L I E. R.AFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Ml 22m 
 ld&9 
 v- 1
 
 frj? 
 
 NOTICE: Return or renew all Library Materials! The Minimum Fee for 
 each Lost Book is $50.00. 
 
 The person charging this material is responsible for 
 its return to the library from which it was withdrawn 
 on or before the Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for discipli- 
 nary action and may result in dismissal from the University. 
 To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 L161— O-1096
 
 MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTEK.
 
 LONDON : 
 EOBSON AND SONS. PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.T
 
 MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 % Hofatl. 
 
 By JUSTIN M C CARTHY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " PAUL HASSIE," " THE WATERDALE NEIGHBOURS," ETC. 
 
 IN THEEE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 
 
 1869. 
 
 [All rights reserved.]
 
 
 £X3 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 i. Ketrospect ; and Mist 
 ii. Christina Braun . 
 in. A Sea Fight . 
 iv. " Far above Singing" 
 v. Death in Arcadia . 
 
 3 
 
 4/ 
 
 u i vi. Christina and I 
 
 ' vii. The Paths divide 
 v 
 
 -V viii. From Arcadia to Bohemia 
 
 i^ IX. LlLLA WOULD SERVE ME . 
 in 
 
 X. I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE . 
 
 xi. My new Friend in a new Character 
 I* 
 ytfxn. Greeting and — Farewell 
 
 xiii. Goodboy's Brother 
 
 i 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 *3 
 
 42 
 
 65 
 
 79 
 
 9i 
 
 107 
 
 129 
 
 151 
 167 
 187 
 207 
 
 243
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/myenemysdaughter01mcca
 
 MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RETROSPECT ; AND MIST. 
 
 It is a wet Sunday evening in the leaden heart of 
 London. I am now in the Bloomsbury region ; 
 and perhaps I need hardly say that nothing on 
 earth could be more dull, dingy, and unpicturesque 
 in itself than the prospect from my windows. Yet 
 just now, in the deepening gloom of a rainy dusk, 
 I seem to look on something not unlike one of 
 the most picturesque and romantic scenes where- 
 on my eyes have ever rested. " Ich weiss nicht 
 was soil es bedeuten ;" but the ridges of the 
 houses opposite begin to show through the steam- 
 ing mist fantastically like the outlines of the hills 
 I used to see every day years ago, and the broad 
 blank lying between me and over the way may 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 my enemy's daughtee. 
 
 easily enough seem filled by the stretch of bay 
 I have watched when it lay wild and drear on 
 the wet evenings of late autumn like this. The 
 kindly, loving, artistic fog and rain, which now 
 hide all but the faint and softened outlines of our 
 street, have clone this for me ; and lo ! in Blooms- 
 bury I am looking upon sea and hill once more. 
 The very sounds of London city-life come to help 
 out the illusion. That cry of the oysterman be- 
 low is a good deal more like the scream of some 
 sea-bird than most theatrical imitations are like 
 the reality. The church-bells clinking and toll- 
 ing for evening service are to me now the bell of 
 the church to which I used to be conducted when 
 a boy on Sundays, and with which so many of the 
 associations of my after-life inevitably connect 
 themselves. It used to be a dreadful ceremonial, 
 that service, to us boys, on the fine Sundays of 
 summer. It was bad enough in winter ; but in 
 summer it became unspeakably more torturing. 
 There was a window in the church close to where 
 we used to sit — poor little weary, yawning mar- 
 tyrs — and the branches of an elm flapped unceas- 
 ingly on the panes. Tantalus-torture was it to 
 watch the tender, lucent leaves, free in the glo-
 
 retrospect; and mist. 6 
 
 rious air of May or June, as they flickered across 
 the window, and seemed to whisper of the blue 
 sky and the shingly strand and the waves of tran- 
 sparent emerald which they could see and we 
 could not ; while the organ pealed and the clergy- 
 man preached the long sermon to which we never 
 listened. I do not know how it is, that when I 
 thus sit alone of nights and do not feel inclined 
 to read, or steadily to go to work at something, 
 every object I see, flame, cloud, or even chimney- 
 pot, reminds me in an indescribable, irresistible 
 way, of some object belonging to the dear dull 
 little seaport town where I, Emanuel Temple 
 Banks, was born some five-and-thirty years ago. 
 
 I have now written my full name, but it is 
 long since I have been known otherwise than as 
 Emanuel Temple. I pruned my name down to 
 its present brevity for reasons which shall be ex- 
 plained in due time. I was called "Emanuel 
 Temple" because my mother had a proper wo- 
 manly objection to commonplace or vulgar names, 
 and since we could call ourselves nothing better 
 than Banks, resolved that we should at least have 
 euphonious and elegant Christian names. There- 
 fore, instead of becoming, as was suggested, John
 
 4 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Banks and Peter Banks, my brother and I became 
 Emanuel Temple Banks and Theodore Eustace 
 Banks respectively. I scarcely know by what pro- 
 cess Theodore Eustace and myself were brought 
 up. We were the only children — I the elder by 
 a year — and my father died when I was six years 
 old. He had owned fishing-boats, and was doing 
 well, until, at the instigation of my mother, he 
 unfortunately took to immature building specu- 
 lations, and failed accordingly, fishing-boats and 
 all going down in the land-wreck. Indeed, my 
 poor father did not remain long after the ruin of 
 his venture, and my mother had to live by mak- 
 ing gloves and trying to let lodgings. She had 
 been a genteel woman of her class at one time ; 
 and being engaged in one of the few pretentious 
 millinery shops in our little town, was regarded 
 by her friends as having made quite a sort of 
 mesalliance when she married my father, who was 
 then only a good-looking young boat-builder, with 
 a fine voice for singing. She was very sentimen- 
 tal then, was poor mother — so she has often told 
 me — and those were the days when the heart of 
 sentimental womanhood was divided between the 
 Corsair and the Lady of the Lake. My mother
 
 RETROSPECT J AND MIST. ° 
 
 loved both, but leaned to the Corsair; and found 
 a resemblance between that hero and my father. 
 To her latest days she was fond of repeating 
 whole strings of "My own Medora," and Ellen 
 and James Fitzjames — and I doubt much whether 
 Locksley Hall and Maud are often recited and 
 raved about and glorified in the shops of pro- 
 vincial milliners just now. Poetry and romance 
 seem to have taken a terrible grip of the female 
 heart at that time, and to have released the 
 squeeze in our clays. 
 
 Besides being romantic, my mother was like- 
 wise religious — a combination which also does 
 not seem to flourish in our time. Heaven only 
 knows how painfully she laboured and strove to 
 give and get us some education in religion and 
 poetry. She loved her sons dearly, weakly, and 
 her most passionate prayer of nights was that 
 they might never, never leave her. The dearest 
 wish and ambition of her heart would have been 
 that one of the two might become a gentle clergy- 
 man, and the other, whatever his ordinary pur- 
 suits, a churchwarden. If she had lived until 
 now, ' what a Eitualist she would have been ! 
 Her prayers for the future of her sons were no^
 
 6 
 
 even half granted. One of the sons went, very 
 young, to America, and became a Eationalist. 
 The other came up to London and turned opera- 
 singer. 
 
 As soon as I could write a decent hand, some 
 good-natured person got me a situation in the 
 office of an attorney and land-agent. I began as 
 the youngest and lowest of clerks — a sort of cross 
 between a messenger and a scrivener's apprentice 
 — never, of course, intended to develop into that 
 pretentious grub the articled clerk, who in his 
 time develops into the attorney. I had five 
 shillings a-week to begin with, and I think the 
 head clerk had a hundred and fifty pounds a- 
 year. Perhaps, but for subsequent events, I 
 might have worked up to hold that position, and 
 receive that emolument, in my turn. Indeed, I 
 mounted very steadily up to thirty shillings a- 
 week, but there I stopped and got off the ladder. 
 Before I had attained that eminence, however, 
 my brother, who had tried one or two situations 
 unsuccessfully, and was always alarming my 
 mother with his longing and projects for going 
 to sea, compromised matters by resolving to seek 
 his fortune in America. My mother had to con-
 
 RETEOSPECT J AND MIST. 7 
 
 sent at last — indeed, hard times allowed her no 
 choice — and some poor outfit was scraped to- 
 gether. It was arranged that I must stay at 
 home and work for mother until her sons should 
 become wealthy men, when we were to live in 
 one country and one home, and she was to keep 
 house for both. We had much crying and feeble 
 keeping-up of each other's spirits, and we parted 
 full of grief, but not without hope. Theodore 
 Eustace took with him the latch-key of our door, 
 with which he used to let himself in of nights, 
 promising himself and us that he would return 
 before long, laden, doubtless, with wealth, arrive 
 unexpectedly, and opening the door softly, steal 
 in upon my mother and me as we sate some even- 
 ing by the fire and talked of him. 
 
 He wrote to us when he got a situation in a 
 dry-goods store, Broadway, New York, and very 
 soon after, when he lost it; when he went out 
 next and became successively a hawker, a railway- 
 clerk, a photographer, an electro-biologist, a news- 
 paper correspondent, and a farmer. In each suc- 
 cessive calling he was most positively to succeed, 
 and to make up for all the time — never very much, 
 that was one comfort — which he had lost in the
 
 8 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 vocation just abandoned. He never remitted any- 
 thing except a sketch of a forest clearing, and a 
 dried rnusquito as a specimen of the animal life 
 of the New World. I think my mother placed 
 the musquito's corpse tenderly in her bosom. 
 He has sown all his wild oats long since. He 
 was lately married for the third time, and I be- 
 lieve got money, or property of some sort, with 
 each of the wives. He was just the sort of bright, 
 exuberant, reckless, blundering, soft-hearted fel- 
 low whom a certain kind of women, and all dogs, 
 and all animals of tender natures indeed, instinc- 
 tively take to. He has many children, and is 
 well-to-do now and steady. He still writes, al- 
 though at long intervals. He says he has the 
 latch-key still, which I doubt — Theodore Eustace 
 was seldom very literal in his statements. But 
 even if he has, it will never open the door for 
 which he meant to use it. Were he to return to 
 our old street, so sunny and pleasant in summer, 
 with its glimpse of the sea through every lane, he 
 would find no creature there whom once he knew ; 
 and the place itself would know him no more. 
 The little row of houses in which we lived has 
 been pulled down long since to make way for
 
 RETROSPECT ; AND MIST. 9 
 
 more pretentious habitations — marine residences, 
 semi-detached villas, sea -side boarding-houses, 
 and the like. In my own season of success I 
 often contemplated a tour through America as a 
 " star." I thought of setting New York wild 
 with admiration, filling my brother's heart with 
 ecstasy, and cramming his house with presents. 
 Something, however, always intervened to post- 
 pone the journey, and before I had finally made 
 up my mind, the best of my voice had gone, and 
 my reputation was pulled down, like our old 
 house, to make way for a new erection upon a 
 more secure basis. 
 
 From my father I had inherited a good voice, 
 etprceterea nil. There are families through which 
 a good voice appears to move in order of primo- 
 geniture ; and I have observed that a fine tenor, 
 thus bequeathed, rarely seems an inheritance 
 w T hich brings much worldly providence or pro- 
 sperity. My father was always under the im- 
 pression that he only wanted a lucky chance to 
 have made him another Incledon, who was of 
 course his hero, and whose rolling, quavering, 
 florid style, unknown to this generation, he did 
 his best to imitate. I cannot help thinking the
 
 10 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 fishing-boats and the building speculations would 
 have fared a good deal better if my father had had 
 no more voice than a grasshopper, and had there- 
 fore found no admiring idlers to persuade him 
 that he was another Incledon. However, it is 
 quite certain that at an early age my voice became 
 remarkable ; and some of my father's whilom ad- 
 miring idlers did generously take me in hand 
 and provide me with not very inadequate train- 
 ing. My mother's dread of my developing power 
 was turned into confidence and pride when I be- 
 gan to sing in the choir of our church on Sun- 
 days. I paused not in my progress until I had 
 actually been promoted to the post of j)rlmo 
 tenore there, at a remuneration of twenty pounds 
 a-year. 
 
 This seemed to us what sea-coast people call 
 " the third wave" of promise, on which we were 
 to be safely lifted into prosperity. But it came 
 a little too late. My mother's life had long been 
 on the wane. Grief, anxiety, poverty, late long 
 sewing, had been doing for years their combined 
 best with her, and at last she utterly broke down. 
 I was nineteen years old when I found myself 
 watching, in the gray of a cold spring morning,
 
 RETROSPECT J AND MIST. 11 
 
 with our clergyman and one or two kindly old 
 women, by the side of the bed in which my 
 mother recovered at last from all sickness and 
 all sorrow. A pale, wan ray of the rising sun 
 gleamed upon the cold face whereon so little of 
 the sunshine of happiness had rested. A quaint 
 little burial-ground clings and straggles along the 
 side of one of the hills which rises over the 
 bay. You may count every tombstone and grave - 
 hillock from the deck of any of the fishing-boats 
 that toss in the surf beneath. Many a monu- 
 ment is erected there by the widow of some lost 
 skipper or mate in memory of the husband whose 
 bones have been tossed ashore on some Pacific 
 island, or have been gnawed and mumbled by the 
 Arctic bear. There we laid my mother, disturb- 
 ing for the purpose some of the ashes which had 
 been coffined when my father was buried. I came 
 away from the grave alone. The scene I saw as 
 I turned away is before me now. I see it clearly 
 — as clearly as then. The hills — we used to 
 think them mountains — that embraced the long 
 narrow stretch of bay in their arms ; the far line 
 of the horizon; the straggling white town just 
 under my feet ; the strand whereon lay the
 
 12 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 hauled-up fishing-boats; the merchant-brigs and 
 the coal-schooners anchored; the one war- sloop ; 
 the tree -tufted summit of one hill, conspicuous 
 among its bare and bald companions; and over 
 all the gray sky breaking faintly into sunlight — 
 as over my own life the mist of sadness and 
 loneliness just breaking a little with the purple 
 light of youth. 
 
 I am not going to write of my grief and lone- 
 liness. I suffered bitterly and heavily, but the 
 passing away of a year or so softened the grief 
 into a gentle memory. At twenty I was full of 
 hope and spirits again, secretly perhaps even 
 proud of my desolate independence, and believ- 
 ing myself a personage of rare endowments, de- 
 stined to some special and wonderful career. But 
 because of my mother's death, and other and 
 earlier associations too, the gray days of spring 
 have always worn for me the most melancholy 
 and dispiriting aspect. I see the early spring, 
 not in budding brightness, and beauty, and hope, 
 as poetical' people tell me they see it, but dim, 
 dreary, boding, suggestive of loneliness, asso- 
 ciated with partings, graves, and death.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 
 
 I was, then, an attorney's clerk all the week- 
 days up to five or six o'clock, and a singer of 
 sacred music every Sunday, — a singer in that 
 same little church the sermons and the bough- 
 shaded windows of which used to distract me so 
 when a boy. 
 
 I was growing a sort of little celebrity in our 
 small town because of my voice and my supposed 
 musical genius. I mean that I was getting to 
 be known among all that small middle class 
 whose highest reach towards society was the pa- 
 tronage of the clergyman's wife or the attorney 
 and his family. Our town was divided morally, 
 and indeed one might say geographically, into 
 three sections. There were "the townspeople," 
 — ourselves, — who lived in the streets on what 
 I may call the middle terrace of the ascent on 
 which chance had placed us. We were all tra-
 
 14 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 ders, shopkeepers, clerks, master carpenters, a 
 few engineers, two or three teachers of French 
 and music, a good many principals of small Eng- 
 lish schools, a good many civil servants of the 
 unpretending class. Beneath us stretched, reach- 
 ing to the water's edge, and straggling away 
 rather towards the rising sun, a lower plateau of 
 population, consisting of publichouse - keepers, 
 rope -makers, block -makers, fishermen, sailors, 
 and nondescript poor people of all kinds — poor 
 people avowing and indeed going in for pauper- 
 ism. Above us, and stretching away westward, 
 were the villas and mansions of the gentry, the 
 swells who only came into the town to buy at 
 the shops, or to reach the sea. Of these it is 
 enough to say — for this story has little to do with 
 the aristocracy of the earth — that a nobleman who 
 owned nearly all the country round and half the 
 town was the apex of the pyramid, and the base 
 was formed by the fashionable doctor of our dis- 
 trict, the attorney in whose office I worked, two 
 or three clergymen, the collectors of customs and 
 excise, and a few retired naval officers. Now 
 these three sections were each a world to itself. 
 Nobody on the higher plateau knew anything
 
 CHRISTINA BEAUX. 15 
 
 about us except as people who made things or 
 had things to sell ; we knew little of the lower 
 plateau except in an equally general sort of way. 
 Therefore when I say that I was becoming a sort 
 of small celebrity, I mean of course only in my 
 own middle sphere. The gentlemen and ladies 
 above knew and cared just as much about me and 
 my like as the tarry lads of the lower town did, 
 or indeed as the crabs and star-fish on the beach 
 might have done. If any grand personage or 
 grand personage's wife had been attracted by my 
 singing at church some day, and had been good 
 enough to ask the clergyman who the singer was, 
 the answer would have been, "Only a young man 
 from the town," and that would have settled the 
 matter. That was enough to know ; that was all 
 anybody could want to know. 
 
 But I was getting to be talked about among 
 people of my own world. I used to be invited 
 out to small evening parties, where, lonely as I 
 was, — and at this period having reached the cyni- 
 cal stage, and being professedly scornful of earth's 
 joys, — I went very delightedly. I bought kid- 
 gloves, and wore my collar turned down. Those 
 were not days when even a musical aspirant could
 
 16 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 venture upon a moustache in a town like ours, or 
 I doubt not that I would have wrestled with Na- 
 ture to extract by unknown philtres and essences 
 the precious ornament from her gift. Of course 
 I was a good deal vain of my voice and my per- 
 sonal appearance. Kind heaven, which had taken 
 from me so much that was dear, had left me 
 youth's delicious consolation — vanity. Had I not 
 been such a self-conceited ass just then, I must 
 needs have been very unhappy. 
 
 "We used to practise — we did not call it "re- 
 hearsing" — three or four times a week in the 
 choir of the church, the organist being intrusted 
 with the keys for the purpose. "We" were gene- 
 rally four. First was Miss Griffin the organist, 
 who could sometimes pipe a flat and feeble note 
 of her own. Miss Griffin was a spinster fast fall- 
 ing into years — nay, it seemed to me then quite 
 stricken in years, although I know now that she 
 could not have been far past thirty. But she was 
 very old-maidenish in appearance, with dull hair 
 done into old-fashioned spiral ringlets : a sharp- 
 nosed and perhaps frosty, but withal very kindly, 
 little dowdy. Next in years — but with such an 
 interval ! — came our bass, — a stout young fellow, 
 
 7
 
 CHRISTINA BEAUX. 17 
 
 son of a master carpenter. Then came the tenor, 
 Emanuel Temple Banks ; and last came the so- 
 prano, a girl of German parentage and birth, 
 Christina Braun. 
 
 Christina, I should think, was then just a 
 little younger than myself. She was the daughter 
 of a German toy -maker, who — half -mechanist, 
 half-artist, whole dreamer — had striven to make 
 and sell playthings of a new kind, with a scien- 
 tific, philosophical, and moral purpose about them, 
 for the aesthetical entertainment and culture of 
 children. The philosophical toy -maker did not 
 succeed in winning much of the sympathy of our 
 town for his refined and lofty purpose. He failed 
 altogether, became bankrupt, gave up all struggle 
 thenceforward, and resigned the conduct of exist- 
 ence into the hands of his daughter, who sang in 
 churches and chapels and elsewhere for the means 
 of living. 
 
 I used to think Christina a wonderful young 
 person because she had been born in Germany, 
 and could speak German. She had at this time 
 been many years in England, and must have been 
 quite a child when she left her native country. 
 We used to pronounce her name as if it were 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 MY enemy's daughter. 
 
 similar in sound with the name of the familiar 
 substance sold in pork-shops. Being at this time 
 of my life still rather shy so far as girls were 
 concerned, I knew little or nothing of Miss Braun 
 for months and months, but that she had a strong 
 voice and fine eyes, and that she had a happy 
 capacity for talking freely enough when anyone 
 chose to speak, and remaining contentedly silent 
 when no one did so choose. She was a remark- 
 able girl to look at. She had a great fleece of 
 fair hair thrown back off her forehead, and only 
 kept up in some way or other from falling about 
 her shoulders and waist, which indeed it did more 
 than once in the choir, to the great annoyance 
 and scandal of Miss Griffin, who, I think, by the 
 look that came into her eyes, always regarded 
 this little mischance as a pure piece of coquetry. 
 Christina had beautiful deep-shining eyes, dark- 
 gray in colour — much darker indeed than the 
 tinge of her hair would have led one to expect. 
 She had a bright complexion and a rather large 
 mouth, from which issued when she sang a strange 
 and almost startling voice : we used to consider 
 it somewhat coarse. I don't think I thought her 
 a handsome girl; I rather fancy she seemed to
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 19 
 
 me all hair and eyes. But I have hardly any dis- 
 tinct impression of our earliest meetings, and I 
 positively cannot by any effort of memory recall 
 my first sight of one who afterwards exercised 
 such an influence over my life, and whom I once 
 so deeply loved. There is no mystery about the 
 story I purpose to tell, and I make known at once 
 that everything in my existence which is worth 
 recording is in some way associated with the 
 memory of Christina Braun. 
 
 We four, then — Miss Griffin, our basso, Chris- 
 tina, and I — used to foregather in the church- 
 choir of evenings ; and after having practised as 
 we considered long enough, would very often con- 
 clude by going to Miss Griffin's to tea, and there 
 compensating ourselves with the newest operatic 
 pieces for our enforced devotion to sacred music. 
 Miss Griffin and her mamma taught music, and 
 some of their pupils used to help us out occa- 
 sionally with duets, trios, choruses, and the like. 
 I remember nothing particular about the mamma, 
 except that she was an odd, vivacious, flighty little 
 old personage, who could speak French. I don't 
 know why she considered it proper always to ad- 
 dress Christina Braun in French, or why she
 
 20 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 assumed that a German girl must necessarily be 
 able to understand that language. But she al- 
 ways did so. "Eli bien, Christina, chere petite," 
 was her usual greeting ; and during the course of 
 any conversation, if she had occasion to address 
 a word to the tall and plump chere petite, Mrs. 
 Griffin always lapsed into French, and Christina, 
 with perfect docility and gravity, as regularly re- 
 plied in the same tongue, which she seemed to 
 speak with fluency. 
 
 Sometimes I was the only gentleman among 
 all these ladies ; and this, perhaps, may partly 
 account for the slight attention I used to bestow 
 upon Christina Braun. Our bass singer did not 
 always come with us to Miss Griffin's, and even 
 when he did he was not much of a squire of dames 
 or demoiselles. On entering the little drawing- 
 room — first-floor front, over a bonnet-shop — he 
 usually laid his hat somewhere on the ground, 
 sat on the edge of a chair, swallowed his tea, 
 bending far over the table for the purpose, and 
 generally said nothing more than "Yes, miss," 
 or " No, miss," in answer to any question ad- 
 dressed to him. He was a fine-looking young 
 fellow, tall, robust, manly; and, although scarcely
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 21 
 
 older than myself, he had his face already fringed 
 with a luxuriant, soft, black beard, the possession 
 of which I secretly envied him. Silent as he 
 was in general, I could notice that when he got 
 side by side with Christina Braun he could talk 
 well enough to her; and almost always when he 
 came to Miss Griffin's, I observed that he took 
 charge of Christina to see her to her home on 
 our early breaking up. I think I was somewhat 
 amused at the time by observing this fact and 
 founding conjectures on it. The polite reader 
 need hardly be told that a much loftier position 
 in society is asserted by a lawyer's clerk than 
 could possibly be claimed even by the most pre- 
 sumptuous carpenter ; and I therefore felt myself 
 warranted in taking quite a lordly and patronising 
 interest in the love-making of my humble ac- 
 quaintance ; for I felt convinced that our stout 
 basso was in love, and I envied him that privilege. 
 Yes, more even than his beard did I envy him his 
 state of mind and heart. At this season of my 
 life I had begun to long to fall in love. I envied 
 every young man whom I saw on Sunday evening 
 with some girl hanging on his arm or walking 
 with downcast eyes by his side. I trolled out to
 
 22 MY ENEMY S DAUGHTER. 
 
 myself of nights the words of " Sally in our 
 Alley;" and I envied the hero of the ballad, for 
 all his harsh master and his jeering neighbours. 
 If some woman would only love me, walk thus of 
 Sundays with me, lean on my arm, blush when 
 I spoke ! Nay, if some woman would even reject 
 my love, blight my young hopes, crush me in the 
 bud, reduce me to despair ! At the stage of 
 mental and moral development I had then reached, 
 despair and ruin seemed on the whole a finer and 
 more enviable destiny than success and joy. To 
 Jive in love would be happy; but to die for love 
 would be the lordliest fate. 
 
 My life seemed safe enough so far as love's 
 despair could threaten it. I had no one to love. 
 I could not, no I could not, love Miss Griffin, 
 strove I never so wildly. I feel well assured she 
 would have accepted gladly the poorest tribute of 
 homage, even if it lasted but a few short weeks, 
 to cheat her into the belief that she had not quite 
 passed out of date, and could yet move at least 
 one heart. All our literature and our moral les- 
 sons now ring the changes upon the nobleness of 
 self-sacrifice. "What finer self-sacrifice could any- 
 one make than to persuade a kind and true-hearted
 
 CHRISTINA BEAUX. 23 
 
 old maid of a certain age that lie had really fallen 
 in love with her, and brighten her life by giving 
 up his own to sustain the beatifying delusion? 
 A more pious fraud could not be accomplished 
 than to practise such a generous piece of cheating 
 on such a woman as poor, elderly, warm-hearted, 
 loving, unloved Miss Griffin. I commend the 
 idea to some novelist. Why not make a story 
 out of it ? But I own that, even had the idea 
 occurred to me at the right time, I should not 
 have dreamed of putting it into practice ; and 
 even if I had dreamed of it, I should never have 
 done it. 
 
 There was none of Miss Griffin's pupils who 
 could have served as an object for my adoration. 
 They were all in trousers and short frocks ; and 
 at that time of my life girls in trousers were my 
 abhorrence. 
 
 When haply my thoughts sometimes turned 
 to Christina Braun, she seemed too calm and si- 
 lent, and too fond of music. In those days I did 
 not much care for any singing but my own. 
 There are only too many people who, if they would 
 but confess it, are in just the same state of mind 
 — people who have, of course, none of the true
 
 24 
 
 MY ENEMY S DAUGHTER. 
 
 artist's love of music, as, honestly, I never had. 
 People like us in that way often delight in our 
 own singing, if we can sing, not out of mere self- 
 conceit and egotism, but because to us that music 
 which our own voices give out is the fullest ex- 
 pression, the strongest invocation, of feeling and 
 association. Many tenors of the richest tone, 
 and sopranos thrilling up to the ceiling, have I 
 heard without feeling one throb of the emotion 
 which used to swell within me long ago as I sang 
 old church-hymns or new sentimental ballads of 
 love, longing, and despair for my own delight, 
 and quite alone. But it was easy enough even 
 for me then to see that Christina Braun loved 
 music for its own sake, and, like most persons 
 who do thus appreciate and love it, she seemed, 
 to ordinary observers, to care about little else. 
 
 Apart from all this, however, I had arranged 
 in my own mind that Christina Braun and the 
 carpenter's son were what we used to call " sweet- 
 hearts." 
 
 After some time I began to observe that Chris- 
 tina ceased to make one in our mild gatherings in 
 Miss Griffin's drawing-room. Indeed the latter 
 lady and I sometimes had tea tete-a-tete — or nearly
 
 CHRISTINA BBATJN. 25 
 
 so, her mother only flitting flightily in and out — 
 and it was dull entertainment for both parties. 
 I would gladly have evaded all such soirees, hut 
 that I was ashamed or unwilling to desert poor 
 Miss Griffin, and perhaps did not always know 
 what to do with myself or where else to go. The 
 time for sitting alone in contented gloom, and 
 smoking a pipe long evenings through, had not 
 nearly come as yet. 
 
 Sometimes a fearful thought crossed my mind. 
 Could it be possible that Christina imagined Miss 
 Griffin and I were lovers, and liked to be left 
 alone ? I tried to shut out this alarming idea. 
 I vowed not to go any more to a tete-a-tete tea ; 
 I even attempted awkwardly to pay a mild atten- 
 tion to Christina herself, in the hope of thus re- 
 pelling suspicion. I invited her to come with me 
 to a concert somewhere — we had not the rules of 
 Belgravia or even Bloomsbury to govern our social 
 relationships there — but Christina refused in so 
 decided a tone as to make my doubts a dead 
 certainty. I began to feel convinced that I had 
 guessed but too well. Christina must suppose 
 me deeply in love with Miss Griffin — perhaps so- 
 lemnly engaged to her — to Miss Griffin, whose
 
 26 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 age was so undeniable, and who carried the stigma 
 of old maid branded on her very skirts and ankles ! 
 
 One evening we three — we three! — walked 
 home together, as usual, but were unusually dull 
 and silent. Christina declined entering when we 
 arrived at Miss Griffin's door — this time indeed 
 the invitation being very faintly pressed. I was 
 plucking up heart of grace to make my excuses 
 too, when Miss Griffin cut me short by a look of 
 portentous mystery, and the words, "You really 
 must come in, Mr. Banks ; I want to speak to 
 you" — words which, however, were not spoken 
 until just after Christina had nodded her head to 
 us and gone on her way. 
 
 I followed Miss Griffin upstairs in perhaps 
 something like an agitated condition of mind. I 
 did not quite know whether under certain circum- 
 stances strong-minded ladies not young did not 
 think it allowable to interrogate young men touch- 
 ing the nature of their intentions. 
 
 Miss Griffin was anything but a strong-minded 
 woman, and just now did not seem to have been 
 thinking about me at all. She burst out with her 
 communication all at once. 
 
 " Mr. Banks, I must send Christina Braun"
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 27 
 
 (pronounced, as I have said before, " Brawn") 
 " out of the choir. She must not sing with us 
 any more." 
 
 Did I feel relieved to hear that the question 
 was of Christina's rejection, and not of my ac- 
 ceptance ? Perhaps so. But I certainly felt 
 much surprised. 
 
 " What on earth has she been doing ?" 
 
 "I am so sorry to hear it; indeed, it's quite 
 put me out ; you can't think how much." 
 
 "Yes; but what is it ?" 
 
 "I am afraid she is not a good girl. She 
 sings every night at a singing-house !" 
 
 "At a singing-house?" 
 
 "Yes; a common low singing -house, Mr. 
 Banks — and I don't see what there is to laugh at 
 — a horrid place where soldiers and sailors and I 
 don't know what — all sorts of low people, in fact 
 — go in and drink and listen to her. It's been all 
 found out; and Mr. Thirlwall (the clergyman) 
 says he can't have a girl in the choir who sings 
 for soldiers and sailors in a common drinking- 
 house. I don't know what to do about it; and 
 I declare it has put me in such a way, you can't 
 think. Perhaps she is not so bad ; and then it's
 
 28 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 all very well for Mr. Thirlwall to talk, but, my 
 goodness, who is to fill her place, with such a 
 voice as she has, and such an ear for music ? 
 But I can't keep her unless she promises never 
 to go there any more." 
 
 " Then you have not spoken to her yet about 
 it?" 
 
 " No, not yet. I thought I would ask you 
 something about it first. I thought perhaps 
 you could advise me ; you, who are a man of 
 business and know something about the world." 
 
 "Well, I am sure I don't see much harm in 
 the whole affair, and I think Mr. Thirlwall is a 
 venerable goose. Miss Braun seems a very quiet, 
 respectable sort of girl" (I thought of the carpen- 
 ter's love-suit, and felt quite a lordly spirit of 
 patronising pity); "and then what can she do if 
 she's very poor and has no other way of living ? 
 The reverend man does not expect her to live on 
 fifteen pounds a-year, paid in rather irregular 
 instalments ?" 
 
 "Yes, that is all quite true ; and indeed it is 
 just what I said myself to Mr. Thirlwall — only of 
 course I put it more politely — and he says it is 
 true too ; for he's a just man, Mr. Banks, though
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 29 
 
 you always seem inclined to laugh at him. But 
 what can he do ? He has been preaching from 
 the pulpit time after time against those very sing- 
 ing-houses, and how can he have people looking 
 up from their seats in the church, and perhaps 
 some of them recognising a singer from such a 
 place among the faces in our choir ? You know 
 yourself that would never do." 
 
 It occurred to me at the moment that perhaps 
 the worshipper who visited the wicked singing- 
 house, and was thereby enabled to recognise one 
 of its performers, would have scarcely a clear right 
 to object to the chorister who sang there. But 
 I saw no use in urging this point to a logical con- 
 clusion, and merely suggested that perhaps the 
 place was not so dreadfully bad after all. 
 
 " That is what I was just thinking of. I 
 should really like to know something of it. It 
 would never do to give up the poor girl without 
 knowing whether there is any harm in what she 
 is doing. I actually thought of going there my- 
 self; I did really." 
 
 "0, you can't go, that is quite out of the 
 question ; but if you like I'll go, and bring you a 
 faithful report."
 
 30 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " That is what I should like of all things. I 
 can depend upon your judgment. And at all 
 events one ought to know something about the 
 right and wrong of the affair. I believe in law, 
 Mr. Banks, a person is innocent until you can 
 prove her guilty." 
 
 " That is considered one of the great princi- 
 ples of British law, Miss Griffin." 
 
 "Yes; and I think it's very proper too; and 
 I only wish people would do the same in every- 
 thing else as well as law." 
 
 It was settled, then, that I was to visit and 
 report on the obnoxious singing-place. I had 
 heard of it once or twice before ; and of sundry 
 of its predecessors which had all in succession 
 withered and disappeared. Up to this time I had 
 never been out of my native town, and of course 
 had never been in a singing-saloon. Our town was 
 an unspeakably dull spot. At this time it was 
 not even visited by a railway, and it depended for 
 its sole excitement upon the changing of a regi- 
 ment in the barracks or the occasional visit of a 
 war-frigate to the harbour. Owing to the social 
 and topographical peculiarities I have already 
 mentioned which divided us, like all Gaul in Cae-
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 31 
 
 sar's day, into three parts, any sort of amusement 
 which might be devised for the gratification of 
 the floating population in the lower plateau, was 
 not likely to excite either interest or alarm in the 
 higher regions. Our middle class were little given 
 to revelry. Every window in their quarter was 
 duly shuttered and barred by eleven o'clock, and 
 their warmest stimulant was a controversial ser- 
 mon. But of late there had unquestionably been 
 some stir created by the successful establishment, 
 after many failures, of a famous singing-saloon, 
 modelled after the fashion of metropolitan dissi- 
 pation. Not a noisy, harmless "free-and-easy," 
 where Snug the joiner and Quince the carpenter 
 might smoke their pipes and be knocked down in 
 turn for their favourite and special song; where 
 Bottom the weaver might deliver his choicest sen- 
 timent, and Starveling the tailor might have the 
 formal permission of his wife to remain half-an- 
 hour later on the Saturday night. This was not 
 the sort of thing that now invaded us. It was a 
 place where professional singers — women too, look 
 you, nearly as bad as dancers, not to say actresses 
 — came and sat on a platform, and sang for money. 
 This was then a dreadful innovation. The sing-
 
 32 my enemy's daughteb. 
 
 ing-saloon itself is now well-nigh obsolete. The 
 rising generation hardly knows what it was like. 
 The music-hall with its plate-glass, its paintings, 
 its private boxes, its concerted music and its cham- 
 pagne, has banished it ; and the audacious novelty 
 of my young clays is a forgotten, fogeyish old in- 
 stitution now. But this particular place of which 
 I speak was really creating something like a stir 
 among our quiet and respectable burgesses just 
 then. It was established immediately inside the 
 frontier line of our Alsatia ; and it is certain that 
 some of our fathers of families had been to visit 
 it, and had talked with quite a dangerous slyness 
 of its attractions, and had made up parties with 
 some of their friends to go and see it again. All 
 this created naturally a considerable fluttering of 
 angry petticoats in domestic circles, and brought 
 severe and direct condemnation from offended 
 pulpits. And so I had heard of the place in ques- 
 tion, and had even been making up my mind to 
 visit it before chance sent me there as the special 
 commissioner of Miss Griffin. 
 
