HILLING^ 
 
 iiJJJrG
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIfOWllA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 

 
 NEARER AND DEARER.
 
 u>mdom : ranrm n w. ciowu akd sons, stamford street.
 
 'Hi way— missing and making "iiukcs,' 1 
 
 ■ onqueror.'- Pag I.
 
 in 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER: 
 
 | (talc out of Stjjool. 
 
 " Has she a Brother? 
 Has she a nearer one 
 Still, and a dearer one 
 
 Yet than all other?" — Hood. 
 
 A NOVELETTE, 
 By CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A. 
 
 Author of " Verdaxt Greex." 
 
 
 i. 
 
 LONDON: 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 
 
 1857. 
 
 \ Right of Translation em i Dramatic a lap rrxdj]
 
 o\
 
 WITH MUCH AFFECTION, 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE TALE 
 
 TO MY UNCLE, 
 
 east, as. 
 
 WHO HAS SHEWN MUCH INTEREST 
 IN THIS NOVELETTE, 
 
 BUT FAR MORE IN 
 
 ITS AUTHOK. 
 
 June, 1857.

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN INTERIOR AT SOMERFORD HALL ... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PLAYERS; — OF WHOM ONE IS THE CHIEF ACTOR 
 
 IN THIS LIFE-DRAMA ..... 14 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 MINERVA HOUSE 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A WAGER 30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LOVE IN LIVERY 45
 
 VI C0NTEN1 5. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LOVE, THE LEVELLER ..... 56 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A VISITOR AT MINERVA HOUSE .... 64 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE GREAT MORAL ENGINE 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MISS SMITH . 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RETROSPECTIONS . 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MODEL COPIES . 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MURDER WILL OUT 
 
 :-i 
 
 82 
 
 . 90 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHAMPAGNE AXD REAL PLEASURE . . • "101 
 
 113 
 
 122 

 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LOVE FOR LOVE . . . . . .131 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SIMON PURE ...... 139 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER . . . . .152 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER . . . . .165 
 
 CHAPTER XVIH. 
 
 CONCLUSION . . . . .175
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN INTERIOR AT SOMERFORD HALL. 
 
 Sir C. Coldstream. — ' My dear Leech, you began life late ; you arc 
 a young fellow — forty-five — and have the world yet before you. I 
 started at thirteen, lived quick, and exhausted the whole round of 
 pleasure before I was thirty. I've tried everything, heard everything, 
 done everything, know everything, and here I am, a man at thirty- 
 three, literally used up — completely blaze.' — Used Up. 
 
 ' As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie, 
 This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me. 
 
 Thackeray's Ballads. 
 
 OW is the game ?' 
 
 ' Twenty spot ; ten 
 striker.' 
 
 'Then here's for 
 a winning hazard 
 to improve my for- 
 tunes !' But he only 
 scored a cannon. 
 
 The speakers were 
 two young men who 
 ^ftd&> V^#TSvere playing bil- 
 
 liards in the pleasant billiard-room of Somerford
 
 2 NEAEEB AND DEARER. 
 
 Hall You arc introduced to most respectable 
 
 people, my gentle reader! for the first speaker is a 
 baronet, and the second is the brother of a lord ; 
 the (me is Sir Charles Chatterton, the other is the 
 Honourable Frederick Arlington. 
 
 Do you wish to learn the pedigrees and connec- 
 tions of these gentlemen ? If so, and you have a 
 curiosity for such genealogical matters, you may set 
 it at rest by referring to those fat, red-covered, 
 books, whose illustrations are coats-of-arms, and 
 which, by very wicked and satirical folks, have been 
 called ' The Englishman's Bible.' For I think 
 that we need not here trouble ourselves with these 
 romantic statistics of family pride ; nor, indeed, do 
 I i are to show you how the ancestors of my hero — 
 •Sir Charles Chatterton, whom you will have the 
 Iness to consider a hero from henceforth — were 
 •ended from the Normans, and made it a boast 
 that they had come in with the Conqueror. And 
 tins for two reasons. In the first place, I fancy 
 that such dry statements would alarm, or, at any 
 rate, weary you, and thus prevent your crossing the 
 threshold of this narrative, in which, I promise you, 
 a most delectable banquet has been prepared. In 
 the second place, we have become such a matter-of- 
 fact nation, that some people positively disbelieve in
 
 NEARER AND DEARER 3 
 
 that nobility which is presumed to have come in 
 with the Conqueror, and are so parcel-blind, that they 
 cannot see those glorious rays of honour which the 
 Norman star sheds upon one's lineage ; or under- 
 stand how the purity of our blood is to be enhanced 
 by a vagabond Norman drover, who, eight centuries 
 ago, for the want of something better to do, enlisted 
 under the banner of William the Bastard. For 
 aught such disbelievers care, questionable ancestors 
 like these might be Burked forthwith, and obliterated 
 from the pages of existence. 
 
 For my own part, I confess that I am not in- 
 different to the just claims of a good lineage. It is 
 not for us to smile at the claims of long descent, 
 and to talk of kind hearts being more than coronets, 
 and simple faith than Norman blood. Let us leave 
 these melo-dramatic Joseph-Surface platitudes to 
 Mr. Tennyson's grand old gardener and his wife. 
 For ' we know that, though the greatest pleasure 
 of all is to act like a gentleman, it is a pleasure, 
 nay, a merit, to be one : to come of an old stock, to 
 have an honourable pedigree, to be able to say that 
 centuries back our fathers had gentle blood, and to 
 us transmitted the same/* 
 
 Without, therefore, troubling ourselves at all 
 
 * Thacl ray's 'Second Funeral of Napoleon,' p. G4. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 concerning the past history of our hero's family, we 
 will content ourselves by taking him as we find him 
 at the present ; and his only relative to whom we 
 need now allude, is his maternal aunt, Lady Linton, 
 who was a lady in her own right, and the one-year 
 widow of Sir Clifford Linton, who had left her the 
 mistress of Somerford Hall, and the mother of three 
 young children. To this lady, the two gentlemen 
 were now on a visit, the nephew having brought his 
 friend to help him to wile away a few days with a 
 little hunting and shooting. 
 
 They appeared now to be varying their amuse- 
 ments with a game at billiards, for which occupation 
 they had stripped to their shirt-sleeves. Indeed, 
 Sir Charles had bared his right arm to his shoulder, 
 having acquired a habit of making a vain display of 
 his biceps muscle, which had been brought to a 
 great state of perfection during that collegiate 
 period of his career when he had been a favourite 
 pupil of Hammer Lane, and had assisted to place 
 the Christ Church boat at the head of the river. 
 But, even without his biceps, Sir Charles was as fine 
 a specimen of a vigorous young Englishman of six- 
 and-twenty as you might expect to meet with on a 
 long summer's day ; and his blue eyes, and light 
 hair and moustache, gave him that true Saxon
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 5 
 
 appearance which seems so much to combine manli- 
 ness with gentleness. Not so his companion, who 
 might have been an Italian for his blue-black locks, 
 and glowing eyes, and general ' warmth of colour- 
 ing,' as artists term it; but who, nevertheless, 
 seemed to set off the other's Saxon beauties, as a foil 
 does a bright gem, or as the dark marble back- 
 ground throws into startling relief the white purity 
 of Chantrey's ' Sleeping Children.' 
 
 There was rather too much of a listless air about 
 Sir Charles to satisfy critically-observant people. 
 lie seemed to be more blase than a young man 
 with life and energy ought ever to be. It was not 
 the listlessness of ill-health ; for, whatever it was 
 that was wrong with him, he was at any rate sound 
 in body, and independent of the doctor. He was 
 not at all deficient in sense; and his reasoning 
 faculties told him that, to him, as to every one else, 
 a part in a world of labour had been allotted ; and 
 that as he spent the hours in his working day of 
 life, so would be his reward in the evening of 
 existence. And yet, despite this knowledge that he 
 had a duty assigned to him, and a work to do, his 
 hands (morally speaking) hung listlessly at his side, 
 and he went about through life basking in the sun- 
 shine, rather than troubling himsellf to toil in the
 
 G NEARER AXD DEARER. 
 
 burden and heat of the day. Indeed, there seemed 
 to be no energy about him. Perhaps he may have 
 roused up a little in the hunting-field ; but, at any 
 rate, here, over the billiard-table, he appeared to be 
 as weary and disgusted with everything as is the 
 Stranger in Kotzebue's play. 
 
 He himself frankly owned to this feeling. Once, 
 when he had been taxed with it, he answered that 
 he had tried everything, and found the hollowness 
 of it. One would have thought, to have heard him, 
 that he was the Preacher, proclaiming the vanity of 
 all things under the sun. But he had not tried all. 
 When he said that he had done so, he made a 
 mental reservation, lie had never tried the life and 
 soul of all — love ! He had never since his boyhood 
 Bought to win another's heart, or had felt the desire 
 to do so. He had flirted, of course — at least, he 
 said ' of course' — with hundreds ; and had shown 
 his skill in those pretty passages of arms, and 
 tournaments of small talk, flashing his weapon with 
 all the -kill of a practised fencer, continually 
 Striking, but never wounding. In fact, where was 
 tin- need to wound? Better not to do so. The 
 hearts he fenced at were only worn outside — sham 
 ones at tho best ; like the leathern hearts pinned 
 upon the fencer's garments. You might thrust
 
 NEARER AND I :" RER. 7 
 
 ":ist them, and hit them times out of numb 
 but you made no sensible impression upon the 
 wearers. It was only practice to them, and they 
 were used to it. You certainly appeared to touch 
 their heart ; but they gave you a society smile, and 
 then resumed their game with yourself, or any one 
 else who chose to take up the flirting foils with 
 them ; and then — why, then everything was da capo. 
 So, in this kind of flirting, Sir Charles Chatterton 
 was an adept ; but love — a true, honest, masterful 
 love — he had never yet tried. Because, as I imagine, 
 he had not yet had the opportunity. 
 
 Here he was, then, in the Slough of Despond, 
 with Doubting Castle for the only stronghold in 
 view. ' That herb called heartsease ' had not yet 
 been stuck in his button-hole. He was tossed about 
 by trifles, and driven rudderless upon the sea of 
 life ; and chiefly for the lack of the little god of 
 love to seize upon the helm, and steer him into the 
 sweet waters of a right course. 
 
 He was now playing billiards in a savage, care- 
 less way — missing and making ' flukes,' and forcing 
 his antagonist to come off the conqueror. It was a 
 good table, and a well-appointed room ; for the late 
 Sir ( 'lifford Linton had been, in his time, a billiard 
 enthusiast. True, the room was not lighted from
 
 8 NEABEB AND DEABEB. 
 
 above ; but the side light, for all that, was very 
 
 good and ample. There were two windows on the 
 one side of the room ; the first in a half-glass 
 door, the other in a large bay that faced to the 
 south, and admitted all the daylight that was 
 required. For night-work, two triple clusters of 
 lamps were stretched above the table, and were 
 provided with green shades, as though they 
 suffered from weak eyes. The walls of the room 
 were literally covered with sporting and hunting 
 pictures, and engravings after Landseer, a few of 
 which were surmounted with antlers, and foxes' 
 masks. Within the bay-window were hung the 
 framed rules of the game, with scoring-boards for 
 pool ; and the greater part of the area of the bay 
 was occupied by a long seat, made something like a 
 garden-seat, but provided with a crimson velvet 
 cushion, and raised high enough to necessitate its 
 having a step, and to enable a sitter to overlook the 
 billiard-table. At the back of this seat was a long 
 counting-board, which also did duty as a small 
 armoury for a range of cues. 
 
 The players were smoking ; and, they might 
 smoke there as much as they pleased, without the 
 fumes of their cigars proving of any annoyance to 
 the ladies by being wafted into the living-rooms of
 
 NEARER AND DEARER, 
 
 Somerford Hall ; for, the billiard-room was in a re- 
 mote part of the house, where the servants' offices 
 were placed, and it was approached by a private 
 passage, shut off from the common hall by folding 
 doors. In every respect, therefore, it was the most 
 convenient room in the house to be dedicated to 
 Smoke — Smoke, the idol who is worshipped by 
 countless millions, who can soothe the fevered feel- 
 ings of his worshippers, ease their pains, charm their 
 senses, develop their imaginations, assist their 
 reflective powers, stay their strifes, and be to them 
 both food and friend. 
 
 Oh ! the cigars and pipes that had been smoked 
 in that room ! Oh ! the scented clouds that had per- 
 vaded that chamber, floating like fog-wreaths around 
 a mountain peak, and filling Smoke's temple with 
 the incense that he loved. The hair of an anti- 
 nicotian would bristle with horror at the mere 
 statistics thereof! nevertheless, the revenue of the 
 kingdom had been enlarged thereby, trade had 
 been encouraged, good temper preserved, ennui 
 evaded, bad words (possibly) avoided, lips pleasantly 
 occupied with the weed, and amiability disseminated 
 with its smoke. ' Tobacco,' saith old Burton, burst- 
 ing into rhapsodies, 'divine, rare, super-excellent 
 tobacco, it goes far beyond all panacea, potable
 
 10 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 gold, and philosopher's stone.'* And it does — to 
 those who enjoy it as much as did Sir Charles ' 
 Chatterton, and the Honourable Frederick Arling- 
 ton. 
 
 Not at all an unpleasant thing would you have 
 found it, to lounge away an hour in this same 
 billiard-room, especially if it was the sweet summer- 
 time, when you could stand at the half-glass door 
 that opened on to a sweep of velvet sward, and 
 there, mingle the pungent perfume of your cigar 
 with the more ethereal scents of the flowers, that 
 dappled the green grass like glittering fragments of 
 rainbows. Before you, the lawn, here and there 
 broken up into flower-knots, swept down with a 
 gentle descent, until it sank beneath the surface of 
 an ornamental lake, in the midst of which, a small 
 island formed 'the island home' of the swans, and 
 the rest of the water-fowl. To the right hand — 
 where were the fruit gardens behind a screen of 
 laurels — a walk of bright golden gravel meandered 
 through the green lawn, passing round two wide- 
 stretching cedars, and then dived through a belt of 
 shrubbery, and emerged on a rustic wooden bridge. 
 The stream that was crossed by this pretty bridge, 
 flowed through the lake, and then, leaving the 
 * ( Anatomy of Melancholy/
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 11 
 
 domains of Art, betook itself to the regions of 
 Nature, and exchanged park and gardens, for 
 Cuyp-like meadows, where the cud-chewing cows 
 waded into its waters, or grouped themselves upon 
 its butter-cup banks, in all the radiant glow of the 
 summer evening. A little way above this bridge, 
 which was half hidden beneath the droop of weeping 
 willows, the stream widened into the lake, round the 
 further side of which went the golden gravel walk 
 backed by a dense mass of shrubs, which were not, 
 however, kept too high to exclude the distant view 
 of a rich, hilly landscape. 
 
 But, on the particular day on which Sir Charles 
 and his friend found themselves within the Somer- 
 ford billiard-room, the view from its bay-window 
 was anything but a summer prospect : its half-glass 
 door was carefully closed to shut out the wintry 
 wind, and a comfortable fire was blazing within its 
 grate. There was a deep snow upon the ground ; 
 and golden gravel walks, and green velvet lawn, 
 and rainbow fragments of flowers, were now reduced 
 to a white uniformity. On this white work of 
 Nature, bold robins, and starveling sparrows, traced 
 out designs for petticoat borders, and other achieve- 
 ments of the Iroderie Anylaise school. The hares 
 and rabbits were carefully wired out from these
 
 12 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 domains sacred to Flora and Pomona; but, oc- 
 casionally, a soft-coated fellow con- 
 trived to steal in, and, sitting there 
 . upon the lawn, in all the comfort 
 ), y of his fur jacket, would placidly 
 • wash his face and comb out his 
 *."'.; whiskers, and then, with a twitch 
 ^ /:, of his white scut, scamper over 
 '' the snow, and leave his tracks to 
 indicate where might be found the latest edition of 
 the Vestiges of Creation. The snow even covered 
 up the lake ! for, the water was frozen over — at 
 least, almost as far as the little rustic bridge, where 
 the stream began to exercise its own power, and 
 refused to be invested with an icy breast-plate ;— 
 and the swans, and Canadian geese were floundering 
 
 9 
 
 . 
 
 ft* 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 '
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 13 
 
 upon the ice, and looking almost as helpless as 
 Mr. Winkle did, when his boast of skating was put 
 to the proof. 
 
 The leaden colour of the sky seemed to presage a 
 further fall of snow ; and, the presage was speedily 
 fulfilled. First, a feathery flake or two drifted 
 slowly down ; and then, the white and crystalline 
 particles became so numerous and dense, that the 
 sky was filled with them, and the distant landscape 
 obscured. The billiard-room was also obscured ; 
 and grew so dark, that the players were brought to 
 a stand-still. 
 
 ' Holed again !' cried Sir Charles, as he made a 
 stroke at his adversary's ball, — missed it, — and saw 
 his own ball plunge into a corner pocket. 
 
 ' Which is three to the favour of spot, and, con- 
 sequently, the game !' observed Mr. Arlington.
 
 11 
 
 NEARER AM) DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PLAYERS J— OF WHOM ONE IS THE CHIEF ACTOR 
 IN THIS LIFE DRAMA. 
 
 * Let us to billiards; 
 Come, Charmian ! ' — 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Sc. 4. 
 
 ' 1 know of only two instruments the use of which brings all the 
 muscles into play, ami they are the spade and the billiard-cue.' — 
 
 Billiards, by Captain Crawley. 
 
 E must either give 
 tins up,' said Sir 
 Charles, ' or light 
 the lamps ; for, I 
 can't make out the 
 red from the spot. 
 Not that it much 
 matters what one 
 docs on such a 
 wretchedly de- 
 pressing day. In bad weather, one thing bores one 
 quite as much as another.' 
 
 re
 
 NEARER' AND DEARER. 15 
 
 ' Nonsense, old fellow !' said Mr. Arlington, as 
 he vigorously poked the fire, and stirring- it up to a 
 ruddy glow, made the room look lighter and more 
 cheerful, ' don't foster the blues in that way ; they 
 come readily enough of their own accord, without 
 being so persistently invited. At any rate, billiards 
 is better than brooding ; so, let us have another 
 game, and take your revenge.' 
 
 ' As you wish ; especially as I am not so inhospi- 
 table as to desire to make you a sharer in my idea 
 that everything wearies and worries, more than it 
 amuses.' 
 
 1 Come !' said the other, ' I am not to be made 
 a convert to a bad faith ; I will not allow you to 
 enlist me in your blues. Mine is a healthier creed 
 than yours, and believes in billiards rather than 
 blues — in an amusing game of skill that provides 
 salutary exercise both for the mind and body, 
 and not in depressed fancies that only engender 
 listless idleness and moroseness, to say nothing of 
 dyspepsia. So", light another weed, and let us string 
 the balls for a fresh game.' 
 
 Sir Charles did as he was advised ; and, rolling 
 up his shirt sleeve, again bared his biceps muscle. 
 The contemplation of this cherished memorial of the 
 days of his vigour, invariably produced a calm feel-
 
 16 NEABEB AND DEABEE. 
 
 ing of satisfaction, and a placidity of temper that for 
 a time routed the blues, and, in their place rein- 
 stated hapjn" memories of boating prowess and un- 
 dergraduate renown, in days when, as Sir Charles 
 remembered, life was happy and joyous, because it 
 had an object in view, and a work to be done. Tor 
 the last year or two, his life had been an aimless 
 one — even such a one as good Parson Adams would 
 have condemned, for, instead of its being a ' course 
 of life,' it was a ' course of doing nothing ;'* and a 
 biceps muscle in a state of perfection is not the off- 
 spring of such a do-nothing period. That of Sir 
 Charles belonged to a former era, and he looked 
 upon it — much as Egypt would look upon her pyra- 
 mids — as the memorial of his former greatness and 
 strength. 
 
 ' Oh ! for the lusty rower, 
 With his good stoat arm so strong !' 
 
 he exclaimed, as he grasped the cue ; ' I wish I 
 could live the old boating days over again. Then 
 there was something to stir one's blood up! I 
 never can get to feel now, like I used to then.' 
 
 * ' Well, sir, in this course of life I continued two years.' ' What 
 coarse of life?' interrupted Adams; ' I <lo not remember you have 
 mentioned any.' 'Your remark is just,' replied the gentleman; 'I 
 should rather have said, in this course of doing nothing.' — Joseph 
 
 IC3.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 17 
 
 ' Because you don't set the right way to work,' 
 rejoined Mr. Arlington. ' Where there isn't a will, 
 there isn't a way.' 
 
 ' When the winter comes, for example,' pursued 
 Sir Charles, ' if it was not that one's forced, in a 
 measure, to show one's self in the field and at balls, 
 and so on, I often think that I should like to be a 
 dormouse, so that I might sleep through dull days 
 like this, when one has got nothing to do, and all 
 the day to do it in.' 
 
 ' But, with the dormouse, it's the nature of the 
 beast,' said Mr. Arlington. ' A decent member of 
 society mustn't curl his tail round him and drop off 
 to torpidity, even though his acorns and nuts have 
 been stored up by his own exertions ; which is not 
 the case with your acorns and nuts, my friend.' 
 And Mr. Arlington made a cannon, and puffed at 
 his cigar. 
 
 ' Philosophy with you, appears to come with 
 smoke ; I trust it does not end there,' laughed Sir 
 Charles. ' But, look at the snow ! it falls thicker 
 and faster than ever. This is what my old tutor 
 would have called " acris sceeva hyems," and no 
 mistake.' 
 
 ' Who was your tutor, by the way?' 
 
 ' A parson. His name was Smith. ' 
 
 <■
 
 18 
 
 NEARER AXD DEARER. 
 
 Smith ! As the man says in the farce—" Smith ! 
 now, I'm almost confident I've heard that name he- 
 fore." ' 
 
 1 1 [e was a very clever man, and a very good ono 
 too,' said Sir Charles; 'my father gave him the liv- 
 ing- at our place in Blankshire. He caught a fever 
 there and died, just about the time when I went up 
 to Christchnrch. There were two children and the 
 widow; of course, they were left rather badly off, 
 hut my father provided for them. The youngsters 
 were a boy and a girl ; I remember them very well. 
 
 • 
 
 < 
 
 mm
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 19 
 
 The boy was about my own age, and used to do my 
 verses and teach me how to pull an oar ; for which I 
 shall ever remember him with gratitude/ (Here Sir 
 Charles cast an admiring glance at the splendid de- 
 velopment of his biceps.) ' The governor got him a 
 commission, and made him food for powder. I 
 think it was in India where his powder-banquet was 
 prepared ; but I lost sight of him long ago.' 
 
 ' And of the young lady ?' 
 . ' Yes, notwithstanding the fact, that I was at one 
 time, over head and ears in love with her. How- 
 ever, as she was of the tender though captivating age 
 of fifteen, I did not break my heart when we were 
 called upon to separate. For aught I know, I may 
 have contemplated the propriety of making her a 
 parting present of a wax doll that could open its eyes 
 and mouth, and ejaculate " mamma, papa." Very 
 probably she has live wax dolls of her- own by this 
 time, and, if they are like mamma, they are like one 
 who was an unusually pretty and charming girl, and 
 for whom I really feel a deeper and truer love than 
 I have ever yet entertained for any one, or, I am 
 afraid, ever can entertain.' He said this with far 
 deeper feeling in his heart than he would allow to 
 appear upon his lips ; and, perhaps, it was not alto- 
 gether without some reference to the subject of their 
 
 C 2
 
 20 NBABER AND DEAEBB. 
 
 conversation that he nervously trifled with a little 
 cornelian heart that hung from the breguet chain of 
 his watch. 
 
 ' Why so T asked Mr. Arlington. ' Because a 
 wax doll would now he an inappropriate gage 
 d? amour .' or because there be none of beauty's 
 daughters with a magic like the little girl of 
 fifteen V 
 
 ' Perhaps your latter " because" supplies the most 
 truthful answer to your Why question,' answered 
 Sir Charles, with something like a sigh ; ' for cer- 
 tainly, my old tutor's pretty daughter was possessed 
 of the magic of beauty and innocence — a combina- 
 tion which it is rather difficult to meet with when 
 young ladies have become what is called " formed," 
 ami have graduated in the world's school of conven- 
 tional hypocrisy.' 
 
 ' Oh ! hear him ! treason in the camp !' laughed 
 Mr. Arlington. ' What Daniel has now come to 
 judgment ? Who is the rash youth who breaks his 
 lance with society, and runs a tilt at match-making, 
 in as calm and business-like a way as I, now, will 
 screw from the red, and hole you in the side-pocket ! 
 There ! no sooner said than done. Have the good- 
 ness to mark four to the favour of spot. And so, 
 because Miss Fifteen was vour first and fleeting
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 21 
 
 love, you despair of ever finding a Miss One-and- 
 twenty for your second and sound love ?' 
 
 ' Not altogether !' replied Sir Charles. ' If I 
 lost Rosaline, I hope to meet with a Juliet. You 
 may remember what Byron says — 
 
 ' Love boars within its breast the very germ 
 Of change ;' 
 
 and I do not expect my school-boy love, however 
 deep it may have been, to last out my life. But 
 what I meant to say, was this — that when young 
 ladies' ears have been dinned by " the snake Society's 
 loud rattles" (to quote Byron once more) — their 
 moral mind becomes partially deaf and the truthful 
 innocence of early girlhood is not to be found ; in 
 short — ' 
 
 ' In short, O speaker of monstrous treason !' in- 
 terrupted Mr. Arlington, ' I will hear no further 
 slanders of the fair sex. If you were as I am, an 
 "engaged" man, you would change your jaundiced 
 opinions, and confess that the young ladies of this 
 Victorian era are not only the superiors of the men, 
 but the superiors of the young ladies of all times, 
 in beauty, acquirements, modesty, sincerity — ay, 
 and in pluck, too.' 
 
 ' You are but a partial advocate ; for, you speak 
 as an " engaged " man,' said Sir Charles.
 
