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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
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 Sa7p 
 
 V .3
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 PAST HOURS.
 
 PAST HOURS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ADELAIDE SARTORIS 
 
 (ADELAIDE KEMBLE). 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. 11. 
 
 LONDON: 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 ?3u6Iisficrs m ©rliinarg to %zt fEajests tfje aucm. 
 1880. 
 
 {All rights reserved^
 
 PRINTED BV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
 
 «53 
 V.2 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 Recollections of the Life of Joseph 
 hey^vood, and some of his thoughts 
 ABOUT Music ... ... ... i 
 
 Judith ... ... ... ... 8i 
 
 When I am Dead ... ... ... 235
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 
 
 LIFE OF JOSEPH HEYIVOOD, 
 
 AND SOME OF HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT 
 -MUSIC 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 ^5
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LIFE OF 
 JOSEPH HEYWOOD, AND SOME OF 
 HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC. 
 
 Whenever in the heat of musical argument I 
 have allowed myself to give way to those 
 common expressions of discontented old age, 
 " Nowadays " and " In my time," a visitation 
 of doubting and profound humility succeeds, in 
 which I am tempted to set down half my 
 opinions to the intolerance of my advancing 
 years, so naturally averse to change — alas ! even 
 averse to improvement that includes change. 
 
 After all, what does that contemptuous "Now- 
 adays " mean } or that '' In inj/ time," pro- 
 nounced with such regretful pride } For the 
 most part, only that the clouds are emptied of 
 their light, that the little rose-coloured islands
 
 4 Past Ho2trs. 
 
 have become mere violet blots upon a grey sky, 
 that the sun has gone down ; and I endeavour 
 to become resigned to the idea that possibly it 
 is only my own sere and yellow leaf that is at 
 fault, and which makes it a matter of im- 
 possibility with me to digest food that the rest 
 of the world finds both palatable and sufficient 
 for nourishment. I then endeavour to console 
 myself with the heroic but uncheerful considera- 
 tion, that it is doubtless better that I should be 
 a fastidious and cantankerous old man than that 
 the musical taste of my country should be going 
 to the dogs altogether ; and that, provided the 
 sacred fire still burns in many breasts, it matters 
 comparatively but little that upon one small 
 altar a heap of cold white ashes should be lying. 
 A short stay in London, from which I had 
 come away in a state of grievous discouragement 
 with regard to the cultivation of musical taste in 
 England, had thrown me by turns into these 
 - different phases of melancholy, until a day or
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 5 
 
 two ago, when I went up to the Court to dine 
 with my friend Lord Winterton. In the even- 
 ing, his niece. Miss Jane Trevor, played to 
 perfection some of old Sebastian Bach's en- 
 chanting dance-music — full of smiles and good 
 faith, of gentle humour and tender fancy. I 
 could have cried for joy, first over the exquisite 
 grace and charm of the things, and then again 
 for joy at finding that I was not the corpse I 
 fancied I had become — that real beauty had the 
 power to stir my depths as much as ever it had 
 done in the ardent years of youthful enthusiasm, 
 and that it was, as I knew it was, the utter want 
 of the divine imaginative quality which belongs 
 to all the really great masters, that had made 
 me rebel against that vulgar noise which seems 
 so entirely to have taken the place of better 
 things in the fashionable world of music. 
 
 Of the gradual decadence in vocal art within 
 the last thirty years, I had tangible proof the 
 same evening ; for in looking through Lady
 
 6 Past Hours. 
 
 Jane Trevor's collection of Bellini's music, I 
 found it full of passages which the tenor singers 
 now in vogue would find it next to impossible to 
 master ; and going further back still, and taking 
 up Rossini's opera of " Ricciardo e Zoraide," I 
 discovered that it contained no less than three 
 great tenor parts, the least important of which 
 would be beyond the strength of most of the 
 tenors of the present day, whose powers of 
 vocalization are so limited, that the orchestral 
 accompaniment is generally made to play in 
 unison with the voice every passage at all 
 difficult of execution, so that the noise of the 
 instruments effectually drowns any possible 
 defect on the part of the singer. 
 
 These revolutions take place almost im- 
 perceptibly to those who remain stationary, and 
 around whom they are working gradually day 
 by day : as for me, I had ample power of com- 
 paring the present and the past, for I had been 
 away for a lapse of years, and had heard no
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 7 
 
 music in the interval ; there had been nothing 
 to soften the lines of change, nothing with which 
 to bridge over the gulf between what was and is, 
 and I can hardly describe the shock it was to 
 my feelings on my return to Europe to find 
 the true gods overthrown, and horrible idols — 
 creatures of wood and stone — set up in their 
 places. I had left England some five and twenty 
 years ago, as tutor to a family who were going 
 abroad. I was then about twenty-five years old 
 myself, and a passionate lover of music. My 
 father, who was a very poor countr}^ curate, with 
 a large number of children, had also a violin ; 
 and I think this instrument, upon which he 
 played very beautifully, was almost as dear to 
 him as any of his children. Certainly, he owed 
 it some gratitude, for it was the one prettiness 
 of a life painted too much in greys ; the only 
 solace of an over-worked, over-burdened exist- 
 ence ; the only consolation he had to fall back 
 upon in the midst of the daily increasing troubles
 
 8 Past Hours. 
 
 of a large family, and the difficulties of educating 
 and providing for us all. My poor mother, who 
 was of a nervous, excitable temperament, when 
 we came in with our best — oftenest our only suit 
 of clothes, tattered and soiled, to be repaired as 
 best they might, by those indefatigable fingers 
 of hers ; or when three or four of us were saying 
 our lessons to her, and the baby (the baby 
 seemed a permanent institution at the parsonage) 
 roaring all the while in her arms — would some- 
 times go almost wild with irritation at hearing 
 the long-drawn-out notes of the violin proceed- 
 ing placidly by the hour together from my 
 father's little study. " And there he is, whining 
 aeain ! " she would sometimes exclaim, but she 
 never asked him to stop, though she had to cast 
 every sum up three or four times over, whenever 
 the arithmetic and the violin went on together. 
 
 Little Mary and myself are the only members 
 of the family who have inherited my father's 
 fondness for music ; and our great delight was
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood, 9 
 
 to creep unperceived into the study, and lie 
 hidden in the recess underneath his writing- 
 table, while he stood up playing by the casement 
 that opened upon our little garden — his pale 
 face growing dark and sharp against the twilight, 
 and the carnations giving out all their odour in 
 the quiet evening air. I can never smell a car- 
 nation now without hearing my dear father's 
 " Bid me Discourse," or " Sally in our Alley," 
 and those tunes will smell of carnations and feel 
 of evening dew to me, to the last days of my 
 life. The next music which I heard, was when 
 I was sent up to London as a lad of sixteen to 
 complete my education. I was quartered upon 
 Philip Warde, an old friend and schoolfellow of 
 my father's, and attended Westminster School 
 daily. 
 
 Philip Warde had a splendid mansion (or at 
 least what seemed so to me after our tiny par- 
 sonage) in Bloomsbury Square. He was a well- 
 to-do lawyer, with six children — three boys and
 
 lo Past Hours. 
 
 three girls. When I lived there, the eldest boy, 
 Bill, was clerk in a respectable banking-house in 
 the city ; the eldest girl, Susannah, was nine- 
 teen — a fair likeness of her father, with the 
 same sweet smile, and the same lovely, moral 
 countenance. Emily was sixteen, and little 
 Ursula fourteen. Then came the two small 
 boys. Bob and Harry, who were a good deal 
 younger, and at school away down in the 
 country. 
 
 In this house my musical taste was continually 
 fostered and ministered to. Philip Warde, who 
 was a remarkably handsome man of about five 
 and forty, had not only the most winning speak- 
 ing voice in the world, but also one of the finest 
 basses it was possible to hear. He was alto- 
 gether a delightful creature — handsome, happy, 
 and good. He had married upon nothing when 
 he was very young, and his plain little wife, who 
 had cheered and supported him through all the 
 troubles and struggles of their early life, loved
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 1 1 
 
 him still in mature age with that sort of passion- 
 ate adoration that seems generally only to 
 belong to the fervent season of one's youth. 
 They were both blessed with that greatest of all 
 blessings — excellent animal spirits. What jolly 
 Christmas parties we used to have to be sure, 
 when Philip led off " Money-musk " with Mrs. 
 Warde, and we pounded away at " Sir Roger de 
 Coverley " till three in the morning ! All that is 
 gone out now, and it is considered the right 
 thing to shuffle about all out of time, as if one 
 could not hear the music, and as if one did not 
 know how to dance, and could not bear it. But 
 in those days, a thing to see were Philip's hand- 
 some legs, in tights fitting close to the shape 
 all the way down to the ankle, doing such 
 intricate steps, footing it so daintily to the 
 measure, and every now and then cutting the 
 most lovely capers to excite the admiration of 
 us youngsters. When the clock struck twelve 
 we used to go down to supper — such negus !
 
 12 Past Hoicrs. 
 
 such calvesfoot jelly ! such tipsy-cake ! I used 
 to think there was nothing like it ! Indeed it 
 would have been difficult to find anywhere a 
 happier family circle. 
 
 Glee-singing was the music most successfully 
 cultivated in this house : Bill sang tenor, with 
 capital lungs of his own ; sweet Susannah Warde 
 was soprano, Emily took the alto, and Philip's 
 deep voice came growling tunefully in, in the 
 depths below, like a magnificent organ. All 
 Calcott's and Horsley's charming glees they 
 used to sing — and quaint old madrigals of an- 
 other day, that rippled away sunnily like inter- 
 mingling streams of clearest water : the long 
 habit of singing together, and the kindred quality 
 of the voices, made their execution of this kind 
 of music absolute perfection. Then on Sundays 
 Handel used to be the order of the day. Philip 
 would sing, " Shall I, in Mamre's fertile plain," 
 and sweet Susannah Warde would give us, 
 " What though I trace," and then we always
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 13 
 
 wound up with, " O ruddier than the cherry," 
 which was Philip's great song, of which his wife 
 was justly proud, and which she always would 
 ask for, saying that though it was not sacred 
 it was Handel, which meant nearly the same 
 thing. 
 
 Ah, dear old time ! Ah, gentle people ! The 
 dark years have divided us, but you are not 
 forgotten. 
 
 In Lent, Philip Warde would often take me 
 to the oratorios that used to be given at the 
 great theatres on the Wednesdays and Fridays, 
 which during that season were devoted entirely 
 to musical performances. 
 
 My first oratorio was a memorable event in 
 my life : I thought it so then, with life before 
 me — I think it so still, looking back upon it now 
 that I have lived. We were to have the " Israel 
 in Egypt." In general Mr. Warde was punctu- 
 ality itself, but on this occasion he had been 
 detained by unexpected business, and dinner
 
 14 Past Hours. 
 
 was a whole hour later than usual, instead of 
 half an hour earlier, as it was to have been. At 
 every ring of the bell, I, and the girls in their 
 white frocks and blue sashes, dashed out upon 
 the stairs to see if it was the master come home, 
 and at each fresh disappointment I felt almost 
 ready to cry with impatience. I kept looking 
 at the bill, and felt sure that every piece of 
 music I most wished to hear would be over 
 by the time we got there ; and indeed it was 
 very late when we reached the theatre, and the 
 performance had long been begun. We flew 
 along the lobby, and hastily taking our places 
 in the dress circle, came in for the concluding 
 bars of a magnificent chorus. After which a 
 little thick-set man, with a light brown wig all 
 over his eyes, a generally common appearance, 
 and most unmistakably Jewish aspect, got up to 
 sing one single line of recitative. He stood 
 with his head well on one side, held his music 
 also on one side, and far out before him, gave a
 
 Recollections of yoseph Hey wood. 15 
 
 funny little stamp with his foot, and then pro- 
 ceeded to lay in his provision of breath with 
 such a tremendous shrug of his shoulders and 
 swelling of his chest, that I very nearly burst 
 out laughing. 
 
 He said — " But the children of Israel went on 
 dry land " — and then he paused ; and every 
 sound was hushed throughout that great space ; 
 and then, as if carved out upon the solid still- 
 ness, came those three little words, " Through the 
 sea ! " And our breath failed, and our pulses 
 ceased to beat, and we bent our heads, as all 
 the wonder of the miracle seemed to pass over 
 us with those accents — awful, radiant, resonant, 
 triumphant ! He sat down while the whole 
 house thundered its applause. I turned to 
 Philip Warde in speechless agitation. "Braham ! " 
 said he, wiping his eyes. 
 
 I often afterwards heard this greatest singer of 
 our country, who was, doubtless, among the 
 greatest of any age or country ; but although the
 
 1 6 Past Hours. 
 
 stamp of genius was on everything that he did, 
 strangely mixed up with it was a love of gallery 
 popularity, which led him continually into faults 
 of taste. What could exceed the profound pathos 
 of his " Deeper and deeper still " ? His " Lash 
 me into madness " still rings through all my 
 fibres : but then again, just at the end of " Waft 
 her, angels," with which he had seemed to lift 
 one into paradise, he must needs roar out an 
 interminable cadence, hideous and vulgar, for 
 which the gods cheered him, but for which in 
 sober truth he deserved to be hissed. 
 
 Little Bob and Harry used to find the first 
 parts of these entertainments rather dry work, 
 but would wake up for the third part, which 
 was always miscellaneous, and which I hated : I 
 always used to come down from the sublime 
 altitudes of old Handel upon the dull earth again 
 with a sort of bump ; but they delighted in the 
 lighter music ; and indeed Mr. Braham's singing 
 of such songs as, "When the Lads of the Vil-
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 1 7 
 
 lage," " Let us go to Kelvin Grove," "March, 
 march, Ettrick and Teviotdale," and the " Bay of 
 Biscay," was every bit as spirited and fine, as 
 perfect in its accent and expression, as his pathos 
 and dramatic genius were unsurpassed in the 
 greater things he did. 
 
 The only friendship I made at Westminster 
 was with little Lord Winterton. He was a sickly 
 little lad of about fourteen, with continual head- 
 aches ; and our intimacy grew, first, out of my 
 preventing his being bullied because he could not 
 play much and rough it as the others did, — and 
 then, out of my looking after him, and lending 
 him books when his family were abroad and he 
 broke his arm out sliding and was laid up and 
 lonely. 
 
 He had several sisters, of whom he used occa- 
 sionally to make mention when we had become 
 chums, and who sang most beautifully, according 
 to his account. I used to tell him of our music 
 in Bloomsbury Square, and then he would say 
 
 VOL. II. 16
 
 1 8 Past Hours. 
 
 with the most provoking coolness : " Ah, you 
 should hear Lady Jane sing ! " This was his 
 favourite sister, and he often spoke of her when 
 he was ill and I came to sit with him. Once or 
 twice we nearly quarrelled when I was vaunting 
 Miss Warde's singing, and he only remarked with 
 a languid superiority, and as if he had heard 
 all the world, " Ah, you haven't heard Lady 
 Jane!" 
 
 The fact was, that about this time I was fast 
 growing out of the mere schoolboy into the 
 sentimental phase of hobbledehoyhood, and 
 Susannah Warde was the first woman whom I 
 was beginning to look upon as a woman. 
 
 I had often heard her say, after we had been 
 talking of my dear old father and the life at 
 home, that she thought the perfection of happi- 
 ness must be to live in a dear little cottage 
 all honeysuckles and carnations, with a gentle- 
 hearted, hard-working country curate for a hus- 
 band : and forgetful of the years that lay between
 
 Recollectio7is of Joseph Heywood, 19 
 
 us, and fired with a new tumult of almost un- 
 acknowledged hopes, I bent all my thoughts 
 towards the church, and implored my father 
 to send me to Oxford. Poor man ! He could 
 ill afford to spare the necessary sum of money 
 for this fresh expense, and I fretted myself and 
 my mother nearly into a fever with my anxiety 
 and impatient restlessness. Luckily — I did not 
 think so then — they were not called upon to 
 make the sacrifices they were prepared to make 
 for the fulfilmicnt of my desire. 
 
 Just at this time, Susannah went to pay a 
 visit of a month to a married friend of hers who 
 lived at Woolwich; and when next I heard from 
 the Wardes (I was at home at the parsonage 
 then), it was to tell me that she was going to be 
 married to a Captain Knockam Garth. It was 
 not a good marriage in a worldly sense, but they 
 were not worldly people. Philip Warde, who 
 doted on his daughter, was greatly overset when 
 he first heard of the engagement, and rather
 
 20 Past Hours, 
 
 inclined to oppose it ; but the mother remem- 
 bered her own early days, and made her hus- 
 band remember them, and their own true young 
 love ; and so finally his objections were over- 
 ruled, and Captain Garth became an accepted 
 lover. 
 
 As there was some probability of his regiment 
 being soon ordered upon foreign service, a very 
 few weeks only intervened between the engage- 
 ment and the marriage. They were very 
 wretched weeks to me, and I shame to say it, 
 in my selfish, jealous passion, I made them so 
 to all around me. I was bitter against the 
 whole world, and sore about everything. 
 
 Sometimes I thought with contempt and 
 almost hatred of her for having, as I chose to 
 represent it to myself, sacrificed a true love to 
 the false glitter of position ; while the facts were, 
 that Captain Garth was as poor as a church 
 mouse, and that she had never felt anything for 
 me but the sort of sisterly regard a kind-hearted
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 2 1 
 
 young woman of her age, and with brothers of 
 her own, was almost sure to experience for an 
 awkward friendless schoolboy, living in the 
 same house. But this, the true aspect of the 
 matter, was too mortifying to my pride and 
 vanity to be entertained for a single instant, and 
 I preferred thinking myself the victim of a 
 woman's fickleness and treachery : it invested 
 me, in my own eyes at least, with a dignity and 
 importance which were more flattering to my 
 feelings. Sometimes I used to wonder whether 
 she would dare — I actually put it so to my- 
 self, — whether Susannah would dare to bid to 
 her wedding the man she had so deeply wronged. 
 Then as the time grew near and nearer, and no 
 sign came from any of them, I had fits of 
 absolute rage against them all, that in their 
 idiotic delight at what I was pleased to call this 
 new thing, I, their old dear friend, was laid by 
 and unremembered. And then my rage all 
 went out suddenly like a spent flame, and I
 
 2 2 Past Hours. 
 
 would lie for hours far away in the fields, crying 
 my heart out for the intolerable aching desolate- 
 ness, the grievous grievous pain of their having 
 forgotten me. At this time my poor mother, 
 too, became a source of the greatest annoyance 
 to me. My father was a good deal away from 
 the house, and always very absent and pre- 
 occupied when he was in it ; but my mother saw 
 well enough that something was going badly 
 with me, I dare say she had even made half a 
 guess at the truth, for in matters of the heart 
 all women — the very dullest — become sharp, 
 and I noticed that she never once mentioned 
 Susannah's name to me. Her tender pity would 
 flow out to me in a thousand little acts of watch- 
 ful affection ; but any unusual demonstration of 
 this kind only made me imagine that I was 
 looked upon as an object of compassion, and 
 this I resented bitterly, beyond all measure. 
 Then when I had met her warmth with coldness, 
 scaring her into silence either with sullen sarcasm
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 23 
 
 or savage irritability, and she no longer ventured 
 to take me in her arms and question me, or 
 make troubled remarks upon my white face and 
 feverish hands, she would follow me with tearful 
 looks wherever I moved about the room, until I 
 used to rush from the house in a state of perfect 
 frenzy, that I might escape from the unceasing 
 importunity of those wistful mother's eyes. I 
 was very mad, and very bad, and — God forgive 
 me for it ! — I still thought that before the end — 
 the end of all — was consummated, some one 
 must surely take some notice of me. But no ! 
 One by one the days passed, and no letter 
 arrived. Then a dreadful day — the date of 
 which I well knew — came too, and rolled heavily 
 away, and still no sign ! 
 
 Two mornings afterwards a packet was brought 
 to me ; it contained a white favour, and a large 
 piece of wedding-cake, and a letter from Mrs. 
 Warde. I tied the favour on our tomcat, and 
 gave the cake to the children ; but the letter was
 
 24 ' Past Hours. 
 
 so kind and tender that I could not bring myself 
 to tear it up. It was as follows : — 
 
 Dear Joe, 
 
 The marriage is over, and our dear girl 
 has left us. And now that I sit down with her 
 empty chair beside me — that chair where she has 
 sat, our pride and our joy, for so many years — 
 my eyes and my heart are full of tears, and I 
 can't help thinking of you, dear Joe, and writing 
 to you, for I think you will want to hear from 
 some of us to-day ; and as the young ones are 
 all too much excited just at present to settle 
 down quietly to pen and paper, you must put up 
 with my account of matters, though I fear I shall 
 not be able to write quite as cheerfully as I 
 ought. Captain Garth is about thirty-five — ^just 
 thirteen years older than Susie ; but this I think 
 quite a fault on the right side, especially where 
 the life is likely to be so full of ups and downs 
 and changes and movement. She isn't used to
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 25 
 
 roughing it much, poor dear ! [here a great 
 drop blots the paper] and will want some one 
 who knows how to take care of her as well as to 
 love her. 
 
 Captain Garth has a loud, firm voice, and 
 seems, I think, to have a very decided character ; 
 but this is certainly quite an advantage, and 
 probably, after all, only his military way, to 
 which I am not yet used. They are gone to 
 Scarborough for a fortnight, his leave, at pre- 
 sent, not extending beyond that time, and then 
 they are to join the regiment, which is stationed 
 at York. 
 
 The breakfast went off capitally. There 
 were a number of toasts and speeches : Philip 
 spoke quite beautifully, as he always does ; at 
 least he began beautifully — saying what an 
 honour he thought it for his daughter to be the 
 wife of a brave man ; but when, as he went on, 
 he touched upon all the vicissitudes of a soldier's 
 life, the hardships and the dangers, and often
 
 26 Past Hou7's. 
 
 the long years of exile in distant lands, a 
 thought of all our poor Susie might be exposed 
 to — she who had been so petted and fostered, 
 and kept in cotton all her life — came across him, 
 and he suddenly got as white as a sheet, and 
 could not go on ; and poor Susie, who had kept 
 up wonderfully till then, burst into tears, and 
 jumped up from table, and ran into his arms. 
 I was afraid Captain Garth might be hurt, for 
 he coloured scarlet, and said not a single word. 
 However, uncle James was there, and saved us 
 all ; for he got up and made a first-rate speech, 
 full of puns, which set all the girls laughing, 
 and so we ended better than we began. 
 
 You were not forgotten at the breakfast, dear 
 Joe. "Absent friends" were drunk, and then 
 Susie put another drop of wine into her glass, 
 and added, " And here's dear Joe, and God bless 
 him ! " My dear boy, I hope that by-and-by it 
 may be a pleasure and comfort to you to re- 
 member this little word. Philip and Susie were
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 27 
 
 both very anxious to have you up for the 
 wedding ; but I thought that perhaps you would 
 not care to come to us just then, and said I 
 thought your own people must be wanting you 
 themselves after having been so long without 
 you. I hope you have not been vexed at not 
 hearing from us before, but I thought it better 
 not to write till all was over. 
 
 Your truly attached friend, 
 
 Sarah Warde. 
 
 And so I burned the white rose she had stuck 
 into my button-hole one day when we had gone 
 to a picnic in Greenwich Park, and the bit of 
 mistletoe under which I had kissed her last 
 Christmas, when we both blushed for the first 
 time, and I felt with a rush of blood to my heart 
 
 that she had suddenly — all in a single instant 
 
 become Eve to me. And I went to my father 
 and told him I had finally made up my mind to 
 give up the church and take to tutoring ; which
 
 2S Past Houi's. 
 
 would at once relieve him of much anxiety on 
 my account, and for which on the whole I felt 
 myself a great deal better fitted. The fact was, 
 with the loss of Susannah, all ambition was gone 
 out of me ; I had come to my senses, and with 
 them also to the conclusion that the less trouble 
 I gave now in any way the better. 
 
 I first got a very satisfactory situation in 
 Cornwall, where I remained for about two years, 
 and then spent the next three years in the 
 family of an Irish gentleman who lived not far 
 from the lovely lake of Killarney. After which 
 I heard of what seemed likely to prove a very 
 good thing if I did not mind India ; and 
 feeling that an entire change was the only 
 thing likely to shake me out of a state of 
 despondency and discouragement that was be- 
 coming too habitual with me, I made up my 
 mind to close with the offer which had been 
 made me. 
 
 It was a great shock to the people at the
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 29 
 
 parsonage when I announced my intention to 
 them. But, after all, I had already been away 
 three years in Ireland without ever coming 
 home ; this was to be an absence of only five 
 or six (alas ! it became one of five and twenty ; 
 but at the moment of our decision this was 
 little anticipated), and the remuneration, which 
 was most liberal and to be increased with time, 
 would allow of my sending home annually a 
 considerable sum of money to be devoted to the 
 education of my brothers. 
 
 My favourite sister, ]\Iary, was at this time 
 about to become a governess : she was admirably 
 gifted for this career, and had been brought 
 up wath a view to it. She knew French 
 fundamentally, though of course she could not 
 speak it : she was, thanks to my father, a very 
 good Latin scholar ; and thanks to her own 
 industry and passion for music, a fair per- 
 former on the pianoforte. Our instrument was 
 but a poor one, having belonged to my mother
 
 30 Past Hours. 
 
 when she was a girl — she brought it with her to 
 the parsonage when she married my father, and 
 with it her old music-books, a few odd volumes 
 of Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart — it was all 
 old-fashioned together, but we owed to it some 
 of the happiest moments of our lives. 
 
 After failing in one or two attempts to 
 procure a situation for her, one now offered 
 which seemed to promise very favourably ; but 
 the money for her outfit, slender as that was, 
 was not forthcoming just when it was wanted, and 
 could only be got together by keeping the boys 
 at home and on my mother's hands for another 
 year. Now, they had long been of an age to go 
 to school ; but though veiy good-hearted boys, 
 it was not in the nature of their youth and 
 vigorous temperament not to be somewhat un- 
 ruly and noisy, and my poor mother, who at her 
 best had never been very strong, had broken 
 down a great deal in the last years, and stood 
 much in need of a rest and quiet that she seemed
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 31 
 
 but little likely in this life to obtain. My 
 Indian project turning up just at this juncture, 
 solved many of these difficulties in an unlooked- 
 for way, and reconciled us all more or less to 
 the pang of parting. 
 
