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 GOOD FOR NOTHING; 
 
 ALL DOWN HILL. 
 
 BY 
 
 G. J. WHYTE MELYILLE, 
 
 AUTHOE OF 'DIGBY GEAND,' THE ' INTEEPEETEE, 
 *HOLMBY HOUSE,' ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ' FBASEWS MAGAZINE: 
 
 LONDON: 
 PAEKER, SON, AND BOURN, WEST STRAND. 
 
 1861.
 
 lT}ie Author reserves the right of translation.']
 
 ^^3 
 
 W6<^'vo CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 I. * GILDED wires' 
 
 I 
 
 II. I REMEMBER 
 
 i6 
 
 III. ^ EARLY frosts' 
 
 27 
 
 IV. ^THE BEES AND THE DRONES ' . . . 
 
 41 
 
 V. *ada' 
 
 55 
 
 VI. THE ADVENTURER . 
 
 67 
 
 VII. ^GANZ ALLEIN' .... 
 
 77 
 
 VIII. MISGIVINGS 
 
 87 
 
 r, IX. JOHN GORDON .... 
 
 107 
 
 -^ X. BELLA JONES 
 
 -^ XI. 'alarms — A skirmish' 
 
 118 
 130 
 
 2 XII. 'DINNER IS ON THE TABLE !' . 
 
 141 
 
 . XIII. DIPLOMACY 
 
 157 
 
 XIV. PELIDES 
 
 166 
 
 XV. ' AT-HOME ' 
 
 . 184 
 
 XVI. *A HITCH IN THE REEL' . 
 
 • 194 
 
 ,^XVII. 'AY DE Ml!' 
 
 . 206 
 
 > XVIII. ' BON voyage' .... 
 
 . 218 
 
 i" XIX. 'why do you go to the opera?' 
 
 ^ XX. THE FALSE GOD .... 
 
 . 227 
 
 . 238 
 
 ^ XXI. A BOLD FRONT .... 
 
 . 252 
 
 XXII. 'keeping afloat' .... 
 
 . 262 
 
 V XXIII. 'sink OR swim' .... 
 ^ ^ XXIV. TOM TIDLER'S GROUND 
 
 . 274 
 
 . 281 
 
 o 
 
 XXV. 'a new leaf' 
 
 292
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/goodfornothingor01whyt
 
 GOOD FOR NOTHING; 
 
 ALL DOWN HILL. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, 
 While proudly gliding, o'er the azure realm 
 
 In gilded trim the gallant vessel goes, 
 
 Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm, 
 
 Eegardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 
 
 That hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' GILDED WIRES.' 
 
 HAT ' fine feathers make fine birds ' is so 
 self-evident an adage as to admit of no 
 dispute by the most argumentative of cavil- 
 lers; but that fine feathers make Ji'qij^y 
 birds is a different story altogether, and one which will 
 bear a considerable amount of discussion ^;ro and con. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 A GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Up two pair of stairs in yonder large London house, 
 poised over a box of fragrant mignionette, and com- 
 manding the comparatively extensive view of the square 
 gardens, hangs a shining gilt bird-cage, with bath and 
 sanded floor complete ; perches for exercise, trays for 
 hempseed and other delicacies, a. graceful festooning of 
 groundsel, and a liunp of white sugar between the bars. 
 Prison, forsooth ! it's a palace ; and would its inmate, 
 that bright yellow canary-bird, sing so loudly, thmk 
 you, if she wasn't happy? Don't we know that the 
 bravest voice and the noisiest lauD;h are unerrino^ indi- 
 cators of hearts-ease and content ? At least the world 
 is well satisfied to take them as such ; and surely plenty 
 of bu'd-seed, and sand, and groundsel, and white sugar, 
 are an equivalent for that imaginary blessing which men 
 term liberty. 'Tis a sad heart that sighs for the ' wings 
 of a dove ; ' the canary don't want any wings, she has 
 no use even for her own glossy yellow pair; and for 
 liberty, why she wouldn't know what to do with it if 
 she had it. 'Tis only on a day like this, when the May 
 sunshme bursts forth into somewhat of summer warmth, 
 when the tender green leaves, as yet unsmirched by 
 London smoke, quiver in the breath of spring, and the 
 fleecy clouds dance against the blue sky even over 
 Belgrave-square, that the cage looks a little narrow and 
 confined, that the vagrant life of yonder dirty sparrow 
 appears somewhat enviable. It must be joyful to be 
 free to perch on the area-railings, or to sip from the 
 muddy kennel, and twitter away at will over chimney 
 and house-top, into the fragrant hedgerows and sunny 
 fields of the pleasant country. But then he is but 
 a common sparrow, after all, and she is a delicate
 
 'GILDED WIRES.' 6 
 
 canary — noblesse oblige indeed in many more ways than 
 one. 
 
 What thinks her high-bom mistress, the Lady Ger- 
 trude, an earl's sister and a sovereign's god-child? 
 With the wholesome fear of Burke and Debrett before 
 my eyes, I suppress the proper name of the noble 
 maiden. Shall I involve myself in an action for libel 
 at the suit of a distinguished family ? Shall I pander 
 to the morbid taste of that numerous and respectable 
 class who make it their especial study to identify the 
 persons of the aristocracy and chronicle their deeds ? 
 Vade retro — be it far from me I The titled daughters 
 of England are classed and ticketed in certain cata- 
 logues published by authority, with mercantile fidelity. 
 With the same accuracy that is at once his pride and 
 his profession, in measuring her off a thousand yards of 
 tulle for the trimming of her ball-dress, can John Ell- 
 worthy, the mercer, calculate to a day the age of Lady 
 Hildegonda Vavasour. Her ladyship is debarred by 
 the remnants of feudalism from the very bii'thright of 
 lowlier women, never to exceed seven-and-twenty. Like 
 those high-bred Arab steeds which the children of the 
 desert offer for pmx-hase to the Feringhee, there can be 
 no concealment of her age or her performances ; and 
 she is sold, so to speak, with her pedigree about her 
 neck. Be gentle with her in her new capacity ; like 
 all thorough-bred animals she is stanch and resolute for 
 good and for evil. 
 
 Lady Gertrude is alone in the privacy of her own 
 chamber. Bed-room, dressing-room, boudoir, sanctuaiy, 
 it combines something of all of these. Her midnight 
 slumbers and her morning dreams take place in a deep 
 
 B 2
 
 4 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and distant recess, containing a charming little French 
 bed, like a toy, draped with a rosy fabric of muslin, 
 corresponding in colour and texture with the toilet-cover 
 and the pincushion. Her prayer-book of pui'ple velvet, 
 crossed and clasped, and bound and bedizened with gold, 
 lies within easy reach of the lace-edged pillows, and 
 where male imbecihty would look instinctively for a 
 boot-jack, a pair of sweet little slippers, fawn-colom-ed, 
 with bronze tips and beaded embroidery, turn their toes 
 to each other in confiding simplicity. A pianoforte 
 occupies the corresponding recess at the other side of 
 the doorway. A piece of music lies open on its stand ; 
 it is an oratorio of Handel's, a deep, solemn, and sug- 
 gestive strain, such as to sit and hear with half-shut 
 eyes from which the tears are not far distant, calls up a 
 vision of the shadowy Futm^e and the mournful Past, 
 of the bruised reed and the aching heart, of hopes 
 and fears, and bitter sorrow, and humble resignation, 
 and the white-robed angels leading the poor penitent 
 home. 
 
 She is not all frivolous, you see, my Lady Gertrude, 
 though the canterbury by the side of the instrument 
 contains the Ratcatcher's Waltz and the ' Pray don't' 
 Polka, and other refined and popular music of the 
 modern school. 
 
 Her book-shelves, too, bear a strange mixtm^e of 
 literature, light and heavy, ancient and modern. No 
 Byron, no Tommy Moore. A quarto Milton, we dare 
 not say thumbed, but worn and frayed by the taper 
 white fingers, and holding even now between the pages 
 of Satan's rebellious peroration a single thread of 'hair, 
 denoting that while Justine dresses the silken locks,
 
 'GILDED WIRES.' O 
 
 Lady Gertrude is no less busy than her handmaid with 
 the inner culture of that haughty little head. A volu- 
 minous Shakspeare with notes, a translation of He- 
 rodotus, Swedenborg's Transcendental Lucubrations; 
 Euclid, which she cannot understand, but perseveres at 
 from sheer obstinacy, even to the hopeless and utterly 
 futile task of learning him by heart ; Schiller in the 
 original, whom she don't much care about ; Tennyson's 
 Maude, that she would never confess she cries over 
 like a child; sundry excellent works of reference on 
 Chemistry, Optics, Geology, and other sciences; two 
 or three odd volumes of Sermons, new and stiff in the 
 binding, as if but rarely consulted ; and a French novel, 
 doubtless contraband, and having no business there. 
 By the way, what is the intrinsic merit of this species 
 of literature ? Why is it gradually becoming so popu- 
 lar in England ? Is it that the less scrupulous French- 
 man hesitates not to paint phases of life which British 
 conventionality affects to ignore, the while they move 
 the mainsprings of every-day society ? or is it that he 
 has a happy knack of describing gracefully the mere 
 trifles we all know so well, and imparting an additional 
 charm to the interest every reader feels in matters with 
 which he is himself familiar, as we see a farce run night 
 after night, wherein a man eats a real mutton-chop on 
 the stage, or goes to bed bodily then and there in full 
 sight of the audience ? Whatever may be the attrac- 
 tion, there is no doubt that these works are day by day 
 more generally read, notwithstanding their questionable 
 taste, their doubtful morality, and unblushing disqui- 
 sitions on sentiments which at least we don't ivrite about 
 on this side the Channel. Perhaps there may be some-
 
 6 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 thing in tlie language, after all, and we may opine with 
 Biddy Fudge that, 
 
 Though the words on good manners intrench, 
 I assure you 'tis not half so shocking in French. 
 
 One or two exquisite casts of children are placed too 
 here and there on brackets in the comers of the 
 room; and a sufficiently faithful copy of Frances- 
 chini's ' Sleeping St. John' overhangs the chimney- 
 piece. Lady G. is not above the mania for little 
 naked boys, so prevalent during the present era that 
 they may be purchased in any of the bazaars at a 
 shilling a dozen, and indeed the Holy Infant in his 
 slumbers is a gem that I have seen but rarely equalled 
 in real life. So she prizes it accordingly, and suffers 
 no other painting to lodge permanently in her cham- 
 ber save one, and that is a mere colom-ed photograph, 
 set in a costly framework of velvet and gold, placed 
 in a favourable light on her own especial writing-table 
 (littered as a lady's writing-table invariably is with 
 every sort of knick-knack, and destitute of that free- 
 dom and elbow-room so indispensable to the efforts of 
 masculine penmanship) ; this additional ornament is 
 but a pleasing representation of a well-looking and 
 well-dressed young gentleman, very like the other 
 ninety-and-nine out of any hundred of well-dressed 
 young gentlemen who pass their time in going to 
 and fro in St. James'-street as Satan does upon earth, 
 and walking up and down in it. He is good to look at, 
 too, with his dark silken hair, his soft eyes with their 
 long lashes, and rich brown whiskers curling round a 
 pair of smilmg lips, and a little dimple chin such as
 
 * GILDED WIRES.' i 
 
 ought to have belonged to a woman ; this countenance 
 sui-mounting nevertheless a large, well-developed frame, 
 indubitably characteristic of a man's organization and 
 a man's physical courage and vigour. 
 
 Lady Gertrude wipes the miniatui'e half tenderly, 
 half triumphantly, with her delicate handkerchief; 
 then she smiles, such a saucy mischievous smile as 
 dimples a child's face when it has ousted a playmate 
 at ' puss-in-the-comer.' Lastly she walks up to the 
 full-lencrth miiTor which has reflected her {graceful 
 person so often and in so many becoming costumes 
 — ^ball-dress, comt-dress, riding-habit, and peignoir — 
 the woman's true friend and constant counsellor; the 
 adroit flatterer in sunshine, the sympathizing consoler 
 in storms, the depositary of how many a secret tri- 
 umph and buoyant aspiration, and how many a galling 
 disappointment and weary, hopeless sigh. 
 
 Carefully, and inch by inch as it were, she scans 
 what she sees there, but the expression in her lady- 
 ship's face is scarcely tiiat of self-satisfied female 
 vanity. There is a look of mingled confidence and 
 inquii-y, more akin to Lord Martingale's calculating 
 glance as he eyes the favourite for the Derby, bred 
 by himself, and trained in his own stable, stripped 
 and moimted for the race ; or Herr ^lerlin's sweeping 
 review of his magic rings, his all productive hat, and 
 the other accessories with which he efiects his incredi- 
 ble feats of legerdemain. 
 
 The reflection is that of a striking girl enough. A 
 tall, graceful form, too slight, it may be, to fulfil the 
 rigorous standard of womanly beauty, but rounded 
 and symmetrical as a nymph's, with the same length
 
 8 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 of limb and airiness of gesture wliicli painters have 
 combined to confer on those mythological coquettes. 
 The hands and feet are perfect, long, slender, and 
 flexible, they assimilate well with the undulating lines 
 of her patrician figui^e, and the stately pose of her 
 proud head. Dark masses of hair, that look black 
 against the pm-e white skin, are gathered into a 
 twisted knot behind the skull, pulled away somewhat 
 too boldly from the temples, and disclosing the fault- 
 less outline of the cheek and the perfect little tho- 
 rough-bred ear. Nor is Lady Gertrude's face out of 
 character with the rest of her person. The forehead, 
 though low, has width and capacity; bright hazel 
 eyes sparkle with vivacity and a considerable touch 
 of satirical humour, while the defect of too wide a 
 mouth is redeemed by the whitest of teeth, and when 
 occasion offers, the merriest of smiles. Though a 
 critic might pronounce her featm-es too sharp and 
 bird-like, though m her light primrose morning di^ess 
 she has a certain resemblance to her own canary, the 
 general effect of her face denotes considerable intel- 
 lect, no slight leaven of caprice, above all, great per- 
 sistence and force of will. 
 
 The young lady tui'ns at length from the perusal 
 of her own features, and moves towai'ds the window, 
 where hang the cage and the canary. The bird 
 knows her mistress, and chhps and flutters in her 
 prison, and beats her breast agamst the bars. The 
 sunshine pours in floods into the room, and a fragrant 
 breeze from Sm'rey scatters a huncbed blossoms from 
 the square gardens over a dingy coal (h'ay and ' the 
 boy with the beer,' and an astonished figm^e — a foot-
 
 * GILDED WIEES.' 9 
 
 man — emerging in his magnificence from the area with 
 a note. How sweet the mignionette smells, and how 
 that silly bird is fighting with the cage ! For the 
 second time within the last five minutes, her mistress 
 experiences a morbid desire to unhook the door and 
 let the captive go free. ' But then,' she reflects, ' poor 
 thing, you are not used to liberty, and you would die. 
 A prisoner you were bred, and a prisoner you must 
 remain.' 
 
 A cloud comes over Lady Gertrude's face as she 
 turns with a listless air from the open window and 
 the mellow sunshine, and sits her down in her own 
 arm-chair to thmk. 
 
 Now, in order to follow the thread of Lady Ger- 
 trude's ruminations, it is indispensable to put the clock 
 back to the hour of noon; as it is already nearly 
 luncheon time, a meal which everybody knows would 
 interfere with the servants' dinner if it took place be- 
 fore two P.M. At noon, then. Lady Gertrude emerged 
 from the door of No. oo, Belgrave-square, in the 
 primrose-coloured dress already hinted at, and such a 
 bonnet as Paris only can produce, to cross the well- 
 watered road with decorous speed, and let herself into 
 the gardens with her o^vn pass-key. It being freely 
 admitted by the logical verdict of English society, that 
 in these chaste groves Dian herself might perambulate 
 without a chaperone. The canary, had she been on 
 the watch, might then have observed her mistress 
 pacing the gravel-walk to and fro with something of 
 quarter-deck impatience and energy. In truth, there 
 is nothing provokes a woman so much as to be kept 
 waitmg, and this is the more unjustifiable when we
 
 10 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 consider that it is a penance she takes much pleasure 
 in exacting from the opposite sex. 
 
 The sixth turn, however, and such a clench of the 
 slender hand and stamp of the slender foot as con- 
 stitute what our American friends term a ' caution,' 
 brought her once more to the entrance-gate, where a 
 good-looking face, framed in a pair of brown whiskers, 
 and surmounted by a white hat, being indeed no other 
 than the original of the photograph up-stairs, was 
 seen imploring admittance, with a comical expression 
 of half penitence, half amusement depicted on its 
 comely Imeaments. Lady Gertrude's wrath seemed 
 to evaporate as she turned the key for ingress of the 
 new arrival, but it was with a backward toss of the 
 head, and in a sharper tone of voice than ordinary, 
 that she met him with a reproach rather than a 
 greeting. 
 
 ' How very unpunctual you are, Gilbert. I told you 
 half-past eleven on purpose that you mightn't keep me 
 waitmg.' 
 
 ' So you would have given me the forty minutes of 
 anxiety and agitation instead,' replied the gentleman, 
 with a pleasant laugh ; ^ and you know that every 
 minute I wait for you seems an age. Oh ! Gertrude, 
 what a bully you are ! ' 
 
 She was the least bit of a tyrant, if the truth must 
 be told, and to-day she was in one of her most im- 
 perious moods, so she threw her head up once more 
 as she resumed, 
 
 'I tell you honestly, I'm going to quarrel with you, 
 Gilbert. It has been brewing for a week, and I mean 
 reaUy to have it out at last. Tbere ! of course you
 
 'GILDED WIRES.' 11 
 
 begin to smoke, though you know I hate it ; but I 
 suppose it's no use my forbidding you to do anything. 
 I wonder which of them worked you that tawdiy cigar- 
 case. Bought it at the Baker-street Bazaar? oh, I 
 dare say ! Well, what have you got to say in your 
 defence ? Come, now, begin.' 
 
 The owner of the white hat put a pair of lavender- 
 kidded hands together in an attitude of supplication, 
 and without removing his cigar from his lips, mumbled 
 out the very apposite question — 
 ' What have I done ? ' 
 
 'It's not what you've done,' she replied, 'and I 
 can't help laughing at you, though I am so provoked. 
 Prmj don't be so absui'd, with all those nui'ses and 
 children looking at us ! It's not what you have done^ 
 but what you've left undone. Pray, since when have 
 gentlemen considered it honourable to break their word 
 to a lady because she's a cousin ? Where were you 
 last Thursday when you ought to have met us at 
 Sydenham ? and even Aunt Olivia said it was just 
 like you to forget all about it ! ' 
 
 ' I am always sure of my mother's good word,' re- 
 plied the gentleman, somewhat bitterly ; ' but last 
 Thursday was the day of the pigeon match.' 
 
 ' Pigeon match ! ' echoed his cousin, with the colour 
 mounting rapidly ; ' that won't do. Why, the " ties," 
 as you call them, were shot off before two o'clock. I 
 know it, because I asked Charley Wing the same night, 
 at Ormolu House. By the way, he dances as well 
 again as he did last year ; besides, the pigeon match 
 didn't prevent people going to see those hideous rhodo- 
 dendrons, and as jMrs. Montpellicr's yellow barouche
 
 12 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 was there from three till five, I suppose she gave you a 
 lift back into London.' 
 
 ' You wouldn't have wished me to walk,' said the 
 unabashed culprit, holding up at the same time a thin 
 and remarkably neat boot, on which it is needless to 
 say he prided himself not a little. 
 
 ' "V'NTiat I wish seems to be a matter of the greatest 
 indifference,' was the reply. ' But, indeed, Gilbert, 
 there is nobody to scold you but me ; at least, you say 
 yourself you never pay attention to any one else, and 
 you know, after all, I'm a very near relation, and — 
 and — like a sister, in short, and I own I ivas hurt that 
 you never came near us all last week, and you didn't 
 go to Lady Broadway's, though I sent your invitation 
 myself. Such a stupid ball, Gilbert ; and Aunt Olivia, 
 though she says nothing, I can see she don't like it. 
 It's not so much for my own sake I mind it, as for 
 hers ; and then, you are doing yourself incalculable 
 harm. Is it true you lost so much money on that 
 childish match of Count Carambole's ? ' 
 
 'A hatfull,' answered the defendant, at the same 
 time taking his own off, and looking roguishly into the 
 crown with provoking good humour. 
 
 ' What a life ! ' proceeded Lady Gertrude, waxing 
 visibly impatient. ' What a waste of time, and posi- 
 tion, and talent ; for you have talent, you know, Gil- 
 bert, if you choose to exert it ; and all for what ? To 
 play billiards night after night at Pratt's, and yawn 
 through the day between the bay window at lATiite's 
 and the end of the ride in the park ; you who might 
 do anything.' 
 
 *Very good of you to say so, dear,' di'awled her
 
 'GILDED WIEES.' 13 
 
 cousin. * I'm not bad at caricatiu^es, I know, and I 
 think with a fortnight's practice, I could do the " pea- 
 and-thimble " well enough to earn a livelihood during 
 the racing season — ^but as for high art, and science, 
 and " a career," and that sort of thing, why it's not 
 exactly in my line.' 
 
 She looked at him for a minute or two in silence. 
 Something almost of contempt curled her lip, while she 
 checked the words that came uppermost, but her eye 
 softened as it rested on his comely, good-humoured 
 face, with its habitual expression of lazy contentment, 
 and she put her arm within his and pressed it kindly 
 as she asked his pardon for so lecturing him and taking 
 him to task. 
 
 ' But you know, Gilbert,' she said, ' Aunt Olivia 
 never scolds you, and so if I didn't nobody would take 
 any pains with you, and what would become of you 
 then? I don't believe you really care for any one 
 mortal thing in the world, and more than that, Gilbert, 
 I don't believe you are really happy — there !' 
 
 She had broke through the crust at last, for this was 
 a home thrust. He had been thinking so himself of 
 late more than once ; had been startled to learn that 
 the wine-cup of youth could taste so flat sometimes, as 
 if filled from a bad bottle ; and the gai'lands, though 
 fresh and rosy still, were not always radiant with the 
 dew of the morning. 
 
 ' Happy,' he repeated, musingly ; ' why should I 
 be happy ? After all, I am pretty well alone in the 
 world, Gertrude. I don't believe any one in London 
 cares two straws about me but you. I have no home ; 
 certainly not there,^ he added, nodding towards the
 
 14 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 house whereat hung the cage and the canary, and to 
 which it was ah'eady time for his cousin to return. 
 ' But I live as ninety-nine out of every hundred do ; I 
 take the rough with the smooth ; and I suppose, after 
 all, I am as well off as my neighbours ; at least, I 
 don't know any I should like to change places with. 
 Certainly none that own such a pretty cousin with such 
 a pretty bonnet. Time to go in, is it ? Well, good 
 bye, Gertrude, dear ; I'm always the better for a scold- 
 ing from you, and I'll do anything you like this after- 
 noon, only let me out of the square first ; if I don't go 
 away, you know, I can't come back again.' 
 
 So the white hat was presently vacillating up the 
 shady side of Grosvenor-place, and Lady Gertrude 
 havino: taken off her bonnet, which it now struck her 
 was indeed a very pretty one, sate her down, as we 
 have ah-eady stated, in her own arm-chair, to recapitu- 
 late and think over the events of the morning. 
 
 The result of her cogitations was in one respect at 
 least decisive. She went to her writing-table, and 
 selecting a pen with great care proceeded to write 
 a note, which she folded and sealed with accurate 
 nicety. We must do women the justice to allow that 
 their missives, however involved in sense and grammar, 
 are at least fairly and decently worked out as regards 
 caligraphy ; and that they do not seem to consider the 
 legacy of Cadmus simply as a means of puzzling their 
 hapless correspondents. 
 
 This done, she looked once more at the colom-ed 
 photograph, once more at the winsome Lady Gertrude 
 over yonder in the looking-glass ; then she walked 
 restlessly to the window, and looked forth into the
 
 'GILDED WIRES.' 15 
 
 square gardens she had so recently quitted, and drew a 
 long breath as of one who has at last solved a diffi- 
 culty, the while she murmured in an audible whisper — 
 
 ' It will be far better for us both ; I shall marry my 
 cousin Gilbert ! ' 
 
 And the canary struggled to get out of her cage, 
 and fought, and fluttered, and beat her breast against 
 the bars.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 I REMEMBER. 
 
 HE cads at Tattersall's Yard knew Gilbert 
 Orme as well as the Wellington Statue. 
 The fast young gentlemen who frequent 
 that equine resort, had each and all a greet- 
 ing and a pleasant word or two for avowedly ' about 
 the nicest fellow in England.' Half-a-dozen seasons in 
 London, autumns at Cowes, and winters in the grass 
 countries, had thoroughly identified him with that ab- 
 normal portion of the human race which calls itself the 
 world ; and with good health, good spmts, good looks, 
 and a good income, few went the pace so easily and 
 gracefully as gentle Gilbert Orme. A long minority 
 had put him in possession of a large sum of ready 
 money, so that the gloss of youth was untarnished by 
 the many annoyances and anxieties which lay upon 
 none so heavily as those who cannot afford to live in 
 society, and cannot bear to live out of it. 'How I 
 should hate to be a poor man ! ' was Gilbert's oft-quoted 
 exclamation, when he overheard young Brozier lament- 
 ing his inability to keep a certain high-stepping cab 
 horse, which was the only claim to distinction advanced 
 by that uninteresting youth, and the sentiment counted 
 for a joke at the clubs. Many of the members knew
 
 I ROIEMBER. 17 
 
 its import too well by bitter experience, for, alas, several 
 of those magnificoes whom we are so often called upon 
 to admire as they pace the Ride in equestrian splendour, 
 or traverse Pall Mall in gorgeous apparel, have secret 
 debts and difficulties far more enthralling than those of 
 Mr. Plausible, the coachmaker, whose schedule bears 
 him triumphantly through the Insolvent Court ; and ends 
 that won't stretch to come within half-a-yard as near 
 meeting as those of John Stokes the bricklayer. Var- 
 nished boots are beautiful objects to look at, but a thick 
 sole with ease is more comfortable for walking, and no 
 man knows where the shoe pinches so well as he who 
 wears it. 
 
 I often think that the life of a ' young man about 
 London ' has in nine cases out of ten something of the 
 excitement and adventure of a brigand's or a buccaneer's. 
 The moral piracy that would fain board every prize and 
 haul do^ni every flag ; the unceasing endeavour to sail 
 nearer the wind than the adversary, and take every ad- 
 vantage, fair and unfair, of the chase ; the cutting-out 
 expeditions, the unacknowledged repulses, the boasted 
 triumphs, the strange freemasonry that exists between 
 reckless men ; above all, the uncertainty of the career, 
 and the consciousness that it must end in a general 
 smash at last ; all this invests a ' fast ' man's life 
 with some inexplicable fascination, to which we must 
 attribute the numerical strength of the class. How 
 many there are who trust to the turn of a trump-card 
 or the spin of a billiard-ball for the very means by 
 which they keep their heads above water day by day ; 
 and whose future, morally and physically, is bounded 
 by the settling after Goodwood. Pleasant, sunshiny, 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and agreeable, thej are totally devoid of scruples, and 
 utterly reckless of consequences — such characters, in 
 short, as are summed up in the modern satirist's de- 
 scription of a promising young man : 
 
 The damsels' delight, and the chaperone's fear, 
 
 He is voted a trump amongst men ; 
 His father allows him two hundred a year, 
 
 And he 'II lay you a thousand to ten ! 
 
 But Gilbert Orme was not one of these. Living as 
 he did in the midst of the temptations and dissipa- 
 tions of a London life, there was a certain child-like 
 simplicity in his character which, while it enhanced 
 the pungency of his pleasures, doubtless deprived them 
 of their most deleterious ingredients. Far be it from 
 me to affirm that ' to the pm^e all things are pure,' or 
 indeed that Gilbert's theory and practice were much 
 less lax than his neighbours' ; but frail mortality at 
 least is inclined to look leniently on those errors in 
 which the imagination and the intellect predominate 
 over the senses ; and he must have been a stern ^Mentor 
 and forgotten the while that he had ever himself been 
 a boy, who could have clipped the wings of that high- 
 hearted young eagle, soaring indeed far beyond the 
 bounds of conventionality and decorum, but yet soaring 
 ever upwards nearer and nearer to the smi. 
 
 I can see him now, as he was long after he had wound 
 himself round my old heart, a lad of eighteen. I can 
 see his tall graceful figure as he used to jump the ha-ha 
 that divided the lawn from the park at "West- Acres, 
 and bound away over the turf lithe and active, as the 
 very deer scouring before him. I can see him carry
 
 I REMEMBER. 19 
 
 out his bat, with a score of fifty-six notches that I 
 marked for him with my own fingers the day the West- 
 Acres eleven beat the united strength of Bat-Thorpe 
 and Bowlsover in one innings. He walked to the tent 
 like a young hero, with his head up and his eye spark- 
 ling, followed by a round of applause ungrudgingly 
 bestowed by the players on both sides, and many an 
 admiring glance from the benches on which various 
 coloured di^esses and gossamer bonnets quivered and 
 bloomed like a parterre of garden flowers in July. The 
 boy used to come and tell me his triumphs and his mis- 
 givings, and pour out his rich fancies and open his glad 
 young heart with an abandonment and a fresh sincerity 
 that endeared him to me strangely, for I was an old 
 man even then, and the heavy sorrow that had crushed 
 me in manhood, but had been borne, I trust, humbly 
 and resignedly in age, had taught me to feel kindly for 
 all, and especially to sympathize with the young. 
 
 If they knew, if they only knew ! what that Future 
 really is to which they look so longingly. Woe is me ! 
 not one of them but would cast his burden to the ground, 
 and sit down by the wayside and refuse to mo^•e one 
 single step further on the journey. 
 
 I was reading with him before he went to Oxford ; 
 not coaching and cramming him with dry fiicts and 
 technical memories, but sauntering pleasantly through 
 the beauties of those glorious old Greek minds as a man 
 might walk slowly arm-in-arm with a friend in a gallery 
 of art. My boy (I can bear to call him my boy now) 
 was a scholar, not literally in the dull every-day accep- 
 tation of the word, but essentially and, so to speak, in 
 its aesthetic sense. He might not dig the Greek root, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 or criticise the verb's middle voice quite so assiduously 
 as some more plodding students, but his conception of 
 Homer's heroes, I am convinced, would have satisfied 
 the blind old wizard himself. His spirit seemed steeped 
 in those rolling hexameters, like the garland of Alci- 
 biades dripping and satui'ated with strong rich Chian 
 wine. I am sure that he could see the son of Peleus 
 standing visibly before him in the blaze of his young 
 beauty, and the pride of his heroic strength ; could 
 mark the thin Greek nostril dilating in its wrath, and 
 the godlike head thrown back in high disdain, with scorn 
 on the chiselled lip, and hate in the flashing eye, and 
 stern defiance stamped on the fair wide brow. I know 
 that Briseis was not to him the mere ancilla who con- 
 stituted lot No. I of a freebooter's plunder, but an 
 ivory-limbed shape, smooth and faultless, cowering in 
 her loveliness under a shower of golden tresses, through 
 which the white shoulder peeped and peered coyly ; the 
 while the red lip curled half in smiles, half in entreaties, 
 and the lustrous eyes looked upward from under their 
 long veiling lashes, deepening and softening with mingled 
 love and fear. 
 
 My boy would read out the bm-ning lines in a low, 
 earnest tone, like a man reciting his own poetry ; and 
 I knew when I saw his colour rise, and heard his full 
 young voice shake, that he was back upon the sands be- 
 fore Troy, with white-crested Olympus towering on the 
 horizon before him, and the blue sea wreathing into 
 ever-changing smiles at his feet. 
 
 Ah, me ! it seems like a dream now, to have ever 
 sat in the hot summer noons under the old oaks at West- 
 Acres. The old oaks that stood apart one by one in
 
 I KEMEIVIBER. 21 
 
 their majestic beauty, dotting the level English-looking 
 park, where the deer browzed lazily in the shade, and 
 the white swans glistened on the burnished sui'face of 
 the lake ; to hear the distant voices of the haymakers 
 blending with the hum of insects in the sim-dried air, 
 and the wood-pigeon cooing softly in the leafy depths 
 of the dense elm grove, and the chimes striking faintly 
 from the square tower of the far away village church. 
 It was a dear old place, with its red brick wings and 
 white portico, and all the architectural incongruities of 
 Inigo Jones's taste. There is a degree of comfort in one 
 of these real English houses that we look for in vain 
 elsewhere. But the favom-ite spot in which Gilbert and 
 I chose to pursue our studies, was half a mile off in the 
 park, under an old oak tree, where the fern grew three 
 feet high, and a clear spring bubbled and sparkled 
 through the greensward ankle deep in moss. 
 
 It was a strange and suggestive contrast, yet was it 
 not altogether out of keeping, to bask in that fragrant 
 spot and read the noble thoughts, and the shrewd, yet 
 simple reflections; above all, the deep heartfelt poetry 
 of those grand old heathens; to mark the worldly 
 wisdom of the cynic, cold, heartless, and essentially lo- 
 gical, in the colonnades and porticoes of Athens more 
 than two thousand years ago, as on the steps of White's 
 at the present day ; to watch the ideal tendency, the di- 
 vinceparticula aurce, always choked down and smothered, 
 never totally extinguished, in all the casuistry and the 
 luxury, and the gross habitual sin of Greece and Kome, 
 just as it sparkles out and flashes upward now in London 
 or Paris, reaching and leaping and striving towards the 
 heaven from which it came. Is the fable of Prometheus
 
 22 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 but a legend of barbarians ? Is it not rather the pro- 
 foundest of parables, the most graceful of allegories and 
 myths? Whoever of ancient or modern times has 
 singled himself out from the common herd to benefit or 
 instruct his kind, him have the common herd scouted 
 and stigmatized as an impostor or a fool. They voted 
 Paul mad, and they doomed Socrates to die. Was not 
 that a deep and sad insight into human nature, which 
 feigned that he who brought down fire from heaven, was 
 chained upon the cold rock and tortured the while by a 
 vulture tearing at his heart ? Alas for the gifted and 
 the good ! they lay their hearts bare in their frank trust 
 and their honesty of purpose, their kindly hearts that 
 throb and quiver to an injuiy ; they lay them bare, and 
 they chain themselves to the naked rock, and beak and 
 talons rend them to the core. 
 
 But Gilbert, like all boys, saw in the ancients his 
 ideal of manhood, moral as well as physical, and re- 
 spected them accordingly. How many and many a 
 time under the old oak tree would he argue with me on 
 their chivalry, their patriotism, and their love of all 
 that was noble and good. How his eye kindled when 
 he quoted Curtius driving his war-steed headlong into 
 the gulf, or Leonidas willing to sup with Pluto, so that 
 he turned the Persian myi'iads back from the human 
 bulwark framed by his own and the bodies of the devoted 
 handful that held the pass of Thermopylae ; or the high- 
 crested Horatius and his trusty twain to right and left, 
 the pride of Rome, herself a colony of warriors — 
 
 The three who kept the bridge so well, 
 In the brave days of old ;
 
 I REMEMBER. 23 
 
 or any of the thousand instances of patriotic devotion 
 and heroic daring with which the annals of those large- 
 hearted heathens teem. 
 
 Many a time we laid the book upon the grass, and 
 regardless of cricket, fishing, boating, the warning bell 
 for luncheon, or the carriage load of visitors grinding 
 up the avenue, we commented hour after horn' on the 
 subject of our studies, and discussed, each in om- o^vn 
 way, the comparative advantages of ancient and modem 
 times. My boy, of coui^se, was all for shield and helmet 
 against hat and umbrella; preferred his ideal Rome, 
 with its Appian way and its Forum, to the material 
 London, of which he knew too well the Piccadilly and 
 the cab-stands ; opined that we had hardly yet recovered 
 the effects of the dark ages, esteemed the Olympic 
 Games far superior to the Derby, and regretted equally 
 the laurelled triumphs glistening and winding upward 
 to the Capitol, with the free discussions when sage met 
 sage in the open Athenian schools ; with the glorious 
 obstinacy of youth, adopted the irrational side of the 
 argument, and stood by it to the death. 
 
 But it was on the oft-vexed question of woman's mis- 
 sion and woman's influence that my young pupil came 
 out in his brightest colours. I have heard military 
 men affirm that perfectly raw recruits who have never 
 seen a shot fired, are preferable to the stanchest veterans 
 for one desperate coup de main or rash hap-hazard attack ; 
 and in the same way, I have often remarked that the 
 boy of eighteen professes an utter contempt for his 
 natural enemy, where the man of thirty guards every 
 assailable point, and intrenches himself in the strongest 
 position he can command. Ten years later he will de-
 
 24 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 camp without beat of drum, and seek safety in flight. 
 On one occasion I hazarded the opinion that the woman 
 worship which came in with the institution of chivalry, 
 and will not outlast that superstition a day, had done 
 more than any human influence to advance om- civiliza- 
 tion and ameliorate the condition of mankind. Gilbert 
 was in arms at once, he disputed my position at its 
 very outset, he denied that woman ever had any in- 
 fluence at all, except amongst the weaker minds and 
 less commanding spirits of the opposite sex. He flushed 
 and chafed with the subject as he threw his straw hat 
 aside and walked up and down in the sun, like a young 
 Apollo. I ought to have been gratified with his progress. 
 He brought all the learning he possessed to bear upon 
 the subject, and fired ofi" a sixty-eight pomider, so to 
 speak, at the commencement of the action. 
 
 ' Why, even old Herodotus sneers at them as mere 
 chattels,' quoth the untried legionary ; ' and like a dry 
 old fellow as he is, he gives us his real opinion when he 
 quotes the sensible maxim of the Persians, ' that to 
 carry ofi" women by violence is the act of wicked men, 
 but to trouble oneself about avenging them when so 
 carried oS", is the act of foolish ones, and to pay no 
 regard to them when carried off", the act of wise men ; 
 for that it is clear that if they had not been willing, 
 they could not have been carried ofi".' We were reading 
 it only last week, and you laughed yourself, though you 
 don't often laugh, when I construed the passage. It is 
 clear that he didn't think them much worth troubling 
 oneself about. Nor have I forgotten the inscriptions 
 of Sesostris, nor the regulations of the Egy]3tians, 
 which permitted no woman to enter the precincts of a
 
 I REMEMBER. 25 
 
 temple, as an inferior being unworthy of the service of 
 a god or goddess ; and even the Greeks, though thej 
 were fools enough to make war about Helen, treated 
 their captive women as slaves, and only respected their 
 mothers and sisters as a part of themselves, not because 
 they belonged to the inferior sex ; whilst the Romans, 
 who, I have heard you say, improved as much upon the 
 Greeks in common sense as they fell short of them in 
 imagination and poetry, evidently considered them mere 
 machines to rear their children, and if ever they did 
 speak of them as gracing the wine-cup, or enhancing 
 the charms of a feast, apparently deemed it a matter of 
 no moment which should be the preferred one, but 
 lumped in Chloris and Chloe, Lydia and Lalage, all at 
 the same premium, one as good as another.' 
 
 ' Yet did the conquerors of these very Romans, the 
 tall Gothic barbarians, frame all their measm'es by the 
 advice of their wives, nay, even bade the experience 
 of the warrior give place in council to the sagas of the 
 wise women, daughters of Odin.' 
 
 I hazarded this argument with some diflBdence, know- 
 inoj the storm it would brinor down. 
 
 ' The bull-headed, superstitious, beef-devouring gladi- 
 ators ! ' was the reply, ' with just enough sense to 
 knock their heads against a wall, which luckily for 
 them had been sapped and crumbling for centuries. 
 Could they keep Rome when they had it ? Could they 
 defend Constantinople when it was in their clumsy 
 iron grasp? Did not the Turks press them hard on 
 the Bosphorus ? did not the Moors enslave them in 
 Spain ? the polygamist against the monogamist all 
 the world over, till the latter abandoned his creed and
 
 26 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 began to put his faith in policy and common sense, 
 instead of a cross-handled sword and a long-eyed ladye 
 light-o'love!' 
 
 ' Then you scorn the institution of chivalry, Gilbert,' 
 was my reply ; ' and prefer the picture of Archimedes 
 demonstrating his problem during the assault, to that 
 of Dunois bleeding to death with his back to a tree 
 and his face to the enemy, the while he made a 
 Christian ending before the crucifix of his sword-hilt ? ' 
 
 ' Dunois was a fine fellow ! ' answered Gilbert ; ' be- 
 sides, there was no woman in his case. What I protest 
 against is the raising up an idol and bowing down 
 before it because it has soft eyes and long hair. You 
 always take the other side of the question to draw 
 me out ; I know I'm right, because I feel I am. How 
 hot it is ! There's my mother going out in the car- 
 riage. Don't let us read any more for to-day; come 
 and take up the trimmers we set last night, and after 
 that we'll go and catch a pike in the witch-pool under 
 the elms.' 
 
 I rose and followed him in silence, thinking of An- 
 tony and the tawny-finned fishes, and the hook that 
 sooner or later is in every man's nose.
 
 (IIAPTER m. 
 
 ' EARLY FROSTS.' 
 
 WAS not always a recluse — not always the 
 musty bookworm who exists only amongst 
 dusty shelves and rare old badly-printed 
 editions. The same man who some years 
 ago would have bade me see his two-year-olds gallop, 
 now asks me to arrange his library. I once lived in 
 the world as others do. Shall I confess it ? my heart 
 was never thoroughly interested in what is termed 
 society. Perhaps I had not room for so many objects 
 of interest and affection; perhaps, like an miskilful 
 gambler, I set all my store on one desperate throw, 
 and lost, and cared not to try again ; to play for sil- 
 ver where I had once staked gold. So the bowl has 
 stood empty ever since. 
 
 This is no story of my o-^^ti life. I only mention 
 it because I want an explanation of something which 
 my former experience has convinced me to be an un- 
 doubted fact ; and I do not wish my experience to 
 be set at nought, as that of one who has never been 
 down in the arena, and spilt his blood upon the thirsty 
 sand. 
 
 Why is it that in ninety-nine cases out of a liun- 
 dred those women who have been brought up chiefly
 
 28 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 amongst men, who have had no sisters, who have lost 
 a mother earlj in life (doubtless for many reasons a 
 sad affliction to a girl) , who have been dependent on 
 father or brothers for society and conversation, should 
 turn out the most fascinating and superior of their sex ? 
 
 Why is it that in nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 cases out of a thousand, the boy who is educated solely 
 by his mother becomes a triumphant and successful 
 man in after-life ? 
 
 Perhaps the opposite influence of either sex is bene- 
 ficial to the other, perhaps the girl derives vigorous 
 thought, expanded views, habits of reflection, nay, 
 more, charity and forbearance, from her male asso- 
 ciates, as the boy is indebted to his mother's tuition 
 and his mother's companionship for the gentleness and 
 ^'.jukj of heart which combine so well with a manly 
 and generous nature, for the refinement and delicacy of 
 feeling which so adorn true com^age, above all, for that 
 exalted standard of womankind which shall prove hi.s 
 surest safeguard from shame and defeat in the comi, 
 battle; a shield impervious so long as it is bri^^., 
 but that when once soiled slides and crumbles from his 
 grasp, leaving him in the press of angry weapons a 
 naked and defenceless man. 
 
 We have all heard of the little boy who sturdily 
 upheld, in defiance of the poet, that ' his mamma was 
 the noblest work of God.' I think the truest and 
 holiest homage that can be ofiered to a fellow-crea- 
 ture, is that which such a child tenders unconsciously 
 to his mother. She is to him the one bright beautiful 
 being upon earth. His young eyes open wide with 
 childish wonder at the magnificence of her apparel,
 
 'EARLY FROSTS.' 29 
 
 the mingled grace and majesty of her bearing ; he 
 feels so proud to belong to her, and at the same time 
 so conscious of his right to a place by her side, a 
 seat on her knee. When others caress him, he smiles 
 pleasantly enough for a time, but soon wearies, and 
 hurries ojff to be at play again ; but when she lays 
 her quiet hand upon his brow, the boy forgets hoop 
 and marbles, the new knife and the promised pony, 
 to nestle by her side, and look up in her face, and sit 
 lovingly down at the feet of his oivn mamma. 
 
 All that he knows of good he learns from her. She 
 teaches him to love and pray. She teaches him to 
 hope and to believe. If ever he gets to the end of 
 the narrow way, where the little wicket stands, and 
 hears the bolts drawn back, and sees the golden light 
 from the happy land shining through, whom shall he 
 thank and bless on earth, but her who first taught 
 him the pass- word and gave him the key? Perhaps 
 she will also be the first to bid him welcome on the 
 other side. 
 
 Gilbert Orme was without this unspeakable blessing. 
 Everything else that the world deems advantageous 
 was lavished on him in profusion. Health, vigour, 
 childish spirits, a fine place, and a long minority, but 
 no mother, at least, not in the sense in which I under- 
 stand the word. Gilbert was an only child, but in 
 good truth he was far from being spoilt, as people 
 consider only children usually destined to be. From 
 boyhood his was a nature on which harshness or ill- 
 usage made but slight impression, a spirit that could 
 only have been broken through its affections, and these, 
 even when I was reading Homer with him at eighteen,
 
 30 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 had been called but little into play. Lady Olivia 
 never seemed to care for her child. Not a labourer 
 about West- Acres but took more pride in the bright- 
 haired handsome boy than did his own reserved and 
 haughty mother. When I first knew her, she was not 
 yet a widow, but I could never see that the event 
 which soon after deprived her of her husband, made 
 the slightest difference in her manners or softened her 
 character one jot. 
 
 Of Mr. Orme I knew but little, I had heard of him 
 in former days (for he was somewhat after my time) 
 as a gay dashing young man ; on the turf, in society, 
 member for a most corruptible borough in his own 
 county, good-looking, good-humoiu'ed, not much trou- 
 bled with brains, with a slight tendency to literature, 
 and a rather stronger tm-n for love-makinoj. I saw 
 him once or twice at Ne^NTQarket, and missed meeting 
 him at a country place or two, to which we were both 
 invited for the slaughter of pheasants and other game. 
 It interested me but little, and astonished me not at 
 all, to learn that he had married the Lady Olivia, of 
 whose maiden name I will say no more than that it 
 was identical with that of Lady Gertrude, whose father 
 indeed had been the elder lady's brother. But after 
 his marriage Mr. Orme dropped out of society altoge- 
 ther. People in London do not trouble themselves 
 much about absentees. 'Here's Orme accepted the 
 Chiltern Hundreds,' said one of his club friends to 
 another as he ya^vned over the evening paper ; ' what 
 the deUce is that for? By the way, hasn't something 
 happened to him ? ' 
 
 ' Married, poor devil ! ' was the reply ; the speaker
 
 ' EARLY FROSTS.' 31 
 
 himself possessing a charming wife with a numerous 
 family, and very fond of them besides ; ' but that's no 
 reason he shouldn't come to London. Does anybody 
 know any thuig about him ? ' 
 
 ^Mad!' observed young Tattleton, sententiously, 
 who preferred hazarding a falsehood to betraying igno- 
 rance on any subject whatever, ' and shut up down at 
 that place in the country,' he added, shaking his head 
 commiseratingly, and pointing with his forefinger to the 
 spot where his own brains ought to have been. 
 
 The two friends were quite satisfied with the expla- 
 nation, and fell to discussmg then- last night's dinner, 
 taking no more thought for ' poor Orme.' 
 
 He was not mad, though, nevertheless, only tho- 
 roughly and essentially miserable. Lady Olivia might 
 have made an excellent wife to another ; probably, like 
 the rest of us, under totally different cu'cumstances, 
 would have been a totally different person. As it was, 
 however, she made a most uncomfortable one to him. 
 He had fallen into a mistake not unusual with one of 
 his temperament — weak, kindly, and over-imaginative 
 — and had invested the lady, whom he had met at 
 some half-a-dozen balls and a breakfast, with all the 
 qualities of his ideal, none of which did she happen to 
 possess. Then came the disenchantment, the disagree- 
 ments, the recriminations, the offended pride on one 
 side, the growing dislike and blank hopelessness on the 
 other. It was an ill-judged and most mihappy union. 
 , ' But,' as Lady Olivia observed, ' was that her fiiult ? 
 Was she to be punished because Mr. Orme mistook 
 her for somebody else ? No ! he had been in error ; 
 let him be the sufferer ! '
 
 32 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 The argument was not without some show of reason, 
 and he suffered accordingly, without much complaint, 
 and with a strong bridle on a temjDer natm'allj keen 
 and self-asserting. A sterner nature would have bent 
 her to his will, and altered her character to assimilate 
 it with his own. She would have loved him all the 
 better. A milder would have succumbed, and learned, 
 like other slaves, to submit to despotic authority with a 
 good grace. But Orme was as God had made him, 
 and took refuge in a listless, hopeless, pitiable apathy. 
 He ceased to tear at the chain he had not strength 
 to break, the chain that bomid him to one with whom 
 he had not a sm^le feelino^ in common save abhorrence 
 of the fetter, and threw his hands up like the drowmng 
 man, who has the sense to know that his struggles can 
 but prolong his agony. 
 
 Those are wise and suggestive words in our Prayer 
 Book which exhort us to take in hand mamage, ' dis- 
 creetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God,' 
 words that refer to the highest source, the most im- 
 portant action in the lives of most human bemgs — 
 words that suggest to the least considerate the awful 
 gravity of the mterest at stake. A loving marriage is 
 a good and holy sight in the eyes of men and angels, 
 but that was the refinement of a fiend's tortm-e, which 
 bound the living, breathing being hai*d and fast to the 
 senseless corpse. 
 
 I have heard his neighbours say that Mr, Orme 
 grew strangely idle and indifferent and lethargic. He 
 left off field-sports altogether, gave away his famous 
 pointers, sold his hunters, doubled his subscription to 
 the hounds, and otherwise conducted himself in an un-
 
 •eaely frosts.' 33 
 
 accountable manner. Some people thought he had 
 gout in the stomach, others vowed it was water on the 
 brain. His old butler, who luoiddnH leave, thouo-h 
 Lady Olivia gave him warning once a fortnight, opined 
 it was neither of these, for a certain tall bottle labelled 
 V. 0. P. stood in his master's dressing-room ; and that 
 faithful domestic, who, liking brandy less than beer, 
 took very little of it himself, knew that it was never 
 quite empty and never full. 
 
 By degrees he chafed less and less under Lady 
 Olivia's provocations, took less and less interest in his 
 boy (he was fond of the urchin, but a child's love will 
 scarcely stand a man in the stead of everything else), 
 and dozed away more and more time in his arm-chair 
 over the embers of his study-fire. One spring morning 
 they both went out together, and the tall bottle, too, 
 had ebbed to the last teaspoonful. So there was a fine 
 funeral, and Lady Olivia became a widow, and Gilbert 
 an orphan with a little black frock on his back, and a 
 long minority before him. Nobody seemed to care 
 much for poor Orme but the old butler, and he gave up 
 his place immediately, and took the public-house in the 
 village. 
 
 In most families such an event would have drawn 
 tighter the bonds of afiection which should miite mother 
 and son : with the Onnes, however, it was not so. Lady 
 Olivia, when the customary year of a widow's seclusion 
 had passed by, went into society as before. Perhaps a 
 little more frequently than durmg the latter months of 
 her husband's life. She was a great stickler for con- 
 ventional forms, and went to London regularly hi the 
 season to keep up her acquaintance, just as she gave 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 large, solemn, frigid dinners at West- Acres to sustain 
 her influence in the coimty. She seemed to have no 
 inclination to marry again. 
 
 People speculated, indeed, on her intentions, as they 
 always will upon matters with which they can have no 
 earthly concern, and coupled her name with a rich 
 London banker, a superannuated Lord of the Bed- 
 chamber, and a neighboimng Squu^e still in his minority. 
 Such reports distm'bed her ladyship's equanimity but 
 little. Even Diana was taJhed about with that young 
 rake Endymion, and Lady Olivia carried her mdomit- 
 able head so high that she could well afford to look 
 down upon the nods and winks and signs of humbler 
 mortals. He would have been a bold man too who 
 could have ventm-ed on a tender subject with that se- 
 vere beauty crushing him to the dust, those grave eyes 
 looking sternly into his own. Old Flippant, a lady- 
 killer of some twenty years' practice, called her the 
 Marble Widow. ' Egad, sir,' said that mature Lo- 
 thario, ' she's a chiller^ a regular black frost ; when the 
 wind's in the east I can't go near her without sneezing.' 
 And, indeed, veteran as he was, he stood in considerable 
 awe of the icy dame of whom he spoke so disparagmgly. 
 To give her her due, like Queen Elizabeth of blessed 
 memory, she was one of those admirable ladies who 
 could ' look a lion down.' 
 
 I wish for her own sake she could have been kinder 
 to the child. When I first came to live near West- 
 Acres he was a bright handsome boy of some seven or 
 eight summers, the least bit of a scape-grace, and rather 
 too fond of rat-catching, rabbiting, and such illiterate 
 amusements ; but, as the old keeper used to say, ' a
 
 •early frosts.' 35 
 
 little gentleman every inch of him ! ' He had all a 
 boy's spirits and a boy's pluck, with something feminine 
 in the shyness of his glance and the soft kindliness of 
 his disposition which endeared him wondrously to the 
 domestics and work-people about the place. One of the 
 numerous grievances for which he was taken sternly to 
 task by Lady Olivia was his predilection for the society 
 of the grooms and coachman, and his natm^al preference 
 of the stable to her ladyship's o^yn morning-room, which 
 was in truth a dull place of resort for a child ; inas- 
 much as he was not permitted to romp about or make a 
 noise in those sacred precincts. Also — and of this 
 fault I cannot fairly hold him guiltless — for the reck- 
 less manner in which he rode and otherwise maltreated 
 a certain long-suffering pony called ' Mouse,' of which 
 the extraordinary speed and endurance were daily tested 
 to an unjustifiable extent. 
 
 By the way, my first introduction to the young gen- 
 tleman was brought about through the instrumentality 
 of this much aggrieved quadruped. I was walking with 
 Lady Olivia in the park a day or two after my arrival 
 in the neighbourhood, discussing with her a matter of 
 business, in which she showed her usual clear-headedness 
 and precision, when my attention was arrested by the 
 child and his pony scorning over the park in our vi- 
 cinity, I need not say at poor Mouse's utmost speed. 
 Lady Olivia stopped in her walk and drew herself up 
 as was her wont. ' I wish you to know my son,' she 
 said in her cold measured voice ; and the clear imperious 
 tones calling ' Gilbert ! Gilbert ! ' cut through the sum- 
 mer air to where he was galloping, intent only on INIouse 
 and his performances. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 The child seemed pleased to be taken notice of, and 
 turned quickly in our direction. As he approached us 
 without checking speed, a fallen tree of no great girth 
 lay in his course, and with a pardonable display of 
 horsemanship he put his pony straight at the obstacle. 
 I can see him now, sitting resolutely back on his little 
 saddle, his golden cm4s floating behind him, and his 
 smooth brow bent, and rosy lips set fast, for the effort. 
 Mouse rose gallantly, but predestined to failure, or per- 
 haps a little blo^vn with the pace, caught his fore legs 
 in the leap, and pitching his little rider forward over 
 his head, followed him in a very complicated and dan- 
 gerous kind of fall. 
 
 I was standing close to his mother, and I thought I 
 heard her breath come quick ; but as the child rose to 
 his feet, I glanced at her face ere I went to catch the 
 pony, and saw that it retained its usual marble com- 
 posure. ' What is the woman made of ? ' I thought, as 
 I ran my arm through Mouse's rein, who no sooner 
 found himself on his legs again without a rider, than 
 he took advantage of the respite to crop a mouthful of 
 the short sweet grass. 
 
 When I came back to them the child had his hand 
 in his mother's. He was pale, and evidently shaken, 
 but not frightened the least bit, though there was a 
 severe bruise reddening and smarting on his cheek- 
 bone. With some vague remembrance of his nursery 
 days, he looked up in Lady Olivia's face, and I heard 
 him whisper — 
 
 ' It does hurt, mamma dear; kiss it and make it well! ' 
 
 ' Nonsense, Gilbert,' was the cold reply, ' don't be so 
 silly ; how can my kissing it do it any good ? '
 
 'EARLY FROSTS/ 37 
 
 I saw his little face flush up and change all in a 
 minute ; I think I remembered even then of Him who 
 said it was not good to offend one of these little ones ; 
 but I helped the child into his saddle in silence, and 
 was not surprised to see poor Mouse taken short by the 
 head, and turned round to jump once, twice, over the 
 unlucky tree, with so fierce an application of his rider's 
 whip as I have seldom witnessed before or since. 
 
