mM .-^i LI B R.ARY OF THE UN IVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 823 L999bu v.l V \ THE BUDGET THE BUBBLE FAMILY, f. Richai US, Printer, St. Martin's Lauc '^'^ (, '^ KjoX^ - a- -K. H. b.w jf K*..^;n«;i-. .Kpfjj^ A Her VI til ■^u>'- THE BUDGET THE BUBBLE FAMILY A STAGE COACH. — SIMPSON AND CO.'s FIGURES, WITHOUT TROPES. " TEARS OF BOYHOOD's YEARS." At an epoch like the present, when the political hemisphere of Great Britain is dazzling the world with its brightness, owing entirely to those stars of the Bubble Family which now sway its des- tinies — it would be superfluous, if not imperti- nent, to descant, physiologically, or even histori- ^ cally, upon their well-known attributes; suffice ^.^ it to say, that they have been from time imme- '^ morial Whigs — a term in itself comprising, and -k, implying that love of civil and religious liberty, j which makes men Arians, or any-thing-Arians, \ as occasion, or that most colossal of Whig bul- ;- warks, expediency, may require. Of the anti- ^ quity of this widely-spread, and most aristocratic > family, no one can be ignorant, who is even slightly acquainted with sacred or profane his- 1 . VOL. I. B 4. 2 THE BUDGET OF tory; in the former they may trace their descent from Jacob; and every Bubble can to this day say with him, *' I am a smooth man," being equal adepts in pseudology, with that brother- cheating patriarch. In the latter it will be seen that their blood has flowed through countless ages in the veins of the most distinguished poets, painters, warriors, philosophers, and statesmen; but why should I go back to Sallust or Alcibiades, when a subject the Bubbles have always had most at heart, now engrosses my attention, — I mean their own affairs ; but this I say in strict confidence to yoK^ my dear reader, for it is one of the greatest charms of their name that they always appear more interested about others than themselves , and I have no doubt that it was some of their Norman ancestors who first gave our Gallic neighbours the idea of that tapestry for which they have since been so celebrated, and wherein are produced the most high-coloured, smooth, and beautiful effects, on the outward and visible side, by the most cross-grained and contradic- tory workings on the reverse or invisible one. But, I forget myself! a most unpardonable thing to do, especially in ladies' society, as I venture to hope I now am. Our hero, Mr. Cecil Bubble Howard's mother, THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 3 was a very distant connexion of the Bubble Family ; but, being both a beauty and an heiress, and marrying his father, then a man about town, an * habitue' of Carlton House, a flash speaker in the House, a boon companion of Fox and Sheridan, the third wit at Brookes's, and in the nominal receipt of ten thousand a-year, the whole family took care to cousin her, while they cozened him still more ; for the Whigs of his day were not sufficiently pure to shudder at poor relations, as they have virtuously done, since patronage has succeeded patriotism in their ca- lendar. As for Cecil I confess he had little of the Bubble in him, and had therefore a much more natural leaning towards the Howards, notwith- standing that from the Bubbles came rocking- horses, and Shetland ponies, which gifts were sweetened and cemented with forty-thieve-like jars of marmalade and strawberry jam, and golden tips, upon each of his half yearly flittings from Upper Brook Street to Eaton. Children proverbially delight in Bubbles; it was a wonder then that he should not have doated on such great and glorious ones as these ; even the great-un- known, who lived in the English Siberia, Suffolk and Norfolk, forget not their Christmas con- B 2 4 THE BUDGET OF tributions of turkies, hams, and Ripston pippins; and had * detur pulchriosi' been inscribed upon each of them, they could not have occasioned greater discord between his brothers and him- self than they invariably did. The only one of the family he ever came per- sonally in contact with, was Lord John Bubble, a personage eminently disqualified for winning the youthful heart, whether male or female; his face always reminded him of the scales of his mother's medicine chest, in which her maid used with dun-like punctuality to weigh out for nur- sery consumption, three times a-week, equal por- tions of rhubarb and magnesia; for his hair was of a dingy red, and his face of spotless white, with a good substratum of bilious-looking brass, like the scales aforesaid; and his long, lanky, spiral figure was not inaptly represented by the narrow shadowy strings; his hands were parti- cularly odious, being large, flat and freckled, like the back of a plaice ; and in order effectually to keep them from picking and stealing, he always kept them in his pockets — which were in those days as empty as his head. His summer dress invariably consisted of obliterated nankeens, and gaiters to match, terminated by very thick-soled -shoes, badly cleaned, a bottle-green coat, gilt THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 5 buttons, white cravat, and buff marsalla waist- coat, spotted like a seed-cake. At the time al- luded to, Lord John was five-and-thirty, and considered even by his own party a most unpro- mising youth, but he has since attained to office and to fifty, and he is now looked upon by them as a most promising young man; his voice was thin and hollow, like the north wind whistling through a key-hole; and he had the very dis- agreeable pecularity of never smiling when he bowed, though 1 firmly believe he was solely in- debted to this hiatus in good-breeding for hav- ing since obtained the character of a great states- man and a profound thinker. At least I do not know what else it has arisen from, as the world in general is still unacquainted with the fact of his once having given Cecil a tip of ten pounds for murdering Demosthenes' oration for the liberty of the Rhodians, while he and Mr. How- ard were prosing over their claret. At that moment Cecil certainly thought him the wisest and best of men; and, had the matter been put to the ballot, he would undoubtedly have voted to that effect ; but a boy of fourteen may be for- given for forming a hasty judgment; and ten pound voters then were not a v/hit wiser than they are now. THE BUDGET OF hings were progressing in this state, when his poor mother caught a severe cold at a ball, of which in a few days she died, leaving his father the most resigned of widowers, and an example to all those ill-regulated minds who re wont to indulge in inordinate sorrow on such occasions. His mourning was irreproachable; and his respect to his wife's memory equally so, for he never married again, but devoted himself en- tirely to patriotism, that is, giving dinners to his friends, spending thousands at elections to for- ward the interests of political aspirants of his own party, and beef-staking it at Bellamy's every day of a great ' delicto.' What was the self- immolation of M. Curtius to this? And, verily, he had his reward, for he lived to see the reform bill passed, his friends in office, and himself for- gotten ! The relative position of the first Whig premier prevented his doing any thing for him, even the trifling favour of getting his son Cecil made paid * attache,' after fourteen years pen- nibbing in Spain, Vienna, the United States, and elsewhere ; and each succeeding Whig ca- binet were too indefatigably employed evincing their greatness of mind in conciliating their enemies, to be guilty of tlie vulgar prejudice of attending to their friends. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 7 There is something exceedingly martial in the tactics of Whig policy ; all their achievements are conducted upon the plan of a siege, wherein the scaling-ladder is of no use when once the fortress is gained, and may be thrown aside as soon as possible ; while the weapons so lately hos- tilely pointed against them are secured without loss of time, and taken every possible care of, as the chief depen dance of those at whose destruc- tion they so long had aimed. But death ' aequo pede' knocks at the door of the happy and the unhappy, the prince and the pauper, the for- tunate and the unfortunate; and he called upon Cecil's father, just as his other friends had begun to be less frequent in their visits. Peace be to his manes ! He died, leaving our hero his broken fortunes, two brothers, and a sister unprovided for; and the bitter fruits of his dear-bought experience. To do the world justice, for the first few months after his father's demise, before the house in town, and the villa at Wimbledon were sold, and it was ascertained without a doubt that they were beggars, it was more assiduous than ever in its attentions, and proffers of kind- ness; but the world is a shrewd world, and seems to have the Spanish proverb always ringing in its ear, which says, " Never take to thy arms O THE BUDGET OF him upon whom fortune frowns, lest her displea- sure extend to thyself; for miser}^, like the plague, is apt to be contagious." All that astonished him was, that that portion of society, which is always deemed, and which he had always thought, the most heartless and hollow, namely, the great and the gay, were the only portion of it that continued towards them any particle of that kindness, and good-will, which had formerly greeted them on every side, while the low para- sites, whom their former bounty had fed, fled from them like rats from a sinking ship— thereby proving that puddle-blood will tell in them as in beasts. Lady John Bubble — for Lord John had lately accumulated a wife — and a hundred and twenty- two thousand pounds, kindly recommended that his sister Gertrude should go ' en pension' to some school where she might live cheapl}^, by assisting in the tuition of the pupils! While Lady Mary Leslie, whom Lady John had been indefatigable in warning her against, as a heart- less, extravagant, and improper companion, now came forward in the kindest manner, pressing her to live with her, and assuring her that the obligation was all on her side, as she was too happy to have such a clever, handsome, and agreeable girl staying with her. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. \f Both, his brothers were abroad, and poor Gertrude being thus in a manner provided for, Cecil resolved upon visiting some of the nume- rous zoologicals of his mother's family, scattered about the different parts of the United King- dom. Previous to his leaving London, he how- ever resolved to make one more effort to obtain his brother George's promotion, who had been broiling as a Lieutenant for the last ten years in India. He was sanguine of success, from a great friend of his father's, an old Colonel Drag- glefar, who being Deputy- Adjutant-General, albeit unlike most old Colonels, was the most sentimental of men, and romantically chivalric in his defence of the oppressed, provided their wrongs were literary, or had become historical. With regard to the living he was more prudent, always bearing in mind, that " discretion is the wisest part of valour." His magnanimity with re- gard to the injured, extended even to works of supererogation; for long after Lord Byron had' ceased to be attacked, — but, on the contrary,, when a re-action had taken place in his favour, — he published an elaborate defence of him, which,, however, had the bad effect of throwing an odium upon that mighty name, which its bit- terest enemies had never been able to do before b3 10 THE BUDGET OF —that of ridicule. However, love and litera- ture were the poor Colonel's stumbling-blocks, and he was eternally floundering over the one or the other ; and such sympathy was there in both, that the former always produced the same effect as the latter, and the latter as the former —laughter ! but what was all this to Cecil, when he recollected that in his boyish days, he was wont to rate him as an embryo Cicero ; and that, moreover, upon once landing at Ply- mouth, where he was only to remain two days, he had taken the trouble of posting all the way to Eaton, to see him for half-an-hour ! These were obligations not easily forgotten, at least by one who had never as yet received greater from any of his fellow-creatures ; so accordingly to the Horse-guards he repaired by twelve the next morning, and urged his request with all the eloquence he was master of. Nothing could be more hand-shakingly kind than Dragglefar's re- ception of him ; still he could not but observe, that instead of his former professions of going through fire and water to serve him, capped with a climax of — " Sir, the word difficulty is not to be found in my vocabulary, where a friend is to be served,'* — he had an oracular shrug of the shoulders, and an owl-like elevation THE BUBBLE FAMILY. II of his ludicrously arched eyebrows, as a sort of running accompaniment to '' Why, you see my dear fellow, the bars of military favour are very unbending, but on the wooW'* (as he always called whole), " I'll see what can be done for you ; so don't leave town till you hear from me ; where are you ? eh ?" «* At No.— Wilton Street," said Cecil, put- ling out his hand as he rose to depart. " Good bye, good bye," said the Colonel, going with him to the door, where stretching his neck into the passage, his adieu terminated in " Ho ! Orderly, take this up to the Com- mander-in-Chief's office," placing a large offi- cial packet in the soldier's hand, and waving his own to Cecil, as he retraced his steps into the room, and closed the door. Formerly he would have accompanied him across the court, and have given him a protocol of farewells and professions at the last gate, but ' non sum qualis eram,' thought he ; and how could he expect to find others less changed than himself. The now faint hope of doing something for his brother George, detained him three weeks longer in town; and having resolved upon a visit to the sister-kingdom, he determined upon distributing himself among his relations, and 12 THE BUDGET OF therefore selected some of the Shropshire Bub-, bles for his first experiment, as he could take them 'chemin faisant.' Accordingly he dis- patched an epistle to Sir Romulus Bubble, Bart., of Bubble Hall, Shropshire, a forty-fifth cousin of his mother's, duly apprizing him of his intention, to which he received the following answer by return of post : — '^ To Cecil Bubble Howard, Esq. " No. — Wilton Street, " Belgrave Square, " London. " Dear Cousin Howard, " In reply to your's of yesterday, I have to say, that I and Lady B. shall be happy to see you here as soon as suits convenience, (your convenience understood), as well your cousins Cosmo, Betsey, and Lucy, also their uncle and aunts, my brothers and sisters, Mar- maduke, Lucretia, and Prudence. Sorry to hear of your dreadful accident, hope you won*t be the worse of it all your life ; glad, however, that your sister is going to be so well married, though cork-legs are now brought to such exactness, no one would ever be the wiser as I'm told. Have goodness to bring me the last THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 13 number of the Sporting Magazine, and a guinea cannister of Lundy foot's Irish Blackguard, which is to be had at Pontet's, in Pall-Mall. " Your affectionate Cousin, ** Romulus Bubble. " P.S. Dine at seven precisely. ** P.S. Though I hope no pharisee, I'm cer- tainly not a scribe as you'll see ; for, on looking over this, I find I've put the cork-leg in the wrong place, but of course you'll understand its meant for you, and not your sister, or the Had this precious document been written in Hebrew, it would have been equally intelligible to Cecil ; and the explanatory postscript respect- ing himself and the cork-leg, only made ' con- fusion worse confounded ;' however, the part he did understand, namely, that about the com- missions, he lost no time in attending to — so having ordered his servant Girouette (who, though a Frenchman and a fop, would not for- sake him in his fallen fortunes), to take places in the Salopian coach for the next morning, he sallied forth to execute the worthy Baronet's commissions. Just as he was crossing from the colonnade of the Opera to go to^Pontet's, Drag- M THE BUDGET OF glefar, " with his long sword, saddle, bridle," gallopped past him at such a rate, that he nearly rode over him; but seeing him, or rather two very pretty women getting out of their carriage to go into a shop, he pulled up with an " Ah, my dear Howard, delighted to see you. Sorry Tvebeen unsuccessful about your brother," (this was his first intimation of the fact.) ** Tve called on you repeatedly at Brookes' s, but have never been fortunate enough to find you." ** I don't live at Brookes's," said Cecil coldly, and fixing his eyes steadily upon him. " Ah true — well, a — but I've not been very well," said this veracious friend, stroaking the gold lace down his right leg, though he had met him on an average three times a-week riding out to Richmond, "and a — I — a could not get as far as your end of the town." " Good morning. Colonel Dragglefar," said Cecil, taking off his hat in the most respectful manner, as he turned into Pontet's, in quest of the other blackguard specified in Sir Romulus Bubble's commission. On his return home, he found Girouette sur- rounded by a chaos of portmanteaus, carpet- bags, and dressing -boxes, perched upon one of the former, mopping his forehead with a silk THE BUBBLE FAMILY. IJ5 pocket-handkerchief, and looking the very type and picture of desolation. " Well Girouette," said he, " have you taken the places for to- morrow?'* '^ Ah yes, I take dem, but a — Monsieur nevere like him !'* « Like who ?" said Cecil. " Dat vieille canaille de coach.'* " Why ?" enquired his master, endeavouring not to laugh. '* Ah bah ! c'est une chose ridicule meme a voir. No reading lamp, no maniere de faire une dormeuse." — " No, noting tall." ** As to that, Girouette," said he soothingly, " one cannot expect a public conveyance to be either as convenient or as comfortable as one's own carriaoje.*' ** Ah yes, dere it is comfortable comfortable ; et ce maudit coach, he know noting tall bout comfortable ;" and here poor Girouette recom- menced folding and unfolding divers and sun- dry waistcoats and pairs of stockings which lay macadamized about the room — lifrhteninG: his labours with a few half muttered ' sacres,' which burst into audible thunder at some half-dozen successive knocks as the dressino-room door — o all of which heralded in long parallelogram ish 10 THE BUDGET OF bluish paper letters, branded with the dim in- signia of red and yellow wafers, which instead of handing to his master, he pettishly threw upon the table. " Who are those letters for ?" said Cecil. *' Pardon, Monsieur, they are no lettre tall, dey are only bills." " I'm afraid," said he, smiling, as he walked over to the table, and opened them one after another, '' they have been ordered to lay on the table so often that they must be passed at last." " Well, den, saire, pass dem over till your return to town." No bad idea this, but like many other fine conceptions, it was admirable in theory, with the slight drawback of being impracticable. '' I have no time just now, in the hurry of packing, for metaphysics," thought Cecil; "but query, did Bishop Berkeley, or Kant, ever pay a bill? — No — Q. E. D. — or they never would have raved the anti-reality nonsense they did ; for when one's purse becomes a RepubHc, and one's last sovereign has quitted the ' bel retiro' of its silken domicile, in the discharge of some odious debt — how touching is the Ophelia-like vacuity of that purse ! to look upon it, one could almost fancy we heard it exclaim with Medora, THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 17 * It is 710 dream, and I am desolate !' " Apropos of dreams, having to rise at six the next morning, Cecil thought it as well to go to bed at a primitive hour; but alas! like the hero in Lover*s charming song of Molly Carew : — ** There was no use at all in his going to bed, For 'twas dreams and not sleep that came into his head. '' He turned and tossed, and tossed and turned, and in that half-real half-imaginary phantasma- goria which passes through one's brain between sleeping and waking — at one moment he beheld Lord John Bubble in all his senatorial dignity, standing up in his place in the House, advocating the rights of his injured countrymen; and pro- posing, in a torrent of eloquence, which came on his sleeping ear like the sound of the Falls of Niagara, as heard forty miles off — that the tax be taken off French brandy, and laid upon English mouse-traps — *' hear, hea?