 One day, not long before my departure, as I 
 was running along Bond Street in quest of 
 portmanteaus and hat-boxes, I ran up against a 
 fine, tall, stout young fellow, who, taking hold 
 of me by both shoulders, called out, "Why, 
 hulloa, old fellow, where are you cutting to in 
 such a hurry ? " It was little Winterton grown 
 out of all his illnesses and ailments into 
 this magnificent specimen of a man. He was 
 going home to luncheon, and insisted on 
 carrying me along with him to Portman Square. 
 We found his mother at table with a bevy of 
 charming young ladies, to whom I was in turn 
 presented. There was Lady Mary, with her 
 silvery voice and delicate skin ; and Lady 
 Caroline, straight and tall, and with something
 
 32 Past Houi^s. 
 
 of a will of her own or I am much mistaken. 
 But indeed I could hardly look at anybody for 
 a vision of loveliness that seemed to brighten 
 the whole room, and that came up to me with a 
 sweet graciousness and a sunny face all dim- 
 pling with tender smiles, and holding out both 
 her little hands, said, " How good you were to 
 George ! I'm sure he must have talked to you 
 about me — I'm Jane." 
 
 Sitting at table with them, drinking porter 
 and eating voraciously, was a stout elderly 
 foreign gentleman with a smooth face and great 
 animation of manner. This was Signor Donzelli, 
 a very famous Italian tenor singer, who had 
 formerly given lessons to the young ladies, and 
 who was only for a few days in England. After 
 luncheon we went upstairs, and Lady Jane and 
 Caroline dragged him to the -piano and insisted 
 on his singing. After many entreaties and 
 protestations on one side and the other, he 
 began his most celebrated air out of Rossini's
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. '^'i^ 
 
 " Otello," "Ah si pervoi gia sento," but he broke 
 down in the middle, burst out laughing, and 
 seizing them by the hand, exclaimed, " C'est im- 
 possible ! vous etes deux charmantes filles, mais 
 je ne puis pas chanter — ^je suis trop plein ! " 
 
 He appeared to have little or no execution, 
 but it was one of the noblest voices I ever 
 heard : a manly, robust, sonorous, low tenor, 
 more like the very high baritones of the present 
 day than anything else. He afterwards sang 
 two or three bits of recitative, which were much 
 finer than the song, which had a little wanted 
 finish, and was rather too uniformly loud to my 
 thinking. The best of all was one that began 
 with the words, " Svanir le voci," and which they 
 told me was out of an opera called "Norma," 
 by Bellini. It was a grand piece of declama- 
 tion : I never heard so perfect an enunciation ; 
 not a word was lost, and the separate syllables 
 beat singly on the ear like so many distinct 
 musical blows. 
 VOL. II. 17
 
 34 P(^si Hours. 
 
 When I took my leave, they told me they 
 were going to have some music in the evening, 
 and begged me to come and hear it. I inquired 
 if Signor Donzelli was to sing. *' Oh no," said 
 Lady Jane. " Ours is only an amateur per- 
 formance, and Mr. Rivers don't like his singing ; 
 he says he bawls too much, and that it is in- 
 sufferable in a room. You w^ill hear ]\Ir. Rivers 
 to-night. We have no less than four tenors, all 
 so jealous of one another ! — Mr. Endersleigh, 
 Mr. Frank Rivers, Mr. Cholmondely, and Lord 
 Manvers ; but Mr. Rivers is the best, and we 
 are going to sing a quantity of things he has 
 brought with him from Italy." 
 
 As the clock struck ten, I presented myself 
 in Portman Square, and found myself the only 
 man among the ladies, for the guests had not 
 yet begun to arrive, and the gentlemen had not 
 left the dinner-table. The ladies received me 
 very kindly, but I never was more uncomfortable 
 in my life ; I felt so thoroughly in the way.
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood, 35 
 
 and a fish out of water. There were no subjects 
 of common interest between us — how should 
 there be ? Of their habits I knew nothing, and 
 what experience could they possibly have of a 
 life hidden away in the shade like mine ? We 
 had exhausted George's health at luncheon, and 
 upon the only topic upon which we could converse 
 — music — I soon found that we did not agree ; 
 my early taste had been formed upon the masters 
 almost exclusively cultivated in my own home — 
 Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and old Corelli, — but 
 with these I found my new friends but little 
 acquainted, although they unhesitatingly pro- 
 nounced them to be dull and tiresome. I then 
 thought I would try a lighter style, and spoke 
 of Purcell and Dr. Arne, but here I was hardly 
 more successful. Of these composers they were 
 entirely ignorant. I, in my turn, knew nothing 
 whatever of Rossini and the Italian music they 
 delighted in, and so conversation very soon 
 began to flag, and to be filled with a gradually
 
 36 Past Hours. 
 
 rising tide of awkward pauses. What made me 
 feel still more embarrassed was the presence 
 of a lady with whom I was not acquainted. 
 I never saw anything more striking than this 
 lady's appearance. She was a beautiful woman 
 of apparently about six or seven and twenty, tall \ 
 and slight, and with a handsome figure. She 
 had a remarkably small, well-shaped head, with 
 dark hair, eyes, and a wonderful white com- 
 plexion, with just the very faintest tinge of colour 
 exactly in the right place. I remarked this with 
 admiration to Lady Mary, who replied in her 
 sugary voice and with an odd little laugh, " Yes ; 
 she always puts it in the right place, don't she V' 
 Her dress was very peculiar, and added to the 
 picturesqueness and brilliancy of her appearance. 
 She wore a scarlet velvet gown, and a magni- 
 ficent white rose in her bosom. 
 
 This person, my dear Lady Jane told me, 
 was one of her cousins. Lady Charlotte Mal- 
 colm, or I never could have believed they
 
 Recollectio7is of Joseph Hey wood. 2>7 
 
 could have belonged to the same family, she 
 looked so dreadfully hard and bold ; and she 
 certainly had none of their good breeding or 
 good nature, for having, when I came in first, 
 asked, in so loud a whisper that I couldn't 
 but hear her, who I was, and then remarked 
 that I was a good-looking beast, she declined 
 having me presented to her, and took no fur- 
 ther notice of me whatever, beyond putting 
 up her horrid eyeglass at me and giggling 
 upon every observation I addressed to other 
 people ; each time she did so, making me grow 
 as red as the colour of her own gown. Before 
 the people came, I was taken through the 
 rooms by Lady Caroline and Lady Jane. I 
 think they were rather ashamed of their cousin's 
 bad manners, and very good-naturedly made 
 this an excuse for getting me out of her reach. 
 
 This evening in Portman Square was alto- 
 gether a revelation to me. In the first place 
 I had never seen any house at all like it. I
 
 38 Past Hours. 
 
 had been living exiled in a very desolate sort 
 of barracky ruin in Ireland for the last iQ,\v 
 years, and almost the only civilized social re- 
 collections I had were of the dear old house 
 in Bloom sbury ; but this was a very different 
 matter in every respect. 
 
 In Bloomsbury we had one good-sized draw- 
 ing-room, opening with long narrow yellow 
 folding-doors into a back room a good deal 
 smaller. The variety of arrangement, and the 
 quantity of furniture in Portman Square, made 
 it a matter of some anxiety to steer one's way 
 clear on any side. In Bloomsbury we used 
 to have no difficulties of this sort to struggle 
 with : the pianoforte stood against the wall 
 in one room, and a hard little sofa, with a 
 shaped back and scroll end, against the wall 
 in the other : there were only two arm-chairs 
 in each room, and these stood symmetrically 
 on either side the fire-place. In the centre of 
 both rooms was a round table : that in the
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 39 
 
 front drawing-room had a cloth cover of light 
 green stamped with black upon it ; the table 
 in the back room had no cloth : it was of 
 dark mahogany, and overspread with pretty 
 little knick-knacks in Bohemian glass and Tun- 
 bridge ware. In this room the paper was a 
 rich buff flock ; but the paper in the front 
 room was the one I used to admire the most : 
 it had a bright pink ground, with a pattern 
 something between a cathedral window and a 
 gridiron done in gold all over it. How well 
 I recollect the day it was put up, and how 
 splendid I thought it looked when the great 
 glass chandelier was lighted, to try the effect ! 
 Miss Bird, the governess, was sent for, with 
 little Ursula, from the school-room, to come 
 and see it ; and I remember as if it were 
 yesterday, how she stood before it in her plum- 
 coloured gown, with her red mufifettees and 
 her chilblainy hands clasped, exclaiming rap- 
 turously over and over again, " And such a
 
 40 Past Hours. 
 
 lovely idea, isn't it ? " as if that was a charm 
 entirely separate from the paper, and the one 
 she chiefly appreciated. 
 
 There were four drawing-rooms in Portman 
 Square — two immense middle ones of grand 
 proportions, with white and gold walls and 
 gorgeous crimson curtains. These were bril- 
 liantly lit all round with wax candles, and the 
 pianoforte stood quite out at the end of the 
 largest room of the two. Leading out of this 
 apartment, behind the head of the piano, was 
 what was called the young ladies' study. This 
 was hung with pale sea-green satin of an ex- 
 quisitely delicate shade. It would be impos- 
 sible for me to describe it in detail ; but I 
 remember that the sofas and chairs — which 
 were of all shapes and sizes, some Liliputian, 
 some Brobdingnagian — were covered with gar- 
 lands of roses in soft old tapestry-work, which 
 had preserved the liveliest and freshest tints. 
 Against the walls were two cabinets of ebony
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 41 
 
 inlaid with ivory, and over these hung two 
 noble Sir Joshuas, portraits of ladies of the 
 family. There were also three or four beauti- 
 ful drawings of Lawrence's, and some charm- 
 ing water-colours by Copley Fielding, and De 
 Wint. The room that was at the other end of 
 the suite, was of circular form, hung with silver 
 grey velvet, and contained about half a dozen 
 first-rate Vandykes. The curtains here were 
 of a deep violet colour, and the furniture, 
 which I admired very much, they told me was 
 old French. There were beautiful inlaid secre- 
 taires, costly bureaus of quaint shape, and at 
 one end a gorgeous old French writing-table, 
 and everywhere, by each luxurious sofa or 
 inviting arm-chair, little inlaid tables of green 
 and brown woods, of the most exquisite forms 
 and workmanship. It was altogether quite 
 different from Bloomsbury, and on the whole, 
 certainly much prettier. 
 
 When once the guests began to arrive, they
 
 42 Past Hours. 
 
 continued pouring in very quickly, and the rooms 
 were soon filled to suffocation. I was very 
 curious to see Mr. Rivers, whose name was 
 mentioned among them every five minutes — 
 his opinions quoted, and his authority appealed 
 to. It was evident he must be a very important 
 and fashionable person, and I thought he must 
 be some great lord's son at least ; but I found to 
 my surprise that, although he was connected 
 with almost all the noble families of England, 
 he held no rank whatever himself ; he was not 
 even an Honourable. I felt sure I should know 
 him at once, either by his supremely dandified 
 appearance, or by his superior good looks, 
 although how he was to be handsomer than 
 the men already there it was difficult to imagine. 
 For I do not think I ever was so struck with 
 anything as I was with the general beauty of 
 this assembly — both men and women seemed 
 like creatures of another world to me. Now we 
 had only one other pretty girl besides Susannah
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. a 
 
 H-O 
 
 Warde in Bloomsbury — Georgina Battersby, her 
 great friend, — and I could not help thinking how 
 dowdy and insignificant she would have looked 
 among these people. 
 
 There was one whole family of three sisters 
 and two brothers, who, when they came in, 
 quite took away my breath with the splendour 
 of their appearance. IMrs. Wentworth, with her 
 classical head and straight nose, made one think 
 of " The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, 
 where burning Sappho loved and sung." In- 
 deed she might have been Sappho herself, for 
 they told me she was a genius as well as a 
 beauty. Her youngest brother, who was not 
 more than nineteen or twenty years old, was with- 
 out exception the most radiant human creature 
 I ever beheld. Without being at all unmanly 
 or effeminate, he was as lovely as a woman, 
 and had the voice and smile of an angel : one 
 wondered what this glorious young Greek god 
 was doing, so far away from Olympus.
 
 44 Past Hours, 
 
 Then there was cream-coloured Mrs. Henry 
 Wharton, beautiful from " her melancholy eyes 
 divine, the home of woe without a tear," down 
 to the sole of her foot. I never saw anything 
 to equal the shape and colour of her hands, 
 arms, and bust ; but I felt nervously ashamed 
 of looking much her way, her clothing having 
 for the most part resumed itself into a bunch 
 of violets. I mention these merely as some of 
 the most remarkable persons that I saw, for 
 I stood near the door, and I declare that almost 
 every one who came in was handsome, or at 
 least well-looking : all were well grown and had 
 fine skins. 
 
 " My dears, hadn't you better begin } " said 
 Lady Winterton, coming up to where I was 
 sitting with her daughters. 
 
 " Mr. Rivers isn't come yet, mamma, and we 
 want him for ' Cielo il mio labbro,' " answered 
 Lady Jane. 
 
 "Never mind, my dears. It's past eleven
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 45 
 
 o'clock, and you had better begin with some- 
 thing else," returned her mother. 
 
 " Oh, we can't indeed, mamma," said Lady 
 Jane anxiously, adding suddenly, '' Oh ! there 
 he is — I see him ! " as a tall, fair man, with 
 light hair and auburn whiskers, perfectly simply 
 dressed, and carrying a heap of music in his 
 arms, fought his way vigorously up the stairs. 
 He was certainly very good-looking, but that 
 was not what struck me most about him. It 
 was his bright countenance, his air of distinction, 
 and when he spoke the pleasant voice and 
 charm of entire unafifectedness that were so 
 winning. 
 
 " Did you ever see such a crowd ? " said 
 Lady Winterton, as he wished her good 
 evening. 
 
 "Yes, and all standing about, so as to prevent 
 one's being able to stir ; so English that is ! 
 My dear Lady Winterton, half of it is your 
 fault, because you always will stick tables before
 
 4^ Past Houi's. 
 
 your sofas. Just look at that row of people all 
 standing with their backs to the table, instead 
 of getting in and being quiet, and making room 
 for others. It really must be moved — you lose 
 more than half your space that way. Would 
 
 you mind ? " he said, looking at me, and in 
 
 two minutes we had got the obnoxious piece of 
 furniture out of the way against a wall, and 
 four ladies were instantly seated on the hitherto 
 untenanted sofa. Mr. Rivers was so pleased 
 with this result, that he made me go round with 
 him and remove all the other tables. It really 
 was an immense improvement, although I must 
 own I felt rather nervous as we approached one 
 at which three or four elderly ladies and gentle- 
 men were seated, looking over some political 
 caricatures and reviews. 
 
 " I'm afraid," said I, hesitatingly, to Mr. 
 Rivers, " we shan't be able " But — 
 
 " We're going to push that table up into the 
 corner, if you don't mind," said he, briskly,
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 47 
 
 lifting the lamp and making off with it as he 
 spoke, leaving the people he addressed in 
 benighted amazement. 
 
 " It'll be much better there, won't it ? " he 
 said with a smile, as he came back for the 
 table. 
 
 One cross-looking old woman, who was not 
 at all inclined to be pleased, waggled her head 
 angrily at him, and said, "I was reading, and 
 I don't think so." 
 
 "Oh yes, you do," he replied, with that 
 delightful smile of his. " Besides, you don't 
 want your book now, you know ; you're going 
 to listen to us." And he rolled the table away 
 as he spoke. 
 
 Our programme consisted of the following 
 pieces, with none of which I was acquainted : — 
 
 " Cielo il mio labbro " — a quartett from 
 Rossini's " Bianca e Faliero," pompous, splendid, 
 and well sung. " Tu vedrai la sventurata " — an 
 air from the '' Pirata," by Bellini. This was
 
 4^ Past Hoii7's. 
 
 sung by Mr. Endersleigh very carefully, but 
 rather through his nose : it was of those good 
 things that do not give one much pleasure. 
 Then came a duet from the same opera, sung by 
 Mr. Rivers and Lady Caroline. They both had 
 very fine voices — he, a brilliant high tenor, and 
 she soprano, — and a degree of cultivation that 
 was quite remarkable. 
 
 Mr. Rivers was very nervous and fidgety at 
 first ; the person who was to have accompanied 
 the duet, for some reason that I could not catch, 
 did not please him, and he declared he would 
 not sing unless some one else could be got to 
 play. This alteration was with a little dif^culty 
 at last effected. 
 
 " Do, for heaven's sake, let us begin : these 
 pauses ruin a concert," he said, exactly as if the 
 delay had been caused by some one else instead 
 of himself " I never saw such a horrid public in 
 all my life — all women ! It's quite killing to 
 have to sing to people who won't ever express
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 49 
 
 anything. Do applaud, there's a dear good 
 man " (this to me). " I give you my word my 
 mouth's exactly like a clothes-brush ! Mind you 
 play my notes," was his parting injunction to the 
 accompanier, and they started. But he suddenly 
 caught sight of Lady Charlotte Malcolm, who 
 was talking and laughing loud in the front row ; 
 and leaving Lady Caroline with her mouth wide 
 open, singing her solo, he exclaimed, ''it's quite 
 impossible to do anything serious with that 
 dreadful giggling going on just opposite one ; " 
 with which observation he went straight across 
 to her, and an animated little interview took 
 place between them, in which I could just catch 
 the words, "Want to converse — boudoir — dis- 
 turb other people." She would not move, but 
 she held her tongue afterwards, at least whenever 
 Mr. Rivers sang, which I was very glad of, for 
 she had talked incessantly all through poor 
 Mr. Endersleigh's air. 
 
 This duet of the " Pirata " appeared to me to 
 
 VOL. II. 18
 
 50 Past Hours. 
 
 be rather a poor and disjointed composition, with 
 some pretty melodious phrases spotted about 
 here and there over it. I make no doubt it 
 would have been far more effective on the stage, 
 for the words and situation were evidently very 
 dramatic. Not understanding Italian, I didn't 
 of course know what it was about, but it was 
 obviously a desperate love-duet, and highly 
 tragic. Frank Rivers sang it with immense 
 expression, and turned round to me repeatedly 
 with a countenance beaming with delight, to 
 which his remark of "Ain't it so miserable?" 
 made a very comical contrast. After this Mr. 
 Cholmondely sang, "A te, o cara," from the 
 opera of the " Puritani." He had a pretty voice, 
 but I confess I wondered at his self-confidence, 
 for he had not the slightest idea of time ; and 
 the accompanier, and those who sang with him, 
 had hard work to follow him. It was a horrid 
 massacre of what appeared to me a charming 
 thing : but many of the ladies seemed enchanted,
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 5 1 
 
 and so did he himself ; and one gentleman came 
 up to me and remarked, "It's better than Rubini ; 
 and it's all by ear — he doesn't know a note of 
 music ! " 
 
 " So I should have imagined," I began to 
 reply, when Lady Jane gave me a nervous little 
 push, and in a low voice imparted to me the 
 information that I was speaking to i\Ir. William 
 Cholmondely, the younger brother of the gentle- 
 man who had just performed. 
 
 We then had a duet between Lady Caroline 
 and Lady Jane. This was called "Ebben per 
 mia memoria," and was from Rossini's opera of 
 the " Gazza Ladra." It was sung with feeling, 
 style, and excellent execution, and was alto- 
 gether more like the work of artists than of 
 amateurs. Lady Jane had a charming mezzo- 
 soprano voice, her sister a brilliant and powerful 
 soprano ; and they understood each other's 
 feeling and manner so well, that their singing 
 together went with the precision of a single 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of \Vi\m\^ 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 Past Hours. 
 
 voice. After this, Lord Manvers, a young 
 nobleman with lovely eyes, sat down to ac- 
 company himself. Of his performance I really 
 was unable to judge, for he executed nothing 
 in its entireness : he did nothing but warble, 
 with a very sweet voice, little melodious begin- 
 nings and endings, and I believe he would have 
 been there to this very hour, exciting the black 
 ire of the other tenors, but for Frank Rivers, 
 who at last, in that irresistible way of his, broke 
 in with, " My dear fellow, sing, or get up ; we 
 shall be charmed if you will really sing any one 
 thing through, but if you can't or won't, you'd 
 better get up and let us go on. That kind o' 
 thing is so tiresome, and we shan't get through 
 the programme to-night." 
 
 After this came a fine thing out of Rossini's 
 " Tancredi," beginning with " M'abbraccia Ar- 
 girio." This was capitally sung, on the whole, by 
 a Mrs. Harley and Mr. Endersleigh : he, as before, 
 a little melancholy and nasal ; but the lady had
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 53 
 
 fire enough for two. She had been a pupil of 
 Pasta's, and declaimed heroically with a husky 
 mezzo-soprano voice. The duet was succeeded 
 by Bellini's romance of "Ah non creder che 
 pieno," from the "Beatrice di Tenda " — a thing re- 
 quiring the most perfect finish, which it received 
 at the hands of Mrs. Wilmot, who dropped 
 diamonds and pearls of notes without seeming 
 even to take the trouble to open her mouth. 
 And then we wound up with another frantic 
 love-duet of Donizetti's, by Mr. Rivers and Lady 
 Caroline. This was indeed a most desperate 
 business ; Frank Rivers worked himself into a 
 terrible state over it, and again seemed quite 
 enchanted with the misery of the sentiments he 
 was expressing, several times ejaculating at 
 interv^als, " O Parisina ! " in an agony of grief, 
 and then turning his bright face round to us 
 with an ecstatic smile, and exclaiming, in tones 
 of indescribable comfort, "So wretched, ain't 
 it } "
 
 54 Past Hours, 
 
 On the whole, the Rossini music was much the 
 finest of all I heard : it was more shapely and 
 dignified than the rest, and although, in apparent 
 obedience to some Italian canon of operatic form, 
 it stuck on a quick movement at the end of every 
 slow one, there was an expression and character 
 about it which I found wanting in the other 
 composers, whose last movements were almost 
 all trivial and commonplace. 
 
 When every one was gone, with the exception 
 of the performers and myself, we all adjourned 
 to the round room, where a charming supper-table 
 covered with flowers and fruits was prepared, 
 and where we all sat down in wild spirits to talk 
 over the concert and the events of the evening. 
 I may say that I had quite an unexpected little 
 success here, for upon Lady Jane speaking of 
 her cousin's insolent airs, and suddenly saying, 
 " If one planted Charlotte, what flower would 
 she come up .^ " I, who had often played at this 
 child's game at home, and who had not quite
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 55 
 
 forgiven Lady Charlotte for refusing before my 
 face to be introduced to me, called out at once 
 from the other end of the table, " London Pride ! " 
 which was received with general acclamation. 
 
 " And what would Jane come up ? " asked 
 Lady Caroline. 
 
 "Morning-glory," said I, as quick as light, 
 looking at the fair young head opposite to me, 
 crowned with its masses of golden hair : this was 
 also much applauded. But the best of all was 
 when Mr. Cholmondely said — 
 
 " And if one planted Frank Rivers, what would 
 he come up t " ' 
 
 *' Love-lies-bleeding," said Lord Manvers. 
 
 " No, no," cried I, mindful of the " O Parisina ! " 
 and all the other agonies : " Love-and-tear-it ! " 
 — the name of the country-folk down in our part 
 of the world for that mildest and most innocent 
 of vegetable creatures, the mallow. The instant 
 after I had said it I was afraid Mr. Rivers might 
 be offended with my freedom ; but no one
 
 56 Past Hours. 
 
 laughed more, and he several' times said, " So 
 quick of him, so very droll," with the greatest 
 good nature and with evident enjoyment of the 
 joke. 
 
 One more musical treat, and that the greatest, 
 I have to record before my departure for India. 
 This was at the house of Mr. John Grahame, one 
 of our great city merchants, who was neverthe- 
 less content to reside in the city. I was invited 
 to spend my last evening with them, and here 
 I heard the glorious music of the " Don Juan " 
 executed from beginning to end with the utmost 
 reverence and care. An able professional man 
 and excellent pianist, the master of the young 
 ladies, accompanied it at the pianoforte. Don 
 Juan was admirably sung by a Mr. Hepworth, a 
 lawyer ; Donna Anna was a professional singer 
 engaged for the occasion ; Donna Elvira, a young 
 German lady, with a magnificent voice, a niece 
 of my host, on a short visit to England ; the 
 youngest daughter of the house was the Zerlina,
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 57 
 
 and sang her " Batti, batti," charmingly, accom- 
 panied quite capitally on the violoncello by an 
 old admiral, an enthusiastic lover of classical 
 music ; the master of the house, who had a fine 
 bass voice and great sense of humour, was our 
 Leporello, Between the acts, Mozart's third 
 sonata in F — the King of sonatas for four hands 
 — was executed by the two eldest daughters of 
 the house to perfection. This was the last 
 music, deserving of the name, that I heard for 
 five and twenty years. 
 
 I had gone out as a tutor to India, but in pro- 
 cess of time I became acquainted with the head 
 of a large mercantile house there, who recom- 
 mended me to try business, and made an open- 
 ing for me in his own establishment. And there 
 I remained, getting on in the world as it is 
 called ; but alas, for what .^ I ask myself this 
 question sadly enough now that it is too late. 
 
 The first news of importance that I received 
 from home was that of my sister Anna's marriage
 
 5 8 Past Hours. 
 
 to a curate who came to do duty for a short time 
 in a neighbouring parish. He was a widower 
 with seven little children, but Anna wished it, 
 and so an unwilling consent was wrung from my 
 parents. Then followed closely the tidings of 
 my poor mother's death ; this was a heavy blow, 
 and one that I hardly like to speak of even now. 
 Some time after this my brother Walter wrote 
 to inform me of his marriage and departure 
 for Australia, where he was soon joined by 
 my youngest brother Fred. Finally came the 
 announcement of my father's decease from my 
 poor sister Mary, who had been living at home 
 with him and keeping house for him ever since 
 he had become a widower. Her letter was a 
 very pathetic appeal to me to come back to her : 
 she was broken in health, pinched in circum- 
 stances, and quite alone in the world ; and so 
 I determined to return to England, to settle 
 down in some quiet little home in the country, 
 and devote the remainder of my life to my
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heyivood. 59 
 
 poor ]\ran', the dear companion of my early 
 years. 
 
