L I B R.ARY 
 
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 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 VOL. I,
 
 VAGARIES OP LIFE, 
 
 BY 
 
 W. WELLINGTON CAIRNES, ESQ. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON : 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STIIEET. 
 
 1852.
 
 F. Shoberl, fun., Printer, 31, Rnpert Street.
 
 ?-5 3 
 
 TO 
 
 THE EIGHT HON. VISCOUNT TOERINGTON, 
 
 1 
 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 
 ' My dear Lord, 
 
 It is witli feelings of unusual pleasure 
 
 that, at the moment of completing this my 
 
 earliest literary effort, I receive the encouraging 
 
 i permission to dedicate its lucubrations to one 
 
 whose friendship and esteem I am so proud to 
 
 'possess. 
 
 I could have wished, it is true, that the homage 
 which such an opportunity enables me to offer 
 had borne some proportion to my sense of your 
 Lordship's invariable and oft-experienced kind- 
 er ness; but while, in the present instance, I dare 
 ^ not venture beyond the expression of a hope 
 that the will may be taken for the deed, I shall 
 "not fail to derive new courage from this grati- 
 .fying proof of your Lordship's partiality — the 
 
 ^
 
 VI DKDICATION. 
 
 presage, I would willingly believe, of greater 
 success to my future exertions. 
 
 !Many months have elapsed, my Lord, since 
 the incidents of the following tale were first 
 arranged ; but I have not, meantime, been idle : 
 ** Scepe stylum vertas,'' said the old Roman, and 
 I can vouch for the truth of his remark, even 
 within the limits of my own narrow experience ; 
 indeed, w^hat Waller declared of poets — that 
 they lose half their fame, because the reader 
 knows not what they have blotted — is equally 
 true of the w^riter of fiction. 
 
 What has been retained, however, will abun- 
 dantly suflSce, I am afraid, to give umbrage to 
 people of divers conditions. There will be some 
 to express abhorrence of my outspoken plain- 
 ness; some to discredit my heavy calendar of 
 crime; and others — anchorites, impostors, Mrs. 
 Lawrences — will denounce me, no doubt, as an 
 unnatural and sacrilegious monster. Neverthe- 
 less, I am quite determined to fight it out 
 with humbug of every order — in every class — 
 and do proclaim, now and henceforth, guerre a 
 outrance against it !
 
 DEDICATION. Vll 
 
 Taking comfort, in fine, from Dr. Johnson's 
 assurance, that " abuse is often of service ; there 
 is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence ; 
 his name, like a shuttlecock, must be beaten 
 backward and forward, or it falls to the ground," 
 I will don my casque, and await the critics' 
 charge. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Lord, 
 Ever faithfully. 
 Your Lordship's obedient servant, 
 
 W. Wellington Cairnes. 
 
 Paris, January, 1852.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE, 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Mrs. Lawi^ence was one of those people 
 who expect to have everything their own 
 way. Happening, however, to be a woman 
 of fortune, and having unrestricted authority 
 over her large resources, being, moreover, 
 a widow, it was surely natural that, in so 
 far as related to her household, she should 
 pocket the keys of life and death. Age was 
 stealing a march on the good lady, as well 
 as on the good lady's very blue-black gar- 
 ments, which, I dare warrant, had but indis- 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 tinct recollection of the maison de deuil^ 
 where, without form and void, they reposed 
 some dozen years previous to the opening 
 of my tale. 
 
 But, though the outward female was indu- 
 bitably changed, and muddy, and pursy, 
 and otherwise aged, there was that in Mrs. 
 Lawrence which resisted the fell attacks of 
 Time ; that in Mrs. Lawrence which derived 
 even additional vigour from the lapse of 
 years ; which had many symptoms of a pecu- 
 liar and apparently anomalous nature, but 
 which nevertheless set up to be and was 
 Resignation. You never saw a more resigned 
 individual : the very wrinkles on her fore- 
 head, between her eyes, round her mouth, 
 in her cheeks, formed themselves into the 
 several letters of that word ; and you could 
 read at a glance — Resignation. 
 
 I may not be able to show cause for so
 
 VAGARIES OF LITE. 3 
 
 remarkable a development of this praise- 
 worthy attribute, but that satisfactory causes 
 existed I have never up to this moment 
 attempted to question. Being a resigned, 
 Mrs. Lawi-ence was necessarily a religious, 
 person — a little too stern, perhaps, in 
 her piety; but she did not think so her- 
 self, and we dare not venture beyond a 
 sm^mise. 
 
 There were born to Mrs. Lawrence, in 
 the days of the defunct Anthony Law rence, 
 one son and three daughters ; these, with an 
 orphan niece, made up the assembly at Law- 
 renceville, when our acquaintance w^ith that 
 exemplary establishment began. 
 
 '' Henry, I desire to speak with you in 
 tlie drawing-room," enunciated his mother 
 to the indolent youth who represented that 
 male branch of the " world-wide" family of 
 Lawrence, and who, lately returned from a 
 
 b2
 
 i VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 protracted harum scarum tour in the East, 
 had carried home in his person a vast sup- 
 ply of the laziness peculiar to that region, 
 and in his train an Egyptian dragoman, as 
 confidential imderstrapper, or what you 
 will. 
 
 Henry Lawrence was stretched in one of 
 the most approved postures expressed by 
 the word comfortable — a thoroughly Saxon 
 word, by the by, but well understood in the 
 lands of a warmer sim. Hassan was cutting 
 the leaves of a morning newspaper for liis 
 master's perusal, and enlivening the after- 
 breakfast digestive half hour, when the above 
 authoritative sentence came in at the door, 
 and called up the young fumigator from his 
 ease and nargileh. He had followed the 
 matron ; and was now desired to turn the 
 bolt — an indication of what our hero used 
 to denominate " something hot and strong."
 
 VAGARIES OF LIEE. 5 
 
 "You rode out to dinner last evening 
 without leaving any notice, Henry : I must 
 be permitted to inquire the name of your 
 host." 
 
 " Our neighbour, Sir William Price : no- 
 thing wrong, I hope?" 
 
 " Did I say there was anything wi'ong?" 
 returned the lady, in that tone of mingled 
 dignity and resignation so individually her 
 own ; " now, further, you wiU mention the 
 company." 
 
 " They were as thick as peas : many of 
 them strangers from town, of whose very 
 names I am ignorant ; but of course we had 
 the Longfellows." 
 
 " Of course ! You cannot intend me to 
 believe that Mrs. Longfellow, about whose 
 goodness you never cease to trump, would 
 actually dine with a large London party of 
 
 strangers.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 ''Mrs. Longfellow was tliere^' resumed 
 Henry, without attempting to reconcile his 
 mother's repugnance to the fact ; " and 
 along with her Miss Burton " 
 
 "Poor, worldly-minded, besotted, plain 
 fool !" ejaculated the responsive voice mater- 
 nal, Avith a pause after each adjective more 
 deprecatory than compassionate. 
 
 " Wellesly Sandys and his sister; Mrs. 
 and two Misses Montgomery " 
 
 "Mrs. Montgomery agam!" interrupted 
 Mrs. Lawrence, who was peculiarly bitter 
 towards people of her own growth and cloth ; 
 " why, her poor husband is scarcely cold ! 
 — I'm sure, I wonder what widows will 
 come to ! '' 
 
 " To a cozy dinner-party now and then, 
 if invited," was the answer, too sly to be 
 filial; "and as for Lionel Montgomery's 
 cooling process, it must be gradual indeed,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 7 
 
 or he caloric : why you forget lie is three 
 years dead." 
 
 " Thank you, Henry Lawrence : old as 
 I am, and feeble as I am, my recollection 
 has not failed me hitherto : and I may not 
 be laid in the grave so soon as you seem to 
 anticipate. Forget that brutal, profligate, 
 broken down " 
 
 " There now, mamma, that will do," inter- 
 rupted Henry. 
 
 But she went on eloquently : " You will 
 tell me next that my teeth are gone, and I 
 cannot articulate : that will be the next im- 
 pertinence, I suppose." 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! every day and hour belie 
 that^'' thought the defendant; who, having 
 learned that " a soft answer turneth away 
 wi^atli," merely expressed sorrow for his 
 unintentional levity. 
 
 " Hem !" from the resigned interlocutor.
 
 8 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 indicative of victory : " I must obtain your 
 promise, Henry, not on any accoimt to accept 
 these invitations to godless entertainments 
 during tlie period of mourning for my sister. 
 This is due to myself — a material point at 
 all times with Mrs. Lawrence. " Your aunt's 
 solicitor writes a very startling letter to my 
 address this morning, informing me that 
 the great mass of Penelope's fortune — 
 indeed, the whole of it, saving some legacies 
 to menials — has been willed to hospitals, 
 charities, and schools: not a word about 
 Helena ; not so much as an acknowledgment 
 of her services ; and she, who was more than 
 a slave to the irritable, old, selfish creature, 
 who never, even during the holidays, was 
 permitted to visit her home and widowed 
 parent, but must gad about with her shame- 
 less relative to operas, theatres, and other 
 infamous gatherings, will be now sent pen-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. \) 
 
 niless to her family; with her head full of 
 evil thoughts, her heart steeled against the 
 only true pleasures, the only real happiness, 
 and her necessities demanding an additional 
 sacrifice from me /" 
 
 Oh, had you but seen this heap of craped 
 Resignation in a fume ! 
 
 " My dear mother," replied Henry, " you 
 cannot wish me to understand that, because 
 Helena is disappointed in the contents of 
 Aunt Penelope's will, she forgets the extreme 
 liberality which, ever since she was ten 
 years old, educated, guarded, fondled her. 
 My aunt was aware, no doubt, that with 
 your fortune her niece would be richly pro- 
 vided for ; and we cannot fully do justice to 
 that unselfish generosity which prompted 
 her to remember the really needy and the 
 poor : Helena will be all the more natural, 
 the more loveable, because she comes not
 
 10 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 surrounded by that conscious importance, 
 that moneyed arrogance, so often attendant 
 upon great wealth, which only renders 
 its possessor insufferable to others: as to 
 her head being turned by the gaiety to which 
 she was so long accustomed, I must beg to 
 differ with you ; indeed, I only wish Elinor 
 and Susan might have a share of it : it could 
 not either injure or corrupt them." 
 
 " Indeed ! very fine ! and so you take upon 
 yourself to overrule my decision ! — I am 
 amazed at your hardihood ! You attempt to 
 reprimand your mother, to gainsay her opi- 
 nions, to introduce your monstrous absurdi- 
 ties, and actually to defend my benighted 
 sister from that well-earned reprobation 
 which her insane and unchristian conduct 
 deserve 1" 
 
 "Insane! no^ mamma; and unchristian 
 still less !" hotly retorted young Lawrence,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 11 
 
 who had a very tender recollection of Airnt 
 Penelope's parties. 
 
 ''Leave the room instantly, sir! I am 
 ashamed to call you son of mine : you are 
 a disgrace to the mother who reared you ! 
 I will not submit " 
 
 But, in strict conformity with her injunc- 
 tion, Master Henry had retired, and closed 
 the door upon her threats. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence, however, not quite ex- 
 hausted, immediately gave chase to the ill- 
 starred refugee, who, reinstated before the 
 library-fire, was about to resume that com- 
 fort-bringing pastime which the swarthy 
 Hassan kneeled to prepare. 
 
 " Desist in my presence, menial ! and do 
 you, stubborn profligate, hold yourself in 
 readiness for a speedy journey to London : 
 I am resolved to remove Helena from that 
 contagious atmosphere as soon as may be,
 
 12 VAGARIES OF LITE. 
 
 and I require her presence under your pro- 
 tection at Lawrenceville this night. Carry 
 this pamphlet to her, for her careful consi- 
 deration ; she wiU read it in the train, and 
 must be prepared to undergo a minute exa- 
 mination on its contents when she arrives. 
 You may inform her that its pages present 
 a summary of that line of conduct which, in 
 unison with her sister and cousin, she will 
 adopt under my eye." 
 
 Saying which, the matron shut herself 
 out with a very uncompromising bang of 
 the door. 
 
 Henry immediately rang the bell for 
 Hassan, who had skulked away in fear 
 and trembling, after encountering the stern 
 glance of those authoritative albeit gray 
 and red-rimmed sparklers, which, without 
 lashes to subdue, or brows to characterize 
 them, stood boldly forth on either side of a
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 13 
 
 very needle-pointed nose, like Mounts Vesu- 
 vius and Etna, to the right and left of Mes- 
 sina's Strait — only more fiery, and in per- 
 petual eruption. No wonder poor Hassan 
 was cowed! 
 
 " Order the horses, and prepare my car- 
 riage valise : I shall start for London in an 
 hour." 
 
 Hassan flew to obey, while Henry hid his 
 features in fragrant clouds.
 
 14 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 We sliall be now at leisure to introduce 
 our intelligent reader to a breakfast party 
 at Sir William Price's magnificent residence, 
 on the morning identical with Mrs. Law- 
 rence's lecture, and subsequent to that 
 dinner which called forth the charitable 
 comments we have attempted to record. 
 
 Sir William was rather a curiosity — what 
 some people term a character: years had 
 made him bald and fifty ; inclination led him 
 to prefer the life of a bachelor, and of a 
 jolly one, and fortune presented him with 
 many thousands a year, to make ducks and 
 drakes of, as it is said. Now, it just so
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 15 
 
 happens that a poultry-yard was one of his 
 particular hobbies, and therefore the saw 
 has double force in application to the mas- 
 ter of Bridlestone. 
 
 Sir William had a remarkably funny old 
 sister — funny is the very word for her — 
 who always lived at her brother's country- 
 house, was a spinster, considerably more 
 advanced in age than he, and the very 
 kindest antique you can imagine. Though 
 as bald as a globe, she despised the artificial 
 conceptions of the pei^uqtcier^ and would none 
 of those flowery designs which French fin- 
 gers and fancy weave into gardens for the 
 head. Miss Price, therefore, had an amusing 
 effect on a first, which certainly did not 
 abate on a more intimate, acquaintance. 
 She was tall and slender, as upright as 
 the backboard maiden of sixteen, and wore 
 a stereotyped smile, which, I dare ven-
 
 16 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 tui'e, never played truant, even in the 
 night-watches. 
 
 Sir William, this lady, and some thirteen 
 or fourteen guests, were discussing hot rolls 
 and the events of the preceding entertain- 
 ment. 
 
 " My sister Lucy absolutely raves about 
 Henry Lawrence's musical powers: nay, 
 you called him superior to Mario; pray, 
 Sir William, do you agree to such palpable 
 flattery?" 
 
 " I — I — 'pon my life, I don't know — Miss 
 Price, do you think this is Boadicea's eggl 
 It's not marked, you see, after all I have 
 said." 
 
 "I can never get James to remember," 
 returned the slender old maid, in tones of 
 simpering despair; "he has positively no 
 intellectual faculty in perfection! but, my 
 darling Willy, I think it is more the colour
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 17 
 
 of Cleopatra's produce, light brown, with a 
 polish." 
 
 " Then I cannot attempt it ; Cleopatra is 
 too flavoury for me, a great deal. You see 
 Fm rather particular, Mrs. Montgomery: 
 perhaps you don't think so, but I am." 
 
 Mrs. Montgomery did think so, but 
 deemed it advisable to say — '' Oh dear no." 
 
 " I have a strong inclination to believe," 
 resumed the Baronet, " what my tutor was 
 often at pains to establish in the days gone 
 by, when you^ my dear madam, were a 
 blooming lassie of nineteen or twenty: he 
 used to argue that..." 
 
 " Pray, Sir William, do not associate me 
 with the antediluvians; I have no recol- 
 lection of grandeval occurrences, I assure 
 you. It is quite evident that you make a 
 mistake — don't you think so. Miss Price?" 
 
 "My brother is pretty accurate as to 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 dates, Mrs. Montgomery," replied the sim- 
 ple lady, wlio was expected to take another 
 view of the subject, but who only made 
 matters worse. 
 
 " Now, mamma, do let us hear Sir Wil- 
 liam's doctrine," interposed Fanny, de- 
 termined to get rid of the emharras which 
 her less dispassionate parent had called into 
 action, but knew not how to quell. " You 
 were speaking of your tutor, I think. Sir 
 William?" 
 
 " Oh yes, dear ! Dr. Wall considered that, 
 with respect to our animal food, we are by 
 no means sufficiently careful in ascertaining 
 the disposition or habits of the victim, 
 whether fish, flesh, or fowl, previous to 
 making it our sustenance. He believed, 
 and I think justly, that the consumer is 
 inoculated, so to speak, with the peculiarities 
 of the consumed, whatever they may be;
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 19 
 
 that, in fact, were you to partake of a vicious 
 animal, a corresponding effect would be 
 produced on your character; whereas, were 
 you to dine on a silly or stubborn chicken, 
 your conduct would subsequently be tinc- 
 tured with puerihty or wilfulness: now, I 
 have a very accurate knowledge of the dis- 
 positions of my laying hens, and, while I 
 avoid Cleopatra's egg as containing a pug- 
 nacious juice, I enjoy Boadicea's, as being 
 the production of a magnanimous and gentle 
 fowl." 
 
 There was a strong risible tendency ob- 
 servable throughout Sir William's audience, 
 when this alimental problem reached them. 
 Miss Price being the only lady who did not 
 a23ply to her teacup for temporary conceal- 
 ment. No other effect was produced on her 
 than a rather more reverential exhibition of 
 the wonted smile. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 "Then, from this day forward," began 
 young Sandys, with a comic gravity of em- 
 phasis, " I will make my butcher charge- 
 able with every fit of the spleen, and fault, 
 and folly, of which I am thus the uncon- 
 scious and uncensurable exponent." Then, 
 changing his tone, "But, dear me, Mrs. 
 Montgomery, on this principle you must 
 have sipped some claret last night of the Me- 
 thusaleh vintage. I see, by Miss Fanny's 
 eyes, she can explain, and I refer you to 
 her." 
 
 " Sure, /know !" dashed in Xorah Burton, 
 a complete specimen of the unsophisticated, 
 brogue-perpetrating, blundering Milesian, 
 " Sure / know, and I'll tell ye. It's just 
 because you were so mightily flustered 
 about your own age, a while ago." 
 
 The object of this unguarded sally looked, 
 not daggers, but knives and forks, as being
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 21 
 
 procurable, at her assailant, wlio continued 
 her breakfast in blissful ignorance of her 
 native bonhomie, 
 
 " Clara," whispered Fanny to her sister, 
 "you can easily guess what Norali was 
 helped to lately?" 
 
 "No!— what?" 
 
 " Why, goose, to be sure !" 
 
 "And Lucy to lamb, she looks so meek," 
 returned Clara. 
 
 " Ah ! not innocent enough, I fear," from 
 the uncharitable Fan. 
 
 " Lucy," began young Sandys, quite too 
 distmctly for her taste, "why did I hear 
 Henry Lawrence recommend lobster- salad, 
 of all unsentimental things, to your notice 
 yesterday? Come, now, explain, on this 
 new system 1" 
 
 " The fact of its having been tempting 
 is explanation enough, I fancy," returned
 
 22 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Lucy, with a slight flush, and bold effort to 
 seem careless and composed. 
 
 " No, no ! — you could tell, if you chose 
 — could she not, Miss Burton?" 
 
 " That she could, right well !" cried our 
 Irish friend. " Sure, there's a lady in a lob- 
 ster, and maybe Mr. Lawrence hadn't a lady 
 in his head when he was talking io you. Now, 
 Lucy, my darlin', speak up another time !'* 
 
 The titter was general, and her blushes 
 but prolonged it. 
 
 Let us here describe the Sandys. First, 
 Wellesly, who is older than his sister by a 
 year, though not by any means so sage and 
 staid. Arrived at man's estate — the only 
 estate to which he might aspire — he is still 
 a bantling; that good-enough, good-for- 
 notliing sort of youth, that medley of good 
 spirits, good parts, bad chances, and empty 
 pocket, for which no asylum has hitherto
 
 VAGARIES OP LIFE. 23 
 
 been projected, but whicb, if frequency may 
 give a claim, should liave had one long ago. 
 Defeated in obtaining an East Indian ap- 
 pointment, he found himself, at the age of 
 two-and-twenty, without any prospect of 
 employment; dissuaded from our leading 
 professions by the discernment of his friends, 
 too poor to carry out the character of 
 gentleman at large, and, by the force of cir- 
 cumstances, about to be merged into that 
 despicable anomaly, though common nui- 
 sance, a social Issachar, a something between 
 boon companion, dependent, and sponge. 
 
 Yet Wellesly, foreseeing this future in 
 its sombrest and most repulsive light, set 
 himself to struggle against it. He looked 
 into his own head as to its capabilities, and 
 endeavoured, with more or less success, to 
 discard Vanity. Thus, albeit occasionally 
 precipitate in his conclusions, and too san-
 
 24 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 guiue a vast deal, he was by no means blind 
 to liis own defects. How to remedy and 
 triumph over these — that ^ as the difficulty, 
 and there was he likely to fail. 
 
 He had Genius, his Aunt Ernestine 
 assured him: it was Genius, however, of 
 that undeveloped, abeyant kind, that the 
 wonder is how she made it out at all, and 
 which, if not roused and fed, will sleep its 
 vitality away. He would have nursed it 
 an he knew how, experimentalized in poetry 
 largely, wore loose collars and clammy 
 locks, and tried to look mad : still no visible 
 effect. At last, on the verge of listless de- 
 speration — far the most deep though not the 
 most violent kind — he took to hoping that 
 some fine morning this dormant giffc of his 
 would create a diversion in his favour; but 
 of what nature or whence he had never the 
 courage to inquire.
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 25 
 
 It sufficed, did that pleasing illusion, to 
 send liim comfortably to sleep, night after 
 night, for a long time, and to realize his 
 heart's fondest hope in dreams : no matter 
 that the morn scouted his fancies, that the 
 waking mocked him as it had mocked 
 Alraschar : the spell worked its charm over 
 half of the twenty-four hours ! Occasionally, 
 he had — who has not had? — his day-dreams 
 too ; would steal out into the woods, and, 
 hurrying to some Elfin-haunted spot where 
 the herdboy could not peer, would sit down 
 on the flickering moss, and beatify his lone- 
 liness with glorious wonders. But in this 
 case the reaction was fearful : the return to 
 things as they were from things as he made 
 them, oh, it was sure precursor of a terrible 
 fit of the blues ! 
 
 We must pass on. The Baronet and Miss 
 Price are his especial patrons — patrons is
 
 26 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 not the word — friends. Sir William — ever 
 at work to steady him, as he says — would 
 long ago have urged his preparing for the 
 Ear or Church, would have in fact supported 
 him in a profession, until he was able to 
 stand alone; but that to neither of those 
 pursuits had Wellesly, he believed, a call. 
 They required unflagging, plodding perse- 
 verance ; and the Baronet, without censuring 
 what he perceived was most a constitutional 
 defect, held back from encouraging the deli- 
 cate, sensitive, eager, but not particularly 
 astute stripling to risk health and even repu- 
 tation in a conflict so unsuitable, which 
 must prove, he felt, distasteful, and there- 
 fore vain. 
 
 As for the army, " No," thought Sir Wil- 
 liam — and, like most men, without a baker's 
 dozen of children, he had some little pecu- 
 liarities of opinion — " Sandys is too good
 
 VAGAKIES OE LIFE. 27 
 
 for that; he would be thrown away; too 
 easily led — he would be lost." 
 
 But there are irons in the fire! We 
 should mention here that Wellesly and Lucy 
 are orphans ; their father, a halfpay officer, 
 having died when they were babies, and 
 their mother, a schoolfellow, and through 
 life a close friend of Miss Price, soon after. 
 They have an aunt, a mysterious, unmarried 
 woman, whose small fortune suffices to offer 
 head- quarters and welcome to her orphan 
 relatives, but whose very questionable and 
 unaccountable habits are by no means such 
 as conduce to the respectability of her name. 
 
 Aunt Sandys is a remarkably beautiful, 
 more correctly a dashing woman, some six 
 years older only than her niece. She is 
 notable for splendid talents and general 
 brilliancy of conversation, but with such ir- 
 regular, such ill-assorted domestic and per-
 
 28 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 sonal peculiarities, that very few among her 
 neighbours care to cultivate her society, and 
 indeed still fewer meet with favour in her 
 eyes. On the other hand, she is familiarly 
 intimate with persons of her own eccentric 
 stamp, and looks upon them as alone de- 
 serving of her friendship. 
 
 Wellesly, nevertheless, has a certain share 
 of her esteem; because his superior en- 
 dowments, both physical and mental, assi- 
 milate him more closely to herself. She 
 looks upon Lucy as an unpretending, quiet, 
 innocent girl, " with nothing in her," as she 
 says ; and indeed, excepting the last qualifi- 
 cation, which is by far too strong, she quite 
 answers the description. 
 
 How shall we present a correct likeness 
 of Lucy Sandys? She is pale and tall, 
 placid and reserved, with the mildest eyes 
 and smoothest forehead, the most dispas-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 29 
 
 sionate aspect, collected manner, and a 
 general air of benignity and rectitude which 
 distinguishes her from the ii icoKkoi of her 
 time of life, and rivets, if not a first 
 sight admiration, on more intimate know- 
 ledge, the fullest esteem. She is pretty, 
 blue-eyed, and slender; and undeniably a 
 very creditable approach to virtuous per- 
 fection; a little too cold, perhaps, too 
 solemn, too prematurely sage; but it is 
 well for the excitable, impulsive Wellesly 
 that such a moni tress trips by his side ! 
 
