that Thomas had had nearly enough of her. 
 He thought her voice loud and harsh in speech, showy and dis- 
 tressing in song, and her whole being bravura. The con- 
 trasts in Lucy had come back upon him with a gush of memo- 
 rial loveliness ; for, as I have said, she still held the fortress of 
 his heart, and held it for its lawful owner. 
 
 Scarcely were they seated in the railway carriage, of which 
 they were the sole occupants, when the elder Worboise threw a 
 shot across the bows of the younger. 
 
 "Well, Tom, my boy," he said, rubbing his lawyer palms, 
 " how do you like Miss Hubbard ? " 
 
 " Oh, very well, father," answered Thomas, indifferently. 
 " She's a very jolly sort of girl." 
 
 " She's worth a hundred thousand," said his father, in a tone 
 that would have been dry but for a touch of slight resentment 
 
A Dreary One. 219 
 
 at the indifference, possibly in the father's view irreverence, 
 with which he spoke of her. 
 
 " Girls ? " asked Thomas. 
 
 " Pounds, "answered his father, clenchingly. 
 
 Tom was now convinced of his father's design in taking him 
 out for a holiday. But even now he shrunk from confession. 
 And how did he justify his sneaking now ? By saying to 
 himself, " Lucy can't have anything like that money ; it Won't 
 do. I must wait a more fitting opportunity." But he thought 
 he was very brave indeed, and actually seizing the bull of his 
 father's will by the horns when he ventured to take his mean- 
 ing for granted, and replied : 
 
 " Why, father, a fellow has no chance with a girl like that, 
 except he could ride like Assheton Smith, and knew all the 
 slang of the hunting-field as well as the race-course." 
 
 " A few children will cure her of that," said his father. 
 
 "What I say is," persisted Thomas, "that she would never 
 look at a clerk." 
 
 " If I thought you had any chance, I would buy you a com- 
 mission in the Blues." 
 
 "It wants blue blood for that," said Thomas, whose heart, 
 notwithstanding, danced in his bosom at the sound of commis- 
 sion. Then, afraid lest he should lose the least feather of such 
 a chance, he added hastily, "But any regiment would do." 
 
 " I dare say," returned his father, at right angles. " When 
 you have made a little progress it will be time enough. She 
 knows nothing about what you are now. Her father asked me, 
 and I said I had not made up my mind yet what to do with 
 you." 
 
 "But, as I said before," resumed Thomas, fighting some- 
 what feebly, " I haven't a chance with her. She likes better 
 to talk about horses than anything else, and I never had my 
 leg across a horse's back in my life — as you know, father," he 
 added in a tone of reproach. 
 
 "You mean, Tom, that I have neglected your education. 
 Well, it shall be so no longer. You shall go to the riding- 
 school on Monday night. It won't be open to-morrow, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 I hope my reader is not so tired of this chapter as I am. It 
 is bad enough to have to read such uninteresting things — but 
 to have to write them ! The history that is undertaken must 
 be written, however, whether the writer weary sometimes of 
 his task, or the interest of his labor carry him lightly through 
 to the close. 
 
220 Guild Court. 
 
 Thomas, wretched creature, dallied with his father's pro- 
 posal. He did not intend accepting it, but the very idea of 
 marrying a rich, fashionable girl like that, with a knight for 
 a father, flattered him. Still more was he excited at the no- 
 tion, the very possibility of wearing a uniform. And what 
 might he not do with so much money ? Then, when the thought 
 of Lucy came, he soothed his conscience by saying to himself, 
 " See how much I must love her when I am giving up all this for 
 her sake ! " Still his thoughts hovered about what he said he 
 was giving up. He went to bed on Sunday night, after a very 
 pathetic sermon from Mr. Simon, with one resolution, and one 
 only, namely, to go to the riding-school in Finsbury on Mon- 
 day night. 
 
 But something very different was waiting him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 AN EXPLOSION. 
 
 The whole ground under Thomas's feet was honey-combed 
 and filled with combustible matter. A spark dropped from 
 any, even a loving hand, might send everything in the air. It 
 needed not an enemy to do it. 
 
 Lucy Burton had been enjoying a delightful season of re- 
 pose by the sea-side. She had just enough to do with and for 
 the two children to gain healthy distraction to her thinking. 
 But her thinking as well as her bodily condition grew health- 
 ier every day that she breathed the sea air. She saw more and 
 more clearly than ever that things must not go on between 
 her and Thomas as they were now going on. The very scent 
 of the sea that came in at her bed-room window when she opened 
 it in the morning, protested against it ; the wind said it was 
 no longer endurable ; and the clear, blue autumn sky said it 
 was a shame for his sake, if not for her own. She must not 
 do evil that good might come ; she must not allow Thomas to 
 go on thus for the sake even of keeping a hold of him for his 
 good. She would give him one chance more, and if he did 
 not accept it, she would not see him again, let come of it what 
 would. In better mood still, she would say, "Let God take 
 care of that for him and me." She had not written to him 
 
An Explosion. 221 
 
 since she came : that was one thing she conld avoid. Now, 
 she resolved that she would write to him just before her re- 
 turn, and tell him that the first thing she would say to him 
 when she saw him would be — had he told his father ? and 
 upon his answer depended their future. But then the ques- 
 tion arose, what address she was to put upon the letter ; for 
 she was not willing to write either to his home or to the count- 
 ing-house for evident reasons. Nor had she come to any con- 
 clusion, and had indeed resolved to encounter him once more 
 without having written, when from something rather inco- 
 herently expressed in her grandmother's last letter, which in- 
 deed referred to an expected absence of Mr. Stopper, who was 
 now the old lady's main support, she concluded, hastily, I 
 allow, that Mr. Worboise was from home, and that she might 
 without danger direct a letter to Highbury. 
 
 Through some official at the Court of Probate, I fancy that 
 Mr. Worboise had heard of a caveat having been entered with 
 reference to the will of Mr. Bichard Boxall, deceased. I do 
 not know that this was the case, but I think something must 
 have occurred to irritate him against those whom he, with the 
 law on his side, was so sorely tempted to wrong. I know that 
 the very contemplation of wrong is sufficient to irritate, and 
 that very grievously, against one thus contemplated ; but Lucy 
 would have been a very good match, though not equal to Miss 
 Hubbard, even in Mr. Worboise's eyes. On the other hand, 
 however, if he could but make up, not his mind, but his con- 
 science, to take Boxall's money, he would be so much the more 
 likely to secure Miss Hubbard's ; which, together with what he 
 could leave him, would make a fortune over two hundred thou- 
 sand — sufficient to make his son somebody. If Thomas had 
 only spoken in time, that is, while his father's conscience still 
 spoke, and before he had cast eyes of ambition toward Sir 
 Jonathan's bankers ! All that was wanted on the devil's side 
 now was some personal quarrel with the rightful heirs ; and 
 if Mr. Worboise did not secure that by means of Mr. Sargent's 
 caveat, he must have got it from what had happened on the 
 Monday morning. Before Thomas came down to breakfast, 
 the postman had delivered a letter addressed to him, with the 
 Hastings postmark upon it. 
 
 When Thomas entered, and had taken his seat, on the heels 
 of the usual cool Good-morning, his father tossed the letter to 
 him across the table, saying, more carelessly than he felt : 
 
 "Who's your Hastings correspondent, Tom ?" 
 
 The question, coming with the sight of Lucy's handwriting, 
 
222 Guild Court 
 
 made the eloquent blood surge into Tom's face. His father 
 was not in the way of missing anything that there was to see, 
 and he saw Tom's face. 
 
 "A friend of mine/' stammered Tom. "Gone down for a 
 holiday." 
 
 "One of your fellow-clerks?" asked his father, with a 
 dry significance that indicated the possible neighborhood of 
 annoyance, or worse. "I thought the writing of doubtful 
 gender. " 
 
 For Lucy's writing was not in the style of a field of corn in 
 a hurricane : it had a few mistakable curves about it, though 
 to the experienced eye it was nothing the less feminine that it 
 did not affect feminity. 
 
 "No," faltered Tom, "he's not a clerk ; he's a— well, he's 
 a — teacher of music." 
 
 "Hm !" remarked Mr. Worboise. "How did you come to 
 make his acquaintance, Tom ?" And he looked at his son 
 with awful eyes, lighted from behind with growing suspicion. 
 
 Tom felt his jaws growing paralyzed. His mouth was as dry 
 as his hand, and. it seemed as if his tongue would rattle in it 
 like the clapper of a cracked bell if he tried to speak. But he 
 had nothing to say. A strange tremor went through him from 
 top to toe, making him conscious of every inch of his body at 
 the very moment when his embarrassment might have been ex- 
 pected to make him forget it altogether. His father kept his 
 eyes fixed on him, and Tom's perturbation increased every 
 moment. 
 
 " I think, Tom, the best way out of your evident confusion 
 will be to hand me over that letter," said his father, in a cool, 
 determined tone, at the same time holding out his hand to re- 
 ceive it. 
 
 Tom had strength to obey only because he had not strength 
 to resist. But he rose from his seat, and would have left the 
 room. 
 
 " Sit down, sir," said Mr. "Worboise, in a voice that revealed 
 growing anger, though he could not yet have turned over the 
 leaf to see the signature. In fact, he was more annoyed at his 
 son's pusillanimity than at his attempted deception. " You 
 make a soldier ! " he added, in a tone of contempt that stung 
 Tom — not to the heart, but to the backbone. When he had 
 turned the leaf and saw the signature, he rose slowly from his 
 chair and walked to the window, folding the letter as he went. 
 After communing with the garden for awhile, he turned 
 again to the table and sat down. It was not Mr. Worboise's 
 
An Explosion. 223 
 
 way to go into a passion when he had anything like reasonable 
 warning that his temper was in danger. 
 
 " Tom, you have been behaving like a fool. Thank heaven, 
 it's not too late ! How could you be such a fool ? Believe me, 
 it's not a safe amusement to go trifling with girls this way." 
 
 With a great effort, a little encouraged by the quietness of 
 his father's manner, Tom managed to say, " I wasn't trifling." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," said his father, with more stern- 
 ness than Tom had ever known him assume — "do you mean 
 to tell me," he repeated, " that you have come under any 
 obligation to this girl ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have, father." 
 
 " You fool ! A dress-maker is no fit match for you." 
 
 " She's not a dress-maker," said Tom, with some energy, for 
 he was beginning to grow angry, and that alone could give a 
 nature like his courage in such circumstances ; "she's a lady, 
 if ever there was one." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! " said his father. " Don't get on 
 your high horse with me. She's a beggar, if ever there was 
 one. " 
 
 Tom smiled unbelievingly, or tried to smile ; for now his 
 tremor, under the influence of his wholesome anger, had 
 abated, and his breath began to come and go more naturally. 
 A little more, and he would feel himself a hero, stoutly de- 
 fending his lady-love, fearless of consequences to himself. But 
 he said nothing more just yet. 
 
 " You know better than I do, you think, you puppy ! I tell 
 you she's not worth a penny — no, nor her old witch of a grand- 
 mother, either. A pretty mess you've made of it ! You just 
 sit down and tell the poor girl — it's really too bad of you, 
 Tom ! — that you're sorry you've been such a confounded fool, 
 but there's no help for it." 
 
 " Why should I say that ? " 
 
 " Because it's true. By all that's sacred ! " said Mr. Wor- 
 boise, with solemn fierceness, "you give up that girl, or you 
 give up me. Not that your father is anything to you : but I. 
 swear, if you carry on with that girl, you shall not cross my 
 door as long as you do ; and not a penny you shall have out of 
 my pocket. You'll have to live on your salary, my fine fellow, 
 and perhaps that'll bring down your proud stomach a bit. By 
 Jove ! You may starve for me. Come, my boy," he added 
 with sudden gentleness, "don't be a fool." 
 
 Whether Mr. Worboise meant all he said, I cannot tell, but 
 at least he meant Thomas to believe that he did. And Thomas 
 
224: Guild Court 
 
 did believe it. All the terrible contrast between a miserable 
 clerkship, with lodging as well as food to be provided, and a 
 commission in the army with unlimited pocket-money, and the 
 very name of business forgotten, rose before him. A conflict 
 began within him which sent all the blood to the surface of his 
 body, and made him as hot now as he had been cold just be- 
 fore. He again rose from his seat, and this time his father, 
 who saw that he had aimed well, did not prevent him from 
 leaving the room. He only added as his son reached the door, 
 " Mark what I say, Tom : i" mean it; and when I mean a 
 thing, it's not my fault if it's not done. You can go to the 
 riding-school to-night, or you can look out for a lodging suit- 
 able to your means. I should recommend Wapping." 
 
 Thomas stood on the heel of one foot and the toes of the 
 other, holding the handle of the door in his hand till his 
 father had done speaking. He then left the room, without 
 reply, closed the door behind him, took his hat and went out. 
 He was half way to London before he remembered that he had 
 left Lucy's letter in his father's hands and had not even read 
 it. This crowned his. misery. He dared not go back for it ; 
 but the thought of Lucy's words to him being at the mercy of 
 his hard-hearted father moved him so, that he almost made 
 up his mind never to enter the house again. And then how 
 Liicy must love him when he had given up everything for her 
 sake, knowing quite well, too, that she was not going to have 
 any fortune after all ? But he did not make up his mind ; he 
 never had made up his mind yet ; or, if he had, he unmade it 
 again upon meeting with the least difficulty. And now his 
 whole " state of man " was in confusion. He went into the 
 counting-house as if he had been walking in a dream, sat down 
 to his desk mechanically, droned through the forenoon, had 
 actually only a small appetite for his dinner, and when six 
 o'clock arrived, and the place was closed, knew no more 
 what he was going to do than when he started out in the 
 morning. 
 
 But he neither went to the riding-school in Finsbury, nor to 
 look for a lodging in "Wapping. 
 
Down at Last. 225 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIII. ' 
 
 DOWN AT LAST. 
 
 In" the very absence of purpose, he strolled up Guild Court 
 to call upon Molken, who was always at home at that hour. 
 
 Molken welcomed him even more heartily than usual. After 
 a few minutes' conversation they went out together : having 
 no plan of his own, Thomas was in the hands of any one who 
 had a plan of which he formed a part. They betook them- 
 selves to one of their usual haunts. It was too early yet for 
 play, so they called for some refreshment, and Thomas drank 
 more than he had ever drunk before, not with any definite 
 idea of drowning the trouble in his mind, but sipping and 
 sipping from mere restlessness and the fluttering motion of a 
 will unable to act. 
 
 It was a cold evening. An autumn wind which had dropped 
 in its way all the now mournful memories of nature, and was 
 itself the more dreary therefore, tumbled a stray billow now 
 and then through the eddies of its chimney-rocks and house- 
 top-shoals upon the dirty window of the little dreary den in 
 which they sat, drinking their gin and water at a degraded 
 card-table whose inlaid borders were not yet quite obscured by 
 the filth caked upon it from greasy fingers and dusters dirtier 
 than the smoke they would remove. They talked — not about 
 gaming — no : they talked about politics and poetry ; about 
 Goethe and Heine ; and Molken exerted all his wit and sym- 
 pathy to make himself agreeable to his dejected friend, urging 
 him to rise above his dejection by an effort of the will ; using, 
 in fact, much the same arguments as Lady Macbeth when she 
 tried to persuade her husband that the whole significance of 
 things depended on how he chose to regard them : " These 
 things must not be thought after these ways." Thomas, how- 
 ever, had not made a confidant of Molken. He had only 
 dropped many words that a man like him would not fail to 
 piece together into some theory regarding the condition and. 
 circumstances of one of whom he meant to make gain. 
 
 At length, what between Molken's talk and the gin, a flame 
 of excitement began to appear in Thomas's weary existence ; 
 and almost at the same instant a sound of voices and footsteps 
 was heard below ; they came up the stair ; the door of the 
 room opened ; and several fellows entered, all eager for the 
 excitement of play as a drunkard for his drink, all talking, 
 15 
 
226 Guild Court. 
 
 laughing, chaffing. A blast of wind laden with rain from a 
 laboring cloud which had crept up from the west and dark- 
 ened the place, smote on the windows, and soft yet keen the 
 drops pattered on the glass. All outside was a chaos of windy 
 mist and falling rain. They called for lights, and each man 
 ordered his favorite drink ; the face of Nature, who was doing 
 her best to befriend them, was shut out by a blind of green 
 and black stripes stained with yellow ; two dirty packs of cards 
 were produced — not from the pocket of any of the company, 
 for none of the others would have trusted such a derivation, 
 but from the archives of the house ; and, drawing round the 
 table, they began to offer their sacrifice to the dreary excite- 
 ment for whose presence their souls had been thirsting all the 
 day. Two of them besides Molken were foreigners, one of them 
 apparently a German, a very quiet and rather a gentlemanly 
 man, between whom and Molken, however, if Thomas had 
 been on the outlook, he might, I fancy, have seen certain 
 looks of no good omen interchanged. 
 
 They began playing very gently — and fairly no doubt ; and 
 Thomas for some time went on winning. 
 
 There was not even the pretense of much money among 
 them. Probably a few gold pieces was the most any of them 
 had. When one of them had made something at this sort of 
 small private game, he would try his luck at one of the more 
 public tables, I presume. As the game went on and they 
 grew more excited, they increased their stakes a little. Still 
 they seemed content to go on for a little. Thomas and Mol- 
 ken were partners, and still they won. Gradually the points 
 were increased, and betting began. Thomas began to lose 
 and lose, of course, more rapidly than he had won. He had 
 had two or three pounds in his pocket when he began, but all 
 went now — the last of it in a bet on the odd trick. He bor- 
 rowed of Molken — lost ; borrowed and lost, still sipping his 
 gin and water, till Molken declared he had himself lost every- 
 thing. Thomas laid his watch on the table, for himself and 
 Molken — it was not of great value — a gift of his mother only. 
 He lost it. What was to be done ? He had one thing 
 left — a ring of some value which Lucy had given him to wear 
 for her. It had belonged to her mother. He pulled it off 
 his finger, showed that it was a rose diamond, and laid it on 
 the table. It followed the rest. He rose, caught up his hat, 
 and, as so many thousands of gamblers have done before, 
 rushed out into the rain and the darkness. 
 
 Through all the fumes of the gin which had begun to render 
 
Down at Last. 227 
 
 "the receipt of reason a limbeck only," the thought gleamed 
 upon his cloudy mind that he ought to have received his quar- 
 ter's salary that very day. If he had had that, what might he 
 not have done ? It was his, and yet he could not have it. 
 His mind was all in a confused despair, ready to grasp at any- 
 thing that offered him a chance of winning back what he had 
 lost. If he had gone home and told his father — but he was not 
 capable of reasoning out anything. Lucy's ring was his chief 
 misery : so much must be said for him. Something — he did 
 not know what — drove him toward Guild Court. I believe, 
 though in his after reflections he could not identify the im- 
 pulse, that it was the same which he obeyed at last. Before 
 he knew where he was going, he was at Mrs. Boxall's door. 
 He found it ajar, and walked up the stair to the sitting-room. 
 That door too was open, and there was no one there. But he 
 saw at a glance, from the box on the floor and the shawl on 
 the table, that Lucy had returned, and he supposed that her 
 grandmother had gone up stairs with her. The same moment 
 his eyes sought the wall, and there hung two keys. They 
 were the keys of the door of communication and of the safe. 
 
 Mr. Stopper, wise in his generation, sought, as we have 
 seen, to stand as well as possible with the next of kin and 
 supposed heir to Mr. Boxall, namely, his mother. He had, 
 therefore, by degrees, made himself necessary to her, in her 
 fancy at least, by giving her good advice till she thought she 
 could not do without his wisdom. Nor that alone ; he had 
 pleased her by a hundred little acknowledgments of her suzer- 
 ainty, especially grateful to one who loved power as Mrs. Box- 
 all did. Among the rest, one evening, after locking up the 
 counting-house, he went to her with those two keys in his 
 hand, and kept playing with them till he was taking his leave 
 — then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, said : 
 
 "But I don't see the use of troubling myself with these 
 keys. I may as well hang them up somewhere," he added, 
 looking about for a place. 
 
 "I don't know that it's wise to leave them here," objected 
 Mrs. Boxall. 
 
 "Oh! don't be uneasy, ma'am," returned Mr. Stopper. 
 " You mustn't suppose we leave a mint of money in the house 
 at night. If we did, you wouldn't be safe either. It's only 
 what comes in after banking-hours — a matter of ten pounds, 
 or thereabouts, sometimes more, sometimes less. The safe's 
 more for the books — in case of fire, you know." 
 
 "I hope there's no danger of that, Mr. Stopper." 
 
228 Guild Court 
 
 " Not as long as the neighbors don't take fire. I see every 
 spark out when we have a fire before I turn my back on the 
 premises. Indeed, I'm rather more careful over the fire than 
 the cash-box." 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Stopper had discovered a brass-headed 
 nail in the wall, and thereupon he had hung the keys, and 
 there he had hung them every evening since, and there they 
 hung at this moment when Thomas's eyes went in search of 
 them. 
 
 When he considered the whole affair afterward, Thomas 
 thought he must have been driven by a demon. He hardly 
 knew whether he was thinking over or doing the thing that 
 was present to him. No thought of resisting it as a tempta- 
 tion arose to meet it. He knew that there was eleven pounds 
 odd shillings in the cash box, for he had seen one of the other 
 clerks count it ; he knew that the cash-box was in the safe ; 
 he knew that that was the key of it ; he knew that the firm 
 owed him twenty-five pounds ; he could replace it again before 
 the morning; and while thinking all this he was "doing the 
 effect of his thinking," almost without knowing it : he found 
 himself standing before the safe with the key already in the 
 lock, and the cold handle of the door in his hand. But it was 
 dark all around and within him. In there alone lay light and 
 hope. In another moment the door was open, and the con- 
 tents of the cash-box — gold, silver, copper — in his pocket. It 
 is possible that even then he might have restored the money if 
 he had not heard the step of the policeman at the street-door. 
 He left the safe open as it was, with the key in it, and sped 
 from the house. 
 
 Nothing more marked itself on his memory till he reached 
 the room where he had left his friends. It was dark. There 
 was no one there. They had gone to tiy their luck in a more 
 venturous manner, where rogue met rogue, and fortune was 
 umpire rather than cunning. He knew their haunts, followed 
 and found them. But his watch and ring were gone. They 
 told him, however, where they were. He would go and seek 
 them to-morrow. Meantime he would play. He staked and 
 lost — lost, won, won again ; doubled his stakes, won still ; and 
 when he left the house it was with a hundred pounds in his 
 pocket and a gray dawn of wretchedness in his heart. 
 
Mrs. BoxdLl and Mr. Stopper. 229 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIV. 
 
 MRS. BOXALL AND MR. STOPPEE. 
 
 Lucy was not up stairs with her grandmother when Thomas 
 went into the room. She had arrived some time before, and 
 had run across to the bookseller's to put Mattie to bed, accord- 
 ing to promise, leaving the door just ajar that she might not 
 trouble her grandmother to come down and open it for her. 
 She had come home hoping against hope that Thomas must 
 by this time have complied, in some way or other, with her 
 request — must have written to his father, or, at least, so posi- 
 tively made up his mind to tell him on his return, that he 
 would be at the station to meet her with the assurance, or 
 would appear in Guild Court some time during the evening 
 with a response to her earnest appeal. When she had put the 
 child to bed, she lingered a few moments with the bookseller 
 in his back parlor, for the shop was shut up, telling him about 
 Mattie, and listening to what little bits of news the worthy 
 man had to impart in return. Their little chat ran something 
 in this way : 
 
 "And how have you been, Mr. Kitely ?" 
 
 " Oh, among the middlins, miss, thank you. How's your- 
 self been ? " 
 
 "Quite well, and no wonder." 
 
 "I don't know that, miss, with two young things a pullin' 
 of you all ways at once. I hope Mattie wasn't over and above 
 troublesome to you." 
 
 " She was no trouble at all. You must have missed her, 
 though." 
 
 " I couldn't ha' believed how I'd miss her. Do you know 
 the want of her to talk to made me do what I ain't done for 
 twenty year ? " 
 
 " What's that, Mr. Kitely ? Go to church of a Sunday ? " 
 
 " More than that, miss," answered the bookseller, laughing — 
 a little sheepishly. " Would you believe it of me ? I've been 
 to church of a week-day more than once. Ha ! ha ! But 
 then it wasn't a long rigmarole, like — " 
 
 " You mustn't talk about it like that — to me, you know, 
 Mr. Kitely." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, miss. I only meant he didn't give us 
 a Sundayful of it, you know. I never could ha' stood that. 
 We had just a little prayer, and a little chapter, and a little 
 
230 Guild Court. 
 
 sermon — good sense, too, upon my word. I know I altered a 
 price or two in my catalogue when I come home again. I 
 don't know as I was right, but I did it, just to relieve my 
 mind and make believe I was doin' as the minister told me. 
 If they was all like Mr. Fuller, I don't know as I should ha' 
 the heart to say much agen them." 
 
 " So it's Mr.' Fuller's church you've been going to ? I'm so 
 glad ! How often has he service, then ? " 
 
 "Every day, miss. Think o' that. It don't take long, 
 though, as I tell you. But why should it ? If there is any 
 good in talking at all, it comes more of being the right thing 
 than the muchness of it, as my old father used to say — for he 
 was in the business afore me, miss, though I saw a great deal 
 more o' the world than ever he did afore I took to it myself — 
 says he, ' It strikes me, Jacob, there's more for your money in 
 some o' those eighteen mos, if you could only read 'em, than 
 in some o' them elephants. I ha' been a watchin',' says he, 
 1 the sort o' man that buys the one and that buys the tother. 
 When a little man with a shabby coat brings in off the stall 
 one o' them sixpenny books in Latin, that looks so barbarious 
 to me, and pops it pleased like into the tail of his coat — as if 
 he meant to have it out again the minute he was out of the 
 shop — then I thinks there's something in that little book — 
 and something in that little man,' says father, miss. And so 
 I stick up for the sermons and the little prayers, miss. I've 
 been thinking about it since ; and I think Mr. Fuller's right 
 about the short prayers. They're much more after the man- 
 ner of the Lord's Prayer anyhow. I never heard of anybody 
 getting tired before that was over. As you are fond of church, 
 miss, you'd better drop into Mr. Fuller's to-morrow mornin'. 
 If you go once, you'll go again." 
 
 Long after, Lucy told Mr. Fuller what the bookseller had 
 said, and it made him think yet again whether our long pray- 
 ers — services, as we call them, forsooth — are not all a mistake, 
 and closely allied to the worship of the Pagans, who think 
 they shall be heard for their much speaking. 
 
 She went out by the side-door into the archway. As she 
 opened it, a figure sped past her, fleet and silent. She started 
 back. Why should it remind her of Thomas ? She had 
 scarcely seen more in the darkness than a deeper darkness in 
 motion, for she came straight from the light. 
 
 She found the door not as she left it. 
 
 "Has Thomas been here, grannie?" she asked, with an 
 alarm she could not account for. 
 
Mrs. BoxaU and Mr. Stopper. 231 
 
 " No, indeed. He has favored us with little of his com- 
 pany this many a day," answered grannie, speaking out of the 
 feelings which had gradually grown from the seeds sown hy 
 Stopper. " The sooner you're off with him, -my dear, the bet- 
 ter, for you ! " she continued. "He's no good, I doubt." 
 
 With a terrible sinking at the heart, Lucy heard her grand- 
 mother's words. But she would fight Thomas's battles to the 
 last. 
 
 " If ever that man dares to say a word against Thomas in 
 my hearing," she said, " I'll — I'll — I'll leave the room." 
 
 most lame and impotent conclusion ! But Lucy carried 
 it farther than her words ; for when Mr. Stopper entered the 
 next morning, with a face scared into the ludicrous, she, with- 
 out even waiting to hear what he had to say, though she fore- 
 boded evil, rose at once and left the room. Mr. Stopper stood 
 and looked after her in dismayed admiration ; for Lucy was 
 one of those few whose anger even is of such an unselfish and un- 
 spiteful nature, that it gives a sort of piquancy to their beauty. 
 
 "I hope I haven't offended the young lady," said Mr. Stop- 
 per, with some concern. 
 
 "Never you mind, Mr. Stopper. I've been giving her a 
 hint about Thomas, and she's not got over it yet. Never you 
 mind her. It's me you've got to do with, and I ain't got no 
 fancies." 
 
 " It's just as well, perhaps, that she did walk herself away." 
 said Mr. Stopper. 
 
 "You've got some news, Mr. Stopper. Sit ye down. Will 
 you have a cup o' tea ?" 
 
 "No, thank you. Where's the keys, Mrs. Boxall ?■" 
 
 The old lady looked up at the wall, then back at Mr. Stopper. 
 
 " Why, go along ! There they are in your oAvn hand." 
 
 " Yes ; but where do you think I found them ? — Hanging 
 in the door of the safe, and all the money gone from the cash- 
 box. I haven't got over the shock of it yet." 
 
 "Why, good heavens ! Mr. Stopper," said the old lady, who 
 was rather out of temper with both herself and Lucy, "you 
 don't think I've been a-robbing of your cash-box, do you ? " 
 
 Mr. Stopper laughed aloud. 
 
 " Well, ma'am, that would be a roundabout way of coming 
 by your own. I don't think we could make out a case against 
 you if you had. Not quite. But, seriously, who came into 
 the house after I left ? I hung the keys on that wall with my 
 own hands." 
 
 " And I saw them there when I went to bed," said Mrs. 
 
232 Guild Court. 
 
 Boxall, making a general impression ground for an individual 
 assertion. 
 
 " Then somebody must have come in after you had gone to 
 hed — some one that knew the place. Did you find the street 
 door had been tampered with ? " 
 
 " Lucy opened it this morning. " " 
 
 Mrs. Boxall went to the door and called her grand-daughter. 
 Lucy came, thinking Mr. Stopper must be gone. When she 
 saw him there, she would have left the room again, but her 
 grandmother interfered. 
 
 "Come here, child," she said, peremptorily. "Was the 
 house-door open when you went down this morning ? " 
 
 Lucy felt her face grow pale with the vaguest foreboding — 
 associated with the figure which had run through the archway 
 and her finding the door open. But she kept her self-com- 
 mand. 
 
 " No, grannie. The door was shut as usual." 
 
 "Did nobody call last night ?" asked Mr. Stopper, who had 
 his suspicions, and longed to have them confirmed in order to 
 pay off old scores at once. 
 
 "JSTobody ; that I'll give my word for," answered Mrs. Box- 
 all. 
 
 "A most unaccountable thing, ladies," said Stopper, rub- 
 bing his forehead as if he would fain rouse an idea in his 
 baffled brain. 
 
 " Have you lost much money ? " asked the old lady. 
 
 "Oh, it's not the money; that's a flea-bite. But justice, 
 you know — that's the point," said Mr. Stopper, with his face 
 full of meaning. 
 
 "Do you suspect any one, Mr. Stopper ?" 
 
 ' ' I do. I found something on the floor. If Mr. Worboise 
 were come," he continued, looking hard at Lucy, "he might 
 be able to help us out with it. Sharp fellow that. But it's an 
 hour past his time, and he's not made his appearance yet. I 
 fear he's been taking to fast ways lately. I'll just go across the 
 court to Mr. Molken, and see if he knows anything about 
 him." 
 
 "You'll oblige me," said Lucy, who was cold to the very 
 heart, but determined to keep up, " by doing nothing of the 
 sort. I will not have his name mentioned in the matter. 
 Does any one but yourself know of the— the robbery, Mr. Stop- 
 per ? " 
 
 " Not a soul, miss. I wouldn't do anything till I had been 
 to you. I was here first, as I generally am." 
 
Mrs. BoxaU and Mr. Stopper. 233 
 
 " Then, if I am to have anything to say at all," she returned 
 with dignity, " let the matter rest in the mean time — at least 
 till you have some certainty. If you don't you will make sus- 
 picion fall on the innocent. It might have been grannie or 
 myself, for anything you can tell yet." 
 
 " Highty-tighty, lass !" said her grandmother. "We're on 
 our high horse, I believe." 
 
 Before she could say more, however, Lucy had left the 
 room. She just managed to reach her bed, and fell fainting 
 upon it. 
 
 Money had evidently, even in the shadow it cast before it, 
 wrought no good effect upon old Mrs. Boxall. The bond be- 
 tween her and her grand-daughter was already weakened. She 
 had never spoken thus to her till now. 
 
 "Never you mind what the wench says," she went on to 
 Stopper. " The money's none of hers, and shan't be except I 
 please. You just do as you think proper, Mr. Stopper. If 
 that young vagabond has taken the money, why you take him, 
 and see what the law will say to it. The sooner our Lucy is 
 shut of him the better for her — and may be for you too, Mr. 
 Stopper," added the old lady, looking insinuatingly at him. 
 
 But whether the head clerk had any design upon Lucy or 
 not, he seemed to think that her favor was of as much conse- 
 quence as that of her grandmother. He might have reasoned 
 in this way — that he could not expose Thomas without mak- 
 ing Lucy his enemy, both from her regard to him and because 
 of the disgrace that would come upon her by having her name as- 
 sociated with his ; and Mrs. Boxall was old, and Lucy might take 
 her place any day in the course of nature. Whereas, so long as 
 he kept the secret and strengthened the conclusions against 
 Thomas without divulging them, he had a hold over Lucy, 
 even a claim upon her gratitude, he would say, which he 
 might employ as he saw occasion, and as prudence should 
 direct, holding his revenge still ready in his hands in case 
 there should be nothing to be gained by foregoing it. There- 
 fore, when the clerk in whose charge the money-box was, 
 opened it, he found in it only a ticket with Mr. Stopper's in- 
 itials, and the sum abstracted in figures, by which it was im- 
 plied that Mr. Stopper had taken the contents for his own 
 use. So, although it seemed queer that he should have 
 emptied it of the whole sum, even to the few coppers, there 
 was nothing to be said, and hardly anything to be conjectured 
 even. 
 
 As Thomas did not make his appearance all day, not a 
 
234 Guild Court. 
 
 doubt remained upon Mr. Stopper's mind that lie had com- 
 mited the robbery. But he was so well acquainted with the 
 minutest details of the business that he knew very well that the 
 firm was the gainer by Thomas's absconding as nearly as pos- 
 sible to the same amount that he had taken. This small alle- 
 viation of Thomas's crime, however, Mr. Stopper took no 
 pains to communicate to Lucy, chuckling only over his own 
 good fortune in getting rid of him so opportunely ; for he 
 would no longer stand in his way, even if he were to venture 
 on making advances to Lucy ; she could never have anything 
 more to do with a fellow who could be tried for burglary if he 
 chose to apply for a warrant for his apprehension. 
 
 Intending that his forbearance should have the full weight 
 of obedience to her wishes, Mr. Stopper went up in the even- 
 ing after the counting-house was closed. Lucy was not there. 
 She had not left her room since the morning, and the old 
 woman's tenderness had revived a little. 
 
 " Perhaps you'd better not hang them keys up there, Mr. 
 Stopper. I don't care about the blame of them. I've had 
 enough of it. There's Lucy, poor dear, lying on her bed like 
 a dead thing ; and neither bit nor sup passed her lips all day. 
 Take your keys away with you, Mr. Stopper. I'll have noth- 
 ing more to do wi' them, I can tell you. And don't you go 
 and take away that young man's character, Mr. Stopper." 
 
 " Indeed I should be very sorry, Mrs. Boxall. He hasn't been 
 here all day, but I haven't even made a remark on his absence 
 to any one about the place." 
 
 "That's very right, Mr. Stopper. The young gentleman 
 may be at home with a headache." 
 
 "Very likely," answered Mr. Stopper, dryly. "Good- 
 night, Mrs. Boxall. And as the keys must have an unpleas- 
 ant look after what has happened, I'll just put them in my 
 pocket and take them home with me." 
 
 "Do ye that, Mr. Stopper. And good-night to you. And 
 if the youug man comes back to-morrow, don't 'ee take no 
 notice of what's come and gone. If you're sure he took it, 
 you can keep it off his salary, with a wink for a warning, you 
 know." 
 
 "All right, ma'am," said Mr. Stopper, taking his departure 
 in less good humor than he showed. 
 
 I will not say much about Lucy's feelings. For some time 
 she was so stunned by the blow as to be past conscious suffer- 
 ing. Then commenced a slow oscillation of feeling : for one 
 half hour, unknown to her as time, she would be declaring 
 
Mattie Falls and Rises Again. 235 
 
 him unworthy of occasioning her trouble ; for the next she 
 would be accusing his attachment to her, and her own want 
 of decision in not absolutely refusing to occupy the question- 
 able position in which she found herself, as the combined 
 causes of his ruin : for as ruin she could not but regard such a 
 fall as his. She had no answer to her letter — heard nothing 
 of him all day, and in the evening her grandmother brought 
 her the statement of Mr. Stopper that Thomas had not been 
 there. She turned her face away toward the wall, and her 
 grandmother left her, grumbling at girls generally, and girls 
 in love especially. Meantime a cherub was on its way toward 
 her, bearing a little bottle of comfort under its wing. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXV. 
 
 MATTIE FALLS AND EISES AGAIN". 
 
 Mattie had expected Lucy to call for her in the forenoon 
 and take her out to Wyvil Place to see Miriam. Spending 
 the morning with her father in the shop, amidst much talk, 
 conducted with the most respectful docility on the part of the 
 father, and a good deal of condescending assertion on the part 
 of the child, she had run out twenty times to look at the 
 clock at St. Jacob's ; and at length, finding that Lucy did not 
 come, had run up and knocked at her door, giving Mr. Spelt 
 a promissory nod as she passed. Hearing from Mrs. Boxall, 
 however, that Miss Burton was too tired to go out with 
 her, she turned in some disappointment, and sought Mr. 
 Spelt. 
 
 "Well, mother, how do you do ?" she asked, perking up 
 her little gray face, over which there was now a slight wash 
 of rose-color, toward the watch-tower of the tailor. 
 
 " Quite well, Mattie. * And you look well," answered Mr. 
 Spelt. 
 
 "And I am well, I assure you ; better than I ever expected 
 to be in this world, mother. I mean to come up beside you a 
 bit. I want to tell you something." 
 
 " I don't know, Mattie," answered Mr. Spelt, with some em- 
 barrassment. "Is it anything in particular ? " 
 
 "In particular ! Well, I should think so," returned Mattie, 
 
236 Guild Court 
 
 with a triumph just dashed with displeasure, for she had not 
 been accustomed to any hesitation in accepting her adyances 
 on the part of Mr. Spelt. "I should think so. Then, low- 
 ering her voice to a keen whisper, she added, "I've been to 
 see God in his own house." 
 
 "Been to church, have you ?" said Mr. Spelt. 
 
 Now I am sorry to say that Spelt was behaving dishonestly — 
 not from choice, but from embarrassment and fear springing 
 from a false conscientiousness. And Mattie felt at once that 
 Mr. Spelt was not behaving like himself. 
 
 "No, Mr. Spelt," she answered with dignity — bridling in- 
 deed ; " I've not been to church. You don't call that God's 
 house, do you ? Them ! They're nothing but little shops like 
 your own, Mr. Spelt. But God's house ! — Take me up, I say. 
 Don't make me shout such things in the open street. " 
 
 Thus adjured, Mr. Spelt could stand out no longer. He 
 stooped over his threshold and lifted Mattie toward him. But 
 the moment her head reached the level of his floor, she under- 
 stood it all. In her old place in the corner sat the little de- 
 moniac Poppie, clothed and in her right mind. A true ob- 
 server, however, would have seen from her pale, thin face that 
 possibly her quietude was owing more to weakness than to any 
 revolution in her nature. 
 
 " Well ! " said Mattie, with hauteur. " Will you set me 
 down again, if you please, Mr. Spelt." 
 
 "I think, perhaps," said the tailor, meekly, holding the 
 child still suspended in the air, "I could find room for you 
 both. The corner opposite the door there, Mattie," he added, 
 looking round suggestively in the direction of the spot sig- 
 nified. 
 
 " Put me down," insisted Mattie, in such a tone that Mr. 
 Spelt dared not keep her in suspense any longer, but lowered 
 her gently to the ground. All the time Poppie had been star- 
 ing with great black eyes, which seemed to have grown much 
 larger during her illness, and, of course, saying nothing. 
 
 As soon as the soles of Mattie's feet touched the ground, she 
 seemed to gather strength like Antaeus ; for instead of turning 
 and walking away, with her head as high, morally considered, 
 as that of any giant, she began to parley with the offending 
 Mr. Spelt. 
 
 " I have heard, mother — Mr. Spelt — that you should be off 
 with the old love before you're on with the new. You never 
 told me what you were about. " 
 
 " But you was away from home, Mattie." 
 
Mattie Falls and Rises Again. 237 
 
 " You could haye written. It would only have cost a penny. 
 I shouldn't have minded paying it." 
 
 "Well, Mattie, shall I turn Poppie out ?" 
 
 " Oh ! i" don't want you to turn her out. You would say I 
 drove her to the streets again." 
 
 " Do you remember, Mattie, that you wouldn't go to that 
 good lady's house because she didn't ask Poppie, too. Do 
 you?" 
 
 A moment's delay in the child's answer revealed shame. 
 But she was ready in a moment. 
 
 " Hers is a big house. That's my own very corner." 
 
 "Don't you see how ill Poppie is ?" 
 
 " Well ! " said the hard little thing, with a side nod of her 
 head over the speaking corner of her mouth. 
 
 Mr. Spelt began to be a little vexed. He took the upper 
 hand now and came home to her. She was turning to go 
 away, when he spoke in a tone that stopped her. But she 
 stood with her back half turned toward him. 
 
 "Mattie, do you remember the story Somebody told us 
 about the ragged boy that came home again, and how his 
 brother, with the good clothes on, was offended, and wouldn't 
 go in because he thought he was taking his place ? You're 
 behaving just the same as the brother with the good clothes. "• 
 
 "I don't know that. There's some difference, I'm sure. I 
 don't think you're telling the story right. I don't think 
 there's anything about taking his place. I'll just go and look. 
 I can read it for myself, Mr. Spelt." 
 
 So saying, Mattie walked away to the house, with various 
 backward tosses of the head. Mr. Spelt drew his head into 
 his shell, troubled at Mattie's naughtiness. Poppie stared at 
 him, but said nothing, for she had nothing to say. 
 
 When Mattie entered the shop, her father saw that some- 
 thing was amiss with her. 
 
 " What's the matter with my princess ? " he asked. 
 
 "Oh, nothing much," answered Mattie, with tears in her 
 eyes. "I shall get over it, I dare say. Mr. Spelt has been 
 very naughty," she added; in a somewhat defiant tone ; and 
 before her father could say anything more she had reached the 
 stairs, and went to her own room. 
 
 My reader must imagine her now taking down a huge fam- 
 ily Bible her father had given her for the sake of the large 
 print. She lugs it along and heaves it upon her bed ; then, 
 by a process known only to herself, finds the place, and begins 
 to spell out the story once more, to discover whether the tailor 
 
238 Guild Court. 
 
 has not garbled it to her condemnation. But, as she reads, 
 the story itself lays hold upon her little heart, and she finds a 
 far greater condemnation there than she had found in her 
 friend's reproof. About half an hour after, she ran — Mattie 
 seldom ran — past Mr. Spelt and Poppie, not venturing to look 
 up, though, ere she came too near, the tailor could see the red 
 eyes in the white face, and knocked at Mrs. Boxall's door. 
 
 Lucy was still lying on her bed when she heard little 
 knuckles at her door, and having answered without looking 
 round, felt, a moment after, a tiny hand steal into hers. She 
 opened her eyes, and saw Mattie by her bedside. Nor was she 
 too much absorbed in her own griefs to note that the child 
 had hers, too. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Mattie, my dear ?" she asked, 
 in a faint voice. 
 
 Mattie burst into tears — a rare proceeding with the princess. 
 It was some moments before she could sob out : 
 
 " I've been so naughty, Miss Burton — so very naughty ! " 
 
 Lucy raised herself, sat on the side of the bed, and took the 
 child's hand. Mattie could not look up. 
 
 "I'm sorry to hear that, Mattie. What have you done ?" 
 
 " Such a shame. Poppie! Far country. Elder brother." 
 
 These were almost the only words Lucy could hear for the 
 sobs of the poor child. Hence she could only guess at the 
 cause of her grief, and her advice must be general. 
 
 "If you have done wrong to Poppie, or any one, you must 
 go and tell her so, and try to make up for it." 
 
 "Yes, I will, for I can't bear it," answered Mattie, begin- 
 ning to recover herself. " Think of doing the very same as 
 the one I was so angry with when mother read the story ! I 
 couldn't bear to see Poppie in my place in mother's shop, and 
 I was angry, and wouldn't go in. But I'll go now, as soon as 
 I get my poor eyes dried." 
 
 Lucy was not able to say much to her, and Mattie was so 
 taken up with her own repentance that she did not see that 
 Lucy was in trouble, too. In a few minutes the child an- 
 nounced her intention of going to Mr. Spelt at once, and left 
 Lucy to her own thoughts. I will first tell how Mattie finished 
 her repentance, and then return to Lucy. 
 
 She walked right under Mr. Spelt's door, and called aloud, 
 but with a wavering voice : 
 
 "Mother, take me up directly. I'm very sorry." 
 
 Over the threshold came a pair of arms, and Mattie was 
 hoisted into the heaven of her repentant desire. As soon as 
 
Mattie Falls and Rises Again. 239 
 
 she was in it she crawled on her hands and knees — even she 
 could scarcely have stood in the place — toward Poppie. 
 
 "How do you do, prodigal?" she said, putting her arms 
 round the bewildered Poppie, who had no more idea of what 
 she meant than a child born in heaven would have had. " Pm 
 very glad to see you home again. Put on this ring, and we'll 
 both be good children to mother there." 
 
 So saying, she took a penny ring, with a bit of red and two 
 bits of green glass in it, from her finger, and put it upon Pop- 
 pie's, who submitted speechless, but was pleased with the glit- 
 ter of the toy. She did not kiss in return, though : Poppie 
 liked to be kissed, but she had not learned to kiss yet. 
 
 "Mother," Mattie went on, "I was behaving like — like — 
 like — a wicked Pharisee and Sadducee. I beg your pardon, 
 mother. I will be good. May I sit in the corner by the door ? " 
 
 "I think," answered the little tailor, greatly moved, and 
 believing in the wind that bloweth where it listeth more than 
 ever he had believed before — "I think if I were to move a 
 little, you could sit in the corner by the window, and then you 
 would see into the court better. Only," he said, as he drew 
 his work about his new position, " you must not lean much 
 against the sash, for it is not very sound, and you might 
 tumble in the court, you know." 
 