-," from the opposition benches, whilst a murmur of disap- probation arose among the tail, and Mr O'Con- nel's voice was heard, sweet as the '* first flower of the earth," and clear as the first ^^jwi of the srty," above it all, exclaiming " Oh murder, murder, he'll be at the r«^-traps next, and that'll be contimpt of the House. Sure, and then we'll have to divide (no great matter for that, to be 18 THE BUDGET OF sure, as Til still govern), but if we've to taK.e the sense of the House, what'U we do then? for ' ex nihilo nihil fit ;' for, as the landlord of the Crown and Py, said of the small-beer, the last time I went down to Derrynane, ' Sure tvhafs in it is out,^ " Still Lord John's elo- quence flowed " on and on for ever," like the mighty torrent already alluded to, and still his right hand thumped with convincing effect the table-rock of the House of Commons, while his ample shirt-collar rising like the white cliffs of his native isle, far above his ears, seemed to give a broad and decisive negative to any modern Marc Antony who should ask him to " lend him his ears." But lo ! " a change came o'er the spirit of his dream" — St. Stephen's vanished, Lord John's voice was hushed, and Cecil him- self was bounding about a smooth green " plai- saunce'' with Betsey Bubble, whose hands he thought were red — but oh her nose was redder Lucy was thumping Sir Roger De Coverly on a spinet ; and Lady Bubble, a sort of tableau- vivant of the dome of St. Paul's — her face being the cross on the top of it, was playing piquet with an umbrella-like looking old gentleman by the fire ; which, strange to say, with the spinet, formed part of the alfresco paraphernalia of THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 19 Bubble Hall, as represented in his dream. Pre- sently Sir Romulus himself entered. His ^ahord^ was pie-bald with awe and affability : he ad- vanced — Howard advanced — he extended his hand, Cecil extended his, and grasped — an enor- mous cork-leg ! — this was too much ! He awoke with a start, and found Girouette shivering by his bed-side, telling him that the sun had risen, and it was time he should follow his example, as the Rocket coach started at six. '' Starts at six does it?" said he, starting with horror, as he jumped out of bed and began his hasty toilet. Arrived at the White Horse Cellar, Cecil looked in vain for one of those pretty, interest- ing, mysterious, and captivating looking young ladies, who invariably form one of the pas- sengers of every mail-coach in a novel — but alas ! he only saw a very fat lady in a snufF- coloured cloth pelisse, the waist of which re- sembled " the soul of wit," inasmuch as that brevity was its chief characteristic. Her head- gear consisted of what (he has since learned from Sally the house-maid at Bubble Hall), is called a Tuscan straw-bonnet, and black lace veil; her capillary ornaments were a few mangy looking dun-coloured ringlets, ycleped by ladies 20 THE BUDGET OF on the other side Temple Bar, « a front ;' — her eyes were a h'ghtish green, something like badly bottled gooseberries, to which her ample and peony tinged cheeks, formed a glowing con- trast, rising rampant as they did on either side of a nose, not unlike a white-washed ace of clubs ; her upper lip, notwithstanding it pro- jected like the spout of a butter-boat, was never- theless eclipsed by the upper one, which had two long buttress-like teeth to prop it up or rather out — her wrists were protected against the morning air by a pair of buff worsted "com- forters," which forming a border as it were to her fresh, red, raw, damp-looking fat hands, gave them the exact appearance of a nice ten- der beef-steak just severed from the rear of a defunct ox in Mr. Giblet's shop; while the thick and tightly laced black leather boots in which her feet were ensconced, evinced that feline antipathy to wet feet, which most of the biped portion of the tribe have in common with their quadruped peers. A flat, narrow, and high covered basket, a green cotton umbrella, and a short stumpy apple-pudding faced boy, with a white night-cap surmounted by a brown beaver hat, secured to his head by the protect- ing medium of a pink and white cross-barred THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 21 cotton pocket-handkerchief, seemed the pecu- liar care of this ^' interesting female," as the police-reports have it, in cases of infanticide. Just as he arrived, the guard vi^as in the act of shampooing the fat lady into the coach, while the coachman was bawling out, '' I say, Marm, that ere basket of happles can never go hinside, unless so be as the young gemman likes to go houtside, for there haint no room for it, haint indeed." '« Ho ! dear, ho ! dear," said the fat lady, almost retrograding, to the frustration of the guard's long and arduous labours, " ho ! dear, my James can jiiver go for to ride houtside. What would Mrs. Whabble and the Major say, if they heerd on it ? for poor dear child he's so delicate like, and haint been used to no such thing." " Vel then, marm," responded John, with a chuckle at his own wit, as he shoved the basket of apples on the top of the coach, " the happles wont take no hurt from a little fresh hair ; cause vy? they been used to be houtside passengers." This important matter being arranged, and *' James" having been stowed by the side of the fat lady (who from the reverential fears expressed by her of Mrs. Whabble and the Major, was 22 THE BUDGET OF evidently not the maternal perpetrator of the night-capped youth), Cecil turned lo reconnoitre his other * compagnon de voyage,' who was pa- tiently waiting his turn to get into the coach. He was a tall, dingy, bilious-looking man, of about six-and-twenty, who, judging by his un- shorn chin and ebony-tipped nails, laboured under a sort of personal hydrophobia; a long French cloak was flung over his left shoulder, while a large anchor of brilliants, attached by a chain to an ample heart, of the same costly gems, transfixed with an arrow (which gave it much the appearance of a plump widgeon ready skewered for the spit), adorned a rather Ethiopian looking shirt ; under his arm was a bright purple silk umbrella, with a pink border, carefully protected by a cover of the same ; in his right hand was what (if we could have suspected a man of his appearance of such a thing), would have been taken for a dressing-box. Seeing a large brass plate upon it, Cecil could not resist reading the following inscription : " Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson, Esq. M. C. B. W. New York." While he was puzzling his brain to know what the M. C. and B. W. could possibly mean, and just as he was deciding that M. C. stood godfather to master of the ceremonies all the THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 23 world over, Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washing- ton Simpson put down the box in question, and withdrew from a fob, deep, dark (and it might be dangerous) as the Gulf of Mexico, a blue enamel watch, set round with pearls, the watch itself being about the size in diameter and flatness of a breakfast plate. Instead of the ordinary black Roman numbers, which designate the hours, they were allegorically, poetically, and tastefully represented by small roses, and " Forget-me- nots," wreathed into figures on the showy dial plate ; in the centre of which, in plain unadorned black copperplate, stood the following announce- ment: — John Scraggs, Maker, Philadelphia. This beautiful touch of simplicity, in the midst of so much magnificence, could not fail to remind one of the story of the eastern king, who caused a triumphal arch of the utmost splendor to be built, whereon was emblazoned his name and his achievements ! But lo ! the tide of ages swept over it, the splendor vanished, and dust was in its stead; but, within the keystone of the arch, appeared, what the pomp of its former greatness had hitherto concealed, the name of the archi- tect, in small deep unobtrusive letters. So, 24 THE BUDGET OF thought Cecil, will it be with Mr. Walter Scotl Byron Washington Simpson^s watch, when its flowers shall have faded, " as fade they must ;" and when its glories shall have passed away, then shall the name (hallowed by the classic touch of time) of John Scroggs alone stand forth to tell of the mighty things that were !" There is no knowing to what altitudes such a sublime train of thought might have led him, had not . Mr, Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson, at that moment having finished winding his beautiful parterre of a watch, and replunged it into its broad- cloth abyss, accosted him with much nasal dulcetness in the following words; — " Are you part of our fare, sir, cause I calcu- late we're full late as it is, so you'd better get in, unless you are going outside." Cecil having proclaimed his destination to be inside, he made way for Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson to enter the vehicle ; but he with equal consideration and good-breeding gave place to him, which was an additional corroboration in his mind, of his being a Mas- ter of the Ceremonies, with whom, as he once heard an old lady at Margate remark, " man- ners is everythingy So in he got, followed by Simpson and Co. that is, himself, his watch, THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 25 his diamond shirt anchorage, his brass-plated box, and his cerulean umbrella. The fat lady was busily employed in tugging at Master Whabble's nose, with a thick cotton pocket- handkerchief, which had other military symp- toms about it besides being scarlet, for it had evident marks of having been for some time on active service. After every blow, Master Whab- ble impartially divided his attentions between a large Bath bun that he held in his right hand, and a large green apple that graced his left ; and the considerate fat lady filled up the interr stices by cramming lumps of Spanish liquorice into his mouths — announcing as she did so, that it was the best possible thing for a cold ; while the liquorice oozing out of the corners of his mouth, "cast a browner honour" over his already lachrymose face. A negative turn of the head on the part of the fortunate youth, had just given his fat friend unequivocally to understand that he " could no more ;" Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson had buttoned the last button of his bran-new and most respectable spinach-green surtout; Cecil had pulled down the moleskin ears of his ojreen-velvet travellins: cap, and all things seemed ready for their de- parture, when Girouette opened the coach-door, leading poor Bruno, a large black blood-hound VOL. I. c 26 THE BUDGET OF of his master's, by a silk handkerchief, and thrusting his head into the vehicle, extended his hand with an inviting air to Master Whabble, while he addressed the fat lady in the blandest tones to the following effect : — " If de little bon homme wil come on de top, it will be more * agreable' to Monsieur to have de dog inside.'* The substance of this speech had to be repeated tv/ice, before the fat lady could prevail upon herself to comprehend that such an inhuman proposition could be addressed to her ; however, at length closing her lips, as nearly as her teeth would allow, in order to open them again, with a torrent of abuse upon poor Girouette, she thus began : " Why did I ever ! veil such a piece of hinsolence I never heerd on in hall my born days ; but all them furrineers is the most hun- natteralist houtlandishest creturs as hever vas, for to go for to turn bout a christian to make room for a dum hanimal has haint paid for his place nor nothink — but its plain to see, munseer, as you haint no nature, or children, or wife, or nothink." Here the eloquent speaker was com- pelled to pause for want of breath ; but true to her charge, she kept a convulsive grasp of Mas- ter Whabble's shoulder. " Why no," said Girouette, with the most provoking calmness, as he pushed Bruno into THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 27 the coacbj " I have not got no natural children, but for a wife, yes ; I have been married dese ten year ; my wife is dirty (thirty), and I am dirty two." " Oh ! as to that," said the fat lady, " I haint no doubt whatever of you and your wife both being dirty, for hall you furrineers his nasty filthy creturs." Here she gave a practical illustration of the superiority of English cleanliness, by another tug at Master Whabble's nose, with the antique Tyrian purple handkerchief aforesaid. As soon as the convulsion of laughter Cecil was in would allow him to speak, he interfered, commanding Girouette to take Bruno outside with him, and leave Master Whabble in unmolested possession of the place he had paid for. Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson, at the same time turning to him, and observing, as he panto- mimically washed his hands, " Well sir, I think you've done the right thing, for we gentlemen must not allow the ladies to be annoyed in any way we can prevent. I hope, ma'am, my legs are not in your way ?" continued he, addressing the fat lady with a graceful jerk of the knees, which Cecil thought could only belong to the master of the ceremonies at New York. " Oh dear no, not at all, sir, by no means," c 2 28 THE BUDGET OF responded the fat lady, " I have been so used to Mr. Jinks, my usband's legs, which is so terrible long, that I thinks nothink of any one helses." Peace being restored through the " polite attentions," or as Mrs. Jinks expressed it, the genteel behaviour of Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson ; and the " all right " of the guard having been answered by the crack of the coachman's whip, the party at length found themselves ' en route.' Cecil was lost in a reverie, painting the Miss Bubbles in the colours of his own imagination. — Betsy he had dashed in, in good broad touches, as a brown bouncing dairy-maid-looking girl ; — Lucy was tall, fair, and sentimental, with those half soft, half sparkling play-the-d — 1 kind of eyes, which always convey to one the idea of nature's having paused over their creation, un- certain whether their possessor should be a victim or a vixen ; and budding and blooming like a moss rose in June, all blushes, dimples, and timidity. He was just giving the last ' piquante ' turn to her nose, when he was in- terrupted by the nasal tones of Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson's voice, pro- pounding the following query :—" Going all the way to Ireland, sir, or only going as far as Shropshire ? " Recollecting Benjamin Franklin's THE BUBBLE FAIMILY. 29 grand junction preventive safety-valve for Yankee curiosity, he adopted it, by responding in a clear and audible voice, " I live in Wilton- street when in London ; I am not going to Ireland at present, but intend doing so eventually; to-day I go no further than Bubble Hall, in Shropshire, on a visit to a relation of mine." " Oh indeed, sir ! " said Mr. Simpson, evi- dently disappointed that he had not been allowed transatlantically to acquire this im- portant intelligence by interrogatory instal- ments; and then ensued a pause of some minutes, when Simpson resumed, — " This is mp^rst visit to Europe, sir, and I confess I am much sur- prised at the freedom and immorality of Europe- yan (vulgo European) manners." " Bad enough, certainly," agreed Cecil. *« Then I'm also greatly surprised at the effeminacy of EngHsh gentlemen ; — you'll ex- cuse me, sir, but I mean in hi(/h life.'^ ( ! ) " I cannot coincide in that opinion," replied Cecil, " for I think manliness of character and bearing is almost the only ancestral virtue left to us; but what is it, may I ask, that has im- pressed you with such an unfavourable idea of us? " "Oh sir," responded Mr. Simpson, still 30 THE BUDGET OF politely taking the utmost pains to exclude Cecil from the upper classes ; *' I only mean those chaps in the fashionable world; for what can be more effeminate than shaving every day, and dressing for dinner ? " With difficulty preventing himself from laughing outright, Mr. Howard ventured to suggest, that according to his notions, there could not well be a more unfeminine pro- ceeding than that of shaving, but his Yankee opponent was not to be bearded out of his opinion. Curiosity certainly must be infectious, for Cecil was waxing exceedingly anxious to know the exact meaning of the mystic letters inscribed upon Mr. Simpson's dressing box, or whatever box it was he held upon his knee ; but not having had the good fortune to be born at the other side of the Atlantic, he was vainly endeavouring to hit upon an expedient whereby he might appease his curiosity, v\^hen Master Whabble, for the first time, favoured them with the sound of his voice, by saying, as he crammed the last lump of apple into his mouth, and pointing with his thereby vacant hand to Mr. Simpson's box, — '^ I say, gran ma, what do them letters mean ?" *' My dear James, niver pint," said the Chesterfieldian Mrs. Jinks, without even at- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 81 tempting to convey to her grandson the know-^ ledge for which he was thirsting; ''it haint genteel ; but I'm sure, sir, you're too purlite not to hexcuse him?'' Simpson nodded assent; while James re- turned to the charge, by reiterating in his former contralto drawl, '^ Yes, but 1 say, what are them letters though ?" " Those letters, my little man," said Mr. Simpson, with the most winning affability, " those letters after my name, stand for, Memr ber of Congress, Broadway, New York ; — Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson, Member of Congress, Broadway, New York." " Oh !" grunted James, evidently no wiser than he had been before, as he leant his head on Mrs. Jinks's shoulder, and returned tenderly and confidingly into his left hand the only thing in the world that he did seem to under- stand, namely, the Bath bun, which he had been previously discussing. From the moment Cecil Howard discovered the interesting fact of Mr. Simpson's being a member of Congress, the conversation became political ; Mr. Walter Scott Byron Washington Simpson lauding a rep ublic beyond every other form of govern- ment, and stoutly refuting Cecil's objection, that 32 THE BUDGET OF some nations were essentially anti-republican in their feeling. *' No, sir, no," said Mr. Simpson, empha- tically thumping the large square box on his lap ; *' I will never believe that a republic is not the natural order of things ; why the very birds of the air give us an example of this; storks, for instance, will only live in republics or free states." " I am aware," said Cecil, '' that this was an old notion, contrived to advance the opinion of popular policies ; and, from antipathies in nature, to disparage monarchical governments ; but that there was no truth in these assertions, I think may be clearly proved ; for instance, Pliny assures us, that among the Thessalians, who were governed by kings, and much abounded with serpents, it was no less than capital to kill a stork ; and that the ancient Egyptians honoured them, whose government was from all times monarchical. Bellonius, too, asserts that the Gauls used to make nests for them ; besides, in Persia and Turkey they abound ; and even Jeremiah speaks thus to his countrymen, whose government was at that time monarchical : ' The stork in the heaven knoweth her ap- pointed times ; * all of which, I think, proves THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 33 beyond dispute, that storks, as well as statesmen, may flourish under a monarchical government." " Well, sir," said Mr. Simpson, gracefully drawing the back of his hand across his nose, ''you've got a-head of me there I confess; and I suppose the fable of king Log and king Stork had its origin in the facts you have just adduced," continued he, chuckling at what he thought a keen and brilliant piece of satire ; " but in literature, sir, in literature it is different ; genius can't, and won't be fettered, for which reason you hear of the republic of letters, and not the kingdom of letters.^' " I rather suspect," rejoined Cecil, smiling, " Hood's derivation of that phrase is the true one." " What may that be, sir ?" asked Mr. Simpson. " Why that it is called the republic of letters, because authors are such poor devils, that they have not a sovereign amongst them." Mr. Simpson was bent upon supporting his dignity; consequently, instead of the laugh Cecil expected, he assumed a most owl-like gravity, and waving the subject altogether, after rum- maging for some time in his right-hand waistcoat pocket, he withdrew from it a large round copper medal, which he handed to his com- panion, saying, — c3 S4 THE BUDGET OF '•' A beautiful thing, sir, is it not ? " In the centre of the medal stood a lion, with a tail that looked as if it had discovered the lon- gitude; over him was the following inscription: MY STRENGTH IS IN MY spa, the Greek word for tail; while round this beautiful and truly original device, was a border of round spots and shamrocks. '' What may it allude to ?" inquired Cecil. " The reverse side will tell you, sir," replied Mr. Simpson, waving his hand with great dignity ; and accordingly he turned the medal, and read the following inscription : — TO DANIEL O'CONNELL, THE GREATEST MAN OF THE AGE, THE AGITATOR OF IRELAND AND THE RULER OF ENGLAND; THIS TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM AND APPROBATION IS INSCRIBED BY TWENTY AMERICAN GENTLEMEN I Never did mortal run so great a risk of being choked by suppressed laughter, as did Cecil Howard, after the perusal of this grandiloquent inscription, terminating in twenty American gentlemen ! for he could not help applying to it Horace Wal pole's critique upon " VHonnele THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 34t Criminel ;" " Mais ce que je trouve delectable c'est le laDgage, qui est partout d'un prosa'ique bas, et meme rampant." But burying his face within the friendly folds of his pocket hand- kerchief, he at length ventured to ask what the round spots between the shamrocks might signify? '* That, sir," said Mr. Simpson triumphantly, "is the most beautiful part of the design ; it is a complimentary allusion to Mr. O'Connell's favourite quotation of ' First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea:' the allusion is this, sir, that the shamrock is the first flower of the earth; and those round spots are meant for pearls, which are unquestionably the first, and indeed, I believe, the only gems of the sea ; for coral can scarcely be called a gem, and those that have got to the bottom of it by ship- wrecks, of course don't count." This was too much; and Cecil was compelled to put his head out of the window and laugh at his ease; when he drew it in again, Mr. Simp- son had replaced the medal ; — and Mrs. Jinks was gently chiding Master Whabble for kicking the flat square basket which reclined at his feet ; and then turning to Mr. Simpson, her face glowing with virtuous indignation, she ex- claimed, — **I must say, sir, begging your pardon, they 36 THE BUDGET OF can have but very little sense in Amerrykey, to be giving of medals to sich a feller as Ho'Connell, the most desperatest, deceivingest Radical as ever was ; I've no patience with him, I can't a bear his very name ; no wonder them poor hignorant Hirish goes on cutting heach bother's throats, when sich a feller as that leads them by the nose; — no, no, as my son-in-law, Major Whabble, says, king and country is my motter, or queen and country I 'spose it is now : but dear, dear, to think if the major know'd of Ho'Connell getting a medal, Hi'me sure he'd never wear his own Waterloo or Talewera medal again ; — James, my love, don't ee kick that ere basket so, there's a good feller." " Why, ma'am,'* replied Mr. Simpson with a smile of pitying contempt, *'I am sorry to differ from the ladies whenever it can be avoided, but in this instance, I must say I differ 'in toto;' and I think, if you live to eat a few more Christmas dinners, so will you ; — for as one of our great American poets beautifully observes — * A yellow stream of golden light now floods the world.*" " I don't know if it is a yellow stream of golden light," said Cecil, " but a yellow stream of something certainly floods the coach ; for look here," continued he, lifting up the corner of Mr. Simpson's long spinach-coloured vest- ment, which was dabbled in a saffron tide. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 37 " Oh dear ! oh dear ! " exclaimed Mrs. Jinks, *■ if you haint a broke all them new heggs, James, as hi was a taking to your poor ma ; — dear sir ! Hi'me so sorry, but your coat won't be nothink the worse if you'll let me rub it a bit?