 The Prices delight in these youngsters, 
 and consider them residuary guests, who 
 are to come when they choose, stay while 
 they choose, and never go away without 
 leave: of w^hich bountiful hospitality the 
 Sandys are not loth to avail themselves; 
 their other alternative being Aunt Ernes- 
 tine's villa at Fulham.
 
 30 VAGAHIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Meantime, breakfast has been got over, 
 and sundry of the visiters betake them to 
 preparations for departure. Sir William, 
 having grasped his walking-stick, has gone 
 into the poultry-yard for morning inspec- 
 tion ; Miss Price is closeted with the chef de 
 cuisine on a commissariat consultation ; and 
 young Sandys, who has a furore for exotics, 
 is traversing the conservatory with Mrs. 
 Longfellow and his sister. The Montgo- 
 meries remain at Bridlestone, on a visit of 
 three weeks longer, and Sir William expects 
 an inroad of fresh company, with much 
 consequent gaiety. 
 
 Fanny and Clara are fine, stylish teen- 
 sters, too charming rather, but full of spirits, 
 and bristling with accomplishments. Their 
 fortunes being small, Mrs. Montgomery 
 will be happy to negociate with persons of 
 capital: some thousands a year and a
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 31 
 
 title -would be carefully attended to — ^but, of 
 course, this by the way. Fanny, the elder, 
 has a faultless figure, and her features, 
 though not regular, are winsome: good 
 hair, teeth, and eyes, go a great way, and 
 she can boast them in perfection. Clara 
 sets up for a feminine beauty, a modern 
 Hebe, being fair and bloomy: she has a 
 habit, too, of talking to you with downcast 
 eyelids, which is so artless, and timid, and 
 interesting! Mamma Montgomery is a 
 show-bird, of the decoy-duck species ; wears 
 massive tresses, carmine cheeks, glittering 
 ivory, patches, jewels, feathers, all the ex- 
 hibitory paraphernalia. Her play, however, 
 is totally devoid of selfishness; every ma- 
 noeuvre being directed towards the young 
 ladies' "settlement," by which she means 
 marriage, we opine. 
 
 '' Fanny's singing, Clara's retiring dis-
 
 32 VAGABIES OF LIFE. 
 
 position, her girls' sliiness — " as if they 
 were the only shy girls in the world — " their 
 humility: she really cannot get them to 
 pay the commonest attention to dress;" 
 when they are spangling with the choicest 
 efforts of the modiste. '' Fanny wonH con- 
 form to the long-skirted style : only do look 
 at her ridiculously short tails" — to rivet 
 attention on the artless creature's Chinese 
 feet — and "both would look so vastly 
 better in high-up bodies — don't you think 
 so?" — to advertize their snowy necks and 
 somewhat unprotected bosoms. Mamma 
 Montgomery, however, being like the gene- 
 rality of her kind, transparent, is harmless. 
 We will join the conservatory loungers, 
 reinforced in our absence by Norah Burton. 
 Norah, pock-pitted and plain, but honest 
 and natural, is the only daughter of a bro- 
 ken-down Irish squire, whose last days are
 
 VAGARIES OE LIFE. 33 
 
 rapidly running out in Australia. Deserted 
 by her worthless parent, she was taken to 
 Mrs. Longfellow's heart, the invalid, her 
 husband, being cousin to the Squire, and, in 
 the absence of any children of his own, 
 lavishing every tenderness on the rustic 
 orphan child. 
 
 Mrs. Longfellow, in the waning time 
 of life, when the grey hairs mingle with 
 the black, has still those bright benevo- 
 lent eyes, that healthy cheek, and that 
 cheerful, unaffected manner, which throw 
 around her very atmosphere and presence 
 a charm too often wanting in the younger 
 and more fair. She is one of those for 
 whom the gates of heaven will, without a 
 question, open wide. The friend of the 
 poor, the comforter of the distressed, her 
 heart warm enough and large enough for 
 others' grief as well as for her own, and 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 whose very voice is comfort, welcome, and 
 hospitality. 
 
 Mr. Longfellow was a man of immense 
 wealth, acquired in the Colonies ; in heaping 
 up riches, however, he had lost that chiefest 
 blessing — health; and came home with a 
 constitution enfeebled beyond reclaim. He 
 married, had no family, and gradually sank 
 into second childhood : we find him a weary, 
 helpless burden, and, with his wife — who is 
 a sister of Sir William Price, — and Norah, 
 a resident at Bridlestone.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 35 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 It was the year's early spring-time, that 
 jocund, odorous, hopeful season! Out- 
 side, the snow had ceased to fall, and the 
 red-breast no longer made a moping bun- 
 dle of himself, like a mendicant impostor, 
 at the window. Inside, the morning fire 
 was seldom courted, and a sensible im- 
 provement in ladies' finger-tips and noses 
 took place. 
 
 In the conservatory. Summer held un- 
 tempered sway. Here, geraniums, azaleas, 
 myrtles, orange-trees, roses, and a host of 
 brilliant bloomers, kept up all the state and 
 splendour of the pet days of June; while 
 
 D 2
 
 36 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 tulips, hyacinths, and the lily of the valley 
 contended for a predominant beauty for 
 scented May. 
 
 Wellesly pointed his sister to a snowy 
 camellia. " This is most like you, Lucy, of 
 all the bright things round us. I see a 
 likeness to somebody in every flower — look 
 at yonder group of dazzling rhododendra : 
 might they not be mistaken for the Mont- 
 gomery triad? while the amaryllis " 
 
 "Not so severe, master; draw your own 
 portrait in this humour, an't please you, 
 but spare your neighbours." 
 
 " Oh, here's mine, to the very life, too," 
 pointing to a picotee. 
 
 " Why, there are no blossoms on it, it is 
 budding only?" returned Lucy, in sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Well, and so am I, dearest : an imma- 
 ture, although a promising plant ; at present
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 37 
 
 but a pitiful idler, about to be a pink of 
 no ordinary perfection!" 
 
 " Not altogether a conceit, I would gladly 
 believe," said his sister, earnestly; "and I 
 shall watch your progress, as typified in 
 this chosen emblem's future, with supersti- 
 tious interest, remember!" 
 
 But Wellesly's eyes were rivetted on 
 Norah Burton, who, in a corner where a 
 glaring sunflower by some strange chance 
 had been permitted to raise its vulgar, 
 sickly face, stood deep in admiration, occa- 
 sionally patting the yellow monster in a 
 most appreciating way, and stooping to 
 paint her more than retrousse nose upon its 
 surface with fervour. 
 
 " Behold !" whispered Wellesly. *' Aunt 
 Ernestine would be in raptures with such 
 singularity, and Miss Burton sure of her 
 patronage ever after."
 
 ^8 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " Norali is not handsome enough for 
 Aunt Ernestine," replied Lucy calmly; 
 when the object of their converse, looking 
 round, flew rapturously to meet them, 
 sweeping off a hundred tulips^ heads in her 
 transit. 
 
 " Oh, do come, Lucy dear, and see such 
 a delightful sunflower!" 
 
 " Oh yes, do come ! " echoed young 
 Sandys. 
 
 "No such thing, you rogue; I won't 
 have you snubbing my favourite, at all!" 
 cried Norah, thereby interdicting his pre- 
 sence. 
 
 La obedience, the young man turned to 
 join Mrs. Longfellow, who was making up a 
 bouquet of rose-buds for an offering to her 
 bed-ridden husband. 
 
 " Only think, Mrs. Longfellow, Miss Bur- 
 ton's Irish taste has singled out a huge
 
 VAGARIES OF LITE. 39 
 
 sunflower as the finest thing in the whole 
 collection !" 
 
 " It is certainly a hight fancy," she re- 
 plied, and then changed the subject. " Lucy 
 and myself have arranged to drive over to 
 Lawrenceville some day for a morning call ; 
 will you," she inquired " be our cava- 
 Her?" 
 
 " Any where, with either or both of you ; 
 with a proviso that you shelter me from 
 the recluse, whom I fear as children do 
 ghosts." 
 
 "Oh, certainly; she will be my care, 
 while you may devote your attentions to 
 the gu'ls. If Henry is at home, I am under 
 orders from Sir William to bring him to 
 Bridlestone for dinner. His sisters, he says, 
 are never allowed to go out, and seem, poor 
 things, to be strangely cared for. 
 
 " From my heart I pity them," returned
 
 40 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Wellesly, "especially Susan, who is, or 
 would be, pretty." 
 
 '' Then the pretty alone receive your com- 
 miseration ! " said Mrs. Longfellow, some- 
 what amused; and continued — "there is 
 a much greater beauty than Susan in the 
 family, though not at Lawrenceville — the 
 youngest daughter, Helena, who lived with 
 her aunt. But by the by, Miss Penelope Law- 
 rence is dead — I had quite forgotten it — and 
 Helena will most likely have returned home: 
 you may see her, possibly, you butterfly boy !" 
 
 " I confess to be a bigotted worshipper of 
 beauty," interrupted the bantered Wellesly, 
 defensively. 
 
 "Although not constant in your devo- 
 tions to any one shrine," persisted his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Well, well, I give it up ; only tell me, 
 Mrs. Longfellow," he added, "how will
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 41 
 
 this dainty creature, this idol, no doubt, of 
 fashion, adapt herself, ever, to that strangely 
 miserable disciplinarian, her impracticable 
 mother? She must mope and fret to death 
 at Lawrenceville." 
 
 " Oh, she is her aunt's heiress, of course, 
 and thus her own mistress, quite indepen- 
 dent of Mrs. Lawrence, to whom her visit 
 is not likely to be a prolonged one, though, 
 even during those first days of mourning, 
 she will find much in their stern and mor- 
 bid mockery of Christian life to chill and 
 estrange her." 
 
 "Is she clever?" asked Sandys. 
 
 "Very clever, and well educated, I'm told." 
 
 "You positively make me love her by 
 hearsay," returned the youth warmly: " she 
 tallies so precisely with my matrimonial 
 standard, that I only wish..." he hesitated. 
 
 "Perhaps," suggested Mrs. LongfeUow,
 
 42 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 ''you are happier without your wish : things 
 are always for the best; and Helena, 
 although everything I have said, might 
 make an indifferent wife." 
 
 Sandys sighed, and turned the conversa- 
 tion. " See, here come Miss Burton and 
 Lucy: pray quiz the Irish girl about her 
 sunflower!" 
 
 " Quizzing, Wellesly, is a dangerous 
 thing !" returned the good old lady, with a 
 mock reproving frown. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Burton," persisted the tire- 
 some fellow, "I do so idolize sunflowers?" 
 
 " All over the left, my dear. / know 
 you!" answered Norah, with more point 
 than elegance. 
 
 " Come, my dear Norah," interposed the 
 matron, anxious to restrain her un-Anglican 
 charge, " come with these roses to Mr. 
 Longfellow; you have not seen him this
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 43 
 
 morning:" and the Sandys were left to 
 themselves. 
 
 No sooner had the sound of retmng steps 
 died away, than Wellesly, laying his arm 
 on his sister's neck, and with a very serious 
 expression, said — " This is a sad, pitiless, 
 unbecoming, undoing life, Lucy, that from 
 youth to age, from day to day, and from 
 hope to hopelessness, I am forced to lead ! 
 Scampering over the fields, flirting with the 
 ladies, and devouring good dinners ; throw- 
 ing away my best years: surely, surely, 
 there must be something that I can, should, 
 and must, do !" 
 
 " An abrupt change," returned Miss 
 Sandys, "from teasing poor Norali with 
 your irony, to lecturing your poor self for 
 what I scarcely think you are to blame. 
 But what a fluctuating visionary you are: 
 how fondly addicted to mirth, and yet a
 
 44 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 melancholy wight all the time ! Come," she 
 continued, laying her gentle cheek upon 
 his hand, and kissing its smooth and femi- 
 nine palm, " come, courage^ mon frlre I I 
 have somewhat of a cheerful nature where- 
 withal to illume your Kembrandt sketch, a 
 ray to pierce its murky gloom; a ray, 
 bear in mind, that may presently disappear, 
 and not by any means to be too fondly 
 trusted, but which also, on the other hand, 
 may be the precursor of sunshine. Are you 
 prepared," she went on, with great em- 
 phasis, " to receive good tidings, and yet, 
 should disappointment prove it premature, 
 to battle manfully against your fate? — 
 come now, Wellesly !" 
 
 " I will so endeavour, now help me 
 every good intention !" returned, with much 
 energy, her brother. 
 
 " Well," she resumed, " perhaps I am
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 45 
 
 precipitate, at this early and most uncertain 
 stage, to waken any hopes in your too 
 hopeful breast; but, relying on your pro- 
 mise, and confiding in your best efforts to 
 observe it, I shall proceed to my revelation, 
 premising that, if things turn out as we 
 desire, your moping days are over. Do 
 you remember — but of course you do — the 
 large Christmas party of grandees assem- 
 bled here two years ago?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, perfectly," was his ready an- 
 swer : " we had the Sainsons, General and 
 Mrs. Lamert, Lord Templeton and his 
 sister, Sir Geoffry and Lady Hamlyn " 
 
 " Stop — it is with these last we have to 
 do," interposed Lucy; then adding, "Sir 
 Geoffry Hamlyn is gazetted to the Gover- 
 norship of C , part of our Eastern em- 
 pire, and Sir William has written to him — 
 he being abroad somewhere on the Continent
 
 46 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 — to solicit for you, my dear Wellesly, tlie 
 situation of his private secretary; a reply 
 should be received in another week, and if 
 favourable '^ 
 
 "Oh, soul of my soul, say no more!" 
 quickly broke in the stripling ; then flinging 
 his arms round his sister^s neck, he cried, 
 amid a volley of kisses and other endear- 
 ments, "I shall fr^^ not to go stark staring mad 
 for the next seven days : indeed I shall, my 
 good angel ! I will do my very utmost to keep 
 within bounds for your sake: but only to 
 tliink of that darling, admirable, unap- 
 proachable Sir William — the world of 
 happiness to which he is providing me 
 with a pass — the good things which are 
 yet in store for me — ay, for me, Wellesly 
 Sandys, but lately on the verge of sui- 
 cide " 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! don't say so, even in jest !"
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 47 
 
 from his monitress, with an additional loving 
 pressm^e. 
 
 " And now, with a foot in the promised 
 land!" he continued, not heeding, scarce 
 hearing, her check — "kiss me, thus and thus, 
 my sweet Lucy ; the clouds are driven away 
 at last, and a day has come of such bright 
 and gorgeous rising " 
 
 " That the chances of its setting at 
 once and for ever are quite discarded by 
 your not over-reasonable fancy." 
 
 "Pooh! Lucy, you always wear specta- 
 cles. I know that the chances are equal, 
 quite well ; but, in the event of my services 
 being required — oh, dear, dear, will it not 
 be glorious ! Those dreamy Eastern lands, 
 with their scenes of fabled and natural en- 
 chantment, those nurseries of the arts, the 
 foci of creation, of Paradise, of eternal sum- 
 mer —
 
 48 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 ' Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers, 
 And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers — 
 Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, 
 Is worth the best joy that Life elsewhere can give !' 
 
 Just bethink you, Lucy — one endless June, 
 unvarying verdure, teeming with fruits and 
 flowers, reeking with perfume; no nipping 
 frosts, or tedious nights, but sunshine bright 
 and cloudless — 
 
 ' So darkly, deeply, beautifully blue. 
 That God alone is to be seen in heaven.' 
 
 Picture to yourself the brilliancy of scenes 
 like these, where even darkness is made 
 visible by the myriad lamps of fireflies 
 clustering on every forest tree !" 
 
 " Pray find a place in your Eden for the 
 mosquitoes," interposed his monitress, with 
 sarcastic gravity; "moreover, a thermo- 
 meter at 120° in the shade; white ants to 
 gnaw your couch from under you in a single 
 night, or to have stormed your wardrobe
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 49 
 
 during your slumbers; the absolute cer- 
 tainty of scorpions in your boots, snakes 
 under your pillow and up your coat sleeves ; 
 centipedes inspecting your throat, tarantula 
 spiders, with legs like greyhounds and fangs 
 like lobsters, dropping into your mouth 
 from the ceiling, and a perfect host of other 
 oriental luxuries !" 
 
 " Why, Lucy, you seem to delight in the 
 gloomy side of the picture invanably," 
 replied her companion, somewhat subdued 
 by her category of evils. " Now, imj course 
 is to steer through the smoothest and most 
 picturesque waters " 
 
 "But which proves the safer course in 
 the end? which escapes stranding or ship- 
 wreck? tell me." 
 
 " Why," unwillingly agreed the youth, 
 " inasmuch as you run no danger, your 
 voyage is the more successful, I allow, and 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 any disappointment you encounter must 
 
 necessarily be of a pleasing kind ; but " 
 
 " But," continued Lucy, interrupting him, 
 " you promise to restrain your too exultant 
 confidence, until certainty shall have placed 
 it beyond the chance of defeat: now, do 
 gratify your friends, and serve your own 
 interests, by restraining for the nonce this 
 impetuous, short-sighted, inflated hope ! Yet 
 another word : I have prepared Sir William 
 and Miss Price for our departure to-morrow 
 or next day. We will visit Aunt Ernestine 
 during the interval which must elapse before 
 your destiny can be decided. She is to know 
 nothing about the affair at present, and 
 nothing hereafter, if the result should bring 
 no change: but it will be better for all 
 parties that the decision reach you where 
 no knowledge of the negociation exists. 
 Xow, Wellesly dear, I am sure you will try
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 51 
 
 to conform, for this brief period, to the 
 strict acceptation of that theatrical and ex- 
 pressive word, ' mum.' " 
 
 Taking the soft hand, which rested un- 
 gloved on his arm, the embryo official elo- 
 quently pressed it to his lips, thus sealing 
 the compact with a kiss that seemed to 
 signify, " Anything to please you, Lucy ! if 
 I can,'''' 
 
 They rose and Miss Sandys, leaning on 
 her brother, turned to re-enter the house. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Helena Lawrence was truly an attractive 
 girl : with physical and mental advantages 
 of no common order, botli of which had 
 been furbished into the highest and brightest 
 polish, she quite outshone all the planets of 
 her sphere. Her aunt, a conceited, but, 
 upon the whole, a good woman — as women 
 go — had been smitten, some years pre- 
 viously to our present date, by the extreme 
 beauty of her eyes, and intense yet refined 
 vivacity of her conversation. 
 
 That old body. Miss Penelope Lawi^ence, 
 somewhere about sixty, even then looked
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 53 
 
 upon herself — and many spinsters of lier 
 wTicertain age do tlie same — as still mar- 
 riageable. Up to this time, her whole life 
 had been a suffusion^ from an internal con- 
 viction that delicacy and decorum were 
 continually sacrificed to the fatality which 
 sent her into the world without a twin, and 
 into society without a chaperon. Though 
 apparently of a sufficiently matured or- 
 ganization, her intellectual, or inner wo- 
 man, still " warm and young," continued a 
 martyr to the coyness, shiness, girlish diffi- 
 dence, and ticklishness, which, except in 
 cases of extreme sensibility, seldom outlive 
 twenty- one. 
 
 It was with eminent satisfaction, there- 
 fore, that, casting her timid eye over her 
 sister's vineyard, Miss Pen — as her inti- 
 mates called her — beheld the stately, grace- 
 ful Helena, growing up into something
 
 54 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 which must fascinate every gaze, but some- 
 thing which ran no chance of eclipsing Miss 
 Pen's own peerless, though hitherto soli- 
 tary star. She compared, internally, her- 
 self and her niece to a pair of cream- 
 coloured, thorough-bred ponies, of equal 
 beauty, and which in double harness would 
 give the go-by to all. 
 
 I will not positively affirm, albeit I think 
 it highly probable, that Pen, during her 
 visit to Lawrenceville — a visit she was at 
 no pains to prolong — made up her mind to 
 have a double wedding solemnized at St. 
 George's, tianover Square, within a year 
 from that date. Circumstances, to be sure, 
 changed her purpose, or, more correctly, 
 deferred it, inducing her to retain for a sea- 
 son her virgin innocence and unprotected 
 position; but such a course was adopted, 
 with the express design of training the
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 55 
 
 somewhat rustic filly at a fashionable 
 breaker's establishment in London, where 
 singing masters, dancing, drawing, and 
 other polite professors, together with back- 
 boards, and the Opera on Saturday eve- 
 ning, gave a finish to natural charms which 
 was deemed essential for her match, by 
 Miss Pen, to complete their similitude. 
 
 "Penelope," said Mrs. Lawrence, who 
 was much too proper to abbreviate, espe- 
 cially on so weighty a topic as that under 
 discussion, " after deep self-examination" — 
 what use it could possibly be we need not 
 fathom — "after an entire week of unex- 
 ceptional sleeplessness — after" — here Mrs. 
 Lawrence halted to take breath; at least, 
 so she made believe, though Miss Pen 
 attributed it to dearth of ideas. 
 
 " She is coining, now," thought Pen. 
 
 " After application to the highest autho-
 
 56 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 rity, I have adopted the resolution to bid 
 Helena go with you:" then, sucking her 
 lips, to represent tears, she continued — " It 
 will break the child's heart ; I myself shall 
 never survive it : but what is ordained is 
 ordained, is" — gasped the widow, bringing 
 all the resignation wrinkles into force — 
 " ordained!" and her tattered kerchief 
 wiped away whole deluges of burning, blis- 
 tering, maternal droppings, which never 
 came. 
 
 " Moonshine !" cried Pen, as she turned 
 her back on the self-sacrificing, devoted 
 parent, and surveyed her own delicate lap- 
 pets in the mirror. "As to its breaking 
 the child's heart, I consulted the child's 
 self, and derived therefrom a different assu- 
 rance : as to its deadly effect on yoii^ I think 
 you over-estimate the danger: as to the 
 week's sleeplessness — moonshine!"
 
 VAGARIES OF LITE. 57 
 
 So said, somewliat waspishly, Miss Pen, 
 and sat down to write to her housekeeper. 
 She was not to be hoodwinked, even by 
 that ordinarily telling display of resigna- 
 tion. Having some knowledge of her sister, 
 she could not help feeling that, so far from 
 entertaining genuine sentiments of grief for 
 her daughter's removal, Mrs. Lawrence con- 
 soled herself with the idea — in lier case, at 
 all times a main one — that, by the march of 
 time, some portion of the aunt's mantle 
 might descend upon the niece. To be sure, 
 in a catechetical point of view, the matron 
 very probably may have experienced a 
 qualm ; for Calvinism and Mammon waged 
 frequent war in her economic breast : but 
 the result was never doubtful — Mammon, 
 on any terms, was allowed to win ; although, 
 if practicable, a compromise would be 
 effected between them.
 
 58 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 It was evident, however, that m the pre- 
 sent case, no temporizing could be resorted 
 to, Miss Pen being too cheerful and inde- 
 pendent for that. So Mrs. Lawrence, rather 
 than lose the probable reversion of certain 
 estates for her darling child, gave in. This, 
 one might suppose, was worldly wisdom, 
 but for the fact that Lawrenceville ignored 
 the world. 
 
 To return. Two beds were to be aired 
 in No. — , Wimpole Street, against the en- 
 suing night. Breakfast over. Miss Pen and 
 her match left Lawrenceville, followed to 
 the threshold by Mrs. Lawrence and her 
 sympathetic mouchoir. Just as the carriage 
 moved away, that widow was seen to rush 
 wildly to the front, no doubt with a view to 
 embrace for the last time her nestling — 
 although the effect produced by her dis- 
 play on the footman, who was last to
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 59 
 
 mount, and therefore most exposed to her 
 charge, was such as to warrant the belief 
 that her lamentations were intended for 
 him. 
 
 '' Oh, it's all very well, mum," muttered 
 Smith, with an evasive wave of the hand, 
 " but yer too mooch of a skinflint, to make 
 it nat'ral !" 
 
 Smith had probably been restricted in 
 rations. Miss Pen, observing the attack, re- 
 turned to her allegory, " Moonshine !" then, 
 spreading her parasol in defiance, was 
 gone. 
 
 Scarcely had the sound of retiring wheels 
 died into extreme distance, when the incon- 
 solable and bereaved mother sank into her 
 fireside easy chair, and, with a very em- 
 phatic " Thank God !" stowed her kerchief 
 and grief away. 
 
 Henry Lawrence, then about sixteen,
 
 60 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 looked up from a letter wliicli he was in- 
 diting to a schoolfellow. 
 
 " Wliat do you mean, mamma?" he asked, 
 with much surprise. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, dear." 
 
 Presently, however, it came out, in spite 
 of her : indeed, she was much too happy to 
 contain herself as she should have done, if 
 she desired, that is, to pass for a sincere 
 Christian. Some minutes elapsed, and 
 Henry was sealing his note. Mrs. Law- 
 rence resumed — 
 
 " A fine thing for your sister, my dear — 
 a very fine thing." 
 
 " Which sister, mamma, and what?" ques- 
 tioned the heir. 
 
 " Why, Helena, of course : the best thing 
 that could have befallen her." 
 
 " You mean her trip to London, I pre- 
 sume — yet," he added, with some caution.
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 61 
 
 " I tliouglit you were averse to the arrange- 
 ment. Nay, I'm almost certain I heard 
 you say so." 
 
 " Well," began his mother, bitingly, " and 
 if I did^ is it necessary to cast it in my 
 teeth ? You're a fool to suppose I meant it, 
 that's all. Your aunt has a large fortune !" 
 
 And this was thrown out by way of 
 suggestive quietus, 
 
 " I am amazed to hear such fast and loose 
 doctrines," replied her son, " from you^ of 
 all people in the world. You mean to tell 
 me that, while Aunt Pen was led to believe 
 you disliked her proposal, you were secretly 
 delighted all the time?" 
 