 At Calcutta I saw Susannah Warde again. 
 She had been for the last twelve years in India, 
 but we had never met. She had still the same 
 sweet smile, but she was dreadfully altered. So 
 much so, that if I had not heard her speak, and 
 seen her smile, I don't think I should have 
 known her again. She had suffered terribly 
 from the climate, which was also telling severely 
 upon her youngest child, a despotic, lead- 
 coloured little urchin of about ten years old. 
 She could not be persuaded to leave her hus- 
 band and go to England herself, but was full of 
 care and trouble about the boy, and exceedingly 
 anxious to send him over to Europe for his 
 health and education ; and so it ended in my 
 volunteering to take charge of him for her. Out 
 of which arrangement, if any one thinks that 
 I got any sort of satisfaction of a sentimental 
 kind, I beg to state he is entirely mistaken : for
 
 6o Past Hoii7's. 
 
 the child has absolutely nothing of my dear old 
 love Susannah ; he is the living image of Knock- 
 ham Garth ; he has the same hard voice, and 
 the " military manner " that poor Mrs. Warde 
 had never got used to. 
 
 Almost the first person I looked up in London 
 was Lord Winterton. I found him an elderly 
 bachelor, a martyr to gout, and obliged to go 
 about in a wheel chair. He was delighted to 
 see me, as cordial and friendly as ever, and he 
 asked Mary and me to come and dine with him. 
 Here I met my old friend. Lady Jane, with her 
 radiant face, and the lustre of her golden hair 
 still undimmed by time : if she was no longer 
 Proserpine, she was Ceres still, and she made me 
 acquainted with another Jane, whom I might 
 have taken to be the same I had left in England 
 five and twenty years ago, so perfect a likeness 
 of her lovely mother was this lovely daughter. 
 Lady Jane was a widow ; she had married a 
 Mr. Trevor, who had died, leaving her with this
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 6i 
 
 girl and a boy, and she now resided entirely 
 with her brother, Lord Winterton. 
 
 During the course of the evening I talked over 
 with Winterton my project of finding some little 
 country home in which to settle down with 
 Mary, and early the very next morning 1 
 received from him the offer of a charming little 
 cottage quite close to his own fine place in 
 Cornwall. The rent and taxes altogether only 
 came to eighty-four pounds a year, and it is 
 furnished, and has six bedrooms, so we shall 
 always have a spare room for a friend, even 
 while Knockham remains in our charge. 
 
 The few days I spent in town at this period 
 were again chiefly devoted to music, of which 
 I was naturally anxious to secure as much as 
 I could, after having been so long deprived of it. 
 
 I went to the Italian Opera to hear ^Mozart's 
 enchanting '' Nozze di Figaro." The house was 
 very poorly attended, the stalls and boxes having 
 only a thin sprinkling of people here and there.
 
 62 Past Hours, 
 
 The music was sung with shameful carelessness, 
 and the actors did not seem to think it worth 
 while to give themselves the trouble to move. 
 I was quite indignant at this disgraceful in- 
 difference ; but was afterwards told that the 
 Italians hate Mozart's music, which they con- 
 sider tiresome and ineffective, and that, also, in 
 a general way, they seldom take the pains to 
 exert themselves when the house is not full. 
 
 To make up for this disappointment. Winter- 
 ton gave me a place in his box a night or two 
 afterwards, to hear an opera which I was told 
 was one of the great works of modern times. 
 I remembered very distinctly the Italian music 
 I had heard years ago — the brilliant effects 
 and grand finish of Rossini, the agreeable vein 
 of melody, somewhat poorly worked out, but 
 always charming in sentiment, of Bellini — and 
 I hoped to have all these delightful old recol- 
 lections delightfully revived. I declare that, 
 from beginning to end, it was one continual
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 63 
 
 bang and shriek : such tune as there was, was 
 of the very commonest order, and as for the 
 story, it defied all comprehension, and beggars 
 all description. I only know that there was a 
 husband and wife who bawled a hideous duet 
 at each other, with the veins in their throats 
 swollen till I thought they would burst, and their 
 eyes starting out of their heads at their own 
 screams — and a mother who bawled because 
 she had wanted to burn somebody else's baby, 
 and then by a very unaccountable mistake had 
 put her own baby on the fire instead ; and then 
 there was a man with the most extraordinary 
 lungs I ever heard, who bawled for an hour 
 together at the same pitch because his mother 
 was going to be burned. Possibly there might 
 be a degree of justification in the general un- 
 pleasantness of their positions ; but then I ask, 
 why choose fire for the libretto of an opera ? 
 There was at last a m.oment's respite in a com- 
 monplace but rather agreeable little duet towards 
 
 IM/ 
 
 ^r'
 
 64 Past Hours. 
 
 the conclusion, where the lady 'who has burned 
 the children goes to sleep, and therefore is 
 obliged to cease bawling for a few seconds ; and 
 there were two pretty romances sung in lucid 
 intervals by the tenor, one at the beginning, and 
 the other at the end when he is shut up in a 
 tower. But, on the whole, the performance 
 seemed to me very like the idiot's story, "full 
 of sound and fury, and signifying nothing." 
 
 Upon consulting the play-bills, I found that 
 for the remainder of the week no music was 
 to be given except by the same composer, so 
 this was my last operatic experience. But I 
 had no reason to complain of any dearth of 
 musical entertainment, for before I left town, far 
 from desiring to seek it, at last my only aspira- 
 tion became how to escape it. At every house 
 I went to, it was served up as regularly in the 
 evening as the dessert was after dinner, and my 
 life in the morning, was made a burden to me 
 between street-singers, German bands, organ-
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 65 
 
 players, and young ladies practising. I could 
 not even pay my little bill at the newsvendor's 
 without hearing the pianoforte going in the 
 back shop. 
 
 Of the music I heard in society, what shall I 
 say .'* Lady Jane Trevor procured me an invita- 
 tion for a very fashionable morning concert at 
 the house of one of her friends. Here, standing 
 for two whole hours imbedded, imbrued, and 
 suffocated in ladies' skirts, I heard chorus after 
 chorus sung. The selection in itself was not 
 a very good one, and the execution naturally 
 imperfect enough : for how are twenty or thirty 
 young folks to find time during a frantic London 
 season to rehearse sufficiently often to make 
 their singing together a really satisfactory 
 musical performance t I myself heard the 
 daughter of the house trying to persuade a 
 young friend to join the ranks. 
 
 " Do come, dear, we want you so badly." 
 
 " But, dear, I don't know the chorus — I have 
 VOL. II. 19
 
 66 Past Hours. 
 
 never even looked at it," objected the young 
 lady addressed. 
 
 " Never mind, dear," replied the other ; " it 
 will be one more voice, and we are so short of 
 sopranos." 
 
 It was one more voice, and a great many more 
 false notes. The solos and duets were all rather 
 audacious ; the young gentlemen had ears ; at 
 least, I was told of all of them that they sang 
 by ear (which may be a wonder, but is not 
 always a grace), and the young ladies had voices, 
 and with these two elementary qualifications 
 they apparently thought themselves quite war- 
 ranted in standing up to sing operatic music 
 which it would have taxed even professional 
 singers to accomplish well. They all imitated 
 the public performers of the day, and roared 
 within an inch of their lives ; it was a very 
 different matter, both as regards art and culture, 
 to the amateur music I remembered twenty-five 
 years ago. Mrs. Horton, the great performer of
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heyiuood. 67 
 
 the occasion, lovely to look upon, and possess- 
 ing, moreover, the gift of a magnificent voice, 
 amused herself with singing one ballad for all 
 the world like a ventriloquist, it was so absurdly 
 and unnaturally piano, and then singing another 
 the whole way through at full stretch, so in- 
 exorably loud that one felt positively battered 
 by the notes, which came about one's ears pelt- 
 ing one like a storm of round white billiard balls. 
 Every one seemed enchanted with it, but I 
 confess that to me it appeared simply ridiculous. 
 Lady Jane leaned across and whispered to me, 
 laughing, " I think we did it better in my day," 
 and I heartily agreed with her. 
 
 The only thing that gave me any real pleasure 
 was the performance of a lady with a perfect 
 glory of fair hair, who sat down to the piano and 
 accompanied herself in one of Beethoven's sacred 
 songs. The music was grand, and she sang it 
 admirably. I asked one of my neighbours who 
 she was : " Christian Rupert — Mrs. Rupert," —
 
 68 Past Hours. 
 
 was the answer. " Hasn't she a lovely voice ? 
 But it is such a pity she always will sing such 
 tiresome things." 
 
 " Too beautiful ! " said an enthusiastic lady 
 on the other side. " Mendlesham, isn't it .'' I 
 do dote upon Mendlesham, don't you } I always 
 say Verdi and Mendlesham — Verdi and Men- 
 dlesham — nothing like 'em ! " 
 
 After every one was gone, little Miss White, 
 whose delicate thread of sound had been entirely 
 swamped in a duet she had sung with a very 
 violent dark gentleman with a tremendous bass 
 voice, was persuaded to let us hear her again, or 
 indeed, as might be said with more justice, to 
 let us hear her for the first time, for before she 
 had literally only been seen to sing. She ac- 
 companied herself in a number of little romances 
 which were quite charming — the greatest merit 
 of all being that she understood her own means 
 thoroughly, and never attempted what she could 
 not do to perfection. There was not much
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 69 
 
 passion, but I declare this absence had become 
 an absolute relief to me, and although the voice 
 was rather thin in quality it had plenty of accent, 
 great sejithnent, and the most exquisite finish. 
 Mrs. Rupert and herself were the only real 
 artists I heard, and the former is, more's the 
 pity, not to be heard often ; she lives out of 
 town, and therefore is not counted among the 
 regular well-known London musical amateurs. 
 I could not help remembering the affluence of 
 other days. Lady Jane, Lady Caroline, Mrs. 
 Harley, and Mrs. Wilmot — all first-rate, and all 
 habitually singing music that very few pro- 
 fessional singers of the present day are at all 
 able to cope with. The same evening, having 
 been invited very kindly to tea by my banker's 
 wife, I had the gratification of hearing her 
 daughter sing, first, the well-known tenor song 
 of " Marta, Marta," from Flotow's opera of the 
 same name, which she had, unfortunately, found 
 some means of adapting to her own voice, and
 
 70 Past Hours. 
 
 then, "Non ti scordar di me," the romance of 
 the man in the tower, and then a friend of hers, 
 with a fine contralto voice, gave us "■ II balen," 
 the bass song out of the same opera. After these 
 three pieces, I made a futile attempt to depart, 
 but was nailed by the mistress of the house, who 
 would mount guard over the door and kept her 
 eye well upon me, and I was condemned to 
 come back again and listen to what was called a 
 duet — accompanied on the piano by the daughter 
 of the house, and performed, I cannot call it 
 sung, between Miss Whickers, and her own 
 concertina, which took what ought to have been 
 the part sung by the tenor voice. Nothing can 
 ever come up to the extraordinary effect pro- 
 duced by this singular entertainment. Miss 
 Whickers was a middle-aged young lady of 
 fervid temperament, with a short thin eager 
 figure, and a very long red nose ; and what with 
 her own passionate adjurations rendered even 
 more irresistibly comical by her personal appear-
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 71 
 
 ance, and the heartless, dumb responses, always 
 a little out of time and never quite in tune, of 
 the concertina, with which, apparently, without 
 any rhyme or reason, she would suddenly begin 
 to play an ecstatic sort of game at pitch and toss, 
 I w^as worked into such a state of nervousness 
 by the ludicrousness of the spectacle that I felt at 
 last as if I must have given way to some extra- 
 ordinary manifestation or other : dashed down 
 the piano — or flown at the concertina — or kissed 
 Miss Whickers. At the conclusion, while my 
 hostess was for an instant engaged with thanks 
 and applause, I contrived at last to slip out, and 
 as I hurried down, whom should I meet upon the 
 stairs but my old acquaintance Mr. Hepworth. He 
 was grown very old indeed, but he had a marked, 
 peculiar face, and I knew him again at once. I 
 inquired if he had kept his voice and still sang. 
 
 "Well, no," he said; "my boys don't care 
 much for my music, they think it old-fashioned 
 and dull."
 
 72 Past Hours. 
 
 " Have any of them inherited your fine voice ?" 
 said I ; " are they at all musical ? " 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "the eldest plays waltzes 
 on the cornet-a-piston, and the youngest sings 
 the Christy Minstrel melodies, and accompanies 
 himself on the bones. He does it everywhere ; 
 he's going to do it here to-night : he's doing it 
 at this very moment at another musical party — 
 that's why he's late ; but he'li be doing it here 
 in five minutes. I'm so sorry you won't hear 
 him." I couldn't echo the sentiment, but hastily 
 bade him good-night, and thanked my stars for 
 my escape. 
 
 During these ten days in town I seemed to 
 be living in a chronic state of musical burlesque ; 
 for after having been stunned and deafened one 
 day by hearing choruses sung in a space for 
 which they never were intended, and were quite 
 unfit, I went on another to an enormous public 
 room to hear trios and quatuors of Beethoven's 
 and Mozart's, led by the unrivalled Joachim, and
 
 Recollections of Joseph Hey wood. 73 
 
 some of Beethoven's sonatas played with exqui- 
 site delicacy and feeling by Halle, who, having 
 devoted himself principally to this order of 
 music, executes it to perfection. The public 
 w^as essentially a non-fashionable one, and, on 
 the whole, behaved and listened very well. But 
 the want of concentration, which is absolutely 
 essential to the perfect enjoyment of this music, 
 called especially miisica di camera — chamber 
 music — made itself painfully felt in this great 
 public hall. How I longed for a magician's 
 wand to make the unwelcome crowd vanish, and 
 to find myself listening to these great men and 
 their great interpreters, comfortably seated in a 
 small space, with about a dozen intimate friends, 
 all animated v/ith the same love and reverence 
 for these heavenly compositions, where the pro- 
 portions of the room would allow the forte 
 passages really to appear loud, instead of falling 
 feebly and thinly into unlimited space, and 
 where the more delicate and tender inspirations
 
 74 Pctsi Hottrs, 
 
 would receive their full value and charm, and be 
 felt profoundly and mesmerically by an assembly 
 consisting only of a chosen few, all tuned to 
 the proper pitch of acute sensibility : this fine 
 delight in the hearts of all, forms a subtle atmo- 
 sphere most propitious to the best efforts of the 
 artists themselves, who, undisturbed by the 
 banging of doors, the audible whispers about 
 places, and the prosaic rustle of non-conducting 
 silks, would give back a hundred-fold what they 
 received. 
 
 The fact is, that although this divine art is 
 so generally cultivated, and apparently so much 
 enjoyed, in reality it is neither properly appre- 
 ciated nor sufficiently reverenced in England ; 
 in order that it should be so, an early apprentice- 
 ship to the highest class of music is absolutely 
 necessary. 
 
 If I were the father of a family all the 
 members of it should learn music. Almost all 
 children have naturally good ears, and can
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 75 
 
 catch tunes easily ; and, strange to say, they 
 are able to master the mysteries of time much 
 better at an early age than they do later. 
 Both girls and boys should be taught to play 
 upon the pianoforte ; which, although it wants 
 the power of melting one sound into another — 
 that touching human effect that some other in- 
 struments possess — is invaluable as bringing 
 almost every variety of music within reach, and 
 permitting one, through arrangements and adap- 
 tations, to become acquainted to a certain degree 
 with nearly all the thoughts of the greatest 
 composers. At a more advanced age I would 
 have them learn the grammar of music, thorough- 
 bass and harmony. The knowledge of the 
 principles upon which the greatest men worked, 
 and the examination of the manner in which 
 they worked, w^ould be a study of great in- 
 terest, and could but add to the admiration 
 with which they were regarded. 
 
 Those of my children who might happen to
 
 76 Past Hours, 
 
 be great musical geniuses would only build the 
 better for building upon such a foundation ; and 
 those who were not, having been taught by their 
 early studies what real greatness is, and by the 
 same process to comprehend what real little- 
 ness is also, in default of the charm of talent 
 would probably achieve that of modesty, and 
 instead of becoming indifferent executants, 
 would resign themselves to being intelligent 
 and understanding listeners — a race of which 
 the world stands greatly in need. And let no 
 one imagine that this is to be accomplished at 
 an undue cost of time which would be better 
 devoted to other things. Much more time is 
 habitually given to an unsuccessful and incom- 
 plete musical education than this would require ; 
 good teaching and one hour and a half — no more 
 — of daily practice, made the Miss Grahames 
 the accomplished pianists they were ; and the 
 steady reading of one single line of new music 
 every day would very soon secure to any one
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heyivood. 'jj 
 
 who chose the invaluable power of playing with 
 facility at sight. 
 
 When musical education is conducted upon 
 these principles, we shall no longer have music 
 fit only for the theatre brought into our drawing- 
 rooms, and our delicate drawing-room music 
 exiled to places for which it is entirely unsuited. 
 The effeminate slothfulness which makes people 
 content to go on having their ears tickled by 
 the old, beaten, worn-out forms from which 
 such life as they ever possessed has long since 
 departed, and leads them to seek those gratifi- 
 cations which make the least possible demand 
 upon their own intelligence, will give way to 
 the wholesome desire of a nobler pleasure at 
 a nobler price, and they will gradually become 
 willing to give of their best to the right under- 
 standing of the works of great men. Our 
 musical entertainments would also undergo a 
 considerable revolution in the matter of their 
 duration ; in proportion as they grew purer in
 
 78 Past Hours. 
 
 quality, they would inevitably become curtailed 
 in quantity ; for it would be simply a moral 
 and physical impossibility to give of one's best 
 for the same number of consecutive hours that 
 are now consecrated to a something — I will 
 not call it music — which appeals to not one of 
 the higher faculties of our organization. 
 
 So, by degrees, our desire to feel and under- 
 stand would bring with it its own reward, in 
 a fruition of understanding and feeling, daily 
 growing broader, deeper, and finer, until we 
 could not fail to reach at last the most healthy 
 of all musical and moral conditions — that in 
 which we shall love most the thing which is 
 best. Now to love anything sincerely is an 
 act of grace, but to love the best sincerely is 
 a state of grace. We cannot, however, hope to 
 attain to these serene heights without consider- 
 able and consistent exertion of our own, for 
 it is undoubtedly with the muscles of our minds 
 as it is with those of our bodies ; the healthful
 
 Recollections of Joseph Heywood. 79 
 
 exercise of them doubles their strength, while 
 those that are not used as they were given to 
 be used, gradually wither away into premature 
 impotence. "For unto every one that hath 
 shall be given, and he shall have abundance : 
 but from him that hath not, shall be taken away 
 even that which he hath," — a saying, the eternal 
 wisdom of which is as universal as it is eternal 
 and which, if true as regards our worldly pos- 
 sessions, is yet more profoundly so as regards 
 the precious faculties of our souls.
 
 JUDITH. 
 
 VOL. 11. 20
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It struck six by the stable clock, on the 31st 
 August, 1834, as Richard Leslie drove up to the 
 door of Brankleigh IManor House. As is often 
 the case in our moist country, July had been 
 a month of incessant rain ; laying the dust, 
 tempering the heat, and preserving all the 
 tender vitality of June to the usually drooping 
 leaves of August. After a three-years' sojourn 
 in the south of Italy, the sight of the dewy 
 pastures, the grand old trees, and all the won- 
 derful freshness of the English green, filled our 
 traveller with delight. The whole road down 
 from London had seemed to him one uninter- 
 rupted well-ordered garden; and the air of peace 
 and well-being, the prosperity of the whole
 
 84 Past Hours. 
 
 landscape, brought the young man to his 
 journey's end with a sensation of satisfaction 
 in the land to which he belonged, and to himself 
 for belonging to it, not altogether unknown to 
 Britons, travelled and untravelled. 
 
 Tall footmen, gorgeously apparelled, opened 
 the door ; and a sublime butler, mildly grand 
 and protectingly deferential, ushered him into 
 the library, informing him that Mr. St. John 
 was out upon the farm, and the ladies driving, 
 but that he believed all might soon be expected 
 home. 
 
 Left to his own devices, Richard Leslie wan- 
 dered out across the lawn, along the lime 
 avenue, and into an old-fashioned yew walk, a 
 favourite haunt of his before he went abroad. 
 It was of considerable extent, and in the centre 
 of it, cut out of the solid green, was a rustic 
 arbour, which had often been a pleasant refuge 
 to him when, on former visits, the guests with 
 which the house was peopled were not to his
 
 Judith, 85 
 
 mind — a misfortune which befell him in many- 
 houses, and perhaps oftener in this than in any- 
 other. 
 
 As he walked slowly along, dragging his feet 
 through the long grass that he might both hear 
 and feel the soft fresh tangle, sounds from the 
 summer-house reached him that made him stop 
 and listen. 
 
 " Sing mourneen ga-dit-thu slaun ! slaun ! " 
 sang a loud child's voice, with a shrill, tremu- 
 lous, prolonged moan upon the last word that 
 went thrilling through Richard Leslie's fibres 
 as he stood and listened, and that was inter- 
 rupted by an equally prolonged and dolorous, 
 but less melodious, howl from a dog, which 
 evidently, with the singer, occupied the arbour. 
 " Good darling, to sing so prettily ! Now 
 again, my own Boguey — slaun ! slaun ! " moaned 
 the child, and " Uwhoo " wailed the dog in 
 concert. 
 
 " Higher, my own, higher. Screw it up — it
 
 86 Past Hours, 
 
 isn't in tune," said the voice, again holding and 
 vibrating upon the last long note ; while the dog, 
 with an almost human endeavour, pitched his 
 voice to hers, and at last made the unison 
 perfect. A shower of loving epithets and 
 caresses crowned the successful effort. Richard 
 Leslie crept softly up to the summer-house, and 
 peeped through a crevice in the wall. On the 
 floor knelt a young girl, who might be about 
 twelve years old. Opposite to her, upon a 
 throne of moss, sitting up upon his hind legs, 
 was a brindled mongrel, long in the body, short 
 in the leg, with a broad flat head, eyes that 
 glowed like a couple of living coals, and a row 
 of sharp fangs of dazzling whiteness which 
 made one feel instinctively that it would be 
 better to secure him for a friend than have him 
 for an enemy. 
 
 She placed a daisy crown upon his head, and 
 a sceptre of foxglove between his paws, and 
 then, sitting back upon her heels, contemplated
 
 Judith, 87 
 
 him with ecstasy, exclaiming in accents of rap- 
 turous tenderness — 
 
 " Oh, darling ! how clever you are ! Could 
 you really be the devil, darling ? " 
 
 Richard now burst into a fit of uncontrollable 
 laughter. The dog precipitated himself out of 
 the arbour, barking violently, and followed by his 
 alarmed instructress, who found herself suddenly 
 lifted off her feet and kissed very heartily on 
 both cheeks, before she discovered in the unwel- 
 come intruder one who had stood her friend in 
 many childish troubles, and comforted her when 
 there had been none else to comfort her. 
 
 "Why Nelly, you absurd little urchin, don't 
 you know your old friend Dick again ? Has the 
 southern sun baked me so brown that even the 
 Queen of the Gipsies won't own me ? Come 
 here and let me look at you, child. Why, you're 
 not a bit changed — I don't believe you've 
 sprouted half a quarter of an inch in all these 
 years that I have been away." He took both
 
 SS Past Hours. 
 
 her hands, and held her from him, while he 
 looked at her; then, drawing her close to him 
 again, and passing his arm kindly round her 
 shoulder, said, as they walked on together — 
 
 " Poor little Nell ! I'm glad to see you again. 
 Why, how old are you now, child ? " 
 
 " Fourteen, Richard," said the girl. 
 
 " Impossible ! " returned he ; " why, you look 
 short for eleven ! " 
 
 "But I was eleven when you went, Richard, 
 and it is three long years since then." 
 
 "And what have you been doing with your- 
 self ever since I went } vegetating here the 
 whole time 1 " 
 
 " No, Richard ; I have been to schools." 
 
 " What schools } " asked he, amused at the 
 vague plural of the answer. 
 
 "Well, I went first to Miss Varney's, but they 
 sent me away for telling Bessie Connor that 
 my real name was not St. John, but Fane. And 
 so it is, Richard : you know mamma's name was
 
 Judith, 89 
 
 Fane, so was poor Angel's too — she was always 
 called 'the beautiful Angel Fane.'" 
 
 Richard Leslie's colour deepened through the 
 brown during this speech. 
 
 " And then t " said he, after they had walked 
 on in silence for a few minutes. 
 
 "Well, then I went to Miss Pritchett's. But 
 the girls used to get up again at night to see 
 me act ; and one night, just after the Christmas 
 holidays, Miss Pritchett came in when I was 
 doing Undine. I had got such a beautiful tub 
 for the fountain, and was standing on a stool in 
 the middle of it, covered all over with one of the 
 sheets, which hid the stool and made white 
 drapery ; and little Emmy Nicholls was down 
 behind, where she couldn't be seen, with several 
 jugs of water, which she was emptying drop by 
 drop into the tub, to make the trickling of the 
 fountain, you know. Well, luckily, the candle 
 was on the drawers within my reach, and the 
 moment we heard Pritchett's door go, I blew
 
 90 Past Hours. 
 
 it out, and held the burning wick tight between 
 my fingers, that there shouldn't be any smoke 
 or smell to betray me, standing all the while 
 like a statue breathless on my stool ; and I 
 don't believe we should ever have been found 
 out but for Miss Thompson, who always couldn't 
 help crying when I came to ''and now farewell, 
 false, but too dear ! " and who sobbed so loud 
 under the bedclothes that Miss Pritchett heard 
 her. Dear little Emmy Nicholls lay as still as a 
 stone, though she had taken one of the pitchers 
 into bed with her in the agony of the moment, 
 and the icy water was running all over her. 
 Miss Pritchett said she couldn't think of keeping 
 me after that ; so then they sent me to Mrs. 
 Bridgeford's, as that was a serious school, and 
 they thought I should perhaps learn to be 
 better there. But oh, Richard ! that was worst 
 of all ! " and the little maiden stopped short as if 
 overcome with the recollection of the enormities 
 which she had committed.
 
