tyliclwT 
 
 adleir 
 
 VI B RAHY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
*« 
 
 
 K\ u 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER, 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 BY 
 
 JEAN INGELOW. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1880. 
 
 {All rights reserved.) 
 
LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY "WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
1280 
 
 SARAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 " Then where is that woman now, Mrs. 
 Snep ? " asked the curate. 
 
 "Well, sir, half-way to the town by this 
 time, I should judge." 
 
 Mrs. Snep had a very large wash-tub 
 before her, and was using it with energy 
 in the very small kitchen of a white-washed 
 cottage. Such a pretty little one-storied 
 abode, so rural, so smothered in greenery. 
 Too much so, indeed, for it stood with its 
 " back to a great hop-garden, and the long 
 lines of hop-poles terminating against its 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
A SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 wall rose as high, as the thatch of the 
 roof, so that all the view obtained out of the 
 kitchen casement was down one long over- 
 arched lane of hop-bines, under which the 
 softened light appeared to be endowed with 
 both colour and quietness, it was so strangely- 
 green and still. 
 
 The curate glanced rather helplessly into 
 that shadowy lane. He wished he was a 
 good way down it. 
 
 There was something trenchant, capable, 
 and rather defiant about the words and 
 fashions of the cottager's wife. The curate 
 was afraid of her. 
 
 Young curates often are afraid, and blush 
 under the eyes of such women. We do not 
 half enough consider their difficulties and 
 their fears, especially that fear of making 
 themselves ridiculous, which, perhaps, under 
 the circumstances, this particular young 
 curate felt just then with all the reason 
 in the world. 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 3 
 
 However, he made up his mind to do 
 his duty. To that end he said, " Considering 
 how weak she was when I saw her yester- 
 day, poor thing, and how very young her 
 infant is" (" Eleven days old come nine 
 o'clock this evening," Mrs. Snep put in as 
 a parenthesis), "I think her getting as far 
 as the town to-day," he went on, " must 
 be quite impossible." 
 
 Mrs. Snep, as he spoke, moved towards 
 the fire. "You'll excuse me, sir " — meaning, 
 " You'll please to get up." 
 
 " Oh, certainly," he exclaimed, rising, for 
 the place was so small that unless he made 
 way she could not pass ; and she took a 
 large iron pot of boiling water from the 
 fire and emptied it over her cooling suds, 
 before she addressed herself to the task of 
 making him any direct answer. 
 
 Then, having set the iron pot on her 
 stone threshold, as if on purpose that in 
 his exit he might knock it over, she en- 
 
4 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 sconced herself behind the mounting clouds 
 of steam, and while energetically rubbing 
 and wringing, said with an air of calm 
 superiority — 
 
 " It ain't to be expected, sir, as you 
 should know much about these here things. 
 Not at present. But if you was to ask 
 your ma, she would tell you that poor folks 
 can noways afford to cocker themselves 
 up as lying-in ladies do. When my oldest 
 was eleven days old I took him on one 
 arm and his father's basket of dinner on 
 t'other, and off to the field with 'em, 
 thinking it no hardship neither. But your 
 knowing the ways of poor folk, let alone 
 the ways of tramps such as she, is not, as 
 I said, at all to be expected." 
 
 The curate felt annihilated. She had 
 got the better of him not so much by 
 pointing out his inexperience, as by the use 
 of those words " your ma." 
 
 He was young enough to feel keenly 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 ashamed of his youth. She made him feel 
 ignominiously young just then. He actually 
 envied her superior age ; and the fulness 
 of her knowledge raised in his mind some- 
 thing like a wholesome fear. 
 
 She had, however, intended to express 
 civility. That a man so young should have 
 been placed over her head as a spiritual 
 guide, when he knew no more about sick- 
 ness than he did about washing, or, indeed, 
 about many of the other most important 
 and familiar experiences of her life, was a 
 thing at once ridiculous and aggravating ; 
 but not the less would she acknowledge 
 that he was a gentleman. Common men 
 had mothers, and were thankful for them, 
 but the delicate-handed woman who had 
 brought him up was worthy of a finer 
 name, so she gave it (as she thought), and 
 politely called her " your ma." 
 
 " She's a tramp, sir," proceeded Mrs. 
 Snep ; " and in my opinion no better than 
 
6 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 she should be, though some folks (kind- 
 hearted, if I say it) took pity on her in her 
 trouble, and brought her in." 
 
 "And were paid for it, I suppose," ob- 
 served the curate ; for the trodden worm 
 will turn ; and she had made him smart, 
 and knew it. 
 
 " Yes, sir," she answered, with a solemnity 
 most impressive. " I should hope I know 
 better than to throw money into the dirt, 
 away from my own poor husband and 
 children. She paid me, but little enough 
 it were ; and glad I were to see the back 
 of her when she went away of her own 
 free will — of her own free will — at ten 
 o'clock this blessed morning." 
 
 " Did you show her the path to the road, 
 the road to G ?" inquired the young- 
 man. 
 
 Mrs. Snep gave an energetic wrench to 
 a much-twisted swathe of linen, then shook 
 a snowy drift of foam from her hand with a 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 7 
 
 contemptuous action, as if she was thinking 
 of her late lodger, and made answer — 
 
 " No, we'd had words, and I took not to 
 say any particular notice on her when she 
 walked herself off. But she did say, ' Mrs. 
 Snep, you've been a good friend to me, and 
 I ask your pardon if I've offended you, for,' 
 she says, ' I didn't ought to have said it. 
 I've counted over my things now, and I'll 
 allow you're as honest as the day.' " 
 
 " As honest as the day," she presently 
 repeated, for she saw that this speech, 
 which was entirely of her own invention, 
 had impressed the curate very much. 
 
 But not as she had intended. " I always 
 thought you were robbing that poor thing," 
 was his mental comment on it, " and now 
 I am sure." 
 
 " Well, good morning, Mrs. Snep," he 
 exclaimed, forming a sudden resolution. 
 Between his zeal and his discomfiture, he 
 failed to notice the iron pot, which, 
 
8 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 dashing through the door, he overturned 
 upon a fresh clump of white pinks, blacking 
 them and his own legs, and being obliged to 
 submit to the loan of a duster to wipe them. 
 "I always have to leave that woman 
 with an apology," he exclaimed, as he began 
 to stride along the path towards the town. 
 
 He did not find the woman — naturally he 
 did not — though he walked all the way to 
 the town, for he had been right in his 
 belief, and Mrs. Snep wilfully wrong. The 
 woman could only walk a very little way. 
 It was a sultry morning. She was very 
 weak ; a little child not two years old 
 dragged upon her gown ; she had her infant 
 on her arm, and from it depended a bundle. 
 She had been excited and angry, so that 
 she trembled, and her little strength soon 
 giving way, she turned off the dusty road to 
 court the shade of the hop-garden, skirting 
 it till she reached the end, and intending to 
 enter the road again. 
 
SARAH DE BEKENGER. 9 
 
 And so it came about that when the 
 curate passed, this woman was still in the 
 hop-garden, within fifty yards of him. 
 Instead of turning to the left and regaining 
 the road, she had taken the path to the 
 right, and after wistfully gazing up some of 
 the narrow bowers of fragrant bines, had 
 crept into the shelter of one of them, all 
 cool and shaded and still ; there, propped 
 up by the hop-poles, she wept, at first with 
 a sick heart, but presently she found 
 admittance to the enchanted valley of 
 slumber; and if, instead of that, it had 
 been the lost Eden, secret since our first 
 mother's fault, she could hardly have 
 shown a face of more supreme content. 
 
 " Oil, how common, but oh, how sweet is sleep ! " 
 
 She was tall, dark-haired, and thin. One 
 hand, which was rather pale than white, 
 touched with protective care the head of 
 her little two-year's-old girl, who, curled 
 up on the skirts of her gown, slept more 
 
10 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 soundly than herself ; the other was spread 
 over her young infant, whose meaningless 
 blue eyes stared up from its mother's lap 
 into the space of sky overhead. 
 
 Her possessions were but the clothes she 
 wore — a cotton gown, a flimsy shawl, her 
 small bundle, a little paper parcel of bacon 
 and bread, an almost empty purse, these 
 two infants over whom her heart yearned 
 with unutterable love and despair, and 
 nothing else at all except the wedding-ring — 
 that was conspicuous enough on her honest, 
 labour-hardened hand, and was the symbol 
 of as bad a bargain as ever was made. 
 
 She had not lost a good husband by 
 death, but had to mourn a bad one yet 
 in life — a mean and cruel fellow, who from 
 the moment she married him had let her 
 see his contempt for the foolish passion 
 that, spite of warnings, had dared to waste 
 itself on him. She was free of him now 
 for awhile, free from this object of her once 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 11 
 
 impassioned love, and now of her fear and 
 shame. He had been arrested for a robbery 
 with violence, convicted, and sentenced to 
 penal servitude for fourteen years. She 
 had been very foolish, but to know that 
 was no element of consolation. 
 
 Her story in brief was this. She had 
 in her early days been employed by a 
 young invalid lady as reader, and when 
 old enough had entered her service. The 
 lady had taken some pains to improve her; 
 the books, also, that she read had enriched 
 her mind; insensibly she had become dif- 
 ferent, softened. She had a natural love 
 of beauty and harmony ; her light tasks 
 and delicate surroundings fostered it. 
 
 The rough children she had played with, 
 and her vulgar relatives, became daily 
 more unlike her ; their ways, not them- 
 selves, became distasteful to her. She 
 envied not so much the rich as the refined. 
 
 Oh, to be a lady ! 
 
12 
 
 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 Her old mother in the tripe shop was 
 still dear to her, though she shrank from 
 her petty dishonesties and sordid aims — 
 still more from the boast she made of 
 these things in the bosom of her family. 
 She hated the meanness, the meagreness, 
 the smallness of life in the lanes, and the 
 " smoots " and the "wynds." She had 
 an ardent, yearning nature, always looking 
 out for something more, something higher ; 
 she wanted expansion — bright, soft air, 
 decent living, truth and honesty, and also 
 clean and becoming clothes. 
 
 She did not care for the footman's jokes, 
 or even for the butler's gracious smile ; 
 courtship from those of her own class did 
 not move her; she had left her world 
 behind, and cared for nothing in it — with 
 one sad, one fatal exception. 
 
 Among her better surroundings this one 
 exception had fast hold of her still : a 
 lad with a beautiful face, very pathetic 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 13 
 
 and fair. He was extremely lame of one 
 foot, but contrived to do more mischief 
 than most can though they be swift runners. 
 He could sing, oh, so sweetly; and some- 
 times when he would pass, while in the 
 dark, with blinds drawn up and the street 
 lamps shining in, she sat watching her 
 sick lady, she could hear him — two or 
 three wild soft notes as he went by — and 
 hear the tap of his weighted shoe, and her 
 whole heart would cry after him. She longed 
 to be walking beside him, in the soft night 
 air, on that wet pavement, walking by him 
 and weeping, asking — could he care for her 
 if she gave him herself and all she had ? 
 praying him to be a better lad for her 
 sake. 
 
 But it was only her heart that went out 
 to him ; she never spoke. He did not love 
 her, nor know how she loved him. 
 
 She saw his possibilities, but of course 
 he was not on the way to attain, he never 
 
14 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 would attain, them; they had being only 
 in her thought. For this woman was a poet 
 in her degree, which means that she was 
 a partaker of nature's boundless hope. She 
 was made welcome to a hint of nature's 
 wishes. 
 
 She was not one of those poets who write 
 verses — very few are ; none but such as 
 are poets through and through should ever 
 do that. Verse is only words, the garment 
 that makes the spirit of poetry visible to 
 others ; and poets who have but little of 
 the spirit often fritter that little away 
 in the effort to have it seen. But she was 
 a poet in this, that the elemental passions 
 of our nature were strong in her, and she 
 bowed to them with childlike singleness 
 of soul. 
 
 Her love was so fresh, it might no more 
 be withstood than the moss can with- 
 stand the dew that drenches it, and makes 
 it sparkle in the morning. Her wonder 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 15 
 
 was more mi sated for ever, her hope was 
 more nearly possession than ours. If 
 sorrow came up, it was a dark amazement. 
 Would it not soon be over? There are 
 many days of sunshine for one thunder- 
 storm. 
 
 The youth, by name Uzziah Dill, was a 
 journeyman shoemaker ; might have done 
 well enough but for his love of drink and 
 bad companions, and for occasional fits of 
 idleness, during which he would sit and 
 brood. Sometimes she would pass him 
 then, and wonder at him — was he in pain ? 
 was he wishing to do better ? Once, as he 
 sat under a little bridge, hidden to the 
 waist in tall rushes, she went by, and their 
 eyes met; for she had not been able to for- 
 bear stopping to say a few civil words to 
 him. His beautiful face was clouded and 
 dissatisfied, but a gleam of surprise lighted 
 it up when he looked at hers. Her fate 
 was sealed. She passed on, her cheek hot 
 
16 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 with blushes ; but he came to see her. 
 She had saved forty pounds, and was then 
 three and twenty. She was easily per- 
 suaded that he meant to be a different man. 
 She married him, and in spite of his evil 
 ways, her love died hard, and almost broke 
 her heart. It was not till he had spent all 
 her money, and brought her and their little 
 child into the deepest poverty, that he 
 cured her of it. He had always neglected 
 her, — he now went off with another woman ; 
 and jealousy did in one day what coldness 
 and evil living of all other sorts could not 
 have worn out in years. 
 
 It was almost noon. The curate had not 
 found her ; none had come to help. She 
 slept on, and the least little movement in 
 the air lifted a corner of the old newspaper 
 in which was wrapped her food. It was 
 shaken loose and rustled, showing its name 
 — The Suffolk Chronicle, a provincial news- 
 paper. What was it doing there ? The 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 17 
 
 woman, sitting on the slope of a long hill, 
 had her back toward the Worcestershire 
 beacon, and was looking to the south, over 
 a lovely expanse of country. A small red- 
 roofed city, with its cathedral peaks, folded 
 into the hollow of a hill; a shining reach 
 of river, with a bridge over it; walnut woods, 
 hop-gardens, and remote points of rocky 
 blue cliffs ; and then another town, with 
 spires piercing through the haze-like smoke 
 in which it slept, and to which the sun had 
 given a golden show of glory, that made it 
 seem to hang low, roofing the place like 
 yellow thatch, or a suspended crown. 
 
 The Suffolk Chronicle had come a long 
 way — had been sent, in fact, to the vicar's 
 wife, who was a Suffolk woman; from her 
 the curate had begged some tea and sugar 
 for his poor protegee, and she had given 
 them wrapped in it. It was now doing 
 duty again as a wrapper, but though the air 
 had in part loosened it, there were creases 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
18 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 and folds so that fche news (if any had been 
 awake to read it) was only visible here and 
 there. A certain fishmonger, whose name 
 was hidden, advertised his ware. The 
 parishioners of St. Matthew's had presented 
 their vicar with — what did not appear. 
 
 After that came a notice — 
 
 " If this should meet the eye of Hannah 
 Dill -" 
 
 As these words were set free, a little 
 portion of the bread became visible also, 
 and a robin, emboldened by long silence, 
 sprang upon the paper and weighed it down. 
 He only stole one crumb and flew off, when 
 up floated the paper again. "If this should 
 meet the eye " — then a fuller waft of air 
 shook the crumpled lines, and if any one 
 had looked, it would have been at this — 
 u If this should meet the eye of Hannah 
 Dill . . . hear of something to her ad- 
 vantage. This is the fourth time of adver- 
 tising." 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 19 
 
 It did not meet the eye of any one. But 
 just then, with a sudden start and tremor, 
 the baby turned and cried, and the ex- 
 hausted mother woke, ravenous with hunger 
 and cramped with the long restraint of her 
 attitude. 
 
 It was high noon, and very hot. While 
 she suckled her infant, she began with 
 hollow eyes to open her parcel, and divide 
 its contents with her elder child, who, rosy 
 and smiling, now sat up, and held out 
 dimpled hands, expectant of a share. 
 
 The child had never felt the gnawings of 
 hunger ; the mother had been familiar with 
 them of late. She took as much for herself 
 as she dared, then folded up the small re- 
 mainder, and thrust it under some dock- 
 leaves out of sight, lest she should be 
 tempted to eat more, and leave nothing 
 for the supper that she knew not where to 
 procure. 
 
 She did not feel rested; a sense of her 
 
20 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 position seemed to fall upon her like a 
 blow. Where should she go ? what should 
 she do ? She had been on her way down 
 to Plymouth when her trouble had come 
 upon her. There had been some wild fancy 
 in her mind that she and the other poor 
 mothers and wives of convicts would atand 
 on the shore as they embarked, and take 
 leave of them and see them sail. 
 
 She was not so free, in truth, of this 
 wretched husband as she seemed ; she had 
 indulged strange notions as to her duty 
 towards him. He would think it hard if 
 she did not come, and bring him such 
 comforts as she could beg or buy for him. 
 Some despairing questions asked of such 
 women as knew of these matters had let 
 her know that the police would not suffer 
 this, that the Government would not hear 
 of that. Yet what he might be thinking 
 of her was frequently in her thoughts. He 
 had deserted her and not let her know of 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 21 
 
 his whereabouts for some time, but no 
 sooner had he got himself into serious 
 trouble, than he had contrived to have her 
 informed of it. It must have hurt him, 
 surely, never to have seen her anxious face 
 in the court during his trial. Did he think 
 she would not appear because she was 
 ashamed of him ? 
 
 A step coming on, and presently the 
 curate standing before her. 
 
 She had her baby at her breast, and as 
 she gently drew the flimsy shawl over its 
 little head, he lifted his hat and made her 
 a bow. It was not the sort of greeting a 
 very poor mother, a probable- tramp, might 
 have expected, but she understood it ; she 
 knew it as the instinctive reverence of his 
 young manhood for her occupation. There 
 was something in the gentlemanhood and 
 sympathy of this curate that was inex- 
 pressively comforting to her, but now the 
 contrast between him and her wretched 
 
22 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 husband forced itself on her with miserable 
 force, and the tears fell fast over her thin 
 hands. 
 
 She could not speak or at first think, but 
 shortly she recovered herself and dried her 
 eyes, and saw the curate seated on the grass 
 before the opening of the tent-like bower. 
 He was perfectly silent, not looking towards 
 her, and he showed no wish to speak. 
 
 Oh, what a sigh ! She herself could not 
 have sighed more deeply. Then, but not 
 without hesitation, he began to talk — to tell 
 her, with all gentleness, that since she had 
 so little in this world, he was the more fain 
 to see her endowed with a sacred hope ; and 
 shortly, to her great surprise, though he 
 spoke with such consideration — it might 
 almost be said with such respect — she 
 perceived that he took for granted she was 
 not a married woman. 
 
 She lifted up her head, startled. "Yes, 
 sir, I know we're all sinners," she ex- 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 23 
 
 claimed a little proudly; "we none of us 
 have anything to boast of." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "And as you said, sir, ' our sins do find 
 us out.' But, sir " 
 
 " Yes, my poor friend." 
 
 " I do thank my God for His Divine gift 
 of a Saviour (you put it beautiful). I've 
 often thought of it, since I sank so low. 
 But, sir" — spreading forth her left hand to 
 his view — "a true church parson like you 
 put on that ring. I have a husband, and 
 if I didn't fear God I should say, worse 
 luck." 
 
 "My poor friend, I earnestly beg your 
 pardon." 
 
 " For I can never get free. I was warned 
 — oh, I was warned. It's not a sin, sir, that 
 weighs me down; it's a mistake I made — 
 my great mistake." 
 
 "Indeed," he answered, in a tone of the 
 deepest sympathy. 
 
24 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 "Oh, my poor husband! My mistake! 
 I must bear it; there's nothing can rid me 
 of it — nothing." 
 
 " No," answered the curate ; and he 
 sighed again. " Divine Love came down 
 to take on itself our sins, but there is no 
 Saviour to do the like for our mistakes." 
 
 She looked up. It must have been a 
 sharp pang of pity that could have imparted 
 such a tone to his voice. It could not be 
 all pity, she thought. No, he too must 
 have made a mistake. 
 
 So seldom is true fellow-feeling found, 
 that when it is really present, it almost 
 always deceives. It had done so then. Her 
 first thought was never forgotten, and it 
 influenced her so long as that conversation 
 remained engraven in her mind. 
 
 Perhaps in her fine, though homely face, 
 he saw the sudden change of expression 
 which answered to this thought ; he may 
 have even perceived what it meant. But 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 25 
 
 what need to explain himself to this 
 stranger, this almost beggar ! He turned 
 away his face instead, and she noticed again 
 what she had seen before, that, young as he 
 was, he had one lock of perfectly white 
 hair among the brown. 
 
 He stood a moment silent, then he took 
 occasion to bring the conversation round 
 to a point from whence he could draw his 
 moral. Experts in teaching easily do this 
 sort of thing, and the poor commonly 
 expect it of them. 
 
 "If our sins were forgiven, our mistakes 
 need not break our hearts. Nature was 
 hard upon us, for their sake. She did not 
 forgive them, and she could not forget. 
 God did not interfere with her. But to us 
 He would give a heart that should be the 
 better for her discipline ; even they should 
 be among the ' all things ' that shall work 
 together for our good." 
 
26 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 " If this should meet the eye of Hannah 
 Dill, whose maiden name was Goodrich, 
 and who was born in the parish of St. 
 Peter, Ipswich, she is desired to apply (by 
 letter only) to H. G., Blank Court, High 
 Holborn (she knows the number), and she 
 will hear of something to her advantage. 
 This advertisement appears to-day for the 
 fourth time." 
 
 The curate gone ; the woman silent in 
 her bower, with wide-open eyes full of 
 amazement and fear. 
 
 The Suffolk Chronicle had done its work 
 at last. 
 
 She had sunk very low ; that, alas ! is 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 27 
 
 common enough. The uncommon thing is 
 the rising again. 
 
 "I fare to feel as if I must eat another 
 piece," the poor nursing mother had said, 
 for she was hungry again ; and she looked 
 wistfully at her parcel under the roofing 
 dock-leaves. 
 
 The curate had left her with the gift of 
 a shilling ; moreover, he had promised to 
 arrange with a carrier, who was to pass by 
 the hop-garden about three o'clock, to take 
 her and her babes as far as the town, in his 
 cart. For in that scattered hamlet, as he 
 explained, he knew of no one who could 
 lodge her. 
 
 What a slender hold she had on the care 
 and thought of the world ! None at all on 
 its heart. She heard what little kindness 
 it held for her only from the mouth of this 
 one man. The pledge of it with which his 
 hand had met hers was that one bit of 
 silver, and the sigh with which he had 
 murmured that he wished it was more. 
 
28 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 She could not thank him, for little as he 
 was to her, he was all ; and he was sending 
 her away. 
 
 She meant to go : what else conld she 
 do ? She conld not walk far ; she could not 
 stay all night in the hop-garden. She 
 possessed little more than the cost of two 
 nights' lodging. When should she he 
 strong enough to earn a maintenance for 
 herself and her infants ? 
 
 "I fare so hungry," she repeated. She 
 drew her parcel from under the leaves, and 
 there was her own name, staring her in 
 the face: "If this should meet the eye of 
 Hannah Dill " 
 
 She had heen so long unused to good 
 fortune, that at first she could see no 
 promise in this. Suspicions had been cast 
 upon her. The magistrates had said her 
 husband must have had accomplices. 
 Could this be a trap ? But why, if so, 
 should they advertise for her in Ipswich ? 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 29 
 
 No, this advertisement was put in by her 
 uncle the pawnbroker, the great man of the 
 family, known to be " well to do," said to be 
 rich. He had long cast off her mother, and 
 all his relations, because they plagued him 
 so for money. He had been fond of her in 
 her childhood, but when she married had 
 gone out of his way to let her know that he 
 meant to have no more to do with her. It 
 was only when she heard this that she 
 supposed he might have hitherto intended 
 some kindness to her. 
 
 She had not been to Ipswich for several 
 years. Her uncle did not know it ; and the 
 date of the newspaper was earlier than that 
 of her husband's trial. 
 
 This was no trap, this was real. She read 
 again and again — took courage ; but still 
 wary, still unused to joy, weighed it and 
 weighed it, between hope and fear, til] hope 
 suddenly got the upper hand, and she acted 
 upon it at once. She opened wide her parcel, 
 
30 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 and with a little help from her baby-girl, ate 
 up all that remained in it, then and there. 
 
 A daring venture ! but when she began 
 to waver again and doubt, the sight of that 
 empty paper was an evidence to her of how 
 sure she had felt when she made it. 
 
 It helped the joy of certainty to recur, 
 and she felt so much the better for this and 
 for the good meal, that when the carrier 
 saw her seated on the step of the stile, and 
 her little one playing by her with some 
 flowers, he could hardly believe she was the 
 poor creature whom he had been told to 
 look out for. 
 
 Oh ! the bliss of lying in a golden shade, 
 under the tawny tilt of that waggon, as it 
 slowly moved along ; of hearing the carrier's 
 whistle while he trudged beside it ; of con- 
 ning the leaf of the newspaper, with oft- 
 repeated scrutiny ; then looking out over 
 the long blue hills, while they melted softly 
 into air, and feeling as if all the world, 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 31 
 
 with herself, was conscious of some great 
 reprieve. 
 
 Soon they halted at a little wayside inn, 
 half smothered in walnut trees, and while 
 the carrier's horse leaned over a long water- 
 trough, she bought some milk, and the 
 hostess came out to look at her baby, and 
 compare its age and weight with her own. 
 "It thrives," she observed. 
 
 " Yes, thank God," answered the Ipswich 
 mother, "that do." 
 
 "And so you're going on to the town?" 
 
 "And further! I am going to a relation 
 that have written for me from London." 
 
 "My way lies toward London," observed 
 the old carrier, when they had started again. 
 
 Hannah Dill found that she should be 
 twelve miles nearer to London if she went 
 with the carrier to his destination, than if 
 she stopped at the town. She agreed to pay 
 the small sum he asked, in addition to what 
 her kind friend the curate had already given 
 
32 SAEAH DE BERENGEK. 
 
 him, and, after stopping at a little hostelry 
 outside the town to have her tea, set off 
 again in the cool of the evening, and went 
 on with the old man and a market woman. 
 
 Up and down the long hills they moved 
 till the crescent moon rose, and then till it 
 grew dark and the great horn-lantern was 
 lighted, and the old man carried it, some- 
 times flashing its light on his horse, some- 
 times on the green hedges, and into fields, 
 whose crops they could guess only by the 
 smell of clover, or fresh- cut hay, or beans 
 that loaded the warm night-air; anon, on 
 whitewashed cottages, whose inhabitants 
 had long been asleep, and again upon the 
 faces of great cliff-like rocks, where cuttings 
 had been made for the road into the steep 
 hills, and where strange curly ammonites 
 and peaked shells and ancient bones high 
 up showed themselves for an instant in the 
 moving disk of light that rose and sank as 
 the lantern swayed in the carrier's hand. 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 33 
 
 Strange sights these ; and curious now 
 and then to see it flash on the bronzed face 
 of some wayfaring man, passing from the 
 dark into the dark, with the customary 
 " Good night." 
 
 It was eleven o'clock when they reached 
 the hostelry, and Mrs. Dill got down with 
 her two sleeping infants. She felt that this 
 had been a strangely long day, but that she 
 was refreshed by food and hope and rest. 
 
 In the mean time the old man who had 
 advertised for her had long given her up. 
 He had soon taken to a sick bed, and for 
 awhile had asked if Hannah had written — if 
 Hannah was come. Then he ceased to ask, 
 but sometimes bemoaned her absence ; and 
 then he forgot her, and all the concerns of 
 this life, and asked no more. 
 
 The morning after her arrival at the 
 hostelry, Mrs. Dill wrote to her uncle, and 
 as soon as possible afterwards received the 
 money needful for her journey. The letter 
 
 VOL. I. I) 
 
34 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 was not in her uncle's handwriting, and said 
 nothing about him. It was curt, and, with- 
 out any kind words, desired her to be as 
 quick as she could. 
 
 Between twenty and thirty years ago 
 there were not so many railways in the west 
 of England that one could count on getting 
 to London in one day. Mrs. Dill was thirty 
 miles from the nearest railway station. She 
 reached it by the aid of another carrier's 
 cart, and stood at her uncle's door about five 
 o'clock the following afternoon. 
 
 She had never been in London before. 
 The glaring white pavements and close heat 
 oppressed her, while the swarms of people 
 and of vehicles, the noise and hurry, made 
 her tremble with a sense of danger for 
 herself and her children. But she had not 
 a shilling left, find her uncle she must ; 
 and she still asked her way and pressed on, 
 till at last she reached a shabby house in 
 a dusky court, and, overcome with fatigue 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 35 
 
 and excitement, rang the bell. A woman, 
 dressed in new mourning, presently came to 
 the door, and seeing her shabby, woe-begone 
 appearance, and her two children, took her 
 for a beggar, and made this remarkable 
 announcement, " No, we never give any- 
 thing away in charity," and was proceeding 
 to shut the door in her face, when she 
 exclaimed, " Wait a minute ; I am come to 
 see Mr. Goodrich. I'm his niece ; you'll 
 show me in, if you please." 
 
 "Bless my heart!" exclaimed the woman, 
 with an irrepressible smile, " if here ain't 
 another on 'em;" and then she became 
 suddenly grave again, and answered coldly, 
 " You're too late, young woman. You may 
 come in, if you choose, and see all the others, 
 but you will not see Mr. Goodrich ; he was 
 buried yesterday." 
 
 A sharp sense of misery and disaster, a 
 sudden cry to the woman, " Oh, my babe ! 
 don't let that fall," then an eddy of black- 
 
36 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 ness swirling over all things, and Hannah 
 Dill fainted away. 
 
 After that, her first sensation was that 
 her little girl was crying, and next that 
 several other voices made a din about her — 
 voices that long ago she seemed to have 
 known, voices that made her think of 
 Ipswich. In the midst of it all, and while 
 still she could not move or open her eyes, 
 a commanding voice quelled the others. 
 " Either be silent and stand back, or at once 
 leave the room." 
 
 With a sharp sigh she presently got her 
 eyes open, and saw dimly several people, 
 but before them stood a gentleman, who 
 spoke at once. " You are better. No need 
 to raise your head. Your name ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Dill." 
 
 The assembly received this announce- 
 ment with an audible groan. 
 
 " There was an advertisement," she pro- 
 ceeded faintly, " in the Suffolk Chronicle; " 
 and she tried to fumble for the paper. 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 37 
 
 " Thank you. We know all about that. 
 There are several copies of the Suffolk 
 Chronicle here." 
 
 Something scornful in the voice helped 
 her to rouse herself ; and at the same time 
 a murmur of congratulation floated round 
 the room. Somebody ventured to congratu- 
 late Mr. Bartlett. " You're not the gentle- 
 man, sir, to be so easy taken in. Hannah 
 Dill, indeed! Is it likely ? " 
 
 " Not at all likely," answered the com- 
 manding voice ; " but let her alone for the 
 present." 
 
 " Where's my babe? where's my child ? " 
 she exclaimed, trying again to raise herself, 
 and failing. 
 
 " Close at hand," answered the same 
 voice, and a glass of wine was held to her 
 lips ; after drinking which she sat up, and 
 observed that she was in a small wain- 
 scoted parlour, accommodated on a horsehair 
 sofa. Several people were in the room; 
 
38 SAKAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 for the moment they seemed to float before 
 her; but presently she gathered strength, 
 and then, as they settled down into their 
 places, her attention was attracted almost 
 at once by a little stout old woman, with 
 eyes like black beads, a long nose, and a 
 curled " front" of brown hair. She was 
 dressed in neat mourning, and no sooner 
 met the full gaze of the tall, gaunt young 
 woman, than she slipped into the back- 
 ground ; whereupon the gentleman whom 
 they had called Mr. Bartlett looked sur- 
 prised, and requested her to come forward, 
 which she did, looking both irate and 
 abashed. 
 
 Still Mrs. DiU looked at her. " You'll 
 excuse me, ma'am. It's many years since 
 I saw my aunt Maria — Mrs. Storer; and 
 folks alter strangely. I don't wonder, either, 
 that any one should forget me, not expecting 
 to see me dressed so as I am. You are the 
 very moral of what my dear mother was 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGER. 39 
 
 before she died. Why, dear me, ma'am, 
 you are my aunt Maria ! I'm your sister 
 Susan's daughter, aunt. I'm Hannah 
 Goodrich." 
 
 " Tcha ! " said the old lady, "it's no such 
 thing ; you're not a bit like her. What did 
 you expect you were going to do here, 
 deceiving of us ? " 
 
 " It don't much signify what I expected," 
 she answered, bursting into tears; but she 
 had looked round the room first, and was 
 quick to perceive at once how unwelcome 
 she was there. " It don't much signify 
 what I expected ; I shall not have it now. 
 He's gone that meant to be a good friend 
 to me ! You have no call to be so envious. 
 He's past doing me any kindness; and I 
 was more in need of it than you are." 
 
 Here followed a scene which the one 
 silent spectator looked on at with equal 
 surprise, interest, and attention ; a scene of 
 excitement, rage, and recrimination, during 
 
40 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 which all the old heart-burnings and de- 
 linquencies of the Goodrich family were 
 raked up, and argued over again. Two 
 aunts and two uncles were challenged by 
 Hannah Dill, in whose teeth it was forth- 
 with flung that her husband was a convict, 
 and that this was already known all over 
 Ipswich, and that if the dear departed had 
 only known it too, he never would have 
 suffered her to enter his door; and who, 
 in a passion of tears, replied by upbraidings 
 of their unkindness in suffering their own 
 sister, in spite of her humble entreaties for 
 help, to die in receipt of parish pay, and be 
 buried with a pauper's funeral ; and then, 
 after this short outbreak of indignation and 
 outraged feeling, partly at their refusal to 
 recognize her, and then, when they did, at 
 their cruel mention of her wretched hus- 
 band, being completely quelled by numbers, 
 and cured of her faintness by passionate 
 excitement, snatched up her baby in her 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 41 
 
 trembling arms, and seizing her other child 
 by the hand, turned her back on them all, 
 and, without any words of farewell, moved 
 hastily towards the door. 
 