 " Pre — cise — ly !" articulated the widow, 
 with as much weight of brass as seemed 
 necessary to drive her system down his 
 throat. 
 
 And Henrv was certainlv astounded: a
 
 62 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 new light began to pour in upon and illu- 
 mine for his inspection very many strokes 
 of maternal diplomacy which hitherto he 
 had never dared to scan. 
 
 We have said, we hope that Mrs. Law- 
 rence was a religious woman : yet, no one 
 being a hero to his valet'de'Chamhre^ it is a 
 question if her severe, sonorous piety took 
 much effect on the filial organ of venera- 
 tion, or gullibility^ subsequent to the above 
 incident, which supplied the key, as it were, 
 to much domestic manoeuvring, past, pre- 
 sent, and prospective. 
 
 Out of her own door^ indeed, Mrs. Law- 
 rence long ranked as an exemplary A 1 
 Christian — a little too unrelenting, too 
 coppe7''fastened^ perhaps, but all the more 
 in earnest. The village congregation held 
 her in becoming awe, as she headed her 
 drove into church, and sailed, with the air
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 63 
 
 of a superior saint and much solemnity, up 
 the middle aisle into her pew. Blake, the 
 curate, showed the white feather, if she 
 arrived late, suiFered from periodical twitch- 
 ings through the Liturgy, and, quite run- 
 ning away from his subject, repeated the 
 responses for very terror. 
 
 Poor young man! no doubt he was oc- 
 casionally troubled with night-mare, and 
 that the fiend which sat upon his chest 
 and sucked his breath was our command- 
 ing acquaintance, robed in her shabby, 
 rusty crape! For Mrs. Lawrence was a 
 sloven, and on principle, in matters of dress. 
 No cotter's wife on her estate but came to 
 prayers in more reputable 'tire ; but, as the 
 matron abhorred expenditure, decried the 
 faintest approach to fashion, and fortified 
 her obstinacy behind a text about taking no 
 thought, &c., the case was hopeless.
 
 64 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " Did you hear wliat Betty told mamma 
 about the cook?" asked Susan Lawi^ence of 
 her elder sister, as they stood, each at a 
 separate window in the drawing-room, look- 
 ing with a vacant, long- continued stare, at 
 the grass, or the gravel, the atmosphere, or 
 nothing at all. 
 
 This was a very common, and the only, 
 entertainment with these young ladies; 
 while their conversation, having no other 
 subject from which to originate, bore exclu- 
 sively on the sayings and doings of their 
 domestics. 
 
 Susan was a pretty, thin girl; at least, 
 she would have been pretty, but for that 
 dull, stupid, heavy look, stereotyped by 
 ennui and listlessness on her brow. Eleanor 
 was remarkably plain, and wore the same 
 vacant, almost idiotic, want of expression. 
 
 " Ko — tell me," was her careless answer,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 65 
 
 with a yawn, and without relieving her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Why, she says the cook saw her cousins 
 on Sunday, after church." 
 
 " Dear me !" was the reply. 
 
 And this will serve as a specimen of the 
 kind of thing to which Helena was about 
 to be introduced, with all her polish and 
 tastes, in consequence of her aunt's demise. 
 
 To conclude our sketchy memoir of Miss 
 Pen: she and her juvenile compeer duly 
 arrived in Wimpole Street. Helena, though 
 then only fourteen, appeared, to a stranger, 
 much older. Remarkable for her fine, well 
 proportioned, well developed figure, com- 
 bining the elasticity of extreme youth with 
 the rounded elegance of twenty, she had 
 quite escaped the unbecoming season of 
 hobbledehoyism. Her hair, gathered loosely 
 into a net, hung low on her beautiful 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 rounded neck and polished shoulders: it 
 was cliesnut hair, though her eyebrows 
 and lashes were dark, and her eyes of that 
 intense grey, which evidences an intellect 
 of no common calibre, a heart whose every 
 chord is tuned to deep and thrilling sen- 
 sibility. All the features of this face were 
 perfect ; the nose, Grecian in contour^ finely 
 chiselled, and smooth and close, like those 
 we have seen on cameos; the forehead 
 high, and even as the surface of a bil- 
 liard ball; the cheeks neither roseate nor 
 pale, and answering to the slightest whis- 
 per of the soul; the mouth small, yet not 
 too buttony, more birdy than buttony, and 
 a thing to be kissed; teeth of the whitest 
 brilliancy, and set in most faultless crescent ; 
 chin dimpled ; and throat to challenge the 
 Apollo Belvedere : to sum up all — a dainty 
 work of Nature.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 67 
 
 No sooner had aunt and niece descended 
 from their britzska, and entered the hall, 
 than the lady's-maid, a bedizened goose, 
 who advanced to welcome " Missis" home, 
 broke out as follows — 
 
 " Lor' look kindly on us, iv ever I seen 
 sich a born beauty !" 
 
 "Nonsense, Wilson, nonsense; no more 
 of that, if you please," said Miss Pen, not 
 at all annoyed by the abigail's discernment. 
 "Lead the way to Miss Helena's room, 
 now ; it must be near the dinner hour. If 
 you are not fatigued, my dear," she con- 
 tinued, turning to her match, "we will 
 show ourselves at the Opera to-night: I 
 think my dresses will fit you. What do 
 you say?" 
 
 " With all my heart, aunt : I shall be 
 delighted." 
 
 " Don't call me aunt any more, my love : 
 
 f2
 
 fi8 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 that kind of thing sounds too venerable, at 
 my time of life: people might laugh, you 
 know. Call me Missey." 
 
 Having said which, Missey indulged in a 
 facetious chuckle, echoed by Helena and 
 the maid.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 69 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 *' What do you say to a few months' 
 finishing at Madame Delaine's establish- 
 ment, my love?" began Miss Pen, some 
 days subsequently, as herself and her niece 
 sat late at breakfast 
 
 ^'Wliatever you think may conduce to 
 my improvement will meet with no oppo- 
 sition from me^ Missey," rejoined Helena, 
 looking into her patroness's eyes with sin- 
 cere aifection. 
 
 " I am sure of that, my pretty camarade ; 
 and, while I cannot bear to think of losing 
 you, I must not be selfish enough to appro- 
 priate your abilities all to myself: a year's
 
 70 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 
 
 residence with Madame will accomplish for 
 one so ready and retentive every thing 
 that can be desirable. After that gentle- 
 woman has exerted her utmost to benefit 
 you, we must begin, my dear, to remember 
 that Time brooks no delay, and that beauty 
 even such as ours is evanescent, perishable, 
 fragile ; in fact" — and with the following re- 
 velation Miss Pen w^as suffocated in blushes 
 — " we shall consider it our duty to form an 
 alliance each with an individual w^ho may 
 be induced to volunteer his attachment by 
 the merit and on the basis of our charms." 
 
 " Surely, Missey, you cannot mean to 
 tell me you are talking of a husband !" re- 
 turned Helena, laughingly scanning the 
 enterprising spinster. 
 
 " I am^ dear," was that amatory indi- 
 vidual's forcible reply. 
 
 The younger lady, having unsuccessfully
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 71 
 
 endeavoured to take the same business- 
 like view of the subject, bethought her 
 of every harrowing and melancholy event 
 which had crossed her path through the 
 meadows of life, thereby to preserve her 
 gravity. But Miss Pen had yet more to 
 unbosom. 
 
 '' Take another cup of tea, will you, 
 sweetest? I must give you a further in- 
 sight into my plans." 
 
 " That is, your matrimonial plans, 
 Missey?" 
 
 " Yes, Helena, my hymeneal desiderata," 
 returned the old lady soberly. 
 
 After studying for a moment the arrange- 
 ment of her rings, she resumed — 
 
 " It will be desirable, in selecting from 
 the numerous offers which will imdoubtedly 
 beleaguer us, to carry out that principle 
 which prompted me in my choice of yoti for
 
 72 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 my companion. We should be companions 
 in this as in every particular." 
 
 The youngster so addressed was quickly 
 losing all self-command, when Missey, ob- 
 serving it, added — 
 
 " I'm afraid you mistake me, dear. I did 
 not mean, we are to have one husband be- 
 tween us" — and with the impropriety of the 
 very idea she was a peony — " but that, if 
 possible, we should show a preference for 
 brothers. You understand me now ? I have 
 a notion that our pretensions to beauty, 
 and so forth, being pretty nearly on a 
 par, we ought to assimilate as closely as 
 may be, even in the partners of our future 
 lot. Tell me, what do you think, my 
 love?" 
 
 Helena would not have told her what she 
 thought, for the world; but what she did 
 NOT think, she told in lieu.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 73 
 
 " Missey is riglit, beyond a doubt ; but 
 there are difficulties in the way, I fear." 
 
 " Ob, leave me alone for that^ dear : 
 whilst you mature those accomplishments 
 which are necessary to complete our resem- 
 blance" — here Missey looked into the silver 
 tea-urn at her features, and, though terribly 
 elongated by its reflection, they seemed to 
 satisfy her as to the merit of her standard — 
 " / shall not neglect our common interests ; 
 nor, while necessitated once again to venture 
 forth without that protection which at my 
 age and with my appearance is so desirable, 
 will I, through any praiseworthy sense of 
 delicacy, forget for a moment that brothers 
 are the objects of my search, as like, you 
 know, as possible : indeed, I should prefer 
 twins^ myself; it would be still more the 
 thing, dear ; for which purpose, I must keep 
 the Siamese in my head."
 
 74 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Missey concluded her breakfast, and 
 Helena made a rapid retreat into the 
 window. 
 
 Poor Missey is now dead ! — an excellent 
 specimen, with all her foibles. So felt her 
 comrade, as she sat, weeping bitterly for 
 the blithe old spirit gone, in the darkened 
 library, once replete with that other cream- 
 coloured pony's capersome neigh. And yet 
 Helena was no heiress, after all. The fact 
 is, when Missey's secretaire was unlocked, 
 and Missey's will found, it contained testa- 
 mentary injunctions as follows : — 
 
 That, in case Death should overtake her 
 (Missey) during the Continental tour which 
 was in immediate contemplation, as en- 
 suing upon the approaching double mar- 
 riage — of which Helena, up to the reading 
 of this same document, knew no more than 
 ourselves — the personal estate was to be
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 75 
 
 equally divided between her widower and 
 the other twain : but that, in the event of 
 the whole four expiring at the same date — 
 which evidently it was her firm conviction 
 they were fated to do, no doubt from their 
 absolute and perfect similarity, their com- 
 munity in every way — then her goods and 
 chattels, ready money, landed property, 
 every thing, were to found and endow an 
 institution for poor students, with fellow- 
 ships for twins; build a church for the 
 St. Giles's population, a j)arsonage for its 
 incumbent, schools, &c., &c., &c. ; and that 
 in no case was her fortune to descend to 
 her sister Lawrence, whom she stigmatized, 
 in the legatory vellum, as " a ranting, penu- 
 rious impostor." Finally, to leave no doubt 
 as to her matrimonial views, it was declared 
 that, should she (Miss Pen) be prematurely 
 summoned, and die a spinster, all her effects
 
 76 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 were to be disposed of as above. Then 
 came some legacies to the servants, and 
 thus ran her singular will. This brings us 
 to the juncture when Henry fetched Helena 
 home.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 '' Our weekly examination day, Fanehon, 
 is it not?" asked Violette de Merton of her 
 bonne. 
 
 " Mais oui, mon ange !" was that flippant 
 official's reply. 
 
 " I want to shirk it, Fanehon — that odious, 
 namby-pamby Blake !" 
 
 ''Bete, mon Dieu! une veritable bete!" 
 shuddered the bonne. 
 
 " How can I manage it, Fanehon?" asked 
 her mistress. 
 
 " Ha !" cried the servant, slapping her 
 forehead, and regarding the ceiling with in- 
 tense abstraction — " il m'est venu une idee !"
 
 78 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " Out witli it, vitement, my life : a rib- 
 bon, a robe, if you can save me ! Only see 
 how I pant upon this thrilling, soul- working 
 tale: I am sipping the very creme of a 
 seduction. Oh, Fanchon, Fanchon, you 
 can't think how interesting, how delicious ! 
 I am all on fire ! Must I then, turn away, 
 drum into my head those dull verses, dress 
 myself in that dismal mourning frock, and 
 listen to that horrid, ugly, Irish parson, for 
 an hour? Mais il ennuie a la mort !" And 
 she stamped her Httle uncovered foot in 
 violent dudgeon. 
 
 " C'est vraiment epouvantable, ma'mselle ; 
 mais n'avez vous pas un gros rhume, ou mi 
 pen defievref — m'entendez vous?" 
 
 " Bravo ! the very thing !" cried the spoiled 
 beauty, flinging her plump white arms round 
 the bonne's neck. " Mille graces, Fan- 
 chon!"
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 7'9 
 
 " Je vais supplier madame la veuve 
 d'agreer vos excuses," returned Fanchon, 
 disengaging herself; " mais quel est votre 
 mal?" 
 
 " Oh, a desperate toothache — on the very 
 verge of distraction." 
 
 Having said which, she lay down indo- 
 lently to enjoy, in all the semi-realization of 
 a deshahille^ that forbidden fruit, the taste 
 for which, in some form or other, is but 
 too natural to every daughter of Eve. 
 
 Violette is Mrs. Lawrence's niece, the 
 offspring of a run-away match, which ended 
 in the birth of this girl, the death of her 
 heart-broken mother, the disappearance of 
 her father, and her removal from Normandy 
 to Lawrenceville, under the care of this 
 woman Fanchon; all of which happened 
 some dozen years previous to our intro- 
 duction.
 
 80 VAGAEIES OE LIFE. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence, as nearest of kin, under- 
 took — generous being that slie was! — the 
 responsible duties of guardian, the Chan- 
 cellor performing the legal, as she the 
 maternal, share; and Yiolette's mother's 
 fortune, thus permitted to accumulate, in- 
 creased, during a long minority, to some- 
 thing very desirable indeed, which in round 
 numbers we shall estimate at ten thousand 
 pounds a-year. 
 
 It had happened, however, that the 
 orphan's grandfather, who lived long enough 
 to see her mother die, enjoined in his will 
 that Yiolette, then a mere child, was to 
 remain a ward of Chancery until, in the 
 fulness of time, she might marry, and give 
 birth to an heir male, when a moderate an- 
 nuity was to be //^r reward, but the bulk of 
 the property to await her issue's maturity ; 
 unless, indeed, she should marry her cousin,
 
 VAGARIES OE LIEE, 81 
 
 Henry Lawrence, when, heir or no heir, the 
 property was to be hers in full. 
 
 This arrangement had been made, doubt- 
 less, to protect Violette from any tampering 
 on the part of her French sire, should he 
 ever again appear, as well as to defend the 
 old man's legacy from foreigners in general, 
 for whom he had no esteem. 
 
 Upon these data, it is not to be con- 
 tested that Mrs. Lawrence, with those dim, 
 yet calculating, eyes of hers, desired, and 
 had a right to desire, nothing more eagerly 
 than the quartering of the Lawrence and 
 De Merton arms. She looked on the mat- 
 ter as an il faut^ a fatality, any resistance 
 to which it was her duty to prevent, that 
 Henry, he^- son, was to marry Violette, her 
 niece, and the Chancellor to come hand- 
 somely down. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Lawrence, when her own in- 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 terests took the field, had no lack of dis- 
 cernment : she viewed Yiolette as an amiable 
 ally, but never lost sight of the fact that 
 severe or exacting treatment might render 
 her a foe. The natural bent of the young 
 lady's inclination leading her to do nothing 
 but what she liked, to amuse herself as 
 much as she could, and to avoid every ap- 
 proach to coercion and inconvenience, had, 
 we imagine, but little singularity; and to 
 this instinct the old lady implicitly submit- 
 ted, with her usual display of wrinkled 
 resignation, in all respects save one; and 
 that one, to which she offered upon the 
 whole but a modified resistance, was Yio- 
 lette' s religious training. 
 
 " Ma'mselle " was allowed to have her 
 own companion — for Fanchon, unfortu- 
 nately, was more a companion than bonne 
 -^her own suite of rooms, phaeton, groom,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 83 
 
 in fact, a separate establishment; "but she 
 never could get her religious instruction 
 out of the tante's hands : Mrs. Lawrence met 
 the best-laid schemes with some scriptural 
 quotations, which, if not appropriate, were 
 unanswerable; and so it fell out that the 
 services of the Reverend Anthony Blake, 
 the curate aforesaid, were in weekly requi- 
 sition at Lawrenceville, when the son — if 
 he was at home — daughters, and niece — 
 who always were — submitted to a cate- 
 chetical ordeal of grim severity, under the 
 immediate inspection of widow Lawrence 
 herself. 
 
 That hebdomadal solemnity was dread- 
 ful; dreadful even to its clerical expo- 
 nent. Indeed, he appeared more nervous 
 about it than any of them : at each lesson's 
 expiration, Anthony drew breath, and yet, 
 week after week, a terrible fascination bore 
 
 g2
 
 84 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 liim up the gloomy avenue, iu spite of him- 
 self. The fact is, Mrs. Lawrence's superior 
 sanctity cowed saint and sinner, Anthony 
 and Fanchon, alike : there was no reasoning 
 with or against her; you had just to grin 
 and bear. 
 
 I am sorry, at the close of my notice of 
 this laudable attribute in the widow's cha- 
 racter, that mention cannot be omitted of 
 an impression which was current in her 
 household, and at which I briefly hinted, in 
 an earlier page : children and servants — nay, 
 further, the awe-stricken padre himself — 
 were occasionally tempted so far to miscon- 
 strue their great example's lofty piety, as to 
 hazard, in the keej)ing of their several con- 
 sciences, that duosyllabic censure, '' Hum- 
 bug " — the " Moonshine" of poor Pen. But 
 they were bad and blind, all of them, no 
 doubt. On the present occasion, however,
 
 VAGARIES or LIFE. 85 
 
 Fanchon returned with the grateful tidings 
 that her stratagem had triumphed : — 
 
 " Mais, mille tonnerres ! la chienne vieille 
 comes to make inquiries in person." 
 
 " N'importe," replied Yiolette, with a 
 yawn; "we can manage her now. Here, 
 hide this, and fasten my robe : that will do ; 
 now give me the class-book ; I shall open it 
 directly I hear her." 
 
 The novel was accordingly secreted, an 
 epithet intended for the widow ventured 
 and enjoyed, and every thing put in trim 
 for an effectual " gull." 
 
 Its result proved triumphant. Mrs. Law- 
 rence found her niece's eyes so rivetted on 
 " The Christian's Manual," that even her 
 entrance was for a time unnoticed; one 
 little hand, moreover, being pressed against 
 her cheek in the very most tooth-aching 
 pose conceivable.
 
 86 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 "Is my poor Violette a sufferer — will 
 she send for opium? What can be done 
 for my precious darling?" 
 
 Thus soothingwise the matron invariably 
 addressed her charge — to say the least, a 
 considerable qualification of the language 
 which was wont to pour from the same 
 source upon her children. A dreamy recol- 
 lection of that contingent ten thousand a 
 year may in part account for the difference. 
 
 "Don't talk to me, aunt; I am much 
 worse: opium has no effect; nothing but 
 silence. '^ 
 
 " Will my own Violette," asked the per- 
 sisting widow, but in more dulcet tones, 
 "give me her class-book, and Mr. Blake 
 shall be desired to mark some additional 
 texts for next week?" 
 
 At this ticklish crisis a voice was heard 
 at the door.
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 87 
 
 " Mamma — Violette — Mr. Blake is wait- 
 ing: we are late." 
 
 This was Elinor. 
 
 " Oil, do please leave me, aunt !" whined 
 the agonized mongrel. " I am quite nervous 
 to-day, and talking but increases my pain." 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence precipitately fled, and the 
 class-book was flung upon the floor. 
 
 Shall we take this opportunity of de- 
 scribing Violette? You have heard she 
 was pretty, have seen she was spoiled. Pe- 
 tite, bright looking, rather brunette than 
 blonde, with ever-blossoming geraniums on 
 her cheek, a couple of mouse-tails highly 
 arched above her eyes, and eyes which let 
 you into her character — or her want of it — 
 at once: hair, silken, curly, glossy, raven- 
 black, clustering round her throat, the 
 longest ringlets kissing every now and then 
 on her swelling bosom. Lovely beyond a
 
 8S; VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 doubt, her loveliness was of the dangerous 
 cast — dangerous more to herself than 
 others. 
 
 There are some people, of both sexes, 
 wlio seem born for folly, and worse than 
 folly — for vice : you may read their destiny 
 in their looks, long before that destiny is 
 accomplished: circumstances may favour 
 or retard, but do they ever avert it ? You 
 may immure them — Danae like, the shower 
 of gold will find an entrance : you may tend 
 them strictly ; example and precept may be 
 called to your aid against the evil spirit 
 who seems to have entered in at their child- 
 hood's earliest hour; but you cannot work 
 miracles; you have no power to cast out 
 devils : nothing will avail, unless the grace 
 of God and His inscrutable purpose has 
 otherwise thought fit : they have a race to 
 run through sin, infamy, wretchedness, reck-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE, 89 
 
 lessness — to but tlie end is dreadful, 
 
 Alas, for those children of darkness 1 
 
 We will not longer dwell on the charms, 
 the ill-starred, fatal charms, which clung to 
 this orphan-girl like vampires, and, like 
 vampires, let not go their hold until her 
 life-blood was exhausted. In truth, it must 
 be told that, in the present case, the one 
 main idol of Mrs. Lawrence's heart — Mam- 
 mon — thinly silvered over, for conscience 
 sake, by that dismal coating, that miserable 
 counterfeit of piety, of which she was the 
 fountain-head, so blinded and lulled the 
 better feelings which we will be charitable 
 enough to suppose she had at one time or 
 other possessed, that no precautions were 
 taken against that evil daemon, of whose 
 visits most houses are certain, but to whom 
 Violette's — what shall we write? — constitu- 
 tion offered peculiar welcome.
 
 90 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Things inight liave turned out better with 
 her charge; but Mrs. Lawrence, lapped in 
 self-righteous slumber, and blindly pro- 
 strating her reason and duty before the 
 golden calf, left all besides to the effect — he 
 that what it might — of the Saturday's exa- 
 mination and Sunday's service. We will 
 witness its effect ; we will see the recoil ; we 
 shall behold the worshipped image ground 
 into powder, and swallowed by herself! 
 
 Fanchon has resumed her native gar- 
 rulity. 
 
 " D'aujourd'hui en huit, ma'mselle — yah, 
 yah!" cried she, kicking at the discarded 
 class-book with a hideous grin. 
 
 "Comment?" demanded Violette, forget- 
 ting for a moment her allusion. 
 
 " D'aujourd'hui en huit. Monsieur Blake 
 et votre tante — yah, yah!" returned the 
 bonne.
 
 VAGARIES OE LIFE. 91 
 
 " Oh, that odious class-book ! but put it 
 out of my sight. Now sit down, Fanchon, 
 while I read this appetizing jnorpeau. Look 
 at the picture: now, is he not a dear?" 
 
 *' Quelles jolis favoris, mon Dieu!" ejacu- 
 lated Fanchon. 
 
 " Mais c'est lui, c'est le heros !" was her 
 pupil's rapturous rej oinder. ' ' Now listen. . . " 
 
 The entertainment in question being one 
 of those infamous productions of the modern 
 French school, we will leave them to gloat 
 over its obscene excitement, and introduce 
 such slight notice of Fanchon as may be 
 requisite for our tale. 
 
 This odious individual was a native of 
 Paris, and had been foster-mother, some 
 fifteen years back, to Yiolette. Her hus- 
 band and child were reported to have died 
 at that period ; and for the decease of the 
 latter we can vouch ; but a marital epidemic
 
 92 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 must have raged witli unusual virulence in 
 the capital, if the extensive application 
 which, in her case, the former term would 
 warrant, were true, Fanchon bearing a 
 striking analogy, as regarded her social 
 condition, to the woman of Samaria. 
 
 We found her well on in middle age, 
 stout, masculine, coarse, still handsome, but 
 with a bold, repulsive expression, replaced, 
 on occasion, by a fawning, cringing, mock 
 humility, yet more forbidding to such as 
 fathomed her performance. Disgustingly 
 offensive in her language, she was so much 
 the knave as to pass for a harmless character 
 with the culpably careless matron. Yiolette, 
 indeed, was well versed in her tastes and 
 disposition ; but alas ! alas ! she had taught 
 Violette first to tolerate her vices, then to 
 smile upon and finally to emulate them! 
 Insensibly, but surely, she had estabHshed
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 93 
 
 unbounded sway over the thoughtless, un- 
 fortunate orphan. It was her influence 
 that carried this literary poison into its 
 victim's rooms, there to lurk, under lock 
 and key, in the ecritoire, and to lead to 
 deeds which never let me name. — Away 
 with her !
 
 94 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 It is now the afternoon of the morrow, a 
 breezy, clear, spring day. The sound of 
 heavy wheels is heard by Mrs. Lawi^ence, 
 as she sits in her easy chair, lost in a wil- 
 derness of tracts, and bethinks her what a 
 terrible pity it is that Helena has been so 
 irremediably spoiled, and all for nothing 
 — that was the rub, mused mother Law- 
 rence. 
 
 Now the sound increases, she rises, peeps 
 circumspectly through the Venetian blind, 
 and hurries to — change her cap. 
 
 While Mrs. Longfellow, Lucy, and Wel- 
 lesly, are waiting her appearance in the
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 95 
 
 drawing-room, we will follow the fugitive 
 widow into her own closet. 
 
 Wiat is she lifting so daintily out of that 
 bandbox? — a cap, a filthy, crumpled cap, 
 yet considered Mrs. Lawrence's dress cap, 
 for all that. She could buy no end of new 
 ones if she chose, which is pleasant to 
 know. 
 