 22 NBARBB AND DBABER. 
 
 ' And, therefore, as a man in a healthy frame of 
 mind," replied his friend, ' I heartily wish that you 
 were in thi • state. You may depend upon it, 
 
 that a good, honest love, is the only medicine that 
 can "minister to a mind diseased"' like yours : and 
 I should advise you to take my prescription without 
 loss of time.' 
 
 4 1 cannot take the prescription until the medicine 
 has been placed before me. And, perhaps, it will 
 not then meet my case. Lovc-philtres do not agree 
 with everyone.' 
 
 ' Don't they ? — try them, and see. You will find, 
 that Restoration hangs its medicine upon the lips of 
 Love. — Ask Cordelia if it is not so ?' 
 
 ' Well,' replied Sir Charles, in a dubious tone, 
 ' perhaps I may some day make the experiment ; 
 but, at present, I have not much faith in that kind 
 of physic I prefer the Traviatas medicine, and 
 cure my ills by giving myself up to pleasure. I 
 think I hear little Piccolomini singing my maxim !' 
 and Sir Charles hummed — 
 
 ' Al placert m'affido, c-1 io soglio 
 
 aco i mail a '.' 
 
 the while he balanced himself on one leg, and thrust- 
 ing his cue behind his back, struck into one of tl. 
 
 * L: T, !., ne 1.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 23 
 
 remarkably uncomfortable, and apparently impos- 
 sible attitudes, in which billiard-players love to in- 
 dulge. He stood in Ins own light; and, as the 
 room was darkened by the falling snow, and the 
 waning fire-light, he fouled his stroke ; and forth- 
 with burst into invectives against the weather, won- 
 dering how much longer this sort of thing was to 
 continue. 
 
 ff#;i^| 
 
 ' Can't say — not being in the secret,' replied Mr. 
 Arlington. ' But, one thing seems certain — hunting 
 will be a sport for the future, and not for the 
 present.' 
 
 And, as he spoke, the flickering glare of the 
 fading fire-light fell upon a fox's mask, that
 
 24 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 appeared to grin with malicious delight at the 
 defeat of the sportsmen, and the reprieve of 
 Reynard.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MINERVA HOUSE. 
 
 : And first our school for ladies ; — pity calls 
 For one soft sigh, when we behold these walls, 
 Placed near the town, and where, from windows high, 
 The fair, confined, may our free crowds espy, 
 With many a stranger gazing up and down, 
 And all the envied tumult of the town ; 
 May, in the smiling summer-eve, when they 
 Are sent to sleep the pleasant hours away, 
 Behold the poor, (whom they conceive the bless'd,') 
 Employed for hours, and griev'd they cannot rest.' 
 
 Crabbe. The Borough, xxiv, 
 
 fff^^y'^£' '■ - !^ ERVA House, — Academy for 
 young Ladies, conducted by Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw, with the assistance 
 of competent teachers and skilled 
 Professors (see advertisement), — 
 was situate at no very great dis- 
 tance from the small market-town 
 of Somerford, and was second 
 only, in size and importance, to its aristocratic 
 neighbour, Somerford Hall. The hall and the
 
 26 NEARBB AND DEAREB. 
 
 school were the pride of the parish, and were 
 pointed out to strangers as lions that were upon 
 an equal footing with the Branch Bank, and the 
 new Corn Exchange. 
 
 Minerva House was a great, gaunt, red-brick 
 building, whose style might be described as ugli- 
 ness with stone dressings, and which, as a lion, was 
 remarkable chiefly for its dimensions, and its aspect 
 of dull respectability. In its construction, the archi- 
 tect's aim appeared to have been to present an inju- 
 dicious combination of a hospital, a workhouse, and a 
 private lunatic asylum, — a trla-juncta-in-uno design, 
 which he had very cleverly succeeded in carrying 
 out. Minerva House was a house of three stories, 
 and, consequently, of three rows of windows — which 
 storied windows Mere richly dight with stiff wire- 
 blinds, placed at a sufficient height to prevent even 
 the tallest young lady (Miss Sprouts, who, indeed, 
 bad frequently tried the experiment), from peeping 
 over them, unless she mounted upon a chair for the 
 purpose — and, for this, there was a forfeit. Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw was a terrible disciplinarian in the 
 matter of pecuniary forfeits ; she exacted them with 
 the most uncompromising strictness, and impounded 
 the money in a missionary-box of a bilious aspect, 
 and altar-tomb shape, which ornamented the lire-
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 27 
 
 place of her own private sitting-room, and was a 
 standing monument of her thoughtful piety. Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw, at any rate, affirmed that the forfeited 
 monies were placed within this altar-tomb, and were 
 from thence disinterred at certain periods, and for- 
 warded to the friend of her youth, the Rev. Simeon 
 Goole, for the purpose of being devoted to mis- 
 sionary objects ; and I trust that such was the case. 
 But, I am inclined to favour the supposition enter- 
 tained by certain of the young ladies, that this same 
 bilious box served a like purpose to that celebrated 
 collegiate bank of deposit called ' the University 
 chest,' to which fabulous receptacle, all kinds of pay- 
 ments are presumed to be consigned ; though, what 
 the chest is, or why the money is put there, or how 
 long it is suffered to remain there, and what is done 
 with it when it is taken out of there, are questions 
 on which undergraduates may speculate, but not ex- 
 plain. Yet, be this how it may, Mrs. Clapperclaw 
 conscientiously exacted pecuniary forfeits for stand- 
 ing upon chairs ; for neglecting to converse in 
 French during • the periods allotted to recreation ;' 
 for receiving or remitting letters through the hands 
 of the day-boarders (by which means a clandestine 
 correspondence between Miss Sprouts and the drug- 
 gist's assistant— a sallow young man, full of whiskers
 
 28 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 and poetry — had been brought to the verge of an 
 elopement) ; for perseverance in stooping during 
 school-hours ; for untidiness in bed-rooms ; for 
 surreptitiously lighting a candle in a bed-room, 
 for the purpose of novel-reading ; — for these, and 
 many other otfences of the like gravity, for which 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw exacted pecuniary forfeits, her 
 bilious missionary-box. must have been greatly bene- 
 fited, and the payment of her own rent and taxes 
 considerably aided. 
 
 If Minerva House could have spoken — if that 
 lion of Somerford had been endowed with a voice — 
 the roar it would have roared would have shaped 
 itself into the words, ' Buckram and Backboard.' 
 The sermons of its stones would have been preached 
 from the same text — Buckram and Backboard. 
 Divided into the three normal divisions — one for 
 each story — the subject, however handled, would 
 most incontestably have proved, that Minerva House 
 was — Buckram and Backboard. It was written 
 upon every wall, and window, and door. The air 
 of it was diffused around every brick and stone; 
 and, permeating the interior, wandered amid furni- 
 ture of a grim aspect, and most uncomfortable up- 
 rightness. 
 
 In the centre of the <jround-floor of this Buckram-
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 29 
 
 and-Backboard building, was the hall-door, over 
 which, a gaunt head of the Medusa had been carved 
 upon the key-stone, by way of ornament, and was 
 popularly supposed to be a sculptural portrait of 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw. The door was approached by a 
 gravel walk, flanked by grass plats, and eight poplar- 
 trees. The walk was wide and straight ; the poplars 
 were narrow and straight, and appeared to have 
 been reared with the use of the backboard. These 
 backboard-poplars were backed up by backboard 
 walls, which formed the two sides of a courtyard 
 parallelogram, of which, the house closed the one 
 end, and a wall and gate shut in the other, and shut 
 out the profane world from the sacred precincts of 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw's school. Over the great iron 
 gate, there was a semicircular board — a very rain- 
 bow of an advertisement, on which was painted, in 
 stiff backboard letters —
 
 30 NEARER AND DEARER, 
 
 This was the text from which Mrs. Clapperclaw 
 discoursed in her circular sermons to parents ami 
 guardians, ■wherein she affirmed that her chief care 
 was to judiciously combine the acquired refinements 
 of polite society with the domestic simplicities of a 
 private home. Which domestic simplicities were 
 presumed to refer to the daily supply of scraggy 
 mutton and stodgy rice-pudding, on which her 
 young friends were permitted to banquet. (' Young 
 friends,' be it observed, was Mrs. Clapperclaw's 
 circular synonym for pupils.) Of course it was 
 .Mrs. ('.'< chief care that the religious and moral 
 training of her young friends should be most strictly 
 and carefully attended to, Mrs. C looking upon 
 herself not only as an educator of youth, but much 
 more as ' a great moral engine' The circular 
 sermon then went on to state that French was con- 
 stantly spoken by the young friends of the Great 
 Moral Engine, and that competent professors at- 
 tended to give instruction in the Latin, Greek, 
 Frenoh, German, and Italian language! (Hebrew 
 and High Dutch, it is to bo presumed, could be 
 added to this polyglot list) ; that the harp, piano- 
 forte, singing, drawing, and flower-painting were 
 cultivated as delightful sources of pleasure and 
 
 amusement! anil that the hours of recreation
 
 NEARER AND DEARER, 31 
 
 (during which French was constantly spoken) were 
 varied by many little but instructive pursuits. 
 
 After stating that reference was kindly permitted 
 to the llcv. Simeon Goole, Bethel House, Clap- 
 ham, the Great Moral Engine then shut off the 
 steam of her circular sermon, and concluded thus : 
 ' Without wishing to overrate her own poor endea- 
 vours (for poor all our endeavours must be, even at 
 the best !), yet Mrs. C. will venture, with some 
 pride, to call attention to the admirable system 
 which she has introduced for the moral guidance of 
 her young friends, which has been crowned with so 
 much success, and brought so many blessings upon 
 those who have been intrusted to her care. In so 
 good a cause Mrs. C. is ever ready to spend and be 
 spent.' Ill-natured persons were sometimes dis- 
 posed to interpret this closing exhortation of Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw's circular sermon considerably to the 
 disparagement of that Great Moral Engine ; and 
 certainly the nota bona that followed, relative 
 to the spoons, forks, and mugs that were to 
 be brought by the young friends, carried the 
 thought.-; of the reader to the silver and riches 
 of this world. 
 
 Of the domestic establishment of Minerva IIouh 1 
 there were two persons, a lady and gentleman, of
 
 32 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 whom we wish more particularly to speak. They 
 
 were 
 
 ' Two beings in the hues of youth,' 
 
 and both were young, though neither could be 
 railed beautiful. 
 
 With regard to the lady, Miss Dorothea Dot, 
 who officiated as housemaid to the Great Moral 
 Engine, there was, indeed, much about her that 
 compensated for artistic beauty, for she had a frank 
 face, radiant with sunny good humour ; and after 
 all that is said of your Venuses and Ilebes, that is 
 the best kind of beauty that we could desire to see, 
 because it is the most lasting as well as the most 
 pleasant Sunny little Dolly Dot must certainly 
 have been own sister to that Peg of Limavaddy 
 whose smile 'lighted all the kitchen.' 
 
 ' Si i- her as she moves ! 
 
 Scarce the ground she touches. 
 Airy as a jay, 
 
 Graceful as a duchess; 
 Braided is her hair, 
 
 Soft her Look, and modest, 
 Slim her little waist, 
 
 ifortably boddiced,' 
 
 Even such was Dolly Dot. 
 
 With regard to the gentleman, who was Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw's sole man-servant, his waist was cer- 
 tainly anything but slim, and he had no more per-
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 33 
 
 sonal beauty than might be found in a prize pig, or 
 the fat boy in Pickwick. The stoutness of this 
 young man may have been attributable to his inces- 
 Bant feeding upon the remnants of rice-puddings, 
 the fattening properties of which nutritious articles 
 of school consumption had developed into an aggra- 
 vating enlargement of person, that demanded a 
 corresponding enlargement of clothing. As a mat- 
 ter of course, he was rather expensive in the article 
 of livery. 
 
 I Indeed, Mrs. Clapperclaw at length lost all pa- 
 tience, and one day said to him, 'Fido !' — his surname 
 was Fido, and if it was a misfortune to him thus to 
 bear the name of a pet spaniel, the Post-Office Di- 
 rectory could prove that others were equally unfor- 
 tunate — ' Fido !' said the Great Moral Engine, ' I 
 declare, that in the course of a year you have as 
 many suits as a pack of cards.' And she accord- 
 ingly gave Mr. Fido notice that she could not bear 
 this sort of thing any longer, and that if he deter- 
 mined to further increase his size, he must do so on 
 other premises than those of Minerva House. 
 Either this threat, or the abnegation of rice-pud- 
 dings for a lenten season, produced the effect in- 
 tended, and for the last six months the measure of 
 Fido's livery had not required any alteration. 
 
 n
 
 34 NEARER AND DEARER, 
 
 Fido had his qualities, or he would not have 
 remained for four years in Mrs. Clapperclaw's ser- 
 vice. But he had also his weaknesses, and his 
 particular weakness was one which has been general 
 in all ages and in all countries — Love ! lie had 
 an unaccountable weakness for foiling in love at a 
 moment's notice, and without any reasonable cause, 
 with every parlour boarder who came under the 
 roof of Minerva House. Like Viola, he never told 
 his love, or breathed a word of affection into a par- 
 lour boarder's car ; he knew his place too well to 
 be guilty of such an indiscretion, but his fat frame 
 was a very volcano of eruptive emotions, which 
 raged only the more fiercely from having to be 
 repressed. Nevertheless, these were but transitory 
 affairs, never lasting over the holidays, but terminat- 
 ing with the ' breaking-up/ 
 
 It may readily be imagined that, living daily in 
 the society of so fascinating a female as Miss Doro- 
 thea Dot, a young man of Fido's susceptible tem- 
 perament could not be insensible to her charms, or 
 remain altogether untouched by her graces. But 
 the conflicting claims of the parlour boarders had 
 hitherto restrained him from saying anything of a 
 very definite nature to his fellow-servant ; and his 
 procrastination on this point was assisted by that
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 35 
 
 sluggishness m action and decision which an over- 
 fat habit of body commonly begets. Dolly ap- 
 peared to be far from indifferent to Fido's feelings 
 towards her, and the rogue being quite aware of 
 this, thought he could bring matters to a close at 
 his own time, and so preferred to play his fish a 
 little longer before he landed his catch. But Miss 
 Dolly knew the value of having two strings to hoi 
 bow ; and although she very readily accepted Fido's 
 attentions as far as they went, yet, until they had 
 taken the definite form that she wished them to 
 take, she gave a tacit encouragement to another 
 enamoured swain — the baker, who daily paid pro- 
 fessional visits to Minerva House. 
 
 D 2
 
 'S6 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A WAGER. 
 
 Bbr. Yon will lose this wager, my lord. 
 
 Sam. I du not think so. — Hamlet, Act V., Scene, II. 
 
 HE snow fell more 
 densely ; as it did so, 
 the billiard - room at 
 Somerford Hall grew 
 ' darker. 
 
 Sir Charles Chatter- 
 ton took a spill from 
 a vase for cigar-lights 
 that was upon the man- 
 tel-piece, and presently 
 a flood of light was 
 thrown upon the bil- 
 liard-table from the two 
 triple clusters of lamps 
 that stretched above it, 
 and which now showed 
 thatjtheir eyes were not by any means weak, al- 
 though they were provided with green shades. Often
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. o7 
 
 had the young man turned night into day ; now, 
 by way of variety, lie sought to change day into 
 night. So he drew down the blinds over the bay 
 window and the half-glass door, and thus altogether 
 shut out the sight of the falling snow. 
 
 ' I feel as though I had brought you down here 
 under false pretences,' he said to his friend. 
 
 ' Not a bit of it, old fellow !' observed the Hon. 
 Frederic Arlington, as he lit another cigar and 
 threw some fresh logs upon the waning fire. 
 
 ' To promise you sport, and then not to give it,' 
 seems like forfeiting one's word,' said Sir Charles. 
 ' Your horses might as well have remained at Bices- 
 ter for all the use that you are able to make of 
 them ; and if you must move from here on Satur- 
 day, why, as to day is Wednesday, there seems very 
 little prospect of any alteration of affairs.' 
 
 'Very little indeed. I commence the game, I 
 believe.' 
 
 * And, as usual, leave me nothing. Who ever 
 thought of snow coming to-day ! the very day of all 
 others when it was least desired — the Nobblers' 
 Pitch-day — one of the very best meets we have. 
 It's provokingly unfortunate !' 
 
 'Yes, it's hard lines!' replied Mr. Arlington, 
 attentive to the game. ' Just hand me the mace.
 
 38 XEAREK AND DEARER. 
 
 I think I can make a winning hazard. There it is ; 
 beautifully done, too, though I say it.' 
 
 ' Not long since,' observed Sir Charles, ' you 
 were recommending love as a medicine to suit my 
 case. If I take it at the present time, it would be 
 because I cannot take that, to me, more agreeable 
 medicine of hunting. Don't you remember the 
 .Spectator's definition of hunting?' 
 
 ' What spectator ?' 
 
 ' The " Spectator " who looked on everything with 
 such clear eyes and sound judgment.' 
 
 ' Oh, Addison ; I comprehend. And pray what 
 may be his definition of hunting?' 
 
 'That it is " the best kind of physic for mend- 
 ing a bad constitution and preserving a good 
 one!" A happy definition, and as it seems to 
 me, a considerable improvement on Dryden's 
 couplet : 
 
 1 Better to hunt the fields for health untaught, 
 Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.' " 
 
 1 Bravo, Spectator ; Sir Roger must have shown 
 him some sport.' 
 
 ' More, at any rate, than this weather will allow 
 me to show you,' said Sir Charles. « If the snow 
 continues — and there seems to be no chance of the 
 frost breaking — I think I shall be inclined to make
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 59 
 
 my excuses to my worthy aunt, and move off from 
 here with you on Saturday.' 
 
 ' By all means.' 
 
 ' But, in the mean time, we must endeavour to 
 amuse ourselves in some other way than playing 
 billiards, and walking to the stables, to see our 
 horses eating their heads off'.' 
 
 ' We'll have the pool swept, and skate.' 
 
 ' To amuse the ducks and geese, who will be the 
 only spectators of our skill !' 
 
 1 Oh, I see ! you go in for vanity,' laughed jNIr. 
 Arlington. ' What do you say to snow-balling, it's 
 a healthy and exciting exercise ? or, making a 
 snow man, which is an ingenious adaptation of a 
 branch of the tine arts ? '
 
 40 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ' Cannot your inventive genius suggest some more 
 novel method of killing time, and driving away the 
 blues?' 
 
 1 Ay, there's the rub ! Now is the winter of our 
 discontent. Wanted immediately ! a sun of York.' 
 3Ir. Arlington smoked, and played for awhile in 
 silence, and then exclaimed, ' Eureka — as the shirt- 
 man say.-;. I have it !' 
 
 'What is it? duck- shooting or sleigh-driving?' 
 asked Sir Charles. 
 
 ' No ! something more amusing, and original, 
 replied Mr. Arlington. 'Listen, and I will my 
 
 tale unfold. When I was quartered at , there 
 
 was a girls' school in the place. One day, when we 
 were unusually hard up for something to do, we 
 were making bets about all sorts of absurdities. 
 At last, a little fellow, who had only lately joined, 
 and had just left a public school, laid two to one 
 that he would go to this girls' school, inquire for 
 a young lady he had never seen, and would cut off 
 a lock of her hair, with the young lady's full 
 permission to do so, and before the face of the old 
 governess. Well, the bet was taken, and the little 
 fellow won it; for, he went to the school, and 
 returned with a lock of hair, which he declared, on 
 his word of honour — and we had no reason to doubt
 
 " And, how did be manage it s" asked t-ir Charles. Wage 41.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 41 
 
 him — ho had obtained in the prescribed way, the 
 young lady consenting, and the old governess look- 
 ing on.' 
 
 ' And, how did he manage it ?' asked Sir Charles. 
 
 ' In this way,' replied Mr. Arlington. ' He went 
 to the school (in mufti) and asked to see Miss 
 Smith, having very correctly surmised that the 
 chances were strongly in favour of there being a 
 young lady of that name in a school of half a 
 hundred pupils. He was quite right, for there was. 
 He pretended to be some relative, and was shown 
 to the room where the young ladies had interviews 
 with their parents and friends. Of course when 
 Miss Smith came in, she knew that it was no 
 relative who had come to see her ; but the young 
 rascal had a great deal of savoir faire, and at once 
 very politely explained to her the real state of the 
 case, and begged that she would suffer him to win 
 his wager. I think he said something about having 
 noticed her when she was out taking a walk ; or, 
 perhaps, she may have had her school-girl's vanity 
 gratified by the idea that she had a military 
 admirer. At any rate, she laughingly consented to 
 play her part ; and when the governess came in 
 she snipped off a little tress, and handed it over to 
 her pretended relative, who invented some cock-
 
 42 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 and-bull story to account to the governess for so 
 lover-like a transaction.' 
 
 1 But what is this a-propos to ?' 
 
 'I propose that we do the same.' 
 
 ' That we do the same ?' echoed Sir Charles. 
 
 1 Yes, why not?' replied his friend. 'There is a 
 girls' school not far off, I know, because we passed 
 it in coming here. If we can't get any hunting, let 
 us have sport of some sort ; and, for want of some- 
 thing better to employ our time with, I propose, 
 that I bet you (or you bet me) that I (or you) shall 
 go to this school, and obtain a lock of hair from 
 any one of the young ladies, with her consent, and 
 in the presence of the schoolmistress. Neither of 
 us are known to her, so she cannot tell what 
 relation we may be to the young lady. If all does 
 not go on as smoothly and straightforward as it did 
 in young What's-his-name's case, then it will make 
 it all the more exciting. And, besides, in making 
 a bet, and taking odds, there ought to be some 
 chances in favour of the bettor. So, I'll toss you 
 which of us goes to the school.' 
 
 ' I should not like my aunt to know of such a 
 mad thing. It would be disagreeable to her.' 
 
 'But, how can she? the schoolmistress will not 
 know who you are. But, if you don't like to go, I wilL'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 43 
 
 ' Oh no ! I'll take my chance,' said Sir Charles ; 
 ' anything 1 is better than mooning about between the 
 house and the stable, with no prospect of crossing 
 tlu 1 country, or hearing the music of the hounds. 
 I'm tired of billiards ; I'm bored by the snow ; I'm 
 disgusted with myself for having brought you down 
 here for a week's hunting, and then finding you 
 none ; and I feel ready to do anything to kill time, 
 and give one a little excitement/ 
 
 'Ready for anything, from pitch-and-toss to man- 
 slaughter, eh? suppose we have the former. Heads 
 I go, tails you go. Two to one on the man who 
 goes.' Mr. Arlington spun a penny in the air. It 
 fell upon the board of green cloth, and revealed that 
 sitting figure of Britannia vulgarly denominated 
 ' tails.' 
 ; ' I go,' said Sir Charles. 
 
 * Two to one you don't bring back the lock of 
 hair !' said Mr. Arlington. 
 
 ' Done, — in ponies,' replied Sir Charles. ' So, 
 to-morrow for the sleepless dragon, and the golden 
 apples of the Hesperides. Hercules befriend me !' 
 
 And thus it was that two young men, who were 
 supposed to have arrived at years of discretion, 
 made a foolish wager, because they were eaten up 
 by ennui, and because there was snow upon the
 
 44 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ground. Oh, that snow ! if it had not been for that 
 fall of snow, Sir Charles Chatterton would have 
 ridden to meet the hounds at Nobbier' s Pitch, and 
 in all probability, would never have met with — 
 But, we are anticipating.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LOVE IN LIVERY. 
 
 : Love is the pleasant frenzy of the mind ; 
 And frantic men, in their mad actions, show 
 A happiness that none but madmen know.' — Dkydex. 
 
 1 Quoth he, to bid me not to love, 
 Is to forbid my pulse to move, 
 My beard to grow, my ears to prick up, 
 Or, when I'm in a fit, to hiccup.' — Hudibras. 
 
 morning 
 
 O 
 
 \ N the 
 after the conversa- 
 tion between Sir 
 Charles Chatterton 
 and the Hon. Fre- 
 derick Arlington in 
 c- V t1 the billiard-room of 
 Somerford Hall, 
 Miss Dorothea Dot 
 was raising a ter- 
 
 rible dust in the front sitting-room of Minerva 
 House. 
 
 It was the apartment dedicated by the Great
 
 46 NEARER AXD DEARER. 
 
 Moral Engine to the interviews that took place 
 between her little tenders and their visitors. From 
 this specimen of Mrs. Clapperclaw's abode, the 
 interior of Minerva House appeared to have fully as 
 backboard-and-buckram an appearance, as the 
 exterior. Everything in this room was tall, straight, 
 and stiff. To begin with, there were two doors, 
 which might, at a pinch, have been taken off their 
 hinges, and used as veritable backboards. When 
 you assumed the Englishman's normal position in a 
 room — that is to say, stood upon the hearth-rug, so 
 as to present the base of your spine to the genial 
 warmth of the fire, you had one of these two back- 
 board doors on either hand: the door to your riant 
 hand led into the front hall, and admitted the 
 visitors ; the door to your left opened into the back 
 hall, through which the Great Moral Engine steamed 
 up with her tenders, and brought them into the 
 paternal or friendly presence. Planting yourself 
 still upon the hearth-rug, in your Englishman's 
 position, you would have, over against you, two tall, 
 straight, and stiff windows, furnished with tall, 
 straight, and stiff wire-blinds : and, if you were as 
 tall, and straight, and stiff as a grenadier, you 
 would be enabled to peep over these wire-blinds at 
 the cheering prospect of the backboard poplars
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 47 
 
 backed up by the backboard wails, the two parallelo- 
 gram grass plats, the wide straight walk, and the 
 iron gate surmounted by its advertising rainbow. 
 Recovering your spirits from an inspection of this 
 cheering prospect, you might, perhaps, be enabled 
 to remark, that on either side of the tall, straight. 
 and stiff windows, were tall, straight, and stiff 
 curtains, bilious draperies of the colour of a London 
 fog, trimmed with London smoke ; and, that these 
 perpendicular pieces of upholstery, were connected 
 towards the ceiling, by a horizontal mass of foggy 
 biliousness, finished merrily off with a funereal fringe 
 of black worsted, and two gilt Roman fasces to give 
 it a classical air. 
 