 ' Gently, child,' I could not forbear saying as I took 
 hold of the pony's bridle and caressed it after the 
 second performance ; ' do not punish your poor pony, 
 it was more your fault than his. Another time do not 
 ride so fast at an upright leap.' 
 
 The boy stared at me without replying, then turned 
 and galloped away ; whilst Lady Olivia and I continued 
 our walk and our conversation without again reverting 
 to the accident. 
 
 But when the luncheon-bell rang, and her ladyship 
 had gone into the house, I met Gilbert on his way 
 from the stables. He came up to me very shyly, and 
 put his little hand timidly in mine. 
 
 ^ I like you,' he said, because you were sorry for poor 
 Mouse when I beat him.' Then looking down and 
 getting very red, he added, 'I like people who are 
 sorry ; I would like you very much if you would let me.' 
 
 Need I say that henceforth we were fast friends ? I 
 will not recapitulate the progress of our intimacy. How 
 family circumstances brought me more and more into 
 contact with Lady Olivia and her son. How I used to 
 correspond with the lad at Eton, and visit him regu- 
 larly in the dear old College, from the ' after- twelve ' 
 on which with three others of the fourth form he was
 
 38 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 most deservedly * swished,' having attempted in vain to 
 get off with a seventh ' first-fault,' till the memorable 
 evening of that 4th of June on which I went up 'sitter' 
 with him to Surley Hall, and he pulled stroke in the 
 ten-oar. How we parted with mutual regret when he 
 went abroad for six months, and met again delighted, 
 to read, as I have already said, for his matriculation at 
 Oxford ; a place from which I regret to say my pupil 
 was more than once rusticated, in consequence of his 
 attachment to divers sports and pursuits which cannot 
 be brouo-ht to harmonize with academical reo;ulations. 
 But still, Orme was avowedly ' the most popular man 
 in his College.' I knew one or two of the dons behind 
 the scenes ; their faces always brightened when his 
 name was mentioned ; and they were quite of my 
 opinion, that with the least thing more application he 
 could have taken ' honours.' As it was, I am con- 
 strained to admit that my pupil was 'plucked,' and 
 being by that time pretty well his own master, he 
 abandoned the University in disgust. 
 
 Nevertheless, I do not believe the ripest scholar of 
 them all could have written a letter teeming with such 
 classical learning, fun, and imagination, as that in 
 which he apprised me of the unexpected failure ; nor 
 would I have exchanged for the proudest diploma of 
 science the kindly expressions of regard and sympathy 
 in which he couched his annomicement of a defeat 
 which he regretted far more for my sake than his own. 
 After this I saw him of course at rarer intervals ; the 
 lives of a young man in the world and an old man out 
 of the world are so different, that they need seldom 
 expect to meet. For full two years I had not set eyes
 
 'EARLY FROSTS.' 39 
 
 on him, when I met him in Piccadilly on that spring 
 day to which I have already alluded, after his walk with 
 his cousin, Lady Gertrude, in the square. We were on 
 opposite sides of the street, but my boy rushed across, 
 reorardless of mud and omnibuses, with all his old 
 freshness and cordiality, to link me by the arm and 
 turn me as of yore in his own direction instead of mine. 
 
 ' You have nothing in the world to do,' said the 
 butterfly to the earthworm, ' and I am always so busy 
 I have not a moment to spare. Come with me as far 
 as the top of St. James's-street, and tell me all about 
 yourself as we go along.' 
 
 I had been busier perhaps than he thought for, but 
 my day's work was nearly over ere his had begun, and 
 it was refreshing to look upon his kindly handsome face 
 and listen to the tones of his cheerful, hearty voice once 
 more, though it seemed to me that they were a little 
 faded and saddened to what they had been long ago. 
 I sometimes think that the world wears the gloss off the 
 players faster than the workers. It may be perhaps 
 that the former are the more in earnest of the two. I 
 know that I would fain possess the same energies now 
 to be expended on useful purposes, which I wasted in 
 my youth on trifles and worse than trifles ; but, alas ! 
 in life, vestigia nulla retrorsum, and indeed that world 
 of long ago was a bright and a joyous world after all. 
 
 It had not palled entirely on Gilbert yet. As we 
 paced slowly along the pavement, every second man we 
 met seemed to know Orme and to be glad to see him. 
 Bright glances were shot at him from open carriages, 
 and pretty fingers kissed in his favour from brougham 
 windows. Truth is truth, and despite all the sneers
 
 40 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 of philosophers, it is no unpleasant lot, while it lasts, 
 to be young, rich, well-looking, and well received in 
 London society. A man must either be very happy 
 or very miserable, who can afford to treat the opinion 
 of his fellows with contempt. Even my own old heart 
 felt lighter after my walk with my pupil ; and I wended 
 my way towards the British Museum, where I resolved 
 to spend the afternoon, with a firmer step than usual ; 
 the while Gilbert, with his hat very much on one side, 
 sprang lightly up the steps at White's, and inquired 
 according to custom of the affable functionary who 
 presides over the postal department, whether there were 
 ' any letters for Mr. Orme ? ' 
 
 There was one, a note that had just arrived. Gilbert 
 smiled as he perused the laconic contents : 
 
 ' Dear Gilbert, — The tickets have come for the morn- 
 ing concert. We will call for you at White's in an 
 hoiu\ — Yours as ever, G.' 
 
 ' That's rather a bore,' remarked the recipient with 
 a yawn ; ' however, I promised Gertrude, and after all 
 
 it's SOMETHING TO DO ! '
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ' THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 
 
 OW little does one half the world know how 
 the other half lives. The streams of life, 
 like the waters of the Rhine and the Moselle, 
 though they flow down the same channel, 
 fatten the same pastures, turn the same mill, and eddy 
 over the same shoals, meet, but mingle not, and what 
 interests are there in common between No. i and No. 
 2 of any street, square, or row in the great city ? Your 
 next-door neighbour, the man who spends his whole life 
 separated from you by a party wall of one brick and a- 
 half in thickness, may be a coiner, an Italian refugee, 
 or an alchemist in search of the philosopher's stone, 
 for aught you know to the contrary. You lay your 
 head on your pillow within eighteen inches of his, and 
 whilst the rosy dreams from which it is such a mockery 
 to awake, are gilding your morning sleep, he may be 
 lying racked with bodily pain, or breaking his heart 
 with mental torture. What care you ? So as he does 
 not poke his fire too loudly, you are unconscious of his 
 existence. For forty years you pay the same water- 
 rate, and consume an equal number of cubic feet of gas, 
 but you never exchange a syllable, probably never set 
 eyes on each other from year's end to year's end, till
 
 42 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 at last the mutes are standing at the door, the mourning 
 coaches are drawn up decently next the pavement, and 
 one of you removes to another and a narrower house 
 ' over the way.' 
 
 I suppose, with the variety of a little more bloodshed 
 and a little more flirtation, things went on in Babylon 
 the Great much as they do in the London of to-day. 
 The wine-cup bubbled again and again usque ad nauseam 
 for the high, and the low gasped in vain for a mouthful 
 of pm-e cold water. The Assyrian in purple wallowed 
 in profusion till he longed for a sensation^ even though 
 it were a sting of pain; while the Assyrian in rags 
 starved and drooped at his gates, faint and hungry, and 
 weary of his life. It was the bees whose sweltering 
 labour constructed those hanging gardens, the fame of 
 which reached the uttermost ends of the known earth, 
 but it was the drones who walked delicately along their 
 terraces, and languished in their perfumed bowers, and 
 caught the diamond di'ops from then- plashing fountains, 
 gushing, and glittering, and hm^ling themselves upwards 
 against the scorching sky. 
 
 So the bees and the drones jostle each other to-day 
 in the crowded thoroughfares of London, and some take 
 the rough, and some the smooth, and they have nothing 
 in common, and know each other not. 
 
 A section of the bees are clustering very busily in a 
 musical portion of the hive. There is a morning con- 
 cert this afternoon, and the professionals are all in tune 
 and time, preparing for those grand effects and com- 
 binations which dehght the dilettante, and of which less 
 instructed listeners deem it incumbent on them to say —
 
 ^THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 43 
 
 * magnificent ! very fine ! ' They are assembling even 
 now in a little room off the grand hall, which is already 
 half filled with an impatient audience, reduced to the 
 sad necessity of criticising each other's di'esses, and 
 dirtying their gloves with the programme as they read 
 it over and over again. The drones are always employed 
 in doing nothing, and always very tired of that labor- 
 ious occupation. The bees seem to enjoy their half 
 hour's respite, and to have a good deal of fun and 
 cordiality amongst themselves. 
 
 The male portion are chiefly remarkable for the ex- 
 treme accuracy of their toilettes, and the purity of 
 their close fitting white kid gloves, which, with black 
 evening coats and continuations, seem somewhat out of 
 place at three o'clock in the day. They are either men 
 of extremely martial appearance, running considerably 
 to mustachio, whisker, and in some cases close-cut 
 beard, or else they affect an open simplicity of coun- 
 tenance amounting to vacuity, enhanced by bare throats 
 and long hair trained studiously off the temples, and 
 flowing down the nape of the neck, than which, in my 
 humble opinion, no fashion is more unbecoming to the 
 face of a male adult. 
 
 You would make some strange mistakes, though, if 
 you judged of their tones by their appearance. The 
 large, well-built fellow, with the legs and chest of a 
 Hercules, is the tenor, and if you only heard that soft 
 silvery voice of his quivering and thrilling on the sands 
 by moonlight, you would fancy such seductive notes 
 could proceed from nothing less feminine than a mer- 
 maid, instead of a stout soldier-like convivialist, who
 
 44 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 would incontinently offer you a cigar, and take you 
 home with him to a Perigord pie and a cool bottle of 
 claret. 
 
 The bass, again, whose diapason shall make the very 
 window-glasses shake before sunset, is a pale, weary- 
 looking man, whom at first sight you would call weakly, 
 if not an invalid. His tailor alone knows that he re- 
 quires a larger girth round the chest than most Life- 
 guardsmen, and indeed the organ that can evolve such 
 music as that deep thmider-roU, must be endowed with 
 valves and material of no ordinary strength and dimen- 
 sions. He has a wife and large family to be provided 
 for out of the low notes of that instrument, and already 
 an unpleasant suspicion dawns upon him that it will 
 not last for ever. Great was the consternation in his 
 home at Brompton when he caught cold last winter, and 
 the cough has not left him yet, even in the fine spring 
 weather. If he was to spit blood, the children would 
 soon be hungry, and the poor mother at her wit's end. 
 
 The lady singers are in low evening di-esses, and 
 most of them wear their hair a V Imperatrice. They 
 are whispering and talking to each other with that busy 
 good humom^d cordiality which the sex is prone to 
 affect in public places, and those who have not brought 
 bouquets with them are vehemently admiring the 
 flowers of those who have. One sits a little apart from 
 the rest ; she is attired very simply in moui-ning, and 
 carries a half-blown rose in her bosom. As she droops 
 her head over the score in her hand, the tenor, who has 
 something of a painter's taste, thinks she would make 
 a pretty pictm-e, with her white shoulders relieved by 
 her black dress, and the nut-brown hair shading and
 
 ^THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 45 
 
 hiding her face, while a sunbeam slanting through the 
 window, brings out a golden tinge on the glossy head. 
 He is a soft-hearted, good-natured man, this tenor, and 
 cherishes a romantic and self-denying adoration for 
 many ladies, both in and out of the profession, and for 
 this one especially, the more so that there is a quiet 
 reserve in her manner by which he is abashed not a 
 little, and that after he has said ' good morning,' he 
 generally falters, puts his hands in his pockets, and 
 becomes mute. 
 
 There is safety, however, in numbers, and his own 
 good looks are no bad protection to a man in his deal- 
 ings with the enemy. A joli gargon has generally more 
 than one string to that bow of which the cord sometimes 
 breaks with so sharp a twang, and a spice of admiration 
 for himself is no bad antidote to too violent an in- 
 fatuation about another. If you want a devoted lover, 
 ladies, take an old man's advice, and choose an ugly 
 one. He is vain, too, but his vanity is more easily 
 managed than the other's ; he is more impassioned, 
 more constant, more submissive, and if you do break 
 his heart, your own remorse will be a thought less keen 
 when you are adding up the sum total of your victims. 
 Bar the pleasure of taking him away from somebody 
 else, and after the fii'st week he makes just as good a 
 slave as a second Apollo would, and, say what you 
 will, you know that you do not appreciate beauty as 
 much as we do. You know that you are not so gentle, 
 not so soft-hearted, nay, not half so refined, as the so- 
 called sterner sex. When do you see us take a repulsive 
 being to our bosom, and cherish it there, unless it be 
 for some extraneous object? She may be an heii'ess,
 
 46 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 or an authoress, or a good housewife, and there is a 
 reason for it. But you ! Beauty and the beast is so 
 every-day an occurrence, I can scarce believe the story 
 to be a fable. You go to the altar unhesitatingly 
 with some monster whom his fellow men cannot look 
 upon without loathing. You not only marry him, I 
 could forgive you that, but you love, and coax, and 
 prize the wretch, and make him happy ever afterwards. 
 I sometimes think this strange predilection originates 
 in the instinctive jealousy and love of appropriation so 
 remarkable in the sex. Beauty thinks nobody else will 
 care to interfere with Bruin, and it is pleasant to have 
 even a beast all to herself ; but old Flippant, for whose 
 lengthened experience in such matters I have the pro- 
 foundest respect, takes a wider view of the subject, and 
 refers all such incongruities to the general principle of 
 contradiction, and the impossibility of arguing from 
 probability, expediency, or any other rational data^ as 
 to what a woman under any given circumstances will, 
 or will not do, or let alone, or otherwise. 
 
 The singer in mourniag seems very busy with her 
 score, and the admiring tenor has not yet been able to 
 obtain a glimpse of her face, still shaded by her thick 
 hair worn deep and low over her temples, a fashion 
 which she is probably well aware is exceedingly becoming 
 to a wide fair forehead and a pah' of arched brows, such 
 as give softness and feminine dignity to a woman's 
 face. His attention, however, is almost entu'ely taken 
 up by two very smart and lively ladies, who seem to 
 despise the idea of reserving their vocal powers for a 
 musical triumph, but are expendmg a liberal amount of 
 breath and volume in lively conversation with each
 
 ^THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 47 
 
 other, with the tenor, with the leader of the band, with 
 any of the gentlemen who are disposed to bandy good- 
 humoured jokes and lively repartee. 
 
 The bass alone sits apart from the rest. He looks 
 very pale and weary, leaning his head upon his hands, 
 and coughs more than once. There is a hard-working, 
 careworn woman at Brompton, now clearing away the 
 remnants of the children's dinner, whose heart would 
 ache to hear that cough, who would bless the lady in 
 mourning for looking up as she does from her task, and 
 crossing the room so quietly, and laying her hand with 
 such gentle sympathy on the sufferer's shoulder. 
 
 ' You are worse to-day,' she says, in a low tone of 
 peculiar sweetness ; I did not forget you, and I have 
 brought the lozenges, but I am sorry you require them.' 
 
 He looks up quickly, and grasps her cordially by the 
 hand. 
 
 ' God bless you,' he says, in his deep, full voice ; * you 
 never forget any one but yom^self. My little gMs call 
 you the good angel, and indeed, I thmk you are an 
 angel ! ' 
 
 She shakes her head, and smiles. Such a smile as 
 brightens only a countenance where they are very rare, 
 as decks it with a wild, painful, melancholy beauty, and 
 leaves a sadder and more hopeless expression when it 
 fades. 
 
 She makes no other reply, and buries herself again in 
 her score, while the bass shakes his honest head with a 
 puzzled au-, half pitiful, half provoked. 
 
 * I wish I could make her out,' he thinks, as he dwells 
 on her kindliness, her reserve, her abstraction, her 
 avoidance of intimacies, and backwardness m showing
 
 48 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 friendship, save to those who are in sickness or other- 
 wise distressed. ' I suppose she isn't happy, that's the 
 truth. She has never got over it, and she's thmking 
 of him still.' 
 
 They have often talked about her in the little parlour 
 at Brompton ; and this is the verdict to which, after a 
 masterly summing up from the former, husband and 
 wife invariably arrive. 
 
 Poor honest bass ! you have lived for five-and-forty 
 years in this specious world, twenty of which you have 
 spent in a happy reciprocity of confidence, with the 
 frankest and most ajQfectionate of wives. You think 
 you can read a woman's heart. Bless you ! you know 
 no more of it than a child ! 
 
 And now the doors are opened. The professionals 
 move from their retu'uig room to take their seats in the 
 body of the hall. The leader of the band assumes his 
 baton with a martial air, and the concert begins. The 
 seats are nearly all full. Very few tickets have been 
 given gratis. There is a dense crowd about the doors ; 
 and notwithstanding the many rival attractions of a 
 summer's afternoon in the metropolis, there is every 
 reason to believe that it will pay. 
 
 Meantime a barouche is waiting three doors lower 
 than the steps of White's, Lady Olivia's prudence and 
 propriety forbidding her to draw up exactly opposite the 
 well-filled window of that exclusive club, from which 
 critical and unprejudiced eyes would be sure to pass in 
 review herself, her niece, her bonnet, her gloves, her 
 parasol, nay, the very liveries of her white-stockmged 
 servants, not to mention the heavily-plated harness and 
 stately appearance of her bay carriage-horses champing
 
 ' THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 49 
 
 and stamping in the sun, concluding in all probability 
 with a sweeping condemnation of the whole. So she 
 waits for Gilbert three doors off, and the frown darkens 
 ominously on her stem forehead as the minutes pass and 
 her son does not appear. 
 
 ' Very odd of Gilbert,' says Lady Olivia in her 
 harshest tone ; * he knows how I hate waiting, and does 
 it on pui-pose, I believe.' 
 
 ' ^len are always unpunctual,' answers Lady Gertrude, 
 looking very smiling and rayonnante in another killing 
 little bonnet. ' Is it not so, ^h. Gordon ? ' 
 
 ]Mr. Gordon answers not much to the purpose ; he is 
 thinking of somethmg else. He is a student of human 
 natm-e, this gentleman, duruig his play-hom's, and takes 
 a good deal of relaxation out of Lady Gertrude and her 
 inexplicable ways. He is speculating now intensely on 
 why she should have secm-ed him so long ago for the 
 back seat of the barouche, and why she should have 
 been so fidgety all the way along Piccadilly, and why 
 she was so good-humom^ed now dming the painful pro- 
 cess of waiting for Gilbert ; above all, why there should 
 be to-day, of all days, a scarce perceptible tone of soft- 
 ness in the few obseiTations she makes to himself, and 
 a shade as of pity and compunction cast over that 
 usually thoughtless and buo^^ant nature. Topics of 
 reflection, Mr. Gordon, which may well make you ponder, 
 and which, with all your keen-sightedness, you will fiiid 
 it no easy task to understand. 
 
 Lady Olivia will waife no longer ; regardless of a 
 suppliant look from her niece, she is m the act of 
 giving orders to drive on, when the truant appears with 
 his mouth full of chicken-sandwich, and in his usual 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 good-humoured bantering way carries the war at once 
 into the enemy's country by accusing them of keeping 
 liim waiting. 
 
 ' I have a bouquet for each of you, too,' he says, 
 handing them with a good deal of mock dignity to the 
 ladies, ' and a cauliflower coming later from Covent- 
 garden for John, who is a practical man.' 
 
 The gentleman alluded to looks practical enough as 
 he turns a sharp keen eye upon the cousins. His 
 exterior presents a marked contrast to that of his 
 friend. Power is the prevailing characteristic of John 
 Gordon's physiognomy and figure. The bold well-cut 
 featm-es, the clear sallow complexion, the deep-set 
 glittering eye, and close raven hair, are types of an 
 iron j)Jiysique and an iron will. His tones are short, 
 sharp, and imperious ; they seem to be propelled, so to 
 speak, from the thin lips, that close again as with a 
 steel spring when they have gone forth. That mouth 
 belongs to a man from whom you could never coax 
 anything by persuasion, or widest it from him by force. 
 His very dress, plain to simplicity and unpretending 
 though it be, has a character and a peculiarity of its 
 own; whilst the muscular figm-e combmes in a rare 
 degree great physical power with activity and insensi- 
 bility to fatigue. 
 
 No woman ever yet thought John Gordon good- 
 looking, at least none could ever be brought to say so. 
 Quiet and miassuming as he was, they always affirmed 
 that they were ' a little afraid of him ; ' and perhaps 
 they like being frightened, for they were always ready 
 enough to sit by him, or dance with him again. I do 
 not know whether Lady Gertrude admired his face, but
 
 ^THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 51 
 
 she must have looked at it pretty often ; and even now, 
 though she buries her head in her cousin's bouquet, her 
 eyes pass over it once, with a strange, half-angry, half- 
 pleading glance that does not escape him, as, indeed, 
 nothing does, but that he cannot for the life of him 
 fathom or understand. The next instant, however, she 
 is talking so gaily and playfully, that even Lady Olivia 
 thaws to the influence of the girl's merry smishiny 
 manner ; whilst Gilbert sits back at his ease amongst 
 the cushions, submitting to be amused with the good- 
 humoured grand-seigneur indolence habitual to him, and 
 that is not without its attractions to his companions of 
 either sex. 
 
 So they reach the doors of the building where the 
 concert is going on, and there is a vast deal of fuss 
 and ceremony and parade about their alighting, and 
 a policeman makes way for them authoritatively, and 
 they take the seats provided for them with no small 
 noise and bustle, to the just indignation of the audience, 
 all of whom do the same thing constantly themselves, 
 but who think it right now to betray marked dis- 
 approval, for our good-looking friend the tenor is pour- 
 ing forth a strain of clear continuous melody, sweet 
 and luscious, like some rich liquid of which it were 
 shame and pity to lose the smallest drop. ' Bravo ! ' 
 says Gilbert with honest enthusiasm at the conclusion 
 of the piece ; and ' Bravo ! ' echoes Lady Gertrude in 
 more subdued tones, looking nevertheless sidelong at 
 John Gordon's face to see whether he too approves. 
 Nothing less than absolute perfection satisfies the 
 latter; and his applause is less demonstrative than 
 that of his companions. Lady Olivia is peering about 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSIIV OF lUtNC
 
 52 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 througli her glasses to see who is there ; and a pause in 
 the performances enables the well-pleased spectators to 
 relax their attention and fall to conversing amongst 
 themselves. 
 
 ' I hate fine music,' observes Gilbert, whose nervous 
 system, truth to tell, is strung to a far higher pitch 
 than he would have his friends believe, and who is 
 ashamed, as well he may be, that he can tm^n pale and 
 shiver for so unreal a cause as a thrilling stream of 
 melody; ' in fact, all music bores me rather than other- 
 wise, though it's not quite so bad as dancing.' 
 
 ' Then why did you come ? ' asks Lady Gertrude, very 
 justly accepting this last shaft of her indolent cousin 
 as aimed especially at herself. 
 
 ' Because you ordered me,' was the reply, with one 
 of Gilbert's sweetest smiles ; and no woman's face that 
 ever I saw had a softer, kindlier smile than his. ' Be- 
 cause you ordered me ; and I've been here half-an-hour 
 already, without wishing yet that I hadn't obeyed.' 
 
 The girl put the bouquet he had given her to her 
 face, and looked full at him over the flowers with her 
 bright speaking eyes. 
 
 ' Then you like to do as I bid you,' she said, very 
 low, and with a slight tremor in her -voice, not quite in 
 keeping with the triumphant expression of her glance. 
 
 Gilbert thought he had never seen her look so pretty. 
 Something tenderer than admiration seemed to shoot 
 through him as he eyed the proud young beauty, so 
 refined, so delicate, so well-di-essed, and so high-bom. 
 John Gordon's back was turned to the cousins, and 
 he appeared intensely occupied with the stir caused by 
 the re-entrance of the performers. As Gilbert lounged
 
 ^THE BEES AND THE DRONES.' 53 
 
 forward to read the programme, his head drooped 
 nearer and nearer his companion's pretty hand, in its 
 neat, well-fitting glove; perhaps his lip would have 
 touched it even there, I hardly know, but his mother's 
 measured tones broke in unexpectedly as she nudged 
 the younger lady rudely with her elbow, and called her 
 attention to some of the notabilities amongst the 
 audience. 
 
 * There 's Mrs. Mangonel, Gertrude, did you bow to 
 her? and her two daughters, and the Dowager Lady 
 Visigoth.' 
 
 ' More like Boadicea than ever, and with nearly as 
 little on her shoulders,' whispered Lady Gertrude mis- 
 chievously to her cousin ; but Gilbert answered not, 
 for a low sweet voice at that moment stole upon his 
 senses, and he was feeling keenly, nay, painfully, in 
 his inner being that music did not hore him in the least. 
 
 It was a simple song enough, something about an 
 angel and a child, of which the words and the poetical 
 conception were below contempt, but they were wedded 
 to a fanciful and melodious strain, an air that comprised 
 but few notes, and yet into which you could not but feel 
 the composer had thrown his whole art; an air that 
 seemed less the elaborate conception of the brain than 
 the irrepressible expression of an engrossing sensation 
 in which sufiering predominated. Such an air as re- 
 calls to us, we know not why, that sunset evening or 
 that starry night ; pshaw ! that time of delicious folly 
 which most of us have kno^Ti, and to which the 
 rouf^hest and the harshest look back with stranoje wild 
 longing and regret ; what is this secret charm of music, 
 that it seems to speak to all alike ? Why should it
 
 54 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 thus probe us to the quick ? and bring the past back so 
 cruelly m its hopelessness, only because it is the past ? 
 Oh ! for the fresh glad heart ; oh ! for the days gone 
 by; and 
 
 Oh ! for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still. 
 
 The lady in mourning sang as if she felt it ; after the 
 first bar she seemed to forget her audience, and to lose 
 herself completely in the strain. Gilbert, too, never 
 took his eyes ofi" the singer's face, and when she finished 
 and there arose a burst of applause from all the others, 
 something like a tear stole down his cheek. Of 
 com'se he began to talk vehemently to his companions, 
 but Lady Gertrude thought him less pleasant than 
 usual, and all seemed relieved when the concert was 
 over and it was time to go. The gentlemen put the 
 ladies into the carriage, and walked arm-in-arm back 
 to St. James's-street, preserving for full five mmutes a 
 dead silence. At the end of that period Gilbert made 
 the following remarkable observation : 
 
 ' That's a pretty woman, John.' 
 
 And although they had neither of them mentioned 
 her before, they must both have been thinkmg of the 
 singer in black, for John replied — 
 
 'Would be rather good-looking if she'd more colour; 
 I know something about her, she's a Mrs. Latimer.'
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 ADA.' 
 
 HE was a pretty woman, and I don't agree 
 with John Gordon that she wanted an atom 
 more colour. I have seldom seen a face on 
 earth that I thought could compare with 
 that of Ada Latimer. Yet, perhaps, to all men she 
 might not have shone as she did to me. I have heard 
 her beauty discussed, doubted, made light of, denied ; 
 yet when she came into a room, people's eyes brightened 
 and their countenances kindled as if it were a pleasure 
 to be near her, to watch her graceful manner and soft 
 gentle ways. She must have been very good to look at, 
 too, or her own sex would never have been so fond of 
 pulling her beauty to pieces, and demolishing it, as it 
 were, item by item, till they finished by proving that 
 she was positively hideous — a perfect witch ! God help 
 the man, however, over whom such witches cast their 
 spells ! She had about her a nameless fascination, such 
 as, happily for mankind, falls to the lot of but few 
 women ; such as, I am convinced, must have been pos- 
 sessed by Medea in the olden time, and to which I refer 
 all the fables of those charms and love-philtres insisted 
 on by the poets as forming the pharmacopoeia of that 
 seductive dame : such as enabled the swart Eg^^^tian
 
 56 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 to take and reject Emperor after Emperor, as a modem 
 belle does partner after partner in a ball-room, and to 
 play with the civilized world as a child does with its ball : 
 such as taught Mary, Queen of Scots, to make fools no 
 less of grave statesmen than of ii'on warriors, mflicting 
 madness on some and death on others, as the penalty 
 of coming within the sphere of her attractions : such a 
 charm, in short, as should be labelled ' poison,' like any 
 other deadly ingredient, and of which the most dan- 
 gerous featm-e is the possessor's own unconsciousness of 
 its power. 
 
 It is hopeless to attempt the description of a woman. 
 All that is most attractive in her beauty can be rendered 
 neither by pen nor pencil ; nay, not even by the boasted 
 facsimile of the photograph. Lustrous eyes, deep and 
 soft and winning ; a colouring like the delicate pmk of 
 the mner petals of the moss-rose ; silken ban-, dark m 
 the shade and golden brown in the sun ; an oval face of 
 the noblest Anglo-Saxon type, sm-mounted by the fau'est, 
 gentlest brow that was ever ploughed by care ; a romided 
 outline of form, less that of the nymph than of the 
 goddess, and the graceful yet dignified bearing of a 
 queen. What is all this but a commonplace good-looking 
 person, defined in commonplace words, as a botanist 
 might define a rose ? Does it explain the charm that 
 sm-rounds the woman, any more than a page of Loudon 
 could convey the fragrance that clings about the flower? 
 Does it not utterly fail to paint that rai^est and most 
 dangerous combmation, the ideal united with the physi- 
 cal type of womanly perfection, the form that can alike 
 win devotion and command obedience — the beauty to 
 dream of, to worship, and to caress ?
 
 ^ADA.' 57 
 
 Aye ! she was this and she was that — good and gentle, 
 and fair and fond, and so is many another ; but Ada was 
 loveahle^ that's the truth ! and in that one word lies all 
 the mystery and all the mischief. 
 
 Her youth had not been an enviable one, and indeed 
 her share of happiness in life was none of the largest. 
 Is it not usually so with the most gifted of both sexes ? 
 Are not the bravest and the best, the gentlest and the 
 loveliest, doomed to pay a heavy price for their supe- 
 riority over their kind ? — as if fate had resolved to 
 equalize the lot of mortals ; nay, to bake the porcelain 
 in a furnace seven times hotter than that of the common 
 clay. I never see a man the envy of his fellows — I 
 never look upon a woman the admiration of a ball-room 
 — but I think of the proud head humbled perhaps, and 
 bowed to the very dust, when there are none to see ; of 
 the sweet face writhing in sorrow on its pillow when the 
 li,n:ht is out, and hot tears can course each other down 
 the winsome cheek unrestrained in the dark. Who can 
 guess the wound that is draining the combatant's life 
 away, so long as he keeps his head up and his vizor 
 closed? I once overheard four words spoken that I 
 have never been able to forget ; it is years ago, and he 
 who uttered them has gone long since to the rest for 
 which he yearned so painfully, which he never found 
 on earth ; which perhaps I alone, of all others, knew to 
 be the one desire of his tortured spirit — of his weary, 
 aching heart. 
 
 And thus it fell out that I heard the cry of his great 
 agony. 
 
 I had seen him in all the pride and exultation of 
 social triumph. A week before he had won his election.
 
 58 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and been cliaii-ed and cheered — for in those days such 
 demonstrations were permitted by law — as popular can- 
 didate had never been chaked and cheered before. He 
 possessed the fairest bride and the noblest fortune of 
 three counties ; he was yomig, handsome, high-spirited, 
 and popular. That very day his favourite horse had 
 won a cup, and I had myself witnessed rank and beauty 
 and genius crowding round him, with homage and smiles 
 and compliments, aye, and envy of his thrice-favoured 
 lot. So as I walked homewards along a meadow-path, 
 screened from the high road by a double hedge, thick, 
 briery, and fragrant with a load of May, I mused on 
 all I had seen, and I said in my heart, ' Surely this 
 man must be happy ! ' And even while thus I thought, 
 the tramp of his horse was on the other side of the 
 hedge, as he too rode home alone, and I caught a glimpse 
 through the blossoms of the fortunate one's face. Oh ! 
 the weary, hopeless look of those contracted features I 
 shall never forget, nor the stifled agony of the voice 
 with which he said aloud, ' Oh God ! oh God ! How 
 long ! ' looking up the while into the blue laughing sky. 
 
 When I heard a week afterwards that he was dead, 
 could I sorrow for him as the rest did, ' cut off,' said 
 they, ' in his prime, with all that made life worth having 
 at his feet ? ' Could I pity him, and bless myself with 
 uplifted hands, and murmm-, ' The ways of Providence 
 are inscrutable,' according to the authorized formula 
 provided for such cases ? No ; rather I thought wist- 
 fully with Job of those ' which long for death and it 
 cometh not,' ' which rejoice exceedingly and are glad 
 when they can find the grave.' 
 
 It is a good many yeai'S now since a gay and gallant
 
 59 
 
 young Englishman, spending a soldier's leave in the 
 capital of Austria, thought it expedient to fall in love 
 with one of those Viennese damsels whose fascinations 
 are so peculiarly fatal to the British heart. Major 
 Glyn, like his countrymen in general, could not resist 
 the smiling eyes, luxmiant tresses, and winning ways of 
 a certain fair young Grafinn, from whose gentle tones 
 he acquired the worst of all possible German, to the 
 detriment of his pronunciation and the irremediable 
 capture of his affections. But the Major, though soft, 
 was honest, and profomidly regardless of the fact that 
 he had very little besides his pay, and that his bride's 
 fortune was barely sufl&cient to provide her with a trous- 
 seau; he married her out of hand at the British Em- 
 bassy, to the infinite disgust of his own family, who 
 repudiated him ever afterwards, and brought her away 
 to join his regiment in England as happy as if he had 
 forty thousand a year. 
 
 These penniless marriages generally answer remark- 
 ably well at first. Whilst the bloom is on the thing, 
 upholstery and gilding are very unnecessary decorations, 
 and a 'dinner of herbs' is a most piquant repast so long 
 as you are in love with your cook. Most of us know 
 the story of the vapid and blase young gentleman who 
 went to the Olympic with the late Lord Melbourne, and 
 complained next day of the dull evening he had spent. 
 *Hang the fellow!' said the light-hearted statesman, 
 ' couldn't he see the people in the streets, and the gas- 
 lights flaring on the lobsters in the fishmongers' windows? 
 Wasn't that pleasure enough for him f What would a 
 man have?' 
 
 And so say I, ' What would a man have ? ' To have
 
 60 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 the right face opposite you every morning at breakfast, 
 the right voice asking you to have more tea, the right 
 smile shining to gladden and soften you for the whole 
 day ; m short, ' the right woman in the right place,' is 
 happiness enough for any man on this side the grave — 
 ^ So long as it lasts.^ Ay ! there is the rub — the gild- 
 ing is so apt to wear off, the coloui's so seldom stand. 
 A man gives his all willingly enough for the Venus 
 Anadyomene, but some fine morning he may wake up 
 immeasurably disgusted to find he has got but a plaster 
 of Pai'is cast. If he is wise, he raises it incontmently 
 several inches on its pedestal, and spends the rest of his 
 life in endeavouring to deceive himself and others as to 
 the reality of the idol ; if he is a fool he dashes it to 
 the earth and breaks it all to pieces and seeks out 
 another, to be again disappointed, with the same result. 
 
 In either case he wishes he had left the goddess alone. 
 
 Such, however, was not Major Glyn's fate. He often 
 boasted, and with reason, that he was the happiest 
 man in the British ai'my. He had married the woman 
 he loved, and he loved the woman he married (not 
 necessarily a logical sequence), so he never found him- 
 self without strength and spirits to fight the battle of 
 life. Always in active employment, he was enabled, 
 though with little but his profession to depend upon, to 
 live in tolerable comfort, as the saying is, ' from hand to 
 mouth ;' nor, when a girl was born to them, did father 
 or mother despair because there would be no fortune to 
 leave their child. ' God will provide,' said the Grafinn 
 in her German accent ; and the Major was quite satis- 
 fied on his infant's behalf with the reversion. And so 
 little Ada grew from a delicate fragile baby into a rosy.
 
 61 
 
 saucy romp, always merry, fresh, gladsome, and mlful ; 
 welcome even in the stem area of the orderly-room, 
 and almost as great a pet with his brother-officers as 
 she was with her own papa. 
 
 But these happy days could not last for ever. The 
 busy, energetic, light-hearted soldier found himself one 
 morning unfit for duty. Before watch-setting that 
 night he was ' down with the fever,' to use the regi- 
 mental expression ; and little Ada missed her accustomed 
 dance to the music of ' the Taptoo,' which was hushed 
 in consideration of the ^Major's sickness. The next 
 day she went to see him for five minutes, and never 
 again. He was indeed loth to quit his darling ; loth to 
 quit the dear fond wife with whom he had never ex- 
 changed an unkind word ; loth to quit his profession, 
 his men, his hopes, and his useful, practical career ; but 
 he bowed his head to the stroke with courage and 
 resignation. Nor did a word of complauit escape his 
 lips, save that he said once, ' It seems hard to leave 
 you and the child ; but I shall see you both again ! ' 
 
 Then the muffled drum was beat, and the soldiers 
 marched with their arms reversed; and the charger, 
 with empty saddle, followed his master to the grave, 
 and the Grafinn was a widow, and little Ada an orphan. 
 
 They struggled on for years, as so many people do 
 in the middle — or perhaps I should rather say the 
 lowest — of the upper ranks of life ; struggled to keep 
 up an appearance of respectability on an msufficient 
 income — to seem if not to he above want — to retain a 
 footing on that imaginary surface called ' society,' which 
 was continually slipping from beneath them, and every- 
 body said they deserved great credit for their efibrts,
 
 62 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and pitied them exceedingly and assisted tliem not 
 at all. 
 
 So little Ada grew from a rosy romidabout child into 
 a tall slip of a girl ; and the Grafinn taught her all she 
 knew herself, and lived only for her daughter, and was 
 somewhat startled at last to find that daughter ex- 
 panding into a full-grown woman, beautiful and admired, 
 and actually sought after in marriage. 
 
 Now a young lady's first ofier, like a young sports- 
 man's first partridge, combines the two very agreeable 
 elements of novelty and success. Nor does one or the 
 other devote much consideration to the mtrinsic value 
 of the bird in the bag. Ada never stopped to think 
 whether the little flutter of triumph she experienced at 
 Mr. Latimer's attentions was the result of vanity or 
 affection, nor hesitated for an instant in assentinor to 
 mamma's avowed opinion ' that Mr. Latimer was a very 
 charming person, calculated to make any girl happy ; 
 that Ada ought to feel flattered and grateful at his 
 proposal, and if she thought she could like him, had 
 better accept him at once ! ' 
 
 The Grafinn having made a love-match herself, and 
 found it tm'n out remarkably well, was mclined strenu- 
 ously to counsel matrimony, and held also the fii^m 
 conviction of all foreigners — that nothing is so desir- 
 able for a young lady as an early marriage, before she 
 can possibly know her o^^i mind. 
 
 There were besides many prudential considerations in 
 favour of the match. The Grafinn's health was delicate; 
 her income very small. It was a great point to get Ada 
 settled. She would then be no longer anxious about 
 her dear child. She would miss her mdeed sadly ; but
 
 63 
 
 it was for Ada's happiness — doubtless for Ada's happi- 
 ness — and the sooner it was concluded the better. 
 
 People differ so much in their ideas of happiness. 
 Many, and those doubtless the wisest and most re- 
 flective, hold that it consists in plate, carriage-horses, 
 and a punctual return of their neighbours' visits ; 
 others, and these are justly scouted for their folly, 
 opine that it flourishes best in a soil of kindliness and 
 community of ideas — nay, that it must be warmed by 
 the sunshine of mutual affection. Alas for those who 
 have discovered that none of these accessories can 
 ensure its duration; that it is no exhalation which 
 rises from earth, but a dew that descends from heaven. 
 Alas for them! because such knowledge comes only 
 through great sorrow and anguish of heart, yet is it 
 a lesson that shall profit them unspeakably hereafter. 
 
 So Ada listened to mamma with a glowing cheek 
 and a pleased smile, and told her to accept Mr. Latimer 
 for her that afternoon when he called, and went about 
 her simple preparations, nothing doubtmg but that she 
 had done all for the best, nor dreamed in her inno- 
 cence that she was about to barter her woman's birth- 
 right for a mess of pottage. 
 
 It is not the sorrow that must be sustained in an 
 unhappy union, which is to be dreaded ; that can be 
 borne like all other tangible evils. It is the galling 
 reflection on the joy that has been missed. 
 
 Latimer was one of those comely, cheerful, plausible 
 individuals who are so popular with the world. The 
 men voted him ' such a good fellow,' because forsooth 
 he was ready at any houi' to eat and drink, to play 
 whist, and smoke, or join in the diversion that was
 
 64 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 uppermost. Always well ' got up,' thanks to his tailor 
 — always fresh-coloured, thanks to his digestion, which 
 was indeed faultless — constitutionally good-humoiu-ed, 
 and displaying habitually that superficial cordiality 
 which supplies its possessor with so many acquamtances 
 and so few friends — he was an acquisition to every 
 party of pleasure, a welcome guest in every fast-going 
 circle, a necessary featm^e of every race-meeting or 
 other public gathering of the thoughtless and the gay. 
 The very gipsy-women at Ascot knew Latimer too well 
 ; ) ofier to tell him his fortune. ' You've got it in 
 J., or face, my dear,' they would say, peering roguishly 
 up into his well-favoured countenance, flushed with 
 luncheon and success. 'There's luck in the tone of 
 your voice and luck in the turn of your eye, and it's 
 no use to look in yom^ hand, with such beautiful 
 whiskers as yom's. Give the poor gipsy half-a-crown ! ' 
 Nor was the flattery undeserved. Latimer's whiskers 
 were indeed worthy of the pains he bestowed upon 
 them. Shiny, curly, and voluminous, they possessed 
 all the elements of grandem- ; and their proprietor was 
 once heard modestly to observe that he owed most of 
 his success in life to the assistance of these magnificent 
 appendages. 
 
 I do not think he was quite so great a favourite with 
 ladies as with men. The gentler sex have wonderful 
 discrimination in character, and an intuitive perception 
 of that which is artificial or insincere. They could not 
 but be amused with his small-talk and gratified by his 
 attentions ; yet every woman on first meeting him 
 vowed she considered him 'bad style;' and one very 
 great lady to whom he was presented, herself by no
 
 ' ADA.' 65 
 
 means choice in her selection of devotees, looked him 
 well over and tm-ned her back upon him thenceforward, 
 with the sweeping condemnation ' that he had not the 
 slightest pretensions to the character of a gentleman ! ' 
 
 So he never penetrated quite into the highest 
 circles of that world in which he lived ; nor did the 
 exclusion affect him m the smallest degree. He led a 
 smoking, jovial, free-and-easy life, chiefly in a class of 
 society which the great lady alluded to above would 
 have termed ' thii'd-rate,' and a good deal amongst 
 artists, professionals, actors and actresses, singers and 
 the like. By degrees he lapsed entirely into the com- 
 panionship of the latter ; and after he had spent his 
 patrimony had serious thoughts of going on the stage, 
 when the death of a relative put him once more in 
 possession of a competency and deprived the drama 
 of a very indifferent performer. He was about two- 
 thu'ds through this last fortune, when the Power that 
 arranges these matters put it into his head that he 
 should like to make Ada jNIrs. Latimer. 
 
 Poor Ada ! The Grafinn never found out the mis- 
 take she had made. The girl gave her hand to Latimer; 
 and had he truly loved her, had he even cared for her 
 with the cold temperate affection of a relative, doubt- 
 less her heart would in time have followed the gift. 
 But ere she had been married a very few weeks, the 
 truth began to dawn upon her that they were utterly 
 unsuited to each other. His innate vulgarity of mind 
 and feeling was continually offending her own refine- 
 ment — that true refinement which is the essential 
 characteristic of every pure-hearted woman. She 
 could not conceal from herself that he war. utterly 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 selfish, utterly unprincipled, and that the very par- 
 tiality which he had shown for her beauty, and which 
 had led him into a step so contrary to all his maxims 
 of worldly prudence as marriage, was fast fading away 
 in her daily society. Can anything be so galling to a 
 woman's pride as this ? — to feel that she has sacrificed 
 her whole existence to a man who wanted nothing but 
 the shell, and see him gradually getting th-ed of her ; 
 the while he is as ignorant of the real woman, the mind 
 and feelings, and so to speak, the kernel of the fruit, 
 as an utter stranger. Had she loved him it would have 
 broken her heart ; as it was it only broke her spirit. 
 She determined, however, that the Grafinn should never 
 know how unhappy she was; and day after day this 
 fair young creature performed her part with a noble 
 hypocrisy, and smiled cheerfully m her mother's face 
 as if she were the happiest wife in the world. 
 
 Then came pecuniary difficulties, angry consultations, 
 and constant humiliation. In the midst of it all the 
 poor Grafinn died, and Ada felt when she had lost her 
 last friend as if now indeed she had experienced the 
 very keenest form of woe. ^ I can never be so unhappy 
 again,' said Ada, as she dried her tears after her 
 mother's funeral. We have most of us thought so 
 more than once in our lives. Dare we defy the future 
 to equal the suffering of the past ?
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ADVENTURER. 
 
 N addition to his other vices, or as he chose 
 to term them, ' his amiable -weaknesses,' 
 Latimer was a gambler. Speculation, in- 
 deed, seemed to be an essential ingredient 
 of his character, and he liked it for its own sake, for 
 the excitement of its vicissitudes, the daily ups and 
 downs of winning and losing, perhaps more than for 
 the actual lucre which was the ostensible object of his 
 ventures. Not satisfied with the chances and changes 
 of the turf, he loved to hazard considerable sums at all 
 games of skill or fortune, nay, to dabble occasionally in 
 that treacherous river of Pactolus which mortals call 
 the Stock Exchange, a flood of which the golden waters 
 are so hot as to scald the fingers of all but the wariest 
 and most experienced manipulators. Such a character 
 is ill adapted to make a good husband to a woman 
 whose value he is incapable of appreciating, and of 
 whose beauty he is beginning to get tired. So matters 
 verged rapidly to a conclusion ; and at last came the 
 explanation and the climax. 
 
 They lived in a pretty villa on the Thames, em- 
 bowered in sweet-briar and honeysuckles, with a sunny 
 lawn stretching do'S'.Ti to the water-side, and the rich 
 
 F2
 
 68 
 
 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 laburnums, the ' golden rain ' trees of Ada's mother- 
 tongue, di'oopmg overhead as they swayed and glittered 
 in the scented breeze of spring. It was a snug retreat 
 within easy distance of London, as Latimer well knew, 
 yet retired and rural as a hermitage to Ada, who was 
 content to dwell there in solitude week after week, 
 whilst he amused himself in the rambling, dissipated, 
 good-for-nothing society which had now become his 
 natural element. Occasionally, by her husband's desire, 
 she would receive his associates at ' The Cottage,' and 
 exerted herself with such good effect to entertain them, 
 that ' Latimer's sweet wife ' became a synonyme for all 
 that was loveliest and best on earth, even amongst the 
 blackest sheep of that vagrant flock. Many a roue, 
 desperate and reckless, felt something strangely like a 
 pang in his worn, bad heart, as he bethought him what 
 a different man he might have been with such a woman 
 as that to care for, and tmiied from his host with a 
 feeling nearly akin to disgust, as he observed the utter 
 want of deference and regard with which he treated 
 that gentle and lovely lady. 
 
 Ada bore with it all, sadly, but micomplainingly. 
 Passionately fond of music, she cultivated her talents 
 to the utmost, and amongst all her husband's hetero- 
 geneous store of acquaintances, those who made har- 
 mony their profession seemed always the most accept- 
 able at the pleasant luncheons or fascinating little 
 dinners for which the Cottage was notorious. 
 
 It was a fine summer morning after one of these 
 reunions^ and Ada was moving about amongst her 
 flowers, ' herself the rose of all.' The French windows
 
 THE ADVENTUEER. 69 
 
 of the Cottage opened to the lawn, and within might 
 have been seen an elaborate breakfast service of massive 
 silver on a little round table spread with a snowy cloth, 
 and bearing a luxurious repast, whereof a tall bottle 
 and a bouquet of roses formed two conspicuous features. 
 Anon emerged into the garden a stout, good-looking 
 gentleman, bright and fresh as the summer morn itself, 
 with ambrosial whiskers of extraordinary magnitude, a 
 richly-embroidered velvet dressing-gown, and an amber- 
 tipped cMhoii.que in his mouth. Puffing forth volumes 
 of fragrant Latakian fumes, he paced leisurely down 
 the smooth-shaven sward — 
 
 ' Always busy amongst those miserable flowers, Ada,' 
 he remarked carelessly, without removing the pipe from 
 his mouth; 'I wonder you're not tired of roses and 
 lilies and dafiydown-dillies. Don't you find this place 
 cursedly slow ? ' 
 
 She looked quickly up at him. Woman as she was, 
 a biting retort could not but occur to her as she con- 
 trasted his life with her own, but she swallowed it down, 
 and replied meekly, 
 
 ' You know I like gardening ; and surely this is 
 pleasanter than hot, smoky London.' 
 
 He yawned, and crushed an insect beneath his gold- 
 and- velvet slipper. 
 
 ' You don't like London, eh ? ' 
 
 ' Hate it,' was the reply honestly enough ; and she 
 knelt down to tie up a drooping carnation. 
 
 ' I'm sorry for that,' he answered, as if speaking on 
 a matter of trivial importance; 'for I expect you'll 
 have to live there for some years. I've sold the Cot-
 
 70 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 tage, Ada, furnitm-e, fixtm-es, and all. Sold it within 
 a hundred of its full value, and lost every rap of the 
 money into the bargain ! ' 
 
 She was so accustomed to these uncomfortable com- 
 mmiications, so used to reverses, that she only turned 
 a shade paler, and opened her large eyes as he went on. 
 
 'I'm about told out, Ada, that's the fact. Every- 
 thing has gone wi'ong lately, just as it did, I remember, 
 in Belphegor's year. What a cracker I stood to win 
 on him and the Rejected ! Well, I've never had a turn 
 of luck since Northampton ; and the funds went down 
 seven-eighths just after I bought in; and the South 
 African railway shares are not worth so much waste 
 paper ; and the mines in Paraguay seem to produce 
 nothing but fire-damp and bilge-water ; and indigo has 
 gone down twenty-five per cent. It's a drug in the 
 market — nobody buys it. Egad, I shall look blue enough 
 with all I've got on my hands ! Lucky I didn't pay 
 cash for it. And I've bills enough out to paper the 
 dining-room — and, in short, Ada, I've seen this coming 
 on a long time, but I wouldn't bother you about it.' 
 
 ' Why didn't you ? ' she said laying her shapely 
 hand on his arm with something akin to a caress. 
 
 Had he trusted in her, and gone to her for sympathy 
 and comfort, she could almost have loved him even 
 then. This was not his object, however, and it would 
 only have encumbered him ; so he refilled his pipe, and 
 proceeded with a cheerful smile, like that of a man 
 detailing his possessions or his gains. 
 
 ' Money in the funds, none ; landed property, four 
 acres of garden and meadow-land — sold ; indigo, sixty- 
 seven chests bond — not paid for; shares and scrip,
 
 THE ADVENTUREE. 71 
 
 about fifteen hundred ; liabilities, from six to seven 
 thousand ; personal property, one chesnut cab-horse, 
 with plated harness to match — seized ; also several 
 exceedingly well-made suits of clothes — worn out, and 
 one bottle of first-growth chateau-margaux, on the 
 breakfast table — empty! I think, Ada, it is almost 
 time for me to make a bolt of it.' 
 
 She was unprepared for so complete a smash as he 
 described. She could but weep a little, and vn:mg her 
 hands at her o^yn helplessness. 
 
 ' Can nothing be done ? ' she said ; 4s it worse than 
 it ever was before ? Will matters not come right in 
 time, William ? you have so often been in difficulties.' 
 
 She had not called him by his Christian name for 
 many a long day ; but her heart warmed to him now, 
 for he was in distress, or at least she thought he was. 
 
 It was Sunday, and the bells were ringing for morn- 
 ing service. Instinctively she moved towards the house 
 as if to prepare for chm'ch, but Latimer placed himself 
 before her — 
 
 ' Don't go to-day, Ada,' said he ; 4t's no use making 
 a secret of it any longer; I'm ofi" this evening for 
 Australia ! ' 
 
 She sank down on a garden-seat in a state of utter 
 prostration and astonishment. 
 
 When a man meditates any deed of miusual harsh- 
 ness or injustice, he generally lashes himself into such 
 a state of anger as shall goad him to the necessary 
 pitch of hard-heartedness ; and although Latimer was 
 constitutionally a good-humoured person enough, he 
 thought it incumbent on him at this juncture to prove 
 that his ovfii ruin was chiefly his wife's fault ; so he
 
 T2 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 puiFed savagely at his chihoKqiie, advancing to the at- 
 tack under cover of the smoke. 
 
 ' I've never had a chance, you see, Ada, encumbered 
 as I have been. Living down here, I have been obliged 
 to neglect matters of great importance in London ; and 
 with my small income how could I afford the expense 
 of two estabUshments ? ' (Of the truth of this reasoning 
 Latimer himself was the best judge ; but if the Cottage 
 was his only home he was strangely belied.) ' Then 
 I've been unlucky at play, cursedly unlucky. Why 
 only last night when we all went up from here, INIacer 
 broke the bank at Number Nine, whilst I was losing 
 every shilling I had in the world at Poulterer's. I 
 can't be in two places at once, can I? Everything 
 went on well enough till I married, since then I've been 
 so hampered and bothered I've had no time for any- 
 thing. There, it's no use crying. You'll do far better 
 without me ; and perhaps when I get to the other side 
 of the globe altogether, there's a chance that the luck 
 may turn.' 
 
 Again, had she loved him, how such a heartless speech 
 would have dried her tears and scorched her brain, but 
 her holier feelings at least were unwounded, and she 
 only suffered from an oppressive sense of loneliness and 
 injustice ; so she hid her face in her hands and wept 
 on. 
 
 ' I shall get away to-night,' he proceeded, his good- 
 humour returning with the prospect of travelling, and 
 the indulgence of his innate love of change and excite- 
 ment. ' Being Smiday, I'm safe, you see, and I can 
 run down to Southampton and embark before day-break 
 to-morrow. I bought some lots two or three hmidred
 
 THE ADYENTUEEE. 73 
 
 miles from Sydney last year on spec, and have never 
 been able to get rid of them. It's the only estate I 've 
 got left now, and I ought to go and live on it. I 'm 
 not a bad hand at roughing it, Ada, though I like to 
 have things ship-shape when I can.' He pointed as he 
 spoke to the pretty house, the very type of elegance 
 and comfort. ' But after all, it's not the first " doAvner" 
 I 've had by a good many ; and if it was not for leaving 
 you^ I shouldn't care so much about it.' 
 
 ' May not I go with you ? ' she said, looking quickly 
 up at him with a wistful, searching glance. 
 
 Latimer's face elongated visibly. He had never con- 
 templated the affair from this point of view. He waved 
 his pipe vaguely, as though to convey an idea of indefi- 
 nite space, and observed doubtfully, 
 
 ' Why, it's a long voyage, you see, and a wild country 
 when you get there, and everything quite in the rough, 
 and no arrangements made. I think I had better go 
 first, and see how things are. In short, Ada, you'd be 
 infernally in the way, and that's the truth ! ' 
 
 She seemed quite satisfied with so conclusive an 
 answer, and never again reverted to the subject, but 
 busied herself with preparations for his comfort, and 
 inquiries as to his supply of ready money, which was 
 indeed of no inconsiderable amount, and saw his things 
 packed up, and took his directions as to how to make 
 the best of the broken remnant of their fortunes, never 
 repining nor reproaching him that starvation seemed 
 about to stare her in the face ; and so the afternoon 
 wore on, and a cab came to the front gate of the villa, 
 and it was time for him to be gone. 
 