 Now freshened, cap a pie, she has de- 
 scended to apologize to the visiters. 
 
 " The head of an establishment" — grandi- 
 loquent again — " has so many mterests to 
 superintend, that really," &c. 
 
 Let us hunt for the olive branches : Elinor 
 and Susan occupy their usual window- seat, 
 and follow their usual pastime of deci- 
 phering vacuity; Violette, with Fanchon 
 and a footman, has driven out on the Bridle- 
 stone downs ; and Helena and Henry are in 
 the shrubbery somewhere. Poor Hassan,
 
 96 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 the dragoman, stands afar off, envying his 
 master's sister the company of her hrother, 
 Hassan having been, up to her arrival, 
 attendant on Henry's promenades. 
 
 " Allah look down on you both in love ; 
 you, that are like the cedars of my own 
 country for grace and beauty; and you, 
 new-come spirit of Paradise !" 
 
 Thus mused the Egyptian, as he turned 
 out of their path ere they came in sight. 
 
 " Keep a strong and courageous heart, 
 Helena; the change is almost too much for 
 you; but none can tell w^hen the darkest 
 cloud may not be pierced by the sun's rays, 
 or the wildest hurricane change to calm. 
 Courage is all you require, courage and 
 forbearance — but see," as they neared an 
 opening in the trees, " yonder is the Bridle- 
 stone carriage; hurry w^e home. I do so 
 long to introduce you to Sir William Price
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIEE. 97' 
 
 and Ms sisters, such excellent, warm-liearted 
 people, so unlike — " liere Henry quos ego'd 
 liis comparison, and added, in lieu, '^ or 
 Norah Burton may be there — such a droll 
 girl, you can't think; or Lucy, whom I 
 
 have made you promise to love; or " 
 
 Words would not thrive without breath, 
 and Henry, what with the railroad pace at 
 which he was propelling his sister and him- 
 self, and the intense earnestness which he 
 threw into his descriptive outlines, had quite 
 exhausted that essential. 
 
 They were now at the door, and entered. 
 Sandys thought he had never seen such a 
 beautiful creature in his life ; but he thought 
 the same of every new pretty face that 
 caught his eye. 
 
 Mrs. Lono-fellow invited her over to 
 Bridlestone on a visit of some days, but 
 was met by Mrs. Lawrence abruptly de- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 VAGARIES or LIFE. 
 
 dining it for her daughter, " whom/' she 
 remarked, " I would wean from all mun- 
 dane and evanescent joys. I anticipate a 
 struggle; she has been nurtured in a bad, 
 an impious, school; but I look for a final 
 victory, and must not yield one inch of 
 ground to the great enemy of souls." 
 
 What this had to say to the matter, it 
 were needless to conjecture. In explanation, 
 however, of the widow's severe language 
 and somewhat inflated style, it should be 
 understood that her acquaintance with 
 what she termed " the world without" had, 
 many years ago, been abandoned as likely 
 to contaminate that extreme purity of 
 heart, to which she laid claim, as well as to 
 endanger her convictions, which were, many 
 of them, to say the least, peculiar. Her vo- 
 cabulary was principally derived from the 
 perusal of earnest, but somewhat illiberal
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 99 
 
 and melancholy, works, whose doctrines are 
 calculated to precipitate people of timid dis- 
 positions in thousands from the Monument 
 or over London Bridge. This may in part 
 account for the old lady's antipathy for 
 town. 
 
 Mrs. Longfellow knew better than to 
 reason, however mildly, with fanaticism, 
 long sown and deep-rooted, so she merely 
 expressed her sorrow, and rose to go. 
 Lucy whispered to her new friend — she 
 felt they were friends at once — her in- 
 tention of calling again when she re- 
 tiu^ned to Bridlestone: they shook hands 
 warmly, and, looking in each other's eyes, 
 saw tears. 
 
 " She understands mamma, " thought 
 Helena. 
 
 " Poor girl !" mused Lucy, " what a life 
 you have before you." 
 
 h2
 
 100 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 The door having closed, Mrs. Lawrence 
 retired to change her cap. Henry con- 
 ducted the ladies to their carriage. 
 
 " Oh, I was almost forgetting my com- 
 mission!" cried Mrs. Longfellow, as she 
 held out her hand to the youth ; " Sir 
 William and my sister, myself, Lucy " — 
 here that damsel turned away her head 
 — "and indeed every one at Bridlestone, 
 insist on your making one of our party to- 
 day for dinner. The Montgomerys have 
 just received some new music, and our 
 circle, independent of every other conside- 
 ration, would not in that department be 
 perfect without the English Orpheus." 
 
 "I am unfortunate," returned Henry, 
 with no attempt to conceal his vexation; 
 "for my mother required and obtained a 
 promise yesterday that for the present I 
 should not leave home. You know me too
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 101 
 
 well, all of you, to doubt that otherwise I 
 should not have refused." 
 
 " Then, helas !" sighed Mrs. Longfellow, 
 as she bowed her farewells, and drove away. 
 
 " Then, helas !" ruminated Lucy, our pale 
 and quiet Lucy, whose attachment for the 
 interdicted hero had long been of a tender 
 — the very tenderest — nature. 
 
 It was hinted before, and now we may 
 boldly declare, that Lucy and Henry, simple 
 souls ! are in love. It is that old, established 
 love, which, formed in infancy, has strength- 
 ened with their strength, and changed fi^om 
 a pastime to a sentiment with their change 
 from childhood to youth. Lucy's love, as a 
 rule^ is placid without rapture, confiding 
 without exaction, but firm and pure — the 
 very purest love. Henry's savours more of 
 passion and display ; he has a weakness for 
 sonnets, and bouqtiefs^ and evening hours,
 
 102 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 during wliicli last genial and romantic season 
 his charmer indulges him pretty regularly 
 with a stroll, whose whisperings and other 
 soft sensations are somewhat modified, it is 
 true, by the invariable presence of his school 
 and college chum, Wellesly — a stipulation 
 on her part, sine qua non. But the bouquets 
 are unrestricted, and the sonnets admired; 
 and by insensible degrees the pertinacious 
 Romeo has contrived to introduce a guitar, 
 which Juliet would not tolerate at first, but 
 which the attraction of his splendid voice 
 has in fine sanctioned. 
 
 There is a grove, sacred to these most 
 musical reunions^ on the confines of Bridle- 
 stone. But a copy of stanzas, despatched 
 to the trysting spot in charge of friend Has- 
 san, yet carelessly dropped en route^ and 
 which has thus come into our hands, must 
 close this notice, and your curiosity. On a
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 10^^ 
 
 very tasteful and highly scented sheet of 
 what the trade call " satin glaze," and one 
 of a diurnally indited many, was traced — 
 
 " Yes, Lucy; thou art right — for vain, 
 
 Till suppliant ingots fall 
 From out thine eyes in golden rain, 
 
 Were human efforts all ; 
 She will not hear, / dare not ask — 
 Yet longer must we wear the mask ! 
 
 ** Ah, Lucy ! years have gone and come, 
 
 And left, and found it so — 
 Our twin hearts lodg'd in common home, 
 
 But hid, for none may know : 
 Yet longer — ere Iier dream of gold 
 Is past, and ours of love be told ! 
 
 " Sweet Lucy ! nourish hope — be sure 
 
 A brighter dawn will break — 
 
 Nay, even now, though still obscure, 
 
 Our day-star is awake ; 
 And oil, thy tender patient breast 
 Will teach us to achieve the rest !" 
 
 This has been introduced, not as a speci- 
 men of Henry's powers, by far too discur- 
 sive for any solitary sample, but in some
 
 104 VAGAKIES OF LITE. 
 
 measure to acquaint tlie reader that the 
 course of tme love was not, in the present 
 more than any other case, to run smooth; 
 that the tempest which ruffled its waters 
 was no other than Madam Lawrence's de- 
 sign upon Yiolette's f61 0,000 a year, but 
 that hitherto no rumour of Henry's disaffec- 
 tion had been permitted to reach her itching 
 ears. Sequences will appear anon. Mean- 
 time, we must resume our thread, having left 
 the Cory don fretting under tantalizing fate. 
 It was, indeed, with a feeling, to be in- 
 terpreted more readily by the heart than 
 lips, that Henry excused himself on the 
 bitter, but inevitable, plea of filial obedience, 
 and that Lucy called to mind the journey 
 which was to absent her, during an entire 
 week, from the precincts of Lawrenceville 
 manor. Although about the least selfish 
 being in the world, she was so stricken by
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 105 
 
 this ill-timed thought, that, while the carriage 
 pursued its rapid course towards Bridlestone, 
 she found herself unable to resist an inter- 
 nal prompting, which censured Master Wei- 
 lesly for his want of self-control, very much 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Were he more master of himself, there 
 would be no occasion for this tiresome jour- 
 ney to town ; I declare, I wonder when he 
 will show any discretion, any common sense ; 
 — and then, Henry — a whole seven days — 
 dear, dear!" 
 
 " A lovely girl, that Helena," interposed 
 Mrs. Longfellow; "and with such fine ex- 
 pression !" 
 
 " Oh, he always had that /" 
 
 The ruling idea developed itself, in defi- 
 ance of her customary caution : poor Lucy 
 was absent for the first time in her life! 
 Mrs. Longfellow laughed.
 
 106 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " I did not call Henry Lawrence lovely, 
 you foolish girl; he is handsome, but not 
 lovely; unless, indeed, in " but the ma- 
 tron checked her hadinage^ on perceiving a 
 very unusual colour spread its tell-tale glow 
 over the generally pale and placid face of 
 her companion. 
 
 " It IS true, then," mused Mrs. Longfel- 
 low. " It has actually come to this at last; 
 my poor Lucy has found a lover, and lost 
 her heart !" 
 
 Overcome by which proof positive idea, 
 the good lady lay back in her carriage, im- 
 mersed in a deep, yet rapid, current of 
 thought. 
 
 Not another word was spoken until the 
 equipage began to wend through those noble 
 chesnut rows which lined the main avenue 
 of Bridlestone; when Mrs. Longfellow — 
 woman of roomy affections — adopting a
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 107 
 
 measure wliich was possibly suggested by 
 the near termination of their drive, laid 
 Lucy's hands gently between her own, and, 
 stooping and kissing her still crimsoned 
 cheek, whispered, in that resistless tone of 
 sympathy so par excellence her own — 
 
 " You will tell me the truth, I am sure, 
 my dear, good child ! it is in safe keeping, 
 you know, here — Henry has met with favour 
 — and you " 
 
 A faint, low, trembling voice in answer 
 murmured, '' Oh, I love him !" 
 
 A shower of kisses sealed their secret, 
 and, the carriage having drawn up, Lucy, in 
 a terrible flutter, hurried to hide herself in 
 her room.
 
 108 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 But where is Wellesly all this time — 
 Wellesly, our prime favourite, our hero of a 
 hundred faults ? You will find him stroll- 
 ing, idle visionary as he was, on foot through 
 the springing meadows, towards home. 
 
 He had deserted the ladies, at their visit's 
 end, had prayed his excuses, and, with a 
 hint from Henry to expect him anon, was 
 devouring with tremendous appetite his 
 brilliant future. Lucy's cautionary lectures 
 either forgotten or discarded, he had leaped 
 over every obstacle with the first stile. 
 By far too sanguine to consider his chances 
 calmly, he would not submit his rioting
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 109 
 
 spirits to any self-imposed incarceration, 
 but, already outstripping probability and 
 time, constructed aerial castles, in which, it 
 is but justice to mention, Lucy was to take 
 up her permanent abode, and reaping aerial 
 honours, which were to be mightily en- 
 hanced by Lucy's approbation. 
 
 At this rate careering, it was by the 
 most vigorous efforts that Henry overtook 
 him. 
 
 "What an express speed you employ, 
 Sandys! I have been tracking you ever 
 since you started, and come up lividly out 
 of breath. A wager, I presume, against the 
 Bridlestone carriage?" 
 
 " No," returned his friend, with a laugh ; 
 " I scarcely knew my expedition until now. 
 When a man has a tremendous secret, you 
 see, incessantly goading him, he is apt to 
 burst into a gallop; which was my case."
 
 110 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 
 
 "A secret?" echoed the other, incredu- 
 lously. " Why, positively, you're about the 
 last fellow in creation to hold it long!" 
 
 He proffered an arm, and they trudged on 
 joyously together. Wellesly soon resumed — 
 
 " We leave Bridlestone to-morrow, Lucy 
 and myself, for London ; but to return in a 
 week, or even less, if...." here he displayed 
 some difficulty in mastering it. 
 
 "The secret! the secret!" cried Henry. 
 " I knew it was not far off." 
 
 " No, no ; I'm not so hard pushed as you 
 suppose," answered the other, who had 
 more than half made up his mind to un- 
 burthen. 
 
 " You must certainly explode, man. I 
 can see at a glance it is doing you harm," 
 said his tormentor, with great gravity. 
 
 " If you would only change the subject," 
 returned AYellesly, recollecting his sister's
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. Ill 
 
 injunction — " just to prevent premature dis- 
 closures, you know: indeed, I faithfully 
 promise you sliall hear everything when 
 chance becomes certainty; nay more, you 
 must share my happiness." 
 
 " By Jove, you mystify me !" ejaculated 
 Henry. " Your happiness — a secret — you 
 surely are not going to be married, my boy ?" 
 
 "No such luck; more's the pity!" was 
 the answer, with a mischievous chuckle, as 
 he added — "Now, do let me baffle your 
 curiosity for a week — only one week — and 
 the whole shall be laid before you : is it not 
 fair?" 
 
 "Yes; and granted on my part; but 
 under the full conviction that, before we 
 part, I shall know all!" 
 
 "No more bullying, Henry; I cry your 
 mercy: but this new sister of yours — what 
 a marvel, is she not, for beauty?"
 
 112 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 '' Yes," returned the youth, with a serio- 
 comic lisp; "it is unusual, doubtless, to 
 find two such perfect specimens under one 
 roof." 
 
 " Conceited puppy, to be sure ! If the 
 lines had so fallen that I was the maiden's 
 brother, then, and then only, your remark 
 had been but justice." 
 
 " Well, we may come to terms," said the 
 accepted, but unsuspected Henry, who, for 
 evident reasons, had agreed with Lucy that 
 of all people their amiable friend Wellesly 
 was, under present circumstances, most 
 carefully to be kept in the dark. " For you 
 are the brother of one, in my opinion, at 
 least, fifty times more beautiful than He- 
 lena;" and, having thus far gone, he went 
 no further in that direction, but added — 
 " Now, my dear old fellow, promise not to 
 delay your return heyo)id a week."
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 113 
 
 " Oil, readily ; for Lucy — whom I think 
 you over-praise — has assured me that a 
 week, at the very outside, will accomplish 
 the object of our journey, reveal my secret, 
 carry us back to Bridlestone, and '^ 
 
 "Well, and what?" 
 
 "And restore us to each other, to be 
 sure," was his quick rejoinder, while, blush- 
 ing and smiling, he patted his comrade's 
 arm. 
 
 " You are a terrible rogue, Sandys — an 
 expert tactician : I give you up for a shuf- 
 fling, mystifying, bamboozling diplomate, 
 until the fulness of your seven days' time 
 amend you." 
 
 " Agreed. Let us talk about your recent 
 travels: neither anecdote nor description 
 has hitherto crossed your lips on the sub- 
 ject." 
 
 " Sit down, then, on this fanciful stile," 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 said Henry, " and you shall have a passage 
 from my wanderings." 
 
 " AU right!" returned Wellesly, as they 
 ari'anged themselves into attitudes of re- 
 pose. 
 
 " You will prefer," began the traveller, 
 " a running commentary, concise and pithy, 
 of the whole sum of my adventures, the 
 complete extent of my route; or will you 
 tarry with me in Egypt? Were I able to 
 influence you by my personal preference, 
 you should make the latter selection." 
 
 " Spontaneously, I prefer the latter : at 
 some other season we shall have India, 
 China, Borneo, and the countless isles of 
 the sea." 
 
 A prophetic gleam flashed across the 
 auditor's mind that shortly he might be in 
 a position to examine these ultimate regions 
 for himself — but this was part of his secret.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 115 
 
 *' Nowhere in the East," Henry went on, 
 " have I been able to realise those gor- 
 geous descriptions, dream-like pictures — 
 that poetry of form, action, and every thing 
 — that variety, which so many of us imbibe 
 and invent from the Arabian Tales, so fully, 
 so potently, as in Egypt. Though Fashion, 
 of late, has sent her votaries to haunt its 
 classic sands, it has been, for certain geo- 
 gi^aphical and political reasons, so far en- 
 abled to preserve what I shall call the 
 spirit of Orientalism more unsullied and 
 unchanged than we find it either in the 
 Osmanli or Arabian parts. 
 
 " Turkey is overrun by Franks : you meet 
 them in the coffee-shops, smoking divans, 
 bazaars, baths, at levees and all public /^^^i. 
 The thoroughfares throng with them : their 
 graceless, uneasy, inconvenient garb, has 
 curried favour with the magnates of Stam- 
 
 I 2
 
 116 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 
 
 boiil, and a Turkoman of tlie purest race 
 niaj be mistaken, in these civilized habili- 
 ments, for a Jonathan or Jones. 
 
 " On the other hand, Arabia is too thinly 
 populated, too barbarous, and too wide, to 
 be capable of affording that species of 
 highly spiced entertainment, for which we 
 have prepared our imaginations, and with- 
 out which the East is no East to them. 
 It is in the land of the Pharaohs, in Cairo, 
 and up the Nile; in the markets and 
 mosques; in the motley groupings of the 
 (iities — their omni-lingual hum; amid the 
 date gardens; beside the Pyramids; in 
 tlieir mighty river, with his influencing 
 changes; their ruined towns and temples; 
 in the very climate and sky; in the street 
 architecture; in its daily and nightly deco- 
 rations, as worn and as exhibited, that w^e 
 recognise the ensemble of our earliest and
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 117 
 
 fondest fancies, almost unharmed by lapse 
 of Time. 
 
 " Cairo is tlie emporium, tlie central ren- 
 dezvous between the Orient and West. It 
 is the fancy -fair of Africa and Ind. There 
 are to be seen, in their native poses, the 
 children of the desert, steering their steady, 
 richly-laden ships, through turbaned crowds, 
 pausing now and anon to tell or learn the 
 news, to whiff a companionable bowlful, or 
 commend their fellow-fumigators to the 
 mercies of God. 
 
 " You remember where it is written : 
 ^ There is not on the face of the earth a 
 more loveable country than Egypt, with its 
 Nile : he who hath not seen Cairo, hath not 
 seen the world : its soil is gold ; its Nile is 
 a marvel; its women resemble the black- 
 eyed houris of Paradise; its houses are 
 palaces ; its air genial ; its odour surpassing
 
 118 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 that of the aloes-wood, and cheering the 
 heart. Did ye see its gardens in the even- 
 ing, with the shade obliquely spreading o'er 
 them, ye would indeed behold a wonder, 
 and yield with ecstasy to their delights.' 
 
 " So true is this description, that I need 
 not hope to heighten its effect by any fur- 
 ther touches, and will only add, that when- 
 ever you have the chance to journey into 
 far countries, go there I Au reste, Shehera- 
 zade has left me nothing to tell.'^ 
 
 " Oh, but she has !" cried Wellesly, gaily ; 
 " for I am dying to know how you managed 
 to get your mother's consent to so extensive 
 and expensive a tour. Why, at school, you 
 were tied to the usher's tails ; and at Col- 
 lege, had it not been for your aunt that's 
 
 gone " 
 
 ^' Enough," interposed young Lawrence, 
 not overjoyed at this reminder. " Long be-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE . 119 
 
 fore I was able to furnish myself "with the 
 thews and sinews of peregrination, I had 
 set my heart on the East : an expedient at 
 length suggested itself — a most notable and 
 happy expedient. — You are aware," he con- 
 tinued, not looking happy at all, " that 
 mamma has certain romantic intentions with 
 regard to Yiolette de Merton and myself?" 
 
 " Yes," returned his friend : " but you 
 have too much sense to encourage them; 
 that is, if report does not malign the young 
 lady." 
 
 " Trust me, Sandys ; I would just as soon 
 think of marrying Fanchon : poor Yiolette 
 is any thing but what she should be — any 
 thing but what I should wish my wife to 
 be ; and alas, for her own sake, that she is ! 
 Natheless, my good friend, there may be 
 policy in humouring the old lady's mone- 
 tary views, by leaving it apparently an
 
 120 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 open question: there can be no harm in 
 that^ you know." 
 
 " Oh, none whatever : and further, be- 
 tween ourselves, Harry, don't you see a 
 strong resemblance in your mother to the 
 duenna in ' Neameh and Noam ?' I suggest 
 this, now that we are combining, as it were, 
 the two subjects." 
 
 " Yes ; I have often been on the point of 
 telling her so, and, fortunately for myself, 
 was restrained by the conviction that she 
 knew nothing about the story in question. 
 My parent shows little predilection for lite- 
 rature; and the more cheerful it is, the 
 less she devours it : the drawing-rooms, to 
 be sure, sitting-rooms, bed-rooms, tables, 
 chairs, nay, even conservatories, are strewn 
 with countless multitudes of tracts, mis- 
 sionary pamphlets, and Baptist magazines; 
 but I cannot believe she peruses them,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 121 
 
 having myself sometimes peeped into a 
 dozen of them, consecutively, on Sunday, 
 in the hope of finding some sublime idea, 
 some happy rendering, and found nothing 
 of the sort; nothing but miserable, sleepy 
 expressions of indolent resignation, terrific 
 ejaculations, and revolting familiarity in 
 their mention of the Creator. Mamma, 
 however, seems to imagine that the very 
 ownership of such devout treatises is more 
 than half the battle. But I digress from 
 my explanation of my travelling ruse, 
 
 " Wanting to get away from home, and 
 destitute of means, I paid a visit, private 
 and confidential, one fine day, to the French 
 beauty, my cousin; discovered her luxu- 
 riating, unaware of my entree^ in the impro- 
 prieties of a French novel, arrayed more 
 as a courtezan than a gentlewoman, and her 
 footman in the anteroom, romping with the
 
 122 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 bonne, who seemed, like her companion, 
 mightily taken aback by my presence. 
 Now, just imagine !" 
 
 " Shocking ! " returned Wellesly, much 
 and painfully interested : " how dangerous 
 a study, how evil an example !" 
 
 " In my opinion," resumed Henry, " Vio- 
 lette is past example ; all along she has led 
 a fi'oward life." 
 
 " She is not old," suggested the other, 
 hopefully. 
 
 " Young, indeed, in years, but older in 
 one particular, than you would care to 
 have proven : we will dismiss, however, the 
 ungrateful theme, when I mention that the 
 object of my visit was to request Mam'selle 
 de Morton's good offices with her aunt on 
 my behalf, to obtain the liberty of the sub- 
 ject, as also to negociate a grant of the 
 needful supplies.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 123 
 
 "Yiolette, glad to get my face turned 
 for the time, was to make any use she 
 tliouglit proper of the attachment which 
 neither felt, but which both were assumed 
 by Mrs. Lawrence to feel ; and the upshot 
 of the affair was, that my mother made 
 liberal advances, on the distinct under- 
 standing that I should think of nothing but 
 Violette — her charming, excellent little Yio- 
 lette, as she calls her — during my absence, 
 and that on my return I must make up my 
 mind to commence a course of incessant 
 and unflinching courtship. 
 
 "The bargain was struck; I, for my 
 part, firmly believing that Yiolette's incli- 
 nations would in the interim have developed 
 themselves to such a degree, that even my 
 careless progenitress could no longer en- 
 courage the one terrible project, our union, 
 — that the girl would have eloped with
 
 124 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 her groom, or the scullion, or both; thus 
 givmg the coup de grace to our suppo- 
 sititious preference for ever." 
 
 "Unfortunate Yiolette!" said Wellesly. 
 '• Yet you do not suspect that any thing 
 seriously wrong has already taken place?' 
 
 " I do ; but, unable to substantiate my 
 suspicions, must hope against hope," was 
 the seriously spoken answer, followed im- 
 mediately by his starting up to say " Good 
 by!" 
 
 " I must leave you, my boy," he resumed, 
 ridding himself of the foregoing tristful sub- 
 ject by a heavy-drawn sigh. " Mamma 
 dines early, and will miss me. As it is, 
 you know, I stole away." 
 
 " I shall not detain you, Harry : yet, 
 were you to sketch, however hastily, the 
 description of an Eastern Peri or two, it 
 would vastly sharpen my appetite for the
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 125 
 
 festive board — languishing eyes, henna- 
 tipped fingers, jewelled ankles; that kind 
 of thing..." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " interjected Henry, with 
 supreme contempt. "I know an English 
 
 girl worth a whole harem full " Then, 
 
 checking himself again, he remembered how 
 dangerous a confidant that invaluable girl's 
 brother might prove, so quietly resumed — 
 " But, since yon must have another notice 
 of my progress, I shall tell you what I made 
 patent to myself, one evening, as I saun- 
 tered through the incense-wrapped bazaar 
 streets of Cairo. It appeared to my musing 
 thoughts that, should any thing happen 
 which I hope in my heart may 7iot happen, 
 should any thing arise between my crochetty 
 mother and her rather peppery son, the 
 best course to adopt would be to journey 
 again to Egypt, and establish myself as a 
 merchant among the Faithful.
 
 126 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " This I could do ; for in a few months 
 I have a right to my poor father's fortune, 
 amounting to the magnificent sum of less 
 than two hundred a-year: and shop-keep- 
 ing, you are aware, is considered the re- 
 verse of degrading in those parts, where 
 every sire, by the behest of his creed, is 
 enjoined to instruct his son in the duties of 
 some profession, and where men of the first 
 class are frequently to be found behind a 
 counter." 
 
