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 THE WIFE 
 
 AKD 
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY E. LOWE, PLAYHOUSE YARD, BLACKFRIARS.
 
 THE WIFE 
 
 AND 
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. T. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 1835.
 
 i,i 
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting, 
 Without distrust or doubt. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 " Father, this is one of the most lovely days 
 we have had since we came to Madeira. Don't 
 you think if you came to the window for a little 
 while, it would do you good ? there is an Eng- 
 lish ship coming into the bay, and every thing 
 smells so sweet, and looks so bright ! Do let 
 me wheel the sofa nearer." 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 » WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 The dying merchant turned his head lan- 
 guidly towards his daughter, and a short hol- 
 low cough preceded the attempt to speak. " I 
 have been wishing to move for some time," 
 said he, " but I feel so weak, that I dread 
 the smallest exertion ; and the stir and sun- 
 shine almost fatigue me while I gaze upon 
 them. I love the silence of this little shaded 
 room, and your tranquil and watchful face, 
 better than any other sound or sight." 
 
 Mary Dupre bent and kissed her father's 
 brow, shut the reading-desk with a gentle and 
 noiseless hand, and slowly advanced the sick 
 man's couch towards the window. The blinds 
 were drawn aside, and the evening breeze 
 waved to and fro the long tendrils of jasmine 
 and passion-flower which hung round the case- 
 ment. Far beneath lay the glancing white 
 houses of the town, and the bay studded with 
 fishing boats; with the dimly seen Desertaa
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD. 6 
 
 in the distance ; on the right-hand rose the 
 Loo Rock, and near it the English ship, with 
 all its swelling canvas spread, came proudly 
 and gallantly on, a welcome visitor to the 
 little island where so many sick exiles pined 
 for news of home. 
 
 " Bring me the telescope, my child," said 
 the sick man, after he had gazed long and 
 earnestly at the scene before him. 
 
 Mary Dupre obeyed, and watched the ex- 
 pression of her father's face ; but no pleasure 
 or eagerness was reflected there. 
 
 Wearied, sad, and heavy, his glances were 
 soon withdrawn; and while apparently watch- 
 ing the glittering lizards which played on the 
 sunshiny wall opposite the window, his dream- 
 ing thoughts went back to his country, and 
 returned again to his sick-room in a foreign 
 clime ; and to the vessel, whose captain's boat 
 was even now struggling to the shore, bear- 
 
 b2
 
 * WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 ing perhaps— friends, whose familiar faces he 
 might not live to see — letters, addressed to 
 him, which he might not live to read. 
 
 The gentle girl, who stood by him, kept 
 silence, even from comforting words. " The 
 physicians desired my father should not be 
 agitated in any way," was a constant check 
 upon her ; and, tenderly and devotedly as she 
 loved that father, no emotion was ever visible in 
 her countenance ; indeed, except that the sub- 
 dued and utter stillness of her manner seemed 
 unnatural in one so young, a stranger might 
 have deemed her cold and ungrieving. 
 
 The silence had remained unbroken for some 
 minutes, when the door of the room was 
 opened with a suddenness which made the 
 sick man start, and a beautiful boy bounded 
 forward, exclaiming, as he hastily kissed Mr. 
 Dupre's hand, " Well, father, how are you 
 to-day? I have been down all the morning
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. O 
 
 watching that vessel come in ; isn't she beau- 
 tiful ? We shall have news from England." 
 
 " Hush, Lionel," murmured his sister; "you 
 do not recollect that this is to be a quiet 
 room ; and your cap is damp with the sea- 
 spray — give it me." 
 
 " There, take it," said the boy impatiently, 
 and, as he spoke, he flung it over the sofa 
 towards his sister; in its passage, it struck a 
 small table on which a glass vase had been 
 placed, containing some of the heavy per- 
 fumed blossoms of the datura. The vase fell, 
 shattered into fragments. 
 
 " Lionel ! " said the invalid, in a faint and 
 chiding tone. 
 
 Tears of vexation rose to the offender's eyes. 
 " Well, father, I beg your pardon — I beg you 
 ten thousand pardons ; I am sure I am as fond 
 of you, and as sorry to disturb you, as Mary, 
 though she does creep round the room like a
 
 6 woman's reward. 
 
 mouse, and I can't. You are not displeased, 
 father;" and he threw his arms fondly round 
 the sick man's neck. 
 
 " No, no, my child," murmured the unhappy 
 man, as the crimson hectic deepened in his 
 cheeks ; " but I am weaker than usual to- 
 night." 
 
 And weaker still the vainly-exiled patient 
 became, day by day and night by night. His 
 daughter never left him, but quietly followed 
 his directions to copy out papers and write 
 letters, and make preparation for the day 
 when she and her brother should be alone 
 in the world. At fifteen, the early instinct 
 of a tender heart had taught Mary Dupre to 
 act and think like one to whom years had 
 brought experience. Accustomed from her 
 earliest infancy to be a witness of suffering- 
 she could not relieve, and having already at- 
 tended the death-bed of her mother, after a
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 7 
 
 painful and lingering illness ; the buoyancy 
 of heart which is, in a great measure, the 
 cause of the thoughtlessness of youth, formed 
 no part of her character; gentle and cheerful 
 she was, but the mood expressed by the com- 
 mon term, "to be in high spirits," was to 
 her a mystery. 
 
 Far different was the disposition of her bro- 
 ther Lionel, who had been the spoiled play- 
 thing of the whole household from the day 
 when he toddled into his father's study, proud 
 of the new black sash and sleeve-knots with 
 which his weeping sister had decorated him 
 the day of his poor mother's funeral. Un- 
 controlled and uncontrollable, gifted with the 
 most supernatural beauty, and long accustomed 
 to be so great an object of affection that he 
 brooked no sharers in the interest he in- 
 spired, Lionel, to strangers, was only a spoiled 
 child and a lovely picture ; but, to his father,
 
 8 woman's reward. 
 
 he was the legacy of a dying mother — the 
 image of that lost and beautiful mother's 
 face. The house was crowded with sketches 
 and paintings of this only son; every atti- 
 tude was made a study, and every artist was 
 invited to make one more imitation of na- 
 ture's rarest work, and immortalize by his 
 pencil the stately and graceful figure, long 
 auburn curls, and wild black eyes, of Master 
 Lionel Dupre. The Duke of W— = — 's irre- 
 gular and easily caricatured profile was not 
 more familiar to the gazers into print-shops 
 than the drawings of the obscure merchant's 
 child ; and innumerable were the ingenious 
 attempts made by the various artists, whose 
 pencils had been employed in the service, to 
 create an appearance of novelty in their study 
 of this hacknied subject. There was " Learn- 
 ing to read," a little rebellious figure, with 
 a pale and gentle girl pointing to a book ;
 
 9 
 
 then there was " The Bower," where a most 
 astonishing gleam of sunshine produced effects 
 such as no sunbeam had ever produced be- 
 fore on the face of the original, and seemed 
 to peep through the leaves for that purpose 
 only ; next came " The Faithful Guardian," 
 representing a very large Newfoundland dog, 
 and Master Lionel asleep on a bank by a 
 stream of water. After that (which was a 
 great favourite in the family), a gentleman, 
 who generally painted battles, sieges, &c, made 
 a hasty sketch of Master Lionel, with a sword 
 and tin shield, and christened it " The Little 
 Hero ;" but were we to attempt to make a 
 list of these anonymous drawings, the task 
 would be too long ; suffice it to say, that 
 the last attempt, made by an English artist 
 on his way out to India, had given such ge- 
 neral satisfaction, that it was resolved to allow 
 it to be a sufficiently favourable representa-
 
 10 woman's reward. 
 
 tion to bear the name of the original, and 
 it was accordingly engraved, and sold in all the 
 print-shops in distant London, under the title 
 of " Master Lionel Dupre and his Favourite 
 Pony." Many a mother fancied she found in 
 it some resemblance to her favourite child ; 
 many a father, who sighed for an heir to 
 his estates, thought within himself, as he laid 
 the engraving with apparent carelessness on 
 Colnaghi's counter, " that is the sort of boy 
 I should like to call my own;" and many a 
 widow, whose tribe of struggling sons were 
 scattered over the world, gave to that bold 
 and beautiful countenance the name of her 
 " little sailor," or " soldier," and wiped away 
 the tears that dimmed her view and dropped 
 on her shabby mourning, regretting that she 
 was too poor to purchase the print. 
 
 Lionel Dupre's was indeed the very ideal 
 and perfection of beauty, and the headstrong
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 11 
 
 passion which led him into every species of 
 scrape, was all set down to the score of ta- 
 lent by his doating father, as were his bursts 
 of vehement fondness or jealousy to the sensi- 
 tiveness of his disposition. 
 
 The ladies of the colony seemed to be in 
 a conspiracy who should flatter him most ; 
 and if any thing could have added to the 
 interest with which he inspired them, it would 
 have been the fact of his having, what they 
 were pleased to term, a " passion*' at twelve 
 years of age. 
 
 The object of his attachment was Annie 
 Morrison, a wine-merchant's daughter, a fair- 
 haired, frolicsome little thing, who used to 
 open her wide blue eyes in astonishment when 
 her boy-lover threatened to take her out in 
 a boat and drown her if she lent his books to 
 any one else ; and whose chief pleasure consist- 
 ed in attempting to rear English flowers in her
 
 12 
 
 WOMAN S REWARD, 
 
 Madeira garden, and cultivating a solitary 
 currant-bush for the sole and entire enjoy- 
 ment of Master Lionel Dupre. She was the 
 best possible specimen, in miniature, of wo- 
 man's devotion, and bore all the tyranny of 
 her wayward suitor patiently, in considera- 
 tion of the triumph of being acknowledged 
 throughout the island as " Lionel's favou- 
 rite." 
 
 A great deal has been said and written 
 about precocity of preference ; attempts 
 have been ingeniously made to prove that 
 Byron, Petrarch, and such like, were the 
 only men who thought of loving their little 
 female playfellows ; and, like all the supposed 
 peculiarities of genius, the point has been 
 argued with much obstinacy and enthusiasm. 
 What good quality of the heart, or imagina- 
 tion, the friendly biographers of these indivi- 
 duals might consider attendant on this turn
 
 woman's reward. 13 
 
 for early attachments, we know not ; Petrarch 
 turned out a dreamer, and Byron one of the 
 most selfish sensualists who ever pretended 
 to deep feeling ; but, certainly, the point has 
 been argued from false premises. 
 
 Men of genius are not the only men who 
 can recal to memory some fancy of their 
 childish days ; on the contrary, all little boys 
 love all little girls; and I never yet had an 
 opportunity of visiting any family in which a 
 couple of small rosy companions were not 
 pointed out to me as the prettiest little pair 
 of lovers in the world, although neither might 
 hereafter attain to the honour of having their 
 attachment immortalized in two volumes of 
 memoirs. 
 
 But the wild and violent temper which 
 Lionel occasionally showed, even towards his 
 " favourite," ivas a peculiarity, which caused 
 many, older and wiser, to shake their heads,
 
 14 
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 and murmur prophecies for the future, which 
 would greatly have surprised his father could 
 he have been made aware that such was the 
 impression created by his adored son. Once 
 only, a reproof was attempted, in the earlier 
 part of Mr. Dupre's illness, before the phy- 
 sicians' order not to allow any thing to agi- 
 tate him had been impressed on his daugh- 
 ter's mind; and richly deserved would a much 
 stronger reproof have been. 
 
 The wine-merchant's little girl had for once 
 preferred the company of a cousin to that 
 of the tyrant of her fancy, and had refused 
 to accompany him from the house to their 
 usual haunt on the terrace, where they were 
 accustomed to sit, hand-in-hand, watching the 
 green lizards, and playing with a pet chame- 
 leon which had been Mary Dupre's gift to 
 the " lovers." Lionel stamped, threatened, 
 and intreated, but in vain : the cousins had
 
 woman's reward. 1j 
 
 unfortunately received a beautiful volume of 
 Chinese costumes, and the attraction of look- 
 ing at them was irresistible. 
 
 "Annie, do you choose to go with me?" 
 said the boy, as he set his teeth and turned 
 pale with passion. 
 
 " No, I don't choose tc-day," answered the 
 little girl, shaking her long fair curls, with- 
 out lifting her head from the book. 
 
 " I wish you to come — so come," continued 
 he, and, as he spoke, he grasped her arm 
 as if to raise her from the mat where she 
 was sitting. The arm was disengaged, the 
 little white shoulders shrugged in token of 
 utter disapprobation of the measure proposed, 
 and Annie Morrison looked up with a merry 
 laugh, and asserted her determination to finish 
 the costumes, and then she would come out, 
 and play with her lover and his chameleon. 
 
 " No ! " said Lionel, as he stamped pas-
 
 16 woman's reward. 
 
 sionately on the ground ; " no, I will never 
 play again with you ! " 
 
 He turned, and left the room, shutting the 
 door with a violence which shook all the 
 casements; then, rushing to the little garden, 
 he tore every thing up by the roots, broke 
 the currant-bush into fragments, and, his rage 
 increasing with the excitement of the work 
 of devastation he was committing, he finally 
 took a heavy stone, which had been part of 
 a broken roller, and, lifting it with all his 
 strength, he dashed it down where the poor 
 little chameleon was lying, darting out its 
 tongue to entrap the insects that sported 
 in the sunshine, and crushed it to death. 
 
 A sick chill crept over the young destroy- 
 er's heart as he stood for a moment after 
 this last stroke of vengeance ; but neither the 
 tears of Annie Morrison, who came running 
 breathlessly towards him, nor her touching
 
 woman's reward. IT 
 
 expression, " the currant-bush I planted on 
 purpose for you" nor even the plaintive em- 
 phasis with winch she pronounced the words, 
 " our poor live chameleon," could melt him 
 sufficiently to make him own he was in the 
 wrong. He heeded not the gardener's speech, 
 " That boy has a bad heart," but leaped the 
 low stone wall, with the hedge of lately 
 planted prickly pears, and struggled up the 
 hill towards Ins own home. There, choking 
 with passion and self-reproach, he flung him- 
 self down in a corner, and allowed Mary and 
 Mr. Dupre to glean from his broken excla- 
 mations and sobs, the events of the morning. 
 To his father's words Lionel had never yet 
 listened and refused to obey; and when that 
 feeble and affectionate voice had laid before 
 him, in a few anxious sentences, the probable 
 consequences of such ungovernable transports 
 of anger, if habitually indulged in, the re-
 
 18 woman's reward. 
 
 morseful boy knelt, and kissing the thin hand 
 extended towards him, wept and poured forth 
 resolutions for the future and repentance for 
 the past, which more than satisfied the par- 
 tial parent's heart. 
 
 Nor did Lionel hesitate in his compliance with 
 the request made by his grieved sister, that 
 he should seek Annie Morrison and express 
 his regret for what had occurred. 
 
 With a slow step and a down-cast eye, he 
 retraced his path down the hill, and paused 
 at the entrance to the garden. Annie was 
 standing by the gardener, who was cutting 
 slips off the broken currant-bush. Her eyes, 
 which were red with weeping, were fixed on 
 the branch in his hand, and she was murmur- 
 ing a confused sentence respecting the dif- 
 ference of doing a thing out of real unkind- 
 ness and " only in a passion."
 
 woman's reward. 19 
 
 But the gardener was apparently a man of 
 stubborn principles; he persisted that it was 
 such fits of passion as that in which the cur- 
 rant-tree had been destroyed, which made 
 men murderers; and repeated his opinion that 
 Lionel had a bad heart. 
 
 Annie looked at the dead chameleon, and at 
 the plants which strewed the earth, and sighed. 
 
 " I hope, Daniel," said young Dupre, as 
 he held out his hand to his accuser, " that 
 you will live to have a better opinion of me; 
 I will come here every day and work hard 
 with you till the garden is set to rights again; 
 and — and my father is so kind as to promise 
 us another chameleon." 
 
 The last words were pronounced in a hesi- 
 tating voice, and Annie eagerly replied to 
 them, — 
 
 " Oh, no ; it will not be the same that we
 
 20 woman's reward. 
 
 have played with these two years; and it will 
 always remind us of the one you — the one 
 we lost." 
 
 The chameleon was buried, the currant slips 
 planted, and Annie and Lionel played toge- 
 ther as formerly; but scenes of violence 
 were of frequent occurrence, and while they 
 shocked and vexed the gentle Mary, they had 
 little effect on the sick man. 
 
 Mr. Dupre was one of those dangerous the- 
 orists who hold that vehemence of passion 
 proves strength of feeling; that people of 
 warm tempers have necessarily warm affec- 
 tions; and that a boy's spirit should not be 
 broken. He never considered that a burst 
 of passion is neither more nor less than a 
 burst of selfishness, and that the individual 
 who does more injury in one hour of anger 
 than he could undo perhaps in years of willing- 
 toil, is likely to make his friends wish that
 
 woman's reward. 21 
 
 his feelings had only the usual and average 
 strength of their own, and that his spirit had 
 been earl)' curbed by his reason. 
 
 Another feeling equally common, mingled 
 perhaps with the motives which made the 
 merchant so loth to condenm his son: — he 
 was conscious that rebellious and passionate 
 as Lionel proved to strangers, in his own 
 home he was easily swayed; a word from 
 Mary rarely failed to persuade him, and a 
 reproof from his father was received with a 
 meekness and humility winch no one who 
 knew him slightly would have believed. 
 
 Nothing is so nattering to the human heart 
 as the consciousness that we can exercise in- 
 fluence over those who own no other alle- 
 giance; that a broken sentence from our lips 
 can melt the soul that was stubborn to other 
 petitioners; that the mere conjecture what 
 our opinion may be, will weigh with one who
 
 22 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 habitually scorns advice or control. In such 
 a case we are but too apt to say and think 
 with Mr. Dupre,- — " you can't drive, but you 
 may lead him; and if the attempt answers 
 so ill, it is that you do not know how to 
 manage him." 
 
 Almost the last words the dying merchant 
 spoke, were addressed to his pale and motion- 
 less daughter Mary, and were in substance as 
 follow: — " With respect to my poor boy, I 
 have little fear that he will turn out a good 
 and useful member of society; but to realize 
 that hope, I am aware that some one must 
 be with him who can control him in his wilder 
 moods, and who can govern him through the 
 medium of his affections, — for it is through 
 the heart, — the heart, my dear Mary, that 
 Lionel must be swayed. You, who have seen 
 him grow up, whose feelings are less acute, 
 whose passions are more easily controlled, —
 
 woman's reward. 23 
 
 you, my poor Mary, young as you are, must 
 play a mother's part by him. You are six- 
 teen, he is but twelve: a woman is always 
 older for her age than a man; therefore it is 
 as if you were many years his senior. Pro- 
 mise me never to forsake him — to prefer him 
 to other ties, if they should be incompatible 
 with the love and protection I depend on 
 your shewing him. He will be rich; he will 
 be beautiful; — promise me, my child, to guard 
 and watch him in his hours of temptation; — 
 you may save him from heavy sins, from glar- 
 ing imprudence; you may be to him all that 
 I — that your sainted mother would have been ; 
 and if, in the unseen future, -something should 
 tempt you to falter in the duty you have 
 taken upon yourself, think that a dying fa- 
 ther's voice cheers you on, and tells you that 
 you stand in a parent's place." 
 
 Mary Dupre knelt with shivering sobs
 
 24 woman's reward. 
 
 by her father's couch, and felt the earnest 
 truth of her own words as she articulated the 
 sentence — " I promise, father, I promise! — 
 You leave me with but one tie in this deso- 
 late world, and to that tie I will cling for 
 ever, so help me God!" 
 
 The merchant died ; and the grief of his 
 young son was madly violent: he tore his 
 l ia i r — refused to taste food — lay on the ground 
 by the side of the body, and was only pre- 
 vented from retaining his hold of the coffin 
 at the last moment, and fulfilling the vehe- 
 ment desire of his passionate sorrow, of lying 
 in the grave with his last parent, by the sick 
 and deadly swoon which came upon him — 
 the mingled consequence of weeping, absti- 
 nence, and fatigue. 
 
 Mary followed the funeral procession with 
 a quiet step, and even murmured the res- 
 ponses in the burial service with a choked
 
 woman's reward. 25 
 
 and trembling voice. But long after Lionel 
 sang merrily and thoughtlessly his father's 
 favourite songs, and flung down hastily some 
 book which had been his gift, in order that 
 he might join the sports of his young com- 
 panions, the pale girl, whose feelings had 
 been pronounced so much less acute, and more 
 easy of control, would steal away to her 
 room, gather round her the little memorials 
 of that father's last days, and weep and pray 
 and weep again, bitterly as on the first dark 
 day which followed his death-bed scene. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 26 woman's reward. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 And thou, pale mourner, whose unwearied love 
 Looks to no term, and claims no earn'd reward,- 
 What man shall tell the value of thy heart? 
 
 Sir, list to me, 
 
 I am my father's heir and only son. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 In colonies and on ship-board, people are pro- 
 verbially good-natured ; and the full desolation 
 of Mary Dupre's situation was not at first ap- 
 parent to her. All her late father's friends 
 crowded round to assist her in making those 
 necessary arrangements which weigh so heavily 
 at a time when we would fain sit down and 
 weep ; every one pitied her, and there was a
 
 woman's REWARD. ', ; 7 
 
 general sympathy shewn in the fate of the or- 
 phaned son and daughter of a man well known 
 and much respected amongst the inhabitants of 
 Madeira. 
 
 Mr. Dupre's affairs were left to the manage- 
 ment of trustees in England, but it was gene- 
 rally understood that young Lionel woidd inhe- 
 rit five thousand a-year ; and many attempt- 
 were made to engage him to remain with fail 
 sister on the island till he should be old enough 
 to enter into partnership with some of the mer- 
 chants there. Mr. Morrison, in particular, 
 urged the certainty and comfort of remaining 
 with old friends, and being as he had always 
 been, a principal object amongst them; but this 
 idea Lionel rejected with instinctive haughti- 
 ness. " My poor father settled that we weie 
 to go to England," said he ; "but even if he 
 had not done so, I should have wished it. — 1 
 have enough, and have no idea of working for 
 
 c 2
 
 28 woman's reward. 
 
 my sons, if I ever have any, and wearing out 
 my health in unwholesome or fatiguing occupa- 
 tions, nor am I ambitious of spending my life in 
 the confined society of this island. We came 
 here for my father's health, and my mother's 
 relations particularly regretted it at the time, 
 as a means of preventing my sister and myself 
 from forming acquaintances in England while 
 we were growing up." 
 
 " Say no more, young gentleman, say no 
 more," interrupted Mr. Morrison, in rather 
 an offended tone, " I spoke, as I thought, for 
 the best, and because we all are sorry to lose 
 you, especially my little girl, who is quite 
 broken-hearted at the thoughts of such a 
 parting. — But since you must go, why you 
 have my hearty good wishes to take with you, 
 and that you may never find your mother's 
 relations less kindly disposed to you than your
 
 woman's reward. 29 
 
 father's old friends, is the sincere prayer of old 
 Jack Morrison." 
 
 Mary looked reproachfully at her brother, as 
 the old man concluded Ins speech, and brushing 
 away a tear, took Lionel by the hand. Mr. 
 Morrison had shewn them constant attention 
 ever since their residence on the island : had 
 always remembered their father when some rare 
 present, acceptable to an invalid, and valueless 
 except as a rarity, had been sent to him. 
 Many a time his round red good-humoured 
 face had appeared at their verandah, with the 
 words, " My wife wanted to send this to the 
 Governor, and we were near having a quarrel 
 about it, so I thought it was best to walk over 
 myself immediately and bring it to your father." 
 
 Many a time he had fagged up the hill, 
 through the hot sun, to read out such passages 
 of English letters as he thought might amuse
 
 30 woman's reward. 
 
 or interest the invalid, and offer new pub- 
 lications, with the leaves cut by the fairy 
 fingers of little Annie, as soon as they were 
 unpacked. Many a time had he called for 
 Lionel to see a vessel unload, or a curious ex- 
 periment made ; or perhaps only to show off to 
 some weather-beaten captain, " that handsome 
 intelligent boy of poor Dupre's." 
 
 Poor old Jack Morrison ! He understood the 
 terms " rich," and " respectable," and had a 
 vague idea of the Governor's greatness, (con- 
 nected, however, with a feeling of annoyance, 
 caused by the restless attempts of his showy 
 Portuguese wife, to get asked to the Govern- 
 ment House, to make friends with the Go- 
 vernor's Lady, to flatter the Governor's daugh- 
 ters, and in short, to do all that is usually done 
 for governors and their families in an island 
 like that which they inhabited,) but with re- 
 spect to "rank" and "connection," "sets" and
 
 woman's reward. SI 
 
 " society," Mr. Morrison was as innocent as the 
 babe unborn ; and he scarcely knew why he felt 
 mortified (as he undoubtedly did) at the cool- 
 ness with which young Lionel proposed set- 
 tling among strangers; his mother's relations, 
 and the superiors of people condemned to the 
 confined society of the factory at Madeira. 
 
 Lionel's mother was a Clavering; and if 
 they were a noble family, they certainly were 
 a proud one. Sir William Clavering never 
 entirely forgave his daughter, (though he had 
 not a farthing to leave her, and was him- 
 self only a distant cousin of the Earl of 
 Clavering and Mountalt,) for bestowing her 
 pretty portionless self on the industrious Mr. 
 Dupre : and though Lionel was a handsome 
 lad with a good fortune, and neither he nor his 
 sister could come under the head of poor rela- 
 tions, the sneer of contempt with which the 
 present earl read the dying merchant's request,
 
 32 woman's reward. 
 
 that he would afford some protection " to his 
 dear daughter and noble boy" till they were set- 
 tled in England, would have justified the idea 
 that beggars had been recommended to his notice. 
 The parting with Annie Morrison was far 
 more difficult than that with her father. For a 
 whole day Lionel wandered with his little com- 
 panion in the haunts so familiar to both. For 
 whole days, by fits and starts, he wept, and 
 imagined a thousand wild plans for taking 
 Annie with them, and a thousand times did he 
 claim her promise of never being anybody's 
 "little wife" but his. And Annie, as she 
 gave the promise with the frank eagerness of a 
 child, and showered down her soft willing 
 kisses on the forehead and cheek of her depart- 
 ing lover, (with much sorrow, but no shame,) 
 thought not that a day could ever come when 
 they who sate weeping by the wall of their Ma- 
 deira garden should be nothing to each other ; —
 
 woman's reward. 38 
 
 dreamed not that the same Lionel who cut 
 off the long auburn curls which fell on his 
 shoulders, and had them woven into bracelets 
 for her arms, would hereafter be indifferent to 
 her very existence. 
 
 Mary only waited at Madeira till she re- 
 ceived a letter from Mr. Patterson, one of the 
 English trustees. He named the vessel in 
 which she was to sail, the persons under whose 
 care she would make the passage, (already 
 known to her as residents on the island,) and 
 the probable date of her arrival at Portsmouth, 
 where he would await her landing. The letter 
 concluded thus : — 
 
 " It is with sincere regret that I am com- 
 pelled to state, that I have not been able to 
 execute all your father's wishes. One of the 
 trustees appointed by him has refused to act : 
 Sir William Clavering (also named) died about 
 a month since ; and Mr. Bigley and myself 
 
 c 5
 
 84 woman's reward* 
 
 have failed in bringing to a satisfactory ter- 
 mination our negociation with the earl. How- 
 ever, I trust before you return, arrangements 
 may have been made which will secure to you 
 a permanent home ; and should none such be 
 completed, Mr. Bigley, who is a family man, 
 begs to offer you the protection of Mrs. Big- 
 ley's house, where the cheerful society of his 
 young people will, I doubt not, tend greatly 
 towards improving your spirits. With sincere 
 condolences for the irremediable loss you have 
 sustained, and compliments to Mr. Lionel Du- 
 pre, 
 
 " I am, Madam, 
 
 " Your Humble Servant, 
 
 " W. C. Patterson.'- 
 
 "Irremediable, indeed!" exclaimed Mary, 
 
 as she crushed the long-expected letter in her 
 
 hands and burst into tears. " Oh ! my father 
 
 my dear father ! if you could read this ! You
 
 woman's reward. 
 
 who thought we should be so welcome in 
 England! Thank God, you did not know 
 this when you died ! Thank God you did 
 not foresee the difficulties, the coldness, the 
 cruelty. You did not imagine that we should 
 sail for England hoping that arrangements 
 might still be made to secure us a perma- 
 nent home — and with the alternative of ac- 
 cepting the hospitality of an utter stranger." 
 And leaning her head on the table she sobbed 
 long and bitterly. 
 
 But Mary Dupre's moments of weakness 
 were few. She roused herself: she remem- 
 bered that she had to act for her beloved 
 brother as well as for herself; — that she had 
 no one to look to for directions or encou- 
 ragement ; — that everything must be arranged 
 and settled in the shortest possible time; — 
 and that all those arrangements depended on 
 her. Mr. Patterson's letter advised that the
 
 36 woman's reward. 
 
 house, furniture, &c. should be sold before 
 her departure, as it would save trouble, and 
 expense of agency commissions. 
 
 She rose, and folding the letter, put on her 
 hat and walked slowly down to Mr. Morrison's. 
 
 Lionel was seated on the terrace, feeding a 
 green and crimson parroquet, and by him 
 stood little Annie, her sweet smiling face in- 
 tently watching him. They both ran towards 
 the gate. 
 
 " I have heard from England, Lionel," said 
 his sister, sadly. 
 
 "You have! Well, what news? Are we 
 to live with Lord Clavering ? " 
 
 " Not at present : — it cannot be arranged 
 just now." 
 
 "And why not? " exclaimed young Dupre, 
 while a fierce disappointment kindled in his 
 eye, and his dark moveable eyebrows met 
 with a sudden frown. " Where are we to
 
 woman's reward. >T 
 
 Ji ve i — yyith Sir William — with my grandfa- 
 ther ? " 
 
 " He is dead," murmured Mary with a sigh. 
 
 There was a pause : it was broken by Annie 
 Morrison, who exclaimed, — 
 
 " Ah ! if I had a brother or sister I should 
 not care how or where I lived, so long as we 
 were together ! " 
 
 " Nor do I care, so long as I am with you, 
 Mary ! " and Lionel flung his arms passionately 
 round his sister's neck. 
 
 " There is but one thing I wish, Mr. Mor- 
 rison," said Mary, as she stood with the long 
 inventory in her hand, prepared to see all 
 those familiar articles of household furniture 
 given up to the hammer. " I wish to have 
 my father's reading-desk and table, and the 
 old clock ; I have so often heard it strike the 
 hours when I have been watching by him." 
 
 " They shall be bought in," was the brief
 
 WOMAN*S REWARD. 
 
 reply ; but Mary knew by the tone that the 
 old man understood and felt for her ; and she 
 thought of the day when she must part from 
 this last friend, and live among those who had 
 never shared either her joy or her sorrow. 
 
 That day came. The shores of Madeira 
 lessened in their sight and grew dim. The 
 purple clouds of evening sank lower and lower 
 till they formed one huge bank along the sky, 
 divided by a clear streak of pale light from 
 the grey and colourless sea. The moon rose 
 and glided through the heavens as if she were 
 companioning the vessel on her solitary track, 
 and it was not till all had retired to their ca- 
 bins, and a weary sleep had fallen upon Mary 
 Dupre's eyes, that she could forget the grasp 
 of poor old Morrison's hand, or the choked 
 sob with which he pronounced the words, — 
 " Write to me : write to me ! I shall be glad 
 to hear from you ! Don't forget me among
 
 woman's reward. ;J9 
 
 grander Mends. Write to me ! " And for 
 years Mary did write to him, till after seve- 
 ral of her letters had remained unanswered, 
 she learnt by accident that he had speculated 
 unsuccessfully, and died a bankrupt. To 
 whom Annie was confided, either in England 
 or Madeira, she could not discover, though 
 she wrote two or three times to the girl her- 
 self. 
 
 The voyage was made without danger, and 
 without incident. Oh! the monotony of that 
 long sea-course, with a heart full of anxiety 
 for the future, and regret for the past. It 
 seemed to Mary as if it would never end. 
 And yet, when they shouted " Land," and 
 n eared Portsmouth, she shrank away, and 
 tears filled her eyes. Even the companion- 
 ship of that vessel was preferable to the utter 
 strangeness of all that was to come. 
 