 So Mattie and Poppie sat side by side, and the heart of the 
 tailor had a foretaste of heaven. 
 
 Presently Mattie began to talk to Poppie. She could scarcely, 
 however, draw a single response from her, for she had nothing 
 to say. Interchange of thought was unknown to the elder 
 child, and Mattie's words were considerably less intelligible to 
 Poppie than the autumn wind that blew round their' nest. 
 Mattie was annoyed. The romance of the reconciliation was 
 dimmed. Instinctively she felt that the only way to restore it 
 was to teach Poppie, and she took her in hand at once. 
 
 There was more hope for Poppie, and Spelt, too, now that 
 Mattie was in the work, for there is no teacher of a child like 
 a child. All the tutors of Oxford and Cambridge will not 
 bring on a baby as a baby a year older will. The childlike is 
 as essential an element in the teacher as in the scholar. And 
 the train of my story is not going so fast but that I may pull 
 up at this siding for a moment to say that those who believe 
 they have found a higher truth, with its higher mode of con- 
 veyance, are very apt to err in undervaluing, even to the 
 degree of wishing to. remove the lower forms in which truth, 
 if not embodied exactly, is at least wrapt up. Truth may be 
 
240 Guild Court. 
 
 presented in the grandeur of a marble statue, or in a brown- 
 paper parcel. I choose the sculpture ; my last son prefers the 
 parcel. The only question is whether there is truth — not in 
 the abstract, but as assimilable by the recipient — present in the 
 form. I cannot, however, resume without a word on the other 
 side. To the man who sees and feels the higher and nobler 
 form, it is given to teach that. Let those to whom the lower 
 represents the sum of things, teach it with their whole hearts. 
 He has nothing to do with it, for he cannot teach it without 
 being false. The snare of the devil holds men who, capable of 
 teaching the higher, talk of the people not being ready to 
 receive it, and therefore teach them in forms which are to their 
 own souls an obstruction. There is cowardice and desertion in 
 it. They leave their own harder and higher work to do the 
 easier and clumsier work of their neighbor. It is wasteful of 
 time, truth, and energy. The man who is most careful over 
 the truth that lies in forms not his own, will be the man most 
 careful to let no time-serving drag him down — not to the level 
 of the lower teachers, for they are honest — but to the level of 
 Job's friends, who lied for God ; nay, lower still ; for this will 
 soon cease to be lying even for God, and become lying for 
 himself. 
 
 When Mattie left her, Lucy again threw herself down, and 
 turned her face to the wall, and the story of which Mattie had 
 been talking straightway began to mingle with all that filled 
 her troubled mind. For who was a prodigal son but her lost 
 Thomas ? Lost indeed ! But there was another word in the 
 parable to balance that — there was found as well. Thomas 
 might be found again. And if the angels in heaven rejoiced 
 over the finding of such a lost wanderer, why should she cut 
 the cable of Love, and let him go adrift from her heart ? 
 Might she not love him still ? Ought she not to love him 
 still ? Was he not more likely to come back some day if she 
 went on loving him ? The recent awaking of Lucy's spiritual 
 nature — what would be called by some, her conversion — had 
 been so interpenetrated with the image, the feeling, the sub- 
 jective presence of Thomas — she had thought so much of him 
 while stooping her own shoulders to the easy yoke, that she 
 could not leave him out now, and it seemed as if, were she to 
 give him up, she would lose half the incentive to press forward 
 herself. The fibres of her growth had so twined around him, 
 that if the idea of his regeneration departed from her, the 
 hope of her own would sicken, at least, if not die. True, 
 Pride hinted at the disgrace of being allied to such a man- 
 
 I 
 
Business. 241 
 
 a man who had stolen ; but Faith replied, that if there were 
 joy in heaven over him, she too might rejoice over him when 
 he came back ; and if the Father received the prodigal with all 
 his heart, she too might receive him with all hers. But she 
 would have no right to receive him thus if she did nothing to 
 restore him ; nor would she have any right to put forth in full 
 her reclaiming influence except she meant thus to receive him. 
 Her conscience began to reproach her that she had not before 
 done all that she could to reclaim him, and, if she only knew 
 the way, she was now at least prepared to spend and be spent 
 for him. But she had already done all that she was, at this 
 juncture of his history, to be allowed to do for the wretched 
 trifler. God had taken the affair out of her hands, and had 
 put it into those of somewhat harder teachers. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 BUSINESS. 
 
 "Whek Mr. Worboise found that Thomas did not return 
 that night, he concluded at once that he had made up his 
 mind to thwart him in his now cherished plan, to refuse the 
 daughter of Sir Jonathan Hubbard, and marry the girl whom 
 his father disliked. He determined at once, even supposing 
 he might be premature as regarded the property, to have the . 
 satisfaction of causing the Boxalls sharp uneasiness at least. ; 
 His son would not have dared to go against his wishes but fori 
 the enticements of "that minx," in the confidence that her' 
 uncle's property was about to be hers. He would teach her, 
 and him too, a lesson. Either her uncle or some one or more 
 of his family were not drowned, or they were all drowned : in 
 neither case was the property hers. If one of the family was 
 alive, the property remained where it was ; if they were all 
 gone, the property was his. He thought himself into a rage 
 over her interference with his plans, judged himself an injured 
 person, and thereby freed of any trifling obligation that a 
 fastidious conscience might have fancied to exist to the preju- 
 dice of his claims upon the property of his friend, supposed to 
 be deceased. He . was now ready to push his rights to the 
 uttermost — to exact the pound of flesh that the law awarded 
 16 
 
242 Guild Court. 
 
 him. He went the next morning but one after Thomas's dis- 
 appearance and propounded the will. 
 
 In due time this came to the knowledge of Mr. Sargent. 
 He wrote to Mrs. Boxall a stiff business letter acquainting her 
 with the fact, and then called upon Mr. Worboise to see 
 whether some arrangement could not be come to ; for, having 
 learned the nature of the will, he saw that almost any decent 
 division of the property, for which he could only appeal to the 
 justice of the man, would be better than a contest. Mr. Wor- 
 boise received him with a graciousness reaching almost to 
 kindness, talked lightly of the whole as a mere matter of 
 business about which there was no room for disputing, smiled 
 aside at every attempt made by Mr. Sargent to approach the 
 subject from another quarter, and made him understand, with- 
 out saying a word to that effect, that he was prepared to push 
 matters to the extreme of extremity. He even allowed him to 
 see that he had reasons beyond the value of the money for 
 setting about the matter in the coolest, most legal fashion in 
 the world. Mr. Sargent went away baffled — to devise upon 
 what ground he could oppose the grant of probate. 
 
 While Mr. Sargent was having his interview, Mr. Stopper 
 was awaiting his departure in the clerk's room. It must be 
 remembered that Mr. Stopper was now between two stools ; 
 and while he came to plead the cause of the widow and father- 
 less, he must be especially careful for his own sake not to give 
 offense. Him, too, Mr. Worboise received with the greatest 
 good humor ; assured him that there was no mistake in the 
 matter, and he believed no flaw in the will ; informed him 
 that he had drawn it up himself, and had, at his friend's re- 
 quest, entered his own name as contingent reversioner. His 
 friend might . have done it in joke ; he did not know ; but he 
 had not any intention of foregoing his rights, or turning out 
 of Luck's way when she met him in the teeth. On the con- 
 trary, he meant to have the money and to use it ; for, at all 
 events, it could not have been in joke that his friend had omit- 
 ted his mother and his niece. He must have had some good 
 reason for so doing; and he was not one to treat a dead 
 friend's feeling with disrespect — and so on, all in pleasant 
 words, and with smiling delivery, ended by a hearty, easy 
 "good-morning." For, ere he had finished, Mr. Stopper, com- 
 ing to the conclusion that nothing was to be done, rose to take 
 his leave. At the door he turned, and said--: 
 
 " I hope nothing is amiss with your son, Mr. Worboise. I 
 hope he is not ill." 
 
Business. 243 
 
 "Why do you ask ?" returned Mr. Worboise, just a little 
 staggered ; for he was not prepared to hear that Thomas was 
 missing from Bagot Street as well as from home. When he 
 heard the fact, however, he merely nodded his head, say- 
 ing : 
 
 "Well, Mr. Stopper, he's too old for me to horsewhip him. 
 I don't know what the young rascal is after. I leave him in 
 your hands. That kind of thing won't do, of course. I don't 
 know that it wouldn't be the best thing to discharge him. It's 
 of no consequence to me, you know, and it would be a lesson 
 to him, the young scapegrace ! That's really going too far, 
 though you and I can make allowances, eh, Stopper ? " 
 
 Mr. Stopper was wise enough not to incur the odium of a 
 Job's messenger, by telling what even Mr. Worboise would 
 have considered bad news ; for he had a reverence for locks and 
 money, and regarded any actionable tampering with either as 
 disgraceful. " Besides," thought Stopper, "if it was only to 
 spite the young jackanapes, I could almost marry that girl 
 without a farthing. But I shouldn't have a chance if I were 
 to leak about Tom." 
 
 Mr. Worboise was uneasy, though. He told his wife the 
 sum of what had passed between Tom and himself, but I fear 
 enjoyed her discomfiture at the relation ; for he said spitefully, 
 as he left her room : 
 
 "Shall I call on Mr. Simon as I go to town, and send him 
 up, Mrs. Worboise ?" 
 
 His wife buried her face in her pillow, and made no reply. 
 Perhaps the husband's heart smote him ; but I doubt it, 
 though he did call on Mr. Simon and send him to her. 
 
 All the result of Mr. Simon's inquiries was the discovery 
 that Thomas had vanished from the counting-house, too. 
 Thereupon a more real grief than she had ever known seized 
 the mother's heart ; her conscience reproached her as often as 
 Mr. Simon hinted that it was a judgment upon her for having 
 been worldly in her views concerning her son's marriage ; and 
 she sent for Amy home, and allowed things to take their way. 
 
 All the comfort Mr. Worboise took was to say to himself 
 oyer and over, " The young rascal's old enough to take care of 
 himself. He knows what he's about, too. He thinks to force 
 me to a surrender by starving me of his precious self. We'll 
 see. I've no doubt he's harbored in that old woman's house. 
 Stay a bit, and if I don't fire him out — by Jove ! She'll find 
 I'm not one to take liberties with, the old hag ! " 
 
 The best that Mr. Sargent could do at present was to resist 
 
244 - Guild Court 
 
 probate on the ground of the uncertainty of the testator's 
 death, delaying thus the execution of the will. He had little 
 hope, however, of any ultimate success — except such as he 
 might achieve by shaming Mr. Worboise into an arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall sent for him, and with many acknowledgments 
 begged him to do his best for them, saying that, if he were 
 successful, she would gladly pay him whatever he demanded. 
 He repudiated all idea of payment, however, and indeed con- 
 sidered himself only too fortunate to be permitted to call as 
 often as. he pleased, for then he generally saw Lucy. But he 
 never made the smallest attempt to renew even the slight 
 intimacy which had formerly existed between them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ME. SARGENT LABOBS. 
 
 That large room in Guild Court, once so full of aged cheer- 
 fulness and youthful hope, was now filled with an atmosphere 
 of both moral and spiritual perturbation. The first effect of 
 her son's will upon Mrs. Boxall was rage and indignation 
 against Mr. Worboise, who, she declared, must have falsified 
 it. She would not believe that Richard could have omitted 
 her name, and put in that of his attorney. The moment she 
 heard the evil tidings, she rose and went for her bonnet, with 
 the full intention of giving "the rascal a bit of her mind." 
 It was all that her grand-daughter and Mr. Stopper could do 
 to prevent her. For some time she would yield no ear to their 
 representations of the bad consequences of such a proceeding. 
 She did not care. If there was justice to be had on the earth 
 she would have it, if she went to the Queen herself to get it. I 
 half suspect that, though she gave in at last, she did carry out 
 her intention afterward without giving any one the chance of 
 preventing her. However that may be, the paroxysm of her 
 present rage passed off in tears, followed by gloomy fits, which 
 were diversified by outbreaks of temper against Lucy, although 
 she spoke of her as a poor dear orphan reduced to beggary by 
 the wickedness and greed of lawyers in general, who lived like 
 cannibals upon the flesh and blood of innocents. In vain 
 
Mr. Sargent Labors. 245 
 
 ■would Lucy try to persuade her that they were no worse now 
 than they had been, reminding her that they were even hap- 
 pier together before the expectation of more than plenty came 
 in to trouble them ; beside her late imagination of wealth, her 
 present feeling was that of poverty, and to feel poor is surely 
 the larger half of being poor. 
 
 On Lucy my reader will easily believe that this change of 
 prospect had little effect. Her heart was too much occupied 
 with a far more serious affair to be moved about money. Had 
 everything been right with Thomas, I have no doubt she would 
 have built many a castle of the things she would do ; but till 
 Thomas, was restored to her, by being brought to his right 
 mind, no one thing seemed more worth doing than another. 
 Sadness settled upon her face, her walk, her speech, her whole 
 expression. But she went about her work as before, and did 
 what she could to keep her sorrow from hurting others. The 
 reality of the late growth of religious feeling in her was 
 severely tested ; but it stood the test ; for she sought comfort 
 in holding up her care to God ; and what surer answer to such 
 prayer could there be, than that she had strength to do her 
 work ? We are saved by hope, and Lucy's hope never died ; 
 or if it did wither away under the dry blasts of her human 
 judgment, the prayers that went up for submission to His will 
 soon returned in such dews as caused the little flower once 
 more to lift its head in the sun and wind. And often as she 
 could — not every day, because of her engagements with Miriam 
 Morgenstern — she went to Mr. Fuller's church, and I think I 
 may say that she never returned without what was worth 
 going for. I do not say that she could always tell what she 
 had learned, but she came away with fresh strength, and fresh 
 resolution to do what might show itself to be right. And the 
 strength came chiefly from this, that she believed more and 
 more what the apostle Peter came to be so sure of before he 
 died, that "He careth for us." She believed that the power 
 that made her a living soul was not, could not be, indifferent 
 to her sorrows, however much she might have deserved them, 
 still less indifferent because they were for her good — a ready 
 excuse for indifference with men — and if only he cared that 
 she suffered, if he knew that it was sad and hard to bear, she 
 could bear it without a word, almost without a thought of 
 restlessness. And then, why should she not hope for Thomas 
 as well as for herself ? If we are to love our neighbor as our- 
 self, surely we must hope and pray for him as for ourself ; and 
 if Lucy found that she could love Thomas at least as herself, 
 
246 . Guild Court 
 
 for him she was in that very love bound to pray and to hope 
 as for herself. 
 
 Mr. Sargent was soon thoroughly acquainted with all Mrs. 
 Boxall's affairs. And he had so little hope of success in regard 
 to the will, that, when he found that she had no vouchers to 
 produce for her own little property placed in her son's hands, 
 he resolved, before going any further in a course which must 
 irritate Mr. Worboise, to see whether he could not secure that 
 first. Indeed he was prepared, seeing how ill matters looked 
 for his clients, to offer to withdraw from the contest, provided 
 the old lady's rights were acknowledged. With this view he 
 called once more upon Mr. Worboise, who received him just 
 as graciously as before. A conversation something like this 
 followed : 
 
 " Mrs. Boxall informs me, Mr. Worboise, that her son, at 
 the time of his death, was, and had been for many years, in 
 possession of some property of hers, amounting to somewhere 
 between two and three thousand pounds. The old lady is a 
 very simple woman — " 
 
 "Is she ?" interjected, rather than interrupted, Mr. Wor- 
 boise, in a cold parenthesis. Mr. Sargent went on. 
 
 " Indeed she does not know the amount exactly, but that 
 could be easily calculated from the interest he was in the habit 
 of paying her." 
 
 " But whatever acknowledgment she holds for the money 
 will render the trouble unnecessary," said Mr. Worboise, who 
 saw well enough to what Mr. Sargent was coming. 
 
 " Unfortunately — it was very wrong of a man of business, or 
 anybody, indeed — her son never gave her any acknowledgment 
 in writing. " 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. Worboise, with a smile, " then I don't ex- 
 actly see what can be done. It is very awkward. " 
 
 " You can be easily satisfied of the truth of the state- 
 ment." 
 
 "I am afraid not, Mr. Sargent." 
 
 " She is a straightforward old lady, and — " 
 
 " I have reason to doubt it. At all events, seeing that she 
 considers the whole of the property hers by right, an opinion 
 in which you sympathize with her — as her legal adviser, I mean 
 — it will not be very surprising if, from my point of view, I 
 should be jealous of her making a statement for the sake of 
 securing a part of those rights. With such a.temptation, and 
 such an excuse, it is just possible — I've heard of such a thing 
 as evil that good might come, eh, Mr. Sargent ? — even if she 
 
Mr. Sargent Labors. 247 
 
 were as straightforward as you think her. Let her produce 
 her vouchers, I say." 
 
 " I haye no fear — at least I hope Mr. Stopper will be able 
 to prove it. There will be evidence enough of the interest 
 paid." 
 
 "As interest, Mr. Sargent ? I suspect it will turn out to 
 be only an annuity that the good fellow allowed her, notwith- 
 standing the reasons he must have had for omitting her name 
 from his will." 
 
 " I confess this much to you, Mr. Worboise — that our cause 
 is so far from promising that I should advise Mrs. Boxall to be 
 content with her own, and push the case no further." 
 
 " Quite right, Mr. Sargent. The most prudent advice you 
 can give her." 
 
 " You will then admit the debt, and let the good woman 
 have her own ? " 
 
 "Admit the debt by no means ; but certainly let her have 
 her own as soon as she proves what is her own," answered Mr. 
 Worboise, smiling. 
 
 " But I give you my word, Mr. Worboise," said Mr. Sar- 
 gent, doing his best to keep his temper, " that I believe the 
 woman's statement to be perfectly true." 
 
 "I believe you, Mr. Sargent, but I do not believe the 
 woman," returned Mr. Worboise, again smiling. 
 
 " But you know it will not matter much, because, coming 
 into this property as you do, you can hardly avoid making 
 some provision for those so nearly related to the testator, and 
 who were dependent upon him during his lifetime. You can- 
 not leave the old lady to starve." 
 
 " It will be time enough to talk about that when my rights 
 are acknowledged. Till then I decline to entertain the ques- 
 tion." 
 
 There was a something in Mr. Worboise'' s manner, and an 
 irrepressible flash of his eye, that all but convinced Mr. Sar- 
 gent that there was nothing not in the bond to be got from 
 him. He therefore left him, and started a new objection in 
 opposing the probate of the will. He argued the probability 
 of all or one or other of the daughters surviving the father — 
 that is, not of their being yet alive, but of their having out- 
 lived him. Now this question, though plain as the alphabet 
 to those who are acquainted with law, requires some explana- 
 tion to those who are not, numbering possibly the greater part 
 of my readers. 
 
 The property would come to Mr. Worboise only in the case 
 
248 . Guild Court. 
 
 of all those mentioned in the will dying before Mr. Boxall. A 
 man can only will that which is his own at the time of his 
 death. If he died before any of his family, Mr. Worboise had 
 nothing to do with it. It went after the survivor's death to 
 Tier heirs. Hence if either of the daughters survived father 
 and mother, if only for one provable moment, the property 
 would be hers, and would go to her heir, namely, her grand- 
 mother. So it would in any case, had not Mr. Worboise been 
 mentioned, except Mrs. Eichard Boxall had survived her hus- 
 band and family, in which case the money would have gone to 
 her nearest of kin. This alternative, however, was not started, 
 for both sides had an equal interest in opposing v it — and in- 
 deed the probable decision upon probabilities would have been 
 that the wife would die first. The whole affair then turned 
 upon the question : whether it was more likely that Eichard 
 Boxall or every one of his daughters died first ; in which ques- 
 tion it must be remembered that there was nothing cumulative 
 in the three daughters. He was as likely to die before or to 
 survive all three as any one of them, except individual reasons 
 could be shown in regard to one daughter which did not exist 
 in regard to another. 
 
 One more word is necessary. Mr. Sargent was not in good 
 practice and would scarcely have been able — I do not use the 
 word afforded because I do not know what it means — to meet 
 the various expenses of the plea. But the very day he had 
 become acquainted with the contents of the will, he told Mr. 
 Morgenstern of the peculiar position in which his governess 
 and her grandmother found themselves. Now Mr. Morgen- 
 stern was not only rich — that is common ; nor was he only 
 aware that he was rich ; if that is not so common, it is not yet 
 very uncommon ; but he felt that he had something to spare. 
 Lucy was a great favorite with him ; so was Sargent. He 
 could not but see that Sargent was fond of Lucy, and that he 
 was suffering from some measure of repulse. He therefore 
 hoped, if not to be of any material assistance to Lucy — for 
 from Sargent's own representation he could not see that the 
 matter was a promising one — at least to give the son of his old 
 friend a chance of. commending himself to the lady by putting 
 it in his power to plead her cause. And conducted as Mr. Sar- 
 gent conducted the affair, it did not put Mr. Morgenstern to 
 an amount of expense that cost him two thoughts ; while even 
 if it had been serious, the pleasure with which his wife re- 
 garded his generosity would have been to him reward 
 enough. 
 
How Thomas Did and Fared, 249 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 HOW THOMAS DID AND FARED. 
 
 I flatter myself that my reader is not very much interest- 
 ed in Thomas ; I never meant he should be yet. I confess, 
 however, that I am now girding up my loins with the express 
 intention of beginning to interest him if I can. For I have 
 now almost reached the point of his history which I myself 
 feel to verge on the interesting. When a worthless fellow be- 
 gins to meet with his deserts, then we begin to be aware that 
 after all he is our own flesh and blood. Our human heart be- 
 gins to feel just the least possible yearning toward him. We 
 hope he will be well trounced, but we become capable of hop- 
 ing that it may not be lost upon him. At least we are content 
 to hear something more about him. 
 
 When Thomas left the gambling-house that dreary morning, 
 he must have felt very much as the devil must feel. For he 
 had plenty of money and no home. He had actually on this 
 raw morning, when nature seemed to be nothing but a drizzle 
 diluted with gray fog, nowhere to go to. More, indeed; he 
 had a good many places, including the principal thoroughfares 
 of London, where he must not go. There was one other place 
 which he did all he could to keep out of, and that was the 
 place where the little thinking that was considered necessary 
 in his establishment was carried on. He could not help peep- 
 ing in at the window, however, and now and then putting his 
 ear to the keyhole. And what did he hear ? That he, 
 Thomas Worboise, gentlemen, was a thief, a coward, a sneak. 
 Now, when Thomas heard this, for the first time in his life, 
 his satisfaction with himself gave way utterly ; nor could all 
 his admiration for Lara or the Corsair — I really forget whether 
 they are not one and the same phantom — reconcile him to be- 
 come one of the fraternity. The Corsair at least would not 
 have sold Medora's ring to save his life. Up to this point, he 
 had never seen himself contemptible. Nor even now could he 
 feel it much, for, weary and sick, all he wanted was some place 
 to lay down his head and go to sleep in. After he had slept, 
 he would begin to see things as they were, and, once admitted 
 possible that he could do an ungentlemanly action, fresh accu- 
 sations from quarters altogether unsuspected of unfriendliness 
 would be lodged in that court of which I have already spoken. 
 But for a time mere animal self-preservation would keep the 
 
250 Guild Court. 
 
 upper hand. He was conscious of an inclination to dive into 
 every court that he came near — of a proclivity toward the 
 darkness. This was the same Thomas Worboise that used to 
 face the sunshine in gay attire, but never let the sun farther in 
 than his brain ; so the darkness within him had come at last 
 to the outside, and swathed all in its funereal folds. Till a 
 man's indwelling darkness is destroyed by the deep-going light 
 of truth, he walks in darkness, and the sooner this darkness 
 comes out in action and shows itself to be darkness, the better 
 for the man. The presence of this darkness, however, is sooner 
 recognized by one man than by another. To one the darkness 
 within him is made manifest by a false compliment he has just 
 paid to a pretty girl ; to Thomas it could only be revealed by 
 theft and the actual parting for money with the jewel given 
 him by a girl whom he loved as much as he could love, which 
 was not much — yet ; to a third — not murder, perjury, hypoc- 
 risy, hanging, will reveal it ; he will go into the other world 
 from the end of a rope, not mistaking darkness for light, but 
 knowing that it is what it is, and that it is his, and yet deny- 
 ing the possession of the one, and asserting the possession of 
 the other. 
 
 Thomas forgot all about where he was, till suddenly he 
 found himself far west in the Strand. The light of the world 
 was coming nearer ; no policeman was in sight : and the arch- 
 way leading down under the Adelphi yawned like the mouth 
 of hell at his side. He darted into it. But no sooner was he 
 under the arches than he wished himself out again. Strange 
 forms of misery and vice were coming to life here and there in 
 the darkness where they had slept away the night. . He was of 
 their sort, yet he did not like his own kin. Nay, some of 
 them might be worthy compared to him, yet he shrunk from 
 them. He rushed out. Heaven was full of lights and hell was 
 full of horrors ; where was his own place ? He hurried back 
 toward the city. 
 
 But as the light grew his terror increased. There was no 
 ground for immediate alarm, for no one yet knew what he had 
 done ; but with the light discovery drew nearer. When he 
 reached Farringdon Street he turned down toward Blackfriars 
 Bridge, then eastward again by Earl Street into Thames 
 Street. He felt safer where the streets were narroAv, and the 
 houses rose high to shut out the dayspring, which the Lord says 
 to Job he had " caused to know his place, that it might take 
 hold of the ends of the earth," like a napkin, "that the wicked 
 might be shaken out of it." He hurried on, not yet knowing 
 
How Thomas Did and Fared. 251 
 
 what lie was, only seeing revelation at hand clothed in terror. 
 And the end of it was, that he buried his head in the public- 
 house where the mischief of the preceding night had begun, 
 and was glad to lie down in a filthy bed. The ways of trans- 
 gressors are always hard in the end. Happy they who find 
 them hard in the beginning. 
 
 Ill at ease as he was, both in body and mind, he was yet so 
 worn out that he fell fast asleep ; and still on the stream of 
 sleep went drifting toward the vengeance that awaited him— 
 the vengeance of seeing himself as he was. 
 
 When he woke, it was afternoon. He had to make several 
 efforts before his recollection combined with his observation 
 to tell him where he was. He felt, however, that a horror was 
 coming, and when it came his whole being was crushed before ' 
 it. It must be confessed, however, that it was the disgrace, 
 and not the sin, that troubled him. But honor, although a 
 poor substitute for honesty or religion, is yet something ; and 
 the fear of disgrace is a good sword to hang over the heads of 
 those who need such attendance. Thomas's heart burned like 
 a hot coal with shame. In vain he tried to persuade himself, 
 in vain he partially succeeded in persuading himself, that he 
 was not himself when he took the money. Allowing whatever 
 excuse might lie in the state to which he had first brought 
 himself, he knew that no defense of that sort would have any 
 influence in restoring to him the place he had lost. He was 
 an outcast. He lay in moveless torture. He knew himself, 
 and he knew his crime ; and he knew that himself had com- 
 mitted that crime. Wide awake, he did not think of rising ; 
 for the whole world of activity lay beyond the impassable bar- 
 rier of his shame. There was nothing for him to do, nowhere 
 for him to go. At length he heard voices in the room below 
 him : they were voices he knew ; and he was lying over the 
 scene of last night's temptation. He sprung from the bed, 
 hurried on his clothes, crept down the stairs, paid for his lodg- 
 ing at the bar, and went out into the street. He felt sick at 
 the thought of joining them ; he had had a surfeit of wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 But he was too near his former haunts ; and the officers of 
 justice must be after him. He turned from one narrow street 
 into another, and wandered on till he came where the bow- 
 sprit of a vessel projected over a wall across a narrow lane, and 
 he knew by this that he must be near the Thames. The sun 
 was going down, and the friendly darkness was at hand. But 
 he could not rest. He knew nothing of the other side, and it 
 
252 - Guild Court. 
 
 seemed to him therefore that he would be safer there. He 
 would take a boat and be put across. A passage between two 
 houses led toward the river. Probably there were stairs at the 
 end. He turned into the passage. Half a dozen bills were up 
 on the walls. He stopped to look. They all described bodies 
 found in the river. He turned away, and started at the sight 
 of a policeman regarding him from a door three or four yards 
 off. It was a police station. He had all but put his head into 
 the lion's mouth. He had just presence of mind enough to 
 prevent him from running, but not enough to keep his legs 
 steady under him. His very calves seemed to feel the eyes of 
 the policeman burning upon them, and shrank away with a 
 sense of unprotected misery. He passed several stairs before 
 he ventured to look round. Then finding no reason to sup- 
 pose he was watched, he turned down the next opening, found 
 a boat, and telling the waterman to put him across to Kother- 
 hithe, of which district he just knew the name, sat down in 
 the stern. The man rowed up the river. The sun was going 
 down behind the dome of St. Paul's, which ' looked like the 
 round shoulder of a little hill ; and all the brown masts and 
 spars of the vessels shone like a forest of gold-barked trees in 
 winter. The dark river caught the light, and threw it shim- 
 mering up on the great black hulls, which shone again in the 
 water below ; and the Thames, with all its dirt and all its 
 dead, looked radiant. But Thomas felt nothing of its beauty. 
 If Nature had ever had a right of way in his heart, she was 
 now shut out. What was it to him, despised in his own eyes, 
 that the sun shone ? He looked up at the sky only to wish 
 for the night. What was it to him that the world was for a 
 moment gay, even into the heart of London ? Its smile could 
 not reach his heart : it needs an atmosphere as well as a sun 
 to make light. The sun was in the heavens, yea, the central 
 sun of truth shone upon the universe ; but there was no at- 
 mosphere of truth in Thomas's world to be lighted up by it ; 
 or if there was, it was so filled with smoke and vapor that for 
 the time the sun could not make it smile. As they passed 
 under a towering hull, he envied a monkey that went scramb- 
 ling out of one of the port-holes and in at another. And yet 
 the scene around was as strange as it was beautiful. The 
 wide river, the many vessels, the multitudinous wilderness of 
 gray houses on every side, all disorder to the eye, yet blended 
 by the air and the light and the thin fog into a marvelous 
 whole ; the occasional vista of bridge-arches ; the line of Lon- 
 don Bridge lying parallel with the lines of green and gray and 
 
Hoio Thomas Did and Fared. 253 
 
 gold in the sky — its people, its horses, its carriages creeping 
 like insects athwart the sunset — one of the arches cut across 
 near the top hy the line of a new railway-bridge, and the seg- 
 ment filled with a moving train ; all this light and life to the 
 eye, while, save for the splash of the oars, and the general 
 hum like an aroma of sound that filled the air, all was still to 
 the ear — none of it reached the heart of outcast Thomas. 
 
 Soon, as if by magic, the scene changed. The boatman had 
 been rowing up the river, keeping in the quiet water as the 
 tide hurried out. ISTow he was crossing toward Cherry Garden 
 Stairs. As they drew near the Surrey-side, all at once Thomas 
 found himself in the midst of a multitude of boats, flitting 
 about like water-flies on the surface of a quiet pool. What 
 they were about he could not see. Now they would gather in 
 dense masses, in every imaginable position to each other, the 
 air filled with shouting, objurgation, expostulation, and good- 
 humored chaff, varied with abuse. Again they would part 
 asunder and vanish over the wide space. G-uns were firing, 
 flags were flying, Thames liveries gleaming here and there. 
 The boats were full of men, women, and children ; some in 
 holiday garments, most of them dark with the darkness of an 
 English mob. It was an aquatic crowd — a people exclusively 
 living on and by the river — assembled to see a rowing-match 
 between two of their own class for a boat, probably given by 
 the publicans of the neighborhood — who would reap ten times 
 the advantage. But although there were thousands assembled, 
 the uproar troubled such a small proportion of the river's sur- 
 face, that one might have rowed up and down in the middle 
 space between Eotherhithe and Wapping for hours and know 
 nothing about it. 
 
 But Thomas did not see the race, not because he was in 
 haste to get ashore, but because something happened. His 
 waterman, anxious to see the sport, lingered in the crowd 
 lining the whole of that side of the river. In a boat a little 
 way farther up was a large family party, and in it a woman 
 who was more taken up with the baby in her arms than with 
 all that was going on around her. In consequence of her 
 absorption in the merry child, which was springing with all 
 the newly-discovered delight of feet and legs, she was so dread- 
 fully startled when the bows of another boat struck the gun- 
 wale just at her back, that she sprung half up from her seat, 
 and the baby, jerking itself forward, dropped from her arms 
 into the river. Thomas was gazing listlessly at the water 
 when he saw the child sweep past him a foot or so below the 
 
254 . Guild Court. 
 
 surface. His next remembered consciousness was in the water. 
 He was a fair swimmer, though no rider. He caught the 
 child, and let himself drift with the tide, till he came upon 
 the cable of a vessel that lay a hundred yards below. Boats 
 came rushing about him ; in a moment the child was taken 
 from him and handed across half a dozen of them to his 
 mother ; and in another moment he, too, was in a boat. 
 When he came to himself a gin-faced, elderly woman, in a 
 small threadbare tartan shawl, was wiping his face with a 
 pocket-handkerchief, and murmuring some feminine words 
 over him, while a coarse-looking, dough-faced man was hold- 
 ing a broken cup with some spirit in it to his mouth. 
 
 "Go ashore with the gentleman, Jim," said the woman. 
 " There's the India Arms. That's a respectable place. You 
 must go to bed, my dear, till you gets your clo'es dried." 
 
 "I haven't paid my man," said Tom, feebly. He was now 
 shivering with cold ; for, after the night and day he had spent, 
 he was in no condition to resist the effects of the water. 
 
 "Oh, we'll pay him. Here, Fluke," cried two or three — 
 they seemed all to know each other. 
 
 " Come along, sir," cried twenty shrill voices over his head. 
 He looked up and saw that they were alongside of a great 
 barge which was crowded with little dirty creatures, row above 
 row. "Come this way — solid barges, sir, all the way. Ketch 
 hold of the gen'lm'n's hand, Sammy. There. Now, Bill." 
 
 They hauled and lifted Thomas on to the barge, then led 
 him along the side and across to the next yawning wooden 
 gulf, and so over about seven barges to a plank, which led 
 from the last on to a ladder ascending to the first floor of a 
 public-house, the second floor of which, supported upon piles, 
 projected over high water. There his conductors, two ragged 
 little mudlarks, left him. 
 
 Through an empty kind of bar-room, he went into the bar, 
 which communicated with the street. Here first he found 
 that he had been followed by the same man who had given 
 him the gin. He now passed before him to the counter, and 
 said to the woman who was pumping a pot of beer : 
 
 " This gen'leman, Mrs. Cook, 's been and just took a child 
 out o' the water, ma'am. He 'ain't got a change in his wescut- 
 pocket, so if you'll do what ye can for 'im, there's many on us 
 '11 be obliged to ye, ma'am." 
 
 "Lor', whose child was it, Jim ?" 
 
 " I don't know as you know her, ma'am. The man's name's 
 Potts. He keeps a public down about Limehoase, someveres." 
 
now Thomas Did and Fared. 255 
 
 Thomas stood shivering — glad, however, that the man should 
 represent his case for him. 
 
 " The gentleman had better go to bed till we get his clo'es 
 dried for him," said the landlady. "I think that's the best 
 we can do for him." 
 
 " Take a drop o' sum mat, sir," said the man, turning to 
 Thomas. " They keeps good licker here. Put a name upon 
 it, sir." 
 
 "Well, I'll have a small glass of pale brandy," said Thomas — 
 " neat, if you please. And what'll you have yourself ? I'm 
 much obliged to you for introducing me here, for I must look 
 rather a queer customer." 
 
 " It's what you'll have, not what I'll have, sir, if you'll ex- 
 cuse me" returned the man. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Thomas, who had just received 
 his brandy. He drank it, and proceeded to put his hand in 
 his pocket — no easy matter in the state of his garments. 
 
 "■ I'm a goin' to pay for this," interposed the man, in a 
 determined tone, and Thomas was hardly in a condition to 
 dispute it. 
 
 At the same moment the landlady, who had left the bar 
 after she had helped Thomas, returned, saying, "Will you 
 walk this way, sir ?" Thomas followed, and found himself in 
 a neat enough little room, where he was only too glad to un- 
 dress and go to bed. As he pulled off his coat, it occurred to 
 him to see that his money was safe. He had put it, mostly in 
 sovereigns, into a pocket-book of elaborate construction, which 
 he generally carried in the breast-pocket of what the tailors 
 call a lounging-coat. It was gone. His first conclusion was, 
 that the man had taken it. He rushed back into the bar, but 
 he was not there. It must be confessed that, in the midst of 
 his despair, a fresh pang at the loss of his money shot through 
 Thomas's soul. But he soon came to the conclusion that the 
 man had not taken it. It was far more likely that, as he went 
 overboard, the book slipped from his pocket into the water, 
 and in this loss an immediate reward of almost his first act of 
 self-forgetfulness had followed. The best thing that can hap- 
 pen to a man, sometimes, is to lose his money ; and, while 
 people are compassionate over the loss, God may regard it as 
 the first step of the stair by which the man shall rise above it 
 and many things besides with which not only his feet, but his 
 hands and his head, are defiled. Then first he began to feel 
 that he had no ground under his feet — the one necessity before 
 such a man could find a true foundation. Until he lost it, he 
 
256 Guild Court. 
 
 did not know how much, even in his misery, the paltry hun- 
 dred pounds had been to him. Now it was gone, things 
 looked black indeed. He emptied his pockets of two or three 
 sovereigns and some silver, put his clothes out at the door, 
 and got into bed. There he fell a thinking. Instead of tell- 
 ing what he thought, however, I will now turn to what my 
 reader may be, and I have been, thinking about his act of 
 rescue. 
 
 What made him, who has been shown all but incapable of 
 originating a single action, thus at the one right moment do 
 the one right thing ? Here arises another question : Does a 
 man always originate his own actions ? Is it not possible, to 
 say the least of it, that, just to give him a taste of what well- 
 doing means, some moment, when selfishness is sick and faint, 
 may be chosen by the power in whom we live and move and 
 have our being to inspire the man with a true impulse ? We 
 must think what an unspeakable comfort it must have been to 
 Thomas, in these moments of hopeless degradation of which 
 he felt all the bitterness, suddenly to find around him, as the 
 result of a noble deed into which he had been unaccountably 
 driven, a sympathetic, yes, admiring public. JSTo matter that 
 they were not of his class, nor yet that Thomas was not the 
 man to do the human brotherhood justice ; he could not help 
 feeling the present power of humanity, the healing medicine 
 of approbation, in the faces of the common people who had 
 witnessed and applauded his deed. I say medicine of appro- 
 bation ; for what would have been to him in ordinary, a poison, 
 was now a medicine. There was no fear of his thinking him- 
 self too much of a hero at present. 
 
 It may be objected that the deed originated only in a care- 
 lessness of life resulting from self-contempt. I answer, that 
 no doubt that had its share in making the deed possible, 
 because it removed for the time all that was adverse to such a 
 deed ; but self -despite, however true and well-grounded, can- 
 not inspirit to true and noble action. I think it was the 
 divine, the real self, aroused at the moment by the breath of 
 that wind which bloweth where it listeth, that sprung thus 
 into life and deed, shadowing, I say sliadoiving only, that 
 wonderful saying of our Lord that he that loseth his life shall 
 find it. It had come — -been given to him — that a touch of 
 light might streak the dark cloud of his fate, that he might 
 not despise himself utterly, and act as ^unredeemable — kill 
 himself or plunge into wickedness to drown his conscience. 
 It was absolutely necessary that he should bo brought to want ; 
 
How Thomas Did and Fared. 257 
 
 but here was jnst one little opening — not out of want, but into 
 the light of a higher region altogether, the region of well- 
 being — by which a glimmer of the strength of light could 
 enter the chaos of his being. Any good deed partakes of the 
 life whence it comes, and is a good to him who has done it. 
 And this act might be a beginning. 
 
 Poor weak Thomas, when he got his head down on the pil- 
 low, began to cry. He pitied himself for the helplessness to 
 which he was now reduced, and a new phase of despair filled 
 his soul. He even said in his thoughts that his ill-gotten gain 
 had, like all the devil's money, turned to rubbish in his hands. 
 What he was to do he could not tell. He was tolerably safe, 
 however, for the night, and, worn and weary, soon fell into a 
 sleep which not even a dream disturbed. 
 
 When he woke all was dark, and he welcomed the darkness 
 as a friend. It soothed and comforted him a little. If it were 
 only always dark ! If he could find some cave to creep into 
 where he might revel in — feed upon the friendly gloom ! If 
 he could get among the snowy people of the north, blessed 
 with half a year of gentle sunlessness ! Thomas had plenty of 
 fancy. He leaned on his elbow and looked out. His clothes 
 had been placed by him while he slept. He rose and put 
 them on, opened the door of his room, saw light somewhere, 
 approached it softly, and found himself in a small room, like a 
 large oriel window. The day had changed from gold to silver ; 
 the wide expanse of the great river lay before him, and up, 
 and down, and across, it gleamed in the thoughtful radiance 
 of the moon. Never was a picture of lovelier peace. It was 
 like the reflex of the great city in the mind of a saint — all its 
 vice, its crime, its oppression, money-loving, and ambition, 
 all its fearfulness, grief, revenge, and remorse, gently covered 
 with the silver mantle of faith and hope. But Thomas could 
 not feel this. Its very repose was a reproach to him. There 
 was no repose for him henceforth forever. He was degraded 
 to all eternity. And herewith the thought of Lucy, which 
 had been hovering about his mind all day, like a bird looking 
 for an open window that it might enter, but which he had not 
 dared to admit, darted into its own place, and he groaned 
 aloud. For in her eyes, as well as in his own, he was utterly 
 degraded. Not a thousand good actions, not the applause of 
 a thousand crowds, could destroy the fact that he had done as 
 he had done. The dingy, applauding multitude, with its 
 many voices, its kind faces, its outstretched hands, had van- 
 ished, as if the moon had melted it away from off the water. 
 17 
 
258 Guild Court. 
 
 Never to all eternity would that praising people, his little con- 
 soling populace, exist again, again be gathered from the four 
 corners whither they had vanished, to take his part, to speak 
 for him that he was not all lost in badness, that they at least 
 considered him fit company for them and their children. 
 
 Thoughts like these went to and fro in his mind as he 
 looked out upon the scene before him. Then it struck him 
 that all was strangely still. Not only was there no motion on 
 the river, but there was no sound — only an occasional outcry 
 in the streets behind. The houses across in Wapping showed. 
 rare lights, and looked sepulchral in the killing stare of the 
 moon, which, high above, had not only the whole heavens but 
 the earth as well to herself, and seemed to be taking her own 
 way with it in the consciousness of irresistible power. What 
 that way was, who can tell ? The troubled brain of the ma- 
 niac and the troubled conscience of the malefactor know some- 
 thing about it ; but neither can tell the way of the moon with 
 the earth. Fear laid hold upon Thomas. He found himself 
 all alone with that white thing in the sky ; and he turned 
 from the glorious window to go down to the bar. But all the 
 house was dark, the household in bed, and he alone awake and 
 wandering "in the dead waste and middle of the night." A 
 horror seized him when he found that he was alone. Why 
 should he fear ? The night covered him. But there was God. 
 I do not mean for a moment that he had a conscious fear of the 
 Being he had been taught to call God. Never had that repre- 
 sentation produced in him yet any sense of the reality, any the 
 least consciousness of presence — anything like the feeling of 
 the child who placed two chairs behind the window-curtain, 
 told God that that one was for him, and sat down to have a talk 
 with him. It was fear of the unknown God, manifested in 
 the face of a nature which was strange and unfriendly to the 
 evil-doer. It is to God alone that a man can flee from such 
 terror of the unknown in the fierceness of the sea, in the 
 ghastly eye of the moon, in the abysses of the glaciers, in the 
 misty slopes of the awful mountain-side ; but to God Thomas 
 dared not or could not flee. Full of the horror of wakefulness 
 in the midst of sleeping London, he felt his way back into the 
 room he had just left, threw himself on a bench, and closed 
 his eyes to shut out everything. His own room at Highbury, 
 even that of his mother with Mr. Simon talking in it, rose be- 
 fore him like a haven of refuge. But between him and that 
 haven lay an impassable gulf. No more returning thither. He 
 must leave the country. And Lucy ? He must vanish from 
 
How Thomas Did and Fared. 259 
 
 her eyes, that she might forget him and marry some one else. 
 Was not that the only justice left him to do her ? But would 
 Lucy forget him ? Why should she not ? Women could for- 
 get honorable men whom they had loved, let them only be out 
 of their sight long enough ; and why should not Lucy forget 
 a — ? He dared not even think the word that belonged to him 
 now. A fresh billow of shame rushed over him. In the person 
 of Lucy he condemned himself afresh to utter and ineffaceable 
 shame, confusion, and hissing. Involuntarily he opened his 
 eyes. A ghostly whiteness, the sails of a vessel hanging loose 
 from their yards, gleamed upon him. The whole of the pale 
 region of the moon, the spectral masts, the dead houses on the 
 opposite shore, the glitter of the river as from eyes that would 
 close no more, gleamed in upon him, and a fresh terror of 
 loneliness in the presence of the incomprehensible and the 
 unsympathetic overcame him. He fell on his knees, and 
 sought to pray ; and doubtless in the ear that is keen with 
 mercy it sounded as prayer, though to him that prayed it 
 seemed that no winged thought arose to the infinite from a 
 "heart as dry as dust." Mechanically, at length, all feeling 
 gone, both of fear and of hope, he went back to his room and 
 his bed. 
 
 When he woke in the morning his landlady's voice was in 
 his ears. 
 
 " Well, how do we find ourselves to-day, sir ? None the 
 worse, I hope ? " 
 
 He opened his eyes. She stood by his bedside, with her 
 short arms set like the handles of an urn. It was a common 
 face that rose from between them, red, and with eyes .that 
 stood out with fatness. Yet Thomas was glad to see them 
 looking at him, for there was kindness in them. 
 
 " I am all right, thank you," he said. 
 
 "Where will you have your breakfast ?" she asked. 
 