 A bystander might scarce have supposed he saw a
 
 74 
 
 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 parting between husband and wife, perhaps for ever, 
 who had witnessed that well-dressed, happy-looking 
 gentleman spring gaily into the cab that was to take 
 him to London, comiting his luggage with an experienced 
 eye, and rolling an unlighted cigar between his fingers ; 
 and that pale, yet composed and quiet lady going to and 
 fro from the door to the carriage with cloaks and ^Taps, 
 and such articles as are always forgotten till the moment 
 of departure. Yet Latimer's voice was very hoarse, 
 and there ivas an unusual moisture in his eyes as he bid 
 her the last farewell, and she grew paler and paler, till 
 her face was like the face of a corpse, as she stood at 
 the door of the villa, gazing wistfully after the cab till 
 it was out of sight. 
 
 Her last action had been to press into his hand a 
 small sealed packet, which her husband natm^ally opened 
 as soon as he was fairly on his road to London. It 
 contained the few jewels and all the ready money poor 
 Ada possessed. Deserted, and in poverty, she could 
 still despoil herself for the sake of one who had caused 
 her unvarying sorrow and discomfort. This time the 
 tears fairly filled Latimer's eyes. 
 
 ' What a trump that girl is ! ' said he, with so loud 
 an oath as to startle even the imperturbable cabman 
 who di'ove him. 'Why couldn't I like her better? 
 Why coiddnH I ? Confound it ! you're far better with- 
 out me ! but I'll never part with the bracelet, my poor 
 Ada ! Never, as long as I live, never ! ' 
 
 Heartless, unfeeling as the man was, he separated it 
 from the rest of the trinkets, wrapped it up carefully, 
 and laid it tenderly in his bosom. Then he drove on 
 more comfortable, feeling as if he had made his wife
 
 THE ADVENTUEER. 75 
 
 some amends, and joined a convivial party of fellow 
 profligates whom he had engaged to meet at an early 
 Greenwich dinner, previous to his departui'e by the 
 night train, in something like his accustomed hilarity 
 and spirits. Latimer's principle, I need hardly say, 
 was to take all the pleasure that came to his hand, 
 and so, although he had left his home that day a 
 ruined man, and was about to be self-exiled, perhaps 
 for life, from his country, there were still a few hours 
 of the evening to be filled up, and how could they be 
 better employed than in eating bread-and-butter and 
 whitebait, and drinking success to his own voyage in 
 Mr. Hart's sunniest champagne ? If a thought of the 
 pale face he had left ever did distm-b him, which is 
 doubtful, he felt the bracelet next his heart, and as 
 bumper after bumper disappeared and mounted to his 
 brain, he began to think ' he wasn't such a bad fellow, 
 after all. Why should a man's efforts be hampered 
 by a woman he didn't care for — wife or no wife? par- 
 ticularly in a new country — nobody could control cir- 
 cumstances — hang it ! he had done the best he could 
 — no fellow could do more.' 
 
 So his friends drank his health, and a ' pleasant 
 voyage to him,' and Latimer paid the bill, and they 
 saw him off by the train, and thus tolerably com- 
 fortable in body, and by no means uneasy in mind, the 
 exile hummed ' Cheer boys, cheer,' and smoked alter- 
 nately half way to Southampton. 
 
 Ada gazed after the cab that took away her husband 
 till it had turned the corner of the road and was fairly 
 gone, then she went back into the drawing-room, look- 
 ing strangely forlorn and deserted now, and bur^dng
 
 76 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 her face in the sofa cushions gave way to a passion 
 of tears. After this she prayed long and earnestly 
 on her knees, and rose up composed and comforted. 
 Sore, so to speak, and -wearied with agitation, yet with 
 a new and startling sensation of relief and liberty at 
 her heart.
 
 CHAPTER yn. 
 
 ' GANZ ALLEIN.' 
 
 HERE were housekeeping bills to be settled, 
 there were servants to be paid off and dis- 
 missed, there were certain lady's knick- 
 knacks and trifles of Ada's own to be 
 disposed of, before the too surely impending execution 
 should be put into the house, and these matters had 
 to be arranged and attended to by the lone and help- 
 less woman. And then after all was done, after sus- 
 taining reproach and insult from one creditor, and 
 coarse pity, almost as hard to bear, from another, — 
 after wrangling with a broker's man, who persisted in 
 calling her ' miss,' for her mother's miniature, and 
 eventually being compelled to purchase her o^ti pro- 
 perty, after seeing the very sanctuary of her home 
 profaned by strangers, and her household gods shattered 
 upon her hearth, poor, friendless Mrs. Latimer had to 
 betake her to a cheap and dirty London lodging, and 
 sit down with her hands before her to consider what 
 she should do next. Once, and once only, she revisited 
 ' the Cottage.' The laburnums had drooped and faded 
 now ; the la^wn that used to be so trim, was patched 
 and ragged with a rank growth of verdure, the carna- 
 tions were trodden down, the roses withered or over-
 
 78 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 blown, and a carpet hung outside tlie front bed-room 
 window. She never went near the place again. 
 
 Man prides himself on his courage in facing danger, 
 on his endurance of hardship, his dogged resistance 
 under dijfficulties, in short, on what he calls ' his pluck.' 
 I do not think this quality is monopolized by the 
 stronger sex. I believe a stouter heart often beats 
 under a pair of stays, than under a steel cuirass. My 
 own idea is that a brigade of amazons could conquer 
 the world. The great difficulty would be to provide a 
 brigadier. Who is to command these heroines? who 
 is to enforce obedience in the muslin ranks of the in- 
 vincibles? Not one of their o"wti sex, assm'edly, and 
 more assuredly still not one of ours. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer, brought up with all the refinements 
 and comforts of a ojentlewoman, and after her marriage 
 surrounded by the luxuries which never fail to pervade 
 an establishment over which ruin is impending, found 
 herself compelled to look absolute ivant in the face. 
 Not for a moment did she quail before the grim antag- 
 onist. Like a brave commander, she sat down and 
 calculated her resources. They were very slender, but 
 she had a hopeful, trusting heart to back them, and 
 she never despaired that they would prove enough. 
 
 She must do something to gain her own livelihood, 
 that was obvious; the humble store of ready money 
 was melting day by day, and when that was gone ! it 
 w^ould not do to dwell upon the possibility. Her rare 
 talent had not been left uncultivated, she had worked 
 and studied during her long solitary hom'S at the Cot- 
 tage, till she h^d attained a degree of science and 
 execution rarely equalled by an amateur. She would
 
 ' GANZ ALLEIN.' 79 
 
 become a music-mistress — if need were, she would sing 
 in public for her bread. 
 
 And here her acquaintance with the professionals 
 stood her in good stead. No class of society is so 
 ready to lend a helping hand to the unfortunate, as 
 that which itself derives a precarious subsistence from 
 art — precarious because art is but an ornament, and not 
 a necessity of existence. My lord makes a memoran- 
 dum of the case for future consideration, and bows his 
 suppliant out with a cold smile. The thriving trades- 
 man gilds his coarse jest or coarser rebuke with a 
 present alms, but peremptorily declares that no future 
 application must be made in the same quarter. It is 
 the artist alone who affords sympathy as well as assis- 
 tance, who gives ungrudgingly from his small means, 
 and wishes it were more; above all, who displays a 
 personal interest in reverses and misfortunes such as 
 he knows may at some future time impede his own 
 career. Which of us but has felt the inestimable 
 value of a friend who mahes our case Ms own? w) ) 
 lends us a helping hand out of our trouble, not dr^ 
 shod on the brink, but wading himself knee-deep in 
 the mire ? who binds up our wounds and puts us on 
 his own beast, and pays our score into the bargain ? 
 Ay ! that good Samaritan must have dwelt in a land 
 infested by thieves ; must have himself knoTMi what it 
 was to be robbed and wounded, so he had the heart to 
 aid as well as to pity the maltreated traveller, and 
 poured oil into his wounds, and tenderly lifted his 
 gasping brother from the plain. 
 
 No sooner did Mrs. Latimer make it knoAvn that 
 she required assistance, than friends gathered round
 
 80 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 her far more numerously than she could have supposed. 
 Ada was not without her faults. At the core of her 
 gentle, kindly nature was a leavening of indomitable 
 pride, and I fear she experienced more suffering from 
 some of these well-meant offers of assistance, than she 
 had done from many an effort of privation and self- 
 denial. A beginning, however, must be made ; one 
 introduction leads to another, and thus it is that the 
 bees get what is called ' a connexion ' amongst the 
 drones. It was not long ere the first step was gained ; 
 the bass singer whom I have already mentioned, and 
 who had eaten many a good dinner of Mrs. Latimer's 
 providing, had made the very roof-tree of the Cottage 
 shake to his tones, had recommended her to a young 
 lady in the Regent's-park who was anxious to take 
 singing lessons ; the terms were higher than she ex- 
 pected. It was a most fortunate opening, there was 
 nothing more to be done but to begin. 
 
 So on a hot, dusty, glaring day early in August, the 
 music-mistress left her humble lodging to commence 
 this first essay in gaining her daily bread. A week ago 
 she would have thought that such an opportunity as the 
 present would have made her perfectly happy. Now 
 she di'eaded and almost loathed it, though she re- 
 proached herself for ingratitude the while, and took 
 herself bitterly to task for weakness of purpose and 
 want of courage. At times she felt as if the gallant 
 spirit within could face and conquer any difficulties, but 
 at times, also — and who shall blame her ? — the tears 
 sprang to her eyes as she thought of her friendless and 
 unprotected position, of her di-eary lot, her young days 
 darkened, her young beauty wasted in the mere strug-
 
 'GANZ ALLEIX.' 81 
 
 gle to live, her capacity for happiness and for making 
 happy so completely thrown away ! Who shall say why 
 these things are so? Why the warmest heart must 
 sometimes be the saddest and the loneliest ? Why the 
 kindliest nature must so often be di'iven baok upon it- 
 self, to sour and weary and deteriorate ? So little, so 
 very little, would make some so happy ! and yet that 
 little is sternly and consistently denied. It is not for 
 us to penetrate these things. The Great Artificer of 
 all is the best judge. Day by day we see the round 
 man in the square hole. We only know that all the 
 struggling in the world will not make his prison one 
 whit less angular and uncomfortable. 
 
 E-evolvmg such thoughts as these, iMrs. Latimer, in 
 the quietest and simplest attire, crossed the New E-oad 
 at the top of Portland-place, and as she did so narrowly 
 escaped being knocked down by a high-stepping brown 
 cab-horse that was wasting a deal of action (considering 
 the time of year), and throwing about a vast quantity 
 of froth as he champed and chui'ned under the skilful 
 guidance of a pair of lavender-coloured gloves, the only 
 portions visible of the occupier of the cab. The lady 
 was unconscious of her danger. The gentleman totally 
 unaware of her proximity. They passed within a horse's 
 length, yet neither saw the other's face. Mrs. Latimer, 
 with her indigenous good taste, could not but approve 
 of the tout ensemble that had so nearly knocked her 
 down as it rattled by ; but she had far other thoughts 
 to occupy her mind than dark green panels and high- 
 stepping cab-horses. Whilst Gilbert Orme — for Gilbert 
 it was who o^vned the lavender gloves aforesaid — was 
 yawning his way out of to^^Ti in a state of weariness 
 
 VOL. I. a
 
 82 
 
 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 and vacuity \\'liich forbade him to take the slightest 
 interest in any sublunary consideration. He was hored 
 with the London season, yet leaving it with no feelings 
 of relief or excitement. He was on his way to a Scotch 
 mountain, where he expected to be hored by the society 
 of too many mtimate friends and too great a quantity 
 of game. He was hored with the prospect of a railway 
 journey of some five hundred miles, to be accomplished 
 with a break at a north country hotel. It was a hore 
 stopping on the way ; but then it was a hore travelling 
 all night. He was even hored with the self-imposed 
 task of didving his o^vn cab to the station, and not five 
 minutes before had caught himself almost envymg the 
 cheerful face of a jolly drayman, whose wagon blocked 
 the street. He was thinking what a weary, useless life 
 his own was — how he would like to have an object for 
 which to exert himself — something to make him eager, 
 and energetic, and anxious, ay, even if it made him un- 
 happy — something to scheme for, and think of, and 
 fret about — something to care for — something to love. 
 
 And he passed her within three paces, and drove on 
 all unconsciously to the London and North-Western 
 Railway ; but we will not anticipate, and our business 
 is now with the lady rather than the gentleman. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer walked on till she arrived at the gate 
 of a pretty detached villa, the entrance to which, with 
 its trim la"\yn and well-swept gravel-drive, reminded 
 her a little of the Cottage. It was, however, a far 
 larger and more stately residence, and everything about 
 it, from the fat spaniel stretching itself in the sun, to 
 the puffy footman who opened the door, denoted afflu- 
 ence and comfort.
 
 * GANZ ALLEIN.' 83 
 
 * Is Miss Jones at home ? ' asked the music-mistress, 
 conquering a mixed feeling of pride and shyness at 
 a gulp. 
 
 ' Yes, my lady,' answered the man, a thorough Lon- 
 don servant, who had only accepted the appointment 
 with Alderman Jones, as he said, ' temporarily, for 
 country air,' and whose savoir vivre prompted him that 
 so plainly dressed and engaging a lady calling at that 
 early hour must be a countess at least. ' Step this 
 way, my lady, if you please ! ' 
 
 Remorse tore that official's heart, and poisoned his 
 one-o'clock dinner, when he ascertained the real busi- 
 ness of the visitor. In the meantime, Mrs. Latimer 
 followed her conductor upstairs, summoning all her 
 courage for the ordeal. 
 
 At the first landing-place she encountered a rubicund 
 old gentleman with a bald head and a white neckcloth, 
 who first begged her pardon, as it should seem, for 
 taking the liberty of going do^vn-stairs in his own house, 
 and then stopped her further progress by the summary 
 process of placing his corpulent person immediately in 
 front of her. 
 
 ' Madam,' said the old gentleman, with a ludicrous 
 mixture of profound deference and startling abmpt- 
 ness, 'pardon the liberty I take in asking, but are 
 you going upstairs to give my daughter a singing- 
 lesson ? ' 
 
 She bowed silently in the affirmative. ' This, then,' 
 she thought, 'must be the parent Jones. I wonder 
 if his daughter's voice is equally difficult to modulate.' 
 
 ' Not with that pale face — I'll be — I beg youi- par- 
 don — not with that pale face ! You don't go a step 
 
 G2
 
 84 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 further. This way, ma'am, this way. You'll excuse 
 me. John, the sherry, directly; and a biscuit, and 
 some fruit! And let Miss Jones know. You'll find 
 this the coolest room in the house. Lord ! how tired 
 she looks; and what a knave that husband of hers 
 must be ! ' 
 
 The alderman had two little peculiarities, which ren- 
 dered him at first a somewhat startling acquaintance — 
 one was a habit of speaking out his thoughts and 
 checking himself too late, which, though inconvenient, 
 is by no means a very uncommon failing ; and the 
 other, a practice of deriving his metaphors and other 
 figures of speech from the noble game of whist, of 
 which, though a moderate player, he was an ardent 
 admirer. Albeit a trifle choleric, he was kindly, jovial, 
 good-natured, and generous — loved his only daughter 
 Bella, as he still loved her mother in her grave at 
 St. John's Wood; and believed old sherry to be the 
 true elixir vitce, and an unfailing remedy for all dis- 
 eases, whether of body or mind. 
 
 "With his o^^Ti hand he poured out a large glass of 
 that reviving liquid for Mrs. Latimer. He had heard 
 her story, and pitied her sincerely ; nor was he satisfied 
 till she had drained it every drop, and the colour had 
 returned to her cheek and the brightness to her eye. 
 
 Then Alderman Jones began again. 
 
 'Bella's di'essing, Mrs. Latimer. A late riser; so 
 was her poor mother. You should have known her, 
 my dear madam. That woman was one in a million. 
 There's her picture. Yes, it's very like, but wants 
 her sweet smile. Ay, ay, we were very liappy toge- 
 ther, too happy to last. But it's a blessed lot. Nothing
 
 ' GANZ ALLEIX; 85 
 
 equals a happy marriage ! By Jove! there's a mis- 
 deal ! Have a little more sherry, Mrs. Latimer. No ? 
 You're wrong, I think. I got it at Discount's sale last 
 year. Poor fellow ! he knew what sherry was ; and 
 now, he's left his wife and family, and gone off without 
 
 a penny to Austr Hang it ! I was deuced near 
 
 revoking again. Here's Bella !' 
 
 Luckily for the alderman, his daughter made her 
 appearance at this juncture ; and bowing kindly to 
 Mrs. Latimer, rang for her late breakfast ; and in five 
 minutes, with her frank, almost hoydenish, manner, and 
 her kind, good heart, made the music-mistress feel com- 
 pletely at home. She was a black-eyed, black-haired, 
 fresh-coloured girl, with a broad comely face, and a 
 broad hearty smile ; such a girl as looks more in place 
 on a dairy-floor than behind the curtain of an opera- 
 box, and yet with a degree of true refinement in her 
 honest womanly nature that might put many a great 
 lady to the blush. She tmned papa round her finger, 
 did exactly what she pleased, and enjoyed her London 
 life and her London pleasures as such things can only 
 be enjoyed at nineteen. 
 
 'You must teach me to sing beautifully, Mrs. Latimer,' 
 said she, before they had been five minutes at the piano- 
 forte, * as beautifully as you do yom*self. I shall not 
 be a bit afraid of you. I can see already that you are 
 not the least cross.' 
 
 Such was ^Irs. Latimer's first attempt at gaining a 
 livelihood, and successful in itself, it led to success in 
 many others. A fast friendship sprung up between her 
 and the Jones's, cemented on their part by every kindly 
 office they could imagine, and recommendations without
 
 86 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 end. The music-mistress soon found she had as much 
 to do as she could find time for, and was even able to 
 send out remittances to her good-for-nothing husband in 
 Australia. The second of these donations was returned 
 from Sydney with an intimation that William Latimer 
 was no more. At the time at which my story opens, 
 Ada had thus been eighteen months a widow, and was 
 one of the sweetest English singers in London.
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 MISGIVINGS. 
 
 MUST begin my story again, taking what 
 seamen call a fresh departure from a point 
 subsequent to the events I have already 
 detailed. Such of my characters as have 
 appeared on the stage must be marshalled anew, fitted 
 with proper dresses and decorations from the wardrobe, 
 and so ushered up to the foot-lights, exulting in their 
 respective parts. For those who may come on here- 
 after I must crave indulgence, if not applause. Let 
 the pit suck their oranges with forbearance, if not 
 satisfaction, the boxes smother their yawns, the gallery 
 abstain from hisses. Tragedy or comedy, touching 
 melodrama or broad farce, the ciu*tain must fall at last 
 on all alike ; so in real life — clouds or sunshine, storm 
 or calm, lolling on patent springs, or trudging footsore 
 through the mire, — have but patience, brother : 
 
 Be the day weary or never so long, 
 At length it ringeth to even-song. 
 
 Alderman Jones is in an omnibus bound for the Bank ; 
 John Gordon is in a counting-house in the City, ' count- 
 ing out his money;' Bella is eating bread-and-butter,., 
 if not ' bread and honey,' at the villa in the Regent's-
 
 88 GOOD FOK NOTHING. 
 
 park ; Lady Olivia in Belgrave-square is adding up her 
 butcher's book ^ith a gold enamelled pencil; Lady 
 Gertrude reading her French novel upstairs ; Ada Lati- 
 mer is preventing two little girls at Bayswater from 
 mangling a duet ; and Gilbert Orme, in his bachelor 
 lodgings in Green-street, has already finished breakfast, 
 though it is but twelve o'clock. 
 
 It is the day after the morning concert to which he 
 escorted his mother and cousin. Gilbert whistles with 
 considerable execution (he learnt the accomplishment 
 years ago at West- Acres, from the keeper's eldest boy, 
 now assistant to a travelling showman), and he has 
 whistled a simple plaintive air that he heard yesterday 
 for the first time over and over again ; yet by the ex- 
 pression of his face it does not seem that he whistles 
 like the ploughboy, ' for want of thought.' 
 
 Enter to him Lord Holyhead, an intimate friend, 
 some few years his senior, who has admittance at all 
 hours. That nobleman first examines his manly and 
 military-looking person in every glass in the room, then 
 throws himself into an arm-chair, hatted, gloved, booted 
 and spurred, with his riding-whip in his hand, lights a 
 cigar, gets it well under weigh, and finally condescends 
 to bid good-morrow to his host. 
 
 ' Well, Gilbert, how goes it, my boy ? ' 
 
 To which Gilbert, as becomes one of the upper ten 
 thousand, replies with classic elegance — 
 
 * Nicely, thank ye, Nobs ! How's yourself?' 
 
 This effort achieved, the friends smoke on in solemn 
 sUence. It is scarcely necessary to observe that ' Nobs' 
 is Holyhead's nickname, originally acquired at Eton, 
 and like Falstaff 's 'Jack,' only to be used by his familiars.
 
 MISGIVINGS. 89 
 
 He is a nobleman of considerable energy and determi- 
 nation, a stanch friend, an micOmpromising foe ; not 
 sweet-tempered when crossed, but with tact and self- 
 control, and moral as well as physical courage. His 
 motives and principles are of the world worldly, but he 
 will readily do battle even with that world on occasion. 
 He has served with distinction, of which he is naturally 
 proud, and has fought his way through one or two 
 scrapes by sheer coolness and pluck better than he 
 deserved. He likes Gilbert more than most people, and 
 hustles him about, and 'wakes him up,' as he calls it, 
 and otherwise domineers over him, as is his lordship's 
 wont with his friends. Like all men of action, he finds 
 a charm ui an easy-going, good-natured, dreamy tem- 
 perament, especially antagonistic to his own ; so there 
 are few days of which he does not spend a portion in 
 Orme's society. 
 
 Lord Holyhead is a widower, and, it would appear, 
 not likely to marry again. 
 
 He soon fidgets out of his arm-chair and makes a 
 tour of the apartment, criticisuig for the hundredth 
 time Gilbert's favourite prints and water-colours, and 
 finding fault, as usual, with all the an^angements of his 
 indolent friend on the sofa. 
 
 ' You should put that screen fui'ther back, Gilbert. 
 It would show the caricatm^es better, and keep ofi" 
 the draught from the door. And do turn the Thetis 
 with her face and neck to the light ; you lose the whole 
 effect of her attitude in that corner.' 
 
 ' I'm very fond of my Thetis,' says Gilbert, with a 
 stretch and a yawn. 
 
 ' No reason you should keep her in the dark, my
 
 90 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 boy. Then I don't like the bracket you have put her 
 upon; all that florid carving is wretched bad taste, and 
 not over well done. I'll send you one I saw yesterday 
 in Wardoui'-street, on condition that you'll turn this 
 hideous landscape to the wall. The water runs up-hill, 
 and a thing like that has no business over a chimney- 
 piece. Then Rosa Bonheur's print ought to hang as a 
 2)endant to the Landseer. By the way, talking of that, 
 when are your horses commg up at Tattersall's ? ' 
 
 ^ To-day,' answered Gilbert, settling himself into a 
 more comfortable attitude on his couch. 
 
 ' And you never told me a word about it. How like 
 you. You certainly are the most mdolent fellow in 
 London. I wanted particularly to know, and I could 
 have helped you to sell them. Why, Craner would 
 give anything to have the little bay horse. Is he to be 
 sold?' 
 
 ' What, Matador ? ' replied the fortunate proprietor 
 of that desirable animal, 'yes — I suppose so — he'll go 
 up with the rest.' 
 
 ' I mean the horse you rode over six feet of timber 
 last season mider the Coplow,' urged Holyhead, warmmg 
 with the congenial subject, as hunting men will. 
 
 ' Only five ! ' answered Gilbert, quietly, but his eye 
 kindled and he moved into a sitting posture with some- 
 thing like reviving energy. Bellerophon was not a 
 better horseman, and he was over-fond of that fasci- 
 nating pm'suit termed ' riding to hounds.' Hitherto 
 it had been his one excitement, his passion, his pre- 
 dilection, the poetry of his life. 
 
 On his mental vision came back, as in a picture, the 
 dash and skurry of the scene ; the stretching pastures
 
 MISGIVINGS. 91 
 
 smiling in the sun ; the time-honoured Coplow, crested 
 with trees, above him ; the flashing scarlets scattering 
 like a broken string of beads ; Matador's sweeping 
 gallop and the meaning shake of his resolute little 
 head ; the oak rails, high, stiff, and ragged, with the 
 gurgling watercourse beyond ; and the deer-like bound 
 that landed him alongside those white hounds fleeting 
 so noiselessly up the hedge-row ! 
 
 Even in Green-street his blood danced in his veins 
 to think of it ; but the nil admirari is the ruling 
 principle of modem youth, and so he sat still and said 
 nothing more. 
 
 ' Five, or six,' resumed his friend, ' you j^oiincled 
 them all, and quite right too! Well, I shall be at 
 Tattersall's after luncheon, and I'll TOte a note to 
 Craner to meet me there. I suppose you won't take 
 any trouble, and don't care a brass farthing whether 
 the horses are sold, or boiled, or cut up into sandwiches? ' 
 
 ^It won't make much difference to me,' answered 
 Gilbert, who had never felt so little interest in these 
 the most valued of his possessions as to-day ; ' we 
 can't hunt again till November, you know, and now 
 it's only May. If they're not sold they'll go down 
 to West- Acres, and if they are I can always buy some 
 more.' 
 
 ' West- Acres,' said Lord Holyhead, thoughtfully, 
 ' West- Acres ! why don't you marry yom- cousin, 
 and go and live at West- Acres ? ' 
 
 'She's never asked me!' remarked Gilbert, with 
 considerable naivete ; but the colour rose a little to 
 his brow nevertheless, and he threw the end of his 
 cigar into the grate, and unconsciously began to whistle
 
 92 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 the air that had lately taken snch strange possession 
 of his fancy. 
 
 Lord Holyhead was very much attached to his 
 friend. He would have liked to furnish his house for 
 him, buy his wines, choose his horses ; nay, to provide 
 him with such a wife as he thought good for him, draw 
 up the settlements himself, and stand godfather to the 
 first-born, because tliis was his mode of showing his 
 affection. He now began to ponder as to whether he 
 should insist on Gilbert's becoming a Benedict or 
 not. 
 
 ' You're not a marrying man, I'm afraid,' continued 
 the peer, walking about the room, and flicking the 
 furniture in general with his riding-whip ; ' for the 
 matter of that, no more am I. Still, there's a good 
 deal to be said upon the propriety of yom- settling at 
 West- Acres. In the first place, that property might 
 be increased, with a little attention, nearly a third in 
 value. Then your political interest should be kept up, 
 and nothing does that so effectually as going to magis- 
 trates' meetings and giving yom- neighbom's venison and 
 champagne. The fact is, you ought to be in Parlia- 
 ment, my boy. There will be a general election before 
 long : go down and stand for the county ! ' 
 
 ' I don't seem to care much about Parliament,' an- 
 swered Gilbert ; ' and then the canvassing, and hand- 
 shaking, and beer-drinking are not exactly in my line. 
 I don't see why I'm to be hand and glove with Brown, 
 Jones, and Bobinson, only when I want their votes, 
 and I'm sure I couldn't keep it up when the necessity 
 was past. Then think of those uncomfortable seats in 
 the House of Commons, Holyhead; I'd rather be in a
 
 MISGIVINGS. 93 
 
 hussar-saddle, or a stall in a cathedral, or the front row 
 of the dress circle at the play. No; I don't think it 
 would suit my book to be a statesman.' 
 
 ' Nonsense ! ' replied his energetic adviser ; ' every 
 fellow should have something to do. You'll be para- 
 lytic by the time you're forty, if I can't wake you up 
 into exertion. I'll tell you what, Gilbert — I'll let you 
 oif the House of Commons if you'll promise me that 
 you'll marry Lady Gertrude.' 
 
 Again a faint colour rose to the listener's temples, 
 and a slight movement escaped him of impatience and 
 disgust. The same topic had often before been sug- 
 gested, nay, urged upon him by his friend, and he had 
 almost brought himself to look upon it as most of us 
 do upon death — to regard it as an eventual catastrophe, 
 of which the time and manner were both so uncertain 
 that it was useless to trouble his head upon the subject. 
 Holyhead waxed more and more energet c as he pro- 
 ceeded — 
 
 'I don't know where you're to find a nicer girl, if 
 you hunt all London for her — clever, accomplished, 
 good-humoured, good-looking, and as thoroughbred as 
 Eclipse. She's just the girl to make a good wife to a 
 man in a certain position,' and the peer thought of the 
 late Lady Holyhead, who possessed indeed none of the 
 advantages he had enumerated ; ' then she gets on so 
 well with your mother, and you know as well as I do 
 it isn't everybody who can manage Lady Olivia. Hang 
 it, Gilbert ! if I was that sort of fellow, you know, and 
 soft, and so on, I'll be shot if I wouldn't marry her 
 myself, if I thought she'd have me.' 
 
 'I'm sure you've my leave to try,' was the imper-
 
 94 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 tui'bable answer. * Gertrude would like to be a peeress, 
 and you're not such a bad fellow, after all; far more 
 fit to be a respectable man than myself ! ' 
 
 The peer rose, looked in the glass, twirled his mous- 
 taches, and tm-ned away with a doubtful shake of the 
 head. Apparently the last suggestion had struck out 
 a fresh train of ideas, for he consulted his watch, 
 strode to the window to see if his horses were still at 
 the door, and coming back to the sofa, bade its occu- 
 pant ^ Good-bye ' with a strenuous injunction ^ not to 
 be late.' 
 
 ' Of coui'se not,' replied Gilbert, looking up most 
 innocently. 'On no account — but why? and for what?' 
 
 ' You'd make a saint swear,' bm'st out Lord Holyhead. 
 ' Don't you remember you're engaged to dine at Rich- 
 mond with me to-day? and I've arranged to drive you 
 down ! You promised, I'll take my oath, and if you've 
 made any other engagement you must throw it over. 
 Not a moment later than five, mind ! Y^ou and I can 
 go in the phaeton. I want to knoAv what you think of 
 my American horse. Charley Wing and old Landless 
 will meet us at the Castle, and Madame Bravom^a drives 
 down with her aunt in my brougham. So that's the 
 party — now, you won't put us in the hole.' 
 
 ' Bravoura's going, is she?' observed Gilbert; 'I 
 thought that was all over^" gone with the last year's 
 snow." How confiding of you to ask me to meet her ! 
 I say. Nobs, shall I go down in the brougham, and you 
 can drive the aunt? Then you don't want to marry 
 Gertrude quite yet, after all.' 
 
 ' Nobs,' as his friend called him, vouchsafed no answer. 
 * I'll call for you at White's,' was all he said; and in
 
 MISGIVINGS. 95 
 
 another minute he was clattering up the street at his 
 usual pace, which wore him out at least one hack a 
 season, to the disgust of his groom, and the advantage 
 of the dealers. 
 
 Ere he had turned the comer of the street, Gilbert 
 rose from the sofa and began to pace thoughtfully up 
 and down the room. What had come over him ? was 
 he going to be ill ? going to have a brain fever ? or the 
 measles for the second time ? or what ? Perhaps after 
 all he was only growing old. Growing old ! and on the 
 sunny side of thirty, it could scarcely be that. Yet 
 why had everything begun to pall upon him, that used 
 to be so pleasant and enlivening ? A year ago, nay, a 
 fortnight ago, he would have willingly gone a dozen 
 miles to meet Madame Bravoura. She was then a 
 sparkling and fascinating syren, whose witty rejoinders 
 were only made more enchanting by her broken English, 
 and her mellifluous tones. Now she seemed to be 
 nothing but a bold, bad Italian woman, with a sallow 
 skin, a meretricious manner, and a hideous old aunt. 
 Where on earth was the pleasure of associating with 
 these sort of people ? They had no ideas in common 
 with himself, after all. What was their conversation 
 but a tissue of slang, slander, and bad jokes ? What 
 were they without their tinsel, without sunshine, and 
 pink bonnets, and sweet champagne, and clever men 
 besides, to draw them out? Duller than the dullest 
 of evangelical aunts or country cousins. He saw no 
 merit in them — none whatever. He wondered at Holy- 
 head ! He had never wondered at Holyhead before. 
 
 Gilbert sat down agam, and began to analyse his o^^•n 
 feelings.
 
 96 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Now this is a process seldom productive of much 
 good, unless a man has trained himself to reduce all 
 his thoughts, wishes, and aspirations to the strictest 
 standard of morality and high principle. For such an 
 one, self-examination is doubtless the most invigorating 
 and beneficial of all mental exercises ; but if the in- 
 qmry be only conducted with a reference to self^ if the 
 ' yvco^t creavToi/' be but an injunction to learn what you 
 youi'self would most like, be but a recapitulation of 
 your wishes, not your duties, a wail for youi' sufferings, 
 not your sins, the mind becomes bewildered in the laby- 
 rinth from which it has no compass wherewith to extricate 
 itself — becomes confused with the many coui'ses which 
 expediency can always point out in contradistinction to 
 that one rugged way which is the path of right. And 
 at last, like the scorpion 'girt with fii^e,' hopeless of 
 release, maddened by the impassable barrier that seems 
 to hem it in on every side, tmns and plunges its sting 
 deeper and deeper into itself. 
 
 Gilbert Orme had never in his life reflected on the 
 duties that he owed, to the station in which he was 
 placed, to his fellow-creatures, to his family, nay, even 
 to himself. It had never occmTed to him that a reason- 
 ing being was scarcely put into this world for no higher 
 purpose than to wear out a certain quantity of clothes, 
 eat a certain number of dinners, and make himself 
 tolerably agreeable to a certain circle of people, whose 
 bodies were as well cared for as his own. He had some- 
 times found himself restless, he didn't know why ; and 
 very often hored and languid without sufficient cause ; 
 but he heard others with whom he associated complain 
 of the same symptoms, and he was quite satisfied to
 
 MISGIVINGS. 97 
 
 lay the blame on a loaded bottle of claret, or an east 
 wind. He knew so many Clara Vera de Veres 
 
 With joyous health, in boundless wealth, 
 Yet sickening of a vague disease. 
 
 And one and all seemed to apply the same remedy — 
 fresh excitement to prove a fresh opiate, and breed fresh 
 disgust. Hitherto the treatment had answered mode- 
 rately well. To-day he felt strangely out of sorts, and 
 dissatisfied with the monotonous routine to which he 
 felt as if he were condemned by his o^vn election and 
 freewill. He did what any of his associates would have 
 done in the same predicament, dressed with the utmost 
 care, in a selection of Poole's noblest efforts, and wan- 
 dered out into the streets with no very definite object, 
 save to kill the afternoon. 
 
 It was strange how that singer in moui-ning haunted 
 him, how the simple pathetic air she had sung so feel- 
 ingly rung in his ears still. How that sweet pale face, 
 framed in its soft brown hair, rose at every tm-n on his 
 mental vision ; how distinctly he had caught the name, 
 though only mentioned once, and then so carelessly, by 
 John Gordon — Mrs. Latimer — Mrs. Latimer — and 
 John knew somethino: about her. Should he ojo and 
 find John Gordon, who was safe to be immersed in his 
 daily business till five ? and then, what then ? cui bono? 
 Surely my boy was becoming what the fashionable 
 novelists call blase. From Dan to Beersheba, from the 
 top of Grosvenor-place to Temple Bar, he had scanned 
 it mch by inch, and it was all barren. 
 
 Now if Gilbert had chartered a Hansom cab and 
 paid the driver by the mile, I doubt if the latter would 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 have taken the shady side of South Audley-street as 
 his shortest route from the house occupied by his fare to 
 the door of White's club. Such, however, was the line 
 my indolent friend chose to adopt, and it appeared simply 
 from the force of habit that he turned up a street 
 leadincr from that thorouojhfare to the Park, to knock 
 di'eamily at the door of one of the prettiest houses in 
 London, a house which always looked as if it had been 
 fresh ' done up,' and the balconies of which bloomed 
 with such geraniums as were not to be seen elsewhere. 
 
 ' Is Mrs. ^lontpellier at home ? ' asked Gilbert, in a 
 very matter-of-course voice ; and the footman answered 
 in corresponding tones, that Mrs. Montpellier was at 
 luncheon, and ' would Mr. Orme step this way ? ' 
 
 Now Mrs. Montpellier was one of those ladies on 
 whom their own sex choose to look somewhat askance 
 without any defined cause. There were certain houses to 
 which she was asked, certain people with whom she inter- 
 changed the cai'd-leavmg and other di*eary comtesies of 
 society ; but those who repudiated her averred that the 
 houses were what they called ' Omnium Gatherums,' and 
 the people ' second-rate.' The accusation was scarcely 
 a fail' one, but it swamped Mrs. Montpellier's bark, 
 nevertheless. ' Who is she ? ' demanded Lady Visigoth, 
 with annually-increasing virulence, spreading her long 
 hands and tossing her head like one of her own cai-riage- 
 horses ; indeed, her face strongly resembled that of the 
 Roman-nosed one that went on the near side. ' There 
 ai'e stories about her, I tell you. What are her antece- 
 dents ? answer me that ! ' There were no stories about 
 Lady Visigoth, nor when you looked at her were you 
 surprised at her immmiity ; but when she asked you
 
 MISGIVINGS. 
 
 99 
 
 about Mrs. Montpellier's ' antecedents,' in that voice of 
 rigorous virtue, you could not but feel as if you your- 
 self were doomed, however unjustly, to share the bui'den 
 of the fair backslider's possible sins. 
 
 Mrs. Montpellier's antecedents, however, albeit un- 
 known to Lady Visigoth, were sufficiently romantic. 
 She had made a run-away match with an Indian officer 
 at nineteen, and had followed his fortunes through many 
 a picturesque scene of danger and excitement. She 
 had been ' under fire ' too, real honest fighting fire, more 
 than once ; had seen a round shot go through her tent 
 and smash her work-box ; on another occasion, the 
 camel she rode in a somewhat ill-organized retreat, had 
 received a bullet-wound in its neck. She was rather 
 proud of these adventures, and of the Rajahs whom 
 she had visited, and the Begums in whose eastern bou- 
 doirs she had made herself at home ; and sometimes (not 
 often) she would chat pleasantly of those days with a 
 dash of quiet sarcasm and a vein of womanly senti- 
 ment that were not unpleasing. The young husband 
 soon died, from climate and ' brandy-pawnee ' combined, 
 and ere she could find her way home to her surviving 
 relatives, via Calcutta, she was snapped up in that city 
 of palaces and induced to change her name once more, 
 by Montpellier, of the civil service, a tall, thin, yellow 
 man, like a bamboo, old enough to be her father, and rich 
 enough to have paved the street he lived in with gold. 
 She never spoke of that time, and whereas there were 
 miniatures, and photographs, and remembrances of her 
 first husband scattered about her drawnig-room in iprohi- 
 aioii, Mij souvenirs she had of old Montpellier were locked 
 away carefully upstairs in her writing-desk. I believe 
 
 H 2
 
 100 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 slie loved ' the bamboo ' very dearly. Reserved as lie was 
 with others, he doted on his handsome wife, and she — ■- 
 old, withered, ugly as he was — why did she love him ? 
 I can give no better reason than a woman's answer — 
 ' Because she did ! ' 
 
 He left her, for the second time, a widow, in the 
 prime of life — very rich, very good-lookmg, and, after 
 a year or two, tolerably resigned to her fate. She 
 wandered about the Continent for a time, and refused, 
 of course, many an offer of marriage. Indeed, Mrs. 
 Montpellier was a lady who could take very good care 
 of herself. Finally, notwithstanding her deficiency in 
 * antecedents,' she came and settled in London, three 
 doors from Lady Yisigoth. I should despair of ex- 
 plaining to male stupidity how it was possible that, after 
 a career of adventure and travel, after the glowing 
 Indian days, first of thrilling excitement, then of princely 
 magnificence ; after the gorgeous colom^ing and the 
 dazzling climate, and the ease and freedom of Hindo- 
 stan, Mrs. Montpellier could settle down to a quiet 
 street in May-fair, and find absorbing interest in the 
 narrow routine of London life. A lady will understand 
 it in a minute. She puts herself at once m Mrs. Mont- 
 pellier's place. Give her a household to order, a few 
 shops to go to, a certain position to wrest or to retain, 
 above all, a feud with Lady Visigoth, and she will have 
 no difficulty in finding occupation for every hour in the 
 twenty-four. 
 
 The widow (perhaps a twice-bereaved one may fairly 
 be called a widow indeed) — the widow had seen a good 
 deal of life, and had not failed to profit by what she 
 saw. Rather repudiating the idea of a third sacrifice.
 
 MISGIVINGS. iOl 
 
 she had resolved to enjoy to the utmost the many plea- 
 sures and amusements which her situation permitted ; 
 
 and setting Lady V at defiance, she made her 
 
 house the pleasantest lounge in London, and conse- 
 quently commanded a great deal of very agreeable 
 society of which that exclusive dame could not have 
 the faintest notion. Mrs. Montpellier's little suppers 
 on Saturday nights; Mrs. Montpellier's luncheons — 
 her dinners — her choice picnics — her Avell-selected 
 parties — all went off without hitch or contretemps. If 
 you were dying to meet ^ somebody,' and dined with 
 Mrs. Montpellier, you were sui-e to go down to dinner 
 with that ' somebody ' and no other on your arm. If 
 you wondered what had become of your old chum whom 
 you had never seen since he pulled next you in the ten- 
 oar at Eton, or went up the breach alongside of you at 
 Sobraon, ten to one you found him at luncheon at Mrs. 
 Montpellier's. K you wanted a fourth in that barouche 
 which was going anywhere out of to^^Tl, who must 
 amuse and interest the other three all the way ' there 
 and back again,' you had but to draw Mrs. Montpellier's 
 pretty house between two and five, and you might 
 select your companion from the pleasantest people in 
 London. No wonder the young men dropped in so 
 naturally at Mrs. Montpellier's and stayed there, as 
 Lady Visigoth viciously remarked, ' so long ! ' 
 
 The hostess herself was, to do her justice, no slight 
 attraction. Though a good deal past thirty — indeed 
 as far past as she well could be — she was bright 
 and handsome still. Very dark, her complexion had 
 deepened rather than faded under an Indian sun, and 
 her black hair was as yet unstreaked with a line of
 
 102 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 grey. Her features, though irregular, had extraordi- 
 nary play and brilliancy. She dressed, too, to per- 
 fection, and was never to be surprised in unbecoming 
 colours or costume ; while her figure, which had always 
 been her strong point (and a very strong point such 
 a figure is), preserved its symmetrical outline, and re- 
 mained lithe and undulating as in the days of her first 
 honeymoon. Altogether people were justified in their 
 general expression of wonder ' why Mrs. Montpellier 
 didn't marry again' — a question Lady Visigoth de- 
 lighted to answer with a shrug of her broad bony 
 shoulders, and in a tone of mysterious defiance truly 
 intimidating. 
 
 ' There may be fifty reasons — Goodness only knows !' 
 Doctor Johnson loved a good hater ; the quality to less 
 vigorous minds is perhaps suggestive of awe rather 
 than affection. I admire its wondrous development on 
 occasion in the female breast. For the converse of 
 that charity which the Apostle enjoins — that pure 
 white mantle which can cover all the scarlet stains 
 of sin, aye, and wrap a shivering wounded neighbour 
 too in its kindly folds — for the self-righteousness that 
 puffeth up and vaunteth its own merits, that thinketh 
 evil, that suffereth not long, and is easily provoked — 
 for a thorough-going and practical opposition to the 
 true fundamental precepts of Christianity, commend 
 me to the merciless rancour of a virtuous British 
 matron such as my Lady Visigoth. 
 
 Gilbert was a prime favourite with his hostess. In- 
 deed he was very generally popular amongst women, from 
 the damsel in her teens, just 'out,' who voted him very 
 ' good-natured,' and was not ' the least afraid ' of him,
 
 MISGIVINGS. 103 
 
 to the passes woman of the world who found something 
 interesting and unusual in a certain freshness of senti- 
 ment and originality of thought which he never entirely 
 lost, and to whom his little affectations of indolence 
 and sans-souci were amusing because so utterly trans- 
 parent. He would laugh at himself, too, and idth 
 them, in the most perfect good humour. He was not 
 to be put out by any disappointment, and never seemed 
 to care enough about anything to make him cross. 
 Then he was not the least given to ' making love ' to 
 them ; and let satirists say what they will about the 
 craving for conquest implanted in the gentler sex, they 
 do like a man who will at once put them on an equal 
 intellectual footing with himself, and who offers them 
 frank confidence and respect rather than admiration, 
 which they suspect to be false, and flattery so sweet 
 as to become unpalatable. 
 
 Mrs. Montpellier shook him by both hands, and bade 
 him sit down and eat. ' I thought you were never 
 coming to see me again, Mr. Orme,' said the hospitable 
 lady ; ' and it's no use asking you to dmner, for you're 
 always engaged. Now what will you have ? Every- 
 thing's cold. This is the first day I've lunched alone 
 for six weeks. What have you been doing all these 
 ages ? Now do tell me all about yourself.' 
 
 This last request, I may observe in parenthesis, is 
 essentially feminine. To me, as propounded by a 
 gentle refined being, it always appears a complete 
 staggerer. Would they really like to know, and how 
 could the best and wisest of us tell them ? 
 
 ' Oh,' answered Gilbert, * that is easily done. My 
 time is chiefly employed in learning* to work cross-
 
 104 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 stitch backwards, winding silks for mj cousin, and 
 reading good books to mj mother.' 
 
 She held up her pretty finger at him, as one would 
 threaten a child. 
 
 ' No, nonsense,' said Mrs. Montpellier. ' I hear all 
 sorts of stories about you. Come, out with it ; make 
 a clean breast of it, and begin.' 
 
 ' Virtue is always liable to scandal,' replied he, laugh- 
 ing. ^ With the exception of the pursuits I have 
 named, I have been fulfilling my daily duties, and 
 earning the reward of a good conscience. With Holy- 
 head to help me, I have been much employed in doing 
 nothing; have done it rather well, and a good deal 
 of it.' 
 
 ' Are you going down to Richmond with Lord Holy- 
 head to-day ? ' asked the lady, looking sharply and 
 meaningly in his face. ' I hope not. I don't approve 
 of your friend. I don't approve of youi' party. You 
 see I know everything.' 
 
 * Of course you do. You sat next him at dinner 
 yesterday at the St. Quentm's. You had on the yellow 
 di^ess — the one with black lace ; not the pale one with 
 roses. It was stupid of that servant to upset a cream 
 over it. Woe is me ! I shall never see that yellow 
 gown again.' 
 
 ' How do you know all this ? ' 
 
 ' Never mind. I was sure Holyhead had seen you, 
 because he was so restless and uncomfortable this morn- 
 ing. He has moved every article of furnitm^e in my 
 room, and broken two vases and a small china tea-pot ; 
 but he didn't dare mention your name. A little bird 
 told me about the cream.'
 
 MISGIVINGS. 105 
 
 The widow laughed, but she did not blush. Lord 
 Holyhead's impenetrable nature was so well known, 
 that it was a standing joke to quiz her on having 
 subjugated him — a joke she herself took in exceedingly 
 good part. 
 
 ' I believe you were there yourself, Mr. Orme,' said 
 she, rising to adjourn to the drawing-room. ' I believe 
 you were the footman that did it, and had disguised 
 yourself for the purpose, as the gallants about the 
 French court used to do in Louis Quatorze's time. 
 Fancy being forbid to speak to a man on peril of your 
 life, and his marching up to you with the tea-tray, or 
 bringing you the vegetables at dinner. Ah, those were 
 days. People never do such things now. There are 
 no devoted lovers in the nineteenth century.' 
 
 ' Don't be too sm^e of that, Mrs. Montpellier. Why 
 did Holyhead stay so late, except to put you into your 
 carriage ? You see I know that too.' 
 
 ' You are too absmxl. Talking of carriages, will you 
 drive down with me to-day to Kew Gardens ? Much 
 better for you than that odious Richmond party. The 
 Ringdoves are coming. They both like you so much ; 
 and I must have a foui^th, for they are still so taken up 
 with each other. I wonder if it will last. We'll hear 
 the band play, and drive back again to a quiet dinner 
 here ; then we shall all be quite fresh for Lady Clear- 
 well's. By the bye, did you go to the morning concert 
 yesterday? I hear it was rather good. Tell me all 
 about it.' 
 
 Gilbert was intensely provoked. Do what he would, 
 the colour rose to his face as if he had been a schoolboy. 
 Though he shifted his position and got into another
 
 106 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 chair, he did not do it well, and he felt that Mrs. Mont- 
 pellier could not but remark his confusion. Luckily, 
 just then other visitors were announced, and he took his 
 leave ; but not till she had shot another of those sharp 
 inquiring glances of hers point-blank at him. When 
 he got into the street he remembered that he had never 
 replied to her good-natured offer of a seat in her car- 
 riage. He who was generally so composed and indolent 
 and imperturbable — what had come over him ? 
 
 ' There's something very queer about me to-day,' 
 thought Gilbert, as he turned once more into South 
 Audley-street. ' If I didn't believe it's impossible, I 
 should think I was getting nervous. This sort of thing 
 won't do at all. Hang it, I'll jump into a Hansom 
 and go and see John Gordon !'
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 JOHN GORDON. 
 
 HERE are some men who seem to be con- 
 sulted instinctively by every one in a dif- 
 ficulty. Which of us but has a friend 
 somewhere to whom he flies at a moment's 
 notice, when he finds himself in a dilemma ; whose 
 opinions he asks eagerly, to whose maxims he listens 
 with respectful deference, for whose brotherly interest 
 he certainly feels intensely grateful, and by whose 
 advice he as certainly refuses to abide ? 
 
 I have heard experienced counsel afiirm, that the 
 great difficulty they have to contend with in the defence 
 of criminal cases, is the extreme unwillingness on the 
 part of the prisoner to confess even to his adviser ' the 
 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' 
 There is a suppressio veri somewhere in the unbosoming 
 of even the most candid of culprits, and on this un- 
 fortified point the whole defence is apt to break down. 
 ' I could have got him off, if I'd been quite sure he did 
 it,' says the astute Balthazar ; ' but if a man won't trust 
 his counsel, he deserves to lose, and be hanged to him!' 
 Which is perhaps, after all, the result of his ill-advised 
 insincerity. 
 
 Now on a point in which his own personal feelings
 
 108 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 were not concerned (for on those in which they are 
 I hold no man to be better than a fool) , I would have 
 taken John Gordon's opinion as I would the Lord 
 Chancellor's. He was one of the few men I have ever 
 known, who could calculate the eventual not the imme- 
 diate results of any given measure. I can find hundreds 
 who will demonstrate clearly that if I pull the trigger 
 the piece will go off; but I could number on my fingers 
 those whose far-sightedness can hazard an opinion as to 
 whether the cartridge will reach the pigeon at which it 
 is aimed, or fall short in the breast of the inglorious 
 crow. John Gordon, like a fine rider across a country, 
 could see his way, so to speak, into the far distance, 
 field by field. It would have been a very queer obstacle 
 that turned him from it when once he had taken his 
 line. 
 
 His whole career had hitherto been one of uncom- 
 promising determination. He was well-born, mdeed a 
 distant connection of Lady Olivia's, well-bred, and well- 
 educated ; hut he was a second son. These encum- 
 brances may think themselves fortunate in succeeding 
 to a portion at all ; more fortunate still if it is ever 
 paid up. John Gordon's brother had five thousand a 
 year ; John Gordon himself had five thousand pounds. 
 He inherited, though, from his mother, a legacy worth 
 five times that amount. An iron constitution, which 
 nothing seemed able to impair ; and a strength of will 
 rarely equalled, at least in his own sex. An ofi*- 
 shoot from the illustrious stock to which Lady Olivia 
 belonged, the late Mrs. Gordon possessed, in common 
 with her family, a noble obstinacy, which, while it de- 
 generated in the male scions into pig-headedness and
 
 JOHN GORDON. 109 
 
 stupidity, fortified the females into rulers of absolute 
 and irresponsible authority. This quality had descended 
 to her son, modified, as became his sex, into a milder 
 form ; and to an unswerving determination in that com'se 
 which his reason told him was the most judicious, John 
 owed all the success he ever had in life. 
 
 Most young men of the upper class with five thousand 
 pounds, seem to think so inadequate a provision is 
 hardly worth taking care of, and fritter the principal 
 away in the pursuit of pleasm-e, with a touching resig- 
 nation and an implicit reliance on Destiny which would 
 do credit to a Moslem. Some more adventurous spirits 
 sink their capital in the pui^chase of commissions in the 
 army ; a glorious profession, doubtless, but not lucrative. 
 Bellona's noblest prizes will make their winner illus- 
 trious, certainly, but not independent; and a clean-swept 
 orderly-room is a poor substitute to a middle-aged man 
 for the happiness of a home. To be sure, there is the 
 off-chance of a settlement by violent death, but this can 
 scarcely be placed to the credit side of the account. 
 Few think of making the five thousand into ten thousand ; 
 but of these few was John Gordon. At eighteen he 
 thought the matter over in this wise — ' What would I 
 wish to be at forty ? Certainly at that age one begins 
 to get an old fellow ; but I doubt if even then one is 
 quite past all the pleasures of life. I see men at forty as 
 active, as full of energy, as hopeful, as enthusiastic, 
 almost as great fools, as at twenty. I am not sure but 
 that they enjoy the world more than their juniors. 
 Their place is marked out, their position established and 
 allowed ; they can still look forward, and perhaps it is 
 pleasant also to look back (John had seen but little
 
 110 , GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 from the latter point of view, and knew as yet nothing 
 of ' a sorrow's crown of sorrow'). Yes, it is not such 
 a worn-out age after all. What would I like to be at 
 forty ? I should like to be independent ; to have influ- 
 ence, a certain station, and recognised position in society. 
 Perhaps I might wish to marry; certainly I should 
 want a home. How are these things to be obtained ? 
 I want them, therefore I will have them. I have youth, 
 I feel ; I have energy and endui^ance, I know. I have 
 never been beat yet in the cricket-ground or the school- 
 room; why should I not conquer in the real world 
 outside ? Had I lived in the dark ages, I should have 
 taken care to have a good horse under me, a good sword 
 by my side, as many men-at-arms as I could command 
 at my back. In those days, such were the accessories 
 which wrested power and independence, and the enjoy- 
 ments of life. What constitutes power now ? What is 
 the tahsman that obtains for a man respect, regard, 
 friendship, applause, and admiration ? Is it genius ? 
 — no ; corn-age ? — ^no ; benevolence and philanthropy ? 
 — no. I have already seen men with each and all of 
 these qualities go UTcmediably to the wall. What is it, 
 then ? — money ! Am I satisfied of this ? — thoroughly. 
 Money, then, I want, and money I will have. How am 
 I to get it ? I have two- and- twenty years before me, 
 and five thousand down the day I come of age. I will 
 go into business at once. What have I to do with 
 aristocratic prejudices ? and what need I care for the 
 sneers of my smart friends ? Will the blood they talk 
 about so much as provide me with a fine coat, as it does 
 a thorough-bred horse ? Of what use is an escutcheon 
 without a hall to hang it up in ? I will go into business
 
 JOHN GORDON. Ill 
 
 to-morrow. If I live to see my fortieth birthday, it 
 shall not be my fault if I am in a worse position than 
 my elder brother ! ' 
 
 Few lads of eighteen would have argued thus. I do 
 not like John Gordon the better that at his age he could 
 so clearly see his own way to his own interest ; but I 
 am not painting people as I should wish them to be, but 
 simply as they are. The young calculator was right 
 enough in theory : merely wrong in a matter of detail. 
 * The children of darkness,' we know, are ' wise in 
 their generation ; ' and we cannot blame the man who 
 resolves to obtain that which he has made up his mind 
 he requires. The plan only wanted enlarging ; the 
 schemer did not go far enough. Had he doubled the 
 fixed period, substituting eighty for forty, and set his 
 heart on a safer investment, in a certain bank which 
 returns millions per cent., and into which ' thieves can- 
 not break through and steal,' he would indeed have 
 proved himself the most prudent and successful of 
 speculators. 
 
 Into business, accordingly, John Gordon went; be- 
 girming at the beginning, on a high office-chau' ; and 
 mastering detail after detail, and intricacy after intricacy, 
 with the dogged resolution so peculiarly his o\nti. When 
 a man shows himself determined to take his line, irre- 
 spective of the opinions of others, it is wonderful how 
 little his friends interfere with him ; how soon they 
 begin to coincide with his views, and vote that they 
 bad agreed with him all along. There is nothing so 
 easy as to lead a crowd, but then you must not be a 
 part of the crowd yourself, or shrink one iota from 
 going first. A moment's hesitation is fatal ; but dash
 
 112 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 in resolutely, and though it be the pit of Acheron, never 
 doubt but that it will be full directly. 
 