 Still standing upon the hearth-rug in your 
 Englishman's attitude, you would— provided that the 
 genial warmth of the fire, concentrated upon the 
 base of your spine, had not produced feelings ol 
 syncope— you would, no doubt, observe, that in addi- 
 tion to a central, and two side tables (all of the 
 hardest and the straightest), the room was fur- 
 nished with ten stiff-looking, upright-backed chairs, 
 of a last-century pattern, with hard black horse- 
 hair seats, which were considerably grazed by time, 
 and the sittings of the paternal and friendly visitors 
 to the Great Moral Engine's tenders. Prickly pieces
 
 48 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER, 
 
 of horsehair projected from these seats in an aggra- 
 vating manner ; so that, when a male visitor in his 
 summer clothing placed himself upon them in a 
 sitting posture, it was not unusual to see him give a 
 convulsive leap in the air, as though he had sat upon 
 pins ; or, if he were a man of Spartan firmness, and 
 Chesterfield politeness, he had to remain, as upon 
 thorns, and grimly smile at the motherly pleasant- 
 ries with which Mrs. Clapperclaw assisted at the 
 interview between a parent and his child. Once, 
 
 indeed, when a little girl of the tender age of 
 some five years, had been brought to see her elder 
 sister, and had been politely lifted by the Great 
 Moral Engine on to one of these prickly seats, the 
 child (whose very short and very stuck-out frock
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 49 
 
 could not interpose between herself and the chair; 
 gave such a yell of anguish, that her immediate 
 abdication became necessary, and her tears and 
 pain could only be assuaged by the soothing 
 liniment of Mrs. Clapperclaw's choicest apricot 
 preserve. 
 
 On the right-hand side of the room, where was 
 the back-board door leading into the front hall, was 
 a tall, straight, and stiff piano-forte, of that antique 
 shape known as an ' upright cottage.' This name, 
 unless it signified a cottage of honest principles, 
 probably pointed to a straight-up-erected cottage, to 
 which, indeed, the piano-forte nearly assimilated in 
 height, besides being furnished with a mahogany 
 roof and overhanging eaves, and, by way of decora- 
 tion, a grass plat frontage of faded green, puckered 
 up into silken rays, that centred in a harp that had 
 never seen Tara's halls. The pattern of the wall- 
 paper figured upon stripes of alternate grey and 
 stone-colour, resembled a chaos of mathematical 
 problems, and might have been designed by Euclid 
 after a Welsh-rabbit supper at his Alexandrian Club. 
 This problematical paper was studded at intervals 
 by black crayon drawings, inserted in leather-work 
 frames, the drawings and frames being equally the 
 production of certain pupils of Minerva House. 
 
 E
 
 50 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 The frames represented a variety of withered leaves 
 and russet flowers ; and the drawings depicted a 
 series of young ladies, and long-bearded mulatto- 
 like gentlemen, who had been stumped — though not 
 as cricketers are stumped, or Jeremy Diddlers are 
 stumped, — but worked up with the leather stump 
 into a ferocious and smudgy state of blackness, and 
 were gazing, with their black looks out of their 
 flowery frames, in all varieties of bad drawing, and 
 feeble execution. 
 
 This buckram-and-backboard reception-room was 
 Dolly Dot ' putting to rights.' She had lighted the 
 fire, had turned up the tall, straight, and stiff chairs 
 one upon the other, and was now ferreting about in 
 all the holes and corners, and making a terrible dust 
 by the agency of a broom. Outside the windows, 
 everything was covered by a thick layer of snow ; 
 inside the windows every thing was covered by a 
 thin layer of dust. The snow was upon the paral- 
 lelogram grass-plats, the backboard poplars, and 
 the advertising rainbow ; the dust was upon the 
 bilious curtains, the upright cottage, and the 
 withered leaves of the flowery-frames. 
 
 ' Bless me !' thought Dolly Dot, as she swept 
 here, and dusted there ; ' what a thing it is to be a 
 housemaid in a academy. Work, work, work, from
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 51 
 
 morning till night. Here it's getting on for twelve 
 o'clock, and the front parlour not done yet ; all in 
 its dish-of-billy, as missis says, when she hasn't fixed 
 her curls on. And why can't Fido come and help 
 me ? he promised to desist me. But he is so slow 
 over everything — even in his courting of me, his 
 infections seem to be froze up, like the pump. It's 
 now four years since him and me began to keep 
 company, and he's never hurried himself to pop the 
 question yet : but I think he v> ants to do so from 
 the way he's let his hair grow. I wish he would I 
 I'm sure I give him every importunity. Oh ! here 
 he comes.' 
 
 Fido entered the room in a very lethargic manner, 
 languidly polishing a lady's shoe. His fat person 
 was adorned with a white neckcloth, a scarlet 
 waistcoat with gilt buttons, and invisible green 
 trousers with a gold stripe. At the present, he wore 
 his short pink-and-white striped morning jacket, 
 which at the approach of any visitor, or for waiting 
 at table, was exchanged for an invisible green short- 
 tailed coat with gilt buttons, and gold lace upon the 
 collar and cuffs. Out of doors, the splendour of his 
 appearance was rendered complete by a gold-banded 
 hat, and white Berlin gloves. 
 
 1 Well, sir,' said Dolly, with a pout, * at last you 
 
 e2
 
 52 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 can find time to come, can you ? I hope you've not 
 hurried yourself!' 
 
 'Hurried myself!' replied Fido, in a thick, fat 
 voice; ' hurried myself ! no, Dolly, I should rather 
 think not. When a young man comes to be in my 
 condition, it ain't no good his hurrying himself, 
 the very thought of activity and motion becomes 
 positively offen! ive.' 
 
 ' Why, good gracious me ! what's the matter ?' 
 asked Dolly. 
 
 'Matter? ha!' replied Fido, with a fat chuckle, 
 as he laid the blacking-brush over that part of his 
 scarlet waistcoat under which his heart was presumed 
 to be situated. ' Dolly ! I've a silent sorrow here.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. T>:; 
 
 Here, underneath this gay exterior, l've'got such an 
 amount of haecumulated hagony, that my only 
 wonder is it hasn't blown off all the rows of roley- 
 poley buttons, and revealed itself to the eyes of the 
 astonished Clapperclaw. Dorothea ! I've let con- 
 cealment, like a worm in a tub, prey on my damask 
 cheek ! It's wearing me away gradually. I feel it 
 a wasting of me. I gets thinner every day, and 
 lose my happetite for wittles. And some day, Dolly, 
 you'll find this suit of inwisible green, and nothing 
 more of its inwisible owner than a broken heart to 
 tell you " This was Fido !" ' At the thought of which 
 touching picture, Fido appeared to be visibly 
 affected. 
 
 Dolly had paused in her polishing of the hard 
 straight table, and looking curiously at her fat 
 fellow-servant, said, with the air of an augur, ' I see 
 what it is, Fido, you are in love !' 
 
 'In love?' echoed the stout youth, 'that's too 
 mild a hexpression ! I'm plunged over ead and ears 
 in a very abyss of haffection.' 
 
 ' Why of course you be !' said the gratified 
 housemaid, misinterpreting Fido's manner and 
 words : ' of course you be ! and you are low- 
 spirited because you are afeard your detachment 
 isn't returned.'
 
 54 NBABBB AND DEARER. 
 
 'Yes! that's about the ticket,' replied the de- 
 sponding lover. 
 
 * Well, then, Fido,' said Dully, who felt that now 
 was the time to reveal the truth, and bring matters 
 to a denouement, ' I'll tell you a great secret Your 
 love is returned !' and as Dolly looked down with 
 maiden modesty over the polished table, she fancied 
 that her reflected cheeks were brightened by a blush. 
 
 'Is returned? you don't say so!' cried Fido, 
 incredulously. 
 
 ' Yes, I do,' said Dolly, deliberate even in her 
 timidity. 
 
 ' La ! the picter is too bright !' ejaculated the fat 
 youth, as he fell into a reverie, and there laid the 
 foundation for a castle in the air. ' And I'm beloved ! 
 my affections was not misplaced. Oh ! what a 
 hecstacy to think that Ilarabellar loves me !' 
 
 ' Ww loves you ?' asked Dolly sharply, as her ear 
 caught the sound of that proper name. 
 
 ' Who ?' replied Fido, ' why her you was talking 
 of — Harabellar to be sure ; who else ?' 
 
 'Talking of her! I was talking of myself. It 
 was me that returned your detachment! It was me 
 that loved you ! me, you little monster !' and Dolly 
 clutched the long handle of her broom in a very 
 savage and threatening manner.
 
 NEARER AND DEAREB. 55 
 
 ' You ! Pooh !' said Fido, loftily waving his 
 blacking-brush ; ' the past is a dream, a wision.' 
 
 ' Rut I see how it is,' said Dolly, slightly recovering 
 the control over her feelings ; ' you've been falling 
 in love with another of the young ladies, you have ; 
 you little weak-minded, good-for-nothing wretch !' 
 
 'And what if I have, Miss Dot?' rejoined the 
 fat youth ; ' ain't it a hamiable weakness ?* 
 
 ' Fido !' replied Dolly, with stern manner and 
 stinging point, ' it's a hamiability you indulge in 
 rather too much. That's the seventh young lady 
 this half-year, and a fortnight yet to the holidays. 
 Do you think, sir, that I'd have interested myself to 
 get you this sitewation, and raised you from being a 
 harrand boy at a chemist and druggets, if I could 
 have seen that you'd go and fall in love with all the 
 parlour-boarders ? Fido, you ain't fit to be a page 
 in a boarding-school ; you don't know how to take 
 care of yourself. Fido, you're a reg'lcr Don Juan.' 
 
 But, undeterred by this terrible epithet, the fat 
 youth sniggered, with an air of conscious pride, * Ha, 
 ha ! I rather believe I am.'
 
 50 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LOVE, THE LEVELLER. 
 
 ' 1 know "t was madness to declare this truth, 
 And yet, 't wen- I to deny my love. 
 
 'Tia true, my hopes are vanishing as clou ds, 
 Lighter than children's bubbles blown by wind.-;; 
 My merit but the rash result of chance, 
 My birth unequal ; all the stars against me.' — Duydi:n\ 
 
 « Oh, he is lost in a fond maze of love, 
 The idle truantry of callow boys ! 
 I'd sooner trust my fortunes with a daw 
 That hops at ev'ry butterfly he set .' — Otwav. 
 
 ND now, sir,' 
 said Dolly, com • 
 ing- to the point ; 
 ' who is Arabel- 
 lar?' 
 
 'Well!' said 
 
 1'ido, who was 
 
 ■^inclined to fence 
 
 with the question, * I don't see 
 that I'm obliged to tell you, 
 
 neither. However, I don't mind, just for once. 
 
 Perhaps it'll mitigate my sorrows! Listen, Do-
 
 NEARER AND DEAEER. 57 
 
 rothca ! My Harabellar is Miss Harabellar 
 Sophiar Robinson, at present a hinmate of this 
 
 academy.' And Fido warmed his back at the fire, 
 and looked around with a triumphant air at the 
 crayon heads in the leather-work frames, as who 
 should say, 'Behold me ! the Don Juan of livery.' 
 
 ' Little Miss Robinson !' laughed Dolly, with a 
 sneer ; ' well, Fido, I would have chose a bigger ! 
 Ha, ha! why she's only twelve years old.' 
 
 ' Of that fact, I'm aweer,' replied Fido ; ' but 
 then, won't she grow older, and improve with age — 
 like wine T 
 
 ' And if she did,' pursued Dolly, ' she's a born 
 lady, and would never be ignited to you V 
 
 ' Ha !' said Fido, with his fat chuckle ; 'but love 
 levels all distinctions. And if her parents should 
 cut up rough, and won't give their consent to such 
 a heligible inwestment for their daughter, why then,' 
 continued Fido, who had once had (as his master 
 the chemist and druggist, soon discovered) rather 
 too great a partiality for the acted drama, ' then I 
 shall bear her away to some far-distant climb, and 
 there we'll build a harbour by some green wood, on 
 the banks of some philandering stream, and pass 
 our days on love and watercresscs. Dost like the 
 picture ?' He put this question, a la Claude Mel-
 
 58 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 notte, with a floating remembrance of a descriptive 
 speech in the Lady of Lyons. 
 
 But, Dolly was not to be led away by his dra- 
 matic powers ; and speedily brought him back to 
 the realities of common life. ' Oh ! you ridiculous 
 — little — ; fat man ! why, you know you've promised 
 to be welded to me, as soon as ever we'd got 
 money enough to open a green-grocery ; and, while 
 I was to mind the shop, you were to go out to 
 parties, and wait.' 
 
 ' Wait ! it's you are the party that'll have to 
 wait,' said the faithless Fido. 'Though I have 
 drawn picters of fancy, in which I chose to put you 
 for a figger, yet, you must remember, Miss Dot, 
 that I havin't gone so far as to commit myself to a 
 reg'lar engagement. Whether I chuses to marry 
 you, or no, all depends upon circumstances over 
 which I hav'nt any control. I refers to the feeling 
 of the 'art; and, since Harabellar has looked upon me, 
 I'v e a soul above green-grocery, and white berlins.* 
 
 ' Very well, Mr. Fido !' said Dolly, with her 
 most bewitching pout, ' you can do as you please. 
 You can take up with your chit of a Harabclla, and 
 leave me to my baker.' 
 
 ' Baker ! bother the baker !' cried the fat youth, 
 indignantly polishing at his lady's shoe.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 59 
 
 ' Yes sir, the baker,' said Dolly, pursuing her 
 advantage ; ' what have been perticklcr attentive to 
 me sir ! perticklcr attentive !' and Dolly flourished 
 her duster in Fido's face, in a very flippant manner. 
 
 ' Pertickler attentive has he ?' echoed Fido, fu- 
 riously polishing the shoe ; ' pertickler attentive ; 
 ha, ha ! — my suspicions is realized. There was a 
 crumminess about that baker, as led me to suspect 
 that he was a trifling with my affections : but I'll 
 give him a twist. Pertickler attentive ! why, you've 
 been with him now!' and Fido looked full into 
 Dolly's face. 
 
 ' In course I have !' replied that maiden. ' He's 
 just been giving in the half-quarterns.' 
 
 ' I see it all !' said Fido : ' he's been giving in 
 something else besides the half-quarterns. Why, 
 there's a patch of flour by your mouth ! what right 
 has he to go leaving his mark on my property, 
 eh?' 
 
 * Your property, indeed! not till you've made 
 them yours, sir !' replied Dolly. ' Now, Fido ! if 
 you'll give up your Harabellar, I'll give up my 
 baker ; but, not without.' 
 
 ' Well ! I'll try too ; but, it's a 'ard struggle !' 
 said the fat youth, with a touch of remor.-c, and of 
 the drama likewise. ' Fido ! England expects you
 
 GO NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 to do your duty ! Fido, you arc required to give up 
 your Harabellar, and to resume your Dorothea !' 
 
 1 Why, now,' observed Dolly, as she put the 
 straight-backed chairs in their proper places. ' I 
 daresay this little Miss has never compressed you 
 with any of her obserwations, has she ?' 
 
 1 Oh, has'nt she though !' cried Fido. ' Why, it 
 was only this very morning, that she says to me, 
 " Fido," says she, in a woice of hangelic sweetness 
 — poor thing ! she's a hawful cold in her head ! — 
 " Fido," says she ; " will you be keyind enough to 
 clean them shoes ?" To which 1 answered, " Yes, 
 Miss," says I, " I will." And I said no more ; but I 
 gazed upon her with such a haspect of devotion, as 
 must have told her of the silent hagony as was consum- 
 ing me. My eyes was always thought to be expressive!' 
 
 ' Oh, you conceited little addle-pate !' said the 
 vituperative Dolly. ' And so you've been idling 
 away all the morning by cleaning them shoes !' 
 
 ' Idling ! it was a labour of love,' responded 
 Fido. " Look at them trotter-cases ! there's a sym- 
 metry and style about them, as goes to the 'art. 
 Whenever I puts on a bit of polish, I thought of her 
 bright face ; and, when I looked on 'em, I wish'd I 
 could be in their place, and pass my life at her feet. 
 Oh, it's a hawful feeling is love ."
 
 ' Oh ! such a singular feeling!' tried Dolly, hastily; ' so funny ! Just between my 
 nose ana my chin "—rage tl.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 61 
 
 ' Yes, it is, Fido,' said the sympathetic Dolly ; 
 ' it makes one feel very, weak.' And she edged her 
 way round to the corner of the table, and came close 
 to Fido. 
 
 ' I believe you !' said he. ' It's a sort of all- 
 overishness.' 
 
 ' As calls for support,' continued she, leaning 
 upon Fido's shoulder. 
 
 ' And a good deal of strength,' said he, as he 
 experienced her weight. 
 
 ' And sympathy,' said she, with a sigh. 
 
 ' And polish !' said he, as he blacked away at the 
 shoe. 
 
 ' And — and — and — ' said she ; but she, sugges- 
 tively wiped her mouth with her apron. 
 
 ' And Day and Martin's rewiver !' said he, pursu- 
 ing his shoe-blacking, and refusing to take her hint. 
 
 ' Fido ! how slow you are in your apprehensions,' 
 cried Dolly, in a vexed tone. But as the fat youth 
 continued to polish the shoe, she changed her tactics, 
 and cried, ' Oh, dear! Oh ! good gracious me !' 
 
 ' What's the row ?' inquired the impassive Fido. 
 
 ' Oh ! such a singular feeling !' cried Dolly, 
 hastily; ' so funny ! just between my nose and my 
 chin ! oh, dear ! do see, if you can see anything, 
 lido ?' and she held her face temptingly close to his.
 
 62 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 But the obdurate fat youth, after a close exa- 
 mination, merely replied, 'No! there's nothing 
 visible there, to speak of — except the mouth ; 
 nothing !' 
 
 ' Are you quite sure, Fido ? do look again. I 
 — I think it is the mouth !' and the persevering 
 Dolly almost blushed. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's wery transparent now !' said Fido, on 
 whose fat faculties the truth began to dawn : ' I see ; 
 you want me to kiss you! Well, I don't mind 
 obliging you for once.' So, he put his lips to hers. 
 c They ain't bad : I'll do it again !' he said. So he 
 did it again. Just then, a bell rang. 
 
 ' That's the missis's bell,' cried Dolly, ' and this 
 room not dusted. Run and answer it, Fido ! now, 
 do go a bit quicker. I never see you in a bustle.' 
 
 ' I should think not,' answered Fido, as he slowly 
 turned his back on Dolly ; ' it's only women that 
 require such things. Ain't I symmeterical enough 
 in my proportions without requiring such helps to 
 hadd to my hattractions ? Yes, I'll answer the bell ; 
 and then, I shall gain a sight of my Harabellar. 
 O Harabellar ! little do you know what your Fido 
 is a suffering for you !' and, with a deep sigh, the 
 fat youth slowly made his exit. 
 
 ' Now, if I didn't know Fido's weaknesses, 1
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. G3 
 
 should be downright jealous,' thought Dolly, as she 
 busied herself about the buekram-and- backboard 
 room, to make up for lost time. While she was 
 doing so, she heard the gate slam, and presently 
 there came a loud knock at the front door ; and, as 
 Fido had gone to answer Mrs. Clapperclaw' s bell, 
 Dolly was obliged to answer the front door. 
 
 On opening it, she saw a fashionably-dressed 
 gentleman, with blue eyes, light hair and moustache, 
 and, apparently, about threc-and-twenty years of 
 age.
 
 04 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A VISITOR AT MINERVA HOUSE. 
 
 ' I'll but bring my young mnn here to school.' 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV , Se. I. 
 
 ? S Miss Smith within ?' in- 
 quired the gentleman with 
 the moustache. 
 
 'Miss Fanny Smith, sir? 
 Yes, sir ;' replied Dolly. 
 ' Oh ! that's fortunate :' 
 said the moustached gentleman — Sir Charles Chat- 
 terton, in met, who had come from Somcrford Hall 
 to Minerva House, in order to win (if possible) the 
 wager that he had made the day before with his 
 friend Mr. Arlington ; at any rate, to kill the time, 
 and to provide for himself a little novel amusement. 
 Sir Charles was shown by Dolly into the backboard- 
 and-buckram reception room, just as Fido entered it 
 by the other door. 
 
 ' I wish to sec Miss Smith. By the way,' said 
 Sir Charles, addressing himself to Dolly, ' that
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 65 
 
 collar of yours is not a very pretty pattern. Per- 
 haps, you will allow me to present you with this, to 
 buy you a new one,' and he handed her half a 
 sovereign, and then went to the fire, to warm his 
 hands, without bestowing any attention on Fido, 
 who came forward, and pulled up his own collar 
 in an obtrusive manner, and said ' Mine ain't 
 a pertickler pretty pattern, nor a pertickler new 
 
 5 1 
 
 un. 
 
 But Dolly was pondering over the piece of money. 
 ' A gold half-suffering ! he must be a prince in dis- 
 guise. This'll go towards the green-grocery esta- 
 blishment,' she whispered Fido. 
 
 ' Then I'd better keep it for you,' returned the fat 
 youth ; ' in case the green-grocery should be an in- 
 wention.' 
 
 ' I daresay,' said Sir Charles, turning to Dolly ; 
 ' I daresay that you frequently get that sort of collar 
 from young gentlemen when you pass notes on the 
 sly— eh ?' 
 
 ' Ah, sir !' sighed Dolly, as memories of pecuniary 
 presents rose in her mind ; ' them little notes was, 
 as one may say, my requisites.' (Perquisites, the 
 Malapropish young lady meant.) 'It wasn't for me 
 to go a hinterfering with the young ladies' little in- 
 nocent recerrations ; so I took whatever the young 
 
 F
 
 66 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 gents gave me ; and if anyone said " Please to take 
 this billydoo," why—' 
 
 ' You never said " Billy don't," I suppose,' said 
 Sir Charles. 
 
 ' La ! No, sir !' replied Dolly energetically. ' And 
 sometimes it were happles as were supposed to come 
 from the young ladies's ma's.' 
 
 ' Ah, I see, Mars and Venus,' said Sir Giarles. 
 ' But how were the apples to secure the young ladies' 
 affections ?' 
 
 ' In this way, sir/ replied Dolly. ' The billy- 
 doo was put in along with the fruit, hinside one of 
 the happles. This went on very well, sir — and 
 many an honest shilling it put into my pocket — till 
 about two years since, when, one morning, I comes 
 into the school-room with a basket, and I says, 
 "Fruit for Miss Flirt, ma'am," says I — just so. 
 And missis says, " Why, Miss Flirt," says she ; 
 " that's the fourth basket you've had this week !" 
 says she — just so. For, you see, sir, the young 
 gent was very sweet indeed upon her ; and, as he 
 were only on a visit, he wanted to bring affairs to a 
 chrysalis !' 
 
 ' Chrysalis !' cried Sir Charles, who was amused by 
 Dolly's language and naivete, as well as by the oddity 
 of Fido : ' chrysalis ? I suppose you mean crisis ?'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. C7 
 
 ' She makes a hawful hash of her werry wulgar 
 tongue, sir,' interposed the explanatory Fido : ' but 
 you see, sir, she hai'n't had the advantages of hedu- 
 cation like — some I could mention.' 
 
 * Chrysalis, or crisis : I suppose it's all the same, 
 sir ?' said Dollv, with a curtsv. 
 
 ' No, my good girl,' answered Sir Charles. 
 ' Chrysalis, is the beginning of the end : crisis, is the 
 end of the beginning. But, pray go on with your tale.' 
 
 ' Well, sir,' continued Dolly, ' as I were saying, 
 "That's the fourth basket you've had this week," 
 said missis — just so. " You'll have the chollery 
 porpus, or a fit of apple pecks if you eat 'em ; so I'll 
 take 'em myself,' says she— just so. Well, sir, she 
 do take 'em herself; and, inside the very first apple, 
 she finds a billydoo, as had been rolled up very tight, 
 and poked into the apple, through a little hole at 
 the top ; and, this was from the young gent, if you'll 
 believe me, sir, to say he'd got the po-shay all right, 
 and at twelve o'clock that very night, Miss Flirt was 
 to lower herself down from her winder, and elope 
 with him to Gretna Green. The missis took on 
 about it tremendous, and Miss Flirt was obligated 
 to leave. It was a sad loss to me, sir ; for the 
 missis has been sharper than ever since then ; and 
 billydoos is now very scarce indeed.' 
 
 F 2
 
 68 NEARER AND DEABER. 
 
 At this moment, a voice was heard without, call- 
 ing ' Dolly ! Dolly !' 
 
 'Oh! that is missis, sir !' cried Miss Dot. 'She's 
 just come out of school. Shan't I catch it for not 
 going - to denounce you ! ' 
 
 ' Then I'll give you something to avert her fury,' 
 said Sir Charles. 
 
 ' What, sir ?' asked Dolly. 
 
 ' The kiss of peace,' replied Sir Charles, earning 
 his words into execution ; while Dolly quickly broke 
 from him, and retreated through the door leading 
 into the back hall. 
 
 Fido had looked upon this little episode with 
 aught but pleasurable feelings. ' Hollo, youiiir 
 man,' he thought; 'you're a-going it, you are! 
 There's a hextent of coolness about that proceeding,
 
 NEARER AND DEAREB. 69 
 
 which I don't at all admire. Ain't it enough for 
 that crummy baker to come a poaching on my pre- 
 serves, without you a-firing off of your dilutes ? I'm 
 bio wed if that Dolly ain't a regular man-trap set on 
 these premises. — Take a chair,' he added, aloud, and 
 in a not over-civil tone, as he pushed one of the tall, 
 straight-backed chairs towards Sir Charles, and 
 shook his fist at Sir Charles's unoffending hat, 
 which was placed upon the table — a private piece of 
 pantomime which appeared mightily to relieve Mr. 
 Fido's feelings. 
 