** Here the handkerchief that had been so in- defatigably active and zealous in the service of James' nose, was stretched out for the purpose; but even Mr. Simpson, with all his transatlantic notions of freedom, and prejudices in favour of a community of goods, shrank from the con- tamination of its touch, as he vented his spleen with — " Well ! I've heard of coals to Newcastle, but I never before heard of taking eggs from London to the country !'* *' Oh ! law, sir, my Jane, like myself, was born in Lunnun, and she never fancies heggs nor no- think else good hout of Lunnun ; but, indeed, sir, Hi'me sorry for your coat. James, my dear, I was afear'd you'd break 'em a kicking of the basket so, but tell the gentleman as you're sorry for it, and don't cry, don't ee, there's a dear. 1 knew no good would come of talking of that feller Ho'Connell," muttered Mrs. Jinks, as she mopped up " the golden flood" with the hand- kerchief of all work. "Pooh! what a smell!" exclaimed Mr. Simpson. " * There is something rotten in the state of 66 THE BUDGET OF Denmark,'" said Howard, opening the window to let in a little fresh air. "Egzacly,' cried Mrs. Jinks, '^ that's jist what the major always says (out of some play-book, you know, sir) whenever he reads of Ho'Con- nell's goings hon in the noosepapers." Mr. Simpson, as nmch to put an end to Mrs. Jink's animadversions on Ho'Connell, as to evince his forgiving spirit, turned to Master Whabble with Utopian benevolence, begging he would dry his tears, as his coat was of no consequence. ^'I haint crying about your coat," responded that amiable youth, " I'm crying for ma's eggs, for I know she'd have given me five shillings for remembering them," and so saying, he turned his right shoulder full in Mr. Simpson's face; but philanthropy like his was not to be vanquished by a cold shoulder ; therefore, resuming with a seraphic smile, he said, " Come, my little man, let us see if you and I can't find out somethinsf." " What?" drawled Master Whabble, half turn- ing his face round with a conflicting expression of sulk and curiosity. " Why, suppose now," said Mr. Simpson, ma- king a pendulum of the fore-finger of his right hand against the thumb of his left, " suppose Queen Anne had given £500 among her sol- diers that were wounded at the battle of Hoch- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 39 sted, and that there were in all three hundred men ; that is, two hundred and seventy-five pri- vates, twelve Sergeants, three Ensigns, four Lieu- tenants, and two Captains, and that each Ser- geant had three times as much as a private, each Ensign five times as much, each Lieutenant seven times as much, and a Captain nine times as much, how much would each of them have had, eh ?" asked Mr. Simpson, who, like Sir Kenelm Dig- by, seemed a "gentleman absolute in all num- bers." No answer from Master Whabble, but his eyes and mouth opened wide and vacantly, after the fashion of a galvanized corpse. "^ Well, then," resumed Mr. Simpson, *^ I think it must be this way. Suppose each private soldier had £l, then the number of them being two hundred and seventy-nine, they must have had £279 amongst them, the twelve Sergeants £86, the three Ensigns £15, the four Lieuten- ants ^£28, and the two Captains £24 ; now all this makes but £382, and it should have made £500 ; therefore say by a rule of three if £382 are derived from one, whence are derived £500 ? and you will find Ul or £1. Gs. ^g^ for each sol- dier's share, which being known, all the rest is easily known." Here Mr. Simpson paused, stroking his chin most complacently. Cecil no longer wondered at 40 THE BUDGET OF the frequent use the Americans make of the phrase " I calculate ;" but this arithmetical pro- blem, which Mr. Simpson had solved so much to his own satisfaction, seemed to have a very different effect upon Master Whabble, for, burst- ing into a roar of crying, his face was again hid upon Mrs. Jinks's shoulder. " James, my love, James, what his the matter ? the gentleman was only trying in the purlitest manner to amuse you." " I know he was mocking me,'* whimpered James, " for I can't a bear rethmatic, and he knows it." " Oh, fie ! fie ! James, my dear, how should he know it ?" *' 'Cause every body knows it," logically re- sponded James. '* Law, my dear," said Mrs. Jinks, soothingly, applying the eternal handkerchief to James's eyes, "I'm sure the gentleman is too genteel not to take you for a better scholard than to spose sich a think as you could dislike rethmatic, and I hope you will never let your grand-father Jinks hear you say nothink of the sort, for how would he a made all his money if it hadn't been for rethmatic? and Hi'm sure, sir," continued she, turning to Mr. Simpson, '* my Jinks would have been hedified had he heer'dyour puzzle, for he'd THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 41 a h understood hevery cipher of it, and tho' it was quite beyond my conception and hunderstanding, yet I feel hextremely himproved and obleeged to you for it." Mr. Simpson looked appeased at this just and flattering tribute to his talents, and nothing of any further importance occurred till they reach- ed Cheltenham, where, while changing horses at the Plough, Mrs. Jinks presented Master Whab- ble with a lump of bread and two legs of cold goose, observing, as she placed one in either hand, '' that she was sure the poor dear child must be starved !" Girouette opened the door to know if his master wanted any thing, and re- ceived an order for some soda water, which hav- ing brought, the coach again proceeded, and Mr. Simpson dropt into an abstruse sleep: his exam- ple soon after being followed by Mrs. Jinks and her grand-son, a charming concert ensued, which lasted all the way to Shrewsbury; the thorough- bass of Mr. Simpson, accompanied as it was by Master Whabble's tenor, and Mrs. Jinks's fal- setto, formed, " take it all in all," a melody not likely to be heard again in that short span of time the life of one individual; — and, therefore, being like the Apollo of Belvidere, unique, it long retained a chamber to itself in the memory of Cecil Howard. 42 THE BUDGET OF CHAPTER II. " Trouble not yourself with wishing that thhigs may be just as you would have them, but be well pleased they should be just as they are, and then you will live easie." — Epictetus. "Authority and reason on her wait/* — Milton. " Poor legs ! how should they ! such an unmerciful load !" Schiller's Piccolomlni. BUBBLE HALL. A MEETING WHICH SHEWETH THE GOOD EFFECTS OF DOING AS OTHER PEOPLE DO AND HOW BE- NEFICIAL IS THE CRY OF 'a LA LANTERNE' WHEN NOT UTTERED ON REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES. AUNTS AND ANTIDOTES IN THEIR RELATIVE POSITIONS. SUP- PER AND SUPPOSITIONS. LADY BUBBLE, WHO HAD BEEN A BELLE IN 1798. It was dark when the coach stopped at the Talbot, at Shrewsbury ; therefore the friendly wag of welcome the broken tail of the stone dog gives to every vehicle that drives up to the door, from the motion occasioned thereby, was lost on Cecil and his travelling companions. " Well, so here you are at last, and I've been here with the gig this half hour — heavy baggage always slow, as I tell Mrs. W : ha ! ha ! ha !" This speech was addressed to Mrs. Jinks by a lanky gentleman much resembling a snipe upon a hop-pole, in a foraging cap, blue military THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 43 surtout, and sash, whose identity was proved as that of Major Whabble, by James having ad- dressed to him the endearing epithet of " pa,'* as he clapped his hands, kicked Mr. Simpson's an- cles, and vociferated, " take me out, take me out !" No sooner had James been placed on terra firma, and desisted from clawing his father, than the latter held out both his hands to help Mrs. Jinks to alight, Mr. Simpson kindly applying his knee to her back, and his hands to her shoulders from within, to assist in the 'tableau vivant' of Multum in parvo which she had got up in the door way of the coach. The first step had been reached, with a loud " Oh !" of great exertion on the part of Mrs. Jinks, when, un- fortunately, her nether drapery hitched against an iron knob, and displayed such an unusual portion of her ancles, that, although she herself could see nothing, the delicacy of her feelings caused her nerves to be much more overcome than those of the waiter and Boots, who stood with a candle at each side of her feet. Now it so happened in this delicate distress,, she called so loudly and incoherently for assistance, that the chivalric gallantry of both waiter and Boots clashed upon the occasion, and in their hurry to seize Mrs. Jinks's rebellious garment and bring it down to its proper level, the candles met, and 44 THE BUDGET OF the wind (which also seemed hurried out of its usual course) blew the flame upwards, which, with the subtilty of that mysterious element, was the first to catch Mrs. Jinks's truant petti- coat, and circle it in its destructive clasp. Des- perate cases require desperate remedies. Boots, who, albeit, was no Hercules, rushed forward, dropped the sheepish incendiary, and honorably determining to smother the flame he had so un- intentionally raised, clasped Mrs. Jinks's 'torso' in his arms ! Betwixt Are and fustian never had she endured so warm an embrace before. What wonder, then, if her feelings overpowered her ? and with one mighty effort she emancipated her- self from the door way. The shock was electric, and communicated itself to her gallant extin- guisher, who instantly measured his full length on the pavement, flooring in his downward course the elongated figure of Major Whabble; and there they both lay, bruised and breathless, surmount- ed by the " too, too solid flesh" of Mrs. Jinks ! '' Bless me, mum," said Mr. Simpson, spring- ing out of the coach, " I hope you're not hurt?" " Hurt !" gasped Mrs. Jinks, digging her right elbow into Boot's chest, in order to raise herself, heedless of the agonized ejaculation that issued from that much put upon individual, — *' Hurt ! THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 45 what a question to ask a person as has been burnt and bruised to death ?" « I say, Sam," said the guard, with a wink to the coachman, " I never knowed the Rocket to blow up before, long as we've come this here road — but lend a hand here to help the lady up will ee, afore them boot parcels is quite suf- focated." Sam and the guard being both strong men, so effectually tugged at Mrs. Jinks's arms, as at the end of five minutes to have succeeded in re- placing her on her feet, to the no small relief of Boots and Major Whabble. «' Let me persuade you, mum,'* said the ever polite Simpson, *« to take a glass of brandy and water pretty stiff." " Stiff!'' shrieked Mrs. Jinks, ' sir, from it." " Well, then," said Cecil, with a face grave and dignified as that of a judge, " I wish you would call there, — ask to see Mrs. Jinks and Mrs. Whabble, and say that I took the liberty of sending you, merely to tell them, that the pelisses mostly worn by ladies of fashion, now in London, are pepper-and-salt coloured cloth, like your jacket, braided with black. Lady Davenent," continued he, writing the names on 230 THE BUDGET OF a card as he spoke, " the Duchess of Honiton, Lady Mary Marsham, Lady Lucy Leitrim, the Duchess of Arhngton, and the young Fitz- noodles, her sons, all wear them, and I think they would be particularly becoming to Mrs. Jinks and Mrs. Whabble." " Eh, sir," exclaimed Archy, throwing up his hands, and at the same time bowing down to the ground, " I don't doot but yer as gude os Miss Manners, God bless her ! who got me to mak a reegemental hobit for Mrs. Whabble; but I suppose she thenks it too gude to wear, as I neever see her in it.'* " Well, I shall be sadly disappointed if I don't see her in the pepper and-salt-pelisse,'* said Cecil, " and you may tell her so." " Mony, mony thanks, sir, I'll not fail." And this time Archy bowed himself out of the room in good earnest, delighted at the antici- pated harvest he should reap at Gorget Cottage. " Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Cecil, flinging him- self back in his chair, as soon as he thought Archy was out of hearing, '^ Mrs. Jinks and her daughter will never be proof against all the duchesses and countesses I have traduced into pepper-and-salt cloth pelisses! and your poor friend will make his fortune." " The Lord grant it may be so," said Mr. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. ^31 McPhiii abstractedly, as he paced up and down the room, with his hands again behind his back, and his eyes again bent upon the floor, " but, eh ! sir, fortunes are easier marred than made!" The servants now came to lay the breakfast, and seeing that Mr. McPhin had no intention either of conversing or of leaving the room, Cecil recollected that Theresa must pass through the hall, and therefore repaired thither, and began pushing about the billiard balls; but, strange to say, one after another appeared, but Theresa did not appear. Cecil was growing almost angry from disappointment: — she should have known by intuition that he had been up since eight o'clock, and meant to propose for her. At length, as much to avoid Miss Prudence's remonstrances about remaining in the hall, when breakfast was ready, as to pursue a dig- nified line of conduct, he returned into the breakfast room. '' Oh, dear!" exclaimed Prudence, as soon as she was seated, " how very late Theresa is this morning, I never knew her so before; I take it particklar unkind of her not to be up in time to wish me joy on my birth-day ; I assure you i mean what I say. Now 1 'should have been down half an hour ago, but that I always say an extra prayer for myself on my birth-day. Oh, 232 THE BUDGET OF dear! I think it is only what is due to the Almighty. I'm confident, Mr. Howard," con- tinued she, looking virgin-thorns at poor Lady Bubble, " that you won't forget my birth-day, Michaelmas day, 29th of September, every one celebrates it; always a goose at table you know on Michaelmas day; so it's nonsense people pretending to forget it. Now 'tis a most remark- able circumstance that we are all born on a particklar day : I on the 29th of September ; Romulus the first of April; Marmaduke on Christmas day ; Lucretia on the anniversary of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Doctor Damnemall explained to us how this was. Lucy on the 29th of May, King Charles and the Oak you know ; Betsy on Shrove Tues- day, pancake-day ; and Cosmo on St. Swithin's day; which I've always maintained, and always shall maintain, in spite of all the faculty, is the reason why he cried so prodigiously when a baby. Oh ! dear, here's my new tea-pot; I shall enjoy my tea out of it beyond every thing ; but I must say, 'tis remarkably remiss in Theresa not being down in time to-day, of all days in the year. Cecil silently coincided in this opinion, and Lady Bubble told Fenton to send up word to Miss Manners that they were waiting breakfast. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 233 A message was instantly returned : " Miss Man- ners' love to her Ladyship, and she had such a bad headache, she should not come down to breakfast." It is to be supposed this intelligence made Mr. Howard very uncomfortable ; for he certainly ate no breakfast, and continued silent. Mr. McPhin was equally taciturn, though not equally abstemious. Marmaduke was not up. Miss Lucretia kept her room, to finish a birth- day-ode to her sister, which began : " Joy to thee, dearest sister P., A grey-goose quill T pluck for thee, To make your name on British shores, Bright as your nice new tea-pot pours." Sir Romulus was even more pompous and profound than usual, with innumerable slips of written paper attached together with red wafers, which he was bumbling over with much intense- iiess. The old lady was pocketing some dry toast, which she said agreed with her better at dinner than bread, and which she also declared she liked better out of that dimity oven than when fresh made ! so that the meal passed off almost in silence, after Miss Prudence's ha- rangue, except by a laugh created at Cecil's saying to Lady Bubble, when her sleeve was in her tea, *' Lady Bubble, your Theresa is in your cupl" After breakfast, Cecil wandered from room to room, and from passage to passage, till S34 THE BUDGET OF at length he met Stephens, Lady Bubble's maid, of whom he inquired how Theresa was ? " Why indeed, sir, I think she's very poorly — very poorly indeed, poor thing ; she cannot raise her head frem her pillow. I tell my lady that she ought to send for Dr. Churchill." " Good God ! and has she not ?" said Cecil. " Not yet, sir ; she says she will by and bye, if she don't get better," Cecil waited to hear no more ; but, rushing out of the house, was the next moment in the stable. Finding no one there, he himself sad- dled a hunter, and in less than twenty minutes, was galloping through Shrewsbury, and never drew bridle but to ask where Dr. Churchill lived? Having been informed, and luckily finding the worthy doctor's carriage at the door, he hurried him into it, and back to Bubble Hall immediately. Cecil, who had galloped on be- fore, and left his horse in the stable, entered the house in a dreadful state of excitement, at the snail's pace he decided the doctor was coming. If horses had but wings to their heels, made of lover's hearts, how they would fly ! In the hall he met Lady Bubble, sailing through it. " You've no idaya, Mr. Howard, how ill Theresa is ! I'm going to send for Dr. Churchill." But, as she spoke, the doctor's carriage drove up THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 235 « Oh, Dr. Churchill;' said Lady Bubble, "you've come at a most ' a propos' time; you've no idaya how ill poor Miss Manners is !" Dr. Churchill was too much a man of the world to say he'd been sent for, when he found that that fact was not known, and compared it with the agony of Mr. Howard's looks ; but merely replied : *' Then if your ladyship will allow me, I'll go to Miss Manners directly. Has she been long ill ?" *' Only since this morning ; she was perfectly well yesterday, but did not come down to break- fast to-day ; and I have been with her just nov/, and found her in a high fever." " Dear me ! that's very sad," said the doctor, as Cecil mechanically followed him and Lady Bubble up stairs. Theresa's room was witiiia three doors of his own, and when the doctor and Lady Bubble had closed the door, he paced up and down the passage for a quarter of an hour, till they reappeared. " Well, Doctor?" said he, darting forward ; and another word he could not utter, had worlds depended on it. But the doctor fell, from the tone in which those were spoken, that life and death hung upon his answer. ^' Sir, Miss Manners is young, has a fine con- stitution, and I have no doubt, in a short tiiiie, 236 THE BUDGET OF we shall have the pleasure of seeing her perfectly re-established, and, indeed, better than before her illness."" " And what is her malady ?" asked Cecil. *' Why, sir — but — I assure you — and I would not deceive you — there is no positive danger — it is the small-pox." *' Good heavens ! — the small-pox ! How on earth could she get it ?" " Sir, Miss Manners is a very amiable young lady — spends half her time among the poor, rendering them every service in her power ; and it is to be feared that in some of her charitable visits she may have caught it. But," added the doctor, considerately, ** having been vaccinated three times, I feel certain she won't be marked." *' The poor/' murmured Cecil; and he thought of the man in black, and hated and suspected him more than ever, thinking he was the mem- ber of the poor, from whom she had caught this terrible malady. *' I shall send a nurse back immediately on my return home," resumed Dr. Churchill, "and I have no doubt that a few days will see her out of even the shadov/ of danger ; but, at all events, I'll look in again myself this evening." To judge from the cordial manner in which Mr. Howard shook Dr. Churchill's hand, it THE BUBBLK FAMILY. 237 would have appeared as though he had been inoculated from Mr. Simpson in the art of forming sudden friendships, especially as he added, at the hall door : '* I hope we shall see you early in the evening ?" Great was the commotion that Miss Manners' illness created at Bubble Hall, when it was known to be the small-pox. Among the house- hold, it was unalloyed regret, and a fear that her beauty would be spoilt. Among the family, — all except Marmaduke, whom nothing could keep out of Theresa's room, and Mr. Mc Phin, who offered, with tears in bis eyes, to sit up with the puir dear young lady all night, and even to co-operate with Mademoiselle Perpignon in at- tending her, if such a sacrifice were necessary, — an unmitigated fear of infection was the only feeling displayed. Sir Komulus instantly wrote to put oif Lord John, especially as he had again written to say that he should bring Lady John and their little girl with him. Lady Bubble, her daughters, son, Miss Lucretia, and the old lady, lost no time in conveying themselves down to the steward's house ; but as it was only two miles at the other end of the park, neither Sir Romulus nor Miss Prudence, (following her name) thought that far enough removed : so he resolved upon a flitting to Mr. Town's, while 238 THE BUDGET OF Miss Prudence selected Dr. Damnemall's hos- pitable roof as her sanctuary, having a vague and unacknowledged superstition that so ortho- dox an atmosphere vi^ould exorcise anything like infection. The Tartars have a ridiculous superstition that the world is supported upon a golden frog, and that the awkward attempts this animal makes to scratch itself is the cause of earth- quakes ! So, in like manner, Miss Prudence began oh-dearing and wondering how Theresa had caught the small-pox ; and at length ended by roundly asserting that she was " confident it was that horrid drove of Irish pigs that had up- set her, that had brought the horrid disorder all the way from Ireland, and given it to her ! ! But," said she to Cecil, when she was getting into the pony phaeton to go to Dr. Damnemall's, and poking her new teapot between the cush- ions, observing that, now she had got it, she should not enjoy her tea out of any other ; and placing a basket of sandwiches and a flask of wine and water at her feet — a necessary precau- tion, as it was two hours since she had break- fasted, and had a long journey of four miles to go — " But what does Dr. Churchill say of The- resa, Mr. Howard?" Cecil, who felt a sort of consolation and reas- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 239 surance in repeating the Doctor's words in the same confident tone he had uttered them, re- plied, — " Why, he says there's not the least danger, and that he thinks Miss Manners' health will be better after this illness." Now, Miss Prudence never liked any one to be too comfortable, or happy, and, therefore, ex- claimed, as she tucked up her black-silk gown pinned it in front, spread a black and white blanket-shawl over her knees, carefully tucking it in at each side, and stowing away her um- brella in front of the phaeton, " Oh, dear, I don't hold with what the faculty say, for they always tell people there's no danger when there's the greatest, and that there is danger when there's none at all. Oh, 'tis just to make much of themselves, and get money out of people's pockets. Now, George," added she, turning to the groom, " you may go on ; — oh, stop, though — did Leslie put up the goose I ordered ? not that I think it likely Mrs. Damnemall should be without a goose to-day ! yet sometimes peo- ple forget. It would be different if they knew I was coming; for then I'm confident they'd make a point of having one, as it is my birth- day ! But I think it always the safest way to see to things of consequence myself." 