•Ai^'-\ 
 
 ^^
 
 L [ B RA RY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1VER.5ITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 
 V. I
 
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 c^ 
 
 .^r^-^L
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 " VV^lITEriirARS," "llIGllELIKU IN LOVR," "CHRISTMAS AT OLD COURT, 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 " And if I laugh, it is but that 
 
 I may not weep." — Byron. 
 
 " Lisez I'ouvrage, vous le jugercz apibs. Si quelques traits vous 
 paraissent trop marques, ce ii'est pas I'auteur, c'est la v^rite qu'il 
 faut en accuser." — Guillaunie Ic Fldneur. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MAXWELL AND COMPANY 
 
 122, FLEET STREET 
 
 MDCCCLXiV 
 
 [ All rightt reserved]
 
 I-ONDON : 
 SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PItlNTEE 
 CHANDOS STREET.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 L 
 
 CUAPTEft PAGE 
 
 I. A FINISllINa EDUCATIOIs'AL ESTABLIS-HMENT 
 
 FOE TOUNG LADIES 1 
 
 II. APPLES ON THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE . . 20 
 
 III. CONFIDENCES 36 
 
 IV. CAUSES AND EFFECTS 59 
 
 V, GEOEGE COCKEE BEHEINGBRIQHT, WHO 
 MIGHT HAVE EEEN BAEON BEHEING- 
 
 BEIGHT IF HE HAD CHOSEN , : . . 72 
 
 VI. AND that's WHAT YOU MAY CALL — THE 
 
 WAY OF THE WOELD 98 
 
 VII. THE UPPEE FALLS 115 
 
 VIII. CE QUE FEMME VEUT 131 
 
 IX. TUENS OF FATE BELOW 150 
 
 X. CI-DEVANT LOVERS 16G 
 
 \I. A UIllL IN BLACK 187 
 
 Xll. WESTWARD HO ! . . . .- 213
 
 IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPrEH 
 
 Xni. A LETTER . 
 
 XIV. FASCINATION 
 
 XV. CALIPII IIAROUK ALRASCMID . . 
 
 XVI. A MARINE CHALLENGE .... 
 XVII. "FALSE PEARLS ARE THE LAHGEST 
 
 PAGE 
 
 229 
 250 
 
 288 
 301
 
 MADELEmE GRAHAM 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 A FINISHING EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT FOR 
 YOUNG LADIES. 
 
 At the Misses Sparx*s Finisliing Educational 
 Establishment for Young Ladies, in the Eojal 
 Parish of Kensington, all the accomplishments 
 were taught, and the moral and physical well- 
 being of the pupils was most carefully attended 
 to, by thoroughly competent persons, en- 
 lightened in every respect to the immense 
 responsibility of the task confided to them by 
 parents and guardians — at the moderate rate 
 of one hundred guineas per annum. Washing, 
 calisthenics, separate apartments, a pew at 
 church, astronomy, deportment, geology, and 
 Hebrew, were charged as extras. 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 3 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 The three principals were themselves most 
 accomplished ladies, as hecame them — sisters. 
 
 The eldest Miss Sparx, who had received 
 the name of Susannah from her godfathers and 
 godmothers, was verging on her forty-seventh 
 year, unmarried; and her temper was not 
 supposed to be improved by the circumstance. 
 She was skilled in every species of fine work, 
 and understood the Use of the Globes, as was 
 proved by her wearing spectacles while the 
 pupils turned those spherical bodies, celestial 
 and terrestrial, round and round, with indiffer- 
 ence or eagerness, according to idiosyncrasy, 
 working out the recondite problems contained 
 in certain small 12mo books, handsomely 
 bound in red imitation calf, with a frontispiece 
 by which you could always tell, given your own 
 time, what o'clock it was at Pekin : the same 
 being entitled, in letters of gold, " Goldsmith's 
 Geography." 
 
 Besides these branches of useful information. 
 Miss Sparx was understood to conduct a class 
 of Biblical Literature — on the most orthodox 
 principles, be sure — twice a week ; to give 
 lessons in Botany and Mineralogy on the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 3 
 
 Mondays and Fridays, and entertaining 
 lectures on Physiology, Political Economy, 
 and General Metaphysics, on the Thursdays 
 and Saturdays — unless the morning happened 
 to be very fine on the day last mentioned, when 
 the young ladies were sometimes allowed to 
 spend the hour properly devoted to the above 
 intellectual enjoyment in an extra perambu- 
 lation in Kensington Gardens. Particularly 
 when Miss Sparx — or Mrs. Sparx, as she was 
 now not nnfreqnently styled by ignorant 
 strangers, who, however, meant well — had a 
 bilious headache, which, poor woman, was not 
 so seldom the case as must have been desirable 
 for a person who was obliged to dedicate that 
 organ to uses so multifarious, and so consider- 
 ably out of the average capacity of the female 
 human cerebrum to store in different compart- 
 ments, and keep from an unseemly chaoticising 
 in the reproduction. Though, indeed, I do 
 not go so far as to say that this was always 
 the case, or to pretend that occasionally 
 sciences so likely to run into one another — 
 from their extremely close juxtaposition, if 
 from nothing else — did not sometimes accom- 
 
 1—2
 
 4 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 plish that feat ; or, at least, produce upon the 
 minds of the young lady pupils, under Miss 
 Sparx's most lucid scientific exposition, all the 
 same effect. 
 
 To sum up the eldest Miss Sparx^s attri- 
 butes, she read prayers morning and evening 
 — eaid grace before and after every meal 
 but supper, which, for some reason or other, 
 was not held to require it — perhaps because 
 the young ladies were not present to report — 
 and kept the accounts. Item, she was known 
 indifferently among the pupils, in private con- 
 versation, as the Dowager Miss Sparx, or as 
 Mother Minerva — ^though I think the experi- 
 ment was seldom made to ascertain wliether 
 she answered to either appellation. 
 
 The second (in point of antiquity) Miss 
 Sparx, Hortensia by name, instructed the 
 pupils who enjoyed the advantages of this 
 modern encyclopediacal (not maniacal) academy, 
 in English Grammar (without knowing it 
 herself) ; Elocution, particularly as applied to 
 Poetry ; Dramatic Eecitation, and '' the Ordi- 
 nary Tone of vivd voce reading in the di'awing- 
 room," — so the prospectuses said. General
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM:. 5 
 
 Literature was another of her departments, 
 giving her reasons for excluding all sorts of 
 pernicious works from the category — the titles 
 of which the girls remembered. She could 
 teach any pupil who was desirous of extend- 
 ing her philological intimacies so far the 
 Elements of Greek and Latin, which she had 
 herself acquired from a mature clergyman in 
 one of the neighbouring churches used by the 
 school, whom it was thought — at least, re- 
 ported — she was tr}dng her might and main 
 to hook into matrimony. Common Arithmetic, 
 Cosmogony, and the Art of Making Wax 
 Flowers, completed what were technically 
 styled, " Miss Hortensia's duties ;" and in this 
 last accomplishment she succeeded so well, 
 that her elder sister (which, that she was, Miss 
 Hortensia hardly ever mentioned her without 
 stating), as professoress of botany, took many 
 occasions to assure the female public she was 
 herself puzzled to distinguish between her 
 sister's performances and those of nature, and 
 that it was quite as easy to illustrate the 
 " Linna3an configurations " of camellias, for 
 example, from her imitations, as from the best
 
 6 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 preserved skeletons in an Herbarium or Hortus 
 Siccus, — learned-sounding expressions, to which 
 the eldest Miss Sparx herself attached no 
 particular meaning, but, like wise people in 
 general, was always worrying others to make 
 them understand. 
 
 Miss Hortensia had passed her twenty- 
 seventh year by her own account, and her five- 
 and- thirtieth by the parish register. She was 
 tall, and very genteel, though perhaps a trifle 
 too thin, if a person can be so who is under- 
 stood to have realized six or seven thousand 
 pounds. If she had not been so genteel, 
 the Eeverend Jabez Bulteel somewhat dis- 
 concertedly assured certain of his rollicking 
 university friends, whom he had introduced 
 to his intended, he really could not have gone 
 in for the chance himself at any price. 
 
 But it must be declared, after all, that the 
 real strength and popularity of the Sparx 
 Gymg}Tioecium (a designation which the 
 Eeverend Jabez had either invented or 
 selected when engaged in the preparation 
 of his great work on the languages of Babel) 
 lay chiefly in the youngest partner and pre-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 7 
 
 ceptress, Miss Eosabella Sparx. She, with the 
 assistance of masters, who did not come nearly 
 so often as they were charged for, instilled a 
 knowledge of the Fine Arts really worth know- 
 ing ; namely, dancing, embroidery and tapestry 
 work, the pianoforte, singing in the Italian 
 manner, how to dress your hair most be- 
 comingly, how to glide swimmingly into a 
 drawing-room, all the varieties of the curtsey, 
 charade-playing, and general morals.- It need 
 not be added, that Miss Eosabella Sparx was 
 by far the most esteemed and cherished of all 
 the mistresses of the establishment by its' 
 youthful inmates. And she deserved it in 
 other respects ; for she was a very lively, 
 vivacious, cheerful little woman, was really ten 
 or fifteen years younger than either of her 
 sisters, and had been seen to smile — nay, had 
 once or twice laughed heartily — at the carica- 
 tures which certain of the girls, gifted with 
 talent in that way, were always making of her 
 two elders. In reward for which condescension 
 and amiability, the young ladies circulated con- 
 stant reports among themselves that ]\Iiss 
 Eosabella had several admirers, from whom
 
 8 MADELEINE GRAHAM, 
 
 she was at liberty to choose a husband ; had 
 declined a grocer, and jilted a surgeon ; and, 
 finally, that she was engaged to be married to 
 a captain in the army, who had seen her 
 accidentally in the Park, walking oat with 
 them — than which, no possible estate of woman- 
 kind was imagined by most of the fair young 
 commentators to be more enjoyable and worthy 
 of approving estimation. 
 
 Besides these heads of the establishment, 
 there were two female teachers attached to it 
 en permanence. Madame Beata Fiirschener, a 
 Swiss lady, who asserted that her language 
 was German, taught it there, and superintended 
 the young ladies' linen. Also a young Paris- 
 ienne, a certain Mademoiselle Olympe Loriot, 
 who taught — ay, what did Mademoiselle 
 Olympe Loriot teach in this admirably well- 
 ordered radiating point of modern intelli- 
 gence ? 
 
 Her own language, for one thing, it was 
 certain — conversationally and practically, as 
 well as grammatically, of course, you know. 
 Anything else ? Perhaps. In fact, it is hardly 
 possible to teach French without teaching a
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. ^ 
 
 good deal besides, especially in tlie present 
 state of the literature of Imperial France, so 
 well calculated to diffuse everywhere the most 
 admirable social opinions and maxims, and to 
 bring up other capitals towards the supreme 
 level of civilization attained by — 
 
 " Cette ville corrompue qui corrompt Tunivers." 
 
 This first-rate finishing establishment for 
 young ladies was located in a handsome large 
 red-bricked building, of the William and Mary 
 period, when it had been the mansion of some 
 great nobleman, with an immensely fine peruke 
 — a memorial of which, and of himself, had 
 been left in a panel painting in the dining- 
 room, for which the auctioneer who dispersed 
 the last heir's inheritance had not been able to 
 find a purchaser. I believe in consequence it 
 went as a fixture, or, perhaps, was not reckoned 
 at all ; a point, however, which although con- 
 cerning a very great nobleman in his own day, 
 may not be worth elucidating in ours. The 
 mansion, become a seminary of polite acquire- 
 ment, stood in its own " park-like grounds," — 
 that is to-day it was surrounded by a space of
 
 10 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 about half an acre, which was prettily got up 
 to look like a perfect elysium of girlish out-of- 
 door exercise and recreation. There, at suitable 
 hours, if admitted — for the walls were, of course, 
 too high to be looked over — you might see the 
 most delightful sylphide romps going on. In 
 one direction half a dozen rosy, laughing, 
 screaming, quarrelling, hugging girls tossed 
 one another amazing and delirious heights on 
 a swing. In another, some graceful creature 
 balanced the Indian sceptre in a thousand 
 attitudes for the sculptor, if sculptors troubled 
 themselves in modern times to make marble 
 easy and graceful. Here two pretty little 
 creatures exchanged the flying-hoop, or caught 
 the rapidly falling ball, on principles of gravita- 
 tion which the eldest Miss Sparx, who loved 
 always to mix instruction with spoi-t, often 
 explained to the best of her o^tl knowledge 
 and unbelief. There was green grass below 
 their feet, tall waving trees above those still 
 happy though puzzled and befussed young heads 
 — trees that had an indistinct recollection of 
 having contemplated the diamond stomacher 
 and belaced satin petticoat of Queen Anne.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. II 
 
 And there were little patches of mignonette 
 and flowers, and two urns at the principal 
 entrance, overflowing in long dishevelled 
 verdure with creeping-jennies, like a drowned 
 woman's tresses drawn from some oozy depth. 
 So that on the whole the place looked very 
 pleasant and secluded indeed, and much com- 
 forted the mothers who came to leave their 
 daughters there ; nay, awakened in some of 
 them regrets that they could not stay behind 
 out of the noisy, rattling, headlong world, 
 instead of — or, at least, in company with — 
 those beloved and cherished deposits. Tor a 
 daughter must be valuable for whose education 
 you are willing to give one hundred guineas 
 per annum and extras — with as little trouble 
 as possible, of course, to yourself. 
 
 But, indeed, we should be very long if we 
 enlarged on all the advantages of the Sparx 
 Grymgynoecium, at which every modern im- 
 provement had been so carefully introduced, and 
 whence antiquated notions of all sorts had been 
 so judiciously eliminated, that Mademoiselle 
 Olympe Loriot more than once remarked to 
 confidential pupils, with her Parisian shrug,
 
 12 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 that the proprietresses themselves seemed to 
 be the only things a little behind the age. 
 Still we may add, in general, that not a single 
 moment which could possibly be devoted to 
 enlightenment was neglected to be filled up. 
 For example, when the young ladies sat at 
 work in the evenings round the lamps in the 
 great parlour, one of their number, agreeably 
 to the custom of other monastic institutions, 
 read aloud to the rest from some improving 
 book. The subject did not matter much pro- 
 vided it was treated in an agreeable and popular 
 manner. Upon that point Miss Eosabella 
 (whose duty it was to superintend these inter- 
 vals of relaxation) was rather fixed. The 
 Eeverend Jabez had simplified several sciences 
 himself in this way, and had made them as 
 light and easy for comprehension as a series of 
 dissolving views. Wonderfully advanced our 
 happier age is, in truth, in these latter 
 respects, and greatly do our own surpass those 
 stupid old pros}^, matter-of-fact, scientific 
 works of former times ; when, certainly, only 
 persons of scientific pursuits and objects perused 
 such treatises at all, about whom it was no
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 13 
 
 matter how mucli duller and stupider tliey 
 made themselves thereby. 
 
 Some such perusal was taking place on one 
 occasion, when it may be as well to introduce 
 the reader to the heroine of as strange and 
 terrible a story — frivolous as the commence- 
 ment of my narrative may seem to some 
 readers — as ever essentialized, within the nar- 
 row circle of an individual career, the moral 
 and condemnation of an age. 
 
 It was to the following effect, read in the 
 bright, clear, rippling tones of a youthful 
 female voice, tinged ever so slightly with a 
 silver Doric ; or, in unpoetical, straightforward 
 EngHsh, with a north-country Irish accent. 
 For the fame of the Sparx Gymgynoecium was 
 widely diffused, especially among the wealthy 
 commercial classes of the three divisions of the 
 United Kingdom, in consequence of a grand 
 match made by one of the pupils almost directly 
 after she left it. She married an earl nearly 
 three times her age, and had a hundred 
 thousand pounds left her by an uncle on that 
 condition: — 
 
 " Arsenic, as we commonly call it — ^the
 
 14 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 white arsenic of the shops, and the arsenious 
 acid of the chemist — is well known as a 
 yiolent poison. Swallowed in large doses, 
 it is what medical writers call an irritant 
 poison. In very minute doses it is known 
 to professional men as a tonic and altera- 
 tive, and is sometimes administered with 
 a view to these effects. It is remarkable 
 also for exercising a peculiar influence 
 upon the skin, and is therefore occasionally 
 employed in cutaneous diseases. The use 
 of arsenic, however, is unfrequent among 
 regularly-educated practitioners, and it is never, 
 I believe, used as a household medicine by the 
 people. 
 
 " In some parts of Lower Austria, however, 
 in Styria, and especially in the hilly country 
 towards Hungary, there prevails among the com- 
 mon people an extraordinary custom of eating 
 arsenic. During the smelting of lead, copper, 
 and other ores, white arsenic flies off in fumes, 
 and condenses in the solid form in the long 
 chimneys which are usually attached to the 
 smelting furnaces. From these chimneys, in 
 the mining regions, the arsenic is obtained, and
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 15 
 
 is sold to the people by the itinerant pedlars 
 and herbalists. It is known by the name of 
 Hidri (a corruption of Hutter-rauchy smelting- 
 house smoke), and the practice of using it is 
 of considerable antiquity. By many it is 
 swallowed daily throughout a long life, and 
 the custom is even handed down hereditarily 
 from father to son. 
 
 " Arsenic is thus consumed chiefly for two 
 purposes— ;y?r5^, to give plumpness to the 
 figure, cleanness and softness to the skin, and 
 beauty and freshness to the complexion ; 
 second, to improve the breathing and give 
 longness of wind, so that steep and continuous 
 heights may be climbed without difficulty and 
 exhaustion of breath. Both these results are 
 described as following almost invariably from 
 the prolonged use of arsenic either by man or 
 by animals. 
 
 " For the former purposes, young peasants, 
 both male and female, have recourse to it, with 
 the view of adding to their charms in the eyes 
 of each other ; and it is remarkable to see how 
 wonderfully well they attain their object, for 
 those young persons who adopt the practice
 
 16 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 are generally remarkable for clear and blooming 
 complexions, for full, rounded figures, and for 
 a healthy appearance. Dr. Yon Tschudi gives 
 the following case as having occurred in his own 
 medical practice : — ' A healthy, but pale and 
 
 thin milkmaid, residing in the parish of H , 
 
 had a lover whom she wished to attach to her 
 by a more agreeable exterior ; she therefore 
 had recourse to the well-known beautifier, and 
 took arsenic several times a week. The desired 
 effect was not long in showing itself ; for in a 
 few months she became stout, rosy-cheeked, 
 and all that her lover could desire. In order, 
 however, to increase the effect, she incautiously 
 increased the doses of arsenic, and fell a victim 
 to her vanity. She died poisoned, a very pain- 
 ful death.' The number of such fatal cases, 
 especially among young persons, is described 
 
 as by no means inconsiderable. 
 
 ^ ^ « « « « 
 
 " The perusal of the above facts regarding 
 arsenic — taken in connexion with what has 
 been previously stated as to the effects of the 
 resin of hemp — recalls to our mind the dreamy 
 recollections of what we have been accustomed
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 17 
 
 to consider as tlie fabulous fancies of easy and 
 credulous times. Love-pliiltres, charms, and 
 potions start up again as real things beneath 
 the light of advancing science. From the 
 influence of hemp and arsenic no heart seems 
 secure — by their assistance no affection un- 
 attainable. The wise woman, whom the 
 charmless female of the East consults, ad- 
 ministers to the desired one a philtre of 
 haschisch, which deceives his imagination — 
 cheats him into the belief that charms exist, 
 and attractive beauty, where there are none, 
 and defrauds him, as it were, of a love which, 
 with the truth before him, he would never 
 have yielded. She acts directly upon his brain 
 with her hempen potion, leaving the unlovely 
 object he is to admire really as unlovely as 
 before. 
 
 " But the Styrian peasant girl, stirred by an 
 unconsciously growing attachment — confiding 
 scarcely to herself her secret feelings, and 
 taking counsel of her inherited wisdom only — 
 really adds, by the use of hidri, to the natural 
 graces of her filling and rounding form, paints 
 with brighter hues her blushing cliceks and 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 18 MADELEINE GEAHAM. 
 
 tempting lips, and imparts a new and winning 
 lustre to her sparkling eye. Every one sees 
 and admires tlie reality of her growing beauty ; 
 the yoimg men sound her praises, and become 
 suppliants for her favour. She triumphs over 
 the affections of all, and compels the chosen 
 one to her feet. 
 
 *' Thus even cruel arsenic, so often the 
 minister of crime and the parent of sorrow, 
 bears a blessed jewel in its forehead, and, 
 as a love-awakener, becomes at times the 
 harbinger of happiness, the soother of ardent 
 longing, the bestower of contentment and 
 peace ! 
 
 "It is probable that the use of these and 
 many other love-potions has been known to the 
 initiated from very early times — now given to 
 the female to enhance her real charms — now 
 administered to the lords of the creation, to 
 add imaginary beauties to the unattractive. 
 And out of this use must often have sprung 
 fatal results, — to the female, as is now some- 
 times the case in Styria, from the incautious 
 use of the poisonous arsenic ; to the male, as 
 happens daily in the East, from the maddening
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 19 
 
 effects of the fiery liemp. They must also 
 have given birth to many hidden crimes, which 
 only romance now collects and preserves — the 
 isrnorance of the learned havine: lono; ao"o 
 pronounced them unworthy of belief" 
 
 2-z
 
 20 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 APPLES ON THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "That will do, my clear — very nicely read; 
 but you should have laid a more particular 
 emphasis on the words liemj^ and arsenic, in the 
 fifth section of the extract, as these words 
 evidently give what we may call the dominating 
 impulse to the ideas inculcated in all the 
 succeeding portion," said Miss Hortensia, 
 who, as instructor in elocution, very properly 
 attended only to the sound of what she heard. 
 
 "Oh, aint it funny that hemp and arscjiic 
 should go together ? for isn't that what they 
 hang people with. Miss Eosabella?" inquired 
 a lively young chit, of some fifteen or sixteen 
 years of age, of the one of the Misses Sparx 
 who, she thought, would aj^preciate a joke. 
 
 " With arsenic, my love ? '* gravely rebuked 
 Miss Hortensia, who always required a logical
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM:. 21 
 
 precision of expression in everybody but her- 
 self. 
 
 " Witb hemp, my sweet cbilcl ? Hemp is a 
 plant; tliey do not hang people with plants. 
 Go and bring the ' Dictionary of Technological 
 Terms' out of my bedroom ; you will find it in 
 the window, near my smelling-bottle, which 
 you will easily see by the reticule with the 
 steel clasps, beside it ; and read us the article,'*' 
 said " Mother Minerva," with all the solemnity 
 of her favourite bird. 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to know, please. Miss 
 Sparx, — I mean, I don't Hke going upstairs in 
 the dark," humbly deprecated the offending 
 Miss Emily Maughan. 
 
 Miss Eosabella had glanced at her favourite 
 pupil with a significant sparkle in the eye. 
 " Oh, never mind Emily's mistake, sister ; you 
 know it all comes to the same thing. Hemp 
 makes rope, and they hang naughty people 
 with rope, and that is what Emily meant to 
 say," she kindly interposed, biting asunder a 
 piece of the thread with which she was 
 engaged in working one of the innumerable 
 holes forming the pattern of a gorgeous
 
 22 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 trousseau under-garment — with her front teeth, 
 in spite of repeated warnings from her elder 
 sister of the danger of the practice. She had 
 lost her own by it, Miss Susannah was wont 
 to say, when she was quite a child, just as her 
 hair had become grey at a supematurally early 
 period, by the incautious use of a certain pomade 
 divine unskilfully prepared. 
 
 " But didn't you leave something out, 
 Madeleine ?" said another of the young ladies 
 — a creature as fresh and rosy as a wild apple 
 — ^to the one that had obliged the company by 
 the perusal commented on. The latter had, 
 meanwhile, been earnestly and thoughtfully 
 reading over again to herself the " article."— 
 So earnestly, indeed, that she took no notice of 
 the question. 
 
 " Did you. Miss Graham — did you omit 
 some portion of this valuable elucidation?" 
 said Miss Hortensia, severely, discerning all 
 the presumption of such an act of discretion. 
 
 "Sister means, did you skip anything, 
 Madeleine ?" interpreted Miss Eosabella. 
 
 " No — yes, ma'am — yes, I did, because I saw 
 it was nothing particular to read — only about 
 the effect of arsenic in making people breathe
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 23 
 
 better in going up hills. I did not think that 
 was worth reading," the young lady replied, 
 blushing very deeply, and she had already a 
 colour as richly glowing and beautiful as the 
 scarlet of sunrise on her fair, but rather sun- 
 freckled, northern complexion. 
 
 " Why, that is most likely by far the best of 
 it. I wonder you take upon you to select 
 what we are to hear. Surely we are the best 
 judges, Miss Madeleine Grraham !" -exclaimed 
 Miss Sparx, who had been for some time 
 threatened with asthmatical symptoms — or 
 fancied that she was ; and, of the two, people 
 are always the more thoroughly convinced of 
 the existence of an imaginary than of a real 
 disorder. 
 
 "Oh, I don't think it is of much conse- 
 quence, Susannah, to hear what effect arsenic 
 has upon the breathing,'* said Miss Eosabella, 
 who was perfectly well, and sound as a bell, 
 in her own chest. 
 
 "Put a lesson-keeper in the place. Miss 
 Graham, and I will read it myself over again, 
 by-and-bye," said Miss Sparx, with evidently 
 offended dignity. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am."
 
 24 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 "What do you call the book, ma chere? 
 Who is its writer?" now enquired Mademoiselle 
 Olympe Loriot, with as much apparent interest, 
 though possibly very differently awakened, as 
 her principal exhibited. 
 
 " Professor Johnston's ' Chemistry of Com- 
 mon Life,' Mademoiselle." 
 
 " What is it he says — if you please to read 
 again? — that this dangerous poison, it com- 
 municates a certain plumpness to the figure — 
 a freshness and vivacity to the complexion 
 otherwise impossible ?" Mademoiselle pursued ; 
 who, it may be remarked, was herself in person 
 of that kind and degree of Parisian tournure 
 known as "scraggy" in England, and was, 
 besides, of an unwholesome green-sallow com- 
 plexion, touched with indigo under the eyes 
 and in the corners of the mouth. 
 
 " Yes, he says that ; but do you really think 
 it would, Miss Sparx?" said Miss Graham, 
 turning with something like interest — which 
 was not often the case — ^to the principal of the 
 seminary. 
 
 Miss Sparx opened her mouth to give utter- 
 ance to an oracle, when Miss Eosabella glided
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 25 
 
 in an interruption in her quiet way. " Wliy 
 do you want to know, Madeleine ?" 
 
 " Because — ^because, perliaps, in tliat case — 
 it might remove su7i freckles ^^ that young 
 person replied, half laughingly, and smoothing 
 back in both hands the splendid masses of her 
 glossy black hair, which was what is called 
 "waved," with the crisp of a natural curl 
 rippling its whole length, without ever break- 
 ing into an overflow until it was secured in a 
 massive plait behind the head; — "you see I 
 have some." 
 
 " I don't advise you to try it, Madeleine, or 
 it might remove the owner of the sun freckles 
 with them," said Miss Eosabella, who had 
 more practical good sense than all the rest of 
 the teachers put together. 
 
 "I don't suppose I could get any," said 
 Madeleine, regretfully. 
 
 " Will they not — do they not sell it at the 
 pharraacien's ?" inquired Mademoiselle Olympc, 
 as carelessly as she could. 
 
 " Yes ; if you go with a witness. Made- 
 moiselle," said Miss Eosabella, drily ; " and 
 then, of course, people would wonder what
 
 26 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 you wanted with it: and it would be very 
 nasty to take, I should think, mixed with soot, 
 as the apothecaries are obliged, I believe/' 
 
 "Ah, without doubt !" 
 
 "It is not so bad as haschisch, however," 
 said honest Emily Maughan. 
 
 " AVhy not, dear ?" inquired Miss Eosabella. 
 
 "Oh, because didn't the book say that 
 haschisch regularly cheats people into the 
 belief that one's a great deal handsomer than 
 one is? — I don't call that fair, Matty; do 
 you?" Emily replied, appealing in embar- 
 rassment to a still younger member of the 
 society. 
 
 Mademoiselle Loriot shrugged her lean 
 shoulders, and looked at the English girl with 
 contempt. 
 
 " Ah ! why, that is what is done always and 
 everywhere. What folly ! How should we 
 please without decoration, we poor women? 
 What are we but an illusion, — a vision of the 
 imagination, — as but too plainly appears by 
 the disenchantment when once we are at- 
 tained?" 
 
 "Don't talk that way before the children,
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 27 
 
 Mademoiselle ! And I must say I don't think 
 it very good taste at any time to let such 
 things be known," said Miss Eosabella, sharply, 
 and glancing from the French instructress 
 with indignation to her own intended wed- 
 ding robe. 
 
 Another Parisian shrug, and a pause. 
 
 " What sort of stuff, I wonder, is hascJdsch, 
 then ? It isn't a mineral, is it, Miss Sparx ?" 
 resumed Madeleine, hoping by the reverential 
 reference to obtain the principal's connivance 
 to a renewal of the interesting subject. 
 
 " You are doin^ haschisch there, Madeleine!" 
 said Miss Eosabella, significantly. 
 
 The young girl blushed; the warm blood 
 in those rapid- coursing veins often sent a glow 
 of the inward fire to the surface. 
 
 " Oh, is haschisch what Elders, the cook, 
 calls 'gammon?'' I heard her say so to a 
 policeman, the other night, that called to know 
 if anybody had got over the garden wall," 
 said Matty, or Miss Matilda DoUards, as was 
 her proper name. 
 
 " Very like it, at all events, I should say. 
 But it's all stuff o' nonsense ; there's no such
 
 28 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 thing in reality at all; tliey only put it in 
 "books to amuse people." 
 
 Miss Eosabella thus endeavoured to pooh- 
 pooh away the impression which she saw made 
 on the minds of her young charges. 
 
 "Monsieur Alexandre Dumas, pere, seems 
 to maintain the reality of those marvellous 
 effects, which he describes in the ' Count of 
 Monte Christo,' " resumed, however, Ma- 
 demoiselle Olympe, with a vivacity almost 
 amounting to rudeness — to revolt, one may 
 say, under the circumstances, because in a 
 school, quite as much as in a court, one 
 is expected to swear in the words of the 
 master. 
 
 " Does he ? Well, I suppose that's part of 
 
 his '' liumhiig. Miss Eosabella meant to say, 
 
 until she remembered on a sudden who and 
 where she was, and softened the expression 
 into " stock-in-trade." 
 
 The conversation rather languished for a 
 while; it was chiefly made up during the 
 interval by Miss Eosabella's remark on the 
 number of times she had broken the eyes of 
 her needles that evening \ Miss Hortensia's
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 29 
 
 wonder liow ever people could have invented 
 such a foolish expression as the eye of a needle; 
 and the eldest Miss Sparx's hopeless flounder- 
 ing in an attempt to explain the properties of 
 steel, and the j)robable causes of so frequent a 
 solution of continuity; when Miss Emily 
 Maughan revived the general interest by ejacu- 
 lating — no doubt following up a series of 
 girlish ideas on the subject of haschisch, — " I 
 say, Miss Eosabella, do you believe in the 
 Arabian Nights ?" 
 
 " You should never begin addressing a person 
 with ' I say,' Emily ; it's vulgar," replied the 
 lady addressed, without taking any notice of 
 the main question, as a great many other 
 people do, in much more exalted positions as 
 oracles. 
 
 " How can Miss Eosabella believe in such a 
 farrago of nonsensical fancies about magic and 
 all that kind of thing, you foolish child, you ? 
 Do you imagine the laws of the material world 
 are really to be overthrown by a formula of 
 words, and that it is possible to raise genii, 
 and all that kind of thing [a favourite form of 
 getting rid of the necessity of definite ideas
 
 30 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 on what she was talking, witli Miss Hortensia], 
 by rubbing an old lamp ?'* 
 
 " I wish it was ; wouldn't I set to work on 
 some of ours ! " exclaimed Miss Dowsabel Bur- 
 roughs, a young lady whose " pa" was noto- 
 riously rich, but whose mother was strongly 
 suspected of having been a servant-of-all-work 
 in her youth. Of course, there was a good 
 deal of malicious smihng among these women 
 of a lesser growth thereupon. 
 
 " Well, what would you ask of an obedient 
 genius, supposing you could raise one. Douce?'* 
 said Miss Eosabella, who conceived that her 
 young people's ideas were now upon safer 
 tracks. 
 
 Douce reflected for a moment. 
 
 "I should like — I should like to have a 
 tame lizard, — one that w^ouldn't jump about 
 so as they do in the garden, and look as pretty 
 and speckled, and shine as green in the sun, 
 if I put it in a basket in my room." 
 
 " Just the only thing her father told her he 
 wouldn't buy her for a birthday present, it 
 would be such a nuisance ! What queer crea- 
 tures girls are ! " thought Miss Eosabella ;
 
 MADELEINE CxRAHAM. 31 
 
 and she might have extended the reflection 
 to a more adult age ; for the captain of march- 
 ing foot upon whom she had set her mind 
 was very strongly objected to by both her 
 sisters, and for reasons which at a subsequent 
 period she perhaps considered would have been 
 worth listening to. 
 
 " And what would you ask, Matilda, of the 
 Slave of the Lamp, supposing your abrasion 
 could produce such a functionary of magic to 
 do your will?" said Miss Hortensia, with her 
 usual elegance of language and utterance. 
 
 "Let me see," mused Matilda, who was 
 famous in the school as a little gourmande, 
 whose ideas mostly ran upon good eating and 
 drinking, owing, it was supposed, to her father 
 being an alderman. " Well,'' she declared, 
 finally, after hesitating doubtless among many 
 dishes, " I should tell him to bring me a nice 
 little roast pig, with plenty of apple sauce 1 " 
 
 There was a general laugh at this. It was 
 considered a most agreeable sally. Matilda 
 Bollards was surprised, but felt she had achieved 
 a social success. Nevertheless, several of the 
 young ladies, who knew that there was bread
 
 32 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 mocked with a faint intimation of butter, and 
 a cup of water confused with milk, coming in 
 for supper, sighed over the relishing impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 " And now, what would you have, Emily ? " 
 pursued Miss Eosabella, as soon as the excite- 
 ment had subsided- 
 
 "Oh!" said honest Emily, "I should like 
 to have a good husband — such a one as papa 
 is to mamma." 
 
 " I don't suppose there are many such, my 
 dear," sighed the professoress of mineralogy 
 and botany, who, after all, was a human 
 woman. "At least, I hardly ever met with 
 such another pair. What one wishes, the 
 other wants. I don't suppose many of us 
 have much chance now of such a husband as 
 that." 
 
 " As for me, I should not ask of Fortune a 
 husband, however good," exclaimed Made- 
 moiselle Loriot, with true Parisian enthusiasm, 
 and speaking out of her turn, if she ought to 
 have had one in so childish a recreation. " I 
 should demand only a lover — always true, al- 
 ways faithful, always tender, always, above
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. SS 
 
 all, devoted to me. And who can expect t/tat 
 of a husband ? " 
 
 " / should," said Miss Eosabella, more drily 
 than ever towards the Parisienne, and thinking 
 likewise what a pity it was that other na- 
 tionalities did not deal in pure French. 
 
 " Ah, you English ! — ^yes, you easily secure 
 affections so lethargic as those of your coun- 
 trymen, inhabitants of this foggy island I " 
 pursued Mademoiselle, who could not always 
 prevent herself from speaking what she thought. 
 How could she ? How can the best bred and 
 most polished of us all ? 
 
 "Well now, Madeleine, what would you 
 like to have, if you had the power ? — not 
 arsenic, I hope?" said the directress of the 
 entertainment, glancing up from her work 
 with a degree of interest in the answer to 
 the query she had perhaps hardly suspected 
 in herself. 
 
 " Oh, no, no. Miss Eosabella, — I should 
 like to have — everything ! " was the capa- 
 cious rejoinder. 
 
 ** A lover always faithful, always true, al- 
 ways, above all, devoted to ?" 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " A husband like my papa ? " 
 
 " A roast pig and apple sauce ? " 
 
 " A lizard in a basket ? " 
 
 All these various intei*pe]lations were 
 screamed together by the fair creatures, in- 
 somuch that it was hardly possible to know 
 what one or the other was saying. 
 
 *' Come, I think it is almost time to go to 
 bed, for all of us. We are making such a 
 horrid noise that I am sure the policeman 
 would be quite right, at all events, in getting 
 over the wall to-night, to inquire the meaning 
 of it all," said Miss Eosabella, good-hu- 
 mouredly, but perhaps not overpleased ; sub- 
 joining, to show that she was not in reality 
 much put out, though Madeleine Graham's 
 last wish strangely annoyed and perplexed 
 her, " The only person who has not said a 
 word about herself or her wishes is Madame 
 Fiirschener ; what would you demand of the 
 genius, Madame ? " 
 
 " Who ? — I, mees ? " said the good German 
 Switzwoman, starting from a reverie. " Oh, 
 I should ask to be transported at once to the 
 village of Zugdorf, on the mountain where I
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 35 
 
 was born, just at the time wlien tliey are 
 making tlie new cheeses for the fair at Neuf- 
 chatel." 
 
 " Dear me ! "We must take care and not 
 play the Ranz des Vaches before you, Ma- 
 dame Fiirschener. But now, young ladies, 
 it is close upon nine o'clock, and I think we 
 had better all put by our work, and go to bed 
 to dream that we have our wishes." 
 
 Thus did Miss Eosabella wind up- the dis- 
 cussion, without calling upon either of her 
 sisters to express thdr desires ; being perfectly 
 aware that the eldest would have pretended to 
 want one of the finest mineralogical and con- 
 chological cabinets in the world, and the other 
 the power to read Homer and Virgil in the 
 blessed originals. 
 
 3— a
 
 36 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTEE in. 
 
 CONFIDENCES. 
 
 Tap! tap! 
 
 " Good heavens ! Oli, is it only you, Made- 
 moiselle ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes ; it is only your poor Olympe, my 
 dear child. And it is not in the least necessary 
 to extinguish before me the amicable light of 
 your furtive taper." 
 
 The scene is now Miss Madeleine Graham's 
 little exclusive bed-chamber — or that ought to 
 have been so, according to the extra charged in 
 her school account. But Mademoiselle Loriot, 
 who had taken the young girl into particular 
 friendship and confidence, and delighted in 
 making her the depositary of the craving and 
 morbid fancies and projects which haunted her 
 own imagination, not unfrequently took upon 
 her to break through the rules of the seminary
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 37 
 
 by spending many an hour and half-hour, much 
 better devoted to refreshing slumbers, in her 
 favourite's apartment of a night. The clan- 
 destine character of these visits, and implied 
 violation of the decrees of authority, were pos- 
 sibly their greatest charm and attraction for 
 both Madeleine and the Parisienne. 
 
 It was a very pretty little virginal chamber, 
 this, and one would as little have expected to find 
 Evil squatting beside that light, snowy-cur- 
 tained couch, relieved by rose-like festoons of 
 pink calico, amid the quiet environments of a 
 young girFs toilette and bedroom furniture, as 
 under the green glistening of the trees of 
 Paradise, amid its flower}^ turf. Yet there she 
 seated herself now, in the outward present- 
 ment of Mademoiselle Olympe Loriot, while 
 the young proprietress of the chamber, who 
 was in bed, reading a book in a yellow cover, 
 by the forbidden light of a small wax taper set 
 in a washing-basin (for safety's sake !) on 
 the counterpane, extended her hand to the 
 sympathetic pressure of her Parisian friend. 
 
 " AVhat is the matter to-night, dear Olympe ? 
 And are you sure that Miss Eosabella (I know
 
 38 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 the otlier two are safe enough) will take no 
 notice of your not being in your own room ?" 
 
 *^ I have taken precautions against that peril. 
 I have locked the door, and brought away the 
 key in my pocket. If Miss Eosabella takes it 
 into her head to be curious, she may perhaps 
 try the lock, when she will be satisfied that I 
 am within ; and even for me not to reply will 
 be to her the assurance that I am in my bed 
 and asleep. We have only to preserve a 
 cautious undertone. But I confess that I 
 found it impossible, dear Madeleine, to endure 
 the solitude of my own thoughts after the recol- 
 lections aroused by the recent discussion over 
 our work, when, by a rare weakness. Miss 
 Bosabella permitted us for once to speak on 
 subjects interesting in any degree to humanity 
 — ^to the humanity of women, at all events." 
 
 *' She seemed dreadfully put out, didn't she, 
 when you began talking how much you pre- 
 ferred a lover to a husband ?" said Madeleine. 
 "But are you sure you shut the door behind 
 you ? If she should be listening 1" 
 
 " Oh yes, oh yes. Do you think I have for- 
 gotten the proverb that even walls have ears.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 39 
 
 dear cliild ? But of what do you talk when 
 you expose yourself to so much more risk, and 
 your poor attached friend also, by presuming 
 to read this interesting book, which I have lent 
 you, at an hour when it is by no means impos- 
 sible the restless genius of Miss Eosabella may 
 be in activity still in the corridors of the house ? 
 And, you know, none of the pupils is permitted 
 to have her door locked against her importu- 
 nate scrutiny," said Mademoiselle, glaring 
 suspiciously around, and in the operation look- 
 ing not altogether a bad resemblance to the 
 most impressive hero, at all events, of Milton's 
 epic, when he went prospecting round the ada- 
 mantine hedgesofEdenon emerging fromChaos. 
 
 " Oh, but I have taken care of all that ; I 
 have calculated to a nicety where to put this 
 basin, with a light in it, on the bed, so that 
 the shadow extends below the door ; and if I 
 heard the slightest sound — and you know 
 what a sharp, rattling footstep Miss Eosabella 
 has — I should out with it in a puff," the apt 
 pupil replied. 
 
 " How far have you got in your book, my 
 dear little cabbage ? — mon cher jpetit chou ?'*
 
 40 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " To sucli an interesting point ; where Mar- 
 guerite Gautier makes up her mind to go back 
 to her old way of living in Paris, you know, 
 
 and accept the offer of that booby Count N , 
 
 whom she disliked so much in reality, rather 
 than bring her lover into any farther trouble 
 with his family," replied the young girl. 
 
 The work to which she was devoting her 
 midnight taper would thus appear to have 
 been the extremely improving " Dame aux 
 CameHas " of the younger Dumas ; a story 
 which, however, it must be admitted, under the 
 still more fearless designation of ''La Tra- 
 viata," has stirred the sympathies of all the 
 civilized operatic nations, in behalf of a species 
 of heroine, bare allusion to whose social exist- 
 ence and position would have emptied a draw- 
 ing-room full of our grandmothers. 
 