 "Where you please," answered Thomas. 
 
 " Will you come down to the bar-parlor, then ? " 
 
 "I shall be down in a few minutes." 
 
 "Jim Salter's inquirin' after ye." 
 
 " Who ? " said Thomas, starting. 
 
 " Only Jim Salter, the man that brought you in last night, 
 sir. I told him to wait till I came up." 
 
 " I shall be down in one minute," said Thomas, a hope of 
 his money darting into his mind. 
 
 He had to pass through the bar to the little room at the 
 back. Against the counter leaned Jim, smoking a short pipe, 
 
260 Guild Court 
 
 with his hand upon a pot of beer. When Thomas entered, he 
 touched his cap to him, saying : 
 
 " Glad to see you lookin' middlin', guvnor. Is there any- 
 thing I can do for you to-day ? " 
 
 "Come into the room here," said Thomas, "and have some- 
 thing. I'm rather late, you see. I haven't had my breakfast 
 yet." 
 
 Salters followed him with his pewter in his hand. Thomas 
 disliked his appearance less than on the preceding evening. 
 What was unpleasant in his face was chiefly owing to the 
 small-pox. He was dirty and looked beery, but there seemed 
 to be no harm in him. He sat down near the door which led 
 to the ladder already mentioned, and put his pot on the win- 
 dow-sill. Thomas asked him if he would have a cup of coffee, 
 but he preferred his beer and his pipe. 
 
 " You wanted to see me ?" said Thomas, opening a conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Oh ! nothin' perticlar, guvnor. I only wanted to see if I 
 could do anything for you," said Jim. 
 
 " I was in hopes you had heard of something I lost, but 
 I suppose it's at the bottom of the river," said Thomas. 
 
 "Not your watch ? " asked Salter, with some appearance of 
 anxious interest. 
 
 "A great deal worse," answered Thomas; "a pocket- 
 book." 
 
 " Much in it ?" asked Jim, with a genuine look of sympa- 
 thetic discomfiture. 
 
 "More than I like to think of. Look," said Thomas, turn- 
 ing out the contents of his pocket, "that is all I have in the 
 world." 
 
 "More than ever I had," returned Salter; "keep me a 
 month." 
 
 Thomas relapsed into thought. This man was the only re- 
 semblance of a friend he had left. He did not like to let him 
 go loose in the wilds of London, without the possibility of 
 finding him again. If this man vanished, the only link 
 Thomas felt between him and the world of men would be 
 broken. I do not say Thomas thought this. He only felt that 
 he would be absolutely alone when this man left him. Why 
 should he not go away somewhere with him ? 
 
 " Where do you live ? " he asked. 
 
 " Stepney way," answered Jim. 
 
 " I want to see that part of London. What do you do now ? 
 I mean, what do you work at ? " 
 
How Thomas Did and Fared. 261 
 
 " Oil ! notkin' perticlar, guvnor. Take a day at the docks 
 now and then. Any job that turns up. I'm not perticlar. 
 Only I never could stick to one thing. I like to be moving. I 
 had a month in Bermondsey last — in a tan-yard, you know. I 
 knows a bit of everthing." 
 
 " Well, where are you going now ? " 
 
 " Nowheres — anywhere you like, guvnor. If you want to see 
 them parts, as you say, there's nobody knows 'em better than 
 I do — Tiger-bay and all." 
 
 " Come, then," said Thomas. But here a thought struck 
 him. " Wouldn't it be better, though," he added — "they're 
 queer places, some of those, ain't they ? — to put on a workman's 
 clothes ?" 
 
 Jim looked at him. Thomas felt himself wince under his 
 gaze. But he was relieved when he said, with a laugh : 
 
 " You won't look much like a workman, guvnor, put on 
 what you like." 
 
 "I can't wear these clothes, anyhow," said Thomas ; "they 
 look so wretchedly shabby after their ducking. Couldn't you 
 take me somewhere where they'd change them for a suit of 
 fustian ? I should like to try how they feel for a few days. 
 We're about the same size — I could give them to you when I 
 had done with them." 
 
 Jim had been observing him, and had associated this wish 
 of Thomas's with the pocket-book, and his furtive, troubled 
 looks. But Jim was as little particular about his company as 
 about anything else, and it was of no consequence to him 
 whether Thomas had or had not deeper reasons than curiosity 
 for seeking to disguise himself. 
 
 "I tell you what," he said, "if you want to keep, quiet 
 for a day or two, I'm your man. But if you put on a 
 new suit of fustian you'll be more looked at than in your own 
 clo'es." 
 
 Thomas had by this time finished his breakfast ; it was not 
 much he could eat. 
 
 " Well," he said, rising, "if you've nothing particular to do, 
 I'll give you a day's wages to go with me. Only let's go into 
 Stepney, or away somewhere in that direction, as soon as pos- 
 sible." 
 
 He called the landlady, settled his very moderate bill, and 
 then found that his hat must be somewhere about the Nore by 
 this time. Jim ran to a neighboring shop, and returned with 
 a cloth cap. They then went out into a long, narrow street, 
 Rotherhithe Street, I think, very different in aspect from any 
 
262 
 
 Guild Court. 
 
 he had seen in London before. Indeed it is more like a street 
 in Cologne. Here we must leave him with his misery and Jim 
 Salter, both better companions than Molken. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 POPPIE CHOOSES A PKOFESSIOtf. 
 
 Whek their native red began to bloom again upon the cheeks 
 of Poppie, she began to grow restless, and the heart of the 
 tailor to grow anxious. It was very hard for a wild thing to 
 be kept in a cage against her will, he thought. He did not 
 mind sitting in a cage, but then he was used to it, and fre- 
 quented it of his own free will ; whereas his child Poppie took 
 after her grandfather — her mother's father, who was a sailor, 
 and never set his foot on shore but he wanted to be off again 
 within the week. 
 
 He therefore began to reason with himself as to what ought 
 to be done with her. So soon as she was quite strong again all 
 her wandering habits would return, and he must make some 
 provision for them. It would not only be cruel to try to break 
 her of them all at once, but assuredly fruitless. Poppie would 
 give him the slip some day, return to her Arab life, and render 
 all sealing of the bond between father and daughter impos- 
 sible. The streets were her home. She was used to them. 
 They made life pleasant to her. And yet it would not do to 
 let her run idle about the streets. He thought and thought 
 what would be best. 
 
 Meantime the influence of Mattie had grown upon Poppie. 
 Although there was as yet very little sign of anything like 
 thought in her, the way she deferred to the superior intelli- 
 gence in their common pursuits proved that she belonged to 
 the body of humanity, and not to unassociated animality. Her 
 love of bright colors now afforded the first hold by which to 
 commence her education. Eemembering her own childhood, 
 Mattie sought to interest her pupil m dolls, proceeding to 
 dress one, which she called Poppie, in a gorgeous scarlet cloth 
 which the tailor procured for the purpose. .And Poppie was 
 interested. The color drew her to the process. By degrees, 
 she took a part ; first only in waiting on Mattie, then in sew- 
 
Poppie Chooses a Profession. 263 
 
 ing on a button or string, at which she was awkward enough, 
 as Mattie took more than necessary pains to convince her, 
 learning, however, by slow degrees, to use her needle a little. 
 But what was most interesting to find was, that a certain 
 amount of self -consciousness began to dawn during and appar- 
 ently from the doll-dressing. Her causative association with 
 the outer being of the doll, led to her turning an eye upon her 
 own outer being ; and Poppie's redemption — I do not say re- 
 generation — first showed itself in a desire to be dressed. Con- 
 sciousness begins with regard to the body first. A baby's first 
 lesson of consciousness lies in his blue shoes. But one may ob- 
 ject, "You do not call it a sign of redemption in a baby that, 
 when you ask where baby's shoes are, he holds up his little feet 
 with a smile of triumph." I answer, It must be remembered 
 that Poppie had long passed the age when such interest indi- 
 cates natural development, and therefore she was out of the 
 natural track of the human being, and a return to that track, 
 indicating an awakening of the nature that was in her, may 
 well be called a sign of redemption. And with a delicate in- 
 stinct of his own, nourished to this particular manifestation by 
 his trade, the tailor detected the interest shown in the doll by 
 Poppie, as a most hopeful sign, and set himself in the midst 
 of his work to get a dress ready for her, such as she would like. 
 Accustomed, however, only to work in cloth, and upon male 
 subjects, the result was, to say the least of it, remarkable— al- 
 together admirable in Poppie's eyes, though somewhat strange 
 in those of others. She appeared one day in a scarlet jacket, 
 of fine cloth, trimmed with black, which fitted her like her 
 skin, and, to complete the dress, in a black skirt, likewise of 
 cloth, which, however picturesque and accordant with the 
 style of Poppie's odd beauty, was at least somewhat peculiar 
 and undesirable in a city like London, which persecutes men's 
 tastes if it leaves their convictions free. 
 
 This dress Mr. Spelt had got ready in view of a contem- 
 plated walk with Poppie. He was going to take her to High- 
 gate on a Sunday morning, with his Bible in his pocket. I 
 have already said that he was an apparent anomaly, this Mr. 
 Spelt, loving his New Testament, and having no fancy for 
 going to church. How this should come about I hardly under- 
 stand. Not that I do not know several instances of it in most 
 excellent men, but not in his stratum. Yet what was his 
 stratum ? The Spirit of God teaches men in a thousand ways, 
 and Mr. Spelt knew some of the highest truths better than 
 nine out of ten clergymen, I venture to say. Yet Mr. Spelt 
 
264 Guild Court 
 
 was inwardly reproached that he did not go to church, and 
 made the attempt several times, with the result that he doubted 
 the truth of the whole thing for half the week after. Some 
 church-going reader must not condemn him at least for pre- 
 ferring Highgate to the churchyard gate. 
 
 It was a bright frosty morning, full of life and spirit, when 
 the father and daughter — for thus we accept the willful con- 
 viction of the tailor, and say no more about it— set out for 
 Highgate. Poppie was full of spirits, too frill for her father's 
 comfort, for, every time she drew her hand from his, and 
 danced away sideways or in front, he feared lest he had seen 
 the last of her, and she would never more return to lay her 
 hand in his. On one of these occasions, it was to dart a hun- 
 dred yards in advance upon another little girl, who was list- 
 lessly standing at a crossing, take the broom from her hand, 
 and begin to sweep vigorously. Nor did she cease sweeping 
 till she had made the crossing clean, by which time her father 
 had come up. She held out her hand to him, received in it a 
 ready penny, and tossed it to the girl. Then she put her hand 
 in his again, and trotted along with him, excited and sedate 
 both at once. 
 
 "Would you like to sweep a crossing, Poppie ?" asked he. 
 
 "Wouldn't I just, daddie ? I should get no end o' ha'- 
 pence." 
 
 " What would you do with them when you got them ? " 
 
 " Give them to poor girls. I don't want them, you see, 
 now I'm a lady." 
 
 " What makes a lady of you, then ?" 
 
 " I've got a father of my own, all to myself — that makes a 
 lady of me, I suppose. Anyhow I know I am a lady now. 
 Look at my jacket." 
 
 I do not know that Mr. Spelt thought that her contempt of 
 money, or rather want of faith in it, went a good way to make 
 her a very peculiar lady indeed ; but he did think that he 
 would buy her a broom the first day he saw the attraction of 
 the streets grow too strong for Guild Court. 
 
 This day, things did not go quite to the tailor's mind. He 
 took Poppie to a little public-house which he had known for 
 many years, for it was kept by a cousin of his. There he or- 
 dered, his half -pint of beer, carried it with him to a little ar- 
 bor in the garden, now getting very bare of its sheltering 
 leaves, sat down with Poppie, pulled out his Bible, and began 
 to read to her. But he could not get her to mind him. Ev- 
 ery other moment she was up and out of the arbor, now after 
 
Poppie Chooses a Profession. 265 
 
 one thing, now after another ; now it was a spider busily roll- 
 ing up a fly in his gluey weft ; now it was a chicken escaped 
 from the hen-house, and scratching about as if it preferred find- 
 ing its own living even in an irregular fashion ; and now a 
 bird of the air that sowed not nor reaped, and yet was taken 
 care of. 
 
 "Come along, Poppie," said her father; "I want you to 
 listen. " 
 
 "Yes^ daddie," Poppie would answer, returning instantly; 
 but in a moment, ere a sentence was finished, she would be 
 half across the garden. He gave it up in despair. 
 
 "Why ain't you reading, daddie? "she said, after one of 
 these excursions. 
 
 " Because you won't listen to a word of it, Poppie." 
 
 "Oh ! yes ; here I am," she said. 
 
 "Come, then ; I will teach you to read." 
 
 "Yes," said Poppie, and was off after another sparrow. 
 
 "Do you know that God sees you, Poppie ?" asked Mr. 
 Spelt. 
 
 " I don't mind," answered Poppie. 
 
 He sighed and closed his book, drank the last of his half- 
 pint of beer, and rose to go. Poppie seemed to feel that she 
 had displeased him, for she followed without a word. They 
 went across the fields to Hampstead, and then across more 
 fields to the Finchley Eoad. In passing the old church, the 
 deeper notes of the organ reached their ears. 
 
 " There," said Poppie ; "I suppose that's God making his 
 thunder. Ain't it, daddie ? " 
 
 " No. It's not that," answered Spelt. 
 
 " It's there he keeps it, anyhow," said Poppie. " I've heard 
 it coming out many a time." 
 
 "Was you never in one o' them churches?" asked her 
 father. 
 
 " No," answered Poppie. 
 
 " Would you like to go ? " he asked again, with the hope 
 that something might take hold of her. 
 
 "If you went with me," she said. 
 
 Now Mr. Spelt had heard of Mr. Fuller from Mr. Kitely, 
 and had been once to hear him preach. He resolved to take 
 Poppie to his church that evening. 
 
 My reader will see that the child had already made some 
 progress. She talked at least. How this began I cannot ex- 
 plain. No fresh sign of thought or of conscience in a child 
 comes into my notice but I feel it like a miracle — a something 
 
266 . Guild Court. 
 
 that cannot be accounted for save in attributing it to a great 
 Thought that can account for it. 
 
 They got upon an omnibus, to Poppie's great delight, and 
 rode back into the city. After they had had some tea they 
 went*to the evening service, where they saw Lucy, and Mattie 
 with her father. Mattie was very devout, and listened even 
 when she could not understand ; Poppie only stared, and 
 showed by her restlessness that she wanted to be out again. 
 When they were again in the street she asked just one 
 question : " Why did Jesus Christ put on that ugly black 
 thing ? " 
 
 " That wasn't Jesus Christ," said Mattie, with a little Phar- 
 isaical horror. 
 
 " Oh ! wasn't it ? " said Poppie, in a tone of disappointment. 
 "I thought it was." 
 
 " Oh, Poppie, Poppie ! " said poor Mr. Spelt ; " haven't I 
 told you twenty times that Jesus Christ was the Son of God ? " 
 
 But he might have told her a thousand times. Poppie could 
 not recall what she had no apprehension of when she heard it. 
 What was Mr. Spelt to do ? He had tried and tried, but he 
 had got no idea into her yet. But Poppie had no objection 
 either to religion in general, or to any dogma whatever in par- 
 ticular. It was simply that she stood in no relation of con- 
 sciousness toward it or any part or phrase of it. Even Mattie's 
 attempts resulted in the most grotesque conceptions and fan- 
 cies. But that she was willing to be taught, an instance which 
 soon followed will show. 
 
 Her restlessness increasing, and her father dreading lest she 
 should be carried away by some sudden impulse of lawlessness, 
 he bought her a broom one day — the best he could find, of 
 course — and told her she might, if she pleased, go and sweep 
 a crossing. Poppie caught at the broom, and vanished without 
 a word. Not till she was gone beyond recall did her father 
 bethink himself that the style of her dress was scarcely ac- 
 cordant with the profession she was about to assume. She 
 was more like a child belonging to a traveling theater than 
 any other. He remembered, too, that crossing-sweepers are 
 exceedingly tenacious of their rights, and she might get into 
 trouble. He could not keep quiet ; his work made no prog- 
 ress ; and at last he yielded to his anxiety and went out to 
 look for her. But he wandered without success, lost half his 
 day, and returned disconsolate. 
 
 At their dinner-hour Poppie came home ; but, alas ! with 
 her brilliant jacket nearly as dirty as her broom, the appear- 
 
Poppie Chooses a Profession. 267 
 
 ance of which certainly indicated work. Spelt stooped as 
 usual, but hesitated to lift her to his nest. 
 
 " Oh, Poppie," he expostulated, " what a mess you've made 
 of yourself ! " 
 
 " 'Tain't me, daddie," she answered. " It's them nasty boys 
 would throw dirt at me. 'Twasn't their crossing I took — they 
 hadn't no call to chivy me. But I give it them." 
 
 "What did you do, Poppie?" asked her father, a little 
 anxiously. 
 
 " I looks up at St. Pauls's, and I says, ' Please, Jesus Christ, 
 help me to give it 'em.' And then I flies at 'em with my 
 broom, and I knocks one o' them down, and a cart went over 
 his leg, and he's took to the 'ospittle. I believe his leg's 
 broke." 
 
 " Oh, Poppie ! And didn't they say anything to you ? I 
 wonder they didn't take you up." 
 
 "They couldn't find me. I thought Jesus Christ would 
 help me. He did." 
 
 What was Mr. Spelt to say ? He did not know ; and, there- 
 fore, unlike some, who would teach others even when they 
 have nothing to impart, he held his peace. But he took 
 good care not to let her go out in that dress any more. 
 
 " Didn't you get any ha'pence ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes. I gave 'em all to the boy. I wouldn't if the cart 
 hadn't gone over him, though. Catch me ! " 
 
 " Why did you give them to him ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. I wanted to." 
 
 " Did he take them ? " 
 
 "Course he did. Why shouldn't he ? I'd ha' tookt 'em." 
 
 Mr. Spelt resolved at last to consult Mr. Fuller about the 
 child. He went to see him, and told him all he knew con- 
 cerning her. To his surprise, however, when he came to her 
 onset with the broom, Mr. Fuller burst into a fit of the hearti- 
 est laughter. Spelt stood with his mouth open, staring at the 
 sacred man. Mr. Fuller saw his amazement. 
 
 " You don't think it was very wicked of your poor child to 
 pray to God and shoulder her broom, do you ? " he said, still 
 laughing. 
 
 " We're told to forgive our enemies, sir. And Poppie prayed 
 against hers." 
 
 " Yes, yes. You and I have heard that, and, I hope, learned 
 it. But Poppie, if she has heard it, certainly does not under- 
 stand it yet. Do you ever read the Psalms ? " 
 
 "Yes, sometimes. Some of them pretty often, sir." 
 
268 Guild Court 
 
 "You will remember, then, how David prays against his 
 enemies ? " 
 . "Yes, sir. It's rather awful, sometimes." 
 
 " What do you make of it ? Was it wicked in David to do so ? " 
 
 "I daren't say that, sir." 
 
 " Then why should you think it was in Poppie ? " 
 
 "I think perhaps David didn't know better." 
 
 " And you think Poppie ought to know better than David ?" 
 
 "Why, you see, sir, if I'm right, as I fancy, David lived 
 before our Saviour came into the world to teach us better." 
 
 " And so you think Poppie more responsible than a man 
 like David, who loved God as not one Christian in a million, 
 notwithstanding that the Saviour is come, has learned to love 
 him yet ? A man may love God, and pray against his enemies. 
 Mind you, I'm not sure that David hated them. I know he 
 did not love them, but I am not sure that he hated them. 
 And I am sure Poppie did not hate hers, for she gave the little 
 rascal her coppers, you know." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said Spelt, grateful to the heart's core 
 that Mr. Fuller stood up for Poppie. 
 
 "Do you think God heard David's prayers against his ene- 
 mies ? " resumed Mr. Fuller. 
 
 "He gave him victory over them, anyhow." 
 
 "And God gave Poppie the victory, too. I think God 
 heard Poppie's prayer. And Poppie will be the better for it. 
 She'll pray for a different sort of thing before she's done pray- 
 ing. It is a good thing to pray to God for anything. It is" a 
 grand thing to begin to pray." 
 
 "I wish you would try and teach her something, sir. I 
 have tried and tried, and I don't know what to do more. I 
 don't seem to get anything into her." 
 
 "You're quite wrong, Mr. Spelt. You have taught her. 
 She prayed to God before she fell upon her enemies with her 
 broom." 
 
 "But I do want her to believe. I confess to you, sir, I've 
 never been much of a church-goer, but I do believe in Christ." 
 
 " It doesn't much matter whether you go to church or not 
 if you believe in him. Tell me how you came to hear or know 
 about him without going to church." 
 
 "My wife was a splendid woman, sir — Poppie's mother, 
 but — you see, sir — she wasn't — she didn't — she was a bit of a 
 disappointment to me." 
 
 "Yes. And what then?" 
 
 "I took to reading the Bible, sir." 
 
Poppie Chooses a Profession. 269 
 
 "Why did you do that ?" 
 
 "I don't know, sir. But somehow, bein' unhappy, and 
 knowin' no way out of it, I took to the Bible, sir. I don't 
 know why or wherefore, but that's the fact. And when I 
 began to read, I began to think about it. And from then I 
 began to think about everything that came in my way — 
 a tryin' to get things all square in my own head, you know, sir." 
 
 Mr. Fuller was delighted with the man, and having prom- 
 ised to think what he could do for Poppie, they parted. And 
 here I may mention that Spelt rarely missed a Sunday morn- 
 ing at Mr. Fuller's church after this. For he had found a 
 fellow-man who could teach him, and that the Bible was not 
 the sole means used by God to make his children grow : their 
 brothers and sisters must have a share in it too. 
 
 Mr. Fuller set about making Poppie's acquaintance. And 
 first he applied to Mattie, in order to find out what kind of 
 thing Poppie liked. Mattie told him lollipops. But Mr. Ful- 
 ler preferred attacking the town of Mansoul at the gate of one 
 of the nobler senses, if possible. He tried Lucy, who told him 
 about the bit of red glass and the buttons. So Mr. Fuller 
 presented his friendship's offering to Poppie in the shape of 
 the finest kaleidoscope he could purchase. It was some time 
 before she could be taught to shut one eye and look with the 
 other ; but when at length she succeeded in getting a true 
 vision of the wonders in the inside of the thing, she danced 
 and shouted for joy. This confirmed Mr. Fuller's opinion 
 that it was through her eyes, and not through her ears, that 
 ■ he must approach Poppie's heart. She had never been accus- 
 tomed to receive secondary impressions : all her impressions, 
 hitherto, had come immediately through the senses. Mr. 
 Fuller therefore concluded that he could reach her mind more 
 readily through the seeing of her eyes than such hearing of the 
 ears as had to be converted by the imagination into visual 
 forms before it could make any impression. He must get her 
 to ask questions by showing her eyes what might suggest them. 
 And Protestantism having deprived the Church of almost all 
 means of thus appealing to the eye as an inlet of truth, he was 
 compelled to supply the deficiency as he best could. I do not 
 say that Mr. Fuller would have filled his church with gorgeous 
 paintings as things in general, and artists in especial, are. 
 He shrunk in particular from the more modern representations 
 of our Lord given upon canvas, simply because he felt them to 
 be so unlike him, showing him either as effeminately soft, or 
 as pompously condescending ; but if he could have filled his 
 
270 Guild Court. 
 
 church with pictures in which the strength exalted the tender- 
 ness, and the majesty was glorified by the homeliness, he 
 would have said that he did not see why painted windows 
 should be more consistent with Protestantism than painted 
 walls. Lacking such aids, he must yet provide as he could 
 that kind of instruction which the early Church judged need- 
 ful for those of its members who were in a somewhat similar 
 condition to that of Poppie. He therefore began searching 
 the print-shops, till he got together about a dozen of such 
 engravings, mostly from the old masters, as he thought would 
 represent our Lord in a lovable aspect, and make the child 
 want to have them explained. For Poppie had had no big 
 family Bible with pictures, to pore over in her homeless child- 
 hood ; and now she had to go back to such a beginning. 
 
 By this time he had so far ingratiated himself with her that 
 she was pleased to accompany Mattie to tea with him, and 
 then the pictures made their appearance. This took place 
 again and again, till the pictures came to be looked for as part 
 of the entertainment — Mr. Fuller adding one now and then, 
 as he was fortunate in his search, for he never passed a fresh 
 print-shop without making inquiry after such engravings. 
 
 Meantime Poppie went out crossing-sweeping by fits and 
 starts. Her father neither encouraged nor prevented her. 
 
 One afternoon of a cold day, when the wind from the east 
 was blowing the darkness over the city, and driving all who 
 had homes and could go to them home for comfort, they were 
 walking hand in hand in Farringdon Street — a very bleak, 
 open place. Poppie did not feel the cold nearly so much as 
 her father, but she did blow upon the fingers of her disengaged 
 hand now and then notwithstanding. 
 
 "Have a potato to warm you, Poppie," said her father, as 
 they came up to one of those little steam-engines for cooking 
 potatoes, which stand here and there on the edges of the pave- 
 ments about London, blowing a fierce cloud of steam from 
 their little funnels, so consoling to the half-frozen imagination. 
 
 "Jolly !" cried Poppie, running up to the man, and laying 
 her hand on the greasy sleeve of his velveteen coat. 
 
 "I say, Jim, give us a ha'porth," she said. 
 
 "Why, 'tain't never you, Poppie ?" returned the man. 
 
 "Why ain't it ?" said Poppie. "Here's my father. I've 
 found one, and a good 'un, Jim." 
 
 The man looked at Poppie's dress, then at Mr. Spelt, touched 
 the front of his cloth cap, and said : 
 
 " Good evenin', guvnor." Then in an undertone he added. 
 
Poppie Chooses a Profession. 271 
 
 " I say, guvnor, you never did better in your life than takin' 
 that 'ere pretty creetur off the streets. You look well arter 
 her. She's a right good un, / know. Bless you, she ain't no 
 knowledge what wickedness means." 
 
 In the warmth of his heart, Mr. Spelt seized the man's 
 hand, and gave it a squeeze of gratitude. 
 
 " Come, Jim, ain't your taters done yet ?" said Poppie. 
 
 "Bustin' o' mealiness," answered Jim, throwing back the 
 lid, and taking out a potato, which he laid in the hollow of his 
 left hand. Then he caught up an old and I fear dirty knife, 
 and split the potato lengthways. Then, with the same knife, 
 he took a piece of butter from somewhere about the appara- 
 tus — though how it was not oil instead of butter I cannot 
 think — laid it into the cleft as if it had been a trowelful of 
 mortar, gave it a top-dressing of salt and a shake of the pepper- 
 box, and handed it to Poppie. 
 
 " Same for you, sir ?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, I don't mind if I do have one," answered Spelt. 
 " Are they good ? " 
 
 " The best and the biggest at the price in all London," said 
 Jim. "Taste one," he went on, as he prepared another, 
 "and if you like to part with it then, I'll take it back and eat 
 it myself." 
 
 Spelt paid for the potatoes — the sum of three ha'pence — 
 and Poppie, bidding Jim good-night, trotted away by his side, 
 requiring both her hands now for the management of her 
 potato, at which she was more expert than her father, for he, 
 being nice in his ways, found the butter and the peel together 
 troublesome. 
 
 "I say, ain't it jolly ?" remarked Poppie. "I call that a 
 good trade now." 
 
 "Would you like to have one o' them things and sell hot 
 potatoes ? " asked her father. 
 
 "Just wouldn't I?" 
 
 "As well as sweeping a crossing ?" 
 
 "A deal better," answered Poppie. "You see, daddie, it's 
 more respectable — a deal. It takes money to buy a thing like 
 that. And I could wear my red jacket then. Nobody could 
 say anything then, for the thing would be my own, and a 
 crossing belongs to everybody." 
 
 Mr. Spelt turned the matter over and over in his mind, and 
 thought it might be a good plan for giving Poppie some lib- 
 erty, and yet keeping her from roving about everywhere with- 
 out object or end. So he began at once to work for a potato- 
 
272 Guild Court. 
 
 steamer for Poppie, and, in the course of a fortnight, managed 
 to buy her one. Great was Poppie's delight. 
 
 She went out regularly in the dusk to the corner of Bagot 
 Street. Her father carried the machine for her, and leaving 
 her there with it, returned to his work. In following her new 
 occupation, the child met with little annoyance, for this was a 
 respectable part of the city, and the police knew her, and were 
 inclined to protect her. One of her chief customers was Mr. 
 Spelt himself, who would always once, sometimes twice, of an 
 evening, lay down his work, scramble from his perch, and, 
 running to the corner of the street, order a potato, ask her 
 how she was getting on, pay his ha'penny or penny, and hurry 
 back with the hot handful to console him for the absence of 
 his darling. Having eaten it, chuckling and rejoicing, he 
 would attack his work with vigor so renewed as soon to make 
 up for the loss of time involved in procuring it. . But keeping 
 out of view the paternal consumption, Poppie was in a fair 
 way of paying all the expense of the cooking apparatus. Mr. 
 and Miss Kitely were good customers, too, and everything 
 looked well for father and daughter. 
 
 Every night, at half-past nine, her father was by her side to 
 carry the "murphy-buster" — that was Jim's name for it — 
 home. There was no room for it in the shop, of course. He 
 took it up the three flights of stairs to Poppie's own room ; 
 and there, with three-quarters of a pint of beer to wash them 
 down, they finished the remaining potatoes, " ivith butter, 
 with pepper, and with salt," as Poppie would exclaim, in the 
 undisguised delight of her sumptuous fare. Sometimes there 
 were none left, but that gave only a variety to their pleasures ; 
 for as soon as the engine, as Mr. Spelt called it, was deposited 
 in safety, they set out to buy their supper. And great were 
 the consultations to which, in Mr. Spelt's desire to draw out 
 the choice and judgment of his daughter, this proceeding 
 gave rise. At one time it was a slice of beef or ham that was 
 resolved upon, at another a bit of pudding, sometimes a couple 
 of mutton-pies or sausages, with bread ad libitum. There was 
 a cookshop in the neighborhood, whose window was all be- 
 clouded with jets of steam, issuing as from a volcanic soil, and 
 where all kinds of hot dainties were ready for the fortunate 
 purchaser : thither the two would generally repair, and hold 
 their consultation outside the window. Then, the desirable 
 thing once agreed upon, came the delight^of buying it, always 
 left to Poppie ; of carrying it home, still left to Poppie ; of 
 eating it, not left to Poppie, but heightened by the sympa- 
 
Thomas's Mother. 273 
 
 thetic participation of her father. Followed upon all, the 
 chapter in the Bible, the Lord's Prayer, bed, and dreams of 
 Mrs. Flanaghan and her gin-bottle, or, perhaps, of Lucy and 
 her first kiss. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Thomas's mother. 
 
 Meantime Mrs. Worboise had taken to her bed, and not 
 even Mr. Simon could comfort her. The mother's heart now 
 spoke louder than her theology. 
 
 She and her priest belonged to a class more numerous than 
 many of my readers would easily believe, a great part of whose 
 religion consists in arrogating to themselves exclusive privi- 
 leges, and another great part in defending their supposed 
 rights from the intrusion of others. The thing does not look 
 such to them, of course, but the repulsiveness of their behavior 
 to those who cannot use the same religious phrases, indicating 
 the non-adoption of their particular creed, compels others so 
 to conclude concerning their religion. Doubtless they would 
 say for themselves, "We do but as God has taught us ; we be- 
 lieve but as he has told us ; we exclude whom he has excluded, 
 and admit whom he has admitted." But, alas for that people ! 
 the god of whose worship is altogether such a one as themselves, 
 or worse ; whose god is paltry, shallow-minded and full of party 
 spirit ; who sticks to a thing because he has said it, accepts a man 
 because of his assent, and condemns him because of his opinions ; 
 who looks no deeper than a man's words to find his thoughts, 
 and no deeper than his thoughts to find his will ! True, they 
 are in the hands of another God than that of their making, 
 and such offenses must come ; yet, alas for them ! for they are 
 of the hardest to redeem into the childhood of the kingdom. 
 
 I do not say that Mrs. Worboise began to see her sin as 
 such, when the desolation of Thomas's disappearance fell upon 
 her, but the atmosphere of her mind began to change, and a 
 spring-season of mother's feelings to set in. How it came 
 about I cannot explain. I as well as any of my readers might 
 have felt as if Mrs. Worboise were almost beyond redemption ; 
 but it was not so. Her redemption came in the revival of a 
 long suppressed motherhood. Her husband's hardness and 
 want of sympathy with her sufferings had driven her into the 
 18 
 
274 Guild Court. 
 
 arms of a party of exclusive Christians, whose brotherhood 
 consisted chiefly, as I have already described it, in denying the 
 great brotherhood, and refusing the hand of those who fol- 
 lowed not with them. They were led by one or two persons of 
 some social position, whose condescending assumption of supe- 
 riority over those that were without was as offensive as absurd, 
 , and whose weak brains were their only excuse. The worst 
 thing of this company was that it was a company. In many 
 holding precisely the same opinions with them, those opinions 
 are comparatively harmless, because they are more directly 
 counteracted by the sacred influences of God's world and the 
 necessities of things, which are very needful to prevent, if pos- 
 sible, self-righteous Christians from sending themselves to a 
 deeper hell than any they denounce against their neigh- 
 bors. But when such combine themselves into an esoteric 
 school, they foster, as in an oven or a forcing-pit, all the 
 worst distinctions for the sake of which they separate them- 
 selves from others. All that was worst in poor Mrs. Wor- 
 boise was cherished by the companionship of those whose chief 
 anxiety was to save their souls, and who thus ran the great risk 
 set forth by the Saviour of losing them. They treated the words 
 of the Bible like talismans or spells, the virtue of which lay in 
 the words, and in the assent given to them, or at most, the 
 feelings that could be conjured up by them, not in the doing 
 of the things they presupposed or commanded. But there 
 was one thing that did something to keep her fresh and pre- 
 vent her from withering into a dry tree of supposed orthodoxy, 
 the worst dryness of all, because it is the least likely to yield to 
 any fresh burst of living sap from the forgotten root — that was 
 her anxiety to get her son within the " garden walled around," 
 and the continual disappointment of her efforts to that end. 
 But now that the shock of his flight had aggravated all the 
 symptoms of her complaint, which was a serious one though 
 slow in the movement of its progressive cycles, now that she 
 was confined to her bed and deprived of the small affairs that 
 constituted the dull excitements of her joyless life, her 
 imagination, roused by a reaction from the first grief, 
 continually presented to her the form of her darling 
 in the guise of the prodigal, his handsome face worn 
 with hunger and wretchedness, or still worse, with dissipation 
 and disease ; and she began to accuse herself bitterly for hav- 
 ing alienated his affections from herself * by too assiduously 
 forcing upon his attention that which was distasteful to him. 
 She said to herself that it was easy for an old woman like her, 
 
Thomas's Mother. 275 
 
 who had been disappointed in everything, and whose life and 
 health were a wreck, to turn from the vanities of the world ; 
 but how could her young Thomas, in the glory of youth, be 
 expected to see things as she saw them ? How could he flee 
 from the wrath to come when he had as yet felt no breath of 
 that wrath on his cheek ? She ought to have loved him, and 
 borne with him, and smiled upon him, and never let him 
 fancy that his presence was a pain to her because he could not 
 take her ways for his. Add to this certain suspicions that 
 arose in her mind from what she considered unfriendly neglect 
 on the part of the chief man of their chosen brotherhood, and 
 from the fact that her daughter Amy had already wrought a 
 questionable change on Mr. Simon, having persuaded him to 
 accompany her — not to the theatre at all — only to the Gallery 
 of Illustration, and it will be seen that everything tended to 
 turn the waters of her heart back into the old channel with the 
 flow of a spring-tide toward her son. She wept and prayed — 
 better tears and better prayers because her love was stronger. 
 She humbled her heart, proud of its acceptance with God, be- 
 fore a higher idea of that God. She began to doubt whether 
 she was more acceptable in his sight than other people. There 
 must be some who were, but she could not be one of them. 
 Instead of striving after assurance, as they called it, she began 
 to shrink from every feeling that lessened her humility ; for 
 she found that when she was most humble then she could best 
 pray for her son. Not that had her assurance rested in the 
 love of God it would ever have quenched her prayer ; but her 
 assurance had been taught to rest uj3on her consciousness of 
 faith, which, unrealized, tended to madness — realized, to spir- 
 itual pride. She lay thus praying for him, and dreaming 
 about him, and hoping that he would return before she died, 
 when she would receive him as son had never before been 
 welcomed to his mother's bosom. 
 
 • .But Mr. Worboise's dry, sand-locked bay was open to the 
 irruption of no such waters from the great deep of the eternal 
 love. Narrow and poor as it was, Mrs. Worboise's religion 
 had yet been as a little wedge to keep her door open to better 
 things, when they should arrive and claim an entrance, as 
 they had now done. But her husband's heart was full of 
 money and the love of it. How to get money, how not to 
 spend it, how to make it grow — these were the chief cares that 
 filled his heart. His was not the natural anxiety the objects 
 of which, though not the anxiety, were justified by the Lord 
 when he said, "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of 
 
276 Guild Court 
 
 these things." It was not what he needed that filled his mind 
 with care, but what he did not need, and never would need ; 
 nay, what other people needed, and what was not his to take — 
 not his in God's sight, whatever the law might say. And to 
 God's decision everything must come at last, for that is the 
 only human verdict of things, the only verdict which at last 
 will satisfy the whole jury of humanity. But I am wrong ; 
 this was not all that filled his heart. One demon generally 
 opens the door to another — they are not jealous of exclusive 
 possession of the human thrall. The heart occupied by the 
 love of money will be only too ready to fall a prey to other 
 evils ; for selfishness soon branches out in hatred and injustice. 
 The continued absence of his son, which he attributed still to 
 the Boxalls, irritated more than alarmed him ; but if some- 
 times a natural feeling of dismay broke in upon him, it only 
 roused yet more the worst feelings of his heart against Lucy 
 and her grandmother. Every day to which Thomas's absence 
 extended itself, his indignation sank deeper rather than rose 
 higher. Every day he vowed that, if favored by fortune, he 
 would make them feel in bitterness how deeply they had in- 
 jured him. To the same account he entered all the annoyance 
 given him by the well-meaning Mr. Sargent, who had only as 
 yet succeeded in irritating him without gaining the least 
 advantage over him. His every effort in resistance of probate 
 failed. The decision of the court was that Mr. Boxall, a 
 strong, healthy, well-seasoned, middle-aged man, was far more 
 likely to have outlived all his daughters, than any one of them 
 have outlived him ; therefore Mr. Worboise obtained probate 
 and entered into possession. 
 
 Although Mr. Sargent could not but have at least more 
 than doubted the result, he felt greatly discomfited at it. He 
 went straight to Mr. Morgenstern's office to communicate his 
 failure and the foiling of the liberality which had made the 
 attempt possible. Mr. Morgenstern only smiled, and wrote him 
 a check for the costs. Of course, being a Jew, he did not en- 
 joy parting with his money for nothing — no Christian would 
 have minded it in the least. Seriously, Mr. Morgenstern did 
 throw half his cigar into the fire from annoyance. But his 
 first words were : 
 
 " What's to be done for those good people, then, Sargent ? " 
 
 "We must wait till we see. I think I told you that the old 
 
 lady has a claim upon the estate, which, most unfortunately, she 
 
 cannot establish. Now, however, that this cormorant has had 
 
 his own way, he will perhaps be inclined to be generous ; for 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 277 
 
 justice must be allowed in this case to put on the garb of 
 generosity, else she will not appear in public, I can tell you. 
 I mean to make this one attempt more. I confess to consider- 
 able misgiving, however. To-morrow^ before his satisfaction 
 has evaporated, I will make it, and let you know the result." 
 By this time Mr. Morgenstern had lighted another cigar. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLI. 
 
 lucy's new trouble. 
 
 Mr. Sargent's nest application to Mr. Worboise, made on 
 the morning after the decision of the court in his favor, shared 
 the fate of all his preceding attempts. Mr. Worboise smiled it 
 off. There was more inexorableness expressed in his smile 
 than in another's sullen imprecation. The very next morning 
 Mrs. Boxall was served with notice to quit at the approaching 
 quarter-day; for she had no agreement, and paid no rent, 
 consequently she was tenant only on sufferance. And now 
 Mr. Stopper's behavior toward them underwent a considerable 
 change ; not that he was in the smallest degree rude to them ; 
 but, of course, there was now no room for that assumption of 
 the confidential by which he had sought to establish the most 
 friendly relations between himself and the probable proprietors 
 of the business in which he hojoed to secure his position, not 
 merely as head-clerk, but as partner. The door between the 
 house and the office was once more carefully locked, and the 
 key put in his drawer, and having found how hostile his new 
 master was to the inhabitants of the house, he took care to 
 avoid every suspicion of intimacy with them. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall's paroxysm of indignant rage when she received 
 the notice to quit was of course as impotent as the bursting of 
 a shell in a mountain of mud. From the first, however, her 
 anger had had this effect, that everybody in the court, down 
 to lowly and lonely Mr. Dolman, the cobbler, knew all the 
 phases of her oppression and injury. Lucy never said a word 
 about it, save to Mr. and Mrs. Morgenstern, whose offer of 
 shelter for herself and her grandmother till they could see 
 what was to be done, she gratefully declined, knowing that 
 her grandmother would die rather than accept such a position. 
 
278 Guild Court. 
 
 " There's nothing left for me in my old age but the work 
 house," said Mrs. Boxall, exhausted by one of her outbursts of 
 fierce vindictive passion against the author of her misfortunes, 
 which, as usual, ended in the few bitter tears that are left to 
 the aged to shed. 
 
 " Grannie, grannie," said Lucy, "don't talk like that. 
 You have been a mother to me. See if I cannot be a daughter 
 to you. I am quite able to keep you and myself too as com- 
 fortable as ever. See if I can't." 
 
 " Nonsense, child. It will be all that you can do to keep 
 yourself ; and I'm not a-going to sit on the neck of a young 
 thing like you, just like a nightmare, and have you wishing 
 me gone from morning to night." 
 
 " I don't deserve that you should say that of me, grannie. 
 But I'm sure you don't think as you say. And as to being 
 able, with Mrs. Morgenstern's recommendation I can get as 
 much teaching as I can undertake. I am pretty sure of that, 
 and you know it will only be paying you back a very little of 
 your own, grannie." 
 
 Before Mrs. Boxall could reply, for she felt reproached for 
 having spoken so to her grand-daughter, there was a tap at the 
 door, and Mr. Kitely entered. 
 
 " Begging your pardon, ladies, and taking the liberty of a 
 neighbor, I made bold not to trouble you by ringing the bell. 
 I've got something to speak about in the way of business." 
 
 So saying, the worthy bookseller, who had no way of doing 
 anything but going at it like a bull, drew a chair near the 
 fire. 
 
 "With your leave, ma'am, it's as easy to speak sitting as 
 standing. So, if you don't object, I'll sit down." 
 
 "Do sit down, Mr. Kitely," said Lucy. "We're glad to 
 see you — though you know we're in a little trouble just at 
 present." 
 
 " I know all about that, and I don't believe there's a creat- 
 ure in the court, down to Mrs. Cook's cat, that isn't ready to 
 fly at that devil's limb of a lawyer. But you see, ma'am, if 
 we was to murder him it wouldn't be no better for you. And 
 what I come to say to you is this : I've got a deal more room 
 on my premises than I want, and it would be a wonderful ac- 
 commodation to me, not to speak of the honor of it, if you 
 would take charge of my little woman for me. I can't inter- 
 fere with her, you know, so as to say she's -not to take care' of 
 me, you know, for that would go nigh to break her little heart ; 
 but if you would come and live there as long as convenient to 
 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 279 
 
 yon, you could get things for yourselves all the same as you 
 does here, only you wouldn't have nothing to be out of pocket 
 for house-room, you know. It would be the making of my 
 poor motherless Mattie." 
 
 "Oh ! we're not going to be so very poor as grannie thinks, 
 Mr. Kitely," said Lucy, trying to laugh, while the old lady sat 
 rocking herself to and. fro and wiping her eyes. " But I 
 should like to move into your house, for there's nowhere I 
 should be so much at home." 
 
 " Lucy ! " said her grandmother, warningly. 
 
 " Stop a bit, grannie. Mr. Kitely's a real friend in need ; 
 and if I had not such a regard .for him as I have, I would take 
 it as it's meant. I'll tell you what, Mr. Kitely ; it only comes 
 to this, that I have got to work a little harder, and not lead 
 such an idle life with my grannie here." 
 
 " You idle, miss ! " interrupted the bookseller. " I never 
 see any one more like the busy bee than yourself, only that you 
 was always a-wastin' of your honey on other people ; and that 
 they say ain't the way of the bees." 
 
 "But you won't hear me out, Mr. Kitely. It would be a 
 shame of me to go and live in anybody's house for nothing, 
 seeing I am quite able to pay for it. Now, if you have room in 
 your house — " 
 
 " Miles of it," cried the bookseller. 
 
 "I don't know where it can be, then; for it's as full of 
 books from the ground to the garret as — as — as my darling old 
 grannie here is of independence. " 
 
 " Don't you purtend to know more about my house, miss, 
 than I does myself. Just you say the word, and before quar- 
 ter-day you'll find two rooms fit for your use and at your ser- 
 vice. What I owe to you, miss, in regard of my little one, 
 nothing I can do can ever repay. They're a bad lot them 
 Worboises — son and father ! and that I saw — leastways in the 
 young one." 
 
 This went with a sting to poor Lucy's heart. She kept hop- 
 ing and hoping, and praying to God : but her little patch of 
 blue sky was so easily overclouded ! But she kept to the mat- 
 ter before her. 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Kitely ; you ought to know best. Now for 
 my side of the bargain. I told you already that I would rather 
 be in your house than anywhere else, if I must leave this dear 
 old place. And if you will let me pay a reasonable sum, as 
 lodgings go in this court, we'll regard the matter as settled. 
 And then I can teach Mattie a little, you know." 
 
280 ' Guild Court. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall did not put in a word. The poor old lady was 
 beginning to weary of everything, and for the first time in her 
 life began to allow her affairs to be meddled with — as she 
 would no doubt even now consider it. And the sound of pay- 
 ing for it was very satisfactory. I suspect part of Lucy's de- 
 sire to move no farther than the entrance of the court, came 
 from the hope that Thomas would some day or other turn up 
 in that neighborhood, and perhaps this emboldened her to 
 make the experiment of taking the matter so much into her 
 own hands. Mr. Kitely scratched his head, and looked a little 
 annoyed. 
 