 But that gentleman, still looking on, was 
 standing before it, leaning against the lintel. 
 " Where are you going, Mrs. Dill?" he 
 now asked, with slow composure. 
 
 "I don't know," she answered, with a 
 choking sob. "I have nowhere to go to. 
 I've come to-day and yesterday all the way 
 from beyond Glastonbury, to see my poor 
 uncle. But I'm not wanted ; it's no use 
 my stopping now." 
 
 " Oh ! the person I wrote to, then ? I 
 think you are rather in a hurry," he an- 
 swered, with his calm, slow smile. 
 
 Here the two aunts said it was a shame, 
 and they had never been used to convicts' 
 wives in the family. She quivered all over, 
 and, with entreating eyes, appealed to him 
 to let her be gone. But he, taking no 
 notice, proceeded calmly. 
 
42 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 " Yonr uncle, you know, might have left 
 you something ; you don't seem to think of 
 that, Mrs. Dill." 
 
 To this speech, still tremhling with ex- 
 citement and passion, she made a remark- 
 able answer. 
 
 " It's no use at all what he might have 
 said I was to have ; they would divide it 
 amongst themselves just the same — I know 
 they would ! They are that grasping and 
 contemptuous, that they would never let 
 me touch a thing ! " 
 
 In the mean time, the aunts and uncles 
 were all appealing to Mr. Bartlett, and 
 saying it was a shame. 
 
 " So it may be," he answered, coldly, 
 "for anything I care. There is no doubt, 
 then, that this is Hannah Dill. You had 
 better sit down, Mrs. Dill." 
 
 Mrs. Dill, having received this command, 
 wept, but obeyed ; and, observing the 
 silence that had fallen on the company, 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 43 
 
 felt her excitement suddenly give way to 
 shame at the passionate language into 
 which she had been betrayed. Here she 
 was obliged to face everybody, and all eyes 
 were upon her. 
 
 " I'm sure I humbly beg your pardon, 
 uncles and aunts," she cried, drying her 
 eyes with another sob. 
 
 "Mrs. Dill," continued the lawyer, "have 
 I your attention? " 
 
 " Sir ? " 
 
 " I am the lawyer who made your uncle's 
 will. This being the day succeeding his 
 funeral, I have just been reading it here, 
 according to his directions." 
 
 " Indeed, sir." 
 
 " There it lies upon the table. You will 
 please to make yourself at home here. 
 Everything is yours." 
 
 "Mine ?" with a sharp cry of amazement. 
 
 "Yours." 
 
 To say that on the instant Mrs. Dill was 
 
44 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 pleased or proud, would be quite a mistake. 
 Compunction and confusion strove in her 
 mind, with doubt as to whether the family 
 would let her take what had been given 
 her, and utter abasement at her position 
 as a convict's wife tied her tongue. She 
 gazed helplessly at the lawyer, who, having 
 taken a pair of new gloves from his pocket 
 and deliberately put them on, was now 
 buttoning them one after the other, as if 
 they were of more consequence than her 
 inheritance. 
 
 So they were to him. 
 
 It may have been, perhaps, that he saw 
 her bewilderment as she gazed at them, 
 that he put his hands behind him and said, 
 with slow composure, " Mrs. Dill, I have 
 some advice to give you, in the presence of 
 these good people." 
 
 Having said this, he presently took up 
 the will and put it in his pocket. 
 
 "Yes, sir," she answered, the sense of 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 45 
 
 his words reaching her at last ; and she 
 gathered her first feelings of possession from 
 the deep silence around her, and from his 
 speaking to her only. 
 
 " I advise you to make no promises what- 
 ever, and, in fact, utterly to decline any 
 sort of discussion on business matters, till 
 after you have seen me to-morrow morning." 
 
 Hannah Dill gazed at him, and the room 
 seemed to he full of sighs ; there was not 
 a person present that had not heaved one. 
 
 When they reached the lawyer's ears, he 
 said, with rather more sharpness in his tone 
 than he had used before, " I may hope, I 
 suppose, that I have your attention, Mrs. 
 Dill?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," she replied. 
 
 " And that you will attend to my advice, 
 and make no promises till after you have 
 seen me to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 The room was full of sighs again. 
 
 "You promise ? " 
 
46 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 " Yes, sir," she repeated, " I do." 
 
 Thereupon, having done his duty, he 
 promptly retired, but, as if struck by an 
 after-thought, had scarcely closed the door 
 when he opened it again, and beckoned 
 her out with his finger. 
 
 "Have you any money?" he whispered 
 kindly. 
 
 " Only a few half-pence, sir." 
 
 "You would like to borrow this, then," 
 he said, and he put two sovereigns in her 
 hand; whereupon, feeling more relieved 
 every instant, she returned, and, as is often 
 the case on a great occasion, her first words 
 were very simple and commonplace. 
 
 She looked round ; no eyes met hers. It 
 was evident that she was mistress of the 
 situation. "Aunts and uncles," she said, 
 in a deprecating tone, and after an awkward 
 pause, "if you're agreeable to it, let's have 
 our tea." 
 
 By this time the aunt who had not 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 47 
 
 hitherto spoken had got the haby in her 
 arms. The other, seeing that the matter 
 was inevitable, constituted herself spokes- 
 woman for the party, and said, in a way 
 half grumbling, half ashamed — 
 
 " Well, Hannah, I for one am willing to 
 forgive and forget ; and there's a gel down- 
 stairs you might send out for anything you 
 wanted — muffins, a relish, or what not." 
 
 "Or spirits," put in one of the uncles; 
 " or, in short, anything as you might think 
 well to hev." 
 
 Mrs. Dill sent out for new bread, fresh 
 butter, plenty of muffins, green tea, loaf 
 sugar, sausages, ham to fry, a bottle of gin, 
 and a quart of milk. 
 
 When the meal was ready, the "gel" 
 was trusted with the baby, and took it 
 downstairs, while they all sat down and 
 did it full justice ; but to nobody were the 
 steaming sausages and delightful cups of 
 hot strong tea so welcome as to Hannah 
 
48 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 Dill herself, for she had eaten nothing 
 that day but a dry crust of bread, which 
 her little girl, after a sufficient meal, had 
 daintily declined, so short had she been 
 of money till those two sovereigns, the 
 first pledges of prosperity, touched her 
 honest hand. 
 
 She did not preside, would not have 
 presumed to do so. One aunt served 
 the ham and sausages, another poured out 
 the tea, her uncles kept the bottle of gin 
 under their special superintendence, and 
 all was silent satisfaction, if not harmony, 
 till the company could eat and drink no 
 more. 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 49 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Time, ten o'clock in the morning after this 
 tea drinking. 
 
 Scene, the parlour before mentioned, and 
 Mrs. Dill seated in it quite alone. 
 
 Her baby, once more in charge of the 
 " gel," was down in the kitchen, staring 
 just as contentedly at its dingy ceiling as 
 she had done some days before at the 
 celestial azure that showed between the 
 leaves of the hop-bines. Her little girl, 
 having found a dead black-beetle, was 
 putting it to bed in a duster, with just as 
 much pleasure as she had received before- 
 time from the flowers. 
 
 Mrs. Dill had borrowed a black gown, 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 and a very large flat black brooch, from 
 trie taller of her two aunts, and was await- 
 ing the lawyer's visit. 
 
 A lanky sunbeam, having got down be- 
 tween two opposite chimneys, seemed to 
 be pointing out to her country eyes how 
 dirty London was, what nests of dust there 
 were in the corners of the window- panes, 
 and how, wherever there was a crack in 
 the plaster or the wainscot, blacks were 
 attracted towards it, and marked its course 
 by a winding line, that reminded her, as it 
 has done so many other people, of a river 
 traced upon a map. There was a garniture 
 of pipes round the small looking-glass ; ill- 
 matched tumblers, standing on a card-table, 
 flanked the now almost empty bottle of 
 gin. But yet this was a parlour, and her 
 sensations towards it, though made restless 
 by suspense, were on the whole pleasure 
 and pride. 
 
 And now Mr. Bartlett appeared, and took 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 51 
 
 the will from his pocket, which he read 
 to her with all gravity, while she sat in 
 state opposite. 
 
 It treated of certain shares in the Brighton 
 Eailway, of a particular messuage or tene- 
 ment, of two fields bought of Kichard 
 Prosper, the butcher of Stoke, near Ipswich, 
 and then, in the midst of a good deal of 
 jargon concerning property real and per- 
 sonal, came the name of Hannah Dill, 
 whose maiden name was Goodrich, and 
 who was to have and to hold this same 
 messuage or tenement, with other his said 
 property real and personal, during the term 
 of her natural life, for her sole and separate 
 use, and if she survived her husband, to 
 have power to will it away. 
 
 Here followed a codicil. 
 
 When Mr. Bartlett had read the will and 
 the codicil from beginning to end, he got up 
 and stood on the rug. She then rose also. 
 How could she think of sitting unless he 
 did? 
 
 I. LIBRARY ■»- 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
52 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 He perceived this, and also that she was 
 very little the wiser for what she had heard. 
 
 " The name of the executor, you perceive, 
 is Gordon. He is a very respectable trades- 
 man, but he is ill just now — not able to 
 appear." 
 
 Still silence. 
 
 " I dare say the codicil puzzles you. Mr. 
 Goodrich added that himself. His real 
 property having proved troublesome and a 
 losing concern to him, the executor is at 
 liberty to sell it, provided it is forthwith 
 reinvested, or laid out prudently. He also 
 expressly permits that a portion be laid out 
 in buying a business, or in stocking a shop." 
 
 Then he sat down again, and so did she, 
 and gathered courage to ask a question. 
 " Might she take the liberty to inquire how 
 much a week the things he had been good 
 enough to read about would bring in ? " 
 
 " How much a week — how much — a — 
 week?" he repeated slowly, as he took out 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 53 
 
 a pencil. " The income you should derive 
 from this property," he said, adding the 
 various items together, " is as near as may 
 be one hundred and eighty pounds a year ; 
 that is about three pounds a week, you 
 know." 
 
 Though she had been in such poverty, 
 and this was riches to her, she betrayed no 
 vulgar elation. 
 
 "Indeed, sir. Thank you. Is that money 
 mine, to do as I like with ? " 
 
 " Well, yes ; for though you are a married 
 woman, your husband cannot interfere with 
 you at present." 
 
 " No, sir," she answered faintly. " He 
 was sentenced, poor fellow, for fourteen 
 years, and I know now that he is in the 
 convict prison at Dartmoor. He is most 
 likely not to leave the country, as I had 
 thought ; he is to work there at his trade." 
 
 " You know, of course, that if he behaves 
 well, he will be allowed to come out in 
 
54 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 eleven or twelve years with a ticket of 
 leave." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and that he will be allowed to 
 write to me, and I to him, twice a year. I 
 heard so from his brother, Jacob Dill, who 
 felt sure that, in time, I should hear of that 
 advertisement, and come. So he wrote 
 here accordingly. They gave me the letter 
 last night. I suppose, sir, that, when my 
 poor husband comes out, he will have just 
 as much right to the money, and to his 
 children and to me, as if he had never got 
 himself into trouble ? ' ' 
 
 " Certainly he will; nothing but a sentence 
 for life can dissolve the marriage contract. 
 You took him for worse as well as for 
 better." 
 
 "I know, sir. Am I responsible to him 
 then, do you think, for what I do with the 
 money while he is under his sentence ? " 
 
 "No, Mrs. Dill; it cannot be said that 
 you are." 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGER. 55 
 
 Here, being a restless man, Mr. Bartlett 
 forgot himself, rose, and stood on the rug 
 again. Mrs. Dill took occasion to rise also. 
 
 " About those relations of yours? I 
 suppose you took my advice ? " 
 
 " I did as well as I could," she answered, 
 with apologetic respect. 
 
 Here he gravely seated himself, and she 
 followed suit. 
 
 " As well as you could ? " he repeated. 
 
 " Sir, they made the remark so many 
 times, that it seemed very hard and very 
 unnatural — in short, they were that low 
 about the will " 
 
 "Wefl, Mrs. Dill?" 
 
 " That at last I said, if you were quite 
 agreeable, I would endeavour to come to 
 some sort of agreement with them. If you 
 were quite agreeable, sir," she repeated, 
 seeing him knit his brow. " On considera- 
 tion of which," she went on, "they all 
 promised faithfully that they would go 
 
56 SAKAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 away. And they thought it would be as 
 well that they should be out of the house 
 till dinner-time, that I might be wholly free 
 to talk it over with you." 
 
 " Your object in coming to an agreement, 
 as you call it, would simply be in order to 
 get rid of them." 
 
 " Well — yes, sir." 
 
 " Mrs. Dill, if once you begin to pay your 
 relations to go, they will return and return, 
 to be paid again. I should send them all to 
 the rightabout, if I were you. They have 
 enough. They all get a decent living." 
 
 " Oh, you simpleton ! " was his thought ; 
 " you will be fleeced of every shilling before 
 you are a year older." 
 
 " You must think of your young children," 
 he remarked, " and their almost worse than 
 fatherless state. They have no one but your- 
 self to look to." 
 
 "Yes, I feel that, sir." 
 
 "And, then, something surely is due to. 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 57 
 
 your uncle's wish, the old man's wish who 
 earned this property, and has deliberately 
 chosen to leave it to you." 
 
 "And I thought of that too. But it's 
 mine now, and I fare to feel hurt by their 
 reproaches. If it was only a trifle, my eldest 
 uncle said ; and so did his son, my cousin. 
 I said perhaps Mr. Bartlett would not allow 
 me to " 
 
 " To give any of the income away ? " he 
 asked, when she hesitated. "I could not 
 prevent it, nor Mr. Gordon either." 
 
 " So they said, sir," she replied, with an 
 ingenuous sigh of regrefc. " They said, 
 ' Hannah, if you chose to take and chuck it 
 all in the Thames, they could not prevent 
 it.'" 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 Then she tried to explain to him her 
 distress at having to do anything mean. 
 She thought the old man had left his 
 property to her more to spite his brothers 
 
58 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 and sisters than out of any love to herself. 
 She could not bear to hear those nearer to 
 him speak so hardly of the dead ; she would 
 buy his memory into better repute by 
 making some sacrifice of his goods. 
 
 She had, as he observed, notions of honour 
 and right not common in her class, but also 
 she was simple in some other matters 
 to a degree not common in any class. 
 She had that temperament which, with one 
 touch more of the divine in it than others, 
 has also one touch more of the child. The 
 child in her nature was destined never to 
 grow up, as the yearning idea was too high 
 ever to be satisfied. 
 
 " You seem very much afraid of your 
 aunts and uncles," he said. " But let me 
 tell you one thing for your comfort : the 
 law will not permit you to make away 
 with any of the principal; you can only 
 deal with the income." 
 
 " That was what they made me promise 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 59 
 
 to ask ; tliey seemed to be afraid it was 
 the case." 
 
 " As long as your husband is living you 
 can only touch the income." 
 
 " Still, for the next ten or eleven years 
 I could give them what I pleased out of the 
 income." 
 
 "What they pleased, I think you mean! 
 You could. Did they name any particular 
 sum that would satisfy them ? " 
 
 " Why, sir, there are five of them. If I 
 kept half for myself till such time as poor 
 Dill came home, the other half wouldn't be 
 much divided among them ; but I reckoned, 
 by what they let fall, it would satisfy them 
 if it was paid regular." 
 
 Here Mr. Bartlett got up once more, and 
 stood cogitating by the window. She was 
 a fool ; but he did not despise, for he 
 understood her. 
 
 He remained a few minutes turning over 
 in his mind, between pity and amusement, 
 
60 SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 what to do for her. It was no business of 
 his, as he assured himself, but yet he meant 
 to take it in hand. A sudden thought 
 seemed to strike him just as a cab passed 
 the window. He tapped and stopped it. 
 
 " These harpies are gone out, you say. 
 Where are your children ? ' ' 
 
 " Downstairs, sir." 
 
 " I have a note to write. Suppose you 
 fetch them up, and come back to me with 
 your bonnet on." 
 
 Her bonnet was so shabby ! She knew 
 not whether to think most of it, or of 
 Mr. Samuel Weller, who went to Doctors' 
 Commons to prove a will. Was Mr. 
 Bartlett going to take her there ? 
 
 Mr. Bartlett was in the passage when she 
 appeared with her children. He had a note 
 in his hand, the ink of which was not dry. 
 He had already opened the street door; 
 he moved to her to enter the cab, and 
 straightway shut her in. "I have told 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 61 
 
 the man where to drive," he said. " The 
 direction is on the note, also ; " and before 
 she had recovered from her astonishment, 
 she had left her late uncle's house, never 
 to enter it again. 
 
 It may be as well to draw a veil over the 
 scene that ensued, when her aunts and 
 uncles having returned, and waited dinner 
 for her a reasonable time, began to suspect 
 that she had escaped them. To obtain the 
 half of everything, was the very least they 
 had counted on. Some of them remained 
 within, in case she should return ; others 
 went to Mr. Bartlett's office. Mr. Bartlett, 
 they were informed, was engaged, and could 
 not possibly see them, but they learned 
 from his clerk that no person resembling 
 Hannah Dill had called there that day. 
 
 The note that Mr. Bartlett had put into 
 Mrs. Dill's hand was addressed, " Mrs. 
 George Bartlett." Its contents may as 
 well be given here. 
 
62 sakah de berenger. 
 
 " Dear Love, 
 
 "You remember the scene I was 
 describing to you last night? This is the 
 heroine of it ! 
 
 " Her relations have arranged a plan for 
 chousing her out of her money ; and she is 
 so chousable, that if left with them another 
 day, she will be committed to it irretriev- 
 ably. So, unknown to herself, I have 
 caused her to run away from them. Tell 
 her so, and tell her I say that, in justice to 
 herself and her children, she must not 
 decide to give anything to these people 
 while under the constant pressure of their 
 importunity. 
 
 " I suppose, love, she can dine in the 
 nursery ? And then I want you, as soon as 
 possible after, to let nurse take her in the 
 omnibus up the new road to old Mrs. 
 Prentice, who can lodge her, or recommend 
 her to somebody who can. Tell her to 
 
SAEAH DE BEBENGER. 63 
 
 keep herself perfectly quiet till she hears 
 
 from us. 
 
 " Thine, 
 
 "G. B." 
 
 Mrs. Dill had been driven to Mr. 
 Bartlett's house, and, in a high state of 
 astonishment and perplexity, was waiting 
 in a handsome dining-room, and keeping 
 her children quiet with some difficulty, 
 when a plump, pleasant-looking young 
 woman came in, with the note open in 
 her hand, and a face full of amusement 
 and curiosity. 
 
 Mrs. Dill exclaimed that she hoped there 
 was no mistake. And the lady answered 
 cordially, " No mistake at all. I am Mrs. 
 George Bartlett. I could not come down 
 sooner ; I was nursing my baby. Yours 
 looks very young." 
 
 " Only sixteen days, ma'am; and I 
 believe that's hungry." 
 
64 SARAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 " Poor little lamb ! " said trie other mother, 
 and paused an instant, as if she hardly knew 
 how to go on ; then glancing at the note 
 again, and catching an idea from it, she said, 
 with a smile of amusement, "Well, suppose 
 you come up to the nursery, and nurse it 
 there, and see my baby. But he is a great 
 big fellow, eight months old. Come, I will 
 lead your little girl." 
 
 The baby by this time was so fractious, 
 that Mrs. Dill, in spite of her surprise, 
 was very glad of any proposal which pro- 
 mised to allow of her satisfying its little 
 requirements. 
 
 " The children are gone out for their 
 walk," observed Mrs. Bartlett, as they 
 entered a light, roomy nursery. " Take 
 the rocking-chair, and make yourself at 
 home." 
 
 Then, as soon as the baby was quiet and 
 happy, and little Miss Dill had been pro- 
 pitiated with a sponge rusk and a rag doll, 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 65 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett said, " And so my husband 
 has made you run away from your rela- 
 tions ?" 
 
 " Ma'am!" exclaimed Mrs. Dill, "I do 
 assure you I shouldn't think of such a 
 thing." 
 
 "He says so," repeated Mrs. Bartlett, 
 much enjoying her task. 
 
 " I never thought of such a thing ! " the 
 other exclaimed again. 
 
 " What did you think you were doing, 
 then, when you got into the cab ? Why did 
 you do it ? " 
 
 " Why, ma'am, because Mr. Bartlett told 
 me." 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett now, at some length, ex- 
 plained the true state of the case, and soon 
 observed that to know she was freed from 
 these relations, and had got her future 
 in her own hands, was a most welcome 
 thought to Mrs. Dill. Her gratitude was 
 fervent, but she could not help smiling 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 while she answered the questions of her 
 hostess as to what had passed. 
 
 "I wonder you did not at least ask Mr. 
 Bartlett where you were going." 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, Mr. Bartlett is such a com- 
 manding gentleman ! I couldn't take the 
 liberty." 
 
 Mrs. Bartlett laughed. On reflection she 
 laughed again. " Well, I suppose George 
 has rather a commanding manner with 
 strangers," was her thought. "But, dear 
 me ! who would expect him to be obeyed 
 and no questions asked ! " 
 
 Mr. Bartlett was his wife's humble servant. 
 He was what is sometimes called an "out- 
 sized man," large-handed, heavy-footed, 
 imposing in appearance, commanding in 
 voice and gesture ; a great dark, plain, 
 downright, upright, kind-hearted personage. 
 
 It is said that in a thoroughly strong and 
 good government the weight of the govern- 
 ing hand is least felt. Mr. Bartlett was 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 67 
 
 ruled with such utter ease and skill that he 
 thought he was free. 
 
 In two hours' time Mrs. Dill had entered 
 her lodgings at Pentonville, and was divest- 
 ing herself of her aunt's gown and brooch, 
 which, to prevent discovery, were to be 
 returned by the Parcels Delivery Company. 
 
 Having no gown, she was obliged to stay 
 indoors till a dressmaker could finish one 
 for her. The shop-windows were not then, 
 as now, full of " costumes " ready-made. Mrs. 
 Dill and the nurse did some shopping on 
 their way, and then, left alone with her babes, 
 after the latter had withdrawn, she sat down 
 to think over the astonishing events of the 
 last twenty-four hours. 
 
 Now the long journey, and the excitement 
 she had since gone through, began to tell 
 upon her, and for several days she was glad 
 to He quietly on her bed, finding it enough 
 to wonder at and be thankful for that she 
 could procure whatever she wanted, and 
 
68 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 civility too. For, as the landlady would 
 sometimes remark to her, "A fat trouble, 
 ma'am, is much better than a lean trouble ; 
 and however bad you feel, you know you've 
 only to put your hand in your pocket, and 
 send me out to buy the dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Dill soon constituted herself Mr. 
 Bartlett's client, and taking, by his advice, 
 or rather by his orders, several days to 
 think the matter over, conveyed to him her 
 deliberate wish that he would keep for her 
 one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and 
 divide the remainder of the income, with 
 the furniture and clothes left by her de- 
 ceased uncle, equally among his brothers 
 and sisters. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett and the executor grumbled 
 over this decision, but they carried it out, 
 and of their own accord obtained from each 
 of the recipients a written promise, never 
 again to molest Hannah Dill in the posses- 
 sion of her property, and never at any 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 69 
 
 future time to apply to the said Hannah 
 Dill for money, on any pretence whatever. 
 
 They were all satisfied, especially Hannah 
 Dill, who read the signed paper, and heard 
 that her relations were gone back to Suffolk, 
 with almost incredulous joy. 
 
 Poor woman, she was now safe for awhile 
 from the unkindness of her husband. She 
 began to try hard to forgive him, being 
 helped by the consciousness that he could 
 not now be offending against her. Her 
 natural jealousy as a wife was appeased; 
 she pitied him. He would surely now be- 
 come a better man. In about five months 
 he would have leave to communicate by 
 letter with her. He should hear of her 
 good fortune, and for the sake of this pro- 
 mise of secured future comforts, if not for 
 her sake, surely he would reform. 
 
 She dreaded him sorely; but what hope 
 was there for her, excepting in thus hoping 
 the best for him ? This crime had been 
 
70 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 hateful to her, for the house he had robbed 
 was that of her own dear lady, and there 
 could be no doubt that he had obtained 
 the knowledge which made this easy during 
 the time when he had come courting there 
 to her. 
 
 She had been somewhat of a wanderer. 
 Born at Ipswich, she had moved with the 
 family of her lady to Bristol; but Uzziah 
 Dill belonged to Chester, and soon after 
 her marriage with him, he had returned 
 there on a promise of work, and there they 
 had lived till he went off with the woman 
 for whose sake he had for some time neg- 
 lected her. 
 
 She was very weak and ill all that winter ; 
 she had gone through so much misery, that 
 she could not soon recover. But she had 
 the solace of her children, and having 
 plenty of money and time, she employed 
 herself mainly in making an abundant 
 supply of comfortable and handsome cloth- 
 ing for them. 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 71 
 
 She went now and then to see Mrs. 
 Bartlett, and observed how her children 
 were dressed. " Mine have a right to the 
 best," was her thought; "and, bless them, 
 they shall have it, and the best of whole- 
 some eating too." 
 
 Hannah Dill was a tall young woman, 
 with a large frame, and dark hair and 
 eyes. Her children were two delicate little 
 fairies, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, with 
 all the pensive beauty of their father, but 
 with little promise of strength and vigour*. 
 
 When she knew that it was almost time 
 for her husband to write to her, she wrote 
 to his brother, Jacob Dill, and gave him 
 her address. She little thought this would 
 bring the whole tribe of the Dills upon 
 her; she knew that they had not money 
 enough to come, and they had been so 
 unfriendly to her, that she supposed they 
 would be ashamed to apply to her for 
 money, even by letter. 
 
72 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 She was quite mistaken, and soon found 
 herself worse off with them than she had 
 been with the Goodriches. 
 
 On the evening of the third day old 
 Mrs. Dill appeared and established herself 
 in Hannah Dill's lodgings, having borrowed 
 the money for her journey, and expecting 
 her daughter-in-law to return it forthwith. 
 She brought her youngest girl with her, 
 and said she would be very handy for taking 
 care of the children. 
 
 Hannah Dill was at that time so restless 
 with expectation, that she was even less 
 able than usual to cope with these en- 
 croaching spirits. Everything seemed to 
 depend on her husband's first letter. Was 
 he penitent? was he hardened? How 
 would he write, and what should she reply? 
 
 It is probable that she would have suc- 
 cumbed, and perhaps have even agreed to 
 receive Uzziah's drunken old father, but 
 for a blow that she was not prepared for, 
 
SAKAH DE BEKENGEK. 73 
 
 and which hurt her more sorely than all 
 that had gone before. 
 
 Jacob Dill wrote, for he said he was 
 ashamed to show her his face. He was 
 the only one of the Dills that had a spark 
 of spirit or good feeling. It was better 
 she should know it, he wrote. Uzziah had 
 written, had written the first day that he 
 was allowed. Of course he had not heard, 
 when he did it, of his wife's having got 
 the money. " You see, Hannah, they are 
 only allowed to write to their wives, or 
 their families if they have no wife. He 
 told the governor he had a wife ; and I 
 am sorry to let it out to you, for I know 
 you'll be hurt, but he wrote to her. Why, 
 she was with him at his trial, and called 
 Mrs. Dill and all ; and he told her how he 
 wanted to hear on her, and asked if her 
 baby were born, and she were to write 
 back as though she was his wife. It was 
 not at all sure as he should be long at 
 
74 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 Dartmoor ; tie might get sent over the sea. 
 And, oh ! would she write off directly ? It 
 was a shame, but he never mentioned you 
 at all." 
 
 What people have been taught how to 
 do, they should be able to do. Hannah 
 Dill ran away again. 
 
 Old Mrs. Dill had, now she had come to 
 London, two ambitions. She wanted to 
 see the Crystal Palace, and also to see 
 Smithfield. 
 
 She accomplished the last while her 
 daughter-in-law T , cold as a stone after this 
 blow, sat shivering in silence by the fire. 
 She accomplished the second a few days 
 after, and took her daughter. "When the 
 poor wife heard the door shut after her, and 
 knew that she would be away for hours, 
 she lifted up her face, that was full of 
 moody and brooding thought, asked the 
 landlady to watch her children, and went 
 out. She came back in a cab, with three 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 75 
 
 large boxes ; and, some hours after that, left 
 the house again, with those same boxes 
 and her children, and a hearty hug from 
 the landlady, whose claims she more than 
 satisfied. 
 
 When old Mrs. Dill came back, she found, 
 instead of her daughter-in-law, certain 
 articles of clothing laid out for her accept- 
 ance — a brown paper parcel, containing 
 money enough to take her and her daughter 
 home, and a letter, setting forth that her 
 daughter-in-law had ]eft London for good, 
 and she would hear from her and see her 
 no more. 
 
76 SAEAH DE BEEENGEB. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Great schemes may be reasoned out and 
 great sacrifices already made in thought 
 while, leaning her face on her hand, a 
 heart-sick woman sits brooding, with her 
 feet on the fender. 
 
 Uzziah Dill's wife had tried hard to for- 
 give him, and, while at peace in present 
 freedom, had persuaded herself that she 
 need not tremble, thinking of the day that 
 would bring her into his presence and under 
 his dominion again. 
 
 Uzziah Dill's wife now gave him up for 
 good and all. She suffered in so doing 
 from no sense of wrong, any more than of 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 77 
 
 unkindness towards hiro. Clearly he did 
 not want her, and he had sinned against 
 her in that one only way which made her, 
 by all law, divine and human, free to depart 
 and be loosed from him for ever. 
 
 But then she wanted to save her children, 
 not only from the disadvantage and dis- 
 grace of knowing that they had a convict 
 for their father, but from that acquaintance 
 with wickedness, evil living, and shame 
 that they could not escape if she went into 
 court so soon as he was free, and laid all 
 her wrongs open in order to obtain a 
 divorce. 
 
 How could she save these that were her 
 all — these, so much dearer to her than 
 herself — the costly and consoling fruit ot 
 her great mistake ? For their sake, in spite 
 of the sorrow and fear it had wrought her, 
 she always found it impossible to wish the 
 past undone. 
 
 If she was, indeed, never to retrieve the 
 
78 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 mistake, could she not still so act as to 
 take all its weight upon herself? She 
 longed, as true love must, to shield her 
 children from the cruel robbery of affection 
 that she had proved — from exposure to 
 contaminating examples, from want and 
 blame. 
 
 To this end, she effaced herself utterly, 
 and left her name behind her. When she 
 was again seen by one who knew her, she 
 showed herself that she might learn how 
 to deprive the vicious father of his children, 
 to secure which she was willing to rob her- 
 self of them also. 
 
 At first, restless and wretched, she could 
 not mature her plan, but journeyed from 
 one little seaside place to another, never 
 calling herself by her husband's name, but 
 using any other, indifferently, that came 
 into her head. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett, during those three or four 
 months, heard frequently from Hannah Dill, 
 
SARAH DE BEBENGEB. 79 
 
 and forwarded money to her as she required 
 it. Before he got rid of the whining old 
 mother-in-law, and the helpless young girl, 
 he had wished many times that he had 
 never taught her to run away. 
 
 And then there was a drunken father-in- 
 law, who tormented him for more money, 
 and said it was on his conscience that 
 Hannah ought to be advertised for, and 
 made to come back to her own husband's 
 relations, that were so willing to look after 
 her and the children. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett said they might advertise if 
 they liked, and make her come back if they 
 could. He added, in such a convincing 
 way, that he did not care what they did, 
 that in the end they believed him, and gave 
 him up, as the " wrong-headedest " and 
 "hard-heartedest" gentleman they had ever 
 met with. They then departed. 
 
 At last, but not for some time after this, 
 Mrs. Dill appeared one morning at Mr. 
 
80 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 Bartlett's office, sent up a note, and was 
 straightway admitted to an interview. 
 
 It was evident that she had gone through 
 great trouble ; her eyes were hollow, and her 
 features thin. Her children had both been 
 ill, she told him, but she acknowledged 
 nothing else afflictive, and after a few 
 commonplaces of condolence from him, 
 she broke in with — 
 
 " I came to ask your opinion, sir, about 
 some things I don't fairly understand." 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Dill, I am at your service." 
 
 "I wish, sir, to know how people came 
 first by their surnames. I have made out, 
 by a book of history, that we did not 
 always have such." 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " People took them, I fare to think, 
 mainly for convenience." 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 He then went over familiar ground with 
 her — described how some names grew out 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 81 
 
 of the trades of those first called by thern, 
 others came from the father's Christian 
 name, others, again, from localities. 
 
 "But you do not need that I should tell 
 you this," he broke off to say; " you have 
 studied the subject, I find." 
 
 "Yes, sir," she answered. "Then what 
 they took for convenience, I should say 
 they may change for convenience." 
 
 "They very commonly do — for the sake 
 of some property, for instance, left on that 
 condition." 
 
 " I know it, sir. Well, it would hurt my 
 conscience to live in a lie. If I call myself 
 by another name than poor Dill's, do I lie ? 
 Mayn't I take a name for myself, as my 
 fore-ancestors did? " 
 
 " That depends, I should say, partly on 
 the motive. If you meant, by such an act, 
 to prevent your husband from claiming you 
 and his children when he gets free, and 
 also to keep from him, if you can, the money 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 SAEAH DE BEBENGEE. 
 
 that you have inherited, and to which he 
 will have a clear right " 
 
 Mrs. Dill's silence appeared to show that 
 she did so intend. 
 