 In the midst of a cold drizzling rain and a
 
 40 woman's reward. 
 
 whistling wind, they got into the boats which 
 were to convey them to land ; and drenched with 
 spray, and half dead with fatigue, Mary Dupre 
 accompanied Mr. Patterson's servant (who had 
 been sent on board to take care of her luggage,) 
 to the door of a room in the hotel where they 
 were to sleep that night. She entered timidly 
 and faintly, and saw Mr. Patterson standing on 
 the rug by a newly-lit fire. He was a tall, 
 elderly man, with pinched and spare features, 
 and at present looked exceedingly blue and 
 cold. He advanced two or three steps, shook 
 Lionel by the hand, in a shy, irresolute man- 
 ner, and after twice half extending his hand 
 to Miss Dupre, apparently relinquished the at- 
 tempt to accomplish the same ceremony with 
 her as too much for his nerves. 
 
 '.' I think," said Lionel sulkily, as he flung 
 himself down on the hard crimson moreen sofa, 
 and fixed his eyes on the scanty crimson moreen
 
 woman's reward. 41 
 
 curtains which barely closed over a window 
 looking into the stable-yard, " I think, consi- 
 dering you knew we were coming, Mr. Patter- 
 son, you might have provided us a more com- 
 fortable apartment." 
 
 Mr. Patterson's countenance assumed the 
 exj^ression of a half-tamed fallow-deer, in- 
 clined to eat a bit of bread from your hand, 
 but afraid to advance, and ready to spring 
 away the moment you move. 
 
 " Mr. Dupre, I really beg your pardon — 
 I should have been on board, but I was so 
 late in arriving here ; — 1 have been much 
 occupied — very much occupied, — been making 
 wills, and" 
 
 " Well, but when you did come, it was 
 easy to order a better room than this. I've 
 been accustomed to comfort, — and as to sit- 
 ting in this room" 
 
 "Certainly, my dear young gentleman, —
 
 4-2 woman's reward. 
 
 certainly, five thousand a-year entitles you to 
 expect comforts, — nay, luxuries; but mean- 
 while we must be prudent; I have hitherto 
 conducted every thing in the most economical 
 manner, and Mr. Bigley" 
 
 " Mary, ring the bell, dear," interrupted 
 Lionel. 
 
 The bell was accordingly rung. A very 
 shabby waiter answered it, after ten minutes' 
 delay, and stood with the door-lock in his 
 hand, but without even troubling himself to 
 enquire why he had been summoned. His 
 inquisitively contemplative face produced from 
 Mary the remark, — " You told me to ring, 
 Lionel." 
 
 Her brother, whose temper was already ir- 
 ritated by the delay, sprang from the sofa, 
 and in the most authoritative tone of passion 
 ordered the master of the hotel to be sent for. 
 
 " He's not in, sir."
 
 woman's reward. 4o 
 
 " Well then, the head waiter; and don't 
 stand like a fool with the door in your hand, 
 making a draft that will kill one with the 
 rheumatism, — the room's like an ice-house 
 already." 
 
 The head waiter came, with a doubtful cau- 
 tious face, like an ambassador with plenipo- 
 tentiary powers. 
 
 " Is there no room in the house, with pro- 
 per furniture and a good fire?" thundered 
 forth the spoiled heir. 
 
 " Yes, sir, Xo. 5; party just this moment 
 gone out; capital fire, sir, — capital room."' 
 
 " "Well, then, for God's sake let us get into 
 it, and order dinner there instantly." 
 
 " Certainly, sir." 
 
 In five minutes the door was again more 
 briskly opened, and a dapper and smiling lit- 
 tle waiter appeared, with a heavy mosaic gold 
 chain, to which were appended more seals
 
 44 woman's reward. 
 
 than were entrusted to the Duke of Wellinef- 
 ton during the inconvenient temporary ab- 
 sence of Sir Robert Peel in the autumn of 
 1834; and the agreeable notice of " dinner, 
 sir," was pronounced with a rapidity com- 
 mensurate with the haste displayed in its 
 preparation. 
 
 " Mr. Patterson, will you take my sister?" 
 Mr. Patterson obeyed; and Lionel followed, 
 not perceiving that the dapper little waiter 
 with the seals, who followed him, was alle- 
 gorically representing the style and manner 
 of the new guest, by standing on tip-toe 
 and crowing in an under-voice, so as to give 
 a not very unfaithful imitation of a Bantam 
 cock. 
 
 The dinner, as may be believed, was incon- 
 ceivably tedious. Between the pauses of eat- 
 ing, Mr. Patterson explained, that for the 
 present Miss Dupre and her brother had bet-
 
 woman's reward. 4.5 
 
 ter take advantage of Mr. Bigley's invita- 
 tion, after wliicli arrangements could be made 
 satisfactory to all parties; and amongst those 
 arrangements he presumed that of sending 
 Lionel to Eton would be advisable. 
 
 Both brother and sister were dismayed at 
 this prospect of separation. 
 
 " With the expectation of five thousand 
 a-year, it is fit and proper that you should 
 have the best of educations; and it is Mr. 
 Bigley's opinion that" 
 
 " Why can't I study at home as I have 
 always been accustomed to do?'' 
 
 " My dear young sir, even were it compa- 
 tible with Mr. Bigley's family arrangements 
 to take a private tutor into his house (which 
 would by no means be the case, for Mr. B.'s 
 own son was at school), it is a measure so ex- 
 ceedingly expensive as to be unwise and in- 
 considerate; for although the expectation of
 
 46 woman's reward. 
 
 five thousand a-year entitles you to many ad- 
 vantages, yet present economy, as indeed Mr. 
 Bigley observes" 
 
 " What an old- bore you are," muttered 
 Lionel half aloud, as he raised a glass of wine 
 to his lips; then setting it down with an ex- 
 pression of disgust, he said angrily, — " This 
 is not drinkable, if madeira ever is drinkable. 
 Mr. Patterson, will you be good enough to 
 order claret." 
 
 For the first time, Mr. Patterson's features 
 assumed an expression approaching to seve- 
 rity. " Young gentleman, do you know what 
 you are asking? At the age of thirteen " 
 
 " I shall be fourteen in four months," said 
 Lionel, frowning and drawing himself up. 
 
 " Well, at the age of fourteen, sir," said 
 Mr. Patterson, upon whom this request for 
 claret had worked a marvellous change — " at 
 the age of fourteen, or at any other age,
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 47 
 
 whilst you are a minor, even if instead of 
 five, you had expectations to the amount of 
 twenty thousand a-year, it is unheard of, — 
 I say it is unheard of, that you should de- 
 mand claret for your own private drinking at 
 a Portsmouth hotel. Ruinous, sir! ruinous! 
 I am sure if Mr. Bigley could have been 
 made aware " 
 
 " Have I but one guardian, sir, and is Mr, 
 Bigley responsible for your conduct as well 
 as mine? I will neither submit to be con- 
 trolled by you nor by him, as you will find; 
 and for the present I have the honour of wish- 
 ing you good night." 
 
 So saying Lionel rang the bell, desired to 
 be shewn to his room, and left Mr. Patterson 
 and Mary to a tete-a-tete. 
 
 There was a dead pause; at length it was 
 broken by a sort of preparatory hem on the 
 part of the insulted guardian. Mary dreaded
 
 48 woman's reward. 
 
 what was to follow ; she lifted her soft dark 
 grey eyes to his face with an appealing and 
 deprecatory look, and perceived that Mr. Pat- 
 terson's nervousness had returned two-fold. — 
 " Madam," said he, " you are very young." 
 
 This observation required no reply. 
 
 " You are much younger than I imagined, 
 when your good father wrote to me some 
 months previous to his decease, and informed 
 me that you would arrange and execute all 
 the minor details connected with the disposal 
 of Mr. Lionel Dupre. I should suggest, ma- 
 dam, that he be sent to school till such time 
 as he shall be old enough to go to one of 
 the Universities. He is a handsome lad, but 
 a leetle spoiled — a leetle spoiled; and I con- 
 fess I shall be better pleased when Mr. Big- 
 
 ley" ■ 
 
 The usual pause which followed this for- 
 midable name having been made, Mary took
 
 woman's reward. 49 
 
 the opportunity of inquiring all that it seemed 
 necessary to know for the present, viz. where Mr. 
 Bigley lived, and at what time it was likely 
 they should reach his place of residence. Mr. 
 Bigley lived at Norfolk, and if the party started 
 at eight in the morning, they would be ushered 
 into the presence of Mrs. Bigley and her little 
 family on the evening of the succeeding day. 
 
 After Mary had ascertained this fact, she 
 retired ; and Mr. Patterson having courteously 
 bowed and closed the door, returned to the 
 table, drew it nearer the fire, and, gently 
 rubbing his hands, prepared for that com- 
 fortable enjoyment of his own society, whicli 
 is so much more delightful to a shy man 
 than the most agreeable circle that could be 
 invited to meet him. 
 
 Before retiring for the night, Mary sought 
 her brother's room with the intention of ex- 
 postulating with him on the rudeness and 
 
 vol. i. D
 
 50 woman's reward. 
 
 intemperance which, he had shown towards 
 one who, however awkward in his manner, 
 had evidently been acting honestly, and, to 
 the best of his abilities, in their behalf; and 
 had endeavoured to the utmost to fulfil the 
 injunctions of their dead father; but, at the 
 first few words, Lionel interrupted her. 
 
 " I guess what you are going to say, Mary, 
 but it is of no use ; I will not stoop to be 
 governed and lectured by that man. I obeyed 
 my father; no one can ever say I braved 
 my father's will; I cared too much for a 
 cold word from him, to risk his displeasure ; 
 I thank God I cannot recal one single in- 
 stance in which I voluntarily angered him." 
 
 Mary interrupted in her turn. She did not 
 remind her brother how very little that fa- 
 ther's authority had been exerted, or how 
 gently exercised ; her impulse was to conci- 
 liate and calculation could have contrived no
 
 woman's reward. 51 
 
 belter method for obtaining influence over the 
 wayward lad by her side. 
 
 "It is true/' said she, as she kissed his 
 noble forehead, " you were a dutiful child to 
 the best and fondest of fathers. You obeyed 
 him because he was our father ; but now, 
 Leo, you must learn to obey others ; for the 
 sake of your own comfort and respectability — 
 for hit sake, Lionel, you must learn to obey." 
 
 " I tell you, never ! " shouted Lionel, as he 
 struck the little table near him with his closed 
 hand : "I did not obey my father, like an 
 infant, because he was my father ; I obeyed 
 him because he knew when and how to con- 
 trol me ; because my reason echoed every word 
 of his reproof; because I knew that it was for 
 my sake, for me, that he opposed my caprices ; 
 but if you think I will be tutored by that 
 shivering, stammering fool Patterson, or the 
 
 tyrant Bigley " 
 
 d 2
 
 52 woman's reward. 
 
 " You do not know Mr. Bigley yet," said 
 his sister, in a tone of irrepressible vexation ; 
 " you may like and respect him hereafter." 
 
 " Oh, Mary, Mary ! don't you turn against 
 me ! don't you try and put me under stran- 
 gers. I have mortification enough in seeing 
 that my mother's fine relations are deter- 
 mined not to allow us to live amongst them — 
 I have vexation enough in thinking how differ- 
 ently my father hoped and expected for me. 
 I can't bow to those people — I can't and I 
 won't! but a word of your's shall lead me, 
 Mary ! a wish of your's shall be a command 
 to me! let them send their orders through 
 you, and I will promise any thing!" 
 
 Mary Dupre waited to calm the passionate 
 tears which accompanied this last sentence, 
 and, as she stole away to her own room, a 
 vague dread of that responsible future in 
 which she was expected to perform the part
 
 woman's reward. 53 
 
 of a parent to the wild and violent lad she 
 already felt beyond her control, mingled with 
 the regret and misery which always followed 
 the remembrance of her father's death.
 
 54 
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Now this is worshipful society. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 It was late in the evening when our party 
 arrived at the residence of Mr. Bigley. 
 Lionel, who had really taken pains to please 
 Mr. Patterson during the journey, had re- 
 peatedly asked impatient questions respecting 
 every individual of the family with whom he 
 was about to make acquaintance, and, just as 
 the carriage drove up to the brass-knockered
 
 woman's reward. 55 
 
 door of the red-brick mansion which con- 
 tained the objects of his curiosity, his in- 
 quiry whether Mr. Patterson thought he 
 should like them, was answered by that gen- 
 tleman in a bolder and more complimentary 
 style than usual: "I do not know whether 
 you will like them, but I am sure they will 
 like you." 
 
 The consequence of this agreeable intima- 
 tion was, that Master Lionel Dupre sprang 
 out of the carriage in the best of tempers, 
 and as he stood, a victim to Mr. Patterson's 
 slow introduction, at the door of Mrs. Big- 
 ley's sitting-room with a glow, half of return- 
 ing warmth and half embarrassment, and a 
 smile equally divided between good-nature and 
 amusement, the first thing that struck every 
 one was Iris excessive beauty ; on which the 
 youngest daughter of the family thus openly 
 commented : —
 
 56 woman's reward. 
 
 " Oh, goodness, mama! what a pretty, pretty 
 boy in a fur coat ! " 
 
 " Hush ! Rosabel ; for shame ! little ladies 
 should never remark on gentlemen's looks, it 
 isn't proper." 
 
 Lionel laughed and patted her on the head, 
 which abashing her more than the maternal 
 rebuke, she retreated, and hid herself in the 
 folds of her " mama's" gown. 
 
 Gowns in those days had not the volumin- 
 ous width and hoop-like form of the petti- 
 coat of the present day ; on the contrary, 
 they were amazingly scanty; and as Mrs. 
 Bigley stood courteously endeavouring to 
 welcome Miss Dupre and her brother to Nor- 
 folk, the effect of the little Rosabel's efforts 
 to pull all the fulness to the back part 
 of the dress, was any thing but graceful, 
 and materially prevented that freedom of step
 
 woman's reward. 57 
 
 which is at once both requisite and becom- 
 ing. Provoked at the awkwardness of her 
 situation, "Mrs. Bigley gave a sudden and 
 angry twitch to the child's arm, which caused 
 a violent burst of crying. 
 
 " Take her away, Jane, till she has done 
 roaring," said the incensed parent: and, all the 
 flow of her drapery recovered, she swept her 
 way towards the hearth-rug. 
 
 Round the fire stood a number of girls of 
 different ages, each with a more than an ordi- 
 nary share of the awkwardness which belongs 
 to that fearful " juste milieu," which is nei- 
 ther child nor woman. 
 
 " Go away, all of you, to the other end 
 of the room, and mind you keep quiet. No, 
 not you, Hyacinth, you may stay by the 
 fire ; Miss Dupre and the young gentleman 
 will excuse you — you have chilblains, and if 
 
 d 5
 
 58 woman's reward. 
 
 you sit in the cold, you won't be able to 
 walk all the winter. Mr. Patterson, you will 
 find Mr. Bigley, senior, and Mr. Bigley, ju- 
 nior, in the office." 
 
 Lionel looked at Hyacinth, and felt a par- 
 ticular dislike to the fat, sallow, uncomfort- 
 able-looking girl, with an enormous crop of 
 rough dark curls round her face, and suffer- 
 ing from chilblains. While Mary was talking 
 to Mrs. Bigley, he surveyed the . group at 
 the other end of the room; they were all 
 rather of the Hyacinth species, and amounted 
 to the number of four, exclusive of Jane and 
 the little rebel who had been exiled tempo- 
 rarily for her misconduct. 
 
 While he was yet contemplating this dis- 
 tinguished company, (who kept pinching each 
 other's arms and elbows, and giggling,) Jane 
 returned, leading the resentful Rosabel, the 
 tears still glittering on her long black eye-
 
 woman's reward. 59 
 
 lashes, and the colour in her cheek deepened 
 to crimson. 
 
 " Come, that is a very pretty child," thought 
 Lionel ; " and the fair girl they call Jane, is 
 nice-looking; I wonder can she be the gover- 
 ness ? she is not the least like any of the others.." 
 
 All doubt on this subject was speedily put 
 an end to by Mrs. Bigley herself, who, call- 
 ing to the object of his attention, abruptly 
 presented her as, " Miss Bigley, Mr. B.'s daugh- 
 ter ; a great deal older than any of mine — 
 Hyacinth is my eldest." 
 
 A very slight, almost imperceptible smile 
 stole round the corners of Jane Bigley's 
 mouth as she curtsied to the new comers. 
 Her manner was equally free from forward- 
 ness and embarrassment, and as Lionel turned 
 to his sister, he saw the expression of pleased 
 approval on her countenance also, and both 
 cordially greeted their new acquaintance.
 
 60 woman's reward. 
 
 At this juncture, " Mr. Bigley, senior, 
 and Mr. Bigley, junior," accompanied by 
 Mr. Patterson, entered the room. 
 
 Lionel eagerly looked towards the person 
 whom he had begun involuntarily to consider 
 as " having authority over him," but nothing 
 could be less calculated to inspire awe than 
 the attorney's personal appearance : a small 
 fat man, in a yellow wig, with legs bearing 
 a very small proportion to the body they 
 supported, a joyous twinkle in his diminutive 
 blue eye, and a hearty, happy, and most 
 atrociously vulgar manner ; such was the often 
 quoted Mr. Bigley ! Lionel stared. Mr. 
 Patterson was, at least, a gentleman ; a shy, 
 awkward, timid, nervous, irresolute gentle- 
 man, if you will ; but still a gentleman ; and 
 when in opposition to the hesitating welcome 
 given by the latter on their arrival at Ports- 
 mouth, Mr. Bigley, senior, shook our hero
 
 woman's reward. 61 
 
 heartily by the hand, and clapping him on 
 the shoulder at the same time, exclaimed, 
 " well, young gentleman, and how are you?" 
 young Dupre could scarcely contain his as- 
 tonishment and indignation. 
 
 Bigley junior, or Henry Bigley, like 
 Jane, did not belong to the large second 
 brood in his father's house ; and after a word 
 or two of kind but inaudible notice to Hya- 
 cinth, during which he pointed twice to the 
 foot whose ills so weighed on the minds of 
 the family, he retreated into the back-ground, 
 there to be welcomed by his own sister, 
 whose pretty face was lit with smiles at the 
 first glimpse of his slight shuffling figure 
 when he entered the room, and who now 
 appeared to be chatting merrily to amuse 
 him after the fatigue and confinement of the 
 attorney's office. 
 
 Mr. Bigley and Mr. Patterson having com-
 
 62 woman's reward. 
 
 menced a conversation on their side, and Mrs. 
 Bigiey and Mary still appearing occupied 
 with each other, Lionel devoted his attention 
 to Rosabel, and became exceedingly amused 
 with her childish grace and merriment. He 
 even undertook to narrate a long story, in 
 the midst of which he was interrupted by 
 the attorney, who, rising and leaning three 
 fingers on the tea-table, uttered the following- 
 brief oration : 
 
 " To-morrow, at twelve, the papers relating 
 to the late Mr. Dupre's affairs will be laid 
 before you, Miss Mary, and your brother. 
 The will shall be read to you, though you 
 doubtless recollect its contents ; and Mr. Pat- 
 terson and myself will attend; I shall be 
 happy to listen to any suggestions you may 
 make, which may at all conduce to your fu- 
 ture welfare, and hope the arrangements en- 
 tered into will be mutually satisfactory. At
 
 woman's reward. 63 
 
 twelve precisely, to-morrow, in my study ;" 
 and, lighting Ins bed-room candle, Mr. Big- 
 ley departed to rest. 
 
 The next morning, as soon as breakfast 
 was over, Mrs. Bigley ushered her guests 
 into a large cold drawing-room, with linen 
 covers on most of the furniture, and ditto 
 on all the chandeliers. About four really 
 fine pictures, several hideous silouettes, and 
 an innumerable quantity of bad miniatures 
 and tolerable engravings, in very shewy frames, 
 relieved at intervals the bareness of the walls, 
 which were papered in pale peach colour, with 
 gold mouldings and cornices. Each table had 
 a carved ivory or filigree silver work-box 
 under a glass-case, and one or two other 
 equally useful articles ; on the chimney-piece, 
 amid a confused selection of screens and ill- 
 painted card-racks, stood a large French clock, 
 with a musical box below, and an or-molu
 
 64 woman's reward. 
 
 groupe above, representing an old man row- 
 ing a little boy in a boat the size of a cockle- 
 shell, and inscribed was the ingenious and 
 novel device, " Le Terns fait passer 1' Amour." 
 
 The only person in the room was Hya- 
 cinth, who, looking more uncomfortable than 
 ever, sat vainly endeavouring to warm her- 
 self at the smoky and reluctant fire which 
 half-filled the magnificent polished grate. 
 
 " How cold it is," said Lionel, as he drew 
 a chair and sat down on the opposite side. 
 
 " Yes, it is very cold in this room," said 
 Hyacinth, with a heavy sigh. 
 
 There was a pause, 
 
 " Can you lend me a book ?" resumed young 
 Dupre, looking round as if seeking for some 
 stray publication. 
 
 " I can fetch you one ; there are no books 
 in this room." 
 
 " By Jove though, here is one; the pam-
 
 woman's reward. 65 
 
 phlet Mr. Patterson thought so clever, upon 
 steam machinery ; this will do ; give me a 
 paper-knife." 
 
 " There is no paper-knife in this room, but 
 you can take a card from the mantel-piece, 
 it will cut the leaves quite as well." 
 
 " No, never mind ; perhaps he wants to bind 
 his pamphlets, and dislikes their being opened 
 carelessly ; I remember my father used to dis- 
 like it. I know what I'll do — I'll make me- 
 morandums of what I wish to say to-day ; I 
 dare say Mary will get sad and nervous when 
 the will is read, and that will put every tiring 
 out of my head." 
 
 " Are you looking for any thing ? " mur- 
 mured his chilly companion, as she observed 
 Lionel sliifting from table to table enquiringly. 
 
 " Yes, I'm looking for a blot ting-book and 
 an inkstand ; where are they ? " 
 
 " A blotting-book ! dear me, there is no
 
 66 woman's reward. 
 
 blotting-book in this room; and none of the 
 inkstands have any ink in them, mama's so 
 afraid of their being broken." 
 
 " Why is there nothing in this room?" said 
 Lionel, with impatient irony, as he returned 
 and flung himself back in his chair; "and 
 why do you sit here, if it is the most com- 
 fortless room in the house?" 
 
 " We never do sit here," said Hyacinth, in 
 a more plaintive tone than she had hitherto 
 assumed, " except when there's company. We 
 sit in the room where you found us last night." 
 
 " How you shiver," said her companion, as 
 she concluded the last phrase. 
 
 " Yes ; it is partly having on this white 
 gown ; you've no idea how cold it is, after my 
 brown merinos." 
 
 " And why do you wear it, when you have 
 already got a cold ? " 
 
 " We always do wear white when there's
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. D< 
 
 company ; and mama particularly desired when 
 you came — " 
 
 " I am sore," said Lionel, leaning back in 
 his chair with half a yawn and half a laugh, 
 " I don't care what gown you wear. How 
 old are you I " 
 
 " I'm fourteen." 
 
 " And how old is Rosabel ? " 
 
 " Ten. She seems much younger because 
 she has such baby ways ; but she was ten last 
 month. She was called baby till she was six, 
 and then papa forbid it." 
 
 " I wish you'd fetch her," ejaculated Lionel, 
 this time with an undisguised yawn. 
 
 " It hurts me so to move ; but I will." 
 
 " No, no ; don't go if it gives you pain.'" 
 
 " Oh it isn't much : and mama particularly 
 desired everything should be done to amuse 
 you." 
 
 " I wonder if that is the reason she left you
 
 68 woman's reward. 
 
 in this room," muttered he, half aloud, as the 
 dull but good-natured girl rose, and limping 
 with a slip-shod and bound-up foot, left the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " Oh that you had a sprained ancle, or a 
 broken leg, or anything but a chilblain, most 
 ugly girl ! And what a name ! Hyacinth ! 
 It seems to me, you are twice as ugly in con- 
 sequence of the expectation raised by the 
 sound. Sukey or Betty would have answered 
 the purpose better." 
 
 It was not in the nature of Lionel Dupre to 
 consider, that however ugly and ungainly this 
 young girl might be, she was mounting a long 
 staircase, every nerve in her foot and ancle 
 throbbing with pain, partly out of obedience 
 to her mother's command, and partly out of 
 real willingness to amuse the selfish stranger. 
 
 " Mama, may I rest by your fire," said the
 
 woman's reward. 69 
 
 object of so much criticism, when she reached 
 the first landing-place. 
 
 " Certainly, my loye : come in." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bigley were talking earnest- 
 ly, and paused when she came in. 
 
 "Don't you think, Mr. B., that Cin thy looks 
 remarkably well in blue and white ? " 
 
 Mr. B. nodded assent. 
 
 " But what haye you done with Mr. Du- 
 pre, my dear Hyacinth ? " 
 
 " Mr. Dupre wants Rosabel, and begged me 
 to fetch her." 
 
 " There, Mr. Bigley ! there ; who was 
 right ? " 
 
 Hyacinth, without noticing this mysterious 
 burst of triumph on her mother's part, pro- 
 ceeded: — " He wants Rosabel; and I wish you 
 would allow Catherine to dress her hair and 
 take her down, for indeed I am quite ill with
 
 70 woman's reward. 
 
 my cold, and Mr. Dupre is not the least 
 amused with any of us but Rosabel." 
 
 " I will take her down myself," said Mrs. 
 Bigley, as she bustled out of the room, her 
 eyes sparkling with pleasure. 
 
 Mr. Bigley stood, leaning his back against 
 the mantel-piece, humming a tune and playing 
 with the seals of his watch. 
 
 " Father," said Hyacinth timidly, " I think 
 I am very ill." 
 
 " Are you, my dear ? " responded Mr. Big- 
 ley, in a tone which proved he had not heard, 
 or at least noticed, the drift of her speech. 
 
 " I think, father," persisted she, " that ma- 
 ma has not had time lately to see how very ill 
 I am. Jane says it isn't a common cold." 
 
 " Your mother's head is full of schemes, my 
 dear," said her father roughly, as he left the 
 room to prepare for the interview with Mr. 
 Patterson and his ward, and Hyacinth leaned
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD. 71 
 
 her aching head against the foot of her mo- 
 ther's bed and cried bitterly. 
 
 It would have greatly increased Lionel's 
 horror of her ugliness if he had seen her, 
 more chilled than ever after this fit of weep- 
 ing, draw a faded shawl over the white dress 
 which was worn for " company," and creep 
 almost into the fire; with her shoulders up to 
 her ears, and her eyes and mouth swelled and 
 heavy, as only excessive weeping, superadded 
 to a feverish cold, can make them. 
 
 Mr. Bigley spoke the truth when he harsh- 
 ly alluded to his wife's head being full of 
 schemes. She had already in fancy appropri- 
 ated Lionel Dupre as a husband to her really 
 pretty little Rosabel ; and had spent great 
 part of the morning in endeavouring to per- 
 suade Mr. B. not to send the young lad away, 
 but to educate him in the house. The point 
 had been long and obstinately combated, Mr.
 
 72 woman's reward. 
 
 Bigley averring that there scarcely ever was 
 an instance of two people falling in love who 
 had been used to live together as children ; 
 and that " that Paul and Virginia nonsense 
 was all fudge." That it was much more likely 
 that the young man would be taken with her 
 seeing her only in his holidays, and at inter- 
 vals, &c. &c. ; and Mrs. Bigley arguing it her 
 way, till at length she wrung from her hus- 
 band a promise or compromise, that " if the 
 lad was himself for going, he should go, and 
 if he was for staying he should stay, and be 
 put under the care of a private tutor; but for 
 his own part he had just as soon his daughter 
 married an honest lawyer." 
 
 In the interview of that day the point was 
 settled to the entire satisfaction of Mary, Lio- 
 nel, and Rosabel's mama; it was also arranged 
 that out of five hundred a-year, which was 
 settled on Mary, independent of her brother,
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 she should pay two hundred annually as long- 
 as she chose to remain with the Bigleys, in 
 consideration of the comfortable home she 
 would enjoy. 
 
 As to any further provision for her, Mr. 
 Dupr^'s will was thus worded: — f * I do 
 not here appoint my daughter Mary a mar- 
 riage portion, because I would not but leave 
 to her brother's generosity so great a plea- 
 sure, not doubting that she will receive from 
 him a fit and liberal provision." And in 
 case of his son dying unmarried, then the 
 whole of the property reverted to his daugh- 
 ter. 
 
 A great deal was said about old Sir William 
 Clavering, on whom, unfortunately. Mr. Du- 
 pre had principally depended for placing Lio- 
 nel, and a great many rude speeches reported 
 as made by the present Lord Clavering. who 
 was Sir William's nephew. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 woman's reward. 
 
 Remaining with the Bigleys seemed the 
 only present alternative; and Mary, whatever 
 she might privately have thought of the dif- 
 ference of society, occupations, and comforts, 
 from what she had been used to enjoy in her 
 father's house, acquiesced with a sweet and 
 perfect cheerfulness. Lionel had sarcastically 
 described to her the difference of their " com- 
 pany life" and that adopted among themselves ; 
 but her only answer was, — " you must remem- 
 ber, Lionel, that these people's vulgarity is 
 the result of habit and circumstances, and that 
 what renders them at this moment ridiculous 
 in your eyes, was an attempt to be kind to 
 us; to show us respect and attention by treat- 
 ing us as honoured guests; it was all meant 
 for the best, and that is the only light in which 
 you should view it." 
 
 Nor did she in any way refer to the sub-
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. ID 
 
 ject after that evening, when as they sat in 
 the room, where there was nothing but orna- 
 ments, she turned with a quiet smile to Mrs. 
 Bigley, who was yawning and rubbing her 
 eyes, and said, — " Xow, dear Mrs. Bigley. 
 that we are all to live as one family, I trust 
 you will no longer think of treating us as 
 strangers, but allow us to share your usual 
 occupations. I shall bring down my work- 
 basket to-morrow, for I am sure, with so many 
 little people to dress, you can give me con- 
 stant occupation, and it will be a pleasure to 
 me to help you in any way." 
 
 To say that Mrs. Bigley's pleasure equalled 
 her surprise on this occasion, would be saying 
 the utmost that language can express. She 
 was just the sort of busy, bus cling matron 
 who has eternally on her arm an enormous 
 basket filled with patterns for backs, and pat- 
 
 e 2
 
 76 woman's reward. 
 
 terns for fronts, and straps for shoulder-pieces, 
 and brown holland pinafores wanting new 
 tapes ; who produces six little frocks at a time, 
 all ready cut out, and sets her maids to ma- 
 king them ; and who herself superintends the 
 cooking of particular dishes. 
 
 I do wrong to speak in the present tense. 
 There is no such character now as Mrs. Big- 
 ley: since our servant-maids have taken to 
 wear lace canezous and silk stockings, and 
 employ the same mantua-makers as ourselves 
 to make up their dresses, the true English 
 matron has gone out of fashion. We are dif- 
 ferently occupied, — we read more, and dance 
 more, and think more on general topics; there 
 lias been a inarch of intellect; and now we 
 waltz, and read theological disputes, and po- 
 litical pamphlets, and parliamentary speeches; 
 and are much better and happier, and make
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. < < 
 
 more use of the energies God has given 
 than we did in those days. 
 
 Far be it from me to deny it, or to pre- 
 sume to compare the quiet consciousness of 
 doing one's duty in an obscure corner of the 
 world, to the glorious notoriety of seeing one 3 
 name in a newspaper, coupled with praise or 
 abuse, as the humour of the time may be: or 
 the comfortable occupation of struggling to un- 
 derstand, what after all, we are no more 
 permitted to take part in, than Mrs. Bigley 
 would have been, had she known, poor dear 
 soul, what wa-s the meaning of the phrase, 
 " parliamentary debate. "' 
 
 But even in Mrs. Bigley's time the charac- 
 ter was going into disrepute, as may be seen 
 by the ambitious plans formed for her daugh- 
 ter Rosabel; — she was a schemer, though not 
 exactly of the same stamp with the chaperons
 
 78 woman's reward. 
 
 of the present day. The march of intellect 
 had made its first step; and could Mrs. B. 
 have lived till now, she would have felt the 
 truth of the French proverb, — " Ce nest que 
 le 'premier pas qui coute."
 
 woman's reward. 79 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The boyhood shows the man, 
 
 As morning shows the day." 
 