 ' Well so far,' thought Sir Charles, as he turned 
 his back upon Fido, and looked into the fire — ' so 
 far my adventure has been satisfactory, and I would 
 lay odds that I win my wager yet The first step is 
 gained ; Fm in the house, and there is a Miss Smith. 
 I thought it would be very strange if so large a 
 school could be without a representative of the name. 
 I think I may conclude that Arlington's ponies and 
 Miss Smith's lock of hair are mine — unless the 
 young lady should wear a wig. I dare say it will 
 not take much persuasion to induce a merry school- 
 girl to lend herself to a bit of fun for a few minutes. 
 And, already, I feel all the better for having some 
 novelty to interest me : I shall really be Miss 
 Smith's very considerable debtor. Miss Fanny
 
 70 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 Smith, the domestic called her — a pretty name 
 pinned to an ugly one. By the way, I ought to have 
 asked that domestic what Miss Fanny Smith was 
 like. Oh ! here she is ; this is fortunate' 
 
 'If you please, sir,' said Dolly, standing within 
 the doorway, ' Missis wants to know if von are 
 Miss Smith's brother ?' 
 
 ' Brother ? oh bother !' echoed Sir Charles : upon 
 which, Dolly, whose ears were deceived by the sound 
 of the interjection, immediately vanished, and re- 
 turned, and told her mistress that the officer-looking 
 gent had said he was Miss Smith's brother. 
 
 ' Here, don't run away !' cried Sir Charles. ' The 
 provoking girl ! I've got no information to act 
 upon, and I shall be in a mess unless I'm very care- 
 ful. Oh ! there's my fat friend ; I dare say he can 
 tell me something about the young lady. Here ! 
 what's your name ?' 
 
 Fido slowly carried his stout frame from the other 
 side of the room, and, striking into a dramatic 
 attitude, exclaimed in his fat voice, 'My name 
 is Fido on the Grampian hills, also in Minerva 
 House.' 
 
 ' Then, Fido,' said Sir Charles holding up to him 
 a half-crown — ' do you see this, my friend ?' 
 
 ' Unless,' replied Fido, ' my horgans of wision
 
 M'.AUER AND DEARER. 71 
 
 aint a-performing the duties that are required of 
 them, I've a vivid impression that I does see it.' 
 
 ' Very well,' said Sir Charles ; ' then, if you'll do 
 me a favour, I'll give you this — to buy some collars 
 with.' 
 
 ' Oh, ha !' cried Fido with rising indignation ; ' I 
 see through it now. But, I'm not a-going to take 
 your money as Dolly did ! I'm not a-going to do 
 as she did ! Collars, indeed ! I'm not a-going to 
 be paid to be kissed!' And Fido, very highly 
 offended, stalked out of the buckram-and-back- 
 board reception-room, muttering, ' Collars, indeed ! 
 Umph !' leaving Sir Charles under the combined 
 influence of astonishment and mirth.
 
 72 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE GREAT MORAL ENGINE. 
 
 ' Lo ! where she comes along with portly pace, 
 Like Phoebe, from her chamber of the East.' — Spexser. 
 
 ' A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name.' 
 
 Shenstone. 
 
 O !' thought Sir Charles : 
 ' the domestic wished to 
 know if I was Miss Smith's 
 brother. Apparently, she 
 rushed to the conclusion 
 that I was so ; for she 
 made her exit, before I could confess, or deny, the 
 charge. It's another step gained, at any rate. 
 Promoted to be Smith — Christian name, unknown — 
 vice Sir Charles Chattcrton, by purchase (for he 
 thought of his half-sovereign given to Dolly). 
 Smith is a decidedly popular name, I find !' thought 
 he, as he went to the pianoforte, and found that 
 upright cottage furnished with a little brass plate, on 
 which was engraved, ' Smith, Maker ; London.'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 73 
 
 ' I wonder what its tone is like,' said Sir Charles, 
 thinking aloud. Without more ado, he satisfied 
 himself on this point, by striking some chords. 
 
 Now, it has been mentioned that the upright 
 cottage was upon that side of the buckram-and- 
 backboard reception room which was opposite to 
 the door that opened into the back hall ; conse- 
 quently, Sir Charles's back was turned upon the per- 
 son who now entered the room through that door, 
 and stood there transfixed with surprise at finding 
 her visitor very coolly thumping upon the piano. 
 
 She was a lady of large dimensions and ' portly 
 pace,' dressed in a well-worn black silk, with a 
 shawl loosely thrown about her shoulders. She had 
 a dried-up sort of face, very like a kippered- salmon; 
 she had a pair of spectacles, large enough for the 
 bird of Minerva ; she had a black wig, coming low 
 down upon her forehead, and bursting out upon her 
 kippered-salmon cheeks in a paroxysm of little 
 ringlets, like hairy corkscrews ; she had a cap made 
 of stiff and dark materials, from which depended 
 two streamers, almost as stiff, and straight, and 
 square-cut, as if they had been designed for an 
 Egyptian head-dress ; and she had upon her hands 
 black kid gloves with the fingers cut off, apparently 
 for the purposes of ventilation. As she clasped her
 
 74 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 hands tightly over each other, and stood up stiff 
 and straight, she looked in perfect keeping with the 
 room, and the objects around her — buekram-and- 
 backboard to the backbone. 
 
 ' What an instrument !' said Sir Charles, thinking 
 aloud : ' how I pity the unfortunate being who has 
 to teach the young idea how to strum, on such an 
 in.-trument as this ! I can hardly imagine that she 
 would do it, if her ears were her own property.' 
 
 ( * Sir, they are not !' said the Great Moral Engine, 
 as she began to let off the steam of her displea- 
 sure. ' They are my property !' 
 
 ' That quite alters the case !' said Sir Charles, 
 rising from the music-stool with the greatest self- 
 possession and nonchalance. ' Mrs. Clapperclaw, I
 
 NEAUKU AND DEARER 75 
 
 presume. Good-morning, madam. Permit me to 
 offer you a chair.' Which Sir Charles did in the 
 politest, coolest, and most deferential way. 
 
 ' Sir !' puffed forth the Great Moral Engine 
 ' have you visited my academy for the purpose of 
 injuring my pianoforte?' 
 
 ' Certainly not, my dear madam,' replied Sir 
 Charles, with unabated sang jroid. ' I was but 
 trying it : and, a worse instrument — ' 
 
 ' Sir !' said Mrs. Clapperclaw. 
 
 ' Or, one less devoid of tone ' — continued Sir 
 Charles. 
 
 ' Sir ! !' said Mrs. Clapperclaw, rather more loudly 
 than before. 
 
 ' Or one more utterly and altogether unfit for 
 the purpose, I think I never heard !' concluded Sir 
 Charles. 
 
 ' Sir ! ! !' again said Mrs. Clapperclaw, more 
 loudly still — her, three ' Sirs ' increasing in volume 
 like the voices of the three bears ; ' Sir ! do you 
 come here to insult me ?' 
 
 ' By no means, madam. I only speak of your 
 instrument ; and truth ought never to be felt as an 
 insult. Listen to my defence !' And Sir Charles 
 wildly struck some chords, that were sufficiently 
 ear-piercing and inharmonious. l Anything,'
 
 76 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 thought he, ' to keep the old lady from speaking to 
 me about Miss Smith. I'm in a fix now : my ad- 
 venture has taken an awkward and unexpected turn. 
 What can have induced this old woman to intrude 
 herself here ?' ' There, Mrs. Clapperclaw,' he said, 
 ' I put it to you. as a reasoning and reflecting 
 member of society, whether this instrument is fit for 
 any one to learn on.' 
 
 ' Such as it is, sir,' loftily replied the Great Moral 
 Engine, ' I deem it perfectly adequate for the re- 
 quirements of my more juvenile young friends. 
 Sir, young ladies of quality have received the rudi- 
 ments of their musical education upon that instru- 
 ment.' 
 
 ' Very rude rudiments !' thought Sir Charles : 
 ' and the young ladies of quality must be worse off 
 than the world gives them credit for.' 
 
 The Great Moral Engine was still standing stiff 
 and straight, with her steam up. 
 
 Sir Charles began to think that he had gone 
 rather too far, ' Pray, pardon me/ he said ; ' you 
 will think me wanting in courtesy.' 
 
 ' No, sir,' was the reply ; * I am a woman of 
 large sympathies, and can make every allowance for 
 the peculiarity of your case, and your protracted 
 absence from the land of your birth.'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 77 
 
 ' Absence from the land of my birth !' thought Sir 
 Charles : ' we live, and learn.' But he merely 
 politely bent his head, as he stood leaning upon the 
 back of the chair that he had offered to Mrs. 
 
 Clapperclaw. 
 
 That worthy lady still remained in her buckram- 
 and-backboard attitude, stiff and straight, with her 
 shawl drawn around her, and her black kid ven- 
 tilators tightly clasped over her black silk dress. 
 But, a milder expression came upon her kippered- 
 salmon face, as she said, in precise and formal tones, 
 ' The customs, sir, of the country from which you 
 have just returned are, I am aware, lax in the 
 extreme. But, how could we expect it to be other- 
 wise, in a land where, as I have been informed, 
 academies are unknown, and Lord Chesterfield and 
 the use of the globes are unheard of? 1 have had 
 serious thoughts, sir, of being the humble instru- 
 ment to organise an academical mission to that be- 
 nighted land, where my principles of instruction 
 would be fully developed, and politeness and the 
 backboard practically carried out. I am a woman 
 of large sympathies myself, and I grieve to think 
 that any of my fellow-creatures should be ignorant 
 of such important acquirements.' 
 
 The Great Moral Engine shut off the steam for a
 
 78 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 moment — leaving 1 Sir Charles in doubt as to whether 
 she had been talking of the Great Desert or the 
 Cannibal Islands — and then, benignantly regarding 
 him through her spectacles, resumed. ' You, doubt- 
 less, have now returned, sir, to cultivate the olive 
 of peace.' 
 
 ' The olive of peace ?' thought Sir Charles : 
 ' does the woman take me for a market-gardener ?' 
 
 ' Ah, sir !' said Mrs. Clapperclaw, fetching up a 
 sigh, like a moral pearl, from the depths of her 
 capacious bosom, ' why do we not cultivate that 
 tree more largely ? because, sir, we fail in our sym- 
 pathies. I myself am a woman of large sympathies, 
 and I can feel strongly upon the subject. What 
 was it that induced me, when my late husband, the 
 lamented Mr. Clapperclaw, died, and, through 
 certain convulsions in the tallow trade, left me 
 almost destitute — what was it that induced me to 
 open this academy for young ladies, but my sympa- 
 thies ? They suggested to me that my widowed life, 
 and my humble talents, might be beneficially directed 
 to the instruction of the junior weaker vessels ; and, 
 I at once, unhesitatingly, devoted myself to the task.' 
 
 ' Noble and disinterested woman X said Sir 
 Charles admiringly, but, appcndicing a doubtful 
 ' ahem !' as he curled his moustache.
 
 NEARER AND DEAEBB. 79 
 
 ' But, sir,' said the woman of large sympathies, 
 bringing (for the present) her autobiographic 
 sketches to an end, ' you have not yet spoken of 
 your sister, whom you have travelled so far to see ; 
 and my sympathies tell me that your heart must_be 
 full of her.' 
 
 ' Exactly so, madam !' stammered Sir Charles ; 
 'quite full; in fact, too full for utterance, which 
 was, perhaps, the reason I did not mention her. 
 But, of course, I am dying to see her.' 
 
 ' Well, sir,' replied Mrs. Clapperclaw, ' I will at 
 once tell her that you are here. We have just dis- 
 missed our young friends from their matutinal studies ; 
 and, as it is a half holiday with us to day, Miss 
 Smith will now be at full liberty to see you. I will 
 return with her ; as I am desirous of being present 
 at your first interview, after a separation of so many 
 years, for, I am a woman of large sympathies my- 
 self, and I rejoice in the sympathies of others !' 
 Whereupon, the Great Moral Engine steamed out 
 of the backboard-and-buckram reception-room, with 
 a stiffness and straightness of attitude and attire, 
 and with every feature of her kippered-salmon face 
 hardened into a statue-like repose. 
 
 ' Hang your large sympathies ! they have com- 
 pletely upset all my plans,' thought Sir Charles, as
 
 80 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 he was left to the solitary enjoyment of his own 
 company : ' I did not calculate upon the old lady 
 being present at the commencement of our interview; 
 and now I shall have no time to let this Miss Smith 
 into the secret. Mrs. Clapperclaw talked about 
 my coming from a distant country, and years of 
 separation. There's hope in that ! Miss Smith's 
 brother must be changed in that time. Psha ! 
 what folly : of course, she will at once see that I am 
 not the true Simon Pure ; and then, most probably, 
 I shall be had up for a swindler. Agreeable and 
 refreshing series of events, certainly ! I suppose 
 the spoons are safe elsewhere ; and, as for the piano, 
 it isn't worth a note, much more a five-pound one, 
 and it would be rather an awkward thing to conceal 
 about one's person. Well ! Miss Smith will preserve 
 her lock of hair undamaged. I wonder if they are 
 carrots? Arlington will win his wager, and 1 shall 
 run the chance of losing my reputation. The worst 
 of it is, that it will reach my aunt's ear. I wonder, 
 too, what this Miss Smith is like ? Some little 
 bread-and-butter Miss, I'll be bound ; in her 
 pinafore, instead of her teens, and in tears when she 
 speaks to a stranger. I dare say she'll howl 
 when she sees me. Upon my word, I think I had 
 better beat a retreat, and pay Arlington his wager !
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 81 
 
 Discretion 's the better part of valour. I'll try the 
 windows.' 
 
 But, when he went up to the bilious draperies, 
 and the stiff wire-blinds, he found that the windows 
 were nailed up, and impracticable. 
 
 ' If this is to prevent gentlemen from getting ?'//,' 
 thought Sir Charles, ' it is equally effective in pre- 
 venting them from getting out. I must try and 
 slip out by the front door.' 
 
 But when he went to it, he heard approaching 
 footsteps, and the voice of Mrs. Clapperclaw. There 
 was no escape for him, and he had no course left 
 but to remain in the backboard-and-buckram 
 reception-room, and there calmly await his fate. 
 
 'Now for the little bread-and-butter miss!' 
 thought Sir Charles. 
 
 G
 
 B2 
 
 NEARER AND DEAR!.!:. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MISS SMITH. 
 
 ' A in I doth not a meeting like this, make amends ?' 
 ' Can you so stead me, 
 
 As bring me to the sight of Isabella, 
 
 A novice of this place, and the fair sister 
 
 To her unhappy brother Claudio ?' 
 
 Measure for Measure, Act I., Sc. 5. 
 
 ' Who should be loved but you ? 
 Come to my arms, and be thy Harry's angel.' 
 
 Nat. Lee. (DuJ;e of Guise.) 
 
 HE tender, in whose 
 company the Great 
 Moral Engine now 
 steamed into the 
 i- ' backboard - and - 
 2k buckram reception- 
 ^ room of Minerva 
 House, was no 
 bread - and - butter 
 miss, but a full- 
 grown young lady, 
 whose one-and-twenticth birthday was not very far
 
 
 i 
 
 ' Oh, my dear, dear brother !' cried this enthusiastic young woman, ' I am so overjoyed 
 at seeing you 1'— Page S .
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 83 
 
 distant. And no sooner had this fine-grown young 
 woman caught sight of Sir Charles Chatterton, than 
 she made a rush forward, steamed rapidly away 
 from the side of the Great Moral Engine, and — 
 utterly forgetful of the proprieties — threw herself 
 into the young man's arms. 
 
 ' Oh, my dear, dear brother !' cried this enthusi- 
 astic young woman, ' I am so overjoyed at seeing 
 you !' And she certainly appeared to be so ; for 
 she fondled and kissed him without a moment's 
 hesitation or reserve. 
 
 Here was a situation for Sir Charles ! Matters 
 had taken a very unexpected turn. ' I am glad 
 that I didn't run away,' he thought, ' for the bread- 
 and-butter miss is decidedly agreeable.' 
 
 ' Oh, Harry !' continued the young lady, who 
 was in a pretty flutter of joy, and was clinging to 
 Sir Charles with the most child-like confidence, ' 1 
 have looked forward to this meeting for so long, 
 that now it is indeed come, I can scarcely believe 
 that it is real, and that you are truly here.' 
 
 ' Pray don't doubt it,' said the young man ; 
 ' you have tangible proofs of my presence, and the 
 evidence of my own lips.' And Sir Charles — who 
 generally acted upon the impulse of the moment, 
 and had not learned to weigh consequences, or to 
 
 g 2
 
 84 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 turn at once into the path of duty — stooped his 
 head, and pressed his lips upon Miss Smith's fore- 
 head. 
 
 Mrs. ( 'lapperclaw stood stiff and upright, with 
 her shawl draped around her, and her black kid 
 ventilators tightly clasped ; and as she serenely 
 regarded the clinging couple through her owl-like 
 spectacles, an expression passed over her kippered- 
 salmon face as though she were reading an embodied 
 treatise on the sympathies, and had lighted upon a 
 passage that inculcated her favourite tenets. 
 
 ' Not that I should have known you in the least, 
 dear Harry !' observed Miss Smith : ' for we were 
 quite children, you know, when you left England ; 
 and that is, oh ! how many years since !' 
 
 ' I really have not the slightest idea,' rejoined Sir 
 Charles ; who thought, ' I begin to see my way 
 now.' 
 
 ' Long, long years they have been, Harry !' 
 pursued the young lady ; ' and when, this morning, 
 your welcome letter came to tell me that you had 
 arrived in England, and would be with me in a few 
 hours, my joy knew no bounds.' 
 
 At which information Sir Charles' surprise knew 
 no bounds. Then the real brother was coming, 
 might even then be traversing the snowy landscape,
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 85 
 
 and within sight of the backboard poplars of Minerva 
 House. The adventure that had commenced so 
 pleasantly was likely to have a disagreeable termi- 
 nation. Perhaps it was on this account, and because 
 it presented a new combination of difficulties, that 
 Sir Charles was willing to thrust himself into its 
 entanglement, instead of at once cutting the Gordian 
 knot, by a frank avowal of the truth, and as honour- 
 able a retreat as the circumstances permitted. Sir 
 Charles was curiously constituted ; and his ex- 
 cessively mercurial temperament led him to say and 
 do many things (of which he was afterwards heartily 
 ashamed) merely to kill ennui, and to pass away the 
 time. 
 
 ' It proved,' continued Miss Smith, ' that you 
 were glad to get back to England, and to your 
 loving sister, after spending so many years in 
 India.' 
 
 ' So !' thought Sir Charles, ' I'm come from India, 
 am I ? I wonder if I have any more brothers or 
 sisters ! though this one is a host in herself.' Then — 
 as he felt himself obliged to take part in the 
 dialogue — he said, ' And, for my part, I can say, 
 with truth, that your affectionate welcome has not 
 only inspired me with the most agreeable emotions, 
 but has relieved me from several anxieties concern-
 
 86 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ing this meeting: that were — in fact, making me 
 Father uncomfortable.' 
 
 ' Oh, Harry !' said the clinging young woman, 
 as she looked up to him with a face brimful of 
 affection, 'and could you think that your only 
 sister — ' 
 
 'Only sister! thank you for the information,' 
 thought Sir Charles. 
 
 ' — Could be such a traitor to the love she bore 
 you as ever to forget you, even for a day, though 
 twice these years had passed since last we parted !' 
 and the bright face looked up into his with too 
 much candour and truth to be doubted. 
 
 ' That was not my meaning,' Sir Charles said, 
 hastily. ' Who that had once known you could 
 forget how to love you? My heart returns your 
 affection, and gives back sympathy for sympathy/ 
 
 Sir Charles had no sooner uttered this, than 
 the Great Moral Engine steamed up, and slowly 
 raising her black-kid ventilators with a mute action 
 of apology, said, 'Pardon me for interrupting the 
 intercommunion of fraternal sentiment, but I believe 
 the word you made use of, Captain Smith, was 
 sympathy.' 
 
 Sir Charles gave an affirmative nod, as he thought 
 to himself, ' (Japtain Smith, am I ? If so, I think
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 87 
 
 I'm not Captain Smith unattached.' And, as he 
 looked at the pretty form beside him, he began to 
 speculate on the proposition whether or no there 
 was really such a thing as love at first sight. 
 
 ' Sympathy, Captain Smith,' said Mrs. Clapper- 
 claw, again clasping her black-kid ventilators, and 
 standing up stiff, straight, and solemn as the 
 sphinx — ' Sympathy is a word which strikes a chord 
 within me, that vibrates through my entire corporeal 
 system.' 
 
 ' Remarkably unpleasant, I'm sure !' apologised 
 Sir Charles. ' I am sorry that I used the word.' 
 
 ' Dismiss your sorrow, Captain Smith,' said Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw, and the little hairy corkscrews that 
 fringed each kippered-salmon cheek seemed to 
 quiver for very sympathy ; ' the sensation I alluded 
 to is eminently refreshing. The interview between 
 your sister and yourself has been particularly gratify- 
 ing to me ; for I am a woman of large sympathies 
 myself, and it invigorates me to behold the sympa- 
 thies of others. I shall now — having had the 
 privilege of witnessing that gush of affection which 
 naturally bursts forth after being pent up for so 
 many years — I shall now retire for awhile, in order 
 that Miss Fanny may converse the more unreservedly 
 with her long-absent brother/
 
 88 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ' Excuse me, Mrs. Clapperclaw,' said the volatile 
 Sir Charles, who fancied that he now saw a triumph- 
 ant way out of his difficulties, and also to the 
 winning of his wager — ' excuse me ; but, before you 
 go, may I ask if you have such a thing as a pair of 
 scissors about you V 
 
 ' Scissors, Harry !' cried Miss Fanny, with curious 
 wonder. ' Whatever do you want with scissors ?' 
 
 ' Only to snip off one of those little tresses that 
 cling so lovingly about your fair face,' replied Sir 
 Charles. ' You will let me do so, will vou not, 
 Fanny ?' 
 
 ' Here are a pair, sir,' said Mrs. Clapperclaw, 
 producing them from the innermost depths of her 
 well-worn black silk ; ' but I must remind you of a 
 proverb that says, " Scissors cut love ;" and I 
 should be unwilling to assist in the severing of 
 sympathies.' 
 
 ' There is not the slightest fear of such an event 
 in the present case, I assure you, Mrs. Clapperclaw,' 
 observed Sir Charles ; and though he said this with 
 a smile, he had a feeling that he was speaking 
 more in earnest than in jest. ' But this is only 
 a queer fancy of mine, and i hope it will be gra- 
 tified.' 
 
 Of course it was gratified. Miss Fanny Smith
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 89 
 
 released a tress of her nut-brown hair, Sir Charles 
 snipped it oft", and thus, according to the terms of 
 the wager, fairly won Mr. Arlington's twenty-five 
 pounds. Was Sir Charles to win anything else 
 before he left Minerva House? He casually put 
 this question to himself, but the time had not arrived 
 for an answer. ' At any rate,' he thought, ' I am 
 half in love with my dear sister already.' And he 
 carefully put up the tress of hair. 
 
 ' I will now,' said Mrs. Clapperclaw, ' leave you 
 for a short time alone with your sister, Captain 
 Smith. It is not my ordinary practice, as Miss 
 Fanny knows, to be absent from the interviews of 
 my young friends with any of their relatives — ' 
 
 ' Including cousins, I suppose !' thought Sir 
 Charles. 
 
 ' But yours is a peculiar case,' said Mrs. Clapper- 
 claw. 
 
 ' Very !' thought Sir Charles. 
 
 ' And I do not scruple to leave you together with 
 the most perfect propriety. For I am a woman of 
 large sympathies myself, and I can feel for the 
 sympathies of others.' Saying which, the Great 
 -Moral Engine steamed slowly and uprightly out of 
 the buckram-and-backboard reception-room.
 
 90 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RETROSPECTIONS. 
 
 ' They come, the shapes of joy and woe, 
 The airy crowds of long ago, 
 The dreams and fancies known cf yore, 
 That have been, and shall be no more ; 
 Tli. y change the cloisters of the night 
 Into a garden of delight; 
 They make the dark and dreary hours 
 Open and blossom into flowers ! 
 I would not sleep ; I love to be 
 Again in their fair company ; 
 But, ere my lips can bid them stay, 
 They pass, and vanish quite away.' 
 
 Longfellow. {The Golden Legend.) 
 
 ' Fond mem'ry brings the light 
 Of other days around me; 
 The smiles, the teai-s, of boyhood's years, 
 The words of love then spoken.' — Moore. 
 
 ELL!' said Sir Charles Chat- 
 terton, as Mrs. Clapperclaw 
 
 left the room ; ' I'm thank- 
 ful that the old woman has 
 had the decency to go.' 
 Miss Fanny Smith laughed her 
 acquiescence ; ' for now,' said she, ' we can talk more 
 unreservedly.' 
 

 
 HEARER AND DEARER. 91 
 
 ' The tug of war,' thought Sir Charles, ' has now 
 come. Conversation will most assuredly bring up 
 something to expose my deceit. However, I will 
 keep up my incog, for a few minutes longer, and see 
 to what this adventure will lead. Miss Smith is 
 charming both in looks and manner, and she seems 
 good-natured enough to accept my apologies. All 
 the blame will fall upon my own head ; she is inno- 
 cent, and free from censure ; so I will balance the 
 pain of my forthcoming retreat and explanations, by 
 one more minute of pleasure.' 
 
 ' Do you know, dear Harry,' said Miss Fanny, as 
 she scanned Sir Charles's athletic figure, Saxon face, 
 blue eyes, and blonde moustache, ' you are so 
 altered since last I saw you as a little boy, that, un- 
 less your letter had prepared me for your coming 
 here to-day, I should really not have known my own 
 brother. But, I dare say, you find me quite as 
 much altered. Should you have known me, now ?' 
 and the young lady, holding Sir Charles by either 
 hand, drew back her head, with a roguish expres- 
 sion of face, and challenged him to scan its pretty 
 features. 
 