 Judith, 9 1 
 
 " WHiy, what happened, there, Nell ? anything 
 much worse than acting Undine, and catching 
 your death of cold ? " 
 
 "Well, I am afraid it was much worse, 
 Richard. You must know, that every day Mrs. 
 Bridgeford made us learn a chapter in the 
 Bible by heart, and when it was about Joseph 
 or Samson, or any of the stories, I could 
 always say mine quite perfect ; but one day I 
 had to say the first chapter of St. Matthew, all 
 about who begat who, and I couldn't get the 
 names into my head and was turned back twice ; 
 and it was a holiday, and we were all to have a 
 treat and take our dinner out into the woods 
 by Furley, and Mrs. Bridgeford shut me up 
 to learn it all by myself, and said I shouldn't 
 go until I had got it quite perfect. And while 
 I sat droning over those dreary names, to make 
 it more lively, instead of saying begat, I called 
 it Bedad, practising the brogue like old Teddy, 
 the rat-catcher, and when I came to say it to
 
 92 Past Hours. 
 
 Mrs. Bridgeford, nothing would come out but 
 'Obadiah bedad Manasseh.' 'What?' Mrs. 
 Bridgeford said— 'What, Miss St. John 1 What 
 did Obadiah do .? ' ' Bedad Manasseh,' said I, 
 with the brogue, which I had studied so hard 
 that I couldn't get rid of it. And then her nose 
 began to get scarlet, and to swell as it always 
 did when she was vicious ; and screwing up 
 her lips very tight, she said in an awful sort 
 of a low slow whisper, * Recollect yourself, I 
 beg. Miss St. John. What did Obadiah do 
 by Manasseh } ' Oh Richard, I was horribly 
 frightened, but I do believe the devil possessed 
 me, for with a sort of wild screech I answered, 
 * Bedad 'em,' with a greater brogue than ever. 
 And then she sent me to my own room with the 
 Bible for the rest of the day, and I sat at the 
 window and saw all the girls go by, with their 
 cold meat in their little baskets and their nose- 
 gays in their bosoms ; and when they had all 
 turned the corner of the lane that leads up into
 
 Judith. 93 
 
 Furley woods, I got quite desperate ; and oh, 
 Richard ! I ran downstairs into the kitchen, and 
 I stuffed the Bible into the fire, and rapped cook 
 over the knuckles with the poker when she tried 
 to get it out. And so I was sent home again ; 
 and after some time I was placed at Miss 
 Whitehead's. But one of the girls, who had 
 been a pupil at Miss Varney's when I was 
 there, knew me again, and told Miss White- 
 head that my name was Fane, and she said she 
 could not let me stay — I wonder why 1 — 
 but that it did not much matter, as I couldn't 
 learn anything. And so now I have left 
 school for good, and ]\Irs. St. John makes 
 Coningsby teach me to do needlework and 
 dress hair ; and Coningsby says that, as I 
 can't learn to be a governess, I must be a 
 lady's maid." 
 
 "A wkatf' said Richard. 
 
 "A maid — somebody's maid. I think I'd 
 rather be a cook, though, than that."
 
 94 P<^si Hours. 
 
 " I'll speak to Willoughby St John about it," 
 said Richard Leslie, hastily. 
 
 Just then, voices from the lawn, which they 
 were skirting, warned them that the ladies had 
 returned from their drive, and Nell, darting sud- 
 denly with her beloved familiar up a dark path 
 which led through the stable buildings to the 
 back entrance of the house, left Richard to pre- 
 sent himself to the party alone.
 
 jMclith. 95 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 As those who read this book will probably 
 desire to know who the little being was whose 
 position at Brankleigh seemed so anomalous, 
 and whose refractor}* temper, combined with her 
 apparent incapacity for study, rendered her 
 education a matter of so much difficulty, we 
 will go back a few years, and explain the cir- 
 cumstances which had led to her becoming an 
 inmate of that unhomelike home. 
 
 Willoughby St. John had a brother, by some 
 years his elder — ]\Iackworth St. John who had 
 gone into the army early in life, and who had 
 passed the best part of his }'outh in India. 
 
 During his absence, Willoughby St. John had 
 become a rich man ; he had invested largely
 
 g6 Past Hours. 
 
 and luckily in some newly discovered mines and 
 speculated successfully in many ways : and when 
 Colonel St John came back to England (about 
 seven years before the commencement of our 
 story) he found his brother in the enjoyment of 
 a large fortune, possessor of Brankleigh Manor 
 House, and just married to Miss Augusta 
 Champion, a lady considerably younger than 
 himself, and the daughter of one of our wealthiest 
 bankers. 
 
 People who stay away a long while, had better 
 stay away altogether. It would be difficult to 
 describe the disappointment of the wanderer's 
 return. In his far-off exile, he had had leisure 
 to remember his friends ; in their busy worldly 
 life, they had found time to forget him. The 
 few relations left to him, and to whom he clung 
 with all the affection which those alone can know 
 who for years have thirsted for home and country 
 in a foreign land, appeared to love him in a very 
 placid abstract sort of manner. He was asked
 
 JuditJu 9 7 
 
 to dinner a few times on his first arrival in 
 London, but having no other stories to tell, he 
 told Indian stories, and they were rather long, 
 and nobody was amused by them, and people 
 didn't care to have him again. 
 
 He hurried down to Brankleigh, imagining 
 that there he was to pitch his tent for months — 
 years if he liked ; but after a very short while he 
 found that Brankleigh would never be a home 
 for him. The fair Augusta was vain, hard, 
 unloving and unlovable ; and Willoughby St. 
 John's apathetic indifference about everything, 
 and above all, his entire submission to the little 
 narrow rule of his dry, worldly better half, 
 irritated and disgusted the poor exile. He had 
 come home with a heart overflowing with affec- 
 tion, and a morbid degree of romantic feeling, 
 and people in England did not quite understand 
 or like it : it made demands on them, and 
 they thought it troublesome and rather ridi- 
 culous. In short, the place he had known knew 
 
 VOL. II. 21
 
 98 Past Hours. 
 
 him no longer ; and our poor colonel, feeling him- 
 self nothing but a solitary stranger in his native 
 land, and finding time hang heavy on his hands, 
 betook himself to Paris, and established himself 
 in a pensiojt there ; made acquaintance with 
 those who lived in the house, and those who 
 dined at the six o'clock table d'hote ; passed his 
 days strolling drearily enough up and down 
 the Boulevards, and his evenings at the small 
 theatres. It was an aimless, profitless, melan- 
 choly existence, but soon to be changed by a 
 touch of the great magician's wand into one of 
 new and all-absorbing interest. 
 
 Early one soft spring morning, about a week 
 after he had been installed in his new dwelling, 
 the sweet sounds of a fresh young voice floated 
 down to the colonel's apartment, where he lay 
 between waking and sleeping. The music did 
 not rouse him at first — it mingled with his 
 dreams ; and it was not until the servant brought 
 him his hot water, and that he still heard it in
 
 Judith, 99 
 
 the intervals of the noise the man was making 
 in the room, that he felt certain* that he was 
 awake, and that somewhere there was a woman 
 singing. On, on the young voice went — scales, 
 shakes, exercises, and then the last air of the 
 " Sonnambula," which put the finishing stroke to 
 our poor colonel, who to all his other tendernesses 
 added a passionate love of music. He donned 
 his dressing-gown, and went out upon the bal- 
 cony to reconnoitre. The sounds came from a 
 small window belonging to the entresol immedi- 
 ately above his own apartment. 
 
 Every day and at all hours did the sweet bird 
 sing and the colonel listen. There were no new 
 faces at the table dhote and none of those he 
 was already acquainted with could, by any 
 human possibility, belong to that flexible tender 
 downy voice. The most intricate passages were 
 studied with indefatigable perseverance until 
 they were executed with an almost fabulous 
 degree of perfection. Who could she be .'' The
 
 loo Past Hours. 
 
 little window soon engrossed all his thoughts. 
 It looked a happy little window — the sun always 
 seemed to shine upon it. On the sill stood a 
 white double stock and a pot of mignonette, and 
 close beside them hung a bullfinch in a wicker 
 cage. 
 
 By dint of constant observation, he ascertained 
 that three persons inhabited this apartment. 
 Sometimes an odd-looking child brought a bit 
 of sugar out to the bird ; and when it began to 
 rain, an old French boime would come and take 
 the cage in ; and once or twice, when the colonel 
 was in luck, a slender tall girl, with what seemed 
 to him the sweetest face on which his eyes had 
 ever rested, had appeared at the window and 
 given some water to the thirsty flowers. Upon 
 inquiry he found that she was English — une de- 
 moiselle Fane, who together with her little sister 
 and old bonne tenanted the tiny entresol, and 
 who was studying singing under one of the most 
 celebrated professors of the day. The mistress of
 
 Judith, loi 
 
 the house had nothing but good to say of them. 
 They lived entirely alone, and received no visits. 
 They were very poor — " Mais apres tout, mon- 
 sieur, la pauvrete n'est pas un crime," observed 
 the good lady, and the money for their rent 
 was always regularly remitted by Monsieur 
 Guillaume, the French gentleman W'ho had 
 placed them there, and who appeared to be 
 their guardian.
 
 I02 Past Hours. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 That he might the better enjoy the music 
 which had begun to be the event of his Hfe, the 
 colonel used now to have his breakfast set out 
 upon a little table in his balcony, Those were 
 balmy enchanted May mornings when he sat 
 there in the sunshine, little gusts of soft spring 
 wind bringing down to him the delicate scent of 
 the stock and mignonette, mingled with the 
 accents of that voice which seemed white as the 
 stock, fresh as the mignonette, more delicate and 
 tender and fragrant than either. It was a voice 
 of little power or extent : if the windows were 
 shut, the piano quite drowned it ; but it had an 
 indescribable sweetness and touching quality of 
 youth about it, that made the eyes fill as one
 
 Judith, 103 
 
 listened. The first day that Colonel St. John 
 was sitting out upon his balcony, he heard a 
 voice from above whisper, "Jacky, viens done 
 voir ! He has got his breakfast on the balcony 
 — he has got rolls, he has got eggs, he has got 
 honey : don't it look good ! " Colonel St. John 
 looked up : the child was peeping down at him 
 from above. The old Frenchwoman came for 
 an instant to the window and tried to draw her 
 away, but in vain. She laid her arms upon the 
 window-sill, and leaned her chin upon them, 
 and when the colonel raised his eyes again, he 
 saw her still in the same position, observing him 
 with motionless attention. 
 
 She was about seven years old ; her head was 
 large, or seemed so from the heavy masses of 
 auburn hair which were wound round and round 
 it in loose thick braids, that seemed to have 
 neither beginning nor end. The face was square, 
 and of an immovable gravity ; the eyes large 
 and very dark ; they never seemed to wink like
 
 I04 Pctst Hotirs. 
 
 other eyes, but remained steadily fixed upon 
 him with a sort of slow scrutiny, which, com- 
 bined with the motionlessness of the little figure, 
 made him feel a nervous desire to make her 
 speak, or smile, or move. He looked up and 
 laughed : the wide eyes gazed down at him — 
 preternaturally dark and solemn they looked, 
 peering from underneath those auburn tresses, — 
 but she gave no sign. He kissed his hand: still 
 the sphynx-like face gazed down at him, but 
 immovable, observant, and gravely stern as 
 ever. He held up a bit of sugar, and made 
 signs to her to catch it: she made no answer- 
 ing gesture. He threw it up, and it nearly hit 
 her chin : but she never even flinched or 
 winced, and it fell unheeded back into the court- 
 yard. 
 
 The two following days it rained ; the window 
 of the entresol remained closed, and Colonel St. 
 John breakfasted indoors. 
 
 The third morning the May sun shone un-
 
 Judith. 105 
 
 clouded, and the little table, with its coffee, 
 rolls, and eggs, was again arranged in the 
 balcony. The window above was wide open, 
 and the indefatigable voice at work — scales, 
 trills, solfeggi, — and the bullfinch in an ecstasy 
 of en\y, straining every nerve to emulate its 
 mistress. Lo, too, the small sphynx, in the 
 same attitude as when he had last seen her — 
 silent, motionless, intent. He turned his chair 
 away from her as much as possible, with a slight 
 movement of impatience, and began the morn- 
 ing miCal ; he had, however, not proceeded far 
 with it, before he felt something drop like a pea 
 upon the little cap he wore to protect him from 
 the sun. Before he had time to ascertain what 
 it could be, it was withdrawn, and he became 
 suddenly aware of a piece of string dangling 
 close down by his ear, with a little knot at the 
 end of it, which he then discovered to be the 
 object which had struck his cap. Looking 
 hastily upwards, he saw the child, with the same
 
 io6 Past Hotu's, 
 
 grave visage, slowly point to his breakfast. He 
 touched the rolls. 
 
 " Do you want one of these, little one } " he 
 said. 
 
 She laid her finger on her lips, glanced 
 cautiously back into the room, and then again 
 pointed sternly and imperatively to the table. 
 He touched the rolls again : she shook her 
 head, but the finger still pointed. He touched 
 the butter-dish : another negative with the 
 head, but the finger not withdrawn. There was 
 a plate of the long thin Piedmontese biscuits 
 called grissini on the table ; when he showed 
 her these, she nodded repeatedly, with a sort 
 of angry gravity, and vehemently jerked the 
 string close to his ear. Greatly entertained, he 
 fastened the biscuit to the end of the cord, and 
 she drew it up and ate it, apparently with ex- 
 treme satisfaction, but without ever removing 
 those very uncomfortable eyes from off her 
 benefactor. As soon as she had demolished
 
 Judith, 107 
 
 her biscuit, she lowered her string again, and 
 recommenced her game of pointing. This time 
 it was for sugar. He fastened a lump to the 
 cord, and saw her presently divide her booty 
 with the bullfinch, after which she withdrew, 
 making no sort of acknowledgment, either of 
 pleasure or of gratitude. 
 
 Every day now there appeared some new 
 and tempting dainty on the colonel's table, 
 and every day did his strange little neighbour 
 let down her string and share his good things 
 with him ; never, however, exceeding the quan- 
 tity she seemed to have prescribed to herself 
 from the beginning. One cake, and one lump of 
 sugar scrupulously halved with the bullfinch, was 
 all he ever could induce her to accept. After 
 a few days she took it into her head to make 
 him little offerings in return ; the string an- 
 nouncing itself by a bang from some parcel 
 more or less heavy with which it was laden. 
 One day it was a bunch of violets ; another
 
 io8 Past Hours. 
 
 time, a tiny pin-cushion, which, by signs, silent, 
 cautious, but wonderfully intelligent, she made 
 him understand she had worked for him herself ; 
 once, a piece of Gruyere cheese descended, care- 
 fully enveloped in a hundred bits of paper ; 
 and one day there flopped upon his shoulder 
 a square packet of red gold, recklessly shorn 
 from the sunny treasure with which the little 
 head was crowned. She gave him all she 
 could — she gave him all she had. She had 
 got to know his hours, and the time at which 
 he might generally be expected home for 
 dinner, and was always at the window to greet 
 his return with her presence. Still she never 
 smiled nor spoke, and our colonel would pro- 
 bably have never achieved a further degree of 
 intimacy, but for a trouble which befell the 
 little sphynx, and which, as troubles will, taught 
 her to know her friends.
 
 Judith, 109 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 One day when Colonel St. John went to his 
 breakfast, he was very disagreeably surprised 
 at not hearing, as usual, those sounds which 
 he had grown quite accustomed to look upon 
 as the necessary accompaniment of his meal. 
 He looked up in vain for his small friend — the 
 bird was not there, the window was shut. It 
 remained so the next day, and the next. It was 
 a Friday, and Colonel St. John, hurrying out, 
 went to the corner of the street and waited 
 there in a state of unspeakable anxiety. He 
 had discovered that three times a week — on 
 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, — at about 
 half-past twelve o'clock, the elder of the two 
 girls, accompanied by her little sister and the
 
 I lo Past Hours. 
 
 old bonne, was in the habit of going to take 
 her singing lesson ; and he had often stood, 
 where, hidden by a friendly porte-cochere, he 
 could see the slim tall girl pass by, in her 
 modest suit of faded black, with her large 
 music-book under her arm. To-day, however, 
 he waited in vain. Half-past twelve — one 
 o'clock — half-past one struck; the colonel turned 
 back again to the pension with an indescribable 
 foreboding of ill. He asked the concierge for 
 the key of his room, and then inquired if the 
 ladies who occupied the entresol had left the 
 pension, as he had heard no singing for the last 
 three days. 
 
 " Non, monsieur," was the reply. " Ces dames 
 y sont toujours, mais la petite demoiselle est 
 bien malade, elle a la rougeole." 
 
 The moment Colonel St. John reached his 
 apartment, he seized pen and ink, and wrote 
 the following lines, which he immediately de- 
 spatched to the floor above.
 
 Jttdith. Ill 
 
 "A fellow-countryman, hearing that English 
 ladies in the house are alone and in trouble, 
 ventures to offer any assistance that may be 
 in his power. Has the little girl any amusing 
 books ? Would she care for pictures ? Does 
 she love flowers ? Colonel St. John does not 
 know whether he can be of any service, but 
 implores Miss Fane to forget that he is a 
 stranger, and to command him if he can." 
 
 In answer to this missive the servant brought 
 back w^ord that Mademoiselle de St. Armand 
 would have the pleasure of coming down and 
 speaking to Monsieur le Colonel herself. 
 
 In about ten minutes the ante-room bell rang, 
 the door opened, and Mademoiselle Judith de 
 St. Armand was announced, and, to the unspeak- 
 able amazement of the colonel, the little old 
 bo7ine of the entresol stood before him, no 
 longer in the striped camisole in which he had 
 often caught flying glimpses of her, hurrying
 
 112 Past Hours. 
 
 backwards and forwards, sometimes with a 
 pipkin in her hand, sometimes with a broom, 
 engaged in the homely avocations which con- 
 stituted her daily employment, but rouged up 
 to the eyes, and attired in a faded lilac silk 
 dress, of the scantiest and most antiquated 
 make, and whose short proportions displayed a 
 pair of knotty little feet in elaborately sandalled 
 prunella shoes. Her little withered visage was 
 literally buried in an enormous yellow bonnet, 
 covered with roses ; in one hand was an old pink 
 parasol, in the other, she carried a gigantic 
 snuff-box. She ambled rapidly into the room, 
 and then stopping, as it were, with a modest 
 surprise, executed with infinite grace and dignity 
 two or three curtsies worthy of the days of the 
 mefiuet de la coiir. In a dialect, half French, 
 half English, which the colonel had considerable 
 difficulty in comprehending, she thanked him 
 with effusion for his kindness, and offered him 
 her snuff-box, repeatedly solacing herself with
 
 Judith. 113 
 
 its contents, while, in the floweriest language, 
 she informed him that his letter had arrived at 
 the most auspicious moment, and had relieved 
 them from a very painful embarrassment. She 
 told him that ever since the fever had set in, the 
 poor little child had been possessed by a frantic 
 desire to see him ; that they had endeavoured 
 to divert her mind from this strange fancy, but 
 that yesterday, her irritability increasing with 
 her illness, she had refused all nourishment, and 
 met every attempt to soothe or amuse her with 
 passionate cries of ''Je veux le colonel — ^je veux 
 le colonel." Mademoiselle Judith therefore 
 ventured to entreat Monsieur le Colonel, since he 
 had been so kind as to offer to help them, to 
 come up and see the poor little invalid who had 
 taken, how and why they could not imagine, 
 such an extraordinary caprice for him ; at 
 present, after passing a wretched night, she had 
 fallen into a sort of troubled doze, but if towards 
 evening, jMonsieur le Colonel would have the 
 
 VOL. II. 22
 
 1 14 Past HoiLTs. 
 
 goodness to pay them a little visit, both she and 
 Mademoiselle Fane would feel " eternellement 
 reconnaissantes " for such an act of kindness. 
 
 " Have you good medical advice for her ? " 
 interrupted the colonel. 
 
 " Monsieur, je I'ai purgee," replied Made- 
 moiselle de St. Armand, gravely ; then, playfully 
 covering her old visage with one hand while her 
 little diamond eyes twinkled and winked at him 
 through the spread fingers : 
 
 " Hah ! " said she : " should I have blessed 
 the English conveniences t But you will for- 
 ,geeve — c'est le cceur qui a parle." Then taking 
 his hand and tenderly pressing it, the little lady 
 rose to depart, backing out of the room, and 
 repeating at intervals the gracious and majestic 
 obeisances which had adorned her entrance, and 
 which she always apparently directed to an 
 imaginary circle before her. Her dress, her 
 manner, the wonderful grandeur and condescen- 
 sion of her demeanour, the long words she
 
 Jtidith. 115 
 
 delighted to use, and the evident desire which 
 she had to impress him with an idea of the 
 importance of the family to which she belonged, 
 left the colonel full of conjectures as to what 
 their position in the \vorld might really be. We 
 will at once tell the reader what he only learned 
 gradually during the course of a growing 
 intimacy.
 
 ii6 Past Hours. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Angela Fane, or as she was always called at 
 home, Angel Fane, and her little sister Judith 
 were the daughters of a gentle, honest, hard- 
 working musician, who was engaged in the 
 orchestra of one of the great London theatres. 
 He had married an Italian woman who sang in 
 the choruses, and who died after bringing the 
 little Judith into the world. In all the distress 
 of their loss, no one had much heeded the poor 
 babe, whose arrival had heralded so terrible a 
 misfortune : her birthday was a day of mourn- 
 ing, and all the joyful celebrations which usually 
 usher in a new life were got over as briefly and 
 unimportantly as possible. She received the 
 name of Elena in memory of her mother, and
 
 Jitdith. 1 1 7 
 
 that of Judith from the attached friend in whose 
 arms that mother had died, who had held her at 
 the font, and who had tended and nursed the 
 poor forlorn little baby with all the passionate 
 devotion of one who has few to love or to be 
 loved by. 
 
 In palm}' days of former years, Judith 
 Cabanou had been known as Mademoiselle 
 de St Armand, and had been rather a success- 
 ful mime in the old ballets d'aciion which are 
 gone out of fashion now. Have you ever lived 
 among actors } Have }-ou ever known any of 
 them really intimately? Probably not — for 
 those who are not what is called '' in society," 
 live in a little enchanted world of their own, 
 made up of illusions and hard work, into which 
 the inhabitants of the other worlds in the world 
 seldom penetrate ; and those whom we occasion- 
 ally meet in agreeable houses, rarely allow one 
 to pierce much below the surface. All that is 
 better or worse in them than in other men, lies
 
 1 1 8 Past Hours. 
 
 hidden, and all that you perceive is merely a 
 gentleman very much like other gentlemen, only 
 rather more genial, rather lighter in hand, and 
 perhaps speaking rather better English than 
 most of the other gentlemen at table. 
 
 I do not mean such men as , or ; 
 
 we all knew them — they were great artists and 
 exceptional men. How handsome they were ! 
 what winning voices they had ! A chivalrous 
 quality was theirs too, which made them adored 
 by all weak creatures — women and children 
 loved them. They had something of the humour 
 of vagabonds, something of the fancy of poets, 
 the tastes and habits of grands seignairs, and 
 the manners of most pleasant gentlemen. No 
 — when I talk of actors, I mean the men of 
 their class, who have never risen above it, nor 
 mixed with anything out of it. If you have 
 lived among these people, did you ever know 
 one who had not had one great moment at least 
 in his career ?
 
 Jttdith, 1 1 9 
 
 Every actor — from Hamlet, down to the man 
 who, with a mean throat, knock-knees and a short 
 cloak, acts guest at a ball, or tells my lord duke 
 that his carriage waits — lives and dies in the firm 
 conviction that at some period of his life, his 
 genius has been the sole prop of a falling fabric, 
 — that through his efforts alone, at some time 
 or other, some theatre or other has been 
 rescued from imminent perdition, some author 
 crowned with laurels, due only to his interpreta- 
 tion of the drama. 
 
 The only one I ever knew who did not nourish 
 this valuable illusion, was a poor fellow who 
 fancied that he could act Shakespeare, and who 
 passed his life in coming out as Romeo. He 
 had an invincible lisp, which used to make the 
 people laugh, and was regularly hooted off the 
 stage whenever he came to the passage, " How 
 thilver thweet thound loverth' tongueth by night." 
 He called upon me the day after he had failed at 
 one of the great houses ; he told me in a perfect
 
 I20 Past Hottrs, 
 
 frenzy of passion that " both actorth and 
 managerth were in a bathe conthplrathy, thir, to 
 thwamp the greatetht dramatic geniuth that the 
 age had produthed ; but I'll thail for America, 
 thir, by heaventh I will, and leave thith mither- 
 able old huthk of a decrepit world to rot in itth 
 own helplethneth ! " Poor fellow ! when I re- 
 turned to England after a few years absence, I 
 found he had died in a madhouse, of vanity and 
 disappointed ambition. 
 