 "It would be every way wrong," he 
 presently added. " It would deprive him of 
 his wife, while, being unable to prove your 
 death, he could not marry again." 
 
 " No, but that would be no worse for him 
 than for me. I could never marry again, 
 either." 
 
 " You propose to interfere with your 
 husband's clear legal rights." 
 
 " Sir, sir ! " she interrupted. " Of course 
 a man must be expected to take the man's 
 side. I don't resent that ; so it is, and 
 always will be, just as sure as that a woman 
 will take against a woman. But if he has 
 behaved to me so bad and so base, that no 
 laws — not God's, nor even man's — would 
 give me back to him " 
 
 " Mrs. Dill, you must tell me something 
 more." 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 83 
 
 Mrs. Dill did tell more. For the first and 
 last time she unfolded her many wrongs, 
 and told all. This was not a common case, 
 and the husband had not cared to conceal 
 either his unfaithfulness or his cruelty. She 
 ended, with many heart-sick tears, " I never 
 will live with him again. He may claim 
 me, but he shall never get me. Bather 
 than that, I'll spend every shilling of my 
 money to get free." (" Your money!" 
 thought Mr. Bartlett.) " I must and will 
 save his children and mine. And that's 
 why I want to have another name, sir ; and 
 you, having treated me almost as if I was 
 a friend " 
 
 " You want a friend's opinion ? " 
 
 " I want to know, first, if I can be 
 punished for doing it." 
 
 "Why, my good woman, of course not, 
 excepting by detection." 
 
 "And would you tell me, as a friend, 
 should I be living in a lie ? Is it a moral 
 wrong to take a new name ? " 
 
 i. -♦- 
 
84 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 " I answer as a friend, that I think not. 
 But it would be a great risk ; because it 
 would be to your husband's interest to 
 search for you." 
 
 " Yes, sir, and if he found me he would be 
 master as to the spending of the money, or 
 I should lead a terrible life with him." 
 
 " The money is, in fact, now lying in my 
 hands. The executor did wish to sell the 
 property, and it is to be reinvested." 
 
 " You will not let me have even half ? " 
 
 "No, because you cannot give me a 
 receipt that would not still leave me liable 
 to have your husband come upon me in the 
 event of your death. Mr. Gordon cannot 
 give it to you either." 
 
 " No, sir. Mr. Gordon was saying, though, 
 that the money might be invested in a way 
 not generally allowed — laid out, I mean, in 
 stocking a shop." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett here looked steadily into 
 Hannah Dill's clear, honest eyes. " I half ex- 
 pected this," he thought. "Well, Mrs. Dill?" 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 85 
 
 He said, if I could keep a shop " 
 
 " Yes, if you could keep a shop ? " 
 
 "But I said I was afraid; and if I lost 
 the money, Dill would be so augry." 
 
 " It was to be kept under your own — I 
 mean your husband's name ? " 
 
 " I never mentioned to him about going 
 by another." 
 
 " Humph ! " 
 
 " He said my husband could not object 
 nor come on you or him afterwards, even if 
 any money was lost ; on the other hand, I 
 might make money by trade, and that 
 surely would not belong to Dill ? " 
 
 " What did you answer ? " 
 
 " I did not take to the notion, and I was 
 thinking about changing my name." 
 
 " Oh, that was all. Well, now, as regards 
 Mr. Gordon's remarks, you tell him from 
 me that he had better look out." 
 
 " But I did say that I was afraid to keep 
 a shop." 
 
86 SAEAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 " No matter ; tell him I say he had better 
 look out. But as to changing your name, 
 I believe I should change mine under 
 like circumstances." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, sir, for saying it ; now, 
 indeed, I fare to see it cannot be wrong." 
 
 "But you must remember, Mrs. " 
 
 He paused half an instant, wondering what 
 name she would take. 
 
 " Sir, my name is Snaith," she exclaimed. 
 So quick to take the advice she had 
 longed for, so afraid some one should enter 
 and hear her old name. 
 
 A clerk at that instant did enter. 
 
 "But you must remember, Mrs. Snaith," 
 he replied, slowly and steadily ; then paused 
 to receive and return a message, and 
 when his clerk had shut the door, went on, 
 "You must remember, Mrs. Snaith, that 
 you have many years yet of freedom before 
 your husband can come and take the 
 income." 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 87 
 
 " But I have to hide all from his children, 
 and I want to begin from the first." 
 
 " Then begin by taking leave of me." 
 
 " Sir, sir, I mean to do it, though you 
 have been the best and kindest friend I 
 have had for a long time." 
 
 He then explained to her how she could 
 receive her income at a distance from the 
 p]ace where she lived. 
 
 She went away, and the next afternoon 
 Mr. Gordon desired to speak with him. 
 
 ("Oh, my prophetic soul!") "Well, 
 show him up," said Mr. Bartlett. 
 
 Mr. Gordon explained that he had come 
 about Mrs. Dill's affairs. 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Dill?" 
 
 " She is gone back to the seaside, sir, 
 with fifty pounds in her pocket as I drew 
 for her." 
 
 " You seem to have had some conversation 
 with her, Mr. Gordon." 
 
 " Well, I have, sir. But Goodrich's niece 
 
88 SAKAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 is that soft and that straightforward, that 
 she's hardly to be trusted with her own 
 interests." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett repeated to the executor 
 that he had better " look out." 
 
 The other replied that he had looked out, 
 he had been looking out for some time ; and 
 as to the matter of the reinvestment, he 
 had a great wish to spend a portion of the 
 money in buying the goodwill of a business 
 that he had heard of, and in the stock of 
 a man about to retire — " a friend of mine, 
 at Bristol," he began — " a very honest 
 man." 
 
 " At Bristol?" 
 
 "Ay, sir. A long way off, but a very 
 honest man." 
 
 " Hannah Dill has no wish to keep a 
 shop." 
 
 " She have altered her mind, sir. She 
 have taken into consideration that I, being 
 an old friend and fellow-townsman of 
 
SARAH DE BERENGEE. 89 
 
 Goodrich's, and, as I have said to her, 
 I know he would wish it ' ' 
 
 " Now, what might you mean in this 
 case by an honest man ? " 
 
 " Well, I might have said to an old friend, 
 1 Jem Gravison, I am in a fix with poor 
 Goodrich's niece that have married a con- 
 vict, and have been ill-used by him in a 
 shameful way. Poor Goodrich,' I might 
 have said, ' have made me his executor, to 
 take care of his money, and he left word 
 that it might be laid out in buying the 
 stock and the goodwill of a business, shoe 
 trade preferred.' I might have said, ' Jem 
 Gravison, have you such to sell ? ' and being 
 a right-down honest man, he might have 
 made answer, ' Old boy, I have not.' ' 
 
 At this unexpected conclusion of the 
 sentence, Mr. Bartlett looked up, surprised. 
 
 "But yet, you see, it's a fine thing to 
 carry out the blessed laws of the land, and 
 the provisions of poor Goodrich's will ; and 
 
90 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 when me and him had corresponded to- 
 gether, he might have said, ' It's true I did 
 mean to sell, as witness my advertisement 
 in the paper ; ' and if as well as that he had 
 said — which he may have done — that if he 
 sold to a worse than widow for more than 
 orphans he would take no advantage — me 
 knowing that well enough before — I should 
 call him an honest man." 
 
 "And you really mean to tell me," said 
 Mr. Bartlett, with a stolid face, "that you 
 think this man's shop and trade and stock 
 will be a good investment ? " 
 
 "I do, sir. And I mean to have every- 
 thing properly gone into — the books, the 
 vally of the goods, bad debts, and what 
 not." 
 
 "You had better take a little time to 
 consider this." 
 
 "Yes, sir; and I shall want it done in 
 the most legal way. Nothing like fencing 
 yourself round with the law, sir. The will 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 91 
 
 says a part of the property. It never speci- 
 fies what part." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " It may be anything short of the whole, 
 then." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett, being a little out of temper, 
 answered shortly that it might. 
 
 His client took some days to consider, 
 some more to decide how to act, but in the 
 end the stock-in-trade, shop, and goodwill 
 of a certain shoe trade, lately the property 
 of James Gravison, were duly bought and 
 paid for by the executor of the late H. 
 Goodrich, on behalf of his niece and her 
 husband, the said niece to keep the shop. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett did not much like the affair, 
 he therefore took the more care to conduct 
 it with all legal formality ; and when all was 
 arranged, it seemed to him to be rather a 
 suspicious circumstance that the executor 
 had left that precise portion of property in 
 his hands which paid what must be called 
 
92 SA.KAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 hush-money to the Goodrich family, and 
 which, as Mr. Bartlett remarked, would of 
 course he claimed by the convict husband 
 when he came forth, the wife's resolution 
 not binding him at all to dispose of it 
 thus. 
 
 " I have not mentioned that to Goodrich's 
 niece yet, sir," said Mr. Gordon. 
 
 Mr. Bartlett said nothing ; he had noticed 
 the peculiar emphasis on the word yet. 
 
 Mr. Gordon informed him, with a certain 
 open cheerfulness of manner, that he 
 had caused Hannah Dill's name to be 
 painted up on the shop ; he also pulled 
 out a Bristol paper, wherein Hannah Dill 
 advertised herself as having bought the 
 stock of the late Thomas Gravison, of his 
 brother James Gravison, of the United 
 States of America, and Hannah Dill hoped, 
 by unremitting attention to business, to 
 merit the patronage of the public. 
 
 " That advertisement goes into unneces- 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 93 
 
 sary details," said Mr. Bartlett. " Did Mrs. 
 Dill indite it ? " 
 
 " Well, no, sir ; she have not that turn for 
 business that I could wish. At present she 
 do not intend to serve in the shop herself, 
 the children being still so sadly." So 
 saying, Mr. Gordon gravely folded up the 
 paper and put it in his pocket. 
 
 In the mean time Mrs. Snaith, as she 
 must now be called, quite unaware of the 
 various manoeuvres being carried out for 
 her benefit, — Mrs. Snaith went back to her 
 children with fifty pounds in her pocket, 
 besides the money she had obtained by 
 the sale of all her best and handsomest 
 clothes. She bought for the two little 
 ones some very handsome frocks, ribbons, 
 and toys, spent two or three days in pick- 
 ing every mark from their clothes and her 
 own, then packed all up in boxes, with 
 the name of Mrs. Snaith on them, and 
 departed, not leaving even at her lodgings 
 
94 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 any address, or account of what she might 
 be going to do. 
 
 The children were too young to imperil 
 the success of her scheme ; neither could 
 talk. They did not know their own names, 
 nor where they had come from. 
 
 In a short time the convict husband's 
 day came for writing again. He knew 
 now, through his brother, of his wife's 
 good fortune, therefore, of course, his letter 
 this time was to her. 
 
 It had been such an astonishing piece 
 of news that it had wrought in him a 
 certain change. He had a profound con- 
 tempt for his wife mainly on account of 
 the love which had induced her to throw 
 herself away upon him. He believed he 
 had only to flatter her to have back her 
 heart. 
 
 He wanted her to believe that he was 
 a reformed character. His letter, there- 
 fore, besides being affectionate in language, 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 95 
 
 was full of cant, such cant as is commonly 
 learned in a prison. He meant, when he 
 had a chance, to show what a changed 
 character he was ; he even gave her re- 
 ligious and moral advice, as one already in 
 such matters her superior. Then, after 
 lamenting that this money had not come 
 in time to prevent him from throwing 
 himself away, he proceeded to assure his 
 wife that he would make her a happy 
 woman yet, and with unparalleled impu- 
 dence he continued, that he knew it was 
 hard on her to he away from him so long, 
 but she was not the woman, he was sure, 
 to go out of the paths of virtue, and she 
 must take care of the money, and keep 
 herself respectable for his sake. 
 
 Uzziah Dill sent this letter through his 
 brother, as he had done the first. He 
 hoped to write to each of the women once 
 a year, and to keep it secret from both 
 that this was the case. 80, not knowing 
 
96 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 his wife's address, he trusted to his brother, 
 directing to him and asking him to read 
 the letter before sending it on, . that his 
 dear parents might know how he was. 
 
 Jacob Dill saw the game his brother was 
 trying to play, and felt what a bad fellow 
 he was; but he justified what Hannah Dill 
 had said. He took the man's side, being 
 swayed also by the desire to pacify and 
 conciliate the woman who had brought 
 money into the Dill family. 
 
 Jacob Dill sent the letter to Mr. Gordon, 
 asking him to let Hannah have it. Mr. 
 Gordon, who exhibited great fearlessness 
 in acting for others, returned it, informing 
 him that he did not know where Mrs. 
 Dill was, and that they need not trouble 
 themselves to send any more letters to 
 him, as she had means of drawing money 
 without letting him know where she lived. 
 
 This was very bad news for the Dills. 
 That Mr. Gordon could not send on the 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 97 
 
 letter was possible, that he would not was 
 evident. In fact, so bad was the news con- 
 sidered, that the drunken old father was 
 sobered by it for the time being, and shaking 
 his head over this " dispensation of Provi- 
 dence," actually went to work at his trade 
 again. 
 
 Mr. Gordon did not inform them that he 
 had copied the letter ; he did, however, 
 muttering to himself as he folded it and 
 put it in his desk, " For Goodrich's niece 
 is that soft, that she may relent towards the 
 convict after all. This'll help to keep her 
 straight towards doing what's right by her 
 uncle." 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
98 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 It was now the middle of July ; the in- 
 habitants of a beautiful little seaside place 
 in the south-west of England were cleaning 
 their windows, hanging up their fresh white 
 curtains, and putting out placards of the 
 lodgings they had to let. 
 
 There was a smell of paint and tar about ; 
 the pleasure boats had just been put into 
 first-rate order, and run up on the beach 
 in a tempting phalanx, while the senti- 
 mental or patriotic names on their little 
 pennons hung almost unmoved in the sunny 
 air. The landladies grumbled, as they 
 always did every year, said " how short 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 99 
 
 their season was, and that the visitors were 
 long of coming." 
 
 The prettiest little terrace boasted as yet 
 of but one lodger, and she, her landlady 
 said, was but a servant — a nurse with some 
 children. " However," continued the good 
 woman, " those that sent her must have 
 sent good money with her, for she pays 
 like her betters, I will say. But she keeps 
 herself mighty close, and has no notion of 
 being asked any questions." This she said 
 to her next-door neighbour, as the two 
 stood to gossip on their respective door- 
 steps. "And so particular about the chil- 
 dren's eating ! She's almost worse than 
 a lady at that." 
 
 In about a week matters mended. The 
 neighbour let her drawing-room floor, 
 several families appeared on the beach, 
 flower-girls began to pervade it, a band 
 played in the evening, and more bathing- 
 machines were pushed down. Soon there 
 
100 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 were many groups of children dotted 
 about in cheerful proximity to one another, 
 some with nurses, some with mothers, and 
 they all pleased themselves with the same 
 time-honoured toys, buckets, and wooden 
 spades. 
 
 A very respectable-looking and plainly 
 dressed nurse was sitting one morning on 
 the beach a little apart from any of these 
 groups. She was at work, just beyond high- 
 water mark, and two lovely little children 
 were playing beside her. One, scarcely a 
 year old, seated on the nurse's gown, was 
 complacently patting the shingle with a 
 wooden spade ; the other had a small cart, 
 and had attained to such a degree of intelli- 
 gence as enabled her to fill it with shells and 
 seaweed, and drag it on a little way, when 
 it generally turned over, and the same opera- 
 tion had to be performed again. 
 
 These children were fair, of very refined 
 appearance ; rather delicate, with pure com- 
 plexions, deep-blue eyes, and black lashes. 
 
SABAH DE BEEENGEE. 101 
 
 Some ladies who lodged next door had 
 several times noticed them and their nurse. 
 They evidently had no one else with them. 
 She always kept them delicately clean in 
 their dress. In the morning they wore 
 flapping white sun-bonnets, but in the 
 evening, after their early tea, she used to 
 dress them up in broidered frocks, and take 
 them forth upon the little parade, in all 
 their infantine bravery of pink or blue 
 sashes and ostrich-feathers. 
 
 " That woman looks as proud of the 
 children as if they were her own," observed 
 one of the ladies ; " their parents may well 
 trust her with them." 
 
 "And how very plainly and neatly she 
 dresses," replied the other. " I wish any one 
 of our servants was like her. A clean print 
 gown in the morning, a neat coburg in the 
 evening. The children's dress looks twice 
 as handsome, hers being so unpretending. 
 I wonder whose children they are." 
 
102 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 The nurse, Mrs. Snaith, not at all aware 
 of trie notice and approval she had at- 
 tracted, seated herself the following morn- 
 ing nearly in her previous place, while, in a 
 profound calm, the tide was softly coming up. 
 
 She looked almost happy, for she was 
 beginning to feel safe, and accustomed to 
 her new name. Her position as nurse to 
 the children had been taken for granted 
 the moment she appeared ; she had already 
 overheard remarks made on their lovely and 
 refined appearance, and her own evident 
 respectability. 
 
 This pleased her. She liked also to ob- 
 serve the beauty of the shore, and went 
 on leisurely working, and watching the 
 water and the two graceful little creatures 
 beside her. 
 
 No air stirred but such as was set in 
 motion by the slight action of the oncoming 
 wave ; and presently, in the perfect calm of 
 the morning, a sea mist began to rise, and 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 103 
 
 as she looked, the somewhat distant bathing- 
 machines were already in it. 
 
 Presently she herself was in it, and all 
 the fishing craft hanging about in the har- 
 bour looked as faint as grey ghosts ; but 
 each boat, being clearly reflected in the 
 water, seemed to stand up an unnatural 
 height — it was hard to distinguish it from its 
 image. The mist did not reach very high; 
 all above was blue and full of light. She 
 put down her work to look, and, half un- 
 consciously, to listen. A crier was pacing 
 up and down the little terrace behind 
 her, with his bell. " Oh yes ! oh yes ! a 
 bracelet was lost on the beach — a gold 
 bracelet in the form of a snake." The 
 nurse turned, and, as a flat, neutral-tinted 
 outline, could just discern the figure of the 
 crier, as he passed out of hearing. " Oh 
 yes ! oh yes ! " she heard him begin again, 
 and then his voice became faint in the 
 distance, and gave way to other sounds. 
 
104 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 There was a strange kind of creaking and a 
 flapping over the water, but nothing could 
 be seen ; the fishing-boats were quite in- 
 visible. 
 
 It interested her inquiring mind to notice 
 now how all outlines were melting away 
 into the mist. What could that creaking 
 be ? There was nothing to make it. Why, 
 yes, there was ! An enormous high pole, 
 all aslant, was pushing on right towards 
 her, and two vast sheets hung aloft behind 
 it. Why, this was a ship. She could see 
 the two gaunt masts now, and the ropes, 
 some hanging slack, and the mainsail flap- 
 ping and coming down. Sailors were 
 swarming about up there, and now the 
 beachmen came running on to meet the 
 vessel. 
 
 The tide was almost at the height, and 
 this must be the coal brig that had been 
 expected, coming up to be beached. 
 
 The tall bowsprit appeared to be nearly 
 
SAEAH DE BEBENGEB. 105 
 
 hanging over her, before the beachmen got 
 up to the brig's bows ; and then there was 
 shouting and splashing in the shingle, and 
 she rose and moved backward with the 
 children, for the almost formless wave was 
 washing up close to her feet. 
 
 " Oh yes! oh yes ! " repeated the crier, 
 now become audible again. " Oh yes ! a 
 gold bracelet was lost — a bracelet in the 
 form of a snake, with pearls for eyes. Who- 
 ever would bring the same to the hotel on 
 the east cliff, should receive two guineas 
 reward." 
 
 She sat down higher up on the shingle, 
 and hearkened as the crier's message waxed 
 loud, and then faint again ; and she watched 
 how the heavy rope from the brig was made 
 fast to a clumsy wooden windlass, and how, 
 with stamping and chanting, the beach- 
 men began to turn this round. All was 
 new and fresh to her ; and the mist, which 
 generally turns with the tide, had already 
 
106 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 fallen back a little, dropping behind the 
 nearest fishing-vessels, and giving them 
 and their shadows back to the sunshine, 
 before she tired of gazing and, chancing to 
 look round, noticed on her right, and almost 
 close at hand, one of the ladies next door, 
 who, seated also, was smiling on the elder 
 child and trying to attract her. 
 
 " She is not shy, ma'am," said Mrs. 
 Snaith ; " she will come to you. Shake 
 hands with the lady, missy." 
 
 Steps were now heard behind, crashing 
 through the shingle. 
 
 " Mrs. Snaith," cried a young girl, 
 " mother says she can get no milk this 
 morning ; and what is she to make instead 
 of the pudding, for your little ladies ? " 
 
 " Dear me!" exclaimed the nurse, " no 
 milk ? And so fanciful as the dears are ! 
 You must tell your mother to boil them 
 each an egg y and to mind they are as fresh 
 as fresh." 
 
SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 107 
 
 " They are delicate ? " asked the lady. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, bless them ; very delicate." 
 
 In the mean time the elder child had 
 broken loose from the stranger's caresses. 
 
 " Pretty dears ! " said the lady. " What 
 is their name? " 
 
 " That one's name is Amabel." 
 
 " Oh, I meant their surname." 
 
 A sudden bound at the nurse's heart ; for 
 an instant a pause. Then, recovering her- 
 self, " Missy, missy ! " she cried, starting 
 up, " don't go too near the edge; you'll wet 
 your precious feet. — Now, to think of that 
 question coming so soon, and me not ready 
 for it!" she muttered; and she hastened 
 along the shingle wdth the younger child 
 in her arms ; and, setting her down, took 
 up the elder, who, by various acts of in- 
 fantile rebellion, did what she could to 
 continue the fascinating play of slapping 
 the water with a long banner of dulse. 
 
 In the mean time the little one filled 
 
108 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 both her hands with what she could find, 
 and the two were shortly carried np by 
 Mrs. Snaith, one under each arm. 
 
 " I must take them in at once, ma'am," 
 she remarked, as she hastily passed the 
 lady. " Missy is so wet." 
 
 Her face was flushed, and when she got 
 to a safe distance from her questioner, she 
 sat down to take a short rest. 
 
 The mist had almost melted away. How 
 grand the brig looked ! She thought she 
 had never seen anything more beautiful 
 than the shape of her bows, with reflec- 
 tions of the receding water wavering all 
 over them. 
 
 Something nearer than the wave was 
 sparkling. The baby had something fast in 
 her dimpled fist, and was recklessly striking 
 the stones with it, uttering little cries of 
 pleasure when she saw it flash as she 
 knocked it about. 
 
 A costly toy! The gold bracelet, the 
 snake with pearls for eyes ! 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 109 
 
 That same evening, when Mrs. Snaith 
 had put her two little nurslings to bed, she 
 left them in charge of her landlady's 
 daughter, and, dressed in her neatest and 
 plainest habiliments, set forth to find the 
 hotel on the east cliff, and return the 
 bracelet to its owner. 
 
 There was never seen a better embodi- 
 ment of all that a servant ought to be (from 
 the mistress's point of view), than she 
 appeared on that occasion. She was very 
 desirous to have certain things taken for 
 granted, that she might be asked no ques- 
 tions. " Are these your children ?" would 
 have been an awkward inquiry. She had 
 made it a very unlikely one. She was so 
 unassuming, so quiet, so respectable in her 
 manner, so unfashionable and economical in 
 her attire, that the position in which she 
 stood toward them had appeared to be 
 evident to every one ; but during the whole 
 of this evening walk, even to the moment 
 
110 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 when she found herself sitting in the hall of 
 the hotel, while a waiter went upstairs to 
 announce her errand, she kept revolving in 
 her rnind the question of the morning, and 
 wishing she could decide on a name for the 
 children. 
 
 For, as has before been said, this woman 
 in somewhat humble life, and used to 
 common fashions, had thoughts not com- 
 mon, not humble. She had indulged a high 
 ambition. A form of self-sacrifice that most 
 mothers would shrink from as intolerable, 
 had fully shaped itself in her mind, and 
 become a fixed intention. She had deliber- 
 ately planned to wait on her own children 
 as their nurse, as such to bring them up, 
 and never let them know that they were 
 hers. 
 
 For the next eleven years at least she could 
 bring them up in comfort, and educate them 
 well; after that, she had every hope that 
 their wretched father would not be able to 
 
SARAH DE BERENGEE. Ill 
 
 find her. But, lest such should be the case, 
 she meant to give them a name different 
 from her own, almost at once ; to begin to 
 earn money, so that before there was a 
 chance of a ticket of leave for her husband, 
 she could put them to a good school, and 
 having found a guardian for them, leave 
 money enough in his hands to last till they 
 were of an age to go out themselves as 
 governesses. Having made this arrange- 
 ment, she intended to leave them, deliber- 
 ately deciding to hear of them and to see 
 them no more. 
 
 She would then, indeed, have lost her 
 children. If she were unhappy enough to 
 be found by their wretched father, she would 
 tell him so. 
 
 With her mind full of all this, she sat in 
 the hall of the hotel, and her only half- 
 attentive eyes rested on some boxes, with a 
 name painted on them — 
 
 " Captain de Berenger, Madras, N.I." 
 
112 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 The owner was evidently on his way to 
 the east, and the name of the ship he was 
 to sail in was painted on them also. 
 
 Presently a lady and gentleman came 
 down, and began to excuse themselves for 
 having kept her waiting, on the ground that 
 they were in a hurry — just off. 
 
 They seemed to be a newly married 
 couple, and while the lady expressed her 
 pleasure at getting the bracelet back, the 
 gentleman was evidently fumbling in his 
 purse for the reward. 
 
 " It seemed so hard to lose it," said the 
 lady, clasping the trinket on slowly, as if to 
 give her husband time. " I had quite given 
 it up, for we are off almost directly by the 
 express for Southampton. We cannot 
 wait. — Tom ! " 
 
 Tom was still not ready. " What did we 
 say ? " he whispered. " Two, or three ? " 
 
 " Sir," cried Mrs. Snaith, now perceiving 
 the state of affairs, " indeed I could not 
 think of such a thing." 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 113 
 
 "Oh, but we offered a reward!" ex- 
 claimed the lady. " Captain de Berenger 
 offered a reward. Pray take it." 
 
 "No, ma'am; I don't need it. Indeed, 
 you are kindly welcome." 
 
 " Well, at least shake hands, then, and 
 thank you very much indeed ; " and all their 
 boxes being already placed on a fly, the lady 
 and gentleman drove off in a hurry, nodding 
 and repeating their thanks till the fly turned 
 a corner. 
 
 " De Berenger," thought Mrs. Snaith; 
 " now, that name seems as if it really would 
 do. It has a kind of a foreign sound. It's 
 uncommon. I fare to take to it, and it's 
 not too uncommon neither. There's De 
 Berenger, the baker, at Bristol, and there's 
 a shop at Pentonville with that name on the 
 door. These people, too, are off to India ; 
 they'll never know I borrowed their name 
 from their boxes. I shall not forget how it 
 was spelt, nor how it goes. And I must be 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 SAEAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 quick, for to-morrow the man will come 
 round again to print the visitors' names in 
 the paper. Mine must not go in again 
 ' Mrs. Snaith and two children.' " 
 
 So that evening Mrs. Snaith overhauled 
 the children's toys. On one little wooden 
 spade she printed in clear letters, " Amabel 
 de Berenger;" on the other, " Delia de 
 Berenger." 
 
 Her eldest child she had named after the 
 young lady whose maid and reader she had 
 been, and had always called her " Missy," 
 as she had called her namesake. Her 
 younger child she had named Delia, partly 
 in remembrance of a tender little song that 
 her husband had sung during the few kind 
 days that had followed their marriage, partly 
 because she had a natural ear for pleasant 
 sounds ; and she felt that this now disre- 
 garded name was a very beautiful one. 
 Their baptismal names, therefore, the chil- 
 dren retained, and received the new sur- 
 name of De Berenger. 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 115 
 
 The remainder of the evening she spent 
 in marking some of their pinafores and 
 other clothing ; and this done, without any 
 assertion of their name, she let things take 
 their course. 
 
 It was only a very few days after this that 
 Mrs. Snaith was startled hy an elderly 
 man, who, stopping short in front of her, 
 accosted her with, "Well, and how are 
 you, ma'am ? Finely, I hope. You look 
 so." 
 
 " Mr. Gordon ! " 
 
 " Don't he startled," he continued ; 
 " there's not a soul within earshot — not 
 even my friend that came with me. I 
 wouldn't go to your lodgings. We have been 
 about on the beach looking for you. No- 
 body in life " — seeing her look disturbed 
 — "nobody in life know your address but 
 me only. I said in life, for we have no 
 reason to think that H. Goodrich know 
 what I am about to do — I wish he did — and 
 
116 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 thereby you may be sure it's all right and 
 straight.'' 
 
 Mrs. Snaith said she was sure of that ; 
 and he sat down beside her on the shingle, 
 admired the children, one of whom was 
 asleep, and the other eating some luncheon, 
 and then went on — ■ 
 
 " Now, look here, H. Goodrich's niece, 
 I told you the will would allow of my buying 
 a stock-in-trade on your behalf, and I sent 
 you the document here to be signed as 
 legal as could be. It cost twenty pound, 
 that transaction did. I bought the stock. 
 'Twill cost you seven pound ten more, for 
 I had to go to Bristol on your affairs and 
 come here this day, which I cannot afford 
 on my own cost, as H. Goodrich was well 
 aware." 
 
 " I'll pay it, sir, and thank you too." 
 
 " Well, having bought this stock-in-trade 
 for you, I have nothing more to do with 
 that part of the trust money (as I hope), 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 117 
 
 the part that bring in one hundred and 
 fifty pound a year. But a party that knew 
 your uncle, and have come down here — 
 and, let rue say, would on no hand wrong 
 the widow and the orphan — he have some- 
 thing to say to you. You know what pay- 
 able to bearer means ? " 
 
 " Yes, I believe I do." 
 
 " Such things you know of, as foreign 
 bonds. Say United States bonds. Those 
 are very good securities, and are made 
 payable to bearer. They'll pass from 
 hand to hand like a bank-note ; you just 
 show 'em and you take your money. That 
 would be the best thing for you to have." 
 
 " Better than the stock-in-trade ? " 
 
 " Better by half." 
 
 " But, bless you, sir, why did you buy 
 the stock-in-trade for me, then ; and make 
 out it was such a fine thing to do ? " 
 
 " Why did I ? That's where it is. That's 
 where it is, H. Goodrich's niece. And this 
 
118 SARAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 I call you, seeing you want to keep your 
 name to yourself. You couldn't get at 
 your money, you perceive, before I did 
 that." 
 
 "No. But can I now?" 
 
 " I should calculate you bought the stock- 
 in-trade, meaning, in the way of trade, to sell 
 it again. Eetail or wholesale — or whole- 
 sale," he repeated presently, when she re- 
 mained silent. 
 
 " Well, sir, I was afraid the person you 
 put in to sell would be a great expense 
 to me. Then you think, if I gain ever so 
 little, I ought to sell wholesale if I get a 
 chance ? " 
 
 "You won't gain anything at all. A 
 document being wanted, you'll lose several 
 pound. And Tve no advice to give you, 
 H. Goodrich's niece." The twinkle in 
 his eyes seemed to show joy and triumph. 
 He beckoned to a man near at hand. 
 " There he is. If you want to have what 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 119 
 
 you paid for the stock-in-trade (all but what 
 I specified) in your own hand, payable to 
 bearer, United States bonds, there's the 
 man that will buy your shoes of you, and 
 that have a document in his pocket, and a 
 ink-bottle and pen, that you may sign 
 handy. All I need add is, I wish H. Good- 
 rich was here to see his money rescued 
 from the grasp of a convict. " 
 
 "Are you sure it's legal, and won't get 
 you into any trouble ?" exclaimed H. Good- 
 rich's niece, when the other man had come 
 up, and from a bundle of papers was sorting 
 out one for her to sign. 
 
 " Well, so far as we can make out, it is. 
 He" — pointing out his friend — "he have no 
 call to quake, and I expect the thing will 
 hold. All I shall ask is, H. Goodrich's 
 niece, that you keep your distance, and 
 never let me know anything about you. 
 I can get into no trouble for eleven year 
 at the least. If I should then (and not 
 
120 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 likely), you'll promise me you'll always, 
 wherever you be, take the Suffolk Chronicle ; 
 and if I'm in life then, and you see an 
 advertisement in it letting you know I've 
 got into trouble, then you'll have to write 
 to me. But I'm not afraid. There's a 
 pretty little income — over thirty pounds a 
 year — left in my hands, and if a certain 
 party made himself unpleasant and wanted 
 the rest of it, he could be threatened with 
 a suit in the Divorce Court, and I think 
 he'll be glad enough to let things be." 
 
 " The purchase was legal, ma'am," ob- 
 served the stranger; "your executor has 
 the papers to prove it." 
 
 "And when our friend is going to take 
 the boots and shoes is neither here nor 
 there," proceeded Mr. Gordon. 
 
 " You'll take notice, though," continued 
 the stranger, " that bonds and what not, 
 made payable to bearer, are in one sense 
 very ticklish property to keep. If they get 
 
SAKAH DE BEEENGER. 121 
 
 burnt you've no remedy ; if you lose them 
 you've no remedy ; or lose one, and whoever 
 finds it holds it and gets the money. And 
 I don't mean to say as you can always 
 reckon on the same sum for them, not to 
 a shilling or even a pound, because the 
 dollar varies slightly in value, you know." 
 
 " I'll sign the paper," said Hannah Dill 
 at last. "I fare to understand that I'm a 
 free woman for good and all, and I'm deeply 
 obliged to you both." 
 