 " Oh, certes !" returned Wellesly, with a 
 semi-leer. " And furthermore, it is open 
 to promotion: 'You may be Syndic, one 
 of these days,' Aladdin's father remarks: 
 ' sitting in the market streets and shops re- 
 quireth, under every circumstance, polite 
 and accomplished manners.' Yet, had I 
 your nest of nightingales in my throat, I 
 should unhesitatingly prefer pursuing my 
 fortunes in the fields of song."
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 127 
 
 '' I had thouglit of that, also," answered 
 Henry, gravely ; then, changing his tone — 
 "Good afternoon, my comrade; we shall 
 never separate, at this pace ; and my mother 
 is ringing for dinner, I dare venture. Ee- 
 member, only one week : so, sans adieu .'" — 
 and, leaping the stile, the heir of Lawrence- 
 ville was soon beyond recall.
 
 128 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 Lucy Sandys recovered speedily fi'om 
 lier romantic confusion; in fact, she had 
 too much common sense to he romantic 
 long; and, once restored, set ahout prepara- 
 tion for to-morrow's journey. 
 
 Douhtless she was unnecessarily tedious 
 in the arrangement of her portmanteaus, 
 nor would admit the willing lady's-maid; 
 but packed and unpacked without any ap- 
 parent issue, every now and again pausing 
 just to take one peep at some " satin glaze" 
 sonnet, as it slipped from the folds of a 
 dainty mouchoir ; then to resume, with a 
 tender sigh, her Dana'ides' labours, and so
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 129 
 
 on, until slie had soothed herself into that 
 decorous calm which was her rule, proved 
 beyond a doubt by to-day's exception. 
 
 To return to Lawrenceville : dinner has 
 given way to dessert; a frugal dessert of 
 biscuits, in honour of the Reverend Anthony 
 Blake, for whom a cover is laid once in the 
 week, on which occasion the above refection 
 comes forward. 
 
 On other days, Mrs. Lawrence dispenses 
 with things of the kind, having a decided 
 objection to any unnecessary outlay. " It 
 might be devoted to an infinitely more use- 
 ful purpose," as she has often remarked, 
 and with justice ; and which truism — though 
 never acted upon — is echoed by her echoes, 
 the Misses Elinor and Susan. 
 
 Poor Anthony Blake consumes the excep- 
 tional biscuits in blissfid ignorance of the 
 compliment paid him by their provision. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " I should like to have your opinion of 
 Miss Norah Burton, madam," said this 
 timorous clergyman, as something brought 
 her name upon the table. 
 
 Anthony was expected to have, and had^ 
 generally, the greatest possible deference 
 for Mrs. Lawrence's fiat, yet looked rather 
 uneasy, and nearly choked himself with a 
 biscuit, when Norah was denounced by the 
 widow as "a coarse lump " — " dreadfully 
 ugly " — " quite a horror " — and so forth ; 
 Elinor and Susan, as in duty bound, ex- 
 pressing themselves with propinquate se- 
 verity. 
 
 It was part of their education, this second- 
 ing system ; indeed, the only part, with the 
 exception of that unvarying catechism, to 
 which any share of attention had been given. 
 
 " AVhat could you mean by questionmg 
 me on this point, Mr. Blake?" resumed
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 131 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence, sternly. " I liope you 
 don't tliink I have my eyes shut :" for she 
 wished him to think her very wide awake, 
 indeed. " Burton is a hideous brute, pock- 
 pitted repulsively, loathsome to a degree. 
 Why, are you mad?" — laying great stress 
 on her polite inquiry as she rose from her 
 chair, and turned those red-rimmed orbs on 
 the writhing curate. 
 
 " Oh, no, madam — no ; I can assure you 
 not: noth " he was suffering from bis- 
 cuit again. 
 
 " How are you progressing with your 
 preparatory perusal of Hezekiah, young 
 people?" asked Mrs. Lawrence, generally, 
 of her family, whose answers were favour- 
 able, except in the case of Helena, who 
 confessed to have made but little way. 
 
 " I desire your attendance in my dressing- 
 room, Helena. Children," apostrophizing 
 
 k2
 
 132 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 the others, " you had better resume your 
 search." 
 
 With which allusion to Hezekiah, the 
 Lady Superior sailed out of her parlour, 
 followed by j)ostulants and novice, and 
 leaving the Eeverend Anthony Blake to 
 recover from his mental and physical dis- 
 order. 
 
 An audible sigh of relief escaped the 
 poor curate's lips, in spite of himself; but 
 fortunately he was once more alone. 
 
 Helena, anticipating an introduction to 
 Hezekiah, m the shape of some lengthy com- 
 mentary from her dame, looked demure. 
 
 " Be seated, my dear," began Resigna- 
 tion, in a bland voice and unusual — " I 
 have somewhat to communicate of a terres- 
 trial, nevertheless advantageous, nature: 
 listen, and do not interrupt me." 
 
 " Has she taken too much wine?" was the
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 133 
 
 imfilial reflection of her stranger daughter : 
 " but no ; she seems quite cool, quite too 
 resigned." 
 
 " Helena," continued Mrs. Lawrence, 
 with impressive gravity, " I am desirous to 
 provide you with a husband." 
 
 " She is mad!" thought the girl ; but the 
 parent went on. 
 
 " You are handsome — not so handsome 
 as /was at your age." 
 
 Now, Mrs. Lawrence must have for- 
 gotten ; for she was always plain, some said 
 
 ugly- 
 
 "But still," she pursued, "handsome; 
 accomplished in the things of this world; 
 educated for the vanities of earth, and un- 
 fitted for that calm seclusion so fondly 
 courted by your sisters — let me add, your 
 betters — at home. You are giddy, vain, 
 worldly." This, though a mere repetition,
 
 134 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 made the peroration longer. " For sucli as 
 you has matrimony been ordained; and 
 accordingly I have arranged your espousal." 
 
 All of which, enunciated with such over- 
 weening superiority, led Helena to look 
 upon the matter as beyond appeal. For a 
 moment it was Anthony Blake, the penni- 
 less curate, who flashed across her mind. 
 
 " No, no ; it is not he : an empty purse is 
 mamma's aversion. Who, then, can it be?" 
 
 She had no more time for reflection. 
 
 " No interruptions, Helena : remember — 
 I peremptorily forbid them! The gentle- 
 man whom I design to be my son is a 
 zealous, uncompromising Christian; a per- 
 son of large possessions, high connexions, 
 conscientious principles, sterling integrity, 
 and holding a commission from the Queen. 
 I believe him to be a soldier as of the 
 Crown so of the Cross."
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 135 
 
 " Ha!" tliouglit tlie daughter, who had a 
 mild form of the scarlatina, " that's some- 
 thing, at any rate !" 
 
 " I am informed it is his invariable cus- 
 tom to furnish his company quarterly with 
 tracts ; and that, even on parade, his letter 
 says, he points them to another world. It 
 was only the other day I received, through 
 his mother, whom in years gone by I knew, 
 this parcel of evangelical yearnings for your 
 perusal and, he prays fervently, eternal 
 weal. 
 
 " Having lately arrived from India, on 
 furlough, he used, it appears, to see you in 
 town, walking and driving with your un- 
 natural aunt: though strangers to each 
 other, he admired your face, and was anxious 
 for an opportunity of making your acquaint- 
 ance. This has hitherto been denied him ; 
 but his mother, relying on our former inti-
 
 136 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 macy — albeit a renewed woman, she is still, 
 I fear, too mundane for me — mooted the 
 subject, by his desire, in an epistle; and, 
 after much private meditation " — moonshine 
 again, but no Pen ! — " much earnest, solemn, 
 and prayerful wrestling, I have been led to 
 perceive the reciprocal advantages which 
 such an alliance is calculated to entail. 
 
 " With which view," she continued, raising 
 her eyes, and looking ferociously resigned, 
 " I have invited the young man to shelter 
 within our sanctuary, where he will pro- 
 bably present himself to-morrow : your duty, 
 Helena, I need scarcely remark, is impli- 
 citly to abide by my decision ; indeed, I do 
 not intend that you shall have any voice in 
 the matter — so that he he fitti7ig, you are 
 hisr 
 
 Having said thus, Mrs. Lawrence drew 
 rein.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIPE. 137 
 
 "But his name, mamma — you forgot 
 that?" inquired the young lady, compla- 
 cently, as rather favouring the idea of a 
 captain. 
 
 " His name is Greenspur : though his 
 piety and pay are of weightier import, yet 
 the Greenspurs belong to a noble race: 
 Captain Greenspur's mother, my friend, a 
 Miss De Sardis, whose father was brother 
 to the late Earl of Chelmston, and whose 
 mother " 
 
 At this link in the genealogical tree, 
 Mrs. Lawrence was somewhat discomfited 
 by finding the destined bride bathed in 
 tears, and sobbing into her handkerchief 
 bitterly and loud. 
 
 " How ! — what is this, my dear? Explain 
 yourself, Helena: you surely overdo the 
 thing: a few blushes and a start or two 
 would have been quite ample. Give over.
 
 138 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 my love" — not spoken lovingly at all — 
 " give over I" 
 
 But Helena only sobbed the more. 
 
 " Miss Lawrence," began Miss Lawrence's 
 mamma, with intense tragic utterance — she 
 thought herself pretty good in that vein — 
 " I demand an explanation of your unpre- 
 cedented bearing, full, imqualified, imme- 
 diate!" 
 
 " And you shall have it, mamma," re- 
 turned her daughter, rising from her chair, 
 and mastering herself completely. " Only 
 hear me as I heard you^ and I will present 
 this Captain Greenspur in such a light as 
 must horrify and convince you!" 
 
 "You are demented. Miss Lawrence — 
 possessed by the roaring lion !" 
 
 " Oh, not so, mamma : I know Captain 
 Greenspur only too well: have patience, 
 then, and hear me. It is true, as you said,
 
 VAGARIES OE LIFE. 139 
 
 tliat he saw and admired me : his next step 
 was to send an acquaintance to negociate an 
 introduction; this being denied, he called 
 one day with a common friend. I was not in 
 the drawing-room at the time, and my dear 
 Aunt Pen, having had some previous notice 
 of him, of a very unfavourable nature, re- 
 ceived him at extreme distance, as frigidly 
 as politeness would permit. Foiled, thus, 
 in his direct attempts, he had recourse un- 
 manfuUy, atrociously " 
 
 "Moderate your language. Miss Law- 
 rence. It is evident you are utterly de- 
 luded : quite out of the question, that the 
 man Greenspur, against whom you may 
 have every reason to express your vehement 
 protest, has any identity with my friend, 
 Mrs. Greenspur's son — quite out of the 
 question !" 
 
 " Now, pray, mamma, one moment hear
 
 140 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 me ; and, if the culprit sliould unfortunately 
 be he^ will you not thank me for having 
 timeously unmasked a villain? I was about 
 to tell you that he applied himself to tam- 
 per with my aunt's domestics. Through 
 this channel he discovered that I had a 
 femme de chamhre of my own." 
 
 " Why, bless me, how extravagant !" from 
 mother Lawrence. 
 
 " And further, that it was my frequent 
 custom to make Sophie the companion of 
 my early walks round the square. Unfor- 
 tunate Sophie! she was pretty, innocent, 
 unsuspecting. Presents of ribbons, a watch, 
 and other trinkets, came pouring in, through 
 some foot-boy, from a handsome officer, 
 directed to his ' darling love ;' all which 
 she foohshly concealed from us, until too 
 late. 
 
 " This was temptation such as alone she
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 141 
 
 knew not how to combat, and secrecy 
 blindly dragged her to her ruin ! Afraid of 
 being laughed at, she thought I would ridi- 
 cide; she never dreamed I might censure. 
 His tactics triumphed ; her head was turned. 
 A few steps further led to assignations, and 
 so forth, and in fine, the heartless monster 
 held her his powerless prey ! 
 
 " Yet was this but the beginning of his 
 purpose: Sophie was to be nothing more 
 than a cat's-paw, helping him to ine. 
 Mamma, mamma, it was to reach me^ that 
 he blighted her I At this stage, irreme- 
 diable for Sophie, she came to see her de- 
 gradation, confessed her shame, and was 
 dismissed, with proper precautions for her 
 future safety. 
 
 " Then Aunt Pen fell sick and died : sor- 
 row first, and subsequently change, drove 
 all thought of the matter from my mind;
 
 142 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 but I cannot forget the name, tlie circum- 
 stances, or my escape ; and I know I should 
 recognise the monster at a glance, hundreds 
 of times as he has glared upon me in my 
 dreams. Beware, mamma, lest to his other 
 sins he adds hypocrisy ! beware lest, fasci- 
 nated by his serpent eyes, the poison of his 
 breath pollute us all !" 
 
 And, pale and sad, the maiden sat her 
 down again. 
 
 " Your harrowing tale only convinces me 
 the more that you falsely accuse an inno- 
 cent man. Yet you say you know Captain 
 Greenspur, Helena?" 
 
 " In imagination I do, though I never 
 actually saw him." 
 
 " Oh, shame upon you, then, for malign- 
 ing, without evidence, one who, I have 
 every reason to believe, is the very nearest 
 possible approach to a saint! Did your
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 143 
 
 ill-conditioned servant-woman describe liis 
 appearance?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Helena, calmly ; "he 
 wore long, curly hair, she said, thick mous- 
 taches, and a beard." 
 
 " Ha ! well, we shall see," cried Mrs. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 " See, mamma ! You are content, then, 
 on the possibility of his being that ruffian, 
 to admit Captain Greenspur to your house, 
 
 to introduce him to your daughters, to 
 
 Alas ! Aunt Pen, whom you accuse of care- 
 less and unguarded habits, would have 
 perished before she countenanced, ay, even 
 a suspected reprobate! Be assured, how- 
 ever, and nothing shall change me, that, 
 while I hope to preserve all due reverence 
 for your authority, no force, should I dis- 
 cover his identity with Sophie's ravisher, 
 no persuasion, or entreaty, will induce me
 
 144 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 to sacrifice myself before his victim-reeking 
 shrine!" 
 
 Having said which, and bursting into 
 non-fictitious tears, the hapless Helena fled 
 from before her mother's scowl. And scowl 
 she did, that self-sufiicient widow, as she 
 sat, browbeaten for the moment by her 
 daughter's indignant virtue ! 
 
 It was a strange picture, with much depth 
 of shadow, dark masses of background, 
 strange and solemn — to see the old lady 
 who had for years collected round her 
 every household attribute, all dignity, im- 
 portance, opinion, voice in the household 
 councils, every show of gloomy, spiritless 
 religion — had made herself all in all, and 
 tolerated no rival, permitted no appeal, 
 smiled no smiles, but cauterized the youth 
 and happiness, the glow and loveliness, of 
 the household hearts, until nothing remained
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 145 
 
 but empty and repulsive liollowness, intel- 
 lectual cliaos, which the salve of pseudo- 
 resignation, starched propriety, stern, bleak 
 devotion, however it might glaze, could nei- 
 ther remedy nor heal: — to see her sitting 
 there, submitting, in spite of herself, to the 
 honest reproof of her own flesh and blood, 
 of the only daughter on whom her cancerous 
 system had not hitherto the chance to wreak 
 its fatal strength. 
 
 But the scene shifted : the matron, a most 
 inveterate gold-hunter, being impressed by 
 one idea, and this, that Greenspur, be lie 
 what he might, was wealthy^ bolstered up 
 her obstinate mania by assuming, witli 
 equal doggedness, that her Greenspur was 
 devout ; and so, being rich and pious, Helena 
 was his. 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense !" soliloquized the 
 resuscitated dame — " a mistake from begin- 
 
 VOL. I. 1/
 
 146 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 ning to end. How sliould she know any 
 thing about him ? Her profligate di^essing- 
 woman is to be credited, in preference to 
 my old associate, the man's mother, whose 
 letters, filled with quotations from his daily 
 life, tell a very diiferent tale! Nay, will 
 not the tone of those valuable pamphlets, 
 which, with commendable anxiety to en- 
 lighten a dark, alas! a shipwrecked soul, 
 he enclosed to the unworthy object of 
 his love, annihilate every machination that 
 the evil spirit, warring from within, and 
 prompting to an unjust and unholy con- 
 struction of the purest motives, may sug- 
 gest, but shall not, cannot prove ? 
 
 " / am Mrs. Lawrence ; I hope I know 
 my position : I have a daughter, a worldling, 
 a sheep ever ready to go — or a goat already 
 gone — astray : shall I submit to her caprice ? 
 No ! Shall I not struggle against her man 
 of sin? Yes!"
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 147 
 
 This was a mere evangelical figure of 
 speech, and not any ill-behaved admii^er. 
 
 " Here is Captain Greenspur, high family, 
 good pay, and all that, and devoted body 
 and soul to the cause " — what cause, Mrs. 
 Lawrence knew best. " If he be willing to 
 pluck this brand, this rebellious virgin, from 
 the burning, shall any undutifiil resistance 
 on her part blind me to a sense of my duties ? 
 No ; verily, no !" 
 
 And then the widow felt thoroughly 
 stablished : let us leave her. 
 
 Henry, having by this time digested his 
 dinner and Hezekiah about equally, returned 
 to the parlour, to look for the simple-hearted 
 Blake. There he sat, arrived at the last 
 biscuit, and making wonderfully little noise. 
 Cheered by the young man's entrance, he 
 cleared his throat, rattled his chair, and sig- 
 nalled for action. 
 
 l2
 
 148 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Anthony had been the earliest conductor 
 of Henry's secular, as he continued to be 
 of his religious, education ; they always got 
 on wondrously together : one was so gene- 
 rous, warm-hearted, noble; the other so 
 gentle, accommodating, sincere, that they 
 could not but be close friends. 
 
 Their opinions, too, on general subjects, 
 tallied, albeit one had greater facility for 
 working those opinions than the other: 
 never mind ; there was nothing wrong about 
 Anthony Blake. 
 
 Henry drew near to the curate's side : it 
 was evident there had been no change of 
 subject in the clergyman's head since his 
 tussle — unintentional on his part — with the 
 widow. 
 
 " And what do you think of Norah, 
 Henry?" asked Anthony, fixing his im- 
 ploring eyes upon the heir, apparently
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 149 
 
 without any perception of his own ab- 
 ruptness. 
 
 '' Think of her ?" returned Henry. " "^Vhy, 
 that she's a clever, merry, honest, good- 
 tempered girl — a most enjoyable compa- 
 nion, a delightful " 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," interposed the 
 renovated shepherd, afraid that too much 
 praise might embarrass both parties. 
 
 " ^Yliy, Blake, you surely are not in love 
 with her?" inquired his pupil, beginning to 
 suspect some weakness of the kind, from the 
 clerico's hurried interruption. 
 
 " Oh, now, now ! just to think of such a 
 thing! What would Miss Burton say, I 
 wonder ? Why, it's quite dreadful ! Did I 
 call her Norah? Dear me! I must be 
 dreaming. You won't mention it, Henry, 
 on anv account. You know I'm not rich 
 enough, or nice enough : and besides, what 
 would Miss Burton say?"
 
 150 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 This seemed to be the poser. 
 
 " Very likely, ' Yes P " responded Henry, 
 with a laugh ; and at that moment, so cri- 
 tical for the curate's complexion, a servant 
 summoned them to tea.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 151 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The Hamlyns have been continentalizing ; 
 slipping about lazily through the autunni 
 and early winter, and are finishing up, during 
 the coldest and first spring months, at Naples, 
 We find them accordingly there, breakfast- 
 ing at the English hour of twelve — Sir 
 GeofFry, Lady Hamlyn, and Florence ; more- 
 over, Pilkington Beauchamp, Esq., Lieu- 
 tenant in H. M.'s — th Regiment, A. D. C. 
 to Sir Geoffry during his late government 
 of certain western colonies, and now hanger- 
 on in expectation of a similar appointment 
 somewhere else. 
 
 The General — for the ex- Governor is a
 
 152 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 soldier — has managed to preserve at sixty 
 a fine head of white hair, an unborrowed 
 set of white teeth, an upright carriage, and 
 altogether a very military and comely pre- 
 sence. No wonder, therefore, that, unwil- 
 ling to squander such charms upon the 
 desert air of widowerhood, he thought fit 
 some five years back to propose for Miss 
 Madeline Beauchamp, the sister of our 
 worthy A. D. C, or that Miss Madeline 
 thought fit to accept him. The wonder is 
 that we have been able so long to abstain 
 from a description of this lady — Lady 
 Hamlyn. 
 
 First of all, as being the step -mother of 
 Florence, there can be no doubt that the 
 gay and dashing Madeline should figure in 
 our chronicles; and secondly, by her own 
 deserts, she is the very materiel for a novel. 
 Far on in twenty, but not a day older, she
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 153 
 
 seems rather young, we must confess, to be 
 General Hamlyn's half, but may have over- 
 looked this for love, or considered the ad- 
 vantages commensurate in being, as his 
 sleeping partner, more of a public cha- 
 racter — what an M. P.'s wife described her- 
 self to me the other day — than when a mere 
 unprotected girlish nobody. 
 
 Hasty observers might suppose she cared 
 little about him, to see her patronizing and 
 contemptuous — apparently only, of course — 
 treatment of the veteran; but such people 
 desei've to be, if they are not, egregiously 
 mistaken. 
 
 Lady Hamlyn would give you the idea of 
 a bold woman, her beauty — undeniable — 
 being of the brazen order, and her eyes 
 having a long-shot range of fascination, of 
 which I would warn mankind. Tall, beau- 
 tifully formed, rounded with the voluptuous
 
 154 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 finish of a Venus, and quite too much of a 
 Venus altogether, her figure seldom shrinks 
 before a rival : dressed with the most con- 
 summate skill, every fold, ribbon, and flower, 
 has its duty to perform, and performs it well ; 
 her hair pillows its polished masses low 
 down on her gracefiil neck, and her pointed 
 velvetty fingers wreathe themselves in ru- 
 bies, diamonds, and pearls. 
 
 Lady Hamlyn must be certainly a splen- 
 did woman, for the officers assert it unani- 
 mously, and two artillerymen made fools of 
 themselves about their commanding officer's 
 sparkling spouse, when a little champagned 
 after supper at a Government House ball in 
 , under Sir Geofiry's regime. 
 
 Strange stories, we are assured, were 
 beginning to circulate towards the close of 
 the Hamlyn administration — stories of a 
 personal and indelicate nature, and in which
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 155 
 
 the Governor's lady was a prominent figu- 
 rante ; but that colony, like others we could 
 name, teemed with scandal ; and when truth 
 had nothing to tell, invention served up 
 something pique au swprtme : even a sea-pie 
 
 m I 
 
 is luxurious, if ga? 
 
 We abstain, therefore, from publishing 
 the on-dits in question, and, with this brief 
 introduction to the youthful Madeline, pass 
 on to the still more youthful and how infi- 
 nitely superior Florence ! 
 
 Florence Hamlyn, scarcely sixteen, wears 
 a charming look of youth, which gilds, as it 
 were, and perfects her loveliness. She is 
 marvellously fair, with skin of a bright 
 transparency, and hair of a golden brown ; 
 her eyes, shaped like the almond, glow with 
 spiritual flame. 
 
 I will not be positive as to the dimen- 
 sions of her nose, neither shall I apostro-
 
 156 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 
 
 pliize each feature iii detail; sufficient for 
 your purpose and mine, that Florence drove 
 Madeline out of the field for beauty ! And, 
 eminently endowed with physical attrac- 
 tions, she had all the other talents in per- 
 fection : it is not too much to say that she 
 had. 
 
 From her earliest years there appeared an 
 individuality — a prominent fearless genius 
 — in her character and habits, which, while 
 it won her own mother's admiration, occa- 
 sioned alarm for the highly -gifted daughter's 
 opening future. Distinguished she could not 
 fail to be ; there was that within her, prompt- 
 ing to energy, ability, vitality, and showing 
 even then its power: no pressure seemed 
 likely to overcome, while judicious culture 
 might influence and direct it. But, early 
 called by " the separator of companions" — 
 called from that careful guardianship which
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 157 
 
 would have been rewarded by tbe final 
 triumph of those healthy principles it was 
 her solicitude to establish firmly in the fer- 
 tile, over-exuberant soil of her child's mind, 
 Lady Hamlyn the first died. 
 
 By the advice of her successor, the pre- 
 cocious Florence was sent to a boardmg- 
 school in the north of France, where she 
 aptly learned French and French flippancy, 
 Italian and Italian sentiment, to dance 
 comme itne Elssler^ and to sing comme un 
 ange. 
 
 Certainly she was a marvellous singer, 
 perhaps unique, without any stage excep- 
 tion; to a warble loud as Grisi, rich as 
 Alboni, flexible as Sontag, passionate as 
 Viardot, thrilling as Lind, she added deeper 
 genius than them all. That afllatus which 
 was heaving and struggling in her ecstatic 
 frame seemed to have found a vent or a
 
 158 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 method in music: music was joy, sorrow, 
 life, everything to her! When gay, the 
 lark must have stayed its flight to heaven 
 — when sad, the angels might have stooped 
 to weep in sympathy! I have seen her 
 drenched in a passion of tears for delight 
 with the melody of her own making — the 
 inspiration of her own voice: I learned to 
 look upon her as the very impersonation of 
 song — song embodied, lent to an earth- 
 sprung exponent for purposes beyond our 
 ken, and influencing, actuating, harmonizing, 
 all over which it flowed. 
 