240 THE BUDGET OF George assured her that the goose had been put up, but as she justly observed, ^'seeing is beheving," and, therefore, would not be satisfied till it was excavated from the well of the car- riage and placed upon her lap ! when she in- stantly assumed a most maternal look as she exclaimed, — '' 'Tis an uncommon fine one, to be sure !" and saying it would be safer if she carried it, desired the servant to drive on. To describe the agony of grief and fear that depressed Cecil's heart, the first night he passed almost alone in that deserted house, is utterly impossible. As he watched silently and breath- lessly at Theresa's door, listening for every sound from within, sometimes he'd catch the low moaning of extreme pain, and could scarcely refrain from entering. At others, he'd hear the whispered consultations of Marmaduke and the nurse, and wondered if they wanted anything; if he could but over-hear that they did, it would be a pretext to him to go in, but suddenly the murmuring would cease, and all again was hushed into silence. Yet, when we listen with our hearts, we can hear what to the duller outward sense can only be seen ; and through that long and weary night, Cecil fancied he heard every time Theresa opened and shut her THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 241 eyes. Night after night did he watch at that door, apparently independent of the ordinary laws of nature ; for he literally neither eat nor slept till the ninth critical night, when he was in his own room in a state of mind almost border- ing on insanity, waiting for Dr. Churchiirs bulletin. How prophetic is even the echo of the footstep of a person who has good or bad tidings to impart ! The buoyancy of Dr. Churchill's, as he entered the room, proclaimed, before his words, that a favourable crisis had taken place in the disorder, and that all danger was at an end. *' Thank God !'* exclaimed Cecil, burying his face in his hands, and bursting into tears, as the Doctor left the room, in a pretended hurry, that he might have an opportunity of giving way to his feelings. Cecil was sitting by the bed-side when Dr. Churchill came in, and no sooner had he gone than his head sunk on the pillow, and for the first time for nine nights, he slept soundly for four hours, when he was awakened by hear- ing Mrs. Brand, the nurse, walking in the passage. He started up, and opening the door softly inquired what was the matter. '•' Oh, nothing particular, sir, only Doctor Churchill desired that Miss Manners should have some tamarind tea^ and I've just been up VOL. I. M 242 THE BUDGET OF to Mrs. Nettletop about it, and only fancy ! there is not such a thing in the house ! a pretty thing, truly, sir, a house like this without tama- rinds, and a lady so long ill in it ! but Mr. Bub- ble is going off to Shrewsbury himself for some." "Don't allow him," said Cecil, clearing the first flight of stairs at one bound, as he spoke ; " tell him I'm gone, and shall be back before he could be ready." Ever since Theresa's illness, a horse had been kept ready saddled, night and day. This Cecil was aware of, and, therefore, lost no time in preparations; for, although upon opening the hall-door, he found it was a deluge of rain, and thundering and lightening awfully, he would not turn back for a great coat, as he felt a sort of extravagant pleasure in braving and buffeting the elements for Theresa's sake ; indeed, could he have had a choice of dangers, he would have preferred an earthquake to a tempest, as being the most formidable of the two ; and though all the dangers he could have encountered would have done her no earthly good (but a great deal of harm, had she known it, inasmuch as it would have grieved her sadly), yet who ever truly loved that did not take a prodigal delight in wasting even useless sacrifices on what they love ? " For love's deep thirst for age doth crave a draught, Costly as that the enamoured Roman qualT'd.'' THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 243 Love having the whole world for his empire, can well afford that his extravagance should he boundless; — but it is his poor subjects that suffer : how often do they find, that in order to do homage to a single visit from him, they run through their hearts, and have not sufficient feeling left, to. make a decent appearance for the rest of their lives ; while others act more wisely? and make an hotel of theirs, to receive him as often as he pleases to come ; for which they are amply repaid, and are sure never to break. Saint Theresa describes the Devil as "an unhappy being, who never could know what it was to love." If that was his only source of misery, I doubt his being so unhappy ; but then to be sure I speak femininely ; masculinely it may not be so. The Germans, according ta Tacitus, believed that there was something divine in young women ; — " Inesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid, et providum putant ;" and all lovers, of whatever country, seem of the same opinion : but no sooner are they transformed into husbands, than they appear to ^y back to the council of the enlightened prelates of Magon, in France, and question the pretension of women to be human beings ! nor do they always arrive at the conclusion, that the learned M 2 244 THE BUDGET OF prelates did at last — namely that they are human beings.* When Cecil arrived at the chemist's, he rang so loudly and impatiently, that he was not long before he knocked them up, and obtained what he wanted; — and presented himself to Mrs. Brand, on his return, with the tamarinds, before the hurricane, and all other drawbacks considered, she thouorht he could have got half- way to Shrewsbury. Two hours after his arrival, she told him, with an air of mysterious importance, that Miss Manners was a deal better ; for that she had spoken, and asked questions — and when told that Mr. Howard had himself been good enough to go to Shrewsbury in all the storm, she seemed so sorry, yet so grateful, and desired that the tamarind-stones might be taken care of, as she wanted them. Was not this an ample reward for all the storms he could have * Lest this fact should be douhted, I shall quote the ori- ginal passages, in which the decision was given: — " Cum inter tot sanctos patres episcopos, quidam statueret, non posse, nee debere mulieres vocari homines, timore Dei, publice ibi ventilaretur. Et tandem, post multas vexatse hnjus qusestionis disceptationes, concluderetur, quod mulieres sint homines. CPolygamia Triumphatrix.) " Extitit enim, in hac Synodo quidam ex episcopis, qui dicebat mulierem hominem non posse vocitari,'' &c. &c. Sec. — Gregor. Tur., Lib. viii. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 245 braved ? at least it was to Cecil, who once more laid down with a lighter heart, and slept a calm sleep, peopled with beautiful dreams of Theresa. It was now about a month since Miss Man- ners had been taken ill ; Marmaduke had scarcely ever left her room, or Cecil her door. Poor Mr. Mc Phin had stolen up two or three times every day, to know how she was ; and Cosmo, who at length had actually got an owl's egg — put his friendship to the test, by sending it to his dear cousin Theresa : thoudi, as he gallantly observed at the time, " she had no need of being wiser than she v/as." Lady Bubble, her daughters, and Miss Lucretia, were punctual in their messages of inquiry. Ma- demoiselle Perpignon had also begged of Mr. Mc Phin (whose stolen visits she had dis- covered) to be the bearer of the new pattern for a nightcap, which she had just got from Paris; Sir Romulus had called at the lodge twice a-week, to receive a bulletin ; and on one occasion, had left an affectionate message, to say — " it was too bad of the little Algerine to get ill, just as Lord John was coming down to settle the affairs of the nation !" and within the last week. Miss Prudence had kindly sent over a message, through Dr. Churchill, to know if there was anything she fancied to eat, and 246 THE BUDGET OP whether Dr. Damnemall should come over and read her a sermon, as he had lately purchased a very rare and excellent collection of old ones, of which she sent her a list, in case she should like to choose one out of them, and let the Dr. know.— The list was as follows : ♦' A Bvieffe Polemicall Dissertation, concerning the true time of the Inchoation and Determination of the Lord's day Sabhath. Wherein is clearly and irrefragably manifested by Scripture, Reason, Authorities, in all ages till the present : that the Lord's day begins and ends at evening ; and ought to be solemnized from evening till evening ; against the novel errours, mistakes of such, who ground- lessly assert, that it begins and ends at midnight, or day-breaking ; and ought to be sanctified from mid- night to midnight, or morning to morning ; whose argu- ments are here examined, refuted as unsound, absurd, frivolous. Compiled in the Tower of London ; and now published, for the information, reformation of all contrary judgment or practise. By V/iLLiAM PRYNNE,.of Swainswick, Esq., London. Printed by T. Mabb, for Edw. Thomas, dwellingin Green Arbour, 1655." This brief dissertation contained twenty-two closely printed quarto pages. The next were — " The Way to be Content, A Sermon appointed for the Crosse, but preached in the Cathedrall Church of St. Paul, in London, on Monday, in Whitson-weeke, being the 26th day of May, AnnoDom. 1634. By John Gore, Pi.ector of Wenden-Lofts, in Essex. Priuted at Loudon, by T. Cotes, for Thomas Alchorne; and are to be sold at his shop, in Paul's Church-yard, at the signe of the Green Drajfon." THF BUBBLE FAMILY. M7 Next followed — " Israel's Call to March Out of Babylon into Jerusalem, published by order of the House of Commons, 1G45.'' "A Sermon preached at Lincoln, July the 29tb, 1683, by John Curtois, M.A. Published at the request of many loyal gentlemen who heard it preached.'' "The Dean of Tetcrborough's Sermon, before the Lord Mayor, at St. Bridget's Church, in Easter-week, 1694." " The Bishop of Bath and Wells's Sermon, before the House of Peers, on January the SOth, 1691." and divers others, too numerous to mention. I fear both Dr. Damnemall and Miss Prudence thought Theresa no better than she should be ; but she civilly declined them all. Among the numerous inquiries for Miss Manners, was a daily one on the part of Mr. Stuart Vernon. Theresa was now sufficiently recovered to sit up for about half an hour in her own room every day ; and Cecil contrived to rob the conservatory of a bunch of violets, daily, to greet her rising, even when they had eluded the gardener's vigi- lance. He was one mornincc returnin*;): from his usual voyage of discovery, when he saw Mr. Stuart Vernon ride up to the door, dismount, and order the groom to lead the horses up and down ; which he had no sooner done than his master drew from his pocket two letters, which he gave with his card to the servant. Cecil did not know why, but he walked round to the back 248 THE BUDGET OF of the bouse to avoid meeting him, and got in by the conservatory through the drawing-room. He knew he should meet the servant with the letters as he crossed the hall, but he could not openly ask to see them, and, therefore with a deep sense of liumiliation that flushed his v/hole face, had recourse to a subterfuge. " Fenton," said he, " didn't I see Mr. Stuart Vernon at the door just now ?" " Yes, sir ; he's this moment ridden away." " Oh, indeed ! did he leave any message or — or — a letter for me ?" ^' No, sir; he left one for Sir Romulus, and one for Miss Manners." Cecil bit his lip and walked silently away. When he reached his own room he locked the door, and flung himself into a bergere. *' So," said he, folding his arms and grinding his teeth, " he has written to her — he has proposed for her — of course she will have him !" And having come to this conclusion, he paced up raid down the room, tore his hair, dashed the tears indignantly from his eyes, and, in short, became as frantically and hopelesssly wretched, as if Theresa had not only accepted Mr. Stuart Vernon, but was to be married to him the next hour. Some three hours had passed away, and Cecil THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 249 was Still trying to walk himself into resignation at the irrevocable loss of Theresa, which he had quite decided was to be his fate, when a gentle tap at the door asked admittance on the part of some one. He unlocked it and tried to look as calm as possible. It was Mrs. Brand. <' I only came to say, sir, that Miss Manners is not quite so well to-day. She's not able to sit up, and is gone back to bed ; but she asked if there were no violets ? so I thought I would come and see if you had got her any." " The delight of that letter has overpowered her," thought Cecil ; but his words were, ''Not so well ! has she over-exerted herself? — has anything excited her ? — is she — " " No, sir, nothing. She got a letter, to be sure, and reading it might have tired her; though I don't think it did." " A letter ! Did it agitate her ? — did she seem annoyed, or pleased ? — happy, or sad T " No, indeed ! neither, sir. She merely threw the letter on the table, and told me to put it into her writing-desk, as she must answer it one day or other. So I don't think there was anything in that ; but you know, sir, invalids will be bet- ter and worse from one day to another." And so saying, Mrs. Brand departed with the violets, and left Cecil to seek some new source of m3 250 THE BUDGET OF torment, which he speedily did. To any reason- ble man (but when was a man in love reason- able?) it would have been sufficient consolation to have heard how carelessly and coolly Theresa had received Mr. Stuart Vernon's letter — aye — but was it his letter ? Might it not as well be from any one else? and even granting that it was from him, perhaps it was not a declaration* and from that might arise her annoyance ! To a person so skilled in the art of self-tormenting, there is no knowing to what lengths he might have proceeded, had not dinner at length put an end to his surmises. After Marmaduke had, for the thirtieth time (it being the last day of the month) expressed his delight at the absence of the rest of the parly, which he hoped would long continue, provided Theresa was soon able to form a trium- virate at their dinner-table, he drew a volume from his pocket and began reading. '' I don't think," said he, a short time after laying down the book, " that if Socrates in the superabundance of his wisdom did not trifle so flagrantly, I should be ever tired of ' Xenophon's Memorabilia.' " " I don't know," replied Cecil. ^' I read them at school, in Greek, and thought them delightful; but whether it arose from reading them after- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 251 wards in English, I know not, but I found them prosing and tedious, and in many parts vapid in the extreme." ^* There may be something in that," said Marmaduke, *' for w^e possess no equivalent style in English that could do justice to, or give the full change for his Greek. After all, it is to light literature, such as memoirs, comedies, and, in our own time, novels, that posterity should be grateful, for they it is which alone bequeath them facts. It is to Aristophanes, Plautus, Apuleius and Terence, and not to Thucydides, Livy or Caesar, that we owe our knowledge of the private fashions, habits and manners of the Greeks and Romans. One might as well fancy that one knew a man by seeing him on the stage, as suppose that we could learn the customs of a people, their character and bearing, from epic poems and tragedies, wherein human nature is always acting." " Very true, but — " " But me no buts," said Marmaduke, sudden- ly rising ; " here am I talking away just as if that poor child was not lying ill up stairs. I don't know how it is, but I love her as well as if I really was her uncle. I suppose it is from her always calling me so ;" and with this speech and another glass of wine, he darted out of the room, 252 THE BUDGET OF leaving Cecil to dispose of himself as he thought best. How many echoes and shadows there are that steal through the heart, which are neither audi- ble nor visible to the external senses, and yet which act as internal forewarnings to our feelings ! The whole of that evening, as Cecil kept his usual watch in the gallery leading to I'heresa's room, there was a sort of noiseless stirring, a gentle and voiceless murmuring at his heart that he could neither define nor account for. To- wards midnight Marmaduke opened the door softly, and stepping into the passage, whispered Cecil that the nurse was asleep, and that, feeling chilly, he wanted to go and put on his night-cap and dressing-gown. '' Now, my dear fellow," continued he, '' as Theresa is also asleep, and I fear to leave her alone, will you just sit by the bed-side till I return?'' " Will I !" said Cecil, and luckily it was all he could say. Much as he had always liked Marmaduke, he now could have worshipped him, the more so that his room was a consider- able way off in the other wing of the house, and it would take him some time to go and return. He entered the room with a measured step and suspended breath. The fire-light, besides the candles on the toilet, discovered Mrs. Brand in THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 2o3 a profound slumber, and also fell full upon Theresa's pale but still beautiful face. Cecil had never once asked during her illness, whe- ther her looks had been impaired. He thought he should have loved her all the same, never- theless it was a relief to find that they were not. He stood for a few moments gazing upon her : one arm was under her head, the other hung listlessly out of bed. Cecil could not resist the temptation of kissing the beautiful little hand before him — gently as he did so, Theresa stirred slightly, and in moving, a stray lock of hair escaped from under her cap, and wandered down her neck. — What an opportunity !— should he ever again have such another ? he walked over to the table for a pair of scissors, in another moment the lock was severed " From the lovely head where once it grew,'' and deposited safely in his bosom. If he had committed a murder, he could scarcely have felt more alarm, as he replaced the scissors, and looked timidly round the room, but he saw nothing but his own pale and agitated face in the glass. Had he secured more than half the world, he could not have felt more elated as he re-approached the bed. Oh ! it is a mysterious and a holy thing, to share singly with the un- seen angels, their vigils over the sleeping being 254 THE BUDGET OF that we love — to watch the helpless beauty of the form that is our all — to feel that its hushed spirit is cradled in our prayers, that it is alone with God and us ! and that we curtain it over with fond looks from the harsh glare of other eyes ; — if there be a moment of unalloyed happi- ness it is this ! As Cecil bent over Theresa, and felt her soft breath upon his cheek, he ex- perienced *' A feeling yet without a name, Each sordid thought of self above, Warmer than friendship's wavering flame, But softer than the fires of love." The tone even of his imagination seemed lulled and subdued into unison with the calm music of the beautiful and passionless face be- fore him. One unworthy, nay, almost one earthly thought, he felt would be a desecration of the shrine of purity and innocence at which his prostrate soul now worshipped. He did not even think of Theresa as his, he only thought of her as God's — a link between him and heaven ! THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 255 CHAPTER VIII. "Magazine — a repository of provisions, a miscellaneous jamphlet." — Johnson's Dictionary. " But by this roving meteor led, I tend Beyond my tkeme, forgetful of my friend." Christopher Pitt. MARMADUKE IS LED AWAY BY AN EASY CHAIR, INTO FORGETTING THE PERILOUS SITUATION IN WHICH HE HAS LEFT MR. HOWARD AND CHEATS THE NIGHT OUT OF A GOOD HALF-HOUR, BY READING. AND HAVING HIS FEET SHAMPOOED — " AY, THERE's THE RUB !" When Marmaduke left Theresa's room, and reached his own, he found his feet extremely cold, and the bright fire and the easy chair both looking exceedingly inviting. He placed liimself in the one before the other, and rano: for his man to rub his feet, which was a nightly ceremony with him. On the table beside him was a pile of magazines that had arrived that evening; and, taking up one, he began with tlie notice to correspondents on the wrapper, some of which were as follows : — " A. Z.'s ' Ode to Solitude' had better remain in that state it so highly lauds. " G. F.'s ' Invocation to Sleep* is duly attend- ed to, for it comes on the perusal of his lines. 