122 SAEAH DE BEBENGEB. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 And now the document which sold her 
 stock-in-trade to J. Gravison having been 
 duly signed by Hannah Dill (who for many 
 a long day never used that name again), a 
 large, awkward- shaped bundle of papers 
 having been consigned to her, and Mr. 
 Gordon having again remarked " that where 
 those boots and shoes were going, and 
 where the purchaser might be going, was 
 neither here nor there," the two friends 
 made as if they would withdraw; but this 
 did not at all suit the notions of the con- 
 vict's wife. 
 
 She longed to give them at least a dinner, 
 and after a little pressing they agreed that 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 123 
 
 she should ; and she left them on the beach, 
 while she hastened to her lodgings with 
 her children and the papers, where, having 
 secured the latter, and taken out money for 
 her executor's expenses, she got her land- 
 lady to take charge for a few hours of the 
 former. 
 
 "Certain," quoth the landlady, "I'll see 
 to your little ladies, ma'am, with the greatest 
 pleasure ; don't you worrit about them." 
 
 So Mrs. Dill came forth again, and con- 
 ducted the two friends to a respectable 
 public-house, much frequented by sea cap- 
 tains and farming people. 
 
 Here, while they sat in a green bower 
 out-of-doors and smoked, she ordered and 
 assisted to produce such a dinner as might 
 be a credit to her taste and her generosity, 
 and a thing to be remembered ever after. 
 
 It was not ready till half-past three, the 
 two guests having been more than ready 
 for some time. 
 
124 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 First appeared dishes for which the place 
 was famous — soused mackerel at one end, 
 and at the other hot lobsters, served whole, 
 with brown bread and butter and bottled 
 porter. 
 
 After this came a rumpsteak pie with 
 fresh young onions, also a green goose, and 
 abundance of peas and kidney potatoes. 
 With this course the company drank beer. 
 One of the guests observed with conviction 
 that even a Guildhall dinner could not beat 
 this, and the other remarked that it was 
 what he called " a square meal." 
 
 Next came an apricot pudding with a jug 
 of cream, and a dish of mince-pies, blue 
 with the spiral flame of the lighted rum 
 they were served in. 
 
 All this took time, but at every fresh call 
 on their efforts the guests fell to again, 
 nothing daunted ; there was no flagging 
 but in the conversation. 
 
 With the cheese and dessert appeared 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 125 
 
 port, and the affair concluded with, more 
 pipes in the arbour, and some gin and water. 
 
 It was a great success. 
 
 In the cool of the evening they said they 
 must depart, and each giving an arm 
 to H. Goodrich's niece, they walked in 
 high good humour, and very steadily on 
 the whole, to the railway station, she see- 
 ing them off, with many thanks on her part 
 for their kindness, and on theirs for her 
 hospitality. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith then hastened to her lodg- 
 ings. Already her peculiar position had 
 made her cautious and reserved. She seldom 
 began a conversation, or volunteered any 
 information, however trifling, which gave 
 others an opening for asking questions. 
 
 She found the children asleep and well, 
 thanked her landlady, and, seeing her weekly 
 bill on the table, paid it, and said she should 
 stay on. 
 
 The landlady retired. She began to under- 
 
126 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 stand her lodger; she found her a just 
 woman to reckon with, though not one to 
 waste words. 
 
 " Why, if she bought her words by the 
 dozen," thought the good woman, " and 
 was always considering how to use them 
 to the best advantage, and make them go 
 as far as they would, she could not any way 
 be more mean with them." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith, asking no questions, did not 
 hear how much " the little ladies " had 
 been admired that day, nor how much 
 curiosity they had excited. 
 
 For the small place being very full of 
 visitors, the landlady and her young daugh- 
 ter had amused themselves during their 
 lodger's absence by sitting in the open 
 window of her pleasant parlour, which was 
 downstairs, and watching "the company," 
 while little Miss Amabel and Miss Delia 
 played about the room with their toys. 
 
 It was a pride and joy to them to see the 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGER-. 127 
 
 place so crowded, and to observe trie new- 
 comers looking about for lodgings. 
 
 Little Amabel in the mean time was 
 setting out a row of wooden tea things on 
 the sill of the window, and the baby Delia, 
 who could but just walk alone, trotted up 
 to her to admire, and presently began to 
 toss some of them out on to the pavement 
 below. 
 
 This was a fine thing to have done, and 
 the little creatures looked on with deep 
 interest, while the landlady's daughter, 
 called 'Kia, went down the steps of the 
 street door, and fetched them in again. 
 
 Little Delia, having tasted the joy of this 
 small piece of mischief, now threw out her 
 shore-spade, while Amabel, not to be out- 
 done, filled a toy wooden bucket with the 
 animals from a Noah's ark, and one by 
 one sent them after it; the long-suffering 
 'Kia going out, with unwise patience, to 
 collect and bring them back, as if the 
 
128 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 vagaries of children were no more under 
 human control than are the rising of the 
 wind or the changes of the moon. 
 
 " How tiresome gentlefolk's children are, 
 mother ! " she said at last, when, to the 
 amusement of the ladies next door, who 
 were reading novels on a hench, she came 
 forth for the eleventh time and picked up 
 two elephants and a canary; " why, they 
 give ten times the trouble that we do when 
 we're little." 
 
 " Ay," answered the mother, with a sage 
 air of conviction, "it's all very well to say 
 they're the same flesh and blood as we are ; 
 there's that difference, anyhow. You won't 
 easy deceive me ; I'd undertake to tell a 
 gentleman's child by it anywhere. They've 
 no responsibility in 'em either. Why, a big 
 child five year old will run away from her 
 nurse, and her nurse just has to run after 
 her, while at that age you took the baby 
 as then was on the beach, and had Tom 
 to take care of with you." 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 129 
 
 "But they're minded," said the girl; 
 " that's why they can't seem to grow amj 
 responsibility of their own." 
 
 " There ! " said one of the ladies to the 
 other, "that girl is putting away the 
 Noah's ark and giving the child a doll to 
 play with. I wonder she did not think of 
 doing so before. Look ! there comes the 
 spade again." 
 
 Two lovely little faces looked out as be- 
 fore, and some infantile babble was heard, 
 but no landlady's daughter came forth to 
 bring it in ; so, lest it should be lost to its 
 small possessor, one of the ladies, before 
 she went indoors, picked it up, intending 
 to bring it to the window. 
 
 "Amabel de Berenger!" she exclaimed, 
 reading the name. "Why, Mary, these 
 children are De Berengers ! I wonder which 
 branch of the family they belong to ? " 
 
 " Not to the old baronet's," observed the 
 other. " His sons are unmarried; at least, 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 Tom de Berenger was only married a few 
 weeks ago, and was here till lately on his 
 wedding tour." 
 
 " They may be strangers from another 
 neighbourhood," observed the first. " The 
 name is not so very uncommon ; V and she 
 came to the outside of the window, giving 
 the spade to its dimpled owner, remarking 
 to the landlady that she was intimate with 
 one family of De Berengers, and asking 
 where these children came from. 
 
 The landlady did not know, and little 
 miss was backward with her tongue, as 
 delicate children often were. They only 
 had a nurse with them, she said, and she 
 looked at the spade with just a little touch 
 of curiosity. 
 
 " Dear me!" said the lady. "I should 
 like to see that nurse again ; but, unfor- 
 tunately, we go away this evening. Per- 
 haps these are Mr. Kichard de Berenger's 
 children, and their parents may be coming." 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 131 
 
 "I think not, ma'am," replied the land- 
 lady. Ct I have not heard of it." 
 
 Thereupon, having kissed the children, 
 this lady departed, and the landlady said 
 to her daughter, " Well, 'Eia, my girl, only 
 think how I have wished to ask Mrs. Snaith 
 who the children were, and didn't seem to 
 think she would like it, she heing so close, 
 and yet all the time here was their name 
 as plain as print for anybody that liked to 
 look at it!" 
 
 " You didn't know their name, mother ?" 
 cried the girl. 
 
 " No ; I say I didn't. Did you ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know as I gave it a 
 thought that she hadn't mentioned it, till 
 one night (last week I think it was) I 
 noticed it on some pinafores that she sent 
 to the wash." 
 
 " It just shows what fancies folks take 
 in their heads," observed the landlady. 
 " I felt as sure as could be she didn't want 
 
132 SAKAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 to tell who they were, and so I never asked 
 her; and now look!" She held up the 
 spade and laughed. 
 
 " They might be that parson's children," 
 said the girl; " him that was here three 
 summers ago, mother, in our house, with 
 his boy brother and his aunt." 
 
 " Hardly," answered the mother; "he 
 was not a married man then, I know." 
 
 "My!" cried the girl, "how those two 
 used to teaze that aunt, the lady that 
 would always be talking of her will. I 
 was so little then, they used to go on while 
 I was waiting, and not mind me. Well, 
 to be sure, what a silly old thing she was ! " 
 " And you were always as handy as could 
 be. To see you wait, so little as you were, 
 has made many a lodger laugh," observed 
 the mother, with pleasant pride in her off- 
 spring. 
 
 Here the conversation ended, Mrs. 
 Snaith never hearing of the questions that 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 133 
 
 had been asked concerning the children, 
 nor of the reminiscences of 'Ria and her 
 mother. The half of either, if duly re- 
 ported, would have changed her plans en- 
 tirely, and changed her children's destiny 
 and her own. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith quickly found that she was 
 living very much beyond her income, so she 
 very soon went away from that little seaside 
 place ; but her delicate children had im- 
 proved during their stay so much, that she 
 proposed to come back again when the 
 season was quite over, and rooms might be 
 had for an almost nominal rent, to give 
 them again the benefit of the fine air. 
 
 She thus betrayed to the landlady her 
 expectation that these children would be 
 some time under her sole charge and con- 
 trol. The good woman was all the more 
 deferential to her in consequence, and find- 
 ing her more reticent day by day, took 
 care to let her depart without asking her a 
 single question. 
 
134 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith thought what a nice hard- 
 working woman she was — one who minded 
 her own business, and had no idle curiosity 
 in her — and she was perhaps beguiled by this 
 opinion into the only piece of confidence 
 she offered, namely, that she had brought 
 these children from London. 
 
 She established herself about twelve miles 
 inland, in a small village, where she found 
 a decent little cottage to let. She wanted 
 to save money, that she might send her 
 darlings, when they were old enough, to a 
 good school; but, meanwhile, she dressed 
 them well and waited on them with the 
 devoted love of a mother, combined with 
 her assumed position of nurse. 
 
 It was enough to satisfy and make happy 
 and cheerful a mind constituted as hers. 
 She grew stout, looked well and serene, and 
 month by month her darlings became 
 fresher and fatter ; only little Delia, as she 
 fancied, sometimes limped a little on her 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 135 
 
 right foot, and this made her anxious, con- 
 sidering the child's parentage. 
 
 There were no mothers in the village 
 whom she could consult, excepting the wives 
 of two small farmers, and they both recom- 
 mended that little miss should be taken to 
 the shore to paddle in the salt water. They 
 were sure that was what the father would 
 approve. 
 
 It had come to be thought there — a 
 thought which had grown out of the re- 
 marks of the villagers one to another — that 
 the children's father was abroad : that they 
 had lost their mother seemed to be evident. 
 Mrs. Snaith — her security in that obscure 
 place having been so complete — did not 
 think of stepping forth again into the inquisi- 
 tive world without a pang. She had taken 
 up her new name and position in a far more 
 confident spirit than she now felt in carrying 
 them on. Month by month she became 
 more afraid of ultimate detection, not so 
 
136 SAEAH DE BERENGEK. 
 
 much by the wretched father, as by the 
 children themselves. 
 
 She had lived in her tiny cottage two 
 years, and their infantile intelligence was 
 equal already to the perception (a false 
 one, but not the less tenaciously held) 
 that there was a difference of rank between 
 them and their dear nurse. They could by 
 no means have expressed this, but every one 
 about them helped it to unconscious growth. 
 
 Amabel was six years old. In her sweet 
 humility the mother considered herself not 
 equal to teaching even so much as the 
 alphabet to a child destined to be herself a 
 teacher. 
 
 She had tried hard to divest herself of 
 her provincial expressions, some of which 
 her dear lady had pointed out to her. In 
 many cases she had succeeded, but her 
 grammar was faulty, and certain peculiari- 
 ties of language clung yet to her daily 
 English. She wanted little Amabel to 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 137 
 
 speak well from the first, and she went to a 
 poor but well-educated old lady — the late 
 clergyman's sister, who boarded in a farm- 
 house near her cottage — and proposed to her 
 to teach the child for two or three hours 
 a day. Miss Price said she should be de- 
 lighted to teach little Miss de Berenger, and 
 she instilled into her mind, while so doing, 
 various notions not out of place considering 
 the position she supposed her to hold. She 
 must remember that she was a young lady. 
 She must never talk in a sing-song tone, 
 as her good nurse did ; that was provincial. 
 Her dear papa would be much vexed if she 
 used such and such expressions. No doubt 
 she often thought about her dear papa, and 
 wished that he should be pleased with her 
 on his return. 
 
 Little Amabel was a docile child : she 
 did begin to wish to please this dear papa. 
 In her infantile fashion she felt a strange 
 attraction toward him, and set him in her 
 
138 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 mind far above the tender woman whose 
 care and pride she was, while, like most 
 other children who have a governess and 
 a nurse, she gave her kisses to the nurse, 
 and talked like the governess. 
 
 But little Delia, in case her ankle was 
 really weak, must have every advantage, 
 whatever happened. So Mrs. Snaith wrote 
 to her former landlady, asking the price 
 of rooms, and was told that if she could 
 come at a particular time mentioned, 
 between two other " lets," she should 
 have some cheap. She felt, when she ap- 
 peared at the door with the children, that 
 she had not gained courage, though she 
 had been on the whole very happy; she 
 knew the day must come when she would 
 be confronted by awkward questions. She 
 had often rehearsed in her mind the words 
 she would use in reply. They were to be 
 very few and simple, and long reflection 
 had made her aware that her danger of 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 139 
 
 self-betrayal would lie most in the way 
 she met matters that were taken for granted. 
 
 The landlady thought her more "close" 
 than ever. " I did not expect to see your 
 little ladies so much grown arid so rosy," 
 she remarked. " I thought, ma'am, you 
 said Miss Delia was not well." 
 
 "It was only that I thought her ankle 
 was weak," said Mrs. Snaith, anxiously. 
 "I fared to think she turned one of her 
 feet in more than the other when she 
 walked." 
 
 This conversation took place while the 
 landlady cleared away breakfast the day 
 after Mrs. Snaith' s arrival. " Many chil- 
 dren do that," quoth the good woman, 
 impelled, spite of her own interest, to make 
 a suggestive observation. " Why, dear 
 me, ma'am, their father will be a strange 
 gentleman if he is not satisfied, when he 
 returns, that you have done the best any- 
 body could for them." 
 
140 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 She was rewarded for once. Mrs. Snaith 
 coloured all over her honest, homely face ; 
 concealment did not come easily to her. 
 She answered that she had no reason at 
 all to think he would not he satisfied, and 
 her reply, considering the character of this 
 said father, seemed to herself almost ridi- 
 culous ; she knew well that he cared for 
 their welfare not a straw. And the land- 
 lady, not having been contradicted, sup- 
 posed herself to know that the children's 
 father was abroad. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith fell easily into her old habit 
 of sitting at work on the beach while she 
 watched the children playing at the edge 
 of the wave. They were very much grown. 
 Both were lovely, and in all respects unlike 
 herself. She instinctively kept apart from 
 the other nurses and children. Her quiet 
 life went on in a great silence, yet she was 
 happy; love and service contented her. 
 She was safe for a long while to come from 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 141 
 
 the husband whose drunken brawls had made 
 life a misery, and whose crimes had kept 
 her in constant fear. She was freed from 
 want, and that alone was enough to make 
 her wake every morning in a conscious 
 state of thankfulness. 
 
 The fortnight she had meant to stay at 
 the seaside had almost come to an end, 
 and she was watching Delia one afternoon, 
 and feeling almost contented with her 
 pretty little white ankles — that slight 
 something, whatever it had been, habit or 
 weakness, had almost disappeared, and, 
 lovely and rosy, the little creature was 
 paddling in the water with her sister — when 
 clear through the still air rang a voice that 
 she recognized, as its owner came up 
 briskly to her side. 
 
 " Why, there's that nurse again, the 
 person that I told you of! And the chil- 
 dren with her. There they all are, I de- 
 clare ! " 
 
142 SAKAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith turned slowly, and saw the 
 lady who had asked the children's name 
 two years ago. She had never forgotten her, 
 nor that her landlady had called her Miss 
 Thimbleby. They hurried up. 
 
 " You have forgotten me, perhaps ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am." 
 
 They sat down near her. " I saw the 
 children's name on their spades," said Miss 
 Thimhlehy. " This " — pointing out the 
 other lady with an air as if she was giving 
 some intelligence that must be most wel- 
 come — " this is Miss de Berenger." 
 
 " Indeed, ma'am," said Mrs. Snaith, with 
 slow and quiet caution ; and she lifted atten- 
 tive eyes to the stranger, who nodded and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Yes, I am Miss de Berenger. You 
 have heard him speak of me, no doubt ? " 
 
 "Him?" 
 
 " He was always my favourite," con- 
 tinued the lady, who seemed both glad 
 
SARAH DE BERENGEE. 143 
 
 and excited, " and of course he must have 
 mentioned me. Indeed, I am sure of it." 
 
 This was rather a startling speech. 
 
 " I don't understand you, ma'am," said 
 Mrs. Snaith, slowly. She looked again at 
 Miss de Berenger. It did not require much 
 penetration to see that she was not a wise 
 woman ; her style of dress alone might have 
 suggested this thought, if there had been 
 nothing else about her to do it. 
 
 "And I have looked for you repeatedly, 
 and told my nephew Felix all about you; 
 but we never could find you, either of us." 
 
 u Looked for us ! Indeed, ma'am, may 
 I ask why ? " 
 
 1 ' Why ? why ? ' ' exclaimed Miss Thimbleby, 
 with reproachful astonishment. " Do I really 
 hear you asking why ? " 
 
 A little useful resentment here rising 
 in Mrs. Snaith's breast enabled her to 
 answer rather sharply, " Yes, you do." And 
 she looked again at the lady who had been 
 mentioned as Miss de Berenger. 
 
144 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 She was a slender, upright little woman 
 of between fifty and sixty, nearer to the latter 
 age. Her hair, not precisely red, was yet 
 too near that colour to pass for golden. It 
 was abundant for her time of life, free from 
 grey, and dressed in long loose curls, so 
 light and " fluffy," that they blew about 
 with the slightest movement in the air. 
 Her dress was of that reddish purple which 
 makes orange look more conspicuous. She 
 had a green parasol, wore a good deal of 
 jewelry, had a jaunty air, and might have 
 passed for little more than forty — so brisk 
 and youthful was she — but that her cheeks 
 were streaked with the peculiar red of an 
 apple that has been kept into the winter — 
 a bright, fixed hue, which early in life is 
 scarcely ever seen. 
 
 The other lady was very plainly dressed, 
 and seemed to be under thirty. She started 
 up on hearing Mrs. Snaith's last word, and 
 going to the edge of the wave, brought back 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 145 
 
 with her the two children, who, a little 
 surprised by Miss de Berenger's gay appear- 
 ance, stood gazing at her for a moment, 
 their shining bare feet gleaming white on the 
 sand, and their rosy mouths pouting with 
 just the least little impatience at being 
 taken away from the water. 
 
 " The very image of him ! " exclaimed 
 Miss de Berenger, shaking back her curls 
 and clasping her hands. " Come and kiss 
 me, my pretty ones." 
 
 The children, with infantile indifference, 
 gave the required kisses, looked at the lady, 
 looked at Mrs. Snaith; but the one was 
 drying her eyes, the other watchful, to 
 discover what this might mean. She turned 
 cold, but did not look at her darlings, so 
 they took the opportunity to slip away and 
 run back to the water. 
 
 " Where is their father now ? " asked Miss 
 de Berenger. " Ah, I was very fond of him. 
 If he had only stopped at home, I should 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 
 
 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 have left him everything." A twinkling in 
 her eyes seemed to promise tears. She 
 wiped them again, though these proofs of 
 feeling had not come. " Where is he ? " 
 
 " I don't know, ma'am," said Mrs. Snaith, 
 who now laid down her work, to hide the 
 trembling of her hands. 
 
 " He is abroad, of course ? " 
 
 " Ma'am, I am not sure." 
 
 Both answers perfectly true. 
 
 The reluctance to speak was evident ; it 
 seemed to astonish Miss de Berenger, even 
 to the point of making her silent. 
 
 "Why, surely," exclaimed the other 
 lady, with a certain air of severity, as if by 
 the weight of her disapproval she hoped 
 to oppress Mrs. Snaith into giving her 
 testimony — " surely you can have no 
 objection to answer a few questions — such 
 natural questions as these, nurse ! " 
 
 " Perhaps she has had her orders," 
 murmured Miss de Berenger. 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 147 
 
 Mrs. Snaith for the moment was much 
 surprised at this question. Under whose 
 orders could they think she was ? 
 
 " Unless that is the case," said Miss 
 Thiinbleby, with uncivil directness, " I can- 
 not understand what reason you can have 
 for concealing anything from Miss de 
 Berenger — what good reason." 
 
 Again indignation came to the aid of 
 Mrs. Snaith. She rose on hearing this, 
 took up the children's shoes and socks, and 
 turning her back on the two ladies, went 
 down to the water's edge, and called her 
 little barefooted treasures to come to her. 
 
148 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith had no sooner got away from 
 the two ladies, than she began to wonder 
 why she had been so much alarmed. She 
 had hardly understood at first that Miss de 
 Berenger claimed the children as relations. 
 " And why," she thought, " should this 
 have frightened me ? I have no presence 
 of mind at all. I should have told her she 
 was mistaken, and there would have been 
 an end. Folks cannot take them from me ; 
 and if I make it seem to everybody that 
 I am their nurse, and allow that their 
 father is living, it's natural — I fare to see 
 now — that people should think I must be 
 under his orders," 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 149 
 
 She turned while seated on the sand, 
 fitting on little boots. Miss de Berenger 
 was behind her. 
 
 " We did not mean to offend you," she 
 exclaimed, shaking back her curls. "I am 
 sure, nurse, you are doing your duty by the 
 darlings, but " 
 
 "I am not offended with you, ma'am," 
 answered Mrs. Snaith, when she stopped 
 short. " Anybody can see that you are 
 quite the lady, and had no thought of being 
 rude." 
 
 u Then I wish you would be a little more 
 open, nurse. You say you do not know 
 where their father is, but you might at least 
 tell me how long it is since you heard from 
 him." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith pondered, then gave the 
 truth. " Two years and three months, 
 ma'am. But will you sit down a minute ? 
 Eun on, my pretty ones." 
 
 The children, nothing loth, obeyed. Miss 
 de Berenger sat down. 
 
150 SAKAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 " Ma'am, you make it plain that you think 
 these children must be related to you." 
 
 " Of course ; I am sure of it." 
 
 " Well, ma'am, then it is my duty to tell 
 you that they are not. You don't owe 
 them any kindness, I do assure you. They 
 are not related to you at all." 
 
 "Not that you know of," said Miss de 
 Berenger, in correction. "But," she 
 continued, "there might be family reasons, 
 you must allow — very important family 
 reasons — for not telling you everything 
 about them." 
 
 She was perfectly polite in her manner, 
 but this pertinacity alarmed Mrs. Snaith 
 again. What should she say next ? She 
 had not decided, when Miss de Berenger 
 went on — 
 
 " Did he tell you to bring them here ? 
 Because, if he did, it must have been on 
 purpose that I or some of us might find 
 them out, and acknowledge them." 
 
SAKAH DE BEEENGER. 151 
 
 Here was at least a suggestion which 
 could be met and denied. 
 
 " Nobody told me to bring them here, 
 ma'am. I do assure you I did it wholly to 
 please myself, and out of my own head." 
 
 "Well, well, Felix must be told of this," 
 said Miss de Berenger, not at all convinced. 
 She twisted one of her curls over rather 
 a bony finger. " I shall consult Felix, and 
 he will soon get to the root of the matter." 
 
 "I don't think Felix will," thought Mrs. 
 Snaith, and a furtive smile, in spite of 
 herself, gleamed in her eyes. 
 
 "But, surely," continued the good lady, 
 " you can have no motive for being more 
 reticent with me than with the person in 
 whose lodgings you are. She knows that 
 you brought the children first from London, 
 that their father is away, and that they 
 have lost their mother, for she told us so." 
 
 "Did she, ma'am?" said Mrs. Snaith; 
 and pondering the matter in her mind, 
 
152 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 she felt sure she had never said they had 
 lost their mother. 
 
 " You are entrusted with the entire 
 charge of them," was the next question; 
 " is it not so ? " 
 
 "Yes; they have no one to look after 
 them hut me." 
 
 " They are very like the family, and so 
 my friend remarked, when she saw them 
 here some time ago." 
 
 " Do you mean that person who was with 
 you just now?" quoth Mrs. Snaith. She 
 was still offended with her. 
 
 " She is quite a lady," exclaimed Miss de 
 Berenger instantly, losing sight of the 
 matter in hand to defend this person. 
 "It is true that she has married Mr. de 
 Berenger's fellow-curate, which was a most 
 imprudent thing to do (and everybody said 
 so), particularly as he had been plucked at 
 college till he had hardly a feather left on 
 him; hut she would have him, and they 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 153 
 
 were married, and had twin children with 
 lightning rapidity. She is come here with 
 me tcLget cured, if possible, of a bad cough 
 that she has had ever since some months 
 before their birth. But, indeed, what could 
 she expect, going out as she did when the 
 roads were blocked up with snow, and the 
 thermometer yards below zero ? " 
 
 The lady in question now made herself 
 audible, as she came pounding down through 
 the shingle to join them. It was evident 
 to her keen observation that no fresh 
 information had been obtained. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith rose, and, preparing to follow 
 the children, made a bow to Miss de 
 Berenger; whereupon the mother of twins 
 said coldly — 
 
 " Miss de Berenger is very much hurt, 
 and very much surprised too — that I can 
 plainly see — by the way in which you have 
 repelled her kind advances. The children's 
 true interests are evidently very far from 
 
154 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 your thoughts. You can only think of 
 your own." 
 
 " Good afternoon, ladies," said the J^iurse, 
 tossing her head rather haughtily ; and she 
 passed on, half frightened again. There 
 was a self-satisfied air of authority in the 
 speaker, and something threatening in her 
 tone, which, under the circumstances, was 
 very ridiculous, and yet a certain effect was 
 produced on her who knew those circum- 
 stances best. 
 
 Not even a mother could seriously believe 
 that any one wanted to steal her children. 
 Mrs. Snaith did not reach that point of 
 folly; but she felt uneasy and insecure, as 
 if, having ceased to admit her maternity, 
 she had lost power over them. 
 
 Her boxes were already packed, she 
 having previously intended going away by 
 that evening's train ; and she was truly 
 glad that the little chaise was at the door 
 and the two children in it, when, Miss de 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGER. 155 
 
 Berenger coming up with her friend, she 
 noticed the puzzled look of the one and 
 the displeasure of the other. 
 
 She had hid her landlady good-bye, and 
 had directed her driver to the station, when 
 the voice of the late Miss Thimbleby struck 
 on her ear. " Why, the woman's actually 
 running away ! ' ' 
 
 "Drive on," said Mrs. Snaith. 
 
 "Bunning away, ma'am!" cried the land- 
 lady, looking after the chaise as it bore off 
 her late lodgers. " Quite the contrary, I 
 do assure you. Mrs. Snaith would have 
 been very thankful to stay, if I could have 
 kept her. As it is, I've let her stop on till 
 I'm very hard drove to clean up for my 
 next 'let.' Nobody ever l runs away ' from 
 this place ; and goodness knows there's 
 little need, so healthy and bracing as 
 it is." 
 
 Miss de Berenger hastened to say some- 
 thing complimentary concerning the place, 
 
156 SARAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 and, in return, the landlady obliged her 
 with the address of her late lodger. 
 
 About ten days after this, while Mrs. 
 Snaith, already calmed by a sense of re- 
 moteness from observation, was pleasing 
 herself with the certainty that her little Delia 
 walked now as well as other children, Miss 
 de Berenger took an opportunity to open 
 her mind to her nephew, and fill him with 
 a vague sense of responsibility towards 
 these children. 
 
 Felix de Berenger was seven and twenty, 
 a bachelor. He had lately been presented 
 to a living, a very small one in point of 
 income, but having a good-sized and com- 
 fortable house attached to it, a most ex- 
 cellent garden, two fields, an orchard, and 
 a poultry yard. 
 
 To this place he had thankfully removed 
 what little furniture he possessed, together 
 with his books and his two brothers ; also 
 the nurse who had brought up the younger 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 157 
 
 of these, and now, with a village girl to 
 help her, did all the work of the parsonage, 
 including the care of a cow and a pig. 
 
 His circumstances were peculiar. While 
 he was yet almost in infancy, his father's 
 regiment had been ordered to India, and 
 he had been left behind. Several children, 
 born to his parents during the next few 
 years, had died in early childhood, and 
 they had returned to England for the year's 
 leave with one only, a boy just eight years 
 younger than Felix. 
 
 The mother made great lamentation over 
 the loss of her children, from the hot 
 climate not suiting them. She left the 
 second son behind also, and returning to 
 India with her husband, the same misfor- 
 tune overtook her again — her infants died ; 
 and it was not till after her final return to 
 her native country that the youngest of her 
 surviving children was born. He was now 
 between seven and eight years old — a deli- 
 
158 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 cate little fellow, childlike in appearance, 
 fully nineteen years younger than his eldest 
 brother, and, being already orphaned, wholly 
 dependent on the said brother both for 
 maintenance and affection. 
 
 Miss de Berenger, a woman of good for- 
 tune, had come to stay with her dear 
 nephew Felix, and, in her own opinion, to 
 help him. She loved to scheme for other 
 people, but out of her ample means she 
 afforded them nothing but schemes. 
 
 Yet she was not accounted mean, for she 
 was perfectly consistent. If people render 
 help to those near to them at intervals, 
 which are felt to be remote, or if their 
 frequent presents are considered to be in- 
 adequate, they are thought ungenerous; 
 but if they never give anything at all, 
 they often escape from such an imputation. 
 The minds of others are at rest concerning 
 them, the looking out for needed assistance 
 not being connected with them. 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 159 
 
 The late Mrs. de Berenger had considered 
 her husband's only brother to be extremely 
 mean ; and this was mainly because once, 
 when her little Dick was a baby, he had 
 caused his wife, with profuse expressions of 
 good will from him, to bring the child a 
 handsome little merino coat. 
 
 Miss de Berenger, having come to stay 
 with her dear nephew Felix, was waiting 
 in his pleasant dining-room till he should 
 appear to breakfast. 
 
 He had been away from home when she 
 arrived ; sitting up with a sick parishioner, 
 whose bedside he had not left till late in 
 the night. She had not, therefore, seen 
 him, and was now occupied in looking about 
 her. 
 
 There were only six chairs in the room ; 
 these were of a very light description. 
 " Four and sixpence each, I should think," 
 she reflected ; " certainly, not more." 
 Then there were two large, solid bookcases, 
 
160 SAKAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 which were so disposed as to make the 
 most of themselves. A square of carpet 
 was spread in the middle of the room, and 
 on this stood the table ; all uncovered parts 
 of the floor being stained brown. This 
 scanty furnishing made the large room look 
 larger. It looked, also, rather empty — for 
 it was rather empty. 
 
 She walked to one of the windows, and, 
 gazing out, saw what pleased her better. 
 On the right, but a good way off, was a 
 very high and thick yew-tree hedge, with 
 a square place in front of it paved with 
 small coggle-stones. In this grew two fine 
 walnut trees. Nearer to her, and only 
 divided from the paved yard by a line of 
 artificial rock-work scarcely a foot high, 
 was a large, beautiful garden, which, close to 
 the house, was planted with rose-bushes, 
 lilies, tree-peonies, and many lovely old- 
 fashioned plants, called by modern gardeners 
 "herbaceous rubbish." Those pernicious 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGER. 161 
 
 weeds, the scarlet geranium and the yellow 
 calceolaria, had not found their way into it. 
 As this garden sloped away from the house, 
 large fruit trees of fine growth appeared 
 among the flower borders ; climbing cle- 
 matis, white or purple, was folded round the 
 trunks of some. Further off still, but not 
 divided by any hedge from the flowers, 
 excellent crops of various vegetables might 
 be seen. 
 
 A second window in the dining-room 
 showed her a mossy old lawn, in which 
 grew two immense fir trees, and between 
 them was visible the broad, low tower of a 
 village church. 
 
 Felix came down, his young brother 
 Amias followed ; a few words of welcome 
 were said, then the bell was rung for 
 prayers, and in came the two servants, 
 the little brother Dick, and Miss de Beren- 
 ger's maid. 
 
 If Felix had not been thinking of his 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 sick parishioner, he must have noticed the 
 restlessness of his annt. As it was, he pro- 
 ceeded, after prayers, to help her to her 
 breakfast, with nothing to break the force 
 of his surprise, when, after little Dick had 
 shut the door behind him, she flung back 
 her curls and exclaimed, with an air of 
 triumph — 
 
 "Yes! Well, now, Felix; well, now, 
 Amias, what do you think ? I've discovered 
 the most astonishing family mystery that 
 you ever heard of. It's enough to make 
 your hair stand on end." 
 
 They were both well used to their aunt's 
 sensational speeches : to do her justice, it 
 was their habit of insisting on not being 
 astonished at what she had to say, which 
 mainly led to her constantly making her 
 statements more and more startling. 
 