 Mil ton. 
 
 A tutor for Mr. Lionel Dupre was found 
 without difficulty. There are always thou- 
 sands of well-educated, well-mannered, and 
 well-disposed young men, ready to go through 
 all the laborious irksome stages of that 
 
 Delightful task, to rear the tender thought, 
 
 for an annual salary, not greatly exceeding,
 
 80 woman's reward. 
 
 (sometimes scarcely equalling) the sum paid to 
 a popular singer for one night's performance; 
 Madame Malibran, for instance, — but Madame 
 Malibran is certainly worth all the private tu- 
 tors in the world. 
 
 In proportion as education has become more 
 universal, those who impart it have become 
 objects of infinitely less consequence. In the 
 good old days, when the dominie was the most 
 learned person not only in the house, but pro- 
 bably in the neighbourhood where he dwelt, 
 the master of the establishment considered him 
 as a friend and companion, of whose acquire- 
 ments he stood rather in awe, and his young 
 pupils looked up to him with reverence, and 
 listened to his dictates with submission. But 
 all that is passed away. 
 
 Now-a-days, young gentlemen are better in- 
 formed (at least on the subject of their in- 
 structor's defects), than they were then. They
 
 woman's reward, 81 
 
 know better; they know that nobody is such 
 a bore as their private tutor, — that nobody is 
 such a prig as their private tutor — that nobody 
 is so entirely ridiculous as their private tutor: 
 and I have heard a young gentleman desire 
 his private tutor to ring the bell for his horses, 
 with a lounging nonchalance which the fat 
 butler in his father's house would not have 
 borne for a moment, and would rather have 
 given up his place, than consented to obey. 
 
 I recollect once when dining with a very 
 worthy family, quite en famille, with the little 
 Swiss governess and the private tutor at table, 
 the conversation turned on literature and the 
 popular works of the day ; amongst those men- 
 tioned, was that cleverest of all stories, Mr, 
 Theodore Hook's " Passion and Principle," and 
 I involuntarily appealed to Mr. B. for his opi- 
 nion. "Good heavens! my dear ma'am," said 
 the lady of the house to me after dinner,
 
 82 woman's reward. 
 
 " what could induce you to talk to Mr. B. 
 on such subjects? We make it a rule never 
 to do so; you are aware he is only private 
 tutor to the boys." 
 
 To this day it is a mystery to me what the 
 lady exactly meant; whether " such subjects" 
 as literary works were those on which a pri- 
 vate tutor was unfit to give an opinion; or 
 whether " such subjects" as love-stories w r ere 
 forbidden topics with private tutors and Swiss 
 governesses. I submitted silently to the re- 
 buke, made no more observations to Mr. B., 
 but a great many to myself, on the love for 
 information, and respect for classical know- 
 ledge which must be instilled into the young 
 gentlemen under his care, by the fact of see- 
 ing their instructor treated as an upper ser- 
 vant. 
 
 Mr. Frank Lawrence, to whom the educa- 
 tion of Lionel was to be confided, was a clever
 
 woman's reward. 83 
 
 looking, well meaning, generous minded young 
 man, with the hope of a curacy ever in his 
 thoughts, and a Latin author generally in his 
 hand. The confusion and importance of his 
 arrival in the monotonous circle of the Big- 
 ley family, was greatly lessened by a melan- 
 choly event,— the death of Hyacinth, who had 
 been attacked by rapid fever soon after the 
 melancholy day of shivering spent in the draw- 
 ing-room, and whose loss was mourned (as it 
 appeared to Lionel), with an unreasonable and 
 preposterous grief. 
 
 He was tired to death of the allusions to 
 "poor Hyacinth's bright eyes," and "kind dis- 
 position," and " cheerful ways," and " compa- 
 nionable qualities:" he was embarrassed at the 
 constant demands made upon him for sympa- 
 thy and pity: he was astounded at the disco- 
 very, that one who had to him appeared so 
 utterly uninteresting, was reckoned by her fa-
 
 84 woman's reward. 
 
 ther, mother, brothers and sisters, to have been 
 a particularly charming girl, whose promising 
 talents had been temporarily obscured when 
 he first arrived, by her indisposition. 
 
 But when Mrs. Bigley, in the fulness of 
 her maternal sorrow, insisted on presenting 
 him with a locket containing the hair of her 
 " poor dear sufferer," arranged (in a fashion 
 fortunately now exploded) so as to resemble a 
 black wheatsheaf tied with gold thread, his 
 long-restrained impatience burst forth in a 
 peevish and contemptuous "pshaw!" And 
 though a look from Mary caused him imme- 
 diately afterwards to endeavour to heal the 
 breach, by explaining that it was simply 
 his dislike to men wearing ornaments, which 
 prompted the expression, yet Mrs. Bigley 
 remembered and treasured up involuntarily 
 this corroboration of the Madeira gardener's 
 opinion, that Lionel had not " a good heart."
 
 woman's reward. 85 
 
 It is certain that what Mr. Lionel Dupre 
 most felt with respect to the decease of this 
 lamented person, was the increased dulness of 
 the already very dull house occupied by the 
 famille Bigley. Even his little pet Rosabel, 
 partly out of obedience to her mama's opinion 
 that she ought not to laugh or play so 
 soon after her sister's death, and partly out 
 of real awe and sorrow, had ceased to romp 
 and teaze him while he was reading, or invite 
 him to make snow-balls in the garden, and 
 pelt the little rosy face whose merry black eyes 
 were lifted so affectionately to his own. 
 
 Mr. Frank Lawrence came therefore, as far 
 as his pupil was concerned, at a most welcome 
 season; and Lionel, glad of a change, and wel- 
 coming the novelty and excitement without 
 any dread of his new tutor's authority, assumed 
 a cordialitv of manner which did not always
 
 86 woman's reward. 
 
 add to the prepossession which his beauty 
 excited in his favour. 
 
 " Surely I am very fortunate," said Mr. 
 Lawrence to himself, as he unpacked his 
 small portmanteau in search of a Bible with 
 silver clasps, which had been his mother's 
 gift : " Uncommonly fortunate," added he, as 
 he turned over the leaves of the sacred vo- 
 lume ; and all the while the rich auburn curls, 
 arched black eyebrows, and expressive eyes 
 of his young charge, danced before him. 
 
 Poor Mr. Lawrence ! He was young — very 
 young ! 
 
 Six months' incessant worry of spirits, and 
 vain exertion of what he found to be a merely 
 nominal authority, altered his opinion as to 
 his extraordinary good luck in meeting with 
 Lionel Dupre as a pupil. It was not merely 
 turbulence or thoughtlessness which made his
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD. 8< 
 
 daily task difficult, but a predominant and all- 
 pervading selfishness which wearied and re- 
 volted even those who were most willing to in- 
 dulge the 3'oung heir in all his caprices. 
 
 By the time two years had expired from the 
 date of their leaving Madeira, Lionel Dupre 
 had become an object of aversion to most of 
 the inmates of the Bigley family. Rosabel 
 only, of the girls, declared that no one under- 
 stood Lionel except his sister Mary and her- 
 self. This was a favourite expression of young 
 Dupre's. When openly reproved for a mult, 
 or informed of some private censure passed on 
 his conduct, he would throw back his magnifi- 
 cent head with a haughty sneer, and declare 
 that they " did not understand him." 
 
 Mary did understand him. She called his 
 sullen resentment, pride : his violence of tem- 
 per, warmth of disposition : his carelessness 
 of wounding others, thoughtlessness : his de-
 
 88 woman's reward. 
 
 termined adhesion to his own will, originality. 
 She had an excuse to give for all he did wrong, 
 not only to those around her, but to her own 
 heart : and to her the sunny side of his cha- 
 racter was ever uppermost. And she was re- 
 paid in her influence over him. " Very well ; 
 since Mary makes a point of it, I'll do it," 
 was often the excuse for yielding, after days 
 or hours of obstinate resistance to the will or 
 wishes of others. 
 
 And Rosabel, imitating her admired young 
 friend in his method of submission, told her 
 sister " to make Lionel ask her to do so and 
 so, and then she would." 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Bigley, occupied with his 
 office, and the litigious squabbles of his neigh- 
 bourhood ; satisfied that in Mr. Lawrence he 
 had hit upon a quiet, excellent young man, 
 qualified in all respects for his situation; and 
 inclining more and more every day to his
 
 woman's reward. 89 
 
 wife's opinion, that Mr. Dupre would end 
 in marrying Rosabel, troubled himself little 
 with any personal superintendance of his ward ; 
 allowed him every possible indulgence, in order 
 to make his house agreeable to him ; and highly 
 approved of a habit his young people had ac- 
 quired since Mr. Lawrence's domestication 
 amongst them, of having "musical evenings." 
 Nothing had ever been arranged more to the 
 taste of the tired little attorney, who, stretch- 
 ing out his diminutive legs, and pushing his 
 yellow wig very much to one side, listened 
 with delight to duets and trios, executed by 
 his daughter Jane, Mr. Lawrence, and the 
 clear bird-] ike voice of Rosabel, with some- 
 times a note or two chimed in by Lionel, 
 whose favourite pursuit was music, and who 
 promised to have one of the finest possible 
 voices. 
 
 Mrs. Bigley had a trick of sleeping after
 
 90 woman's reward. 
 
 dinner, which prevented her from receiving 
 any thing more on these occasions than the 
 negative pleasure of being lullabyed to her 
 accustomed nap. But she too, was thoroughly 
 contented with the state of things, and viewed 
 Mr. Lawrence, Lionel, Mary, and the pro- 
 spects of her favourite little Rosabel, through 
 one uniform medium of couleur de rose. 
 
 Alas! for the duration of human content- 
 ment ! One rash speech of his untoward and 
 rebellious pupil, made Mr. Lawrence a dissa- 
 tisfied and repining man, and spread dissen- 
 sions through the whole family ; — stopped mu- 
 sic of an evening, and mirth of a morning ; — 
 deprived Rosabel of her companion ; and sent 
 poor quiet Jane Bigley to weep for days to- 
 gether in her own room ! 
 
 It pleased Mr. Lionel, fired by the sight 
 of a pack of hounds in full cry, and a troop 
 of gentlemen in red coats, spurring their sleek
 
 woman's reward. 91 
 
 hunters, and hallooing with all the strength 
 of their lungs, to desire to join "the hunt," 
 and to obtain this, his ardent wish, every art 
 of persuasion of which he was master, was put 
 into requisition. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence refused firmly and decidedly, 
 even though little Rosabel pleaded for one day, 
 " only one day, which could do nobody any 
 harm." 
 
 Some intemperate answer was made by the 
 disappointed lad, which was checked by Mary, 
 who, laying her hand gently on her brother's 
 arm, in token of silence, said with an appealing 
 look, " I am sure, Mr. Lawrence, you will give 
 Lionel your reasons for refusing what he ima- 
 gines so great a pleasure ; and he is no longer 
 a child that he should rebel when reasoned 
 with." 
 
 "I think," said Mr. Lawrence, calmly, "Mr. 
 Dupre's own good sense would suggest to him
 
 92 woman's reward. 
 
 some of the reasons. I do not consider him 
 old enough to join a dangerous exercise to 
 which he is totally unaccustomed : — it would 
 be exceedingly difficult to procure a safe horse 
 for a single day's hunt, a risk which scarcely 
 any tradesman would run ; and a very expen- 
 sive amusement when so obtained. — The com- 
 panions with whom he would mingle are not 
 such as he may be trusted with till his judg- 
 ment is more cool, and he is better calculated 
 to choose associates. Many of those he would 
 meet are his inferiors in education ; men of 
 low habits, who have no other occupation than 
 hunting and betting on the turf: — and could 
 all these objections be got over, there still 
 remains one which is insurmountable." 
 
 Mr. Lawrence hesitated for a moment, and 
 then continued gravely, " I should not choose 
 him to hunt without me, and my accompany- 
 ing him is out of the question, as in the pro-
 
 woman's reward. 93 
 
 fession which I hope to embrace, I consider it 
 unseemly to join in sports of that nature. I 
 am aware that some think differently, but that 
 is my conscientious opinion." 
 
 Lionel wore his palest and most angry ex- 
 pression. " Miss Jane Bigley," said he, " I 
 shall appeal to you. I have often observed 
 that a word from you has more weight with 
 my tutor than all the persuasion of wiser 
 tongues." 
 
 Jane Bigley shrank and coloured ; but 
 she answered without lifting her eyes from 
 her work: — "I should be sorry to be the 
 means of persuading Mr. Lawrence to do what 
 he thinks is wrong." 
 
 " Well spoken," shouted Lionel in a tone of 
 bitter irony : " you will make a pattern wife. 
 You who answer with such meek obedience 
 even before you are bound to obey. I 'wish 
 Mr. Lawrence joy : he has often told me sub-
 
 94 woman's reward. 
 
 mission was a virtue ; and I see you have 
 not practised it in vain." 
 
 Jane Bigley was a good girl, and in com- 
 mon matters a sensible girl. But she had none 
 of the qualities so celebrated in novels under 
 the head of woman's pride, and woman's firm- 
 ness, and woman's dignity ; therefore as the 
 door angrily closed on the departing Lionel, 
 she dropped her work, and burst into tears, 
 which tears elicited from Mr. Frank Lawrence 
 the ejaculation of, " My dear Miss Bigley ! 
 Jane ! My poor Jane ! " And for a few mo- 
 ments he did not hear, or did not heed, any 
 other sound than that of the choked and 
 ashamed sobs of the insulted girl. 
 
 But Jane rose and retired to her room, and 
 Mary followed her with a heavy heart. And 
 then followed a scene of utter confusion. 
 
 Mrs. Bigley sent for Mr. B., senior and 
 junior, from the office : and Mr. B. senior gave
 
 woman's reward. 95 
 
 way to all the impetuous wrath naturally ex- 
 cited by hearing- that a poor private tutor 
 dared to aspire to the hand of a flourishing 
 attorney's daughter : and young Mr. B. ex- 
 pressed his vexation and surprise : and Mrs. 
 B., when appealed to for her "daughter's" 
 happiness, passionately replied, " Xot my 
 daughter, sir : I hope my gilds have more 
 sense ; " and while she spoke, privately re- 
 flected how very inconvenient it would be to 
 see Rosabel's half-sister married to the pri- 
 vate tutor of her husband. — And finally, Mr. 
 Lawrence, with the tone of exhausted pa- 
 tience, addressed Mr. Bigiey in the words, 
 " Will you hear me, sir ? " And Mr. B. se- 
 nior politely replied, " No, sir ; I will hear 
 nothing : you are to hear me. Mir. Lionel 
 Dupre will forthwith proceed to Eton, and 
 you will no longer consider yourself as acting 
 in the capacity of tutor under my roof, the
 
 96 woman's reward. 
 
 shelter of which I beg you will leave at your 
 earliest convenience." 
 
 It was a sudden, an unexpected blow. All 
 so comfortable at breakfast, and all settled for 
 departure, and unhappiness before dinner time! 
 Mary Dupre did what she could towards re- 
 pairing the mischief. She explained all that 
 Mr. Bigley would not hear from the lips of 
 Mr. Lawrence himself. His assurances that 
 he had never formally asked Miss Jane Big- 
 ley to be his wife; that it was his intention 
 then, and was his intention still, to wait till 
 he had a small curacy and means to support 
 a family; that he was quite willing, after the 
 abrupt and premature disclosure of his attach- 
 ment, caused by Lionel's rashness, to submit 
 not to see or correspond with Jane, and quite 
 satisfied that the affection which existed be- 
 tween them would still subsist, in spite of
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. V* 
 
 their separation. Mary said all this, and a 
 great deal more, in those low, sweet, equal 
 tones, which seemed ever to possess the magic 
 of persuading when eagerness, and passion, and 
 remonstrance, were in vain. 
 
 She had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Big- 
 lev shake hands with Mr. Lawrence, and al- 
 lude to the possibility of Jane and a curacy 
 becoming his at some distant period ; and of 
 seeing Mrs. Bigley (melted by the traces of 
 excessive weeping on her step-daughter's coun- 
 tenance) bestow a kind kiss on the poor girl's 
 forehead, and inquire whether she had a head- 
 ache. 
 
 But all this was little ; and when they met 
 before dinner, instead of a merry chat round 
 the fire, and looking out music at the piano, 
 and settling what books should be sent for 
 from the little library, and what alterations 
 
 vol. i. f
 
 98 woman's reward. 
 
 should be made in the garden before the 
 spring advanced, all was gloomy, silent, and 
 constrained. 
 
 From habit, Jane had brought down with 
 her a small nosegay of Neapolitan violets, 
 which, as an experienced gardener, she con- 
 trived to produce nearly all the year round; 
 but she dared not present them, as she had 
 been accustomed to do, unnoticed and unre- 
 proved; so she sat picking off the heads of 
 the poor violets, one by one, and throwing 
 them on the rug, and Mr. Frank Lawrence 
 sat looking at the rug where they fell. 
 
 " I wonder," said Mary, breaking the long 
 silence, " I wonder Lionel does not return." 
 
 Little Rosabel sighed. " I hope he will 
 come back safe," said she. 
 
 " Good heavens, Rosa!" said Mrs. Bigley, 
 as Mary started up; "why? do you know 
 where he is?"
 
 woman's reward. 99 
 
 " I don't know positively, but I am sure 
 he is gone to hunt ; I am quite sure, by the 
 way he shut the door, that he was going to 
 do the very thing Mr. Lawrence forbid him 
 to do. He always shuts the door that way 
 when he is determined. Besides," added she, 
 hesitatingly, " I followed him, and he turned 
 round and desired me not to come after 
 him : and I said, I only wished to say, if he 
 hunted, to take no horse but Farmer Long's ; 
 and he patted my cheek, and stood as if 
 thinking whether he would go or not, and 
 just as I had begun to beg him to mind 
 Mr. Lawrence, he went away very passion- 
 ately." 
 
 Mr. Lawrence rose, took his hat, and en 
 his return, after an absence of half-an-hour, 
 informed Mr. Bigley that Farmer Long had 
 been applied to, and had lent his horse to 
 Master Lionel Dupre, totally unconscious that 
 
 f 2
 
 100 woman's reward. 
 
 in so doing he was offending the higher pow- 
 ers ; that the farmer assured him, the horse 
 was not only the best in his possession, but 
 the best for miles round ; a capital hunter, 
 and well known to the gentlemen of " The 
 Hunt," many of whom were in the habit of 
 borrowing it, and paying very highly for the 
 loan. 
 
 Nothing more could be done ; but the agony 
 of suspense endured by Mary Dupre during 
 that long silent dinner and two dreary hours 
 which followed, may be imagined by those 
 who have felt as she did. 
 
 Mr. Bigley, who had a peculiarly happy 
 knack of jesting at wrong times and places, 
 and who was embarrassed and annoyed by 
 the want of merriment in the party, addressed 
 her abruptly thus: 
 
 " Why, Miss Mary, you look quite down- 
 hearted ; never fear, the young gentleman will
 
 woman's reward. 101 
 
 come home safe enough. Many's the day 
 I've been out when I was young, and never 
 even had a fall; so, cheerily ho! as Rosa 
 sings, and don't look as anxious as a hen 
 who has hatched ducks, and sees them swim 
 for the first time." 
 
 Mary had watched often and anxiously, and 
 it was with a calm smile she looked up, ra- 
 ther in acknowledgment of being spoken to, 
 than exactly conscious of what was said ; then, 
 bending over her embroidery as the awful pic- 
 ture of her brother's dead body carried home- 
 wards, flitted before her excited mind, she 
 murmured, " if it be God's will,'' and fan- 
 cied she could bear even that, and resign 
 herself to the decree of heaven. 
 
 A hurried rap at the door startled the silent 
 circle. 
 
 " Something has happened," said Rosabel, 
 that is not his knock. " !
 
 102 woman's reward. 
 
 A heavy step ascended the stairs, and Far- 
 mer Long entered, wiping his brow, and evi- 
 dently both vexed and alarmed ; he began a 
 rapid and confused apology, and a long eu- 
 logium on the horse he had lent " the young 
 gentleman ;" declared he had lads of his own, 
 and would not have minded either of them 
 riding it; that it was " the greatest accident 
 as ever was," and must proceed from the igno- 
 rance of the poor young gentleman how to 
 manage a horse. 
 
 Mr. Bigley and Mr. Lawrence in vain 
 endeavoured to make him answer more con- 
 nectedly. He rambled on till Mary, rising 
 and clinging to his arm, said breathlessly : 
 
 " Forgive me, sir! we know — we believe it 
 all — we are quite, quite satisfied ; now, tell 
 me — Master Dupre has been thrown ? " 
 
 " Yes, miss ; he would leap by the great
 
 woman's reward. 103 
 
 oak across Farmer Stunt's meadow, and you 
 see" 
 
 " No matter, no matter — where was he car- 
 ried?" 
 
 " To the surgeon's, miss ; and the black 
 mare trotted home alone, by which I mis- 
 
 " Yes, yes ; is Master Dupre much hurt i 
 is he at the surgeon's ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am, they're bringing him here ; 
 and I ran afore 'em, to prepare ye like. He's 
 broke his arm, that's all." 
 
 " Thank God!" said Mary, as she sank 
 back in her chair ; and another double rap 
 announced the arrival of the bearers with 
 Lionel. 
 
 It was a simple fracture ; but the shoulder 
 had been sprained in the fall, and was ex- 
 ceedingly painful; the surgeon feared fever,
 
 104 woman's reward. 
 
 and recommended quiet for a day or two. 
 We need not say that, under Mary's expe- 
 rienced nursing, his orders were strictly at- 
 tended to, and her young brother rapidly re- 
 covered. 
 
 It was the day after he had removed to the 
 sitting-room, that Mr. Lawrence entered with 
 a grave and sad countenance, to bid him fare- 
 well. He spoke briefly, offered a few words 
 of advice on general topics, never once al- 
 luded to the cause of his dismissal, and shook 
 hands affectionately with his late pupil as he 
 concluded. 
 
 Mary was touched, and her voice slightly 
 faltered as she said " I am sure, Mr. Law- 
 rence, if ever Lionel has any thing in his 
 power which may tend to promote your hap- 
 piness, he will not forget that it is a debt 
 he owes you ;" and she looked towards her
 
 woman's reward. 105 
 
 brother as if expecting him to confirm her 
 words. 
 
 There was a slight impatience in his tone 
 as, raising himself on his elbow, he replied, 
 " of course, of course ; Mr. Lawrence must 
 feel that. If Bigley was not such a com- 
 plete ass — such a bigoted fool — but I can't 
 undo it now j" and he turned restlessly on the 
 couch where he lay. 
 
 " True," said Mr. Lawrence, hastily, " and 
 we will hope all is for the best. Farewell! 
 And God bless you," added he earnestly, as he 
 turned to Mary. " God bless you, and assist 
 you in your task." 
 
 His eye fell on young Dupre as he uttered 
 the last words, and Mary called to mind her 
 father's assurance that she could act the part 
 of a parent towards his son. It was a heavy 
 ta^k. 
 
 f 5
 
 106 woman's reward. 
 
 Oh, Lionel ! my own dear brother ! " said 
 she after a pause, " I think you do not feel 
 exactly what you have done ; or how unhappy 
 you have made two people by a foolish word." 
 
 " What is the use of fretting about it now, 
 Mary ? It is not my fault, but old Bigley's." 
 
 " No Lionel, no ! And you allowed Mr. 
 Lawrence to go so strangely : — your manner 
 was so cold. You never even expressed a 
 hope to hear from him, though it is the only 
 way poor Jane Bigley can ever know how he 
 is getting on, and though it would have been 
 merely common civility and kindness towards 
 one who has been with you more than two 
 years." 
 
 " I know my manner was cold," said Lionel 
 vehemently, " because he was so to me. Hear 
 the difference of his ' God bless you,' to you, 
 and his farewell to me. He never even alluded 
 to Jane or to himself, or in any way appeared
 
 woman's reward. 107 
 
 to expect me to feel for him : and that was 
 exactly what chilled and provoked me. He 
 advised me on other subjects, — on topics of 
 education, — but he never spoke to me as if I 
 had a human heart beating in my breast. He 
 never seemed to feel that I must be grieved at 
 doing him an injury, but avoided it all. He 
 never did understand me, and I hate cold re- 
 served people ! " 
 
 " Perhaps," said Mary, gently, " he wished 
 to avoid all that might appear like a reproach 
 to you. I do not see how you could expect 
 him to speak first on the subject of that day's 
 dispute. But you should have mastered any 
 little feeling of irritation at his supposed cold- 
 ness : few young men, Lionel, would have be- 
 haved with so much sense and sweet temper. 
 He is going home to his widowed mother, 
 whose income he annually added a trifle while 
 he was in regular employment,) to be rather
 
 108 woman's reward. 
 
 a burden than a support, till he can again 
 find a situation like that he lost through your 
 imprudence. He is suffering under great dis- 
 appointment, and great anxiety for the future. 
 Indeed, Lionel, you are very blind if you do 
 not see that he is a most amiable young man ! " 
 
 "I see that you are an angel, Mary!" said her 
 brother, as the tears gathered in his eyes, and 
 he flung his arms round her neck : " And all 
 that you could have wished said to-day, I will 
 write to Lawrence to-morrow ; and neither he, 
 nor you, nor any one, shall have to complain 
 of my want of heart for the future ! Will that 
 do, sister Mary ? " 
 
 And the lovely face beamed on her for a 
 moment with an expression like her own, but 
 kindled into intense and eager beauty. " So 
 look the seraphim," thought Mary: and she 
 gazed fondly on him ; for those gleams of light 
 were precious in her eyes, and they became
 
 woman's reward. 109 
 
 fewer and fainter, as it seemed to her, in pro- 
 portion as he ceased to be a child. 
 
 There was a long, long pause. Mary pic- 
 tured to herself the young tutor's return home. 
 In fancy she went over the arguments he would 
 make use of to persuade his mother that he 
 was not distressed, or disappointed, or impo- 
 verished by this sudden change of settled plans. 
 She thought of the hopes he might suggest ; 
 the cheering and affectionate speeches he would 
 make. In fancy she saw their little meal con- 
 cluded, and the two chairs drawn closer to the 
 fire; and then, perhaps, the confession made 
 that something bitterer than poverty or diffi- 
 culties weighed on the son's heart : that a 
 dream of a quiet comfortable home had been 
 destroyed by a boy's folly, and the want of 
 as much money as would purchase a buhl 
 book-case. 
 
 Lionel spoke : she started. " Yes," said he,
 
 110 woman's reward. 
 
 "I'm heartily glad I'm going to Eton ; and 
 glad too that it has all been managed for me. 
 I intended to have so decided when I came 
 home that day. Lord Alfred Arlington, and 
 Jack Conolly, (who were the only men who 
 did not leap over me as I lay in the ditch, 
 and stopped to see if I was dead or alive,) 
 both said I had been brought up like a girl. 
 Lord Alfred is only a year older than I am, 
 and he has been alone to Jack Conolly's 
 shooting place in Ireland, and has a filly to 
 start for the Doncaster cup next races. It is 
 quite ridiculous the care that has been taken 
 of me, and thank God it's over now, and I'm 
 a free man ! " 
 
 Mary did not answer, but she sighed. And 
 Lionel knew there was disappointment and 
 displeasure in her sigh.
 
 woman's reward. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emu- 
 lation ; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor 
 the courtier's, which is proud ; nor the soldier's, which 
 is ambitious ; nor the lawyer's, which is politic ; nor 
 the lady's, which is nice ; nor the lover's, which is all 
 these : but it is a melancholy of mine own. 
 
 Shakspearc. 
 
 Now, master Slender? 
 
 Alas ! I'd rather be set quick i' the earth, 
 And bowled to death with turnips. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 After Lionel's departure for Eton, Mary's 
 heart sank more than it had yet done. The 
 constant interest and constant excitement 
 which Iris presence kept alive being over, she 
 had more leisure to think of herself, and her
 
 112 woman's reward. 
 
 own situation : and more leisure too to brood 
 over what are termed imaginary griefs, by 
 which, as it appears to me, are meant, all 
 vexations which in no way affect our outward 
 and visible comforts. 
 
 Whether these are of a class more easily 
 borne than annoyances to which, being more 
 palpable, we can oppose more resistance, I 
 leave to my readers ; and for my own part 
 think, with Mary Dupre, that many things 
 are real trials, which appear only slight dis- 
 comforts ; and that as no man is so sorely 
 wounded that he cannot feel the shaking of 
 the litter on which he is borne, so there is 
 no grief, however engrossing, which can pre- 
 vent our feeling the pressure of daily petty 
 discomforts. Nay, sorrow will only increase 
 our sensitiveness to them. A sound mind, 
 like a sound body, flings off in its cheerful 
 strength, what the sore heart shrinks from
 
 woman's reward. 113 
 
 without escaping : and elasticity of spirits 
 will often enable us to bear without mur- 
 muring what no voluntary resolution could 
 have made tolerable. 
 
 Another argument may be alleged in ex- 
 cuse of the apparently disproportionate de- 
 gree of courage with which we meet the 
 greater and the lesser evils of human life. 
 We are accustomed to prepare in some sort 
 for the former : we do, as the poet expresses it, 
 
 Nerve ourselves to bear, 
 and make a sort of glory of resistance, as 
 though in baffling sorrow we contended with 
 an enemy, and determined to conquer, or 
 silently feel the sword and die. 
 
 For the every day ills of existence there 
 is no such effort at preparation ; or if made, 
 we sink at last. The bow cannot always be 
 bent. The languid hour creeps on, when the 
 cloud and the storm seem darker and heavier,
 
 114 woman's reward. 
 
 and the strength is gone from our hearts. We 
 cease to make a stand against defeat, and as 
 the evidence of continuous suffering becomes 
 apparent in the harsher tone, the quicker re- 
 tort, or the lagging laugh that irritates the 
 jester, our fellow creatures judge us, and say 
 we are grown peevish. 
 
 Peevish, Mary Dupre was not; it was not 
 in her nature ; but she was dispirited, and day 
 by day what had been borne so long, seemed 
 more difficult to bear. The vulgarity and 
 homeliness of feeling, the coarse merriment, 
 the unintellectual tastes of the people she now 
 associated with, had never been so evident to 
 her while she could talk over old days with 
 Lionel, and mingling with his pursuits and 
 his studies, live as it were apart from those 
 by whom she was surrounded. 
 
 Now, her mornings were passed alone. She 
 could no longer watch that handsome brow
 
 woman's reward. 115 
 
 bending attentively over the open page, nor 
 repress with gentle words the capricious eager- 
 ness with which, despising the slowly-acquired 
 knowledge, her young dreamer indulged in 
 theories and speculations of his own. And the 
 evenings, which had been gradually taking a co- 
 lour from the tastes of the majority who took 
 part in them, resumed their original insipidity. 
 
 Rosabel, little Rosabel, as she was still 
 called by her elder sisters, though she shot 
 up like b slight creeper with crimson blos- 
 soms, now and then carolled out a fragment 
 of some half-forgotten song; and once Mr. 
 Bigley, junior, inopportunely observed, " Are 
 we never to have any reading, or anything of 
 that sort again?" to the manifest confusion of 
 his sister Jane, who had been Frank Law- 
 rence's most attentive listener while those 
 readings lasted. 
 
 But in general every member of the family
 
 116 woman's reward. 
 
 seemed contented to return to the way in 
 which they spent their time before the arrival 
 of Miss Dupre and her brother. Mrs. Big- 
 ley went to sleep, the girls whispered and 
 pinched each other, Mr. Bigley, senior and 
 junior read the newspaper, and Jane and Mary 
 worked, — reading (unless aloud), being voted 
 impolite, in spite of the want of conversation. 
 Rosabel, who did exactly as she pleased, either 
 added four rows to a bead purse, nursed the 
 cat upon her knee, or, (which happened much 
 more frequently), lay down on the rug like 
 a young fawn under a tree, and remained 
 there watching the shape of the coals, with 
 her sly half-closed black eyes, till the usual 
 reproof was elicited from Jane, — Rosa, Rosa, 
 how your face is burnt; do get up and employ 
 yourself;" which sometimes met with ready 
 obedience, and sometimes only produced de-
 
 woman's reward. 117 
 
 termined resistance and a new and more ob- 
 stinately reposing attitude on the rug. 
 