 "Well, miss," he said, pausing between every few words, a 
 most unusual thing with him, "that's not a bit of what I 
 meant when I came up the court here. But that's better than 
 nothing — for Mattie and me, I mean. So if you'll be reason- 
 able about the rent, we'll easily manage all the rest. Mind 
 you, miss, it'll be all clear profit to me." 
 
 ■" It'll cost you a good deal to get the rooms put in order as 
 you say, you know, Mr. Kitely." 
 
 "Not much, miss. I know how to set about things better 
 than most people. Bless you, I can buy wall-papers for half 
 what you'd pay for them now. I know the trade. I've been 
 a-most everything in my day. Why, miss, I lived at one time 
 such a close shave with dying of hunger, that, after I was mar- 
 ried, I used to make picture frames and then pawn my tools 
 to get glass to put into them, and then carry them about to 
 sell, and when I had sold 'em I bought more gold-beading and 
 redeemed my tools, and did it all over again. Bless you ! I 
 know what it is to be hard up, if anybody ever did. I once 
 walked from Bristol to Newcastle upon f ourpence. It won't 
 cost me much to make them rooms decent. And then there's 
 the back parlor at your service. I shan't plague you much, 
 only to take a look at my princess now and then." 
 
 After another interview or two between Lucy and Mr. 
 Kitely, the matter was arranged, and the bookseller proceeded 
 to get his rooms ready, which involved chiefly a little closer 
 packing, and the getting rid of a good deal of almost unsalable 
 rubbish, which had accumulated from the purchase of lots. 
 
 Meantime another trial was gathering for poor Lucy. Mr. 
 Sargent had met Mr. Wither, and had learned from him all 
 he knew about Thomas. Mr. Wither was certain that every- 
 thing was broken off between Lucy and him. It was not only 
 known to all at the office that Thomas had disappeared, but it 
 was perfectly known as well that for some time he had been 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 281 
 
 getting into bad ways, and his disappearance was necessarily 
 connected with this fact, though no one but Mr. Stopper knew 
 the precise occasion of his evanishment, and this he was, if pos- 
 sible, more careful than ever to conceal. Not even to the lad's 
 father did he communicate what he knew : he kept this as a 
 power over his new principal. From what he heard, Mr. Sar- 
 gent resolved to see if he could get anything out of Molken, 
 and called upon him for that purpose. But the German soon 
 convinced him that, although he had been intimate with 
 Thomas, he knew nothing about him now. The last informa- 
 tion he could give him was that he had staked and lost his 
 watch and a lady's ring that he wore ; that he had gone away 
 and returned with money ; and, having gained considerably, 
 had disappeared and never been heard of again. It was easy 
 for Mr. Sargent to persuade himself that a noble-minded creat- 
 ure like Lucy, having come to know the worthlessness of her 
 lover, had dismissed him forever; and to believe that she 
 would very soon become indifferent to a person so altogether 
 unworthy of her affection. Probably lie was urged yet the 
 more to a fresh essay from the desire of convincing her that 
 his motives in the first case had not been so selfish as accident 
 had made them appear ; nor that his feelings toward her re- 
 mained unaltered notwithstanding the change in her prospects. 
 He therefore kept up his visits, and paid them even more fre- 
 quently now that there was no possible excuse on the score of 
 business. For some time, however, so absorbed were Lucy's 
 thoughts that his attentions gave her no uneasiness. She con- 
 sidered the matter so entirely settled, that no suspicion of the 
 revival of any farther hope in the mind of Mr. Sargent arose 
 to add a fresh trouble to the distress which she was doing all 
 she could to bear patiently. But one day she was suddenly 
 undeceived. Mrs. Boxall had just left the room. 
 
 "Miss Burton," said Mr. Sargent, "I venture to think cir- 
 cumstances may be sufficiently altered to justify me in once 
 more expressing a hope that I may be permitted to regard a 
 nearer friendship as possible between us." 
 
 Lucy started as if she had been hurt. The occurrence was 
 so strange and foreign to all that was in her thoughts, that she 
 had to look all around her, as it were, like a person suddenly 
 awaking in a strange place. Before she could speak, her 
 grandmother reentered. Mr. Sargent went away without any 
 conviction that Lucy's behavior indicated repugnance to his 
 proposal. 
 
 Often it happens that things work together without any con- 
 
282 Guild Court 
 
 certed scheme. Mrs. Morgenstern had easily divined Mr. Sar- 
 gent's feelings, and the very next day began to talk about him 
 to Lucy. But she listened without interest, until Mrs. Mor- 
 genstern touched a chord which awoke a very painful one. 
 For at last her friend had got rather piqued at Lucy's coldness 
 and indifference. 
 
 " I think at least, Lucy, you might take a little interest in 
 the poor fellow, if only from gratitude. A girl may acknowl- 
 edge that feeling without compromising herself. There has 
 Mr. Sargent been wearing himself out for you, lying awake at 
 night, and running about all day, without hope of reward, and 
 you are so taken up with your own troubles that you haven't a 
 thought for the man who has done all that lay in human 
 being's power to turn them aside." 
 
 Could Lucy help comparing this conduct with that of 
 Thomas ? And while she compared it, she could as little help 
 the sudden inroad of the suspicion that Thomas had forsaken 
 her that he might keep well with his father — the man who was 
 driving them, as far as lay in his power, into the abysses of 
 poverty ; and that this disappearance was the only plan he 
 dared to adopt for freeing himself — for doubtless his cowardice 
 would be at least as great in doing her wrong as it had been in 
 refusing to do her right. And she did feel that there was 
 some justice in Mrs. Morgenstern's reproach. For if poor Mr. 
 Sargent was really in love with her, she ought to pity him and 
 feel for him some peculiar tenderness, for the very reason that 
 she could not grant him what he desired. Her strength hav- 
 ing been much undermined of late, she could not hear Mrs. 
 Morgenstern's reproaches without bursting into tears. And 
 then her friend began to comfort her ; but all the time sup- 
 posing that her troubles were only those connected with her 
 reverse of fortune. As Lucy went home, however, a very dif- 
 ferent and terrible thought darted into her mind : " What if it 
 was her duty to listen to Mr. Sargent ! " There seemed no 
 hope for her any more. Thomas had forsaken her utterly. 
 If she could never be happy, ought she not to be the more 
 anxious to make another happy ? Was there any limit to the 
 sacrifice that ought to be made for another — that is of one's 
 self ? for, alas ! it would be to sacrifice no one besides. The 
 thought was indeed a terrible one. 
 
 All the rest of the day her soul was like a drowning creature 
 
 —now getting one breath of hope, now with all the billows and 
 
 waves of despair going over it. The evening passed in constant 
 
 terror, lest Mr. Sargent should appear, and a poor paltry little 
 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 283 
 
 hope grew as the hands of the clock went round, and every 
 moment rendered it less likely that he would come. At length 
 she might go to bed without annoying her grandmother, who, 
 by various little hints she dropped., gave her clearly to under- 
 stand that she expected her to make a good match before long, 
 and so relieve her mind about her at least. 
 
 She went to bed, and fell asleep from very weariness of emo- 
 tion. But presently she started awake again ; and, strange to 
 say, it seemed to be a resolution she had formed in her sleep 
 that brought her awake. It was that she would go to Mr. 
 Fuller, and consult him on the subject that distressed her. 
 After that she slept till the morning. 
 
 She had no lesson to give that day, so as soon as Mr. Fuller's 
 church-bell began to ring, she put on her bonnet. Her grand- 
 mother asked where she was going. She told her she was 
 going to church. 
 
 "I don't like this papist way of going to church of a week- 
 day — at least in the middle of the day, when people ought to 
 be at their work." 
 
 Lucy made no reply ; for, without being one of those half 
 of whose religion consists in abusing the papists, Mrs. Boxall 
 was one of those who would turn from any good thing of 
 which she heard first as done by those whose opinions differed 
 from her own. Nor would it have mitigated her dislike to 
 know that Lucy was going for the purpose of asking advice 
 from Mr. Fuller. She would have denounced that as con- 
 fession, and asked whether it was not more becoming in a 
 young girl to consult her grandmother than go to a priest. 
 Therefore, I say, Lucy kept her own counsel. 
 
 There were twenty or thirty people present when she en- 
 tered St. Amos's ; a grand assembly, if we consider how time 
 and place were haunted — swarming with the dirty little de- 
 mons of money-making and all its attendant beggarly cares 
 and chicaneries — one o'clock in the City of London ! It was 
 a curious psalm they were singing, so quaint and old-fashioned, 
 and so altogether unlike London in the nineteenth century ! — 
 the last in the common version of Tate and Brady. They 
 were beginning the fifth verse when she entered : 
 
 " Let them who joyful hymns compose 
 To cymbals set their songs of praise ; 
 Cymbals of common use, and those 
 That loudly sound on solemn days." 
 
 Lucy did not feel at all in sympathy with cymbals. But she 
 
284 Guild Court. 
 
 knew that Mr. Fuller did, else he could not have chosen that 
 psalm to sing. And an unconscious operation of divine logic 
 took place in her heart, with result such as might be repre- 
 sented in the following process : " Mr. Fuller is glad in God — 
 not because he thinks himself a favorite with God, but because 
 God is what he is, a faithful God. He is not one thing to Mr. 
 Fuller and another to me. He is the same though I am sor- 
 rowful, I will praise him too. He will help me to be and do 
 right, and that can never be anything unworthy of me." So, 
 with a trembling voice, Lucy joined in the end of the song of 
 praise. And when Mr. Fuller's voice arose in the prayer — 
 " God, whose nature and property is ever to have mercy and 
 to forgive, receive our humble petitions, and though we be tied 
 and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of 
 thy great mercy loose us : for the honor of Jesus Christ, our 
 Mediator and Advocate. Amen " — she joined in it with all her 
 heart, both for herself and Thomas. Then, without the for- 
 mality of a text, Mr. Fuller addressed his little congregation 
 something as follows : 
 
 ' ' My friends, is it not strange that with all the old church- 
 yards lying about in London, unbusiness-like spots in the midst 
 of shops and warehouses, 'and all the numberless goings on of 
 life,' we should yet feel so constantly as if the business of the 
 city were an end in itself ? How seldom we see that it is only 
 a means to an end ! I will tell you in a few words one cause 
 of this feeling as if it were an end ; and then to what end it 
 really is a means. With all the reminders of death that we 
 have aboufrus, not one of us feels as if he were going to die. 
 We think of other people — even those much younger than 
 ourselves — dying, and it always seems as if we were going to 
 be alive when they die : and why ? Just because we are not 
 going to die. This thinking part in us feels no symptom of 
 ceasing to be. We think on and on, and death seems far from 
 us, for it belongs only to our bodies — not to us. So the soul 
 forgets it. It is no part of religion to think about death. It 
 is the part of religion, when the fact and thought of death 
 come in, to remind us that we live forever, and that God, who 
 sent his Son to die, will help us safe through that somewhat 
 fearful strait that lies before us, and which often grows so ter- 
 rible to those who fix their gaze upon it that they see nothing 
 beyond it, and talk with poor Byron of the day of death as 
 'the first dark day of nothingness.' But this fact that we do 
 not die, that only our bodies die, adds immeasurably to the 
 folly of making what is commonly called the business of life 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 285 
 
 an end instead of a means. It is not the business of life. 
 The business of life is that which has to do with the life — with 
 the living us, not with the dying part of us. How can the 
 business of life have to do with the part that is always dying ? 
 Yet, certainly, as you will say, it must be done — only, mark 
 this, not as an end, but as a means. As an end it has to do 
 only with the perishing body ; as a means it has infinite rela- 
 tions with the never-ceasing life. Then comes the question, 
 To what end is it a means ? It is a means, a great, I might 
 say the great, means to the end for which God sends us indi- 
 vidually into a world of sin ; for that he does so, whatever the 
 perplexities the admission may involve, who can deny, with- 
 out denying that God makes us ? If we were sent without 
 any sinful tendencies into a sinless world, we should be good, 
 I dare say ; but with a very poor kind of goodness, knowing 
 nothing of evil, consequently never choosing good, but being 
 good in a stupid way because we could not help it. But how 
 is it with us ? We live in a world of constant strife — a strife, 
 as the old writers call it, following St. Paul, between the flesh 
 and the spirit ; the things belonging to the outer life, the life 
 of the senses, the things which our Saviour sums up in the 
 words, 'what we shall eat, and what we shall drink, and 
 wherewithal we shall be clothed,' forcing themselves constantly 
 on our attention, and crowding away the thought and the care 
 that belong to the real life — the life that consists in purity of 
 heart, in love, in goodness of all kinds — that embraces all life, 
 using our own life only as the standpoint from which to stretch 
 out arms of embracing toward God and toward all men. For 
 the feeding and growth of this life, London city affords end- 
 less opportunity. Business is too often regarded as the hin- 
 drance to the spiritual life. I regard it as among the finest 
 means the world affords for strengthening and causing to 
 grow this inner real life. For every deed may be done accord- 
 ing to the fashion of the outward perishing life, as an end ; or 
 it may be done after the fashion of the inward endless life — 
 done righteously, done nobly, done, upon occasion, magnifi- 
 cently — ever regarded as a something to be put under the feet 
 of the spiritual man to lift him to the height of his high call- 
 ing. Making business a mean to such end, it will help us to 
 remember tbat this world and the fashion of it passeth away, 
 but that every deed done as Jesus would have done it if he had 
 been born to begin his life as a merchant instead of a carpen- 
 ter, lifts the man who so does it up toward the bosom of Him 
 who created business and all its complications, as well as our 
 
286 Guild Court. 
 
 brains and hands that have to deal with them. If you were to 
 come and ask me, ' How shall I do in this or that particular 
 case ? ' very possibly I might be unable to answer you. Very 
 often no man can decide but the man himself. And it is part 
 of every man's training that he should thus decide. Even if 
 he should go wrong, by going wrong he may be taught the 
 higher principle that would have kept him right, and which 
 he has not yet learned. One thing is certain, that the man 
 who wants to go right will be guided right ; that not only in 
 regard to the mission of the Saviour, but in regard to every- 
 thing, he that is willing to do the will of the Father shall 
 know of the doctrine. — Now to God the Father," etc. 
 
 The worship over, and the congregation having retired, 
 Lucy bent her trembling steps toward the vestry, and there 
 being none of those generally repellent ministers, pew-openers, 
 about, she knocked at the door. By the way, I wish clergy- 
 men were more acquainted with the nature and habits of those 
 who in this loivly — alas, how far from humble — office represent 
 the gospel of welcome. They ought to have at least one ser- 
 mon a year preached to them upon their duties before the 
 whole congregation. The reception the servants of any house 
 afford has no little share in the odor of hospitality which that 
 house enjoys, and hospitality is no small Christian virtue. 
 Lucy's troubled heart beat very fast as she opened the door in 
 answer to Mr. Fuller's cheerful "Come in." But the moment 
 she saw Mr. Fuller she felt as if she had been guilty of an act 
 of impropriety, and ought to have waited in the church till he 
 came out. She drew back with a murmured "I beg your par- 
 don," but Mr. Fuller at once reassured her. He came for- 
 ward, holding out his hand. 
 
 "- How do you do, Miss Burton ? I am delighted to see 
 you. By your coming to the vestry, like a brave woman, I 
 suppose there is something I can do for you. Let me hear all 
 about it. 'Sit down." 
 
 So saying, he gave her a chair, and seated himself on the 
 only remaining one. And as soon as she saw that Mr. Fuller 
 was not shocked at her forwardness, such was Lucy's faith in 
 him, that her courage returned, and. with due regard to his 
 time and her own dignity, she proceeded at once to explain to 
 him the difficulty in which she found herself. It was a lovely 
 boldness in the maiden, springing from faith and earnestness 
 and need, that enabled her to set forth in a few plain words 
 the main points of her case — that she had been engaged for 
 many months to a youth who seemed to have forsaken her, 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 287 
 
 but whom she did not know to have done so, though his con- 
 duct had been worse than doubtful, seeing he had fallen into 
 bad company. She would never have troubled Mr. Fuller 
 about it for that, for it was not sympathy she wanted ; but 
 there was a gentleman — and here she faltered more — to whom 
 she was under very great obligation, and who said he loved 
 her ; and she Wanted much to know whether it was her duty 
 to yield to his entreaties. 
 
 My reader must remember that Lucy was not one of those 
 clear-brained as well as large-hearted women who see ike rights 
 of a thing at once. Many of the best women may be terribly 
 puzzled, especially when an opportunity of self-sacrifice occurs. 
 They are always ready to think that the most painful way is 
 the right one. This indicates a noble disposition. And the 
 most painful way may be the right one ; but it is not the right 
 one because it is the most painful. It is the right way because 
 it is the right way, whether it be painful or delightful ; and 
 the notion of self-sacrifice may be rooted in spiritual pride. 
 Whether it be so or not, the fact that the wrong way is the 
 least self-indulgent, is the most painful, will not prevent it 
 from bringing with it all the consequences that belong to it : 
 wrong-doing cannot set things right, however noble the motive 
 may be. Of course the personal condemnation and the indi- 
 vidual degradation are infinitely less than if the easiest and 
 pleasantest way is chosen only because it is the easiest and 
 pleasantest. But God will not make of law a child's toy, to 
 indulge the vagaries of his best children. 
 
 When Lucy had finished setting forth her case, which the 
 trembling of her voice, and the swelling of her tears, hardly 
 interrupted, Mr. Fuller said : 
 
 " Now you must allow me, Miss Burton, to ask you one or 
 two plain questions." 
 
 " Certainly, sir. Ask me whatever you please. I will an- 
 swer honestly." 
 
 "That I have no doubt about. Do you love this man to 
 whom you say you are obliged ? " 
 
 "Indeed I do not. I hope I am grateful to him, and I 
 would do anything in return, except — " 
 
 ".I understand you. It seems to me, though this kind of 
 thing involves many questions too delicate to be easily talked 
 about, that, whatever he may desire at the time, it is doing 
 any man a grievous wrong to marry him without loving him. 
 Blinded by his love, he may desire it none the less even if you 
 tell him that you do not love him ; but the kindest thing, 
 
288 Guild Court. 
 
 even to him, is to refuse. This is what seems to me the 
 truth." 
 
 While Mr. Fuller spoke, Lucy heaved such a deep sigh of 
 relief, that if any corroboration of what she represented as the 
 state of her feelings had been necessary, Mr. Fuller had it. 
 After a little pause, he went on : 
 
 " Now, one question more : Do you love the other still ? " 
 
 " I do," said Lucy, bursting at last into a passion of tears. 
 "But, perhaps," she sobbed, "I ought to give him up alto- 
 gether. I am afraid he has not behaved well at all." 
 
 "To you?" 
 
 "I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking about myself just 
 then." 
 
 "Has he let you understand that he has forsaken you ?" 
 
 "No, no. He hasn't said a word. Only I haven't seen him 
 for so long." 
 
 " There is, then, some room for hope. If you were to re- 
 solve upon anything now, you would be doing so without 
 knowing what you were doing, because you do not know what 
 he is doing. It is just possible it may be a healthy shame that 
 is keeping him away from you. It may become your duty to 
 give him up, but I think when it is so, it will be clearly so. 
 God gives us all time : we should give each other time, too. 
 I wish I could see him." 
 
 "I wish, indeed, you could, sir. It seems to me that he 
 has not been well brought up. His father is a dreadfully hard 
 and worldly man, as my poor grandmother knows too well ; 
 and his mother is very religious, but her religion seems to me 
 to have done my poor Thomas more harm than his father's 
 worldliness." 
 
 "That is quite possible. When you do see him again, try 
 to get him to come and see me. Or I will go and see him. I 
 shall not overwhelm him with a torrent of religion which he 
 cannot understand, and which would only harden him." 
 
 "There is nothing I should wish more. But tell me one 
 thing, Mr. Fuller : would it be right to marry him ? I want 
 to understand. Nothing looks farther ofE ; but I want to 
 know what is right." 
 
 "I think," returned Mr. Fuller, "that every willing heart 
 will be taught what is right by the time that action is neces- 
 sary. One thing seems clear, that while you love him — " 
 
 "I shall always love him," interrupted Lucy. 
 
 "I must speak generally," said Mr. Fuller; "and there 
 have been a few instances," he added, with the glimmer of a 
 

Lucy's New Trouble. 289 
 
 smile through, the seriousness of his countenance, " of young 
 maidens, and young men no less, changing their minds about 
 such matters. I do not say you will. But while you love him 
 it is clear to me, that you must not accept the attentions of 
 any one else. I could put a very hard and dreadful name 
 upon that. There is another thing equally clear to me — that 
 while he is unrepentant, that is, so long as he does not change 
 his ways — turn from evil toward good — think better of it, that 
 is — you would be doing very wrong to marry him. I do not 
 say when, or that ever you are bound to stop loving him ; but 
 that is a very different thing from consenting to marry him. 
 Any influence for good that a woman has over such a man, she 
 may exercise as much before marriage as after it. Indeed, if 
 the man is of a poor and selfish nature, she is almost certain, 
 as far as my observation goes, to lose her influence after her 
 marriage. Many a woman, I fear, has married a man with 
 the hope of reforming him, and has found that she only 
 afforded him opportunity for growth in wickedness. I do not 
 say that no good at all comes of it, so long as she is good, but 
 it is the wrong way, and evil comes of it." 
 
 " I am sure you are right, Mr. Fuller. It would be dread- 
 ful to marry a bad man — or a man who had not strength, even 
 for love of a wife, to turn from bad ways. But you won't 
 think the hardest of my poor Thomas yet ? He has. been led 
 astray, and has too much good in him to be easily made all bad." 
 
 "I too will hope so, for your sake as well as his own." 
 
 Lucy rose. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Fuller. I do not know how to thank 
 you. I only wanted leave to go on loving him. Thank you a 
 thousand times." 
 
 " Do not thank me as if I could give you leave to do this or 
 that. I only tell you what seems to me the truth of the matter." 
 
 "But is not that the best thing to give or to receive ?" 
 
 "Yes, it is," answered Mr. Fuller, as Lucy left the vestry. 
 
 It was with a heart wonderfully lightened that she went 
 home to her grandmother. Tins new cloud of terror had 
 almost passed away ; it only lightened a little on the horizon 
 when she thought of having again to hear what Mr. Sargent 
 wanted to say. 
 
 _ That same evening he came. Lucy never lifted her eyes to 
 his face, even when she held out her hand to him. He misin- 
 terpreted her embarrassment ; and he found argument to 
 strengthen his first impression ; for a moment after, summon- 
 ing all her courage, and remembering very conveniently a 
 19 
 
290 Guild Court. 
 
 message she had had for him, Lucy said to her grand- 
 mother : 
 
 '■' Mr. Kitely said he would like to see you, grannie, about 
 the papers for our rooms. He has got some patterns." 
 
 " I haye done with this world, child, and all its vanities," 
 said Mrs. Boxall, with a touch of asperity. 
 
 " It would only be polite, though, grannie, as he is taking so 
 much trouble about it, to go and see them. He is so kind ! " 
 
 " We're going to pay him for his kindness," said the old 
 dame, soured out of her better judgment, and jealous of Mr. 
 Sargent supposing that they were accepting charity. 
 
 " No, grannie. That nobody ever could do. Kindness is 
 just what can't be paid for, do what you will." 
 
 "I see you want to get rid of me," she said, rising ; " so I 
 suppose I had better go. Things are changed. Old people 
 must learn to do as they're bid. You'll be teaching me my 
 catechism next, I suppose." 
 
 Mrs. Boxall walked out of the room with as stiff a back as 
 she had eyer assumed in the days of her prosperity. The mo- 
 ment the door closed, Mr. Sargent approached Lucy, who had 
 remained standing, and would haye taken her hand, but she 
 drew it away, and took the lead. 
 
 " I am yery sorry if I have led you into any mistake, Mr. 
 Sargent. I was so distressed at what you said the other even- 
 ing, that I made this opportunity for the sake of removing at 
 once any misapprehension. I wish to remind you that I con- 
 sidered the subject you resumed then as quite settled." 
 
 " But excuse me, Miss Burton. I too considered it settled ; 
 but circumstances having altered so entirely — " 
 
 " Could you suppose for a moment, that because I had lost 
 the phantom of a fortune which I never possessed, I would 
 accept the man — whose kindness I was always grateful for, but 
 whose love I had refused before because I could not give him 
 any in return ? " 
 
 " No. I did not suppose so. You gave me a reason for re- 
 fusing my attentions then, which I have the best ground for 
 believing no longer exists." 
 
 "What was the reason I gave you then ?" 
 
 "That you loved another." 
 
 "And what ground have I given you for supposing that 
 such has ceased to be the case ? " 
 
 "You have not given me any. He has.""- 
 
 Lucy started. The blood rushed to her forehead, and then 
 back to her heart. 
 
Lucy's New Trouble. 291 
 
 "Where is he ?" she cried, clasping her hands. " For God's 
 sake, tell me." 
 
 "That at least is answer enough to my presumptuous hope," 
 returned Mr. Sargent, with some bitterness. 
 
 "Mr. Sargent," said Lucy, who, though trembling greatly, 
 had now recovered her self-command, "I beg your pardon for 
 any pain I may have occasioned you. But, by surprising the 
 truth, you have saved me the repetition of what I told you be- 
 fore. Tell me what you know of Mr. Worboise." 
 
 But Mr. Sargent's feelings — those especially occupied with 
 himself —got the better of him now, bitterly as he regretted it 
 afterward. He felt it a wrong that such a woman should pass 
 him by for the sake of such a man ; and he answered in the 
 heat of injury : 
 
 "All I care to know about him is, that for the sake of his 
 gams among a low set of gamblers, he staked and lost a dia- 
 mond ring — a rose-diamond, which one of his companions 
 seemed to know as the gift of a lady. That is the man for 
 whom Lucy Burton is proud to express her devotion ! " 
 
 Lucy had grown very pale ; but she would hold out till Mr. 
 Sargent was gone. She had an answer on her lips ; but if she 
 spoke he would stay. Still she would say one word for Thomas. 
 
 "Your evidence is hardly of the most trustworthy kind, 
 Mr. Sargent. Good-evening." 
 
 "It is of his kind, anyhow, whatever that may be," he re- 
 torted, and left the room. Before he reached the bottom of 
 the stairs, he despised himself most heartily, and rushed up 
 again to attempt an apology. Opening the room door, he saw 
 Lucy lying on the floor. He thought she had fainted. But 
 the same moment, Mrs. Boxall, who had only gone up stairs, 
 came down behind him, and he thought it best to leave and 
 write a letter. But Lucy had not fainted. She had only 
 thrown herself on the floor in that agony which would gladly 
 creep into the grave to forget itself. In all grief unmingled 
 with anger there is the impulse to lie down. Lucy had not 
 heard Mr. Sargent return or her grandmother reenter, for 
 she had been pressing her ears with her hands, as if the last 
 sounds that had entered had wounded them grievously. 
 
 " Well, I'm sure ! what next ?" remarked Mrs. Boxall. "I 
 dare say fashions have come to that at last ! " 
 
 What she meant was not very clear ; but the moment she 
 spoke, Lucy started from the floor and left, the room. She 
 had not been long in her chamber, however, before, with the 
 ingenuity of a lover, she had contrived to draw a little weak 
 
292 Guild Court. 
 
 comfort even out of what Mr. Sargent had told her. She be- 
 lieved that he had done worse than part with her ring ; but 
 when the thought struck her that it must have been for the 
 sake of redeeming that ring that he had robbed his employer, 
 which was indeed the case, somehow or other, strange as it 
 may seem, the offenses appeared mutually to mitigate each 
 other. And when she thought the whole matter over in the 
 relief of knowing that she was free of Mr. Sargent, she quite 
 believed that she had discovered fresh grounds for taking 
 courage. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLII. 
 
 MRS. BOXALL FINDS A COMPANION IN MISFORTUNE. 
 
 At last the day arrived that Lucy and her grandmother had 
 fixed for removing into the bookseller's house. The furniture 
 was all Mrs. Boxall's own, though, if Mr. Worboise had 
 thought proper to dispute the fact, there was nobody left who 
 could have borne witness against it. Mr. Kitely shut shop 
 a little earlier ; Mr. Spelt descended from his perch ; and Mr. 
 Dolman crept out of his hole — all to bear a hand in the moving 
 of it. It was dusk when they began, but the darkness did not 
 hinder their diligence, and, in the course of a couple of hours, 
 all the heavier articles were in their new places. When every- 
 thing was got into something like order, it did not appear 
 that, save for the diminution of space, they had had such a 
 terrible downcome. Lucy was heartily satisfied with their 
 quarters, and the feeling that she had now to protect and work 
 for her grandmother gave a little cheerfulness to her behavior, 
 notwithstanding the weight on her heart. Mattie was import- 
 ant, with an importance which not even the delight of having 
 Miss Burton to live with them could assuage ; for she had to 
 preside at a little supper which Mr. Kitely had procured, in 
 honor of the occasion, from the cook-shop which supplied the 
 feasts of Spelt and Poppie. But when things were partially 
 arranged for the night, Mrs. Boxall, who was in a very de- 
 spondent condition, declared her intention of going to bed. 
 Lucy would gladly have done the same, but she could not 
 think of doing dishonor to the hospitality of their kind friend. 
 
 " Well, I am sorry the old lady can't be prevailed upon," 
 
A Companion in Misfortune. 293 
 
 said Mr. Kitely. "Them sassages I know to be genuine — 
 none of your cats or cats' meat either. I know the very tree 
 they grew upon — eh, princess ? And now we shan't be able 
 to eat 'em up." 
 
 " Why don't you ask Mr. Spelt to come in and help us ?" 
 said Mattie. « 
 
 "Bless you ! he's gone to fetch his kid ; and before they'll 
 come home they'll have bought their supper. They always do. 
 I know their ways. But I do believe that's* them gone up the 
 court this minute. I'll run and see." 
 
 Mr. Kitely hurried out, and returned with Mr. Spelt, Pop- 
 pie, and the steam-engine, which was set down in the middle 
 of the room. 
 
 "Ain't I been fort'nate?" said the bookseller. "Poppie 
 ain't sold all her potatoes. They was a-going to eat 'em up 
 by the way of savin'. So we've agreed to club, and go share 
 and share. Ain't that it, Poppie ? " 
 
 Poppie grinned and gave no other answer. But her father 
 took up the word. 
 
 "It's very kind of you to put it so, Mr. Kitely. But it 
 seems to me we're hardly fit company for a lady like Miss 
 Burton." 
 
 "Surely, Mr. Spelt, we haven't been neighbors so long 
 without being fit to have our supper together ? " said Lucy. 
 
 "That's very neighborly of you, miss. Let me assist you to 
 a potato," said Spelt, going toward the steamer. " It's my 
 belief there ain't no better taters in London, though I says it 
 as buys 'em," he added, throwing back the lid. 
 
 " But we ain't going to begin on the taters, Spelt. You 
 come and sit down here, and we'll have the taters put on a 
 plate. That's the right way, ain't it, princess ? " 
 
 " Well, I should say so, Mr. Kitely,*' answered Mattie, who 
 had hitherto been too full of her own importance even to talk. 
 But Mr. Spelt interfered. 
 
 "Them taters," said he, with decision, "ought to be eaten 
 fresh out of the steamer. If you turn 'em out on to a plate, I 
 don't answer for the consequences. We'll put 'em nearer the 
 table, and I'll sit by 'em, with your leave, Miss Burton, and 
 help everybody as wants one." 
 
 It was remarkable with how much more decision than had 
 belonged to him formerly, Mr. Spelt now spoke. Mr. Kitely, 
 after a half hour's meditation, next day, as to whether the 
 cause of it was Poppie or the potatoes, came to the wise con- 
 clusion that between them they had made a man of him. 
 
294 Guild Court. 
 
 By this time they were all seated round the table. 
 
 " Mr. Spelt, you be parson, and say grace," said Eatery, in 
 his usual peremptory tone. 
 
 " Why should you ask me, Mr. Kitely ? " said the tailor, 
 humbly. 
 
 " Because you know more about that sort o' thing than I 
 do — and you know it." 
 
 Mr. Spelt said grace so devoutly that nobody could hear him. 
 
 " Why do you say grace as if you was ashamed of it, Spelt ? 
 If I was to say grace, now, I would let you hear me." 
 
 " I didn't know you cared about such things," returned 
 Spelt, evasively. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Kitely, " no more I do — or did, rather ; 
 for I'm afraid that Mr. Fuller will get me into bad habits be- 
 fore he has done with me. He's a good man, Mr. Fuller, and 
 that's more than I'd say for every one of the cloth. They're 
 nothing but cloth — meaning no offense, Mr. Spelt, to a honest 
 trade." 
 
 " Perhaps there are more good ones among 'em than you 
 think, Mr. Kitely," said Lucy. 
 
 "There ud need to be, miss. But I declare that man has 
 almost made me hold my tongue against the whole sect of 
 them. It seems a shame, with him in St. Amos's, to say a 
 word against Mr. Potter in St. Jacob's. I never thought I 
 should take to the church in my old age." 
 
 " Old age, Mr. Kitely ! " Mattie broke in. " If you talk in 
 that way, think what you make of me ! " 
 
 A general laugh greeted this remark. But Mattie was se- 
 rious, and did not even smile. 
 
 Poppie never opened her lips, except to smile. But she be- 
 haved with perfect propriety. Mr. Spelt had civilized her so 
 far, and that without much trouble. He never told any one, 
 however, that it was with anxiety that he set out every night 
 at half -past nine to bring her home ; for more than once he 
 had found her potato-steamer standing alone on the pave- 
 ment, while she was off somewhere, looking at something, or 
 following a crowd. He had stood nearly half an hour before 
 she came back upon one of those occasions. All she said 
 when she returned was, " I thought I should find you here, 
 daddy." 
 
 But I must not linger with the company assembled in the 
 bookseller's back-parlor ; for their conversation will not help 
 my reader on with my story. 
 
 A very little man, with very short, bandy legs, was trudging 
 
A Companion in Misfortune. 295 
 
 along a wide and rather crowded thoroughfare, with a pair of 
 workman's boots in his hand. It was Mr. Spelt's sub, Mr. 
 Dolman, the cobbler. 
 
 "Well, Dolly, how do ?" said a man in a long velveteen 
 coat, with a short pipe in his mouth and a greasy cloth cap on 
 his head. "You're late to-night, ain't you, Dolly ?" 
 
 "Them lawyers; them lawyers, Jim !" returned Dolman, 
 enigmatically. 
 
 "What the blazes have you got to do with lawyers ?" ex- 
 claimed Jim Selter, staring at the cobbler, who for the sake of 
 balance had now got one boot in each hand, and stood weigh- 
 ing the one against the other. 
 
 "Not much for my own part," returned Dolman, who was 
 feeling very important from having assisted at his neighbors' 
 flitting. " But there's good people in our court could tell you 
 another story." 
 
 I have said that Mrs. Boxall did anything but hold her 
 tongue about her affairs, and Dolman had heard Mr. Wor- 
 boise's behavior so thoroughly canvassed between Mr. Kitely 
 and Mr. Spelt, that he was familiar with the main points of 
 the case. 
 
 " Come and have a drop of beer, " said Jim, " and tell us 
 all about it." 
 
 No greater temptation could have been held out to Dolman. 
 But he had a certain sense of duty that must first be satis- 
 fied. 
 
 "No, Jim. I never touch a drop till I've taken my work 
 home." 
 
 "Where's that ?" asked Jim. 
 
 "Down by the Minories," answered the cobbler. 
 
 "Come along, then. I'll help you carry it." 
 
 "'Taint heavy. I'll carry it myself," answered Dolman, 
 who, having once been robbed on a similar occasion, seemed, 
 in regard to boots, to have lost his faith in humanity. 
 
 "I can't think, Dolly, why you roost so far from your work. 
 Now it's different with me. My work's here and there and 
 everywhere ; but yours is alius in the same place." 
 
 " It gives me a walk, Jim. Besides it's respectable. It's 
 having two places of one's own. My landlady, Mrs. Dobbs, 
 knoAvs that my shoj)'s in a fashionable part, and she's rather 
 proud of me for a lodger in consekence. And my landlord, 
 that's Mr. Spelt, a tailor, and well-to-do — how's he to know 
 that I ain't got a house in the suburbs ? " answered Dolman, 
 laughing. 
 
296 Guild Court. 
 
 The moment lie had got his money, and delivered the boots— 
 for that was the order of business between Dolman and his 
 customers — they betook themselves to a public-house in the 
 neighborhood, where Dolman conveyed to Jim, with very tol- 
 erable correctness, the whole story of Mrs. Boxall's misfortunes. 
 Before he reached the end of it, however, Jim, who had already 
 "put a name upon something" with two of his acquaint- 
 ances that night, got rather misty, and took his leave of Dol- 
 man with the idea that Lucy and her grandmother had been 
 turned out, furniture and all, into the street, without a place 
 to go to. 
 
 Much as she had dreaded leaving her own house, as she had 
 always considered it, Mrs. Boxall had a better night in her new 
 abode than she had had for months, and rose in the morning 
 with a surprising sense of freshness. Wonderful things come 
 to us in sleep — none perhaps more wonderful than this reviv- 
 ing of the colors of the faded soul from being laid for a few 
 hours in the dark — in God's ebony box, as George Herbert calls 
 the night. It is as if the wakeful angels had been busy all the 
 night preening the draggled and ruffled wings of their sleeping 
 brothers and sisters. Finding that Lucy was not yet dreseed, 
 she went down alone to the back parlor, and, having nothing 
 else to do, began to look at the birds, of which, I have already 
 informed my reader, Mr. Kitely kept a great many, feeding 
 and cleaning them himself, and teaching the more gifted, 
 starlings and parrots, and such like birds of genius, to speak. 
 If he did anything in the way of selling as well as buying them, 
 it was quite in a private way — as a gentleman may do with his 
 horses. .■ 
 
 " Good-morning, sir," screamed a huge gray parrot the mo- 
 ment she entered, regardless of the sex of his visitor. It was 
 one the bookseller had bought of a sailor somewhere about the 
 docks, a day or two before, and its fame had not yet spread 
 through the neighborhood, consequently Mrs. Boxall was con- 
 siderably startled by the salutation. "Have you spliced the 
 main-brace this morning, sir?" continued the parrot, and,* 
 without waiting for a reply, like the great ladies who inquire 
 after an inferior's family and then look out of the window, 
 burst into the song, " There's a sweet little cherub," and, 
 stopping as suddenly at the word, followed it with the inquiry, 
 " How's your mother ?" upon which point Mrs. Boxall may, 
 without any irreverence, be presumed to have been a little in 
 the dark. The next moment the unprincipled animal poured 
 forth his innocent soul in a torrent of imprecations which, 
 
A Companion in Misfortune. 297 
 
 growing as furious as fast, reached the ears of Mr. Kitely. He 
 entered in a moment and silenced the animal with prompt 
 rebuke, and the descent of an artificial night in the shape of a 
 green cloth over his cage — the vengeance of the lower Jove. 
 The creature exploded worse than ever for a while, and then 
 subsided. Meantime the bookseller turned to Mrs. Boxall to 
 apologize. 
 
 " I haven't had him long, ma'am — only a day or two. He's 
 been ill brought up, as you see, poor bird ! I shall have a 
 world of trouble to cure him of his bad language. If I can't 
 cure him I'll wring his neck." 
 
 " The poor creature doesn't know better," said Mrs. Boxall. 
 "Wouldn't it be rather hard to kill him for it ?" 
 
 " Well, but what am I to do ? I can't have such words 
 running out and in of my princess's ears all day." 
 
 " But you could sell him, or give him away, you know, Mr. 
 Kitely." 
 
 "A pretty present he would be, the rascal ! And for selling 
 him, it would be wickedness to put the money in my pocket. 
 There was a time, ma'am, when I would have taught him such 
 words myself, and thought no harm of it ; but now, if I were 
 to sell that bird, ma'am — how should I look Mr. Fuller in the 
 face next Sunday ? No ; if I can't cure him, I must twist his 
 neck. We'll eat him, ma'am ; I dare say he's nice." 
 
 He added, in a whisper : " I wanted him to hear me. There's 
 no telling how much them creatures understand." 
 
 But before Mr. Kitely had done talking, Mrs. Boxall's at- 
 tention was entirely taken up with another bird, of the paro- 
 quet species. It was the most awfully grotesque, the most 
 pitiably comic animal in creation. It had a green head, with 
 a band of red round the back of it ; while white feathers came 
 down on each side of its huge beak, like the gray whiskers of a 
 retired military man. This head looked enormous for the rest 
 of the body, for from the nape of the neck to the tail, except 
 • a few long feathers on the shoulders of its wings, blue like 
 those of a jay, there was not another feather on its body : it 
 was as bare as if it had been plucked for roasting. A more 
 desolate, poverty-stricken, wretched object, can hardly be con- 
 ceived. The immense importance of his head and beak and 
 gray whiskers, with the abject nakedness — more than naked- 
 ness, pluckedness — of his body was quite beyond laughing at. 
 It was far fitter to make one cry. But the creature was so 
 absolutely, perfectly self-satisfied, without a notion of shame, 
 or even discomfort, that it appeared impossible he could ever 
 
298 Guild Court 
 
 have seen himself behind. He must surely have fancied him- 
 self as glorious as in his palmiest clays. And his body vas so 
 thin, and his skin so old and wrinkled — I wish I could set him 
 in the margin for my younger readers to see him. He hopped 
 from place to place, and turned himself round before the spec- 
 tators with such an absence of discomposure, that one could 
 not help admiring his utter sang-froid, almost envying his 
 perfect self-possession. Observing that his guest was absorbed 
 in the contemplation of the phenomenon, Mr. Kitely said : 
 
 " You're a-wondering at poor Widdles. Widdles was an old 
 friend of mine I named the bird after before he lost his great- 
 coat all but the collar. Widdles ! Widdles ! " ' 
 
 The bird came close up to the end of his perch, and, setting 
 his head on one side, looked at his master with one round yel- 
 low eye. 
 
 " He's the strangest bird I ever saw," said Mrs. Boxall. "If 
 you talked of wringing Ms neck, now, I shouldn't wonder, 
 knowing you for a kind-hearted man, Mr. Kitely." 
 
 "Wring Widdles' neck !" exclaimed the bookseller. "His 
 is the last neck 1 would think of wringing. See how bravely 
 he bears misfortune. Nobody could well lose more than Wid- 
 dles, and nobody could well take it lighter. He's a sermon, 
 is that bird. His whole worldly wealth consists in his wig. 
 They was a fine pair once, only he was always henpecked. His 
 mate used to peck him because he wasn't able to peck her, for 
 he was the smaller of the two. They always reminded me of 
 Spelt and his wife. But when they were took ill, both of 
 them, she gave in, and he wouldn't. Death took his feathers, 
 and left him jolly without them. Bless him, old Widdles." 
 
 "Well, it's a curious taste of yours, I must say, Mr. Kitely. 
 But some people, no more than some birds, ain't to be account- 
 ed for." 
 
 Mr. Kitely chose to consider this a good sally of wit, and 
 laughed loud and long. Mrs. Boxall laughed a little too, and 
 was pleased with herself. And from that moment she began' 
 to take to the bird. 
 
 " Try him with a bit of sugar," said Mr. Kitely, going to 
 the carved cabinet to get a piece, which he then handed to 
 Mrs. Boxall. 
 
 The bird was friendly and accepted it. Mrs. Boxall was 
 pleased with him now as well as with herself, and before long 
 a firm friendship was established between the two, which went 
 so far that Widdles would, when she put her hand into his 
 cage, perch upon her bony old finger, and allow himself to be 
 
A Companion in Misfortune. 299 
 
 \ifted out. There was no fear of his even attempting to fly 
 away, for he was perfectly aware of his utter incapacity in that 
 direction of bird-like use and custom. Before many days had 
 passed she had become so much attached to the bird that his 
 company did not a little to shield her from the inroads of re- 
 current regret, mortification, and resentment. 
 
 One evening when she came home from her now rather 
 numerous engagements, Lucy found her grandmother seated at 
 the table, with the bird in her hand, rubbing him all over very 
 gently for fear of hurting him, with something she took with 
 her finger from a little pot on the table. 
 -"What are you doing with Widdles, grannie ?" she said. 
 
 " Trying a little bear's grease, child. Why shouldn't I ? " 
 she added, angrily, when Lucy laughed. 
 
 " No reason in the world why you shouldn't, grannie. You 
 mustn't mind my laughing." 
 
 " I don't see why anybody should laugh at misfortune," re- 
 turned Mrs. Boxall, severely. "How would you like to be in 
 the condition of this bird yourself?" — without a feather, she 
 was going to say, but just pulled up in time. She could not 
 help laughing herself now, but she went on, nevertheless, with 
 her work of charity. "Who knows," she said, "but they 
 may grow again ? " 
 
 " Grow again ! " shrieked the gray parrot, in the tone of a 
 violin in unskillful hands. 
 
 "Yes, grow again, you witch ! " said Mrs. Boxall. "I don't 
 see why the devil shouldn't be in you as well as in your betters. 
 Why shouldn't they grow again ? " 
 
 " Grow again ! " reiterated the gray parrot. " Grow again ! 
 Widdles ! Widdles ! Widdles ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 "It shall grow again," retorted the old lady. "If bear's 
 grease won't do, I'll spend my last penny on a bottle of Macas- 
 sar ; and if it doesn't grow then I'll pluck your back and stick 
 them into his." 
 
 Mrs. Boxall had got into a habit of talking thus with the 
 bird, which the bookseller had already nearly cured of his 
 wicked words by instant punishment following each offense. 
 
 " Stick them into his ! cried the bird like an echo, and re- 
 fused to speak again. 
 
 Sometimes, however, he would say a naughty word evidently 
 for the sake of testing his master, or as if he wondered what 
 punishment he would have this time — for the punishments 
 were various. On such occasions he would shriek out the 
 word, " Duck his head," and dart to the opposite side of the 
 
300 Guild Court. 
 
 cage, keeping one eye full on his master, with such an expres- 
 sion that his profile looked like a whole face with a Cyclopean 
 one eye in it. 
 