 John Gordon found himself quite as welcome in the 
 great world, quite as efficient a * stop-gap ' at my lord's 
 dinner-table, or my lady's ball, as if he had been the 
 idlest of the drones, consuming his five thousand as he 
 wanted it month by month. What mattered it to old 
 Landless, who had been keeping his empty head above 
 water with the greatest difficulty for the last forty 
 years, that the pleasant listener who sat next him 
 had spent his morning digging ' the root of all evil ' 
 east of Temple Bar ? Miss Troller only wanted a 
 partner to enable her to dance vis-a-vis to Lord Gray- 
 ling. Mr. Gordon's figure was gentlemanlike, his boots 
 in-eproachable. It made no difference whatever to that 
 far-seeing young lady whether he kept a ledger or a 
 betting-book ; and doubtless her ideas as to the real 
 nature of each were equally confused. Through his 
 connexions he possessed the entree into a certain number 
 of great men's houses, a privilege obtained on the easiest 
 terms by some, and difficult as Paradise to win by others ; 
 and he took advantage of his position, and frequented 
 their solemnities, called by courtesy ' entertauiments,' 
 with sufficient moderation. John Gordon was a satirist 
 jusqu^au hout des 07igles ; albeit, a satirist who could see 
 good as well as evil ; and a little to create a smile 
 amongst much which could but call up a sneer. So it 
 amused him to go into this world of gaiety as well as 
 that of business, in which he spent his working life ; to 
 watch the anxieties, and over-reachings, and rankliag 
 grudges, and general selfishness of those petty gam1)lers, 
 playing as eagerly for their counters as the others did
 
 JOHN GORDON. 113 
 
 for gold. Moreover, he did not frequent Vanity Fair 
 entirely without an object. Few men, I fancy, do. 
 John Gordon's heart was rohir et ces triplex, sound and 
 whole, and riveted, so to speak, with plates of steel : 
 yet it had its predilections, nevertheless. Of all his 
 partners, the one he preferred to dance with, the one 
 with whom he lingered longest through those precious 
 ' cooling ' minutes of which tea-rooms, staircases, and 
 conservatories witness the too rapid flight, was Lady 
 Gertrude. He was not one of those men who can go 
 home and dream of soft eyes, and floating haii% and 
 burning whispers, and flowers and gloves, and the be- 
 witching absurdity of the whole process. He had no 
 leisure for such nonsense, and didn't mean to have for 
 years to come. But if you had asked him who was the 
 nicest girl in London, the best-dressed, the best-looking, 
 the best dancer, the cleverest and the most agreeable, 
 he would have answered, ' Lady Gertrude.' 
 
 As for dreaming of her. Psha ! He went to bed 
 to sleep, not to di-eam. A plateful of lobster-salad, 
 consumed with a good appetite, a couple of glasses of 
 champagne, a cigar in the cool summer morning, and a 
 huge tumbler of cold water before going to bed : such 
 was the conclusion of one of his nights of relaxation ; 
 and as he had to be in the counting-house next morning 
 by ten at the latest, there was little enough time for 
 sleeping, let alone dreams. 
 
 Lady Olivia was a great stickler for ' kith and kin.' 
 It is one of the kindliest prejudices of the aristocracy, 
 and, to their credit be it said, it is a distinguishing 
 feature of their class. Her ladyship was an accurate 
 genealogist ; and she never could forget that the late 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon, of obdurate memory, and her own mother, 
 were first cousins, nor how they had each danced on 
 the same evening with the Royalty of their day — an 
 exploit on which she looked much m the same light as 
 a man would on the fact of two of his Ime having 
 charged stirrup to stiiTup at Poictiers. Therefore, John 
 Gordon came to luncheon whenever he liked m Belgrave- 
 square, therefore she consulted him about her invest- 
 ments, her lease, her carriage-horses, and such matters 
 as dowagers find it expedient to discuss with a male 
 adviser, till at length it was obvious to the whole house- 
 hold that the only person to whom ^ my lady ' would 
 listen, or who could influence her the least, was Mr. 
 Gordon. 
 
 Did the younger lady also hearken with pleasure to 
 Mr. Gordon's short commanding tones ? and suffer her 
 own ideas, and her own likmgs and disliking, to be in- 
 fluenced by that gentleman's opmions, delivered, it must 
 be confessed, with more energy than politeness ? She 
 did not think so herself. She repudiated all allegiance 
 to his tenets. She generally disagreed with him, but 
 she always listened attentively to what he had to say. 
 
 Such was the gentleman who, with cuffs tui^ned up 
 and strong sinewy wrists displayed, was now washing 
 his hands in a dark little room ofl" Alderman Jones' 
 counting-house, preparatory to taking his leave of busi- 
 ness for the day. He had done his work, earned his 
 wages, and was now ready and willing for a few hours 
 of that gay world which could still amuse, even if it 
 failed to mterest him. He is already the junior partner 
 in the firm of Jones and Gordon, a fii'm which city men
 
 JOHN GORDON. 115 
 
 know to be doing such good business. The Alderman 
 can trust him implicitly. ' A partner who can play his 
 own hand and mine too, sir,' says that worthy, when 
 discussing his junior's merits ; and the five thousand is 
 rolling up and accumulating rapidly. Alas ! that his 
 heart is hardening in proportion, and his wishes learn- 
 ing to centre more and more upon pounds, shillings, and 
 pence. Alas ! that even at this moment his thoughts 
 are still intent on to-day's consignment ; and the subjects 
 that are perhaps the furthest from his mind are Lady 
 Olivia, Lady Gertrude, and Gilbert Orme. 
 
 The latter has lounged through the counting-house 
 with his usual graceful languor, exchanging the news 
 of the day with a hardworking clerk, in just such a 
 tone of cordiality as he would use to a peer at his club. 
 The clerk thinks him the most ' affable ' of swells, and 
 wishes in his heart that his own boots and coat would 
 only fit him like those, resolving also that on the first 
 opportunity he will try if he cannot imitate the gait 
 and general manner of his new acquaintance. Pending 
 John Gordon's ablutions, he has imparted to him one 
 or two secrets of the trade which Gilbert does not the 
 least understand, and asked his opinion of a race-horse 
 that the latter knows to have broke down. Gilbert 
 replies with the utmost naivete and good faith, but he is 
 a little absent and pre-occupied, though he pretends to 
 take an interest in the clerk's turf speculations, and the 
 idea uppermost in his mind is, ' What a bore it must be 
 for John Gordon to spend all his mornings in an un- 
 comfortable room like this without a carpet ! ' 
 
 ' Well, Gilbert, how are you ? What has brought 
 
 I 2
 
 116 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 you here ? ' says John, emerging from his retreat with 
 his cuffs still turned up, and offering his visitor a hand 
 scarcely yet diy. 
 
 The same question occurs at the same moment to 
 Gilbert for the first time. He does not the least know 
 what brought him here, and he says so. John laughs, 
 a short sarcastic laugh, that seems to shake some 
 imaginary folly to bits as a terrier would a rat. 
 
 'Then it's the greater compliment,' he observes. 
 ' You must have come on purpose to pay me a visit. 
 Now, what can I do for you ? Do you want to learn 
 book-keeping ? Shall I give you some luncheon ? 
 Here are the tools for the one ; the other can be 
 got in five minutes from a pot-house over the way.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to say you eat here ? ' asks Gilbert, 
 with a sort of quiet astonishment, ' and smoke, and all 
 that sort of thing, as one would at home ? ' 
 
 The drone, you see, looks upon this undesirable hive 
 as a place in which to make, but not to consume, the 
 honey. 
 
 ' Of course,' answers the junior partner. ' Why, in 
 busy times I often sleep here. I say, Gilbert, have 
 you ever been in an omnibus ? I'm going to Pall 
 Mall. Come with me. We can go the whole way for 
 threepence ! ' 
 
 Gilbert laughed, and owned he never had, but would 
 like it of all things. 
 
 ' I have a Hansom waiting at the door, though,' he 
 said ; ' better jump in and come back with me. The 
 fact is, I had nothing particular to do. I thought the 
 drive would do me good, and I could bring you back 
 with me ; so here I am.'
 
 JOHN GORDON. 117 
 
 Now, a scheme was gradually unfolding itself in 
 Gilbert's mind. By seducing his friend into a cab, 
 and artfully leading the conversation towards the sub- 
 ject next his heart, he thought he might perhaps find 
 out something about the individual who for the last few 
 hours had occupied so large a portion of his attention. 
 John had said yesterday he knew something about Mrs. 
 Latimer. What did he know ? He was a bad hand at 
 pumping ; but still he would sm-ely get that something 
 out of him before they reached Pall Mall. Strange 
 that he should not have asked him point-blank what- 
 ever he wanted to ascertain. A child, when frightened, 
 buries its little face in mamma's lap : the natm-al im- 
 pulse of a gro\vn-up man is to shut his eyes, and shrink 
 away from a missile flying towards his head. And so 
 in moral as well as physical danger the instinct of weak 
 humanity is to avoid rather than confront the attack. 
 We suffer the enemy to take us in flank or rear, and 
 then wonder that our resistance is so feeble, and so 
 quickly overcome. 
 
 Gilbert's plans of strategy, however, were on this 
 occasion fated to remain undeveloped. Chance every 
 now and then gives us mortals a lift when we least ex- 
 pect it, as though to vindicate her suzerainty over ter- 
 restrial affairs ; and the fickle goddess had a sugar-plum 
 in store for Gilbert as, followed by the junior partner, 
 he emerged into the street.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BELLA JONES. 
 
 VERY pretty sociable was standing at the 
 door of the counting-house, and a very pretty 
 bouquet, fresh from the country, was lying 
 in the front seat thereof. Fresher and more 
 blooming than the paint on the sociable or the flowers 
 in the bouquet, Miss Jones sat solitary in the carriage. 
 Gilbert's hat was off in a moment, and the young lady 
 shook hands with him, and blushed, and laughed, and 
 wondered at meeting him there, and was glad to see 
 him, and seemed to have nothing more to say, and to 
 be rather shy and ill at ease, and relieved to take refuge 
 with John Gordon, whom she knew so well, and who 
 belonged, as it were, to the establishment. 
 
 Whatever may have been her opinion of the latter, 
 Bella entertained a profound admiration for Gilbert, 
 whom she regarded as a superior bemg altogether re- 
 moved from her own sphere. She had seen him prancing 
 about in the Park, on the most familiar terms with 
 personages whose names were matters of history, or 
 threading his way on foot amongst the carriages of 
 those despotic ladies of fashion who rule theii- own 
 world so rigorously ; and she believed him in her heart 
 to be a compound of Bayard and Beau Brummel. Not-
 
 BELLA JONES. 119 
 
 withstanding her rosy cheeks and her loud laugh, Bella 
 cherished a tendency to hero-worship. She reverenced 
 Mr. Orme therefore, and was a little afraid of him, 
 which was uncalled for, and coloured up whenever he 
 spoke to her, which was uncomfortable. So she ad- 
 dressed herself to the junior partner. 
 
 ' I was to wait for papa here ; he has gone to the 
 bank, and he said he shouldn't be long, and I thought 
 we were late, for there was a grand stoppage, as usual, 
 in Fleet-street ; and I brought you some flowers, Mr. 
 Gordon, for the counting-house. It does look so dreary. 
 I can't tell you how I pity you on these fine spring 
 days.' 
 
 ' Thank you. Miss Jones,' said John, taking the 
 nosegay as if he had been a gardener ; ' thank you. 
 They'll soon wither in there, and then you must bring 
 me some more.' 
 
 ' Why don't you come and fetch them yourself?' 
 asked the young lady. ' You have not been near us 
 for a week, and you don't know how beautiful the villa 
 looks now, and how the things have come out the last 
 few days. You used always to dine with us on Sundays, 
 and now you never do.' 
 
 ' Hulloh, John!' interrupted Gilbert, 'here's an 
 accusation, a manifest charge against you. Give an 
 account of yourself. Where do you go on Sundays ? I 
 assure you. Miss Jones, he does not spend them with me.' 
 
 Miss Jones looked as if she were going to say, ' So 
 much the better for Am;' but if such was her opinion, 
 she sent it back from her lips, and answered, demurely 
 enough — 
 
 ' We are so far out of London, I know it is a great
 
 120 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 tax upon people to ask them to come to us ; but that is 
 not papa's fault or mine. There we are ; and Mr. Gor- 
 don knows he is always welcome.' 
 
 ' Welcome ! Of course he is,' said a hearty voice 
 behind them ; and the jolly alderman appeared at the 
 door of the carriao;e, and smacked John Gordon on the 
 back, and shook hands with Gilbert, and took off his 
 hat and mopped his bald head, returning his silk hand- 
 kerchief, as his father had done before him, into the 
 crown. Then turning abruptly to John, asked him — 
 
 ' How about Surety and Safe ? ' 
 
 ' Seventeen and nine in the pound,' answered John. 
 
 ^ And the bales from Liverpool ? ' 
 
 * Got the invoice by to-day's post — second delivery.' 
 
 '■ Then I needn't go in there,' pursued the alderman, 
 pointing over his shoulder towards his counting-house ; 
 ' and indeed work ought to be over for to-day, and play- 
 time to begin. Pve done my business, John, and ijoiCve 
 done ijour business, and as for Mr. Gilbert and my little 
 girl there, they've no business here at all — so much the 
 better for them. Got a handful of trumps a-piece, and 
 no thanks to anybody but the dealer. What say you, 
 gentlemen ? Will you jump into the sociable — drive 
 off to the villa — saddle of Welsh mutton — '34 claret, 
 country air, and a rubber. Wind up with a bit of 
 supper, and just one of the old brandy — bottled before 
 you were born, Mr. Gilbert. Dear, dear, how you boys 
 keep growing up, to be sure ! ' 
 
 The alderman had been Gilbert's guardian. As a 
 practical man of business, and not averse to trouble, 
 he had of course been a working one, and it was hard 
 to say whether he took a greater pride in his former
 
 BELLA JONES. 121 
 
 ward, for whom he had a sincere affection, or in the fine 
 fortune which he had nursed so long and tenderly, and 
 the inroads into which he contemplated with the same 
 kind of feeling with which you see a child trampling 
 down and destroying the garden-beds you have raked, 
 and planted, and watered, and put in order for him. It 
 is the urchin's o^ti, and therefore you do not interfere ; 
 but it is provoking, nevertheless. He called him Mr. 
 Gilbert still, and considered him a very promising boy, 
 though he was near thirty. 
 
 ' You forget, papa,' interposed his daughter, who in 
 all such matters was the keeper of the alderman's 
 memory, if not his conscience, 'you forget we are 
 engaged to dine with the BuUingdons. This is Blanche 
 Bullingdon's birthday. You know they are coming to 
 us on Thursday.' 
 
 The latter sentence was whispered in her father's ear. 
 I think Miss Bella rather intended it in the liirht of a 
 suggestion. In good truth, such a star as Gilbert 
 would be no slight acquisition to a subm-ban dinner- 
 party ; and then if John Gordon took her into dinner, 
 it would be a day to mark with white chalk, and her 
 happiness would be complete. Bella had accustomed 
 herself to depend rather too much on her stanch ally, 
 the junior partner. 
 
 ' The Bullmgdons ! My dear, so we are. Very 
 stupid of me to forget, especially as I met Bullingdon 
 this morning, and he bade me be sure and taste the old 
 Madeira — gave a guinea a bottle for it, and cheap at 
 the money, as he tells me. Never mind; I think I 
 can give you as good. Now, when will you come ? ' 
 
 The young men looked at each other as they thought
 
 122 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 over their engagements. Nothing is so perplexing as 
 a general invitation, and though "we have each of us 
 our private memoria technica, our harmless predilections, 
 that, like the alderman's Madeira at a guinea a bottle, 
 remind us of our wishes, or our duties, they are apt to 
 fail us when called up at such short notice ; and we 
 cannot recollect in an instant whether we dine to- 
 morrow with the BuUingdons, or Duke Humphrey, or 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Bella was accustomed to the part of a hostess. She 
 now interposed quietly and gracefully. 
 
 ' If you have no better engagement, and could come 
 to us on Thursday, we should be delighted. It is 
 very short notice, I know ; but we shall at least have 
 somebody to meet you, and a little music, and you 
 mustn't mind if it's very stupid,' pleaded poor Bella, 
 looking apologetically at Mr. Orme. 
 
 Gilbert was already thinking how he could get out 
 of it. He had even gone so far as to murmm^ some- 
 thing about a ' previous engagement,' and an ' opera- 
 night,' and ' hoping some other time,' when the alder- 
 man, whose hospitality was unbounded, caught him by 
 the arm. 
 
 ' Say you'll come, Mr. Gilbert. You've never dined 
 with me yet since I got into the new house. I shall 
 have some turtle, too, by Thursday — don't forget that, 
 Bella — and you'll like Bulliiigdon. Not one of your 
 dandies, but a rare judge of wine, and the best covert 
 shot in Hertfordshire. Mind you don't fall in love 
 with Blanche, you dog. Eh, Bella? Then my girl's 
 singing mistress is to dine with us, and if you're fond 
 of music — which I'm not — you'll have enough of it
 
 BELLA JONES, 123 
 
 in the evening. She's an extraordinary woman that; 
 
 plajs as good a hand at whist as Major A , and 
 
 as for singing, people who are good judges say there 
 isn't a voice in London to equal Mrs. Latimer's.' 
 
 Mrs. Latimer's ! Gilbert's heart gave such a jump 
 against the cigar-case in his breast-pocket, as almost 
 broke a regalia. 
 
 Then he needn't pump John Gordon, and show him- 
 self up, after all. Here was the worthy alderman, a 
 rosy Deus ex machind, entreating him as a favour to 
 come and meet the very person he would willingly have 
 hunted all over London to see. Dine with him ? Of 
 com'se he would dine with him. He remembered at 
 that moment he was solemnly pledged for Thursday 
 to his great-uncle, the Bishop, a prelate of rigorous 
 opinions, who would never forgive him. What matter ? 
 Had it been St. Paul, he must have thrown him over. 
 ' He should be delighted,' he said ; and indeed he 
 looked delighted. His eye sparkled, and the languid, 
 indolent manner seemed all at once to wake up into 
 interest and life. The change could not but be re- 
 marked. John Gordon attributed it to Bella's beattx 
 yeux, and wondered somewhat uncomfortably whether 
 Gilbert admired her only because he had seen her so 
 little, and she was so different from the young ladies 
 to whom he was accustomed. The alderman opined it 
 was his mention of turtle that produced this beneficial 
 change ; whilst Miss Jones was quite content to take 
 things as they were, and congratulate herself on having 
 secured such an effective addition to their dinner-party. 
 She was satisfied, too, about John ; for she knew his 
 face so well as to see that he intended to come, at a
 
 124 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 glance. Altogether, Thursday's banquet promised to 
 go off well ; and as the sociable rattled away towards 
 the Regent's-park, the two young men looked after it, 
 with marked approval depicted on their respective coun- 
 tenances. 
 
 ' What a nice, unaffected, good-humom^d girl that 
 is,' said Gilbert, kicking back the half-doors of his 
 Hansom to let his companion in. ' She's not exactly 
 a beauty; but she's very fresh and pleasant-looking. 
 She wouldn't make a fellow at all a bad wife, now, if 
 he wanted that kind of thing. Do for yoic, John, only 
 she isn't half swell enough.' 
 
 Many a random shaft hits the white. John's ideal, 
 if he had permitted his well-regulated mind to enter- 
 tain such a tormentor, would indeed have been a lady 
 of far different calibre from Bella Jones — would have 
 been a haughty, high-born damsel, clever and scornful, 
 and perhaps a little wayward ; one who would have 
 flouted him, and worried him, and given ample occasion 
 for the exercise of that self-command of which he was 
 so proud, all the pleasure of dear-bought victory in 
 moulding her to his will. So he answered frankly and 
 unhesitatingly — 
 
 ' The best little girl in England. Worth her weight 
 in gold, and she can't be less than ten stone. I don't 
 know what the alderman would do without her.' 
 
 Further conversation was rendered impossible by the 
 incessant noise of a great city thoroughfare. The 
 Hansom, however, well-horsed and skilfully driven, 
 kept its time. Lord Holyhead had not waited above 
 four minutes, or cursed his friend's unpunctuality more 
 than that number of times, ere Gilbert was seated by
 
 BELLA JONES. 125 
 
 his side, and the American horse doing his best to 
 step with his comrade, and elicit the Englishman's 
 approval. 
 
 But in despite of fine weather and ^ water-souchee,' 
 despite of ' maids of honour ' and sweet champagne, 
 the Richmond dinner did not go ofi" satisfactorily. 
 Charley Wing's invincible spirits and radiant smiles 
 enlivened the thing for a while, but it is hard for a 
 single individual to find gaiety for five, and even 
 Charley caught himself more than once suppressing 
 a yawn and voting the matter ' dead slow ' in his heart 
 of hearts. Landless ate and drank, as he always did, 
 for a dozen, and varied but little indeed from his 
 normal state of twaddlino^ anecdote and comatose 
 aifability ; but he had really told that story about 
 Georoje IV. and a ' Trifle from Bri^^^hton ' so often, 
 that it was a bore, and when the claret was pushed 
 round (and claret at these entertainments always is 
 a failure), and he began to expatiate on his ovm losses 
 and reverses in early life, there was no resource left 
 but a general break-up to cigars and coffee. 
 
 Holyhead did his duty with the hospitality of an 
 Arab, but his gaiety was evidently forced, and a cloud 
 lowered on his brow, portending, to those w^ho knew him 
 well, the brewing of a storm, which had he not been 
 the giver of the feast, would have burst forth long ago. 
 Gilbert was excessively silent, provokingly absent, and 
 wished he hadn't come. Madame Bravoura's aunt, of 
 whom nobody ever knew the name, was deaf, and to all 
 appearance half-witted. She seldom opened her mouth, 
 except to take in stores, and was indeed remarkable for 
 nothing but her infirmities and an enormous cameo
 
 126 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 brooch which was stuck into her person immediately 
 below her double chin. Why Madame persisted in 
 taking this old lady everywhere, nobody exactly made 
 out. There were all sorts of stories as to the relation- 
 ship and reciprocal obligations between the pair, but 
 none were founded upon probability. My own opinion 
 is, that she was the signora's mother, and that the 
 attention paid her by the latter, was one of the few 
 redeeming points in that reprehensible person's cha- 
 racter, though why she did not openly avow the ma- 
 ternity I am at a loss to imagine. 
 
 Now, it is hard when the ' skeleton at the feast ' 
 has come there by invitation, nay, harder still when 
 the feast has been made on purpose for the skeleton. 
 In the present instance, Madame Bravoura thought fit 
 to enact the part of the unwelcome convive. Not phy- 
 sically indeed, for Madame's proportions were ample, 
 and her crinoline abundant, but in a moral, or perhaps 
 I should rather say, in an aesthetic sense, she sat there 
 in her bones. Something had occurred to put her out 
 on her way down. As Charley Wing observed, she 
 had an ' easy temper, easily roused,' and she deter- 
 mined to revenge herself on the whole party, and 
 especially ' Olli-ead,' as she called him, by putting 
 everything a tort et a travers. The surest method of 
 doing this was obviously to make fm^ious love to Gilbert 
 Orme, and the Signora, no inexperienced practitioner, 
 addressed herself to the task with considerable skill 
 and perseverance. There is nothing more amusing 
 than to watch a gentleman undergoing this process at 
 the hands of the fair. Charley Wing, indeed, who 
 was used to it, would have remained perfectly passive
 
 BELLA JONES. 127 
 
 and imperturbable under any amount of such perse- 
 cution ; he considered it as one of the duties he owed 
 to society, and went through it deliberately and with 
 edifying gravity, but it was no use attacking him. 
 Young Wing was a sort of privileged pet, supposed 
 to be, as doubtless he was, perfectly harmless. The 
 most careful shepherd would trust him implicitly with 
 any or all of his lambs ; the most rabid Othello sent 
 him home, and welcome, in the brougham with Desde- 
 mona. Bravoura might have sat on his knee and lit 
 his cigar for him, without calling up a passing frown on 
 Holyhead's brow. ' He didn't so much mind Charley ;' 
 but Orme was a man of a different calibre altogether, 
 and under the circumstances, his lordship thought, 
 with justice, she need not have been so demonstrative. 
 
 Gilbert fought off as much as he could. Annoyed 
 on Holyhead's account, and disgusted on his o^n, his 
 answers became shorter, and his manner more distant, 
 as the Signora grew more affectionate. She scarcely 
 spoke to any of the others ; she drank wine with him 
 at dinner, asked his opinion as to everything she was 
 to eat, and finally lit her cigarette from his cigar, and 
 puffed a volume of smoke in his face with her harsh 
 laugh, as she vowed he was the only man in London 
 the least sehn son gout, and that he must come and see 
 her in Italy, where she would go ba<jk as quick as ever 
 she could, directly her odious engagement in horrid 
 England was over. She flashed a glance of surpassing 
 wrath at Holyhead as she spoke, who kept his temper 
 admirably, though with an effort. Charley Wing tried 
 to make the conversation general, and old Landless 
 edged in a request for a very small quantity of hot
 
 128 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 brandy-and-water, but the Signora pushed the siege 
 vigorously, and was not to be repulsed. 
 
 The brandy came, and with it the announcement 
 that the carriages were at the door. Dipping a lump 
 of sugar into a liqueur-glass of the spirit, Bravoura 
 popped it into Gilbert's mouth. 
 
 ' Vous voyez queje suis femme galante moi !^ said the 
 lady, in her most brazen tones, and indeed there was no 
 occasion to proclaim the fact ; ' et je vous dis que je vous 
 trouve charmant^ backing this unequivocal declaration 
 by an offer of a lift back to London in ' Olli-ead's ' 
 brougham, between herself and the deaf aunt. 
 
 Even Landless was startled. 
 
 ' That's what they call at sea a stopper over all^ 
 said the old pleasure-seeker, finishing his tumbler at a 
 gulp. 
 
 The gentleman excused himself on the plea that he 
 must go back as he came down ; ' he wanted to smoke,' 
 he said, ' and preferred an open carriage for that pur- 
 pose,' and Holyhead gave him an affectionate squeeze 
 of the arm that made him wince, as they emerged into 
 the portico to ascend the phaeton. 
 
 ' How do you fellows get back ? ' said his lordship, 
 as the American horse reared straight on end when he 
 felt the collar. Of course neither of them knew, so it 
 was settled that Landless should return on the box of 
 the brougham, and Charley in the narrow place that 
 Bravoura had offered Gilbert inside. Pending this 
 arrangement, however, the American horse would wait 
 no longer, and the phaeton dashed off at the rate of 
 sixteen miles an horn* ; a pace that was kept up with- 
 out remark from either of its passengers for some
 
 BELLA JONES. 129 
 
 miles. As they neared Kensington, Holyhead took a 
 pull at his horses, and looking down in his friend's face, 
 broke the silence as follows : 
 
 ' Curious creatures, women, Gilbert. I don't think 
 I'll have anything more to do with that one !' 
 
 They are curious creatures ; that one was in the 
 brougham a couple of miles behind him, crying as if 
 her heart would break, and although Charley Wing 
 was a wary youth, who preserved on all topics in which 
 the fair sex were concerned a discreet silence, it might 
 have been gathered from his subsequent demeanour at 
 his club, that he had made a good many pleasanter 
 journeys than the drive home that night from Rich- 
 mond. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 * ALARMS — A SKIRMISH.' 
 
 Kj^ 
 
 1 
 
 HURSDAY came, and was ushered in by a 
 lowering morning that gradually settled into 
 a pouring wet day. An honest, straight- 
 down summer's rain, that soaks you to the 
 skin in ten minutes, and makes the light-coloui'ed 
 garment you have been rash enough to adopt in the 
 metropolis, look as if it had been dipped in ink. The 
 cab-stands were empty as the great desert, save where 
 an occasional arrival, with splashed panels and steam- 
 ing horse, made its appearance for an instant, to be 
 beckoned away again by a fresh fare ere the diiver 
 had time to lay his whip athwart the roof of the con- 
 veyance and give his many capes a shake like that of 
 a Newfoundland dog. Hapless pedestrians of both 
 sexes flomidered doggedly along, fording the deepest 
 crossings with a defiant recklessness that had proved 
 the worst, whilst those who wore petticoats, encumbered 
 their limbs as little as possible with di-apery, and dis- 
 played their draggled white stockings without reserve. 
 The man who always looks over the first-floor blinds in 
 wet weather, the man whose countenance is of a for- 
 bidding cast, and chiefly expressive of blank dismay, 
 occupied his post as usual, retreating at intervals with
 
 131 
 
 more than common caution into the dusky recesses of 
 his den. Everybody was draggled, and dreary, and 
 desponding, save only the London urchin, a stoic 
 whose philosophy is proof against all extraneous in- 
 fluences, and whose equanimity, wet and cold, hunger 
 and thirst, scorching skies and nipping frosts, are 
 equally powerless to overcome. Wrapped in a scanty 
 drapery, apparently formed from a discarded coal-sack, 
 he stepped jauntily along, his whistle retained its 
 customary richness and volume, his accompaniment 
 against the area railings its energy and precision. 
 His sense of the ludicrous had lost nothing of its 
 keenness, his wit nothing of its colloquial freedom, 
 his remarkable demeanour none of its eccentricity and 
 self-reliance. 
 
 Liside their houses at least people ought to have 
 been cheerful and good-humom^ed, glad to have a roof 
 over their heads and dry clothes on their backs. I 
 doubt, however, if it was so. Bad weather with the 
 unoccupied is apt to produce bad humour. The 
 domestic barometer is not uninfluenced by the outward 
 atmosphere. When the material quicksilver stands at 
 ' much rain,' it is well to provide a moral umbrella 
 in the shape of forbearance and long-sufiering. When 
 it gets down to ^ stormy,' it is advisable to look out 
 for squalls. 
 
 Those right honourable dames, the Ladies Gertrude 
 and Olivia, did not lose the opportunity. To do them 
 justice, it was but on rare occasions — perhaps three or 
 four times in a season — that they indulged in a grand 
 * passage of arms.' Such encounters, I am bound to 
 admit, seldom originated with the younger laxly, whose 
 
 K2
 
 132 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 spirit, though easily roused against anything like in- 
 justice, was not of an aggressive kind. To-day, how- 
 ever, she was unquestionably the invader. It would 
 seem by her tactics that she had meditated an attack 
 for some little time. 
 
 Lady Olivia was in the habit of passuig her morn- 
 ings in a small apartment off her principal drawing- 
 room, which she called her boudoir. In this retreat 
 she cast up her accounts, wrangled with her butler, 
 ordered dinner, worked in worsteds, and dozed over a 
 good book. It was, in short, her ladyship's own espe- 
 cial saiidum, and the locality was avoided, not to say 
 dreaded, by her intimates and relatives. Even John 
 Gordon's stout heart seldom brought him voluntarily 
 within its precincts ; so she was a little sm-prised to re- 
 ceive an unasked visit from Lady Gertrude, who made 
 her entrance with rather more sweep and rustle of her 
 draperies than was consistent with pacific intentions, 
 and did not forget to shut the door after her with 
 considerable energy. The G-onfalon was flung abroad ; 
 the first shot was fired. Lady Olivia, nothing loth, 
 cleared for action forthwith. 
 
 ' Aunt Olivia, can you match me this piece of yellow 
 silk ? ' was the insidious question under cover of which 
 the younger lady made, so to speak, her first advance. 
 
 The frown deepened on Lady Olivia's dark forehead 
 into a dent between her eyebrows. 
 
 '• What do you want it for ? ' she asked, abruptly, and 
 by no means with the courteous manner of one who 
 is disposed to grant a favom\ 
 
 ' For my cousin's slippers,' answered the other, inno- 
 cently. ' I want to get them done by the end of the
 
 ^ALARMS A SKIRMISH.' 133 
 
 montli. Poor Gilbert will be so disappointed if he 
 don't have them on his birthday.' 
 
 Now these slippers had been a bone of contention 
 ever since the first stitch had been put into their elabo- 
 rate toes. Lady Olivia's unnatural dislike of her son 
 had increased of late to an unreasonable pitch. She 
 was jealous of his position, of his fortune, of his popu- 
 larity, above all, of his favour with his cousin. If she 
 could be said to love anybody in the world it was Ger- 
 trude ; and, strange to say, the misfortune which she 
 dreaded more than anything on earth was the possibility 
 of her only son and her favourite niece being united in 
 marriage. 
 
 ' Sit down, Gertrude,' she said, with much dignity ; 
 ' I want to speak to you.' 
 
 Lady Gertrude sat down with the air of a princess. 
 Her heart beat a thought quicker, and her bright eye 
 sparkled. She felt the gaudia certaminis coming on. 
 The Berserkar's noble ecstasy, modified only by sex 
 and situation. She sniffed the approach of battle, the 
 little vixen, and enjoyed its savour. 
 
 ' Do you think it is either prudent or becoming,' 
 commenced the elder lady, steadying her voice with an 
 effort not lost on her antagonist, ' to be always occupied 
 in this manner about Gilbert ? Why is Gilbert to be 
 made the first person in this house ? Why is every- 
 thing to be deferred to Gilbert — nobody's opinion asked, 
 nobody's wishes consulted but Gilbert's ? I have often 
 hinted to you, Gertrude, that there is much to displease 
 and distress me in the terms on which you choose to 
 consider yourself with Gilbert. Now, I must speak 
 out. A young person in your condition cannot be too
 
 134 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 careful ; and I must beg that these tete-a-tete walks and 
 interchange of notes and undue familiarities be put a 
 stop to, once for all. Remember, Ladj Gertrude, that 
 he is not your brother, but your cousin — that his only 
 connexion with you is through me ; and you must your- 
 self see — and it ought to shock and distress you much, 
 if you had a particle of right feelmg — that he does 
 not treat me like a mother.' 
 
 She was a skilful fighter, Lady Olivia, and her blade 
 had never rusted for want of practice ; but in the pre- 
 sent instance she had got her guard the least thing too 
 high. The adversary had been expecting it, watching 
 for it, and now went in under it like lightning. 
 
 ' Do you treat him like a son ? ' she broke in, with 
 flashing eyes and quick-coming breath. ' Do you ever 
 think it worth while to consult him on a single thmg 
 you do ? Do you ever mterest youi'self in his pur- 
 suits or his occupations ? Have you not taught him 
 that this is the house in London m which he is least 
 welcome, and that make his home where he will, it 
 shall not be here ? Aunt Olivia, I wiU speak out. 
 Gilbert is going to the dogs as fast as ever he can; 
 and although I will not deny that he has his faults 
 like other people, nobody will be so much to blame for 
 his ruin as his own mamma.' 
 
 Lady Olivia was staggered. For some months she 
 had suspected that her niece — to borrow an expression 
 from the manege — was 'getting a little out of her 
 hand.' She never dreamt, though, that the young 
 lady would break away in so determined a fashion 
 as this. She enjoyed, however, the best of fighting 
 temperaments — that which gets colder and harder the
 
 ^ALARMS — A SKIRMISH.' 135 
 
 more sharply it is struck; so she rallied her forces, 
 and answered, very loftily, 
 
 ' Indeed, Lady Gertrude, I have yet to learn that it 
 is my niece's province to teach me my duty towards 
 my son. May I ask, moreover, in what manner that 
 unprincipled young man is " going to the dogs," as 
 you elegantly express it, more effectually this season 
 than usual ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, Aunt Olivia, how can you talk in that cold, 
 heartless manner? Surely you are in the way of 
 hearing all that is said about him, when it reaches 
 even my ears. I am not ignorant of his ill-chosen 
 friendships and foolish intimacies. He is losing him- 
 self completely amongst a bad set, and nobody, not 
 even his mother, thinks it worth while to stretch a 
 hand to save him. Aunt Olivia, do you know that he 
 gambles — that he lost ever so much last week at New- 
 market, and that if he goes on like this he will be 
 ruined by the end of the year ? ' 
 
 ' I am never surprised at hearing of my son's folly,' 
 answered his mother. ' He rejected my advice once 
 for all when he came of age, and I washed my hands 
 of him from that time forth. I think I know my 
 duty. Lady Gertrude, better than you can teach it me.' 
 
 ' At all events I have done mine,' retorted the girl. 
 ' I had determined to appeal to you, to rouse you, to 
 show you how unkind and harsh you have been to 
 Gilbert, poor fellow. Listen to me. Aunt Olivia. He 
 has never had a chance ; he has never had a home. 
 If we do nothing for him here, I can see he will go 
 irremediably to ruin.' 
 
 * Perhaps you would like to reclaim him yourself,
 
 136 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and give him a home of which you should be the mis- 
 tress,' retorted the other in her hard sarcastic tones. 
 * In my time young ladies used to wait till they were 
 asked, and did not fling themselves gratuitously at a 
 gentleman's head, simply because the gentleman was 
 utterly unprincipled and good-for-nothing.' 
 
 Lady Gertrude rose to her feet. If such had been 
 her wish equally with her intention, this home-thrust 
 would probably have finished the contest once for aU. 
 The wound, however, though sufficiently painful, did 
 not bleed inwardly, and she had strength to hold her 
 own. 
 
 ' Say that again, aunt, and I leave the house, if I 
 have to walk without my bonnet through the rain,' 
 was her spirited reply, and she marched back into the 
 drawing-room with head up and Gronfalon waving, and 
 indeed all the honours of war. It was a drawn battle, 
 but hers had been the assault ; and as she retreated in 
 good order, she could not but think that at least she 
 had lost no advantage, and had gained a certain 
 prestige by the very boldness of her attack. She liked 
 her cousin, too, very much. She thought him, as 
 indeed he was, unfortunate in his domestic relations. 
 She pitied him with a gentle, womanly pity, and felt 
 for him all the more kindly that she had ruffled her 
 own and her aunt's feathers on his behalf; but she 
 was scarcely in a frame of mind to balance at that 
 moment the advantages and disadvantages of the 
 match to which the latter had so coarsely alluded ; and 
 as however near akin pity may be to love, nothing 
 irritates a woman so much as the idea of being won 
 unwooed, it is probable that Gilbert lost more than he
 
 ALARMS- 
 
 137 
 
 gained in his cousin's regard by the above passage-of- 
 arms in Lady Olivia's boudoir. 
 
 Its occupant sat and nursed her wrath ^ to keep it 
 warm.' Strange to say, it was excited not against the 
 niece who had defied her, but against her son. The 
 more she thought of his advantages, his position, his 
 independence of herself, the more she felt hurt and 
 irritated that he should be thus able to neglect her coun- 
 sels and set at nought her authority. It is a sad and 
 morbid feeling, that jealousy of a parent towards a child. 
 Like all such passions, it is strong in proportion as it is 
 unnatui-al. He was the same Gilbert from whose affec- 
 tion she had turned so wilfully when he was a winning 
 urchin. In his prime of manhood, beloved and admired 
 by all, her heart hardened itself against him more bit- 
 terly and resolutely than ever. She thought of Lady 
 Gertrude's beauty, of her success in society, of her noble 
 birth and patrician bearing, of her thirty thousand pounds 
 — for the young lady was quite independent of her aunt, 
 and hers was no empty threat when she talked of leaving 
 the house. The more she thought, the more determined 
 she became that her son should not carry off the prize. 
 Hour after hour passed away. The weather cleared, 
 the sun shone forth, the trees in the square flickered 
 and glistened in the light. Open carriages splashed 
 through the streets, and the Babylonians emerged, 
 gaudy and gladsome, like butterflies after a storm ; but 
 still Lady Olivia sat in her dreary boudoir, and still the 
 frown deepened on her forehead, and still the gloom 
 closed in darker and darker about her heart. 
 
 The drones, you see, are not so very happy after all 
 because they are drones. The nonnal condition of this
 
 138 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 terrestrial hive of ours seems to be something between a 
 struggle and a crawl. If labour is not thrust upon us, 
 we make it or purchase it for ourselves ; and as I have 
 been informed bj those who have experienced its disci- 
 pline, that the treadmill entails far more exhaustive 
 exertions than any honest method of bread-winning, so 
 the artificial difficulties which we pile up in our own way 
 are harder to sm-mount than those which Natm'e pro- 
 vides for our exercise. One of the Bees has had a 
 severe day of it — gathering honey in the rain ; her 
 gauzy wings have been soaked and draggled, her flight 
 weary and long-sustained, the flowers which she has 
 probed not always the sweetest or most attractive m the 
 garden. To descend from metaphor into plain English, 
 Mrs. Latimer has done a good day's work — teaching 
 stupid pupils, relieved by intervenmg wrangles with 
 unreasonable cabmen. She has got very wet, but she 
 has no time to catch cold ; she is very weary, but feels 
 neither out of spirits nor out of humour ; and she sits 
 down in her homely lodging to a cup of tea, in such a 
 frame of mind as Lady Olivia in her fine house does 
 not experience once in a twelvemonth. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Latimer ! She has not many relaxations, 
 and to-day is one to be marked with white chalk, be- 
 cause she is going to a dinner-party at an alderman's 
 villa in the Regent's-park. Think of this, you fine 
 ladies, who can scarce get through one half of your 
 pleasure engagements ! — you who have two or three 
 gatherings to attend every night in the week — who 
 grudge the labour of dining with your cousin over the 
 way, unless the right people be invited to meet you, and 
 who, even if the right people do come, are thinking half
 
 ^ALARMS — A SKIRMISH.' 139 
 
 the time about when you shall get away to go somewhere 
 else. How would you like to give lessons in Bloomsbury 
 at nine in the morning, and in Bayswater at five after- 
 noon ? — to ' rise up early and late take rest,' in order 
 to earn the ' bread of carefulness,' that bitter morsel 
 which alone fails to justify the proverb that you cannot 
 ' eat your cake and have it ? ' — to live from hand to 
 mouth, and feel that a day's illness or a day's idleness is 
 literally an irreparable loss ? — and to look upon a party 
 at Alderman Jones's as the acme of gaiety and dissipa- 
 tion ? Perhaps you would be happier than you are now ! 
 As in your own gorgeous dinners a la Musse, so in your 
 artificial lives, there are many rare exotics and many 
 tempting fruits placed before you which you must neither 
 taste nor touch — you are but at a Baimecide banquet 
 after all. The lip may be never so dry, but you dare 
 not stretch your hand for the forbidden apple ; and the 
 waters of Mara, like the waters of Vichy, are none 
 the more palatable because you drain them from a cup 
 of gold. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer sat over her tea, and enjoyed the luxury 
 of rest. She was naturally of a hopeful, sunshiny dis- 
 position ; and although her lot had been one to damp 
 the animal spirits and cloud the gaiety of heart which 
 belonged to her temperament, there were times when 
 the light ivoidd break through, when the buds iconld 
 put forth their leaves, and if only for half an hour, the 
 desert would smile and ' blossom like the rose.' 
 
 To-day was one of these hopeful occasions. The 
 lodging seemed more cheerful than usual ; the engage- 
 ments, each of which represented a definite amomit of 
 the ' necessary evil,' more numerous. That was doubt-
 
 140 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 less a very pretty dinner-di-ess spread out yonder on 
 the bed, with its delicate white skirts, and its black 
 bows and ribbons. Ada was a woman, after all. She 
 could not but look in the glass and be well content 
 with what she saw there. Such a gloss on the soft 
 smooth hair, and a coloui' on her cheek like a rose 
 after the rain ! She turned away with a smile and a 
 sigh, yet the expression of her face certainly denoted 
 neither dissatisfaction nor despondency. She anticipated 
 her evening's amusement with calm gratification, and 
 she did not look forward an inch beyond. It was as 
 well for her that she did not ! And yet, could she 
 have foreseen the results of that night's entertainment, 
 it is possible that the white dress, despite its kilHng 
 bows, might have been consigned unworn to its place 
 in the wardrobe.
 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 * DINNER IS ON THE TABLE !' 
 
 ;\ R. ORME, you have not been introduced to 
 the parrot,' said Miss Jones, as, rustling 
 about in her capacity of hostess, she 
 endeavoured to relieve the awkwardness 
 of that five minutes before dinner during which English 
 people who do not know each other seem to cherish 
 such deadly enmity towards those with whom they are 
 going to sit at meat. Now the parrot was an in- 
 valuable aid on such occasions — his vocabulary was so 
 extensive, comprising many professional exclamations 
 picked up on his voyage home, and less startling 
 * between decks ' than in a London drawing-room ; his 
 musical attainments were so varied. He could sing 
 ' I'd be a butterfly,' part of ' The ratcatcher's daughter,' 
 and the first bar of ' Beautiful Venice ; ' and his general 
 accomplishments were so constantly on the increase — 
 for he caught up any sound or expression often re- 
 peated — that he was a fund of conversation in himself. 
 ' Polly, you must be civil to Mr. Orme ! ' 
 
 * Ay, ay, sir ! ' answered the bird in his goblin notes, 
 and with a shrill whistle dashed at once into the 
 popular couplet, ' She was not bom in Westminster,' 
 and then stuck his head on one side and looked up so
 
 142 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 knowingly, that Gilbert could but laugb ; and his sub- 
 sequent introduction to Miss Bullingdon and Mrs. 
 Latimer, the latter of whom he had recognised directly 
 he entered the room, lost much of its formality, and 
 placed the three at once upon terms of easy politeness. 
 
 Miss Jones meanwhile walked off to do her duty by 
 Mrs. Bullingdon. The Alderman ruddy and radiant, 
 and thoroughly in his glory, rang for dinner ; and Miss 
 Blanche stole a good look upward at her new acquaintance, 
 and thought in her virgin heart he might be a deskable 
 conquest; at all events, there was no harm in trying. 
 
 Gilbert was the latest arrival. Truth compels me to 
 confess, he was so ashamed of his childish impatience, 
 that he had waited ten minutes after he was dressed 
 before he permitted himself to get into his cab. Five 
 of these he made up by overdriving his horse, and the 
 other five brought him to the exact nick of time at which 
 the Alderman ordered dinner. He had not, therefore, 
 much leisure to improve his acquaintance with the two 
 ladies who hung with him over the parrot's cage. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer was no whit different from what he 
 expected — neither plainer nor handsomer, nor more nor 
 less becomingly dressed. Before he had been three 
 minutes in the room with her, it seemed as though in 
 some previous stage of bemg, or in some inexplicable 
 manner, they must have known each other before. 
 This Pythagorean introduction, however, did not appear 
 to have placed him much at his ease. London man 
 as he was, for the first time in his life he fomid himself 
 dying to speak to a woman, and at a loss for something 
 to say. 
 
 Miss Bullmgdon, however, was resolved to lose no
 
 'DINNER IS ON THE TABLE!* 143 
 
 time, and commenced operations on him forthwith. 
 ' Did he Hke parrots ? "Was he fond of bu'ds ? Had 
 he a bullfinch of his own? She herself possessed a 
 canary and a pair of love-birds. Did Mr. Orme admire 
 love-birds ? The worst of them was that, if one died, 
 the other was sure to pine a^ay and die too. Wasn't 
 it pretty of them ? — they always did so — or,' as Miss 
 Blanche touchingly remarked, ' they wouldn't be love- 
 birds!' 
 
 . Mrs. Latimer smiled, Gilbert laughed outright ; and 
 at this pathetic junctui^e the butler entered with the 
 welcome announcement of ' Dinner I ' 
 
 So the party paii-ed off, the Aldennan offering his arm 
 to Mrs. Bullmgdon, and finding even his own capacious 
 doorways much too small for the passage of two such 
 ' first-raters' alongside ; Bullmgdon following with Mrs. 
 Latimer, and thinking, we may be sure, much more of 
 the good things in store for him than of the lady on his 
 arm ; John Gordon coupled with Blanche Bullingdon, 
 somewhat to Bella's disappointment ; and that young 
 lady herself, in her right of hostess, under the care of 
 Gilbert, as bemg the principal person of the party. The 
 rear was brought up by two stray men, City friends of 
 their host — the one an innocuous young gentleman of 
 no particular calibre, who always agreed with everybody; 
 the other an old wizened individual, in a black stock, and 
 one-eyed, bent, shrunk, and faded, with the star of a 
 bullet-mark on his cheek-bone. What a life had his been 
 compared to any of the others. He had led three forlorn 
 hopes, had been broke by com't-martial ; had married a 
 West Indian heu-ess, been ruined, divorced ; had been a 
 slave-dealer, perhaps a pkate ; commanded a free corps
 
 144 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 in South America, and managed a mining company in 
 Paraguay; had seen life in all its most thrilling phases 
 and its most varied ups and downs. Now, he lived in a 
 lodging m Long-acre, and was glad to get a good dinner 
 when he was invited to one, and a chop and pint of 
 ale for a shilling when he was not. 
 
 On entering the dining-room, and taking Miss Jones 
 to the farther end, Gilbert found that Fate had been 
 propitious, and that the vacant chair for his occupation 
 was between Mrs. Latimer and his young hostess. John 
 Gordon, too, was on the other side of the latter, so that 
 when the turtle was handed round, at least three of the 
 guests were quite satisfied with the disposition of the 
 party. Bella, with her high colour and black hair, 
 looked very well in a deep pink dress, a little over-done 
 with trimming, and ' did the honours,' as ladies call it, 
 gracefully enough. Her slight touch of shyness was 
 less awkward than engaging. The Alderman at the 
 bottom of the table actually shone with good humour. 
 The turtle was clear and excellent ; its green fat glutin- 
 ous and abundant. ^ The blest sherbet sublimed with 
 snow,' had been but ditch-water compared with the iced- 
 punch. When it gm-gled over Bullingdon's organs of 
 deglutition, wi^apped as they were in an acre of starch 
 and cambric, that worthy's whole countenance and de- 
 meanour softened to the genial influence. 
 
 Jones winked deliberately at his old friend. 
 
 * It's the same article, Squire,' said he ; ' not bad to 
 take, if you only take enough of it. Have another glass.' 
 
 Will anybody tell me why his intimates almost always 
 dub a Hertfordshke proprietor with the generic title of 
 ^Squii-e?'
 
 ^DINNER IS ON THE TABLE!' .145 
 
 Red mullet packs very easily above turtle. Sweet 
 and dry champagne taste none the worse that they have 
 been preceded by cold punch. The Alderman prided 
 himself on his dinners. Ere he had entered his own 
 walk in the haunch, everybody's tongue seemed loosened, 
 and the ladies began to show more of their faces and 
 less of their shoulders to their immediate neighboiu-s. 
 Mrs. Bullingdon, a person of limited views, took ad- 
 vantage of her host's operations on the venison to engage 
 the indefinite youth on such topics as she was capable 
 of originating. 
 
 ' How nice it was to get out into the country ; and 
 was not the Regent's-park a delightful locality ? ' 
 
 He agreed with Mrs. Bullingdon most completely. 
 
 ' It was wrong, though, to allow the Zoological to be 
 open to any one on Sundays. The Society were very 
 much to blame. In all other respects they managed it 
 admirably. Did he not think so ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Bullingdon's opinions and his own coincided in 
 6very particular. 
 
 ' She was there only last Monday with B. It was 
 very sweet about sunset, after the beasts were fed.' 
 
 Again he agreed with her, though I do not^ wondering 
 feebly, as he was ignorant of her name, what B. was, 
 and inclining to think it must be a pet of some descrip- 
 tion — possibly a poodle. 
 
 B. in the meantime, albeit attending earnestly to the 
 main object of the entertainment, found leisure to relate 
 to his neighbour with one eye the particulars of his 
 last battue at Bullingdon Butts, where he resided ; and 
 the battered old adventurer, who had seen blood flow 
 like water, and whose game, for many a year of his 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 strange life, had been the unfeathered biped, listened 
 with the utmost deference and attention. He respected 
 BuUingdon because he looked ' the sort of man that 
 would give you a good dinner.' 
 
 * Bella, dear, how are you getting on up there ? ' quoth 
 the Alderman, as a pause in his laboui's, and the placing 
 of something en tortue before his daughter, enabled him 
 to take breath, and look about him. ' I hope you take 
 care of Mr. Gilbert. It's your deal, you know. I 
 dare say John Gordon will cut for you. John, a glass 
 of wine. Squu-e, will you join us ? ' 
 
 Bulluigdon savom-ed every di'op of the golden liquid 
 as it passed slowly down beneath the tie of his neckcloth ; 
 then he smacked his great lips, and expressed his ap- 
 proval. 
 
 'It's good wine, Jones. Good champagne, and just 
 enough iced. You got it from Paris. There 's no more 
 left. I had the last of the batch myself.' 
 
 No compliment could be greater. The Alderman was 
 delighted. Happy the man who can be so easily pleased ! 
 
 Independent of her juxtaposition to John Gordon, 
 which of itself was sufficient to make her a little pre- 
 occupied, Bella was a young hostess, and unconsciously 
 somewhat fidgety about the success of the entertain- 
 ment. Consequently Gilbert's efforts to amuse her 
 often fell short of the mark ; and as he observed her 
 eye and her attention equally fixed elsewhere, he had 
 himself the more leism-e to follow his o^vn inclinations, 
 and improve his acquaintance with the guest whose 
 face and tones, he knew too well, possessed for him a 
 peculiar fascination. 
 
 Gilbert ! Gilbert I will you take no warning ? What
 
 ^DINNER IS ON THE TABLE!' 147 
 
 is this very instinct, but a placard, so to speak, adver- 
 tising you that the ice is 'dangerous?' On you skate 
 recklessly, though it cracks and sways beneath you. In 
 you will go overhead. What a ducking you will have ! 
 Perhaps you will never get your head above the surface 
 again ! 
 
 I have heard it affirmed by the vanity of man, that 
 if you would make the agreeable to a fair neighbour at 
 the dinner-table, it is judicious to abstain from hurry- 
 ing her at first, and to give her plenty of time to settle 
 before you commence operations. When she has pecked 
 at her food, like some dainty bird, and sipped at her 
 champagne, and had, moreover, leisure to look about 
 her, and to think, ' Is he going to speak to me or not ? ' 
 it is time enough to hazard your first observation. This 
 is probably a harmless platitude, provokmg an equally 
 harmless reply; but from that moment your boat is 
 launched. You are afloat on the stream that leads — 
 who knows where ? Dieu vous garde ! If you get 
 capsized, you are more likely to sink than to swim. 
 
 Ada had stolen a good look at her neighbour whilst 
 he was dutifully conversing with Miss Jones. In her 
 heart she distinctly approved of what she saw. His 
 exterior was sufficiently pleasing to the feminine eye. 
 His manner had a charm in it that seldom failed to 
 work its way. It was far more refined, and at the 
 same time more natural, than that of the men whom 
 she was accustomed to meet, or of those who belonged 
 to the dissipated set in which her husband used to live. 
 The German blood, too, stirred within her, to sympa- 
 thize with a certain leavening of ideality and romance, 
 which all the conventionalities of society could not 
 
 L2
 
 148 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 completely hide. His voice, too, was very taking and 
 kindly. When he turned to her with the simplest 
 observation about some dish on the table, she could not 
 but feel and show that she was pleased, and she 
 answered with more animation than was usual in the 
 staid and retiring music-mistress. 
 
 They soon got deep into conversation. They talked 
 of her mother's country and her mother's tongue. 
 When Gilbert got rid of his dandyism he was worth 
 listening to ; and on the present occasion there was a 
 tone of softness in his voice, a shade almost of embar- 
 rassment in his manner, such as women are very quick 
 to detect, and which the haughtiest of them cannot 
 but accept as an involuntary tribute of admiration. 
 They liked the same places, the same books, the same 
 flowers, the same music ; and her eye sparkled and 
 deepened, while her cheek glowed with the unwonted 
 pleasure of a kindred spirit's converse, though only for 
 an hour at a dinner- table. 
 
 ' Do you know, Mrs. Latimer,' said he, looking 
 straight in her face with frank honest eyes, ' that I 
 have heard you sing ? ' And he went on to tell her of 
 his attendance at the concert, and the delight he had 
 experienced (only he rather broke down in the confes- 
 sion) at her song ; all this quite simply, and as if her 
 singing m public was as much a matter of com'se as 
 her being there. She liked him all the better. She 
 was pleased to feel that he thought none the lower of 
 her that she did not belong to his own sphere of 
 society ; and her own tact acknowledged the intuitive 
 delicacy by which he was certain that she would shrink 
 no more from the allusion than he did himself. She
 
 'dinner is on the TABLE!' 149 
 
 thouorht she would like him to hear that sonc^ once 
 again, not in public, but sung on purpose for him. 
 Ada, too, was entering unawares into the stream. 
 Already it was over her ankles. Let us hope her boots 
 were waterproof, and her foothold firm. 
 