 Anxiously did Mary look forward to Lionel's 
 holidays, as the greatest refreshment her mo- 
 notonous life was capable of affording. His 
 letters were affectionate, and she did not, or 
 would not see, that when he was amused he 
 forgot to write, and that he appeared to have 
 formed no new friendships, but to hang by 
 Lord Alfred Arlington, the young gentleman 
 who had so considerately avoided treading on 
 him as he lay in the ditch. The letter which 
 announced the vacation, announced also the 
 non-arrival of the writer, couched in the fol- 
 lowing terms: — 
 
 " Jack Conolly has asked me to spend my 
 holidays with him: Arlington is to be there, 
 and one or two other acquaintances. I have 
 written to Mr. Patterson, in Edinburgh, to
 
 118 woman's reward. 
 
 acquaint him, and his answer is very civil and 
 satisfactory. Of course Mr. Bigiey cannot 
 object either, to my mingling with companions 
 of my own age and rank in life; and if he 
 were to oppose my going, it would only create 
 a dissension between us without preventing 
 the visit I intend to pay. Mention this your 
 own way, which always answers, and believe 
 me, &c." 
 
 Mary did mention it, and perceived strong- 
 displeasure in every line of Mr. Bigley's 
 countenance; there was also a baffled, puzzled 
 look, when she mentioned Lionel's having writ- 
 ten to Mr. Patterson; and he was very cross 
 to his wife and all the girls during that even- 
 ing. All this she saw; but she did not see 
 or hear the eager consultation which took 
 place between the attorney and his wife, as 
 to the probable effect of this unexpected reso- 
 lution on the part of his unmanageable ward.
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 1 19 
 
 " Well," said the attorney, as he prepared 
 to close the unsatisfactory debate, " he is evi- 
 dently as headstrong and selfish a lad as ever 
 trod shoe-leather; and if he gets among these 
 people, they'll soon ruin him and leave little 
 of his five thousand a-year. I'll tell you what. 
 my dear, it mayn't be worth Rosa's while to 
 marry him after all; she's pretty enough to 
 pick and choose for herself, and, may be, his 
 betters may fancy her yet." 
 
 "La, Mr. B.!" was Mrs. Bigley's sole 
 reply, so astounded was she at her mate's ora- 
 tion ; and like a true woman, she could not 
 help thinking that Lionel's beauty added great- 
 ly to his fortune, and that " it would be a 
 pity such a sweet pretty couple should not 
 come together." 
 
 There seemed to be a spell against the union 
 of couples in the Bigley house, for in the 
 spring of the third year of Mary's residence
 
 120 woman's reward. 
 
 there, she was reduced to the necessity of 
 hearing and refusing the proposals of Mr. 
 Henry Bigley, who, addressing her as she 
 stood pruning a rose-tree which had grown 
 long and straggling during the winter, and 
 fixing his eyes upon her yellow garden gloves, 
 declared that his sole and highest ambition 
 was to become possessor of the small white 
 hand they shrouded. 
 
 For once Mary felt piqued and offended; 
 for once the glance of contempt, irrepressible 
 and unrepressed, shot from her eyes and kin- 
 dled on her brow, gave to her pale cheek the 
 colour which it wanted, and to her figure the 
 majesty which its fair and perfect proportions 
 promised, but which a slight and habitual 
 stoop destroyed to the eye of a common ob- 
 server. But the glance of proud and angry 
 feeling passed away, and it was with her usual 
 placid smile that she answered her admirer.
 
 woman's reward. 121 
 
 *' I know not, Mr. Henry, what encourage- 
 ment my manner may have given to embolden 
 you to make this proposal ; or in what way I 
 have engaged your affections, considering that 
 we have very rarely even conversed together, 
 and that perhaps no two people ever lived so 
 long under the same roof, who knew so little 
 of each other. Your father has shewn me 
 great kindness* 1 
 
 " My father knows of my attachment," has- 
 tily interrupted Henry Bigley, " and told me 
 you were now of age, and could dispose of 
 yourself independently even of your brother, 
 five hundred a-year being settled upon you by 
 your father's will.'' 
 
 " It is true," said Mary ; " I thank heaven 
 I can make a free choice, and if I ever marry 
 it will be after exerting that power. I regret 
 that I cannot allow you to believe my choice 
 would ever fall upon you." 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 \22 woman's reward. 
 
 " You said just now that we did not know 
 each other, Miss Dupre," persisted her suitor. 
 " Give me hope! let me look forward to de- 
 serving you!" 
 
 " Mr. Henry Bigley," said Mary, " I beg 
 we may understand each other. This conver- 
 sation is finished, not to be renewed. No 
 time, no circumstances, can ever make me 
 change my mind, and you will only weary me 
 by persisting." 
 
 So saying she departed, and leaving Mr. 
 Henry Bigley to cultivate the garden at his 
 leisure, walked towards the house. Jane met 
 her in the vestibule, and timidly asked leave 
 to accompany her to her room. The permis- 
 sion was accorded, and Mary waited till her 
 visitor should speak. But Jane was not elo- 
 quent; and after two or three faltering at- 
 tempts, she merely said, with a sudden clasp
 
 woman's reward. 12S 
 
 of her hands, — " I am sure, dear Miss Dupre, 
 that you have refused my brother; and all l 
 wished to say was, that I hope you will consi- 
 der; that you will not allow his want of for- 
 tune, or plainness of looks, or want of ele- 
 gance, to weigh with you; indeed he has the 
 best of dispositions and a very clear head; and 
 it is not beauty or riches that will make one 
 happy, but being loved, as he loves you. Oh! 
 do think it over, dear, dear Miss Dupre, for 
 it is a bitter trial to lose what one loves." 
 
 When Mary was left alone, she did " think 
 it over," and the result was, that she ardently 
 wished there was a possibility of her finding 
 a home without remaining under the Bigley 
 roof. Lionel was too young as yet to offer 
 one, and to whom could she turn? 
 
 Wild and impossible plans suggested them- 
 selves, of appeals to Lord Clavering as her mo- 
 
 g2
 
 124 woman's reward. 
 
 ther's nearest relative; and then she thought 
 of again returning to Madeira, where the 
 Morrisons might befriend her, and where at 
 least she would be among those who had shewn 
 kindness to her father. 
 
 But Lionel, what was to be done with him? 
 He was content to be in England, with Jack 
 Conolly and his newly-acquired set, and Mary 
 was to live not for herself, but for him. The 
 embarrassment with which she met Mr. Big- 
 ley, senior, who had so accurately determined 
 the moment when she might dispose of her- 
 self and her five hundred a-year, was far 
 greater than that which restrained her manner 
 when speaking to his son; and her gratitude 
 to heaven, when, on the ensuing morning, 
 she received the following epistle, may be im- 
 agined better than described : —
 
 woman's reward. 12.5 
 
 " Spring Gardens, London. 
 My dear madam, 
 
 " Though no one thought of applying 
 to me at the time your poor father died, 
 and though every one has chosen to consider 
 me as a complete cipher in family matters, 
 yet. having made enquiries of Mr. Patterson, 
 and finding you are paying your board with 
 the wife of the other trustee, and are thrown 
 entirely into such society as they can assem- 
 ble around you, I write to give you the 
 option of coming to me. I am infirm and 
 old, (older than my brother, the late Sir W. 
 Clavering,) and, for years past, have been 
 accustomed to hire comfort in the shape of 
 a companion. The person who filled that 
 capacity is just dead. Will you supply her 
 place ? I dare say the word companion will 
 frighten you, but don't be alarmed : I want 
 no drudge, no educated being to fill a me-
 
 126 woman's reward. 
 
 nial office. I want some one who will stir 
 my fire or shut my window without being 
 told that I am shivering, or suffocated; some 
 one who can read to me or chat with me 
 when I am well, and bear with my peevish- 
 ness when I am ill; some one, in short, who 
 will really be to me i a companion,' and a 
 friend. And, believe me, although you may 
 think me and my house dull, you shall not 
 have to complain for the want of wish to 
 make you comfortable. I am rich (for a wi- 
 dow lady, who has no one to support but 
 herself,) and you will have no expence in 
 my house but that of your dress. I hope 
 to hear from you as soon as is convenient. 
 Mr. Patterson informs me that you have a 
 sweet and cheerful temper, and that in per- 
 son you are rather pleasing than beautiful. 
 All this satisfies me better than the words 
 1 lovely and accomplished,' which are so much
 
 woman's reward. 127 
 
 the fashion now-a-days ; and, trusting what I 
 propose will answer to both of us, 
 
 " I remain, dear madam, with sincere regard, 
 " Your grand-aunt, 
 
 " Catherine Bolton. 
 " P.S. I shall expect your brother during 
 the vacations, and beg you will both consi- 
 der my house as your home till my death." 
 
 Mary laid down the letter, and covered 
 her face with her hands. Could it be possi- 
 ble ? Had she indeed found a friend, a home, 
 a pleasant resting-place, at the moment when 
 she most needed it ; or was all a dream — a 
 delirium of her feverish and over-wrought spi- 
 rits — an illusion of the senses ? Again she 
 perused the kind, though bluntly-worded mis- 
 sive, and fancied she recollected hearing her 
 father speak of this very Mrs. Bolton, Sir 
 W. Clavering's sister, who had married an
 
 128 woman's reward. 
 
 American gentleman of large property; a glad 
 and grateful acquiescence was hastily written 
 and sent, and Mary descended to inform the 
 Bigleys of this change in her prospects. 
 
 They heard it with surprise, with vexation, 
 and with what appeared to Mary strongly 
 to resemble anger and resentment. 
 
 " Well, Miss Mary, you will do as you 
 please," said Mr. Bingley, senior, while his 
 son stood, in speechless consternation, gazing 
 on the fair offender. " I did think that after 
 you'd got used to us all, and made yourself 
 comfortable here, you'd settle down till such 
 time as Master Lionel should — hem! — should 
 marry. We've done our best ; and I don't 
 think two hundred a-year much, considering 
 wine and" 
 
 " Oh, my dear sir, do not think" 
 
 But Mr. Bigley continued, heedless of the 
 crimson in Mary's cheek :
 
 woman's reward. 129 
 
 " I don't think, I say, that two hundred 
 a-year is over-much ; and if it's the thoughts 
 of my son's attachment" 
 
 " Mr. Bigley!" — interposed Mary once 
 more ; hut Mr. B. was merciless. 
 
 " If it's my son, I say, / can quiet him : 
 and it shall all be as if nothing had ever 
 been said on the subject. Come, Miss Dupre. 
 shall it be a bargain ? and will you refuse 
 the old lady's offer, and stay amongst us ? " 
 
 " When 1 first conversed with Mr. Patter- 
 son and yourself, sir, on this very subject," 
 said Mary, with a pained and faltering voice, 
 " you both regretted that none of my mo- 
 ther's relations would extend their protection 
 to two friendless orphans ; it has now pleased 
 God to move one heart with compassion to- 
 wards us : and though, believe me, I never 
 can forget the kindness which prompted you 
 to offer me a home on my first arrival, I
 
 130 woman's reward. 
 
 consider it my duty, as it is avowedly my 
 inclination, to embrace Mrs. Bolton's propo- 
 sal, and I have written to say so." 
 
 "You have written! already!" ejaculated 
 several members of the family with unre- 
 strained astonishment ; and Mr. Bigley mut- 
 tered, half-aloud, 
 
 " You are in a mighty hurry, young ma- 
 dam, to walk off, and be a fine lady's hum- 
 ble companion." 
 
 Mary replied not to the taunt, which she 
 could not avoid overhearing; but she felt hurt 
 and surprised. Bitterness was always to her 
 incomprehensible, and Mr. Bigley's feelings 
 on this occasion were to her a mystery. 
 
 Doubtless the irritation under which the 
 little attorney laboured was partly connected 
 with Lionel, whose intimacy with Rosabel's 
 family appeared very likely to diminish in-
 
 woman's reward. 131 
 
 stead of increasing ; but he was also actuated 
 by a feeling peculiar to narrow, selfish, vulgar 
 minds. He grudged what he did not give. 
 There are some people so constituted, that, 
 although they will exert themselves to the 
 utmost to serve and befriend you, though 
 they will share their purse with you, watch 
 you in sickness, and advance your interests 
 with the greatest apparent eagerness, they 
 would yet oppose and prevent any other per- 
 son befriending you. They resent as an in- 
 jury your receiving aid from any hands but 
 their own : and are as willing to oppress you 
 when rising without their assistance, as they 
 seemed formerly eager to help you to rise. 
 Mr. Bigley belonged to the class of those, 
 who do not choose you to climb, unless with 
 their ladder. 
 
 The answer to Mary's letter to her grand-
 
 132 woman's reward. 
 
 aunt was brought by that lady's housekeeper, 
 who was to convey Miss Dupre to town, Mrs. 
 Bolton not considering it " seemly" that her 
 new companion should travel alone, and hav- 
 ing never reckoned upon a guardianship much 
 dreaded by the latter, viz., the protection of 
 Mr. Bigley himself, in all the sullenness of 
 his new mood. Mary was pleased at the at- 
 tention thus paid her, and at the kindness of 
 Mrs. Bolton's note, which ran as follows : 
 
 " My dear child, 
 
 " You have made an old woman very 
 happy. I neither knew you nor the folks you 
 are living amongst, so was not quite sure 
 what answer my first letter might receive. I 
 have had every thing made quite ready for 
 your reception, and hope to see you safe 
 on Wednesday evening. I had once a dear 
 little girl of my own, and you will fill her
 
 woman's reward. 133 
 
 place in my heart ; all I hear of you tells 
 me so. 
 
 " Yours, with sincere regard, 
 
 " C. Bolton/' 
 
 Mary's preparations were soon made. Mrs. 
 Bigley wept as she wrapped her shawl round 
 her, and besought her, if she intended to have 
 a nap in the carriage, to prepare for it, and 
 avoid rheumatism, by first drawing up all the 
 windows, and tying a handkerchief over her 
 bonnet. Mr. Bigley stood, with his hands 
 in his pockets, whistling a tune, which he 
 interrupted from time to time with directions 
 to his servant: " Put that box behind — the 
 books in the front pocket — the portmanteau 
 in front ;" and then he whistled again. 
 
 There are some men who always whistle 
 when they are in an ill-humour. When Mis^ 
 Dupre appeared, he ceased to whistle, and
 
 134 woman's reward. 
 
 said doggedly, " wish you a good journey, 
 ma'am." 
 
 Henry Bigiey and his sister were the last 
 to appear. They had been occupied in ga- 
 thering the first spring flowers from the 
 garden which had been so much improved 
 by Mary's taste. 
 
 Mr. Bigiey, junior, looked more straw- 
 coloured, shuffling, shy, and wretched, than 
 usual ; he reddened, turned pale, looked at 
 his father, and then steadily fixed his eyes 
 on the front wheel of the chaise which was 
 to carry Miss Dupre away. 
 
 Jane put the basket of flowers into the car- 
 riage, and, as Mary, having concluded her 
 adieus to the remaining branches of the fa- 
 mily, turned kindly towards her, she said, in 
 a tremulous under-tone : 
 
 " You will think me very presuming — I 
 do not mean it as a correspondence — but if
 
 woman's reward. 135 
 
 ever you have good news, or — or even bad, 
 of Mr. Lawrence, I hope you will write to 
 me — only a line — I hope you will ! " 
 
 " Do not think I can forget you," said Mary; 
 " nor will Lionel forget Mr. Lawrence if he 
 should have an opportunity hereafter of serv- 
 ing him. I will write to you, and I hope 
 some day you will write to me, to tell me 
 that you are settled in a pretty parsonage, 
 and perfectly happy.'' 
 
 Jane threw her arms round her departing 
 friend's neck, and sobbed out a good-bye, in 
 which, perhaps, was mingled some remem- 
 brance of the very constrained adieu she was 
 forced to take of her lover ; the steps were let 
 down, and in three minutes more the wheels 
 rolled rapidly through the market-place : and 
 Mr. Bigley senior, pulling Mr. Bigley junior, 
 roughly by the arm, muttered, "come in, and 
 don't make a fool of yourself."
 
 136 woman's reward. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A safe companion, and an easy friend. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 1 've sene lord, and I 've sene laird, 
 
 And knights of high degree ; 
 Bot a fairer face than young Waters 
 
 Mine eyne did never see. 
 
 Ancient Ballad. 
 
 It was late in the evening when our travellers 
 arrived in Spring Gardens. Mary was gentle, 
 but not timid. The habit of thinking and de- 
 ciding for herself, and even for others ; — of 
 receiving strangers, and such people as her 
 father was too ill to converse with ; — of act- 
 ing on all occasions as the mistress of his
 
 woman's reward. 137 
 
 house, — had given her manner a composure 
 and self-possession unusual at her age. and 
 had also produced an habitual gravity, almost 
 melancholy, rarely broken by laughter, a slow 
 and gentle smile alone testifying her ready 
 sympathy in the joy or merriment of others. 
 
 It was with a feeling of gratitude, therefore, 
 unmixed with shyness or fear, that she prepared 
 to enter the presence of her grand-aunt. As 
 she ascended the wide and well-carpeted stair- 
 case, the landing-place of which was decorated 
 with a few hot-house flowers, carefully trim- 
 med, the sensation of comfortable elegance 
 came back to remind her of her father's 
 house. 
 
 The sudden recollection of old days a lit- 
 tle unnerved our heroine, and when the draw- 
 ing-room door was flung open, (that drawing- 
 room, so different from the room sacred to 
 the memory of Hyacinth Bigley.) the tears
 
 138 woman's reward. 
 
 which trembled in her eyes dimmed her view 
 of old Mrs. Bolton. 
 
 That lady was seated in the most comfort- 
 able of crimson arm-chairs, with a small gold 
 snuff-box open in her hand, and a little white 
 dog asleep on a red velvet cushion at her feet. 
 She stretched out her hands as Mary entered, 
 and a gentleman who had apparently been 
 reading to her, rose and bowed as he closed 
 his book. Betwixt her emotion, and the 
 swiftness with which she advanced to receive 
 the gouty old lady's welcome, Mary did, not 
 at first perceive this individual, and it was not 
 till turning her blushing face away from Mrs. 
 Bolton's complimentary speech, " I hope Mr. 
 Patterson has not deceived me in other re- 
 spects, as he has about your beauty," that 
 she met his kind smile, and as she met it 
 blushed still deeper. 
 
 " Let me introduce you to each other," said
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 139 
 
 the old lady: — "Mr. William Clavering, Miss 
 Dupre : he is a sort of distant cousin of yours 
 and of mine, and has thought it no waste of 
 time to come now and then and sit with a dull 
 and lonely old woman, since I have lost my 
 companion." 
 
 " Old, but not dull," said the person she 
 spoke of, as he took her hand. — " Good night ! 
 I hope 1 shall not be less welcome in Spring- 
 Gardens now you have a companion/' and with 
 another bow to Mary he was gone. 
 
 Many subjects were discussed in the course 
 of that evening between Mary and her grand- 
 aunt. Descriptions of her father's death; — 
 anecdotes of her brother's childhood ; — of her 
 residence at Xorfolk, and of the people there ; 
 all was drawn forth by the questions of Mrs. 
 Bolton, and everything appeared to interest 
 her. 
 
 In return she described to Mary the perfec-
 
 140 woman's reward. 
 
 tions of her lost daughter, who had died just 
 as she was growing up to woman's estate ; — the 
 mode of living in North America ; — some ad- 
 ventures during a tour in the back settlements, 
 which when a young bride she insisted on 
 making with her husband ; and even ven- 
 tured on an amusing caricature sketch of the 
 manner and dialect of a yankee gentleman 
 who wished to marry her after the death of 
 Mr. Bolton. 
 
 Mary liked her grand-aunt ; and the more 
 because it was evident she was taking pains to 
 remove any feeling of strangeness which might 
 exist between such new acquaintances. 
 
 At length the old lady paused. " Ring the 
 bell, my love, for I am tired, and must go to 
 bed." 
 
 Mary obeyed, and the summons was an- 
 swered by Mrs. Bolton's own maid.
 
 woman's reward. Ill 
 
 " Swinden, this is the young lady who is 
 come to live with me, not as companion, but 
 as my daughter. Show Miss Dupre her room, 
 and then come back to me." 
 
 " I hope, Miss," said Swinden, " that you 
 will find every thing comfortable : and I hope," 
 added she, after a moment's pause, " that 
 now you are come, my dear lady's spirits will 
 be better." 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Mary, with some sur- 
 prise, " is Mrs. Bolton generally sad ? " 
 
 " She's low like, sometimes, and difficult to 
 please; very low lately, except the days Mr. 
 Clavering comes." 
 
 " And when her companion was here I " 
 
 " Oh, bless you, Miss ! she did not do much 
 good : she gave a deal more trouble than she 
 did good, and was always and ever grumbling. 
 This was her room." 
 
 " Did she die here ? " said Mary, looking
 
 142 woman's reward. 
 
 round with an instinctive feeling of awe and 
 dread. 
 
 " No, she died at Hastings : she worried 
 my lady's life out, to be sent to Hastings, 
 and the cold she caught going, killed her." 
 
 One more question rose to Mary's lips, but 
 it was not spoken,- and the attendant retired. 
 " Does Mr. Clavering come often ? " What 
 made her wish to know : and so wishing, 
 what made her fear to ask ? 
 
 That inexplicable consciousness which makes 
 us shrink from the idea of another guessing the 
 interest we take, when it appears unwarrant- 
 able even to ourselves, checked the enquiry. 
 But though so many subjects had been started 
 during that long evening, it was not of Ma- 
 deira, or the back settlements of America ; — 
 not of a childless old woman's fancies, nor of 
 her own new position ; — not of the present or 
 the past, that Mary thought, as she laid her
 
 woman's reward. 143 
 
 head on her pillow, — but of William Cla- 
 vering. 
 
 " How very foolish," thought she with a 
 smile, as for the thirtieth time his smile re- 
 turned to her memory ; " I could not have 
 thought mere beauty would have struck me 
 so. And after all he is not near so hand- 
 some as Lionel. " 
 
 It was not mere beauty which had so forcibly 
 taken hold of the imagination of our heroine : 
 it was the instinctive trust in expression ; in 
 the 
 
 Powers that lie 
 Within the magic circle of the eye, 
 
 and which told in that one glance, so much of 
 kindness, generosity, and firmness. 
 
 And yet William Clavering's was a beauty 
 rare even amongst that handsome race, our 
 English aristocracy. His dark blue eyes, his
 
 144 woman's reward. 
 
 broad fair forehead, and the magnificent and 
 determined brow which contradicted the effe- 
 minacy of a somewhat too delicately moulded 
 mouth, his curling brown hair and distin- 
 guished figure, formed a whole which many a 
 woman's heart had already treasured up, and 
 many an artist's pencil commemorated. 
 
 Mary almost hesitated ere she fell asleep 
 whether it were not a preferable style to that 
 of the restless and violent Lionel. 
 
 She fell asleep and dreamed : dreamed that 
 by some strange concatenation of circum- 
 stances, her brother was condemned to be 
 beheaded ; but that after days of agony, the 
 king had entrusted her with his signet in 
 token of pardon, and bid her hasten with it 
 to the place of execution. As she advanced 
 through the crowd, she beheld Clavering, and 
 paused to gaze on him. That pause, though 
 but of a minutes duration, sealed the fate of
 
 woman's reward. 14.5 
 
 young Lionel, and she woke with a start and 
 exclamation, fancying she held the signet 
 ring high in the ah' in vain, — that the heads- 
 man's stroke had just severed those auburn 
 curls from the white neck, and that the long 
 black lashes were sinking over the eye whose 
 glance had been so full of fire. 
 
 She dreamed and woke. It was the first 
 time William Clavering ever haunted her 
 dreams — but not the last ! 
 
 YOL. 1.
 
 146 
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII, 
 
 Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
 So clear, as in no face with more delight. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 When Mary rose in the morning, the broad 
 sun beamed into the windows of her apart- 
 ment, which afforded a view of the trees in 
 Saint James's Park just bursting into leaf, and 
 wearing that ephemeral look of freshness, so 
 rare amid the smoke and dust and broiling- 
 heat of London. Her room was large, and 
 carefully furnished and decorated with all that
 
 woman's reward. 147 
 
 ingenuity has contrived of luxury and comfort. 
 " Surely I have much cause to be thankful," 
 thought she, as she raised her eyes to the 
 cloudless sky, and remembered that this was 
 henceforth to be her home; and she remained 
 musing on the events of her passed life till 
 summoned to the breakfast table. 
 
 Mrs. Bolton was there ; as familiarly kind as 
 on the previous evening. An air of quiet 
 comfort pervaded the whole establishment, and 
 every thing (to use Mrs. Bigley's favourite 
 phrase), " went on like clock-work." 
 
 Mary's first task as companion, was to read 
 an amusing volume of travels aloud to her 
 grand-aunt, who complimented her much on 
 the distinctness of her utterance and correct 
 emphasis. After this a number of geraniums, 
 gardineas, and other favourite plants, toge- 
 ther with sundry attentions to bulfmches, ca- 
 naries, and a yellow cockatoo, claimed her 
 
 H 2
 
 148 woman's reward. 
 
 care; and some observations on the treatment 
 of the flowers of foreign growth having brought 
 on a discussion of some length and interest, 
 Mary undertook to raise some seeds brought 
 from Madeira, and plan a glass verandah to 
 the drawing-room window by way of conser- 
 vatory. 
 
 In the evening William Clavering paid Mrs. 
 Bolton a visit, and the time passed rapidly 
 away in agreeable conversation, interspersed 
 with anecdotes to which the wit and keen 
 perception of the ridiculous which distinguished 
 Mr. Clavering, gave a brilliancy which made 
 trifles amusing. When he was gone, Mrs. 
 Bolton asked Mary, whether she did not think 
 him one of the pleasantest persons she had 
 ever met. 
 
 " I have seen so few people, and those of 
 such a different stamp," said Mary, " that 1 
 am scarcely a judge. But I think it must be
 
 woman's reward. 14Q 
 
 rare to meet any one who is at once so droll 
 and entertaining, and yet so eager about serious 
 things. And he seems so indulgent, and so 
 ready to admire the talents of other men, — 
 another quality I should think witty and cle- 
 ver people did not always possess." 
 
 " No ; there is a species of wit, unfortu- 
 nately too common, which consists in a conti- 
 nual sneer at the defects or mistakes of others ; 
 a habit of turning every thing into ridicule. 
 which I cannot endure, and from which Wil- 
 liam Clavering is totally free." 
 
 " I am afraid, ma'am," said Mary with a 
 half sigh, " that I shall never be able to amuse 
 you as he does. I could not tell a common- 
 place story, so as to make it entertaining, — I 
 feel that I have no drollery in my composi- 
 tion." 
 
 " I do not think, my dear, that I am so 
 selhsh as to wish you had. It is so rare that
 
 150 woman's reward. 
 
 * drollery,' as you term it, or even wit, is 
 seemly or graceful in a young woman; the 
 proneness to satire, the temptation to carica- 
 ture, make it at best a dangerous talent; — 
 a thousand sayings are attributed to you which 
 you know nothing of, and the reputation of 
 being witty, converts slight acquaintances into 
 bitter enemies. Indeed, I think the less bril- 
 liant a woman's qualities and talents are, the 
 better for her peace of mind and respectability 
 through life." 
 
 " And yet, surely," said Mary, " the power 
 of amusing others is an enviable talent, — it is 
 one at least which I have often envied." . 
 
 " You over-rate it, my dear child; consider 
 how easy it is to create a laugh. There is 
 scarcely any subject, however serious, (I had 
 almost said sacred,) that may not be so treated 
 as to be made ridiculous; there is scarcely any 
 one who could not be reckoned amusing in their
 
 woman's reward. 151 
 
 own idle set, if they chose to over-step the usual 
 limits of conversation. Examine most of the jests 
 which pass current in society, and you will be 
 surprised to find how much coarseness of ex- 
 pression and licence of thought, abuse of one's 
 neighbour, or immoral boasting, has been mis- 
 taken for wit. And those who laugh, do not 
 always approve. I myself have frequently, when 
 I was young and thoughtless, involuntarily 
 smiled at speeches which not only I would 
 have shrunk from making, but which it would 
 have given me real vexation to hear from the 
 lips of any one I loved or respected." 
 
 " I feel that you are right,'' said Miss Dupre, 
 • ' but yet the talent is prized and encouraged in 
 society. People are asked to agreeable houses 
 because they are known to be entertaining." 
 
 " Yes, and neglected and forgotten when 
 they cease to be entertaining. There is no 
 quality which has so little the power of con-
 
 152 woman's reward. 
 
 verting its admirers into friends. Look at the 
 career of men of known wit and celebrity in 
 that way; — for a while they are stars; too 
 much court cannot be paid them, nor too 
 many dinners made for them; roars of laugh- 
 ter follow their lightest sally, and others are 
 silent that they may speak. But when they 
 grow old and stupid; when gout has made 
 them peevish, or care has made them dull ; 
 when some newer constellation has risen to 
 throw them into the shade, they are voted 
 bores, and scratched off the dinner list: or, 
 if some few, remembering the days of boon 
 companionship, still continue to invite them, 
 they find their turn for silence is come ; they 
 sit unnoticed and forgotten, except when some 
 old friend remarks, how very dull Mr. So- 
 and-so is grown ; and those who are professed 
 listeners, listen to a newer object of attrac- 
 tion."
 
 woman's reward. 158 
 
 " You will think me quite incorrigible/' said 
 Mary smiling, " if I venture to make one 
 other observation. Surely, even if people are 
 ungrateful enough to forget those who for- 
 merly amused them, it must be pleasant while 
 it lasts. No one can run an even course oi 
 success all their lives, and old age has many 
 worse accompaniments than dulness." 
 
 " True, my love, true; but it is not always 
 pleasant while it lasts, even to the possessor. 
 I recollect, (since I must come to confessions 
 before I can cure you of wishing to be ' droll'), 
 I recollect when I way young, I was remarked 
 for this very talent, — a talent the less to be 
 envied, since it requires merely high spirits, 
 a desire to shine, and a moderate share of in- 
 tellect in its possessor. My sayings were 
 quoted, I was thought amusing; I made re- 
 partees to my enemies, and narrated stories 
 for my friends; and I assure you, Mary, that 
 
 h 5
 
 154 woman's reward. 
 
 many an hour of self- reproach followed those 
 momentary triumphs, that I would have given 
 worlds to recal some stinging reproach or light 
 observation, and would often rather have 
 been reckoned dull, than have had the repu- 
 tation (which I had), of being capable of giv- 
 ing up my dearest friend for the sake of a 
 bon-mot." 
 
 Whether Mary was at all convinced by her 
 grand-aunt's oration, or at all inclined to be- 
 lieve that it was better not to have the power 
 of entertaining, cannot now be known. Most 
 counsels which jar with the listener's opinions 
 are useless; they are not believed at first, 
 and by the time experience has proved their 
 truth, it is too late to profit by them. 
 
 " Has Mr. Clavering a profession?" asked 
 Mary, after a pause. 
 
 " Yes, certainly, he is at the bar; you know
 
 woman's reward. 155 
 
 he is only third son to Lord Clavering, and it 
 is a poor peerage, so that it is of consequence 
 he should advance in his profession. They 
 say he is amazingly clever; and many of his 
 friends have wished him to enter parliament, 
 but I suppose his father thinks seniority is 
 the best claim to serve one's country; and is 
 content that his eldest son should sit for the 
 borough of WeDingby." 
 
 " Perhaps it would only draw his mind from 
 the dry study of the law. — Is his brother a 
 young man?" 
 
 " The eldest is many years older; a roue 
 and dissipated man, with selfish habits and 
 broken health. The second is an attache at 
 one of the foreign courts, and has been abroad 
 almost all his life, but to him William Claver- 
 ing seems much attached. His poor mother. 
 the late Lady Clavering, was one of my dear- 
 est friends, and this was her favourite son."
 
 156 woman's reward. 
 
 " He seems to be fond of you, and to come 
 very often," said Mary. 
 
 " He has been very often lately, pitying 
 me for being so much alone; but previously 
 I had a very slight knowledge of him. Mr. 
 Bolton was on very indifferent terms with the 
 Claverings, and we were very little in Eng- 
 land. But the evenings he has spared me 
 from his hours of study or of pleasure, have 
 attached me to him. If it had pleased God 
 to give me a son, I would have desired no 
 other than William Clavering." 
 