256 THE BUDGET OF " The sonnet commencing — * Her eyes they are as black as sloes, And oh ! so beautiful her nose,' we fear would not interest the unhiipassioned public, though no doubt it will produce a great effect upon the fortunate lady to whom it is addressed. " Has A. S. S. no sincere friend who would throw his pens and ink out of the window, and burn his paper for him? " The Essay on Indifference is too indifferent for our columns. We feel deeply for the afflicted author of the lines beginning — * Dear Miss, I hope that you will not refuse, To pardon this first efibrt of my muse ; I swear to you by all the powers above, That I am over head and ears in love !' as, if his passion is not more eloquent than his poetry, the lady must be over head and ears in debt, for she never can repay it." Marmaduke then turned over the leaves ; and, as his right foot had still to be rubbed, read tlie following tale : — "THE KETCH FAMILY. ' I see you go as slily as you think, To steal away, yet I will pray for you.' Beaumont and Fletcher. ' Yet she that loves him best is Cleopatra.' — Dryden. ' Stulta est dementia perituras parcere chartae.' — Juv. *' ' What a handsome man !' exclaimed Miss Cleopatra Ketch to her sister, Miss Jemima of THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 257 the same name, as they ostensibly sat at work in the bay window of their lodgings at Brighton, overlooking the Steyne. " ' Who ? where?' asked Miss Jemima, at once coming to the point by running the needle into her finger ; while her equally agitated sister broke off* the thread of her discourse and her work at the same time, and relapsed into silence, the more effectually to send her eyes on an em- bassy to some individual without the window ; in short, the one whom she had so complimentariiy apostrophised at the commencement of this page, and who was a tall ' young man,' elaborately chained, ringed, waistcoated, gauntleted, and French polished, on a job-horse, and in job- mustachios. This latter Mezentius—proceeding being unfortunately but too prevalent among second-hand D'Orsays, and free-list play- goers. " ' I should think,' resumed Miss Cleopatra, ' from his always looking so earnestly at all the houses as he passes, that he must either be in love, or be a genius; an author perhaps.' " 'No,' objected Jemima, pointing to a small drab-coloured pamphlet, with a white strip across it, marked 2.9. Qd. that lay on the work-table. * No, he cannot be a genius, for as this author *^Iezentius lied a dead body to a living one. 258 THE BUDGET OF says of himself, light hair is the indisputable badge of genius;' and as she spoke she com- placently twisted her own hay-coloured ring- lets. " ' Perhaps so,' responded Cleopatra, with a sort of ' vale Antoni' sigh, as she caught the last glimpse of the tail of the handsome man's horse, as he turned the corner of the Steyne, ' but dark hair is much handsomer for a man.' ''The paternal progenitor of these two interest- ing young ladies was a retired stockbroker: — for many years had they ' wasted their sweetness in the desart air' of Gracechurch Street, — with no more defined ideas of pleasure than a walk to Primrose Hill, or of * fashionable life,' than was afforded by an attentive scrutiny of the ex- ternal forms of the gay bipeds that alighted from their carriaojes at the ZooloGjical Gardens on a Sunday. But a little pleasure, like a little learning, is a dangerous thing, as it always en- genders an insatiable thirst for more. Their case would have been a sad one, were not ambi- tion's wings always ' imped' with hope; and for once hope did not tell a flattering tale, for ' one Monday morning, right early in the year,' their illustrious sire, Mr. Samuel Ketch, returned home, by a lucky chance on Change, the envied and enviable possessor of a hundred thousand THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 259 pounds ! That very day Mrs. Ketch discharged a slender youth of fifteen, with aventurine coloured hair, and London-smoke coloured eyes, hitherto the ' largo al factotum,' of the Ketch family, for incontinently propounding his usual post meridian question, of *if so be she would like the vest end buss stopped at four?' And despatching her son, Mr. John Ketch (who from that hour was never again called by his endearing, but in his case somewhat alarming diminutive of Jack), for a neat glass coach ; and in it re- pairing to Long Acre, did, then and there, purchase a commodious family carriage, as smart as blue-bell pannels and a butter-cup lining could make it. Miss Jemima, who was of a more aspiring disposition than her more ambi- tiously named sister, strongly insisted that a carriage was nothing without very tall footmen — in short they should be steeples in plush. Mrs. Ketch acquiesced, and promised to look out. In their way home there was, at the narrow door of a narrow street, a tempting tableau of all the burkers, surmounted by an announcement of the most wonderful Irish giant ever yet secured alive — all to be seen for sixpence ! " * Dear me !* said Mrs. Ketch, taking the precaution, (there being no check) to let down the back window and nearly pull the driver into 260 THE BUDGET OF the carriage, as she spoke, in order to stop him, ^ Dear me, girls, I'll treat you to this here sight.' " * Exhibition, ma,' corrected Jemima, " ' I don't think it's genteel — do you think it is, Mima — to go to such places ?' said Cleopatra. " « Why I don't know,' responded Jemima, divided between her love of amusement, and her love of aristocracy, ' it's not as if we were in our own carriage yet, you know ; that would be different, for then the carriage might be known.' " ^ Ah, sure, Mima is right,' said Mrs. Ketch, tucking up her petticoats as she descended from the carriage; adding, in a loud voice to the driver, when she reached the ground, in order to ' set on some few barren spectators,' ' I say, coachee, be sure to keep egzacly afore the door, for not aving my hown carriage and osses to- day, I'm halways sadly afeared of strange osses.' *' The young ladies followed their 'ma' into a narrow sanded passage, where the fumes of Ge- neva and tobacco strove equally for pre-emi- nence. At the foot of a flight of stairs, not much wider than a worsted needle, stood a blind fiddler, his face intersected with the small-pox, and his sightless eyes Homerically raised to heaven, while he scraped indefatigably, on his three-stringed violin, the very exhilarating coun- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 261 try dance called ' Such a getting up stairs.' — It was a getting up stairs ! for before Mrs. Ketch and her double-refined daughters was a very greasy butcher, who was almost pressed flat in the narrow stair-way, and every now and then stopped to smooth his hair down with a pocket-handkerchief, containing a lilac repre- sentation of her Majesty proroguing parliament. To the skirt of his blue frock was tethered a skewer of a boy, who obligingly told his sire that * them ladies wanted to pass.' The top of the staircase was at length gained, and a leopard- skin-patterned chintz curtain was drawn aside by a very dirty hand belonging to a man in a hat without a crown, mud-coloured brevities untied at the knee, and a pair of cotton stockings *a world too wide for his shrunk calf,' to whom having paid the money, the ladies passed on through a concourse of wax effigies of Messieurs Hare, Burke, and other worthies. " 'And now, ladies and genlem,* said the man who had pointed out the wax-works with a long rod, which, as he spoke, he employed in drawing aside a green-baize curtain, 'you'll please to hobserve the most wonderfullest gigantic-est giant as never vas seed in hancient or modern times — stands seven feet three hinches vithout his shoes — eats ten pounds of solid meat per day, drinks 262 THE BUDGET OF in perportion, and has no parents to signify !' Here the undrawn curtain exhibited to the won- dering and admiring eyes of Mrs. and the Miss Ketch's, the butcher and his son ' the gigantic-est giant of hancient or modern times,' dressed as the Grand Turk, who having taken two or three turns to and fro, like a lion in his den, for the satisfaction of the spectators, gracefully reseated himself in a large arm-chair. *' ' Well, he is a prize beast ! — isn't he. Bill ? said the butcher to his son, as he departed. But Mrs. Ketch still lingered, gazing on this truly great man. As soon as she perceived that the coast was clear, she said something in a con- fidential whisper to the showman, which was nothing more nor less than whether she could have a few moments' private conversation with the giant ! " * Vy, if you partiklar vishes it, marm, you can,' replied the astonished ciceroni ; and then, turning to the giant, added, 'Mr. O'Sham, this lady vishes to speak to you.' " ' She's welcome,' replied Mr. O'Sham. *' ' Ahem — ahem — ' hesitated Mrs. Ketch, advancing towards the rising giant, whom she begged would remain seated, or she should never te able to make him hear what she had to say. " * Jist as you plase, ma'am ; for I niver stand upon trifles.' THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 263 " ' Ahem — I was a-tbinking,' resumed Mrs. Ketch, " that a hehgable and permanent situa- tion hke would suit you better than this here promiscus sort of life.' '* ' May be it's a swaddler you are, ma'am, and it's the life to come you'd be discoorsing me about ? '' * Dear ! how funny he talks, to be sure 1' tittered Mrs. Ketch. * No, in plain English, should you like to be a lady's footman ?' " ' Whisht ! now you're laughing at me entirely — for how could I be a lady's fut, when there's seven feet five inches of me already ; and sure no lady ever had a fut that size ? for if there was, no man in Ireland itself would ever get the length of it !' " ' I can't understand you, and it seems you dont understand me ; but what I mean is, should you like to go behind a carriage?' said Mrs, Ketch. " 'I'm infinitely obliged to you, ma'am ; but, if it's the same to you, I'd rather go inside it nor behind it.' *' ' Dear, dear — how tiresome!' cried Mrs. Ketch. * I mean, should you hke to be a ser- vant ?' " * Oh, your humble sarvant is it, ma'am ?' " ' Yt's ; to come and live with me, and walk out with us V 264 THE BUDGET OF " *0h now, ma'am dear, you're laughing at me again ; for I'm sure you nor the young ladies would niver condescend to walk out wid the likes o' me.' " * No — not with you, but for you to walk after us.' " ' What for, ma'am ?' " 'Why, to protect us — to — a — take care of us.' " ' Oh indade, ma'am, if you're notould enough to take care of yourselves, it's little care I could take of yez.' ^' ' Well, well, what wages would you expect?' said Mrs. Ketch, growing explicit from des- peration. " ' Why,' replied Mr. O'Sham, pulling his left ear, raising his eyebrows, and protruding his lips, 'av coorse as much as I could get, which is but raisonable.' " ' What would you think of thirty guineas ?' " * Wh}', I'd think a great dale of it, ma'am ; thirty guineas a-week is a mighty purty little pittance.' " * Not a-week — a-year !' almost shrieked Mrs. Ketch. " ' Whew ! luUibolero ! — that's too little en- tirely for taking care of three of yez, and, may be, tagging after you from morning till night.' " ' Yes, but think of the ten pounds of meat you eat a-day.' THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 265 '^ * Oh indade, ma'am, I think very little of that ; for it's nothing at all when one's used to it ; and I just trate my meals as some paple do their friends — never trouble my head about them when once they are down,'' "After a few more indispensable preliminaries, Mrs. Ketch became the joyful mistress of Mr. O'Sham ; yet like all who have much, she then wanted more, and therefore inquired if he had a brother ; but he ' had no brother — was like no brother, he was himself alone !' not having, as the showman had already explained, even any pa- rents to signify, which being interpreted, meant that their stature did not exceed those of ordi- nary mortals. Shortly after the addition of Mr. O'Sham to the Gracechurch Street establish- ment, Mr. Ketch took a house in Gloucester Place ; and the young ladies never even walked inside Portman Square, without Mr. O'Sham walking after them, looking wistfully at all the passengers without, and thinking, with a retro- spective sigh, of all the sixpences he might have earned, had he remained among his friends, the Burkers, — which he calculated by analogy from all the looks he attracted. Six weeks after their removal to Gloucester Place, Mr. Ketch and his family left town for Brighton, accompanied by a maiden sister of Mr. Ketch senior. Miss VOL. I. N 266 THE BUDGET OF Kitty Ketch, who was like all ladies not wither- ing but withered on the virgin thorn — or, in other words, like what Baretti says of the vermin of Aldeagallego, the pasquin-makers of Rome, and the monthly reviewers of England, — she ' would have done harm if she could,' for she would have prevented her nieces spending so much, dressing so much, flirting so much, and talking so much — yes, all this the barbarous old woman would have prevented if she could — but she couldn't. It was luckily for the Miss Ketches and for posterity — and above all for the readers of this periodical — and they are all the world — it was luckily impossible ! So now let us go back to the bay-window overlooking the Steyne. " As we have before intimated, Miss Jemima was of an aspiring temperament, and therefore, in her matrimonial dreams, never succumbed to less than a Marquis; while the highest summit at which the gentler Cleopatra aimed, was a pair of mustachios ! — thus 'Beauty drew her with a single hair.' and caused her in the present instance to re- main in the bay window, with her eyes riveted on the spot where she had caught the last glimpse of the handsome man's mustachios. If Miss Jemima was less susceptible, she was more as- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 267 sured of her conquests; for like the Athenian idiot, who fancied that all the ships that came into the Pyreum port, belonged to him— so she imagined that all the looks men had to bestow, were directed to her ; while her more generoua sister gave where she never received. " ' John,^ said Cleopatra, raising the window, and calling to her brother, a roly-poly young gentleman, with a bay-window figure, and pale hut cherubimical face, who was at one and the same moment smoking a cigar, and looking: powder puffs at a pretty little 'modiste' that was ringing at the next door to the house of his respected parents ; * John, I wish you would walk with me on the beech?' (the mustachios had vanished marineward.) t« « AVell, I don't care if I do — anything to oblige a pretty girl,' and he cast another goose- down look at the little milliner, as Miss Cleo- patra put down the window and the compliment together, declaring to her sister as she left the room, to equip herself for walking — ' that really John had become quite polished since he had seen more of the world.' — They had been ten days at Brighton ! •' Miss Cleopatra and her brother had just turned the corner of the Steyne, when they met Mrs. Ketch, followed by O'Sham, with a cargo n2 268 THE BUDGET OF of novels. — ' Where are you going, dears,' in- quired the tender mother. '^ ' Only for a blow-out upon the beach,' re- plied John, *as the governor hasn't given one at home since we've been here,' " ' Why, you see, Jack, — ' • " ' Mother, remember ! no more Jacks,' in- terrupted Mr. John, making an allegorical slip- knot on his pocket-handkerchief, and giving his revered parent a significant look. " ' Oh, hang it, I always forget ; but,' re- sumed Mrs. Ketch, ' I was a going to say, that we don't know people enough yet ; though the Wiggins's did promise that they'd intro- dooce us to a sight of fine people — three Irish members of Parliament, who, they said, would be happy to dine with us any day, or every day, — Mr. Fibwell, the great attorney — Mr. Scrub, a first-rate literary gentleman, who writes for the noosepapers on both sides — Dr. and Mrs. Classicgander, who finish young noblemen and gentlemen before they go on the grand tower — and Sir Endymion Fribble, who was made a barrowknight a few weeks ago ; and aving be- haved hill to his wife, goes about, as Mrs. Wig- gins tells me, trying to make himself populous.' " ' popular, ma T corrected Cleopatra. " « Well, my dear, isn't it all the same thing ?' THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 269 *« « Not quite,' said Mr. John. ^« 'O'Sham,' said Mrs. Ketch, « I'll walk on to the beach with Miss Cleopatra, and you may leave those books at home, and then go and ask how old Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins are.' " 'I shall, ma'am,' responded O'Sham, and strode away on his homeward mission. Miss Cleopatra could well have dispensed witli this maternal reinforcement ; but out of every misfortune comes some good, as the termination of her walk on that day clearly demonstrated. As usual, it blew a hurricane on the beach ; and Mrs. Ketch, as Mr. Liston truly observes, hav- ing, like all fine women, run to seed very fast her ancles were like those of an elephant, and sunk to a proportionable depth in the sand every step she advanced. Now, although she had never read Junius, she was intuitively aware that * we incline the balance as effectually by lessening the weight in one scale as by increasing it in the other,' and therefore ordered Cleo- patra to leave her brother, and come round and give her the assistance of another arm. The Egyptian queen's namesake obeyed, ' mentally ejaculating,' as the war novels say, 'how very disagreeable if we should meet him!' — the mustachios understood. Mr. John and his sister had spent about a quarter of an hour in the 270 THE BUDGET OF filial exercise of towing iheir revered parent, when suddenly the echoes of a horse's hoofs were heard ; the wind rose still higher — so did Miss Cleopatra's hopes — the handsome owner of the mustachios appeared. She had just time to untie her bonnet, ( a 'ruse' she had decided upon previous to leaving home) when on came the stranger's horse, and off flew Miss Cleopatra's bonnet, rolling in playful caprioles before the fiery Bucephalus of the handsome man. " Miss Ketch had not read through the whole of the Minerva Press without being perfectly aware that a scream was as indispensable to a heroine as a sword is to a soldier ; accordingly, uttering one skilfully attuned to the right 'conquer or die' pitch, she faintly articulated ' Oh, my bonnet !' and then clung to her brother in the most beau- tiful attitudes of feminine distress, so as effec- tually to prevent his moving one step in pursuit of it. What was to be done? Nothing but what was done ; the handsome man reined in his steed, from which he dismounted, and after a five minutes' fruitless chase after the truant * capotte,' succeeded in securing it on the top of his whip, and triumphantly flourishing it in the air, like a cap of liberty, gracefully advanced, and presented it to Miss Cleopatra, who mur- mured something about 'gratitude to her de- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 271 iiverer,' and then cast upon his mustachlos such a look of caloric circumvallation, as must inevitably have melted the wax by which those capillary graces adhered to his upper lip, had he not instantly taken the precaution of pressing them down with his pocket handkerchief. *' * I'm sure, sir/ said Mrs. Ketch, spreading out her left hand upon her hip, fanning herself with her handkerchief that she held in her right, moving her head from one side to another, and panting as she spoke, ' I'm sure, sir, both I and my daughter is (* are^ ma/ whispered Cleopatra), are exceedingly obleeged to you for the courage you've displayed on this here occa- sion.* " ' Quite so — quite so — ha ! ha ! ha !' laughed Mr. John, 'and— ' " * My dear, let me speak,' said Mrs. Ketch, laying her white silk gloved hand upon the bot- tle-green sleeve of her son's arm. ' We shall be most appy, sir — Mr. Ketch my husband, and I — to get acquainted with you. Praps if you aint a-going nowhere else, rather than stay at home by yourself, you'll come and dine with sti to-day ?' "Never, according to Miss Cleopatra's judg- ment, had her mother uttered so much sense in such few words. 272 THE BUDGET OF ** ' I shall be most proud — most appy,' said the stranger, bowing to Mrs. Ketch, but looking at her daughter, whose cheek was slightly tinged at his repetition of the word ^appy,' which she had a misgiving was a quotation from her mo- ther; but further acquaintance convinced her that the whole family of the h's must have un- accountably offended him, as they never were, by any chance, invited to the intellectual feasts of his conversation. " « Ha ! ha ! ha ! that's right !' said Mr. John. ' Here's my cord and address — may I ask the pleasure of yours ?* *' ' Certainly,' replied the stranger, withdraw- ing a slip of pasteboard from a card-case, which he presented to Mr. John, which bore the in- scription of ' Captain Fitzprigem, Berkeley Square.' an effacing' line drawn through the Berkeley Square, and ' Dorset Gardens^ written above it. When Mr. John had sufficiently spelt over the name to admit of audible and accurate repe- tition, he undertook the part of lord-in-waiting, and presented their new acquaintance in due form to his mother and sister. "'Captain Fitzprigem, my mother, Mrs. Ketch ; my sister, Miss Cleopatra Ketch.' THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 273 '^ Fitzprigem smiled and bowed, and bowed and smiled in couplets ; and then, as the party walked on, murmured low in Miss Ketch's ear, while a kind of St. AntonyVfire seemed to suf- fuse her face, * Cleopatra ! — what a — a — celestial name — positively eavenly !' ti 6 yiQ are obleeged to dine at the unfashnable hour of six, on 'count of Mr. Ketch's elth, sir,' apologized Mrs. Ketch, as they parted with their new friend at the corner of the Steyne. *^ 'At five, mother,' revised Mr. John. '' ' No, six, my dear; and I'm sure that is hairly enough,' frov/ned Mrs. Ketch, with a little by- play that her son perfectly understood. " * I don't care what hour I dine at,' said the gallant Captain ; ' hours were made for slaves, as the late Mr. Wilberforce used so justly to observe.' " ' Used he, indeed, sir ?' responded Mrs. Ketch ; ' then, I suppose, he was a great West Ingce perprietor?' " ' Well, never mind if we do dine at six,' said Mr. John, with an energetic slap on his right knee ; ' we'll break into some of the governor's best claret.' '* At the phrase * break into/ the refined Fitzprigem, no doubt shocked at its vulgarity, hurled a kind of Old Bailey look at Mr. John, n3 274 THE BUDGET OF under which he might have felt disagreeably restrained, had not his mother come to his as- sistance, by saying : " * My dear, Vm sure you can''t have any bet- ter claret than what we have every day.' " Mr. John looked oblivious and interrogatory, and Captain Fitzprigem took advantage of the pause to make his adieux, promising punc- tually to remember six. «'My dear Jack,' said Mrs. Ketch, 'you should not let out that we dine at five before such a fashionable man as Captain Fitzprigem, when you know none of the quality ever dines before eight.' " * Well, but we do dine at five, mother, and one can't always remember to tell lies, and I'm sure your memory is no better than mine, for, after all your promises, you will go on calling me Jack.' " ' I'll never call you Jack again,' said Mrs. Ketch, with tears in her eyes, ' if you'll remem- ber not to be so free-spoken before strangers : and then talking of the best claret, — enough to make people think that we hadn't the best every day.' ** * No more we have,' retorted Mr. John, ' for we've no claret at all, except when there's com- pany.' THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 275 ^^ ' Dear me !' said Mrs. Ketch, as she knocked at her own door, ' I hope your father is in a good humour, for I've three things to bring about : first to tell him about having asked the Oaptain ; next about having put off the dinner till six, which I know will make him very cross ; and next to get him to dress for dinner, which I'm sadly afeared I shall not be able to do. You must come and help me, Cleo, to talk him over.' " ' Indeed, ma, I can't ; for it's now three, and it always takes Dumps three hours to plat my hair in a Grecian plat, and she says she can't do it under.' " « Then let her do it over,' said Mr, John, who was the wit of the family. '' ' Well, I don't wonder at your wishing to look well for the Captain/ cried Mrs. Ketch ; ' so tell Mima to come to me-— and John, remem- ber, if nothing else can get your father to be grateful to the Captain, and receive him in a genteel manner, we must make out that Cleo, but for him, would have been half-drownded.