 ' I positively should not have known you,' said 
 Charles, with perfect truth. ' So now let me sketch 
 your portrait, in order that it may be engraven upon
 
 92 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 my heart. A light active figure, neither tall nor 
 short ; an upright carriage, a rounded form, an easy 
 grace in every movement ; a modest dress, made 
 with taste and fitting to perfection ; small white 
 hands with long taper lingers, that only need a plain 
 gold ring to make them perfection ; drooping 
 shoulders carried up to a stately throat ; an oval face 
 and delicately-formed head enriched with waving 
 
 masses of " bonny brown hair ;" a marble forehead, 
 wide and rather low ; eyebrows well defined ; eyes 
 by no means small, of the deepest violet hue, fringed 
 with long sweeping lashes ; a nose that was brought 
 up to be straight, but has asserted its independ- 
 ence by a piquant approach to a snub ; cheeks of
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 93 
 
 healthy hue, that bloom with roses culled from the 
 bower of Venus ; lips, ripe and loveable, that take 
 the shape of Cupid's bow ; a chin like Juno's, and 
 teeth like Cleopatra's pearls. All this is but 
 the outward show, and yet I see the inner beauties 
 of your mind, the charms that live when cheeks have 
 lost their youthful roses.' 
 
 ' You are a flattering painter, sir !' said the young 
 lady. ' I am afraid that you look upon me with too 
 partial eyes. Ah, Harry ! you and I have seen 
 many changes of fortune since last we parted. Well 
 do I remember that time ! for those dark days of 
 early sorrow often come hack heavily upon me, 
 when brighter and happier hours have passed from 
 my memory. And yet a good fortune has be- 
 friended us ; for although poor papa's death obliged 
 us to leave the dear old rectory, the pleasant home 
 of our youthful days, still Heaven sent us a true 
 friend, who not only purchased your commission but 
 allowed dear mamma such a sum as enabled us to live 
 in respectable retirement. For four years after you 
 had sailed for India, mamma and I wanted for no- 
 thing. Then, our kind benefactor's bounty ceased 
 with his death. Dear mamma, too, was in failing 
 health at the time ; and soon after, with her last 
 breath, she prayed for blessings on Sir Charles Chat- 
 terton.'
 
 94 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ' Sir Charles Chatterton !' echoed the bearer of 
 that name, in great astonishment. 
 
 ' Yes, Harry ; Sir Charles Chatterton,' replied 
 the young lady, composedly : ' for, of course, your 
 old playfellow succeeded to the baronetcy on the 
 death of Sir Christopher — his father and our bene- 
 factor. Ah, Harry ! times are sadly altered, since 
 those old happy rectory days, when dear papa was 
 tutor to the present Sir Charles.' 
 
 They were now seated before the fire, upon two 
 of those chairs that had such uncomfortably-upright 
 backs, and such hard horsehair seats. As the 
 young lady's memory reverted to the scenes of the 
 past, she leant her head upon her hand and fell a 
 musing. Her companion was also plunged in thought. 
 It required no effort of memory to bring back his 
 old tutor to his mind, for he frequently thought of 
 him, and remembered him with affection and grati- 
 tude. It was only on the previous day, that he had 
 spoken of him and of his children to his friend Mr. 
 Arlington, in the billiard-room of Somerford Hall, 
 little thinking that the daughter, who Mas his first 
 and boyish love, was then so near to them : least of 
 all imagining that she was then a govenuvs at Mi- 
 nerva House, and would be the Miss Smith of his 
 silly wager. The romping girl had grown into a
 
 - ;■ 
 
 
 
 ■ .: 
 
 ' As the young lady's memory reverted to the scenes of the past, she leant her head 
 upon her hand and fell a-musing.'— Page 94.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 95 
 
 woman, sobered by maturer years as well as by ad- 
 versity; but the promise of loveliness in the child 
 had been amply fulfilled — the bud had flowered into 
 a most glorious and enticing 1 blossom. As he now 
 gazed upon her, with the memories of the past tho- 
 roughly awakened, he could trace in her features 
 many of those traits of character and shades of ex- 
 pression that had distinguished her as a child ; and, 
 above all, he could perceive that the truthful honesty, 
 fearless confidence, and natural simplicity that had 
 so endeared her to him and to everyone in her ear- 
 lier years, had become a part and parcel of her 
 being, and had not only been grafted into her 
 nature, but had flourished there and brought forth 
 a kindly fruit. 
 
 ' Do you remember, Harry,' continued the young 
 lady to her supposed brother, ' how frequently you 
 were asked to Chatterton Manor, when you and the 
 present Sir Charles were playfellows ?' 
 
 ' I do, indeed, well remember those happy boyish 
 days,' replied Sir Charles, guardedly. 
 
 ' I dare say,' said Miss Fanny, ' that when Sir 
 Charles came to move in the great and fashionable 
 world, he soon forgot his old companion.' 
 
 ' Indeed he did not !' observed Sir Charles, with 
 generous warmth. He had nearly betrayed him-
 
 96 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 self! 'I — I have heard of him occasionally,' he 
 stammered. ' But have you never met with, or seen 
 him V 
 
 ' Not since he has been Sir Charles,' replied the 
 young lady, gazing full upon her companion, whose 
 interest was now most thoroughly aroused. ' I can 
 only remember him as a boy, when he used to ride 
 over to the rectory ; but that is so long since, that 
 I should not know him again.' 
 
 * So it seems !' thought Sir Charles. 
 
 ' Yet,' continued Miss Fanny, with a frankness 
 that was particularly agreeable to the gentleman, ' I 
 may, perhaps, see him at some future day ; for he 
 has a relative — a Lady Linton — who lives near 
 here ; and, if he should ever come to visit there, and 
 I had the opportunity to thank him for his father's 
 kindness to my dear mother, I would do so ; for I 
 hear that he possesses all the noble qualities of his 
 father, and he would not be too proud to receive the 
 gratitude even of a school governess.' 
 
 Here Sir Charles saw a favourable opportunity for 
 him to throw off his disguise, and confess the foolish 
 dilemma into which his thoughtlessness, ennui, and 
 mercurial vivacity had thrust him. But, for the pre- 
 sent, he fought off the disagreeable eclaircisscment 
 that he foresaw would arise from his confession ; and
 
 STEAMER AND DEARER. 97 
 
 overcome by a masterful power that had taken pos- 
 session of him, he gave himself up a willing prisoner 
 to its tender thraldom. He, therefore, speaking for 
 himself, but as the representative of Captain Smith, 
 continued the conversation. 
 
 ' Too proud to receive your gratitude ? that I am 
 sure he would not be. He would only reproach 
 himself for having so completely lost sight of his 
 father's friends ; at least I should do so, if I were 
 he. But it was sad for you who had been so deli- 
 cately reared, to change your old home and plea- 
 sant life for Minerva House and the hard trials of 
 a school governess.' 
 
 'Ah, Many!' sighed the young lady. 'A go- 
 verness ! it is the only refuge for respectable poverty ; 
 the only spar left for a young girl to cling to when 
 the storms of worldly losses have made shipwreck of 
 her home. It was all that I had to fly to for sup- 
 port, when dear mamma was gone ; for we had no 
 kith or kin that could assist me ; you were in a 
 foreign land, fighting your way to fortune and fame, 
 and I was alone in the world. And though, Harry, 
 you may smile at what I call my trials, yet, trifling 
 as they were, I have sometimes found it a hard 
 matter to keep a cheerful heart. And when the 
 holidays came, and I watched the young ladies go 
 
 ii
 
 98 NEAJUBR AND DE&BEB. 
 
 away, and thought how many happy family greet- 
 ing's there would be, it was, perhaps, foolish of me. 
 but the tears would start unhidden to my eyes, as I 
 contrasted my lot with theirs, and remembered that 
 I was a poor orphan, without a home to go to or a 
 mother's smile to welcome me.' 
 
 'You don't mean to say,' cried Sir Charles, as 
 he contrasted the pretty form before him with 
 the gaunt stiffness of the buckram-and-backboard 
 reception-room, and remembered the grimness of 
 the Great Moral Engine — ' you don't mean to say 
 that you've passed all the holidays Iicrc, shut up 
 with that old Clapperclaw ! I wonder that you've 
 survived to tell the tale. Don't tell me that she's 
 not behaved well to you, for if you do I am afraid 
 that I shall do the old lady some bodily injury.' 
 
 Miss Fanny Smith was amused at her soi-J itant 
 brother's indignation, but was thankful for the proof 
 of his hearty readiness to shield her from trouble. 
 She assured him, however, that there was no occa- 
 sion for him to commit a breach of the peace, or to 
 visit Mrs. Clapperclaw with assault and battery, 
 inasmuch as that tried friend and instructress of 
 youth had. at times, shown many kindnesses to her 
 governess. 
 
 The gentleman was delighted to hear this, but
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. ' 99 
 
 solely on account of the younger of the two ladies 
 concerned. 
 
 1 1 think,' said Miss Fanny, ' that I have met 
 with more real respect and affection from Dolly 
 Dot, the housemaid, than from any one else in this 
 house. For, although she has a hard place, yet 
 she has always been ready and willing to do any 
 little service for me that she thought would in any 
 way add to my comfort. Perhaps,' added the young 
 lady, with a smile, ' she felt for me as a fellow- 
 servant.' 
 
 Their conversation was here interrupted by the 
 entrance of Fido, whose fat person was now adorned 
 by his short-tailed livery-coat of invisible green, 
 with its gilt buttons and gold-lace collar and cuffs. 
 Arrayed in this splendid garment, whose magni- 
 ficence was further assisted by the scarlet waistcoat, 
 white tie, and gold-striped trousers, Fido was by 
 far the most glittering object to be met with in the 
 gloomy dulness of Minerva House. Amid the hard 
 realities of that gaunt edifice Fido flitted to and 
 fro like a ponderous butterfly, who had once been 
 an elephant, but passing by metempsychosis into the 
 order of lepidoptcra, had been permitted to pre- 
 serve somewhat of his former hugeness. Of the 
 liveried Fido it might truly be said, that he ' made 
 
 ii 2
 
 100 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 a sunshine in that shady place,' where he was not 
 only valuable to Mrs. Clapperclaw as a walking ad- 
 vertisement of the respectability of Minerva House, 
 but where, also, the bright colours of his dress were 
 as acceptable to the eye as is the figure of a scarlet- 
 cloaked old woman to the landscape-painter. But, 
 Fido was ignorant of artistic ' spots of colour/ 
 nevertheless he regarded himself as a highly orna- 
 mental appendage to the establishment presided 
 over by the Great Moral Engine.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 101 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHAMPAGNE AND REAL PLEASURE. 
 
 ' Played false with a smith.' 
 
 Merchant of Venice, Act I., Sc. 2. 
 ' Love gives esteem, and then he gives desert, 
 
 He either finds equality, or makes it ; 
 
 Like Death, he knows no difference in degrees, 
 
 But plains, and levels all.' — Drydex. 
 1 The sun shall now no more dispense 
 
 His own, but your, bright influence ; 
 
 I'll carve your name on barks of trees 
 
 With true-love knots, and flourishes, 
 
 That shall infuse eternal Spring, 
 
 And everlasting flourishing : 
 
 Drink ev'ry letter on't in Stum, 
 
 And make it brisk Champaign become.' — Hitdibras. 
 
 IDO opened the 
 door of the buck- 
 ram - and - back - 
 board reception - 
 room, retired for a 
 second, and then 
 reappeared, bearing 
 a tray on which 
 were wine-glasses, a 
 bottle of wine, and 
 a plate of biscuits, 
 said he, with his fat 
 
 Here's a ewent, miss 
 
 "
 
 102 NEARER AND DEARER* 
 
 chuckle. 'Alissis is a coming it raytlier, ain't she ? 
 You know, miss, that it ain't every day as she serves 
 out the wittles in this ere reckless manner/ 
 
 ' It is certainly kind of her to send the cake and 
 wine,' replied the young lady. 
 
 'Kind, miss!' said Fido. 'Ha! ha! I believe 
 you. She says it's to celebrate the return of Cap- 
 tain Smith to Ilingland ome and beauty. " Fido," 
 says she, " the British harmy has a claim upon my 
 sympathies." Cos why, sir ? d'ye see, her husband, 
 old Clapperclaw, was in the tal-ler trade, and sup- 
 plied their barracks with his long and short sixes. 
 lie was a rum old feller, was old Clapperclaw, sir, 
 lanky and yaller, like his own farden rushlights, as 
 would have been considerably improved by another 
 dip. This wine were made by the tal-lcr-man's 
 mother, and it's got the regular time tal-ler flavour.' 
 
 'A rare quality in wine,' laughed Sir Charles. 
 'Pray, what may your mistress call it?' 
 
 ' Champagne ; ha ! ha !' chuckled Fido. ' The 
 wine is the sham part, and comes first ; the pain tol- 
 lers naterally of its own accord. I tasted it once. 
 It was just the feeling of having your clothes made 
 too small for you, and a tightening of you about 
 the waist ; and,' thought the fat youth to himself. 
 ' I don't like being squeeged in about the waist,
 
 NBAHBR AXD DEAttEB. 103 
 
 it ain't my idea of a good figger. The biscuits/ 
 
 said this strange individual, as he presented a 
 plate of them to Sir Charles, ' the biscuits is Haber- 
 nethy's. Missis says thcy's the wholesomest, which 
 I dessay they is, because they' re too hard for you 
 to injure yourself by a eating of 'em. But if 
 you've a fancy, sir, to try your teeth on one of 
 'em, I'll fetch you a hammer and break you 
 one up.' 
 
 Sir Charles declined this proffered civility on the 
 score that he had no taste for biscuit geology. 
 
 She calls this 'ere, sir, a humble fete, she does,' 
 said Fido, with a chuckle. ' It's humble enough, 
 certainly ; but when my fate comes, I hope it won't 
 be sour gooseberry wine and fossil llabernethys. 
 Har!' cried Fido to himself, 'here is my fate! it is 
 my Harabellar !' 
 
 The young lady who had extracted this last ex- 
 clamation from the fat Fido had just entered the 
 room with a dancing-master's curtsy— advance the 
 right foot, bring up the left in the third position — 
 begin to bend — straighten your arms from the 
 elbows — take lightly hold of your 1 dress — slope the 
 body, retreating with the left foot as you do so — 
 .-ink gracefully, resting the weight of your body 
 upon the left foot — rise slowly — draw the right foot
 
 104 
 
 NEAREB AND DEARER. 
 
 back, and finish in the third position. 31 rs. Clap- 
 perclaw was exceedingly particular that this 'man- 
 
 ner of entering and leaving 1 a room ' should be 
 strictly observed by all her young friends, who 
 would thus be fully qualified for the forms of the 
 highest society of which they might hereafter be the 
 pride and ornament. It was, indeed, one of those 
 * acquired refinements of polite society' which, in 
 her circular sermons to parents and guardians, she 
 announced would be combined at Minerva 11' 
 with ' the simplicities of a private home.' Monsieur 
 de Jones, the professor of dancing, deportment, 
 calisthenics, Indian spear exercise, and the use of 
 the backboard and dumb-bells, had positive orders 
 that this necessary accomplishment, which was of
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 105 
 
 such vital importance, should be duly enforced and 
 
 practised. 
 
 The pupil of Monsieur de Jones who now entered 
 the room, with the acquired refinement of polite 
 society insisted upon by Mrs. Clapperclaw, was a 
 very young lady, who had barely commenced that 
 interesting 1 period of feminine existence known as 
 the ' teens,' and was still in the full possession and 
 enjoyment of a short dress and visible trousers. 
 Her hair was, to a certain extent, dressed in the 
 Oriental style, for it hung down her back in two 
 long- plaits, which were fastened at their extremities 
 by bows of brown ribbon. When she had recovered 
 herself from her curtsy and third position, she pro- 
 ceeded across the room to the upright cottage, and 
 forthwith took her seat upon the music-stool. 
 
 Her movements were watched by Fido with great 
 attention ; so much so, that he became oblivious of 
 the plate of biscuits he was holding, and dropped 
 them from off the plate on to the carpet. 
 
 'This,' said Miss Fanny Smith to her pseudo- 
 brother, in explanation of the appearance of this 
 curtsying phenomenon ; ' this is one of my little 
 pupils, Harry, come for her music lesson. I sup- 
 pose Mrs. Clapperclaw has forgotten to counter- 
 mand her coming, so I will just attend to her for a
 
 106 NEAflEE AND DEARER. 
 
 little. Perhaps,' she added, laughingly, ' you can 
 amuse yourself with the champagne and the biscuits, 
 which 1 see Fido is doing his best to break for you 
 on the floor.' And the young lady went to the up- 
 right cottage, and talcing a seat beside her pupil 
 pointed out the notes to her, counting the ' one, 
 two, three, four,' which was to instil the idea of 
 time into the mind and fingers of the bi-tailcd phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 ' It was a sudden spasm, miss, that's all,' apolo- 
 gised Fido, as he stooped, with much difficulty, and 
 with effusion of blood to the head, and picked up 
 the biscuits from the carpet, the while he thought, 
 ' Ah ! them spasms is a playing the wery doose 
 with me ; they're a hunfitting me for my right posi- 
 tion in society. O Harabellar ! O Harabcllar 
 Sophiar! the extent of spasms and other unplea- 
 santnesses as I've endured for you it ain't in the 
 power of mortial lips to reweal. But if the flut- 
 terin hagony of a tortured 'art can ever be rewealed 
 by a hincrcasin' size and a correspondin' tightness 
 of livery, then, and not till then, will you know the 
 secret of your Fido's love. Oh, Harabellar ! Hara- 
 bellar, oh !' 
 
 In the meantime what were the thoughts of 
 Sir Charles Chattel ton, as he stood by the fire, and
 
 ' And the young lady went to the upright cottage, and taking a seat beside 
 her pupil pointed out the notes to her.'— Page 106.
 
 NEARER AXD DEARER. 107 
 
 watched Miss Fanny Smith bending over her small 
 unmusical pupil ? First he thought on the remark- 
 able way in which the present interview had been 
 brought about ; how such an apparent trifle as the 
 foolish billiard-room wager of yesterday, had led to 
 the pleasant adventure of to-day, and the renewing 
 of an old intimacy, and, what was more, of an old 
 love. Well did he remember her. Well did he 
 remember her father, the good old rector, his 
 tutor, to whom he owed so much. To whom he 
 owed so much — Sir Charles mused upon this. 
 His father had sought to repay the obligation 
 by befriending the widow and children : but 
 he, from whom the obligation was really due, 
 what had he done to pay his share of the 
 debt ? Nothing. Yet, even now, it was not too 
 late to amend this omission. He had long been 
 seeking for a wife after his mind, but had sought in 
 vain, and had found, instead, managing mammas, 
 with ambitious daughters who were perfectly ready 
 and willing to be called 'my lady,' and to be 
 recognised as the wife of a baronet, who was of good 
 family and position, as well as young and handsome, 
 and (which was more to the point) master of some 
 twenty thousand a year. All this fortune-hunting, 
 and rich-husband-seeking, had tired and disappointed
 
 108 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 him : perhaps it had done more, and even disgusted 
 him, and lowered his opinion of womankind in 
 general. In his conversation with 3Ir. Arlington on 
 the previous day, he had denied that young ladies 
 who had been ' formed,' and had graduated in the 
 world's school of conventional hypocrisy, could 
 possess the magic of beauty and innocence — such a 
 magic as he had seen in his old tutor's pretty 
 daughter of fifteen. He had spoken of ' the snake 
 society's loud rattle,' and, though he had spoken 
 this ironically, as well as Byronically, yet certain 
 things that he had witnessed in his many flirting 
 tournaments and passages of small talk in society's 
 ball- and drawing-rooms, had induced him to take a 
 jaundiced view of the fair ones he met there, and to 
 disregard all the matrimonial hints of their maternal 
 managers. No : he was in no particular hurry ; so 
 he would keep his eyes open, and secure a wife to 
 his mind. When speaking to Mr. Arlington of his 
 tutor's little daughter, he had told him of his boyish 
 love for her, and that he believed he had entertained 
 for her a deeper and a truer affection than he had 
 ever yet felt for any other, or, perhaps, ever could 
 feel. And here was this loved spirit of his boyish 
 days again thrown across his path — all her girl's 
 graces heightened a hundredfold — receiving him
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 109 
 
 with kisses and embraces, and innocently pouring 
 out her heart to him. What a happy fate had 
 brought about this interview ! for, all reserve had 
 been thrown aside, and, the conventional mask 
 being at once dropped, he had been enabled to view 
 the true features of her character. Before him, he 
 perceived the jewel of which he had been in search. 
 Happy he, if he might only win and wear it ! Yet 
 this deceit that he was imposing upon her ; perhaps 
 she would hate him for it, and if so — but Sir Charles' 
 mercurial temperament would not allow a very close 
 or long inspection of the dark side of silver clouds. 
 It was sufficient for the present, to be content with 
 the present. Certainly there was the prospect of 
 the brother, who might, even that next minute, put 
 in an appearance, and blow up his castle in the air, 
 and cover him with shame. Well ! • Sir Charles 
 would make the best he could out of an awkward 
 business, and ask him to forgive him taking the real 
 Captain Smith's place, ' for the sake of auld lang 
 syne.' 
 
 Such were Sir Charles Chatterton's thoughts, as 
 he watched Miss Fanny Smith bending over her 
 small unmusical pupil. 
 
 And what were Mr. Fido's thoughts, as he picked 
 up the biscuits, and gazed upon the bi-tailed phe-
 
 110 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 nomcnon ? ' Look at her there/ thus ran the 
 current of his meditations — 'look at her a-sittin 
 there with her innocent trousers! quite a picter she 
 is. And look at her hair ! it ain't every one as can 
 let down their hack hair in two tails, like hern. She's 
 a regular advertisement of the saloohrious effects of 
 Rowland's Macassar. Ah ! them tails runs in my 
 head a great deal too much for my piece of mind.' 
 
 Just at this moment, the object of Fido's affec- 
 tionate eulogies, who had heen wildly assailing the 
 keys of the upright cottage in a mode that was 
 sufficiently torturing to a musical ear, committed 
 upon them a highly-aggravated assault that drew 
 from them the most inharmonious discord, and 
 extorted from Sir Charles the inquiry, what on 
 earth that horrible noise was called?
 
 NEARER AXI) DEARER. Ill 
 
 ' That, Harry V responded the pretty governess, 
 whose delicate ears had to put up with assaults of 
 this description, and outrages upon accent, pro- 
 nunciation, and expression, some few scores of times 
 in a day ; ' oh ! that is only a scale in A major.' 
 
 ' A Major !' thought Fido, as he eagerly accepted 
 the explanation ; ' a Major ; ah ! I thought he 
 did'nt sound like a private. Now, that's what I call 
 music, that is ! there's something melodious about 
 Harabellar's touch. Shall I ever forget the day 
 when I'd made a pretence to come into the room, 
 and heerd her a-playin' " In my cottage near a wood," 
 with one finger? No; I was struck all of a heap. 
 Miss Smith there was obliged to play it with all her 
 fingers: my Ilarabellar did it with one. I must 
 stop in the room to look at her. It's something to 
 feel that I am near her, and can watch over her 
 like a guardian hangel. I'll drop the Habernethy's 
 again, and that'll give me an excuse for staying. 
 That's a hartful idea, Fido ! you must be in love, 
 you must, to hinwent such a scheme as that.' Ac- 
 cordingly, the ingenious Fido, as he was placing the 
 plate of biscuits upon the table, contrived to stumble 
 against one of the straight-backed chairs, when 
 down went the biscuits on the carpet again. 
 
 'Hallo, my fat friend!' cried Sir Charles ; 'you
 
 112 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 here still ? I shall not eat those biscuits, even if you 
 succeed in breaking them ; so you are putting your- 
 self to a great deal of trouble on my account, and all 
 for nothing.' 
 
 ' Oh, sir ! dooty's a pleasure,' replied Fido, 
 obsequiously. Nevertheless, he thought within 
 himself, with a fat chuckle, ' On his account ! ha, ha ! 
 poor feller ! he ain't aware o' the dodges of love, 
 lie don't know what a hinspiration a man feels, 
 when the hobject of his affection is wisible to the 
 naked eye. Ha !' thought Fido, as he again con- 
 templated the unmusical pupil ; ' I wish I were able 
 to play on the pianner ! it would make me more of 
 a companion for Ilarabellar, and we could play 
 dooets to each other. I'll try and get Miss Smith 
 to teach me. I think that everyone ought to play 
 the pianner ! in fact, it's quite necessary to be able 
 to play the pianner. Nowadays one's edication ain't 
 complete without it. Ha ! here's my other victim !' 
 
 And Miss Dolly Dot entered the buckram-and- 
 backboard reception-room.
 
 NEARER AND HEARER. 
 
 113 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MODEL COPIES. 
 
 * Oh ! 'tis a service, irksome more 
 Than tugging at the slavish oar ; 
 Yet such his task, a dismal truth, 
 Who watches o'er the bent of youth, 
 And while a paltry stipend earning 
 He sows the richest seeds of learning 1 , 
 And tills their minds with proper care, ' 
 And sees them their due produce bear; 
 No joys, alas ! his toil beguile, 
 His own lies fallow all the while.' 
 
 Robert Lloyd. (1760 
 
 • Wc know what slavery is, and our disasters 
 May teach us better to behave when masters.' 
 
 Don Juan, v., 23. 
 
 •I'll tell her boldly that 'tis she: 
 Why would she ashamed, or angry be, 
 To bo belov'd by me.' — Cowlky. 
 
 tf « *<5 
 
 OLLY DOT was 
 
 the bearer of a great 
 pile of copy-books ; 
 and, as she carried 
 them across the 
 room, she stopped 
 (under cover of the 
 noise made by the 
 ^ unmusical pupil at 
 the front door of 
 the upright cottage) 
 
 to whisp er a word of warning in Fido's ear.
 
 114 REISER AND DEARER. 
 
 ' Oh, you little wretch ! didn't I say as you was a 
 Don Juan? Ain't you ashamed of yourself, a 
 loiterin' here, and a castin' sheep's eyes at a parlour- 
 boaxder.' 
 
 ' Sheep's eyes, eh !' puffed the fat youth, as he 
 picked up the fallen biscuits ; ' then I suppose I may 
 look with them at that little lamb.' 
 