 This may seem dreaming to the many; 
 the few will not think it so. One rare pe- 
 culiarity must not escape mention in fine: 
 some people are said to appreciate no music, 
 to possess no taste, no "ear;" such, when 
 they have heard the rapture-breathing notes 
 of Florence Hamlyn, wept, and wondered,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 159 
 
 and lost themselves, just like the rest of us 
 — so much for talent in perfection ! 
 
 During the autumn verging on our in- 
 troduction, Florence, much to the misery 
 of a music-master, who was and wished 
 to be thought her captive, hade farewell 
 to school, and joined her father's party 
 at Boulogne, preparatory to their winter's 
 tour. 
 
 Pilkington declared to his stars — he had 
 a weakness for calling the heavenly bodies 
 to witness, even on the most immaterial 
 earthly points — that " so bewitching a cwee- 
 twa he had newa beheld," and made up his 
 mind, I believe, to marry her off-hand. Poor 
 boy ! he soon learned to draw in his horns ; 
 Florence, or " Flowence," as he called her, 
 kept him in thorough trim. 
 
 As for Sir Geoffry, you never saw a man 
 so proud of his daughter; he looked on her
 
 160 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 as SO vastly superior to other women, so 
 much above himself in intellect, so wonder- 
 iiil, in fact, that there was a reverence in 
 his manner and conversation, when ad- 
 dressed to her, most marked, yet almost 
 just. 
 
 Lady Hamlyn hated Florence from the 
 instant of their re-union, hated her partly 
 because she could not understand her, but 
 principally dreading to have so notably su- 
 perlative a personage in her house and 
 circle. At a moment's glance, moreover, 
 it was patent to her that, however the girl 
 might be disposed to acknowledge that au- 
 thority with which her double position as 
 wife and mother invested her, there was 
 abundant evidence in the younger lady's 
 bearing and physique of innate dignity, in- 
 trepid spirit, conscious advantages, in a 
 word, individuality, to check and paralyse
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 161 
 
 any designs on her rights, liberties, or plea- 
 sure. 
 
 All her life, hitherto, Madeline had been 
 the centre of a circle, no competitor daring 
 to enter the lists against her : to be sure, the 
 Contessa di Castellano, her sister, and the 
 wife of a Neapolitan diplomate, was ac- 
 knowledgedly more deeply read, had more 
 mmd, and wrote better verses: Madeline, 
 notwithstanding, shone the showier bird, 
 and Madehne's admirers were ever the ma- 
 jority. 
 
 But now, when things began to look as 
 though Florence would dethrone her, envy 
 stole in upon her whilom bland repose, 
 and whispered most unpalatable truths into 
 her ear. 
 
 Some mves— of the black swan species 
 — make sure of their husband's admiration, 
 and, therewith content, are quite indifferent 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 to foreign praise : that had never been 
 Madeline's way; she married solely be- 
 cause marriage was an honourable pro- 
 tection, upon which, when it suited her 
 convenience or her years, she might be 
 glad to fall back, but which, as a Darby 
 and Joan system, had no allurement. It 
 was her aim, and she still expected, to oc- 
 cupy that prominent place in the world of 
 flirtation which, by her lavish blandish- 
 ments, she long had made her own : having 
 no part or lot in uxoriousness, she was 
 not going to curtail in any respect that 
 lax and charming liberty, in which pre- 
 viously she had indulged her daring soul: 
 in fine, "married ladies may act as they 
 choose, nothing is suspicious in their po- 
 sition." 
 
 Such was the pretentious doctrine she 
 spared no exemplary effort to drill into
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 163 
 
 Sir Geofiry's head: and Sir Geoffry, for 
 peace sake, generally agreed, although its 
 argument jumped but lamely with his 
 honest humour. Being too old for drill 
 of any description, and too stupid for 
 drill of this self-nincompooping kind, too 
 correct himself to suspect his wife, he 
 used to shake his head when appearances 
 were against her, and, coughing down 
 any suggestions of a criminating nature, 
 would endeavour to represent the most 
 questionable behaviour as " only a little 
 bit of nonsense that will soon wear off." 
 
 Perhaps he considered Madeline a child, 
 a creature too juvenile and guileless to do 
 evil ; whether or not, she long exerted 
 herself successfully in fostering the de- 
 lusion, well knowing that, suspicion once 
 aroused, there was that within him which 
 no artifice could have tamed, no confession 
 
 M 2
 
 164 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 calmed, no entreaty appeased or won — that 
 her best cover was his abeyant because 
 confidmg integrity; and finally, that the 
 stake was not reputation alone — she could 
 have ignored that — but fortune, standing, 
 perhaps existence. 
 
 Well played she her cards for years, but 
 luck deserted her at last !
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 We left tliem at breakfast, by this time 
 almost over. A servant brings in the 
 post, a bundle of official-looking long en- 
 velopes for the General, a dun or two 
 for poor Pilkington, and some letters for 
 my lady. 
 
 " Ha, ha !" laughed Sir GeofFry, showing 
 his good temper and teeth; "this is what I 
 call counting chickens before they are 
 hatched ! Here's a note from my old friend 
 Sir William Price, congratulating me on 
 my appointment to the Governorship of 
 
 C , and recommending a Mr. Sandys 
 
 for private secretary; by the by, I think
 
 166 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 we met Sandys at Bridlestone. Is it not 
 rich, Flo', and I myself knowing nothing 
 about it !" 
 
 "You have scarcely had the chance, 
 papa," returned Florence ; "we only arrived 
 some days ago from Kome, and your English 
 correspondents are probably at a loss where 
 to find you ; but see, here is an important- 
 looking document with a tremendous seal ; 
 perhaps Sir William will read more intelli- 
 gibly in the sequel." 
 
 The General took it from her hands, and 
 smiled on her beautiful, beaming eyes, as 
 though he saw the gift of prophecy in their 
 lustre : breaking the cover, and rapidly 
 glancing over the page — 
 
 " By Jove, you are right !" he cried, with 
 much elation; "here it is, just as Price 
 says. Madeline, do you hear the news?" 
 
 " Don't disturb me, love," returned that
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 167 
 
 lady, languidly ; " I have a sparkling precis 
 of London gossip before me: Parliament 
 sits, the season will be early and unusually 
 gay, and we must shortly think of retracing 
 our steps, Sir Geoffry." 
 
 " I believe you, Madame !" answered the 
 General, gleeful, "though not for either 
 fashion or iun, as I hope to have left Eng- 
 land again in a month." 
 
 "Left it! — where for? — what do you 
 mean?" asked his wife, in consternation. 
 
 " Why, en route to India, my dear, that's 
 all. Look here; I hold the Queen's sign 
 manual in my hand once more, and await 
 
 your felicitations as Governor of C ! 
 
 But," he continued, turning to his daugh- 
 ter, " Sir William must be answered at 
 once. Here, Flo', will you officiate as acting 
 secretary until Mr. What's-his-name — let 
 me see — Mr. Wellesly Sandys, joins us : I
 
 168 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 want you to say to Price how fortunate 
 I feel in being able to oblige him ; tell him 
 we will leave Naples immediately — to-mor- 
 row, if possible — for England ; and do not 
 forget our best regards to them all ; I myself 
 must attend to these Downing Street files." 
 
 And he rose with an armful of papers to 
 consider them at leisure in private. Lady 
 Hamlyn interposed. 
 
 " General." 
 
 "WeU, dear!" 
 
 "I don't think I should like to go to 
 C ." 
 
 "Very well, Madeline; you need not 
 unless you wish it; Florence will come, I 
 dare say." 
 
 " Oh, yes, papa ! of all things ; I shall be 
 charmed : so much have I read, and won- 
 dered about, and longed for the East, that 
 I would not be left behind for worlds !"
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 169 
 
 "And neither shall you, my darling; I 
 could not think of it myself without you," 
 was her father's pleased reply. 
 
 Lady Hamlyn began to be jealous; not 
 that she cared for Sir Geoffry, alas! not 
 she, and still less on account of Florence; 
 but she disliked the faint impression which 
 her refusal seemed to have made on the 
 family mind ; she felt like a spoiled child 
 that cries again when foiled in its first 
 desire for commiseration. 
 
 " I think it would ruin my health ; what 
 do you say, Miss Hamlyn?" 
 
 " More likely your complexion^ mamma," 
 was the rather sarcastic rejoinder. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," resumed my 
 lady, after a pause, and with a martyr's 
 sigh; " it is better, perhaps, to accom- 
 pany my household; husband and wife 
 should not willingly be severed by thou-
 
 170 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 sands of miles; who can tell what might 
 happen?" 
 
 "I perfectly agree with you, Madeline," 
 said the General, as he shut himself out of 
 the room. 
 
 Madeline had some vague but genial 
 fancy that ladies in the East wear turbans, 
 flowing robes of gauze festooned with eme- 
 ralds as large as turkey-eggs, and lead 
 altogether a picturesque life; she antici- 
 pated making a favourable debut as the 
 Governor's wife in such costume, and on 
 the very day of our dialogue might have 
 been seen, in the privacy of her boudoir^ 
 wreathing her brow in coloured shawls, and 
 attitudinizing before her glass. Upon the 
 whole, she resolved to go. 
 
 "What a surprise this will be to the 
 Contessa!" broke in Lady Hamlyn, after 
 a considerable pause, during which Flo-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 171 
 
 rence had been writing, as directed, to 
 Bridlestone, and Pilkington disappeared to 
 make the necessary preparations for de- 
 parture. 
 
 Madeline was one of those people who 
 have a decided aversion to silence and want 
 of stir, and, in the absence of any other 
 attraction, she suggested this topic to her 
 daughter, with the hope of eliciting a debate. 
 
 " We were to have met all Naples there 
 to-morrow evening, were we not?" asked 
 Florence, carelessly, as she folded her note 
 in conclusion. 
 
 "Yes; and I do so long to see some 
 good specimen of these southerns; some- 
 thing dark and fiery, with fine eyes and 
 haughty brow; of course, in the sterner 
 sex : Italian women have but slender preten- 
 sions to beauty, their hands and feet are so 
 revoltingly coarse."
 
 172 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Madeline, it would appear, was remark- 
 able for finish in her extremities. 
 
 Just at this talk-of-his-reverence juncture 
 entered Madame la Contessa di Castellano, 
 sister and aunt to our party. 
 
 Pauline, for that is her name, numbers 
 five or six years in advance of my lady, 
 and a residence under a warm sun, a 
 relish for the national cookery, and too 
 sleepless a devotion to the Ridotto, have 
 combined to produce that malaria com- 
 plexion common to oily feeders, ague pa- 
 tients, and rakes, which passe hue had in- 
 dubitably tacked on to its wearer the stigma 
 of an additional ten years, but for her 
 eyes, the most restless and juvenile couple 
 that ever illuminated a human capitol. 
 Small, black, and deeply set, they seemed 
 perfectly uncontrollable : simultaneously re- 
 connoitring your head and feet, swimming,
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 173 
 
 jumping, flying, and diving— you miglit as 
 well attempt to outstrip time. 
 
 Pauline's tastes may be briefly enume- 
 rated — good living, company, and cards; 
 and perhaps it may interest you to hear 
 she is rather petite though rotund, dressy, 
 shrewd, singularly indifferent to her hus- 
 band, which compliment he loses no oppor- 
 tunity to return, and invariably courteous 
 to young men of gambling propensities, be 
 they of foreign growth or home produce, 
 provided always that their purses are of a 
 length entitling them to a place on her 
 roster. 
 
 Pauline, who might easily be mistaken 
 for a native, unblest by oflspring, affiliates 
 a pug. 
 
 "I have just peeped in, carissimi^ with 
 the hope of finding my charming Florence 
 at the piano; shall I be disappointed?"
 
 174 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 asked the vivacious little dog-fancier, with 
 insinuating concern. 
 
 " Disappointed in your hope, or my per- 
 formance, Contessa, which do you mean?" 
 was Miss Hamlyn's evasive rejoinder. 
 
 " How could you misunderstand me, Fio- 
 renze ? — all Venice, Milan, Rome, nay, 
 Europe, teem with your praises; the musi- 
 cal world is in a ferment, a furore; dilettanti 
 in crowds are this moment storming my 
 gates on the bare chance of an invitation 
 to meet you; your very acquaintances are 
 made famous by your fame : why, only an 
 hour ago " 
 
 " You will turn the girl's head, sister, 
 positively you will," interrupted Madeline, 
 peevishly, envy being at work again — to 
 think that her step -daughter, a school-girl, 
 as she wished to consider her, should be 
 courted and lionized, while not a word was
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 175 
 
 said about her handsome and elaborate 
 self. 
 
 "I wish she were back with her gover- 
 ness in Normandy!" 
 
 Some such course of reasoning must 
 have whizzed through the tunnels of her 
 mind; for when, without more ado, the 
 songstress seated herself, and in her own 
 thrilling language proceeded to render that 
 moiyeau^ ''Quand je quittais la Normandie," 
 a kindling colour showed upon the cheeks 
 of her unwillingly rapt and silent dame. 
 
 As for La Contessa, who had not until 
 now heard Florence, I don't believe she 
 could help, heartless as in all truth she 
 was, fumbhng for her delicate handful of 
 lace, and confiding to its keeping a sigh. 
 
 When the sound ceased, Pauline clasped 
 her hands. 
 
 " Heavenly, entrancing, holy ! " inter-
 
 176 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 jectedtliat flowery conversationalist : "wliat 
 a treat is in store for Naples ! — but we shall 
 be stifled ; I must hasten home to interdict 
 the issue of any further cards; no spdzio 
 would accommodate the hosts who long to 
 fling themselves at your feet.'^ 
 
 '^Calm your troubled spirit," returned 
 Madeline, smothering her jealous rage, and 
 bursting with spiteful sarcasm ; "Miss Ham- 
 lyn will not be here to interfere with your 
 an^angements ; there is no chance of an 
 alarming pressure on her account, Con- 
 tessa!" 
 
 "Eh — what? Are you going to refuse 
 me, Fiorenze?" inquired the Countess, with 
 appealing and perplexed amaze. 
 
 " We return to England in the morning, 
 madame; papa cannot delay his departure; 
 sudden news, fresh despatches — and this re- 
 minds me I have much to do — nothing has
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 177 
 
 yet been seen to. You will excuse me, Con- 
 tessa, but the day wears apace; farewell!" 
 
 And Laving graced lier exit by a courtesy 
 which offered renewed occasion to poor 
 Madeline's monster, Miss Hamlyn left the 
 discomfited Pauline to satisfy herself — if 
 that were possible — of coming events from 
 her sister. 
 
 Make sure, the new accession of dignity 
 was introduced, and, now that her step- 
 daughter had ceased from troubling, many 
 egotistic turns were given to the subject. 
 But her audience lent an inattentive ear, 
 her plans being in toto frustrated, and half 
 made up her mind to adjourn the soiree^ 
 on the principle of "no song no supper." 
 Disappointment and sullen gloom would 
 brood over her assembly; the card-tables 
 would be early deserted — it was scarcely 
 worth the trouble of dressing ! 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 At last, Pauline kissed her sister, chirped 
 to her pug, and waddled wearily away. 
 
 Madeline continued her sofa loll for a few 
 minutes more, then rising with a smile of 
 spitefiil play, and scrutinizing her brilliant 
 features in the mirror, sailed from the break- 
 fast-room to superintend her femme de 
 chamhre's progress, exultant in the defeat 
 of her sister's scheme, and at the abortion 
 of her daughter's triumph.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A chapter of jumble, aU the more true 
 to real life. First, a peep at the Sandys, 
 during that momentous week, when it re- 
 quired Lucy's best efforts to keep Wellesly's 
 rampant hopefulness down, and her own 
 lonely, absent heart in any kind of healthy 
 action. Indeed, Henry had taught her to 
 think him so essential to her peace and 
 happiness, that there were moments now 
 when she blamed her too sisterly breast for 
 suffering such suicidal exile. 
 
 Wlien Lucy had prayed her prayers, laid 
 her down to rest, and waxed comfortably 
 warm, these selfish, though perhaps pardon- 
 
 n2
 
 180 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 able, promptings would oftenest come; in 
 which case, albeit assailed by her innate good 
 sense, their deadliest antagonist was sleep. 
 
 But, while thus warring with her own 
 flesh, she never bated in soothing, and if 
 possible steadying, the sky-high anticipa- 
 tions of her brother, who required it. Daily 
 he rose more unreasonably sanguine, and 
 Lucy counselled and frowned in vain. Still 
 she hoped that, should Sir William's appli- 
 cation fail, her whispers, hitherto disre- 
 garded, would make great head against that 
 weight of disappointment which must other- 
 wise go far to crush him. 
 
 Wellesly, in years and education manly, 
 retained that childishness, that inconside- 
 rate confidence, which weighs nothing and 
 hopes all, but which in general has, under 
 the ordeal of school and college life, entirely 
 disappeared.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 181 
 
 Behold liim consuming whole days in 
 ardent efforts to draw up a satisfactory list 
 of necessaries for his Oriental outfit; pen- 
 ning no end of quasi-official documents, in 
 which he had the honour to inform all 
 manner of individuals of all manner of 
 frivolities, and signing himself at least a 
 thousand different ways, but as illegibly as 
 possible, " Wellesly Sandys, Secretary." 
 
 At night, when his sister was comforting 
 herself that at length his restless spirit had 
 forgotten itself in slumbers, he would leap 
 from his couch, rekindle his lamp, and 
 batten his imaginings on some Eastern tale ; 
 then, suddenly remembering a promise made 
 to Lucy, would close the dainty page, and, 
 hurrying into bed, bury his throbbing fore- 
 head in a mass of pillows, to suffocate 
 thought thereby, and throttle wakefulness 
 — and all for Lucy's sake.
 
 182 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Towards morning, with sheer exhaustion, 
 fainting into sleep, his dreams would clothe 
 themselves in Orient garb — houris and peris 
 haunt each glowing scene ; but their eyes, 
 as ever, were the mild blue eyes of Lucy, 
 and their smile as her smile. 
 
 Hover we an instant at Aunt Ernestine's 
 dressing-table: she handles a hare's-foot; 
 poor puss is bleeding, or it may be rouge^ 
 which gives to her toilette the finishing 
 touch. 
 
 Follow we down to the saloon, where 
 Wellesly and his sister skulk behind a 
 statue, and where numbers of literati^ prin- 
 cipally males, are herding. This being 
 one of Aunt Ernestine's conversazione eve- 
 nings, if you retain your infantile-Regent's- 
 Park-predilections for seeing the lions fed, 
 a favourable opportunity is at hand. 
 
 The hostess, though not a wealthy, is a
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 183 
 
 ton-ish woman, and, for the consideration 
 of being admitted to a place on her role, 
 two or three wine-merchants submit to be 
 mulcted in champagne: presents of other 
 kinds are imfailingly forthcoming on the day 
 named in her cards, and Aunt Ernestine's 
 reunions are voted on all hands the best 
 things of the kind, out and out. 
 
 Here may be encountered the prodigies 
 of every cHme ; Indians, of uncounted lacs, 
 and with teeth and eyes such as English hus- 
 bands naturally dread; handsomely rigged 
 Moslems, who condescend, on occasion, to 
 forego their prejudices in favour of the in- 
 terdicted grape, as also to smile upon the 
 Saxon maids, infidels though they be. 
 
 Here John Chinaman shows his tail, and 
 John Bull his nose; while the Continent 
 sends its petits-maitres and improvisatori to 
 complete the melange of talent and noto-
 
 184 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 riety. Every one is either famous or infa- 
 mous — sometimes both ; and the ladies 
 might be Cyprians, for the neglige of their 
 dress, and abandon of their general style. 
 
 A prodigious display of hons mots, jeux 
 (Tesprit^ chat of the day, and criticism, in- 
 termingled with a popping, in mysterious 
 corners, of corks, and relieved at intervals 
 by the rattle of dice — conversazione' d^ of 
 course, into alece — reduced Lucy, followed 
 by her brother, to the necessity of slipping 
 away. 
 
 Classic groups were forming of Graces 
 and ApoUos, nymphs and fawns, round rou- 
 lette and other more modern sports, while 
 the dashing Ernestine was discussing, with 
 some hairy exquisite, a recent painting of 
 the Etty school, whose pretensions to sub- 
 dued colouring or sufficient drapery were 
 slight ; but its connoisseurs^ having the Pan-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 185 
 
 theon by heart, knew it was Venus, and 
 that Venus wore bare skin. 
 
 Lucy shuddered as she left the scene. 
 
 " You looked rather out of your element 
 in that menagerie, dear," said Wellesly, 
 softly, when released. " Come and sit in 
 my room; we will talk about Bridlestone 
 — and Lawrenceville," added he, unwit- 
 tingly. 
 
 A blush was her reply, in the darkness 
 unseen. 
 
 We shall visit their conversation's site, 
 and first Bridlestone. Nothing has changed 
 in Sir William's establishment since our 
 last interview, save that a greater influx of 
 visiters prognosticates Easter, and Mrs. 
 Longfellow's husband wanes daily to his 
 end. Miss Price, perhaps, is more benignly 
 prim, having a huge mass of housekeeping 
 to conduct, at once her duty and delight.
 
 186 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 I hope none of you consider this spinster 
 mad, for you are wrong ; or queer, for you 
 are scarcely right : I can assure you that 
 the one striking peculiarity for which she is 
 liable to attack — her unornamented head — 
 should be set down to old-maidislmess alone. 
 
 Some of this venerable class display their 
 distinctive colours by a devotion to dogs, 
 tea, and gossip — so did not Miss Price; 
 some by an antipathy for children, lovers, 
 and mankind — Miss Price liked every one; 
 and some by an independence in matters of 
 conventional fastidiousness, such as per- 
 sonal decoration, fashion : of this class she 
 was ; and, in certain regions of the world, 
 by the same capricious chance, had been, 
 for what you term her oddness, ci la mode. 
 
 To return : Sir William, given to hospi- 
 tality in its completest sense, smiles nightly 
 at the centre of his long and groaning
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 187 
 
 table, drinking wine in regular succes- 
 sion, and in defiance of modern rules, with 
 every guest male. Yet do his matutinal 
 habits never fail him : he is up, if not with 
 the lark, in time to liberate Boadicea, Cleo- 
 patra, and Co., and occupies himself, until 
 within an hour of breakfast, studying their 
 phases of character, and duly selecting their 
 eggs. 
 
 Sir WilKam has a pony, upon which Miss 
 Price, m more elastic years, was wont to 
 ride, but which is now too vicious for any 
 purpose, either of saddle or draught. The 
 Rosinante's tendencies are displayed in a 
 habit of kicking back, and generally with 
 some effect, at the unwary passer-by. Cu- 
 rious to relate, however, the master attri- 
 butes this weakness to some constitutional 
 disorder, and not to its actual cause, a de- 
 fective education : with the hope, therefore.
 
 188 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 to effect a cure, a poultice of laudanum is 
 applied with unflinching regularity every 
 night, and a strong infusion of Peruvian 
 bark mingled in its daily allowance of 
 water. 
 
 " The result must he gradual," Sir Wil- 
 liam says : and it is very gradual. 
 
 A like solicitude extends itself to almost 
 all the members of his dumb animal list ; 
 and, in extreme anxiety for their sanitary 
 welfare, he is apt to imagine the existence 
 of a disorder of w hich there are but trifling 
 symptoms. 
 
 On this principle alone can be explained 
 the numerous cases of seemingly crippled, 
 blind, halt, and otherwise maimed bipeds 
 and quadrupeds, with which Sir AYilliam's 
 yards are literally alive. At every step you 
 encounter a cow or pig, dog or cat, with 
 probably a couple of legs bound up in
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 189 
 
 splinters, or with a crutch, and making ter- 
 rible complaint to get free — a part, how- 
 ever, he says, of their disorder. 
 
 Here and there you are run down by a 
 blinded sheep, butting along in darkness, 
 and wearing a turban of cloths to protect 
 its eyes, Sir William having discovered un- 
 usual infirmity in those organs. 
 
 I can never forget the sight of an old 
 St. John's dog, with his huge bushy tail 
 fastened up by a string stretching over his 
 back, and tied round his throat : any thing 
 more grotesque it were impossible to ima- 
 gine. On my consulting its owner as to 
 his motive for this treatment — 
 
 " At Sambo's time of life," he replied, 
 "it is evident that the tail must be too 
 heavy for its own support : I have therefore 
 divided the weight, and he scarcely feels it 
 now."
 
 190 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " Scarcely feels it P thought I : '' never 
 did canine expression evince a more fish- 
 out-of- water condition. ' ' 
 
 But expostulation was vain. A keeper 
 assured me, in confidence, that one of the 
 pointer ladies having grown somewhat 
 lumpy and shapeless, from the effects of a 
 large family, it was resolved to remedy the 
 deformity by putting her into stays; for 
 this purpose. Miss Price — ever ready at her 
 "darling Willy's" beck — was induced to 
 negociate with her London corset maker ; 
 but that female requiring a pattern, and 
 Sir William, after various trials, being forced 
 to admit that, in this case, no ordinary rules 
 of measurement would apply, the project 
 was abandoned, and the pointer bandaged, 
 in lieu, into an apoplexy. 
 
 On numerous occasions, Mrs. Longfellow, 
 who was fond of a carriage drive, having
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 191 
 
 ordered tlie vehicle, and bonnetted and 
 cloaked, was met on tlie door- steps by a 
 footman, to announce from ber brother that, 
 one of the horses showing unmistakeable 
 sign of foul tongue, she must postpone her 
 exercise, as the animal was under medical 
 treatment. Indeed, so often did this hap- 
 pen, that in fine the lady purchased a pair 
 of nags for herself, with which Sir William 
 was never permitted to interfere; and 
 which, much to his astonishment, never fell 
 sick. 
 