 " Ah, indeed, so far ? But we devour words 
 when they agree with us — I mean when it is 
 pleasant reading. Ah, and is it not an enno- 
 bhng and beautiful spectacle, dear Madeleine, to 
 behold motives so generous and disinterested 
 dominating in the heart of a woman of a caste 
 which society entertains in its breast only to
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 41 
 
 conceal and reprobate, as one might a cancer 
 gnawing into the flesh, and yet who exhibits 
 herself capable of such sublime disinterested- 
 ness and devotion as to relinquish the man 
 she loves rather than conduct him to ruin? 
 Ah ! what good woman — what perfectly good 
 woman — as they are called," Mademoiselle 
 Olympe concluded, with a passionate sneer, 
 " would be capable of conduct at once so 
 exalted and incomprehensible by mean and 
 routine souls ?" 
 
 Mademoiselle, it was evident, asked the 
 question as if instituting a psychological in- 
 quiry into the motives and conduct of an actual 
 personage, and by no means a creation of the 
 diseased imagination and sympathies of lajemie 
 France under '^\q second empire. 
 
 "Do you think it is really the case then, 
 Olympe, that good women hardly ever do any- 
 thing good — of that kind, I mean ? But then 
 they haven't much opportunity; they are 
 mostly so quietly at home, with husbands and 
 children of their own. Still, I can't help 
 thinking," Madeleine continued, rather hesi- 
 tatingly, " that young Mr. Dumas has made a
 
 42 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 mistake in the account he gives of his heroine, 
 and that, in reality, she — she left Armand 
 because she was tired of having nothing to live 
 upon, and pawning her clothes, and having to 
 part with her — her brougham, I suppose — coujpe 
 the Frenchman calls it. Don't you think, now, 
 if it is a true story — and even Monsieur Jules 
 Janin, in his preface, seems to say it is, — that 
 I am a good deal more likely to be right than 
 — yes, than the author man himself that tells 
 what happened?" 
 
 "In effect," replied Mademoiselle, after a 
 brief pause, and seeming to recognise a still 
 more advanced esprit to her own in her pupil, 
 ''it does seem improbable to incredulity that 
 the most extinct of all the noble illusions of our 
 ancestors — a love altogether superior to, and 
 that triumphs over, the miserable motives of 
 self-interest and gratification — could have fled 
 from every other human heart to take refuge 
 
 in that of a vile but I must not use 
 
 the expression ; and what need of severe ex- 
 pressions when we are understood ?" 
 
 " And somebody might hear. Mademoiselle, 
 if you raise your voice so much above your
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 43 
 
 breath. But do you redly think people are all 
 ^0 very bad and greedy now-a-days — women 
 and all ?'* said Madeleine, raising herself, with 
 evidently awakened interest, on her rounded 
 elbow on the pillow. 
 
 " Women above all ! Yes, certainly ; and 
 what do you expect ? That we alone are to pre- 
 serve the absurd traditions of the senseless in- 
 fancy of the world in the midst of the univer- 
 sal raging of cupidity and self-interest, which 
 presents to us everywhere the most degrading, 
 and yet fascinating, spectacles of success and 
 enjoyment ? When examples of the preference 
 men give to material interests over every other 
 force upon us almost the conviction that the 
 constitution of the human mind and heart are 
 changed, and that the foundations of all our 
 modern forms of society are yielding to the 
 incessant action of a principle sprung from the 
 abyss, but which is fast becoming the sole mo- 
 tive power of our age !" 
 
 "You mean people being all so fond of 
 money. Mademoiselle?" 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; what else should I
 
 44 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 "Well, but," remoifttrated the yonng girl, 
 who showed herself to be more than ever of 
 her epoch, '' what can one possibly do without 
 money, Olympe ? Don't money buy everything 
 one sees or knows of worth having? All the 
 fine clothes, horses, carriages, plate, jewels, fnr- 
 nitnre — even the homage and respect which 
 — ^yon put in our exercises — ought only to 
 be paid to virtue and noble qualities of the 
 mind ? But don't we see quite different with 
 our own eyes, and even in this narrow enclo- 
 sure of a school r I am sure there could not 
 be a better woman in the world than Madame 
 Fiirschener, for example ; and I think you are 
 yourself one of the most talented persons in 
 your intellects that can be imagiaed ; but I 
 should very much Hke to know when and 
 where either of you will attract so much notice 
 and respect as that dashing woman of the 
 demumonde you poiuted out to me the other day 
 in the Park Eoad, and who, you say, is quite 
 famous in the newspapers, under the name — ^if 
 one may call it so — and description some 
 very clever person has given of her — of In- 
 cognita/'
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM, 45 
 
 " Very true — ^very true. Ah ! even your pru- 
 dish England — everything is changing among 
 you also. To behold the immense crowd which, 
 only the day after that astonishing advertise- 
 ment to the public, assembled on the Kensing- 
 ton route, to behold pass a woman celebrated for 
 her extravagance and cynicism only, driving a 
 pair of spirited, fiery ponies, frothing and 
 foaming like waves of the sea — as if they, too, 
 ate arsenic, Madeleine ! — in silver harness, and 
 attended by two grooms in a livery like a 
 prince's, on horseback ! It was a spectacle to 
 amaze and disgust this sober London, one would 
 have thought! But, instead of that, everybody 
 thronged to it, — the daughters, the Britannic 
 mothers, with whose ancient prudery the world 
 has been amused so long, so shortly ago, and 
 yet which inspired everywhere a certain re- 
 spect ! Yes, you are right, my dear Madeleine ; 
 and this is not the age in which to exhibit, on 
 a stage which laughs at you, the example of 
 virtues as obsolete as the sacques and furbelows 
 of a bygone epoch !" 
 
 " And yet I think I should not Hke to 
 marry altogether for money ^ Olympe. I think
 
 46 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 I should like to like the person — a little — 
 that I married," said Madeleine, a soft rosiness 
 — a faint reminiscence of antique British 
 maidenly sentiment and delicacy, possibly — 
 rising over the snowy, Hebe-like swell of the 
 shoulder and youthful bosom, displayed in the 
 careless grace of the young girl's attitude, as 
 she sat with her elbow propped on the pillow, 
 and her cambric night-clothes dispersed like a 
 semi-transparent mist over all that loveliness 
 which, it seemed, was to be marketed like any 
 other goods. 
 
 " That you married — the ^person that you 
 married ? You forget, my poor child," said 
 Mademoiselle Lori6t, surveying the fair young 
 creature attentively, " that you are not to 
 marry so much a person as certain social 
 advantages, which are comprised under the ex- 
 pression — ^Wealth, position, — perhaps rank and 
 power; for you are very beautiful, dearest 
 Madeleine ! And if you mount to the height 
 of the elevation of your age, above the 
 insidious suggestions of passion and feeling, to 
 which, nevertheless, your organization exposes 
 you, I am persuaded you will make one of the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 47 
 
 best of Eritish matches, and will be enabled to 
 exhibit to those who have loved you so sincerely, 
 like your poor Olympe, marks of a generosity 
 which I have always contended is natural to 
 the goodness of your heart/' 
 
 " I shall certainly try and marry a rich man, 
 Olympe. I don't think I care much for rank 
 or power," said Madeleine Graham. 
 
 " Not for power even ?" returned the 
 Parisienne, with a momentary but quickly 
 suppressed quiver of contempt over her facial 
 lines. "Ah, well, it is an indifference easily 
 accounted for; you spring from a rich com- 
 mercial family, to which, above all things, the 
 possession of wealth must seem the most 
 honourable and desirable." 
 
 " Papa is very well off : but then there are 
 a good number of us, boys and all, to be pro- 
 vided for. I don't suppose I shall have much 
 of a fortune, unless I look after myself," 
 replied this prescient and considerative young 
 girl of the nineteenth century. 
 
 "And you may be assured, dearest Made- 
 leine, of a triumphant issue to your efforts to 
 place yourself, with those charms, that beauty,
 
 48 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 that indescribable fascination, which accom- 
 pany all you say and do, and which attract, 
 as it were, by an irresistible loadstone, all who 
 enter into your sphere ! Even the eldest Miss 
 Sparx — she whom nothing else pleases — I 
 notice that she occasionally regards you with 
 an expression of complacency." 
 
 "No, come Olympe, I can't quite believe 
 thatr laughed the young girl; "but of course 
 I must depend chiefly on looking well and 
 attracting people, to get well married, and that 
 is why I take such pains with my accomplish- 
 ments, and all that. I don't care much about 
 what Mother Minerva calls furnishing one's 
 head inside — I say, Olympe, wouldn't it save 
 a world of trouble if one could only dose the 
 men with lots of that same haschisch we 
 were talking about in the parlour before 
 supper? " 
 
 "Without concerning ourselves that it is 
 said to make madmen and delirious idiots of 
 them afterwards, eh, ma chere .^" 
 
 Mademoiselle Loriot spoke these words in 
 a tone that startled Madeleine herself; espe- 
 cially as she followed up the observation with
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 49 
 
 a strangely discordant, and indeed horrid and 
 menacing kind of a choked giggle. 
 
 " How you do talk against the men some- 
 times, Olympe ! One would think that the}'- 
 had bitterly wronged you — some of them ! 
 and yet you are quite young still — you are 
 not an old maid at all, I am sure," she 
 said, soothingly. 
 
 " I am, nevertheless, one of the victims of 
 my age !" replied Mademoiselle, with unflag- 
 ging exasperation ; you see me here, earning 
 a miserable pittance on which to support 
 existence, — an existence which annoys, frets, 
 wearies me, but which I have not the courage 
 to terminate as yet. I am not destitute of 
 talents ; I can sing, I dance to admiration. I 
 have read all Eacine, and a part of Corneille, 
 and I profess my language with a skill that 
 excites admiration. I am not, perhaps, regu- 
 larly beautiful, but my complexion has a 
 certain pallor and sensibility not without its 
 charm ; I have a heart of a grandeur and 
 infinity of sentiment altogether inexhaustible, 
 were I required to love all the men of my 
 epoch ! Figure to yourself, then, my deai* 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Madeleine, tliat I have heaped all these trea- 
 sures of my affections and talents on a single 
 individual ; that this individual is a miserable 
 commiS'Voyageur of a Lyons silkhouse, en- 
 dowed only with a fine figure, and a face 
 which attracts the eye by the porcelain beauty 
 and clearness of the complexion. That this 
 commis-voya(jeur is a creature almost destitute 
 of soul and sensibility, wdth only intellect 
 sufficient to make a happy selection in the 
 colours of a necktie and waistcoat. Put, I 
 say, all these ideas and convictions together, 
 and know, in conclusion, that I have thro^vn 
 myself at the feet of this man, to implore a 
 return of devotion, and that he has rejected 
 me ! — rejected me, merely because I had not 
 twenty thousand francs : at which price only 
 he has caused himself to be inscribed, to my 
 certain knowledge, in the registry of all the 
 matrimonial agencies both at Paris and 
 Lyons !" 
 
 Miss Graham, it must be confessed, nearly 
 burst out laughing at this exposition of her 
 friend's unhappy position ; but she controlled 
 her very natural tendency to merriment, and
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 51 
 
 merely remarked, — "Well, you know, I am 
 to go home to my native city at the end of 
 this quarter. There are plenty of rich men 
 there," Olympe, and I will at least try to secure 
 myself one of the number ; and then I will 
 invite you to stay with me a good long while, 
 and I will introduce you to somebody very 
 well off, whom you will easily be able to take 
 in with your talents and accomplishments, and 
 you shall be married near me, and we shall be 
 both so happy, you know ; and if you kill 
 yourself at all, it shall only be by living too 
 well." 
 
 " Embrace me, my dear child ! You give 
 me new hope — new life !" 
 
 While this ceremony was being performed. 
 Mademoiselle Olympe's vision was crossed by 
 a dim notion that she might some day be 
 enabled to figure in her young friend's house- 
 hold in that favourite character of modern 
 French romance, in which the beloved female 
 inmate and confidante supplants her benefac- 
 tress and entertainer in the affections of her 
 husband and all about her, and winds up the 
 whole creditable affair by causing the wife to 
 
 LIBRAKY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS
 
 52 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 be expelled in sliame and disgrace from his 
 roof and heartli ; mostly, however, with con- 
 siderable justification on the part of the 
 unhappy lady herself, it must be confessed, — 
 an exact reverse of the scriptural position of 
 the patriarch Abraham and his Sarah and 
 Hagar. 
 
 Fortunately, the antidotes of most poisons 
 grew beside them. Miss Graham had also 
 perused many of these edifying works, lent to 
 her for private relaxation by her kind friend 
 and tutoress ; and even as she uttered the 
 invitation, she secretly came to the conclusion 
 that Mademoiselle Olympe Loriot was just the 
 kind of personage to play a benefactress and 
 entertainer a trick of the kind, and was there- 
 fore, possibly, not so desirable an inmate as to 
 render it wholly out of the question to devise 
 an excuse for not receiving her as such, when 
 the proper time should arrive. 
 
 After a properly enthusiastic outward de- 
 monstration of these inward sentiments and 
 reflections between the Parisienne and her 
 youthful pupil (Madeleine was not quite 
 eighteen), the latter withdrew herself with a
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 53 
 
 kind smile, but a little wearied and embarrassed 
 with tbe excess of the demonstration on her 
 friend's part, from her fond arms. 
 
 " There, that is enough, dear Olympe. You 
 know that I do not in the least doubt your 
 affection for me ; and some of the best proofs 
 of it, I think, you have given me in these 
 amusing books you lend me. But to resume 
 the real subject — about that Incognita, you 
 know — must not some one be at a tremendous 
 expense with her?" 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt; a hundred times as 
 much as he would pay for a wife/' 
 
 " Oh, how wicked ! Do you know who 
 it is?" 
 
 " I have a guess that would prove formid- 
 able in a court of justice; but should we tell 
 it to a young girl ?" said Mademoiselle Loriot, 
 after — let us do her the justice to say so — a 
 considerable pause. 
 
 Apparently she decided in the affirmative. 
 
 " Yes ; but he is not at all — what you call 
 it, among you, you natives of the glorious; 
 Albion? — not at all a — a mnrrfjinf/ man!' 
 
 " Why not ?" said Madeleine.
 
 54 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " Why not ? Is it proper, again I say to 
 myself, to explain himself to her? Why not? 
 Let us no longer delude ourselves with phrases 
 concerning the innocent candour, not to be 
 profaned, of the youth of our days. Parlons 
 toute ncite! For the very reason, my child, that 
 he is the most proper for matrimony, being so 
 immensely rich ; but he therefore supposes 
 himself incapable of inspiring an attachment 
 worthy of so great a sacrifice. Do you not 
 comprehend ? It is a man of an original 
 character, and he cannot support the notion 
 to be loved for his money alone. Ea ! ha ! 
 what a ridiculous vanity in a man, who is far 
 from being young, and who ought to be aware 
 that at his age one is chiefly loved for the 
 benefits he confers !" 
 
 " But is he so very rich ?" 
 
 " Horribly, my dear." 
 
 "Do you know who he is? — what he is 
 called?" 
 
 " He is an enormous merchant of London — a 
 man who deals with the two worlds ; one may 
 say that he is even of a certain rank, since his 
 father purchased a patent of German nobility.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 55 
 
 He is past the prime of existence ; lie is 
 in some measure bald; lie lias little cliarm 
 of manner or conversation ; lie is stern, 
 unbending." 
 
 "What is his name, Olympe — dear Olympe?" 
 " Behringbright. He is called Mr. Baron 
 Behringbright." 
 
 " Wouldn't he be a good match, Olympe ?" 
 " Grood to an impossibihty of being better, 
 my dear one." 
 
 " But it would be, of course, impossible. I 
 don't suppose there would be any way of 
 getting at him ?" 
 
 " Not likely. Miss Eosabella almost always 
 promenades with us in the parks ; and, besides, 
 how could we convince him of the falsehood, 
 the treason, of the creature he enables to live 
 with so much splendour?" 
 
 " But is she false ? is she treasonable ?" 
 " What matters either ? But she is both. 
 I could say what I know — only I will not." 
 
 *' Olympe, we will talk more about this 
 another time. But are we quite safe now, do 
 you think? Did you not hear something 
 very like a footstep outside the door ?'*
 
 56 MADELEINE GRAHA^I. 
 
 " But, no, it is impossible." 
 
 " We are very fanciful in my country ; at 
 least we used once to be, in the time of 
 Shakspere and Lady Macbeth. And now I 
 thought I heard a deep sigh, as if some person 
 was very unhappy !" said Madeleine, who was 
 contriving a means to get rid of her ^dsitor, 
 and now affected to look startled. " Do you 
 believe in guardian angels, Olympe ? Well, I 
 really thought I heard my guardian angel give 
 — a deep sigh." 
 
 " Oh, what folly !" said Mademoiselle Olympe, 
 but with visible alarm ; being, like most persons 
 who have entirely emancipated their minds 
 from superstition, very superstitious. 
 
 " I dare say it is so. Still, Olympe, 1 wish 
 you would go to your own bed to-night ! I 
 should like to reflect on all you have said." 
 
 " Good night, then, dear Madeleine." 
 
 " Good night, my kind instructress ! Good 
 night !" 
 
 "What a splendid thing it would be," thought 
 Madeleine Graham, left at last alone, " if one 
 could only get to love a man who had plenty 
 of money ! How nice it would be to conciliate
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 57 
 
 tlie two views ! I should positively adore a 
 man wliom I loved wlio had money 1 But 
 this one is oldish and rather bald, they say ; a 
 man of a cold, repulsive, almost of an insulting, 
 character, whom one could not persuade that 
 one loved for himself, from being aware that 
 there was nothing lovable in him, and who 
 would always be imagining his purse as- 
 sailed. — Still, it is the difficulty of the task, 
 after all, that makes the fun of it ! There 
 would be no great wonder or merit in coaxing 
 a young, vehement, Nouvelle Helo'ise sort of a 
 lover into the belief that one loved him. But 
 a man like this Behringbright — Baron Beh- 
 ringbright, too ! After all, it is something 
 even to be a German Baroness ! and even Pope, 
 whom Miss Hortensia sets us to read for his 
 fine morality, says, ' 'Tis good repenting in a 
 coach-and-four.' I'll get Olympe to make in- 
 quiries — and she already knows a great deal 
 more than she has told me, I am sure. What 
 a guy to believe in ghosts, too, and guardian 
 angels, when she don't believe at all, I am 
 sure, in the next world ; and although she is 
 so fond, too, of playing at table-rapping when
 
 58 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 the Misses Sparx' backs are turned ! How 
 queer, too, that this Behringbright man does 
 not in the least believe in the woman upon 
 whom he heaps all the treasures of his un- 
 bounded wealth, according to Olympe ! Oh, 
 what strange creatures men and women are ! — 
 " Well, come, Miss Eosabella told us to go 
 and sleep, and dream that we had our wishes. 
 I will go to sleep and dream that — that — that 
 this cold, repulsive, unbelieving moneyed man 
 — that this young, ardent, enthusiastic lover 
 . . . Good heavens ! I must be already 
 dreaming — falling asleep awake ! It is impos- 
 sible to conciliate the two. No ; I must be a 
 rich man's wife, with no enjoyment of my life 
 but what money can procure, or — or — I should 
 like to see this Behringbright — this terribly 
 rich man ! I wonder whether I could like his 
 money well enough to — to — to sacrifice a 
 fervent young lover to his riches — if I had 
 one?
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 59 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 
 
 '' I SAY, Fauntleroy — Vivian, my boy — who's 
 Incognita ?" 
 
 " jF/ios who r 
 
 " Oh, you know who I mean." 
 
 " You should ask Behringbright ; I dare say 
 it cost him something handsome per annum to 
 be in the secret. Let me see. A villa in 
 Eegent's Park ; an open and a close carriage ; 
 lots of servants ; a box at the opera ; all the 
 spectacles, flower-shows, exhibitions ; Brighton 
 and Paris at the proper seasons ; dress, jewel- 
 lery, and other knickknacks : I should think 
 she stands him in some seven or eight thousand 
 pounds a year, this particular Anno Domini of 
 ours," summed up Mr. Vivian Fauntleroy, at 
 intervals of the puffs of a cigar which he was 
 smoking, extended almost at full length on one
 
 60 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 of the divans of the smoking-room of the ~ 
 
 Club, — or stay, as it is rather old-fashioned to 
 leave blanks, let us call it the Dolce -Far-Niente 
 Club. 
 
 " Bless me ! And that's the tremendously- 
 rich fellow — the millionnaire fellow, don't they 
 call them? — that's so set his mind against 
 being married for his money ; isn't it, Vivian ?" 
 drawled another of the loungers, keeping his 
 eyes closed, in the full beatitude of his narcotic 
 enjoyment, like a Chinese in a stage of han(j. 
 
 "Against being married for his money 1" 
 returned Mr. Vivian Fauntleroy, wdtli a long 
 emphasis on the w^ord. " One don't mind the 
 other sort of affair, you know, for one's money ; 
 it's fair bargain and sale. But Behringbright 
 can't take kindly to the notion of being rated 
 as a mere money-bag in so important and last- 
 ing a business as matrimony ; and that's how 
 he gives all the dowagers and Lady Claras the 
 slip, and rushes free in the prairies 3'et, in spite 
 of all the silken lassos tlirown at his neck." 
 
 " He isn't at all a handsome fellow, and that 
 is how he finds the women out, and what 
 they're after," returned the drawler — the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 61 
 
 Honourable Francis Dundreary, M.P. for 
 Slopsley, in Worcestershire, who to as a hand- 
 some fellow — a most decidedly handsome fellow, 
 if faultless features, a faultless moustache, and 
 faultless tailors and bootmakers, can make a 
 man so. 
 
 "Oh, nobody cares for beaiif?/ now. The 
 women are like everybody else — all for them- 
 selves, and looking after the main chance ; and 
 quite right too," observed a third speaker and 
 smoker, the second son of a good family, who 
 managed to cut a pretty decent appearance, as 
 u single man, on five hundred a year ; but, of 
 course, never dreamed of such an imprudence 
 as matrimony upon an income of that kind. 
 
 " I wonder the dowagers and Lady Claras, 
 as you call them, can take any notice of a man 
 like that— of no birth whatever,'' said Lord 
 Eonald Macdonald, a Caledonian duke's ninth 
 son, and with a portion accordingly; not to 
 mention that he was endowed with all the 
 extravagance and love of expense which might 
 have become the head of the family, in case 
 that dignitary had felt inclined to ruin him- 
 self.
 
 62 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 *' No birth ! Why, how do you think he's 
 alive then ?'* 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! you know what I mean." 
 
 " Of course ; any fellow can tell what he 
 means," softly ejaculated the Honourable 
 Francis. 
 
 " Well, whether he was ever born or no — I 
 mean, whether he*s got birth or not — he*s a 
 most tremendously rich individual, and he's 
 quite in the right to think the fine ladies are 
 after him chiefly for that — and to cut them, 
 and take up with Incognita," said Mr. Vivian 
 Fauntleroy, with unusual earnestness for him 
 — an earnestness founded on unhappy ex- 
 periences, for he had been jilted not so long 
 before — poor fellow ! — for the sake of a man 
 who had a good deal more money. In fact, 
 Mr. Vivian Fauntleroy had liardl}^ an}', and 
 had only been introduced into good society at 
 all — and all manner of expenses he could not 
 afford — by the brilliant success of a satirical 
 novel he had written, and which ridiculed his 
 best friends in such a delightful manner, that 
 everybody read it and abused it. This 
 advanced him, so that he was enabled to join a
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 63 
 
 first-rate club, keep a horse and a natty little 
 groom, and smoke Latakia, for one year on his 
 own means ; all the rest of his time he lived on 
 loans and the means of other people, on condi- 
 tion that he rendered himself generally agree- 
 able ; and the proper way to do that was to be 
 generally malicious, and say all kinds of 
 cutting, ill-natured, and unfounded things, as 
 foreign to the poor man's own nature as to the 
 
 reality of the questions he treated. 
 
 * 
 
 " Is Incognita — a — a nithe girl ?" said Mr. 
 Dundreary. 
 
 " She's a spanker. Didn't you see how she 
 drove those horses ? I expected nothing but 
 that she would have killed half a dozen people 
 between Hyde Park Corner and her own de- 
 lightful residence," said Mr. Yivian Fauntleroy. 
 
 "I tried to keep up with her, to see wliere she 
 was going, but she went ahead at such a horri- 
 ble rate I could not keep pace with her at 
 all !" spasmodically inteijected the Honourable 
 Francis. 
 
 "Would she have made you welcome, do you 
 think, Mr. Dundreary — as, of course, it's only 
 money she's at present attached to — in case
 
 64 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 you had been able to go the pace?'' said Mr. 
 Vivian, with a bitter smile. 
 
 " Aw — aw, I dare say ; Bebringbright's 
 nothing particular, everybody knows, to doat 
 upon." 
 
 "Isn't he monstrously rich?" puffed in a 
 man who, up to this time, had remained in an 
 apparent state of insensibility, crouched in an 
 armchair, with his feet mounted on the back of 
 one before him. 
 
 " As rich as a Jew. Some people say he is 
 one," replied Mr. Vivian Fauntleroy, who, in 
 point of fact, had some considerable occasion 
 to know that Mr. Behringbright was as rich as 
 a Jew. 
 
 " But as generous as a Christian," inter- 
 jected another somnolocutist, half opening his 
 eyes, with a significant look in them, at that 
 gentleman. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by a Chris- 
 tian, now-a-days," said Mr. Vivian, very drily, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " I mean a man that lends you money when 
 nobody else will," continued the remorseless 
 sleeper-awakened.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 65 
 
 Mr. Fauntleroy did not deign any comment 
 on sncli a nonsensical observation. 
 
 "I say, Yivian, what sort of a rich man 
 
 is Behring what is the other part ? I 
 
 never remember a man's name that don't sound 
 as if one knew it — Behring^rzyy^ ? " 
 
 " Behring^ny/^^f, Lord Eonald." 
 
 " "Well ; what is he — Barringlight — ^what 
 d'ye call him ? — A drysalter? " 
 
 " A drysalter ! Perhaps — among the rest. 
 Deals in everything, from a pin to an anchor. 
 He is one of the greatest merchants this 
 country ever produced — he and his brothers 
 are. You don't mean to say, Lord Eonald, 
 you don't know who George Cocker Behring- 
 bright is ? " 
 
 " Everybody knowths," lisped Mr. Dun- 
 dreary. " How thilly of Macdonald to pretend 
 not to. That would have done long ago, but 
 it isn't the sort of thing now-a-days. Besides, 
 isn't he a baron or something of that sort, 
 Vivian ? " 
 
 " Yes, but he wont be called so. It isn't 
 his fault; it was his father's, who couldn't 
 help being a baron, in consequence of a few acres 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 he bouglit of the Holy Eoman Empire, I don't 
 know how long ago. But he hates to be 
 called 'Baron; 'yon can't offend him worse. 
 He is Mr. Behringbright, 'pur et simjple, to all 
 intents and purposes." 
 
 " What a stz^pid fellow I " said Lord Eonald 
 Macdonald, with an exceedingly liquid u^ to 
 distinguish himself from the people who say 
 " stoopid." ** If I were he, I should like, above 
 all things, to be a baron, and to sink the 
 
 *' Oh no ; he treads on Plato's pride with 
 greater pride ! He's the kind of man that, if 
 h^ can't be all, don't care to be an^i:hing. I 
 suppose he wouldn't mind being a British 
 peer ; but he don't care to be a Eoman baron," 
 said Mr. Fauntleroy, rather enjoying the sur- 
 prise of the Scotch Duke's ninth son. 
 
 "Why don't he buy himself a peerage, then?" 
 s^id a person who had not hitherto spoken, but 
 was tranquilly inhaling his cigar in a remote 
 corner of the chamber, and who had natural 
 tendencies to sarcasm against the aristocracy, 
 he being the representative of an exceedingly 
 democratic Jjondon constituency, that derived
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 67 
 
 its cliief employment and sustenance from 
 manufactures that supplied aristocratic wants. 
 
 " Buy a peerage, sir ! " exclaimed Lord 
 Ronald Macdonald. 
 
 " He wouldn't take tlie trouble. Elections 
 are sucli a bore, and I don't suppose lie could 
 manage a peerage under three or four regular 
 votes," said Mr. Yivian. 
 
 People laughed, and seemed gratified — 
 particularly the member for the democratic 
 constituency, who had set his heart on at least 
 a baronetcy. 
 
 There was now a pause, during which the 
 curling vapours of the fumigation increased in 
 volume, and floated in soft visionary mists 
 high in the upper air of the divan. 
 
 *' Behringbrighth's in the right to enjoy 
 himself, since he can afford it so well," said 
 the Honourable Francis, at last, with a feeble 
 ya^vn. " But — I say — Yivian — Mr. Faunt- 
 leroy — don't you think he's an ass to let that 
 woman make such a tremendous noise and — 
 all that— at his expense ? " 
 
 *' He likes it, I suppose," said Mr. Vivian F. 
 
 *' But isn't it scandalous ? Isn't it a 
 5—*
 
 68 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 disgrace — ^in a well-regulated society like ours ? 
 All very well for tlie Bois de Boulogne or the 
 Champs Elysees — one don't expect anything 
 better of the French. But among us I " 
 remarked a man of British build, — short, 
 thick, round in the stomach and head, but who 
 was a terrible hand, in general, at asking 
 questions, and was noted for the standing 
 nuisance he was to Ministers, no matter of what 
 politics or party, in Parliament — being what is 
 called an Independent Member — of everybody 
 and everything — reason and manners, not 
 unfrequently, among the rest. 
 
 " I think he must do it on purpose to affront 
 people of condition who invite him to their 
 houses," remarked Lord Eonald Macdonald, 
 who had a tall, lean, highly intellectual and 
 charitable sister to marry — the Lady Flora 
 Diana; and knew that his mother, the 
 dowager duchess, gave a good number of in- 
 convenient parties on that account, to which, 
 it is by no means improbable, Mr. Behring- 
 bright was often invited. 
 
 "Very likely," said Mr. Fauntleroy; per- 
 haps a little ungratefully subjoining, "he is
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 69 
 
 an extremely misantliropic, carping, dispa- 
 raging sort of a man, and likes notliing better 
 than annoying people that lie thinks want to 
 take him in ; and his experience is snch that 
 he believes that's the game with all the women." 
 
 " Well, as he's such an ngly fellow," said 
 the Honourable Francis 
 
 "As he's such a humbug of an aristo- 
 crat," said the popular-constituency repre- 
 sentative 
 
 "As he's such a d-^ d democrat," mut- 
 tered Lord Ronald 
 
 " As he's such an immoral character/'' said 
 the extremely right-minded British Inde- 
 pendent Member, who, a few months after, 
 fell, by some mischance or other — by the 
 wrong delivery of a letter, or something of 
 that kind — into the jurisdiction of the two 
 C's ; as they used to call the court where the 
 Eight Honourable Sir Cresswell Cresswell once 
 sat Ehadamanthus 
 
 " I wonder you all care to bother about a 
 chap like that. I never heard of his idnning 
 the Derby; — hasn't a horse, I suppose, in the 
 world worth describing as an animal of the
 
 70 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 kind ! What's the use, then, of croaking on 
 about a humbug fellow because he's rich, and 
 amuses himself by setting an impudent woman 
 to drive what he daren't himself, I'll be sworn 
 — ta pair of spirited horses round the Eing, or 
 -^where is it ?" 
 
 " I'll have a look at her to-moiTow, if she's 
 out," said an interlocutor, who had not hitherto 
 taken any part in the conversation. 
 
 " Well, let's have done with him. It isn't 
 very amusing, ragging a fellow when he's 
 abthent. I like best teasing a fellow to his 
 face ; then one can see how he likes it/' said 
 the Honourable Francis. 
 
 This seemed generally acquiesced in. The 
 divan was rather tired of hunting on the trail 
 of a fox that had only left his scent on the 
 dewy grass, and didn't show out of cover. 
 
 I do not, indeed, suppose that even another 
 thought on the curling of the fume of a cigar, 
 (of course, nobody dreamed of anything half so 
 nice, in good society, as a short pipe) would 
 have crossed people's minds concerning Mr. 
 Behringbright — or Baron Behringbright, as he 
 might have constituted himself, in right of
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 71 
 
 three acres purchased of the Holy Eoman 
 Empire, when there was a Holy Eoman Em- 
 pire — if Baron, or Mr. Behringbright, had not 
 at this precise moment entered the smoking- 
 room of the Dolce-Ear-Niente Club.
 
 72 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 GEORGE COCKER BEIIRINGBRIGHT, WHO MIGHT 
 HAVE BEEN BARON BEHRINGBRIGHT IF ' HE 
 HAD CHOSEN. 
 
 I FLATTER Diyself, as tlie saying is — though 
 probably, like most other people who say so, I 
 flatter myself that I do not flatter myself — that 
 I know as well as any of my brother, or even 
 sister novehsts, what manner of man the hero 
 of a romance ought to be ; and perhaps it would 
 be enough for me to deny — as with great truth 
 I can— that this romance is a romance, to be 
 excused the necessity of pla^dng the Franken- 
 stein to a suitable figurant of the kind on these 
 boards. Even a great and ceremonious prince, 
 of the ancicn regime, returning to Court so 
 oppressed with laurels and the gout that he 
 could hardly mount the great staircase of the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 73 
 
 Tuileries — wMch so many persons liave found 
 it quite easy to slip down — albeit the Grand 
 Monarque himself, all wig and waistcoat, and 
 gracious smiles, stood ready to receive him — 
 held the mayor of a certain town he passed 
 through, excused for not firing a salute of 
 twenty-one guns in his honour, on the score 
 that there was none in the place. And inas- 
 much as, moreover, my hero is not a hero, I 
 may claim increased rights of exemption. But I 
 should wish it to be clearly demonstrated that 
 it is not for want of knowing better that I 
 persist in describing persons and events as they 
 actually were and came to pass. 
 
 It may suffice for this purpose if I give a 
 faint sketch of the properties which I know go 
 to make up a personage of the nature omitted 
 in this story. I know, for example, that the 
 hero of a romance ought to be of a " noble 
 stature ;" that is to say, something between a 
 giant and a man ; or, to bring the notion to the 
 level of the most ordinary capacity, of the aver- 
 age height of a Eoyal Life Guardsman — blue 
 or red, don't matter for the colour — dismounted 
 from his charger, and employed in condescend-
 
 74 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 ing parley witli a nursery-maid and a per- 
 ambulator. I know that he ought to be of 
 " a pale, intellectual complexion ;" and that his 
 hair should cluster in glossy masses of " raven 
 blue-black " around his manly forehead; should 
 define his scarlet upper lip, and, according to 
 the present fashion, hang from his chin in a 
 magnificent, Arab sheik-like beard to his waist. 
 His eyes should be of a " rich hazel brown, fuU 
 of fire and tenderness," excepting when he 
 was sunk in deep melancholy over the reflection 
 that he should not see the heroine of the story 
 again for a good number of intervening chapters. 
 He ought to be dressed in the best black broad- 
 cloth from head to foot, save where a fine white 
 linen shirt-front should be displayed, project- 
 ing in graceful puffs over that tortured seat 
 of sensibility, his breast — like the ornamental 
 cut paper on a rusty fire-grate in summer. 
 The wrists of this shirt ought to be uncom- 
 monly long, though not so long as to conceal 
 the superior length of the taper fingers. These 
 taper fingers are, according to the modern 
 novelist, the most indubitable proof of the 
 hero's aristocratic descent ; for, 'tis said, it takes
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 75 
 
 tkree generations of doing nothing to make an 
 aristocratic liand ; and it is no longer per- 
 mitted to establish the position without 
 farther trouble by letting the nails grow too 
 long to render any species of work possible — 
 which was the right thing in the time of the 
 great king alluded to ere while. Finally, I 
 know that a genuine hero's boots should he of 
 lustrous leather, and of the best Parisian make, in 
 order that he may be a hero even to his valet 
 tie chamhre — a race of people said to be more 
 insensible than gravediggers themselves to the 
 claims of exalted humanity over its fellows. 
 
 Thus much to show that it is not through 
 ignorance on the present writer's part, but 
 through the necessity of painting an actual man 
 as he actually is, that I introduce George Cocker 
 Behringbright to the reader's notice, under 
 outward presentments extremely unlike the 
 heau ideal here liberally thrown in gratis. 
 
 He was a man, I regret to 'say, very like 
 other men who are not peers of this realm; 
 which makes a great difference, of course, in 
 everything. He was neither tall nor short, 
 nor fat nor lean, but he had good shoulders,
 
 76 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 and stood stoutly on liis lower limbs, as if it 
 would not be easy to knock him off them ; he 
 had a head and face like a vast number of other 
 heads and faces of British manufacture, which 
 you may see every day, in any number, passing 
 from east to west, or from west to east, as the 
 case may happen, under Temple Bar ; thinking 
 hard, but not otherwise meaning any particular 
 harm to any person or thing. A head that 
 was of a good size ; not too big, but with ample 
 space in the upper region for the brains — a 
 space perhaps becoming a little too conspicuous 
 through the slightly grizzled and originally 
 sandy brown, short-cut hair. For Mr. Behring- 
 briglit had not fallen into the taste of the times 
 for hirsute embellishment, and even his chin 
 was as smoothly shaven as a grenadier's of His 
 Majesty King Greorge III. Not that he was 
 so old as to be necessarily bigoted as to his 
 hair ; indeed, in spite of the opinions of friends, 
 I doubt if he was quite forty yet. But it may 
 be, through one of those mistakes into which 
 we are all liable to fall, Mr. Behringbright 
 thought he should look younger without so 
 venerable an appendage as a long beard; forget-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 77 
 
 ful that Fashion is always young, even when she 
 powders her locks in complaisance to an old 
 king, grown grey in the service. Or perhaps — 
 and this is a good deal likelier than our other 
 conjectures — he would not take the trouble to 
 be of the mode, which, it is well known, in its 
 earlier stages, requires a considerable recess 
 from society before one can emerge with the 
 rudiments of all one's future honours, in some 
 luxuriance of growth, to receive the surprised 
 and occasionally ironical congratulations of 
 one's friends and intimates. 
 
 To continue this authentic description : no 
 sculptor would have selected Mr. Behring- 
 bright's visage as a model of manly beauty. 
 But many persons might have recognised in 
 that face the unmistakable indications of 
 manly good sense, calmness of nerve, and 
 steadiness of judgment. George Behringbright 
 looked the kind of man people would like to be 
 near, if they were in a steamboat on fire in the 
 middle of the Atlantic, or in the thick of a 
 railway collision in a tunnel. There was some- 
 thing at once so deliberate, firm, and tranquilly 
 sagacious in the cut of the middle-sized, sober,
 
 78 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 projecting nose, the steadily-set lips, the high, 
 linwrinkled, but easily compressing forehead, 
 which looked as if it mastered great ideas at a 
 crunch. Not that you would, if a skilful 
 physiognomist, have accepted this man as a 
 person possessed of decidedly comfortable hard- 
 ness of mind or heart ; on the contrary, there 
 was something in the turned- down corners ol 
 the mouth, — in the sensitive and rather shrink- 
 ing glance of those clear grey eyes — that spoke 
 of one who had been capable of great sufferings, 
 and might be capable of more, but would rather 
 not put himself in the way of having to endure 
 them. A man hlase by being ill-used rather 
 than ill-using, but who had had enough of the 
 sort of thing, and intended, if possible, to pass 
 the remainder of his days peacefully. A man, 
 nevertheless, whose remains of youth and 
 original warmth and earnestness of the passions, 
 — it was likely enough, — inclined him to wish 
 to enjoy himself, having ample means, if money 
 be the means, to that end. Heaven knows 
 why this man had ever allowed his name to 
 be sullied by its union w4th that of the daring 
 and disgraceful creature whom the profligates
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 79 
 
 and fools of that day had agreed to call 
 Incognita. 
 
 It would be a wonderfully long story to try 
 and explain an anomaly so startling in the 
 character of a sober London merchant of the 
 nineteenth century, altogether to the satisfac- 
 tion of the extremely rational, and of course 
 unfailingly consistent, reader ; but Mr Behring- 
 bright's personal history might, perhaps, throw 
 some gleams of illumination on the subject, 
 and therefore we may as well introduce a slight 
 sketch of it in this place. 
 
 George Cocker Behringbright was the eldest 
 of the three sons of an immensely rich capitalist, 
 who had risen, by all accounts, from notldng — 
 mushroom like — under the sulphureous mists 
 of the last great European war ; but who much 
 more probably was descended, as he himself 
 always would have it, from a diamond-merchant 
 of Amsterdam of the same name, who, at the 
 period of the real French Eevolution, thought 
 proper to pass over into England with his 
 treasures, and there turned them to an 
 amazingly better account, in the way of bank- 
 ing and loan-mongering.
 
 80 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 The son of this Amsterdam diamond-mer- 
 chant — become English, like most of us, by the 
 circumstance of being born in England — also 
 married an English wife, who allied the some- 
 what dull and lethargic blood of his ancestry 
 with the Saxon-mettled and thoroughly native 
 fluid in the veins of a Miss Smith, of Oaklands, 
 in Surrey, whose father had also risen to a 
 high rank in the moneyed aristocracy of the 
 country by his own exertions. George Cocker, 
 as I have before mentioned, was the eldest 
 result of this alliance; and he was carefully 
 trained, from his childhood upwards, in aU the 
 family faiths and traditions, with the ^dew of 
 his becoming in his turn, in the fulness of time, 
 the head of the great hereditary mercantile 
 firm which, under his sires, had held a foremost 
 place among the richest and most powerful of 
 the trading sea-kings of England. 
 
 At the same time his father — or possibly 
 rather his mother, since it is a kind of ambition 
 that runs very strongly in the Smith family — 
 was desirous that the son should be qualified 
 for a higher position in "society" than the 
 parents had ever been able to achieve, in so
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 81 
 
 aristocratic a commercial country, by mere force 
 of money alone. Mrs. Beliringbriglit wished 
 that the representative of the house should take 
 rank also as a gentleman, and become, perhaps, 
 a Member of Parliament, and a person of 
 consequence in the Legislature ; always, it may 
 be, with an eye to business : for if money is 
 power, so is power money, — in certain cases 
 not unknown to political and financial inter- 
 weavings even in these virtuous times of our 
 own. 
 
 Accordingly, George Cocker Beliringbriglit 
 received what is called a first-class universit}^ 
 education, but he did not exhibit the least 
 liking or attraction towards the more exalted 
 destinies in contemplation for him : on the 
 contraiy, he continued of shy and reserved 
 manners; spoke his mind honestly when he 
 did speak, but abhorred speechifying and all 
 other occasions of public and personal display ; 
 neither did he ever exhibit any keen relish or 
 profound perception in political matters, but 
 rather disliked and shunned them, particularly 
 when women talked about them, — and State 
 policy Avas his mother's favourite hobby. She 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 was democratically inclined, as was natural in 
 a Smith who intended her eldest son for a lord, 
 and kept up a continual croak out of some of 
 the newspapers on the faults of the administra- 
 tion. On the other hand, Mr. Behringbright 
 never pretended to any special airs of his own, 
 but gave in to commerce, and very evidently 
 took as hearty and sincere an interest in follow- 
 ing in the steps of his ancestors, as if those 
 footsteps had led to the clouds. 
 