 ' Very well, sir,' responded the offended maiden ; 
 'then I shall take up with my baker, what will 
 receive my infections.' And she bounced across 
 the room. 
 
 ' Ha !' thought the philosophic Fido ; ' that's the 
 old cry of wolf. My sheep's eyes can see through 
 that l y 
 
 ' If you please, Miss Smith,' said Dolly, ' here be 
 the books for you to set the coppers.' 
 
 The young lady bade her put them on the table, 
 and then resumed her musical drilling of the bi- 
 tailed representative of the awkward squad of players. 
 Meanwhile, Sir Charles quietly addressed him- 
 self to Dolly. ' What ! baa that young lady to go 
 through that pile of copy-books ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes, sir!' replied Dolly; 'every day she do. 
 And very hard work it is for a young lady as has 
 been used to gcntec\ satiety ; and many's the time 
 I've wished that I could help her, but I never got
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 115 
 
 no further than pothooks and hangers. But, sir,' 
 continued Dolly, speaking with emphasis, so that 
 Fido might hear, and meditate upon what she said ; 
 ' I know a very nice young man, a baker, sir, who's 
 took six lessons from a perfessor, and writes quite 
 haffluently ; and he's promised to obstruct me in the 
 art, sir ; and, perhaps, some day I may be able to 
 keep his books, and write "a nasty nation is the 
 thief of crime," almost as well as my young lady 
 do.' And Dolly looked at Fido with eyes full of 
 significance. 
 
 A look which made the fat youth think thus — 
 'I said it afore, and I says it again, there's a crum- 
 miness about that baker, as I by no means admire. 
 If I don't put a stopper on his hoven, he'll be a 
 warmin of hisself up to come and pop to Dolly ; 
 and, perhaps, in the desperation of the moment, 
 she won't refuse him. Then in course I should be 
 obliged to punch his bread-basket ; and I shouldn't 
 like to have to come to blows, for fear I should hurt 
 him, or do him some mortal hinjury. This comes of 
 the awkwardness of being a Don Juan, and having 
 two or three strings to your bow. Egad, perhaps 
 between two stools I may hurt the small o' my back I 
 I think I'd better make all right with Dolly, and 
 drop Harabellar. She'll be a wision of the past ; 
 
 I 2
 
 116 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 an oasis in this desert :' (here Fido laid his hand 
 upon the expanse of his scarlet waistcoat). * Fare- 
 well, bright wision ! from henceforth vour hack hair 
 and your hinnocent trousers shall be to me as 
 dreams. Fido is himself again !' Having come to 
 which resolution, Fido stalked forth to his own 
 pantry. 
 
 ' Bless me, sir !' cried Dolly, as she saw Sir Charles 
 open one of the copy-books, and dip a pen in the 
 ink ; ' I hope you ain't a-going to suppress your 
 opinions in them books ! Missis is very pertickler, 
 sir.' 
 
 1 All right, Dolly,' replied Sir Charles ; ' I am 
 •merely doing what you wished to do — writing a few 
 copies to help her.' 
 
 ' Well, sir, that's very kind ; and, of course, as 
 you're Miss Smith's brother, it don't signify,' said 
 Dolly, who thought to herself, — * If he wasn't, 
 would'nt there be a row ! would'nt missis go wild 
 with extraction !' And then she left the room : very 
 likely she went to Fido's pantry to follow up her late 
 advantage. 
 
 Sir Charles turned over the copy-books, and began 
 to write on the fly-leaf of one of them. ■ What a 
 lif*.' that poor girl must have led !' thought he ; ' day 
 after day to have had those hours which ought to
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 117 
 
 have been devoted to her own relaxation, made into 
 hours of torture, with these tuneless pianos and stale 
 old copies. " Slavery is detestable," says this copy ; 
 and yet, with this maxim ever upon our lips, we 
 never think of applying it to the white slaves of our 
 own land and kindred, and can feel pity only for 
 the black slaves of some Uncle Tom's cabin, a 
 thousand miles away. We ostentatiously parade the 
 maxim, and complacently cast it down on our public 
 boards, and listen to its golden ring ; and then, 
 with the sound of it in their ears, Christian men 
 go to their governess-keeping homes, and forget that 
 there are white slaves, whose miseries are all the 
 greater for being inflicted with honied stings, and 
 having patiently to be borne with a smiling face. 
 Charity begins at home, they say ; and it seems, 
 often to end there.' 
 
 Sir Charles was just comforting himself with the 
 thought that he would emancipate Miss Fanny 
 Smith from her present slave-driver, and would, in- 
 stead, himself become a most devoted slave to the 
 pretty governess — arranging this agreeable plan, be- 
 fore he had gained the young lady's consent, or 
 knew that her affections were already bestowed else- 
 where : — but, it was a part of Sir Charles' tempera- 
 ment, when he had entered a pleasant train of
 
 US HEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 thought, to allow himself to be merrily carried on it 
 to a delightful terminus, without being hindered by 
 being thrust into any sidings of doubt or difficulty ; — 
 Sir Charles, I say, had been solacing himself with 
 these emancipatory thoughts, when Miss Fanny dis- 
 missed her little pupil, with a ' There, dear ; that 
 will do for this morning. You can now go and 
 play.' To which proposition of the exchange of 
 one hind of play for another, the bi-tailed pheno- 
 menon cheerfully acceded, and forthwith descending 
 from her perch in front of the upright cottage, 
 betook herself to the door of the huckram-and- 
 backboard reception-room, — there executed that 
 acquired refinement of ' polite society ' insisted 
 upon by Mrs. Clapperclaw, and taught by Monsieur 
 de Jones, as the proper manner of leaving a room, 
 — and then vanished. 
 
 'And now, Harry, that we are quite alone, I can 
 come and talk to you again,' said Miss Fanny Smith, 
 as she came to Sir Charles, and, throwing her arm 
 round his neck, bent down and gave him a kiss ; and 
 thus doing, perceived that he had been writing on 
 the fly-leaf of one of the copy-books. ' AVhatever 
 have you been doing?' she asked. 
 
 ' Suggesting one or two copies ; very appropriate 
 ones, too, I flatter myself,' replied Sir Charles, as
 
 " • And now, Harry, that we are quite alone, I can come and talk to you 
 again," said Miss Fanny Smith.'— Page 118.
 
 NEARIB AND DEARER. 119 
 
 he proceeded to read what he had written : — " All 
 work and no play, is the Governess's life from day 
 to day." That's true enough, isn't it? Here is 
 another : — " Necessity is the mother of Governesses" 
 And, here comes a nice home-truth for Mrs. Clap- 
 perclaw, expressed arithmetically : — " Multiplica- 
 tion of Lessons, Addition of Labour, Division of 
 Duties, and Practice at a cracked Piano, form the 
 Rule of Three Inverse for the Reduction of Hecdth" 
 — Now, there's something to be learnt from such 
 copies as these/ 
 
 Doubtless, there was: but still, it would never 
 do for Mrs. Clapperclaw to sec it ; so, Miss Fanny- 
 must cut out the leaf. Sir Charles said that she 
 had much better cut her, and take her leave of the 
 house. Should she like to do so ? 
 
 ' I should, Harry,' replied the young lady ; ' and I 
 am glad to tell you, that I have a chance of taking 
 a very nice situation, where I shall be very, very 
 happy.' 
 
 Thought Sir Charles, ' She could'nt say more, if 
 I had proposed to her I — But where is it to be ?' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' Close by here ; at the Hall, with Lady Linton. 
 She is aunt to Sir Charles Chatterton/ 
 
 ' I should rather think she was,' thought that in-
 
 120 NEAREB AND DEARER. 
 
 dividual. • This is lucky, indeed. I wonder I did'nt 
 hear something about it.' 
 
 ' Iler German governess,' continued Miss Fanny, 
 ' has been obliged to return to her own country, on. 
 account of the serious illness of her mother. If she 
 should be unable to come back, I am to take her 
 place. Lady Linton promised to write to me as 
 soon as she received ma'amselles answer. This 
 will probably be either to-day or to-morrow. If her 
 note should come to-day, and its contents should be 
 as I with, then indeed I shall be happy ; thus to be 
 provided with such a comfortable home, on the same 
 day that has restored to me my long-absent brother. 
 It will be a real home to me ; for, Lady Linton has 
 always shown to me the greatest kindness, and I 
 love her as a second mother.'; 
 
 ' Bravo, auntie !' thought Sir Charles ; ' and I will 
 love her doubly for the same reason. But this speaks 
 volumes in favour of Miss Fanny. And,' asked Sir 
 Charles, ' what does Mrs. Clapperclaw say to this ?' 
 
 ' Why, she cannot refuse anything to Lady Linton, 
 because she is the great lady of the neighbourhood, 
 and her influence is useful in recommending the. 
 school.' 
 
 ' A most all-sufficient reason,' replied Sir Charles. 
 'And now, I have something to relate to you. Bear
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 121 
 
 with me as kindly as you can, while you listen to 
 what I have to say. I — that is — it was only yester- 
 day, when — ' 
 
 But, while the fluent Sir Charles was thus hesi- 
 tating, and breaking- down at the very threshold of 
 his narrative, and was stumbling' among his sen- 
 tences, in that intoxicated manner peculiar to after- 
 dinner orators who are unaccustomed to public 
 speaking, ne vvas interrupted by a loud rat-ta-tat-tat 
 at the front-door of Minerva House.
 
 122 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 ' ' Whence is that knocking ? 
 
 " How is't with me, when every noise appals ine ?' 
 
 Macbeth, Act II., Sc. 2. 
 
 'Here is now the smith's note.' 
 
 King Henry IV., Part II., V., 1. 
 
 ' The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breathed flowers ; 
 In music dies poor human speech ; 
 And into beauty die those hearts of ours, 
 
 When love is born in each. 
 Life is transfigured in the soft and tender 
 
 Light of Love, as a volume dun 
 Of rolling smoke becomes a wreathed splendour 
 In the declining sun.' 
 
 Alexander Smith's Life Drama. 
 
 HE brother !' thought Sir Charles, 
 when he heard the knock. 
 
 ' The note !' said Miss Fanny. ' 
 She was right ; for Dolly Dot 
 entered with a letter, which she 
 handed to the young lady, saying, 
 4 If you please, Miss Fanny, Lady Linton's footman 
 have brought this billey-do.' 
 
 While Miss Fanny Smith opened the envelope,
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 123 
 
 and went towards the window to read the note, 
 Dolly opened her mind to Sir Charles. ' Oh, sir ! 
 such a gentleman it were as brought that letter ! 
 with the reddest and plnshiest of br — sit-upons, sir ; 
 and such beautiful whiskers, curled with such a hair, 
 sir ; he must put 'em in papers every night, I'm 
 certain. He's as big as a mountain ; and yet, up 
 at the Hall, they calls him a valley. There's a little 
 nephew of mine as is there, sir ; and they calls Mm 
 a tiger; and yet, he's as harmless as a cat, and 
 would'nt so much as hurt a mouse. But, some 
 people does make such a profusion in names, there's 
 no knowing what they means.' And away went 
 Miss Dolly. 
 
 Fanny Smith had read the letter. ' Oh ! Harry,' 
 she said, ' I am disappointed in my hopes ! and my 
 castles in the air are quite thrown down. Lady 
 Linton writes to say, that her old governess is re- 
 turning to her. And yet, I ought to feel glad that 
 her mother's recovery enables her to do so — -I, who 
 know how bitter a thing it is to be deprived of a 
 mother's love. So now, Harry dear, I shall return 
 cheerfully to my old governess' life with Mrs. Clap- 
 perclaw.* 
 
 She said this with forced gaiety ; but Sir Charles 
 saw through the thin veil of her deceit. It gave
 
 12-4 NEARER AND DEARER, 
 
 liha a sudden impulse to throw aside his own. ' Not 
 so, noble, generous-hearted girl !' he cried, warmly ; 
 'never, while I can help it, shall you go hack to 
 this drudgery. My heart is yours; oh ! let me call 
 you mistress of my home and fortune also.' 
 
 ' What — what is this — brother V she faltered. 
 
 ' Brother no longer, lady. Taking advantage of 
 your mistake, I have hitherto imposed upon you.' 
 
 'Oh, heavens! — not my brother! And I — ' She 
 blushed scarlet ; then paled again, and, with trem- 
 bling, asked, — ' Is this true, sir?' 
 
 ' Alas ! with shame I confess that it is too true.' 
 
 ' Oh, but you bring me news of him ! He's ill ! 
 — he has sent you here to tell me so ! Oh ! speak, 
 and tell me all — why do you hesitate? I'm strong, 
 and can bear the blow !' There was a wildness in 
 her agitation, that made Sir Charles, in his turn, 
 the trembler. 
 
 ' For aught I know he is well, and will soon be 
 here,' was his reply : ' I know nothing of his move- 
 ments but what I have heard since I entered this 
 house. I have not seen him for years. \ et, I zvas 
 once his friend, and yours also.' 
 
 She started, and looked earnestly at him, but did 
 not speak. 
 
 ' We have changed too much since then, for
 
 
 The young lady had sunk upon a chair, and was burying tier lace In her trembling 
 hands, while hot tears coursed down her burning cheeks.'— l'age 125.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 125 
 
 mutual recognition. But, I am that Sir Charles 
 Chatterton, of whom you spoke ; the companion of 
 your early years ; the old playfellow of him whose 
 character I have for a short time assumed ; the 
 pupil of the good old rector, your father ; he for 
 whom your mother prayed with her last words.' 
 
 The young lady had sunk upon a chair, and was 
 burying her face in her trembling hands, while hot 
 tears coursed down her burning cheeks. There 
 was a pause. ' By your own confession,' she at 
 length faltered, ' you have deceived me once ; how 
 am I to know that you are not now imposing upon 
 me i 
 
 ' By this token,' replied Sir Charles. ' When, 
 some six years ago, we met for the last time, in the 
 old summer-house, beneath the spreading beech-tree 
 in the rectory garden, you gave me, as a parting 
 gift, a small cornelian heart, which hung from a 
 ribbon upon your neck. We had loved each other 
 as boys and girls will love — passionately but briefly 
 — like a flood that sweeps on all before it, and then 
 sinks to nothing. When the moment for our sepa- 
 ration came, you wept, and hung around me ; and, 
 child-like, said that you would always love me, and 
 would be no one's wife but mine. I, doubtless, 
 made vows to the same effect. Then we parted.
 
 12G NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 Shall I confess, that in one brief fortnight, I had 
 found another boyish love, — and then another ; and 
 so on, till the present time ; each one snowing out 
 the impression of the last. And yet, though our 
 paths in life had divided, though I had seen no 
 more of you, and had altogether lost sight of you, 
 — and though I perhaps but little expected to meet 
 you again, unless it was to encounter you in after 
 years as the wife of another, — yet, for all this, I 
 have still, in a measure, been true to my first love ; 
 I have ever preserved vivid impressions of those rec- 
 tory days ; I have never met with any one who has 
 thoroughly succeeded in effacing your image from 
 my mind, your love from my heart. The feelings 
 of my first love ever returned with freshness and 
 strength, when the fleeting fancies of later attach- 
 ments had quite passed away. See here is the 
 cornelian heart; it has never left me.' And Sir 
 Charles, showed it, hanging to a small ring attached 
 to the breguet chain of his watch. 
 
 She saw it through her tears ; and knew that he 
 spoke the truth. Her brain throbbed with crowd- 
 ing memories of the past ; and her heart was full of 
 conflicting emotions. She could not speak. 
 
 ' For the sake of those old days,' pleaded Sir 
 Charles, ' and for the sake of your parents, forgive
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 127 
 
 me this wrong. It was but the frolic of the moment, 
 and was not meant to pain you ; but my thought- 
 lessness carried me on too far. Two days' ago I 
 came to my aunt's, your friend and second mother, 
 as you termed her ; there I made a foolish wager 
 with a friend ; and this it was that brought me here. 
 I was altogether ignorant of the house, and of its 
 inmates. Chance — nay, rather, my good angel — 
 sent you to meet me ; and your brother's long 
 absence, and his expected return, enabled me to 
 play successfully the character that has deceived 
 you. I have given you cause to despise me. My 
 reckless folly would be justly punished if you dis- 
 missed me with scorn from your presence. But I 
 love you, dearest Fanny. I love you not as I did 
 when a boy, but with the deeper feelings of the 
 man ; of one, too, who has long been seeking for 
 such a love as yours, and who, now, by this over- 
 ruling power of events, is enabled to come to you 
 and ask you to redeem your girlish vows.' He 
 paused for a moment ; and then, in a faltering 
 voice, said, ' I scarcely dare to ask if you arc 
 already betrothed to another ?' 
 
 She shook her head, but did not look up, or 
 speak ; still burying her face in her hands ; still 
 weeping, but less bitterly than before.
 
 128 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 1 Thank heaven for that !' said Sir Charles. ' 1 
 grieve to see your tears. I blush for my own folly, 
 which has tried you so cruelly. I can now view it 
 in its proper light ; would that I had done so in 
 the very first beginning of our interview ! But it is 
 my nature thus to be led on by present pleasure, 
 and to put away the evil moment so long as it may 
 be thrust aside. Let me say again, that I love you. 
 Oh, think of the past days, and all our early friend- 
 ship ; and pardon me for what I have now done ! 
 And, to prove your pardon, give me a word of 
 hope — say that you will return my love.' 
 
 ' My gratitude you have, Sir Charles,' replied 
 the young lady, drying her tears : ' the son of Sir 
 Christopher Chatterton would ever command that. 
 But — love ? You forget, Sir Charles, that I am poor, 
 and a governess.' 
 
 4 I forget nothing,' responded Sir Charles, warmly ; 
 * I remember only that you were my first love, and 
 that von loved me more trulv than T have ever 
 since been loved ; even as I — 1 swear it — loved 
 you more truly than I have ever since loved another. 
 I remember only this, and that you are the sister of 
 the friend of my boyhood, and the daughter of my 
 Honoured- tutor, to whom I owe so much. Too 
 long have I lost sight of the obligation ; time has
 
 NEARER AND DEAREK. 129 
 
 but increased the debt. Let me pay it off now, and 
 for my receipt, take you. Let me take yourself, 
 and let the acknowledgment be signed in the 
 marriage register. You gave me your heart as a 
 little girl, and you see I have cherished the token. 
 Now I ask you to give me the reality.' 
 
 ' Oh, Sir Charles ! it was ungenerous in you to 
 take advantage of my unguarded confidence. The 
 love of a sister should have been sacred.' 
 
 ' And yet, let not the thoughtless folly of a 
 moment cloud the happiness of years. From the 
 first, your frank and open affection won upon me. 
 I saw that the charming child of my first love had 
 grown up with all her girlish graces and truthful 
 simplicity — a most refreshing contrast to those 
 schemers of society among whom I had been thrown. 
 As our interview proceeded, the noble qualities of 
 your mind, no less than your honest candour and 
 artless affection, gained my admiration and esteem ; 
 and, when conscience told me that I was acting 
 wrongly, Cupid whispered — your deceit is pardoned ; 
 for it has shown you the priceless treasure of a loving- 
 heart.' 
 
 ' If you esteem me, Sir Charles,' she replied, 
 'you will best show that esteem, by leaving me. 
 My true brother must soon be here, and will thank 
 
 K
 
 130 NEABER AND DEARER. 
 
 you for the obligations that we owe to you. And 
 now, pray leave me to myself, and to ray duties.' 
 She rose from her chair, and awaited his departure. 
 Sir Charles also rose, ' I mil leave you,' he said ; 
 ' but I must take with me either happiness or 
 misery.'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LOVE FOR LOVE. 
 
 ' Cel. — Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so stronc 
 a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son ? 
 Eos. — The Duke my father loved Ids father dearly. 
 Cel. — Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly ?' 
 
 As You Like It, Act I. Sc. 3. 
 
 « It's but a folly to lie ; for, to speak one thing, and to think just 
 the contrary way, is, at it were, to look one way, and to row another. 
 Now, for my part, d'ye see, I'm for carrying things above-board; I'm 
 not for keeping anything under hatches ; so that if you ben't so willing 
 as I, say so ; there's no harm done, mayhap, you may be shame-faced ; 
 some maidens, though they love a man well enough, yet they don't 
 care to tell'n so to's face. If that's the case, why silence gives consent.' 
 
 Conurkvk. (Love for Love.) 
 
 HEN Fanny heard Sir Charles's 
 words, she turned towards the piano- 
 forte with a gesture that bade him 
 go ; for, a choking sensation in her 
 throat prevented her speaking. 
 Her surprise, shame, and sorrow had now passed 
 away: a hundred sweet memories of bygone dayi 
 had trooped pleasantly through her brain chasing 
 each other with playful fancies. Her girlish love 
 for Sir Charles had been too deep to be easilj 
 
 K 2
 
 132 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 erased from a heart like hers. Situated as she had 
 been, shut out from society, and imprisoned in the 
 formalities of Minerva House, there had been but 
 little opportunity for her, even had she wished for 
 it, to build up a new affection on the firm founda- 
 tion of that old one. It had been the brightest 
 incident in the happiest time of her life : and no 
 wonder that she had over and over again reviewed 
 its several parts, and cheered her solitary moments 
 with a glance- at its pure pleasures — pleasures, 
 which she had fancied were gone never to be 
 recalled. Poor girl ! her lot in life was somewhat 
 of a hard one. A friendless orphan, with an only 
 brother in a distant land, and she herself barely 
 earning her bread as a school-governess, with no 
 companion of her own years, — with only the ecca- 
 sional kind companionship of Lady Linton to cheer 
 her — how could she do otherwise than turn her 
 thoughts in secret to those happy days of girlhood, 
 when she had first tasted of the sweets of love, and 
 wot not of the after bitterness its fruit will bring! 
 How she would ponder over the memories o£ that 
 tiuie ! it's every day was linked to some ree. >lleetion, 
 on which she could dwell with tender thought and 
 . t'ul musing. As one who grieves for his dead 
 betrothed, and calls her to fancied life again, by all 
 
 I
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 133 
 
 those sweet tokens of treasured relics — letters worn 
 by age and frequent reading-, rings that had once 
 graced her hand, withered flowers that had once 
 nestled upon her breast, a lock of sunny hair that 
 had once pressed upon her cheek — as one who gazes 
 upon these priceless treasures, and feels a happiness 
 by so doing — so would this poor orphaned governess 
 solace her lonely hours by conning over such trea- 
 sures of thought as God had given to her. Thus her 
 girlish love had never been forgotten ; memory had 
 cleared it of its imperfections, and had invested it 
 with a double grace, nay, had even added some- 
 what to its strength. The sight of that little cor- 
 nelian heart ; the presence of the very object of her 
 early love — his words and protestations — her own 
 innocent reception of him, which was not very un- 
 like her reception of him in olden days — all this 
 combined to make her feel that she was waking 
 from dreams to realities. 
 
 ' I love you, dearest Fanny,' said Sir Charles, 
 and his manner and tone did not belie his words, — 
 < I love you deeply and sincerely, and would link 
 my love through life with yours. O say that you 
 will be mine.' lie caught her impulsively by the 
 hand, which she endeavoured to withdraw. ' Do 
 not withdraw your hand,' he went on, impetuously,
 
 134 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ' let me keep it, Fanny, and claim it as my own ; 
 and, when your real brother does come, let me be 
 
 introduced to him still as a brother ; not his brother 
 by kin, but his brother-in-law, and your affianced 
 husband.' 
 
 Her hand trembled within the clasp of his; but 
 she now suffered it to remain there. If she was 
 assured of Sir Charles's love to her — and had he 
 not assured her of it, and was she not convinced 
 that he spoke the truth — why should she hesitate
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 135 
 
 to accept it ? She well knew her own feelings to- 
 wards him ; they had not wanted any reviving, for 
 she had ever kept them fresh and pure ; and, 
 though she had always, even in her inmost thoughts, 
 remembered the love that had once been between 
 herself and Sir Charles but as a thing of the past — a 
 dream of early days that must be put aside amid the 
 stern realities of after life, or only recalled as a 
 sweet illusion among present bitter facts— though in 
 her wildest dream, she would never have anticipated 
 .vli.it had now come to pass so unexpectedly and sud- 
 denly — though in the perfect purity of her maiden 
 soul, she had never looked upon the image of her 
 early love enshrined there within her heart, with 
 other eyes than with those sincere ones of her girlish 
 days — yet, there were her feelings for him still 
 cherished within in her bosom ; and there was that 
 steadv little flame of love which had been the one 
 bright sparkle upon her clouded altar of duty, which 
 only needed the breath of his lips to fan it to a 
 brighter "-low, and a consuming heat. That breath 
 had come. His words had kindled the flame ; and 
 it now leapt up within her, with a tongue of fire that 
 warmed her very soul, and cheered her with such a 
 light as she had never yet experienced. She felt as 
 one, who, half-awake from some eestatic dream,
 
 136 xf.arer and dearer. 
 
 refrains from motion, and almost from thought — 
 lest the bright vision should on a sudden vanish. 
 So she stood, and suffered her hand passively to 
 remain in that of Sir Charh 3. 
 
 He took courage at the sign, accepting it as a 
 good omen, that came like sunshine after the storm. 
 The weathercock of his mercurial disposition would 
 change from gay to grave, and would vibrate back 
 a^ain from grave to gay, with the slightest breath 
 of emotion, or faintest gale of feeling. lie was a 
 creature of the moment : so, when he accepted the 
 slight token as a signal that his suit would not be 
 rejected, he at once galloped on gaily to the wished- 
 for termination to the whole interview, and rattled 
 out his thoughts with railway speed, somewhat after 
 this fashion, ' There, that's more friendly. And so, 
 your brother will soon be here, and can be properly 
 introduced to his old companion in the guise of a 
 new relative. And then, dearest, until the happy 
 day comes that will see you my bride, you shall go 
 and stay at the Hall with my worthy aunt — for I 
 know .-he'll be delighted to find that 1 am going to 
 settle down, and many her little favourite— and I 
 wouldn't have you stay in this gaol of a boarding- 
 school one day Longer than you can possibly help — 
 and then I'll rush up to town and gel you all the
 
 NEARER AND DEAfiER. 137 
 
 pretty things I can think of — and the jewellers 
 shall send you all their treasures — and you shall 
 come and see Chatterton Manor, and tell me how 
 you'd like the rooms refurnished. I think we 
 shall have to build new conservatories ! the present 
 ones are terribly out of condition — and then, why, 
 then we'll be married, Fanny, and ask old mother 
 Clapperclaw to the breakfast! No, shall we ask 
 her, though ?' 
 