 " Ah," thought Mary, " he will not come 
 now. He will know that I am here to read 
 and talk to my grand-aunt, and will think it 
 no longer necessary to sacritice so much time 
 to her." 
 
 And Mary's prophecy was partly correct. Mr. 
 Clavering did not visit them nearly so often,
 
 WOMAN'S REWARD. 10 t 
 
 nor did lie stay nearly so long; occasionally 
 
 he had difficult cases to read through and 
 master, or he was engaged with friends, and 
 was unable to come. But his visits, when they 
 did occur, were welcomed as holidays. 
 
 Meanwhile Mary grew more and more ob- 
 stinate in her opinion, that the power of 
 amusing others was a power to be envied ; 
 and Clavering unconsciously acquired the ha- 
 bit, while speaking, of glancing towards her 
 who understood so well and sympathised so 
 quickly in all he said. 
 
 And ever as he turned and met the ready 
 and approving smile of those sweet lips, and 
 the gaze of those dove-like eyes, an exulting 
 and triumphant feeling swelled in his heart, 
 and a general benevolence for all human be- 
 ings who trod the same earth with themselves, 
 animated his breast. Every thing seemed 
 more or less couleur de rose, because one pale
 
 158 woman's reward. 
 
 and gentle girl/ living as a sort of companion 
 with old Mrs. Bolton of Spring Gardens, 
 appeared pleased with his conversation, and 
 listened attentively while he was reading. 
 
 But it is not to be supposed that every day 
 passed in feeding bulfinches, rearing plants, 
 and talking over old passages in Mrs. Bolton's 
 history. Nor is it to be imagined that Lord 
 Clavering's third son was the only society our he- 
 roine enjoyed in her new home. Miss Dupre's 
 grand-aunt had been more popular than the 
 disclaiming modesty of her speech upon " drol- 
 lery" would have led any one who had heard 
 it, to believe. She had many friends, and as 
 soon as the bursting of buds and flowers, and 
 the delicious feeling of the spring air, warned 
 those in the country that this was the time 
 to repair to town, and struggle through a 
 London season; the moment the golden labur- 
 num and perfumed lilach, which were gradu-
 
 woman's reward. 159 
 
 ally to fade unseen, and the showers of may- 
 blossoms that whitened the ground beneath the 
 hawthorn-trees on their pleasure-grounds, re- 
 minded them that balls, operas, and soirees were 
 beginning; the moment the windows in Spring 
 Gardens could be thrown open, to admit the 
 fresh breeze to the early jonquils and hyacinths 
 within the room, then Mrs. Bolton (who had 
 sate alone during the fogs of November, the 
 mud of December, and the dull damp cold of 
 January), had plenty of visitors. 
 
 Of these, some were stupid, some clever ; 
 some were rattling gossips, and some ceremo- 
 niously formal; many were exceedingly plea- 
 sant and well-informed, and many exceedingly 
 dull. 
 
 But good, bad, or indifferent, there was, as 
 Mrs. Bolton justly remarked, something to be 
 learned from all; and as there is no education 
 so useful to a shrewd and keen intellect as
 
 160 woman's reward. 
 
 much mingling with the world, Mary became 
 conscious that her mind expanded, her rea- 
 soning powers increased, her understanding 
 became more vigorous, and her judgment more 
 accurate. She conversed fluently and agree- 
 ably, and became a favourite with many of 
 Mrs. Bolton's visitors, who used occasionally 
 to prefer a petition that Miss Dupre might 
 be " spared for one evening to go to the 
 Opera," or " attend a musical soiree, where 
 there was to be some amateur singing, &c." 
 
 These invitations Mary gently but resolutely 
 declined. She had no wish to mingle in that 
 strange set who call themselves " the world ;" 
 and she was too proud to owe an obligation 
 to strangers ; but had her desire to share in 
 the amusements proposed to her been ever 
 so great, and her reluctance to accept favours 
 ever so small, she had learned enough of Mrs.
 
 woman's reward. 161 
 
 Bolton's character to feel that it would be a 
 subject of sore displeasure. 
 
 Mary Dupre's grand-aunt was a woman of 
 a clear head, and a warm heart ; but conti- 
 nual bodily suffering, infirmity, and early sor- 
 row, had gradually produced their effect. No 
 temper was ever more unequal and capricious ; 
 no one ever exacted more attention and obe- 
 dience. 
 
 She really loved Mary, and often on the 
 days when she was sufficiently at ease to think 
 of the comforts of her companion, she would 
 propose an airing, " to give her a colour," or 
 bestow a velvet dress, or in some way testify 
 that she was conscious there was some sacri- 
 fice in a young girl submitting, without a 
 murmur, to live in a hot drawing-room, read- 
 ing or writing for the benefit of another, 
 without any variety in the monotony of her
 
 162 woman's reward. 
 
 existence, and without any other mode of 
 enjoying the fresh air than an airing in a 
 close carriage, with a fat little lap-dog and a 
 gouty old lady. 
 
 And Mary loved her, and said the truth, 
 when she affirmed that she was happy and 
 contented. But there ivere days when dear 
 old Mrs." Bolton was insufferable. She did 
 not taunt, she did not fly into a passion ; but 
 she wore and worried the spirits of those 
 around her with a peevishness like that of a 
 teething child ; no effort could satisfy her, 
 no amusement distract her ; and a suspicious 
 and restless manner of watching how her ill- 
 temper was borne, added to the irritation it 
 produced. She was indeed on those occa- 
 sions, as Swinden, her maid, expressed it, 
 " low-like, and difficult to be pleased ;" but 
 Mary's unchanging and enduring sweetness 
 of disposition enabled her to bear it without
 
 woman's reward. 163 
 
 a murmur. " Let me not forget," she would 
 say to herself, " that though she treats me 
 as a daughter, I came to her as a companion. 
 I wrote eagerly to accept her offer, and would 
 have been happy on harder terms to leave 
 Norfolk." 
 
 Once Mrs. Bolton alluded to her own pee- 
 vish irritability, and was struck by her young- 
 relation's answer. It was at the close of a 
 lovely afternoon in June, when the old lady 
 was lying in a drowsy state in her easy chair, 
 recovering from a fit of pain endured some 
 hours before. There were two or three inti- 
 mate friends who were always admitted, un- 
 less the invalid was confined to her room, 
 and amongst these was a young American lady, 
 a pretty, gentle creature, of whom Mary was 
 exceedingly fond, and who was a great fa- 
 vourite with her grand-aunt. Previous to the 
 announcement of this visitor, our heroine had
 
 164 woman's reward. 
 
 been reading at the table. The volume was 
 a ponderous quarto, and Mrs. Bolton impa- 
 tiently exclaimed as she turned over the page, 
 " how you do rattle those leaves ; don't you 
 see that I can't bear the least noise ? " 
 
 Mary did not answer further than a mur- 
 mured apology ; but when Mrs. Leslie Irving 
 was announced, she rose hastily, and, mo- 
 tioning the servant back, said, 
 
 " No, no; my aunt is not well enough for 
 visitors." 
 
 " How tiresome you are, child; it will re- 
 fresh me exceedingly ; I have not seen a crea- 
 ture to-day." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mary ; and Mrs. 
 Leslie Irving was admitted. 
 
 For a short time the young Philadelphian 
 exerted herself to entertain her hostess, but 
 finding that her attempts at conversation pro- 
 duced no answer but a discontented moan,
 
 woman's reward. 165 
 
 and that the invalid seemed to have dropped 
 off into a slumber, she desisted, and turned 
 her attention entirely to Miss Dupre, with 
 whom she continued chatting, in an under- 
 tone, till Mrs. Bolton interrupted peevishly : 
 
 " What are you two young people talking 
 about, that you are afraid I should hear you ? " 
 
 " We thought you were asleep, ma'am," said 
 Mary. 
 
 " Asleep ! nonsense ; you knew I could not 
 be asleep, while some one was talking in the 
 room; pray speak out, Mrs. Leslie, pray do." 
 
 A few more sentences were accordingly ut- 
 tered, and Mrs. Leslie Irving was preparing 
 to depart, when the invalid exclaimed, 
 
 " Dear me, dear me, do you suppose I can 
 bear this ? Do you think I am strong and 
 as able to endure noise as girls of twenty I 
 Really, Mary, one would think you did it on 
 purpose."
 
 166 woman's reward. 
 
 " I am so sorry I came in," murmured the lit- 
 tle American as she pressed her friend's hand ; 
 " I have only disturbed you." 
 
 She had been gone some time, and the slant- 
 ing beams of the evening sun were stealing 
 across the picture of Mrs. Bolton's daughter, 
 which hung on the opposite side of the room, 
 when that lady said, with a heavy sigh, — 
 
 " Confess, child, that you think me unjust 
 and ill-tempered." 
 
 " I, madam! I, my dear, kind friend?" eja- 
 culated Mary, as she rose and moved towards 
 the speaker. 
 
 " Yes ; I don't mean always, but occasion- 
 ally — to-day, for instance ; allow that you 
 thought me unjust — I shall not be angry; 
 you resented my manner of speaking to you 
 — you thought me tyrannical." 
 
 " Oh, believe me," said her companion, as 
 she lightly kissed the hand she held, " J
 
 woman's reward. 167 
 
 only thought how much you must be suffer- 
 ing ! " 
 
 There certainly were days during those hot 
 summer months when Mary felt that her pa- 
 tience was tried, and the generosity of avow- 
 ing herself in the wrong was by no means 
 habitual with her relation; but she had been 
 so accustomed to put aside all feeling of self, 
 to watch and soothe her father, and bend to 
 her young brother's caprices, that the task 
 was lighter to her than it would have been 
 to another. Mary had besides, like most per- 
 sons of a calm and composed exterior, deep 
 and intense feelings of devotion and attach- 
 ment. There was no mobility either in her 
 manner or her mind. Whefce her heart fixed, 
 it dwelt ; and her gratitude and affection were 
 not to be swayed here and there, like a wil- 
 low branch in stormy waters. There was no 
 irresolution or touchiness ; no weighing in the
 
 168 woman's reward. 
 
 balance, services done and kindness received; 
 no false excuses to the wayward soul, of un- 
 expected faults and undeserved reproaches, 
 on the part of her aged relative. A humble 
 and grateful heart she brought with her to 
 that first interview of cordial welcome and 
 kindness, and with a humble and grateful 
 heart she loved her still. Her mind was alike 
 free from that springiness of power, which 
 throws off the burden of sorrow after it has 
 been borne for a certain time, and from that 
 inconstancy of purpose, and uncertainty of 
 affections, which so often takes the shape of 
 vice and folly j without being actually caused 
 by either. Her character was firm, resolute, 
 and devoted, and yet with all a woman's 
 gentleness of manner; as a fanciful German 
 once said, " her soul dwelt in her body like 
 a warrior's sword in a silver sheath."
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 169 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 •• Since then I have wept bitter tears. 
 
 And roam'd through far and foreign climes : 
 And changeful scenes, through dreary years. 
 
 Have taught me to forget old times. 
 I have forgotten many a face, 
 
 And many a haunt of early youth ; 
 But one dear memory keeps its place — 
 
 Thy love's first glow — and earnest truth !" 
 
 Lionel Dupre wrote to his sister to express 
 his intention of spending part of the summer 
 vacation with Iris grand- aunt ; a few days he 
 had promised the Bigleys, and Lord Alfred 
 Arlington claimed the rest, at his father's, 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 woman's reward. 
 
 the Marquis of Montarlington's. He dis- 
 coursed largely on the excitement and plea- 
 sure of hunting; sent Mary the pedigree in 
 full of a horse Lord Alfred had just bought, 
 which having thrown and killed two grooms, 
 was appropriately named Daredevil ; looked 
 forward with eagerness to the days when he 
 too should be able to make an equally satis- 
 factory purchase; complained of the scanti- 
 ness of his allowance, and congratulated him- 
 self on the prospect of exchanging Eton, for 
 college terms. 
 
 Mary always begged him to write about 
 himself and his occupations. Perhaps that 
 was the reason he never mentioned any other 
 human being, except in the most cursory and 
 careless style, nor ever bored his sister with 
 questions about her amusements or pursuits. 
 
 A few days previous to his arrival, Mr. Pat- 
 terson, who had come from Edinburgh to Lou-
 
 woman's reward. 171 
 
 don on business, called in Spring Gardens, 
 to see Miss Dupre. Mr. Clavering happened 
 to be calling at the same time ; and Mary 
 was surprised to see the facility with which 
 the same shy awkward gentleman who had 
 met them at Portsmouth, could converse on 
 serious topics. 
 
 Clavering had a manner so polished and 
 deferential, he contrived so well to draw peo- 
 ple out, that every one was at ease with him. 
 And though the subjects chosen were not such 
 as Mary could perfectly comprehend, being 
 principally discussions as to the policy and 
 wisdom of introducing so much machinery 
 into our manufactories, and the process by 
 which a new method of printing linens was 
 carried on at Glasgow, still she felt interest- 
 ed and pleased ; and she admired and loved 
 Clavering for his manner towards one who 
 was in all respects his inferior, and for the 
 
 i2
 
 172 woman's reward. 
 
 courtesy which softened the bold arguments 
 which he opposed to the narrow and preju- 
 diced views of the Scotch Writer. 
 
 Mr. Patterson, in his turn, was flattered by 
 a request that he would give his opinion on 
 a difficult point of law : he decided, and Wil- 
 liam Clavering made a memorandum of his 
 opinion in his pocket-book. 
 
 The conversation then turned on the edu- 
 cation and pursuits of Lionel Dupre ; and 
 when Mr. Patterson at length departed, Mr. 
 Clavering bestowed the guarded eulogium, 
 " That is a sensible man : if he had lived 
 more in the world it would have been better. 
 Nothing ruins a man's power of judging, so 
 much as living entirely in one set ; and no- 
 thing makes a man so obstinate. His views 
 on the management of your young brother, 
 Miss Dupre, struck me as singularly correct, 
 though I must own," added he, laughing,
 
 woman's reward. 17o 
 
 " that they also gave me the impression of 
 his being very difficult to manage." 
 
 " Ah," said Mary, eagerly, " that is be- 
 cause Mr. Patterson saw so little of Lionel. 
 You do not know that we were only a few 
 days in his company; and very few people 
 understand my brother; even those who live 
 with him, and see a great deal of him, are 
 puzzled sometimes." 
 
 " You -will think me harsh," said Mr. Cla- 
 vering hesitatingly, " but in my opinion cha- 
 racters that are difficult to be understood are 
 seldom very amiable. The partiality of friends 
 frequently causes them to make mistakes re- 
 specting the dispositions of those they love ; 
 and I observe there is no shelter men so 
 gladly avail themselves of, as that of being 
 misunderstood. You should endeavour to <ee 
 clearly, even while you reprove gently." 
 
 Mary coloured, but she did not speak ; and
 
 174 woman's reward. 
 
 after a short pause, Mr. Clavering added, 
 "You are displeased, Miss Dupre; and yet 
 I have wished to put you on your guard — not 
 to offend you. Mr. Patterson spoke as if you 
 had more than a sister's authority over your 
 brother. I would advise you to exert it to 
 prevent his associating too much with the com- 
 panions mentioned by that gentleman. Lord 
 Montarlington is himself a spendthrift : his 
 sons are needy and foolish : Jack Conolly (of 
 whom you appear never to have heard) is a 
 person notorious for his want of principle, 
 and has subsisted by betting and gambling 
 ever since I can remember ; and most of those 
 who are your brother's companions are men of 
 no reputation whatever." 
 
 There was something in the anxious and 
 persuading tone of William Clavering that- 
 touched Mary. 
 
 " If you knew Lionel," murmured she, " I
 
 woman's reward. 17 J 
 
 am sure you would love him. He will be here 
 in a week, and then you can yourself advise 
 him." 
 
 " No," answered he, abruptly, " I shall 
 not see liim. I am going the circuit to-mor- 
 row, which will detain me six weeks." 
 
 "Six weeks, Mr. Clavering ? " said Mary; 
 and she dropped the needle on her embroidery- 
 frame, and looked up in his face. Her soft 
 anxious eyes met his, and shrank abashed and 
 confounded ; for in his speaking gaze she read 
 passionate enquiry, and passionate regret. 
 There was neither word, nor sigh, nor sign, 
 but his features wore that look never to be 
 mistaken by the most simple, nor to be for- 
 gotten by the most worldly — the first look 
 of love. 
 
 And Mary felt and understood its power. 
 A thrill of tenderness, of triumphant joy, sent 
 the blood from her heart to her crimsoned
 
 176 woman's reward. 
 
 cheek, and then a marble paleness overspread 
 her face as she bent over her work, and with 
 a tremulous voice enquired, " Have you many 
 briefs this session ? " 
 
 Men have very rarely as much self-possession 
 as women ; and Clavering stammered out an 
 answer, which, had information really been re- 
 quired, would have proved far from satisfac- 
 tory. Then approaching the stand of plants 
 which were Mary's peculiar care, he made 
 many rapid observations on their beauty and 
 fragrance ; selected his favourites with asto- 
 nishing accuracy, (considering he scarcely saw 
 which was which,) and asked a number of 
 questions as to the degree of resemblance the 
 Madeira flowers bore, to the blossoms of the 
 same plants in their native land. 
 
 " I have a curious book, if you would allow 
 me to lend it you, Miss Dupre, showing the 
 effects of a variety of soils on the same roots.
 
 woman's reward. 177 
 
 It is called ' Experimental Botany,' and if we 
 may believe the compiler of the work, not 
 only do plants flourish more or less in parti- 
 cular soils, but the colour of the flowers, nav, 
 the very shape of the leaves, and its harm- 
 less or poisonous nature, 
 
 Doth alter as it alteration finds. 
 
 The blue scented blossom of a southern 
 clime may be a small white unmeaning flower 
 when transplanted to the north ; and the fruit 
 which is esteemed a delicacy in one coun- 
 try, be degraded to a showy berry, or sour 
 poison in another. It might amuse you to 
 read it." 
 
 " It would interest me of all things," said 
 Mary : se I used to think all flowers might be 
 made to grow in an English hot-house, pro- 
 viding they received sufficient care : but I sup- 
 pose your author will make a convert of me." 
 
 i 5
 
 178 woman's reward. 
 
 " There is of course much prejudice mixed 
 up with his information," said Clavering, " but 
 you are not obliged to become bigoted in your 
 opinions. It will take you some years to go 
 through all the experiments he proposes : in- 
 deed there is one, on the flowering aloe, on 
 which he thus satisfactorily expresses himself : 
 
 " ' As it is next to impossible that I should 
 live, even to see the first stage of this experi- 
 ment, I have been careful to copy out at 
 length all the directions necessary for conti- 
 nuing it, that my son may know how to pro- 
 ceed ; and in like manner I trust he will trans- 
 mit to his son, or even grandson, all the ob- 
 servations which we have both with infinite 
 pains collected ; and I do not doubt but that 
 in time the flowering aloe may become a com- 
 mon seedling in the English counties.' " 
 
 Mary laughed. 
 
 " What a strange and amusing chapter that
 
 woman's reward. 179 
 
 would be," said she, " which treated of the dif- 
 ferent importance particular subjects assume 
 to different minds." 
 
 " Yes, and rather a melancholy one, " re- 
 plied Clavering, " for it would tend greatly to 
 show how little real importance belongs to any 
 human pursuit. When we observe the intense 
 eagerness with which certain objects are pur- 
 sued; the talent that is exerted; the time 
 that is employed ; the substance that is ex- 
 pended for the chance of success, on the one 
 hand; and the entire and unmixed contempt 
 with which, on the other hand, the same pur- 
 suit is viewed by other eyes, are we not shaken 
 in our belief of its importance ? Whether it 
 be the desire of fashion or the thirst for fame ; 
 the love of books, the passion for discoveries, 
 the anxiety for scientific improvements, or the 
 endeavour to make the flowering aloe a com- 
 mon English plant, there are always thousands
 
 180 woman's reward. 
 
 to sneer and laugh, who are also in their turn 
 sneered and laughed at." 
 
 " That is because most men apply great 
 energies to little purposes," said Mary, gently : 
 " and the power we inherit from our earthly 
 Paradise of discerning good from evil, enables 
 us only to see that those energies are wasted 
 in others, and not to employ them better our- 
 selves." 
 
 "Yet we must employ them in some way, 
 or to what purpose were they given ? and 
 the bent of a man's mind is the only rule which 
 can determine what pursuit shall seem to him 
 most important." 
 
 " There should be another rule, and a very 
 simple one," said Mary, as she looked earnestly 
 up in her companion's face. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " To weigh the importance of everything 
 here, by its importance hereafter. Then there
 
 woman's reward. 181 
 
 would be no false aims, nor mistaken pursuits : 
 nothing would be left but the active ambition 
 of doing good."' 
 
 Clavering smiled. 
 
 " You are not laughing at me ? " said Mary, 
 appealingly. 
 
 "No, Miss Dupre. No. Heaven forbid! I 
 was merely reflecting how much the love of 
 fame would necessarily mingle with what you 
 term the active ambition of doing good." 
 
 " Not necessarily." 
 
 " Well, almost infallibly. Many a man has 
 acted well that he might be well spoken of.'' 
 
 " An evil motive, and an uncertain one, to 
 produce so good a result." 
 
 " It would be too long a discussion," said 
 Clavering, glancing at the clock, ;; to decide 
 whether it be an evil motive. I cannot but 
 think that the love of approbation would not 
 have been so strongly implanted in our na-
 
 182 woman's reward. 
 
 tures, if it had not been intended to be bene- 
 ficial." 
 
 "In a degree, certainly, but not as a first 
 motive." 
 
 " Your sex in general think differently : 
 there are no such slaves to the opinion of others 
 as women : are you an exception ? " 
 
 " I hope not," said Mary, with a smile : 
 " you know what your favourite Johnson says 
 on the subject of braving the world's opinion. 
 ' If it were just, it would not be possible ; and 
 if it were possible, it ivould not be just' But I 
 miserably deceive myself," added she, earnestly, 
 " if my first motive is not a desire to please 
 God: and I think I could brave all censure, 
 even blame from those I love most dearly, if 
 I firmly and honestly believed I was acting for 
 the best." 
 
 " I imagine," began Clavering, but the en- 
 trance of Mrs. Bolton interrupted him.
 
 woman's reward. 183 
 
 " I have come early, to wish you good bye," 
 said he. u The circuit begins to-morrow, and 
 I start to-night." 
 
 Mrs. Bolton expressed her regret, and after 
 a short stay he bade farewell to both, and de- 
 parted. 
 
 He departed : and though not a word had 
 been spoken in the remotest degree applicable 
 to that subject, he left Mary convinced that he 
 loved her ; and when early the next morning 
 a little packet was put into her hands, " From 
 Mr. Clavering's servant, Miss,'' her cheek 
 flushed, and her startled eye glanced in the 
 speaker's face, as though the words contained 
 some extraordinary intelligence. 
 
 The packet enclosed " Experimental Bo- 
 tany," some other book, and a note. Mary 
 eagerly and tremulously broke the seal, and 
 read as follows : — 
 
 " I send you the book I mentioned, and hope
 
 184 woman's reward. 
 
 you will be able to glean from it some useful 
 information for your Madeira favourites. Not 
 thinking this work sufficiently long to engage 
 you all the six weeks, I send another for your 
 perusal — no less an author than Dryden, whom 
 you told me you had never read. 
 
 " What you said yesterday, has made an 
 impression on me ; I am too ambitious of po- 
 pularity, too careless of higher aims, and I 
 feel it. You shall not find your words wasted 
 on the air ; and, perhaps, you will also re- 
 member mine, on the subject of your bro- 
 ther. An interest in what belongs to you 
 deserves no displeasure, and you are too gen- 
 tle and reasonable to condemn me if I am 
 mistaken. 
 
 " Mark the passages you prefer in the 
 Dryden, and believe me 
 
 " Your's, truly, 
 
 " William Clavering."
 
 woman's reward. 185 
 
 The wildest and most passionate love-letter 
 was never read with a more beating heart 
 than this simply-worded epistle ; nor could 
 the writer of such, have conveyed a more 
 thorough conviction that the receiver was an 
 object of interest. 
 
 " He wishes me to remember him through 
 those six long weeks, and read as if he were 
 with me — he thinks me worthy to give hint 
 advice ; I ! who look up to him as a supe- 
 rior being ; — he feels interested in Lionel, 
 because he is my brother." 
 
 Such were the reflections which presented 
 themselves as Mary's eye again and again 
 glanced over the few sentences addressed to 
 her, and rested on the signature. 
 
 What is there in the signature of a be- 
 loved name which makes it more precious 
 than all the written words which precede it ? 
 what is there that makes it more bitter, when
 
 186 woman's reward. 
 
 all is passed and gone, to meet that name on 
 the blank title page of a book, than to hear 
 it spoken a thousand times in ordinary con- 
 versation, or to look over a hundred other 
 memorials of lost happiness ? 
 
 Surely there is some strange instinct of the 
 human heart which sets store on those few syl- 
 lables ; — and which gives to that mysterious re- 
 presentation of ourselves, with all our thought, 
 passions, and power of understanding; that 
 badge of our existence among our fellow-men ; 
 — a power which no other words can ever 
 obtain. 
 
 Who does not pause at a name inscribed 
 in a book, and gaze upon it as if it told 
 the history of the years which have passed 
 away since it was written? The hand which 
 traced it may be grown feeble and tremu- 
 lous with age, or may lie, cold and forgotten 
 dust, in the grave ; it may have become
 
 woman's reward. 187 
 
 " an empty sound, 
 To which no living thing lays claim ;" 
 
 but its magic power remains. We feel, while 
 we look on it, that we behold the certain 
 and visible stamp and impress of a human 
 existence, since passed away, like a shadow, 
 from the earth. Two syllables on that silent 
 page make oath to us that a being icas, with 
 health, strength, and reason ; who hoped like 
 ourselves, laughed like ourselves, and breathed 
 the air we breathe ; " C est une etincelle de sa 
 vie," a spark which burns on after the lamp 
 of life is extinguished — a moment of the full 
 possession of human energy of body and soul, 
 saved from the blank of a passed existence. 
 
 A name ! It suffices to will away broad 
 lands and fair domains ; to curse with life- 
 long poverty, or bless with prosperity and 
 wealth ; a power lies there, winch mocks the 
 grave : and the living obey the dead !
 
 188 woman's reward. 
 
 A name ! It suffices to wring the heart 
 with a sudden pang, and send the hot tears 
 gushing to the weary eyes. Thereon we gaze, 
 — and weep, and clasp our hands, and make a 
 lament to Heaven. For what? two written 
 words ! 
 
 And so a name may suffice to feed the flame 
 of love. 
 
 Mary Dupre gazed on that of William 
 Clavering, till it seemed to her that his sig- 
 nature was, like himself, fair, noble, and dif- 
 ferent from other men. There was music in 
 the sound, and beauty in the form of those 
 two little words to the orphan girl, for they 
 represented the clear voice, the shadowy brow, 
 the generous mind, of him she loved. Twice 
 she raised the paper as if to press it to her 
 lips, and twice, although no human eye was 
 on her, with a beating heart and colouring 
 cheek, she laid it down. The woman's in-
 
 woman's reward. 189 
 
 stinct, which struggled with passion in her 
 heart, forbid the caress ; and she folded the 
 note, and laid it by with many a treasured 
 memorial of other days. 
 
 And now a new existence opened to Mary. 
 Her childhood, with its gloomy remembrance, 
 her anxious and melancholy girlhood, all seem- 
 ed receding like the shores of a distant land 
 to one in a fast-sailing ship. The past was 
 gone — was nothing; the future, the glorious 
 future was all. 
 
 She loved ; she would have been content to 
 die in her slumber, and never wake to the 
 morning, in the knowledge that he would re- 
 gret her: trial, and fear, and danger seemed 
 over on the earth ; she had but one sensation, 
 — she loved. The luxury of loving, so far, so 
 immeasurably far beyond the triumph of being 
 loved, was her's; and she felt — but wherefore 
 need we words ! Have not all loved who bend
 
 190 woman's reward. 
 
 above this page? yea, and all loved alike. 
 Those whom the world has gradually steeled, 
 or yet more gradually corrupted, and those 
 who live in the sheltered nook, fearing no 
 storm; — the profligate and the pure minded, 
 the sad and the prosperous, — the cruel and the 
 kind, — the painted and turbaned card-player, 
 and the sober sitter by her own fire-side, — 
 all have loved and been beloved: the begin- 
 nings of those diverse and strange destinies 
 were alike; — a dream, a trust, and a broken 
 hope for all! 
 
 And could we (as we never can), read all 
 those histories, how many a woman's fate, nay, 
 her very qualities, will be proved to have de- 
 pended on that first love. 
 
 How many a cheek has been channelled with 
 bitter tears, long before the false bloom of 
 rouge and excited vanity sent the successful 
 beauty to glean the suffrages of the world!
 
 woman's reward. 191 
 
 How many a young head has shrunk timidly 
 from a first caress, which braves and defies 
 the sneer of contempt, and smiles in effrontery 
 at open words of scorn ! How many a heart 
 is now deemed hard and cold, which then 
 sank bruised and bleeding, and prayed to grow 
 callous, ignorant of a higher and holier con- 
 solation ! And how many, oh ! how many are 
 there, who seem to laugh and listen to pro- 
 fessions which habit has taught them to receive 
 without either virtuous surprise or virtuous 
 indignation; while, like the dying Marmion, 
 another's voice is in their ear, — a tone which 
 shuts out all other sounds, which sends a chill 
 to the heart and a sudden shadow to the eye, 
 and mocks the worldly lover with a stifled 
 sigh; attributed by some looker-on to vice or 
 affectation, — welcomed by him as a proof of 
 his approaching triumph, — but given to the
 
 192 woman's reward. 
 
 days when that weary heart could love; days, 
 whose buried memories heave now and then 
 to the surface, like shattered wrecks in a 
 stormy sea, and sink again in the calm.
 
 woman's reward. 193 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Tetchy and wayward was thine infancy 
 
 Thy age confirmed 
 
 More mild, but yet more harmful. 
 
 RICHARD III. 
 
 But Kate, dost thou understand thus much English ? 
 Canst thou love me ? 
 
 I cannot tell. 
 
 henry v. 
 
 " Well, I think I never saw two young peo- 
 ple so different as you and your brother, my 
 dear Mary," said Mrs. Bolton, as they sate 
 together the first evening after he had left 
 them. 
 
 " He is much younger than I am, and has 
 higher spirits," said Mary, for she felt that the 
 sentence was not intended to be one of praise. 
 
 VOL. I. k
 
 19-4- woman's reward. 
 
 "My dear child, it is not of his boyish 
 faults I was thinking ; all boys are thoughtless, 
 and wild and restless, and there is no reason 
 why he should be expected to be more reason- 
 able than others are at seventeen: no, it is, 
 on the contrary, the defects of character which 
 usually belong to an older heart, which strike 
 me, — his want of indulgence, his vanity, his 
 turn for satire, his cold and quiet selfish- 
 ness" 
 
 "Cold! ma'am; do you think Lionel cold?" 
 interrupted Mary ; " surely, with all his faults 
 he has warm feelings; his violence used to be 
 one of the points in his disposition which gave 
 my poor father most uneasiness; and though 
 that is less perceptible now that his reason is 
 
 more mature" 
 
 " My dear Mary," said Mrs. Bolton quickly, 
 " pray do not fall into that absurd error, of 
 supposing violence of temper and strength of
 
 woman's reward. 195 
 
 feelings to go together. I have seen many 
 symptoms of warmth of temper, on the part 
 of your brother, but of warmth of heart 
 none.'" 
 
 " I am sure," said Mary, in a vexed tone, 
 " that though Lionel does not express his 
 feelings often, and though the set he has been 
 lately living amongst, have taught him to think 
 it fine, to affect nonchalance and carelessness, 
 yet in reality he is affectionate and kind. 
 You do not know how warmly he expressed 
 himself with respect to your kindness to me 
 and to himself. He was only here a fortnight, 
 and yet he was quite attached to you. I can- 
 not think why every one has a prejudice 
 against Lionel." 
 