 I do not say what might have happened, 
 considering the natural contrariety of humanity, 
 if Mr. Behringbright had been commanded by 
 his parents, and entreated by his family in 
 general, to become what he made himself. He 
 might very possibly then have turned his atten- 
 tion another way; but as it was, even his 
 mother was at last obliged to give him up as a 
 hopeless case for political eminence, and to re- 
 linquish her intention of sending him into Par- 
 liament on the opposition benches, and thence, 
 by an easy leap, into the Upper House. She 
 gave him up as a person who was only born 
 to sustain the commercial status of the family, 
 and most determinedly exhibited his ancestral
 
 madp:leine graham. 83 
 
 phlegm and perseverance in going the wa3's 
 his ancestors had always gone. 
 
 Upon this the Baroness — for such George 
 Cocker Behringbright's mother had now con- 
 stituted herself, in despair at her eldest son's 
 stupidity — ^baroness, one may almost say, in 
 her own right, for the intervention of her 
 husband v/as not to be counted for much, and 
 she wore the title on lier cards in no less de- 
 fiance of him than of the Heralds' College of 
 London — the Baroness Behringbright, who 
 was a notable woman in all respects, and per- 
 ceived that no better could be done, set to 
 work in another direction, to regulate her 
 eldest son's career to his advantage. 
 
 Not a marrying man indeed, Mademoiselle 
 Olympe ! How could you expect it ? Why, 
 the poor man had alTeady been married once ! 
 
 ''Marie et hien marre, ma foiT as a great 
 wit could not help observing of another party 
 two hundred years ago, just as great wits of 
 the present day cannot avoid running occa- 
 sionally into the same " confluent small-pox '' 
 of v/ords. 
 
 " Marie et hien marred
 
 84 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 The Baroness's only brother had left an only 
 (laughter, heiress to all his wealth, which was 
 not very greatly inferior in amount to the 
 accumulations of the Behringbright family 
 itself. Nothing had all along annoyed the 
 Baroness more than the notion of those riches 
 passing out of her own family, to which she 
 always believed it legitimately belonged. And 
 now nothing could appear plainer sailing, or 
 more directly pointed out by the finger of 
 destiny, than that the eldest son of the rich 
 Behringbrights should marry his cousin, the 
 wealthy heiress of the Smiths. 
 
 This was not so difficult an enterprise as to 
 make a successful politician of a quiet, honest, 
 kind-hearted young man, brave as a lion in 
 one sense, timorous as a hare in another, and 
 who could not, or would* not, make a speech 
 in public for his life. George Cocker was still 
 very young when his mother took him in hand 
 this way : he was willing to oblige her in any 
 way he could ; he was of a nature peculiarly 
 open to feminine influences in all its details ; 
 and in spite of his outward Dutch phleo-m, 
 and the difficulty of stirring his passions alight, 
 his soul was honeycombed with fire, and easily
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 85 
 
 yielded sparks to the stroke, or even the touch, 
 in those days, if subtly applied. Heaven 
 knows what might have come of it, if the air 
 had been admitted into that whole glowing 
 subterrene, and fanned that hidden mass of 
 igneous matter to a furnace glow ! 
 
 Miss Abella Smith, the heiress, and Behring- 
 bright's cousin, was not, however, exactly the 
 kind of asrent to effect this result: and it is 
 very possible Gr. C. Behringbright might have 
 gone to his grave, like a great many other 
 people, entirely ignorant of the mightier sup- 
 pressed energies in his own nature, but for a 
 series of events and consequences wdiicli make 
 what is called among men, the Chances of Life, 
 and among the supernals. Destiny. 
 
 In point of fact. Miss Aoella Smith was a 
 very common-place personage, and in no wise 
 likely to light up a flame, disastrous or other- 
 wise, in the human heart. If the whole truth 
 must be told, she was particularly what the 
 ladies o^dSS. plain — and, oh me ! how much they 
 mean by the word ! — to look at ; weak and 
 hot-headed internally, almost in equal pro- 
 portion ; and, indeed, to say all, in point of 
 temper, education, constitution even, a spoiled
 
 86 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 child, who only wanted the least possible mis- 
 direction to become a wicked one. 
 
 At the period, however, when he was first 
 requested to court his cousin, George Behring- 
 bright was of an age when it is said that no 
 woman is absolutely displeasing. He had just 
 left school, as it were, for he had made rather 
 a serious business of acquiring information in 
 his university career ; willing, as far as he pos- 
 sibly could, to comply with the expectations 
 of his family. He had mingled very little in 
 society, and his mother took good care, while 
 her projects were brewing, that no fascinating 
 interloperesses should distract the attention of 
 her son. Miss Abella was at least young, and 
 had sufficient of womanly coquetry and pride to 
 desire to overcome an indifference in a member 
 of the opposite sex which it is possible she 
 discerned. She played, therefore, a pretty 
 strong card in the game. Habits of obedience 
 to family authority were also adhesions of 
 their continental extraction, which clung to 
 the Behringbrights in their transplantation to 
 the free and generous English soil, which it is 
 well known suffers no slavery upon it ; not
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 87 
 
 even tlie slavery of filial duty, and patient 
 obedience to tlie commands which were deemed 
 sacred in those foolish old patriarchal days 
 when Jacob waited seven years for his bride. 
 And to all this it must be added, that George 
 Cocker in his ^^ounger days was as tlioroughly 
 impregnated with the family notions on 
 financial subjects as any other member of it, 
 and fully perceived the propriety of keeping 
 Miss Abella Smith's two hundred thousand 
 pounds in it. He was a great deal more 
 mercenary then, poor fellow, than he became 
 at a subsequent period, when he knew the 
 value of money better. 
 
 Accordingly, the Baroness Behringbright 
 was not doomed to failure in everything that 
 regarded her eldest hope ; and in due course 
 she had the extreme satisfaction of knowing 
 that she had beaten a whole swarm of intriguing 
 mammas and fortune-hunters, and of presiding 
 over one of the most splendid marriage break- 
 fasts ever given in May Fair, — the fashionable 
 locality or ere Belgravia was, — in celebration 
 of the union of that distinguislied heir of " one 
 of our most wealthy commercial families, who
 
 88 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 have done so mucli to establish the mercantile 
 greatness of this country on the highest and 
 securest pedestals, with the beautiful and accom- 
 plished heiress of the late excellent and esteemed 
 Moydore Smith, Esq., and Co., of Toadmorton 
 Street, and Groldchamber Hall, Wessex, many 
 years M.P. for the East Eiding of the county 
 of Eichmond." 
 
 I do not suppose — at least, I never read of 
 it — -that there was ever a liner bridal feast, 
 even when an old Plantasfenet kins: wedded 
 him to some damsel who brought him a pro- 
 vince and a war for a dowry. The whole 
 neighbourhood was made wretched for weeks 
 afterwards by the splendour of the fete ; for in 
 spite of all one's natural benevolence, it is not 
 pleasant to see other people apparently super- 
 latively happy. But when the bridecakes, 
 silvered and towered up with all manner of 
 chaste designs by Mr. Gunter, were distributed 
 among the guests ; when the cold fowls and 
 the ham, the only real eatable dishes, and all 
 the other splendid indigestibles, were either 
 devoured or removed otherwise ; wlien the 
 tablecloths of white satin, flowered with silver,
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 89 
 
 were raised, covered with tlie stains of " wine 
 and wittles," in tlie solemn words of the 
 waiters who performed the ceremony, and 
 wondered at the wastefulness of " nobs," who 
 were not content with what would wash ; when 
 the last bottle of fifty dozens of Clicquot's first 
 brand had been drunk in the kitchen to the 
 'ealth of the young pair just departed, by the 
 hiccuping butler and a confused crowd of 
 glaring-eyed other domestics, male and female, 
 rejoicing over the termination of the fatiguing 
 glories of that ever-memorable day, — ;there was 
 still something to follow ; and Mr. and Mrs. 
 George Cocker Behringbright had to live 
 " happy and happy" together ever afterwards — 
 if they could. 
 
 But they couldn't. We have seen and said 
 that Miss Abella Smith was a spoiled child 
 and heiress. What that means in practical 
 exposition, Heaven befriend those whose 
 miserable doom it is to learn. There was no 
 kind of selfishness, absurdity, headlong caprice, 
 insatiable craving and croaking, of which that 
 overwhelming heiress was not capable. Slic 
 did not love her husband, but she persecuted
 
 90 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 him as if slie did. She seemed to consider that 
 he also liad been created by Providence solely 
 to wait upon her caprices, in common with all 
 the rest of the animate and inanimate world. 
 She had a notion, I believe, that the sun only 
 rose and set because she required its light. 
 She considered that her money entitled her to 
 everything, and that no other being in existence 
 had any rights or privileges but such as she 
 could manage to dispense with. Blessed 
 saints ! what a martyrdom she led Greorge 
 Cocker Behringbright during a period of seven 
 long, long, long years ; dating from the second 
 day of their honeymoon, when she ordered him 
 to buy her a nosegay of some pet hothouse 
 flower of her fancy, and went into hysterics, in 
 their travelling carriage and four, because he 
 thought they had better not turn aside from 
 their road to L^^ons and Ital}^ and drive 
 seventy miles or so to the nearest great town, 
 where they could hope to meet with rare 
 exotics of the kind ! 
 
 Mr. Behringbright was, as has been recited, 
 even as a very young man, of much patience and 
 self-control ; but his wife's inordinate exactions
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 91 
 
 grew at last to disturb even liis resigned and 
 pliilosopliical mood. It came to pass, tlien, one 
 nnlucky day, that — although he had the finest 
 of town and country houses, the most gorgeous 
 of furniture, the most splendid of decorations 
 of every kind and sort to his existence — he 
 perceived he was not haj)py. He was very far 
 from happy — he w^as miserable. There was no 
 congeniality between his wife's tastes, manners, 
 or occupations, and his own. They had not 
 an idea in common. She was frivolous, heart- 
 less — insipid in private intercourse beyond 
 expression — far beyond the average run of 
 things in domestic bliss. At the same time 
 she was overbearing, insolent, abusive even, in 
 her whole language and demeanour. Enormous 
 as the portion of her wealth placed at her 
 own disposal was, she managed to be extrava- 
 gant beyond its limits; and yet there was 
 nothing but discomfort and confusion in the 
 gorgeous household. No one was happy in 
 it ; no one thing in its proper place. Above 
 all, this poor woman was bitten witli a very 
 bad form of the Smith rabies, and was bent 
 and determined, whatever it cost to her or
 
 93 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 hers, to become a leading member of fashion- 
 able society. 
 
 What torments, what mortifications, what 
 days and nights of fatigue and joyless dissi- 
 pation — what enormous exjDcnses, in fine, did 
 George Cocker Behringbright undergo, toiling 
 in the galleys of his senseless Cleopatra's de- 
 termination to this efiect ! How did the un- 
 grateful, fugitive waves indeed burn with their 
 gold, as they strained up their Cydnus against 
 all manner of baffling winds and gales, with 
 sails spread vainly purple to the uncongenial 
 and unfavouring skies, that rained pitilessly on 
 them in return, and kept the crew perpetually 
 in wet and steaming garments, suffering all 
 manner of catarrhs and respiratory miseries ! 
 It is quite impossible that anybody, who is 
 allowed to eat a crust of bread in peace in a 
 corner, can have any notion what a wretched 
 life of it George Cocker Behringbright led, as 
 an unwilling, unfit, every way indisposed, quiet, 
 domestic, home-loving leader of ton, by his 
 wife's decree ! 
 
 He grew to hate it at last, and all about it, 
 and to grow sulky, and to refuse to lift the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 93 
 
 oar, at whatever risk of the galley-master's 
 lashing tongue ; and the beginning of a great 
 contention was firmly established between the 
 spouses, one of whom was the most obstinate 
 and self-willed of all possible ignorant and 
 egotistic individuals; the other, that formid- 
 able sort of animal — a patient man driven 
 beyond his patience. 
 
 The performance advanced, of course, in 
 complexity and stormy interest. Reality is as 
 great a dramatist as Shakspere, and does not 
 let her scenes flag. These cunningly-devised, 
 artificial torrents of destiny come to no stand- 
 still either, until the catastrophe is poured in 
 a very natural-looking gush and overflow down 
 the artfully-grouped rocks and chasms, into 
 such fathomless deeps of foam and froth as 
 Niagara itself exults in ! 
 
 It is not to be denied that, besides the 
 abounding elements of contention and rupture 
 that had always existed in the diverse and 
 opposed natures of the ill-matched pair, Mr. 
 Behringbright had discovered in the interval 
 that his wife was decidedly no beauty, and 
 that, in by far the greater part of her proceed-
 
 94 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 ings, she exliibited the most disgusting want 
 of good taste, good manners, and even of a 
 decently good heart, which inexpressibly 
 pained and repulsed his own. Alienation of 
 course followed on these disillusions ; disputes, 
 jealousies, separate apartments, rancorous 
 feuds, friends interfering on all sides. But 
 undoubtedly the main faults still continued on 
 the wife's side — her own friends {mehercle I), 
 even her lawyers, admitted it — up to 'the time 
 when the sad discovery was made of that truly 
 wonderful lapse from all virtue and honour 
 and decency, on the part of Mrs. George 
 Cocker Behringbright, which resulted in the 
 shocking divorce case of which all of us who 
 are permitted to read the papers are aware ; 
 wherein the plaintiff was one of the wealthiest 
 of London merchants, and the defendant a 
 miserable Irish groom ! 
 
 It is not a thing to be dwelt upon; but 
 need we wonder so much now that Mr. Gr. C. 
 Behringbright had continued for some good 
 ten or fifteen years neither a bachelor nor a 
 widower, but a person who was free to marry, 
 and did not show the least sort of inclination 
 that way, in spite of the blandishments of
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 95 
 
 every kind showered profusely on the path of 
 the niiUionnaire merchant ? 
 
 Such Mr. Behringbright had become more 
 than ever since his father's demise, although 
 he had relinquished his wife's fortune to the 
 uttermost farthing, to herself and her paramour, 
 in breaking for ever the links of their alliance. 
 He had apparently found a great solace and 
 refreshment in accumulating riches upon the 
 riches whose vanity he had learned' and known 
 so long. Such had long appeared to be the 
 principal object of his existence, and to that 
 object he devoted all the powers and energies 
 of his mind. To know that other people knew 
 he was growing wealthier and wealthier every 
 day, and admired and applauded him for it, 
 had become his chief means of concealing from 
 himself the hollowness of his existence — of all 
 that he was doing and living for. The noise 
 of a drum perhaps thus silences the convictions 
 of the unfortunate who is condemned to beat 
 it, and who is consoled by observing what a 
 number of still more uncomfortable-lookinsr, 
 yearning vagrants attend upon the dissonant 
 uproar. 
 
 We need no longer be surprised to know
 
 96 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 that tliis man of unbounded wealth fed and 
 lodged and clothed himself as quietly as if he 
 had been only that hapless pauper — of five 
 hundred a year — one of his commentators at 
 the Dolce-Far-Kiente Club. 
 
 He had chambers in the Albany, over a 
 square two yards of mignonette and nasturtiums, 
 with a housekeeper who might have sat for 
 Hecate— only that Hecate is nowhere stated 
 to have snuffed ; and he generally wore a suit 
 of coarse brown tweed, with a shabby hat — 
 especially in summer, when almost every one 
 wore a good one ; highlow boots with drab 
 tops, and big mother-of-pearl buttons : and he 
 carried an umbrella whenever the sky looked 
 threatening ; that is, as often as not. 
 
 Meanwhile, it is true that Mr. Behringbright 
 kept up three fine mansions in the country : 
 one for people to stare through ; another for 
 his mother, the Dowager Baroness, to scold 
 fifteen maids of all kinds of work in ; and a 
 third for an occasional shooting-box, or any- 
 thing else he thought proper. 
 
 On the whole, I think, therefore, that tec 
 need not wonder so much as Lord Eouald
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 9? 
 
 Macdonald did, at a man of that kind of ex- 
 perience showing no excess of delighted eager- 
 ness to avail himself of the lavish overtures 
 extended to him by "Society" to enter its 
 enchanted precincts, and pluck again the 
 gorgeous fruit he had already tasted and 
 found of a species which intelligent travellers 
 have informed people of less migratory habits 
 grows on the borders of the Dead Sea. And 
 I put the crown, I think, on my deductions, 
 when I say that, considering all things, I do 
 not see that ive need be exorbitantly astonished, 
 however much we may be scandalized, at 
 Mr. Behringbright's implication in the vagaries 
 of outrageous Incognita herself. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 98 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 CORi^UMPERE ET CORRUMPI S^CULUM VOCATUR. 
 
 Tacitus, ''De Mor.Gerr 
 
 AND that's what YOU MAY CALL THE WAY OF 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 Free Translation. 
 
 Of course, nobody speaks of a man's private 
 affairs to liis face. Accordingly, when Mr. 
 Behringbriglit entered the smoking-room of the 
 Dolce-Far-Niente Club, the whole conversation 
 about the go-ahead Lady Incognita of the Eing 
 — which, in two senses, in her favour, might 
 have been styled the Prize Eing — ceased. Had 
 ceased, in point of exact fact, only that people 
 were still thinking the subject over in their 
 minds — such, at least, as thought at all ; which 
 was a minority. By far the majority simply — 
 smoked.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 99 
 
 "Do you mean a cigar?" said Mr. Fauntle- 
 roy, as Mr. Beliringbriglit seated himself beside 
 liim, stretclied himself, and yawned a little ; — 
 perhaps at the very sight of an elderly gentle- 
 man opposite, who, acting on a supposition 
 that he was a man of wit and vivacity — which 
 he was at quarter sessions, in that part of the 
 country where his estates lay — was the most 
 insufferable bore in the Club — or in the world, 
 indeed — and merited the name of a Social Evil 
 quite as much as a good many persons of the 
 feminine gender, for whom the politeness of 
 the modern Midnight Kettledrum has invented 
 the term. 
 
 " Yes, and a glass of absinthe." 
 
 "Bitters to the bitter!'* muttered Mr. 
 Fauntleroy, with difficulty keeping his joke 
 undertoned ; but he knew a great deal better 
 than to lose a moneyed friend for a joke. On 
 the contrary, he was all the while considering 
 what he could say to oblige Mr. Behringbright ; 
 meanwhile producing a richly-arabesqued straw- 
 paper fold of cigars — in the original Turkisli 
 wrapper, as they came from the Sultan's manu- 
 factory, you may believe — from which he 
 7— :»
 
 100 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 requested him to select, summoning a fine 
 gentleman in an imposing suit of gorgeously- 
 hued plusli, with a wink of his little finger, to 
 do the other part of the attendance. 
 
 " Thank you.— What kind are they ?" 
 
 " You know I deal only in the mildest 
 articles of all sorts — everywhere but in the 
 'Deadly-Lively'!" replied Mr. Vivian, naming 
 a celebrated, but since defunct, Eeview; — 
 defunct, at least, in the sense in which the 
 great Lord Chesterfield (he of the maxims 
 which have formed so many fine gentlemen) 
 in his advanced age observed to a friend in a 
 similar predicament, "You and I have long 
 been dead — but let us keep the secret." How- 
 ever, no living Eeview can take ofience under 
 the circumstances ! 
 
 " I know you do ; but I like coarse tobacco. 
 Haven't you any Trinchinopoly by you ?" said 
 Mr. Behringbright, speaking as heavily and 
 clumsily as he could, on purpose, in the 
 observation. 
 
 " The brute !" tlioiiglit Mr. Fauntleroy ; but 
 he said, *' My dear sir, no ; I should as soon 
 think of smoking oakum."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 101 
 
 '' Field n(/ oakmn, you mean, don't you?" 
 Ills interlocutor rejoined, with an innocent ex- 
 pression of query, for Mr. Behringbriglit was a 
 cynic of the school of Democritus of Abdera, 
 if he was a cynic at all, and did not laugh 
 much at his own good things. 
 
 Sir Solomon Comynplace made up for that 
 reticence, however. He burst into a guffaw 
 you might have heard at the Fountains (by 
 courtesy) in Trafalgar Square, from where he 
 sat — no great distance, certain]}^ " Ha ! ha ! 
 ha ! Capital — capital ! That's what I call a 
 good hit — a regular oner, Fonty, my boy ! 
 How are your digesters after it ? — By-the-bye, 
 Mr. Behringbriglit, have you heard my last ?" 
 
 "No ; I should like to,'' returned that gentle- 
 man, in the same equable tone ; adding respect- 
 fully to the waiter, who now approached, " A 
 meerschaum of some good flavoury tobacco, Mr. 
 Mullon, if you please." 
 
 Mr. Behringbriglit was not one of those 
 frequenters of public establishments of the 
 kind who believe that all waiters are christened 
 John or George, according to the caprice of 
 the godfather addressing them.
 
 102 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Meanwliile, it had been Mr. Vivian Fauntle- 
 roy's turn to laugh at Sir Solomon Comyn- 
 place's ''oner,' which he did very heartily; 
 because Sir Solomon, though a rich landed 
 proprietor, never lent money in town, whereas 
 the rapper of the repartee (/ave it, under that 
 form, both in country and town. " How do 
 you like yours — come, now? Mr. Behring- 
 bright would be glad to have your lasf^ Sir 
 Solomon ; and I'm sure I join in the request. 
 Bo let's have it." 
 
 " Mr. Behringbright didn't mean tJiaf. I 
 know what he meant !" said Sir Solomon, 
 pettishly. *' How you do giggle, Mr. Fauntle- 
 roy ! — like some great girl just out of long- 
 clothes — I mean, in frocks and trousers, with 
 a hoop, and all that.— It's about the garotters, 
 you know, Mr. Behi'ingbright ; a capital 
 thing l" 
 
 "It must be, if you extracted fun out of 
 them, worthy to be your last. Sir Solomon," 
 the gentleman rej)lied, very quietly. 
 
 This conversation took place, of course, ever 
 so long ago; but, as the system of catching 
 vermin, fattening them, and then shaking
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 103 
 
 them out loose in the barns, has been in vogue 
 for some time, it was not an anachronism, Mr. 
 Critic ! 
 
 " Eegular fun, I tell you ! It's in the form 
 of a conundrum." 
 
 " Is it?" said Mr. Behringbright, and his jaw- 
 did rather fall at the notion. In reality, can 
 there be a greater nuisance in society than 
 being set a puzzle when you want to be quiet, 
 and not to think even about anything worth 
 thinking of? 
 
 "Yes: a first-rate one, though. Would you 
 like to hear it ?" 
 
 " I can't help myself, if you ivill set it me, 
 Sir Solomon," replied the victim, mournfully. 
 " But Vivian here, who is so quick-witted at 
 everj^thing, will have to guess it for you." 
 
 " I shall charge handsomely, Sir Solomon, 
 if I do," the latter gentleman said — " by 
 the hour, in fact; so mind it isn't very 
 difficult." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! by the hour 1 The way 
 they charge on Hampstead Heath !" vocife- 
 rated Sir Solomon. Decidedly the laugh was 
 with him on this occasion, and against Mr.
 
 104 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Fauntleroy, who flushed scarlet — but speedily 
 rallied. 
 
 "Do you usually take asinustrian exercise, 
 Sir Solomon, when you are airing your wits ?" 
 he inquired. 
 
 " Never mind. Sir Solomon ; let us have the 
 conundrum," good-naturedly interposed Mr. 
 Behringbright. 
 
 " You shall, my boy ! It's this," said Sir 
 Solomon, drawing nearer on the divan cushions, 
 where they all sat like a group of enchanters 
 over a fumigation, to the favoured individual, 
 while an indignant glance seemed to exclude 
 Mr. Y. F. from any share in the advantages. 
 There is nothing, be it noted, your flingers of 
 sarcasm at others like worse than the ball back 
 again, as hard as it was thrown. " ^^'^/T be 
 continued, wdth the usual italicized emphasis 
 of a professional conundrum-maker — ''why 
 ought the College of Siirgeoiis to meet and change 
 the name of one of the principal arterial com- 
 munications of the human hoclg ?'' 
 
 Mr. Behringbright shook his head hopelessly, 
 and fumbled in his pocket for a piece of paper 
 to light his meerschaum.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 105 
 
 "Give it up?" 
 
 "No, /don t!" said Mr. Fauntleroy, with 
 convulsive eagerness ; for, after all, there is 
 something quite irresistible, in the smell of the 
 burned bacon-rind in the trap of the conun- 
 drum-maker. We all like to show our parts 
 by finding out his — and so fall into it. 
 
 "What is it, then?" 
 
 Mr. Vivian Fauntleroy, like most other per- 
 sons of particularly brilliant talent, thought ten 
 thousand explanations in a moment, but not 
 the right one among them all. 
 
 " I'll give it up — unless you mean that the 
 carotid artery ought to be re-called i\\Q(/aroffed 
 artery ?'' then queried Mr. Behringbright, wdio 
 was not a person of particularly brilliant 
 talent. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Yes, yes ; but why don't 
 you laugh, Behringbright ? Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 Why, can't you even see a good thing when 
 it's set before you ? Ha ! ha ! ha ! why even 
 Fauntleroy laughs, who's envious, and grudges 
 everybody's good things." 
 
 "So I do, Sir Solomon — everi/hodys but 
 yours r
 
 106 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " It's very good," said Mr. Behringbright, 
 still with perfect gravity, but with a quietly 
 rebuking glance at Mr. Fauntleroy, who was 
 evidently getting rude. " Original, of course ? 
 I'm only asking for Vivian's benefit ; it may 
 be of use to him next time he dines out — and 
 he likes to be original. But I hope none of 
 us will be called upon to see the joke in its full 
 
 beauty as we are toddling home at night 
 
 Eh?" 
 
 This latter exclamation was occasioned by 
 Mr. Y. F. suddenly interposing his hand be- 
 tween Mr. Behringbright's and one of the jets 
 of a gas-lamp, which he had drawn down on 
 the pulley, with a view apparently to light a 
 paper medium at it, which he had drawn from 
 his pocket, for his meerschaum. 
 
 " Why, you are going to burn a billet-doux, 
 no doubt ! Downright sacrilege ! Evidently 
 a female paw. What are you thinking of, Mr. 
 Behringbright ?"' 
 
 " Ah, yes, so it is, — not a billet-doux, how- 
 ever; not exactly all treacle and honey; a kind of 
 epistle I don't relish much, however sweetened 
 up for the palate. — An anonymous one."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 107 
 
 " Anonymous !" I dare say I could tell 
 you the name if I saw the handwritmg," said 
 Mr. Fauntleroy, who besides an inexhaustible 
 fund of curiosity in other people's affairs, 
 j^rided himself on being as knowledgeable in 
 everything scandalous and improper about town 
 as the devil-on- two-sticks himself, shifting the 
 scene from Madrid to London. 
 
 " Look at it, then : if it is a secret, it's one 
 confided to me without my knowledge or con- 
 sent ; but it's only worth burning to light 
 one's pipe." 
 
 Mr. Vivian Fauntleroy took the paper 
 eagerly, and not only scanned the caligraphy, 
 but in a very brief glance mastered the con- 
 tents. It was no additional difficulty for him 
 that it was written in the French language, 
 which of course, as an original English novelist, 
 and also with a view to a di^^lomatic situation, 
 he carefully studied. 
 
 " Why, it's a regular bonne foriiuie, no 
 doubt ; allow me to congratulate you," he 
 observed, laughing as he read. 
 
 "A bonne fortune? how do you mean? 
 Don't you see it's altogether an attack on that
 
 108 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 — that poor stupid girl, who is making such a 
 noise just at present, because there's nothing 
 else happening, in the parks ?'' 
 
 "I see that it says that the writer has it in 
 her power, and is perfectly willing, to expose 
 to the best, the noblest, the most generous of 
 
 men " 
 
 " Spare my blushes, my good fellow !" 
 " When I see them. — To the best, the most 
 generous of men, — the incomparable perfidies, 
 the infidelity without examj)le, of the most 
 ungrateful, the most lost, the least-Avorthy-of- 
 consideration woman in the world; who 
 astonishes the same by her exhibition without 
 pudeur every day, among the nobility and 
 greatness of this virtuous England, whom she 
 scandalizes as well as the main beneficent cause, 
 by the splendour of her iniquity ! I see all 
 this ; but I see also that the writer appoints a 
 place where to make her revelations; states 
 that she is permitted occasionally to accompany 
 a most lovely and interesting youtlifid lady 
 — her charge and pupil — to the French plays 
 at the Theatre of Saint Jacques, as the nearest 
 opportunity to bring the language and correct-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 109 
 
 ness of the Parisian phraseology to the ears of 
 her pupil. And I see that she will be there 
 next Friday, and that the number of Jier box is 
 given, if Monsieur requires any further eluci- 
 dations of a mystery which ought to be mortal 
 to the generous confidence he reposes in the 
 detestable Incognita !" 
 
 "Well, what of all that?" said Mr. Beh- 
 ringbright, who looked at the lively and sar- 
 castically-smiling man about town, with even 
 more than customary seriousness and sim- 
 plicity of meaning in his own eyes. 
 
 " Oh, nothing particular ; you go, of 
 course r 
 
 " I know the night, at all events, and the 
 box is Number One, and I shant forget that 
 any more than other people ; so there's no rea- 
 son why I shouldn't light my pipe with the 
 communication," said Mr. Behringbright, suit- 
 ing the action to the word. 
 
 " Well, I own I myself should have some 
 little curiosity to know the worst that can be 
 said about this extraordinary creature, who is 
 shaking llotten Row from its propriety," said 
 Vivian, eyeing Mr. Behringbright, and won^
 
 110 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 dering how far he durst venture in that direc- 
 tion ; for although he had so confidently given 
 his auditory a few minutes before almost statis- 
 tical figures on the subject, he really knew very 
 little more than other people concerning the 
 relations alleged to exist between the million- 
 naire and the driveress of the celebrated ponies 
 in the silver harness. 
 
 " / haven't : I know the worst that can be 
 said about her," Mr. Behringbright replied, 
 drawing his first puff of consolation. 
 
 " Somebody must be at a dreadful expense 
 with her." 
 
 " Somebody is." 
 
 " And don't you think, sir, — I put it to you 
 as a member of this community, sir, — as a 
 British citizen, sir, — as a subject of Queen 
 Victoria, sir, living in the nineteeth century, 
 sir !" began the extremely right-minded 
 British Independent Member — when he was 
 let down rather flat by Mr. Behringbright's 
 sliding in the calm and unobtrusively querent 
 monosyllable—" Yes ?" 
 
 " ' Yes', sir ! — Do you mean to tell me, sir," 
 the right-minded British Independent Member
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. Ill 
 
 resumed, after a moment's pause, and evidently 
 lasliing himself up to a high foam of eloquence, 
 " that any man, or person, or thing, — however 
 rich, however wealthy, however endued with 
 the best gift of fortune and of successful 
 mercantile speculation — that any person what- 
 ever, I repeat, no matter what his qualifica- 
 tions — has the right to insult the whole British 
 nation, sir, individually and collectively — I 
 repeat individually and collectively, — from the 
 proudest peer of the realm down to the hum- 
 blest crossing-sweeper " 
 
 " An Englishman's house is his castle : I 
 grant you that," said Mr. Behringbright, 
 tranquilly smoking on, but contriving to thrust 
 the observation into the cataract of words, like 
 a boy's stick under Niagara, during one of 
 the orator's gaspings, either for breath, or 
 some accumulative expression of his Demos- 
 thenic emotions. 
 
 " You may have personal reasons of your 
 own, Mr. Behringbright !" the orator now 
 thundered, exasperated at the general laugh 
 that followed on the millionnaire's interposed 
 political truism.
 
 112 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " Of course, if I liave jpersonal reasons, 
 they would be my own !" that gentleman now 
 observed, but with a sudden flash in the calm 
 grey eye, and a brightening colour on the 
 cheek, which denoted that the Saxon Smith 
 within him was rather getting the upper hand of 
 the descendant of the Amsterdam Dutchman. 
 He concluded, however, relapsing into his 
 usual phlegm, — 
 
 "And I hope other gentlemen wiU allow 
 them to remain exclusively so. Only this 
 much I will say, Mr. Eibblesdale, in addition : 
 that people's motives are sometimes better than 
 their actions; and that when the Spartans 
 made their slaves drunk before their childi'en, it 
 was not to teach them to indul^ce in inordinate 
 vinous potations " 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! — Gad, there's a moral even 
 for Incognita's doings !" roared out a really 
 hearty, wholesome, red-and-white Sir-Eoger- 
 de-Coverley-looking elderly gentleman, with 
 county M.P. written on him from head to 
 foot, from a corner, " Gad ! if I didn't always 
 think so, when I knew who was at it, though 
 I couldn't quite find out at first, either."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 113 
 
 " Corae, all of us, there's enough concerning 
 this magnificent Urganda the Unknown of our 
 new Amadis of Gaul !" said Mr. Fauntleroy, 
 who saw that his patron was looking seriously 
 grim and displeased ; a mood in which he was 
 to be respected ; " let's talk of the new sjoecu- 
 lation, Behringbright ; you'll be at the Theatre 
 Michel, won't you, on Friday night ?" 
 
 "AVhat should I go for? — to listen to a 
 Frenchw^oman's abuse of another that isn't ? 
 Is it worth while, do you think ?" Mr. Behring- 
 bright replied, easing off his indignation in a 
 series of rapid pufis, that perhaps transferred 
 the sentiments in his soul into the bowl of his 
 pipe, for it glowed up like a red-hot coal. 
 
 " Oh, stop now, softly ; you are not quite 
 such a young beginner as all that, Mr. Behring- 
 briglit ! Odds my life ! I shouldn't a bit wonder 
 but what some French gouvernante or another, 
 allured by the glorious renown of the Uherality 
 of Incognita's millionnaire, has a project in 
 hand to betray some innocent young beauty 
 confided to her charo:e !" 
 
 " Good heavens ! you don't think so ?" ex- 
 claimed Mr. Bchringbriglit, now turning quite 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 sickly pale, and staring at his vivacious 
 illuminator with an extremely startled ex- 
 pression. 
 
 " Just the thing I should expect." 
 Mr. Behringbright's face grew scalding- 
 hot for a moment — then very much paler than 
 ordinary again. 
 
 " I shall go to Michel's on Friday evening," 
 he said, at last, wdth an apparently painful 
 effort at forming the resolution. " Thank you, 
 Vivian, for putting me up to this — this bonne 
 fortune, I think you call it ! God bless me !" 
 he continued, in a sort of muttered reverie 
 rather than to his hearer, " I didn't mean such 
 a horror as this ! The Spartans never made 
 their slaves drunk before the women, I sup- 
 pose, since that is the way they take example ! 
 But I'll bring one of them to justice," this 
 confirmed misogynist concluded, " if I find 
 her out in such a devilish piece of mischief as 
 this !"
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 115 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE UPPER FALLS. 
 
 "I WONDER what it is Mademoiselle Loriot 
 lias so much to say to Madeleine !" said Miss 
 EosabeUa Sparx, surveying the pair, pupil and 
 Parisienne instructress, from the window of 
 the schoolroom, as they walked arm-in-arm, 
 apparently in earnest conversation, in the 
 enclosure of the grounds. 
 
 " She tells me that she wants to polish her 
 off completely in her French, before she leaves 
 at the end of this quarter," said the eldest 
 Miss Sparx, who, on matters of business, was 
 rather rational, and used vernacular phrases. 
 
 " And I think she will manage it," said Miss 
 Eosabella, drily ; "only I don't think I would 
 have too much of it, sister Susannah, if I were 
 you, while I am away at Captain TroUer's 
 mother's at Fulham. I don't half like that 
 
 8—2
 
 116 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 woman ; and if anything should happen, you 
 know what ruin and disgrace it would bring 
 upon the school." 
 
 " Oh, what could happen ? You had better 
 not go, dear, if you think anything would ! 
 And I am sure I don't know what you want 
 going among that Captain Troller's friends !" 
 said Miss Sparx, entering a feeble protest 
 against things in general. 
 
 " Perhaps not, Susie dear ; only I received 
 an invitation, and have accepted it," said the 
 youngest sister, in a coaxing way. 
 
 Eosabella Sparx was a clever woman; but 
 even the cleverest of us like to be sometimes 
 happy. 
 
 "You shouldn't, dear — at least, until the 
 regular partnership is dissolved. AVhat a pity 
 you mud marry, and go on this visit !" said 
 the eldest sister, with a vague consciousness 
 of impending destiny. 
 
 " Pho ! nonsense ! nothing will happen if 
 you attend to my advice while I am away. I 
 don't think you need mind about having the 
 tile put on the out-washhouse, although we are 
 bound to it by our lease ; but do take care of
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 117 
 
 the girls, Susan. I am very glad that 'Made- 
 leine is going so soon — and I really think it 
 would be best if Mademoiselle Olympe left the 
 school before I did." 
 
 "Oh, why so? She knows French so 
 well !" sighed Miss Sparx. 
 
 "For that very reason," rather absently 
 observed Miss Rosabella ; but at that moment 
 the little prim under-housemaid of the estab- 
 lishment entered with a small but handsome 
 bouquet of flowers, which she tendered to 
 Miss Eosabella with a significant smirk, 
 and the observation, " With Captain Troller's 
 compliments. Miss Eosabella !" and everything 
 else was forgotten in examining, smelling, 
 savouring to the heart's core those wretched 
 flowers. Women are so foolish ! 
 
 I am of opinion that the acute and far- 
 seeing Eosabella Sparx (in what concerned 
 other people) would have been still less satisfied 
 with the extremely friendly and confidential 
 relations existing between Miss Madeleine 
 Graham and the French governess in that per- 
 fected Gymgynoecium, if she could have over- 
 heard the conversation which was taking place
 
 118 MADELEINE GRAHAM, 
 
 at the^ moment between the attached Olympe 
 and her favourite pupil. 
 
 " But — wont he think it — dreadfully odd?'' 
 Miss Graham was remarking, in a rather agi- 
 tated undertone, to her affectionate and 
 judicious adviser. 
 
 "Why should . he ? — wdiy should he? — ^I 
 ask myself, I ask you, I ask everybody. I 
 proffer him a good counsel — an avertissement 
 — which, from my relations with Madame 
 Millefleurs, celebrated modiste of Paris, resi- 
 dent in London, I may be supposed capable 
 to communicate without criminality. You 
 have nothing to do with it ; you are my 
 pupil; your riches parens wish to have you 
 every advantage. We have a box entirely to 
 ourselves at the Comedie Frmigaisej transported 
 to this capital by an entrepreneur of obliging 
 genius, who wishes the English people to 
 survey his national di'ama in the original. 
 Who should wonder? — who should hold up 
 his hands ? And how are you in any way 
 compromised, I ask you ? If it is anybody, it 
 is I — it is I alone ! And I explain to him 
 that, touched with the illustrious generosity of
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 119 
 
 his sentiments, I cannot support to see liim 
 made tlie victim of a perfidious woman who 
 derides his benefits !" 
 
 " But will he not wonder to see me there 
 with you and nobody else ?" 
 
 " Let him wonder ! What matters how 
 much he wonders if he — what you call it ? — 
 if he falls over head, ears, in love with the 
 charming Madeleine ? " 
 
 " I don't see how it follows that he will, 
 Olympe." 
 
 " It is that you do not look in the looking- 
 glass that I look you in." 
 
 " But are you sure that he will not think it 
 very queer of me ? — very bold and strange, you 
 know ?" 
 
 " How so ? What have you to do with it ? 
 You go to the play in quality of my eleve — 
 nothing more." 
 
 " Yes ; but then — should I go with a — a 
 lady — who pretends to know all about Incog- 
 nita?'' 
 
 " Leave to me to explain everything, without 
 the least concern of yours ! Do you think I 
 am not aware it is an honourable matrimony
 
 120 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 we propose, to secure legitimate claims to tlie 
 enjoyment of so vast a wealth ? Is it creatures 
 of a moment we propose to be, like this 
 unhappy Incognita, who is an air-balloon of a 
 young child, which mounts to the sky, only to 
 collapse and fall to the ground at the first touch 
 of the damp ?" 
 
 *' Take care, then, what you do, Olympe, or 
 you might get me into a horrid mess too. I 
 own I don't half like it, when I think of it. 
 Papa wouldn't approve of it, I know, and 
 mamma would be quite frightened. Still, I 
 shall have to go home so soon if I don't tiy at 
 something, and I would rather be married in 
 England. — But don't you say novj, besides, he 
 is a widower ?" 
 
 " It is true : I concealed the most disaorree- 
 able of the situation to the last. Xo ; he is 
 not a widower, but he is tant soit jjeu as good 
 — he is a divorce : he cannot reproach you wdtli 
 his wife — which always they can otherwise !" 
 
 " The one before me, you mean, don't you ?" 
 said Miss Graham, rather drily. 
 
 " And we will not concern ourselves about 
 the one after me, if such a misfortune should
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 121 
 
 arrive," said Mademoiselle, facetiously. " Ah, 
 quel plaisir — what a satisfaction — it is, to 
 avenge ourselves upon men ! After my treat- 
 ment by Camille— my beloved Camille — there 
 is nothing I do not think to myself to owe the 
 whole human race !" 
 
 "He behaved very unhandsomely to you, 
 poor dear," said Miss Graham, trying to utter 
 the commiseration so as to provoke -a^s little as 
 possible the fluent reminiscences of her friend. 
 But precaution was of no use. 
 
 " In the event — in the end — but, ah ! how 
 happy we were, exhausting the torrents of a 
 never- wearying sentiment, until he found out 
 by an unhapp}^ accident I had no money !" 
 continued Mademoiselle Loriot. " Up to a 
 certain point I had persuaded him that I was 
 ric/ie ; almost had I induced him to believe 
 that I was the young immense fortune whose 
 education I superintended ; — obliged therefore, 
 by the circumstances of such a position, to a 
 clandestine correspondence and interviews only 
 — which accounted for all. Ah ! to what extra- 
 vagances does a love i'or one moment not 
 authorized by society drive us ! — Until that
 
 122 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 unhappy discovery, what praises did he not 
 heap upon me for my preference of the intoxi- 
 cation of a delicious sentiment to every motive 
 of interest, every concern for the parvenu 
 views, the mercenary susceptibihties, of a 
 family which aspired to take rank among the 
 loftiest exaltations of the Second Empire, based 
 on material motives and interests only ! Ah, 
 what a dreadful scene when he discovers all ! 
 I remember — my heart remembers, like the 
 echoes of a tomb ! I meet him in the Jardin 
 Mabille, because that, of all places in the world, 
 is the least where a young lady, well educated, 
 of a certain rank, is to be dreaded to be found. 
 What father, of the highest respectability, 
 however animated by a restless suspicion, 
 would seek for us there ? Alas ! it is in one of 
 the most delightful bowers of that Garden of 
 Armida, remote, as far as we can procure our- 
 selves, from the intrusive scent of tobacco, that 
 we are seated, in a pause of the dance, ex- 
 changing vows of eternal fidelity, when the 
 agent of the police surprises us, with his detest- 
 able accusation of me as a person who has 
 forged letters, and expressions of the devotion
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 123 
 
 of a passionate emotion on the part of a young 
 simpleton altogether innocent, — incapable of 
 descending, I mean, from the avide self-love of 
 her position as the daughter of a financier, who 
 aspires to the vulgar elevation of a wife of some 
 
 count or duke of the Second of December 
 
 To ascend, I should say rather — it is my word 
 — to a height of so noble a wing, so full of an 
 abandonment of egotistic motives, so. altogether 
 beyond praise !" 
 