 The following night I went alone, and had no 
 difficulty in finding the place. Indeed, when you 
 began to descend from the old square, which was
 
 CHRISTINA BBAUN. 33 
 
 the last stronghold of respectability and middle 
 •class, down a steep street with steps breaking its 
 precipitate fall, a street that was the main artery 
 of the lower town, you came almost at once upon 
 the obnoxious saloon. It was in a large public- 
 house, occupying a corner where a cross -street 
 ran off, and showing, like Janus, a double front. 
 The place looked cheery enough from the outside. 
 The night was chill and wet ; and the bright 
 crimson curtains draping the windows of the 
 upper room where the musical performances were 
 going on, tempted one with visions of ineffable 
 comfort and warmth out of the wintry plash and 
 drizzle of the sodden streets. I went upstairs. 
 There was no payment at the doors, the musical 
 entertainment being supported in the recognised 
 style by indirect taxation levied upon the "orders." 
 I entered the Circean bower. It was but a small 
 and poor imitation of a Strand or Covent Garden 
 Cave of Harmony, but as it had looking-glasses, 
 crimson curtains, velvet cushions, a platform with 
 footlights, and an orchestra, it seemed splendid 
 enough in my confused provincial eyes. I gave 
 an order for something in a rather ineffectual 
 attempt at a careless tone, and dropped into the 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 first available seat. There was rather a numerous 
 audience, including, however, only one or two 
 sailors and no soldiers. Most of the company 
 seemed to me to he smart young artisans, mingled 
 with elderly tradesmen of the unpretentious class; 
 and there were a few young assistants from shops 
 who looked quite swellish in their well-made 
 clothes and gloves. No ladies were there; Miss 
 Griffin would have presented herself in vain. 
 Most of the company were smoking, by which I 
 was innocently surprised to find that the singers 
 were not in the least disconcerted. Of the "audi- 
 ence," a very few were actually listening to the 
 music ; the greater number were chatting uncon- 
 cernedly round their little tables; one or two 
 were asleep. I had, however, listened with the 
 gravest appearance of interest to a sentimental 
 and a comic song before I came to myself suffi- 
 ciently to observe even this much of the aspect 
 of the place. 
 
 When I said there were no women present, I 
 meant, of course, among the audience. For when 
 I began to look collectedly around me, I saw that 
 there were girls on the platform, and that among 
 them was Christina Braun. She was dressed in
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 35 
 
 white — poor white muslin only; but she seemed 
 to my eyes to be wearing a magnificent costume. 
 Her arms and shoulders were bare, and were both 
 white and plump, and her fleece of light hair fell 
 around her. She presently came on to sing, and 
 she seemed to be a favourite, for she was wel- 
 comed by a burst of applause, and most of the 
 company stopped their talk, while some demanded 
 silence by tapping their pipe-bowls on the table. 
 Christina sang in clear and strong tones some 
 ballad — not at all a Circean strain, but some good 
 moral-purpose song about universal brotherhood 
 and being kind to our neighbour. She sang it 
 with sweetness and force, but with hardly any 
 indication of feeling, certainly with no gleam of 
 emotion perceptible in her eyes. Being, however, 
 vehemently encored, she chose, as seemed to be 
 expected, a totally different kind of song. It was 
 what we used to call a "nigger melody" — a sort 
 of novelty then, with a refrain about courting down 
 in Tennessee, or Alabama, or some other such 
 place. 
 
 I scarcely knew what it was all about ; but I 
 soon knew that I had never heard such spirit, 
 such archness, such wild wayward humour, such
 
 36 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 occasional ebullitions of tender thrilling emotion 
 conveyed in song before. No, never ! Night 
 after night had I heard this girl sing her devo- 
 tional hymns in the clearest tones, vacant of any 
 emotion whatever; but now, as she sang some 
 trumpery little serio-comic love-song, her dark- 
 gray eyes gleamed and filled with light; under 
 her shadowy long lashes the eyes sometimes 
 looked so dark and deep as to seem in startling 
 contrast with her bright fair hair; her voice 
 swelled, soared, sank, shaded itself away into an 
 infinite variety of expression ; she gave life and 
 speech to the very rattle of her banjo ; she made 
 the ballad utter a thousand emotions which were 
 no more in the words she sang than in the in- 
 strument she struck, or the smoky, beery crowd, 
 whose glasses jingled with their noisy and honest 
 acclamations. What a soul of feeling, what a 
 capacity — deep, boundless, daring — a capacity for 
 love and triumph, and passion and sorrow — spoke 
 in the tones of that voice and the flash of that 
 eye! 
 
 For me, I felt partly as I used to feel when 
 sitting alone and singing, only with how much of 
 a difference ! With what a change from dreamy,
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 37 
 
 vague, and fluctuating emotions, idly rolling in 
 like the waves on the windless shore, and the 
 warm, tumultuous, passionate rush of the new 
 tide of love and youth and manhood breaking in 
 upon my life at last ! I began life, I began love, 
 with the hearing of that song ! I daresay it was 
 poor, coarse, untutored singing ; untrained, and 
 even in some sense uncouth, it must have been ; 
 commonplace it certainly was not. I know that 
 I heard the singer unnumbered times in the 
 prime of her years and her triumph; and I do 
 not believe I ever recognised her genius more 
 clearly than when I heard her sing that poor 
 little ballad in the public-house of the old sea- 
 port. My rapture must upon that occasion find 
 some outlet, and I therefore made instant ac- 
 quaintance with a dull and elderly man near me : 
 he seemed to me, I don't know why, to look like 
 a saddler. 
 
 " Splendid !" I exclaimed, addressing him. 
 
 "Yes, pretty tidy," rejoined the dull man \ 
 and he looked round for the waiter and knocked 
 his empty glass against the table — a signal for 
 a refilling. 
 
 " I know her," I added confidentially.
 
 38 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " Know who ?" asked the dull man. 
 
 " Her — the singer." 
 
 " Ah !" He did not seem to care whether I 
 knew her or not. 
 
 " She's a foreigner," I added, especially proud 
 of knowing a foreigner. 
 
 "All, I never liked the French— I don't believe 
 in 'em. By what I can make out, they ain't good 
 for much." 
 
 " But she's not French — she's German." 
 
 " Don't like Germans, they're a dirty set. 
 They eat candles, I'm told." 
 
 This irrelevant and detestable observation so 
 utterly disgusted me, that I withdrew at once 
 from the conversation. 
 
 I should much have liked to wait for the close 
 of the entertainment and to speak to Christina ; 
 but I feared she might suppose I had come as a 
 spy or tell-tale, so I slunk very much indeed as 
 if I were a spy or tell-tale from my seat, which 
 was near the door, and went downstairs. I did 
 not gain much by my caution and my flight, for, 
 descending rapidly, I ran against someone coming 
 as rapidly up, and I recognised my friend the 
 basso, the bearded young carpenter. We saluted
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 39 
 
 each other, but he did not seem particularly glad 
 to see me, and he ran past without staying to 
 speak a word. I wished I had not met him, for 
 I feared that in the too-probable event of poor 
 Christina's dismissal, he might regard me and 
 report me as a spy, and I had an instinctive 
 knowledge that he had come to see her home ; 
 and I envied him — nay, already I almost hated 
 him. 
 
 Drizzling and dismal as the black skies were, 
 sloppy and slushy as the streets were, I did not 
 hurry home. On the contrary, I turned deliber- 
 ately away from home, and straggled, like the 
 town, downhill to the water. From the door I 
 had just quitted I could hear the creaking of the 
 spars of ships that tossed and dragged at their 
 anchors, the whistling of the sullen wind through 
 their cordage, the heavy surge of the waves along 
 their sides. A few strides down an oozy lane, 
 and I could see the lights at mastheads, and even 
 discern through the mist and darkness the white 
 tops of the rushing waves. I made my way, 
 stumbling among upturned boats and anchors 
 and chains, down to the very edge of the water. 
 The town was not well-lighted anywhere : towards
 
 40 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 the harbour its darkness grew Cimmerian. The 
 inhabitants had all that mysterious objection to 
 seeing their seaward way at night which used to 
 be so common a characteristic of people living in 
 seaport towns in the years when French treaties 
 were not. Indeed, many of our people would 
 have abolished moonlight if they could, although 
 these very same persons were strangely given to 
 lurking about the shore and staring seaward at 
 extraordinary hours of the night. This night, 
 however, no stealthy figure peered from the 
 strand : I had it all to myself, and I exulted in 
 being alone. 
 
 Born as I was within sound of the waves, it 
 has always seemed to me that in any hour of deep 
 emotion I ought to rush to the seaside, and make 
 the noisy water my confidant. This night I felt 
 that I must find the shore, and relieve my new- 
 born passion by mingling its utterances with the 
 roar of the waters. Alone on that strand what 
 strange fooleries I enacted ! I stamped up and 
 down the shore, I sang wild snatches of Chris- 
 tina's song, I shouted mad fragments of inco- 
 herent melody and semi - articulate words of 
 passion and love. I was mad, and I was happy;
 
 CHRISTINA BRAUN. 41 
 
 this at last was living. All the delight that an 
 explorer may find when he first breaks into a 
 new sea — that a Bedouin may feel when he first 
 mounts an untamed horse — I felt, now that I 
 knew myself to be tossing at last on the waves 
 of passionate love. 
 
 Lucky for me that I was alone, and that the 
 night was so dark. Anyone seeing my gestures, 
 hearing my cries, must have taken me for a luna- 
 tic. I waited on the strand until my emotions 
 had worked off their first vehemence ; perhaps I 
 waited too until I thought the entertainment at 
 the singing-saloon must be nearly over. Then I 
 went back to the street whence I had come, and 
 watched the people coming out. After the last 
 of the audience had melted away, came out a 
 cluster of the performers ; among them I could 
 clearly enough distinguish the figure of Christina 
 — I had keen eyes for her form now — and my friend 
 the basso was escorting her home. A strange, 
 fierce pang shot through me. I had learned to 
 feel two new passions in a few short hours — love 
 and jealousy.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 
 
 I did not go near Miss Griffin next clay. I post- 
 poned making any report of my previous night's 
 visitation. What report could I make hut that 
 I had heen present at a very dull and harmless 
 entertainment ? unless I chose to add the truth 
 — that I had come away madly in love with the 
 eyes and the voice of a girl whom I had heen in 
 the hahit of seeing three or four times a week 
 for months and months, and ahout whom I never 
 hefore cared a straw. Mine was certainly not love 
 at first sight, hut it had all the suddenness and 
 unreasoning fierceness of that romantic form of 
 the passion. I have not read in hooks much 
 ahout such a love as mine, which neither flamed 
 out at the first glimpse of the ohject, nor grew 
 up with the gradual development of intimacy and 
 appreciation. I was as one who walks in the 
 sun of some tropical climate uninjured and un-
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 43 
 
 heeding for days, and whom suddenly, in some 
 unexpecting moment, a flash, sharp as the cleave 
 of a sabre, strikes and cuts down. Yes, my love 
 was like a sunstroke. I do not know how to 
 describe it better. 
 
 Of course I went again to the music-house ; 
 I went the next night. The company was of the 
 same general character; the singers were the 
 same. The moment I entered I saw that Chris- 
 tina's eyes turned on me, and I blushed like a 
 great girl. Some male singer came on with his 
 dreary comic song, and she disappeared from the 
 platform. Had she gone for the night ? What 
 a cruel disappointment ! I stared disconsolate 
 and confounded into my beer -glass, and was 
 positively pitying myself for my privation, when 
 one of the waiters, who were perpetually buzzing 
 about the tables to remind any laggard guests 
 of the necessity of renewing their orders, came 
 up to me, and leaning over my shoulder, said, 
 
 " Lady wants to speak to you, sir." 
 
 I started. 
 
 "Lady !— what lady?" 
 
 "Profesh'nal lady, sir. Behind the platform, 
 sir. This way, please."
 
 44 3IY enemy's daughter. 
 
 I followed him* I was crimson all over, and 
 did not venture to look up, fearing that the eyes 
 of a whole curious company must be fixed on me. 
 As a matter of fact, I don't suppose anybody in 
 the room took the slightest notice. I was 
 trembling with anxiety, hope, fear, surprise, ex- 
 citement of the most complicated kind. The 
 waiter drew aside a curtain for me, and I entered 
 a small sanded room, or rather a mere space, be- 
 hind the platform ; and I saw Christina there 
 alone. 
 
 She had her head turned away when I came 
 in : at the sound of my entrance she looked 
 quickly round, and there was an angry light in 
 her deep-gray eyes. 
 
 Her first words utterly abashed me. 
 
 "Why do you come here?" she said, in a 
 voice purposely kept low, and with the foreign 
 accent more strongly perceptible than usual, owing 
 to the kind of excitement under which she spoke. 
 " Why do you come here to watch me and tell 
 bad of me ? Have I ever done you any harm ?" 
 
 " Christina, — Miss Braun, I mean, — how 
 can you say such a thing?" and I broke down 
 in mere stammering.
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 4D 
 
 "Have you not come here to watch me — to 
 spy on me ?" 
 
 "No. I have not, indeed." 
 
 "It's a lie!" she exclaimed, so loudly that 
 I involuntarily glanced in the direction of the 
 audience, fearing the words must have been 
 heard. "It's an untruth. I know you were sent 
 here." 
 
 " I was not sent here. Miss Griffin asked me 
 to come here ; and — " 
 
 " And you came !" 
 
 She made a triumphant gesture expressive of 
 conviction and scorn. I certainly felt not unlike 
 a detected spy; and I looked, no doubt, very 
 foolish. 
 
 " Yes, I came ; but I did not come to — to 
 find out anything bad, or to do you harm. I 
 came to do you good; and Miss Griffin only 
 wanted to do you good." 
 
 " Thank you both." She laid a malicious em- 
 phasis on the word ' both.' " I am much obliged 
 to you both. Heartfelt thanks to you both. But 
 I don't want anyone to try to do me good." 
 
 " I wished to be your friend." 
 
 " I have not many friends — I am poor and
 
 46 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 miserable; and I have an old man to support 
 whom I love and whom I would die for ; and 
 you come and find out that I am trying to make 
 a living, and without wrong to anyone, or myself, 
 or God, and you tell of me at the church. Go 
 away; it is not like a man. It is not like an 
 Englishman." 
 
 "But I swear to you, Miss Braun, that you are 
 wrong and unjust. You don't know me, or you 
 never would speak as you have done. I am 
 utterly incapable of the wretched meanness you 
 think me guilty of. I wish I could say all I feel, 
 but I can't — I can't ; and I daresay I look to you 
 like a convicted spy, or an idiot, or something 
 equally abominable." 
 
 " You came last night to see if I was here ?" 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " So ! You saw that I was here ?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 " Then was that not enough? Why did you 
 come again to-night ?" 
 
 "I came to hear you sing! Heaven knows I 
 came for that and nothing else. It — it delights 
 me. I could not stay away. I will come again 
 and again, unless you bid me not. But do not
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 47 
 
 bid me not to come, for I would rather he dead 
 than not hear }-ou sing." 
 
 " Hush/' she said in a low and gentle tone, 
 " they outside may hear us." As I found courage 
 to look up, I saw that her lips were tremhling and 
 that her cheeks were crimsoned. Had my burst 
 of sudden eloquence not been interrupted, it would 
 infallibly have ended with a fervent declaration of 
 love then and there. She imposed silence on me 
 by a gesture which had, I thought, as much en- 
 treaty as command in it, and then said, " I must 
 go ; it is my time to sing. But I believe you ; 
 and I was wrong and angry. You don't know 
 what it is to be a poor girl, trying to live honestly, 
 and watched and suspected. I beg you for par- 
 don. Good-night." 
 
 She disappeared ; and I heard her voice in a 
 moment thrilling from the platform. I, too, came 
 in front again, and found my way back to the seat 
 I had left. 
 
 I would have sat the whole entertainment out, 
 but that I hated the idea of meeting the young 
 carpenter and seeing him give his arm to Chris- 
 tina. I waited and waited, every moment dread- 
 ing to see him make his appearance. Often as I
 
 48 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 turned towards the platform, her eyes never met 
 mine. At last I made up my mind and left the 
 room. Luck was against me ; at the door helow 
 I met my rival. This time he did not pass me 
 with a salute. He looked fiercely at me, and his 
 lips quivered with excitement. 
 
 " What d'ye come here for?" he asked. 
 
 " What's that to you ?" was my schoolhoyish 
 reply. I was not in years much beyond the 
 schoolboy age. 
 
 " It's this to me — look here, it's this : you 
 come here to watch that girl, and spy upon her, 
 and fetch and carry stories about her, to get her 
 dismissed from the choir ; I daresay that's why 
 you come here." 
 
 "You are a liar!" was my fierce reply — "an 
 impertinent liar !" 
 
 He turned pale ; but not at all with fear. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," he asked, " that 
 you've not been sent here as a spy on her ?" 
 
 " I mean to say nothing to you, or any fellow 
 like you, except just what I have said." 
 
 "Yes, you can talk in that way here" he 
 said significantly; "but would you say so any- 
 where else ?"
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 49 
 
 " Anywhere you like ; and the sooner the 
 better." My pent-up feelings sought any manner 
 of outburst as a relief. 
 
 " Come this way, then." 
 
 My rival led the way, down the oozy plashy 
 lane I have already described, to the strand. It 
 was nearly as dark as the night before : it was 
 quite as lonely. The few twinkling lights at the 
 far mastheads of anchored vessels alone broke 
 the gloom. Unless we stood pretty close together 
 we could hardly see each other, and my foe strode 
 on so impatiently that I sometimes lost sight of 
 him altogether for a moment, and I was once or 
 twice almost under the necessity of having to 
 raise an undignified halloo. How he managed to 
 get on without stumbling I cannot imagine ; every 
 other moment my feet were tripping over huge 
 stones, or coils of chain, and once I literally fell 
 forward right over an upturned boat. I began to 
 think the whole proceeding rather an absurd one ; 
 but I had been grievously insulted, and although 
 now a minion of the law, professionally bound, 
 one would think, to abstain from deeds of vio- 
 lence, yet it must be remembered that I was the 
 son of a boat-builder who had been a sailor in 
 
 VOL. I. e
 
 50 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 his day, and that not many months ago I was 
 a schoolboy. Yet I much wished the duel to 
 come off quickly, and while my blood was up ; 
 for I felt the ridiculous features of the business 
 becoming every moment more impressive, and I 
 began to think that an attorney's clerk boxing 
 with a carpenter — a poetic and musical young 
 lover fighting a vulgar rival with fists — would 
 be outrageously absurd, unpicturesque, and un- 
 heroic. 
 
 At last my pertinacious and thrice - accursed 
 tormentor came to a pause on a clear spot, or 
 what seemed clear. 
 
 " Now then," he said, " there's nobody here. 
 What have you got to say? Are you not a spy 
 and a sneak ?" 
 
 This was too much ; and as I had given my 
 answer in words before, I thought a repetition 
 of it would be mere tautology. I was glad, too, 
 to bring my scruples and hesitations to a violent 
 end. I simply hit out, and caught my antago- 
 nist fairly on the left eyebrow. 
 
 Then began the fight. It was hearty, vigor- 
 ous, and funny. I don't know whether many of 
 my readers have fought a battle on the seashore
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 51 
 
 at an advanced hour of a dark winter night. The 
 sensations it produces are decidedly odd, tanta- 
 lising and bewildering ; but it has its peculiar 
 enjoyment too. At least, this battle of mine 
 seemed a positively delightful relief from my pre- 
 vious frame of mind. I very soon found that my 
 antagonist was far stronger than I. He had in- 
 deed arms of iron ; and he took his punishment 
 with unruffled countenance. The punishment 
 was pretty hard, for he had no gleam whatever 
 of scientific knowledge, and exposed himself con- 
 stantly to a smart blow on the face. But he 
 seemed to care no more for the blows than if 
 they had been the pepperings of a hail-shower, 
 although, dark as it was, I could see that his 
 face was bleeding in many places. His mode of 
 fighting was an odd and self-acquired process 
 altogether. He never hit straight out, but level- 
 led huge, tremendous, swinging blows at the side 
 of the head, literally leaping off his feet at each 
 stroke, so as to lend it a more furious momentum. 
 I was inclined to laugh at first, but I soon found 
 it was no laughing matter, for the first touch I 
 got of one of these odd blows — and I only got a 
 touch, for I sprang aside in time — nearly knocked 
 
 SSm ° f ILLIN01S
 
 52 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 all my senses clear away. If he had been prompt 
 to follow up his victory, the combat was over 
 there and then ! As it was, I felt pretty sure 
 that should I be unlucky enough to come in for 
 the full force and swing of one of those swash- 
 ing blows, it would be enough for me ; and I 
 tried with desperate energy all such resources of 
 science and strength as I had to bring the fight 
 to a conclusion. He bore my hammering as 
 coolly as if he were of iron ; and alas ! I think 
 he acquired at last a sort of rude notion of strata- 
 gem wholly his own. He threw himself quite 
 open in the most tempting fashion to one of my 
 straightforward blows, took it without even shak- 
 ing his head, and while I was in the very act of 
 giving it, suddenly leaped upright, swung his 
 huge flail of an arm, and crash across the side 
 of my head came all the full fury of his blow. 
 Meteors in a moment danced and sparkled all 
 around me; stars, comets, flashes of lightning 
 blazed upon my eyes ; thunders indescribable 
 rattled round my ears and brain ; the earth heaved 
 beneath me; the dark sky came crashing down 
 upon me. I seemed as if I were cast loose from 
 all gravitating principle and whirling through
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 53 
 
 space, now head up, now heels up — and at last 
 I came with a cruel bang down to earth again 
 — and then I felt for half a second a soft, sweet, 
 melting sensation of languid rest, like that pro- 
 duced to a bruised man by the bleeding of a vein, 
 and I just heard something like a shriek, and 
 then I was asleep. 
 
 The plain practical English of all my sen- 
 sations was that I had been fairly knocked off 
 my feet by a stunning blow, had fallen with my 
 head crashing against a stone, and had then and 
 there fainted. 
 
 When I opened my eyes I saw at first nothing 
 but the stars. I remained feebly contemplating 
 them a moment, as if that were all I had to 
 do in existence. Then I saw some dark object 
 interpose itself between me and the constellation 
 of Orion, and I recognised the face of my con- 
 queror, and I think I endeavoured to frown de- 
 fiance ; but the face was in a moment withdrawn. 
 Then I somehow became conscious that a soft 
 hand was passing along my forehead, that a hand- 
 kerchief, or something of the kind, was pressed 
 gently but firmly on the place where the stone 
 had cut me ; and at last I came to understand
 
 54 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 that I was lying on the beach with my head in 
 a woman's lap. 
 
 Unconsciously I spoke half aloud the word 
 " Christina !" 
 
 " 0, thank God!" said Christina's own voice,, 
 4 'he's alive." 
 
 "Yes, thank God!" muttered the deep voice 
 of the poor basso; "I didn't mean to do it,, 
 Christina — I didn't indeed. I wish he had done 
 it to me." 
 
 " For shame !" replied Christina, still in a 
 sort of whisper. " Shame to you— so strong and 
 huge — to fight with him." 
 
 I began now to see things a little clearer; 
 and I scrambled to my feet, still somewhat stag- 
 gery, perhaps, but quite able to speak up for 
 myself. 
 
 " It's no fault of his," I said ; " and I'm quite 
 well able to fight him. Look at his face, Miss 
 Braun, and see if he hasn't got the worst of it.. 
 And it was all my fault, too." 
 
 Christina rose to her feet. "Now, shake 
 hands," she said, "and don't be fools any 
 more." 
 
 My antagonist advanced sheepishly and held
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 55 
 
 out the brawny fist which had proved such a 
 rough playfellow. 
 
 "I — I hope you'll forgive me," he said, with 
 one glance at me and another at Christina. "I 
 was quite wrong altogether ; and I know it now, 
 and I'm sorry. I'm sure I don't bear any malice, 
 if you don't ; and — and — how do you feel now ?" 
 
 I assured him, in all sincerity, that I bore 
 no malice whatever ; and I likewise affirmed, per- 
 haps not quite so sincerely, that I felt perfectly 
 well — never better in my life. Indeed, I was 
 recovering fast. I had only had a stunning blow 
 and a cut head. At twenty years one soon gets 
 over such trifles as these. 
 
 I then learned that when Christina was leav- 
 ing the singing-room she inquired for her regular 
 escort, and was told that he had gone down to- 
 wards the strand with me. Something led her 
 to suspect that we had quarrelled, and she fol- 
 lowed us, but arrived only in time to witness the 
 ignominious fall and utter defeat of one combat- 
 ant. I ought to have been delighted at my de- 
 feat, for it brought such tender interest and 
 anxiety about me ; but I was not delighted. The 
 one thing present to my mind all through was
 
 56 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 that I had been " licked," and that she saw it. 
 "Earl Percy sees my fall," is the reflection that 
 lends most bitterness to the fate of the old hero 
 in the ballad. What is the humiliation of a chief 
 before any foe compared with that of a youth 
 who is beaten under the very eyes of the girl 
 he loves? The pity and kindness of Christina 
 were bitter to me. 
 
 On the other hand, my rival's victory did not 
 seem to have crowned him with joy. He had a 
 crestfallen, humbled, spaniel-like demeanour. We 
 both walked home with Christina, who insisted 
 on giving me her arm instead of taking mine, 
 on the ground that I must be far too weak not 
 to need support. 
 
 When we reached her door I heard my con- 
 queror say to her in a low tone, 
 
 " You are not angry with me any more ?" 
 
 "No," was the answer, given, I am bound to 
 say, in anything but a forgiving tone. " Why 
 should I be angry ? Good-night !" 
 
 " Ah, but you are angry. Don't, Christina !" 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 He was going away, depressed and silent, 
 when she called him back and held out her hand.
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 57 
 
 " No, Edward, I am not angry. I was, but 
 I am not any more." 
 
 "And may I come for you to-morrow night ?" 
 
 "If you like!" 
 
 "If I like!" 
 
 He turned away rejoicing. 
 
 She held out her hand to me without saying 
 a word. But her eyes met mine : and somehow 
 I went away rejoicing too. 
 
 Next day I called upon Miss Griffin. I hardly 
 knew what to say to the good spinster, and was 
 much in hope, as I passed up through the bon- 
 net-shop, that the organist might be not at home. 
 She was in. I went upstairs and knocked at the 
 little drawing - room door. Just then I heard 
 voices inside, and I would have retreated ; but 
 it was too late. Miss Griffin's shrill tones were 
 heard : 
 
 "Is that Mr. Banks?" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Griffin." 
 
 " Come in, Mr. Banks, please." 
 
 I entered. Miss Griffin was standing up near 
 her piano, on which she rested one hand, the 
 fingers of which were excitedly playing an imagi- 
 nary and rapid tune on the walnut. Christina
 
 58 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Braun stood in the middle of the room, and 
 looked flushed and angry. My face flushed more 
 deeply than hers at the mere sight of her. Miss 
 Griffin's mamma was playing with a parrot in a 
 corner. Seeing that Christina and Miss Griffin 
 had evidently been engaged in exciting colloquy, 
 I made for the mamma, and would have at once 
 pretended to bury myself in conversation with 
 her, but she waved me off with the back of her 
 hand and with a warning gesture directed to- 
 wards the two principal personages in the room, 
 as one who should say, " Forbear, young man ; 
 something highly important is going forward. 
 Disturb it not by idle words." So I stood trans- 
 fixed and said nothing, and no one said a word 
 to me. 
 
 " There's no use in talking, Christina Braun," 
 Miss Griffin went on ; "I can't have you singing 
 any longer in my choir unless you give up that 
 horrid, odious, abominable place. Mr. Thirlwall 
 won't have it ; he would not allow me to have any- 
 one who sings there." 
 
 " What harm is that place ?" Christina asked 
 in a tone half-pleading, half-angry ; " I would not 
 go there if I could help it. I go there, believe it,
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 59 
 
 not for my pleasure. I go there because I must 
 live, and my father must live. You have not a 
 father, Miss Griffin." 
 
 Mamma pursed her mouth, raised her eye- 
 brows, lifted her hands, and silently appealed, 
 first to me and then to the parrot, against the 
 boldness of this remark. It seemed positively to 
 insinuate a comparison between Christina's father 
 and the late Mr. Griffin. 
 
 " And," added Christina, " they pay me more 
 money than the church can give." 
 
 "0 Christina!" 
 
 (t I speak to no one there." 
 
 "But you must know it is not a proper place 
 for a girl." 
 
 " I do not know that it is not a proper place. 
 Did we not often sing songs, — yes, well, and also 
 play waltzes, in the choir when there were not 
 people praying below ?" 
 
 " Christina, it isn't the singing of the songs, 
 as you know very well ; it's the people — the kind 
 of people who go there." 
 
 " I do not speak to the people, they do not 
 speak to me, except they who sing as myself." 
 
 "Beally, Miss Griffin," said I, striking in,
 
 60 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 "there is no harm whatever in the place, and I 
 think it's quite absurd and ridiculous of Mr. 
 Thirl wall to go on in such a way. He's a regular 
 old idiot, I think, and an ancient humbug too." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Banks ; I am much obliged 
 to you for your kind and respectful way of speak- 
 ing of our clergyman, and the considerate manner 
 in which you assist me in keeping up the dis- 
 cipline of the choir. For you, Christina, you do 
 not know what may become of you." 
 
 "Nothing will become of me, God helping, — 
 nothing of harm. And I may as well begin, Miss 
 Griffin. Once I shall go upon the theatre and 
 sing there — " 
 
 At this point Miss Griffin seemed to think the 
 discussion had gone quite far enough. She ceased 
 to beat her silent tune upon the piano ; but she 
 came round to the front of the instrument, de- 
 liberately took off the music-book which stood on 
 the little frame, shut the book up, put down the 
 frame, and then closed the piano with a solemn 
 bang. There was no obvious occasion for this 
 performance. I interpreted it to be a sort of 
 formal and ceremonial act of excommunication. 
 
 It seemed, however, to have relieved Miss
 
 A SEA FIGHT. Gl 
 
 Griffin's mind of some of its anger. She turned 
 to Christina now with an expression of face rather 
 grieved than severe. The excommunication once 
 fairly done, she seemed stricken with pity for the 
 outcast. 
 
 "Well, Christina," she said, "if I am to 
 understand that you will not give up that place — " 
 
 " Will not give it up ? I cannot give it up." 
 
 "Then I am very, very sorry; and I would 
 keep you if I could — indeed I would, although 
 perhaps you don't think it now ; but I must not 
 do it, for you see, Christina, if you have a father 
 to support, I have a mother, and I can't battle 
 against what people say ; and so we must part. I 
 hope you will do well, Christina, wherever you go ; 
 only I do hope you will never be tempted to sing 
 in any of those Eomanist places, whatever they 
 may offer you ; and remember to be a good girl, 
 and never to give up your church." 
 
 "The church," said Christina, with a flash of 
 something like scorn crossing her face, " has given 
 me up, I think. But I blame you not at all, Miss 
 Griffin ; you were very kind to me always — 
 always." 
 
 Poor Miss Griffin was quite dissolved in tears.
 
 62 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 The very kindliest of mortals, she was in anguish 
 at the part she had to play in the transaction, and 
 still more, I fully believe, at the thought of the 
 awful ruin of all heavenly prospects which she 
 clearly saw impending over one who refused to 
 follow the behests of her clergyman, and who sang 
 nigger-melodies for sailors. 
 
 Christina bade Miss Griffin good-bye ; and both 
 were in tears. Then the outcast walked towards 
 Miss Griffin's mamma and held out her hand. 
 But the mamma's dignity was hurt at the dis- 
 obedience and disrespect, and she drew back, 
 executed the most formal of bows, and said, 
 " Adieu, mademoiselle." 
 
 Then came my turn. Christina held out 
 her hand to me, and her eyes met mine. I took 
 her hand and pressed it to my lips. A slight 
 shriek from mamma testified to her sense of my 
 scandalous conduct. Miss Griffin was absorbed 
 in tears and did not see it. 
 
 Christina left the room, and I hurried after her. 
 
 "Mr. Banks," I heard Miss Griffin call out, 
 " please don't go yet. I want to speak to you 
 particularly — about the choir." 
 
 " In five minutes, two minutes, Miss Griffin,"
 
 A SEA FIGHT. 63 
 
 was my retreating answer ; and I relieved myself 
 by adding, in a lower tone, " the choir may go to 
 the devil." 
 
 I overtook Christina at the door. 
 
 She abandoned the choir, then and there, never 
 reappearing within its precincts. 
 • And I went that night, and many nights suc- 
 cessively, to the condemned and fatal singing- 
 saloon. 
 
 In little more than a week a considerable 
 change was brought about in the relations of the 
 personages of this story. There was first a sort 
 of break-down in the arrangements of the choir, 
 and one Sunday the audience had to be content 
 with merely an instrumental performance. Soon 
 a new bass, a new tenor, and a new soprano glad- 
 dened the pious ears and hearts of the congre- 
 gation. For immediately on Christina's abandon- 
 ing the choir Ned Lambert did what I had felt 
 sure he would do — he gave up his post and sang 
 bass for that congregation no more. I had made 
 up my mind never to go near the place again, 
 once Christina abandoned it; and I was only 
 sorry the sacrifice was not a far greater one (really 
 it was not quite insignificant), that I might have
 
 64 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 had the proud consciousness of voluntary martyr- 
 dom. 
 
 The affair created quite a little stir in our 
 microcosm. It was talked of for fully three weeks 
 — at least, three Sundays. I attended church the 
 first Sunday, as unprofessional worshipper, in the 
 hope that Mr. Thirlwall might make some allusion 
 to us in his sermon. But he did not, and I was 
 disappointed. Many eyes were turned on me, 
 however, and people coming out of church and 
 passing me whispered and shrugged their should- 
 ers ; and I felt rather proud. The general con- 
 clusion of the congregation was that we three — 
 Christina Braun, Edward Lambert, and myself — 
 were simply going to the devil.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " FAR ABOVE SINGING." 
 
 Me. Beaun and his daughter still occupied the 
 house in which the former had endeavoured in 
 vain to win the childhood of our town to philosophy 
 and science by the royal road of amusement. Our 
 childhood absolutely refused even toys, if any 
 manner of instruction and moral purpose were to 
 come with them ; and therefore, while Mr. Braun 
 still technically occupied the house, his actual 
 occupancy was confined to three small rooms on 
 the second-floor. He had been driven back in 
 this way from stage to stage, his domain growing 
 gradually smaller and smaller, like the Pope's, 
 until even the little Leonine City now left him 
 seemed itself only the final halting-place before 
 absolute surrender of all temporal endowment. 
 The shop was let to a watchmaker ; the first-floor 
 was occupied by a hair-dresser ; and as one of the 
 plates on the street-door bore the name of "Miss 
 
 VOL. I. f
 
 66 my enemy's daughtee. 
 
 Muncey, milliner," and I sometimes did meet 
 lank and lymphatic young women on the stairs, I 
 had to infer that the third-floor — the garrets, in 
 fact — constituted the work-rooms and show-rooms 
 of Miss Muncey. 
 
 The little sitting-room occupied by the Brauns 
 was perhaps as poorly-furnished an apartment as 
 any could well be which did not proclaim actual 
 destitution. A few of the poorest cane-chairs, and 
 not more than a few; an arm-chair, covered with 
 the cheapest flowered calico ; a central table of 
 deal, with a faded, over-washed cover; these and 
 an infirm sofa made up the principal part of the 
 stock of furniture. There was, however, a piano 
 of good tone — a relic of better clays — with which 
 Christina would not part, and which indeed was 
 her sole capital and " plant" as a musician. There 
 were always flowers in the room, and botanical 
 specimens carefully pressed and tastefully dis- 
 played; there were two or three pretty vases of 
 Bohemian glass ; there was Mr. Braun's flute, 
 really a handsome article, with old-fashioned 
 silver keys ; there was his pipe, huge, and like- 
 wise silver- mounted : these and other stray pro- 
 perties gave an appearance to the room which at
 
 "far above singing." 67 
 
 least suggested refinement, and something like 
 ornament. And I should not surely omit to men- 
 tion a beautifully-carved and polished book-case, 
 small, but of genuine oak and admirable work- 
 manship ; and I knew the moment I saw it whose 
 hand had wrought it, and whose gift it was. " It 
 was given to my father," said Christina to me 
 afterwards, "not to me. I would not have taken 
 it, though I know poor Ned would have been 
 vexed by a refusal, and so I am glad he didn't 
 offer it to me." 
 