 " Who else has commented on his faults, my 
 dear ? " said Mrs. Bolton, quietly. 
 
 " Mr. Clavering said" — faltered forth Mary, 
 in some confusion. 
 
 k 2
 
 196 woman's reward. 
 
 " Why Mr. Clavering never saw him.'' 
 " No, but Mr. Patterson said"— 
 " Yes, and Mr. Lawrence said, and Mr. 
 Bigley said, and we all of us say and think," 
 said Mrs. Bolton, gaily, " that Mr. Lionel 
 Dupre is not so amiable as his sister. But a 
 year or two may improve and form him : and 
 there is truth in what you say, that it is the 
 fashion among those young men to . affect more 
 nonchalance than they feel. Nevertheless, I 
 do not think his sensations are very acute. By 
 your own account you had both been separated 
 for some time, yet he had not sufficient plea- 
 sure in your society to remain at home any 
 one evening." 
 
 " His companions wished for him so con- 
 stantly, and ridiculed his previous retirement 
 and confined habits." 
 
 " The three days that you were so ill, he
 
 woman's reward. 197 
 
 did not sit with you or soothe you : he paid 
 you a hurried visit in the morning, and spent 
 his day in the Park, and his night at the 
 theatre." 
 
 " It is such beautiful weather for riding," 
 said Mary, looking towards the window, "and 
 I, who am never very entertaining, am a very 
 dull companion indeed when I am invalided." 
 
 " He ridiculed the Bigleys with great bit- 
 terness, and yet they have shown him kindness, 
 and he is now on his way to their house." 
 
 " He spoke thoughtlessly, and perhaps ima- 
 gined that I had already described to you such 
 peculiarities as were amusing in them : it was 
 not meant unkindly." 
 
 " He talked of Mr. Lawrence — (is not that 
 the young man's name?) — with careless indif- 
 ference, when you were discussing with him 
 the possibility of obtaining a curacy through
 
 198 woman's reward. 
 
 Lord Mount arlington : he treated it as an irk- 
 some subject ; one of which he would willingly 
 be rid." 
 
 " Lionel is naturally impatient ; and he was 
 vexed and irritated at being forced to allow that 
 he had it not in his power to serve his tutor." 
 
 " He appeared to me to have no real pre- 
 ference among his young friends, but to value 
 them according to their rank, and the estima- 
 tion in which they were held in society : to 
 arrange their places in his heart, as they would 
 have walked down to dinner." 
 
 " He is so delicate and fastidious in his tastes, 
 and was brought up so much in the admiration of 
 what is elegant and intellectual, that he dreads 
 being again obliged to associate with vulgar 
 people." 
 
 " You are determined to defend him, Mary ! 
 and so much the better. Many a man is re- 
 claimed by the influence of a pure-minded wo-
 
 woman's reward. 199 
 
 man ; and Heaven grant you always such in- 
 fluence over him as may soften his heart, and 
 give strength to his better resolves. All that 
 I fear is, that hereafter, instead of your at- 
 tempting to lead him, he will succeed in go- 
 verning you. You must learn betimes not to 
 bow to what is merely a caprice.'' 
 
 " He has but me in the wide world!" said 
 Mary, as the big tears rose to her eyes. " Go- 
 vern and obey are not words between us two." 
 
 Mrs. Bolton sighed, and both looked up at a 
 drawing of Lionel, which had just been finished 
 by a most eminent artist, and hung over the 
 mantel-piece. It was an imaginary subject, 
 for Lionel disliked what he called " a set like- 
 ness," and always discussed the point with great 
 interest when in the atelier of the painter who 
 aspired to sketch him. The present attempt 
 was a study for the head of Apollo watching 
 the arrow which struck down the last of Xiobe's
 
 200 woman's reward. 
 
 children. It was spirited and successful. 
 Mary ventured at the time it was taken 
 to offer the only just criticism which could 
 have been made. 
 
 " I think," said she, " the eye is too violent. 
 My idea of a god, even in his vengeful hours, 
 is rather the expression of firm resolve, and 
 consciousness of his own power, than of angry 
 vehemence." 
 
 " You are right, madam : perfectly right," 
 said the obsequious genius : " but when I first 
 made a hasty outline of Mr. Dupre's counte- 
 nance, (I recollect he was arguing with his 
 young friend, the Marquis of Mountarling ton's 
 son,) I intended to have worked out the sketch 
 as one of the fallen angels, — indeed I had given 
 it the title of ' The Fallen Angel,' but Mr. 
 Dupre disapproved so entirely of my idea, that 
 I was forced to relinquish it." 
 
 In relinquishing the title, however, the
 
 woman's reward. £01 
 
 painter had not been able to divest himself of 
 the idea ; and as Mary now gazed upwards at 
 the wild hazel eye, black brow, and golden 
 auburn curls, it seemed to her that it was in- 
 deed an appropriate representation of one of 
 the "rebellious spirits of heaven." 
 
 William Clavering examined this sketch one 
 morning, (for he had long accustomed him- 
 self to spare an hour, or rather to spend all 
 his spare hours with Mary Dupre in Spring 
 Gardens,) and observed, without taking his 
 eyes from the portrait : " It is indeed an excel- 
 lent likeness. I should like to have your pic- 
 ture done by the same man. Perhaps I shall 
 some day!" added he, in a musing tone, " some 
 day when I can compare the likeness and the 
 original every hour ! " 
 
 " Mary started, but Mr. Clavering took q< 
 heed of her embarrassment. He stood, with 
 his arms folded, contemplating the sketch, and 
 
 K 5
 
 202 woman's reward. 
 
 wrapt in thought, perhaps unconscious that the 
 last sentence had been spoken aloud ; and then 
 slowly withdrawing his eyes, commenced ano- 
 ther subject. 
 
 Under the guidance of Clavering's masculine 
 and cultivated mind, Mary's faculties expanded 
 day by day. She had no worldly pleasures to 
 distract her attention ; no vexations to render 
 her mind languid and incapable of study ; and 
 she, who thought so meanly of her own capa- 
 bilities of entertaining others, was pronounced 
 by many, besides old Mrs. Bolton, to be the 
 most perfect of companions. 
 
 " If I were but independent ! " often and 
 often rose to Clavering's lips, as he fondly 
 watched her slight figure, while she busied 
 herself arranging cushions and comforts for her 
 grand-aunt ; " if I were but independent ! " 
 thought he, when some one of the " gentle an- 
 swers which turn away wrath," soothed the
 
 woman's reward. 203 
 
 peevish and irritable nerves of the gouty and 
 suffering old woman. " She is so good, so 
 noble, so pure-minded ! but it would not 
 do. Poverty is a curse : a blight which wi- 
 thers up every happy and joyous feeling. 
 The trial would be too much for her ; too 
 much for me ; for I should be wretched, see- 
 ing her suffer the privation of luxuries to 
 which she has always been accustomed. Xo ! 
 let me labour a little longer : let me see my 
 way clear before me, and then" — 
 
 Then the dream might be realised which oc- 
 cupied his heart. 
 
 If it may be objected by any young romancer 
 who peruses tins history, that a peer's son, of 
 promising talents, with chambers in the Tem- 
 ple, and an allowance of three hundred a-year. 
 might have married a girl creditably por- 
 tioned, as Mary was, without any risk of 
 being thought madly imprudent, or any dan-
 
 204 woman's reward. 
 
 ger of being starved; if they think my hero 
 more cautious than is common with heroes 
 when they fall in love, let me remind those 
 young dreamers that Clavering belonged to 
 a class which a graceful and gifted author- 
 ess* has aptly denominated the "poor rich." 
 
 Eight hundred a-year and a profession, is 
 no doubt amply sufficient for the subsist- 
 ence of a young and affectionate couple ; but 
 notions of competency vary according to the 
 habits in which a person has been educated; 
 and what would have been luxury to Jane 
 Bigley and Frank Lawrence, appeared to 
 our young lawyer an impossible existence. 
 
 Nothing could be more splendid than 
 poverty at Clavering Hall. William Clavering 
 recollected that his father constantly com- 
 plained of his poverty, — constantly asserted 
 that he had no money, — was actually obliged 
 * Lady Charlotte Bury.
 
 woman's reward. 205 
 
 to send away six of the fourteen gardeners 
 who were kept in his grandfather's time, — 
 and promoted the under-butler to be head of 
 a diminished establishment, at the time the 
 upper-butler left the family to settle in a 
 villa he had bought at Hampstead, and keep 
 servants of his own. 
 
 Our hero also remembered a distressing 
 scene which had taken place between his 
 father and mother, when he was about eight 
 years old, on the subject of six long-tailed 
 cream-coloured ponies, four of winch his mo- 
 ther used to drive in a low pony-chaise, and 
 the other two were mounted by little " tigers,'' 
 as outriders. The dialogue and his mother's 
 tears were still fresh in his memory. His 
 father, who was a sensible, well-principled 
 man, entered the boudoir of his wife, (who 
 was a beauty and a fool,) and proposed that 
 these ponies should be sold.
 
 206 woman's reward. 
 
 " Sold! good heavens, Clavering! why?" 
 
 " My dear, the keep of those little ani- 
 mals, with their grooms and outriders, and 
 all the rest, does not cost less than eight 
 hundred a-year ; we are in debt, the boys 
 are growing up, and, in short, such fanciful 
 expences as these should be avoided as much 
 as possible." 
 
 " Fanciful expences ! the cadeau you your- 
 self made me on my wedding-day ! Oh, Cla- 
 vering! is it come to this? You who once 
 said you would do any thing for me ! " and 
 the lady burst into tears. 
 
 "So I would do any thing for you, ex- 
 cept ruin myself. It was all very well when 
 you were a mere girl, and loved those child- 
 ish amusements ; but you can't drive long- 
 tailed ponies all your life. Have some con- 
 sideration for your children. Henry and 
 Charles are already old enough to leave
 
 woman's reward. 2ffl 
 
 Eton and go to college ; William must be 
 thought of; the three girls must have mas- 
 ters, if you don't mean them to be entirely 
 brought up by that foolish French gover- 
 ness" 
 
 " How, upon earth, am I to go out ?" sobbed 
 the lady. 
 
 " Why, my dearest Fanny, is there not 
 the britska, and the jaunting car, and the 
 close carriage ? What more can you want I 
 
 " I want my pony-chaise, my ou:n pony- 
 chaise ; people will think you are ruined if 
 they see me driving out in any other man- 
 ner." 
 
 " I had rather they thought I was ruined, 
 and were mistaken; than that it should be 
 true, and my neighbours not expect it." 
 
 " But eight hundred a-year wont ruin you." 
 
 "It is one of a series of articles of need- 
 less expenditure which I mean to reduce."
 
 208 woman's reward. 
 
 " And what am I to do with the game- 
 keeper's children — those beautiful twins at 
 the lodge-gate ? I promised the mother they 
 should be my outriders ; and they were so 
 lovely ! both of a size, and every thing ;" and 
 a fresh burst of tears accompanied this vision 
 of outriders in perspective. 
 
 " We will employ them about the grounds, 
 or in the house ; come, my dear Fanny, be 
 reasonable ; you are too sensible not to see 
 that it is necessary to make some reduction ; 
 give up the ponies, and I will drive you 
 out myself in the britska." 
 
 Lady Clavering loved to be told she was 
 sensible ; she, therefore, replied, 
 
 " Very well, sell them ; but remember, that 
 I made the sacrifice for your sake, remember 
 that ;" and a little concluding sob shook Lady 
 Clavering's delicate frame, and rustled the 
 newspaper, which Lord Clavering had not re-
 
 woman's reward. 209 
 
 linquished, as he passed his arm lightly round 
 her waist, to thank her with a kiss for her 
 acquiescence. 
 
 u A great many women would not have 
 given up the carriage to please any man ; 
 only Clavering is so kind;" thought the lady, 
 as she wiped her eyes after her husband 
 had left the boudoir. 
 
 " To think of Fanny, poor soul, standing 
 out about such childish nonsense, at five- 
 and-thirty ; it's miraculous how foolish women 
 are ! " thought the gentleman, as he descended 
 the broad staircase, whistling, not " for want 
 of thought," but, on the contrary, full of plans 
 and arrangements, winch were to prevent his 
 affairs from becoming utterly deranged. 
 
 Such was the experience of William Cla- 
 vering's childhood, as to the hardships of po- 
 verty. Xo wonder if, in spite of more real, 
 and reasonable views, acquired in later life, he
 
 210 woman's reward. 
 
 still preserved enough of the prejudices of 
 early days, to make his idea of a compe- 
 tency include a showy cab, neat carriage, 
 a house in Curzon Street, and some " capital 
 horses." He had also most overwhelming ideas 
 of female expences, derived from the same 
 source as the history of the long-tailed po- 
 nies ; and as Providence, which clothes the 
 lilies of the field, does not clothe barris- 
 ters' wives, however small may be their net 
 income, but leaves shatter-brained husbands to 
 groan over the toilettes of their tiresome, showy 
 helpmates, without working the necessary mi- 
 racle in their behalf, he naturally dreaded 
 the responsibility he might incur by pro- 
 posing for Miss Dupre. It is very lucky he 
 did not, as, in spite of these obstacles, it is 
 possible he might have been accepted. 
 
 Women in love, always think they can 
 live on twopence a-day, and bake their hus-
 
 woman's reward. 211 
 
 band's bread, or mend their husband's coat, 
 by way of economy. 
 
 However much desired a state of society 
 may be, in which their devotion might be 
 gratified and repaid, and the twopence a-day 
 be found sufficient, it is nevertheless (for the 
 present) an impossibility. Those who marry 
 on an income inadequate to their habitual 
 wants, are generally reproached for the fool- 
 ishness of the step they have taken, by the 
 very man for whom all this economical dis- 
 comfort was incurred; and those who do not 
 marry in that way, are usually upbraided for 
 refusing. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Clavering continued to visit 
 in Spring Gardens, till even old Mrs. Bolton 
 began to suspect that he had other motives 
 besides a wish to amuse and entertain her. 
 Sometimes he even came before the old lady 
 came down to the drawing-room, and, on one
 
 2\% woman's reward. 
 
 of these occasions, he so far forgot himself 
 as to pay Mary a most enthusiastic compli- 
 ment in the most enthusiastic tone. He had 
 been reading the Masque of Comus, and, as 
 he paused and laid his hand on the open 
 page, he said, 
 
 " I think that is the most beautiful de- 
 scription of a pure-minded woman I ever 
 read. You do not see this, because you are 
 all that the poet, in the sublime soaring of 
 his intellectual feeling, only imagined — yes, 
 you are the poet's dream of what woman 
 should be — and, mine," added he, as he 
 gazed on the pale and beautiful face before 
 him, " my dream, sweet Mary." 
 
 Mary bowed her head a little lower over 
 her work, and breathed less freely for a 
 minute or two, and then, in a gentle tone, 
 she said,
 
 woman's reward. 213 
 
 " Will you not finish the poem, Mr. Co- 
 vering ? " 
 
 Lionel's visit to the Bigleys had not been 
 productive of satisfaction. He wrote a long 
 and angry letter to his sister, complaining 
 that the house was even duller than it used 
 to be ; that Jane had grown very affected, 
 and that that fussy, fidgetty, vulgar Mrs. 
 Bigley had taken it into her head that her 
 daughter, at the age of fifteen, ought not 
 to accompany young students in their long 
 walks, or rowings on the river ; that upon 
 one occasion, when he had persuaded Rosa- 
 bel to come and see the hounds throw-off, 
 the whole family fumed and stormed as if 
 he had urged her to commit a murder; and 
 that, in short, he had told them roundly, that 
 he should prefer paying them a visit when 
 Rosabel was at a " less inconvenient age,
 
 214 woman's reward. 
 
 being voted at present too old to come out 
 alone with him, and too young to dine down 
 stairs when there was company. 
 
 Lionel went to Oxford. He won several 
 prizes, and was looked upon as one of the 
 most promising young men there; he was 
 tolerably prudent in his expences, and par- 
 ticularly averse to what the heads of the col- 
 lege were wont to term " low company." He 
 never got drunk or broke lamps, and very 
 rarely touched a card ; always capped his su- 
 periors, and, in short, was a model of de- 
 cency and regularity of conduct. 
 
 The proportion of his vacation spent with 
 Mrs. Bolton, happening generally about the 
 same time as the circuit, Clavering and he 
 saw little of each other ; and the difference 
 of their ages and pursuits reduced that little 
 to the most barren forms of acquaintance. 
 A part of the vacation was still given to
 
 woman's reward. 215 
 
 the Bigleys, who had apparently released 
 Rosabel from all the restraints which her 
 " inconvenient age," as Lionel termed it, had 
 imposed. They were permitted to go when 
 they pleased to Stepney Hill to see the hounds 
 throw-off, and to wander back alone, a two 
 hours' walk, beneath the overhanging hazel 
 branches and wide beech trees which adorned 
 the copse ; or sit, side-by-side, looking into 
 the rippling brook, and lulled into a sort 
 of dreamy forgetfulness by the sound of its 
 waters : or punt down the river to the shady 
 spot where the mayfly danced, and the min- 
 nows leaped, on a fishing excursion. 
 
 The mischief that might eventually have 
 resulted from all these wanderings, and the 
 constant companionship between the hand- 
 some Oxonian and a lovely giddy girl of 
 near sixteen, was prevented by the disposi- 
 tion of Rosabel herself.
 
 216 woman's reward* 
 
 It is an incontestible fact, that there are 
 some understandings which are more slow in 
 coming to maturity than others ; many a 
 man or woman who in early youth was ac- 
 counted dull and common-place, becomes af- 
 terwards remarkable for more steady sense, 
 or even brilliant talent, than those whose 
 precocious intellect ripened and bore fruit 
 in the early spring-time of their lives. 
 
 And as in matters of the understanding, 
 so with the heart ; there are those in whose 
 breasts the dawn of passion is scarcely break- 
 ing, while others, of the same age, have " set 
 their life upon the cast," and, with determined 
 devotion, abide " the hazard of the die." 
 And though I believe the majority of young 
 ladies of sixteen, prize " a beau" beyond all 
 other rarities, yet there are many who would 
 infinitely prefer the gift of a tame squirrel
 
 woman's reward. 217 
 
 or an ivory work-box, to the society of the 
 handsomest of the other sex. 
 
 Such a one was Rosabel. Unimaginative, 
 unintellectual, and unimpassioned, she still pre- 
 served that backwardness in her teens which 
 had been remarked upon when she was but 
 eleven, by the lamented Hyacinth Bigley, 
 who told Lionel that u she seemed younger, 
 because she had such baby ways." 
 
 She was a merry, dancing, romping thing, 
 without a single idea of sentiment or romance 
 in her composition. Her hair, glossy and 
 bright as it was, was seldom under the con- 
 finement of a comb ; she put on her bonnet, 
 invariably, without looking in the glass, and 
 flung it off again on the turf, or tied it to 
 a bough, when it became irksome ; she was 
 never quiet — always laughing or singing, or 
 playing practical jokes on her sisters ; and 
 
 vol. r. L
 
 218 woman's reward. 
 
 she had half-a-dozen tame rabbits, which she 
 did nothing but feed, from morning till night, 
 while they (the sisters) looked out of the 
 window at the militia officers. 
 
 Such was Lionel's companion, " little Ro- 
 sabel" (as the family persisted in calling her). 
 If she had been ugly, she would have been 
 the most common-place and uninteresting of 
 " growing girls ;" but being very much the 
 reverse, with coral lips, sly laughing eyes, 
 and a sunny complexion, her very carelessness 
 and simplicity gave her an additional charm, 
 particularly to Lionel, whose college life had 
 not exactly taught him to respect the fair 
 sex, or to believe in the existence of female 
 virtue much beyond the date which Juliet's 
 nurse assigns to the certainty of her own. 
 
 Better men have made love without ex- 
 actly considering where their courtship was 
 to end ; and Lionel was not in the habit
 
 woman's reward. 219 
 
 of considering any thing but his own pleasure 
 and advantage ; nay, he frequently marred 
 his own plans and crossed his own schemes 
 by utter selfishness in their prosecution, and 
 over-eagerness to enjoy the present moment. 
 There was, therefore, nothing to deter him, 
 when once he took it into his head that 
 he was in love with Rosabel, from making 
 her aware of that fact ; and, as they pro- 
 ceeded slowly along the accustomed path, 
 catching, from time to time, glimpses of the 
 blue river through the shifting hazel boughs, 
 he revolved in Iris mind the probable success 
 of a copy of verses, at that moment in his 
 left waistcoat pocket, towards enlightening the 
 rmnd of his fair companion as to his senti- 
 ments. 
 
 It was a summer's day; one of those days when 
 the very banks and mounds of turf seem to bask 
 gladly in the sun, and give out a warm and 
 
 l 2
 
 220 
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 dry and delicious fragrance — a mingled scent 
 of earth and moss and roots and thyme, which 
 tempts you to fling yourself down, and bask 
 with them, in the eye of the golden sun. Here, 
 under the hedges, peeps out the wild gera- 
 nium with its woolly stem, the white star- 
 flower, and the wreathing and scented dog- 
 rose, longing for a breeze. There, the broad 
 oak spreads out its knotted arms, covered 
 with rich green foliage, as if offering hospi- 
 tality to the tired traveller ; and as you re- 
 cline beneath its boughs, with the warm sky 
 above, and the warm turf below, what breaks 
 the deep and glowing silence? The chirp 
 of the field cricket, the booming sound of 
 the flight of the labouring bee, the striking 
 of some distant village clock, whose spire 
 rises like a silver line on the blue heavens, 
 or the dropping of the ripe acorns on the 
 earth where you lie.
 
 woman's reward. 221 
 
 Oh, the glory of a summer's day ! the list- 
 less yet fervent glory of a summer's day ! 
 "Who has not felt it ; and yet who shall en- 
 deavour to clothe in cold and feeble words 
 the memory of those golden hours ? Poetry 
 cannot satisfy us with its imagery ; nor paint- 
 ing, with its thousand tints. We want more ! 
 we want the glow, the perfume, the bird's 
 glancing wing, the insect's busy hum ; we 
 turn from the picture, we fling down the 
 page, and dream ourselves back again in some 
 sheltered nook, whose remembered sunshine is 
 enough. 
 
 How few reflect upon that common plea- 
 sure which results from our sense of the 
 beauties of nature ; and yet, when we con- 
 sider what a store and power of this feeling 
 has been heaped upon the inhabitants of 
 our imperfect world — how we have been 
 given an enjoyment which depends not on
 
 222 woman's reward. 
 
 the vexing cares of life, which man's ty- 
 ranny cannot take away, nor man's sorrow 
 wither up — how we are continually allowed 
 to indulge in a luxury of the senses, far be- 
 yond all the triumphs and excitements of 
 our common and artificial life, surely we 
 should lift up our hearts in thankfulness, and 
 bless the God who permits his sun to shine 
 on the just and the unjust, who makes all 
 great and intense pleasures an equal blessing 
 to the rich and poor, and gives to the mean- 
 est of his creatures a dim foretaste of that 
 heaven where love of Him, and admiration 
 of His works, shall suffice in their single- 
 ness to fill the hearts which struggled with 
 so many divers and contrary passions during 
 their trial here.
 
 woman's reward. 223 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Oh, most gentle Jupiter ! What tedious homily of love 
 You have humoured your parishioners withal ; and 
 Never cried "have patience, good people." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 " Let us sit here," said Lionel, as they came 
 to a bank which sloped towards the river : 
 " Let us sit here, and I will read you some 
 lines I have made to you." 
 
 "To me? No, have you really? Oh! do 
 read them. — What fun ! " 
 
 Though the expression, " what fun," grated 
 unpleasantly on Lionel's ears, and seemed to
 
 224 woman's reward. 
 
 him not at all the sort of feeling that should 
 have been excited by his information, he ne- 
 vertheless unfolded the paper, and read as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Bright girl, within whose shadowy eyes." 
 
 " I don't like the beginning at all, Mr. 
 Dupre ! I can't bear to be called ' bright 
 girl,' " said Rosabel, as she picked up a peb- 
 ble and flung it in the water. 
 
 " Well, take it as it is written now, and I 
 will alter it afterwards," said Lionel, impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 Bright girl, within whose shadowy eyes 
 The dancing light of laughter lies, 
 
 To mock thy lover's dreaming; 
 (Who fain would see that mirthful ray 
 In Passion's twilight sink away, 
 
 More softly, dimly beaming.)
 
 woman's reward, 225 
 
 Thy heart, as yet, is coldly free, 
 (While many a heart consumes for thee, 
 
 Now worshipping, now hating;) 
 And by the fountain of its springs 
 Love idly sleeps with folded wings, 
 
 His day of triumph waiting. 
 
 But thou the common lot must share, 
 And passion only slumbers there 
 
 The term that Fate allows him : 
 Oh ! since thy heart must feel at last, 
 And he must wake, who slept so fast, — 
 
 Be mine the voice to rouse him ! 
 
 Mine be thy love ! the wild, the first. 
 Which cold experience hath not nurst, 
 
 Which knows nor bound nor measure ; 
 What time thy young and startled heart, 
 Shrank from the god^s unerring dart, 
 
 And fear'd the painful pleasure. 
 
 Mine be the transport first to drink 
 Those wavering tones, which rise and sink 
 Through many a fond digression : 
 L 5
 
 226 woman's reward. 
 
 Falt'ring with love, and faint with fear, 
 Unwilling that thyself should hear 
 
 Thy timid tongue's confession. 
 
 Mine be the glance whose shrinking rays 
 Elude the searching stranger gaze ; 
 
 The eye a word abashes, 
 Which vainly droops the curtaining lid, 
 Conscious that some new power lies hid 
 
 Beneath its trembling lashes. 
 
 For soon the wily heart doth learn 
 
 To feed or quench the flames that burn 
 
 Upon love's glowing altar, 
 And eyes forget the look they wore 
 And cheeks which crimson 'd blush no more, 
 
 And voices cease to falter ; 
 
 Till Passion, Love's degraded son, 
 Usurps his abdicated throne, 
 
 Mad tyrant of an hour, 
 Creates a wild and treacherous flame, 
 And spends in deeds of crime and shame 
 
 His transitory power.
 
 woman's reward. 221 
 
 Oh ! save me from the broken charm, 
 Give me thy heart while fresh and warm. 
 
 Its innocence is living, — 
 With all the simple hopes and fears, 
 That hang around thy girlish years, 
 
 And make it worth thy giving ! 
 
 " Is that all? " asked Rosabel. 
 
 " Yes ; but you have not been listening. 
 You have been flinging stones into the water 
 all the time :" and Lionel sighed. 
 
 "Don't vex yourself," said his companion, 
 as suddenly leaning her unbonneted head 
 back on his shoulder, she looked up in his 
 face. " I assure you I listened with all my 
 ears; but there was some I could not under- 
 stand." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " No. Indeed there was a good deal I did 
 not understand, but particularly the last part, 
 about passion and tyrants : it was too histori-
 
 228 woman's reward* 
 
 cal for me. / don't care about poetry. — Jane 
 likes it." 
 
 The beauty of the sunny face which looked 
 up to his, moderated Lionel's wrath and mor- 
 tification. 
 
 " In plain prose then, Rosabel, — my own 
 pretty Rosabel, — do you love me ? " and he 
 bent passionately and eagerly towards her, as 
 if afraid of losing even the tone of her an- 
 swer. 
 
 That answer broke the charm. 
 
 " Yes, indeed I do ! heartily, dearly, — when 
 you are kind, and not selfish or violent." 
 
 " Let us go home ! " said Lionel, starting 
 up, and turning in that direction. 
 
 Rosabel followed, after a pause of surprise, 
 and they walked on in silence. 
 
 There was a part of their walk at which 
 they always stopped; an open burst which 
 commanded a sudden view of the river. Lionel
 
 woman's reward. 229 
 
 mechanically paused at the accustomed rest- 
 ing-place, and leaning against a beautiful beech 
 tree, stood apparently watching the boats which 
 glided backwards and forwards on the water. 
 He felt disappointed, mortified and puzzled. 
 Rosabel stood by him; at length she turned 
 and spoke. It was the first time he had ever 
 heard her speak in a serious and prepared 
 tone, and it struck him. 
 
 " Mr. Dupre," said she, "if you meant that 
 I should love you in the way they do in ro- 
 mances," — and there she made a long pause, 
 " I never loved any one in that way. But I 
 will try. — Shall I try ? M added she, the arch 
 smile returning to her pretty mouth. Then, 
 as Lionel impatiently withdrew his hand, she 
 said, " If I did not love you in some way, I 
 should not be so sorry at seeing you are 
 vexed." 
 
 And these were the last words they ever
 
 230 woman's reward. 
 
 spoke on the subject. From that day there 
 was no illusion about Rosabel in Lionel's heart, 
 and during the few days he remained, though 
 they walked and sailed together as usual, (for 
 Lionel was not at all ambitious that their love 
 scene should be known to Mr. and Mrs. Big- 
 ley,) his manner had assumed a sort of harsh- 
 ness and carelessness, and her's was an endea- 
 vour to behave as she did before, sadly inter- 
 rupted from time to time by the remembrance 
 of Lionel's verses, and his speech on the occa- 
 sion of their being read. 
 
 Had Lionel known that every syllable of 
 that conversation (as nearly as she could re- 
 collect it), was repeated by Rosabel to her 
 mother, while she was arranging the flowers 
 she had gathered in her walk homewards on 
 that eventful day, he would have been some- 
 what puzzled to account for the continued in- 
 dulgence of the society of that once strictly
 
 woman's reward. 231 
 
 guarded young lady ; and still more astonished 
 would lie have been had he been made aware 
 that at the conclusion of this confession, Mrs. 
 Bigley merely patted her daughter's cheek, 
 and called her " a foolish little puss." 
 
 The fact is, that nothing could be more 
 agreeable to Mrs. B., than what she was 
 pleased to term, " the growing attachment 
 between the young people." She exulted in 
 her own wisdom which had foreseen the effect 
 of her daughter's charms while a mere child, 
 and was only restrained from making Rosabel 
 a partner in her plans, by the feeling which 
 prompts us to be cautious of our movements 
 while feeding a fawn — a fear of startling what 
 we only meant to tame.
 
 232 woman's reward. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 No courtier's face, and yet its smile was ready, — 
 No scholar's, yet its look was deep and steady, — 
 No soldier's, for its power was all of mind 
 Too true for violence, and too refined. 
 And wheresoe'er his fine frank eyes were thrown, 
 He struck the looks he wished for with his own. 
 
 Meanwhile, William Clavering continued to 
 be a constant visitor at Mrs. Bolton's. A 
 sort of tacit agreement subsisted between the 
 inmates of the house that he was the unac- 
 knowledged suitor of Miss Dupre ; and Cla- 
 vering himself when speaking of the future, 
 in the presence of the old lady, invariably 
 appeared to look forward to their sharing it
 
 woman's reward. 
 
 together. He rose rapidly in his profession, 
 and became a marked man : one of whom 
 much was prognosticated, and in whose suc- 
 cess many seemed interested ; his father grew 
 prouder of the only son who at all resembled 
 himself; and it was without opposition that 
 he heard Iris eldest son declare, that nothing 
 should ever induce him again to be at the 
 bore of standing for the Borough of Wel- 
 lingby, and with secret self-gratulation that 
 he planned the substitution of William Co- 
 vering's name in the hand-bills and addresses. 
 And Mary, too, looked forward to the gra- 
 dual development of better prospects for her 
 lover, and the glory which she doubted not 
 would at length encircle his name, with satis- 
 faction and pleasure ; though that worldly 
 success could have added nothing to the deep, 
 the humble, the devoted tenderness which she 
 already bore him.
 
 234? woman's reward. 
 
 Her's was not a proud heart; she had 
 always been accustomed to consider herself 
 the least and the last among those with 
 whom she lived, to sacrifice her own will, 
 and to bend even to caprices unmurmur- 
 ingly. Her attachment, therefore, had more 
 of submissiveness in it, more singleness of 
 heart and purpose, than is usual, even 
 amongst women. 
 
 She hoped, she expected to be his wife, 
 after two or three years' toil in his profes- 
 sion ; and all her plans for study, all her fast- 
 acquired knowledge of the management of a 
 limited income, all her pleasures, and all her 
 toils, were with one view : to prevent his 
 feeling hereafter the sacrifice he had made: — 
 he, the proud, the gifted, the beloved, in 
 forgetting the worldly advantages of rank, 
 wealth, and connexion, to make her happy. 
 