 Thus far of the Baronet's hobby. You 
 will like to hear a word or two about Norah. 
 She and Mrs. Longfellow have been going 
 over the hamlet this morning with Anthony 
 Blake, and I never saw the curate in higher 
 spirits: laughing being catching, no won- 
 der ; for his younger companion is brimful 
 of frolic, tittering like a schoohgirl, and
 
 192 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 blusliiiis: whenever she encounters his mild 
 little eyes. 
 
 Anthony loves a stile to-day, first assist- 
 ing Mrs. Longfellow over it with much 
 beseeming gravity, and then proceeding to 
 assure Norah that she need have no fear of 
 falling, to give him her hand; which that 
 lady, balancing herself on the upper bar, 
 considers a piece of clerical wit, a double en- 
 tendre^ and resents accordingly, by a shake 
 of her head, and an exhibition of her j)retty 
 feet, all thorough-bred Irlandaises^ or Irish 
 daisies, possessing — we mean no offence — 
 diminutive understandings. 
 
 The curate, captivated altogether, seems 
 strangely unprepared for the duties of their 
 visitation, and Mrs. Longfellow finds some 
 difticulty in keeping him to his work. 
 
 Passing along a coppice, they come into 
 sight of La^enceville House, and an in-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 193 
 
 stant change in poor Blake's physiognomy 
 takes place. 
 
 Norah perceiving it, but ignorant of its 
 true cause, accuses herself of reserve, and 
 intends to be doubly pleasant; but it is 
 quite lost on him, for — his thoughts are 
 with Mrs. Lawrence ! 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 And so we come to LawrenceviUe, where 
 great changes are in progress, Greenspur 
 and mother having arrived. This latter old 
 beldame, deaf and frail, but crafty, makes 
 believe her dear Herold to be the most 
 exemplary of mortals, quite a paragon for 
 virtue and godliness. Mrs. Lawi^ence, 
 wearing a face of elation and righteous 
 triumph, meets her ill-starred daughter 
 alone. 
 
 '' Well, Helena, my love, where are the 
 beard and moustaches ? And so you have 
 been mistaken, after aU ; — I think you will 
 credit your mother the next time; and I
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 195 
 
 really hope you feel ashamed of yourself, 
 after thus calumniatmg and backbiting an 
 innocent man." 
 
 "/ was mistaken, certainly, or Jie is 
 changed," calmly answered Helena. 
 
 "Changed, did you say?" retorted her 
 mother, fiercely; "and so you yet retain 
 your wilful prejudice? Learn, madam ! that 
 unless the hand of Providence interpose to 
 prevent it, you shall be the wedded wife of 
 this worthy Christian warrior within a fort- 
 night : I have already arranged it with his 
 mother, and this very evening all shall be 
 explained to himself. 
 
 " Helena," she added, with tragic empha- 
 sis, " you are loved, nay, idolized, by Green- 
 spur; your fortune, recollect, is mine to 
 withhold or give: obey me^ and you shall 
 be happy; disobey, and I have power to 
 make you wretched! 
 
 o2
 
 196 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " Trifle, then, no longer with your best 
 interests ; the young man's mother tells me 
 that on her death he falls into an estate 
 of many thousands a-year; squander not 
 sueh golden prospects on the mere un- 
 founded caprice of your evil -prompting 
 heart; nay, even for your own sake, who 
 rave madly for the excitement and freedom 
 of that profitless sphere in which you have 
 been reared, consider that, while the world 
 and the things of the world are shut out 
 from the unpretending retirement of my 
 house, under your own roof you may intro- 
 duce, should Satan take such hold upon 
 your mind, those vanities and pomps which 
 God has strengthened me to discard. On all 
 accounts. Miss Lawrence, it is meet, right, 
 and your bounden duty, to yield obedience 
 in this as in every matter to your parent ; 
 but if, in the blindness of infidelity, you re-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 197 
 
 sist my prayerful, heaven-directed choice, I 
 can hold out to you no prospect of happi- 
 ness, either in this world or that which is 
 to come!" 
 
 Having thus spoken, she marched 
 with unflinching dignity from the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 These were strong words of Mrs. Law- 
 rence's, and Helena had never undergone 
 the anathema maranatha before, though 
 Elinor and Susan were accustomed to its 
 thunder. 
 
 At this moment, however, of doubt and 
 darkness, Henry tapped gently at the door, 
 and, waiting no answer, entered noiselessly 
 the room. But his shadow fell on its floor ; 
 she started, and looked round; their eyes 
 met, and with a deep moan she threw her- 
 self upon his neck. 
 
 How long, how tender, and how speak-
 
 198 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 ing, that embrace! Words could not say 
 more, and Helena but unlocked her arms 
 to leave him. 
 
 Pursue we Mrs. Lawrence, not with 
 the morbid motives which tempt our com- 
 mons to crowd around the Brownriggs and 
 the Sloanes — no; but further to unravel 
 our story. 
 
 This rigid moralist is recovering com- 
 posure under the narcotic influence of a 
 manuscript pamphlet, the workmanship of 
 Greenspur, and professing to treat of humble 
 piety, its title being, " The Awakened Shoe- 
 black." But hark ! one or two clipped words 
 are heard praying admission from without, 
 which being vouchsafed, Fanchon enters. 
 
 "It is de fine day, madame!'' began the 
 bonne, with a bland courtesy and smile. 
 
 "What do you want, Fanchon?" asked 
 the widow, taking no notice of the weather.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 199 
 
 " Ma'mselle vill take her money, if you 
 please," said the envoy, looking most in- 
 nocently sheepish. 
 
 " Violette is a little goose !" returned her 
 aimt, considerably nettled. " Why, what- 
 ever has put tJds into her head? — tell her 
 she cannot touch her money until she has a 
 husband and son ; and desire her from me 
 not to talk nonsense! Money, indeed! I 
 wonder what she wants with more? I'm 
 sure I am thankful that the will was made 
 as it is, the silly girl ! Now you may go, 
 Fanchon." 
 
 " Mon Dieu, von husband and von son ! 
 Mais avec votre permission, madame, dat is 
 vat I say to ma'mselle, vat you vant vith 
 money? — madame give you too mooch 
 every ting." 
 
 Which timeous soft-solder having its de- 
 sked effect, Mrs. Lawrence looked pleased.
 
 200 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 "Will you ask Ma'mselle Violette to 
 make one of our party at dinner this even- 
 ing, Fanclion ? Master Henry will be pleased 
 to see her, and we have an excellent and 
 devout officer sojourning amongst us, to 
 whom I would fam introduce her." 
 
 "Un officier — quel agrement! He will 
 marry mees Helene, you tink, madame?" 
 
 "Very probably, but don't swear." 
 
 Our resigned though somewhat illiterate 
 friend, having no knowledge of foreign 
 tongues, suspected the bonne of too warm 
 an exclamation, which protested, she re- 
 sumed. 
 
 " Does my niece talk much about Master 
 Henry, Fanclion? — they used to be great 
 friends." 
 
 "Ma'mselle love Monsieur Henri ver 
 mooch, but he not love back again. Ah, 
 non ; he love Mees Sandees, I tink I"
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 201 
 
 This the envoy ventured as a feeler. 
 
 " Miss Fiddlestick !" retorted the widow, 
 contemptuously. 
 
 "Vat you call her, madame?*' inquired 
 the bonne, with well-acted stupidity. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence, after waving a reply, and 
 reflecting on the clever, energetic character 
 of her questioner, began to feel that, were 
 Fanchon's influence brought to bear upon 
 Helena on the side of Greenspur, all resist- 
 ance might be readily overcome. 
 
 "Fanchon," said the widow, impres- 
 sively. 
 
 " Oui, madame," returned the maid, with 
 a matchlessly submissive shudder. 
 
 " Can you keep a secret?" 
 
 " Un secret ! — oh, oui, I can keep." 
 
 " Then listen," quickly replied the widow. 
 "I want, as you know, to marry Miss 
 Helena to this officer: lie is willing, re-
 
 202 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 member that ; but should she be so mad as 
 to refuse him, do you think you can help 
 us to bring her round?" 
 
 "Bah! mais c'est tout-a-fait impossible !" 
 cried Fanchon, hopelessly. 
 
 " Well, then, say no more about it, that's 
 all," said the widow, resuming her studies, 
 in defeat. 
 
 The bonne had reached the door, opened 
 it, and was loitering at its handle, appa- 
 rently immersed in reflection, when, slip- 
 ping back again, and standing behind 
 the reader's chair, she stooped forward to 
 whisper. 
 
 "What you give?" 
 
 " What do you ask?" answered Mrs. Law- 
 rence, looking up resignedly, but hoping it 
 might not be much. 
 
 " A hunder poun'," was the prompt and 
 bold reply.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 203 
 
 "No less?" muttered the widow, trying 
 to drive a hard bargain. 
 
 " No less !" coarsely repeated the envoy, 
 who felt that the game was her own. 
 
 "It is yours, if you succeed within a 
 fortnight," said Mother Lawrence, calmly. 
 
 "Yer' well; I will try." 
 
 And Fanchon was gone. 
 
 Our previous acquaintance with Mrs. 
 Lawrence's economic principles will cer- 
 tify that she would not lightly part with 
 her coin, and only came out thus munifi- 
 cently with a view to profit by it in the 
 end. What was even this respectable sum, 
 when weighed in the balance against the 
 gallant captain's money-bags? and if it 
 effected the desired junction, would it have 
 been spent in vain? — thus she ruminated, 
 and therefore she agreed. 
 
 At this stage of our revelation, it is un-
 
 204 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 necessary to explain the origin of Violette's 
 pecuniary demand, further than that her 
 prime mover was the bonne. Anon we 
 shall fathom the whole affair. 
 
 As regards the bribery question, it may 
 be added that Fanchon's services were 
 already enlisted on the same side by the 
 manly, straightforward suitor, who, prowling 
 about Lawrenceville's shaded walks at a 
 late hour on the preceding night, of course 
 in a religiously contemplative mood, fell in 
 with a muffled party of three, the majority 
 being females, but of whom one only stood 
 her ground, and this one was Fanchon. 
 Having seen Greenspur walking under the 
 windows during the day, she recognized 
 him in the twilight. 
 
 It was quite in his line of country, too, 
 however his mother and Mrs. Lawrence 
 may have otherwise supposed, to sift out
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 205 
 
 and follow up an affair of gallantry, such as 
 this might warrant him in believing it to 
 be; therefore, stepping noiselessly towards 
 the bonne, who had turned to face him, he 
 said, in his most silvery tones : 
 
 " A beautiful clear night, miss ; but don't 
 you feel it cold?" 
 
 "Non, monsieur; love is de hot," was 
 her reply, carelessly and loud. 
 
 " So you're in love, are you, my dear?" 
 he resumed, discovering the foreign accent 
 and morality of the stranger. 
 
 "Are youf asked Fanchon, bantermg 
 him coarsely. 
 
 " I ? — by no manner of means ; never was, 
 m'amie !" 
 
 " Den vat for you come here?" 
 
 " To study astronomy, and look for glow- 
 worms, ma'mselle." 
 
 " I not mean dat ; why you come to mi-
 
 206 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 
 
 lady's house?" And she peered deeply into 
 his eyes for answer. 
 
 Now, Greenspur, with all his knavery and 
 sang froid, being no match for the bonne, 
 began to suspect as much : and, anxious at 
 once to escape her badgering, and to dis- 
 cover, if possible, the position and object of 
 his new acquaintance, he merely said : 
 
 " Oh, I am on a visiting tour with my 
 mother; but permit me in return to inquire 
 whose are those raven locks, those brilhant 
 glances, glowing cheeks?" 
 
 And as he spoke, his fingers were insinu- 
 ating themselves amorously into the brazen 
 figure's palm. 
 
 "Bah!" she returned, pushing him ofi"; 
 "vous plaisantez, monsieur. I am de old 
 bonne of Ma'mselle Violette de Merton." 
 
 "Is Ma'mselle Violette Mrs. Lawrence's 
 niece?" asked Greenspur.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 207 
 
 "Mais oui, et elle est vraiment jolie!" 
 
 " As pretty as lier cousin?" lie continued. 
 
 "Vat cousine?" 
 
 "Miss Helena, to be sure." 
 
 "All ! Je le comprends; and so, mon- 
 sieur came here for Helene. You see I 
 find out." And, with a provokmg laugh, 
 she shook her finger in his face. 
 
 "Wliat would you like?" asked Green- 
 spur, after a pause, and in a low, deep- 
 meaning voice, as, drawing her to him, he 
 laid his hand upon the vixen's shoulder. 
 
 There is a freemasonry between rogues, 
 and Fanchon rather tartly replied : 
 
 " Yy, money, to be sure !" 
 
 "It shall be yours — you know the 
 terms." 
 
 "I not know nothing," answered the 
 bonne, cunningly goading him to a con- 
 fession.
 
 208 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Disgusted and discomfited, the officer 
 turned away. 
 
 "Monsieur," interjected Fanclion, so- 
 lemnly. 
 
 "WeU?" 
 
 "Vat do you seek now — parole d'hon- 
 neur?'* 
 
 " Helena Lawrence," he muttered quickly. 
 
 "And madame not permet?" 
 
 "Oh, madame is most willing, but He- 
 lena herself — what if she should hate me?" 
 
 "Bah! — what for you care? — you vant 
 to marry Ma'mselle Helene?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Ver well, I can get — one week — no 
 more." And Fanchon curtseyed to move on. 
 
 " Stay," he interposed ; " is it true she 
 will be rich?" 
 
 "Ah, too mooch riche — too mooch! II 
 faut dat she shall be one grande heritiere."
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 209 
 
 This was sheer conjecture on the bonne's 
 part, but essential to her prospects of re- 
 ward. 
 
 "Good night," returned Greenspur, 
 blandly, as he placed in her hand a purse 
 well lined with notes, by way of encourage- 
 ment, then adding : 
 
 " But tell me, who were your companions 
 when I first caught sight of you? — a little 
 bit of fun, eh?" 
 
 "Mais, vat? — I not tink you see no- 
 body," was her reply, delivered with admi- 
 rable naivete. 
 
 "Ah, you won't confess, I suppose — 
 Master Harry and the kitchen-maid — some- 
 thing of that sort, eh?" 
 
 Fanchon smiled, and feigned confusion: 
 she led him to believe he had hit it to a T, 
 and they parted. It was Violette with her 
 French groom ! 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Start not, reader, nor think it an un- 
 natural, or forced, or unlikely case: only 
 reflect for a moment that, while I mention 
 the results of unfortunate Yiolette's train- 
 ing, all details of her gradually progressive 
 fall are veiled or hidden from view. Of a 
 long and terrible beginning you witness but 
 the end. Were I to open the history of 
 vice, and, with the minuteness of prurient 
 sensuality, to reveal each hideous and re- 
 volting page, the insidious evil would pro- 
 claim its own victory, bringing sickening 
 conviction home to every heart; but be- 
 cause I have purposely avoided such recital 
 — a recital which must be harrowing to the 
 pure, and to the impure but a further dose 
 of poison, deem not my brevity unreason- 
 ably brief, nor her perdition either sudden 
 or unprecedented.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 I have told you something of Ma'mselle 
 de Merton before : I have, in a manner, in 
 the most reserved and general terms, pre- 
 pared you for the worst; I spoke of her 
 bonne, her constant, indeed her only, com- 
 panion — for, jealous of the affections and 
 very presence of Violette, she tolerated no 
 rival; how blindly Mrs. Lawrence bore 
 Fanchon's ascendency; how the orphan 
 was permitted to isolate herself from her 
 relatives, to live in a world, a most polluted 
 world, of her own framing, its sole inhabit- 
 ants herself and her retainers ; further, how 
 
 p2
 
 212 VAGARIES OF LIFE, 
 
 her naturally wild spirits, strong passions, 
 and careless principles, were left to follow 
 such direction as Fanchon might happen to 
 exemplify ; how books were provided, whose 
 contents, rank with indecent grossness, re- 
 presented but so much paper currency of 
 the bank of hell; and, lastly, how the 
 woman who was mother, and preceptor, and 
 every thing, to her neglected, ill-omened 
 youth, had herself strayed from the path of 
 virtue. 
 
 Fanchon, indeed, had drunk deeply from 
 the unhallowed fountains of sin, passed her 
 early life in the ranks of infamy, low de- 
 bauchery, parti-coloured crime; and only 
 attained to her present post by the callous 
 indifference of, in the first instance, Vio- 
 lette's father, who from the condition of 
 kept mistress elevated her to the rank of 
 bonne, and in the second instance Mrs.
 
 VAGARIES or LIFE. 213 
 
 Lawrence, wlio confirmed her in that office, 
 without any inquiry into her former habits, 
 or any supervision of her personal qualities, 
 as recognizable in her new sphere. 
 
 There was a depth of viUany in this 
 menial which I care not to account for, even 
 to probe : lapsed past reclaim herself, she 
 seemed to take a strange, demoniacal de- 
 light in compassing the ruin of others : from 
 some such feeling she had instructed Yio- 
 lette, poor, thoughtless child! in every 
 branch of folly, and, having candied her 
 thus far, from sheer bitterness of devilment 
 — I find no better word — became her 
 tempter ! 
 
 But no more : we will fly from the fear- 
 ful contemplation of so much happiness 
 doomed, youth contaminated, corroded, 
 waylaid, and cut down; nor had ever ap- 
 proached the subject, but to present Mrs.
 
 214 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 La^a-ence at all points, in all lights, as she 
 was. 
 
 When this motherless mongrel first ar- 
 rived from the pleasant land of France, and 
 first looked imploringly with its large dark 
 eyes on the stern, cold, calculating lady 
 who was to be its guardian — that blue- 
 black satin economist, that imrelaxing de- 
 votee, arranged within her secret breast the 
 brilliant match aforesaid, into which mutual 
 affection might enter, or not, just as it 
 pleased, but by which Violette's fortune 
 would return to the house of Lawrence; 
 and with this project ever full before her 
 eyes, she saw nothing else, and let things 
 sidle along just as they might. 
 
 As for the parties themselves, they were 
 to be but the rooks or cards to her game ; 
 for Mrs. Lawrence, though decidedly Low 
 Church in her principles, inculcated that
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 215 
 
 passive obedience, that submission to tlie 
 fountain-head, which is said to distinguish 
 the Society of Jesus. 
 
 No course of reasoning, no appeal, could 
 bend her from her purpose, not even wheed- 
 ling — ^the most powerful of all engines in 
 domestic strategy — as, being above such a 
 weakness, she never made pets of her chil- 
 dren; they were severally but so many 
 fragments of the family machine, which she 
 might regulate as she listed, but which 
 were utterly cessate when her hand refrised 
 its motive and connecting power. 
 
 Here terrorism came to her aid : she had 
 eschewed all the parade of life ; established 
 an abstemious code amongst her household 
 subjects; contributed, for a period of at 
 least thirty years, the annual sum of twenty 
 pounds to the village school ; " drilled,'' to 
 use her own words, " her offspring into a
 
 216 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 band of Christian wamors " — you never 
 saw, with all their drill, a more unwarlike 
 couple than Elinor and Susan; lavished 
 countless tracts — not of la7id^ but oi print — 
 of a most searching and ghostly import, 
 upon the poor; '' devoted her first-born " — 
 her expression — to the duties of the Sunday 
 class; in short, discountenanced vice, re- 
 warded virtue, and established for herself 
 the reputation of one who had quite given 
 up this world, in anticipation of the next, 
 and, as being entirely too good for the ter- 
 restrial stage, had bidden it an eternal fare- 
 well. 
 
 Reverence and solemnity were thus inti- 
 mately associated with all that she did and 
 was out of doors, and, reflected on the bear- 
 ing of those around her hearth, propped up, 
 in no small measure, her des^^otism. 
 
 Sir William and Miss Price, who visited
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 217 
 
 lier about once in tlie year, but wliose 
 civility she was much too pre-eminently 
 pious to return, looked upon her as a home- 
 made fakir or durweesh, or something in 
 that absorbed, entranced, ecstatic style ; and 
 theirs was the general opinion, against 
 which, barring certain doubts on the part of 
 Henry and the novice, an internal qualm 
 from Blake, and a " strictly private and 
 confidential" infidelity between Yiolette and 
 the bonne, dissent had never entered an ob- 
 jection, except in the case of our w/zmalevo- 
 lent, temperate, and charitable Mrs. Long- 
 fellow; and she, while she estimated the 
 widow's cold-drawn godliness at a low 
 figure, privately^ did so from perceiving, but 
 without impertinent research, for which she 
 was far too generous, that on the very face 
 of Mrs. Lawrence's saintliness existed such 
 anti- Christian carelessness, such self-righ-
 
 218 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 
 
 teousness, such fierce profession, but so 
 little practice, as to contradict, anomalize, 
 and render nugatory, her entire system. 
 
 About this time, moreover, reports very 
 serious and very damaging to the moral 
 character of some of the inmates of Law- 
 renceville began to go the hamlet's rounds : 
 still they were unwillingly or partially be- 
 lieved, and in many instances scouted alto- 
 gether. 
 
 All that Mrs. Longfellow was able, in 
 denial, to advance, was a hope, an eager, 
 but not a sanguine hope, that they might 
 prove untrue. She had seen nothing further 
 than the others, but, valuing the widow's 
 tactics below their current standard, she 
 feared that they were calculated rather to 
 foster than prevent those evils reported to 
 exist, and which none could deplore more 
 bitterly than herself.
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 219 
 
 We allude to the conduct of Violette and 
 her French sei^vants, conduct too publicly 
 manifested in their drives and rides to 
 escape the honest animadversion of each 
 passing boor, yet so veiled by the elder 
 woman's villanously perfect dissimulation, 
 and so obstructed in its progress to gene- 
 ral odium by the unguardianlike apathy 
 of Mrs. Lawrence, as to revel, in its un- 
 checked, unvisited pollution, to the injury — 
 not of the wretched and neglected orphan's 
 character, for that was lost for ever — but of 
 that reputation for purity which had so long 
 fenced in the foibles and errors of her aimt, 
 and which injury, reflected through the 
 austere disciplinarian, must bring ill odour on 
 those principles behind which she screened 
 the grave defects of her method — defects so 
 frauo-ht with ruin to all within their reach ! 
 
 But what had Mrs. Lawrence to di^ead?
 
 220 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Was not Violette constantly present at the 
 Saturday lecture, there to imbibe sound 
 doctrine? Was she not busied during the 
 week preparing for the duties of that day, 
 and duly putting its lessons in practice? 
 Did not Henry drive her with punctilious 
 regularity to church ? Was she not deluged, 
 steeped to the lips, in tracts ? Surely, then, 
 her religious, and consequently moral, train- 
 ing were so far from disregarded — if any 
 tiling, over-done! 
 
 As for secular education, beyond the 
 alphabet and grammar, which were needful 
 to ensure a proper initiation into "the 
 mysteries of revelation" — as the widow 
 generalized all works of a scriptural kind — 
 nothing was deemed requisite, and nothing 
 was done. 
 
 A similar treatment had been adopted 
 towards Elinor and Susan; but, while in
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 221 
 
 tlieir cases tlie object in view was obtained, 
 in that of Yiolette a widely different result 
 was already maturing its nauseous fruit. 
 Mrs. Lawrence could see no reason why 
 like causes, operating on uiilike dispositions, 
 should not produce like effects ; so she took 
 it for granted that all went right, and re- 
 signed herself, as usual, to indolent un- 
 concern. 
 
 It was the ungrateful custom with Henry 
 — ungrateful to both parties, but observed 
 by the widow's express command — daily to 
 visit his so-called affiancee^ Fanchon being 
 always present, and the interview lasting 
 but a nominal time. 
 
 By this the old lady thought to preserve 
 that mutual devotion, the intensity of which 
 she had never allowed herself to question ; 
 and son and niece equally, though from 
 discrepant motives, resolved that the real
 
 222 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 
 
 state of affairs should indefinitely remain 
 a profound secret. Sometimes, indeed, slie 
 met tlie dissemblers witli an abrupt inter- 
 rogatory — 
 
 " When will my dears complete their 
 engagement and my happiness? You are 
 surely, both of you, sufficiently adult to 
 undertake the responsible duties of mar- 
 riage !" 
 
 Yet hitherto they had managed, one way 
 or another, to put her off. 
 
 Now, as regards his cousin's criminal 
 course, do you think that, after he began to 
 suspect it himself, he should have broached 
 it to his mother? You all say yes; but, 
 alas! you little know that mother! She 
 would have wept, and stormed, and raved, 
 and — insisted on their immediate union ! 
 
 No matter how debased, no matter how 
 irrevocably fallen, though she were a com-
 
 VAGARIES or LIFE. 223 
 
 monest of tlie common, Violette was inheri- 
 tress of j61 0,000 a-year, or her son would 
 claim it; and if she were wedded to other 
 than Henry, £10,000 a-year must leave 
 Lawrenceville for ever ! 
 
 Xow, though the widow's heir would 
 have witnessed its alienation without a sigh, 
 the widow's self would rather have expired 
 than permitted it. No; Mrs. Lawrence, 
 after a vast deal of whimpering, no end 
 of sleepless nights, and with a synod of 
 wrinkles, would have hushed up the matter, 
 silenced Fanchon, Grignon, and Co., on a 
 pension, and forced our noble-hearted, high- 
 principled, pure-minded, Henry into a union 
 with the vitiated being he loathed ! 
 
 And would Henry submit to this ? He 
 must, or break his mother's heart; and 
 therefore he held back, and not from any 
 feeling of self-interest^ albeit he made sure
 
 224 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 that the catastrophe would lead to his dis- 
 inherison and exile. 
 