 It was easy to understand, after an evening- 
 spent in this little room, why the burden of life 
 had fallen so heavily and so early upon my poor 
 Christina. Her father had entirely given up all 
 idea of struggling any longer with the world, 
 although he was far from being too old for stout 
 and stiff exertion. He was the gentlest and the 
 feeblest being I ever met. He was a small, very 
 small man, with a pale, thin, clearly-marked, 
 handsome face ; a benevolent, mild, and placid 
 expression ; soft, silky, scanty gray hair ; and 
 large, dark, gray-blue eyes. His eyes were pre- 
 cisely like his daughter's, much darker than his 
 complexion would have led you to expect ; but
 
 68 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 there the resemblance ceased. Mr. Braun spoke 
 English admirably ; he played the piano and the 
 flute well ; he was an accomplished botanist, and 
 knew a good deal about chemistry and astronomy. 
 He talked much of flowers, of stars, of the poetry 
 of nature, of shadows and sunrises, of beautiful 
 and gentle things generally ; and of the poets and 
 writers who sang and discoursed of such things. 
 When he was not playing his flute, he commonly 
 sat and smoked his pipe, the bowl of which rested 
 on the ground, all the evening through. He 
 always rose early, and walked on the hills or by 
 the sea ; rose none the less early though he had 
 been out on the strand watching some planet or 
 constellation till long past midnight ; and while 
 Christina provided him with the means of living, 
 he repaid her with fresh flowers, and observations 
 on the heavens, and the beauty of life, and the 
 divine purpose in everything. He was, indeed, a 
 thoroughly-impracticable, well-meaning, good-for- 
 nothing, lovable old man. He would have pro- 
 voked me terribly, I think, if I were his son ; but 
 he did not seem to provoke Christina. She ap- 
 peared to take it as quite a matter of course that 
 her father should smoke his pipe, or botanise,
 
 "far above singing." 69 
 
 while she toiled to get money and provide dinner, 
 and make the two ends meet. He was always 
 sweet, mild, and happy. He had heen blessed, or 
 cursed, with that calm, light nature which can 
 put away trouble or responsibility in a moment, 
 and find enjoyment anywhere. He had lost wife 
 and children — six children — all of whom he dearly 
 loved ; but he lived on tranquil, and spoke of them 
 as having been happily transferred to amaranthine 
 bowers, where they had only to await his coming. 
 What he had himself done to merit that sure 
 translation to immortal bliss, I never could learn ; 
 but it was clear that his mind was quite made up 
 on that point. So, too, of his daughter. She 
 reverenced in him, as pure and lofty religious 
 feeling, that which I always regarded merely as 
 the physical placidity of a temperament not sus- 
 ceptible of any strong or keen emotion. An 
 innocently-selfish, mildly-egotistic man, you could 
 not help loving him, and I at least could not help 
 sometimes despising him. While the stars shone, 
 while the flowers bloomed, when the snow covered 
 the ground and the frost made the brambles look 
 like sprays and spars of crystal, he was happy, and 
 could not be otherwise. He could forget hunger
 
 70 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 in the contemplation of a flower ; all humanity in 
 the polishing of a stone. He cared as little for 
 active thought as for active pursuits ; and knew 
 less of politics than an American infant generally 
 does. The political agitations, struggles, suffer- 
 ings, aspirations of his own countrymen, inspired 
 him only with a tranquil scorn. He often asked, 
 with utter contempt in his tone, what it mattered 
 who owned the Rhine, so long as men could see 
 its waters shining as brightly as ever in the sun, 
 and darkening as before in the shadows of the 
 everlasting hills. 
 
 "German unity!" he would say scornfully, 
 " Germany has unity. Has she not Goethe and 
 Novalis and Jean Paul ; has she not Fichte ? 
 Hapsburg owns not less Kant than Brandenburg ; 
 Bavaria can sing the songs of Uhland and Arndt, 
 as well as Suabia. Our unity is in our soul, and 
 our language, and our worship of the beautiful 
 and divine. The rest is nothing — no, nothing 
 at all, or mere smoke and cloud veiling the glow 
 of the heaven, as Faust himself has said." 
 
 Mr. Braun never looked one moment beyond 
 the present, and was angry in his mild way with 
 anyone who did. He was displeased with Chris-
 
 "FAR ABOVE SINGING." 71 
 
 tina for singing of nights in the Cave of Harmony, 
 not because he had any objection to the place, or 
 the company, or the kind of life to which it in- 
 troduced her : not because it overtasked her, or 
 threatened to wear out her voice, or endangered 
 her in any way ; but because she had to leave him 
 for some hours every evening, and he was lonely 
 without her. So he was vexed with her, and 
 chafed in his own small way, and was jealous, as 
 if her leaving him was a wilful act of neglect, or in- 
 difference to his happiness. He did not concern 
 himself to think who would pay the rent if poor 
 Christina had not always had spirit and sense 
 enough to act for herself. A sort of philosopher, 
 he was perhaps wise in his own conceit of life's 
 theory and purpose ; but philosophers of that 
 school ought never to have any children. I have 
 often thought that when Morality blames Rousseau 
 for having abandoned his children to a foundling- 
 hospital, it blames him for one of the only wise 
 things he ever did. Better to confide them to 
 the care of any institution, managed by any sane 
 and human creatures, than to keep them under 
 his own melancholy and imbecile charge. 
 
 I took lessons in German from Mr. Braun.
 
 72 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 I really wanted to learn the language, partly for 
 its own sake, and more because it was Christina's 
 native tongue. But of course my chief reason 
 was to have a plausible excuse for coming often 
 to the house. After the lapse of a quarter I paid 
 him some money. He took it passively, and laid 
 it beside him. Christina coming in soon after 
 found the money, made inquiry about it, and 
 gave it back to me. I would have resisted, but 
 she flushed so angrily that I pocketed it without 
 further objection. 
 
 " My father knows nothing about money," she 
 said, "and never did. I arrange all that; it is 
 good-enough task for women. He was made for 
 something much better, and we always liked to 
 spare him. I know he never meant to take any 
 money from you; you have lost enough by us 
 already." 
 
 For she would insist upon regarding my with- 
 drawal from the choir as a high, mighty, and 
 chivalrous sacrifice. 
 
 " You took this in mistake, father ?" she said, 
 appealing to him; "you were not thinking; you 
 took it, not observing ?" 
 
 " Versteht sicli" he placidly replied, waving
 
 ' ' FAR ABOVE SINGING . " 73 
 
 away with his hand a cloud of smoke, and 
 solemnly indifferent to the whole business. I 
 said no more, and what future lessons I received 
 were accepted without talk of payment. 
 
 I do not know what was the special charm 
 which made me so suddenly fall in love with 
 Christina Braun. Falling in love is indeed the 
 most exact description of what befell me. From 
 a smooth level of calm indifference I literally fell 
 into a glowing deep of love. Nor did this con- 
 dition seem likely to change. It was impossible 
 for me not to continue loving her. To begin 
 with, she was intensely, exuberantly, and above all 
 things, feminine. In every glance and movement 
 she now seemed to my opened eyes to diffuse some 
 vague sense of womanhood all around her. As 
 one is conscious of the presence of flowers which 
 he does not see, as one feels the air surcharged 
 with electricity before the thunderstorm, so I 
 always felt the influence, the sensuous influence 
 if you will, of idealised womanhood when Chris- 
 tina was near. I do not know whether this sort 
 of feeling can be made intelligible in any words 
 of mine, but I cannot better describe the sensa- 
 tion of delight, refinement, and romantic love
 
 74 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 which her mere presence awakened in my soul. 
 As I look back now, all the purple light of youth, 
 all the glamour of poetry, all the bewitching illu- 
 sions of music, seem to glorify that time when 
 first Christina's presence grew a familiar influence 
 to me. 
 
 There was an extraordinary quality of quiet 
 energy in her which amazed me when I came to 
 appreciate it. It was not the energy which fusses 
 and bustles — to most young men a terribly dis- 
 enchanting and disagreeable quality. It was an 
 energy which made itself silently felt : a great 
 self-sufficing quality. The early necessity of 
 thinking and acting for two, the impossibility of 
 consulting with one who was as useless for con- 
 sultation as a baby, had doubtless forced this 
 quality into regular action. Christina seemed to 
 be of that class of women who can make some- 
 thing almost out of nothing. For easy and 
 prompt adornment of her graceful figure she had 
 a positive genius. I have often wondered and 
 admired to see what a splendid simulation of 
 imposing concert-costume she could confer upon 
 herself with a little white muslin and a few scraps 
 of ribbon and roses ; and she could put on an old
 
 " FAR ABOVE SINGING." 75 
 
 shawl in a style that Lady Hamilton might have 
 envied. 
 
 I grew into the habit of spending every dis- 
 engaged hour — and nearly the whole of every 
 Sunday — in the familiar little room over the 
 watchmaker's and under the milliner's. We 
 sang, we played, we read, we recited, we talked 
 German, we had very, very humble and modest 
 suppers : we were immensely sociable, uncon- 
 strained, full of sentiment, full of laughter, and 
 happy. Edward Lambert came sometimes and 
 took lessons on the flute from Mr. Braun, for 
 which I know he contrived delicately to make 
 some return in one way or another. A patient, 
 manly creature, he sometimes spent his whole 
 evening at his flute-lesson, while Christina and I 
 talked or sang duets on the nights when she was 
 free. I knew that he loved her, dearly and dis- 
 interestedly, without selfishness and without hope. 
 I knew that she regarded him as one might regard 
 a fond and faithful Newfoundland dog. After a 
 while he ceased to come very often, and when he 
 did come he talked chiefly to Mr. Braun. 
 
 These were pleasant times, and free. They 
 gave a sort of mild foretaste or breath of the Bohe-
 
 76 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 mian life which awaited some of us. Whatever of 
 intellectual culture I have ever had, I owe its de- 
 velopment to these days and evenings, to that mild 
 old man, to that girl. I learned to read French and 
 Italian and German, and to speak these languages 
 fluently enough, if not always very gracefully and 
 grammatically. Years and years after, a French- 
 woman told me I spoke French like a German 
 and not like an Englishman. A more happy, 
 harmless life no youth could well have spent. 
 
 "Was I very much grieved when Ned Lambert 
 left our little circle and went away to London? 
 This happened when the kind of life, blended of 
 Arcadia and Bohemia, which I have been de- 
 scribing, had lasted nearly a year. Well, I parted 
 from the good fellow with a pang ; but I must as- 
 suredly have felt relieved when he went away. He 
 was an ambitious young fellow enough ; and his 
 ambition was to become something like an artist. 
 Therefore he made up his mind to be an organ - 
 builder; and a chance opened for him through 
 some friends in London, of which he willingly 
 availed himself. I happened just to come in to 
 Mr. Braun's on the day when Lambert was taking 
 his final leave. He was holding in his hand a
 
 "far above singing." 77 
 
 little purse, a parting keepsake from Christina, 
 and twisting it awkwardly between his fingers. 
 
 " When shall we three meet again ?" I began, 
 endeavouring to say something pleasant. 
 
 "We three? — we four!" interjected Mr. 
 Braun. "lam not to be left out of the prospect. 
 I hope to be at the next meeting too." 
 
 " It must be in London, then," murmured 
 poor Ned disconsolately. " I sha'n't come back 
 here ever again — ever again." 
 
 The last time I saw Lambert — not long since 
 — he told me that through all the intervening 
 years he never did return to the old town, and 
 never would. 
 
 "In London, then," said I; "for London we 
 are all bound. We are not going to stop in this 
 old place all our lives, while Ned Lambert becomes 
 a great man, and makes a fortune in London." 
 
 " I'm not likely to come to much," said Lam- 
 bert ; " and I don't want to make a fortune — now." 
 
 I saw tears sparkle in Christina's eyes. 
 
 "Good-bye, Edward," she said; "but not for 
 ever ! no, not for ever. You have been kinder 
 and better than a brother to me for ever so long ; 
 and I shall never, never forget you."
 
 78 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 She put her arm over his shoulder, drew him 
 down towards her, and kissed him twice. Then 
 she turned and went abruptly into her own room. 
 Ned Lambert tossed his hand in the air as a kind 
 of silent parting salute to us, and in a moment 
 we heard his rapid steps descending the stairs. 
 
 "He is a good lad, Edward Lambert," said 
 Mr. Braun ; "a kind, true-hearted boy. He does 
 remind me of some of our German youth, with 
 his large grave face, and his strong hands, and 
 his soft heart. He is fond of Christina ; and he 
 did ask her to marry him — ach, Gott, yes ! and 
 last night again. But she could not love him in 
 that way, Emanuel. She could not love him to 
 marry him, as you know." And the kind old man 
 looked at me with beaming, gentle eyes. 
 
 Yes ; I did know it by this time. I must have 
 been stupidly undeserving of any woman's regard 
 if I had not felt before now that Christina Braun 
 loved me.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DEATH IN ARCADIA. 
 
 None of us liked the singing-saloon. Not that 
 there was anything bad about it except its name ; 
 that, in a small country-town, was quite enough. 
 In our town it did not much matter whether a 
 man, woman, or institution was really bad or 
 good. The sole question was whether he, she, 
 or it had a bad name. So it had long been our 
 object that Christina should abandon the music- 
 hall, and try to live by teaching singing and the 
 piano. At last we resolved that a day-school 
 should be opened. Yes; Mr. and Miss Braun's 
 school — French, German, and music. We adver- 
 tised in the local paper — rather a stretch of bold- 
 ness on our part in those quiet days — and I 
 brought in a copy of the paper that same evening, 
 over which we gazed and laughed a good deal. 
 Young ladies and gentlemen were to be taught;
 
 80 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 and of course perfectly-original plans were to be 
 adopted in the teaching of everything. A great 
 brass-plate was got and engraved with the legend, 
 " Mr. and Miss Braun's School." I crossed the 
 street furtively to look at it, and report as to the 
 effect ; and the thing was so far accomplished. 
 
 Not many pupils came at first. The story of 
 Christina's nightly performances had of course got 
 abroad, and made mammas feel shy of such an in- 
 structress. Gradually, however, a few were got 
 together, all from the humbler ranks of our middle 
 plateau; these brought more; and the terms being 
 moderate, and a good deal taught for the money, 
 things began to look a little more prosperous. 
 
 Still, this was clearly not the kind of field 
 which Christina's ambition would have sought. 
 We had often indulged and talked over wild hopes 
 that at some distant period we might sing to- 
 gether, prima donna and primo tenore, upon some 
 great stage, with half a metropolis for our au- 
 dience. "I saw Kubini," Mr. Braun would some- 
 times repeat, "in Italy, when he was your age — 
 ja ivohl, I knew him too, — and he had not a finer 
 voice. No ; that had he not." I report this 
 eulogy of my voice without a blush. The tri-
 
 DEATH IN ARCADIA. 81 
 
 bunal which is proverbially wiser than Voltaire 
 has since decided, very conclusively, that rny voice 
 is not quite equal to Rubini's. But at the time 
 the praise was spoken it had some effect upon me 
 other than to make me smile. 
 
 In fact it had become gradually understood 
 that the musical and other fortunes of Christina 
 and myself were to be associated in life and for 
 life, whenever fate and favour should allow us to 
 begin the struggle together. We were to make 
 a great name in Florence, in Paris, in London. 
 I need not say that we did not pause to consider 
 whether any difficulties were likely to arise in the 
 way of a pair who began by getting married as a 
 preliminary to seeking their fortune. As to our 
 solitary counsellor, he would have seen no objec- 
 tion whatever to any scheme which seemed grace- 
 ful, disinterested, and somewhat romantic ; and 
 even if the scheme had none of these recom- 
 mendations, he would have become reconciled to 
 it or anything else in a quarter of an hour. So 
 far, then, the common obstructions to the course 
 of true love did not, in our case, rise to disturb 
 the smoothness of the current. There were only 
 three persons in the world to be consulted, or who 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 cared a straw about the matter, and they were 
 quite in harmony on the subject. 
 
 At least we were quite in harmony so far as 
 the love and the main wish of two lives were con- 
 cerned. But the feelings of Christina and myself 
 did not always flow in the same channel. She 
 was a true-born artist ; I never was, except in the 
 merely technical sense, an artist at all. She would 
 have given up a fortune for a lyric success ; if I 
 were assured of an easy income, I should no more 
 have thought of becoming a professional singer 
 than of becoming an amateur fireman. Moreover, 
 all her plans and projects now were for splendid 
 success under my leadership. Like all women 
 who have any imagination, she saw her lover as 
 a hero destined to triumph on every field he chose 
 to enter. She always arranged the plan of the 
 future as if we could not fail. I looked forward 
 with a secret dread of failure to every undertaking 
 in which I was likely to bear a part. For all that 
 is talked of man's idle self-conceit, I think an 
 ignoble distrust of our own capabilities is one of 
 the commonest of masculine weaknesses. In my 
 case, indeed, my distrust was well justified in one 
 sense ; but it helped, more than anything else, to
 
 DEATH IN ARCADIA. 83 
 
 spoil some part of my life. Christina really knew 
 what she could do ; and she was only waiting for 
 the time to do it. She was quite happy, cooking 
 her father's sausage, and lighting his pipe; but 
 all the time she knew herself an embryo prima 
 donna, and regarded the musical world as only 
 waiting for her. There were times when I felt 
 something like a pang of pity for her inexperience, 
 and her confident, sanguine nature. I ought ra- 
 ther to have pitied my own inferior courage, miser- 
 ably-inferior endowments, inferior organisation al- 
 together. Knowing what she became — knowing 
 what, under brighter auspices, she might have 
 become — it now seems to me the very blindness 
 of affection which made her dream for a moment 
 of placing herself and her career under the guid- 
 ance and guardianship of one so miserably un- 
 worthy. 
 
 I often wondered how, with her ideas and her 
 hopes, she could have endured singing in a vul- 
 gar provincial music-hall. I told her as much. 
 
 "I would sing anywhere," she said, "rather 
 than be in debt. Father could do nothing, and 
 I must use every power I have, or he must starve. 
 I would have sung my songs in the streets rather
 
 84 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 than see him troubled to get bread. So little 
 makes him happy, that it would be a shame if he 
 were to want anything ; and then he is old, and 
 he remains not long, perhaps ;" and tears stood 
 in her eyes. "I sang in a concert-saloon in Co- 
 logne, a room near the theatre ; I wonder if it's 
 there now ? I could find it in a moment, if I 
 were there ; we will go there one day and look at 
 the outside of it; but only the outside, for I 
 hated the place itself. Yes, I sang there when 
 I was a little one, — yes, only ten years old." 
 "But you were not born in Cologne ?" 
 " No, no ; much farther away from this — across 
 the Vistula." (She mentioned an old historic 
 Prussian town.) "We only came to Cologne 
 when we were coming to England ; and we only 
 came to England to go to America. But father 
 has not the art of getting forward in anything ; 
 and so we remained a whole year in Cologne on 
 our way to England, and now we have been many 
 years in England on our way to America ; and I 
 don't suppose we shall ever get there, unless ue 
 go there some day to visit your brother, Emanuel." 
 " But we shall visit your birthplace some day, 
 shall we not, dearest ?"
 
 DEATH IN ARCADIA. 85 
 
 " I don't know, Emanuel ; I don't like to 
 think of it. I was not happy there — 0, not 
 happy at all, but very miserable ; and I do 
 not want ever to see the place any more. It 
 is like a discord, or a broken string, or a harsh 
 note, or something of that kind, coming into 
 some beautiful delicious piece of music, when I 
 turn from now to then. It was all so dull, and 
 without colour, and sad and harsh. My father 
 and brother never could agree." (I should men- 
 tion that I was aware of one of Mr. Braun's sons 
 being still alive.) "Louis was very harsh to 
 father, and not forbearing. I don't remember 
 what it was all about ; but I can guess now that 
 Louis thought — well, I suppose he thought my 
 father had not been very prudent or persevering ; 
 but I know he was harsh, and he scolded, and his 
 wife scolded. She was very cold and hard and 
 religious, and she always scolded me. One day, 
 I remember, she told me I had too great an appe- 
 tite, and ate too much for a little beggar-girl ; and 
 I cried half the night through, and then got up 
 and tried to steal away, to drown myself from one 
 of the old bridges. But an old night-watchman 
 found me, — I remember him so well; he had a
 
 86 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 horn and a spear of some kind, — and lie brought 
 me back ; and she beat me, and I so hated her ! 
 At last father said he would go away, and I was 
 delighted. I did not care where we went — any- 
 where, so that we went away. Louis indeed was 
 not bad, for he gave us money to go ; and she 
 was not bad either. I think she must have been 
 a good woman, but hard ; and then she had chil- 
 dren of her own, and we were mere dependents. 
 So I came to sing in Cologne, Emanuel, and then 
 here ; and so ends my long, long story." 
 
 During the whole of the story, which she told 
 in a dreamy kind of tone, her eyes and lips had 
 marked its incidents with the symphony of deep 
 expression. She lived the old life quite over 
 again, as she thus ran it through for me. I was 
 glad when the story was done, so painful was the 
 emotion it had evidently caused her. 
 
 "How happy for me, dearest Christina, that 
 you did not go to America ! I only wish I had 
 known you sooner, and were rich for your sake, 
 and you should never have sung in a wretched 
 saloon." 
 
 "I sang very badly in the place here lately; 
 but I think it was because the people there knew
 
 DEATH IN ARCADIA. 87 
 
 nothing about singing, and there was no use in 
 trying to sing well." 
 
 "You sang only too well for me; you bewil- 
 dered me. I never heard such singing before — 
 indeed, I never heard any singing before, in the 
 true sense." 
 
 "Ah, I always sang my best when you were 
 there. I saw you the very first night, and sang 
 for you. I loved you even then, Emanuel, though 
 I thought you came with no good will to me. 
 Was I not angry and rude ? Ach ! I think I loved 
 you always, before even that night, — yes from the 
 very first." 
 
 "And will always, to the very last?" I whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "Always, — 0, always, — if you remain still 
 what you are, what I believe you to be. And if 
 not, then — " 
 
 "Then, dearest?" 
 
 " Then all my light will go out, Emanuel, and 
 I shall be miserable for ever. 0, if I ever think 
 you do not love me beyond everything in this 
 world, then I shall hate you — no, I don't believe 
 I ever could hate you ; but I shall be wretched, 
 and perhaps make both of us unhappy for our
 
 88 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 lives. But I think that you will never change ; 
 I knew from the very first that you would some 
 time come to love me ; and now I know that you 
 will love me always. Ah, how bright life is now !" 
 
 Her eyes sparkled in tears. We were alone 
 at this time in the little old room. She seated 
 herself at the piano and sang one of her German 
 hymns with even more than her wonted passion 
 of pathos. I sat listening in the deepening twi- 
 light of the calm summer evening, happy — trail - 
 scendently rapturous and happy. 
 
 Those were bright days. I have lingered long 
 over them here, although they sounded but as the 
 overture of my life, and really formed no part of 
 the drama itself. I have lingered over them, be- 
 cause they were so happy and because they were 
 so brief. 
 
 How long might we have gone on thus peace- 
 fully and happily, content with merely playing the 
 prelude of real existence ? When should we have 
 married, and begun the business of our life-drama 
 in good earnest ? These are speculations which 
 I used to be fond of going over and over in my 
 mind, but which I can hardly expect anybody else 
 to follow with interest. I dismiss them here from
 
 DEATH IN ARCADIA. 89 
 
 my pages ; but the words I have written may re- 
 main, for they will serve to indicate thus early 
 that the drama was never played out as we had 
 prearranged it. 
 
 The first discordant note which Fate struck in 
 was the death of Christina's father. The mild old 
 man passed suddenly but very quietly out of life. 
 One evening he complained of having a headache 
 and cold feet. When I came that night a doctor 
 was with him. I remained all night. Whatever 
 malady had seized my poor old friend kept a firm 
 hold. Towards morning he talked a good deal, 
 now in English, now in French, now in German, 
 intelligibly but not coherently, of his early home, 
 his wanderings, his lost wife (whom now he saw 
 in Christina), his family one by one, his flowers. 
 He murmured stray scraps of German poems : 
 " Ueber alien Gipfeln ist Buh" — those exquisite, 
 mournful, consoling lines which came from Goethe's 
 soul and hung late upon his dying lips ; and he 
 whispered now that he was going to learn all the 
 secrets of the Creation ; and he repeated faintly 
 two lines from Uhland : 
 
 " Da sind die Tage lang geiiug, 
 Da sind die Niichte mild."
 
 90 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Towards the end he brightened up into clearer 
 consciousness, and called Christina by her name. 
 I remember with a peculiar pang how he touched 
 Christina's hand and then mine, smiled upon us 
 in the old gentle way, full of trust and serenity, 
 and so died. He looked only a little paler and 
 milder in death than in life. 
 
 After this came a long sad interval, sweetened, 
 I must own, to me by the consciousness that my 
 presence and my love must be still more needful 
 to Christina than before.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 
 
 The same little room, unchanged save for the ab- 
 sence of one of its old inmates, whose flute, pipe, 
 and books stood untouched in their familiar former 
 places. Christina and I were alone. We had 
 been talking long and earnestly. She arose and 
 went to the window, and looked silently and 
 thoughtfully into the soft summer night- air. The 
 breath of an exquisite day still haunted somehow 
 the very pavement of the street below, and seemed 
 to soften the hum and the tread of the people who 
 passed under our window. The stars were faint 
 in the violet sky, from which the light of day had 
 not yet wholly faded. 
 
 Christina remained for a while motionless and 
 silent, one hand keeping back her hair, the other 
 arm resting on the side of the open window. This 
 was one of those evenings at the close of summer 
 when the dusk seems to descend suddenly like a
 
 92 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 veil ; and as I looked admiringly and lovingly on 
 her face, turned in profile to me and gazing west- 
 ward, the roseate light which shone on it suddenly 
 went out, and her cheek seemed pale and melan- 
 choly. As the room appeared to darken, she looked 
 away from where the light in the west had been, 
 and turned towards me smiling, with a sweet, sad 
 expression, which I see even now. 
 
 " Emanuel," she said, "you have made me 
 happy — happy, although we have lost my poor 
 father. I never before knew what it was to feel 
 even an hour's happiness. My life was always 
 cold and hard, and I did not hope for much better 
 on earth. Now I believe in happiness, for I be- 
 lieve in love. Do you know that I tried all I could 
 to love poor Edward Lambert ; he was so fond of 
 me, and so good : but I could not. I did my best: 
 I wished and prayed to love him, and I could not. 
 I do not know what would have happened to me 
 but for you. I know I never could have stayed 
 with my brother in that place, which would be 
 strange to me now. I think I should have had to 
 find out the old bridge where I was going to drown 
 myself before, and complete the work this time. 
 What would have become of me if Iliad gone there?"
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 93 
 
 " What would have hecome of me . ? " I asked, 
 with something of reproach at least in my voice. 
 
 "I don't know. I thought perhaps you would 
 have been as happy without me, — but stop, don't 
 scold me — indeed I don't think so now. If I suc- 
 ceeded in the world — " 
 
 " And didn't fling yourself from the bridge." 
 
 "And didn't fling myself from the bridge — 
 don't laugh at me, that was quite a possibility too 
 — if I didn't drown myself, but lived and suc- 
 ceeded, and made a great noise in the world, and 
 got money, then you should have heard of me, for 
 I would have come to you. If not, then you should 
 never have heard or known anything more of me. 
 I think that is what I meant to do, if I clearly 
 meant to do anything. But you have changed all 
 that, Emanuel, and it only remains — " 
 
 "It only remains to arrange our plans and t<> 
 be happy." 
 
 " We will think of our plans to-morrow, 
 when we are a little more calm and composed. 
 All this has come on us rather suddenly, and I 
 scarcely slept last night, Emanuel, with thinking 
 of you, and how soon I must leave you. Then, 
 even when I fell asleep at last towards morning, I
 
 94 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 had such a horrid dream ; I dreamt that you your- 
 self, with your own lips, told me calmly I had 
 hetter go — that we had better separate ; and I 
 awoke in misery. But that, thank Heaven ! has 
 not come true, and I feel that we are acting the 
 wisest part. Life is not long enough for separa- 
 tion, is it, dearest ? and I know my Emanuel will 
 not suffer loss in the end by his sacrifice. I see 
 the future all bright before us — as bright as the 
 sky was just now — that is, before the evening's 
 red had faded and the darkness come up." 
 
 Sacrifice ! My sacrifice apparently was that I 
 consented to be loved as a man does not expect 
 to be loved a second time in this world. 
 
 Let me explain the source and meaning of the 
 conversation I have just described. 
 
 The death of Christina's father ought, in ac- 
 cordance with ordinary usage and respect for pub- 
 lic opinion, to have somewhat changed the manner 
 of our intercourse ; but it did not — I still spent 
 every evening with Christina as before. I sat 
 beside her while she made her mourning-dress ; 
 I was beside her in the deepest of her affliction, 
 and in its gradual subsidence. When the funeral 
 had been long over, and the clergyman and one
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 95 
 
 or two other friends who came out of mere kind- 
 ness had ceased to visit her, I came regularly 
 every evening, and sat for hours with her just as 
 before. I can say literally that all the time I did 
 not give to business or to sleep I gave to her. I 
 always left her with reluctance, though the sepa- 
 ration was but for a few hours. I always hastened 
 eagerly to her, although only a few hours had 
 passed since our last meeting. "VVe walked to- 
 gether of evenings on the hills and by the sea, 
 and watched the line of light that streamed from 
 the west until it seemed to fade into the waves 
 and the night and the stars came up. I learned 
 from her to know each constellation that lights 
 our northern horizon. Her father had taught her, 
 like himself, to live among the stars and love 
 them. I loved to hear her talk as much as to hear 
 her sing — ay, "far above singing." My whole na- 
 ture was quickened and purified by hers ; it was the 
 old, old story of Cymon and Iphigenia over again. 
 Of course it must have been dreadfully im- 
 proper, not to say dangerous, thus to spend long 
 evenings after evenings together and alone. But 
 we never thought it so, and indeed never thought 
 about the matter at all. I know that nothing
 
 96 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 could have been purer than our love, more inno- 
 cent than our intercourse. I do not recommend 
 that sort of thing as a rule — I see all the danger 
 of it ; I see that the two very best people in the 
 world — and we, good lack, were not even the 
 second-best — might have found reason to repent 
 such heedless self-confidence. But it is certain 
 that we trod the furnace unscathed — nay, that 
 we did not even know we were girt with fire from 
 which ordinary eyes would say there was no es- 
 caping. I do not well know what preserved us; 
 perhaps our very unconsciousness of danger, per- 
 haps poetry, perhaps music, perhaps sentiment- 
 ality, perhaps that generous subtle fire of youthful 
 love which has so little of the animal oil in its 
 composition. I can only say that, when we were 
 driven out of our terrestrial paradise, we had at 
 least no cause to blush, or hang our heads, or 
 cover ourselves, because of shame. 
 
 Of course, however, this was not the view of 
 the matter taken by our neighbours. It was not 
 likely that in such a miserable little town, en- 
 slaved by the judgment of Mrs. Grundy, conduct 
 like ours could escape gossip and criticism. The 
 people living in the same house with Christina
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 97 
 
 knew of our meetings ; pupils of Christina's called 
 occasionally in the evening and found us together ; 
 many good-natured persons began to talk about 
 us, of whom, I can say in all sincerity, we had 
 never conversed. This kind of talk must at last 
 reach Christina's ears ; and it did. 
 
 One evening when I came as usual I was told 
 that she was not at home ; and I was much sur- 
 prised, knowing how few acquaintances she had, 
 and how little she cared to visit any of them. 
 The next evening the same thing occurred. The 
 next day I wrote her a letter asking, somewhat 
 warmly, for an explanation. I received a reply 
 full of love and tenderness, begging of me not 
 to come that evening, but promising to write 
 again. I did not grow jealous, or suspicious, or 
 angry. I knew that Christina's heart lay open 
 to me ; but I became alarmed, expectant of some 
 evil news ; restless, sad. I think I had from the 
 beginning a foreboding that something disagree- 
 able would reach us from her brother. Imme- 
 diately on poor Mr. Braun's death Christina had 
 written to her brother, acquainting him with the 
 event, describing exactly and frankly her own posi- 
 tion and prospects, and asking simply for any 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 UO MY ENEMY S DAUGHTER. 
 
 advice he could give. For weeks no answer came; 
 but we were not much surprised. In those days 
 railways did not traverse East Prussia and connect 
 Ostend with St. Petersburg. 
 
 At last I received a little note from Christina, 
 written in apparent haste, and asking me to see 
 her that evening. I went at the earliest possible 
 moment. It was the evening with which this 
 chapter opens. 
 
 I hurried upstairs, and found her door open. 
 I went in, and saw her alone, kneeling on the 
 floor, and engaged in packing up some clothes, 
 books, and music. She looked up, and there was 
 so sad an expression in her face, that I positively 
 started. 
 
 ''Christina, my dearest," I said, kneeling on 
 the ground beside her, "what on earth has hap- 
 pened ? Why do you look so sad — and why would 
 you not see me before ?" 
 
 "I am going away, Emanuel," she replied, in 
 a very faltering voice. 
 
 " Going away ! Going where ? Away from 
 me ? No, that I know you are not." 
 
 "Ah, yes; it is quite true. I am going to 
 Reichsberg — I must go !"
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 99 
 
 " Never ! you shall not !" 
 
 " I must, indeed. See, Emanuel, here is my 
 brother's letter. Eead what he writes." 
 
 I took the letter and tried to read it. It was 
 in German, written in a dreadful character, which 
 danced before my eyes maddeningly. After some 
 impatient bungling efforts, I thrust it into her hand. 
 
 "Read it, Christina," I said; "and let me 
 know the meaning of all this, for Heaven's sake !" 
 
 She read me the letter. It was long, well- 
 meaning, cold but not unkindly, intensely moral, 
 pious, and philistinish. It expressed well-regu- 
 lated regret for the death of Mr. Braun, but it 
 made it a duty to allude rather pointedly to his 
 faults and his weaknesses. It showed how these 
 faults and weaknesses had now left the daughter 
 whom he, the father, so professed to love, home- 
 less and unprovided with any means, at scarcely 
 nineteen years of age, in a far-off foreign country. 
 It expressed a hope that Mr. Braun had found 
 in dying that spiritual comfort and faith which 
 he ostentatiously rejected during his lifetime. 
 
 All this I listened to somewhat impatiently 
 as Christina put into half-intelligible English its 
 long sentences. But the point of the story lay
 
 100 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 in the concluding passages, and these soon se- 
 cured my whole attention. Louis Braun disap- 
 proved and deplored the kind of life his sister 
 had led as a singer, utterly demurred to her idea 
 of ultimately going on the stage, and enjoined, 
 nay insisted on her immediately leaving England 
 and placing herself under his protection. He 
 enclosed some abominable Prussian notes for the 
 purpose of assisting her to undertake the journey, 
 which he recommended her to make by way of 
 steamer or sailing-vessel from London or Hull to 
 Dantzic. 
 
 " It's kind of Louis," Christina stammered 
 out when she had read to the end. "You see, 
 Emanuel, he has a good heart, and means for 
 the best. I can do nothing else. I must go; 
 and I will help him in his business, and attend 
 to his shop. But I will go on the stage and sing 
 yet one day, for all that." 
 
 " You shall not go to him !" I exclaimed. 
 " You shall be the servant of no brother, and 
 attend to no shop. What right has your brother 
 to control you ? What has he ever done for you, 
 that he should attempt to order you about in that 
 way ? What account of your movements have
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 101 
 
 you to render to him ? Leave it to rne ; Til write 
 to him." 
 
 " Louis knows not one word of English ; and, 
 dear Emanuel, I don't think your German would 
 be quite certain to explain itself clearly to him." 
 
 "Now, I know you don't think of going," I 
 said, warmly clasping her; "you never could 
 smile in that way if you thought of leaving me. 
 "Write yourself, then, and tell your brother that 
 he may go — I mean that when you really needed 
 his protection he did not offer it, and that now 
 you don't want it, and will have none of it. No, 
 don't write that — of course you would not — but 
 write and tell him you will not and cannot go." 
 
 " But what can we do, Emanuel?" she asked, 
 looking up at me with her large eyes, now all 
 sadness and seriousness. " My brother's letter 
 is not all ; but my pupils — I did not like to tell 
 you before — are all dropping away. Yes, it is 
 quite true ; soon, I fear, I shall have none. The 
 people here talk so much ; and now they talk of 
 us, who never did them any harm. Yesterday 
 a lady who had always been my good friend took 
 away her three girls. After the holidays, some 
 always do not come back; and this time I shall
 
 102 my enemy's daughtek. 
 
 have very, very few. I met Miss Griffin a week 
 ago, and she spoke very strangely and coldly to 
 me. I do not care about my brother much — 
 I hardly know him at all; but I see that I had 
 better go to him, and even for your sake I must 
 go ; and perhaps — 0, perhaps, my own dear 
 Emanuel — we may meet once again." 
 
 " Once again ! We will never part — never ! 
 Why cannot we at once put a stop to the talk 
 of all these people? Why cannot we be mar- 
 ried now — to-morrow? We do not want much 
 to make us happy. Listen, Christina — hear what 
 a salary I have ; in a place like this we might 
 live on it for ever ;" and I whispered its amount 
 — about as much as a fast young Londoner might 
 spend in gloves and cigars. 
 
 Christina made no answer. Was she over- 
 whelmed by the largeness of my means, or ren- 
 dered aghast by their smallness ? 
 
 " We shall be the happiest people in the 
 world," I urged. "You can give music-lessons, 
 if you like ; or we will give concerts together. 
 Why, the singers at that concert in the Assem- 
 bly Rooms last night were good-for-nothing hum- 
 bugs, I have been told; and yet people paid to
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 103 
 
 hear them just because they came from London. 
 I am sure no one of them had a voice anything 
 like yours. We only want to get known. We 
 can't give musical entertainments together now, 
 that's quite clear ; hut Mr. and Mrs. Emanuel 
 Temple Banks would sound famously, nicht wahr?" 
 said I, endeavouring to become jocular. " Or 
 suppose I come out as a blind singer, like Yult, 
 in the story — Eichter's story — your poor father 
 read to us so patiently when we were not listening 
 to half of it ? Suppose I be a blind singer, and 
 you my wife or sister, sustaining and guiding 
 me ? I think it would draw splendidly." 
 