 The triumphal moment in Judith Cabanou's 
 existence had been the production of a ballet, 
 called " La Fiancee de la Montagne," in which, 
 after leaping upon a table and firing off six 
 pistols, thereby putting to flight a whole regi- 
 ment sent to capture her bandit husband, she 
 suddenly with indescribable rapidity (shedding 
 one dress after another as if they had been so 
 many skins) appeared first in Spanish flounce 
 and mantilla, and pranced a cachucha to an 
 accompaniment of castanets ; then, as a Neapoli-
 
 Jitdith. 121 
 
 tan villanella, rushed wildly, tambourine in hand, 
 into a tarantella ; then danced a pas Tartare with 
 clicking heels, aided by the whole corps de ballet; 
 and finally, on the dispersion of the middle 
 group by which she had been for an instant sur- 
 rounded and concealed, was discovered with a 
 turban, which with incredible velocity she had 
 contrived to clap upon her head, balancing 
 herself upon some cushions in an attitude of all 
 but impossible muscular difiiculty, grinning and 
 leering topsy-turvy at the pit, in a pose that 
 appeared to set the law of gravity and every 
 other law, natural and conventional, at defiance. 
 T\vL^pose was the child of her invention ; she loved 
 it, and called it " Le Reve de I'Odalisque ;" and 
 she used to go home to her hard bed in her dingy 
 lodging a proud and happy woman, after seeing 
 the curtain fall upon her creation, enveloped in 
 Bengal fires, and pelted with bouquets bought 
 by the manager and herself, amid the plaudits 
 of an enthusiastic if not enlightened public.
 
 122 Past Hours. 
 
 But Time, the conqueror, did not spare her. 
 Those fierce bold big bright eyes sank in their 
 orbits, until the eyes and orbits together looked 
 like a huge pair of spectacles. Those legs, so 
 straight, so round, so firm and yet so soft, a 
 perfect model of form, grew thin and stiff, and 
 jerked about like two melancholy little old cork 
 legs. She could not get engagements, and 
 finally accepted the humble emploi of dresser, 
 rather than not in any capacity belong to that 
 Garden of Eden of all actors, a theatre. She 
 attached herself warmly to Mrs. Fane, whom 
 she was in the habit of dressing, and when the 
 former left the stage, Vv^hich she did some short 
 while before the little Judith was born, the poor 
 Cabanou came home with her, and fell at once 
 into the position of friend, nurse, counsellor, and 
 servant in one ; and as Mrs. Fane kept her alive 
 with green-room gossip and the history of all 
 the cabals and intrigues of the players, she con- 
 trived for some years to lead a tolerably happy
 
 Judith, 123 
 
 existence, in spite of what she used pathetically 
 to call "le gout amer des gloires passees.'' 
 
 About a year before the commencement of their 
 acquaintance with Colonel St. John, 3.1 r. Fane 
 had died of consumption, and his situation at the 
 theatre being all he had had to depend upon, his 
 children would have been left entirely destitute, 
 but for a certain ]\Ionsieur Guillaume, a lodger in 
 the same house, Avho, having the greatest opinion 
 of Angel's musical capacity, had come for^vard 
 in the handsomest manner in the hour of need, 
 had offered to take upon himself the care of the 
 whole family, and had brought them all to Paris, 
 where he had placed Angel under the most 
 celebrated master in the place, merely observing,, 
 in the noblest way, that she must work hard, for 
 that to her future triumphs he should look, to 
 repay him for all the money he vras expending 
 upon her maintenance and education.
 
 124 Past HoiLTs. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In the evening, Colonel St. John rung at the 
 door of the entresol, laden with books and toys 
 for the sick child. He found the little home 
 even more humble than the appearance of its 
 inhabitants had led him to expect ; but the 
 place, though poor, was bright and cheerful. 
 How should it be otherwise, with sunshine, birds, 
 flowers, and children within it .^ How should it 
 be otherwise, with sweet Ans^el Fane within it } 
 How shall I describe this tall, fair child — so 
 very tall, so very fair, so very childlike, — so 
 joyous, gentle, eager, and, alas ! so weak, that 
 every little exertion or emotion left her panting 
 and breathless, and overcome with palpitation 
 of the heart .-^ She was only just seventeen, and
 
 Judith. 125. 
 
 already five foot five. Her lithe young figure, 
 too slight to require any artificial support, 
 swayed and bent with every movement, like 
 some tall sapling with the wind. Her face was 
 round, and perfectly colourless, without looking 
 in the least unhealthy. '' Non era pallidezza, ma 
 candore." Her whiteness was not of alabaster, 
 it was like cream, or " pale primroses ; " it had 
 the texture and hue of flowers, and was relieved 
 by little unexpected veins of tenderest violet. 
 Her eyes were grey, with long black lashes ; 
 sweet eyes, gentle and shy, that twinkled, and 
 seemed almost to vanish away with merriment : 
 add to this, sweet lips often parted to laugh, and 
 showing the whitest, evenest, handsomest teeth 
 in the world, and you have all that I can give 
 of Angel Fane. She had not long recovered 
 from a rheumatic fever, and had been obliged to 
 have her head shaved ; so she always wore a 
 little round muslin cap, exactly like a baby's, 
 fitting to the shape of her head, and whose
 
 126 Past Hours. 
 
 snowy frillings sat close round her sweet face, 
 making it look still more delicate and baby-like. 
 The short hair that peeped from beneath the 
 cap was auburn, and threw amber shadows of a 
 vague and exquisite softness upon her temples. 
 
 The ice once broken, and the colonel installed 
 by little Judith's bed, he hardly quitted it until 
 she was herself again. She would lie for hours 
 with her little hot hand in his, while he told her 
 interminable stories of giants and fairies ; and 
 though he seldom left her without bringing back 
 something to divert or please her, she hardly 
 would suffer him out of her sight for half an 
 hour together. 
 
 The days of her recovery were happy days 
 for these poor children. Attended by the faith- 
 ful Jacky — that was the familiar name by which 
 Mademoiselle de St. Armand was known in the 
 bosom of her family, — they all went to St. Ger- 
 main, where the colonel took lodgings for them 
 for a week. Happy days were they, too, for the
 
 Jttdith. 1 2 7 
 
 poor lone man, whose heart, ice-bound so long-, 
 was now fast thavring in a sort of paradise of 
 tenderness. These friendless young things 
 attached themselves very readily and Avarmly 
 to one whose only thought seemed to be of what 
 might give them pleasure. When they returned 
 to Paris, he passed all his evenings with them. 
 Jacky was ahvays of the party — an uncom- 
 promising chaperon, w^ho considered herself 
 arrayed in full evening costume when she had 
 whipped off her apron, and stuck a very old rose 
 in her ragged grey locks. The colonel now had 
 frequent opportunities of hearing Angel sing ; 
 and the oftener he heard her, the more im- 
 pressed did he become with the conviction that 
 she never would possess the physical strength 
 requisite for a public career. How would that 
 thread of a voice, that hardly carried across the 
 room, ever make itself heard in the large space 
 of a theatre } She executed with the precision 
 of an instrument the most difficult and intricate
 
 128 Past Hours. 
 
 passages, but besides being deficient in power^ 
 she was also entirely deficient in what may 
 sometimes be made to take the place of it — 
 dramatic expression. The passionate Italian 
 music, with which her master crammed her, said 
 absolutely nothing to a nature in which the 
 senses were either non-existent, or entirely 
 dormant ; consequently, she could not make it 
 say anything to any one else : her sentiment — 
 such as it was — seemed all to lie in the natural 
 colour of her voice, which in its sweet weakness 
 went straight to one's heart, one knew not how. 
 The whole creature was touching — why, one 
 could not tell, for she was not by any means 
 remarkably intelligent, and anything but senti- 
 mental. Essentially light-hearted she was, 
 although taxed above her strength, and never 
 sad except for being scolded by her master, or 
 prevented by Jacky from doing some trifle that 
 everybody else did, and which therefore she 
 always imagined she had strength for, until she
 
 Jtidith. 129 
 
 tried it and broke down in the attempt. Per- 
 haps one felt so tender about her, because she 
 always looked younger than any one else ; 
 perhaps, too, one had an indistinct foreboding 
 that her thread of life was too fine and delicate 
 for the hard uses of so rough a world. 
 
 One evening, that the colonel was as usual 
 sitting with them, he asked Angel to sing him 
 what she Avas at that moment studying with 
 her master. 
 
 " Oh, dear colonel," she said, " don't ask me. 
 I sing It too horridly ; and, what is worse, I 
 never shall sing it any better. Monsieur was 
 quite furious with me to-day ; he said, ' Vous 
 etes froide comme une glace,' several times, and 
 looked so disgusted with me ! I suppose I am," 
 she added, with a little laugh, '' for though I 
 have been working at it ever since I came home, 
 it doesn't get a bit warmer. There ! " she con- 
 tinued, opening the romanza of the " Montecchi 
 e Capuletti" and showing it to him, "I do pretty 
 
 VOL. II. 23
 
 130 Past Ho2trs. 
 
 well till I get to this bit, ' Con quale ardor 
 t'attendo ! ' and then he always goes off in a 
 frenzy. To-day he seized me by the shoulders 
 and shook me, asking me all the while if I had 
 never attendocd any one ; and then he called 
 me a legume, and looked so desperate and 
 funny, that I could not help giggling, though 
 really I wanted to cry. And that, of course, 
 made him crosser than ever, and he said, ' Allez, 
 je dirai a Monsieur Guillaume que jamais vous 
 ne ferez rien.' But though I really do try, I 
 don't see how to do it a bit more than I did 
 this morning. I never did attendo any one but 
 you, dear colonel, and as you are sure to come, 
 I never fuss about it, you know." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Jacky, " but a day vill come ven 
 ze coeur vill dire his petit mot." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know how it should," re- 
 plied Angel, laughing, " unless one of Judy's 
 fairy princes comes down the chimney and 
 carries me off. I don't believe I shall ever have
 
 Judith. 131 
 
 anything but fathers — and I'm sure I don't want 
 anything else, with two such dear old fathers 
 as Monsieur Guillaume and you, dear colonel ! " 
 and she put her hand affectionately into his. 
 Jacky scowled, as she had a peculiar way of 
 doing vvhenever ]Monsieur Guillaume's name 
 was mentioned : the colonel smiled a melan- 
 choly little smile, looked at the little hand that 
 lay in his — and let it go. 
 
 She opened the piano and began : when she 
 came to the passage in question, she stopped, 
 and said, " He sang it himself, too, to show me 
 how it ought to be ; but I'm so stupid, I quite 
 forget how he did it. Oh, this was it, I think ! " 
 And she sang. 
 
 " No it wasn't. Angel," said little Judith, who 
 was busy building card houses in a corner of 
 the room ; '' I know how it was, and it wasn't so." 
 
 "Well then, show us, Judy," said the other 
 girl, " if you know how so well." 
 
 " He stops upon ' ardor,' and you don't ; and
 
 13^ P^si Hoins. 
 
 then he seems glad with a sort of gladness ; 
 and when he begins at first, he is quite sad, 
 and you don't do that right either. This is how 
 he does it." 
 
 The little creature stood up in the middle 
 of the room, with her arms crossed upon her 
 breast, in an attitude of profound melancholy. 
 So she sang the first few bars of her song ; then 
 slov/ly opening her arms with a gesture of 
 strange grace and pathos, she stretched them 
 longingly into the air, while, with glowing 
 cheeks, and her little frame shaking from head 
 to foot with emotion, the words burst forth — 
 " Con quale ardor t'attendo ! " 
 
 The colonel and Angel went into fits of 
 laughter at the extraordinary energy and passion 
 of the small creature ; but Jacky seized her up 
 in her arms and covered her with tears and 
 kisses, saying, " Laisse-les rire ! tu seras grande 
 — tu seras grande ! Je t'apprendrai le *Reve de 
 rOdalisque ! ' "
 
 Judith. T 
 
 JO 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 From this time forth, the little Judith's acting 
 became one of the constant entertainments of 
 the evening. One day the colonel would tell 
 her a fair\* story, and the next, she would act 
 it for him from beginning to end ; often making 
 her audience laugh, while she herself cried with 
 her own intensity. 
 
 The contrast bet^veen the two girls was very 
 remarkable ; the complete difference of organi- 
 zation appeared in everything. Jacky informed 
 the colonel that Angel took after her father, 
 while Judith was all her mother — the same fire, 
 the same passion, the same natural gift of act- 
 ing, which seems only to belong to southern
 
 134 Past Hours. 
 
 people. The one single, common inheritance 
 appeared to be the auburn hair, which came 
 to both from the English side : but even here 
 there was a difference in the very temper of the 
 hair ; Angel's being so soft and fine that it 
 could do nothing but lie flat ; while the little 
 Judith's, if unbound, stood up and out miles 
 away from her head in crisp Avaves that made 
 it look like a stiff glory, and it could only be 
 kept in order at all by plaiting it all over. 
 
 The vein of difference ran right through the 
 two characters, and was perceptible in all they 
 did, and all they did not do. Colonel St. John 
 could not delight Judith more than by pre- 
 senting her with any sort of glittering trumpery 
 with which she could adorn her little person ; 
 beads, above all things, made her supremely 
 happy ; indeed, she never could act, unless she 
 had contrived for herself something in the way 
 of a costume which she thought appropriate to 
 the part that she was going to play. In general.
 
 Judith. 135 
 
 too, she put her things on in a fantastic way, 
 always sticking somewhere or other a bit of 
 colour that made her look picturesque. 
 
 Angel, en the contrary, never wore anything 
 but black, and that of the simplest fashion, and 
 the only presents the colonel could ever induce 
 her to accept were flowers, especially violets, 
 of which she was passionately fond, and of 
 which the little room now was always full. She 
 used every now and then to make feeble at- 
 tempts to tear off the rags with which Judith 
 vv'ould bedizen herself ; but she was no match, 
 morally or physically, for that exceedingly re- 
 bellious little personage ; and small was the 
 assistance she received in the matter from 
 Jacky, who herself nourished at heart a secret 
 taste for the tawdry, which peeped out wherever 
 there was the smallest loophole. Besides, with 
 Jacky the child always had her way. She 
 was so quick, so eager to learn, so apt at 
 seizing all that was taught her — Jacky sym-
 
 136 Past Hours. 
 
 phathlzed with her as an artist, and doted on 
 her as a daughter. In virtue of her nation, 
 Jacky was an excellent cook, and into the 
 mysteries of this science too did she initiate 
 the little Judith, who was never so happy as 
 when she was allowed to cook something for 
 the supper of her beloved colonel. She would 
 then appear in a long white pinafore, which 
 covered her from head to foot, with a white 
 handkerchief pinned round her head in imita- 
 tion of a cook's cap, and would come in thus 
 attired, and serve with the utmost gravity the 
 dishes which she had dressed. 
 
 But, alas ! to all pleasantness there comes an 
 end, and those happy days of innocent joys and 
 simple affections were fast drawing to their 
 close. 
 
 One morning, as Colonel St. John was going 
 out, the concierge presented him with a note 
 from Angel Fane ; it contained these words : —
 
 Judith. 137 
 
 Dear Colonel, 
 
 Monsieur Guillaume has arrived, and 
 Jacky insists upon my writing to beg you not 
 to come to us this evening. She says that you 
 and Monsieur Guillaume would not suit each 
 other, and that it would never do ; but I cannot 
 help thinking that he would be pleased to make 
 your acquaintance, and I am sure you would 
 like one who has proved himself so true a 
 friend, such a noble benefactor to the poor 
 children you are good enough to care about. 
 What would have become of us, where should 
 we be now, but for him t However, as Jacky 
 says so, I suppose you had better not come till 
 you hear from us again. Good-bye, dear colonel ; 
 we shall be so dull without you. Jacky is 
 always so cross when Monsieur Guillaume is 
 here — nothing goes right ; and Judy won't open 
 her lips to him. The blot is a kiss from Judy. 
 Your ever affectionate 
 
 Angela Fane.
 
 138 Past Hours. 
 
 Colonel St. John went to a play that evening, 
 but found the return to his old habits, after so 
 long an interval, unspeakably irksome and un- 
 pleasurable. 
 
 Early the next morning he sent a heap of 
 fresh violets upstairs, and received in reply the 
 following welcome words : — 
 
 A thousand thanks, dear Colonel. Monsieur 
 Guillaume goes to-night ; pray come. 
 Your grateful 
 
 Angela Fane. 
 
 At eight o'clock in the evening he stood once 
 more before the little door of his earthly para- 
 dise. He heard a man's voice within, and Jacky, 
 who let him in, informed him that Monsieur 
 Guillaume was there — come to take leave. On 
 entering the room. Colonel St. John was pain- 
 fully struck by Angel's appearance. She was 
 lying on the sofa ; her eyes gleamed with an
 
 Jttdith. 139 
 
 unnatural and feverish brightness, and there 
 were two spots of vivid hectic colour on her 
 generally pale cheeks. Her manner was nervous 
 and restless, and she seemed altogether ill at 
 ease. She seized the colonel's hand with 
 trembling fingers, and raising herself with an 
 effort, called to Monsieur Guillaume, who was 
 standing in the window with his back to the 
 room, conversing in a low voice with Jacky. 
 
 " Monsieur Guillaume ! I want to introduce 
 my English friend, Colonel St. John, to you." 
 
 He turned, and Colonel St. John beheld the 
 orphans' friend, and about as repulsive a speci- 
 men of a human creature as it had ever been 
 his fortune to encounter ; — narrow-chested ; high 
 shoulders, upon which descended a shock of 
 dim unwholesome-looking hair ; a head as flat 
 as an animal's ; hard little green eyes ; no nose 
 whatever to speak of; an interminable space 
 between the nose and mouth ; the mouth a 
 long hard line, with scarcely any lips at all
 
 140 Past Hours. 
 
 Here was the Monsieur Guillaume that Angel 
 Fane loved ! — an essentially mean, cruel, shabby- 
 creature, In spite of his clothes, every article 
 of which shone with a bran new lustre. He 
 wore gold rings in his ears, and when In a 
 husky, discordant voice he had performed his 
 civilities to the colonel, and offered him an 
 extremely dirty hand, the impression was 
 complete. 
 
 The colonel attempted to be amiable, and 
 spoke of the pleasure he had received from his 
 admittance to the house, and the delight he 
 took in Angel's singing. 
 
 " She has no strength — no lungs," said Mon- 
 sieur Guillaume. " She must go to Italy, and 
 exert herself, and get strength : she has no 
 -energy." 
 
 When he went, Jacky bade him farewell 
 with a face of thunder. Judith was repeatedly 
 called for, by her sister, but she had not ap- 
 peared at all during the visit, and was not
 
 yttdith, 141 
 
 forthcoming at the departure, when required. 
 The only person who seemed sorry to lose him 
 was Angel. She got up to bid him good-bye» 
 she gave him his hat, she gave him his stick, 
 she gave him a bunch of those violets which 
 the colonel had sent her. 
 
 " You seem to be spending a fortune in 
 flowers," said Monsieur Guillaume, passing his 
 dingy hand roughly over the faces of the violets 
 on the table, and knocking some of them out 
 of the vase in which they stood. 
 
 " No, indeed," answered Angel, eagerly and 
 deprecatingly ; " it is Colonel St. John's kind- 
 ness that procures us this pleasure." 
 
 "Ah — veiy good — very good," said IMonsieur 
 Guillaume with his hoarse toneless voice ; " a 
 very pretty present to make a woman — and it 
 don't cost much. I always give flowers when 
 I can get women to take 'em ; they don't cost 
 much. You can get nosegays for half the 
 price the second day, and they're every bit as
 
 142 Past Hows. 
 
 good. It's a pretty present, and It don't cost 
 much." 
 
 As soon as the door was shut, and that 
 Jacky, who had gone to let him out, re- 
 appeared in the room, a tremulous motion began 
 to agitate the table-cover, and Judith slowly 
 emerged from beneath it. 
 
 "What, have you been there all the time, 
 little one } " said the colonel, laughing. 
 
 "Yes," answered the child; "I didn't choose 
 to be kissed by that dirty nasty man." 
 
 " Oh, for shame, Judith ! " said Angel, flush- 
 ing crimson again with annoyance. " How can 
 you speak so of Monsieur Guillaume .? " 
 
 " He is dirty — he is nasty — he smells bad — 
 and I hate him," returned little Judy sturdily, 
 nothing daunted by the unwonted expression 
 of Angel's displeasure. 
 
 " Cette enfant le devine, monsieur," said 
 Jacky in a proud whisper to the colonel, — 
 " elle le devine ! Yesterday, when he will em-
 
 Jtidith, 143 
 
 brace her, she crashed him to the visage. Ah, 
 monsieur ! quelle ange que cette enfant ! " And 
 she took a pinch of snuff, and complacently 
 contemplated the amiable infant, who was now 
 fondly nestling in the colonel's breast, with 
 her cheek tenderly pressed against his. 
 
 " Oh, Jacky, I can't bear it ! " again broke 
 out poor Angel ; " indeed I can't bear to hear 
 you speak so. Oh, colonel, Judith has been 
 so naughty, and Jacky has been just as bad, 
 encouraging her the whole time ! No one has 
 been decently civil to him, and we owe him 
 ever\'thing. Why, every bit of bread we have 
 eaten for the last year and a half has been 
 his ; and I think it quite wicked to behave 
 so to him : I think it quite wicked of Judy to 
 like people only for their looks, as she does, 
 — to hate poor Monsieur Guillaume because 
 he happens to be plain, and to like you 
 just because you are not." Here Angel burst 
 into a passion of tears, and could with great
 
 144 /^^^/ Hours. 
 
 difficulty be quieted and made to He down 
 again. 
 
 The child's instinct was a true one, and no one 
 who had ever looked at the two men, could have 
 doubted it for a moment. Colonel St. John was 
 thin, tall, and straight, and held himself particu- 
 larly erect. His face expressed great determin- 
 ation, but there ^vas nothing whatever dogged 
 about it. Something a little sad there was in 
 the face, perhaps something a little haughty : 
 but the mouth, that smiled seldom, was inexpres- 
 sibly sweet w^hen it did smile ; and the eyes, 
 though dark and piercing, were kindly, and 
 looked honestly and fearlessly into those of the 
 people he spoke to. At a glance you could see 
 that he would be a fast friend ; and if an enemy, 
 though a bitter, yet a loyal one. 
 
 He learned from the indignant Jacky that the 
 previous day, as soon as Monsieur Guillaume 
 had set foot in the house, he had made Angel 
 sing to him for nearly two hours ; that then she
 
 yuditJi. 145 
 
 had had a ver}- tiring lesson with her master; 
 — Monsieur Guillaume in attendance, and re- 
 proaching the professor with giving short allow- 
 ance of time ; and that in the evening, again, he 
 had broucrht with him three or four theatrical 
 agents to hear her ; that she had been frightened, 
 and had broken down from ner\-ousness and 
 over-fatigue, and that he had been much dis- 
 pleased, and told her that she wanted zeal, and 
 did not work half hard enough. 
 
 " He does not know how weak I feel some- 
 times ! " said poor Angel, wearily ; " but he says 
 we are all to go to Italy in the autumn, and 
 spend the winter there : isn't it so kind and good 
 of him ? Last winter I had nothing but colds, 
 and coughs, and inflammations, and couldn't 
 sing at all ; and then I got my rheumatic fever, 
 and oh ! there was such a doctor's bill ! I think 
 perhaps it is because I keep growing so, that I 
 can't get my strength up. Oh, dear colonel, I 
 do feel so veiy, very tired sometimes, and as if 
 
 VOL. II. 24
 
 146 Past Hours, 
 
 I did long so to sit on mother's lap again ! 
 It seems as though no place could rest my 
 bones but that. Isn't it ridiculous of a great 
 maypole like me, to want my mammy, just 
 for all the world like a little baby ? " 
 
 She tried to laugh, but two great tears 
 rolled from her closed eyes all down her face, 
 and trickled along by the side of her quiver- 
 ing mouth. 
 
 The poor child was fairly worn out — the 
 benefactor's visit did not seem to have diffused 
 much happiness over the little circle.
 
 yitdith, 147 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 The summer went — the autumn set in. To- 
 wards the close of November, Monsieur Guil- 
 laume wrote to desire the children to pack up 
 and be ready. 
 
 They were to go to Naples, where Angel was 
 to become a pupil of the Conservatoire, then 
 under the direction of the great Crescentini. 
 Colonel St. John was to hear from them immedi- 
 ately upon their arrival. He had never seen 
 Italy, and had determined to make his desire to 
 visit that country a pretext for following, with 
 as little delay as possible, those who now made 
 up to him the sum and substance of what is 
 understood by the words — family, home, 
 happiness.
 
 14S Past Hoztrs. 
 
 He waited more than a month for this pro- 
 mised letter ; and then, sick of the sickness of 
 hope long deferred, sailed straight for Naples. 
 At the Conservatoire, at the post-ofhce, at the 
 Polizia, he made inquiries, but could learn 
 nothing. After a couple of months spent in 
 fruitless anxiety and vain suspense, he started 
 for Rome. Here too, he was equally unsuc- 
 cessful. From Rome he proceeded to Florence; 
 but nowhere could he obtain news of the travel- 
 lers. What was his amazement one day at 
 Florence on finding the following passage in a 
 Galignani two or three weeks old : it was in a 
 paragraph which gave an account of an Easter 
 piece that had been recently produced at the 
 Adelphi, and ran thus : — 
 
 " Nothing can exceed the magnificence of the 
 decorations, and the splendour of the trans- 
 formations. The descent of the Spirit of Truth, 
 who unmasks the wicked Prince, and terminates 
 the piece by giving the lovers to each other, was
 
 Jitdith, 149 
 
 truly magical in Its effect. The part was per- 
 formed by i\Iiss Angela Fane, her first appear- 
 ance on any stage. The fair dcbiUantc was 
 evidently labouring under severe indisposition, 
 and the music allotted to her was obliged to be 
 omitted. Her extreme youth, and surpassing 
 loveliness, and the taste and elegance of her cos- 
 tume excited universal enthusiasm, and at the 
 end of the piece, the beautiful Angel Fane was 
 rapturously called for. The few words she had 
 to say were unfortunately quite inaudible, but 
 this was doubtless occasioned by the timidity 
 attendant upon a first appearance, as well as by 
 the cold and cough from which she was evidently 
 suffering severely. Her reception was very flat- 
 tering, and we venture to predict to the young 
 lady, when she shall have recovered her self- 
 possession and the full command of her powers, 
 a successful and brilliant career." 
 