 She was quite sorry when it was time to retire to 
 the drawing-room. When Bella, fitting on her gloves, 
 telegraphed sailing orders to Mrs. Bullingdon, and that 
 lady rising from amidst her draperies, shook out a cloud 
 of canvas, and forged majestically a-head, she would 
 have liked to induln^e in one backward glance as she 
 departed ; but for that very reason be sure she avoided 
 anything of the kind, or she would not have been Ada 
 Latimer. Bella had no such scruples. Besides, she 
 was the last of the convoy. So she shot a Parthian 
 shaft at John Gordon, unfortunately lost on its object, 
 who was at that moment reaching over for the grapes, 
 and obeying his host's injunction to ' close in.' 
 
 Warned by Actseon's fate, we do not presume to 
 follow the ladies to their bower. Rather let us remain 
 and discuss the magnum of claret which circulates so 
 rapidly under the Alderman's auspices. Fresh, fra- 
 grant, and blushing, like the cup of youth, to be quaffed 
 as greedily, to ebb as quickly, and to leave at last 
 nothing but an empty bottle ! 
 
 Bullingdon liked good claret : so do I. He drank it 
 in large quantities, and expatiated between-whiles on 
 his preserves at Bullingdon Butts, and the different 
 projectiles with which he made war upon the feathered 
 race. He mentioned from what a small particle of shot 
 a woodcock might meet its death ; and the conversation 
 becoming general, turned upon the tenacity of life in
 
 150 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 different natures, and at last upon tlie easiest method of 
 quitting it for the human subject. Hitherto the one- 
 ejed man had preserved unbroken silence, sticking like 
 a leech, nevertheless, to a bottle of rare old port. This, 
 however, was a topic with which he was familiar, and 
 he stated his opinion without hesitation. 
 
 'Bleeding's easiest for grown men and women,' ob- 
 served the old gentleman, filling his glass. ' I've bled 
 a dozen and more to death whilst the men were at 
 dinner. They scarce seemed to feel it after the first 
 gash.' 
 
 BuUingdon pushed his chair three feet farther off, 
 with a look at his neighbour which it is impossible to 
 convey. There was a pause of astonishment, and the 
 old gentleman proceeded with the utmost sang froid. 
 
 'I was running a cargo — that's a hlack cargo — from 
 the Gold Coast. Got driven by bad weather to the 
 southward, and found myself becalmed in the Bight of 
 Benin. Water short, schooner over-manned, and the 
 cargo bad off for stowage, though we had a third on 
 deck, leg-hampered, day and night. It was warm 
 down in the hold ; for though she was a sweet craft, 
 d'ye see, she hadn't been built for the trade, and I'd 
 altered her run myself, when I ought to have known 
 better. My fii'st mate was a long-winded chap, I think 
 he never left off whistling for a week ; but the schooner 
 headed all round the compass just the same. I thought 
 I should never see a cat's-paw again. Well, the cargo 
 suffered horrible. It's bad to be thirsty in these low 
 latitudes when there is nothing to drink. I was obliged 
 to make away with some of them to save the rest. I 
 divided them into watches, and put the weakest of the
 
 ^DINNER IS ON THE TABLE!' 151 
 
 men and the oldest of the women into the condemned 
 watch, giving each a chance bj lot, according as the 
 weather should hold. First I took and hove them over- 
 board one by one, thinking it was a cool and merciful 
 death for the poor thirsty creatures ; but I'm a humane 
 man, sir, and I couldn't bear to see their eyes — 
 'specially the women — as they went over the side. 
 Have you ever watched a face, sir, just when the last 
 chance is up ? It's an ugly sight, a very ugly sight,' 
 said the old gentleman, with a retrospective sigh, filling 
 his glass the while. 
 
 Bullingdon, to whom this ghastly narrative was es- 
 pecially addressed, could not find a voice to reply. He 
 set his wine down untasted, and looked as if he was 
 going to be sick. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' resumed the slave-owner, ^ I'd a surgeon's 
 mate aboard, a sharpish fellow enough — he was hanged 
 afterwards at Porto Rico, — says he to me, " Skipper," 
 says he, " it's cruel work to frighten these poor devils 
 to death before you put 'em to death," says he. " If 
 you'll give me leave, and a couple of hands to swab, 
 I'll just 'tice 'em in here, in the cook's galley, and 
 finish them off on the quiet, as nice as possible." So 
 I went in with him, as in duty bound — for a man's not 
 fit to command a ship, /say, unless he knows all that's 
 going on in that ship, — and I kept a bright look out, 
 though I let him use his own tools in his own way. 
 He was a neat workman, a very neat workman, to be 
 sure. He just slipped a lancet into the jugular, here, 
 you see, under the ear, and they bled to dcatli — a 
 baker's dozen of 'em — as easy as I could crack a 
 biscuit. The breeze got up after this, and I'd a rare
 
 152 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 good run to the Cape de Verde Islands ; but I never 
 had a chance afterwards. It was a bad speculation was 
 that; a bad speculation from one end of the log to 
 the other.' 
 
 ' Gracious heavens ! ' burst out Bullingdon, in a white 
 heat ; ' can you bear to talk of such horrors ? Can 
 you bear to think of your victims ? Shall you ever 
 forget them till your dying day ? ' 
 
 The old gentleman shook his head, and emptied the 
 bottle. 
 
 ^ I can bear most things,' he said ; 'I've had such a 
 many ups and domis; but I don't think I ever shall 
 forget that calm. It couldn't have cost me less than 
 seventy-five dollars a-head, even for the weakest of them. 
 Seventy-five dollars a-head,' he repeated, thoughtfully. 
 ' No, I don't think I ever shall forget it ! ' 
 
 Nobody seemed to care about any more wine after 
 this. Even the Madeira remained untouched, and 
 Bullingdon was as near having a fit as a man can be. 
 The only clear idea that remained in his head was 
 an earnest wish to get away from his neighboui' ; and 
 excellent as were its dinners, hospitable as was its 
 owner, I think the one-eyed old gentleman might have 
 starved ten times over before he would be asked 
 to place his legs under the mahogany at Bullingdon 
 Butts. 
 
 In the drawing-room people breathed more freely. 
 There being nothing more to drink, the one-eyed man 
 took his departure, and the indefinite youth unguardedly 
 answering in the affirmative to the Alderman's question 
 about ' cutting in,' found himself set down to the 
 abstruse science of whist for the rest of the evening,
 
 ^DINNER IS ON THE TABLE!* 153 
 
 with Mrs. Bullingdon for a partner — an arrangement 
 not tendincr to mitiorate the alarm with which he 
 already regarded that excellent lady. 
 
 Blanche Bullingdon, still hankering slightly after the 
 conquest of Mr. Orme, was of course asked to play. 
 Equally of course she did play, accurately, conscien- 
 tiously, in excellent time, and without a particle of 
 feeling; the rest of the party, with the exception of 
 the quartett at the whist- table, hovering round the 
 piano-forte, and expressing their approval with much 
 cordiality. So Miss Blanche put on her bracelets once 
 more, assumed her handkerchief, said ' Thank you, Mr. 
 Orme,' for her gloves, and looked as if she thought she 
 had acquitted herself very creditably. Then it was 
 time for Bella to ask ' dear Mrs. Latimer ' to sing, ' if 
 she didn't mind, she was always so good-natured;' and 
 ' dear Mrs. Latimer ' took her seat on the music-stool, 
 and hesitated for a moment, and burst forth into the 
 song, with just one instantly averted glance at Gilbert 
 as she did so. It caught his eye, nevertheless; and 
 Ada felt herself blushing painfully, and thought that 
 never in her life had she sung with so little grace and 
 self-command. If one of her listeners agreed with her, 
 his countenance very much belied him ; yet was he the 
 only one who did not ask for it again — the only one 
 who did not speak a syllable when she had done. 
 
 Pending all this music, Polly had necessarily been 
 banished to the billiard-room, and he was now heard 
 enlivening his exile with such shameless volubility, that 
 Bella was forced to go and remonstrate with him. 
 
 ' Miss Bullingdon, you play billiards ? ' asked Bella, 
 with polite attention to her guest ; and Blanche, who
 
 154 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 could use a mace as ineffectively as any other lady, 
 answered in the affirmative, with an appealing look at 
 Mr. Orme. Gilbert seemed lost in contemplation of a 
 landscape on the wall ; so Miss Blanche's glance was 
 wasted on the parting of his back hair. 
 
 John Gordon good-naturedly proposed a match with 
 the young lady, if Miss Jones would come and ' mark.' 
 
 ' Of course I will,' said Bella. ' But let us go 
 through the windows, it is such a beautiful night, and 
 there's such a moon.' 
 
 Now the villa, like an Indian bungalow, was built 
 with all its principal rooms on the ground floor ; con- 
 sequently it was as easy, besides being infinitely plea- 
 santer, to step out by a French window into the garden, 
 and so by the terrace in again at the glass door of the 
 billiard-room, as to walk through a second drawing- 
 room and a library in order to reach the same apart- 
 ment. Leaving the whist-players engrossed with their 
 rubbers, the remaining five strolled out into the lovely 
 summer night, flooded with moonshine, and even here, 
 almost in London, fragrant with perfume. As Mrs. 
 Latimer followed the billiard-players along the terrace, 
 her dress caught in some trellis-work through which a 
 creeper wound its snake-like growth. Gilbert stopped 
 to extricate it — a process which takes considerable time 
 if you would not tear the fabric, and which is prone to 
 call up ideas totally irrelevant to the task itself, origi- 
 nating in the relative position of the individuals, the 
 one generally on his knees, and the other necessarily 
 stooping over him. In the present instance, the enlarge- 
 ment occupied several seconds, told very distinctly one 
 by one on a couple of living time-pieces, which people
 
 ^DINNER IS ON THE TABLE!* 155 
 
 wear inside their breasts; and there was a flush on 
 Gilbert's brow when he raised it — the result probably 
 of stooping so soon after dinner. It was natui^al surely 
 that the couple thus isolated should linger a few minutes 
 longer out of doors to enjoy the air ; equally natural 
 that they should have very little to say to each other, 
 and should consequently preserve an unbroken taci- 
 turnity. I have watched the progress and development 
 of some few flirtations that have been thrust upon my 
 observation. I think the talking ones are the safest. 
 A full heart does not discharge itself through the 
 organs of speech ; and a very imperceptible tremor 
 on a very commonplace remark, may tell a tale that 
 three volumes octavo would fail to convey. Gilbert 
 lost the precious moments in silence. He who could 
 find plenty of small-talk to amuse the smartest ladies 
 in London, was baffled like the veriest clown by the 
 presence of one who would scarcely be considered a 
 gentlewoman in the set to which he belonged. This 
 worldly polish doubtless hardens while it brightens ; and 
 the burnished breastplate is impervious to ninety-nine 
 out of a hundred weapons in the melee^ but wait till the 
 charmed lance comes: deep, deep into the bosom it 
 runs through mail and plate, and the knight's dazzling 
 harness shields him no safer than the yeoman's home- 
 spun weed. 
 
 I am constrained to admit that long as this pair 
 lingered out of doors, neither of them spoke a syllable 
 beyond Ada's faint acknowledgment of the preservation 
 of her dress, till they were on the steps of the billiard- 
 room, when Gilbert took heart of grace, and managed 
 to get out what he wanted to say.
 
 156 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 ' Thank you, Mrs. Latimer, for singing that song. 
 It has haunted me for a week. Thank you so very 
 much.' 
 
 She looked up at him once more as she passed in, 
 but did not repeat the experiment during the rest of 
 the evening. Only she shook hands with him when he 
 went away ; and when she got back to her own solitary 
 lodgings, sat far into the night before she went to bed, 
 postponing, as it were, the division of the pleasant day 
 she had spent from the morrow's return to working 
 life. It was but a gleam, of course, this sunshine, and 
 there was an end of it ; but still she liked to bask in 
 the remembrance of its warmth. So she looked in the 
 glass again before she undid her hair, and turned from 
 it as before with a smile and a sigh. 
 
 Nor was Gilbert the least sleepy. After setting John 
 Gordon down, he di'ove straight home, and dismissed 
 his cab. Then he smoked three, cigars, the consumption 
 of which, as I calculate, would last about an hour and 
 twenty minutes, walking round and round Grosvenor- 
 square, thinking of everything in heaven and earth 
 except philosophy — of the moon, of the stars, of Mrs. 
 Latimer's soft eyes, and how resolved he was that 
 come what might it should not be long before he saw 
 her again.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DIPLOMACY. 
 
 OHN GORDON was by no means given to 
 making rash promises. The wariest of 
 weasels, however, is, on occasion, to be 
 caught asleep, and John, in a moment of 
 abandon^ had promised Miss Jones that she should re- 
 ceive an invitation to Lady Olivia's coming ' at home,' 
 in Belgrave-square ; a rash pledge, forsooth, and one 
 not to be redeemed save by a great expenditm^e of 
 management and diplomacy. 
 
 To my reader of the work-a-day world — say, our 
 honest business-like man of five-and-forty (if such should 
 indeed condescend to glance over these frivolous pages) 
 — it may seem unaccountable that the slightest interest 
 should attach to a piece of glazed cardboard, entitling 
 the recipient to stand in full-dress on a crowded staircase 
 for two or three hours of a summer's night ! If he be a 
 bachelor I should despair of making clear to him these 
 Eleusinian mysteries. He is innocent of the autopsia ; 
 he knows nothing of Ilifrophardes^ who, as I take it, 
 was the Athenian Beadle ; and the petroma is to liim a 
 sealed volume. Let him remain in his ignorance, and 
 bless himself the while. But if he be a ftimily-man, 
 rejoicing in a vine and olive-branches, an expensive wife
 
 158 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and blooming daughters, they will explain to him, if 
 they have not impressed it on him already, how such a 
 cartel constitutes a veritable diploma, the full reward for 
 many months of competitive energy and serious appli- 
 cation. They will tell him how to be seen at Lady 
 Olivia's is a recognition of that position which entitles 
 them to call on Lady Barthedore, that Lady Barthedore's 
 intimates have the entree to Ormolu House, and that 
 from Ormolu House to the seventh heaven is but one 
 step. Beatus ille procul a negotiis of such kind, say I. 
 Alas ! for John Gordon's rash engagement, and the 
 negotiations that must ensue. 
 
 He had so much real business to do that it was not 
 till the very day of the fete that he found leisure to call 
 in Belgrave-square. He had written a note, however, in 
 the morning to Lady Gertrude, respecting some of that 
 yomig lady's trifling commissions, and expressing a hope 
 that he should find her at home dm-ing some part of the 
 day, and had received, as he expected, a laconic answer, 
 in the well-known hand — 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Gordon ' (it used to be ' Dear ^Ir. 
 Gordon'), ^ Aunt Olivia wants to see you very much. 
 Tea as usual at 4.30.' And signed with a flourishing 
 monogram matic ' G.' of which Gertrude was rather 
 proud. 
 
 He felt he should be welcome, he had not seen any of 
 them since the concert. No one knew better than John 
 Gordon the weight of the French maxim, 11 faiit se 
 /aire valoir. 
 
 Behold him, then, at 4.30, sitting in a comer of the 
 large drawing-room, with a tea-cup in his hand, preparing 
 to do battle with two ladies on a point which was cal-
 
 DIPLOMACY. 159 
 
 culated to call forth all the natural wilfulness of the 
 species. Heavy odds, even for Mr. Gordon. The house 
 was thoroughly uncomfortable. As in a ship cleared 
 for action, everything seemed out of its place, and put 
 in everybody's way. Like the same ship after the con- 
 test, it would take some days before the effects of the 
 houleversement should disappear. John said as much. 
 
 ' People ought to be very grateful to you. Lady 
 Olivia, for putting yourself to all this inconvenience. 
 How many cards have you sent out ? ' 
 
 Her ladyship named the number graciously enough ; 
 she liked to think she was fulfilling the onerous duties 
 of her rank. John proceeded warily — 
 
 ' How right you are not to ask twice as many people 
 as the house will hold ! Now at Mrs. Montpellier's, 
 last night, I never got farther than the awning ! ' 
 
 Lady Olivia's smile was stem. It is needless to say 
 that she held stanchly by the Visigoth faction, and if 
 poor Mrs. M. had been a Suttee widow, and burned alive 
 on the occasion in question, she would have listened with 
 grim approval. 
 
 ' We don't visit Mrs. Montpellier,' said Gertrude, 
 rather mischievously. ' I should like to know her, I 
 think; she's certainly handsome, and looks as if she 
 ought to be amusing.' 
 
 ' She's more a friend of Gilbert's than mine,' an- 
 swered the gentleman, ' only having a card, I thought I 
 would look in for five minutes, which IdidnH. I think 
 if I had a sister I shouldn't take her to Mrs. Mont- 
 pellier's. It's a great thing for a girl when first she 
 comes out, to go to a few good places, only a very few, 
 and those venj good ones,' quoth John, as gravely as if
 
 160 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 he had studied nothing but the Social Humbug all his 
 life. 
 
 ' You are quite right,' asserted Lady Olivia ; ' if I take 
 a young lady by the hand, I am most particular as to 
 her engagements. Gertrude's first year, I only allowed 
 her two ' outings' in the week. A good introduction is 
 everything. It is of vital importance. Without a good 
 introduction a girl is inevitably lost ! ' 
 
 Lady Olivia expatiated on this point, as one might 
 who should keep the gates of Paradise and proclaim the 
 easiest way therein. She had herself enjoyed this un- 
 speakable advantage. Nobody's ' introduction ' could 
 have been better. Had her lines indeed fallen to her in 
 such pleasant places? had she been resting ever since 
 by the margin of living waters, among the fields of 
 asphodel ? 
 
 ' The very reason I recommended a young friend of 
 mine not to go to Mrs. Montpellier's last night,' observed 
 the astute John. ^ If it was Lady Barthedore's, or 
 Ormolu House, or here, for instance, I told her it would 
 be a different thing ; but this is your first season, I said, 
 you don't know many people, mind you only know good 
 ones.' 
 
 Lady Gertrude made a funny little face ; she was 
 not deficient in penetration ; while her aunt signified a 
 gracious approval. 
 
 ' You see yom- way more clearly than most people,' 
 the latter observed encouragingly ; ' inen so seldom can 
 be made to understand these matters. Poor Mr. Orme 
 would ask all sorts of people out of the highways and 
 hedges, and expect me not only to be civil to them, but 
 to know them, and their wives afterwards.'
 
 DIPLOMACY. 161 
 
 If poor Mr. Orme, who was held by certain observers 
 to have justly earned that epithet previous to his decease, 
 really cherished any such expectations, he must have 
 been grievously disappointed. 
 
 * I take a great interest in this girl,' resumed John ; 
 ■whereat Lady Gertrude glanced quickly in his face; 
 * and I should like to see her well launched. I wish you 
 would let me introduce her to you, Lady Olivia.' 
 
 ' Would she like a card for to-night ? ' inquired her 
 ladyship, very graciously ; ' I should be happy to take 
 her by the hand, I am sure, if she is a nice person, and 
 belongs to people that one knows.' 
 
 Now here was the difficulty. Alderman Jones, in 
 the execution of his duties as her son's guardian, had 
 come frequently in contact with Lady Olivia, and it 
 speaks well for the Alderman's good humour that their 
 discussions had never terminated in an outbreak. He 
 was an old friend and schoolfellow of her husband ; the 
 boys had been at Charter House together when the latter 
 was a second son with but modest expectations ; and 
 this youthful alliance had served to recommend him 
 but little to Lady Olivia. She had always strenuously 
 set her face against having anything to do with ' the 
 Jones's, my dear, except in the way of business.' And 
 Gertrude, who was as prejudiced a little aristocrat as 
 ever a one of the great Whig family to which she 
 belonged, backed up her aunt finnly in this determina- 
 tion, if in no other. 
 
 John resolved to secure one ally, at least; so he 
 turned to Lady Gertrude. 
 
 * It is for Miss Jones,' said he, ' that I would ventui-e 
 to ask this great favour. I dined there lately, as you 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 know I often do Avith my good partner. I met Gilbert, 
 of all people in the world ! and I thought he seemed 
 very much smitten with the young lady. You know he 
 is not very susceptible, so when he does strike his flag, 
 it is all the greater compliment.' 
 
 Now this was one of those chance shots which, like 
 the missile of an ambushed sportsman, though aimed 
 at a single duck, brings down a whole troop of wild- 
 fowl, splashing, and quacking, and scattering over the 
 water. At the first mention of the ominous name, the 
 younger lady gave a little toss of her shapely head, 
 whilst the elder's brow grew black as midnight; but 
 when the supposed conquest of the hard-hearted Gilbert 
 was reported, a sudden change seemed to show itself 
 simultaneously in each. John had judged, and rightly, 
 that proud Gertrude would support him vehemently in 
 any request he might make, rather than be supposed 
 capable of jealousy of a Miss Jones. But he had not 
 calculated on Lady Olivia's speedy acquiescence in any 
 measm-e which might tend further to separate the two 
 cousins. So he was 7iot sm^prised when Lady Gertrude 
 answered quickly, and with rising coloui-, 
 
 ' Oh, by all means let us have her. Aunt Olivia ; 
 poor girl, it will be a charity to take her away from the 
 savages on the other side of Oxford-street, if only for 
 one night, and to show her the manners and customs of 
 the civilized English in the nineteenth centmy.' 
 
 But he was a little astonished to mark Lady Olivia's 
 frown gradually subside as he concluded his sentence. 
 That lady, however, was incapable of granting a favour 
 gracefully. She always seemed to think its value en-
 
 DIPLOMACY. 163 
 
 hanced by the difficulty with which it was wrung from 
 her. So she coughed ominously, as she replied — 
 
 ' I fear I have already exceeded my stated number, 
 Mr. Gordon ; and I do not wish my house to be quite 
 as crowded as your friend Mrs. Montpellier's.' 
 
 ' I know it is a very great favour,' said John ; ^ and 
 I assure you. Lady Olivia, I would not have asked any 
 one to do me such a kindness but yourself.' 
 
 Whilst at the same moment Gertrude interposed 
 eagerly. 
 
 ' Oh, lormj send her a card. Aunt Olivia ; one more 
 won't make any difference, even with our large dresses ; 
 though Charley Wing does say that every soldier occu- 
 pies eighteen inches on parade, and every lady eighteen 
 feet ! Say " yes," Aunt Olivia, and I'll write a card for 
 Mr. Gordon in a moment.' 
 
 Thus adjured, Lady Olivia said *yes,' though not 
 very graciously ; and so it was decided that Bella Jones 
 should be supremely blessed that very night. Diplo- 
 matic John Gordon had gamed his point, and that was 
 always sufficient for John, who, like a great man of the 
 last century, confined himself to doing one thuag at one 
 time, and did it, in consequence, effectually. 
 
 Perhaps he gained more than his point without 
 knowing it. In the general conversation which ensued, 
 Lady Gertrude was not so talkative as usual. Neither 
 did she endorse her aunt's invitation to a spare plax^e in 
 the well-known barouche then waiting at the door, an 
 invitation the busy gentleman was compelled somewhat 
 reluctantly to decline ; but when he lingered for a few 
 moments after the elder lady's departui-e to prepare for 
 
 M2
 
 1()4 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 her drive, Gertrude lingered too, not because he did, of 
 course, for she ^ent to the writing-table in the back 
 drawing-room, and proceeded to fill in a printed card 
 for Miss Jones. That simple patronymic contains but 
 five letters, and the day of the month requires no great 
 effort of caligraphy, yet it took Lady Gertrude two or 
 three minutes to accomplish her task. Then she came 
 back to John and put the card in his hand with a little 
 scornful curtsey, and rather a forced smile. 
 
 ' Is Miss Jones really a nice person ? ' she asked, 
 tui'ning away to inspect minutely the mignionette in 
 the window. 
 
 ' Good-humoured — unaffected. Yes, a very nice girl, 
 I should say,' answered John ; as what else could he 
 answer ? 
 
 ' And very beautiful, too, is she not ? ' pursued the 
 lady. 
 
 ' Many people admire her, I believe,' replied he, 
 abstractedly, and, truth to tell, somewhat tired of the 
 subject. 
 
 ' Do you think her pretty ? ' said Gertrude, turning 
 round with a quick searching glance. Rapid as it was, 
 John's eyes met hers, and a faint blush came into his 
 pale cheek. 
 
 ' No, I can't say I do,' was his reply ; and the tone 
 in which he spoke would have carried conviction to the 
 most incredulous. 
 
 Lady Gertrude was evidently not on terms of cere- 
 mony with Mr. Gordon, for she bounded up-stairs to 
 put on ' her things ' without wishing him ' good-bye,' 
 and a minute afterwards was singing as merrily over 
 her toilette as her own canary-bird. When she came
 
 DIPLOMACY. 165 
 
 down again, Lady Olivia was ready in the drawing- 
 room, but Mr. Gordon was gone. If she had expected 
 to find him there, she bore her disappointment bravely 
 enough. Even the footman who shut up the carriage- 
 steps after her thought he had never seen his young 
 lady look so well and so cheerful — ' saucy ' would have 
 been his expression had he been capable of reducing his 
 reflections to his own vernacular — as on that bright 
 summer afternoon. 
 
 And John Gordon, having enclosed and sealed up 
 the precious document, stepped into Piccadilly to drop 
 it into the nearest post-ofiice. It had cost Lady Olivia's 
 writing-table two envelopes, though, for he spoilt the 
 first by addressing it to 
 
 ' The Lady Gertrude Jones, 
 Verbena Villa, 
 Kegent's Park.'
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PELIDES. 
 
 HE son of Peleus, flinging his shield abroad 
 in high defiance, as it would seem, of his 
 equestrian rival perched on the gate of Con- 
 stitution-hill over against him, must have 
 acquired ere this a degree of philosophy and savoir 
 vivre for which he was not distmguished in the days 
 when he sulked in his tent by the sounding sea, and 
 chafed to hear of high-crested Hector crashing through 
 the battle under the walls of Troy. 
 
 How many London seasons has he stood there in his 
 naked bronze, and watched the living kaleidoscope in 
 Hyde Park, ever varying, ever on the move, tossing its 
 tinsel into a thousand combinations, gaudy, pm-poseless, 
 and provokingly alike ! 
 
 Since our fan* countrywomen put him up in honour 
 of one whose fame shall outlast his own, he has indeed 
 witnessed some unimportant changes. He has seen 
 Grosvenor-gate deserted for the banks of the Serpen- 
 tine, and the wooden rails in the Ride converted into 
 iron. Also the introduction of penny chairs in that 
 locality, an imitation from the French, which is doubt- 
 less, even in our uncertain climate, no trifling improve- 
 ment. Nevertheless, it has its drawbacks. Three-
 
 PELIDES. 1G7 
 
 quarters of a mile of beauty — English beauty, too — 
 looking its best, attired in gorgeous apparel, and drawn 
 up sometimes even three deep, is a glorious sight doubt- 
 less, and one calculated to inspire feelings of admiration 
 and enthusiasm not entirely devoid of awe ; but to walk 
 composedly from end to end of such an array, is an 
 ordeal that a bashful man may well shudder to undergo. 
 I should scarcely recommend an Englishman to attempt 
 it ; and to do them justice, I have remarked that my 
 countrymen seldom venture to run the gauntlet unsup- 
 ported and alone. Damon meets Pythias, and hooks 
 him by the ann ere he commences the promenade. 
 Thus encouraged he crosses the line of fire leism-ely 
 and coolly enough, but if the latter should be suddenly 
 seized with a fit, or otherwise incapacitated, Damon 
 becomes instantly conscious of a total disorganization 
 of his outward man. It seems that his clothes don't 
 fit him, that his boots look too large and/ee/ too small ; 
 that his hat is too tight, his gloves too loose ; and that 
 there is something irresistibly ludicrous in the expres- 
 sion of his profile. His only course is to dash at an 
 empty chair, pay his penny, and join the ranks of the 
 aggressors on the spot, till he can prevail on another 
 friend to take pity on him and tow him off. A Crimean 
 officer who was present at the attack on the Redan, has 
 assured me that he would rather encounter the fire that 
 swept that deadly glacis over again, than walk solus on 
 a summer's afternoon up the right-hand side of Rotten- 
 row from Apsley House to the Serpentine. 
 
 The costume, too, of gentlemen and ladies has under- 
 gone some mutations since the first fine day that our 
 Achilles found himself standing on his bare legs in the
 
 168 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Corner. There are no liiojh neckcloths, there are no 
 blue tail coats, alas ! there are no Hessian boots now. 
 D'Orsay has followed Brummel Ayhere dress is unneces- 
 sary, perhaps inconvenient, and a garment that fitted a 
 man would be pointed at in the present day as simply 
 ridiculous. Our youths are clothed to please them- 
 selves, and so, I presume, are the ladies. That an 
 outer fabric of light material standing several feet from 
 the person on all sides, is a cool and comfortable attire 
 in warm weather, appears a self-evident proposition, 
 but that the beauty of the female figure is enhanced by 
 thus up-springing, so to speak, like a jack-in-the-box, 
 out of a volume of circumambient muslin, is a question 
 of opinion which may admit of some dispute. Who 
 shall decide on such matters? Achilles must con- 
 gratulate himself that his own proportions are inde- 
 pendent of all vagaries of Fashion and changes of 
 costume. 
 
 Above all, if he be wise, should he exult and leap 
 for joy, as it were, in the mitrammelled luxury of his 
 naked feet. I speak it advisedly when I say that on 
 the most crowded day in June, I believe the Greek 
 alone of all that throng around him is ignorant of the 
 sufiering caused by a jpair of tight hoots. Now, I am 
 aware that in this department of art, as in many 
 others, we have borrowed largely from the French. I 
 am not to be told that Hoby and Hubert and the rest 
 have achieved all that can be achieved with so pliant 
 a material as leather, and that even the cunning chi- 
 ropodist who did so much for Louis Napoleon, finds his 
 profession failing him day by day, for that there are 
 no excrescences now to pare away. So when I speak
 
 PELIDES 169 
 
 of tight boots, be it understood that I speak meta- 
 phorically ; that I allude to the moral ' pinching of 
 the shoe,' which the proverb sajs is ' best kno^Ti to 
 him who wears it,' to that torture of the inner man 
 which all the casings and stretchings of all the cobblers 
 and cordwainers who do homage to St. Crispin are 
 powerless to assuage. 
 
 Let us take at random the three or foiu* men 
 encountered by John Gordon as he turns into the park 
 after dropping his missive at a Piccadilly post-oflfice ; 
 and first, it is worth while to scan the pace and action 
 of John himself. His foot-fall on the pavement is 
 firm, light, and regular, the tread of a man whom 
 fencing, running, leaping, and such athletic exercises 
 have put well upon his legs ; his polished boots look 
 cool, easy, and comfortable ; his demeanour preserves 
 its usual confidence and assurance; his expression, 
 though habitually grave, is that of one with whom all 
 is well within and without. Pelides, in his bronze, 
 could not look more imperturbable and self-reliant. 
 But is it so ? By no means. John's boots are to-day 
 a good deal tighter than usual. Certain shares which 
 he holds on his own account, and in the selection of 
 which he flattered himself he had shown more than 
 common perspicuity, were this morning at a con- 
 siderable discount in the City. The business of which 
 he is principal manager has got into a hitch, and 
 ' advices ' received by to-day's post have tended to 
 complicate the difficulty. Also an outstanding claim 
 he has resolved, with the concurrence of his partner, 
 to contest, has been advanced at an inconvenient season, 
 and in an offensive manner. Some of the irons in
 
 170 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Jolin's fii'e have thus become unpleasantly warm to the 
 touch, and he feels to-day further removed than usual 
 from the coming independence, and power, and influ- 
 ence which are to rest upon £ s. d. Thus it occurs to 
 him as Lady Olivia's barouche turns into the Ring, 
 that it will be ten years at least before he can dream 
 of marrying. John is not a ' bread-and-butter ' ^ love- 
 in-a-cottage ' sort of man. He is not young enough to 
 be romantic, and too young to know the real value of 
 gold — alas! far below the price we see it quoted in 
 the daily papers as commanding at Hamburg — so he 
 dismisses the subject at once with his customary 
 energy, but feels, notwithstanding, that his mental 
 perambulations into the future limp along very re- 
 strictedly in consequence. No — John Gordon's boots 
 are to-day by no means pleasant to wear. 
 
 Lord Holyhead, Charley Wing, and old Landless 
 lounge in leisurely conclave at the rails, and the 
 nobleman, who is on horseback, recognises Gordon, and 
 nods to him over the heads of his two friends. With 
 Holyhead's strong, fii'm seat in the saddle, sm*ely there 
 can be no pressure on the soles, and those feet thrust 
 home in their shining stirrup-irons, ought indeed to 
 be imconscious of a twinge. Alas ! ' Nobs,' like his 
 neighbom-s, is undergoing the torture of ' the boot.' 
 In the first place, he is on a certain hack of which he 
 has long coveted the possession, and is to-day for the 
 first time proving the merits of his late acquisition. 
 The animal is faultless in appearance, symmetrical, and 
 well-bred. In the stable it comes near perfection, but 
 ere he had ridden it a hundred yards this afternoon, 
 he discovered the old story, that if he had only been
 
 PELIDES. 171 
 
 on its back before he bought it, he would not have 
 given half the money it had cost him for his purchase. 
 Old Landless, too, who is a first-rate judge, has not 
 improved the matter by volunteering his opinion that, 
 'It's a clever shaped one enough, but as a hack, Holy- 
 head, I don't think it quite comes up to your mark !' 
 
 Twinge number one ! 
 
 Then he has had what he calls ' a roughish time of 
 it' lately with Bravoura, and has resolved that his 
 acquaintance with that siren shall henceforth become 
 day by day more distant. To any gentleman who has 
 taken in hand the very difficult task of breaking with 
 a lady whose interests, rather than her inclinations, 
 lead her to value his friendship, it is needless to insist 
 on the oft-recurring annoyances created by this twinge 
 number two ! 
 
 Lastly, by to-day's post he has heard from his 
 steward in the north, that the poacher whom he 
 directed him to prosecute, and who had hitherto been 
 a prime favourite with his lordship and the best 
 cricketer in the parish, has been ' pitched into ' by the 
 worthy magistrates far more severely than he desired, 
 or than the culprit deserved ; and to do Holyhead 
 justice (for as his old brother-officers well know, 
 ' Nobs ' always had his heart in the right place) , this 
 last twinge is considerably keener than either of those 
 created by the deception of a dealer and the caprices 
 of a contralto. 
 
 Landless, who has one arm linked in Charley Wing's, 
 and the other reclining on the rails, might indee<l fairly 
 claim immunity from all mental pangs such as I have 
 described, on the score of bodily suffering. A generous
 
 172 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 champagne-and-claret gout has reduced him to a crip- 
 pled amble, and a pair of cloth shoes, even at the best 
 of times ; and why he should ever have a care or an 
 anxiety it is difficult to understand, living, as he does, 
 on a small annuity wrung from the forbearance of his 
 creditors. The Yorkshire property is mortgaged, the 
 Irish estates are under trust. As fine a fortune as was 
 ever wasted has been frittered away, less through vice 
 than sheer carelessness and incompetency, so that none 
 but the lawyers know where it is all gone ; and the 
 former Amphitryon of many a joyous feast and hos- 
 pitable welcome, is satisfied now to dine for seven-and- 
 sixpence at his club, and prose away the evening over 
 his brandy-and-water and cigar. I believe Landless 
 likes his present quite as well as his former life. Easy, 
 good-tempered, without brains or ambition, the neces- 
 sities of his existence are but a little whist, a little 
 lounging, much gossip and tittle-tattle (for Landless is 
 kindly even in his weaknesses, and stops short of scan- 
 dal) , a glass of warm negus after he is in bed, and an 
 old servant who robbed him handsomely in former days, 
 and saves every shilling he can for him now, to look 
 after him. It seems he should have no more cares nor 
 anxieties than an ox stalled up to feed, and yet — and 
 yet — within that bloated form there does beat a heart, 
 if you can only get at it, and next that heart, in his 
 breast pocket, lies a yellow, fumigated ship-letter that 
 makes every pulsation beneath it a throb of pain. Even 
 Landless loves one thing on earth besides his dinner, 
 and if that curly-headed midshipman lying sick unto 
 death at the mouth of the Senegal, yield to the fever
 
 PELIDES. 173 
 
 which is wasting his fair young frame, the old reprobate 
 will wail for him like a very Rachel, and refuse to be 
 comforted. Yes, he loves his boy — the boy who could 
 never be his heir. Out of all he has squandered, he 
 might perhaps have made a better provision for his 
 treasure than a midshipman's berth in a ten-gun brig. 
 And yet he has always loved him, as a rosy laughing 
 urchin whom he visited by stealth, and who was never 
 taught to call him ' papa,' as a bold frank-eyed boy at 
 the Charter-house, as a comely stripling in his gold- 
 laced cap at the George Hotel, Portsmouth, before he 
 sailed ; never perhaps as well as now, when, for aught 
 he knows, the lad may be sleeping forty fathom deep be- 
 neath that swelling sea. So, as Landless shifts uneasily 
 from one gouty foot to the other in the flesh, he is 
 walking blindfold over red-hot ploughshares in the spirit, 
 and his battered old heart turns sick within him lest he 
 should never see his darling]: acrain. 
 
 As for Charley Wing's boots, tiny and astonishing as 
 are those unequalled specimens, they are but a pair of 
 easy slippers compared with the mental chaiissure into 
 which his inner man has put its foot. Like the shirt 
 of Nessus, the latter has raised one continuous blister 
 over his whole moral epidermis. Charley's debts and 
 difficulties have reached a climax at which, as he him- 
 self says, ' man ceases to be a free agent, and is absolved 
 from all responsibility in the great scheme.' Not only 
 is the coat he wears unpaid for, but the most long-suffer- 
 ing of tailors has declined to present him with another. 
 Not only is he in debt to everybody whom he honoiu-s 
 with his acquaintance, but the shillings and half-crowns
 
 174 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 are beginning to run short, and he has more than once 
 of late expressed a wish that the noble system of credit 
 could be extended to our cab-stands. He is engaged to- 
 day to dine with a Duke (not Duke H.), but he thinks 
 it extremely probable that he may be arrested in his 
 progress across the pavement between the Marquis's 
 brougham that drops him, and the arms of the parti- 
 coloured giant who will relieve him of his overcoat. 
 Already he is acquiring the knack of glancing over his 
 shoulder, which is never practised save by him who ex- 
 pects an admonitory tap thereon. Already he accepts 
 invitations and makes engagements with a devout air, 
 as of one who is conscious of the uncertainty of human 
 affairs, and jests somewhat plaintively on his probable 
 incarceration, as a mortal may, who is prepared to sub- 
 mit resignedly to the common lot. But he is pleasant 
 and nonchalant just the same. Quizzing old Landless 
 placidly, and discussing the points of Holyhead's hack 
 as unconcernedly as if he could buy up the national 
 debt. These young men of pleasm-e lavish a good many 
 valuable qualities on a sadly unworthy object. I can- 
 not but admii'e constancy, endm^ance, and a stoical good 
 humom' equal to either fortmie, even though they be 
 wasted on so foolish and objectless a career as a romid 
 of London dissipation, and these Charley Wing must 
 have possessed, or he never could have borne his reverses 
 so composedly. There was a Spartan's pluck imder all 
 that ' Persian apparatus ' outside, and had his boots 
 been as tight as Cinderella's slippers, he would have 
 scorned to go lame in them for a yard. 
 
 As Gordon joins the trio, Gilbert Orme appears, pick- 
 ing his way daintily across the Ride, nodding to a dandy
 
 PELIDES. 175 
 
 here, and bowing to an equestrian beauty there, with con- 
 siderably more energy than is habitual to him. What- 
 ever twinges may be in store for Gilbert, to-day he is 
 treading upon air. He is ui the first stage of a malady 
 which is fatal to some constitutions, and a general light- 
 headedness is the result. He sees the world throucrh 
 
 o 
 
 rose-coloured spectacles, if indeed such are to be pro- 
 cured at any real optician's. The motley of the 
 kaleidoscope is to him invested with a magic glamour, 
 and Pelides towers above him in a halo of artificial 
 glory. Why is the grass so fresh to-day as it waves in 
 the summer wind ? Why are the leaves such a golden 
 green as they flicker against the summer sky ? Why 
 is that vista of forest-glade towards Kensington no 
 longer a mere lohe, or breathing-place, of the great 
 metropolis, but a glimpse into Fairy-land? Because 
 he has crossed the tiny stream that scarcely wets 
 the wayfarer's feet, and taken his first step into the 
 enchanted region. Fair is the path, and pleasant too, 
 at starting, and all down hill. The breeze is heavy with 
 perfumes, and his tread is upon crushed roses, innocent, 
 it would seem, of thorns. We shall see. Steeper and 
 steeper slopes the hill. By and bye flints cut the 
 tender soles, and there are no flowers in the brake 
 through which he must force his way, but plenty of 
 thorns here that pierce him to the quick. Faster and 
 faster he must on. The very nature of the spell forbids 
 him to retrace his steps, and he cannot tm-n aside, lor 
 the enchanted country spreads wider and wider around, 
 though it is lone and di'eary now, and he shudders to 
 think that if he leave the path he must be lost in the 
 cheerless desert. He cannot stop, for the descent is
 
 176 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 steeper yet, and lie must plunge on ankle deep in sand 
 and shingle, faint, weary, and athirst, down, down, 
 through the gathering darkness, wherever the path 
 shall lead him, even to the waters of the Dead Sea. 
 Woe betide him then ! falling prostrate in his hot need 
 to lip the wave. Woe betide him ! that he must perish 
 at last in an agony of thirst, though steeped to the very 
 nostrils in the mocking flood. 
 
 Mrs. Montpellier had found him out directly. 
 Women are so sharp. The yellow barouche was drawn 
 up according to custom, where carriages most congre- 
 gate, and Gilbert had been to pay his respects to the 
 lively widow. As she Avatched his shapely figure wmding 
 its way through the crowd, she smiled to herself while 
 she thought with generous triumph, ' One of my sex 
 has succeeded in taming wild Gilbert Orme at last. I 
 wonder which of us it is ? ' 
 
 Holyhead attacked him directly he joined the party. 
 
 ' I saw the yellow barouche, Gilbert,' said he. ' I 
 knew you couldn't be far ofi". Do you dine at the 
 Ringdove's to-day to meet her? It's a regular case.' 
 
 Gilbert only laughed. He was always impervious to 
 quizzing, and more so now than usual. With an im- 
 perceptible glance at Landless's swollen feet, he took 
 John by the arm and led him off for a stroll up the 
 walk, leaving the gouty sufferer to continue his conver- 
 sation with his companions. 
 
 ^ Is he really going to marry Mrs. Montpellier ? ' 
 asked Charley Wing, with a faint glimmering that now 
 he was no longer a free ao;ent he had better have done 
 SO himself. 
 
 ' I should hope not,' observed Landless. ' Why, she 's
 
 PELIDES. 177 
 
 old enough to be his mother, and a de — vil of a temper 
 besides ! ' 
 
 'I don't believe that^ interrupted Holyhead, who 
 never would let any one be run down. ^ I don't believe 
 there 's a better woman in London.' 
 
 ' Fact, though, for all that,' was the answer. I knew 
 her first husband when he was in the 190th. She used 
 to lock him out of their house whenever he sat too late 
 in the mess-room at Plymouth ; and as he was always 
 rather given to brandy-and-water, I fancy, poor fellow, 
 he seldom spent a night in his own bed ; and she was 
 only eighteen then ! What she would do now at eight- 
 and-thirty I should be soiTy to contemplate. Perhaps 
 she'd never let him ofi" duty at all. Eh, Charley ! that 
 ivouJd be a pretty go — wouldn't it?' 
 
 There was no arguing with old Landless when he got 
 back to his recollections, which, from his antiquity, ex- 
 tended into a remote period far beyond the experience 
 of his companions. Holyhead, therefore, had no resource 
 but to canter oflf with a snort of disapproval ; and Charley 
 Wing lounged away in search of a chair, having dis- 
 covered to his surprise that he was able to pay for it. 
 So the old gentleman was left alone in his glory, and 
 the ship-letter, which indeed had never been absent from 
 his mind, came before it more painfully that ever. 
 
 Gilbert and John strolled leisurely up the Park, 
 halting every hundred yards to lean against the rails 
 and chat with the mounted throng. Many a fair head 
 bowed gracefully beneath its ' wide-awake ' hat to Gil- 
 bert's ready salute — many a taper hand drew the rein 
 a thought tighter or lavished a dainty caress on the 
 smooth arched neck before it, in order to pass Mr. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Orme in the most becoming manner ; and portly papas 
 jogging alongside these enterprising Amazons observed, 
 'He's a nice yomig fellow that, Bessie; don't let 
 mamma forget to ask him to dine with us on Wednesday !' 
 
 Be sure Bessie remembered, and mamma didn't forget, 
 for the latter had ' always heard Mr. Orme must have 
 ten thousand a-year.' By the way, are there no fortunes 
 in England between ' Nothing,' ' Comfortably off,' ' Ten 
 thousand a-year,' and a ' ^lillionaire ? ' Perhaps the 
 Income-tax Commissioners could tell. For my part, I 
 have never heard of one. 
 
 If I wanted to impress a foreigner with the merits of 
 English society, I would take him up this very walk on 
 such a crowded sunshiny afternoon. Our compatriots 
 show to the greatest advantage out of doors ; and no 
 woman alive looks so well in a riding-habit as the Anglo- 
 Saxon. There is no such lounge anywhere else in Europe. 
 The Prater at Vienna is a deserted solitude in compari- 
 son ; and the concourse in the Bois de Boulogne re- 
 minds me of a pantomime, without the music that 
 gives life to that fanciful representation. But Kotten- 
 row, which unsavoury name antiquarians affirm to be 
 derived from the JRoute dti Hoi, is an institution per se, 
 and challenges attention accordingly. 
 
 Gilbert and his companion turned at the Serpentine 
 after another hearty stare into the horse-road, and pro- 
 ceeded to retrace their steps at the same leisui*ely rate, 
 but with fewer stoppages. The Park was thinning 
 rapidly ; and the bevy of beauty had fled from its 
 parterre as the ducks do from a disturbed decoy. Only 
 a few of the boldest were left, such indeed as had 
 nothing to fear from the stratagems of the fowler.
 
 PELIDES. 179 
 
 Sleepy hacks — and what steed is so mettled but that he 
 does get sleepy in London ? — were roused for their final 
 canter, and flitting forms were fast disappearing through 
 the many egresses of the Park. 
 
 John had just pulled out his watch with a smothered 
 yawn, and voted it time to dress for dinner, when he 
 was startled by a sudden TNTench of his friend's arm 
 from his own that well-nigh spun the ' Geneva' out of 
 his hand, accompanied by an exclamation of profane 
 vehemence and indubitable surprise. Ere he had re- 
 covered his equanimity, Gilbert was a hundred yards 
 off, striding away at the rate of six miles an hour in 
 pursuit of a female figure carrying a roll of music in her 
 hand, who was herself making such good way as argued 
 no mean pedestrian powers. 
 
 John gave vent to a prolonged whistle ; such a whistle 
 as is the male rendering of a woman's ' Well ! I never ! ' 
 and pocketing his watch pursued his walk with a comical 
 expression of pity about his mouth. Gilbert meanwhile 
 was coming up rapidly with the chase, and his self- 
 possession was failing him in proportion. There was no 
 mistaking her. Tastefully but quietly dressed, as one 
 who would avoid observation, her veil drawn over her 
 face, and her head rather bent down as she scudded 
 along at a pace such as only feet and ancles like Ada's 
 can command. There was no doubt in Gilbert's mind 
 that it could be none other than Mrs. Latimer. What 
 to say to her ? How to account for his intrusion ? lie 
 was breathless when he came alongside ; and yet Gilbert 
 could breast a Highland mountain and whistle a Jacobite 
 air without a i\ilse note the while. 
 
 He doffed his hat with the greatest diffidence. She 
 
 N2
 
 180 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 did not offer to shake hands with him, but bowed rather 
 distantly in return. Then he ' hoped Mrs. Latimer 
 was quite well. Had she seen Miss Jones since they 
 met at the villa ? What a pretty villa it was ! ' 
 
 Mrs. Latimer ' had seen Miss Jones yesterday, and 
 it ivas a pretty villa.' 
 
 Rather a dead-lock than otherwise. Both their hearts 
 were beating very fast, and they were walking a liberal 
 four miles an hour. 
 
 ' I am going home across the Park,' stammered the 
 gentleman (and perhaps if ' the longest way round' be 
 indeed ' the shortest way home,' he had chosen a judi- 
 cious route for Green-street) . ' Pray allow me to carry 
 that — that — jjcircel for you,' emphasizing the substan- 
 tive as though it had been a clothes-basket. 
 
 ' Thank you; it's not very heavy,' she said, repress- 
 ing a smile. Nor was it indeed, being but a single 
 sheet of music. He would have liked it to weigh a ton, 
 though in that case she would probably have returned 
 with it in a wagon. She almost wished she had ! 
 
 Ada was getting frightened ; yet was she provoked 
 with herself too. It seemed absurd that she should 
 make difficulties about walking a couple of hundred 
 yards with an acquaintance ! After all, he had been 
 regularly introduced to her, and she was old enough to 
 take care of herself; so she summoned up courage to 
 thank him again, and told him she had been giving a 
 singing-lesson down in Belgravia to a new pupil, and 
 mentioned the acolyte's name, insisting somewhat un- 
 necessarily on her profession, and flourishing it, so to 
 speak, in her companion's face, though she would have 
 been puzzled to explain why she did so.
 
 PELIDES. 181 
 
 All this was lost upon Gilbert. 
 * Mj cousin Gertrude ! ' he exclaimed in a rapture ; 
 ' do you teach Gertrude ? I am so glad you know her ! 
 don't you like her very much ? Then that is the reason 
 she left the Park so early to-day. I always thought 
 she had a good voice. Will she sing well ? I am sure 
 she will if you try to make her. I hope she won't sing 
 that song about the angel, though.' 
 
 ^ Why not? don't you like it?' she asked; and a 
 moment afterwards she rebuked herself for the question. 
 ' Like it I ' he exclaimed ; ' I hope the angels will sing 
 it me when I am dying. Like it ! I have never been 
 able to get it out of my head. I hum it all day, and 
 dream of it all night; and yet, do you know, I don't 
 think I should like to hear it sung by anybody again 
 who — who couldn't do justice to it,' he concluded, rather 
 lamely. 
 
 She thought it best to try back upon the cousin. 
 ' I gave Lady Gertrude her first lesson to-day,' she 
 resumed. ' I think she is a very promising pupil. ' I 
 shall take great pains with her. I— didn't know she 
 was your cousin,' she was going to say, but she stopped 
 herself just in time. 
 
 ' How fond you must be of music,' he interposed, not 
 caring to discuss Gertrude's merits just then. ' What 
 a pleasure it must be to call up such feelings in your 
 listeners, and to make fools of them at your will ! 
 Music and mesmerism always seem to me the powers I 
 should covet most to possess. It is a gratifying thing 
 to command the bodies of one's fellow-creatures, but 
 what a triumph it must be to know that one can sway 
 their minds. Don't you feel like an empress, Mrs.
 
 182 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Latimer, when hundreds are hanging on every word 
 that comes from your lips ? ' 
 
 ^Indeed I don't/ she replied, simply and frankly 
 enough. ' At first I used to be frightened out of my 
 wits, and even now I'm always glad when a concert or 
 anything of that kind is over. If I was rich I should 
 never sing in public ; and yet I dearly love music, too, 
 for its own sake.' 
 
 ^ Of course you do ! ' he exclaimed, enthusiastically ; 
 ' what would I give to possess the charm that you do, 
 and which you seem to value so lightly. To elevate 
 the minds of so many above their every-day vulgar 
 cares and distresses, and to brmg back to them, as you 
 can, if only for five minutes, the holiest and happiest 
 period of their lives. It is no slight thing, Mrs. 
 Latimer, to influence any one human being, as that 
 song of yours has influenced me, ever since the first 
 time I heard it at the concert.' 
 
 Gilbert had got into his swing now, and was striding 
 away like a winnmg horse, over all obstacles. What 
 more high-flown opmions he might have broaxjhed it is 
 impossible to guess, for at this juncture he was brought 
 to a halt by the Edgeware-road, a thoroughfare which 
 his companion had resolved from the first was to prove 
 a barrier between them, impassable as the Styx. 
 
 AiTived at its fatal brink, she stopped short, and 
 took leave of him gracefully and kindly enough, but 
 with an air that told him plainly he would not be 
 sufiered to attend her a yard further on her journey. 
 To do him justice, he obeyed the implied behest without 
 a murmur. They shook hands, though, and luigered 
 both of them for half-a-second over the ceremony that
 
 PELIDES. 183 
 
 concluded what each felt had been a very charming 
 walk — 
 
 ' Good bye, Mrs. Latimer !' 
 
 ' Good bye, Mr. Orme !' 
 
 Gilbert never thought his own name so pretty as 
 when he heard it spoken in those soft, gentle tones. 
 
 How late he was for dinner that day at his great- 
 uncle the Bishop's ; how absent all the evening ; how 
 glad when it was over ! The opium-eater has but little 
 appetite for natural food. The richest draught is flat 
 and tasteless to him who grasps that cup of which the 
 first sip is nectar, poisoned though it be ! The prelate's 
 guests sat down to the episcopal good cheer thankfully 
 enough, at eight ; but then they hadn't been walking 
 in the park at half-past seven with a Mrs. Latimer ! 
 
 And Ada went home and drank her tea, and sat in 
 her solitude, thankful to be so near the park, watching 
 the glowing hues of sunset, as she thought what a 
 beautiful world this was, even in London, and wonder- 
 ing — oh ! hoiu she wondered — when she should see him 
 again.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ' AT-HOME.' 
 
 HERE is a certain rite performed by the 
 upper classes during the hottest part of the 
 London season, of which, to the uninitiated, 
 it would be difficult to explain the advan- 
 tages or the end. This solemnity, which has been in 
 vogue for a good many years, was called by our grand- 
 mothers a Rout, whereas modem iiTeverence, by an 
 equally martial and inexplicable metaphor, designates it 
 a Drum ! Its chief characteristic seems to be suffoca- 
 tion under certain restrictions, and it would appear to 
 have been originally intended by some rigorous ascetics 
 for the practice of mortification and self-denial, moral 
 as well as physical. The votaries, arriving at as late 
 an hoiu" as possible, sit for a considerable period in 
 their respective vehicles, preparing, as it would seem, 
 in darkness and solitude, for the approaching ordeal, 
 and emerge, under the immediate guidance of a police- 
 man, where awning and foot-cloth are spread to protect 
 the magnificence of their attire. "Wedged in consider- 
 able masses, the next step is to contest a staircase inch 
 by inch with a throng of ladies and gentlemen all at a 
 high temperature, until by the exercise of patience, for- 
 bearance, and no small amount of physical strength, a
 
 185 
 
 distant doorway is eventually attained. Here the pre- 
 siding priestess, enjoying the comparative freedom of 
 breathing-space and elbow-room, stands to receive the 
 homage of her guests ; and when a formal bow has 
 been tendered and returned, the whole object of the 
 ceremonials would seem to have been accomplished, and 
 nothing more remains but a second struggle for freedom, 
 open air, and the friendly light of the carriage-lamps. 
 Recognition, for persons of average altitude, is im- 
 practicable. Conversation, beyond begging pardon for 
 crushing, impossible. If friends are jammed against 
 friends, the very juxtaposition forbids colloquial ease ; 
 and if ten yards apart, they are as effectually separated 
 as if they were in different streets. The heat is 
 intense, the physical labour considerable. Great lassi- 
 tude and fatigue are the immediate results; and yet 
 there is doubtless some hidden charm, some inexplicable 
 advantage consequent on these gatherings, else how can 
 we account for the eagerness with which they are 
 sought, and the patience in which they are endm-ed ? 
 
 Lady Olivia's ^at-home' w^as no exception to the 
 general rule ; ' the world ' said ' all the world ' was 
 there ; and as ' all the world ' was likewise at another 
 festivity on the opposite side of the square, much con- 
 fusion amongst the chariots of the mighty, much strong 
 language, clattering of hoofs, and application of whip- 
 cord was the result. 
 