* " ' Oh, half-seas-over, if you like, provided you put ill for the best claret,' acquiesced Mr. John. '' Upon reaching the drawing-room, they found Mr. Ketch senior seated in an arm-chair in the ^76 . THE BUDGET OF window, with his hat on his head and his specta- cles on his nose, reading a newspaper. His dress consisted of a blue coat and buff waistcoat, mud-coloured unmentionables, and gaiters. His feet were stretched out horizontally, and his imder-lip in the same direction, as he held the newspaper at a respectful distance from him, the better to scan its contents. Mrs. Ketch knew, by the horizontal under-lip, that she must at once resort to the worst. So, rushing into the room and clasping her hands ' a la Siddons,' she exclaimed, ** ' Oh ! Samuel ! my dear ! our Cleo has had such an escape ! must have been lost ! ! de- stroyed ! ! ! drownded ! ! ! ! but for the gallant conduc of a young hofficer !' " « Why,' said Mr. Ketch, 'has the girl been in the sea T " ' No, my dear ; but the sea was a coming to her as fast as hever it could, and all her things blew off, when a young man — ' " ' All her things, Mrs. Ketch !' exclaimed Mr. Ketch, actually taking off" his spectacles ; ' All her things ! how very shocking, scandalous and improper T " ' No, my dear, not all ; but her bonnet and collar — only you're so quick you never let one finish what one is saying — and but for Captain THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 2Y7 Fitzprigem, she might have been brought home to you a dead corpse !" " ' And pray, who is this Captain Fitzprigem?' inquired Mr. Ketch, still unroused into a proper degree either of paternal gratitude, or hospita- ble feeling. *' 'Why, my dear, he lives in Berkeley- square I* Still, even under that galvanic announcement, Mr. Ketch remained immoveable. * And,' con- tinued Mrs. Ketch, fixing her eyes full upon him, ' he's quite the gentleman ! has evidently moved in the first class !' " ' Humph ! likely enough !' grunted Mr. Ketch. « Since the rail-roads have been estab- lished, many people do move in the first class.' " ' Oh, my dear ! how can you ?' expostulated Mrs. Ketch; 'and, besides, he seemed so taken with Cleo.' " « Did he V said Mr. Ketch, instinctively buttoning up the pockets of his mud-coloured inconceivables; for, like every « Faber suae fortuna?,' he had an insuperable mixture of con- tempt and suspicion of all who could give no proofs of being of the same genus. ' Did he ! hope he won't be mistaken in her.' " * He appeared a deuced sharp, shrewd, clever fellow,' diplomatized Mr. John, who began to fear there would be no chance of the claret if he did not put in his oar. 278 THE BUDGET OF '«« Oh, indeed! and who do you say he is?** said Mr. Ketch, turning to his son, and for the first time condescending to interest himself in the business. " ' A Captain Fitzprigem— evidently, as my mother says, a gentleman — for he has very black mustachios, and — and — very bland man- ners.' *' * Fitzprigem ! — Fitzprigem ! — let me see ?* mused Mr. Ketch, calculating on his fingers, during which (with him at all times solemn and portentuous ceremony) Mrs. Ketch scarcely dared to breathe. * Is there not a rich Lord Fitzprigem that lately bought a villa near Rich- mond V " « Surely,' said Mr. John, « he bought it, if you remember, after making that immense speck in the Spanish Bonds.' " ' And is this man any relation to him ?* asked Mr. Ketch, speaking energetically, and turning quickly round in his chair. " ' Most likely his son,' said Mr, John, in a confident and courageous voice ; ' but we can ask him to-day at dinner — as my mother, you know, could not do less (nor more, according to English notions of gratitude), sir, than ask him to dinner, after saving Cleopatra*s life !* added Mr. John, walking with the air of a Ju- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 270 piter up to the glass, raising his shirt-collar about a quarter of an inch on each side, and then precipitately placing his hands on the hind pockets of his coat, as though to ascertain that all there was safe. His mother looked laurel- groves at him for his heroic conduct, while his father quietly said, without further comment : *' ' So he dines here — does he — I should like to know if he is that very clever man's son; Jack, don't forget to ask him/ ** * I won't, sir : but in case he should be as I've no doubt he is, don't you think it would be as well to have some of the best claret out ?* « « Well thought of,' cried Mr. Ketch, quickly unbuttoning one of the so recently buttoned pockets, and withdrawing from it the key of the cellar, with which his son instantly quitted the room. Mrs. Ketch and her bosom's lord were now tete-a-tete; but one difficulty more re- mained to be surmounted, thanks to the enter- prising conduct of her son ; and rather than do any thing that could for a moment risk the new- born popularity of Lord Fitzprigem's son, with that real genius that is ever quick to decide, and bold to undertake, in cases of emergency, she resolved to calumniate the cook. This was bad, certainly; but to have had Captain Fitz- prigeui badly received would have been worse. 280 THE BUDGET OF So advancing to the back of Mr. Ketch's chau*, and leaning fondly over it, said, as she looked tenderly in his face : ' Really, dear, that cook is too tiresome, she says the venison came in so late, she cannot possibly get dinner ready before six ; — tiresome is'nt it, love ?' " ' Discharge her to-morrow !" thundered Mr. Ketch, which convinced Mrs. Ketch (who was a woman of great penetration, and as soon as any thing happened, always perceived exactly what it was), that it would have been madness to have let Captain Fitzprigem rest under the odium of delaying the dinner. "At half-past five the young ladies were dressed and in the drawing-room, where they fidgetted from chair to sofa, and sofa to otto- man, in a state of strong nervous excitement, till six o'clock precisely, when a cabriolet — the cabriolet drove up to the door. The sis- ters were at the window instantly, peeping through the blind, ' Is'nt he handsome T asked Cleopatra. " « Why, how strange,' said Jemima, ' I do think I saw him shake hands with his groom.' " ' Nonsense !' scoffed Cleopatra, with the look of a Zenobia. " Whether Captain Fitzprigem heard the voices, if not the words, through the open win- dow, I know not, but he again turned to his THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 281 groom, and placing his hand upon his arm, as though to inforce his directions, said, in an audi- ble voice, ' Be sure you send those letters off immediately — and— a — Jenkins — the cab at eleven.' Two minutes after, Captain Fitzprigem was announced, and perfectly dazzled the young ladies with the gilt ginger-bread gorgeousness of his appearance : he wore a pink satin waistcoat, and innumerable little shirt frills, like a cauli- flower run to seed, and studded like a firmament with jewels ; his coat was embroidered, and turned back, which gave him a magnificent spread eagle appearance; thick masses of curls graced each side of his head, resembling from their rigidity the stone representation of a Greek mask more than anything human ; while his hands, from the quantity of rings he wore, looked like a diorama of a jeweller's tray ; his voice was somewhat pe- culiar, as though he had plums in his mouth, that gave it a certain unintelligible thickness, which was not relieved by his smile, which was more muscular than mental, merely distending his mouth, without illuminating his other fea- tures. Such was the fascinating Fitzprigem, as he entered Mrs. Ketch's drawing-room. Mr, Ketch had been prevailed upon to dress for Lord Fitzprigem's son, but could not be prevailed upon to deviate from his usual custom of never 282 THE BUDGET OF meetino: his oruests till he met them in the dininsf- room. Every thing was beautifully arranged ; for, although Captain Fitzprigem was obliged to take Mrs. Ketch down to dinner, Miss Cleo- patra contrived that he should sit next her. Mr. Ketch received his 'distinguished guest* as though he had been drinking ' the glorious, pious, and immortal memory* in solemn silence ; which awful pause continued for some seconds, till Mrs. Ketch (who was never ashamed to mention the Wiggins's because they were richer even than the Ketches, and consequently great people in her estimation), turned round to O'Sham, and said, * Did you go to know how old Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins were ?' '* ' I did, ma''am, and Mr. Wiggins is seventy- two, but they did not know how old Mrs. Wig- gins was.' " ' Dear me, how stupid you are,* said Mrs. Ketch, * I sent you to know how their health, was — not what their age was ; and then leaning over to Captain Fitzprigem, added in a whisper, * what stupid people the Hirish is — aint they V " « Why, — a — yes — we find them great blun- derers in our profession.' " ' Indeed ? I always thought they were reck- oned good soldiers,' ventured Miss Cleopatra. " ' Yes — a — I — a — believe they are,' said THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 283 Captain Fitzprigem, abstractedly balancing on his fore-finger a massive gilt fork. This was in Cleopatra's eyes a decided proof of his genius, for all geniuses are absent, especially when they are present. " ' Ave you been at the hopera, Captain ?* asked Mrs Ketch. " Cleopatra was in an agony whenever her mother opened her mouth for any other purpo^se than to eat her dinner — for beside her feuds with the ' h's,' there were as many 'says I's, and ' says she's' in her conversation, as there are in Fontenelle's ' Plurality of Worlds.' " To this last question, Captain Fitzprigem not only replied in the affirmative, but ran out into such raptures about Taglioni, that Miss Cleopatra felt towards that divine danseuse with the epic feet and musical limbs, almost as spitefully, as Martial expresses himself about the Betic and Gaditon female dancers. *' ' What I so particularly admire in Taglioni,* pursued Captain Fitzprigem, ' is the breath- less attention with which she rivets all be- holders. I really believe, while she is dancing, you might cut off people's heads, and they'd never feel it !' " « I ax (e) your pardon. Captain,' said Mr. John, Mia! ha! ha!' 284 THE BUDGET OF -for such, alas ! is but too often the result in such cases." " Good heavens ! what a wretch you must think me ! You make struggles and sacrifices for me, and I requite them in any way but by adoring you, if possible, even more than I do at this moment. Ah, Theresa ! you do not, THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 309 cannot love one of whom you think so un- worthily !" '' Not unworthily," said Theresa, raising her eyes steadily to his ; ^' but I have seen enough of the world, though little, to know the differ- ence between men and women's love. We only love the more those for whom we struggle and sacrifice. But in jostling through the intricate bye-paths of life, the rivets of a man's heart are nearly always loosened, and his best feelings lost." " Well," replied Cecil, in a suffocating, and somewhat angry voice, as he took up the letter he had sealed, and re-read the address, '' here is a person who will never have to jostle through the intricate and bye-paths of life, and who, consequently, is more worthy of Miss Manners than one whose brittle and valueless heart is not deemed capable by her of standing so severe a test I" " Nay," said Theresa, placing her small white hand on his arm, '* you wrong me ; it is not you I doubt so much as myself. I doubt my power of atoning and sufficing for all that for me you must give up ; — all that through me you will encounter. You are not, believe me you are not, calculated to vegetate in the shade of a country life, or even stagnate in mere sun-shine. You — "" 310 THE BUDGET OF " But I do not mean," interposed Cecil, " to live in the country, and try the dangerous expe- riment of love in a cottage. We will live in London, where I feel that I can and must win my way." "Ah! there it is," sighed Theresa, ''that is what I dread. Country poverty is never vulgar, because nature is never vulgar, and it's luxuries are for all. But in artificial life, the vulgar aristocracy of wealth must of necessity be paramount, especially in Eng- land, where poverty is the only crime pun- ishable by the laws of society. To be poor, is to lack merit, talents, beauty, and to lose caste ; or, in one word, to lack advancement. And to what disadvantage does a poor wife appear, when compared to the rich, brilliant and careless beauties who fill the pageants of the world. Then, worst of all, comes custom ! that false god at whose shrine all men worship, more or less, till they follow Ben Jonson's advice, and think that * Husbands must take heed, They give no glut of kindness to their wives,' But use them like their horses.' " " Theresa !" cried Cecil, his whole face work- ing convulsively as he spoke, '' answer me truly, has Mr. Stuart Vernon proposed for you ? and — ^and — de--do you love him ?" THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 311 *' Your last question," replied Theresa, haugh- tily withdrawing her hand which he had seized, *^ is an insult, after what has passed between us. But this letter," continued she, breaking the seal and presenting the one she had written to Mr. Stuart Vernon to Cecil, " will answer both." He ran his eye hastily over the letter, which was an unequivocal refusal of Mr. Stuart Ver- non's offer, but a grateful acknowledgment of the honourable and disinterested mariner in which it had been made. *' Forgive me, dearest,*' cried he, dropping the letter and falling at her feet. " Never, never again shall my heart be darkened by a doubt of your affection. But oh, Theresa ! I do so adore you, that I should be jealous of my- self if I thought you loved me better at one moment than another,'* "Then, truly, will you be jealous without cause," said Theresa, smiling through her tears, as Cecil kissed them off. ** And now," con- tinued she, " as I know you are all suspicion and suspense about the poor man you saw speaking to me at Shrewsbury, I may as well tell you." *' You shall tell me nothing,'* said Cecil, pla- cing his arm round her waist, and drawing her 312 THE BUDGET OF gently towards him, as he kissed her into silence, *' except that you love me, and that yon may tell me again and again, until I forget that there are any other words in the world but those, and parrot-like can repeat no other." " But what if you should have a relapse about the man in black, as you call him ?" said she, smiling archly, " don't you think I had better tell you, for fear of accidents ?" " No, no ; there is no fear," replied he. " I don*'t want to know ; the whole world may be men in black, or black men, for aught I care. You love me ! you have told me so ! and that is enough. We will not even talk of our future plans, for they include others. Neither is there any use, till I have officially encountered Lord John's pomposity, in even letting Marmaduke, kind as he is, into our secrets. As for the others, they are, of course out of the ques- tion." In this Theresa acquiesced ; for she felt, without shaping her feelings into words, that this was their dream of life, which, if realities did not dispel, they would at least disturb, and the heart is always for dreaming on. As for Cecil, in the intoxication of his present happi- ness, he forgot "Friendship itself, the vanity of fame, And all but love, for love is more than all." THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 313 CHAPTER X. " Some good we can all do ; and if we do all that is in our power, however little that power may be, we have perfox-med our part." — Miss Bowdleu's Essays. " Metliinks I see him now — Fallen his crest, his glory gone ; The opening laurel fading on his brow — Silent the trump of his aspiring fame ! No future age shall hear his name.'' AFFABLE BEHAVIOUR OF LORD AND LADY JOHN BUBBLE AMONG THE NATIVES. MR. MC PHIN HAS MORE PUPILS THAN HE BARGAINS FOR, AND IS AFTERWARDS ON HIS HIGH HORSE. NOT SO SIR ROMULUS. CHIVALRIC .CONTRETEMS. ANOTHE R LETTER FROM MR. SIMPSON — AND ONE FROM GERTRUDE, WHICH MAKES MR. HOWARD RESOLVE ON RUSHING INTO PRINT. It was now nearly the middle of December, and Lord and Lady John Bubble had been about a fortnight at Bubble Hall, where they had evinced much affability and alacrity in accepting invitations to dinner round the neigh- bourhood. A ball was also pending at Mrs. Whabble's ; and Sir Romulus, bent upon having, as he said, " something out of the common," had inclosed a part of the common, at the back of Bubble Hall, as an amphitheatre, and issued a VOL. I. p 314 THE BUDGET OF proclamation, bidding every one to a tournament on the first of January ; for, as he justly observ- ed to Lord John, this would be an effectual means of collecting the whole county together, and giving him an opportunity of seeing what could be done with those Tory Algerines. Lady John was to be the queen of the tournament, and great were the preparations and rehearsals that took place. Sir Romulus had decided that Mr. McPhin, from his height, should be the first to enter the lists as Don Quixote, and run a tilt with every unknown knight that might appear, while he himself was to officiate as Sancho Panza, mounted on Kicksywicksy ; and Mr. Town, from having so long been his own trumpeter, was appointed herald. Cecil was to be a knight of the swan, in bright steel chain- armour; and Marmaduke had volunteered his services as his esquire, while Cosmo (though he had moved an amendment, which had been carried nem. con., namely, that to prevent accidents, the lances should be made of barley sugar, affixed to telescope handles), preferred acting as page to Lady John, justly considering that in all cases where there was the remotest danger, " The post of honour is a private station." Cecil had never liked Lord John, but now he THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 315 almost hated him, for, since his arrival, he had been in the habit of expressing a hope, whenever Theresa did not come down to dinner, ' that the young person up-stairs was not worse ?' What a man to be obliged to consult upon that on which the happiness of one's life depended, — a man whose very nerves, if he had any, seemed all made of toads and tortoises, things instinct with prolonged and unfeeling life. At all events Cecil determined to put off the evil day as long as possible, and the perpetual bustle, and ex- ternal ferment, Sir Romulus kept his lordship in, furnished a good pretext for so doing. As for Lady John, she was a corresponding torpidity. Her complexion and hair were of a light-drab colour ; her eyes of a pale and delicate green ; her nose long and thin, with a slight tinge of carnation towards the end ; her lips were thin and compressed ; her teeth good, but too large ; and on her left cheek was a mole, out of which sprouted two long light hairs ; her figure was long and flat, as if it had been pressed in a cheese-vat ; her hands were large and freckled, and she always kept them crossed over her wrists, to avoid the possibihty of shaking hands with any one ; her voice was wiry, high-toned, and jirky, like a wheel going over a rut. The phrase <' very pretty," or, as she pronounced it, r2 316 THE BUDGET OF " putty," she applied to everything, from a thunder-storm down to a toasting-fork, or from an epaulet up to an epic. There was not that living thing Lady John could not get some- thing out of. She would have courted a spider had she wanted to get rid of a fly ; and her chari- ties were invariably dispensed through the me- dium of subscriptions levied on her acquaintance. She was a great person for bazaars and fancy- fairs — the surplus of which she always bought up for a song, and either appropriated to her own use, or sold at some future charity for treble the original value. As a parent, she spared np words ; and if talking about it constitutes education, Johndina's was perfect. Poor child ! although she was never let to touch fruit or sweetmeats, and was condemned to the most stoical abstinence ; yet was a whole pharmacopoea wasted on her daily, and never was she allowed to move, sit, or stand as nature dictated, being always warned into an opposite course by an admonitory '* Johndina, my love — your head," or, ''Johndina, my dear — your feet," or, ''Miss Bubble— your chin." In person, Johndina combined the angles of her mother with the awkwardness of her father ; and Lady Bubble had ascertained, to her full satis- faction, that she also combined the fairness of the THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 317 one and the freckles of the other. For the rest, as far as could be surmised from so very undemon- strative a little being, she was not without feeliiig. Since Lady John's arrival at Bubble Hall, it had occurred to her, in the plenitude of her maternal solicitude, that Johndina might ' pick up' something by being in the room while her cousin Cosmo was receiving his Latin lesson ; so accordingly, every day at one. Lady John and her daughter, to Mr. McPhin's great annoyance, were to be found occupying the black leather sofa in Cosmo's school-room ; yet, notwithstand- ing her mother's injunctions to be very atten- tive and learn all she could, Johndina appeared to devote more time to getting Cosmo out of scrapes, and helping him to look out words in the dictionary, than to illicit attempts to purloin his classic lore. If it is a misfortune in some cases, it is an equal blessing in others, that children do not always grow as they are trained. The only Latin that Louis the Eleventh of France allow- ed his son Charles the Eighth to be taught, was the infamous maxim of Tiberius : ' Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare.' Yet his * bon na- ture!' conquered this pernicious education, and gave Philip de Comines reason to say of him : ' Qu'il n'etait pas possible de voir un mcilleur 318 THE BUDGET OF creature.' And in spite of Lady John's inde- fatigable efforts to make self her object, it ap- peared the only one of whom poor Johndina was perfectly careless. As Lady John was sitting one morning, cut- ting strips of paper for poor people's pillows, Johndina helping her, and Mr. McPhin's tem- per oozing out at every pore at Cosmo's more than usual stupidity, his good-natured little cousin thought to divert Mr. McPhin's anger and attention by soliciting a piece of information from her mother ; and therefore said, in a mild and hesitating voice, during an awful pause, in which Cosmo was twisting the leaves of his Virgil to alumettes, and Mr. McPhin had his despotic ruler already upraised for a rap on the knuckles of his devoted pupil — " Mamma." ** Hush, my dear ! you'll disturb Mr. McPhin and your cousin." But this being precisely Johndina's aim, she returned to the charge, saying in a more assured voice, as though she would be answered, '* Mamma, I only' want to ask you one question : are torles born wicked, or do they become so ?