 She had not the lofty soul which, placed
 
 woman's reward. 235 
 
 on its imaginary pedestal, exclaims, " make 
 yourself worthy of me, and you shall win 
 me ; strive, endure, look forward to your re- 
 ward, succeed in all you attempt, and the 
 last and crowning success of all shall be, the 
 heart, the proud and swelling heart, I have 
 to offer." Her's was the timid and adoring 
 love so beautifully expressed by Milton : 
 
 He for God only — she for God in him ; 
 
 and such was woman originally intended to 
 feel. 
 
 Humble, trusting, and willing to be guided, 
 should that woman's love be who looks for- 
 ward to becoming the wife of her beloved. 
 Let the mistress, whose uncertain reign is, 
 perhaps, to end when her pride has at length 
 bowed to her lover, offer herself as a prize 
 to be won by exertion, and bought by fame. 
 It is better to feel as we walk, side-by-side,
 
 236 woman's reward. 
 
 through the thorny paths of life, that reli- 
 gion, and an habitual enthusiasm for the 
 right, are sufficient to urge the man to all 
 that is noble, to all that is stirring, to all 
 that is glorious ; and that to the woman he 
 can turn for the repose, the peace, the sun- 
 shine of his life. 
 
 In romances, it is the custom, amid a thou- 
 sand other distorted images, to make the dei- 
 fied heroine the great object of all her lover's 
 efforts to be good or great, perhaps the star 
 to which many turn their ambitious thoughts, 
 till at length, after a series of adventures, 
 she is given, like a cup at Ascot, to the 
 best runner. This is not just, it is not na- 
 tural, it is almost ridiculous; and when we 
 read such histories, we involuntarily ask our- 
 selves what became of that over-weening su- 
 periority when the race was over, and the 
 prize won ? Is it likely that a woman who
 
 woman's reward. 237 
 
 has thought herself the Jirst object half her 
 life, will be contented to become the second 
 for the remaining half? and that too when 
 years have made the heart more selfish, the 
 habits more fixed, the reason less malleable ? 
 Is it likely that the man whose excited ima- 
 gination has so long worshipped the ideal of 
 his own heart in a human form, will, when 
 the real woman is his, with all the faults 
 and follies which all must have, is it pro- 
 bable, I say, that he will bear the assump- 
 tion of a superiority, the illusion of whose 
 existence he has abjured ? Xo ! the " purple 
 light of love" is like the glow of sunshine 
 on a landscape — much that is wild and sa- 
 vage, seems only magnificent ; much that is 
 flat and tame, appears only fair and peaceful. 
 The harsh lines are melted in the blue misty 
 distance, the uninteresting hills are varied 
 with a thousand tints ; but let the glow fade,
 
 238 woman's reward. 
 
 and, lo ! the real and naked lines offend our 
 eyes, and disappoint our hearts. So in our 
 lives: the glow must fade; and it requires 
 all the submissive tenderness of the woman 
 to prevent the chill that comes over us 
 when forced to look on things with the 
 aspect of reality. 
 
 It may be said, and with truth, that there 
 are many women married to men over whom 
 they must feel their superiority — the worse 
 for them ! but there are no women who are 
 obliged to show that they feel it. A clever 
 man is repulsed by such an assumption ; a 
 fool finds it unbearable. Did we not know 
 that, as society is at present constituted, cir- 
 cumstances, rather than freedom of choice, 
 influence half the marriages that are made, 
 we might blame those women who have 
 carved out for themselves such a fate ; but 
 be that as it may, no woman ever loved
 
 woman's reward. 239 
 
 truly and completely who thought herself 
 wiser or better than the object of her at- 
 tachment; nor was any man ever contented 
 with such attachment. 
 
 One of the most simple associations in the 
 mind of a man who loves, is that of being 
 strong to defend and protect the loved one. 
 He feels instinctively that she is indeed the 
 " weaker vessel ;" and the woman who car- 
 ries into her home the consciousness (real or 
 fancied; of her superiority, carries with her 
 a poison winch will embitter the cup for life. 
 
 Such a consciousness Mary Dupre was not 
 likely to feel; but had she been as proud as 
 Moore's beautiful fiction of Lilis, in " The 
 Loves of the Angels/' she might have been 
 content to love and admire "William Clavering. 
 
 There was something so noble, straightfor- 
 ward, and independent, in his character, so 
 frank and winning' in his manner, that it
 
 240 woman's reward. 
 
 seemed impossible to mistake the one, or not 
 to feel the charm of the other. His counte- 
 nance was a counterpart of his mind. Pope's 
 picturesque description of his friend James 
 Craggs, might have been applied with equal 
 truth and justice to Mary Dupre's lover. 
 
 " A soul as full of worth, as void of pride, 
 Which nothing seeks to show nor needs to hide, 
 Which nor to guilt, nor fear, its caution owes, 
 And hoasts a warmth that from no passion flows. 
 The face untaught to feign, the judging eye 
 Which darts severe upon the rising lie, 
 And strikes a blush through frontless flattery." 
 
 Clavering's soul was indeed full of enthu- 
 siasm the most pure and lofty. His profes- 
 sion required, and obtained, steady and deter- 
 mined attention. He might have preferred 
 another, but the law was chosen for him, and 
 once chosen, he showed neither indolence nor 
 wavering, nor irresolution. While he never lost
 
 woman's reward. 241 
 
 sight of the end, he scrupled not to gather 
 the flowers by the way. History, biography, 
 poetry, were his relaxation and delight ; and 
 his was not the feverish pleasure of the in- 
 tellectual dreamer, it was the energetic sym- 
 pathy of a bold and active mind. In general 
 he preferred works which treated more of actions 
 than of feelings. The stirring and spirited scenes 
 from the old Greek authors ; many passages of 
 Walter Scott's undervalued poetry ; Milton's 
 sublime and forcible conceptions ; and Shak- 
 speare, that master of the secrets of all human 
 hearts ; — these were his favourites ; and with 
 Mary Dupre his fervor was not checked by 
 feeling that he was not comprehended, nor 
 his sudden recollection of a beautiful passage 
 in a classic author, damped by any want of 
 knowledge of the language on the part of 
 his companion. Mary had studied under her 
 father, had read with her brother, and to her 
 vol. i. M
 
 242 woman's reward. 
 
 the language was familiar, — the tone alone was 
 new ; and to that rich and mellow voice she 
 listened as we listen to the sound of an organ 
 in a cathedral. Awe, and love, and enthu- 
 siasm, mingled and melting into one strange 
 and overpowering feeling. 
 
 Clavering had besides, what a French au- 
 thor * has aptly described under the title of 
 genie artiste. Every thing man's genius could 
 compass, found as it were a ready sympathy 
 and congratulation in his heart. To borrow 
 nearly the words of my author, " He felt 
 himself a painter when he gazed upon the 
 creations of Rubens and Salvator Rosa ; a 
 sculptor before the glorious statues of Italy; 
 an architect while he admired the aspiring- 
 height of cathedral buildings ; a poet while 
 
 * Jacob.
 
 woman's reward. 243 
 
 he read Shakspeare ; an actor as he watched 
 that noble realization of Shakspeare's dreams, 
 John Philip Kemble." Music alone was a 
 lesser enthusiasm with him. He was care- 
 less about it ; and Mary grew to think less 
 of this her favourite accomplishment : she read 
 more, and practised less : she thought that an 
 intrusion which prevented her from hearing 
 him ; and with the ready prejudice of woman, 
 set it down as an axiom in her own mind, 
 that ''very intellectual men were rarely fond 
 of music." 
 
 There was one other circumstance which 
 struck Mary in after-years as a peculiarity. 
 Clavering never " made love/' She would 
 have found it impossible to explain to a third 
 person why she believed he was attached to 
 her. He had never addressed her bv her 
 christian name : never paid her a compliment
 
 244 woman's reward. 
 
 (except on the memorable occasion when they 
 read the Masque of Comus) : rarely even 
 took her hand at parting. He sometimes, 
 indeed, paused when reading or speaking, and 
 gazed on her for some minutes in silence ; 
 but it was not the earnest look of passion or 
 admiration. Quietly he gazed, as if contem- 
 plating some beautiful picture or statue, and 
 slowly turning to his book, read on in the 
 same tone as before. And so accustomed 
 was Mary to his manner, that she sometimes 
 ventured on a slight, half-playful smile, when 
 these fits of momentary abstraction lasted 
 longer than usual, as if to recal him to him- 
 self. 
 
 Whether this absence of all expressions of 
 love, in one so ardent by nature, was the re- 
 sult of voluntary caution, or involuntary re- 
 spect ; or whether, vague and distant as were
 
 woman's reward. 245 
 
 his hopes of realising an independence, lie 
 dared not trust himself to use the forms of 
 tenderness with one whom he might never be 
 able to call his own, is uncertain. Perhaps 
 a mixture of all these causes led to the man- 
 ner which he adopted towards Mary, and 
 which had become habitual. Perhaps he was 
 contented to enjoy a present so satisfactory, 
 without looking into an uncertain future for 
 more. Be that as it may, Mary might have 
 been a young and beloved college companion 
 for any symptom he showed of remembering- 
 she was a beautiful woman ; and while she 
 worshipped him in her heart as a lover, she 
 felt at her ease in his presence as with une 
 who was a valued friend and nothing more. 
 She was happy and contented in the vague 
 belief that she was beloved. She waited not 
 with trembling expectation the moment when
 
 246 woman's reward. 
 
 he would avow it. She woke in the morn- 
 ing with a glad consciousness of existence ; 
 she lay down to rest with a quiet gratitude 
 to God who had made her path so smooth 
 and easy, her duties so light and pleasant to 
 fulfil ; and old Mrs. Bolton, declared (per- 
 haps with truth), that her countenance at 
 this time grew even more gentle in its cheer- 
 fulness — her voice even sweeter in its 
 tones. 
 
 Yes, for three years the fulness of content- 
 ment was in her heart, and had all her life's 
 hopes been fulfilled, perhaps those quiet years 
 would still have been the happiest to look 
 back upon. 
 
 It is so seldom that we win peace ! So 
 seldom ! Do we ever win it ? The states- 
 man who devotes his youth to the struggles 
 of ambition — the inventor of mechanical im-
 
 woman's reward. 248 
 
 provements, who starves his own generation 
 to bestow incalculable benehts on the next — 
 the fond idealist who dreams restlessly through 
 his youth, and dies uselessly in his old age — 
 the man of the world, whose narrow heart is 
 full of busy vanities, — all look forward to its 
 enjoyment : but life passes ; (I speak of suc- 
 cessful lives ;) and when the statesman has won 
 power, and place, and patronage — when the 
 utilitarian has realised a shadow}* portion of 
 some single plan — when the poet is feted, 
 flattered, and caressed — and the man of the 
 world has become an oracle in his own little circle 
 — peace is still a distant dream ! Old age creeps 
 on. Into the narrow bound of a few feeble 
 years, they crowd all that youth's strong ener- 
 gies were to have achieved. The arm of des- 
 tiny urges them forward : they totter to the 
 grave. Alas! Death's curtain falls on hopes
 
 248 woman's reward. 
 
 half fulfilled ; plans half matured ; energies 
 weakened, but still at work ; — it is over ! 
 Life is over ; and peace is yet unwon ! 
 
 Tis done ! no further thirst have they to slake : 
 It is unquench'd, and yet they feel it not. 
 It was an agony — and now forgot !
 
 woman's reward. 124J) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 When all forsake thee, I will stand by thee 
 When all oppose thee, I will comfort thee 
 When all look dark on thee — / still will smile ! 
 
 Old Play. 
 
 And if I were a beggar's bratte 
 
 You moughte ha let me be, 
 
 I should never have come to the king's courte 
 
 To crave any love of thee ! 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 The peace and monotony of Mary's life was 
 soon to end. Lionel's education was finished: 
 he was of age. The judicious Mr. Patterson 
 had, by his desire, purchased for him a small 
 place in Yorkshire, which, if the auctioneer- 
 ing advertisement might be credited, had more 
 lawns, pleasure-grounds, fountains, groves, out- 
 buildings, farmsteads, stablings, See. than any 
 
 m 5
 
 250 woman's reward. 
 
 other estate of the same magnitude ever boast- 
 ed, besides the fact of the family mansion being 
 " the most desirable of residences." 
 
 Lionel not being exactly of opinion that 
 the last eulogium was correct, sent for an able 
 architect, and requesting him to pull down 
 and build up as much as was requisite to 
 make it as desirable as other country gentle- 
 men's residences, — to raze to the ground a 
 hideous cramped gothic lodge at the gate of 
 the park, and substitute one of a rustic order ; 
 and to fit particular rooms in a particular 
 manner for his sister Mary: — wrote to an- 
 nounce his intended arrival in Spring Gar- 
 dens on a certain day; previous to which he 
 was to accompany Mr. Patterson to the 
 Bigley's, who were exceedingly impatient to 
 see him, and talk over affairs. 
 
 " How kind his letter is," said Mary to her- 
 self, as she read the sentence which alluded
 
 woman's reward. 251 
 
 to the arrangements made for her future com- 
 fort. " How thoughtful of one who is gene- 
 rally so giddy ! Oh, how happy we shall be 
 altogether ! " 
 
 And the we included in Mary's visionary 
 picture, a lawyer, then absent on the circuit. 
 
 The day at length arrived which was to 
 bring that beloved brother to her arms. She 
 read Iris short letter again, aloud to old Mrs. 
 Bolton, to be sure that she had made no mis- 
 take ; and she took her work to the window, 
 though she was aware that looking out on 
 the parks would not facilitate his journey. 
 
 When we are impatient for an arrival, how 
 we dislike the walls and boundaries of our 
 dwelling! — How we long to go, were it only 
 a mile, to meet those dear ones on their 
 way. How restlessly we pace up and down, 
 and gaze upon the clock, as if watching the 
 moments made them fly Ulster.
 
 252 woman's reward. 
 
 At length the sound of a gig rolling up to 
 the door was heard, the bell was impatiently 
 rung, a light step bounded up the stairs, and 
 Lionel Dupre, radiant with beauty, and shak- 
 ing the snow from his white box-coat, clasped 
 his sister in his arms. 
 
 "My own dear brother!" exclaimed Mary, 
 as half tears, half smiles, she repeatedly em- 
 braced him ; then pausing and gazing at him, 
 she said, " and I declare you are handsomer 
 than ever!" and she took his hat, and the 
 heavy coat, of which he had disencumbered 
 himself while she spoke, and drawing a large 
 arm-chair forward to the fire, added, "my 
 grand-aunt will be here in a moment, and you 
 will have dinner." 
 
 " Thank you, love ; and now let me intro- 
 duce you to a gentleman you have overlooked 
 in your attentions to me, my friend Lord Alfred 
 Arlington ; drove me up in five hours ; I am
 
 woman's reward. 253 
 
 sure his hands must be frozen, and his fingers 
 dropping off." 
 
 " Won't you come near the fire also ? " said 
 Mary, quietly, as she bowed to her shy guest. 
 
 And now, for the first time, the costume 
 which both friends wore, struck her as extraor- 
 dinary. Lionel was so divinely handsome, and 
 of a beauty so picturesque, that whatever sin- 
 gularity he chose to assume, merely made him 
 more like a painter's model ; and as he stood 
 in the rough great -coat and scarlet handker- 
 chief, his luxuriant auburn hair disordered 
 and crisp with the damp snow-flakes which had 
 drifted in the faces of the travellers, and his 
 eyes bright with their rarest expression, that of 
 frank and hearty gladness, Mary thought she 
 had never beheld any one so completely a beau- 
 ideal of what man should be. 
 
 But Lord Alfred Arlington was anything but 
 a beau-ideal. He had that peculiar lank, and
 
 254 woman's reward. 
 
 yet heavy figure, which is invariably accom- 
 panied with a shambling step and a stoop in the 
 shoulders, as if the offender knew he had no 
 right to be so tall, and was doing his best to 
 conceal the fact. His eyes were small, and of 
 the palest grey ; his nose long and red, his lips 
 thin and compressed, and he appeared quite as 
 shy as Mr. Patterson at Portsmouth, and infi- 
 nitely more awkward. He was dressed like a 
 very smart stage-coachman, and after he had 
 pulled his thick gloves off his thin frozen fin- 
 gers, he remained still dangling his hands 
 before him, as if he did not exactly know 
 what to do with them, when they were not 
 employed with the reins, or, as he was wont to 
 term them, " the ribands" 
 
 At dinner, after he had eat and drunk, and 
 been thoroughly warmed, a change took place 
 in his deportment; he talked loud and fast, 
 and laughed amazingly at his own stories ;
 
 woman's reward. 255 
 
 made use of a number of slang phrases, called 
 his father " the stingy old governor," reckoned 
 up his winnings and losings last Doncaster, 
 wished his creditors might " get him," (Mary 
 wished they could,) described several hair- 
 breadth escapes on horseback, each of which 
 he termed a " capital go," and, in short, con- 
 versed in a style which, when gentlemen are 
 inclined to use, they should bring an inter- 
 preter with them. He had, besides, a long 
 list of friends, whose sponsorial cognomens were 
 changed into nicknames, commemorating some 
 forgotten jest, or expressive of their various 
 good qualities. He had a friend called " Tum- 
 ble-down-Dick," one known by the name of 
 " Sopsy," one (a prodigious favorite) called 
 " Old Hearty," and a hundred others, includ- 
 ing Bedlam Jack, which meant Jack Conolly. 
 It was particularly hard upon " Sopsy," who 
 was a handsome half-pay captain, with a po-
 
 256 woman's reward. 
 
 sitive and hereditary claim (his only inherit- 
 ance) to the name and surname of Altamont 
 Percy. 
 
 Mary was a gentle, unprejudiced creature, 
 but on this occasion she condemned more has- 
 tily than was customary with her ; indeed, it 
 must be confessed, that, to use a common 
 phrase, " she took a dislike" to Lord Alfred. 
 
 After he had wished them good night, asked 
 Lionel Dupre for a cigar, and fairly departed, 
 Lionel turned eagerly to his sister. 
 
 " Now, dearest Mary," said he, " that Arling- 
 ton's gone, (he 's an excellent fellow, but a 
 dreadful gossip,) I wish to tell you something. 
 I have quarrelled with the Bigleys." 
 
 " Quarrelled with the Bigleys ! Ah ! Leo." 
 
 " Now my own gentle sister, don't begin to 
 look reproachful already. I know all you 
 would say about past kindness, and bearing 
 with people, and so forth ; but these people
 
 woman's reward. 257 
 
 are unbearable. I know I was wrong to be so 
 violent with that sneaking, obstinate, inso- 
 lent—" 
 
 " Stop your invectives, my clear brother, 
 and explain to me quietly what has happened. 
 What did you quarrel about ?" 
 
 " About the girl, little Rosabel as they call 
 her. Conceive their expecting me to marry 
 her ! Producing a note I had written when I 
 was about fourteen, asking after my ' little 
 wife's' cold in her head ; swearing to my face, 
 and before Mr. Patterson, that I had made 
 love to her from the first day I knew her, and 
 blurting out a farrago of nonsense about her 
 heart breaking, and her pale cheeks and alter- 
 ed ways, her private sadness and concealed 
 tears, when all the while I knew her to be as 
 pretty a piece of chill stupidity as ever listened 
 to a love-speech." 
 
 u Then you have made love to her ?"
 
 258 woman's reward. 
 
 " No, not exactly made love : I wrote her a 
 copy of verses, and read them to her." 
 
 " And has she got the verses ?" 
 
 " Yes : at least she had them." 
 
 " And have you never written to her ? Is 
 the note inquiring after your wife's cold, the 
 only autograph preserved in the family ?" 
 
 " No ; I used to write now and then : If I 
 had anything to say to Bigley about my com- 
 ing, I generally wrote it to her; and I once 
 sent her a water-spaniel, with directions how to 
 feed it when it was sick : but there is not a line 
 or a syllable which might not be read at Char- 
 ing Cross." 
 
 There was a pause, while the servant put on 
 coals. 
 
 " But, my dear Leo, I do not yet see how 
 you contrived to quarrel. I suppose you said 
 the usual civil speeches ; that you admire^ 
 and liked Rosabel of all things, but that you
 
 woman's reward. 259 
 
 had never thought of marrying her ; that you 
 had every reason to believe she had no parti- 
 ality for you ; and that you were sorry if, by 
 any imprudence of manner, you had led them 
 
 to believe " 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear Mary ; I said no such 
 thing. How should I know what her partiali- 
 ties are ? I dare say she likes me now, out of 
 the sheer spirit of contradiction. Besides, I 
 was too angry to remember what I ought to 
 say ; it was after dinner, and they had all been 
 drinking my health, and different toasts, and 
 Bigley's half-drunk manner was so immeasure- 
 ably insolent. I believe I said every thing I 
 ought not to say ; reproached them with plot- 
 ting, and leaving the girl continually alone 
 with me ; declared I would sooner be hanged, 
 than marry the daughter of a yellow-wigged 
 Norfolk attorney ; sneered at Bigley's cunning, 
 which had overreached no one but himself;
 
 260 woman's reward. 
 
 called the mother a fat old hypocrite, and the 
 daughter a cold simpleton; advised them to 
 marry her among her equals, and look out 
 another Frank Lawrence " 
 
 " Oh! stop, Lionel — stop: how could 
 you!" 
 
 " I have just finished my narrative, my dear 
 Mary; don't interrupt me — I will listen to 
 you afterwards. I don't exactly recollect all I 
 said, but it was all in that style ; (I wonder 
 they did not propose to me to become one of 
 the firm !) and I remember striking the table 
 till the glasses shivered, while I expressed my 
 determination of never again entering their 
 doors. Then Bigley laid his hand on my arm, 
 and (with a countenance whose pale and cun- 
 ning rage I never shall forget) said, in a husky 
 voice, ' If I an't revenged on you for this night, 
 my name 's not Samuel Bigley.' " 
 
 And the vengeance that was threatened, Mr.
 
 woman's reward. 261 
 
 Samuel Bigley was not slow to perform. He 
 commenced an action against Lionel for breach 
 of promise of marriage, in his daughter's name ; 
 to that daughter he repeated what Lionel had 
 said, with a thousand insulting additions ; de- 
 claring that he had boasted of her passion for 
 him. and laughed to scorn the idea of his being 
 in love with her. 
 
 This mixture of cunning lies and exagge- 
 rated truth had its effect upon the wayward 
 and rebellious heart of young Rosabel ; she 
 gave up to her father all the letters she had 
 ever received from Mr. Dupre, yielding to the 
 vehement prayers, and still more vehement 
 threats which he employed; and she listened 
 to that father's determination to avenge the 
 insult they had mutually sustained, with feel- 
 ings almost as fiery as his own. 
 
 The verses and notes thus delivered to Big- 
 ley, were copied out; words were erased, and 
 
 words inserted in the original ; and even where 
 vol. i. M*
 
 262 woman's reward 
 
 this was not done, it was surprising to see how 
 little what had been written, without a thought 
 of its being read by more than the person 
 addressed, would bear public inspection. 
 
 Bigley's small blue eyes twinkled with fierce 
 satisfaction, as he listened (after his own evi- 
 dence had been given), to the evidence afforded 
 by the tender epistles he had handed over to 
 the officer of the court. The mechanical and 
 changeless tone in which every line and syllable 
 of those letters were repeated, fell on his ear 
 sweet as music ; and he looked round trium- 
 phantly, as if already certain of a verdict in 
 his favour, every time a sentence was read 
 which appeared to prejudice the opinions of 
 those in court. 
 
 In that very letter which Lionel had specially 
 mentioned as fit to be read out at Charing 
 Cross, there was the following equivocal and re- 
 markable expression: — "Surely, dearest Rosy, 
 nobody has a better right to give you presents
 
 woman's reward. 263 
 
 than myself, nobody so good a one ; so doiit talk 
 of refusing, or I shall think you altered. ' Love 
 me, love my dog,' is my motto ; and it is engraved 
 on the collar of the little companion I send.'' 
 
 This was one of the passages especially dwelt 
 upon by the lawyer who was employed to con- 
 duct Miss Bigley's case ; and indeed he ex- 
 patiated so movingly on the extreme youth, 
 beauty, and innocence of the fair plaintiff — 
 dwelt so much upon the treachery of the young 
 man who had made so base a return for her 
 father's hospitality, and appealed to the jury 
 in so impassioned and indignant a style, as to 
 the amount of damages, that the imaginary 
 worth of Miss Rosabel's wounded and mis- 
 placed affections, rose in the judgment of those 
 who listened, to an inestimable value. 
 
 It was impossible, according to the opinion 
 of the hearers, that excessive and enormous 
 damages should not be awarded ; and it was 
 miraculous to see the composed triumph which
 
 264 woman's reward. 
 
 sate on the features of Mr. Jennings, the 
 lawyer who was to conduct the defence. He 
 heard, unmoved, the pathetic address of his 
 opponent, and sate feuilletant his own brief, in 
 which an equally affecting case was made out 
 for the wronged Lionel. The arch-traitor was 
 here represented as a young and innocent or- 
 phan, who, left without friends to guard him, 
 found only a grasping mercenary in the person 
 appointed to watch his fortune, and had thus 
 been made the victim of a deep-laid plot. In 
 Mr. Jennings' opinion, the damages, if laid at 
 all, should be laid at one farthing. 
 
 He sate, therefore, quietly awaiting his turn 
 to address the jury, convinced that the result 
 to the counsel for the prosecution would be — 
 
 u Total eclipse," 
 and amusing himself by occasionally whisper- 
 ing with two or three briefless companions 
 (among whom he was a prodigious star), and 
 distracting their attention as they sate round
 
 woman's reward. 265 
 
 the table occupied in various ways ; — scraping 
 pens, scribbling notes to each other, reading 
 the newspaper, eating hard biscuit, yawning in 
 the jury's face, and drawing caricatures on 
 scraps of paper. 
 
 He also indulged in many silent rumination* 
 respecting a case which was to follow that of 
 Bigley v. Dupre, and for which he held another 
 brief ; a case, in which the fair plaintiff had been 
 more deeply injured than Rosabel, and which 
 excited considerable interest and expectation. 
 
 "I will call her ' My .dear,'" thought Mr. 
 Jennings, with a professional luxuriousness of 
 sentiment ; " I will call her My dear, during 
 the whole of the cross-examination ; but I wont 
 do so insolently, neither, poor little soul. Xo, 
 I'll be gentle : I'll make no jokes ; women on a 
 cross-examination always burst into tears when 
 one attempts a jest. I will be grave and 
 compassionate. ' Now, my dear, I am about 
 to put a few questions to you, and you will 
 
 M* 2
 
 266 woman's reward. 
 
 answer them as well as you can ; or don't let 
 what I am going to say distress you, my dear — 
 but—" 
 
 How long Mr. Jennings might have gone 
 on feeding his imagination with his own ques- 
 tions, is uncertain ; for at this moment he was 
 interrupted by a sudden commotion in court ; 
 he started, and his dark flexible eye-brows rose 
 to the very margin of his white well-fitting 
 barrister's wig, as he perceived a young female 
 press through the crowd towards the leading 
 counsel for the plaintiff, and earnestly converse 
 with him in an under-tone, while her shrink- 
 ing attitude, and deep bonnet and veil, pre- 
 vented her face from being visible to any but 
 the person she addressed. One, only, recognised 
 the slim girlish figure, and as Samuel B 
 angrily ejaculated the name of his daughter, 
 the unknown sank to the ground in a dead faint. 
 
 It was indeed Rosabel, who, restlessly anx- 
 ious to know in what manner her father would
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 267 
 
 enforce his threatened scheme of vengeance, 
 and in what way the law coidd so twist and 
 turn facts, as to 
 
 •• Make the worse appear the better reason," 
 had crept, unobserved, into court. Her in- 
 dignant sorrow, when she heard the letters 
 read, and found that she had been made the 
 instrument of fraud and treachery against the 
 companion of her childhood, overcame her 
 prudent resolution of remaining undiscovered. 
 All her supposed wrongs vanished from her 
 mind; she only thought of the baseness 
 forgery, and in a few hurried sentences had 
 explained the whole. 
 
 She was carried to a private room : 
 judge's ladv administered salts and eau de luce 
 from her own stores, to the *' ; poor, pretty little 
 heart-broken thing ; " ? several sentimental girls 
 who were in the habit of coming into court 
 to be amused by the trials of their fellow- 
 creatures, and, perhaps, by seeing them con-
 
 268 woman's reward. 
 
 demned to death), burst into tears at this horrid 
 proof of the effects of man's inconstancy, and 
 one young woman, whose lover had deserted 
 her, fainted outright from pure sympathy. 
 
 As soon as the confusion caused by this little 
 incident had subsided, the counsel for the 
 plaintiff rose, and, after a beautifully turned 
 period about " wounded feelings," " overwhelm- 
 ing suspense," and " the candour of agony," he 
 declared that the lady who had just conversed 
 with him, was no other than his fair client, who 
 had attended unobserved during the whole of the 
 proceedings ; that she had assured him she was 
 an unwilling party to the action, and that the 
 letters just read were not in the same con- 
 dition as when she received them, but on the 
 contrary, had been garbled, and added to, in 
 the most material parts ; and, finally, that 
 under such circumstances, he felt it his duty 
 no farther to press the case, but to submit 
 to a verdict for the defendant.
 
 woman's reward. 269 
 
 Bigley began a muttered speech about love- 
 sick girls seeking to shield the authors of their 
 ruin, and Rosabel's warm-hearted wish to de- 
 ceive the jury, by defending her lover; but he 
 desisted on observing that the gentleman who 
 had spoken, was occupied examining the era- 
 sures in the letters which he held up between 
 him and the light ; and judged it better to sub- 
 mit in silence to the given verdict. Too much 
 praise cannot be awarded to the acuteness and 
 ingenuity by which he contrived to baffle the 
 suspicions that he, Mr. Samuel Bigley, had 
 had any hand in the alterations alluded to. 
 Indeed, Rosabel had made her communication 
 in so agitated a manner, — she was so abashed at 
 the situation in which she was placed, — so afraid 
 that her father would be injured by the dis- 
 closures she had summoned courage to make, 
 and yet so anxious to do justice to Lionel, — that 
 it was not easy to collect from her how the 
 letters f since they could not have altered them-
 
 270 woman's reward. 
 
 had become so materially different from 
 what they were. That in her first angry mo- 
 ments, she had herself made additions which 
 she repented during the solemn enquiry of a 
 court of justice, was a probability which her fa- 
 ther encouraged, as shielding him from suspicion 
 — and the original notion that the interruption 
 was a stratagem on her part to shield her false 
 hearted lover, remained in full force with some 
 of the more romantic of the listeners. Either 
 way it was in vain to persist any farther. 
 
 Mr. Bigley did not actually curse his daugh- 
 ter, but he almost hated her, when he reflected 
 on the weakness (as he termed it) which had 
 baffled him in the very hour of success. It 
 was long before he would speak to her, and 
 but for the fear of losing her in the fever 
 which followed the excessive agitation of that 
 day, it is doubtful whether they would ever 
 have been reconciled. 
 
 Meanwhile, money was freely given to pre-
 
 woman's reward. 269"* 
 
 vent so very disagreeable a story from being 
 circulated through the medium of the public 
 press. One county paper alone, which was 
 so obscure as to be overlooked or deemed in- 
 nocuous, offended at the slight thus shown, 
 printed the case of Bigley r. Dupre, with full 
 particulars ; but as neither of the parties were 
 known in the world, it was glanced over with- 
 out interest, and a "horrid and atrocious mur- 
 der" happening to be reported about the same 
 time, and standing immediately under the 
 Bigley case, it is doubtful whether even the 
 
 few readers of the Gazette, ever made 
 
 themselves masters of that part of its con- 
 tents which related to Lionel's affairs. 
 
 The circumstance passed away, as all things 
 do in the moving panorama of this world, 
 leaving in Samuel Bigley's heart, that most 
 restless and wretched of feelings, the thirst of 
 unsatisfied revenge ; and in that of Lionel, a 
 deep and bitter sense of injury, which his 
 triumph could not efface.
 
 270 woman's reward. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Lo ! a new world, peopled with other beings 
 
 Of form and essence different from thine own. 
 
 Observe it well. 
 