 Whether Mrs. Boxall was at last successful in her benevolent 
 exertions I am unable to say, for her experiments were still 
 going on when the period arrived with which my story 
 must close. She often asserted that she saw them begin- 
 ning to sprout ; and to see her with spectacles on nose, exam- 
 ining the poor withered bluish back of Widdles, was ludicrous 
 or touching, according to the humor of the beholder. Wid- 
 dles seemed to like the pains she took with him, however ; 
 and there is no doubt of one thing, that she was rewarded for 
 her trouble tenfold in being thus withdrawn from the contem- 
 plation of her own wrongs and misfortunes. Widdles thus 
 gave her many a peaceful hour she would not in all prob- 
 ability have otherwise enjoyed. Nor were her attentions con- 
 fined to him ; through him, she was introduced to the whole 
 regiment of birds, which she soon began assisting Mr. Kitely 
 to wait upon. Mattie had never taken to them. While gran- 
 nie, as she, too, called her, was busy with them, Mattie would 
 sit beside at her needlework, scarcely looking up even when she 
 addressed an occasional remark to grannie. It was a curious 
 household, and fell into many singular groups. 
 
 But here I must leave Mrs. Boxall with her bird-compan- 
 ions, which, save for the comfort they afforded her in taking 
 her mind off herself, have no active part in the story. Through 
 Mrs. Morgenstern's influence and exertions, Lucy soon had as 
 much to do in the way of teaching as she could compass, and 
 her grandmother knew no difference in her way of living from 
 what she had been accustomed to. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 WHAT THOMAS WAS ABOUT. 
 
 Wheist Thomas left Rotherhithe with Jim Salter, he had no 
 idea in his head but to get away somewhere. Like the ostrich, 
 he wanted some sand to stick his head into. But wherever he 
 went there were people, even policemen, about, and not one of 
 the places they went through looked more likely to afford him 
 
JVJiat Thomas was About 301 
 
 shelter than another. Had he given Jim any clearer informa- 
 tion concerning the necessity he was in of keeping dark, per- 
 haps he would have done differently with him. As it was, he 
 contented himself with piloting him about the lower docks and 
 all that maritime part of London. They walked about the 
 whole day till Thomas was quite weary. Nor did refuge seem 
 nearer than before. All this time the police might be on his 
 track, coming nearer and nearer like the blood-hounds that 
 they were. They had some dinner at an eating-house, where 
 Thomas's fastidiousness made yet a farther acquaintance with 
 dirt and disorder, and he felt that he had fallen from his own 
 sphere into a lower order of things, and could never more 
 climb into the heaven from whence he had fallen. But the 
 fear of yet a lower fall into a prison and the criminal's dock 
 kept him from dwelling yet upon what he had lost. At night 
 Jim led him into Eatcliff Highway, the Paradise of sailors at 
 sea — the hell of sailors on shore. Thomas shrunk from the 
 light that filled the street from end to end, blazing from innu- 
 merable public-houses, through the open doors of which he 
 looked across into back parlors, where sailors and women sat 
 drinking and gambling, or down long passages to great rooms 
 with curtained doorways, whence came the sounds of music 
 and dancing, and through which passed and re-passed sea- 
 faring figures and gaily bedizened vulgar girls, many of whom, 
 had the weather been warmer, would have been hanging about 
 the street-doors, laughing and chaffing the passers-by, or getting 
 up a dance on the pavement to the sound of the music within. 
 It was a whole streetful of low revelry. Poor Jack ! Such is 
 his coveted reward on shore for braving Death, and defying 
 him to his face. He escapes from the embrace of the bony 
 phantom to hasten to the arms of his far more fearful com- 
 panion — the nightmare Life-in-Death — "who thicks man's 
 blood with cold." Well may that pair casting their dice on 
 the skeleton ship symbolize the fate of the sailor, for to the 
 one or the other he falls a victim. 
 
 Opposite an open door Jim stopped to speak to an acquaint- 
 ance. The door opened directly upon a room ascending a few 
 steps from the street. Bound a table sat several men — sailors, 
 of course — apparently masters of coasting vessels. A lithe 
 lascar was standing with one hand on the table, leaning over 
 it, and talking swiftly, with snaky gestures of the other hand. 
 He was in a rage. The others burst out laughing. Thomas 
 saw something glitter in the hand of the Hindoo. One of the 
 sailors gave a cry, and started up, but staggered and fell. 
 
302 Guild Court 
 
 Before he fell the lascar was at the door, down the steps with 
 a bound, and out into the street. Two men were after him 
 at full speed, but they had no chance with the light-built 
 Indian. 
 
 " The villain has murdered a man, Jim," said Thomas — 
 " in there — look ! " 
 
 " Oh, I dare say he ain't much the worse," returned Jim. 
 " They're always a outing with their knives here." 
 
 For all his indifference, however, Jim started after the Hin- 
 doo, but he was out of sight in another moment. 
 
 Jim returned. 
 
 " He's crowding all sail for Tiger Bay," said he. " I shouldn't 
 care to follow him there. Here's a Peeler." 
 
 " Come along, Jim," said Thomas. " Don't stand here all 
 the night." 
 
 " Why you ain't afraid o' the place, are you, guv'nor ?" 
 
 Thomas tried to laugh, but he did not enjoy the allusion — 
 in the presence of a third person especially. 
 
 "Well, good-night," said Jim to his acquaintance. 
 
 " By the way," he resumed, " do you know the figure of 
 Potts's ken ? " 
 
 " What Potts ? I don't know any Potts." 
 
 " Yes you do. Down somewhere about Lime 'us, you know. 
 We saw him that night — " 
 
 Here Jim whispered his companion, who answered aloud : 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know. Let me see. It's the Marmaid, I think. 
 You ain't a-going there, are you ? " 
 
 "Don't know. Mayhap. I'm only taking this gen'leman 
 a sight-seeing. He's from the country." 
 
 "Good-night, then." And so they parted. 
 
 It was a sudden idea of Jim's to turn in the direction of the 
 man whose child Thomas had saved. But Thomas did not 
 know where he was taking him. 
 
 "Where will you sleep to-night, guv'nor?" asked Jim, as 
 they walked along. 
 
 " I don't know," answered Thomas. "I must leave you to 
 find me a place. But I say, Jim, can you think of anything I 
 could turn to ? for my money won't last me long." 
 
 "Turn to !" echoed Jim. * "Why a man had need be able 
 to turn to everything by turns to make a livin' nowadays. 
 You ain't been used to hard work, by your hands. Do you 
 know yer Bible well ? " 
 
 " Pretty well," answered Thomas ; " but I don't know what 
 that can have to do with making a living," 
 
Wliat Thomas was About. 303 
 
 " Oh, don't you, guv'nor ? " Perhaps you don't know what 
 yer Bible means. It means pips and picturs." 
 
 " You mean the cards. No, no. I've had enough of that. 
 I don't mean ever to touch them again." 
 
 " Hum ! Bitten," said Jim to himself, but so that Thomas 
 heard him. 
 
 " Not very badly, Jim. In the pocket-book I told you I lost 
 I had a hundred pounds, won at cards the night before last." 
 
 "My eye!" exclaimed Jim. "What a devil of a pity! 
 But why don't you try your luck again ? " he asked, after a 
 few moments of melancholy devoted to the memory of the 
 money. 
 
 " Look here, Jim. I don't know where to go to sleep. I 
 have a comfortable room that I dare not go near ; a father — a 
 rich man, I believe — who would turn me out ; and, in short, 
 I've ruined myself forever with card-playing. The sight of a 
 pack would turn me sick, I do believe." 
 
 "Sorry for you, guv'nor. I know a fellow, though, that 
 makes a good thing of the thimble." 
 
 "I've no turn for tailoring, I'm afraid." 
 
 " Beggin' your pardon, guv'nor, but you are a muff ! You 
 never thought I meant a gen'leman like you to take to a beastly 
 trade like that. I meant the thimble and peas, you know, at 
 fairs, and such like. It's all fair, you know. You tell 'em 
 they don't know where the pea is and they don't. I know a 
 friend o' mine '11 put you up to it for five or six bob. Bless 
 you ! there's room for free trade and money made." 
 
 Thomas could hardly be indignant with Jim for speaking 
 according to his kind. But when he looked into it, it stung 
 him to the heart to think that every magistrate would regard 
 him as capable of taking to the profession of thimble-rigging 
 after what he had been already guilty of. Yet in all his deal- 
 ings with cards Thomas had been scrupulously honorable. He 
 said no more to Jim about finding something to do. 
 
 They had gone a good way, and Thomas's strength was be- 
 ginning to fail him quite. Several times Jim had inquired 
 after the Marmaid, always in public-houses, where he paid for 
 the information or none, as the case might be, by putting a 
 name upon something at Thomas's expense ; so that he began 
 to be rather uplifted. 
 
 At length he called out joyfully : 
 
 " Here's a fishy one, guv'nor, at last! Come along." 
 
 So saying, he pushed the swing door, to which was attached 
 a leather strap to keep it from swinging outward, and entered. 
 
304 Guild Court 
 
 It admitted them to a bar served by a big fat man with an 
 apron whose substratum was white at the depth of several 
 strata of dirt, and a nose much more remarkable for color than 
 drawing, being in both more like a half-ripe mulberry than 
 anything else in nature. He had little round, watery eyes, and 
 a face indicative of nothing in particular, for it had left its 
 original conformation years behind. As soon as they entered, 
 Jim went straight up to the landlord, and stared at him for a 
 few moments across the counter. " You don't appear to know 
 me, guv'nor ? " he said, for the many things he had drank to 
 find the way had made him barky. His vocabulary of address, 
 it will be remarked, was decidedly defective. 
 
 "Well, I can't take upon me to say as I do," answered the 
 man, putting his thumbs in the strings of his apron, and look- 
 ing at Jim with a mixture of effort and suspicion on his puffy 
 face. " And I'll be bound to say," remarked Jim, turning to- 
 ward Thomas, "that you don't know this gen'leman either. 
 Do 'ee now guv'nor ? On yer honor, right as a trivet ? No, 
 ye don't." 
 
 " Can't say I do." 
 
 "Look at him, then. Ain't he fit to remember ? Don't he 
 look respectable ? " 
 
 " Come, none o' your chaff ! Say what you've got to say. 
 What do you want ? " 
 
 " Cut it short, Jim," said Thomas. 
 
 "How's your young marmaid as took to the water sonat'ral 
 at the Horsleydown tother day, Mr. Potts ? " asked Jim, lean- 
 ing on his elbows on the counter. 
 
 " Jolly," answered the landlord. " Was you by ? " 
 
 " Wasn't I, then ! And there's a guv'nor was nearer than I 
 was. Mr. Potts, that's the very gen'leman as went a header 
 into the water and saved her, Mr. Potts. Hold up yer head, 
 guv'nor." 
 
 " You're a chaffin of me, I know," said Potts. 
 
 "Come, come, Jim, don't make a fool of me," said Thomas. 
 
 "I wish I had known you were bringing me here. Come 
 along. I won't stand it." 
 
 But Jim was leaning over the counter, speaking in a whis- 
 per to the down-bent landlord. 
 
 " You don't mean it ? " said the latter. 
 
 "Ask the mis'ess, then," said Jim. 
 
 " You don't mean it ! " repeated the landlord, in a husky 
 voice, and with increase of energy. Then looking to- 
 ward Thomas, "What will he take? "and with the words 
 
Wliat Thomas was About. 305 
 
 turned his back upon Jim, and his face toward a shelf on 
 which stood his choicest bottles between two cask-like protu- 
 berances. He got down one of brandy, but Thomas, who was 
 vexed at being brought there as if he wanted some acknowl- 
 edgment of the good deed he had been fortunate enough to 
 perform, refused to take anything. 
 
 " What will you take then ? " said the man, whose whole 
 stock of ideas seemed to turn upon taking. 
 
 But at the moment a woman entered from behind the 
 shop. 
 
 "There, mis'ess," said her husband, "can you tell who that 
 gentleman is ? " 
 
 She looked at him for a moment, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Bless my soul ! It's the gentleman that took our Bessie 
 out of the water. How do you do, sir ? " she continued, with 
 mingled pleasure and respect, as she advanced from behind 
 the counter, and courtesied to Thomas. 
 
 "None the worse for my ducking, thank you," said Thomas, 
 holding out his hand in the delight a word of real friendship 
 always gives. 
 
 She shook it warmly, and would hardly let it go. 
 
 "Oh! isn't he, then ?" muttered Jim, mysteriously, but 
 loud enough for Potts to hear. 
 
 "Won't you come in, sir?" said the woman, turning to 
 lead the way. 
 
 " Thank you," answered Thomas. " I have been walking 
 about all day, and am very tired. If you would let me sit 
 down awhile — and — perhaps it wouldn't be giving you too 
 much trouble to ask for a cup of tea, for my head aches 
 rather." 
 
 "Come in, sir," she said, in a tone of truest hospitality. 
 "That I will, with pleasure, I'm sure." 
 
 Thomas followed her into a dingy back room, where she 
 made him lie down on a sofa from which he would have re- 
 coiled three days ago, but for which he was very grateful now. 
 She then bustled about to get him some tea, and various little 
 delicacies besides, in the shape of ham, and shrimps, etc., etc. It 
 was pretty clear from her look, and the way she pressed her of- 
 ferings of gratitude, that she had a true regard for inward com- 
 forts, if not for those outward luxuries of neatness and clean- 
 liness. 
 
 The moment Thomas was out of the shop, Jim Salter began 
 to be more communicative with Mr. Potts. 
 
 "None the worse !" said he, reflectively. "Oh, no. That's 
 20 
 
306 Guild Court. 
 
 the way your quality talk about a few bank-notes. Nothing 
 but a hundred pounds the worst. Oh, no." 
 
 "You don't mean it ? " said Mr. Potts, making his eyes as 
 round as two sixpences. 
 
 "Well, to be sure," said Salter, "I can't take my davy on 
 it ; 'cause as how I've only his word for it. But he don't look 
 like a cony-catcher, do he ? He's a deal too green for that, I 
 can tell you. "Well, he is green ! " repeated Jim, bursting into 
 a quiet chuckle. 
 
 " I don't mean he's a fool, neither. There's a vasty heap o* 
 difference betwixt a leek in yer eye and a turnip in yer brain- 
 box. Ain't there now, guv'nor ? " 
 
 " You don't mean it ? " said Mr. Potts, staring more than ever. 
 
 " What don't I mean, Mr. Potts ?" 
 
 " You don't mean that that 'ere chap ? What do you mean 
 about them hundred pounds ? " 
 
 "Now I'll tell 'ee, guv'nor. It's a great pleasure to me to 
 find I can tell a story so well." 
 
 " There you are — off again, no mortal man can tell to where. 
 You ain't told me no story yet." 
 
 "Ain't I? How came it then, guv'nor, that I ha' made 
 you forget your usual 'ospitable manners ? If I hadn't ha' 
 been telling you a story, you'd ha' — I know you'd ha' asked me 
 to put a name upon something long ago." 
 
 Mr. Potts laughed, and saying, "I beg yer pardon, Mr. 
 Salter, though I'm sure I don't remember ever meetin' of you 
 afore, only that's no consequence ; the best o' friends must 
 meet some time for the first time," turned his face to the shelf 
 as he had done before, and, after a little hesitation, seemed 
 to conclude that it would be politic to take down the same 
 bottle. Jim tossed off the half of his glassful, and, setting 
 the rest on the counter, began his story. Whether he wished 
 to represent himself as Thomas's confidant, or, having come 
 to his conclusions to the best of his ability, believed himself 
 justified in representing them as the facts of the case, it is not 
 necessary to inquire ; the account he gave of Thomas's posi- 
 tion was this : That when Thomas went overboard after little 
 Bessie, he had in the breast of his coat a pocket-book, with a 
 hundred pounds of his master's in it ; that he dared not go 
 home without it ; that the police were after him ; and, in 
 short, that he was in a terrible fix. Mr. Pojbts listened with a 
 general stare, and made no reply. 
 
 "You'll give him a bed to-night, won't you, guv'nor ? I'll 
 come back in the morning and see what can be done." 
 
What Thomas was About. 307 
 
 Jim finished his glass of brandy as if it had been only the 
 last drops, and set it on the counter with a world of suggestion 
 in the motion, to which Mr. Potts mechanically replied by 
 filling it again, saying as he did so, in a voice a little huskier 
 than usual, "All right." Jim tossed off the brandy, smacked 
 his lips, said "Thank you, and good-night," and went out of 
 the beer-shop. Mr. Potts stood for five minutes motionless, 
 then went slowly to the door of the back parlor, and called his 
 wife. Leaving Thomas to finish his meal by himself, Mrs. 
 Potts joined her husband and they had a talk together. He 
 told her what Jim had just communicated to him, and they 
 held a consultation, the first result of which was that Mrs. 
 Potts proceeded to get a room — the best she could offer — 
 ready for Thomas. He accepted her hospitality with gratitude, 
 and was glad to go to bed. 
 
 Meantime, leaving his wife to attend to the thirst of the 
 public, Mr. Potts set out to find his brother-in-law, the cap- 
 tain of a collier trading between Newcastle and London, who 
 was at the moment in the neighborhood, but whose vessel was 
 taking in ballast somewhere down the river. He came upon 
 him where he had expected to find him, and told him the 
 whole story. 
 
 The next morning, when Thomas, more miserable than ever, 
 after rather a sleepless night, came down stairs early, he found 
 his breakfast waiting for him, but not his breakfast only : a 
 huge seafaring man, with short neck and square shoulders, 
 dressed in a blue pilot-coat, was seated in the room. He rose 
 when Thomas entered, and greeted him with a bow made up 
 of kindness and patronage. Mrs. Potts came in the same 
 moment. 
 
 "This is my brother, Captain Smith, of the Raven" she 
 said, " come to thank you, sir, for what you did for his little 
 pet, Bessie." 
 
 "Well, I donnow," said the captain, with a gruff breeziness 
 of manner. "I came to ask the gentleman if, bein' on the 
 loose, he wouldn't like a trip to Newcastle, and share my little 
 cabin with me." 
 
 It was the first glimmer of gladness that had lightened 
 Thomas's horizon for what seemed to him an age. 
 
 "Thank you, thank you !" he said ; "it is the very thing 
 for me." 
 
 And, as he spoke, the awful London wilderness vanished, 
 and open sea and sky filled the world of his imaginings. 
 
 "When do you sail ?" he asked. 
 
308 Guild Court 
 
 "To-night, I hope, with the ebb," said the captain ; "but 
 you had better come with me as soon as you've had your 
 breakfast, and we'll go on board at once. You needn't mind 
 about your chest. You can rough it a little, I dare say. I can 
 lend you a jersey that'll do better than your 'longshore togs." 
 
 Thomas applied himself to his breakfast with vigor. Hope 
 even made him hungry. How true it is that we live by hope ! 
 Before he had swallowed his last mouthful, he started from 
 his seat. 
 
 " You needn't be in such a hurry," said the captain. 
 " There's plenty of time. Stow your prog." 
 
 " I have quite done. But I must see Mr. Potts for a minute." 
 
 He went to the bar, and, finding that Jim had not yet made 
 his appearance, asked the landlord to change him a sovereign, 
 and give half to Jim. 
 
 "It's too much," said Mr. Potts. 
 
 "I promised .him a day's wages." 
 
 "Five shillings is over enough, besides the brandy I gave 
 him last night. He don't make five shillings every day." 
 
 Thomas, however, to the list of whose faults stinginess 
 could not be added, insisted on Jim having the half sovereign, 
 for he felt that he owed him far more than that. 
 
 In pulling out the small remains of his money, wondering if 
 he could manage to buy a jersey for himself before starting, 
 he brought out with it two bits of pasteboard, the sight of 
 which shot a pang to his heart : they were the pawn-tickets 
 for his watch and Lucy's ring, which he had bought back 
 from the holder on that same terrible night on which he had 
 lost almost everything worth having. It was well he had only 
 thrust them into the pocket of his trousers, instead of putting 
 them into his pocket-book. They had stuck to the pocket, 
 and been dried with it, had got loose during the next day, and 
 now came to light, reminding him of his utter meanness, not 
 to say dishonesty, in parting with the girl's ring that he might 
 follow his cursed play. The gleam of gladness which the hope 
 of escaping from London gave him had awaked his conscience 
 more fully ; and he felt the despicableness of his conduct as 
 he had never felt it before. How could he have done it ? 
 The ring, to wear which he had been proud because it was not 
 his own, but Lucy's, he had actually exposed to the contamina- 
 tion of vile hands — had actually sent from her pure, lovely 
 person into the pocket of a foul talker, and thence to a pawn- 
 broker's shop. He could have torn himself to pieces at the 
 thought. And now that she was lost to him forever, was he 
 
What TJwmas was About. 309 
 
 to rob her of lier mother's jewel as well ? He must get it 
 again. But if he went after it now, even if he had the money 
 to redeem it, he might run into the arms of the searching Law, 
 and he and it too would he gone. But he had not the money. 
 The cold dew broke out on his face, as he stood beside the 
 pump-handles of the beer-shop. But Mr. Potts had been 
 watching him for some time. He knew the look of those 
 tickets, and dull as his brain was, with a dullness that was 
 cousin to his red nose, he divined at once that Thomas's pain- 
 ful contemplation had to do with some effects of which those 
 tickets were the representatives. He laid his hand on Thomas's 
 shoulder from behind. Thomas gave a great start. 
 
 "I beg your pardon for frightening of you, sir," said Mr. 
 Potts; "but I believe a long experience in them things 
 makes me able to give you good advice." 
 
 "What things ?" asked Thomas. 
 
 " Them things," repeated Potts, putting a fat forefinger first 
 on the one and then on the other pawn-ticket. '"Twasn't 
 me, nor yet Bessie. 'Tis long since I was in my uncle's. All 
 I had to do there was a-getting of 'em down the spout. I 
 never sent much up it ; my first wife, Joan — not Bessie, bless 
 her ! Now I ain't no witch, but I can see with 'alf a heye that 
 you've got summat at your uncle's you don't like to leave 
 there, when you're a-goin' a voyagin' to the ends o' the earth. 
 Have you got the money as well as the tickets ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! " answered Thomas, almost crying. 
 
 " Come now," said Potts, kindly, "sweep out the chimley. 
 It's no use missing the crooks and corners, and having to send 
 a boy up after all. Sweep it out. Tell me all about it, and 
 I'll see what I can do — or can't do, it may be," 
 
 Thomas told him that the tickets were for a watch — a gold 
 watch, with a compensation balance — and a diamond ring. 
 He didn't care about the watch ; but he would give his life to 
 get the ring again. 
 
 " Let me look at the tickets. How much did you get on 
 'em separate ? " 
 
 Thomas said he did not know, but gave him the tickets to 
 examine. 
 
 " Potts looked at them. " You don't care so much for the 
 watch ?" he said. 
 
 " No, I don't," answered Thomas ; " though my mother 
 did give it to me," he added, ruefully. 
 
 " Why don't you offer 'em both of the tickets for the ring," 
 then ? " said Potts. 
 
310 Guild Court. 
 
 " What ? " said Thomas. " I don't see—" 
 
 "You give 'em tome," returned Potts. "Here, Bess ! you 
 go in and have a chat with the captain — I'm going out, Bes- 
 sie, for an hour. Tell the captain not to go till I come back." 
 
 So saying, Potts removed his white apron, put on a black 
 frock coat and hat, and went out, taking the tickets with 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Potts brought a tumbler of grog for her brother, and 
 he sat sipping it. Thomas refused to join him ; for he reaped 
 this good from his sensitive organization, that since the night 
 on which it had helped to ruin him, he could scarcely endure 
 even the smell of strong drink. It was rather more than an 
 hour before Mr. Potts returned, during which time Thomas 
 had been very restless and anxious. But at last his host 
 walked into the back room, laid a small screw of paper before 
 him, and said : 
 
 " There's your ring, sir. You won't want your watch this 
 voyage. I've got it, though ; but I'm forced to keep it, in 
 case I should be behind with my rent. Any time you look in, 
 I shall have it, or know where it is." 
 
 Thomas did what he could to express his gratitude, and took 
 the ring with a wonderful feeling of relief. It seemed like a 
 pledge of farther deliverance. He begged Mr. Potts to do 
 what he pleased with the watch ; he didn't care if he never saw 
 it again ; and hoped it would be worth more to him than what 
 it had cost him to redeem them both. Then, after many kind 
 farewells, he took his leave with the captain of the Raven. 
 As they walked along, he could not help looking round every 
 few yards ; but after his new friend had taken him to a shop 
 where he bought a blue jersey and a glazed hat, and tied his 
 coat up in a handkerchief — his sole bundle of luggage — he felt 
 more comfortable. In a couple of hours he was on board of 
 the Raven, a collier brig of a couple of hundred tons. They 
 set sail the same evening, but not till they reached the Nore 
 did Thomas begin to feel safe from pursuit. 
 
 The captain seemed a good deal occupied with his own 
 thoughts, and there were few things they understood in com- 
 mon, so that Thomas was left mostly to his own company ; 
 which, though far from agreeable, was no doubt the very best 
 for him under the circumstances. For it was his real self that 
 he looked in the face — the self that told him what he was, 
 showed him whence he had fallen, what he had lost, how he 
 had hitherto been wasting his life, and how his carelessness 
 had at length thrown him over a precipice up which he could 
 
What Thomas was About. ■ 311 
 
 not climb — there was no foothold upon it. But this was not 
 all : he began to see not only his faults, but the weakness of 
 his character, the refusal to combat which had brought him to 
 this pass. His behavior to Lucy was the bitterest thought of 
 all. She looked ten times more lovely to him now that he had 
 lost her. That she should despise him was terrible — even 
 more terrible the likelihood that she would turn the rich love 
 of her strong heart upon some one else. How she had en- 
 treated him to do her justice ! and he saw now that she had 
 done so even more for his sake than for her own. He had not 
 yet any true idea of what Lucy was worth. He did not know 
 how she had grown since the time when, with all a girl's inex- 
 perience, she had first listened to his protestations. While he 
 had been going down the hill, she had been going up. Long 
 before they had been thus parted, he would not have had a 
 chance of winning her affections had he had then to make the 
 attempt. But he did see that she was infinitely beyond him, 
 infinitely better than — to use a common phrase— he could have 
 deserved if he had been as worthy as he fancied himself. I say 
 a common phrase, because no man can ever deserve a woman. 
 Gradually — by what gradations he could not have told — the 
 truth, working along with his self-despising, showed him 
 something of all this ; and it was the first necessity of a nature 
 like his to be taught to look down on himself. As long as he 
 thought himself more than somebody, no good was to be ex- 
 pected of him. Therefore, it was well for him that the worth- 
 lessness of his character should break out and show itself in 
 some plainly worthless deed, that he might no longer be able 
 to hide himself from the conviction and condemnation of his 
 own conscience. Hell had come at last ; and he burned in 
 its fire. 
 
 He was very weary, and went to bed in a berth in the cabin. 
 But he was awaked while it was yet quite dark by the violent 
 rolling and pitching of the vessel, and the running to and fro 
 overhead. He got up at once, dressed in haste, and clambered 
 up the companion-ladder. It was a wild scene. It had come 
 on to blow hard. The brig was under reefed topsails and jib : 
 but Thomas knew nothing of sea affairs. She was a good boat, 
 and rode the seas well. There was just light enough for him 
 to see the water by the white rents m its darkness. Fortun- 
 ately, he was one of those few favored individuals in whose 
 nerves the motion of a vessel finds no response — I mean he did 
 not know what sea-sickness was. And that storm came to him 
 a wonderful gift from the Father who had not forgotten his 
 
312 Guild Court. 
 
 erring child — so strangely did it harmonize with his troubled 
 mind. New strength, even hope, invaded his weary heart from 
 the hiss of the wind through the cordage as it bellied out from 
 the masts ; his soul rejoiced in the heave of the wave under 
 the bows and its swift rush astern ; and though he had to hold 
 hard by the weather shrouds, not a shadow of fear crossed his 
 mind. This may have partly come from life being to him now 
 a worthless thing, save as he had some chance of — he did not 
 know what ; for although he saw no way of recovering his lost 
 honor, and therefore considered that eternal disgrace was his, 
 even if God and man forgave him, there was yet a genuine ray 
 of an unknown hope borne into him, asl say, from the crests of 
 those broken waves. But I think it was natural to Thomas to 
 fear nothing that merely involved danger to himself. In this 
 respect he possessed a fine physical courage. It was in moral 
 courage — the power of looking human anger and contempt in 
 the face, and holding on his own way— that he was deficient. 
 I believe that this came in a great measure from a delicate, 
 sensitive organization. He could look a storm in the face ; 
 but a storm in a face he could not endure ; he quailed before 
 it. He would sail over a smooth human sea, if he might ; 
 when a wind rose there, he would be under bare poles in a 
 moment. Of course this sensitiveness was not in itself an evil, 
 being closely associated with his poetic tendencies, which ought 
 to have been the center from which all the manlier qualities 
 were influenced for culture and development ; but he had 
 been spoiled in every way, not least by the utterly conflicting 
 discords of nature, objects, and character in his father and 
 mother. But although a man may be physically brave and 
 morally a coward — a fact too well known to be insisted upon — 
 a facing of physical danger will help the better courage in the 
 man whose will is at all awake to cherish it ; for the highest 
 moral courage is born of the will, and not of the organization. 
 The storm wrought thus along with all that was best in him. 
 In the fiercest of it that night, he found himself often kissing 
 Lucy's ring, which, as soon as he began to know that they 
 were in some danger, and not till then, he had, though with a 
 strong feeling of the sacrilege of the act, ventured to draw once 
 more upon his unworthy hand. 
 
 The wind increased as the sun rose. If he could only have 
 helped the men staggering to and fro, as they did on the great 
 sea in the days of old ! But he did not know one rope from 
 another. Two men were at the tiller. One was called away 
 on sOme emergency aloft. Thomas sprang to his place. 
 
Thomas Returns to London. 313 
 
 "I will do whatever you tell me," lie said to the steersman ;" 
 " only let me set a man free." 
 
 Then he saw it was the captain himself. He gave a nod, 
 and a squirt of tobaco-juice, as cool as if he had been steering 
 with a light gale over a rippling sea. Thomas did his best, 
 and in five minutes had learned to obey the word the captain 
 gave him as he watched the binnacle. About an hour after 
 the sun rose the wind began to moderate ; and before long 
 the captain gave up the helm to the mate, saying to Thomas : 
 
 "We'll go and have some breakfast. You've earned your 
 rations, anyhow. Your father ought to have sent you to sea. 
 It would have made a man of you." 
 
 This was not very complimentary. But Thomas had only a 
 suppressed sigh to return for answer. He did not feel himself 
 worth defending any more. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THOMAS EETURKS TO LOK1 
 
 .^±t this Thomas made rapid progress in the favor of Cap- 
 tain Smith. He had looked upon him as a landlubber before, 
 with the contempt of his profession ; but when he saw that, 
 clerk as he was, he was yet capable at sea, he began to respect 
 him. And as Thomas wakened up more and more to an inter- 
 est in what was going on around him, he did not indulge in 
 giving him fool's answers to the questions he asked, as so many 
 sea-farers would have been ready to do ; and he soon found, 
 that Thomas's education, though it was by no means a first- 
 rate one, enabled him to ask more questions with regard to 
 the laws of wind and water and the combination of forces than 
 he was quite able to solve. Before they reached the end of the 
 voyage, Thomas knew the rigging pretty well, and could make 
 himself useful on board. Anxious to ingratiate himself with 
 the captain — longing almost unconsciously for the support of 
 some human approbation, the more that lie had none to give 
 himself — he laid himself out to please him. Having a toler- 
 ably steady head, he soon found himself able to bear a hand in 
 taking in a reef in the foretop-sail, and he could steer by the 
 course with tolerable steadiness. The sailors were a not un- 
 
314 Guild Court 
 
 sociable set of men, and as he presumed upon nothing, they 
 too gave him what help they could, not without letting off a 
 few jokes at his expense, in the laughter following on which 
 he did his best to join. The captain soon began to order him 
 about like the rest, which was the best kindness he could have 
 shown him ; and Thomas's obedience was more than prompt — 
 it was as pleasant as possible. He had on bis part some 
 information to give the captain; and their meals in the cabin 
 together were often merry enough. 
 
 "Do you think you could ever make a sailor of me ?" asked 
 Tom, one day. 
 
 "Not a doubt of it, my boy," the captain answered. "A 
 few voyages more, and you'll go aloft like a monkey." 
 
 "Where do you think of making your next voyage, sir?" 
 asked Tom. 
 
 "Well, I'm part owner of the brig, and can do pretty much 
 as I like. I did think of Dundee." 
 
 "I should have thought they have coal enough of their own 
 thereabouts." 
 
 "A cargo of English coal never comes amiss. It's better 
 than theirs by a long way." 
 
 " Would you take me with you ? " 
 
 "To be sure, if you can't do better." 
 
 " I can't. I don't want anything but my rations, you know." 
 
 " You'll soon be worth your wages. I can't say you are yet, 
 you know." 
 
 " Of course not. You must have your full crew besides." 
 
 " We're one hand short this voyage ; and you've done some- 
 thing to fill the gap." 
 
 "I'm very glad, I'm sure. But what would you advise me 
 to do when we reach Newcastle ? It will be some time before 
 you get off again." 
 
 "Not long. If you like to take your share in getting the 
 cargo on board, you can make wages by that." 
 
 " With all my heart," said Thomas, whom this announce- 
 ment greatly relieved. 
 
 " It's dirty work," said the captain. 
 
 "There's plenty of water about," answered Thomas. 
 
 When they came to Newcastle, Thomas worked as hard as 
 any of them, getting the ballast out and the new cargo in. 
 He had never known what it was to work before ; and though 
 it tired him dreadfully at first, it did him good. 
 
 Among the men was one wbom he liked more than the rest. 
 He had been in the merchant service, and had sailed to India 
 
Thomas Returns to London. 315 
 
 and other places. He knew more than his shipmates, and had 
 only taken to the coasting for a time for family reasons. With 
 him Thomas chiefly consorted when their day's work was over. 
 With a growing hope that by some means he might rise at last 
 into another kind of company, he made the best he conld of 
 what he had, knowing well that it was far better than he de- 
 served, and far better than what of late he had been voluntarily 
 choosing. His hope, however, alternated with such fits of 
 misery and despair, that if it had not been for the bodily work 
 he had to do, he thought he would have lost his reason. I 
 believe not a few keep hold of their senses in virtue of doing 
 hard work. I knew an earl's son, an heir, who did so. And I 
 think that not a few, especially women, lose their senses just 
 from having nothing to do. Many more, who are not in dan- 
 ger of this, lose their health, and more still lose their purity 
 and rectitude. In other words, health — physical, mental, 
 moral, and spiritual — requires, for its existence and continu- 
 ance, work, often hard and bodily labor. 
 
 This man lived in Newcastle, and got Thomas a decent 
 room near his own dwelling, where he slept. One evening 
 they had been walking together about the place till they were 
 tired. It was growing late, and as they were some distance 
 from home, they went into a little public house which Eobins 
 knew, to get a bit of bread and cheese and some ale. Eobins 
 was a very sober man, and Thomas felt no scruple in accom- 
 panying him thus, although one of the best things to be said 
 for Thomas was, that ever since he went on board the Raven 
 he had steadily refused to touch spirits. Perhaps, as I have 
 hinted before, there was less merit in this than may appear, 
 for the very smell was associated with such painful memories 
 of misery that it made him shudder. Sometimes a man's 
 physical nature comes in to help him to be good. For such a 
 dislike may grow into a principle which will last after the dis- 
 like has vanished. 
 
 They sat down in a little room with colored prints of ships 
 in full sail upon the walls, a sanded floor, in the once new 
 fashion which superseded rushes, and an ostrich egg hanging 
 from the ceiling. The landlady was a friend of Eobins, and 
 showed them this attention. On the other side of a thin par- 
 tition was the ordinary room, where the ordinary run of cus- 
 tomers sat and drank their grog. There were only two or three 
 in there when our party entered. Presently, while Thomas 
 and Eobins were sitting at their supper, they heard two or 
 three more come in. A hearty recognition took place, and 
 
316 Guild Court. 
 
 fresh orders were given. Thomas started and listened. He 
 thought he heard the name Ningpo. 
 
 Now, from Thomas's having so suddenly broken off all con- 
 nection with his friends, he knew nothing of what had been 
 going on with regard to the property Mr. Boxall had left be- 
 hind him. He thought, of course, that Mrs. Boxall would in- 
 herit it. It would not be fair to suppose, however, that this 
 added to his regret at having lost Lucy, for he was humbled 
 enough to be past that. The man who is turned out of Para- 
 dise does not grieve over the loss of its tulips, or, if he does, 
 how came he ever to be within its gates ? But the very fact 
 that the name of Boxall was painful to him, made the name 
 of that vessel attract and startle him at once. 
 
 " What's the matter ?" said Bobins. 
 
 " Didn't you hear some one in the next room mention the 
 Ningpo ? " returned Thomas. 
 
 " Yes. She was a bark in the China trade." 
 
 " Lost last summer on the Cape Verdes. I knew the cap- 
 tain — at least, I didn't know him, but I knew his brother and 
 his family. They were all on board and all lost." 
 
 "Ah !" said Bobins, " that's the way of it, you see. People 
 oughtn't to go to sea but them as has business there. Did you 
 say the crew was lost as well ? " 
 
 " So the papers said." 
 
 Bobins rose, and went into the next room. He had a suspi- 
 cion that he knew the voice. Almost the same moment a rough 
 burst of greeting came to Thomas's ears : and a few minutes 
 after, Bobins entered, bringing with him a sailor so rough, so 
 hairy, so brown, that he looked as if he must be proof against 
 any attack of the elements — case-hardened against wind and 
 water. 
 
 " Here's the gentleman," said Bobins, "as knew your cap- 
 tain, Jack." 
 
 "Do, sir ?" said Jack, touching an imaginary sou'wester. 
 
 " What'll you have ?" asked Tom. 
 
 This important point settled, they had a talk together, in 
 which Jack opened up more freely in the presence of Bobins 
 than he would, have felt interest enough to do with a stranger 
 alone who was only a would-be sailor at best — a fact which 
 could not be kept a secret from an eye used to read all sorts of 
 signals. I will not attempt to give the story in Jack's lingo. 
 But the certainty was that he had been on board the Ningpo 
 when she went to pieces — that he had got ashore on a spar, 
 after sitting through the night on the stern, and seeing every 
 
Thomas Beturns to London. 317 
 
 soul lost, as far as he believed, but himself. He had no great 
 power of description, and did not volunteer much ; but he re- 
 turned very direct answers to all the questions Thomas put to 
 him. Had Thomas only read some of the proceedings in the 
 Court of Probate during the last few months, he would have 
 known better what sort of questions to put to him. Almost 
 the only remark Jack volunteered was : 
 
 " Poor little July ! how she did stick to me, to be sure ! 
 But she was as dead as a marlin -spike long afore the starn 
 broke up." 
 
 " Were you long on the island ? " asked Tom. 
 
 "No, not long," answered the sailor. "I always was one 
 of the lucky ones. I was picked up the same day by a brigan- 
 tine bound from Portingale to the Sambusy." 
 
 Little did Tom think how much might be involved in what 
 Jack said. They parted, and the friends went home together. 
 They made a good voyage, notwithstanding some rough 
 weather, to Dundee, failed in getting a return cargo, and went 
 back to Newcastle in ballast. From Newcastle their next 
 voyage was to London again. 
 
 " If you would rather not go to London," said the master to 
 Tom, "there's a friend of mine here who is just ready to start 
 for Aberdeen. I dare say if I were to speak to him he would 
 take you on board." 
 
 But Tom's heart was burning to see Lucy once more — if 
 only to see her and restore her ring. If, he thought, he might 
 but once humble himself to the dust before her — if he might 
 but let her see that, worthless as he was, he worshiped her, his 
 heart would be easier. He thought, likewise, tbat what with 
 razoring and tanning, and the change of his clotbes, he was 
 not likely to be recognized. And besides, by this time the 
 power must be out of Mr. Stopper's hands ; at least Lucy must 
 have come to exert her influence over the affairs of the busi- 
 ness, and she would not allow them to drive things to extrem- 
 ity with him, worthless as he was. He would venture, come of 
 it what might. So he told the captain that he would much 
 prefer to work his passage to London again. It was a long 
 passage this time, and very rough weather. 
 
 It was with strange feelings that Thomas saw once more the 
 turrets of the Tower of London. Danger — exposure, it might 
 be — lay before him, but he thought only of Lucy, not of the 
 shame now. It was yet early morning when Captain Smith 
 and he went on shore at Shadwell. The captain was going to 
 see an old friend in the neighborhood, and after that to Lime- 
 
318 Guild Court. 
 
 house, to the Mermaid, to see his sister. Thomas wanted to be 
 alone, for he had not yet succeeded in making up his mind 
 what he was going to do. So he sent a grateful message by the 
 captain, with the addition that he would look in upon them 
 in the evening. 
 
 Left alone, without immediate end or aim, he wandered on, 
 not caring whither he went, but, notwithstanding his heavy 
 thoughts, with something of the enjoyment the sailor feels in 
 getting on shore even after only a fortnight at sea. It was a 
 bright, cold, frosty morning, in the month of March. With- 
 out knowing his course, Thomas was wandering northward ; 
 and after he had gone into a coffee-shop and had some break- 
 fast, he carelessly resumed his course in the same direction. 
 He found that he was in the Cambridge Eoad, but whither 
 that led he had no idea. Nor did he know, so absorbed was 
 he in his own thoughts, even after he came into a region he 
 knew, till, lifting up his head, he saw the gray, time-worn 
 tower, that looks so strong and is so shaky, of the old church 
 of Hackney, now solitary, its ancient nave and chancel and all 
 having vanished, leaving it to follow at its leisure, wearied out 
 with disgust at the church which has taken its place, and is 
 probably the ugliest building in Christendom, except the 
 parish-church of a certain little town in the north of Aberdeen- 
 shire. This sent a strange pang to his heart, for close by, that 
 family used to live whose bones were now whitening among 
 those rocky islands of the Atlantic He went into the church- 
 yard, sat down on a grave-stone, and thought. Now that the 
 fiction of his own worth had vanished like an image in the 
 clouds of yesterday, he was able to see clearly into his past life 
 and conduct ; and he could not conceal from himself that his 
 behavior to Mary Boxall might have had something to do with 
 the loss of the whole family. He saw more and more the mis- 
 chief that had come of his own weakness, lack of courage, and 
 principle. If he could but have defended his own conduct 
 where it was blameless, or at least allowed it to be open to the 
 daylight and the anger of those whom it might not please, he 
 would thus have furnished his own steps with a strong barrier 
 against sliding clown that slope down which he had first slid- 
 den before falling headlong from the precipice at its foot. In 
 self-abasement he rose from the grave-stone, and walked slowly 
 past the house. Merry faces of children looked from upper 
 windows, who knew nothing of those who had been there be- 
 fore them. Then he went away westward toward Highbury. 
 He would just pass his father's door. There was no fear of his 
 
TJiomas Returns to London. 319 
 
 father seeing him at this time of the day, for he would be at 
 his office, and his mother could not leave her room. Ah, his 
 mother ! How had he behaved to her ? A new torrent of 
 self-reproach rushed over his soul as he walked along the downs 
 toward Islington. Some day, if he could only do something 
 first to distinguish himself in any way, he would go and beg 
 her forgiveness. But what chance was there of his ever doing 
 any thing uoav ? He had cnt all the ground of action from 
 under his own feet. Not yet did Thomas see that his duty was 
 to confess his sin, waiting for no means of covering its enor- 
 mity. He walked on. He passed the door, casting but a cur- 
 sory glance across the windows. There was no one to be seen. 
 He went down the long walk with the lime-trees on one side, 
 which he knew so well, and just as he reached the gates there 
 were his sister Amy and Mr. Simon coming from the other 
 side. They were talking and laughing merrily, and looking in 
 each other's face. He had never seen Mr. Simon look so 
 pleasant before. He almost felt as if he could speak to him. 
 But no sooner did Mr. Simon see that this sailor-looking fel- 
 low was regarding them, than the clerical mask was on his 
 face, and Thomas turned away with involuntary dislike. 
 
 "It is clear," he said to himself, "that they don't care 
 much what is become of me." He turned then, westward 
 again, toward Highgate, and then went over to Hampstead, 
 paused at the pines, and looked along the valley beneath ; 
 then descended into it, and went across the heath till he came 
 out on the road by Wildwood. This was nearly the way he 
 had wandered on that stormy Christmas Day with Mary Box- 
 all. He had this day, almost without conscious choice, trav- 
 ersed the scenes of his former folly. Had he not been brood- 
 ing repentantly over his faults, I doubt if he could have done 
 so, even unconsciously. He turned into the Bull and Bush, 
 and had some dinner ; then, as night was falling, started for 
 London, having made up his mind at last what he would do. 
 At the Bull and Bush he wrote a note to Lucy, to the follow- 
 ing effect. He did not dare to call her by her name, still less 
 to use any term of endearment. 
 
 "I am not worthy to speak or write your name," he said ; 
 "but my heart is dying to see you once more. I have like- 
 wise to return you your mother's ring, which, though it has 
 comforted me often in my despair, I have no longer any right 
 to retain. But I should just like to tell you that I am working 
 honestly for my bread. I am a sailor now. I am qiiite clear 
 of all my bad companions, and hope to remain so. Dare I ask 
 
320 Guild Court. 
 
 you to meet me once — to-morrow night, say, or any night 
 goon, for I am not safe in London ? I will tell you all when I 
 see you. Send me one line by the bearer of this to say where 
 you will meet me. Do not, for the sake of your love to me 
 once, refuse me this. I want to beg your forgiveness, that I 
 may go away less miserable than I am. Then I will go to Aus- 
 tralia, or somewhere out of the country, and you will never 
 hear of me more. God bless you." 
 
 He cried a good deal over this note. Then came the ques- 
 tion how he was to send it. He could, no doubt, find a mes- 
 senger at the Mermaid, but he was very unwilling to make any 
 line of communication between that part of London and Guild. 
 Court, or, more properly, to connect himself, whose story was 
 there known, with Lucy's name. He would go to the neigh- 
 borhood of Guild Court and there look out for a messenger, 
 whom he could then watch. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLV. 
 
 THOMAS IS CAPTUEED. 
 