 How Bella's colour rose as the carriage-steps were 
 let down. That little earthenware lUij amonirst all 
 those vessels of Sevres and Dresden, and delicate por- 
 celain, how she shrank to her chaperone's side — an 
 ample matron, with daughters of her own ; and whose
 
 186 GOOD FOR NOTfflNG. 
 
 heart, large as the capacious bosom under Tvhich it beat, 
 was always ready to befriend the motherless girl, but 
 who has nothing to do with my story, more's the pity 
 — how she dreaded the coming presentation to Lady 
 Olivia, and winced from the ordeal which she had so 
 teased John Gordon — the little schemer ! — to enable 
 her to undergo. She had ample time for preparation, 
 however, and got through the introductory ceremony 
 easily enough. Lady Olivia giving her the coldest of 
 her cold bows, and suffering her to pass on into the 
 room without fui^ther notice or welcome. Then Bella 
 was glad to smk mto a seat, well sheltered under the 
 protecting wing (for Bella's chaperone, though she 
 knew everybody in London, and was liked m every 
 circle, had not forgotten that she had been a girl 
 herself, and was once as shy as she was slim) , and rest 
 content to look about her, and think how few people 
 she knew, and hope John Gordon wouldn't be late, for 
 John had promised to come, and Bella said to herself, 
 with a thrill of secret pride, ' what John promises he 
 always perfonns.' 
 
 It was dull work, though, for the uninitiated girl to 
 watch the quiet movements of the puppets, without 
 knowing who pulled the strings. A fat bald man 
 opposite was talking eagerly in whispers to an elderly 
 lady, decorated with a profusion of diamonds and a 
 flaxen wig. It might have been interesting to her had 
 she been aware that the gentleman was a foreign states- 
 man of eminence, the lady a political intrigante of 
 European reputation. Truth, however, compels me to 
 acknowledge, that the subject of conversation was not 
 the interpretation of treaties, nor the fate of nations,
 
 ^AT-HOME.' 187 
 
 but the merits of the Vichy waters, and their bene- 
 ficial effects on the digestive organs. 
 
 Again, she knew Lord Holyhead by sight ; and she 
 did weave a shockinor little romance in her own head 
 when she saw a stealthy and most affectionate squeeze 
 of the hand interchanged by his lordship with a remark- 
 ably pretty woman, hanging on an elderly husband's 
 arm, accompanied by the softest of glances, and a 
 whispered ' I'm so glad you're come.' So she was ! for 
 he ought to have dined with them that day, and she 
 was his chief pet, and favomite of all his sisters. 
 Moreover she marked the meeting of a couple who 
 seemed to know and yet not to know each other, their 
 recognition was so distant and constrained, their looks 
 so embarrassed, and quickly averted. Bella resolved 
 in her owa mind that they must be secret enemies, all 
 the more bitter that the forms of society compelled 
 them to reciprocal civility. Had she seen the same 
 pair together at fom* o'clock that afternoon, she could 
 only have concluded that they must have quarrelled 
 since. Altogether she voted it was rather stupid than 
 otherwise, and began to think that she would be glad 
 when it was time to go home. 
 
 But Bella's eye brightened once more as she saw a 
 gentleman winding his way perseveringly through the 
 throng, evidently to come and speak to her. No, it 
 was not John Gordon, but it was his friend, Mr. Orme. 
 Gilbert was unusually dutiful to-night, he had dined 
 with his great-uncle, and now came to look in before 
 going to bed at his mamma's ^ at home.' When he saw 
 IVIiss Jones, he started with pleasure, and made for her 
 point blank. To those who have ever been so foolish as
 
 188 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 to care for anything but themselves, I need not explain 
 why that young lady's presence should have been such 
 an agreeable surprise. Have you a favourite flower ? is 
 there a colour for ribbons that you prefer ? would you 
 rather walk do^Mi one side of a street than another ? 
 If so, you know what association means, and you can 
 understand that the compliment to Bella was the least 
 flattering possible. 
 
 ' You don't know Gertrude, !Miss Jones,' said Gilbert, 
 shaking hands with her warmly, and bowing to her 
 chaperone ; ' pray let me bring Gertrude to you. My 
 cousin Gertrude ; she belongs to the house, you know. 
 Won't you have some tea ? and, oh ! Miss Jones, how's 
 the parrot ? ' 
 
 There was something irresistible in Gilbert's cordial 
 manner; no shyness or reserve could stand before it 
 for an instant. People felt at their ease with him 
 directly. By the time he had found his cousin and de- 
 tached her from certain admu'ers whom she was tram- 
 pling under foot with her usual dignity, Bella's courage 
 had risen several degrees, and she had made up her 
 mind that next to John Gordon, who had not come yet, 
 nobody was so nice (that's the word) as Mr. Orme. 
 
 Like most high-bred yomig ladies, Gertrude was also 
 perfectly good-natured. The two girls were friends 
 directly. 
 
 ' You must come and see me in the morning. Miss 
 Jones, and make acquaintance with my snuggery up- 
 stairs. I don't call these ' crushes ' meeting one's 
 friends. I am so glad, though, that you found your 
 way here to-night. I have heard so much of you from 
 Mr. Gordon.'
 
 189 
 
 Bella coloured. Some young ladies blush becomingly, 
 and some do not ; Miss Jones was of the latter class. 
 Lady Gertrude scanned her narrowly, and felt she 
 liked her much better than she expected. She sat 
 by her on the ottoman, and they were getting on very 
 well when Gilbert lounged up to them once more, he 
 could not keep away from Miss Jones j;o?<r cause. 
 
 ' I have never thanked you for the pleasant evenmg 
 I spent at yom- house,' said he. ' You were not at 
 home when I called. It's the prettiest villa in England, 
 Gertrude, and Miss Jones has got a parrot that you 
 would give your two eyes to possess. He can talk, and 
 sing, and play the piano-forte ; can't he. Miss Jones ? 
 If you heard him, Gertrude, you'd never look at the 
 canary again.' 
 
 Bella's eyes sparkled, it was no light triumph to have 
 such a first-rater in tow as this o;ood-lookino;, dandified 
 Mr. Orme. Forgive her, demure Dorcas ! forgive her, 
 ascetic Agatha ! she was but a girl still, and you are 
 birds of prey by nature, every one of you, caged though 
 you be. She answered with unnecessary warmth and 
 animation. 
 
 ' Come again, if you like the villa so much, Mr. 
 Orme, but come earlier. Papa is often at home at 
 luncheon-time, and I never go out till three, because 
 of my music lesson.' 
 
 He colom-ed to the roots of his hair. ' He should be 
 delighted; it was so kind of them — so hospitable — he 
 should like it of all things — he wanted so much to see 
 the garden— he was so fond of a garden ! ' 
 
 Lady Gertrude looked from one to the other in mute 
 astonishment. Gilbert fond of a garden! this beat
 
 190 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 everything. Gracious Heavens ! he must be in love 
 with the girl, this shy, awkward, undeveloped, half- 
 educated miss ! 
 
 ' It's impossible ! ' thought Gertrude. ' It cannot be ; 
 it must not be ; it shall not be ! ' 
 
 But her astonishment was lost upon its object. Out- 
 wardly he seemed engrossed in the admiration of a very 
 neat boot. Inwardly he was considering whether to- 
 morrow would be too soon to call again, or the next day ; 
 certainly he might call the next day. 
 
 ' Go and get me an ice, Gilbert,' said her ladyship in 
 her most imperious tones, ' and don't be an hour about 
 it. I want it directly.' 
 
 She had a way of ordering him about, when she 
 meant to pet him especially, a pretty petulant way that 
 he quite imder stood, so she thought ; and indeed many 
 a man would have brought her an ice from the North 
 Pole to be so commanded with such a motive. Whilst 
 he executed his mission he was scheming a thousand 
 ways of meeting his tormentor here in this very house, 
 at the villa, in the park, whenever and wherever he 
 could get a glimpse of her. His head was in a whirl — 
 he scarcely knew what he was doing. And yet this 
 was a man who could drive an unruly team to an inch 
 in a crowded thoroughfare, who could steer a boat to a 
 nicety in a gale of wind, whose friends believed him to 
 be heartless, blaze, impenetrable, and cold as the very 
 ice he handed to his cousin. 
 
 Whilst she sipped it she kept him near her. She 
 was especially kind, and perhaps a little patronizing to 
 Bella, but she had determined to make her feel in a 
 thousand ways that her cousin was her own peculiar
 
 ^AT-HOME.' 191 
 
 property ; that the idea of a Miss Jones flying at such 
 high game was simply ridiculous, and that to enter the 
 lists against herself, with all her advantages of person, 
 position, and propinquity, was but to ensure defeat. 
 
 Gilbert, in the happiest frame of mind, for reasons 
 of his own played into her hands unwittingly, and suf- 
 fered her to appropriate and tyrannize over him with all 
 the satisfaction of a willing captive. Even Lady Olivia 
 scowled at them as she passed ; and Bella, who thought 
 it the most natural thing in the world that the cousins 
 should be engaged, treasured up that fact for future 
 comment, and entered into the spirit of the conversation 
 with a good-humoured vivacity that Lady Gertrude 
 thought rather 'pushing,' and Gilbert never thought 
 about at all. It was a pretty game enough at blind- 
 man's-buff, and nobody caught. 
 
 Bella would have enjoyed it more had it included 
 another player. In the midst of her smiles she winced 
 every now and then to think John Gordon had broken 
 his promise, and had not come. He who had got her 
 the invitation to this gathering of smart people, who 
 took such an interest in her first plunge into society, who 
 had told her so assuredly he would be there to take care 
 of her if she wanted him, and now to forget all about 
 it, and not to come. It was unlike him — it was incon- 
 siderate — it was mikind ! 
 
 No, Bella, it was none of these. John Gordon attends 
 to business before pleasure. An express from the office 
 rea<5hed him at dinner at his club. He has been closeted 
 for hom's in that office, poring over accounts by the 
 light of a tallow candle, in company with a dirty man, 
 who looks as if he had just come off a long voyage and
 
 192 GOOD FOR NOTHING, 
 
 a short allowance of fresh water, which is indeed the 
 fact. Since then he had been home to di^ess, and is 
 now jingling here in a hack-cab as fast as that vehicle 
 can bring him. 
 
 As Bella sailed downstairs in the wake of her cha- 
 perone, John Gordon was coming up, but he turned 
 back to accompany her to the cloak-room, and post- 
 poned paying his respects to his hostess and her niece 
 till he should have put her into the carriage, which was 
 even then the next in the string, waiting to take her off. 
 
 The poor girl looked up reproachfully in his face as 
 he prepared to wrap her up, and held her cloak out 
 with extended arms for the purpose; but in John's 
 usually impertm^bable countenance there was a wistful, 
 pitying expression that she could not fathom, yet that 
 she was conscious she had never seen there before. 
 Half-frightened and more than half-inclined to cry, she 
 could only get out — 
 
 ' I thought you were never coming, Mr. Gordon ; but 
 thank you for my evening all the same.' 
 
 ' I hope you enjoyed it,' was his answer as he put her 
 into the carriage ; and again the same pitying expres- 
 sion swept over his features, — ' Good night, Bella — 
 God bless you ! ' 
 
 He had never pressed her hand so warmly till to- 
 night ; he had never said ' God bless you ! ' to her in 
 her life before. What could it all mean ? 
 
 The crowd was thinning rapidly, and he made his 
 way upstairs without difficulty. Lady Olivia's reception 
 was, for her, wonderfully gracious, and Gertrude was 
 still monopolizing her cousin Gilbert. John Gordon 
 walked up to them with his usual cold and impassive
 
 ^at-home/ 193 
 
 air. Gilbert saw nothing in his friend different from 
 usual ; but Lady Gertrude gave one quick searching 
 glance into his face, and put out her hand to him, and 
 pressed his kindlj, though she had seen him that after- 
 noon, and moved her dress a little so as to make more 
 room on the ottoman beside her. She would never 
 have allowed it, but somehow to-night she took a greater 
 interest in him than usual. Although he was colder 
 and more impassable than she ever remembered him, 
 she would have liked to have had him all to herself in 
 a quiet tete-a-tete . She had so many things to ask him 
 and to talk over with him ; so she flirted with Gilbert 
 more vigorously than ever, despite Lady Olivia's scowls, 
 and Mr. Gordon's apparent indifference to herself and 
 everything else. 
 
 It was no false heraldiy that represented the Sphinx 
 as a woman down to the girdle. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 'a hitch in the reel.' 
 
 HE days wore on. The Derby came and 
 passed. People dressed, and dined, and 
 flirted, and wagered, and ran in debt, taking 
 what tbey believed to be their pleasure, 
 broiling on the pavement of Pall Mall, or wet to the 
 skin on the slopes of Ascot ; and Gilbert, moving from 
 habit in the accustomed circle, went about it all like a 
 man in a dream. The malady from which he was suf- 
 fering so far resembles the ague that its hot and cold 
 fits succeed each other in regular alternation. Gilbert 
 had at least two paroxysms of each in the twenty -four 
 hours, and was fast waning into a state of nervous im- 
 becility. He became thoughtful, moody, impatient, and 
 averse to the society of his friends. Holyhead's abrupt 
 opinions and worldly maxims seemed heartless and mi- 
 feeling; old Landless was simply a bore, without the 
 advantage of being a well-principled one ; and as for 
 Charley Wing, he began to wonder what was the merit, 
 after all, of Charley Wing ? He wasn't clever, he 
 w^asn't well-informed; and no man professing such a 
 low esteem for women could be either good-hearted or 
 respectable. This was becoming a sore point with Gil- 
 bert. In the morning-room at White's, or the gossiping
 
 'a hitch in the reel.' 195 
 
 circles of his other clubs, he was liable to hear cer- 
 tain opinions broached from which he winced as from a 
 red-hot iron. Gentlemen of all ages allow themselves 
 considerable latitude in the discussion of topics which 
 perhaps are better not discussed at all. Bj assuming to 
 speak from experience they would fain infer that they 
 themselves are irresistible ; and a man who confines 
 himself to generalities, need never fear reproof or con- 
 tradiction. For my part, I think Bayard is a better 
 example than Lovelace. I think he whom a woman has 
 trusted should for that reason be the champion not the 
 accuser of her sex. I think the braggart who assumes 
 
 CO 
 
 a triumph to which he is not entitled deserves to meet 
 as summary a fate as the indiscreet intruder in a cer- 
 tain Irish fairy tale, and I join cordially in the en- 
 chanted distich : — 
 
 Woe worth the coward that ever he was horn, 
 
 Who did not dare to draw the sword before he blew the horn. 
 
 Poor Gilbert hated the very sight of Flippant now. 
 He wondered he could ever have listened patiently to 
 that ' beoruilinoj tongue ' or looked without loathino; on 
 those hyacinthine locks, the pride of a coiffeur's art. 
 He said as much to Holyhead one day as they turned 
 out of St. James's-street, and the energetic peer at 
 once avowed his opinion that ' Flippant was a d — d old 
 humbug. But, after all, Gilbert, my boy, women are 
 very much alike!' And then he fell to talking of Bra- 
 voui-a. Of Bravoura ! and Gilbert's type all the time 
 was Ada Latimer. 
 
 He had now but one object in the day, or rather one 
 in every two days. This was his walk across the Park 
 
 02
 
 196 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 with his enslaver. Three times a week for ten minutes 
 he could converse with Mrs. Latimer. Thirty minutes 
 a week, or two hours in a month. At this rate he could 
 enjoy her society for one day in every calendar year ; 
 or about six wrecks of his whole remaining life suppos- 
 ing he lived to seventy ! And for this he was content 
 to barter comfort, liberty, friends, ambition, everything 
 he had in the world, and hug himself on the exchange. 
 Surely value received is but a relative term, incapable 
 of accurate measurement or calculation. 
 
 This was one of Gilbert's ivliite days. A late break- 
 fast to shorten the time as much as possible — a restless 
 stroll out of doors to survey his ground, as it were, and 
 enjoy by anticipation the delights of his afternoon — a 
 total neglect of all business and duties, and a great dis- 
 inclination for society ; then an elaborate toilet as the 
 afternoon drew on, which mifortunately, with a well- 
 made, good-looking subject, who moreover always looked 
 like a gentleman, could not be spun out to any great 
 length ; afterwards an early appearance to share the 
 solitude of the Park with the son of Peleus, which was 
 unnecessary as it was wearisome, inasmuch as she never 
 came till nearly seven o'clock, to be followed by two 
 long nervous hours of suspense and anxiety, avoiding 
 his friends and unconsciously cutting his acquaintance. 
 He used to think the clock at the corner must have 
 stopped, so provokingly slow was the progress of that 
 shining minute-hand. What misgivings, too, lest she 
 should not pass, after all ! She might be ill — she 
 might be gone out of town — she might be anything 
 that was most unlikely. He would bear the suspense 
 no longer. This should be the last time. To-day he
 
 'a hitch in the keel.' 197 
 
 would tell her, come what might, and put a stop to it 
 one way or the other. Yes; no woman alive should 
 make a fool of him beyond a certain point. At last ! 
 There she was. God bless her ! To-day he would cer- 
 tainly tell her I 
 
 But he didiiH tell her, nevertheless, for she never 
 gave him an opportunity, because she loved him ; and 
 he never made one for the same reason. 
 
 For forty minutes or so after the walk he was soothed 
 and calm and tolerably comfortable. Then the reaction 
 began again ; and the worry and fidget to last for an- 
 other seven-and-forty hours. 
 
 These were the white days. The Hack ones were 
 ditto repeated, without the intervening period of de- 
 light. They passed very slowly ; and he was glad when 
 they were over. Yet am I not sure that they were the 
 most uncomfortable, after all. 
 
 Now, it may seem strange that a gentleman of !Mr. 
 Orme's standing and experience should have found such 
 difficulty in obtaining a Ute-a-tete with the lady of his 
 affections, who was moreover her own mistress ; and I 
 am not prepared to say that Gilbert did not know per- 
 fectly well where she resided, although with intuitive 
 delicaxjy he had never asked the question of herself, 
 else where would be the use of those functionaries in 
 white hats and red waistcoats, who with singular atten- 
 tion to * the unities,' adopt the very colours of the 
 Post-office Directory and Court Guide ? Indeed, he 
 had walked past the house many a night when the 
 moon was up, and Ada fast asleep ; but he hail never 
 ventured to call upon her, as he would have done long 
 ere this had she been a duchess ; nor had he ever
 
 198 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 intruded on the music-lessons in Belgrave -square or 
 the villa, though often sorely tempted at both. This 
 backwardness explains itself at once to those who know 
 by experience the thoughtfulness and consideration of 
 true affection, though to the Flippant school it would 
 seem an inexcusable waste of time. That ' faint heart 
 never won fair lady,' may be as true as any other pro- 
 verb, but the stouter the heart the famter it is likely 
 to prove in any aggression on the feelings of her it 
 really loves. So Gilbert contented himself perforce with 
 his alternate afternoons, and longed and pondered, and 
 resolved to take some decisive measures, and didn't ! 
 
 At last, one dull afternoon, when the Park was nearly 
 empty from the combined influence of a fete at Chiswick 
 and a drizzling rain, there was no Mrs. Latimer. 
 
 Gilbert bounced about, and made himself very hot 
 and angry, and at last resigned himself to the fact, 
 after he had waited till eight o'clock, and was wet to 
 the skin, attributing it to the weather, which he cursed 
 with improper energy, and wishing he could annihilate 
 the intervening period that must elapse before he could 
 see her again. Two days afterwards he was at his post 
 half-an-hour earlier than usual. It was a brio;ht hot 
 afternoon, and all London seemed to have conorrecrated 
 about the Serpentine. Still, no Mrs. Latimer ! That 
 day he waited till dark, and went to bed without any 
 dinner in a frame of mind by no means enviable or 
 edifying. What could it mean ? She must have done 
 it on purpose. Heartless! fickle! unfeeling! No; he 
 would not blame her. He would give her one more 
 chance. He would wait for two days, and then it 
 would be a week, a whole week, since he had seen her.
 
 ^ A HITCH IN THE REEL.' 199 
 
 If she didn't come then, he would What would he 
 
 do ? He was fain to postpone the contemplation of 
 such a contingency. So he chafed and fretted, and 
 waited a whole week, and still she did n't come ! 
 
 Ada, too, had in the meantime been living a strange, 
 unsettled life of alternate hopes and misgivings, dashed 
 with no inconsiderable twinges of uncertainty and self- 
 reproach. Yet through the motley web there ran one 
 golden thread of secret joy, which she prized the more 
 that it seemed impossible to disentangle it from the 
 hopeless confusion through which it twined. "Woman- 
 like, she concealed her feelings even from herself, satis- 
 fied, and more than satisfied, with her modicum of pre- 
 sent happiness. She dwelt far more than she was 
 aware on the cherished walks, and looked back on 
 them, and forward to them, with an engrossing interest 
 that sufficiently filled up the intervening hours. Reso- 
 lutely refusing to look into the future, she had not 
 courage to ask herself one or two questions, which she 
 had a vague suspicion were of some importance to her 
 welfare, till they were at last forced upon her unex- 
 pectedly, and could be put ofi" no longer. 
 
 It was one of the ivhite days, and Mrs. Latimer was 
 at luncheon in the villa previous to Miss Jones's music- 
 lesson. Bella, being late as usual — for she was as un- 
 punctual as she was good-natm^ed — insisted on her 
 teacher sitting down with her to roast chicken when 
 they ought to have been murdering a duet. They 
 were quite alone, with the exception of a butler, foot- 
 man, and page-boy, and discoursed freely as if tliose 
 domestics were both deaf and dumb. Bella was full 
 of her evening in Belgrave- square, and loud in praise
 
 200 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 of Lady Gertrude, how she looked, what she had on, all 
 about her. Mrs. Latimer felt she was treading upon 
 dangerous ground ; but she, too, had some acquaintance 
 with Lady Gertrude ; and there was a certain fascina- 
 tion in the subject that led her on against her will. 
 
 ' She is very handsome,' said Mrs. Latimer, thinking 
 of a certain family likeness which no one else could 
 have traced, ^ and very clever, and altogether a very 
 charmmg girl.' 
 
 ' That she is ! ' exclaimed enthusiastic Bella. ^ Now, 
 if I had been a gentleman, I should have fallen in love 
 with her too directly, and married her at St. George's, 
 all in order, the first week in August. (Some more 
 chicken, dear ? Let me give you the merry-thought.) 
 I declare I think Mr. Orme is a very lucky man ! ' 
 
 ^ Why so ? ' gasped Ada, tui^ning as white as a sheet, 
 and pushing her plate away. 
 
 'Oh! don't you know?' replied Bella, still intent 
 upon the chicken ; ' they say he's engaged to her ; and 
 I'm sure the other night nothing could be more atten- 
 tive. He's very nice, too. You met him here once, 
 and sat next him at dinner. Don't you remember?' 
 
 Remember ! Poor Ada ! Luckily her companion 
 was still so engrossed with the merry-thought that 
 she did not remark how paler and paler grew the 
 music-mistress's cheek ; but the observant butler, who 
 held stoutly by his master's opinion that there is 
 nothing like old sherry, filled her glass by stealth to 
 the brim. 
 
 How the music-lesson went on after this, Ada knew 
 no more than I do. Fortunately for her, a strong 
 leavening of indignation, amongst her other feelings,
 
 ^ A HITCH IN THE REEL.' 201 
 
 prevented her giving way. ' Then he was engaged to 
 be married all the time,' thought she, and if she was 
 pale before, her cheeks burned with fiery blushes now, 
 ' all the time he professed to be so glad to see me. And 
 I — fool that I was! — meeting him, and watching for 
 him, and lonocinor so to see him. What must he think 
 of me ? What must he have thought of me all along ? ' 
 She would have liked to hide herself for a year. She 
 was more angry with herself than with him. She was 
 hurt, and sick at heart. 
 
 But she must o;o throuo^h her lessons. From the Re- 
 gent's Park to Bayswater, from Bayswater to Knights- 
 bridge, from Knightsbridge to Belgrave-square. There 
 is no respite for the bees, and herein they sting them- 
 selves less poignantly with their sorrows, than do the 
 idler drones. Ere she sat down to the piano-forte with 
 Lady Gertrude, she began to think it might not be 
 true. Women read other women easily enough, and 
 the young lady's manner was scarcely that of a fiancee. 
 Where was the dreamy look, the unconscious smile, 
 the atmosphere of happmess, that diffuses itself around 
 those who have attained their goal? Lady Gertrude 
 was quick, lively, energetic, as usual ; completely en- 
 grossed with her lesson, somewhat sarcastic also, and 
 not the least in the world like a maiden pondering on 
 her absent lover. Probably the whole report was but 
 one of the idle rumours of the world. It made her 
 cross-examine herself, though, pretty searchingly, the 
 while her pupil warbled a cavatina, making two mis- 
 takes and a false note undetected; and she came to 
 the conclusion that at least the walks must be dis- 
 continued from henceforth, she must break herself of
 
 202 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 this follv, for her own sake, for Ids sake ; ah ! then it 
 would be easier; and so, no more sunshine for lier^ 
 but the old gloomy life, darker than ever it had been 
 before. It seemed hard, very hard. She would have 
 liked to put her head in her hands, and cry till she 
 got better. Lady Gertrude was singing false and un- 
 rebuked. A figure footman walked up to the piano- 
 forte with a note — 
 
 ' Mr. Orme's servant waiting for an answer, my 
 Lady.' 
 
 Again the cold sick feeling crept round Ada's heart. 
 Her pupil stopped singing, read the missive, and flung 
 it aside with the careless observation, ' No answer.' As 
 it rested on the music-stand, Mrs. Latimer could not 
 avoid seeing his handwriting on the half-tui'ned page ; 
 it began — ' Dearest Gertrude.' 
 
 This was the reason the walks were discontinued; 
 and Gilbert driven to such a pitch of monomania as I 
 am powerless to describe. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that he sat quietly down 
 imder his privation. Would she have liked him better 
 if he had ? No ; he called boldly at her lodgings ; 
 when I say boldly, I mean that he concealed his trepi- 
 dation (which is after all the true definition of courage) , 
 and confronted a maid-of-all-work with as much sang 
 froid as he could muster. ' Mrs. Latimer was not at 
 home,' of course ! ' When would she be at home ? ' — 
 equally of course ' It was very uncertain.' The maid- 
 of-all-work in furnishing her report, stated that ' the 
 gentleman seemed quite disappointed-like ; ' and my 
 lady readers will best understand the confidence which 
 Ada gathered from such an announcement, and the
 
 ^A HITCH IN THE REEL.' 203 
 
 encouragement it gave her to proceed in that thorny 
 path which, because it entailed a painful amount of 
 self-sacrifice, she was persuaded must be the right one ; 
 'Pleasant, but wrong,' and its converse seem to com- 
 prise the standard by which women regulate their 
 duties and their relaxations. 
 
 Then he tried the Yilla, and found himself let in for 
 a heavy luncheon tete-a-tete with the Alderman, and 
 narrowly escaped a drive back into London with Bella 
 in the sociable. Also he called in Belgrave-square 
 about the accustomed hour of the music-lesson, and had 
 not been there five minutes before Gertrude complained 
 that her mistress had got a cold, and had written to 
 postpone any further tuition sine die. Gilbert was at 
 his wits' end. It was poor consolation to walk under 
 her windows at midnight, but he did it, notwithstand- 
 ing; and she, lying wide-awake, and thinking how 
 difficult it was to be good, heard his footfall on the 
 pavement, and never doubted but it was the policeman ! 
 
 I have seen a dog sit up and beg at a closed door. I 
 have seen a door kicked and beaten for followiDo; its 
 master. I have wondered at that canine instinct of 
 fidelity which accompanies true courage and singleness 
 of heart, and I have been sorry for the dog. Would 
 Ada have been pleased to know the man who loved her 
 was watching for hours under the gas-lamps only to be 
 near her ? would she have loved him better, or prized 
 his devotion the less to be so secure of it ? I do not 
 know women well enough to give an answer. I only 
 know what he thought of her — the best, the purest, the 
 noblest of God's creation ; he could have bowed the knee 
 to anything in the shape of a woman for her dear sake.
 
 204 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Pacing up and down absorbed in this rational adora- 
 tion of a closed shutter, he was the only passenger in 
 the quiet street save one. Alas ! for the ghostly figure 
 that flitted round the corner in its dingy garments, and 
 leered at him ^ith dull, faded eye, and stretched a wan, 
 dirty hand for alms, and accosted him in the hollow 
 whisper that tells of sore trouble, and want, and weak- 
 ness, and gin. You meet them every night, gentlemen. 
 Every night of your lives, as you walk home along 
 the echoing streets, from yom^ clubs or other resorts, 
 from wine, and friendship, and fascination, and merry- 
 making, — home to the comfortable house, to the luxu- 
 rious dressing-room next door to that sacred chamber 
 where nestles the loved one, flushed and warm amidst 
 her delicate white draperies, restless even in her sleep 
 because you tarry long. Think of her whose only 
 refuge is the gin-palace, whose daily bread is the de- 
 gradation of the streets. For God's dear sake have 
 pity on her ! She was not always bad ; she is not all 
 bad now. You too have been in temptation, have you 
 resisted it? Y^ou too have sinned, have you been 
 punished as you deserved ? Must this poor scapegoat 
 bear the enormities of a whole people, and is yom^s the 
 hand to di'ive her out into the wilderness, lost and 
 lonely, and shut the gate of the fold against her for 
 ever ? The deeper she has sunk the more need has she 
 of help. The virtuous have heaven and earth too on 
 their side, but if all were good. Mount Calvary had 
 been but a nameless hill to this day. You too must 
 needs beg for mercy ere long. Hold! this is but 
 a selfish consideration. Think of what One would 
 have done had He been on earth. Is the Gospel a
 
 ' A HITCH IN THE REKL.' 205 
 
 romance ? or is it true that He said, ' Go thou, and do 
 like^vise ? ' 
 
 There was five minutes' conversation between Gilbert 
 and the hapless, abandoned wayfarer. A policeman 
 walking his beat scanned the couple searchingly, and 
 passed on. Ere he turned the corner, Gilbert had 
 wished her a kindly ' Good-night.' The poor woman 
 couldn't speak for sobbing. ' It's not for the money,' 
 gasped she, taking the glove out of his hand, and 
 kissing it ; 'it's not for the money, but the good words, 
 the first I've heard this six months. God bless youi' 
 kind heart! If every gentleman was like you, I 
 wouldn't be what I am this night ! So help me Him 
 that made me, but I'U take your advice and try /' 
 
 It is rather a waste of time to lounge about under 
 the windows of your ladye-love, more particularly at 
 midnight, and in an east wind. On this occasion, 
 however, Gilbert went to bed at 2 a.m., not entirely 
 dissatisfied with the result of his walk.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AY DE MI I 
 
 f ' 
 
 EIGH-HO ! ' sighed the parrot, coming 
 down the inside of his cage backwards, 
 like a sailor descending the rigging of a 
 ship, holding on with beak and claws the 
 while. ^ Heigh-ho ! ' repeated the bird, and the sigh 
 was so like Bella's that Alderman Jones turned round, 
 startled to find that he was alone in the room. 
 
 ' The devil's in the bird,' quoth the Alderman, testily, 
 going back to the money article in the Times. ' Dear, 
 deal'. Consols down again, and Slopes failed in Phila- 
 delphia for two hundi'ed thousand dollars. I've a good 
 mind to "VNTing his neck,' meaning the parrot's, not 
 Slopes's, whose failure, though it struck Jones and Co. 
 a pretty smart blow, had not been entirely miexpected 
 or unprovided for. 
 
 ^I'd be a butterfly,' sang the parrot in discordant 
 
 and imearthly notes, ' born in a ,' and he cut the 
 
 tune short with another sigh that set the Alderman 
 a-thinking. 
 
 It was a new trick this, and he had caught it from 
 Bella. Yes, now that he came to think of it, Bella was 
 always sighing of late. What could be the matter with 
 the girl? Surely she must have got all she wanted^
 
 ^AY DE MI!' 207 
 
 Surely she didn't know anything about these hideous 
 rents and fissures in the business. Surely she couldn't 
 suspect; and yet, if he didn't weather the storm (and 
 things were looking very bad just at present ; neither 
 he nor John saw their way very clearly a-head) , if he 
 couldn't weather the storm, Bella must be told at last. 
 The Alderman pushed away his mitasted plate, and took 
 a great gulp of his strong green tea. 
 
 The windows were open and the birds singing blithely 
 out of doors, the sunshine flickering cheerily through 
 the green Venetian blinds. There were fresh flowers in 
 the room, and glittering plate and delicate china on the 
 breakfast-table. Must it all go — the fruit of how many 
 years of calculation and energy and honest mercantile 
 enterprise ? It would be hard to begin life again now. 
 The Alderman glanced at a portrait that hung over 
 against his seat. ' My own,' he said, half aloud, ' I never 
 thought to be glad that you were at rest in your grave 
 out yonder ' — and even while he spoke a tear came to 
 his eye, and his heart thrilled to feel that, old, fat, 
 worn-out as he was, he would have worked thankfully 
 like the veriest helot for his daily bread, only to clasp 
 that lady's hand in his own once more. The parrot 
 sighed again profoundly, and Bella came dovm. to break- 
 fast, bright and comely from her toilet, and gave her 
 old father his morning kiss with a pleasant smile. 
 
 He put the paper down, and half resolved to make 
 his daughter the confidant of his difficulties ; but then 
 John Gordon was to be with him at twelve o'clock, for 
 a twinge of his old enemy, the gout, had confined him 
 to the house, and it would be better, he thought, at any 
 rate, to wait till he had seen his partner and taken his
 
 208 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 opinion on the matter. Bella, too, who had discovered 
 (as people do find out other people's movements) that 
 Mr. Gordon was coming, had resolved to ask him pri- 
 vately on her own accomit why papa was so anxious 
 and ill-at-ease. John Gordon had great influence, you 
 see, with the whole family at the villa. 
 
 Breakfast progressed uncomfortably. The parrot 
 heaved a succession of deep sighs, after each of which 
 the Alderman started and looked searchingly at Bella, 
 who poured out the tea with an absent and pre-occupied 
 air, which seemed to justify papa's suspicions that she 
 w^as not altogether ' fancy free.' It seems to me one of 
 the hardest lessons that has to be learned in life thus 
 to conceal from one nearest and dearest those vital 
 matters of which om- thoughts are full, to talk perforce 
 of the cook or the carpet, when the question is really 
 whether we shall to-morrow have a roof over our heads 
 or bread to eat; to discuss yesterday's dinner or last 
 night's farce, while there is a tragedy enacting in om- 
 o\m hearts on which our only desire is that the curtain 
 may fall at once and for ever. 
 
 It was a relief to father and daughter alike when a 
 servant came in and announced ' Mr. Gordon and a 
 gentlemayi as waiting in the Alderman's sitting-room. 
 The latter rose with an inward thankso-ivinor, and hob- 
 bled off with considerable alacrity ; while Bella, sitting 
 over her cold tea, proceeded all unconsciously to give 
 the parrot another lesson in suspiration. 
 
 Her father was right. The girl was not altogether 
 ' fancy free.' She had allowed her silly little head to 
 dwell upon the manifold excellences of a certain gen- 
 tleman whom she was in the constant habit of meeting,
 
 ^AY DE Ml!' 209 
 
 until she fancied her heart had not escaped altogether 
 scathless ; and indeed, truth to tell, that organ had 
 sustained a slight scratch or two, which smarted pretty 
 sharply — such scratches as warn young ladies it is time 
 to betake them to their defensive armour ere it be too 
 late, and which in their innocence they take to be far 
 more serious than they really are. There is but little 
 irritation about a death-wound : when the arterial blood 
 comes welling up throb by throb, agony gives place to 
 exhaustion, and there is more peace than pain. 
 
 The certain gentleman took a large roll of papers from 
 his pocket, and proceeded very methodically to untie 
 the string. Had John Gordon been going to undergo 
 decapitation, it was his natm-e to have tm^ned his shirt- 
 collar down, so as to crease it as little as possible. A 
 tall man with moustachios, whom the Alderman recog- 
 nised as Lord Holyhead, had already upset an inkstand, 
 and was mopping up the stains with blotting-paper. 
 
 The Alderman begged him to sit down, rang for 
 sherry, and turned to John with his business face on. 
 
 The junior partner was about to state matters in his 
 clearest manner, when the nobleman interposed. It was 
 Holyhead's disposition to take the initiative in every- 
 thing with which he had to do. 
 
 ' Look ye here, Mr. Jones,' said he, with another 
 plunge at the inkstand, which John quietly removed 
 beyond his reach, ' I've come on purpose to say three 
 words — you've had " a facer." I don't know what the 
 trade call it, but I call it " a facer." You want time 
 of com-se ; you must get your wind, and go in again. 
 Now, I've a strong claim upon you. I don't mean to 
 urge it. I don't want it. I won't take a shilling. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 GOOD FOR KOTUING. 
 
 Mj bills are as good as bank-notes. You stood by me 
 five years ago, when I wanted money ; I mean to stand 
 by you now so long as a plank holds ; and if worst 
 comes to worst, we'll go down together all standing, 
 and so " hon soir la compagnie ! " May I ring for my 
 hack?' 
 
 ' This is not business,' gasped the Alderman. 
 
 ' This is not business,' argued John Gordon. 
 
 ' I shall never forget yom' offer, but I cannot accept 
 it,' continued the former. 
 
 * If you'll go through these papers with me,' in- 
 terposed the latter, ' I can show you all the securities. 
 We can weather the gale yet if Newman and Hope 
 ride through; but we want a man out there sadly. 
 See, I've got it all down in black and white.' 
 
 * I have always been able to pay as I go,' said the 
 Alderman, and a strange troubled expression came over 
 that jolly face — ' to pay as I go, and owe no man any- 
 thing. I never thought it would come to this, my good 
 friends (for friends, and true ones, you are both of you). 
 You're young and sanguine. Now, my advice is this — 
 Wind up the accounts ; lump in everything I have of 
 my own, and I can pay twenty shillings in the pound 
 yet, and shut up shop altogether. To think that Jones 
 and Co. should go out like this — Jones and Co., Jones 
 and Co.' 
 
 ' Bother ! ' exclaimed Lord Holyhead. ' Never say 
 die till you're dead ! Mr. Gordon has my instructions. 
 I mean what I say. We settled everything this morn- 
 ing. You two must have plenty to talk about. Yes, 
 I'll have a glass of sherry, if you please, and then my
 
 ^AY DE MI!' 211 
 
 hack. Good bje, Alderman. We'll pull through yet ; 
 never say die, I tell you/ and his lordship bustled out 
 of the room with even more noise than usual, to mask 
 as it were his own consciousness of the stanch friend- 
 ship he had shown and the munificent offer of assist- 
 ance he had made. 
 
 It w^as not, however, in his nature to pass through 
 the hall without rectifying all and any arrangements 
 which his critical eye should deem amiss, and it so 
 chanced that the parrot, undergoing temporary banish- 
 ment in this airy locality, had got entangled with his 
 chain in the performance of his usual gymnastics, and 
 was now showing no little wrath in his endeavours to 
 extricate himself. It would not have been Holyhead 
 could he have gone by without interference. Ere the 
 footman could open the house-door his hand was in the 
 cage, and with equal rapidity the parrot had bitten it 
 to the bone. Bella, coming pensively doTvustairs, was 
 startled to hear a good deal of fluttering and dis- 
 turbance below, and a smothered oath, accompanied 
 by expressions of impatience and pain ; nor was her 
 equanimity restored by encountering a military-looking 
 gentleman binding his fingers with a blood-stained 
 handkerchief, and eyeing Polly, who swelled and sulked 
 behind the bars with suppressed resentment. The lady 
 could not but stop to express her concern and apologize 
 for the misbehaviom- of her favourite. The cavalier, 
 though he bled like a pig, could not but make light of 
 the adventure in terms of fitting courtesy. The knight 
 was wounded, and shrewdly too. It was the damsel's 
 part to succour and to heal. The result was that Lord 
 
 P2
 
 212 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Holyhead's hack was sent round to the stable, a basin 
 of warm water and some lint were produced, and John 
 Gordon coming into the drawing-room for a missing 
 letter some ten minutes after the catastrophe, found 
 Bella bandaging Lord Holyhead's hand, and the two 
 laughing merrily over the operation as if they had been 
 friends from childhood. 
 
 It seemed to take a long time, and indeed all band- 
 aging is a process requiring patience and dexterity. 
 Lord Holyhead thought that was a very artless, pleasing 
 face that looked up so kindly in his own, and ' hoped it 
 didn't hurt him ;' also that a man might have a worse 
 attendant, if he was really in a bad way, than a fresh- 
 hearted, good-natm-ed girl, helpful and unaffected, and 
 comely, too, besides. It came across him more than 
 once as he rode back into London how neatly she had 
 bandaged him up, how prettily she had behaved, how 
 * that daughter of Jones was a deuced nice girl.' 
 
 What Bella thought I cannot take upon me to say. 
 She certainly did not scold the parrot for his outbreak, 
 but rather caressed and coaxed him, venturing her own 
 pretty fingers without compunction; but Bella had a 
 good many other matters just then to distract her at- 
 tention from Polly and its misdemeanors. 
 
 She was no blinder than the rest of her sex. What 
 physical powers of vision are theu'S as compared to 
 ours ! Mufile up the keenest-eyed detective of the 
 force, in a widow's bonnet with a double crape veil, and 
 he will blunder about like an owl in the day-light ; but 
 watch the bereaved one herself in the same head-dress, 
 her eyesight seems to be rather stimulated than impaired 
 by that impervious material, and she is as well aware of
 
 AY DE MI 
 
 213 
 
 your glances of curiosity, perhaps admii'ation, as though 
 her brow were bared in shameless defiance, rather than 
 masked in the dense draperies of insidious design. 
 Their moral sense is equally acute. Try to deceive a 
 woman about your feelings, your likes and dislikes, youi- 
 little prejudices and foolish whims. She looks through 
 you at a glance. She detects your secret ere you have 
 hardly told it to yourself; well for you if she do not 
 abuse her power, and make it public to the whole circle 
 of her acquaintance. Therefore, it is a wholesome 
 maxim to have no secrets from a woman ; or if the 
 former be indispensable, to determine that the latter is 
 not. Bella knew there was something wrong; so she 
 counter-ordered the carriage, and waited all the morn- 
 ing, resolved to have some explanation before Mr. 
 Gordon went. It would be so much easier, she thought, 
 to ask him than papa ; and Mr. Gordon of course would 
 satisfy her curiosity : he was so frank and honest, and 
 always so kind to her. Nothing could be easier than 
 to get it all out of John Gordon ! 
 
 Luncheon was announced, and suffered to get cold. 
 What a long confabulation that seemed to be in papa's 
 room ; would it never be over ? At last a door opened, 
 ominous sound to nerves strained with expectation ; a 
 footstep crossed the hall towards the drawing-room. 
 John Gordon entered with his usual cold and unem- 
 barrassed air. It did not seem half so easy to cross- 
 question him now. 
 
 Bella rose from her chair, felt her knees trembling, 
 and sat down again. John stood Anglice with his back 
 to the empty fireplace ; Anglice also he broaxihed the 
 important subject in the most indifferent tones.
 
 214 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 * Miss Jones,' he began, ^ is there anything I can do 
 for you at Sydney ? ' 
 
 I don't believe she knew where Sydney was. From 
 his manner she might have inferred it was a little far- 
 ther ofif than Regent-street. 
 
 * At Sydney ! ' she gasped. ' What ! are you gomg 
 away ? I don't understand.' 
 
 'I am going across to Australia,' said John, as a 
 man would observe he was going to step * over the way.' 
 'It's a little matter of business, Miss Jones, and won't 
 take long to settle. What shall I bring you back ? A 
 couple of kangaroos would be very nice pets. I shall 
 be home in a year or eighteen months at farthest.' 
 
 A year or eighteen months ! And Bella was barely 
 twenty. It seemed a life-time. She snatched up some 
 needlework and stooped busily over it to conceal the 
 tears that were falling thick and fast upon her hands. 
 
 John observed her emotion, and somewhat wilfully 
 ignored its cause. At any rate, he thought it advis- 
 able to place it on some other score than his own de- 
 parture; so he resumed his conversation in a kind 
 and brotherly tone. 
 
 ' You ought to know. Miss Jones, that mercantile 
 people like om-selves are subject to certain ups and 
 downs which no amount of attention or probity can en- 
 tirely control. Your father's business has been much 
 neglected in Australia. It is possible that everything 
 might be lost in consequence of a failure there ' (John 
 had a discretionary power from the Alderman, who 
 dreaded breaking the matter to his daughter himself). 
 * Some one who is intimately acquainted with our affairs 
 should be on the spot ; and that is why I am going over
 
 ^AY DE MI!' 215 
 
 at such short notice. If worst come to the worst, 
 Bella,' he added, taking her hand, ' there will still be 
 enough saved to live upon ; and you will have your 
 father left. You don't know how fond he is of you, 
 Bella.' 
 
 The tears were falling unconcealed now. Mingled 
 feelings were forcing them to her eyes. She loved her 
 father very dearly ; and it was dreadful to hear worldly 
 ruin thus spoken of as no improbable contingency. 
 How touching, too, was John Gordon's sympathy and 
 brotherly kindness ; he had never spoken to her in such 
 a tone as this before ; and yet her woman's instinct told 
 her that it was a tone of protection rather than attach- 
 ment ; that it was not thus he would have alluded to 
 his departure, had he been exactly what she wished. 
 What did she wish him to be ? Poor girl ! she hardly 
 knew herself. So she had no resource but to go on cry- 
 ing; and having no more pertinent remark to make, 
 only sobbed out — 
 
 ' Such a long way off ! — such a long way off ! ' 
 
 John Gordon was not easily softened. He was sorry 
 for her, but that was all. 
 
 ' Bella,' said he, still retaining her hand, ' you have 
 a duty to perform. "VVe have all our different tasks in 
 a difficulty like the present. Yours is to comfort your 
 father, to keep up his spirits, and attend to his health. 
 Mine is to lose no time in making preparations. I 
 shall scarcely be able to see you again. God bless you, 
 Bella, and good bye.' 
 
 They were cold words, though they were so kind. 
 In honest truth, they were the kinder for being cold ; but 
 each by each sank very chill upon the girl's heart. Yet
 
 216 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 even then her thoughts were less for her own disappoint- 
 ment and loneliness than for his coming voyage. She 
 seized his hand in both of hers and pressed it affec- 
 tionately. 
 
 ^ Good bye,' she said, looking up with a face all blurred 
 with tears. You'll sail in a safe ship ; and promise me, 
 Mr. Gordon, promise me you won't go without a life- 
 belt!' 
 
 John could not forbear a smile. One more ' good bye,' 
 one more tight clasp of the hand, and he was gone. 
 
 Then the Alderman came in, and Bella had her ' cry' 
 out comfortably, sitting on her old father's knee and 
 leaning her forehead against his shoulder. To him it 
 was an immense comfort that he could talk matters over 
 with his child ; that there was no longer any conceal- 
 ment between them; and that now, even if the blow 
 did fall, it would not fall unexpectedly upon Bella. It 
 is strange how the old di-ead worldly ruin for their 
 children far more than for themselves ; that though 
 they have lived long enough to learn the low value of 
 rents and consols as promoters of happiness ; though 
 they have discovered that ' no7i ehur neque aurum ' 
 overlaying the roof of a palace, is to be compared 
 to the humble 'heartsease' that can flourish well enough 
 beneath a cottage wall ; though they have seen the rich 
 weary and dissatisfied, the poor hopeful and contented ; 
 they should still covet for their dearest that which they 
 are too well aware has never profited themselves. The 
 Alderman could have lived on two hundred a-year in 
 perfect comfort for his own part, but he had dreaded 
 breaking to Bella that they might have to manage 
 between them on something less than thrice that in-
 
 ^AY DE MI!' 217 
 
 come. Now they could talk it over unrestrained. Now 
 he could tell her of Lord Holyhead's magnanimity and 
 John Gordon's good management, and the business, and 
 the losses, and their past mistakes, and their prospects 
 for the future. 
 
 Bella cared very little for poverty. Like other wo- 
 men, she had been lavish enough of money when it was 
 abundant. Like them, too, she would be sparing of it 
 when it was scarce. Affairs brightened considerably, as 
 they generally do when people look them in the face. 
 And before they had sat together for an hour, Bella 
 was already loud in Lord Holyhead's praises, and had 
 made her father laugh at her description of his en- 
 counter with the paiTot; but of John Gordon and his 
 coming voyage, uppermost as the subject was in her 
 mind, poor Bella could not yet bring herself to speak.
 
 CHAPTER XVin. 
 
 ' BOX VOYAGE.' 
 
 IS a grand study of perspective, that long 
 straight vista of wide, substantial, respect- 
 able, Portland-place. Every time I look 
 down it I wonder anew at the spire in Lang- 
 ham-place, speculating whether it does really run up to 
 a point as sharp as a needle, and admiring hugely the 
 while that architectural enthusiasm which could dis- 
 cover either beauty or grandem- in the design of such a 
 structure. 
 
 The same idea would appear to have occurred to Lady 
 Gertrude as she sat back in her aunt's barouche gazing 
 into mid-air, and totally unconscious, as it would seem, 
 of a familiar step coming rapidly along the pavement 
 towards the carriage. 
 
 It is a long way, I say, from one end of Portland- 
 place to the other, and there are a good many pairs of 
 bay horses, and a good many liveries in London closely 
 resembling those of Lady Olivia. It must have been, 
 therefore, some purely accidental motive which prompted 
 John Gordon to stop his Hansom cab at the top of that 
 thoroughfare, and to dismiss it considerably over-paid a 
 long way short of its destination. Cupid, we all know, 
 is as blind as a bat, so the 'boy with the bow' could
 
 ^ BON VOYAGE.' 219 
 
 have had nothing to do with this proceeding, and though 
 John's eye was that of a hawk, he might have had far 
 more important subjects to occupy him than the colour 
 of a coat or the identity of a carriage. Besides, how 
 could he possibly distinguish it at such a distance? 
 He stopped the Hansom, nevertheless, and jumped out 
 incontinent. First he walked very fast, somewhat to 
 the surprise of his late driver, who followed, then he 
 relapsed into an enforced steady pace, resolving to pass 
 the carriage without speaking, but only taking off his 
 hat, a salute which might have been performed as ef- 
 fectually, if not so gracefully, from the hack-cab. Lastly, 
 he came to a halt, shook hands with Lady Gertrude, 
 leant his arm upon the barouche door, and held his 
 tongue. 
 
 The lady was delighted to see him ; * where had he 
 been these ages ? — and Gilbert — did he know anything 
 of Gilbert ? he has not been near us for a week.' 
 
 John's tones were very short and stem, as he replied, 
 * / have been engaged with business day and night, but 
 I cannot conceive how Gilbert can be absent from his 
 post. It is inexcusable in Am.' 
 
 ' Why?' asked the young Delilah, with an admirable 
 assumption of confusion, looking down the while, and 
 showing her eyelashes to great advantage. 
 
 John had not forgotten the last time he had seen the 
 cousins together, so he replied somewhat unfairly, 
 
 * Does not Gilbert belong to you f ' 
 
 She was resolved to punish him for diverse faults of 
 omission and commission, so she answered in a softened 
 tone, and still with downcast eyes, 
 
 ' Well, 80 he does, you know, to a certain extent; but
 
 220 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 he's very wilful, I assure you; I can't manage him a 
 bit sometimes.' 
 
 She was no mean physiognomist, my Lady Gertrude, 
 and she had studied the countenance opposite to her till 
 she had learnt it by heart, so she saw what no one else 
 would have remarked, the slightest possible quivering 
 of the eyelid, and in-drawing of the lip, therefore she 
 knew the last shaft had reached the inner ring. 
 
 It is poor fun for the target ; he moved haughtily 
 back to go away, head up, and the stern look deepening 
 visibly on his face. She had not half done with him 
 yet ; there was a whole sheaf of arrows left, and she 
 had no fear that the string would break : a woman never 
 has, till too late; and then who so aghast as Maid 
 Marion herself to find she cannot mend it again ? 
 
 ' Don't go yet, Mr. Gordon,' said she ; ' Aunt Olivia 
 won't have done her visit for half an hour at least. I 
 cannot stand old Mrs. Moribund, so I said I'd sit m the 
 carriage and wait. I always think of what you told me 
 about her that night at Lady Broadway's.' 
 
 Now that night at Lady Broadway's was one of John's 
 pleasant recollections. It matters not to you or me 
 why, but that its charms were somehow connected with 
 Lady Gertrude, we gather from her thus alluding to it 
 as a sweetener. 
 
 Mr. Gordon, as in duty bomid, placed his arm once 
 more on the carriage door. 
 
 It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he was 
 going to leave her with regret, to remind her of the 
 many pleasant hours they had spent together, to confess 
 to her that nothing but unavoidable necessity would 
 induce him to go so far from her, and to ask her in
 
 ^BON VOYAGE.' 221 
 
 a whisper inaudible to the serv^ants, not to forget him 
 entirely while he was away, but she tumbled the whole 
 fabric down herself, as they will, with a light word and 
 a scornful laugh. 
 
 ' How grave you look,' said she, ' you men of business 
 never can forget it even for an hour. Confess, now, 
 you're dying to get back to the City at this moment. 
 I wish Gilbert was here to take a sketch of you as the 
 Knight of the Rueful Countenance.' 
 
 John smiled grimly. 
 
 * I fear I cannot spare any more time, even to be 
 caricatured. Lady Gertrude,' said he ; ' I have a good 
 many things to do, because I am going out of town 
 to-night.' 
 
 ' Out of town ?' she rejoined, carelessly, ' where to ? 
 not Newmarket ? ' 
 
 It was John's turn to have a shot now. He drew the 
 bow to its full stretch with strong, pitiless arm. 
 
 ' To Sydney,' he said ; * good bye.' 
 
 It went deftly through the joints of her harness, and 
 quivered doubtless in the quick ; but it is the amazon's 
 instinct to conceal her hurt, even were it a death 
 wound ; and Lady Gertrude was a pullet of the game. 
 
 ' To Sydney ! ' she repeated ; ^ how sick you will be 
 in this east wind. Bon votjage^ and she laughed again 
 as she shook hands, but the laugh was forced and 
 somewhat feeble, and the farewell died out upon her 
 lips. 
 
 John walked steadily and slowly away ; he turned 
 out of the street without so much as looking back. She 
 could not forbear watching to see whether he would. 
 Step by step, she heard the measured tread die away,
 
 222 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 and from her seat in the carriage she watched the 
 retreating figure till it disappeared ; then her heart 
 smote her sore, and of course she was very angry with 
 him, quite as angry as if she had known that the 
 instant he was round the corner, he started off for the 
 City at the rate of five miles an hour. 
 
 This was their farewell, and a sufficiently uncomfort- 
 able one ; not much for a man to look back to in a 
 dismal sea voyage, spun out to weeks and months ; not 
 much for a young lady to dwell upon during the weary 
 process of undergoing pleasm-es from which the essence 
 has been extracted; but enough to make both regret 
 very keenly that they had shown so little consideration 
 for each other's feelings, so little providence in storing 
 up some small comfort for the vacant hours of the 
 future. 
 
 The pleasure of suffering is one of the peculiarities 
 of the human mind which I despair of ever being able 
 to analyse. Why does our nature wince so appre- 
 hensively from the slightest touch applied to a physical 
 wound, yet offer a moral one with such morbid eager- 
 ness to the probe ? Why are we pitiless in proportion 
 as we love ? delivering our fiercest thrusts at the bosom 
 we would gladly shield with our lives, and watching 
 the pangs of our victim with an exultation that suffi- 
 ciently avenges itself ? Doubtless we are endui'ing the 
 while tenfold what we inflict. Yet to my mind this 
 paradoxical explanation only serves to render the ten- 
 dency more incomprehensible. 
 