 " Nonsense, Emanuel ; you must not talk 
 such nonsense," said Christina, smiling never- 
 theless, though perhaps a watery smile. " We 
 cannot be married yet, it would be too rash ; 
 and what would people say ?" 
 
 "What should we care? Let them say what 
 they please. It doesn't appear that the people 
 who concern themselves about us say such very 
 nattering things already that we need court their 
 good opinion. Let them speak well or ill of us 
 — there is a world elsewhere," I exclaimed, in 
 splendid Coriolanus fashion.
 
 104 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 "There is, there is indeed, Emanuel!" she 
 said, springing up and with brightening eves ; 
 " there is a world elsewhere, thank Heaven ! 
 which is not like this narrow and miserable little 
 place. 0, who would live here and stagnate, when 
 there are places where life has a chance of success !" 
 
 I saw that she was yielding, and I pressed my 
 advantage. I clasped her in my arms, and vowed 
 I would not release her until she had pledged 
 herself never to leave me. 
 
 "How could I refuse any longer?'' she said 
 at last. " You have prevailed, my own ; ah, I 
 am afraid I was only too willing that you should 
 prevail. If you are not unwilling to sacrifice 
 yourself for a poor singing girl, what can she- 
 do but accept the sacrifice when she loves you so 
 dearly as I do ?" 
 
 It was then that she gently withdrew from me 
 for a moment, and went to the window, as we saw 
 her at the opening of this chapter. "Dost thou 
 look at the stars, my star ?" 
 
 We spoke but little of our plans and prospects- 
 that night ; we were too happy for talk. Strange 
 thing in mortal life, we knew we were happy ! It 
 is not retrospect alone which throws for me a
 
 CHRISTINA AND I. 105 
 
 golden glory round that unforgotten evening; I 
 knew at the hour that a golden atmosphere floated 
 round us hoth. 
 
 Christina had utterly flung away the early 
 doubt and despondency of the evening, and re- 
 turned to the old joyous self-confidence. She 
 looked at the future with the brightest eyes. 
 
 " Xo chance of our failing, Emanuel," she 
 said ecstatically. 
 
 " And even if we do fail, my dearest," I re- 
 plied, "what then? We shall be none the less 
 happy. I do not care one rush for any success 
 in life while we can live for each other and be 
 happy. We only value life itself that we may 
 love each other and be happy." 
 
 She smiled a triumphant smile. "Have no 
 fear," she said ; " we shall have love and happi- 
 ness and success too. I know we shall ; I see 
 the future as clear as to-day. Now, dearest, you 
 must go. I shall see you to-morrow night, shall 
 I not ?" 
 
 Needless to give my answer — rather, I should 
 say, to describe it. As I was leaving, my eye 
 fell upon the trunk which she had been packing 
 when I came in.
 
 106 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " You may undo your work of packing now, 
 Uebchen," I said smilingly. 
 
 "Nay, is it worth while?" she asked, smiling 
 with a significance I did not understand. "Re- 
 member the world elsewhere." 
 
 Need I say how we parted '? Need I tell how 
 often I walked backward and forward under her 
 window that night ? Need I say that I felt the 
 happiest and the proudest of human creatures? 
 Need I say how I lay awake, and tossed half 
 the night through, recalling every word, every 
 glance, every kiss : how I shaped out plan after 
 plan for our future path of life ; how I felt all 
 the passion and the ecstasy, without any of the 
 doubts and feverish fears and torturing pangs, of 
 love ?
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 
 
 I have already said that the one tiling which 
 gave me any uneasiness as to the future was 
 Christina's passionate desire to go on the stage. 
 This had not, indeed, been a discordant note in 
 our harmony ; hut it was one I always endea- 
 voured not to touch. I kept the question as 
 much as I could out of sight ; I compromised 
 with it, made myself believe it would arrange 
 itself somehow. In fact, I was afraid of it, hut 
 still kept hoping it would come to nothing ; for 
 the more and more I loved Christina, the more 
 and more I wished to keep her wholly to my- 
 self, the more jealous I grew of any art, 
 any profession, which could divide her thoughts 
 with me and my love. I could have lived in a 
 desert island with her for ever — yes, I still think 
 I could — and never wearied of her, or longed for 
 other companionship. Doubtless to most persons
 
 108 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 such a profession will seem merely the conscious 
 or unconscious exaggeration of sentiment ; doubt- 
 less in their case it would be so. I am speaking 
 of myself — of my own heart, and of what I know. 
 I could have lived with her — we two alone — a 
 long life through, and known no weariness or 
 change if she knew none. The first strong emo- 
 tion of all my life was love for her ; and the more 
 I grew to love her, the more jealous I became of 
 the art which she so loved. 
 
 I should have been glad to compromise for a 
 life of music-teaching and singing at concerts 
 and oratorios, and such milder and safer paths 
 of the lyric art. Indeed, I had myself had sev- 
 eral engagements at local performances of the 
 kind, and was, as I have mentioned already, be- 
 coming a sort of small, very small, celebrity. I 
 was saving a little money to begin married life 
 withal, and was very economical and careful, my 
 whole heart being set on one object; neverthe- 
 less, the general impression of respectable and 
 good people in our circle still was that I was 
 simply going to the devil. 
 
 Now the attorney in whose office I daily 
 worked was a very respectable man. He was a
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 109 
 
 pious man, and sang very loud in church. He 
 was also a very pompous man. He had a very 
 respectable, pious, and pompous wife. He con- 
 sorted with the rector ; he sometimes dined with 
 the local lord ; and at the annual flower-show 
 his wife was always taken notice of and politely 
 spoken to by an evangelical countess, and by the 
 wives of the county members. 
 
 The very morning after I had made my pact 
 with Christina, I was summoned to my employer's 
 room almost immediately on his reaching the 
 office. When I came into the presence of Mr. 
 Bollington — that was his name — I saw, by the 
 very way in which he settled his neck into his 
 collar, that something was up. I may say that I 
 never liked Mr. Bollington ; his manner somehow 
 seemed always to convey to me the idea that he 
 regarded a salaried clerk as simply a poor devil. 
 
 "0, ah, Mr. Banks," he began. " Yes ; I 
 want to speak to you. Close the door. Thank 
 you ; that'll do. Mr. Banks, I hear you are 
 getting very much into the way of singing at 
 nights at concerts and oratorios, and all that 
 kind of thing. Now, that is not quite a legal 
 sort of thing, nor quite respectable in our lino
 
 110 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 of business ; and I am rather afraid it will tell 
 against us, } r ou know. I am very particular, Mr. 
 Banks, as you know. Law is rather a particular 
 sort of business. People say law is jealous, and 
 won't have any rival, don't they? I think some 
 poet or novelist, or somebody, says something of 
 the kind. I don't think it will do, Mr. Banks ; 
 I don't indeed. Law is drier and duller than 
 music ; but I think you'll find it better in the 
 long-run." 
 
 I was a good deal embarrassed by this address. 
 I had no respect for Mr. Bollington ; I knew him 
 to be merely a stupid, respectable old ass ; but 
 respectability has somehow an awful sort of halo 
 of divine right yet lingering about it, and it im- 
 presses the Bohemian more than he cares to ac- 
 knowledge. I, an embryo Bohemian, had always 
 to make a little mental struggle to assert myself 
 against this respectable member of society. Now, 
 however, there were other reasons to embarrass 
 me; he seemed actually inspired with a purpose 
 to destroy all my projects. 
 
 I stammered out something about being fond 
 of music, and not seeing any harm in such devo- 
 tion.
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. Ill 
 
 "Pardon rne ; I have not said there was any 
 harm. A taste for music is very respectable : and 
 I am the last man in the world likely to find fault 
 with an inclination which some of the most re- 
 spectable persons I know, even in my profession, 
 cultivate, — in a manner which, in fact, adds to 
 their respectability, I may say. But that is in 
 an amateur way, Mr. Banks ; in an amateur way. 
 It is quite different when one comes to be a pro- 
 fessional performer ; and I hear, Mr. Banks, that 
 you have been going quite into the professional 
 line of late. Now, you have not consulted me on 
 the subject, or ascertained whether I considered 
 such an occupation quite consistent with your po- 
 sition here ; and I have therefore found it neces- 
 sary to send for you, and — in fact, to open the 
 subject myself." 
 
 " I really didn't suppose," I said, " that you 
 could have any objection to my improving my 
 income by any means — any honourable means, of 
 course — which did not interfere with my character 
 or my business here. I have not been inattentive 
 to the office." 
 
 "Pardon me; I have made no charge of the 
 kind."
 
 112 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " I do not see why one may not have different 
 occupations at different hours of the day." 
 
 "In a general way there may be no objection. 
 Many occupations admit of such combination ; 
 but we are now speaking of a particular case. 
 This firm, Mr. Banks, has a character for strict 
 attention to business, and business of a peculiar 
 and exclusively respectable kind. I don't say 
 that in a certain kind of low criminal business, 
 for example, there is necessarily any reason why 
 a solicitor should object to his clerk singing at 
 concerts after office-hours. I think it quite pos- 
 sible that such singing and a certain kind of 
 criminal business might combine very well. But 
 ours is not a business of that class, Mr. Banks. 
 Our clients are of quite a different order of life, 
 and they have strong and very proper views on 
 the all-importance of respectability." 
 
 "But really, Mr. Bollington" — I had now 
 quite reasserted myself; stupidity had washed 
 all the imposing gilt off respectability, and I 
 could have laughed at or sworn at it — "really, 
 Mr. Bollington, I don't quite see that I am bound 
 to give up everything to such views." 
 
 " Not bound at all, Mr. Banks ; certainly not
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 113 
 
 bound. You are not an articled clerk, and are 
 quite free to act as you please. Let the conver- 
 sation close for the present. Be so good as to 
 think the matter over. I am sure you understand 
 my determination. You can therefore decide for 
 yourself, and let me know, and we can recur to 
 the subject, if necessary, say the day after to- 
 morrow. And now, Mr. Banks, about the papers 
 in the case of Davys and Pontypool, if you please." 
 
 This was of course an ultimatum. A greater 
 contretemps could hardly have occurred. All my 
 plans for the present were based on that very 
 combination of music and law which Mr. Boiling- 
 ton declared to be only possible, if at all, in the 
 case of a very low sort of criminal business. This 
 was a sharp and sudden blow to me ; and I had 
 the whole day to bear it before I could pour out 
 my bad news and my feelings to Christina. 
 
 Grimly enough I went to her lodgings that 
 evening. I thought the very sky looked gray 
 above me ; and Christina's gladsome confident 
 eyes were a sort of new pang and reproach to 
 me. 
 
 " Emanuel, I am so delighted to hear it !" 
 was the reply with which she broke out when, 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 with a sad face, I had got through niy dismal 
 news. " I am delighted from my heart to hear 
 it ! Why should you stay in so miserable a place, 
 and be paid a few wretched shillings a-week, you 
 who are better than them all; you with your voice 
 — and your talents — for you know I never would 
 care for mere voice. No ; you are rid of it all 
 now, and are free. Now you will have to throw 
 your soul into the art you are fitted for, my dear 
 Emanuel. Ill news, dear ! This is the best and 
 brightest of news to Christina. I always feared 
 that you would be content to work and wait here, 
 and I have had enough of working and waiting. 
 You are so easily contented — 0, far too easily 
 contented ; but only because you are modest of 
 your talents, and do not know what you deserve 
 and what you can be, as I do. No, no; my 
 Emanuel will be no more a slave, but an artist. 
 Tell him so, and be free." 
 
 There was something pitiful to me in hearing 
 the enthusiastic girl run on in this wild way. 
 
 " Alas, Christina," I said, "it is not so easy 
 to make a great way in the world as you think, — 
 you girls, with your vivid imagination and your 
 confidence. You see me with eyes which will
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 115 
 
 guide nobody else. Think how difficult it is to 
 get on in this place." 
 
 "In this place! Yes; but who would think 
 of this place ? Leave it, my Emanuel ! London 
 and Paris — these are the places for us. Why 
 delay here at all ? why not go to London at once, 
 and together? why, dearest Emanuel, why?" 
 Her impatience rose to something like wildness. 
 " Because, my love," I said, looking as wise 
 and as cheerful as I could contrive to do, "be- 
 cause in London people who have neither money 
 nor friends may have to starve." 
 
 "But we have some money. I have saved 
 some ; a little — and not so very little. See !" 
 
 And she showed me in triumph a few poor 
 sovereigns heaped up in a drawer, where anybody 
 who chanced to enter her room might have found, 
 and, if so inclined, stolen them. I could hardly 
 keep back my tears — I was only a boy, after all ; 
 and there was something unspeakably pitiful and 
 touching in the pride and confidence built upon 
 the few poor golden coins. 
 
 " My dearest, your money and mine would not 
 keep us long in London. People must endeavour 
 to make a beginning where they have friends."
 
 116 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " Then you are content to give up your career; 
 give up your chance of becoming a great artist — 
 as I know you would be ?" 
 
 "No, not give up, my own Christina, but just 
 wait only a little for a better chance. Listen, you 
 wild girl; we must give up something — " 
 
 "But listen, Emanuel. I have set my very 
 soul on being a great singer, and on your being 
 one too. You may think me a mad creature ; but 
 I know that in this I am wiser than you. Don't 
 stop on the way, and don't be afraid. I am not 
 afraid ; why should you — a man ?" 
 
 "You are not afraid," I said, taking both her 
 hands, and trying to pet her into calmness, "be- 
 cause you are a generous, imaginative, darling 
 girl, who, once you love a man, think the world 
 must see him as you do, and that he must turn 
 out something great. I know more of the world, 
 and of myself, than you do. I only ask that we 
 should be patient for the sake of each other. I 
 cannot do anything which might make you un- 
 happy. You may be ready to sacrifice yourself; 
 but don't ask me to sacrifice you." 
 
 "Listen, Emanuel," she said, disengaging her 
 hands from mine, and then laying one arm on my
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 117 
 
 shoulder and looking earnestly, imploringly at me 
 (I see her deep dark eyes and eager trembling lips 
 ^ven now this moment) ; "do not talk of waiting 
 and of patience, and of living a life of dull, stupid 
 plodding in this hateful place. Only last evening 
 you appealed to me — and persuaded me ; let me 
 now persuade you. Do you think me bold to speak 
 in this way ? Yes, I am bold now, because I love 
 you so, because you are all in the world to me, 
 .and I tremble to think of our separation." 
 
 "Separation? Who speaks of separation? 
 What could separate us ?" 
 
 " You do not know ; I do not know ; anything, 
 any delay — a night's reflection may change our 
 fortunes, may change our hearts ! I tremble to 
 hear you talk as if you only wished to cling to this 
 place for ever." 
 
 " And I tremble to hear you speak as if am- 
 bition, and not love, were your impulse, Christina ! 
 Yes, I could be happy with you here, even here, 
 for ever !" 
 
 "But let us not talk of that. I could not see 
 you condemned to an ignoble, stupid life here ; I 
 love you far too deeply. Your ambition is mine ; 
 your success would be mine. Emanuel, love
 
 118 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 me and my ambition too, or you cannot love me, 
 you cannot understand me at all !" 
 
 " If the choice were between your love and your 
 ambition," I said sullenly, "I know which would 
 win." 
 
 " You can't divide them; they are one and the 
 same. They are as my heart and my soul. O 
 Emanuel, you know I love you. I have no one on 
 earth whom I care for but you." 
 
 "And yet if it were a choice between giving 
 up your chance of a career, your dream of a career" 
 — I was now bitterly jealous of her ambition, and 
 spoke in almost savage tones — "you would throw 
 me away without a thought. Do you call that 
 love?" 
 
 "No," she replied vehemently, and turning 
 from me, " I do not. But I loved an ambitious 
 man, a brave man, an artist, and not a slave." 
 
 Had she struck me in the face, I could not 
 have felt the blow more heavily. A surprised, 
 passionate, injured cry was breaking from my lips. 
 I repressed it with all the force of energy I could 
 call up ; but I turned away, and, sitting on the 
 nearest chair, covered my face with my hands. 
 
 I do not know how many minutes or seconds I
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 119 
 
 liad sat thus. It seemed to me a long interval of 
 bewildered pain and bitterness. I felt at last a 
 band laid on mine, and a sweet piteous voice mur- 
 mured "Emanuel!" I allowed the hand that 
 covered my face to be drawn away ; and then I saw 
 that Christina was kneeling at my feet, and look- 
 ing up at me with eyes full of tears. 
 
 "0 forgive me!" she exclaimed; "my dear, 
 dear Emanuel, forgive me ; I did not know what I 
 was saying." 
 
 "You have cruelly misinterpreted me, Chris- 
 tina." 
 
 "I have indeed; and that is the second time 
 in our lives I have done so. But I will do so no 
 more. How could I use such cruel, shameful, false 
 words to you ! But I was disappointed ; 0, so 
 bitterly disappointed ; and I was mad." 
 
 "Dearest Christina, you know — if you do not, 
 at least Heaven knows — that I only think of your 
 happiness, that I only shrink from exposing you 
 to utter poverty." 
 
 " But what else have I suffered from my birth ? 
 I am well used to poverty. Ah, if you did but 
 know all ! I prefer any poverty, even alone, to 
 going to my brother. Why should I fear it with
 
 120 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 you ? But I will not talk in that way any more ; 
 I was foolish and wild ; and you were right not to 
 heed my folly. You are calm and have sense, and 
 you know the world." 
 
 "You are a true woman, a true heroine," I 
 said, my bitterness wholly melted away by her 
 sweetness and submission, "and you would rather 
 have the courage which springs without counting 
 the consequences than that which calculates and 
 waits. So would I, perhaps, if the consequences 
 only affected myself alone ; but a man who has the 
 happiness of the woman he loves placed in his 
 hands must not plunge headlong with her and 
 himself too. No, my dearest, the courage which 
 endures is often the best. We can wait for our 
 career." 
 
 "We must wait indeed, Emmanuel; and per- 
 haps a long time. You must have thought me a 
 wild, romantic fool. I am sorry now, for I see 
 that you are right." 
 
 "Then I have convinced you?" I asked joy- 
 ously, proud of my pitiful and jealous prudence, 
 as if it were anything but faint-heartedness, sus- 
 picion, and folly. 
 
 "You have convinced me," she said, in a low,
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 121 
 
 sad voice. " Let us not speak of it now any 
 more, Emanuel; at least for to-night. I will 
 sing you something." 
 
 She sat clown to her piano and sang, and I 
 listened until the dusk deepened into night. We 
 parted with affection ; hut there was a sadness in 
 her manner which I might have thought ominous. 
 As I stood a moment below her window, I heard 
 her still faintly singing, and knew that she was 
 not sitting, hut moving through the room. I 
 walked slowly away, often looking hack ; suddenly 
 I heard her window raised, and, turning round, I 
 could see, in the deep purple of a late summer 
 night, the outline of her head and neck dark 
 against the sky. I thought she beckoned to me, 
 and I hurried back. 
 
 " Only to say good-bye," she said in a whisper; 
 and she seemed strangely fluttered and excited. 
 "I only wanted to say good-bye once more, dear- 
 est ; just good-bye." 
 
 As she leaned from the window a rose she was 
 wearing in her breast fell at my feet. I took it up 
 and put it to my lips. Some coming footsteps 
 were heard, and she whispered in a very faint, 
 very sad tone the word "Ade." Then she quickly
 
 122 
 
 HY ENEMY S DAUGHTER. 
 
 closed the window and drew the curtain, and I 
 could see her no more. 
 
 Her voice lingered in my ears as I went slowly 
 home, and was in my dreams all night. I longed 
 for the next night, that I might listen to it 
 again. 
 
 So the next day dragged heavily through, and 
 I was impatient of it, of myself, of everything, 
 feverishly anxious to meet her again ; haunted 
 fretfully hy a fear that I had made myself look 
 mean in her eyes ; hy a doubt whether, after all, 
 my wisdom had not been folly ; by a vague fore- 
 boding of disunion between us. I made many 
 mistakes and blunders that da}*; and Mr. Bol- 
 lington more than once put up his double eye- 
 glass and looked at me with cold significant 
 scrutiny. 
 
 At last the hour came for leaving the office. I 
 was at the door, rejoiced to be free in the evening 
 sunlight; when a small boy, whom I knew well, 
 came up and handed me a letter. The urchin was 
 the youngest son of the poor watchmaker who had 
 the shop over which Christina lived, and he was 
 often bribed with buns, apples, and halfpence to 
 act as letter-carrier between us. So I knew at
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 123- 
 
 once what he came for, and I snatched at his 
 letter. 
 
 " 0, hut stop," said the young varlet ; " is the 
 office closed for the day ?" 
 
 " Yes, Tom ; what of that ?" 
 
 "And you are home for the day?" 
 
 "Yes, yes. Why do you ask questions, you 
 little imp ?" 
 
 "Because she told me I wasn't to give it to 
 you until you were coming away. I've had it in 
 my pocket ever so long." 
 
 So he gave me the letter, and darted down the 
 street, alternately whooping and whistling. 
 
 I opened it and read : 
 
 "My Well-beloved, Farewell ! I have thought 
 and thought, and I see we must not marry yet. 
 0, forgive me, Emanuel, and he not so very sorry 
 or lonely. I think we must not meet for a long 
 time. I am gone away, and you must not think 
 of following me or seeking me ; for the Heaven 
 has told me that now I could only he an encum- 
 brance to you, and that if we were married now, 
 you would be sorry one day. I go away that I 
 may some time be able to help you. If ever I
 
 124 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 can, then we shall meet again, for I will find you 
 and come to you. If not, then far better we meet 
 no -more. Either way it will he better, and you 
 will thank me some time, and say Christina had 
 right. I love you still; all the same as ever. 
 Still love me : farewell, and think of me often, as 
 I shall never, never forget you. 
 
 " Christina." 
 
 This was all. The letter was written in the 
 quaint half-German character and the constrained 
 foreign style which I knew so well. I turned down 
 a dark lane out of the sunny street ; the ground 
 seemed to heave under my feet, and black spots 
 danced before my eyes in the sunlight. I was not 
 far from the sea — my old, old confidant; and I 
 hurried to it as if my lost love were to be found 
 by its margin. Staggering, slipping, with dazed 
 eyes and choking throat and bursting heart, I 
 reached the strand, and flung myself down, and 
 read the letter again and again and again. And 
 then I laid my head upon the ring of a rusty an- 
 chor, and I broke into a boyish passion and tem- 
 pest of tears. She had made her choice — and left 
 me ! Of the beautiful happy life that had grown
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 125 
 
 up around us, and that seemed destined to live 
 with our lives, there was nothing left me but my 
 memory, my grief, my agony — a few letters, and 
 the flower that last night had fallen from her 
 breast. 
 
 From that time I never saw her face for ten 
 long years. 
 
 Did I make any effort to recover her ? Did I 
 not ? All I could learn at her lodgings was simply 
 that she had gone by the London coach, and that 
 she had said she was going to her brother's. I 
 hurried up to London by the very next coach — 
 with what result I need hardly say. Utterly a 
 stranger in the metropolis, my search there was 
 quite thrown away. I could only learn at the- 
 coach-office that such a girl had actually travelled 
 to tow r n the day before, and that was all anybody 
 knew of her. I wasted days in hunting about the 
 docks for Dantzic or Ivonigsberg ships or steamers. 
 I found nothing of her. Then I bethought me 
 that she might have gone to Hull, and I too went 
 to Hull ; of course utterly too late to have stopped 
 her even had she gone there. I had made up my 
 mind to follow her, when it occurred to me that 
 perhaps, after all, she had relented and written ta
 
 126 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 me some word of comfort and guidance, and I 
 hurried back to my native town. No letter awaited 
 me, and I resolved at least to try the last chance 
 and follow her to her brother's. I remembered 
 the name of the street in which her brother lived, 
 and it could not be difficult to find the house. 
 Besides, I was now seized with a detestation of 
 our town and all that belonged to it; and it 
 seemed to me that I must leave it or go mad. 
 The thought of living there without her, of toiling 
 there uncheered and unloved, of spending drear 
 evenings alone where I had been so happy, of 
 looking up at the window where she could no 
 longer be seen ; all this was simply intolerable to 
 me. I had never entered my old employer's door 
 from the evening when I received Christina's let- 
 ter. What Mr. Bollington thought of me, or 
 whether he thought about me at all, I cared no- 
 thing. I sent no explanation or word of any kind. 
 I had some little money saved; I sold some few 
 poor things, and got a little more money; and I 
 took a passage in a Baltic vessel which was to put 
 in at Dantzic. One fair sweet autumn evening I 
 looked back on the strand where I had read Chris- 
 tina's letter, and watched the white houses of the
 
 THE PATHS DIVIDE. 127 
 
 old town of my childhood, and the hill whereon 
 was my mother's grave, until all sank out of sight, 
 and with them closed the first bright chapter of 
 my life. 
 
 The weather changed, and we had a rough, 
 slow, miserable passage. Our wretched heavy old 
 tub was beaten about the North Sea and the Baltic 
 so long that it seemed to me as if life had been 
 actually changed into a perpetual tossing on broken 
 wintry waters. At last we reached Dantzie, and I 
 made my way to Christina's native town, — a town 
 of canals and islands, and numberless bridges, and 
 steep, narrow, darkling streets, with whole popula- 
 tions living in each house. I found Christina's 
 people at last. They received me at first coldly, 
 and even harshly, regarding me as her evil genius ; 
 but having at length come to understand that she 
 had renounced me, they lapsed into pity and were 
 kind. But they knew nothing about her — abso- 
 lutely nothing. She had not come there ; she had 
 not written any reply to their last letter. My 
 coming first told them that she had left her old 
 home. My journey had been utterly fruitless and 
 futile. 
 
 I took a passage again for England. Sick at
 
 128 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 heart, and weak in frame, with only two or three 
 sovereigns left, I landed one wet, foggy evening 
 near the Tower of London. As I stepped ashore 
 I said to myself, "Here, then, in London will I 
 stay. I accept battle here. I will succeed here or 
 fail. I will live here, if I can ; if not, I do not 
 much care how or how soon I am to die here. 
 Here I shall meet Christina again, or nowhere."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 
 
 So I kept my word, and drudged for years in the 
 solitude and darkness of London poverty and 
 struggle. I gave myself up to the teaching of 
 music and to concert-singing, when I could get a 
 decent engagement, or indeed any engagement at 
 all. Understand that mine was for a long time a 
 hard struggle. I lived in a garret — I was familiar 
 with hunger. The details of the first few years 
 may be spared. Stories of struggles in London 
 by rising young men have all a sort of family re- 
 semblance ; indeed, they are as much alike as 
 Lely's court beauties ; and if they sometimes dif- 
 fer in catastrophe — one adventurous career ending 
 in Westminster Abbey, and another in the Lam- 
 beth Workhouse — so one court beauty may have 
 died in the purple, and another in the lazarhouse. 
 I do not care to weary the reader with a minute 
 account of my struggles for a living ; I only ask 
 VOL. i. k
 
 130 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 him to understand that they were real and hard ; 
 that for a time they regularly included actual 
 want ; that they often meant destitution ; that 
 hunger was a common condition ; that once or 
 twice I thought it likely enough my fate must be 
 to die of starvation. Let us pass over all this, 
 and come to a time when I began to have a cer- 
 tain income, however small; when I had a few 
 substantial engagements as a teacher of singing 
 and music, and was beginning to think of strug- 
 gling my way to Italy in the hope of returning 
 thence a qualified candidate for a place on the 
 lyric stage. For on this I had set my heart. 
 Pride, disappointment, baffled love, all conspired 
 to make this seem the necessary task of my life. 
 To prove myself — even were it only to myself — 
 not a failure, not a coward, was a resolution within 
 me strong and tenacious as revenge. It was, in- 
 deed, my revenge. 
 
 I will not say that the memory of Christina 
 had not somewhat softened, faded into a gentler 
 recollection, during all this time. But its impres- 
 sion was always with me, giving sadness or cour- 
 age, hope or despondency, as my chances and my 
 mood would have it; always, most certainly, ex-
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 131 
 
 alting and purifying the mournful monotony of 
 my drudging life by the memory of something 
 beautiful, tender, and distant. For years of my 
 life I was in the habit daily of going up and down 
 the river in the boats, and I became an intense 
 admirer of St. Paul's. I admire that building — 
 forgive me if the confession show stupidity and 
 want of taste — more than Pantheon or Colosseum, 
 than Westminster Abbey or Notre Dame, or Co- 
 logne or Antwerp Cathedral, or St. Peter's or St. 
 Sophia's. To look up at it from Blackfriars-bridge 
 on a winter evening, when a cold heaven and a 
 few whitening clouds are behind, and the dome 
 seems a mere flat shape against the sky, a mere 
 form and outline, delighted me. To see it spark- 
 ling in the rosy colour of a summer morning, with 
 light and shade succeeding each other on its spires 
 and its rounded sides, or rising out of the masses 
 of sunset cloud-heaps like a glimpse of some glo- 
 rious heaven-city, was a sight still more exquisite. 
 Even when the November fog is around it, and its 
 outlines can only be seen at broken and vague in- 
 tervals, it is a delight to think that behind that 
 curtain of vapour lie rich spires and domes which 
 one breath of wind might reveal in all their beauty.
 
 132 my enemy's daughtee. 
 
 In whatever season or hour, it seems to me to ro- 
 manticise and to sanctify the hideous commonplace 
 stretch of roofs and chimneys, and wharves and 
 the leaden Lethean river, on which it looks. So 
 was the memory of Christina, and the presence of 
 my love and even of my disappointment, in my 
 hard and commonplace life. 
 
 Sometimes I have deliberately come to one of 
 the bridges in the early morning, and stood in one 
 of the recesses and watched the different phases of 
 beauty the glorious dome would assume in the 
 glowing light and the changing clouds, until per- 
 haps at last the whole air filled with brightness, 
 and every cloud vanished, and the dome and cross 
 were alone in the blue heaven. But these were 
 rare enjoyments. Generally I caught glimpses of 
 my favourite building as I made my way among 
 the bustling crowds on the bridges or on Ludgate- 
 hill, or as I passed beneath in one of the penny 
 steamers. So, too, of my memory of Christina. 
 Sometimes I had an hour or a whole evening to 
 give to my boyish love, and I brought her back 
 before my mind and my eyes until she stood as 
 clear and as lifelike before me as when we lived in 
 Arcadia together. But these, too, were rare de-
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 135 
 
 lights. In ordinary life I only caught mental 
 glimpses of her as I fought my way through vul- 
 gar difficulties, and obtained some mean and com- 
 monplace advantages. But the influence was there 
 always. I am a believer in beauty and nature and 
 love, and all the rest of it. With a memory like 
 mine, a faint hope, a strong purpose like mine, 
 life could never become wholly vulgar or contemp- 
 tible. " So long," says the great prose-poet whom 
 Christina's father used to read to us in the old 
 nights, "as the sun keeps but the slenderest rim 
 of its disc uneclipsed, the world is not given up to 
 darkness." 
 
 All this time, be it understood, my ordinary 
 way of life was very prosaic, poor, and mean. I 
 was now — say seven years or so after my coming 
 to London — only just lifting my head above mere 
 poverty. I was utterly obscure. I was living in 
 a low and swampy district on the Surrey bank of 
 the Thames, in the Putney direction. I lodged 
 there with a poor, respectable, and ladylike old 
 person, whose appearance attracted me when I 
 happened to come that way hunting for cheap and 
 airy apartments. The neighbouring population 
 consisted chiefly of brick-makers and market-gar-
 
 134 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 deners. A park having been promised, a few rows 
 of cheap stuccoed houses were built, and chris- 
 tened Albert -terraces, Garibaldi - villas, Alnia- 
 places, and such other appropriate and attractive 
 names as the whirligig of time chanced to bring- 
 within the easy intellectual range of speculating 
 builders. The roads were damp and undrained, 
 and the whole place looked specially cheerless. 
 The inhabitants of the terraces, villas, and places 
 in no case belonged to the indigenous population, 
 but were of a half-genteel, half-pauper, and wholly 
 nomad class, like ourselves. Many people tried 
 letting lodgings or opening schools there, and 
 failed. One or two persons having privately the 
 care of insane patients, and probably rather anx- 
 ious to keep them insane, brought them to bide in 
 this dismal swamp. A few government civil offi- 
 cers — Customs, Inland Eevenue, &c. — who had 
 not risen in their departments, came and settled 
 there. A forlorn water-colour painter, a hopeless 
 photographer, were among our neighbours ; in 
 fact, any kind of people, who, dreadfully poor, yet 
 would not wholly abandon the appearance of gen- 
 tility, drifted thither naturally. So long as the 
 villas and cottages were kept in decent repair,
 
 FEOM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 135 
 
 they looked pleasant enough, and indeed rather 
 fine and imposing. A semi-detached villa with a 
 vast row of steps, and urns at either side, some- 
 what awed the visitor -at first ; but the urns were 
 full of dry mud and dead leaves and spiders ; the 
 drawing-room was uncarpeted and hardly fur- 
 nished ; a dirty slatternly servant, or a little girl 
 with a torn frock and curl-papers, opened the 
 door ; grass and weeds grew upon the sides of the 
 parapets ; the only traffic consisted of great coal- 
 wagons going to and from the neighbouring rail- 
 way-stations. The lanes were blocked up with 
 perpetual mud ; the frog looked in at the kitchen 
 window; the maggot and the worm made them- 
 selves free of the back-parlour. Here and there 
 small rows of shops had been begun, and suddenly 
 stopped, and no one ever seemed to have any idea 
 of completing them. My landlady's daughter 
 called the whole settlement " a refuge for the des- 
 titute." It was decaying, but not venerable ; it 
 was new, but not fresh ; it had all the disadvan- 
 tages of newness, and all the defects of age. I 
 heard a lady near whom I happened to sit one 
 evening in a river-steamer describe it to a com- 
 panion, when its swampy flats came in sight, as
 
 136 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " a deathy place." The phrase was picturesque, 
 effective, and very appropriate. It did look a 
 deathy place ; but it had the advantages — to me 
 supreme — of being very cheap, and of having easy 
 access to the river, and therefore to town. In this 
 refuge for the destitute, then, began my march to 
 wealth ; in this deathy place opened my struggle 
 for life. 
 
 My landlady and her daughter were poor — 
 dreadfully poor. I had seen enough of poverty in 
 my own town, and indeed in my own surround- 
 ings, but somehow it was not poverty like that of 
 Mrs. Lyndon and her daughter Lilla. Provincial 
 poverty is hardly ever indeed quite the same as 
 London poverty — there is all the difference that 
 exists between a thatched hovel and a Drury-lane 
 garret. But that was not the difference here ; 
 Mrs. Lyndon was always clean, neat, and well- 
 dressed ; and she always seemed to be able to get 
 mutton-chops for her daughter's dinner. The 
 daughter always dressed like a girl accustomed to 
 wear good clothes, and therefore not afraid to be 
 occasionally shabby. She never looked worse than 
 like a lady in dishabille. There was none of the 
 artful neatness, the mournful nervous precision
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 137 
 
 of conscious poverty about her. "What on earth 
 did they live on, that mother and daughter? I 
 had been with them now for a long time ; I was 
 constantly being consulted by mother and daugh- 
 ter about their pecuniary affairs. I sometimes 
 counted over the amount which I knew the lodgers 
 to pay, and it still left a pound or two of the 
 house-rent unaccounted for, and the rates and 
 taxes altogether unapproached. Every other day 
 some tax-collector called and left a paper. These 
 documents used to lie in little dusty, sooty piles 
 on the chinmeypiece ; I do not know that Mrs. 
 Lyndon ever thought about attempting to pay off 
 any of them. I scarcely ever came in at the door 
 without seeing some collector arguing and threat- 
 ening in vain. I think the dwellers in these 
 neighbourhoods used to allow debts of this and 
 other kinds to run up until they reached an in- 
 surmountable pile, and then they removed at night 
 to another locality. They were up to all manner 
 of dodges. Sometimes the house was taken in 
 the daughter's name ; and this fact enabled the 
 mother, who was always at home, to waive the 
 responsibility away from herself and stave-off the 
 collectors a little longer. They seemed ashamed
 
 138 my enemy's daughtek. 
 
 of nothing. Lilla would entertain me sometimes 
 through a whole afternoon's walk with narratives 
 of the straits to which they had been driven, and 
 the success with which they had come through 
 them. You could not contemplate poverty of this 
 sort without an impression that in its meanness 
 and its cynicism it bordered on vice, and yet its 
 endurance, its frankness, its cheerful determina- 
 tion were dashed with a flavour of a kind of virtue. 
 You must pity people so hard-up, and you must 
 also feel a certain contempt for them ; and yet in 
 my case I could not help liking them, trusting in 
 them, and feeling something resembling affection 
 for them. They were in every sense so kind- 
 hearted, in one sense at least so true; and then 
 we were all so hard-up together, that mere neces- 
 sity and propinquity made us companionable, as 
 people may be who are forced to pass the night 
 beneath the same tree in Hyde-park, or under the 
 same dry arch of the Adelphi. 
 