 This filial repugnance to overwhelm his 
 mother's reason, perhaps to cause her death, 
 restrained him: behind it, indeed, self- 
 respect and personal honour lay armed to 
 the teeth to do him service; but only as 
 a last appeal would he arouse them ; at the 
 present he required no aid. 
 
 Nor, it must be understood, was the 
 young man aware of those irremediable 
 lengths to which, by the fatal impetus of her 
 profligacy, his relative had gone: he was 
 merely furnished with vague, though well- 
 grounded, evidence of her studies and tastes ; 
 of the characters of her maid and groom ; 
 of their intimacy with her, and unrestricted 
 access to her apartments : he knew, in fact, 
 enough to protect himself; and fervently he 
 hoped there was nothing more to know.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 225 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A week has passed by, and Helena, in- 
 vited by Violette, under the instructions of 
 Fancbon, is a daily visiter in her cousin's 
 rooms, and more cheerful than of late : let 
 us review. 
 
 On the afternoon of the day of Mrs. Law- 
 rence's understanding with the bonne, a 
 polite message was conveyed by this latter 
 female, hoping Miss Helena would favour 
 Ma'mselle de Merton with her company to 
 tea. 
 
 It is but fair to poor Helena to remind 
 you that up to this moment no rumour 
 affecting the good report of her entertainers 
 — for Fanchon always drank tea with her 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 charge — had directly or remotely aroused 
 a suspicion. She knew they were very 
 like French people, which was natural, and 
 very unlike English people, which was also 
 natural; and, while she had but little inti- 
 macy with them, that little rather led her 
 to covet still less, though for the life of her 
 she could not tell why : whatever appeared 
 unusual or unaccountable went down to the 
 score of their being French, yet nothing 
 like impropriety had she ever seen. 
 
 The invitation was accepted. 
 
 " Any change," thought Helena, " to kill 
 time." 
 
 Imagine her surprise when, entering Yio- 
 lette's reception-room, her eyes fell upon 
 the meek and closelv-shaven countenance 
 of Greenspur. He was conversing in fluent 
 French with his little hostess, who sat on a 
 sofa beside him, becomingly arrayed in a
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 227 
 
 neglige toilette of cerise flannel, with wide 
 loose sleeves, from wliich her smooth and 
 rounded arms, escaping so far as their 
 elbows, were manacled by many gold brace- 
 lets representing snakes, and glancing with 
 precious stones. 
 
 Fanchon prepared the drinkables. 
 
 " Ah, voila, Ma'mselle Helene, so beau- 
 teeful !" sounded the bonne, with a rapturous 
 smile and courtesy. 
 
 Violette sprung from her seat, and flinging 
 herself upon her cousin's unresisting breast, 
 cried quite loud enough for stage effect : 
 
 " A thousand thanks ! — this is great hap- 
 piness to us all." 
 
 Last advanced Greenspur, who, being 
 met by a very frigid bow, thought it better 
 to retreat, and accordingly took up his 
 former position. 
 
 "Vacate, capitaine, please you; I will 
 
 q2
 
 228 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 liave Helena beside me : or see, let me sit 
 between you : now we shall manage deligbt- 
 fuUy." 
 
 Thus added Violette, who, under the 
 promptings of the bonne, brought, with the 
 most perfect empressement^ the lady and her 
 suitor together, though not sufficiently close 
 to alarm the delicacy of the former. 
 
 Greenspur, a thorough man of the world, 
 well travelled and well informed, had hitherto 
 been seen by Helena only in the presence 
 of their respective mothers, wearing his 
 hideous mask of Puritan-like hypocrisy, 
 which, though she scarcely understood it 
 truly, repelled and disgusted her. But here 
 he was presented in quite a different and 
 very much more attractive light, 7iot as he 
 really was^ but i7i his most becoming disguise. 
 
 Insensibly, yet irresistibly, she found 
 lierself, during that liveliest and fleetest of
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 229 
 
 evenings, yielding to the fascination of his 
 brilliant and polished address. 
 
 We have said that Helena was highly 
 gifted, and that her education had been 
 seen to ; it will, therefore, readily occur to 
 our readers that, when tastes and acquire- 
 ments of equal calibre and variety were, 
 after the dreary interval succeeding her 
 return to Lawrenceville, again and unex- 
 pectedly encountered ; when, after weeks of 
 deathlike ennui and gloom, a meteor, whose 
 brightness might well blind, burst from be- 
 hind the cloud which, for reasons of its own, 
 had hitherto screened it; when, from his 
 richly- stored mind — a mind rank alike with 
 luxuriant weeds and flowers, but of which 
 it served his turn just now to display the 
 flowers alone — ^he drew a ravishing pro- 
 fusion of all that was most sweet, most 
 graceful, most likely to charm, to lull, to
 
 230 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 take effect; it will readily be granted that 
 the result was but true to nature, and to a 
 woman's nature, above all. 
 
 When the party was about to break up, 
 Greenspur, bending with eloquent gravity, 
 pressed to his lips the dimpled hand of 
 Helena, unhindered! 
 
 Miss Lawrence, having kissed Yiolette 
 warmly, said something kind to Fanchon, 
 and engaged herself for the same hour — 
 and she hoped, actually she did, the same 
 company — to-morrow evening, tripped with 
 unwonted sprightliness to bed. 
 
 Once gone, the bonne ran up to Green- 
 spur, and slapping him on the cheek, hoarsely 
 articulated ; 
 
 " Boucher, you have snare de lamb." 
 
 " I don't care a damn for her^ you fool — 
 it's Iter money^'' was his sulky reply. 
 
 As for the victim, she woke next day to
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 231 
 
 discard the idea, now grown untenable and 
 monstrous, tlaat this refined and lively mili- 
 taire had any part or lot with that execrable 
 manoeuvrer of the moustachios and grizzly 
 beard. What a goose she dubbed herself 
 to have ever confounded them ! 
 
 " But how am I to account for the change 
 to Henry?" ruminated Helena; "and what 
 a droll, wicked wretch Greenspur is, to 
 sham so much piety before mamma; nay, 
 he humbugs his own mother as well !" 
 
 She actually tittered aloud: it was evi- 
 dently all up with every species of objection ; 
 she had crossed the Rubicon, and no longer 
 was her own. 
 
 A week having passed, we come to the 
 goal of our resume; ere a fortnight goes 
 round she is his bride ! 
 
 "Non, ma'mselle; de old hen say you 
 not get no money?"
 
 232 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 " No money ? — why ma tante told me long 
 ago that I should have a large fortune." 
 
 " Oui^ mais you must be marie first, and 
 have one Jlls before." 
 
 "A son before I'm married?" cried Yio- 
 lette, laughingly misinterpreting her bonne's 
 indifferent English. 
 
 "Non; you comprends vat I mean ver' 
 ouell." 
 
 She continued her exposition in French, 
 much as she had learned it from the widow. 
 
 "But why is this?" demanded ma'mselle, 
 pettislily, upon hearing her statement; "am 
 I too young?" 
 
 '''' No7i^ non^ dat is not for vy; it is de 
 vill^ madame say," replied Fanchon. 
 
 " N'importe !" resumed the other, after a 
 brief silence; "we shall not be hindered 
 thereby ; I am dying to get back to France, 
 la telle patrie de ma naissance^ Fanchon!
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 233 
 
 dying to see Paris, and most of all, resolved 
 to see Lawrenceville no more: you will 
 come, ma bonne, and Grignon; and look," 
 slie continued, turning up lier sleeves, "I 
 have all my mother's jewels; these dia- 
 monds, rubies, sapphires, are worth many 
 thousand livres ; there are more besides in 
 my casket; we can and must go, Fanchon." 
 
 "You vill make money, jua chere V 
 answered the brutal woman, with a leer. 
 
 Yiolette blushed — she sometimes blushed 
 still. Let us leave them.
 
 234 VAGARIES OF LIFE, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Let us vote tlie Hamlyns arrived in 
 town. Sir William and Miss Price have 
 dissolved their rural festivities, and ad- 
 journed to Eaton Square to entertain them. 
 Wellesly and Lucy are en suite^ and the 
 former, aware of his appointment, is utterly 
 wild. 
 
 Evening has come on; a large and dis- 
 tinguished party begins to assemble in the 
 Baronet's drawing-rooms; and Miss Price 
 has actually, although under protest, been 
 persuaded by Lucy to appear in a cap; 
 an unpretentious one, of course, without 
 flowers, and guiltless of foreign manufac-
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 235 
 
 ture, the spinster having stipulated, as the 
 cost of her obedience, that Lucy's own 
 hands should fashion it. 
 
 Wax lights and gay exotics, brilliant 
 robes, dazzling uniforms, glowing faces, and 
 high-sounding names, preside. 
 
 Madeline, in ruby velvet and pearls, with 
 Marabout feathers fastened in her braided 
 back hair, sails consciously about, more 
 splendid than ever. All glasses are turned 
 to admire her : all glasses I have written, 
 for the majority of our English dilettanti is 
 near-sighted — a curious aristocratic fact. 
 
 Lucy is there, wearing a white cripe 
 dress, with bunches of apple blossom nod- 
 ding their cheerful heads as they peep 
 from behind her ears and sport upon her 
 neck. She looks, we need scarcely add, 
 lady-like and pretty; and Miss Price can- 
 not help kissing her, every now and then.
 
 236 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 when nobody is nigli, with sheer admi- 
 ration. 
 
 Wellesly, in great blow, and ludicrously 
 alive to his new calling, follows the Gene- 
 ral everywhere. It is a question to this 
 day, whether he had not provided some 
 convenient writing-table with stationery, in 
 case of being summoned, during the even* 
 ing, to take down notes. Lucy cannot re- 
 strain a smile, as she sees him marching in 
 the rear, with an eye for nobody else, and 
 his face portraying every species of in- 
 effable delight. Sir William coming over 
 to make the same remark, they have a good 
 laugh at him together. 
 
 The Longfellows and Miss Burton are 
 not visible, being still at Bridlestone: 
 Norah would not be happy, I dare say, any 
 other where, just now. 
 
 But behold the Montgomeries ; for no
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 237 
 
 one could enter the rooms without remark- 
 ing tliem : mamma rigged out in something 
 crimson, and sj)orting a demi-cap with 
 golden fringes, serving to conceal the foun- 
 dation on which are built those ponderous 
 ringlets that float in all directions round 
 her neck. Fanny and Clara being, as their 
 mother says, " in different styles," are not 
 attired alike, the former having a profusion 
 of amber below and not much of anything 
 above her waist, and the latter wearing the 
 pmky hues of an unassuming daisy. 
 
 But where is Florence? Just as we ask, 
 she comes — comes as beautiful a being as 
 admiration ever knelt to worship — comes 
 to fill every eye, check every laugh, change 
 every conversation, rivet and enchant all. 
 Yes; her implacable step-mother actually 
 forgot herself so far as to turn her massive 
 person quite round, and stare with no com-
 
 238 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 nion envy at the loveliness wliicli thus late 
 poured its radiant halo o^er the scene. 
 
 Detained up-stairs by the disappointing 
 modiste^ Florence had unwittingly given that 
 chance of captivation to the surrounding 
 fair, of which her arrival left them that 
 night no further hope : it was, in fact, im- 
 possible that an impression could be made 
 by the most expert magiciennes^ so long 
 as Miss Hamlyn's superior brightness 
 was there, to "pale their ineiFectual fire." 
 In despair, they gave up, and admired 
 her. 
 
 Rapidly she glided to Miss Price's side, 
 where room was found between that vene- 
 rable spinster and Lucy Sandys. 
 
 It is necessary here to mention that the 
 Sandys had arrived early on that forenoon, 
 but that Wellesly, having an engagement 
 with a College friend, was absent during
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 239 
 
 dinner, and only returned in time for tlie 
 assembly. 
 
 General Hamlyn, while whispering with 
 a noble lord, whose Ministerial functions 
 necessitated a confidential undertone, caught 
 sight of his daughter's entree^ and, break- 
 ing away as civilly and as soon as possible, 
 hastened, with a face of the utmost pride 
 and pleasure, to her side — Wellesly, as a 
 matter of course, pursuing. 
 
 " Better late than never, Flo^ : but what 
 a fine dress this is! mighty grand, by 
 Jove!" 
 
 The Secretary looked up to see her; 
 their eyes met; those large, deep, violet- 
 tinted eyes lit upon him; that face, redo- 
 lent with every charm of sunny youth, was 
 turned to meet him; that form, with its 
 grace and elegance, its dignity and ease, 
 was there before him ; he lost himself, lost
 
 240 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 himself altogether ! He could have fallen 
 down and made a spread-eagle of his first- 
 sight devotion at her feet: he was un- 
 manned. 
 
 Florence must have noticed it, she smiled, 
 such a sweet, assuring, welcome smile ! 
 
 The General gave her his arm, and 
 turned to move away : in doing so, he came 
 against his stricken, bewildered scribe. 
 
 " Ah ! you here, Mr. Sandys ! Florence, 
 allow me to introduce one of our future 
 
 helpmates, one of the party for C ; 
 
 Mr. Sandys, Miss Hamlyn." 
 
 " Do you like the idea of going abroad, 
 Mr. Sandys?" asked his mesmeriser, softly. 
 
 "Above everything!" bolted out poor 
 Wellesly, overwhelmed; to which the lady 
 bowed slightly, and passed on. 
 
 One of their party! her friend! to live 
 under the same roof! to sit by her side at
 
 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 241 
 
 table — perhaps to ride and drive with her ! 
 at any rate, to see her every day ! What 
 luxury, happiness, heaven! 
 
 These, and a thousand other thoughts, 
 welled out of his overflowing heart, to the 
 verge of suffocation. No wonder that he 
 continued to dodge the General's footsteps 
 now! 
 
 It is later in the evening: the bulk of 
 the company having departed, a few friends 
 gather round the piano, which is open, and 
 on which candles burn, though no performer 
 has yet appeared. 
 
 There is a lull — people whisper short 
 nothings to each other ; whilst in an outer 
 room a group of mimic wranglers wax 
 earnest, if not loud, whose movements are 
 watched with considerable and apparent 
 interest by the low- voiced loiterers within. 
 
 This incident is exj)lained by the result : 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 242 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 Florence Hamlyn, surroimded by Miss 
 Price, Lucy, the General, and, conse- 
 quently, the General's secretary, enters the 
 inner apartment, and, glancing at her as- 
 sembled audience, takes her seat on the 
 music-chair. 
 
 Having played a few bars of prelude, she 
 began : at first you might scarcely hear a 
 sound, but it grew by degrees to an utter- 
 ance so clear, so passionate, so wild, that 
 the Priestess herself never prayed with 
 more rapt emotion, more desire. 
 
 It was Norma's " Casta Diva" which she 
 sang ; and, in defiance of scene, and dress, 
 and every hindrance, Florence was Norma 
 for the time ! 
 
 Rising from her seat, she turned away : 
 there rose no sound of praise ; it was above 
 all praise. People merely bade good night 
 noiselessly, and retired; Madeline lighted
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 243 
 
 to her boudoir by tlie duteous Pilkington, 
 Lucy and Miss Price moving off together, 
 and Florence having already gone. 
 
 But what of Wellesly ? Our impression- 
 able friend did reach his chamber, but in 
 altogether a distracted and alarming state : 
 he tried to undress ; tut ! it was hopeless, 
 quite : he could only stand at the fire-place, 
 lean his chin upon his wrist, shut his eyes, 
 and rave and wonder. 
 
 Morning found him standing there ; sleep 
 was out of the question. 
 
 If she had been plain, or ordinary, and 
 sang thus — but that was impossible; or if 
 she had been beautiful and interesting, and 
 superior, as she was, to every other mortal, 
 and could not sing — but such beauty and 
 such melody together! Such a girl, and 
 such a voice! Oh, it was overwhelming, 
 undoing, downright desperation ! 
 
 r2
 
 244 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 We can make nothing of him in this 
 humour, and must excuse ourselves inter- 
 fering during the ensuing three weeks of 
 his and the Hamlyns' stay in England, all 
 save the final day, which has arrived. 
 
 On the previous evening, a Saturday, 
 Sir William and Miss Price, Sir Geoffry, 
 Lady and Miss Hamlyn, Lucy and Wel- 
 lesly, and Pilkington, travelled by train to 
 Southampton, and billetted at Radley's, to 
 be ready to go on board ship the next 
 morning early. 
 
 Five of the party, the outward bound, 
 were in high glee; the rest, with every 
 effort to be cheerful, showed much more 
 inclination to mourn. Still, they had a 
 pleasant dinner of it, Florence captivating 
 Lucy by praising her brother's good looks, 
 and Lucy assuring Florence, in turn, that 
 never in any instance had so indelible an
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 245 
 
 impression been made on tlie secretary's 
 heart as by her. Why, even now, at the 
 end of three weeks, his furore was not 
 abated one whit — a fact totally nnprece- 
 dented in Wellesly's natural history, and 
 which Florence must therefore consider a 
 compliment of the first class. 
 
 Lucy and Florence, though recent were 
 warm friends : the former being prized by 
 the latter for her lady-like, gentle manners, 
 excellent temper, and sense ; the latter dear 
 to the former for her high and noble bear- 
 ing, her contempt of every mean display — 
 such as young ladies with a tithe of her 
 advantages are prone to — and her abhor- 
 rence of idle men and idle compliments, 
 with whom and with which she would have 
 nothing to do. 
 
 " You will write to me, Florence, wiU 
 you not ? and keep an eye on my brother ;
 
 246 VAGAKIES OF LIFE. 
 
 he is so thoughtless, you know, and I can- 
 not be there to apply the drag. You will 
 be a sister to him, dearest, for my sake, 
 when you see he needs one?" 
 
 " Make sure I shall, Lucy; for your sake 
 and his own " 
 
 She felt confused, and stopped short. 
 
 Love is said to beget love; and Flo- 
 rence, although by no means in the over- 
 head-and-ears condition of Wellesly, was 
 unconsciously sinking deeper and deeper 
 into that sentimental slough. 
 
 We will not blame, however we may pity 
 her, young Sandys being decidedly the most 
 distingue^ well-bred, presentable, unpuppy- 
 like cavalier on her bachelor role. They 
 had been thrown, too, very much together 
 since their introduction, Sir GeofFry absent- 
 ing himself all day at his club, or in Down- 
 ing Street, and Madeline not only avoiding
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 247 
 
 her daughter's society, but appropriating 
 poor Pilkington, who was, in fact, her carry - 
 and- fetch turnspit. 
 
 Many a dehghtful walk, therefore, would 
 Lucy and Florence and the secretary enjoy 
 round and round the square-gardens ; and 
 when, sometimes. Miss Price had leisure to 
 join them, Lucy offered the old lady her 
 arm ; in which case, so strong was the ten- 
 dency to imitation, that, monkey as he was ! 
 Wellesly would think it necessary to ac- 
 commodate the young lady with his^ when 
 they managed to get on swimmingly, the 
 two friends in front, and the — we need not 
 disguise it — the lovers bringing up, with 
 some interval, the rear.
 
 24:8 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XYII. 
 
 It is Sunday morning ; a calm, promising 
 day ; breakfast over — though none of them 
 seemed to care about breakfast, this must 
 not be set down to any demerits in the 
 meal, which, from frequent experience, I 
 can vouch to be ''good at that house;" — 
 and Pilkington having received directions 
 to keep his eye on their luggage, the 
 others of our party strolled down to the 
 quays. Miss Price had expressed herself 
 anxious to inspect the accommodation on 
 board, so they were all to walk the plank. 
 
 Once turned the corner of that unpopu-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 249 
 
 lar building, where everybody's luggage is 
 sure of being weighed, and equally sure of 
 being over weight, the huge, hissing mon- 
 ster of a steamer displays its bulky yet 
 proportionate dimensions ; another moment 
 finds them gathered on its deck. 
 
 Miss Price tried to be sick ; that is, she 
 thought of being squeamish, which is the 
 best way to bring it on, but was unable. 
 It seemed only reasonable to her small 
 nautical experience that the mal de mer 
 should instantly attack them, and for some 
 time she never lost sight of the upper 
 cabins, behind which, in case of extremi- 
 ties, it was her prudent resolution, no 
 doubt, to retire. 
 
 The boarding, smooth and clean, without 
 a break from stern to bows ; the two sturdy 
 funnels, with their slender, ramrod-fashion 
 children, noisy and sputtering, as children
 
 250 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 
 
 sometimes are ; the Jacks, in tlieir Sunday 
 clothes, unusually trim; the squadron of 
 stewards, fussing about, and caparisoned 
 gaily; the bristling tiers of hencoops, 
 crammed to suffocation with every descrip- 
 tion of domestic fowl; boxes of pigs, pens 
 of sheep, cages of rabbits and pigeons, 
 mountains of omnigenous vegetables, pas- 
 sengers, and passengers' friends, all en 
 masse^ yet nothing in the way — sufficiently 
 interested the General's troop to detain 
 them for a long time on deck. 
 
 Indeed, it was next to impossible to 
 make Sir William move forward; he had 
 taken up a position facing a dense phalanx 
 of hens and cocks ; nor, until Lady Ham- 
 lyn, who languished on his arm, had threat- 
 ened to desert him, did he recover his gal- 
 lantry, and dive, at the head of the party, 
 down the gangway into the saloon.
 
 VAGAEIES OF LIFE. 251 
 
 There sat the purser, and the very model 
 of what a purser should be he was ; fat and 
 jolly, courteous, and the least little bit im- 
 portant : to look at him, you could not help 
 feeling that the dinners on board were 
 unexceptionable; he was, in fact, an ani- 
 mate bill of fare. 
 
 The doctor sat conversing with him ; they 
 had evidently not met for a month, yet 
 their subject could not have been medical, 
 that purser scarcely looking as if he knew 
 any thing about physic whatever. 
 
 Pill-box, a terribly gallant creature, with 
 a face that always seemed scalded or cal- 
 cined — I cannot certify which — no sooner 
 caught sight of the splendid Lady Hamlyn, 
 than, pulling off his own cap, he adminis- 
 tered an arousing nudge to his shipmate, 
 who, starting up, instantaneously uncovered, 
 and, advancing with a semi-official bow,
 
 252 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 begged to be informed what name he 
 might have the honour to show to its 
 berth. 
 
 " Sir GeofFry and Lady Hamlyn," re- 
 turned Madeline, with telling dignity and 
 distinctness, so much so that Sir William 
 looked quite taken aback, having no idea 
 previously of the immense importance ac- 
 cruing to himself from the company in which 
 he had boarded that vessel. 
 
 As for the purser, he bowed to his very 
 knees, no great distance after all, and mur- 
 muring, " The best cabins in the ship," led 
 the way. 
 
 These apartments inspected, the piano 
 sounded by Florence, and pronounced sadly 
 out of tune, and the purser still marching 
 in front, they visited the engines, whereat 
 Miss Price declared herself much alarmed; 
 Lady Hamlyn endeavoured to faint, be-
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 253 
 
 cause of their oily exhalations; and Sir 
 William, pre-occupied by sundry live-stock 
 in the inferno, in crossing for'ard, nearly 
 broke his head. 
 
 Then they came upon the cows, bringing 
 the bachelor baronet to an instant halt; 
 were pointed to the butcher's shambles; 
 heard of cabins down below, the bare men- 
 tion of which compelled Miss Price to close 
 her eyes ; and, after a peep at the doctor's 
 laboratory, the cook's and baker's shops, 
 and other multum in parvo establishments, 
 emerged once more into light, and sight of 
 land. 
 
 The time was come; Lucy and Wellesly 
 must part; Lucy and Florence, Wellesly 
 and the Prices, Sir William and Sir Geoffry, 
 but most of all those twain — Lucy and 
 WeUesly! 
 
 Around, the same scene went on: mo-
 
 254 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 tliers, with the fixed stare of agony, 
 looking for the last time at their newly- 
 togaed sons ; wives parting from hus- 
 bands; brothers shaking hands, and sti- 
 fling tears; sisters crying and sobbing, 
 and finding it of no use to fight against 
 them ; grief and affection, in short, parading 
 the quarter-deck. 
 
 It is a ticklish task to say farewell, under 
 most circumstances; very disagreeable sen- 
 sations ensue, and no third party has any 
 business to interfere. 
 
 We will, therefore, back out of the 
 crowd, followed immediately by Sir Wil- 
 liam and his timorous sister: Lucy has 
 turned round with a rather superfluous 
 after -thought; kissing Florence, through 
 her veil, she whispers : — 
 
 "Eemember your promise about poor 
 Wellesly !" and is gone.
 
 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 255 
 
 Miss Price lias bolted into a cab, has 
 insisted on her brother doing the same, and 
 now beckons Lucy to ascend. 
 
 "No, thank you; I shall stand at the 
 step till they move away." 
 
 "It will be too much for you, dear!" 
 replied the other, burying her eyes in a 
 kerchief. 
 
 " Oh, no!" was the low rejoinder, as she 
 placed her hand within the aged spinster's 
 grasp, and withdrew her head, that, out 
 of sight, and to save that lady's feeling 
 heart, she might rid herself of many tender 
 and resistless tears. 
 
 Every now and again. Miss Price would 
 uncover her face, advance her bonnet, for 
 a brief moment eye first the steamer, then 
 Lucy, and, starting back, fall a-crying afresh. 
 
 At last the paddles stirred, the vessel 
 rounded, the sailors and loiterers cheered,
 
 256 VAGARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 and tliej were off — some off for ever- 
 more ! 
 
 " Get in Lucy, my love ; now, coachman, 
 drive away !" 
 
 All wliicli will exhibit what leal friends 
 Wellesly had. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 F. Shobeil, Juu , Piiuler to H.R.H. Priuce Albert, 51, Uapert Street.