 As soon as he had resolved upon this he set out. There was 
 plenty of time. He would walk. Tired as he was beginning 
 to be, motion was his only solace. He walked through Hamp- 
 stead, and by Haverstock Hill, Tottenham Court Road, and 
 Holborn to the City. By this time the moon was up. Going 
 by Ludgate Hill, he saw her shining over St. Paul's right 
 through the spire of St. Martin's, where the little circle of 
 pillars lays it open to the sky and the wind ; she seemed to 
 have melted the spire in two. Then he turned off to the left, 
 now looking out for a messenger. In his mind he chose and 
 rejected several, dallying with his own eagerness, and yielding 
 to one doubt after another about each in succession. At last 
 he reached the farther end of Bagot Street. There stood Pop- 
 pie with her "murphy-buster." Had it been daylight, when 
 her dress and growth would have had due effect upon her ap- 
 pearance, probably Thomas would not have known her ; but 
 seeing her face only by the street-lamp, he just recollected 
 that he had seen the girl about Guild Court. He had no sus- 
 picion that she would know him. But Poppie was as sharp as 
 a needle ; she did know him. 
 
Thomas is Captured. 321 
 
 " Do you know Guild Court, my girl ? " he asked. 
 
 " I believe you," answered Poppie. 
 
 "Would you take this letter for me, and give it to Miss 
 Burton, who lives there, and wait for an answer ? If she's not 
 at home, bring it back to me. I will take care of your pota- 
 toes, and give you a shilling when you come back." 
 
 Whether Poppie would have accepted the office if she had not 
 recognized Thomas, I do not know. She might, for she had 
 so often forsaken her machine and found it all right when she 
 returned that I think the promise of the shilling would have 
 enabled her to run the risk. As it was, she scudded. While 
 she was gone he sold three or four of her potatoes. He knew 
 how to deliver them ; but he didn't know the price, and just 
 took what they gave him. He stood trembling with hope. 
 
 Suddenly he was seized by the arm from behind, and a gruff 
 voice he thought he knew, said : 
 
 "Here he is. Come along, Mr. Worboise. You're want- 
 ed." 
 
 Thomas had turned in great alarm. There were four men, 
 he saw, but they were not policemen. That was a comfort. 
 Two of them were little men. None of them spoke but the 
 one who seized him. He twisted his arm from the man's 
 grasp, and was just throwing his fist at his head, when he was 
 pinioned by two arms thrown round him from behind. 
 
 "Don't strike," said the first man, "or it'll be the worse 
 for you. I'll call the police. Come along, and I swear noth- 
 ing but good will come of it — to you as well as to other peo- 
 ple. I'm not the man to get you into trouble, I can tell you. 
 Don't you know me ? — Kitely, the bookseller. Come along. 
 I've been in a fix myself before now." 
 
 Thomas yielded, and they led him away. 
 
 " But there's that child's potatoes !" he said. " The whole 
 affair will be stolen. Just wait till she comes back." 
 
 " Oh ! she's all right," said Kitely. " There she is, butter- 
 ing a ha'p'orth. Come along." 
 
 They led him through streets and lanes, every one of which 
 Thomas knew better than his catechism a good deal. All at 
 once they hustled him in at a church door. In the vestibule 
 Thomas saw that there were but two with him — Mr. Kitely, 
 whom he now recognized, and a little man with his hair stand- 
 ing erect over his ])ale face, like corn on the top of a chalk- 
 cliff. Him too he recognized, for Mr. Spelt had done many 
 repairs for him. The other two had disappeared. Neither 
 Mr. Salter nor Mr. Dolman cared to tempt Providence by 
 21 
 
322 Guild Court. 
 
 coming farther. It was Jim who had secured his arms, and 
 saved Kitely's head. Mr. Kitely made way for Thomas to en- 
 ter first. Fearful of any commotion, he yielded still, and went 
 into a pew near the door. The two men followed him. It is 
 time I should account for the whole of this strange proceed- 
 ing. 
 
 Jim Salter did not fail to revisit the Mermaid on the day of 
 Tom's departure, but he was rather late, and Tom was gone. 
 As to what had become of him, Mr. Potts thought it more 
 prudent to profess ignorance. He likewise took another j>ro- 
 cedure upon him, which, although well-meant, was not honest. 
 Eegardless of Thomas's desire that Jim should have a half- 
 sovereign for the trouble of the preceding day, Mr. Potts, 
 weighing the value of Jim's time, and the obligation he was 
 himself under to Tom, resolved to take Tom's interests in his 
 own hands, and therefore very solemnly handed a half-crown 
 and a florin, as what Thomas had left for him, across the 
 counter to Jim. Jim took the amount in severe dudgeon. 
 The odd sixpence was especially obnoxious. It was grievous 
 to his soul. 
 
 " Four and sixpence ! Four bob and one tanner," said 
 Jim, in a tone of injury, in which there certainly was no pre- 
 tense — "after a-riskin' of my life, not to mention a-wastin' of 
 my precious time for the ungrateful young snob. Four and 
 sixpence ! " 
 
 Mr. Potts told him with equal solemnity, a righteous indig- 
 nation looking over the top of his red nose, to hold his jaw, or 
 go out of his tavern. Whereupon Jim gave a final snuff, and 
 was silent, for where there was so much liquor on the premises 
 it was prudent not to anger the Mermaid's master. There- 
 upon the said master, probably to ease his own conscience Jim- 
 ward, handed him a glass of old Tom, which Jim, not with- 
 out suspicion of false play, emptied and deposited. From that 
 day, although he continued to call occasionally at the Mermaid, 
 he lost all interest in his late client, never referred to him, and 
 always talked of Bessy Potts as if he himself had taken her 
 out of the water. 
 
 The acquaintance between Dolman and him began about 
 this time to grow a little more intimate; and after the meeting 
 which I have described above, they met pretty frequently, 
 when Mr. Dolman communicated to him such little facts as 
 transpired about "them lawyers," namely, Mr. Worboise's 
 proceedings. Among the rest was the suspicious disappear- 
 ance of the son, whom Mr. Dolman knew, not to speak to, 
 
Tliomas is Captured. 323 
 
 but by sight, as well as his own lap-stone. Mr. Salter, already 
 suspicious of his man, requested a description of the missing 
 youth, and concluded that it was the same in whom he had 
 been so grievously disappointed, for the odd sixpence repre- 
 sented any conceivable amount of meanness, not to say wicked- 
 ness. This increased intimacy with Jim did Dolman no good, 
 and although he would not yet forsake his work during work- 
 hours, he would occasionally permit Jim to fetch a jug of 
 beer from a neighboring tavern, and consume it with him in 
 his shop. On these occasions they had to use great circumspec- 
 tion with regard to Dolly's landlord, who sat over his head. 
 But in the winter nights, Mr. Spelt would put up the outside 
 shutter over his window to keep the cold out, only occasionally 
 opening his door to let a little air in. This made it possible to 
 get the beer introduced below without discovery, when Dolman, 
 snail-like, closed the mouth of his shell also, in which there 
 was barely room for two, and stitched away while Jim did the 
 chief part of the drinking and talking — in an under-tone — for 
 him — not so low, however, but that Spelt could hear not a 
 little that set him thinking. It was pretty clear that young 
 Worboise was afraid to show himself, and this and other points 
 he communicated to his friend Kitely. This same evening 
 they were together thus when they heard a hurried step come 
 up and stop before the window, and the voice of Mr. Kitely, 
 well known to Dolman, call to the tailor overhead. 
 
 "Spelt, I say. Spelt!" 
 
 Mr. Spelt looked out at his door. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Kitely. What's the matter ? " 
 
 "Here's that young devil's lamb, Worboise,. been and sent a 
 letter to Miss Burton by your Poppie, and he's a-waitin' an 
 answer. Come along, and we'll take him alive." 
 
 " But what do you want to do with him ? " asked Spelt. 
 
 " Take him to Mr. Fuller." 
 
 "But what if he won't come ?" 
 
 " We can threaten him with the police, as if we knew all 
 about it. Come along, there's no time to be lost." 
 
 "But what would you take him to Mr. Fuller for ?" 
 
 My reader may well be inclined to ask the same question. I 
 will explain. Mr. Kitely was an oi'iginal man in thinking, 
 and a rarely practical man in following it up, for he had con- 
 fidence in his own conclusions. Ever since he had made the 
 acquaintance of Mr. Fuller, through Mattie's illness, he had 
 been feeling his influence more and more, and was gradually 
 reforming his ways in many little things that no one knew of 
 
324 Guild Court. 
 
 but himself. No one in London knew him as any thing but 
 an honest man, but I presume there are few men so honest 
 that if they were to set about it seriously, they could not be 
 honestcr still. I suspect that the most honest man of my 
 acquaintance will be the readiest to acknowledge this ; for 
 honesty has wonderful offshoots from its great tap-root. Hav- 
 ing this experience in himself, he had faith in the moral power 
 of Mr. Fuller. Again, since Lucy had come to live in the 
 house, he had grown to admire her yet more, and the attention 
 and kindness she continued to show to his princess, caused an 
 equal growth in his gratitude. Hence it became more and 
 more monstrous in his eyes that she should be deprived of her 
 rights in such a villainous manner by the wickedness of "them 
 Worboises." For the elder, he was afraid that he was beyond 
 redemption ; but if he could get hold of the younger, and put 
 him under Mr. Fuller's pump, for that was how he represented 
 the possible process of cleansing to himself, something might 
 come of it. He did not know that Thomas was entirely ignor- 
 ant of his father's relation to the property of the late Richard 
 Boxall, and that no man in London would have less influence 
 with Worboise, senior, than Worboise, junior. He had had 
 several communications with Mr. Fiiller on the subject, and had 
 told him all he knew. Mr. Fuller likewise had made out that 
 this must be the same young man of whom Lucy had spoken in 
 such trouble. But as he had disappeared, nothing could be 
 done — even if he had had the same hope of good results from 
 the interview as Mr. Kitely, whose . simplicity and eagerness 
 amused as well as pleased him. "When Mr. Kitely, therefore, 
 received from Poppie Thomas's letter to give to Lucy, who 
 happened to be out, he sped at once, with his natural prompti- 
 tude, to secure Mr. Spelt's assistance in carrying out his con- 
 spiracy against Thomas. 
 
 As soon as the two below heard Mr. Spelt scramble down 
 and depart with Mr. Kitely, they issued from their station ; 
 Mr. Dolman anxious to assist in the capture, Mr. Salter wish- 
 ing to enjoy his disgrace, for the odd sixpence rankled. As 
 soon as they saw him within the inner door of the church they 
 turned and departed. They knew nothing about churches, 
 and were unwilling to enter. They did not know what they 
 might be in for, if they went in. Neither had they any idea 
 for what object Thomas was taken there. . Dolman went away 
 with some vague notion about the Ecclesiastical Court ; for he 
 tried to read the papers sometimes. This notion he imparted 
 with equal vagueness to the brain of Jim Salter, already mud- 
 
The Confession. 325 
 
 died with the beer he had drunk. Dolman went back to his 
 work, hoping to hear about it when Spelt came home. Jim 
 wandered eastward to convey a somewhat incorrect idea of 
 what had happened to the inhabitants of the Mermaid. Hav- 
 ing his usual design on the Mermaid's resources, his story lost 
 nothing in the telling, and, in great perplexity, and greater 
 uneasiness, Captain Smith and Mr. Potts started to find out 
 the truth of the matter. Jim conducted them to the church 
 door, which was still open, and retired round the corner. 
 
 Meantime the captors and the culprit waited till the service 
 was over. As soon as Mr. Fuller had retired to the vestry, 
 and the congregation had dispersed, Mr. Kitely intimated to 
 Thomas that he must follow him, and led the way up the 
 church. With the fear of the police still before his eyes, 
 Thomas did follow, and the little tailor brought up the rear. 
 Hardly waiting, in his impatience, to knock at the door, Mr. 
 Kitely popped his head in as Mr. Fuller was standing in his 
 shirt-sleeves, and said with ill-supjoressed triumph : 
 
 " Here he is, sir ! I've got him ! " 
 
 " Whom do you mean ? " said Mr. Fuller, arrested by sur- 
 prise with one arm in his coat and the other hand searching-/* 
 for the other sleeve. 
 
 "Young Worboise. The lawyer-chap, you know sir," he 
 added, seeing that the name conveyed no idea. 
 
 " Oh ! said Mr. Fuller, prolongedly. " Show him in, then." 
 And on went his coat. 
 
 Thomas entered, staring in bewilderment. Nor was Mr. Ful- 
 ler quite at his ease at first, when the handsome, brown sailor- 
 lad stepped into the vestry. But he shook hands with him, 
 and asked him to take a chair. Thomas obeyed. Seeing his 
 conductors lingered, Mr. Fuller then said : 
 
 "You must leave us alone now, Mr. Kitely. How do you 
 do, Mr. Spelt?" 
 
 They retired, and, after a short consultation together in the 
 church, agreed that they had done their part and could do no 
 more, and went home. 
 
 CHAPTER XL VI. 
 
 THE CONFESSION". 
 
 As soon as the door closed behind them, Mr. Fuller turned 
 to Tom, saying, as he took a chair near him, " I'm very glad 
 
326 Guild Court. 
 
 to see you, Mr. Worboise. I have long wanted to have a little 
 talk with you.*' 
 
 " Will you tell me," said Tom, with considerable uneasiness, 
 notwithstanding the pacific appearance of everything about 
 him, " why those people have made me come to you ? I was 
 afraid of making a row in the street, and so I thought it better 
 to give in. But I have not an idea why I am here." 
 
 Mr. Fuller thought there must be some farther reason, else 
 a young man of Thomas's appearance would not have so quietly 
 yielded to the will of two men like Kitely and Spelt. But he 
 kept this conclusion to himself. 
 
 "It certainly was a most unwarrantable proceeding if they 
 used any compulsion. But I have no intention of using any — 
 nor should I have much chance," he added, laughing, "if it 
 came to a tussle with a young fellow like you, Mr. Worboise." 
 
 This answer restored Tom to his equanimity a little. 
 
 "Perhaps you know my father," he said, finding that Mr. 
 Fuller was silent. In fact, Mr. Fuller was quite puzzled how 
 to proceed. He cared little for the business part, and for the 
 other, he must not compromise Lucy. Clearly the lawyer- 
 business was the only beginning. And this question of Tom's 
 helped him to it. 
 
 "I have not the pleasure of knowing your father. I wish I 
 had. But, after all, it is better I should have a chat with you 
 first." 
 
 " Most willingly," said Tom, with courtesy. 
 
 " It is a very unconventional thing I am about to do. But 
 very likely you will give me such information as Avill enable me 
 to set the minds of some of my friends at rest. I am perfectly 
 aware what a lame introduction this is, and I must make a 
 foolish figure indeed, except you will kindly understand that 
 sometimes a clergyman is compelled to meddle with matters 
 which he would gladly leave alone." 
 
 "I have too much need of forbearance myself not to grant 
 it, sir — although I do not believe any will be necessary in your 
 case. Pray make me understand you." 
 
 Mr. Fuller was greatly pleased with this answer, and pro- 
 ceeded to business at once. 
 
 " I am told by a man who is greatly interested in one of the 
 parties concerned, that a certain near relative of yours is in 
 possession of a large property which ought by right, if not by 
 law, to belong to an old lady who is otherwise destitute. I 
 wish to employ your mediation to procure a settlement upon 
 her of such small portion of the property at least as will make 
 
The Confession. 327 
 
 her independent. I am certainly explicit enough now," con- 
 cluded Mr. Fuller, with a considerable feeling of relief in hav- 
 ing discharged himself, if not of his duty, yet of so creditable 
 a beginning of it. 
 
 "I am as much in the dark as ever, sir," returned Thomas. 
 "I know nothing of what you refer to. If you mean my 
 father, I am the last one to know anything of his affairs. I 
 have not seen him or heard of him for months." 
 
 " But you cannot surely be ignorant of the case. It has 
 been reported in the public prints from time to time. It 
 seems that your father has come in for the contingent rever- 
 sion — I think that is the phrase, I'm not sure — of all the 
 property of the late Richard Boxall — " 
 
 "By Jove !" cried Thomas, starting to his feet in a rage, 
 then sinking back on his chair in conscious helplessness. 
 " He did make his will," he muttered. 
 
 "Leaving," Mr. Fuller went on, "the testator's mother and 
 his niece utterly unprovided for." 
 
 "But she had money of her own in the business. I have 
 heard her say so a thousand times." 
 
 " She has nothing now." 
 
 " My father is a villain ! " cried Thomas, starting once more 
 to his feet, and pacing up and down in the little vestry like a 
 wild beast in a cage. "And what am If" he added, after a 
 pause. "I have brought all this upon her." He could say 
 no more. .He sat down, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed. 
 
 Thomas was so far mistaken in this, that his father, after 
 things had gone so far as they had, would have done as he had 
 done, whatever had been Thomas's relations to the lady. But 
 certainly, if he had behaved as he ought, things could not 
 have gone thus far. He was the cause of all the trouble. 
 
 Nothing could have been more to Mr. Fuller's mind. 
 
 "As to Miss Burton," he said, " I happen to know that she 
 has another grief, much too great to allow her to think about 
 money. A clergyman, you know, comes to hear of many 
 things. She never told me who he was," said Mr. Fuller, with 
 hesitation ; " but she confessed to me that she was in great 
 trouble." 
 
 "Oh, sir, what shall I do?" cried Thomas; "I love her 
 with all my heart, but I can never, never dare to think of her 
 more. I came up to London at the risk of — of — I came up 
 to London only to see her and give her back this ring, and beg 
 her to forgive me, and go away forever. And now I have not 
 only given her pain — " 
 
328 Guild Court 
 
 "Pain! "said Mr. Fuller. "If she weren't so good, her 
 heart would hare broken before now." 
 
 Thomas burst out sobbing again. He turned his face away 
 from Mr. Fuller and stood by the wall, shaken with misery. 
 Mr. Fuller left him alone for a minute or two. Then, going 
 up to him, he put his hand on his shoulder, kindly, and said : 
 
 " My dear boy, I suspect you have got into some terrible 
 scrape, or you would not have disappeared as they tell me. 
 And your behavior seems to confirm the suspicion. Tell me 
 all about it, and I have very little doubt that I can help you 
 out of it. But you must tell me everything." 
 
 " I will, sir ; I will," Tom sobbed. 
 
 " Mind, no half-confessions. I have no right to ask you to 
 confess but on the ground of helping you. But if I am to 
 help you, I must know all. Can I trust you that you will be 
 quite straightforward and make a clean breast of it ? " 
 
 Tom turned round, and looked Mr. Fuller calmly in the 
 face. The light of hope shone in his eyes : the very offer of 
 hearing all his sin and misery gave him hope. To tell it, 
 would be to get rid of some of the wretchedness. 
 
 "I hate myself so, sir," he said, " that I do not feel it worth 
 while to hide anything. I will speak the truth. When you 
 wish to know more than I tell, ask me any questions you 
 please, and I will answer them." 
 
 At this moment a tap was heard at the vestry door, and it 
 opened, revealing two strange figures with scared, interro- 
 gating faces on the top — the burly form of Captain Smith, 
 and the almost as bulky, though differently arranged, form of 
 Mr. Potts. 
 
 "Don't'ee be too hard on the young gentleman, sir," said 
 Mr. Potts, in the soothing tone of one who would patch up a 
 family quarrel. " He won't do it again, I'll go bail. You 
 don't know, sir, what a good sort he is. Don't'ee get him into 
 no trouble. He lost his life — all but — a reskewing of my 
 Bessie. He did now. True as the Bible, sir," added Mr. 
 Potts, with conciliatory flattery to the clergyman's profession, 
 whom they both took for the father or uncle of Thomas. 
 
 "You just let me take him off again, sir," put in Captain 
 Smith, while the face of Mr. Potts, having recovered its usual 
 complexion, looked on approvingly like a comic but benevolent 
 moon. 
 
 Mr. Fuller had a wise way of never interrupting till he saw 
 in what direction the sense lay. So he let them talk, and the 
 seaman went on : 
 
, The Confession. 329 
 
 " Everybody knows the sea's the place for curing the likes 
 o' them fine fellows that carries too much sail ashore. They 
 soon learns their reef-points there. Why, parson, sir, he's 
 been but three or four voyages, and I'll take him for an able- 
 bodied seaman to-morrow. He's a right good sort, though he 
 may ha' been a little frolicsome on shore. We was all young 
 once, sir." 
 
 "Are these men friends of yours, Mr. Worboise ?" asked 
 Mr. Fuller. 
 
 "Indeed they are," answered Thomas. "I think I must 
 have killed myself before now, if it hadn't been for those two." 
 
 So saying, he shook hands with Mr. Potts, and, turning to 
 the captain, said : 
 
 " Thank you, thank you, captain, but I am quite safe with 
 this gentleman. I will come and see you to-morrow." 
 
 " He shall sleep at my house to-night," said Mr. Fuller ; 
 "and no harm shall happen to him, I promise you." 
 
 "Thank you, sir;" and "Good-night, gentlemen," said 
 both, and went through the silent, wide church with a kind of 
 awe that rarely visited either of them. 
 
 Without further preface than just the words, " Now, I will 
 tell you all about it, sir," Thomas began his story. When he 
 had finished it, having answered the few questions he put to 
 him in its course, Mr. Fuller was satisfied that he did know all 
 about it, and that if ever there was a case in which he ought 
 to give all the help he could, here was one. He did not utter 
 a word of reproof. Thomas's condition of mind was such that 
 it was not only unnecessary, but might have done harm. He 
 had now only to be met with the same simplicity which he had 
 himself shown. The help must match the confession. 
 
 " Well, we must get you out of this scrape, somehow," he 
 said, heartily. 
 
 "I don't see how you can, sir." 
 
 "It rests with yourself chiefly. Another can only help. 
 The feet that walked into the mire must turn and walk out of 
 it again. I don't mean to reproach you — only to encourage 
 you to effort." 
 
 "What effort?" said Tom. "I have scarcely heart for 
 anything. I have disgraced myself forever. Suppose all the 
 consequences of my — doing as I did " — he could not yet call 
 the deed by its name — "were to disappear, I have a blot upon 
 me to all eternity, that nothing can wash out. For there is 
 the fact. I almost think it is not worth while to do anything." 
 
 " You are altogether wrong about that," returned Mr. Fuller. 
 
330 Guild Court. 
 
 " It is true that the deed is done, and that that cannot be 
 obliterated. But a living soul may outgrow all stain and all 
 reproach — I do not mean in the judgment of men merely, but 
 in the judgment of God, which is always founded on the 
 actual fact, and always calls things by their right names, and 
 covers no man's sin, although he forgives it and takes it away. 
 A man may abjure his sin so, cast it away from him so utterly, 
 with pure heart and full intent, that, although he did it, it is 
 his no longer. But, Thomas Worboise, if the stain of it were 
 to cleave to you to all eternity, that would be infinitely better 
 than that you should have continued capable of doing the 
 thing. You are more honorable now than you were before. 
 Then you were capable of the crime ; now, I trust, you are not. 
 It was far better that, seeing your character was such that you 
 could do it, you should thus be humbled by disgracing your- 
 self, than that you should have gone on holding up a proud 
 head in the world, with such a deceitful hollow of weakness in 
 your heart. It is the kindest thing God can do for his chil- 
 dren, sometimes, to let them fall in the mire. You would not 
 hold by your Father's hand ; you struggled to pull it away ; 
 he let it go, and there you lay. Now that you stretch forth 
 the hand to him again, he will take you, and clean, not your 
 garments only, but your heart, and soul, and consciousness. 
 Pray to your Father, my boy. He will change your humilia- 
 tion into humility, your shame into purity." 
 
 " Oh, if he were called anything else than Father I I am 
 afraid I hate my father." 
 
 " I don't wonder. But that is your own fault, too." 
 
 ". How is that, sir ? Surely you are making even me out 
 worse than I am." 
 
 "No. You are afraid of him. As soon as you have ceased 
 to be afraid of him, you will no longer be in danger of hating 
 him." 
 
 " I can't help being afraid of him." 
 
 " You must break the bonds of that slavery. No slave can 
 be God's servant. His servants are all free men. But we will 
 come to that presently. You must not try to call God your 
 Father, till father means something very different to you from 
 what it seems to mean now. Think of the grandest human 
 being you can imagine — the tenderest, the most gracious, 
 whose severity is boundless, but hurts himself most — all against 
 evil, all for the evil-doer. God is all that, and infinitely more. 
 You need not call him by any name till the name bursts from 
 your heart. God our Saviour means all the names in the 
 
The Confession. 331 
 
 world, and infinitely more ! One thing I can assure you of, 
 that even I, if you will but do your duty in regard to this 
 thing, will not only love — yes, I will say that word — will not 
 only love, but honor you far more than if I had known you 
 only as a respectable youth. It is harder to turn back than to 
 keep at home. I doubt if there could be such joy in heaven 
 over the repenting sinner if he was never to be free of his 
 disgrace. But I like you the better for having the feeling of 
 eternal disgrace now." 
 
 " I will think God is like you, sir. Tell me what I am to do." 
 
 " I am going to set you the hardest of tasks, one after the 
 other. They will be like the pinch of death. But they must 
 be done. And after that — peace. Who is at the head of the 
 late Mr. Boxall's business now ? " 
 
 "I suppose Mr. Stopper. He was head-clerk." 
 
 "You must go to him and take him the money you stole." 
 
 Thomas turned ashy pale. 
 
 "I haven't got it, sir." 
 
 1 ' How much was it, did you say ? " 
 
 " Eleven pounds — nearly twelve." 
 
 " I will find you the money. I will lend it to you." 
 
 " Thank you, thank you, sir. I will not spend a penny I 
 can help till I repay you. But — " 
 
 "Yes, now come the huts," said Mr. Fuller, with a smile of 
 kindness. " What is the first hut ? " 
 
 " Stopper is a hard man, and never liked me. He will give 
 i me up to the law. " 
 
 "I can't help it. It must be done. But I do not believe he 
 I will do that. I will help you so far as to promise you to do all 
 that lies in my power in every way to prevent it. And there 
 is your father ; his word will be law with him now." 
 
 " So much the worse, sir. He is ten times as hard as Stop- 
 per." 
 
 " He will not be willing to disgrace his own family, though." 
 
 " I know what he will do. He will make it a condition that 
 I shall give up Lucy. But I will go to prison before I will do 
 that. Not that it will make any difference in the end, for 
 Lucy won't have a word to say to me now. She bore all that 
 woman could bear. But she shall give me up — she has given 
 me up, of course ; but I will never give her up that way." 
 
 " That's right, my boy. Well, what do you say to it ? " 
 
 Tom was struggling with himself. With a sudden resolve, 
 the source of which he coiild not tell, he said, " I will, sir." 
 With a new light in his face he added, " What next ? " 
 
332 Guild Court. 
 
 " Then you must go to your father." 
 
 "That is far worse. I am afraid I can't." 
 
 " You must — if you should not find a word to say when 
 you go — if you should fall in a faint on the floor when you 
 try." 
 
 " I will, sir. Am I to tell him everything ?" 
 
 " I am not prepared to say that. If he had been a true 
 father to you, I should have said ' Of course.' But there is no 
 denying the fact that such he has not been, or rather, that 
 such he is not. The point lies there. I think that alters the 
 affair. It is one thing to confess to God and another to the 
 deyil. Excuse me, I only put the extremes." 
 
 "What ought I to tell him, then ?" 
 
 " I think you will know that best when you see him. "We 
 cannot tell how much he knows." 
 
 "Yes," said Thomas, thoughtfully; "I will tell him that I 
 am sorry I went away as I did, and ask him to forgive me. 
 Will that do?" 
 
 "I must leave all that to your own conscience, heart, and 
 honesty. Of course, if he receives you at all, you must try 
 what you can do for Mrs. Boxall." 
 
 "Alas ! . I know too well how useless that will be. It will 
 only enrage him the more at them. He may offer to put it all 
 right, though, if I promise to give Lucy up. Must I do that, 
 sir?" 
 
 Knowing more about Lucy's feelings than Thomas, Mr. 
 Fuller answered at once — though if he had hesitated, he might 
 have discovered ground for hesitating — 
 
 "On no account whatever." 
 
 "And what must I do next ?" he asked, more cheerfully. 
 
 " There's your mother." 
 
 "Ah ! you needn't remind me of her." 
 
 " Then you must not forget Miss Burton. You have some 
 apology to make to her too, I suppose." 
 
 " I had just sent her a note, asking her to meet me once 
 more, and was waiting for her answer, when the bookseller 
 laid hold of me. I was so afraid of making a row, lest the 
 police should come, that I gave in to him. I owe him more 
 than ever I can repay." 
 
 " You will when you have done all you have undertaken." 
 
 " But how am I to see Lucy now ? She will not know 
 where I am. But perhaps she will not want to see me." 
 
 Here Tom looked very miserable again. Anxious to give 
 him courage, Mr. Fuller said : 
 
Thomas and Mr. Stopper. 333 
 
 " Come home with me now. In the morning, after you 
 have seen Mr. Stopper, and your father and mother, come 
 back to my house. I am sure she will see you." 
 
 With more thanks in his heart than on his tongue, Tom 
 followed Mr. Fuller from the church. When they stepped 
 into the street, they found the bookseller, the seaman, and the 
 publican, talking together on the pavement. 
 
 " It's all right," said Mr. Fuller, as he passed them. " Good- 
 night." Then, turning again to Mr. Kitely, he added, in a 
 low voice, " He knows nothing of his father's behavior, Kitely. 
 You'll be glad to hear that." 
 
 " I ought to be glad to hear it for his own sake, I suppose," 
 returned the bookseller. "But I don't know as I am, for all 
 that." 
 
 " Have patience, have patience," said the parson, and walked 
 on, taking Thomas by the arm. 
 
 For the rest of the evening Mr. Fuller avoided much talk 
 with the penitent, and sent him to bed early. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 THOMAS AND MR. STOPPER. 
 
 Thomas did not sleep much that night, and was up betimes 
 in the morning. Mr. Fuller had risen before him, however, 
 and when Thomas went down stairs, after an invigorating cold 
 bath which his host had taken special care should be provided 
 for him, along with clean linen, he found him in his study 
 reading. He received him very heartily, looking him, with 
 some anxiety, in the face, as if to see whether he could read 
 action there. Apparently he was encouraged, for his own face 
 brightened up, and they were soon talking together earnestly. 
 But knowing Mr. Stopper's habit of being first at the counting- 
 house, Thomas was anxious about the time, and Mr. Fuller 
 hastened breakfast. That and prayers over, he put twelve 
 pounds into Thomas's hand, which he had been out that 
 morning already to borrow from a friend. Then, with a quak- 
 ing heart, but determined will, Thomas set out and walked 
 straight to Bagot Street. Finding no one there but the man 
 sweeping out the place, he went a little farther, and there was 
 
334 Guild Court. 
 
 the bookseller arranging his stall outside the window. Mr. 
 Kitely regarded him with doubtful eyes, vouchsafing him a 
 " good-morning " of the gruffest. 
 
 "Mr. Kitely," said Thomas, "I am more obliged to you 
 than I can tell, for what you did last night." 
 
 " Perhaps you ought to be ; but it wasn't for your sake, Mr. 
 Worboise, that I did it." 
 
 "I am quite aware of that. Still, if you will allow me to 
 say so, I am as much obliged to you as if it had been." 
 
 Mr. Kitely grumbled something, for he was not prepared to 
 be friendly. 
 
 " Will you let me wait in your shop till Mr. Stojjper comes ? " 
 
 "There he is." 
 
 Thomas's heart beat fast ; but he delayed only to give Mr. 
 Stopper time to enter the more retired part of the counting- 
 house. Then he hurried to the door and went in. 
 
 Mr. Stopper was standing with his back to the glass parti- 
 tion, and took the entrance for that of one of his clerks. 
 Thomas tapped at the glass door, but not till he had opened it 
 and said " Mr. Stopper," did he take any notice. He started 
 then, and turned ; but, having regarded him for a moment, 
 gave a rather constrained smile, and, to his surprise, held out 
 his hand. 
 
 "It is very good of you to speak to me at all, Mr. Stopper," 
 said Thomas, touched with gratitude already. " I don't de- 
 serve it." 
 
 " Well, I must say you behaved rather strangely, to say the 
 least of it. It might have been a serious thing for you, Mr. 
 Thomas, if I hadn't been more friendly than you would have 
 given me credit for. Look here." 
 
 And he showed him the sum of eleven pounds thirteen 
 shillings and eightpence halfpenny put down to Mr. Stopper's 
 debit in the petty cash-book. 
 
 " You understand that, I presume, Mr. Thomas. You ran 
 the risk of transportation there." 
 
 " I know I did, Mr. Stopper. But just listen to me a mo- 
 ment, and you will be able to forgive me, I think. I had been 
 drinking, and gambling, and losing all night ; and I believe I 
 was really drunk when I did that. Not that I didn't know I 
 was doing wrong. I can't say that, And I know it doesn't 
 clear me at all, but I want to tell you the truth of it. I've 
 been wretched ever since, and daren't show myself. I have 
 been bitterly punished. I haven't touched cards or dice since. 
 Here's the money," he concluded, offering the notes and gold. 
 
Thomas and Mr. Stopper. 335 
 
 Mr. Stopper did not heed the action at first. He was re- 
 garding Thomas rather curiously. Thomas perceived it 
 
 " Yes," Thomas said, " I am a sailor. It's an honest way of 
 living, and I like it." 
 
 " But you'll come back now, won't you ?" 
 
 " That depends," answered Thomas. " Would you take me, 
 now, Mr. Stopper ? " he added, with a feeble experimental 
 smile. "But there's the money. Do take it out of my 
 hands." 
 
 "It lies with your father now, Mr. Thomas. Have you 
 been to Highbury ? Of course, I took care not to let him 
 know." 
 
 " Thank you heartily. I'm just going there. Do take the 
 horrid money, and let me feel as if I weren't a thief after 
 all." 
 
 "As for the money, eleven pound, odd," said Mr. Stopper, 
 without looking at it, "that's neither here nor there. It was 
 a burglary, there can be no doubt, under the circumstances. 
 But I owe you a quarter's salary, though I should not be bound 
 to pay it, seeing you left as you did. Still, I want to be friend- 
 ly, and you worked very fairly for it. I will hand you over the 
 difference." 
 
 " No, never mind that. I don't care about the money. It 
 was all that damned play," said Thomas. 
 
 "Don't swear, Mr. Thomas," returned Stopper, taking out 
 the check-book, and proceeding to write a check for thirteen 
 pounds six shillings and fourpence. 
 
 "If you had suffered as much from it as I have, Mr. Stop- 
 per, you would see no harm in damning it." 
 
 Mr. Stopper made no reply, but handed him the check, with 
 the words : 
 
 " Now we're clear, Mr. Thomas. But don't do it again. It 
 won't pass twice. I've saved you this time," 
 
 " Do it again ! " cried Thomas, seizing Mr. Stopper's hand ; 
 " I would sooner cut my own throat. Thank you, thank you 
 a thousand times, Mr. Stopper," he added, his heart brimful 
 at this beginning of his day of horror. 
 
 Mr. Stopper very coolly withdrew his hand, turned round on 
 his stool, replaced his check-book in the drawer, and proceed- 
 ed to arrange his writing materials, as if nobody were there but 
 himself. He knew well enough that it was not for Thomas's 
 sake that he had done it ; but he had no particular objection 
 to take the credit of it. There was something rudely impos- 
 ing in the way in which he behaved to Thomas, and Thomas 
 
336 Guild Court. 
 
 felt it and did not resent it : for lie had no right to be indig- 
 nant : he was glad of any terms he could make. Let us hope 
 that Mr. Stopper had a glimmering of how it might feel to 
 have been kind, and that he was a little more ready in conse- 
 quence to do a friendly deed in time to come, even when he 
 could reap no benefit from it. Though Mr. Stopper's assump- 
 tion of faithful friendship could only do him harm, yet perhaps 
 Thomas's ready acknowledgment of it might do him good ; for 
 not unfrequently to behave to a man as good rouses his con- 
 science and makes him wish that he were as good as he is taken 
 for. It gives him almost a taste of what goodness is like — cer- 
 tainly a very faint and far-off taste — yet a something. 
 
 Thomas left the counting-house a free man. He bounded 
 back to Mr. Fuller, returned the money, showed him the 
 check, and told him all. 
 
 " There's a beginning for you, my boy ! " said Mr. Fuller, 
 as delighted almost as Thomas himself. " Now for the 
 next." 
 
 There came the rub. Thomas's countenance fell. He was 
 afraid, and Mr. Fuller saw it. 
 
 "You daren't go near Lucy till you have been to your 
 father. It would be to insult her, Thomas. " 
 
 Tom caught up his cap from the table and left the house, 
 once more resolved. It would be useless to go to Highbury at 
 this hour ; he would find his father at his office in the city. 
 And he had not far to go to find him — unfortunately, thought 
 Tom. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 THOMAS AND HIS FATHER. 
 
 "When he was shown into his father's room he was writing a 
 letter. Looking up and seeing Tom he gave a grin — that is, a 
 laugh without the smile in it — handed him a few of his fingers, 
 pointed to a chair, and went on with his letter. This recep- 
 tion irritated Tom, and perhaps so far did him good that it 
 took off the edge of his sheepishness— or rather, I should have 
 said, put an edge upon it. Before his father he did not feel 
 that he appeared exactly as a culprit. He had told him either 
 to give up Lucy, or not to show his face at home again. He 
 
 I 
 
Thomas and his Father. 337 
 
 had lost Lucy, it might he — though hope had reviyed greatly 
 since his interview with Mr. Stopper ; but, in any case, even 
 if she refused to see him, he would not give her up. So he 
 sat, more composed than he had expected to be, waiting for 
 what should follow. In a few minutes his father looked up 
 again, as he methodically folded his letter, and casting a sneer- 
 ing glance at his son's garb, said : 
 
 "What's the meaning of this masquerading, Tom ?" 
 
 " It means that I am dressed like my work," answered Tom, 
 surprised at his own coolness, now that the ice was broken. 
 
 " What's your work, then, pray ? " 
 
 " I'm a sailor." 
 
 " You a sailor ! A horse-marine, I suppose ! Ha, ha ! " 
 
 " I've made five coasting voyages since you turned me out," 
 said Tom. 
 
 "I turned you out ! You turned yourself out. Why the 
 devil did you come back, then ? Why don't you stick to your 
 new trade ? " 
 
 "You told me either to give up Lucy Burton, or take lodg- 
 ings in Wapping. I won't give up Lucy Burton." 
 
 " Take her to hell, if you like. What do you come back here 
 for with your cursed impudence ? There's nobody I want less." 
 
 This was far from true. He had been very uneasy about his 
 son. Yet now that he saw him — a prey to the vile demon that 
 ever stirred up his avarice till the disease, which was as the 
 rust spoken of by the prophet St. James, was eating Lis flesh 
 as it were fire — his tyrannical disposition, maddened by the re- 
 sistance of his son, and the consequent frustration of his 
 money-making plans, broke out in this fierce, cold, blasting 
 wrath. 
 
 " I come here," said Thomas — and he said it merely to dis- 
 charge himself of a duty, for he had not the thinnest shadow 
 of a hope that it would be of service — "I come here to protest 
 against the extreme to which you are driving your legal 
 rights — which I have only just learned — against Mrs. Boxall." 
 
 "And her daughter. But I am not aware that I am driving 
 my rights, as you emphasize the word," said Mr. Worboise, 
 relapsing into his former manner, so cold that it stung ; "for 
 I believe I have driven them already almost as far as my 
 knowledge of affairs allows me to consider prudent. I have 
 turned those people out of the house." 
 
 " You have ! " cried Thomas, starting to his feet. " Father ! 
 father ! you are worse than even I thought you. It is cruel ; 
 it is wicked." 
 22 
 
338 Guild Court. 
 
 "Don't discompose yourself about it. It is all your own 
 fault, my son." 
 
 " I am no. son of yours. From this moment I renounce you, 
 and call you father no more," cried Thomas, in mingled wrath 
 and horror and consternation at the atrocity of his father's 
 conduct. 
 
 "By what name, then, will you be pleased to be known in 
 future, that I may say when I hear it that you are none of 
 mine ?" 
 
 "'Oh, the devil !" burst out Tom, beside himself with his 
 father's behavior and treatment. 
 
 " Very well. Then I beg again to inform you, Mr. Devil, that 
 it is your own fault. Give up that girl, and I will provide for 
 the iovely siren and her harridan of a grandam for life ; and 
 take you home to wealth and a career which you shall choose 
 for yourself. " 
 
 "No, father. I will not." 
 
 "Then take yourself off, and be — " It is needless to print 
 the close of the sentence. 
 
 Thomas rose and left the room. As he went down the 
 stairs, his father shouted after him, in a tone of fury : 
 
 "You're not to go near your mother, mind." 
 
 "I'm going straight to her," answered Tom, as quietly as 
 he could. 
 
 "If you do, I'll murder her." 
 
 Tom came up the stairs again to the door nest his father's 
 where the clerks sat. He opened this and said aloud : 
 
 " Gentlemen, you hear what my father has just said. There 
 may be occasion to refer to it again." Then returning to his 
 father's door, he said, in a low tone which only he could hear : 
 " My mother may die any moment, as you very well know, 
 sir. It may be awkward after what has just passed." 
 
 Having said this, he left his father a little abashed. As his 
 wrath ebbed, he began to admire his son's presence of mind, 
 and even to take some credit for it: "A chip of the old 
 block ! " he muttered to himself. "Who would have thought 
 there was so much in the rascal ? Seafaring must agree with 
 the young beggar ! " 
 
 Thomas hailed the first hansom, jumped in, and drove 
 straight to Highbury. Was it strange that notwithstanding 
 the dreadful interview he had just had — notwithstanding, too, 
 that he feared he had not behaved properly to his father, for 
 his conscience had already begun to speak about comparatively 
 little things, having been at last hearkened to in regard to 
 
Thomas and his Mother. 339 
 
 great things — that notwithstanding this, he should feel such a 
 gladness in his being as he had never known before ? The 
 second and more awful load of duty was now lifted from his 
 mind. True, if he had loved his father much, as it was 
 simply impossible that he should, that load would have been 
 replaced by another — misery about his father's wretched con- 
 dition and the loss of his love. But although something of 
 this would come later, the thought of it did not intrude now 
 to destroy any of the enjoyment of the glad reaction from 
 months — he would have said years — yea, a whole past life of 
 misery — for the whole of his past life had been such a poor 
 thing, that it seemed now as if the misery of the last few 
 months had been only the misery of all his life coming to a 
 head. And this indeed was truer than his judgment would 
 yet have allowed : it was absolute fact, although he attributed 
 it to an overwrought fancy. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 THOMAS AND HIS MOTHEK. 
 
 When" the maid opened the door to him she stared like an 
 idiot, yet she was in truth a woman of sense ; for, before 
 Thomas had reached the foot of the stairs, she ran after him, 
 saying : 
 
 " Mr. Thomas ! Mr. Thomas ! you mustn't go up to mis'ess 
 all of a sudden. You'll kill her if you do." 
 
 Thomas paused at once. 
 
 " Run up and tell her, then. Make haste." 
 
 She sped up the stairs, and Thomas followed, waiting out- 
 side his mother's door. He had to wait a little while, for the 
 maid was imparting the news with circumspection. He heard 
 the low tone of his mother's voice, but could not hear what 
 she said. At last came a little cry, and then he could hear her 
 sob. A minute or two more passed, which seemed endless to 
 Thomas, and then the maid came to the door, and asked him 
 to go in. He obeyed. 
 
 His mother lay in bed, propped up as she used to be on the 
 sofa. She looked much worse than before. She stretched out 
 
340 Guild Court 
 
 her arms to him, kissed him, and held his head to her bosom. 
 He had never before had such an embrace from her. 
 
 "My boy ! my boy!" she cried, weeping. "Thank God! 
 I have you again. You'll tell me all about it, won't you ?" 
 
 She went on weeping and murmuring words of endearment 
 and gratitude for some time. Then she released him, holding 
 one of his hands only. 
 
 " There's a chair there. Sit down and tell me about it. I 
 am afraid your poor father has been hard upon you." 
 
 " We won't talk about my father," said Thomas. " I have 
 faults enough of my own to confess, mother. But I won't tell 
 you all about them now. I have been very wicked — gambling 
 and worse ; but I will never do so any more. I am ashamed 
 and sorry ; and I think God will forgive me. "Will you forgive 
 me, mother ? " 
 
 " With all my heart, my boy. And you know that God for- 
 gives every one that believes in Jesus. I hope you have given 
 your heart to him, at last. Then I shall die happy." 
 
 " I don't know, mother, whether I have or not ; but I want 
 to do what's right." 
 
 " That won't save you, my poor child. You'll have a talk 
 with Mr. Simon about it, won't you ? I'm not able to argue 
 anything now." 
 
 It would have been easiest for Thomas to say nothing, and 
 leave his mother to hope, at least ; but he had begun to be 
 honest, therefore he would not deceive her. But in his new 
 anxiety to be honest, he was in great danger of speaking 
 roughiy, if not rudely. Those who find it difficult to oppose 
 are in more danger than others of falling into that error when 
 they make opposition a point of conscience. The unpleasant- 
 ness of the duty irritates them. 
 
 " Mother, I will listen to anything you choose to say ; but I 
 won't see that — " fool he was going to say, but he changed the 
 epithet — " I won't talk about such things to a man for whom 
 I have no respect." 
 
 Mrs. Worboise gave a sigh ; but, perhaps partly because her 
 own respect for Mr. Simon had been a little shaken of late, 
 she said nothing more. Thomas resumed. 
 
 " If I hadn't been taken by the hand by a very different 
 man from him, mother, I shouldn't have been here to- 
 day. Thank God ! Mr. Fuller is something like a clergy- 
 man ! " 
 
 " Who is he, Thomas ? I think I have heard the name." 
 
 " He is the clergyman of St. Amos's in the city." 
 
 
Thomas and his Mother. 341 
 
 "Ah ! I thought so. A Ritualist, I am afraid, Thomas. 
 They lay snares for young people." 
 
 " Nonsense, mother ! " said Thomas, irreverently. " I don't 
 know what you mean. Mr. Fuller, I think, would not feel 
 flattered to be told that he belonged to any party whatever but 
 that of Jesus Christ himself. But I should say, if he belonged 
 to any, it would be the Broad Church. " 
 
 "I don't know which is worse. The one believes all the 
 lying idolatry of the Papists ; the other believes nothing at 
 all. I'm sadly afraid, Thomas, you've been reading Bishop 
 Colenso." 
 