 Amias continued to cut the bread quite 
 calmly, but Felix paused with his fork in 
 the bacon. His aunt's bright-red cheeks had 
 
SARAH DE BEREXGER. 163 
 
 taken a clearer dye than usual ; she was 
 evidently excited herself, not merely trying 
 to excite them. 
 
 " I told you," she exclaimed, tossing 
 back her curls to cool her face — " I told 
 you I believed I was on the track of 
 John's children. Poor John ! Yes, I've 
 found them, Felix. And their nurse, being 
 alarmed at something (what, I don't know), 
 positively stood me out, and declared that 
 they were no relations of ours. Poor little 
 waifs, they are the very image of him ; and 
 unless we show a parent's heart towards 
 them, Felix, I really do not know what is 
 to become of them." 
 
 Felix, unequal to the task of cutting the 
 bacon, left the fork sticking upright in it. 
 
 "John's children ! " he exclaimed. " Why, 
 John's not married ; at least, I never had 
 a hint that he was, much less that he had 
 a family." 
 
 "Nor had I, Felix; but I always sus- 
 
164 SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 pected that, when he quarrelled with his 
 father and went away, he did marry that 
 young person. And I have no douht, 
 whatever the nurse may say, that he sent 
 
 her to D on purpose that I might fall 
 
 in with the children. Her conduct was 
 most peculiar; she no sooner found out 
 that they were relations of mine, than she 
 rushed off with them. But she had better 
 mind what she is about. I am going to 
 write to her, for I have her address, and I 
 shall tell her that if I go to law with her, 
 it will certainly he brought in ' abduction 
 of an heiress.' " 
 
 " An heiress ! " exclaimed Felix. " She 
 cannot be John's child, then." 
 
 " She is a very lovely little girl ; and if 
 I make a will in her favour, she will turn 
 out to be an heiress. And then, as I said, 
 that nurse had better look out, or she will 
 get herself transported for carrying her off 
 as she has done." 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 165 
 
 At this point the two brothers seemed 
 to lose their interest in the matter, and to 
 find their wonder subside, so that they 
 conld begin to eat their breakfast. 
 
 She then gave an account of what had 
 passed, but at the same time taking so 
 much for granted, and so piecing together 
 what she had been told, what she thought, 
 and what the landlady had thought, that 
 Felix, in spite of himself, could not help 
 believing that these children must be John 
 de Berenger's daughters. 
 
 John de Berenger was the third son of 
 old Sir Samuel de Berenger, who, having 
 married late in life, was the father of a 
 family very little older than Felix de 
 Berenger, the son of his nephew. 
 
 The baronet's eldest son, for whom he had 
 never cared much, was a confirmed invalid, 
 spending most of his time at Algiers or in 
 Italy. He was a married man, but childless. 
 The second son, Tom, had just married, and 
 
166 SAEAH DE BEBENGEE. 
 
 gone to join his regiment in India. The 
 third, John, who was not without certain 
 endearing qualities, was no credit to any- 
 one belonging to him. He was reckless 
 of opinion, extravagant, and so hopelessly 
 in debt, that he would certainly have 
 been outlawed, but that there was only 
 one healthy life between him and the 
 baronetcy; and his father, moreover, was 
 both rich and old. So that it seemed to 
 his creditors wise to wait on the chance of 
 his inheriting, at least, enough to pay his 
 debts, provided they did not make his 
 father aware how great these were. 
 
 " I cannot bear to hear poor John called 
 the reprobate of the family," exclaimed 
 Miss de Berenger, " and threatened with 
 outlawry, dear fellow! " 
 
 It was partly on account of the word 
 " outlaw" that Miss de Berenger took a 
 romantic interest in John. No halo hangs 
 about vulgar debt, but outlawry brings to 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 167 
 
 mind the Lincoln green, bows and arrows, 
 and a silver horn to blow upon under the 
 greenwood tree. 
 
 " I wish you would not tease the old man 
 about these children," said Amias. " Hasn't 
 he enough to think of just now ? I'm the 
 reprobate of the family. I repudiate John ; 
 he's an impostor." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, Amias," cried Miss de 
 Berenger instantly, remembering that she 
 ought to bear her testimony against the 
 youth's behaviour. " Yes, very sad. I've 
 heard of your conduct. Sir Sam wrote to 
 me in a rage. I hear you've turned teeto- 
 taler as well, on purpose to insult him ; and 
 I'm informed that you said brewing was not 
 a proper trade for a gentleman." 
 
 "I said drunkenness was the cause of 
 almost all the misery in the country. I 
 said there was hardly a judge on the bench 
 who had not declared that it had to do with 
 nine-tenths of the crime that came before 
 him. I said ' ' 
 
168 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 "Now, look here," exclaimed Felix, 
 suddenly rousing up, " I can stand a good 
 deal, but I can't and won't stand a tem- 
 perance lecture on the top of John's 
 children ! " Then thinking, perhaps, that 
 he had been a little too vehement, he added 
 and half laughed, "It's all right, my boy." 
 
 " The old man has a great deal to worry 
 him just now," said Amias, excusing his 
 brother's sudden heat to his aunt. 
 
 "And after he had been so kind — I 
 mean, Sir Sam had been so kind — and 
 proposed to take you into the concern, 
 and in time give you an interest in it ! 
 Yes, it is very sad." 
 
 "Well, you would not have had me be 
 such a sneak, I suppose, as not to tell Uncle 
 Sam what I'd done ? Everybody else 
 knew. I'd been bursting with rage some 
 time to think how we were actually the 
 ruin of people. But that was not why I 
 did it, I can tell you; I did it for fun. 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 1C9 
 
 When that temperance fellow came into 
 the village, and stood on a kitchen chair 
 ranting, a lot of people soon got round him, 
 and some of them cheered and some jeered 
 me as I came calmly by and stopped to 
 listen." 
 
 " Ah ! stopped to listen, Amias. That 
 shows what comes of tampering with evil. 
 Well?" 
 
 " Well, presently two drunken men came 
 reeling up, and insisted on shaking hands 
 with me. And the people hauled out 
 another chair from a cottage, and declared 
 that I must mount it and answer him. 
 I had not known at first what it was that 
 he was ranting about, with ' dear brethren/ 
 and ' dear sisters,' and ' dear fellow- sinners.' 
 By the time I did know they would not 
 let me off; they stamped and cheered, and 
 said it was election time, and I must and 
 should speak up for the old concern." 
 
 "Well, Amias, well." 
 
170 SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 "Why, the tide turned against the 
 temperance man; they hooted him down. 
 And (I was excited at first, you know, it 
 seemed such fun) so I got on the chair 
 and imitated the man, his cockney talk 
 and cant. I did him capitally ; I ranted till 
 they all shrieked with laughter. And then 
 I stopped, for I knew I was doing the devil's 
 work. I stopped, I tell you, and I told them 
 the temperance man was quite right, and 
 asked them if they didn't know it, and all 
 that; and then, Felix coming up, I felt 
 that I was stumped, and I jumped down 
 and ran off. I could hear every step I took 
 on the grass, the people were so still; I 
 suppose it was with astonishment." 
 
 " Very sad," said Miss de Berenger again, 
 
 Felix smiled. 
 
 " So," continued the boy, "I thought 
 the next day I had better go and tell it 
 all to Uncle Sam. The old man thought 
 so too ; so I went and did for myself, for, 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 171 
 
 of course, he sent me packing. And here 
 I am." 
 
 "Well," said Miss de Berenger, with 
 some bitterness, and what was meant for 
 irony, " then, I hope the old man made 
 you welcome." 
 
 " Yes," said Felix, calmly, " I did." 
 
 " You needn't shake your head, aunt," 
 proceeded the boy. " I'm glad I did it." 
 
 Miss de Berenger had sense enough to 
 see that what she might say on this 
 subject could have no effect. She returned 
 to her former theme ; she did not see 
 how poor John's children were to be 
 educated. 
 
 " The proper person to tell this to is 
 old Sam himself," observed Felix. 
 
 " Oh, I have written to him, my dear Felix. 
 I have laid the whole matter before him, 
 and " 
 
 "And what?" 
 
 "And he repudiates them utterly! But 
 
172 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 if he could see them, beautiful little 
 creatures, and such a respectable nurse, 
 I'm sure it would soften his heart." 
 
 " How can John afford a nurse ? His 
 father allows him very little to live on." 
 
 " Very little. I thought it so touching 
 to see them handsomely dressed when John 
 must be almost in want. It shows his 
 heart is in the right place. And then, no 
 doubt, he had them thrown in our way, 
 hoping we should take them up." 
 
 " If that is the case, why, in the name 
 of common sense, did their nurse carry 
 them off?" 
 
 "Why, my dear, she might not know 
 his motive, or she was afraid, perhaps, 
 that my penetration, or some unexpected 
 question of mine, might lead her to betray 
 what she is probably aware must not be 
 told — that is, where John's abode is." 
 
 " It sounds queer," said Felix. 
 
 Miss de Berenger took no notice of this 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGER. 173 
 
 remark, but dashed into what seemed a 
 perfectly different subject. 
 
 "And what about poor little Dick? He 
 has had no lessons at all since you came 
 here. Yes, he ought to have a governess, 
 for he is far too delicate to go to school." 
 
 " Aunt, you know very well that I can- 
 not afford a governess just yet." 
 
 " But, Felix, I have matured a scheme. 
 Yes, I have thought it out. I wish I was 
 more thankful for this talent committed to 
 me of planning for others. You know dear 
 Cecilia's sister, Ann Thimbleby, of course ?" 
 
 " Of course," said Felix, without any 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " Dear Cecilia would like so much to 
 have her near at hand. But then, you know, 
 Ann has to educate her little sister, and she 
 finds it extremely difficult to meet with any 
 one who will take a governess and a ten- 
 years'-old sister with her." 
 
 " I should think so ! " 
 
174 SAKAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 " Ann Thimbleby asks forty pounds a year 
 salary." 
 
 " Oh." 
 
 " Felix, do listen." 
 
 " Ann Thimbleby asks forty pounds a year 
 salary, you said." 
 
 " Yes, Felix ; but she and the child are 
 vegetarians. Just think of your garden. It 
 would cost you a mere nothing to feed 
 them, with the eggs, too, that you have 
 from the poultry yard, and the milk from your 
 cow. You would still (when your family 
 was supplied) have fruit and vegetables to 
 exchange for groceries, as I explained to 
 you was commonly done. If you would 
 give her little sister board and lodging, 
 and let Ann teach her with Dick, Ann 
 would take ten pounds a year and be thank- 
 ful. I know she would, for she has twenty 
 pounds a year of her own." 
 
 " I could not afford even that. I should 
 still be out of pocket." 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 175 
 
 11 Yes, you would — perhaps almost as much 
 as twenty pounds a year. Yes. But, then, 
 there are these little De Berengers. I have 
 ascertained that their nurse pays a certain 
 Miss Price twenty pounds for teaching 
 them. Now, Felix, if that woman would 
 come and live in the village, you could 
 agree with Anne to teach the four children 
 together, and you, receiving the twenty 
 pounds, would get Dick educated for nothing. 
 You would keep a kind of co-operative store 
 for the benefit of all parties, the goods being 
 children." 
 
 Felix was struck with surprise. 
 
 " You actually propose to me to encumber 
 myself with a governess, a girl, and two 
 children, in order to get little Dick taught 
 his lessons? " 
 
 " Well, Felix, can you think of a better 
 plan ? It would be bringing these darlings 
 close to their own family, and getting Dick 
 looked after and taught for nothing. I do 
 
176 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 not mean to say that Mary Thimbleby is 
 a nice child — far be it from me to deceive 
 you. She is a stupid, uncomfortable girl, 
 and how their mother, who was the sweetest 
 woman — so managing, too — contrived to 
 have such an uncomfortable child, I cannot 
 think. It is something quite new in that 
 family to produce a variety of the sort. 
 But these subjects," continued Miss de 
 Berenger, pushing back her loose curls, and 
 putting on an air of wisdom and cogitation 
 — " these subjects are as intricate as all 
 others on the origin of species." 
 
 A gleam of joy shot across the dark face 
 of Felix, but he remained silent, and his 
 aunt continued. 
 
 "And as for Cecilia's marrying Carlos 
 Tanner, of course that was very imprudent ; 
 but I cannot help taking an interest in him, 
 considering, my dears, that I ought to have 
 been his mother, and that, but for the fickle- 
 ness of mankind, I should have been." 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 177 
 
 This was an old story. 
 
 "Never mind, Aunt Sarah," said Amias. 
 " His father's wife lost all her fortune after 
 he married her, and everybody said that 
 served him right." 
 
 " And she had been a widow twice before 
 he took her," observed Felix. 
 
 " Yes," said Aunt Sarah, much consoled ; 
 " and she was married in a brown gown — 
 actually, my dears, in a brown gown. If he 
 had married me, I should have had a white 
 one." 
 
 " Well, then, I hope the wedding cake, 
 instead of white, was done with brown 
 sugar," continued Felix. 
 
 " For consistency's sake it should have 
 been," answered Sarah; "but, my dears, 
 we cannot expect consistency in this world ! 
 Yes!" 
 
 VOL. T. 
 
178 SAKAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 CHAPTEB VIII. 
 
 This plan of Miss de Berenger's appeared to 
 her nephew so preposterous, that he gave 
 it no better reception than a somewhat 
 ironical smile ; then he finished his break- 
 fast, and what more his annt had to say he 
 heard without receiving the sense. Yet, in 
 less than one month, he was glad to carry- 
 out the whole scheme, almost to the letter. 
 In about a week he found that he was 
 living precisely up to his income, and had 
 nothing to spare for such contingencies as 
 illness, nor anything to spend on Dick's 
 education. At the same time, Miss de 
 Berenger having said vaguely that no 
 doubt little Dick would soon have a gover- 
 
SAKAH DE BEKENGER. 179 
 
 ness, a widow lady, a friend of hers, who 
 lived half a mile off, came and proposed 
 advantageous terms, if her son might come 
 as a day pupil, and take his lessons with 
 Dick. Her hoy, she said, was lonely; he 
 was delicate ; he was her only child. Might 
 lie ride over on his pony ? She was sure 
 they should agree about terms. 
 
 On this hint Miss de Berenger spoke 
 again, and got leave from Felix to write 
 to Mrs. Snaith; which she did, proposing 
 to the poor woman to come and live in a 
 little cottage then vacant, and pay twenty 
 pounds a year for the education of the two 
 children. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith did not often laugh, but 
 she laughed heartily when she got that 
 letter ; felt as if she had been politely in- 
 vited to step into the lion's den, and put 
 it aside, taking nearly a fortnight for con- 
 sideriDg the precise terms in which she 
 could decline it. 
 
180 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 But lo, at the end of that term scarlet 
 fever broke out in the farmhouse where 
 Miss Price the governess lived, and she felt 
 at once a longing desire to get away from 
 the place. She only took her little cottage 
 by the week ; she could hire a cart to carry 
 away her furniture to the station. She had 
 spent a good deal of money on her late trip 
 to the seaside, and could not possibly afford 
 another. How cheap this plan was — how 
 easy ! And, after all, no one but herself 
 had any power over the children ; no one 
 could possibly prevent her taking them 
 away again from these De Berengers 
 whenever she chose. 
 
 She drew out the letter again. There was 
 no time to be lost; one more day brought 
 her news of another case of fever, and 
 without loss of an hour she wrote a re- 
 spectful letter to Miss de Berenger, setting 
 forth that she would appear with the 
 children the very next evening, and what 
 
SAKAH DE BEKENGEK. 181 
 
 little furniture she had should come with 
 them. 
 
 Miss de Bereuger had seldom been 
 happier. She rushed to accept the widow's 
 proposition, then she flew to arrange 
 matters with Miss Thimbleby, which she 
 did in such a satisfactory fashion, that this 
 young lady was to receive a small salary 
 for her services, together with vegetarian 
 hoard, lodging, and leave to educate the 
 little sister; Felix, on his part, taking 
 the remainder of what Mrs. Snaith and the 
 widow lady were to pay, so as to reimburse 
 himself for his outlay, and pay also for the 
 small quantity of cheap furniture that had 
 to be bought, his main advantage being 
 that he was to get his little brother 
 taught and looked after for nothing. 
 
 It was an anxious and trying day for 
 Mrs. Snaith that took her, her children, 
 and her goods, to the new home. Several 
 times during the course of it imagination 
 
182 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 transported her among the people she was 
 going to. How would they receive her ? 
 What questions would they ask ? She 
 thought of them as excited also, as busy 
 about her affairs, for Miss de Berenger 
 had assured her that the little cottage 
 should be swept down for her, and that 
 she should find a comfortable supper ready 
 there for herself and her little charge. 
 
 There was a certain amount of bustle, 
 and some excitement also, that day at the 
 parsonage ; not in the minds of Felix or his 
 brother, for they were gone out for the day ; 
 and not concerning Mrs. Snaith. If she 
 could have known what it was that effaced 
 her from their thoughts, it would have 
 helped her, as such things always do, to 
 realize how small the place was that she 
 filled in creation. 
 
 It is hard sometimes, when one had 
 thought that one's self and one's affairs 
 were filling the minds of others, to find 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 183 
 
 that one has been utterly forgotten ; but 
 it is positively humbling to discover, as is 
 sometimes our lot, what a small, what an 
 utterly worthless thing it was that blotted 
 us out. 
 
 However, in this case, it cannot be said 
 to have been a small thing — quite the 
 contrary. It was a very large thing ; there 
 was the oddness of the matter. And how 
 so large a thing could possibly be lost, 
 missing, or mislaid, in such a scantily 
 furnished house, was the whole mystery. 
 The thing, in short, for sake of which Mrs. 
 Snaith passed out of mind, was a clothes- 
 basket. 
 
 Jolliffe, the servant, had looked all over for 
 it, and was out of breath. A girl who had 
 been blamed, and had wept in consequence, 
 was now helping the others to express the 
 common astonishment, and counting off 
 on her fingers, as Jolliffe enumerated them, 
 all the places, likely and unlikely, that had 
 been looked into in vain. 
 
184 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 A large bundle of clothes, ready tied up to 
 be put into this basket, was lying in the 
 mean time on the clean kitchen floor, and 
 the washerwoman sat in judgment upon it, 
 deciding that it was too heavy to be carried 
 as it was, even with the help of her little 
 boy, who, with his legs hanging down, sat 
 regarding it with a sheepish and shamefaced 
 air, as one so used to be accused, when any 
 sort of mischief had been perpetrated, that 
 he was expecting every moment to hear the 
 loss of the basket confidently laid at his door. 
 
 Just then a youth, who had been hired 
 to weed, came clattering across the paved 
 yard in his hobnailed boots. 
 
 "I forgot the loft," said JollifTe ; and 
 she put her head out at the casement 
 window. " Andrew, you go and look in 
 the loft over the stable if the big clothes- 
 basket is there." 
 
 "I know it can't be there, mem," an- 
 swered the boy. 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 185 
 
 "I didn't ask you what you knew," said 
 Mrs. Jolliffe, with the dignity of full con- 
 viction. "If it's not in a likely place, it 
 stands to reason that it must be in an un- 
 likely. You go and do as I bid you." 
 
 " Yes, mem," said the boy; and he burst 
 into a chuckling laugh, and instantly was 
 grave again. 
 
 " That boy Andrew is the awkwardest in 
 the parish," continued Mrs. Jolliffe; "but 
 when I say the basket couldn't have gone 
 without hands, I don't mean but what his 
 hands are clean, in a manner of speaking." 
 
 " It ain't there," said Andrew, returning, 
 and chuckling again. "Whereupon he was 
 reproved by all parties for things in general, 
 including his having been frequently seen to 
 laugh even at his work, as if nothing was 
 of any account; which, they observed, had 
 very probably emboldened some tramp to 
 carry off the missing article. He was then 
 made to fetch the lightest wheelbarrow 
 
186 SAKAH DE BERENGEK. 
 
 from the potato garden, and in that the 
 clothes for the wash were solemnly wheeled 
 away. 
 
 The soft shadows of evening were coming 
 on, and everything about the parsonage was 
 very still, when Miss de Berenger came 
 bustling up to the kitchen door, calling for 
 Dick. 
 
 "I cannot find him anywhere, Jolliffe. 
 I want him to come this minute, and see 
 his little cousins. They have just arrived 
 at the cottage with their nurse, and I told 
 them they should see him." 
 
 Jolliffe had been leaning out at the dairy 
 window, talking to a market gardener, who 
 also kept a shop in the neighbouring town r 
 in which he sold both fruit and grocery, 
 and with whom Felix, under Miss de Be- 
 renger's advice, had made an agreement to 
 exchange some of his superfluous fruit for 
 tea and other groceries. She now started 
 forth, suddenly remembering that she had 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 187 
 
 not seen Dick for a long time, the gar- 
 dener following. 
 
 " Wherever can the dear child be ! " she 
 exclaimed. " I should have looked after 
 him before, if I hadn't had those lettices 
 on my mind. They've all come to their 
 hearts at once ; the dairy floor is all over 
 green things that master cut for fear their 
 heads should spread." 
 
 " That comes of the vegetable ladies," 
 observed the gardener. " I'm sure I don't 
 grudge anything its growth, — not but what 
 I shall lose by all those apricots being ripe 
 together." 
 
 " Wherever can the dear child be ! " re- 
 peated Jolliffe. " Master Dick ! " she 
 shouted, " where are you ? Come, it's 
 supper time, and your aunt wants you, 
 lovey." 
 
 A childish whoop answered, and was 
 echoed from the old church tower, which 
 was close to the garden. 
 
188 SARAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 " I can't tell where he is," she observed; 
 "the sound seemed to come from all round." 
 Then she turned to the east, and exclaimed, 
 " Why, goodness ! — why, good gracious me, 
 if ever I saw anything so strange in my 
 life, Mr. Bolton ! There's ever so many 
 stars shining in the chestnut tree." 
 
 Mr. Bolton looked. There stood the great 
 horse-chestnut tree, in all the splendour of 
 its rich, deep foliage, and there certainly 
 was a light shining between the leaves. 
 Not the moon, for she hung a yellow cres- 
 cent, that yielded no light at all ; not 
 Yenus > for she, of all stars, was the only 
 one out ; but a warm orange, steady light 
 that illuminated the whole centre of the 
 tree, and shone through the leaves as well 
 as between them. 
 
 The soft veil of the gloaming came on, 
 and made this light every moment brighter ; 
 while such a silence seemed to gather and 
 rise from under the trees, that Jolliffe and 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 189 
 
 her companion, as they slowly and cautiously 
 approached, did not care to speak. Then 
 the woman hung back, the light looked so 
 strange ; and the man went under, looked 
 up, and came back with a smile. 
 
 " I'll give you two guesses regarding 
 what's up in that tree ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Can't I see that it's a light ?" cried Mrs. 
 JollifTe, with much impatience. " I don't 
 see, though you have bought the fruit off' 
 the very walls, that I've any call to pick 
 out answers for your riddles in master's own 
 garden, at this time o' night." 
 
 " Of course it's a light," replied Mr. Bol- 
 ton, " but what's the light in ? Well, if you 
 don't like to come any nigher, in regard of 
 it's being so close to the old churchyard, I'll 
 tell you. It's in the old clothes-basket." 
 
 Jolliffe's surprise made her good-tempered. 
 Again she came under the tree, and looked 
 up. " This must be one of the dear child's 
 antics," she observed ; " but however in the 
 
190 SARAH DE BEEENGER. 
 
 world did he get it up there ? Must be 
 fifteen feet high. What a horrid dangerous 
 trick ! " 
 
 " 1 don't see that," answered Mr. Bolton. 
 " He can climb like a cat. What he's done 
 is this : he's drawn it up, do you see, by 
 that long dangle of clothes-line to the fork 
 where those three branches spread out, and 
 there, as he stood above, he's managed to 
 land it pretty steady, and he's tied it with 
 the rope in and out among the boughs, 
 and then he's fetched the stable lantern." 
 
 " And that boy Andrew helped him, I'll 
 be bound ! " exclaimed Mrs. JollifTe. " I 
 shouldn't wonder if he's in it now. Master 
 Dicky dear, you'll speak to your own Jolly, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 A good deal of creaking was now heard 
 in the wicker-work of the basket, but there 
 was no answer. 
 
 " Oh, well, Mr. Bolton," remarked Mrs. 
 Jolliffe, in a high-raised voice, " it's a clear 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 191 
 
 case that he ain't here ; I'd better go in 
 and tell his brother that he's lost." 
 
 A good deal more creaking, and some- 
 thing like a chuckle, was now heard in the 
 basket, and presently over the edge peered 
 the face of a great owl, a favourite com- 
 panion of the child's. 
 
 It was dusk now under the tree, and the 
 creature's eyes glared in the light of the 
 lantern. Mrs. JollifTe, being startled, called 
 him a beast ; but he looked far more like 
 the graven image of a cherub on a tomb, 
 for nothing of him could be seen but his 
 widespread wings and his face, while he 
 looked down and appeared to think the 
 visit of these two persons intrusive and 
 unseasonable. 
 
 " Well, old goggle-eyes," quoth Mr. Bol- 
 ton, " so you're there too, are you ? If you 
 know where your master is, which appears 
 likely — for you're as cunning as many Chris- 
 tians, and full as ugly — you'd better tell 
 
192 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 trim that, as sure as fate, we're going to 
 fetch his brother out if he doesn't come 
 down." 
 
 " Ay, that we are," added Mrs. Jolliffe. 
 " Why, it'll be dark presently, and how is 
 he to get down in the dark ? " 
 
 The round, rosy face of little Dick was 
 now reared up beside the face of the owl. 
 He looked like a cherub too, but with a 
 difference. 
 
 Mr. Bolton shook his head, and said 
 rather gruffly, " Now, what are we to think 
 of this here behaviour ? What with getting 
 yourself lifted off your legs, a-ringing the 
 church bells, and what with setting yourself 
 fast in the chimney, climbing after jack- 
 daws' nests, and what with sailing in the 
 wash-tub, and what with getting yourself 
 mixed up with the weights of the parish 
 clock, you're a handful to your family, I do 
 declare, and a caution to parties about to 
 marry." 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 193 
 
 Instead of looking at all penitent, the 
 little urchin only said, " But you won't tell, 
 Jolly dear — you won't really tell ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Mrs. Jolliffe, stolidly, 
 " I shall tell ; so now you know. And how 
 anybody that's only to eat lettices and 
 green meat generally is ever to conquer 
 you ! Of course I shall tell." 
 
 " Well, then, just throw up the cord," 
 said the little fellow, " and I'll be down in 
 a minute." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if that hoy Andrew 
 has been helping you," observed Mrs. 
 Jolliffe. "If he has, it may be as much 
 as his place is worth." 
 
 It was never worth more than ninepence 
 a day ; but the discussion was just then cut 
 short by the sound of voices. Felix and his 
 brother came down the grass walk. 
 
 " What's all this?" said Felix ; but before 
 Mrs. Jolliffe and Mr. Bolton had explained, 
 he had taken in the whole matter, and what 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
194 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 was more, he evidently thought nothing 
 of it. 
 
 Amias brought a fruit-ladder, Felix called 
 the little fellow down from his wicker nest, 
 and when he was upon it and conveniently 
 near, gave him a not unfriendly slap on 
 his chubby person. " You had better look 
 out, you little monkey," he remarked, in a 
 casual and general sort of way. Little Dick 
 said he would, and Felix, mounting the 
 ladder, looked into the basket : saw the owl 
 and the lantern, and a quantity of mown 
 grass, also two books of fairy tales which 
 Dick had been reading. He brought these 
 last down and put out the light. " The 
 basket is a good-for-nothing old thing," 
 he observed to Jolliffe as he descended ; 
 " the child may as well be allowed to 
 keep it." 
 
 Mrs. Jolliffe almost held up her hands. 
 " Is that the way to bring up a child ?" was 
 her mental answer. " Well, after this week 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 195 
 
 we shall wash at home, so it does not so 
 much signify." 
 
 Felix was not half so fond of his little 
 brother as a parent would have been, but 
 he was, on the whole, nearly as indulgent. 
 Dick, while he slowly retreated, heard per- 
 mission given for him to keep the clothes- 
 basket, but a ready instinct assured him 
 that he would do well to retire from observ- 
 ation. He had other pieces of mischief on 
 his mind beside the building of that child- 
 nest in the tree, so he evaded his aunt 
 when he heard her calling him, and creep- 
 ing up to his little room, tumbled into bed 
 and went to sleep as fast as possible. 
 
 He slept sweetly. So did not Mrs. Snaith, 
 though she was much fatigued ; a foreboding 
 thought of impending questions haunted 
 her. And as between ten and eleven o'clock 
 the next morning she came forth from her 
 tiny cottage to bring her little girls to the 
 parsonage, her senses seemed to be sharpened 
 
196 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 both by the new scene and the leisure given 
 her for remarking it. 
 
 Miss de Berenger had asked her to bring 
 the children. As well then, she thought, as 
 at some future time. The little creatures, 
 exquisitely neat and clean, with sunny locks 
 flowing under their limp white hats, walked 
 on before her, while she, very plainly clad, 
 came after, all in sober brown. She entered 
 the parsonage gate, and there stood the 
 vicar in his white gown ; he had just been 
 marrying a rustic couple at the church, and 
 was leisurely divesting himself of this long 
 white garment, which was so clean, that 
 between the two great dark fir trees on the 
 lawn, it seemed almost to shine. 
 
 Felix came up when he saw the chil- 
 dren, met them just as they reached the 
 front door, and gave a hand to each ; then 
 addressed the nurse pleasantly. But, hardly 
 noticing her answer, he seated himself on the 
 outside of the dining-room window and 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 197 
 
 cast attentive glances at his two little 
 guests, who, unabashed and calm, looked 
 at him with wide-open eyes of the sweetest 
 blue-grey, and found it interesting to notice 
 how the clerk was folding up that long 
 white gown, and how a tame jackdaw had 
 come hopping up to Felix, and was perching 
 itself on his knee. Sometimes the children 
 answered when Felix spoke, sometimes the 
 nurse, but an inward trembling shook her. 
 She had thought the shy anxieties of those 
 few moments would soon be over ; but no — 
 far otherwise. She looked earnestly at the 
 clergyman, at this Mr. Felix de Berenger, 
 and she saw in his face no recognition, but 
 a growing conviction made her more aware 
 that she did not see him for the first time. 
 A dark, thin man of middle height, a pleasant 
 face — though rather an anxious one — thin 
 features. And the hair ? Well, what of the 
 hair ? Felix took off his hat presently, for 
 the morning was warm ; then rising, he 
 
198 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 turned the other side of his head towards 
 her, as he called np at an open window, 
 "Dick, Dick! Come down, you little 
 monkey. Come; I want you." Yes, 
 there it was, visible enough — one lock, 
 narrow and perfectly white, among the 
 otherwise umber waves of thick dark 
 hair. 
 
 The nurse felt for the moment as if her 
 heart stood still, and all was up with her. 
 The curate ! It was the curate who had 
 been kind to her in her worst adversity, 
 who had given her a shilling in the hop- 
 garden. 
 
 He showed no signs of recognition. 
 How, indeed, should he know her again, 
 or she fail to know him again ? He was 
 not altered in the least, and had, as she 
 instantly remembered, seen many and many 
 a poor creature since such as she had 
 been. But she — her lean, gaunt figure 
 was changed by several years of peace, com- 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 199 
 
 fort, and good living. She was inclined, 
 for her age, to be rather stont now. She 
 was very neatly and becomingly dressed, for 
 in place of that flimsy faded clothing, she 
 wore plain dark colours, and her shining 
 hair was disposed in two close bands down 
 her face. 
 
 She looked well into his eyes, impelled 
 by her very fear to seek the worst at once. 
 He did not know her. And now a lovely 
 little boy in a pinafore was coming up ; 
 a dimpled creature as brown as a berry — 
 hair, and eyes, and face — excepting where 
 the clear crimson of the cheek showed 
 through a little. 
 
 He was inclined to be very shamefaced. 
 Amabel was not. She came up to him 
 and gave him the usual greeting of infancy, 
 a kiss. Then Delia slipped off Mr. de 
 Berenger's knee, and after inspecting Dick 
 for an instant, she also kissed him ; and 
 then the children smiled at one another 
 
200 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 all over their little faces, and, taking hands, 
 walked off among the trees chattering. 
 
 Pretty little Dick! He was supremely 
 happy that morning. The joy of their 
 presence was as if two little child-angels 
 had come to play with him. He made 
 them welcome to all his hest things ; he 
 also took them up the fruit-ladder to his 
 nest. For more than four years after this, 
 those beautiful nestlings spent their happiest 
 hours in it. 
 
 But on this first climb into it they were 
 aided by Andrew, who had originally helped 
 Dick to tie the basket safely, and was 
 now very impressive with all the children. 
 " They were on no account to go up, nor 
 down neither, without his help ; they were 
 to promise solemnly that they never would — 
 to promise as sure as death." So they did, 
 knowing and caring about death nothing 
 at all. But they knew they were happy — 
 Dick especially — and he fell easily and at 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 201 
 
 once under the influence of their sex, and 
 never so long as he lived escaped from it 
 any more. 
 
 The leaves were very thick underneath 
 them, so that they could not be seen from 
 below. But they could see the great 
 shining face of the church clock, the rooks 
 leading off their second brood, the white 
 road winding on through the heathery 
 common, and, far beyond, a little hill in old 
 Sir Sam's park, on the slope of which does 
 and fawns were lying half hidden by the 
 bracken. 
 