 " You were found out, were you, before you 
 could regularly entrap the greedy fellow ? A 
 regular fortune-hunter, I suppose?" said Miss 
 Graham, who could not see herself — as the 
 stage phrase runs — in the fac-simile character 
 placed before her, or she might not have been 
 so severe upon it. 
 
 "By an unhappy mistake, in the con- 
 fusion and hurry of my toilette for the 
 Jardin (it is supposed I am going to the 
 Innocents for devotion), I leave a fatal letter 
 on the table, of which a femme de chawbrCy 
 my enemy, possesses herself to my destruc- 
 tion." 
 
 *' It is a stupid sort of thing to write letters.
 
 124 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 I don't intend ever to write letters if I can help 
 it," said Madeleine. 
 
 Conld she have foreseen lohat letters she 
 should write ! — loltat destruction they would 
 entail ! 
 
 No more was said at present. The school- 
 bell rang for tea, and no one w^as expected to 
 be absent from that solemn muster round the 
 smoking twdlight urn. 
 
 The next day Miss Eosabella went on her 
 visit to her intended's relations — his mother 
 and sister ; who were under strict injunctions 
 to be pleased with her, but did not well know 
 how, as a considerable portion of their income, 
 and all their enjoyments in life, depended upon 
 keeping their brother unmarried. But in good 
 truth it was like the Discreet Princess turning 
 her back for a few hours on her sisters, shut 
 up albeit they were in a like Tower- without- 
 an-Inlet ! Hardly was Eosabella gone (she 
 w^ore one of the prettiest bonnets, I tliink, \ 
 ever saw ; wdiite chip, trimmed with a shim- 
 mering of lilac feathers and lace and flowers, 
 like an April garden) than Mademoiselle Loriot 
 hastened with her little petition to Miss Sparx
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 125 
 
 — eldest, not wisest, of the daughters of her 
 father and mother. To-morrow was Made- 
 moiselle's fete-day, she explained, with touch- 
 ing sensibility, venting itself in a shower of 
 tears as she spoke ; a day which she should 
 scarcely think a year had elapsed, unless she 
 was allowed to celebrate with a little rejouis- 
 sa?ice cle famille. Uh Men, her aunt, Madame 
 Millefleurs, celebrated artiste of Paris and 
 Londres — in brief, an artiste in embellishment 
 of the most recherchee of the Arcade Whirling- 
 ton — she arrives once more from that beautiful 
 city of her (Mademoiselle Olympe's) tenderest 
 souvenirs ; and she demands with an extreme 
 solicitude to see her beloved niece, td spend 
 one heureuse soiree with her, and tell her all 
 the news of the family. It is in the name of 
 the fondest ties of family, so respected in 
 England, that Mademoiselle demands permis- 
 sion to go to see her aunt to-morrow, to inspect 
 all her beautiful articles of Paris of the first 
 luxury ; and she promises herself to lead with 
 her her favourite pupil, Mees Graham, with the 
 end to bestow upon her the whole nomenclature 
 of the Parisian boutique dc toilette. Alas ! she
 
 126 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 departs so soon ; when shall she have another 
 opportunity ? 
 
 Now, the eldest Miss Sparx was of her own 
 nature the most inoffensive, unsuspicious 
 British woman it is possible well to imagine. 
 She had her weak points certaiuly ; she be- 
 lieved, for example, that she understood 
 Botany ; and as she had several hundred shells 
 neatly arranged in three drawers, on pale-green 
 paper, to represent the ocean, she knew she 
 understood Conchology. But on the whole she 
 was a specimen of an almost extinct species of 
 her genus, we fear, which, knowing no harm, 
 feared none ; and in spite of all Miss EosabeUa's 
 w^arnin^s and cautions, she really and truly be- 
 lieved that Mademoiselle Loriot was simply ani- 
 mated by a good-natured desire to bestow the 
 finishing touches to perfection on her favourite 
 pupil, and procure her at the same time a little 
 pleasing feminine amusement in the inspection 
 of an importation of Parisian knickknacks. 
 More than this kindly British conviction. Miss 
 Sparx had felt rather snubbed and presumptu- 
 ously called to attention by her younger sister, 
 and she felt an irresistible inclination to exhibit
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 127 
 
 some signs of free will and action accordingly, 
 in a reverse manner to that enforced ujDon her, 
 in that sister's absence. The divines are cer- 
 tainly right, and there is a natural tendency 
 in human nature to go the way it is ordered 
 not to ; so that even their sign-posts point so 
 often over grass-grown and desolate roads ! 
 
 " I don't mind giving you your holiday. 
 Mademoiselle ; but if you take Madeleine on 
 the excursion, it must be in the morning," she 
 kindly acquiesced, on these considerations. 
 
 *' But my cousine will not be at home in the 
 morning ; she returns fatigued from the pur- 
 suits of her commerce only in the evening, to 
 a tranquil cup of — what you call it ? — a strong 
 green tea!' 
 
 "Your cousin! I thought you said your 
 aunt?'' 
 
 "It is that I am a foreigner, and do not 
 understand the difference." 
 
 ""Well, but I wont have Madeleine out 
 after dusk," said Miss Sparx, resolutely. 
 " And I don't know that Eosabella would let 
 her out at all without some one — some one 
 else with her."
 
 128 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " Ah, it is an empire of the most unusual, 
 to reign also in our absence !" sneered 
 Mademoiselle, judiciously ; adding coaxingly, 
 " And Madeleine has asked it of me as the 
 greatest favour, without which I should not 
 consent — merely to give her satisfaction. For 
 it is of a necessary diplomacy, Madame is 
 aware, to infuse the best reports of our school 
 in the city, commercial and rich, whither she 
 returns. But after ditsh ? Oh, no, no, no ! 
 Bush lasts till quite night now. We shall 
 return, at latest, at nine." 
 
 Mademoiselle Loriot knew that it would be 
 very easy to miss the omnibus; hazardous, 
 perhaps, but possible, to fail in getting a cab ; 
 so to be able to plead the excuse of a long 
 walk home, to account for a couple of extra 
 hours ; not to mention that Miss Sparx was 
 taking upon herself a responsibility of volition, 
 which might be used to place her in the posi- 
 tion of an accomplice, and, as such, bound to 
 screen any moderate degree of licence into 
 which Mademoiselle might extend the liberty 
 accorded her. 
 
 Still, I am not sure she would have carried
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 129 
 
 lier point if Miss Hortensia had not come in 
 at the moment, and^ on learning the subject 
 in debate, had not pronounced in the most de- 
 cided manner that Madeleine Graham should not 
 be permitted to leave the sheltering walls of 
 the seminary, for even only a couple of hours, 
 under the sole charge of Mademoiselle Loriot. 
 
 This very properly irritated Miss Sparx, and 
 determined her not to submit to dictation. From 
 a person, too, who was always telling people she 
 was I don't know how much younger than — 
 than the person whose opinion she was for setting 
 so unceremoniously aside, — whose authority, it 
 appeared, was to go for nothing in the school ! 
 No : Bosahella had, perhaps, some right to be 
 listened to ; she generally gave some reasons 
 for what she wanted done or not done. But 
 Miss Hortensia seemed to think that because 
 she spoke in that loud, hectoring, play-actress 
 sort of a fashion — put her absolute " Xo " on 
 everything — she was to have it all her own 
 way ! In short, was she. Miss Sparx, the head 
 of the establishment — the achiowled(jed head 
 — the senior partner ; or was she not ? If she 
 teas, she thought she might be considered com- 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 petent to decide itpon such a mere trifle as 
 whetlier a pupil parlour-boarder, quite a grown- 
 up girl too herself, might or might not be 
 allowed to go out for a couple of hours' innocent 
 recreation with one of the senior teachers, who 
 promised to take the greatest possible care of 
 her, and who, every one could see, besides, was 
 greatly attached to her. 
 
 There was a grand quarrel upon this, in 
 which Hortensia used a great deal of line 
 language. She even made her elder sister cry 
 at last, with the Ciceronian weight and majesty 
 of her arguments and invectives. And then 
 Pratilia herself got frightened, and gave in, for 
 Miss Sparx had a most uncomfortable way of 
 going off into hysterics whenever she thought 
 proper; and Finetta being, as we have seen, 
 away on her own concerns, the simple eldest 
 sister's fiat went forth without further opposi- 
 tion, and the young lady was permitted to go 
 out with her attached preceptress, for a few 
 hours, to take tea with Madame Millefleurs, of 
 Paris and Londres, and acquire the nomencla- 
 ture of the articles de Paris of which that lady 
 was an approved marchandL\ and her house the 
 esteemed entrepot.
 
 .^kTADELEINE GRAHAM. 131 
 
 cc 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CE QUE FEMME VEUT. 
 
 " Wouldn't it be delightful, Olympe, if one was 
 not so much afraid ? What a beautiful little 
 house ! What nice boxes ! One is as snug as 
 if one was quite at home, with people getting 
 ready to amuse one. Only I am so frightened. 
 If we should be found out 1'^ 
 
 "Who shall find us cit? Who of the 
 Gynec(^e Sparx ever thinks of to enjoying the 
 pleasures of the theatre ? — a thousand times 
 more, of the T/iedfre Franc^ais ? Which of all 
 that menagerie would dream for one moment of 
 transporting itself to a scene of satisfaction so 
 legitimate ?" 
 
 "But we must take care not to stay too 
 
 long, Olympe ; we shall be like Cinderella 
 
 and tlie pumpkins if we do. I suppose we can 
 
 get home in a cab, as hard as we can tear, \\\ 
 
 9—2
 
 132 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 about half an hour ? So we must go at ten ; 
 half-past ten will be hard enough to account 
 for, you know." 
 
 "But we shall have to change our robes" 
 again, dear child." 
 
 *' Certainly. How kind of that Madame 
 Millefleurs to lend me this pretty white muslin 
 gown, belonging to her daughter ! What a 
 sight I should have looked here in my blue 
 stuff frock, shouldn't I ?" 
 
 " Madame Millefleurs is all goodness. One 
 should not say it of one's aunt, but it is per- 
 fectly true." 
 
 " But I thought you told me you had no 
 relations in the world — were a pupil of the 
 Enfans Trouves .^" said Madeleine : not dis- 
 approvingly, but with a smile at the ridiculous 
 oversight in so clever a person. 
 
 " She is my aunt — by adoption. Corinne 
 Millefleurs loves me — we love one another. 
 She is one of the best of women — she will 
 take care, if even we a little exceed our 
 time, to invent the most plausible excuses 
 for our absence. We can confide in her; 
 do not torment yourself with vain appre-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 133 
 
 hensions, but a23ply yourself to look all your 
 beauty towards the fiftli box from the centre 
 opposite. All ! and, to confess a truth difficult 
 from one woman to another, never did you 
 exhibit yourself more perfectly charmante than 
 in this 7iegli(]ee of white muslin merely, with 
 this simple white rose, sparkling from a 
 shower, with silver dust, in your hair. It is 
 a costume that would become, to admiration, 
 Virgi7iie about to fall beneath a dagger of her 
 father, to preserve her from a tyrant ! 
 ' M- ahandonneS'tu done, mon pere ?' — ' Noii ; 
 mourez, nwurez.JlUe!' " concluded Mademoiselle 
 Loriot, with tears in her eyes, and in so loud 
 and theatrical a tone, on her own account, 
 that if Leicester Square had not mustered very 
 strong in the pit and upper galleries, a large 
 majority of the audience would have been very 
 much surprised. Of such splendid but imma- 
 terial stuff are sentimental virtue and goodness 
 of all sorts made ! 
 
 "Is that Mr. Behringbright's box, Olj^mpe ?" 
 " When he occupies it, as it is certain he 
 will to-night.'* 
 
 " What makes you so sure ?"
 
 134 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " Is it possible even for insular phlegm to 
 resist, at all events, to a movement of curiosity 
 so certain to be provoked? For tliere is 
 nothing men and women more desire to know 
 than what they are convinced it will make 
 them miserable to learn ; witness the torment- 
 ing anxieties of jealousy to discover what will 
 make it deplorable for ever !" 
 
 " But you said he does not care at all about 
 that woman in reality ?" 
 
 " Nevertheless, I persist that he will come ; 
 I have been assured so by a person, attendant 
 on the boxes, who has no motive to deceive 
 me, — on the contrary, on whom I have bes- 
 towed a benefaction. Do not spoil your ex- 
 pression with anxiety of the kind. 
 
 " What is the name of the piece, Olympe ? 
 
 " Ah, that delightful— that full of a frank 
 sensibility co)nedie-vaudcviUe/ Qq que Femme 
 Yeut !' How astonished the Ens^lish audience 
 goes to be ! only it will understand nothing 
 about it ! Pure Parisian is Greek always to an 
 English, no matter how skilful otherwise in 
 the language ; and I do not believe that one 
 of them would be here, were it not that always
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 135 
 
 in England to he fashionable reconciles to every 
 disgust." And not satisfied witli lier recent 
 display in tlie liiglier evolutions of tlie dram- 
 atic art, Mademoiselle began humming one of 
 the impudent airs of the vaudeville with all 
 the necessary j7<ra*(?i^^' and espiefjlerie, — ■ 
 
 " ' Yous avez vu, parfois, faiine d, le croire, 
 Le hanneton, cet insecte naif, 
 Bourdonner un chant de victoire, 
 
 S'U rompt lefil qui le tenait captif I 
 Eeureux aussi d'un conge qui meflatle 
 Du liannetonje comprends lafierte I ' " 
 
 " I can't help thinking you must have seen 
 
 Break from the web a tangled fly, 
 And hum off into the blue serene, 
 
 With a sprightly chant of victory ! 
 Rejoicing also my freedom to employ, 
 I understand, methinks, the cheerful insect's joy." 
 
 " Hush, Mademoiselle dear ! don't you see 
 the people are beginning to look up at us ?'* 
 said Madeleine, in apparent alarm; for, in 
 truth, the demonstration was rather too 
 jprononcee even for Leicester Square, and ''Chut ! 
 chut ! Quest ce que cela signifie .^" arose from 
 the pit like the hissing and fizzing of a whole 
 pond of soda and tartaric acid cast into fusion.
 
 136 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " Oh ! for tlie people — hrihe^ens de parterre, 
 — who cares for the peopled" said Made- 
 moiselle, throwing herself back in her velvet 
 armchair as insolently as if she had been an 
 Austrian archduchess by birth, and a Queen 
 of France by right divine of an unlucky 
 spouse. 
 
 " Sit forward, Olympe ! You ought to be on 
 the look-out, you know. — Mr. Behringbright 
 will be sure to be coming just now, if he means 
 to come at all ; and I must not seem to be 
 looking his way, or he will see through the 
 whole thing at once." 
 
 " It is true, admirable child ! And it is also 
 true that a good pupil always surpasses his 
 master. Behold me, then, beside you, deter- 
 mined to countenance you to my utmost 
 possible. You are right, Madeleine ; the door 
 at the back of Mr. Behringbright's box is 
 opened — the vivid light of the gas in the 
 corridors is visible — he enters ! But also 
 another with him ! I confess it surprises me 
 to see him with another. — And what an- 
 other !" 
 
 "Oh, but do look, Olympe, below !— Oh,
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 137 
 
 wliat a handsome-looking young man staring 
 up at us — at me ! Don't make sucli a noise, or 
 he will think we are doing it on purpose." 
 
 " Do not look at the handsome 9/ou)i(/ men, 
 Mees Graham, or you will ruin all ! Have I 
 not told you to beware of the sensibility of 
 your nature until you have secured a rich hus- 
 band? Look only as I advise you — nearly 
 opposite." 
 
 " How can I look at him ? "Wouldn't it 
 make him think something strange at once ?" 
 
 " In this side-glass, which I have brought 
 on purpose. You shall seem to be looking at 
 quite another person, and you shall see him 
 alone." 
 
 Mademoiselle Loriot now produced one of 
 those dishonest German opera-glasses, which 
 fleet objects from the sides, while the vision 
 seems directed straightforward. Madeleine took 
 it, and, ignorant at first of its qualities, levelled 
 it with eagerness towards a figure in the pit, — 
 exclaimed the moment afterwards, with evident 
 vexation, " No, I don't see him — but I do see 
 the man in Box Number Five. Tioo men. — 
 One of them quite an old fellow, I think, and
 
 138 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 SO glum and stern — looking towards our box. 
 Can that be Mr. Bebringbriglit ? Oh, I don't 
 like his appearance at all, Olympe ! He isn't 
 a bit like a person I should fall in love with of 
 my own accord. He looks exactly like a 
 widower ! What a contrast to the handsome 
 young Frenchman — I suppose he is — in the 
 pit ! — I am sure he is much more deserving to 
 be in the boxes ! And what can the person 
 who is with Mr. Behringbright be? I almost 
 think he is a policeman in plain clothes. He 
 sits so stiff in those he has on, as if he had a 
 poker down his back ; and his coat is buttoned 
 as hard as armour over his breast. I am sure 
 he can't be a gentleman." 
 
 " A policeman — an agent of the police — 
 w^ith Mr. Behringbright ?" said Mademoiselle 
 Lori6t, evidently greatly startled, and shrink- 
 ing back in the box. The acquaintance she 
 had made on a former occasion with func- 
 tionaries of the description seemed not to have 
 appetized her to cultivate an enlarged ex- 
 perience. 
 
 "I should say we had better take no further 
 notice of Mr. Behringbright, Olj^mpe, or we
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 139 
 
 sliall get into trouble. He tliinks I am staring 
 like a great child at the picture on tlie curtain, 
 but I see everything he does; and he is looking 
 so savage over at you, and is whispering the 
 man in the stiff coat, who nods, and, I declare, 
 takes a great vulgar red-and-blue pocket hand- 
 kerchief out of a hat which he has set down at 
 his feet in the box, and wipes the perspiration 
 off his forehead ! It isn't a glazed hat either. 
 But if it is a detective in the disguise of a 
 gentleman ! — Olympe, don't pretend to have 
 anything to do with that letter you 
 wrote. Don't you know that handsome 
 young countryman of yours in the pit? 
 He might protect us, if you did know 
 him." 
 
 " Tell me what sort of a handsome young 
 man it is ? Since you call him so, clilre pcf'tfe, 
 explain to me what you comprehend by him 
 — handsomeT' replied Mademoiselle, endea- 
 vouring to preserve her calm in the conjunc- 
 ture, but by no means exhibiting now the 
 insouciance of the " cheerful insect" celebrated 
 in the vaudeville song. 
 
 " He is of a good height, T should think,
 
 140 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 and, oil, sucli a beautiful figure ! — such a di\dne 
 waist !— just like the pictures in the fashion- 
 books, Olympe ! But it is his face that is so 
 handsome. I declare he almost looks as if he 
 were painted ! Oh, such glorious black hair 1 
 — so thick, and cut the way military men have 
 it ; and such a darling, darling moustache on 
 his upper lip ! I didn't think the Emperor's 
 way of doing the moustache and beard was 
 pretty at all until now ; but oh, how well it 
 looks upon this handsome young fellow ! I 
 suppose it don't become the other man be- 
 cause lie is so ugly, though he has married 
 such a pretty woman." 
 
 '* Oh, for the Emperor, he is plus he an que 
 beau, mon enfant I Let us say it, to provoke 
 these people in the pit, who are mostly emigres 
 of the Second of December. But this Adonis 
 — on the other hand — that you describe. 
 Voyons un pen. After all, a very handsome 
 man is becoming a rarity in our days," said 
 Mademoiselle Olyrnpe, somewhat rallying from 
 her alarm, and seized with a very natural 
 feminine impulse of curiosity. 
 . " Oh, he is looking up again ! Take care,
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 141 
 
 Olympe ! He will know you have turned 
 your glass upon him." 
 
 " Well, let us suppose it so always. Is a 
 man too modest to be looked at, mafoi ? We 
 shall not devour him !" replied Mademoiselle 
 Loriot, producing an ordinary opera-glass, 
 which she had hired for the evening, and 
 levelling it with tranquil effrontery at the 
 object, who, standing upright in the pit, wdth 
 one white-kidded hand turned backwards and 
 resting, with a scented white handkerchief, on 
 the glossy black broadcloth of his surtout, seemed 
 to challenge the world to match him for per- 
 sonal charms, and, in particular, to claim the 
 suffrages of the ladies then and there present. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of him ? Is he 
 some young French Count of the Emperor's 
 new court, Olympe, do you suppose? And 
 don't he keep his splendid black eyes turned 
 up towar4s our box ?" 
 
 " Eh, mon Lieu r exclaimed the personage 
 addressed, in a tone most surprisingly changed 
 from her previous one of lounging indifference. 
 
 " Good heavens ! what is the matter. Made- 
 moiselle Olympe? What makes you get up
 
 142 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 in sucli a friglit?" said Miss Graliam, amazed 
 at her friend's suddenly excited demeanour. 
 
 " Qicest ce que je vols ? — what do I see ? — 
 Ah, quel coup terrible, inattendu /" 
 
 " What is the matter ?" 
 
 " C'est que je me trouve mat — cest que je meurs, 
 mon enfant ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! What can make you so ill all 
 of a sudden ? — There, take my smelling-bottle ; 
 it's beautiful vinaigre i)arfu)ne, you know ; your 
 aunt made me a present of it." 
 
 " Let us leave this place, or — or I'm lost — 
 we are all lost !" 
 
 "What do you mean? Do you think that 
 
 Mr. Behringbright ? It may only be a 
 
 military man with him ; they are as stiff as 
 policemen sometimes, and " 
 
 " I tell you we are lost if we remain ! — Do 
 you not know that Vanity never forgives ? 
 Hear and tremble, my poor child ! This hand- 
 some young man, this Adonis of the parterre 
 you praise so much, — ah, won Dieu! it is 
 Camille ! — Camille Le Tellier, the adored of my 
 earliest sensibilities, but who is capable of 
 overwhelming me with the most terrible disco-
 
 -MADELEINE GRAHAM. 143 
 
 veries in revenge for wliat he supposes to be 
 tlie trick I played on liim in Paris." 
 
 " Couldn't you sit back ? and he wouldn't 
 see you." 
 
 •' Ah ! and you parade before him charms but 
 too certain to excite his attention, since they 
 belong to an occupant of the boxes." 
 
 " Oh, if you 2irQ jealous of me, Olympe, let us 
 go, by all means !" said the young beauty, with 
 a contemptuous, irritated sneer, that certainly 
 added no charm of expression to her counte- 
 nance ; " let us go, by all means, and lose all 
 we came for, besides the expense !" 
 
 " That is true. But at least, dear Made- 
 leine, let me recover myself in the foi/er — 
 arrange my hair before a mirror, with some 
 little more attention to effect. You compre- 
 hend, chere petite, that I dressed myself with 
 a rare prudence on this occasion, to impose 
 upon the apprehensions of the sober English 
 Behringbright." 
 
 " You mean to go to the saloon ? — I don't 
 mind that. I should like to see how I am 
 looking m3^self, if it is quite where other ladies 
 go, of course."
 
 144 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 ^^ Certainement — cela va sans dire! Of a 
 course, of a course ! Support my arm on this 
 side, in this direction, 7non enfant!' 
 
 They made their way accordingly to the 
 saloon of the Thedtre St. Jacques de Londres, 
 which its habitues of that time will remember 
 was fitted up with much luxury and tasteful- 
 ness of Parisian embellishment, and besides, in 
 compliment to the climate, or submission to 
 the opinions entertained of it by the majority 
 of the frequenters, enjoyed the advantage, in 
 the height of summer, of an excellent fire in 
 an enormous grate, before which people ate 
 their ices, and talked almost as pleasantly, as 
 freely, and as loudly as at the ''foyer' of the 
 Varietes itself. 
 
 When Mademoiselle Lari6t and her charge 
 entered upon this scene of social relaxation, it 
 was pretty well filled, though still rather early 
 in the evening. But the performances had 
 not yet commenced, and the salo7i was, besides, 
 one of the principal entrances to the genteeler 
 parts of the theatre. 
 
 The arrival on the scene of so very pretty 
 a youDg girl as Miss Madeleine Graham neces-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 145 
 
 sarily attracted some attention. A buzz of 
 admiration went round tlie salon. Two French 
 gentlemen, wlio were stuffing themselves with 
 sponge-cake and strawberry ices, nearly choked 
 each other in demanding who she was, and 
 complimented " the fortunate Albion," on pro- 
 ducing charms so ndifs^ and capable of exciting 
 emotion even in Parisian breasts. But this 
 first excitement over, it seemed easy- enough to 
 cross to one of the great mirrors in a recess on 
 the other side of the saloon, where any disorder 
 of the toilette might be remedied in compa- 
 rative privacy. And thither Mademoiselle 
 Loriot directed her march ; and all would have 
 been well, if it had not been that the execution 
 of the manoeuvre compelled the pair of illicit 
 jDlaygoers to traverse the folding-doors, which 
 admitted from the exterior world to -the 
 Thespian antechamber. And, lo and behold I 
 just as they reached the exact point, one of the 
 leaves flew open, and there entered, in full 
 evening costume, witli a little crush-hat set 
 knov/ingly under his arm, and an air of 
 expectant enjoyment diffused over his whole 
 visage, no other and no less undesirable a 
 
 VOL. I, 10
 
 146 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 personage than the Eeverend Jabez Bulteell 
 Miss Hortensia Sparx's sweetheart ! — the 
 Eeverend Jabez Bulteel ! 
 
 He explained afterwards, to the Misses 
 Sparx in general, and to Hortensia in parti- 
 cular, that he was at the Theatre St. Jacques de 
 Londres on a new principle of modern divinity ; 
 that it is necessary to know the world jorac- 
 ticalJy — to bring oneself into direct contact 
 with its weaknesses and wickednesses — in 
 order to be enabled to warn its unhappy 
 - denizens of their dangers and delusions. Just as 
 it is advisable for a shepherd to be familiar with 
 all the rocks and precipices of the mountains 
 amid which he pastures his wandering flocks. 
 
 He explained so; completely to Miss 
 Hortensia's expressed satisfaction, whatever 
 might be her mental reservations. She felt 
 that at her maturity it would not do to quarrel 
 with a lover. But it is certain that the ren- 
 contre, in the present instance, was neither to 
 the expressed nor secret satisfaction of any of 
 the parties assisting in it. 
 
 " You here, Miss Graham ! Mademoiselle 
 Loriot !"
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 147 
 
 Mademoiselle Loriot concluded, with the 
 decision of a great general, that it was impos- 
 sible to prove either an alihi or a case of mistaken 
 identity. She took refuge in impudence. 
 
 *' You here, Monsieur 1' Abbe ! I should never 
 have dreamed it. As for us, our appearance is 
 perfectly natural and explicable. My aunt, 
 Madame Millefleurs, had received a present of a 
 — what you call everything ? — a hox\ which she 
 desires me to accept in homage to my fete ; 
 and, overcome by the curiosity and entreaties 
 of Madeleine, I consented." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Loriot, how can you say 
 so? You know it was you proposed it all 
 along, and tooidd have me come !" 
 
 There was no honour among these thieves of 
 pleasure, at all events. 
 
 " It is false, utterly false ! My aunt, who is 
 the best of women, will prove it !" passionately 
 ejaculated the Frenchwoman. 
 
 " Beg pardon, ma'am ; but are you the lady 
 wot wrote to a gentleman of the name of 
 Behringbright, about being here with a young 
 lady, in Box Number One ?" said the sombre 
 voice of destiny at this moment, through the 
 10—3
 
 148 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 lungs of the man in the stiff clothes, who had 
 been observed seated with Mr. Behringbright 
 in Box Number Five, and who now made his 
 entree, tremendous as the statue of the Com- 
 mander in Bon Giovanni, at the portal. 
 " Non, Monsieur — non; je vous le jure!^ 
 " Olympe ! how can you say so ?" 
 " Does any one about know this here French 
 lady's handwriting ?" said the detective, pro- 
 ducing a letter from his side-pocket, which he 
 swung on high, carefully above the possible 
 snatch of Mademoiselle. 
 
 " I do. Mademoiselle Loriot wrote that 
 letter, I am sure," exclaimed Madeleine, 
 agonized at her own fearful complication in 
 the affair, and anxious to escape at any sacri- 
 fice of her friend. 
 
 " Then I've orders to find out your em- 
 ployers, Mad'maselle, and submit this here 
 letter to them, and hact according as they shall 
 decide on ; whether to prosecute you for a 
 conspiracy or not," returned the minister of 
 justice, with stern clarity of exposition. " So, 
 if you please to say who they are, it may save 
 some little time and trouble, and that's aU."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 149 
 
 " Policeman, I — I know this young lady — I 
 will take charge of her home. It is an error 
 of judgment simply on the part of the elder 
 lady, which — which — further exposure is en- 
 tirely unnecessary, and will only damage all 
 parties !" interposed the clerical visitant. 
 
 But the well-feed official was inexorable. 
 
 " I must do my duty. I must see Madam's 
 principals, and go by what they- says, and 
 nobody else," he said; and perceiving that 
 the altercation was exciting a degree of public 
 attention likely to be as destructive as any 
 other species of exposure, all the delinquejits 
 finally submitted to accompany the detective 
 to a cab, which conveyed them to the Sparx 
 Grymgynoecium, — unconscious, for the most 
 part, that a young gentleman, with a fine black 
 Napoleon-the-Third moustache and beard, who 
 arrived in the midst of the discussion, and 
 listened to it with great interest, without 
 taking any part in it, immediately ordered a 
 Hansom to follow in the wake of the four- 
 wheeler that conveyed the belligerents in one 
 cargo home.
 
 150 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 TURNS OF EATE BELOW. 
 
 After all, no great harm came of the affair. 
 
 It is astonishing what humane and Chris- 
 tianlike views one takes of people's conduct, 
 when one's own interests are concerned in 
 keeping things quiet and all right on the sur- 
 face. The eldest Miss Sparx was too really 
 agitated even to think of hysterics, when, 
 already growing exceedingly alarmed at the 
 protracted absence of Madeleine and her 
 chaperon^ she was suddenly called upon to 
 receive a whole cabful of contending state- 
 ments and eclaircissements of causes and effects 
 of so strange a description. But even Miss 
 Sparx perceived, without Hortensia's (for 
 once) plain and unrhetorical statement to the 
 effect, that this affair was not the kind to 
 which to challenge the public attention by any
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 151 
 
 great outciy. And tilings might have been 
 managed even more comfortably than they 
 were, — glossed over, explained away, put out 
 of sight, — but for that confounded detective, 
 who insisted on throwing his bull's-eye on the 
 whole mystery, and directing other people's 
 observation. This gentleman had been so 
 well paid to be honest, that he could not think 
 of being otherwise on the present occasion; 
 and accordingly, in spite of the general wishes, 
 insisted on the principal of the Sparx Gym- 
 gynoecium being put thoroughly " up" — in his 
 own expressive language — to all that had 
 occurred ; handed her Mademoiselle's epistle 
 to Mr. Behringbright, and fully explained how 
 he came in possession of it, until that British 
 old-maid's spectacles trembled like diamonds 
 in an ague on her nose while she endeavoured 
 to read it ; and otherwise went on in the mer- 
 ciless manner of a man who expects no fee or 
 recompence on the other side of the question. 
 Had it not been for the Eev. Jabez Bulteel, 
 who thought that he did not himself figure 
 altogether to his liking in the transaction, Miss 
 Sparx might, in consequence, have gone on like
 
 152 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 a good many other feeble people, thrown into 
 a position that required decision and resolu- 
 tion, and have proceeded at once to extremes. 
 She might, indeed, have given the unfortunate 
 Olympe into custody on the charge of con- 
 spiracy, — vnih whom or for what would have 
 been subjects of after-consideration, — upon the 
 detective's suggestion, had not Hortensia's 
 sweetheart explained to her that it would be 
 the complete ruin of the school, to prove the 
 mistress of it no more competent for the care 
 of young girls than would appear on the face 
 of this transaction. Ultimately, he prevailed 
 upon Miss Sparx to send her compliments to 
 Mr. Behringbright, with many thanks for the 
 trouble he had taken, but with every assurance 
 that, from the high character the principals of 
 EosE-CoLOUR House Gymgyncecium had re- 
 ceived with Mademoiselle Loriot, they could 
 not for a moment entertain the notion that she 
 had any but the best intentions ^ however erro- 
 neously directed, in the violation of regulations 
 she had committed in taking her pupil, un- 
 authorized, to the theatre ; and that, conse- 
 quently, they must decline to prosecute.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 153 
 
 This ivritten message, and a sovereign, satis- 
 fied the detective, who thereupon took his 
 departure; and there was not much further 
 trouble with Mademoiselle Loriot : for, on 
 learning, to her inexpressible surprise and grief, 
 of what she was accused, she wept profusely, 
 and, calling on all the gods of her native land 
 to witness her innocence, declared herself 
 thenceforth perfectly incapable of filling any 
 position in an establishment where the bare 
 suspicion of such perfidy could enter the heads 
 of the principals, and consequently gave her- 
 self an immediate dismissal ; desiring that her 
 clothes (which she carefully packed) and let- 
 ters might be sent after her to her dear friend 
 and relative's, Madame Millefleur's, Mafjasin ; 
 whither she went at once in a second cab, all 
 midnight as it was, pretty certain to find 
 Madame still out of bed and wide awake for 
 the reception of company. 
 
 As for Madeleine Graham, it had already 
 been arranged that she was to leave school at 
 the end of the quarter. And Mr. Bulteel 
 further prevailed — on her sincere assurances 
 that she would never do so a^^ain, and had
 
 154 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 never, in fact, done so at all, but had merely 
 improperly accepted her naughty teacher's 
 invitation to look in for an instant and see a 
 French play — that no more should be said on 
 the subject, and that she should be allowed to 
 stay until the fortnight yet intervening — 
 when her parents had agreed to send for her 
 — elapsed. She was only placed under strict 
 surveillance for the time. And thus the whole 
 troublesome matter was pretty nicely hushed 
 up ; and after those few mutterings of thunder, 
 and that one vivid flash, the tempestuous 
 horizon cleared, and nothing more of a harmful 
 character seemed likely to ensue during the 
 whole week of Miss Eosabella's absence. How 
 to explain Mademoiselle Loriot's sudden de- 
 parture, on the return of the latter lady, 
 remained the only stumblingblock with the 
 two inculpated Misses Sparx ; but, women as 
 they were themselves, they managed at last 
 to take comfort in the conviction that, as Miss 
 Bosabella had recommended the dismissal of 
 this talented instructress, she would not be 
 too curious to investigate the causes why she 
 had her own way given her.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 155 
 
 Nevertheless, another event, and one of 
 some importance, occurred to roughen the 
 wavelets of what should have been a quiet 
 seven days of intellectual labour and improve- 
 ment in the Finishing Academy presided over 
 by the harassed Drona and Pratilia. On the 
 third morning after Miss Eosabella's departure, 
 the clerical guide, philosopher, and friend of 
 the establishment presented himself at an 
 unusually early hour in its precincts, and, with 
 a countenance almost as pale as his cravat — 
 wontedly, indeed, of a very bloodless hue — 
 and an agitation which he had some difficulty 
 in concealing from the penetrating glance of 
 the upper housemaid, asked to see the two 
 mistresses of the house, in a private apartment. 
 The audience being speedily granted, — with 
 particular velocity on the part of Miss Hor- 
 tensia, who imagined that a direct proposal, 
 which she had long panted to hear, was about 
 at length to exude from her lover's otherwise 
 fluent lips, — a very different fact was made 
 patent to her unwilling sense. It was Gazette 
 day ; and as the Sparx Gymgynoecium was 
 intimately connected with commercial circles>
 
 156 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 and Mr. Bulteel took a most friendly interest 
 in the welfare of its conductresses, lie usually 
 perused that somewhat dry and uninteresting 
 portion of the public intelligence very dili- 
 gently through. And he now came to 
 announce to the Misses Sparx that among the 
 names in the muster-roll of commercial ruin 
 he was greatly concerned to observe that of 
 the father of one of their best pupils, — and 
 their own banker, he was afraid ? — Ichabod 
 Maughan, Maughan, and Co., of Threadneedle 
 Street and Calcutta. 
 
 It was even so ; and in the first vehement 
 moments of consternation the poor women had 
 the folly to admit that they had placed the 
 greater part of their lives' savings in the hands 
 of the Messrs. Maughan and Company, who 
 paid the best percentage they could find 
 anywhere ; and thus, in all j)robability, all was 
 lost! 
 
 Fortunately for Mr. Bulteel, he had never 
 yet decisively compromised himself in matri- 
 monial overtures to Miss Hortensia, and he 
 was not so alarmed as he might otherwise 
 have been. He kept his head, and gave the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 157 
 
 best advice in liis power : for, having ascer- 
 tained that Miss Emily Maughan's payments 
 were nearly a year in arrear, owing to a 
 hitherto inexplicable oversight on the part of 
 her sire of late, he recommended that the 
 matter should be broken as gently as possible 
 to that young lady ; that it should be ascer- 
 tained if she had the meanness to know 
 anything about what had happened ;. and that 
 if, as was likely, she pretended ignorance. 
 Miss Sparx should accompany her home at 
 once to Waveringstone Square, to ascertain 
 the truth of the report, and leave her there. 
 For, in reality, there could be no doubt at all 
 about it, and there was no occasion to increase 
 the debt already outstanding. The Eeverend 
 Jabez then partook of lunch, and took his 
 departure, declining, through feelings of the 
 humanest sympathy, which did him honour, 
 to be the medium of conveying such uncom- 
 fortable intelligence to the young lady in 
 question ; and thenceforth — probably from an 
 unwillingness to add to housekeeping expenses, 
 which his once liberal hostesses were no loncfcr 
 so well able to afford — came seldomer and
 
 158 >IADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 seldomer, for a season, to tlie Sparx Gymgy- 
 noecium, until he finally dropped the acquaint- 
 ance altogether; having managed things so 
 discreetly, that Miss Hortensia had it not in 
 her power to produce a tittle of evidence, or 
 the smallest scrap of paper — except a volume 
 of crabhedly- written MS. sermons, which she 
 was copying for him in a fine clear hand — ^to 
 support an action for breach of promise of 
 marriage. All that accrued to her, therefore, 
 from the transaction, was a very common 
 emolument of the British old-maid — the con- 
 viction that she had been extremely ill used 
 by a member of the opposite sex, and the right 
 thereupon to consider all men the most 
 faithless and unhandsome creatures in the 
 world. 
 
 This Emily Maughan, of whom the prattle 
 now is, was the same cordial and frank- spoken 
 young creature who, on the famous wishing- 
 night, when we first took occasion to introduce 
 the reader to the interior economy of a 
 Einishing School in its hours of recreation, 
 had scandalized Mademoiselle Loriot so much 
 by her declaration that she should like such a
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 159 
 
 kind, good husband as her papa made to her 
 mamma, for her portion in life. No great 
 marvel certainly for a man to be so, of sup- 
 posed great wealth, who had married a very- 
 handsome woman for love ; but it was to be 
 seen if this matrimonial tenderness would bear 
 the rough winds now likely to be let in upon 
 its paradisiacal bowers. And poor Emily 
 herself was now to receive her first initiation 
 into the ugly-clawed and sorrowful realities of 
 the world, which the golden wand of the fallen 
 Prospero, her sire, had hitherto kept waved 
 at a distance, while only delicate and rosy- 
 winged sprites tripped attendance on her 
 happy hours. 
 
 It is true that she did not at first in the 
 least understand the meaning of the thing. 
 Emily, though a banker and a merchant's 
 daughter, had never had occasion hitherto to 
 attach any definite ideas to the terms specula- 
 tion and failure^ and found the greatest diffi- 
 culty in bringing herself to comprehend that 
 an English banker, who was supposed to be 
 worth thousands on thousands of pounds, 
 could on a sudden become a beggar, and
 
 160 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 beggar liundreds with him, in consequence of 
 placing himself at the head of an abortive 
 scheme to carry a railway through the jungles 
 and forests of Central India. 
 
 Miss Hortensia, who undertook the task of 
 enlightening this unfortunate pupil on the 
 subject — Miss Sparx declaring herself unequal 
 to the task, and ordering up a knob of sugar 
 and some peppermint, as an excuse for a little 
 good brandy- and- water, which she kept con- 
 venient — found Emily busy at her hour's 
 practice on the piano, executing the variations 
 of a popular melody, contrived with a view 
 solely to dijQ&culty, but with a firm and brilliant 
 touch quite equal to the situation; — all which 
 suggested to Miss Hortensia a very clever way 
 of breaking her disastrous tidings. 
 
 " If ever you should be so far reduced, 
 Miss Maughan," she said, in tones of austere 
 condemnation, "you can fta'/i governess. You 
 can play very well, and are perfectly qualified 
 for the position of an assistant of the kind, 
 even in a nobleman's family." 
 
 " Oh, how queer of you to say so. Miss 
 Hortensia! Governess, indeed, in a noble-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 161 
 
 man's family ! Papa lias often told mamma, 
 laughing, that if I like to marry a young lord, 
 or anything of that kind, he will buy me one. 
 He thinks one can do everything with money, 
 I do believe, and he has nothing else to do 
 with his ; for we are all girls excepting little 
 Eobert, who, he says, shall be a great man too, 
 and Prime Minister, like Sir Eobert Peel, and 
 all sorts of things, some day," said Emily, still 
 making the keys of the piano fly beneath her 
 fingers, as she passed through the ingenious 
 mazes contrived by Liszt or Herz; for th^ 
 express purpose of trying the performer's 
 patience, doubtless, since they answered no 
 other. 
 
 " Then I must say I think it very unhand- 
 some of Mr. Maughan to have deceived and 
 taken in his own child too ; if it is the case, 
 you know nothing about it," said Miss 
 Hortensia, with irrepressible indignation ; and 
 she burst, without further preamble, into as 
 full a revelation of the news as she found it 
 possible to convey to that nursling of ajffluence 
 and luxury. 
 
 But poor Emily began to understand the 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 matter a little better, even before slie quitted 
 the scholastic roof, in the course of the after- 
 noon, in the custody of the eldest Miss Sparx ; 
 to hasten home and ascertain the worst, no 
 less for that lady's relief than her own. 
 
 Her fellow-pupils and companions, who had 
 always hitherto regarded her with the respect 
 due to the daughter of a banker, stared at her 
 as if she had suddenly been struck with some 
 dreadful contagious malady, and showed the 
 undeniable traces of it on her fair young 
 blooming visage. One of the housemaids called 
 her " Hemily," ])ure et simjjie, to her face ; and 
 Molly Elders, the cook, who had taken a strong 
 but altogether unfounded suspicion that it was 
 Miss Emily (it was Mademoiselle Loriot) who 
 had peached about a certain surreptitious party 
 she had given on a level with the area and 
 pantry, said she always thought that pride 
 would have a downfall — that there was a just 
 judgment on everything, and that for her part 
 she did not at all wonder that people who 
 turned up their noses at poor servants, and did 
 what they could to hinjure them, was them- 
 selves brought to the same despicable level.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 163 
 
 All in good time : God pays debts without 
 money; and though she (Molly Elders) was 
 far from wishing Miss Emily ill, she would, 
 perhaps, now find enough to do in her own 
 affairs, without meddling with other people's. 
 