 It was the end of April before Colonel St. 
 John arrived in England. He hurried to the
 
 150 Past Hours. 
 
 Adelphi theatre, and there found that poor 
 Angel's triumph had been but short-lived : she 
 had acted but that one night, and had been ill 
 ever since. 
 
 Having with some difficulty procured her 
 address, he proceeded immediately in search of 
 her. The house was a dismal abode in one of 
 the dark narrow streets running down from the 
 Strand to the river. He was admitted by a 
 dirt}- little maid-of-all-work with a wall-eye, who 
 told him what door to knock at on the second 
 floor. 
 
 He knocked at the door : it vras opened by a 
 squalid child, with thin wan cheeks ; but there 
 was no mistaking those unrivalled masses of 
 auburn hair and the lustrous eyes beneath them 
 — once more he held in his arms the Judith of his 
 heart. Uttering a sharp inarticulate cry of joy, 
 she covered him with kisses, and dragged him 
 into the room. In one corner of the poverty- 
 stricken chamber stood a dingy bed : in it, lay
 
 yicdith, 151 
 
 the wreck of all that he loved best In the world. 
 Too weak to utter, she looked at him with 
 grievous wistful eyes, and put out two tremulous, 
 hot, skinny hands to greet him. Colonel St. 
 John could not take them : he tried to speak, 
 but the words choked in his throat, and covering 
 his face with his hands, he burst into an agony 
 of tears. 
 
 The sad histor}- was soon told ; he heard it 
 from the faithful Jacky, who, reviled and ill- 
 used by ^Monsieur Guillaume, had never aban- 
 doned her poor children. They had never been 
 to Naples, but had remained at Milan, where 
 Angel had studied at the Conser\'atoire under the 
 tuition of Vaccai. She had written several times 
 to Colonel St. John, at Paris, and they could 
 only account for his never having received the 
 letters by the supposition that ^Monsieur Guil- 
 laume (who nourished a secret apprehension 
 that the colonel might end by marrying Angel) 
 had destroyed, instead of posting them. He
 
 152 Past Hours, 
 
 had then brought them all to England, and 
 endeavoured to get an engagement for her at the 
 Kinsf's theatre : but her voice was found to be 
 perfectly indequate to the space that she Avas 
 called upon to fill, and he then closed with a 
 proposal from the manager of the Adelphi 
 theatre, where he hoped that her physical 
 attractions might make up for her want of 
 vocal power ; and it was settled that she should 
 dcbiLter in the Easter piece of which Colonel 
 St. John had seen the notice in the Galigiiaiiis 
 Messenger. She had been taken seriously ill, 
 however, about a fortnight before the piece 
 came out. She was positively driven out of her 
 bed by Monsieur Guillaume to make her first 
 appearance in public ; and the attack, increased 
 by the fatal exposure to cold, had turned to 
 violent inflammation of the lungs. For weeks 
 she had hovered between life and death ; she 
 was now a thought better, but had lost every 
 atom of her voice, and the doctor had said that,
 
 Judith. 
 
 Oo 
 
 even if she recovered, she would never be able 
 to sing again. 
 
 Monsieur Guillaume was quite beside himself 
 with rage at this unlooked-for termination of 
 what he had expected was to be a lucrative 
 speculation. He had lately become the manager 
 of one of the public gardens, which were just 
 then^ beginning to come into vogue ; and he 
 vowed, that as soon as Angel could sit up, she 
 should go and keep one of the champagne 
 booths with which the place of entertainment 
 abounded. " Je lui ai bien dit que cela tuerait 
 mon enfant, monsieur," said poor Jacky, Avith 
 her apron to her eyes ; '' mais il a repondu, 
 qu'elle serve d'enseigne, puisqu'elle ne pent pas 
 servir a autre chose ! " 
 
 Colonel St. John saw Monsieur Guillaume 
 but once again ; this was when, for the sum of 
 three thousand pounds down, he signed an 
 agreement to forego all further claim upon the 
 unfortunate child whom he had murdered.
 
 154 i^^i"/ Hours. 
 
 As soon as Angel could be moved they all 
 started for Italy, travelling by slow short stages, 
 so as to fatigue her as little as possible. She 
 was very entirely happy once again during the 
 last few weeks of her life ; but the happiness 
 had come too late. 
 
 She died about ten days after they reached 
 Rome, in Colonel St. John s arms, and it was 
 only by the look of peace that suddenly came 
 upon her poor worn face that they knew that 
 all was over. 
 
 She is buried in the protestant cemetery at 
 Rome. "Angela Fane, aged eighteen years," is 
 all that tells of her who lies there. The grave is 
 a very retired spot, where few people ever find 
 it ; but the evening sun shines upon it, the 
 birds sing there in the early spring, and it is 
 covered with a profusion of violets. 
 
 Sleep, Angel Fane ! the flowers you loved 
 are growing round and over you ; sweet airs 
 of spring kiss the soft turf that covers you ;
 
 Judith, 155 
 
 hard words and cruel looks no more shall 
 grieve you : now, only loving eyes of pitying 
 spirits greet you. Peace to the struggling 
 breath, the panting heart, the fevered brain ! 
 Out of our toil, and noise, and glare, sleep in 
 the eternal shadow of your mother's arms ! 
 
 Sleep, sweet Angel Fane ! your tired limbs 
 lie in the quiet earth — your weary spirit is at 
 rest with God. 
 
 When Colonel St. John returned to England, 
 Jacky and the little Judith accompanied him. 
 The child had become more than ever dear to 
 him : he adopted her, and gave her his name,, 
 to the extreme disgust of Mrs. Willoughb}^ 
 St. John, who never mentioned him except as 
 a lunatic who ought to be in Bedlam, or a 
 reprobate who ought to be in a penitentiar}-. 
 His health, which had suffered considerabl)- 
 from his long residence in India, had not been 
 improved by all he had gone through since his
 
 156 Past Hours. 
 
 return to Europe ; his doctor advised country 
 air and field sports, and so he took a small 
 house in the village of R , in Northampton- 
 shire, and hunted. Judith was sent to a sort 
 of little genteel day-school, kept by the post- 
 master's sister ; but she taught all the children 
 to act, made them study their parts instead of 
 learning their lessons, and vigorously and stead- 
 fastly rejected the crumbs of intellectual nourish- 
 ment with which Miss Minchin vainly en- 
 deavoured to provide her. 
 
 One day, when the insurrection was at its 
 height, Colonel St. John was called in to quell 
 it. He found Judith with a gold paper crown 
 upon her head, frantically brandishing a hearth- 
 broom, and exclaiming, " I won't be clean — I 
 won't be tidy : I'll be grand and dirty and 
 beautiful, and I'll never do another sum as long 
 as I live ! " Miss Minchin said her girls were 
 getting quite bewildered by the play-acting and 
 fairy trash with which she had contrived to
 
 Judith. 1 5 7 
 
 infect them all — the pupils older than herself, 
 as well as those younger. Miss Minchin meekly 
 wiped her gentle long nose, and tearfully ob- 
 served that, in the long run, she felt it tell upon 
 the sums. And so the public corrupter of school 
 morals was withdrawn from the establishment, 
 and remained at home, running wild about the 
 village ; ver}- idle, veiy happy, and very gene- 
 rally beloved. She was helpful to the old and 
 poor ; the champion of all the oppressed, human 
 or animal ; the sworn friend of all the black 
 sheep in the place, and the constant companion 
 and firm ally of old Teddy the rat-catcher, who 
 worshipped the ground she trod upon, taught 
 her to fish and to birds'-nest, and who made her 
 a present of a most hideous brindled mongrel 
 of the terrier breed, which he had himself 
 trained to rat-hunting, which Judith christened 
 Boguey, and which was the delight of her 
 existence. 
 
 But it seemed as if the poor child v/as doomed
 
 158 Past Hou7^s, 
 
 to be torn roughly from every place in which 
 5he began to strike out a root. After they had 
 
 been settled about a couple of years at R , 
 
 Colonel St. John fell from his horse out hunting. 
 He was brought home by a Mr. Leslie, a friend 
 of his brother Willoughby St. John's who was 
 staying in the neighbourhood at the time, and 
 only survived the injuries he had received, long 
 enough to tell Richard Leslie to take the child 
 and her attendant to his brother Willoughby. 
 
 " I have left him all — give him my love — I 
 had meant to provide for the child, but this 
 death has been so sudden — he has ever^^thing — 
 tell him to provide for the child." These were 
 the last words of the only friend poor little 
 Judith possessed in this great wide world.
 
 ytidith. 159 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 When Richard Leslie communicated the sad 
 ■event, and his brother's last words and wishes, to 
 Mr. St. John, great was the domestic dissension 
 that ensued. Willoughby St. John's affections 
 had got crusted over by money-making, and 
 worldly living, and above all by the deteriorat- 
 ing influences of his married life : but he had 
 once been young, and with the tidings of his 
 brother's death came back tender remembrances 
 of their boyhood, when they had been dear 
 companions, and a remorseful recollection of 
 the apathy and neglect which had coloured his 
 relations with him ever since his return from 
 India. Ah ! that bitter word. Too late ! — most 
 of us know it.
 
 i6o Past Ho2irs. 
 
 " A parcel of horrid strollers ! — It is out of the 
 question that they should come to Brankleigh ; 
 I never heard of such a thing," said Mrs. St. 
 John. 
 
 "Poor Mackworth ! Jic loved them ! " replied 
 her husband in a hoarse voice. 
 
 " It was only a part of the eccentricity which 
 marked every action of his existence. Who, but 
 he, would ever have thought of going and living 
 in that disreputable sort of vray out of his own 
 country, and travelling about with a pack of lovv' 
 vagabonds } "' 
 
 " The less said about that, I think, the better," 
 answered Mr. St. John, with an unwonted degree 
 of bitterness. " If he had met with more 
 brotherly love from me, and something more of 
 a sister's welcome from you, he wouldn't have 
 been driven to seek affection in other places." 
 
 '' Affection indeed ! " retorted Mrs. St. John : 
 " the young lady seems to have known very well 
 what she was about, and we may think ourselves
 
 Judith. 1 6 1 
 
 uncommonly lucky that she died before he could 
 disgrace the family still more by marrying her." 
 
 " I shall write, and desire them to come with- 
 out delay," observ^ed Willoughby St. John. 
 
 " You had much better do no such thing," 
 said she. " They had much better not come 
 at all, since it is quite out of the question that 
 they should remain here." 
 
 *'Why, Augusta," answered her husband, "I 
 should have thought that the child might have 
 proved an object of interest both to you and 
 me, as we have none of our own. I shall write 
 and tell them to set off immediately, and I 
 make it my particular request, that when the 
 poor things come, you will receive them in a 
 proper manner." 
 
 Mrs. St. John was a tallish woman, with a 
 certain share of insignificant good looks. She 
 had dark, staring, utterly meaningless, glassy 
 eyes, and tolerably regular features ; but it was 
 the hardest face in the world, and the voice 
 
 VOL. II. 25
 
 1 62 Past Hours, 
 
 matched it. When she was sixteen, it was the 
 voice of an old worldling of sixty, and it had 
 not improved with years. She wanted charm 
 of every kind, and distinction completely. Her 
 complexion was the least good thing about her ; 
 but as at night she looked showy, and was 
 always dressed in the extreme of the newest 
 fashion vulgar people generally thought her 
 both handsome and elegant. She was fond of 
 fashionable entertainments, and liked to go to 
 anything that royalty sanctioned, or of which 
 
 Lady A was one of the lady patronesses. 
 
 She regularly visited all the exhibitions, except 
 those of the old masters ; and had a box at the 
 Opera, for she thought she liked music. Every 
 season, too, she had a concert at her own house 
 in Portman Square. Costa conducted it, and 
 she always had the singers who were most run 
 after : but, as her manner was alike devoid of 
 grace and kindliness, they hated going there, and 
 generally sang indifferently. She had an idea
 
 yudith. 163 
 
 that she showed both fashion and morality by 
 keeping what she called " people of that sort " 
 at a distance. She had a laughably exagge- 
 rated idea of her own importance, and in her 
 intercourse with all her fellow-creatures (her 
 friends included) was always anxious — to use 
 a favourite expression of her own — that they 
 should " keep their proper place." 
 
 This was the woman to whose tender mercies 
 poor Jacky and her little charge were to be 
 made over. Anything that in dress or manner 
 happened to be at all different from what she 
 was in the habit of seeing, appeared to her, 
 therefore, necessarily ridiculous, or morally repre- 
 hensible ; and the old woman and the little 
 girl were peculiar enough in all their ways. 
 Heaven knows, to offend the conventionalities 
 of which she was the high priestess upon earth. 
 She had, besides, an underbred way of never 
 being at her ease with persons whom she thought 
 either superior or inferior to herself in social
 
 164 Past Hours. 
 
 position; and it was a sort of disagreeable 
 sensation, that generally engendered a feeling 
 of dislike in her. 
 
 Her sister-in-law, Miss Louisa St. John, had 
 been asked down to Brankleigh to help her 
 through her painful task on the day on which 
 the travellers were expected ; and both the 
 ladies wept, and both would gladly have put on 
 sackcloth, and strewn ashes on their heads, upon 
 the melancholy occasion — so greatly did they 
 think the house disgraced and their worldly 
 standing endangered by the presence of this 
 helpless old woman and little child. Louisa 
 St. John hinted that her brother's mind must 
 be affected, she had never known him do an 
 unselfish thing before. 
 
 The carriage drove up to the door, and little 
 Judith leaped out. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Mrs. St. John, who 
 was at the window, '' look at those hideous 
 carrots ! "
 
 Judith, 165 
 
 Her own hair was black, and she believed in 
 no other colour. 
 
 " Dearest Gussa," said Miss Louisa, " don't 
 have her in here just yet ; do let Coningsby set 
 them a little to rights first. Such a nest of a 
 head ! — who knows ? — foreign ways, you know, 
 dear — better let Coningsby, dear," — and they 
 were shown to their room at the top of the 
 house, and Coningsby despatched with a comb 
 and brush to their assistance : but Jacky never 
 permitted any one but herself to meddle with 
 her golden treasure ; and Mrs. Coningsby, who 
 had been deeply injured by being sent upon 
 such an errand, had to retire still more so, at 
 having her condescending advances rejected. 
 
 Bitter was the first week of their stay at 
 Brankleigh to Mrs. St. John ; and superhuman 
 her endeavours to dislodge them. She ma- 
 nceuvred — she stormed — she argued, ^but at 
 last, Mr. St. John fairly lost his temper, and 
 told her he would be master in his own house ;
 
 1 66 Past Hours. 
 
 and so she had to give in, at all events for the 
 present. 
 
 The worst of it was, that Willoughby St. John 
 took kindly to the child ; secretly even he did 
 not dislike old Jacky (Miss Almond, as the 
 servants used to call her). Brankleigh was such 
 a dull place. The old woman's queer ways and 
 extraordinary lingo made him laugh, and in his 
 heart of hearts he felt almost grateful to her for 
 his entertainment. 
 
 The first thing objected to in little Judith was 
 her hair. It was Jacky's pride and glory, and 
 as it was kept and dressed to perfection by her 
 the ladies could only find fault with the quantity 
 of it — which made her head look so large and 
 coarse, they said — and its colour. "Why not 
 cut it all off," cheerfully suggested Louisa St. 
 John one morning at breakfast, " and keep her 
 head shaved for two or three years } When it 
 grew again it would most likely be darker ; you 
 could stuff a small sofa with the hair — I'm sure 
 there's enough of it ! "
 
 Judith. 167 
 
 The next thing that was a source of amaze- 
 ment and disapprobation was her name ; who 
 ever heard of such a name ? Miss Louisa said 
 it put her in mind of Punch and Judy ; and Mr. 
 St. John, who had no great flow of inventive 
 wit, used regularly to ask Judith twenty times 
 a day, whenever he saw her, " where Holofernes 
 was." Rather a mild joke ; but one that shocked 
 his wife, who was particular about religious 
 matters. So having discovered that the little 
 girl had also been christened Elena, they agreed 
 to drop Judith for ever, and sinking Elena into 
 Helen, to call her thenceforth by that name. 
 
 The great object of Mrs. St. John's life was 
 now to eject Jacky. The woman had been her 
 aversion from the day of her arrival, and every 
 day grew more and more antipathetic to her. 
 She walked in the flower-garden with the child 
 without permission ; she was even once caught 
 picking a carnation for her ; and one day Mrs. 
 St. John came upon her unawares, as she was
 
 1 68 Past Hours. 
 
 sitting upon a particular bench which commanded 
 rather a pretty view of the stream that ran 
 through the grounds, and which Mrs. St John, 
 no one knew why, considered sacred to herself. 
 
 But the chief grievance of all was that, nothing 
 discouraged by Mrs. St. John's frigid discourtesy, 
 with foreign politeness the poor old thing would 
 hurry to her from a mile off, whenever she caught 
 a glimpse of her, and overwhelm her with re- 
 marks about the weather, and inquiries after 
 her health, to which, more or less graciously, 
 Mrs. St. John was forced to give a reply ; and 
 more than all, deep in her heart rankled the 
 feeling that her presence in the house was a 
 living testimony of the only battle with Mr. St. 
 John in which she had not come off victorious : 
 this was the bitterest morsel of all, and she 
 could not digest it. Poor Jacky ! she had a 
 hard time of it : the servants laughed at her, 
 the magnificent footmen insulted her ; they pre- 
 tended not to understand what she meant when
 
 Judith. 169 
 
 she asked for anything. She bore it all with 
 unswerving civility and an angelic patience, 
 so anxious was she to propitiate these only 
 friends of the child she doted upon ; but there 
 came a day, a fatal day, when excess of zeal 
 lost all. 
 
 About six months after their arrival at Brank- 
 leigh, a great dinner was given to the neighbours 
 in honour of Willoughby St. John's birthday. 
 The Rector of Willesden and his wife ; the Vicar 
 of Worsley ; the Rev. Augustus Mirch, with the 
 Honourable William Thoresby, an unpleasant lad 
 of seventeen, with a pimply chin, who was read- 
 ing with him ; Sir William and Lady Redman ; 
 Sir John Hammesley, and the Lady Adela 
 Brandon — a most odious old maid, who was 
 toadied in the neighbourhood in virtue of her 
 being a duke's daughter, who would go any- 
 where to save the expense of her dinner at 
 home, and who delighted in making the people 
 who received her as uncomfortable as she
 
 170 Past Hours. 
 
 possibly could. It was quite a tip-top party ; 
 the guests were numerous, the food intermin- 
 able, and the function lasted more than two 
 hours. 
 
 At last, grace was said, dessert was placed 
 upon the table, and there was heavenly relief 
 from the creaking of the footmen's shoes ; but 
 the lull was only momentary — an odd jingling 
 sound as of bells was heard, the door opened, 
 and the little Helen suddenly appeared. She 
 wore a short white petticoat, and her legs and 
 feet were bound round with sandals of red 
 worsted braid ; high above her head she held 
 a tambourine, brimming over with fruit and 
 flowers. Softly-glowing geraniums leaned their 
 rosy petals against the deep bloom of purple 
 grapes ; large moon-faced roses were there, and 
 flaming salvias mixed with the dusky barberry 
 and dark branches of the copper beech ; long 
 waving garlands of blood-red Virginian creeper 
 hung down, framing her grave young visage.
 
 Judith. 171 
 
 and Southern eyes ; and crowned with all these 
 fires of the falling season, and with the royal 
 masses of her auburn hair, which was unbound 
 and nearly covered her from head to foot, 
 she stood for a few seconds before the aston- 
 ished assembly, a gorgeous vision of incarnate 
 Autumn : then, slowly advancing, with a stately 
 obeisance she laid her fragrant treasures at 
 Willoughby St. John's feet. Having presented 
 her offering, the little creature began bounding 
 over the large empty space at the bottom of 
 the room. Sometimes she seemed to float, 
 sometimes she seemed to fly, sometimes she 
 spun round and round upon the same spot, 
 while her hair, driven from her by the velocity 
 of her motions, stood out round her like a 
 halo oi red light. Her vigour and animation, 
 her strength and lightness were beautiful to 
 behold. But, alas ! no one there thought them 
 so ; the consternation was universal and com- 
 plete. The Rector crimsoned ; the Vicar looked
 
 172 Past Hours. 
 
 another way ; the Reverend Mirch got up and 
 sat down again, veiling chaste eyes with a fat 
 hand ; the Honourable William lay back in his 
 chair, and laughed till he cried — he applauded 
 too, he was so pleased at the discomfiture of 
 the clergy in general, and of his own clergy 
 in particular. Lady Redman, after looking 
 steadily at the performance for a few seconds, 
 put down her glass, and said nervously, " Dear 
 me ! how very peculiar ! " The only person 
 who preserved her presence of mind was Lady 
 Adela, who put up hers, and leaning forward 
 from her place of honour at Willoughby St. 
 John's right hand, towards the other end of 
 the table, where Mrs. St. John sat, ready to 
 faint with mortification, observed, with slow 
 grinding nasal distinctness that could have been 
 heard miles off, "Well, you have given us an 
 entertainment this time ! " But the horror had 
 not reached its height : the child, feeling, with 
 the unerring instinct of an artist, that she was
 
 Judith, 
 
 I o 
 
 not successful, paused, and hesitated in her 
 dance, and, blushing to the roots of her hair, 
 cast a look of anguish towards the door : it 
 burst open, and in rushed Jacky to the rescue 
 attired in that Spanish costume which we have 
 had occasion to mention, and from which she 
 had never had the courage to part. Throwing 
 herself on one knee in the middle of the room, 
 she bent her body back until her head nearly 
 touched the ground behind her, deliriously 
 cracking her castanets, and waving her miser- 
 able old arms, while she screamed to the fright- 
 ened child to encourage her. " AUons ! du 
 courage, ma fille ! enfon^ons la cabale ! c'est 
 ^a — allez ! ecrasons ! enlevons la salle ! " — which 
 indeed she did effectually, for Mrs. St. John 
 suddenly rose, and for the first and last time 
 in her existence wholly oblivious of etiquette, 
 swept out of the room with her handkerchief 
 to her eyes, followed by all the ladies of the 
 party. Lady Adela included, who said she was
 
 1 74 Past Hours. 
 
 totally indifferent to matters of precedence, but 
 who never forgot it, for all that. 
 
 Willoughby St. John did not pass a good night 
 — his wife had real hysterics, — and the next day 
 Jacky disappeared. She took no leave of the 
 little one — she never could have gone if she had 
 trusted herself to do that : she knew that upon 
 these people hung the fate of her beloved one, 
 and without a word, without a murmur, she 
 made up her little bundle, great drops of pain 
 falling slowly down the while, and then, having 
 sent Helen out to run with her dog, she walked 
 down to the village, and took the coach for 
 town. The child was well-nigh frantic with 
 despair when she learned that Jacky was gone, 
 not to return. Willoughby St. John, who was 
 good-natured at heart, was grieved to see her 
 suffer so ; but the only person who seemed 
 at all able to comfort her was Richard Leslie, 
 who was staying in the house at the time, 
 and who became quite fond of the poor little
 
 Judith. 1 75 
 
 forlorn girl, to whom everything in this new 
 life was so oppressive and painful, and who 
 pined and faded away for the want of the love 
 and companionship of her old faithful friend. 
 
 But Richard Leslie did not live at Brankleigh, 
 and he went abroad, and the child grew more 
 wild and sad and sickly than ever ; and then 
 Lousia St. John, who although a fool was a 
 clever one, suggested school. This stone killed 
 a good many birds — it gave Mrs. St. John the 
 air of occupying herself about the child's wel- 
 fare, while it removed her out of her way ; 
 and it gave Willoughby St. John the comfort- 
 able sensation of doing his duty by his brother 
 at the same time that he propitiated his wife, 
 while the child's health, physical and moral, 
 would no doubt derive incalculable benefit from 
 the change in her existence ; and so she went 
 successively to Miss Varney's, Miss Pritchett's, 
 Mrs. Bridgeford's and Miss Whitehead's dif- 
 ferent establishments ; and now, as she told
 
 176 Past Hoin^s. 
 
 Richard Leslie in our first chapter, was at 
 home once more, studying the mysteries of 
 hair-dressing under Coningsby, that she might 
 quahfy herself at least for a lady's-maid's station 
 in life.
 
 Judith. 177 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The contents of the letter-bag which leaves 
 Brankleigh every evening at six o'clock : — 
 
 Mrs. St. John to Miss Louisa St. John. 
 
 Dearest Louisa, 
 
 I hope you have not forgotten your 
 promise to pay us a little visit in September. 
 We have been at home ten days now, and 
 our little party is already beginning to form 
 itself for the shooting season. The Wyndhams 
 and Captain Montagu are here — they arrived 
 last week ; and on Saturday, when we came 
 home from our drive, who should we find upon 
 the lawn but Richard Leslie! but so altered, 
 I think I should hardly have recognized him — 
 
 VOL. II. 26
 
 yS Past Hours. 
 
 grown so brown and muscular, so different 
 from the Interesting refined-looking youth he 
 was when he left England : I am sure he 
 must have been living in inferior society, or 
 his expression could never have changed as it 
 has. His manner too has become abrupt almost 
 to rudeness. He sits silent for hours without 
 any attempt to make himself agreeable, and 
 when he does speak, I regret to say that it 
 is too often with a sneer at things that every- 
 body respects and admires. However, perhaps 
 he is hardly seen to advantage by the side 
 of Captain Montagu, who certainly possesses 
 fascination of manner that belongs to very few 
 people. So enthusiastic, so gentlemanly, and 
 then so much mind ! You will have to take care 
 of your heart, I warn you, dear Louisa. Serafina 
 Wyndham, who came here complaining ex- 
 tremely of her health, has wakened up im- 
 mensely since Captain Montagu's arrival — more 
 than I think I should quite like in Mr. Wynd-
 
 Jicdith. 1 79 
 
 ham's place ; but I always wish to take the 
 tolerant view if possible — foreigners cannot be 
 expected to have the principles of English 
 people, and I strive never to forget that she is 
 German. 
 