 In the mean time Mrs. Snaith, little 
 aware what they were about, had been 
 introduced by Jolliffe to the clean kitchen, 
 and there, after a good deal of polite hag- 
 gling, as, "Well, ma'am, I'm sure it's a 
 shame," and "Well, ma'am, I couldn't bear 
 myself sitting with my hands before me," 
 had been accommodated with an apron, and 
 allowed to make herself useful by stringing 
 
202 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 and slicing beans. The party had been 
 invited to an early dinner at the parsonage, 
 and there were rabbits and parsley sance 
 to prepare, and there were late red currants 
 to strip from the stalks for a fruit pudding. 
 Aided by the circumstance that they had 
 something to do, the ladies soon became 
 friendly, and talked of such subjects as really 
 interested them. 
 
 " Well, it is a very small cottage, ma'am ; 
 there you're right." 
 
 "And in lodgings you're saved avast of 
 trouble, so that if it wasn't for the drip- 
 ping " 
 
 "Ah, indeed; you may well mention 
 that, ma'am. Why, not one in ten of those 
 landladies is to be depended on." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith assented. 
 
 " And to sit in your parlour," she con- 
 tinued, " and know as well as can be that 
 they're making their own crusts with your 
 dripping, and that you mayn't go down to 
 
SABAH DE BEBENGEE. 203 
 
 see it, is enough to spoil the best of tempers 
 and the least particular." 
 
 They were rather a large party at dinner, 
 for the new governess and her young sister 
 had arrived; and Felix, as he sat at the 
 head of the table, had only just marshalled 
 them, said grace, and begun to wonder how 
 the one young servant of the establishment 
 would wait upon them all, when Mrs. Snaith 
 appeared, carrying in the first dish, which she 
 set before him and uncovered, as if she was 
 performing some ordinary and looked-for 
 duty. 
 
 " Mrs. Snaith !" he exclaimed. 
 
 " I should wish it, if you please, sir, when- 
 ever my young ladies is here," she replied 
 calmly. 
 
 A very convenient wish, and she began to 
 carry it out with a quiet and homely dignity 
 that he much admired, every now and then 
 giving the gentlest motherly admonition to 
 the children, including little Dick. Felix 
 
204 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 had a certain fear of a lady; womanhood 
 was sufficiently alarming to him without 
 fine clothes, accomplishments, and a polished 
 and self-possessed manner. He found him- 
 self most attracted by a good woman who 
 was without these extraneous advantages ; 
 this homely dignity and unruffled humility 
 pleased him, and commanded his respect. 
 He let Mrs. Snaith alone, and under her 
 auspices the dinner went on pleasantly to 
 its conclusion. 
 
 Little Amabel and her sister won great 
 approval by their sweet looks and pretty 
 behaviour at that dinner. They had been 
 well taught, and could conduct themselves 
 perfectly well at table. 
 
 Felix regarded them with attention ; they 
 were graceful, they were fair, but he saw 
 no special likeness to old Sir Sam's 
 family. 
 
 The children had, in fact, been helped, 
 by their mother's intense sympathy, to the 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 205 
 
 inheritance of a certain pensive wistfulness 
 that was in their father's soul and counte- 
 nance ; the reflection of it was in their faces 
 — only in their faces — and even there it 
 appeared more as the expression of a senti- 
 ment than of a passion, that abiding passion 
 of regret for his lameness that the bad, 
 beautiful youth was always brooding over. 
 When their lovely little faces were at rest, 
 and no smiles rippled over them, their mother 
 could often see that look, a witness to their 
 father's sorrow and their mother's pity; it 
 gave a strange, and to her a very touching, 
 interest to both the children. There was 
 an unusual contrast between the still deeps 
 in their lucid, grave blue eyes, and the rosy 
 lips, so dimpled and waggish, so ready to 
 soften and smile, and show a mouthful of 
 pearls. 
 
 " Well, Felix; well, Amias," said Miss de 
 Berenger, when this dinner was over, and 
 she was left alone with her two nephews, 
 
206 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 u I suppose you will both admit that I have 
 brought a treasure into the family. Yes ! 
 How well that woman waits ! What a sight 
 the great heaps of potatoes must have been 
 for her, and the cabbages and the buttered 
 beans that Ann and Mary consumed ! I 
 call to mind now your dear father asking 
 me if I remembered a dinner we were at 
 once, at their mother's. l Eemember it ! ' I 
 exclaimed. ' Ay, thou poor ghost of a meal, 
 while memory holds her place in an empty 
 stomach.' I was inspired to say it, just as 
 Shakespeare was at first, though in general 
 I am not at all poetical. And then the 
 tipsy cake she gave us in the evening ! It 
 was a tremendous falsehood to call it by such 
 a name. Tipsy, indeed ! How was a whole 
 cake to get tipsy on one glass of South 
 African wine ? You need not look so wise, 
 Amias ; a degrading thing, I suppose you'll 
 say, to make fun of even a dumb cake, 
 when it's drunk," proceeded Miss de Beren- 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 207 
 
 ger, after a pause. "As if there could be 
 real fun in the inebriation of anything what- 
 ever. Yes ! Why, how very ridiculous you 
 two are ! I never saw such risible fellows 
 in my life. And you a clergyman, too, 
 Felix! What can you be laughing at now?" 
 
 While this conversation took place in 
 the garden, and while the children played 
 together, and the vegetarians, walking 
 between thick hedges of peas and beans, 
 and ridges of new potatoes, felt that they 
 had come into a land of fatness and plenty, 
 Mrs. Snaith, helping to wash the glass in 
 the neat kitchen, was made welcome to a 
 good deal of information that no amount 
 of questioning would have procured for 
 those in a different station of life to her 
 informers. 
 
 These were Mr. Bolton, who had just 
 stepped up to gather some early summer 
 jennetings, but out of delicacy forbore to 
 take them under the eyes of Felix, and so 
 
208 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 waited till he should come in ; and Mrs. 
 Jolliffe, who in dismissing the washerwoman, 
 after counting out the clean clothes she 
 had brought home, took occasion, with 
 patronizing suavity, to recommend her to 
 the new-comer as a very honest woman, 
 and a good hand at getting up children's 
 clothes. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith said she would employ her, 
 and the grateful and respectful thanks that 
 she and Jolliffe both received opened the 
 heart of the latter still further, so that as 
 the little woman retreated across the yard 
 her praises followed her. 
 
 " An honest little woman, and industrious 
 too, Mrs. Snaith ; and has lately got the 
 laundry work of the clerks at the brewery. 
 Still, as she said to me, ' Mrs. Jolliffe,' said 
 she, l there's no sweet without its bitter, 
 and most of those gentlemen air such extra 
 large sizes, that I feel it hard I should hev 
 to do justice to their shirts, at twopence 
 
SARAH DE BERENGEE. 209 
 
 halfpenny apiece, "when I should hev hed 
 the same money if they'd heen smaller.' " 
 
 " Her present husband is not to complain 
 of for his size," observed Mr. Bolton. 
 
 " No, but that was a conveniency," quoth 
 Mrs. Jolliffe ; " and, for aught I know, the 
 conveniency helped to decide her, as such 
 things very frequently do, and no harm 
 neither." 
 
 Mrs. Jolliffe spoke with such a meaning 
 smile, that Mrs. Snaith testified some 
 curiosity, whereupon she continued. 
 
 "For, as I said', a prudent little woman 
 she was. Her first husband's Sunday coat 
 w r as laid by as good as new; so she took 
 and cut it smaller for her second to be 
 married in, and very respectable he looked 
 in it, and it saved money. And why not, 
 Mr. Bolton ? " she inquired, with a certain 
 sharpness of reproof in her voice. 
 
 "Why not, indeed!" answered Mr. 
 Bolton, hastening to agree, though at first 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 SARAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 his face had assumed a slightly sarcastic 
 expression. Then, on reflection, he veered 
 round to his first thought. " But it don't 
 seem a feeling thing to do, neither." 
 
 " Feeling!" quoth Mrs. Jolliffe, in the 
 tone of one who makes a telling retort. 
 u You and I can't talk together ahout 
 feelings, and hope to agree, at all. Some 
 folks have most feeling for that that can 
 hold up its head and stop at home, which 
 is my case. I don't pretend to understand 
 them whose feeling is for that that must 
 run away." 
 
 Here hoth Mrs. Jolliffe and Mr. Bolton 
 laughed, and Mrs. Snaith was appealed to 
 in words that confused and startled her, for 
 they seemed to hint at her wretched hus- 
 band's condition, as if the speaker knew 
 all ahout it. 
 
 "When the law has got hold of a man, 
 that man is not, therefore, to be cried down 
 by me, and never shall be. No, nor by 
 
SARAH DE BE BEN GEE. 211 
 
 you neither, ma'am, as your actions make 
 evident." 
 
 Mrs. Snaitli flushed and trembled, but 
 said nothing, and with what relief, and 
 what gratitude for it, she heard the rest 
 of the conversation, neither of those who 
 marked her rising colour could have the 
 least idea. 
 
 "Now, my feelings go across the water. 
 "What's old Sam to me?" 
 
 " That you should talk of him so dis- 
 respectful, almost at his own gates ! " 
 
 " Why not ? " replied Mr. Bolton. " Do 
 I owe him for a single drop of his beer, 
 -either given me or sold to me ? " 
 
 "Eight well you know that he'd have 
 lost his seat if he'd given any away at the 
 last election." 
 
 " Eight well I do know it. For all that, 
 old Sam, as I was saying, never gives a 
 pleasant word to his neighbours. And 
 never was a freer, friendlier man than 
 
212 SAKAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 Mr. John, and free and friendly is lie 
 treated now by me and by others. Does 
 he find any difficulty in getting intelligence 
 of all he wants to know ? I should say 
 not. Why, Mrs. Snaith, Mr. John has 
 more than one correspondent here, that 
 knows as much about him as maybe I do, 
 and maybe you do." 
 
 " Mr. John ? " exclaimed Mrs. Snaith, 
 now breathing freely. " Oh, Mr. John de 
 Berenger it were that you spoke of ? " 
 
 " Why, yes," said Mr. Bolton, looking at 
 her with some admiration for what he 
 considered an excellently feigned surprise. 
 " Mr. John de Berenger, of course. Who 
 eise?" 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 213 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 Old Sir Sam, as people called him, other- 
 wise Sir Samuel Simcox cle Berenger, was 
 in some respects a particularly agreeable 
 man. He had some undesirable qualities, 
 but from the first he had been so strangely 
 dealt with by circumstances, by nature, and 
 by providence, so drawn on through the 
 natural openings made by other men's 
 mistakes, that if he had been any better, 
 he would have been a hero ; and that he 
 certainly was not. 
 
 Most people thought he was a great deal 
 richer than he ought to have been, and yet 
 he had never taken a shilling but what the 
 laws of his country accorded to him. 
 
 His own father, having two sons, had 
 
214 SAKAH DE BEBENGEK. 
 
 taken him, the elder, into partnership, and 
 given him a share in his great brewery 
 business. The younger had gone into the 
 army, obtaining the father's consent, though 
 it was very reluctantly given. 
 
 This second son had married very young, 
 and left three children, one of whom was 
 the father of Felix, and another his aunt, 
 Sarah de Berenger. To her the old grand- 
 father had given a handsome fortune during 
 his lifetime — had, in short, settled upon her 
 a small estate which had come into the 
 family by the female side, so that she was 
 much better off than her two brothers ; for 
 when, after his younger son's death, the old 
 man also died, it was found that, owing 
 to some fatal informality in the will, the 
 representatives of the younger branch could 
 not possess themselves of that interest in 
 his business and his property which he 
 had always expressed himself as intending 
 to leave them. 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 215 
 
 Sir Samuel, without a lawsuit, was evi- 
 dently master of all. He took immense 
 pains to get the best legal opinions, and 
 confidently expected that his two nephews 
 would try the case. Being a pugnacious 
 man, he looked forward to a fair fight, not 
 without a certain amount of pleasure and 
 excitement. 
 
 Perhaps the two nephews took counsel's 
 opinion also ; but however that might be, 
 they never gave him a chance of fighting. 
 Instead of going to law, they took them- 
 selves off, left him to swallow up all, and 
 maintained themselves independently of him 
 and his business. 
 
 There is little doubt that he would have 
 been, to a great extent, the conqueror, if 
 there had been a suit. In such a case, he 
 would have held his head high, and also 
 have done something for his late brother's 
 family ; but when he found that he was left 
 master of the situation without a suit, and 
 
216 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 also without a reconciliation, he felt it. To 
 win in open fight is never so necessary to 
 the comfort and pride of the winner, if he 
 is right, as if he is wrong. 
 
 While Sir Samuel was considering that, 
 though these nephews could make good no 
 claim at law, yet they ought to have some- 
 thing, one of them chanced to die without 
 a will, and he chose to consider himself the 
 young man's heir-at-law. That is to say, 
 he reflected that the dead nephew, having 
 been the elder of the two, ought to have 
 had, if he had lived, a double share ; he 
 would certainly have given him a double 
 share. So he divided off that portion of his 
 possessions as having been destined for his 
 nephew, and he always called it, "What 
 I came in for, in consequence of poor Tom's 
 premature death." Thus that claim settled 
 itself. 
 
 The other nephew, the father of Felix, 
 never quarrelled with him, but rather 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 217 
 
 seemed to set him at nought. Yet he felt 
 that he must do his duty by him. To 
 that end, he informed him that he should 
 take his second son, then an infant, into 
 the business ; which in due time he did, 
 with what results has already been ex- 
 jDlained. 
 
 He never had any thanks from the father 
 of the baby, who went to India before the 
 future brewer could run alone ; but he occa- 
 sionally called the child " Small-beer," by 
 which he made it evident that Sir Samuel 
 had leave to carry out his noble intention 
 if he pleased. Sir Samuel felt that too ; 
 for though he retained all the material ad- 
 vantage that had come of the unlucky will, 
 he none the less fretted under a sense of 
 the contempt that he knew his nephew 
 held him in, and was always particularly 
 cautious what he said, lest he should pro- 
 voke an answer. 
 
 So he lived in the exercise of a certain 
 
218 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 self-control, feeling it, in general, politic to- 
 be bland and obliging to bis nepbew ; and 
 this, to a man of bis choleric nature, was 
 galling. At the same time, he took all 
 opportunities of being affectionate and useful 
 to his niece Sarah, who, being herself very 
 well off, felt her brother's poverty the less 
 keenly, and was often inclined to identify 
 herself with the rich side of the family, as 
 finding riches a great thing to have in 
 common. Sarah lost both her brothers in 
 their comparative youth. As for Felix, her 
 nephew, his was a grievance once removed 
 — an old story. His great-uncle, for a time, 
 had been very kind to Amias — had, in fact, 
 shown a decided affection for him ; it was 
 as well now to let the old great-grand- 
 father's will be forgotten. 
 
 Felix was helped in his wish to let it pass 
 into the background, by his liking for old 
 Sir Samuel's sons, the youngest of whom 
 was only one year his own senior ; for Sir 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 219 
 
 Samuel had married somewhat late in life, 
 so that his sons and his great-nephews were 
 contemporaries. 
 
 And now two little girls had appeared 
 upon the scene, to Sir Samuel's great sur- 
 prise and very natural annoyance. His 
 great-nephew had been the cause of their 
 coming; and Miss de Berenger had told 
 him pointedly that they were his grand- 
 children. 
 
 He was secretly enraged with Felix — 
 would like to have had an encounter with 
 him about it ; the more so as he felt inclined 
 to believe it was so. 
 
 No one knew so well as himself how 
 utterly in the wrong his favourite son had 
 always been in his quarrels with him. In 
 fact, his affection for the scapegrace had 
 enabled him to endure a vast deal that any 
 father would have found hard, and, in hope 
 of winning and then retaining him, to be 
 almost subservient and long-indulgent. 
 
220 SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 But the favourite had got into debt many 
 times after being brought home and freed. 
 Finally, the father had been obliged to send 
 him from home on an allowance, and John 
 had actually gambled away great part of 
 his interest even in that. 
 
 His father knew he had somehow deeply 
 entangled himself, but knew not all. Some- 
 times he got a hint from Felix, to whom, at 
 rare intervals, John still wrote, for as boys 
 the two had been friends. When Sir Samuel 
 found that Felix was arranging for the 
 education of these little De Berengers, he 
 felt how hard it was that his son should 
 confide in a cousin rather than in himself, 
 and he waited a week, in confident expecta- 
 tion that Felix would lay a case before him, 
 declare that these were his grandchildren, 
 and make some demand on him for money ; 
 he intended to dispute every inch of the 
 ground, not give a shilling, unless the fact 
 was fully proved, and even then beat Felix 
 
SARAH DE BEBENGER. 221 
 
 down to the lowest sum lie could possibly 
 be induced to accept. But the week came 
 to an end, and Felix said not a word. 
 
 Everybody declared that these two little 
 girls were the image of John. He felt a 
 devouring anxiety to see them, for he was 
 an affectionate old fellow. He had vowed 
 to himself that they were none of his, and 
 that, as John had acknowledged no marriage, 
 it could be no duty of his to take upon him 
 the great expense of their maintenance ; but 
 here they were at his gates, and he longed 
 to see them. 
 
 He asked Felix whether they had asked 
 after him. 
 
 "How should they, uncle," exclaimed 
 Felix, "when they never heard of your 
 existence? " 
 
 "Why — why," stuttered Sir Samuel, 
 " don't they know anything at all about — 
 the family?" 
 
 " Evidently not. One of them can talk 
 
222 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 plainly, and she seems, so far as I can judge, 
 to know nothing about any of us." 
 
 " I would have done well by them, John," 
 muttered the old man, as he drove home 
 with an aching heart; "but you never had 
 any bowels towards your old father. Why, 
 look here ; he flings his children at me, 
 without so much as asking me for my bless- 
 ing on them ! " 
 
 The next day, about one o'clock, little 
 Amabel and little Delia were seated on two 
 high chairs at the table, in their tiny 
 cottage, and waiting for their dinner, when 
 an old gentleman looked in at the open 
 door, smiled, nodded to them, and then 
 came inside, taking off his hat and putting 
 it on the window-sill among the flower-pots. 
 A nice old gentleman, with white hair and 
 white eyebrows. The little girls returned 
 his nod and smiles ; then the elder lifted up 
 her small, high voice, and called through the 
 open door that led to the little back kitchen, 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 223 
 
 "Mrs. Naif, Mrs. Naif!" A cheery voice 
 answered, and then the younger child tried 
 her skill as a summons. " Mrs. Naif, dear ! 
 Make haste, Mrs. Naif! Company's come to 
 dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith presently appeared with, a 
 good-sized rice pudding, and set it on the 
 table, which was graced with a clean 
 cloth. 
 
 Sir Samuel greeted her when she curtsied. 
 11 Good morning, ma'am. You are the nurse 
 here, I presume ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I am." 
 
 "Will you he seated, and allow me just 
 to look on awhile." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith sat down, and helped the 
 little ones to their pudding. The elder was 
 inclined to he slightly shy ; the younger, pull- 
 ing Mrs. Snaith by the sleeve, pointed at 
 Sir Samuel with her spoon, and whispered 
 some loving confidences in her ear. 
 
 " What does she say?" asked Sir Samuel. 
 
224 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 The nurse smiled. " She says, sir, ' Give- 
 the company some pudding.' " 
 
 "Does she, pretty lamb ? " exclaimed the 
 old baronet, with a sudden access of fervour ; 
 then recollecting himself, and noticing that 
 the nurse was startled and coloured slightly, 
 he said, by way of continuing his sentence, 
 "I didn't exactly catch your name, I 
 think?" 
 
 " Mrs. Snaith, sir." 
 
 " Yes, her name's Mrs. Naith every 
 day," said the little Amabel, " but when 
 she's very good we call her Mamsey." 
 
 " Her name's Mamsey when she gives us 
 strawberries and milk," the other child ex- 
 plained. " But she hasn't got a black face, 
 company," she continued, addressing him 
 earnestly, as if it behoved him to testify to 
 the truth of her words. 
 
 " A black face!" exclaimed the puzzled 
 guest. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith explained. " There were some 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 225 
 
 American children with a black nurse, sir, 
 at the seaside where we've been. They 
 c ailed her Mamsey, and so these little dears 
 imitated them.' , 
 
 By this time it was evident that the 
 nurse was ill at ease ; she perceived the deep 
 interest with which her unbidden guest 
 watched the children's words and ways. Her 
 pride as a mother was not deceived with 
 any thought that this was a tribute to their 
 beauty or infantile sweetness ; she knew this 
 must be the rich man, the great man of the 
 place, who was held in that peculiar respect 
 which merit and benevolence can never 
 command. People say of Eastern nations, 
 that those who would hold sway over them 
 must needs make themselves feared, and 
 they do not enough consider that this is 
 almost as true at their own doors as it is 
 at the ends of the earth. When the villagers 
 had nodded and whispered in her presence, 
 mysteriously hinting that anybody at a 
 
 VOL. I. q 
 
226 SABAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 glance could see who these children were, 
 though she would not answer any questions, 
 she had inwardly felt that the great and 
 proud man whom they had in their thoughts 
 would know better — that he would write to 
 his son, who would at once reply that he 
 knew nothing about these children, and 
 there would be an end. 
 
 But here sat Sir Samuel, gazing at 
 Amabel and Delia with a scrutiny some- 
 times keen, sometimes almost tender. He 
 was making them prattle ; he was at last 
 actually drawing his Windsor chair to the 
 table, and, at their desire, partaking of 
 the new potatoes which concluded their 
 meal. 
 
 He took so little notice of her that she 
 had no need to speak; and that homely 
 dignity which was natural to her coming to 
 her aid, she rose and began to wait on the 
 children and their guest, moving in and out 
 between the little front room where they 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 227 
 
 were dining and the tiny kitchen behind; 
 marking all the old man's efforts to please 
 the small coquettes, and how easily they 
 were won, and how engaging they were ; 
 and how noisy the canary was, bustling 
 about in his cage, and singing every time they 
 laughed, as if he longed for some attention 
 too ; how the pale, overblown roses outside 
 let their dropping leaves float in and drift 
 over the table-cloth. 
 
 For the first time in her life, as she stood 
 in the back kitchen, with hands pressed in 
 one another, listening, she felt a jealous 
 pang, not of her darlings themselves, but of 
 the refined grace and delicate beauty which 
 had so played into her hands as to make 
 the part she had chosen for herself easy. 
 
 It was easy to play the part of their nurse 
 — she had elected to play it — and yet her 
 mother's heart resented its being always 
 taken for granted that she could be nothing- 
 more. 
 
228 SAEAH DE BEEENGEB. 
 
 " I fare almost afraid they'll despise me 
 when they get a bit older," she thought. 
 " If they do, dear lambs, I must take them 
 away from these gentlefolks before it's too 
 late." 
 
 Sir Samuel calling her, she came in and 
 found Amabel on his knee. The brown face 
 of little Dick was seen ; he was leaning in at 
 the casement, and Delia, leaning out, was 
 kissing him. 
 
 Beautiful little Dick was as happy about 
 that time as anything that breathes can be. 
 When they saw him Sir Samuel lost the 
 attention of the other children. 
 
 They must have their sun-bonnets on. 
 Mamsey must reach them down. 
 
 " Did they love him ? Would they like 
 to see him again ? " 
 
 Oh yes, they liked him, they liked him 
 very much, but they wanted to go now with 
 Dick ; and presently they all three set forth 
 together down the quiet road to the vicar- 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 229 
 
 age, leaving Sir Samuel and Mrs. Snaith 
 alone. 
 
 He was sitting in the Windsor chair, lost 
 in thought, and looking after the children 
 as well as the clustering rose-branches 
 would let him. 
 
 She stood a moment expecting him to 
 speak, but he did not ; and, unable to bear 
 inaction, she fetched in a tray, and when 
 he looked round, she was quietly clearing 
 the table, placing the remains of the simple 
 dinner upon it. 
 
 He got up and she paused. 
 
 "You have behaved with great discre- 
 tion," he said with energy; " and the reti- 
 cence which I hear you have displayed — 
 the refusing, I mean, to answer people's 
 idle questions — has my entire approval, — I 
 may say, commands my respect." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith was silent. 
 
 "I am quite aware," he continued, "of 
 all that passed between you and Miss de 
 
230 SAKAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 Berenger. I do not see that even she had 
 a right to expect a full account of matters 
 from you; but — but" — here he paused, 
 baffled by the nurse's grave silence — " but 
 the excellent care with which you fulfil your 
 trust deserves my thanks, and, as I said 
 before, your refusal to answer idle questions 
 commands my respect." 
 
 " Thank you, sir. It is my wish to keep 
 quiet, and I don't fare to think I have any 
 call to answer questions." 
 
 "But if I asked you some," he answered,, 
 a little startled, " of course it would be 
 different." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Not at all different, 
 sir." 
 
 " I am Sir Samuel de Berenger, Mr. John 
 de Berenger's father. Now what do you 
 say?" 
 
 " Nothing, Sir Samuel." 
 
 " Nothing ! You're ordered to keep 
 silence, even to me ? " 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 231 
 
 " Sir, I never said I were under^ orders. 
 I am not." 
 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 "And I ask your pardon, sir ; but if you 
 know all I said to Miss de Berenger, you 
 know all I ever shall say." 
 
 " Why, you foolish woman, you are enough 
 to provoke a saint ! You quite mistake 
 your employer's meaning. What are you 
 afraid of? What do you mean? Do you 
 think you are to deny to me whose and what 
 these children are ? It's contrary to all 
 reason — contrary to my son's obvious mean- 
 ing ; clean against their interest. W T hy, 
 
 it's I never met with such folly in 
 
 my life ! " 
 
 Here Sir Samuel launched into certain 
 violent denunciations against folly in 
 general, and this fool in particular ; but as 
 she did not further enrage him by making 
 any reply, but helplessly gazed at him while 
 he stormed at her, on the other side of the 
 
232 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 table, he soon managed to calm himself 
 sufficiently to recur to the matter in hand. 
 
 " And whatever may be your motive, I 
 tell you, there's no more use than there is 
 reason in your present line of conduct. It's 
 no use your denying to me that these are 
 my grandchildren, I can see it in their 
 faces. It's no use your denying to me 
 that they were thrown in my niece's way 
 on purpose that I might hear of them. No, 
 don't speak, woman — it's my turn to speak 
 now. I tell you all that stuff is of no use ; 
 I am not to be deceived." 
 
 In the energy of his indignation he leaned 
 over the table and shook his fist at her, 
 and reddened to the roots of his snowy 
 hair; while she, pale and doubtful, con- 
 tinued to find safety only in silence. Every 
 moment for thought seemed to be some- 
 thing won ; but she won many, and he 
 had checked himself, and sat down again in 
 his Windsor chair, and was fuming there in 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 233 
 
 more quiet fashion, while, still standing with 
 her hand upon the tray, she was searching 
 for some reply. 
 
 At last he said with a sigh, as if some- 
 thing in his own mind had checked him as 
 much as her behaviour, " Perhaps the poor 
 lambs were not born in wedlock." 
 
 " Oh yes, they were," she answered, 
 sharply and decidedly; " that's a question 
 I'd answer to anybody, let him be who he 
 would." 
 
 " You can prove your words ? " 
 
 "I could, if there was any need, Sir 
 Samuel." 
 
 " Makes nothing of me — cares nothing 
 what I think. But you never did, John. 
 If there tvas any need ! " 
 
 " You have a son, sir, by what I can make 
 out" said the nurse, finishing her sentence 
 with a certain emphasis. 
 
 " Oh yes — a son; his conduct looks like 
 a son. You know well enough that I have 
 a son. What of him ? " 
 
234 SAEAH DE BERENGEK. 
 
 "If you'll give me leave to advise you, 
 sir " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, sir, though I don't know the 
 gentleman, I fare to think that if you 
 wrote to him he would answer like a gentle- 
 man, and tell you " 
 
 "Tell me what?" 
 
 " What would get the mistake out of 
 your head, sir." 
 
 " I don't know where to find him." 
 
 "Indeed, sir," she answered slowly; 
 "then worse luck for me! And yet," she 
 continued, as if in deep cogitation, "there 
 are those not very far off that do know." 
 
 Sir Samuel did not at all doubt her 
 word, but he answered with the surprise 
 he really felt at her making such an ad- 
 mission. 
 
 "You don't say so ! " 
 " Yes, sir, I do." 
 
 " If I write a letter to my son and bring: 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEB. 235 
 
 it to yon, will you promise to direct it to 
 hirn ? " exclaimed the old baronet. 
 
 He regarded this admission as tanta- 
 mount to a confession of all, and she, con- 
 sidering, on the contrary, that the letter 
 would be so answered as to put an end to 
 all, gave her consent. 
 
 " I'm not that certain about it, sir, that 
 I can promise, but I will do my best." 
 
 He sat a few minutes longer, thinking 
 and calming himself, then rose and put on 
 his gloves, looking at her, meanwhile, almost 
 with a smile in his eyes. " You are a re- 
 markably inconsistent woman," he observed, 
 but not at all rudely. 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 " I said, Mrs. Snaith But, pooh ! 
 
 what is the good of arguing ? Do you want 
 any money ? " he added sharply, and at the 
 same time pulling out his purse. 
 
 "No, sir," she answered, colouring and 
 drawing back. 
 
236 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 " Well, if you should, you'll know whom 
 to come to; and I'll send you down the 
 letter to-morrow. Good morning." 
 
 " Good morning, Sir Samuel," said Mrs. 
 Snaith. And even to those simple words 
 she seemed to impart an air of thoughtful- 
 ness and caution. 
 
 He went away without the shadow of 
 a doubt in his mind that these little girls 
 were his grandchildren ; and he did not con- 
 sider, what was not the less perfectly certain, 
 that if their nurse had made a claim on him, 
 and come to the village demanding that he 
 should acknowledge and assist them, he 
 would have required ample proof of their 
 rights in him, and perhaps not have been 
 at all cordial to them at first, though this 
 had been forthcoming. 
 
 As to the likeness. His son was a small, 
 fair man. Absence and love had done a 
 good work for his face in his father's recol- 
 lection. These small, fair creatures were 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 237 
 
 like what lie had been in complexion as a 
 child, but their dimpled features and dark 
 eyelashes were far different. Yet Sir 
 Samuel, reflecting on their sweet little 
 faces, absolutely felt, not only that they 
 recalled his son's childhood, but that he 
 had almost forgotten, till he saw them, 
 what a pretty and engaging little fellow 
 his son had been as a child. 
 
238 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The next morning Sir Samuel's carriage 
 stopped again at the door of the tiny cot- 
 tage. A footman got down, went in, and 
 soon came back to his master, with " The 
 nurse's respects, Sir Samuel, and I was to 
 say, if you wished to see the young ladies, 
 they are up at the vicarage doing their 
 lessons." 
 
 " I should like to see her.''' 
 
 " She hopes you'll excuse her, Sir Samuel ; 
 she is making bread, and has her hands in 
 the dough." 
 
 Sir Samuel alighted, with the smallest of 
 brown paper parcels in his hand, and sought 
 Mrs. Snaith in her little clean back kitchen. 
 
SARAH DE BEKENGER. 239 
 
 u I thought, Mrs. Snaith, I need not trouble 
 you to go all the way — a mile or more — to 
 the post with this. I can post it for you." 
 
 " Oh, sir, it will be no trouble, thank 
 you kindly ; I have to walk over to the 
 shop." 
 
 " If you'll give me pen and ink, I'll direct 
 it, then." He looked about, but saw no- 
 thing excepting the copper before which 
 Mrs. Snaith was standing, with both hands 
 plunged into the bread-pan. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith, blushing, said she had no 
 pen and ink, but, if he would leave the letter, 
 it would go all right. " It's not often I have 
 to write anything," she continued, as if ex- 
 cusing herself; " and my little ladies do 
 their copies at Mr. de Berenger's." 
 
 He half smiled, perceiving that his device 
 for obtaining the direction had for the pre- 
 sent failed. 
 
 " I'll see that it go all right, sir," she 
 repeated. 
 
240 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 He was too proud to sue for what he 
 wanted. 
 
 " So be it, then," he answered, and took 
 a letter from the brown paper covering and 
 laid it on the clean edge of the copper. " I 
 shall be much obliged to you," he said, as 
 he retired. " You'll let me pay for the 
 stamp, of course ? " 
 
 " How simple she is ! " he thought. " She 
 might just as well have told me my poor 
 boy's address, considering how easy it will 
 be for me to find it out at the post-office." 
 
 But it did not prove so easy. In less than 
 a quarter of an hour Mr. Bolton passed, with 
 a light cart full of vegetables that he had 
 brought from the parsonage, and Mrs. 
 Snaith, coming out to him, asked him if he 
 would oblige a neighbour by getting that 
 letter sent to Mr. John de Berenger. 
 
 Mr. Bolton turned the letter over and 
 over several times, and looked critically at 
 the paper and curiously at Mrs. Snaith. 
 
SARAH DE BEBENGEB. 241 
 
 "I'll never breathe a word to any soul, if 
 you will, Mr. Bolton, how it was, or who it 
 was that got it done for me," she pleaded. 
 
 Still Mr. Bolton paused and seemed to 
 cogitate. 
 
 So she urged him further. " I've been 
 that annoyed lately about him, that I can't 
 bear myself till I get things explained." 
 
 "Well, you'll observe," answered Mr. 
 Bolton, answering what he supposed to be 
 her thought, but in fact only his own false 
 supposition — " you'll observe that there's 
 no post-office in nature equal to ours for 
 sureness ; and likewise, if you want a letter 
 to be forwarded, you must write that in 
 their foreign words ; also you should never 
 put ' esquire ' on a letter that's to go abroad 
 — they're apt to mistake the word for a man's 
 name. And you've always got to prepay a 
 foreign letter." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith produced a shilling, and to 
 her surprise received only sixpence change ; 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
242 SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 but she was too polite to make any remark, 
 and, having given Mr. Bolton the letter, 
 hastened to escape from a subject almost 
 sure to lead to questioning. 
 