 If Fanny had ever purposed making either a 
 haughty or impressive reply to any ' proposal ' with 
 which she might be favoured, her purpose would 
 most assuredly have been altered by such a speech 
 as this. She was amused by it, and she did not 
 conceal her feelings ; so she said with a smile, 
 ' Doubtless you can make very pleasant arrange- 
 ments, Sir Charles ; but, that they may be quite 
 perfect, I think it is necessary for you to first gain 
 the lady's consent.' 
 
 ' 1'faith, I had almost forgotten that ; but you 
 will give me your consent, will you not? Say, 
 dearest Fanny, that you will In 1 mine! Say, at 
 least, that you love me !' 
 
 She did not speak. Perhaps it was maiden 
 modesty that held her tongue. She was too little 
 versed in the cold, artificial laws of society to be
 
 138 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 restrained by any of its conventionalities ; and her 
 heart told her that she did love him. Why, then, 
 did she not at once confess the truth ? Simply, 
 because she remembered her own poverty and 
 dependent position, and Sir Charles' wealth and 
 high station. If she accepted his offer, would it 
 not seem (she thought) that she took him for his 
 riches? She could not at once answer so im- 
 portant a question ; therefore she kept silence. 
 
 Which the volatile Sir Charles translated after 
 his own fashion. ' Silence gives consent ; O, ye gods 
 and little fishes, now I'm a happy man ! Just now 
 you gave me a brother's kiss ; I wonder if a lover's 
 has the same sweetness ! ' 
 
 And so — 
 
 • He to lips that fondly falter, 
 Presses his without reproof;' 
 
 and while he was thus saluting the but-half-resisting 
 young lady, the door opened, and Mrs. Clapperclaw, 
 with stately step and starchy figure, re-entered the 
 buckram-and-backboard reception-room.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 139 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SIMOX PURE. 
 
 • This may be modern modesty; but I never saw anything look so 
 like old-fashioned impudence.' 
 
 Goldsmith. (She Stoops to Conquer.) 
 
 ■ Mark his condition, and the event ; then tell me 
 Ii' this might be a brother.' 
 
 Tempest, Act I, Sc. 2. 
 
 LESS me !' cried Mrs. Clapperclaw, 
 making interjectional movements 
 with her black-kid ventilators — 
 ' Bless me ! I left Miss Smith kiss- 
 ing her brother, and I find her still 
 engaged in the same occupation.' 
 The Great Moral Engine steamed forward, drawing 
 her shawl around her, and draping it over her well- 
 worn black silk in sharp, angular folds. A bene- 
 volent expression lighted up her kippered-salmon 
 features, and beamed through her owl-like spec- 
 tacles. ' Well, young people,' she said, ' though 
 I am not an advocate of that constant osculatory 
 practice in which you seem to pass so much of 
 your time, I am yet thankful to see that the sym-
 
 140 NSASSB AND DEAIIER. 
 
 pathies of a young lady who lias lately lived 
 so much under my own immediate and watch- 
 ful care, are of such a high order. But I must 
 request you, Miss Smith, to forsake these pleasures 
 for a few moments, and inform yourself, from your 
 own personal observation, whether or no the calis- 
 thenic class are property engaged with their dumb- 
 bell and Indian-spear exercise.' And the corkscrew 
 ringlets of Mrs. Clapperclaw's black wig quivered 
 from beneath her head-dress made of dark stiff 
 materials, whose two pendent square-cut Egyptian 
 streamers fell upon the capacious bosom that throbbed 
 with a very Pacific Ocean of sympathy. 
 
 Fanny hailed the arrival of the Great Moral 
 Engine with heartfelt gratitude. The interruption 
 was a very welcome one to her. It gave her time 
 for thought, and prevented her agitation from 
 betraying her ; and it enabled her, too, to regain her 
 self-command, and to calm the wild pleasure that 
 filled her heart : for she felt that she did love him. 
 With blushes still burning her cheeks, and not 
 daring to venture a glance at Sir Charles, she 
 readily obeyed Mrs. Clapperclaw's behest, and left 
 the room. 
 
 ' You must excuse me for the remark, Captain 
 Smith,' said the Great Moral Engine, seating herself
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 141 
 
 stiffly upon one of the hard-seated upright-backed 
 chairs, and with a motion of the black-kid venti- 
 lators inviting Sir Charles to follow her example ; 
 ' you must excuse me for the remark — and, indeed, 
 I should not make it if I were not a woman of large 
 sympathies myself, and delighted to behold the 
 sympathies of others — but I have rarely seen a 
 brother show to his sister such a large amount of 
 attentive sympathy as you have done, Captain 
 Smith.' 
 
 ' I am happy to think, Mrs. Clapperclaw,' replied 
 Sir Charles, ' that my conduct in this particular has 
 been such as to merit your approbation, and, I 
 trust, that of the young lady also. But with regard 
 to my being her brother, I will, with your permission, 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw, a tale unfold." 
 
 The Great Moral Engine had given him a grand 
 Siddons-like bend of the head ; Sir Charles was 
 twirling his moustache, and looking round at the 
 problematic wall-paper, and the smudgy obscurities 
 in their leather frames, with the apparent hope that 
 they would prompt him to the introductory sentences 
 of his confession, when — 
 
 When there came a sharp, soldier-like double- 
 knock at the front door of Minerva House, the 
 sound of which electrified the pseudo Captain Smith,
 
 142 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 and informed him in unmistakeable language that 
 the real Simon Pure had arrived, 
 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw had immediately risen from her 
 upright-backed chair, and had called to Fido to 
 answer the door, and, if visitors, to show them into 
 that room. 'This is my reception-room, Captain 
 Smith,' she said, as she returned to her seat. 
 
 'inception room, I think,' said Sir Charles to 
 himself; 'and I must use it for that purpose a little 
 longer, if, as I guess, that knock prefaces the arri- 
 val of Simon Pure.' 
 
 ' Excuse the interruption,' observed Mrs. Clapper- 
 claw ; ' you were remarking that — 
 
 ' It's another gent after Miss Smith, mam !' .-aid 
 Fido, mysteriously looking in at the door. 'Is he to 
 be took in ?' 
 
 ' Certainly !' Fido vanishes. 
 
 ' Your sister,' Mrs. Clapperclaw said, ' is finding 
 all her friends to-day, Captain Smith.' 
 
 ' Captain Smith !' cried Fido, like a fat echo, 
 ushering into the room a tall military-looking young 
 man, handsome, light-haired (though without a mous- 
 tache), and with a face bronzed by exposure to the 
 hot glare of an eastern sun. 
 
 ' Bless me !' cried Mr.-. Clapperclaw, confidentially 
 to Sir Charles : ' two Captain Smiths ! but, the
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 143 
 
 name is — excuse me — a not uncommon one. Doubt- 
 less he is come to place a daughter under my 
 care.' 
 
 Simon Pure advanced with a military stride, and 
 bowing to Mrs. Clapperclaw, announced the object 
 of his visit. 'I have called, madam, to see my 
 sister.' 
 
 ' Your sister, sir !' gasped the Great Moral En- 
 
 gine. 
 
 ' My sister Fanny, madam ; Miss Smith.' 
 
 ' Delightful !' thought Sir Charles, as he watched 
 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw's perplexity, 'I will keep up the 
 
 joke a little.' 
 
 'Allow me to say, sir,' observed the Great Moral
 
 144 NBAEER AND DEARER. 
 
 Engine, with a lofty air, ' that you must be labour- 
 ing under some singular misapprehension.' 
 
 ■ Misapprehension !' said Simon Pure, also looking 
 perplexed. ' I was informed that this was Minerva 
 House, and I certainly am under the impression 
 that I have the honour of addressing Mrs. Clapper- 
 claw.' 
 
 ' You are rurht so far, sir ; I am Mrs. ( 'lapper- 
 claw, and this k Minerva House. But, as to your 
 sister, you are under some delusion. There is but 
 me Miss Fanny Smith in my establishment, and she 
 — is my governess.' And the Great Moral Engine 
 caressed her wrists with the black-kid ventilators, in 
 a very determined manner. 
 
 ' She is your governess, at present, madam,' re- 
 plied Simon Pure ; ' but no longer to remain so. I 
 have returned, enriched and prosperous, to bear her 
 to a new home, and to the station she was born 
 to fill.' 
 
 'Then, sir,' gasped Mrs. Clapperclaw, as a new- 
 light dawned upon her ; ' are you— do you love her? 
 
 ' Love her? yes ! with all my heart and soul.' 
 
 'Oh, indeed !' and a shade of displeasure crossed 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw's kippered-salmon face ; ' I think 
 I mifdit have been informed of this secret attach- 
 merit.'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 145 
 
 ' Secret, madam !' cried Simon Pure. ' Why 
 surely you may have guessed it. It is nothing more 
 than is natural, is it ?' 
 
 ' Ah ! true,' sighed Mrs. Clapperclaw, as she 
 thought of a time when the late lamented Mr. C. 
 had come to her in all the pride of his youth, and 
 the possession of a flourishing business in the tallow 
 trade, and had spoken to her words that had called 
 forth feelings in her breast which had seemed to 
 her very natural indeed ; ' Ah ! true.' And the 
 Great Moral Engine felt herself a girl again. 
 
 ' I trust you do not imagine,' said Simon Pure, 
 with a smile, ' that, though I have not seen her for 
 some years, I should ever lose any of my affection 
 for my sister.' 
 
 ' Your sister /' cried Mrs. Clapperclaw — again the 
 woman, and the head of Minerva House — ' do you 
 mean to assert, sir, that you are the brother of my 
 governess, Miss Fanny Smith ?' 
 
 ' Such is my great happiness, madam,' replied 
 Simon Pure, again beginning to look perplexed. 
 
 ' Then, sir,' went on Mrs. Clapperclaw, with a 
 
 ser ; ' I suppose that you will also wish me to 
 believe that you are the brother of this gentle- 
 man T And she waved a black-kid ventilator to- 
 wards Sir Charles.
 
 14G NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 To whom Simon Pure turned with a scrutinising 
 glance, as he replied, ' Nature has not given me the 
 pleasure, madam, so far as I am aware, of being 
 in any way related to that gentleman — much more 
 his brother/ 
 
 'Then, sir,' steamed out the Great Moral Engiu •. 
 who could no longer repress her boiling wrath, and 
 found the readiest vent for it in hissing words : 
 'then, sir, how dare you come to an honest house 
 with your vile falsehoods and fictitious names ? Do 
 you suppose, sir, that my academy has no reputa- 
 tion to lose, that you can come hen" with impunity, 
 and demand interviews with its young ladies ?' 
 
 ' I cannot understand you, madam ; surely a 
 brother can see his sister even at a boarding-school, 
 and though she be its governess?' 
 
 ' Brother, indeed !' sneered Mrs. Clapperclaw ; 
 ' it is fortunate that this gentleman is on the spot, to 
 convict you of your gross imposition. But I will 
 not waste more words with you ; and, you may 
 ascribe it to my tender sympathies, if you do not 
 have to answer for this most atrocious insult before 
 a special jury of your countrymen.' She had rung 
 the bell as she said this ; and Fido had now an- 
 swered its summons. ' Fido, show this person to 
 the door!' And the Great Moral Engine again 
 
 ,
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 147 
 
 sternly embraced her wrists with her black-kid ven- 
 tilators, and breathed defiance at her visitor. 
 
 lie seemed very much puzzled to know what to 
 do, or what to make of all this, and looked to 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw for an explanation, but none was 
 vouchsafed to him. Failing in this quarter he 
 turned to Sir Charles Chatterton, who was, appa- 
 rently, too much engaged in tracing out problems on 
 the Euclid-like wall-paper, to attend to anything 
 else. Fido looked on sleepily and fatly. 
 
 ' Excuse me, Mrs. Clapperclaw,' at length said 
 Captain Smith, ' but I do not leave this room until I 
 have seen my sister. If I had not been aware that 
 this was a boarding-school for young ladies, I should 
 have concluded, from first appearances, that it was a 
 lunatic asylum, and this gentleman the keeper.' 
 
 The Great Moral Engine put up her steam at 
 this. ' I appeal to you, sir,' she said, turning to Sir 
 Charles, ' to protect me from insult. To you, sir ! 
 the real Captain Smith, and the rightful brother of 
 my governess.' 
 
 Simon Pure also turned to Sir Charles. ' Do you 
 mean to assert, sir,' he asked, ' that you are the Cap- 
 tain Smith, who is the brother to Miss Fanny Smith, 
 a governess in this school ?' 
 
 ' You heard, sir,' replied Sir Charles, who was un- 
 
 L 2
 
 148 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 able to resist carrying on the joke as far as it would 
 harmlessly go — 'you heard, sir, what this very re- 
 spectable lady said ; and surely you will believe her.' 
 
 ' Why then, sir,' cried Simon Pure, fairly bewil- 
 dered ; ' why then, in the name of wonder, sir, who 
 the deuce am IT 
 
 'That, sir, is best known to yourself,' quietly 
 answered Sir Charles. 
 
 ' Do not excite yourself at the shameless way in 
 which this man is seeking to pass himself off as you, 
 Captain Smith,' said Mrs. Clapperclaw to Sir 
 Charles ; ' for the wretched being is evidently in 
 liquor, unless — oh ! horrible suspicion — unless he is 
 an escaped lunatic !' 
 
 ' Don't be afear' d, mum !' observed Fido, con- 
 iidentially, ' 1*11 fix him with my eye, and he'll soon 
 be subdued. They can't abide the steady gaze of 
 intellectual hoptics.' Upon which, the fat youth 
 stared fixedly at Simon Pure. 
 
 ' I almost doubt the evidence of my senses,' -aid 
 that bewildered individual. ' First, I am told that 
 I am not myself, but an impostor personating my- 
 self ; and then, that I am a drunkard and a lunatic. 
 \\ hat on earth, madam — -what the deuce, sir — does 
 all this mean ?' 
 
 ' It means, sir,' replied Mrs. Clapperclaw, ' that
 
 SfEABEH AND DEARER. 149 
 
 the sooner you leave this pure-minded, and virtuou.-l\ ■- 
 conducted academy, the better, sir !' 
 
 * It means, sir,' said Sir Charles, ' that there has 
 been a great mistake somewhere, sir ; and that the 
 sooner it is all explained, sir, it will be the better 
 for all parties, sir !' 
 
 ' It means, young man,' said Fido, ' that you'd 
 better hook it, while you're able, young man !' 
 
 6 Now, sir !' asked Mrs. Clapperclaw, ' are you 
 going?' and her black-kid ventilators caressed her 
 wrists in a far from amiable way. 
 
 ' I am going — to stay V replied Simon Pure, in a 
 very decided tone. 'I have come here for the 
 express purpose of seeing Fanny, and taking her 
 away ; and I shall not leave here but in her company/ 
 
 ' O you wretched profligate !' cried Mrs. Clapper- 
 claw ; ' if you are not utterly hardened in depravity, 
 leave this house, before the policeman compels you 
 to do so. Fido ! show this miserable being to the 
 door. If necessary, Fido, use physical force !' 
 
 ' I will, mum ! I'll get the steam up,' replied 
 Fido ; who began to beat his arms after the manner 
 of out-of-door labourers on a cold winter's morning, 
 and to turn up the cuffs of his coat in a most de- 
 monstrative way. 
 
 ' Really, this is too absurd,' fail Simon Pure.
 
 150 
 
 NEAEEK AXD DEAEEB. 
 
 ' I tell you, madam, once and for all, that, whoever 
 this gentleman may be, I, and I only, am the 
 brother of Miss Fanny Smith, your governess.' 
 
 ' It is useless, sir,' replied Mrs. Clapperclaw, with 
 an air as who should say, I have heard quite suf- 
 ficient, and this interview must not be prolonged, 
 ' it is useless to waste more words. I have sufficient 
 evidence to the contrary. Fido, fulfil my orders.' 
 
 ' Come, young man ! hook it,' said the fat youth. 
 * There's the door, and here's me ! I'm a lamb out- 
 wardly, but, I'm a lion when I'm roused ; so, you'd 
 better give in at once, and come away easy.' 
 
 Simon Pure walked quietly to the door that was 
 held open for him by Fido, and deliberately seized 
 the unfortunate fat youth by the gold collar of his
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 151 
 
 invisible-green coat, twisting him round until the 
 short tails of the coat were presented to his view. 
 He then, as deliberately, applied his foot to the 
 close neighbourhood of those coat-tails, and pro- 
 pelled Mr. Fido headlong into the hall, to the 
 intense delight of Sir Charles Chatterton, and the 
 mingled disgust, horror, and alarm of the Great 
 Moral Engine, who turned to Sir Charles, and 
 appealing to him with her black-kid ventilators, 
 said, ' llcally, Captain Smith, I ask you, as a gentle- 
 man and an officer of the army, am I to have my 
 sympathies and my servants outraged in this shock- 
 ing manner ? I ask you, sir, am I ?' 
 
 And Mrs. Clapperclaw resumed her seat, and, 
 like parliamentary orators, paused for a reply.
 
 152 NEAREB AND DEARER. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BROTIIEi: AND SISTER, 
 
 ' My lord, so please you, these things further thought on, 
 To think me as well a sister as a wi|e, 
 One day shall crown the alliance on't.' 
 
 Twelfth Eight, Act Y. Sc. 1. 
 
 ' The first time that I ever saw him, 
 Methought he was a brother.' 
 
 As You Like It, Act V. Sc. 4. 
 
 • Would you desire better sympathy?' 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. 1. 
 
 |HEN Simon Pure forcibly projected 
 Fido into the hall of Minerva House, 
 he followed up his propelling kick 
 by these words of friendly advice 
 and warning: 'Take that. And, 
 perhaps, it will assist you in remem- 
 bering that Captain Smith knows how to punish an 
 impertinence.' 
 
 He spoke loudly, for he was excited ; and his 
 words were carried to the ears of Miss Fanny Smith, 
 who had completed her duties with the calisthenic 
 class, and was returning to the buckram-and-back- 
 board reception-room. She at once knew that her
 
 \ 
 
 ,4
 
 
 ' I.Ike as she had rushed Into Hi" armsol Sir Charles, bo now she ran to her 
 brother's embrace, crying, "(Hi, my dear, dear brothel I <"me at last to your "'v:i 
 i. Hid sister." '—Page 153.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 153 
 
 brother had arrived ; and, forgetting all else in the 
 joy of that long-lookcd-for moment, she ran quickly 
 along the hall, and found her brother just turning 
 his back upon the hapless Fido, in order that he 
 might once more encounter the Great Moral Engine. 
 She knew him at once, despite his bronzed face ; for 
 its features and expression had altered but little 
 since she had last seen him ; and, though there 
 were certain points of resemblance between him and 
 Sir Charles, she could now perceive that when they 
 were placed face to face, there was but little simi- 
 larity of features. 
 
 Like as she had rushed into the arms of Sir 
 Charles, so now she ran to her brother's embrace, 
 crying, ' Oh, my dear dear brother ! Come at last to 
 your own fond sister.' 
 
 ' Now the plot is discovered !' thought Sir Charles. 
 ' Terrific denouement, and grand tableau !' 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Clapperclaw looked on, her 
 capacious bosom lashed into a very storm of virtuous 
 indignation. 'Gracious powers! Miss Smith em- 
 braces every gentleman she sees ! Can the force of 
 shamelessness go further than this !' 
 
 ' Now, madam,' said Simon Pure, as, with his 
 one arm embracing his sister, he raised his head 
 from kissing her the while she clung lovingly to
 
 154 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 him, ' now, madam, I trust you are perfectly 
 satisfied.' 
 
 This remark was, in Mrs. Clapperelaw's eye?, the 
 crowning-point to the pyramid of insult that he had 
 heaped upon her. It was the one drop that made 
 the cup of her wrath run over. ' Satisfied !' she 
 cried ; ' satisfied ! ! what sort of satisfaction do you 
 suppose it to be to the head of amoral academy like 
 this, to see her governess, within the space of five 
 minutes, kissing and clasping two Captain Smiths, 
 and calling them both brothers ! Oh ! my sympa- 
 thies !' and the offended lady clasped her black-kid 
 ventilators upon her agonised bosom. 
 
 ' But this/ said Fanny, looking into her brother's 
 face, and imagining that Sir Charles had explained 
 the part he had acted in his highly original little 
 drama of deception, ' but this is my brother, Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw ; he has just returned from India.' 
 
 The Great Moral Engine could do nothing more 
 than gasp at this additional mark of effrontery and 
 falsehood. 
 
 Sir Charles saw that he had carried on the joke to 
 the bounds of prudence (he did not stay to inquire 
 if he had overpassed them), and that it was now time 
 to confess, and to throw off his disguise. ' I must 
 explain these apparent contradictions. Though,
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 155 
 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw, I hope to claim a nearer and a 
 dearer title, yet, I confess that I have been de- 
 ceiving you, and, that I am not Miss Smith's 
 brother !' 
 
 A real locomotive engine could scarcely have 
 given a louder scream than did the Great Moral 
 Engine, when she heard this announcement. 
 
 « Monster ! wretch ! ! man ! ! !' she cried, as though 
 in that last word she ascended to the very pinnacle 
 of expletive, ' this to my face ! and kissing her, too, 
 before my very eyes ! Oh, the indelicate wretch ! 
 Help, help ! I see it all now. You want to run off 
 with this governess of mine to Gretna Green, and 
 ruin my school. Oh, my ^misplaced sympathies !' 
 and carried away by the excitement of the moment, 
 the stiff and stately Clapperclaw actually hurried 
 out of the room. 
 
 ' Surely I am in the land of riddles !' said the be- 
 wildered Captain Smith. ' Pray give me some ex- 
 planation, Fanny, that will enlighten me a little ; for, 
 really, I am in doubt about everything and every- 
 body — except you ; and almost question my own 
 identity.' 
 
 ' Certainly, dear brother,' replied his sister ; 
 ' though I think there is an old friend of yours pre- 
 sent, who can explain this to you better than I can
 
 156 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 do. Allow mc to introduce to you Sir Charles 
 Chatterton.' 
 
 The young men advanced, and cordially shook 
 hands. 
 
 ' Sir Charles Chatterton !' said Captain Smith, 
 very much astonished at the singularity of the meet- 
 ing, and not less so at the parts they had played 
 in it. ' What ! the son of our kind benefactor, Sir 
 Christopher ?' 
 
 ' The same,' replied Sir Charles ; ' the pupil of 
 your father, and your old playfellow, Hairy ; though 
 soon, I trust, to claim a dearer relationship.' 
 
 And then he hastily recounted as much of that 
 narrative with which the reader is already acquainted 
 as was necessary for Captain Smith's comprehension 
 of the case. That gallant officer pronounced the 
 whole thing to be one of the finest jokes in the 
 world, and laughed heartily at his own share in the 
 mystification. 
 
 While they were thus looking upon their past ad- 
 ventures with a merry face, the Great Moral Engine 
 again steamed into the room, in a highly-excited 
 condition, followed by Dolly Dot and Fido, whose 
 fatty, placid temperament, had enabled him to over- 
 get his late degradation, and to recover his usual 
 equanimity.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 157 
 
 ' Here, Dolly, Fido ! help, help !' cried Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw ; ' here's a runaway marriage under my 
 very nose ! call the police, and get a warrant ! and 
 fetch the yeomanry cavalry, too, if they're neces- 
 sary. Oh ! get me a chair first ! I'm going to 
 faint ! it's too great a shock for my large sympathies ! 
 Oh, oh !' and the Great Moral Engine was assisted 
 by her faithful domestics to a chair, where she sat 
 and screamed like any other engine. 
 
 'Fido, why don't you run and fetch some water?' 
 said Dolly ; ' but you are so slow over everything. 
 You ain't never excited by faints, or screams, or 
 nothing.' 
 
 ' No,' replied Fido ; ' I'm a man of the world, I 
 am, and they don't go for more than they're worth 
 with me. But I'll soon bring her round ; here's 
 some water 'andy for the purpose.' And he seized 
 upon a glass of discoloured water that was upon a 
 side table. 
 
 ' Not that ! not that !' cried Fanny, ' it's water 
 I've used for painting.' 
 
 ' And I'll use it for fainting,' said Fido. ' It's all 
 the better, miss ; it'll put some colour in her face.' 
 And, without more ado, and before Fanny could 
 prevent him, the phlegmatic Fido calmly and deli- 
 berately saturated Mrs. Clappcrclaw's kippered- sal-
 
 158 
 
 NEARER AXD DEARER. 
 
 nion face and corkscrew ringlets with the discoloured 
 water. 
 
 
 ' Oh, you monster !' cried the dripping lady ; ' I 
 give you warning to leave this house immediately. 
 Help, Dolly !' 
 
 ' Oh Fido !' said Dolly, as she dried Mrs. Clap- 
 perclaw's face with her apron; 'you've totally 
 spoiled the missis's cap with that nasty dirty water. 
 It's quite wetted all the ribbins ; and they was 
 watered ribbins afore.' The fat youth thought it 
 prudent to leave the room. 
 
 ' Fetch the police, Dolly,' gasped the Great Moral 
 Engine. ' 1*11 stop this runaway marriage.' 
 
 'Mrs. Clapperclaw,' said Sir Charles, coming for- 
 ward, 'I most humbly entreat your forgiveness;
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 159 
 
 Fido's zeal for your recovery has overcome his dis- 
 cretion. But if Mrs. Clapperclaw will so far honour 
 Sir Charles Chatterton' (he said this with marked 
 emphasis and a polite bow) ' as to accept of a new 
 lace cap — ' 
 
 But the worthy head of Minerva House could not 
 pause to hear more. ' Sir Charles who ?' she cried, 
 in great astonishment. ' Who ? what name did you 
 say, sir?' 
 