 But it was at home, in the magnificently- 
 furnished mansion of her once wealthy sire, 
 that the most tremendous shock of fate awaited 
 poor Emily. 
 
 Arriving under charge of the eldest Miss 
 Sparx, in a hired conveyance, both of them 
 were struck by observing all the blinds in the 
 stately abode of wealth and commercial gran- 
 deur drawn down closely to the window-sills, 
 and a considerable crowd gathered about the 
 handsome portals. But, in the ignorance 
 and simplicity of the inexperienced arrivants, 
 they thought such an appearance of things 
 was usual in like disasters ; and it was not 
 until they had alighted, and were about to 
 knock at the massive doors, that these sud- 
 denly opened, and quite a procession of some 
 twelve grave and sad-looking gentlemen, mar- 
 shalled by a functionary in a cocked hat, an 
 immense caped coat, and a mace, emerged, and 
 
 U—2
 
 164 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 they heard the fatal buzz running among the 
 crowd. 
 
 " It's the coroner's jury. They've a-been to 
 see THE BODY, and they are going to sit on it at 
 the ^ Crown.'" 
 
 " No doubt they'll bring it in ' Suicide under 
 extenuating circumstances !' " said a facetious 
 ragged-looking fellow in the throng; "for I 
 don't know what you call themy if it isn't when 
 you've a-been a rich banker, and awake some 
 morning without a rap in your pocket, and no 
 taste for backy and beer to comfort you 1" 
 
 Emily fainted, and was borne into the house, 
 where her mother already lay, and had lain for 
 hours, insensible under the shock of her tre- 
 mendous bereavement ; but to the last hour of 
 her life utterly unable to comprehend how the 
 man, who had seemed to love her dearer than 
 himself ever since he had known her, could 
 bear to leave her alone to ruin and despau' — a 
 desolate widow, and the mother of six orphan 
 children — thus ! 
 
 To do the eldest Miss Sparx bare justice, 
 however, she came out in a most remarkable 
 manner in this awful conjuncture, and for about
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 165 
 
 six hours exerted herself like a true Christian 
 and tender-hearted woman, amidst the calami- 
 tous scenes on which she had so suddenly 
 stepped ; in truth, forgot all her own ailments 
 and weaknesses in her endeavour to do some 
 good to these so much more afflicted and un- 
 happy souls around her. But hers were not 
 virtues of stamina to outlast the immediate 
 stimulus of emotion and sympathy ; and when, 
 in the evening, Susannah Sparx left that palace 
 of misery and despair, where the daughter and 
 mother lay moaning and screeching in each 
 other's arms, surrounded by five younger girls 
 and a little boy who howled for sympathy with- 
 out knowing at all why, it was with a firm 
 determination not to expose herself again to 
 the terrors and sorrows of such a spectacle.
 
 166 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CI-DEVANT LOVERS. 
 
 These untoward events were probably the 
 causes why neither of the two bewildered prin- 
 cipals of the Sparx Gymgynoecium took much 
 notice at the time of certain circumstances 
 which would otherwise have attracted their 
 severest notice and circumspection, had they 
 been brought in proper official form under 
 cognizance. 
 
 In the first place, a creature of the most 
 baleful sort known to the heads of seminaries 
 for young ladies, and indeed every other 
 description of guardian of female juvenility — 
 a very handsome young man — had been ob- 
 served prowling around the Gymgynoecium in 
 a most suspicious and unaccountable manner, 
 unless on the supposition that he was insti- 
 gated by those wolfish propensities most to be
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 167 
 
 dreaded by the shepherdesses of such-like silly- 
 sooth flocks ; particularly at the hours when it 
 was to be thought, or report might indicate, 
 that the Grymgynoecium sallied forth on its 
 daily airings and exercises in Kensington Gar- 
 dens. And, what added to the uncomfortable 
 character of the whole proceeding not a little, 
 this very handsome young man had all the 
 appearance, in addition, of being a foreigner ; 
 most probably, from his elegantly- shaped waist 
 (the male British figure, and that of most other 
 nationalities in that division of the human 
 race, seldom presenting to the contemplation 
 any waist at all), a Frenchman. Consequently 
 a personage whose revenues would chiefly lie 
 in his brave spirits and the capital cut and 
 fit of his clothes ; — not to mince the matter, 
 who had probably more knobs of sugar than 
 half-crowns in his pockets; therefore, "Ana- 
 thema Maranatha" for the daughters of wealthy 
 commercial parents. 
 
 Madame Furschener herself, on whom had 
 devolved the duty of parading the young ladies 
 in and out, in safety, after Miss Eosabella's 
 temporary retirement and Mademoiselle Lo-
 
 168 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 riot's resignation — Madame Fiirschener, the 
 most unsuspicious of women, and whose 
 thoughts were always wandering away, from 
 the smooth green lawns and former woodlands 
 of Kensington Gardens to the craggy steeps 
 and wine-distraught pine forests, crowned with 
 the eternal snow summits of her native 
 mountains — and chiefly to yonder quiet little 
 nestling churchyard, under a sky-piercing Alp, 
 where lay the husband of her youth, and two 
 little marble figures that had once been living, 
 prattling cherubs at her side — even Madame 
 Fiirschener remarked this hovering of the 
 enemy on the skirts of her little host at last ; 
 not, it is true, until every girl in the regiment 
 had remarked the fact of the constant reappear- 
 ance of the foreign gentleman on their line of 
 march, and had pronounced him, " Oh, such a 
 beauty of a dear 1" and wondered whom of the 
 company he was in love with, and whether he 
 was the French ambassador or not ; not until 
 Dowsabella Dollards herself had commented on 
 the brightness of his eyes, and wittily won- 
 dered whether he polished them with scouring 
 powder, and the alderman's daughter had
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 169^ 
 
 popularized an opinion that he owed them to 
 the fact of the French having such lots of nice 
 champagne to drink whenever they were 
 thirsty, at home. But hy this time the 
 Maughan calamities had occurred, and the 
 good-hearted Swisswoman felt that it was no 
 time to add to the perplexities and anxieties of 
 her employers. 
 
 More acute observers than any of these 
 young damsels or their dreamy conductress, 
 might possibly have remarked that the hand- 
 some young man had, nevertheless, almost 
 always an aspect of disappointment and sur- 
 prise succeeding the eagerness of the scrutiny 
 with which — treading off the pavement and 
 holding his well-brushed hat aloft with the 
 politesse of his nation — he passed close along 
 their fluttering, chattering, ribbon-flying ranks, 
 reviewing them with those gleaming Proven9al 
 eyes of his. 
 
 Why should this be ? Miss Madeleine Gra- 
 ham, wdio was not permitted to stir out of the 
 grounds of the Gymgyncjecium until a fort- 
 night should consign her to the charge of her 
 jparentele, might possibly have guessed, if she
 
 170 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 had been correctly informed of the circum- 
 stance. As it was, she could only form secretly 
 proud conjectures, from hearing the warm dis- 
 cussions of her young companions as to which 
 of them the homage was addressed to, that it 
 was to none of them, but to a far prettier and 
 likeher individual than all put together, but who 
 was unjustly and shamefully secluded by her 
 superiors, and even forced to give herself out as 
 indisposed, and unwilling to share the out-of- 
 doors recreations of the rest of the fair denizens 
 of the Sparx establishment. 
 
 However, Madame Fiirschener's worst fears, 
 under the responsibility with which she found 
 herself invested, were allayed in a very reason- 
 able manner, a few days after they had begun 
 to develop themselves, and she had resolved to 
 lead her flock quite a different route to their 
 usual one, until this alarming prosecution 
 should cease. The housemaid, who answered 
 the bell, reported that such a fine, handsome, 
 polite young foreigner — who kept his hat 
 off* all the time he spoke to her, though 
 he' must have seen, by her apron and 
 mob-cap, she was only an upper servant —
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 171 
 
 had called, and asked to see Mademoiselle 
 Loriot, — no doubt a countryman of hers, 
 — perhaps a relation, or cousin, or something 
 of that kind (Fanny Clavers was herself 
 much addicted to visits from cousins in the 
 Life Guards) ; for he seemed so disappointed 
 when he heard she was not at home, and 
 wanted so much to know when she might be 
 expected there (which Fanny did not know, 
 and Miss Sparx would not tell), and would a 
 letter left there reach her ? Flattered by find- 
 ing herself treated like a duchess, Fanny said. 
 Of course it would; and a letter accordingly 
 came, directed to the absent Olympe in a 
 small, excessively neat French hand — which, 
 greatly against her will, and after a severe 
 struggle with a wish to break it open, and 
 ascertain what the correspondence was about, 
 Miss Hortensia re-directed and re-posted, 
 without deigning to prepay, to Mademoi- 
 selle, at her relative's, in the Arcade Whir- 
 lington. 
 
 Could this missive have contained a summons 
 which Mademoiselle Loriot either dared not, or 
 did not think proper, to refuse obedience to ?
 
 172 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 I cannot say, not having read it, for it is one of 
 the few documents connected with this history 
 which have escaped my researches. I think I 
 could have made out more, however, than Miss 
 Hortensia did, if I had had the same chances, 
 and — as she had — a candle to make the en- 
 velope transparent ; taking care, of course, not 
 to scorch the paper. But it was the case, that 
 at nine o'clock on a rather windy and wet 
 night, a female form, indifferently well clad 
 but closely veiled, passed before the Marble 
 Arch, with a white pocket-handkerchief, richly 
 scented, in its hand ; and that it was almost 
 immediately afterwards joined by the hand- 
 some young foreign Unknown, whom the 
 daughter of the ex-maid-of-all-work, pupil at 
 Eose-Colour House, conjectured, from his 
 resemblance to a figure stepped from the lid of 
 a box of French prunes, to be the representative 
 of his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor Napoleon 
 the Third. 
 
 " It is you, Mademoiselle Loriot ?" said the 
 Frenchman, in French. 
 
 " It is I, cher Camille !" 
 
 The voice of Mademoiselle Loriot quivered
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 173 
 
 something of real and, perhaps, in a degree, 
 natural and womanly emotion in the response. 
 
 " Do not call me so ! I forbid you. After 
 the wrongs you have inflicted upon me, I forbid 
 it altogether — now and for ever ! Do you not 
 remember that I am that injured Camille Le 
 Tellier, whom you only failed by the merest 
 chance to involve in a ruinous matrimony, and, 
 as it was, engaged in one of the most disagree- 
 able imaginary discussions with Justice — to 
 say nothing of the horror of a situation which 
 convulsed all France with laughter at my 
 expense ?" was the inexorable reply. 
 
 Mademoiselle's vanity maxim was correct, at 
 least as regards her own countrymen ; and true 
 it is, that to be made ridiculous is the most 
 unpardonable of offences with a Frenchman. 
 
 " Mercy, Camille ! I loved you." 
 
 " I did not love you — and even the strongest 
 proof of it would be, if I should find it possible 
 to forgive you ! But take my arm, and let us 
 walk as we speak, and while I name the condi- 
 tions on which I consent not to expose your 
 criminality in the eyes of this strict and 
 prudent English society, which, it seems, has
 
 174 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 received you into the position of an honest and 
 honourable woman, — but which would soon 
 change its opinions, if it once heard that you 
 had lost the original luxuriance of your hair — 
 which, I observe, is the case — under the scissors 
 of the matrons of St. Lazare." 
 
 " Your threats would have been more formid- 
 able, Camille, a few days ago. At present, I 
 find myself in a condition to dispense with an 
 altogether blameless reputation, if only I could 
 boast any degree of the beauty as a woman 
 which, as a man, you can — and do !" replied 
 Mademoiselle, in extremely bitter accents, but 
 taking the arm that was offered her with 
 eagerness. 
 
 " It is only to avoid observation !" returned 
 the cautious ex- victim of the impostress of the 
 Jardin Mabille, receiving Mademoiselle into a 
 lifeless and even repulsing link. " Let us 
 proceed across this park, which exults in the 
 statue of Achilles Surprised — to find himself 
 the Duke of Wellington, no doubt ! — All is 
 dark and silent here, and no spies of the police 
 are to be dreaded in this innocent England, we 
 are assured."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 175 
 
 " But what do you want with me, Camille, 
 since pardon is imj)ossible ? — since you never 
 loved me — never sought my society — except 
 for a supposed wealth, the illusions of which 
 have so long vanished?" 
 
 " Tiens ! I will declare myself without 
 ambages. You are not a woman whose feel- 
 ings require to be respected too much. Tell 
 me, on the other hand, do you not conceive 
 that you owe me some reparation for the dis- 
 graceful intrigue of which you made me almost 
 the victim ?" 
 
 " I am willing to make you any in my 
 power, my dear Camille ; but if you ask money, 
 alas ! I have none, or so little that Madame 
 Millefleurs, who should have been the most 
 zealous and compassionate of my friends, this 
 very morning exhorted me to lose no time in 
 seeking another location than her house ; 
 whither I have betaken myself unwillingly, as 
 a sole refuge in this vast and sepulchral 
 London, the inhabitants of which should rather 
 be styled its mournful and insensible appari- 
 tions !" 
 
 "Is it possible you have left the Sparx
 
 176 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Gynecee ? — why so ?" demanded the handsome 
 prowler around that domicile. 
 
 " You were present at the discussion at the 
 Thedtre St. Jacques — why do you ask? Do 
 you not understand English sufficiently well 
 to have comprehended all that there was of 
 disastrous and unforeseen in that unhappy 
 conjuncture ?" 
 
 " I speak English well — very well ; 1 can 
 pronounce the ws and the tJis ; I am often 
 mistaken for a native English," returned the 
 Frenchman, proudly, and really now in remark- 
 ably English English for a foreigner, continu- 
 ing — " But the explanation is clear enough. 
 For a long time I travel, in the interests of the 
 various manufacturers that honour me with 
 their confidence, in the three kingdoms." 
 
 *' I comprehend. But it is very difficult to 
 speak a language which is a compound of all 
 the languages of the world, and has come down 
 to this excellent Britannic people from the 
 Tower of Babel. — Very well ! You know, then, 
 all that I know myself in tliat affiair ?" 
 
 " I know nothing ; I arrived at the end of 
 the discussion ; but it seemed to me that, as
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 177 
 
 usual, 3^ou were inculpated with the authorities, 
 represented by tlie man wlio handed you a 
 letter, and demanded to know if you had 
 WTitten it." 
 
 " I will explain : in brief, since you have re- 
 sided in England, you understand the rigidity 
 of manners and etiquette that prevails. Very 
 well. I presume to dispense with the per- 
 mission of my employers, and accompany a 
 young girl, one of my pupils, who ardently 
 desires the occasion, to a theatre, where a 
 French piece is to be performed, which, at the 
 time I am myself ignorant, is of a moral which 
 even the most ingenious play-writers of this 
 nation — the countrymen of the boasted 
 SHAXSPEBE, who devote themselves only 
 to the task — have found impossible to adapt 
 to British habitudes. As this young girl is 
 the daughter of parents of great wealth and 
 consideration, I am judged in a high degree 
 culpable, and dismissed from my situation." 
 
 " What ! that lovely young person who, I 
 saw, distinguislied v^c in the parterre, the 
 daughter of people of wealth and considera- 
 tion? Mo/i Lien! this is news worth hearing. 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Seeing her with you, I concluded — I concluded 
 quite otherwise, Mademoiselle !" 
 
 " She is what I say ; but in wdiat can that 
 concern you, Monsieur Le Tellier ?" 
 
 " Did you not admit but this very moment, 
 Olympe, that jo\x owed me a great reparation?" 
 
 "Ah !" And Mademoiselle Loriot gave 
 somewhat of a little scream as she uttered the 
 ejaculation. 
 
 " Do you not admit it, I say ?" 
 
 " I admit whatever you wish me to declare ; 
 
 but • Ah, Camille, Camille ! you cannot 
 
 have the cruelty — the unmanliness — to — to 
 What is it you are about to say ?" 
 
 "The young lady by whom you were 
 accompanied is a familiar acquaintance of 
 yours, you say, in the relations of pupil and 
 instructress ? Well, then, I inform 3^ou that 
 I am attracted, as I never felt before, by the 
 charms of this young lady's beauty, and I de- 
 sire an introduction to her above all things 
 — and in a certain light/' 
 
 " You are attracted, you mean, as you have 
 always been, wretched butterfly ! by the golden 
 glare of wealth, in which you pretend to re-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 179 
 
 cognise the lustre of a noble sentiment, of 
 which you are incapable !" returned Ol^^mpe, 
 with fierce vivacity, and suddenly withdraw- 
 ing her arm from that of her accompanier 
 with a gesture of disdain and malice which 
 would have done honour to a tragedy queen. 
 
 " This is the first occasion in which I behold 
 beauty and wealth in a fortunate combination, 
 Mademoiselle Loriot ! You yourself only pre- 
 tended to wealth when you attempted to en- 
 trap me as your prey in Paris," the handsome 
 young man replied, with cynical relentlessness 
 and composure. 
 
 " Ah, we do not bait traps for jackals with 
 bonbons !" exclaimed Olympe. 
 
 " I have a case in my pocket — you were 
 always partial to honhons in those other days. 
 Let me ofier you some sweetener for your ex- 
 pressions, Mademoiselle !" retorted the justly 
 offended CamiUe, but, strange to say, actually 
 producing a very pretty enamelled silver com- 
 fit-box, and presenting the sugared contents 
 to his still more irritated companion — who, 
 stranger yet, quietly helped herself to three or 
 four candied almonds. 
 
 12—2
 
 180 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 These produced a good effect. 
 
 " At present that I am calmer, speak on ; 
 explain yourself without hesitation. Alas ! I 
 am accustomed to hear little that does not 
 grate on my heart, like the instrument with 
 which they pulverize the nutmeg in the Eng- 
 lish kitchens ;" and Olympe resumed her hold 
 of her former lover's arm. 
 
 " I have stated to you that I desire, above 
 all things, an introduction to that charming 
 young Miss, the daughter of the most wealthy 
 parents; and adopting a hint from the un- 
 handsome trick you played me in a former time, 
 Olympe, I desire you to introduce me to her 
 as a young Frenchman of distinguished rank 
 and ample inheritance — possibly as a Count of 
 the old noblesse, on my pleasure in London — if it 
 be possible to imagine pleasure to be sought 
 in a metropolis the bare aspect of which de- 
 presses the spirits." 
 
 " A Count of the old 7iohlesse I Ha ! ha ! 
 No ; when she does not care in the least for 
 rank, but attaches her ideas exclusively to 
 money, and in England every species of foreign 
 nobility is derided and despised !" snapped
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 181 
 
 Mademoiselle, with a running laugli tlirougli 
 the whole, not unlike the click of an alarm-rattle. 
 
 " Then you must introduce me to her as a 
 person of enormous wealth — one of the illus- 
 trations of the new Eifipire — a fortunate specu- 
 lator." 
 
 Mademoiselle laughed again in the same 
 manner. 
 
 " I shall have to unsay all I have said, then, 
 on your account ; for observing you in the pit 
 at St. Jacques', I took the liberty to boast of 
 the acquaintance, and state exactly who and 
 what you are : — Commis-voyageur of a Lyons 
 silk-house, native of Marseilles, with an old 
 father living in a garret in the quarter of the 
 weavers." 
 
 "You did?" 
 
 'a did." 
 
 " And you will not introduce me at all to 
 Miss ? — as what I am, j^nr d sinqole^ since you 
 have revealed it ?" 
 
 Camille uttered this query considerably more 
 in the tone of a menace. Somehow or other, 
 threats always frighten women, especially if 
 they are vague, and unlikely to be executed.
 
 182 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 "I cannot, Camille," Olympe replied, in a 
 much meekened and, indeed, humbled and 
 deprecatory tone. " I have already told you 
 I have been turned out of my position near 
 this young girl." 
 
 " But you yet have influence over her ; you 
 yet have means of communication." 
 
 " None at all. I have tried to write to her 
 a simple request to forward me a pincushion 
 she had employed herself to work for me ; as a 
 souvenir, for she is about to return also to her 
 native province. And the letter has been re- 
 turned to me unopened, and with the seal 
 scarcely tampered at all with." 
 
 "Perhaps, then, she has already returned 
 to her province ? I have sought her in vain 
 for days — many promenades — among the pupils 
 of the Sparx Grynecee." 
 
 " Ah !" — a cry of physical pain from 
 Mademoiselle Loriot, which, however, ex- 
 pressed anguish of another kind, rather deeply 
 seated in the moral constitution of her sex. 
 
 " Most likely : it is certain !" she then eX" 
 claimed, with vindictive satisfaction. " They 
 have anticipated the fortnight which alone
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 183 
 
 remained to be fulfilled of her half-year's 
 pension; for the English have not the sense to 
 study appearances when they are in a passion." 
 
 " But at all events you can tell me where her 
 province is situated — the names of her parents 
 — her own. Do so, or, trust me, I will render 
 it impossible for you to delude any new family 
 into receiving you as an instructress of youth 
 in England ; and you know, if the police are 
 sufficiently furnished with your renseignemens 
 in France, to render it difficult for you to earn 
 the honest bread which you are compelled to eat, 
 in France 1" 
 
 So spake this handsome young Gaul — a 
 very poor representative of 
 
 " Ces francs Gaulois, aimables et courtois 
 Envers toutes les femmes^ mais surtout 
 Celles quails aimaient /" 
 
 "I will tell you then," said Olympe, re- 
 membering with anguish some passages in a 
 recent conversation she had held with Madame 
 Millcfleurs. ''She is a native of the humid 
 Ireland, of the North, though of a Scottish 
 descent — of the wealthy and famous city of 
 Belfast."
 
 1S4 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 "Her name?" 
 
 " Graham — Madeleine Graham." 
 
 " Wlio is her father?" 
 
 " A rich manufacturer of his city who has 
 abeady been twice its Lord Mayor. No, no, 
 not its Lord Mayor; that is only of London. 
 But he is dignified also with a temporary title of 
 nobility, because he is Mayor, when some great 
 public event occurs to distribute honours : — Sir 
 Orange Graham, Knight. Madeleine has told 
 me so a thousand times." 
 
 "And yet you say she despises rank !" 
 
 "As the English despise it — to adoration !"i 
 
 " Ah, then, all is well ! — What joy ! Learn, 
 Olympe, that it is specially to this city of the 
 humid Ireland that I am accredited by two of 
 my chief houses, to spread their merchandise !" 
 exclaimed Camille, actually executing some 
 steps of a waltz, and compelling his unwilling 
 partner to join in the evolution, in a manner 
 which excited a degree of unfavourable atten- 
 tion from a man in a complete suit of green, 
 like a grasshopper, with a white band round his 
 hat, and her Majesty's badge on his collar and 
 cuffs.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 185 
 
 "^A / ccssez done. — Let me die quietly ! 
 But do you really presume still to cherish de- 
 signs on the daughter of a wealthy British 
 manufacturer, who is also of the temporary 
 nohility of this haughty Albion ?" 
 
 '•Am I not of a figure and general appear- 
 ance to justify some confidence in my resources, 
 Mademoiselle Lori6t ?" said the handsome 
 young man, drawing himself up under a gas- 
 lamp in an attitude, the supreme conceit of 
 which could not, nevertheless, obliterate much 
 of the fact that he loas a remarkably handsome- 
 looking foreigner. 
 
 Mademoiselle Loriot glared at him for a 
 moment, with eyes in which shone several 
 opposite feelings at the same instant — con- 
 tempt, admiration, hatred — and a still mor^ 
 unwomanly sentiment than all, which we will 
 not desecrate the word by calling Love ; and 
 then these passions seemed to fuse like glow- 
 ing metals into one, compounded of all, but 
 different from all ; and she pronounced — or 
 rather hissed like a serpent — these memorable 
 words — ''Go, then, Camille Le Tellier, and 
 woo ^Madeleine Graham to be your bride ; and
 
 186 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 learn, in your turn, with what hardness and 
 insensibihty the human heart is armed, into 
 which the Thirst of Gold has entered, like a 
 master-demon into the frame of the possessed 
 one — expelling all the others, but rending and 
 lacerating the wretched breast itself in which 
 it finds a home !"
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 187 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A GIRL IN BLACK. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright sat in liis office, in a dark 
 chamber of a dark court, separated by its 
 gloomy, ill-paved space from a vast roaring 
 thoroughfare of London City, down which con- 
 stantly thundered one of the great cataract 
 streams of traffic, with its jostling, struggling, 
 headlong roll of mingled mercantile humanity 
 and omnibuses. Nevertheless, a silence which 
 almost stunned people stepping out of that 
 prodigious tumult, reigned in the great mer- 
 chant's precincts, and kept a sort of guard 
 upon his money-making meditations. Clerks 
 shuddered if they heard their own pens 
 scratching on the thick ledger paper, and 
 elderly captains and centurions of the same, 
 in ill-made brown trousers, with pale, tliin,
 
 188 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 aritlimetical heads, partially encased in liigli 
 collars and chokers, and almost to a head 
 bald, stepped on tiptoe as they passed in and 
 out of the sanctum sanctorum, transmitting 
 the commands of their laconic chief. 
 
 " We will take Spurzheim and Olaf's con- 
 signment of wheat from the Baltic, Barnstaple. 
 — Mr. Milroy, Euiz Alarcos's sherry-warrants 
 are not a sufficient security for the cargo he 
 wants us to furnish him for Gribraltar. — I have 
 not had time, Freshwater, to examine the 
 offers of the house at Pernambuco you men- 
 tion. — Are those acceptances of the Maughans 
 of Calcutta looked after, Mr. Baillie ?" 
 
 The great merchant's cranium was evidently 
 divided into pigeon-holes — at least it seemed 
 as if he had separate compartments in it for a 
 hundred different kinds of business arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 The last person spoken to was the onlj^ one 
 of the four head-clerks in attendance who 
 made any audible reply : all the rest merely 
 signified comprehension and obedience by jerks 
 of the head, passing in procession, with heavy
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 189 
 
 tomes under tlieir arms, before tlieir evocator, 
 like the shadowy kings from tlie witches' 
 caldron in " Macbeth." 
 
 Mr. Behringbright said no more at that 
 time to any one, but taking up the Times, 
 began, as it seemed, to peruse the leading 
 article. 
 
 It was only in seeming ; for surely the Times 
 could not have contained a leading article to 
 the following effect : — 
 
 " What a pretty girl she was ! — very young — 
 very young. Eich black glossy hair, a fine 
 complexion, rosy with youth and health; 
 splendid eyes ! Utterly unconscious, evidently, 
 of that dreadful Frenchwoman's designs ; for 
 with what an innocent childishness of attention 
 she kept those lustrous eyes fixed on that 
 stupid curtain ! To be sure there was nothing 
 particularly attractive in a grey old iron-pot 
 head like mine opposite. I don't think she 
 ever looked once at my box, and that shows it 
 is impossible she could have been at all in the 
 plot. And yet it was queer, too, what Digby 
 tells me, that she declared at once the letter 
 was in the handwriting of the wretch of a
 
 190 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 (/ouvernante, althougli it was only a copy from 
 Fauntleroy's recollection of the words and 
 penmanship, as I was such a donkey as to 
 burn the original before I remembered that it 
 would be necessary as evidence. However, he 
 boasts that he can imitate a hand^vriting so • 
 well that he hopes he shall never come upon a 
 blank cheque-book of mine, or it will, he fears, 
 bring him to grief. / will take care he shall 
 not. It is bad enough to lend him one's 
 money, and regulate the amount. No doubt 
 the poor young creature, in her flurry, made 
 sure she recognized the niggling French cali- 
 graphy. What a danger she ran ! What 
 mi(jJtt have happened if I had been a rascal 
 like most other fellows, and taken the goods 
 the gods — no, the devil — provided ! No ; I 
 am very glad I managed the affair as I did. 
 A good conscience is a pleasant thing, and, in 
 fact, I don't think one can attend properly to 
 business with a bad one. How could one 
 calculate the value of a cargo of Odessa wheat, 
 for example, with a brain full of all sorts of 
 wicked plots and contrivances ? It is even 
 very difficult to fix one's attention properly on
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 191 
 
 i business when one's inner man is agitated by 
 the very best of feelings — and all that ; and 
 besides, I have had enough of women and their 
 ways to last one man's life. To be sure, I 
 married t/ieti for money ! But for what else, I 
 wonder, should I expect any woman to take 
 a fancy for me now at my time of life, with 
 hair as mottled as a partridge's breast, and 
 crow's-feet clawing in the corners of my eyes 
 as if they meant to dig them out ? Dull grey 
 eyes, too ! I am not such an ass as to fancy 
 it possible any woman — above all, a young girl 
 in the first lustre of her own beauty and 
 attraction — could marry me for anything but 
 my money ! And if I only wanted to be loved 
 for my money, there are plenty of charming 
 young creatures — of high rank and lineage, 
 too — who are ready to do that — or say they 
 do so at the altar. Mademoiselle is mistaken, 
 however, concerning the fair Incognita. To 
 do that lady bare justice, she does not pretend 
 to the slightest regard or respect for me ; and 
 it is time also to finish tliat outrageous farce. 
 She is discontented, forsooth, because I furnish 
 her with any amount of this coveted gold — to
 
 192 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 sliow tlie contempt I myself have for it, and- 
 for her, and for the vile mobs of high and low, 
 whom its flaunt and glare have amazed and 
 dazzled into an applause and acquiescence 
 which stamp the age — and yet despise and 
 shun her personally. I will send her a note 
 to-day for a thousand pounds, inform her that 
 I am aware of her partiality for my Lord 
 Ninnington, and that I beg henceforth to 
 resign her society in his favour. There will 
 be another villanous creature of the sex properly 
 served out, for Ninnington is little better than 
 a beggar, and a fortnight of this mad woman's 
 extravagance will make him a complete one. — 
 And so perhaps, after all, I am not such a 
 good fellow as I try and persuade myself I am 
 in this transaction? It may be merely the 
 bitter recollections I cherish of that woman 
 which make me thus impenetrable and hard- 
 hearted towards all of her crafty and faithless 
 kind !" 
 
 ''Beg pardon, sir, for interrupting you," 
 said the staid, lugubrious tones of one of the 
 principal clerks, who at this moment thrust his 
 cadaverous-looking head into the room, where
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 193 
 
 it glared from its spare upholding framework 
 over the rails of Mr. Behringbright's desk, 
 almost like a decapitation on a pike in the 
 heyday of Eobespierre and Danton — "Beg 
 pardon, but there's a young lady in black asking 
 to see you. Can't make it out, but she comes 
 on most particular business, she says. Shall 
 I show her in ? or shall I say — you are 
 engaged ?" 
 
 '' Kyouny lady in black, Wrightson?" 
 And the merchant's mind, steadily fixed on 
 the right and proper, as he deemed it, suddenly 
 startled up with something like an emotion 
 of hopeful expectation in connexion with the 
 words, that would scarcely have analyzed 
 exactly into such component parts. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; about seventeen, I should say." 
 " What can she want ?" 
 " She says she must see you, sir, to-day — 
 must see Mr. Behringbright himself," said Mr. 
 Wrightson; a head-clerk of the most correct 
 principles, having a wife, a grandmother, ten 
 children, and two hundred and fifty pounds a 
 year to keep him — a model of virtue in his 
 proper person, but who was not unaware that 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 richer people sometimes deviated from the 
 standards of propriety. 
 
 " What's her name ?" 
 
 " Won't give it, sir. Says, in point of fact, 
 she's afraid you wouldn't see her if she did." 
 
 " Does she ? That's candid, at all events. 
 She can't even be seventeen, I should say, Mr. 
 Wrightson. — Who's with her ?" 
 
 " No one, sir." 
 
 "No one?" 
 
 " Not anybody, sir." 
 
 " Queerer yet. But perhaps that French 
 she-devil is lurking about somewhere ? No, it 
 won't do. The Song of the Syrens is all very 
 fine, but I see the drowned corpses festering 
 deep down in the depths of the green rosy 
 sea!" 
 
 "Sir! — you see — you see tv/iat F'' ejaculated 
 the head-clerk, fairly aghast at such an obser- 
 vation. 
 
 " Ah, you have not had the advantages of a 
 liberal education, Wrightson 1 You know / was 
 originally designed for a parliament man, so of 
 course I learned all the proper claptrap quota- 
 tions. Say I a?ii engaged on most important
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 195 
 
 business, and — and can't be interrupted, espe- 
 cially by a person wlio gives no name, and will 
 not say what she comes about ! — She isn't the 
 innocent, harmless young creature I took her 
 for, and Digby himself is ready to take his 
 davy, he says, she is, from her conduct in the 
 transaction," sighed Mr. Behringbright, in 
 conclusion. 
 
 ''Yes, sir." 
 
 "Wrightson!" 
 
 " I understand, sir." 
 
 " No, you don't. Say I am in, and — and 
 disengaged for a few minutes. I don't know 
 what she can want, but perhaps it's something 
 about a — a little occurrence that took place at 
 a theatre where I was the other night. There 
 was a sort of row, and a policeman took up 
 some woman, and I saw it. And there was 
 another of them in it who was not to blame, 
 and perhaps my evidence may be required in 
 her behalf. Don't you hear ? You stand as 
 if you wore turned into a statue 1 Show the 
 young lady in, — and be ready to show lier out 
 again in a couple of minutes, for I have no 
 time to waste this morning on the rubbish 
 13—2
 
 196 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 women talk, at best, — and this was a squabble 
 at a tlieatre." 
 
 Mr. Wright son smiled a smile equivalent to 
 a gleam of sunshine on ice, and disappeared. 
 
 " If it be as I think, I never will believe in 
 tlie harmless looks of mortal woman 'creature 
 again!" said the mercantile misogynist, as his 
 attendant retired. " It is plain enough what 
 Wrightson thinks ; but he is so good himself, 
 he thinks evil of everybody else. Oh, but 
 won't I give this naughty girl an annihilating 
 reception if she can by possibility have under- 
 taken to carry out her odious preceptress's 
 plan !" 
 
 In spite of this excellent resolution, I do not 
 positively know or affirm that Mr. Behring- 
 bright was not considerably disappointed, as 
 well as surprised, when, the door opening, 
 admitted a very young person, — of the feminine 
 better half of creation, certainly, but of a 
 taller and more slender figure than Madeleine 
 Graham's full rounded outlines : with a fine 
 face, no doubt, but one absolutely colourless ; 
 with fair hair in plain bands, instead of black 
 glossy waves ; and eyes red and swollen round
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 197 
 
 the edges, so as almost to destroy the effect 
 of the clear blue, translucent, tender-souled, 
 and pathetic visual orbs, which did not recall 
 the diamond-bright but diamond-impenetrable 
 glance of the syren of the previous adventure. 
 And the general doleful effect of this exhausted 
 and woebegone figure was heightened by a 
 mourning dress of inferior and carelessly run- 
 together stuff, which was little more fashioned 
 than the garb of a Sister of Mercy in the 
 streets. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright perceived at once that he 
 had never seen this young person before ; and 
 his look expressed that, as well as the feelings 
 previously hinted at, as he rose to receive his 
 visitor, with a good deal more than the average 
 counting-house politeness to strangers. 
 
 The Girl in Black evidently comprehended 
 this part of the position, at all events, for she 
 stammered out some faint, unintelligible 
 apology for the intrusion, and seating herself, 
 or rather sinking into a chair, which Mr. 
 Behringbright instinctively hastened to offer 
 her — to his immense dismay, immediately 
 fainted away in it.
 
 198 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " Good heavens ! slie is going to tumble on 
 the floor. I must support her. — What will 
 the clerks think? Wrightson, for goodness' 
 sake open the window, if you can ; the young 
 woman has fainted. You can't ? Pan the 
 
 door, then, only don't let the other clerks 
 
 Who on earth can she be ? and what can she 
 want ? Stop ! she's coming to. You need 
 not open the door." 
 
 Mr. Wrightson looked as the father of ten 
 children, on two hundred and fifty pounds a 
 year, paid punctually quarterly, ought to look 
 — -as if he thought his employer was very much 
 to blame in the transaction, but that it was 
 not his business to intimate so much in any 
 shape or form whatever — and he did not open 
 the door. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Beliringbright humanely" 
 supported the young lady in her chair, as- 
 siduously fanning her himself, with his hat, 
 snatched from the desk. 
 
 '' She's better now, and I'd better leave them 
 to themselves. I suppose they don't want me 
 to hear their explanations," muttered the head- 
 clerk, preparing to retire, as he witnessed the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 199 
 
 return to consciousness of the mysterious 
 visitant. But Mr. Beliringbright rather un- 
 politely ordered him to remain. 
 
 "You are an ass, Wrightson, I tell you!" 
 he said, fiercely ; " and you shall stop, and see 
 that you are one." 
 
 And, indeed, as soon as the poor girl could 
 find a broken utterance to express her meaning 
 and purpose in so strange a visitation, Mr. 
 Wrightson, at all events, acknowledged the in- 
 justice of his suspicions, though it would be 
 too much to require of any biped so full an 
 admission of quadrupedal standing as was im- 
 plied in the above intimation. 
 
 She stated that her name was Maughan — 
 Emily Maughan; that her father was Maughan, 
 Maiiglian, and Company ; that her mother was 
 nearly dead with grief, and incapable of doing 
 or saying anything ; that poor Papa was to be 
 buried ; that they had no relations in England 
 to apply to ; and she — Emily — was obliged to 
 try and do it all herself, though her heart was 
 broken too. — Only five little orphans, all 
 younger than herself, in the family. — But the 
 execution people that had been put in the
 
 200 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 house on his — Mr. Behringbright Brothers' — 
 suit had taken possession of all the money in 
 the place ; and — and the undertakers, hearing 
 everything was seized upon, would none of 
 them agree to bury poor Papa, unless — unless 
 they might be allowed, through his goodness, 
 only ten pounds out of the money found in 
 
 poor Papa's purse, to — to But then sobs 
 
 and hysterical emotion rendered what should 
 have followed unintelligible. 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this, Wright- 
 son?" exclaimed Mr. Behringbright, consider- 
 ably bewildered. 
 
 " Didn't you see in the paper this morning, 
 sir, that Ichabod Maughan, of the firm of 
 Maughan, Maughan, and Co., of Threadneedle 
 Street and Calcutta " 
 
 " I haven't seen the paper, man alive, to look 
 at it ! — What has happened ?" 
 
 " He had a grand party on the very night, 
 sir, and shot himself in his bedroom, while the 
 footmen were putting out the waxlights. The 
 jury brought it in * Temporary insanity ;' but 
 it ought, in my opinion " 
 
 *' D — n your opinion ! God bless me ! I
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 201 
 
 haven't heard a word about it. But what is 
 it she says about an execution, and — and all 
 that P" 
 
 "TJiat's Mr. Baillie's department, sir; of 
 course we got judgment on the protested bills, 
 and are the execution creditors." 
 
 "Are we indeed?" said Mr. Behringbright, 
 quite aghast at the intelligence. — '' My poor 
 girl, I will not only see to your being furnished 
 
 with sufficient funds to No ; I will myself 
 
 undertake wdiatever ought to be done to give 
 your unhappy parent decent interment. And, 
 believe me, though it was done in the usual 
 course of my business, without my having any 
 degree of personal action in the matter, no 
 one in the whole world can regret more than I 
 do the rash deed into which the pressure put 
 upon him has probably driven your unfortunate 
 father." 
 
 '* No, sir," said Mr. Wrightson, " we did not 
 come in till next day. Baillie lives in the 
 neiglibourhood, and heard of the transaction 
 early on the morning after, and thought we 
 had better go in at once for what we could get, 
 as there were certain to be plenty after. And
 
 202 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 we were only half an hour before Lazarus 
 Groldhar's man." 
 
 "Yes, yes, it was the night before — -just 
 
 after the ball — when poor Papa You were 
 
 not at all to blame, sir ; you had a right ! He 
 only went upstairs first, and kissed poor little 
 
 Eobert in his bed — and then Grod for ever 
 
 bless you, sir, if you will let us only have 
 enough to bury poor Papa !" 
 
 Mr. Behringbright made no reply, but some- 
 thing that was not very unlike a stifled sob 
 rose under his waistcoat, and half choked him 
 in an effort to repress. Then, finding that 
 Emily could now retain her seat without sup- 
 port, he left her suddenly, and flew to an 
 antique triangular cupboard which stood in a 
 corner of the apartment. Thence he returned 
 with a decanter of wine and a goblet in either 
 hand ; filling which latter half full, he insisted 
 that Miss Maughan should swallow the con- 
 tents at once. She could only, however, sip 
 at the edges ; and Mr. Behringbright, finding 
 himself more agitated than he exactly liked, 
 emptied the vessel at a quaff when she handed 
 it quivering back.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 203 
 
 Such was the first mterview between George 
 Cocker Behringbright and Emily Maughan — 
 but not the last. 
 
 The wealthy merchant seemed touched with 
 a kind of remorse for a catastrophe in which 
 he nevertheless felt himself to be as innocent 
 of all art and part as the rules of trade, and 
 legal procedure on dishonoured bills, could 
 possibly permit. He himself escorted Emil}^ 
 back to her mournfal home, darkened by the 
 horrible event which had taken place within 
 its once gay and joyous walls. He would 
 have dismissed the officers in possession of the 
 house and effects, under the judgment his sub- 
 ordinates had secured, had it not been clearly 
 demonstrated to him that their departure 
 would only give the signal for a ruder invasion, 
 on the part of half a score of disappointed 
 functionaries of the same species. And he 
 relieved her by his personal offices from all 
 necessity of further interference in the dismal 
 duty of consigning her rash-handed sire to his 
 eternal rest from bills, and banking, and rail- 
 roads through the lurking-places of tiger and 
 serpent. Nay, Mr. Behringbright's bcnevo-
 
 204 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 lence towards the bereaved flimily of his 
 escaped debtor stopped not there ; albeit so 
 many of us arrogate to ourselves that portion 
 of the Divine attributes which avenges the 
 sins of the father on the children. For Mr. 
 Behringbright interested himself, greatly more 
 than even in his quality of creditor for a very 
 considerable amount he otherwise might, in 
 the winding-up of the affairs of the banking 
 firm whose main pillar had so unhandsomely 
 withdrawn, and thus allowed the whole ruin 
 to crumble hopelessly in. He pretended to 
 make the widow and her children an allo^vance 
 from the estate during this process — though 
 anything of the sort was refused in an indig- 
 nation meeting of the creditors, — supplying 
 the deficiency from his own purse ; and when 
 he could no longer veil his generosity under 
 this delicate cover, he asked Mrs. Maughan to 
 oblige him by the acceptance of a hundred 
 and fifty pounds a year, until her little boy 
 could be educated, and be of age to take a seat 
 in his office, and repay the outlay by his ser- 
 vices. And the merchant made this request with 
 such blushing hesitation and confusion, that
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 205 
 
 Mrs. Mauglian, who had been brought up a 
 beauty, faintly revived from her widowed de- 
 jection to a notion that her matronly charms 
 were still appreciated, and that in all proba- 
 bility she had made a conquest of the wealthy 
 Behringbright, Brothers, himself! 
 