 Richard tells me that his cousin, Miss Sand- 
 ford, is passing within a few miles of Brankleigh 
 on her way to Calverley next Thursday, so I 
 could not well do less than invite her to give 
 us a day or two. You might perhaps arrange 
 to come down together. I cannot say that I 
 look forward with much pleasure to her visit ; 
 there is no great congeniality of disposition 
 between us, and she always is so uncivil in her 
 manner to Serafina, that I should have pre- 
 ferred having her at another time if it had been 
 possible. Adieu, dearest Louisa, or rather as 
 Captain Montagu always says so prettily, " Auf 
 Widersehn ! " 
 
 Ever your affectionate sister, 
 
 Augusta St. John.
 
 i8o Past Hours. 
 
 Mrs. Wyndham to Mademoiselle Oppenheim. 
 
 Best One, 
 
 This is to announce the arrival of a 
 basket of fruit and vegetables that I have 
 begged from the garden here for you, and 
 which you will receive to-morrow. You will find 
 the flavour very different from what is to be got 
 in London. 
 
 What will my Amalia say, when she hears 
 that I want another box sent down immediately } 
 I want my blue glace, my pink crape, and the 
 white ribbon upper skirt with the tulle boufifantes. 
 Wyndham has said we would stay for ten days ; 
 but Bryanstone Square at this season, and with 
 him on my hands, would try me too severely 
 in my shattered state of nerves, and I mean to 
 be here three weeks at least. Mr. St. John is 
 easily managed, and can be made obstinate too, 
 if he takes it into his head to have his own way ; 
 not, indeed, that I anticipate opposition in any
 
 Judith. i8i 
 
 other quarter. Augusta is quite engrossed with 
 her friend Captain Montagu, and at present in 
 tolerably good temper with herself and her 
 guests. A few days ago, there might have been 
 a little difficulty, as Captain Montagu is very 
 musical ; and as her voice is deficient both in 
 quality and quantity, and very imperfect in 
 intonation, he naturally preferred singing with 
 me ; but even that amount of slight sympathetic 
 intimacy which music always engenders, was 
 quite sufficient to impart a very perceptible 
 shade of acid to her customary frigid civilities. 
 Ah, dearest, it is not life among these icy Eng- 
 lish hearts ! I am sick of their pretensions and 
 their pride ! The moral superiority with which 
 they are so puffed up, is nothing but a sort of 
 court suit to be put off and on at will : they 
 make use of virtue to censure and oppress every 
 other nationality, and I do not find that in 
 reality they practise it a bit more than their 
 neighbours. Mr. Richard Leslie is here, just
 
 1 82 Past Hours, 
 
 returned from Italy. The sentimental dreaming 
 boy has ripened into the thoughtful passionate 
 man. He has eyes that open new worlds to 
 one : elementish eyes — they have the power of 
 fire, the depth of water, some earth too — ah, if 
 he loved, they might be all heaven ! He is far 
 above them all here, but they do not under- 
 stand him. Does my Amalia tremble for her 
 Serafina's peace } No, best one ! for your 
 Serafina is that book for ever closed. Ich 
 habe gelebt und geliebt. Besides, I must keep 
 Wyndham in good humour or there will be no 
 Paris this winter. When next I write, I will 
 enclose you a receipt for pine-apple cream, 
 which is delicious here. Put the servants on 
 board wages, dearest, and dine yourself at old 
 Mrs. Wyndham's as often as you can. You 
 can make yourself useful at backgammon and 
 cribbage ; besides, who would not be glad of my 
 Amalia's society t When you send the gowns, 
 you might enclose a box of chocolate bonbons
 
 Judith. I S3 
 
 filled with maraschino cream ; they are to be 
 got at Verey's in Regent Street. A thousand 
 heartfelt greetings from your fondly attached. 
 Serafina Wyndham. 
 
 Mr. Leslie to Miss Sand ford. 
 
 Dear Hope, 
 
 I enclose a note from my hostess, ask- 
 ing you to take Brankleigh in your way to 
 Calverly. I hope you will come : I wish to talk 
 to you about that child I am so interested in, 
 and whom I would give worlds to help, if I only 
 knew how. Besides, we want something of your 
 stubborn element here. We live from morning 
 to night in a sort of vapour bath of poetry, 
 music, aesthetics, and metaphysics, and all of the 
 very flimsiest description. Our feet are never 
 on the ground for one single instant, and I feel 
 thirsty for something real. Your hearty shake 
 of the hand, your dear gruff voice, and the clear 
 blue truth that looks out so honestly and kindly
 
 184 Past Hours. 
 
 from your eyes. It can make no difference to 
 you to give me these few days ; besides, I heard 
 from Calverly this morning, and you are not at 
 all wanted there yet : my mother is remarkably 
 well, and has got the two eldest Johnstone girls 
 with her. 
 
 The Wyndhams are here. I remember I 
 used to think her a sort of mysterious white 
 angel before I went abroad, and Wyndham 
 a hideous despot. Were her teeth always 
 black > 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 Richard Leslie. 
 
 The ladies obeyed their respective injunctions, 
 and on the appointed Thursday made common 
 cause to Brankleigh. The house stood high, 
 and the carriage had to wind slowly up a 
 steepish hill. 
 
 " I'll get out, if you please," said Louisa St. 
 John, who was always frightened to death in a
 
 Judith. 185 
 
 carnage, and invariably requested to be put 
 down the moment she was off the plain. 
 
 " I'll come with you," said Miss Sandford, 
 jumping out after her. " It will be much plea- 
 santer walking across the park. Do you know if 
 there are many people at Brankleigh just now } " 
 
 "Only Richard Leslie and the Wyndhams, 
 and dearest Gussa's new friend. Captain Mon- 
 tagu, I believe," returned her companion. 
 " Richard Leslie seems quite thrown into the 
 background by the military phoenix." 
 
 " What has become of the little girl who was 
 so strangely thrown upon their hands a few 
 years ago .? " 
 
 " Look to the right there," answered Miss St. 
 John, "and if I am not very much mistaken, I 
 think you will see the person you are inquiring 
 about." 
 
 Hope Sandford followed the direction of Miss 
 St. John's parasol, and saw Helen stooping down 
 over a low stone wall at a little distance, appar-
 
 1 86 Past Hours. 
 
 ently too absorbed to heed them. Her dog was 
 barking furiously at some object which she was 
 offering to his observation. 
 
 " What has she got there, I wonder } " said 
 Miss St. John: " something she oughtn't to have, 
 I make no doubt." 
 
 " Oh, do let us go and speak to her," said Miss 
 Sandford. " I have heard so much about her 
 from Richard Leslie, and have always had such 
 a curiosity to see her." 
 
 " Fruit, most likely," said Miss Louisa, follow- 
 ing up the thread of her reflections. "That 
 child does exactly what she likes with all the 
 sei-vants. " How d'ye do, Helen 1 " added she, 
 as they drew near. 
 
 The little girl hastily put the object, whatever 
 it might be, that had been engrossing her atten- 
 tion into her hat, which, as usual, was in her 
 hand, and not upon her head. 
 
 " What have you found precious enough to be 
 concealed so carefully in your hat } "
 
 Judith. 187 
 
 " Oh, nothing that you would care to see, Miss 
 St. John," answered the child. 
 
 " Something or other nice that you've been 
 wheedling out of the gardener, or purloining out 
 of the hot-houses, eh } Not likely to have any- 
 thing like a scruple to her back, you know," said 
 Miss St. John, hardly lowering her voice while 
 she made the last not very flattering observation. 
 " Come, Helen," added she, *' show us the booty, 
 and if we do consider it our duty to acquaint 
 dear Mrs. St. John with the fact, at all events we 
 won't compel you to give up the spoil." She 
 made a movement to seize the hat ; whereupon 
 Helen, who had gradually been growing very 
 red under ^he fire of Miss St. John's various 
 remarks, suddenly drawing her hand from 
 beneath the hat, thrust the object of discussion 
 almost into her face. 
 
 " Pray take it, ma'am, if you wish to have it," 
 said she. 
 
 " Good gracious ! Take it away — nasty hideous
 
 1 88 Past Hours. 
 
 beast ! What is it ? For Heaven's sake take it 
 away ! " screamed the alarmed Louisa, backing 
 in extreme discomfiture, while Helen in fits of 
 laughter replaced the bone of contention in the 
 crown of her hat. 
 
 "What is it?" said Miss Sandford gently, 
 putting her hand on the child's shoulder. 
 
 " Only a poor little baby bat, ma'am," 
 answered she. " I found it here, under the 
 wall : I suppose it has tumbled out of its nest." 
 
 She took the strange soft black creature out, 
 and showed it to Miss Sandford. 
 
 " What a queer beast it is ! " she said. " I 
 don't wonder at its frightening Miss St. John. 
 How uncanny it does look, to be sure ! " 
 
 " But isn't it lovely .''" said Helen, stroking its 
 back. "Look what darling little ears it has, 
 and what a funny little face ! " 
 
 " It's like a little devil,'" said Miss Sandford. 
 
 " Yes — ' birds of a feather,' you know, — that's 
 why she likes it, depend upon it," said Miss
 
 yttdith. 189 
 
 Louisa, who was listening to the conversation 
 from a discreet distance. 
 
 " I suppose," said Hope Sandford, sitting 
 down on the wall by Helen, "that living in 
 the countr}^ as you do, you learn to get over 
 the terror and aversion we cockneys feel at the 
 sight of creatures we are not used to ? " 
 
 '' I don't remember ever being afraid of 
 insects : they are so pretty, and generally so 
 harmless," said Helen. 
 
 " Pray, what insects do you particularly ad- 
 mire } Earwigs .^ or cockchafers .^ " said Miss 
 Louisa, becoming gradually insolent again as 
 her alarm abated : Helen had put the little 
 beast down again, under the shadow of the wall 
 where she had found him. 
 
 "Well, caterpillars are often quite lovely," she 
 said, " and some spiders too ; and see how pretty 
 these are ! " she continued, diving into her 
 pocket, and bringing up a handful of lively 
 beetles of various colours. This last exhibition
 
 iQO Past Hours. 
 
 fairly put Miss St. John to flight ; and rather 
 lucky it was, for on arriving at the house they 
 found that the dressing-bell had rung some 
 time, and it was a cardinal sin at Brankleigh to 
 be late for dinner.
 
 Judith, 191 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 When the newly arrived pair appeared in the 
 drawing-room, Mrs. Wyndham flew to meet 
 Miss St. John, and embraced her tenderly ; she 
 then turned to Miss Sandford, apparently with 
 some intention of greeting her with a similar 
 demonstration of affection : but that lady im- 
 mediately extended a very stiff arm right in 
 front of her, in a manner so ingenious and 
 uncompromising, as to make any nearer ap- 
 proach both physically and morally impossible. 
 Luckily, the announcement of dinner, and the 
 bustle attendant upon the ceremony of obeying 
 the summons, covered any little awkwardness 
 Mrs. Wyndham might have experienced. 
 
 Serafina Wyndham's teeth were black — at
 
 192 Past Hours. 
 
 least, two of them were. One was at the side, 
 and didn't so much matter ; but the other was 
 directly in front, and spoiled her good looks 
 considerably. But for this defect, and a coarse- 
 ness of expression and of texture about her 
 nose, she would certainly have been a very 
 pretty woman. She was a tiny creature with 
 clouds of fair hair, a wonderful white skin, lovely 
 hands and arms, the eyes of an angel and the 
 feet of a baby : but here ended all resemblance 
 with either angels or babies. 
 
 Of a forgiving temper however, she appeared 
 to be, if you might judge by the amiable manner 
 in which, when they were all assembled in the 
 drawing-room for the evening, she again ad- 
 dressed Miss Sandford, who appeared to labour 
 under a natural incapacity for accepting any 
 proposition that she suggested, or agreeing with 
 any opinion that she expressed. 
 
 " How kind of her," said Mrs. Wyndham, " to 
 come and give up two or three days of dear
 
 Judith. . 193 
 
 Mrs. Leslie's society for yours ! I hope you 
 feel as flattered as you ought, Mr. Leslie 1 " 
 
 " Might there not be a want of grace on my 
 part," answered he, laughing, " in assuming that 
 Miss Sandford's presence at Brankleigh is en- 
 tirely attributable to the force of my attractions, 
 great as we all know them to be ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Wyndham is perfectly right," said 
 Hope, sturdily. " I am here almost entirely on 
 your account, Richard ; but for the fact of your 
 being here at present, I should greatly have 
 preferred coming later : it would have suited me 
 better in every respect." 
 
 "I am sure," said Mrs. Wyndham, "you 
 ought to be quite touched, Mr. Leslie ; Miss 
 Sandford not only gives you up her pleasure 
 and convenience, but makes you what is the 
 loveliest offering of true friendship — the sacri- 
 fice even of her duties. Your dear blind mother, 
 who is always so much in need of her, — you see 
 she even gives her up for you." 
 
 VOL. II. 27
 
 194 Past Hours. 
 
 "My mother has two young friends staying 
 with her," repHed Mr. Leslie, " and is quite able 
 to dispense with Hope's attendance for the 
 present ; and as I look upon it as her vocation 
 in life to be eyes to the blind, when she is not 
 ministering to my poor dear mother's physical 
 infirmity, I get her to look after the moral 
 vision for me a little." 
 
 " You must be delighted to come into the 
 country after your London season, Miss Sand- 
 ford," remarked Mrs. Wyndham, "though one 
 would not think, to see your beautiful colour, 
 that you came from town." 
 
 "Yes," said Hope, "the heat and dust have 
 put my face into a very uncomfortable blaze, I 
 know ; but I feel London most when I go there 
 first It does seem too bad to go into all that 
 smoke and dinge just as the new leaves are 
 beginning to uncurl in the country." 
 
 "I hate an English spring, for my part," 
 observed Mr. Leslie. "The sky is always so
 
 Judith. 195 
 
 high and hard, and the new leaves have such a 
 raw tone. The autumn is the only really 
 beautiful season here, and our sporting pro- 
 pensities always get us into the country time 
 enough for that." 
 
 "Partings are more tender than meetings," 
 murmured Serafina, " and the poet feels all the 
 melancholy sweetness contained in nature's 
 lebewohl. There is but one word for this 
 pleasurable pain, and that is one of our German 
 words — li'ehmiith. You have, I think, no word, 
 that expresses it in English; but that is, perhaps, 
 because you also have not the feeling. 
 
 " I should think very likely not," answered 
 Miss Sandford. " English people are generally 
 glad when they are glad, and sorry when they're 
 sorry, and don't deal in mixed feelings and con- 
 fused sensations, as I believe Germans do." 
 
 There was a momentar)^ pause, during which 
 Mrs. Wyndham fixed her eyes upon Hope with 
 a little air of masked astonishment, and then
 
 196 Past Hours. 
 
 observed, " I suppose you speak Italian quite 
 perfectly now, Mr. Leslie ? It is delightful to 
 know many languages. Some one said that it 
 was like living so many different lives : not that 
 three or four lives would be a gift for all — for 
 some," she added with a stifled sigh, " one is 
 even too much ; but it is charming always to be 
 able to find an echo in some nationality or other, 
 for one's untranslatable feelings." 
 
 " I have no untranslatable feelings," said 
 Miss Sandford, " and therefore find English 
 more than sufficient for my very limited neces- 
 sities of expression." 
 
 "But surely," said Captain Montagu, "we 
 should be lost creatures without some of the 
 words which really by common consent have 
 almost become incorporated into the English 
 language. German abounds in words w^hich we 
 want and do not possess : why, oh why, have we 
 not a ' sehnsucht } ' " 
 
 "And what, oh what," cried Richard Leslie,
 
 Judith, 197 
 
 " should we do to express a paradise of idleness 
 under a fine sky, without * dolce far niente ' ? " 
 
 " I never was under any but English skies, 
 thank Heaven," said Miss Sandford, " and I can't 
 fancy idleness a paradise in any climate, or 
 under any circumstances whatsoever." 
 
 " But * sehnsucht, sehnsucht,' " rapturously 
 murmured Captain Montagu ; then, taking his 
 guitar and leaning languishingly towards Mrs. 
 St. John, he warbled the beginning of " Du, du, 
 liegst wir im Herzen." 
 
 " That used to be a duet, usedn't it," asked Mr. 
 Leslie. " Montagu, why don't you make Mrs. 
 Wyndham sing it with you } It wants the 
 second part." 
 
 " I'm sure it's much prettier with the man's 
 voice alone," said i\Irs. St. John sharply ; and 
 turning to Leicester Montagu, she added, " If 
 you are not exhausted by so much feeling, do 
 sing that charming ' Herz, mein Herz.' " 
 
 The lovely Leicester, nothing loth, gave her
 
 198 Past Hours. 
 
 an ardent look, thrummed a few chords on the 
 guitar, cast his eyes to heaven as if to collect 
 thoughts that would wander, and began. 
 
 He had a sort of little throttled tenor voice, 
 and couldn't sing a bit ; but it did uncommonly 
 well for women who did not care about music, 
 and who liked to be sung at : he warbled con- 
 tinual abschieds and lebewohls ; all his doleful 
 little ditties were full of herz and misery ; and 
 as he knew nothing about time, and could not 
 read his notes, " inspired " was the epithet par- 
 ticularly consecrated to him amongst his enthu- 
 siastic female friends. 
 
 " Divine ! " gasped Mrs. St. John when he had 
 done, throwing herself back upon the sofa and 
 closing her eyes ecstatically. " There, Richard ! " 
 said she triumphantly, " did you ever hear any- 
 thing half so lovely .'* " 
 
 "I think," answered he, "that my stay in 
 Italy has made me come away somewhat from 
 the immense admiration I used to have for the
 
 yudith. 199 
 
 vague in all things : my taste is more for the 
 positive now." 
 
 " What ! " she exclaimed, quite in a small 
 fume, " not like German music ! I really never 
 did see any one so changed as you are, Richard ! 
 Why, you used to dream away w^hole hours 
 listening to Serafina's lovely lieder before you 
 went abroad." 
 
 Mr. Leslie looked up with a quiet smile at 
 Mrs. Wyndham., whose white face and neck were 
 for an instant perfectly clouded over with a pink 
 suffusion. 
 
 " Not like German music ! " Mrs. St. John 
 indignantly continued : " so intellectual ! so 
 spiritual ! so inspired ! " 
 
 " Well, that is exactly what in a general way 
 German music does not appear to me to be," 
 said he. ** In all German art, you feel more 
 or less obstructed by the movement of the 
 ponderous intellectual faculty ; even in the 
 commonest German ballad, and what oug:ht
 
 200 Past Hours. 
 
 to be the very simplest expression of sentiment, 
 you feel the interference of their thought be- 
 tween them and their heart : so different in 
 this respect from the songs of the people in 
 Italy — you don't know whether they are love 
 or music, and you don't hear, you only feel 
 them." 
 
 " Oh ! " whispered Mrs. St. John to Hope Sand- 
 ford, " isn't he altered ? — become so material ! " 
 
 " I really know so little about music," an- 
 swered Miss Sandford, "that it is exactly as if 
 you were all talking in a language that I didn't 
 understand." 
 
 " Mrs. St. John has changed in her opinions 
 quite as much as I have, in these years," 
 observed Richard Leslie to Miss St. John : 
 "surely when I went away she was frantic 
 about Catone, and only believed in Italian 
 music — but the very most Italian. What style 
 of music does she really prefer ? " 
 
 "Always the same," answered Louisa St.
 
 Judith. 20 1 
 
 John with a kind of meditative tenderness ; 
 " handsome tenor — handsome tenor : no change 
 whatever. Dearest Gussa ! her style has always 
 been the same." 
 
 " Have any of you ever heard little Helen 
 sing } " asked Richard Leslie. 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Miss Louisa, " can she sing 
 too .^ We all knew she could dance, but I had 
 no notion that her accomplishments extended 
 to singing ! " 
 
 Mrs. St. John winced, and got red, as she 
 always did whenever that unhappy event of 
 former years was alluded to ; and to her it 
 hardly ever was, except by Miss Louisa when 
 she was evilly disposed, and by Lady Adela 
 Brandon, who at any time would walk across 
 any length of room for the pleasure of asking 
 her when she meant to treat them to another 
 ballet. 
 
 " Did you ever hear her sing, IMrs. St. John t " 
 said Richard.
 
 202 Past Hours. 
 
 ** No," was the answer, given in a tone of 
 peculiar dryness. 
 
 " Well, but mayn't we hear her ? " said Hope 
 Sandford. " It will be a novelty for us all, as 
 Richard appears to have been the only privi- 
 leged person hitherto. It would be odd if, with 
 that handsome face of hers, there 'were not 
 something remarkable about it." 
 
 " Well, Hope," said Mrs. St. John, " you cer- 
 tainly are the first person who ever thought of 
 calling Helen handsome." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Richard ; *' I admire 
 her immensely." 
 
 "What, with that short square figure and 
 enormous head } I always thought that one went 
 to Italy to improve one's taste, but I don't think 
 yours can have acquired much refinement, if you 
 can like that great clumsy head and heavy face ; 
 but perhaps it is the colour of the hair that 
 you admire 1 " she added contemptuously. 
 
 " Well, that too," said Mr. Leslie, quietly ; " it
 
 Jtidith. 203 
 
 is so very Titianesque. Besides, I don't agree 
 with you about her face : I don't think it is a 
 heavy face. You ahvays see her when she has 
 got on her good frock and company manners, 
 and when she feels bored and ill at ease ; but 
 get her out into the open with her fishing-rod or 
 her dog, and she is as different as night from 
 day. Only wait till she grows to her head — all 
 fine pups have big heads. She'll come out a 
 grand woman one of these days, take my word 
 for it. Do yoii think her so ver}^ plain } " he 
 continued, turning to Mrs. Wyndham. 
 
 " The poet thinks that he finds the beautiful, 
 when he himself creates it," answered the slow 
 honeyed tones of the transparent Serafina. 
 Richard Leslie did not quite understand the 
 sentiment, but had a dim perception that he Avas 
 the poet, and that it was rather flattering, and 
 on the whole he agreed with her. 
 
 " As you haven't been to Italy, Captain Mon- 
 tagu," said Mrs. St. John, rather tartly "perhaps
 
 204 Past Hours. 
 
 you won't think it artistic and original to admire 
 red hair ? " 
 
 " If we lived in the days of chivalry," said the 
 beautiful Leicester, " I should sue on bended 
 knee for one dark tress of my lady's hair, which 
 I would wear round my arm instead of the 
 embroidered scarf that fair ladies of the olden 
 time used to weave for their noble knights. How 
 often would it go round ? " he murmured in a 
 low voice, as he gazed ardently at the false 
 plaits : " four times at least." 
 
 He certainly was a fascinating creature, that 
 Leicester Montagu, with his guitar, and his 
 flaxen moustache, and his washy chivalrous 
 twaddle. Mrs. St. John fervently believed in 
 him. She almost believed in her own plait 
 when he looked at it with those eyes. There 
 was nothing in the world that Augusta St. John 
 had such a genuine horror and mistrust of, as 
 real originality of thought or opinion ; although 
 she imagined that there was nothing which she
 
 Judith, 205 
 
 appreciated so much. She adored all sorts of 
 nasty little poetry, and worshipped the — third ? 
 no — fourth rate in art. She talked an immensity 
 about mind, but readily mistook for it what was 
 not even matter, and with a good deal of pre- 
 tension to refinement and some appearance of it, 
 contrived to combine a coarsish admiration of 
 masculine beauty. When Louisa St. John was 
 in a vicious temper she used to say of her sister- 
 in-law, " Dear Gussa ! she likes little talents and 
 big men ! " What she really did like best in the 
 world was a bad style of good-looking fair man, 
 who would show undisguised admiration for her 
 clothes and her points ; and what she liked next 
 best, was a tedious rector with a good memory 
 and anecdotes of royal personages. 
 
 " But in our discussion as to Helen's looks, we 
 are quite forgetting her singing," said Miss Sand- 
 ford. " Do call her in, Richard ; she went by 
 the window there to the left, only a minute ago." 
 
 Mr. Leslie vanished through one of the long
 
 2o6 Past Ho2crs, 
 
 windows that opened on the garden, and pre- 
 sently returned with the captured Helen. 
 
 " Now, Nelly," said he, " we want you to sing 
 us something." 
 
 " But I don't know^ anything fit to sing, 
 Richard," answered the child, — " nothing good 
 enough ; besides, does Mrs. St. John want me to 
 sing .? " 
 
 " Oh, pray sing at once, Helen, if anybody 
 wishes to hear it," said Mrs. St. John, sourly ; 
 "we don't expect it to be anything very won- 
 derful, so the less fuss you make about it the 
 better." 
 
 Helen coloured, and in a low voice again 
 appealed to Richard. 
 
 " Oh, Richard, what } I'm sure I don't know 
 what ! " 
 
 Miss Sandford, who was sitting on the sofa 
 near the spot where Helen stood the picture of 
 shy distress, made room for her, and drew her 
 kindly down by her side.
 
 Judith. 207 
 
 " What have you heard her sing, Richard ? " 
 asked she. 
 
 " We'll see presently," was the answer ; " in 
 the mean time the fair Serafina shall open the 
 concert." 
 
 He made his way across the room to where 
 she was sitting, giving pretty half-refusals to 
 Leicester Montagu, who had been for the last 
 ten minutes soliciting in vain. 
 
 " I only sing German," she said, " and the 
 musical taste here " — looking at Richard — '' is 
 so very Italian, that " 
 
 " Only mine, only mine," said Mr. Leslie, 
 " and I am such an ignoramus that my opinion 
 ought to go quite for nothing ; besides, I thank 
 my stars I am able to like more than one good 
 thing, and so, liebste, tenerste, verehrteste, Mrs. 
 Wyndham, come and inspire us all, and if you 
 begin, I'll follow ; I'm sure that's a handsome 
 offer." 
 
 He stooped down and took her little hands in
 
 2o8 Past Hours. 
 
 his ; she looked up at him, and the vapoury 
 blue eyes seemed to melt and lose themselves in 
 the glowing brown ones like drops of dew sucked 
 in by the sun, as with a gentle force that lay 
 more in the eyes than in the hands, he raised 
 her out of the comfortable chair in whose depths 
 her little figure enveloped in cloud-like gauzes 
 lay buried. 
 