 " And how is your good lady, Mr. Bolton ? 
 I saw her on Saturday in the shop, looking 
 as fresh as a rose." 
 
 " Fresh she is!" answered Mr. Bolton 
 with enthusiasm. He had lately married 
 a wife many years younger than himself. 
 " Fresh she is, and always pleased. What 
 her father said has come true. i Cornelius,' 
 says the old gentleman (he's in the shoe 
 line), i Cornelius, you'll find her a rare one 
 to make you laugh ; her cheerful temper is 
 as good as a daily blow out.' " 
 
 Mrs. Snaith, considering this a vulgar 
 compliment, instinctively drew herself up ; 
 but the proud husband was spared any 
 observation of her silent disapproval, for at 
 that instant the horse, perhaps thinking he 
 had waited long enough in the sun, suddenly 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 243 
 
 -started clown the road at a good pace, and 
 Mr. Bolton, after calling to him in vain to 
 stop, had to run after him. Mrs. Snaith 
 only remained outside till he was seated and 
 had the reins in his hand, then went in, glad 
 to have got the letter forwarded, but with a 
 lowered opinion of Mr. Bolton, as rather 
 countrified and common, considering what 
 a good shop he had, and that he kept the 
 post-office. 
 
 Sir Samuel, who was not at all in the 
 habit of shopping, went into Mr. Bolton's 
 shop the next day, feigning to want some 
 melon-seed, of which he ordered a ridicu- 
 lously large quantity, and then asked Mrs. 
 Bolton what foreign letters had been posted 
 that day, or the day before. 
 
 It appeared that no foreign letters what- 
 ever had been posted for more than a 
 fortnight. 
 
 Sir Samuel brought himself to say, "I 
 have lost my son's (Mr. John de Berenger's) 
 
244 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 address; if one directed to him should be* 
 posted, will you kindly copy the address for 
 me?" 
 
 "I will, Sir Samuel," said young Mrs. 
 Bolton; and when her husband came in, 
 she related to him what had passed. 
 
 " Lost the address, have the old gentle- 
 man ? " quoth Mr. Bolton, calmly. " Well, 
 now, his gardener won't put those melon- 
 seeds in, I know, but they must be sent. 
 Only think of old Sam's losing the 
 address ! " 
 
 "It's a pity but what he was more 
 careful, " observed Mrs. Bolton ; and so few 
 letters passed through her hand, that it 
 gave her no trouble to keep this request 
 in mind. 
 
 Four days passed. " John's not in 
 England," thought Sir Samuel, " or I 
 should have had an answer before now.'" 
 Two more days passed. " John's not 
 in France," thought he, A fortnight. 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 245 
 
 ■" John's not in Italy, nor in Germany 
 either." Six weeks. " John's not in the 
 States — at least, anywhere near the sea- 
 board — nor in Canada." 
 
 Three more months, and a letter from 
 Ceylon, in John's handwriting, was lying 
 on his table. It was dated from a small 
 place up the country, among the coffee 
 plantations — was a very satisfactory letter 
 on the whole ; but the father soon saw, both 
 by the date and the contents, that his son 
 had not yet received the important letter. 
 With a certain moderation of compunction 
 which, however, satisfied Sir Samuel, he 
 expressed his regret that his family, and 
 his father in particular, had no better 
 reason to be proud of him. He hoped to 
 do better ; had got employment that 
 maintained him, and should write from 
 time to time. This was a very hot place — 
 steaming hot ; in fact, he had to have a 
 black boy standing beside him while he 
 
246 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 shaved, to wipe the dew that every few 
 minutes gathered and clouded the looking- 
 glass. The hoots he took off at night were 
 covered in the morning with mould. 
 But there was plenty of alligator shoot- 
 ing ; he and some other fellows had shot 
 two the week hefore. This was on the 
 third page. His father went on to the 
 end, which, with a description of how the 
 other fellows who were newly come out 
 " funked" when they saw a serpent, ended 
 rather ahruptly, "Your affectionate son,. 
 John de Berenger." 
 
 Sir Samuel's heart was appeased ; both 
 his pride and his affection soothed them- 
 selves over this letter. "The boy has- 
 not forgotten me; and he means to do 
 better. Well, well, he has sown his wild 
 oats. He will make me proud of him 
 after all. Been in Ceylon six weeks, after 
 stopping at Heidelberg all the winter.. 
 Ah!" 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 247 
 
 In the mean time Ann Thimbleby fulfilled 
 her task of education as well as she knew 
 how ; she was lucky enough to take 
 sufficient interest in it to induce her to 
 make experiments, and when one failed 
 she tried another. At that time her 
 inquisitive mind was much exercised on 
 the subject of etymology, but the pains she 
 took to instil some liking for it into the 
 minds of her two elder pupils bore no fruit, 
 excepting to make them like playing with 
 words, while the little ones became familiar 
 with a few uncommon expressions, which 
 they used glibly in then childish talk. 
 
 u He's a greedy, nefarious boy," said 
 Amabel to Sir Samuel, speaking of Dick; 
 " and we're not friends with him." 
 
 Sir Samuel had come to see the children ; 
 he was seated in a chair on the parsonage 
 lawn when she said this, and a slight 
 stirring, five feet from the ground, in the 
 great fir tree, made him cast up an inquiring 
 
248 SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 glance, and observe Dick looking out, 
 shamefaced and red. 
 
 "What has he been about?" asked the 
 old man, more to make the fair little 
 creature talk than with any interest in 
 Dick's delinquency. 
 
 " Coz gave each of us a sugared almond," 
 said Amabel, pouting. "I said, ' Dick, you 
 
 may take a bite of mine,' and he Oh, 
 
 Dick, you in-principled boy, you gobbled 
 it all up — and now," she continued, with 
 deep melancholy, " I can never get it back." 
 
 Dick felt at that moment as much shame 
 as mortals can feel for any delinquency 
 whatever, shame being born with us full 
 grown, and beginning, as a rule, to wax 
 feeble before we have the truest cause to 
 feel it. He wondered how it could have 
 come to pass that he had done an action 
 so utterly to be despised — wondered 
 whether it would be forgotten by the 
 time he was grown up — and felt, though 
 
SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 249 
 
 he was not equal to the expression of such 
 a thing, that his future prospects were 
 blasted, and his young life nipped as by 
 a spring blight. How could he ever show 
 his face again ! 
 
 He moved uneasily on his branch, hiding 
 himself among the thick greenery, and 
 with dreary compunction listened to the 
 conversation below, which was very friendly 
 and confiding. But could he believe his 
 ears ? In spite of what had unfortunately 
 occurred, the old uncle in a very few 
 minutes was actually calling to him. 
 
 " Come down, you little scaramouch ; 
 come here, I say. Do you see what this 
 is?" 
 
 A whole shilling ! Not a new one, it is true, 
 but good for buying things with. Evidently 
 for him ! There was a reprieve. He de- 
 scended, blushing with beautiful confusion, 
 took it, darted out of the gate with it to 
 a cottage below Mrs. Snaith's, and returned, 
 
250 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 almost able to hold up his head, with a 
 goodly quantity of " bull's-eyes " screwed up 
 in paper. 
 
 These articles of commerce have almost 
 disappeared from any but village shops. 
 They are round lumps of sugar, flavoured 
 with peppermint, and marked across with 
 blue and red bands. 
 
 Dick squatted down beside Amabel, and 
 opened the screw of paper. Sir Samuel was 
 just thinking that she was a far lovelier 
 child than her father had ever been. 
 
 "No," said the little creature, declining 
 this peace-offering, "I don't like them, 
 Dick; when I open my mouf they make 
 my tongue feel so cold." 
 
 She turned away her face — but how 
 useful it is to have money ! 
 
 "You're cross," said Dick. "I'm very 
 sorry. Do kiss me this once and make 
 it up." 
 
 " I don't want to kiss you," said AmabeL 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 251 
 
 "Do," pleaded Dick. "Well, if you 
 will, Til give you the other sixpence ! " 
 
 There was the sixpence in his hand. 
 Amabel looked at it — paused, relented. 
 "If you'll go with me to the shop to 
 spend it," she said, " I will." 
 
 Thereupon the two children kissed each 
 other, and being now good friends again, 
 left the bull's-eyes on the grass and ran 
 off together through the vicarage gate ; 
 while the giver of the shilling was left 
 to amuse himself with little dimpled Delia, 
 who, seated on his knee, answered his 
 questions about the seaside, and her lessons, 
 and Mamsey, as well as she knew how. 
 
 A certain tenderness towards the children 
 softened his heart, and made him feel 
 younger again. The love of money gave 
 way before it to a sufficient degree for the 
 decision which he had formed, that they 
 should never want for anything. Little 
 Delia's lisping tongue reminded him of the 
 
252 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 infantile talk of his own sons in their child- 
 hood. He had taken no interest in, and 
 made few observations on, other children ; 
 therefore, when the behaviour of Amabel 
 and Delia stirred in him slumbering recol- 
 lections of his own nursery, he regarded 
 this as a proof of likeness to his family, 
 and did not know that such were the 
 common ways and wiles, and this was the 
 ordinary English of childhood in general. 
 
 "But the motive," thought Sir Samuel, 
 when, having mounted his horse, he went 
 slowly along the shady road that led from 
 the vicarage past the nurse's, and past 
 two or three other cottages, towards his 
 own gate — " the motive. No human being 
 acts without a motive, and I cannot see 
 the motive, however mistaken, that induces 
 this woman to deny that these are John's 
 children. Why, they're as like him as 
 they can stare; and I could declare, when 
 I see their little ways and hear them lisp, 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 253 
 
 that it's ray own boys over again." He 
 paused, then went on slowly : " He might, 
 to be sure, have threatened her that, if 
 she told, he would stop the supplies — for, 
 of course, he was always in imminent 
 danger of being arrested whenever he came 
 to see them ; but he sailed about the 
 time that she brought them here, no 
 doubt by his orders. Well, I must wait. 
 It is still just "possible they may not be 
 his, after all (pooh ! it's not possible, though). 
 However, he will not be long in letting me 
 know. And considering that I've offered to 
 take the whole charge of them, and provide 
 
 for them too, if they are ■ Here comes 
 
 Felix, looking as if he had the weight of 
 the world on his shoulders. — Well, nephew 
 parson, how are you ? " 
 
 Felix observed a certain familiar way in 
 the greeting, a cordiality that he was not 
 accustomed to. Not to be outdone, he 
 shook hands with his uncle when the old 
 
254 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 man stopped his horse, and asked where he 
 could have heen riding during the hottest 
 hours of such a hot day. 
 
 Sir Samuel told him ; went a little from 
 the suhject to remark, in a casual way, that 
 one ol the little girls looked pale, and then 
 said abruptly, "I suppose I shall have to 
 send her to the sea." 
 
 Now, Felix knew that John de Berenger 
 had written to his father. " Has John 
 acknowledged them, then ? " he exclaimed 
 with vehemence. 
 
 Sir Samuel admitted that he had not ; 
 " though, putting this thing and that thing 
 together, nephew parson," he continued, 
 " I no more doubt the fact than you do." 
 
 Felix paused ; his conduct; certainly 
 appeared to show that he did not doubt it. 
 His aunt Sarah had taught the children 
 to call him Coz, and he had not forbidden 
 it. "While he was considering what answer 
 to make, Sir Samuel repeated his former 
 argument with himself. 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 255 
 
 "But, then, no human being acts with- 
 out a motive, Felix." 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 "What motive can that woman have, 
 nephew parson, in declaring that these 
 children are none of mine ? " 
 
 " 1 do not see that a motive is very far to 
 seek," observed Felix, "if that is what you 
 want." 
 
 " Nephew parson, that precise thing is 
 what I do want." 
 
 " She is all-powerful while she receives 
 whatever John allows the children, and 
 spends it as she pleases." 
 
 "True— true." 
 
 " She has an excellent situation, and an 
 almost independent one. I have a good 
 opinion of her. I think it probable she does 
 not know the children are anything to you. 
 John may have chosen her through an 
 agent ; through an agent he may correspond 
 with her. If you take them up, you make 
 
256 SAKAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 her place a sinecure, perhaps in the end 
 dismiss her. How natural she should be 
 hard to persuade that you have any right 
 to them." 
 
 " But she knows that John is my son — 
 and — and the fact is, she undertook, before 
 I had his address, to get a letter sent to 
 him." 
 
 " She did ! " exclaimed Felix. 
 
 Sir Samuel nodded. Mrs. Snaith, in the 
 opinion of Felix, forthwith went down ; he 
 was rather sorry. 
 
 " Now, as you are good at motives," con- 
 tinued the old man, " find me a motive for 
 John's behaviour, nephew parson ; there is 
 that to think of also." 
 
 " Very true," said Felix, and he went on 
 slowly : " John's motive, I should say, is 
 transparent enough. It is evident that he 
 has no claim, unless these are the children 
 of a marriage." 
 
 Sir Samuel seemed to wince a little here. 
 
SABAH DE BEBENGEB. 257 
 
 " The only marriage I ever heard of that 
 John wanted to make was one that yon 
 most violently opposed." 
 
 "I always shall oppose it," cried Six 
 Samuel, very red in the face. "I always 
 will oppose it, to the last breath I can 
 draw. Why — why, the fools had nothing 
 to live upon — nothing at all." 
 
 "No," said Felix, rather coldly; "and 
 yet it may have taken place, and these 
 may be the offspring of it." 
 
 "A Dissenting minister's daughter ! " 
 
 "Yes. Well, all that supposed, one may 
 suppose also that John thinks these children 
 have a better chance of pleasing you, if he 
 does not force them on your notice, than if 
 he does ; but it is quite a work of superero- 
 gation to make out motives either for him 
 or the nurse. The wisest course, I should 
 say, is to regard everything as absolutely 
 uncertain till next mail day, when all will 
 be set at rest." 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
258 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 11 Extraordinary ! " he thought, when the 
 two had parted, and were going different 
 ways. " So proud as old Sam is, that he 
 should have demeaned himself to communi- 
 cate with his own son, through the favour 
 of a servant ! 
 
 " The fools had nothing to live on. Of 
 course not. He brought up John to no pro- 
 fession, and made him no regular and proper 
 allowance ; now he smarts for it, and perhaps 
 for preventing that marriage as well. He 
 might have maintained John married for 
 half what he has cost him single. As far as 
 I know, John never went wrong till the 
 quarrel about that poor girl. 
 
 " I have never believed there was any 
 instinctive drawing in the heart of a parent 
 towards a stranger child. Is it possible that 
 I see it here ? He will have it so. He is 
 determined to believe that these little 
 creatures are his grandchildren. 
 
 " They are no trouble about the place, but 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 259 
 
 I feel, and I suppose I shall feel, that their 
 probably being something to him makes 
 me no better inclined to regard them as 
 something to me." 
 
 Felix spoke with a touch of bitterness. 
 Sir Samuel had never so much as asked 
 after Amias, the young nephew whose 
 boyish escapade had deprived him of an 
 -excellent opening and future provision. 
 Felix, being absolutely honest with himself, 
 admitted mentally that, if the boy had 
 settled to the brewery business, it would 
 not have hurt his own conscience : people 
 must have beer, just as they must have 
 money; the abuse of either, or both, is their 
 own affair. But now that the youth had 
 broken away from his uncle, had given such 
 reasons for the rash act, and was taking 
 the consequences, on the whole, well and 
 humbly, Felix would have denied himself 
 every comfort in life rather than have 
 interfered with his conscience. 
 
260 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 " So yon met Uncle Sam?" observed 
 Amias that evening. " I am glad I did not." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because you say he was cordial, and 
 that aggravates me. I don't like to think 
 he is happy and jolly, helping everybody 
 to get drunk; and I am not happy 
 because " 
 
 " Well ? " said Felix, with a smile. 
 
 Amias paused. 
 
 "You, at least, may wish him well," said 
 Felix; "he has never shown anything but 
 kindness to you." 
 
 "But I hope it will stick in his con- 
 science," observed Amias, "how all the 
 judges talk against publicans and public- 
 houses. Why, I was reading only this morn- 
 ing, that in some of the great towns two- 
 thirds of the public-houses are brewers' 
 property, and that they buy up the rubbish- 
 ing old tenements and let them out at a low 
 rent, on condition that all the stuff sold in 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 261 
 
 them shall he of their own brewing. I 
 hate the publicans." 
 
 " That's a fine Christian sentiment. Do 
 you think there's no such thing as in- 
 temperance excepting in the case of strong 
 drink; or can you really think that no- 
 body is to blame for the drunkenness that 
 degrades the country, excepting the dis- 
 tillers, the brewers, and the publicans ? " 
 " Why, what do you think, Felix ? " 
 "I think they are no worse than other 
 people, excepting when they make direct 
 efforts to keep up the present state of 
 things, after having had the misery of it 
 pointed out to them. We are all to 
 blame, we and our fathers." 
 
 " No worse ? — the publicans no worse ? " 
 " Unless they adulterate." 
 " But they do. We know they put aqua- 
 fortis in. And do you call oil of juniper, and 
 cocculus indicus, and photophosphate of 
 iron proper things to drink ? Did you never 
 
262 SAEAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 hear of these drugs? And are you not aware 
 that at many public-houses you can hardly 
 get such a thing as unadulterated beer, and 
 that they put salt in it on purpose to make 
 people thirsty? " 
 
 " Your voice is a little cracked at present, 
 which makes me think you may be rather 
 young just yet to lecture with good effect, 
 on this or any other subject." 
 
 " You are always so abominably calm, 
 Felix. Well, anyhow, what I don't know 
 yet about temperance, I shall find in my 
 copy of ' The Publican's Mixing and Ke- 
 ducing Book.' I shall learn it all by heart, 
 with its vile receipts for purifying tainted 
 gin, etc. But you have no zeal ; you are 
 always making game of a fellow." 
 
 " On the contrary, your enthusiastic desire 
 to do some good, and your ardent indignation 
 against evil practices, are the qualities I 
 like most in you. What I find ridiculous is 
 that you are so positive." 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEB. 263 
 
 u I certainly clo wish that most of the 
 breweries and distilleries had accidentally 
 got blown up ; and I wish most of the public- 
 houses were forcibly shut up — prohibited." 
 
 " But not all?" 
 
 11 No, there must be some." 
 
 ' ' How the ' some ' would thrive ! Many 
 people, however, see great danger in legal 
 restraints. That a thing should be dangerous 
 and wrong, gives it often attraction enough ; 
 that it should also be forbidden, so far as is 
 possible, might give it an extra charm." 
 
 " But that is not your view ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not. Others reason thus. The 
 French are a very sober people ; every man 
 of them may make his own wine, any man 
 may sell it anyw r here. What we should try 
 for, rather than restriction, is freedom." 
 
 " I never thought of that." 
 
 " But you should think; and you should 
 learn all that can be known on all points 
 beforehand. And you must give up wholesale 
 
264 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 charges and exaggerations. There is also 
 a certain thing that you would do well to 
 settle forthwith, which is, whether it would 
 give you most delight to reclaim two or 
 three drunkards, or to make old Sam ridicu- 
 lous in his own neighbourhood, and to 
 know that everybody blamed him, and 
 talked of the feud between you." 
 
 " Two or three, Felix ! You might at 
 least allow a fellow two or three dozen. Am 
 I to give up riches and independence, and 
 perhaps a seat in Parliament, for two or 
 three?" 
 
 "You may be fairly said to have given 
 these things up for nothing, for no principle 
 whatever — merely for a ridiculous joke." 
 
 "..Well, it was rather hard upon you, old 
 man ; I know that." 
 
 "And it seems to me that you live upon 
 the hope that you shall one day justify that 
 joke." 
 
 "Soldo." 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 265 
 
 " I consider that a low motive — any tiling 
 but heroic, anything hut philanthropic." 
 
 "Well, I cannot be such a prig as to 
 pretend that I think of nothing but philan- 
 thropy. ' There's a mixter, sir,' as Bolton 
 said ; ' you can't expect to find no tares at 
 all in the best bag of seed-corn.' But per- 
 haps you think the ' mixter ' consists of a 
 few grains of corn in a bag of tares ? " 
 
 " I wish you to go away, not thinking of 
 yourself as a martyr to principle, but simply 
 as having made a joke and paid for it, and 
 having now got to earn a living, if possible, 
 in a manly, commonplace fashion. As for 
 your zeal in the cause of temperance, I 
 shall think something of it when you pro- 
 pose to begin to work for it in London, and 
 nothing at all, so long as the joy of it 
 depends on some great commotion made in 
 our little town, just at our old uncle's gates. 
 As I said to you just now, we are all — that 
 is, all this nation which calls itself Christian 
 
266 SAEAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 — to blame for the present state of things. 
 It is the selfishness of the whole community 
 — the crowding up of the poor in foul air, 
 where they crave stimulus, because they 
 have not enough oxygen ; it is the sordid 
 way in which we have let them live, without 
 any sort of culture, without ennobling 
 amusements, without enough of anything — 
 enough variety of food, enough light, enough 
 warmth, enough joy, enough kindly fellow- 
 ship with those that are better of! ; — it is our 
 whole attitude toward them which has 
 helped, not to make them a drunken people — 
 for that they always were — but to keep them 
 one. Our fathers drank deeply ; we have, 
 during the last three generations, been 
 slowly struggling upward toward sobriety. 
 We had every help ; we only give them one 
 help — the pledge. Do you think that if 
 every drop of whisky, gin, and ale could be 
 sunk into the sea, and the trade in liquor 
 be stopped, it would make people sober? 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 2G7 
 
 No. It might, with every other aid that 
 could possibly be thought of, put an end to 
 half the drunkenness ; but it is a natural 
 instinct in man to long for stimulus when 
 he is overworked, or weary, or sick, or sad, 
 or when he has been used to have it ; and 
 the other half would all turn brewers and 
 distillers on their own account. You cannot 
 undo the evil work of many generations 
 with a few rough and ready schemes; 
 you must be patient and painstaking, and 
 you must not, above all, try to shove off the 
 blame on other men's shoulders." 
 
 "All right, old man," said Amias, almost 
 humbly. 
 
 He was to go away to London the 
 next morning, at a very inconveniently 
 early hour, by a third-class train; Felix 
 having, after great efforts, at last got him 
 into a Government office, at a salary on 
 which it was hardly possible for him to 
 be wholly maintained. He was to take 
 
268 
 
 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 with, him rather a large hamper of potatoes 
 and other roots, with a few green vege- 
 tables also, so as to eke out his first attempt 
 at providing for himself in his lodgings. 
 Felix was to send him fruit and vegetables 
 now and then. This was by their aunt 
 Sarah's advice, and was worth while, as 
 she explained to the brothers, because the 
 lodgings Amias was to occupy were close 
 to the railway station. " You can give 
 your landlady a vegetable marrow or two," 
 she observed; " but, whether or not, you 
 will probably, for reasons of her own, find 
 her always willing to send for your hamper. 
 The children might have gathered you 
 more currants if Ann had superintended 
 properly, but, if you'll believe me, I found 
 her among the cabbages, telling them that 
 those tiresome white butterflies were con- 
 sidered by the Greeks to be emblems of 
 your soul, and hunting out with diction- 
 aries the derivations of a slug." 
 
SABAH DE BEEENGER. 269 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 So Amias was gone. And Sir Samuel, 
 when he quite by chance discovered this, 
 felt somewhat aggrieved. It was manifest 
 that he ought to have been told, and if 
 the matter had been laid before him in a 
 proper spirit, he should have given Amias 
 something towards the needful expenses. 
 He said so to his niece Sarah. "But I 
 am not asked," he continued, with bitter- 
 ness, "not consulted at all. Oh dear, no; 
 that family is much too proud to take any 
 help from me." 
 
 "Why doesn't he give it without being 
 asked? Why doesn't he send Amias a 
 
270 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 cheque now?" thought the good lady. 
 " He a] ways reminds me of an onion 
 {for we all, as it is said, resemble in some 
 degree one or other of the inferior animals). 
 His conscience is wrapped round with as 
 many layers to cover it from the light, 
 as the heart of an onion. The outside 
 layer is avarice. Yes ; very thick. Peel 
 that off, you come to a layer of self-conceit ; 
 peel again, you come to his scruples — a 
 sort of mock conscience. He must not do 
 anything so wrong as to help Felix unless 
 Amias first humbles himself." 
 
 It never occurred to Miss de Berenger 
 for a moment that she ought to help her 
 nephew Felix herself. And as he had been 
 used to her all his life, and been accustomed 
 to accept her at her own valuation of her- 
 self, it never occurred to him either. One 
 duty was strongly impressed on her mind ; 
 this was the duty of paying her bills. She 
 generally incurred debts, to the full amount 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 271 
 
 of her income. Her course was plain ; she 
 must pay them. 
 
 But she frequently came and stayed with 
 Felix, kept his house for the time, and 
 paid her exact proportion of the expenses, 
 besides almost always suggesting some plan 
 by which he saved something or gained 
 some advantage. 
 
 She was always welcome. He found her 
 inconsequent speeches and simple shrewd- 
 ness in action decidedly attractive and 
 refreshing. Family affection is so far from 
 following in the wake of esteem, that 
 merely to be sure of it and depend on it, 
 is often to have it. Those who are loved, 
 not for any special qualities in themselves, 
 but just because they are human beings, 
 and stand near to us, are almost sure to 
 retain affection ; for they always will be 
 human beings, and the longer they stand 
 near to us the more at ease we shall feel 
 with them. What so comfortable, what so 
 
272 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 delightful, as perfect ease ? Nothing in the 
 world can surpass it but perfect love, and 
 that we cannot all expect. 
 
 When Felix, the very first time he entered 
 his empty rectory house, found his aunt 
 there before him, inspecting the cupboards 
 and having one cleaned out, he did not 
 interfere with her, did not even ask her 
 a question ; in a man's indolent way, he 
 thought she knew what she was about. 
 
 " Yes," she presently observed, " you've 
 got dozens of empty pickle bottles and 
 empty marmalade pots over at your lodgings. 
 I shall have those beer bottles saved too, 
 and put in here till we want them." 
 
 Felix was surprised, but he let her alone, 
 and she locked the closet and took away 
 the key. 
 
 A good while after this, she drove up in 
 her pony-carriage, saying she had come 
 to stay a week, and producing a great 
 parcel of sugar, for which Felix was to pay. 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 273 
 
 " Bolton will not buy the common goose- 
 berries and cherries at all; they are so 
 cheap this year." And she forthwith 
 bustled into the garden and set everybody, 
 excepting the vicar, to work to gather 
 fruit. " I shall have a quantity of jam 
 made of the gooseberries," she observed 
 to her nephew; "it will scarcely cost you 
 threepence a pot. And the gooseberries 
 could not be bottled, because the beer 
 bottles have such narrow necks ; they would 
 stick in them. I shall bottle the red 
 currants. There are sixty bottles ; I counted 
 them. I shall save out one dozen for 
 mulberry syrup." Thereupon she produced 
 the big key of the cupboard, and before 
 the week was over, there was a fine store 
 of jam and excellent bottled fruit in the 
 house. 
 
 Felix, of course, was glad; he knew 
 enough about his own affairs to be sure 
 that this would be a saving in his house- 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 SAEAH DE BERENGEB. 
 
 keeping, and also make his table more 
 various. But lie did not thank his aunt ; 
 he was just as well aware that it was 
 a great joy to her to intermeddle in his 
 matters, as she was that she might avail 
 herself of the privilege, and yet count on 
 his belief that all her intermeddling was 
 for the best. 
 
 But to return to Sir Samuel and his 
 important letter. The mails had now gone 
 by, and there was no answer. He wrote 
 again, and in case the first should have 
 miscarried, he entered on all the particulars 
 once more in a second letter. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that Mrs. Snaith 
 might, in all good faith, have sent the first 
 letter to Heidelburg, not being aware of 
 his son's change of address. He wrote, 
 and after complying with certain forms, 
 got it back from the poste-r est ante. He 
 hardly knew whether to be most annoyed 
 or relieved — so much time lost. But, then, 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 275 
 
 his son had not received a letter from him 
 that he had neglected to answer. 
 
 It was now Christmas ; he knew that he 
 must wait till March, and felt that he must 
 not make himself ridiculous meanwhile by 
 having the two little girls to his house, or 
 by in any other way seeming to acknow- 
 ledge them before the thne. 
 
 But he accepted and returned nods and 
 smiles, even at the church doors ; sometimes 
 the parties exchanged kisses in less public 
 places. The children liked to see his white 
 head. Once Amabel climbed upon the seat 
 of the pew at church, when the sermon was 
 long, and looked over the high back, as if to 
 ascertain whether he was in his place. Miss 
 Thimbleby, who was in charge of her and 
 the other two children, quietly took her 
 down, but the entire congregation saw the 
 pretty smile with which she had greeted 
 the old man, and his involuntary answer 
 to it. 
 
276 SAEAH DE BEBENGEE. 
 
 Felix wrote constantly to his brother, 
 and gave him all manner of good counsel, 
 which Amias was assisted to follow by his 
 very straitened circumstances. He said 
 as little as he possibly could in answer 
 concerning this want of money, but the 
 discipline of life was very strict upon him 
 that winter and spring. He was poorer 
 than any of the young fellows with whom 
 he was associated. During the first week 
 of his sojourn his story came out, and he 
 passed for a kind of hero among them; 
 though almost all thought him a fool for 
 his pains, and would have thought him 
 a prig too, but for the open and boyish 
 sincerity with which he made his love of 
 temperance depend on his anger against his 
 old uncle. Many and many a temperance 
 lecture was rehearsed in the presence of 
 those choice spirits, his companions, with- 
 out the faintest thought of influencing 
 their habits in regard to strong drink, but 
 simply to delight them by reproducing the 
 
SARAH DE BERENGEE. 277 
 
 ridiculous action and uncultivated language 
 of certain zealots whom lie now and then 
 went to hear. He was a water-drinker, 
 but escaped ridicule, because it was felt 
 that this was not from high principle, but 
 from indignation against his uncle for 
 repudiating him. In the mean while it 
 came in his way — for no better reason than 
 has been given — to accumulate a vast 
 amount of information concerning the 
 misery and crime arising from drunkenness, 
 the almost incredible sums paid by the 
 poor for the chinks that are their ruin, and 
 the constant temptations set before them 
 on all sides. These facts, when he had time 
 to think them over, sometimes impressed 
 him a good deal. 
 
 Early in April a letter from Felix let him 
 know that old Sam was in great affliction ; 
 the news had just reached him that his son 
 John had died of fever in Ceylon, and he 
 could not hold up his head at all. 
 
 " Poor old boy!" thought the inconse- 
 
278 SARAH DE BEBENGEB. 
 
 quent youth. " Well, after all, malt liquor (if 
 only it could be got good and pure) is very 
 wholesome ; it's the public-houses that want 
 doing away with." So he schooled his 
 mind for a little while into less intemperate 
 thoughts upon temperance. 
 
 John de Berenger, in fact, never read his 
 father's important letter. The news of his 
 death was communicated by a friend, a 
 young man who was staying with him when 
 his short illness came on, and who wrote of 
 him very kindly, assuring his father that 
 everything had been done for his comfort. 
 Also, the letter was returned. The stranger 
 apologized for having opened and read it, as 
 a means of discovering to whom he should 
 send the sad news. In consequence of the 
 questions asked in it, he had collected every 
 scrap of writing and every letter that he 
 could find among John de Berenger's effects, 
 and now forwarded them. He had not read 
 them, but thought it right to tell Sir Samuel 
 
SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 279 
 
 that, though the sick man had talked freely 
 of his past life during the earlier stages 
 of his illness, he had uttered no word that 
 seemed to bear at all on such a matter as 
 his father's letter unfolded. 
 
 Sir Samuel mourned for his son, and said 
 to himself, "In a very short time I shall 
 know all. The news of poor John's death 
 will fall on that woman like a thunderbolt. 
 Has she received it yet ? Evidently not. I 
 am left to tell it to whomsoever it may 
 concern." 
 
 He searched the few letters that had been 
 sent through and through; most of them 
 contained pressing requests for payment of 
 certain debts. There was not one that 
 could possibly have come from Mrs. Snaith, 
 or that seemed to concern the two little 
 girls in any way whatever. 
 
 " But I have the whip-hand of her now," 
 thought Sir Samuel. " She will see his 
 death in the paper, even if the whole village 
 
280 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 is not eager to tell it to her beforehand. 
 As he has left absolutely nothing behind 
 him, no more supplies can reach her. She 
 will be glad enough soon to come to me and 
 tell the whole truth. I shall not make the 
 first move." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith knew what ample time had 
 passed since the sending of her letter for an 
 answer to reach Sir Samuel from any part 
 of the world. He had not told her that he 
 had received one — in fact, he had not spoken 
 to her since she had taken the letter from 
 his hand. She had often met him in the 
 road, but had never accosted him. If he 
 was quite satisfied now that he had made a 
 ridiculous mistake, there was no need to 
 make him own it, and thus, perhaps, bring- 
 on herself the dreaded question, " These 
 children, not being my son's, why are they 
 here ? Whose are they ? " 
 
 She always took refuge in silence, and 
 tried to efface herself as much as possible 
 
SARAH DE BERENGEE. 281 
 
 from the thoughts of others. Sometimes 
 she thought she would steal away from her 
 cottage, and again take the children among 
 strangers ; but then careful reflection seemed 
 to assure her that where she now was 
 people had got used to her, and had ceased 
 to wonder at her. There had seemed to be 
 a mystery, but all the villagers considered 
 that they had solved it, and all the same 
 way; there was no difference of opinion. 
 What talk there still was, chiefly concerned 
 what old Sam would do, and why the family, 
 who doubtless knew all, were so silent 
 about it. Besides, the children were well, 
 happy, receiving a very good education, 
 and were already too familiar with these 
 De Berengers ever to forget them. More- 
 over, if she fled, it would not only rouse 
 curiosity to the utmost, but Miss de Beren- 
 ger would be almost certain to start in 
 pursuit, and in all probability would eventu- 
 ally find her. 
 