* " Why — a — my love — they are born so; for virtue and vice are always hereditary." * This enlightened query was really put a short time ago, by a young lady, of Whig extraction, to her mother ! THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 319 «' Eh, not so Latin," groaned Mr. McPhin. '•'Poor people!" sighed Johndina ; ''then they can't help it ; for we can't be born what we please, can we, mamma ?" " Don't talk nonsense, my dear,'' said Lady John, in answer to her daughter's philosophical truism, and as she spoke, she looked as profound as her words. " I naver heered less nonsense from one of the name," muttered Mr. McPhin ; and then added aloud, addressing himself to Cosmo, and pointing to a duodecimo birch-tree, in the shape of a rod, and two crossed canes, that formed a sort of scholastic escutcheon over the man- telpiece, " Augh tell ye what it is, Maister Bubble : — ye see those instruments of war out yander ? well, ye'll either pay attention, or I promise ye they shan't have a sinecure ony more than myself." Cosmo unrolled the leaf he had so indefatiff- ably rolled, and cgain began : " Infernus " — '' Look at yer booke, sir !" thundered Mr. McPhin, the ruler descending forcibly on the table within a hair's-breadth of Cosmo's hand, " look at yer booke, and see if it is ' infernus.' ' Infernal ' would be ' more germain to the 320 THE BUDGET OF Cosmo recommenced in a whimpering voice, and the tears that fell seemed to clear his sight. " * Infeinas accede domos ; et Averna per alta Congressus pete nate, meos.'" " Eh, ot last ! aum giod to see the cataract has fallen from yer eyes to some purpose," said Mr. McPhin, brushing away as he spoke, with one flourish of his handkerchief, Cosmo's fast falling tears, that deluged the book." " Oh the Algerine is here !" cried Sir Romu- lus, flinging open the door, followed by Archy Dunn and John Nolan, the village blacksmith, while he himself glittered in a partial suit of block-tin armour : I say partial, as there was an evident discrepancy in front, while Sir Romulus held in his right hand what had every appear- ance of being a colossal blancmange shape. " Your Ladyship here !" said he, turning to Lady John ; " and what have you done with my calamity ?" " Lady Bubble said she should go to the amphitheatre," replied Lady John, "when I left her." " Not she," said Sir Romulus ; " there's no collecting any of them ! And McPhin, I sent six messengers after you ; what the deuce have you been about?'* " Eh sir !" sighed Mr. McPhin, placing his THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 321 band on Cosmo's shoulder as he spoke; " here have I been all the morning, like Tarquin the Proud (with a difference), conquering the Gabii (Gaby)." " Oh ! the Algerines, there are nothing but gabies. I have had a world of trouble about my armour, and have at length been obliged to contrive this myself," said Sir Romulus, plac- ing the Brobdignag jelly-shape before him, which then discovered its meaning to be a sort of casket for the bay-window promontory of his figure. " The Algerines never had the wit to invent this — and consequently, my armour, as Dunn had planned it, and Nolan had executed it, was a sort of universal thumb-screw ! where- as, now,'" continued he, turning leisurely round, taking of his helmet, and bowing to himself in the glass, *' I'm the very glass of fashion !" *' To say nothing of the ' mould of form/ " re- joined Mr. McPhin, pointing to the blancmange shape with which Sir Romulus had filled up the gap, or rather covered the promontory, in the front of his armour. «' Well quoted, Mr. McPhin, well quoted,'' reiterated Sir Romulus, but I want Lady Jolm and you to come to the amphitheatre, and Til shew her a little fun, in the way of one of our rehearsals ; for Lord Francis writes me word, p3 322 THE BUDGET OF that the Duke and Duchess of Arlington want to come over to see our arrangements on Mon- day ; and it's the very thing — Don Quixote and Sancho riding, not reading, before the Duke and Duchess — do you approve of that variation. Lady John? riding, not reading, this is just the sort of pleasantry and wit (!) to delight the Duke. *' The Duke of Arlington is a very clever person," said Lady John. «c Very clever," assented Sir Romulus, it is a pity he is such a tory ; but we'll see if we can't tilt some of his tory ism out of him. McPhin, they have brought your armour home too, and I wish you would go and try it on. The gridiron bars to the vizor have a tremendous effect ! — a tremendous effect ! The Algerines will be frightened at the very sight of you — but away with you now and try it on, and then fol- low us to the amphitheatre." " The tin you shewed me strook me as being rather slight and easy to be perforated," said Mr. McPhin, addressing Nolan. " Eh, sir," chimed in Archy, in a stage whis- per, *' I tooke the preccution of odvising him to line all the bock with a solid plate of iron, that they may spear ot till they're tired, ond it will have nae effect." " Hoot, mon, what would ye insinuate ?" re- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 323 plied Mr. McPhin aloud, with a mingled look of valour and vengeance ; *' gin yer eyes looked straight like other mortals, I should not wonder at yer seeing all things in the same point of view, but, conseedering they have chosen such opposite directions, ye might ken, that though larning generally travels by a bock road, courage does not tak the same direction." " Um — urn — um" — bumble-bee'd Sir Romu- lus, " Dunn is right, precaution is every thing, and prudence the invariable badge of a hero. Marshal Saxe never would fight a duel — looked carefully under his bed every night, and never got into it without locking his door, for fear the Aigerines should murder him. — Ahem, Nolan, I think a plate of iron would be an improve- ment down the back of my corselet, just to steady it, nothing more.'* While Sir Romulus was thus evidently taking pains to avoid a servile imitation of the great Conde, however he might laud Marshal Saxe, Lady John looked ready to exclaim with the sister of the former, Mme. de Longueville, ** je n'aime point les amusemens honnetes," as she took Sir Romulus's glittering arm, while he led the way like an ambulating tin-mine to the amphitheatre. Upon arriving there, they found the rest of the family assembled. On the walls behind the seats were rude frescoes, S24 THE BUDGET OF on one side representing the Borgo and Citta of St. Marino, and on the other the interior of the chapel, with the people at high-mass, expelling Cardinal Alberoni, and his attendants, when, in 1740, he made an attempt to bring their little republic under the dominion of the Pope. *^ How beautiful," said Cecil, pointing to the mimic representation of the Borgo — " are those Tuscan plains, even in this daub !" " Um — um — um — Tuscan ! my dear fellow, I'm surprised at you. St. Marino is only twelve miles from Rimini. If that Algerine, Cosmo, had made such a mistake, I should not have been surprised — but you !" *' He has made no mistake," interposed Mar- mad uke, while Cecil contented himself with a compassionate smile, " he is perfectly justifiable in calling them Tuscan plains. Polybius de- scribes that immense plain bounded by the Alps, the Apennines, and the Hadriatic, and also the plains about Mola and Capua, called the Phlegraran Fields, as anciently inhabited by the Tuscans — and this people's territory, he says, formed incomparably the finest portion of Europe. However, before Polybius wrote his history, the dominions of the Tuscans had con- tracted to a narrow span : and, according to the parlance of the modern Italians, while the Pope possesses the marrow, the Grand Duke has now THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 325 only the bones of Italy. — So, classically speak- ing, Howard made no mistake at all." " Oh dear !" said Miss Prudence, calling to Cosmo to come and help her down off the benches upon which she had clambered — care- fully tucking up her gown all round her, — *' Oh dear ! the carpenter has made a very great mis- take — he's gone and nailed up this door." *' Oh my dear, the mistake was in the Alge- rine's making a door there at all — it would have killed all the people with the draught that came from it." " But what I look to, Romulus," rejoined Miss Prudence, "is the immense way they'll have to bring the refreshments round ; and at this time of the year, all the soups and things will get stone-cold, and I do dislike cold soup beyond everything." *' What you want, I suppose," laughed Sir Romulus, " is to have the thing conducted on the plan of the Lord Mayor's journeys — when the papers inform us that his Lordship stops every quarter-of-an-hour to take luncheon till dinner is ready." "One thing is certain," said Marmaduke. " Prudence^s ' Reunions' would differ widely from the ' Symposia' of the Greeks, or the ' Convivia' of the Romans ; for, instead of 326 THE BUDGET OF philosophical dialogues, and epideiktic orations, she would have nothing discussed but soups and sirloins. All else is caviar to her multi- tude." " Oh, dear ! how very tiresome it is that one cannot mention a cow's horn, Marmaduke, but what you will dose one with Greek and Latin, which you know I dislike beyond everything ! You don't tease Lucretia in that way, and I can't see why you should me." " Most worthy Prue, the difference is great between you. Lawyer-like, you eat your terms, and, therefore, are entitled to a little civil strife. Whereas, Lucretia's life is modelled on the * nocte sera deditam lanae inter lucubrantes ancillas,' which Livy ascribes to her Roman namesake; but that Prudence may no longer pity you for my neglect, — what art reading, Lucretia?" added he, turning to that amiable spinster, who, not to lose time, was never with- out a book, and was now applying her hand- kerchief to her eyes, on the perusal of some tender tale, described on hot-pressed paper, and bound in crimson silk. " Oh, a tale of simple village-love that is most touching !" responded Miss Lucretia, ^' between Betty Barton, a dairy-maid, and John Jenkins, a carpenter. John has just seized THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 327 Betty's soft white hand, and in the most refined and respectful manner says to her, * Betty, can- not my feelings blush themselves into your notice ! or must they resort to the coarse me- dium of words to make themselves under- stood?' is it not beautiful ?" murmured Miss Lucretia, again using her handkerchief. "Fudge!" cried Marmaduke, "no Betty Barton and John Jenkins in England ever made love in that way ; and these arcadian descrip- tions of the lower orders of the English make me sick, it is such d — d nonsense !" *' How does your ladyship approve of this sort of thing !" inquired Sir Romulus of Lady John, alluding to his preparations for the tour- nament ; but following as it did so closely on the heels of Marmaduke's philippic, she con- cluded it related to that, and merely replied : " Oh, very putty !* which she thought must please all parties, as Lucretia might take it in the light of a panegyric on the tale she admired, Marmaduke as an acquiescence in his critique, and Sir Romulus as a satisfactory and compli- mentary answer to his question. Here Mr. McPhin appeared, heralded by peals of laughter on the part of Cosmo, and great neighing on that of Kicksywicksy, who was led in by a groom in the rear of the large 328 THE BUDGET OF white cart-horse, on which Mr. McPhin was mounted, no other having been deemed suffi- ciently strong to bear so great a hero. The tin in the pseudo knight of LaMancha's armour was, as he had before hinted, rather thin ; con- sequently, every movement he made, it flashed and rattled into dimples, alias bulges like itine- rant thunder and lightning, packed in a strolling company's caravan. His helmet was painted black, with a small white windmill on the top, and a vizard of black gridiron bars, which had, as Sir Romulus had announced, "a tremendous effect." A lion's tail had been purchased from a neighbouring menagerie, which, hanging grace- fully down from the back of his helmet, con- siderably added to his formidable appearance. On his shield was emblazoned an appropriate coat of arms. Crests, a goose gorged with a broken heart, and donkey rampant, three gules argent. On the dexter side, a cap of mainte- nance with bells. Ground or, a cat's paw, with three chestnuts azure. Supporters, two female figures in white. Motto, ' Certum pete finem."'* *' Capital ! capital !" exclaimed Sir Romulus. *^ Cervantes himself would be delighted with you ; and here is your Dulcinea all ready," added he, pointing to Mademoiselle Perpignon, who had provided herself with a lap full of beans, THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 329 in order to * Del Toboso' Mr. McPhin as much as possible. " Eh, sir," cried the latter, wheeling his huge quadruped short round, out of the meridian glare of Mademoiselle's glances, " AuVe always conseedered thot fat scullion os the most super- fluous and inconvenient perte of the booke.'* " Oh, you Algerine ! you've no gallantry in you ; but just get down and help me up, will you, for this little devil is plunging and capering worse than ever." Mr. McPhin did as he was desired ; but just as he had placed one foot on the ground, and was in the act of releasing the other from the stirrup, Kicksywicksy seemed to resent his want of politeness in turning his back to her, for she no sooner perceived it than she began butting her head vehemently, when, getting on the blind side of Mr. McPhin, she charged so furiously against the anterior part of his armour, that, but for the plate of iron Archy Dunn had had the precaution to have it lined with, she must have executed an indenture so disadvantageous to Mr. McPhin as to have irrevocably disqualified him from resuming his seat. However, no sooner was Sir Romulus, by the joint assistance of him- self and the groom, safely mounted, than he began practically to illustrate the motto on his 330 THE BUDGET OF shield, by aiming a blow at the sure end of Kicksywicksy, which so exasperated that high- mettled little animal, that she reared up on her hind legs, thereby disencumbering herself of Sir Romulus, who rolled to a considerable dis- tance in the saw-dust, his very worldly wig and helmet deserting him in his misfortunes, while the springs of the blancmange shape being loosened in the fall, it flew upwards and de- scended upon his rampant feet, fettering him beyond all power of extrication, while Kicksy- wicksy set off full gallop, racing round and round the amphitheatre, putting every one to flight before her, and considerably exhilarated by the screams of the ladies. " Stop that Algerine of a pony l" cried Sir Romulus, as soon as he could speak. *' Where's my calamity ?" " Where is it not ?" said Marmaduke, taking the tin shape off his feet ; " for you appear over- whelmed with calamities of every kind.*' '' A — just so — just so — a," chimed in Colonel King, entering at a side door, and picking up, on the end of his cane. Sir Romulus's wig and helmet, while Captain Russell succeeded in catching Kicksywicksy's bridle; upon which the ladies ventured to descend from the upper benches, where they had taken refuge. As soon THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 331 as Sir Romulus was again on his feet, had re- adjusted his wig, and consoled himself with a pinch of snufF. he turned to Lady John, saying, " Well, I think we have had enough of fun for to-day. What do you think of it?" '' Oh very putty — very putty indeed," drawled Lady John. " I had no idaya, my dear," said Lady Bub- ble, " that such a little animal could have thrown you to such a distance." '^ It only shows," replied Marmaduke, " that the greatest man may be laid low in a moment." *'A — just so— just so — a," assented Colonel King. " Oh dear ! I don't know when I've heard you talk so sensible, Marmaduke — now quite remarkable so ; — 'tis like an observation Dr. Damnemall would have made." " How very well you have arranged all this,'' said Colonel King, looking round the amphi- theatre ; " uncommonly well 1" " What do you think of the paintings ? pretty — ain't they ?" asked Miss Prudence. " A — very — a — very. Do you draw at all ?'"* inquired the affable Colonel, by way of saying something more than from any desire to acquire the information he asked. " Oh dear, no — not at all ; but I've a new teapot that draws uncommon well." 332 THE BUDGET OF Here Lord John made his appearance, look- ing like an embodied frost ; and after his best county shake of the hand with Colonel King and Captain Russel, he presented several letters to Sir Romulus, Lady Bubble, and Cecil, who with Theresa retired to read his. One was from Gertrude, by which it was evident that she was becoming attached to Lord Mornington, and it might be fairly surmised he had given her cause so to be ; a whole page she then de- voted to praises of his mother, and lamentations over the bad health and low spirits of Lady Mornington's brother, Sir Headworth Clavering, who had lost all his children. Gertrude ended her letter by saying, that a furious attack had just appeared on the Duke of Arlington, in the shape of a very clever pamphlet, the author of which nobody knew. Cecil's other letter was from Mr. Simpson, filled with statistical des- criptions of Ireland and the Irish, and a minute account of the approaching nuptials of his friend Mr. O'Gander Braddle, for whom he had de- signed two bridal oiFerings in the shape of seals. One was to consist simply of his crest, a stag's head, while the other was to be an anchor, wreathed with heart's-ease, with the charming motto, " May they be yours." After perusing this interesting document. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. Cecil again read bis sister's letter, and ended by writing up to Ridgway for the pamphlet she mentioned, determining to answer it. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the Duke of Arling- ton's public and private character. But this was not all : he could not come into public no- tice under fairer auspices than by a successful defence of that great man. Alas ! poor human nature! Science itself might remain dormant, and philosophy stand still, but for the impetus of private motives. I very much doubt if Descartes would ever have attempted to subvert Peripa- teticism, had he not been addicted to passing sixteen hours out of the four-and-twenty in bed. 334 THE BUDGET OF CHAPTER XL " Preachers have I heard, who %vere just for all the world like minnmers, which I once saw at Villadolid, when I went upon some business of the Holy office ; and there were stage- plays acted ; — ^just so they throw about their hands as the toppingest man among the mummers." — Friar Gerund. DR. DAMNEMALL PREACHES BEFORE LORD JOHN. DIFFER- ENCE OF OPINION BETWEEN MARMADUKE AND MISS PRUDENCE, AS TO THE MERITS OF HIS DISCOURSE. TALES OF THE WOODS AND FIELDS NOT THOSE OF THE CHARMING AUTHOR OF " TWO OLD MEN's TALES." MR. HOWARD DEFENDS THE DUKE OF ARLINGTON. MAR- MADUKE SUGGESTS THE EXPEDIENCY OF A " FLA- GELLUM PARLIAMENTARIUM" FOR THE PRESENT DAY. The day after the rehearsal for the tournament being Sunday> all the family at Bubble Hall proceeded to church. Lord and Lady John, and Sir Romulus and Lady Bubble occupying one carriage, while Miss Prudence, Mademoiselle Perpignon, and Cosmo, filled another. The rest of the party, consisting of Cecil, Theresa, Marmaduke, the two young ladies, and Miss Lucretia, preferred walking, as the morning was fine, and the church only the distance of a mile across the fields. This was Lord and Lady THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 335 John's first appearance at the village fane, they having been too tired after their journey on the preceding Sabbath to go to church. Great was the commotion their advent occasioned; several of the officers and townspeople had deserted their church at Shrewsbury on this memorable occasion. Dr. Damnemall himself rustled in a new surplice, while Mrs. Damnemall seemed to have imped her bonnet with a dozen ostrich wingSj and dipped them in a rainbow afterwards. Mrs. Town headed a squadron of her sons in a pew to themselves, while Mr. Town sat in one to himself behind them. Major and Mrs. Whab- ble, their " fine family," and Mrs. Jinks, occu- pied a conspicuous pew in the centre aisle, and were all, except the Major, dressed in a full livery of pepper-and-salt cloth, braided with black — such as Mr. Howard had described to Archy Dunn as being the reigning mode in London ! Dr. Damnemall having, during the catechism of the charity children on the preceding Satur- day, particularly impressed upon them the im- perative duty of subordination to those placed in authority over them, had ordered them to rise simultaneously the moment that Lord and Lady John entered the church, which they obeying to the letter, the shuffling of feet and rustling of 336 THE BUDGET OF serge became so tremendous, that it resembled the whizzing sound of the approach of the Glums and Gowries as described in «^PeterWi]kins,"and caused Lady John to remark to her Lord, that it was a very ''putty" sight to see so many of the rising generation together. Miss Prudence had gone into Mrs. DamnemalFs pew, where she had an opportunity of remarking that there were five more loaves on the shelf to be given out on this Sunday than the last; and also how ex- ceedingly well the doctor was looking in his new surplice ; and for her part she was not sure that she did not prefer the church to the army or the royal navy ! In figure Dr. Demetrius Damnemall gave one the idea of Sir John FalstaflP in full canonicals. His face was of a ruddy purple ; his cheeks ample, and overflowing as it were, on his snow-white muslin cravat; his forehead was low; his ej^e- brows bushy ; his eyes dark ; his right eyelid drooping exceedingly ; his nose was small and straight; his lips voluminous; his teeth white; and his chin cleft like a peach ; his ears were red and downy, like large red gooseberries, the ample ends of which were doubled up by the interference of his cravat ; his hands were very large and very white ; his nails very long, and very pointed ; on the little-finger of his left THE BUBBLE FAMILY. SSI hand he wore a large oval red cornelian antique, representing the miracle of the loaves and fishes — on that of the right hand, an equally large emerald, formerly in the possession of Thomas-a-Becket. " Take him for all in all," a portly-looking man was Dr. Demetrius Damn- email — and no wonder Miss Prudence prefer- red the church in that form, to either the army, or " the Royal Navy !'