 " God bless my soul, Mrs. W. ! going to 
 sing ! " said her husband, waking up suddenly 
 as she passed him. " What are you going to give 
 us, mum } Song old cow died of } " After which 
 marital observation he relapsed into a condition 
 of repose, in which, with Willoughby St. John, he 
 had been indulging ever since they had come in 
 from dinner. 
 
 Serafina gave the sleeping just one a look 
 that would have killed him if it could, and swept 
 past him to the pianoforte in injured silence. 
 Richard Leslie took her gloves, the tiniest in the 
 world, and her handkerchief, which was of a coarse
 
 Judith, 209 
 
 texture and saturated with verbena, and sat him- 
 self down on a low stool just behind her. Laying 
 her hand upon her forehead, as if to recollect, 
 and giving one glance round at Richard Leslie, 
 who was apparently in a fit of complete ab- 
 straction, pulling out the fingers of the baby 
 gloves he held, she embarked in a ''Wann 
 denkst du mein " of a sentimental and ordinary 
 description, which would have been inoffensive 
 enough, but for a jodeling refrain which broke 
 out at the end of each verse in an entirely un- 
 looked-for and uncalled-for manner. As soon 
 as Mr. Leslie had seen her fairly launched, he 
 took his seat on the other side of Helen ; she 
 was looking over a volume of Retsch's outlines 
 which Mrs. Wyndham had brought down with 
 her. Richard took hold of her hand — long, 
 brown, slender, Florentine fingers those, very 
 unlike the pretty little Saxon paw which he had 
 held the minute before. 
 
 "There, Nell," said he, "you'll have more 
 
 VOL. II. 28
 
 2IO Past Hours. 
 
 courage now that some one else has broken the 
 ice for you ; unless indeed your genius should 
 be entirely rebuked by the super-excellence of 
 Mrs. Wyndham's performance ; how do you like 
 it ? " 
 
 " She has a fine quantity of voice," answered 
 the child, "but it sounds always the same; and 
 the words come out just as if she had got a cold 
 in her head, or a potato in her mouth. I don't 
 like it," she said again, after a pause ; '' it's all 
 puddingy. Give me my hand, Richard, please ; 
 I want to turn over." 
 
 "Turn over with the other," he replied. 
 *' Heavens ! what a severe critic you are, child ! 
 and all the more that what you say is so com- 
 pletely within justice; pudding is exactly what 
 it is. Dreadfully fallen off, isn't she, Hope ? " he 
 whispered to Miss Sandford. 
 
 " I never liked Mrs. Wyndham's singing my- 
 self," answered Miss Sandford, ''but it seems to 
 me to be very much what it always was, and I
 
 Jttdith, 2 1 T 
 
 remember the time when "you used to admire 
 it considerably more than you appear to do 
 now." 
 
 " She sang better then," said he, rather 
 abruptly ; " or at all events she sang prettier 
 music — I hate that hideous jodeling." 
 
 " Please do give me my hand, Richard," said 
 little Nell ; '' I want it to turn over." 
 
 " What has happened to the other hand, that 
 you can't use it 1 " again asked he. 
 
 She took it from beneath the folds of her 
 gown where it was lying, and under cover of the 
 table mysteriously produced a little pot, over 
 which was tied a large green leaf 
 
 " No more beetles I hope, Nelly," said Miss 
 Sandford, edging a little away from her. 
 
 " Oh no, ma'am," said Helen, '' they're not 
 beetles ; besides, I have got them quite safe, 
 they can't run away." 
 
 She lifted a corner of the leaf, and showed 
 them three or four glowworms ; while they were
 
 212 Past Hotirs. 
 
 admiring her treasure, Serafina's song came to 
 an end. 
 
 " Exquisite ! perfectly exquisite ! " exclaimed 
 Leicester Montagu, who had been making the 
 agreeable to Mrs. St. John over the tea-table all 
 the time the music was going on, and who now 
 hurried with tea, and bread and butter, to Mrs. 
 Wyndham, which he gracefully dropped upon 
 one knee to present. 
 
 There are people who know how to make 
 familiarity respectful ; and there are others, who 
 contrive to make an action, deferential in itself, 
 unduly familiar : Leicester Montagu always 
 managed the latter; but vulgar women, who 
 constituted the chief of his clientele, thought all 
 his little under-bred graces quite too delightful 
 He gave bread and butter so once to Lady 
 Adela, who remarked audibly to her next neigh- 
 bour, " I should like to set my foot in his chest." 
 
 "Mrs. Wyndham," said Richard, "before I 
 went abroad, you used to sing the loveliest song
 
 Judith. 2 1 3 
 
 in all the world ; it began with ' Ich deuke 
 dein,' — no, no, I remember, 'Wann denkst du 
 mein/ it was ! I do wish you would be amiable 
 enough to sing it." 
 
 "I have this instant finished singing it," 
 replied j\Irs. Wyndham in a tone of considerable 
 pique. " But you have either quite forgotten it, 
 or else you were too deeply engaged to hear it." 
 
 " No, never ! " cried he, " quite impossible ! 
 I know it wasn't that — all yodels are exactly 
 alike, but my song began with * Wann denkst 
 du mein.' Why, I remember it as well as possible 
 — as if I had heard it only yesterday, and it 
 used to be quite too lovely, so do be amiable 
 and sing it for me ! " 
 
 " I am sorry," she answered, with compressed 
 lips; "but I have just sung it, and cannot, 
 even to oblige you, inflict a repetition of it 
 upon the whole society. " 
 
 " I won't believe it ! " again exclaimed Mr. 
 Leslie. " You know I must have known it again ;
 
 214 P<-ist HoiLVS. 
 
 Helen, I appeal to you ; — Avhat were the first 
 words of the song Mrs. Wyndham has just been 
 singing ? " 
 
 " It began with the words you said," she 
 replied ; "something about dcnks and meiny 
 
 " How very extraordinary ! " he said, laughing 
 and colouring. Mrs. Wyndham coloured, but 
 she did not laugh. She quietly removed her 
 gloves from his keeping, and Avithout a word 
 withdrew, deeply offended, to the other end of 
 the room. 
 
 "Sing away, Nelly ! sing, sing, child, and cover 
 my shameful discomfiture," ejaculated Mr. Leslie 
 in a low voice. " Italian, French, German, 
 anything, but make some instantaneous noise, 
 for Heaven's sake. " 
 
 Helen went to the piano and sung the ro- 
 mance of "Raggio d amore" from the "Furioso" 
 of Donizetti ; during her performance of which, 
 Leicester Montagu was flirting with Mrs. St- 
 John, and Richard busily engaged In endea-
 
 Jtcdith. 2 1 5 
 
 vouring to smooth the ruffled plumage of the 
 irate Serafina. 
 
 She had left the drawing-room and wandered 
 into the conservatory Avhich opened into it, and 
 there he found her bitterly weeping and indig- 
 nantly refusing the attentions of old Wyndham, 
 who had at last woke up with the cessation of 
 her song, and seeing her disturbed had followed 
 to inquire the cause. 
 
 He left the conservatory as Richard entered it. 
 
 " She will eat such unwholesome things," he 
 said, shaking his bald head despondingly as 
 they crossed upon the threshold : " twice of 
 that rich pineapple cream upon Scotch ale and 
 lobster salad, — quite sure to make her cry — 
 always does. Now do go and try and persuade 
 her to take a little soda and magnesia — there's 
 a dear good fellow, now do — or I shall have 
 her crying at intervals all through the night. " 
 
 Richard promised to do his best. 
 
 " Isn't it lovely } " said Helen to Miss Sand-
 
 2i6 Past Hours. 
 
 ford when she had finished her song. Don't 
 you Hke it ? " 
 
 ''Well, I can't say I do very much," said 
 Hope ; "but then I know nothing about music, 
 you know, and can only tell what just pleases 
 myself. Is what you have been singing a 
 great favourite of your own ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, '' I think it's lovely." 
 
 " What are the words about ? " inquired Miss 
 Sandford. 
 
 " Love," answered the child, — " such beautiful 
 desperate words they are," she added, with a 
 fervour that made Hope smile. 
 
 "You would not laugh if you knew what 
 they meant," said Helen, with great gravity. 
 
 " Translate them for me," said IMiss Sandford, 
 and Helen began with Southern emphasis and 
 eagerness to declaim and translate for Hope's 
 benefit with very fair success, until she came to 
 the words *'Vieni, I'antico amore, m'arde le fibbre, 
 ingrata, tiranna idolatrata," etc., which she put
 
 Judith. 2 1 7 
 
 Into very literal and ludicrous English by " It 
 burns my fibres and idolatrized tyrant," at 
 which Hope, who had been from the beginning 
 restraining a great inclination to laugh, went 
 off into such a hearty peal as completely to 
 damp poor little Helen's poetical enthusiasm, 
 and to make her vow in her inmost heart that 
 she would never again scatter her precious 
 pearls before swine. 
 
 As soon as Hope perceived how much her 
 ill-timed merriment had discomposed the little 
 girl, she said "Dear little Nelly, you mustn't 
 mind my ways ; I am a thorough John Bull, 
 and don't understand sentiment a bit better 
 than I do music. Can't you find me an English 
 ballad out of your store, dear : the Marquis 
 of Montrose's love song, for instance, — now that 
 I do call a right good love song, — or something 
 in honour of that heartless good-for-naught 
 Bonnie Prince Charlie ? " 
 
 " I know no English," replied the child, in-
 
 2iS Past Hours. 
 
 stantly won again by Hope's frank kindly 
 manner. " But I can sing a real Irish one that 
 dear old Teddy taught me." 
 
 ♦'And who is Teddy.?" asked Miss Sandford. 
 
 "A Hiberian rat-catcher, and Nell's bosom 
 friend," said Richard Leslie, who having made 
 his peace now came up to the piano. 
 
 There was an instant's pause, and then, without 
 any accompaniment, the young voice chanted a 
 pathetic Irish lament, the words of which were 
 as follows : — 
 
 *' I will dye my petticoat with red, 
 And round the world I'll beg my bread, 
 My parents both would wish that I were dead I 
 Sing mourneen ga dithu, Slaun ! Slaun ! 
 Shule ! Shule ! Shule Agra ! 
 Sing Agus usgarugga, Shule Agra ! 
 When thinking on the time — ah ! it's long enough 
 ago! 
 Sing mourneen ga dithu, Slaun ! 
 
 " I will sell my rock and reel, 
 And I will sell my spinning wheel,
 
 Judith, 219 
 
 An' all for to buy my love a sword an' a shiel — 
 Sing mourneen ga dithu, Slaun ! Slaun ! 
 Shule ! Shule ! Shule Agra ! 
 Sing Agus usgarugga, Shule Agra ! 
 When thinking on the time— ah 1 it's long enough 
 ago! 
 Sing mourneen ga dithu, Slaun ! 
 
 " I will climb up yonder hill, 
 An' there I'll sit an' oiy my fill, 
 Till every tear should turn a mill — 
 Sing mourneen ga dithu, Slaun ! Slaun ! 
 Shule ! Shule ! Shule Agra ! 
 Sing Agus usgarugga, Shule Agra ! 
 When thinking on the time — ah ! it's long enough 
 ago ! 
 Sing mourneen ga dithu, Slaun ! " 
 
 The air wandered sadly away, like the 
 sorrowful wandering feet the words described, 
 and there was a whole vague world of dreary 
 memory in the sort of wintry half-smile with 
 which the child sang the " ah ! it's long enough 
 ago ! " which recurs, ever more and more 
 dismally, in each successive stanza.
 
 2 20 Past Hours. 
 
 The song ceased, and Helen looked towards 
 Miss Sandford. 
 
 Her back was rather turned towards her, and 
 her head completely buried in her knitting. 
 
 " Do you Hke that one better than the last ? " 
 at length asked Helen, timidly. 
 
 " Trashy twaddle ! No, I can't endure it — a 
 pack of idiotic gibberish ! " she answered sav- 
 agely ; then, suddenly turning upon Helen a 
 visage bathed in tears — 
 
 " Oh, Nelly ! Nelly! " she exclaimed in broken 
 accents, ** what a sweet, sweet, voice you have, 
 child, and how it does cleave right through 
 one's heart ! " And jumping up with an un- 
 governable emotion of tenderness, she put her 
 arms round the little girl and kissed her. 
 
 " Richard, I'll tell you what," she said, wiping 
 her eyes energetically, " I call that first rate. 
 Don't talk to me any more of Mrs. Wyndham's 
 rubbish." And she blew her nose indignantly 
 with a trumpet-like sound. "It's first rate,
 
 yudith. 221 
 
 that's what it is ; and the child has made a 
 perfect fool of me." And she gave a last nervous 
 sob. 
 
 "Where in the world did she pick up that 
 low song ? " said Mrs. St. John, to Miss Louisa 
 at the other end of the room. " Can't you give 
 us something Italian, Richard," she continued, 
 in a loud voice, — "some sweet little Venetian 
 barcarole, to take those barbarous sounds out of 
 our ears } " 
 
 "And do, for mercy's sake, let it be something 
 a little cheery," added Miss Sandford, who 
 couldn't get over a degree of emotion she was 
 quite unused to, and angry with herself about. 
 
 Mr. Leslie, greatly diverted at the very various 
 impressions produced by Helen's performance, 
 seized hold of Leicester Montagu's guitar, and 
 began one of the common popular Neapolitan 
 tarantelle, the homely refrain of which was : — 
 
 " lo darei i miei calzon 
 Per un piatto di maccheron,"
 
 222 Past Hottrs. 
 
 in which burthen he was joined by Nelly, whose 
 hands and feet and head and eyes were all set 
 going by the marvellous entrain of the well- 
 knov\-n melody. 
 
 " It must be a serenade ? " said Mrs. St. John. 
 "There's something about a song — canzon means 
 a song, I know. Richard, what does it say about 
 a song? " asked she, raising her voice. " I know 
 canzon is a song. I'm sure it must be a sere- 
 nade," she again said, turning to Captain Mon- 
 tagu. 
 
 " Rather a boisterous one," he answered with 
 a contemptuous smile. " Leslie, aw, my dear 
 fellow, do tell us what's that you're singing 
 about a canzon"? It's in such a horrid patois 
 that one can't make it out" If it had been in 
 purest Tuscan he wouldn't have understood it 
 a bit better. "What's the sentiment, aw, my 
 dear fellow t " 
 
 " Calzon — calzon, not canzon^' shouted 
 Richard Leslie from the other end of the room.
 
 Jtidith, 223 
 
 " Fd give my unmentionables for a plate of 
 macaroni — that's the sentiment, aw, my dear 
 fellow." 
 
 Mrs. St. John instantly rose and proposed 
 candles and bed, murmuring to Leicester Mon- 
 tagu as she passed him, that she was miserable 
 that his lovely instrument should have been so 
 desecrated. As they went upstairs Miss Louisa 
 kept saying to Helen, while she administered to 
 her at the same time a series of little pokes in 
 the back, " Never mind, Helen, — never mind ; 
 it has been a sad failure, but the fault is not 
 yours. It lies entirely with poor dear Mrs. St. 
 John. She will not remember that she can't 
 make silk purses out of a certain animal's ears. 
 She cannot do it. I always say to her, * Tracts 
 for the inferior classes — soup, too, if you please, 
 — but do remember that silk purses can not be 
 made out of a certain animal's ears.' She has 
 not remembered it, and she must abide the 
 consequences — the fault lies entirely with dear 
 Mrs. St. John."
 
 2 24 /^^^^ Hours. 
 
 Poor little Helen ! her singing experiment 
 had been only just one degree less unfortunate 
 than the dancing experiment of former years. 
 
 Heavenly beautiful are some of the still days 
 of closing winter. Soft rainy sunshine lies 
 lovingly on the green level of distant fields. 
 
 Against a low dark heaven of almost purple 
 grey, the young twigs stand out in an inex- 
 tricable mesh of delicate colour. Faint lilacs, 
 tender browns, and where the blood mounts in 
 the veins of the reawakening branches, softest 
 crimsons, dotted here and there with the pale 
 green lights thrown by delusive catkins, making 
 one believe in newborn leaves w^hile yet the 
 boughs are bare. 
 
 On these days the whole earth smells of 
 coming violets, and the whole air and the hearts 
 of men are filled with an exquisite presentiment 
 of spring. 
 
 Not less lovely in its own way was the
 
 Jtcdith, 225 
 
 still autumn day on which Richard Leslie and 
 Mrs. Wyndham were slowly pacing up and 
 down the broad terrace at Brankleigh. 
 
 It was the reign of Salvia and Lobelia. 
 Wondrous marigolds in particoloured velvet 
 vests (the gorgeous liver)^ footmen of the garden; 
 and China asters of ever}- hue filled the beds ; 
 while at every turn, mixed with the aromatic 
 odours of these late flowers of the year and the 
 bitter fragrance of dying leaves, came delicious 
 whiffs of mignonette, most delicate and most 
 enduring of all the scents of summer. Beyond 
 the terrace lay a belt of beech-trees, every now 
 and then dropping their yellow leaves into the 
 motionless air ; these, again, were crowned with 
 uplands of tawny stubble, and richly coloured 
 new ploughed earth lying in the embraces oi a 
 clinging, sunny, silver}^ autumn mist 
 
 Hope Sandford and Helen were walking too, 
 but faster than the others — Miss Sandford hated 
 dawdling. They had been by way of all start- 
 
 VOL. II. 29
 
 2 26 Past Hours, 
 
 ing together, but their disuniting properties and 
 a general tendency of Serafina's towards tete-a- 
 tete made them soon fall asunder. They took 
 opposite directions on the terrace, and crossed 
 and recrossed each other at intervals. 
 
 "But, my dear child," said Miss Sandford, 
 " do you never do anything but collect beetles 
 and sing love songs } do you never read or learn 
 anything } " 
 
 " I do read sometimes," answered Helen, 
 " but I am not allowed to take the books out of 
 the library, and I have only a few of my own, 
 which I have read till I know them almost by 
 heart." 
 
 " And which of your books are you fondest 
 of, Nelly .? " 
 
 "* Faust,' I think," said the child. "I wish I 
 could read it in German ; I have only a 
 translation of it. And I have got an old copy 
 of ' Romeo and Juliet' which belonged to papa, 
 and which poor Jacky gave me ; and I have got
 
 Judith. 227 
 
 an odd volume or two of Lord Byron, that 
 belonged to uncle Mackworth, and that got 
 packed up among my things by mistake. Oh, 
 Miss Sandford, don't you like Lord Byron's 
 poetry ? " 
 
 " Well, no — yes — some of it ; but I don't 
 quite think it's the best reading in all the world 
 for you, Nelly. Do you never descend from 
 your altitudes, my dear, and condescend to 
 honest prose } " 
 
 " I am very fond of some prose," returned the 
 child, " but I don't care about travels or history. 
 Do you know 'Wilhelm Meister,' Miss Sand- 
 ford } I like that very much. Mr. William 
 Hetherington had it when he was staying at 
 uncle Mackworth's, and said it was a farrago 
 of sentimental bosh and philosophic twaddle, 
 without beginning, middle, or end, and all 
 about nothing at all ; but I liked it, and read 
 it over three times running while he was there. 
 He forgot it when he went away, and when
 
 2 28 Past Hours, 
 
 uncle Mackworth wrote to tell him of it, he 
 said it wasn't worth the expense of the carriage, 
 so I asked for it and got it. Did you ever 
 read ' Wilhelm Meister,' Miss Sandford ? " con- 
 tinued the child. 
 
 " I tried it once a year or two ago, Nelly, 
 but I believe I agree with your friend Mr. 
 Hetherington about it : it bored me, and the 
 only thing that seemed tolerably clear to me 
 when I had done, was that it was not a 
 particularly good book." 
 
 "Why, what is there bad in it. Miss Sand- 
 ford t " asked Helen. 
 
 "Well, my dear, I think the hero himself 
 bad ; and if Philina is the heroine, I think she is 
 pretty bad too ; and then there's that wretched 
 Mariana " 
 
 (Here the parties crossed. " They are colder 
 and warmer too than they used to be, but not 
 the good eyes of the old days," said Serafina's 
 silvery voice.)
 
 Judith. 229 
 
 " Oh, poor Mariana, with her faithful loving 
 heart ! she wasn't bad," said Nelly, quite ex- 
 cited. "Dear Miss Sandford, goodness is so 
 various." 
 
 "No, my dear girl, no," interrupted Hope, 
 " goodness is not various ; goodness is one, 
 like the God it comes from." 
 
 " But," continued Helen, " I mean that what 
 would be only common, decent, good conduct in 
 one human creature, might become heroic virtue 
 in another. The goodness of resisting evil 
 depends upon the amount of temptation to 
 commit it. I don't think poor Mariana is bad 
 at all ; Philina is. But I don't care about all 
 that : all one wants is to be able to believe in 
 the books one reads ; they must be a faithful 
 likeness of real things, or else there would be 
 no amusement in them. I hate the good books 
 w^ith a moral at every turn. What use or 
 pleasure is it to me to read of a parcel of dull 
 dolls, who, because they behave in a tolerably
 
 230 Past Hours. 
 
 correct civilized way, are rich and prosperous 
 and end with making great marriages? Real 
 people are not like that ; nor the justice of God 
 either, if He is just." 
 
 They walked on silently for a few minutes. 
 
 "I have been young," said Hope, in a low 
 voice, " and now am old ; yet have I not seen 
 the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging 
 bread." 
 
 " Yet papa and mamma," said poor Helen, 
 with her eyes full of tears, " were both good, and 
 they lived miserable and died paupers. And 
 Angel was hunted out of her poor life by a 
 wicked man who is, I dare say, driving in his 
 carriage at this very instant of time." 
 
 "Mr. Leslie," said Mrs. Wyndham, "will 
 you pick me that rose t Don't you think it will 
 look well in my hair for dinner to-day } " He 
 stopped and gathered a large crimson queen 
 from one of the late standard rose-trees on the 
 terrace.
 
 Judith, 231 
 
 " I see you are as fond of flowers as ever, 
 Mrs. Wyndham," he said, as he gave it to her. 
 
 " I do not change," observed the lady ; " and 
 although this may be a disadvantage in some 
 respects, at least my friends find me where they 
 leave me. Can you say as much } " And the 
 pale eyes shot both tenderness and reproach at 
 him. 
 
 "Perhaps not," he replied, rather dejectedly. 
 "As life goes on, one's sphere of experience en- 
 larges, and one's appreciation of things varies 
 greatly ; so do one's tastes, so do one's opinions 
 change, as effectually as one's skin does, though 
 perhaps less frequently and at less regular 
 intervals." 
 
 " One changes one's skin once in seven years, 
 doesn't one t " said Mrs. Wyndham. " How long 
 is it since we met last, Mr. Leslie t " 
 
 " Let me see. I have been away three years. 
 You were at Paris I think the winter before that, 
 which makes four."
 
 232 Past Hours. 
 
 "Yes," said she, "and you never thought it 
 worth your while to come and look us up there, 
 although you seemed sorry enough when you 
 parted from us here at Brankleigh." 
 
 " Sorry enough, did you say ? — too sorry, 
 fairest lady. I could not bring myself to renew 
 such an agony of leave-taking at Paris. Do you 
 see the west lodge gate there 1 — we had all 
 walked together up to that gate, and there we 
 stood for an instant shaking hands before you 
 got into your carriage." 
 
 " You remember it, do you .^ " said Serafina, 
 almost in a whisper. 
 
 " Perfectly," said he ; "I remember feeling, 
 too, as if I could have killed you for being as 
 unmoved as you were when you bade me good- 
 bye." 
 
 " What would you have had me do } " she 
 answered. " Mrs. St. John, Mr. Wyndham, and 
 a whole host of other people were there. I was 
 obliged to control my feelings."
 
 Judith. 233 
 
 "Yes," said Richard Leslie, "I know that, 
 but I couldn't control mine, and there was 
 the difference. How drolly one does revel in 
 utter misery before one is full-fledged, doesn't 
 one ? " 
 
 "Those can afford to revel in misery whose 
 sorrows are unreal : when one's wretchedness 
 is of every day and of all time one ceases to 
 enjoy it quite so much ; above all, one shrinks 
 from laying bare one's wounds before unsym- 
 pathizing souls, and one learns to wear a mask 
 which sometimes deceives even those who ought 
 to know one best." 
 
 " So as to obtain a more equal mental balance. 
 Proportion in a mind is a grand thing," said 
 Miss Sandford. 
 
 " But I can't reason," replied Helen impetu- 
 ously, " and I hate analyzing, it does so empty 
 the light out of everything." 
 
 Here the parties crossed each other again. 
 '* Poor Hope has undertaken rather more than
 
 2 34 Past Hours. 
 
 she will get through, I fancy," said Richard, 
 laughing. 
 
 Mrs. Wyndham made no answer, but walked 
 slowly down the steps of the terrace and turned 
 towards the house. 
 
 " I hope you are not going in because I have 
 offended you," said he, following her. 
 
 "Why should I be offended.?" she said coldly. 
 ** It is no new thing to me not to be understood. 
 My whole married life has been an apprentice- 
 ship to that sort of suffering."
 
 WHEN I AM DEAD.
 
 WHEN I AM DEAD. 
 
 Bring no flowers rare 
 
 To deck my bed ; 
 
 The violets grow above 
 
 The hearts of those they love. 
 
 Hang no garlands there 
 
 When I am dead. 
 
 No woeful human groan, 
 No friends to weep ; 
 But where I'm lying low 
 Let the soft spring winds blow, 
 And doves make lulUng moan 
 And coo me to my sleep.
 
 238 Past Hours. 
 
 Lay no stone above 
 
 My lonely head. 
 
 Lay no stifling tombstone there ; 
 
 The flowers will spring up thick and fair 
 
 The violets love 
 
 The early dead. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 LONDON AND BECCLES. S. jV H.
 
 ■1