 A girl like Lilla Lyndon was, to my provincial 
 mind, a perfectly wonderful phenomenon. She 
 was extremely pretty, with dark skin, and crisp 
 wavy dark hair, and bright, laughing, twinkling 
 eyes, and a smile the most confident, sweet, and
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 139 
 
 winning one could well be gladdened by. She had 
 plenty of talk, and she talked in a voice just a 
 little sharp, but with a charming accent; and in 
 whatever poverty and privation, she had something 
 like the manners of a lady. But these were not 
 the peculiarities which most struck me. I was 
 principally surprised by her inexhaustible know- 
 ledge of practical life. How old was she? Hardly 
 twenty, I should think, at the time I am now 
 telling of, and yet she seemed to know London, 
 its ways, its people, its life, its tricks and dodges, 
 high and low, to the very heart. No royal road 
 was that which had led to such learning ! Many 
 a hard struggle must have been battled through 
 before such sad practical experience of the world's 
 warfare could be got into that pretty little curly 
 head. 
 
 Lilla always dressed with an appearance of 
 fashion. If a new style of bonnet came in, I 
 sometimes found her at night working away at 
 her own old bonnet, and next day it was converted 
 into a very deceptive imitation of the reigning 
 mode. She reconstructed her dresses as often as 
 the British Board of Admiralty reconstruct their 
 war-ships. When crinoline came in, she was in
 
 140 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 the front of the fashion, with petticoats wide 
 enough for a duchess. She was always doing 
 some mending work to stockings and slippers. 
 She was absolutely without hypocrisy or deceit 
 of any kind ; even the pardonable feminine de- 
 ception which keeps ready to hand a piece of 
 crochet-work or bead- ornamentation to be pro- 
 duced the moment a tap at the door announces 
 a visitor, while the real piece of work, the pair of 
 stays or flannel petticoat in process of repair, is 
 hastily thrust under the sofa-cushion. Whatever 
 Lilla Lyndon was doing when you came in, that 
 she kept on doing as unconcernedly as before. 
 You found her darning a stocking, perhaps, and 
 she continued the work — sometimes, it may be, 
 calling your special attention to the frayed and 
 tattered condition of the article. You found her 
 in curl-papers, and she volunteered the admission 
 that she was too lazy to take them out when get- 
 ting up that morning, or that she wanted her hair 
 to be in particularly good curl that evening — 
 perhaps because her uncle was going to take her 
 somewhere. She was ashamed of nothing that 
 she did. Let me do prompt justice to a Clevel- 
 and pretty girl, and say, to prevent my readers
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 141 
 
 from misjudging her, that she never did anything 
 to be ashamed of, except talk-over creditors, and 
 go in debt when she had no prospect of paying. 
 She was honest in every way except as regarded 
 creditors ; and you could as easily have convinced 
 a cat that it is dishonourable to steal cream as 
 induced Lilla Lyndon at this period of her life to 
 believe that the laws of morality have anything to 
 do with the relations between debtor and creditor. 
 Lilla's uncle was for some time a mysterious 
 and mythical personage to me. The very first 
 day I became acquainted with mother and daugh- 
 ter I heard of the uncle, who was a member of 
 Parliament, and had an estate in Leicestershire, 
 and who would not do much for them now, but 
 they hoped would do something some day for 
 Lilla. They did not boast of him by any means 
 in the manner of ordinary poor people dragging- 
 in a story of a rich relation, but simply referred 
 to him as their one sole possible resource and 
 holdfast in utter emergencies. Gradually I came 
 to hear of the various arts and expedients by which 
 Lilla contrived from time to time to coax or wring 
 a few pounds out of him. Mrs. Lyndon never 
 ventured to go near him. There was a sort of
 
 142 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 treaty, I fancy, that she was never to intrude on 
 him. I could gather from them that he could 
 never forgive her for having heen virtuous, and 
 having thus rendered it necessary for his brother, 
 when he fell in love with her, a poor girl, to marry 
 her. He was now more angry with her than ever 
 because she was poor and lonely, old and shabby. 
 No doubt many of her shifts and schemes and 
 pressing appeals for money often made the rela- 
 tionship seem a very discreditable thing. The 
 mother and daughter had not known him very 
 long. Lilla's childhood had been passed in Hea- 
 ven knows what poverty and meanness, her mother 
 never daring to apply to the wealthy and offended 
 relative. Lilla herself told me, with some pride 
 and much laughter, how she, being driven to utter 
 desperation one day, determined upon hunting 
 down her uncle, and how she found him out in 
 his great house in Mayfair, and faced the pow- 
 dered servants, and insisted upon seeing him ; 
 how she waited outside the hall -door for two 
 mortal hours, very cold, very hungry, but reso- 
 lute, and prepared for the encounter by being 
 dressed in whatever finery she had got; how at 
 last she saw him, and was rather gruffly received ;
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 143 
 
 how she began to cry, thinking that the proper 
 way to soften a cruel uncle, but was soon unde- 
 ceived by the cruel uncle telling her sternly that 
 he hated crying women, whereupon she desisted 
 from weeping, the more readily because she had 
 not the least inclination to cry; and how at last 
 she compelled him to admit the relationship, and 
 came away with a permission to call again and a 
 ten-pound note. This present she changed at the 
 nearest shop, and treated herself forthwith to a 
 pair of gloves, a new bonnet, a fowl to be brought 
 home for dinner, and a hansom cab to her own 
 door. 
 
 Since then she had never lost sight of him. 
 He must either have begun to accept her exist- 
 ence and her visits as a kind of dispensation not 
 to be any longer resisted, or she must have really 
 succeeded, with her pretty face, genteel figure, 
 and coaxing ways, in making him fond of her. 
 He was a widower, and had daughters of his own ; 
 but they would never see Lilla, who for her own 
 part was only too happy to escape seeing them ; 
 and all her visits therefore were paid in the ab- 
 sence of these inflexible ladies. Mr. Lyndon 
 seemed to me, by Lilla's own admission, to have
 
 144 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 done a good deal for her. He had obtained for 
 her situations as governess in various families in 
 London, in Cheltenham, in Edinburgh, in Bath, 
 in Scarborough ; but she always quitted her place 
 somewhat abruptly, and came back to her mother 
 revelling and rejoicing in her freedom, which she 
 celebrated by laying out part of the balance of her 
 salary in a fowl, or oysters, or a lobster, or some- 
 thing nice for supper. Terrible trouble had she 
 each time to make her explanations and excuses 
 to her uncle, and cozen him into forgiving her. 
 From various hints and stray words, I conjectured 
 that she did not get on well with the ladies of any 
 family ; and I fancy she had the evil fate, either 
 by intention or innocent inadvertence, to attract 
 a good deal too much of the notice of the hus- 
 bands, brothers, sons, friends, and male visitors 
 generally, of the houses into which she was suc- 
 cessively introduced. 
 
 I oftened marvelled that, in a place like Lon- 
 don, so quick and clever a girl as Lilla could find 
 no way of converting her energy and ingenuity 
 into money. But practical capacity of this kind 
 she seemed not to have, or not to care about 
 exerting. I began to find, too, that the counsels
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 145 
 
 of her mother did not much tend to make her 
 industrious to any purpose. 
 
 "My Lilly is a good girl," poor Mrs. Lyndon 
 would say to me ; "a good girl, Mr. Banks, al- 
 though I say it. She ought to be a lady; and 
 perhaps she will be one day. If I were dead and 
 out of the way, I think, perhaps, they would make 
 her a lady. She isn't fit to lead this kind of life ; 
 she's too delicate and too refined; anybody can 
 see that. She can't eat the kind of dinners I have 
 to set before her sometimes, poor child." 
 
 Lilla was immensely fond of the pastrycook's 
 shop, and had a taste for lobster-salad as finely 
 developed as ever I saw. There was something 
 unspeakably touching in the manner and tone of 
 the old woman when she spoke of this bouncing 
 London lass, and the sincerity with which she 
 evidently regarded her as too delicate and fragile 
 for the coarse world around. 
 
 " She isn't strong like me," the emaciated old 
 creature would say, the tears blinking in her sad 
 and faded eyes. " I was a farmer's daughter, Mr. 
 Banks, passing half my days in the fields and the 
 open air, not like a poor peaky Londoner. I was 
 a fine, stout, rosy girl at Lilly's age; and long 
 
 VOL. I. l
 
 146 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 before that I could cook and bake and brew, and 
 put my band to every tiling about the farm. Once 
 we bad a great harvest-home dinner, and I cooked 
 a beautiful fawn for the day; and 0, bless you, 
 the praise I got for it ! My father called me up 
 to the table, and the farmers all drank my health, 
 and told me I'd make such a splendid farmer's 
 wife. I was that proud, I can tell you; and I 
 didn't expect then to be living in London a poor 
 old woman. But my poor Lilly was brought up 
 in town, and I never had much to give her, dear 
 child; and she can't be expected to look strong 
 and well as country girls do." 
 
 Mrs. Lyndon was not a widow. That piece 
 of information had been volunteered to me by 
 Lilla. Lilla told me her father had deserted them, 
 and gone abroad somewhere, and had not since 
 been heard of. 
 
 Sometimes when I came home late at night I 
 used to find my way down to the kitchen, where 
 the embers of the fire were generally burning, and 
 where I could smoke a pipe with a clear conscience, 
 having no curtains to fumigate and no one to ren- 
 der uncomfortable. One night, as I was going 
 down, I was surprised to see a light below. Think-
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 147 
 
 ing the gas had been left burning by mistake, I 
 went down ; and when just on the last stair, I saw 
 that Mrs. Lyndon was still up. She was seated 
 with her back to me, and leant over the table. 
 Was she asleep ? I stooped forward to see. No ; 
 she was awake, and bent over something which 
 she was moving between her hands. Old stories 
 of misers in the depth of lonely night counting 
 their secret stores of gold, came whimsically 
 enough to my mind. She had no gold, however; 
 only a decayed old pack of blackened cards spread 
 before her. I softly withdrew ; I had seen enough ; 
 I had fathomed all the poor, sad little mystery 
 with one involuntary glance. I too was of Ar- 
 cadia ; I too had come up from the country, where 
 superstitions are still a faith, and omens and divi- 
 nations defy Hamlet's philosophy. I knew at once 
 that Mrs. Lyndon was trying some feeble, sad 
 sibylline work. Poor old creature, with her early 
 and childish country superstitions still clinging 
 round her, she was sorting the cards, to discover 
 in them some tidings of the husband who had 
 deserted her — some hint as to the fortunes of the 
 daughter whom she was breaking her heart to 
 bring up as a lady.
 
 148 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Late that night I heard a hansom cab drive 
 up to the door. I was reading something in my 
 own room, and I looked out of the window. Some- 
 one got out of the cab and handed Lilla to the 
 door- step. She was in opera costume — wherever 
 on earth she had got it — and she looked indeed 
 very attractive, and apparently very joyous, as she 
 tripped up the steps. It was an elderly gentleman 
 who accompanied her. I could see his iron-gray 
 hair and rather red face. Lilla opened the door 
 with her latch-key, while he got into the cab and 
 drove off. I could hear him giving directions to 
 the cabman in a peculiarly strident voice. Lilla 
 crept very softly downstairs, where I suppose her 
 mother was still sitting up for her. 
 
 Next morning I chanced to meet my young 
 friend. "0, Mr. Banks," she broke out, "I have 
 such a headache." 
 
 " You were dissipating last night," I answered. 
 " That is what comes of late hours." 
 
 " How do you know? Did you see me come 
 in?" 
 
 " Yes, that I did." 
 
 " I am so glad ? Did I look well ?" 
 
 " Charming."
 
 FROM ARCADIA TO BOHEMIA. 149 
 
 " Did I really? Yes ; my uncle took me to the 
 Opera, and gave me the dress and cloak to go in 
 — was not that kind of him ? — and it was so de- 
 lightful !" 
 
 " The music ? What opera was it ?" 
 
 " 0, Ficlelio. But I didn't care about the 
 music ; at least, I mean I didn't care so much 
 about it. I was so happy, and delighted with 
 everything, and especially myself. I was a lady 
 for a whole night ! And we were in the stalls — 
 I love the stalls ! I never was there before — and 
 we had supper afterwards ! And we drove home 
 in a hansom. Now I have a headache ; but I don't 
 mind, for it's such a long time since I had a new 
 dress ; and I was so happy." 
 
 I could not help thinking of the poor old 
 mother in the damp kitchen, spelling over her 
 pack of cards. 
 
 Indeed I could never look at that poor old 
 woman without wondering for what unknown pur- 
 pose she was ever sent upon earth, in what in- 
 scrutable way Heaven would compensate her in 
 some world hereafter for her joyless drudgery 
 here. Not merely was she not happy herself, but 
 with the kindliest heart, the most unselfish
 
 150 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 nature in the world, she did not seem to have 
 the power of making anyone else happy. What 
 hopeless misfortune had crushed her into beg- 
 garly inertness so young, I did not know ; but 
 so long, at least, as Lilla's memory seemed to go 
 back, the lives of the pair had been one uninter- 
 mittent, humiliating, demoralising battle with 
 poverty. Poverty and drudgery appeared to have 
 crushed quite out of Mrs. Lyndon all the feeling 
 of religion which everywhere but in London seems 
 to cling to the old and the unfortunate. The 
 butcher and baker left her no time to think of 
 heaven. Her one thought was for her daughter : 
 to get the pretty girl enough to eat, to cook tender 
 chops for her, to have little dainties for her break- 
 fast and her supper, to keep her in clothes, to 
 guard her against consumption, to dream of her 
 one day becoming a lady. 
 
 As for the daughter, she was simply a kind- 
 hearted, bright, clever little heathen, not surely 
 incapable of conversion and training if any high- 
 minded creature could but take her in hand. Just 
 now no Fayaway, no naked girl of South- Sea 
 islands, could be a more thorough pagan than 
 my graceful and pretty friend Lilla Lyndon.
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 
 
 Meanwhile I am free to own that I liked the 
 company of my pretty pagan ; indeed, it bright- 
 ened life very much to me. When I was most 
 lonely and unfriended, these people had been 
 strangely kind to me, and our common poverty 
 and struggles made us — I was almost about to 
 say unnaturally — certainly unusually familiar and 
 friendly. Of course no young man of my age 
 could ever be wholly indifferent to the company 
 of a pretty and attractive girl ; and I really grew 
 quite fond of Lilla. I was not in the least in 
 love with her, nor did she, I feel assured, ever 
 think of me in the light of a possible lover ; but 
 we were very friendly and familiar, and indeed, 
 in a sort of quiet confident way, attached to each 
 other. A happy Bohemian independence of pub- 
 lic opinion emancipated our movements. She
 
 152 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 and I generally walked out together on Sundays 
 in the desolate suburbs, or across the swamp 
 which was undergoing slow conversion into a 
 park. Sometimes, as I came home in the even- 
 ing, after giving some music-lessons — or, for 
 that matter, tuning a piano — I met her going 
 towards town, and I turned back and walked 
 with her. Much amazed I used to be at first 
 by her close knowledge of the shortest way to 
 get everywhere, and of every shop where the 
 best things to eat or wear or drink were to be 
 had at the lowest possible prices. 
 
 Our talk was generally lively enough ; but 
 there were days when I became so saddened by 
 my memories and my dull prospects that I 
 really could not brighten ; and then Lilla, in 
 order to encourage me, told me all kinds of 
 stories of her own occasional trials and dis- 
 tresses, as well as of people she had known, 
 who, having been reduced to the very depths of 
 despair, fell in with some lucky fortune, and 
 were raised at once to high position and afflu- 
 ence. Most of those stories, to be sure, were 
 told of young women reduced to serve in shops, 
 whom some men of enormous wealth fell in love
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 153 
 
 with and married; so that I could scarcely de- 
 rive much encouragement from their application 
 to my own personal condition. But it was easy 
 to see with what a horizon fortune had hounded 
 poor Lilla's earthly amhition. She had no genius 
 for any work that did not directly conduce to 
 personal adornment, and she had a very strong 
 desire for wealth and ease. 
 
 " My only chance," she said frankly one 
 day, "is to marry somehody who has money. 
 I am sick of this place and this life. If I mar- 
 ried a rich greengrocer even, I should be far, 
 far happier than I am. I should have a home 
 for my mother, and a cart to drive about in on 
 Sundays, when the greengrocer did not want it 
 for his business ; and then mother and I would 
 leave him at home on the Sundays to smoke in 
 the back-kitchen, while we went out for a drive; 
 and we could call for you and take you with us. 
 I must marry somebody with money." 
 
 " Suppose, in the mean time, somebody with- 
 out money comes in the way, and you fall in 
 love with him ?" 
 
 " Love ? Nonsense. Love is a luxury be- 
 yond my means, sir. Besides, do you know,
 
 154: my enemy's daughter. 
 
 I think debts and poverty make some of us 
 cold-hearted or no-hearted, and we are not capa- 
 ble of falling in love. Seriously, I don't think 
 I could be." 
 
 " Then I hope no friend of mine will fall in 
 love with you." 
 
 "I am sure I hope not — unless he has 
 money. I don't believe I have such a thing as 
 a heart." 
 
 "You ought to have told me all this before, 
 Lilla. How do you know what agony you may 
 be inflicting on my heart ?" 
 
 I thought she would have laughed at this, 
 but she looked at me quite gravely, and even 
 sympathetically. 
 
 "Ah, no," she said quietly; "you are safe 
 enough — from me at least ; I can see that." 
 
 " Why, Miss Lyndon ? Pray tell me." 
 
 "Don't ask me; but don't think me a fool. 
 Have I not eyes? Can't I see that your heart 
 is gone long ago in some disastrous way or 
 other, and that you can't recover it; and don't 
 you think I am sorry for you ? Yes ; as much 
 as if you were my brother." 
 
 "Ah, Lilla, you have far more heart than
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 155 
 
 you would have me think. Not your eyes saw, 
 but your heart." 
 
 And we neither spoke any more on that sub- 
 ject. But I knew that under my pretty pagan's 
 plump bosom there beat a heart which the love 
 of lobster-salad, and the hopes of a rich husband, 
 and all the duty of dodging duns, could not 
 rob of its genial blood-warmth. 
 
 Lilla had, like most London girls of her class 
 and temperament, a passion for the theatre. She 
 knew the ways of every theatre, and something 
 about the private lives of all the actors and ac- 
 tresses, and who was married to whom, and who 
 were not married at all, and who was in debt, 
 and who made ever so much money in the year, 
 and spent it or hoarded it, as the case might be. 
 She pointed you out a small cigar- shop, and told 
 you it was kept by the father of Miss Yashner, 
 the great tragic actress ; she called your atten- 
 tion to a small coal-and-potato store, and told 
 you it was there Mr. Wagstaife, the great man- 
 ager, began his career; she glanced at a beery, 
 snuffy little man in the street, and whispered 
 that he was the husband of the dashing Violet 
 Schonbein, who played the male parts in the
 
 156 
 
 burlesques and pantomimes, and whose figure 
 was the admiration of London. Her interest 
 did not lie so much in the stately opera-houses, 
 or even the theatres where legitimate tragedy 
 yet feebly protested its legitimacy and divine 
 right, as in the small pleasant houses where 
 comedians and piquant actresses could always 
 fill the benches. She knew where the best seats 
 were, and how to make use of an order to most 
 advantage ; and, indeed, seemed hardly ever to 
 have gone to a theatre except in the company of 
 somebody armed with such a missive. She had 
 been to parties of all kinds — to Kew, to Eich- 
 mond, to Vauxhall (yes, I think there was a 
 Vauxhall then), to Greenwich, to Dulwich, to 
 Kosherville. She appeared to have an intimate 
 knowledge of all the places where supper was to 
 be most comfortably and cheaply had in the 
 neighbourhood of each theatre. She had been 
 to the Derby ; and she never missed seeing the 
 Queen going to open Parliament, or even the 
 Lord Mayor's Show. She knew all about the 
 great people of London — the Duchess of Suther- 
 land, Lady Palmerston, and the like; and, by 
 some strange process of information, she often
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 157 
 
 used to get to know beforehand when grand balls 
 were given in the neighbourhood of Belgrave- 
 square or Park-lane, and she loved to go and 
 watch at the doors to see the ladies pass in. 
 Her uncle, she told me, had often promised to 
 take her to the Ladies' Gallery of the House of 
 Commons to hear a debate ; but as yet he had 
 not carried out his promise. He took her to the 
 National Gallery and the Eoyal Academy's Exhi- 
 bition ; but she did not much care about these 
 places of entertainment, and could not tell the 
 name of any picture or painter afterwards. Mr. 
 Lyndon, M.P., clearly wanted to impress her 
 with the necessity of some sort of mental cul- 
 ture, for he sent her a new piano and a heap 
 of books, and made her promise to learn. She 
 might have mastered most studies quickly enough 
 had she but shown the same aptitude for them 
 which she had for picking-up the private his- 
 tories of actresses and great ladies, for turning 
 and trimming old dresses, for reviving decayed 
 bonnets, and for stimulating flat porter, by the 
 application of soda, into a ghastly likeness of 
 bottled stout. 
 
 I thought her naturally so clever, and indeed
 
 158 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 I felt such a warm interest in her, that I set to 
 work to teach her something. The piano she 
 played very badly, and that I could teach her ; 
 singing I was likewise qualified to instruct her 
 in ; and French I spoke fluently enough. These, 
 then, I offered, and in fact was determined, to 
 teach her ; and she was very glad to learn, and, 
 when she was in humour for it, very quick and 
 docile. What she went about teaching in the 
 families where she had tried to be governess, I 
 never could guess. Just now I was glad she 
 knew so little, and that there were some things 
 I could teach her. I had nothing to do half my 
 time ; I was lonely and unfriended ; these people 
 had been kind to me, as indeed kindness was a 
 part of their nature, and I felt so grateful that I 
 was only too glad to have any chance of showing 
 my gratitude. So I became Lilla's music-master 
 and French teacher when I could and when she 
 would; and Mrs. Lyndon was delighted. The 
 good woman trusted me entirely. She had so 
 often told me what her dreams and hopes for her 
 daughter were, that she knew so poor a caitiff as 
 myself would never be mean enough to play Mar- 
 plot by making love to Lilla. We were all poor
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 159 
 
 together, and Mrs. Lyndon felt that hawks would 
 not pick hawks' eyes out. 
 
 Little or nothing in this story turns upon my 
 pupil-teaching of Lilla. In a direct sense, no- 
 thing came of it. I mention it here only to ex- 
 plain the fact that Lilla and her mother got to 
 think themselves deeply indebted to me, and that 
 Lilla in particular was determined to make me 
 some return. 
 
 One evening I was walking rather listlessly 
 along Sloane-street, feigning to myself that I had 
 business in town, when I met Lilla returning 
 homeward. She was all flushed and beaming, 
 evidently under the influence of some piece of 
 splendid good news. 
 
 "I have such news for you!" she said. "I 
 have been to my uncle's, and I have talked to him 
 about you." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 " Yes. I always wanted to speak to him 
 about you, and I made up my mind to go up 
 specially to-day and do it. I told him all about 
 you — how you were living in our house, and how 
 kind you had always been to mamma and me — 
 which I'm sure we don't forget — whenever we
 
 160 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 needed it ; and Heaven knows we always do need 
 it, for we never yet were able to pay anything at 
 the right time." 
 
 " Well, well, pass over all that, and come back 
 to Mr. Lyndon." 
 
 "Yes, I told him all about you, and how you 
 were better than a colony of sons to mamma, and 
 a whole schoolful of brothers to me, and how you 
 teach me this and that — everything, in fact. I 
 can tell you your ears ought to have tingled, for 
 such praise as I gave you mortal man never yet 
 deserved. I told him what a singer you were — 
 ever so much better than Mario, I said ; at which 
 I promise you he smiled very grimly, and grum- 
 bled out that he had heard of too many singers 
 who were ever so much better than Mario. But 
 I told him that you were, and no mistake. And 
 then I said you wanted to get on the stage, only 
 that you had no friends ; at which he smiled again, 
 and said a man who could sing better than Mario 
 didn't much stand in need of friends." 
 "Well, but, Lilla, I don't quite see." 
 "Don't you? No, I daresay you don't; but 
 I just do. Why, did I never tell you that my 
 uncle knows all the great swells about the thea-
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 161 
 
 tres ? yes. He once had a share in a theatre 
 with a tremendous swell, Lord Loreine, and he 
 adores operas and singers, and he gives dinners 
 at Greenwich to prima donnas. He is constantly 
 behind the scenes everywhere — odd places for hirn 
 to go to, I have often told him — and every great 
 singer who comes out he always meets. Who is 
 Reichstein ? Is it a man or a woman ?" 
 
 "Keichstein is a woman." 
 
 " Who is she ?" 
 
 " A singer — a great success in Paris, I'm told. 
 I don't know much about her — hardly anything, 
 in fact. But she is new in Paris, and I believe a 
 success." 
 
 " Well, he has been to Paris — indeed, he only 
 came home last night — and he is in such a state 
 about Reichstein, who is to come out in London 
 and make a wonderful success. I was ashamed 
 to confess that I never heard of Reichstein before, 
 and didn't know, in fact, whether it was a man or 
 a woman ; and besides, I told him I wanted to 
 talk about you, and not about Reichstein." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "He laughed and said, 'Reichstein could do 
 more for your friend' (my friend, you understand) 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 MY enemy's daughter. 
 
 ' than I could. ' In fact, he was in such a delight- 
 ful good-humour, that I might have said anything 
 to him to-day. You are to come and see him. 
 yes, you are ; you'll find him very friendly." 
 
 " But, indeed, Lilla— " 
 
 " No, no ; I can't hear any modest pleadings. 
 You are to come ; I am to bring you. You may 
 be sure he'll like you ; and, do you know, I really 
 begin to think your fortune is made. Perhaps 
 you may sing as primo tenore with what's-her- 
 name, Eeichstein, some time. And I shall go to 
 hear you, and fling a bouquet to you — mind, not 
 to her — so be sure you keep it for yourself; and 
 then you must redeem your promise, and take me 
 to the Derby." 
 
 "Hear me swear ! You shall accompany me 
 to the Derby. We'll have a carriage and, at least, 
 four horses the very first Derby-day after I have 
 sung as primo tenore with Mcllle. Reichstein." 
 
 "Well, you may laugh now; but I promise 
 you I'll make you keep your word. Far more un- 
 likely things have happened. But now tell me 
 when you are coming to see my uncle." 
 
 I had not the remotest idea of presenting my- 
 self or being presented to Lilla's uncle. All I
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 163 
 
 had heard of him pictured him to me as a cold, 
 purse-proud, selfish, sensuous man — not, indeed, 
 incapable of doing a generous thing for a poor 
 dependent, but quite incapable of feeling any 
 respect for poverty of any kind. His photograph, 
 which Lilla often showed me, quite confirmed my 
 notions of him. Egotism and pride were traced 
 in every line of the face — of the straight square 
 forehead, of the broad jaw — even the unmistakable 
 sensuousness of the full lips and the wide mouth 
 did not soften the general hardness of the expres- 
 sion. I cannot tell why, but I always detested 
 the man. Patronage of any kind I must have 
 hated ; but to be patronised by this rich man was 
 utterly out of the question. 
 
 Yet I could not but feel grateful for the kindly 
 manner in which poor Lilla had endeavoured to 
 serve me. This was surely disinterestedness on 
 her part. She so often had to solicit favours of 
 her uncle upon her own account, that one might 
 have imagined a shrewd and worldly girl would be 
 very careful indeed not to weaken any influence 
 she might have, not to discount any future con- 
 cessions, by asking his good offices for another. 
 Therefore, while I attached not the slightest im-
 
 164 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 portance to the promised influence, and would not 
 have availed myself of it were it really to make 
 my fortune in an hour, I took good care, the 
 reader may well believe, to let Lilla see that I was 
 not ungrateful. Nor did I dash her little pride 
 and triumph by telling her that I would not go 
 to see her uncle. But I temporised ; and fortune 
 gave me a ready way of doing it. I had been for 
 some little time in negotiation about an engage- 
 ment to join a company who were to give concerts 
 in some of the provincial cities and towns; and 
 this very day I had accepted the terms, and duly 
 signed the conditions. I had therefore to leave 
 town at once, and should probably be away for two 
 or three months at the least. 
 
 This therefore gave me a satisfactory plea for 
 postponing my visit to Mr. Lyndon. 
 
 Lilla was a little cast down ; but as she knew 
 I had long been anxious to secure this very engage- 
 ment — my first of any note — she brightened up 
 immediately, and gave me her warm congratula- 
 tions. 
 
 "When I get back, Lilla, you shall make my 
 fortune." 
 
 " How glad I shall be ! Do you know that I
 
 LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. 165 
 
 really hope you may not quite take the provinces 
 by storm, and so find the way made clear to you, 
 without my having anything to do with it ? I do, 
 indeed. I want so much to be the means of doing- 
 some good for you." 
 
 " You need not fear, Lilla. Fortune will be in 
 no hurry to interfere with your kindly purpose." 
 
 "But stop. I have actually done something 
 for you already. I have given you a name." 
 
 "Indeed! How is that?" 
 
 " Well, of course you can't call yourself Banks 
 when you go on the stage. Banks would never 
 do ; there couldn't be a great Banks. Then you 
 always say you never would consent to take any 
 ridiculous Italian name." 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " Well, I have given you a delightful name, 
 which is all your own, by the simplest process in 
 the world. Temple Banks is absolutely ridicul- 
 ous ; people would always keep calling you Temple 
 Bar. Now don't be angry." 
 
 " Indeed I am not." 
 
 " You got quite flushed when I laughed at 
 your name, though ; but no matter. Leave out 
 the Banks altogether, and there you are — Emanuel
 
 166 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Temple ! What can be prettier and softer ? All 
 liquids, positively. Well, I have made you Eman- 
 uel Temple, and nothing else. I spoke of you to 
 my uncle as Emanuel Temple. He has written 
 down your name in his memorandum-book as 
 Emanuel Temple. I have launched you as 
 Emanuel Temple, and Emanuel Temple you shall 
 remain." 
 
 Nobody much likes any chaff about his name. 
 I did not at first quite relish my young friend's 
 remarks, but I soon saw there was some sense in 
 them. I had indeed, for many reasons, deter- 
 mined on changing my name in some way, and 
 this slight alteration would do as well as any 
 other. So I went through the provinces as 
 Emanuel Temple, and I have never since been 
 publicly known by any other name.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 Some few weeks of professional wandering among 
 chilling audiences in country towns, meeting with 
 tolerable success in most places, brought me to 
 Dover, and the first glimpse of the sea I had 
 enjoyed for years. I felt boyish again at the sight 
 of my old confidant ; and the shining track of the 
 moon across the water seemed to mark out a 
 bright path back to the delightful dreamland, the 
 far-off, fading Island of the Blest, with its " light 
 of ineffable faces," whither my boyhood and my 
 first love were banished, the one seemingly as 
 much lost to me as the other. Not for years had 
 I thought so bitterly, so passionately, of Christina 
 as during my short stay in Dover by the sea. 
 And yet she seemed to me almost like a creature 
 in a dream — like some beautiful spirit -love, which 
 had descended upon me while I lay in ecstatic 
 delirium, and faded with my waking. I can al-
 
 168 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 most believe the stories of men who have fallen 
 madly in love with the daughters of dreams, and 
 pined and sickened away their lives in longing 
 after the unreal, and were glad to die, that they 
 might be relieved of the vain tormenting wish. 
 
 I pass, however, from recalling these purely 
 personal and egotistical recollections to the subject 
 which I meant to speak of when I recurred to my 
 visit to Dover. An accidental meeting there threw 
 me in the way of making an odd acquaintanceship, 
 which had no little influence afterwards on one 
 part at least of my fortunes, and those of two dis- 
 tinct and divided sets of persons, whose histories 
 make indirectly a chapter of mine. 
 
 One evening, after I had sung at a concert 
 and been somewhat applauded, I went to have 
 my customary stroll by the sea. I turned into 
 a cigar- shop in one of the steep, stony, narrow 
 little streets, chiefly made up of oyster-shops and 
 public-houses, which alone are astir in Dover after 
 nightfall. I asked for a cigar, hardly observing 
 that somebody else was being served with some- 
 thing by the young woman who stood behind the 
 counter. 
 
 " Glad he's come in !" said a full mellow male
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 169 
 
 voice; "very glad. He '11 decide ; lie looks a sort 
 of person who ought to know." 
 
 It did not occur to me that this could well have 
 any reference to myself, and so I asked again for 
 a cigar. I noticed then that the girl was flushed 
 in the face, and was biting her lips, half amused 
 and half angry. 
 
 " Shall I refer it to him ?" said the male voice 
 again. 
 
 "I really don't care," replied the girl, "whom 
 you refer it to; I've told you the price and the 
 quality, that's all." 
 
 I looked round, and saw that there was seated 
 on a chair at my left a short, stout, well-preserved 
 elderly personage, with black, beady, twinkling 
 eyes, shining white teeth, a rubicund complexion, 
 and a black wig. His opened lips had a full, sensu- 
 ous expression, and there was a dash of something 
 in his whole face which vaguely spoke of cruelty, 
 or marked eccentricity, or something else that is 
 out of the commonplace character of the every-day 
 Briton. There was an odd, indefinable mixture 
 about his appearance and manner of the broken- 
 down gentleman and the artist. I should say 
 that he was probably a naturalised Bohemian, —
 
 170 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 one not born among the gipsies, but who perhaps 
 had strayed into their encampments in early life, 
 or got changed at nurse. His uncommon appear- 
 ance and queer ways struck me at once. I ob- 
 served that his hands were small, fat, and beauti- 
 fully white. 
 
 " Then we refer the case to arbitration," com- 
 placently remarked this personage ; and, still re- 
 maining in his chair, he touched his hat very 
 graciously to me, and with a wave of his hand 
 invited my attention. "We have had a dispute, 
 sir, I and this young lady — her name is Fanny ; I 
 address her by her name because we are old 
 acquaintances ; I have been here twice, I think — 
 touching the quality of these cigars. She declares 
 them to be prime Havanas, and has the conscience 
 to ask eightpence each. I represent them to be 
 rather inferior Veveys, and suggest one penny 
 each, or seven for sixpence. On these terms I 
 am willing to treat for one shilling's worth. I 
 tell her frankly it is no use trying to deceive 
 me. I have been to Havana, and I have only just 
 come back from Switzerland ; and I remark to her 
 that I rather think I saw the light at least a year 
 or two before she did, and that, generally speak-
 
 I HAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 171 
 
 ing, I have not knocked about the world for 
 nothing. She refuses to admit the force of these 
 arguments. Fortunately you have come in just in 
 time to arbitrate. You seem to me a man who 
 ought to know tobacco from dock-leaves and brown 
 paper. Come, then, how say you — Havana or 
 Vevey?" 
 
 "I am afraid I must decline to arbitrate. I 
 have not been to Havana." 
 
 " But you are not a Dover man ? You don't 
 belong to this confounded dirty, disgraceful little 
 place? Don't tell me." 
 
 " No, I am not a Dover man." 
 
 " Of course not ; I knew it. — You see, Fanny, 
 it's no use trying to deceive me. Take example, 
 sweet girl." 
 
 The sweet girl only tossed her head and looked 
 remarkably sour. 
 
 " If you're not going to 'ave the cigars," she 
 said, "I just wish you'd put them down, and not 
 bother." 
 
 " Fanny, you rush to conclusions with the 
 impetuosity of your sex. It must be something, 
 I fancy, in the nature of petticoats that makes the 
 wearers of them so quick in their conclusions.
 
 172 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 No. Fanny. I shall not put the cigars down, be- 
 cause I do mean to ' 'ave them/ as you express 
 it. with the delicious disregard of aspirates pe- 
 culiar to our common country. I mean to * 'ave 
 them' and to pay for them, fair being, even at 
 your own price : but I am anxious to convince 
 you that, though you may extort my money — " 
 
 ''Extort, indeed! I don't care. I'm sure, if 
 you 'ave them or don't 'ave them." 
 
 " ' 'Ave them or don't 'ave them.' Innocent 
 accents ! As I was observing when I was inter- 
 rupted — pray don't go, sir. one moment — I want 
 to convince you that you cannot cheat me. or con- 
 found my sense of justice. You may fret me, 
 but you cannot play upon me. I am only for 
 justice. All my life through I have stood up for 
 justice, and I never could get it. The whole 
 world and his wife were against me, may God 
 curse them all! — Look here, sir!" And he 
 jumped off his seat, and came close up to me, 
 throwing his hat hack off his forehead as he did so, 
 and much disarranging his wig meantime. " Have 
 you ever been conspired against, and hated?" 
 