 But, truth to say, that man of money was 
 guarded in his triple-plated armour of suspicion 
 and incredulity and experience against far 
 fresher and more seductive, though most inno- 
 cent and scarcely conscious, influences of 
 attraction. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, we have no right to surmise 
 that such could in actuality have been the 
 case, or that any warmer feeling than the 
 deepest gratitude and admiration for the 
 manly and noble qualities of the plain-featured 
 but magnanimous and tender-hearted mer- 
 chant had entered the youthful bosom of 
 Emily Mauglian at this period. But we are 
 forced to admit that Mr. Behringbright him- 
 self grew to remark, with pain and alarm, the 
 brightening of the cheek and eye of the young 
 girl whenever he entered her presence, — the 
 candid simplicity of joy and affection that
 
 206 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 broke out as it were in beams all over her fair 
 and innocent face when be addressed the most 
 casual observation to ber. Possessed witb the 
 notion that it was impossible for any woman 
 to prefer him to all mankind for himself alone, 
 and that the whole sex was animated by 
 sordid and ambitious motives, and was of so 
 false and dissembling a nature, that it was 
 absurd to place any stress on its external 
 demonstrations, of vv^hatever kind, Mr. Behring- 
 bright saw in these signs only the evidences of 
 a natural appreciation, on the part of a modern 
 young lady reduced from affluence to poverty, 
 of his value as a moneyed man. It is true that 
 at the same time he discerned a brave direct- 
 ness and candour of spirit in all Emily 
 Maughan said or did, which seemed at v^ariance 
 with the supposition that she was capable of 
 the insidious meanness his fancy imputed to 
 her. But distrust and suspicion of the whole 
 sex had become a solid foundation of prejudice 
 in his mind, on which to erect every super- 
 structure that could be devised of the sort, and 
 from whose battlemented towers his imagina- 
 tion kept a perpetual and restless watch.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 207 
 
 To all this we may add that the brilliant 
 and voluptuous vision of Madeleine Graham, 
 in the fulness and richness of her early- 
 developed beauty, swam vaguely before Mr. 
 Behringbright's mental vision still, and paled 
 those soft and ineffectual charms on which his 
 actual optics might rest at will. 
 
 Not that the former had made upon him an 
 impression of a strongly commanding and 
 energetic character ; for Mr. Behringbright 
 took no further interest aj)parently of any sort 
 in either the persons or circumstances of Lis 
 adventure at the Theatre St. Jacques ; made 
 no inquiries, and accepted the carefully weighed 
 and meted-out information on the subject of 
 Madeleine Graham which his detective trans- 
 mitted, without analysis or insistence of any 
 kind ; though we are afraid Miss Hortensia 
 Sparx indulged in the figure of rhetoric styled 
 Metonymy — by which places and things are 
 put for others, the cause for the effect, the 
 subject for the adjunct — in the account with 
 whicli she favoured that agent of justice con- 
 cerning the young lady's birth, parentage, and 
 place of residence when at home.
 
 208 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 The senseless coquetry of the spoilt beauty, 
 mother of Emily Maughan, succeeding so soon 
 upon her husband's tragedy, also contributed 
 to disgust and annoy Mr. Behringbright to a 
 very high degree, and confirm all his contempt 
 and apprehension of the ill designs and merce- 
 nary tendencies of the women of his time. He 
 saw her settled comfortably with her younger 
 children (three he sent to school) in a pretty 
 cottage in the salubrious district of Peckham 
 Eye, and then began to fall off very perceptibly 
 in his complimentary visits ; finally dropping 
 them altogether, to the prodigious astonish- 
 ment and incredulity of the silly, weak-minded 
 woman who had taken him so pleasantly and 
 rapidly into the calculations of her widow- 
 hood. 
 
 Even when Emily wrote some time after, 
 very coldly though most respectfully, to Mr. 
 Eehringbright, to beg him to interest himself 
 in procuring her a situation as a governess, 
 that she might be enabled to become an assist- 
 ance instead of continuing a burden on the 
 resources his generosity supplied to her family, 
 he took it into his possessed brain that it was
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 209 
 
 a ruse to bring Mm to a declaration of a kind 
 of paiiialitj, the germs of wlaicli lie was not 
 unconscious might exist in his bosom, but 
 which he was determined should never grow 
 up into a harvest for cupidity and craving of 
 the kind he imputed to this poor girl. Willing 
 also to extinguish any species of hope she 
 might have formed on the subject, he not only 
 complied with the request, but in a manner 
 which evinced anything but a desire on his 
 part to oppose Emily's apparent project of 
 removing herself from his possible presence and 
 association. He offered her a situation with a 
 friend of his own in Ireland — a lady of rank, 
 who had been left a widow with two children, 
 of whose extensive inheritance Mr. Behrinof- 
 bright had accepted the guardianship, under 
 the will of their late father, who had been 
 a particular friend of his ; though he dis- 
 liked the post very much, and had endea- 
 voured to excuse himself from it on the 
 plea of the multiplicity and absorbing na- 
 ture of his own affairs. The younger of 
 these children was a little girl, just of age 
 to require instruction; and this was the 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 pupil destined for Miss Emily Maughan's 
 superintendence. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright had a vague notion that 
 Emily would decline the offer ; perhaps he had 
 ^ven a still vaguer wish that she would do so. 
 He certainly did not represent it under the 
 most alluring aspects. Lady Glengariff, he 
 stated, was an invalid, labouring under an in- 
 curable and very distressing form of malady, 
 who resided in complete seclusion in a dismal 
 old manor-house among the mountains of 
 Kerry. Tlie climate was watery and uncer- 
 tain ; Miss Maughan would live surrounded 
 by a wild and sometimes dangerously im- 
 pulsive and ignorant population ; her only, 
 or at least her chief, companion would be a 
 child of eight or nine years of age. The heir 
 of the family. Lord Glengariff, was a youth 
 ■still under age, had entered the army, and of 
 course was mostly away. Mr. Behringbright 
 certainly added, that if she could make up her 
 mind to these inconveniences, a liberal salary 
 would be apportioned to her, which would 
 enable her to contribute, as she so dutifully 
 desired, to her mother and family's comforts.
 
 •MADELEINE GRAHAM. 211 
 
 and tlie retrieval of their position in the 
 world. 
 
 In short, it was a little to the kind patron's 
 chagrin that this uninviting (in most respects) 
 situation was most readily and gratefully 
 accepted. 
 
 He went to see the Maughans, and to make 
 Emily some little parting present for her 
 expenses, with the letter of introduction to her 
 new patroness. And he was rather perplexed 
 and touched to find her looking unusually pale 
 and thin; and even his well-seasoned incre- 
 dulity sustained rather a liard strain when he 
 observed — which he could not help — how a 
 scarlet flush of excitement mantled over all 
 that paleness, and the blue loving eyes shone 
 up humid with tears, as he pressed the young 
 girl's hand kindly in farewell, and expressed 
 his hope that he should hear good tidings of 
 her occasionally through her mother, or little 
 brother, who had become under his auspices a 
 Blue-coat boy. But it was no time for regret 
 or recall, even if he had felt decisively inclined 
 that way, which was far from being the case» 
 And so they parted — Emily to prepare imme- 
 14— a
 
 213 MADELEINE GRAHAM/ 
 
 diately for her departure to the south of 
 Ireland, and Mr. Behringbright to return 
 to his self-appointed taskwork of converting 
 everything he touched to hard, unenjoyable, 
 unpalatable gold.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 213 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 WESTWARD ho! 
 
 On reflection, it does not strike one as very 
 singular that Mr. Beliringbright should cherish 
 so great an antipathy to being loved — we beg 
 pardon, married — for his money. To say no- 
 thing of his previous domestic experience of 
 the delights of an union contracted under the 
 auspices of Plutus, there is certainly some 
 principle in the human mind which indisposes 
 it to this species of bargain and sale. It is 
 true that it is easily overcome when reason is 
 once permitted to raise her voice in the ques- 
 tion ; especially among the female portion of 
 modern mankind. The days of romance seem 
 to be as thoroughly over there as the most 
 inexorable of fathers or wealthy of uncles of the 
 old school could possibly desire, speaking as to 
 the fact in general. Nevertheless, there may
 
 214 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 be some exceptions, as the progress of this 
 truthful history may perhaps demonstrate. 
 But at present it is through Mr. Behring- 
 bright's organs of vision we contemplate the 
 sex; a little jaundiced, no doubt, from an 
 indigestion of matrimony, but on the whole 
 but too faithful and discouraging to any re- 
 newal of appetite. 
 
 What but this species of obstinately-rooted 
 prejudice could have preserved this wealthy 
 merchant (who, like all great woman-haters, 
 was at heart devoted to the sex) against all the 
 thousand charms and allurements lavishly 
 paraded in his way, and have enabled him so 
 constantly to elude the fling of those wreaths 
 of artificial roses and eglantine from the legions 
 of white-armed nymphs who danced before 
 him constantly in the mazes of society, and 
 took every imaginable chance to hoop him over 
 into those scentless and only gaslamp-blooming 
 circlets ? Tor there were plenty who tried at 
 it, both before and after this little mysterious 
 episode of Emily Maughan — which Mr. Beh- 
 ringbright himself sometimes felt as if he 
 did not quite understand. Eank, beauty.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 21 & 
 
 Fasliion, occasionally even largely-endowed 
 sharers in tlie magnetic influence lie did and 
 did not enjoy in his proper person, were 
 amongst tlie figurantes in tliis sorrowful ballet. 
 But still, like the chaste Prince of the adven- 
 ture of the Valley of False Delights, Mr. 
 Behringbright drew his golden-tissued mantle 
 tighter and tighter round him, and manfully 
 held on his way, avoiding every path, however 
 flower-bestrewed, that seemed to have a ten- 
 dency to debouch at the portals of St. Greorge's, 
 Hanover Square. 
 
 If rank had been an object with him, where 
 was it ranker than in the august pretensions of 
 the Lady Flora Diana Macdonald, a duke's 
 eldest daughter, descended from prehistoric 
 Scottish kings, and the unmixed sjolendour of 
 whose lineage was attested in a dozen pages of 
 Sir Bernard Burke, and even only slightly 
 hinted at as having come to grief, two hundred 
 years ago, in the pages of the Count de Gram- 
 mont ? It is true that the excessive purity of 
 this lady's blood was in part attested by its 
 degree of attenuation and dryness, as in fifty- 
 year-old port, and that it was in like manner
 
 216 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 prone to deposit deep purple incrustations, 
 though rather on the exterior than internal 
 portions of her containing surfaces. And this 
 more especially at the approach of the genial 
 season of spring, when nature, reviving in all 
 her fibres, buds and leafs in every variety of 
 form. Antumn, too, had its vintage in the 
 far-descended Lady Diana's scorbutic visage ; 
 so that on the whole Mr. Behringbright, who 
 never once dreamed of such a thing, had a right 
 to feel exceedingly surprised when my Lady 
 Duchess of Axminster, one fine morning, 
 informed him that everybody had observed for 
 a very long time his afiectionate attentions to 
 her daughter, which she was sure were fully 
 reciprocated; so that, conceiving his silence 
 occasioned solely by a sense of the difference 
 of ra?iky she herself, as a mother, felt it her duty 
 to remove every cause of diffidence, and declare 
 that there was no one the family would 
 welcome more as a son-in-law, however superior 
 in rank, than Mr. Behringbright. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright was rather taken aback ; 
 but his defences were in too perfect order, his 
 gates too well secured, his stores of provisions.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 217 
 
 too carefully laid in, liis artillery too judiciously 
 manned, to be carried, even by so resolute and 
 sudden an assault on the part of the most 
 skilful and enterprising of the dowagers of her 
 time. You would have said, however, that 
 there was neither man nor gun in the citadel, 
 from the silence and passiveness of the resist- 
 ance he opposed, in the first instance ; but 
 when his surprise allowed him utterance, he 
 replied to the enemy with a single discharge, 
 that shattered her whole advance, declaring 
 that the difference of rank was so great between 
 a merchant of the city of London, descended 
 only from merchants, and a lady who had 
 the honour to boast of kings among her an- 
 cestry, that he had never for a moment ven- 
 tured on the presumption my Lady Duchess 
 so erroneously imputed to him, and never 
 .should. 
 
 And he refused ever after to acknowledge 
 himself mistaken, even when Lord Eonald 
 Macdonald, Lady Flora Diana's brother, called 
 upon him in his chambers in the Albany, to 
 assure him that he either must, or stand up as 
 a target for his lordship's pistol practice, who
 
 218 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 was notoriously skilful at that arm. Behring- 
 bright declined both alternatives; and on 
 Lord Eonald producing a riding-whip, and 
 threatening him with it, merely took it from 
 him and turned him out of his apartment. On 
 receiving a written document to the same 
 effect, he further contented himself with swear- 
 ing the peace against his lordship ; but men of 
 honour in general, I believe, thought it very 
 ungentlemanly behaviour on Mr. Behring- 
 bright's part, not to allow his brains to be 
 blown out because it had pleased the Dowager 
 Duchess of Axminster to select him for a 
 victim at the sacrificial altar of Hymen, 
 whereat she officiated as high-priestess. 
 
 If beauty could have carried oJff the palm — 
 aristocratic beauty of the most refined and 
 exquisitely delicate and fascinating order — 
 should not the Lady Eosamond de Vere have 
 figured with the said emblem of triumph in 
 her hand, a veil of the transparent modesty of 
 Chantilly lace falling to her fairy feet, and 
 a wreath of myrtle and orange-blossom on her 
 queenly brow? Was she not currently re- 
 ported to have refused the hand of a young
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 219 
 
 Guardsman, her cousin, whom she really loved, 
 on the mere dim and uncertain prospect of 
 entrapping the great millionnaire ? Yet that 
 was a failure too ; the Lady Rosamond was 
 such a determined coquette that she staked on 
 too many ventures at the same time, and all 
 her balls ran agye. 
 
 Then there was the prodigiously wealthy 
 Miss Muckross Malines, who vras in a some- 
 what similar condition to Mr. Behringbright 
 himself, and had remained unwedded from a 
 suspicion of the motives of her suitors ; which, 
 if one can suppose so much modesty of self- 
 appreciation in woman, her personal appear- 
 ance abundantly justified her in entertaining. 
 But now the equal wealth of the great merchant 
 might have obviated such objections on the 
 heiress's part ; yet there were others on his 
 own, which proved insurmountable. 
 
 Meanwhile time elapsed, and Mr. Behring- 
 bright could not have been supposed to have 
 grown any younger, or to feel any increase of 
 confidence in his unaided personal resources to 
 win the genuine favour of the fair, two years 
 after the date of the period when the reader
 
 220 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 first made his acquaintance in these pages, at 
 the Dolce-Far-Niente Club. About that in- 
 terval had taken place, I find, when one even- 
 ing, just before the closing of Parliament, Mr. 
 Behringbright walked into the great room of 
 the club, looking towards the intended bas- 
 reliefs of the statue of Nelson, with a newly- 
 purchased tourist's knapsack in his hand, a 
 helmet-of-Mambrino-looking wide awake on 
 his head, a thick crabstick, with a bayonet- 
 spring in the handle, tucked under his arm, 
 and attired in a complete suit of strong brown, 
 serviceable-looking tweed, and knickerbockers. 
 The club porter himself, accustomed as he was 
 to the eccentricities of costume on the part of 
 the gentleman who made him the handsome i 
 Christmas-gift of the year, hardly recognised 
 his patron on this occasion, and was about to 
 ask his business as a stranger, when he recog- 
 nised the voice and civility that addressed one 
 of the waiters. 
 
 " Have you a Bradshaw convenient, Mr. 
 Dobson ? I want to look at it ; the one that 
 has the steamboats and all that in it too, 
 you know."
 
 .MADELEINE GRAHAM. 221 
 
 " Yes, sir ; the thick sixpenny." 
 
 The "thick sixpenny" was produced, and 
 Mr. Behringbright, tucking his stick tighter 
 yet under his arm, turned the luminous pages 
 over in search of the information he required. 
 
 " What can Mr. Behringbright be after 
 now ? " said one of the habitues to another. 
 
 " Can't imagine. But ithn't he funny to 
 look at ? " replied the person addressed, putting 
 up his eye glass, and surveying the figure 
 engaged in looking over the Bradshaw with 
 as much interest and curiosity as a naturalist 
 might some new species of animal. 
 
 "Just like Don Quixote starting on his 
 second sally ; fot he looks deuced ill and out of 
 sorts, as if he was hardly quite well yet of his 
 stoning by the galley-slaves,'' rejoined Mr. 
 Vivian Fauntleroy. "But it don't much 
 matter to anybody but himself, I should think, 
 where he goes, how he looks, or what becomes 
 of him, such a greedy old curmudgeon as he 
 has grown, with all those acres of bank-notes 
 and mountains of bullion of his." 
 
 A coldness had arisen of latter times between 
 the wit and moneyed man, in consequence of
 
 222 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 the latter getting tired even of so clever a 
 person's, and who was fast becoming a political 
 celebrity's, autograph, in the shape of I U's. 
 
 " Do you think he can intend to do Mont 
 Blanc this recess, on foot ? But isn't that now 
 rather out of fashion with you people that are so 
 fond of wearing out good British shoe-leather 
 among those humbugging foreign mountains, 
 Vaticans, and all that ?" said the Independent 
 British Member, who happened to pass at the 
 moment, on his way to three British mutton 
 chops, nearly raw as to cooking, and to be 
 washed down with a bottle of the strongest 
 British beer ; a diet which made the Inde- 
 pendent British Member rather pufiy and fat, 
 and not himself very apt to the climbing of 
 mountains and " Yaticans" — which latter it is 
 very possible he confounded in his own mind, 
 from the great resemblance of the spelling, 
 with " Yesuviuses." 
 
 " What's he asking Dobson ?" 
 
 " Mr. Dobson, you're cleverer than I am if 
 you can find me out what train I must take on 
 the London and North-Western to catch the 
 next Belfast steamer," said Mr. Behringbright,
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. £23 
 
 throwing the ** Gruide" over to the waiter, who 
 stood expecting orders ; after vainly puzzling 
 for a time over columns that not unfrequently 
 suggest to the human mind the humbling con- 
 viction that there's nothing more difficult of 
 comprehension than what appears easiest. 
 
 *' Belfast! Do you hear that? Going to 
 buy a shipload of linens, I suppose/' said Mr, 
 Fauntleroy, sulkily. 
 
 " But I thay, Vivian, ithn't Belfast in Ire- 
 land ? Mayn't he be going to KiUarney, like 
 everybody elth this year, to see the Meeting of 
 the Waterth, and all that thentimental busi- 
 ness ? That'th a thort of thing every fellah 
 mutht do, you know." 
 
 *' I should think he would go to Dublin or 
 Cork for that; and in his own yacht, most 
 likely. No, he's going to Belfast on some 
 nasty money-scraping business, no doubt ; and 
 he likes to make his bargains looking as hard 
 •up as he possibly can, to get the people to let 
 him have things cheaper," said Mr. Faunt- 
 leroy. 
 
 *' Wliatascrew!" 
 
 " Dobson has found him what he wants, and
 
 224 JtfADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 I declare lie lias tipped him half-a-sovereign 
 for his pains," remarked another member, who 
 was apparently reading a newspaper in a 
 frame, but who was doing no such thing, but 
 attending to everything else to be seen or heard 
 in the room; only preventing other people 
 from usurping the place. 
 
 " He spoils all the servants for us poor 
 devils !" muttered Mr. Vivian T. 
 
 " He's going now. No, he is turning back. 
 What is it about ? '* 
 
 "Mr. Dobson, if any letters come for me 
 after the end of this week, will you post 
 them to me at Glengariff Castle, Grap of 
 Dunloe, County Kerry ? — Put Ireland on it 
 too, for fear of a mistake." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; it is in the books punctual 
 already ; you was there three years ago." 
 
 " So I was — at poor Glengariff's funeral. 
 What a memory you have, Mr. Dobson ! 
 Would' nt you pass a Civil Service examination, 
 now ! Good morning. Sir Charles ; I'm off for 
 Ireland in half an hour." 
 
 "Ireland! Where's that ?" 
 
 " In the Atlantic."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 9.^: 
 
 " Good shooting the part you're going to ?" 
 
 "No; some hares and lots of stags; but 
 rather too big a country." 
 
 " jBon voya()e r 
 
 " Thank you — I hate French ; and I am 
 almost sure to be sea-sick." 
 
 Exit George Cocker Behringbright. And now 
 it is very seldom, excepting immediately after 
 the grand exit of all, that one's friends find any- 
 thing very particularly good to say of one on 
 such an occasion, and then only on consideration 
 that it cannot possibly do one the least service 
 or kindness. Accordingly, Mr. Fauntleroy had 
 no sooner satisfied himself that his of late 
 unfreely-bleeding skinflint of a patron was out 
 of hearing, than he observed, " I'll be sworn, 
 it's true, then, and he is cutting out of town 
 from the ridicule of the affair that took place 
 last night at the Treehorne Fete !" 
 
 " What affair? I have not heard of any," 
 said half a dozen male voices at once — though 
 curiosity is chiefly a female failing. 
 
 " The Treehorne Gardens Private Fete, you 
 know, got up by the nobility and gentry, to 
 enjoy themselves for once in a way. Perfectly 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 select, of course, as usual — Almack's out of 
 doors — admittance only by vouchers, signed 
 and countersigned by a committee of peers and 
 dowagers and — and all that sort of thing. But 
 you must, some of you, know about it?" 
 
 " I was there ; but it rained so, there wathn't 
 much fun,'' said one of the group now collected 
 around the usually rather entertaining, because 
 always bitter and malicious-tongued, tale- 
 teller. 
 
 " You must have put up an umbrella for 
 once then, Mr. Dundreary, not to have seen it, 
 for there was some capital fun. Only think ! 
 Although the Duchess of Axminster and the 
 daughter were to be there, Mr. Behringbright 
 meant to go, and had bought himself a 
 voucher." 
 
 " Quite right for a fello^y to amuse himself, 
 if he can and has the money, in spite of all the 
 dowagers in the world." 
 
 " But Behringbright goes about in such a 
 drowsy, Dutch way ever3^where, that he lost 
 his voucher somewhere in the streets ; and the 
 fun I'm going to tell you about is, it was 
 found by a swell-mob fellow, who determined
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 227 
 
 at once to go as tlie rich Mr. Beliringbright, 
 and pick people's pockets under the name !" 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Ho, Fauntleroj ! you 
 don't say so ?" 
 
 " I do. A terribly impudent fellow too he 
 was ; for as soon as ever people were driven in 
 by the weather into an immense dreary sort of 
 a ballroom they have there — except when it's 
 filled with a jolly mob — he showed his voucher 
 to the master of the ceremonies, and asked to 
 be introduced as partner to a young lady who 
 he saw had some valuable jewels to prig ; and 
 when she heard his name (I know hers, but 
 perhaps I oughtn't to mention it), she thought 
 he was the real rich Beliringbright, in propria 
 persond, and set herself, tooth and nail, to 
 fascinate him, as they all do ! And although 
 the fellow could not speak commonly decent 
 English, and put in h's and w's in all sorts of 
 wrong places, he persuaded her that he only 
 did it to enter thoroughly into the humour of 
 such a world-turned-upside-down fete ; and 
 actually carried out the thing so strong, that 
 at last he proposed to Sir Harry Huntsman's 
 only unmarried dauglitcr now left, — dear me ! 
 15 — 2
 
 228 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 I ouglitn't to have mentioned the name, — and 
 was accepted." 
 
 " That'll do, Fauntleroy ! That's your last, 
 I suppose, and it will do for a capper. Ne 
 sutor ultra crepidmnr said Sir Solomon Comyn- 
 place, one of the auditory. 
 
 " It is true, I assure you." 
 
 " Is it in the papers ?" 
 
 " Is that the place to look for truth ?" 
 
 " In the police reports it is.'^ 
 
 " No, then ; it is not to be found there. 
 Of course the case was hushed up. The 
 friends of the young lady would not come 
 forward — was it likely? But everybody 
 knows all about it — or will in a few hours 1" 
 concluded Mr. Fauntleroy, in an undertone, to 
 the inventor of the story — his own dear self. 
 But, provided his story was a good one, Mr. 
 Yivian Fauntleroy was of too poetical and 
 brilliant a genius to concern himself about such 
 prosaic and wing-clogging stuff as the reality 
 of his facts.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 229 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright's true motives for leaving 
 London on an Irish trip are, however, con- 
 tained in the foUowinsr letter : — 
 
 ^t) 
 
 " Glengariff Castle, Go. Kerry j 
 ^^July—, 18—. 
 
 "Dearest and most valued Friend, — 
 " You will, in all ^probability, be greatly sur- 
 prised, and no less grieved, at the extraordinary 
 piece of disastrous intelligence which I am 
 obliged to communicate to you, as the 
 only person on whose sound judgment and 
 unshaken friendship I know I can at all times 
 rely. As the sole guardian of my son, also, 
 in his nonage, although he has now attained 
 what the law so erroneously calls the age of 
 discretion, and as the benevolent protector and
 
 230 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 patron (which I have always been assured, 
 from every source, you are) of the unfortunate 
 young woman whom you recommended under 
 my roof, and whose name is likely to be most 
 unpleasantly associated with that of the House 
 of Glengariff, I implore your interposition ! 
 
 "It is now nearly two years, as you must 
 very w^ell remember, since Miss Emily Maughan 
 first became an inmate of Glengariff Castle, in 
 the capacity in which you had recommended 
 her, of governess to my daughter. Lady Gwen- 
 doline. She came to us with a testimonial 
 under your hand, than which it would have 
 been impossible, I should think, anything more 
 flattering, and calculated to conciliate every 
 species of esteem, could be conceived. And 
 notwithstanding my present unhappy con- 
 victions, I must add that, however lavish the 
 eulogium, it seemed more than justified in the 
 person and qualities of the amiable 3^oung girl 
 who presented herself with your letter of re- 
 commendation, but with a still stronger one 
 written in her modest and ingenuous coun- 
 tenance, at Glengariff Castle, two years ago. 
 The mildness of her temper, in combination
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 231 
 
 with a decision and energy of character, re- 
 markable in several instances that called for 
 the exercise of those qualities very shortly 
 after her arrival here, were found fully equal 
 to all you reported. In particular, I may 
 mention that, although I was seized with a 
 paroxysm of my frightful mental malady, with 
 shocking unexpectedness, one day in Miss 
 Maughan's presence — ^before she had obtained 
 the least inkling of the dreadful secret of my 
 mournful and secluded existence, — although, 
 in fact, I must declare that, overcome with the 
 horror of the vision (you know, alas ! too well 
 what those fearful words veil), I rushed to the 
 edge of the rocks over the Eagle's Crag, and 
 was about to hurl myself headlong into the 
 lake, — she seemed to comprehend the tremen- 
 dous fact with a single dart of intuition, rushed 
 after, seized me by the hair of my head, 
 tore me back, and held me through the most 
 powerful convulsive efforts of my, to be sure, 
 much-shattered and enfeebled frame, until 
 assistance arrived. No doubt, I am willing to 
 admit. Miss Emily Maughan saved my life by 
 her presence of mind and undaunted courage
 
 232 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 on this occasion ; for there was no one else at 
 hand to preserve me from the terrible impulse, 
 which came on at an unusual season and hour, 
 or I should have had my faithful giantess, 
 Norah, in attendance night and day, as is my 
 wont. And I do not deny that I owe to Miss 
 Emily Maughan a debt of gratitude ; to pay 
 which, however, it cannot be that I am called 
 upon to sacrifice the honour of the princely 
 line of the O'Donoghues of Glengariff, of whom 
 my son is the last representative ! 
 
 " I say nothing of the fine talents and accom- 
 plishments of yoMV prote(/eey except that they 
 fully equalled what you had led us to expect. 
 Grwendoline, who is a slow and torpid child, it 
 cannot be denied, improved rapidly under her 
 care. The little girl took a fancy to her precep- 
 tress, who certainly has something peculiarly 
 engaging and attractive in her whole person and 
 demeanour, the secret of which it is not easy 
 to discover. I cannot say that I consider her 
 as what one may style regularly beautiful in 
 the countenance ; she has a charming expres- 
 sion, a look of clear honesty and integrit}' — 
 which it does one good to see — a lovely fair
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 233 
 
 complexion, and an elegant figure. But when 
 you have said this, you have said all ; and I 
 cannot in the least understand the infatuation 
 of my son, unless on a supposition too dreadful 
 to be dwelt upon, that the hereditary malady 
 
 of our race But no ; I will not suffer 
 
 myself to adopt so fearful a conclusion, and 
 will continue to hope everything from the 
 ascendancy which the calm sagacity and reso- 
 lute determination of character that have 
 always marked the dearest friend of my late 
 husband, will also doubtless secure him over 
 his wayward son. 
 
 " I need not now repeat what I have written 
 to you so often — though the correspondence 
 on your part has necessarily, from the multi- 
 tude of your avocations, been limited to very 
 general acknowledgments — concerning the 
 rapid advance made by Miss Maughan in the 
 good graces of my entire household and of the 
 wild but generous and loving-hearted race who 
 dwell, as their progenitors have dwelt, around 
 the home of my ancestors. With me also, I 
 readily admit, she speedily established herself in 
 the warmest favour and approbation. There was
 
 234 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 no visible drawback, and I did not suspect decep- 
 tion in one so young, and so replete, in appear- 
 ance, with candour and every kindly sensibility. 
 Or if anything of the sort[existed, it lay, perhaps, 
 in the fact that, for a considerable time after 
 her arrival among us, there w^as something of a 
 pensive abstraction and sadness to be remarked 
 in Miss Maughan's demeanour, wliich at times 
 almost suggested to me the notion that there 
 were regrets of the heart and affections over- 
 shadowing her young existence, independent of 
 the sorrowful incidents of her starting in life 
 of which you had placed me in possession. 
 But it was not an oppressive or a gloomy 
 cloud — ^rather one of those soft, silvery exhala- 
 tions which arise from the bosom of our lakes 
 in the heat of summer, and throw that dreamy 
 shadowing of splendour that gives so peculiar 
 a magic to the beauty of our scenery. It 
 suited me well, besides : the presence of 
 youth, brilliant and vivacious with its cus- 
 tomary high spirits and insensibility to the 
 sufferings of others, would have jarred incon- 
 ceivably on my unstrung and quivering nerves. 
 As it was, Emily Maughan seemed to have in
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 235 
 
 Iier nature some gift of soothing and sway over 
 mine, that even proved powerfully influential 
 for good in the severest crisis of my malady, — 
 an influence which I might, perhaps, liken to 
 that of the inspired minstrel of Israel over his 
 similarly-afflicted king, but which has also been 
 of as baneful consequence on the general for- 
 tunes of my house 1 
 
 " But to make myself intelligible. Last 
 summer, as you are well aware, my son, Lord 
 GlengarifF, attained his majority. I think it 
 was against your advice, but upon his own 
 earnest wish, that he was indulged with leave 
 of absence from his regiment, and returned to 
 celebrate the event among his prosperous and 
 devoted tenantry, — prosperous, thanks to your 
 most admirable management and care, and by 
 ways and means which my own and my 
 husband's riotous and headlong ancestry had 
 never deemed compatible with the wild habits 
 of our people. You saw Ferdinand just before 
 here turned to us ; so you will not impute it alto- 
 gether to a mother's partiality for an only son, 
 when I state that in my eyes lie appeared the 
 very perfection of noble and manly grace, — a
 
 236 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 soldier and a gentleman in all lie said, did, 
 and looked; gallant and gay; witty and 
 poetical in his language and temperament ; — a 
 youthful chieftain worthy indeed to be the 
 last representative of the most illustrious of 
 ancient Irish races ! You may judge, there- 
 fore, whether any confidence is to be placed 
 in the pretended refusal and withdrawal of 
 this young girl, the daughter of a ruined 
 mercantile family ; and whether it is not, on 
 the contrary, a refinement of artifice to secure 
 to herself so splendid a personal prize and 
 elevation of rank as the frenzied passion of ray 
 son has, I am led to believe, placed at the 
 option of Emily Maughan ! 
 
 " For, not to prolong so painful a recital, 
 and so wounding to every species of just pride 
 and tenderness in the breast of a mother, I 
 must inform you, my dear Baron [this word 
 was, however, obliterated, and mj/ dear Mr. 
 Beltringhrighi followed on], that almost imme- 
 diately after his arrival, it is extremely probable, 
 my son began to imbibe the insensate passion 
 which is likely to cause us all so much trouble. 
 I myself noticed, though at the time without
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 237 
 
 misgiving, that at the grand fete which we 
 gave in celebration of the majority to, I may 
 say, the entire county, he led out my daughter's 
 governess more than once before all the assem- 
 bled nobility and gentry, and particularly in- 
 sisted on dancing the last country-dance with 
 her for his partner. But as he also danced jigs 
 with half a score of peasant-girls, and his 
 foster-sister, Norah's daughter, I looked upon 
 it (as other people, I suppose, did at the time) 
 as a piece of high-born condescension and 
 popular gallantry, well befitting the youthful 
 chieftain of GlengarifT; and my mother's heart 
 was so delighted with the praises of the young 
 man's free and graceful manners, that I have 
 no doubt I shared unsuspiciously in the general 
 opinion that Lord Glengariff never showed 
 to more advantage througliout the fete than 
 when he had for his partner the fair young 
 Sassenach from beyond the bitter sea ! 
 
 " Nothing of special moment occurred for a 
 considerable time after to open my eyes. 
 GlengarifT is so secluded a spot of the world, 
 — my long illness and widowhood have so 
 removed me from intimate association with 
 our few equals, separated from us by wide
 
 238 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 circuits and rough mountain roads, — that 
 the constant association into which the 
 young people were thrown, in my presence, 
 gave me no uneasiness. Indeed, I should as 
 soon have dreamed of the formation of an 
 honourable attachment between the Chief of 
 Glengariff and a governess, as of any at all 
 between creatures of different species ! On 
 the other hand, my son's noble, high-souled 
 character prevented me from conceiving the 
 remotest suspicion of any ill results of another 
 nature to the intimacy. It happened, more- 
 over, that I had an unusually protracted attack 
 of the horrible melancholy which precedes and 
 follows the paroxysms of my disorder, and I 
 was too exquisitely consoled and revived by 
 the constant company and cheerful devotion 
 of these two richly-endowed creatures, whose 
 association seemed to sustain both equally in 
 their task, to dream for a moment of severing 
 it. I am even still unwilling to think that 
 Emily could at this period have formed the 
 insidious design she has since so dangerously 
 carried out. She has assured me, with every 
 mark of sincere and passionate emotion, that 
 she never apprehended in the least the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 239 
 
 fatality wliicli has occurred, until a much later 
 period. She did not believe herself capable, 
 she declared, of inspiring sentiments of the 
 kind in any one ! She even, in the confusion 
 of her final avowal, dropped something to the 
 effect that, on an occasion when she had 
 herself endeavoured to inspire affection in a 
 person of the opposite sex, she had failed ! 
 Glengariff has not even the honour to be 
 the first love — the first matrimonial prize, I 
 should say — of this most wonderfully artful 
 and designing English girl ! 
 
 " I speak of her avowal ; for imagine if you 
 can — and I remember well you had not too 
 good an opinion of women in general, my 
 dear friend, nor have cause — the exceeding 
 artifice and subtlety of the plan hit upon to 
 bring the whole contrivance to bear, in the 
 least offensive and startling manner, it was 
 doubtless thought, as respected myself 
 
 " How, indeed, she could have wrought 
 Glengariff up to such an excess of infatuation 
 as to enter into her scheme, and to hope for 
 any success with me, I cannot dream. The 
 women of tlicse times . must surely be in 
 possession of the philtres and charms of which
 
 240 MADELEINE GKAHAM. 
 
 we hear in ancient stories, or deal in tile- 
 witchcrafts of the Middle Ages ! And yet, in 
 a creature so seemingly frank, disinterested, 
 and generous-hearted as this young girl has 
 always impressed herself to be on all who 
 beheld her, how could I conjecture a faculty 
 of dissimulation and intrigue so perfected? 
 Even Glengariff's expression of a wish and 
 intention — so sudden and unaccountable, one 
 might say, in a young man of his years, just 
 beginning to taste the pleasures of society and 
 of the great world to which his birth and 
 wealth gave him the readiest access — to retire 
 from the army and become a resident landlord 
 on his estates, had not awakened my sus- 
 picions. The project certainly somewhat 
 annoyed and disquieted me, for a solitary and 
 inactive life was never suited to the genius of 
 our family ; and I cannot but think that my 
 own too complete withdrawal from society, on 
 the sudden death of my beloved husband, con- 
 tributed more than anything else to the 
 development of the dreadful malady I inherit 
 with the grandeur of my descent. But I was 
 too completely besotted by my affection for an 
 only son — too blinded by the credulity,
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 241 
 
 perhaps, of self-love — to perceive tlie young 
 man's real motives and design. Nay, I must 
 admit, with such extraordinary skill and 
 artifice had the whole project been concerted, 
 that even when the momentous fact was 
 brought directly to my cognizance, my trust 
 in Emily continued for a while quite unabated 
 and assured. 
 
 " It was she herself then, in short, who 
 revealed to me, with every apparent sign of 
 grief and disapprobation on her own part, that 
 Lord Glengariff had made the avowal to her 
 of a passion which he declared would prove 
 his destruction unless as warmly responded 
 to ! — A passion which, he announced, nothing 
 could ever change or diminish, and which a 
 natural eloquence and poetical fervour of 
 expression he is gifted with would certainly 
 have rendered irresistible in the ears of any 
 woman, even if greatly prepossessed in favour 
 of another. But what other living man 
 would not my Glengariff eclipse, in any 
 rational comparison ? Who can vie with him 
 in the endowments of personal beauty, polish 
 of manners, cultivation of intellect, all that 
 
 YOL. I. 16
 
 242 MADELEINE GRAHAM.' 
 
 would stamp the lowliest-born of mankind 
 a nobleman of nature's costliest workmanship ? 
 But is he not rich, high-born, loftily titled 
 too ? — descended from that great O'Donoghue 
 of the Lakes whose renown has passed into 
 the regions of mythic and fabulous grandeur, 
 in the traditions of the peasantry of the South 
 of Ireland ? 
 
 " And yet Miss Emily Maughan — the 
 beggared daughter of a bankrupt trader, who 
 had perished by his own hand, — at best a 
 nondescript between a servant and a humble 
 companion in a great household — would have 
 persuaded me — did persuade me — that she 
 had turned a deaf ear to all the passion 
 and entreaties of a wooing prince, as it 
 were, and that she desired nothing more 
 than to remove herself from the necessitj^ 
 of repeating her refusal ! She did not, indeed, 
 venture to try my credulity so far as to 
 allege, at that time, anything so wonderfully 
 out of all understanding and calculation as 
 an offer of an honourable union on the part 
 of a chief of Grlengariff declined by a destitute 
 adventuress. That was another part of the 
 programme, and to be carried out by an agency
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 243 
 
 to which some j^ossible credit, it was thought, 
 misfht be attached. For was it to be conceived 
 that my son would invent, against himself, so 
 humiliating a statement, but so artfully con- 
 trived to do honour to the pretended good 
 faith and fidelity of the treacherous girl, who 
 doubtless contrived and conducted the whole 
 intrigue ? 
 
 " Under these appearances, of course I con- 
 sented at once, though, I own it, with the 
 deepest regret, — while my hallucination con- 
 tinued, — to Miss Maughan's expressed earnest 
 desire to leave Grlengariff, and remove to a 
 distance ; at least until such time as that my 
 son might be led to perceive the vanity of his 
 hopes, and return to his proper brilliant posi- 
 tion in the world, and enjoyment of the ad- 
 vantages at his disposal. We even, as I 
 thought, concerted a plan in perfect confidence 
 and intelligence with each other, by which 
 Emily was to remain, as it were, within call 
 of a speedy return, the moment we had reason 
 to believe a return compatible with the kind 
 of safety we desired to secure. She herself, 
 indeed, skilfully hinted at family and personal 
 IG— 2
 
 244 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 reasons wliicli rendered lier nnwilling to return 
 to England ; so, in conclusion, we agreed to 
 advertise for another situation for her in 
 Ireland, for a season ; and as we set about the 
 insidious project at once, I had reason to take 
 comfort in the prospect of the approaching 
 separation, and to consent to the artful girl's 
 suggestion that I should consult my health 
 and peace of mind by entering into no kind of 
 explanation with my son on the subject. Of 
 course I took care — good heavens ! and even 
 in compliance with her own inexpressibly 
 deceptive request — to obviate the dangers of 
 any further private intercourse by my own 
 constant presence and vigilance in their com- 
 pany. But no doubt they found opportunities, 
 which eluded both, to arrange and carry 
 forward their plans. 
 
 " Success seemingly awaited our first sup- 
 posed harmonious action. The advertisement 
 was answered by a citizen of Belfast, who 
 required a governess in his family — at a very 
 moderate salary, certainly, considering the 
 qualities and accomplishments which he seemed 
 to consider essential to the position. But our 
 plan was only for a temporary exigency.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 245 
 
 Belfast seemed admirably remote for the main 
 object I believed her as well as myself to have 
 in view. And also Miss Maughan either re- 
 cognised, or affected to recognise, in the 
 applicant the father of a schoolfellow of her 
 own, whom she remembered as a very hand- 
 some and good-natured, girl who would pro- 
 bably contribute to make her new home less 
 strange and desolate. From very proper 
 motives, however, as I thought at the time, 
 she laid no claims to this early association, but 
 forwarded the amplest testimonials to her 
 merits I could devise, without comment. The 
 reply was such as we had a right to expect ; 
 and Sir Orange Graham even expressed him- 
 self quite proud and gratified at the prospect 
 of an instructress for his younger children 
 who had been thought worthy to conduct the 
 education of a daughter of the noble house of 
 Grlengariff. 
 
 "To complete the whole mockery. Miss 
 Maughan affected to take advantage of an ab- 
 sence, which my son was certainly induce<l on 
 her private instructions to feign, on a shooting 
 excursion in the mountains, to take her depar- 
 ture from Glengariff.J The manoeuvre was
 
 246 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 effected witli what I consider great dexterity. 
 "We had a pretended discussion before the 
 domestics concerning some point of difference 
 in my notions and hers regarding Gwendoline's 
 course of instruction. I dismissed her seem- 
 ingly in a passion, and she left the house, 
 seemingly in a pet, without leaving any 
 guidance or information as to whither she in- 
 tended to proceed — had she kept our arrange- 
 ;nent — after being driven in one of the family 
 jaunting-cars to the nearest coach-town. She 
 left — I am ashamed to say it now" — under my 
 warmest tears and benedictions, parting with. 
 as fond embraces and assurances of mutual 
 regret and tenderness as if we had been indeed 
 mother and daughter, separated by the most 
 disastrous circumstances. As for Gwendoline, 
 the poor child is not yet consoled for that 
 specious loss. 
 