 'Sir Charles Chatterton, of Chatterton Manor,' 
 he replied, taking a card from his pocket and hand- 
 ing it to her ; ' the nephew of your friend ' (he laid 
 great stress on this word), ' your friend, Lady Lin- 
 ton, and your most obedient servant.' 
 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw began to plume her draggled 
 hackles, and to recover her equanimity, as she 
 thought, with a flutter of pride, 'A baronet, and 
 the nephew of my friend — my friend, Lady Linton ! 
 Oh, that completely alters the case. Here, Dolly ! 
 come back directly. Stupid girl ! where were you 
 coing;?' 
 
 ' I were a going to fetch the pelisse, mem,' answered 
 the maiden, referring to the limited constabulary 
 force of Somerford, and, like a faithful domestic, 
 intent upon the proper execution of orders from 
 head-quarters.
 
 160 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 1 Stupid girl ! I was only joking ! You can leave 
 the room, but not for the police,' said the Great 
 Moral Engine, letting off the remnant of her dis- 
 pleasure. 'Ah, Sir Charles !' she resumed, turning 
 to the baronet with her most conciliatory manner 
 and smile, and a playful movement of the black- kid 
 ventilators ; ' Ah, Sir diaries ! you see that I am 
 indeed a woman of large sympathies, and cannot 
 find it in my heart to entertain feelings of animosity 
 where the sympathies of my fellow-creatures are 
 concerned. But, Sir Charles, as Miss Smith is my 
 governess, and as the spotless fame of this boarding- 
 school would be called in question if this clandestine 
 interview should reach the ears of the vulgar — ' 
 
 'Dismiss your fears, Mrs. Clapperclaw,' inter- 
 rupted Sir Charles ; ' this young lady was, at first, 
 as much deceived as you were. The breath of scan- 
 dal can neither touch her nor you ; and if I should 
 be blamed for the part I have acted, I should reply, 
 that it made me better known to one whose young 
 affections were, ypars since, given to me, and whose 
 deeper love, I trust, through years of wedded bliss, 
 will never cause me to regret the foolish stratagems 
 which have terminated so unexpectedly and hap- 
 pfly.' 
 
 ' And so, Miss Smith,' said Mrs Clapperclaw,
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 161 
 
 benevolently, ' you bave found a husband as well as 
 a brother ; for, of course, you have accepted Sir 
 Charles Chattcrton's brilliant offer?' 
 
 ' I have not said — that is I think,' was the blush- 
 ing young lady's reply ; ' I owe so much ro Sir 
 Charles ; and besides, as an old friend, I ought to 
 be grateful to him, and — ' 
 
 * Ah ! I see, Miss Smith,' said the head of Mi- 
 nerva House, with a knowing twinkle through her 
 owl-like spectacles ; ' I see ! When a young lady 
 talks of gratitude to a gentleman who has proposed 
 to her, we all know what it means. Why, of 
 course, you return sympathy for sympathy. Of 
 course, you love him ; your blushes betray you.' 
 
 Fanny had turned to her brother, and was clinging 
 to him in a very pretty confusion. ' You are right, 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw,' said he ; ' she does love Sir 
 Charles. She has confided in me, and all has been 
 explained. As her legal guardian and sole relative, 
 I here sanction the choice of her heart, and gladly 
 entrust her happiness to the care of my old friend.' 
 And he placed his sister's hand in that of Sir Charles, 
 who bent over it and tenderly kissed it. 
 
 Mrs. Clappcrclaw's sympathetic heart was quite 
 touched by this scene ; and with one of her black 
 kid ventilators pressed upon her kippered-salmon 
 
 M
 
 L62 NEARER AND DEAREB. 
 
 features, she raised tiie other, as one in the act of 
 benediction, and murmured, ' Jile.-s you ! bless you !' 
 Fanny went to her and embraced her. 
 
 Sir Charles was full of arrangements and propo- 
 sitions, and exalted to the seventh heaven of happi- 
 ness. Which day in the next week would be the 
 most suitable for the wedding- ? that was the ques- 
 tion. What ! that was much too soon — couldn't 
 get ready by then — stuff and nonsense — etcaetera, 
 etcsetera. Who does not know the unreasonable 
 anxieties of a lover who is mad to place his happi- 
 ness beyond the reach of a doubt? 
 
 However, before he left Minerva House, this was 
 agreed to : that in a few days Fanny should leave 
 there for Somerford Hall, where, if it was agreeable 
 to Lady Linton (and there did not seem much 
 doubt on that point), she should remain until her 
 marriage. Captain Smith was also to spend as 
 much of his time there as he could spare, and 
 Chatterton Manor was to be got ready with all 
 speed. 
 
 All this Miss Fanny agreed to, but on one con- 
 dition — that six months should elapse before the 
 marriage. In reifl did Sir Charles implore her to 
 forego this ri'Milve, fur she was firm and not to be 
 moved by entreaty or endearment. She would not
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 163 
 
 have him to marry in haste, lest he should repent at 
 leisure ; and the trial-time of six months would 
 sufficiently test the soundness of his affection, and 
 give him full time to look into his heart and see 
 whether his love proceeded from a deep, true feel- 
 ing, or only from powerful fancy. 
 
 So, Sir Charles was obliged to agree to this, and, 
 taking a tender adieu of Fanny, he left Minerva 
 House — with what different feelings to those with 
 which he had entered it ! His silly wager had been 
 the turning-point of his career ; and the two last 
 hours had taught him the salutary lesson, that there 
 was still a something in life w&-*h living for ; and 
 that, in place of that course of doing nothing, 
 which he had been so wearisomely pursuing, there 
 lay before him that far better course of duty and 
 - purpose, where he could run his race, and fight his 
 fight, and strive for his crown of reward, with a 
 dear one beside him to strengthen him in all his 
 good resolves, to nerve him with the might of love, 
 to support him in times of weakness, to cheer him 
 with tenderest sympathy, and even to lay down her 
 very life for him, if the forfeit of her existence could 
 purchase his. 
 
 How the light of love threw a glamour over 
 everything, and even invested with unwonted grace
 
 104 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 those parallelogram grass-plats and backboard 
 poplars between which Sir Charles walked, as he 
 passed through the iron gate, and under the adver- 
 tising rainbow, and turned his back upon that stiff 
 and gaunt buckram-and-backboard edifice, the 
 grim casket that contained his precious jewel ! 
 How two short hours had altered everything ! 
 
 ' A crowd of hopes, 
 That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds 
 Born out of everything he heard and saw, 
 Flutter'd about his senses and his soul ; 
 And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm 
 To one that travels quickly, made the air 
 Of life delicious, and all kinds of thought 
 That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream 
 Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark east, 
 Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 1 165 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEARER AND DEAEER. 
 
 'Thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end 
 That thou begann'st to twist so fine a story ? 
 
 Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, 
 That know love's grief by his complexion ! 
 But, lest my liking might too sudden seem, 
 I would have salved it with a longer treatise. 
 
 Bon Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood ? 
 The fairest grant is the necessity.' 
 
 Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. Sc. 1. 
 
 Faktaff. ' Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel ? Why, now 
 let me die, for I have lived long enough : this is the period of my 
 ambition. this blessed hour !' 
 
 Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III. Sc. 3. 
 
 OU may be sure, that when Sir 
 Charles Chatterton had returned to 
 Somerford Hall, and had been ac- 
 costed by the Hon. Frederick Arling- 
 ton, with ' Well, old fellow, what 
 luck ?' and had replied thereto ' I'll 
 trouble you for those two ponies ! ' and had pro- 
 duced, as a silent witness to the winning of his wager, 
 that tress of hair which Miss Fanny Smith had
 
 166 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 snipped off for him — you may be sure that Mr. 
 Arlington's surprise came forth as readily as his 
 money. Nor was it lessened when Sir Charles nar- 
 rated the several particulars of the interview, which 
 to save the trouble of twice going over the same 
 ground, he did in the presence of Lady Linton. 
 
 The first surprise over, his aunt warmly con- 
 gratulated him, pronouncing Miss Fanny Smith to 
 be a treasure that any man might be proud to 
 win — which Sir Charles of course accepted as a 
 compliment to his good taste, no less than as a 
 gratifying proof that this good taste was also shared 
 in by his aunt. 
 
 'I am rejoiced, my dear Charles,' said she, ' that 
 you have made so prudent a choice : not that I 
 had any fear you would make an imprudent one, 
 for I knew that you were too sound, both in head 
 and heart, to commit yourself to any irretrievably 
 foolish action.' 
 
 Sir Charles lifts his eyebrows, smooths his 
 moustache, and makes his aunt a polite bow. 
 
 'But still,' she continued, 'it is somewhat of a 
 relief, as well as a great gratification, to be assured 
 of what one has so greatly desired, and to know 
 that you are really going to settle down to the 
 duties, as well as to the pleasures of your station,
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 167 
 
 instead of leading the wandering 1 , aimless, life that 
 you know, you naughty boy, you have been leading 
 for so long, notwithstanding all my scoldings and 
 those three Miss Fixers to whom I introduced you.' 
 
 ' I would as soon have married Congreve's witch,' 
 said Sir Charles ; ' and lived upon selling contrary 
 winds, and wrecked vessels. I preferred the scold- 
 ings to the young ladies.' 
 
 ' But rejected both,' said his aunt. ' However, 
 your present conduct atones for all your past mis- 
 deeds. She won my heart from the first ; and, 
 motherless as she was, I have endeavoured to make 
 up for her loss in every way that lay in my power. 
 Thus, I have seen much of her, and I know her in- 
 timately : a brighter, purer, and nobler specimen of 
 an English maiden there could not be. You have 
 done well, my dear Charles, in choosing her for 
 your wife. And, as to this house being (for a time) 
 her home, why, I had already proposed that to her, 
 thinking my German governess would not be able to 
 return ; and, to tell you the truth, I had constructed, 
 in my own simple mind, a very pretty little plot, in 
 which you and she were to be the chief actors, and 
 in which you were to be introduced to her in this 
 house, and forthwith to fall in love with her.' 
 
 ' As an acted charade, or a drama of real life ?'
 
 1G8 NEARER AND DEARER 
 
 1 Oh, the latter, of course. She had told me her 
 girlish history and all those doings of her young 
 days, concealing, however, that little episode that 
 terminated in the present of the cornelian heart ; 
 and my plot was, to introduce you suddenly to her 
 without any previous warning or preparation, and 
 turn you into her lover by a brilliant coup de theatre.' 
 
 'And, did she know of this pleasant little ar- 
 rangement ?' 
 
 ' Of course not, you goose ! She was not born to 
 be an actress of society ; she is the unspoilt child of 
 nature. And, why should I have interfered with 
 my plot, by telling her of your arrival ? No ! I pre- 
 ferred my own way of bringing about the wished- 
 for denouement. But it seems that you have fore- 
 stalled me ; and have preferred to fall in love with 
 Mrs. Clapperclaw's governess in place of mine. 
 Well, perhaps it is best that it is so. If my little 
 plot had brought you together, with a " Now, young 
 people, you are expected to fall in love with each 
 other without more ado," very likely you would have 
 hated each other from that moment.' 
 
 ' Not at all improbable.' 
 
 " So, perhaps it is for the best : all's well that 
 ends well. And, of course, here is Fanny's home, 
 until you can take her to your own.'
 
 One afternoon, Sir I i In tlie buckram-and-backboard 
 
 reception-rcoiii of Minerva House with Fanny by his 6ide.'— Page 169.
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 1G0 
 
 Captain Smith dined with them that evening-, 
 and Sir Charles begged him to endeavour to prevail 
 upon his sister to remove from Minerva House on 
 the morrow. This, however, Miss Fanny declined 
 to do. It was but a fortnight to the holidays, and 
 she was unwilling to shirk that short performance of 
 her duties, and to incommode Mrs. Clapperclaw by 
 a precipitous departure from the scene of her labours : 
 So, at Minerva House she determined to remain, 
 until the last pupil had departed from that establish- 
 ment to commence the Christmas holidays. 
 
 Sir Charles had enough to occupy him pleasantly 
 between those visits that he was suffered to pay at 
 the Great Moral Engine's academy ; for the snow 
 had disappeared, and hunting had succeeded to 
 billiards. Besides which, there was Captain — or 
 rather Harry — Smith, to see after ; and a flying 
 journey with him to Chatterton Manor (to talk to 
 the steward about the alterations), and to London, 
 to purchase a present or two for Miss Fanny. So 
 that the fortnight slipped away rapidly, and the 
 hours chased each other with flying feet : and, one 
 afternoon, Sir Charles found himself in the buckram- 
 and-backboard reception-room of Minerva House, 
 with Fanny by his side ; and they were standing 
 (in one of those picturesque positions in which lovers
 
 170 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 like to stand), between the bilious draperies of one 
 of the windows, and were gazing through the stiff 
 wire-blind at the departure of the last pupil — that 
 bi-tailed phenomenon for whom Fido had conceived 
 such an ardent, but hopeless attachment. 
 
 The fat youth had looked his last upon her, and 
 had shut-to the carriage-door with a snap that 
 seemed to say, ' Thus I dash thy bright vision from 
 my heart !' and was returning up the walk with 
 Dolly. 
 
 ' I intend to do something for that highly-inter- 
 esting couple,' said Sir Charles to Fanny, 'if they 
 will let me be their friend. My aunt's carriage 
 will be here shortly, to take you up to the Hall, 
 where, dearest, you must stay, until that happy day 
 shall have come, when I, Charles, take thee, Fanny, 
 to be my wedded wife, to love and to cherish till 
 death us do part.' 
 
 Was it that the ears of Fido and Dolly were so 
 excessively acute, that as they were passing the door 
 they naturally caught these last words? or could 
 they have momentarily played the parts of eaves- 
 droppers V However, they heard those last words, 
 and they were greatly moved by them. 
 
 'To love and to cherish,' murmured Fido, in a 
 fat abstraction, when they had reached the servants'
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 171 
 
 hall, 'to love and to cherish, till death us two 
 part.' 
 
 ' And thereto I plight thee my broth /' cried the 
 mis-quoting Dolly. ' Oh, Fido ! them's beautiful 
 words. They fairly males one's mouth water.' 
 
 ' Well, they ain't bad !' said Fido, with the air of 
 a connoisseur ; ' but my fav'rite bit's where the 
 female bride says she'll honour and obey the gent as 
 is to be her husband. That's a flavoury bit, that is ! 
 it's a numble testimony to the rights of we lords of 
 the creation. Dolly, I stand before you as one 
 of them lords of the creation, and as soon as 
 we've saved enough to go into the green-grocery 
 line, then I'll convert you into Mrs. Fido, and you 
 shall honour and obey me instead of that crummy 
 baker.' 
 
 « That I will, Fido,' cried the delighted little Dolly ; 
 ' and won't he go and "ive out the wrong loaves for 
 grief, when I excommunicate the news to him !' and 
 she laughed one of her merry laughs. 'And now, 
 Fido,' she said, ' you must keep to your promise. 
 You musn't go a-falling head and ears in love with 
 any more of the parlour- boarders ; more especially 
 with the little 'uns as can't help themselves.' 
 
 'Them weakness's is pastP replied Fido: 'I'll
 
 172 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 stick to my promise. Harabcllar was the last 
 of my brilliant series of conquests among the juvenile 
 hairy stocracy. They was pleasant while they lasted ; 
 but, the spasms and other emotions of affection as 
 they produced, was uncommon destructive to a 
 genteel figure, and a tight livery. Now, I shall 
 turn a deaf ear to all the himportunities of love.' 
 
 'Not of mine, surely ?' 
 
 ' Oh no, Dolly ; not of your'n : but such as re- 
 lates to the parlour-boarders : I'll be a deaf adder 
 to all them little charmers, and eat my wittles in 
 peace. Dolly, I'm a page as has turned over a new 
 leaf. Love, honour, and obey me !' And this fat 
 knight of the kitchen gazed upon his fellow-servant, 
 much in the same way that that 'good portly man, 
 i'faith, and a corpulent,' looked dotingly upon 
 Mistress Ford. 
 
 ' Oh ! them are beautiful words, Fido,' said the 
 sympathetic Dolly. ' I often reads 'em over on a 
 Sunday afternoon, during the sermon — though I 
 don't go there quite as often as a Roman Catalogue 
 — but I've got 'em all by heart against I want 'em, 
 when the parson's asked three times, if there's any 
 just claws and impenitent why Ferdinand Fido, 
 bachelor, and Dorothea Dot, spinster, shouldn't be
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 173 
 
 ignited together in holy matrimony. Oh, Fido ! 1 
 wonder when that time will come?' 
 
 .' Very soon, Dolly, if you wish.' 
 
 They turned round, and saw Sir Charles Chat- 
 terton and Fanny Smith standing arm-in-arm in 
 the door-way : Sir Charles was the speaker, and he 
 addressed himself to Dolly. ' You have shown 
 many kindnesses,' he said, ' to this young lady, 
 who is going to he my wife, at times when they 
 have been most deeply felt. She wishes, in return, 
 to do a kindness to you ; and, you must oblige us 
 both by accepting a present, which I shall settle 
 on you as a small annuity ; and then, if you like, 
 you will be able to leave service, take Fido with 
 you, and — follow my example.' 
 
 Poor Dolly was almost overcome. ' Oh, sir !' she 
 cried, ' I said you was a prince in disguise, and now 
 I'm sure of it. And it's my best duty as I wishes 
 to you and your good lady, sir, and may you have a 
 many of 'em.' Whether she referred to wishes, or 
 wives, or children, seemed uncertain ; but there was 
 no question about her sincerity, and Sir Charles and 
 Fanny bade her good-bye, and left her dissolved in 
 hysterical tears of joy. 
 
 ' Oh, Fido !' she cried, when she had somewhat
 
 17-1 BEABBB AND DEARER. 
 
 recovered herself, ' Oh, Fido ! I'm a-going to leave 
 service ! Fido, I've got an obscurity settled upon 
 me ; Fido, I shall open a green-grocery ; Fido, I 
 intend to enter upon the state of fetlock, and lead 
 you to the menial halter.' 
 
 ' Lead on, Dorothea !* ?aid the fat youth ; ' I'm 
 resigned to my fate. Your wictim will go as heasy 
 as a lamb.'
 
 NEABEE AND DEAREE. 
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION-. 
 
 ' A slavery beyond enduring 
 But that, 'tis of our own procuring ; 
 -As spiders never seek the fly, 
 But leave him of himself t'apply ; 
 So men are by themselves betray'd 
 To quit the freedom they enjoy'd, 
 And run their necks into a noose, 
 They'd break 'em after to get loose.' 
 
 Hudibras. 
 
 NE may easily 
 imagine how plea- 
 santly the Christ- 
 mas holidays were 
 passed at Somerford Hall. 
 Sir Charles Chatterton 
 seemed to have entered 
 upon a new existence, 
 lie had regained all his 
 wonted energy, and was 
 no longer the listless blaze man who appeared to 
 think that exertion was a weariness, and that every- 
 thing in life was equally wholly unsatisfactory and
 
 176 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 unamusing. At last, he had found ' that herb 
 called heartsease.' He had extricated himself from 
 the Slough of Despond, and had looked his last 
 upon Doubting Castle. He was no longer tossed 
 about by trifles, and driven rudderless upon the 
 sea of life ; for Love had now seized upon the 
 helm, and had steered him into the sweet waters of 
 a rifdit course. 
 
 And Fanny, she who had been the means of 
 bringing about this healthy change — she, too, seemed 
 to have entered upon a new life. The removal 
 from Minerva House to Somerford Hall was a 
 change indeed. The refined elegance and cheerful 
 comfort of the latter was a refreshing contrast to 
 the gaunt and grim stiffness of the former ; and the 
 cessation from the wearying monotony of school 
 duties produced the best effect both upon her 
 health and spirits. She had ever borne her troubles 
 with a light and patient heart ; but, now that they 
 were taken from her, and exchanged for such hap- 
 piness as she had never yet known — now that her 
 path through life was strewn with roses instead of 
 the ' briars of this working-day world,' she realised 
 to their full, 
 
 ' The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy '
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 177 
 
 that proceeds from pure pleasure. Lady Linton's 
 affection for her was as that of a mother or an elder 
 sister, and her tender regard brought inconceivable 
 comfort to the poor orphan. 
 
 Never had life seemed so sweet to Fanny, never 
 so delicious to Sir Charles. If sympathy is the soul 
 of love — and that woman of large sympathies, the 
 Great Moral Engine, would have told them that it 
 was — then, surely, the very essence of affection was 
 theirs. He had been enriched with 
 
 ' the greatest gift — 
 A woman's heart, the heart of her he loved ;' 
 
 and she, 
 
 ' She did not love him for his birth, 
 
 Nor for his lands so broad and fair ; 
 She loved him for his own true worth ;' 
 
 and thus, with their mutual love increasing from day 
 to day, and growing up to perfect harmony, with 
 their passion rising 
 
 4 through circumstantial grades, 
 Beyond all grades developed,' 
 
 they passed those six months which Miss Fanny had 
 insisted should elapse between the period of their 
 engagement and that of their marriage. 
 
 N
 
 178 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 Very rapid indeed was the flight of time during 
 that charmed interval ; and so Sir Charles dis- 
 covered, notwithstanding his repeated complaints 
 that it was an age until next June, and that there 
 was no necessity for so cruelly protracting the happy 
 day. For there was a great deal to be seen to, and 
 done, prior to that important occasion ; and, as it 
 was at any time a novelty for Sir Charles to be 
 immersed in business engagements, the novelty, in 
 the present instance, became a very pleasing one, 
 when it was created by one happiness, and was 
 productive of so many others, giving birth to a 
 perfect brood of little joys, amid which Sir Charles 
 strutted and chuckled with proud parental import- 
 ance. To run down from Somerford Hall to 
 Chatterton Manor to meet the London upholsterer, 
 and to review the troops of workmen, and then to 
 return to Fanny with a full account of all that was 
 going on, was, to Sir Charles, a journey far more 
 pleasing than had ever been his trips to Paris or his 
 runs up the Rhine. 
 
 Occasionally (chaperoned by Lady Linton) they 
 both paid a visit to their future home, in order that 
 Miss Fanny might give more particular directions, 
 and exercise her taste in the selection of paint and
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 179 
 
 paper, cornices and chintzes, hot-houses and hang- 
 ings, furniture and flower-beds. At these times, 
 the now happy orphan would steal away to the 
 quiet churchyard, where, beneath the shade of a 
 venerable yew, her father and mother slept their 
 last sleep ; and there, carefully tending the flowers 
 that had been planted around their graves, she 
 would hold a sweet communion with her thoughts, 
 saddened only by the regret that her parents had 
 not lived to see her present happiness. 
 
 It was on her return to Somerford, after one of 
 these pious visits, that Sir Charles said to her, ' I 
 have some new designs to submit to your judgment.' 
 And he laid before her a roll of plans and drawings. 
 They were prepared by one of the most celebrated 
 ecclesiastical architects of the day, and were designs 
 for the complete restoration of Chatterton Church, 
 — a work which Fanny's father had ever had at 
 heart, but had not lived even to commence. One 
 of the drawings, which represented the beautiful in- 
 terior of the chancel of the restored church, showed, 
 underneath a stained glass window on the north 
 side, a brass plate let into the stone work of the 
 wall ; and on the plate was the following inscription 
 in illuminated characters : — 
 
 N 2
 
 180 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 ••B To THE GLORY OF GoD, AND IN 
 
 pious memory of her father, 
 the Rev. Henry Smith, m.a. 
 sometime Hector of this 
 Parish, this Church was en- 
 tirely RESTORED BY HIS ONLY 
 DAUGHTER FRANCES, THE WlFE 
 
 of Sir C. Ciiatterton, Bart. 
 Lord of this Manor. ►& 
 
 The date subjoined to this inscription, was a year 
 after that of their approaching marriage. 
 
 ' If you approve of this work, it shall be com- 
 menced at once,' said Sir Charles. 
 
 ' It would be the monument he would love the 
 most,' she murmured, as she threw herself into the 
 arms of her betrothed, and there wept tears of holy 
 joy. 
 
 The six months had passed. How could Time 
 fly so quickly when he was laden with so much 
 happiness ? 
 
 At length, on one bright cloudless morning in 
 June, there is a marriage in Somerford Church ; and 
 the fifty-six young ladies of Minerva House, who are 
 posted in an eligible situation in the gallery, behold
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 181 
 
 their revered friend and instructress, clad in un- 
 wonted gorgeousness of attire, and preternaturally 
 stiff in a new plum-coloured satin, standing up very 
 stately and important, behind a beautiful bouquet 
 of bridesmaids, with Lady Linton on her right hand, 
 and another live Lady of title on her left. Suddenly, 
 — just at that part of the service, where the clergy- 
 man, says, ' I therefore pronounce that they be man 
 and wife together,' — the young ladies observe Mrs. 
 Clapperclaw cover up her kippered-salmon features 
 with a grand lace handkerchief ; and it would seem, 
 from the tremulousness of her bonnet and the 
 agitation of her portly bosom, that the worthy lady 
 was overcome by her sympathies, and was weeping 
 from excess of happiness ; whereupon the majority 
 of the Minervaites follow their Great Moral En- 
 gine's example, and a terrible flood of tears is 
 pumped forth. 
 
 But it does not extinguish Hymen's torch ; and 
 the handsome bride and bridegroom pass down the 
 aisle, the cynosure of neighbouring eyes, and rattle 
 off under garlands and triumphal arches, pursued by 
 cheers and train of carriages, to Somerford Hall ; 
 where, among the servants gathered to receive them 
 at the door, are Mr. and Mrs. Fido (iice Dorothea
 
 182 
 
 NEARER AND DEARER. 
 
 Dot), who have postponed their retirement into 
 private life and green- grocery, in order that they 
 may show their attachment to Sir Charles and 
 Lady Chatterton. 
 
 • SeTe'ndC ^^
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED BY 'WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMrOED STEEET 
 AND CHARING CROSS.

 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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