 Mrs. Worboise believed, of course, in no distinctions but 
 those she saw ; and if she had heard the best men of the Broad 
 Church party repudiate Bishop Colenso, she would only have 
 set it down to Jesuitism. 
 
 " A sailor hasn't much time for reading, mother." 
 
 " A sailor, Thomas ! What do you mean ? Where have you 
 been all this time ?" she asked, examining his appearance 
 anxiously. 
 
 " At sea, mother." 
 
 " My boy ! my boy ! that is a godless calling. However — " 
 
 Thomas interrupted her. 
 
 " They that go down to the sea in ships were supposed once 
 to see the wonders of the Lord, mother." 
 
 " Yes. But when will you be reasonable ? That was in 
 David's time." 
 
 " The sea is much the same, and man's heart is much the 
 same. Anyhow, I'm a sailor, and a sailor I must be. I have 
 nothing else to do." 
 
 "Mr. Boxall's business is all your father's now, I hear; 
 though I'm sure I cannot understand it. Whatever you've 
 done, you can go back to the counting-house, you know." 
 
 " I can't, mother. My father and I have parted forever." 
 
 " Tom ! " 
 
 "It's true, mother." 
 
 " Why is that ? What have you been doing ? " 
 
 "Refusing to give up Lucy Burton." 
 
 " Oh, Tom, Tom ! Why do you set yourself against your 
 father ? " 
 
 " Well, mother, I don't want to be impertinent ; but it 
 seems to me it's no more than you have been doing all your 
 life." 
 
 "For conscience' sake, Tom. But in matters indifferent 
 we ought to yield, you know." 
 
342 Guild Court 
 
 "Is it an indifferent matter to keep one's engagements, 
 mother ? To be true to one's word ? " 
 
 " But you had no right to make them." 
 
 " They are made, anyhow, and I must bear the consequences 
 of keeping them." 
 
 Mrs. Worboise, poor woman, was nearly worn out. Tom saw 
 it, and rose to go. 
 
 "Am I never to see you again, Tom ?" she asked, despair- 
 ingly. ■ 
 
 "Every time I come to London — so long as my father 
 doesn't make you shut the door against me, mother." 
 
 " That shall never be, my boy. And you really are going 
 on that sea again ? " 
 
 "Yes, mother. It's an honest calling. And believe me, 
 mother, it's often easier to pray to God on shipboard than it 
 is sitting at a desk." 
 
 "Well, well, my boy !" said his mother, with a great sigh of 
 weariness. "If I only knew that you were possessed of saving 
 faith, I could bear even to hear that you had been drowned. 
 It may happen any day, you know, Thomas." 
 
 "Not till God please. I shan't be drowned before that." 
 
 1 ' God has given no pledge to protect any but those that put 
 faith in the merits of his Son." 
 
 "Mother, mother, I can't tell a bit what you mean." 
 
 " The way of salvation is so plain that he that runneth may 
 read." 
 
 " So you say, mother ; but I don't see it so. Now I'll tell 
 you what : I want to be good." 
 
 " My dear boy ! " 
 
 " And I pray, and will pray to God to teach me whatever he 
 wants me to learn. So if your way is the right one, God will 
 teach me that. "Will that satisfy you, mother ? " 
 
 "My dear, it is of no use mincing matters. God has told 
 us plainly in his holy "Word that he that puts his trust in the 
 merits of Christ shall be saved ; and he that does not shall be 
 sent to the place of misery for ever and ever." 
 
 The good woman believed that she was giving a true repre- 
 sentation of the words of Scripture when she said so, and that 
 they were an end of all controversy. 
 
 " But, mother, what if a man can't believe ?" 
 
 " Then he must take the consequences. -There's no provis- 
 ion made for that in the "Word." 
 
 "But if he wants to believe, mother?" said Tom, in a 
 small agony at his mother's hardness. 
 
Thomas and his Mother. 343 
 
 " There's no man that can't believe, if he's only willing. I 
 used to think otherwise. But Mr. Simon thinks so, and he 
 has brought me to see that he is right." 
 
 " Well, mother, I'm glad Mr. Simon is not at the head of 
 the universe, for then it would be a paltry affair. But it ill 
 becomes me to make remarks upon anybody. Mr. Simon 
 hasn't disgraced himself like me after all, though I'm pretty 
 sure if I had had such teaching as Mr. Fuller's, instead of his, 
 I should never have fallen as I have done. " 
 
 Thomas said this with some bitterness as he rose to take his 
 leave. He had no right to say so. Men as good as he, with 
 teaching as good as Mr. Fuller's, have yet fallen. He forgot 
 that he had had the schooling of sin and misery to prepare the 
 soil of his heart before Mr. Fuller's words were sown in it Even 
 Mr. Simon could have done a little for him in that condition, 
 if he had only been capable of showing him a little pure 
 human sympathy. 
 
 His mother gave him another tearful embrace. Thomas's 
 heart was miserable at leaving her thus fearful, almost 
 hopeless about him. How terrible it would be for her in the 
 windy nights, when she could not sleep, to think that if he 
 went to the bottom, it must be to go deeper still ! He 
 searched his mind eagerly for something that might comfort 
 her. It flashed upon him at last. 
 
 " Mother dear," he said, "Jesus said, ( Come unto me, all 
 ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. ' I 
 will go to him. I will promise you that if you like. That is 
 all I can say, and I think that ought to be enough. If he 
 gives me rest, shall I not be safe ? And whoever says that he 
 will not if I go to him — " 
 
 "In the appointed way, my dear." 
 
 " He says nothing more than go to him. I say I will go to 
 him, the only way that a man can when he is in heaven and I 
 am on the earth. And if Mr. Simon or anybody says that he 
 will not give me rest, he is a liar. If that doesn't satisfy you, 
 mother, I don't believe you have any faith in him yourself." 
 
 With this outburst, Thomas again kissed his mother, and 
 then left the room. Nor did his last words displease her. I 
 do not by any means set him up as a pattern of filial respect 
 even toward his mother ; nor can I approve altogether of the 
 form his confession of faith took, for there was in it a mixture 
 of that graceless material — the wrath of man ; but it was good, 
 notwithstanding ; and such a blunt utterance was far more 
 calculated to carry some hope into his mother's mind than any 
 
344: Guild Court. 
 
 I 
 
 amount of arguing upon the points of difference between 
 them. 
 
 As he reached the landing, his sister Amy came rushing up 
 the stairs from the dining-room, with her hair in disorder, 
 and a blushing face. 
 
 " Why Tom ! " she said, starting back. 
 
 Tom took her in his arms. 
 
 " How handsome you have grown, Tom ! " said Amy ; and 
 breaking from him, ran up to her mother's room. 
 
 Passing the dining-room door, Tom saw Mr. Simon looking 
 into the fire. The fact was he had just made Amy an offer of 
 marriage. Tom let him stand, and hurried back on foot to his 
 friend, his heart full, and his thoughts in confusion. 
 
 He found him in his study, where he had made a point of 
 staying all day that Tom might find him at any moment when 
 he might want him. He rose eagerly to meet him. 
 
 "'Now I see by thine eyes that this is done,'" he said, 
 quoting King Arthur. 
 
 They sat down, and Tom told him all. 
 
 "I wish you had managed a little better with your father," 
 he said. 
 
 " I wish I had, sir. But it's done, and there's no help for 
 it." 
 
 "No ; I suppose not — at present, at least." 
 
 "As far as Lucy is concerned, it would have made no differ- 
 ence, if you had been in my place — I am confident of that." 
 
 " I dare say you are right. But you have earned your din- 
 ner anyhow ; and here comes my housekeeper ±0 say it is 
 ready. Come along." 
 
 Thomas's face fell. 
 
 " I thought I should have gone to see Lucy, now, sir." 
 
 " I believe she will not be at home." 
 
 " She was always home from Mrs. Morgenstern's before 
 now." 
 
 "Yes. But she has to work much harder now. You see 
 her grandmother is dependent on her now." 
 
 " And where are they ? My father told me himself he had 
 turned them out of the house in Guild Court." 
 
 "Yes. But they are no farther off for that; they have 
 lodgings at Mr. Kitely's . I think yon had better go and see 
 your friends the sailor and publican after dinner, and by the 
 time you come back, I shall have arranged for your seeing 
 her. You would hardly like to take your chance, and find 
 her with her grandmother and Mattie." 
 
 
 
Thomas and his Mother. 345 
 
 "Who is Mattie ? Oh ! I know— that dreadful little imp 
 of Kitely's." 
 
 " I dare say she can make herself unpleasant enough," said 
 Mr. Fuller, laughing ; " but she is a most remarkable and very 
 interesting child. I could hardly have believed in such a child, 
 if I had not known her. She was in great danger, I allow, of 
 turning out a little prig, if that word can be used of the 
 feminine gender, but your friend Lucy has saved her from 
 that." 
 
 " God bless her !" said Thomas, fervently. " She has saved 
 me too, even if she refuses to have anything more to do with 
 me. How shall I tell her everything ? Since I have had it 
 over with my father and Stopper, I feel as if I were white- 
 washed, and to have to tell her what a sepulchre I am is dread- 
 ful — and she so white outside and in ! " 
 
 "Yes, it's hard to do, my boy, but it must be done." 
 
 "I would do it — I would insist upon it, even if she begged 
 me not, Mr. Fuller. If she were to say that she would love 
 me all the same, and I needn't say a word about the past, for 
 it was all over now, I would yet beg her to endure the ugly 
 story for my sake, that I might hear my final absolution from 
 her lips." 
 
 " That's right," said Mr. Fuller. 
 
 They were now seated at dinner, and nothing more of im- 
 portance to our history was said until that was over. Then they 
 returned to the study, and, as soon as he had closed the door, 
 Mr. Fuller said : 
 
 " But now, Worboise, it is time that I should talk to you a 
 little more about yourself. There is only One that can absolve 
 you in the grand sense of the word. If God himself were to 
 say to you, ' Let by-gones be by-gones, nothing more shall be 
 said about them ' — if he only said that, it would be a poor 
 thing to meet our human need. But he is infinitely kinder 
 than that. He says, ' I, even I am he that taketh away thine 
 iniquities.' He alone can make us clean — put our heart so 
 right that nothing of this kind will happen again — make us 
 simple God-loving, man-loving creatures, as much afraid of 
 harboring an unjust thought of our neighbors as of stealing 
 that which is his ; as much afraid of pride and self-confidence 
 as of saying with the fool, ' There is no God ; ' as far from 
 distrusting God for the morrow, as from committing suicide. 
 We cannot serve God and Mammon. Hence the constant 
 struggle and discomfort in the minds of even good men. They 
 would., without knowing what they are doing, combine a little 
 
346 Guild Court 
 
 Mammon-worship with the service of the God they love. But 
 that cannot be. The Spirit of God will ever and always be at 
 strife with Mammon, and in proportion as that spirit is vic- 
 torious, is peace growing in the man. You must give your- 
 self up to the obedience of his Son entirely and utterly, leaving 
 your salvation to him, troubling yourself nothing about that, 
 but ever seeking to see things as he sees them, and to do 
 things as he would have them doue. And for this purpose 
 you must study your New Testament in particular, that you 
 see the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus ; that receiving 
 him as your master, your teacher, your saviour, you may open 
 your heart to the entrance of his spirit, the mind that was in 
 him, that so he may save you. Every word of his, if you will 
 but try to obey it, you will find precious beyond words to say. 
 And he has promised without reserve the Holy Spirit of God 
 to them that ask it. The only salvation is in being filled with 
 the Spirit of God, the mind of Christ." 
 
 " I believe you, sir, though I cannot quite see into all you 
 say. All I can say is, that I want to be good henceforth. 
 Pray for me, sir, if you think there is any good in one man 
 praying for another." 
 
 " I do, indeed — just in proportion to the love that is in it. 
 I cannot exactly tell how this should be ; but if we believe 
 that the figure St. Paul uses about our all being members of 
 one body has any true, deep meaning in it, we shall have just 
 a glimmering of how it can be so. Come, then, we will kneel 
 together, and I will pray with you." 
 
 Thomas felt more solemn by far than he had ever felt in his 
 life when he rose from that prayer. 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Fuller, "go and see your friends. When 
 you think of it, my boj^," he added, after a pause, during 
 which he held Tom's hand in a warm grasp, "you will see 
 how God has been looking after you, giving you friend after 
 friend of such different sorts to make up for the want of a 
 father, and so driving you home at last, home to himself. He 
 had to drive you ; but he will lead you now. You will be 
 home by half-past six or seven ? " 
 
 Thomas assented. He could not speak. He could only 
 return the grasp of Mr. Fuller's hand. Then he took his cap 
 and went. 
 
 It is needless to give any detailed account of Thomas's 
 meeting with the Pottses. He did not see tbe captain, who 
 had gone down to his brig. Mrs. Potts (and Bessie too, after 
 a fashion) welcomed him heartily ; but Mr. Potts was a little 
 
 , 
 
Thomas and his Mother. 347 
 
 aggrieved that he would drink nothing but a glass of bitter 
 ale. He had the watch safe, and brought it out gladly when 
 Thomas produced his check. 
 
 Jim Salter dropped in at the last moment. He had heard 
 the night before that Thomas was restored to society and was 
 expected to call at the Mermaid some time that day. So he 
 had been in or looking in a dozen times since the morning. 
 When he saw Tom, who was just taking his leave, he came up 
 to him, holding out his hand, but speaking as with a sense of 
 wrong. 
 
 " How de do, guv'nor ? Who'd ha' thought to see you here ! 
 Ain't you got ne'er another sixpence to put a name upon it ? 
 You're fond o' sixpences, you are, guv'nor." 
 
 " What do you mean, Jim ? " asked Thomas, in much bewild- 
 erment. 
 
 " To think o' treatin' a man and a brother as you've treated 
 me, after I'd been and devoted my life, leastways a good part 
 of it, to save you from the police ! Four and sixpence ! " 
 
 Still bewildered, Thomas appealed to Mr. Potts, whose face 
 looked as like a caricature of the moon as ever, although he 
 had just worked out a very neat little problem in diplomacy. 
 
 "It's my fault, Mr. Worboise," he responded in his usual 
 voice, which seemed .to come from a throat lined with the 
 insides of dates. I forgot to tell you, sir, that, that — Don't 
 you see, Jim, you fool ! " he said, changing the object of his 
 address abruptly — "you wouldn't have liked to rob a gentle- 
 man like that by takin' of half a suvering for loafin' about for 
 a day with him when he was hard up. But as he's come by 
 his own again, why there's no use in keeping it from you any 
 longer. So there's your five and sixpence. But it's a devil of 
 a shame. Go out of my house." 
 
 " Whew ! " whistled Jim Salter. " Two words to that, guv'nor 
 o' the Marmaid. You've been and kep' me all this many a day 
 out of my inheritance, as they say at the Britanuary. What 
 do you say to that, sir ? What do you think o' yerself, sir ? 
 I wait a reply, as the butcher said to the pig." 
 
 While he spoke, Jim pocketed the money. Eeceiving no 
 reply except a sniff of Mr. Potts's red nose, he broke out again, 
 more briefly : 
 
 "I tell 'ee what, guv'nor of the Marmaid, I don't go out o' 
 your house till I've put a name upon it." 
 
 Quite defeated and rather dejected, Mr. Potts took down his 
 best brandy, and poured out a bumper. 
 
 Jim tossed it off, and set down the glass. Then, and not 
 
348 Guild Court. 
 
 till then, he turned to Thomas, who had been looking on, half 
 vexed with Mr. Potts, and half amused with Jim. 
 
 "Well, I am glad, Mr. Wurbus, as you've turned out a 
 honest man arter all. I assure you, sir, at one time, and that 
 not much farther off than that 'ere glass o' rum — " 
 
 " Brandy, you loafing rascal ! the more's the pity," said 
 Mr. Potts. 
 
 "Than that 'ere glass o' rum," repeated Jim, "I had my 
 doubts. I wasn't so sure of it, as the fox was o' the goose 
 when he had his neck atwixt his teeth." 
 
 So saying, and without another word, Jim Salter turned 
 and left the Mermaid. Jim was one of those who seem to 
 have an especial organ for the sense of wrong, from which 
 organ no amount or kind of explanation can ever remove an 
 impression. They prefer to cherish it. Their very acknowl- 
 edgments of error are uttered in a tone that proves they con- 
 sider the necessity of making them only in the light of accu- 
 mulated injury. 
 
 OHAPTEE L. 
 
 THOMAS AND LUCY. 
 
 When Lucy came home the night before, she found her 
 grandmother sitting by the fire, gazing reproachfully at the 
 coals. The poor woman had not yet reconciled herself to her 
 altered position. Widdles was in vain attempting to attract 
 her attention ; but, not being gifted with speech like his gray 
 brother in the next cage to his— whose morals, by the way, 
 were considerably reformed, thanks to his master's judicious 
 treatment of him — he had but few modes of bringing his 
 wishes to bear at a distance. He could only rattle his beak on 
 the bars of his cage, and give a rending shriek. 
 
 The immediate occasion of her present mood was Thomas's 
 note, which was over her head on the mantel-piece. Notes had 
 occasionally passed between him and Lucy, and she knew the 
 handwriting. She regarded him with the same feelings with 
 which she regarded his father, but she knew that Lucy did 
 not share in these feelings. And forgetting that she was now 
 under Lucy's protection, she was actually vowing with herself 
 at the moment Lucy entered that if she had one word of other 
 
Thomas and Lucy. 349 
 
 than repudiation to say to Thomas, she would turn her out of 
 the house. She was not going to encourage such lack of prin- 
 ciple. She gave her no greeting, therefore, when she entered ; 
 hut Lucy, whose quick eye caught sight of the note at once, 
 did not miss it. She took the note with a trembling hand, and 
 hurried from the room. Then Mrs. Boxall hurst into a blaze. 
 
 " Where are you off to now, you minx ? " she said. 
 
 " I am going to put my bonnet off, grannie," answered 
 Lucy, understanding well enough, and waiting no farther 
 parley. 
 
 She could hardly open the notej which was fastened with a 
 wafer, her hands trembled so much. Before she had read it 
 through she fell on her knees, and thus, like Hezekiah, 
 "spread it before the Lord," and finished it so. 
 
 And now, indeed, was her captivity turned. She had noth- 
 ing to say but ." Thank God !" she had nothing to do but 
 weep. True, she was a little troubled that she could not re- 
 ply : but when sbe made inquiry about the messenger, to see 
 if she could learn anything of where Tom was to be found, 
 Mr. Kitely, who, I have said, returned home immediately after 
 Mr. Fuller dismissed him (though in his anxiety he went back 
 and loitered about the church door), told her that young 
 Worboise was at that moment with Mr. Fuller in his vestry. 
 He did not tell her how he came to be there. Nothing, there- 
 fore, remained for her but to be patient, and wait for what 
 would come next. And the next thing was a note from Mr. 
 Fuller, telling her that Thomas was at his house, bidding her 
 be of good cheer, and saying that she should hear from him 
 again to-morrow. She did not sleep much that night. 
 
 But she had a good deal to bear from her grandmother be- 
 fore she reached the haven of bed. First of all, she insisted 
 on knowing what the young villain had written to her about. 
 How dared he ? — and so on. Lucy tried to pacify her, and 
 said she would tell her about it afterward. Then she broke 
 out upon herself, saying she knew it was nothing to Lucy 
 what became of her. No doubt she would be glad enough to 
 make her own terms, marry her grandmother's money, and 
 turn her out of doors. But if she dared to say one word to 
 the rascal after the way he had behaved to her, one house 
 should not hold them both, and that she told her. But it is 
 ungracious work recording the spiteful utterances of an ill- 
 used woman. They did not go very deep hito Lucy, for she 
 knew her grandmother by this time. Also her hope for her- 
 self was large enough to include her grandmother. 
 
350 Guild Court 
 
 And soon as Thomas left him in the morning, Mr. Fuller 
 wrote again — only to say that he would call upon her in the 
 evening. He did not think it necessary to ask her to be at 
 home ; nor did he tell her anything of Tom's story. He 
 thought it best to leave that to himself. Lucy was strongly 
 tempted to send excuses to her pupils that morning and re- 
 main at home, in case Thomas might come. But she conclu- 
 ded that she ought to do her work, and leave possibilities 
 where alone they were determined. So she went and gave her 
 lessons with as much care as usual, and more energy. 
 
 When she got home she found that Mr. Fuller had been 
 there, but had left a message that he would call again. He 
 was so delighted with the result of his efforts with Tom, that 
 he could not wait till the evening. Still, he had no intention 
 of taking the office of a mediator between them. That, he 
 felt, would be to intrude for the sake of making himself of im- 
 portance ; and he had learned that one of the virtues of holy 
 and true service is to get out of the way as soon as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 About six o'clock he went again, and was shown into the 
 bookseller's back parlor, where he found both Lucy and her 
 grandmother. 
 
 " Will you come out with me, Miss Burton, for an hour or 
 so ? " he said. 
 
 " I wonder at you, Mr. Fuller," interposed Mrs. Boxall — "a 
 clergyman, too ! " 
 
 It is a great pity that people should so little restrain them- 
 selves when they are most capable of doing so, that when they 
 are old, excitement should make them act like the fools that 
 they are not. 
 
 Mr. Fuller was considerably astonished, but did not lose his 
 self-possession. 
 
 " Surely you are not "afraid to trust her with me, Mrs. Box- 
 all ? " he said, half merrily. 
 
 "I don't know that, sir. I hear of very strange goings-on 
 at your church. Service every day, the church always open, 
 and all that ! As if folks had nothing to do but say their 
 prayers." 
 
 " I don't think you would talk like that, Mrs. Boxall," said 
 Mr. Fuller, with no less point that he said it pleasantly, "if 
 you had been saying your prayers lately." "■ 
 
 "You have nothing to do with my prayers, sir." 
 
 " Nor you with my church, Mrs. Boxall, But eome — don't 
 let us quarrel. I don't wonder at your being put out some- 
 
Thomas and Lucy. 351 
 
 times, I'm sure ; you've had so much to vex you. But it 
 hasn't been Lucy's fault ; and I'm sure I would gladly give 
 you your rights if I could." 
 
 "I don't doubt it, sir," said the old lady, mollified. " Don't 
 be long, Lucy. And don't let that young limb of Satan talk 
 you over. Mind what I say to you." 
 
 Not knowing how to answer, without offending her grand- 
 mother, Lucy only made haste to get her bonnet and cloak. 
 Mr. Fuller took her straight to his own house. The grimy, 
 unlovely streets were, to Lucy's enlightened eyes, full of a 
 strange, beautiful mystery, as she walked along leaning on her 
 friend's arm. She asked him no questions, content to be led 
 toward what was awaiting her. It was a dark and cloudy 
 night, but a cool west wind, that to her feelings was full of 
 spring, came down Bagot Street, blowing away the winter and 
 all its miseries. A new time of hope was at hand. Away with 
 it went all thought of Thomas's past behavior. He was repent- 
 ant. The prodigal had turned to go home, and she would 
 walk with him and help his homeward steps. She loved him, 
 and would love him more than ever. If there was more joy 
 in heaven over one such than over ninety-and-nine who were 
 •not such, why not more joy in her soul ? Her heart beat so 
 violently as she crossed Mr. Puller's threshold, that she could 
 hardly breathe. He took her into the sitting-room, where a 
 most friendly fire was blazing, and left her. 
 
 Still she had asked no questions. She knew that she was 
 going to see Thomas. Whether he was in the house or not, 
 she did not know. She hardly cared. She could sit there, 
 she thought, for years waiting for him ; but every ring of the 
 door-bell made her start and tremble. There were so many 
 rings that her heart had hardly time to quiet itself a little 
 from one before another set it beating again worse than ever. 
 At length there came a longer pause, and she fell into a 
 dreamy study of the fire. The door opened at length, and she 
 thought it was Mr. Fuller, and, not wishing to show any dis- 
 quietude, sat still. A moment more, and Thomas was kneel- 
 ing at her feet. He had good cause to kneel. He did not 
 offer to to#ch her. He only said, in a choked voice, "Lucy," 
 fc and bowed his head before her. She put her hands on the 
 bowed head before her, drew it softly on her knees, gave one 
 long, gentle, but irrepressible wail like a child, and burst into 
 a quiet passion of tears. Thomas drew his head from her 
 hands, sank on the floor, and lay sobbing, and kissing her feet. 
 She could not move to make him cease. But when she recov- 
 
352 Guild Court. 
 
 ered herself a little, after a measureless time to both of them, 
 she stopped, put her hancls round upon his face, and drew him 
 upward. He rose, but only to his knees. 
 
 "Lucy, Lucy," he sobbed, "will you forgive me ?" 
 
 He could not say more yet. She bent forward and kissed 
 his forehead. 
 
 "I have been very wicked. I will tell you all about it — 
 everything." 
 
 " No, no, Thomas. Only love me." 
 
 "I love you — -oh ! I love you with all my heart and soul. 
 I don't deserve to be allowed to love one of your hands ; but if 
 you will only let me love you I will be your slave forever. I 
 don't even ask you to love me one little bit. If you will only 
 let me love you ! " 
 
 "Thomas," said Lucy, slowly, and struggling with her sobs, 
 "my heart is so full of love and gladness that it is like to 
 break. I can't speak." 
 
 By degrees they grew calmer, but Thomas could not rest till 
 she knew all. 
 
 " Lucy," he said, " I can't be sure that all you give me is 
 really mine till I've told you everything. Perhaps you won't 
 love me — not so much — when you know all. So I must tell, 
 you." 
 
 " I don't care what it is, Thomas, for I am sure you won't 
 again." 
 
 "i" will not" said Thomas, solemnly. "But please, Lucy 
 darling, listen to me — for my sake, not for your own, for it 
 will hurt you so." 
 
 "If it will make you easier, Thomas, tell me everything." 
 
 " I will — I will. I will hide nothing." 
 
 And Thomas did tell her everything. But Lucy cried so 
 much, that when he came to the part describing his adventures 
 in London after he took the money, he felt greatly tempted, 
 and yielded to the temptation, to try to give her the comical 
 side as well. And at the very first hint of fun in the descrip- 
 tion he gave of Jim Salter, Lucy burst into such a fit of laugh- 
 ter, that Thomas was quite frightened, for it seemed as if she 
 would never stop. So that between the laughing and crying 
 Thomas felt like Christian between the quagmire and the pit- 
 falls, and was afraid to say anything. But at length the story 
 was told ; and how Lucy did, besides laughing and crying, at 
 every new turn of the story — to show my reader my confidence 
 in him I leave all that to his imagination, assuring him only 
 that it was all right between them. My women readers will 
 
Thomas and Lucy. 353 
 
 not require even this amount of information, for they have the 
 gift of understanding without being told. 
 
 When he came to the point of his father offering to provide 
 for them if he would give up Lucy, he hesitated, and said : 
 
 " Ought I to have done it, Lucy, for your sake ?" 
 
 " For my sake, Tom ! If you had said for granny's — But 
 I know her well enough to he absolutely certain that she 
 would starve rather than accept a penny from him, except as 
 her right. Besides, I can make more money in a year than he 
 would give her, I am pretty sure. So if you will keep me, 
 Tom, I will keep her." 
 
 Here Lucy discovered that she had said something very im- 
 proper, and hid her face in her hands. But a knock came at 
 the door, and then both felt so shy that neither dared to say, 
 Come in. Therefore Mr. Fuller put his head in without being 
 told, and said : 
 
 "Have you two young people made it up yet ?" 
 
 " Have we, Tom ? " said Lucy. 
 
 " I don't know," said Tom. What was it, sir ?" 
 
 Mr. Fuller laughed heartily, came near, put a hand on the 
 head of each, and said : 
 
 "God bless you. I too am glad at my very heart. Now 
 you must come to supper." 
 
 But at supper, which the good man had actually cleared his 
 table to have in the study that he might not disturb them so 
 soon, Thomas had a good many questions to ask. And be kept 
 on asking, for he wanted to understand the state of the case 
 between Mrs. Boxall and his father. All at once, at one reply, 
 he jumped from his seat, looking very strange. 
 
 " I must be off, Lucy. You won't hear from me for a day 
 or two. Good-bye, Mr. Fuller. I haven't time for a word," 
 he said, pulling out his watch. "Something may be done 
 yet. It may all come to nothing. Don't ask me any questions. 
 I may save months." 
 
 He rushed from the room, and left Mr. Fuller and Lucy 
 staring at each other. Mr. Fuller started up a moment after 
 and ran to the door, but only to hear the outer door bang, and 
 Thomas shout — "Cab ahoy! "in the street. So there was 
 nothing for it but to take Lucy home again. He left her at 
 Mr Kitely's door. 
 
 "Well, miss, what have you been about ?" said her grand- 
 mother. 
 
 "Having a long talk with Thomas, grannie," answered 
 Lucy. 
 
 23 
 
354 Guild Court. 
 
 "You have!" exclaimed Mrs. Boxall, who had expected 
 nothing else, rising slowly from her seat with the air of one 
 about to pronounce a solemn malediction. 
 
 " Yes, grannie ; but he knew nothing till this yery night of 
 the way his father has behaved to us." 
 
 " He made you believe that, did he ? " 
 
 "Yes, grannie." 
 
 "Then you're a fool. He didn't know, did he? Then 
 you'll never see him again. He comes of a breed bad enough 
 to believe anything of. You give him up, or I give you up." 
 
 " No, I won't, grannie," said Lucy, smiling in her face. 
 
 " You or I leave this house, then." 
 
 ' ' / won't, grannie. " 
 
 "Then X will." 
 
 "Very well, grannie," answered Lucy, putting her arms 
 round her, and kissing her. " Shall I fetch your bonnet ? " 
 
 Grannie vouchsafed no reply, but took her candle and went 
 — up to bed. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 JACK OP THE NHSTGPO. 
 
 My reader will know better than Lucy or Mr. Fuller what 
 Thomas was after. Having only a hope, he did not like to say 
 much, and therefore, as well as that he might not lose the 
 chance of a night train, he hurried away. The first thing he 
 did was to drive to a certain watchmaker's, to raise money if 
 he could, once more on his watch and on Lucy's ring, which I 
 need not say remained in his possession. But the shop was 
 shut. Then he drove to the Mermaid, and came upon Cap- 
 tain Smith as he was emptying his tumbler of grog prepara- 
 tory to going to bed. 
 
 "I say, captain, you must let Eobins off this voyage. I 
 want him to go to Newcastle with me." 
 
 "What's up now ? Ain't he going to Newcastle ? And 
 you can go with him if you like." 
 
 " I want him at once. It's of the greatest importance." 
 
 " You won't find him to-night, I can tell you. You'd bet- 
 ter sit down and have something, and tell us all about it." 
 
 When Thomas thought, he saw that nothing could be done 
 
Lucy, and Mattie, aud Poppie. 355 
 
 till next day. Without money, without Eobins, without a 
 train in all probability, he was helpless. Therefore he sat 
 down and told, the captain what he was after, namely, to find 
 Eobins's friend Jack, whose surname he did not know, and see 
 what evidence he could give upon the question of the order of 
 decease in the family of Eichard Boxall. He explained the 
 point to the captain, who saw at once that Eobins's services 
 must be dispensed with for this voyage — except, indeed, he re- 
 turned before they weighed anchor again, which was possible 
 enough. When Tom told him what he had heard Jack say 
 about little Julia, the captain, pondering it over, gave it as his 
 judgment that Jack, being the only one saved, and the child 
 being with him till she died, there was a probability almost of 
 his being able to prove that she outlived the rest. At all 
 events, he said, no time must be lost in finding this Jack. 
 
 Mr. Potts having joined them, they sat talking it over a 
 long time. At last Tom said : 
 
 " There's one thing, I shall be more easy when I've told 
 you: that lawyer is my father." 
 
 " God bless my soul ! " said Mr. Potts, while Captain 
 Smith said something decidedly different. "So you'll oblige 
 me," Tom went on, "if you'll say nothing very hard of him, 
 for I hope he will live to be horribly ashamed of himself." 
 
 " Here's long life to him !" said Captain Smith. 
 
 " And no success this bout ! " added Mr. Potts. 
 
 "Amen to both, and thank you," said Tom. 
 
 Mrs. Potts would have got the same bed ready for him that 
 he bad had before, but as the captain was staying all night, 
 Tom insisted on sleeping on the sofa. He wanted to be off to 
 find Eobins the first thing in the morning. It was, however, 
 agreed that the captain should go and send Eobins, while 
 Thomas went to get his money. In a few hours Eobins and 
 he were off for Newcastle. 
 
 CHAPTEE LII. 
 
 LUCY, AND MATTIE, AND POPPIE. 
 
 The Saturday following Tom's departure Lucy had a whole 
 holiday, and she resolved to enjoy it. Not much resolu- 
 tion was necessary for that ; for everything now was beauti- 
 
356 Guild Court. 
 
 ful, and not even her grannie's fits of ill-humor could destroy 
 her serenity. The old woman had, however, her better mo- 
 ments, in which she would blame her other self for her un- 
 kindness to her darling ; only that repentance was forgotten 
 the moment the fit came again. The saddest thing in the 
 whole affair was to see how the prospect of wealth, and the 
 loss of that prospect, worked for the temperamental ruin of 
 the otherwise worthy old woman. Her goodness had had little 
 foundation in principle ; therefore, when the floods came and 
 the winds blew, it could not stand against them. Of course 
 prosperity must be better for some people, so far as we can 
 see, for they have it ; and adversity for others, for they have 
 it ; but I suspect that each must have a fitting share of both; 
 and no disposition, however good, can be regarded as tem- 
 pered, and tried, and weather-proof, till it has had a trial of 
 some proportion of both. I am not sure that both are abso- 
 lutely necessary to all ; I only say that we cannot be certain of 
 the character till we have seen it outstand both. The last 
 thing Mrs. Boxall said to Lucy as she went out that morning, 
 rousing herself from a dark -hued 'reverie over the fire, was : 
 
 "Lucy, if you marry that man I'll go to the workhouse." 
 
 " But they won't take you in, grannie, when you've got a 
 granddaughter to work for you." 
 
 " I won't take a farthing of my own property but as my own 
 right." - 
 
 " Thomas won't have a farthing of it to offer you, grannie, 
 I'm afraid. He quarreled with his father just about that, and 
 he's turned him out." 
 
 "Then I must go to the workhouse." 
 
 ". And I'll bring you packets of tea and snuff, as they do for 
 the old goodies in the dusters, grannie," said Lucy, merrily. 
 
 "Go along with you. You never had any heart but for 
 your beaux." 
 
 "There's a little left for you yet, dear grannie. And for 
 beaux, you know as well as I do that I never had but one." 
 
 So saying, she ran away, and up the court to Mr. Spelt's 
 shop. 
 
 "Where's Poppie, Mr. Spelt ?" she asked. 
 
 " In the house, I believe, miss." 
 
 " "Will you let her come with me to the Zoological Gardens 
 to-day?" 
 
 " With all my heart, miss. Shall I get down, and run up 
 and tell her?" 
 
 "No, thank you ; on no account. I'll go up myself." 
 
Lucy, and Mattie, and Popple. 357 
 
 She found Poppie actually washing cups and saucers, with 
 her sleeves tucked up, and looking not merely a very lovely, 
 but a very orderly maiden. No doubt she was very odd still, 
 and would be to the end of her days. What she would do 
 when she was too old (which would not be till she was too 
 frail) to scud, was inconceivable. But with all such good 
 influences around her — her father, Mattie, Mr. Fuller, Lucy 
 Burton — it was no wonder that the real woman in her should 
 have begun to grow, and, having begun, should promise well 
 for what was yet to be. There is scarcely anything more mar- 
 velous in the appearance of simple womanliness under such 
 circumstances in the child of the streets, than there is in its 
 existence in the lady who has outgrown the ordinarily evil influ- 
 ences of the nursery, the school-room, and the boarding-schooh 
 Still, I must confess that anything like other people might 
 well be a little startling to one who had known Poppie a year 
 before and had not seen her since. Lucy had had a great deal 
 to do with the change ; for she had been giving her regular 
 lessons with Mattie for the last few months. The difficulty 
 was, to get Poppie to open her mental eyes to any information 
 that did not come by the sight of her bodily eyes. The con- 
 veyance of facts to her, not to say of thoughts or feelings, by 
 words, except in regard to things she was quite used to, was 
 almost an impossibility. For a long time she only stared and 
 looked around her now and then, as if she would be so glad to 
 scud if she dared. But she loved Lucy, who watched long and 
 anxiously for some sign, of dawning interest. It came at last. 
 Nor let my reader suspect the smallest atom of satire in her 
 most innocent remark : "Was Jesus a man ? I s'posed he wor 
 a clergyman ! " But having once got a glimpse of light, her 
 eyes, if they opened slowly, strengthened rapidly. Her acqui- 
 sition was not great, that is, but she learned to think with an 
 amount of reality which showed that, while she retained many 
 of the defects of childhood, she retained also some of its most 
 valuable characteristics. 
 
 The contrast with Mattie was very remarkable. Poppie was 
 older than Mattie, I have said ; but while Mattie talked like 
 an old woman, Poppie talked like a baby. The remarks of 
 each formed a strange opposition, both in manner and form, 
 to her appearance, as far as bodily growth was concerned. 
 But the faces were consistent with the words. There was, 
 however, a very perceptible process of what may be called a 
 double endosmose and exosmose going on between them. Pop- 
 pie was getting wiser, and Mattie was getting merrier. Some- 
 
358 Guild Court. 
 
 times, to the delight of Mr. Kitely, they would be heard frol- 
 icking about his house like kittens. Such a burst, however, 
 would seldom last long ; for Mrs. Boxall resented it as unfeel- 
 ing toward her misfortunes, and generally put a stop to it. 
 This did not please Mr. Kitely at all. It was, in fact, the 
 only thing that he found annoying in the presence of Mrs. 
 Boxall in his house. But he felt such a kindly pity for the 
 old woman that he took no notice of it, and intimated to Mat- 
 tie that it was better to give up to her. 
 
 " The old lady is cranky to-day. She don't feel comfortable 
 in her inside," he would say ; and Mattie would repeat the re- 
 mark to Poppie, as if it were her own. There was one word in 
 it, however, which, among others of her vocabulary, making 
 the antique formality of her speech so much the more ludic- 
 rous, she could not pronounce. 
 
 "The old lady don't feel over comfibittle in her inside to- 
 day. We must drop it, or she'll be worse," Mattie would 
 gravely remark to Poppie, and the tumult would be heard no 
 more that day, or at least for an hour, when, if they were so 
 long together, it might break out again. 
 
 Every now and then some strange explosion of Arab habits 
 or ways of thinking would shock Mattie ; but from seeing that 
 it did not shock Miss Burton so much, she became, by degrees, 
 considerably less of a little prig. Childhood revived in her 
 more and more. 
 
 "Will you come with me to-day, Poppie, to see the wild 
 beasts ? " said Lucy. 
 
 " But they'll eat us, won't they ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, child. What put that into your head ?" 
 
 "I thought they always did." 
 
 "They always would if they could. But they can't." 
 
 "Do they pull their teeth out, then ?" 
 
 "You come and see. I'll take care of you." 
 
 "Is Mattie going?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then I'll come." 
 
 She threw down the saucer she was washing, dried her hands 
 in her apron, and stood ready to follow. 
 
 "No, no, Poppie ; that won't do. You must finish wash- 
 ing up and drying your breakfast things. Then you must put 
 on your cloak and hat, and make yourself look nice and tidy, 
 before I can take you." 
 
 " If it's only the beasts, miss ! They ain't very particular, 
 I guess." 
 
Lucy, and Mattie, and Poppie. 359 
 
 "Was this the old word of Chaucer indigenous, or a slip from 
 the American slip ? 
 
 " It's not for the beasts, but because you ought always to be 
 tidy. There will be people there, of course, and it's disrespect- 
 ful to other people to be untidy." 
 
 " I didn't know, miss. Would they give I to the bears ? " 
 
 " Poppie, you're a goose. Come along. Make haste." 
 
 The children had never seen any but domestic animals be- 
 fore, and their wonder and pleasure in these strange new forms 
 of life were boundless. Mattie caught the explosive affection 
 from Poppie, and Lucy had her reward in the outbursts of 
 interest, as varied in kind as the animals themselves, that rose 
 on each side of her. The differences, too, between the chil- 
 dren were very notable. Poppie shrieked with laughter at 
 the monkeys ; Mattie turned away, pale with dislike. Lucy 
 overcame her own feelings in the matter for Poppie's sake, but 
 found that Mattie had disappeared. She was standing out- 
 side the door, waiting for them. 
 
 " I can't make it out," she said, putting her hand into 
 Lucy's. 
 
 " What can't you make out, Mattie ? " 
 
 " I can't make out why God made monkeys." Now, this 
 was a question that might well jmzzle Mattie. Indeed, Lucy 
 had no answer to give her. 1 dare say Mr. Fuller might have 
 had something to say on the subject, but Lucy could only reply, 
 "I don't know, my dear ; " for she did not fancy it a part of 
 a teacher's duty to tell lies, pretending acquaintance with 
 what she did not know anything about. Poppie had no diffi- 
 culty about the monkeys ; but the lions and tigers, and all the 
 tearing creatures were a horror to her ; and if she did not put 
 the same question as Mattie had put about the monkeys, it 
 was only because she had not yet felt any need for understand- 
 ing the creation of God in relation to him. In other words, 
 she had not yet begun to construct her little individual scheme 
 of the universe, which, sooner or later, must, I presume, be 
 felt by every one. as an indispensable necessity. Mr. Fuller 
 would have acknowledged the monkeys as to him a far more 
 important difficulty than the ferocious animals, and would 
 probably have accepted the swine as a greater perplexity than 
 either. Perhaps the readiest answer — I say readiest only, but 
 I would not use the word answer at all, except it involved the 
 elements of solution — for Lucy to give would have been : 
 
 "They disgust you, you say, Mattie ? Then that is what 
 God made them for." 
 
360 Guild Court 
 
 A most incomplete, but most true and important reply — and 
 the readiest. 
 
 Poppie shouted with delight to see the seals tumble into the 
 water, dive deep, then turn on their backs and look up at her. 
 But their large, round, yet pathetic, dog-like eyes, fixed upon 
 her, made the tears come in Mattie's eyes, as they dreamed up 
 and down and athwart the water-deeps with such a gentle 
 power as destroyed all notion of force to be met or force to 
 overcome. 
 
 Another instance or two, to show the difference between the 
 children, and we shall return to the business of my story. 
 There are, or were then, two or three little animals in a cage 
 • — I forget the name of them : they believe in somersaults — 
 that the main object of life is to run round and round, doing 
 the same thing with decency and order — that is, turning heels 
 over head every time they arrive at a certain spot. 
 
 With these pretty enough, and more than comical enough 
 creatures, Poppie was exquisitely delighted. She laughed and 
 clapped her hands and shouted : 
 
 " Now, now ! Do it again. There you are ! Heels over 
 head. All right, little one ! Eound you go. Now, now ! 
 There you are ! " and so on. 
 
 Mattie turned away, saying only to Lucy : 
 
 " They don't make anything of it. They're no farther on 
 at night than they were in the morning. I hate roundabouts. 
 Poor little things ! " 
 
 They came to the camel's house, and, with other children, 
 they got upon his back. After a short and not over comfort- 
 able ride, they got down again. Poppie took hold of Lucy's 
 sleeve, and, with solemn face, asked : 
 
 "Is it alive, miss ? " 
 
 " How can you ask such a question, Poppie ? " 
 
 " I only wanted to know if it was alive." 
 
 She was not sure that he did not go by machinery. Mattie 
 gazed at her with compassionate superiority, and said : 
 
 " Poppie, I should like to hear what you tell Mr. Spelt when 
 you get home. You are ignorant." 
 
 At this Poppie only grinned. She was not in the least 
 offended. She even, I dare say, felt some of the same admira- 
 tion for herself that one feels for an odd plaything. 
 
 Lucy's private share of the day's enjoyment- lay outside the 
 gardens. There the buds were bursting everywhere. Out of 
 the black bark, all begrimed with London smoke and London 
 dirt, flowed the purest green. Verily there is One that can 
 
Lucy, and Mattie, and Poppie. 361 
 
 bring a clean thing out of an unclean. Eeviying nature was 
 all in harmony with Lucy's feelings this day. It was the most 
 simply happy day she had ever had. The gentle wind with its 
 cold and its soft streaks fading and reviving, the blue sky with 
 its few flying undefined masses of whiteness, the shadow of green 
 all around — for when she looked through the trees, it was like 
 looking through a thin green cloud or shadow — the gay songs 
 of the birds, each of which, unlike the mocking-bird within, 
 was content to sing his own song — a poor thing, it might be, 
 but his own — his notion of the secret of things, of the well- 
 being of the universe — all combined in one harmony with her 
 own world inside, and made her more happy than she had ever 
 been before, even in a dream. 
 
 She was walking southward through the Park, for she 
 wanted to take the two children to see Mrs. Morgenstern. 
 They were frolicking about her, running hither and thither, 
 returning at frequent intervals to claim each one of her hands, 
 when she saw Mr. Sargent coming toward her. She would not 
 have avoided him if she could, for her heart was so gay that it 
 was strong as well. He lifted his hat. She offered her hand. 
 He took it, saying : 
 
 " This is more than I deserve, Miss Burton, after the abom- 
 inable way I behaved to you last time I saw you. I see you 
 have forgiven me. But I dare hardly accept your forgiveness. 
 It is so much more than I deserve." 
 
 " I know what it is to suffer, Mr. Sargent, and there is no 
 excuse I could not make for you. Perhaps the best proof I 
 can give that I wish to forget all that passed on that dreadful 
 evening is to be quite open with you still. I have seen Mr. 
 I "Worboise since then," she went on, regardless of her own 
 blushes. " He had been led astray, but not so much as you 
 thought. He brought me back the ring you mentioned." 
 