 The high-bred ones take their punishment too with 
 an unruffled brow. So long, at least, as a human eye 
 is on them, they preserve that noble regard for les con-
 
 223 
 
 venances which would seem to be the first of duties in 
 their moral creed. Dido, self-pierced on her funeral 
 pyre, would lay her queenly limbs to rest in no un- 
 seemly attitude. Cleopatra, be sure, applied the asp 
 where its festering bite would least disfigure the shapely 
 bosom. I have seen a gentle, soft-nui'tured lady stagger 
 as if she was shot at the fiat which was indeed to her 
 the equivalent of a death-sentence, yet rear her head a 
 moment afterwards to confront her fate with all the 
 defiant pride of a knightly Paladin, and I have won- 
 dered that the stem of the lily should resist like the 
 trunk of the oak. 'Tis strange how extremes meet, 
 how at either end of civilization the stoicism which 
 ignores pain should be considered a quality essential to 
 the dignity of man. I was sitting once on a western 
 prairie, in a lodge of Sioux Indians, brawny champions 
 they were, large of limb and indomitable of appetite, 
 smoking in solemn silence, and enjoying a pleasure of 
 which the pale-face is ignorant, the torpid luxury of 
 repletion. Two braves galloped into the camp with a 
 prisoner, and perhaps I was the only male present who 
 showed the slightest interest in the proceeding. A few 
 squaws, indeed, stared and pointed, jabbering to each 
 other with the natural tendency of their sex to examine 
 and enlarge upon a novelty; but the imperturbable 
 warriors confined themselves to a sonorous grunt and a 
 hitch of the blankets on their shoulders. 
 
 Yet was it a picturesque sight, too, and one to rivet 
 the attention even of a savage. The braves in their 
 war paint grim and ghastly, their grotesque fringes and 
 appointments ; beads, and thongs, and streaming scalp- 
 locks whirling about them as thev darted to and fro
 
 224 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 on their shaggy steeds, their weapons uplifted and 
 threatening in the bravado of triumph, and their war- 
 whoop ringing wild and shrill in the ears of their 
 captive, a welcome challenge once, a death-note now. 
 They seemed to have no modest scruples in celebratmg 
 their own exploits, and every sentence ended with a 
 brutal gibe at the fallen foe. He was a youth, ap- 
 parently not more than twenty years of age, slender of 
 limb, and delicate of feature, yet evidently already a 
 warrior of no mean reputation, by the barbaric splen- 
 dour of his accoutrements, above all by the trophies 
 hung around his neck, nothing less than the huge claws 
 of a grisly bear, the noblest collar of knighthood that 
 the Red Indian is fain to possess. I think if I was 
 asked whom I considered the most perfect specimen of 
 a gentleman that I have ever seen, I should say that 
 yomig brave of the Blackfeet. He never departed for 
 a moment from his bearing of calm, defiant com-tesy ; 
 to the taunts of his captors he made the most simple 
 and dignified replies, and the preparations for his 
 torture he contemplated with a quiet, uninterested ob- 
 servation which scarcely amounted to curiosity. 
 
 I will not detail the horrors that were inflicted on 
 him ; do what they would, it was impossible to make 
 him wince. His jjhijsiqiie seemed to be bronze, like his 
 skin, and still he preserved the same calm, courteous 
 expression of countenance throughout. Even his tor- 
 mentors were forced to acknowledge that his was a 
 scalp would grace the boldest warrior's belt. At last 
 they paused, wearied with their fiendish exertions ; and 
 then the young brave spoke. His deep guttural tones 
 were steady and measured, though low from exhaustion.
 
 ^BON VOYAGE.' 225 
 
 ' The sun is yet high,' said he ; ' are you wearied 
 already, that you will leave " the Leaping Deer- Wolf " 
 to go to sleep ? ' 
 
 They were his last words ; in a short half-hour his 
 scalp hung at the girdle of ' Steep-Rock,' who took 
 him ; and ' the Leaping Deer- Wolf ' was well on his 
 way to the happy hunting-grounds where the gi'ass 
 never withers, and the water never fails, and the buffalo 
 feed in countless thousands over the dreamy prairies 
 of the spirit-land. 
 
 So the highest pitch of refinement, though its ten- 
 dency must unquestionably be to render the nervous 
 system extremely susceptible, provides at the same 
 time a check upon their sensibilities, in the self-com- 
 mand which it exacts from its disciples. Total impassi- 
 bility is the chief qualification for the charmed cii'cle. 
 Are you pleased ? you must by no means exult and 
 clap your hands. Are you disgusted ? you shall stamp 
 not, neither shall you swear. A loud laugh is a 
 solecism only second in enormity to a wet cheek. To 
 be seen with the latter, it is needless to observe, would 
 condemn the sufferer at once. If you would be re- 
 spected, you must never subject yourself to pity; if 
 you would have influence, you must never seek for 
 sympatliy. 
 
 Lady Gertrude bore up bravely enough through a 
 wearisome round of morning visits, preferring to undergo 
 the platitudes of Lady Oliviu and her dowager friends, 
 rather than endure her o^vn society any more in the 
 open carriage. She was absent, no doubt, and answered 
 somewhat at random, not listening very attentively to 
 the conversation; nor can I affirm that she was any 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 great loser thereby, inasmuch as it consisted chiefly of 
 remarks concerning the weather, the medical man who 
 was first favourite for the time, and the crush last night 
 at Lady Pleiad's, all delivered in admonitory and by 
 no means approving spirit. It was a great relief to get 
 home to the canary and the arm-chair in the boudoir 
 upstairs. 
 
 * I'll ring when I want you,' said Lady Gertrude to 
 her officious maid, bustling in with the indispensable 
 cup of tea ; and then she locked the door, and put off 
 the heavy armour she had worn so bravely for hours, 
 and laid it by for a season, not to be resumed till the 
 melee to-night, and bathed her wounds, so to speak, en- 
 coui'aging them to bleed freely now that the pressure 
 was withdrawn. 
 
 She was no longer the frigid, fashionable young lady, 
 with cold eyes and haughty smile, regardless of all 
 alike, but the helpless, yielding woman, burying her 
 face in her white hands and weeping as if her heart 
 would break. 
 
 It did her good, though. She learned more about 
 Lady Gertrude in one of those paroxysms of sorrow, 
 than she had known in all her life before. The frost 
 must break up with storms and rain, and the floods 
 burst wildly down, carrying before them many a tangled 
 fence and artificial embankment, ere the saturated soil 
 can teem with life and hopes, ere the violet can peep 
 out, and the meadow don her grass-green kirtle, and 
 soft-eyed Spring smile welcome upon earth once more.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 'why do you go to the opera?' 
 
 E left Gilbert in a most uncomfortable frame 
 of mind, grieved, and bitter, and angry 
 above all with the person he best loved. It 
 is perhaps the mood in which we are least 
 disposed to take a rational or even a sane view of our 
 position. A man who thinks himself ill-used is invari- 
 ably selfish, he cannot take interest in any subject but 
 his grievance, and if it should be one on which good 
 taste forbids him to enlarge, he relapses into a state 
 of sudden dejection, and justifies himself for being ill- 
 tempered by assuming that he is bored. Ladies in a 
 parallel attack enjoy the privilege of pleading ill-health ; 
 what our neighbours call a migraine is an invaluable 
 refuge, and ' the nerves ' are to-day an excellent sub- 
 stitute for what our grandmothers denominated ' the 
 spleen.' But with the rougher sex such excuses are 
 simply absurd ; a fellow cannot ask you to believe he is 
 nervous, with the appetite of an Esquimaux and the 
 colour of a ploughman, while the plea of a headache, 
 unless it be a convivial one, you laugh ruthlessly to 
 scorn. There are two courses for him to pm-sue — 
 either to sulk by himself till he gets better, or to rush 
 into every description of amusement and dissipation till 
 
 Q2
 
 228 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 he forgets his own annoyances and his own identity. 
 Another and the only effectual remedy, namely, to busy 
 himself in fulfilling his duties and doing good, is so 
 rarely adopted, that I think it unnecessary to recommend 
 it, although certain sufferers who have honestly tried it 
 vouch most implicitly for its efficacy. The fashionable 
 cure, however, would seem to be continual change of 
 scene, and a course of what is humourously called 
 'gaiety.' 
 
 It was simply because he did not know what on 
 earth to do, that Gilbert found himself in the back of 
 Mrs. Montpellier's box at the opera, endeavouring to 
 adapt his manners and conversation to the locality. 
 Hurt he was, and sore, to think that he should have 
 been so duped by his own infatuation ; that he should 
 have flung himself so recklessly away without equiva- 
 lent. His pride was lowered, even his vanity was 
 wounded ; above all, his trust in his own better feelings 
 was shaken ; and herein he showed the nice judgment 
 and close reasoning of a man in love. It was just a 
 fortnight since he had seen Ada, a woman wdth whom 
 it was his dearest wish to spend an eternity, and that 
 one fortnight seemed to have made an irremediable 
 breach between them. Moreover, were he so determined, 
 there was no absolute impossibility to prevent their 
 meeting to-morrow or the next day, or some time within 
 the week ; but no, he preferred to torture himself by 
 imagining barriers which did not exist, and a thousand 
 improbabilities as unjust to her as they were derogatory 
 to him. 
 
 Therefore he exerted himself to appear gayer and in
 
 •WHY DO YOU GO TO THE OPER.V?' 229 
 
 better spirits than usual in the eyes of Mrs. Mont- 
 pellier, and those glittering orbs saw thi'ough him at a 
 glance, while their owner resolved, woman-like, to have 
 his secret ere he was many hours older ; also, woman- 
 like, we must in justice add, to assist him by all means 
 in her power, and stand by him through thick and thin. 
 So she made him sit m the chair close behind her, leaving 
 the place of honour opposite for such comers and goers 
 as she had no wish to detain, and began to feel her way 
 insidiously, as they do, with innocent questions. 
 
 ' Oflf duty to-night, Mr. Orme ? Your mother's box 
 I see is empty, and no Lady Gertrude.' 
 
 A movement of impatience betrayed him. 
 
 'I haven't seen Gertrude for a week,' he answered; 
 ' I should have dined with them on Sunday if I had not 
 been engaged to you. You see you make me forget all 
 my duties ; ' he laughed as he spoke, and began to scan 
 the house through his glasses. 
 
 ' And very absent and disagreeable you were,' said 
 she, crossing her two pretty forefingers as she laid them 
 on the cushion. ' Do you know, I think you have an 
 atrociously bad temper, Mr. Orme, or else you're very 
 unhappy about something or somebody. Come, I'm an 
 old friend, what is it ? ' 
 
 He smiled somewhat bitterly. He was thinking how 
 kind everybody else was to him, how they courted his 
 society, and appreciated whatever good qualities he 
 might have; why should one so neglect and despise 
 him ? He came to the front of the box and leaned his 
 elbows on it, still scanning the house with an abstracted, 
 vacant gaze ; and one sitting far back in an upper tier
 
 230 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 was devouring every featui'e of his face the while, 
 through a pair of bad glasses that tinged everything 
 with a pink hue, and was impressing, as it were, his 
 picture on her brain, for she was resolved never, never 
 to see him again ; at least, not till he was fakly mar- 
 ried to his cousin, and she could look back calmly and 
 even laugh at the impossible fancies of which she had 
 allowed herself to be the dupe. So, in the meantime, 
 it was doubtless judicious to give way to the influence 
 of the hour, the scene, the lights, above all, the music ; 
 to watch every turn of the dear face and the noble head, 
 to lose herself in an enraptm-ed dream of what might 
 have been had black been white, and everything changed, 
 and the whole social fabric overturned for her especial 
 bliss. 
 
 But even in the midst of this self-deluding vision 
 she was jealous of him. That was the most ridiculous 
 thino^ of all. Thouo-h she had resolved never so much 
 as to speak with him again, to abjure part or parcel in 
 his present, his future, everything but his past — she 
 could not quite give that up ; though she had clearly 
 resolved she had no right ever even to think of him 
 now, she could not help a pang of jealousy at his visible 
 attentions to another. She should not have minded 
 Lady Gertrude, she thought, so much, but who was this 
 dark-haired, dashing dame, in whose opera-box he 
 seemed so completely at home ? How she wished she 
 had a right to counsel him, to plead with him, to im- 
 plore him for his own and his wife's happiness to alter 
 his ways ! How she would have liked to write to him 
 a kind, persuasive letter, full of good advice and pure 
 sisterly interest, which perhaps he would answer, or
 
 •WHY DO YOU GO TO THE OPERA?' 231 
 
 would ask for an interview to have explained, and then 
 — the card-castle tumbled to pieces, as the chill con- 
 sciousness came back that they could have nothing 
 in common — nothing ! that between them there was 
 a great gulf, none the less impassable that it was 
 imaginary. 
 
 The pink-tinged glasses were useless to eyes dim with 
 tears. She laid them down and tm-ned wearily back to 
 the mock sufferings on the stage. 
 
 Bravom-a was singing her best and loudest, shuflSing 
 about on her knees in imitation of a star that shines no 
 longer. It was her favourite part, and required indeed 
 no little gymnastic prowess, as well as great vocal 
 powers, to fill to her own satisfaction. 
 
 The opera was perhaps more remarkable for dramatic 
 incident than lucidity of plot. Everybody was at- 
 tached to the wrong everybody else, and neither the 
 dagger nor the bowl was spared in order that Bravoura 
 might have the stage to herself for certain scenes, in 
 which her contralto would prove most effective. How 
 high she went up, how low she came doAvn, how spas- 
 modically she twisted the turns of her variations, how 
 she strained her massive throat, and grappled with her 
 deep bosom, in shouts of triumph or shrieks of woe, 
 never out of time or tune, it is impossible for a non- 
 professional to describe. Sufficient to say that Bra- 
 voura out-did herself, that Holyhead thought he never 
 saw her look so ugly, and that Mrs. Montpellier re- 
 sumed her cross-examination of Gilbert imder cover of 
 the noise. 
 
 * Mr. Orme,' she said, looking kindly and pityingly 
 in his face, ^ I am a good deal older than you. Dear
 
 232 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 me, I might be your mother almost — at least in India. 
 I should call you Gilbert if there was any one else in 
 the box. Tell me what it is that makes you so unlike 
 yourself? It's no use laughing and shaking your head, 
 and calling me "your dear Mrs. Montpellier." Of 
 com-se I'm your dear Mrs. Montpellier. I've always 
 stood up for you and fought your battles, and preferred 
 you to most people. That is why I never wished you 
 to make love to me ; and to do you justice, I don't 
 think you ever tried. I like you all the better, for I 
 don't want to lose you as a friend, and indeed I have not 
 too many as times go. Now you're a boy compared to 
 me. No, I don't dye my hau-, though I'm much 
 obliged to you for looking at it so suspiciously ; but I'm 
 nearly forty, all the same. Listen to me. I've seen 
 far more than you have. You know the world as pros- 
 perous peoj)le know it, just as you know this house all 
 lit up at midnight; but you haven't seen it cold and 
 comfortless at eleven o'clock in the day, and you don't 
 know yet what the real world is any more than a child. 
 Will I teach it you? I wish I could. You'll have to 
 learn some harder lessons than I would set you. That 
 is why I'm schooling you now, you innocent dunce. 
 I'm no cleverer than my neighbours; but you don't 
 suppose a woman goes through such a life as mine, is 
 married twice, and loses all I have lost ' (here the kind 
 voice trembled audibly) , ' to come out of the crucible 
 quite such a fool as she went in. Now you shall not 
 " come to grief," as you call it, because you have no 
 one to take an interest in you and warn you in time. 
 Tell me what your grievance is, and foi de femme^ I'll
 
 'WHY DO YOU GO TO THE OPERA?' 233 
 
 help you, if I have to cut off my right hand to do it — 
 bracelet and all. Is it money ?' 
 
 ' You are too kind/ he said, really touched by her 
 honest straightforward friendship and sweet womanly 
 sympathy. 'Money! You don't think so badly of 
 me, I hope, as to suppose such a difficulty as that 
 would make me unhappy ? ' 
 
 He spoke as a man does who has never kno^n what 
 it is to want a pound, much less a shilling. 
 
 ' I am glad of that,' she replied. ' Not but what I 
 could have helped you even then. I don't the least 
 mind theii' calhng me " the Begum ;" and wealth has 
 its advantages, no doubt. But still it is pleasanter to 
 have no dealings of that sort between you and me. 
 Well, if it isn't money, it must be love. Don't wince. 
 You've got into a scrape. Honestly now, there's a 
 woman at the bottom of all this ? Tell me the truth.' 
 
 Gilbert laughed and looked foolish. It seemed very 
 absurd to be thus cross-examined ; and yet he felt it 
 would be an immense relief to talk over his sorrows, and 
 he knew he could trust his companion — the stanchest 
 and most considerate of all confidants, a female friend. 
 
 'Yes,' he said, 'you're right. I don't mind telling 
 you there is a " somebody ;" but it's a foolish business. 
 It can never come to good, and I'm very unhappy 
 about it.' 
 
 ' Le lien cVautrid?^ she asked, with a sharp, eager 
 glance. ' Oh, Mr. Orme, for Heaven's sake, be wise ! 
 I have seen it so often, and I never knew it answer. 
 Go out of to^vn — go abroad — go to India even — any- 
 thing rather than that."*
 
 234 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 Her obvious earnestness gave him confidence. 
 
 ' No, no,' he replied ; ^ if it were so, I believe I 
 should go mad. But I know you mean what you say. 
 I know you won't show me up. I know you would help 
 me if you could. Give me your advice, and tell me 
 what I ought to do.' 
 
 So mth many breaks and stoppages, and much hesi- 
 tation, out it all came ; — how he had met the siren, and 
 heard her seductive strains, and fallen a victim to the 
 charm of the ear and the lust of the eye, and above all, 
 the lono-ino^ of the heart — how he had watched for her, 
 and worshipped her rather as an angel than a woman — 
 and how her very station was his greatest impediment, 
 not because it was inferior to his own, but lest she 
 should dream for an instant that he presumed on such 
 inferiority, for indeed with all her softness and attrac- 
 tions she had the bearing of a queen. Whereat Mrs. 
 Montpellier smiled, recalling the while certain similar 
 rhapsodies that had once been whispered in her own ear. 
 'If they only knew us,' thought Mrs. Montpellier, 
 ' they wouldn't imagine us to be either angels or 
 queens ; but men are such fools, they never can under- 
 stand that the same bait which takes a sprat will take 
 a salmon, and that Cinderella in the ball-room is no 
 more invulnerable than Cinderella in the kitchen.' 
 Gilbert meanwhile, floundering about in his confessions, 
 was compelled to acknowledge the real profession and 
 antecedents of his divinity. To do him justice, he 
 rather gloried in them at heart, but yet the force of 
 habit and education was so strong that he could not 
 help looking appealingly in his listener's face while he 
 told his tale.
 
 WHY DO YOU GO TO THE OPEEA; 
 
 235 
 
 There was that in his glowing earaest countenance 
 and the accent of his voice which spoke of faith, and 
 sincerity, and depth of feeling for which, prejudiced as 
 she was in his favour, she would scarcely have given 
 him credit. Could this be the careless, good-humoured 
 dandy who was proverbial for his utter insouciance and 
 hardness of heart ? She began to experience a certain 
 curiosity as to the ' somebody ' who could have taken 
 captive this champion among the Philistines, and longed 
 to see the weapon that could thus pierce an armoui' of 
 proof hitherto deemed impenetrable. Many motives 
 combined to interest her in the progress of an attach- 
 ment which partook of the nature both of tragedy and 
 farce, which might turn out either in its denouement^ 
 but which she began to suspect was rather too strong to 
 be pleasant to the actors immediately concerned; for 
 she could not but conceive that the * somebody ' must 
 be as devoted to Gilbert as he obviously was to her. 
 So she pondered for a minute or so before she spoke, 
 and Bravoura's roulades made the chandeliers jingle 
 again the while. 
 
 * And you like her very much?' she said, in a low, 
 impressive tone. 
 
 By the way, why does a Avoman love her dog, her 
 china, her new dress, but only talks of liking when it is 
 a case of an unfortunate in the toils ? Probably on the 
 same principle that the spider likes the bluebottle buz- 
 zing in her web, to the destruction of the fabric, but 
 also to the clumsy insect's own utter discomfiture. 
 
 * I would do anything on earth for her,' answered 
 Gilbert, in a tone of suppressed feeling. * She's the 
 only woman in the world to me.'
 
 236 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 ' And you wouldn't injure her or vex her, or make 
 her unhappy m any way ? ' pursued the lady. 
 
 ^ I would give my life to preserve one of the hairs 
 of her head,' was his reply. ' I tell you, there is no- 
 thing I wouldn't do, nothing I wouldn't endure, to spare 
 her a moment's sorrow or mieasiriess.' 
 
 ' And yet, Mr. Orme, you couldn't well marry a 
 music-mistress,' observed Mrs. Montpellier, quite sim- 
 ply and quietly. 
 
 Now such a remark as this with nine men out of 
 ten would have been judicious and effective. It was 
 indeed as the old Roman would say, ' touching the 
 matter with the point of a needle;' it was placing 
 before him in the clearest light the absm-dity of his 
 position, disillusionizing him in the most simple matter- 
 of-fact way of the romance in which he had chosen 
 to wrap himself up. It ignored all heroism and mar- 
 tyrdom, and such morbid exaggeration, and was but 
 a civil manner of expressing a sentiment which is 
 seldom without its due influence — ' What a fool Mrs. 
 Grundy will think you ! ' — and as such it was no doubt 
 a weighty and unanswerable argument. 
 
 But Gilbert didn't care for Mrs. Grundy. That 
 ubiquitous lady had petted and encouraged him till, 
 like any other spoiled child, he was very regardless of 
 the good opinion of his nurse. ' You couldn't weU 
 marry a music-mistress.' This was exactly the ques- 
 tion he had never yet asked himself point-blank. It 
 was now brought before him as a foregone conclusion, 
 a social impossibility. OouIchiH he f We should see ! 
 There was a strong leavening of opposition in his cha- 
 racter, as there is in most of those who are capable of
 
 •WHY DO YOU GO TO THE OPERA?' 237 
 
 self-sacrifice, and to such a temperament as his it was 
 delightful to think that he had much to give^ that the 
 condescension would not be all on his mistress's side : 
 for, like a true knight, he had never thought of him- 
 self as worthy of the least of her regards. After all, 
 this would solve the difficulty at once. He would find 
 her out if the world held her ; he would see her again 
 before he was twenty-foui' hours older. ^Irs. Mont- 
 pellier had suggested the very thing he would give all 
 he had to accomplish; and he made an inward vow, as 
 he folded that lady carefully in her shawl, that he 
 toould marry the music-mistress if she could be induced 
 to accept him. The latter contingency would probably 
 scarce have occurred to any one else, certainly not to 
 a disheartening extent ; but it was sui'e to cast a gloom 
 over the visions of one who was deeply and truly in 
 love. 
 
 As he took ^Irs. Montpellier to her carriage, good- 
 natured friends in the crush-room arrived at their own 
 conclusions as to then- sudden alliance. He had been 
 in her box all the evening ! — he had never left her for 
 an instant ! Even now they seemed to be whispering 
 about somethmg venj interesting. "What would Lady 
 Gertrude say ? and Mr. Montpellier ? — if he was really 
 alive, which many people affirmed, or if, as Lady Visi- 
 goth observed, ' there ever ivas such a person ;' ' not 
 that she was surprised the least — it was all of a piece — 
 young Orme was going fast to the dogs, no doubt, 
 but she couldn't blame him. And really, now, the 
 woman was old enough to be his mother ! '
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 
 
 IKE all old people, I must tell my story my 
 own way or not at all. I have seen my 
 grandmother (now I trust canonized) drivel- 
 ling over her knitting during a live-long 
 summer's day. Here she would skip a whole row, 
 with that appeai-ance of carelessness which is perhaps 
 the greatest triumph of art; there she would 'drop 
 three stitches and take up one ' with grave perseverance 
 and perplexing ingenuity. Anon the ball of worsted 
 woidd roll off her venerable knees, and escape into all 
 sorts of impracticable corners, an object for the gambols 
 of the kitten or the admiration of the two-year-old 
 sprawling on the floor. Sometimes the work would 
 seem to progress, sometimes to retrograde. Yesterday, 
 all four pms revolving like the arms of a windmill ; 
 to-day, two or three of them stationary as the legs of 
 a pianoforte, — yet somehow the task went on ; through 
 every dilemma, through every misadventure, the fabric 
 grew larger, and a ribbed worsted stocking, that it 
 tickled you to look at, was the eventual result. Is it 
 not so with ' a tale that is told ? ' The thread is con- 
 tinually escaping, the work constantly entangled, the 
 pins seldom equably sharmg the toil. StiU, row by row,
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 239 
 
 and line by line, the manufacture comes to a conclusion ; 
 and like the stocking, is footed and finished, and pro- 
 duced with all its imperfections, to be used and worn 
 out, or to be condemned, and put away. 
 
 My ball is rollmg to-day beyond the reach of child 
 or kitten, far out upon the floor. This is to be a 
 chapter devoted to moralizing. Like knitting, it is a 
 humble, prosaic, and somniferous pursuit ; like knitting 
 also, such as it is, it has a certain result. You can 
 always skip it and pass on, or you can wade through 
 it with laborious condescension, marking the while 
 where the skein is entangled and the stitches have 
 been dropped. 
 
 I have heard of a ship sailing for a distant port, 
 well-manned, well-provisioned, well-found in stores, and 
 taokle, and every kind of gear. Her destination was 
 familiar to captain and crew, her charts were clear and 
 accurate, she lay her course to a nicety by the bearings 
 of her compasses; and yet this ship went ashore five 
 hundred miles and more out of her due reckoning, and 
 so going to pieces, was lost with all her cargo upon a 
 reef. The underwriters were beside themselves. Never 
 was such a thing known ! The captain must have been 
 mad, or drunk, or incompetent — perhaps all three ; he 
 deserved to be drowned, which he was not, and his 
 escape was the more fortunate as he was enabled 
 eventually to account for the catastrophe. 
 
 He had studied his charts and taken his bearings 
 a<;curately; he had not neglected his duty for an in- 
 stant, and the ship's head had never wavered a point 
 off her safest course. She answered her helm admi- 
 rably, and the alternate Tritons at the wheel were able
 
 240 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 seamen one and all, wlio could steer lier to an inch by 
 the compasses before them. And here was the whole 
 mischief — the compass itself was m error. A quantity 
 of ii'on, placed for greater secuiitj about the binnacle, 
 had caused a considerable variation of the magnetic 
 needle ; and the very instrument that should have been 
 her truest safeguard, proved that hapless ship's de- 
 struction. Many days of cloudy weather had prevented 
 her ofl&cers from taking a celestial observation; and the 
 influence of the currents, as usual, had considerably 
 affected her dead-reckoning. Thus she drove forward 
 in perfect confidence, faster and faster towards her fate 
 — struck — filled — broke up — and so went down. 
 
 How often I thmk of that ship when I reflect on 
 the wide ocean of life. What avail all the blocks and 
 spars, and canvas of the prosperous bark, the friends 
 who smTound and support us, the advantages of posi- 
 tion, rank, or genius ; nay, the very wealth that fills 
 our sails? What avails the well-known chart that 
 most of us study at least once in the week, that warns 
 us of every shoal and every danger, and shows us the 
 only true course to lead to the wished-for haven? 
 What avails the dead reckoning of respectability and 
 worldly advantage, and self-interest ? — nay, the very 
 compass of ethical morality itself, — if we never take 
 a celestial observation on oui' o^^ii account, if we never 
 bend the knees in humility and raise the eyes to heaven 
 in prayer ? 
 
 This alone can save us from shipwi^eck. All other 
 precautions are good in their way — wise, discreet, and 
 advantageous — but this is indispensable. Many a great 
 mind has neglected it — many a code of exceeding sub-
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 241 
 
 tlety and sagacity has omitted it from its scheme. 
 What has been the result ? The highest phase to ^vhich 
 heathen magnanimity could attain was but suicide, 
 after all. Cato, steeped in the ethics of Aristocles, 
 surnamed Plato, could find no better solution for a 
 difficulty than the point of his reverted blade. Was 
 this all that could be learned from the sage who com- 
 bined the dreams of Heraclitus, the opinions of Pythag- 
 oras, and the sounder conclusions of Socrates, to form 
 his own ideal of perfection ? What are all the specu- 
 lations of philosophy, the doctrines of the Porch, the 
 disquisitions of the Schools, compared with a single 
 sentence of the carpenter's Son ? Which of us would 
 now prefer to ' err with Plato ' rather than be wise with 
 ' one of these little ones ? ' It needed not eighteen 
 centuries of progressive improvement to teach us the 
 obvious lesson — 
 
 But I hold the grey barbarian lower than the Christian child ! 
 
 At the risk of being esteemed as tedious and discur- 
 sive as the old lady to whom I have already respectfully 
 alluded, I pursue my admonitory theme. It is for this 
 ' Christian child ' that I would venture to put in an 
 appeal. Are we not too prone to teach the little one 
 lessons of self-reliance and self-guidance, omitting or 
 rather ignoring the important consideration that man 
 is not a self-regulating machine ? If the urchin is 
 hungry, he does not go to the servants for a modicum 
 of flour and the loan of a rolling-pin, to make himself 
 such a morsel as his soul loveth, but he seeks mamma 
 and asks for a slice of bread and jam, or a bit of cake, 
 as the case may be. So when he is sent swelling and 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 242 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 silent to enjoy his own society in disgrace, till ' lie is 
 good,' would it not be well to show him the shortest and 
 easiest method of arriving at that desirable state ? — to 
 teach him that he cannot make himself good, any more 
 than in sickness he can make himself well ; but that he 
 can ask in the one dilemma as in the other for what he 
 wants, and so surely as he asks will he obtain the remedy. 
 It is the nature of a child to be dependent ; it is his 
 nature to pray. It is well to lead him to it when it is 
 so easy and so familiar. God forbid he should wait till 
 he is driven to it in manhood by the pressure of a great 
 agony, though even this be preferable to his passing out 
 of life without bending the knee at all. What is a 
 man's first exclamation when he is shot through the 
 lungs? What is the first outcry of despair from a 
 broken heart ? In either case, the sufferer calls in- 
 stinctively on his Maker. Be he a poor workman in 
 a foundry, an obscure private in the ranks, or one who 
 has spent his life in purple and fine linen, with all that 
 the world holds best worth having at his feet, — each 
 child m its extremity appeals almost unconsciously to 
 its Father. The soul flying to the lips renders this 
 involuntary homage to its God. 
 
 ]\Ian has been defined by sundry quaint conceits ; — 
 as a laughing animal, a weeping animal — nay, even a 
 cooking animal. It seems to me that he is essentially 
 a worshipping animal, that his very organization forbids 
 him to stand alone, and compels him to lean on some 
 being or some principle stronger than himself. All the 
 greatest and wisest of the earth have practically ac- 
 knowledged this necessity. Clever wits and ready 
 talkers may have ridiculed and ignored it, but clever
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 243 
 
 wits and ready talkers have not swayed the destinies of 
 the world. Alexander of Macedon did not disdain to 
 worship the heathen Jove, with whom he claimed affinity, 
 as David, the warrior king, exulted in the homage he 
 offered to the true God. Why should the polished 
 Greek have trusted in his Delphic oracle, and the grim 
 Scandinavian brooded over the runes of his ancestral 
 faith ? Because Xenophon's ten thousand and Erl 
 Harald's vikings were in this respect but little children 
 — ruthless warriors, daring adventurers, helmed and 
 plumed and steeped to the elbows in blood, but still in 
 this one weakness little children and of the same family. 
 Superstition is but faith exaggerated — fanaticism is but 
 religion gone mad. The human race are willing slaves 
 of the one, sadly prone to the other; but this only 
 proves that the principle of worship is inherent in their 
 nature, and that pantheism rather than atheism is the 
 extreme to which they tend. 
 
 How easy then is it, and how profitable, to lead a 
 child in the right way. What a responsibility is theirs 
 who have the guidance of youth. What an old meta- 
 phor that is about the pebble which turns hither or 
 thither the course of a mountain rill, but how sugges- 
 tive too. It is no trifling consideration whether the 
 mighty flood shall eventually roll into the easternmost 
 or the westernmost ocean. How often do I reproach 
 myself with my negligence towards my pupil. Woe is 
 me ! for I had already learned the lesson on my ovm. 
 account, had been crushed and humbled and beaten 
 * with many stripes ' for my sins. Yet was I content 
 to pore with him over the character of every sage in 
 history, to discuss the belief, the career, the doctrine of 
 
 K 2
 
 244 GOOD FOR NOTHIXa. 
 
 each, and pass by the Man of Sorrows in silence as 
 though he were but a fabulous personage after all ; nay, 
 could read the Greek Testament, and dwell upon the 
 purity of its language, the simplicity of its expressions, 
 the very mood and tense of a verb, whilst I neglected 
 or slurred over the Divine Spirit that vivified and sanc- 
 tified the whole. What is education, after all ? Is it a 
 dull routine like the work of a horse in a mill, to be 
 trod by every disposition alike ? Is it sufficient that 
 each disciple should be taught in turn to construe, and 
 parse, and scan — to admire old Homer's hexameters with 
 Dacier, and criticise Horace's iambics with Anthon? 
 — nay, to obtain a thorough insight into, and acquaint- 
 ance with, the elegancies and the manners of Greece 
 and Rome, the while trigonometry, logarithms, and 
 conic sections are not wholly neglected? Or is it a 
 preparatory course of training for the great struggle 
 that every child of man must hereafter wage, of which 
 the prize is — what ? — success in this life ? Who was 
 ever satisfied with it ? Earthly happiness ? Who will 
 confess to it ? A quiet heart ? Who has got it ? What 
 then ? If it be what twelve poor Jews affirmed nearly 
 two thousand years ago they knew it was, by direct in- 
 spiration — if it be what some millions of the bravest, 
 and gentlest, and best on earth have since died believing 
 it — if it be that without which you have perhaps never 
 pictured to yourself what a blank would be your own 
 identity — then surely it is not well to ignore in your 
 preparation of the candidate the very aim and end jou 
 would fit him to attain. 
 
 I might have done much with Gilbert that I neglected 
 to do. I could at least have sown broadcast a few
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 245 
 
 grains of the good seed which so multiplies in a fertile 
 soil under God's blessed sunshine. Here a little and 
 there a little, and in that warm, kindly heart what a 
 goodly harvest might have been the result. I dare not 
 dwell on the contingency now. 
 
 Still, if he had but had a mother, Gilbert's disposi- 
 tion would have been so different. If Lady Olivia could 
 but have looked upon the boy as it is woman's instinct 
 to look even on a stranger's child, if she had not thrust 
 his tenderness away from her, and taught him, as it 
 were, that to his mother alone he was unwelcome, her 
 influence with a youth of his character would have been 
 paramount. He was so tractable, so docile, so easily 
 led. He was so loving and considerate to all that came 
 about him, from his frightful old nurse down to ' Mouse,' 
 the longsuffering and never-resting pony. Brave and 
 high-spii-ited as the boy was, a word of kindness would 
 at any time bring the tears to his eyes. He would have 
 required no teaching to love his mother, and his mother 
 might so easily have taught him to love his God. 
 
 And yet Lady Olivia was what the world called a 
 * religious woman ' — a person of ' excellent principles ' 
 — cold, pitiless, and unwavering. To be punctual in 
 your payments, to * give tithes of all you possess,' to 
 exact implicit obedience from your inferiors, to offer 
 outward homage to your betters, and to return with 
 scrupulous accuracy the courtesies of your equals, this 
 is to be thoroughly respectable, and for this be sure 
 you will obtain your reward. You have never been 
 tempted ; therefore you shall spurn the fallen : you have 
 never been in need ; therefore you shall in no wise 
 stretch a helping hand to the unfortunate. The outside
 
 246 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 at least of jour own cup and platter you have kept 
 clean and unseamed ; so when your neighbour's pitcher 
 is broken, you shall stand exulting at the well-mouth, 
 and mock his agony of thirst. All this is to be 
 worldly-wise and worldly virtuous. All this is to be 
 eminent in a service of which the rewards are im- 
 mediate and tangible, of which the medals and decora- 
 tions hang glittering outside your breast ; but I doubt 
 hugely if it be the service of the cross. I doubt it 
 may be but disobedience and rank mutiny in the eyes 
 of Him who came to call, ' not the righteous, but sin- 
 ners, to repentance.' 
 
 Lady Olivia called herself a miserable sinner once a 
 week ; also once a week she heard poor Gilbert his 
 catechism, as lucidly set forth in the Book of Common 
 Prayer for the instruction of young Christians. The 
 boy repeated it scrupulously by rote, standing the while 
 on one particular square of the carpet, in a perfect 
 perspiration of fear lest he should omit or mistake a 
 single word. The slightest error was corrected with 
 merciless severity : the task was fulfilled with un- 
 deviating exactitude. Whether this method of teaching 
 the sublime and simple truths of our beautiful faith 
 be the most advisable, it is not for me to question. I 
 would only ask you, sir, a man of forty, if you can at 
 this moment say the Church Catechism by heart ? if you 
 can explain it to your own satisfaction ? if you can make 
 that explanation clear to the intelligence of a child ? 
 
 As the boy grew up, it was not likely that he would 
 submit to the control of a mother who ruled by fear 
 rather than love. Petticoat influence, indeed, is seldom 
 either much regarded or dreaded by a man under
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 
 
 247 
 
 thirty. Bj degrees he slipped his neck out of the 
 yoke, I am bound to say with perfect temper and good 
 conduct. He never spoke harshly or disrespectfully to 
 Lady Olivia, but he simply absented himself as much 
 as possible from her society, and ignored her authority 
 altogether. Such a state of things was unnatural, and 
 could not possibly lead to good. Then came all the 
 excitement and temptations of the great world to be 
 encountered in their most seductive form, without the 
 one controlling principle which steadies even when it 
 fails to guide, as the helm of a ship keeps her head 
 well up to windward in a gale. A young man of 
 fortune loose upon London, without domestic ties, and 
 without a strong sense of religion, is not unlikely to 
 make shipwreck. That Gilbert escaped so long, I can 
 only attribute to his excellent natural disposition, to a 
 certain degree of innate refinement that shrank in- 
 tuitively from vice, even when the dame draped herself, 
 as she well knows how to do, in her daintiest attire, 
 and to a grave brotherly regard he entertained for his 
 cousin Gertrude, whose alternate sarcasms and good 
 counsels did not fail on more than one occasion to rouse 
 in him that sense of self-respect and that strength of 
 self-control which the extremes of prosperity and ad- 
 versity are so prone to annihilate. 
 
 Why he never fell in love with Gertrude it is not 
 easy to say. Perhaps the very facility of winning pre- 
 vented him from entering the arena : perhaps the most 
 tempting fruit is always that which hangs out of reach, 
 and it is poor sport to strike the quarry without the 
 excitement of the chase. At the time when my story 
 opens, the girl had almost made up her mmd to marry
 
 248 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 him, and when such young ladies are in earnest they 
 are not easily foiled. It is folly to speculate on what 
 might have been. Would such a marriage have ensm^ed 
 his happiness here and hereafter ? or would it but have 
 made confusion worse confounded? There is no such 
 thing as a suppositional past; and yet how prone we 
 are to lament and bewail. * If I had only known. If 
 I had but been a day sooner.' If so, you would have 
 been a different person, under different circumstances, 
 in a different world; and the whole hypothesis explodes 
 in its own absurdity. 
 
 Long before he was thirty Gilbert had become a 
 good-humoured, easy, unprmcipled man of the world. 
 I use the latter adjective in its narrowest sense. I do 
 not mean to say that he was capable of any infamous 
 act, and for what the world calls honoui', he had the 
 most scrupulous regard ; but I do mean to say that of 
 such latitude as that world allows, totally irrespective 
 of religion and morality, he was quite ready to avail 
 himself. Like the bulk of his associates, he was also 
 somewhat hored and hlase^ as those must always be 
 who expend immortal energies in hunting butterflies; 
 but like them, he accepted this weariness as an indis- 
 pensable condition, and only strove to dispel it by a 
 fresh pursuit after a fresh insect. 
 
 If the butterflies had been all alike, flitting the same 
 unvarying round within the garden walls, this would 
 have been of less importance, but in a fatal moment he 
 was attracted by one of fairy colours and far extended 
 flight. Hot, breathless, and exhausted, he foUoAved it 
 beyond the bounds of lawn and pleasure-grounds, far 
 out and away into the wilderness. When Gilbert
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 249 
 
 Orme first met Ada Latimer, he thought he had ex- 
 hausted all the sensations and experiences of life. He 
 fancied in his ignorance (was it pitiful or enviable ?) 
 that he had felt everything, done everything, that he 
 was getting old in mind if not in body, and that there 
 was very little left worth living for, but the common 
 needs of every-day existence. To awake from such a 
 state of torpidity was in itself delicious. There was a 
 zest in everything now that even boyhood had failed to 
 find ; he triumphed like a miser in his newly-discovered 
 treasure, pondered on it in secret, and hid it away in 
 his inmost heart. In such a disposition as his there 
 was a considerable leavening of the womanly element, 
 which makes an amiable companion, but a weak man. 
 The ^ hesoin cVaimer ' was strong within him. He had 
 never got through that disease which, like the measles, 
 it is best to encounter in early life, consequently it 
 took a firm hold of his constitution. He had often 
 been grazed before, but never hit, consequently the 
 wound assumed an undue importance, and he pulled it 
 about, and probed it till it festered and spread over his 
 whole being. 
 
 His was a temperament capable of going any length 
 where the affections as well as the passions were con- 
 cerned. I have seen him when a boy, plunge into a 
 study which interested, or take up an amusement which 
 fascinated him, with an energy and a persistency that 
 of themselves predicated success. Contrary to one of 
 the fundamental rules of mechanics, his vioJentuin was 
 aXso perpetuum, and he was a rare instance of impetu- 
 osity and perseverance combined. Beneath tliat care- 
 less, indolent exterior lay, dormant indeed, but only
 
 250 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 waiting to be aroused, strong passions, unbending reso- 
 lution, an iron will that could strike fiercely on the 
 instant, or wait doggedly for years, the whole tempered 
 by a rare generosity and kindliness of heart. Such a 
 character indeed is powerful for good or for evil, such 
 a character above all others requires some guidance 
 superior to the sordid motives that commonly sway 
 mankind. 
 
 I have heard a theory broached which at first sight 
 may appear untenable, but on which the more I reflect, 
 the more I am convinced it contains a considerable 
 leavening of truth. It is this, that there is a strong 
 similarity in the characters of the very good and the 
 very bad, nay, that their prevailing qualities are 
 actually identical, and that the difierence, as in the 
 mountain stream, depends upon the channel into which 
 they may happen to be tm^ned. It is a startling con- 
 sideration truly, and more especially for those who 
 have to do with the young. Doubtless it is difficult 
 to define the exact point at which a virtue carried too 
 far passes into its corresponding vice. It requires, 
 indeed, a skilful moralist to decide where faith ends and 
 fanaticism begins — where courage becomes rashness, 
 decision degenerates into self-conceit, or perseverance 
 petrifies into obstinacy. The more I reflect on such 
 ethical inconsistencies, the more hopelessly I lose myself 
 in a maze of conjecture from which I feel there is no 
 egress but by the light of revelation. No system of 
 man's philosophy has ever yet been sufficient to satisfy 
 the cravings of man's reasoning powers. It is better to 
 accept humbly what we feel we cannot do without ; it 
 is better to believe than to understand, and while we
 
 THE FALSE GOD. 251 
 
 take morality as a staff, to hold fast by religion as a 
 guide. 
 
 Yes, we come back at last to the Druid's stones, to 
 the Norseman's runes^ to the Pythian oracle, and the 
 Papist's mother of God. "We must worship something. 
 Have we not the simplest and noblest faith that was 
 ever believed by man? Can we not worship as that 
 faith enjoins ? 
 
 There was no want of veneration in Gilbert. He 
 was capable of a fanatic's devotion, body, and heart, 
 and soul. God help him ! it was no cold, self-sujB&cing 
 temperament that made such havoc with my boy. 
 
 ' Little children, keep yourselves from idols !' Even 
 in these Christian times idolatry is one of the crying 
 sins of the human race. Be it the money-worship 
 that reduces every thought and feeling to a golden 
 standard — be it the ambition that leaves not a moment 
 for reflection or repose — be it the more amiable yet no 
 less fatal folly that exalts a fellow-creature into a 
 divinity — too surely does it mete out for itself its own 
 retribution. It is a fine thing to be rich. It is grand 
 to have power, and station, and influence. Above all, 
 it is a golden dream to love. How sweet is it to trea- 
 sure up something so dearly ! how ennobling to adore it 
 so devotedly ! what unspeakable happiness in the utter 
 self-abandonment and self-sacrifice ! can any pleasure 
 of gain or success compare with that which we feel in 
 pouring out all our wealth of life and hopes at our 
 idol's feet? — and yet — I wonder what the poor negro 
 thinks of his Fetish when, as must sometimes happen, 
 he finds it break to pieces in his hand ?
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A BOLD FRONT. 
 
 HAVE often pondered whether the Marble 
 Bride was marhle all through ; whether that 
 astonished bridegroom whose betrothal in 
 the tennis-court was so unguardedly brought 
 about, took sujfficient pains to thaw the stone-cold lady 
 who was good enough to chill his uncomfortable couch. 
 Is he the only gallant who has placed a ring on the finger 
 of an Image — ay, and found the finger curve itself so 
 inflexibly that the ring would never come oiF again? 
 And should he not have endeavoured more diligently to 
 penetrate the outward insensibility that resisted him, 
 and to discover the living, loving woman, warm within 
 that seeming statue-bride ? 
 
 I don't think that Ada Latimer was flint to the very 
 centre. I have my doubts that the outer^ mistrusted 
 hugely, and so misrepresented, the hmer woman, and I 
 am not satisfied in my own mind that people usually 
 take infinite pains to avoid those who are indifferent to 
 them. Truth to tell, Ada's self-imposed penance be- 
 gan to grow very irksome. It was one thing to resolve 
 that there could be nothing in common between herself 
 and this dangerous fascination, and another to resign 
 altogether even the merit of resisting its influence.
 
 A BOLD FRONT. 253 
 
 Wliilst she knew he was watching for her at every 
 turn, and thinking of her every hour in the day, it was 
 neither difficult nor altogether without a morbid grati- 
 fication of its own, to disappoint and torment him, and 
 glory in the firmness and good sense that could thus 
 triumph over temptation ; but when he was gone out of 
 town and far away, when he was surrounded by scenes 
 and people with whom she had nothing to do ; when it 
 was Jiis turn to be rational and strong-minded, and alive 
 to his own interests, how would it be then ? Ada began 
 to think that prudence might be carried too far, that 
 she had wilfully ill-used one from whom she had ex- 
 perienced unvarying deference and consideration ; that 
 she had been hasty, selfish, unjust, unkind. So surely 
 as she got to this last word the tears rose to her e3^es, 
 and she thought how weak, how foolish, and how un- 
 happy she was. 
 
 We have no English exponent for an uncomfortable 
 feeling which our neighbom-s call intie de soi-meme. It 
 is an enervating and deleterious sentiment, but by no 
 means rare in either sex when under the influence of 
 each other's attractions. Ada suffered from it in- 
 tensely. It seemed so hard that she must work, work 
 all her days, and never be happy. She felt so wasted 
 in her lonely, loveless life; she who knew her own 
 powers so well — as all do if they only would confess it ; 
 she who could have made such a home for one she loved, 
 and been so happy in it herself, and it was not to be ! 
 She must not even have the ideal pleasure of worship- 
 ping a sentiment, a dream, a myth ; for after all, this 
 Mr. Orme had but been trifling with her and awaken- 
 ing her interest under false pretences. She had seen
 
 254 
 
 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 him herself only last night at the Opera, in that dark 
 bold-looking woman's box, apparently completely en- 
 grossed by his entertainer ; and the face she was begin- 
 ning to know so well rose up before her, and the kind 
 eyes were looking into her own once more, till it seemed 
 impossible he could be so false and unfeeling. And yet 
 what had he to do there the whole evening, never once 
 looking at the stage — for she had watched him nar- 
 rowly, be sure — and talking all the time with such 
 absorbing interest. If he were indeed so utterly unwor- 
 thy, she ought to hate him ; she would hate him ! No ; 
 she would hate herself for loving him through it all. 
 
 Then she reflected this was worse and worse. Yii'tu- 
 ally, was he not even now another's ? Miss Jones had 
 said he was engaged to marry his cousin ; she had her- 
 self seen the note to ' dearest Gertrude.' He could 
 not but be devoted to such a girl as that, thought poor 
 Mrs. Latimer ; so handsome, so clever, so fluent, — 
 above all, so high-bred. It would indeed be his saving 
 to make such a marriage. It could not but turn out 
 well, and no one would be more rejoiced to hear of his 
 welfare than herself. Yes, night and morning she 
 would pray on her knees for his happiness. Such an 
 interest, at least, was allowable; there could be no 
 harm in that ! 
 
 So having arrived at this conclusion, Ada bethought 
 herself it was her bounden duty to re-commence the 
 music-lessons in Belgrave-square forthwith. She would 
 take a double interest in Lady Gertrude now ; and if it 
 should so chance that the bridegroom-elect came in 
 whilst the instruction was going on, why it was a 
 proper punishment to undergo for the di'eams she had
 
 A BOLD FKONT. 255 
 
 permitted herself, and it would besides be an excellent 
 test by which she might prove the purity of her own 
 feelinojs and the firmness of her resolutions. Also she 
 deserved some indulgence for her late self-denial, and 
 she could not but admit that she would like to see him, 
 if only once again, for the last time. If this desire 
 was weak and wrong, she alone would have to pay the 
 penalty ; no one else could imagine what it would cost 
 her. Surely if she chose to purchase the gratification 
 at so high a price, she was entitled to do so ; and then, 
 it was to be positively for the last time ! 
 
 Ay, those last times are very fatal. It is not the 
 ' first step ' that costs so much ; it is the ' once again,' 
 the additional stone imposed that breaks do^>Ti the 
 whole fabric. A gambler wins such a sum of money 
 as his highest hopes have scarcely calculated on, but he 
 cannot leave the table without one more throw, he must 
 try ' just once again.' Fortune shakes her head and 
 he loses, so he goes on to retrieve that single false step, 
 to regain the status ante^ which nobody ever did yet or 
 ever will, and little by little his winnings disappear, and 
 he rises from the table in far worse plight than he sat 
 down. A tumbler repeats the arduous somersault for 
 which he is celebrated in the profession, to the admira- 
 tion of applauding hundreds, in wondrous succession. 
 Breathless and exhausted, but fired by the loud encores^ 
 he tempts the sawdust ' once again,' and breaks his 
 neck. It was by going ' once again ' to the well the 
 hapless pitcher became a proverb. It is by listening 
 ' once again ' to the vows whispered at that resort, the 
 village maiden's heart shares the same fate. Depend 
 upon it, Don Quixote was right. When he had tried
 
 256 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 the strength of his pasteboard helmet by cleavmg it in 
 twain with one stroke of his good sword, he mended the 
 battered headpiece, carefully and deliberately enough, 
 but he abstained from proving it ' once again ! ' 
 
 So Mrs. Latimer resolved to write to Lady Gertrude 
 and tell her the cold was better, and appoint a future 
 time for the re-commencement of the lessons ; and to 
 this she was the more disposed from the fact of her 
 having an engagement to sing at the last morning con- 
 cert of the season. Of course, if she could undertake 
 the latter she was bound to fulfil the former duty ; and 
 if truth must be told, she had rather set her heai^t upon 
 this public display for more reasons than one. It was 
 the day after her visit to the Opera (a rare amusement 
 for Ada, and we have seen how she enjoyed it !) — it 
 would probably be crowded by those admirers of music 
 who could not obtain such another indulgence of their 
 tastes till next year. She ought not to neglect such an 
 opportunity, for the favour of the musical world (she 
 thought rather bitterly) was the very bread she ate. 
 Also she was to sing a certain song of which I have 
 already spoken, and — it was just possible Gilbert Orme 
 might be there to hear it. You see how successfully 
 Mrs. Latimer's self-discipline went on. You see how 
 easy it is to warn the tide of human feelings — ' Thus 
 far shalt thou go, and no farther.' How it is only ne- 
 cessary to say to yom'self, ' I ivill cease to care,' to be- 
 come completely indifferent. What a ductile instrument 
 is this human heart of ours, which responds so har- 
 moniously to om- better judgment and om* will ; from 
 which we can evoke whatsoever tones we desire, and 
 which we can tune as we would a pianoforte or a harp,
 
 A BOLD FRONT. 
 
 257 
 
 and never fear that a chord may be strung to too high 
 a pitch, and so break once for all. Oh ! it is a goodly 
 life this inner life, when we strive to regulate it for 
 ourselves! So calm, so independent, so ignorant of 
 misgivings and remorse, so full of self-reliance and self- 
 content ! If you cannot rule your voice, Mrs. Latimer, 
 more deftly than your feelings, there will be no small 
 discord in the tune you have set yourself to sing. K 
 your notes are to be no steadier than your nerves, you 
 had better make your excuses at once, and sit you down 
 in silence before it is too late. 
 
 She dressed, however, as usual, for the ordeal. I 
 have my own suspicions that she took more than ordi- 
 nary pains with her toilet. Of com\se when a sacrifice 
 is to be made, it is no use to depreciate its value ; and 
 what daughter of Eve would wish to look her worst in 
 the eyes of a man who was to see her for the last time ? 
 It was no difficult task to adorn Ada Latimer. She 
 emerged from her dreary lodging fresh and radiant, as 
 you may see a rose that has been raised by some floral 
 enthusiast in a two-pair back, competing for fragrance 
 and colouring with the pride of the garden. She took 
 her place in her hired brougham with a gentle dignity 
 that the finest lady in London might have copied, and 
 the very reprobate who drove it ceased to ponder on the 
 price of oats or the charms of beer, and felt himself a 
 more humanized member of society whilst he had the 
 charge of her. 
 
 She arrived late, as was her custom, and had only 
 time to run her eye over her score and force her energies 
 to the necessary pitch of resolution, when it was already 
 her turn to sing. With a single rapid glance, she had 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 taken in the -^liole of that crowded assemblage, had 
 distinguished one amongst the sea of faces, and had 
 even discerned that it looked pale and careworn and 
 unhappy. This was doubtless consolatory and reas- 
 suring. He had never supposed she could recognize 
 him amongst the multitude. He had watched her nar- 
 rowly since she entered, and could have sworn she never 
 once looked up from the roll of music in her hand. 
 But what is a man's glance compared to a woman's 
 in the rapidity with which it takes in objects of in- 
 terest ? It is as the mole's to the hawk's ; it is as the 
 tedious roll of the wagon to the rush of the express 
 train ; it is as the parcel sent by post to the telegram 
 flashing along the electric wires. She had seen the 
 very flower in his button-hole, and wondered whether 
 it was the gift of Lady Gertrude; and he did not 
 even think she knew he was there. 
 
 One more lightning-glance as she rose. Yes; he 
 looked paler than ever now ; and she soared away into 
 a flood of melody so rich, so wild, so thrilling, as to 
 draw down thunders of applause from the audience, 
 and even marks of surprise and approval from the ac- 
 customed professionals. She heeded none of these. 
 It seemed to her that she had been wishing that one 
 listener a last farewell, and when she seated herself 
 once more, it required all the fortitude and self-com- 
 mand that Ada could summon to avoid bursting into 
 tears. She did not dare look at him again ; she felt 
 that if their eyes had met she must have given way. 
 Mute and statue-like, she sat through the rest of the 
 entertainment, except where necessitated to take a part, 
 which she did with the impassibility of an automaton
 
 A BOLD FKONT. 259 
 
 — marble, cold, smooth, polished marble outside; sore 
 and bleeding and quivering within. 
 
 And yet she was sorry, too, when it was over — when 
 the rooms were emptying fast and people began to talk 
 and greet each other, criticising the performances aloud, 
 and it was time to go away. She had not known before 
 how keenly she must have prized the chance of seeing 
 him here for the last time ; and now she had seen him 
 and there was nothing more, Ada began to think that 
 the blank certainty to which she had looked forward as 
 such a relief was worse than all the hopes and fears and 
 jealousies and self-reproaches of her past conflict. Well, 
 it was done at last, and there was an end of it. 
 