 " The whole craft and hypocrisy of the plan 
 was, however, unveiled on my son's return, 
 which was also unexpectedly early and abrupt. 
 But what foundation could there be for his 
 allegation, that he had some kind of mysterious 
 and perhaps supernatural intimation of mis- 
 fortune threatening him, though he inherit^
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 247 
 
 the blood of tlie great O'Donogliue, since wliat 
 had befallen had rather been to his preserva- 
 tion ? Perhaps even, if I had questioned him, 
 he would not have scrupled to pretend that he 
 had seen his ancestor rise from the bosom of 
 Glengariff lake, in the golden armour, on the 
 snow-white water-steed, with its finny fore- 
 paws ! There is no profanation of which I 
 do not fancy Glengariff capable, under the 
 inspirations of that wicked girl ! But as it 
 was, he no sooner learned from me that Miss 
 Maughan had left the castle, in consequence of 
 a dispute with me, and that I did not intend 
 her to return, than he passed at once into an 
 access of rage and despair that proved but too 
 well that he inherits the stormy spirit of his 
 ancestry — perhaps their dark and inscrutable 
 malady ! Or else, unaccustomed to deceit, he 
 overacted his part, and taking, as he imagined, 
 advantage of the awe and alarm into which I 
 was thrown by the outbreak, burst out with 
 the insane assertion that he had actually 7;; 'o- 
 posed marriacje to Miss Maughan, and that she 
 had declined the offer, but that he was deter- 
 mined to win so priceless a blessing at the cost 
 of erery other, if need were. Yes, that — that
 
 248 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 he would find her out, and bring her back as 
 its mistress to Glengariff Castle, if I had 
 hidden her in the centre of the earth ! My 
 son had even the barbarity to thunder forth 
 that the illustrious unmixed ancestry of which 
 I reminded him had entailed the most fearful 
 of diseases on their descendants, probably from 
 that very circumstance, and that he was re- 
 solved to transmit his name by fresher streams 
 to posterity, or suffer it to perish for ever from 
 the land ! 
 
 " It began to dawn upon me then that in 
 reality I was made the sport and plaything of 
 a craftily devised intrigue, and that my un- 
 happy son, made the victim of the perfidious 
 artifices of a strange woman, took this shallow 
 means to break his insane projects to me ! 
 But he speedily found that I also inherit the 
 
 heroic fervour of my race, and that . We 
 
 had an awful scene — a fearful quarrel ! But I 
 did not surely curse my child, my only son ? 
 No ; I but pronounced upon the alliance with 
 which he threatened me a parent's maledic- 
 tion ! What followed I scarcely know. Glen- 
 gariff fled from my presence ; but all would 
 have been well, only that ''
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 249 
 
 Here tins lengthy epistle seemed to have 
 come to an abrupt pause, for what followed 
 was written in a fainter kind of ink, in a 
 shaky and uncertain hand, differing consider- 
 ably from the previous caligraphy : — 
 
 "I have had, I believe, one of the most 
 fearful attacks I have ever yet survived, — of 
 several weeks' duration. I am very weak, ill, 
 incapable of any resolution or movement. 
 But it was perfectly plain it was all a delusion 
 and deceit. They are doubtless together 
 somewhere — perhaps married — perhaps not. 
 My son may have proved a villain to her, poor 
 girl! — He has proved one to his own mother ! 
 What am I saying ? — I know not. But oh, 
 Behringbright, Behringbright ! if ever my 
 poor late husband was dear to you — if he 
 saved your life when you were all but swal- 
 lowed in the crevasse on the Alps when you 
 visited them together — cross the sea at once, 
 at once, dear friend ! and come, come, come, 
 and save us all ! " 
 
 There was a slight postscript added ; — 
 
 " The business person whose fiimily she 
 pretended to enter is called Sir Orange 
 Graham, a trader in Belfast."
 
 250 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 FASCINATION. 
 
 It will appear from the foregoing document, 
 that Mr. Behringbright's business in Ireland 
 might very possibly relate to matters of as 
 Tiiuch importance, considered under some points 
 of view, as any shipload of linens ever manu- 
 factured at Belfast. The happiness of the 
 lives of two young persons — the honour, 
 perhaps, of a woman — seemed concerned in it. 
 To be sure, these things are not to be reckoned 
 as much in comparison with aught that 
 relates to the great purpose of the modern 
 Britisher's creation — moneymaking. But by 
 ^ome strange perversion in the order of nature 
 which is sometimes witnessed in the material 
 world — as when, from a sharp crab stock, the 
 sweet and juicy-flavoured Adam-and-Eve apple 
 is produced — the rich Mr. Behringbright him-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 251 
 
 self postponed a variety of important business 
 enterprises to attend to one involving only 
 sucli trifling considerations as those alluded to 
 above. 
 
 And yet it would be no easy task to describe 
 exactly with what particular feelings and emo- 
 tions Mr. Behringbrioiit was animated in the 
 resolution he took to cross the Irish Sea in 
 person, and ascertain the real condition of 
 affairs to his own satisfaction. Using the 
 common phrase, that is ; for somehow or other 
 the resolved vo3^ager himself was conscious of 
 a strange and unaccountable irk of uncomfort- 
 able experience awakened in his breast, and 
 threatening to grow in painfulness and irrita- 
 tion, like the first start of the gout in some 
 unwonted member of the human frame. 
 
 It is rather singular — if everything else 
 relating to the genus liorno were not so strange 
 — if, when one's uncle's King in Denmark, and 
 married to one's mother, anything else could 
 appear surprising ! But what we have, or can 
 easily win into possession, seems by no means 
 to excite the sam^ degree of interest and 
 activity towards that result as desirable things
 
 252 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 placed under exactly contrary conditions. 
 Would Juliet, I wonder, have persisted in 
 doting on Eomeo — doting on the young 
 gentleman to the extent of dying for him — if 
 the quarrel of the Capukts and Montagues had 
 not rendered it virtually impossible that he 
 and she should ever be comfortably married 
 and settled in Yerona ? There are cases, too, 
 on record, of men unable to survive their wives, 
 widows their dear defuncts ; but they are rare, 
 and not within the limits of everybody's ex- 
 perience. But now this particular mood of 
 mysterious humanity, by which we no sooner 
 see an object, previously slighted and under- 
 valued because in our grasp, suddenly removed 
 by any accident of fate and circumstance into 
 the regions of the unattainable, than it becomes 
 of extraordinary worth and anxiety of pursuit, 
 is a mood not at all so rare and exceptional 
 as for the credit of human consistency 
 and propriety it should be ! And this might 
 be a little Mr. Behringbright's condition at 
 the moment of his departure for Ireland. 
 Emily Maughan — devotedly, uncomplainingly, 
 perhaps almost unconsciously to herself, wor-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 253 
 
 slii23ping liim ; offering incense in tlie temple 
 she had raised to him in her boundless grati- 
 tude and admiration — was, on the whole, rather 
 an annoyance, — an unpleasing claim on atten- 
 tion ! But Emily Maughan, deserting the 
 temple she had raised, serving no longer at the 
 altar, incensing the idol's shrine no more ; on 
 the contrary, herself elevated to the goddess 
 rank, and receiving the homage of so glorified 
 a worshipper as the young chieftain of Glen- 
 gariff, possessed of all the like advantages, and 
 so many more of those he imagined himself 
 chiefly to lack ; — all this presented a disturb- 
 ing and exceedingly unwelcome and uneasy 
 series of reflections and convictions to the mind 
 of George Cocker Behringbright. 
 
 He managed, however, to persuade himself 
 that the only real interest he took in the 
 lamentable aflfair was prompted by a sense of 
 duty towards the heir aud family of a dear dead 
 friend ; and also — although she had proved 
 herself no different from the rest of her sex, in 
 fact, an artful, contriving, ambitious minx, 
 introduced by him (unfortunately) into a noble 
 house, to become the banc of it ! — a feclinor
 
 254 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 that lie ought not to allow a young creature 
 whom he had in some degree taken under his 
 protection to be altogether abandoned of 
 friends and good counsel ! Nay, Mr. Behring- 
 bright thought it pretty certain that Emily 
 ■must already be in need of both ; for, on the 
 one hand, he placed no belief whatever in 
 Lord Griengariff having really been cajoled into 
 so total an oblivion of what was due to his 
 own high rank and position in the world as to 
 offer marriage to an unprotected governess girl 
 of eighteen or nineteen ; and on the other, the 
 misogynist merchant concluded that her own 
 cupidity and blind pursuit of aggrandize- 
 ment would mislead her into any snare of 
 the kind that might be spread before her 
 feet. 
 
 But whatever were his motives or intentions, 
 there he stood, Mr. Behringbright, of the firm 
 of Behringbright Brothers, of London and half 
 the world besides, on the deck of the General 
 Steam Navigation Company's roj^al steamer 
 Prince Alfred^ as she lay panting and puffing 
 and palpitating up her "motive power" off 
 Fleetwood Pier, in Lancashire, at half-past
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 255 
 
 seven, on a serene and beautifully-moonlit 
 summer evening. 
 
 Is there not something real, after all, in the 
 theory of presentiments ? There was nothing 
 otherwise to account for the feeling of pro- 
 found dejection which weighed upon Mr. 
 Behringbright's spirits on this occasion. On 
 the contrary, the noble expanse of Morecambe 
 Bay shone all over, in the bright and full- orbed 
 moon^ like a sea of sparkling emerald. Yery 
 tranquil, too ; the most uneasy of land stomachs 
 had as yet no justification for a qualm. But 
 still a vague sense of approaching disaster 
 overhung him, like an unseen cloud in the blue 
 expanse above. In vain he endeavoured to 
 smoke off the sensation ; it resisted the most 
 soothing efforts of the Cuban weed ; and Mr. 
 Behringbright, who had long had the clean- 
 washed deck of the steamer almost to himself, 
 felt relieved as if from a horror of desolation 
 when the tolling of the pier-bell produced the 
 customary hurry-scurrying of passengers down 
 to the place of embarkation. 
 
 He strolled to the gangway to divert his 
 mind by witnessing this; but, finding the
 
 256 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 confusion and bustle in tlie immediate neigh- 
 bonrliood of action rather more than he liked, 
 mounted one of the paddle-boxes, and surveyed 
 the scene from that calmer elevation. 
 
 Thus he stood, leaning against some rope- 
 ladder, stiff with tar, his thick, coarse plaid 
 fluttering in the sea-breeze, and his cigar 
 burning away at a fierce rate in the passionate 
 puffings of that uninvited sharer, lost in a 
 still heavily overhanging reverie — when on 
 a sudden Mr. Behringbright started ! — Started 
 to find his own unmeaningly fixed gaze encoun- 
 tering a glance so full of brilliant life and 
 electricity of expression that it in a manner 
 galvanized him into emotion and curiosity be- 
 fore it was at all plain to his own consciousness 
 what had happened to him. He then remem- 
 bered that this singular glance had emanated 
 from under a black velvet hat and feather 
 and bugled veil, whicli tbe wind had blown 
 aside ; surmounting a figure fluttering in its 
 travelling habiliments, in like picturesque 
 disorder to his own plaid, and led on over 
 the heaving plank between the steamer 
 and the pier by a tall, gaunt-looking gen-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 257 
 
 tleman in a long black, undertaker-like 
 cloak. 
 
 What was it that struck Mr. Behringbright 
 at once with a conviction that these dazzling 
 orbs were no strangers in his own ? And he 
 was strengthened in the notion by a vague 
 and yet positive idea, communicated in the 
 same shock of encounter, that those eyes 
 expressed on their part also a singular disorder 
 of recognition, which apparently induced the 
 owner to clutch down her floating networks 
 and cover herself, as it were, in conceal- 
 ment, in their shades ! 
 
 Mr. Behringbright plunged into a gulf of 
 recollections as this idea struck deeper and 
 deeper into his mind. "Where had he seen 
 this face ? Where encountered ere while that 
 strangely fascinating glance? In a moment 
 his memory wandered back through half a 
 thousand balls, assemblies, presentations at 
 court, operas, theatres, continental wanderings ; 
 a hundred and more submerged beauties shone 
 up again from the sharky deeps of his 
 unnumbered matrimonial temptations — were 
 knocked on the head, and sent down again 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 in the abyss, ere Mr. Behringbriglit plumped 
 with a curious chill at the heart, as if he had 
 himself been suddenly drawn literally into 
 the cold wave — on the remembrance that those 
 brilliant orbs had first attracted his attention 
 on the famous night of the Theatre St. 
 Jacques de Londres ! 
 
 We can do a great deal of thinking in a little 
 time ; and probably Mr. Behringbriglit was not 
 more than a single minute in passing through 
 all this chaos of reminiscences ere he alighted 
 on the convicton. But he was a good deal 
 longer in endeavouring to fathom to his own 
 satisfaction whether in reality there was recog- 
 nition in the lady's glance. If so, what 
 became of all his pretty imaginative theories 
 regarding the total unconcern of the beautiful 
 young creature herself in the plans of that 
 execrable Frenchwoman ? 
 
 It astonished Mr. Behringbriglit, when he 
 afterwards came to consider of it, why the 
 suspicion thus flashed into liis cogitations 
 annoyed him so very much ! 
 
 What did it matter, any way ? But was it 
 go ? — To satisfy the doubt, this wise merchant.
 
 .MADELEINE GRAHAM. 259 
 
 who traded with half the globe, and traded 
 mostly to advantage, thought he would present 
 himself again to the young lady's notice ; 
 and if she did recognise him, cut her dead, 
 at once, as just such another specimen of the 
 dissembling sex as any man of sense and 
 experience would expect to find any and all ! 
 
 Accordingly Mr. Behringbright' wrapped 
 his plaid about him so as to restrain its play- 
 fuller gambols ; and as the vessel was now in 
 movement, began to descend as cautiously as 
 he might from the paddle-box. 
 
 On the whole, certainly, his figure might 
 not have appeared to much advantage in this 
 transit. He was a thorough landsman, and 
 felt giddy and perturbed in the action, and 
 he clutched rather airily at imaginary ropes 
 and other assistances in descending the 
 steep, semi-circular incline within which the 
 swimming giant's steam arms foamed and 
 tore at the waves to assist his progress with 
 his load. Still it was very rude of the two 
 persons who did it, we must say, who burst 
 into a tremendous guffaw, at witnessing the 
 operation ; themselves the while warmly and 
 17—2
 
 260 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 comfortably ensconced on a pile of luggage 
 round tlie funnel. Moreover, to complete the 
 fun, Mr. Beliringbriglit stumbled wlien he 
 came within a rung or two of the deck, and 
 endeavouring to prevent himself from going 
 backward overboard, arrived on it with a 
 violence that sent him the reverse way, full 
 shock, on one of the laughers. The two men 
 met indeed in a manner not untypical of their 
 future antagonism. 
 
 " Sacre nom I what do mean, sir ? You have 
 almost thundered my heart out of my ribs 
 with your unparalleled awkwardness !" ex- 
 claimed the person struck against, in an 
 exceedingly irate, and, in truth, insolent and 
 provocative manner. Not every one, however, 
 quarrelled with Mr. Beliringbriglit who wished 
 to do so ; he had not much of the jDliosphoric 
 blood of Normandy in his veins, and very 
 slowly gave out fire. "I beg 3^our pardon, 
 sir," he said ; " it was an accident. I am hurt 
 m3^self ; I trust a good deal more than you 
 are. 
 
 "Don't take his apology, Camille! — It*s 
 only patient camels that do that ! Stand on
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM, 261 
 
 the point of honour, and have satisfaction out 
 of his hide !" said the unpeacemaking com- 
 panion, in a strong nasal tone, evidently 
 enjoying the diversion, and endeavouring to 
 egg on his companion to some still more 
 amusingly formidable a demonstration. 
 
 And the merchant's meekness seemed indeed 
 to put it into the hero of the Sacre Norn's 
 head to enlarge in the bullying style he had 
 adopted from the first. 
 
 "It is no accident, sir !" he exclaimed, as 
 ferociously as a somewhat effeminately-toned 
 voice admitted. " You saw that we were smil- 
 ing at the awkwardness of the evolutions you 
 executed in descending to the deck, and hare 
 purposely precipitated your disastrous weight 
 upon me !" 
 
 " Well, sir, if you think so I cannot help it, 
 — have it your own way. I can only repeat, 
 in mine, that I am, at all events, very sorry 
 for the severe inconvenience I have given my- 
 self in the fall." 
 
 " There it is, — British domineering and in- 
 solence all over the world ! — Don't stand it, 
 Frenchy ! — Ecmembcr Waterloo, and pitch
 
 2C2 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 into liim !" said the ill-natured fellow who was 
 enjoying and creating this sport, as he doubt- 
 less considered it ; bursting into a huge, coarse 
 laugh, wliich showed all his long, thin, panther - 
 like teeth halfway down the tliroat. 
 
 "I demand satisfaction for the affront, 
 sir ;" exclaimed the champion addressed as 
 " Frenchy," but by no means in so fierce and 
 formidable a tone as should have been, had his 
 heart been quite in the same place with the 
 tall words he used. 
 
 " Are you two madmen, gentlemen ?" ex- 
 claimed Mr. Behringbright, really astonished, 
 and eyeing the opposite parties in the alterca- 
 tion with now some sternness of observation. 
 
 " I can answer for one Mr. Behrw(/hri(jJit !" 
 returned he of the nasal tones, in a strong, 
 defiant accent, although he had pronounced 
 that name which was the very synonym of 
 riches. "I think you know it a little to your 
 cost, that / am pretty tarnation comfortably 
 watertight in my brain compartments ; for 
 you can't have forgot the action you brought 
 against us — and lost — concerning those rotten 
 bulialo skins, as you pretended they was, and
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 263 
 
 came as fresh off the creatures' backs as if 
 they had been stripped alive !" 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Flamingo Brown !" said Mr. 
 Behringbright, no longer dissembling the 
 marked disgust in his tones. 
 
 " And I am not ashamed of the name, sir, 
 in either hemisphere !" was the extensive 
 retort. 
 
 " Well ! — if the name is not ashamed of you, 
 Mr. Brown, I do not see why you should be," 
 was the mild rejoinder. 
 
 " That is an ample retractation, sir, as regards 
 your humble servant, as you call one another 
 over here for pride's sake. But if I was this 
 young gentleman I would have another and a 
 bigger out of 3^ou, or know the reason why," 
 resumed this mischief-maker, backing fast 
 enough out of the quarrel on his own account, 
 but adding in an insidious whisper to his 
 companion, " Go in at Jdni I Don't you see 
 he'll take any amount of bullying? — And 
 there's a chance for you to cut a tremen- 
 dously fine figure before that pretty girl you 
 were boasting of, with as little risk as possible 
 to your own leather !"
 
 264 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " But . . . but ... I do not perceive . . . 
 I am not so much hurt ! Monsieur has asked 
 my forgiveness in all the forms!" stammered 
 the younger of the two injured voyagers — as 
 he very plainly appeared to be. 
 
 " Ah ! it's such sneaking fellows as you that 
 let the Britishers put the heel of their iron 
 calkers on the smashed face of all creation !" 
 bitterly ejaculated Mr. Mamingo Brown, quite 
 willing to get up a mortal quarrel between two 
 strangers, merely because he had himself been 
 detected and brought to justice — or attempted 
 to be brought to justice — for cheating in a 
 cargo of Californian hides. If the principle 
 of justice is innate in the human mind, it lies 
 pretty low down sometimes, it must be 
 admitted, in a Yankee trader's cargo of con- 
 science ! 
 
 Mr. Behringbright himself had no manner of 
 wish to press the quarrel farther ; and bearing 
 what his hondi fide antagonist had said, even 
 courteously raised his wide-awake and proceeded 
 on his original intention ; haunted, however, for 
 some distance by the extremely diverse phan- 
 tom resemblances of a very handsome Parisian
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 265 
 
 eler/anf, though but evidently of feeble and cox- 
 comical character, and that other tall, bully- 
 ing, " half-man, half- alligator" Yankee, who 
 had laboured with so much zeal to promote the 
 accidental ill-will aroused between them. 
 
 Xor did the latter cease from the unchristian 
 task even when Mr. Behringbright had removed 
 his obnoxious presence. 
 
 " Didn't you say, Momlcewer Leteller^' he re- 
 remarked, as they watched the receding figure, 
 "that you hated riches, and rich men, and all the 
 overbearing, aristocratic feeling of this rotten 
 old country, in all its roots and branches? 
 — Well, yonder man is the richest merchant in 
 all London city ; and that's to say, I suppose, 
 according to the Britishers, in all the 
 world !" '^ 
 
 " Ah ! wlio is he ? What is he ?" 
 
 " Behrin^brisrht Brothers !" 
 
 " Ah ! it is a name whose celebrity in- 
 fluences all the exchanges of Europe. But do 
 not mistake me, Mr. Brown, so infinitely as to 
 imagine that I dislike riches in themselves. 
 On the contrary, Tantalus himself never 
 thirsted for the waters rushing close below his
 
 266 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 lips so ardently as I desire for myself riches ! It 
 is to see them in tlie possession of others only 
 that I feel so profound a repugnance ; and to 
 know to what humiliations, what restraints, 
 what perversities of fate, what dishonourable 
 and unhappy conduct, I may even say, an 
 unfortunate must submit to, who, with all the 
 desire to enjoy the world like a prince, is con- 
 demned to the miserable stipend and existence 
 of a — what do you call him? — a commercial 
 traveller /'' 
 
 " Pho ! I was one myself for years till I 
 made that reglar sunburst of a speculation in 
 a run of black cattle from Cuba, in Walker's 
 time, under the pretence of filibustering for 
 liberty, and all that, thar," replied Mr. Fla- 
 mingo Brown, patronizingly. " But I suppose 
 what you mean to say is, that your are crossed 
 in your love affairs — perhaps with that splen- 
 dacious gal you observed you must not notice 
 for your life, because she was with some rich 
 sort of an old fellow, her father, just now? 
 And like most other green critturs in the dawn 
 of creation, as one may call being in love (I 
 was once, I think, almost in love myself),
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 267 
 
 fancy the end of the world is come, because 
 they wont pack her up in a gold wicker 
 basket, and make you a present of her with 
 their unanimous compliments. That's what 
 about ails you, isn't it ?" 
 
 " What would be the use of a man's obtain- 
 ing to himself the daughter of Croesus, if the 
 father vowed upon the instant to cast her 
 off and disinherit her for ever ?" said the 
 young Frenchman, with a deeply sentimental 
 sigh. 
 
 " Not much, of course, in the dollar depart- 
 ment ; but once upon a time young people did 
 not look altoerether to that consideration, — or 
 hardly at all, I've heard say in the songs, — but 
 would bolt together the first opportunity, and 
 take their chance for making it all right with 
 the old dad or starving. Put it on a toss-up 
 — heads, I win ! tails, you lose !" 
 
 "Ah, yes, but she also ! — she also is animated 
 with the conviction of the necessity of wealth, 
 and utterly refuses any such coup of extrica- 
 tion," exchumcd the Frenchman, precipitately, 
 and api)areiitly thrown off his guard. 
 
 '' Who does ? What does ?" said the Yankee,
 
 268 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 witli evidently, on his part, a very livelily- 
 startled curiosity. 
 
 " I am sworn to an eternal, an impenetrable 
 secrecy," said Monsieur Le Tellier, with an air 
 of inexorable fixity of purpose. 
 
 The Yankee laughed. " Then all I can say 
 is, that I wish you your health to wear it ; and 
 if the object of your afiections is such anoiUer 
 as you describe, you may depend upon it she 
 will play you a jade's trick some day, and 
 kick you and your milk-paH over both in the 
 mire ! 
 
 " No !" returned the Frenchman, with a 
 singularly vain-glorious and self-confident look, 
 that for a moment even subdued the incredu- 
 lous Yankee into acquiescence ; " I have secured 
 her mine, in links which it is impossible that 
 any woman, endowed with the common feelings 
 — the sentiments of a woman — can ever think 
 to break !'* 
 
 But Mr. Flamingo Brown, speedily rallied. 
 
 " Oh, bosh !" he said ; " that's the way all 
 you Frenchmen gabble, boasting of kisses in the 
 dark when no one can see whether 3'ou are lying 
 9r not. Links, indeed ! There are no links
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 209 
 
 now that bind people to anything unless they 
 are made of gold. I'll wager the sun, moon, 
 and stars, now in one truck — for example, that 
 if that hulking mammon-god, that came bang 
 against us like an exploding shell a few mo- 
 ments ago, were to offer his hand and money 
 to this boasted fine young ladj Juliet of yours, 
 she'd jump at him without a skipping-rope, and 
 leave you to hang or drown yourself, as you 
 thought proper, with no more compunction 
 than a fishmonger boils a crab !" 
 
 ^' Ha ! ha ! — we shall see." 
 
 " So we shall, perhaps ; for, by Jove ! tliat's 
 the grisly bear's with the golden claws fifth 
 circulation round where the young lady 
 with the eyes is sitting — with her 'pa, I 
 suppose ?" 
 
 " Aha ! let him circulate, it is all in vain. 
 What ! to parade a person that reminds one 
 only of a Diogenes without his tub, before 
 Miss Madeleine Graham ! Aha ! It is vain, 
 had he a mountain of gold to coin into sove- 
 reigns and napoleons, and would fling tliem 
 all at her feet." 
 
 " Miss Madeleine Graham ! — Commend me
 
 270 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 to a Frencliman for keeping a lady's name under 
 the rose," said the Yankee, bursting into a 
 hoarse peal of laughter. '' Well, be it all as 
 you say, I still strongly reconunend you not 
 to put her up to the fact that we have such a 
 claim on board as we have, or you'll see she'll 
 be for putting in her spade in the diggings, 
 too, like any other sensible woman who knows 
 what money's worth means ! But I grant 
 you, if nobody let's her into the secret, she is 
 not likely to suspect she sees a two-million man 
 in such a steerage-passenger-looking fellow as 
 that !" 
 
 " Ah ! if by any chance I shall spy my 
 opportunity to address her, it is not concerning 
 any other man that I shall dissipate the time 
 in amusing her," said the young Frenchman, 
 with a smile full of the most inexpressible 
 vanity. " But, alas !" he added, relapsing into 
 a gloomy sentimental mood, which he seemed 
 to think became him — '' but, alas ! she has 
 passed upon me the most rigorous sentence, — 
 not to venture even on a humble recognition 
 of her, on any public occasion, on pain of for- 
 feiting all the happiness of our private meet-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 271 
 
 ings and assurances of mutual devotion on 
 which we both repose !" 
 
 " Well, good night, then ; sleep well on your 
 air mattress ! But now let's find out the bar, 
 and liquor, like men of this world."
 
 272 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTEE XY. 
 
 CALIPH HAROUN ALRASCHID. 
 
 Meanhwile, Mr. Behringbriglit had strolled in 
 the usually careless and unobservant manner 
 of a man who wants to observe, towards what 
 he now discerned to be a family group of three 
 persons ; of whom the object of his attraction 
 was one. Father and mother and daughter 
 appeared to form it. The first of these was a 
 severe, puritanical- looking man, with a car king, 
 anxious, business expression, rather deepened 
 in gloom and austerity than softened by the 
 shadows of time. The second, on the contrary, 
 was a short, stout, strunty little woman, much 
 younger than her consort ; with a face that 
 must at some time have been particularly hand- 
 some, and was still remarkable for the showy 
 colours of the complexion, and a lively, saucy, 
 have-at-you expression, that marked the flow
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 273 
 
 of the rale Milesian blood in her veins. And 
 now considering these varied qualities of sire 
 and dam, it seemed sufficiently explicable how 
 Madeleine Grraham's figure had come to com- 
 bine such an unusual mixture of charm and 
 attraction — of graceful, slender, and yet volup- 
 tuous rounding in the stature — so bright and 
 vivaciously careless an expression, .with an 
 internal power of calculation and self-control 
 that would have qualified her, on the greater 
 theatres of ambition, to have played the part 
 of a Clytemnestra or Lady Macbetli, as un- 
 shrinkingly as either of those admired imj)er- 
 sonations of colossal and magnificent crime. 
 
 So Mr. Behringbright thought as he slowly 
 made his way, pausing at various obstructions 
 which he chiefly found for himself, towards 
 the company, keeping the figure always, never- 
 theless, in his eye, at least, so far as related 
 to physical considerations. He was very far, 
 indeed, from giving Madeleine Graham credit 
 for the capacities of exalted mischief she pos- 
 sessed, and perhaps could scarcely have con- 
 ceived them, not having himself a particle of 
 the perfcrvidum inc/enium, either of Scot or 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Hibernian, in liis own calm Dutch and Saxon 
 compounded nature. He also thought she was 
 very much improved from her exceedingly 
 girlish appearance when he had first seen her, 
 under circumstances so inauspicious to favour- 
 able consideration, but in which she had 
 stamped her image so ineffaceably on his 
 memory. There was even a something of 
 passionate sentiment and physical exaltation 
 in her general expression, which, while it 
 puzzled conjecture, had a singular species of fas- 
 cination and attraction for Mr. Behringbright, 
 who, without knowing it, had been all his life 
 sighing for sentiment and enthusiasm in his 
 relations with the fair sex. Alas ! the fairest 
 gave him no opportunity to enjoy those exqui- 
 site alternations of hope and fear which make 
 up the lover's irrational delight, and keep aHve 
 the kindled fire ! Everybody was so ready to 
 have him ; he had only to glance to see diifi- 
 culties vanish, Hke darkness before the flash of 
 a lamp ! 
 
 It was different in this case ; and Mr. Beh- 
 ringbright was forced to acknowledge to him- 
 self the injustice of his previous inklings of
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 275 
 
 suspicion wlien, passing for tlie second time 
 pretty close to Madeleine, as she stood watch- 
 ing the foamy flooding of the sea from the 
 paddle-wheels below, apparently in reverie, he 
 caught again the glance of those wonderful 
 eyes, and felt, in their utterly unmoved and 
 unchanged expression, how completely he must 
 be a stranger in them ! Perhaps if he had 
 been aware what a strong, and even startling 
 meaning there was in his own, he w^ould have 
 seen an excess in the unconcern exhibited, 
 somewhat injurious to the impression intended 
 to be produced. But of course he could not, 
 and was justified in arriving at the conclusion 
 he anchored in, after that momentary, soft, 
 uninterested observation had fallen upon him, 
 and had then reverted, with an increased un- 
 consciousness of indifference, to the tumblincr 
 waves below the paddle-wheel. 
 
 Yet somehow Mr. Behringbright — after 
 some brief satisfaction in the circumstance — 
 grew uncomfortable at it. It annoyed him to 
 think that he must continue a stranger in such 
 very fine eyes ; though it was all ver}^ well 
 to find that he could not possibly, in this 
 
 18—2
 
 276 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 instance, be indebted to any adventitious cir- 
 cumstance to make advances towards an ac- 
 quaintance, on his part, too readily acceptable. 
 Garbed as he v^as, he knew that he would 
 certainly be taken for anything but a million- 
 naire. A cattle-dealer looked more probable, 
 saving that there certainly was an air of 
 superior education and mental power in his 
 expression than were not likely to be devoted 
 to that kind of occupation. 
 
 And now, strange to say, Mr. Behringbright, 
 the most unimaginative of men, formed a little 
 project in his own mind, such as might have 
 entered the head of the Caliph Haroun Alras- 
 chid, but not, one would have thought, the sober 
 brains of a merchant of London. He deter- 
 mined, at least for once, to enjoy the luxury 
 of believing himself appreciated on the score 
 of his own merits alone, and to contrive to 
 introduce himself to the young lady's notice 
 (he was determined upon thaf) in a manner 
 which would secure him against his wonted 
 mortification of finding himself honoured rather 
 as a money-bag than as a man ! Though why, 
 or with what intent, he desired to bring about
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 277 
 
 this result, Mr. Behringbright had really him- 
 self no very clearly formed notion. 
 
 Chance offered him some assistance in his 
 project. The steamer had now got into the 
 open fling of the sea, and rose and dipped 
 rather heavily against the run of the water, 
 driven by a contrary wind. One of these 
 buffets set everything loose and rattling about 
 them, and among the rest a block, by some 
 accident left unfastened, swung heavily down 
 from the rigging, almost on Madeleine's head, 
 if Mr. Behringbright, happening to pass on his 
 fifth majestic, Grhost-in- Hamlet sort of pacing 
 the deck, had not perceived the danger, and 
 with great presence of mind and activity, 
 suddenly seized the young lady by lier bur- 
 nous, and drawn her, with some saving violence, 
 out of the orbit of the attack. 
 
 Madeleine and her whole party discerned 
 instantaneously that she had escaped the danger 
 of a very severe blow. Her mother gave a 
 scream, and her father himself, awaking from 
 an apathy of inattention which seemed habitual 
 to him, uttered an exclamation. 
 
 " God be praised !" he exclaimed, when he
 
 27S MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 perceived what had occurred, with a Puritan 
 twang in the pious expression, which might 
 have hecome a Cromwellian Eoundhead. " My 
 daughter had a narrow escape there, sir," he 
 continued in a more natural, nineteenth-cen- 
 tury tone. "Thank the gentleman, Made- 
 leine, for your whole skull ! I am sure you 
 ought." 
 
 '' And I am sure I do, papa, from the bottom 
 of my heart," replied the young lady, with a 
 sweet and melting earnestness of intonation 
 on the words that seemed to How like a stream 
 of music into Mr. Behringhright's corporeal 
 frame. And yet — and yet — he shuddered! Was 
 it with the reaction of the rapid and decided ef- 
 fort he had made, which was only usual with him 
 in matters of business ? Or was it some chill of 
 the now darkening night-wind ? Or was it 
 that in all those harmonious accents mino^led 
 something of the dread and nameless horror of 
 fascination, still not to be resisted, of the treach- 
 erous syren daughters of the wave ? Certain 
 it is Mr. Behringbright shuddered ; while he 
 felt that there w^as something indescribably 
 winning and attractive in these few simple
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 279 
 
 words that never before had he discerned in 
 any accents feminine. 
 
 " I'm sure we're all very much obliged to 
 you, sir. Madeleine's face mi^ht almost have 
 been knocked to pieces by a thing like that 
 hitting against it, and that would have been a 
 rum joke !" said the mother, heartily, in by no 
 means such soft and dulcet tones as her 
 daughter's, nor in language so refined, but 
 possibly with a good deal more sincerity and 
 honesty in those she used. " Grive him your 
 card, Sir Orange ; I am sure we shall be very 
 glad to see you at home, sir, if you're a stranger 
 in Belfast, as I see by your appearance you are. 
 We are not above any sort of Christian fellow- 
 ship in the world, provided you are not a 
 Eoman, sir. Particularly when one feels an 
 obligation." 
 
 Mr. Behringbright, rather amused at this 
 display of general Christian charity, exonerated 
 himself from the supposition. Nor was he at 
 tlie moment struck by the name he heard thus 
 pronounced, until Sir Orange Graham produced 
 a card inscribed with it ; to say truth, ratlier 
 slowly and reluctantly, though he seemed toyield
 
 280 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 a singular degree of submission to his consort's 
 decrees ; singular in a man who was so appa- 
 rently otherwise of an austere and unbending 
 personal character. 
 
 "Sir Orange Graham!" then exclaimed 
 rather than read Mr. Behringbright, struck 
 by the recollection that this was the designation 
 of the Belfast ''trader," or manufacturer, with 
 whom Emily Maughan was declared to have 
 feigned a resolution of accepting a domicile as 
 a governess. 
 
 " Yes, sir : what occasions your surprise at 
 that being my name ? The glorious, pious, 
 and immortal memory of the man who redeemed 
 these islands from the yoke of the Pope and 
 the Inquisition " 
 
 " Hold your bother, now, to a stranger. Sir 
 Orange ! can't you ? What's the use of talk- 
 ing such old-fashioned stuff as that to an 
 Englishman who has forgotten all about racks 
 and thumbscrews and all that nonsense these 
 hundreds of years ?" interposed Lady Graham ; 
 with very proper impatience and disdain, as it 
 seemed to Mr. Behringbright himself, who
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 2S1 
 
 hated nothing so much as any species of reli- 
 gious rancour and animosity. 
 
 "But I am not surprised at anything in 
 your name, Sir Orange, except at the accidental 
 coincidence that — that I believe there is some 
 young relation of mine ! — resident as a gover- 
 ness in your family," said Mr. Behringbright, 
 not knowing how else to put it so as not to 
 trip up his own excellent notion of playing the 
 Caliph in discjuise. Almost certain, besides, 
 that he should hear tidings of the fugitive of 
 Glengariff's non-appearance, where she had in- 
 tended to go, and confirmation of her being the 
 usual sort of creature his experience figured in 
 all the varieties of womankind. 
 
 " Is she a relative of yours ? Is Miss Emily 
 Maughan ? — Then I am sure, sir, you ought 
 to be proud of her ; for a sweeter and better 
 behaved, though rather down spirited young 
 creature, I never saw in my life ! and it quite 
 took away all the anxieties I felt on my spirits 
 at the idea of leaving my little darlings without 
 their mother, on this treat of Sir Orange's about 
 the new Grand Trunk Line before Parliament,
 
 282 MADELEINE GRAHAM. ^ 
 
 wlio took US with liim to London, in the ex- 
 penses, as he had a right, for the corporation," 
 said Lady Graham ; not expressing herself too 
 clearly, perhaps, and laughing as if she had 
 never had an anxiety in her life. 
 
 " Miss Manghan's a very good girl, I must 
 say, certainly, and quite the lady in all she 
 says and does, and is an acquisition to any 
 Christian family ; and so I've found her in 
 mine," said Sir Orange, pompously, adding, 
 "She came recommended to us from the 
 Countess of Glengariff, of Glengarijff Castle ; 
 but that is a true-blue Protestant ascendancy 
 family, and has been for centuries, though it 
 resides in the south ; or I should never have 
 admitted her into mine, you may be sure, sir !" 
 
 " Of com'se. Sir Orange. She really did 
 come to your family, then, from Glengariff 
 Castle ? And is still resident in it ?" said Mr. 
 Behringbright, rather puzzled. 
 
 *' Certainly. I had a letter from her only 
 yesterday, saying that little Mary Anna's ear- 
 ache is quite gone . . . and everything com- 
 fortable . . . as usual," remarked the mother 
 of the family. " Why, she's scarcely been a
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 283 
 
 montli among us, and they're all as fond of her 
 as if she had been six years/' 
 
 "Well, mamma, you know she was not 
 quite a stranger ; she was my schoolfellow in 
 London, I soon found out," said Madeleine, in 
 a rather altered tone, but probably deeming 
 candour and amiable reminiscence of the kind, 
 under the circumstances, best. 
 
 " Are you Miss Maughan's uncle, sir ?" in- 
 quired Sir Orange now, with rather unexpected 
 hardness and abruptness. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright, besides being thrown out 
 of his calculations in general, felt this question 
 jarred on some fine nerve. He winced. He 
 certainly did not look very young ; he was no 
 beardless Damian, though he shaved pretty 
 close. Yet on the whole, did he look like an 
 uncle ? Like Miss Emily Maughan's — uncle ? 
 It was towards Madeleine Graham, hardly 
 knowing that he did so himself, that he looked 
 fur information on this point. 
 
 "You mean her cousin, papa, surely, like that 
 otheryoung gentleman wlio looked like amilitary 
 man, that came soon after Emily did — and in- 
 sisted on seeing: her — as such !" murmured the
 
 284 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 deep-melodious undertones of Madeleine Gra- 
 ham at this conjuncture. 
 
 This was rather strong 1 but 0, ye gods and 
 little fishes ! it went down as smooth as honey ; 
 even that nobbled throat, so practised at re- 
 jection, swallowed it, administered from the 
 peculiar papboat ! 
 
 " Do you mean to say that Lord Glengariff 
 — I mean, a Sergeant-Major in his Lordship's 
 troop — Miss Maughan's cousin — our cousin — 
 called upon her ?" said Mr. Behringbright. 
 
 " Yes ; and I believe they had quite a scene," 
 replied Madeleine, demurely, yet with a sparkle 
 of secret mischief in her eye. " The young 
 gentleman insisted she had no business to leave 
 Glengariif Castle — although she had been 
 ordered out — without his permission and sanc- 
 tion, being her only relative and friend, he 
 said — for one of our servants heard him making 
 the noise, and what he said — not only in Ire- 
 land, but in all the world !" 
 
 " He was not right there !" said Mr. Behring- 
 bright, with an emotion that did not escape his 
 observant informer — '' he was not risrht there ! 
 Miss Maughan has several tried and faithful
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 285 
 
 friends, at all events. As for relations, tliey 
 are not always the staunchest in afflictions. 
 But do you mean to say, then, that her cousin 
 could not induce her to return to GlengarifF 
 Castle ?" « 
 
 " No, sir ; she is still with us ; not teaching 
 the young idea how to shoot, for they're all 
 girls, of course, she has in training with us. 
 But what I look to is this — I'm truly thankful 
 for it. But what on earth could induce Miss 
 Maughan to leave Glengariff Castle when she 
 might have stayed there ? And what had that 
 young man, her cousin, to do with ordering 
 her back, and flying into such a fury when she 
 refused? I suppose you know all about it, 
 sir .^ 
 
 Yes. ... of course !" said Mr. Behrincrbriirht. 
 looking and feeling, however, just the contrary 
 of that confident assertion. " It was a quarrel 
 with the great lady there, I believe ; who is, to 
 say the least of it, of a capricious temper." 
 
 " But what right had the young gentleman 
 to say that lie was sure, when his mother knew 
 everything, she would be reconciled to her 
 return ? Who is his mother ? And what had
 
 286 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 she to do in the matter ?" inquired Madeleine, 
 unable, on this point, to restrain her woman's 
 curiosity. 
 
 " His mother's name is the — the same as his 
 own ; and I suppose he was '^lexed to — to see 
 Emily losing such a capital situation," said Mr. 
 Behringbright, greatly disconcerted. 
 
 " Is your name too, sir, Maughan ? As 1 
 have given you my card ?" said Sir Orange, 
 rather pointedly. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright reflected for an instant — 
 a single instant. In that instant he was lost ! 
 He hit upon so ingenious an escape that he 
 involved himself in all the mazy consequences of 
 ingenuity, without having the requisite genius 
 of intrigue to run up and down, with light and 
 dexterous glide, the threads of his own meshes. 
 Perhaps some vague recollection of his recent 
 concussion with the American and Trenchman 
 crossed his mind, and suggested the designation 
 he was pleased to bestow upon himself " No, 
 Sir Orange," he said, " my name is not 
 Maughan ! I wish it were — Maughan is a good 
 deal more stylish than my own ; my name is 
 Broionjohn — Greorge Brownjohn."
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 287 
 
 " Humpli !" said Sir Orange : adding, after a 
 considerably protracted pause and a profoundly 
 sagacious estimate of the stranger's apparent 
 position and probable antecedents, " What house 
 do you travel for i'' 
 
 Another slight pause. 
 