* The church at Bubbleton not possessing an organ, the Doctor had been particular in get- ting extra musicians against Lord John's ar- rival ; and most of his parishioners being puri' tanical like himself, had volunteered their ser* vices, so that he had secured the reinforcement of a clarinet, and a sort of Sternhold and Hop- kins' edition of King David on the harp ; — to be sure they were not exactly in unison, but this only produced the more variety. Peter Partridge, the clerk, who, from his lathy ap- pearance, had obtained the soubriquet of "long cloth," in contrary distinction to the Doctor's « nomde guerre' of " broadcloth,'' had, from offi- ciating in the double capacity of waiter and clerk, contracted a habit of bowing every time he opened his mouth; and report went so far as to say, that at several of the vestal tea parties where he attended, he had been heard, when VOL. I. Q 338 THE BUDGET OF asked for, or told to do anything, to reply " Amen." Seeing that Lord and Lady John were seated, and all the silks and satins in the church comfortably adjusted, he gave out in a truly forlorn-hope whine, the following hymn : — "The saints should never be dismay'd, Nor sink in hopeless fear ; For when they least expect his aid, The Lord he will appear.'' *' Oh dear! 'tis so applicable to Lord John," whispered Miss Prudence to Mrs. Damnemall, while twang went the harp, and out squeaked the clarinet, accompanied by the dulcifluous nasalities of the charity-children. " That Algerine of a clarinet," murmured Sir Romulus to Lord John, " is out of tune. My calamity has a prodigiously fine ear ; had they consulted her, she would have put them right." The service then proceeded much as usual, except that in the litany the Doctor delivered with peculiar emphasis — " That it may please Thee to endue the Lords of the Council, and all the nobility, with grace, wisdom, and under- standing," looking full at Lord John. There had been great feuds in the parish lately ; several of the children's parents, and consequently the children themselves, stealing away whenever they could, to hear a very ortho- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 339 thodox and excellent, but by no means puri- tanical, clergyman, of the name of Faithful, read the church service, which he did twice a-vveek at Shrewsbury; — consequently, as parochial busi- ness must be attended to, Dr Damnemall took his text from chap. xxx. of Isaiah : — " Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me." After for some time forcibly anathematising the sin of disobedience, the Doctor got into the midst of the Deluge, and floated for some time on the surface of the waters, till the ark landed; when he pointed out how the best men may be tempted to err, and lamented over Noah's inebriety — adding, " Oh my infantine brethren ! — for it is to you I address myself — Drunkenness is a dreadful sin ! In the archives of our erring sister, the Roman Church, it is related, that the devil (for oh ! he is a subtle devil), offered a poor saint his choice of three sins, compelling him to chuse one. Thinking to chuse the least, he selected drunkenness — but when drunk, lo ! he commit- ted the other two ! therefore, I say unto ye, beware ! beware ! beware !" here the Doctor's ' verbum ardens' and happy facility of expres- sion, hurried him on, till he found himself at Belshazzar*s feast, when he exclaimed — " What a fine sight this must have been, a thousand of 340 THE BUDGET OF his lords ! ! ! Our House of Lords ! my beloved sinners ! is a very pleasing, nay, a very edifying sight ; but what is that compared to Belshaz- zar's, with his thousand lords all seated side by side at a sumptuous feast, where was no doubt every delicacy of the season!!* As I always endeavour to instil into you, my Christian breth- ren, respect for your superiors is one of your greatest virtues ! Moses was a weak young man ! still he was God's prime-minister ! and, as such, to be respected ! ! !" " Insufferable stuff!" said Marmaduke, as the Doctor concluded ; " it is a disgrace to allow such people to profane God's temple, and scandalize religion." " Oh, dear, what an edifying discourse !" ex- claimed Miss Prudence to Mrs. Damnemall. "I assure you, the way in which the Doctor described Belshazzar's feast, made me quite hungry. Oh, dear ! I could actually see the things before me. It shows what a clever man he is. If Lord John does not get him made a Dean after that sermon, I'll never say that any one can live by their wits again !'' * I think it right to state, lest T should incur the odium of treating irreverently so sacred a subject, that this sermon was actually preached, verbatim, with what follows about Moses, six months ago, by a clergyman of the Established Church ! — not at Shrewsbury, but in one of the eastern counties. — Sic itiir ad aslra. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 341 ^' I hope I see your ladyship quite well?" said Mrs. Whabble, simpering up to Lady Bubble; and then added in a whisper, " Do you think I could prevail upon Lord and Lady John to come to my ball on the 26th ? I should be so proud if they would, and I assure you some of the most genteel people in the neighbourhood are coming to me." ''I'm sure they'd be very happy," replied Lady Bubble, who knew how anxious Lord John was to be introduced to Major Whabble's four-and-twenty votes. " I'll introduce you to Lady John. Lady John, allow me to introduce you to Major and Mrs. Whabble — Lord John, Major and Mrs. Whabble." " Most happy to have the opportunity of making Colonel Whabble's acquaintance," said Lord John, looking as if he was going to be hanged. '' Your lordship has promoted me, for I'm only a major yet," said that worthy individual. " No, but Her Majesty soon will promote you," chimed in Sir Romulus. ** So you see the colonel (kernel) lies in a nutshell — lies in a nutshell ! ha ! ha ! ha ! do you approve of my wit, Lord John ?" "Wit?" responded Lord John, innocently ; "oh — ah — yes, very good.'' a '2 342 THE BUDGET OF " Are you Lady John Bubble ?" said Master Whabble, grasping her ladyship's dress so em- phatically that he nearly severed it from her body as he stared up into her face. " Yes, my dear, I am," replied she, with great elective-franchise suppression of temper. " Ma — ma — I say, ma," vociferated that charming child, mistaking his mother's boa for a bell-rope, and tugging at it accordingly, " she's just like any other woman !" '* Hush, James ; you should never make re- marks." '* Oh, I think it's so putty to hear his remarks," fibbed Lady John, and thought that if that did not secure Major Whabble's four- and-twenty votes, her husband had no chance of his election. " Oh, sir," cried Mrs. Jinks, puffing and panting up to Cecil, while she made ineffectual efforts to disencumber her right hand of a plum- coloured leather glove, " Oh, sir, I'm so glad to see you again. I assure you, I often talk to my daughter, Mrs. Major Whabble, who, I believe, you've had the pleasure of being introduced to, of the agreeable journey we had together from Lunnun. I ope the 'Merican gentleman was quite well when you heerd from him, for I everheerd him saying as he should write to you. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. He banged Cocker at 'rethmatic, didn't he? lor! I never ! But ow ave you been since, sir ?" " Quite well, I thank you. May I venture to hope that you have quite recovered the effects of your fall ?" " Oh, lor ! don't talk of it ! v^^e make a joke of it now. The Major, he's so full of his fun, that he says I might have seen by the halminack that there would be a fall of some kind about that time, and that the Rocket being a hopposi- tion coach, that was the reason as they lowered the fare. We do run on so, to be sure ; but lor! I was such a mass of bruises for more nor six weeks after. You can't think how quite black and gray ! like this here p'lese. Dear ! sir, it was uncommon kind of j^ou to tell Dunn what all the fine ladies in Lunnun was a wearing, for I do love anything flashy and genteel in the way of dress ; and doesn't Mrs. Major look particklar well in hers ?" " Annihilatingly so, indeed," smiled Cecil. " Fm glad you think so," said Mrs. Jinks, 4' for Jane, I mean Mrs. Major Whabble, is so partial to fashionable men, you can't think." " Pitiable creatures !'* murmured Cecil. '' Doctor," said Sir Romulus, as he stepped into the carriage, ''will you and Mrs. Damnemall dine with us to-morrow ? — and you'll meet with a liberal turtle and a tory duke." 344 THE BUDGET OF The Doctor, justly considering both excellent things in their way, and in his way, accepted the invitation. As the carriages drove off, and the pedestrians paired off, Mrs. Jinks again wrung Cecil's hand, and, indeed, his heart, by express- ing a fervent wish that they might always travel together. While Dr. Damnemall, after express- ing a great deal of vulgar surprise at Marma- duke's early rising within the last few months, added, " But, my dear sir, how uncommonly well you are looking !" " Well, sir," said Marmaduke, thumping his stick on the ground, and giving the Doctor a sort of ogre-in-Puss-in-boots look (that is, as if he was going to transform him from a lion into a mouse), "Well, sir, if I am, what of that? — there's no act of Parliament against my looking well, is there?'' *' Certainly not, my dear sir, certainly not," replied the terrified divine ; " but you are look- ing so wonderfully well !'' *' Glad of it ! — glad of it ! — shows there's no resemblance between my looks and your preach- ing. Good morning to you ! — and ' Good Lord deliver us' from Dr. Damnemall i" added he, as he cleared the stile from the churchyard into the field. " That man is too much for my tem- THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 345 per," continued Marmaduke ; " and yet Pve no doubt that unmitigated old fool, my sister Prudence, will tell us all when we get home, that she enjoyed the tissue of nonsense that fellow called a sermon 'beyond everything.' " " I think," remarked Miss Lucretia, mildly, '' that it was too political." " Political ! what do you mean by that? As far as the church went, it was most impolitic ; for it was enough to bring any church into dis- grace." *' Why — a — I mean calling Moses a weak young man, and God's prime-minister, was evi- dently an allusion to Lord John," said Miss Lucretia. " Couldn't be — couldn't be ; for he's a weak old man, and not a prime-minister — only a man who primes the minister. Would to heaven he'd make him go off P"* " Oh well, you gentlemen know best,'"* de- ferred Lucretia; " but I should have thought it a political sermon." " Who'd have thought it ? Moses caught it,'' laughed Marmaduke. Here Cecil, who was walking on before with the two young ladies and Theresa, and who was afraid the wind blew too coldly in her face, stopped to settle her veil, which had come un- 846 THE BUDGET OF tied ; and as Marmaduke and Lucretia brought up the rear, they stopped too, when from behind the hedge they overheard the following colloquy : " John, why doesn't spake?" " Got nothink to sye (say). '' Why doesn't tell me eh lovest me ?" " I tauld ee that afore." " Why doesn't kiss me then ?'' " I wull present-ly."* " I tell ee what, John Brough, there's no use in our keeping company if you goes on in this way." *' You be always in such a hurry, and no good ever comes along of being in a hurry." " Missis says as she'll get another servant gal if I asks leave to go out so often ; and she do storm so about the butter, I shall have to leave off giving ee buttered toast with ee tea." " No don't ee," responded John, " and I'll kiss ee now." As Sir Giles Overreach says, the kiss '^ came twangingly oflP," and the first speaker resumed, I " You don't know how out a-pocket I be along of you, John. Missis (drat her !) never leaves the key in the tea-chest now." " I tauld ee I'd make ee the feller to it, if so * This dialogue is taken down, verbatim, from one that a friend of the author's overheard in Berkshire. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 347 be you could lay hold on it for half an hour ; and then you no call to be out of pocket, Sal." " It's more easily said than done, John Brough. An honest, hardworking, 'dustrious gal has no chance with such an old skin-flint as she. Mary Cook, at Mrs. Whabble's, do a-complain sadly ; but as I tells her, her missis be a lady mayoress to Mrs. Town. Lor ! if there aint a man's hat a-listening, t'other side of the hedge !" almost screamed Sally. " Why don't ee wallup un, John?" " I wull present-ly," answered the procrasti- nating John. This was enough. Marmaduke and Cecil burst into a loud laugh ; and, not waiting for Mr. Brough's ' present-ly,' walked on. " Now is not this exactly what I always tell you ?" said Marmaduke to Miss J^ucretia ; '' common people invariably pair (for I cannot call it making love) after this fashion, and do not, as described by some Arcadian writers, talk lilies and roses, and look doves and deities." " I should hope," said Miss Lucretia, senti- mentally, " that those wretches are a solitary instance, and that more pure ethereal refine- ment palpitates in humble hearts, and sublimates rural love than in any other." " D d nonsense !" cried Marmaduke — an 348 THE BUDGET OF exclamation he continued to mutter till he reached home, where the rest of the party had arrived before them. In the library he found Mr. Town confidentially sycophantizing to Lord John, from whom he had extorted a promise to lay his plan for a submarine railroad before the House of Commons ; and in return, like a true insect, he thought the best way of buzzing his flattery into Lord John's ear, was to sting the reputation of the Duke of Arlington, whose speaking he was depreciating as tame and cold. Had Mr. Town made his misstatement to Cecil alone (coming as it did from so insignificant a quarter), he would not have thought it worth refuting; but being anxious that Lord John should not labour under any false impression as to his political tenets, he rejoined, with some warmth, and rather ironically : " Notwithstanding the veto of so good a judge, I cannot coincide in that opinion ; for if (which I am willing to admit) the Duke some- times creeps with Timseus, he as often, if not oftener, lightens and thunders with Pericles ; and, as too many of his contemporaries have reason to know, his invective is so witherinff and terrible, that all things perish beneath its influence, like vegetation over which a sirocco has passed 5 and his irony, however strong, is THE BUBBLE FAMILY. S49 always dignified, while his power of ridicule is perfectly irresistible. In fact, as an orator, I never heard or read of any one who possesses such liojht and shade : for whether he rises to epic sublimity or sinks to colloquial familiarity^ the result is always the same — that of leaving a fact or an image the more in one's memory or one's imagination. But more than all, I vene- rate his total absence of party spirit — that only test of unimpeachable political integrity ; — for whether the caprice of a monarch or the preju- dices of a people are to be offended, and conse- quently his favour with the one or his popularity with the other to be risked, he cares not, as long as right is to be pursued or good to be achieved, though I grant that nature must claim the merit of this ; for his is one of those master spirits that never can sink to the grovelhng paths of meaner minds. In fact, what was said of Napoleon may be w^ith truth asserted of him : " The ebb and flow of his single mind, Are as tides to the rest of mankind." Therefore, born to sway and to command, it is not likely that he should ever succumb either to murmuring complaisance or to spurious pride, that licks the dust." " Really," replied Lord John, raising his eyebrows and pitching his voice three degrees VOL. I. Q 350 THE BUDGET OF below zero, '' such intemperate zeal in behalf of the Duke of Arlington, I must observe, Mr. Howard, comes with a bad grace from any rela- tive of mine, however distant, sir—however dis- tant." " I am sorry," said Cecil, " that my manner should have offended you. The utterance of my opinions I certainly may suppress ; but the opinions themselves I cannot alter.'' " God forbid that you should !" exclaimed Marmaduke ; and then added, '' I tell you what, Cecil — suppose you and I write an 'abstract and brief chronicle' of both Houses of Parliament, eh ? We'd have 'em on the hip there !'' '' What, like Mr. Greville's delightful ' Book of Maxims ?" asked Cecil. " No, no ; more to the purpose that that — plain truths, and no fiction. Stay, like this," continued Marmaduke, reaching down a small volume, entitled ' Flagellum Parliamentarium; being Sarcastic Notices of the First Parliament after the Restoration,' and then read out the following passages from it : " ' Devon.— Sir Thomas Clifford. — The grandson of a poor Devonshire vicar — treasurer of the Household — one of the Lords Commis- sioners of the Treasury — Bribemaster-General. « « Sir Gilbert Talbot.— The King's Jeweller THE BUBBLE FAMILY. 851 — a great cheat at bowls and cards ; not born to a shilling. " ' Sir Courtney Poole. — The first mover for chimney-money, for which he had the court thanks, but no snip. "'Peter Prideaux.— A secret pensioner of £200 per annum and his daily food. " ' Henry Ford. — So much in debt he cannot help taking his bribe and promise of employ- ment. ^' ' Sir John Shaw.— First a vintner's poor boy, afterwards a customer that cheated the nation of £100^000. «'« Anthony Ashley— son to the lord that looks on both sides, and one Wry, who is the great bribe taker, and has got and cheated, £150,000. " ' Essex. — Sir Harbottle Grimston— Master ef the Rolls. *'Then comes Sir Richard Wiseman, with no comment, good, bad, or indifferent, appended to his name, and, like many of the wise men of the present day, I doubt not, felt himself more aggrieved than any of them, by such total obli- vion. Next follows " * Thomas King — a poor beggarly fellow, who sold his voice to the Treasury for £50 bribe. ** 'Gloucester. — Sir Bayn Throgmorton — who has «£^300 per annum in land given him. 352 THE BUDGET OF " ' Sir Edward Massy — a Command in Ire- land, and .sS' 10,000 per annum there. " ' Hereford. — Thomas Price — a debtor to the King .£^1,500. " ' Roger Vaughan — a pitiful pimping bed- chamber man to his Highness, and Captain of a foot company. " ' Sir John Barnaby' — (another nonentity.) " ' Hertford. — Samuel Grimstone — a silly son of the Master of the Roils, and son-in-law to the Attorney-General. " 'Thomas Lord Fanshaw — a pensioner, and much in debt. " * Lincoln. — Sir Robert Carr — married first his mother's maid, to whom he gave a <£^ 1,000 that she would not claim him, because he was mar- ried to Secretary Bennett's sister. He had a list of his debts given into the bribe-master Clifford's hands, who has already paid off ^7,000 of them.' " Now here," continued Marmaduke, " is a poor man that is to be pitied — one of the mem- bers for Cambridge, " ' Sir Charles Wheeler, a foot Captain, once flattered with hopes of being Master of the Rolls, now Governor of Nevis, and a Privy- chamber man. <* 'William Lord Allington— a Chatham col- lector, and a court cully, laughed at by them. THE BUBBLE FAMILY. S5S "'Lancaster. — Sir William Bucknell — once a poor Factor to buy malt for the brewers, now a farmer of the revenues of England and Ire- land, on the account of the Duchess of Cleve- land, who goes snip with him, to whom he has given 0^20,000. " ' Wilts. — Sir Stephen Fox — once a link boy, then a singing boy at Salisbury, then a serving man, and permitting his wife to be a philanthropic beyond the seas ; at the Restora- tion was made Paymaster to the Guards, v^^here he has cheated £100,000, and is one of the green cloth. *' ' Henry Clark — hath had a lick at the bribe jar. " * William Ashburnham — not born to a farthing — now Cofferer. " « Wales. — Edward Progers. — A bed-cham- berman, not born to a farthing. " ' Sir Herbert Price. — ^Master of the king's- household : pays no debts ; his son in the guards, his daughter with the queen. " ' Roger Whitby. — Knight Harbinger, means honestly, but dares not show it.* " Poor, pitiful knave !" exclaimed Marma- duke, " he is worse than if he meant dishonestly, and dared show it, inasmuch as that cowardice and hypocrisy are the worst of sins : but don't 354 THE BUDGET OF THE BUBBLE FAMILY. vou think a very amusing comparative analysis might be written of the House of Commons of the present day ?" *' If true, it would, I fear, be more disgraceful than amusing," replied Cecil. " Such a work," said Lord John, taking his hat, and leaving the room, followed by Mr. Town, ** would be a violation of the laws of the land, and of the laws of society !" " Ha ! ha ! ha !" laughed Marmaduke, ''the laws of the land, and the laws of society, a fine peroration ! but he'd better have kept it for the opening of the next budget !" END OF VOLUME THE FIRST. C. BICHARDS, PRINTER, ST. MARTIN'S LANt. iW. ( 1 3 0112 049756924 **,w- 'Ir / ^^^ ^■v -. jf { r -^'^ # t »5:. L ^ (^^^ >^ ;-i^^« y ^ y'*!^^