 If Mr. Sargent did not place much confidence in the reforma- 
 tion Lucy hinted at, it is not very surprising. No doubt the 
 fact would destroy any possibly lingering hope he yet cher- 
 ished, but this was not all ; he was quite justified in regarding 
 with great distrust any such change as her words implied. He 
 had known, even in his own comparatively limited experience, 
 so many cases of a man's having, to all appearance, entirely 
 abjured his wicked ways for the sake of a woman, only to re- 
 turn, after marriage, like the sow that was washed, to his wal- 
 lowing in the mire, that his whole soul shrunk from the idea 
 of such an innocent creature falling a prey to her confidence in 
 such a man as Worboise most probably was. There was noth- 
 
362 Guild Court. 
 
 ing to be said at present on the subject, however, and after a 
 few more words they parted — Lucy, to pursue her dream of 
 delight — Mr. Sargent, lawyer-like, to make further inquiry. 
 
 CHAPTEE LIU. 
 
 IOLKEN ON THE SCENT. 
 
 Now it had so happened that Mr. Molken had caught sight 
 of Tom as he returned from his visit to his mother, and had 
 seen him go into Mr. Fuller's house. His sailor's dress piqued 
 the curiosity which he naturally felt with regard to him ; and 
 as, besides, the rascal fed upon secrets, gave him hope of still 
 making something out of him if he could but get him again in 
 his power. Therefore he watched the house with much pa- 
 tience, saw Mr. Fuller go out and return again with Lucy, 
 whom he knew by sight, and gave to the phenomenon what 
 interpretation his vile nature was capable of, concluding that 
 Tom was in want of money — as he himself generally was — and 
 would get something out of Lucy before they parted : he had 
 stored the fact of the ring in his usual receptacle for such 
 facts. Besides, he had been in communication with a lawyer, 
 for he could see well enough that Mr. Sargent belonged to that 
 profession, concerning this very Thomas Worboise : perhaps 
 he was wanted, and if so, why should not he reap what 
 benefit might be reaped from aiding in his capture ? With all 
 these grounds for hope, he was able to persevere in watching 
 the house till Thomas came out alone evidently in great haste 
 and excitement. He accosted him then as he hurried past, but 
 Tom, to whom the sight of him recalled no cherished 
 memories, and who did not feel that he owed him any grati- 
 tude for favors received, felt that it would be the readiest and 
 surest mode of procedure to cut him at once, and did so, 
 although he could not prevent Molken from seeing that he 
 knew him, and did not choose to know him. This added im- 
 measurably to Molken's determination, for now his feelings as 
 a gentleman were enlisted on the same side. He was too 
 prudent, if not too cowardly, to ask him what he meant ; nor 
 would that mode have served his turn ; it fitted his nature and 
 character better to lurk and watch. When Tom got into a 
 
Molken on the Scent. 363 
 
 cab, Molken therefore got into another, and gave the driver 
 directions to keep Tom's in sight, but not to follow so closely 
 as to occasion suspicion. Ho ran him to earth at the Mer- 
 maid. There he peeped in at the door, and finding that he 
 must have gone into the house, became more and more satisfied 
 that he was after something or other which he wanted to keep 
 dark — something fitted, in fact, for Molken to do himself, or 
 to turn to his advantage if done by another. He entered the 
 bar, called for a glass of hot gin and water, and got into con- 
 versation with Mr. Potts. The landlord of the Mermaid, how- 
 ever, although a man of slow mental processes, had instinct 
 enough, and experience more than enough, to dislike the look 
 of Molken. He gave him, therefore, such short answers as 
 especially suited his own style, refused to be drawn into con- 
 versation, and persisted in regarding him merely as the 
 purchaser of a glass of gin and water, hot with. On such an 
 occasion Mr. Potts's surly grandeur could be surpassed by no 
 other bar-keeper in England. But this caution completed 
 Molken's conviction that Thomas was about something dark, 
 and that the landlord of the Mermaid was in it, too ; the more 
 conclusively when, having, by way of experiment, mentioned 
 Thomas's name as known to Mr. Potts, the latter cunningly 
 repudiated all knowledge of " the party." Molken therefore 
 left the house, and after doubling a little, betook himself to a 
 coffee-shop opposite, whence he could see the door of the 
 Mermaid from the window, and by a proper use of shillings, 
 obtained leave to pass as much of the night there as he pleased. 
 He thought he saw Thomas, with a light in his hand, draw 
 down the dingy blind of an upper window ; and concluding 
 that he had gone to bed, Molken threw himself on one of the 
 seats, and slept till daylight, when he resumed his watch. At 
 length he saw him come out with another man in the dress of 
 a sailor like himself, but part with him at the door, and walk 
 off in the direction of the city. He then followed him, saw 
 him go into the watchmaker's, and come out putting some- 
 thing in his trousers' pocket, followed him again, and ob- 
 served that the ring, which he knew, and which he had seen 
 on his hand as he came behind him from Limehouse, was gone, 
 as well as his watch, which he had seen him use the night 
 before, while now he looked up at every clock he passed. Nor 
 did he leave his track till he saw him get into a train at 
 King's Cross, accompanied by another sailor, not the one he 
 had seen in the morning, whom he met evidently by appoint- 
 ment at the station. Here the condition of his own funds 
 
364 Guild Court. 
 
 brought Molken to a pause, or he would very likely have fol- 
 lowed his wild-goose chase to Newcastle at least. As it was, 
 he could only find out where they were going, and remain be- 
 hind with the hope of being one day called upon to give 
 evidence that would help to hang him. Nor had he long to 
 wait before something seemed likely to come of all his pains- 
 taking. For after a few days he had a second visit from Mr. 
 Sargent, to whom, however, he was chary of his information 
 till bribed by a couple of sovereigns. Then he told him all. 
 The only point Mr. Sargent could at once lay hold of was the 
 ring. He concluded that he had recovered the ring merely to 
 show it to her, and again make away with it, which must even 
 in her eyes look bad enough to justify any amount of jealousy 
 as to the truth of his reformation. Acting on this fresh dis- 
 covery, he went to the watchmaker's — a respectable man who 
 did business in a quiet way, and had accommodated Tom only 
 for old acquaintance' sake, not, however, knowing much about 
 him. Mr. Sargent told him who he was, gave him his card, 
 and easily prevailed on him to show the watch and. the ring. 
 The latter especially Mr. Sargent examined, and finding quite 
 peculiarity enough about it to enable him to identify it by 
 description, took his leave. 
 
 Now, had it not been for Thomas's foolish, half -romantic way 
 of doing things, no evil could have come of this. If, when he 
 found that he had still a little time, he had returned and fully 
 explained to his friends what his object was when he left them 
 so suddenly, all would have been accounted for. He liked im- 
 portance, and surprises, and secrecy. But this was self-indul- 
 gence, when it involved the possibility of so much anxiety as 
 a lengthened absence must occasion Lucy, and Mr. Fuller too. 
 They had a right, besides, to know everything that he was 
 about, after all that they had done for him, and still more 
 from the fact that they were both so unselfishly devoted to his 
 best good, and must keep thinking about him. Eegarding 
 his behavior in its true light, however, and coming to the ob- 
 vious conclusion between themselves that Tom had a clew to 
 some evidence, they remained at ease on the matter — which 
 ease was a little troubled when Lucy received the following 
 note from Mr. Sargent. Without the least intention of be- 
 ing unjust, he gave, as people almost always do, that coloring 
 to his representation which belonged only to the colored me- 
 dium of prejudication through which he viewed the object : 
 
 " Dear Madam, — Perfectly aware that I am building an 
 
Molken on the Scent. 365 
 
 insurmountable barrier between myself and my own peace, I 
 am yet sufficiently disinterested to have some regard for yours. 
 If you will only regard the fact as I have now stated it — that 
 I have no hope for myself, that, on the contrary, I take the 
 position, with all its obloquy, of the bringer of unwelcome 
 tidings — you will, however you may regard me, be a little 
 more ready to listen to what I have to communicate. From 
 one of a certain gentleman's companions, of such unquestion- 
 able character that he refused information until I bribed him 
 with the paltry sum of two pounds — (I at least am open, you 
 see) — I learned that he had again parted with the ring, the 
 possession of which he had apparently recovered only for the 
 sake of producing it upon occasion of his late interview with 
 you. You will say such testimony is no proof ; but, I will de- 
 scribe the ring which I found in the possession of the man to 
 whom I was directed, leaving you to judge whether it is yours 
 or not: A good-sized rose-diamond, of a pale straw color, with 
 the figures of two serpents carved on the ring, the head of each 
 meeting the body of the other round opposite sides of the dia- 
 mond. Do not take the trouble to answer this letter, except I 
 can be of service to you. All that it remains possible for me 
 to request of you now is, that you will believe it is for your 
 sake, and not for my own, that I write this letter. In God's 
 name I beg that you will not give yourself into the power of a 
 man whose behavior after marriage has not the benefit of even 
 a doubt when regarded in the light of his behavior before it. 
 If you will not grant me the justice of believing in my true 
 reasons for acting as I do, I yet prefer to bear the consequen- 
 ces of so doing to the worse suffering of knowing that there 
 was one effort I might have made and did not make for your 
 rescue from the worst fate that can befall the innocent. 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "J. Sargent." 
 
 Lucy gave a little laugh to herself when she read the letter. 
 There was no doubt about the ring being hers ; but if Thomas 
 had set out on the supposed errand it was easy to see that the 
 poor fellow, having no money, must have parted with the ring 
 for the sake of procuring the means of doing her justice. But 
 if this was so plain, why was it that Lucy sat still and pale for 
 an hour after, with the letter in her hand, and that when she 
 rose it was to go to Mr. Fuller with it ? It was the source 
 alone of Mr. Sargent's information that occasioned her the 
 anxiety. If he had been as explicit about that as he was about 
 
366 Guild Court. 
 
 the ring, telling how Molken had watched and followed 
 Thomas, she would not have been thus troubled. And had 
 Mr. Sargent been as desirous of being just to Thomas as of 
 protecting Lucy, perhaps he would have told her more. But 
 there are a thousand ways in which a just man may do in- 
 justice. 
 
 My reader must not suppose, however, that Lucy really dis- 
 trusted Thomas. The worst that she feared was that he had 
 not quite broken with his bad companions ; and the very 
 thought of Molken, returning upon her as she had seen him 
 that night in the thunder-storm, and coming along with the 
 thought of Thomas, was a distress to her. To be made thus 
 unhappy it is not in the least necessary that one should really 
 doubt, but that forms, ideas of doubt, should present them- 
 selves to the mind. They cannot always be answered in a 
 quiet, triumphant fashion, for women have been false and 
 men have been hypocrites in all ages ; and the mind keeps 
 seeking the triumphant answer and cannot find it. 
 
 In something of this mood, and yet more vexed that such 
 disquietude should have any place in her mind, regarding 
 it as vile unfaithfulness on her part, she rose, and for the 
 sake of hearing Mr. Fuller's answer justify her own confi- 
 dence, took him the letter. 
 
 Having read it, the first words Mr. Fuller spoke, were : 
 
 " The writer of this is honest." 
 
 " Then you think it is all true ! " said Lucy, in some dis- 
 may. 
 
 " What he tells as fact, no doubt is fact," answered Mr. 
 Fuller. " It does not follow, however, that his conclusions 
 are in the least correct. The most honest man is, if not as 
 liable, yet as certainly liable to mistake as the most dishonest. 
 It is indubitable out of regard for your welfare that he has 
 written the letter ; but you know all the other side of which he 
 knows nothing. You don't believe it yourself, Lucy — the in- 
 ference of Thomas's hypocrisy, I mean ? " 
 
 " No, no," cried Lucy. " I do not." 
 
 " Facts are certainly stubborn things, as people say. But it 
 is equally certain that they are the most slippery things to get a 
 hold of. And even when you have got a hold of them, they 
 can be used with such different designs — after such varying 
 fashions, that no more unlike buildings can be constructed of 
 the same bricks or hewn stones, than conclusions arrived at 
 from precisely the same facts. And this because all the facts 
 round about the known facts, and which keep those facts in 
 
Molken on the Scent. 367 
 
 their places, compelling them to combine after a certain 
 fashion, are not known, or perhaps are all unknown. For in- 
 stance, your correspondent does not know — at least he does not 
 give you to understand that he knows — how his informant ar- 
 rived at the knowledge of the facts upon which he lays such 
 stress. When I recall Thomas's whole bearing and conduct I 
 cannot for a moment accept the conclusions arrived at by him, 
 whatever may be the present appearance of the facts he goes 
 upon. Facts are like faces — capable of a thousand expressions 
 and meanings. "Were you satisfied entirely with Thomas's be- 
 havior in the talk you had with him ? " 
 
 "Entirely. It left nothing to wish more, or different." 
 
 ' ' Then you have far deejoer ground to build upon than any 
 of those facts. They can no more overturn your foundation 
 than the thickest fog can remove the sun from the heavens. 
 You cannot prove that the sun is there. But neither can you 
 have the smallest real doubt that he is there. You must wait 
 with patience, believing all things, hoping all things." 
 
 " That is just what I have been saying to myself. Only I 
 wanted to hear you say it too. I wanted it to come in at my 
 ears as well as out of my heart." 
 
 When a month had passed away, however, bringing no news 
 of Thomas ; when another month had passed, and still he 
 neither came nor wrote, hope deferred began to work its own 
 work and make Lucy's heart sick. But she kept up bravely, 
 through the help of her daily labor. Those that think it hard 
 to have to work hard as well as endure other sore trials, little 
 know how much those other trials are rendered endurable by 
 the work that accompanies them. They regard the work as an 
 additional burden, instead of as the prop which keeps their 
 burdens from crushing them to the earth. The same is true of 
 pain — sometimes of grief, sometimes of fear. And all of these 
 are of the supports that keep the weight of evil within us, of 
 selfishness, and the worship of false gods, from sinking us into 
 Tophet. They keep us in some measure from putting our 
 trust in that which is weak and bad, even when they do but 
 little to make us trust in God. 
 
 Nor did this season of trial to Lucy pass by without bring- 
 ing some little measure of good to the poor, disappointed, fret- 
 ful soul of her grandmother. How much Widdles had to do 
 with it — and my reader must not despise Widdles ; many a 
 poor captive has been comforted by a mouse, a spider, a rat 
 even ; and I know a lady who, leading a hard life while yet a 
 child, but possessing one little garret-room as her own, with a 
 
368 Guild Court. 
 
 window that opened on the leads, cultivated green things 
 there enough to feed a few pet snails, to each of which she 
 gave the name of one of her best friends, great names, too, 
 and living names, so that I will not, as she most innocently 
 and lovingly did, associate them with snails, though even thus 
 they were comforters to her brave heart ; — how much Widdles 
 had to do with it, I say, and how much the divine help of 
 time, and a sacred deprivation of that hope in chance which 
 keeps man sometimes from hoping in God, I cannot tell ; it 
 was the work of the all-working Spirit, operating in and on her 
 mind mediately or immediately. She grew calmer, and began 
 to turn her thoughts a little away from what she fancied might 
 have been if things had not gone wrong so perversely, and to 
 reflect on the fact, which she had often expressed in words, 
 but never really thought about before — that it would be all 
 the same a hundred years after — a saying which, however far 
 from true — although, in fact, taken logically as it stands, ab- 
 solutely false — yet has, wrapt up in it, after a clumsy fashion, 
 a very great and important truth. By slow degrees her for- 
 mer cheerfulness began to show a little light over her hitherto 
 gloomy horizon ; her eyes became less turbid ; she would smile 
 occasionally, and her communications with Widdles grew more 
 airy. I do most potently believe that Widdles was, not only 
 in the similarity, but in the infinite simality (I am sorry to 
 have to coin a word) of his influence, homeopathically opera- 
 tive in working a degree of cure in the troubled nature of the 
 old woman. 
 
 "Ah, Widdles, Widdles ! " she would say, as she rubbed the 
 unavailing Balm of Columbia on his blue back, "you and I 
 know what trouble is ! Don't we, old bird ? " 
 
 She began to have a respect for her own misfortunes, which 
 indicated that they had begun to recede a little from the point 
 of her vision. To have had misfortunes is the only distinction 
 some can claim. How much that can distinguish one man 
 from another, judge, oh Humanity. But the heart that knows 
 its own bitterness too often forgets that there is more bitter- 
 ness in the world than that. 
 
 Widdles would cock his magnificent head and whiskers on 
 one side, and wink with one eye, as much as to say, " I be- 
 lieve you, old girl." Then he would turn his denuded, feather- 
 less back upon her, as much as to add, with more solemnity : 
 " Contemplate my condition, madam. Behold me. Imagine 
 what I once was, that you may understand the spite of fortune 
 which has reduced me to my present bareness. Am I not a 
 
Molken on the Scent. 369 
 
 spectacle to men and angels ? And am I not therefore distin- 
 guished above my fellows ? " Perhaps, however, I am all 
 wrong in giving this interpretation to the actions of the bird. 
 Perhaps the influence that flowed from him into the heart 
 of Mrs. Boxall was really such as, put in words, would amount 
 to this : " Here I am without a feather to hide my somewhat 
 skinny proportions ; but what the worse am I ? Who cares ? 
 So long as you don't, I don't. Let's turn about once more. 
 My dancing days are over ; but life is life, even without 
 feathers." 
 
 If Mrs. Boxall had had her way with Widdles, he would 
 have turned out a resplendent bird in spite of fate. But if 
 you had told her not to be distressed at his nakedness, for God 
 cared for Widdles, not as much, but as well as for her, she 
 would have judged you guilty of something like blasphemy. 
 Was it because the bird was comical, as even she admitted, 
 that you must not speak of God's care in relation to him ? 
 Certainly, however, he sowed not neither did he reap ; and as 
 for a barn to store his winter-grain in — poor Widdles ! Yet, 
 was he forgotten ? Mrs. Boxall was the last person who could 
 say so, with her sugar, her nuts, her unguents of price — 
 though the latter, clearly a striving against Providence, were 
 not of so much account in the eyes of the bird. I dare say he 
 found them soothing, though. 
 
 However all these things may have been, one thing is cer- 
 tain, that Mrs. Boxall began to recover her equanimity, and at 
 length even her benevolence toward men in general — with one 
 class exception, that of lawyers, and two individual exceptions, 
 those of old Worboise and young Worboise. I believe she had 
 a vague conviction that it was one of the malignant class 
 above mentioned that had plucked Widdles. "Ah, my poor 
 Widdles! Them lawyers!" she would say. "You would 
 have been a very different person indeed, Widdles, if it hadn't 
 been for them. But it'll be all the same in a hundred years, 
 Widdles. Keep up heart, old bird. It'll all be over soon. If 
 you die before me, I'll put you on a winding-sheet that'll be a 
 deal more comfortable than dead feathers, and I'll bury you 
 with my own hands. But what'll you do for me, if I die first, 
 you little scarecrow ? You'll look about for me, won't you ? 
 That's about all you can do. And you'll miss the bits of 
 sugar. Mattie, my dear, mind that Widdles has his sugar, 
 and everything regular after I'm dead and gone." 
 
 She began to take to Mattie again, and even to make her 
 read to her of a Sunday. But this, as of old, gave rise to 
 24 
 
370 Guild Court. 
 
 much difference of opinion between them, which, however, 
 resulted in the old woman's learning something from the child, 
 if not in the immediate case, yet in the next similar case. For 
 it often happens that a man who has opposed another's opinion 
 bitterly in regard to the individual case that occasioned the 
 difference, will act entirely according to that other's judgment 
 in the next precisely similar case that occurs ; although if you 
 were to return to the former, he would take up his former 
 position with an access of obstinacy in the reaction from hav- 
 ing yielded to argument. Something like this took place be- 
 tween Grannie and Mattie. It was amusing to hear how the 
 former would attribute all the oddities of the latter to the fact 
 that she belonged to the rising generation, never seeming to 
 suspect that Mattie was an exception to children in general, 
 as peculiar as Widdles in relation to birds. 
 
 CHAPTEE LIV. 
 
 GRANNIE APPEALS TO WIDDLES. 
 
 One sultry evening in summer, Lucy was seated at her piano, 
 which had its place in Mr. Kitely's back parlor, near the black 
 oak cabinet, but she was not playing. She had just been 
 singing a little song from some unknown pen, which she had 
 found with music of her father's in the manuscripts he had 
 left her. This was the song : 
 
 1. Nursing it ? 
 
 , . „ . Brinsr relief, 
 
 Sunshine fair, Sunny gold ! 
 
 In the air, Look, I set 
 
 On the earth! Open door 
 
 Everywhere Thee before, 
 
 Wakmg mirth! And the fold 
 
 Stay not there. 0f my curtain draw agMe 
 
 BtKearth Enter, enter, golden tide. 
 
 Of ray heart 2 
 
 In the dark. 
 
 Dost thou mark Summer Wind, 
 
 How I sit Nature's laughter ! 
 
 In the dark, Of sweet smiling 
 
 With my grief, Waker, waf ter ! 
 
Grannie Appeals to Widdles. 
 
 371 
 
 Care beguiling, 
 
 Toying, wiling, 
 
 Never glance 
 
 Throw behind. 
 
 In the dance 
 
 Still advance, 
 
 To the past 
 
 Deaf and blind, 
 
 Follow after, 
 
 Fleet and fast, 
 
 Newer gladness, 
 
 Careless wind ! 
 
 See the sadness 
 
 Of my mind. 
 
 Over river, 
 
 Hill and hollow, 
 
 Resting never, 
 
 Thou dost follow 
 
 Other graces, 
 
 Lovelier places, 
 
 Newer flowers, 
 
 Leafier bowers : 
 
 I still sit 
 
 Nursing it — 
 
 My old sorrow — 
 
 Night and morrow. 
 
 All my mind 
 
 Looks behind, 
 
 And I fret. 
 
 Look, I set 
 
 A wide door 
 
 Thee before, 
 
 And my casement open lay : 
 
 Come, and blow my cares away. 
 
 Sunshine fair ! 
 Of the saint 
 Gild the hair ; 
 Wake the child, 
 With his mirth 
 Send him wild. 
 To the faint 
 Give new breath ; 
 From the earth 
 Take the death, 
 Take the dearth. 
 'Tis in vain 
 To complain, 
 And implore 
 Thee to glide, 
 Thee to glow, 
 In my mind ; 
 
 For my care 
 
 Will nevermore 
 
 .Rise and go. 
 
 Open door, 
 
 Windows wide, 
 
 I do find 
 
 Yield no way 
 
 To the mind. 
 
 Glow and play, 
 
 Come and go, 
 
 Glance and glow, 
 
 To and fro, 
 
 Through the air ! 
 
 Thou would'st say, 
 
 As ye use, 
 
 Thou and Wind, 
 
 Forget ; 
 
 But not yet 
 
 I would choose 
 
 That way : 
 
 Shine and glitter, come and go ; 
 
 Pass me by, and leave me so. 
 
 4. 
 And I whisper 
 To the wind, 
 Evening lisper 
 In the curl 
 Of the girl, 
 Who, all kind, 
 Waits her lover — 
 Waft and hover, 
 Linger over 
 Her bright color, 
 Waft her dolor 
 O'er the ocean, 
 With a faint, 
 Reviving motion. 
 Blow her plaint 
 From the maiden 
 Sorrow-laden ; 
 Take all grief, 
 Which to lose 
 Were relief. 
 
 Leave me, leave me, for I choose 
 Still to clasp my grief. 
 
 5. 
 
 Sunshine fair ! 
 Windy air ! 
 Come and go, 
 Glance and glow, 
 Shine and show, 
 
372 Guild Court' 
 
 Waft and blow ! Rain-cloud blind, 
 
 Neither choosing Parted, blent, 
 
 Nor refusing, There is room, 
 
 Neither fretting Go and come. 
 
 Nor forgetting Loving only 
 
 I will set To be lonely, 
 
 Open yet To be sad. 
 
 Door and pane. I repent, 
 
 You may come, Sun and wind, 
 
 Or the rain : That I went 
 
 •I will set, You to find : 
 
 Indifferent, I was rent 
 
 Open yet In my mind. 
 
 Door and pane. Sun and wind, do what ye will ; 
 
 Sun and wind, I sit looking backward still. 
 
 Lucy, I say, had finished this song, and was sitting silent be- 
 fore the instrument, with her hands laid on the keys, which had 
 just ceased the long-drawn sound, and again sunk into stillness. 
 Two arms came round her from behind. She did not start. She 
 was taken by but not with surprise. She was always with him in 
 mood, if not in thought, and his bodily presence therefore over- 
 came her only as a summer cloud. She leaned back into his em- 
 brace, and burst into tears. Then she would rise to look at 
 him, and he let her go. She saw him rather ragged, rather 
 dirty, quite of a doubtful exterior to the eye of the man who 
 lives to be respectable, but her eye saw deeper. She looked 
 into his face — the window of his being — and was satisfied. 
 Truth shone there from the true light and fire within. He did 
 not fall at her feet as once before. The redeemed soul stood 
 and looked her in the face. He put out his arms once more, 
 and she did not. draw back. She knew that he was a man, 
 that he was true, and she was his. And he knew, in the testi- 
 mony thus given him, that the last low-brooding rims of 
 the cloud of his shame had vanished from his heaven, and that 
 a man may have sinned and yet be glad. He could give God ' 
 thanks for the shame, whose oppression had led him to under- * 
 stand and hate the sin. For sin gives birth to shame, and in 
 this child-bearing is cleansed. Verily there is One, I repeat, 
 who bringeth light out of darkness, good out of evil. It comes 
 not of the evil, but out of the evil, because He is stronger than 
 the evil ; and He, not evil, is at the heart of the universe. 
 Often and often yet in the course of life, would Thomas have 
 to be humbled and disappointed. But not the less true was 
 the glow of strength that now pervaded his consciousness. It 
 was that this strength, along with a thousand other virtues, 
 
Grannie Appeals to Widdles. 373 
 
 might be perfected, that the farther trials were to come. It 
 was true, so true that it was worth making fact. 
 
 But my young reader, who delights in the emotion rather 
 than in the being of love, will grumble at these meditations, 
 and say, ' ' Why don't you go on ? why don't you tell us some- 
 thing more of their meeting ?" I answer, "Because I don't 
 choose to tell you more. There are many things, human tilings 
 too, so sacred that they are better left alone. If you cannot 
 imagine them, you don't deserve to have them described. We 
 want a little more reticence as well as a great deal more open- 
 ness in the world — the pulpit included. But " against stupid- 
 ity the gods themselves are powerless. " Ah no ! that is a hea- 
 then utterance. Let the stupid rage, and when they imagine, 
 let it be vain things. The stupid, too, have a God that will 
 slay their stupidity by the sword of his light. The time will 
 come when even they will repent, not of their stupidity, for 
 that they could not help, but of the arrogance of fancied 
 knowledge that increased instead of diminishing it, and made 
 them a thorn in the flesh of them that saw and would have 
 opened their eyes. No doubt many of them that suppose they 
 see, fancy it only in virtue of this same stupidity ; but the end 
 will show all. Meantime the tares and the wheat must grow to- 
 gether, and there are plenty of intellectual tares that spring from 
 the root of the moral tares, and will be separated with them. 
 
 After awhile, when their feelings were a little composed, 
 Thomas began to tell Lucy all his adventures. In the middle, 
 however, Mrs. Boxall returned. She had most opportunely 
 been calling on a neighbor, and if Thomas had not learned 
 this from Mr. Kitely, he would have sent for Lucy instead of 
 going in as he did. They heard her voice in the shop. 
 
 " Don't tell grannie anything about it yet," said Lucy. 
 " She's much quieter in her mind now, and if we were to set 
 her off again it would only do her harm. Any thing certain 
 she has a right to know, but I don't think she has a right to 
 know all that you are trying to do for her. That is your busi- 
 ness. But you mustn't mind how she behaves to you, Tom 
 dear. She thinks you and your father all one in the affar." 
 
 When the old lady entered she saw at a glance how th.ugs 
 were going ; but she merely gave a very marked sniff, and 
 retreated to her chair by the window. She first seated herself, 
 and then proceeded to take off her bonnet and shawl. But 
 she could not keep silent long, and the beginning of speech as 
 well as of strife is like the letting out of water. 
 
 "Thomas," she said — for people of her degree of education 
 
374: Guild Court. 
 
 became more familiar in their address when they are angry — 
 "is this room mine or yours ?" 
 
 "Grannie," said Lucy, "Thomas has nothing to do with 
 it. He was away from home, I assure you, when — when — 
 things went wrong." 
 
 " Very convenient, no doubt, for both of you ! It's nothing 
 to you, so long as you marry him, of course. But you might 
 have waited. The money would have been yours. But you'll 
 have it all the sooner for marrying the man that turned your 
 grandmother into the street. Well, well ! Only I won't sit 
 here and see that scoundrel in my room." 
 
 She rose as she spoke, though what she would or could have 
 done she did not know herself. It was on Lucy's lips to say 
 to her — " The room's mine, grannie, if you come to that, and 
 I won't have my friend turned out of it." But she thought 
 better of it, and taking Thomas's hand, led him into the shop. 
 Thereupon grannie turned to "Widdles for refuge, not from the 
 pain of Thomas's presence, but from the shame of her own 
 behavior, took him out of his cage, and handled him so roughly 
 that one of the three wing feathers left on one side came off 
 in her hand. The half of our ill-temper is often occasioned 
 by annoyance at the other half. 
 
 Thomas and Lucy finished tbeir talk in a low voice, hidden 
 in the leafy forest of books. Thomas told her all about it 
 now ; how he wanted to find the man Jack Stevens, and how 
 Eobins and he had followed him to Lisbon, and found him 
 there and brought him home ; how he had had to part with 
 her ring as well as his own watch for money to start them in 
 their search, and how even then they had had to work their 
 passage to Lisbon and back. But if the representation she 
 and Mr. Fuller had given him of the state of the case was cor- 
 rect, he said, there could be no doubt but Jack's testimony 
 would reverse the previous decision, and grannie would have 
 her own. 
 
 " I can't help being rather sorry for it," concluded Tom ; 
 " for it'll come to you then, Lucy, I suppose, and you will 
 hardly be able to believe that it was not for my own sake that 
 I went after Jack Stevens. I've got him safe, and Eobins too, 
 at the Mermaid. But I can't be grand and give you up. If 
 you were as rich as Miss Coutts, I couldn't give you up — 
 though I should like to, almost, when I think" of the money 
 and my father." 
 
 '•'Don't give me up, Tom, or I'll give you up, and that 
 would be a bad job for me." 
 
Grannie Appeals to Widdles. 375 
 
 Then they made it clear to each other that nothing was fur- 
 ther from the intention of either of them. 
 
 " But what am I to do next, Lucy ? You must tell me the 
 lawyers that conducted your side of the case." 
 
 " I am afraid I can't ask Mm to do anything more." 
 
 " Who's him, Lucy ? " 
 
 "Mr. Sargent." 
 
 " Sargent — Sargent — I think I have heard the name. He's 
 a barrister. If you are not satisfied with him, the firm you 
 employed will speak to another." 
 
 " He did everything, Thomas. But — " 
 
 Lucy hesitated. Thomas saw that she was blushing. Per- 
 haps it was the consciousness of his own unworthiness that 
 made him jealous. 
 
 " Oh, very well, Lucy ! If you don't want to tell me, of 
 course — " 
 
 " Thomas ! Thomas ! Can't you trust me yet ? I have trust- 
 ed you, Thomas." 
 
 He had the grace to feel ashamed of himself at once. 
 
 " Forgive me, Lucy," he said. " I was wrong. Only I 
 love you so ! " 
 
 " I will tell you all about it, Tom, dear." 
 
 " You shan't tell me a word about it. I can guess. But 
 what are we to do ? " 
 
 " I will go and consult Mr. Morgenstern." 
 
 " There is no time to lose." 
 
 "Come with me to his office, then, at once. It is not far to 
 Old Broad Street." 
 
 They set out instantly, found Mr. Morgenstern, and put him 
 in possession of the discovered evidence. He was delighted 
 with the news. 
 
 "We must find Sargent at once," he said. 
 
 Lucy began to stammer out some objection. 
 
 " Oh ! I know all about that, Lucy," said he. "But this 
 is no time for nonsense. In fact you would be doing the hon- 
 est fellow a great wrong if you deprived him of the pleasure of 
 gaining his case after all. Indeed, he would feel that far 
 more than your refusal of him. And quite right, too. Sar- 
 gent will be delighted. It will go far to console him, poor 
 fellow." 
 
 " But will it be right of me to consent to it ? " asked 
 Thomas, with hesitation. 
 
 "It is a mere act of justice to him," said Mr. Morgenstern ; 
 "and, excuse me, I don't see that you have any right to bring 
 
376 Guild Court 
 
 your feelings into the matter. Besides, it will give Mrs. Box- 
 all the opportunity of making him what return she ought. It 
 will be a great thing for him — give him quite a start in his 
 profession, of which he is not a little in want. I will go to 
 him at once/' concluded Mr. Morgenstern, taking his hat. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 GUILD COUET AGAINST. 
 
 I WILL not linger over the last of my story. Mr. Sargent 
 was delighted at the turn affairs had taken — from a business 
 point of view, I mean. Tbe delight was greatly tempered 
 by other considerations. Still he went into the matter mind 
 and soul, if not heart and soul, and moved for a fresh trial on 
 the ground of fresh evidence. Mr. Worboise tried the plan of 
 throwing discredit on the witness ; but the testimony of Rob- 
 ins and Thomas was sufficient to remove any influence that 
 course might have had. The former judgment was rescinded, 
 and the property was Mrs. Boxall's. 
 
 Mr. Worboise and Mr. Sargent met in the lobby. The lat- 
 ter, in very unlawyer-like fashion, could not help saying : 
 
 "You would have done better to listen to reason, Mr. Wor- 
 boise." 
 
 " I've fought fair, and lost, Mr. Sargent ; and there's an 
 end of it." 
 
 The chief consolation Mr. Worboise now had was that his 
 son had come out so much more of a man than he expected, 
 having, indeed, foiled him at his own game, though not with 
 his own weapons. To this was added the expectation of the 
 property, after all, reverting to his son ; while, to tell the 
 truth, his mind was a little easier after he was rid of it, al- 
 though he did not part with it one moment before he was com- 
 pelled to do so. He made no advances however, toward a 
 reconciliation with Thomas. Probably he thought that lay 
 with Thomas, or at least would wait to give him an oppor- 
 tunity of taking the first step. My reader would doubt- 
 less have expected, as I should myself, that he would vow 
 endless alienation from the son who had thus defeated his 
 dearest plans, first in one direction, then in another; but 
 
Guild Court Again. 377 
 
 somehow, as I have shown, his heart took a turn short of that 
 North Pole of bitterness. 
 
 There is nothing to wonder at in the fact that Mrs. Boxall 
 should know nothing yet of her happy reverse of fortune. 
 They had, as I have said already, judged it better to keep the 
 fresh attempt from her, so that if by any chance it should fail, 
 she might not suffer by it, and, in any case, might be pro- 
 tected from the wearing of anxiety and suspense. 
 
 "Let's give grannie a surprise, Lucy," said Thomas, having 
 hurried to her with the good news. 
 
 " How do you mean, Tom ? We must be careful how we 
 break it to her. Poor dear ! she can't stand much now." 
 
 "Well, my plan will just do for that. Get Mrs. Whatsher- 
 name, over the way — her old crony, you know — to ask her to 
 tea this evening. While she's away, Kitely, Spelt, and I will 
 get all the things back into the old place. There's nobody 
 there, is there ? " 
 
 "No, I believe not. I don't see why we shouldn't. I'll 
 run across to the old lady, and tell her we want grannie out of 
 the way for an hour or two." 
 
 She took care, however, not to mention the reason, or their 
 surprise would have been a failure. 
 
 There were no carpets to fit, for the floor had been but par- 
 tially covered, showing the dark boards in the newest fashion. 
 Before Mrs. Boxall's visit was over, the whole of her household 
 property had been replaced — each piece in the exact position 
 it used to occupy when they had not yet dreamed of fortune 
 or misfortune. Just as they were getting anxjous lest she 
 should come upon the last of it, Lucy, bethinking herself, said 
 to the bookseller : 
 
 "Mr. Kitely, you must lend us Widdles. Grannie can't 
 exist without Widdles." 
 
 "I wish you hadn't proposed it, miss ; for I did mean to 
 have all the credit of that one stroke myself. But Widdles is 
 yours, or hers rather, for you won't care much about the old 
 scaramouch." 
 
 " Not care about him ! He's the noblest bird in creation — 
 that I know, Mr. Kitely. He does not mind being bald, even, 
 and that's the highest summit of disregard for appearances 
 that I know of. I'm afraid I shouldn't take it so quietly." 
 
 " It don't much matter nowadays," said Mr. Kitely. 
 " They make such wonderful wigs." 
 
 " But that's ten times worse," said Lucy. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you'd go with a bare poll, miss, so 
 
378 Guild Court. 
 
 be that Providence was to serve you the same as Widdles ? — 
 which Heaven forbid ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't bear a wig anyhow." 
 
 "What would you do, then, miss ? Black and polish it ?" 
 
 " What nonsense we are talking ! " said Lucy, after a good 
 laugh. " But I'm so happy I don't know what to do. Let's make 
 a wig for Widdles, and grannie will think her bears' grease has 
 made hair grow instead of feathers." 
 
 Whether this proposal was ever carried out, I do not know. 
 But Widdles followed the furniture ; and when grannie came 
 home she found that all her things were gone. She stared. 
 Nobody was to be seen. But all were watching from behind 
 the defences of Mr. Kitely's book-shelves. 
 
 " Mr. Kitely," she called at last, in a voice that revealed 
 consternation. 
 
 The bookseller obeyed the summons. 
 
 "I didn't expect it of you, Mr. Kitely," she said, and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 This quite upset the conspirators. But Mr. Kitely kept 
 them back as they were hurrying forward. 
 
 " We thought we could do a little better for you, you see, 
 ma'am. It was a confined place this for the likes of you. So 
 Miss Lucy and I made bold to move your things up to a place 
 in the court where you'll have more room." 
 
 She said nothing but went up stairs. In both rooms she 
 found utter emptiness. Mr. Kitely followed her. 
 
 " There's not a stick left, you see, ma'am. Come and I'll 
 take you home." 
 
 " I didn't think you'd have turned me out in my old age, 
 Mr. Kitely. But I suppose I must go." 
 
 It was with considerable exercise of self-denial that the book- 
 seller refrained from telling her the truth, but he could not 
 spoil the young people's sport. He led her up to the door of 
 her own house. 
 
 " No, Mr. Kitely. I'll never set foot in that place again. 
 I won't accept it from no one — not even rent-free." 
 
 "But it's your own," said Kitely, almost despairing of per- 
 suasion, and carried beyond his intent. 
 
 " That's just why I won't go in. It is mine, I know, but I 
 won't have my own in charity." 
 
 " Thomas," whispered Lucy, for they were'following behind, 
 . ' ' you must tell her the good news. It will help her over her 
 prejudice against you. Old people are hard to change, you 
 know." 
 
■ Guild Court Again. 379 
 
 " Mrs. Boxall," said Thomas, going up to her, "this house 
 is your own." 
 
 "Go away," returned Mrs. Boxall, energetically. "Isn't it 
 enough that you have robbed me ? Will you ofter me my own 
 in charity." 
 
 " Do listen to me, grannie," pleaded Thomas. 
 
 " I will not listen to you. Call a cab, Lucy. We'll drive to 
 the nearest workhouse." 
 
 Lucy saw it was time to interfere. 
 
 "What Thomas says is true, grannie, if you would only 
 listen so him. Every thing's changed. Thomas has been 
 over the seas to find a man who was in uncle's ship when it 
 went down. He has given such evidence that the property is 
 yours now." 
 
 " I don't care ; it's all a trick. I don't believe he went over 
 the seas. I won't take any thing from the villain's hand." 
 
 "Villains don't usually plot to give away what they've got," 
 said Lucy. 
 
 " But it's Thomas Worboise you mean ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but he had nothing to do with it, as I've told you a 
 hundred times, grannie. He's gone and slaved for you, and 
 that's all the thanks you give him — to stand there on the 
 stones, refusing to take what's your very own." 
 
 The light was slowly dawning on grannie's confused mind. 
 
 "Then you mean," she said, "that all my son Richard's 
 money — " 
 
 "Is yours, grannie," said Lucy and Thomas in a breath. 
 
 "Only," added Lucy, "you've spoiled all our bit of fun by 
 being so obstinate, grannie." 
 
 For sole answer the old woman gave a hand to each of them, 
 and led them into the house, up the wide oak staircase, and 
 along the passage into the old room, where a fire was burning 
 cheerfully just as in the old time, and every article of furni- 
 ture, book-case, piano, settle, and all, stood each in its old 
 place, as if it had never been moved. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall sat down in her own chair, "like one that hath 
 been stunned," and for some moments gave no sign of being 
 conscious of what was going on around her. At length a little 
 noise at her ear attracted her attention. She looked around. 
 On the edge of the little table which had always been beside 
 her easy-chair, stood Widdles, the long feathers of whose 
 wings looked like arms that he had tucked under his coat-tails, 
 only there was no coat. 
 
 " Poor Widdles ! " said the old woman, and burst into tears. 
 
380 Guild Court. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 WOUND UP OE EU2ST DOWN. 
 
 Thomas resumed his place in the office, occupying his old 
 stool, and drawing his old salary, upon which he now support- 
 ed himself in comfort and decency. He took a simple lodging 
 in the neighborhood, and went twice a week in the evening to 
 see his mother. In doing so, he did not run much risk of 
 meeting his father, whom he neither sought nor avoided, 
 for he was seldom home before midnight. His mother 
 now lived on these visits and the expectation of them. 
 And she began not only to love her son more and more for 
 himself, but to respect him. Indeed, it was chiefly the re- 
 spect that increased her love. If he was not converted, there 
 must be something besides conversion that was yet good, if 
 not so good. And she thought she might be excused if she 
 found some pleasure even in that. It might be a weakness — 
 it might be wrong, she thought, seeing that nothing short of 
 absolute conversion was in the smallest degree pleasing in the 
 sight of God ; but as he was her own son, perhaps she would 
 be excused, though certainly not justified. As Thomas's per- 
 ception of truth grew, however, the conversations he had with 
 her insensi bly modified her judgment through her feelings, 
 although she never yielded one point of her creed as far as 
 words were concerned. 
 
 The chief aid which Thomas had in this spiritual growth, 
 next to an honest endeavor to do the work of the day and 
 hour, and his love to Lucy, was the instruction of Mr. Fuller. 
 Never, when he could help it, did he fail to be present at 
 daily prayers in St. Amos's Church. Nor did he draw upon 
 his office hours for this purpose. The prayers fell in his din- 
 ner hour. Surely no one will judge that a quarter of an hour, 
 though in the middle of the day, spent in seeking the presence 
 of that Spirit whereby all actions are fitted to the just meas- 
 ure of their true end, was disproportioned by excess to the 
 time spent in those outward actions of life, the whole true 
 value of which depends upon the degree to which they are 
 performed after the mind of that Spirit. What gave these 
 prayers and exhortations a yet more complete fitness to his 
 needs was their shortness. No mind could be wearied by 
 them. I believe it very often happens that the length of the 
 services, as they are called, is such that they actually disable 
 the worshiper in no small degree from acting so after them as 
 
Wound Up or Bun Down. 381 
 
 alone can make them of real worth to his being : they are a 
 weakness and not a strength, exhausting the worshiper in 
 saying " Lord, Lord/' instead of sending him forth to do his 
 will. The more he feels, the less fit is he, and the less fitting 
 it is, to prolong the expression of his devotion. 1 believe this 
 is greatly mistaken in ah public services that I know anything 
 about, which involve, in their length, an entire departure 
 from good old custom, not good because old, but so good that 
 it ought to have been older, and needs now to be raised from 
 the dead that it may be custom once more. Thomas did not 
 enjoy his dinner less, and did his work far more thoroughly 
 and happily because of this daily worship and doctrine — a 
 word which, I think, is never used by St. Paul except as mean- 
 ing instruction in duty, in that which it is right to do and 
 that which it is right not to do, including all mental action as 
 well as all outward behavior. 
 
 It was impossible under the influence of such instruction 
 that Tom should ever forget the friends who had upheld him 
 in the time of his trouble. He often saw Captain Smith, and 
 on one occasion, when he had a fortnight's holiday — the only 
 one before his marriage — he went a voyage to Jersey in his 
 brig, working his passage as before, but with a very different 
 heart inside his blue jacket. The Pottses, too, he called on 
 now and then ; and even the unamiable Jim Salter came 
 round to confess his respect for him, when he found that he 
 never forgot his old mates. 
 
 As soon as Thomas resumed his stool in the counting-house 
 Mr. Wither resigned his, and went abroad. 
 
 Mrs. Boxall of course recovered her cheerfulness, but her 
 whole character was more subdued. A certain tenderness to- 
 ward Lucy appeared, which, notwithstanding all her former 
 kindness was entirely new. A great part of her time was spent 
 in offices of good-will toward Widdles. She always kept her 
 behavior to Mr. Stopper somewhat stately and distant. But 
 he did his best for the business — for it was the best for himself. 
 
 My story leaves Mr. Spelt and Mr. Kitely each happy in a 
 daughter, and Mattie and Poppie growing away at their own 
 history. 
 
 One evening, when Tom was seated with his mother, who 
 had again recovered so far as to resume her place on the coach, 
 his father came into the room. Tom rose. His father, with- 
 out any greeting, said : 
 
 "Keep a lookout on that Stopper, Tom. Don't let him 
 have too much of his own way." 
 
382 Guild Court. 
 
 "But I haye no authority over him, father." 
 
 " Then the sooner you marry and take the business into 
 your own hands the better. 
 
 " I'm going to be married next week." 
 _ " That's right. Make Stopper junior partner, and don't 
 give him too large a share. Come to me to draw up the ar- 
 ticles for you." 
 
 " Thank you, father. I will. I believe Mrs. Boxall does 
 mean to make the business over to me." 
 
 " Of course. Good-night," returned Mr. Worboise, and left 
 the room without speaking to his wife. 
 
 From this time Tom and his father met much as before their 
 quarrel. Tom returned to the house for the week before his 
 marriage, and his father made him a present of an outfit for 
 the occasion. 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! I can hardly believe it," said Lucy, when they 
 came home from church. 
 
 "I don't deserve it," was all Tom's answer in words. 
 
 After their wedding-journey they went back to the old house 
 in Guild Court, in which they had had one or two more rooms 
 fitted up. Their grandmother, however, is now urging them 
 to move to some suburb, saying she is quite willing to go with 
 them. " And I don't believe you will have any objection 
 either — will you, old Widdles ? " she generally adds. 
 
 THE END.