 " Behringbright Brothers," then said Mr. 
 Behringbright. 
 
 " A first-rate firm, sir, — a first-rate firm : 
 couldn't wish my best friend in a better, in 
 your particular line," said Sir Orange, with 
 marked emphasis. 
 
 Madeleine smiled, but not so that any one 
 could discern the smile, looking down over the 
 bulwarks into the rolling sea. Who could ever 
 have guessed her thoughts ? 
 
 " He wishes to be loved for himself — does he? 
 Humph ! HASCHiscH !"
 
 288 MADELEINE GRAHAM, 
 
 CHAPTEE XTI. 
 
 A MARINE CHALLENGE. 
 
 They may well say nosciiur a sociis — you are 
 known by the company you keep. Sir Orange 
 Graham had no other reason for concluding our 
 Caliph Haroun was a commercial traveller 
 than the fact that he had observed him in close 
 confabulation with two persons, one of whom 
 he was but too certainly aware belonged to the 
 order of those wandering Tartars of civiliza- 
 tion. But on the whole, it decidedly served 
 Mr. Behringbright's purpose of remaining 
 incog. ; and as he was not a man vain of his 
 personal attributes, it concerned him not greatly 
 that he had been taken to be something so 
 considerably below the rank of a prince. 
 
 Meanwhile, the circumstances of his intro- 
 duction, and the common acquaintanceship of 
 the company with Emily Maughan, smoothed
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 2S9 
 
 the way to a more easy and friendly communi- 
 cation tlian would have been likely under other 
 circumstances. There was nothing like pride 
 about Lady Graham in any sense, and she 
 liked few things better than entering into a 
 rattling chatter with any one, stranger or not, 
 who might help to beguile the tediousness of 
 a sea-passage. 
 
 " That's what makes one sea-sick, the tadioiis- 
 ness of it ! Just to see one wave as like an- 
 other as haystacks, wallowing and tumbling 
 ever each other's nasty cold whaley backs, 
 without the least variety in life, and to stand 
 staring at them till one forgets where one's 
 standing at all ; and the giddiness comes over 
 one, and a kind of faintness, you know, Mr. 
 Brownjohn, and then it's all up with one !" 
 she said, after complimenting him on the per- 
 severing kindness with which he remained in 
 conversation with herself and her daughter, 
 when Sir Orange himself had long deserted 
 them, under pretence of going down for warmth 
 into the cabin ; in reality, being of a tempera- 
 ment almost as bilious as his name, stealing 
 away, with the modest devotion of a true wor- 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 shipper, to tlie remotest stem of the Prince 
 Alfred, there to offer his oblations to Neptune. 
 Mr. Behringbright had, in fact, laid himself 
 out to please ; and being a man of extensive 
 general information, though he seldom chose 
 to exhibit the fact at all demonstratively, had 
 sufficient means of amusement at his command, 
 in anecdote and allusions to well-known places 
 and persons, likely to interest recent provincial 
 visitors to London. The art with which he 
 meanwhile avoided anything compromising to 
 his assumed position in society, surprised him- 
 self, and perhaps still more one of his Hsteners. 
 It was in this character that Madeleine Graham 
 chiefly figured on the occasion ; but she lis- 
 tened with so much intelligence — every now 
 and then raised her eyes, so full of beaming 
 apprehension, and, as it were, admiring appre- 
 ciation of the good wit and understanding in 
 men and things exhibited by her new acquaint- 
 ance — that Mr. Behringbright had never felt 
 oefore so comfortably convinced that he pos- 
 sessed ability in the conversational line, though 
 he had been often very earnestly assured so by 
 mothers and a ants soliciting him to join in their
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 291 
 
 quieter little family parties and reunions. He 
 knew tlie value of applause directed to the 
 head of a wealthy firm ; but this silently elo- 
 quent approbation, conveyed in eye-streams 
 full of sentiment and modesty, was directed — 
 was it not ? — to the merits of a " representative 
 man" only, of the commercial order, and must 
 be genuine ! And, indeed, nothing is easier 
 than to find out and admire the wit and good 
 sense of a rich man. But when these quali- 
 ties display themselves in a shabby dress, the 
 person detecting them is surely entitled to a 
 very considerable share of the honour. In 
 short, Mr. Behringbright was fast making- 
 ready to take a header into that tempting, 
 heaven-reflecting, fathomless abyss of love, on 
 whose rocky precipices he had hitherto only 
 amused himself with plucking samphire, or 
 other bright weeds, or picking ofi* limpets and 
 starfish — utterly unconscious at the same time 
 that he was so nigh the edge, and about to take 
 the fatal leap ! 
 
 The syren meanwhile, wholly unmoved in 
 her own heart, watched the progress of thi) 
 spell. But in truth, if she ever had possessed
 
 293 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 such an organ in any but tlie physical use, it 
 was long since given away to another : but 
 that is doubtful. Sensuality and ambition were 
 the master-springs of Madeleine Graham's cha- 
 racter ; and, if she had possessed the like 
 imperial opportunities, might, perhaps, have 
 qualified her to play as illustrious a part in the 
 history of her sex as the great Eussian Second 
 Catherine herself ! But I may be forming too 
 dazzling an estimate of my heroine's capabilities 
 — a fault not exclusively confined to avAo- 
 biographers. 
 
 Very few persons in modern society, how- 
 ever, who are aware of the possession of these 
 higher attributes of strenuous and sensuous 
 humanity, care to make an external exhibition 
 of them ; and Madeleine Graham was no 
 exception to the rule. She could even blush, 
 I believe, when she thought proper — which is 
 surely one of the most difiicult operations of 
 simulation the fair sex can possibly be ex- 
 pected to perform ! The statue of Psyche her- 
 self, listening to the first breathings of In- 
 visible Love, could not exhibit a more virgin 
 modesty of reception than our poor Madeleine
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 293 
 
 put on in lier whole demeanour, while she felt the 
 progress of her triumph in every glance of Mr. 
 Behringhright's honest and pure-minded, but 
 warm and now tenderly -lit — though wontedly 
 dull— grey, internally-thinking eyes. 
 
 Yet, perhaps, it is the moral chemist whose 
 analysis errs at this point ! Perhaps there was 
 something of real shrinking — of real aversion 
 — to the wickedness that might only be float- 
 ing dimly then in her mind, in the modest with- 
 drawal — the maidenly coldness and reserve — of 
 Madeleine's manner towards the new, dart- 
 stricken lover! Trained from her earliest 
 childhood in the adoration of wealth, might 
 not still that intervening tremendous interlude 
 of guiltily-frenzied passion have wrought a 
 change in her character and aspirations? — Or 
 was the radiant dream discovered to be already 
 such ? Had the delirium of the senses passed 
 away, and left her more than ever the calm and 
 calculating pursuer of material, tangible inte- 
 rests ? Was she a man in this, as well as in 
 undaunted nerve and hardness of resolve ? — In 
 all but the bewildering softness and insinua- 
 tion of the feminine nature she could exhibit,
 
 294 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 when it was necessary to captivate and 
 enthral ? 
 
 I prefer myself to think, that although the 
 sudden reappearance of the millionnaire, and 
 his scarcely disguised attraction towards her, 
 might revive for awhile the ambitious notion 
 first instilled into her schoolgirl fancy by 
 Mademoiselle Olympe, Madeleine Graham was 
 yet innocent of any formed and decided crimi- 
 nality of intention as regarded Mr. Behring- 
 bright. Moreover, she knew herself to be 
 chained in bonds to another, which it would be 
 scarcely possible to break. — The illusion of 
 passion was, it is true, completely over with 
 her, as regarded the lover whom she had suf- 
 fered to attain such a supremacy over her ; and 
 she was aware of the mingled vanity and mer- 
 cenary rapacity that composed the foundation 
 of Camille Le Tellier's character, and were the 
 main incentives of his actions. He had placed 
 his hopes of rising in the world in the chances 
 of his union with the daughter, and acceptance 
 in the family, of a wealthy trader, — and had 
 her completely in his power. Was it likely he 
 would abandon these advantages ? Was he
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 295 
 
 not even at that very moment on board the 
 same vessel with her ; against her wishes and 
 the unmistakably expressed dislike and re- 
 pulses of her father and family ? — Might he 
 not be playing the espial on her indeed ? Per- 
 haps, after all other attempts to solve the mys- 
 tery, this was the true solution of the extremely 
 retiring and forbearing manner of the young 
 beauty towards her new victim. Madeleine 
 frequently observed — though nobody else did 
 — Camille's handsome porcelain face, — paler 
 than the fine china his complexion emulated 
 — with despiteful feeling, staring over the fun- 
 nel-box which marked the lines of demarcation 
 between first and second-class passengers ; 
 evidently seized with suspicion at so protracted 
 an interview, even with so unlikely a concurrent 
 as Madeleine concluded he would consider Mr. 
 Behringbright, in liis shabby array, to be. 
 
 Be it as it may, Madeleine at last felt the 
 policy of putting Monsieur Le Tellier more at 
 his ease, — and professed that she was growing 
 very sleepy. Nevertheless, she declared she 
 entertained (not without a cause) a strong 
 aversion to going down in the ladies' cabin for
 
 296 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 repose. She loved, slie said, to feel the fresh 
 air blowing over her face ; then she was never 
 sea-sick. Lady Graham thereupon protested 
 that she also would stay on deck with her 
 dear child ; and it became Mr. Behringbright's 
 pleasing taskwork to procure cushions, and 
 fashion up, to the best of his ability, a comfort- 
 able couch for the ladies on the deck. He did 
 this very well, considering that it was his debut 
 as a chambermaid ; and when his laughing and 
 thankful mistresses took possession of their 
 hard couch, it was a sight to see with what 
 gallantry he insisted on stripping off his plaid 
 and making it their coverlet, while he himself 
 accepted a sailor's coarse jacket in lieu of what 
 he despoiled himself of in their service. 
 Happy, then, in his success, and with a heart 
 aglow with a strange, unwonted, but most de- 
 licious sentiment, Mr. Behringbright modestly 
 retired from the scene of so much happiness, to 
 muse upon what could possibly have befallen 
 him to lift the load of gloom and despondency 
 from his heart, which a few short hours before 
 had made existence appear to him a burden 
 and a weariness scarcely to be sustained.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 297 
 
 Such was his purpose; but wiser people 
 even than the present writer have remarked 
 that men are often balked of their more plea- 
 sant anticipations. Misfortunes and discom- 
 forts may be expected with tolerable certainty. 
 Who ever knew the water-rate collector fail to 
 call for his arrears, or the Queen's taxes neglect 
 to demand themselves? Whereas one not 
 unfrequently don't have an invitation to a ball 
 or a dinner one had promised one's self, but is 
 left to hear the description of the dresses at 
 secondhand, concealing one's anguish under a 
 pleasant, interested smile. Mr. Behringbright 
 had hardly strolled a few yards away from the 
 two fair sleepers (one of whom was awake, and 
 continued so for a long time after) than he 
 perceived the tall, gaunt figure of his Yankee 
 disliker beckoning inauspiciously to him to 
 approach, from the second-chiss side of the 
 dividing funnel. Not that Mr. Flamingo 
 Brown cared in the least for the circumstance 
 that his rate of fare entitled him to consider 
 himself under a ban not to pass the demarcation 
 — particularly with the big cheroot in his mouth 
 he was now smoking, seemingly in rivalry
 
 298 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 with the auofust flue that towered above him. 
 But that gentleman now gave it to be under- 
 stood that the communication he was to 
 address to Mr. Behringbright had to be out of 
 earshot of ladies, '' and such-like timorous 
 cattle," as he politely phrased it. The former 
 was not displeased at the arrangement ; struck 
 for the first time in his life unpleasantly with 
 the sound of his own name, excepting when 
 his wife that had been did him the dishonour 
 to bear it. 
 
 " Well, what is it ?" he inquired, continu- 
 ing his stroll until he was pretty close to his 
 summoner. 
 
 "No, come, Mr. Behringbright, that wont 
 exactly do," replied Mr. Flamingo Brown, 
 with something certainly of a grim and sar- 
 donic humour in his expression, but none 
 whatever in his tones or words. " You can be 
 at no loss to know what I must respectfully 
 request your attention upon. You have in- 
 sulted a young gentleman, of a nation as little 
 disposed as any under the universal sun to put 
 up with impertinence, and you must give him 
 satisfaction. He has appointed me his second
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 299 
 
 and referee ; and liere I am to ask you to be 
 so good as to name another gentleman on 
 board, with whom I can make arrangement 
 for you two to fight it out as soon as you get 
 to land." 
 
 Mr. Behringbright did not appear in the 
 least surprised, much less alarmed; contin- 
 gencies both, in all probability, expected by 
 Mr. Flamingo Brown. 
 
 " What nonsense !" he merely said, brush- 
 ing the ash off a cigar of his own, which he 
 had lighted, during the Yankee's address, on 
 the funnel. '' In the first place, Mr. Brown, 
 I am not a fighting man — don't do anything 
 in the duelling way at all. In the next place, 
 I don't know anybody on board whom I could 
 take the liberty of asking to assist me, of my 
 malice prepense, in a possible murder. And 
 in the third place, I have offered to apologize 
 in the amplest manner possible for an imagin- 
 ary rudeness towards your principal. What 
 more can he require ?" 
 
 " A written ajpology, to be inserted in all the 
 Dublin and Belfast journals." 
 
 *' Well, no ; I have never yet been a writer
 
 300 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 for the press, and it is a little too late in the 
 day for me to begin.'* 
 
 " Then you must fight." 
 
 " I don't see how that follows." 
 
 " You must either fight Monsieur Le 
 Tellier, or he will post you as a coward 
 all over the noble city of Belfast," said Mr. 
 Brown, bursting into a huge, hoarse, cackling 
 laugh. 
 
 " That will not damage my credit on the 
 Exchange," replied Mr. Behringbright, with 
 great composure, perceiving the mischief- 
 maker's design. " Still, it will be rather 
 awkward and unpleasant, certainly. The 
 Irish ladies will think the less of me, no 
 doubt — and I am rather anxious at present 
 to conciliate their favour — if I refuse a war- 
 like invitation of the kind," he continued, 
 musingly ; and concluding — very considerably 
 to Flamingo Brown's astonishment, certainly 
 — "WeU, I will fight Monsieur Le Tellier, 
 since he wishes it." 
 
 " You will, Mr. Behringbright?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " He — he will be delighted with the news ;
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 301 
 
 thunder me if he isn't !" said Mr. Brown, so 
 taken aback bj what he heard that he felt it 
 necessary to asseverate the statement, which 
 he knew to be contrary to the truth, with 
 particular vehemence. In reality, he had with 
 great difficulty worked Camille up to the mark 
 announced, with the assistance of the powerful 
 agency of jealousy, by urging upon him that 
 Mr. Behringbright would never dream of 
 fighting a duel, whatever provocation was 
 given him, and that he had only to per- 
 severe in demanding an apology to obtain 
 one, and cut a great figure as a man of 
 spirit and bloodthirsty resolution. Poor 
 Camille had fallen, though diffidently, into 
 the snare ; and now Mr. Behringbright's com- 
 plian(;e was certainly an awkward hitch in 
 the plot ! 
 
 " I suppose so ; and he is in good hands, 
 Mr. Flamingo Brown, to keep him in* the 
 heroic humour," continued Mr. Behringbright, 
 smiling caustically at the bullying Yankee's 
 expression of doubt and surprise. 
 
 "Who's your backer, then?" the latter re- 
 joined, in a surly tone.
 
 302 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 " I will confide in you to see fair play on 
 both sides." 
 
 " That's a compliment, at all events !" and 
 Flamingo looked as if he could not quite make 
 the matter out. 
 
 " No compliment at all." 
 
 ^* We have only, then, to settle on the place 
 and the weapons. But for my part, you have 
 such queer notions about things over here, I 
 do not so much care to be in the matter — all 
 by myself," said the promoter of hostilities, 
 now quite confounded. 
 
 "As ioY place — any place where this young 
 French gentleman and myself may have space 
 for the exercise, will be proper enough. As 
 for loeapons — of course, being the challenged, I 
 have the choice of them." 
 
 " hi course." 
 
 " Then I choose — cudgels !" 
 
 ^^ Cudgels!" 
 
 " Shillelaghs, if the word suits you better, 
 with the wind blowing in our teeth from the 
 Green Isle." 
 
 " You are making a jest of me, Mr. Bchring-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 303 
 
 bright — Cudgels P' roared Flamingo Brown, 
 staring menacingly at his collocutor. 
 
 " In course I am ; or, of course, as we say on 
 this side of the Atlantic," said Mr. Behring- 
 bright, turning on his heel, and leaving the 
 Yankee second to his reflections, alone in his 
 glory.
 
 304 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FALSE PEARLS ARE THE LARGEST." 
 
 No further immediate harm followed on this 
 failure in the provocation of hostilities. The 
 night passed — the morning came — as a vast 
 many nights and mornings have passed and 
 come, for so many post-geological ages. That 
 is to say, nothing very particular seemed to 
 happen in consequence. The Frince Alfred 
 sped on her way very cheerfully over smooth 
 waters, and entered the harbour of Belfast with 
 colours gaily streaming over her, for the most 
 part, ghastly, pallid, and sea-sick passengers ; 
 among whom Sir Orange Grraham cut rather a 
 conspicuously doleful figure. But this again 
 was an advantage to Mr. Behringbright ; who, 
 for a wonder, not being in the least indisposed 
 himself, was able to render very kind and effi-
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 305 
 
 cient assistance to tlie disabled manufacturer : 
 even, as he gratefully persisted for some time 
 in believing, bringing him back from Orcus, 
 just as he was about to die of his miserj^, by a 
 plenteous pour of brandy from a flask. Mean- 
 while, the warlike and hostile emotions of 
 Camille Le Tellier were out-hectored by the 
 violent action of the same causes, w^iich laid 
 and kept him prostrate on the floor of the 
 second-class cabin almost from the moment he 
 had signified his adhesion to Flamingo Brown's 
 challenge of his alleged insulter to when, the 
 vessel sidling up into the docks, and anchoring 
 quietly there, he staggered up on deck, with 
 the look of a man who had been buried for a 
 couple of days or so, and was then favoured 
 with a resuscitation. 
 
 The Grahams were so much taken with their 
 new acquaintance that even the gloomy and 
 sardonic head of the family expressed his hope 
 that Mr. Behringbright would accept an apart- 
 ment in their house while his affairs detained 
 him in Belfast. But this, for various reasons, 
 was not exactly that gentleman's wish, although 
 he was astonished at the pain he felt in the 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 notion of separation from tlie fascinating 
 daugliter. It may be, the pang in question 
 suggested to him reflections which he was not 
 yet so sufficiently head over ears in his fanciful 
 excitement to despise. Mr. Behringl3right had 
 an idea that he was becoming enthralled ; and 
 he had always made up his mind that no 
 daughter of Eve, however richly endowed, 
 should ever again lead him captive, even in 
 chains of so much brighter link than those of 
 his early, unblessed matrimony. He wisely 
 considered, so, that it would be much the best 
 to shun the danger. But, besides all this, he 
 did not relish the idea of facing Emily 
 Maughan, without preparation, under present 
 circumstances. The conduct of that girl was 
 
 assuredly inexplicable, unless But he would 
 
 not suffer himself to dwell upon a solution of 
 the enigma which, to a vain and heartless man, 
 might have been sufficiently flattering and 
 pleasant. He determined, therefore, to write 
 Emily a note, explaining his arrival in Ireland, 
 on her account — his having assumed a name 
 that was not his own, in order to avoid the 
 troublesome observation and attentions to
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 307 
 
 which it usually subjected him — and his wish 
 to confer with her in private on the subject of 
 some tidings Lady Glengariff had forwarded 
 to him, and which all he had ever known and 
 now heard of "Miss Maughan " more than 
 ever convinced him to be some baseless variety 
 in the hallucinations that unfortunate lady was 
 subject to. He mentioned, in the moist cursor}^ 
 style, his accidental meeting with the heads of 
 the Graham family on board the Belfast 
 steamer, and concluded by stating his inten- 
 tion of calling to see her early on the following 
 morning. So much intervening time Mr. 
 Behringbright determined to give himself to 
 shake off the singular sort of glamour under 
 which he felt himself to be passing, like the 
 victim of some magic spell, to get rid of the 
 domination of those inscrutable, apparently 
 totally indifferent, and 3^et overmasteringly 
 seductive and enthralling eyes ! So much for 
 Emily Maughan to steady herself for an inter- 
 view which it forced itself upon his convictions 
 could not but be an extremely trying and deci- 
 sively uncomfortable one for her. 
 
 This note — which Mr. Behringbright wrote
 
 308 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 hurriedly, and in pencil — lie confided, properly 
 secured, as he thought, in a wafered envelope, 
 to the charge of Miss Graham, who very 
 kindly undertook the delivery, and expressed 
 her sorrow that his pressing and important busi- 
 ness elsewhere prevented Mr. Brownjohn from 
 accepting her papa's invitation to his house. 
 
 It is probable Madeleine even experienced 
 some twang of apprehension and irritation at 
 the evident purpose and intent of her victim 
 to break through the toils : for Mr. Behring- 
 bright saw, for the first time, her finely- arched 
 brows obscured by a frown, — which she hastily 
 changed into an expression simply of sadness 
 and discontent, at so soon losing sight of a 
 person whom she had begun to respect and like 
 so much. She as good as said it with her 
 wonderfully expressive eyes ! Mr. Behring- 
 bright was profoundly touched, and had a 
 vague conviction that he was behaving like 
 some wicked sort of a male coquette or other, 
 in the laborious affectation of indifference he 
 got up in response to that mute appeal ! But 
 the thing was done, and he must abide by the 
 consequences.
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 309 
 
 Accordingly, after seeing Sir Orange, Lady, 
 and Miss Grraham safely ensconced in a vast 
 hackney-coach, that at some remote period of 
 fabulous antiquity might have held a Lord 
 Mayor of Dublin, Mr. Behringbright trudged 
 off by instinct to a first-class hotel, with his 
 knapsack on his shoulders, and trying to give 
 himself as much as possible the look of a 
 tourist meaning to " do " the Giant's Cause- 
 way, and " all that sort of thing," in the 
 North of Ireland. Thereby he rather surprised 
 the first-class landlord and the first-class head- 
 waiter, who immediately assigned him the 
 worst bedroom in the house, assuring him that 
 all the others were engaged. But he escaped 
 any further nuisance and discussion with his 
 late fellow- voyagers, who proceeded to a com- 
 mercial hotel in the centre of the active and 
 bustling city, where, in the midst of a score 
 of sympathizing commercial friends, Camille 
 Le Tellier was at full liberty to relate how — 
 in the confirmatory words of his ally — he 
 " took the bounce out of a bullying English 
 humbug of a fellow," and made him almost go 
 down on his knees, to beg pardon for his
 
 310 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 offences, before Monsieur Le Tellier's no less 
 heroic and inexorable second would extend it ! 
 
 However, Mr. Behringbriglit was now en- 
 sconced in a degree of comfortable privacy, 
 and enabled to wash, shave, and muse at his 
 leisure over his recent adventure. 
 
 What could have been the reason why, after 
 completing the two former operations, Mr. 
 Behringbright spent such a time before the 
 glass, brushing his rather stiff and unwilling 
 hair in various comely layers, undreamed of 
 before ? — experimenting on various upright 
 effects, and ending with being dissatisfied with 
 all, and concluding on the absolute necessity 
 of finding out the most fashionable hairdresser 
 in the town, and subjecting himself to artistic 
 manipulations of the kind — for the first time 
 for many a year ? And yet why so ? Had 
 not those witching eyes looked at him in total 
 oblivion of anything ungainly in his external 
 characteristics ? — On the contrarj^, as if they 
 had a faculty of discerning, and rather pre- 
 ferred, a diamond in the rough ! 
 
 This consideration, and an extreme natural 
 aversion to barbers in the abstract, induced
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 311 
 
 Mr. Behringbriglit to resolve not to persevere 
 in the project. But his toilette finished, less 
 to his satisfaction than ever before in his life, 
 — dinner eaten, and about half a pint of sherry 
 drunk, — a two-days-old Times and the Belfast 
 News-Letter duly yawned over, — Mr. Behring- 
 bright began to find time hang extremely heav}- 
 on his hands, and to regret that he had put off 
 to so protracted a period his visit at Sir Orange 
 Graham's. The stranger's next best or, 
 rather, only resource, however, remained ; and 
 though he had a profound conviction that, 
 except for one house in it, Belfast was the 
 most uninteresting city in the world, Mr. 
 Behringbriglit determined to sally forth to 
 survey it, and derive what interest he might 
 from the contemplation of its hicaclieries. 
 
 It must nevertheless be confessed, that 
 when he was fairly out in the fine principal 
 street of Belfast, George Cocker began to re- 
 ceive an impression that the town was worthy 
 of some consideration on its own account. It 
 is true that, accustomed to the immense 
 activity of London, even the bustling and 
 crowded main thoroughfare of the caj^ital of
 
 312 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 the linen trade did not strike him peculiarly 
 advantageously in a mercantile point of view. 
 But Mr. Behringbright was unaccustomed to 
 see the tops of mountains from the steps of an 
 Exchange, or to feel the briny freshness of the 
 sea on his lips, as he threaded his way towards 
 one ; and the novelty amused him. He was 
 also philosophically struck by the singular 
 aspect of the population, in which two races, 
 kept as distinctly apart as if by some principle 
 of nature, by religious antipathies and those 
 of race, mingled without fusion, and occupied 
 the same streets and byways, as distinctly 
 separated as if by different zones of the earth. 
 The wild, eager, joyous, laughing, gossiping 
 Celt ; the grave, moodily reflective, masterfully- 
 stepping descendant of the Scotch Puritans, 
 who built up the city to its prosperity from a 
 wretched fishing-village; — there they were, 
 figuring with unchanged and unmingled 
 characteristics, side by side, after nearly three 
 hundred years of co-existence on the same 
 narrow circuit of Irish ground. 
 
 But it is not our business to play the 
 cicerone of Belfast; the task has been done
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 313 
 
 already, as well as pen and ink can perform it, 
 by the immortal Michael Angelo Titmarsh 
 himself! It is enough to say that, engaged 
 partly in these ethnological studies of the 
 characteristics of the population around him, 
 but chiefly still haunted by the image of her 
 whom he had grown firmly to believe was the 
 loveliest girl, not only in Belfast, but in all 
 the world, Mr. Behringbright managed to get 
 over a great deal of time in wandering about 
 the city, and surveying its comfortless bleach- 
 ing-fields beyond, and trying to persuade him- 
 self that, considering their great advantage to 
 commerce, he was not at all sorry to see a 
 summer landscape covered all over with such a 
 flat and miserable-looking imitation of tie 
 snows of winter, as can be produced by acres of 
 linen subjected to the action of showers of 
 of muriatic acid and vitriol, under the 
 superintendence of the sun and a number of 
 human creatures, bleached white, and shrivelled 
 as lepers themselves, in the operation. And 
 as, besides, he lost his v/ay on his return from 
 the survey of a singular eminence, which he 
 iound overlooked the harbour, it was dark
 
 314 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 night before Mr. Behringbriglit turned towards 
 his hotel. 
 
 On the way thither the thought struck him 
 that it would serve in some manner to divert 
 the restless impatience that possessed him if 
 he looked out, overnight, the situation of 
 Madeleine Graham's house ; and, favoured b}' 
 the sliades that now overhung the citj^ formed 
 a definite idea to himself of the locality glorified 
 by the residence of his cynosure. 
 
 Accordingly Mr. Behringbright inquired for 
 Belhaven Square, of a ragged fellow with hardly 
 a brim to his hat, but, nevertheless, circled by 
 a memorial crape, now brown, but which had 
 possibly once been black, and who was running 
 up and down a ladder, lighting the gas- 
 lamps, as deftly as a squirrel — exchanging 
 his jests and remarks with almost every other 
 " street-b'y" of his nationality who chanced to 
 pass. 
 
 This functionary, with characteristic vola- 
 tility and obligingness, instantly leaped down 
 half a dozen steps, and flourishing his link, 
 declared his wish and intention to guide his 
 honour *' thar" without the loss of another
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 315 
 
 moment in life, since the best directions in tlie 
 world lie could give would be himself running 
 before him to show him the way — and the 
 clearest ! And without waiting to be refused, 
 Barney OTlanigan (so he stated himself to be 
 called) set off like a will-o'-the-wisp, wriggling 
 and jostling through the throng ; and although 
 Mr. Behringbright by no means desired any 
 such ilittertigibbeting on the private sur- 
 vey he projected, with equally characteristic 
 acquiescence of good nature, he allowed him- 
 self to be so conducted ; determining, never- 
 theless, to get rid of the inconvenient attend- 
 ance as soon as he had reached the square. 
 
 Proceeding thus — Barney, still flourishing 
 his link, and looking back occasionally to make 
 " sartin sure" his victim did not escape him — 
 on a sudden Mr. Behringbright was not a little 
 annoyed by finding a figure brush past him, 
 wliich, from its peculiarly handsomely- tailored 
 costume, the glance he caught of the spiral 
 curl of a Napoleonic moustache, the ambrosial 
 scent of millcfeurs and rondoletia which 
 accompanied its progress, the velvet polished 
 castor on its head, — if not by some other in-
 
 316 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 stinctive feeling, — lie instantly thought he 
 recognised as that of his late antagonist, Mon- 
 sieur Camille Le Tellier! A glance at the 
 shapely shoulders and waist, and wide-bagged 
 pegtops, that next presented themselves to Mr. 
 Behringbright's observation, opaquing the view 
 of the trusty Barney, left no further doubt on 
 the subject. 
 
 In spite of the strange excess of irritation 
 implied in the Frenchman's recent demonstra- 
 tions of hostility, Mr. Behringbright, it may 
 be believed, was under no manner of personal 
 apprehension in anything that related to him ; 
 nevertheless he felt rather annoyed at the 
 apparition, and, willing to avoid the ridicule 
 and inconvenience at once of any further pro- 
 secution of so foolish and yet troublesome an 
 episode, he hung back awhile to give Camille 
 — who was evidently going his way — time to 
 pass out of it. The impetuous Barney mean- 
 while — whistling the "Low-backed Car" to 
 himself, with satisfaction at the prospect of a 
 shilling's-worth of whiskey that seemed loom- 
 ing in sight — shot on so far ahead that on 
 looking back he found himself deserted by his
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 317 
 
 follower, and anxiously returned on liis steps 
 to discern what had become of him. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright explained that he had 
 stopped, thinking he saw an acquaintance pass, 
 and desired his guide to proceed. 
 
 "Faith, then, your honour,'* said Barney, 
 " I would rather you went before, that I might 
 make sure I was guiding you right, for I had 
 as nearly lost you then as ever I should find 
 you again if I did." 
 
 "A guide, I think, should go before," re- 
 marked Mr. Behringbright. 
 
 " On the way to heaven I wouldn't dispute 
 the case with your honour ; but the streets are 
 so crowded here'' Barney replied, with a de- 
 lighted guffaw at his own wit. 
 
 " You must nevertheless go before, if I am 
 to follow you," Mr. Behringbright replied, 
 rather amused, and thinking to himself that, 
 after all, where Madeleine Graham dwelt might 
 not inaptly be likened to some such regions of 
 supernal bliss ! 
 
 Barney perceived that his temporary master 
 meant to exercise the rights of the position, 
 and tacitly submitted. Again he whirligigged
 
 318 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 on his light and devious way, until, after tra- 
 versing several streets from the main thorough- 
 fare, Mr. Behringbright was aware that they 
 had entered what appeared to be an entirely 
 new and very handsomely -built portion of the 
 town ; — such a quarter as is to be found radi- 
 ating, in all the glories of architecture and novel 
 improvements and convenience of all sorts, 
 from the enclosures of most of our large old 
 cities, under the impulse and overflow of 
 modern wealth and building enterprise — a 
 provincial Belgravia inhabited by successful 
 traders. 
 
 By-and-bye Mr. Behringbright, still led by 
 his lamplighting will-o'-the-wisp, found him- 
 self in an extensive square of lofty and stately- 
 adorned new houses, almost worthy of the 
 name of mansions, with a large and carefully 
 laid out garden, ornamented with a fountain, 
 numerous statues, and plantations of almost 
 the only thing which wealth cannot accelerate 
 to perfection — very young trees. 
 
 " This is Belhaven Square, and long may the 
 green grass never grow over the fine broad 
 pavements of it ! We were talking of the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 319 
 
 sweet heavens just now, your honour, but this 
 is a deal handsomer than the way up there — 
 now, isn't it? — and reminds one more of the 
 broad road down below, — which yet hasn't 
 room enough, they say, for all the people that 
 take to it !" 
 
 '*■ It is a fine, handsome square. We have 
 fifty like it in London," said Mr. -Behring- 
 bright, rather annoyed by the latter observa- 
 tion — why, is not so clear. 
 
 He paused, and looked over the enclosure, 
 feeling in his pocket at the same time for 
 some loose coin with which to reward his 
 guide's diligence, and get rid of him. 
 
 Belhaven Square was lighted with gas, on 
 tall, classical-looking tripod posts. But it 
 was still better illuminated at the time by 
 a vivid moon. This gleamed along the 
 ponderous Corinthian cornice of the palatial- 
 looking pile tliat formed the western side of 
 the square, and made all the windows glitter 
 as if with sheeted silver blinds. 
 
 Mr. Behringbright remembered that Sir 
 Orange Graham had told him his house was a 
 corner one, and on the side opposite to where
 
 320 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 you entered from the business centre of 
 Belfast. It must be over yonder there, then. 
 But which ? No, he would not suffer himself 
 to ask of the gossiping fellow who had thrust 
 himself upon him in the capacity of cicerone, 
 and ten to one, in his habitual one of lamp- 
 lighter to the district, was on chatting terms 
 with half the servant-girls in the neighbour- 
 hood, if not all. 
 
 While Mr. Behrino^brio^ht was thinking: 
 thus • that he would ask no compromising 
 questions, but was striving to make out a 
 corner house that answered description to his 
 satisfaction, his eye dwelt upon one nearly 
 opposite. And he was curiously startled and 
 stimulated into curiosity at the precise 
 moment, by perceiving the haunting figure 
 of that Frenchman, gliding round by the iron 
 palings surrounding a garden behind the 
 residence, and seeming to be looking down 
 into them with peculiar intensity of observa- 
 tion. So much, indeed, was he moved to 
 consideration by what he saw, that his hand 
 remained in his pocket, and Barney continued 
 with his own outstretched, looking up at his
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 321 
 
 patron as wistfully as a parrot for a knob 
 of sugar. 
 
 " Ocli, then, your lionour seems to see 
 something a little too big for your eyes," said 
 Barney, after a somewhat protracted pause of 
 this kind. 
 
 " I see that young fellow, who appears like 
 a foreigner, taking some pebbles- from his 
 pocket, and throwing them at the back 
 windows of the house opposite," said Mr. 
 Behringbright, after a moment's reflection. 
 
 " And it's not the first time, your honour. 
 I've seen as wonderful a sight meself, barring 
 that it isn't wonderful at all, when one comes 
 to remember what a power of pretty girls, 
 with the natest ankles in nature, are living 
 under the roof that's above where he's throwing 
 his pibbles so sly and soft ; he'll never do 
 the glazier any good that way, sartin sure." 
 " Whose house is it ?" 
 
 " Would your honour like to know? — Well, 
 it's the house of as dlac/c a Trotcstant as there 
 is in all Belfast ; and divil knows where there 
 is a blacker — or a yellower, cither — place, for 
 that same, in all Ireland ! They call him 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 Sir Orange Graham; and he has been twice 
 ex-mayor of the town, and he ordered out the 
 soldiers on Boyne Water day, ten years ago, 
 when the widow's son in Murphy Alley was 
 kilt and murthered clean outright entirely, 
 and half a dozen others put in their crutches 
 for life." 
 
 " Sir Orange Graham !" repeated Mr. 
 Behringbright, attending only to the name, and 
 not at all to the included depreciation of the 
 magisterial career of the person named, — " Sir 
 Orange Graham ! — ^What do you mean, then, 
 you rascal, you, by saying there are so many 
 ■pretiy girls under his roof ?" 
 
 '' Why, you never did clap the eyes your 
 mother gave you on purtier critturs than the 
 under-housemaid and the fammy de shamher, 
 as they call her, with cheeks redder than bog- 
 heather, and rounder and sweeter than ripe 
 apples in an orchard ! That's to say, for the 
 likes of me and other poor fellows, who mustn't 
 be too partic'lar in anything ; but then there's 
 the young ladies too, and first and foremost 
 of them all. Miss Madeleine's own beautiful 
 self, that can hardly step out of her doors but
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 323 
 
 the very stones seem to be wanting to set 
 themselves up a-flowering under her feet." 
 
 " Very likely ! very likely !" said Mr. 
 Behringbright, soothed by this latter poetical 
 echoing to his own dominant idea. " But 
 what can this absurd foreigner be after ? — one 
 of these servant-girls you mention ?" 
 
 " No, faith, your honour ; so they have told 
 me themselves more than a dozen times — 
 which makes thirteen. Only women's words 
 are not much to be depended on in sweet - 
 hearting matters.'' 
 
 " That's your experience, is it, Barney. . . ?" 
 Too — Mr. Behringbriglit was about to say, 
 but he refrained putting himself on such a 
 degree and kind of equality with the young 
 rattle-pate Irishman, who had yet managed to 
 bring him already into the familiarity of 
 addressing him by his christian name, com- 
 municated at the very outset of their ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 *' Before I was married, your honour, a year 
 
 ago come Whitsuntide again — sorrow to the 
 
 day and hour ! And that's why the girls 
 
 hardly tell me anything no\v-a-days. Only I 
 
 21—2
 
 324 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 use my own eyes, and sometimes see into 
 houses from the top of my ladder, over my 
 nose — that's all." 
 
 " Is ^h^fammy de sJiamher, as you call her, 
 a Frenchwoman ? He is courting after her, 
 no doubt, if courting's the business, and not 
 (which is a good deal more likely) hurglary /" 
 said Mr. Behringbrig-ht, exceedingly sulkily 
 and discontentedly, and looking almost ready 
 to summon the police, and give Monsieur Le 
 Tellier into custody on the supposition. 
 
 " Oh no, sir j cooriins the business, if it's 
 anything. It's a young man that's very 
 respectable, in the travelling line, and lodges 
 at Widow Walshe's, in the Sea Gate. But 
 as to foreigners, the young lady's-maid is 
 a tight little Limerick girl of the O'Haggartys 
 there; and the only other foreigner I know 
 of under the eaves yonder, is an English 
 young lady they have at Sir Orange's for 
 governess." 
 
 " A foreigner !'* 
 
 " From London, your honour." 
 
 " Oh, from London — a foreigner ! He means 
 Emily Mauyhan^' muttered the Caliph Haroun
 
 JIADELEINE GRAHAM. 325 
 
 within liis teeth. " But that's impossible ! — 
 No ; what can it mean ? Did you ever see 
 this man here before, Barney, did you say?" 
 
 " Ay ; and later than this ! — When his 
 honour, Sir Orange, is a-reading the family 
 prayers, I'll be sworn !" said the lamplighter, 
 with a significance that struck very displeas- 
 ingly on his listener's sense. 
 
 " Does — well, does anybody ever come out to 
 him?" 
 
 "Faith, your honour, somebody opens the 
 back front gate to him, you may depind, before 
 he gets in and goes down." 
 
 " He goes in — sometimes — does he ?'' 
 
 *' Or else he tumbles into the air, and is 
 drowned in it clean out of sight, your honour 
 But I hope you are not questioning me with 
 any ill on your mind towards any of the poor 
 girls that may have him for a sweetheart, 
 unbeknownst to Sir Orange ? 1 hope your 
 honour is a stranger in the place, as 3'ou gave 
 yourself out to me. With that touch on your 
 tongue of rale honesty and fair-meaning, I 
 coukl have laid my hand on the altar you 
 meant nothing either more or less than what
 
 326 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 
 
 you were after saying ; and I had rather my 
 tongue were on the outside of my cheek than 
 have it wagging inside to do Mary O'Haggarty 
 or Ellen Moore any mischief, if so be they have 
 taken up with the likes of a monkey French- 
 man, in the despair of me being disposed of — 
 worse luck ! who was a lad once — and that not 
 so long ago — all the girls were after." 
 
 " I do not relish your senseless buffooneries, 
 man ! There's somebody coming up to the 
 garden-gate now! — who's that?'' said Mr. 
 Behringbright, impatiently, almost fiercely. 
 
 " That r repeated Barney, elevating himself 
 on his tiptoes, as if he thought he should 
 thereby be enabled to bring the object nearer 
 to his vision. '' Faith, then, I can't see for 
 the bright moonlight ! But it's got the little 
 grey cloak on and the hood, and so it must 
 be " 
 
 " Well, who must it be ?" 
 
 " But is your honour anything in the way 
 of friendship with his honour Sir Orange ? — 
 There isn't a severer master in all the black 
 north for tyranny than he ; he fined Mrs. 
 Maloney five pound merely for breaking the
 
 MADELEINE GRAHAM. 327 
 
 windies of the workus in the desperation of 
 her to get out to attend at her husband's wake, 
 and sent her to prison till she could pay the 
 damages — which is good as saying for ever 
 and a day." 
 
 " Whos that woman speaking to the fellow, 
 I repeat? I have nothing to do with Sir 
 Orange or his affairs ; but — but — I -am some 
 relation of the young English governess there, 
 and if I thought '* 
 
 "Oh, if it's only about her your honour's 
 consarned, I'll put you at your ase mighty fast ! 
 That's Mary O'Haggarty who's speaking to the 
 young gentleman now ; and, by the way, he 
 goes on, starting and wringing his hands and 
 stepping back, — telling him to go about his 
 business ; for the night leastways." 
 
 *' ISTo — look ! She seems to consider what he 
 says. She is whispering to him. And now 
 
 Isn't his hat going in among the trees out 
 
 of sight ? Is it possible that this foreigner is 
 admitted, in this surreptitious way, into Sir 
 Orange Graham's house ?" 
 
 " He has gone into the garden, at all events, 
 as certain as two and two !" said Barney.
 
 328 MADELEINE GHAHAM. 
 
 " Here's a crown for you, my man ! I have 
 business with Sir Orange Graham — at his 
 house, I mean. Miss Maughan, the governess 
 there, is my relation ! I must call upon her 
 to-night — at once — this instant ! Grood-night, 
 my good fellow. Don't stand in my way ; my 
 business is pressing !" 
 
 And so saying, Mr. Behringbright passed 
 the mute and staring lamplighter, flinging the 
 coin indicated in his hand ; and in a few 
 instants was knocking at the door of No. 90, 
 Belhaven Square. 
 
 END OF VOL. I,
 
 UNIVERSFTY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 079530223 
 
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