 Cain, a Sketch. 
 
 One of the most pleasing anticipations in 
 which Mary had indulged, was that of seeing 
 Clavering and Lionel together. And one of 
 the first bitter disappointments she had to en- 
 dure, was perceiving that an aversion, growing 
 and increasing as their acquaintance improved
 
 woman's reward. 271 
 
 had been conceived by her brother, for the man 
 whose power to please she had never doubted. 
 There was scarcely any point which could 
 come under discussion, in which the utter dis- 
 similarity of their tastes and opinions was not 
 made manifest; and though Mary struggled 
 hard against the conviction, and though she 
 attributed to the influence of Jack Conolly, 
 or Arthur Arlington, all that appeared to 
 tell against Lionel, she could not but admit 
 that the faults Mrs. Bolton had formerly attri- 
 buted to her brother, were every day apparent. 
 He was violent, vain, and selfish ; he had 
 that craving after "fine acquaintances," or 
 rather the acquaintance of people of rank, 
 which is always balanced by a proportionate 
 scorn of fancied inferiors — and an allusion to 
 the profession which Lionel's father had em- 
 braced willingly, and carried on with advantage, 
 was the bitterest offence any one could offer him.
 
 272 woman's reward. 
 
 Nevertheless, the companions with whom 
 he passed most of his time, were any thing 
 but a credit to the sphere they occupied ; and 
 even they, while they rode his horses, bor- 
 rowed his money, and dined at his expense, 
 pronounced with some scorn, that "to be sure 
 there never was such a conceited fellow as 
 Dupre — and after all, who was he?" The 
 " who is he?" is a certain set, is very 
 amusing ; tone is every thing, and the tone in 
 which that short sentence is frequently spoken, 
 conveys much more of contempt than enquiry : 
 as if it was a disgrace to the man not to be 
 known by them. Now it certainly is not the 
 obscure stranger's "fault," and it may (there are 
 some pleasant people, who do not belong to 
 " society,") be their misfortune. 
 
 One morning William Clavering came, while 
 Lionel and Mary were sitting alone together; 
 they were looking over plans for the improve-
 
 woman's reward. 273 
 
 ments earning on at Moreton Park, in 
 Yorkshire. Lionel greeted Clavering coldly 
 and slightly, spoke a few words, and resumed 
 his inspection of the plans : but Mary was 
 struck by a sadness in her lover's manner, im- 
 perceptible to a stranger, but clearly apparent 
 to one who watched his even' look. 
 
 "You are ill," said she, "or something has 
 vexed you." 
 
 " Yes — no, not ill, but a disappointment, and 
 a painful one ; I came here to be cheered,"' 
 added he, smiling sadly; "the fact is, my father 
 promised me long ago, a living he has, for a 
 dear old friend of mine ; it is seven years ^ince 
 the promise was made ; the living has just 
 become vacant, and my father wrote me the 
 kindest of letters, placing it at my disposal. 
 By the very same post, I have news of the 
 poor old man's death!*' and Clavering paused, 
 much affected. 
 
 N 5
 
 274 woman's reward. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Clavering!" said Mary, as she 
 eagerly clasped her hands. 
 
 "What? Don't hesitate; you were going 
 to ask — to tell me something. Perhaps — per- 
 haps you have some one you wish to serve, 
 — if so, can you doubt for a moment, that your 
 wishes shall guide me ? " 
 
 One brief petitioning sentence, explained the 
 history of Jane Bigley and Mr. Lawrence. 
 Lionel started, and exclaimed with angry vehe- 
 mence — 
 
 " Don't be a fool, Mary. — Do you suppose, 
 after the way those people have treated me — " 
 
 " Dear Lionel ! it is not a favour done to the 
 Bigley s, but to your old tutor, and even if it 
 were, surely Jane has not offended you!" 
 
 "I tell you, I hate the whole set; and as far 
 as I am concerned, I object to your meddling 
 in the matter — it is no affair of yours, but
 
 woman's reward. £75 
 
 of mine ; and if I think fit to serve Lawrence 
 hereafter, I can do it." 
 
 The noble brow of William Clavering, dark- 
 ened with stern contempt. Lionel saw it, for 
 his angry eye wandered from one to the other 
 of his companions, as he spoke; but Mary's 
 head was bent in mournful reflection. " I 
 think you are wrong, my dearest Lionel," 
 said she at last; " and I believe you will think 
 so too, after a few hours have passed away. It 
 would be cruel not to take this opportunity ; 
 consider, they have already waited nearly *ix 
 years ; so, if Mr. Clavering will really be so 
 kind," added she, turning towards him — " 
 
 " Give me Mr. Lawrence's direction, and I 
 will write immediately." 
 
 Mary stood by him and read his hurried 
 note with intense and heartfelt joy.
 
 £76 woman's reward. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " The unexpected death of one whom 
 
 I hoped to serve, leaves the living of at 
 
 my disposal. At Miss Dupre's request, I beg 
 to offer it to you. 
 
 " I am, Sir, &c. 
 
 " W. Clavering." 
 
 She smiled a thankful happy smile, as tak- 
 ing her hand in both his own, he .murmured, 
 "you have cheered me; you have given me 
 the pleasure of serving you." 
 
 He went, and Lionel set his teeth hard as 
 he muttered, "you and your friend seem to 
 take great pleasure in opposing me." And in 
 his heart he hated Clavering doubly, for the 
 service he had done Jane Bigley, and for the 
 sad and silent displeasure visible in his sister 
 Mary's countenance. 
 
 The improvements at Moreton Park were at 
 length completed, and Lionel expressed his
 
 WOMAN 8 REWARD. 277 
 
 desire that Mary would make arrangements for 
 accompanying him there immediately. 
 
 "What will my poor old aunt do without 
 me ?" said Mary, with a sigh, as she listened 
 to her brother's impatient directions. 
 
 " She will do quite as well as she did before 
 you came ; she must expect that you are to 
 keep house for me, now that I have a home to 
 take you to ; and I am sure, if I were you, 1 
 should be delighted to exchange the moping 
 life you lead here, without ever going out, or 
 amusing yourself, for fresh air and the coun- 
 try." 
 
 " I have been very happy here," said Mary, 
 with a sigh ; and she thought of Clavering. 
 
 1 'Well, and you shall be very happy there. 
 You shall be your own mistress, and have 
 horses, and books, and flowers, and cheerful 
 company. You've no idea how pretty the 
 place is, and I have ordered that your rooms
 
 278 woman's reward. 
 
 shall open into the conservatory, and you will 
 be a princess at Moreton. Won't that please 
 you ?" And Lionel kissed away the tear that 
 trembled in her eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Bolton was grievously vexed at the loss 
 of her companion, and peevishly resisted all 
 attempts made to soothe and coax her. " At 
 least, I suppose, you will stay a part of the 
 year in London, and you will live with me 
 then ?" 
 
 " I hate London," roughly responded Lionel, 
 who was excessively displeased at the idea that 
 his arrangements for bringing his own sister to 
 live with him, could not be carried into effect 
 without regret and murmuring. " I hate Lon- 
 don, and it is not my intention to come up at 
 all ; but," added he, more gently, as he caught 
 the sorrowful and reproving expression of his 
 sister's eye, " Mary shall come to you ; and if
 
 woman's reward. £79 
 
 at any time you feel equal to so long a journey, 
 she will try and make Moreton as comfortable 
 a home as she has always found Spring Gar- 
 dens." 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," said Mrs. Bolton ; 
 more soothed and flattered by Lionel's attempt 
 to gratify her, than by the habitual tenderness 
 of Mary's maimer. 
 
 The day of parting was fixed, the last adieu 
 spoken, and Mary, who so long lived content- 
 edly as Mrs. Bolton's companion, was whirled 
 away in her brother's new travelling britska, to 
 become the mistress of that brother's house. 
 
 "You will write to me, Mary," whispered 
 Clavering, as he handed her down the steps. 
 '• Always, always, dear William!" 
 
 She leaned back in the carriage, and mur- 
 mured to herself, "The day will come when we 
 shall have no separations ! "
 
 280 woman's reward. 
 
 Clavering had at length spoken. 
 
 " For often in the parting hour, 
 Victorious Love asserts his power." 
 
 Hope was brightening upon him. A dissolu- 
 tion of Parliament was expected, and he was 
 to stand for Wellingby, and the Chancellor had 
 spoken of him to his father, as of one he wished 
 to serve. The certainty of a sufficient income, 
 earned by his own talents, was in prospect, ana 
 all this, and more, he said to Mary the day 
 before she left town. 
 
 And the remembrance of his words was 
 sweet to her, as she sat alone in the beautiful 
 room fitted up expressly for her by her brother. 
 The front windows of this apartment opened 
 on the lawn, and a beautiful conservatory 
 afforded her a quiet entrance and exit to the 
 garden, and detached it in some measure from 
 the rest of the house. And this was the more
 
 woman's reward. 281 
 
 agreeable to Mary, as she could read, or work, 
 or garden undisturbed, when such of her bro- 
 ther's friends as were least agreeable to her 
 were wandering about the house, dropping in 
 and dropping out, with billiard- cues or hunt- 
 ing-whips in their hands. She soon became 
 acquainted with those " knights of the round 
 ble," so favourably mentioned by Alfred Arling- 
 ton ; did full justice to the kind-hearted, good- 
 humoured, handsome " Sopsy ;" marvelled at 
 the recklessness of Tumble-down-Dick (known 
 amongst slighter acquaintances by the name of 
 Sir Richard Sowerby), who evidently trusted to 
 the extraordinary thickness of his skull to pre- 
 serve his rashly-risked life ; inquired into the 
 origin of Lord Alfred Arlington's title of " the 
 Lark ;" listened to all the anecdotes of his lazi- 
 ness and late rising, with apparent interest ; and 
 laughed, in spite of herself, at Jack Conolly's 
 jests upon " Old Hearty," who he declared was
 
 282 woman's reward. 
 
 unable, from his corpulence, to mount or dis- 
 mount without the assistance of his groom, and 
 was always calling out to those who passed him 
 in a hard day's run, " Pray stop my horse ! 
 have the goodness to stop him! — Will nobody 
 stop my horse ?■" 
 
 Mary regretted that this was " the set" Lio- 
 nel had been thrown into. She knew that 
 many of the individuals who composed it were 
 excellent, honourable, high-minded men ; she 
 had not the prejudice, common to her sex, 
 against the manly and spirited amusement of 
 hunting ; she did not believe, with Mrs. Cover- 
 dale (Old Hearty's wife), that " all fox-hunters 
 are brutes and bears ; " and she felt persuaded 
 Lady Sowerby was too bitter, when she deno- 
 minated Melton " fool's paradise ; " but she 
 knew that the balance was on the side of temp- 
 tation, she dreaded the extravagant habits 
 engendered by this most engrossing of pursuits,
 
 woman's reward. 
 
 and she connected the phrase " on the turf,'' 
 with a vague sense of insecurity, ruin, and 
 the insufficiency of five thousand a-year to 
 support annually mistaken speculations at Don- 
 caster. 
 
 Of all the companions who basked in the 
 sunshine of Lionel's prosperity, Mary saw that 
 Jack Conolly was the most dangerous. And 
 yet somehow, unaccountably, he was the per- 
 son who contrived to appear most intimate 
 with her. He had a way of talking of the 
 rest, as if he and Mary were quiet lookers 
 on ; moralising on his own pursuits, and en- 
 deavouring to remove prejudices which " he 
 was aware many people entertained against 
 him." 
 
 He gave her a long account of his own boy- 
 hood, and the pains that had been taken to 
 ensnare him. He described in glowing co- 
 lours the ruin which had come upon him when
 
 £84 woman's reward. 
 
 he was only endeavouring to please his new 
 friends ; and seemed really to wish that Lionel 
 should be moderate in his pursuit of the same 
 pleasures. 
 
 The fact is, there never was any one so 
 plausible as Jack Conolly ; or any one that 
 could so easily persuade you, that with tho- 
 roughly bad principles, he had not "a bad 
 heart." He was lively and amusing in con- 
 versation ; full of anecdote, and always in 
 spirits. His manner had that happy mixture 
 of frank carelessness, and well-timed flattery, 
 which, while it wins the unsuspicious, does 
 not prevent the shrewdest calculations, on the 
 part of the person by whom it is assumed. 
 
 He appeared to love his friends thoroughly, 
 though he could not break through a bad 
 habit he had acquired of " doing " them, on 
 all possible occasions. He was sorry for them 
 when they were " hard up," and was generally
 
 woman's reward. 285 
 
 consulted as to the means of relieving them 
 from their embarrassments (a task which he 
 conducted with dexterity and eagerness). He 
 was in parliament, which prevented his being 
 in prison ; and had a large acquaintance 
 among opera-dancers, and other borderers, 
 who, dividing their time between love and 
 gossip, are sometimes capable of giving much 
 useful information on general topics, and who 
 repeat news as news, without any reference 
 to the politics or principles of those with 
 whom they converse. 
 
 He bought horses cheap, and sold them ad- 
 vantageously : sang all Moore's Irish Melo- 
 dies, and a number of other songs less fit for 
 public approbation ; and in short, was pro- 
 nounced by all his friends to be, not only a 
 " good fellow,'* but a " capital fellow,'' in- 
 deed, a "most excellent fellow." 
 
 In person he was prepossessing ; had a keen,
 
 286 woman's reward. 
 
 bold grey eye ; handsome forehead, good 
 teeth, and the neatest of whiskers, with a 
 light, active, and yet sturdy figure ; rode the 
 best possible horses, and sat them in the best 
 possible style. 
 
 This accomplished Meltonian fell in love 
 with our heroine within five weeks of her 
 arrival at Moreton ; and as he was eminently 
 successful in his endeavours to please the fair 
 sex, it gave him great satisfaction to feel sen- 
 sible that on this occasion he really was in 
 love with the person he made love to; the 
 lack of which interest occasionally makes 
 love-making a bore.
 
 woman's reward. 287 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I'll mountebank their loves, 
 
 Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved 
 
 Of all the trades in Rome. 
 
 Coeiolamus. 
 
 Mast these have voices, that can yield them now, 
 And straight disclaim their tongues ! 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Meanwhile parliament was dissolved. Jack 
 Conolly went to canvass his constituents. 
 William Clavering wrote to announce his in- 
 tention of starting for Wellingby : and Lionel 
 was solicited to stand for the borough near- 
 est Moreton Park, on the Tory interest.
 
 288 woman's reward. 
 
 The first thing necessary to success in an 
 election, is certainly to be popular among 
 the people you intend to vote for you ; but 
 the next best thing is, not to be known at 
 all. 
 
 A " new man" has offended no one as yet : 
 is sheltered as yet from that knowledge of his 
 habitual pursuits and accidental follies, which 
 is so precious to squib-writers, and so essen- 
 tial to his electioneering opponents. All the 
 mal-con tents who disapproved of the conduct 
 of the last member ; all the waverers who 
 were staggered by the arguments of the mal- 
 contents ; all the lovers of change ; all the 
 tradespeople who fancy slight and ingratitude 
 have been shown them by those for whom 
 they exerted themselves at the last election, — 
 gather round the new man. 
 
 Thanks to Mary, Lionel had the character 
 of being charitable and generous to the poor ;
 
 woman's reward. 289 
 
 patient in listening to the complaints of his 
 tenantry, and careful to leave nothing entirely 
 to his agent. Little more was known of him, 
 except the fact that he had bought property 
 in the county. When, therefore, that very 
 handsome showy young man, rode into the 
 town on his very handsome showy horse, and 
 proceeded to canvass in the usual spirited man- 
 ner ; kissing the ugliest and fattest of tallow 
 chandler's wives, with the same apparently 
 earnest satisfaction with which the attention 
 was bestowed on the innkeeper's rosy daugh- 
 ter : and patting the little children on their 
 little dishevelled heads, without the smal 
 reference to the care or combing bestowed 
 upon them by their vote-possessing parents ; 
 he was received with the greatest enthusiasm, 
 and rapidly made his way. Not at all to his 
 own surprise, for he was naturally vain : nor 
 to Mary's, for she was vain for him ; but very 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 290 woman's reward. 
 
 much to the astonishment of the gentleman 
 who was the opposing candidate, and who, 
 being a sanguine self-satisfied and indolent in- 
 dividual, had never expected to see the tide 
 of success turn in his enemy's favour. He 
 lifted his eyebrows, while his committee de- 
 clared " it was unaccountable," and thought 
 it was — exceedingly unaccountable. 
 
 But as in such a stirring scene as an election, 
 a man has little leisure allowed him to wonder 
 at the success of his opponent, measures were 
 adopted to wreck Lionel just as he was enter- 
 ing into port. 
 
 Some one of the hundred ferrets, who 
 abound in every borough, and are employed 
 at every contested election, discovered that 
 there was a story against Lionel Dupre, the 
 story of Rosabel Bigley : and in the very 
 town where, every day, he rode up and down, 
 leaving his beautiful and unmanageable steed
 
 woman's reward. 291 
 
 at his constituents' doors ; (to be prevented by 
 the groom from kicking and curvetting, when 
 the valued life of a voter was in danger,) — in 
 that very town, the particular ferret, who pro- 
 duced the particular newspaper containing the 
 particular case of " Breach of Promise of Mar- 
 riage " referred to, — averred that Mr. Bigley'.s 
 brother-in-law resided. 
 
 And now came the " tug of war." Mr. 
 Bigley's brother-in-law (an ironmonger, whose 
 name was Trueman), proved himself any thing 
 but a credit to his name. Originally one 
 of the warmest of Lionel's supporters, he 
 suddenly changed; — panting messengers were 
 seen knocking at his door, more letters than 
 had ever been received in the course of a year 
 (except post-paid orders) came in the course of 
 two days, directed to Mr. Trueman — and Lionel 
 foimd himself in a minority; a circumstance 
 which struck him as being quite as unaccount- 
 
 o 2
 
 292 woman's reward. 
 
 able as his previous success had appeared to 
 his adversary. In vain did Mary go and order 
 a whole kitchen-range, on a new patent prin- 
 ciple ; with most expensive and useless con- 
 trivances for boiling by steam, roasting with 
 pulleys, and baking without any fire in a " self- 
 acting" oven. In vain did she take that parti- 
 cular opportunity of presenting each of the in- 
 dustrious members of her brother's new tenantry 
 with sets of copper and tin utensils, sufficient 
 to last them for life. In vain did the house- 
 keeper choose crimson and black tea-trays, and 
 the butler suddenly discover tin ice pails to 
 be more useful than silver ones, and bronze 
 lamps more convenient than wax candles : and 
 all in vain did Lionel, himself, walk down to 
 pretty Mrs. Heming's (Mr. Trueman's young- 
 est daughter), and buy at her " Universal 
 Hosiery and Haberdashery Warehouse," hunt- 
 ing neckcloths, silk hose, and gloves, without
 
 woman's reward. 293 
 
 end ; and afterwards sauntering down to Mrs. 
 Prudhoe's (Mr. Trueman's eldest daughter), 
 present her eight little boys and three little 
 girls, with beaver hats and bonnets ; in order, as 
 he gaily hinted, that they might be " smart," on 
 the day of the election. 
 
 Alas! the order for ironmongery was refused at 
 the Trueman House : the kiss offered to pretty 
 .Mrs. Hemings was eluded with a grave and of- 
 fended curtsey: and Mrs. Prudhoe seemed to 
 have determined that her offspring, like the 
 changeful voters, should be shabby, on the day 
 of the election. 
 
 It was at this alarming juncture that 
 Mary received the following letter from Jane 
 Bigley (now Mrs. Lawrence), which, how- 
 ever deficient in eloquence, was (like many 
 other ineloquent epistles; welcomed with un- 
 bounded joy by the person to whom it was 
 addressed. —
 
 294 woman's reward. 
 
 " Dear Miss Dupre, 
 
 " I write in a hurry, without consulting 
 Lawrence, who is gone to the next village to 
 a sick person, who wants prayers read. I 
 write, because I owe you all my happiness, 
 and should be miserable to think you should 
 lose any of yours, through the unkindness of 
 any part of our family " 
 
 " This is very unintelligible," thought Mary, 
 and she was on the point of throwing down 
 the letter, to await an hour of greater leisure, 
 when a word caught her eye, which had lately 
 become an object of as great interest as 
 ' Carmilhan ' to the avaricious mariner, in 
 the stor}^ of that name ; a word which was 
 blazoned in enormous blue and gold letters, 
 above the window of a well-known shop ; in 
 short, the word Trueman. Eagerly she read 
 on : — 
 
 " Through the unkindness of any part of our
 
 woman's reward. 295 
 
 family; — and I know Mr. Dupre's happii 
 is yours. Mr. Trueman, who is opposing you, 
 has been (I am very sorry to allow it) set 
 against you by my poor father, who cannot 
 forgive all Mr. Dupre said to him about Rosa- 
 bel. Luckily, Mrs. Hemings wrote to me how 
 matters were going on, thinking to do us a 
 pleasure by mentioning how many votes your 
 brother had lost (which we regret to hear . 
 But Mr. Trueman is not my stepmother *, but 
 my own dear mother's brother, and loves me 
 as well as he does his own daughters ; so I 
 wrote to him directly, and to Mrs. Hemings, 
 and to Mrs. Prudhoe, and said I was sure my 
 father would be sorry afterwards : and told 
 them all you had done for me, and begged 
 them not to let Mr. Dupre lose his election; 
 and Rosabel wrote too, feeling, as Lawrence 
 says, that there is a real pleasure in returning 
 good for evil ; and being sorry, poor child, for the
 
 296 woman's reward. 
 
 trial and all that. She is staying with me just 
 now, and is to be married to the gentleman 
 who was employed to defend Mr. Dupre's 
 case, and who is very much in love with her. 
 He, too, has a brother in the borough of 
 
 A , a gentleman of independent property ; 
 
 his name is Jennings, and he lives at the place 
 they call Woodley Bank. He has a good deal 
 of influence in the town, and Edward, our 
 Mr. Jennings, has written to him to beg him 
 to exert it in Mr. Dupre's favour. What I 
 wish (if I dared advise) is that you should go 
 yourself, to all the people, and talk to them. 
 Do not mind mentioning about Rosabel and 
 Mr. Lionel, now that I have written to explain 
 it all ; we all know that he is very young, and 
 that he is easily made angry ; and when he is 
 angry, does not think much about other peo- 
 ple's feelings : indeed, I told my uncle True- 
 man so, and said every thing of that sort I
 
 woman's reward. %9ft 
 
 could, to excuse him. Pray excuse my awk- 
 ward letter, and all faults. I wish to serve 
 you, and you will forgive if the manner of 
 doing it is not so good as it ought to be. 
 In haste, 
 
 " Your's, grateful and obliged, 
 
 " Jane Lawrence." 
 
 Mary flew to her brother's room. " Good 
 news ! Lionel ; good news ! about your elec- 
 tion." 
 
 " D — n the election," said Lionel, who was 
 poring over an illegible list of names ; "it is 
 as good as lost." 
 
 " But I have had a letter from Jane Bigley — "' 
 
 " D — n Jane Bigley ! " exclaimed the im- 
 patient candidate, as he rose and paced back* 
 wards and forwards in the room; " what do 
 / care for Jane Bigley ? you had better wait 
 and read the letter to Mr. Clavering, when 
 you next meet him."
 
 WOMAN S REWARD. 
 
 In spite of this ungracious beginning, Lionel 
 was tolerably thankful when the news was 
 read : begged Mary's pardon for his harshness : 
 and requested her to put on her habit and ride 
 over with him to Woodley Bank. 
 
 But it is much easier to do mischief than 
 to undo it. The cunning Norfolk attorney had 
 not contented himself, as the simple Jane sup- 
 posed, with confiding the story of Lionel and 
 Rosabel, to Mr. Trueman the ironmonger ; on 
 the contrary, it formed a sort of postscript in 
 his letter; a fact against the young candidate 
 of which he appeared to be reminded by the 
 long three pages of abuse which had preceded it. 
 
 He knew more of the world (of the worst 
 half of it), than to. trust to the sympathy of 
 a brother-in-law in his real or supposed wrongs. 
 Self-interest was the main-spring of all his 
 own actions, and to the self-interest of other 
 men he addressed himself when he wished to
 
 woman's reward. 299 
 
 produce any effect. He had represented Lionel 
 in the worst colours ; as a young man without 
 principle ; who kept no faith with any one : 
 paid no debts except debts of honour : ruined 
 himself in horse-racing ; and who was capri- 
 cious enough to be capable of selling Moreton 
 Park at a day's warning when once his object 
 of getting into Parliament was achieved 1 , and 
 taking himself off to any other part of England 
 or Scotland, to represent the constituency of 
 
 A , in the place that best suited him. 
 
 And though when Mr. Trueman.got his niece's 
 letter {his niece, who through Mary Dupre's ex- 
 ertions was actually married to a clergyman ; who 
 kept no shop, lived entirely among " gentry,"' 
 and yet wrote such an affectionate letter to 
 her ironmonger-uncle, and had invited Mrs. 
 Hemings to stay with her ! . I -ay, although 
 Mr. Trueman became a convert, and ranged 
 himself under the blue and white banner of
 
 300 woman's reward. 
 
 " Dupre, Church and State," yet the many 
 to whom he had largely discoursed of Lionel's 
 imperfections, were stubborn against being 
 wheeled round again at the word of command. 
 In short it was a hard contest ; and though 
 the kitchen range and other articles were duly 
 sent home ; though Mrs. Hemings tied on 
 Lionel's hunting neckcloth with her own pretty 
 white fingers, and only laughed when he sud- 
 denly caught her hands and took the kiss he 
 had been previously curtseyed out of; though 
 the little Prudhoes did nothing but fling their 
 new hats into the air, and exert their shrill 
 voices in squeaking hurras for " the popular 
 candidate ;" yet it must be owned, that it was 
 with a feeling of triumph, not unmingled with 
 surprise, that Mr. Dupre's friends beheld him 
 on the last day's polling, returned by a majo- 
 rity of seventeen.
 
 woman's reward. 301 
 
 The gentleman who had lost, (and who ele- 
 vated his eyebrows more than ever, at " the 
 unparalleled treachery of Trueman,"; was 
 drawn through the town in triumph by his 
 faithful minority, waving boughs of laurel, 
 and playing " We're a' noddin,'" and " The 
 Black Joke," in lieu of " See the conquering 
 hero comes," which it had been their original 
 intention to perforin ; while the two returned 
 candidates walked home to dinner, their band 
 striking up with breathless enthusiasm the 
 above-mentioned celebrated air, familiarly wel- 
 come to the ears of every Englishman. 
 
 While the ceremony of chairing was going 
 on, Mary, who was standing on the narrow 
 balcony of Mr. Trueman's " first floor," per- 
 ceived, leaning from a window nearly oppo- 
 site, and gazing on the crowd below, a face 
 of such exquisite and astonishing beauty, that
 
 S02 woman's reward. 
 
 on seeing it she involuntarily uttered an ex- 
 clamation of enquiry. 
 
 "It is the new lodger at the apothecary's," 
 calmly replied Mrs. Hemings ; " she's thought 
 very pretty ; but for my own part I don't 
 admire such fair people." (Mrs. Hemings 
 herself was the brightest of brunettes). 
 
 " But who is she ? " persisted Mary. 
 
 " Her name is Mrs. Reid, and she is widow 
 to a lieutenant in the navy, who was drowned. 
 I hear she frets very much at times ; but dear 
 me, she can soon get another husband ! Look ; 
 that is her baby the maid is holding." 
 
 " Poor thing! " said Mary : "a mother and 
 a widow ! and she scarcely looks eighteen." 
 And she gazed with strong interest at the 
 apothecary's lodger. 
 
 The face she gazed on was indeed very fair ; 
 and at this moment no trace of sadness was 
 visible on the chiselled features. A profu-
 
 woman's reward. 303 
 
 sion of golden hair hung in long loose curls 
 from beneath the simple cap, tied with a nar- 
 row black ribbon. Her cheek was delicately 
 coloured ; but her full small mouth was the 
 hue of the richest coral : and the smile which 
 parted those lips was the most beautiful in 
 the world. Hope, joy, love and triumph seem- 
 ed native to its expression, and as the crowd 
 came nearer, her large blue eyes flashed with 
 the excitement of the moment. 
 
 All of a sudden, as Lionel was carried under 
 the window, and just when playfully turning 
 to the baby, she had made it clap its tiny 
 hands in mimicry, the countenance of the 
 young woman changed: she looked surprised, 
 pained, and startled, and withdrew her head 
 from the window. 
 
 Mary looked quickly down, as if to discover 
 the cause of this discomfiture, but she only- 
 saw the new members carried on the shoulders
 
 304 woman's reward. 
 
 of the mob, and her brother looking pale and 
 tired. 
 
 She thought he would nod to her as he 
 passed, but he did not ; and it was with the 
 hurt feelings of woman's affection (the love 
 which prizes trifles) that she said to herself, 
 as she looked down the street at the receding 
 groupes, " To forget me in the moment of 
 his triumph ! Not even to look up and smile ! " 
 and she turned her eyes slowly back to the 
 apothecary's window, but the beautiful widow 
 was no longer there ; the window was closed, 
 and the room empty. 
 
 After the bustle of the day was over, Mary 
 mentioned her admiration of this person to 
 Lionel, and asked if he also had not seen her. 
 
 For a moment, Lionel's brow wore an ex- 
 pression, — a peculiar and disagreeable expres- 
 sion, — which Mary had often seen on his coun-
 
 woman's reward. 805 
 
 tenance when gazing on others, hut never 
 when speaking to her. It was a look of dark 
 and fierce scrutiny, and Mary shrank from it. 
 
 " I asked who she was," said she, after a 
 pause, " and they told me it was a Mrs. Reid : 
 a young widow, whose husband " — 
 
 " I counsel you," said Lionel, with a bitter 
 sneer, " not to ask after every pretty woman 
 you see in a strange town : you might some- 
 times hear disagreeable answers. I believe," 
 added he, in a more jocular tone, " that our 
 friend Conolly could tell you more about the 
 widow, as you call her, than any of the True- 
 mans. There are subjects women should be 
 cautious in speaking about ; and I advise you 
 to think no more of Mrs. Reid." 
 
 Mary did not think much more about her : 
 but the day they left Moreton Park, in the 
 ensuing February, as they drove rapidly along
 
 306 woman's reward. 
 
 the road past Woodley Bank, she saw, standing 
 at the door of a very pretty cottage, the identi- 
 cal young widow who had been the apothe- 
 cary's lodger ; and by her side stood a " wee 
 toddling thing," which was evidently the baby 
 that had been made to clap its hands at the 
 election for A . 
 
 " There, Leo ! there she is !" exclaimed Miss 
 Dupre. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " That beautiful woman." 
 
 " How can you be so foolish, Mary ?" said 
 her brother, as flinging himself suddenly back 
 in the carriage, after a rapid glance at the ob- 
 ject of her admiration, he wrapped himself 
 round in his fur cloak, with an exclamation at 
 the coldness of that particular February. 
 
 There are girls who know every thing, and 
 girls who know nothing ; or rather, there are
 
 woman's reward. 
 
 girls who, hearing light conversation often, 
 grow to think carelessly on particular points ; 
 and others, who, left to themselves, and to the 
 principles they have been brought up in, shun 
 even the mention of particular subjects. Mary s 
 was a pure mind, and the great retirement in 
 which she had hitherto lived, had tended to 
 preserve its purity, and to preserve also those 
 broad moral distinctions which are so frittered 
 down, and polished, and filed away in the world. 
 that it is really difficult to tell what is thought 
 right or wrong in a certain set, except that it i> 
 very wrong to be separated from one's husband. 
 Mary Dupre was the most indulgent of her 
 sex ; but to her, a woman being rather naughty. 
 or a man being a little wild, conveyed no idea 
 at all. She had only the stronger and more 
 unusual expressions to clothe her thoughts, and 
 as she mused that cold February day on tin-
 
 308 woman's reward. 
 
 second vision of the lovely Mrs. Reid, she could 
 not help shuddering at the remembrance of 
 Jack Conolly, as a base, wicked, profligate man, 
 and hoping that God would reclaim him. 
 
 END OF VOL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY E. LOWE, PLAYHOUSE YARD, BLACKFRIARS.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOI9-URBANA 
 
 Q ' 3 0112 052951 
 
 685 
 
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