 A faltering step approached her as she reached her 
 brougham. How could he tell that was hers amongst 
 all the others ? A manly hand that trembled visibly as 
 it was put forward clasped her own, and a kind, sorrow- 
 ful face looked down at her whilst she stammered out 
 an incoherent greeting, and with a woman's natural 
 impulse for flight ensconced herself in her carriage. 
 Gilbert was no consummate actor, and, considering his 
 opportunities, no experienced Lovelace ; but I doubt if 
 the highest histrionic powers and the profoundest know- 
 ledge of the sex could have availed him as did the 
 simple sentence which told his misgivings and his re- 
 grets. 
 
 ' I was afraid you had quite forgotten me. I began 
 to think I should never see you again.' 
 
 What was Ada's reply she never knew to her dying 
 day. I think he might have got into the brougham 
 then and there, and so driven away with her into 
 Fairyland, and she would only have been too happy, 
 
 S2
 
 260 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 but another carriage was waiting to come up, hers must 
 move off or be annihilated, and my own impression is 
 that neither of them spoke another syllable. 
 
 Only as she turned the corner of the street he bowed 
 to the fair face blushing as it leaned forward for another 
 look ; and although the gesture might but have been curi- 
 osity on her side and common courtesy on his, they felt 
 they belonged to each other once more. So all the good 
 resolutions vanished at one touch of a hand, at half-a 
 dozen words from a well-known voice; and there are 
 people who can deliberately avow that one such minute 
 (for these electric affinities require a very few seconds 
 to combine) is an equivalent for weeks and months of 
 longing and watching and weary misgivings and bitter 
 mistrust. There are people calling themselves rational 
 beino;s who can deteiTaine with all theii* energies that 
 they will never speak to nor so much as think of each 
 other again, that then- mutual usage is unbearable, their 
 injuries irremediable, their positive dislike at last insur- 
 mountable, and yet who can change as instantaneously 
 as do the figures in a magic lantern ; and because one 
 hints ' I haven't forgotten you,' and the other whispers 
 * I didn't mean to be unkind,' can load themselves again 
 with the fetters they had voted so galling, ten times 
 heavier now, you may be sure, and rejoice exceedingly 
 m their return to captivity once more. 
 
 The man who had been sLxty years in the Bastile 
 found his liberty so irksome that he prayed to be taken 
 back to his cell, and died of a broken heart to learn 
 that it had been destroyed. What was liberty to him 
 — what is she to any of us ? We make a great fuss 
 about her, and erect statues to her, and prate about her
 
 A BOLD FRONT. 261 
 
 being ' the air we breathe — if we have it not we die ; ' 
 but we dor^t die, and we don't really care a pin about 
 our liberty. What we like is a despotism — an iron 
 despotism that we have raised up for ourselves, and we 
 elect to grovel under it, and grumble at it, and hug our 
 chains tighter and tighter the while. Yes, there is 
 many a heart that incarcerates itself in a bastile of its 
 own construction, till it owns no kindred with the outer 
 world, and has no resource left but to break and perish 
 with the ruins of its prison.
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 ^KEEPING AFLOAT.' 
 
 HE London season was now drawing to a 
 close. Like the dying notes of a musical- 
 box, gaiety after gaiety took place at longer 
 intervals and with obviously failing energy. 
 Shutters had begun to appear in the first-floor windows 
 of well-known houses, and more than one scafiblding 
 was already up for the repau's and decorations that 
 should be completed against next year. The trees in 
 the Park were acquiring that arid, uncomfortable, and 
 thirsty look which none but London trees ever put on, 
 and the young ladies still left were getting so pale and 
 jaded that the philanthropist felt quite concerned lest 
 their roses should never bloom again. Misguided man ! 
 He little knew what a fortnight's sea-breezes at Cowes 
 could do, or a few quiet rides and drives about the shady 
 country place, with its out-of-door enjoyments and early 
 hours, where papa assumed gaiters and a white hat once 
 more, and mamma, always busy, rustled about in faded 
 dresses and circumscribed crinoline, whilst self and 
 sisters rejoiced in the broad brims and gardening-gloves 
 of a coquetry none the less attractive for its apparent 
 simplicity. Yes ; a few showers of rain, a cooling breeze 
 or two, soon bring back the bloom and the freshness to
 
 * KEEPING AFLOAT.' 263 
 
 our English roses, always supposing there is no worm 
 feeding at the core. But indeed it was high time to 
 get them out of the dusty streets and squares to their 
 own native flower-beds once more. Even the environs 
 of London seemed to sympathize with the worn-out, 
 dried-up, exhausted appearance of the metropolis. The 
 grass in Richmond Park was burnt to a gamhoge tint, 
 whilst the frequent pic-nics of which beautiful Bushey 
 had been the scene, left its smooth sward covered with 
 broken bottles and bro^\Ti paper. 
 
 The Crystal Palace was no longer an attractive lounge 
 for people warm enough already without the process of 
 forcing under glass, and who except ministers would 
 dine at Greenwich to eat whitebait half the size of 
 mackerel? Verbena Villa, situated as it was at the 
 other extremity of the Regent's Park, was not half far 
 enough a-field, and yet Bella often congratulated herself 
 as the autumn drew on, that she lived almost in the 
 country. 
 
 Behold her sitting quietly down to the household 
 accounts, having gone through her usual routine of 
 morning duties — that is to say, she has watered her 
 plants, snipped ofi" the dead leaves, drawn doTVTi the 
 blinds, fed the parrot, and sat for ten minutes in a 
 brown study, calculating how long it ought to take for 
 a letter to come from Sydney, supposing it to be posted 
 immediately on the arrival of a passenger who had only 
 just sailed for that distant port. Miss Jones has be- 
 come very thoughtful of late, and very economical. She 
 endeavours constantly to reduce the large expenditure 
 of the Villa to a more reasonable scale, and strives to 
 dissuade her father as much as possible from those en-
 
 264 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 tertainments which he seems to think more than ever 
 necessary since his late embarrassments. 
 
 ' We must give another dinner-party, my dear, before 
 everybody goes out of town,' said the Alderman, break- 
 ing in upon Bella's calculations, and flourishing the 
 newspaper in a nervous manner that was now habitual 
 to him; ^ let me see, we've had the Bullingdons, and 
 the Cheapsides, and old Mrs. Banneret and all her 
 dauo-hters. I think we needn't ask these ao-ain. Who 
 
 o o 
 
 is there still on the list, my child ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, papa, I am sure we have done quite enough,' 
 was his daughter's reply ; 'it's getting too hot for large 
 dinners now, and nobody expects to be asked &o late in 
 the season. People think we are gone to the seaside.' 
 
 Rendered into English, this meant simply, ' We are 
 growing poorer every day; don't let us be extravagant, 
 but accommodate ourselves gradually to the change that 
 must come at last.' 
 
 The Alderman's temper, formerly so amiable, was 
 getting captious. A man can bear ruin well enough 
 when it has come, but the impending crash would make 
 a saint peevish and irritable. 
 
 ' Stuff ! ' he said. ' I met Sir Andrew Lombard at 
 Lloyd's yesterday, and he asked me half-a-dozen ques- 
 tions about this business of Sloper in PhiladeljDhia. I 
 must show him that such a flea-bite as that cannot 
 affect Jones and Co. Faith ! he shall have as good a 
 dinner here as he could get at the Mansion-house. Put 
 him down, Bella; put him down. Sir Andrew and 
 Lady Lombard ; and we'll have a sound man or two to 
 meet them. There's Plumber, he can't be Avorth less 
 than half-a-million ; and Stii'ling Brothers, we'll have
 
 ' KEEPING AFLOAT.' 265 
 
 'em both ; and old Solomons the Jew, only no pork, 
 Bella, mind that ; the last time he dined here we had 
 sucking-pig in the second course, and he ate the half of 
 it before he found it out.' 
 
 The girl came round to her father's chair, and seated 
 herself on one of its arms, leaning her hand on his 
 shoulder, and looking into his face with rising colour, 
 and her eyes full of tears. 
 
 ' Papa,' she said, * I wish you would let me speak to 
 you as I used to do. Dear papa, I am not so young 
 now ; I am nearly twenty ; and I think I have as miich 
 sense as other girls of my age.' 
 
 He began to look alarmed. What was coming ? had 
 she heard anything more of those losses which it had been 
 his study to keep secret from her ? The bitterest drop, 
 perhaps, in his cup was this gradual withdrawal of con- 
 fidence between parent and child. Of course he spoke 
 roughly, if not angrily, in reply. 
 
 ^ Speak away, Bella, only don't expect that you can 
 play my hand without seeing my cards. Women can't 
 possibly know anything about business, and it ought to 
 be enough for you to have every earthly thing you can 
 want, without even the trouble of asking for it. Don't 
 cry, child, what's the use of that ? Is there anything 
 more I can give you ? If there is, say so.' 
 
 To tell a woman or a child ^ not to cry,' is to open the 
 flood-gates at once. Bella's tears began to fall thick 
 and fast, but she stuck to her point nevertheless. 
 
 ^ Oh, papa,' she sobbed out, it's not that ; I've all I 
 want now, and a great deal more. Indeed I could live 
 upon a hundred a year with you, and be quite content, 
 if I could see you happy. But you don't trust me,
 
 266 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 papa, now ; you keep things from me, I am sure you 
 do. If it hadn't been for John Gordon, I should never 
 have knoA\Ti we were in difficulties at all ; and now John 
 Gordon's gone, and you've nobody but me.' 
 
 And with this touching allusion, Bella lifted up her 
 voice and wept unrestrained. 
 
 The Alderman was very uncomfortable. He soothed 
 her and petted her as he used to do when she was a 
 child and had been naughty, no uncommon catastrophe ; 
 and more than once he resolved to take her into his 
 entire confidence, and to tell her exactly how things 
 stood, concealing neither the precarious position of the 
 firm, nor the necessity for immediate retrenchment and 
 economy ; but the ' business habits ' were too strong 
 within him. The natural instinct of the trader to keep 
 up his credit, to save api^earances^ at least, as long as 
 possible, forbade him to confess all, even to his child. 
 He tried to turn the question off with a joke, but 
 his voice was husky, and his laughter forced, as he 
 replied, 
 
 ' What a little goose it is ! Do you suppose that ever 
 since I've been in business I've had smooth water and a 
 fair windy and everything my own way ? No, no, Bella ; 
 it 's just like a game at whist ; sometimes we hold 
 honours, sometimes we don't, and must make the best 
 score we can by our cards. If we catch the adversary 
 revoking, we don't excuse him the penalty; if we make 
 a mistake ourselves, we don't expect to get off scot free. 
 A fresh deal may set everything right, Bella, and no 
 man alive can have a better partner than mine. John 
 Gordon's one in a million, my dear, one in a million.' 
 
 Bell'a subscribed willingly to this encomium, but still
 
 « KEEPING AFLOAT.' 267 
 
 she resolved to urge her scheme of retrenchment once 
 more. 
 
 'But there's no harm in saving, papa, surely, just 
 now. I have been going through all these books over 
 and over again, till I know them bj heart. There's 
 the grocer's is extravagantly high, and the butcher 
 charges a penny a pound more for his mutton than 
 he did six months ago, and — ' 
 
 The Alderman interrupted her vehemently. This 
 was more than flesh and blood could stand. To have 
 lost thousands in Philadelphia by the shortcomings 
 of Sloper, to have tens of thousands in jeopai'dy at 
 Sydney by the incapacity of Newman and Hope, and 
 then to be told that his butcher overcharged him a 
 penny a pound ! The Alderman exploded — 
 
 * Zounds! child, don't bother me about such non- 
 sense. Pay the butcher and the rest of them as you 
 used to do ; things must have come to a pretty pass in- 
 deed when Jones and Co. tax their bills for roast mutton, 
 and can't afford to give a dinner-party. Jones and Co., 
 the safest house in Fleet-street — Jones and Co. ! ' 
 
 ' But, papa,' she pleaded yet once more, ' surely, if 
 we can't afford it, we oughtn't to do it. Sm*ely, if 
 we're poor, it's dishonest, and — ' 
 
 ' Silence, Bella !' roared the Alderman, very angry 
 indeed now, as well he might be, struck home by the 
 truth-tipped shaft ; * silence ! and do as I bid you. 
 There's Mrs. Latimer coming in at the gate now. 
 She'll help you to write the invitations after luncheon, 
 and don't let me hear anything of this kind again !' 
 
 So the Alderman bounced out of the room and drove 
 off straight to his counting-house, where he was very
 
 268 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 ill at ease the whole afternoon that he had spoken so 
 sharply to his darling, and where the accounts in 
 which he immersed himself did not tend, I fear, to 
 restore the good humour he had lost. 
 
 It was a relief to Bella to have Mrs. Latimer's 
 gentle face smiling upon her after this uncomfortable 
 scene. Ada looked to-day more lovely than usual. An 
 inward glow seemed to brighten her whole countenance, 
 and the blue eyes shone with a soft light that could 
 only be kindled at the heart. 
 
 She was in good truth very happy — foolishly, exult- 
 ingly, and certainly without adequate cause. When 
 she asked herself whj^ she could not but acknowledge 
 that her relative position was precisely the same as it 
 had been a week ago. She was still Mrs. Latimer, 
 giving music-lessons at the rate of so much per hour. 
 Mr. Orme was none the less engaged to marry Lady 
 Gertrude, that his love of harmony had led him to 
 attend a public concert in the dog-days ; nor was the 
 end of the season, and his consequent departure, post- 
 poned an horn- by their meetmg of yesterday. And 
 yet something within seemed to tell her that she was 
 at last rewarded for all her suffering, and she was 
 willing enough to believe it. 
 
 I have heard it stated that one of the symptoms of 
 incipient insanity is a tendency to view the same 
 subject at different periods under a totally different 
 aspect; to make light of the difficulty which an hour 
 ago seemed insurmountable, or to shudder to-day at 
 the chasm which appeared yesterday an exciting and 
 pleasing possibility. If this be the case, a vast number 
 of embryo lunatics must be still at large ; and few of
 
 ' KEEPING AFLOAT.' 269 
 
 US but have experienced at one time or another this 
 premonitory inconsistency of ' reason tottering on her 
 throne. ' 
 
 The music lesson was cut short, as indeed was often 
 the case, Bella much preferring a quiet chat with her 
 friend to the elaborate study of harmony for which 
 that friend ostensibly visited her. There were a good 
 many invitations to send, and the two ladies sat down 
 to the task with considerable energy, previously muffling 
 the parrot, so to speak, by placing a shawl over his 
 cage. 
 
 ' I suppose I must write in my own name to Lady 
 Lombard,' said Bella ; ' I never spoke to her but twice 
 in my life. Each time she asked me how old I was, 
 and if I could make a pudding ? Such a woman, Mrs. 
 Latimer! She'll come in a red velvet dress and a 
 diamond necklace ; I'm horribly afraid of her. Well, I 
 must mind my spelling, and choose a good pen. Then 
 there are Stirling Brothers, as papa calls them. I 
 think I had better " present his compliments " to them; 
 and old Mr. Solomons. Can you wi'ite Hebrew, dear ? 
 If so, you shall take it off my hands. You begin over 
 the leaf, you know, and work backwards. It looks a 
 little like music. Yes ; I think I had better leave Mr. 
 Solomons to you. ' 
 
 Ada smiled, and proceeded in a very business-like 
 manner to trace an invitation to Stirling Brothers in 
 her delicate lady-like handwriting. It was not often 
 such a missive reached the gloomy habitation of those 
 merchant princes — the dusky firmament in which they 
 sat enthroned, twin deities of commerce — the lucida 
 sidera of the money-making world. Bella chattered
 
 270 
 
 GOOD FOR NOTHINO. 
 
 on, busying herself the while with paper and envelopes, 
 and admiring her friend's industry and composure. 
 
 ' Papa must write to Mr. Plumber himself. He's 
 an old friend, and very easily affronted. Besides, he's 
 sure to come, for he never dines out anywhere but here. 
 Do you know, Mrs. Latimer, I sometimes think ' 
 
 Here Bella stopped, looking wonderfully mysterious 
 and full of fun, causing her friend to suspend her 
 employment and inquire, not without curiosity, what 
 it was she ^ sometimes thought ? ' 
 
 ^ Well, of course, I don't know,' answered Bella, now 
 laughing outright, ^ and I've no business to say so ; 
 but he asked me last year if I shouldn't feel very dull 
 in that dingy old house of his in Bedford- square ; and 
 twice since then he has said such stupid things and 
 behaved so oddly, that I think — I think I might be 
 Mrs. Plumber as soon as ever I liked. ' 
 
 ' And don't you like?' asked Ada, looking up with 
 the eager interest which all women betray in a match 
 probable, possible, or utterly out of the question. 
 
 ' You should see the man,' replied the young scoffer. 
 *My dear, he's as old as papa — and his boots creak, 
 and he wears a wig and takes snuff. Besides, I believe 
 he's very cross at home, though he's always so good- 
 tempered here. No ! — mine^ when I have one, shall 
 be younger, and better-looking and nicer than old 
 Plumber. Goodness ! that just reminds me papa said 
 I was to ask Mr. Orme the next time we had anybody 
 here. ' 
 
 Ada was bending studiously over the note to Stirling 
 Brothers. At this juncture it seemed to require the 
 closest attention, so that only a delicate little ear and
 
 ' KEEPING AFLOAT.' 271 
 
 a portion of her neck were visible under her soft hair. 
 Probably it was the stooping posture that tinged the 
 skin with so very deep a red. Bella looked a little 
 surprised to receive no answer, and proceeded — 
 
 'I'm afraid to write to him myself; he's such a 
 dandy, you know, and fine gentleman, though he's so 
 good-natured. Besides, I shouldn't know how to begin 
 or what to say. Dear Mrs. Latimer, couldn't you do 
 it for me? He'd never know the difference of hand, 
 and you might write as if it came from papa.' 
 
 She was obliged to look up now, but the colour had 
 faded away and left her very pale. She couldn't write 
 to him : that was quite impossible ; also it was quite 
 impossible to tell Bella why; neither could she meet 
 the black eyes of the latter, opened wide at her obvious 
 confusion. It was an immense relief to hear a peal 
 jingling at the door-bell. It was not quite such a 
 relief when the footman threw the drawing-room door 
 open and announced ' Mr. Orme ! ' 
 
 There are many circumstances in life which draw 
 largely on the composure and self-control of the human 
 subject. It requires courage to stand up and be shot 
 at by the riflemen of an enemy's corps, the while you 
 are yourself bound to maintain for the encouragement 
 of your followers such an outward demeanour of care- 
 lessness as though you were but the object of a pleasant 
 joke — practical, perhaps, but humorous, and perfectly 
 harmless. It demands no small assm^ance to address a 
 public assemblage two-thirds of whom are prepared to 
 cavil at your arguments, and the whole disposed to 
 criticise your language, appearance, and general de- 
 meanour with anything but a favourable eye. It must
 
 272 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 shake the nerve of any but a professional to appear 
 for the first time on the boards in the character of 
 Macbeth, Coriolanus, or Hamlet the Dane, — but none 
 of these — sharpshooter's target, unpopular orator, or 
 amateur tragedian — requires half such sang froid to 
 carry him through his ordeal as he who is unexpectedly 
 ushered uito the presence of his ladye-love to find her 
 not alone. 
 
 Gilbert Orme had doubtless plenty of time to prepare 
 himself for the interview. His arrival at this critical 
 moment was the result of much forethought and the 
 nicest calculation. He had allowed so much for the 
 time of the music-lesson, so much for the necessary 
 conversation of any two ladies at any given hour of the 
 twenty-four, so much for the difference of clocks, and 
 the result should have been his entrance at the gate of 
 the Yilla precisely when Mrs. Latimer was quitting it. 
 He knew nothing, however, of the dinner party and the 
 invitations — nothing of the note that was to be written 
 to himself ; consequently he came ten minutes too soon. 
 
 Of course he scarcely said a word to Mrs. Latimer ; 
 of course he made himself remarkably agreeable to 
 Bella, though he would have been puzzled to repeat a 
 single word of any sentence he addressed to her five 
 minutes afterwards ; and of coui^se the latter young 
 lady, none the less observant that she herself knew the 
 nature of such an innocent predilection, found out the 
 two guilty ones in about five minutes and took her 
 measures accordingly, thereby ensuring their gratitude 
 and devotion for life. 
 
 ' Don't go, Mrs. Latimer,' said she, preparing to 
 leave the room ; ' I must see the housekeeper before I
 
 273 
 
 can settle how many to ask ; and I want you to help 
 me with the invitations afterwards. If you and Mr. 
 Orme can amuse each other for a quarter of an hour, I 
 will promise not to be a moment longer with Mrs. 
 Garnish.' 
 
 So she vanished, and Ada held her breath, while Gil- 
 bert, feeling somewhat as he used when he ' hardened 
 his heart ' for * the Smite ' or ' the Whissendine,' only- 
 much more nervous, made up his mind for the plunge. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER XXm. 
 
 ' SINK OR SWIM.' 
 
 WO little girls, with netted hair and innocent 
 frilled trousers, are waiting meanwhile in a 
 back drawing-room at Bayswater, and won- 
 dering whether their music-lesson is not to 
 take place to-day. That kind gentle mistress, who 
 never scolds them and so often brings them sugar- 
 plums, has been hitherto punctuality itself. Wet or 
 dry, she has never been five minutes late before ; and 
 now they watch the hand of the clock with increasing 
 speculation, and broach the most improbable theories to 
 account for her delay. 
 
 Julia, the fickle, says to Charlotte, the steady one, 
 that she thinks ' Mrs. Latimer has been upset in a 
 cab, and perhaps killed ; in which case mamma will 
 be very angry, and they will have no more lessons till 
 a fresh teacher can be got — a holiday of at least a 
 week ! ' 
 
 Charlotte, as in duty bound, appears much shocked 
 at so summary a disposal of their instructress, but sug- 
 gests a milder fate, inclining to believe in bodily ilhiess 
 as the cause of her detention, or the death of a near 
 relative, or sudden accession to untold wealth. Both, 
 however, concur in deciding that under any circum-
 
 ^SINK OR SWIM.' 275 
 
 stances ' Mamma will be very angry.' So they make 
 up their minds without much difficulty to wait a little 
 longer. 
 
 Ada meanwhile, still busying herself over the note 
 to Stirling Brothers, feels as if she was suffocated, and 
 as if her heart was beating so loud that Mr. Orme 
 cannot but hear it. He is standing on the hearth-rug, 
 drawing lines on its surface with the point of his um- 
 brella. How loud the clock ticks ! — this silence seems 
 so stupid, so awkward, so distressing ! Yet how to 
 break it ? If it lasts thirty seconds longer she will 
 jump up and run after Bella ! 
 
 The parrot makes a diversion just at the critical 
 moment. Despising the artificial darkness in which he 
 is enveloped, he gives vent to a startling whoop and an 
 ear-piercing whistle, embarking forthwith in demoniacal 
 tones on ' Beautiful Venice, the bride of the ' Gil- 
 bert and Ada burst out laughing simultaneously. It 
 is reassuring to hear their own voices, and the gentle- 
 man feels a considerable accession of that desperation 
 which is the counterfeit of courage. The point of the 
 umbrella, nevertheless, scores the hearth-rug faster 
 than ever. 
 
 * I am so glad to have found you here to-day,' said 
 he, at last ; ' I wanted so much to see you again before 
 I leave London.' 
 
 This was a bad start. Then he was going to leave 
 town, probably forthwith. Ada's pride was in arms on 
 the instant ; she bowed haughtily, and answered in the 
 coldest possible tones — 
 
 * I am generally here twice a week with my pupil ; I 
 have already exceeded the usual time of her lesson. As 
 
 T2
 
 276 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 you are going a-waj so soon, I am afraid I must wish 
 you good bye.' 
 
 She rose as if to depart, and with another formal 
 inclination turned to leave the room, but her heart 
 smote her for this gratuitous unkindness, and she put 
 out her hand. 
 
 As he took possession of it, he bent till his forehead 
 almost touched her glove ; then raising his reproachful 
 eyes to hers, he said very gently — 
 
 ' Are you angry with me ? What have I done to 
 offend you? Will you not forgive me before I go 
 away ? ' 
 
 There was something in his tone that filled Ada's 
 eyes with tears ; she did not dare look up lest he should 
 see them, but she left her hand in his involuntarily, and 
 kept her regards fixed firmly on one particular square 
 of the carpet. 
 
 ' Forgive you ! ' she said, in a very unsteady voice ; 
 ' indeed, I have nothing to complain of. Ever since I 
 have known you, jNIr. Orme, you have been most kind 
 and considerate. Indeed, I wish you every happiness 
 in your marriage, and congratulate you with all my 
 heart.' 
 
 One large tear that had been slowly gathering here 
 fell with a splash — how provoking that she could not 
 keep it back ! How^ angry she was wdth herself ! What 
 must he think ? What he thought I cannot tell — what 
 he did was to imprison the hand he had never relin- 
 quished in both his own. 
 
 ' My marriage ! ' he exclaimed ; ' I am not going to 
 be married ! — unless, unless — Mrs. Latimer, there is
 
 'sink or swim.' 277 
 
 but one woman in the world to me — Ada ! may I not 
 call you Ada ? — are you blind ? My own ! my own ! 
 have you not seen it all along ? ' 
 
 Then out it came, the old, old story. In these cases, 
 and these alone, the man does all the talking ; and the 
 femme qui ecoute, with drooping head and averted eyes, 
 and burning cheek and thrilling heart, drinks in every 
 syllable without comment or interruption ; and when 
 the tale is told at last, be sure, would have no objection 
 to hear it all over again. That Gilbert's question was 
 one of those which required a definite answer seems 
 sufficiently obvious, yet did it elicit no sort of reply. 
 That he was himself satisfied with that eloquent silence 
 which proverbially gives consent appears probable, for 
 the umbrella lay neglected on the floor, and they both 
 sat down again at no great distance apart; indeed, a 
 tolerably vigorous arm interposed between Ada and the 
 back of her chair, while, despite the vociferous inter- 
 ruptions of the parrot, the soft whisper went flowing, 
 flowing on ; the music that was first heard in Paradise ; 
 the music of which thousands of years, and hundreds 
 of languages, have never lost the cadence and the tune ; 
 the music that ravishes alike the sovereign on the 
 throne and the peasant beneath the hawthorn tree ; that 
 stirs the blood of poor and dull as of gifted and noble ; 
 that gladdens the wise and good, and heavenward leads 
 the hearts of earth's most wayward children. God 
 help the forlorn one, for whom that strain is mute, that 
 spell broken for ever ! 
 
 By his o^vn account nobody had ever gone through 
 so much to be alive. He spared her none of the par-
 
 278 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 ticulars of their first introduction or their subsequent 
 meetings, or the break-off in their intimacy, or his own 
 misgivings, and anxieties, and final despair. The words 
 came fast enough now with that beloved form so close, 
 and the dainty head bent down till his lips almost 
 touched its delicate little ear, and never a sign given of 
 acquiescence or approval save a scarce palpable pressure 
 of the hand he clasped. There are many ways of tell- 
 ing the old story, but their drift is pretty much the 
 same, as there are many paths through the forests of 
 Cyprus that lead alike to the temple on the sacred hill. 
 Gilbert's was a straightforward account of all he had 
 thought, done, and suffered. He confessed freely to 
 having been charmed by others, but never subjugated ; 
 to having often admired, but never worshipped : nobody 
 but Ada had ever made him unhappy before. And 
 she was cruel enough to be gratified by this admission. 
 Also, with all his regard for Gertrude, who was like a 
 sister (here there was another faint pressure of the 
 hand and a negative little shake of the averted head), 
 he had no more dreamt of marrying her than the 
 Queen of Sheba. No ; there was but one chance of 
 happiness for him in this world ; if that was to be his, 
 there was no mortal he would envy upon earth. If not, 
 the sooner he was utterly lost and done for the better. 
 Life was not worth having without it, for in good truth 
 he was very, very, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 She had not spoken yet ; indeed, she had never lifted 
 her burning face to meet his regard. Now she looked 
 up quickly for an instant. 
 
 ' Who was that lady I saw you with at the Opera ? ' 
 she said ; and Gilbert knew by the tone in which she
 
 ^SINK OK SWDI.' 279 
 
 asked the question that she loved him. So their eyes 
 met at last, and — 
 
 It was rather unfortunate that Miss Jones should 
 have reappeared at this junctui-e, which she did with 
 more noise and bustle than was habitual to her, albeit 
 not the quietest young lady in the world. Two of the 
 trio thought Bella's quarter of an hour the shortest 
 that was ever allowed. She herself, with a juster ap- 
 preciation of time, esteemed five-and-forty minutes a 
 sufficient period for the settlement of any question, 
 however important, and considered the lovers had been 
 together quite long enough. As my reader may pro- 
 bably be of the same opinion, I will only add that the 
 little girls at Bayswater waited in vain for their music- 
 lesson far on into the afternoon. ]Mrs. Latimer never 
 came, and ' Mamma ivas very angry,' as Jidia and 
 Charlotte had predicted would be the result. 
 
 What a happy heart the music-mistress took home 
 with her to that second-floor on the other side of the 
 Edgeware-road. What a paradise seemed the little 
 dusky room, and how those roses on the chimney-piece 
 bloomed with a fragrance unknown to ' the gardens of 
 earth and sea;' though that crimson cheek bore the 
 traces of recent tears, though ever and anon fresh drops 
 welled up to quench the love-light in those lambent 
 eyes, who would not wish to weep like this for very ex- 
 cess of joy ? Who would not envy Ada Latimer, moving 
 restlessly to and fro in the pride of her rich beauty, 
 and the ecstasy of her new-found happiness? What 
 though it was injudicious, foolish, unheard of, impos- 
 sible ; — she would never injure him! — she would give 
 him up willingly, cheerfully, thankfully, if it was for
 
 280 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 his own advantage. Anything for his sake ! He loved 
 her ! — he loved her ! — that was quite enough for her. 
 
 It is worth while to be steeped in visions such as 
 these, if it he only for an hour. Let her dream on ! 
 the time of waking will come quite soon enough.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 TOM TIDLER's ground. 
 
 AM Cockney enough to be very fond of 
 Kensington-gardens. Where "will you find 
 pleasanter sweeps of lawn, or more um- 
 brageous glades, or statelier trees, than 
 about the hideous old palace ? Indeed, were it not for 
 the town itself, that part of the valley of the Thames 
 in which London is situated seems to be naturally a 
 very stronghold of sylvan beauty. There are glimpses 
 of woodland scenery in Hyde-park, about the Powder 
 Magazine, and near the Serpentine, fair enough to 
 challenge competition with Windsor Forest itself; and 
 there are also walks and retreats in my favourite Ken- 
 sington-gardens, wherein you may dream away a sum- 
 mer noon and fancy yourself hundreds of miles from 
 the smoke of cities and the din of men. Probably you 
 have never been there in your life before five p.m. ; 
 just as you have never seen the metropolis with its long 
 perspectives, perfectly free from smoke, and all a-glow 
 in the flush of a midsummer's sunrise. Many a time 
 have I perused it thus, both before and after my night's 
 repose; and you may take my word for it that our 
 capital is no dirty, dingy, ill-favoured agglomeration of 
 houses under such an aspect. But nine- tenths of its
 
 282 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 frequenters never see it save at its worst. Regular 
 houi's and conventional habits combine to deprive most 
 men of at least a third of their lives, and they can only 
 picture to themselves Regent-street as a noisy thorough- 
 fare alive with splashed omnibuses at three in the after- 
 noon, or a meretricious promenade flaring with lamps 
 and libertinism at eleven at night, just as their ideas of 
 Kensington-gardens are limited to the half-dozen smoke- 
 blackened chesnuts and the circumscribed area of trod- 
 den sward surrounding the band of the Life Guards or 
 the Blues. 
 
 And yet there is many a quiet walk and many a 
 sequestered nook within those park-like precincts, fit 
 resort for those who are of opinion that ' two is com- 
 pany and three is none.' A pair are pacing thought- 
 fully to and fro under the shade of some large elms, 
 and by the absorbed manner of the lady and the half- 
 protective, half-deferential air of the gentleman, it would 
 appear that they are one of those couples on whom 
 Holy Church is about to bestow her blessing, rather 
 than a fastly riveted pair for whom hopes and fears are 
 over, and the rushlight of Hymen burns with pale do- 
 mestic lustre compared to the flaring torch of Love. 
 
 ^ But why not immediately ? ' asks the gentleman, 
 flourishing an attenuated umbrella with, considerable 
 emphasis. ' Why not make everything certain at once ? 
 and then I'll go to the end of the world, if you like, 
 and come back again twice as fond of you, if possible, 
 as I am now.' 
 
 ' Oh, no !' said Ada, looking up at him with one of 
 her soft, shy smiles, and thinking in her heart there 
 never was anybody like him in the world. She always
 
 TOM TIDLER'S GROUND. 283 
 
 said, ' Oh, no !' to his ardent expressions of affection. 
 Was it a sense of its priceless value, or was it indeed 
 some foreboding of evil that thus made her decline and 
 deprecate, as it were, the treasui'es he lavished at her 
 feet? 
 
 'Oh, no ! that is not mj object. Do you not yet 
 understand my feelings, my pride, if you will ? Listen 
 to me, Mr. Orme — very well, Gilbert, dearest Gilbert ; 
 for indeed, come what may, you will always be very, 
 very dear to me. Listen to me, and promise you will 
 do what I ask you.' 
 
 He gave the required promise with a sufficiently 
 bad grace, and Ada proceeded in her gentle, persuasive 
 tones. 
 
 ' It is from yourself I would guard you, dear one ; it 
 is for your own welfare that I seem so heartless and 
 unfeeling. You know you have promised me that you 
 will nevey^ think me unkind. I have had experience, I 
 know what life is, I have had sorrows, and struggles, 
 and disappointments. You know I have been married 
 before. 
 
 He fired up in a moment. Perhaps this retrospective 
 jealousy is one of the most laughable absurdities of the 
 whole delusion. 
 
 ' I am not likely to forget it,' he said, bitterly. ' So 
 far you have certainly the advantage of me. / never 
 cared for any but one ; whereas you — I dare say you 
 liked him far better than you do me.' 
 
 She laid her hand upon his arm. That gentle touch 
 could calm Gilbert in his wildest mood, and he was 
 ashamed of his ungenerous speech the moment it crossed 
 his lips.
 
 284 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 ' Hush ! ' she said, with a quivering lip ; never say 
 that again. Do not be unreasonable, do not be angry 
 with me. I would give my life to serve you, and wel- 
 come. I ask you for my sake to do what I wish. It is 
 not such a very long time.' 
 
 ' Not a long time ? ' he pleaded ; and it must have 
 been no easy task to resist his entreaties. ' A whole 
 year, and you call it not a long time ! Why that fort- 
 night nearly drove me mad ; and now I am to go to the 
 end of the earth, and never see you, or even hear from 
 you, for twelve long months. You expect too much, 
 Ada. I can't do it. After all, I have my feelings 
 like other people.' 
 
 ' Do you think I have not considered them all through?' 
 was her reply ; do you think I have not watched you and 
 studied you till I know your character far better than 
 you do yourself? Thin-skinned, impatient, injudicious, 
 but as true as steeV (a smile chased away the listener's 
 frown) . ^ Supposing we were — were married to-morrow, 
 however much you might regret it, I know you would 
 never let me find it out. It is precisely for that reason 
 I urge this step for my own sake. Gilbert, dear Gilbert, 
 think what my feelings would be if I were not persuaded, 
 convinced in my own mind, that you had chosen me de- 
 liberately, advisedly, and on mature reflection. Would 
 you like Lady Olivia to be able to reproach me that I 
 had hurried her son into a mesalliance with a music- 
 mistress ? ' 
 
 Even while she spoke Mrs. Montpellier's axiom rang 
 once again in his ears — ' You couldnH ivell marry a 
 music-mistress.'' If ever Gilbert resolved in his own 
 mind that he luould, it was at that moment.
 
 TOM TIDLER'S GROUND. 285 
 
 ' If that is all,' he burst out, ' I won't hear of it for 
 an instant. Am I not a free agent ? Who is to dictate 
 to me ? Can I not choose whom I please ? ' 
 
 ' Then we must put it the other way,' she said, smil- 
 ing playfully in his face. ' You must do something to 
 deserve me, sir. Like a knight of the olden time, you 
 shall not win your ladye without an achievement. It 
 sounds a vain speech, and yet I don't think you will 
 be angry with me ; but seriously, Gilbert, such an affec- 
 tion as I have to give — well, as I have given — is worth 
 a sacrifice.' 
 
 She certainly did not think he loohed angry, and it 
 seemed to Ada that no music she had ever made or 
 heard sounded in her ears so sweetly as the voice in 
 which he spoke. 
 
 ' Do you realhj love me so much, Ada ?' 
 
 ' I mustn't spoil you,' she answered, laughing off her 
 emotion. ' I must leave all that for the future. In the 
 meantime, I will tell you what you shall do. Promise 
 me that for a whole year you will never see me or write 
 to me ; that you will travel, exert yourself, improve 
 your mmd, and fit yourself for the high station in store 
 for you. I know you have great talents. I should be 
 sorry to see them thrown away in a life of idleness. I 
 should like to see my — I mean one in whom I was 
 interested — take a high place amongst men. I should 
 like to see him envied, admired, looked up to. I could 
 be very ambitious on his account, and so proud of him 
 when he succeeded.' 
 
 ' And when he failed?' said Gilbert, kindling at her 
 enthusiasm, and smiling in the glowing face turned so 
 frankly towards his own.
 
 286 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 ' It would be nicer still to cherish him, and console 
 him, and make him happj at home,' was the woman- 
 like reply. 
 
 Gilbert walked on a few paces in silence. Suddenly 
 he crammed his hat down on his head, like a man who 
 has taken his resolution. 
 
 ' Then I'll do it,' said he, 'just as I would jump off 
 the Monument, if you told me to do so for your sake. 
 Yes, I'll be off directly. I'll follow John Gordon out 
 to Australia; I'll make myself acquainted with the 
 colony. I'll work hard and be j&t for Parliament when 
 I come back. You shall be proud of my success or 
 comfort me for failure, Ada ; one or the other I promise 
 you. Next week I'll go down to West- Acres, and set 
 my house in order. To-day I'll see my mother and 
 inform her of our engagement.' 
 
 The hand was laid on his arm once more. 
 
 ' Stop,' she said ; * not a word of that. There is no 
 engagement on your side. You shall not pledge your- 
 self to me. If you should change your mind at any 
 moment, remember you are perfectly free.' 
 
 ' And you ? ' he said quickly, looking rather alarmed. 
 
 ' I am different,' she replied. ' It is not likely that 
 I should alter. Gilbert,' she added, stopping short in 
 her walk, and turning rather pale, 'I — I will never 
 belong to anybody but you. Enough of this. Tell me 
 when you will go. Let us talk of your plans for the 
 future. After all, a year is not such a very long time.' 
 
 Perhaps her courage failed her a little now that it 
 was settled. Perhaps having persuaded him, she was 
 now a little scared at her success. What if he should 
 change ? What if this wonderful dream should turn
 
 TOM T IDLER'S GROUND. 287 
 
 out to be hut a dream after all ? Well, it was something 
 to have dreamt it ; and if he was happy she would never 
 repine. With all their faults, and they have a good 
 many, of which not the least is a tendency to rush con- 
 stantly into extremes, they are not selfish, these women. 
 And they bear a bankruptcy of the feelings, an utter 
 failm^e of all the hopes of a lifetime, better than do 
 their sterner taskmasters. It may be that as the subject 
 more constantly occupies their minds, they more stu- 
 diously prepare themselves for that catastrophe which 
 seems to be the normal result of all spes animi credula 
 mutui. Certainly the proverb about ' the course of true 
 love' must be of very general application. If every 
 Jack has his Gill, it seems marvellous how seldom they 
 descend the hill hand-in-hand. Can we account for the 
 very few happy matches we see amongst our married 
 acquaintance ? AYho is in fault ? Jack or Gill, or both, 
 or neither ? Perhaps if Hymen and Cupid could trot 
 on together to the end of the stage, what with stuffed 
 cushions and C springs, the journey would be too 
 pleasant, and the passengers too unwilling to stop and 
 rest when they came to the inn. The disinclination 
 now is seldom from that cause; and neither mutual 
 fitness, nor similarity of tastes, nor great personal an'l 
 mental attractions on both sides, seem to be of the 
 slightest efficacy in smoothing the ruts on the road. It 
 was but half-an-hour ago I saw Tom Pouter and his 
 wife start in the open carriage for what Mrs. Pouter's 
 maid calls a ' hairing.' Tom is one of the best fellows 
 in England. At the mess of ' The Royal Plungers,' a 
 regiment in which studious politeness amongst comrades 
 is by no means exacted, it was proverbial that ' nobody
 
 288 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 could get a rise out of Pouter ;' his temper was as un- 
 deniable as his whiskers, his boots, his absorbent powers, 
 or any other of the advantages on which he prided 
 himself. From colonel to cornet, not a man out vowed 
 he could spend a lifetime with Tom, and never have a 
 TVTj word. Yet he looked cross, not to say sulky, this 
 afternoon when he emerged on the Marine-parade, and 
 leaned his body half out of their pretty little carriage, 
 offering nothing but his left whisker to the contemplation 
 of his angel wife. 
 
 Could this be Mrs. Pouter's fault ? Impossible ! I 
 remember her as Agatha Fantail, the sweetest girl I 
 ever came across in my life. What did their French 
 governess tell my cousui Frederic ? — that ' she couldn't 
 have stayed in the family had it not been for the 
 amiable disposition of Miss Agatha.' I imagine indeed 
 that old Lady Fantail was a bit of a Tartar. No 
 doubt Mrs. P. is a kmd mistress, an excellent mother ; 
 she often washes that spoilt little boy, and puts him to 
 bed herself. A delightful member of society, and a 
 most attractive person. I know more than one of my 
 acquaintance who would esteem Pouter's place cheaply 
 purchased at half his worldly all. And yet, you see, 
 Tom can't bring himself to agree with these admirers. 
 What a host of suitors Penelope had? Would any one of 
 them have stayed away so long as did crafty Ulysses, 
 without even the excuse of being detained by the syrens? 
 Who knows ? 
 
 The sea-breeze, a chat with a mutual acquaintance, 
 and a happy remark of Tom's, depreciating the attrac- 
 tions of a pretentious lady on the pave^ will restore 
 good humour and the Pouters will return to dinner in
 
 TOM TIDLER'S GROUND. 289 
 
 harmony and resignation. Alas ! that which should 
 be the acme of human felicity is but a matter to 
 make the best of I — and much I doubt that even now 
 both of them wish they hachiH. Is it wiser to be a 
 dry branch altogether? Is it better to thhik of the 
 blue eyes smiling in heaven, all unaltered still, than 
 to have watched them till they learned to flash with 
 anger here ; or, yet worse, freeze into cold indifference 
 and scorn ? Woe is me ! I think I would have fain 
 have run my chance with the others. Might not mine 
 have been the favom-ed lot — the one in a million — the 
 prize amongst all those blanks? Again I say, Who 
 knows ? 
 
 To and fro they walked, and backwards and forwards 
 they discussed the knotty point, with many a playful 
 allusion and many a glowing vision, half-hinted, half 
 expressed. AYhat can be more dull in detail than the 
 conversation of such a couple? — what more absorbing 
 to the colloquists ? There are many pastimes at which 
 it is very poor fun to be a looker-on, and theirs was 
 indeed of engrossing interest to the players themselves. 
 They settled it at last in this wise. Gilbert was to 
 absent himself from England for a year, or at least for 
 so much of a year as Ada considered a sufficient pro- 
 bation. He was to go to Australia ; he was to occupy 
 himself in every possible manner which could wean him 
 from his one cherished idea. Above all, and on this 
 point she was very firm — so much so as almost to 
 anger him again — they were not to correspond. Also, 
 the subject was to remain a profound secret from his 
 family and from his friends. John Gordon, or any 
 very intimate associate, he might take into his con- 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 fidence, but only under strict promises of secresy, and 
 even this she would rather he refrai-ned from. In short, 
 every precaution must be taken to leave him totally 
 unfettered and uncompromised. She would herself con- 
 tinue to earn her own livelihood by teaching music. 
 On this point too she was obstinate, though she readily 
 yielded to his wish that she should sing no more in 
 public ; and lastly, he was to depart forthwith, and 
 they were not to meet again till his return. 
 
 I believe he was fool enough to be a little hurt at 
 this rio;orous condition. I believe he did not see in it 
 a consummate proof of the adversary's weakness. 
 
 Ada did not dare trust herself with these constant 
 interviews. It was cruel work to have to bid him 
 leave her, and to find him comply : so generously, so 
 chivalrously, with such entire faith, — it was more than 
 she had expected even from him ! Ada felt mdeed 
 that a succession of such victories would lead to a final 
 defeat. She must wish him ' Good bye,' once for all. 
 She had something more to say ; she had neglected it 
 too often. 
 
 ' You will make me one more promise? ' she whispered, 
 standing near the gate of the gardens with her hand 
 in his ; ' one more promise — the surest of them all ? ' 
 ' Anything — anything for your sake. ' 
 * Not for imj sake, Gilbert,' she replied, solemnly, 
 * but for a higher motive. You must not think only 
 of me; you must think of a better world than this, 
 and hope to get there. You will, won't you ? — you icill 
 try to be good. No ; you mustn't stay any longer. 
 Leave me here. I shall always like this spot better 
 than any place in the world. There's yom* cab! how
 
 TO.AI TIDLER'S GROUND. 291 
 
 tired the poor horse must be of waiting in the sun. 
 Well, only one more — There. God bless you, darling. 
 Good bye. ' 
 
 ' You won't forget me, Ada ? ' he whispered, in a 
 choking voice. 
 
 ^ Never !"* was the pithy answer to so unnecessary a 
 question. 
 
 I think he extorted ' one more,' and so was gone. 
 
 JSl
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 'a new leaf.' 
 
 jiS^-^ HE cab-horse might or might not have been 
 ^M Ki tired of waiting so long ; he was suffered to 
 proceed at his o'wn pace in the direction of 
 Belgrave-sqnare. His master was indeed in 
 no mood to mterfere. Bodily he was glidhig through 
 the Park at the rate of twelve miles an hour ; mentally 
 he was still walking with his Eve in Paradise. In 
 what different aspects does the garden of Eden present 
 itself to different minds, nay, to the same imagination 
 at different times. Five acres of gorse in the heart 
 of a grass country, a good brook in the distance, and 
 all the gates locked ; or a deep corrie on the broad 
 shoulder of Ben-i-Voord, with the naked bluffs of 
 granite peeping out through the blushing heather, and 
 the deer feeding so still to windward, while the dull 
 roar of a distant waterfall mingles with the moan of 
 the mountain breeze on his ear ; — or agaui, the giddy 
 water cuttmg itself against the tight-strmig line, and 
 its backward ' swirl ' in yon steel-grey pool, dulled like 
 a dim breastplate by the cloudy sky and the feathery 
 weeping birches, mider which it runs a rich clear 
 amber, and the pebbly shallow below the alders, where 
 he hopes to land that silvery ten-pounder with whom 
 he wrestles not in vain. Each of these scenes had
 
 ^A NEW LEAF.' 20 
 
 bpen to Gilbert at various epochs the perfect antitype 
 of his Elysian fields. Now it was a hundred yards of 
 sward and a knotted elm- tree, some rhododendrons, a 
 stagnant pool, and a hideous red brick house beyond. 
 I often think there must be no such thing as reality ; 
 that all depends on the glasses we look through. Alas, 
 alas ! when they are green or blue ! 
 
 As his first step in that course of moral improve- 
 ment to which he now aspired, Gilbert had resolved 
 to pay a filial visit in the Square. Although he was 
 to preserve inviolable secresy as regarded his ladye- 
 love, he meant to break to his mother his speedy 
 departure for the Antipodes — an announcement he was 
 persuaded, not without good reason, she would receive 
 with edifying resignation. 
 
 Lady Olivia had lingered in London longer than was 
 her custom. She was going to the seaside : she hated 
 a watering-place — the only point on which I cordially 
 agree with her ladyship — and therefore put oif the 
 evil hour as long as possible. As her son's cab rolled 
 up to the door, she and Lady Gertrude were busy 
 packing : a process, I may observe, en passant, that 
 the weaker sex seldom leave unrestrictedly to their 
 servants. Gentlemen desire their valets to ' put up 
 their things,' and trouble their heads no more about 
 the matter; ladies inspect their own delicate prepara- 
 tions with the strictest scrutiny. Also, like wild par- 
 tridges after their flights, it takes them a considerable 
 time ' to settle.' 
 
 His mother received Gilbert with a fro^^^l, the re- 
 sult of her travelling preparations, which did by no 
 means soften mto a maternal smile at the greetmg of 
 her son.
 
 294 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 ' What, Gilbert,' she said, coldly enough, extending 
 him two fingers to shake ; ' I certainly did not expect 
 yoiL, I thought you had gone out of town. I have 
 not seen you for three weeks. ' 
 
 He felt the reproach was not undeserved. 
 
 * Mother,' he answered, ' I am afraid I have been 
 very negligent. I came here on pm-pose to tell you 
 so ; to ask your forgiveness for much that may have 
 offended you. I am sorry to have been wanting in my 
 duty towards you. Make friends with me before I go.' 
 
 Lady Olivia could not but be gratified at so sub- 
 missive an avowal, be softened by this unlooked-for 
 humility. She could not enjoy her triumph, however, 
 without displaying it. This was too good an opportu- 
 nity to be missed of reading her prodigal son a lecture. 
 So she sat down in her own especial arm-chair and 
 began in her haughtiest tones. 
 
 ' I have never complained of your conduct towards 
 me, Gilbert, nor have I expected anything else from 
 you, now, for a good many years. I am glad to find 
 that you have been at last brought to see the errors of 
 your ways. Better late than never. Perhaps for the 
 future you will no longer consider my advice utterly 
 valueless, or think it derogatory to consult me upon 
 your plans and movements. ^lay I ask when do you 
 go, and where ? ' 
 
 ' This week certain, mother,' was his reply ; ' I am 
 going direct to Australia.' 
 
 Even Lady Olivia was startled. 
 
 * To Australia ! ' she repeated ; ' it's a voyage of 
 months ! My child, I might never see you again ! ' 
 
 And for the first time for years she di'ew him 
 towards her and kissed him on the forehead.
 
 ' A NEW leaf/ 295 
 
 *And therefore, mother, you must think kindly of 
 me whilst I am away,' he ui^ged. ' When I come back 
 things will be very different, I hope. I am going to 
 turn over a new leaf ; I shall live a great deal more at 
 West- Acres. I shall try and be a useful member of 
 society. In the meantime, I shall not see you again 
 for a whole year.' 
 
 She remembered how his father had once spoken to 
 her almost to the same effect, how he had wished, once 
 for all, to put matters on a happier footing between 
 them. It was not long before the late Mr. Orme took 
 to drinking so sadly, and, indeed, was the last confi- 
 dential communication they had ever held. She had 
 hardened herself against her husband then, she would 
 not harden herself against her son now. 
 
 ' You have got into some scrape, Gilbert. You are 
 forced to leave the country ; tell me what it is ? I will 
 assist you if it is in my power ; at least, I know my 
 duty as a mother.' 
 
 At this moment of impending reconciliation, when 
 his mother for the first time appeared willing to treat 
 him as a son, he felt sorely shackled by his promise to 
 Mrs. Latimer. It was not to be thought of that he 
 could break it. A promise, especially a promise to 
 Ada, must indeed be held sacred. He hesitated, he 
 murmured, he came to a dead stop altogether. Lady 
 Olivia was more than ever offended. 
 
 ' This is a bad beginning,' she said, * of your pro- 
 mised amendment. You are going to alter your whole 
 life, you tell me. You are on the eve of a long voyage 
 to the other end of the world, and I, your mother, am 
 not to be informed of the cause. Excuse me, Gilbert, 
 I have no desire to intrude upon your confidence : per-
 
 296 GOOD FOR NOTHING. 
 
 haps your cousin may have more influence with you 
 than your mother.'' She got up, rang the bell, desired 
 the servant to ' send and let Lady Gertrude know that 
 Mr. Ormewas here and wished to see her immediately;' 
 then, coldly shaking her son once more by the hand, 
 merely added a wish for good weather on his account, 
 and a formal ' good-bye,' with which ceremonious fare- 
 well she walked out of the room as Lady Gertrude 
 came into it, and thus Gilbert lost the chance of being 
 reconciled to his mother. 
 
 * What's the matter now?' asked his cousin, with 
 a saucy smile, as she greeted him in her usual cordial 
 manner ; ' Aimt Olivia looks as black as thunder ; and 
 you, too, to judge by appearances, seem to have been 
 getting the worst of it. What have you been saying 
 to her, you wild, good-for-nothing boy ? and why 
 haven't you been near me to be lectured for so long ? 
 You look different yourself, too, to-day, Gilbert ; what 
 has happened ? ' she added, anxiously. 
 
 Gertrude had become more familiar than ever with 
 her cousin of late. She petted him, and scolded him, 
 and ordered him about with the caprice of a spoiled 
 child. Yet was it such a familiarity as I do not think 
 Mrs. Latimer would have minded in the least. Beyond 
 a certain point, mutual liking seems to promote mutual 
 reserve. If the Koh-i-noor was yours or mine, we 
 should not advertise the world of its possession; we 
 should never look at it without a secret thrill of 
 triumph, none the less keen that it was dashed with 
 a misgiving lest the gem should be lost, or stolen, or 
 depreciated by those who envied our lot. We should 
 not paw it about, and parade it, and wear it on Sundays 
 in our shirt-front. The heart is with the buried trea-
 
 ^A NEW LEAF.' 297 
 
 sure, and not with the golden image set up like ^ an 
 ensign on a hill.' Gertrude, I say, treated her cousin 
 as a brother, now that John Gordon was gone to 
 Australia. 
 
 * I shall be at sea this day week,' said Gilbert ; ' I 
 am going to follow a friend of ours out to Sydney.' 
 
 She looked up very grave ; ' Nothing has happened,' 
 she said ; ' you have had no time to hear. Why are 
 you going ? ' 
 
 ' I want change of scene,' he answered vaguely ; 
 ' I am tired of Scotland, and Brussels, and the eternal 
 round of German watering-places, each exactly like the 
 other. I should like to see Australia. I should like 
 to be out there with John Gordon.' 
 
 Lady Gertrude looked very well when her counte- 
 nance softened, as it did now ; the fault of her aris- 
 tocratic beauty was a certain impassibiUty of features 
 and sharpness of outline. Like a level landscape, it 
 was all the fairer for melting in a summer haze. 
 
 ' How good of you,' she said, clasping his hand ; 
 * how like you ! God bless you, Gilbert ; you are a 
 true friend.' 
 
 Recent circumstances had considerably sharpened 
 Gilbert's perceptions ; he laughed rather meaningly 
 as he asked, 
 
 ' Can I take anythmg out for you, Gertrude ? kind 
 messages and all that, or bring anything ba<ik ? ' 
 
 He was looking straight into her clear dark eyes, 
 and Lady Gertrude blushed deeply, a proceeding which 
 rather strengthened her cousin's suspicions than other- 
 wise. I do not think she gave him any positive 
 messages to take out to Sydney, nor exacted from 
 him a promise that he would brhig anything very 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 298 GOOD FOE NOTHING. 
 
 particular back ; but sbe talked with him for an hour 
 with ever-increasing interest of the colony and all 
 belonging to it. And when she did take leave of 
 him, it was affectionately, gravely, almost solemnly, 
 for she thought of the long absence, the tedious voyage, 
 and the distant shore. You see, she liked Gilbert very 
 much, they had been brought up together almost on 
 the terms of brother and sister, and her manner on 
 this occasion was as different as possible from that 
 in which she had wished John Gordon a flippant 
 ^ farewell.' 
 
 So Gilbert sailed for the Antipodes hecanse he had 
 lately discovered that there was something in England 
 dearer to him than all the rest of the world besides ; 
 and Lady Gertrude, when her cousin was fairly em- 
 barked in pm^suit of his friend, felt easier in her mind 
 than she had been ever since she expressed to that 
 friend a considerate wish for his ' hon voyage ! ' 
 
 My little playfellow from school lost one of his 
 arrows t'other day amongst the long grass in the 
 meadow behind the home farm ; the urchin fitted 
 another shaft forthwith, and from the same place took 
 a roving shot in the same direction. By following up 
 the last he found both. Cunning little archer ! if it is 
 well to have two strmgs to your bow, it is also not 
 amiss sometimes to have two arrows to your string. 
 
 END or VOL. I.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
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