 "No, I think not: I don't know at least; 
 and pardon me if I say I don't much care."
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 173 
 
 " And do you think I care ? Not I. They 
 have done their best for years, and I have stood 
 out against them, and defied them, and bade them 
 go to the devil; and just because they wouldn't 
 go, and wanted me very particularly not to go 
 either, I did my utmost to go there as fast as 
 possible." 
 
 " Which I do believe you're going," muttered 
 the girl, with a glance at me. 
 
 " I am a victim, sir, to my sense of justice, 
 and my determination not to be conquered. I 
 left England when they wanted me to stay here ; 
 I come back now because I know they want me 
 away. I'll spoil their game. There are people 
 would rather see all the Beelzebubs and Molochs 
 and Asmodeuses, and the rest of them, than me. 
 Therefore I come. ' Confound their politics ; 
 frustrate their knavish tricks !' Good-evening, 
 sir. Or, stay, are you walking my way, and will 
 you permit me to walk a little with you ?" 
 
 I was about to decline very firmly the proffered 
 companionship, but a supplicating look from poor 
 Fanny seemed to beg of me to take him out of her 
 way, wheresoever he might then desire to go. So 
 I was pleased to be able to oblige the perplexed
 
 174 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 lass, who seemed half talked to death already ; 
 and it really did not much matter to me whether 
 I endured my new acquaintance's company for a 
 few minutes longer or got rid of him at once. So 
 I expressed myself as quite delighted to have the 
 pleasure of his company, and I was thanked by 
 a glance of gratitude from under Fanny's eyelids. 
 " Good-night, then, Fanny. Farewell, a long 
 farewell, my Fanny ; perchance I may revisit thee 
 no more. I take these six — Havanas we'll call 
 them — at your own valuation. This gentleman 
 and I are too much pressed for time to enter on 
 the business of an arbitration now ; and besides, 
 I don't think I could trust him — for he is young, 
 Fanny, and inexperienced — to arbitrate between 
 me and so pretty a girl as yourself. Between 
 man and man is easy arbitration, Fanny ; but be- 
 tween man and woman is trying work. Six cigars 
 at eightpence each : six times eight, forty-eight — 
 four shillings. The roof does not fall in, Fanny ! 
 I perceive that the Powers above have no inten- 
 tion of interfering to punish or prevent fraud; 
 and I have only to pay. There are the four 
 shillings. Farewell, Fanny ; repent, and re- 
 member me ! — Now, then, sir, at your service."
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 175 
 
 I followed my whimsical acquaintance. I ob- 
 served that all his clothes were of foreign cut and 
 fashion, and looked rather decaying. Indeed, he 
 might have been taken for a shabby old French- 
 man who had once been in good society, but for 
 his voice and accent. These were unmistakably 
 English. His voice was peculiarly sweet, full, 
 and mellow, and its natural intonation when he 
 dropped the manner of roystering buffoonery, 
 which seemed to me purposely put on, was de- 
 cidedly that of an educated English gentleman. 
 
 " That's a pretty little devil," remarked my 
 friend as we emerged from a dark street suddenly 
 into the moonlight of the quay. 
 
 " The girl in the shop ?" 
 
 "As if you didn't know at once whom I 
 meant ! Of course the girl in the shop — I dare- 
 say you'll be found dropping in upon her again." 
 
 " Not likely at all." 
 
 " Lord, Lord, how this world is given to 
 lying ! Don't be offended, sir ; I have only been 
 quoting Jack Falstaff." 
 
 " I know, and I am not offended." 
 
 " Thanks ; I begin to think you are rather a 
 good sort of fellow in your way, and I only offend
 
 176 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 people I don't like. But you know very well, 
 you sly rogue, you'll be looking in on little Fanny 
 again. I saw telegraphic glances passing between 
 you." 
 
 " I don't care one rush ever to see her again, 
 and I don't mean to." 
 
 " How odd ! They tell me young fellows in 
 England are greatly changed since my time. 
 Apparently so. When I was your age, I should 
 have liked to see such a girl more than once. 
 Even now, I can assure you, I am a martyr, a 
 positive martyr, to my general affection for the 
 petticoat. But look there ! God ! how can a man 
 talk of petticoats, and such fribbles and frou- 
 frou, when he has a sight like that before 
 him?" 
 
 He pointed to the sea. We had reached a part 
 of the road from which you looked, on the one 
 hand, at the grand old castle and the white cliffs ; 
 on the other, out across the waves, whereon the 
 soft moonlight of late summer seemed floating. 
 The muffled, gentle thunder of the waters rolling 
 languidly and heavily on the strand was in our 
 ears ; the scent of the salt sea in our nostrils ; 
 the summer air all around us ; the moon and the
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 177 
 
 sea before our eyes. It was indeed a scene to re- 
 fine even vulgarity, to solemnise frivolity. 
 
 My friend took off his hat, and stood gazing on 
 the sea. Presently I heard him murmur in his 
 deep soft tones: "For I have loved, Lord, 
 the beauty of thy house, and the place where thine 
 honour dwelleth." He presently turned to me : 
 ' ' Do you think it will avail a man hereafter to 
 plead that he has loved the beauty of His house ?" 
 
 " Surely, surely; at least I hope so. 
 
 " Then you are an artist." This was said in 
 the tone of one who has suddenly made a gratify- 
 ing discovery. 
 
 "Well, a sort of artist ; at least not wholly 
 without some kind of artistic taste." 
 
 "You believe in beauty, don't you? Now, 
 don't give me any vague commonplace answer — I 
 hate cant and parroting of any kind. If you don't 
 believe in it, or if you don't quite know what I 
 mean when I ask you the question, then say you 
 don't, and let there be an end of it. A man may 
 be a devilish good fellow although he has no more 
 soul for beauty than that rock yonder ; and let me 
 tell you a man may be a devilish bad fellow, and 
 guilty of pretty well every sin that ever came in 
 
 VOL. I. n
 
 178 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 his way, although he is open at every pore to the 
 contagion of beauty wherever it shows itself, in a 
 wave or a moonbeam or a woman's bosom. The 
 thing is, do you believe in beauty ? Because, if 
 not, we had better walk on, and talk about oysters 
 and cigars." 
 
 I never was fluent with confessions of faith on 
 the spur of the moment ; and I was not quite clear 
 about the perfect sanity of my companion. How- 
 ever, I answered quite truly that I thought I might 
 describe myself as, in his sense, a believer in 
 beauty. 
 
 " Good — we are companions. Now, then, let 
 us look at that scene for a little, and, like a good 
 fellow, don't keep talking all the while." (I had 
 not uttered six sentences thus far during our walk.) 
 " Such a sight must be enjoyed in silence. It is 
 holy; yes, damn me, but it is." 
 
 After this pious affirmation he relapsed into 
 silence — only, however, for a few minutes. 
 
 "I have been an artist," he said; " at least I 
 tried to paint pictures. I think they were very 
 good, but they didn't come to anything. In 
 fact, with me nothing comes to anything. I was 
 brought up to be a gentleman, and that didn't
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 179 
 
 prosper much with me. I've heen a ballad-singer 
 — fact ! give you my word on it. I've sung in 
 London squares, outside the windows of houses 
 where I've many a time dined ; and they've sent 
 out the confounded flunkey to tell me to move on. 
 True, every word of it !" And he burst into a loud 
 peal of laughter, which waked the echoes of the 
 cliffs, and sounded like a startling hideous pro- 
 fanity of the stillness and the scene. 
 
 "The singing did not prosper ?" I asked calmly, 
 not out of any particular curiosity, but to inter- 
 pose any question which might check his disso- 
 nant mirth. 
 
 "Not it! Nothing, I have told you already, 
 ever does prosper with me ; and yet they can't get 
 rid of me, I can tell you." 
 
 "They?" 
 
 "Yes, they. What is it to you who they are, 
 or what their accursed names are ? " 
 
 " I assure you I don't want to know at all." 
 
 "They? I'll tell you who they are. The phari- 
 sees, the publicans, the respectable hypocrites, 
 the cold, confounded, bloodless, sinless devils. 
 Look here, and answer me truly — did you ever do 
 a virtuous action ?"
 
 180 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 "Keally, that depends — " 
 
 "No, it doesn't ; it depends on nothing. Did 
 you ever do anything that was really virtuous and 
 self-denying, that you would much rather not have 
 done, but did because virtuous people asked you 
 to do it ? Anything of that sort have you ever 
 done ?" 
 
 "Well, if you press me for an answer, I must 
 say I don't believe I ever did." 
 
 " Of course you never did. Well, I did once ! 
 You'll not catch me doing such a thing again, I 
 can tell you ; it played the devil with me. I've 
 done — and I had done before that — about every 
 foolish and bad thing a man could do ; but I might 
 have been forgiven everything except the one sacri- 
 fice to virtue. And it was such a sacrifice ! If 
 you only knew ! No matter. Are you leaving 
 Dover soon ?" 
 
 " In a day or two." 
 
 " Going over, no doubt?" 
 
 He nodded in the direction where the French 
 coast lay, now of course wholly lost to sight. 
 
 "No. I am going to visit a few towns here in 
 the south." 
 
 "And then?"
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 181 
 
 " Then to London." 
 
 "Where you live?" 
 
 "Where I live." 
 
 " Good. I am going to live there too — unless 
 I happen to starve there — for a while. I have a 
 few coins left. I should think a week of very rigid 
 economy would play them out, and Heaven knows 
 into what company of thieves I may fall mean- 
 time." 
 
 Something prompted me to say with more em- 
 phasis than if the words were merely formal, " I 
 hope we may meet in London." 
 
 He laughed a short laugh. 
 
 "Well," he said, " I hope so too ; hut if, as 
 the final result of our meeting, you are particu- 
 larly glad of the acquaintance, I think you'll be 
 about the first that ever had occasion to express 
 such a sentiment. And yet I love mankind ; and 
 I really don't try to do harm to anybody, except 
 to some very, very near and dear relatives. I 
 suppose London stands where it did, and is much 
 the same as usual ?" 
 
 " Just as it was so long as I can remember 
 it." 
 
 " I thought so. All the young men wise, and
 
 182 are enemy's daughter. 
 
 all the young women virtuous. All the marriages 
 made in heaven, and all husbands devoted to their 
 wives. All brothers of course living together in 
 love and harmony. A blessed place ! Naturally 
 just the place for me : so I am going there. I 
 have not been there for years ; but I am glad to 
 hear that its beatific condition remains still un- 
 altered." 
 
 He snapped his fingers, and turned abruptly 
 away from me. Just as I thought I had got rid 
 of him, however, he wheeled round and came 
 sharply up to me again. 
 
 "Do you know anybody in London?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Very few people. In your sense I should 
 perhaps say nobody." 
 
 " Any members of parliament, for example ?" 
 
 "Not one." 
 
 " Ah, that's a pity ! Some of them are such 
 noble fellows; I know some of them. I know 
 one in particular, and I am very fond of him. 
 His name is Tommy Goodboy. An odd name, 
 isn't it ? But it's his name. Don't look in Dod 
 when you get home for Tommy Goodboy, Esq. 
 M.P., because he doesn't give his real name when
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 183 
 
 he goes to the House of Commons. But he's 
 Tommy Goodboy. You remember the story of 
 Tommy and Harry? Harry didn't care; and so 
 a roaring lion came and ate him up. That was 
 convenient for the good people, the respectable 
 and well-behaved people. The deuce of the thing 
 would have been if Harry didn't get eaten, but 
 came back all alive, and kept tormenting Tommy 
 out of his wretched, pitiful existence, disgracing 
 him, crouching at his door like Lazarus, and 
 offending the guests whom Tommy invited to 
 dinner. — By the way, I take it for granted you 
 are hard up ?" 
 
 " Well, I certainly am not Dives. No beggar 
 would care to wait at my door." 
 
 "No, I thought not. You dress well enough; 
 but there is something unmistakable about the 
 cut of the man who is hard up. ' Poor devil' is 
 written in every line of you; and yet I should 
 say you are a sort of fellow who will burst out 
 of all that and get on. Unlike me in that re- 
 spect ; I am a poor devil, and I never shall get 
 on. Good-night. I daresay we shall meet again 
 somewhere. I am going back to the town. I 
 know a very pleasant place where oysters are
 
 184 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 eaten, and brandy is drunk, and songs are sung ; 
 and I am a sort of king of the feast there. They 
 are all low scoundrels, and I'm a kind of lord and 
 patron among them. I don't suppose it's any use 
 asking you to come." 
 
 " Thanks, no; not the slightest." 
 
 "No, you don't seem just the sort of person 
 to enliven a convivial gathering. I know what's 
 the matter with you. Don't be cast down, man ; 
 you and she will meet again yet." 
 
 His idle words did, I suppose, make me give 
 a slight start ; for he laughed his chuckling roll- 
 ing laugh, and said : 
 
 " So I have touched you ! I thought as much. 
 Confound it, man ! you're as fortunate as one of 
 Virgil's rustics, if you only knew your own good 
 luck. The best thing that can happen to you is 
 never to see her again ; and to keep up your 
 poetry, and romance, and despair, and all the 
 rest of the nonsense. Take my word for it, if 
 you have the misfortune to marry her, you'll soon 
 find the poetry and the romance sponged out, and 
 you'll be glad to join me at the oysters and the 
 brandy ! Despairing lover, I envy you from my 
 soul ! By God, I do ! I would give the crown of
 
 I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 185 
 
 England, if I had it, to be young like you, and 
 to be disappointed in love. It's glorious ! Con- 
 found it, you've made me so envious that I'll 
 leave you with a parting malediction. May the 
 devil inspire her to marry you !" 
 
 He burst into his laugh again, and trotted 
 away at last townwards. I was glad to get rid 
 of him ; indeed, for the last few minutes of the 
 conversation, I was plagued by a strong desire to 
 kick him — a performance hardly practicable, see- 
 ing that he was old enough to be my father, and 
 only half my size. Yet it was strange with what 
 interest I had been studying his face, his voice, 
 his gestures, all the time that he was speaking. 
 I felt perfectly satisfied that I had never seen him 
 before, and yet there was something tormentingly, 
 tantalisingly familiar to me in his features. It 
 was some shadowy, quick - darting resemblance 
 which every now and then seemed just on the 
 point of revealing itself, but always vanished at 
 the most critical moment. As one tortures him- 
 self in trying to recall a name which is every 
 instant on the tip of the tongue and yet will not 
 come out, so I perplexed myself in vain endea- 
 vours to read the riddle of his face and voice.
 
 186 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Strangely too, it seemed to remind me, as well 
 as I could understand my own sensations, not of 
 one, but of two faces I had somewhere seen. The 
 upper part of the face, the bright twinkling eyes, 
 the straight short nose, the cheekbones just a 
 little high, the white forehead, — these were fea- 
 tures which reminded me of something that 
 brought with it genial and kindly associations ; 
 while the sensuous lips and cruel jaw recalled 
 something which was harsh and displeasing to 
 remember. I racked my brain again and again ; 
 and indeed I think that I dreamed of the creature 
 half through the night, and thought I saw him 
 turning before my eyes into the successive re- 
 semblances of nearly every man I knew. But I 
 awoke in the morning with the riddle still unex- 
 plained, and at last I resolutely put it aside 
 altogether.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IN A NEW CHARACTER. 
 
 That night we gave another concert ; it was 
 well attended, and successful. When I came on 
 to take part in a duet with some woman, I na- 
 turally looked round the hall, and to my mingled 
 amusement and vexation I saw my friend of the 
 previous night seated in the reserved part of the 
 hall, and listening with his head a little to one 
 side, and all the manner of a professed connois- 
 seur. He beat time gently with his fingers ; he 
 nodded his head and smiled a sweet approving 
 smile when some passage was specially well ex- 
 ecuted ; his brows contracted and he shook his 
 head in indignant remonstrance at anything out 
 of time or tune. To do him justice, he really 
 did seem to know something about the music, 
 which hardly anybody else among the audience 
 did. Therefore he took quite a leading part in 
 the reserved seats, looked blandly but command-
 
 188 
 
 ingly around, and intimated with eye or ges- 
 ture where applause might properly be awarded; 
 frowned fiercely down any untimely burst coming 
 in at a wrong place ; shrugged his shoulders and 
 shuddered when a breath of wholly unmerited ap- 
 proval floated past him ; cried bravo to a singer, 
 brava to a songstress, bravi when more than one 
 performer conquered his approval ; expressed in 
 audible tones his final verdict on each perform- 
 ance ; and, in short, conducted himself quite as 
 one whose judgment artists and audience had 
 alike agreed to recognise. Whether he remem- 
 bered me or not, I could not guess, for his face 
 gave no token of recognition. But when I came 
 on, I observed that he took, with an air of 
 gracious friendliness, the programme from the 
 lap of a lady who sat next him, and raising a 
 double-eyeglass which he wore, looked down the 
 bill apparently to discover my name. He was 
 very patronising in his treatment of me; only 
 shrugged his shoulders once or twice, and several 
 times tapped his palms together and cried "bra- 
 vo!" Indeed, I think he encouraged, at all events 
 he permitted, an encore of one of my ballads. He 
 showed to most advantage, however, during the
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IN A NEW CHARACTER. 189 
 
 second part of the concert, which was made up of 
 selections from an oratorio. Impressed strongly 
 by his manner, and apparently anxious to do 
 some act of homage to so accomplished a critic, 
 the lady next him offered to allow him to read 
 from the score of the oratorio she had with her. 
 His manner of surprised, amused, pitying, con- 
 descending rejection of the proffered kindness was 
 sublime. The shrug of the shoulders, the raising 
 of the eyebrows, the graceful, lordly waving of the 
 disclaiming hand, the bend of the head, the be- 
 nign, superior smile, all said as plainly as words 
 could have spoken it : "My dear madame, do you 
 really suppose there is one note, one half-note of 
 this music that is not familiar to me as the letters 
 of the alphabet? A thousand thanks for your 
 well-meant offer ; but pardon me if I say that it 
 really does amuse me." 
 
 When I was leaving the hall at the end of 
 the performance I caught another glimpse of my 
 friend. He was making himself painfully atten- 
 tive to two ladies, perhaps those who had sat next 
 to him, by insisting on opening their carriage- 
 door for them, handing them in, arranging their 
 skirts, and otherwise playing the gallant, much to
 
 190 my enemy's daughtek. 
 
 their apparent vexation. He then shut the car- 
 riage-door, took off his hat and bowed profoundly, 
 and in a loud tone gave the coachman his order 
 for "home." I watched him for a while with 
 considerable amusement. He then stood on the 
 pavement and scrutinised the crowd coming out. 
 A lady and gentleman came out, talking together 
 in French. The sound struck my friend's ears ; 
 he at once approached them, took off his hat, 
 made a bow, and addressed them in a voluble 
 stream of French, accompanying his words with 
 such gestures and shrugs and elevation of eye- 
 brows, that he seemed to have transformed him- 
 self into a very Frenchman all in a moment. I 
 do not know whether he was really passing him- 
 self off as a Frenchman, but the persons he 
 addressed stopped and conversed with him for a 
 moment or two, then seemed to be puzzled by 
 him, then evidently became anxious to shake him 
 off, finally nodded a good-humoured, peremptory 
 adieu, and literally broke away from him. Where- 
 upon my friend first stamped on the pavement, 
 muttered something about canaille, then swore a 
 round Saxon oath or two, then burst into a loud 
 laugh, and went laughing and stamping down the
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IN A NEW CHARACTER. 191 
 
 street. I passed him quite closely. He did not 
 observe me ; at least lie took no notice whatever 
 of me. He was talking to himself. 
 
 "The society of the just declines to have me 
 this night," I heard him say. "I have given it 
 the chance, once, twice. The stuck-up Britoness 
 scorns my attentions, confound her ! I wish she 
 was Boadicea, and I one of the Koman conquerors, 
 furnished with a good birchen rod. Neither will 
 the frog-eating, fantastic fribble of France invite 
 me to sup with himself and his wife. Afraid to 
 run such a risk with her, no doubt. I don't won- 
 der. I can't sit at good men's feasts to-night. 
 No help for it. There are worse things than bad 
 men's feasts, that's one comfort." 
 
 I did not care to give him the chance of fas- 
 tening on me, whether he chose to regard me as 
 of the good or of the bad ; so I hurried away, and 
 so far I escaped. 
 
 I walked and smoked a good deal by the sea- 
 side that night, and enjoyed the solitude and the 
 beauty of the place. In a very few days I was to 
 return to London, after an absence that had now 
 spread over some months — my first absence, even 
 for a week, since I had come to live in the great
 
 192 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 city. I thought of Lilla and her good-natured 
 undertaking to make my fortune through her 
 uncle's influence, and wondered how I should be 
 able to get rid of the offer without wounding her, 
 or seeming ungrateful for her kindness. If I 
 could only spread out my provincial engagement 
 for even a fortnight or three weeks longer, the 
 season would be over by the time I had returned 
 to town, and Mr. Lyndon would probably have be- 
 taken himself to Ems, or Baden, or Florence, and 
 the difficulty would be obviated for another season 
 at least. 
 
 I could not think of such things without medi- 
 tating rather sadly over my own dreary life and 
 blank future, and then falling into the old, old 
 track of thought about my lost Christina, who 
 had so literally disappeared out of my life. 
 Strange, that in wandering about London I had 
 never met even Ned Lambert, our quondam bass- 
 singer; who might perhaps have told me some- 
 thing of her — whose face would at least have re- 
 called more vividly the associations of the dear, 
 fading days of long ago. Poor Ned Lambert ! 
 he must have suffered much. But, good heavens, 
 what could his sufferings have been to mine ! He
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IN A NEW CHARACTER. 193 
 
 at least was not first raised up to happiness, and 
 then flung down to despair; while I — heaven, 
 how happy I was once ! 
 
 Of late I found myself growing quite moody 
 and moping. I began to think I was getting 
 prematurely old, and to look out of mornings for 
 gray hairs — at eight-and-twenty ! 
 
 I turned away from the seashore, and walked 
 homeward through the town. Passing through 
 one of the streets, I heard noise, clamour, shout- 
 ing, cursing, stamping — apparently going on in 
 a low public-house, the light from whose windows 
 was the only bright spot along that side of the 
 street. As I came up to the place, its swing- 
 doors were suddenly flung open, and the "row" 
 streamed out upon the pavement. It assumed 
 the form of a little crowd of men hustling and 
 rushing round some central figures. There were 
 shouts of " Give it him !" " Let 'im 'ave it !" 
 "No!" "Shame!" "Don't hit him!" "Knock 
 him down!" "Damnation Frenchman!" "Dirty 
 foreigner!" "Call the police!" and so forth. I 
 could see that the fat, bare-headed landlord, and 
 the almost equally fat barman, were wildly en- 
 deavouring to restore order, or keep the whole 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 company out, while the barmaid stood at the 
 door and vainly screamed for the " Perlice !" 
 
 I do not feel much interest in "rows," and 
 would gladly have passed on, but the " row" 
 broke around me, so to speak, split into waves 
 upon the sudden and unexpected opposition of 
 my advancing form, and I found myself some- 
 how in the very midst of it. Then I saw that 
 the central figures were a big, stout, lubberly- 
 looking cavalry soldier, and a small man, who 
 was clinging to the hero's neck. In the latter 
 figure I at once recognised my fantastic friend 
 of the black wig. He was jabbering away in a 
 jargon of French and broken English, and was 
 clinging to his antagonist like a savage little 
 bulldog. Just as I was rushing in to endeavour 
 to get him away, the big soldier succeeded in 
 shaking himself free from my friend's grip, and 
 then took the little man bodily off his feet, and 
 flung him on the pavement, amid a yelling chorus 
 of cheers and laughter, broken by a few cries of 
 "Shame!" 
 
 "For shame, you cowardly ruffian!" I ex- 
 claimed, utterly ignorant as I was of the merits 
 of the quarrel. "Don't you see he is an old
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IN A NEW CHARACTER. 195 
 
 man ! Fight your match, you blackguard, if you 
 want to fight f" 
 
 I fully expected to have had to accept a prac- 
 tical challenge on my own account, and stood 
 therefore quite ready, the first moment the sol- 
 dier made an attack on me, to hit hard and home. 
 He was a floundering, awkward sort of fellow. I 
 was stout and sinewy at that time, and had some 
 little science. I did not despair of finishing-orY 
 the battle in a w r ell-employed minute or so. 
 
 But to do the honest warrior justice, he seemed 
 rather ashamed of his part in the transaction. 
 
 "Who wants to fight him?" he asked in a 
 growling tone, and with a sheepish expression. 
 " He ain't that old, neither ; but I didn't want to 
 have anything to do with the dirty little Frenchy. 
 'Twas all his work. Why didn't he let me alone? 
 Why did he keep badgerin' of me, and worryin' 
 of me, and insultin' of me and my red coat, all 
 the evening ?" 
 
 There was a chorus of approbation, and the 
 barman cried " Hear, hear !" 
 
 Meanwhile my little friend jumped to his feet 
 again, and began to dance around us on the pave- 
 ment without hat or wig, presenting so outrage-
 
 196 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 ously ridiculous a spectacle, that I could not 
 wonder at the roar of laughter with which he was 
 greeted. I kept between him and the soldier as 
 well as I could, and I at last seized him fast 
 round the arms, while he, endeavouring to break 
 away and get at his antagonist, dragged and 
 whirled me round on the pavement in a manner 
 the most grotesque and ludicrous. 
 
 "Let him come!" roared the absurd little 
 beast, in his ridiculous jabber. " Cochon d?un 
 Anglais ! God dam John Bull ! Poltroon of 
 militaire ! I am not so old, moi, but I can 
 teach ce gros militaire his own hoxe. Coward 
 English ! English dam ! Fight you all round ! 
 Sacre-e-e-e /" 
 
 The absurdity and whimsicality of the whole 
 scene, and of this ridiculous little being's nonsen- 
 sical part in it, were altogether too much for me, 
 and I too joined in the burst of laughter. 
 
 " Come, come," I said at last, shaking my old 
 friend rather roughly by the collar, "don't make 
 a fool of yourself any more. You have had 
 enough of this for one night. Come away with 
 me." 
 
 " Will ze gros militaire make apology ?"
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IX A NEW CHARACTER. 197 
 
 A renewed burst of laughter followed this, in 
 which the gros mUitaire himself joined. 
 
 "Do take him away, like a good gentleman," 
 said the landlord to me. "I do think he's the 
 most worriting little creature as ever I saw. He's 
 been insulting everyone in my bar to-night. He 
 kissed my barmaid, and he wanted to kiss my 
 wife ; and he's been so down upon that there sol- 
 dier as flesh and blood wouldn't stand it, telling 
 him the English soldiers were all cowards, and 
 that the French were coming over to thrash us 
 all and carry off our wives. And I tried to get 
 rid of him quietly, and he wouldn't go, and I 
 tried to keep order; but you know it's hard for 
 Englishmen to stand being insulted by a d — d 
 little Frenchman ; and the soldier didn't hit him 
 at all, but only wanted just to put him out of 
 the place." 
 
 "Well, take all these people in again, and I'll 
 get him out of this. — Xo, you sha'n't." This last 
 assurance was given to my impetuous friend, who 
 was plunging and struggling so, that it sometimes 
 took all the vigour of my eight-and-twenty years 
 to keep him back, and indeed I sometimes felt 
 tempted to let him rush on and get smothered or
 
 198 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 set-upon by the cavalry-man. The crowd, how- 
 ever, seeing that the fun was probably over, began 
 to straggle back laughing into the public-house ; 
 the barman and the barmaid had returned to their 
 duties ; the soldier was only too glad to get out of 
 the whole business ; and I was nearly master of 
 the situation. 
 
 " Here's his hat," said the landlord. 
 
 " And here's his wig !" exclaimed a bystander, 
 with a burst of laughter. 
 
 The soldier haying by this time disappeared 
 behind the swing-doors of the public-house, his 
 antagonist allowed himself to be quietly coiffe ; 
 and having shrugged his shoulders several times, 
 and exclaimed that the chasseur acknowledged 
 himself vaincu, he made a low bow to the few 
 remaining spectators, thanked ccs braves Anglais 
 for the fair-play of the boxe, and, leaning on my 
 arm affectionately, consented to be led away. The 
 disgust I felt at the whole business no words can 
 express. But that I looked at his withered face, 
 and saw the deepening ruts of Time's track so 
 plainly in it, I should have regretted that I had 
 not left the soldier and himself to settle the busi- 
 ness between them.
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IX A NEW CHARACTER. 199 
 
 When we had got a few paces from the scene 
 of conflict, my companion burst into a long peal 
 of rolling laughter. 
 
 " That was capital," he chuckled. " Did you 
 ever see such fun ? I suppose I may drop the 
 Frenchman now, and return to my allegiance as a 
 native-born subject of happy and glorious, long to 
 reign over us, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain 
 and Ireland." 
 
 " What on earth led you to carry on all that 
 absurd buffoonery ?" 
 
 " If I know, may I be condemned to the eter- 
 nal society of British respectability ! Give you 
 my word, my clear young friend — whose name I 
 have not yet the honour of knowing — I can no 
 more tell you why I chose to assume the man- 
 ners, prejudices, and lingo of Albion's hereditary 
 enemy than I could solve the mystery of man's 
 hereafter. What then ? We are all creatures of 
 impulse. I have been especially so from the date 
 of my first misfortune — of course, I mean my 
 birth. I looked into that atrocious den there with 
 no object whatever. I might have come harm- 
 lessly away in five minutes, when the evil desti- 
 nies would have it that my wandering eyes fell
 
 200 
 
 upon that hapless soldier. He was the centre of 
 an admiring bumpkin or costermonger group ; he 
 was telling, I think, his adventures — atrocious 
 lies, of course, every one — in China, or the Khy- 
 ber Pass, or Syria, or some other place ; and he 
 was evidently immensely proud of being a British 
 soldier. May I perish if I could resist the temp- 
 tation to make him and the rest of them uncom- 
 fortable ! The one thing I hate in life is smug 
 and sleek respectability and self-conceit, in any 
 sphere whatever. In that moment I became a 
 Frenchman — positively for the time being I was a 
 Frenchman. I soon disturbed the harmony of 
 the festive hour. I confuted my red-coat with 
 impromptu facts and impossible geography. I 
 bewildered him so far that before long he couldn't 
 have told whether he did or did not take part in 
 the battle of Plassy, and whether Marshal Ney did 
 not lick the English there. I contradicted and 
 chaffed him, every word he said; I kissed the 
 barmaid because he seemed spoony about her ; I 
 winked ostentatiously at the landlord's wife, until 
 mine host grew purple with jealousy and fear — I 
 really believe I kissed her too ; and finally — " 
 " Finally, they kicked you out."
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IX A NEW CHARACTER. 201 
 
 " No, they didn't. The soldier tried to put 
 me out, and couldn't, and then the whole of them 
 fell on me somehow ; and I have no doubt they 
 would all have wreaked their base vengeance on 
 me but that you came gallantly up to the rescue. 
 I owe you something for that. So much the worse 
 for you. The people I owe anything to are sel- 
 dom any the better for it. Yet I like you ; I did 
 from the first. You look so confoundedly out of 
 sorts." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 "Yes, you do. I hate success and respect- 
 ability. I hate virtue, and domestic happiness, 
 and the proprieties, and all that revolting stuff. 
 I detest children and wives, and people who pa- 
 rade their chubby, insolent happiness. Stand 
 there — just there — in the moonlight a little, and 
 let me look at you." 
 
 I complied with his wish. He planted me as 
 a painter might his model, fell back to a proper 
 distance, and steadily surveyed me with his pierc- 
 ing, glittering, small black eyes. 
 
 " Yes, that will do," he said reflectively. 
 "Nothing about you to offend me. You don't 
 seem to me to have tasted much success in life,
 
 202 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 or to be particularly happy. You, I should say, 
 are at odds with the world, and likely to be for a 
 time at least, and then, perhaps, you may come 
 out all right ; and if you do, I don't want to see 
 any more of you from that time forth. Did you 
 ever hear of Swift and his sceva indignatio, which 
 could only leave him with his life ?" 
 
 " Yes, I Have heard of Swift, and know all 
 about his sceva indignatio." 
 
 " Well, I think that's my curse. I writhe 
 under it, and I live to make others writhe. That 
 one resemblance — you need not tell me it is the 
 only one — I bear to Jonathan Swift. How the 
 devil, though, do you know it is the only one ?" 
 
 " I didn't say I knew anything about it. You 
 may be twice as great a man as Swift for aught 
 I know to the contrary." 
 
 ' ' Of course I may — to be sure I may. Then 
 why did you sneer when I spoke of a resemblance 
 between Swift and myself?" 
 
 "I didn't sneer. I smiled at the notion." 
 
 "Don't smile any more until you know what 
 you are smiling at. However, I don't mind being- 
 frank and humble for once, and confessing that 
 in the matter of genius I am decidedly inferior
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IX A NEW CHARACTER. 203 
 
 to Swift. Also that the world has never recog- 
 nised me as it did him. But one thing is cer- 
 tain : Swift never locked up in his heart a greater 
 treasure of hate than I do. How old are you ?" 
 
 " Twenty-eight, I think, or thereabouts." 
 
 "Don't you find the world a devilish place?" 
 
 " How devilish ?" 
 
 "Full of devils. Here, there, and everywhere 
 — devils all around us. If I were inclined to be 
 an atheist — which, thank God, I never, never was 
 — I should be forced to believe in God, because 
 I see so much of the devil. Don't you think with 
 me ?" 
 
 " yes, quite so ; no doubt. In fact, I am 
 rather in a hurry now, and can't stay to discuss 
 theology." 
 
 "Another sneer! This time an inexcusable 
 one, for it is a sneer against religion. Young 
 man, whatever you do, be religious always." 
 
 I was turning away, utterly disgusted at the 
 hideous profanation of his language. He saw dis- 
 gust painted on my features, and he seized me 
 by the arm : 
 
 "Stay; don't go yet. Don't — you shan't. 
 You think me a hypocrite ?"
 
 204 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 "I do ; and I am sickened by such talk. Let 
 me go, and good-night." 
 
 "No; just listen to me. I am not a hypo- 
 crite; no, by God! He hears me, and He knows! 
 If I had been, I must have succeeded in life, 
 and been respectable, and had carriages and fine 
 horses, and sat in Parliament as Tommy Good- 
 boy. But I could not ; I would go my own way 
 — to the devil if need be — and yet loving religion 
 all the time. What else is my hope and my con- 
 solation ? Do I not read in the Psalms of David 
 how he curses his enemies ? — and these words 
 teach me how to curse mine. Do I not read how 
 Dives at last went down to hell — " 
 
 "For shame, for shame! You are growing 
 old, and should read the Holy Scriptures to some 
 other purpose, or not at all. Let us say no more 
 of it — and good-night." 
 
 " Good-night, then — and go to the devil ! I 
 say, shall we meet in London ?" 
 
 "I hope not." 
 
 "Then I hope we shall; and I am sure we 
 shall ; I see it in the future that we are to be 
 thrown together a good deal somehow." 
 
 Confound it ! this very thought was at the
 
 MY NEW FRIEND IN A NEW CHARACTER. 205 
 
 moment pressing painfully on my own mind. 
 Just as I still kept thinking his face not unfa- 
 miliar to me, and wondering where I could have 
 seen one like it before, so I began now to be 
 weighed down with a hideous foreboding that 
 this creature and I were likely to be brought 
 together in some close and disagreeable way here- 
 after. The very nourishing of this thought drew 
 with it a hesitation which unconsciously checked 
 my abrupt breaking away from my companion. 
 Involuntarily, irresistibly, I once more set myself 
 to scan and study his features, in the vague hope 
 of reading there some clue to my forebodings. 
 
 "I see you don't like the prospect," he re- 
 marked with a chuckle ; " but you need not much 
 fear : you have no money, I know. Lucky for 
 you, for I must get money somehow ; and I am 
 such a hand at billiards and cards ! But I can't 
 wait for these slow and steady acquisitions when 
 I get to London. I must have something to open 
 the campaign with. Gave to Goodboy ! Good- 
 bye to you for the present ; we'll meet again. 
 Just now take your face hence. Thanks for de- 
 fending me so valiantly. Next time that, in the 
 capacity of a discharged caporal, I am engaged in
 
 206 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 vindicating the honour of France against some 
 gigantic beef-eating Briton, I'll endeavour to have 
 you close at hand." 
 
 At last he went away; and I could hear him 
 trolling Partant pour la Syrie in a wonderfully 
 sweet and mellow voice as he disappeared from 
 my sight. 
 
 Much relieved by our separation, I went briskly 
 home ; sincerely, though somehow not very hope- 
 fully, praying that London might prove kind 
 enough to hold us two without bringing us to- 
 gether.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 
 
 The season was Riding when I returned to Lon- 
 don. Even in our dull and barbarous district 
 people were beginning to make ghastly affecta- 
 tion of going out of town ; while in the streets 
 which society and civilisation claimed for their 
 own the windows were darkening one after an- 
 other, much as the coloured lamps of an old- 
 fashioned illumination, before the universal reign 
 of gas had set in, used to fade and die towards 
 morning. 
 
 Lilla had a rapid summary of news for me. 
 " Nothing much" had occurred, as she phrased 
 it; her uncle had not yet left town; he had had 
 a quarrel with his daughters, and she had an 
 idea that it was all about the Opera and Made- 
 moiselle Reichstein. O, hadn't I heard ? Made- 
 moiselle Reichstein had made such a success ! 
 0, yes — splendid ! But she had broken off her
 
 208 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 engagement rather suddenly, and she wanted to 
 go to the other opera-house, and there was quite 
 a turmoil about it; and Lilla believed there was 
 going to be a lawsuit. But, however that might 
 be, Mr. Lyndon was quite infatuated about her; 
 and people would keep saying that he wanted to 
 marry her ; and his daughters were in such a 
 way about it, and there was a row in the build- 
 ing, Lilla believed. She was quite delighted at 
 the prospect of a " row" continuing and grow- 
 ing to be something serious, for she utterly de- 
 tested Mr. Lyndon's daughters ; and she was 
 going to be introduced to Mademoiselle Reich- 
 stein. 
 
 "But if your uncle marries, Lilla, that will 
 be rather a bad thing for you ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but I don't believe it will come to any- 
 thing. I should think a woman so young, and 
 with such a career before her, isn't going to marry 
 a man who has daughters quite as old as herself 
 and once and a half as tall. If I were she, I 
 know that nothing on earth should induce me to 
 do such a thing. 0, how I envy her ! How 
 happy some people are ! What success they have, 
 and gifts, and beauty ! And what a miserable
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 200 
 
 life a girl like me is doomed to lead ! Here in 
 this wretched old den ! I wonder how one can 
 live through it. I never cross the bridge but I 
 think how sad and dreary my life is, and how 
 much I should like to drown myself, if I had the 
 courage. She must be as happy as a queen. I 
 envy her, and I admire her too." 
 
 " Have you seen her ?" 
 
 ' 'No; her portrait only; and it was a wretched 
 portrait too — a thing in a music-shop, with some 
 rubbishy piece of music appended : but it made 
 her beautiful and queenly, and sad too, I thought. 
 But I am to see her. Is it possible you did not 
 hear of her success down in the country ?" 
 
 " yes, of course I did. But I am tired of 
 all the singers who are everyone in turn to sur- 
 pass Jenny Lind and Grisi, and who disappear 
 in a season." 
 
 "But the town is ringing with her." 
 
 " Yes, so it was with Mademoiselle Johanna 
 "Wagner ; so it was with no end of women. Where 
 are they all now?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know; but I have quite made 
 up my mind that this one shall succeed and have 
 a splendid career, and come to know me and be 
 
 vol. i. p
 
 210 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 very fond of me, and take me behind the scenes, 
 and have me in her box ; and please don't destroy 
 my delicious dream. I have not many pleasant 
 dreams here, I can tell you. I never saw success 
 in a living form face to face before ; and pray 
 don't convince me that I am not really to see it 
 now. If you have come back cynical and out of 
 humour, pray go away again on your travels; 
 although we were precious lonely without you, I 
 can tell you that." 
 
 " Were you lonety without me ?" 
 
 " yes, very. Mamma thought you would 
 never come back." 
 
 " And you, Lilla?" 
 
 " Yes ; I too was very lonely." 
 
 " And you were glad when I came back ?" 
 
 "Glad? Yes, surely. You don't suppose I 
 was not glad ?" 
 
 The frank look of kindly affectionate surprise 
 with which Lilla spoke these words had a warm- 
 ing, almost a thrilling influence on me. I think 
 I had begun of late to form a kind of vague idea 
 that Lilla might easily be induced to fall in love 
 with me. I certainly did not love her, and I 
 saw nothing in her manner towards me which
 
 GREETING AND — FAREWELL. 211 
 
 spoke of love. But we were so much thrown to- 
 gether, we were hoth so lonely, that I sometimes 
 began to ask myself whether it would not he pos- 
 sible for me to descend from my pinnacle of 
 sublime isolation, and lift her towards my heart. 
 
 I look back now upon myself and upon my 
 ways at that time with the feeling which I sup- 
 pose most people entertain towards their youth, 
 curiously blended of regret and admiration and 
 contempt. What a vain creature I was, and yet 
 how stupidly timid and diffident ! What a fool 
 I was, and how convinced of my own wisdom ! 
 How miserable I was, and how happy ! What 
 an admiration I had for my own merits, and yet 
 what a rapturous and servile gratitude I felt to any 
 woman who seemed to cast a favouring eye upon 
 me ! I kept thinking complacently whether I 
 really could accept Lilla's love, without asking 
 myself whether any consideration on earth could 
 induce her to accept me as a lover; and yet all 
 the time I was filled with a sense of humiliating 
 gratefulness to the girl for having condescended to 
 be friendly and kindly to me. Of course I thought 
 to myself, if I could make up my mind to come 
 down from my clouds and try to love her, I must
 
 212 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 tell her openly, tragically, that I was a blighted 
 being, that I had hardly any heart left to give, 
 and so forth. Even then I had a faint doubt 
 whether this would not be a little too much in 
 the style of Dickens's Mr. Moddle, with whom I 
 knew Lilla to be well acquainted; and what a 
 pretty thing it would be, if she were only to burst 
 out laughing at my lachrymose avowal ! 
 
 Yet the moment was tempting ; the situation 
 became critical. Lilla had her levities and her 
 faults, that was plain enough ; only a lover's eye 
 could be blind to them, and I was not a lover. 
 But they could surely be ameliorated, eradicated 
 gently by patience and superior wisdom — mine, 
 par excmple. Who did not once believe himself 
 capable of reforming anyone on whom he chose to 
 try his hand ? I am slow to believe in my own or 
 anybody else's reforming capabilities now; but I 
 suppose I then thought that, if I but condescended 
 to attempt the task, I could remove all the weak- 
 nesses and defects from poor Lilla's nature, and 
 replace them by some splendid grafts of earnest- 
 ness and lofty purpose. 
 
 However this may be, Lilla's friendly admis- 
 sion that she was lonely in my absence had sent
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 213 
 
 a strange, sweet vibration through me. When 
 this conversation occurred, we were crossing St. 
 James' s-park. Thus far our roads lay together, 
 and when there was a possibility of such com- 
 panionship, we always took advantage of it. It 
 was a beautiful evening, and the light of the 
 setting sun threw a poetical glory over even the 
 arid gravel and stunted trees of the park. It was 
 a dangerous time and hour to walk with a pretty 
 woman, and hear her tell you that she had been 
 lonely in your absence. 
 
 I glanced at Lilla. Her eyes were downcast 
 
 — only, I now believe, because the level rays of 
 
 # 
 the evening sun threatened them — and there was 
 
 a faint crimson on her cheeks. She was silent. 
 
 I felt my soul dissolving in sentiment. 
 
 "Then you were really glad of my return, 
 Lilla, and you thought of me in my absence ?" 
 
 She looked up quickly, smilingly, perhaps just 
 a little surprised. 
 
 " Thought of you ? yes, always ! How 
 could I help thinking of you ?" 
 
 What I might have poured out in another 
 second I am glad to say that I can never know. 
 It would undoubtedly have been some idiotcy to
 
 214 MY enemy's daughter. 
 
 be bitterly regretted by myself afterwards ; and, as 
 I now know, not likely to have caused her any 
 particular delight then, even if she had not 
 laughed at it. But she suddenly stopped in her 
 sentence, and caught me by the arm, and a 
 carriage drove past us from behind. Two ladies 
 were in it, and a gentleman, whose iron-gray hair 
 and purpling complexion I knew at a glance. I 
 only saw the bonnets of the ladies. Lilla bowed 
 to her uncle, and I saw her cheek redden. 
 
 "It's my uncle," she said ; " and I know — I 
 am sure — one of the ladies with him is Mdlle. 
 Keichstein. I didn't even get a glimpse of her, 
 did you ?" 
 
 " No ; I only saw bonnets." 
 
 " 0, I wish I had seen her ! I am sure it's 
 she; I am so sorry! And he saw us. I don't 
 care a bit ; in fact, I am delighted, because now it 
 will remind him of you ; and I didn't like to speak 
 too much about you, or too often, because — " 
 
 And Lilla really blushed for the second time 
 that day. 
 
 But the blushing was useless now: the spell 
 was broken; my sublime self-devotion vanished. 
 Lilla's voice, and her evident first sensation of
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 215 
 
 something like doubt or shame at being seen in 
 my companionship, and her raptures about Mdlle. 
 Reichstein, were enough. How full of kindness 
 for me her whole heart was, I could not but see ; 
 and I loved her in one way for that and other 
 things ; but the glamour of the moment was gone, 
 and I left her when our ways divided at Pall Mall 
 a free man, still faithful to my one memory and 
 one love. 
 
 Two or three days passed away before an even- 
 ing and an event came which I can never forget. 
 I had been in town all day, and came home rather 
 tired just after the last rays of a stormy sunset 
 had sunk below the horizon of the low-lying 
 region where we lived. My room, as I entered it, 
 was in dusk ; but I could see as I came in a letter 
 for me standing on the chimney-piece. I went 
 over apathetically and took it in my hand ; but the 
 sight of the inscription sent a fierce shock through 
 me, and my head throbbed with a wild pain, born 
 of surprise and sudden emotion. I knew that 
 writing well. I put the letter down for a moment, 
 just that my heart might beat less wildly, and my 
 nerves become steady. Then I opened it, and 
 read :
 
 216 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " Emanuel, — I liaYe seen you again, and you 
 did not know it. I was near you. After so many 
 years, it was strange. I am glad we did not meet 
 to speak. I only write this word to wish you may 
 be happy always. Nothing is left but — greeting, 
 and farewell. 
 
 " Christina." 
 
 I put the letter down and leaned on the chim- 
 ney-piece. I was for a while incapable of think- 
 ing. I was literally stricken to the heart. "We 
 had been close to each other, and I had not seen 
 her ! If the foolery of our modern days could haYe 
 truth behind it, and a living man could really, by 
 help of some spiritualistic incantations, be reached 
 by the Yoice and affected by the presence of some 
 loved being from another world, he might feel 
 somewhat as I felt then, but without my bitter- 
 ness. No voice reaching out of the shadow of the 
 world that lies outside nature could have affected 
 me with a more agonising sense of unavailable 
 nearness and hopeless distance. Near to me — 
 close to me — her very writing lying on my table — 
 and no clue or trace by which a word of mine 
 might reach her ! If I could but see her once —
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 217 
 
 but speak half-a-dozen words — but tell her of my 
 strong love ! Was it not cruel thus to torture 
 me with such a message ? Why not leave me to- 
 my lonely struggle ? I was comparatively happy ; 
 I was almost contented ; I had not forgotten her, 
 but she had become to me as the dead are, and I 
 had no hope. Bitterly did I now recall my first 
 knowledge of her departure, my first sense of her 
 loss, my first agony of uncertainty and torment. 
 Now all woke up again with keener pain, with a 
 deeper sense of tantalised and thwarted love. 
 
 Perhaps she too, like myself, is unhappy, is 
 struggling alone, and has sent out these few words 
 for the poor sake of reaching a friendly ear by 
 some means, as parting voyagers call a greeting to 
 distant friends upon the fading shore, although no 
 answer can reach them. Are we both, then, strug- 
 gling unaided in this vast London ? Has one city 
 held us all these years, and I never knew it ? Is 
 she poor like me, and hopeless ? Or is she mar- 
 ried and happy; and having seen me at last by 
 chance, did she but look up for a moment and 
 think of the boy whom years ago she loved, and, 
 impelled by meaningless impulse, send him a 
 word of greeting and farewell ? Have I lost her
 
 218 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 utterly and for ever; or will some other message, 
 more distinct than this, reach me yet, and guide 
 me to her? 
 
 This thought for a while lighted up a hope, a 
 sickly, flickering hope, within me. Perhaps, as 
 she lives, is near me, has seen me, has sent me a 
 message, her mere words do not mean what she 
 feels, and I shall hear from her soon again, and 
 we shall meet. I was somewhat weak of late from 
 over-exertion. I think I must have been weak 
 indeed, in mind as well as in body, when such a 
 hope could inspire me for a moment. Well I 
 knew that even when Christina loved me most, 
 she loved success yet more ; and what temptation 
 could my future offer to such a spirit? I looked 
 from the window, and the drear evening gloom 
 made the flat and swampy places around, the 
 mouldering houses, the blighted trees, look grayer 
 and ghostlier than ever. Heavy rain was now 
 beginning to fall, and the sky was all cloud and 
 gloom. Nothing on earth could look more dreary 
 to me than the prospect out of doors, except, 
 indeed, the personal prospect which my soul fore- 
 shadowed. Sad and heavy, like that mournful 
 scene below — brightened by no ray of light,
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 219 
 
 cheered by no pleasant sound — all dim, and 
 misty, and gray. If I could find Christina, 
 should I offer her a share of this one room, look- 
 ing out on that swamp, and get her to canvass for 
 pupils, who might learn music from her at six- 
 pence a lesson, among the dirty children and the 
 unfinished streets all around ? I pictured her, as 
 I saw so many women in the neighbourhood, strug- 
 gling for mere life, with children crying round her, 
 and cramping her very efforts to get them bread, 
 that they might eat of it and live. Why, there 
 is a peculiar expression graven on the faces of a 
 certain class of women in London, which cuts the 
 very heart to look at. And why should I expect 
 better fortune for a woman doomed to be wife of 
 mine ? London garrets swarm with men infinitely 
 better and more worthy of success than I, and yet 
 on whom no gleam of fortune ever falls. 
 
 Once, it is true, I had more courage and more 
 hope. But London struggle has something in it 
 demoralising. No contrast in life can bo more 
 chilling and crushing than that of ideal London 
 with actual London in such a case as mine. To 
 ideal London we look in our ardour as the youth 
 does to the battle, which he pictures as all thrill-
 
 220 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 ing with the generous glory of strife, the rush of 
 the exhilarating charge, the clangour of the bugle, 
 the roar of the cannon, the cheers of the victor,, 
 the honour and the wreath, or the noble, soldier- 
 like, dramatic death. Actual London is the slow, 
 cold camping on the wet earth, the swamp, malaria, 
 the ignoble hunger and thirst, the dull lying in 
 the trenches, the mean physical exhaustion, the 
 unrecognised, unrecorded disappearance. What 
 has become of the poor, raw, boyish recruit who 
 sank exhausted in the mud of the night march, or 
 was trampled to death in the retreat, or came back 
 with a broken constitution from the hospital, to 
 drag out a few obscure and miserable years at 
 home ? 
 
 I seemed to myself to be like the most ig- 
 noble and the most unhappy of them. Should 
 I wish Christina to share such fortunes — to be- 
 come entangled in such a career? 
 
 Or if she were prosperous, could I beg of her 
 prosperity, and be warmed meekly in the sun of 
 her success ? 
 
 This last idea was so hateful to me, that I 
 strode passionately up and down the room to 
 banish it, and felt inclined to invoke curses on
 
 GREETING AND — FAREWELL. 221 
 
 myself for the meanness which even allowed it to 
 have an instant's possession of my mind. 
 
 All, no ! She is lost, lost for ever ! Whether 
 she lives in light or in gloom, she is lost alike to 
 me ! I could not brighten the gloom. I will 
 never stoop to be illumined — a pitiful, poor, 
 human planet — by the light. I take her farewell 
 literally — and farewell ! 
 
 A tap at the door broke in upon my lonely 
 thoughts. The disturbance was grateful to me ; 
 any intruder would have been welcome at such a 
 time. It was not an intruder, however, who 
 sought to be admitted, but Lilla Lyndon. Her 
 looks showed her to be brimful of some intelli- 
 gence. She was dressed as if she had only just 
 come in, and her cheeks and curls were sparkling 
 with rain-drops. 
 
 "Do you know where I have been?" she be- 
 gan. " But you need not try to guess, for you 
 never could succeed. I have been to see Made- 
 moiselle Reichstein with my uncle." 
 
 "Indeed ! Do you like her ?" 
 
 "Yes, immensely. She is delightful, I think, 
 and so good, and very handsome. You don't 
 seem at all interested in her. Wait a bit, I have
 
 222 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 something to tell you which will interest you, 
 
 cold-hearted philosopher as you are. But stop — 
 
 are you not well ?" 
 
 "Yes, Lilla, quite well." 
 
 "You don't look like it, then. I'll send 
 
 mamma to talk to you presently. Perhaps I 
 
 have something to tell you which will help you 
 
 to get better." 
 
 "I am not ill, indeed, Lilla." 
 
 "Well, let me get on with my news. My 
 
 uncle came with me ; but after a while he left 
 me with Mademoiselle Eeichstein, and I remained 
 for more than an hour, and she sang to me de- 
 lightfully; and she was so kind and good, and 
 seemed to take such an interest in me, you can't 
 think; only I put it down in my own mind to 
 the account of the interest she takes in my revered 
 uncle, who, if he's not very young, at least has 
 plenty of money. However, she took such an 
 interest in me, that, when we were alone, I came 
 to the point which I had at heart all through — 
 and I spoke to her about you. Ah ! now you 
 begin at last to think it worth while listening to 
 what I say." 
 
 Yes, I must own that even while she spoke a
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 223 
 
 strange boding thrill passed through me, and I 
 held my breath in a kind of agony. 
 
 "I can tell you I spoke highly of you, and 
 told her how fond mamma was of you, and I too. 
 I do wonder what you would have thought if you 
 only knew what I allowed her to think in order to 
 persuade her to take an interest in you." 
 
 " What did you allow her to think?" 
 
 "I declare you are quite hoarse, Emanuel. 
 You are in for a bad cold." 
 
 "No, no, Lilla; do pray go on." 
 
 "Well, I had rather you guessed at my pious 
 fraud. I didn't exactly say the false word, but I 
 am afraid I gave it out somehow. She asked me 
 a question about you, and about my interest in 
 you, and I allowed her to think — 0, there, I am 
 quite ashamed of myself; and I suppose a girl 
 better brought up than I would not have done 
 such a thing for all the world. But I have not 
 been brought up well, and I never could stick at 
 trifles to serve a friend — and in fact, Mr. Temple, 
 I think I allowed Mdlle. Eeichstein to believe that 
 you and I were engaged, and only waited to be 
 married until you had made your way a little. 
 There's the whole truth out; and all I can say
 
 224 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 in my own defence is, that if I had not as much 
 esteem for you and confidence in you, Emanuel 
 Temple, as if you were my own brother, I would 
 never, never, bad as I am, have been guilty of any- 
 thing so unblushing and unwomanly. There now, 
 how dreadfully miserable you look ! I really don't 
 see that you need be so utterly humiliated and 
 ashamed — I daresay Mdlle. Keichstein did not 
 think any the worse of you, whatever she may 
 have thought of me." 
 
 I was hardly conscious of any meaning in these 
 latest words of hers. I was not thinking of hu- 
 miliation, or of what she had said on my behalf. 
 One thought, one conjecture, was swelling up 
 within me so as to flood and drown every other 
 feeling. 
 
 "I feel greatly obliged to you, Lilla, greatly 
 obliged," was all I could say. 
 
 "And you look it too." 
 
 " But Mdlle. Keichstein ?" 
 
 "Well, Mdlle. Keichstein was most kind and 
 amiable. She sat quite silent and thoughtful for 
 a while, perhaps considering how best she could 
 lend a helping hand. It must be a far more diffi- 
 cult matter than I thought, for she put her hand
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 225 
 
 over her eyes, and remained thinking quite a time. 
 Then she kissed me, and wished me all happiness. 
 I felt like a shamefaced and convicted liar. Yes, 
 she wished happiness to me — to me, the most 
 unhappy, discontented, lonely, hopeless creature 
 under the sun ! — and then she sat down and wrote 
 a letter to Princeps — the great Princeps himself, 
 the manager of the Italian Opera — and I saw that 
 she tore up two or three copies before she was 
 satisfied with the writing (I believe half these 
 prima donnas can't spell) ; and then she read it 
 to me. It was all about you, and making it a 
 personal favour to help you — very strongly put, 
 I can tell you. I offered to post it as I came 
 along, in order to be quite sure that it went ; for 
 she said Princeps was not in London now, and it 
 would be impossible for you to see him for some 
 weeks; and she asked me — but this I really ought 
 not to tell you." 
 
 " Tell me all, Lilla— all, all !" 
 
 "Good gracious, how hoarse you are! Well, 
 she is so kind and thoughtful that she begged me 
 not to tell you anything about the whole affair. 
 People don't always like, she said, to think that 
 they are being helped along, and it would be better 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 if you supposed that you were being sought out — 
 for you will be sought out — for your own merit 
 only. Was not that considerate and delicate ? 
 But I know you have no such nonsense about 
 you, and I want you to know how kind she is, 
 and so I have told you, though I promised I 
 wouldn't — the second fib to-day on your account, 
 Mr. Emanuel Temple. 0, that reminds me that 
 I must have let drop your full name somehow, for 
 she seemed quite to know it." 
 
 0, God in heaven ! I stood up and clenched 
 my hands. 
 
 "And now I think that's all; except that she 
 gave me her picture, and I think her so beautiful ! 
 0, how I do wish she would marry my uncle ! 
 Why, what is the matter with you ?" 
 
 " Show me the picture, Lilla." 
 
 She sought in her pocket, then in the bosom 
 of her dress. I stood trembling with excitement, 
 keen pains again darting through my forehead, the 
 square of light made by the window rising and 
 falling before my eyes. 
 
 " Surely I can't have lost it ? No, here it is. 
 Is she not beautiful ? Such a mass of hair, and 
 all her own too."
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 227 
 
 I took the picture from her. It was one of the 
 old-fashioned daguerreotypes now as completely 
 gone out of the world as Miss La Creevy's enamel- 
 led miniatures. When I first seized it and gazed 
 upon it, the light so fell as to hlot it out com- 
 pletely, and my impatient eyes only looked upon a 
 blank space. Forcing down my emotion, I brought 
 it to the window, held it in the proper light, and 
 then — 
 
 "Lilly, my dear; Lilly, my own," broke in, 
 thank Heaven ! the plaintive tones of Mrs. Lyndon. 
 "Yes, mamma; what's up?" 
 " My child, you musn't stay in your wet things. 
 Come down, dear; I want you." 
 
 " 0, what does it matter ! Yes, I am coming. 
 — Keep the picture for the present, Emanuel, and 
 fall in love with it if you can. I would, I know, if 
 I were a man. I'll send up for it presently." 
 
 Thank God she was gone ! I could not have 
 endured her presence much longer without betray- 
 ing my feelings by a wild explosion. Yes ; it was 
 as I expected — the face in the daguerreotype was 
 the face of Christina Braun. Her dream, then, 
 had come true. She had done her part. She was 
 successful.
 
 228 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 Ah, God ! I hardly needed to look at the poor 
 little daguerreotype, or to struggle against the 
 growing dusk for a clear sight of that face. By 
 some force of ineffable conviction, the moment 
 Lilla came into the room and spoke of Mdlle. 
 Reichstein, I guessed the truth, of which I had 
 never dreamed before. Often as she had talked to 
 me of Mdlle. Reichstein, the notion had never be- 
 fore occurred to my mind that the successful prima 
 donna could be my lost Christina. But the letter 
 — the few lines I had myself received that night — 
 brought her back into my mind as a living reality 
 again, and I knew the whole truth before my eyes 
 or ears had any evidence of it. 
 
 Yes, I am unable to account for it, but I knew 
 it to be the fact that the moment Lilla entered the 
 room and named the name of Mdlle. Reichstein, 
 it came on me with the convincing force of a reve- 
 lation that she and Christina Braun were one, and 
 that I had lost Christina for ever. 
 
 She was successful. Did I not know that she 
 would be some time ? And yet it came on me 
 now with a surprise which was like agony. Like 
 agony ? Nay, it was agony ; for it severed us 
 more, far more, than death could do. She was
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 229 
 
 lost, lost to Hie. The one hope which had lighted 
 my lonely life so long had utterly gone out. When, 
 years ago, I used to hold her to my heart and talk 
 to her of her future success, I always spoke of it 
 as conjoined with my own, as the crown of a com- 
 mon happiness. In how many hours of love and 
 hope, in how many happy walks under the summer 
 stars, in how many silent dreams, had we pictured 
 that triumph for her and for me ! We were to 
 make our way together through life, to become 
 successful and famous, and then to come back and 
 amaze the little town, which we magniloquently 
 declared did not know us. Or, if we did not suc- 
 ceed — for I at least had my moments of distrust 
 and doubt — I always looked forward to our strug- 
 gling and perhaps suffering together, still happy 
 because together. Even our sudden and strange 
 separation I had sometimes regarded as a glorious 
 self-sacrifice, to be crowned and rewarded some 
 day. Many a night had I returned sick of heart 
 and weary of foot to my London lodging, and, 
 musing over the hours of happiness, love, and hope 
 I had once enjoyed, been cheered and brightened 
 by the thought that perhaps my struggles here 
 were working in unseen cooperation with her to-
 
 230 my enemy's daughtek. 
 
 wards the same end. There was still at least a 
 link of companionship, and a hope that it might 
 draw us together one day. As my eyes were fixed 
 upon the pale, far-off star of my hope, it was some 
 consolation and joy to think that wherever she 
 might be, her eyes and her soul were turned to- 
 wards it too. 
 
 And now, behold, one half at least of our most 
 ardent prayer has been fulfilled. She has won all 
 we dreamed of and hoped for. Why do I not re- 
 joice ? I was to have been the first to hail her 
 triumph, and now I greet it with agony and shame ; 
 as if her success were my defeat and humiliation. 
 And it is so. I feel that no poverty, no failure, no 
 temporary isolation under the pressure of misfor- 
 tune could raise such barriers between her and me 
 as this fatal granting of one half our prayer. Poor 
 people may become less poor, or they may grow 
 familiar with poverty and learn to endure it, or 
 they may conquer its pain by the strength of love 
 and hope. But this revelation of her success has 
 sounded the last of love and hope for me. Why, 
 all these years that I have been picturing her heart 
 as turning eternally towards mine, and panting for 
 reunion, she has been simply making her way in
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 231 
 
 the world ! She has run over some of the most 
 thrilling chords of human experience, she has won 
 every height to which she aspired ; while I have 
 been removing from one town to another, my 
 greatest triumph to exchange a garret for a small 
 back-parlour. I feel crushed down by grief and 
 shame. She must despise me. She has actually 
 patronised me ! The great singer has granted, at 
 the humble petition of a poor girl, a letter of in- 
 troduction, to help a struggling and obscure poor 
 devil to an engagement in a chorus. I had ima- 
 gined many a renewal of our former days, many a 
 first greeting after our long separation, many a 
 meeting under all conceivable circumstances of joy 
 and of sorrow ; but I had thought of nothing like 
 this. I had forgotten to picture myself as a broken- 
 down beggar petitioning for help ; and her as a 
 triumphant and splendid prima donna granting 
 me the favour at the solicitude of a wealthy and 
 elderly lover. 
 
 Why, it seems but last week that she wrote 
 those letters I keep in my trunk, full of such 
 love, and tenderness, and admiration — admiration 
 for me ! and now I am her debtor for a letter of 
 introduction, obtained through the importunity of
 
 232 my enemy's daughtek. 
 
 Lilla Lyndon and the influence of her rich uncle, 
 in order that, if I am well conducted, I may re- 
 ceive perhaps an engagement in the chorus of the 
 Italian Opera ! I wonder she did not send me a 
 small present of money ! But perhaps if I obtain 
 a place as chorus- singer through her influence, 
 and conduct myself properly, and never appear to 
 recognise her, she may assist me in some other 
 way too. She may, for example, give Lilla the 
 making of some of her fine stage-dresses, or even 
 the place of her own dressing-room attendant; 
 and if Lilla and I get married, the great prima 
 donna may kindly become godmother to one of 
 our children ! Ah, but if the prima donna should 
 marry Lilla's rich uncle, then indeed something 
 better could doubtless be done for Lilla than to 
 marry her to a wretch like me ! In the bitter- 
 ness of my heart it seemed as if my love for 
 Christina had turned into hate. 
 
 I was only aroused from the depth of bitter 
 thought into which I had plunged by my own 
 voice — by the sound of a deep, involuntary, irre- 
 pressible groan, wrung from me by agony of love, 
 disappointment, shame, hate. In the silent, dark- 
 ling room the groan sounded hollow and ghostly,
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 233 
 
 as in a vault of death. It aroused me as a dreamer 
 is sometimes awakened by the sound of his own 
 babble or laughter. 
 
 I started up with the resolve to do something. 
 Yes, there was something I could and would do — 
 I would see her face to face. I would go to her, 
 speak to her, ask of her how she dared to insult 
 me with her patronage. I meant no appeal to 
 the love of the old days; no poor and pitiful plaint, 
 no ghastly effort to recall the dead past from the 
 grave. No ; we are parted for ever ; and I accept 
 my doom, and make no complaint. Only she 
 shall know that I want no patronage, and will 
 stoop to accept none. Let her spare me that. 
 For the sake even of the old days which she has 
 forgotten, for the sake of the love which I would 
 not now have her renew if I could — no, by Hea- 
 ven ! — let her spare me that ! Let me but see 
 her, speak to her, vindicate to her face my pride 
 and my independence ; and perhaps — perhaps I 
 then can better bear with life. 
 
 Filled with this thought, I went downstairs 
 and tapped at the door of Mrs. Lyndon's room, 
 endeavouring meanwhile to still the fierce beat- 
 ings of my heart, and to keep some control over
 
 234 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 my voice and manner. Lilla's voice called to me 
 to come in. I had hoped to find her mother 
 there, thinking I could get on better in ordinary 
 conversation if there were three of us at it, than 
 in mere tete-a-tete with my quick and sharp-eyed 
 Lilla. But I could hear Mrs. Lyndon at work at 
 some cookery-business below in the kitchen, and 
 Lilla was alone. Must I confess the truth? I 
 almost hated the poor girl for her well-meant, 
 kindly, luckless interference on my behalf. 
 
 When I entered, Lilla was apparently in a 
 condition of great comfort and happiness. She 
 was lying, or rather huddled up, on a little sofa, 
 which was drawn over to the table, on which a 
 lamp threw a soft and pleasant light, and she was 
 reading a novel. Lilla loved novel-reading. She 
 had a great shawl gathered cosily around her, 
 covering her from neck to feet — indeed, I think 
 her feet must have been coiled up under her, 
 sultana fashion, for greater comfort ; for the 
 night, though in summer, had turned a little 
 chilly, and Lilla had been out in the rain on my 
 behalf. In fact, the poor girl had probably taken 
 off her wet dress, and had wrapped herself in a 
 shawl as an easy substitute. I know she always
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 235 
 
 liked to get the room to herself when she had 
 a novel to read, for her mother was a dreadfully 
 irritating person at such a time, full as she always 
 was of anxious questions and perplexing recom- 
 mendations. So Lilla was evidently very happy ; 
 and as she looked up at me with her beaming 
 eyes, and her pretty head peeping above the great 
 enveloping shawl, in which the whole of her figure 
 was lost, she must have been very charming to 
 any eyes but mine. In my bitter, diseased, dis- 
 tracted state of mind, it irritated me to see her 
 looking so cosy, and pretty, and happy. I felt 
 much as an angry man feels when, striding moodily 
 to his fire, he stumbles over the sleek, contented, 
 purring cat that lies basking on the hearthrug. 
 
 " Have you brought me my picture ?" asked 
 my happy Lilla. 
 
 There was an intense odour of savoury frying 
 below, which I grieve to think must have con- 
 duced a good deal to the happiness of this good 
 girl's mind. Her harmless and comfortable little 
 sensuousness was regaled and propitiated on the 
 odour from below, like the goodwill of the old 
 gods on the steam of the fat sacrifice. 
 
 " Yes, I have brought it."
 
 236 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 "Isn't it lovely?" 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " How chillingly you say that ! Men have no 
 taste ; and I am sure it is all nonsense to say that 
 we don't admire pretty women more than you do. 
 I am quite in love with that face and hair ; and 
 you don't seem to care a straw about it." 
 
 " Well, I think, I believe I should like to keep 
 it a little longer, just to study it, Lilla, and under- 
 stand it a little, if you don't object, and will leave 
 it to me only for to-night." 
 
 Had I been asking Lilla to elope with me, or 
 to steal her uncle's purse for me, I could not have 
 preferred the request in more awkward and stam- 
 mering accents. My pretty one gathered herself 
 into something like a more upright posture on 
 the sofa, and looked at me with all the inquisi- 
 tive, penetrating brightness of her eyes. 
 
 " yes, surely. I am very glad you want to 
 look at it a little more, for I should be so pleased 
 if you came to admire it as I do. But I don't 
 understand you to-night, somehow — you don't 
 seem like yourself." 
 
 " All the better if I seem like somebody else — 
 anybody else, Lilla."
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 237 
 
 " Nonsense ! Tell me one thing, and speak 
 truly, and without any evasion or chaff — are you 
 at all sick ? Because, if you are, I really must set 
 mamma at you ; but if not — I mean if there's any- 
 thing wrong that isn't sickness, or catching cold 
 or that sort of thing — mamma would be only a 
 bore and a plague to you, and you had better be 
 let alone. Tell me frankly, do you wish to be let 
 alone ?" 
 
 " Indeed, Lilla, I am perfectly well." 
 " Then you want to be let alone ?" 
 "I see you have been reading. What's the 
 novel ?" 
 
 " 0, a charming thing — so beautiful and po- 
 etic ; only it is so sad — The Improvisatore ; do 
 you know it ? by Hans Christian Andersen, the 
 Danish novelist. I have just been reading such a 
 touching passage. The hero was in love with an 
 actress, you know, a beautiful creature, and they 
 got separated somehow — through a mistake en- 
 tirely — and he never saw her for years and years 
 after ; and when at last he came to see her again 
 (on the stage) for the first time since their separa- 
 tion, she was quite withered and old, and her 
 beauty was all gone. It is such a touching chap-
 
 238 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 ter. All her youth was gone, and her good looks, 
 and she was old." 
 
 "Even beautiful actresses, Lilla, must get 
 old." 
 
 " But why were they separated ? It is too 
 sad ; I don't like stories that are so sad." 
 
 " Yet you read it, and think it charming." 
 
 " Yes, I can't help being delighted with it. 
 But it is too melancholy. I can't bear to think 
 of their long, long separation, and of her being old 
 and withered when at last they met. I suppose 
 such things do happen?" 
 
 "I suppose they do. I think I have heard of 
 separations, or read of them perhaps." 
 
 Again Lilla looked curiously at me, and she 
 put down the book. 
 
 " Speaking of beautiful actresses, Lilla," I 
 said, with a supreme effort to be light and care- 
 less, " does your beautiful friend, Mademoiselle 
 Keichstein, live far from here ; and did you walk 
 home through all the rain ?" 
 
 " Yes. It was rather a distance ; but I didn't 
 mind in the least." 
 
 " Did you tell me where it was ? I quite for- 
 get."
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 239 
 
 " In Jermyn-street, just opposite an hotel — I 
 don't know the number — a very nice place. Some 
 elderly person lives with her — a companion or 
 friend, or something of the kind." 
 
 Mrs. Lyndon just then came up, and pressed 
 me to stay with them and have supper ; but I told 
 them I had to go into town again ; I had forgotten 
 to see somebody with whom I had an appointment, 
 and must try to find him now, late though it was. 
 
 I got out of the house somehow. It was now 
 a streaming wet night, and I tramped long enough 
 before I could find an omnibus going my way. 
 When I got at last to the Haymarket, it was half- 
 past ten o'clock, and I was very wet. An appro- 
 priate hour, a pleasant condition, in which to pre- 
 sent myself as a visitor at the door of a lady's 
 boudoir ! I felt a grim and bitter satisfaction in 
 the thought of my forlorn and wretched appear- 
 ance. I almost wished that I were in rags, that I 
 might be the more savagely in contrast with her 
 condition — that I might stand in utter wretched- 
 ness before her, and fierce in my desolate inde- 
 pendence, fling back her patronage and her written 
 vows of love. I longed to stand before her and 
 say, " Look at this ruined and hopeless wretch.
 
 240 
 
 this ragged beggar ! This was your lover ! There 
 are your written vows of love for him, and thus he 
 flings them back to you, with the offer of your 
 queenly patronage. Pauper though he may be, 
 you shall not dare to befriend him. Let the beg- 
 gar die. He shall not, at least, be fed with the 
 crumbs that fall from your table !" 
 
 I found the house without difficulty. A waiter 
 standing at the door of Cox's Hotel told me at 
 once where Mdlle. Keichstein the singer lodged. 
 The drawing-room windows were all dark. In my 
 savage mood I felt bitterly disappointed at the 
 prospect of not seeing her after all. I knocked at 
 the door. 
 
 Mdlle. Keichstein had gone, the servant told 
 me. 
 
 Gone where ? 
 
 She didn't quite know ; somewhere abroad : to 
 Paris, she thought. She went that evening by the 
 night-mail. 
 
 Could she inquire, and find out for me ? 
 
 She went into the house, but came back to say 
 she really could not get to know. Mdlle. Reich- 
 stein had gone certainly to the Continent with her 
 maid and the other lady ; to Paris first, probably ;
 
 GREETING AND FAREWELL. 241 
 
 but the lady of the house thought she was very 
 likely going somewhere farther away. 
 Would she return here soon ? 
 
 no, certainly not. Not before next season. 
 That was all. I could find out nothing else. 
 
 1 turned away from the door with a sickening 
 sense of disappointment and hopelessness. Ah, 
 only the Power above could tell — I surely could 
 not — how much of a secret, passionate longing to 
 see her again, for any purpose, on any terms, was 
 mingled with my fierce resolve to confront her, 
 and to fling her back her agonising proffer of 
 service. 
 
 I turned into the glaring, chattering, hell- 
 lighted Haymarket — a stricken, hopeless wretch. 
 Despite the rain, that still came down pretty 
 heavily, this Babel of harlotry was all alive and 
 aflame with its beastly gaiety. 
 
 I strode my way along with head down and 
 reckless demeanour, careless whom I jostled. 
 Blindly I struck up against somebody, who first 
 drew back and swore at me, and then, seizing me 
 by my arm, exclaimed : 
 
 " My heroic preserver ! would you overturn 
 rudely the friend who longed to meet you ? What, 
 
 vol. i. R
 
 242 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 not know me ? How bears himself ce gros mili- 
 taire ?" 
 
 Of course I knew him. It was my confounded 
 friend of Dover. 
 
 " I told you we should meet again," he said; 
 "I don't know that it's quite a fortunate thing 
 for you ; but we are all in the hands of the des- 
 tinies. You see Heaven would bring us to toge- 
 ther." 
 
 " The devil rather, I should think," was my 
 grumbled answer. 
 
 "Let it be the devil, dear young friend, if 
 you have faith only in him. It cheers me to find 
 that you believe even in the devil; youth is so 
 unbelieving nowadays. But you are cynical to- 
 night, which means, I daresay, that she is faith- 
 less or out of humour. Bear up, and let us be 
 merry. Look here : you are wet, so am I ; you 
 are out of sorts, so am I. Let us spend a jovial 
 hour together, and mingle our tears." 
 
 I could have welcomed just then the society of 
 Satan. He not appearing, I suffered my other 
 friend to put his arm in mine and lead me away.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 goodboy's brother. 
 
 I awoke next morning with a fierce headache, 
 a deep sense of moral debasement, and a still 
 deeper sense of savage satisfaction in my own 
 degradation. I contemplated a sort of moral 
 suicide. It seemed like an act of vengeance on 
 her who had loved me and now cast me away, thus 
 to crush and ruin the nature of the being to whom 
 she once turned in love. 
 
 I am not fond of oral confessions or moral self- 
 exposures, and therefore I hasten to say that my 
 abasement — this my first abasement — would have 
 been in the eyes of any ordinary Haymarket 
 habitue a very small affair indeed. I drank too 
 much that night — and for the first time — that 
 was all. As the next day wore on, and I grew 
 better accustomed to the quite new sense of shame, 
 I frankly told Lilla Lyndon of my excess of the 
 previous night, and she did not seem to think a
 
 244 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 great deal about the matter. I was, on the whole, 
 rather disappointed that she took it so com- 
 posedly. Moral suicide, after all, seemed a com- 
 monplace process. 
 
 Yet Lilla looked grave and frowned warningly 
 at me when she saw me going out again about the 
 same hour that night. 
 
 " Once and away," she observed, "mayn't be 
 very bad ; but take care, Emanuel, or we shall 
 all be sorry." 
 
 I was going into the Haymarket, where I had 
 pledged myself to meet my friend again. A queer 
 sort of fascination drew me towards him ; and 
 some words he had let drop the previous night — 
 words I now remembered but faintly — had keenly 
 quickened my interest in him. When we parted, 
 I promised to meet him in the colonnade of the 
 Opera-house at nine o'clock; and at nine I was 
 there. Very soon after, he made his appearance, 
 and I noted at once that the appearance he made 
 was considerably changed : he was all new, from 
 hat to boots, and his gloves were of dainty 
 lavender. 
 
 " Surprised at the change, my dear young 
 friend ?" he observed complacently. " Don't be
 
 goodboy's brother. 245 
 
 ashamed to confess that you have been looking at 
 me with eyes of wonder and admiration. I am 
 not susceptible of offence ; and the homage of the 
 ingenuous can never displease the serene soul. 
 I was very shabby-looking yesterday, and now I 
 am not so. I do not blush to confess that the 
 change is not wholly owing to my own merit or 
 industry." 
 
 " You told me you were a great hand at bil- 
 liards, and indeed I saw some evidence of your 
 skill last night." 
 
 " So you did. I think I rather astonished 
 you and the others too. But it isn't that. You 
 see me in the sunshine of a prosperity the source 
 of which you could never guess. Indeed, it upsets 
 the creed of half a lifetime with me. I should 
 never have believed it, were I not a living proof 
 of the fact. Listen, youth ; and, if prematurely 
 given over, as you doubtless are, to cynicism, 
 learn now a new and refreshing lesson of life. I 
 am a living evidence of a woman's gratitude." 
 
 " Glad to hear it." 
 
 " But you don't seem sufficiently startled. 
 Did you ever find a woman true and grateful ?" 
 
 " No, by God !"
 
 246 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " Aha, there you are with your bears ! 1 
 thought as much. There was good earnest in 
 that vow. Will you come with me to my lodg- 
 ings ? Yes, I have lodgings near at hand ; that's 
 part of the mystery. Come with me. I long to 
 be a host once more, especially to one who, like 
 myself, so evidently belongs to the brotherhood of 
 poor devils." 
 
 We walked along Jermyn-street. When we 
 passed the house where she so lately lived, my 
 eyes turned unconsciously towards it and fixed 
 themselves on it. He too was looking that way : 
 it was on the other side of the street. He noticed 
 my gaze. 
 
 " How odd !" he observed; " you are looking 
 at No. 15 — I am looking at No. 15. It can't 
 have the same story for you and for me. Did 
 you catch a sight of some pretty Mary-Jane in 
 smart cap and ribbons ? Frivolous youth !" 
 
 Frivolous youth made no answer, and indeed 
 remained silent until we had reached Bury-street, 
 and gone some way down it. 
 
 My companion stopped at a door, took out 
 a latch-key, opened the door with it, and waved 
 to me with an air of gracious lordliness to enter.
 
 goodboy's brother. 247 
 
 " My lodgings," he exclaimed; "second-floor 
 front." 
 
 The second -floor front was a small hand- 
 somely-furnished sitting-room, with bedroom en 
 suite. My friend lighted a lamp, and motioned 
 me to an arm-chair. 
 
 "I took these rooms at once to-day," he said, 
 " on receiving the unexpected mark of gratitude 
 of which I spoke to you. They are plain but 
 commodious. The engravings on the wall are 
 not remarkable as works of art. Let me see : 
 ' The Happy Days of Charles the First,' simple 
 inanity. Her gracious Majesty on horseback in 
 military habit. Well, well, let us be always loyal, 
 however the court-painter may try us. ' Phoebe,' 
 a young woman simpering over a fowl of some sort 
 — dove, I presume — and apparently wearing only 
 her chemise, which she has omitted to fasten 
 round the neck : icliotcy ! No matter. There's a 
 piano, you see, which is something. Do you love 
 music ?" 
 
 "Love it, no! No more, that is. Live by 
 it." 
 
 " Live by it, and not love it ! No, you can't ! 
 Not even in this cursed day of quacks and shams
 
 248 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 and successful Jack Puddings, can any man live 
 by music who does not love it. I only wish the 
 converse of the proposition held equally, and that 
 everyone who loved it could live by it. Were 
 that so, some people might have been more vir- 
 tuous and independent, perhaps, than they are. 
 Now, my young friend, whose name I have not 
 even yet the honour of knowing, but shall presently, 
 perhaps, ask to be favoured with — there is brandy, 
 there is water, and yonder are cigars. I am going 
 to sing a little, but smoke if you will ; it can't put 
 my pipe out." 
 
 He sat down to the piano, his queer little legs 
 hardly touching the ground, and his long arms 
 spreading over the instrument like the wings of 
 some ungainly bird. One could hardly expect 
 much sweet music from so ridiculous-looking a 
 form, surmounted by a curly black wig ; but he 
 played with no common skill and with quite un- 
 common feeling and fervour. Presently he sang, 
 in full, sweet, and solemn tones, the hymn, 
 " Lord, remember David." Strangely pathetic, 
 deep, and passionate sounded that mournful ap- 
 peal as it issued from the lips of this singular 
 and scoffing little creature. I own, too, that it
 
 249 
 
 touched me quite as much as it puzzled me ; so 
 profound seemed the sincerity with which the 
 prayer and the plaint went up in that tender, 
 thrilling voice. 
 
 '•'Lord, remember David; teach him to know 
 Thy ways !" Every word seemed to come from 
 him with a pathetic, passionate earnestness, so 
 deep that one could almost for the time imagine 
 he heard the half-despairing utterance of some 
 generous and noble nature crying out for strength 
 to battle against temptation, and for light to see 
 in the world's foul darkness. I dreaded the close 
 of the hymn, so much did I shrink from the con- 
 trast of levity or profanity with which I felt sure 
 he would instantly follow it. But I was mistaken. 
 He sat silent a moment or two when he had 
 finished, and then jumped up from the piano and 
 walked up and down the room. After a while I 
 could hear him repeating to himself some of the 
 words of the prayer in a low tone, as if it re- 
 freshed him to dwell on them. 
 
 " Now then," he said at last, " you who live 
 on music, but, I think you said, don't care a curse 
 about it, give us a musical blasphemy — I mean, 
 of course, a song from unenthusiastic lips. Come
 
 250 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 along ; make no apologies or pretexts. I daresay 
 I have heard a hundred better singers before now, 
 so you need not stand on ceremony." 
 
 I sang something for him, accompanying my- 
 self. He stood behind me the while, and now and 
 then uttered a sort of growl of satisfaction, or 
 grunt of discontent. 
 
 " Ah, I thought so," he observed when I had 
 done; " yes, I felt sure I could not be mistaken. 
 It was you, then, I heard at the Dover concert, 
 Mr. Emanuel Temple ! Well, Temple, I've heard 
 a good many worse singers than you, and a few 
 better. I think you ought to get on, though I do 
 fancy somehow that you want soul. But I should 
 say, with training and cultivation, and the advice 
 of qualified critics — like myself, for example — 
 you ought to make your way, Temple. I advise 
 you to stick to it, Temple. I decline to offer you 
 the blessing of an old man, Temple ; first, because 
 I don't admit being old; and next, because I fear 
 my blessing would be like that of the priest in the 
 story, and worth considerably less than a farthing. 
 But I have prophesied of singers before now, and 
 prophesied correctly. I was hinting to you just 
 now of that rare and strange thing, a woman's
 
 goodboy's brother. 251 
 
 gratitude, and the romantic story is a story of a 
 singer." 
 
 The glance I had seen him give at the win- 
 dows which were lately Christina's, and the words 
 he let fall immediately after, had aroused my 
 curiosity. But I thought I had observed enough 
 of his perverse and eccentric little nature to know 
 that the more readily I displayed my curiosity 
 the less inclined would he be to gratify it ; so I 
 affected an air of supreme cynicism, and coolly 
 said : 
 
 " Then you expect me to believe in woman's 
 gratitude ? Thank you ; but I really can't oblige 
 you so far, and I have no faith in romantic 
 stories." 
 
 " Nothing amuses me," he replied, " so much 
 as the pert affectation of cynicism in brats of boys. 
 You know very well, Temple, that if you left your 
 real nature to itself, it would be rather credulous 
 and soft than otherwise. Do you know now, that 
 you struck me from the first as a good-natured 
 and simple sort of fellow — an honest young 
 spooney, in fact ; a lad that any smart girl might 
 turn round her finger — a being doomed by nature 
 to be married to a woman who will assume the
 
 252 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 wearing of the breeches as her natural right ? 
 That is quite my idea of you, Temple ; give you 
 my word, as a candid friend and admirer." 
 
 " Well, but without occupying ourselves in 
 the discussion of my moral organisation, what of 
 your romantic story, and your grateful woman ?" 
 
 " You want to hear it, evidently." 
 
 " Not very particularly ; but if you insist — " 
 
 " Well, here it is. When I came to London 
 the other day, and while yet casting about for the 
 best way to torment my nearest relatives and raise 
 some money, I devoted myself to fltiner a little on 
 the side of Regent-street, thinking of the old days, 
 Temple, when I too was a club lounger and a man 
 about town, and so on. I happened to glance into 
 a photographer's, and there I saw a photograph of 
 a singer, the singer of the season, the woman the 
 two Opera-houses have been squabbling about, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes. Reichstein." 
 
 " Reichstein, of course. In a moment I re- 
 cognised her as an old friend, Temple." 
 
 " Of yours ? She,— Mdlle. Reichstein— an old 
 friend of yours !" 
 
 " Why not ? What are you glowering at ?
 
 goodboy's brother. 253 
 
 She's not an old friend of yours, I suppose ; and 
 even if she is, you needn't look daggers at me. 
 Did I say an old friend of mine ? Why, man, 
 I discovered her, I invented her, I created her ! 
 I crossed the Channel with her years ago, when 
 she was a poor little thing going to Paris, and 
 hoping to get on to Italy; and I took quite a 
 paternal liking to her; quite paternal, Temple, 
 I can assure you; and for the good reason that 
 she wouldn't allow of any other sort of liking ; 
 and I introduced her in Paris to an Italian fellow 
 whom I knew; a fellow who was mad on two 
 things — Music and Italian Eevolution ; and he 
 quite took her up ; and I only saw her once after 
 in Milan, where he was having her drilled for 
 the Scala. That, too, is four or five years ago ; 
 and to tell you the honest truth, Temple, 'I never 
 thought of the little thing from that day to the 
 day when I saw her portrait here in this den of 
 thieves." 
 
 " Did you go to see her ?" 
 
 " Well, I did call ; but she didn't happen to 
 he in ; and I was not very sorry perhaps ; for, 
 as you can testify, my gifted vocalist, I was not 
 quite in splendid trim about that time. But I
 
 254 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 left a letter with a mild reminder of my early 
 services and a warm congratulation upon her bril- 
 liant success, to which it was gracefully hinted 
 that my artistic insight had not a little con- 
 tributed. Then there came an oblique, pathetic 
 intimation that Fortune had not perhaps been 
 quite so favourable to myself; and, in short, I 
 am afraid it was conveyed more or less vaguely 
 that gratitude and sympathy might not unreason- 
 ably take the form of an early and liberal remit- 
 tance." 
 
 I had hard work to keep down my rising dis- 
 gust and contempt. 
 
 " And the remittance came ?" I said, to say 
 something, as I saw he was looking towards me, 
 with his head on one side and his little beady 
 black eyes twinkling inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes, the remittance came, and it was liberal; 
 so liberal in fact that I have put off for the pre- 
 sent opening the campaign I am prepared to 
 undertake. So you perceive, Temple, that there 
 are women who can be grateful ; perhaps I should 
 rather say that there are men so happily endowed 
 as to be capable of exciting the sentiment of 
 gratitude in woman's breast. Between ourselves,
 
 goodboy's brother. 255 
 
 the service I rendered was not very great ; for I 
 had actually at the time a sort of general and 
 roving commission from my friend the Italian 
 revolutionary to look out for fine fresh voices 
 wherever they could be picked up — he had a 
 mania for establishing an artistic pare aux cerfs 
 of young voices — only artistic and vocal, Temple, 
 nothing more ; he was a very Bayard or Scipio 
 in that way ; and I simply sent the girl to him, 
 and thought no more about the matter. What 
 of that ? It only makes the gratitude more touch- 
 ing. It is a noble and a holy thing, you know, 
 to call up such a feeling ; that sentiment in the 
 woman's breast is cheaply bought by her at the 
 money." 
 
 " In fact, you place her under a fresh obli- 
 gation ?" 
 
 " Well, as you put it so, yes." 
 
 "And found perhaps a claim hereafter for 
 another remittance ?" 
 
 " That is your sneer, I daresay. No, my 
 scornful young friend, I think I shall be content 
 with that much from that quarter. Let me tell 
 you, however, to show how little I value your 
 feeble-minded insinuation, that I am one of those
 
 256 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 who are rather proud to be relieved by the soft 
 and generous hand of woman. I think history 
 records that John duke of Marlborough, and other 
 great men, acknowledged a similar sentiment, or 
 at least acted on it. Nature is all symbolic, 
 Temple. Whence do we derive our earliest sus- 
 tenance? From woman's generous bosom. Go 
 to, then ; the meaning of Nature's beautiful par- 
 able must be evident to all true and poetic hearts. 
 Mine is essentially a poetic nature ; yours I per- 
 ceive is not; you look at the bare rude fact of 
 my pocketing the young woman's money, and do 
 not see the delightful illustration of Nature's 
 noblest and oldest purpose which it symbolises. 
 What's the matter with you ?" 
 
 " I have not been quite well lately ; but — " 
 " Drink brandy, Temple ; drink again." 
 " Do you know whether — whether this lady, 
 Mdlle. Eeichstein, is married ?" 
 
 " Not I. How should I know ; and what do 
 I care ? Very likely she is ; they all get married, 
 these people. The flag of matrimony is a very 
 convenient emblem." 
 
 I got up to go away ; his talk was hateful to 
 me; and yet I clung to any feeble hope that I
 
 goodboy's brother. 257 
 
 might extract some knowledge about her past life 
 and her probable future. 
 
 " Do you know where she is gone ?" 
 
 "Russia, I believe; but I am not certain. 
 Somebody told me that some rich Londoner, a 
 member of parliament and patron of the drama 
 — I don't know him, but, as Charles Lamb said, 
 * d — him at a venture' — was always to be seen 
 hanging after her, and making rather an idiot of 
 himself." 
 
 " Yes, I have heard of that," I interposed 
 very incautiously; "and I know who it is — a 
 Mr. Lyndon." 
 
 "What did you say?" exclaimed the little 
 creature, leaping from the chair in which he sat, 
 and standing upright before me. " What name 
 did you give ?" 
 
 " Lyndon — a Mr. Lyndon, a member of the 
 House !" 
 
 "Earth and hell! Tommy Goodboy ! Tommy 
 Goodboy himself ! Of all the hypocrites of this 
 most hypocritical age, Tommy Goodboy is the 
 greatest hypocrite. Among all the scoundrels in 
 an age of scoundrelism, no scoundrel like Tommy 
 Goodboy. Look at mc, Temple ! I am Good- 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 boy's victim : Goodboy stands in my shoes ; Good- 
 boy wallows in my money ! He is the head of 
 the family, the respectable citizen, the model man, 
 the patron of every charity, the Maecenas of art ; 
 and I am the ruffian, the outcast, the billiard- 
 room hanger-on, the frightful example !" 
 
 An idea at last began to dawn upon me as to 
 the identity of my queer friend. Were these, 
 then, the two faces I had seen vaguely and tan- 
 talisingly shadowed in his ? Lilla's face and Mr. 
 Lyndon's? Is this creature, this half- crazed 
 sensualist, this selfish loafer, this wretch living 
 on alms and extorted money, this combination of 
 Hircius and Spungius, my poor, pretty, kindly 
 Lilla's father ? 
 
 He was now walking up and down the room, 
 throwing his arms wildly about like a little mad- 
 man. I went up to him as gently and kindly as 
 I could. 
 
 "You, then," I said, "are the elder brother 
 of Mr. Lyndon ?" 
 
 " Who the devil else do you think I am ? Do 
 you suppose I am proud of being that cold-hearted, 
 sneaking humbug's brother ? Yes ; I am his bro- 
 ther — the brother whom he cheated out of house
 
 goodboy's brother. 259 
 
 and home, out of his father's favour, out of his 
 inheritance, out of everything that could make 
 life worth having. Was I an idle, good-for- 
 nothing scapegrace ? Of course I was. But 
 what was he ? All that I did openly and reck- 
 lessly, he did cunningly and underhand. How 
 did he ruin me at last ? By betraying to my 
 father the one good thing I ever did in all my 
 life. It's as true as light, Temple. My father 
 cut me off without a rap because I had been d — d 
 fool enough to marry a pretty girl instead of se- 
 ducing her. Whatever misfortune may happen 
 to you in life, Temple, never do a virtuous action. 
 Be warned in time by me. When I die, or hang 
 myself, if there can by any means be raised money 
 -enough to set up a tombstone over me, let my 
 epitaph describe me as the man whom Respecta- 
 bility and Virtue outlawed and robbed, because 
 he had once in his life — only just once — failed to 
 behave like a scoundrel." 
 
 I was on the point of blurting out some hasty 
 words which would have admitted my knowledge 
 of Lyndon's wife and daughter. Fortunately, 
 however, I restrained myself in time, and recol- 
 lected how more than doubtful it was whether
 
 260 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 they would be the better for any indiscretion which 
 put such a creature on their track. Poor, poor 
 Lilla ! with her good heart, her sweet kindly na- 
 ture, her harmless vanities, and at least not un- 
 natural hopes and aspirings, to think that this 
 unfortunate and worthless wretch, whose chief or 
 sole excuse seemed to be his half-crazed eccen- 
 tricity, should be her father ! I always fancied 
 that the poor girl cherished in her secret heart 
 some fond romantic hope that the lost mysterious 
 father might one day reappear, redeemed, peni- 
 tent, and splendid, to claim his daughter and lead 
 her into the sphere which she thought her right- 
 ful place. I know that she always regarded her 
 father as some brilliant aristocrat, who had stepped 
 down from his high rank for love of her poor 
 mother — some Egmont or Leicester, to whom 
 Mrs. Lyndon was the Clara or Amy Robsart ; and 
 he filled her imagination even in his fall rather 
 as an archangel ruined than as any commonplace 
 sinner. I know — she often hinted as much to 
 me — that she secretly yearned for him, and waited 
 for him to come some day and redeem her from 
 poverty and meanness, and the society of petty 
 cares and small intelligences; and to bring her
 
 goodboy's brother. 261 
 
 io a sphere where there should be bright sur- 
 roundings, and ease and luxury, and a life with 
 many tints in it, and vivid conversation, and books 
 worth reading, and men who could pay graceful 
 homage and whom one could marry, and women 
 well-dressed and vivacious and lovely. Often I 
 had thought to myself, in my odd moods of whim- 
 sical melancholy, that Lilla's phantom father and 
 my phantom Christina beguiled and befooled us 
 both alike, and to as little purpose ; and I won- 
 dered whether, if Lilla could know my story and 
 dreams as well as I knew and guessed hers, she 
 would not look on me with the same kind of won- 
 dering pity wherewith I regarded her. And now, 
 behold, another bond of companionship and union ! 
 Lilla had found for me my lost love : lo, I have 
 found her lost father ! See, Lilla, there he is — 
 that broken-down, ridiculous reprobate yonder, 
 that billiard-room loafer, that ruined rattlepate 
 wretch in the black wig, who is stamping up and 
 down the room, blaspheming as he goes ! 
 
 "Mr. Lyndon!" 
 
 "My dear young friend, a thousand pardons! 
 You recall me to myself, and remind me that I 
 am not playing the host to perfection. I am, I
 
 262 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 fear, a little egotistic sometimes ; but what "would 
 you have of a man who has had to contend against 
 the world and his wife — his own wife, Temple; 
 not the world's, mind — for so many years ? Ad- 
 versity, Temple, is the parent of egotism. Pardon 
 my distraction." 
 
 "I was not thinking of that; I was going to 
 ask a question." 
 
 "Propound. I reserve to myself the right of" 
 not answering, should the answer tend to crimi- 
 nate me. In a moral point of view, Temple, it 
 would not be easy for me to give any answer re- 
 lating to my own personal history which would 
 not tend a little that way. But go on, youth of 
 the gloomy brow." 
 
 "Only this. What about your wife? You 
 said you were married." 
 
 " Did I admit so much ? My old weakness — 
 too much confidence and candour. No matter.. 
 You ask me what about my wife ? Give you my 
 word, Temple, I don't know; I don't really. I 
 have been away so long, knocking about the plains 
 of windy Troy, that I positively don't know where 
 to find my Penelope now that I have come back." 
 
 < c Should you like to?"
 
 goodboy's brother. 263 
 
 " dear, no — not in the least. I couldn't 
 think of it; she's doubtless very happy, and I 
 should grieve to disturb her : or perhaps she 
 is not very happy, and then the sight of her 
 would disturb me. No, Temple ; a man of re- 
 fined taste shrinks from unidealising — if you will 
 allow me to use such a word — from unidealising 
 the poetic perfectness of married life by too much 
 of vulgar intercourse with its prosy details." 
 
 " Still, as she is your wife — " 
 
 " Just so ; there it is, you see. If she were 
 not, then it would be quite a different thing : but 
 she is my wife, and I know it to my cost. I 
 paid a heavy debt for the sweet privilege of call- 
 ing her so, and I am not ardent for any more 
 of her mild society. You look horrified, I per- 
 ceive. Frankly, I don't care." 
 
 " She may be poor and lonely — " 
 
 " My good fellow, am not I poor and lonely ? 
 Could anyone be poorer than I was the other day, 
 and shall be soon again, no doubt ? Am I not 
 lonely, or worse than lonery, in having no com- 
 panionship but that of a silly and moping young 
 moralist like you ? Do you think adding two 
 poor people together produces wealth ? Put to-
 
 264 my enemy's daughtek. 
 
 gether cipher and cipher, and see how much 
 better off you are for the result. Besides, have 
 I not told you I know nothing, absolutely nothing, 
 of her whereabouts ?" 
 " But suppose — " 
 
 "I don't want to suppose: I decline to sup- 
 pose. I tell you, Temple, I can't live on pap; 
 some men can, I believe ; I can't. Food for babes 
 does not nourish me. I lived on it long enough, 
 and you see the result. If there is anything in 
 life I utterly detest, it is puling, meek, mawkish 
 goodness. I rage at it ; it sets me mad. I long 
 to tear and tatter it." 
 
 "But your child — your daughter?" 
 "Did I tell you I had a daughter? Keally, 
 you find me in a strangely - confiding mood to- 
 night. Well, I have a daughter; at least, I 
 know I had, and I believe I still have. What 
 then ?" 
 
 " Only one might have thought — " 
 "Yes, one might, no doubt. One might have 
 thought that the father's heart would melt ; that 
 he would burst into sobs, and exclaim, in broken 
 accents, ' My angel chee-ild !' — that he would 
 weep on the neck of the good person who had
 
 goodboy's brother. 265 
 
 appealed to his paternal feelings, and become a 
 respectable member of society. In the domestic 
 melodrama, Temple, from which I perceive al- 
 ready your principal ideas of life are drawn — 
 what's the price of the gallery-seats in the Vic- 
 toria? — that sort of thing does, I believe, fa- 
 miliarly occur. But this, Temple, is real life ; 
 and we are not on the stage of the Victoria. I 
 make no doubt my daughter's a very well-brought- 
 up and proper young woman, who would look with 
 horror on such a reprobate as I am ; and I cannot 
 say that the voice of Nature shrieks very power- 
 fully or plaintively in my ears. No, Temple, it 
 won't do." 
 
 " Then have you really no care for anything?" 
 "Yes!" he answered in vehement and fierce 
 tones — I had long been expecting an outburst of 
 passion — ' ' for money and for freedom ! For money 
 to spend, and for freedom to spend it in ! Give 
 me these — and I will have them, wherever I get 
 them — and I can enjoy everything that life gives 
 for enjoyment, from moonbeams and music up to 
 absinthe and madness. But I will have money, 
 and I will be free ! I will, I will ! I don't care 
 who or what comes between me and my way of
 
 266 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 life ; I sweep it out of my road and go on. Don't 
 talk to rne of nature and domestic affections, and 
 drivel of that kind ; I don't want them — I've had 
 enough of them to last my time. Hate is much 
 more in my line than love. I came to London 
 for the double purpose of screwing money out of 
 my thrice-accursed brother, and disgracing myself 
 and him at the same time ; and I will do it too ! 
 I would have done it before now, had not that fool 
 of a woman sent me this money, which I mean to 
 enjoy before I go to work. Pleasure first, busi- 
 ness afterwards with me. Go to the devil with 
 your talk about my wife and my chee-ild ! What 
 is it to you ? Are you sent as an emissary here 
 from Tommy Goodboy ? If you are, go back to 
 him and tell him what my answer is : tell him 
 I'll make his respectability blush yet, if I cannot 
 make his heart of pumice-stone feel." 
 
 " I never spoke a word to Mr. Lyndon in my 
 life." 
 
 " Then perhaps you are an emissary from my 
 wife. If you are, go back and tell her the best 
 thing she can do is to leave me to myself." 
 
 " Listen to me, Mr. Lyndon, and don't waste 
 on me all these rhapsodies and ravings. Keep
 
 goodboy's brother. 267 
 
 them for somebody on whom they might produce 
 some desirable effect. I assure you they move me 
 only to sincere pity and contempt. I never knew 
 until twenty minutes ago who you were, and I 
 never cared. I spoke to you on no one's behalf, at 
 no one's suggestion. I spoke to you only because 
 I thought it hardly possible you could be wholly 
 degraded below the feelings of average manhood. 
 I find I was mistaken. That is enough. I leave 
 you, and only hope we may not meet any more." 
 
 He threw himself into a chair, leaned back, 
 and burst into a peal of mellow laughter. If I 
 know anything of reality as distinguished from 
 acting — and I ought — this was no affectation or 
 sham, but genuine, honest, hearty, irrepressible 
 laughter. He rolled about in his chair, and 
 stamped his feet, and shook his shoulders like 
 a pigmy Sam Johnson in a fit of unconquerable 
 mirth. 
 
 [ stood up, angry, and ashamed of being angry 
 — thinking what a great deal I would give, if I 
 had it, to feel myself at liberty to kick him ; and 
 all the time considering whether I could in any 
 possible way serve poor Lilla's interests by keep- 
 ing on good terms with him.
 
 268 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 " I protest, Temple," he said at last, when he 
 was able to speak from very laughing, "you do 
 delight me. As good as a play? Man, you're 
 worth a whole season of broad comedy ! To look 
 at the expression of your face that time, to watch 
 your gesture, to hear the earnest eloquence of your 
 language, was the finest treat any man with a 
 rich sense of humour could possibly have. You 
 are the most delightful of young men — " 
 
 "And you are the most scandalous of old 
 reprobates." 
 
 " Coarse, Temple, coarse, and not half so fer- 
 vent as your graver style. But I see you are 
 waxing wroth at being laughed at. Well, I dare- 
 say no one likes being laughed at, and of course 
 the more ridiculous he is, the less he likes being 
 treated as such : and I really don't want to offend 
 you ; so let us consider the subject as dropped. 
 Take a little more brandy ? No ? What, you are 
 not going ? Positively offended ! Well, of all the 
 idiots it has ever been my fortune to meet, you 
 are the most conspicuous. Get out ! Go to all 
 the devils ! Confound you, I am a gentleman, 
 and not a Christy's Minstrel like you ! Insult a 
 gentleman ! By Jove, what's the world coming to !"
 
 goodboy's brother. 2G9 
 
 All these concluding sentences were rattled at 
 my ears as I was descending the stairs. Until I 
 had fairly quitted the house I could hear him 
 swearing and objurgating. Then, as I passed 
 under the window, I found that he was having 
 recourse to the piano to cool his wrath. I paused 
 a moment out of curiosity. He was singing, to 
 his own accompaniment, "I know that my Re- 
 deemer liveth." 
 
 I hurried away. The words, the sweet, pa- 
 thetic, devotional tones, sounded in my ears like 
 hideous blasphemy. 
 
 I walked slowly home, my mind occupied with 
 the uncomfortable discovery I had made, and much 
 perplexed to know whether there was anything I 
 could or ought to say or do with regard to it. It 
 clearly seemed that I had no right to inflict use- 
 less torture on Mrs. Lyndon or Lilla by tell- 
 ing them anything about my knowledge of this 
 wretched man. From what he had over and over 
 again told me, it was certain that he had come to 
 London for the purpose of shaming his brother 
 into supplying him with new funds, and it was 
 evident that there was no extravagant escapade or 
 exposure of which the little wretch would not be
 
 270 my enemy's daughter. 
 
 capable. On the whole, then, it seemed to me 
 that the best thing I could do would be to see Mr. 
 Lyndon at once, and put him on his guard. Mr. 
 Lyndon too might, like a sensible man of the 
 world, feel inclined to buy-off his disreputable 
 brother even for Lilla's sake — to settle on him 
 some pension on condition of his living out of 
 England or out of Europe ; and, disagreeable as 
 the task would be, I would willingly undertake the 
 work of negotiation and arrangement in order to 
 ward-off vexation and shame from these two poor 
 women, who had been so kind to me. Yes, that 
 was the best thing to do, and there was no time to 
 be lost, as Mr. Lyndon would be leaving town im- 
 mediately. My mind was made up. Little as I 
 cared to obtrude myself on Lilla's uncle, I deter- 
 mined to see him, in this cause, next day. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 loxdos: 
 
 ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, rANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
 
 TINSLEYS' MAGAZINE, 
 
 An Illustrated Monthly, price One Shilling, 
 
 CONTAINS : 
 
 GEORGE CANTERBURY'S WILL. A Serial Story. By Mrs. Henry 
 
 Wood, author of " East Lynne," &c. 
 AUSTIN FRIARS. A New Serial Story. By the Author of " George 
 
 Geith," Sec. 
 BREAKING A BUTTERFLY; OR BLANCHE ELLERSLIE'S 
 
 ENDING. By the Author of " Guy Livingstone," &c. 
 Sec. &c. Sec. 
 
 Travels in Central Africa, and Exploration of the 
 
 Western Nile Tributaries. By Mr. and Mrs. Petherick. With 
 Maps, Portraits, and numerous Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Eonie and Venice, with other Wanderings in Italy, 
 
 in 1866-G7. By George Augustus Sala. 1 vol. 8vo, 
 
 The Pilgrim and the Shrine ; or Passages from the 
 
 Life and Correspondence of Herbert Ainslie, B.A. Cantab. New and 
 Cheaper Edition, with Corrections and Additions, in 1 vol. 
 
 The Life of Edmund Kean. From various Pub- 
 lished and Original Sources. By F. W. Hawkins. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 30s. 
 
 A New Book of Travels by Captain R. F. Burton. 
 
 Explorations of the Highlands of the Brazil ; with 
 
 a full Account of the Gold and Diamond Mines; also Canoeing 
 down Fifteen Hundred Miles of the Great River Sao Francisco from 
 Sahara to the Sea. By Captain Richard F. Burton, F.R.G.S., 
 Sec. &c. 2 vols. 8vo, with Maps and Illustrations, 30.?. 
 
 Memoirs of the Life and Eeign of George III. 
 
 With Original Letters of the King, and other Unpublished Mss. 
 By J. Heneage Jesse, author of " The Court of England under the 
 Stuarts," &c. 3 vols. Svo, 21. 2s. Second Edition. 
 
 11 The very nature of his subject has given these volumes peculiar 
 interest." — Times. 
 
 " Here, however, we must part with Mr. Jesse, not without renewed 
 thanks for the amusement which he has given us." — Quarterly Review, 
 
 " Mr. Jesse's volumes are brimful of amusement and interest." — 
 Spectator. 
 
 " Mr. Jesse's book is one to be eagerly read, and enjoyed to a degree 
 rarely experienced in the perusal of English memoirs.'' — Morning Post. 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
 
 TINSLEY BKOTHERS' NEW NOVELS. 
 
 Only a Woman's Love. By the Earl of Desaet. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 Nevermore ; or Burnt Butterflies. By John Gaunt. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 Twice Befusecl. By Chaeles E. Stirling. 2 vols. 
 Simple as a Dove. By the Author of " Olive Varcoe." 
 
 3 VOls. 
 
 JSTetherton-on-Sea : a Story. 3 vols. 
 
 Found Bead. By the Author of " Lost Sir Mass- 
 
 ingberd." 
 
 Fatal Zero. By the Author of " Polly," &c. 2 vols. 
 
 A Perfect Treasure. 1 vol. 
 
 The Buckhurst Volunteers. By J. M. Capes, 
 
 author of " The Mosaic-Worker's Daughter." 3 vols. 
 
 Ujd and Down the World. By the Author of 
 
 " Never — For Ever." 3 vols. 
 
 The Crust and the Cake. By the Author of 
 
 " Occupations of a Ketired Life." 3 vols. 
 
 The Wyvorn Mystery. By J". S. Lefantt, author 
 
 of " Uncle Silas," " Guy Deverell," " Haunted Lives," &c. 3 vols. 
 
 Lost Footsteps. By Joseph Veeey. 3 vols. 
 
 A County Family. By the Author of "Lost Sir 
 
 Massingberd," &c. 3 vols. 
 
 TINSLEY" BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.