282 SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 The foolish have us far more in their 
 power than the wise. If it had not been 
 for Sarah de Berenger, Mrs. Snaith felt 
 that she could have confided the whole 
 truth to Felix, got him to keep it absolutely 
 secret, and also help her to get away; but 
 nothing could possibly be confided to Sarah y 
 or it would come out ; and if it was not 
 confided, she would search for the children, 
 meanwhile raising such a commotion, that 
 the matter was sure to get into the news- 
 papers as a strange and romantic story. 
 Sarah would, perhaps, be silly enough to 
 publish descriptions of the children, with 
 their Christian names ; these alone would 
 be sufficient to rouse the suspicions of any 
 person whatever among her old friends. 
 Finally, some hint of it would reach the 
 Dills, and, through them, the dreaded con- 
 vict husband. 
 
 Sarah was away from her home when the 
 news of John's death reached her. She 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGER. 283 
 
 came back and flew to Mrs. Snaith, asking 
 where the darlings were. 
 
 "At the vicarage, ma'am, doing then 
 lessons." 
 
 "And their mourning — is that ordered? 
 Sir Samuel will, of course, expect to see 
 them in proper mourning." 
 
 It was no use pretending to misunder- 
 stand, but Mrs. Snaith felt confident of her 
 ground, and was determined to hold it.. 
 "No, ma'am," she answered. " You have 
 no call to trouble yourself any further about 
 that mistake. I take leave to tell you that 
 Sir Samuel expect nothing of the kind." 
 
 That was on a Tuesday. Miss de Berenger 
 considered that there would be plenty of 
 time to get mourning ready by Sunday, and 
 she wrote to Sir Samuel about it. 
 
 "The woman wants money already," he 
 thought; "let her come and ask for it." 
 And he wrote to his niece more curtly than 
 kindly, desiring her not to interfere. 
 
284 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith did not apply for money, and 
 at the end of the week Sir Samuel went 
 to London, feeling that this was only a 
 question of time. 
 
 In the mean while, knowing that whatever 
 she did would make fresh talk, Mrs. Snaith 
 dressed the children on Sunday in clean 
 white frocks and white hats as usual, and 
 sent them up to the vicarage, but had not 
 courage to attend the morning service her- 
 self. 
 
 When the children came home to dinner, 
 each had a black sash on. Cousin Sarah 
 had sent them, they said, in answer to her 
 questions, and Miss Thimbleby had put 
 them on. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith shed a few quiet tears of 
 vexation then. Sarah's folly had mastered 
 her again. 
 
 To be in London a full year before he 
 could hope for a holiday. This was the lot 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. Wb 
 
 of Annas, and what a long, slow, dark, and 
 dirty year it seemed. 
 
 Occasionally, towards the end of it, he 
 began to dream of the old church tower, 
 and the rooks floating high above it in the 
 clear elastic air, and to dream of scarlet 
 strawberries ripening on their beds, and 
 meadows full of buttercups, and hay being 
 cut in the clear heat of noon, and of other 
 common country sights and sounds which 
 had never impressed him at all while he 
 lived among them; also of Felix and of 
 that little monkey Dick. Like those of 
 many another boy, his affections had 
 slumbered a good deal since his childhood. 
 They were waking. He found that he was 
 rather attached to his elder brother; and 
 when Dick sent him letters of wholly 
 intolerable badness, as regarded both the 
 writing and the orthography, he read them 
 over with a certain keenness of pleasure, 
 recalled the beautiful little brown face, 
 
286 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 imagined that he had always been very fond 
 of Dick, and wondered whether the little 
 fellow was grown. 
 
 April, May, and June went by. Sir Samuel, 
 still in London, received no application from 
 Mrs. Snaith ; " but," he argued, " she may 
 have been paid a quarter's allowance for the 
 children just before my poor son's death." 
 
 He wrote to Felix, requesting him not to 
 lend her any money. 
 
 " She may think," he considered, "that 
 poor John has left money in the hands of 
 his agent, and that through him she shall 
 receive it. She cannot know as I do that 
 he left nothing whatever behind him but 
 his debts, and that I have his papers in my 
 hands, which prove it fully. I wish I knew 
 my dear boy's motive, though." 
 
 So he deluded himself. The human mind 
 is always inexorable in demanding a motive 
 for all human actions. It is only himself 
 that each man permits to act without one, 
 
SAEAH DE BEREXGER. 287 
 
 and aVails himself of the privilege with 
 astonishing frequency ; sometimes letting a 
 momentary caprice push itself in and snatch 
 a reasonable motive out of his hand ; some- 
 times, from mere indolence or inattention, 
 failing to make out what he means to do 
 till the thing does itself, and he, still hesi- 
 tating, looks on and lets it alone. 
 
 Sir Samuel kept hesitating, and failing to 
 make out what he wanted in this particular 
 instance. The children were receiving an 
 excellent education, were taken very great 
 care of by their nurse, and — he w T as not 
 asked for a shilling. He did not distinctly 
 put this and that together, but waited on 
 occasion and let things drift. When he 
 thought of future expense, he hardly knew 
 what he believed concerning these little 
 girls ; when he thought of his dear dead son, 
 he did know. But his asking questions 
 would not make them any more his grand- 
 children, if such they were, while it would, 
 
288 SARAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 as he thought, bring him their bills to pay. 
 No, it would be dangerous to investigate. 
 He should now not encourage that woman 
 to talk. He elected to leave things alone, 
 and he had to take the consequences. 
 
 Thus the days and weeks went by, till 
 that happy time arrived when Amias was 
 to go home for his destined holiday. 
 
 A slow third-class train was alone within 
 his means, and the nearest station being 
 seven miles from his brother's house, he 
 was not to be met, but to send his box 
 on by a carrier, and walk over himself. 
 
 It was about eight o'clock in the evening 
 of a very hot day when he stepped forth 
 for his walk, first across a good many fields, 
 then over the end of a great common, 
 next through Sir Samuel de Berenger's 
 wood, and finally along the winding country 
 lane that went past his brother's gate. 
 
 He was still half a mile from it. The 
 slow dusk had begun to gather; large 
 
SARAH DE BEEENGEE. 289 
 
 flowers of the bindweed, trailing over trie 
 low wayside hedge, were mere specks of 
 milky whiteness; he could but just dis- 
 tinguish between them and the dogroses, 
 could hardly detect the honeysuckle but 
 for its fragrance. 
 
 " Delightful ! " he thought, as he strode 
 on. " The smell of things in this lane is 
 worth all the sights in London put together. 
 Whew! what's that?" 
 
 He stopped. No cottage within a hundred 
 yards, and yet a pungent, powerful whiff 
 of something worse than London fog or 
 smoke came past him, and lost itself among 
 the honeysuckle. A smell of burning. 
 He wondered — strode on — admitted to him- 
 self, almost with fear, that it was odd no 
 one had come even thus far to meet him. 
 Then, all on a sudden, behold, a great gap ! 
 Some slight thing fell with hardly a sound, 
 and up mounted a shower of sparks. He 
 ran on, shouting out in the dusk — 
 
 VOL. i. u 
 
290 SAKAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 "Why — why, there's something wrong! 
 What's up? What can he the matter? 
 Mrs. Snaith's cottage is gone ! " 
 
 Mrs. Snaith's cottage was gone indeed — 
 its place was vacant ; it was hurnt to the 
 ground. A few singed hollyhocks leaned 
 forlornly forward to the road ; two elms, 
 with all their leaves shrivelled up, held 
 out bare and ghastly arms ; a puff of smoke 
 came now and then from a dark heap of 
 ashes, and a few sparks would mount when 
 fanned by evening air. 
 
 Amias rushed on, dashed through a 
 scattered group of people who seemed to 
 be watching the rectory gates, and, en- 
 countering his aunt in the hall, demanded 
 vehemently to be assured that Felix was 
 all right. 
 
 "Yes, yes," quoth Sarah; "he's in his 
 room, changing his singed clothes. You 
 needn't bang at his door like a burglar," she 
 panted, for she had pursued him upstairs. 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEE. 291 
 
 " I knew he would be in the scrimmage/ ' 
 -cried Annas, as Felix, opening his door 
 a little way, let his brother in. ?' And 
 where's Dick?" shouted Amias through the 
 keyhole, having satisfied himself at once 
 that his brother was none the worse. He 
 opened the door about an inch to receive 
 her answer. 
 
 "He never was near the fire," quoth 
 Miss de Berenger. "As soon as I heard 
 of it I ran into the garden, and there I 
 found him, enjoying the prowl of inno- 
 cence, his cat and his owl after him. He's 
 safe in bed now, very sulky to think what 
 fun there has been and he not in it." 
 
 "Anybody hurt?" asked Amias, as he 
 was proceeding down a passage to look at 
 Dick. 
 
 "Yes; Mrs. Snaith, a little, foolish 
 woman. And old Nanny Fothergill was 
 frightened almost into a fit, seeing the 
 flames through her window." 
 
292 SAEAH DE BEKENGER. 
 
 "Oh, she's alive yet ? " 
 
 " Yes," quoth Miss de Berenger. "She's 
 not at all an irreligious woman, though 
 she has lived to be ninety-four. I don't 
 know how she reconciles that with c the 
 days of our life,' you know, \ are three- 
 score years and ten.' At the same time," 
 she continued, falling into thought, " I am 
 quite clear that it would not be right of 
 her to hasten matters." 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The return of Amias had, indeed, followed 
 closely on the conclusion of an exciting 
 occurrence. 
 
 It was Thursday evening ; Felix always 
 had full service then, and a sermon. 
 
 This was the favourite religious occasion 
 of the week, and (except during the harvest) 
 very well attended. A time-honoured 
 institution; the ringers ushered it in with 
 a cheerful peal. Then, when days were 
 long, the outlying hamlets, and not un- 
 frequently the adjacent parishes, contributed 
 their worshippers ; and even some people 
 from the little town (former parishioners 
 
294 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 of Felix) would walk over to join, and see 
 how he fared. Then every old woman, as 
 she came clattering up the brick aisle, felt 
 some harmless pride in herself; she knew 
 she must be welcome, helping to swell the 
 congregation. She looked at Felix, as he 
 stood gravely waiting in the desk, and 
 he looked at her. 
 
 Then were given out long-winded hymns y 
 clear to all the people. Then the rustic 
 choir broke out into manifold quavers, and 
 sang with a will. Then shrill, sweet voices 
 of childreh answered, and farmers' wives put 
 in like quavers (but more genteelly) ; while 
 the farmers themselves, and the farmers' 
 men, did their share with a gruff heartiness, 
 not untuneful. Then, also, the " Methody 
 folk," having no " Bethel" of their own, 
 came to church, and expressed their assent 
 to the more penitential prayers by an 
 audible sigh and an occasional groan. 
 They said of Felix that he was a gracious 
 
SABAH DE BEEENGER. 295 
 
 young man, and knew how to hit hard; 
 which two qualities they considered to be 
 strictly harmonious. 
 
 But his own people gave him a good word 
 as well. He had inherited this service from 
 his predecessor, and finding it at a con- 
 venient hour and popular, kept it up with 
 loyal and dutiful care. They said of him 
 that "he had no pride; lie didn't mind 
 shouting for a poor man. Preached just 
 as loud and just as long, he did, in bad 
 weather, when he had nobbut a few old 
 creeturs and poor Simon Graves the cripple 
 for congregation, as when the most chiefest 
 draper and his lady walked over from the 
 town to attend, as well as Mr. Pritchard 
 the retired druggist, that kept his own gig, 
 and was said to be worth some thousands of 
 pounds." 
 
 It is hardly needful to record that Felix 
 did not find the singing ridiculous. It was 
 far from perfect praise, but he supposed it 
 
296 SARAH DE BERENGEE. 
 
 must be more acceptable than city music 
 led by an organ, and sung by a paid cboir. 
 
 There is something very pathetic in the 
 worship of the poor and rustic. They often 
 think they oblige the clergyman by coming 
 to church. And the old have a touching 
 humbleness about them ; they feel a sincere 
 sense of how worthless they are in this 
 world, which they could hardly have 
 attained unless the young had helped them 
 to it. The rich mix the world with their 
 prayers; so do the poor — thus : they feel that 
 they come and say them with their betters. 
 
 So this was a Thursday evening. Felix 
 felt the solemn sweetness of the hour. It 
 was a clear, hot time of year, and all the 
 doors and windows were open. He had an 
 unusually large congregation, and had just 
 mounted into the pulpit and given out his 
 text, when, to the astonishment of the 
 people, instead of beginning to preach, he 
 stood bolt upright for an instant ; then his 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 297 
 
 -eyes, as it seemed involuntarily, fell on 
 Mrs. Snaith (who sat just facing him), 
 with a look of such significance, that she 
 instantly started up and rushed out at the 
 chancel door. 
 
 She thought of the little girls, naturally ; 
 what had she in life but them ? 
 
 The amazed congregation gaped at him. 
 He turned to the schoolmistress, and saying, 
 "Keep all those children in their places," 
 closed his Bible and exclaimed to the 
 people generally, " My friends, remember 
 that there are fire-buckets under the tower, 
 and that the nearest water is in my pond. 
 Mrs. Snaith 's cottage is on fire." 
 
 The red light from it was already flaring 
 high, and making pink the whitewashed 
 walls and his gown. It had passed for a 
 sunset flush, till from his height he saw 
 what it meant ; and saw the two little 
 girls running hand in hand down the dusty 
 lane, with loose hair flying. They were 
 
298 SAKAH DE BEKENGEE. 
 
 making their way, clad only in their white 
 night-gowns, towards the church, for there 
 thej doubtless knew that Mamsey was. 
 
 Thanks to the way in which he had 
 arranged his sentence, the mass of the 
 people, as they rushed out of church, ran 
 round to the tower, and when he himself 
 descended, he met the two little girls, neither 
 hurt nor frightened, running up to the door. 
 Each had a great doll — her best doll — under 
 one arm; but when they saw him, with 
 childish modesty they sat down on a grassy 
 grave, and tucked their little feet into their 
 gowns. It was such a very hot night, that 
 there was no risk of their taking harm 
 from their evening excursion. Not that any 
 one thought of that, or thought much about 
 them, excepting Felix, who, fearing that 
 Mrs. Snaith might not have seen them, and 
 might risk her life for their sake, followed 
 on after her at the top of his speed, leaving 
 them behind with his aunt Sarah. 
 
SABAH DE BERENGER. 299 
 
 " Yes ! " exclaimed Sarah, wlien de- 
 scribing the scene afterwards to Arnias. 
 " There are occasions when decorum and 
 dignity are forgotten. If you had seen 
 what Felix looked like, rushing down the 
 lane with his surplice flying ! An ex- 
 aggerated owl suggested itself, or a ghost 
 pursued by its creditors. These are the 
 things that give Dissenters such a hold 
 when they cry out for Disestablishment. 
 However, by the time he overtook the 
 clerk, he had got it off; he flung it over 
 the old man's arm, who folded it up, and 
 laid it on the grass under a fir tree." 
 
 Felix on this occasion found little scope 
 for the exercise of courage, and no oppor- 
 tunity of giving aid. The dry thatch was 
 sending out an even breadth of flame to 
 the very middle of the road ; there was (as 
 he supposed) no approaching. There was 
 great shouting ; men as well as women were 
 eagerly handing on fire-buckets, while he 
 
300 
 
 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 searched the crowd for Mrs. Snaith, and 
 was told, to his amazement, that she was 
 inside the blazing premises. He had 
 scarcely heard it when she emerged from 
 them, with a box under her arm. He and 
 Mr. Bolton advanced to help her forward. 
 Her gown was smoking, and some buckets 
 of water were thrown all over them with- 
 out ceremony, as their bearers, running up 
 with them from the pond, saw the state 
 of the case. Mr. Bolton, dripping as he 
 was, could not forbear to moralize. " Now, 
 didn't I tell you, ma'am, 'twas too late? 
 Your things were all alight. This is one 
 of the occasions when folks may be glad 
 their goods ain't worth much, 'stead of 
 risking their precious lives to save them. 
 Sit down, there's a good creature," he con- 
 tinued, as he and Felix conducted her to 
 a grassy bank. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith put a small box into the 
 hands of Felix, then sat down and wiped 
 her face. 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 301 
 
 " Your gown's no better than tinder," 
 continued Mr. Bolton, taking a mean ad- 
 vantage of her inability to answer. " Choked 
 a'most, I can see. And you've got me a 
 good suit of clothes spoilt very near, and 
 the water, that's black as ink, running over 
 me and Mr. de Berenger, and right into 
 our shoes, just because you must needs 
 save your Sunday bonnet. There's nothing 
 better in that box, I'll be bound. And I 
 did tell you your Windsor chairs were safe 
 outside, before even we got out of church,, 
 and your eight-day clock, and your best 
 fender and fire-irons." Here he gave him- 
 self a shake, and a pool of water enlarged 
 itself at his feet. 
 
 " Let her alone," said Felix, compas- 
 sionately. " She thought the children were 
 inside." 
 
 " No, sir," said Mrs. Snaith, recovering 
 her voice, " I didn't." 
 
 Having thus dissipated his sympathy, 
 
302 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 she got back her box from him, and he 
 also felt for the first time how wet he was. 
 He, too, felt inclined to moralize. 
 
 A good many buckets of water had by 
 this time been flung at the fire, but it 
 seemed to send all out in steam again, and 
 before ever a straw of the thatch was wet, 
 and just as the sunset flush faded, all that 
 had once been a habitation had gone up 
 or gone down. It was not. A thick black 
 cloud of pungent smoke brooded still among 
 the trees, and a soft wet heap of ashes 
 was lying in the garden. The shouting 
 and excitement were over. It had been a 
 very old cottage, and built of wood and 
 plaster ; dry weather had made the thatch 
 ready for a spark, which had come from 
 the chimney. "Well, it had been a strange 
 thing to see how fast it had melted down, 
 or with what a rage of haste the flame 
 and smoke of it had ascended ; but, after all, 
 the people considered it had not been what 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 303 
 
 any one could call a tragical sight : nobody 
 was injured, and there was hardly any 
 property in it worth mentioning. 
 
 Felix was a little hoarse the next morn- 
 ing, after his wetting, when Mrs. Snaith 
 knocked at his study door, and asked if she 
 might speak with him. 
 
 She and her children had slept at the 
 rectory ; her eight-day clock had been 
 accommodated in the kitchen, and was 
 diligently ticking and striking against the 
 clock of the house. Her Windsor chairs, 
 also her fender and fire-irons, some bedding, 
 and a few toys, were disposed about a large 
 empty room. No need to apologize for their 
 presence in it ; they made it look more 
 habitable. 
 
 These things had been saved by the first 
 man who discovered the fire, and who 
 had carried the two little girls downstairs 
 before he gave the alarm. 
 
 Mrs. Snaith, over and above a sort of 
 
304 SAKAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 contrition for the trouble her goods had 
 caused in their burning — or saving, as the 
 case might be — was much vexed at the 
 drenching Mr, de Berenger had got, and 
 the cold it had evidently given him. 
 
 Felix had fortunately been only arrayed 
 at the time in a rusty old camlet cassock ; 
 it was still in course of being slowly dried 
 at the kitchen fire. JollifTe said it could 
 take no damage ; it was past that. This 
 was a secret source of comfort to Mrs. 
 Snaith. But she longed to explain matters, 
 and she wanted to know what had been 
 done with her box. As Felix opened the 
 door to let her enter, she felt a certain 
 hint of disapproval in his voice, hoarse 
 though it was. 
 
 "If you please, sir," she began, " might 
 I see if the things in my box are safe ? " 
 
 " Oh, your box," he answered, looking 
 about him. " What did I do with it? 
 There it is — just inside the fender. You 
 
SABAH DE BEKENGER. 305 
 
 risked a great deal for that box, Mrs. 
 Snaith." 
 
 He was sitting now at Ills writing- table, 
 and, pointing with his pen at the scorched 
 and smoky article, was surprised to see 
 the eagerness with which she darted upon 
 it, as she replied, "Well, yes, sir; but 
 what else could I do ? If I'd lost that, I 
 should never have forgave myself. I didn't 
 ought to have kept it in the copper, but 
 I thought it was a safe place, too." 
 
 She set it on the table before him. 
 
 " This is a sort of thing that people 
 call a bandbox, is it not?" he inquired, 
 " You surely kept nothing valuable in it ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I did. I thought, in case of 
 thieves, they would never think of looking 
 in a bandbox for what I'd got. It's full 
 of papers and things, sir. All I have for 
 maintaining the children, and schooling 
 them, and that." 
 
 Felix was struck with astonishment 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 when she opened it, and began to lay its 
 contents before him. 
 
 "Why, this is property," he exclaimed, 
 taking up a paper. " This is a United 
 States bond, payable to bearer. If this 
 had been burnt, the money it brings in 
 would have been lost, forfeited, and, as 
 far as I know, irreclaimable." 
 
 " Yes, I know, sir. I was fully warned." 
 
 " By whom ? " 
 
 Mrs. Snaith was not to be caught; she 
 made an evident pause here, choosing her 
 words. 
 
 . " By him that gave them over to me, 
 sir. He advised me to turn them into 
 another kind of property so soon as I 
 could. But I never could exactly make 
 out how. And I was afraid it might be 
 found out." 
 
 She stopped and coloured, as if vexed 
 with herself, when she had said these last 
 words. He made as if he had not heard 
 
SAEAH DE BERENGEK. 307 
 
 them ; and she had such trust in him, and 
 in his gentle manhood, that, observing this, 
 she felt safe again, as if she had not made 
 that little slip of the tongue. 
 
 " Where is the list ? You have a list of 
 the papers, of course," continued Felix ; and 
 he had scarcely any doubt that he should be 
 shown his cousin John de Berenger's hand- 
 writing. 
 
 " I have no list, sir." 
 
 Felix, full of surprise, paused again. He 
 had set a chair for her opposite to himself, 
 and as she took out paper after paper, and 
 handed them to him across the narrow 
 table, he received each and scanned it with 
 curiosity and interest. 
 
 " Would you like me to make a list for 
 you?" he said at last. 
 
 " I should be much obliged to you, sir. 
 Most of them have numbers — I've noticed 
 that; and I have some of the numbers in 
 my memory." 
 
308 SARAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 "Do I understand that no list, even of 
 the numbers, was given you? " 
 
 " No, sir," she replied, as if apologizing 
 for the donor. "It were rather a hasty 
 thing, and a legal document cost money." 
 
 " A legal document ! Well, Mrs. Snaith " 
 — here he paused; he would not mention 
 a name, she having so carefully and 
 pointedly refrained from doing so — "well, 
 Mrs. Snaith, he showed great confidence 
 in you that gave these papers over to your 
 charge." 
 
 "He hadn't any choice, sir," she put 
 in, hut rather faintly. (" I'll be bound he 
 hadn't ! " thought Felix.) And she con- 
 tinued her sentence, " And it was no more 
 than my due to have them." 
 
 " Still, as I said, it was a great mark of 
 confidence," continued Felix, " and far be 
 it from me to show less. But I may say, 
 and I do, that it was a strange act of 
 imprudence in you to keep this property 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 309 
 
 by you in such a form, specially though 
 (as you admit) you were expressly warned 
 not to do so. Since you lived here you 
 have, as I remember, taken a journey several 
 times. Did you carry this box with you? " 
 
 " Yes, sir; I went to get what they call 
 the dividends paid. I fared to think I 
 ought not to trouble you about this, but 
 now you have come to know " 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Snaith?" 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn't mind the trouble 
 of letting me understand how to turn them 
 into something safer — invest them over 
 again. You see, sir, if I were to die, it 
 would be very awkward." 
 
 " Very, indeed," said Felix, gravely; "be- 
 cause, for anything that appears to the con- 
 trary, this property is absolutely yours ; so 
 that, if you died, not a shilling of it could 
 be claimed for the children. I say," he con- 
 tinued, seeing her look amazed, "that the 
 two children, being no relation to you, could 
 
310 SAKAH DE BEEENGEK. 
 
 not, in case of your death, claim to possess 
 what is only payable to Hannah Snaith. 
 Your own relations might claim it, you see,, 
 and the children would actually be cut 
 out." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith, on hearing this, turned ex- 
 tremely pale. She saw that she herself 
 was, in case she died, so acting as to cut 
 her children out of the money which she 
 only cared to have for their sake. What 
 had she not sacrificed already for them ? 
 How should she learn to do anything more ? 
 
 "But surely there is a will? " continued 
 Felix, the strangeness of John's supposed 
 conduct growing on him. " No doubt, 
 though you may not be aware of it, some 
 other person, some other guardian, must 
 have been appointed to meet such a case." 
 
 Mrs. Snaith, still very pale, was silent. 
 If she had only said so much as " I do not 
 know," he would have been better satisfied. 
 
 "I take for granted that the person, 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGEU. 311 
 
 whoever he was, that made over this pro- 
 perty to you j did so in fall confidence that 
 it would he faithfully spent on and for 
 these children." 
 
 To this appeal she still made no reply. 
 She had for some time seen no cause to 
 fear that her wretched husband would ever 
 find her ; she had left behind her, at present 
 divided among her own relations, so much 
 of the income as she felt it her duty to 
 let him take, and she meant the children 
 to inherit the remainder. "I may die any 
 day," was the thought now pressing on her, 
 " and so sure as I die, they would advertise 
 for my relations, let them have it, and, 
 unless they found out the truth, which 
 would be still worse, my clears would be 
 left penniless." 
 
 " Sir," she said at last, "if it please the 
 Lord, I hope I shall live to see my — dear — 
 3 r oung ladies grow up." 
 
 The slight, the undefinable air of dis- 
 
312 SAEAH DE BERENGER. 
 
 approval, daunted her. She was so much 
 puzzled, so much agitated by the perception 
 of how nearly she had lost everything, and 
 by his remark as to the children not being- 
 related to her, that she had no intelligence 
 at liberty for noticing that disapproval was 
 an odd sensation for a man to exhibit con- 
 cerning a matter that was no affair of his. 
 Still less did she think of Sir Samuel's 
 former notion, as perhaps shared by Felix. 
 She never doubted that the old man had 
 received a letter from his son, which had 
 set the matter at rest. She often thought 
 he had gone away because he was proudly 
 angry that he ever should have been so 
 deceived, and should have demeaned him- 
 self to come and question her. 
 
 There was Sarah, to be sure — the children 
 were still allowed to call her Coz — but Sarah 
 was so inconsequent, so wrong-headed, that 
 she and her doings hardly seemed to count . 
 
 " I have been very foolish, I own, sir," 
 
SAKAH DE BEBENGEB. 313 
 
 she said at last, in a tone of apology, for, as 
 lias just been explained, the reason of his 
 disapproval was hidden from her. " What 
 do you think it would he best for me to 
 do now? " 
 
 " I am not a very good man of business," 
 Felix answered, " but I think this property 
 could not be invested in the names of the 
 two children — only by guardians or trustees, 
 for their benefit." Then he paused to think. 
 "I am the more likely to be right in this 
 notion, because it has not been done already ; 
 but I can easily ascertain. If you consent to 
 its being invested for them," he continued, 
 " I will agree to be one of the guardians, 
 you being the other." 
 
 Amazing kindness ! remarkable conde- 
 scension ! Mrs. Snaith could not hear it 
 and keep her seat. She rose and curtsied. 
 " Sir, you are very kind; I am deeply 
 obliged to you," she answered, very highly 
 flattered, and also veiy much flustered. " I 
 
314 SAEAH DE BEBENGEB. 
 
 never could have hoped for such goodness ;. 
 but it's just like you, sir." 
 
 Why was it " like" in Mrs. Snaith's opinion? 
 Because Felix stood godfather to half the 
 children baptized in his parish ; because he 
 let himself be called, at all untimely hours, 
 to comfort the sick ; because he had housed 
 her goods, and helped to carry them in as 
 a matter of course ; because she had more 
 than once seen him carry the market basket 
 of a poor rheumatic old woman, and lend 
 her the aid of his arm as well to help her 
 home — these were some of the reasons 
 why it was "like him" to propose being 
 guardian to her little treasures. 
 
 Felix looked up when, again seating her- 
 self, she pushed the papers toward him, as 
 if giving them over to his charge for good 
 and all. 
 
 The shadow of a smile crossed his face. 
 He did not see that it was so very kind; 
 but the tinge of disapproval vanished. 
 
SARAH DE BERENGER. 315 
 
 " You consent, then ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, I consent, and thank you 
 kindly ; but I am that circumstanced, as I 
 can only say I consent unless lie should 
 interfere that may be able to interfere." 
 
 "Now, what does she mean by that?" 
 thought Felix, still strong in the notion that 
 he was to be guardian to John de Berenger's- 
 children. " Can she mean old Sam ? I 
 suppose she does." 
 
 But though his face was full of cogitation, 
 the sunshine of approval had come back to 
 it — he was even feeling that he had wronged 
 her ; and when she asked if he would lock the 
 papers up in some safe place, and do as he 
 pleased about investments, he felt suddenly 
 that he did not want such perfect liberty as. 
 that. "I shall do nothing without con- 
 sulting a lawyer," he said, " and you will be 
 so good as to take care of the list I have 
 made." 
 
 "Hadn't you better keep it, sir?" she 
 
^16 SAEAH DE BEKENGEK. 
 
 answered, in her simplicity; "it would save 
 you the trouble of making another." 
 
 "No, Mrs. Snaith," he answered, and 
 laughed and held out his hand, as he gene- 
 rally did to his parishioners. So she shook 
 hands with him and left the room, feeling 
 as if she should like to serve him all her 
 days. 
 
 When she had retired, Felix again looked 
 over the papers. " All made payable to 
 bearer — that bearer, Hannah Snaith." Now, 
 if John de Berenger had made that money 
 over to her during his lifetime, it must have 
 been to protect it, so that it could not be 
 recognized as his, and claimed by his cre- 
 ditors. He must have trusted her ; and she 
 had proved worthy of his trust as regarded 
 her honesty. As regarded her prudence — 
 no ! 
 
 Felix leaned his chin on one hand, and 
 turning over those papers with the other, 
 began to puzzle himself with a problem 
 
SAKAH DE BERENGER. 317 
 
 which he stated wrongly, and which, conse- 
 quently, could have no right answer. 
 
 The problem was this. 
 
 "As John de Berenger had died deeply 
 in debt, could this money (invested in the 
 name of Hannah Snaith) he considered in 
 fairness to belong to his children; was it 
 not the property of his creditors ? Had he 
 not proved, by the course he had taken, in 
 order to conceal or protect it from them, 
 that it was in justice theirs ? 
 
 " That depends,' ' Felix presently thought, 
 " on how John got the money. Wait a minute. 
 This woman, Hannah Snaith, has repeatedly 
 declared that she knew nothing about John. 
 After all, why may not this be true ? Why 
 may not the money have come through his 
 wife, whoever she was ? 
 
 " No, that won't do. ' By him that made 
 them over to me,' she said. Well, why 
 should it not have been the wife's father ? 
 
 " Let me think this out. If John did 
 
318 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 marry, as I suppose is certain (at least, one 
 of the few things Hannah Snaith has posi- 
 tively declared is that these children were 
 born in wedlock, and that she could easily 
 prove it if necessary) — as he did marry, I will 
 therefore say he must be supposed to have 
 married that poor, pretty young creature, 
 the Baptist minister's daughter, whom he 
 harped upon to me for years, fell in love 
 with when she was only fifteen, as he saw 
 her passing to and from school — Fanny 
 Tindale (neither child is called Fanny, by- 
 the-by). Well, let us say that after her 
 father moved away to somewhere in Lin- 
 colnshire, I think it was, John went and 
 married Fanny Tindale. I know she died 
 some time ago. Suppose her father, a vul- 
 gar old fellow, but not particularly poor, that 
 I am aware of, saved, or at any rate died 
 possessed of, what I now see before me — I 
 am sure I have heard that he too is dead — 
 of course his care would be to prevent John 
 
SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 319 
 
 from ever touching his money; but if he 
 died before his daughter, he may have feared 
 lest somehow it might be got hold of by the 
 creditors, and may have chosen to trust it 
 to a person whom he knew, and no relation, 
 in the faith of her honesty. Her being more 
 of his class in life than of John's, is much in 
 favour of the theory. And this is in favour 
 of it too, that by all I know of her — and 
 I know her now pretty well — I seem to be 
 assured that she is not a person who would 
 lend herself to any scheme that she knew to 
 be dishonest." 
 
 Felix de Berenger, having thus stated his 
 problem, thought the better of himself for 
 finding an answer to it so convincing and so 
 complete. 
 
 " I wonder I never thought of this be- 
 fore," he observed, as with a satisfied air he 
 locked up Hannah Snaith's papers. " Poor 
 little waifs ! Yes, I see it all." 
 
 An uncomfortable reflection sometimes 
 
320 SAEAH DE BEEENGEE. 
 
 presses on us, to trie effect that the world is 
 full of people who think they have an answer 
 to most of the problems of life, or at- least 
 to such as more especially concern their own 
 lives. Who think so — but we are sure they 
 are mistaken. And is it not possible— just 
 possible — though to the last degree impro-' 
 bable, that we, we ourselves, may be ? No, 
 that flash of intelligence crossing the shady 
 chambers of thought is soon put out; of 
 such reflections the human mind is always 
 impatient. 
 
 Yet a great many of us know no more of 
 the answers to such problems as lie close 
 about us, and most concern us, than did the 
 Eeverend Felix de Berenger in this recorded 
 instance, and nevertheless we, perhaps, as 
 he did, bring a great deal of good out of the 
 mistaken circumstances. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS.