So Very Human
Author: Alfred Bate Richards
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Παλαίφατος δ᾿ἐν βροτὂις γέρων λόγος
τέτυκται, μέγαν τελεσθέντα φωτὸς ὂλβον
τεκνοὒσθαι, μη δ᾿ ἄπαιδα θνήσκειν,
ἐκ δ᾿αγαθἂς τύχας γένει
βλαστάνειν ἀκόρεστον ὀιζύν.

These are the words of an ancient Tragedian,
Æschylus hight, not a trifling nor "reedy" one,
Meaning, "Prosperity often gives birth
To a dread brood of Evil, nor dies upon earth
Childless; but leaves an insatiate pack
Of calamities, howling like wolves on the track
Of mortals o'er pampered.—A white-bearded Sage
Among sayings," he tells us, e'en then, in that age.

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SO VERY HUMAN

A Tale of the Present Day.

BY

ALFRED BATE RICHARDS.

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'Αμφὶ δ'ὀφθαλμὂις φόβος

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IN THREE VOLUMES.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1873.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]

LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. WHITING BEAUFORT HOUSE, DUKE-STREET,
LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

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CHAPTER I.

THE PHANTOM IN THE STREETS.

CHAPTER II.

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.

CHAPTER III.

THE GOVERNESS IN A RICH FAMILY.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NUPTIAL KNOT.

CHAPTER V.

MR. STINGRAY, OUTSIDE AND IN.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM.

CHAPTER VII.

THANK HEAVEN! THEY ARE ALL GONE.

CHAPTER VIII.

A LONG ARM OUT OF THE GRAVE.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW A PAINFUL DUTY DEVOLVED ON ARTHUR AUBREY.

CHAPTER X.

MR. PETTINGALL IN THE THUMBIKINS.

CHAPTER XI.

A FLEMISH EXTERIOR OF WEBB'S FIELDS, WITH SOME EULOGY ON LAW AND LAWYERS.

CHAPTER XII.

A DIGRESSION ON ATTORNEYDOM AND ITS WORKS.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SPIDER IN HIS DEN.

CHAPTER XIV.

WEASEL AND STOAT.

CHAPTER XV.

A TILT IN THE ESCURIAL.

CHAPTER XVI.

A STRANGE COMPANIONSHIP, BUT NOT FOR EVIL.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LADY ELFRIDA.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS, AND WHAT HAPPENED THERE.

CHAPTER XIX.

BACK TO QUEEN'S-SQUARE.

CHAPTER XX.

SWELLS ON THE PROWL.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE GREAT BINSBY.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGER OF THE FAMILLE AUBREY.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GONE TO THE AMERICAN BAR.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A DIGRESSION AND A DEFENCE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

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CHAPTER I.

A JEWEL IN A ROUGH SETTING.

CHAPTER II.

THE LITERARY DINER-OUT.

CHAPTER III.

SWELL AND SNOB.

CHAPTER IV.

MATRIMONIAL NEGLECT.

CHAPTER V.

RED LAMPS AHEAD!

CHAPTER VI.

THE SIREN IN HER CAVE.

CHAPTER VII.

WHO SHE WAS.

CHAPTER VIII.

A DUCAL PHILANTHROPIST.

CHAPTER IX.

THE DRIVE TO RICHMOND.

CHAPTER X.

A CAB HOME.

CHAPTER XI.

THE COBRA ON THE HEARTH-RUG.

CHAPTER XII.

NEVER ANY MORE.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR SENSATION-HEADER.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FEELINGS OF THE FIRM.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SMOKING-ROOM OF THE KEMBLE CLUB.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MAN IN POSSESSION.

CHAPTER XVII.

SIR HARRY LUCKLESS'S LUCK.

CHAPTER XVIII.

KATE DAREALL SWOONS.

CHAPTER XIX.

A PRESENT OF NAPLES SOAP.

CHAPTER XX.

ALL HE COULD DO.

CHAPTER XXI.

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

CHAPTER XXII.

FACILIS DESCENSUS.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A POCKETFUL OF SOUP.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

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CHAPTER I.

SIR CROSSBILL CROSSBILL.

CHAPTER II.

EDGAR GRINDERBY DISINHERITS HIMSELF.

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH OLD GRINDERBY'S BOOT BEGINS TO GET TIGHT.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TEUTON'S TOAST.

CHAPTER V.

ROMAN CONQUESTS.

CHAPTER VI.

SOME UNPLEASANT TRUTHS.

CHAPTER VII.

AN ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE THE PRESS.

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. MINNIFEY MEETS A LORD.

CHAPTER IX.

A STORY THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.

CHAPTER X.

ON THE BANKS OF THE ARNO.

CHAPTER XI.

A GENERAL CHURCH MEETING.

CHAPTER XII.

A SISTER OF CHARITY AND HER BRETHREN.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PARK WHICH IS NOT THE PEOPLE'S.

CHAPTER XIV.

TOPS IS LET INTO THE SECRET.

CHAPTER XV.

A SANDWICH WITHOUT SALT.

CHAPTER XVI.

"ON REVIENT TOUJOURS," ETC.

CHAPTER XVII.

MR. STINGRAY'S RAPTURES.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A HANDFUL OF TENPENNY NAILS.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD FOX HAS HIS EARTH STOPPED.

CHAPTER XX.

INSPECTOR LANNER'S LITTLE PLANT.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CRIB AT DEPTFORD.

CHAPTER XXII.

SIGNOR MANVERINI'S LEAP FOR LIFE.

CHAPTER XXIII.

OUTCAST AND OYSTER.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MEETING ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CONFLAGRATION (UNLIMITED).

CHAPTER XXVI.

REPARATION.

CHAPTER XXVII.

HER DECISION.

VOLUME I.

INTRODUCTION.

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THIS book is founded upon an original drama, written and printed for private circulation by the author in 1863. The novel itself has been written some five years. The title only is of more recent date. On the occasion of the Farewell Dinner given to the late CHARLES DICKENS, of whom all eulogy in these pages is felt to be superfluous, he used these words: "I am SO VERY HUMAN!" The author trusts that in adopting this expression as the title of his work, he has done no wrong to the memory of that great artist and genial man. He is conscious of having attempted to deal with a difficult and delicate subject; but he also trusts that the spirit in which it is treated will be considered an ample justification.

One word with regard to the Lawyers. As the author has said, there is nothing personal, nothing pointed at individuals, in this book. If he could, without offence, name some, who are exempt from the sweeping charges he has directed against a system, he would do so. There are solicitors whom he regards with feelings of friendship, gratitude, and esteem. Next to these he has been most condemnatory of the Police. There are many admirable men in that Force, whose merits shine the brighter for the difficulties and temptations surrounding them. Some of the superintendents and inspectors are worthy of the highest praise. Some of the ordinary constables display great forbearance and kindness, and are not less efficient on that account. The writer wishes to see the Police better paid, and chosen invariably from a better class of men. Moreover, he has reason to believe that many of the duties imposed upon the Police are most repugnant to them, as for instance the hoop crusade, and the late illegal attack upon the match-makers' procession. The Police should not be centralised, nor organised as an army in our midst. They should be under local supervision and restraint. And above all, those who take the night charges should, he ventures to suggest, not belong to the Force, but be appointed by the rate-payers. The author merely mentions these things to show that he is not animated by a mere blind fury against the guardians of order, but would ameliorate their condition as the first step towards the social improvement he is desirous should take place. As it is, the seeds of revenge and hatred are widely sown by the tyrannical interference with the small traffic of the poor, and the constant refrain of the pitiless "Move on." Since these pages were written, how many illustrations of the evils, which he has reprehended and pictured, have forced themselves upon the unwilling attention of the public.

There is one thing which may possibly be deemed a mere author's invention, namely, the sudden blindness of Blanche Aubrey, and her as sudden recovery of sight. This is not the case: similar examples might easily be quoted. A friend writing to the author from Pesth, some time after the play was printed, mentioned as an incident which had excited singular interest in that city, the case of a young and beautiful married lady, possessed of rare accomplishments and well-known in Society, who suddenly lost her sight without any apparent reason, and as suddenly, after several months, recovered it. A late suicide of a married lady of wealth and position in New York, bears a striking resemblance to the attempted act of Blanche, both in its causes and the actual features of the act. Lastly, if it is considered that there is a tinge of superstition, infra gli altri difetti del libretto, especially with regard to dreams, presentiments, coincidences, and the like, the author pleads the example of the greatest men who have not been able to refuse their credence to that which philosophy cannot fathom. Who is able even to define dreams? 'Ονέιρατα τά σκοτίας τέκνα, θάυματοστε νεφέλαι φρενός μὲν σκιάι του φόβου μελαγχιτὢνες ἄγγελοι, φωτὸς δε ὀυ πολλάκις ἐυάγγελοι πάρεισι φιλοι.

London, June 10th, 1871.

THE DENIZENS OF THE WELL.

Prologue—Apologue.

"EFTSOONS," quoth the Newt, "we shall be thrown upon the bounty of an unfeeling world; for the well is certainly getting dry. I shall look out for a situation in an aquarium, which I am told is the best thing going for a person of my brilliant colour, elegant form, and engaging manners."

The Frog said, "I shall give an operatic entertainment, with the assistance of the numerous and talented Tadpole family. I shall engage Mlle. Souris Chantante of the principal theatres at home and abroad. We will perform 'Le Lac des Grenouilles,' and 'Le Vieux Rat Polisson,' 'Opera bouffe,' in two acts. My cousin, Herr Bullfrog, will be the conductor, I know."

"And I," said the Toad, "who am not so personally attractive as you others, must, I fear, finally retire from the world altogether, and betake myself to the silent system of conventual obscurity in the centre of some huge stone. But, before doing so, I will pawn the precious jewel of adversity, which I still wear in my head. Can any one tell me where I am likely to get the most money advanced upon it?"

The Newt shook his head, and the Frog croaked a bar from Verdi's "I Lombardi," in a gay and even insulting tone. It was evident that they had no respect for an old lady's misfortunes reduced to so contemptible a shift.

The Little Fish said nothing; perhaps he had nothing to say. At all events, he could not say it, if he had; for he was not a "talking fish." But he thought, that when the last drop of water should fail, he would certainly die a miserable death, and he silently gasped "a prayer for rain," and commended himself to the mercy of an all-wise and all-powerful Providence.

While the Newt, the Frog, and the Toad were thus closely communing together, there came by some mischievous boys, and one of them spying the Toad (for the Frog crept nimbly aside, and the Newt crept into a crevice), threw a heavy brick, which appeared to crush her entirely. They then went on their way, laughing and whooping, to school. The Frog and Newt came out, after the sound of the urchins' voices had died away, and recommenced their conversation.

"Just what I expected," said the Frog. "A fit ending to such an ugly, slow, useless old thing. I always said she would come to grief with that wonderfully 'precious jewel' of hers, of which she was continually prating."

"I can assure you," observed, in turn, the Newt, "that I for one never thought her other than a complete nuisance and a bore. I am glad, for my part, that the nasty, spiteful, venomous hag is gone. Some folks are not fit to live. It's lucky that we are going to move, for her remains will certainly poison the well."

This character given to the Toad was neither charitable nor fair; for she was a harmless, obese person, who never did any one any injury in her life. We are happy to record, that she was only inconvenienced for a few years until the well was cleared out, when she obtained her liberty.

At that moment a shadow darkened the speakers and their abode. Down came a long-necked heron with heavy flapping wings, and the Newt, having crawled at the moment three parts up the side of the well, which, to say sooth, was not very deep, was improved off the earth in a twinkling, and carried wriggling in mid-air to be swallowed at leisure as a bonne bouche and alterative by the lordly fowl.

As soon as the Frog had recovered from this second alarm, he said:—

"Well, he's gone, and perhaps it's all for the best; for there will be all the more water here, until I have completed my arrangements. Besides, I never could really esteem such a crawling style of friend. How about the aquarium now? But I never believed that any of those disgusting mortals, idiots as they are, could be so ridiculous as to found a hospital for him."

Back came the urchins from school. They had got a half-holiday, and approaching the well stealthily, they peeped into it again to see if there was any more fun. The Frog was so busy reckoning up the bad qualities of the Newt, and considering the improbability that, had he lived, any one could have been found to do anything for such an elongated pretender, he did not perceive his danger until it was too late. He was literally caught on the hop, and the boys who could not reach him otherwise, cruelly flogged him to death with some boughs which they had picked up on the road.

The Little Fish only remained. You can imagine what a stew he was in. He nearly swooned outright, when the idlest urchin caught him in an improvised hand-net made of a dirty pocket-handkerchief tied to the forked ends of a stick, and put him into a small green can.

"This monster will certainly boil me," thought the Little Fish. But the can was furnished with air-holes, and the Little Fish breathed more freely through his gills than he had done for some time; and he again commended himself to the will of Providence, with but slender and fishy hope, it must be owned. Presently the boys took him to a beautiful large pond, and put the can into the water. They amused themselves for some time with looking at the behaviour of the Little Fish, who lay still at the very bottom of the can, awaiting his fate. At length one boy pushed the other, and they soused the can somewhat deeper in the water than they intended. It was a grand opportunity for the Little Fish. Out he shot with a whisk of his tail, and darted like an arrow into the deep recesses of the pond, where he met with a number of companions, to whom he modestly narrated his escape—of course merely by dumb show, after the manner of fish, à la fin, as we might say.

He told his tale so often, and was so fêted and flattered on account of his presence of mind and daring (as if he had any of the latter, poor little fellow!) that at length he grew extremely conceited and proud. He thought that his wonderful escape was all owing to his own cleverness and resources. As he was boasting of these one day as usual, quite forgetful of all around save his immediate admirers, a huge Pike, who had marked him for an easy prey, made one rush at him, and swallowed him up, story, vain-glory, arrogance, ingratitude, and all, and he was no more seen among fish.

"De nobis fabella narratur!" It is thus with men. "L'homme propose et Dieu dispose." Of course we should make a good use of our opportunities, when they are sent by an Almighty hand. To-day the poor man gets a living, to-morrow the rich man fails. But whatever we may do, or whatever may be done with us against and above our will, be assured that we can count on nothing for certain; that the finest schemes may be crushed, and the poorest, and humblest, and smallest creatures swim, while the jaws of Fate are always agape to swallow the insane boaster, who deems himself so clever, that he can afford to be forgotten of Heaven.

But the truth is, neither Heaven forgets, nor the Evil One, who hovers between earth and sky, or lies concealed in the rushes of the deep waters. It is better to live even in shallows, if you put your trust above, than to disport amid the treasure-chambers of ocean itself, without gratitude to the Divine mercy, and devoid of constant faith.

SO VERY HUMAN.

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CHAPTER I.

THE PHANTOM IN THE STREETS.

The houseless poor,
Whom the poor succour, such as keep no dog,
Nor currish servants, dust-holes for their crusts.
Nor wash their trenchers' greasy scraps away;
Large-hearted, mean folk; generous, petty souls.
Who something from their margin yet bestow
On shivering outcasts more forlorn than they,
Those without seats at Nature's lowest board.
Whose sheets are mists, whose blanket yellow fog,
Beds the bare earth, and coverlet the sky—
But for such aid how many more would die,
That none know how they live; how life in them
Still feebly lurks from morn to ghastly eve,
From eve to haggard morn.

IT was nearly twelve o'clock on a wet and windy night in London, in the month of August, 18—, and but few were out who could help it in that usually popular thoroughfare, the Strand. We might occupy pages in describing, after the school of the inimitable Mr. Dickens, what a wet night in London is; but then we could not do it like him; and as many of our readers live in London, most of them have been there, and in foul weather too: and, finally, as all of them live somewhere, and have probably seen some town or other on a rainy night, and therefore need only imagine a larger town, a dingier atmosphere, more wet, and wider discomfort, in order to picture to themselves London on such an occasion, we shall not attempt to furnish a word-photograph of the scene, however well or indifferently it might be executed. A young gentleman of "fashionable and prepossessing appearance," so far as one could judge of him, who had just issued from his chambers in Garden-court, Temple, was proceeding westward at a rapid pace on his way to one of his clubs, the Kemble. He paused at a cab-stand near St. Clement's Church, and looked hard at the dripping drivers without eliciting a movement on the part of one of them; and so apparently altered his mind, and determined to walk, although unfurnished with an umbrella, an article which we may mention en passant he very seldom, if ever, carried. Inky spots from the dye of his hat already began to drip upon his nose; but he cared nought for the rain, and thought, probably, if he thought anything about the matter, as follows: "The cabs there are nearly all Hansoms, and the seats are, doubtless, damp, if not sodden with wet; and as for that solitary four-wheeler, the prospect of turning poor cabby out of his sleeping berth is certainly not inviting. He is slumbering with the windows shut, and the reek of mouldy capes, coarse tobacco, and onions, would be overpowering, as soon as one could sufficiently arouse the wretched being to cause him to tumble forth mechanically, and mount his wet box, in a state of blasphemous, vehicular, sixpence-a-mile somnambulism. Poor devil! Let him sleep, and dream of a gorgeous paradise of gin-palaces, where all the fares are on a reckless scale of Haymarket-to-Cremorne extravagance, where even cherubs are counted in as extra passengers, and policemen and summonses are unheard of and unknown." Such in reality was his train of thought as he took stock of the cabs on the stand by St. Clement's Church, and sturdily concluded to walk on. The theatres had just closed, and no shops were open, save those sacred to coffee, eel-pies, china bowls full of green apples stuck in the window, shell-fish, and tobacco. Our hero had passed Goodwin's, that still even then celebrated, dingy oyster-warehouse, where some of the choicest spirits of the age have sat far into the morning—the old "Chronicle" men, when it was a newspaper, Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, the lamented Thackeray, and how many more? Perhaps, such a place was hardly ever graced with so goodly a company as might be constituted of the various literary, journalistic, legal, and parliamentary celebrities whom we have seen there. Truly, a strange dirt-begrimed retreat, open till any hour of the morning, and now shut up, at any rate as an intellectual resort, for ever and a night. What has not been penned and planned there? What flowers of thought, and wit, and fancy have not wreathed that rickety parlour, together with its dense cigar-smoke, until it was as richly decked, at least in imagination, as a bower of the Muses and Apollo, ornamented by the hands of the goddess Flora herself? Dear old Chloë and neat-handed Phyllis, jealous of the comforts, as of the attentions and demands of your separate respective customers and favourites, were ye not also there, nimble of tongue and frying-pan, ready of gridiron and repartee, and jokes and songs? How strong-minded and man-like you had become through constant chatting with your guests on equal, nay, sometimes superior, terms! How well do we remember when the stout old mother sat knitting in that sacred back-parlour, and the thin old father reading his newspaper when his day's out-door business was done, while the daughters cooked for, talked to, quizzed and rallied authors and journalists, politicians in and out of parliament, artists, philosophers, and wits; men, too, who have since become judges of the land and ministers of state, and whom it were invidious now to name. All is over. The old folks are dead and gone, and the young grown old and scattered—who knows whither? But it was a strange place after its kind, perhaps as strange as any that has existed since the sign of the Mermaid was painted by some peripatetic limner of the Elizabethan period. Long before "Pickwick" was written, that old house was rendered notorious by a less pleasing association, of which the old people, at least, seemed almost, if not quite, as proud. For thither the murderer Thurtell and his associates and victim were wont to repair. There, possibly, the former planned his atrocious deed, and frowned upon his cowardly and cringing accomplice, Hunt. Well, after all, Time has long ago glazed, and varnished, and mellowed the remembrance of that celebrated crime. One would not sup the less merrily in Holyrood Palace or Berkeley Castle for the thought of still more atrocious acts once perpetrated there. Besides, has not antiquity been known to consecrate the most flagrant assassination in the eyes of the rigid denouncer of an Orsini or Berezowski in these later times? The quaint, old, dingy shop is long since closed, buried beneath the countless oyster-shells of the past, as utterly as if it had never been. Where is the singular remnant of humanity, that eccentric Caliban, hight "Alphonso," as wild and preternatural in appearance and belongings as any of the most abnormal creations of Mr. Dickens's most imaginative mind? A being whose language was chiefly an inarticulate growl, who slept on a cellar-shelf, who never put off his ragged vestments, nor washed the mask of dirt from his rugged face. Such was the minister of those virgins of molluscous fame, and such as he was, he crept to Billingsgate and slunk back every morning, for full thirty years, unknown and without a name; though a species of tradition whispered he was once a gentleman, a man of education, and well born. His real story not even his employers ever knew. Where is the gifted "Ephemera," the glory of "Bell's Life," that most eloquent and classical writer, of such low-lived habits and tastes, who charmed the public for a week, and then the public-house charmed him, so that he would disappear and return coatless, vestless, and shoeless, to be refitted, and a pen put in his hand again, wherewith to coin fancy, and with it gold, to relapse into bestial intemperance again?

But whoever might be revelling at this extraordinary establishment on the present occasion, our hero passed its yet unclosed door untempted and unmoved, because unmindful of the attractions therein, at least upon this occasion. Otherwise, he was by no means

Parcus dearum cultor et infrequens.

But he walked quickly and steadily on, bound for a different haven in the storm. He had already passed four "gents" arm-in-arm, singing a cheerful bacchanalian ditty, asserting perennial devotion to the charms of a certain "Nancy," on a second floor; he had also met six or seven libels on womanhood, whom his rapid pace deprived of all opportunity to accost him, save that one stopped short and sent after him a volley of semi-articulate, and certainly most superfluous abuse; also a brace of jovial Templars; item, one poor, thin, plain sempstress returning to her comfortless home; item, a reporter hastening with copy from a public meeting at St. Martin's Hall; next a man with an illuminated hat inviting the public to participate in the prurient comicalities of the Coal Hole; also at divers corners five policemen bent on levying black-mail, and one ditto talking to a female on a door-step, and doubtless thereby fulfilling the duties of his calling; and, finally, perhaps about a dozen other night-birds on the wing—when he suddenly came face to face with an "object," and as suddenly halted and looked intently at it, as if it were a bleeding nun, or the semblance of an absconded washerwoman, who had not sent back a fortnight's linen at least. For be it known, the "object" which stood before him was a something in female clothes, or more properly rags. What was it? And who and what was he whom we have thus described, and who is thus pausing to gaze at it? The "object" was a beggar girl, presenting a truly squalid and deplorable appearance. The gentleman was Arthur Aubrey, then a resident in the Temple, though of no profession, a young fellow of some means, whose father had recently died, and who was engaged to be married very shortly to a beautiful girl named Blanche, an orphan without money, and a governess. On seeing him, the squalid beggar-girl, who was barefooted as well as in rags, started back, and seemed to shriek, only the sound was inaudible. Then, after a brief pause, she turned and fled swiftly away without a moment's hesitation. Mr. Aubrey took to his heels and pursued her. Certainly it was no "love chase" that! Let us endeavour to describe the being thus pursued. The ruins of a discarded servant-of-all-work's bonnet stuck to her dirt-coloured hair, and her clothes clung to her, as if conscious that they were past pawning for the price of a single glass of gin, and that they could only continue awhile to escape the teeth of the mill, or the last rottenness of the sewer, by holding on to her attenuated frame. Her eyes were bleared and glazed, as with intense suffering, and two hollow black and livid rings around them spoke of ill-health, and possibly brutal usage. Yet she was very young, and there was, under the circumstances, a painful suggestion of beauty and intelligence in her aspect. Shall we add that there was an occasional expression approaching even a hint of latent goodness in that small oval face, whose almost death-like whiteness gleamed through its mask of dirt? One moment, you could not help thinking of a child that had cried itself to sleep, and awakened with its little features stiffened and unwashed. She had the peculiar forlorn and pensive look resembling in the opposite sex that of a religious zealot of the Father Ignatius type, or of an ascetic clergyman who had tried his constitution severely by excesses at college before entering into holy orders a new man. Thus, too, an insensible female Bacchante will sometimes resemble a dying Ophelia, and we have seen an exquisite picture of the latter strangely but powerfully suggestive of the expression of a female victim of intemperance. This being fled rapidly; and but for her worn-out slippers which flapped on the sloppy pavement, and—hear it, ye votaries of fashion!—but for a distorted crinoline dangling round her lean form, she would certainly have escaped. There was something eminently ridiculous in such a pursuit. So Mr. Aubrey thought; but on the other hand, the girl had bolted like a hare, and it is a kind of sporting impulse to pursue anything which runs away from you. But surely he knew that wretched ghastly being? Yes, they had met before. Suddenly, she crossed the Strand somewhere beyond the Lyceum Theatre, and ran up a street on that side. Ha! there is no outlet. She is caught then. Sullen, crouching, and with head averted from the pursuer, she stood like a scarecrow on a half-cultivated field at night, animated by the wild and gusty storm into motion, and the semblance of life. Truly, there is much in dress, and we do not wonder that ghosts always stick to it. By force of rags alone, a scarecrow reminds us of humanity, and humanity in turn may come to suggest an effigy put up to frighten birds from a field.

"So you see, you silly girl! it was no use to try and get away from me," quoth Arthur Aubrey good-humouredly, as soon as he recovered his breath. "Come, why did you scamper off like that?" I am not going to give you in charge to a policeman. Don't be afraid."

The girl gave no answer.

"Come, tell me what you have done with the money and clothes which you had—let me see—only a fortnight ago. What, all gone! And where is the poor baby?"

She started and hoarsely muttered something which sounded like "At home."

"Well, you have a home then now—that is something. But tell me where are the clothes? Why did you not go to Birmingham, as you said you wanted to do?"

She again muttered to the effect that they were stolen from her.

"Well, well," said Mr. Aubrey; "I see it all now," And he spoke the truth. "Here! take this;" and he whose charity had been imposed upon gave her a handful of loose silver, and bade her take care of the poor child. "Above all, my good girl,"

he said, "do not trouble yourself to run away when you next meet me in the Strand. I shall neither injure you, nor notice you. There go away—no thanks!" It was a strange compressed glance of awe and admiration which that child of shame and misery shot aslant at Arthur Aubrey, as she slunk away—let us hope to seek her poor infant in the rookery where she had left it. For she loved the child—poor, pale, blighted blossom as it was—and by a strange contradiction lived for it, after the manner that she did live, and lived for it alone.

A fortnight before, Mr. Aubrey had met this creature in the Strand. Strange to say, she was out in the full blaze of a sunshiny day. It was her habit during some three or four months at least to do this. Many of our readers may have beheld this very mid-day apparition, sometimes bonnetless and always in hideous rags, not far from the dark fetid arches of the Adelphi, as if she had just issued from them. At night, many such creatures are abroad, but rarely is one so wretched seen by day. The police did not apparently meddle with her. Probably they did not like to touch her. That there are chartered beggars in some localities must be well known to every Londoner. We presume that these generally pay their footing to the guardians of order, and possibly even this creature did. It would be hard to say. But it would have puzzled the stoutest myrmidon of the Force to have arrested her. Not to speak of her noisome contact, her "clothes" would not have resisted a rough grasp, and then she could not well be knocked on the head and dragged away, in the interests of Society, half-naked and bleeding at noon, through the Strand. She always came out about that hour, and remained but a short time—probably sufficient to collect a day's subsistence by tacitly receiving the alms dropped into her hand. She had evidently not the honour of the acquaintance of a certain benevolent marquis, at least at the period when our story commences. Arthur Aubrey, struck by her horrible appearance of destitution, had one day actually stopped her, regardless of a crowd which gathered round them, and questioned her. Nay, he told her to meet him again, and kept the appointment at dusk as punctually as a lover. Alas! possibly she had once made such an appointment, and kept it once too often. She told him her story, such as it was. She had her child with her then. She had friends in the country near Birmingham. "If she could return, they would receive her. But she could not walk thither, could not go in those rags." So Arthur Aubrey gave her five sovereigns and a letter to a lady of the demi-monde, asking her to bestow some cast-off clothes on his protégée; and the lady destroyed the peace of mind of her maid for six months, and left a thorn rankling in her mind for the term of her natural life, by the excessive generosity in which she fulfilled Arthur's wishes. Certainly the "creature" did not want a pink silk slip for her own wear, and might have dispensed with lace-trimmings to her linen. But the donor was a very fine lady indeed, with a right good heart for all that, only that she was utterly ignorant of the poor and their wants; and she did not see the

"beastly creechure," as Mrs. Frisby, the lady's-maid, with more truth than she usually lavished, called her, and so she sent her a sovereign too, which was commuted into a shilling by Tomkins, the footman, who didn't think missus ought to be robbed like that! The result of all this was, that the "creature" indulged in a fortnight's consecutive debauch, after which her landlady turned her out with two black eyes on a rainy night, the very one on which Aubrey had again met her, the baby being taken in by an intemperate female friend, while she went out once more to beg. So she had lied the first time when she said she had no home, and lied also the second time when she said she had. But there was some shame still left lurking in the depths of her soul, where a ray of goodness seldom penetrated to give it life. Had Arthur Aubrey threatened her she would either have sullenly defied him, or told him a different falsehood, and tried to impose on his foolish charity again. Let her go, at least for the present. We can promise our readers, although they may not be much fascinated by the first introduction, that they shall certainly meet her again during the relation of this history. Fact is said to be stranger than fiction, and certainly we have no occasion to borrow anything from romance.

For the present, we will revert to Mr. Aubrey and his affairs. He, at any rate, was not the heartless libertine, if such there were, who had seduced this forlorn outcast from the paths of virtue, and the blessings of home. Alas! there are men in London, prosperous, affable gentlemen, by scores and hundreds, whom Society is proud to recognise, and on whom beauty and fashion smile, practised and habitual scoundrels, received even at Court (would that Her Gracious Majesty knew them for what they are!) who have peopled our thoroughfares with these living ghosts, these painted tawdry beings,

Whose souls being buried in lust's grave, at night
Their mortal frames walk forth, reversing Death.

Can the monsters who do this feel remorse? No! If they were capable of repentance, they could not do it at all. Ghastly shapes and cowardly fears may assail them, when sick, old, and dying. But the ruffian who feigns the divinest passion of our nature, or who promises marriage, in order systematically to deceive and to betray, and who can leave his victim to perish body and soul in the streets, is beyond the pale of humanity and devoid of any redeeming trait. Yet mothers will still smile on the reformed rake, and fathers invite him to their board, intrusting to his foul keeping the happiness of their beloved children, and even not unfrequently an only daughter, the one lamb in their domestic fold. It is nothing new or strange! Occasionally the Divorce Court startles the world with the revelations of the after-hours of such a match, and the married brute is revealed to the world unchanged in manners as in nature, even by the mature aid of hypocrisy, from the selfish, cruel sensualist that he was in his "wild bachelor days." Arthur Aubrey was not this style of man; but we confess ourselves not sorry to have recorded this little episode in his career, since our readers' indignation will, in all probability, hereafter be greatly aroused against him. We would fain show the better side of his nature, and make a favourable impression at first. We would also in some degree portray his general character and principles. He was thoughtless, impulsive, extravagant, but generous; a libertine, but not wicked at heart. He had never wronged or ruined a woman, but he had grievously sinned in morals. His vices were manly, his virtues exaggerated. He gave and lent indiscriminately, and thought himself, because his flatterers and parasites continually told him so, an excellent fellow, with good taste, discretion, and judgment in the choice of acquaintance, &c. He denied himself nothing. Why should he? He was young, healthy, and full of capacity for enjoyment, to which the worldly means were in his case added. He had culled the fruits of pleasure as yet without satiety or remorse. He believed in mankind, and being vain and thoughtless, and giving himself no trouble to seek and court real and valuable friendships, he was surrounded by false friends, and a crowd of well-dressed, plausible persons, who were in truth the very scum of humanity and refuse of mankind. But we must reserve our further description of our far from faultless hero for our next chapter.

CHAPTER II.

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.

To tremble at
The thought of change, like summer birds that doubt
Their summer, if a moment they have felt
One zephyr chill, or missed one early leaf
From the green forest's universal bloom;
Yet to believe like a blind man whose steps
Are led by his own child—in joy to weep,
In grief to smile beside the one we love,
To put a girdle round the universe
With but one arm clasped round a slender waist,
Two human beings in one angel blent,
One star reflected in the eyes of both,
To smile back joy to Heaven.

WE were endeavouring at the close of our first chapter to describe the character of Mr. Aubrey. A spoilt child of fortune, he had never learnt the value of money, and therefore even his profuse and eccentric alms-giving was less estimable than it might otherwise appear in the eyes of Charity herself. He was much liked by his "friends" and acquaintances, that is, by the society in which he moved, and only intensely hated by a select few. These were two or three individuals whom he had found out, persons whom he had most liberally patronised, but whose rapacity, or notorious profligacy, had at length opened even his eyes, causing him to decline their intimacy or further acquaintance. That some persons dislike those who have benefited them, as much as those whom they have injured, is, we fear, a remark of wide application. And the point where the change from fictitious love to unfeigned hatred, from pretended respect and affection to real envy, malignity, and contempt, generally occurs, is exactly where the benefactor ceases to be able or willing to do more, or the recipient can dispense with further services. Hereafter, we shall have occasion to observe a large increase to our hero's at present by no means numerous circle of enemies and detractors.

Mr. Aubrey had "a taste," as it is called, for music and the fine arts generally. He belonged to two "literary and dramatic," as well as two or three yacht clubs. He was a good rider, fencer, and shot, wrote poetry, and had published a play, or dramatic poem—of course "every one," by which we mean his numerous circle of friends, said that the latter was rather an improvement on Shakespeare than otherwise. But then, "Shakespeare would not do now," they added. "We want deeper thought. Look at Browning and Tennyson." As those gentlemen did not happen to be present, it was difficult to follow the injunction; but every one looked very wise, which answered the same purpose, and as Shakespeare said nothing, judgment was allowed to go by default. Mr. Aubrey had been the owner of a magnificent yacht, which was wrecked off Falmouth just prior to the commencement of this history, through the negligence of the jolliest and best-meaning of master-mariners, whom Aubrey had taken out of prison, and placed upon his sea-legs. In recompense for this, the devoted seaman took to toasting his generous patron's health so often in that patron's own wine and brandy, that his sea-legs frequently exaggerated their nautical duty, and the vessel was left to the guidance of the next in command. In addition to this, the worthy captain took to smuggling in his patron's yacht, which enabled him to exhibit his gratitude to the owner by some appropriate presents. The fact is, that Aubrey had received intelligence when at Naples, which induced him to hurry home, leaving the vessel to follow him, so soon as wind and weather would permit. The captain's orders were to proceed to Southampton and meet his owner there; but it suited him better to stop at Falmouth, so he made for that harbour; having resolved, by the connivance of a friend there, to send in a bill for a new boom, and thereby convey the idea that he had lost one in a gale off Falmouth. But his intentions, however good, were baulked by the result of a little indiscretion, which occasioned the real loss of boom, vessel, and all. The grateful fellow went on shore as soon as he arrived, leaving the yacht riding at single anchor. The mate, who had doubtless another mate on shore, followed his example, until all the crew had slunk away with the exception of a man and couple of boys who had been shipped at Vigo. About two A.M. it blew a hurricane. Let us do the captain justice. It was fine weather when he quitted the vessel. So the yacht went after her crew, that is, on shore, and so ended the history of Arthur Aubrey,

Esq., as a yachting man, and vice-commodore of the "True Blue Club," whose members were bound to have been at least one thousand miles from London in their own vessels.

The assistance rendered to his vessel in her breaking-up moments was touchingly expensive. His friends and well-wishers in the port, after indignantly and insolently refusing in his name the advice and assistance tendered by the admiral and dockyard authorities, hired a steam-tug at forty pounds an hour to pull the yacht off the rocks, and made such a breach in her bottom, or rather side, that she must have sunk had she floated. To provide, however, against this danger, they broke up her compartments with axes at low water, and filled her with casks and barrels bought at any price from a neighbouring brewer and nearly all the publicans in the county of Cornwall. This little process caused her deck to burst up, and finished her career very summarily. A broken piano-frame, carried to a music-shop in the town, was repaired by order of some one or other, and cost Aubrey forty-five pounds; and every other bill was in proportion. A marine artist painted the wreck, not by order; but the attention was so considerate, that about a fortnight after, on presenting the picture to the owner of the wrecked vessel, he got a bill accepted, under peculiar and distressing circumstances, by our foolish friend for two hundred and sixty-three pounds seven shillings and tenpence. It made the artist, whose father, or uncle, or son-in-law, or somebody or other, was rescued from self-destruction thereby, grateful for ever: so much so, that he never was known to come near his benefactor again, being doubtless anxious to avoid recalling to his mind the distressing loss of the yacht. There was a pilot engaged to take the vessel to the port of London, had she been saved, but the event did not come off, owing to her total loss. This man dying soon after, his widow* brought an action against Aubrey for two hundred pounds for detention, and recovered it, as the widow of a pilot ought.

[*This would suggest doubt, but for an explanation. A pilot has a most instant remedy for the remuneration of his duties, and very properly so. In this case Mr. Aubrey had compromised the matter at once by paying the man a large portion of his demand. But the latter neglected somehow to erase the debt from his books, and so Aubrey had the pleasure of paying nearly twice the amount originally claimed. We knew a similar case, in which the pilot who had brought a dismantled yacht round from the south coast to London, made an overcharge, but accepted a portion of the claim, and his widow recovered the whole amount nearly seven years afterwards, the man having lived nearly six years afterwards, and the law allowing a year to the executors.]

Mr. Aubrey's nominal income at this time was some three thousand a-year. It was said that there were valuable mineral lodes under that part of his property which was in Cornwall, the remainder being in the adjoining county of Devon. His father's will was a curious one, but of that anon. Suffice it to say that he had only a life-estate, and was bound by curious restrictions, penalties, and forfeitures. His father was a rich shipping agent, who would not bring him up to his business, being determined that his only son should be Lord Chancellor, the old gentleman having an immense respect for the Law. Now, perhaps, the distinction has lost some of its charms, at least in the eyes of scrupulous men. "Where is the boasted integrity of the British merchant now-a-days?" cries in revenge some pert young barrister of the period. But this is a subject which we are by no means called upon to discuss.

In person Arthur Aubrey was tall and decidedly good-looking. His hair was dark, with an auburn tinge, his eyes dark blue, his hands and feet small. His face was oval, and there was a melancholy look about him when in repose, which had a great charm for the majority of the female sex. His portrait would have been very useful in advertising for a wife. He had a craving for novelty and excitement, was much spoilt and petted by the ladies, and pursued an object, when he had set his heart on it, with all the eagerness of a child.

He is now in love, desperately in love, and we may add, honourably so. Although much beneath him in present social position and wealth, he had never thought of his darling Blanche save as a wife. Small credit to him! He was free to marry whom he pleased and whom he could. Moreover, she had at first firmly and determinately rejected his suit, and removed herself beyond his ken, and, consequently, his power to renew his advances. He had found her again by accident—just found her at the period when our history begins. And he is now making off to his club to pen her a love-letter, such a letter as none save the votary of a real passion based both on the senses and the imagination could write. Our readers shall judge for themselves:

"Kemble Club, August 20, 18—.

"MINE OWN, MY BELOVED BLANCHE,—In three days I shall be with you to claim you as mine—yes, mine for ever. Cruel little tyrant, to have deferred it so long, when you have confessed that you love me—love me. I like to write these words, and repeat them aloud. Before I knew you, I do not seem to have lived at all, so different are my sensations, so changed is the aspect of everything. Ah, dearest Blanche! how severe a trial it has been to me to let you remain, in obedience to your commands, with that sordid family, whose treatment I can only, in some degree, forgive; because it was there that I met you again, my beloved, mine own. What a noble sense of duty in you to stay until the period of your service shall have expired! Your 'service,' yours to them! Great Heaven! I cannot bear to think of the probable result, had I not met you, had you remained there amongst those brutal, ignorant, purse-proud wretches. You would have faded like a spring rose, Blanche, in that horrible atmosphere of selfishness, vulgarity, and pretension. And now, within three short days, I shall rescue and claim you as my own. My friend, Lady Margaret Courcy, will call for you, and take you to her home, where you will at least find sympathy and appreciation, and whence I shall shortly bear you away to mine. Now, don't destroy my little plot, my small plan of revenge. Lady Margaret will call, as if to engage you as a 'companion,' in their sense. The great contractor's daughters, who would give a year of their lives to make such a county acquaintance as 'her ladyship,' will overburden her with attentions, and speak enviously and depreciatingly of my Blanche. And then you will be sent for, and be clasped to the breast of my dear friend, who will lead you to her carriage, and bid them good afternoon in her stateliest style. I think I see it all, like a scene out of a play. And then, then, my Blanche will be restored to her proper rank. Alas! no. She should be a queen! an empress! What a vain, inconsiderate being am I to deem myself worthy of such grace, such beauty and accomplishments! Blanche! Blanche! Are you sure that you do love me, that you will love me always? Society will pay its court to you. Flattery will seek to turn your head, and win your heart from me. No, no! I have no fear of the truth, the constancy of my patrician, my haughty, beautiful Blanche. She has said that she loves me, and Blanche never can love but once. Do I not remember her own sweet, noble words, when, with impatient presumption, I first flung myself at her feet, and was rejected with maidenly dignity, my suit baffled, but not spurned. I remember with what ineffable sweetness she replied, in answer to my breathless inquiry, if she already loved another: 'No, Mr. Aubrey, I will not deceive you, or even question your right to ask. You have paid me the highest compliment in your power to offer, and I am grateful, although, permit me to say, beyond measure surprised. I do not love any one, and never have possessed for any more than a friendly regard. If I seem melancholy, as you are pleased, with generous interest, to suppose that I am, it is not because my affections have ever been engaged. But, believe me, should anything so improbable and so little to be desired ever occur, the heart of the poor governess can only be bestowed once, and for ever. And now, deeply thanking you for your preference, suffer this interview at once to terminate our acquaintance and commence my esteem! Under these circumstances you will only wound my pride if you renew the subject.' Such was the substance of what you said, whilst I was vainly urging you to listen to my suit. When, within three days, I ventured, tremblingly, to present myself at the house again, you had left the plain but worthy persons under whose roof I had found you so singularly a second time. I did not tell you then where I first met you and fell in love with you; for I loved you at first sight, Blanche. You had gone and left no clue, no trace to your importunate and almost despairing lover. Providence was kind indeed. I saw you accidentally a third time. I had the ineffable delight to render you some small service, and to hear from you, at a time when you were softened by affright and peril, that you had thought of me since my rash and sudden proposal, and not unkindly. A gleam of hope shot into my breast. I determined this time to wait. I wooed you with bashfulness and silence, as though you wore a Peri's wings, and were ready to fly out of my sight on the utterance of an incautious syllable, a word too loudly spoken. I watched your smiles, each expression that flitted over your face. I approached you as gradually as a hermit, dwelling in the forest fringe of some eastern plain, might seek to gain the confidence of a wild and shy gazelle.

"At length I was rewarded; I saw a smile brighten for me on my advent. I knew that I was regarded as a friend, as one at least not to be shunned. I redoubled my assiduities, but took care not to break the spell of delicate forbearance. Then I absented myself for a short time, bidding you a respectful farewell, and saying nothing which might lead to an assurance of my return. I thought that I perceived a shade of regret on those delicate features, as if a cloud had passed over the sun, or a window-curtain been momentarily drawn, whilst I was gazing on some beautiful masterpiece of Guido or of Raffaele. I returned soon from my hiding-place in a neighbouring village, again to visit on business the coarse and vulgar millionaire, whose dwelling you illumined with the rare effulgence of your charms. I watched you whilst I talked to him. I saw a flush of pleased recognition, and my heart beat wildly whilst I spoke huskily and incoherently of strata, and inclines, the cost of engines, the depth of shafts, of faults, and croppings out, and royalties, while you alone occupied my thoughts, and flitted like a white-robed nymph through subterranean passages of fancy that should have been peopled only by sooty gnomes. What a fool old Grimshaw doubtless thought me, and how blind I considered him, and to think that his daughters should have continued so ignorant as to what brought me to Cokely Manor! Well, at length I spoke again, and you confessed that I was not indifferent to you, and that evening I returned Miss

Jenny's angry frown with a smile of triumph, and met with glorious indifference Miss Georgina's languishing stare. Was it excusable that I had been so very civil to these amiable spinsters in order to be near thee? Did I not in creating a tender interest in their gentle bosoms, thereby avenge many a malignant insult, many an act of petty paltry spite towards my beloved? In three days, oh, joy! I shall be free to visit you under auspices how different, to clasp you to my heart as my affianced bride, to ramble with you hand-in-hand, like children free and unreproved, in the beautiful demesne of my noble friend. Oh, pure and exquisite joy! Am I—am I worthy of it? No! no! yet I will try to be; my love for thee will purify and exalt me. Last night I had a dark and dismal dream—I thought we were wandering together in the sunshine. The birds were carolling amid the green trees around, and I gazed into the depths of your eyes, as if to find out the source of that mysterious light beaming from within, which I have never seen in those of any other human being. I am told, dearest, that it is the peculiar light betokening genius of the highest order—there I do not look vexed, if I say that I think you possess that genius, that you might be a Malibran and a Ristori in one, if fate had so favoured the world as to have caused your debut on the stage, for which you were destined once, and from which with sacred instinctive modesty you so early shrank. To return to my dream. Suddenly, as we wandered thus, I thought that a film grew over your eyes. As I gazed in alarm, your face and form seemed to fade rapidly, until all colour had passed away, and you looked like the phantom of yourself. I thought that in your features I could trace an ineffably sad and pained expression. As I looked round me for aid, I fancied that the sky grew leaden-hued and then grey, and the trees yellow while their sickly leaves heaped the ground, and eddied in the moaning wind. A few moments more, and your cold form eluded my grasp and glided from my arms. The ground was covered with a sheet of drifting snow. The naked trees were whitened with the burden of winter. Then all became indistinct and dark, until I groped about in midnight. I spread out my arms and folded them empty upon my breast; for you were no longer there. And then I awoke. Foolish fond dream! How it chilled my soul, and even now weighs on my spirits! Shall I interpret it? We shall live and love and grow old together, like that couple in the beautiful song of Burns. And now dearest, good-night! Angels attend thee!"

Even more in this strain followed, but our readers have probably had enough. Our Law Courts show what even sober, worldly, middle-aged "parties" will write, when they have quaffed the delicious nectar of the rosy god.

Our friend Arthur was a very romantic young gentleman, and very much enamoured. He felt all—more than he wrote. Having at length finished and sealed his letter, and dropped it among the letters in the box of the club writing-room, which were lucky to escape being reduced to tinder by the contact of such an inflammable missive, he felt a considerable longing for supper, and it being too late at the club, and a hot baked potato at that moment recommending itself to his excited fancy, he betook himself to the Cave of Harmony in Covent Garden, and thence to the Temple, and to bed.

Do not be disgusted, fair readers. It is only your anxious, unhappy lovers, who lose their appetites. Your lovers in Arthur Aubrey's ecstatic but healthy state of mind can enjoy their bodily comforts with delicious zest; and why not, pray? Since Blanche had been engaged to our hero, and all had been arranged for their speedy union, it was wonderful how her appetite had improved, even in the distasteful company which still surrounded her, and how regardless the saucy creature became of the sneers directed against her by her "young ladies" in consequence, which would have sent her to her own room hungry and in tears, but that a few short months before she had plighted her faith to Arthur, and she was far too happy to weep at their brutality.

CHAPTER III.

THE GOVERNESS IN A RICH FAMILY.

Something between our servants and ourselves,
That hired gentility, that sweet young face,
That never-tiring patience doomed to spite,
Meaner than words could picture. Her scant meals
Had choked the resignation of a saint;
For they were seasoned with malignity
Of rich vulgarians, paupers still in heart,
More brutal than the menials who out-do
Their own base natures, copying their masters.

MR. GRIMSHAW was a self-made man, and lived in a mansion like a nobleman's, but not as a nobleman lives. He was one of a class which modern England delights to honour, a successful contractor and a mighty railway engineer, though he was entirely ignorant of scientific engineering, as he was of geometry, and, in fact, of all science. He was also a great coal-owner and iron-master in the land. Mr. Grimshaw had risen from the underground ranks. The precise manner in which he came up to the surface was by no means generally known. Had he pitched all his fellows out of the "bowk," or iron receptacle for man and material that travels up and down the pit? Was he an admirable economiser of truth, or, to speak plainly, a talented liar, totally devoid of all scruple, modesty, and conscience, and had he a knack of asserting his own pretensions to get on in this world at great risk to his comfortable status in the world to come? These are admirable modes of achieving success in their way, and may lead to the first place in a village or an empire, the presidency of a republic, the chair of a parish board of guardians, or the representation in parliament of a midland manufacturing town. The fact is, however, that Mr. Grimshaw had a sort of gift for finding out veins of coal, and getting hold of them to the partial if not total exclusion of their legitimate owners. He had also a genius for getting into partnerships and disposing of his partners and their claims. Perhaps, during the interesting period when he went a "coortin'," or courting, the identical lass in the north who became the Mrs. Grimshaw of our narrative, he studied the business habits of that remarkable bird the cuckoo. The first partner he had was the owner of a coal-mine, to whom he had served his apprenticeship as butty, and then viewer. The natural sagacity or luck of Grimshaw had developed itself in tracing and following certain dips of the coal in his employer's mine, and had won for him a kind of local reputation. One day he presented himself to the gratified and unsuspecting owner, and boldly asked him for a loan. The other good-naturedly asked him what he meant to do with it. Grimshaw hesitated, or seemed to do so, and scratched his head reflectingly. He then disclosed the fact that in the exercise of his detective or perceptive faculty in the search for coal, he had found out a wonderful secret. He knew, he said, where a fortune might be made at a moderate cost. He could obtain, for a mere song, the goodwill and plant of a deserted shaft, in comparison with which a gold-mine, or a diamond-mine, was nothing. Pressed to reveal the locality, he hesitated, and went away; but when recalled to the subject, spoke to the following effect: He owed all in life he possessed, he said, to his employer, and was accordingly grateful. He had saved a little money, and he had, since they last met, got the promise of a loan sufficient to carry out his scheme. But the grateful fellow could not forget his benefactor. He had, therefore, determined to yield to his gratitude and remembrance, and to offer him a share in his splendid discovery first. All he asked in return was a share—a small share, say a fourth or fifth—in his owner's original pit, the Great Brambleberry, and he in return would give him a one-half share in the profits of his new discovery. The offer was accepted. Articles were forthwith drawn up, and Brown and Grimshaw were thenceforth partners in both adventures. The Great Brambleberry remained what it was, or rather increased greatly in value under Grimshaw's management during the next dozen years, but the Little Hemlock for once baffled even his sagacity. In fact, after a few thousands were spent on it, it was abandoned as before; but Brown and Grimshaw remained partners in the Great Brambleberry undertaking. Subsequently Grimshaw launched forth into many enterprises. At the time of the commencement of our history, Mr. Brown had long since entered a surface stratum of clay as a final resting-place from all worldly cares, and especially from his partnership with Grimshaw, who had latterly treated him with great harshness and rude contempt. During the old man's life Grimshaw had gradually got a third, then half, and then nine-twelfths of the Great Brambleberry mine. After Brown's death he easily acquired his son's remaining shares in the concern, at a time of great panic and depreciation, when Grimshaw himself felt much alarm, or said he did, and offered to sell his own nine-twelfths at a fair valuation to the son of his late patron. At the time of our readers' introduction to Grimshaw, he is part owner in a dozen mines, and shareholder or director of nearly as many flourishing concerns. If Grimshaw has a weakness, it is for a lord—if he has an overwhelming aspiration, it is for a baronetcy. He is always attended by a number of young civil engineers, whom he employs in all directions, but never pays. Many of them have been his pupils, and are very promising. So, indeed, is he. It is wonderful how he sucks their brains, and moulds them to his purposes. Woe to them if they rebel; for it is no trifle on the threshold of the profession to offend the "great Grimshaw!"

Grimshaw, in his "castle," surrounded by these young fellows, always forcibly reminded us of an ogre. Now and then one would disappear, shot off by the monster, like a pellet out of a steam-gun, to Spain, Sweden, South or New South Wales, America, or Iceland, to report on a projected railway or a mine. As we missed him, we thought of the nursery rhyme, and whether his "bones were ground" to make Grimshaw's bread. For the rest, Grimshaw was sometimes familiar enough with his body-guard. He would order one to sing now and then to please him, or another to dance, or insist upon the most bashful young fellow of the lot making a speech after dinner. Now and then he would place his hand affectionately on the shoulder of one or other of them, and, lowering his hoarse and unpleasant voice into a sort of devil's whisper in a sick-room, give every one an opportunity of admiring those mighty lessons of wisdom which Success was good-naturedly imparting to a disciple; whereas, the truth was, Success was learning all it could from the disciple.

We do not by any means affirm that all the self-made successful men, whom England honours, are of the Grimshaw class; but that he represents a certain type of them there is no doubt whatsoever. Some day it will be delightful to read the biography of such a man. He much desires it to be written, and to furnish the notes for it himself. We shall hear how he went to a Sunday-school, and lent money at interest to his companions; how he never drank beer until he was twenty-four years old; and made a model traction-engine out of a broken tea-kettle and an abandoned go-cart during his sullen but mechanical puberty. Grimshaw is esteemed pretty generally as a rough diamond. His coarseness is looked upon very favourably by several very refined personages; and his savage irony passes muster for estimable candour and frankness, in the eyes of superficial observers. There is great power in the man, wonderful energy of self-assertion and greed. He will occasionally spend a thousand pounds in a single entertainment; but is an awful screw to his family, fond as he is of them. Such is the man, grasping, cunning, ostentatious, and avaricious; brutal as the associations of his origin, unscrupulous as the means of his success.

It is in the bosom of this man's family that we find Blanche Lavigne, and certes it is a hard resting-place for any one, not to speak of a beautiful young orphan lady. Mr. Grimshaw owned a wife, four daughters, and three sons. Mrs. Grimshaw was a very simple person, but not very amiable. The Misses Grimshaw ("two," as the papers speak of young ladies at court or a ball) were not very comely, but evil-minded and ambitious, as only persons of their breed and in their position can be.

There were, however, two much younger sisters, quite children, of a far better nature. One, at least, the youngest, was a charming child. The fact is she was not too old, at the advent of Blanche as her governess, to catch the sweet infection of her kind heart and refined and delicate manners. The three young male Grimshaws were bear-cubs, of whom the youngest and best was under the sole guardianship and control of the gamekeeper. Mr. Grimshaw did not shoot, but he stood in a kind of awe of his keeper. It was not from early associations, for Grimshaw had never been on a poaching expedition in his youth. The fact is that he did not exactly know what to do with him, or expect from him, when he first had him. His butler was for long a source of misery. He did not feel quite so comfortable with his after-dinner clay pipe in the presence of that potentate, until a certain hard-up lord, who happened to be in his iron clutches, had visited him and borne him company in smoking a long "churchwarden" in the princely dining-room of Cokely Manor. In truth, Grimshaw often keenly studied the behaviour of his victims with a view to the coveted baronetcy and future presidency of the Civil Engineers. When philosophical, he would say, that he had found out that a lord and a pitman were "both of the same bit of stuff," and had much the same tastes, motives, and dispositions.

For the two elder bear-cubs, they were both carefully graduating in the genteel vices of the day, and were grafting monkeyism on the original beardom or bearhood of their dispositions in a way that afforded the highest satisfaction to old Grimshaw, who wished his sons to be perfect gentlemen, so far as tailors, horse-dealers, opera and sing-song, cigars, slang, affectation, and perfumery could make them; although he was by no means liberal in the allowances which he made to enable them to live like gentlemen. In truth, Mr. Grimshaw had a great wish that they should become fashionable "sharps" rather than "flats," and chuckled amazingly over a report of the elder having won some heavy bets from a college chum, and the second having sold an unsound horse to a young gentleman whom he met at the cottage of a tutor by whom he was for some months vainly "coached" for his examinations at a seaside retreat in Cornwall. The elder rather patronised "the little governess," and bestowed on her his flattering attentions. The second confined himself to practical jokes, such as burning her dress with a fusee, or wrapping his terrier puppies in her best shawl. Of the two, she rather preferred the attentions of the latter to those of the former.

It was the third day after Arthur Aubrey had written that love-sick epistle, which we hope has made a due impression upon our lady readers. The Grimshaw family has partly assembled at breakfast. There is the great senior who is reading his letters, the maternal Grimshaw who looks vastly perturbed and angry, the two elder sons, and the four daughters, that is the Misses Grimshaw (two) who had come out, and the two Misses Grimshaw who hadn't. These, with the manager of a neighbouring colliery who had ridden over early with a report, and a brace of the young C.E.s aforesaid, who were watching every look and gesture of the great man with awe and admiration, made up the party.

"Extrordinary conduck!" quoth Mrs. Grimshaw.

"Really, ma," bleated the eldest daughter, a scraggy damsel, who looked as if she had been buried like a potato or kidney-bean somewhere in a covered-in coal-shaft, and grown painfully extended in the direction of a crevice for light; "really, ma, it is awfully cool of her, and I wonder that you stand it as you do. Only think, pa!" this was addressed to her great parent himself, "Miss Lavigne has not thought proper to make her appearance down-stairs at this hour."

"What's that?" growled the person appealed to. "Send her away, then. There's more of her sort to be had for money;" and he chuckled abruptly at the thought, and relapsed into the sordid calculations in which he was engaged.

"But, pa, she's going. Her time is up this very day. Only we requested her yesterday to stay, until we are suited with another."

"Perhaps," suggested bear-cub number one, rather good-naturedly for him, "little Lavigne is ill. She may not," he added, "like the thoughts of leaving our family." With that he pulled up his shirt-collar. It was plain enough what he thought. "Shall I inquire?" he added, rising.

His elder sister nearly shrieked.

"Oh, Fred!" she exclaimed, "how can you demean yourself so, to inquire after the health of a governess? What next?"

As she uttered these last words, she became aware that the object of her remarks had entered the room, and stood looking around for a chair, which, massive as it was, in accordance with the rest of the hall furniture, lately purchased at a bishop's sale, she was allowed to lift from some distance to the table without the slightest offer of assistance. The two young civil engineers, it must be owned, were deeply mortified, but they dared not for their lives get up and assist the governess in that house. We know a lame little scrofulous nobleman of high descent who would have risked breaking his neck to reach that chair, and we know a wealthy peer, who has the reputation of being a gallant man, who would have willingly knocked him down to do it. But the latter would have contrived to insult her in the operation of handing that chair far more than the mute assumption of her inferiority manifested by the brutal rudeness of the whole Grimshaw boutique, father, sons, and all.

Lovely, fresh, and radiant, Blanche looked like the ideal incarnation of a beautiful May morning, as she fairly shone upon that sordid assemblage gathered there. We must except, as far as possible, the two young engineers, who couldn't help it, and had their future bread in view.

She was dressed in a simple light-coloured cotton wrapper, her mass of rich dark billowy brown hair gathered neatly together, and restrained by ribbons of nearly the same hue. She looked like

Aurora [not Aurora Floyd]
Or the goddess Flora,
as the song hath it. Her hair, our lady readers will have observed, was not "blue-black," that wonderful sensation colour lately imported by the novelists, and which we previously, in our ignorance, should have attributed to the effect of some "invaluable dye." In person, Blanche Lavigne was above the medium height; her figure was exquisitely rounded yet slender; her eyes were gloriously, brilliantly black: her nose, chiselled as by a Greek sculptor, was slightly aquiline; her lips full and scarlet; her contour girl-like, but affording a promise of womanly perfection. There was something tremulous in her glance, and a sweet timidity in her expression and attitudes, mingled with a species of innocent assurance wonderfully fascinating to behold. Her voice was low and sweet, but clear as a silver bell. Such was Blanche Lavigne, as she stood a few moments with one fairy-like hand (she wore six-and-a-quarter gloves) on the back of the chair, apologising for her lateness. She either had not heard, or would not hear, the remark made by Miss Grimshaw just as she entered.

"I hope, madam," she said, "you will pardon my absence from prayers this morning. It is the first time I have ever been absent; and, as I go to-day, I have had my little packing to attend to."

"You will be pleased, Miss Lavigne, to remember," said Mrs. Grimshaw, grandly, "that my two youngest daughters, Miss Victoria Hamelia Dudley Grimshaw, and her sister, Miss Violetta Rosina Haraminta, have been waiting twenty minutes for their usual instruction in the planner, and that this is geogrifey and 'istory day, as well as persition drill and the classicks."

Having delivered herself of this speech, which we have endeavoured to spell somewhat like her pronunciation, Mrs. Grimshaw placed one hand over the other across her broad and deep bosom, and kept beating time with the open palm of that one hand upon the red knuckles of the other, as if pausing for a reply.

"Indeed, madam, I am very sorry. I am quite ready now," said Blanche, relinquishing her hold upon the chair, which she had placed opposite a cup of weak tea long since poured out, and a plate of bread-and-butter, thick but not plentiful, which was what she usually had for breakfast, even when the table groaned under a profusion of viands. "I do not want anything this morning, I assure you,"

(as if she had been pressed, poor girl! to take anything). "Come, my dears," she added to the younger girls, "if you are ready;—it will be our last lesson, you know," and Blanche sighed; for she did not at all like leaving little Violet, poor child! whom she really loved, to the mercy of all the bad influences around her.

"So you have made up your mind to go to-day. Miss Lavigne?" said Mrs. Grimshaw, increasing the rapidity of her hand-thumping.

A bow was the only answer.

"I insist upon it that you take your breakfast," said the lady of the house. "You must not say that we starved you, you know."

"Besides, ma," observed Miss Grimshaw, thoughtfully, "she may want a breakfast soon."

The face of Blanche flushed crimson, as it well might. The two young engineers shifted about uneasily on their chairs. Mr. Grimshaw looked up inquiringly from his letters.

"I say, come, Georgy," quoth the elder bear-cub, "that's coming it rather strong, eh? Draw it mild. Such a pretty gal, as our governess, ain't likely to want a breakfast; no, nor nothing else," he added, in a lower tone, "for long, if she likes."

"Oh, Fred! if you are her champion, I have nothing to say," was Miss Grimshaw's answer. "But I dare say ma'amselle is not hungry. She has doubtless had something with the servants."

So saying, with this, as she deemed triumphant stab, Miss Grimshaw gathered up her muslin, and sailed majestically towards the door.

Blanche turned and trembled. A tear was in her eye, a response quivering on her lip. Miss Grimshaw looked round to note her success.

"I suppose, ma," she called out, "Miss Lavigne will want a testimon——I mean a character, before she goes. I believe that early rising is somewhat of an essential in these matters."

"Nay, Georgy," said the second sister, Miss Jenny, who had been remarkably silent all the time, probably thinking what she could say more spiteful than her sister, "Mr. Aubrey, our late visitor, can testify as to Miss Lavigne's very early habits on some occasions. He met her before seven o'clock in the flower-garden, my maid tells me, more than once, of course accidentally."

"These insults!" stammered poor Blanche. "Mr. Grimshaw, I appeal to you for protection;" and she burst into tears, a weakness of which she might not have been guilty, but for a certain consciousness that there was some foundation for Miss Grimshaw's insinuations, and that her botanical studies had been prosecuted with unusual ardour during Mr. Aubrey's last visit. It was after her engagement to him; but what did they know of that?

"Pooh! pooh!" was all she got out of her protector. "I advise you, ma'amselle, as being under this roof"—here he looked awfully towards the two young civil engineers—"to take care what you are about. Mr. Aubrey is a dangerous person. You should have avoided having your name mixed up with his. I trust that no impropriety has taken place here. You can do what you please, miss, when you have left my house——Eh! What? tears? Come, young woman, I am only speaking for your good. Young persons should be cautious, you know cautious."

During this speech Blanche had left the room sobbing violently.

"What is the meaning of this, mother?" said Mr. Grimshaw, almost fiercely, to his lady. He generally spoke, from long habit, in that tone to her. In early life he had beaten and kicked her into subjection, but respectability and gentility had long intervened for her protection. "Has any one been caterwauling in my house, madam? Or is it some of your tricks, Georgy?" he said to his eldest daughter, who had just re-entered the room.

The only reply vouchsafed by that young lady was a toss of her head, and a few words, among which "thing" and "wretch" were distinctly audible.

The majestic mother, spouse of our successful and self-made Colossus, arose, saying with dignity:

"If that young person applies for a character, all I have to say, Mr. G., is, that I shall tell no lies. There ain't a respectable governess to be got anywhere now-a-days."

By this she referred, or seemed to refer, to some remembered epoch when respectable governesses were to be got; though a stranger might have thought, and every one who knew her might have been certain, that she could have had very little to do with the class in earlier life; unless, indeed, as scullery-maid in some household, where, as she would have said, a governess was "kep."

Blanche dried her eyes, took a rapid glance at Arthur's last effusion, tried to smile, was successful, and devoted herself to the instruction of her young pupils for the next two hours. She was then summoned to the presence of Mrs. Grimshaw, who, with great pomp and solemnity, handed her a five-pound note, her last quarter's salary, and asked her if she had got any one to fetch her boxes. The meaning of this was that she would not allow any of her servants to carry them to the lodge, and it gave her the opportunity of adding that she hoped, if Miss Lavigne had engaged any one, it was a respectable party, as she did not like any low people there. To this Blanche timidly responded that she believed a lady would fetch her.

"A lady!" quoth Mrs. Grimshaw, with an injured air. "Then I suppose, ma'amselle, you have got a place. However," she added, "it will be my dooty to see her; though, of course, if she likes to take you without a character she can do so. Only, understand, you will please not to refer to me afterwards, if you should happen not to suit."

At this moment, the noise of carriage-wheels and a loud ring at the door startled Mrs. Grimshaw from her propriety. "Oh, ma!" screamed Miss Georgy, bursting into the room in a perfect flutter of excitement, "here's Lady Margaret Courcy come to return our visit, and we are such frights to receive her." So they were; but in a different sense to what she intended. Now, it must be told, that Blanche had no idea of suffering Arthur's little scheme of vengeance to be carried out, if she could help it. But the fact is, she had no power to do so. For a few moments, Mrs. Grimshaw stood uncertain how to act. Her mental vision took a rapid survey of her wardrobe—of a magnificent structure called a cap, in which she looked like the great-aunt of Vertumnus; of a mauve-coloured satin robe, brilliant as that in which Mr. Buckstone might figure in his impersonation of a female character—and then the door opened, and the gorgeous Grimshaw servitors announced the Lady Courcy, a very plainly attired old lady indeed, who might have been in morning attendance on the Queen herself, so far as the moderation of her costume was concerned. This venerable gentlewoman, whose white hair and pleasing regular features were most prepossessing, albeit a slight air of severity was habitual to her, advanced with dignity and bowed low to Mrs. Grimshaw and her two daughters, for the amiable Jenny had followed her in.

"How do you do, my lady? Will your ladyship be pleased to take a seat? I am sure, your ladyship, we are very proud of this early visit; so kind, my lady. We are quite 'hong dishabill,' your ladyship," uttered Mrs. Grimshaw, "My daughters were just speaking of your ladyship. My love" (to Georgy), "just ring the bell. Her ladyship will stay and luncheon with us." Having thus delivered herself, Mrs. Grimshaw thought of Blanche, and said, with cold severity, "Miss Lavigne, you may go. I have no more to say to you."

"But I have," cried the old gentlewoman, holding out her hand to the escaping Blanche. "The truth is, I have come for my young friend here. I fear,"

she added, mischievously, "you will hardly forgive me for running off with her."

No flower in the wished-for cap of Mrs. Grimshaw which bloomed at that moment on the coverlet of that matron's couch, unconscious of its owner's desires and regrets regarding it, exceeded in depth and brilliancy of colouring the crimson hue that overspread her face, on hearing Lady Courcy's announcement. The young ladies looked at each other with a most expressive glance of dismay and wonder.

"Am I to understand, ahem! my lady, that your ladyship wants a governess—I mean a companion?" at length stammered Mrs. Grimshaw.

" 'A companion,' certainly yes, for a short time," replied her ladyship, glancing laughingly and affectionately at Blanche, who in her turn coloured, but with a very different hue. "My dear!" turning to Blanche, "are you nearly ready?"

Mrs. Grimshaw was uncertain what line to adopt. She was not a woman of fine tact, but she felt instinctively that somehow or other Lady Courcy was most favourably disposed in relation to the governess. The intense hatred which she, Mrs. Grimshaw, cherished at that moment towards Blanche was rather greater than that felt by Queen Eleanor for Fair Rosamond. That jealous historic Fury proffered her victim a choice of deaths. Blanche would have had none at Mrs. Grimshaw's hands. She would have flavoured the poison with senna, and jagged the knife—no! she would have strangled her with her own hands. Indeed, in speaking of it to her daughters afterwards, she said, with appropriate action, "I could have throttled the hussy, that I could." But as it was, she said:

"Indeed, I am delighted to hear it, your ladyship. I am sure we are so sorry to part with dear Miss Lavigne."

Lady Courcy was a woman of severe integrity, and felt she had somewhat compromised her strict notions of truth, by her first speech, intimating that she thought they would be sorry to lose Blanche. So she said: "I believe that this dear girl and your youngest child are tenderly attached to each other."

A few minutes ago, had any one in the house, save the master, dared to suggest this, Mrs. Grimshaw would have resented it with fury as an insult. As it was, she remembered that little Violet had been crying at Blanche's approaching departure, which she was expiating at that very time in the school-room with very red ears, and a long sum in addition to pore over; so Mrs. Grimshaw immediately rang for her. The eldest Miss Grimshaw was a woman of decision. Had she been a Vivandière in the first Napoleon's army, we might perhaps have read of a female marshal of the Empire, quick, daring, resolute, and intrepid, as all or any of those worthies. A mighty effort had restrained the outburst of her passion, and left her face like a distorted smiling mask with real eyes looking through it, fortunately with glances which could not kill. Without hesitation she seized her cue and flung herself into Blanche's arms, sobbing as if her heart would break. It was a masterly move; for she longed to cry, and give vent to her spite, and in this manner she could do it.

Her sister's emotion took a milder form. That young lady intimated, with considerable composure, that it was a great consolation to her particularly, and she was sure would gratify her papa, to know that their dear friend Miss Lavigne was so fortunate as to obtain such a home. Here she sighed, and then she added naïvely, "We shall not lose her altogether, because I hope we may be permitted sometimes to see her at your ladyship's house." Then poor little Violet was brought in to the general rescue, having been fiercely threatened and cautioned as she was dragged down-stairs, and—O wicked mamma Grimshaw! for you yourself had left the room to fetch her—had also been bribed not to let the cat out of the bag. She, poor child! cried real tears of sorrow at parting. Blanche could not help asking if she might see her now and then, to which there was a responsive chorus of, "Oh! Miss Lavigne, we hope you will come often to see us," and then they all fell to kissing poor Blanche, and Mrs. Grimshaw rang the bell; and when the Cokely Manor "Jeames" appeared, that lady actually said these words, which we blush to record: "Tell the coachman he need not put the horses into the britzska for Miss Lavigne, as she will accompany the countess." So earnest, thoughtful, and affectionate had they all become, that when, after declining lunch for the fifth time, the countess rose to depart, Blanche, like a dear little fool, actually began to forget the injuries and insults lavished on her, and to fancy that they did, somehow or other, mean at least a portion of what they said. And so they did, a very small portion, perhaps; for they began to regard her as the friend of the great county lady; and their remembrance of the "governess" was fainter before Blanche left, than any one who did not know human nature could possibly believe; and in one thing they especially deceived themselves, and became less hypocritical every instant. They very nearly forgot that they had treated her unkindly and brutally in the least. And it is a fact that had Blanche only stayed that day and evening until bedtime, they might have begun really to like her. For Blanche was very loveable at all times, and especially so as Lady Courcy's protégée and friend.

"But you know, mamma," said Miss Georgy, speaking of the affair afterwards, "we could not have acted otherwise with a governess, and at twenty pounds a-year, too," quite forgetting by whom the price of her services was fixed.

As Blanche rode home with the countess, the latter attempted once or twice, as delicately as possible, to draw her out with regard to her treatment at the Grimshaws. The truth is that she was tolerably aware of the facts from her own observation, as well as Arthur's indignant comments. But Blanche dexterously evaded the subject, or could only be induced to talk freely and fondly of her poor dear little pupil Violet.

There are families and families, governesses and governesses. We ourselves have known one of the latter class, who drank neat spirits secretly; and another who was fond of romping with the menservants. But for a beautiful, sensitive, pure-minded, accomplished, and delicate girl, it is too frequently a sad and painful career, a protracted martyrdom; it is too often to run the gauntlet of petty annoyance and unfeeling insult, alone in a crowd, unpitied, and only noticed by contempt and uncharitableness; with the consumption hospital or a garret for the goal of a life without sympathies and an existence without hope.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NUPTIAL KNOT.

After the ceremony, which was touchingly performed by the Hon. and Rev. Sidney Slowcoach, assisted by the Rev. Chasuble Pyx, and with a full choral service, the happy pair, so soon as they had partaken of a sumptuous déjeuner furnished by Messrs. Bridecake and Orangeblossom, of Bond-street, left in one of Mr. Longacre's most elegant new "broughams de noces" for Paddington Station, whence they proceeded to the Marquis of Alicompane's seat at Everton Toffy, proffered for the occasion with the exquisite sweetness of disposition for which that accomplished nobleman is so eminently distinguished. After passing three or four days in that delightful abode, where art and nature have exhausted themselves in order to offer every attraction and solace, even to personages of the most exalted station, it is understood that the newly united couple will leave England for a tour through Switzerland and Italy, and afterwards proceed by the Dardanelles in his lordship's splendid schooner-yacht the Eglantine, built by the eminent Messrs. Skyscraper, of Cowes. We may add that it is expected that they will arrive at Odessa, that magnificent monument of British magnanimity and moderation, about the month of February, on a visit to his Excellency Count Hango Tigrevieff, the celebrated Russian general and diplomatist, whom it may be remembered is a near relation by marriage of Lord Craven de Yieldingham, the successful negotiator to whom we are indebted for the sudden and humane termination of the late distressing and disastrous war.—Morning and Evening Gusher.

IT is very odd how Society will continue to plot, in order to make those which ought to be the most delightful moments of life the most uncomfortable. Not to speak of the awful ceremony called a dinner-party, where the general demeanour of the company is often quite as effectively iced as the wine, and where one starves in the midst of plenty, like a modern Tantalus in tight boots overwhelmed with superabundant drapery, with head and shoulders showing like those of a despairing shopman, who has unrolled mountains of feminine attire upon the counter of his magnificent firm; not to mention a fashionable "drum," or ball, where the atmosphere of the dazzling salons resembles that of the Black Hole of Calcutta—just consider our customs at a wedding! The bride is magnificently attired, and stared at almost into hysterics, after being laced nearly to fainting point. Then she is ruthlessly disrobed, to be again squeezed into a travelling-dress, and whisked away on a fatiguing journey to a sufficiently distant place, possibly undergoing rapid sojourns at hotels, as if the newly-married couple were pursued by detective officers, or the Furies were hot on their track. How few tempers can possibly stand the test of a honeymoon conventionally administered. It is all very well to talk about knowing the worst of each other, at first and at once; but how often a bad beginning makes a bad ending. If a pair could only impose upon each other with a month's amiability, they might keep up the delightful delusion to the last. But how ill-omened a commencement it is for the husband to have to swear at drunken post-boys, or to be bothered at a railway station, to find fault with extortionate landlords, to storm at imposition and discomfort everywhere; and how sad for the young wife to be tired, and worried, and flurried, and jolted into headaches and ill-temper. Then there is the frequently fatal mistake of confining two persons to their own society for a month, upon which we need not enlarge. How they find out each other's weak points! It puts us in mind of a preliminary round of sparring in a prize-fight. No, no, we do not approve of the Siamese solitary confinement principle outside, any more than inside, prison-bars. Let people who are destined to live together for the rest of their lives commence as they mean to continue; that is our maxim. As for rushing over the Continent under such circumstances, it is the wildest delusion, too often comprising every discomfort, beginning with sea-sickness and ending with fleas. Our opinion is that a British newly-married pair should commence their wedded lives in a neat and sensible manner at home, and that honeymoons should be annual if not perennial treats; not mere flashes in the pan at the commencement of disunion.

"A very pretty argument," quoth our cousin Ada, "in order to mulct us poor women in a shabby manner of our few privileges. Before we sink down into ordinary humdrum existence, you surely need not grudge us a month's holiday."

"A month?" we replied; " 'tis very suggestive of the treadmill, or of a sentence to imprisonment for that period. Why should we be more thoughtful of our convicts' comfort than our own? We have improved their condition vastly, why not——"

A hand was here placed over our mouth, which we gallantly saluted of course, a proceeding which, for the time at least, effectually closed our remarks on the absurd customs which make the first four weeks or so of marriage too frequently an attempt to be ecstatic in the face of overpowering difficulties.

The marriage between our young lovers took place in London, at St. George's, Hanover-square, and was duly recorded in the "Morning Post." As that shabby notice, warning, or admonition of "No cards," had not then crept into practice, cards were sent amongst others to the Grimshaws; not, we must say, by Blanche or Arthur, but by a certain pert but pretty and good-tempered lady's-maid, who, on Blanche leaving the Grimshaws, had given notice in the most independent style, to the great disgust of the ladies of that family. Susan had been an early discoverer of the love affair between Aubrey and Blanche, and had made up her saucy mind to live with the young couple. There was no harm about the girl, who was of an affectionate and steadfast disposition, but she cherished very strong hatreds as well as attachments, and had her own views of things, and stuck to them; there was, in truth, a considerable amount of "servantgalism" about her, mixed with excellent qualities of head and heart. Though perfectly honest, and never helping herself to anything, she hated a mean "missus;" though averse to ill-natured scandal, she would talk about the neighbours, what they did and what they had, and what they said, and what was said of them. If masters and mistresses only knew what servants do say and think—ay, and know about them! But they go on, as if they were surrounded by automata. A clever, faithful, and confidential servant is a character constantly occurring on the stage. One reason is that he aids the plot so essentially. Such an assistant would be invaluable to a man of the world desirous of being well posted in the affairs of those with whom he came in contact. We do not say that such assistance would be either dignified or proper. A true gentleman knows barely anything of his neighbours' business. He is neither curious nor prying. But the vulgar, not being preoccupied with thoughts of a high order, are at once telescopic and microscopic in their observations of that which does not, or ought not, to concern them.

Mr. Aubrey's marriage was a private one—i. e., it was remarkably public, if we consider the number of strangers who gazed eagerly at the ceremony so dear to female curiosity and so provocative of female excitement. What crowds of Englishwomen will wait in the street to get a peep at bride and bridegroom! It matters not whether they are ill or well sorted, old or young, handsome or ugly. The interest is the same, the remarks only differ. "Well, I never! What a fright!" or, "Poor thing! she does look well, doesn't she?" "It's quite clear she has him for his money;" or, "He's married her for her fortune, I should think." "What a guy!" "What a love!" "What a brute he looks!" "Well, she is a duck!" It matters not—a marriage is a marriage; it is the triumph, the "gaudy day" of womankind; on that day man succumbs, and generally looks foolish; he is the prisoner of war on parole of the sex; he bows to the majesty of womanhood. Of course he may be a fortune-hunter, dissembling and lying at the altar, but though in masquerading guise, he still does homage at the court of Hymen that morn; he is caught that day, though he may never be tamed; wild as the courser of the desert, he still receives the mark as surely as if he were, as he may be, the most domestic animal that ever meekly submitted to his fate. Habet! he has got it; he is no longer a sprightly bachelor or sullen monozoist, deriding the golden fetters or the rosy bonds. Look at him, feminine world! take your fill of staring, daughters of Eve! matrons and maids, ladies and seamstresses. Gaze at him, slipshod girl! with or without the forgotten beer; crossing-sweeper and apple-woman, schoolgirl and apprentice, "marchioness" of drawing-room or scullery, it is your brief and joyous privilege! Be he sheepish or unconcerned, humble or defiant, doubtful, repentant, or exultant, there he is! Is he recalcitrant, or does he hug his chains? No matter, look at him; look him in or out of countenance; smile at him or with him; applaud or insult him—there he is; he is yours for the nonce! Behold him, whatever he is, submitting to the yoke, stepping, skipping, or stumbling over the line, walking under the triumphal arch, yielding obeisance, offering fealty; behold him, we say, crowd, squeeze, push, stand on tip-toe, stare! He is the vassal of Hymen, your own particular deity and idol; in a few minutes he may drive off, or walk away with undiminished arrogance, creation's lord and master. Never mind, you have seen him submit; he may turn out a Petruchio, a wife-beater, a matrimonial monster, or even a felon; he may leave his bride at the church-door— nay, will he not thereby only furnish you with the delicious food of scandal?—he may be an incipient Bluebeard, or a practised poisoner; he may break every vow, rend every tie, shatter the temple which he has just built up into a thousand fragments; or he may be a phœnix about to rise from the ashes of bachelor existence, the pink of perfection, the topaz of the tea-table, the very spaniel of the domestic hearth-rug, or, better still, the great, tame, obedient Newfoundland dog, ready to fetch and carry, to go out when bidden and return when summoned! All this signifies nothing to the occasion, save as you are pleased to speculate upon it, with all that feminine tact and discretion which you know so well how to exercise in another's case: it has nothing to do with the one great fact that you are assisting in the ceremony of the submission of another male to the rod of Hymen, be it wreathed with flowers or twined with snakes. Mark him well, note his every act, glance, and gesture, follow him with your eyes, until he is out of sight! Are you not all priestesses of the solemnity, petticoated flamens of the mystery, eager witnesses of the act, or deed, for good or for ill?

And if this be your temporary portion in the bridegroom, what of the bride? Is she not decked out for your admiration, your sympathy, your pity, your envy, your criticism, your amusement, your delight? Diminutive charity girl! whose eyes are starting from your head like little dirty stars shooting madly from their spheres, are you not part proprietress of her, her veil, her orange-flowers, her Honiton lace, her blushes, or her pallor, and those of all her bride's-maids, be they two, four, eight, sixteen, or any number? Is it not a spectacle for your especial approval or condemnation? The feelings of the whole female world are represented by, and entranced in, that ceremony. We believe that a female hermit, or a Bushwoman, would catch the sweet or bitter contagion, would understand the ceremony at a glance, and pause at, if she did not rush to the church-door. How women like a marriage! "Here she is!" "There she is!" "She looks pale!" "She looks red!" "Poor thing!" "Ain't she happy?" "She's crying!" "She's not!" "What beautiful lace!" "Well, I would have had something better than that!" "She's pretty!" "She's plain!" "She's ugly!" "She's frightful!" "What a Maypole!" "What a dump!" Continuez, mes dames! Faites votre jeu, mes demoiselles! Le jeu est fait. Thus it goes, and will go to the end. Could any woman, under any circumstances, resist having "a good look at the bride?" It was a startling announcement that there are no marriages in Heaven. All the more reason, dear ladies, and you, my little charity girl, who are taught to read your Bible, why you should make the most you possibly can of them on earth.

Well, our young lovers were united, as all young lovers should be; and as few are, in the bloom of youth, and in the possession of worldly wealth and comfort. There were not many invited to the wedding, but those present were select; and the Misses Grimshaw (two), who had come up to their town residence in Langham-place, would have given much for the distinction. For, did not a lord give away the bride, and was not Lady Margaret Courcy there? Above all, was there not a paragraph in the "Weekly Flunky," and one in the "Court Crawler," and might not their names have been in these? It is one of the severest punishments to some persons to find one whom they have despised and ill-used at some former period of their lives become rich, celebrated, or powerful. If you have treated a humble and unknown individual very kindly and generously, it is hard to bear a cut from him or her, when he or she has left you far behind in worldly position and advancement. But this pang is nothing to the remorse felt at having snubbed a Garibaldi, an Empress Eugénie, or a Napoleon, before they were distinguished or fortunate. We remember well the lamentations of a certain well-known littérateur, very popular in the demi-monde and in second-rate London society, and sometimes admitted to higher circles, who knew Napoleon III. when they both visited Lady Blessington at Gore House. This gentleman used to relate how he and the prince used to leave together in the evening to return to their respective quarters in the same locality or direction. "Would you believe it," he would say, "I used to make an excuse, and cut his company as soon as I could, he was so uncommonly silent and dull? And now he is an Emperor. Only think, my good fellow!" We could not sympathise with his grief.

CHAPTER V.

MR. STINGRAY, OUTSIDE AND IN.

Soothe to saie, hee was a lyar of grete talente and most subtile conceite; not so much, mark you, in mere boastinge and bragginge of impossible things, as in hidinge his craftie desires and pushing himself with a verie constant and selfishe purpose in lyfe. Hee was alsoe a most steadfaste hypocrit, not soe religious in himself as in hys discourse with certaine solemne folke of either sexe. Hee was lyke a serpente with two poisons, ye one swete and poisonous and ye other verie sharpe and acrid, soche as ye most leperous distilment of ye wickedest human harte can alone bee found to furnishe. Soche venome, methinkes, is more dethlie than ye malise of ye verie fiendes. For as ye souldier is better and of more respecte than ye knavishe cut-throte and thief, so is ye devile, whose business it is to doe evile, one far more worthie to be considered and of greter respecte than a man who shall doe harme to humanitie and hys fellowes in ye capacitie of a mere hungrie apprentis and discyple of vice—facit quod amat—hee does that for lykinge which is Diabolus hys profession and ordained pursuite, wherebye "Old Hornie" hath hys means and comforte of lyfe, or, as I sholde saie, of eternitie, since ye Devile cannot dye. Thus, that which is in some sort ye Devile's businesse, is ye guiltie man's delighte—sibi dedit sortem ratio, I saie—hee useth lyes as another doth hys hawkes and hys houndes—hee hath pleasaunce and enjoyaunce of hys maize of uglie deceit; whereas Satan worketh harde on principle as it were—c'est song mestier—hee is ye chief grete attourney of Sinne, and provoketh manie causes therebie.—Roger Gavelet of Calice, "His Treatyse on ye Embezelment and Embracerie of Truthe."

AFTER their marriage, Arthur and Blanche Aubrey settled down to live in Queen's-square, Westminster, where they gave very elegant and exclusive entertainments. At their parties, the wife's splendid talents as a musician, and her magnificent contralto voice and singing, drew around them both artistic and aristocratical society. Their soirees were very charming in a true, as well as false, sense of the term. Thither flocked the worthy, as well as unworthy, celebrities of fashionable London life. Painters, poets, authors, and scientific personages mingled with the great and small titled personages, who admired beauty and patronised talent. Had Blanche exercised her will according to her wishes, many would have been banished from their luxurious little salons, who were frequently to be met there. But as these guests were chiefly of the male sex, she did not care to interfere with Arthur's ready invitations. Amongst their visitors was the Duke of Chalkstoneville and Acres, whom she disliked instinctively, and of whom she had heard that he was a very dissipated man; the great Mr. Stingray, a distinguished writer, whom she dreaded, and would have hated, only that in her happiness and innocence she was incapable of hating any one; Sir Harry Luckless, whom she did not dislike, but pitied, as a foolish good fellow led astray. Then there was Viscount Oglestone, who so unmistakably admired her, that she shrunk from his odious look and presence—a sallow debauchee grown careful of his useless existence at the mature age of fifty, who paid particular attention to Arthur, easy fellow, and held him by the button in the Park that he might leer at his wife. The Duke of Chalkstoneville and Lord Tipton and Wednesbury were also assiduous in their attentions. The former invited both Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey to his magnificent entertainments, and the latter persecuted them with his opera boxes and dilettante talk. Personally, the Duke of Chalkstoneville always reminded us of a certain tall beadle of the Burlington Arcade, if we could imagine that tremendous official in plain clothes. But then the duke himself was not always plainly attired, and there is not so much difference between distinguished liveries after all. The beadle of the B.A.'s uniform was more a "livery of seisin," so far as small boys are concerned; the duke's a "suit of court," as it would have been called in the olden time. Possibly, when his grace was gorgeously arrayed in Court attire, the resemblance might have been even more striking. We ourselves never saw the duke save in plain clothes, when he did not appear like a nobleman, or even a beadle of the Burlington Arcade. The beadle on his part was not deaf, like his grace. The beadle lived in or up a court; his grace only occasionally went to Court as "Hereditary Grand Showman of the Chimpanzees," a sinecure which brought in some seven thousand pounds a-year, and as "Principal Stick in Waiting," an arduous task for a deaf and gouty nobleman, had there been anything whatever to do, the post being only worth four thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds per annum. Among these young married persons' female acquaintances was dear old Lady Courcy, the type of a real English gentlewoman, and Blanche's truest friend and protectress. Then there was the good-natured and kind-hearted Mrs. Filmer-Dawson, a more indefatigable lion-hunter than Jules Gerard himself, and an active politician, than whom none could be more amiable; since she always sympathised with the unfortunate, and befriended the hapless refugee. Lady Madeiraville was a rattling, gossiping matron, of French extraction and manners; full of insignificant anecdote and back-stair stories of Court life. Then there was the dreadful Mrs. Blewbore, a sort of tea-tray Medusa and Minerva in one, who contrived to cram all kinds of clever personages into her dingy drawing-rooms; and who was, without exception, the most malignant and mischievous, as she was the most slimy and disagreeable being in "Society." Her, Blanche tried to avoid, but could not. For be it known that Aubrey had an aunt by marriage, who was a strict ally of Mrs. Blewbore, and blest with a grown-up family, educated abroad, of the most accomplished description, and to them Arthur was very necessary as a stepping-stone to circles in which they could not otherwise hope to move. Mrs. Pushforte was the daughter of an atheistical engraver and reprobate, whom Pushforte had married in a fit of delirium tremens in early life. Old Brown, her father, plied him with "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," secret societies, and gin-and-water, most suspiciously compounded; until one evening he held a pistol to the intoxicated youth's head, and accused him of seducing his elder daughter. The younger and prettier one had already been seduced, and was living with a nobleman, who supplied Mr. Brown with the means of furnishing his house, and finding an unlimited supply of the aforesaid gin-and-water for his guests. Since then Mr. Pushforte had chiefly lived abroad in the society of counts and musicians, demireps, and other "charming people." At length he died at Dieppe of a broken constitution and a puffy heart, and madame brought over her daughters to try their luck in England. As soon as Arthur Aubrey married, she wrote to congratulate him in her own strain on his union with so "charming" a creature as Blanche. For once the intriguing old wretch spoke truth, and at the same time she gained her purpose. Blanche was annoyed by her fulsome flattery; but she could not get rid of her. It was she who introduced the great Mr. Stingray at a conversazione given by Mrs. Blewbore, who, by the way, never afforded anything save weak tea and muddy coffee at these intellectual treats. It suited Stingray to visit Aubrey, not only on account of his dinners, but the dukes and lords whom he met there. For Stingray, whose satire of "The Dirt-eaters of Flunkinopolis" had gained him great renown, would himself undergo the severest difficulties to stalk down a lord, and would invest a duke's residence with the craft and patience of a wild-fowl shooter, the arts of a Vauban, the sinuosity of a serpent, and the underground experiences of a mole. The haut-ton of the nobility constituted to him an Olympian conclave, which sometimes he would storm like a Titan, and sometimes approach in the guise of the meanest insect. Impudent and humble, cynical and supple, satirical and fawning, by turns, he climbed his ladder of life, clinging to all above, and kicking at all below him at each successive rung of his crafty advance. With undoubted talent, and even genius of a most unpleasant kind, he lashed and branded the very meannesses which formed the staple of his daily career. But he could be gushing and maudlin enough in his pretended sentimentality, when it suited his purpose.

In person Mr. Stingray was short, stout, and bull-necked. His hair, which was of a reddish tinge, was close-cropped. He was pock-marked and freckled, and wore very wide trousers to hide bandy legs. Let us relate an anecdote of this most amiable personage.

Once upon a time, in the early part of his career, he sought out a nearly starving artist at Rome, a fellow of small merit and less pride. He was the son of an English officer of rank, stern in his repudiation of a bad artist, and worse man. Stingray looked at his pictures, questioned him, and thrust twenty pounds, in Italian coin, into his hand on leaving.

"Botherby, my boy," said he, "take it! It is half of all I have, until I get to England and make some more. I did mean to stay a month longer among you fellows of the Caffé Greco; but I must now return at once. Be sure and don't say a word about this little affair. I should have all the fellows here thinking I am rich; and God knows I am not. There, good-bye to you. Ta, ta! Botherby. No thanks," (applying his handkerchief to his eyes). "Of course. There, there! I know you are grateful and all that."

"Such generosity——" began Botherby, who really was affected at the prospect of the mezzi caldi he would imbibe and the dinners he would devour at the Lepré.

"If," rejoined Stingray, "it would do you good— and, yes it might—it might, perhaps (pause)—to let some of the fellows know that I had aided you, I should not so much mind, when I shall have gone away; but it would be better for your sake to say that I imposed the strictest secrecy. They will think all the better of your heart, if you should mention it. Say that I insisted—as I do insist (playfully)—that you should not. But it may do you good, Botherby, to say I helped you; set an example to others, and why should I care what any one says?"

This was uttered as if he had just done something wrong, and defied the world.

"Why should I care? I only want to put something in your way, man. There, keep up your spirits. I will send you another twenty pounds, when I get to England and receive a little amount—all I have to look to in the world, on my arrival. We artists"— Stingray did a little caricaturing—"must help each other, eh? Is not that it? Of course it is."

And the "dear old fellow" wrung Botherby's hand, and begun to descend from the artist's sky-parlour somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Quattro Fontani.

"Hi, Botherby!" he called out to that individual, who had sunk into an arm-chair, considering what he should have for breakfast, and what establishment he should patronise, "would you like me to see the admiral when I return to England? I might do something with him, you know."

Botherby, who followed him down the stairs, eagerly assented, and they had a few minutes' conversation on that topic.

"And, Botherby," added Stingray, finally, "I want you especially to see little Chatterleigh, the archdeacon's son, you know, from me to-day, and tell him that I am obliged to leave to-morrow and have not time to call. Do the civil for me, in fact. He is a good fellow, and might do something handsome for you, if it were suggested to him somehow indirectly; and if he did take it up, he would talk to every one, and I should not wonder if there were a handsome subscription, and you will be set up shortly, and I shall find you a great painter when I return to Rome. Don't cut poor Stingy, then; you don't think I'm so stingy after all? Addio!"

As Stingray descended the steep and dark flights of stairs leading to the artist's wretched abode, his mutterings were somewhat as follows:

"Hem! a stiff investment that. How the fools will talk about it! Dare say I shall get the 'mopuses' back from the old admiral. I'll take care he hears of it. Confound the fellow! How his room smelt of garlic. Saw a trap for sparrows on the roof—believe he lives on them, and on what I call street salads. He paint, indeed? Faugh! The beast wanted me to accept one of his 'pictures.' Not such a fool. He would have said he had sold one to me for twenty pounds, the scamp, and ruined my prospects as a connoisseur. Wonder whether he will talk. Think he will. Touched him upon the right place. Chatterleigh will tell every one in six hours. Botherby will get drunk and maudlin on mezzi caldi at the Belle Arte or the Greco this evening, and call me his saviour. Some men would not see this sort of thing, but I do. I'll give Botherby three months to be worse off than ever, i.e., if he don't get 'dil trees,' and die on the proceeds of my touching generosity. Ha! ha! Good thing for me if he does die, confound him! as soon as he has told the story sufficiently. People will say, 'You remember poor Botherby, don't you? Man of good family—son of an admiral—nearly starving at Rome—died last autumn. Well, that eccentric creature. Stingray, did one of the noblest actions,' &c. &c. &c. And the old fellow would be safe to fork out in that case. Shall I go back and offer him twenty pounds more on the nail, to kick the bucket at once? Ha! ha!"

Never was a better investment made of forty pounds than this of the noble-minded and generous Stingray. Botherby told every one whom he knew, and several whom he did not know, constantly for weeks after. Nay, he narrated the circumstance to at least fifty artists at the billiard-table in the Corso that night. We are not quite sure which was more applauded at Rome ere long, the gratitude of Botherby or the generosity of his patron. We don't exactly know what the artist himself thought of his patron's motives; for the former was a cynic in his way, and soured by privation. But at least he knew that another twenty pounds was promised, and he behaved with the greatest discretion and judgment in his observance of Stingray's instructions. When, indeed, he got very drunk, which he did every evening, with the exception of those occasions when he became intoxicated earlier in the day, nature supplanted art, and he would weep over the narrative of Stingray's benevolence in a manner most edifying to behold. And though he sank lower and lower in estimation, save with respect to the praise he merited as an apparently grateful beast, his benefactor rose higher and higher, until Stingray's noble conduct became stereotyped in the minds of the British residents and visitors at Rome. Moreover, in due course of time, various excellent impressions found their way to England and to the wide circle of London society, and the story of Stingray's benevolence was repeated from the boudoir of the Duchess of Mortmainterre (so well known for the extent of her deer solitudes and her sympathy with the enslaved negro), down to the "Cave of Harmony," in a less refined but equally intellectual atmosphere. In the former the story was lisped in the way of small talk with more or less effect; in the latter it was specially retailed, with equal shallowness of purpose, by the enlightened and philanthropical individual presiding over the establishment of supper and of song.

"Yes, dear boy" (offering you a pinch of snuff, and holding one suspended between his own finger and thumb), "you ought to know who sits there, when he comes" (takes the pinch), "which I assure you he does very often, nearly always I may say in the season, the great Mr. Stingray, who wrote, &c. &c., and behaved so generous to the poor artist at Rome. Ah, I see, you know the story. I hope you are being attended to all right. William, have you attended to this gentleman?" (offers another pinch of snuff.) "Good-night."

Stingray was right, so far as Botherby's immediate cravings and necessities were concerned. Little Chatterleigh gave him five pounds himself, and swore with his most comic oath, that Stingray was the "jolliest old trump, sir," he ever knew. A certain British consul, or general agent and dealer in pictures, curiosities, groceries, coins, and cameos, who represented our noble country abroad, put down his name for twenty scudi, which he never paid. And, lastly, a London tea-merchant and his lady on their travels, actually bought a pair of pictures from the bearded and interesting artist. One of these was the "Pifferari," represented by a man and boy—we need not go from London in order to paint such now—and the other, the "Adoration of the Madonna," consisted of a girl in a coarse blue dress with something like a square napkin partly folded on her head, and with enormous ear-rings, kneeling in front of a sort of doll's-house, fixed in a corner made by two walls. These are the kind of things which some persons go to Rome to paint; and others, fortunately for those who paint them, to buy; a fact even more astonishing. Botherby was a handsome fellow enough, and had he not been a tipsy fool might have married the eldest Miss Hyson, who sketched in the Coliseum, and whose drawings of the Baths of Caracalla, and Views of Pœstum, are so greatly admired at Souchong Lodge, Peckham Rye.

As it was, Miss Hyson was merely provided with a sentimental regret, which she continued to exhibit until after her marriage and the birth of her first child.

Mr. Stingray's act in itself was kindly enough. What could be more amiable than to relieve a poor artist, and give him the money so much needed by him in his distress? Still, we who are behind the poetic and artistic curtain, know how and why it was done. The best people believed, as they were intended to do, in the genuine goodness of such an act.

The wretched Botherby was never completely sober again during the brief remnant of his artistic career. He drank the vile rum of the country in so frantic a manner that he died, and was buried by his artistic associates, just as the eloquence of Stingray had prevailed on the admiral to settle three hundred pounds a-year on him, paid quarterly; and about a month after the stern but honourable veteran had repaid, not without emotion, the forty pounds which his son's cynical benefactor had so queerly invested. The letter containing the advice to Torlonia, with a few words from his father, severe but touching enough, had the old man's agony been revealed by those stiff characters penned with a trembling hand—that letter lay unopened by the dying artist's pallet, as his rakish associates took their last look of him. Long after that drunken scapegrace lay mouldering in his grave was Stingray the honoured guest of a melancholy old man, who always wrung his hand with vehemence at parting, though he said nothing; and when that old man died he left Stingray a thousand pounds, a presentation sword, his naval orders in diamonds, a gold snuff-box, a portrait of himself in uniform, and a portfolio of faded and execrable designs and sketches done by the son whom he had once repudiated, which were suspiciously blistered by something that looked as if they had been some time or other in the vicinity of the Icelandic geysers, and consequently sprinkled with drops of scalding water like tears.

Shall we here narrate the elaborate ruse by which Stingray got admission to the exclusive Whig literary circle of Amsterdam House? Shall we tell of a trick which he played a brother author which would have caused the double-faced Janus himself to blush at such paltry perfidy? We think we have not space here.

Stingray had known Arthur Aubrey very slightly, some four or five years before—in fact, at Rome. Soon after Aubrey was married, he met our philosopher on his cob in Rotten Row. The latter grasped Arthur's hand with emotion, and said:

"I congratulate you, dear boy—pardon me, permit me—but such a case as yours—I know all—evokes our better sympathies—touches chords"—his bridle was here squeezed on the left pocket of the vast white waistcoat of the man—"I heard of it all—I said such an attachment, such a match, is an honour to human nature. I congratulate you both. May I call and be introduced to your beautiful bride?"

CHAPTER VI.

THE RATTLE OF A FASHIONABLE DRUM.

The hold which a man has on the "world," as he is in the habit of terming that very minute portion of it, the "society" immediately surrounding himself, through the instrumentality of banquets and other magnificent entertainments called "parties," may be likened to a chain of any size or strength, from one appertaining to an Italian greyhound's collar to the cable of a three-decker, or of the Great Eastern herself. There is a series of links connecting the Amphitryon in the most delightful manner with human sympathy, gratitude, and regard. But no matter how thick and long that chain may be, let only the last and latest link, which joins it to the present moment, be wanted, and all is gone in an instant—vanished, as if it had slipped into an unfathomable depth. Every former link, nay, the whole chain from end to end, slides into the ocean of Oblivion, and is for ever lost to sight.—From the Note-book of Solomon Trustall. Chapter last.

LET us now transport our readers to a reception at Aubrey's house. The rooms are not large, but everything is in excellent taste, especially for a parvenu, as the guests themselves admit.

We will imagine the rooms crammed, and that Blanche Aubrey has just sung one of her most exquisite Italian songs, accompanying herself on the harp.

"Ah, madame," said a portly Italian, who had crept into an excellent berth by worrying a Liberal Lord Chancellor, as no Englishman could do, until it became absolutely necessary to give him something in order to get rid of him—"ah, madame, why are you so rich? It is a cruelty, a theft, a crime, I swear it, I—why are you not of the opera, I say it? What voice! What pronunciation the most gracious! In our Italy you should be easily prima donna, first of the first. Oh!" and he kissed his fat dusky fingers with a species of ecstasy. "Sentite! in my country, the young men should draw your carriage, instead of horses."

"A donkey carriage!" growled Stingray apart.

"Thank you," said Blanche to the signor, "I prefer my ponies even to so flattering a mark of distinction. Do you know, Mr. Stingray," she added, "I had a thoroughly English compliment paid me the other day. A great City merchant said to me, after listening very attentively to a song which I had attempted, 'My dear madam, if you were only on the stage, you would make three thousand pounds a year.' Can you imagine a Frenchman or Italian saying that?"

"They would as soon think of speculating upon the salary of a seraph," replied the signor.

"Or considering," quoth Lord Madeiraville, "the exact amount that Mr. Lumley would give for the services of a real Peri for the ballet at Her Majesty's Theatre."

"Yes," observed Stingray, "they are so disinterested, so unpractical, your countrymen, signor; when they ally themselves to a daughter of Albion, they look only at her worth."

"For instance," drawled Sir Harry Luckless, "there is Miss Debrett Stumpey has had forty-nine offers from foreign counts, one for each year of her age, I fancy, and they all declared it was for herself alone they sought her, which must be considered satisfactory proof."

"At any rate," observed Arthur, "the compliments of foreigners are more felicitous than ours."

"My countrymen have great admiration for de Inglees ladies," was all that the signor deigned to say in answer to these remarks.

"I'll tell you what," said Stingray, "the English are the most polite people in the world. Look at a French table d'hôte! Who ever saw an Englishman help himself to the best parts of a chicken, and then push the dish containing the drum-sticks violently over to a lady sitting opposite to him? An Englishman will take off his great-coat in a shower of rain to protect a lady from the wet. We have all the practical and most valuable elements of politeness. What foreigner would have acted as Raleigh did to Queen Elizabeth? A new velvet cloak was something in those days. A French knight would have paid a compliment to her feet, as he handed her through the puddle, with one hand on his heart and a look of languishing adoration. You know the story, do you not, signor?"

"But, yes, I know."

"What would one of your countrymen have done?"

"Diverted the royal attention from the puddle by some sublime nonsense on the stars, which he would have doubtless likened to her eyes, while leading her into it," was the suggestion of Luckless.

"Good!" said the signor.

"Contrived to lead her round the obstruction with the utmost gallantry," continued Lord Madeiraville.

"Bah!" said the signor.

"Snatched a page's cloak and flung it down instead of his own?" observed another of the circle.

"But how?" said the signer. "Ecco! signorine e signori. I will tell you, in the first place, a poor Italian like your most humble servitor would have had a cloak of velours in cotton unworthy of the sacrifice. I would have taken your royal mistress in my arms, and carried her over, after which I would have knelt in a clean place, and prayed to have my head cut off in punishment of a presumption so tremendous."

Great laughter followed the signer's declaration.

"I wish to Heaven!" said Stingray, "that you had lived at that period to make so charming an alteration in the page of history. No doubt, signor, but my Lord Burleigh would have received the royal mandate to make you at least Court librarian."

"Egad!" said Sir Harry, "I believe that the signor would have married our immortal Queen Bess, and they would have reigned ever after in Tilbury Fort, with the store-houses crammed with maccaroni, and the cellars full of orvieto and vino d'asti, and surrounded by articles of virtù in mosaic and bronze."

"It would have changed our whole style of architecture," lisped a young disciple of Vitruvius.

"We should have had opera a century earlier," said Lord Madeiraville.

"Listen," said the signor, whose good humour was as imperturbable as his resentments were fierce and enduring; "it might not have been worse for your poor Albion, had I been the consort of your great Elisabet. In the first place, I would have made it one great crime to teach any charming blonde English miss to sing and make music, who has not the voice and the taste to learn ever to please us. Ah! what false compliments we should be spared! What torments we should lose! In my country no one is forced to learn to sing and play, when the Nature says not. In the painting, it is different. The bad pictures hide themselves. At least one is not forced to look or to admire. But it is terrible what one must endure in the English society with the bad singers, who have paid hundreds of pounds to excruciate their hearers. Ah! signor" (to Stingray), "I was sorry for you last evening. It was at the great Mr. Goldborough's, where you were forced so politely to compliment the daughters of the house. The one sang loud as a cornet-à-piston, with no ear at all for music; and the other had some ear for the music, with no voice. Signor Stingray has asked continually for one more little song, and I do believe he should have turned over the leaves, only for a young Tedesco, who anticipated him."

"Hem!" growled Stingray, "a man must not be a complete savage, you know."

"Besides, Goldborough gives about the best dinners in London," said Sir Harry. "His chef is superb."

"I see," said the Italian, in his own language;

"then it was the stomach of my friend that praised the singing so ardently." Foreigners have this advantage in English society, they can say so much that is not admissible in the native tongue.

"It was your conscience, signor, and your ears that I pitied," he continued; "but I see now I need not have so done."

Mr. Stingray smiled grimly and superciliously. He was considering his revenge.

"In my country," said the signor, "one hears a fine voice somewhere, anywhere, in the streets. One is struck with the melody, the natural grace and power of the singer. The gem is picked up and polished. We do not care to teach even the daughter of a Borghese, or of a wealthy Prince Polonia to sing, if she have not the gift of Nature. Here the child of a banker must have masters to cultivate her most marked imperfections at any price. And what is the result? My dear friend Stingray dines with the papa, and, in complimenting mademoiselle, praises a different artist."

"My dear signor," said Stingray, "pray spare me. I am no judge of music, in which your countrymen excel. Who can wonder that a people deprived of liberty should cultivate melody in their bondage? I protest that I am no flatterer. There is one thing, signor, which I hope you would have done for us, had you fortunately lived a contemporary of Leicester and Burleigh, and married our virgin queen, an idea which delights me much. I hope you would have sent back all the Italian organ-grinders to their own country, and hanged their detestable padroni without the slightest compunction. Under those circumstances I would willingly have pledged you my allegiance."

"I would have forced you to supply them with better organs, my friend," replied the Italian with dignified composure. "What! it is you who cause and encourage the evil, and then you complain. As the signor minister here would say" (turning to a gentleman with a very unpleasant expression of face, who had just entered) "where there is no market, the supply will cease. Is it not?"

The personage just appealed to shrugged his shoulders, and replied that he was hardly prepared to admit more than a moiety of the proposition to be correct. If a thing were continuously forced upon the market when there was no demand, it was quite possible that a demand might be created. He then, amid breathless silence and admiration, uttered two or three sentences of such astounding length, that it became a marvel how he could possibly light on his legs, as he did, with all the finished grace of an acrobat, at the end. Certainly there was little or nothing conveyed in these rhetorical flourishes, not an idea, nor even an expression worthy of being remembered or recorded; no golden apothegm, or felicitous thought. But the style was perfect, and the language correct and scholastic; every word fell into its place as if by a conjurer's art. He was not a magician, much less an inspired prophet or lawgiver. His was truly the eloquence of national decline. He was the spokesman of expediency and compromise; the orator of mediocrity, and the specious abandonment of all that by which England achieved greatness, and which our forefathers held dear. As a nation cannot be made without virtues, so it cannot be mined without cleverness. There is the skill to make, and the skill to mar. There are the arts that build, and the arts that usher to destruction. It requires a sage to found, a sophist to destroy. Knowledge supplies the place of wisdom; and shallow learning, the deep and philosophic instincts of greatness. In the Right Honourable Felix Sowerface were combined, with curious infelicity, the policy of elegant concession to England's enemies and of sardonic antagonism to her friends. He was the polished advocate of internal corruption, and of external enmity, peril, and disgrace. His state-craft was exactly the reverse of that of a Cromwell or a Pitt. His face was not handsome, nor intellectual in the highest sense, not even up to the mark of the ability which his bitterest denouncers could not but acknowledge. His conduct suggested the idea of a Jesuit without religion, of a Machiavelli without a prince. Such men are born in the dotage and decay of empire, to shine with a false light, to lead astray from principle and virtue with the tawdry glitter of false sentiment, hollow sophistry, and fluent pretence.

In the decline and fall of a nation, are there not appropriate ministers born naturally to the occasion, as heroes and statesmen are born to rough-hew and cement her greatness? As the epochs in the history of an empire, so are the men. And one thing is certain as it is remarkable, viz., that the false politicians, the false poets, philosophers, and orators infinitely exceed in their transient glory and fame the contemporaneous meed awarded to the real children of genius and the true representatives of patriotism and grandeur of soul. What honest man, what example of real worth and sagacity, was ever lauded like the Right Honourable Felix Sowerface in his day? Why, even Nelson before his death was scarcely feted like some of our late pseudo-heroes and incapables during the Russian war. In the present age, laudation has been so vulgarised in its excessive and false application, that we have lately become apprehensive that when the next extraordinary humbug shall die, there will be no praise left! Equestrian statues have lost their dignity; even burials in Westminster Abbey are threatened with loss of distinction. When lately one of the worst incarnations of the modern spirit of the age became defunct, whose godless theories and practice, were they carried out, would reverse, in the persons of Englishmen, the theory of Lord Monboddo, and rapidly reduce the stunted operative to the condition of the ape, such spasmodic threnodies were raised by a sort of newspaper chorus, that we felt inclined to exclaim: "There can be nothing next!" When a good and most virtuously domestic prince was lately taken from amongst us, the laudation was so injuriously fulsome, that a living tyrant of old Rome could hardly have exacted more. In China, such things are, doubtless, estimated at their proper worth. When the "Celestial Light of the Universe" disappears, we know that an emperor is dead, and that another "Light" is ready to be set up. But in England we are not yet all quite accustomed to this verbal ecstasy, which marks both the softening of the brain and the corruption of the heart of a community. The Right Honourable Felix Sowerface was an adept in laying on the adulatory gold-leaf on the national idol for the nonce. It was wonderful to hear him keeping up this rhetorical game of shuttlecock with the leader of the Opposition in the House. You knew that neither meant an iota of what he said. And yet by this sort of art each held his place in public estimation, and their spasmodic admirers cried, "What a capital speech!" even if they had not read a line of it in the "Times," and only heard of it in the skimble-skamble conversation in a railway first-class carriage. Nothing save the most abject confessions of the Litany can express the state of all concerned in this millennium of "sham." Such was the right honourable gentleman who had just entered the Aubreys' salons, the observed of all observers, the most honoured, because the most recherché guest of the night. True, neither host nor hostess exactly liked the man; but they were no politicians, and had neither probed nor sought to probe the great social bubbles of the day. The Right Honourable Felix contrived somehow or other to mix up the great Italian question with the organ-boys and their monkeys. He spoke of foreign dungeons, as if England had neither workhouses nor prisons. He had much to say about the liberties of the Sicilian and Florentine people; but he questioned the liberties of the poorer classes in England to drink beer after a certain hour, or to indulge in a little street music and song.

It was difficult to connect all, or anything that he said, but it was somehow blended into a harmonious utterance of verbiage that to many seemed irresistible in its logical force and grace; and whilst he spoke his sardonic countenance was distorted with a smile, which Mephistopheles might have envied, but which was generally pronounced intellectual in the highest and most refined degree by those whose opinions bore weight. The sun alone refused to flatter or disguise the man. His photographs would certainly not have favourably impressed any one, not recognising in them their distinguished and well-known original. The Right Honourable Felix, finished by saying that the upper and middle classes were alike concerned, as a matter of taste and public convenience, to put down that which without doubt exercised a most disturbing influence on the elegant culture of the age. "The fine ears of the ancient Greeks," he said, "in the period of their widest and broadest freedom, would not have endured the cacophony of these peripatetic pests whose miseries imported them, in pursuit of the charitable obolus, from some petty and distant state."

Here Arthur broke in. "In my humble opinion, it is a great cruelty to put down that which affords so great an amusement to the poor. I have seen what perhaps no one here has witnessed, the delight of a troop of children in a court or alley, in some populous and wretched part of this great town, dancing to the music of the poor organ-man, who looks smilingly on the ragged little beings circling around him. It is not those who really have music in their souls who create all this fuss about street music. It is your stock-fish, your vegetable calculators, your Professor Cabbages, and your selfish, thrice selfish epicureans and kakistocrats, your pharisaical impostors, who drink wine at their clubs and mansions, but would deprive the labourer or mechanic of a draught of beer in a comfortable bar, who grudge the slender amusements of the poor."

Blanche looked at her husband approvingly as he paused.

"Is it possible, Mr. Aubrey, that you can seriously defend these dreadful creatures? I thought you were a real lover of music," observed Lady Madeiraville.

"So I hope I am," replied Arthur; "but I hope also that I am attuned to a higher harmony—that of the heart." Emboldened afresh by the expressive eyes of Blanche, he continued, turning towards the Italian—"Your great Rossini, signor, did not despise street players, when he said that it was the most flattering sign of his success to hear one of his airs ground on a barrel-organ. I repeat that it is a most touching sight to see, as I have, a crowd of children on a Christmas Eve dancing round one of these good-humoured fellows in an otherwise dismal or dreary court, or on a summer night in the suburbs, while their parents stand in their squalid door-ways gazing pleased and approvingly on the small, humble delights of their ragged offspring. Who would not endure some inconvenience to afford this harmless recreation to thousands of poor children, who have so little to embellish or amuse their childish life? I do not wish to talk politics," he continued, "but I cannot help thinking that our selfish over-legislation in this and other respects is storing the waters of hatred and bitterness, which may some day burst their embankment, and spread ruin around. Your oligarchy, nay, your legislative assembly, such as it is, which a party oligarch holds in the hollow of his hand with the division list of the House, as he comes down to make his conventional speeches, this oligarchy, I repeat, dares to do more to annoy, irritate, and disgust the people, than any despotic ruler in the world. Parliament and the police interfere with the petty liberties of the poor in the most paltry and illiberal manner. The small fruit or fish vendor who comes to the poor man's door must of necessity charge a percentage as a recompense for constant liability to imprisonment and black-mail. Whilst your clubs and private mansions afford every indulgence to the rich in their week-day and Sabbath potations, the tired mechanic is exposed to the devices and machinations of a Pharisaical Sir Andrew Aguecheek, eager to balk his thirst and to baffle all his requirements. The police are encouraged to treat the lower classes with more insolence and brutalising brutality than would be used by an army of occupation in a foreign country. And lastly, forgetting what a short radius your refined musical circle can boast, and that although there is a "Beggars Opera," there is no opera for a beggar, or even a working man, or small shopkeeper, or the majority of the middle classes. Legislation, with a refinement of selfishness, led by a trader giving himself more ridiculous airs of taste and sensitiveness, forsooth! than were ever murdered on all the barrel-organs and hurdy-gurdies in creation, stoops to interfere with the enjoyment of millions to gratify the affectation and frigid cruelty of a few pretenders to fine taste."

"Bravo! Bravissimo, Signor Arturo!" rolled forth the deep voice of the Italian. "Then you at least would not banish my poor countrymen. What says the signora?"

"Nay," said Blanche, timidly, "I think always with my husband. We neither of us like the German brass-bands, chiefly of youths and boys, who, unlike their countrymen generally, are in the habit of playing such frightful discords at all hours. But they appear, for certain reasons, to be less persecuted than the organ-players."

"You are eloquent, Mr. Aubrey," said Stingray, sarcastically. "We shall see you in Parliament soon, and then you can advocate the cause of your friends. But I fear you will only expose yourself to ridicule in these days."

"Ah!" said Blanche, "that ridicule! How it numbs and destroys earnestness! I wish we were more earnest in these days; but it seems to me as if all were acting in the present age, and too often acting only burlesque into the bargain."

"I'll tell you what, Mrs. Aubrey," quoth the good-natured Lord Madeiraville, "there's a good deal in what your husband says, and I own it never struck me before. If ever I am called upon to consider the matter in a public point of view, I must confess that I shall think over its various bearings very carefully." And his lordship adjusted his legislative neck-tie, and looked towards Blanche for an approving smile. Unfortunately for his hopes, her smiles of approval were reserved entirely for her husband.

"Come!" cried the signor, "at least, dearest lady, there is no danger to the conscience of our dear friend Stingray, if he should applaud you. Give us, I pray you, madame, a melody of Schubert. It will be apropos of our mention of the brave Tedeschi. For my part, I am of no country. I love all good music and musicians. Or an air of Halévy, or better still that charming French chansonnette of the young Breton. Come! I will turn over the leaves; Mr. Stingray cannot do it very well, I know. He will banish my poor countrymen for making the discord, because he does not like any music. Come, madame!" and he began humming, "La mer m'attend, je vais partir demain!"

Blanche sang it with touching tenderness, and when she had finished, the signor heaved a sigh like a hot puff from Vesuvius, and Sir Harry Luckless felt a moisture in his eyes, which annoyed him greatly. Sir Harry was not heartless; but how is it that a bit of pathetic acting on the stage will sometimes cause the most unfeeling persons in real life to cry like children? We do not think that Nero would have wept over the "Sorrows of Werter;" but we fully believe he might have sobbed heartily, had he witnessed the late Mr. Farren's delineation of Grandfather Whitehead at the Haymarket Theatre. Speaking of that theatre, we remember once to have gone with a celebrated Yankee inventor to see Miss Cushman play Meg Merrilies. That very morning our

Transatlantic acquaintance had witnessed the mutilation of a girl's arm by the machinery of his works, and had treated the affair with the utmost indifference, looking upon it as so much material used up, and calculating the least possible amount he might have to pay for it. That evening he fairly wept at the mimic touches of passion and sentiment which were certainly wonderfully rendered by the great actress. Again, we have known ladies with the softest and tenderest hearts in real life almost incapable of being moved either by a novel or a play.

One of the few persons utterly untouched and undelighted was the Right Honourable Felix Sowerface. We need scarcely say that he felt bitterly offended by Arthur Aubrey's daring speech. With an "agrodolce" smile of the most fascinating bitterness, he took an early opportunity to bid his hostess adieu. As he returned homewards, he was probably occupied in scheming how to bribe the Irish tail in the House of Commons, without alienating the Scotch members from his faction. It was a task that might have puzzled a Mazarin, a Richelieu, or a Loyola. The two former, however, intrigued for the State, as well as for themselves; the last for a Society and a Creed. Mr. Sowerface had no object, save to keep in office, and indulge in his hours of leisure in the accumulation of rococo monstrosities and a taste for the display of useless and pedantic learning. He was, indeed,

Not versed in elements of saving policy,
But deeply skilled in all the arts
That usher to destruction.

And this, England will some day find out, with regard to a modern breed of statesmen, of whom Mr. Sowerface may be taken, not only as a specimen, but as a type.

It was the worst period of the Crimean war, and the conversation naturally turned to the horrible and heart-rending sufferings of our army, which were then being made known by the newspapers to an indignant public. A young and talented barrister, Mr. Ernest Delolme, spoke with cutting severity on what he termed "The Tragedy of Errors," at that time being acted in the Crimea. He gave a rapid sketch of the blunders, and the inconsistencies, save in ruin and mischief, not to say the treasons, of the authorities up to that time. In using the word "treason," he said he did not mean it in the old State sense. He meant treason to our soldiers and sailors, or treason to our allies. "Look," he observed, "how the Turks are sacrificed. They were actually beating Russia at every point, when the allies intervened, just in time to save Russia from the disgrace of her reverses on the Danube." The Turkish fleet, he said, was in fighting trim, when British orders from Constantinople occasioned the massacre of Sinope. The Turks were fully aware of the danger of their light squadron, and were about to order the main body of their fleet into the Black Sea, when the interference of the English ambassador at Constantinople prevented their coming to the rescue. Then the Russians, after that terrible massacre, were allowed under the silent British guns to remove all their stores, arms, and garrisons from the Eastern Coast to Sebastopol, against which we hurled our armies and fleets; when we had given them sufficient time for preparation. A fatally unhealthy station for the British troops was fixed on, in the teeth of warning, with an obstinate deliberation, which looked like an evil purpose, even if it were only the result of inconceivable folly and self-blinded ignorance. We refused the aid of the Circassians and of the Poles. The latter he could understand as being in accordance with the traditional iniquity of our Foreign Office, which saw Poland partitioned and repartitioned, and thereby became a chronic accessory to that terrible crime against humanity. But the former he could not understand, if treason to England herself were alien to our councils. What price should we not hereafter pay for that unheard-of proceeding!* As for the clothing and victualling blunders, these were the mere details of imbecility, compared with the criminal shortcomings and deliberate sacrifices of our fearful impolicy in the East. Why give Russia time to make things snug at Sebastopol? Why strike upon her shield at all? Why spare Odessa, especially after the affair of the Tiger? We were actually directing the war, if it were a war, against the lives of our own gallant tars and soldiers. How singularly fatuitous was the appointment of our generals!

[*This was written some five years ago, and is given as it was written.]

In this strain he ran on, and such was the feeling at the moment, that no one seemed disposed to challenge or contradict him. Alas! how much more was there to condemn, before the end; and who could have dreamt that the whole affair would have been condoned by an apathetic nation, with the connivance of the chief impeachers, and with the assistance of those who were the first to denounce that monstrous misconduct which threatened to blot out a thousand years of England's glory with two short years of official incapacity and shame? What has become of the "credulity and connivance" accusations of the enraged tribunes of the people, seeking with burning words to arouse England to a sense of the mighty sacrifice and crime? The history of that war and its period has not yet been written: although petit-maître cleverness, specious verbosity, well-simulated earnestness, and partial spite have combined to write and print volumes of clever twaddle, anecdotes, fact and fiction, declamation and exaggeration, and call it a true record of that stupendous "sell." Alas! the very smartness and acerbity occasionally indulged in only conceal the fact that such works are really penned in the apologetic interest of official misdeeds. What might not be written, if the truth were written? What was it that paralysed the right arm of England in attitude to strike? What secret orders muzzled the bull-dogs of our fleets? What saved, as it had spared, Russia at England's expense? What was the tale of Kars, over which the heroic General Kméty mournfully smiled to the end of his days? What priggish narrative of a smooth "speciosity" might unveil the curious darkness of those deeds? And, lastly, what has all this to do with our narrative, and the fortunes of our heroine? Not much, it must be confessed; but still it is sometimes allowed to novelists, good, bad, and indifferent, especially to the narrators of true histories, to indulge their discursive faculties.

Mr. Ernest Delolme was soon voted a bore, as he deserved to be, for indulging in such political rhodomontade at such a time and place, or any time and place. Long before he had finished, he had only got one hearer, a very shy young gentleman, who was very glad to be talked to by anybody, and who said "Oh!" and "Ah!" and "Bless me, do you think so?" and "Really, is it possible?" in the most praiseworthy manner. Even he was glad when his tormentor was compelled to leave off during an exquisite performance on the piano, which resembled hundreds of mice running up and down enchanted glass stairs, accompanied by dreadful groanings and rumblings in an underground kitchen, and the occasional crash of plates. The enthusiastic barrister was just demonstrating the truth of some absurd charge of connivance between the British and Russian Governments in relation to hides, horns, tallows, and a South American tariff, and the proclamation of our blockade of the Northern Ports on the wrong day according to the Russian calendar. But by the time the fantasia on the piano was ended his sole hearer had escaped, and every one was talking about his or her hobby, or whatever they could find to talk about, including the Aztecs, the Opera, the Empress of the French, the prospects of the grouse season, the Divorce Court, the new and extremely improper novel by a female writer, the latest City failure, and the last vicious, spiteful morsel of scandal about every one's clear friend. It was dreadful to hear what awful aspersions were smilingly uttered, what stabs were given by the finished Gladiators and Amazons of Society; with what relish these moral cannibals devoured the reputations of the absent with the sharpest appetite and sauce. In this business the most blasé and languid of the company excelled the rest.

"Yaas, lots of birds—Going to Scotland?—Not this ye-are, no—Husband knew it all the time—Hasn't twenty pounds left in the world—Serve him right, regular baw—How delightful—Every girl in the school—Heard it from little Rogers—Page-boy absconded—Nonsense—Fact, 'pon honour!—Found letter in prayer-book—Will have thirty thousand—Better look out, old fellow—Got glass eye—Ha, ha! diamond one you mean—Kept by Chalkstoneville—Lived with Lascelles of the Guards—Town getting empty—Switzerland to-morrow—They say he once robbed his employer—Clever fellow—Lord Chancellor some day—So her groom told Wigsby—The old woman wouldn't stand it—Put the screw on and brought him back—Married German courier at Baden—Called himself a Prince—Yes, Baron Levy, and Captain St. James—Every one knows it—Husband too—Gets three hundred pounds a-year from both—Capital joke! ha, ha! Yankee ambassador—Would have known he was your lordship's son—Turfed him at last—Off to Sweden—They say he poisoned her—Takes the chair at Exeter Hall to-night—Debauched old wretch—Think so, indeed?—Heard about Biggleswade?—Dreadful story—Rather amusing—Safe majority—Irish members—Concession to Rome—The

O'Tool a judge—Paddy Grady in the Admiralty—Lots of new appointments—Left her six children—Old enough to be her father—Grey hairs—Never safe—Bombarded all the villages—Insult to missionary—Very proper proceeding—Says he broke his nose at school—Don't believe it—Charming creechure—Going to marry vulgar swell—Regent-street shawl-shop—Thrashed him well—No, he didn't—Can't say which got the worst of it—Served them both right—City editor—A hundred shares—Wrote 'em up—Sold out—Never had a share in his life—Tell that to the marines—Paints an inch thick—Natural daughter of old Sir Peter—Married two brothers—Tin and title—Not so bad—Annexation of Futteypoor—House counted out—Knew her when she was in Dublin—Common as—— —A Russian prince—Refused him—Marry an English duke—Couldn't write her name—Comme elle est charmante—No one knows who she was—Son of a merchant—Do give us one more song—An English ballad—Good fellow—Great ass—Gives himself airs—Horrible crowd," &c. &c.

The above is an attempt to transcribe the Babel of Aubrey's rooms on the occasion of a musical entertainment, or "thé chantant," or whatever it might please any one to call it. To say that the host and hostess did not come in for their fair share of unpleasant criticism and rampant abuse, would be to disguise a painful truth. They did. Not even the sweet, unaffected Blanche escaped. As for her husband, Que diable allait il faire? He deserved all he got. He was a kind of unconscious "snob" to give those parties; and to allow himself to be transported thus out of his proper sphere, which was not the high circle of fashion in which he moved, or which moved about him. He was spending far too much money, and what return was he likely to get for the investment?

It would be absurd to pretend that Blanche did not instinctively comprehend the attentions paid to her by her husband's distinguished friends. She did not appreciate all their coarse aspirations hidden under the fulsome flatteries and vapid compliments which the vanity of women too often esteems far more than dignified politeness, and the timid courtesies of true manhood. Her knowledge of the wickedness of the world, and the heartless libertinism of fashionable society was, indeed, but small. Her pure nature interpreted aright an audacious look or impertinent though veiled remark, without reflection or analysis. Gifted as she was with great firmness, still her spirit shrank like the sensitive plant, ere the contact of evil, at its near approach. When the good-natured but dissipated Madeiraville was a trifle too ardent in his sympathies, her large eyes dilated with a species of inquiring wonder which caused his stare of admiration to fade into the most ordinary glance, expressive of commonplace salutation or remark. She moved among the roués, old and young, intellectual or stupid, who crowded the salons of her small but exquisite dwelling, like an unsophisticated lady in Comus, untouched by charm or spell. She needed no brothers to rescue her from the enchanter or his impure throng; simply because her innocence and her artistic genius combined with repellent force to keep all harm away, and purify each moral taint in the heated atmosphere floating around her. She did not care for the praises, the homage, the adoration lavished upon her. She was enshrined in domestic love, and deaf and blind to all outside her own blameless thoughts. Like a star she moved in her own sphere, and as a star she shone high above all debasing influences: the bad-hearted of her own sex hated her; but, in most cases, she did not see or feel their hate. The fact was, ay, and the poetry of it, too, that she was happy. Felicity is apt to be unconscious of envy, and slow to apprehend wickedness. Still Blanche had her likes and dislikes, and there were many whom she would have banished from her society, only that she did not like to dictate to, or disturb Arthur, in his choice of associates. On his part, silly fellow, he was proud of his wife's beauty and accomplishments, and proud of the éclat of the society which he kept. He did not perceive that he moved in a sphere above his own rank, according to the social scale, solely on account of the fascinations of his charming wife. He did not consider that to her beauty, her magnificent voice and musical genius and culture, her grace and daring as a horsewoman, and her varied and splendid accomplishments, he owed his own toleration by dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, who would otherwise never have deigned to acknowledge his existence. It is quite true that he was a gentlemanly and scholar-like man, with the reputation of being well off, and that he was distantly related to one noble family of some provincial weight; but there are hundreds of young fellows, who have greater advantages than his, who do not congregate at their houses the élite of the beau-monde, with cabinet ministers, distinguished writers, and artists, and occasionally even royalty itself. For a certain royal highness, accompanied, or rather led, by a certain military poodle with beautifully combed locks, which no hairdresser's window could surpass, had been there, and had been heard to affirm with martial emphasis that the little Aubrey was a dashed fine creature, by dash! Now, it is clear that Mr. Aubrey, so far as all this went, although a very independent, fine fellow, and possessing the entire and devoted affections of her who thus ennobled him, was only the husband of his wife. Did he love her with equal devotion? We shall see.

It is certain that when a man is really in love and truly infatuated, his love becomes a representative of the firmer, stronger, and more consistent character of his sex. Such cases are rare, it may be; but as the works of man are as a rule greater, weightier, and more durable than those of woman, so is his faith more lasting, and his folly or frenzy more persistent. As a rule, men are not capable of purer attachments and deeper devotion than women; but the rarer examples are greater and more elevated in the male sex. Love in man, when blended with passion, must always touch the imagination as well as sway the senses. The highest love is, of course, refined by the domestic affections, and elevated by respect. But there are two things that, in ordinary men and cases, have a great deal to do with both the fervour and constancy of attachment. One is the fear of losing the affections of the beloved object, and the other the undisguised admiration of Society. Vanity and jealousy, or jealous fear, are thus undoubted safeguards of love. There is an early love of the "John Anderson" description, and a poetic love, which are beyond the necessity or influence of these unworthy auxiliaries. But how many men are there who delight in exhibiting the fine creature whom they own, not exactly à la Gyges and Candaules, but animated by similar feelings to those of the ill-fated monarch who paid the penalty of his indiscretion? And, again, how dangerous a guest of love is security! How rarely can a woman afford to let a man know that she is wholly devoted to him, if she be so! If possession itself be perilous, how much more so must be absolute confidence in a woman and unrivalled dominion over her heart? There are some to whom this certainty would be the fondest tie, the last and strongest bond of union; but they are few indeed. Arthur Aubrey knew that Blanche was utterly and entirely his own; he knew that her exquisite and delicate nature would never suffer her, under any circumstances, to love again. At the same time he was proud of her. She appealed to his imagination, and he had, at least, plenty of distinguished rivals in the field, if the titled and moneyed profligates who shook him by the hand and held him by the button, and partook of his hospitality and proffered to him their own, could, for one instant, be allowed to call themselves by so fair a name.

Of all the men who visited the Aubreys, the one whom Blanche disliked most, apart from those whose marked attention awakened instinctive aversion, was

Mr. Stingray, author and wit. It is not difficult to understand this. Many persons of much greater knowledge of the world and experience of life devoutly believed in Stingray's worth and candour. They saw in his morbid fierceness of attack merely the indignant denunciation of vice and folly. They did not perceive in him the baseness and meanness which constantly served his own selfish and egotistic ends. He had early discovered the cowardice of Society, and he treated it accordingly. He aimed at being feared, and succeeded. The fact was, that he hated all good and noble natures, and unceasingly lampooned all that was earnest and single-minded among mankind, either of the present age or the past. The greatest denouncer of tuft-hunting and toadyism, he would lay such plans to be invited to the table of any eminent personage, that they would have done credit, as I have before narrated, for obstinacy and perseverance, to the French petit Hercule, M. Pertuiset, who is said to have lain in wait in an African forest six hundred nights to bag his twenty-sixth lion. While painting with the finish of a Dutch master, and varnishing with vitriol, if one may imagine such a process, his admirable pictures of the petty arts and contemptible aims of Brown, Jones, or Robinson, to elevate themselves in the social scale, Mr. Stingray out-heroded the beings whom he thus exhibited, by exercising far more disgusting artifices, and practising still more disreputable tricks in the constant prosecution of his own self-advancement. Nay, he was more vulgar than the worst educated and lowest of the individuals whose eccentricities it was his pleasure and his forte to denounce. He would call one man a "snob" for hiring a couple of extra footmen on the occasion of giving a dinner-party, and another for boasting of his acquaintance with a lord, and a third for talking loudly at his club; whilst he himself would talk in an elevated tone of dining with Palmerston yesterday, or running over to see Devonshire at Chatsworth. Some of this had forced itself on the notice of Blanche; but it was the unkindly spirit of the man that chiefly offended her feelings and wounded her sympathies. It was his custom invariably to deride and ridicule the Irish people; that is, when he dared do so, either in speech or writing. Was there anything in the generous and impulsive character of the Celt that was highly antagonistic to his nature, or had he ever, as one might fairly surmise, been kicked by an Irishman? Blanche could not forget that her mother was the daughter of an impoverished Irish house; and, perhaps, this intensified the strong dislike which she unquestionably entertained for Mr. Stingray. He worshipped success, she reverenced virtue even in difficulties. He sneered at the errors of the head, she was a warm advocate of the heart's generous promptings. Thus, though she did not and could not entertain a notion of the intense bitterness of mind which actuated this terrible censor of Society, yet she felt and knew enough to dislike him exceedingly. He had forced his passage to the front rank like a huge chimney-sweep, blackening all he touched, and yet every one sought to secure him for their parties and réunions, partly for conciliation's sake, and partly because he was the fashion in high circles.

In this way he added to the celebrity of Arthur Aubrey's distinguished little circle. Blanche endured him, simply because to have objected to him would have been held as something perfectly monstrous; and on one or two occasions, when she would have omitted his name from a list of invited guests, Aubrey had appeared mortified, and surprised at her forgetfulness. To her he was a sort of moral upas, shadowing and blighting for a time all her enjoyment, her very trustfulness in her own happiness and domestic bliss. She could not even sing so well when he was present. The advent of some men will exercise a chilling influence on the merriest group. Innocent pastime becomes at once ridiculous when they are nigh. Everything puts on a different aspect, as if a cloud had suddenly obscured a smiling landscape. They bring with them heartache, headache, cynicism, and discontent. Such a man was Stingray. He professed to be very fond of little children; but they ceased to play in his presence, and could not be won even by his presents to respond to his caresses. "Ah! my little man," he would say, with a grin meant to look benignant, "we shall know each other better by-and-bye." In endeavouring to ingratiate himself with small folks, he would always insidiously appeal to their bad passions or instincts. If it were a girl, he would encourage or draw out the spirit of coquetry or curiosity, if he could. If a boy, he would tempt his pugnacity or greed. And all this he would do in so natural and pleasant a manner, that it required a moral detective to discover his meaning and intent.

CHAPTER VII.

THANK HEAVEN! THEY ARE ALL GONE.

They are gone, all the vain and cold-hearted,
The jewelled, the feathered, and dyed;
Now the last smiling wretch has departed,
Come, hither, love! sit by my side.

Tell me, are we the happier for all, love!
This expense, this annoyance, and fuss;
Of the swell mob that came to our ball, love!
Was there one cared a rushlight for us?

We were blamed for profusion, pretension,
We were mocked for our shabby set-out,
Still you'll own, love! 'twas great condescension,
In such grand folks to come to our rout.

But between you and me and the "Post," love!
The bedpost, not journal, I mean;
(I declare you're as white as a ghost, love!
In a week grown quite careworn and lean).

We will show ourselves, henceforth, much wiser.
Than to pinch for such thankless display,
See those wax lights—Quick! ring for Eliza—
Burning still, as I live, in broad day.

SOME time or other, it might be one or two o'clock A.M., after the night when the conversation of which we have attempted to give some faint echoes in our last chapter, had taken place; when all the guests had withdrawn, and left the Aubreys their Paradise untenanted by serpent or by beast; in the pleasant hour, we say, of love and confidence, before retiring to sleep, when Blanche had sung to her husband one dear song, all for himself—she said to him during the chat which ensued, as follows:

"Did you notice, love, how bitterly Mr. Stingray spoke of the new judge, who has been attacked so vehemently in some of the newspapers for his summing-up, as they call it, I believe, in that dreadful murder case of the religious attorney at Sluice-in-the-Wold, in Clodshire, or some such locality? If you remember, the man of law had legally plundered his own mother, and left her to the tender mercies of the workhouse; he had driven his only sister from home shoeless in a snow-storm, and caused her dishonour and suicide; and had so overworked and baited his step-son, whom he had got in his office as a kind of drudge, and whom he had previously robbed of everything by his legal machinations, that the poor wretch went mad and dashed out his brains with a stool in his own office."

"Yes, yes," replied Arthur, "it was a clear case of manslaughter, even in the strictest point of view. Morally speaking, it was justifiable homicide, and that, in my opinion, should have been the verdict. Only what attorney would be safe?"

"Oh, you wicked creature!" said Blanche, "but really, I dare say, that a good many are as bad."

"Well," said Arthur, "I know one or two in this country, whom I believe capable of anything, and not unlike the man who was murdered—I mean punished—in so terrible a manner. If I recollect aright, it was found, after his death, that he had defrauded every one, speculated in all the moneys intrusted to him, drawn up sham mortgages, and I don't know what besides."

Blanche nodded assent.

"The fact of the lawyer being at family prayers before tea, when the assassin rushed in," she continued, "excited all the sanctified world against the prisoner. Don't you remember how the ladies of Credlington subscribed for a tea and prayer service for the Reverend Jabez Howle, after he had been acquitted, through the looseness of the surgical evidence, for beating a sickly page-boy to death?"

"All this is very true, dear," said Aubrey; "but you were speaking of Stingray. He said that the judge was much to blame for talking sentiment to the jury, and directing a verdict of manslaughter. Well, I don't see that Mr. Stingray has said more than many others."

"Yes, but he has," replied Blanche. "He heaped the most malignant sarcasm on him. He said he never was a lawyer, and was only known as the author of a feeble, but laboriously polished drama; he the great advocate, the ripe scholar, the accomplished orator, whose genius all the world agreed to admire. And all this, because it happens that one or two journals, from some personal pique, have systematically written him down. Do you know that it was the judge who first made Stingray known; that for years he has been a diner at his table, and his constant guest; that for years he followed him and flattered him, his generous patron, and warmest friend, at a time when he most needed one? Now, he is his worst enemy, and all to please and pander to his calumniators. He pursues him in a manner quite acharné, as the French term it, and in such a tone, too. 'My poor friend,' he says, 'what a dreadful mess it is! I always said he was unfit for the Bench. He must resign, and what is worse he will never regain his practice. It is very sad, poor fellow! for he has nothing but his salary, and has been enormously extravagant. Those parties are not given for nothing. Open house, you know'—yes, the house always open to him, to Stingray, the false friend!—and then he apes candour, and says, 'I tell him so myself; I said, "my dear judge, it is a frightful, a dreadful blunder." Between ourselves, his nerves are upset. He never can recover it. How could he make such a fool of himself? It is ruin, perfect, frightful, hideous ruin. You cannot think how grieved I am,' he adds; 'but what can one say in such a case?' Now," said Blanche, "the story about the judge's nerves, I can answer for it, is false; for I saw his wife yesterday, and she said he was quite cheerful and happy, and Lord Madeiraville told me that the Government think nothing at all of it, and that the Prime Minister expressed himself most kindly, and the Lord Chancellor smiled and said that his learned friend had only shown a heart worthy of one of the brightest intellects and clearest heads that had ever adorned the judicial bench in England, and the newspapers are beginning to alter their tone, and Sir Harry Luckless says it is 'a sell,' and a 'mare's-nest,' you know his phraseology, dear, and——"

Here Arthur stopped her in a manner that even a loving wife, in the full exercise of female oratory, could not complain of. "And," he continued, "you are his advocate, my darling little Portia, and that is worth all the world besides. So you think Mr. Stingray very wicked, and treacherous, and cruel, and all that. But it is the way of the world, my dear, and it would be highly impolitic in us to make an enemy of him."

"Oh!" said Blanche, "what is the use of making a friend of such a man? There are friends who constantly make use of the opportunities afforded by intimacy to frame an indictment against their greatest benefactors. When the time arrives to throw off the mask, should any base and selfish motive arise, they are well posted in your weaknesses, your misfortunes, and your faults; and should they fail, in fact, they supply the invention, to which dates and circumstances give an air of truth, of vraisemblance, which otherwise would be wanting. Let Mr. Stingray be my enemy rather than my friend; if the remarks which he made to-night be a specimen of the Dead Sea fruit of his friendship. If ever he should turn against us, Arthur, depend upon it we should fare no better at his hands."

"I am not afraid," replied her husband, "of all he can do, when that terrible epoch shall arrive. Besides, what could he say against us?"

"It is not the truth one has to fear in such cases," said Blanche.

"Well," rejoined Arthur, "let him say that we lead quite a cat-and-dog life; let him accuse you of extravagance, and me of inconstancy; let him say that we were never happy together; in fact, let him do his worst, and how much the worse shall we be for it?"

And he pressed her affectionately to his heart as he said it.

"As for the judge," continued Aubrey, "he can defend himself; and, upon my word, I think he did go a little too far for a judge. Not but what," he added, laughing, "as a private individual, I more than coincide with his words. I am not sure that the act of vengeance on the attorney was not a praiseworthy deed—a species of martyrdom. I should not be sorry if half of the whole army of lawyers were shot or hanged to-morrow, or all of them—let me see, about sixteen thousand, I think—struck off the rolls of mortality in a heap. What a crowding there would be at a certain place; worse than the jetty at Margate about the end of a hot July. The whole system of solicitors or attorneys is a gross excrescence, and was never intended by our ancestors to exist in the monstrous shape that it does. By-the-bye, dear, remember that I have to go and see my lawyers—I mean Grinderby and Cousens—to-morrow. There is something they want to see me about, and I rather think it is of an unpleasant nature about a mortgage that should have been paid off. Do you know I have sadly neglected my business affairs since my poor father's death? First I went abroad, and then I fell in love with you, which drove everything else out of my head; and since we were married, we have done nothing but amuse ourselves. Heigh ho! I must see to all these things some day, or there will be a mess. Now, don't you think Phil Cousens is a capital fellow—quite a model lawyer, so pleasant and friendly?"

Blanche shook her head.

"My love," she said, slowly and gravely, "you do not like me to interfere or even talk about your matters of business, much less to express my opinion about those whom you employ and esteem. You are far better able to judge of Mr. Cousens than I am. You have known him a long time. But, since you ask me, I reply to you like a dutiful little wife, that I do not like Mr. Cousens at all."

"Upon my word, Blanche, you are in a strange mood to-night for such an amiable dear creature as you are. Nothing save aversions and dislikes!"

"Of Mr. Stingray," said Blanche, "I spoke thus freely, because he made me angry to-night with his abominable treachery, and I look on him as an acquaintance rather than as a friend. Of Mr. Cousens, your intimate associate and lawyer, you asked my opinion and I have given it. In the first place, if I might venture to say something——"

"Out with it, you wicked and merciless satirist! Out with it. Madam Timon and Cassandra in one—what dreadful things do you apprehend from poor Phil?"

"I was going to observe," replied Blanche, "that I have heard my father say, that no one should employ a friend as a lawyer, or make a lawyer a friend. He used to say the same thing of doctors, but in a less degree."

"With all due respect," put in Arthur, somewhat eagerly, "I don't agree with your father! What! because one knows and esteems a fellow——"

"Esteems?" interrupted Blanche, "say, rather, 'likes'—you don't, you cannot esteem Mr. Cousens!"

"Well, 'likes,' if you prefer it," he returned. "I was about to say, that simply because one likes a man, according to this doctrine, one is not to put anything in his way, not to employ him, not to do him a good turn in the way of business. Was I not right to cut that precious old stupid firm, under whose advice my father made a will, long enough to furnish litigation for a century, or so long as the property supplied funds, if any one interested, however remotely, were only fool or knave enough to commence it? Why it was through old Brewer, the senior partner, who helped to concoct that precious document, that I was made only a life tenant with a clause of forfeiture; that proper powers of leasing minerals were left out, contrary to my father's express intention, and which has shut me out of thousands a-year, and that I am tied and bound as never man yet was——"

"Nay, dearest," said Blanche slyly, "I have heard you say more than once, that it has probably been the means when you were younger and—and—more careless, and thoughtless, of retaining the estate in your hands at all, and saving you from utter ruin."

"I say foolish things sometimes," was the rejoinder. "I tell you, Blanche, that this will is enough to drive a man frantic, when I think of all the expense, bother, and trouble that it causes, and that I cannot do anything with the property at all."

"Well, dear!" said his wife, "of course, you know best; but as for Mr. Cousens, I don't think he is a man of sufficient weight and dignity of character to transact your affairs. Be assured he is a heartless sort of man, capable of flattery, and far too much of a coxcomb."

"What prejudiced creatures you women are," said Aubrey; "I declare this is all because he wears a white hat, with crape round it, and patent-leather boots in the morning."

"And a very good reason too," rejoined Blanche, laughing. "The fact is—say what you will—he is no gentleman."

"Poor Phil!" said his friend and client. "I am sure he admires and esteems you sufficiently. He said only the other day, that he considered you the most beautiful, amiable, and accomplished being he had ever met with."

"Which I consider a piece of great impertinence," said Blanche. "Tell me, do you invite such homage from your solicitor?"

"Nay, he did not say it to me."

"I am glad of it, Arthur," said Blanche haughtily and composedly; "for to tell you the truth, I should have thought such a speech made to you greatly wanting in respect, and have augured ill of your affairs from it."

"Hoity-toity," was Aubrey's reply; "you astonish me, Blanche, I must own, with the tone of your remarks, and the severity of your views. Stingray has made you quite misanthropical, I declare, in a single night."

"Remember, dearest," said Blanche, "that you have never asked my opinion of Mr. Cousens before. I own that from the first I mistrusted and disliked him. His vulgar, fulsome compliments, when he congratulated us on our marriage, and many other things, have combined to strengthen the view I have taken. I sincerely hope that it may turn out to be a wrong, or at least an exaggerated one. Do you remember that day at dinner, when he made a sort of boast that he never forgave an injury, nor omitted to be revenged, if offended? Do you call to mind what he said about killing any one who had done him a wrong?"

"It was only bounce and nonsense," said Arthur. "Phil is the best fellow alive. Didn't he cause me to forego the prosecution of the rascal Johnson?"

"Yes," replied Blanche, "but Johnson had injured you, not him."

"Well," said Arthur, "what do you infer from his idle fanfaronade?"

"Merely, that he is cowardly, egotistic, vain, and treacherous, even if less vindictive that he describes himself to be," was the answer.

"My dear Blanche," said Arthur, lighting a bougie, "I assure you that for once you are entirely mistaken. Phil Cousens may be absurdly over-dressed, but is a sharp man of business, I can tell you; he may talk nonsense sometimes—must we be condemned for that?" he asked in a rallying tone. "He may speak of revenge, but he is the kindest-hearted fellow in the world. Did he not nurse me as carefully and tenderly as a woman, when I lay sick of a fever in the Mediterranean?"

"And has he not had the conduct of your affairs ever since?" interrupted Blanche. "Has not your purse met his private necessities? You should not give me your banker's book to add up, if you don't wish me to know these things. If ever you should be in adversity—which God forbid—it is not 'honest Phil' who will minister to you, depend upon that. And now I won't talk any more upon these odious topics, and I shall go to bed."

Arthur would fain have convinced her that she was mistaken about Mr. Cousens's character; but she playfully refused to listen or respond any more. He tried to elicit her opinion of Mr. Grinderby, the senior partner of the firm, but in vain.

"Come," said Arthur, "he never wore shiny boots in the morning or the evening either, I should think; and I don't believe that he ever praised you or any other woman in his life. There is an ascetic and eccentric being for you, Blanche! I should think Grinderby would fairly take to his heels at the sight of a petticoat approaching his dingy chambers."

It was a slight mistake. Mr. Grinderby had done more mischief, in his spider-like way, than half the young bloods who make the Haymarket hideous by night. He had an establishment at Hoxton presided over by a black-browed beauty, who fought with him occasionally, when she had indulged in an extra glass of gin. At that moment he wore two slips of black plaister on his cheek, which even his clerks attributed to a scorbutic affection of the skin.

He was a coarse and calculating, cold-blooded, but fiercely sensual old hypocrite. And he had dared to regard Blanche herself with an expression in his glassy grey eyes, that would have caused her to shudder, had she met his look. For he admired and hated her at the same time. He admired her person and hated her mind. With his strong, square jaw, bull-neck, and undersized figure, his fierce appetite and pitiless temper, he resembled a human hyena, as much as a London attorney could; and when he shambled forth on a foggy night, and sought the Hoxton omnibus on his road to his pleasant retreat, few things more noxious and venomous went prowling forth from their secret hiding-place and lair in the howling deserts of Africa than this parchment-faced, dyspeptic lawyer with his evil frown, and the livid circlets of indigestion and sordid plotting round his spectacled, malevolent eyes. It need hardly be affirmed that Blanche did not regard the senior partner Grinderby with much esteem. True, she had seen very little of him in comparison with the elegant "Phil." Her interviews with the former were brief, and had been limited to two. Still he was not likely to prepossess her in his favour. She was reluctant, however, to offend or annoy her husband by any further condemnation of any one whom he was pleased to take into his confidence. As it was, he showed a little, just a little temper about her aversion to Cousens.

"Well," she said, "I must say I have often heard the proverb, 'Love me, love my dog,' but I never yet heard, 'Love me, love my lawyer.' "

Arthur could not help smiling at the oddity of the comparison. Somehow, a recollection stole over him of a noble dog of the St. Bernard breed, which he had shot for attacking Cousens when that gentlemanly young fellow was on a visit at his country-house. The circumstances were these. Some years before, Arthur had, with thoughtless rashness, unloosed Géant, who was kept chained in the court-yard of the mansion of a certain sporting baronet where he was staying. The animal was known to be so fierce that the servants looked on in fear and anxiety lest he should turn and rend the stranger, who, however, patted him, gave him a stick to carry, and took him out for a morning stroll. During the stroll man and dog got so friendly and familiar, that Arthur took quite a fancy to Géant. On meeting his host at breakfast, he was congratulated by him on his escape, and censured for the risk he had run. "I would have bet ten to one," said Sir Frederick, "that he would have had you down when you went up to him. If you like to have him now, he is yours; for my servants are all afraid of him, and he does not in consequence get properly cleaned and fed." Arthur accepted the gift, and the dog became his constant companion when in the country, and grew quite docile and good-tempered. Still it was considered dangerous for a stranger to approach him when chained up. Among the boasts of Mr. Cousens was one that he could awe a dog by the terrors of his eye, and consequently that he could walk up to the most ferocious mastiff or bull-dog and pat him with impunity. On that gentleman arriving at the hall,

Arthur had, notwithstanding, especially cautioned him against Géant. "No fear," said his dashing legal adviser, "Phil's awake! Not a dog in Europe dare bite me." Now the fact was, that Mr. Cousens was by no means courageous in a canine point of view. He was rather more afraid of dogs than the ordinary run of men. But one day after lunch, having imbibed much claret, he strolled out alone and took it into his head to accost Géant, who lay outside his kennel beating the ground with his tail, and looking upwards, as Cousens thought, in the most good-humoured manner. "Poor fellow," said the accomplished Phil, "lie down then." As the dog was lying down, he could hardly be said to obey the instruction. "So, that's a good dawg," continued young Fieri-facias, whose inflamed visage at the moment suggested the name. Géant arose and shook himself lazily with a kind of repellant air, as if he sniffed a bill of costs as the price of so much unnecessary polite attention. Upon this Phil stooped and picked up a twig, which he held menacingly over the superior animal. A low growl might have warned him, but it did not. He was in an exultant mood. Aubrey had just placed confidence in him, and ecstatic visions of plunder and betrayal rushed through his brain. He had just settled the fact that he should have Aubrey's business; and he felt, to use his own language to himself, that it was four hundred pounds a-year to him for life. He was thinking whether he should and could dissolve partnership with Grinderby, and set up for himself with such a client as Aubrey for stock-in-trade. Why should Grinderby, whom he always hated, and whose life-blood he could have spilt at that moment, in his thoughts, as freely as his patron's claret; why should Grinderby, who sneered openly at the patent-leather boots, participate in this mighty haul due to his, Phil's, "friendship" and cleverness? True, Grinderby was a capital lawyer, and he, Phil, knew nothing of the business, but could he not get a managing clerk? Ha! the idea emboldened him. At that moment Géant personified in his eyes the obedient, grey-haired, and somewhat bald legal menial with the blue bag, who should fetch and carry his law for him. Yes, it should be a sine quâ non, that he should be at least slightly bald, and he would keep him at arm's length, thus. "Down, sir, down!" he said, advancing a step, and giving Géant a smart flick. "Down, I tell you!" Now Géant, who had never carried a blue bag in his life, nor done a dirtier action than it falls to the lot of every dog to do, and who did not know what was meant, and who would have been a great deal more savage had he known, and who in all probability did not like Phil's legal odour, and still more probably was guided by the mysterious instincts of an honest dog, suddenly responded by leaping up and seizing Phil's arm just below the elbow in his capacious jaws. Visions of legal and accomplished robbery, conceit, vanity, and the fumes of Lafitte and Chateau Margaux fled all at once, and the dapper Mr. Cousens actually screamed with pain and affright. Here was a ca. sa. against which he had no legal remedy. Out rushed Aubrey, attracted by his friend's cries for help, and seizing a heavy implement used in brewing, which lay near, struck the dog on the head with such force that he loosed his hold of Cousens, whom Aubrey instantly dragged back. But being still within the radius of the animal's chain, quick as thought he seized the now almost fainting lawyer again, this time getting even a better hold of him above the elbow. In vain did Aubrey pound the dog with his fist. Géant had served his writ and held on like a chancery suit. Had Cousens at that moment come into a marquisate with thirty thousand pounds a-year, the unity of the dog's purpose would not have been disturbed. Aubrey had been shooting at a mark that morning, and had left his rifle loaded in a little room adjoining the back entrance close to where this scene took place. To dart into this room, seize the rifle and shoot the dog through the heart, was, as the foolish novelists say, "the work of a moment." Géant rolled over; and after a few struggles, his ghost howled mournfully on the banks of the Styx, provoking a return from Cerberus. As he stretched out his fore-paws in a last convulsive effort, he gave Aubrey a look so fond, so piteous, and so wonderfully expressive, that it would have furnished Landseer or Ansdell with a suggestion for the delineation of the death of the ever-famous Brach Gellert himself. Mr. Cousens staggered against the wall, sick, torn, and bleeding. After drinking a glass of brandy, and being assured that the dog was dead, he gave his late adversary a kick, accompanied by a ghastly look of detestation and a curse, and went into the house to await the arrival of a surgeon from the neighbouring town of Lyborough. As for Géant, he was buried about one o'clock A.M. by the light of "a lantern dimly burning." For, as Aubrey's keeper, a stalwart Highlander, observed, "there's a rough lot aboot here, that needn't know he's gone, puir fallow." In truth, long after his death his memory served as a terror to the nailers and miners, who were wont to stray over the grounds in gangs, accompanied by bull-dogs and curs, and often with a pair of short gun-barrels, and the accompanying stock stuck in the capacious pockets of one or other of them. Strange to say, or rather naturally enough, on consideration, the part of Géant was universally taken in the servants' hall that evening.

"I wish he had killed him outright," said Mr. Tops, the groom.

"A nasty fellow! what rights had he to go teasing the dog?" said Mary, the housemaid.

"Depend upon it, the poor creetur knowed what he was a doing of," said stout Mrs. Wilkins, the cook.

"I wish master mayn't repent of it," quoth Jem, the gardener. "Dogs know pretty well who they're biting of. We shall have all the fruit stolen now. If he arn't a thief, as the dog got hold on, may I never grow early grass again!"

The gamekeeper said nothing, but he puffed the smoke from his pipe with a great air of disgust and anger. He, at least, had lost a staunch ally and supporter. "I wish I had been there," he thought. "He'd have let go for me, I'm just positeeve. It's varra odd, he wouldn't obey the maister. Puir fallow! he had dootless a strang reason for sic a behaviour."

All this did not come to Arthur's ears; but he thought of Géant and his expiring look, after his conversation with Blanche about the dashing Phil Cousens, and the question would intrude itself, in spite of his better (?) reason: "Was the friend false, and the dog true, after all?"

CHAPTER VIII.

A LONG ARM OUT OF THE GRAVE.

To disinherit an idle or disobedient son is a luxury of property which an Englishman alone knows how to enjoy in a thorough and systematic manner. To shut one eye and look through a glassful of ruby port or purple claret with the other, and to say, "I've cut him off with a shilling, sir, I have—— Let him starve with the girl whom he has chosen; yes, sir, starve!" and then to drink your wine with a smack of the lips, and throw yourself back in self-satisfied contemplation of the rosy future you have provided for the young couple, so far as is in your power, is a delectation worthy of the haughty islander alone. A French father cannot so indulge himself by law, except on the English stage.

The "I've made my money, sir, and can do what I like with it" boast, is one pre-eminently characteristic of a nation which prostrates itself before the "gilded veal" with such splendid devotion, that were the soil sufficiently clayey, the entire national features would be self-cast in mud.

A slighter and weaker variety of the modern "noble Roman" progenitor type exists in the person of him who leaves his estates or money burdened with conditions, forfeitures, and the like. In this case a man loves his worldly substance so well, that he cannot make up his mind to part with it altogether even at his death. He thus leaves a phantom to guard his treasures, a jack-in-the-box which pops up whenever the lawyers open their tin cases, screeching out, "Aha! you thought I was dead, did you? You're mistaken, you see!" Alas! his name still lives in the attorney's office; it is uttered in Chancery-lane; it is bandied to and fro like an invisible shuttlecock in the Law Courts; it becomes not unfrequently a byword and a curse in the second and third generations of his posterity and kind. And sometimes the phantom outlives the substance, till there remains nothing of the property so tied up and guarded save perchance a few empty deed-boxes, whereon is painted a litigious name!—The History of a Will. By Cramer Whittaker. Introd., vol. i.

IF a man be desirous of strongly perpetuating his memory, for a time at least, in this world after his departure, there is a more sure method than to leave behind him a pillar or a monument, a "storied urn" or an "animated bust." That is, provided he be possessed of a large fortune in land and houses, shares and funds. Let him only make a long and complicated will, with half a score of codicils, and thus succeed in stretching, as it has been called, "a long arm out of the grave." He will be remembered, if not with gratitude, yet with satisfaction, by the lawyers; counsel, solicitors, and judges. He will be constantly thought of by his family and those directly and indirectly concerned, and his name will be kept before the public very sufficiently by the reports in the newspapers. Nay, it may even become a precedent and a household word, like Thellusson, or the Baron de Bode: the latter a victim in a somewhat different way to injustice and the glorious uncertainty of the law. There is, at least, no danger of such a one being forgotten for some time to come. The father of our hero—for so we suppose we must call him—had made a will of portentous dimensions. It had been his delight and recreation of an evening, after dinner, when a respectable, elderly, muddle-headed lawyer of the old school waited on him, time after time, and the document was concocted by the pair over sundry bottles of port wine; the client first indulging in a nap, with a doyley over his head, while the old lawyer sipped, and blinked, and cracked his walnuts, and looked wondrous wise, awaiting the fresh instructions of his patron. Between them they had tied up young Aubrey wonderfully tight. He was, it is true, left heir and legatee to his father's estate and fortune; but he could not anticipate the rents, or mortgage, or sell, or become bankrupt, without incurring the penalty of forfeiture. Among the old man's hobbies was the idea that valuable seams of lead and silver lay under the chief part of his land. Indeed, he had spent some thousands in mining operations just before his death. But, although his instructions to Arthur were peremptory not to work the mines himself, but to lease the royalties, by some singular oversight he had left no power to do so. Accordingly, after his death, Arthur was compelled to abandon the shafts, in spite of the flattering prospect which presented itself. Nothing could then enable him to lease, save a special Act of Parliament, which he had not a chance of getting; since the interests of powerful neighbours, including the lord lieutenant of the county, were arrayed against him. The old City shipping agent, his father, fond and proud as he was of his only son, justly considered him an extravagant fellow, and had the worst possible opinion of his habits of business, his knowledge of the world, and his prudence and sagacity. True, he had unintentionally done everything in his power to make the young man what he was. He was generous and miserly to him by turns—only that the miserly fits were the longer and more frequent. He was always talking economy and prudence at him. He expected him to occupy the position of a gentleman, and yet denied him the means. He would not let him ride, shoot, or cultivate any accomplishment, if he could help it. He disgusted him by endeavouring to drive him, nolens volens, to the Bar, for which

Arthur had not the slightest inclination. When a mere child, he would torment him by calling him Lord Chancellor, and making him recite before his guests. One of his earliest presents was "Blackstone's Commentaries," and he would pester the boy with points of law, and legal anecdotes about the wonderful career of shop-boys and errand-lads who became judges. He rigidly forbade him all amusements, tried to stop the desultory reading of which Arthur was very fond, and stripped his early life of every flower and green leaf which he thought would interfere with the solid pursuit of wig and woolsack, a silk gown and the inevitable lord chancellorship. Often did the young man try to persuade his father to bring him up to his own business; since to dream of a commission in the Army or Navy was sheer rebellion and idiocy in his father's eyes. The youth was sent at a tender age to a public school, and in due time to college. At the latter he fell an easy victim to the system of credit, which has ruined so many impulsive and generous youths on the threshold of life. How else could he keep the company of the wealthy scions of aristocratic houses, which his father expected him to do, on an allowance more suited to the requirements and position of a Bible clerk? But then, argued the father, "did not the late Lord Quirkborough educate himself on eighty pounds a year, and live to be Chief Justice of England?" Then came the inevitable humiliating exposure of the debts—the bitterness, the reproaches, the harsh ratings, and heart-burnings; after which young Aubrey was placed en penitence in a City lodging, and allowed three pounds a week, paid by his father's cashier, whilst he was supposed to study the law, being duly entered at an Inn of Court. Study the law? He borrowed all he could—a few thousands on the absolute reversion of a sum of money coming to him under his mother's marriage settlement—and he studied "life in London," in a way that his father little dreamt of: or the voluminous will would have been annulled by an extremely brief codicil, and some hospital have been so much the richer by the chief portion of the young gentleman's inheritance.

Mr. Aubrey, senior, died, however, without acquiring this painful knowledge, and with a far higher opinion of his son's prudence and conduct than he had ever before entertained. For about a month or so before his death, the old gentleman suddenly sent his heir down into Devon and Cornwall to collect his rents, an act with him of unprecedented trust and confidence. We do not insinuate that he ever doubted the strict honour of his son, but he had always treated him as a child in money matters; and although he would talk with him, and pretend to consult him in a general way, he never suffered him to know anything about his financial position, nor to attain any practical knowledge of his affairs. When Arthur met the tenantry, they were delighted to see the young squire among them, and, by some strange chance, they paid up their rents on that occasion better than ever they had been known to do before. Arthur carried the money to his father with a complete and excellent account. He did not even pay his expenses out of what he had received, and said nothing about them until the old gentleman questioned him. The latter was greatly cheered and delighted. He inquired what his son had spent, and seemed highly pleased when he looked at the account, in which there was not a single extravagant item. He paid it, and added, with great ceremony, a five-pound note, telling his son he had earned the money. After dinner, to Arthur's astonishment, his father sent out for a couple of cigars, and lighting one in the most awkward manner, desired his son to smoke! If there was one thing which the elder Aubrey disliked it was to see a young man smoke, and Arthur had never known his father indulge in such a luxury before. Old Aubrey knew that his son had acquired the habit, and had often severely rated him about it. He now informed him that, at proper time and in moderation, such a thing might be tolerated. He looked upon a man who smoked in the forenoon as a scamp and a profligate; but now his son was his guest, and he wished him to make free and enjoy himself. Arthur could scarcely believe his senses. A third glass of wine, and an invitation to smoke the abhorred weed, and with the paternal participation too. Was this a snare, a quaint artifice, to draw him out? No, he dismissed the thought. At length his father bade him good-night, embraced him tenderly, and uttered a few broken words of commendation, which brought the tears to the eyes of both. A fortnight passed, and the old man would not suffer Arthur to omit a day in attending upon him. One morning a message came for him to call earlier than usual. He found his father in a somewhat excited state.

"Let us take a turn in the garden," said the old man, feebly; "I have something to say to you."

They walked together for about ten minutes, during which Mr. Aubrey gathered a rose, and spoke of its delicate beauty and wonderful organisation, of the bounties of Nature and Providence, and of his own approaching dissolution.

"I shall never see this garden bloom again," he said.

Then suddenly he changed the conversation, and told Arthur that he desired a prompt and important service from him.

"I am going to the City," he said; "I want to discharge my cashier, Mr. Manvers."

"Discharge Manvers?" cried Arthur.

"Yes, sir, and why not?" answered his father, in an angry and querulous tone. "I have determined to dismiss him this very day. He is a violent man, and I want you to go with me and protect me if necessary. I am ill, sir, very ill, and I need your support."

"But what has he done, sir?" inquired Arthur; "I thought he possessed your implicit confidence. I thought that Mr. Manvers——"

"Listen," interrupted Mr. Aubrey. "I am certain that he has robbed me, robbed me of thousands. It was only yesterday that I suspected—made the discovery. He has robbed me for years, and to-day he must go. I have ordered the carriage, and you must go with me. I am very ill." Saying this, he leaned heavily on his son, and added, "Come, sir, be ready!"

Arthur was astounded. He thought his father had lost his senses.

"What! Manvers a thief? Manvers, the trusted, confidential cashier of twelve years' standing; Manvers, who had paid him his three pounds per week stipend; Manvers, the type of the respectable City clerk, who had all his father's papers, knew all his secrets, drew all his cheques, had the control of thousands; Manvers, whom his father had lately presented with a hundred guineas on his recovery from a brief illness, and who wrote a hand like copper-plate; Manvers, the portly, the clean, with his filbert-shaped, beautiful nails, and white waistcoats; Manvers, who was so patronising to him, Arthur Aubrey, in spite of their relative positions!"

He looked at his father with fear and trembling. Had he taken leave of his senses? Was this strange fancy the result of an overdose of some opiate prescribed for his complaint? Was that firm brain softening under the terrible influence of a mortal malady? His doubts were soon set at rest.

"Arthur," said his father, "you know, of late years, I have not myself paid much attention to the business."

Arthur did not exactly know this, but he bowed in assent.

"I have left my books and cash matters entirely in the hands of that man. All my deeds and papers are in his keeping. What if he should be a scoundrel?"

"But he cannot be, father," cried Arthur, "Consider, sir, how he is respected in the City. I have known that man myself to be quite unhappy because the books did not balance by a few pence."

"Yes," said Mr. Aubrey, "he keeps his books beautifully, by double entry, which, strange to say, I never understood."

"About three months since," resumed Arthur, "I called at Bingley's Wharf," (the name of Mr. Aubrey's place of business), "and I found Mr. Manvers quite vexed and irritable. I called," he added, with some hesitation, "for the arrears of my allowance. When I asked him for it, the desk was covered with bills, cheques, securities, and what not, and the cash-box was at his side. He opened it, and showed me gold and notes in profusion. 'Young gentleman,' he said, 'I am sorry to refuse you; but I have no order to pay the money from your father, who is in Scotland. I cannot give you anything until his return, or until I hear from him. For all that this box contains, I would not pay a sixpence without his order.' I urged him in vain. I told him that he knew it was due, but his resolution was immovable. I told him how much I wanted the money. 'Not to save you from a gaol,' he answered. 'Look here,' he said. 'Do you see these figures?' And he pointed to innumerable sheets covered with them. 'I am wrong in my balance only threepence-halfpenny, and I have been up all night striving to find out the error. No, sir,' he added, 'with all due respect to his employer's only son, John Manvers cannot endanger his character for strict commercial integrity.

That money is not available, not a penny of it, without orders; I would not do it to save my life.' I then asked him to lend me a portion of the amount, but he said he had not got it, as he had remitted all his own spare cash to bury his father in North Wales."

"He lied, sir!" shouted the old man. "Listen to me. For the last five or six years I have been doing twice the business I ever had, and my profits have been smaller. With all my experience, I have been a hoodwinked fool. I have placed unlimited confidence in this man, and he has robbed me, I tell you. After his illness, six months ago, I made him a present of one hundred pounds, and he protested that it was a boon of inestimable benefit. But Providence has caused him to unmask himself, and put foolishness into his mouth to betray him. Only yesterday he came here on business. I was a little better, and made him stay to dinner. He drank more freely than I have ever known him to do, and protested that he indulged thus, owing to his joy at seeing me so much better. At last, he suddenly said that he wished to ask my advice in a matter of great importance to himself. I replied that I was at his service. He then asked me in which railway line I thought the safest and best investment could be made. I answered that I did not care for any; for that I had never been bitten by the mania, and I judged there would be a great and sudden depreciation. 'But,' I added, 'there is the London and North-Western, in which I myself have some five thousand pounds. There is not much danger there to your friend—for I presume it is a friend for whom you are anxious to invest in that particular species of stock.' I then asked him if he would tell me who the person was, for whom he was making the inquiry. To my surprise, he replied—for himself. 'Allow me,' I said, 'to congratulate you, Mr. Manvers. May I ask how you have been so fortunate as to receive this accession of capital?' 'Oh,' he replied, in some confusion, 'it is a mere nothing; a few hundreds left me by my father, who died lately, sir, as you are aware.' 'Oh, indeed!' I replied, 'I am glad to hear it. Well, I think you cannot do better than invest in the London and North-Western.' And so the matter dropped. But I knew that his father had died a bankrupt. That man, sir, has been robbing me for years."

Arthur Aubrey could not bring himself to the same conclusion. He suggested that Manvers had, perhaps, been lucky in one or two small speculations, admitting fully the danger of such a proceeding on the part of a merchant's cashier. Perhaps he had acquired the money by some fair and simple means; but did not like to tell all his secrets, and so had substituted an invention, not altogether innocent or creditable, but still far short of the elder Aubrey's grave suspicions. The old man only shook his head.

"He has robbed me," he said, "and I shall dismiss him this very day. He is a violent man, and may resist or abuse me. You are strong, and a boxer. I had you taught early. You must accompany and protect your father in his old age and illness. He has often protected you."

Arthur sighed and acquiesced. He was accustomed to acquiesce in his father's views. Besides, he was bound to support him, morally and physically, were he right or wrong. Accordingly, they went to the City together.

On the way, Mr. Aubrey was silent. When they arrived he saluted Mr. Manvers and the other clerks, and entered his private room—that room where Arthur had received so many severe rebukes, admonitions, and scoldings. The old man read his letters, and looked at the "Times." Then he called Manvers in.

"Mr. Manvers," he said, "is there not a cheque to sign? Have you filled it up?"

"Yes, sir, it is ready," was the reply.

Arthur saw that it was for eight hundred pounds.

"You will see and pay it yourself, Mr. Manvers," said Mr. Aubrey.

"Certainly, sir," replied the cashier. "I am glad to see you so much better, sir, to-day."

"I shall never be better, Mr. Manvers," was the answer. "I see the Bank of England has raised its discount to seven per cent. It will be higher yet. It is a beautiful day. Will you order the carriage round for me?"

And the old man, assisted by Arthur, put on his great-coat, and left without any further observation or comment. All the way back Mr. Aubrey was silent. Not a word did he say about Manvers. Even when Arthur said, "I am glad, father, that you seem to have changed your mind," he looked at his son, but did not reply. When Arthur took his leave, all that he said was, that he thought he might want him early the next day; and if he did, he would send a special messenger to the Temple.

The next day the messenger came early indeed, so early that Arthur apprehended the worst news. His father had passed a wretched night, and wished to see him immediately. On arriving, he was shown into his father's room. He found him in bed, and was greeted by him with feverish impatience.

"Reach me pen, ink, and paper," he said, "and sit down there."

Arthur gave them, but the invalid required his aid to prop him up. He wrote, however, boldly and firmly as ever, as follows:

"TO MR. JOHN SWINDLES MANVERS.

"SIR,—On receipt of this you will at once deliver to my son, Arthur Aubrey, possession of all my property in your hands, with the keys of my safes and drawers, and obey him as myself in everything.

"EDWARD AUBREY."

"Now, sir," he said to his son, "I expect you to act as a man, and carry out my instructions to the letter. If you do not, you must abide by the consequences; and, hark ye, I will find those who will. You will go at once to the wharf. My carriage is waiting. You will call Mr. Manvers into my private room, and tell him you have my orders to take possession of everything, and to dismiss him instantly on the spot. You will take the keys of his drawers, and suffer him to remove nothing, not a letter nor a paper. You will lock everything and come back.

Stay, you will first go to my bankers, Messrs. Jones, Browne, and Jones, and ask them to recommend you an experienced accountant in whom they have confidence, to commence an examination into my books to-morrow without fail. You will agree to pay whatever they think fit to name for his services.

"My dear father," said Arthur, "what cause can I allege?"

"Say it is my will. Tell him to go quietly, and you will make an excuse for him to the other clerks. Let him say he is ill, if he likes. Add, if you please, that you know I have left him five hundred pounds to assist in administering my will; and tell him, if you like, that if all is right, as you hope and believe it will be, that he shall have that and two hundred and fifty pounds besides from yourself. You may say five hundred pounds if you please; you will never have to pay it. Go, sir, at once. What are you stopping for? Go, I say. Be off!"

"But, father," said Arthur, "what if he should set me at defiance and refuse to go? What if he should say that—that—you are ill, and—and——"

"Mad, sir, I suppose you would say!" cried his father. "What then, sir? Obey my orders, or I shall despise you for a poor weak-spirited fool. It is not too late. I will send for my lawyers, and leave my fortune to a hospital, and give you an annuity of three hundred pounds a-year, paid quarterly, for your life."

"There is not a man on the premises but will prefer to obey Mr. Manvers rather than me, should he, as he may and probably will do, refuse to yield to so sudden and extraordinary a mandate," rejoined the young man.

"Arthur," said his father, "if Manvers should dare to resist my authority vested in your person, seize him by the throat, as you are my son, and call in the aid of the police. Don't let him remove a paper. Allow no subterfuge. Accept no excuse. Not another word, sir. I order you on my death-bed to take that paper, and instantly to discharge that man. Hesitate one moment, and I will never see your face again. Nay, I will curse so faint-hearted——"

"Hold!" cried Arthur. "Your orders shall be obeyed to the letter, come what may."

So saying, he turned to leave the room. As he left, the old man stretched his arms towards him. Arthur tenderly embraced his father, as tears streamed down the faces of both.

"Go, my boy, and God's blessing be with you!" were the last words he heard.

It was a dismal journey to the City for Arthur that day from Dulwich. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he felt that his father was labouring under a delusion. Should he call and consult his father's solicitors? No! that would be an act of disobedience. He would do precisely as he was bid; but deal as kindly and gently with Manvers and his character, as he possibly could. It would be awkward, if the trusted cashier, the honoured servant of his father's commercial house, should resist him. How shocked would be his pride, his feelings of integrity! How amazed, how startled, how grieved, how enraged he would be! Then Arthur reflected what a cipher he himself had been in that establishment, where his father had caused him to be treated more like a disreputable poor relation than an only son and heir. The consciousness of newly acquired power was all damped by his father's desperate state. For, after all, Arthur dearly loved, though he feared, the old man. He began next to think what he should do if Manvers resisted the authority with which he was armed. The naturally indignant confidential clerk and cashier might even dispute the authenticity of the document he held. "I should not like to lay hands on him," thought Arthur to himself. We must do him the justice to say, that this reflection did not in the least arise from the consciousness that Manvers was not only a remarkably powerful man, but a bruiser of considerable pretensions. Like some very respectable, steady men, Manvers affected to know, or did know, every notability in "fast" life, male or female, about town. He was posted in the history of all, for the last half-century or more, from Ginger Stubbs and Madame Vestris to Sambo Sutton and Mrs. (not Lady) Hamilton. According to his own account, he had, when a very young man, a night-house encounter with Deaf Burke, and had knocked the "deaf un" out of time in a very few minutes. It is astonishing what respectable men will volunteer in the way of confession sometimes, as to their deeds and misdeeds of twenty or twenty-five years ago, in their hot youth. It is true that the credibility of this achievement only rested upon the assertion of Manvers himself; but it made a wonderful impression upon the youthful imagination of Arthur. This, however, rather excited his combative propensities than otherwise. Had he not held his own in a glove-fight with Hammer Lane, concerning which there was no possible fiction, but a good deal of hard-hitting reality? Had he not, only a few days before, challenged a whole array of draymen and brewers to fight a fist-duel, because he had been bespattered with grains from the establishment, as he passed by while the carts were loading? Unable to see the individual who had indulged in this not very agreeable practical joke at his expense, Arthur had rung the counting-house bell of that eminent firm, the Messrs. Maltby and Hopkins, and having stated what had befallen him, requested that all the gang might be summoned together that he might detect the offender. Then, in spite of the enormous proportions of a son of Anak among them, nearly six feet and a half high, he abused them roundly, and dared the fellow who had thrown the grains over him to come out and meet him like a man. Finding that no one responded, he called them a set of dastardly fellows, and made them heartily ashamed of the trick that had been played by one or more of their fellows.

"Supposing," shouted Arthur, "that you had spoiled the best suit of clothes of some artist, or mechanic; some poor teacher obliged to dress well, going his daily rounds, would you have been pleased by that, you pitiful sneaks? Come, I'll give the man who did it a sovereign to stand out and face me. What, you dare not! I am ashamed of such a lot of un-English rascals."

The men actually cheered him as he left the place, and I fancy they never again saluted a passer-by with a shower of hot grains. So it must not be supposed that Arthur would have shrunk from an encounter with Manvers, because of the heavy weight and reputed prowess of that gentleman, had he not known him so intimately and respected him so long. But he felt that the very idea of a personal contest with Manvers was distasteful. It was like contemplating sacrilege. He would about as much have relished a solemn obligation to trip up a bishop in St. James's-street, or to give the Lord Chancellor his quietus with the mace on the occasion of that high functionary coming out of the House of Lords, with no more consideration for his person than a policeman has for the skull of a British costermonger, or the limbs of an "unfortunate" female who has omitted to pay him for an unwritten license to follow her sad vocation in the streets.

"There's no help for it, and it must be done," was Arthur's conclusion, as he entered the broad gates of Bingley's Wharf about eleven A.M.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW A PAINFUL DUTY DEVOLVED ON ARTHUR AUBREY.

Mistrust white-headed clerks! They can be hired ready dressed by the month, or the week, or the day. The modern British clerk is a reflex of the modern British merchant. As a commercial and financial rule, mistrust all outward respectability of appearance, all that looks solid and rich; as you would magnificent offices, gorgeous furniture, and a board-table big enough to hold Sir John Dean Paul's religious library and the securities of —— and —— themselves. These are the shallowest devices of the dishonest promoter, the scamp director, and the general limited-liability humbug in all his phases.—Notes on the Nineteenth Century. By a Ruined Shareholder.

MR. JOHN SWINDLES MANVERS was a portly personage, with an excellent judgment in steel pens, and of considerable sapiency in various small matters of London life. He generally wore a black frock-coat and trousers, and a double-breasted white waistcoat of dazzling cleanliness. His complexion was somewhat pale—it might have been called pasty—his glossy hair, and, for that period, rather exuberant whiskers, were nearly black; his teeth were regular and shining; and his grey eyes were by no means forbidding in their expression. Any jury would have been impressed most favourably by his appearance. Altogether, he was what is called a fine man, and in these days would have presented the beau idéa either of the promoter of a limited liability company, or of a touting shopman in St. Paul's Churchyard, with a liberal salary for his good looks and seductive and imposing manners. His age might have been thirty-six or thirty-eight. He prided himself greatly on his penmanship, and never made, or at least left, a blot in his books. Sometimes he might be seen obliterating some such things with exquisite pains; on which occasion his right-hand full shirt-cuff would be turned up, as he wielded with a sort of counting-house grace the white-handled office penknife, which, with a square and solid piece of india-rubber, was always somewhat ostentatiously displayed on his desk.

"Good morning, sir," he said to Arthur, laying down the "Times" as the latter entered: "how is the governor this morning? I trust his health is improved."

The tone and manner of Mr. Manvers in making this natural inquiry were indescribably bland and considerate. They resembled those of the head of a mourning warehouse in the West-end. Mr. Pettingall, the second clerk, looked up sadly, and the rest eagerly awaited the reply. Arthur shook his own head and Mr. Manvers's hand simultaneously, and a tear gathered in his eye.

"Will you step into your father's room, sir?" said Mr. Manvers, persuasively.

It was the touting shopman's, not the limited-liability promoter's style of address on this occasion.

"Yes, Mr. Manvers," replied Arthur; "I have something to say to you. I wish to see you alone."

"Is it all over, sir?" said Manvers, when they had entered, in a rapid and excited manner, and with an anxious gleam in his eyes that might have seemed strange to a prejudiced observer.

"Oh, no, Mr. Manvers," responded Arthur, "my poor father is not so well: but I hope he has yet many years in store."

Mr. Manvers shook his head in turn.

"I fear, sir," he said, "that he will never recover. Your father, sir, will never enter this room again."

"Nay, nay," said Arthur, "why do you think that?"

"He has been failing rapidly of late," answered the clerk; "it is only a question of days. You are aware, sir, of the position I hold; your father's confidence is largely—I may say entirely—reposed in me. I need not say that when the deplorable event happens, you may depend upon everything being done that may tend to soften the calamity to you. You look sadly distressed—indeed, ill, Mr. Arthur—you must take great care of yourself; health is the first blessing, sir, and if, by-and-bye, you should think fit to take a few weeks' run on the Continent, there is nothing to prevent it, sir, nothing. I believe that everything belonging to your respected father is in my safe keeping. Ah, sir, how often have I wished that the governor had listened to me, and brought you up to this fine business. It is a pity, a great pity, but your interests will be carefully administered, as you must be aware."

"Mr. Manvers," said Arthur, "you are, I trust, forming conclusions far too rapidly. My father's case is not so hopeless as you seem to think. This very morning he has acted with unwonted vigour, considering how prostrate he has been, and he has sent me here charged with a peremptory mandate and a solemn duty."

"Indeed, sir," said Manvers; "and pray what may that be?"

"You know, Mr. Manvers," said Arthur, "my father's peculiar views and conduct towards myself; and you will be glad, I am sure, to learn that he has within these last few days entirely reinstated me in his affections and his confidence. He thinks now that I have not yet sufficiently represented him, and he desires to make a complete alteration in that respect."

"Well, sir," observed Mr. Manvers, "nothing can be more proper. I can tell you, that it is entirely owing to my representations to him; I have always begged him—I may say implored him—to treat you differently; to make every allowance for a young man of gentlemanly style and habits like yourself. 'You ought to treat Mr. Arthur more like a man, sir,' I was constantly saying to him; 'considering, too, the fortune he is to inherit.' I am delighted to hear it, sir." And he rubbed his hands. "What may be the amount?" he continued; "it will give me great pleasure, very great pleasure, to cash the cheque."

"Nothing of the kind," said Arthur, dryly; "it is not a cheque which I hold here," observing, as he spoke, that Manvers looked inquiringly at the paper which he held nervously crumpled in his hand.

"Oh," said Manvers, "I thought that the governor had come out strong at Last. Well," he added, coarsely, "you can afford to wait now without much difficulty. It won't be for long, depend upon it, Mr. Arthur. You won't see your father here again, sir. It was only this morning that I was talking to his barber, Jenkins, about him; and he agreed with me that there was no mistaking the symptoms this time."

Arthur felt extremely shocked and disgusted, both by the tone and matter of these remarks.

"I trust, Mr. Manvers," he rejoined, after a pause, "that both you and Mr. Jenkins are mistaken. But to come to the object of my errand. You know that I have been much with my father lately; constantly backwards and forwards to Dulwich from the Temple."

Manvers nodded acquiescence. For a moment Arthur paused to collect himself, and this gave the clerk the opportunity to say:

"Yes, sir, very expensive, I dare say, and you have not had your money for the last six weeks. Ahem! under the circumstances, I shall have no hesitation to advance anything in reason. Fifty or a hundred pounds are at your immediate disposal." And he made a motion to leave the room.

All this had grated inexpressibly upon Arthur's feelings; and although he saw in it but a vulgar and time-serving anxiety to stand well with the heir of one whom Manvers evidently thought as good as dead, it gave him courage to proceed with far less compunction than he would otherwise have felt.

"Do me the favour," he said, "Mr. Manvers, to sit down. I have a very painful duty to perform. It is my father's wish, or rather order, that you should at once give me possession of everything belonging to him, and leave at least for a time—take a holiday, as it were, in order that—that—my control may be unquestioned, I suppose, and—and things be put straight."

"What!" shouted Manvers, leaping to his feet, "what did you say? Your father is raving, sir, mad, delirious—and you, you don't mean seriously, you are joking—ha! ha! capital!"

"It is not exactly the time or occasion I should select for jesting," replied Arthur, coldly.

"Excuse me, sir," said Manvers; "but this is too good. I can understand your poor father being no longer in possession of his faculties; but I should have thought that you, sir, would scarcely have brought such a message seriously."

"My father," said Arthur, "is in the perfect possession of all his faculties. See here his handwriting, as firm and strong as ever." And he held the mandate for Manvers to peruse, who glared at the document as if he would have consumed it. "I have, in obedience to this paper, to request your immediate withdrawal, and that you will surrender everything into my hands as my father's representative."

"And do you suppose, sir, that I shall suffer you, in obedience to the whim of insanity, to discharge me, like an errand boy, at a minute's notice? Do you know what and who I am, and what character I bear? Do you think I will suffer my character in the City to be ruined thus by you, sir, or your father, because he has taken an over-dose of morphia, or because his brain is affected by the near approach of death? No, sir, I shall not do it. I am not such a fool. Is this the way my honest services and hard work of twelve years are to be rewarded? No, sir, John Manvers is too good a man for that—his name is known and respected in the City, sir. I have done my duty to your father, sir." And he struck his breast just over the silver hunting-watch in the left pocket of the white Marsella vest, whose snowy hue seemed to attest his integrity. "And by G—d, sir, your father shall do his duty to me!"

"Then," said Arthur, "you refuse to go?"

"Refuse! Young gentleman, are you in your senses to think that I shall be guilty of such folly? I trust John Manvers knows his duty to his employer a little better than that."

"Then," said Arthur, firmly, "I shall be compelled, much against my will, to enforce my father's commands."

"And if," cried Manvers, in a transport of fury, "I choose not to go, what then? Your father left me his executor, and I shall discharge the trust. What do you know of his affairs? Nothing! There is not a man in this place who will not obey me, rather than you. Take care what you are about, young man, before you assail my character. Come, come; let us understand each other and be friends. It is evident that your poor father is nearer to his end than even I thought."

"Hark ye, Mr. Manvers!" returned Arthur, loudly and fiercely; "I am no child to be bullied by an insolent and, perhaps, dishonest clerk."

Manvers turned pale, and made as if he would strike him.

"Try and eject me from these premises, if you dare," he cried; "you'll soon find yourself mistaken."

"Silence, sir!" returned Arthur, calmly. "Silence! I say. If you attempt any villainy—yes, villainy is the word—I shall call in the police. I will have you up before a magistrate within an hour, and where will your boasted character be then? It is you that must be insane to talk thus. I tell you that I begin to suspect your honesty, and to think that you have really robbed my father, as he says."

As Arthur uttered the last words, Manvers made a rush towards him; but sank half-way, as if completely abashed and cowed, into a chair, and, covering his face with his hands, burst into an agony of tears.

For a few moments, Arthur gazed at him with wonder; and then his heart softened as he beheld the distress of the man whom he had so long been taught to respect and revere for his sterling qualities and commercial rectitude. He had never before seen a strong man of mature age give way in such a manner, and sob and cry like a child.

"Come, come!" said he, approaching Manvers, and placing his hand kindly on his shoulder, "I dare say it is very hard to bear. I can assure you this mission has caused me the deepest pain. But it can't be helped, you know; and if you will be guided by me, you will make the best of it. I have thought all along, that it is only a suspicious fancy my father has got into his head. Leave quietly—say you are very much indisposed. I will do everything to avert a thought of evil. I pledge myself, in case all is right, as I am sure it is, not only to pay you the bequest under my father's will, but to make a handsome addition to it. Come, my father is waiting for me. Take your hat; say you are going somewhere in a natural tone, and do not return to-day—that is all. Write a letter to Mr. Pettingall, stating that you have a headache, a cold—anything. Come, come, Mr. Manvers, be a man."

Manvers looked up fiercely at him.

"You do not understand this, young gentleman," he said—"how should you? You do not know the feelings of a man of business, the delicacy of a City reputation. I have served your father well and faithfully" (his voice faltered) "for twelve years, and this is my reward. I tell you it cannot be concealed. Every one will know it—will point at me, and say, 'There goes Manvers, the suspected clerk, who was turned off by a youth, his employer's son, at a moment's notice.' I cannot bear it—I will not. It will kill me. Let me entreat you, sir, to reflect; to think what you are doing. Do not commit this injustice. Your father will be the first to repent it, and to blame you. Tell him some plausible story, such as you would have me tell. Say you have executed his wishes. If he recovers, he will thank you; and if not, you will be spared an injustice which you would bitterly regret."

"I have never told my father a lie in my life,"

said Arthur; "even when I risked all in telling him the truth. Would you have me commence on his death-bed? I think you take an overstrained and unnecessarily strong view of this matter. You can absent yourself for a week without suspicion. I dare say by that time my father will be satisfied. After all, there is nothing so strange and monstrous in his wish to place everything in his son's hands."

"There is more than that. Some villain has been at work with my name, and tampered with your father's suspicious character."

"Nay, sir," responded Arthur, "I don't think he has been so suspicious; at any rate, with regard to you. It appears to me, that for years past he has confided too much—ay, you may start, I repeat, too much—for any man to confide to another, alien in blood and family ties. And now, like many men who have been over-confiding, he has rushed into the opposite extreme. All that I can say is, that I did everything in my power to persuade him not to adopt this proceeding; but in vain, and I have now no alternative. Will you oblige me, therefore, by delivering up all keys, books, and papers in your custody; in short, all the property you hold of his in your possession?"

"Will you tell me the reason of this?" said Manvers. "Of what does your father complain?"

Arthur hesitated. At length, however, he said:

"I believe, Mr. Manvers, that you made certain statements about some property—an inheritance, in short, which did not correspond with the impression which my father had received."

"Fool! fool! that I was," cried Manvers. "And is this all? I can explain everything in an instant. If you will wait a quarter of an hour, I will write him the fullest explanation. It was a little vanity. I did not like—in short, I told him that it was my money, when it was that of a cousin, who has just returned from the Mauritius. If you will kindly take my written explanation to him, I can never be sufficiently grateful. I will dedicate my life to your service. It will save me from disgrace."

"If these great commercial swells," thought Arthur—"these men whose probity is such a cherished valuable, that they speak of it, as if no one out of their sphere had any honesty at all—if these men of figures and calculation will tell unnecessary fibs, why they must put up with the consequences. I cannot do anything of the kind," he said, aloud. "Come, come, Mr. Manvers, let us end this unpleasant discussion. I call upon you to assist me in carrying out my father's wishes. Remember all you have said to me about business-like promptness, obedience to orders," he said, cheerfully. "After all, there is nothing so dreadful in this ordeal. A little holiday, nothing else. You ought to be glad of it."

Manvers raised his face.

"You don't know what you are doing, young man," he said. "Arthur Aubrey, if I go away from here a disgraced man to-day, I shall put a pistol to my head when I get home, and blow out my brains."

"Nay, nay, Mr. Manvers," said Arthur, in a tone of surprise; but with less commiseration than might have been expected from him; "this is folly, indeed."

"My blood be on your head!" cried Manvers. "I cannot, and will not, endure this disgrace in the City."

"Nonsense!" said Arthur. "You will think better of it. Compose yourself, and give me the keys."

"In a few moments, sir," replied the other; "since it must be so." He then requested Arthur to wait, whilst he plunged his face into cold water. "I presume you will have no objection to my removing my own effects—the contents of my own drawers?"

"Not a paper—not a thing," said Arthur. "Such are my orders, and I will abide by them to the letter. Besides, how would it look to the clerks? You will spoil everything, as I had planned it."

Manvers appeared resigned; he gave up his keys, and, walking into the clerks' outer room, he huskily wished Arthur good morning, and abruptly retired.

"Mr. Manvers is not very well," observed Arthur to Mr. Pettingall. "I have advised him to go home and recruit himself."

"He has been working very hard indeed, sir, lately," said Mr. Pettingall. "Look at those figures!" he said, pointing to sheets upon sheets covered with minute calculations. "And then, sir, your poor father's illness weighs upon his spirits; as, indeed, it affects us all deeply."

And Pettingall hastily brushed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, and turned away to clear his throat.

"Good fellow! honest, attached creature!" thought Arthur to himself. "But I own I can't make Manvers out. Shoot himself, indeed! Good God!

if he were to do so. But he never can be such a fool. How very susceptible these City men are; how they count all the small change of life, both in paying and receiving. Well, making every allowance for him, Mr. Manvers is not quite the man I took him for."

"Mr. Manvers has not taken the key of his drawer," suddenly observed Pettingall. "I never knew him do such a thing before. I think I had better lock the drawer and send him the key immediately."

"Nay," said Arthur; "give it to me. Mr. Manvers has no secrets from me."

Mr. Pettingall looked amazed, and seemed to hesitate.

"I think," he said, "Mr. Manvers would hardly like——"

"Gentlemen," said Arthur, "I may as well say to you that I stand here, by my father's desire, in his place, and that every one here will obey me as they would do him. I have his authority here. I have just shown it to Mr. Manvers. As I presume there would be no hesitation in handing that key to my father, if he requested it during the absence of Mr. Manvers, I think I may as well retain it."

"Certainly, sir, certainly. I am very glad. I make bold to congratulate you, sir, on assuming your proper place. Not," added Mr. Pettingall, "that this is a time and season for congratulation."

And he again showed signs of deep emotion. Mr. Pettingall had only been there for seven years; but he was much esteemed in the office. He was a young, short, stoutish, dark man, of very ordinary appearance, quite dissimilar from the imposing Manvers. Arthur mentally resolved to esteem Pettingall highly and place great reliance on him, in consequence of his evident attachment to the head of the house.

"There is something in this City view of things after all," he thought. "Poor Manvers! It is enough to distress him, such a sudden upset. I must make it up handsomely hereafter, if the worst should happen, and my poor father's end indeed be near."

"Will Mr. Manvers return this afternoon, sir?" inquired Pettingall.

"Hem! Yes, no—really I can't say," replied Arthur. "He is very unwell, and I told him to take a little repose. At any rate, I shall be here in the morning with a gentleman, who will go through the books just as a matter of form. Kind of satisfaction—to you all."

Pettingall and the clerks looked at each other, but said nothing for a minute or so, during which Arthur read, or seemed to read, the "Times," which Mr. Manvers had left on his desk. At last he said, in an indifferent tone:

"Where are all the books—I mean cash-books and ledgers of the firm?"

"Everything is in Mr. Manvers's custody, except what is in actual use," was the reply.

"Ah! very good," said Arthur. "I shall be here to-morrow early. Good-bye."

And he shook hands with Pettingall, and went out.

A youthful clerk had left the office during the conversation above recorded; and the news had spread all round the wharf that Mr. Arthur Aubrey had been nominated to the command of Bingley's Wharf, vice Manvers, who retired. When, therefore, Arthur issued forth, at least a dozen wharfingers were in sight in the yard. The foreman came up and said to Arthur, touching his cap:

"Do you want the carriage, sir?"

"Thank you," said Arthur, "I'll walk to it, if you please."

"Allow me, sir," said the foreman.

And whipping Arthur's great-coat off his arm, he shambled rapidly down the yard to call the carriage up. The rest of the men touched their hats.

"Poor fellows!" thought Arthur, who had never received such attention there before; "they all feel deeply for my father's illness, and are anxious to show it in their rude, honest way. It is very creditable to them. Who says that human nature is unkind and selfish, after all?"

And he went on his way with a heart, though sad, warmed by these kindly sympathies on the part of these humble fellows.

"I say, mate," quoth Jem to Bill, his senior lieutenant, "don't you wish you was him? Won't he make the shiners fly? Ain't he ready to jump out of his shoes? I should think the old un couldn't die quick enough like for un, eh?"

"It's a poor heart that never rejoices," returned the other, with a grin. "If your governor had kep you as short as hisn did he, I thinks as how you'd like to hurry the hundertaker a little; and if yer didn't hown to it, I should say yer was a hout-and-hout liar, I should! I say, wot's come over old Manvers? I see him go out looking like a choked pig."

And the pair adjourned to the neighbouring public-house, the Badger and Bootjack, to exchange further comments on the probable change of ministry that was looming in their commercial horizon.

Mr. Pettingall said nothing to his subordinates and repressed the inquiries as to the health of Mr. Manvers, which were rather pointedly put to him. That afternoon, he assumed an air of reticent dignity previously unknown to him. As he sat on his high stool in a meditative mood, he surveyed his more humble confrères in a similar abstracted, superior, mild, and rather grand manner to that with which a Life Guardsman on sentry duty at the Horse Guards is wont to contemplate a butcher's boy patting and stroking his horse's neck or nose. It was evident that Mr. Pettingall was revolving vast contingencies in his mind.

Arthur hastened home, and found his father waiting his arrival with the fretful impatience of a sick man. He exhibited great satisfaction at the result, and immediately turned round and fell into a calm slumber. A few days afterwards he died, after telling his son that he felt at peace with all men, and confident of mercy. According to the creed of some this was highly incorrect; seeing that although he had conformed all his life to the forms of the Established Church, he was in reality, as he told his son, Unitarian in belief.

"I feel," he said to Arthur, "like a traveller about to set forth on a long journey. You will follow me after an interval, and we shall see each other again."

These were nearly his last words, before leaving the world in a much happier frame of mind for thinking that he had disposed of Mr. Manvers. Whatever may be said to the contrary, it is certain that the affairs of this world occupy the mind in the majority of cases with greater force and intensity immediately previous to dissolution than at any other time. Men seldom feel so anxious about mundane matters, as they do just before they are about to relinquish them for ever. Many even make preparations for themselves, as if they wanted a new abode, new furniture, and new clothes. We once knew a very shabby fellow seized with cholera, who had a perfect craving for a new hat, scarf, boots, &c., a couple of days before his death. We remember, too, a lady who died with the upholsterers actually executing her orders for hanging new pictures, and arranging fresh furniture. She would have everything spick and span, and every detail of domestic comfort thoroughly arranged; and this in a new dwelling, and for no one save herself. How frequently have moribund persons a mania for the purchase of articles utterly useless to them! Mr. Aubrey, however, seemed chiefly anxious on account of his son; and he who had carefully withheld all knowledge of his affairs from him during his life, became painfully solicitous to give him the most complete information, as the shadows of death began to darken every sense.

The first thing that aroused Arthur from the deep despondency of grief was a note from the accountant, in whose hands he had placed the books of his father's establishment. The note merely stated the fact that after a prolonged research he had found a singular erasure in an entry of the sum of thirty-five pounds, and on referring to another book had discovered that the sum was there entered as sixty-five pounds. This was no less than five years before the then date. Doubtless Mr. Manvers, in whose handwriting these entries were, could explain this, he said. He, the accountant, recommended that Arthur should request an immediate interview with Mr. Manvers on the subject. Arthur accordingly wrote. The same evening came a letter which filled Arthur with astonishment, disgust, and grief. It was an abject confession from the confidential clerk, the model cashier, the honoured City institution, whom banks would have trusted—had trusted with thousands. Manvers stated his follies, and temptations; his first fall, on the occasion of this very erasure; the misery he had undergone ever since, and his fearful remorse. Would the son of his late honoured master, noble and generous as he was, so far pity and forgive him, as to allow him to proceed to a foreign land, and there either retrieve an honest name, or seek a distant grave?—Arthur was sick at heart; an early belief was crushed, and the object of his veneration was not only degraded, but had assumed the character of a snivelling felon! No, he could not prosecute him, he could not place that familiar face and that spotless white vest in the dock. Let the villain go and expiate his crime, as he had said. So he wrote to Manvers, and told him, that if he would at once leave England, and pledge himself never to return, he would not punish him for his crime. We need hardly say that the pledge was very eagerly given. Manvers wrote a penitent letter from Liverpool; but he did not sail—at all events, then. What he delayed his journey for, we shall shortly see.

He went for a short time to the Channel Islands, where he indulged in deep-sea fishing, as if he had been an innocent man; and slaughtered scores of harmless gulls, puffins, sea-swallows, and oyster-catchers, like a brute as he was. Thence, when Arthur Aubrey was safely out of the way, he stole back to London, and executed a little commission for himself, as well as a purpose which we shall see developed very shortly. Mr. Manvers knew no scruples, so soon as his City reputation was gone. He was always a profligate at heart. The extravagance of a woman had first led him to commit an "error" in his employer's books; but had he escaped this temptation, he had in him the makings of a most respectable personage of the modern City type. What a loss he is to the commercial world in the present financial era! What a part he might have played in the great Overreach and Gurnet swim! What an official liquidator was lost in him! In America, the finer part of his capacity was in great measure wasted. His persuasiveness, his grand demeanour, the respectable side of him went for little or nothing. But the fact is, from the moment when he lost his position in the City, Manvers degenerated into a mere vulgar ruffian. He was too dissipated and demoralised to go in for hypocrisy a second time.

Strip your alderman, who now persecutes poverty from the bench as a crime, of his civic robes, his banker's book, and his false assumption of a virtue—Spartan only towards others, Epicurean for himself—and what shall he be? Poorer in virtue than the lowest he has condemned. Circumstance bribes the rogue to be honest, and drives the honest man to transgress the law. The successful swindler is lauded for his ostentatious benevolence, whom the canonisation of Ser Cappelletto* would have as suitably befitted. If modern life is so great and complex a lie, what must future history be! We do not say that there is no good in the world—far from it—perhaps there is as much as ever; but it is wonderfully mixed up and confused, and is generally on the losing side in the battle of life.

[*See Boccaccio, Novel I.]

CHAPTER X.

MR. PETTINGALL IN THE THUMBIKINS.

A grey-haired, unconvicted felon, who lived to prosecute a dishonest clerk of his own in the fiercest spirit of revenge. He gave up lending money on bills—so often as he did not like the security; and brought up his children in the love of Mammon, the fear of discovery, and the morality of trade. He was very much shocked at the inability of his eldest born to keep straight in the broad path of propriety. And truly had the father been a different man, and had he taught his son a nobler lesson, he might have had some reason to complain of his cruel lot. As it was, the prodigal returned one night clothed in mock repentance and real scurvy, and with his hair cropped strangely short. The father assigned to him a top room in the house; and though he did not kill the fatted calf—possibly because veal was not then in season—he gave him food and medicines, an odd volume of sermons, a pot of balm of Columbia, and a suit of his brother's clothes. So devoted to punctuality did the young man become, that, so soon as he was restored to health, he carried off all the watches of the family, together with the silver spoons, and even his mother's trinkets, as a filial remembrance of his early youth. All this the father told with tears and lamentations to a customer whom he had just plundered, by means of false samples, of five hundred pounds. "It is hard, sir," he said, "very hard, is it not? when he might have stayed here and done so well."—Sketches of Character. By A. Scacciato, Esq., vol. i., p. 19.

MR. PETTINGALL sat in state in the little parlour, which once he was wont to enter with his heart in his shoes and his pen behind his ear, in obedience to the summons either by bell or voice of the late Mr. Aubrey, his inflexible employer. The furniture was unchanged. There was the same crimson flock paper, the same dingy red curtains, the same old office table, the same two iron safes—a small one placed over a large one—and the same tall, antiquated, stained-wood escritoire, with its drawers and brass handles below, and its dark pigeon-holes above. Thence the old gentleman was wont to produce his bottle of sherry and biscuit, or his medicine phial, just as it happened. Thence had Arthur had many a single glass of wine, when he called on the "governor." No one in that office would have thought of declining the offer of one glass of wine, or of expecting two, from the old merchant. Mr. Pettingall was deeply reflective. Before him stood a decanter of port, as if to moistify his meditations; and a dish of filberts, as if occasionally to afford a light distraction. A gloomy picture or two had been added to the walls; for be it known, Mr. Pettingall, in a very small way, was an art-collector and purchaser. His essays in this way had hitherto been chiefly confined to the purlieus of the New Cut, and the neighbourhoods of the Westminster-road and Hoxton. He had scarcely as yet pursued the Shades of Rembrandt and Murillo into the more western region of Wardour-street. Mr. Pettingall seemed ill at ease. He looked at his watch, and uttered something like a curse. His ill-looking countenance wore its most sinister expression, crossed with occasional gleams of mistrust, fear, and doubt. He stepped up to the old escritoire and took forth a box of choice cigars. He lit one and puffed it impatiently. He then rose and paced the room. The weather was cold, but what was it that shone on his dingy brow? Unquestionably it was a drop of perspiration. He wiped it away, and listened intensely.

Suddenly—yes, no, yes—there was a ring at the bell. A heavy step was heard in the passage, and the door was opened by a tall, big man in a great-coat buttoned up to his ears, and with a seafaring cap drawn over his brows. The old woman who had followed him to announce his arrival was dismissed with the intimation she would no longer be required; and the stranger, locking the door and proceeding to divest himself of a pair of spectacles, a false moustache, and the aforesaid cap and great-coat, displayed the identical features of the magnificent Manvers.

"Hem!" he said, "devilish snug, by Jingo! and how goes on my virtuous successor?"

"Glad to see you," said Pettingall; "hope you're well." If ever a lie were manifest by its very utterance, this was.

"None of your humbug," said Manvers, flinging himself down; "never mind about my health—have you considered what I asked you in my letter, and are you going to do it, that's all?" And he helped himself to a glass of wine, which he drank, and then to another.

"Governor's port?" he observed; "know it well—sly dog, Pettingall—got the key of the cellar—got everything as I left it—bin, No. 50, 1820 vintage."

"It is some that Mr. Arthur left out for me," said Pettingall.

"Devilish kind of him!" growled Manvers. "More than I'd do. Do you know what I like about you? It's your dashed innocence, you mealy-mouthed beauty. And you think I'm going to stand all this—do you?" he roared.

Pettingall's face turned dingy white, a sort of parchment hue. "What do you want with me?" he said. "Can't you let an old friend alone? It's not safe for you to be here, you know."

"Isn't it?" replied Manvers. "And suppose I make it unsafe for you too, my fine fellow? Now, look here, Mr. Pettingall, confidential executor, and gentleman by courtesy. Let us understand each other at once. In the first place, am I to have those cases or not?"

"How can I do it?" said Pettingall. "What excuse can I make? It is as much as my position is worth."

"Your position? My position!" replied Manvers. "Confound your impudence. Do you think I am going to stand this humbug? Say what you like about it. I leave your excuse to your brilliant talent. Ha! ha! your talent! If you can't deceive him, curse him! you are a fool!" And Mr. Manvers forthwith lighted a cigar, and puffed away with the utmost satisfaction.

"I will let you have the cases," said Pettingall, slowly, "if you will promise not to come here again and—and risk your liberty in this desperate manner."

"Thoughtful beggar!" Mr. Manvers was pleased to observe.

"And I will let you have the salary that was due and fifty pounds besides, if you will accept it," said Pettingall; "though I sell some of my pictures to make up the sum. I shall risk everything by doing so," he added; "but I can't see an old friend and associate about to sail for America in the want of a few pounds."

"And suppose I don't choose to go to America? But come. Have you my desk safe?"

Pettingall nodded an eager acquiescence.

"And unopened?" said the other.

"Unopened," was the reply.

"What a dashed fool!" was the gracious remark of Mr. Manvers; but as he did not specify whom he meant, the exclamation did not so much matter.

"Where is it?" he added.

"In my room," replied Pettingall.

"Bring it here!" said the ex-clerk.

Mr. Pettingall rose and left the room. During his absence Mr. Manvers employed himself with a rapid scrutiny of the contents of the escritoire, and took a peep at a large and dingy banker's book. Pettingall returned and put down on the table a small plain desk, to which Manvers eagerly fitted a key. He took out a document in a sealed envelope and turned it over.

"This will do," he said. "Now then listen to me. Are you on the square, since the old boy died?"

Pettingall hesitated, as if he did not comprehend.

"Come! come!" said his tormentor, "This won't do with me. Do you think I don't know why you have kept that desk and those cases for me, as I ordered you; yes, ordered! I will stand none of your cursed nonsense. Why what next? Don't I know that you once indulged in a little mild peculation yourself, you cowardly humbug? Don't I know about Judas Levy and the little bills? Don't I remember a certain day when I caught your honesty tripping? Now, it remains with me to expose you, or not; and by ——! it shall suit my convenience and my interest."

"Manvers," said Pettingall, with livid features and trembling limbs, "you know that I long since replaced the few pounds, that I only—only anticipated, to save myself and my wife from ruin. Since then, I swear, that with the exception of giving you up these cases and that desk, which, after all, are your own, I have never wronged my employer of a penny. I—I—don't want to be dishonest. I want to gain an independent position by the means which are now in my power. I will be your friend, I swear, if you will let me. But don't ask me to—to rob Mr. Arthur——"

"Stuff! Bosh!" responded Manvers. "I know your little game; you are too great a coward to put yourself in the grasp of the law, that is all. You want to grow fat on commission jobs and percentages—do you? You want to sell the business to a Company, and grab the appointment of manager—you see, I know all. Look here, you twopenny-farthing rogue! how came you by this wine? Now, listen, I'll have five hundred pounds within a fortnight. Don't interrupt me with a parcel of lies. I have looked in that book there, and I know what you have at your command. Don't tell me you can't. I'll teach you how, and safely, too—safe as a church—safe as the Bank, ha! ha! Besides, you fool! you are only anticipating what it must come to. You can't finger all that money, without some of it sticking to your fingers—not in dust—but nuggets! Eh? Choose at once. If you don't follow my instructions, I'll expose you—I will, by ——! I'll write to that conceited young sprig, though I hate him like poison, and put him on his guard. Aha! who knows but that he will condone my mistakes in return for the friendly warning? Take your choice, and quickly. Friend or foe with Swindles Manvers. At any rate I know enough to ruin you. Pledge yourself to follow my instructions; and I will leave this rotten old country within a month, and for years, if not for ever. As for him, I carry my revenge here;" and he tapped the desk. "Some day I may make terms with him, but not now. He will run through his fortune fast enough, without your assistance or mine. And then we shall see. Take your choice. You have safe cards to play. His lawyers are ready to join in to-morrow. They are a precious couple, I can tell you, and no mistake. I knew old Grinderby when he visited his clients in the Bench, and concocted many a rum plant with Sam Stevens and Will Clark. Now, which is it? Come, man, I am your best friend after all. You don't want to be Lord Mayor of London all in a hurry in these precious days, without a little jolly swindling, do you? I say, you couldn't spare a fellow a dozen or two of this exemplary tipple to drink luck to his pal on the voyage to America, could you? I'll just leave the address. Don't send too much—say a couple of dozen, and ditto of the very dry sherry. I'll leave you the address, my boy."

Pettingall sat rocking to and fro on his chair in something very nearly approaching agony. His spirit had collapsed as if with a species of mental Asiatic cholera. Well did he know the desperate character of the man before him, the man who had quailed before Arthur's virtuous indignation, and yielded tamely to right; but who cowed and utterly terrified his mean nature and guilty conscience. Pettingall had always entertained a sort of instinctive fear of Manvers, increased and strengthened by the daily contact into which he was brought with him in the exercise of his subordinate vocations. He remembered too well the affair of which Manvers had so unceremoniously reminded him; and although he had so far atoned for the offence as to replace the trifle he had made use of, he knew the full demerit of its commercial bearings, which would doubtless be done ample justice to by his unscrupulous adversary, should he ever denounce him. It was true that Pettingall had marked for himself an "honest," that is, a safe and respectable career. He had hugged the idea of becoming a prosperous and highly respectable member of Society. Why not? The chance was in his grasp. Douceurs and pickings, commissions and bribes, to these he had no repugnance; nay, he had well pondered on the golden harvest which the future would open to him. The insinuation of Manvers, that he designed to sell his employer's interests and the business connexion of the late Mr. Aubrey to a Company, was too well-founded in fact. He had already spread his lines in pleasant places. He had conceived a plan to induce the spendthrift heir to sell Bingley's Wharf, which was not in the entail, for a sum far below its value; and he had concealed from him his knowledge that a railway was about to be constructed, which would come through a portion of the premises, as well as the fact that a most advantageous purchase might be made of some adjoining buildings, which the elder Aubrey had always had a hankering after, and which would nearly double the value of the property. Already he had induced Arthur to let a portion of the wharf at a much reduced rent, but only at a yearly tenancy. But as for actual embezzlement and book erasures—as for bold rascality, the more dangerous game which Manvers had played—Pettingall shrunk from such a career with alarm and dread; he desired to pride himself on his honesty and scrupulous exactitude. Full of the most virtuous intentions in this respect, he actually believed himself to be one of the most worthy, meritorious, and scrupulous men of his class in London. He was conscious of his immense opportunities, and the unprecedented confidence placed in him. He had a considerable sum in book-debts to collect, concerning the details of which his employer was entirely ignorant. He actually despised his patron for such exceeding folly; and it would not have taken much to convince him that he had a right to plunder him of possessions and treasures thus carelessly regarded, and left, as it were, unguarded in the street. How often, too, this feeling occupies a rogue and lures him to the act of plunder—a combination of envy and spite mingled with a sort of ownership grown out of the handling of the coveted wealth, until a species of self-justification almost arises. When, for instance, a lawyer has had the custody and management of an estate, how soon does he come to regard the owner as a legitimate prey, an excrescence and encumbrance on his own property! How he will undersell, and underlet, and run up costs; to prevent the reinstatement of the improvident heir, or the embarrassed proprietor! And this all in the legitimate line of business; doing, as it were, but justice to himself, in recompense for the trouble he has undergone! In how liberal a spirit he will talk to the tenants, and in how territorial a manner he will glance his eye over improvements, and generally identify himself with the soil! In this lawyer-ridden country, one is often obliged to bestow unlimited confidence in men who have served an apprenticeship to the devil and all his works; and to place deeds in their hands, and to hand over papers and money, without even a receipt; while they trust a client with nothing in return. In this way, a solicitor who has got possession of all his client's deeds, leases, &c., will actually, on reluctantly returning a single unimportant document into his hands, write out a formal acknowledgment that the man's own property is restored to him. The lawyer positively regards the owner of the estate which is managed in his, the lawyer's, office, not only as a victim and legitimate prey, but as an enemy, and an intruder on his own demesne.

To return, however, to Manvers and Pettingall, the big rattlesnake and the smaller reptile. Pettingall heaved a deep sigh. His boasted integrity, his golden, safe career, were threatened—his little empire was overthrown—he was under the fascination of an evil and a desperate eye, and the wretched little rascal shivered and shook as with an ague. He felt that it was in vain to resist.

"What would you have me do?" at length he asked Manvers in a husky voice. "How can I give you five hundred pounds?"

"Easily enough," replied the other; "five thousand pounds, if I were not the most considerate and easily satisfied fellow in the world. Look you here! you will shortly pocket among the whole lot of swag five hundred pounds that should have been mine by the will. Just hand over the stumpy, and you can easily repay it, if you like to be so green. Have you not thousands of pounds of book-debts passing through your hands? Why should there not be a tolerable percentage of losses on these? He will never go into it."

"No," replied Pettingall; "but some one else may."

"But you need not make such an error as I did," quoth Manvers. "You have my example to profit by."

"By-the-bye," remarked Pettingall, "I expect Mr. Macgregor, the accountant, here this very night at ten o'clock, and it is already half-past nine."

It was Manvers's turn now to change colour. With a tremendous oath, he cursed the officious blackguard, as he called the poor man who had discovered his villainy in the simple exercise of his vocation.

"Can't you square him?" he asked Pettingall. "Perhaps he has got a large family. By-the-bye, how many do you reckon—three or four is it?"

Pettingall winced. In his vision of an honourable reputation, the future of his boys had largely mixed. He had thought of the free-schools, whose doors would open to his City influence; and for a moment he felt as if he would brave all, and set Manvers at defiance. It was a dangerous observation for the tempter to make. Perhaps the latter saw it; for he immediately added, "What a pity for such a jolly old buck-rabbit as you to run the risk of losing a situation like this, and of being turned out of his hutch without any chance of greens. Well, you are safe from John Manvers, if you will only play fair and stand the mopuses. After all, what risk is there in what I ask you to do? Don't sit shaking there like an idiot, or I'll double the figure. Why, the money will be payable under the will, long before you are even called on to render an account, and you will have fifty opportunities of making it in the mean time besides. I wish I had not been such a flat, that is all. But it was my first shy that did the trick, before my hand got steady—and now you stand in my shoes. I remember, for a whole week after, I was just such a snivelling, trembling wretch as you. I dared not come near the place, much less open the books. That's what did me. Dash it! I actually never put the first little affair straight at all. I have had thousands since, ay, and spent them too. I stood to win ten thousand pounds on the Derby once, and I nearly made a fortune in railways; and now here I am, with perhaps a cool thousand to the good, about to seek my fortune in a land, where it is easier to make money than to keep it, considerable, I calculate. Well, good-night, my boy, and don't forget the wine—the same as we are now drinking, mind." And Manvers swallowed a bumper, and deliberately resuming his disguise, quitted the room. The fate of Pettingall was sealed. When Mr. Macgregor came, the worthy clerk was so far beside himself, that anything like business that night became an impossibility. Amongst other things, he pondered over the document to which Manvers, in regaining it, fixed such evident importance, as the means at once of revenge, and putting the screw on Mr. Arthur, as Pettingall was accustomed to call him. What could it be? Then came the sickening thought of the proposed embezzlement; for it was nothing less. That night when Mrs. Pettingall, being greatly disturbed by the uneasy slumbers of her liege lord, laid her hand on his shoulder to awaken him, as she thought, from a paroxysm of nightmare, he leaped up in bed and prayed for mercy in such piteous and appealing tones, that the worthy lady was nearly frightened out of her wits. Yet it was not conscience that afflicted the honest fellow—far from it; but that which in the meanest natures so often supplies its place and is mistaken for it, both by the subject himself and those who witness his tortures—the abject writhings and contortions of a selfish fear. For our own part, we do not believe that deliberate scoundrelism, such as that which plots and poisons, or robs the orphan and the widow, ever repents, in the true and proper sense of the word. How can it? A murderer, whom a single act has doomed to wear the brand of Cain, may feel the deepest repentance—seeing that his deed might be an aberration—whether resulting from passion, revenge, drink, jealousy, or even the temptation of money. But does a dishonest attorney, or a perjured usurper, who has won his way to power by a thousand acts of deliberate villainy and atrocity, ever feel thorough conscientious remorse? We think not. The latter may dread the assassin; he may be appalled at the thought of the Deity, to Whom he must account after death. The former may become outwardly religious, and delude himself and the weaker portion of Society by affecting good works. If a sanguinary pirate of twenty years' practice in revolting deeds should incarcerate himself in La Trappe, or found a hospital for incurables, what is it but the moral cowardice of a ruffian physically decayed? Superstitious criminals there are, especially women, who may believe that they can compound for a career of subtle infamy by mere purchase. There is a religion which finds it practically convenient and remunerative to teach this. To a certain extent, such persons may be sincere in deluding themselves—from the coarsest bandit to the most accomplished intriguante. Undoubtedly many who are called very wicked, and who have committed various crimes against the law, may really be struck with a true sense of their misdeeds, and make all the reparation to man and Heaven in their power. But your cool, calculating, selfish, and unscrupulous scoundrel cannot alter his nature. Truly the Æthiop may not become white, nor the leopard change his spots. Mr. Pettingall was essentially a dirty little knave, with a great deal of fear in his composition. He was anxious not to incur the danger of appearing in a criminal dock; but from the first he designed to betray his master's and patron's interests, so far as he safely could, in the furtherance of his own interests; while wealth and respectability were the idols which he had set up to worship. Alas, for the uncertainty of human wishes! The huge form of the desperate, felonious Manvers compelled Pettingall to outstep his inclinations, and commit the vulgar crime of embezzlement, instead of only depreciating his employer's property by underleasing it, and finally causing it to be undersold, and variously turning the very valuable business connexion of the late Mr. Aubrey to his own profit, instead of that of Mr. Aubrey, junior. To be brief, in a very short time Pettingall was discovered to have received moneys for which he never accounted, and flung himself abjectly on the mercy of Arthur Aubrey. Between Mr. Pettingall and Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens, there had always been the most pleasant business intercourse conceivable. It was, therefore, a sharp and cruel thing on the part of that firm to urge Aubrey in the strongest manner to prosecute Pettingall. On this occasion Mr. Grinderby went almost too far in the severity of his remarks and the strength of his advice.

"You may do as you please, sir," he said to Arthur—who, by the way, had gone to his solicitors with the most positive determination to prosecute, and, in fact, to instruct them to get a warrant—"you may do just as you like, sir, in the matter; but I conceive that you are bound, in the interests of Society, to punish this fellow. I know you may not like the publicity, the trouble, and the expense. You may be inclined to allow him to refund a portion of his ill-gotten gains, and to follow into exile his guilty partner and instructor, Manvers, by far the greater villain of the two, sir, in my opinion, whom you have already let loose upon Society, as I understand, in America. I trust, sir, if I may say so, that as a client of this firm you will not on this occasion show such mistaken lenity. Nay, looking at it as a question of morality as well as duty, I shall, indeed, regret, deeply regret, if you take any other course."

As Mr. Aubrey declared himself perfectly firm, and that his mind was fully made up to prosecute a man who had been guilty of such base ingratitude, there did not appear to be such strict necessity or occasion for the strenuous advice and strong representations of Mr. Grinderby. The latter dwelt greatly on the evil example set by Manvers, and suggested that Aubrey himself was not entirely free from blame, for not having prosecuted him, thereby leaving Pettingall exposed to his machinations.

"Example, indeed!" said Aubrey, "I can see no mitigation of his villainy in that. Do you mean to say, that my leniency encouraged him to rob me? That only proves him to be a blacker scoundrel."

"You must make allowance for the circumstances by which you yourself surrounded him," quoth the legal Mephistopheles.

These suggestions only irritated Aubrey at the time, but they dwelt and rankled in his mind afterwards. Grinderby's argument was that the example of Manvers and his impunity had corrupted Pettingall, whereas Aubrey insisted upon it that these very things ought to have kept him out of mischief.

Alas! it is circumstance which impels and allures to crime; not example which deters men from it. We remember just after the astounding revelations which resulted from the suicide of the late Mr. Sadleir, whilom a Lord of the Treasury and M.P., being shown a quantity of handwriting and a number of his signatures by an official in the Treasury, who held a very responsible post. He spoke of the suicide's career with a mingled expression of awe and wonder, and especially expressed his amazement that a man in such a position, and with such opportunities, should have lost himself so entirely.

"Who could have thought it of him! Many a time," he said, "he has stood here chatting with me, and I assure you he was the last man in the world I should ever have suspected."

Only a twelvemonth afterwards we called on a matter of business on our friend.

"Is Mr. —— in?" we asked cheerfully of a subordinate.

"No, he is not."

"Will he be in to-day?"

"I don't think it is very likely."

Such were the brief questions and answers; and we went away with an impression on our mind that the under-strapper not only answered us in a rude and abrupt tone, but eyed us in a somewhat peculiar and offensive manner. Great Heaven! the next news we had was that Mr. —— had absconded, and the officers of justice were in pursuit of him. The last, yes, positively the very last being in the world who we should have thought was likely to commit a folly, much less become capable of a crime. A quiet, self-possessed, amiable, and thoroughly business-like man; a man of law and formulæ, of facts and figures. To be sure, he was the son of a strict and severe clergyman; and extra piety and morality seldom go either with the personalty, the paternal blessing, or the entail. But the surprise and the shock were stupendous. To this day it is incomprehensible, almost inconceivable to our fancy or belief. Yet he had gone; bolted with a paltry sum of Government money; stolen it too in notes easily traced, with a fatuity utterly inexplicable; and was taken soon after landing in America with his trifling plunder, and actually released; so great was the scandal, and so small the amount. He had fled with a vulgar and depraved companion, whom he had married, and who deserted him as soon as he was left without resource. And this female, who drank, and swore, and played him false under his very eyes, had tempted him into vicious expense, and in spite of his capacity, his attainments, and the post which he held, one of substantial advantage and brilliant promise for so young a man, turned him into a common felon, within one year after he had moralised, philosophised, and pondered over Sadleir's colossal frauds and the dreadful lesson of his tragical end; with its memorials before him, and constantly recurring, in the exercise of his daily duties, to his sight.

CHAPTER XI.

A FLEMISH EXTERIOR OF WEBB'S FIELDS, WITH SOME EULOGY ON LAW AND LAWYERS.

The people asked for a "Code," and their rulers gave them new Law Courts. In order that due consistency might be observed, these were erected on a scale of Satanic grandeur in a poor and densely populated quarter; and the inhabitants had legal, though scarcely equitable, notice of eviction, and were left to make their own arrangements with the workhouse, the prison, and the grave.—Chronicles of Great Britain, 1800—1900.

THE advice given to Aubrey by Mr. Grinderby respecting the punishment of Mr. Pettingall, directly operated neither one way nor the other on that gentleman's determination or proceedings. He felt, in truth, greatly outraged and proportionately indignant. Moreover, he had reason to suspect that the loss he had sustained through Pettingall was very serious. For, unlike those of Manvers', his peculations were not merely direct, and applied to his own benefit; but he had robbed him on commission, as it were. He had suppressed and compromised debts; he had underlet and undervalued everything; he had told his employer that debtors were ruined, or on the verge of insolvency, who were able to pay, and obtained from the too easy and credulous-Aubrey (who, be it admitted, was lazy and hated business withal) receipts in full for the payment of a mere fraction of his just claims; he had sold off the remaining stock for a mere nothing; he was suspected of making away with a considerable amount of property, which could not be traced at all; he had been party to a fraudulent sale of Bingley's Wharf and the adjacent property, under false and lying representations of its declining value, whereas its value had really very much increased; and, lastly, he had sold and transferred the whole business connexion of the late Mr. Aubrey, which his possession of the books and knowledge of the affairs enabled him to do, to the very Limited Liability Company who had bought and taken possession of the premises, and with whom he had secured himself the berth of secretary and managing director on a salary of eight hundred pounds a-year. As, under the old régime, he had only three hundred pounds, which Aubrey had increased to four hundred, with numerous presents and benefactions, it must be owned he had done well for his own benefit, in proportion as he had ruthlessly sacrificed every interest of his patron and benefactor. But he was not content with all this. He actually had the greed and impudence to bring a charge against Aubrey of nearly two thousand pounds as percentage for collecting the debts! It was the resistance of Aubrey to this monstrous attempt at extortion, which first led to the detection of Pettingall's true character and nefarious proceedings.

At first, Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens seemed to adopt the notion, as a matter of course, that Aubrey must pay this money and satisfy the claim. They "did not see how their client could avoid doing so." Of course, they expressed their great disgust that such a demand should be made; but, legally, they said that Aubrey had not a leg to stand upon. That gentleman, however, called in another accountant, and he went into a second examination of the books. It was not Mr. Macgregor this time; but Mr. Playfair, a gentleman whose acquaintance our hero had accidentally made, and who was a man of singular sagacity, honesty of purpose, and possessed of vast powers of investigation into any matter in which figures were concerned.

Master Pettingall had no chance in such hands. In a week he was blubbering on his knees at Mr. Playfair's feet. That gentleman simply said:

"It is not my business to squeeze the life out of you, or even to kick you down-stairs. I am not a man of impulse, and I have seen a great deal of rascality in this world. But I recommend you to rid me of your presence in the shortest possible time; for fear I should be tempted to go beyond my duty, and do something which, as a man of business, I may repent."

To Pettingall's attempted whinings about his wife and children, Mr. Playfair merely said:

"How dare you, who have forgotten them, while planning and plotting this heartless and wholesale robbery, day by day, and night by night, ask me, who am a stranger, to be so much more merciful than yourself; and to commit an act of injustice and dishonesty, which it would be, to intercede for you with him, whom you have plundered and wronged? Get out of the room, sir, do you hear me? and be quick. You abuse my patience, you scoundrel, you do. What!"

Here he made a step towards Pettingall, who disappeared in a clammy mist of terrified tears, and with the perspiration of detected guilt exuding from every pore.

It was but a very short time after his late recorded conversation with Mr. Grinderby, that Arthur Aubrey might have been seen by any idle office lad, or still idler conveyancing pupil, who had nothing better to do than to watch the movements of strangers, wending his way across the dingy legal barrack-yard known as Webb's Fields, which at some remote period we may presume had some title to that name, towards the particular fly-trap, whose entrance was distinguished by Messrs. Grinderby and Cousen's illustrious names. Mr. Aubrey was deeply wrapped in meditation, which was of an engrossing but by no means pleasant kind.

Not being, therefore, at all in a philosophical or inquiring mood, he entirely omitted to notice the peculiar characteristics of the locality, which, were in great force that day. He did not remark the seedy, mildewy, whity-brown-aproned, washed-out-looking porters, who stood in twos and threes, as if they had brought a message from some grim old departed lawyer in the World of Shades which required no answer, and would be thankful to any one who would send a note to the same place, and give them sixpence to pay Charon for ferrying their emaciated spectres over the Styx. He failed to observe the stout policeman threatening to eject a weazened old woman of eighty years and upwards, who was tending and guarding the toddling frolics of a very small and dirty female child; the extraordinary number of flaunting females, and girls, apparently of the milliner class, who seemed to have legal appointments in the Fields, and consultations in its chambers; the dissipated, rake-helly fellow lounging across in shooting-jacket and smoking-cap, pipe in mouth; the dirty state of the windows; the pert, lawyer-like air of the sparrows; and the tameness of the pigeons, which fancy might easily have imagined were animated by the spirits of departed clients, and fed with a sort of mild poetic reparation at the expense of the benchers, or, rather, of the bloated funds of the Fields. All this was utterly unnoticed by the hurrying and pre-occupied Aubrey, who with rapid strides bisected transversely that dismal, old, dissipated, insolvent-looking manufactory of legal abomination and sin. Nay, he passed unnoticed even the salutations of two very pretty and attractive young ladies, who must, at least, have just gained a lawsuit, or have received information of a legacy; or otherwise have had some great stroke of good fortune connected with Themis, so irrepressibly joyous and exuberantly delighted did they seem. Yet so bent was Mr. Aubrey on the demolition of the double-dyed rascal Pettingall, that jovial and free-spoken as he ordinarily was, he did not observe the salutations and remarks lavished upon him by these light-hearted and fair-haired demoiselles. An inquiry after his maternal parent was lost in air, and a theory advanced as to his good-nature fell for ever dead and unanswered, so far as he was concerned. Even an altered tone and style in their observations, so soon as he had passed them, entirely escaped him. The fact is, his thoughts were bent on the Old Bailey and vengeance; and Webb's Fields, with all its past traditions and present features, its beauties and blemishes, its pebbly gravel, which might have been triturated from the stony hearts of generations of defunct attorneys long since struck off the rolls of mortality and gone home to another, and, let us hope, so far as their bedevilments are concerned, a better world—Webb's Fields, with its benchers and wenchers, its clerks and its sparks, its fogeys and its bogeys, its knots of porters, if not its porters' knots, its pigeons, sparrows, nursery children, dining-halls, pump, and clock, was to him

A simple square and nothing more.

"Simple!" with its gravel cemented with widows' tears; its pavements worn with the weary feet of baffled litigants, heavy with ruined hopes, but lighter for the loss of the gold which the rapacious talons of the legal harpies therein congregating had filched and torn away? "Simple!" with the true stories that might be told of it peopling with ghastly shapes and curdling with their dim and dreary revelations the dull and misty air? "Simple!" with fi. fa. and ca. sa. whispering in the gusty breezes that whirled the dust of dead men's bones, and yellow parchments, and unswept offices in your face, and echoing by night the shrill scream of oath from the slums that border the greater portion of two sides of the parallelogram, whose corner-stone was surely laid by a prince, the "Prince of Darkness" himself, who "was a gentleman" by Act of Parliament, be it understood? "Simple!" with its interminable web of delay, and malice, and form, and falsehood, and robbery, and deceit, through which the wealthy suitor may flounder, but the poor client leaves his empty sucked-out case, and brittle shiny wings, with which he flew in, either unawares, or because he couldn't help it, or was a fool, like the poor gilded fly? "Simple!" with all those hungry business dens, and their remorseless occupants within, writing and copying like grim and galvanised Death to feed their grimmer and grimier life of sin, "to eat and drink, array themselves, and live?" "Simple!" with those strange supplementary haunts of eccentric penury, and cheap and vulgar debauchery which fill up the vacancies of this charming abode, and people its windows with stray lights, when the greater portion of the legal denizens have washed their talons towards dinner-time, and gone home to the bosom of their affectionate families in suburban squares?

This is Webb's Fields, as some view it; but by no means all. We suppose that the young widow of a drowned sailor regards the sea with different eyes from Miss Clementina at Margate, with a volume of Byron, Bulwer, or Marryat in her hand. This is the jaundiced view of a man of griefs and losses—of one who has known what it is to wait weary hours in a lawyer's office, when the clerks look sneeringly at him, and say audibly one to another: "Oh! it's only old Sadcase, him as lost all his property in that suit—you know—Weasel v. Sadcase, in which Serjeant Squeezer made that famous speech. It's in the last volume of Scribbler and Squitty's Reports." This is the view of the plundered and cleaned out; the out-at-elbows client with a sick wife and large family, who want port wine and sea air, and possibly better food and more of it, and who had been rich, but for the common practice of Webb's Fields. Bless those lively young clerks, it is no more to them than dissecting to an enthusiastic Sawbones, when he is appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's! This is nothing but a mere morbid view taken by broken clients and ruined men. It is not shared in, believe us, by prosperous gentlemen, and those who can afford to change their lawyers and tax their bills. Yes, it is upon the carcass that the legal vulture principally thrives and feeds. You, my lord, and you, madam, with your ample fortune, may not appreciate, or even understand, this bitterness of reproach, this minute description of things and of places unknown in your experience. Your sleek family solicitor is a pleasant and comfortable personage. He only now and then puts you out of temper; because he delays your daughters marriage settlement, and is so unconscionably slow in the re-investment of that mortgage money of yours which has been paid back so long. You don't suspect that he is playing with the money. Oh dear no! He is far too trustworthy and respectable a man. We hope for your sake that his speculations may never entirely go wrong. Until then, you will continue to consider our delineation of human spiderdom harsh, exaggerated, and untrue. We trust, fair sir and proud lady, that you may never have cause to alter your opinions. Whether we ourselves have suffered or not from the iniquity of the legal system and practice, we shall not tell. Suffice it to say, that we have seen enough of their workings to adopt the black and morbid view, which we have just now endeavoured to convey.

But then we go much further than suffices for the condemnation of a mere portion of the attorney gang. We denounce their whole existence as a national blot, as an excrescence, and an unnecessary evil, of pernicious and fungus-like growth. We say that the whole standing or sedentary army of "solicitors," as they are called, ought to be abolished and put down, not only on account of individuals, but the State. Here in England, we have nearly twenty thousand men apprenticed from boyhood to the master and originator of all evil and wrong, creating and fostering enmity, malice, uncharitableness, in order to produce litigation in its worst forms of injustice, absurdity, and excess. Worse than this, the elections of the whole country are in their hands. Who practises, and shields, and encourages corruption and bribery, direct and indirect, but your solicitor? Who knows the secrets of the rich and great, and bullies and persecutes the poor and the small? Who goes about like a lay Jesuit spreading suspicion, disunion, hatred, and mistrust in all circles? Who widens the breach, nay the gulf which unhappily exists between classes, between the higher and the middle, and the lower classes of the community? Who is the curse of town and village, of city and farm-house alike? Who but the legal agent and inquisitor, the rich man's prompter to harshness, and the poor man's deadliest foe? Who, when a man is down in the world, counsels his creditors to lose more money, rather than give him a chance to retrieve his fortunes, or ever to get his head again above the slough of ruin and despond? What is the answer to the agonising plea for time? "I can do nothing in it. It is in the hands of my solicitor." It is not so in America, a new country—it is not so in France, an old one. At least there is nothing so universal and so bad. And what does the solicitor do besides, in the capacity of active curse? He is an obstacle in the way of all rational reform; all cheap transfer of land, or personalty; all simplification of titles, and leases, and wills; and the easy and common-sense recovery of debts. He is the foe of equity and compromise, and recovery of every kind, save "fine and recovery," and concurrent monstrosities of form. All this is nothing new, and yet it is not so very old. It is not so very long, since the birth and growth of the modern attorney-at-law out of the old scrivener and notary. Why should not men keep their own deeds, and make their own transfers, purchases, sales, mortgages, and the like, with the aid of law-writers, and public registrations, and the best counsel to be had direct, depending on success and character for reputation, whose fee should be paid by the client himself; ready money, or credit, just as may be settled between the pair? The counsel might say at once, "You have no case, my man;" or, "I advise you to make the best terms you can;" or, "I'll fight your cause and see you through it. You shall pay me so much, if I succeed; if not, nothing." What monstrosity it is, that an attorney can recover his bill of costs, whilst an advocate has no remedy! What a mighty hotch-potch of iniquity the whole system is; and how it withers and depraves many of the finest energies and qualities of tens of thousands of Englishmen. The most beneficial use made of solicitors is by rogues. They profit by all the chicaneries and worst features of the law. The best education for a swindler is a legal one.

Mr. Grinderby was an excellent and enthusiastic lawyer. To him the law was what it is to too many, the study of malevolence, avarice, trickery, and legalised fraud.

CHAPTER XII.

A DIGRESSION ON ATTORNEYDOM AND ITS WORKS.

Les hommes de chiquane emportant à dos de mulet les beaulx deniers prins ung à ung par le chicquanous aux veufres, orphelins, et aussy à d'aultres.—La Mye du Roy, BALZAC.

"Cil qui ha prins ceste ioye est il fourny de deniers?" demande le iuge.
"Oh! bien."
"Doncques il payera chier. Qui est-ce?"
"Monseigneur Du Fou."
"Voilà qui change la cause," dit le iuge.
"Et la iustice?" feit elle.
"J'ay diet la cause et non la iustice," repartit le iuge.

La Belle Fille de Portillon.

THERE is no sentiment or feeling in the administration of British Law. In civil cases, the longest purse generally wins, especially when coupled with the most unscrupulous practice. In criminal cases, it is an excellent thing to have plenty of money, not to bribe the judge, but to purchase the whole panoply of just or unjust defence, and, above all, to command that consideration, commiseration, and interest which money always insures in this mercantile country. How much better your "alibi" looks, if you have twenty thousand pounds! How much less probable does your alleged crime appear, if you are worth one hundred thousand pounds, more or less! What chance has a needy suitor or defendant when pleading before a well-to-do and respectable Themis! Truly Justice is blind in England, and holds the scales. You may have been victimised to any extent by a lawyer, made penniless and driven mad by chicanery and delay, and it shall avail you nothing; since you cannot legally introduce this into the case, and place it on record in due form. Nay, the judge will instruct the jury purposely, that they must not allow themselves to be biassed by anything which does not form part of the strict issue before them. "You must dismiss from your minds the facts incidentally brought before you that the plaintiff seduced the defendant's wife, after ruining him by the most complex conspiracy; that he spent moneys intrusted to him on parole, and sold him to all his enemies. The question is, does the defendant owe the plaintiff six shillings and eightpence on this transaction, or did the prisoner knock the prosecutor down, or call him by an actionable term?"

In France, the whole history is elicited by the Court by a series of interrogatories, and circumstances are taken into consideration. There, a man is allowed to have a heart, feelings, and passions. There, systematic scoundrelism is exposed and dealt with. Here, it is favoured by the friendly intervention of the Law. In France, if we are informed aright, "of lawyers and notaries there is no end" in the galleys of Toulon. They are not fenced round with impunity, as they are here. There are single lawyers in the galleys; they ought to link "firms" with a connecting chain. They are clothed in coarse canvas trousers and shirts, branded with their numbers (as they put their real or imaginary clients' initials on their tin boxes), and they wear a woollen jacket to keep them warm during the remainder of their earthly career. "Their faces, close shaven, bronzed by exposure to the sun, and brutalised by crime, are fearful to behold;" and "their repulsive appearance is heightened by their hair being notched short in lines running round the head, in order to facilitate their recognition, should they escape." This is what they do with dishonest lawyers in France. In England, it is different. We were about to say that there are no dishonest lawyers in England, that is, judging by the results to themselves, not their clients. Perhaps the converse of the proposition is nearly true. The present laws of England, however, seem principally to be made for rogues. "Who," wrote, in effect, a powerful journalist, some years since, "prevents that scoundrel from being taken by the neck by the police, as in France, and dragged before the Tribunal within an hour? Who but these execrable difficulty-makers, the lawyers?"* "The law itself is too weak for the lawyers; they defy it, obstruct it, ignore it, render it futile and abortive;" that is, when it suits them to do so. Even to take a whole department as a specimen, "Doctors' Commons threatened to be immortal, until the Doctors were guaranteed compensation, when they discovered that they were a superfluous nuisance, and abated themselves."

[*See some admirable articles in the "Weekly Dispatch" some years ago. We can only quote from fragments without dates.]

But how does England deal with her erring legal pets, the too funny "gentlemen by Act of Parliament," who now and then o'erstep, in their zeal for practice, even the wide limits which they have assigned themselves? Pentonville and Portland are not their just destination, unless they steal pocket-handkerchiefs or spoons, which would argue a want of success in their legitimate professional career.

"A solicitor convicted of wilful and corrupt perjury!" (See daily papers.) This is really distressing. We thought that such agreeable latitude was allowed in the exercise of the calling. This man being convicted must be more honest than many of his fellows. He has had to do with other attorneys, and they have been too much for him.

"The Liquidator of the Bogus Bank, limited, v. two Attorneys." In this case the Court evidently recognises fraud; but, for some motive, through some distorted freak of the judicial mind, lets the afflicted beings off.

"The Lord Chief Justice 'regretted' " (Did he now?) "that attorneys should mix themselves up in schemes for concocting Companies. Such duties were not strictly professional" (Indeed!), "and said that such companies are mere delusions, by which the public are induced to invest money, which is spent in legal charges and in winding-up the undertaking," &c. &c.*

[*The above was literally said. The lawyers in question thus idly branded by the judge, not only got their costs, but a large sum for promotion out of the Company, and escaped without even the mention of their names!]

Such are among the notes and remarks we find in our Diary of the blank day of blank, A.D. 1867.

If an ordinary person, guilty or not guilty, is accused of any crime whatsoever—if he is the manifest victim of threatened extortion—does the Press conceal his name? We suppose that in the last case we have quoted, either it is a special privilege of attorneydom, on its trial, not to be named or specified; in which case it is a gross and monstrous anomaly and folly; or the newspapers were afraid lest these interesting legal Siamese Twins should commence all manner of proceedings against them. We have seen this sort of thing before. When an attorney has to show cause why he should not be "struck off the rolls," the same delightful reticence is observed. The interesting victim of rabid and vindictive clients, this boa-constrictor worried by rabbits, this hyena lugged bruised and bleeding into court by new-born babes, remains anonymous, more unknown, probably, than the author of "Junius;" because, unless you are fortunate enough to know very few solicitors indeed, you cannot even guess at his name. Why this insane forbearance, this corrupt buffoonery on behalf of "gentlemen," who know so well how to take care of themselves as your attorneys? It is simply a part of the abuse and absurdity of the whole British system of Law, from base to apex of the pyramidal iniquity built with the skulls and bones of thousands and ten thousands of victims to the rapacity, extortion, avarice, delays, and complex injustice which the Law prescribes, encourages, necessitates, defends, and practises.

What is a solicitor?* we ask. It is a word of modern date. It is meant perhaps to be more genteel than the word attorney. Or, was it devised in order to divert attention from the original birth and existence of our "legal friend"? The atourney would have been the champion in the lists, of those who could not fight for themselves, in the days of chivalry. Fancy a real attorney in our sense existing in those times! Such a one fought by proxy for the minor, the sick person, the aged and infirm. Thence he came to be the licensed representative and interpreter of the ignorant: of those who towards the latter part of the Dark Ages could neither read nor write. He appeared for Higg and Snell, the offspring of Saxon serfs. Are we still so benighted and ignorant as to require such services now? He would seem to have shown the cloven foot very early; since we find that by the Statute 32 Hen. VI., it was enacted that there should be "but six common attorneys in Norfolk, six in Suffolk, and two in Norwich, if that shall seem reasonable to the justices." Again, we find in "An exact Abridgement of all Statutes in force and use from Magna Carta until 1641, by E. Wingate, of Grayes Inne, Esq.," published in 1660, that "if an attorney delay his client's suit for gain, or demand by his bill more than his due fees and disbursements.

the client shall recover against him his costs and treble damages, and he himself shall be for ever disabled from being an attorney or solicitor any more." This would make fine havoc were it really acted upon in the present day. You tax a solicitor's bill now, and must get a large proportion disallowed, or have to pay the costs of taxation. But whatever you get, it does not invalidate a modern attorney's practice.

[* It means especially the lawyer who practises in equity, but the terms are now confounded. Every attorney is "——, Esquire, Solicitor."]

Again, "If an attorney be found notoriously in fault, he shall forswear the court, and never be admitted in any other court."

"Notoriously in fault!" What now-a-days comes up to, or does not come up to, this phrase? We presume that it is far too severe to characterise the two attorneys whom "the Lord Chief Justice regretted should mix themselves up in schemes for concocting Companies," which "are mere delusions, and by which" (he said) "the public are robbed, while nothing is spent, save in legal charges and in winding-up the undertaking." At all events, even their names are held sacred, while that of any one not belonging to this privileged class is by no means thus shielded, on a primâ facie charge, whether he be guilty or not guilty of anything imputed to him. When fraud and artifice are reduced to a system, in order to plunder under the mantle of respectability and the protection of authority—and this in every circle and department of a country, public and private legislative representation itself being for the most part in the lawyer's hands—what must be the issue? The evil increases, until it would seem that nothing short of revolution can shake the demon off the nation's neck. And how much more deadly and dangerous the revolution, which should arise from a web of oppression and injustice spread over all classes, than that which the iniquity of a single tyrant or succession of tyrants and their ministers might engender? It would be like a nation rising against itself, and no one could foresee the solution or the end.

Among the many facetious stories told of the appreciation in which attorneys have been held is the following, which, however well known, we do not scruple to give here. Peter the Great, Czar of Muscovy, being in England in Term time, and seeing multitudes swarming about the Great Hall, wherein are held the three superior Courts of judicature, is reported to have asked some one about him "who all those busy people were, and what they were about?" Being answered, "They are lawyers, sir." "Lawyers!" returned he. "Why I have but two in my whole dominions, and I design to hang one of them the moment I get home."

Perhaps, however, there is more amusement to be derived from the consideration of a plain English statute, when statutes were plain, taken in connexion with what has been the reality of the case nearly ever since, and what the state of things is now. By 4 Hen. IV., c. 18, it was enacted that "none should be admitted, but such as were virtuous, learned, and sworn to do their duty." The virtue of the craft—whatever they may swear to, like the Sultan at his installation as a Knight of the Garter—is, we should think, on a par with the philanthropy of a crocodile or the vegetarianism of a shark. Again, the Statute

(An. 1403) recites this item: "For sundry damages and mischiefs which have ensued before this time to divers persons of the realm by a great number of attorneys, they shall be good, virtuous, and of good fame."

The subject is very tempting for a jest. Attorneys could at one time only employ two clerks (vide Maryham's "Complete Collection of Statutes relating to Solicitors"). We do not know if that law has been repealed; but probably it has. If not, they break the law with impunity in this, as in many other things. The 33 Hen. VI., c. 7 (1455), recites "a practice of contentious attorneys to stir up suits for their private profits."

Even in those days we learn that people "dared not complain of ye extortions and ye oppressions" of the attorneys. By the 3rd Edw. I., a penalty on any attorney was inflicted for deceit! He was imprisoned for a year and a day. It has long since been permitted that a lunatic may appear by attorney; and a whole nation of lunatics avail themselves of the privilege. An attorney formerly could not practise in gaol. Heaven knows what they may or may not do now; since the fraternity have managed to wriggle out of almost every penalty and disability formerly imposed upon them. But we cannot help thinking that a gaol would be a very proper place for many to practise in, but not on behalf of their clients.

Formerly under-sheriffs were not allowed to be attorneys. This has been repealed, 1 Vic, c. 55, like everything else that stood in the way of chicanery and wrong, under pretence of "amendment and consolidation." Heaven save the mark!

In a speech of Lord Bathurst in Parliament in 1737, he is reported to have said, speaking of the causes of riots and tumults, and referring to the insurrection of Wat Tyler, that "the people complained that their domestick enemies, the lawyers, ruined them with vexatious suits and extorsive fees." This he gave as one of the chief reasons for that rebellion. This evil has been going on ever since; it is at this moment greater than ever. Politically the lawyers are corrupting the whole State. Their fraud, oppression, and corruptions, are assisting to bring about revolution now. Since these evils cannot be, or are not, amended or reformed, they will bring about a violent deliverance, if they do not destroy the nation as a first-rate power. Parliament is chiefly returned by lawyers. Lawyers draw the bungling Acts of Parliament, through which they themselves teach men to break.

No man is so much afraid of the law—even such as it is—being brought to bear upon himself and his own alleged or imputed misdeeds, providing it be by a sufficiently rich man—as a lawyer. The reason of this is obvious. If by some miracle the attorney has justice on his side, he knows that he may be cast by the law; if he has acted wrongly, he is instinctively reluctant to be exposed. Nevertheless, almost every one shrinks from attacking a solicitor. Yet we have known one, soundly thrashed and kicked before his own clerks, to put up with the inconvenience and indignity, without applying to the police, or even commencing an action. The attorney now-a-days is a most important part of the social system of Great

Britain. Fifty years ago, he was still kept somewhat in check. Barristers were tabooed, and struck off the bar-mess, who were found guilty of "hugging," or even associating with attorneys. Judges snubbed them, and kept them in order. They were frequently ordered out of court. Lately, when Mr. Chisholm Anstey acted as judge in India, he dealt with what he considered to be fraud rather harshly, i.e., justly, and the whole legal set combined against him. Here, in England, the power of this abnormal and wholly unnecessary, unconstitutional, and illegal body, is enormous. It undermines all Society; it is a standing menace against honesty, and union, and peace among men; it exists and flourishes by the practice of the basest acts and the lowest trickery. Woe betide him in temporary difficulties, he shall never lift up his head again! The simplest business is protracted and delayed in the cruellest manner. A lawyer wants all your deeds and papers. You send them to him. He runs you up and delivers a bill of costs. You object to it; he retains your papers—you go to another lawyer, who, ten to one, will not press him, and they both plunder you. These are the mildest cases. On the other hand, rich creditors place their debts in their lawyer's hands, and then will listen to no proposal for time from a debtor who is only desirous to pay. They refer you to their lawyer; the lawyer back to his client. The debtor is the shuttlecock, and it ends with a writ and its consequences. The client may lose his money in ruining the debtor, and does it all under his lawyer's advice. We have known enormous expenses incurred in a client's name, whose estate was in the lawyers' clutches, whilst he was starving. There is a daily correspondence about him which costs pounds. He visits his own property on foot, and speaks to a tenant. The tenant leaves him to touch his hat to a man in a brougham. He asks who it is. It is a solicitor's clerk. He is sent there that day to go through a farce of pretended inquiry, because the office has a clerk at leisure, and business must be made. A man has a legacy left him and is ruined by it. A case like this has been painted by Charles Dickens. And the beauty of it is, that these very lawyers do not pretend to understand law or equity. They state a case for counsel, which you must not do for yourself. The counsel's fees are not recoverable, forsooth; and a lawyer sues his client thus for money which he has not disbursed and possibly never will pay. Counsel do not always receive the fees which solicitors have charged and received on their behalf. Why are the honour and honesty of this especial class of men to be blindly trusted to—they who give no trust? If you take your deeds to a solicitor, he lays his legal paw on them as a matter of course, and while you owe him six and eightpence, he keeps them. If you want, in the mean time, to look at one of your own leases, you are lucky to get it the first time you call, and the solicitor insists on a receipt from you! But is the guild, the body, without stain or suspicion even of enormous criminal frauds? By no means. Look at that case of Cheslyn Hall, a wonderfully "respectable and eminent practitioner," some time ago. But why particularise one? Attorneys, if they can manage it, always spare men of their own profession, or rather trade. It wouldn't be desirable, they say, to press matters too far. They don't advise their clients to prosecute, or go to law with an attorney.

We have spoken of trade. What is attorneydom, save a trade, and that of a not very exalted character? They don't sell you law, at least, not directly—they go to the barrister for that. They sell you forms of law over an imaginary legal counter. They are not even as apothecaries to surgeons or physicians, for the latter send you to the former, but the solicitor consults his physician for you. He poisons you with his legal drugs under the cover of superior advice. These men, who, half a century ago, hardly or seldom ranked as gentlemen, who did not presume to call themselves "esquires," who could not get into a respectable club, now affect not only gentility, but exclusiveness. Yet they are admitted into Society, as we once heard remarked, like the knaves among the court cards of the pack. We saw lately the case of a low provincial fellow of this description who, in defending a dishonest cad against a just claim, addressed a letter to a neighbouring squire, and colonel commanding a regiment, "Mr." So-and-So. This insolence is common in the trade. The solicitor, who sells forms and procedures of law like a cheesemonger (only that the trade is not so direct or honest), gives himself airs, keeps his clients waiting in his ante-room purposely, and acts generally in a manner which one hundred years ago would have caused him to provoke and receive a batooning or a hearty kicking. Things are changed, and we have made such astonishing progress! Have we? Yes, certainly, in some things. Railways, for example. Apropos of these, there is the tourist solicitor. You cannot leave him behind anywhere. Post equitem sedet atra cura; you travel second-class on account of that enormous lawyer's bill which you have just received. Your solicitor travels first-class, for the same reason. Attorneys are always going express somewhere, and we fear that the country is going with them.

It is of no avail that the dramatist and romancist are continually holding up the mirror, and telling us what a pattern scamp the modern solicitor often is. Look at the varieties of the breed. You have the money-lending solicitor, the military and clerical solicitor, the thieves' solicitor, the gaol solicitor, and the solicitor, par excellence, of women of the town—the legal adviser of felony, and of the "Social Evil." "Social Evil," indeed! Attorneydom is the "Social Evil" of the age. And these men are not to be exposed by name!

Once more, "In re an Attorney (in the case of the Bogus Bank, limited) v. two Attorneys." These masked gentlemen have probably got a swinging bill of costs out of the plundered shareholders of the Bubble Company which they themselves, the said attorneys, entirely "concocted," besides the promotion money. But "oh, no! we never mention them, their names are never heard." My Lord Mortgage, or Squire Cashless, clients of a firm thus protected by the amenities of a swindling era, reads perchance a report in the papers headed as above, without the slightest consciousness that his own legal advisers and

"eminent" solicitors, are the very identical pair of "concoctors" described.

"Dear me!" he says, "how fortunate I am in commanding the professional services of men beyond suspicion, like Cuttle, Cuttle, and Fyshe."

Yes, beyond suspicion, when their names are thus concealed; but let Lord Mortgage and Squire Cashless look out! They shall never extricate themselves from the legal embrace of Messrs. Cuttle, Cuttle, Fyshe, and Co., till there is nothing left of them save dry bones. In the mean time it is refreshing to know that the elder Cuttle gives most delightful parties in Tyburnia, that his charming daughters were lately presented at Court, that the elder son of Fyshe is a field-officer of Volunteers, and keeps a yacht off Erith, and the younger rides a white Arab in the Park.

As for stealing spoons and forks, we can hardly imagine such straightforward and comparatively innocuous wickedness as simple burglary or larceny on the part of an attorney who was likely to succeed in his trade. Yet one lately was tried for this sort of offence. It might have enhanced his legal merit and embellished his fall, if he had sent in a bill of costs to the party robbed—say some old lady client—including such an entry as, "To consultation with Bill Sykes and another outside your area gate, when we decided not to attempt anything that night, six shillings and eightpence." "To conference with your servant-girl, when she stated the locality of your plate-chest and where you kept your keys, thirteen shillings and fourpence." "To long interview with Mr. M'Pledgit, the pawnbroker, when he informed us that your silver was so old-fashioned that it was only fit for melting down, and it was finally decided that it should go to the melting-pot, one pound one shilling. To cabs, refreshments, bribes, postages," &c. . . . .

Again, the solicitor may tell his client falsehoods, not white, but of the blackest dye; but he will be hardly such a bungler as to commit perjury, if he be worth his salt, unless the temptation is very overpowering indeed. Falsehoods! The current mark of the trade is falsehood and pretence. The vexatious and ruinous delays of a solicitor's office are three parts of them sheer invention and palpable lies. When he lends you Miss Pokeby's, an old lady's, money on mortgage, and insists upon six per cent., is it not his own capital that he invests on such favourable terms? You have to call twenty times—he can't see her—she has gone out of town—she is unwell—her money is at a bank on deposit, and she had to give notice. He grins and rubs his hands; he enjoys the agonies of your suspense. He is running up a swinging bill of costs, besides getting six per cent., and charging you twice his legitimate plunder. There is an expression, "Honour among thieves." There is a sort of necessary honour, even on the Turf in its present degraded state. There is none necessary to attorneys. On the contrary, it is dishonour on which they thrive. Look at the respectable West-end firm of Walker and Walker. They have persuaded their client Perkins to get judgment against a man in temporary difficulties, who only wants time to pay, and who offers proof that he is raising the money to satisfy the claim of the obstinate British tradesman Perkins. They write to that debtor: "Dear Sir,—In answer to your letter we have to inform you that we have seen our client as to your request for time. Will you oblige us with a call the first time you are passing?" The debtor sends a friend, who is followed by a couple of Jew bailiffs, posted at these "respectable" solicitors' door, to arrest the debtor, should he call in the expectation of the friendly arrangement they have suggested.

A man in temporary difficulties was lately sued for, let us say, one hundred pounds, by the eminent City firm, Guffin, Runnacles, and Bunks. He got the money, and called on them directly after judgment was obtained. He asked one of the legal triad whom he saw whether they would take seventy pounds down, and the remainder in a month, as it would be a great convenience. "If you will be kind enough to sit down for a few minutes," was the answer, "we will send over to our clients" (a banking firm close by), "and ask them. I have no doubt they will accede to your request, sir." The "Times" was given to him to read, and he waited an hour. During that time the legal "gentleman" came in some three or four times. "Sorry to detain you so long," he observed. "The bank partners must be engaged." And he conversed quite amicably. At last he came in, and said very sharply, "Our clients are not in, sir. You'd better settle this in the proper quarter. It's out of our hands." "Oh!" says the debtor, "will you not take the money, then? If I must do so, I am prepared to pay all." "You'd better settle the matter elsewhere," was the reply; and the attorney opened his door, outside of which a sheriffs' officer was waiting, who had been sent for, in place of the pretended bank message. The officer himself said it was "sharp practice," and "anything but gentlemanly conduct" on the part of the firm; but his prisoner had to proceed with him to a place of detention, until detainers were searched for, &c. &c. Had it happened that there were heavy detainers, these solicitors would have lost their clients' money. A short time afterwards the same partner in this gentlemanly triad was forced to hear the truth, and threatened with a horsewhipping by an officer in the army, whom he bound over to keep the peace. The officer told him that he was "a liar, a scoundrel, and a swindler," which in these days is oftener a greater offence than to merit those titles. And this was a most "respectable" and "eminent" firm!

These are samples of a body of men who, having got rid of all the conditions, restrictions, and penalties imposed upon them, when their fraternity was inaugurated, and their first practice allowed by a hesitating and cautious State, have gradually wriggled out of the observance of all salutary and precautionary restraint, as snakes cast their skins, until they are now coiled round every institution, public and private, throughout the land. The attorneydom of the nineteenth century is worse than the priesthood of the Dark Ages; for this reason, that it thoroughly degrades the national character, and undermines and injures all truth and principle, honour and integrity, justice and morality. It has a finger in every pie, a hand in every business, a grasp upon all property, the garotter's clutch on the owner of nearly every estate. Such an abuse has it become that it makes Magna Charta valueless, and freedom a mockery and a joke. As for the Law, upon which malpractice is founded, it is a huge—we had well-nigh said chaotic—mass of rotten and pernicious absurdity, from a newly-established County Court, where the amusing farce of petty oppression and chicanery might tickle the risibility of a vulgar and malignant Diable Boiteux, up to the heavy dead-lock of an appeal to the House of Lords, whose select senile conclave of three solemnly toss the legal halfpenny—in jest or earnest, which is it? Let the victims tell. If the money only lasts, and their lordships are equally divided—that is, out of four, we will say, two are asleep, and of the other two one has been judge in a previous stage of the same affair, then counsel may invite the withdrawal of the judgment of the junior law lord present.* Let us imagine such judgment to be on the plaintiff's side, it is he who thus elects to be in a minority, and he can then "allege error in the record," and "submit the whole matter for review to the Court of Exchequer," &c. &c. where there are four law lords, it is evident that each party may win two tosses—one cries "heads" twice, and the other "woman." There are two "heads," somewhat the worse for wear, and two "women," old women, perhaps. What is to be done? Begin again, my noble sportsmen! You must not shoot off ties, so recommence without drawing your stakes. It is not, however, the law which we are anxious to touch upon. We only say that the wilderness is suited to its jackals, the disease to the vermin whom it produces, and by whom it is produced.

[*Vide "the Slade case," which will doubtless form a distinguished precedent of high-class litigation. Since settled, as it might and should have been at first, by the parties concerned.]

Is there no remedy for all this? Assuredly. Let common-sense and self-preservation, let the Press and Parliament intervene. Let the advocate be restored to his position. Let the solicitor drop his name and business, and become the scrivener and law-writer, and the attorney for the ignorant and illiterate protected by heavy penalties as before. There should be no idle counsel, no nominal barristers seeking for patronage or place. At least, the examinations should be made such as to insure the highest talent at the Bar. There should be a Supreme Court as in America. Counsel should be permitted to see their clients. A distinguished Counsel might keep a staff of fifty clerks and law-writers, if he pleased. Only let not these men be licensed practitioners, vultures, kites, and harpies of the law. Suppose that a client comes to some great Counsel. He is told that he is too busy to see him, and betakes himself elsewhere. This would prevent that which so often happens, the acceptance of a brief by a great man, who cheats—yes, cheats his client by never reading his case, or uttering a word for him in Court. Let us suppose that he sees him and hears a verbal statement. "Well, my good man!" he says, "you have no case, or you have a case. I will undertake it, or I will not undertake it.

You had better not go to law, or you had better fight it out. You have a defence, or no defence." Or, he might say, "Go to one of my scriveners and reduce the facts of your case to writing. I will then give you an opinion." It would be quite fair to make a bargain, in the case of a poor man, or any man—why not? It must be remembered that the barrister would depend upon his character as well as ability for a great business. It may be said that this could not be done in the present voluminous state of the law, and with our ridiculous forms of sale, transfer, mortgage, together with the complication of precedents, and the ponderosity and obscurity of title-deeds. Of course not. We want a code, we want a perfect system of registry for all titles, mortgages, sales, transfers, &c. &c., and we want simplicity of form. Without this, attorneydom must continue to flourish, like the upas-tree, surrounded by the dead and dying virtues and moralities of the nation, and the bones and carcasses of the thousands of victims whom it has robbed and murdered. In these days, if a man steal your purse, he does not steal "trash;" he takes that without which a good name goes a very little way indeed; nay, without which it very often ceases to be a good name. For now, more than at any period in the world's history, money makes the man. We do not speak of those whom no amount of money will make happy, or educated, or content, or well. We do not mean those who have enough to live upon, and who can afford to despise riches. But we speak of those who are stripped of all; and when the lawyers once get a good hold of you, they seldom leave you, whilst anything remains to be engulfed in the legal maw.

There are honest attorneys of course. The aloe flowers, but not often. Your honest solicitor is as common as a black swan, when the Roman poet wrote. We include "Writers to the Signet" in Scotland, who may be supposed now and then to produce a swan, black or white, amongst them. We ourselves know a most praiseworthy firm. They have a sound and extensive practice, and can afford to be what they are, conscientious, and even occasionally Quixotic and generous. Their charges are high to those who can afford to pay, but the article they sell is good, and may be depended on. Doubtless, the conscious partners will blush when they read this eulogy. Nathless, could we pronounce the doom of the craft, not even for the sake of these would we save all, and say, "peradventure there be fifty righteous found." After all it is the system, not the men, against whom our observations are levelled, and as we have written in the interests of our fellow-citizens, we pray that this gentle satire may be so received and understood.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SPIDER IN HIS DEN.

" 'Justice?' " said that brisk little elderly counsel, Mr. Phunne, who is making a very good thing at the Bar. "I should have thought you knew better than to talk of that. Law is much more powerful than justice, don't you know? Ha, ha!" and he laughed a merry little pleasant laugh. " 'Nonsuit?' Of course the plaintiff was nonsuited. Why, Serjeant Gabbleton had only five guineas on his brief, and he wasn't paid even that. 'Then why did he take it?' Well, I can't exactly say. But he got finely complimented by the Court for the manner in which he behaved. I dare say it has paid him well enough. 'New trial?' Don't he wish he may get it? Where's the money to come from? 'Ill-used?' I should think the poor wretch was. Bless you, you should have heard what his own junior counsel said to me in Court. He thought he was going to conduct the case. But Gabbleton came in at the last moment. 'Never read his brief?' I dare say not. Why should he? That was the last thing he wanted to do. 'Burning shame?' I don't say it wasn't. But Gabbleton knows what he is about. He is as clever and rising a man as there is going. 'You'd like to expose him?' Pooh, pooh! So would a good many, I dare say. Are you the Quixote of universal humanity? Ha! ha! ha!"—Everyday Conversation anywhere.

MR. AUBREY was not quite so long in reaching Spider-court as we have been in recording a very brief portion of his journey thither. The buildings were of redbrick, and of modern date. We forget the history of their erection; but it is rather pleasing to imagine that there was a fire there at some period, which caused a portion of the Fields to be rebuilt.

Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens had their names painted in large white letters over a black door. This was, doubtless, a necessity; but rather a contradiction, since their names were, or ought to have been, blacker than any door, whether it led to Chancery or the infernal regions. One naturally thought of the business of the place, to turn black into white, and the reverse, by all the arts of falsehood.

Mr. Aubrey gave a smart double rap, and was duly admitted by an unwholesome clerk.

"Is Mr. Cousens in?" inquired Aubrey.

"I'll see, sir, if you'll step in."

As if he didn't know; but this is part of legal etiquette and caution. So he wrote a name on a slip and took it in.

"Ah! Aubrey," quoth the cheerful voice of Phil Cousens, stepping briskly out of his room, attired in a dark cut-away coat and black-ribbed trousers, with shiny boots as usual; "step in, step in!" And he rubbed his hands. "Punctual, eh? Grinderby will be disengaged in a moment—got a painful case—woman in tears, children, and all that. Deuced nuisance—can't get rid of her. Well, how are things in Queen's-square? Mrs. Aubrey well, I hope? Sold the bay nag yet? Here" (to clerk, whom he had rung for during these questions, to which Aubrey appropriately responded), "tell Mr. Grinderby that Mr. Aubrey—no, say the gentleman—is here by appointment, will you?"

"Have you arrested the scoundrel yet?" asked Arthur, as soon as the clerk had disappeared on his errand.

"Well, no; but he is all safe, ill in bed."

"It's a mere pretence. He'll give you the slip yet!" cried Arthur, who, like many very amiable men, was furious and impatient when his anger was aroused. "I really do wish that you would be a little more energetic, Cousens. Most clients wouldn't stand such inattention to their wishes. I really wonder Mr. Grinderby should be so slow about a thing like this."

"My dear fellow," replied Phil, "don't be so impatient. I assure you no time has been lost. You know what a safe card Grinderby is, especially in such a matter as this. I dare say all is ready, and the arrest can take place this very afternoon, if you like. Stop! Perhaps you are in a hurry; I'll call him in."

So saying, Mr. Cousens opened a door as if to go in search of his senior partner; but, on second thought, he went out another way, leaving the door which he had opened slightly ajar, no doubt accidentally; if lawyers ever do anything accidentally in business hours, except make mistakes in their charges, but never in their clients' favour. It should be stated that Mr. Cousens could communicate with Grinderby either through the clerks' office, by which way Aubrey had entered, or through a small room which led to the den of the head of the firm.

That gentleman duly made his appearance with Cousens, in the course of a very few minutes.

"Well, Mr. Aubrey," he said, after the usual salutations, "and what are we going to do with this fellow Pettingall?"

"Nay," replied Arthur, "I came to ask you what you had done. I am anxious that the matter should be delayed no longer."

"You know what I think, Mr. Aubrey," rejoined the lawyer; "but of course you will act as you please. It is not our duty, or, I may add, our desire to influence a client in such an affair. Prosecutions are expensive, and our motives might be misunderstood. People are always ready to impute blame to the profession, whatever happens. We are your mere agents, sir—your mere agents to carry out your views, always provided that it is fitting and legal to do so."

"Then," said Aubrey, good-humouredly, "I wish you would carry them out, and as speedily as possible."

"I will, however, go as far as this, as I think strongly, perhaps too strongly in a professional point of view, in this matter—I will say, Mr. Aubrey, that I greatly deprecate any consideration which you may think fit to extend towards this man Pettingall. I am aware that you cannot replace the loss—for I fear he is worth little or nothing—but the base ingratitude of the man has shocked my feelings, blunted as they ought to be, and, to a certain extent, are, by the experiences of a profession which too often brings us in contact with the worst, the vilest of mankind——"

"Really, Mr. Grinderby," said Aubrey, interrupting his dyspeptic Mentor's harangue, "I don't think you need say one word to prompt me to a sense of duty. My mind is made up, and I never felt more inclined to be firm."

"I rejoice to hear it, sir," observed Grinderby; "but I hope you will not be offended, if I tell you that I cannot place quite so much confidence in your firmness as I could wish. Your heart is too good, sir, much too good for this world. Excuse me, I am a lawyer, and an old one; and I have seen so much of these things. I have studied the amiability, the goodness—the—the, if I might say—the sentimental generosity of your character, and I said to Cousens this morning—did I not, Cousens?—our client, Mr. Aubrey, will not prosecute this man. And I have my fears—I say my fears, and my doubts still."

"I told him I knew you better," said Phil to Aubrey. "Soft-hearted, I said, he may be, and has been, God knows, enough. Look at his noble conduct towards that rascally Swindles Manvers, but he will never be such a fool as this would come to. I said 'fool,' didn't I, Grinderby?"

"Yes, you did, sure enough, Mr. Cousens," replied the other, "and I reproved you for using such an expression. Every gentleman has a right to do as he likes in such a matter; and if Mr. Aubrey likes to be robbed and plundered with impunity, he can. We have no right to dictate to him. Nor did you speak so confidently until this morning. Come! come! Mr. Cousens, tell the truth. Didn't you say, only yesterday, that you felt positive Mr. Aubrey would never prosecute this man? Ask him!" he added, addressing Aubrey, and pointing to Cousens, who sat nursing his knee and looking at the lustre of his inevitable patent-leather boots. "Didn't you tell me only yesterday, sir," continued Grinderby, addressing his partner, "that you were afraid—yes, afraid, sir—that our client, Mr. Aubrey, this gentleman present, would not act with firmness on this occasion?"

"I certainly did say I did not think he would prosecute," was the answer; "but I think better of it now."

After delivering himself of this opinion, the accomplished Phil commenced picking his teeth, although before lunch-time, and consequently in mere anticipation of a tough chop at the Crow in Fleet-street. But the fact was Phil had just started a gold toothpick; a present, as he said, from a lady client. If that assertion was true, it was really a pledge of affection, as Phil assuredly bought it at a pawnbroker's in a neighbouring lane. Perhaps the lady was his cousin.

"I don't know, gentlemen," said Arthur, rather haughtily, "why you should be pleased to think me so weak. I came here to prosecute, and prosecute I will; even though you make it distasteful by urging me in such a manner, and paying so bad a compliment to my good sense."

"No offence, Mr. Aubrey—no offence, sir," said the elder partner. "Goodness of heart, although mistaken and in the extreme, even to condonation of the blackest crime, is all that Mr. Cousens has ventured to impute to you; and surely this need not anger you, sir, as I hope it does not. But it is my duty—yes, my duty—to advise you against a step foolish in itself, and which, if frequently indulged in, would uproot the foundations of Law and Society, and make us a community of robbers—yes, of robbers and thieves."

"Upon my word," replied Aubrey, "this is utterly uncalled for. I have come here, I tell you, for the purpose of prosecuting this scoundrel, as he deserves."

"I'm very glad to hear it, sir," said Grinderby, rubbing his hands. "I trust, I beg, I entreat you not to relinquish your purpose."

Here he rang a bell, and a clerk duly appeared.

"Is that person gone?" he asked, almost fiercely.

"No, sir; she said she would wait till you are disengaged."

"Order her to leave the office instantly," thundered Grinderby. "Mr. Cousens, sir, will you see to this?"

That gentleman, with apparent reluctance, shrugged his shoulders, and left the room viâ the clerks' office. In about two minutes he returned, when sobs and exclamations in a female voice were plainly heard from the adjoining apartment, the door leading to which had, as we have stated, been accidentally left ajar.

"It's no use," said Phil. "Go yourself, Grinderby. I can't stand that sort of thing. I never could. Poor soul! poor soul!"

Grinderby rose, took a pinch of snuff emphatically, and said, addressing Arthur:

"Excuse me for a few moments. I have no such tender scruples; but my junior partner here is too much devoted to the ladies to be proof against a few female tears. I shall send for the police, if necessary,

Mr. Cousens. They, at any rate, are not likely to display a sickly sentimentality."

Saying this, Mr. Grinderby left the room.

"The police!" observed Cousens, as the door shut on the head of the firm—"the police, indeed! They are not likely to display any scruples in such a case, mournful as it is. A policeman would lock up his own sober old mother on a night charge, and enter her as 'drunk and incapable' on the charge-sheet for five shillings, or swear that his own sister—libel or no libel—was a street-walker, in order to gratify his inspector, and prove himself a smart officer. Isn't that your opinion, Aubrey?"

The misdoings of the police were a great hobby of Arthur Aubrey's; and he would have expatiated on them for half an hour, only that his curiosity was piqued, and, let us add, his manhood aroused, by the idea that a woman was in tears and distress, and at the mercy of old Grinderby, whom at that moment he particularly disliked.

"May I ask," he said, "is it any secret who the person is whom I hear sobbing so frightfully?"

"Well," responded Cousens, "I don't know what Grinderby will say, but——"

"Oh!" interrupted Arthur, "I don't wish you to reveal the secrets of the prison-house. I have no right to inquire about a thing that don't concern me."

"Well, you see," said Cousens, "it does concern you. I differ from Grinderby, so far, that I can't see why you should not know all about it. I don't think we have any right to hide it from you, and why should we? Grinderby was making signs at me all the time not to tell you——"

"Concerns me!" exclaimed Arthur, "and not tell me? A woman's voice in grief? What does this mean, Cousens?"

"Well, the fact is," said the other, "just before you came, we had a visit from Pettingall's wife, poor devil! and her four children are with her. Grinderby ordered her out; but the woman was faint, and so I showed her into the clerks' second room, and let her sit down. Unfortunately you came in, just as the door was about to be opened for her exit. She heard your voice, and insists upon seeing you."

"Well, and why not, pray?" inquired the client, rather angrily.

"Why, you see," said Cousens, bringing the gold toothpick into active show, "Grinderby is of opinion that you will relent; that you can't stand the water-works, and the babies, and all that sort of thing. Grinderby is a stickler for justice; and in this case I must say I am with him; and he thinks you had better not see Mrs. Pettingall and her 'kids,' and I am decidedly of his opinion. That's about it," quoth Phil, who could not quite separate the phraseology of his unofficial life from the language of conventional attorneydom. In fact, when Grinderby was not present, Phil's style of conversation resembled that of the professional gentlemen employed at the once notorious Judge and Jury Club, presided over by the late Chief Baron Nicholson.

At this moment, hysterical screams were heard, mingled with the cries of children. Mr. Cousens rose suddenly, saying:

"Confound it, how came the door open?"

And he shut the side-door just as Mr. Grinderby made his reappearance by the other.

"Most irregular and improper," said that gentleman. "Pray excuse me" (to Arthur), "there is a woman in hysterics. I told Jenkins to empty the contents of the water-jug over her, and I have sent for a policeman. Now, Mr. Aubrey, I am at your service. You wish an immediate arrest, I presume? I congratulate you on the determination, sir; quite right, very proper indeed."

And the grim and dyspeptic senior rubbed his hands.

"Stop," said Arthur; "I understand that there is a person who—that woman, in fact—wishes to see me. I do not know why I should be denied to her without being consulted, Mr. Grinderby."

"Have you mentioned to our client who the party is?" asked Grinderby, addressing his partner in a very emphatic manner.

"Well," replied Mr. Cousens, "I don't see how I could help it exactly. We can't treat a gentleman like Mr. Aubrey as if he were a child. He asked me who it was, and I told him."

"And he did quite right, Mr. Grinderby," said Arthur, indignantly. "I shall see Mrs. Pettingall. I am not one to shrink like a coward from an unpleasant interview on this or any other occasion. Why should I not see her?"

The West-end partner whistled, and Mr. Grinderby gathered up his papers.

"It is contrary to my advice, my strongest exhortations, Mr. Aubrey," said the latter; "but I have no more to say. My belief is that you will yield to the solicitations and hypocritical whining of this woman, if you see her; therefore, we had better defer taking instructions for a prosecution until that event has taken place. In the mean time, perhaps you will excuse me for a few minutes."

And so saying, Mr. Grinderby bowed and left the room for his own particular den.

Aubrey walked up and down.

"Why should I not see this poor creature, victim of her husband's crime?" he said. "I am not a Minister of State to be denied thus; I am not Grand Lama of Thibet or Emperor of China, whose presence-chamber cannot be approached save by approved embassies. Why should I refuse, in the name of common courtesy and humanity, to see her?"

"You had better not," quoth Phil.

"Pray why?"

"Because," replied Phil, "you are such a devilish soft-hearted fellow, that if you do see her, you will never prosecute her infernal husband, that's all."

"You seem to think me very weak; but when I tell you that my mind is made up, and that nothing can shake it on that head, perhaps you will cease these very unpleasant remarks. I tell you frankly that I think Mr. Grinderby went unnecessarily a great deal too far."

"With the best intentions," said the other.

"As a legal adviser, probably yes," rejoined Aubrey; "but, even professionally, beyond the mark."

"It can't matter to us," said Mr. Cousens, "in a professional point of view. Of course I always speak and act as a friend into the bargain. Now, just do be advised, and let me send this wretched creature away."

"No, sir," was the reply; "Arthur Aubrey is not one to shrink from a scene, however painful, when he thinks his duty as a man and a Christian is involved."

"Then," said Phil, "I'll just tell the lady that a man and a Christian will see her—that is, if she is not already gone, as I rather think she is." So saying, Mr. Cousens left the room. "No such luck!" he said, with a grimace, on returning; "she has just come to, poor thing! They have wetted her bonnet-strings rarely, and there is a constable sitting by the stove ready to eject her if necessary."

"Upon my soul," said Arthur, "I think it perfectly brutal to send for one at all. Here is a poor creature come to plead for her husband, and you treat her like a felon! Let me see her at once, if she has come to see me; though I cannot let her husband escape the penalty of his ungrateful fraud, I may soften the blow to her, and perhaps do something to save her from starvation and the streets. Come, let me see her at once."

Mr. Cousens shrugged his shoulders, pocketed his gold toothpick, and led the way.

We will not ask our readers to witness the very painful scene which took place, but will now peep into Grinderby's den. He sat writing for about a quarter of an hour, as if quite indifferent to Aubrey and all his belongings, at the expiration of which period Mr. Cousens walked in.

"Well?" said the senior.

The gentleman addressed laughed heartily, and sat down.

"Is it all right?" inquired Grinderby.

"As houses," was the response. Had it been any one else, he would have said "as a trivet," or "as nails;" but "houses" had a legal and substantial sound.

"He won't prosecute," quoth Grinderby.

"Not a bit of it," said Cousens; "neatly managed, I must say; very neat, indeed, sir."

"A prosecution in this case, Mr. Cousens, would not suit the firm."

"I don't think it would, precisely," replied the junior partner of that firm.

"This woman is worth a Jew's eye," said Grinderby. "She's none of your instructed and doctored sort. I thought she would have pulled my coat off this morning, as if I were an angel of mercy. Ha! ha!"

There was something so ludicrous in the notion of old Grinderby as an angel of mercy, that Phil's eyes were almost blood-shot when he recovered from a fit of laughter.

"It was exceedingly well contrived," continued Grinderby. "The thing was to get them accidentally thrown together, and to offer all the opposition we could. I hope, Mr. Cousens, that your client is not offended by what I said. But do you feel certain of the effect? Arc we not building too surely on his weakness?"

"A dinner at the Radnor!" cried Phil, "against the balance of the widow Tomkins's estate, after our costs are deducted. Here it is, seven pounds, seven shillings, and fourpence halfpenny, out of two hundred and ninety-two pounds, eleven shillings, and threepence."

"The balance, after all payments of debts, funeral expenses, and other liabilities whatsoever!" responded Grinderby.

"You are right, sir," rejoined Mr. Cousens, "as you generally are. Such is the amount which the firm will hand over to the widow at the latest possible date. Egad! I shouldn't wonder if she were sued for the cost of her mourning yet, before she receives it."

"I trust," said Grinderby, with dignity, "that you do not mean to impute undue delay or severity to the firm?"

"To the firm, yes," replied Phil, grinning; "but not to either of us. What a fine thing is this amalgamation of interests! As a member of the firm I protect your interests, when, otherwise, I should neglect my own. As a member of the firm, you do the same by me."

It is thus that a money-lender always knows a "party," who may be prevailed on to advance a sum at usurious interest. The "party" is the remorseless being who sues when the accommodation bill is "duly"

dishonoured. We have known "my friend," who does the needful, actually abused by one of the fraternity, for asking more than sixty per cent., and for issuing a double writ with more than usual promptitude. " 'Pon honour, it's too bad," says such a one. "I tell my friend he's too greedy; but what's to be done?" And he afterwards laments the remorselessness of his "friend" in selling up the borrower's furniture without an hour's delay, after his promissory note has become due, under a bill of sale. Nay, he will go through the form of promising to remonstrate with him—"upon his soul he will"—and does it without the slightest success!

Grinderby and Cousens understood each other, both collectively and individually, just as well as a money-lender estimates the avarice and vindictiveness of "his friend." About twenty minutes more elapsed before a clerk knocked at the door and informed Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens, that Mr. Aubrey had left the office, without expressing a wish to see either of them, after sending for a cab and placing Mrs. Pettingall and her children in it. The firm exchanged looks, and when the clerk had retired, it burst into a fit of laughter, which lasted some little time, the only difference between the respective cachinnation of its members being, that the senior partner indulged in a silent, and the junior in a loud style of laughter.

"I think you would have lost your bet, Mr. Grinderby," at length observed the sprightly Phil.

The only reply was conveyed by the medium of an exhaustive pinch of snuff.

"It's all serene," at length quoth Phil, with vast delight.

"I wish, Mr. Cousens," said Grinderby, "that you would not indulge in slang, at least during business hours. With your style of dress I have long ceased to interfere." And he regarded, with a slight elevation of his iron-grey brows, his partner's elegant boots, which that gentleman happened at the time to be gazing at with the most triumphant complacency. "But," added Grinderby, "I wish you could make it convenient to attend divine service at least once on the Sabbath. As a member of the firm, sir, you would find it greatly to your advantage; much more than by frequenting, as I have been pained to hear you still do, that disreputable resort of thieves and prostitutes, the Escurial, which is doing more to demoralise the middle and lower classes of this country than a dozen Haymarkets."

"I really think," answered Phil, "that the firm has nothing to do with my private life and pursuits; and as for church, I should like to know who is the spy upon my conduct on Sundays."

"The firm, sir," replied Grinderby, "requires that you should at least preserve the common decencies of life; and let me tell you, that attendance at church has its commercial as well as its heavenly aspects. Oh, Mr. Cousens, think of your immortal soul! Spare a little time to put in an appearance in the Court of Common—I mean, of Divine Justice. That inestimable woman, Mrs. Grinderby, has long lamented your heathenism to me. 'Depend upon it, Mr. G.,' were her words this very morning, 'the young man can never prosper who neglects his pew as Mr.

Cousens does.' Why, sir," continued Grinderby, with animation, "I don't believe you have looked into the inside of your hat these twelve months, save to identify it in a worldly point of view at some carnal rout or party. 'Tis awful to neglect your Maker thus."

So saying, Mr. Grinderby looked up at a spider's web on the ceiling above him, with an air that would have been creditable to Exeter Hall at a May meeting. Phil muttered something in reference to the maker's name in his hat, which it is prudent to suppress in these pages.

"It's all very well," he said, rather impatiently, "for you to find fault with my occasional amusements, but where would be our West-end connexion without them? Look at the little accommodation business for Lord Ernest Albany in the Burlington. Why the firm will make, let me see, nine hundred and fifty pounds by that affair alone."

"Yes," said Grinderby, "but it was very near losing the whole of the capital advanced."

"We stood to lose a hundred and twenty-five pounds," replied Phil, "and we clear nine hundred and fifty. It is not quite a thousand per cent., but it might have been if you would have advanced more; and all this is owing to my visits to the Cave and the Escurial, which you are pleased to speak of so disparagingly. Every man to his taste, and if I like a little harmless indulgence better than"—"canting" he was about to say, but checked himself and said: "better than religious restriction, I don't think the firm has much to complain of, that's all."

Had Mr. Grinderby been in other company, he would probably, so fond was he of the phrase, have indulged in a blasphemous allusion, after the fashion of a celebrated preacher, to a "firm" above, of whom Phil took no cognisance whatsoever. There is awful blasphemy to be heard in our streets, on our railways, on our steam-boats, and in our rural districts. A man bred in London may boast with a kind of pride that he has heard the worst of everything. He is mistaken, if his sense of hearing has not experienced the cacology of a provincial village—some "Sweet Auburn" of the period. But all the imprecations of the ignorant and debased are as nothing, if not flavoured with the hypocritical leaven. The coarsest swearing is meaningless, compared with the tropes and figures of the falsely devout.

Mr. Grinderby did not think fit to pursue the subject of religion any further that day. Whenever very successful, he became proportionately pious on the occasion; when he lost, his piety suffered. So great a hypocrite was Grinderby, that a sufficient amount of prosperity might have prevented his vicious nature from ever cropping up to the surface. We think it might have ended in his deceiving even himself.

"So you think, then, it is all right," he resumed to his partner, after a pause, "and that this foolish profligate client of ours will not prosecute Pettingall?"

"I don't think anything about it," was the reply of that jeune élégant. "What do you imagine he has gone away for, without seeing either of us?"

"It would have been very awkward and detrimental to that firm, had he determined to proceed to extremities; there is such a prejudice against our profession. We should have been made answerable for all our client's follies and weaknesses. Then, too, the affair of Swindles Manvers might have been told in a manner very injurious to the firm."

"It might," said Phil, whistling half a bar of one of his favourite airs. "And I don't see how we could have got out of it either."

"There was the sale of Bingley's Wharf, and the disposal of the business by that rascal Pettingall," rejoined Grinderby, reflectively; "and we did not make so much out of either, as we ought to have done. That was your doing, Mr. Cousens."

"I admit," said Phil, "that we were slightly done there. But, excuse me, that was owing to your scruples—timidity, I should say."

"I tell you what, Mr. Cousens, it does not do to be enterprising without prudence in this world. You would soon have got the firm into a mess. What I say is, that you did not sufficiently protect our client's interests at first, so as to secure a fitting compensation for the manner in which the firm showed itself disposed to listen to sense and reason. And I must say, for my part, that my feelings were most conscientiously enlisted on the behalf of the purchasers. When I tell you, sir, that Mr. Thompson, the manager of the new concern, and the executive purchaser of the property, is one of the most regular of our congregation, and a worthy member of the Peckham Branch of the Pious Pilgrims of the New Redemption, I think you must admit that I could conscientiously make some sacrifice on his behalf of the worldly interests of so prodigal and ungodly a reprobate as this Arthur Aubrey."

"But he ought to have paid more for it as a Christian," suggested Cousens.

"Perhaps so. Yes, I think that full justice was not done to the firm," said Grinderby. "When the unrighteous are given into our hands for a spoil, there should be no sparing. It would steady your hand greatly, Mr. Cousens, were you to become a member of our church, and cement the interests of the firm in a remarkable degree. But," he added, in a lower tone, "it is given to our hands to work with strange instruments, and we must not question the ways of Heaven. Is the ca. sa. out in Duplex v. Singleton?"

"It is, this morning," was the reply.

"We must see Pettingall after this, and get him to sign a paper, which will place him at the mercy of the firm, without apprising our client."

"He is to be manager of the new Company," observed Cousens; "and I shall manage so that he pays back a small sum to our client, with which we will credit him in costs, which will prevent Aubrey from ever taking advantage of his discovery. It will be a compromise of felony. Ha! ha! I shall say that he is repentant, and has sold up everything to enable him to offer this small amount towards replacing the sums he has abstracted. When did you last hear of Swindles Manvers?" asked Cousens, carelessly.

The brow of Grinderby grew black, and for a moment abstracted.

"He sailed for the United States last week. Why do you ask?"

"Oh!" said Cousens, "I heard that he had changed his name, and been engaged in some very desperate undertakings. I was told that he had even been supposed to be implicated in that dreadful murder of a jeweller in York, and that the officers are after him."

"Nonsense!" said Grinderby. "Not a word of truth in it. Manvers is not such a fool as that comes to. He has done quite enough to make citizenship in a new and enterprising country more advantageous for him, than stopping here to annoy us. I am very glad he is gone; and I trust, at any rate, he has done enough to make his return here a most remote contingency."

"So do I," said Cousens. "I never could make out precisely what you had to do with him; seeing that the firm was out of all the transactions between him and our client."

"Why, you see," said Grinderby, "the fellow introduced himself to me, and gave me considerably more insight into our client's affairs than I could have easily obtained elsewhere. But he is not likely to trouble us any more." After a pause he continued: "I wish you would go to church sometimes, if only occasionally, Mr. Cousens. You might then go to the Escurial or anywhere else, twice as often, without half so much danger to your reputation."

What answer Mr. Cousens might have made to this recurrent allusion to one of his favourite haunts will never be recorded; since a clerk knocked at the door and presented a slip of paper, on which was written the name of the firm's devoted client and victim, Mr. Arthur Aubrey.

"Say that we are particularly engaged with a City client, Mr. Snap," said Grinderby, "and will see him in ten minutes."

Mr. Snap evinced no surprise at these instructions, and did as he was told. For about a quarter of an hour the pair were occupied, one in reading a newspaper, and the other in writing letters. Mr. Grinderby then rose and slammed the side-door with some vehemence, after which he touched a hand-bell, which act was duly followed by the appearance of Mr. Snap.

"Show Mr. Aubrey in," said Grinderby.

"I have come to tell you," said that gentleman, somewhat abruptly, "that I have changed my mind. It is not my intention to prosecute Mr. Pettingall. I know all you would say" (to Grinderby, who smiled harshly and contemptuously, like a gleam of November sunshine in the chambers where he practised), "but you must allow me to be the best judge of my own affairs" (a bow and a shrug from Grinderby), "Of course," he added rapidly and pleasantly, "you are acting quite rightly as my legal advisers in urging me to prosecute. I should do the same if I were in your place; but it does not suit me. I don't like the trouble; and I hate to be bored by a confounded lot of snivelling." Mr. Aubrey finished his sentence, with an affectation of impatience and anger which he did not feel. The truth is, he had been deeply moved by the entreaties of Mrs. Pettingall, upon whom the discovery of her husband's dishonesty had burst with overwhelming effect. "What a pity," resumed Aubrey, "that these scoundrels will marry and have children like other men. She gave him an excellent character as a father and husband."

Grinderby knew that Pettingall beat his wife, and, what is still worse in a woman's eyes, neglected her; but he said nothing, and did not even smile. How strange a thing it is that scamps and heartless profligates are generally so much more faithfully served, and even passionately loved, by the women whom they have once deceived, than good men. There are women who esteem sterling qualities; but their love is generally subservient to their reason. There is no romance in their affections. Poor Mrs. Pettingall! although her brutal husband escaped punishment, and became a wealthy and prosperous man, she never recovered the shock and dread which his criminal conduct, and its detection by Aubrey, occasioned her. She became, as we shall have occasion to narrate hereafter, a confirmed lunatic.

Pettingall was always very pathetic in alluding to his "affliction," as he called it, to his friends and acquaintances in after life; and talked of the heavy expenses which it entailed upon him, just as if the poor lady had been confined in a private lunatic asylum regardless of cost. As his weight increased and his cheeks became fatter, the expression of his grief became gradually more difficult to convey, until it became so completely conventional, that those who knew him treated his sad communications as they would do a mere British barometrical remark of commonplace salutation. He would roll a duly lubricated cigar between his commercial thumb and finger and speak of "my sad burden, you know," with an indifference that bordered on satisfaction. As he set up a snuff-box about the same time that his domestic calamity befel him, the habit of recurring to the two—i.e., grief and box—became inseparable. In this there was some aptitude, as the shop-sweepings in his favourite mixture imparted a moisture to his eyes, which was extremely proper and edifying under the circumstances.

"May I ask," said Mr. Grinderby after a pause, during which Phil had attempted at least three airs out of the "Sonnambula," and three times recalled himself to a sense of propriety and partnership in the firm—"may I ask if there is any proposal on the part of this repentant family to restore any portion of the proceeds of their embezzlement? You are aware, I suppose, that Pettingall has a collection of pictures and some expensive furniture for a man in his position?"

"Really," said Aubrey, "I did not think of that; but if I could recover something I should have no objection. My expenses have lately been somewhat heavy, I can assure you, and I fancy I have lost some thousands by this man."

"You had better not appear in the matter yourself," observed Phil. "If you like to place it in our hands, and authorise us to act for you, we will see what amount can be recovered. It is a matter which will require great firmness and caution. I should think Pettingall would cut up for at least five hundred pounds, with the aid of a little adroit menace and the broker. I would not leave the scoundrel a bed to lie on, nor a table on which to write."

"Nay," said Arthur, "you must leave the poor woman and her children their bits of things."

"Ha, ha!" quoth Phil, arranging his collar as if before an invisible glass; "I wonder how many babies' cribs it would take, under the appraiser, to pay for a pound of Beckington's best brand of regalias?"

"Good Heavens, what a notion!" said his client. "No, no, I will not have any such barbarity."

"Perhaps," observed Mr. Grinderby, with provoking calmness, "Mr. Aubrey considers a gallery full of paintings essential to the domestic comfort of the helpmate of a dishonest clerk——"

"By no means," interrupted Aubrey. "I wish only to be guided by the commonest dictates of humanity."

"If," returned the elder lawyer, "Mr. Aubrey will be kind enough to favour us with his instructions, I will see them carefully carried out. Suppose that we leave the houseful of furniture to the wife, and sufficient money for the purposes of emigration—say, one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds. Of course," he said, "Mr. Pettingall is not likely to get another berth in this country, without a recommendation for honesty; and that at least you cannot give him?"

"Not exactly," replied Aubrey. "I think," he added, "your present view of the case is alike sensible and humane; and I give you full credit for your suggestion, and liberty to act in my name."

The lawyer hastily wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, and handed it to Mr. Aubrey, who at once affixed his signature and handed it back. It simply empowered Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens to settle all business relations between their client and Mr. Pettingall; and to discharge the latter from his employment, on such conditions as should seem desirable and expedient. This done, the trio separated. Aubrey went home to dinner, and to impart to his gentle wife the merciful course he had adopted, certain of an ample reward from her beautiful eyes and lips; and Phil Cousens betook himself to his hair-dresser, and thence to a little banquet for four in the Haymarket; after which he contemplated visiting a music-hall in order to witness a daring performance on the trapèze, for which the coarse and brutal proprietors deserved an indictment at the sessions, instead of a "champagne notice" in the newspapers, and the renewal of their license to deprave and poison the British public, while smaller ruffians only—reversing the physical order of things—stuck in the obstructive meshes of the magisterial net.

CHAPTER XIV.

WEASEL AND STOAT.

You think I was too trenchant. You know not
The sort of stuff I dealt with. You may beat,
Pound it with blows, yet still it is the same;
And where you dint it, doth alone bulge out
In other part, and show its metal still.
He will but kick his dog, or strike a girl,
Some wretched creature to his humours chained,
To be revenged on us.

THAT evening saw Grinderby and Pettingall wonderfully confidential together over a bottle of the identical port wine which Manvers had recognised as a sample of the 1820, bottled by the late Mr. Aubrey, who little thought, poor man! what throats it would moisten, or it may be imagined he would have hesitated before laying it down. The old man was hard, but honest. He was one of the last of the type of the old English merchant, whose word was as good as his bond. Such is often still the case; but then it happens often that both are valueless. A brisk trade too frequently means now a successful fraud. The only period of honesty now is whilst a name is being built up; upon which to cheat well and widely. The greater the name now, the more apprehensive we have reason to be of the extent of the impending crash.

One shoulders unconvicted felons at every turn of the commercial mart, and England (not France) has become one great gambling-table, where Credit presides as croupier, and the boldest and cleverest black-legs win the largest prizes and the most frequent stakes.

Mr. Grinderby was an acute and subtle angler; but he was not displaying his piscatorial powers on the occasion of his interview with Mr. Pettingall. He was merely applying the screw; or, to adopt a more convivial figure in honour of that tête-à-tête symposium, the lemon-squeezing process, and very sour and elongated did Pettingall's visage become during the operation. If our readers could imagine a successful thief falling into the clutches of a more powerful old bandit, and arguing over the appropriation of the plunder, he will have some idea of the transaction. His first fright being over, soon after the return of his wife, the delinquent clerk had rushed into an extreme of self-gratulation. When Grinderby called, he was positively in an exultant state. If Aubrey had foregone the prosecution, what else could he do? Pettingall had no less a sum than three thousand pounds very advantageously invested. He was confident that his managership and secretaryship of the "New United Shippers and Barge-owners' Association Company, Limited," built on the secret and dishonest transfer of his late employer's business, would be secured to him; for if not, he was in a position not only to upset the sale of Bingley's Wharf, but to reveal the whole conspiracy by which the business was secured to the Company. His detection by Aubrey fell on him like a thunderbolt. For eight-and-forty hours he had been on the point of realising his securities, and proceeding to Sweden or the United States. But he had counted with desperate assurance in no little degree on the weakness and good nature of Arthur Aubrey, and the connivance of his legal advisers: and the result showed he was not mistaken. But now here was old Grinderby, armed with plenipotential powers, which the latter took care to inform him extended from compromise to prosecution; and the old lawyer, with the most friendly manner of which he was capable, while shutting one eye to look through a glassful of the ruby juice of the grape, and fixing the other with its cold spectacled glare upon the guilty wretch with a patent corkscrew power of extraction, stated that he would have no less a sum of money than twelve hundred and fifty pounds from him as the price of escape from transportation. Nor would Grinderby bate one penny of his demand.

"I am sorry," he said, dryly, "if you have not got the money; but with good conduct and your abilities you will soon get a ticket-of-leave, and smart accountants are highly prized in a country of such wonderful commercial expansion as Australia. How ever will you manage without smoking, after committal? They don't allow it in Newgate, you know. You must have robbed your employer very clumsily, not to have acquired more than double the sum I have mentioned. And I fear the new Company has been sadly ungrateful. By-the-bye, what is the salary to be affixed to your new position? I trust it is sufficient to secure your future integrity."

In vain did Pettingall writhe and quiver under the merciless chaff of his grim interrogator. In vain did he declare that he had not the amount named, or half of it, in the world; and that he could not raise it, if he sold off everything, including the pictures.

"The more fool you," was the only response. "How could you sacrifice your integrity" (dwelling on the word) "for so small a consideration?"

Pettingall ventured to mutter something about "unfortunate speculations."

"What! with your employer's money—how doubly rash," was the only answer. "Look you, if this were true," he resumed, "and not an infernal lie, as I know it to be, I would spend money to add five years to your term of penal servitude. I would not be disappointed by your folly, any more than I will be bilked by your rascality. Look here, business is over, and I have no objection to another bottle; but by——" (here the old hypocrite swore a dreadful oath), "if you don't shell out before I have done with you to-night, and I don't mean to lose the last omnibus to Peckham, I'll give you fifteen years, as sure as my name is Grinderby."

Pettingall groaned, as he felt himself nailed to this species of mock auction, at which he so unwillingly sought to bid for freedom from the consequences of his crime and ingratitude. But he did bid, and with every glass of wine swallowed respectively by the unequal pair over their unholy negotiation, the market rose gradually but surely. The wine, which made Grinderby the fiercer and firmer, and more sarcastic, only flustered the weaker instrument in the plunder of their respective client and employer. By the time Pettingall had risen to eleven hundred pounds, and was fairly blubbering over his pretended incapacity to give more, the second bottle was finished; and Grinderby pulled out his massive watch and held it towards the failing lamp. He then replaced it in his fob, under the capacious flaps of his long grey vest, and buttoned his coat and great-coat deliberately over it.

"Time's up," was all he vouchsafed to say. "We shall meet next in Newgate."

An eccentric fancy skipped into Pettingall's half-muddled brain, and took such firm hold there that he could not shake it off. As he stood irresolutely gazing with his red and fishy eyes at the movements of Grinderby, he thought how he should like to be a small street boy of the predatorial class, and butt with his head full at the portly stomach of the irritating old lawyer, and tug at the seals and ribbon of that monstrous turnip of a watch. The idea possessed him so strongly that he burst into a convulsive fit of laughter, mingled with sobbing, which Grinderby took to be hysterical; and, in consequence, very nearly relaxed his determination, and was on the point of taking the eleven hundred pounds, thinking that Pettingall had really stated nearly the truth of the case, when the latter, mistaking the lawyer's involuntary motion for the final signal of his departure, suddenly gasped out:

"I'll do it, Mr. Grinderby—I'll do it, though I have to sell these spoons."

If Grinderby smiled, it was internally; for he evinced not the slightest surprise or emotion as he quietly unrolled his comforter, and stepped out of his great-coat again.

"No time like the present, Mr. Pettingall," he said, in a brisk tone. "I congratulate you on your resolution. Of course," he continued, "I must have the money to-night. Got it, I dare say, up-stairs? Oh! I nearly forgot to say that our firm must do the business of the new Company. I dare say, however, that has already occurred to you."

"Indeed," muttered Pettingall, "it is impossible. Our Mr. Thompson has already got his son-in-law in. Besides, it would not be worth your while. There would not be a chance of anything but regular business."

"That is precisely what our firm wishes," said Grinderby. "You need not be in the least afraid. We want a City connexion; and, besides, we only put the screw on our poorer clients, and fools like this Aubrey. I tell you, it will pay us to do the Company's business well and cheaply—I may say on the square. Remember, I have set my mind on this business, and will have it; or you may keep your paltry twelve hundred and fifty pounds."

"I promise you to do my best," said Pettingall; "but if I can't do it, I can't."

"Well, well," replied Grinderby, "I shall only pledge you to act under my instructions, and I have no fear of the result; but as the other business must be ended here, and the money paid, and the papers signed and delivered, you must do me the favour to give me the best pledge you can."

And he accordingly dictated an oath to the unresisting clerk of a nature to make the hair of an unsophisticated person stand on end with affright.

He then produced a sort of release in blank, which he filled up with the respective names of his client and the guilty clerk, and inserted the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds as the consideration money, which caused the heart of the perplexed Pettingall to bound and palpitate with momentary astonishment and delight. He was soon, however, disenchanted.

"The thousand pounds," said Grinderby, "I will, if you please, appropriate for the firm."

We need scarcely say that this partook of the nature of a species of legal fiction, as the accomplished Phil Cousens touched only a moiety of two hundred and fifty pounds, which Grinderby assured him was all that his utmost diplomacy could extract out of Pettingall. The battle had to be fought over again about the production of the consideration money—we do not mean Mr. Aubrey's share. For that, his legal adviser was perfectly content with a promissory note payable on demand. Not so with the thousand pounds. The matter was, however, finally settled by the production of nearly six hundred pounds in notes and gold, which Pettingall kept, as Grinderby had shrewdly suspected, in case of a sudden emergency, and the deposit of securities and shares representing eight hundred pounds incerta in flourishing Companies of the period, it being understood that these were to be restored the next day, on payment of the remaining amount.

"Now," said Mr. Grinderby, after duly reinvesting himself in his outer garments, "I have only just one more word to say—it is one of caution for your sake. This document will remain with me, and it will not be my interest to destroy it. As long as it remains in existence you will be safe, at any rate, from any punishment which my client can demand or exact. It will never be for my interest that this affair should see even a partial glimpse of light. I will be frank and candid. It might injure the firm, were it to do so. But if you know enough to breathe suspicion or scandal upon us, we, on our part, have it in our power to ruin you, position, prospects, and character. Be advised by me. Be silent and keep square. You have sufficient temptation to act honestly in future; and the richer and more respectable you grow, the greater stake you will have in keeping things dark, and acquiring a character for trustworthiness. You have had a narrow squeak. Master Pettingall, and have been let off very cheaply, take my word for it."

With this, Mr. Grinderby put his hat and gloves on with the deliberation of a family doctor at a funeral, and went out into the bright, calm moonlight shining on St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, with the air of a philosopher conscious of performing a charitable act. And in some such light no doubt he regarded it. Does any one imagine that honesty and dishonesty are always read by the same lantern, be it that of Christian faith or heathen discovery?

That night Mr. Grinderby did not find his way to Peckham. The last 'bus had been gone nearly forty minutes. True, he might have taken a cab, and he did; but the driver must have misunderstood his directions, for he drove in exactly an opposite direction. When the firm was unusually busy, either in or out of term time, Mr. Grinderby often slept at the office. There was the old laundress to attest it, and a bed which the late Duke of Wellington might have approved for shape and hardness. But about three hours later some one very like the senior partner of the firm of Grinderby and Cousens might have been discovered, by the interposition of a new "Devil on Two Sticks," getting much the worst of it in a drunken scuffle with a lady of considerable personal attractions, but of haughty and resolute mien, flushed with bacchanalian indulgence, in an elegantly furnished cottage in the Grove of the Evangelist, N.W. The supper-cloth covered a portion of the floor instead of the table, and the remains of a lobster-salad ornamented the hearth-rug with an additional raised pattern. So earnest had the lady shown herself in her desire to possess a token of the old lawyer's affection, that a lock of his grey hair was twined round and among the diamond rings that sparkled on her taper fingers.

"You old wretch," she said, "I'll teach you to look at another woman, that I will."

Was this person jealous, then, of our respectable elder of the New Branch of Deliverance at Peckham? We must profess ourselves unwilling to doubt a lady's word. All we know is, that when she wanted anything which her protector was unwilling to give, she invariably imputed to him some act of gallantry, which she proceeded to avenge on the spot. As these encounters always ended with a maudlin reconciliation, the coveted present invariably followed as a matter of course.

That very night, at the same hour, did Mr. Pettingall, after his third glass of brandy-and-water, put the lighted end of his cigar into his fish-like mouth, just before staggering into his bedroom to seek the slumbers of which he stood in need. It was remarkable that whereas in his cups Grinderby's legs always failed him long before his head, Pettingall acquired an increased bodily vigour from drunkenness, but very soon lost his head. On this occasion, furious with rage, and boiling over with anger against his tormentor and plunderer, Grinderby, he ordered his pale and trembling wife out of bed, and—must we write it?—beat, ay, and kicked, her unmercifully. The poor creature crept away to a sofa, weeping as if her heart would break. That night a vessel broke on her overtaxed and tortured brain; but it was not until the second day after, so inattentive to her condition was Pettingall in his sullen and morose mood of baffled greed and impotent vindictiveness, that he discovered the condition into which his combined guilt and brutality had driven the unhappy lady whom he had sworn to protect and cherish. The first half-hour that some little domestic necessity caused him to direct his attention in a less resentful temper to his wife, he found her a moping maniac, from which state the doctors held out not the slightest chance that she would ever recover.

CHAPTER XV.

A TILT IN THE ESCURIAL.

Dame Fortune, witch-like, oft in cruel spite
Drops a chance brick on head of blameless wight;
Or hits a pensive student in the eye,
Whose wandering feet some brawling crowd draw nigh.
His "friends" for comfort in his worst despair,
Look wondrous sly, and ask—How came he there?

Inelegant Extracts, vol. vii.

Serves you right for being unlucky.

Ourselves.

WE must now return to the elegant and accomplished Mr. Philip Cousens, with his patent boots and easy off-hand style. He proceeded that evening, as we have above narrated, to his favourite haunt, the Escurial, a gorgeous music-hall, consecrated also to Terpsichore, where Young England, and too often, to its shame be it said, Old England, delighted to congregate and unbend; there the "delighted spirit" of Phil Cousens bathed itself in a congenial flood of youthful cynicism and slang; there he and his male companion in the little dinner for four, which we alluded to in our last chapter but one, mingled their empty heads with those of scores and hundreds of other "pleasure"-seekers, floating, cork-like, upon the ocean of snobbism around. It was an ocean whose deity might easily have been pictured to the imagination, rising in an apotheosis of tobacco-smoke, in the likeness of a bleary, leary old "gent," with the beard of a Silenus and the hoofs and horns of a goat. The transformed genius of Britain, too, what should she resemble? No longer the Minerva-like, the chastely and severely beautiful goddess, to whom fancy once lent a form; not the Britannia of heroic Old England, but a Britannia Theatre impersonation in pink "tights," or a lightly-attired coryphée of the Escurial itself, an example of the studied attractions of the place, with saucer-like muslin skirt, "four inches shorter, sir, than on any other boards in England, by ——," as the manager was wont to boast. Or shall we imagine a modern Britannia, in the person of the buxom lady in the striped dress with red high-heeled boots and little bells attached to them, who jumps about yelling her double-entendres, with her arms akimbo, to an enraptured audience; and then hops off the stage on one leg, the incarnation of brazen effrontery, a fish-fag in satin stays?

Look around you, curious and inquiring philosopher! Consider, respectable citizen of Great Britain! Is this scene a nightmare or a reality? We have abolished the cock-pit and the dog-pit, we no longer bait bears and bulls, the Ring is on its last legs, and the Turf has at least three rotten legs to one sound one, if it has one sound one left; while the legs of the noble steed threaten to become the last and least requisites for success. But what is this? What means this crapulous assemblage, this saturnalia of villainous aspect, this crush of Jew and ill-looking foreigner, of thief and "swell," of "gent" and "snob?" words of modern meaning and extraction; this seething vulgarity, these insolent looks, these depraved regards—whence comes that coarse and brutal laugh, that loud-voiced slang? Is this the reproduction of some lewd rites in vogue before the Flood, or is it suggestive, as it is provocative, of the fiery wrath to come?

Nonsense! away with such fancies, such absurdities. This is only the Escurial in its glory, a popular place of entertainment, highly patronised and greatly frequented in this refined and sentimental age.

We must narrate that Mr. Cousens and his friend had quitted their two friends of the dinner, before repairing to this place of chaste and elegant recreation; for providing which the spirited proprietors actually affect to consider themselves entitled to the gratitude of their fellow-countrymen. On that very afternoon a splendid service of plate had been presented to the chief caterer and manager by his admirers in recognition of what they were pleased to term his great energy, untiring enterprise, and generous devotion on the public behalf. This meant the engagement of one of the largest troupes of dancers ever collected in Paris, and causing them to wear a less amount of clothing than had ever been known before, during the performance of a series of voluptuous gymnastics called by courtesy dancing, which had led to the deaths of half a dozen or so through cold and consumption, and nightly threatened the lives of several more. It included a more thrilling and perilous series of feats upon certain ropes and bars affixed to the roof of the building than had ever been previously attempted, which was greatly enhanced in interest by the fact that a fall would in all probability have insured the sensational deaths of one or more of the spectators below. It included a covered refuge for a large body of French and English courtesans lately driven from their wonted open-air beat by the severity of a magisterial Lord Angelo, and by the cruelty of a police force, which enjoyed the reputation of being rather more brutal and demoralised than any section of the criminal population of the metropolis, whom they were supposed to keep in check. It included the opening of certain beer and wine cellars below, where persons of known immorality and the "nobility" generally—which would seem to comprise a great many ill-favoured foreigners, and a considerable portion of the lost tribes of Israel, which seemed to have turned up for the occasion—were at liberty to congregate; and to sit, stand, smoke, drink, or converse with such ladies of the ballet as chose between the acts of the dazzling scenes on the stage to come down and sit, stand, drink, smoke, and converse with them in this engaging Pandemonium of paint, sawdust, oil, stench, beer-barrels, and seedy, squalid waiters, below. This was the cynosure of raw swells and vicious clerks and shopmen, the charming retreat of the capitalist of panics, of the "limited liability" promoter, the fast stockbroker, the "lord" of protested cheques and dishonoured bills, the dishonest director, and the financial M.P. Nor let us leave out of the enterprise the engagement of a lady contortionist with her husband, said to be Moldo-Wallachian, and who may have been, if there is a quarter so called in Whitechapel; and of a staff of comic singers, whom the bills and posters of their astonishing qualifications could alone adequately describe. There was a stoutish lady with ample skirts, clocked silk stockings, and high-heeled shoes, who danced and sang, and did what is technically called a "break-down" with such a genial overflow of vulgarity, that the reciprocal raptures of delighted gentism were fully awakened. The yells and howls of applause nightly elicited by this lady from the seated portion of the audience, who drank in every word and gesture, and who belonged to the respectable class of the Escurials—in so far that every female was not of necessity a woman of the town, and every youth or man not absolutely and unmistakably in search of Cythera communis—the yells and howls of delight, we say, at the songs and capers of this lady, were something at once deafening to the ear and gratifying to art. Then there was the "great" Smith, the "greater" Jones, and the "greatest" comic singer in the world, the "stunning" Robinson, whom the youth of England were there taught to venerate, to imitate, and to admire. Such were some of the claims which the illustrious manager, the patriotic and the philanthropic Slimy Cash, Esq., put forth to receive the silver tea-service in particular, and the gratitude of the British nation in general. This great man was that evening at the perihelion of his well-earned glory and substantial success. Had not a select party from the House of Commons visited the Escurial, and even inspected the sacra penetralia below? True, these were swept and garnished for the occasion, a select party of the ballet only was formally introduced, and cautioned to behave with a bewitching modesty of demeanour which

Might well have fired old Saturn;

an unexceptional collation was prepared, and the wines and liqueurs were of the best. Above all, the whole rout of common roysterers were excluded, and not one of the Hebrew fraternity to be seen—not even Isaac of York himself could have gained admission by anything short of a princely introduction that night. The senatorial party pronounced, as they had a right to do, the arrangements and the conduct of the whole establishment to be faultless. Only an Irish member showed some little discontent at not having an opportunity of pushing his researches as to the morality of the ballet a little further than perhaps the occasion warranted. But the ardour of legislative inquiry was doubtless fired beyond the bounds of frigid conventionality by the severe test which, in the strict exercise of duty, he subjected the quality of the supposed Escurial champagne. This little episode was, however, amply atoned for by the parting benediction bestowed on the smiling Slimy Cash by the chairman of the Committee himself, who was pleased to say that he had never passed a more agreeable evening in the exercise of his parliamentary duties during a period of thirty years. Moreover, after the stage machinery had been examined and explained, did not the aforesaid grave and reverend chairman himself, a distinguished and advanced Liberal and Reformer, shake hands with the enraptured Slimy, and compliment him on being one of the pioneers of the improvement and civilisation of the age? The last attempt at remonstrance on behalf of the legitimate drama was very shortly disposed of by the said enlightened chairman, when inflicting in the person of one of its most honoured interpreters an insult so coarse and brutal before a Committee of the House of Commons, that the excited and sensitive artist took to his bed for a whole fortnight in consequence thereof. The result of all this was that the Escurial was in full swing and riot; the police were squared in a manner most agreeable to their feelings; the stipendiary magistrates lent the weight of their decisions and influence to the side of success; and Slimy Cash, Esq., and his coadjutors were on the high road to fortune, retirement from business, the respectability which is ever the handmaid of realised wealth, ancestral halls, and deer-parks in Surrey or elsewhere; and, lastly, seats in the Senate of a venal and admiring nation.

Was it to be wondered that Slimy Cash, Esq., was in excellent trim and spirits that night? He who did all this, and only in return charged his fellow-citizens one shilling each admission; and nothing, as some said, to a large portion of the female acolytes to this temple of the three most charming of the nine muses in Apollo's train; he who had that day been feasted at a sumptuous banquet at the Crystal Palace, and presented with a splendid testimonial, in words which would appear in all the next day's papers without the expense of payment as an advertisement; he who had freely imbibed wines which he knew to be not his own, and, therefore, to be trusted in a sanitary point of view, as not likely to result in utter prostration the next morning, was—who can wonder at it?—in the seventh heaven of delight smoking a presentation cigar in his own especial Pandemonium. That evening his very imprecations were softened; and the only Peri of the ballet whose eyes and limbs he had consigned even to a worse place than the Escurial, had remarked to a lady friend, that he had done it quite mild-like, and even good-naturedly for him. Had the wretched acrobat, hanging that night by his great toes from the ceiling in the immediate vicinity of the chandelier, fallen upon the managerial head, graced as it was with ambrosial curls, and crushed the great Cash into a shapeless lump of clay, and stopped all the sordid calculations of his brain, and left him only distinguishable from any other wiped-out nonentity, by the glittering gewgaw on his dirty hand, which, somehow or other, no amount of soap and water ever seemed able to clean, and by the Californian massiveness of his well-known Albert chain, there is no doubt but that the world would have been the gainer, whilst he would have died a superlatively happy man. Alas! the Nemesis which followed in his footsteps that night was but a small and limited expression of the wrath which the atrocious vulgarity and hollow abomination of his success had created in the bosoms of the Fates and Furies, who, for some wise reason or other, delayed to snip the vital ropes of his own particular trapèze and let the wretch down with a run!

The vengeance which the Fates meditated that eventful evening was of the smallest and the paltriest kind. A puny little wandering Nemesis, bent on mortal mischief, had, as we have recorded, drawn thither, by some invisible string, the elegant Phil Cousens and his companion at that particular time. Phil himself was, as he said, disgustingly sober, but his companion was in the first stage of Circean enchantment. He had already drunk the blood of the monkey, and a single glass of the Escurial brandy initiated him into the lion stage. In this state he dragged Phil with him to the door leading to the underground department, which we have endeavoured to describe. Unfortunately for Phil, who, it must be owned, wanted to shake his friend off, and had no desire to make the descent which immortalised the tuneful Orpheus in such dangerous companionship—much as he coveted admission alone—unfortunately, we say, for Phil, and for an innocent and harmless personage who had entered the Escurial from mere curiosity, in total ignorance of the habits of the place, and who was altogether a cleanly and domestic gentleman of high culture and moral worth, the guardian of the sacred retreat objected to the tipsy deportment of the elegant Mr. Cousens's friend. The fact is, that the management, inflated by success, had lately grown very particular in their instructions to the "officers" of the establishment; so an altercation took place, during which Phil and the stranger stood passively inside the forbidden door.

"Come, come," said Mr. Cousens, pulling at his friend's coat-tail, "this won't do. Don't kick up a row, or we shall get into trouble."

And he endeavoured to persuade his friend, whose leonine state of drunkenness was fast developing itself, to retrace his steps. But the "trouble" came sooner than Phil expected. For, behold! the pottering little Nemesis we have spoken of directed thither the haughty steps of no less a person than the great Slimy Cash himself, who at that moment felt himself a potentate worthy of taking his place in a parterre of kings.

"Here is Mr. Slimy Cash," quoth the door-keeper; "you had better ask him."

Upon which Phil's friend took the advice of Cerberus, and rather roughly addressed the monarch in his own Escurial, urging his claims to admission.

"Just be off, will you?" was the response; "you have no right here. We only admit gentlemen to the 'cellars,' and them, too, as we know."

"I tell you I have been down a dozen times before," urged Mr. Cousens's friend.

"And I tell you, you're a liar," was the uncourteous rejoinder.

The answer was an extension, by the action of the biceps muscle, of the right arm of Phil's friend in a longitudinal direction, and also in the direction of Mr. Slimy Cash's inflamed visage. This is the way we lately saw a blow described in the epistolary correspondence between two duellists in a French newspaper. Another and another similar extension succeeded, followed by the extension of the great man on his own boards in an extremely bruised and bleeding condition. But retaliation quickly followed. Half a dozen tall fellows in a kind of police uniform, a portion of the army of the Escurial, quickly appeared upon the scene. And oh! that we should relate such injustice—not only was the unoffending Phil soundly thrashed and pommelled, and ejected by a kick, as with the force of a catapult, from the premises, with a couple of black eyes added to his sum of suffering and indignity, and his watch, chain, studs, and shirt-front subtracted from his worldly goods; but the mild and amiable stranger, who at a little distance stood quietly smoking and ruminating on this, to him, strange and incomprehensible scene, was suddenly pinioned by one hired bully, whilst another ruffian planted a succession of shoulder-hits on his handsome and expressive face, which was literally held up to the blows of his assailant, who had been an unsuccessful, because currish and cowardly, aspirant to the decaying honours of the King. Stupefied and covered with blood, the unfortunate gentleman was "rushed" along a dark and narrow back entry into the street, into which he was most ignominiously kicked by his brutal assailants. And there he lay, stunned and senseless, for a considerable time.

Phil Cousens and his friend suffered in one sense a still more degrading and protracted infliction. For they were pushed, dragged, and carried, neck and heels, through the dense mob of blackguards and Cyprians who stood around and behind the seated portion of the audience and filled the passages and entrances of the place. The original cause of the brawl, Phil's friend, whose intoxication had now become complete—him, the special deity who watches over drunken men, preserved at least from abrasions and contusions, and landed hatless, it is true, but comparatively uninjured, in the street. There he offered "to fight any one for a season ticket to Exeter Hall—no, dash it, I mean Spurgeon's chapel. I'll fight any gentlemen present (hiccup) for a ticket to Spurgeon's chapel and a new hat—I want a new hat." A good-natured policeman put him in a cab. "Drive to Barnes'!" he shouted, meaning a night-house in the Haymarket. And to Barnes Common he was driven, having fallen asleep the moment the cab-door was shut.

Not so, as we have already recorded, with the sprightly and fascinating Phil. His own creditors would hardly have recognised him, as he was left panting and breathless by his ejectors, outside the building into which he had so lately entered on such excellent terms with himself and the world at large. A victim of assault and battery, with broken eye-glass and damaged optics, the crown of his hat knocked in, and studless as a nobleman whose entire stable has been unreservedly sold off, the first thought of Mr. Cousens was an action against the proprietors, with swinging damages; and the second, what sort of figure he should cut in Webb's Fields in the morning.

The image of Grinderby, severe and ironical, rose before his impaired vision, and sobered him to a correct estimate of the calamity which had overtaken him. He saw the impossibility of damages, and groaned not only in the spirit, but aloud. Then thoughts of opposing the license of the Escurial flashed across him, only to be banished as hopeless from his brain. Sadly and slowly did Phil pick himself up, and ruefully and mournfully did he hail a four-wheeled cab—he had not spirits for a Hansom, to betake himself to his third floor in Maddox-street, Regent-street—a sadder, but not a better man. There let us leave him to bathe his face in cold water, and devise falsehoods of the most varied and ingenious description, which he dismissed successively as impotent to deceive Grinderby, cursing the Escurial and all connected with it, and vowing he would never enter such a low place again.

We must now return to the stranger, whom we have left lying stunned and unconscious in a dark, narrow, and unfrequented street at the back of the Escurial.

CHAPTER XVI.

A STRANGE COMPANIONSHIP, BUT NOT FOR EVIL.

Soe they twaine thoro' ye foreste, honde in honde,
Discoursing idlie both of see and londe,
Of cloude and skye and rainebow, faery dreams
Whiche gilde Hope's summit with delusive gleams,
Of lordlie towre and fayrest chivalrie,
Of tournamente and daunce and mysterie,
Of Alcyonne-Star where white-robed seraphs sing
Swete songes of rapture with bright folded wing—
Went heedlesse thus of dragonne fierce, and snake,
Of wolfe and lyon hidde in thornie brake,
Withouten black suspycion, or intente;
Mistrustinge nought, and eche with eche contente.
He deemed hyr honeste, but of straunge conceite;
Shee thought hym stuffed with courteous phansy swete,
A gentle knighte who never none dydde harme,
That harme deserved not, full of everie charme,
Of grate empryse and deedes of peerlesse fame;
Nor in hys presence wolde shee aske hys name,
Nor cared to question hym from whence hee came.
Hys presence was ye sole boone shee required.
Saie, by what magicke was hyr breste soe fired,
That hadde bin leman vile to men-at-armes.
And only practysed in lewd trickes and charmes
Misfortune's bastarde staggering thoro' ye world
Like withered leafe by cruel tempeste whirled—
No magicke save humanitie's softe spelle
That reached the fountayne of hyr harte's depe well,
And bydd teares flowe which never flowed before,
Rousing her soule by slepe benumbed no more;
Soche wondrous powre hath Virtue's earnest eye
Veiled with ye fringe of bewteous Modestie;
Soche charme hath Sympathie to touch the germe
Of hidden goodnesse gnawed by Sorrow's worme,
Cankered by worldlie care; and bidde it bloome,
And Heaven-ward tourne from marge of icy tombe.

"Ye newe Babes of ye Wood." A Metrical Fragment.

ABOUT twenty minutes might have elapsed, during which no one took any notice of the insensible victim of the brutality narrated in our last chapter, when a brace of thieves, very much out of luck, who were just deliberating on the inducements held out by the casual ward of that district as compared with those of Shoreditch, where they had slept the previous night, stumbled upon what they first took to be a drunken man lying in the street. Quickly did they show that they at least were no Pharisees and Levites to pass by on the other side. Without a word expressing surprise, or emotion of any kind, they darted rapidly to the rescue, like a brace of shadows suddenly let loose from a very dark wall to contend for the privilege of attaching themselves to the body of some prostrate Peter Schlemihl, who might be supposed to offer a vacancy for an unemployed umbra on the spot. Gently and tenderly did one of them lift his right arm and feel—not the stranger's heart, to see if any signs of life beat there, but his watch—not his pulse, but his pockets. Skilfully and dexterously did the other possess himself of a handful of souvenirs, in the shape of his purse, card-case, and other trifles. Then, acting in admirable concert, they turned him round, as if bent on exhibiting the process recommended to resuscitate the drowned, and felt in his coat-pockets behind, whence they took a small volume with gold clasps, a pocket-handkerchief, and other trifles. Doubtless, with the excellent object of giving him a better opportunity of respiration, one of them next proceeded to whip off his black silk tie. What further they might have done, we know not. All we do know is that at that moment—as if owing to their kind attentions—the injured man opened his eyes; and a Cain-like scowl flitted over the face of one of the wiry and undersized ruffians, whilst he lifted his head, with a muttered oath, as if to dash it down again with violence on its stony pillow.

But listen! a footstep approaches. These Good Samaritans are unwilling to be seen in the exercise of their charity. They lay his head down softly, and listen; as you might fancy a couple of Red Indians disturbed in the act of scalping a victim by the thud of the approaching gallop of a patrol of Texan Rangers. "Hook it!" was the brief whispered remark, uttered so simultaneously that we are not quite sure whether it really proceeded from both, or disengaged itself from the dirty comforter which acted as respirator to only one of the pair. The sound of the caution thus uttered might have reminded you of the hiss of a snake from out of his blanket in the serpent-house in the Zoological Gardens, where foreign reptiles are far more tenderly housed than pauper British children. A moment—and the pair of guilty shadows have gained the midnight darkness of the gloomy wall, whence in due time they emerged at a convenient distance, and added two more to the number of unholy gainers by the licentious traffic of the gorgeous Escurial that night.

During the next few moments the stranger had groaned once or twice, opened his eyes, striven to rise, and finally crawled towards the solitary lamp-post at a corner of the street, which served to make darkness visible around. Meanwhile, a female figure, dressed in dusky, faded habiliments, very much in unison with a pale and careworn young face, and delicate and small features expressing the deepest chronic anxiety and grief, approached him, and stood gazing with a sort of subdued expression of curiosity and interest on his proceedings. Then, as if comprehending suddenly that he stood in need of aid, she stooped and helped him to rise and gain the lamp-post, where he leaned for a few moments collecting his thoughts, and gaining strength to speak.

"I will reward you handsomely," he said at length, "if you will kindly lend me your assistance to get away from this place. Good Heavens!" he added, "I have been robbed too. My watch and purse, even my gloves and handkerchief, are gone."

"Take mine, sir," she said; "it is quite clean, although it is in holes. Let we wipe the blood away from your face. You must have been garotted by some wretches, who have left you here."

In a few words he explained to her what had occurred.

"Am I much disfigured?" he inquired.

"Here is a terrible lump on your forehead, and a gash under the right eye, and you seem to have had a cut on your nose with something sharp—possibly a ring. These wretches are in the habit of wearing large rings on purpose to inflict a greater injury. Or perhaps it was a knuckle-duster."

"A knuckle-duster!" quoth the injured gentleman, with a puzzled air. "Oh! I see, something like the classical cestus, I suppose. Surely the bridge of my nose is not broken?" he asked. "No, it has escaped, thank Heaven. And now," he said, "I cannot reward you; for everything of value about me is gone. Stop! Where is the main entrance to this atrocious guet-apens? I must and will give these cowardly scoundrels in charge. Can you find me a policeman, my good friend?"

"Alas!" she replied, "I am not one to give advice to a gentleman like you; but I know a little—too much—of these things. Are you prepared for all that you will have to face in the morning?—the publicity, the police-court, and, above all, the newspapers? Excuse me, sir," she added, "for my boldness; but I thought you were hardly in a fit state to judge of the matter calmly, sadly beaten and treated as you have been."

"You are right," said the stranger. "Indeed, when I reflect, I could not have done a more foolish and ruinous thing. It might mar every prospect I have in life. I suppose," he added, with an attempt at a smile, which we must characterise as a ridiculous failure, "that I must pay the penalty of my rashness in entering such a place. I assure you it is the first time I ever did such a thing in my life. I was impelled by a silly curiosity, and it will be a lesson to me as long as I live. And now, my friend, you will add to the favour by giving me the shelter of your roof and a little soap and water, that I may refit, and make myself a little less hideous, before I return to my hotel."

While saying this the pair had advanced, the gentleman in evident pain and difficulty, aided as he was by his fragile and yet, strange to say, strong companion, nearly the whole length of a dark and deserted street.

The freshness and purity, so to speak, of the gentleman's words and tones had shot a strange sensation into some true womanly recess of that forlorn female's heart.

"I dare not ask you into my place," she said; "it is not a fit one for you—it is not, indeed."

The young man—he was about twenty-three years of age—regarded her with evident interest. Slight, dark, and singularly graceful in his appearance; a thin moustache, and a fringe of glossy whisker alone redeemed his face from the charge of being too feminine in his appearance. But for these the young woman would have taken him for a clergyman—a class she had only come into contact with in the person of the mechanical divine who had buried her child but a fortnight before in Brompton Cemetery, and who was fast becoming imbecile from the melancholy and monotonous nature of his daily employment. We do not include a pretender whom she once met in the shape of a tract distributer, who polluted his holy calling by visiting his "lost and erring sisters," as he called them, and using the opportunity it gave him for the most depraved purposes. But this gentleman was what she thought in her heart a clergyman should resemble.

"If you can take me in," he said with a smile of mingled sweetness and dignity, "you need not be afraid. I care not how humble is your abode, and I will amply reward your kindness."

The girl looked, paused, and hesitated; but an irresistible inclination led her to assent. Nor was this inclination by any means divested of common and selfish motives; for mingled with it was the worldly craving that he would somehow prove a valuable friend. And yet no thought of impropriety flashed across her imagination for a moment. She thought to herself that a change in her luck might be at hand—that something very good was about to happen to her—had she not just picked up a little steel horse-shoe broken from a brooch or shawl-pin?

"Well," she said, with a momentary look that might have become a vestal martyr beaming from some painted window in the glory of a summer eve—a look that was, strange to say, almost angelic in its expression, in spite of her worn features and eyes, from which the lustre, and hope, and joyousness of youth seemed to have fled and for ever departed—"well, I do not think I could easily refuse any request to you. You seem so good and noble," she added, with something which almost did duty for a blush suddenly overspreading her countenance, and as suddenly disappearing, as if it were a momentary reflection of flame.

To speak the truth, the aspect of her face, taken in connexion with her general surroundings, would have suggested little save low dissipation and habitual vice to the practised eye, but to Lord Egbert Montreville—for such was her companion's title and name—it spoke only of privation and want, a piteous tale of a poor needlewoman's distress.

"And what is your occupation, may I ask?" pursued Lord Egbert. The girl looked down and answered not a word. "I mean, do you work at any business—such as a milliner's, for example? I hope you do not think me very curious," he said.

A slight spasm quivered over her expressive face, followed by a shade so dark that the young man actually looked up, as if he fancied something had flitted over their heads. A sudden and violent attack of pain in his hip, where he had received a severe kick from one of the myrmidons of Mr. Slimy Cash, caused him at the moment to stagger and lean rather heavily upon his companion. To his surprise, he perceived that she was trembling from head to foot.

"I hope I have not annoyed you by asking your occupation; but judging from"—(here he involuntarily looked at her shabby attire and hesitated)—"from the hour at which you are abroad," he said, with some confusion, "I—— Pardon me, it is very possible that you have known better days."

His companion shook her head.

"I have known but few days," she said, "but those of poverty and shame." (Defiantly.) "I don't think you will go home with me if I tell you what I am. But what would be the use of lying? I am what man, not God, has made me! but you need not be afraid of coming home to my lodging, sir," she added, "for all that. You are different from any one to whom I ever spoke in my whole life before. I know a good man when I see one; because," she added, bitterly, "I suppose I have met so many that are bad."

To say that Lord Egbert was greatly shocked and surprised would be an exaggeration in which, as faithful historians, we shall not indulge. But he was both a little surprised and shocked. Like a true gentleman and Christian, as he was—ay, and an eccentric young nobleman to boot—one of the most delicate of that chivalry now, alas! become so rare even in its rougher attributes and ruder shape—he replied, almost lightly, though there was deep feeling and pity mingled in his tones:

"Nay, you have not frightened me, though I am very sorry for what I have just heard. I cannot tell you how sorry, my poor girl." And he purposely leaned a trifle more heavily on her arm, as they continued to pursue their way. "And now I will tell you something of my own history," he said, almost gaily. "I am engaged to be married almost immediately to a young lady, and we are going out to a distant colony, where I am nominated to an appointment. And I am truly grateful to you for your aid, and, above all, for your good sense, which prevented me from rushing into a disgraceful notoriety, which might have required more explanation than I should have cared to give, and perhaps—who knows?—have injured both my prospects and happiness."

"I am sure," said his companion, with a voice slightly husky and unsteady, "that the lady, if she is worthy of you, would never have thought any harm. I am sure that I should not, but then I am very different from a lady like her. I sometimes wonder," she added, almost childishly, "what a virtuous young lady, who has never known any of the wickedness of this world, is like—I mean to speak to, and all that."

"She is an angel!" cried Lord Egbert.

"Yes," replied his companion, "but then, you see, I don't know much about angels, except that they have wings. I sometimes dream that even I have wings in my sleep."

Talking in this manner, with an eccentricity of confidence on the part of the young nobleman, and in a tone and style on the part of his companion, interesting from its simplicity and earnestness, though mingled with a kind of latent desperation and hopeless abandon, which it was saddening to feel rather than observe on the part of one so young, and apparently friendless and forlorn, the pair proceeded slowly on their way through some of the poorest and dingiest streets past the Seven Dials. But we must pause for a moment to afford our readers some insight into the character, habits, and disposition of Lord Egbert Montreville.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LADY ELFRIDA.

A gentle youth;
Yet full of strong desires—to be a man;
And fight the World's great battle on the side
Of Truth and Justice. We would call him "girl;"
But never spirit set a lance in rest
More firm and dauntless.

LORD EGBERT MONTREVILLE was an enthusiast, a visionary if you please, a man altogether unlike what one ordinarily meets with in this world. With a constitution far from robust, he had led a life chiefly of seclusion and study; he avoided the society of men of his own age, from utter indifference if not aversion to most of their pursuits. He was the youngest son of a noble family possessed of great influence on the Tory side of politics; but his peculiar views led him to entertain rather ultra-liberal principles in many things. He was an ardent friend of all oppressed nationalities, and possessed the confidence of such men as Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Kossuth. With the cause of Poland his young name was identified, wherever the pulse of one of her hapless sons beat defiance and hatred to the oppressor's iron rule. For the poor of his own land, he had a sympathy as painful as it was ardent or deep. This was by no means the first time he had talked familiarly with a poor creature in the street. Nay, he had ventured into many a fever den and haunt of misery and vice. Nor had he ever had reason to repent these visits; for the lowest thieves had never sought to injure him, in return for his goodness. Their instincts taught them what he was; and so far they showed themselves superior to the bravoes of the Escurial, who had so maltreated him that night. For the ignorant robber and necessitous thief is far nearer the footstool of Divine mercy and forgiveness, than the prosperous pander to the vices for which Society and hypocrisy compound. At Harrow his girlish face and retiring habits had won him the nickname of the Lady Elfrida. Yet, strange to say, even among boys, there was something in his earnest innocence and generous nature which won him, from the most brutal and tyrannical, both friendship and respect. The Lady Elfrida was petted and caressed by some of the most fiery spirits among the elder youths and leaders of the school. Thus he had long escaped the bullying persecution which most neophytes underwent. With a favourite chum, he would pass his leisure time in reading well-thumbed romances from the chief pastrycook and librarian of the village, or in strolling about the extensive pleasure-grounds of one of the masters of Harrow, which were, under certain restrictions, not unfrequently thrown open to the boys. Here he would walk with his young companion, their arms round each other's necks, singing or reciting such fragments of song or ballad as struck their boyish imagination and fancy. At length an incident occurred which brought out the manly and heroic part of his character, but caused his early departure from the school. One day Lord Egbert, then about fourteen years of age, observed several of the boys engaged, with all the cruelty of which boys are capable, in teasing and torturing an old crazy creature, known to them by the name of "Mad Bess." The chief of the tormentors was a boy, a year older and half a head taller, and far stronger than Egbert. This young brute had just burnt the poor old creature with a lighted fusee, which he managed to place in her tangled grey hair, and which caused her to scream with mingled torture and affright. Lord Egbert ran to her assistance, and with some difficulty removed the burning fusee from her elf-locks; but his motives being misapprehended, the old witch-wife, as they called her, severely scratched and clawed his face in requital, which caused the young mischief-makers exquisite delight. The chief bully especially taunted and reviled him for his pains, called him a "girl," and asked him where his petticoats had been left. All this and more Lord Egbert would have endured; but when the other produced a fresh fusee, and threatened not only to set the old woman alight again, but to punish the "milk-sop" who interfered, he told him firmly that he did not care for himself, but he would not see a finger laid on the poor old creature by such a cowardly sneak again. Then the boys gathered round, and the bully said, "Will you fight me?" and Lord Egbert said he would; and the party adjourned to the grassy slope beneath the school-house, which was the Campus Martius of their youthful encounters; and Lord Egbert accepted a second, took off his jacket and waistcoat, and appeared in the juvenile ring. As it happened, none of the elder lads were about. For a quarter of an hour Lord Egbert seemed nearly at the mercy of his bigger opponent; and even some of the young scapegraces, who usually delighted in a good "mill," declared he was a plucky fellow, and should have no more of it. But Lord Egbert, bruised and bleeding as he was, and knocked down again and again, came up pale and stern to the encounter each time, and bade his friends mind their own business and see fair play, in a cool and resolute though piping tone, and so the unequal contest continued. To the surprise of all, the red-headed bully, who was somewhat full in flesh, began at last to breathe thickly and show symptoms of distress, and three whole rounds passed without the Lady Elfrida being floored a single time. Then the tide of battle wavered and changed, and amid the ringing cheers of those joyous young patrons of the ring, the bully at last fell before his youthful opponent, more from exhaustion and the effects of his own exertions in inflicting punishment, than from the force of the Lady Elfrida's slender arm. In a few more rounds, the boys discovered that the puny and effeminate lordling was actually fighting for points, and was gradually closing one of the windows of his burly opponent's savage and vindictive soul, with as much purpose as the renowned

Thomas Sayers, when he gradually blinded Heenan, and the fruits of his prowess were snatched from him by systematic trickery on the part of those in the opposite faction, when they saw it was only a matter of a few minutes, and that their champion would soon be swinging his huge arms about, helpless, in the dark. Not so the Harrow boys—they had no money on the event—they were young Englandites bent on fair-play, and their sympathies were with the "little un" and the weaker side. A second time did Master Osborne Clark, the braggart and animal torturer, embrace his mother earth; but, unlike Antæus, he rose weakened by each successive fall. Then the boys' enthusiasm knew no bounds. Up went caps and jackets into the air, and the cries of "Go it, little un!" "Pitch it into him, your ladyship!" "Close his other shutter!" "Don't go in for a fall!" resounded over the field. A few minutes after, the blinded and crest-fallen bully was led ignominiously from the field; but the victory cost Egbert dear. Another minute, and he fainted in his second's arms. A surgeon was sent for, and the boy taken home, whence the family physician imperatively forbade that he should be sent again. His constitution had received a severe shock, he said; and he would not answer for the consequences, if the lad returned to school. Such was the boy, father of the man, whom we have seen assaulted and kicked out of the Escurial in so unprovoked and ignominious a manner. Such are the contrarieties, the injustice, and absurdity of human life, wherein no man who is a living actor in it can say what a day will bring forth, into what snare he may fall, what mishap may occur to him, or whether his life and character are assured to him for an hour. Such was the man whom, with unsuspecting confidence, we see accompanying a frail and apparently most dangerous female to her dwelling, impelled only by an absurd and altogether insufficient want, if it really were one, which could have been far better satisfied at any coffee-house or apothecary's shop which he passed on his eccentric course.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WAY TO ACHILLES'-BUILDINGS, AND WHAT HAPPENED THERE.

Hast thou e'er chanced to see the sudden look
That sometimes on the Wanton's painted features,
Set in the stale attraction of forced smiles.
Darkens so wildly, that like one amazed
She reels from the cracked mirror, to her brow
Lifts her wan jewelled finger—tries to think?
The reckless provocation of her glances
Changed all to sickly twilight, blank dismay:
And when thought comes, hast seen the poor wretch quiver,
Her eyes' fire turned to water, those blue eyes
Where once sweet fancies woven danced in light?
Hast seen the Present, Future, Past, appal her;
The Spectre of her grown-up life arise
Ever between her childhood's innocent dawn
And the lost thing, herself? Hast seen her choke
Upon her scanty food? Hast seen Despair
Clutch her polluted bosom? Seen her teeth,
Pearls that have outlived their neglected home,
Shine whiter for that ruin; and her lips,
Like bruised lilies trampled in the dust,
Whose wasted fragrance wakes to life no more?

He that hath seen this hath beheld a sight
To palsy Rapture, make e'en Lewdness grieve,
Youth grow a hermit. Age old vices leave.

WE left our ill-assorted couple wending their way, as best they might, somewhere in the unenticing neighbourhood of the Seven Dials.

Let it not be supposed, for one instant, that our bruised knight-errant and his attendant damsel passed through the dingy quarter of the town where they shortly found themselves, without eliciting comment or remark. Low-browed cads and belated hucksters, and the vagabonds who hang about the corners of the streets, round "sloop"-stalls and potato-cans, were profuse in their loudly uttered remarks and criticisms.

"My eyes, Bill, twig that genteel cove with his heye in mourning and his 'ead in a sling."

"Look 'ere, Jem," a shrill voice would cry, "here's a nobleman in disguise come hup to town to sell his father's hold clothes."

"Vy he's been a fightin' along with that bloomin' beauty."

"I say, hold chap," another would exclaim, "hi! you with the torn 'andkercher, can't yer afford better duds for yer fancy gal than them rags of hern?"

"Here's a swell as have been fightin'!"

"I say, Sal, you're in luck to-night. What the —— —— air you bin arter?"

Such exclamations as these were far more frequent than amusing; except perhaps to the ignorant and depraved utterers of them. And, oh! ye law-givers and law-makers, and ofttimes law-breakers, in power and in affluence, have you ever studied the worst features of the back slums of London? Have you ever thought of what an execution-mob multiplied by four score, ay forty score, would be, if ever it were let loose in this wealthy England? Have you thought what the poverty-stricken masses would do, in their brutal ignorance, and with the festering hatred of their hearts, if they were ever once unchained amongst you? The deeds of the French Revolution would pale in insignificance before the cannibal revenge of the lower classes in this country. And who could wonder at—we had well-nigh said—who could blame them? Have you clothed and fed them, have you educated them, and brought them up with the knowledge of God in their hearts? Your emigrants, whom you might have made an element of strength, had you sent them out to your own magnificent colonies, as you might have done with a blessing, in the idle ships of your proud navy, only waft back a burning curse from their rebellious hearts. And here at home you lack sailors and soldiers, to maintain your misused power, and are burdened with a costly machinery that can scarcely keep your criminal and pauper population in check. Some such thoughts as these hastily flitted through Lord Egbert's brain, as he passed through the squalid streets, where humanity had almost lost its distinctive traits in the repulsive features and expression of the hideous and unearthly-looking wretches around. How loathsome appeared their food-shops, where "luxuries" which thousands would have deemed themselves too happy to have the pence to purchase, were repulsively displayed; meat-shambles, with their flaring gas-lights, from whose diseased "cag-mag" the pampered beasts at the Zoological Gardens would turn. Then there were stalls of molluscous products unknown even by name to consumers above the lowest class; fish-counters where stale plaice showed their typhoid-like spots, alongside of heaps of bruised sprats, and Dutch herrings impregnated with more than Dead Sea salt. Decayed vegetables, and goitred apples of Cretin growth; dirty and ill-baked bread of clammy appearance and unwholesome hue; clothes-marts that seem to threaten the air with contagion, and the earth with parasitical life; coal-sheds where damp and stony fuel costs the poor man one hundred per cent. more than the rich, with long credit to be added in on their side, ever pay—these are some of the temptations which invite the working man to lay out his hard-earned wages, in order that his wife and little ones may eat the scanty dole which sometimes supports, and not unfrequently poisons, the springs of existence in their shrunken veins. Beyond this, there is a depth far lower still; the penniless vagrant and the starving outcast, whose dying moans curdle the icy blast and infect the damp and noxious atmosphere of the narrow and greasy street, the blind alley and the murderous slum. And beyond this again lie the police-court, the gaol, the hospital, the workhouse, and the grave!

What are the enjoyments of the poor? None, literally none; save those which are blistered by Sin and Shame, and breathed on by Death. You, legislators and Pharisees, who take such a morose delight in worrying with over-legislation those who have so little to solace the toils and miseries of life, what is it that inspires your selfish aims? You would ruin the trade of the respectable licensed victualler by robbing the poor man of the means of refreshment and necessary sustenance, through the iniquitous restriction of your arbitrary laws. You make his Sunday a day of brutal impiety, a day sacred to drink and blasphemy; drink within legal and stated hours for drunkenness, and blasphemy throughout all, from haggard morn to ghastly night. You carefully and piously close every institution that could possibly instruct and divert his mind, while you loll in your clubs and carriages, quaff your claret at any hour of the Lord's Day, indulge in swinish gluttony, and finish with cards, or a "little music," which the most decent or hypocritical sinners among you call "sacred," with an effrontery which makes your servants grin, and your sons and daughters smile over the hollowness of your hearts. The very waste in your kitchens would provide all the hungry wretches in your cities with a meal; yet you deny it, and give it not. Lo! on your palace-roofs and housetops brood vast phantoms of vengeance, sitting darkly with closed wings, until the hour arrives, as vultures await a feast, after the encounter of armed hosts.

The singular and unequal pair, whose proceedings we have endeavoured so far to commemorate, at length reached a row of somewhat tall but unwholesome-looking houses situated in the debatable land between St. Giles's and Holborn. Achilles'-buildings, as we will call them, had formerly been the abode of respectability, and even distinction, about the period when Addison's "Spectator" astonished the public with its fine writing. Somehow or other, they had degenerated, as human beings sometimes do, till they became the habitation of thieves, forgers, magsmen, and felons of every degree. A corner house, rather larger than the others, was converted into a den of notorious infamy in its day, and received the nickname of "The Greenhouse," it might be difficult to say how or why. Perhaps it was kept by a matron of the name of Green; perhaps it was owing to the fittings of some one of its numerous apartments; perhaps it was originated in an allusion to the verdant nature of the fools and profligates allowed within its precincts; perhaps, and more probably, it had at some period boasted green blinds and curtains, or a green door. We leave this to be determined by the curious in such matters, who are always poking their noses into the rubbish of some ignominious dust-hole of antiquity. Certain it is, that over that house, for nearly a century, there had hung the gloom of crime and mystery. Dark and terrible deeds were said to have taken place in it; and unquestionably one horrid murder had been committed there in the present century, the perpetrator of which never paid the penalty of his crime. Some forty years before, an attempt had been made to cleanse and purge these polluted dwellings. For a time, two or three decent families made an effort to reside there, while the rest remained tenantless; until decay set in and all the remaining windows were broken. Then they relapsed into something approaching their former state. A clan of low Irish, and some poor families of workmen, settled there. Gradually it became a crowded rookery of poverty, squalor, and disease. The houses in their interior economy resembled some of the worst flats in the Old Town of Edinburgh. There was a fetid smell common to all, blotched and yellow walls, broken staircases, and general dirt, decay, and wretchedness. In most cases the grey old grimy doors, whose strength had outlived the violence of drunken inmates and visitors, as well as the frequent attacks of constables, were never latched, or effectually closed, either by day or night. A low beer-shop flanked the other end of these gloomy habitations, whence shriek, and oath, and brawl often startled the hurrying passer-by, from dusk to midnight. Two or three cellars were open by day for the sale of second-hand shoes and boots, and slop-clothings; whence might be seen poking and protruding various hooked-noses of the sausage type appertaining to the chosen people, from paroquet to macaw size, from the promising proboscis of snivelling infancy and dirt-pie beatitude, to the mighty shadow-stretching "Wellingtonius giganteus" of the patriarch of the slums. Into by no means the least forbidding of these houses did Lord Egbert follow his companion, who pushed its door open, without the slightest appearance of hesitation or fear. To say that he felt quite at his ease would be a statement in which we should be sorry to indulge.

For throughout this narrative to state truthful facts is our chief endeavour and pride, even at the risk of offending those to whom the trite aphorism, that "truth is stranger than fiction," is not present to act as sponsor and defender of our relation. To narrate common and every-day events is an easier task than to unravel the dark web of mystery and improbability in human events. The human heart itself is always sufficiently strange and subtle in its promptings and windings, its desires and concealments, to afford ample scope even for the chronicler of the ordinary occurrences of life in a parsonage or a village to amuse, and even astonish, if he or she have the genius to do so. We have taken rougher and bolder work in hand. We might skim more pleasantly over the surface of life, and yet suggest many things to the credit side of the devil, with a laxity of purpose, or a design not to be found in this work. Nor are the reflections scattered throughout these pages of a character either to flatter or please the respectable hypocrites of Society, or of that most pernicious deluder, both of himself and of others, the British optimist of the nineteenth century; the man of gas and steam, of Crystal Palace (closed on Sundays) and high art, the babbler about "geist," whatever that may be, the philanthropic blower of starving rebels from great guns in the red mist of blood and shamble-stench of smoke, the remedial patchwork agitator of plans to repair the tattered, shattered, hopeless humanity of the lower classes, as you would stop an inundation with a spadeful of sand, or stanch the bleeding wounds of a nation with a pinch of the nap from the sterile brim of a Quaker's pretentious hat. Our diatribes will only meet with a healthy response in youthful or earnest hearts; in the breasts of the old who have stood aside and apart during the riot of a godless age; in the feelings of men who have still something of the old Cromwellian spirit surging in their veins; or in the Falklands who grieve over England amid the rage of party strife, and the conflict of mediocrities in the emulous struggle for place and power which destroys our greatness and barters away our rights. To those whose minds embrace any grand and generous scheme of regeneration, we alone address the moral of these pages. Alas! could our existing laws put down all rampant and external vice, there would be none save hypocrites left. As it is, they only foster and increase it.

Lord Egbert's refined senses and culture caused him to sicken and shudder at the objects by which he found himself surrounded. Yet not less patiently did he wait in the reeking passage whilst his improper acquaintance sought and lighted a guttering dip, with which, shading it in a somewhat downcast and timid manner with a hand which might have been almost transparent, but for its manifest dingy hue, she lighted her aristocratic companion up the rickety stairs. There was some trace of the ancient uses and substantial prosperity of the house still discernible in fragments of scrollwork in the ceilings of the landing-places, and in the oak banisters, in which deep cuts and dilapidations had become rounded by use, and greased by the contact of many a dirty hand. The ground-floor passage might be characterised as tomb-like and frowzy; one might have fancied oneself in the sepulchre of all the modern tribe of Nathan—it was like coming on the remains of a full-flavoured family of Roman money-lenders in Pompeii or Herculaneum, or perhaps it might be better described as resembling a sniff of the pit of an East-end theatre on a Saturday night under a plentiful dispensation of "paper" from a Hebrew lessee. From a room on the first floor came sounds of oaths and revelry; from the second, a noise of oaths and wife-beating; from the third, oaths alone.

From one of the garrets on the fourth floor they heard the voice of a child crying and moaning as if from hunger—a wail of the great London wilderness, that, often heard, causes some to disbelieve in the existence of a God at all; and some to believe that there is, and must be, a Supreme Being to rectify the injustice visited even on babes and sucklings here, in another and a far different world. The opposite and remaining door was ajar, and Lord Egbert and his conductress silently entered. The room was poorer but certainly cleaner than he expected. All the furniture consisted of a wretched wooden bedstead, with apparently but scanty clothing; a deal table; a single visible chair, on which from sheer pain and exhaustion he sank down; a box which apparently served occasionally as a second seat; a washing-stand, and an empty bird-cage. Yes, there was something else. A child's cot, carefully covered up, stood on a second chair, which it partially concealed, in a corner of the room parallel with the bed. "Good Heavens!" thought Lord Egbert, as he glanced from his companion, who was busy doing her best to light a fire in the narrow grate, "is it possible that a young mother can leave her child and rove abroad in the streets in this manner?" He shuddered as he thought that perhaps maternal instinct drove her wolf-like to prowl forth in search of sustenance by night. Thinking thus, he rose softly, and approached the cradle to look at the sleeping babe. Very gently and slowly he lifted the humble coverlet, and peeped within, expecting to see a pale and sickly little face of slumbering innocence, for it was evident in his thought that the little occupant slept. Perhaps the mother, impelled by dire necessity, had given it a dose of one of those terrible sedatives which the poor are forced to use, and which sometimes turn a fretful doze into everlasting sleep—an "elixir," or "cordial," prepared and sold by the skeleton apothecary, Death. Had he thought more curiously, he might have wondered that the young mother did not rush to her child's cradle to see how it had fared during her absence, and perhaps imprint a passionate kiss on its little brow or lips. But then he was not much experienced in maternal ways. So he peered into the cradle in a very benevolent manner, considering his age and sex, somewhat curious to see what sort of an atomic image of humanity was reposing therein. But there was nothing there. Yes, there was a little withered bundle of violets, which, sooth to say, had been bought in the streets, and which, could tears have revived them, would have looked as fresh as when they were gathered in a nurseryman's grounds somewhere between Wandsworth and New Brompton. Could the red core of the mother's anguished heart have revivified their cut stalks, as we read in the recipes of the "Family Herald" that sealing-wax properly applied will do, they would have bloomed in that cradle for many a day. Why are some children born but to die; nay, why are others born to live, we would say? To one a gilded fuss, and the pomp of servile over-care that may kill equally with neglect; to another a very brief and uncomfortable inheritance of "Trismus neonatorum"—nothing save workhouse convulsions to notify that a soul has lived to hear a few groans in this world, and gone back thither whence it came, to furnish a blank little page in the Divine Judgment Book above. To this last, a mere shiver of the knocker on the door of human existence, promptly answered by the voice of Fate, "There is no room here!"

Better this than to be swaddled in a palace, and buried wrinkled and grey-headed in a cathedral, leaving none to shed a tear, after having caused a sea of tears and blood to flow during a weary lifetime of unhallowed deeds.

Very quickly, but still gently, did Lord Egbert suffer the covering of the cradle to shroud its silent emptiness again. He saw with pain that the mother had observed his action, by the added rapidity and confusion of her fingers, as she sought to thrust the falling sticks of wood through the bars of the grate; nay, he heard it in the agitated rustle of the paper with which she renewed the failing experiment to create a blaze. He saw her lithe frame sway to and fro, as, still on her knees, she reached the candle from the ground by her side to set a light to her handiwork again. As the fire suddenly flared up, he noticed what he had not seen before, that she was in a sort of shabby apology for mourning. Why should he have noticed that? So many women wear black, who are not in mourning, and so many wear mourning who are not in black. One may dress in sombre clothes for a sick hope, or a guilty life, or because it is becoming, or because the wearer has no other garments to put on. Lord Egbert was in a dilemma—he did not know exactly what to do.

When they meet as perfect strangers for the first time, under odd circumstances, and without introduction, people are very apt to be extremely confidential and tell each other all their secrets, especially if they are sorrows and complaints. On the other hand, the ice being once broken, one naturally wants to know everything, just because one knows nothing at all. So Lord Egbert spoke out accordingly, and said:

"I fear you have had a sad loss very lately—have you not?"

Then she uprose and told him all about it, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, and frequent adjurations to Heaven. She asked God to witness how she loved her child—all that she had ever had to love in this world. And she said that He also knew that she wished to die, and follow her boy to his grave, as soon as it pleased Him to release her from a life of utter misery and woe. She had first thought of starving herself to death, "and that" (with a bitter laugh) "would not be very difficult, you know. I should not have to buy anything for that." But a kind friend—a poor creature little better off than herself—had come in and forced her to eat. It was she who helped to bury the child—it was done very respectably, she said, and they had a mourning-coach—"and I could not refuse her well—could I?" she said, "when she knelt by me and entreated me to live?" The last few days she had felt quite careless and numb-like, and didn't care how things went. But the few words he had spoken to her had somehow put quite a new feeling into her heart. The story was nearly all true; except that she had not confessed that after the first shock was over, she had felt more anxiety to live and do something better for herself, than ever she had experienced before, and that when she first saw Lord Egbert, she somehow fancied that he would bring her luck. Perhaps she had not very carefully analysed her own feelings, and was scarcely conscious of her exact mental state herself. Then, with all the volubility of grief, when it finds a sympathising listener, or indeed any listener at all, she went on to tell him, that she had been very, very bad, and that her evil habits had indirectly caused her poor child's death. She told him that she had been a confirmed gin-drinker, and a beggar in the streets, sunk in the lowest depths of penury and vice. But there was one thing, she had always avoided when she could. Just before the child's illness, she had twice met a kind and disinterested gentleman who had bestowed on her a bountiful alms.

"Not a gentleman like you," she said, "but quite a gay and careless sort of man; yet, oh! very kind and good. The first time he gave me money, it did me more harm than good. I deceived him, and I think there was a curse with it. For I left my poor dear angel that is gone to the care of strangers, and went out and treated a parcel of wretches, and lost all recollection for days. It was like a hideous dream of leering faces and gay dresses, and jingling glasses and flaring lights," she said; and the poor creature passed her hand over her brow. "But I beg pardon, sir, I am detaining you. Will you not wash the dirt and blood away?"

Lord Egbert requested her to go on. He wanted to know, how the change, which must have taken place in her since this awful period of depravity and dissipation, had set in.

"Well, sir," she said, "the money all went; and I was beaten, just as you have been, by some women whom I could afford to treat no more, and my poor child showed symptoms of sickening, and I went out one dreadful pouring night in sheer desperation and horror—I don't know for what or wherefore. If I could have got a little drink, I think I should have drowned myself off Waterloo Bridge. I knew a girl who had done it; and there was another who had sworn a solemn oath she would do it any time with me. I went to her lodgings; but she was in bed quite stupefied with drink, and I could not get even the price of a glass from her. Well, sir, I was wandering along, thinking if I should be able to pick up a few pence, before the public-houses were closed, when I met the gentleman who had assisted me so generously, again, face to face, in the Strand."

"Will you tell me," interrupted Lord Egbert, "how it was that you first met him, and how he came to assist you so amply and generously as you say? For it seems, however charitable, an unwonted and eccentric act."

"I can only tell you, sir," she answered, "that he seemed a very rich and thoughtless gentleman, though I ought not to say so, for Heaven knows he had thought enough for me; and he met me one afternoon about the same place in the Strand, and I noticed that he looked very hard at me indeed as he passed by. I must tell you that I was very different then to what you see me now."

Lord Egbert frowned and bit his lip, but said nothing. To his surprise she resumed:

"I was then literally a heap of rags, swarming with vermin, and with scarcely a shoe to my foot. I don't think such a figure was to be seen anywhere, unless, perhaps, in the worst part of Bethnal Green. Some of the people who were used to see me called me the 'Phantom!' and 'Rags!' and others nicknamed me 'Blue Ruin!' and I don't know what besides."

Lord Egbert's face brightened. He had feared that she was about to tell him that she was far more attractive then. And attractive he could easily imagine that she had been, and might be again. Indeed, there was an indefinable charm of natural grace about her even then—a sort of naïveté and vivacity, combined with pathos, which interested him in a wonderful degree.

"Well, sir," she continued, "the gentleman turned and passed me again, and then turned back quite suddenly. 'My good creature,' he said, 'do pray tell me, are you obliged to come out like this?' and then he asked me all about myself. I don't know what put it into my head," she continued, sadly, "but I answered him with a whole string of lies, and said I had a home in the country, not far from Birmingham; and that if I could get there I should be all right, only that I had not money to pay the fare, or any clothes to show myself in among respectable people such as my relations were. I assure you this was a sudden thought; for I never used to tell any lies, or, in fact, to say anything about myself. People would often drop money in my hands, and go away without uttering a word. So that I had very little occasion to lie to them. But I was possessed by some wickedness that day which I have never been able to account for. Well, he gave me five pounds, and a handful of silver besides, and a lady's address, who he said was to give me some clothes; and if she gave me one, she gave me twenty pounds' worth of things—silk dresses and linen, all marked with her own initials; and if I did not go to my relations, the things very soon went to the only relative I ever knew—I mean the pawnshop—and in a fortnight I was worse off than before, with the addition of the bruises I received, and my poor dear baby sickening to die."

"And tell me what you did when you met the gentleman a second time?" said Lord Egbert.

"Indeed," she replied, "I felt so ashamed—miserable and degraded as I was—that I turned and ran away as fast as my legs would carry me. To my utter surprise and astonishment, the gentleman followed me. He would never have caught me, if I hadn't turned up a sort of street with no outlet, you know, where he ran me into a corner."

"And what did he say then?" pursued her interrogator. "Do you know, if your story were a little less strange, I should find a difficulty in believing in it?"

"I don't think it is a bit more strange than that you should be here now," was the quick answer; a proposition in which Lord Egbert could not but tacitly acquiesce.

"He only asked me," she resumed, "why I ran away in that manner, and gave me a lot of loose silver, with a sovereign amongst it."

"And you have never seen him since?" said Lord Egbert.

"Never!" was the answer. "That night I went home quite sober—and did all I could, but too late, too late, to save my poor murdered innocent. But he never looked up any more. He had caught a cold and fever through my drunken neglect of him. Do you know, sir, that if I had done my duty by him, I think I should be almost glad that he was removed out of this wicked, wretched world———?"

"The world," said Lord Egbert, "is often what wicked and wretched people make it."

"It may be so," she exclaimed, "with many; but not with me. I never had a chance to be either good or happy."

"Then you shall have one now," was the grave and quiet answer, in a tone which admitted no doubt both of the speaker's power and intentions to carry out what he said; "that is," he added, after a pause, "if you have the determination and resolution to will it yourself; for the chance is all that I can give you."

All the answer that the bereaved mother made was to kneel down by the side of the empty cradle, and with streaming hair and eyes to utter a few incoherent expressions of pain and sorrow, mingled with gratitude and hope. As she knelt, the solitary candle flickered in its socket, and the cold and bright moon shed an unearthly radiance over her features, while the tall dark figure of Lord Egbert stood erect like a father confessor listening to the recital of a dying Magdalen's sins, and the avowal of her repentance. And the young man of birth and fashion silently put up a prayer for all human creatures of sin and misery, and for her whose strange story had filled his heart with gentle pity and interest.

The greatest patriot and philosopher would not have despised that scene. Either a Garibaldi, or a Victor Hugo—we grieve not to be able to name a great Englishman of equal breadth of dignity, and catholic nobility of soul; but there doubtless exist many who are unknown to fame—might have acted like Lord Egbert under similar circumstances, were their sympathies withdrawn from a wider circle, and their charity from a grander and more comprehensive range. Many professors of philanthropy and world-graduates, and hollow success-vaunters of the day will authoritatively put down Lord Egbert as a sentimental fool, and declare with a sneer they consider him little better than a lunatic for his pains. Perhaps so; but it is certain that he was unconsciously imitating, at a humble distance, a great example set nearly two thousand years ago, which a large portion of mankind have been constantly preaching, and not practising, nearly ever since, in the most remarkable manner. We cannot help thinking that, if the Saviour Himself were to appear now in London, and conduct Himself, as He once did in Galilee, by the banks of the Thames, He would be committed as a rogue and a vagrant by a metropolitan magistrate or a city Lord Mayor, if His poverty secured Him from the considerate attentions of a mad-doctor. The cry would not be "Crucify him!" but "Lock him up! Lock him up!" What should we think of the eccentricity of a bishop, who despoiled himself of even one-half of his worldly goods, who acted up to any part of his hebdomadal profession of faith? The Ephesian shrine-makers of old were true to Diana, whose creed was probably not a difficult one to follow; but we continue with avidity to make the shrines, and yet practically to deny that God in whose name they are manufactured, with the most perfect and complete contrariety that human ingenuity ever furnished. There is earnestness in the customs of Dahomey, and devotion in the ministration of a Thug; these mean what they profess, and act it. Not so the modern Christian doctrinaire, whose principles and practice are antagonistic, in proportion to the fervency of his teaching and the ardour of his zeal.

The great bell of Westminster sounded the hour of midnight funereally through the air, as if it were tolling for a nation's death.

"Well, my poor girl," said Lord Egbert, "I will just avail myself of your kindness to improve my appearance a little; and then I will ask you to light me down-stairs. But what is your name and address?"

"Kate Darrell," was the reply, "seven, Achilles'-buildings."

"Will a note find you?" asked Lord Egbert.

The reply was in the affirmative.

"Then I will write," he said, "and make an appointment; and in the mean time we will both consider what is best to be done for you. Your education does not appear to have been entirely neglected."

"Alas!" she replied, "I can scarcely write at all."

"I should not have thought so," observed Lord Egbert, "from the manner in which you speak."

"I am very quick at learning, I believe," said Kate, as we will now call her. "I am told I should make my fortune on the stage."

Lord Egbert shook his head. Inexperienced as he was, he knew how utterly meaningless, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is such a remark. "I think," he said, "you would find dress-making, or a little shop, more profitable; but you shall do as you like. But which is it to be, tragedy or comedy?" he asked, smiling.

"You must not judge of me as I am now," she answered. "I used to be the merriest, and, some said, the funniest girl alive. It seems a long time ago, although I am barely eighteen now. Though I have never known any real happiness or comfort, but been nurtured amid scenes of misery, that you cannot even imagine, I am sure; yet when I have had the slightest opportunity, I was always the leader in mischief and fun. It was that which got me at last into the frightful habits I have told you of, and from which I was saved alone by that gentleman's act of kindness, and, oh! that I should say it, the loss of my child. I have never touched a drop of anything stronger than tea since; not even on the day when I buried him, though they pressed me very hard to drink then, and drown my sorrow, as they said. If I had not had the strength to refuse, my sorrows would have been drowned by this time, and myself with them, I'm thinking."

During all their conversation, Lord Egbert never once alluded to the father of the child, nor asked her any leading question as to the particular events of her life. He rightly guessed that there was nothing in it that could be remedied or improved by meddling with griefs that might or might not be healed and cicatrised by necessity or time. The truth is, that the father of the child was dead too—lay peacefully slumbering in the vicinity of Sebastopol, wrapped in a gorgeously tasselled dressing-gown, which he was wont to wear in life; and which one of his brother officers, the self-appointed sexton of his brigade, himself formerly one of the gayest men on town, had chosen for his winding-sheet of glory in such hurried obsequies as he could afford. Nor was the gallant and tawny Captain Durant very guilty, so far as Kate had been concerned. In truth, he had been very kind to her, and fully meant to be more so; but the shell which killed him, one of the very first after landing, also exploded in a certain genteel lodging in Albany-street, Regent's Park, and very direful were the consequences thereof. There were many fond and dear ties severed besides those of matrimony and relationship by that Russian war. Many a slender, lily-like being, whose wedding-ring was not placed on her finger at the altar, or by a license, that we can properly term "special," bowed her head and died, when one name had met her burning gaze, and the newspaper had fallen from her opening fingers convulsed with grief; ay, perhaps, more than out of a like number of wedded wives; for these had not lost every tie in this world, and the former had. Nay, there were flaunting widowhoods, even in the Casino, and the "Rooms," which were not altogether devoid of deep feeling and regret, as some more real widowhoods are. Thus it appears that Kate had known some few months of comfort in her life; before sinking into even worse depths of wretchedness than had signalised her early career.

That night, or rather morning, as she crept beneath her narrow coverlet, after Lord Egbert had departed to his luxurious hotel, she felt the strongest presentiment that she was on the threshold of a new phase of existence; that, in her own phraseology, her luck had changed, and that she was about to enter on a new and promising career. We will leave her to her dreams, strange and mingled as they were, half of heaven and half of earth, now bright with innocence, and now with worldly pomp. We will leave her to wander, dressed in a spotless robe of white, through summer meadows, leading her prattling boy, picking celestial daisies and buttercups at her side. We will leave her to curtsy among a bevy of duchesses at a Court ball, while Lord Egbert, in a magnificent uniform, with a beautiful fairy on his arm, smiled approval on so distinguished and fashionable a début.

We will let her rustle among the gorgeous personages of a theatrical scene, while poor Captain Durant bowed approval from a side-box. Gradually his features change and stiffen; and the bouquet he was about to throw to her feet turns into a bunch of decayed and contorted weeds, as if in mockery, at her feet. She would kick them away, but they change to serpents, and crawl up her limbs. Horror! she is in rags again; and 'tis a grinning skeleton that is mopping and mowing at her, yet somehow in the likeness of the cross young man, assistant at the pawnbroker's shop. Stay! he throws a bundle at her. He rejects her pledge. What is it? She tears it hurriedly open. It is her lost child's little frock and under-clothes, and tiny ragged shoes. Next a Shape rises, and mocks her with hoarse screams. 'Tis the gin-fiend! Avaunt! avaunt! With a choked cry she is about to awake; but we will not wake her. With the pale flock of trooping dreams we will glide softly away from her bedside. We send poor Durant back to the bloody trench, and the child to his little grave, so small that it looks hardly like a real thing, but a mound which children themselves might have heaped up in their innocent play. We follow Lord Egbert's noble semblance away, till it glides at cock-crow through the closed door of the Colonnade Hotel. And then with a wave of the enchanter's pen we transport our readers elsewhere. We return this puppet to its chest, and take out another and another for brief use, to be put back in its turn. For on this very morning, ere early London has rubbed its eyes, and finally settled that it is awake; and while the representatives of the night-bird section of the public are severally seeking their matutinal roost—printers, policemen, newspaper writers, and the like—we intend to lay aside our puppets for a triennial rest, and not to open our galanty show for at least three years, and in the second volume of our tale.

CHAPTER XIX.

BACK TO QUEEN'S-SQUARE.

The silver orb of Diana shone in the solvent sky like a new florin just issued from the Mint of Space; the golden stars and constellations seemed like sovereigns and half-sovereigns hoarded by grandam Nature until that very date; the Milky-Way showed far off and filmy, like a distant bill of exchange drawn by Time on Eternity, and indorsed by an Almighty hand, when Sir Mammon, standing under his Belgravian portico, suddenly bethought him of that universal panic when the Bank of the Universe (limited) itself shall break; and thence began to consider the nature of the account to be demanded of him hereafter—his smooth-written diary of selfishness; his cash-book of avarice and greed; his small credit column of good deeds and his heavy debit of evil in the great balance-sheet of life.

And this giant of Cunning, this Colossus of worldly success, cowered like the ragged school-child he had once himself been; as he sought in vain to cast up the accusing figures of Doom on the greasy slate of Memory, smeared over by whining Repentance, ere blotted out for ever by Death.

Under the blue vault of the silent midnight heavens, his soul stood stripped and shivering; and he felt like the ghost of a rich man buried yesterday among the forgotten dead, whose earthly pomp and mansion had passed away from him, as fleeting clouds from the pale clutch of a spectre, or shadows from the voiceless whisper of a shade, and whose treasures were already delivered up for a spoil to those who had amassed them not.—The Lucubrations of Arthur Aubrey, Esq. From his Commonplace Book in 185—.

THAT very night Arthur Aubrey and his beautiful wife had sat up somewhat late, as they were often wont to do, interchanging their views of life and manners, discussing their friends and acquaintances, their past, present, and future, and things general and particular. The subject they had started, apropos of some topic of the day, was the action of circumstance upon human actions, and whether a great deal of soi-disant merit was not born of circumstance, and a great deal of crime and wickedness of misery and want. In this argument Aubrey showed himself a severe censor of all shortcomings and backslidings. He said that a thief must be a thief at heart, in order to become one at all, and that even necessity was no excuse.

"When you hear," he said, "of a man being driven to drink by misfortune, it is only because an excuse is wanted for that which must sooner or later come out." Prosperity would have developed, according to him, the very same latent propensity in the same man.

"Ah!" said Blanche, "you have had no trials—you have known nothing save luxury. You do not know the temptations of the poor."

"Now," rejoined Arthur, "there are bad husbands, you know. I suppose, if I were to turn out a wretch, under temptations, you would make excuses for me?"

"Would I?" said Blanche, archly; "but could you be tempted, sir?"

"Well," replied Arthur, "not easily, perhaps, my love; but circumstances, you know, may be so very strong, according to your theory. I am sure you would become my advocate in such a case."

"The crimes of the heart," returned Blanche, "are precisely those which would plead no 'extenuating circumstances' successfully to me. But regarding the temptations, for example, of the poor and destitute—if I were starving, would you not break the law for me?"

"I see," answered Arthur, "that you are bent on my conviction as a thief. Who can say 'no,' under such circumstances?"

"If we had a child, and it lacked sustenance," cried Blanche, "do you think I would not snatch a loaf from a baker's shop for it? What mother could restrain her desperation?"

"Yet," said Arthur, "but a few years since, under the sanguinary laws of England, women were hanged for such deeds. The starving mother of a starving child has been executed at Tyburn for stealing a penny loaf."

Blanche shuddered. "I cannot," she said, "trust myself to think, much less speak, of such a deed."

"And even now," rejoined Arthur, "the mother thus acting under the holiest impulse of nature, would be torn from her offspring and flung into a gaol, thence to undergo penalties almost worse than death. But what can Society do? This very night, there are hundreds perishing in London from want of common necessaries. The muster-roll of Death, during a sharp frost in England, is not less numerous than when cholera stalks lurid through the land. But you would not suspend the action of the law to let the suffering poor help themselves? I repeat, what can Society do?"

"Nay," said Blanche, "you can't expect political economy from me. But I cannot help thinking that in this rich and prosperous country, the governing powers are criminally to blame to permit such a state of things."

"Yes, and the poorer classes too," said Arthur; "are they not improvident in the extreme? Do they make the best even of what they have? Can they cook the food they get? Why, not one working man's wife out of twenty is capable of the commonest duties of a housewife. Soup, for instance, is almost unknown to them; and you see the bricklayer dining on bread and cheese, when for the same money he might enjoy a nourishing meal. Nor do the men cultivate their gardens properly, when they have them. I tell you there are faults on all sides, Blanche."

"They are ignorant, because they are not taught," retorted Blanche; "there is no sympathy between class and class. I really believe that the middle classes are the most selfish and repellent of all. Now," she said, "just look what I do! Look at my poor people. I actually teach them cottage economy, and I help to maintain more than a score. And I'll answer for it, it does not cost you twenty pounds a-year."

"Not if you take it out of your dress money, my love," was the answer, accompanied by a smile of approval.

"And do I not dress well enough to please you?" said Blanche, demurely. "If not, you are harder to please than Lady Madeiraville, who is constantly coming for patterns to your little wife, and who declares that somehow she can never get anything so well made as my dresses, though I positively cut out the last six for her with my own hands."

"Hem!" observed Aubrey, "I suspect that you must lend her something more than patterns, before she can rival you in dress."

"What is that?" demanded Blanche, who knew perfectly well the reply that would follow.

"The most enchanting figure in Christendom," replied her husband, passing his hand round the waist of his beautiful wife, who looked radiant with innocent delight.

"Oh! if you always love me thus!" murmured Blanche.

We will not follow Aubrey in his impassioned declarations that he must, should, and would; and never possibly could, help loving her with a love so great that it was beyond increase, and yet which time would augment with a cube-rate multiplying power. After this blazing bouquet of protestations had irradiated the serene fancy of Blanche, as some gorgeous display of divine pyrotechny the calm quietude of a summer evening sky, it gradually died away, leaving her mental atmosphere from zenith to horizon flooded with roseate effulgence, and suffusing her cheeks with the warmest blushes of delight. These insensibly paled down to the wonted delicacy of the shell-like hue of her complexion, as the pair resumed their every-day and worldly conversation, with the gratifying, but by no means original remark on the part of Aubrey, that he did not think there was a happier fellow in the world than himself.

"And yet," he said, "things don't go very well with me in the way of fortune, and that sort of thing. Somehow," he said, "I seem to pay more for everything than anybody else. If I get into a lawsuit, it don't matter what the case is, I am sure to lose; I am constantly being robbed and done by everybody; and as to economising, I find whenever I do try it, that I am always let into some greater and unexpected expense."

At this last remark Blanche smiled. "And pray, my dear," she said, "when did you ever try to economise?"

"Why, I rode home on an omnibus from Kensington the other day," replied Arthur, gravely, "and gave the conductor a sovereign instead of a shilling. I came from Oxford last Tuesday, second-class, and lost my purse, and what is more, it always happens so, somehow."

"Then pray," said Blanche, "avoid such absurd economies in future. I really think it serves you right. It is all very well for a millionaire, or a miser; but why should a gentleman do such things?"

"Then you don't think a millionaire can be a gentleman?" inquired Aubrey.

"Not easily," was the reply. "Only think of that horrid Mr. Moneysworth. Such persons are always as offensive as the gnome king in a pantomime. I think Midas must have been an extremely vulgar and fussy fellow. How odious he made himself to Apollo; and that other rich example, Crœsus, must have been a very offensive personage with his treasures and his wealth. Men with such enormous means are scarcely ever gentlemen, and you know what the Bible says of a rich man's chance of redemption."

"Then," interrupted Arthur, "you would only admit gentlemen into heaven?"

"Something like it, I confess," answered Blanche; "gentlemen in spirit. They may be coal-heavers, for all I know or care, not 'gentlemen' like George IV.; but those of nature's type. What does some old writer beautifully say about the Saviour Himself? 'That He was the first and truest gentleman that ever lived,' or to that effect."

"Well," resumed Aubrey, "I suppose I must pay a tribute to Fortune in something. Did you ever hear the story told by Herodotus, about Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos? His good fortune was so extraordinary that he got frightened—I think he must have had some such a darling beauty of a wife as you—no, that he couldn't, but something approaching it, I mean—and everything succeeded with him, so he threw a most costly ring into the sea, and a fish swallowed it, and was caught and cooked for his dinner, and thus he got it back again, and then he despaired, for he knew the gods must be meditating some great coup against him, and at length his luck turned all at once, and he went to the 'demnition bow-wows,' as Mr. Mantalini says. At any rate, I hope I need not fear that. Look at that trial the other day, Aubrey versus Learyclod. There was an old vagabond who ruined his farm and shamefully despoiled the place. I had got a verdict for eight hundred pounds, when the defendant's counsel, my own friend Salfort—cleverly retained against me, although I instructed those precious country solicitors, Messrs. Adderfang and Badderogue, especially to make sure of him—discovered a flaw in the pleadings drawn by Browning, the first pleader in England. Consequently, he moved for a new trial, and then I was advised by my solicitors, that the fellow was not only dying, but on the verge of bankruptcy. Adderfang said, that under the circumstances, they would forego their own costs, and so I consented to stop proceedings. And what is the result? Learyclod has taken another and much larger farm, and looks as hearty as one of his own prize-bullocks, and Adderfang shot his own toe off when rabbit-shooting; and died of mortification, I suppose, because he couldn't bring an action for damages against himself; and his partner now repudiates his agreement, and I have to pay three hundred and fifty pounds odd, besides losing my damages. Now I must say that Phil Cousens would have managed matters better than that."

"I don't know," said Blanche. "Look at the recovery of your father's debts. I mean all that Pettingall has left you to recover; and the horse case with that dreadful dealer, whom you put as you said on his mettle and conscience, to furnish you with a horse for me, telling him that you would give him his own price; but that you wanted it in a hurry, and to have no trouble. You said he would not cheat you, because you had dealt with him at Camford, and taken his son out hunting with you, his first season, when he was a little boy in a round jacket. I do believe that horse represented all the known maladies in farriery, and all the vices of the manege. It was like one of those demon ponies in Irish fairy-tales—a veritable Phooka. Master Cousens did not bring that to a very happy conclusion; any more than he paid you for smashing your mail-phaeton and laming poor Dinah, when you lent them to him so very much against your will and better judgment."

"Why, you little rogue," said Aubrey, "you are impeaching my wisdom and superiority of judgment, by narrating all these disasters."

Blanche sighed, in spite of herself. She feared sensibly that her husband's generous and confiding nature would some day or other seriously impair, if it did not ruin his fortune. She only felt for him, not herself, should such sad results accrue from his easy nature, and, it must be said, uncalculating and reckless improvidence. How little was he capable of enduring poverty and its concomitants!

"Ah!" she uttered aloud, concealing these dismal forebodings, "it matters little to me about these things. I care only on your account if they vex and annoy you, and darken your opinion of the world and its denizens. There is but one thing I value, one jewel that I shrine in my heart of hearts—your love. Were I deprived of that, I would not wish to live: nay, I would not survive it."

"You do not mean to say you would kill yourself?" inquired Arthur, smiling.

"There would be no need of that," replied Blanche.

"Come! come!" said her husband, "don't let us talk so dismally. I shall have you maintaining the theory that suicide is permissible next, under certain circumstances."

"And is it not?" inquired Blanche, "if one has nothing left in this world to live for?—I dare say it is very wicked to say and feel so; but according to my ideas, there are circumstances against which it is impossible to struggle and to live."

"My dear love," said Aubrey, gravely, "no possible earthly contingency can justify any one in laying violent hands upon the life given by Providence. Tell me one if you can."

"I could give you a dozen," answered Blanche. "The first, if you ceased to love me."

"That is impossible," replied Arthur. "Continue with the remaining eleven."

"Imagine," said Blanche, "a patriotic victim to despotic tyranny, such as exists now in Naples; a man who had conspired against the government under cruelties and enormities, when, as Schiller says, an appeal alone remains to the justice of Heaven, and the sword becomes lawful—imagine such a man, devoted to his country, cast into a dungeon on suspicion, and tortured to induce him to reveal the names of his friends and relatives implicated in the plot—if plot you can call that, which is the vindication of outraged manhood, and the sacred rights of citizenship and domestic life. Think, if after the first day's horrible sufferings on the rack inflicted by some fiendish tribunal of priestly assassins, he felt that his powers were failing, and that the secret which he prized far more than life would be wrenched from his agonising lips, and that on the morrow he might, as it were, involuntarily and unconsciously betray his beloved associates and dearest friends—his father, brothers, sons, and the wife of his bosom. Would not that man be justified in restoring his soul, unspotted by the calamity of so hideous a revelation, to the Maker on whom he cried in vain to finish his sufferings, and spare him that dread ordeal again? You are silent. Do you remember the story of the father and his son suspended by a single rope over the side of a precipice, when the former felt that the rope must break with their combined weight, and so, with a parting admonition to his child to hold on, threw up his arms, and fell, rather than risk a dearer life? What! silent again? Would not a prisoner in the hands of the Red Indians, who knew that torture was his certain doom, be justified in anticipating his death? Was not the deed of Guyon, the physician of Marseilles, who dissected the body of a victim of the plague, an act of suicide? Was not——"

"Stop! stop!" interrupted Arthur. "These are noble acts of heroism and self-sacrifice, with the exception of your third instance. If one were about to be tortured by Indians, there would still be hope of aid. You have read your 'Last of the Mohicans' to very little purpose, I fear. Besides, there is Captain Mayne Reid, in whose delightful romances a rescue always intervenes at the critical moment. Come! come! you have delighted, but not convinced me, with your eloquence. Again, what comparison is there between the desperation of slighted love, and any one of your examples, I should like to know?"

"And do you think," returned Blanche, "that any torture which inhuman ingenuity could devise, could excel or equal the pangs I should endure were you to slight or deceive my love?"

"Upon my word," said her husband, "you frighten me. Suppose you were to take it in your head to become jealous on mistaken grounds? You might rush headlong at a conclusion and take poison, you know, and find out your error too late."

"I should at least die comparatively happy if I discovered myself mistaken," rejoined Blanche.

"You really alarm me with these ideas of yours," said Aubrey; but, in truth, he did not look half so much alarmed as flattered by these expressions of his wife's love.

Alas! what a dangerous thing it is to entertain or to inspire such love, i.e., if there is a chance of the beloved object proving unworthy, or of becoming unworthy of it oneself. And who can say what changes may occur in human life, whose very essence is change? Of one thing we are certain, which is this, that it is better for both man and woman to conceal rather than display the full extent of passionate attachment, the hidden fountain in the inner court of the temple of their love. And this especially holds good with the latter. The two greatest safeguards to a man's love—next to his children, if he have any—are vanity and the excitement of doubt. A man is vain of the possession of a beautiful woman, to whom others pay court. We are also apt to cherish most enduringly that, of the possession of which we do not feel quite assured, and which we feel that there is a possibility we may some day lose, if we cease to bestow on it the utmost care and attention. It is actually true that, in cases of early disappointed love, there have been instances of greater and more continuous devotion to the shadow, than the substance; to the joyless memory, than the fruition of love. There are exceptions, of course, to this worldly theory; and as some, we fear, will term it, this libertine rule. But how rare is the union of two matched together in equal wealth of love, lasting and perennial; how seldom is it, either where fortunes are suitable or not, that a pair are joined together in that which is, then indeed, "holy" matrimony, whose hearts are set,

Like watches timed for some long perilous trip;
Their voyage, life.

When such matches are made on earth and in heaven, one might well let loose the reins of poetic imagination, and believe that the angel célibataires applaud, if they do not envy, such mortal bliss. Our friends, Arthur and Blanche Aubrey, have made a fair start together. Let us wish them well; for they seem to merit and to enjoy the fairest prospect of lasting happiness.

Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey carried on their philosophical and domestic conversation for some time, as on a former occasion, which we have commemorated. It was nearly three o'clock when they retired to their sleeping apartment. The same moon shone through the window of their luxurious apartment, which irradiated the sleeping face of Kate Darrell, streaming through the casement of her dreary little garret, and lighting with unearthly gleam the mobile workings of her expressive features, as she lay smiling or frowning through her phantasmagoria of changing and contradictory dreams. Strange, that Aubrey should on that very occasion have narrated to Blanche his rencontres with that "lost and wretched being," as he termed her, as an example of the impossibility, according to his theory, of arresting depravity in its downward career. Strange, that Blanche—gazing with her great liquid eyes at the moon, forming, at that moment, as it were, the apex of a triangle of mysterious sympathy between beings whose lives and histories were so dissimilar, that it seems an insult to connect them even in the melancholy comparison of thought—should have shivered as she did, and turned cold.

"I feel," she said to her husband, "at the mention of that frail wreck of humanity, a sort of mingled dread and horror mingled with compassion which I can scarcely express. Do not laugh at so odd a fancy; but I seem to have a dim and indistinct sort of dream-like notion, as if I myself had once wandered in the wet and dreary streets without hope in heaven or home on earth."

"Pooh! pooh!" said Arthur, "you have sat up too late, and the fire is getting low. Let me mix you a glass of negus. You are trembling all over, I declare."

"Did you ever hear that superstition," inquired Blanche, in a half-dreamy, absent manner, "about some one walking over our graves, when a sudden cold shiver, like this, has seized us, we know not why?"

"You little goose," was Aubrey's answer, as he tenderly folded her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss on her spotless brow, "one would think you had been gossiping with a monthly nurse," and he laughed, but not merrily, at the conceit. "Here, dip your rosy beak in this, little love-bird!" and he playfully extended to her the not unwelcome glass of negus, in which he had been dissolving the sugar with a most determined air. "And now 'To bed, to bed, cries sleepy head!' " Let us attend them to the door, and lock up this pair of puppets also in our chest, not to be drawn forth again for three years of human happiness and woe.

CHAPTER XX.

SWELLS ON THE PROWL.

And silly, soulless, but patrician faces
Of libertines. Ah! maddened, curst career—
Mistaking ever for the frolic Graces
The tawdry Thyads round slain Reason's bier.

THE moon shone on, undimmed even by a passing cloud: she went through no ceremony, however brief, of taking the veil that night in the blue and frosty sky, while the stars glittered in their courses, bright witnesses in the memory of Time.

On sin and sorrow, on joy and revelry, on the unconscious sleeper and the prowling thief, on deeds of murder and rapine, on the watcher in the fold, the student in his lonely room, on the agonising face of the swimmer sinking beneath the waves, on forests of chimneys, on masts and trees, on the countless ripple of the heaving deep, on the dead and dying in the battle-field, whose bristling limbs and contorted agonies looked like a rehearsal of the day of resurrection, when fire and dust, and the pulverised worms of buried ages are to render up and disgorge their prey, and life is to take form again; on breathing thought and on slumber, on rock and fountain, on mountain-top and gorge, on valley and spire, island and desert, graveyard and hamlet, on monumental effigies and painted semblances of mankind, that pale moon shone alike, sometimes adding horror, and sometimes beauty to the scene. Look where she silvers the old lawyer's hoary head, and touches with tender grace the powdered features of the courtesan, till the pallor of dissipation melts into the expression of a saint. See how she floods yonder ruins with glory, and fringes with soft radiance the outlines of that desolate wreck. She is not treacherous and deceitful—accuse her not; for the tides of human passion ebb and flow with wilder and more uncertain motion than the tides of ocean charging along the shifting sands, and rolling along the rocky channels of the impetuous firth. She illumines with mocking ray the desecrated memorial over the fallen soldier's grave; but what sent him thither to die? The cruel instincts and tyrannous ambition of his fellow-man! She gilds the dark cypress of yon cemetery chequered with white tombstones; but she lends no coldness to the hearts which help to people it with the victims of desertion and neglect. She rather fills the soul of the stranger with tenderness and silent ruth, as he lingers to gaze around him in the mysterious beauty of her hallowing light.

Behold, where from a choice reunion of jovial wits and litterateurs of the period rolls the portly form of the great Mr. Stingray towards his chambers in Waterloo-place! He chuckles over the recollection of the last spiteful thing he had said, to damp the ardour of a young artist painfully struggling with difficulties and ill-health. He nods familiarly to the chaste planet, as if she were a familiar acquaintance of his; some duchess, or courtesan of distinction, guiding her equipage in the Hyde Park of the skies. "Ah! old girl," he mutters, kissing the tips of his fingers, "you are shining in full force to-night." Had the moon looked seedy and out of luck, we verily believe that Mr. Stingray would have cut her in his semi-drunken snobbishness, so complete a worshipper of prosperity and success was our estimable friend. "I wonder," quoth he to himself, "how the deuce that ass Aubrey contrives to spend so much coin. One thing is certain, it can't last. Confound the beast, I should like to see him come down in the world, with his select parties, and that precious sentimental piece of goods he has picked up and married. I must find out who she was. She had no money, that I know; for Cousens, the flashy one of those two queer customers of solicitors of his, told me as much. Let's see, I've dined there three times this month. Every dinner must have cost him thirty pounds, if it cost a penny. And he thinks he does it very fine, à la Russe, forsooth. He must load his confounded table with épergnes full of flowers and fruit, and sport a French chef, must he? I could hardly see my vis-à-vis for the absurd display; and the best thing I said all the evening was lost in consequence, after I had led up to it so beautifully. As for her, I should like to meet her begging in the streets," This was said apropos of a poor creature asking him for a trifle. "If you are not off," he said, fiercely, "I'll call a policeman. Go to ——! I am glad they invited me for Thursday," he continued; "because the Duke of Chalkstoneville will be there. I like to talk to him. He's so deaf; it's an excuse for speaking loud. Every one listens, and some tyro says, 'That's the witty Stingray, who writes those clever things in the "Scorpion." ' Ha! ha! I declare I never saw a brighter moon in Italy, Aubrey's wife looks like an Italian. Quite a classic face, as that odious Sir Bullfrog Leapfrog said. I wonder whether anything will come of Madeiraville's admiration? I suppose he is not attracted much by the husband's society. Not exactly! I should like to know who is. 'Aubrey versus Madeiraville!' what a leading article I would write for the 'Fulminator'! Shouldn't like the fellow to pocket the damages though, unless he really is spoony on her, and then it would only help him on his road to ruin. Then there's that blackguard Luckless, he would do better; because he couldn't pay, and both sides would be sold." At that moment a jovial voice crying, "Holloa, Stingray!" caused him to turn round and perceive the very man who furnished the immediate subject of his thoughts by his side.

"Bless me, Sir Harry! I am delighted to see you—the very last person in my thoughts, 'pon honour! and Hedger Boshleigh, too, I declare! My dear boys! this is fortunate. What say you to a brandy-and-seltzer at the 'ken?' "

"All right, old boy!" was the response. "Here's Boshleigh was just saying he should like to look in somewhere."

Mr. Boshleigh was an artist in water-colours, whose affectation was only equalled by the utter hollowness and selfishness of his character. Under the guise of extreme frankness, he did not trouble himself to conceal this. He declared himself to be what he really was; perhaps in the hope that such astonishing candour would not be credited. He would help himself in the most jocose manner to the larger portion of a delicacy, or drink two glasses to his neighbour's one, at dinner, and boast of it in the most open and cordial manner. If you asked him to dinner, and he did not come, he would own that he had met some one in the interim, who had tempted him with better fare.

"Like you, very much!" he would say, with a coarse laugh; "but couldn't resist turtle, you know. Don't get turtle every day—dine with you to-morrow, old fellow!"

He would tell you how he cut an old friend, because he was going down in the world. "Can't afford to know a man who might want to borrow a 'fiver'—shouldn't like to refuse a friend a 'fiver,' and you see, I never have one to spare. Wish I had—wouldn't be such a fool as to lend 'em, though. What do you think happened to me last Christmas Day?" he was once heard to say, "Dined with family, and all that—carved the turkey—lots of nephews and nieces—helped them all, and slipped a nice lot of tit-bits on one side of dish under the lee of turkey. Saw youngest nephew eating as if he would choke himself. The confounded young rascal timed it exactly to the moment when I had finished helping all round, and then shoved in his plate for more—was going to cut him a drumstick. 'Thank ye, uncle,' said the young viper; 'I'll just take those brown bits on the other side!' Should like to have carved him for a select party of New Zealanders. Never wished so much to be rich, that I might have cut him out of my will, and let his parents know it." Amongst other things, Boshleigh had been studying "art" at Florence, where he made Stingray's acquaintance. They knew, hated, and respected each other. Boshleigh spoke of Stingray in a gushing manner, and called him "that dear creature, all heart, sir!" "Qual cuore!" he would say; for, amongst other things, Boshleigh would bore you with his execrable Italian, spoken in the loudest tone. Stingray was generally said to talk a great deal from his heart. But then, what a heart it was to talk from. Boshleigh was always speaking of "La bella Firenze," and "Roba di Roma," and "Albano," and "Trasteverini," and "una bellissima ragazza," or "una donna graziosa, bell' assai!" he would drawl out. And this sort of thing imposed upon some persons, as every piece of pachydermatous impertinence of self-assertion does, more or less. Stingray knew and appreciated his man, but never said anything spiteful of Boshleigh, whose good word, perhaps, he valued; for the fellow had a dry, caustic touch of ironical humour about him, that sometimes told, especially when he was backbiting any one to whom he owed an obligation, and these were not few.

"I never did him any kindness," said an eminent judge once in our hearing, of some one who had said an ill-natured thing of him; "why should he hate me?"

The trio went on conversing towards the Haymarket. On the way Stingray tried to draw out Sir Harry Luckless about Mrs. Aubrey; but to the surprise of that sapient man of the world, with very little success, or, rather, with marked failure. In fact, Luckless talked much more like a gentleman than is common among the well-dressed libertines of the present cynical and unchivalrous period.

"I'll tell you what it is. Stingray," said the fast young baronet, who was by no means usually fastidious in his conversation, "she's an angel, by ——, and I don't care to hear you talk of her in that sort of way; and what's more, I won't stand it from any man, and now you know."

So saying, he withdrew his arm from that of the wit, who had some difficulty in pacifying him.

"Why, Luckless, what on earth has come over you?" inquired Stingray, somewhat disconcerted. "You're not the sort of fellow to take these things in earnest. I only said——"

"I don't care what you said," retorted Sir Harry; "I don't care to hear even her name mentioned in this atmosphere. She's too good for any of us to know or talk about."

"E superb' assai!" drawled out Boshleigh, "non ho mai veduto una—una——" Here he stuck, his Italian vocabulary being at fault.

"Come, come," quoth Stingray; "since it is such an earnest case with Luckless, we had better take care, and so had Aubrey——"

"Ha! ha!" interrupted the incorrigible Boshleigh; "il marito, hay? yaas, he had better look out, and study the horn-book of matrimony. Luckless is a dangerous admirer. But you've no chance against Chalkstoneville. A duke, you know, caro mio! even with the gout, and deaf as a post—he don't find others deaf—it is long odds, even against Sir Harry Luckless. Fancy the old sinner making love, saying something very insinuating, and putting up his ear-trumpet for the blushing response. How I should like to drop the tea-caddy on his toes, or a marble paper-weight, or any other little trifle of the kind."

"His grace," said Stingray, "always reminds me of the beadle of Burlington Arcade, especially on a drawing-room day, except at one particular time."

"When may that be?" asked Boshleigh.

"When I pass by the Arcade," returned Stingray, "and then the beadle reminds me of him."

"Arcades ambo," said Boshleigh; "but the beadle has the advantage in one thing. He is not deaf like the other shepherd."

"No," replied Stingray, "or else he would lose his situation, whereas the duke would continue to hold his, were he blind and dumb into the bargain. The beadle, too, holds himself more erect; and is altogether a superior specimen of humanity, and his moral character is unimpeachable, or how could he be respected as a beadle? Besides which, he is the son of his parents, or at least reputed so to be. But the duke is the duke with fifty thousand pounds a-year, after all, and therefore is fifty thousand times a better man, without counting the title."

The speaker would have fawned, lied, wriggled like a worm or an adder, and sacrificed his greatest benefactor without remorse, to have gained the entrée of Chalkstoneville House, and to have been invited to join the duke's country circle; but, nevertheless, he was truly animated by the contempt which he expressed. Sir Harry, when the talk about the duke had dropped, took the opportunity of informing both of his companions that the conversation was very displeasing to him, involving, as it did, the name of a lady for whom he cherished the most profound admiration.

"I'm with you for the 'ken,' " he said, "or anywhere else you like; but if I hear the name of Mrs. Aubrey even alluded to again, I shall go that instant. Nay more, I shall consider it a personal offence. It is very seldom that I am in earnest about anything; but I am this time, and I must say I think it will be deuced uncivil of you to annoy me, when you see I don't like it. There are plenty of women to talk about I am sure, without dragging in her name."

By this time they had arrived at the door of the "ken," where Sir Harry knocked with his stick; and the porter, after honouring the trio with a stare, the result of which seemed to be satisfactory to his mind, said, "I hope I see you well, gents," and opened the door with a degree of promptitude and decision, not to say violence, which was highly complimentary to the party.

"Full to-night?" inquired Stingray.

"Stunning!" was the emphatic answer, with which agreeable announcement we will, if our readers allow us, leave these three ornaments of polite and moral life to enjoy, as they may, the intellectual pleasures of the "ken."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE GREAT BINSBY.

So great, so soft, so corpulent, so good,
A very prince of butlers, Spoongrand stood;
Most butler-like of princes had he been,
Should we in truth a nobler man have seen;
Though on our knees we had adored his "place,"
His "stars," his "garter," and his full fat face?
No! had our Spoongrand grandest spoon been born,
Arch table-spoon of gold, not servile horn,
He still had been himself—the good and great—
His own bland wisdom murmurs—"Sich is fate!"

MR. BINSBY, P. G. M. of the United Butlers' Branch of the Grand Metropolitan Aid Society for the benefit of the retired veterans of the three "Services," whose seal of office bore a Tir-bouchon "argent," and three folded Doyleys "or" upon a sable Hammercloth, with the motto, "Pro bono publico servimus," which some low and evil-minded persons declared meant that the chief aim and ambition of the members of the confraternity was to obtain some time or other the goodwill of a public-house—Mr. Binsby, the great, bland, and dignified ruler of the house of Aubrey, which he honoured by his (ad) ministration, sat in state in his well-worn arm-chair, at the head of the supper-table of the male and female functionaries of the various departments of domestic economy in that establishment.

It was the same night on which we have introduced our readers to the parlour of the worthy Mr. Pettingall in Thames-street, the villa of the benevolent Grinderby in the Grove of the Evangelist, the Circean orgies of the Escurial, the dingy attic of Kate Darrell in Achilles'-buildings, the drawing-room tête-à-tête of Arthur Aubrey and his enchanting wife, and lastly the Corinthian promenade of Mr. Stingray and his friends in the vicinity of the Haymarket.

Mr. Binsby may be described as of genus homo, species cork-drawer, ordo magnificent. He was a wonderful specimen of his class. His stature was lofty, his chin double, his whiskers cotelettes de mouton in style and cut, his chest expansive, à la pouter pigeon, his flesh soft, his voice sonorous, and his manner calm and impressive. His appearance, on taking the air when the hall-door was open, was so extremely awe-inspiring, that his very look has been known to scare away mischievous urchins, and to cause a showman who had commenced the usual preliminaries of that popular entertainment "Punch," suddenly to shoulder his peripatetic theatre, and like Longfellow's Arabs, with their folded tents, to

As silently steal away.

He once frightened a sensitive little washerwoman's girl, who mistook the house, and whose evil fate prompted her to ring the visitors' bell, to such an extent, that she went home and was subject to epileptic fits, until she attained the age of sixteen. Not that there was anything savage or ogre-like about Mr. Binsby—far from it; but there was something awful in the concentration of so much conscious importance in so fine a man. Imagine a whole civic Corporation looking out of one pair of eyes from an aristocratic doorstep, and you have some notion of the mesmeric influence exercised by such a personage over the poor and timid. But Mr. Binsby would have been imposing in any sphere of life! What a pity, for the honour of England, that he was not Lord Mayor of London, in some year of particular fraternisation with our Gallic neighbours. What an effect he would have created in Belgium! As it is, we are constrained to send over some little civic Mouldy, Wart, or Feeble, some absolutely thin and absurdly insignificant being, as the representative of that Gogmagogic Majesty, which is supposed to lock the gates of Temple Bar, and which once struck Wat Tyler to the ground. This had led to awkward and perplexing mistakes. On one occasion the quaint, old, gilded Mansion House post-boy, or Guildhall jockey, was seized, nolens volens, just as he was about to seek refreshment amongst his compeers, and borne in triumph by a gesticulating crowd of Mossoos to the chair of honour at the royal fête. Could this have happened, Binsbio duce—had Binsby been mayor? Never! we say emphatically. It could not have been!

True, there are beings in England, so roughly nurtured, and so coarsely constituted, that they reverence nothing truly great, and worship no divinity at all. There are boys who have no respect for beadles; there are youths who chaff the Life Guards in their own sentry-boxes; there are persons who laugh aloud at the apron of a bishop, and would pick the pocket of a Commissioner of Lieutenancy for the City of London in full uniform, or of a peer in his robes, if they could only get at it. And to crown all, there are godless and profane wretches who would remain unawed even by the Binsbian aspect in its severest phase. There was a Hansom cabman, who on departing from the door, after depositing a guest, facetiously asked that great man, if he didn't feel weak about the knees with supporting so much dignity. There was a newspaper boy, who having been reading in the "Family Herald" an account of the habits of the cetaceous tribe, stood grinning at a safe distance, and propounded the inquiry to Binsby himself, whether he often came up to the surface to blow off his steam! There was a young vagabond, who belonged to a neighbouring dispensary, who asked him in allusion to his complexion, and a certain puffiness of flesh which certainly did characterise him (as it latterly did the great Napoleon), if he wasn't weaned upon muffins; and finished by a positive assertion that he was the original fat boy in "Pickwick," grown to manhood since that inimitable publication first came out.

On these—as we are glad to record they were—rare and exceptional occasions, Binsby would slam the door with a solemn severity which never degenerated into violence, and simply withdraw himself from the vulgar gaze. It was like the august retirement of the hippopotamus in the Zoological Gardens to his inner apartment, when a bushel of shelled marrowfats wouldn't tempt him forth to take a plunge for the gratification of the plebeian throng. Plebeian, did we say? The Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, might pine for that sullen and ponderous presence, in vain. On the occasion to which we have just ventured an allusion, Binsby felt that had he been a mere Piccadilly beadle, he might have sought vengeance; but that as a Belgravian butler, he could only pity and despise such ignorance. Mr. Binsby, as a rule, never hurried himself. Scurrying and bustling were the chief of all things in the world which he disliked. Only once was he known to manifest some symptoms of haste, and that was to escape from a house where the people had evinced decidedly low habits; in fact, where the mistress had actually upon one occasion entered the kitchen unannounced, and the master forgot himself so far as to keep duplicate keys of the cellar. "I felt myself quite out of my spear," he remarked—a favourite mode of expression of his—"and I acted according to the emergency of the situation." Mr. Binsby's favourite study was heraldry. Not that he read much, considering as he did such an occupation, with the exception of glancing over the "Morning Post" every morning, rather derogatory to his dignity than otherwise. He had no respect for literature, as a profession. "It isn't that authors don't make much money," he said; "officers in the army is seldom rich, unless they turn their uniform to a good account in the way of marriage, which I have known some in another branch of the Service do, especially when their understandings was good" (and here the great man would scan his own legs with complacency); "but the truth is, that literary habits is so doosidly low. I knew an unfortunate party as once moved in a very high spear, in fact he was attached to royalty, until he took to dissipation and lost himself, pore fellow! He came at last to our society for aid, after a parrylitic attack, and he told me confidentially, that he had on one occasion actually come down so low as to do duty at an authors' club. Reduced as his circumstances were, even he couldn't stand that long. They smoked clay pipes all day long, which is nothing," added Mr. Binsby, reflectively, "when the tobakker's tolerable and at prepper times. I sometimes do such a thing myself. Even the clergy don't always object to their churchwardens" (and at this feeble joke he indulged in a genteel laugh). "But these literary fellers were by no means pertickler as to what they smoked, according to my friend; and was fond of rattling coppers in their pockets, and there was not one of them that put on a clean shirt a day, and didn't ink the table-cloth, which no gentleman could endure. They were mostly all of them Radicals, too, he said, and their conversation was blaspheymious in the heggstream. Now, if I have a weakness" (and here Mr. Binsby would smile, as if the notion of his having a weakness were something which the world would hardly admit, even at his own suggestion) "it is for clean linen, and if I've a respect, it's for the distinctiuns of Society." These were doubtless some of the reasons for which he did not immerse himself deeply and devotedly in the study and science of the "belles lettres." Possibly, too, in early life, his continual attendance on the bell had interfered with his application to letters. His knowledge of heraldry was therefore somewhat confined and peculiar. Still he had an extensive knowledge of the crests and devices of various families. Panels of carriages, and the hatchments of deceased noblemen, furnished him with constant objects of contemplation and means of enjoyable acquirement. And considering that the family of Binsby was not ancient in a genealogical point of view, whatever might be said to the contrary, and although it was true in the vulgar and facetious view of a Tennyson, that he might be descended from the "grand old gardener," like the rest of mankind; yet, as he actually was the eldest son of a market-gardener at Peckham, i.e., if his mother did not also deal in "slips," he could scarcely lay claim to an illustrious genealogical tree, or date back his own origin further at least than the first syllable of the Plantagenets.

Probably, had Mr. Binsby's feelings been consulted in relation to science, he would have declared in favour of the congenital theory of species, which is so destructive of the poetical climax of the bard, to which we have referred above. No doubt maternal Binsbian ancestors existed at a very early period, which we are inclined to believe, from a very antique coprolite jaw-bone of an old woman having been found on the family estate of an Irish branch of the "butlers," supposed to have been of cannibal propensities, whose head had evidently been snapped off, and swallowed by one of the antediluvian monsters with which we are so familiar in the pleasure-grounds of the Crystal Palace, as there was no other portion of the skeleton found near. The deinotherium had evidently made no bones of dining on that progenitress of the Binsby race. Was there not also a portion of the skull of a female found in a Roman kitchen-midden in London Wall, which was palpably that of a cook of the period, whenever that might be, from the culinary fragments which surrounded it, together with an immense quantity of the reliquiæ of the exact varieties of shell-fish to which all the members of the Binsby family are so partial at the present day? Much, it is true, might be advanced by the exponents of an antagonistic theory. But as anthropology is more capable of elucidation, or an opposite process, by separate and successive controversial essays, than by debate or discussion, admitting of answer or refutation on the spot, we invite Professors Huxley and Busk to answer us through the medium, if they please, either of a volume published at their own expense, or of the "Anthropological Review." Only we do not pledge ourselves to read their speculations, as we consider that the jaw-bones of old women might be allowed to remain silent, when they have got below, say, a tertiary crust of that crustiest of old ladies, mother Earth. To recur to our modern Binsby, his parents' real name, it should be mentioned in the course of truth and antiquarian research, was Bugsby, but in whatever respect that might have been held in a mariner's or bargeman's eyes, he felt with reason that such a patronymic was hardly admissible in the "Service" to which he had the honour to belong.

There was great merit, therefore, because great unselfishness in Binsby's administration and study of heraldic lore. It was curious how he quartered himself, as it were, on the shields of the great families with whom he happened to be successively identified in pursuing the duties of his profession. On these occasions, when speaking of their heraldic pretensions, he would say: "We bear a cock rampant on a chevron gules," or "Our motter is 'Nomen et numen,' though what new men has to do with it I must confess I don't exactly see." Or "Our fammerly came in with the Conqueror." Or "This house is of Scotch extraction. We are lineally descended from the Haggis of Haggis, twice hintermarried with the well-known barrownites of Brose." There was something sublime in this elevation to heraldic blazonry and genealogical lore on the part of Binsby, when we consider that he was liable at any time to be compelled to provide himself with a new coat-of-arms at a month's warning. It was touching, when one considered it in all its full-flavoured simplicity and earnest single-mindedness of credulous infatuation. Was it altogether an infatuation? We will not speak of the peculiar genealogical influence occasionally exercised by servitors of the Binsbian mould and stamp in ancient families, in preserving them from extinction, or, what is worse, utter degeneration of body and mind. The stalwart heir of more than one noble house has resembled a stout footman, rather than his noble but effeminate papa. The contemplation and company of robust personages has a physiological as well as moral bearing, highly suggestive it may be, but no less practical in its consequences and effect. But this is a matter for metaphysical speculation, rather than the pages of a work like this. To pursue, however, another train of thought, must we not admit that the whole science and detail of heraldry depends very much upon faith—upon the belief that you had a great-grandfather, that your great-great-grandmother was chaste, or that she wasn't somebody else? Would there ever have been a pedigree sought out and published of the Empress of the French, which pedigree includes in her ancestry Bruce and Wallace, if we mistake not, and nearly every Scottish notability, save Macbeth and the Laird of Cockpen—would, we say, this pedigree ever have existed—if the ancestors did—had not Napoleon III. fallen in love with a certain charming young lady of mingled Spanish and Scottish descent? Of course we do not include the utter and acknowledged fictitious absurdity, so much fostered by the modern system of crested envelopes and stamps, and emblazoned notepaper. The way in which some persons who cannot even boast of a father, but are ashamed to own the honest man, i.e., if he were honest, which they are not, go into this sort of thing, only stationers and engravers, and that erudite body, the Herald's College, can tell. These are the folks who connect their own two names, or two last names, if they have more, or their own and wife's surname, with a hyphen, as Smyth-Wilkins, or Clark-Rogers. If you look for Wilkins in the "Court Guide"—he was only promoted to the Commercial Directory a few years ago—you either don't find him, or it says, "See Smyth-Wilkins."

His daughter Sarah, formerly "our Sally," drops her final h, and comes out as Sara. "Chi Sarah Sara!" This is only fair, as her father always supplies an unnecessary h at the beginning; of a great many words. It is a habit he acquired at Court—a court in Whitechapel; and no court in Europe can guide him out of it. He may be more fortunate in the next world, for he does already drop it both in heaven and elsewhere.

To revert to the real humbug, the true genuine absurdity. Was not Binsby—if we could imagine him in cuerpo, with his mutton-chop whiskers developed into the full bushy luxuriance of a beard—as proper a man as was ever depicted in the form of a supporter of the most gorgeous emblazonment? Was there not lately a picture in the South Kensington Portrait Gallery, representing a worthy of the Elizabethan era, the exact similitude of the Binsby, at present connected with the Aubrey family? There was, to the very trick of the judicial beetling eyebrows, and the exact over-lapping droop of his majestic jowl. We ourselves believe that the world has never been without a Binsby, since the time of ancient Babylon the Great, and probably for ages before that comparatively recent period in the history of mankind. We can imagine a Binsby, chief-butler to Pharaoh, telling his dream to Joseph, the boy in buttons of that Semitic establishment, surrounded by the culinary hieroglyphics of an Egyptian servants' hall. The only inconsistency of our friend lay in the transfer of the Binsbian interest from one family to another, together with his mercenary allegiance.

But in this he only followed the example of the great families from whom he, or any one else, might happen to claim descent.

After all, it was but a sort of new quartering on his shield; his pantry displayed a collection of all the coats-of-arms he had ever borne, or helped to bear, in the vicissitudes of the noble families he had known. Such a man, sober, unmarried, Protestant, and chaste—severe, yet bland; proud, but courted; stately, and affable; weighing sixteen stone seven, yet treading softly in his well-polished pumps—was the august autocrat, reminding one of Vespasian rather than Nero, of Trajan rather than Caligula, of Alexander Comnenus rather than Commodus, who ruled over the destinies of the Lower Empire of No. —, Queen's-square, at the exact period of which we speak.

This great man, then, was sitting in his arm-chair awaiting supper on the evening which we have sought to immortalise, when the following conversation took place. But as Binsby deserves a whole chapter, ay, though it were of the most high and puissant Order of the Garter, to himself, we will leave him thus photographed in the memory of our readers, a "thing of beauty," and "a joy for ever," and proceed in our next chapter to display him mingled and confused with the lesser personages who derived second-hand lustre and dignity from his magnificent presence.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE SECOND SALLE-A-MANGER OF THE FAMILLE AUBREY.

When I thinks of the traps as I've driven, the bar-parlours as I've set in, the wager-dinners as I've eat, and the glasses round as I've had a share in, I says—"What is life?"—After-midnight Soliloquy of a Commercial Traveller.

"I WONDER," quoth Mrs. Susan, Blanche Aubrey's maid, to Mr. Tops, Arthur Aubrey's groom, as they sat conversing in the servants' hall, on the memorable night when the events took place which we have narrated in the preceding chapters—"I wonder that missus and master don't leave this racketing London to the fine folks that is fit to live in it, and take some delightful place in the country. I am sure if I was them, I wouldn't stay in town a day longer, and missus is so fond of flowers."

"Did you hever 'appen to know a swell as did hexackly what he liked, or what he was cut out special for by Natur, Susan?" observed Mr. Tops.

After saying this much he paused for a reply; and then quaffed a draught of his supper beer in a manner that would have created envy in a blasé aristocrat hesitating between champagne-cup, or any other expensive compound, languidly unable to excite his too frequently indulged and consequently vitiated taste.

Mr. Tops paused for a reply, but getting none, continued his observations.

"Cos if you did, I never did, and that's hall about it."

"Really, Mr. Tops," said the lady's lady at last, "I can't say that such an idea did ever strike me. I should think that 'swells,' as you call them, are just the people who did follow their own fancies."

"It's the loikes of we," observed Jane, the housemaid, a fine buxom Staffordshire girl, with hair of the hue which has since become so fashionable, "as is obligated, in a manner of speaking, to do as we oughtner to be obligated no how. Look how sarvints is worrited. If I wanted to go furren now, do you suppose I'd get a chance? In course I don't want to do no such a thing. It don't seem much like England, as it is, in a place where a French man-cook is kep."

"Well, I must say," remarked Susan, "that Monseer Isidore keeps himself very much to himself, and I don't see that we have any call to complain of his company."

Miss Jane tossed her head, and made a remark to the effect that, for her part, she thought the mounseer rather resembled a murderer at Madame Tussaud's Exhibition than a person who ought to cook victuals for an English family. The fact is, that poor M. Isidore had been rather captivated by the rustic fair one, who expressed her scorn of her admirer, like a true coquette of her class and condition.

The great Binsby had been revolving the proposition of Tops, and was so absorbed by it as to pay no attention to the remarks of the women. At length the oracle spoke; and the whole kitchen, animate and inanimate, from the dish-cover laid down by Betty, the scullery-maid, to the cat which ceased to pass her paw over her ears, and sat solemnly blinking round, from page to spectacled housekeeper, from the elegant Susan to the flippant Tops, seemed suddenly impressed with awe, and to come as it were to attention.

"There's a deal in what Mr. Tops has observed," said the great man, at length. "I've been a many years in the 'Service,' and I've seen, I may say, a sight of tip-top company in my time, and what's the conclusion I've arrived at?" (Pause.) "The conclusion is, that masters is masters of everything, except their own wishes, and their own affairs, generally, including in a meejority of cases their missuses; and that servants is servants, and as such is called upon to act according. Now I never did hardly know a gentleman as did act according. If he's rich, he wants to be richer; if he's in society he wants to better that society; he's always trying to do something beyond himself like, and a imitating his neighbours in a manner that is very unbecoming. If he don't think it, his wife says, 'My dear, the Smythes gave clear turtle as well as thick, last week at that dinner of theirs, and we only had thick; or they had four extra waiters, and we only had three,' and so she puts him on to outdo the Smythes. Of course, I'm talking of them as spend their fortunes, and not of the mean-sperritted creatures as spend no fortune at all, and saves all their money for somebody who wishes 'em dead, and don't thank 'em even for dying, when they've got it. That's not according to any sort of living. They are to be pitied, they are. But as for saying that any gentlefolks live as they like, or where they like, or how they like, of course I know better."

"O cri! Muster Binsby," interrupted the boy in buttons, "wouldn't I like to be a gentleman, and wouldn't I jest 'ave a rare blow out whenever I felt peckish, and go reg'lar to the theayter."

"Hold your tongue, you young himp of hevil," was the majestic man's reply. It must be reluctantly admitted that even Binsby himself, when exasperated, aspirated his h's, and was apt to forget his Lindley Murray. "A gentleman," resumed Mr. Binsby, "may say, 'next year I'll do so and so,' but does he do it? Of course he don't, and if he tried ever so, his friends and relations wouldn't let him. Some has daughters to be married, and some has sons to start in life, and all is slaves to Society, and fashion, and circumstances, and what they call their circle of acquaintance and the world. I tell you their lives is all a imposition, from family prayers before breakfast, to counting the bottles of wine that's been drunk after the last guest has gone, and a blessing with him, which is sure to be some very shy gent who's been standing in doorways and corners all the evening, and has warmed up unpleasantly by drinking half tumblers of wine after supper."

"Well, Mr. Binsby," cut in Tops, "I'm sure you can't accuse our guv'nor of that kind of game. He don't count his bottles. He's the wrong sort to go for to do such a thing."

"Nor I didn't want to, young man," replied the butler, whose words gurgled with solemnity and slowness, like the contents of a thick bottle of port. "I was illustrating life in its various faces, and I was jest a going to observe, when you whipt up my plate, as I may say, before I'd done, which is not the practice in the spear I'm accustomed to, that our young people behave themselves, according, as much as any that ever I served with, and I would give them an excellent character to any gentleman of my acquaintance. Not wishing to detract from their merits, I must say that Arthur Aubrey, Esquire, is not rich enough, in my opinion, to venture on mean and dishonourable actions. It's only a nobleman or a banker who can afford to count the wax candle-ends after an out-and-out fashionable cram. I've known a bishop do it; but then they can do anything short of cold meat on Sundays. But if you mean to say, any of you, that our young folks up-stairs follow their own inclinations, and do what they feel inclined to do, I dissent entirely from your preposition, and consider your views unphilosophic and shaller."

"It's as true as gospel," eagerly remarked the housemaid Jane; "I believe, if it wasn't for what other folks say, missus would be as nateral as one of we. As it is, she can't go outside the door without a lot of preparation and rubbish, and Mr. William here to follow after her, as stately as a funeral, or else the carridge. She isn't half so gay and lightsome,

I've heerd Susan here say, as she was before marriage; for all she was a governess, and loves our young master."

The butler frowned at this allusion. It was clear that he didn't like any allusion to a fact so detrimental to the dignity of one of the "young people's" antecedents.

"When I was used to take the cheer in the hall of the Reform Club," he said, "I'd a deal of time for reflection on the life of the harristocrisy and upper classes. And the conclusion I arrived at is, that they've a deal more care and a good deal less pleasure, than some that occupies a different spear altogether. I allude particularly to gentlemen of my own perfession. We have, I may say, a wider choice of life and observation. Of course, I speak of gents only that is settled and married. There isn't a worse set of slaves in Europe, or Ameriky, for that matter, than people moving in Society. From morning to night, and abed for all I know, they're always thinking what some one else will say about them. If a man daren't eat peas with a knife, or drink beer with his dinner, or enjoy an apple on his own doorstep, that is, if he is minded to, is that liberty? If he's got a dozen horses in the stable, can he ride any one of them he likes?" A shake of the head from Tops. "Isn't he obliged to be sweltering in London in the hottest month of the year, or to close his windows and his shutters if he don't leave town? Mustn't he dress for dinner, whether he likes it or not, and does he get the best of what's to eat and drink in his own house?" Approval all round. "And mustn't both he and his wife receive visitors, and be civil to them, when they'd as leave take as much physic, or poison, for the matter of that? What folks don't like—if they're ever so fashionable—they're always ruining themselves to purchase, and what they'd like to have, they never can somehow by any means afford. All they can afford is show and pretence, and such like. But if they'd the heart to do good, and I believe a many has, only it's invisible, and we can't see it, are they ever in a position to do it? They've got to give lots of money in charities, as isn't charity at all, to my mind; but if the wife says to the husband, 'My dear, there's our poor cousin Robert starving for want of bread,' what's the answer? 'We must look at home, my dear. I can assure you, we're living above our means.' And so they all are; except, as I said, the poor pitiful creatures that don't live at all. And that's the chief secret of the unhappiness which I feel myself called upon to testimonialise to as a veteran in the Service."

Having delivered himself of this speech, Mr. Binsby looked around for approval, and applied himself assiduously to the leg of a pheasant.

"It's all very true, sir, doubtless, what you say," said the footman, a nice quiet young man, who had just joined, as Mr. Binsby would have called it, and who had a profound respect for his senior officer and commandant, "and I don't mean for a moment to contradict it; but I should like to try a little of their unhappiness up-stairs, that's what I should. If I was a gentleman, missus is just the sort I should like to be unhappy with."

"If you was one of them," replied Mr. Binsby, with patronising grandeur, "perhaps you'd do as they does. As it is, young man, you only expose your ignorance." Saying which he relapsed into the requisite amount of abstraction required by his agreeable occupation.

"Well," said Tops, "I'm free to confess that it hoften licks me to know what the nobs is a drivin' at. As for master, he don't take 'arf so kind to the stables, since he's been mixed hup with all these swells. Now and agen he do come to smoke his weed of a morning, but what is it? Yesterday he says, 'Tops,' says he, 'the dook says that the little bay 'oss ain't a good match for the t'other. I think I must get a customer for him, Tops.' 'Well,' says I, 'sir, there ain't no dook in Hingland as can find a better-matched pair than them two 'osses. Pr'aps he's arter him hisself.' And that's what, in my opinion, he was arter."

"And that's not all he's after in this establishment," observed Mr. Binsby. "He ought to be ashamed of himself, that's what he ought to be. I should like to tell him a little of my opinion of him. I'll warrant he should hear it for all his deafness."

"Then, there's Sir 'Arry Luckless, he didn't like the colour of our pheayton," continued Tops, "and master's a goin' to have it new painted. I'd see him blowed first, that's what I would. It's hall for want o' summit to say, for I heerd him hadmiring of it to missus like winking. I'd paint him."

"I am sure," said Susan, "that Sir Harry is a very nice, civil-spoken gentleman. It was only last

Tuesday he gave me half a sovereign, and such a nice——" Here she paused and looked down.

"Nice what?" cried Tops. "I thought you was a different sorted one."

"Such a nice smile, to be sure," continued Susan; "and I'll just trouble you, Mr. Tops, not to insult me with any of your imperence, if you please. What were you pleased to think he should give me? I'd advise you to keep your insinuations to the stable, and not to trouble me with them. I wish you good evening. I'm going up to missus. I don't allow no one to insult me, groom nor barrynet." And, so saying, she swept out of the room.

"There now, you've been and done it," said the housemaid.

"I've known a man's head punched for insulting a respectable young woman like that," quoth the new footman, between whom and the illiterate Tops a tacit rivalry had already commenced as to which should keep company with pretty Mrs. Susan.

"You'd better come and do it," said Tops; rising and falling into an attitude that would have done credit to the late Sir Thomas de Sayers of that ilk.

In justice to his rival, we must record that he by no means displayed the white feather. "Oh! if that's your game, come outside," he said, "and I'm your man."

And now the Muses of History and of Song might have to record deeds of desperate valour inspired by Cupid and Bacchus. But a deity appeared "from the machine" worthy of the occasion, and interfered, in the majestic person of the portly Binsby.

"Forbear, rash knights," he said, or rather didn't say; but what he said was, "None of this 'ere here, if you please. Mr. Tops, I thought you knew better. As for you, young man, I make every allowance; but just drop it, drop it, I say! Don't be alarmed, ladies."

We are bound to observe that this last remark was not uncalled for. The housemaid, in tears, had thrown herself unreservedly into the arms of Tops, and the scullery-maid was alternately blubbering and calling, "Perlice!" while the housekeeper, a staid and silent dame, showed unmistakable symptoms of going into a fit. "Hold your tongue, you owdacious young varmint, or I'll kick you out of this establishment!" The boy in buttons, to whom this was addressed, had actually ventured to utter the astounding words of "Go it, Tops!" but shrunk away abashed from the imposing Binsbian rebuke.

"Allow me to remind you, gentlemen," continued the mighty pacificator, with a wave of his hand which approached sublimity, without wholly abandoning the ridiculous, "that duels is hobsolete, and cannot by any manner of means be permitted in the Service. And in an establishment which I've the honour to preside over, it can't even be heard or thought on. Why, the only thing the people up-stairs show sense in is in their quarrels. In the present state of Society, there's such a sight of lying and backbiting they couldn't afford time for duelling, even if the newspapers would let 'em. Even the officers in the other Services—I mean the Army and Navy—have left it off. And what do they do? They apologise, or bring their actions, or refer it to a Court of Honour, which I'm willing to be on the present occasion. Mr. Tops, you'll apologise to the lady; Mr. ——, I forget your surname, young man, but it don't matter, you'll oblige me by offering your hand to Mr. Tops."

"I've no objexion to do anythink to oblige you, Mr. Binsby," said the good-humoured Tops; "but you'll own when it come to talkin' of punching of 'eads, that it's about time to strip the clothing off, and as for Ma'amselle Susan, I'd as leave starve my 'osses as hoffend her, if I knowed it."

"I am sure I'm quite agreeable," said his opponent; "if the right thing is done by the lady. Here's my hand, mate, and I'll stand glasses round with pleasure."

"We don't stand glasses in this establishment, sir," observed Mr. Binsby; "but you can do what you like in regard to that preposition, when you're next out on duty with the family equipage, or at any house you think proper to patronise on the first convenient occasion."

In this manner was the Temple of Janus closed by the janitor of Aubrey's household, whose next proceeding was to produce a bottle of cordial brandy, and administer a restorative to the fluttered housekeeper; after which, with many pleasant little speeches, and on the part of the females little amiable pretences that they never did take anything so potent, the "petty ver" offered, in the language of the euphonious Mr. Binsby, was passed round.

"Consider," said that dignitary, "what an example we should set the up-stairs harristocrisy, if we were to demean ourselves by low-lived fights and quarrels. The weapon of the nineteenth century is tongues; and if a adversary gets the better of you at that, you've only got to say that you treat him with contempt, or that he is beneath your notice."

"But suppose he should say the same?" inquired Tops.

"Then," returned Mr. Binsby, "you may eggspress your regret that you live in an age which prevents you from inflicting personal chastisement, or you publish the correspondence, when in all probability you're bound over. All you don't do is to fight; for if both the principels was mad enough, the seconds wouldn't let 'em for their own sakes. Who'd run the chance of being hanged for another man's quarrel, and with all them penny papers calling him a murderer in their leading articles?"

"I am sure," said Jane, "from all I've heard, there's that old Stingray would have a fine time of it, if duelling wasn't put down."

"And serve him right," cried Tops. "He's as vicious as the devil's favourite saddle-'oss, and as mischeevyous as a monkey. Now, from what I've heerd, not only master and missus say, but a sight of gents' grooms as knows him, he ain't fit to live within ten miles of any racing-stable in Hingland. He sets more folks by the ears than enough, and he ain't got a good word to say for nobody. And look at the tricks of all them cures of lawyers that get mixed hup with hevery one's bisness! D'ye mean to tell me it wouldn't be better for So-ci-ety, or whatever yer call it, if a few of them was shot now and then? As for the law, if a cove prigs a hankercher off a hedge, or out of a pocket, he's precious soon pulled hup with a round turn; but there's no law for all them vagabones as goes about doing nothink but lying and doing mischief. I wish the good old times was back agen, and I don't care who knows it."

"Right you air, Mr. Tops," said Mr. Binsby, "provided they was back again, you see; but we must act all according, that's where it is. Act according, and you'll be righter than ever."

"And this here Stingray, and the lawyers, is to go on lying and blackguarding every one according," responded Tops. "Is that right? Becos if it is, I don't know nothink, and what's more I don't want to."

"As for Mr. Stingray," replied the magniloquent butler, "it would afford me for one the sincerest gratification, if he was never to set foot in this house again. I know he's a low bleyguard, as you were pleased to intimate, though Society tolerates him and calls him a great writer. I am quite aware of what he has been pleased to write against the Service." Here Mr. Binsby paused, as if the subject were too painful and disgusting. "But I can only say that I regard him, and all like him, with the contempt he merits, and I never pour him out a glass of sham, but I wish it was poison. I couldn't afford to do it myself, as it would be anything but according; but I did say to one of the hextra waiters at our last dinner, as had taken a drop reyther early, as those sort of persons are reyther apt to do, that if he spilt the gravy over him, I should consider it in the light of an accidental occurrence. And he did spill it," added Mr. Binsby, slowly and reflectively, "and perhaps overdid it a little—I might say a great deal, and not be far out neither. But I was as good as my word; and that very individual waited yesterday at his Grace the Duke of Chalkstoneville's deyjeunay, and that individual is likewise engaged here for our dinner to-morrow. Mr. Stingray may look carving-knives at him if he likes; but he can't say but what it was an accident, after all."

"I honly wish I'd got the job to drive him home of a dark night in our boldest dog-cart—the one as goes errands and sich-like," quoth Tops. "I know where he'd find hisself, afore we'd got 'arf way to his lodging."

"I should like to damp the old wretch's bed for him," was the housemaid's contribution.

"Et moi aussi," quoth M. Isidore, who had come in towards the close of the conversation with the whitest of white caps on his head, and a silver bed-candlestick in his hand, upon which sparkled a brilliant of the first water. "I would like ver' veil to make him von leetle vol-au-vent to heemself, and I vould give to heem vot you call feece, poisson—ha! ha! he should say yesterday, 'I do not carry myself too vell—I 'ave de evil at de stomach'—de peeg, de blagueur dat he are. I should say, 'Ah! Monsieur Steengrai, you not carry yourself vell to-morrow. Eh bien! den you come no more to dine veet us, dere is all.' Ah! Meess Jenny, vat vicked eyes, you make me fear. Bon soir, mesdames! Bon repos. Monsieur

Beensby; to-morrow we shall be ver occupés—diner de seize couverts—sixteen is it not? This good Monsieur Aubrey he likes mosh to give de diners recherchés. He sall vot you call dam de expense—is it not? Monsieur Steengrai, he vill come—oh, yes! Adieu!" And the good-humoured Frenchman went chattering out of the room, singing a vaudeville air to himself up-stairs.

"Good-night, mounseer!" was the ascending chorus; for it was impossible for the most bigoted household to dislike Frenchy, for all the fun they made of him behind his back. Besides, there is a great masonry in hatred of the same object; and it was quite evident that Mr. Stingray was by no means popular among the Dî Minores, in what Mr. Binsby was wont to call, with a degree of phonetic propriety which was not unappreciable, the second "sally-mangy" in the "petty maisong" of our young people up-stairs.

"She ain't one o' my sort, nor yet no beauty, and though I don't like a 'oss to be a white-stocking'd one, I likes it in a gal, and this 'ere one isn't over clean in the fetlocks one way or hanother," remarked Mr. Tops to himself the first time he heard Mr. Binsby dignify the servants' hall by the above-mentioned name; "but I don't think a gal ought to be called no sich a name, even if she do happen to be a Sarah, and nothink better nor a kitchen-maid, as cleans the pots and kettles. Somebody must do it, that's sartain; and agen, if she's second mangy Sally, who's the first, that's what I wants to know. If I thought hold Binsby meant—— But no! I never heard him say a word agen her, and he'd better not. It wouldn't be good for him, vile I'm in 'the Sarvice,' as the old himage calls it. Let's see, which on 'em is called Sairy hup-stairs? I've got it. It's Mother Pushfort's red-nosed filly, as married that old bald general; she's a Sally, and an uncommon mangy lot they are and no mistake. Master's got into a bad stable haltogether. It don't take much of a prophet to reckon them up. And them Pushforts is about the worst of the whole biling. Why that hold woman would do any dirty action to get squeeged into one of the dook's parties, and see her name in the papers. And the darter, oh, scissors! how she do lay it on to Lady Madherewill. I'd turn 'em hup pretty quick, if I was master. Would I leave that hangelic creetur, as he's owner of, among sich a lot? Not if I knowed it. I'd as leave turn the winner of this year's Hoaks into a knacker's yard, or a hospittle for cab-'osses, if so be as sich a hinstitooshun existed hanywheres in this here charrytible metrolopus." So saying, Mr. Tops executed half a score of winks directed at vacancy, apparently intended to convey the impression to inanimate nature that he was "all there;" whistled a few bars of a popular melody; felt in his pockets for a halfpenny, tossed it up, apparently speculating mentally on woman; caught it; cried "tails it is," and proceeded to look "arter the 'osses" with a serenity which many a Serene Highness might well have envied.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GONE TO THE AMERICAN BAR.

Whar do you hail from, stranger? Whar ar you bound to? What's your bis'niss? Let's liquor up.—States' Inquisition, passim.

AT that very time, but not exactly at the same hour, Mr. Manvers, after visiting various bars in New York of the most refined and elegant pretensions, as far as gas, liquor, language, and manners generally were concerned, and after partaking of a diversified series of "smiles," "cocktails," "mint-juleps," "eye-openers," "corpse-revivers," and other drinks remarkable for the ingenuity both of their concoction and nomenclature, considered himself in a fit and proper condition to be initiated into the mysteries of the "United Association or Neck-or-nothing Blood-waders," whose threefold objects were to chaw up the rotten English aristocracy, to annex the British Isles, and to make Queen Victoria squirm.

"Yes, sirree," said an enthusiastic young lady lecturer, who had just delivered an address at the Apollo Rooms in favour of the association, and who looked in her bloomer costume something like Robin

Hood as performed, say, at the Theatre Gravesend—"yes, sirree, and the b'hoys will do it, as sartain as Cain whipped Abel."

"I calculate," remarked a tall Yankee, spitting with admirable dexterity between Manvers and the lady, "our General Winfield Scott would have made your Duke of Wellington smell sulphur in jest about the time he could draw one boot on. Considerin' he was some pumpkins in Europyan scrimmages, it's perhaps fortunate that he served his time out and got safely buried, before we had finally concluded to annex your country."

The following is a portion of the speech delivered on the occasion by Hon. Cincinnatus Chopper Hogg, senator, from Applesarseville, Ohio:

"We see, gentlemen, a fellow-citizen hyar tonight, who has defied tyranny in its incestuous cradle, and taken a sight at monarchy in its spirit-squelching home. The bloodthirsty catamounts of despotism are howling on his footsteps over the tremenjus whale-pond of the stormy Atlantic, but I tell them in the name of this enlightened assemblage, in the name of Ada Camilla Ancrelina Lexington Pants, whose soul-dazzling sentiments have jest gone slick down into the deepest spring in your hearts and struck ile, I reckon"—(immense applause)—"I tell these stumped-out skunks of antediluvian despotism, that the sooner they slide and make tracks home, and tell Madame Victoria to shut up that old curiosity-store and rag-shop of hers, the British Constitooshun, the better it will be for their constitooshuns, unless they prefer being accommodated for glory in a coat of tar and feathers. You see hyar, I say, in this stranger, whom we welcome tew-night, a forest plant of freedom which has busted out of that darned old mouldy hothouse of the Britishers to spread his eagle wings in a dazzling atmosphere of action. He has come, as it were, like a critter out of an exhausted receiver to breathe the free air, and to suck the free drinks of an enlightened republic through the straw of equality" (cheers) "tendered to him by the Goddess of Liberty herself, attired in the pantilettes of our beautiful female costume—a straw, gentlemen, cut by the sickle of emancipated labour from the illimitable expanse of those waving corn-fields, where the setting sun gilds with gorgeous splendour a wilderness of ungarnered grain, and laughs to scorn with the happy opossum in the gum-tree and full-fed fetterless 'coon—as they grin over the ten-foot loam of the inexhaustible sile of our glorious river valleys—the petty rotation-system and agricultural insolvency of that top-booted, busted-up, old fossil blow-hard, John Bull." (Tumultuous expression of rapture.) "I tell yew, fellow-citizens and Blood-waders," continued the inspired orator, "that when the Pilgrim Fathers quitted that darned little island thyar—that is, if they ever did quit it; for I du myself believe that if this glorious country war ever discovered at all, it was done by a natyve American—the only fammily of trew grit they left behind them was that of the illustrious stranger whom we welcome in this hall to-night. If, gentlemen, you doubted the fact, his name alone would prove it to you. I pronounce that name aloud, and call on yew for a cheeyr to shake the dust out of the trestles of the rotten coffin-throne of monarchy to St. James's, London, with a forty Niagara power of American acclamation—three cheeyrs and a tiger for Washington Otis Lafayette Shofel Winch. He can hit straight out from the shoulder, and weighs over two hundred and twenty pound."

We need not add that the cheers were deafening and unanimous. It will be seen that Mr. Manvers had paid a handsome tribute to his adopted country in his change of name. We will not trouble ourselves to republish his speech in answer, which was hearty and so much to the purpose, that it formed two or three splendid headings for the next issue of the "New York Renegade," in the following style:

IMMENSE SENSATION! EDITOR COW-HIDED AGAIN!!

SPEECH OF A DEMOCRATIC BRITISHER.

THREATENED ANNEXATION OF THE BRITISH ISLES.

THE BLOOD-WADERS CONCLUDE FOR INSTANT INVASION.

BARNUM IN THE ASCENDANT. A ROYAL "HAPPY FAMILY" BESPOKEN FOR HIS MUSEUM, &c. &c.

An escaped criminal makes a first-rate indignation rebel and patriot in a foreign clime, and Manvers lost no opportunity of painting his country in the blackest colours. Unfortunately he was furnished too readily with texts, which only required to be handled with a little dexterity to still further inflame the virulence of Transatlantic resentment against the Old Country. The Sutherland evictions, the wrongs of Ireland, and the starving poor of England, lost nothing in his hands; and when he proceeded to declare that the rotten-hearted oligarchs of Great Britain hated and feared the free institutions of the States, and that the ladies of the Court were instructed not even to dance with a Yankee Attaché at that old rabbit-hutch of a palace at St. James's, the speaker made a hit beyond his most sanguine expectations. He was the lion—we beg pardon, the "old boss," the live alligator, the real grit, the striped and spotted ring-tailed painter of the evening, and if the "drunk" had lasted long enough, and no fresh excitement had occurred to wipe him out, his admirers would have been ready to run him for President, had there been no legal impediment to such a proceeding.

Unfortunately for Mr. Manvers and his political prospects, his money was soon spent, and the sympathy of his admirers and adherents vanished with it. We must do them the justice to say that, had his pocket been much better stored than it was, they would nearly, if not quite as soon, have got tired of him, and pronounced the fatal verdict of his extinction, in the craving after some fresh excitement. The sentence of "Let him slide!" is nowhere so easily and certainly pronounced of a new favourite as in that wonderful country, where Society is represented by a series of dissolving views, and where whole strata of men and measures vanish, and give place to new, not less completely, but somewhat more rapidly than the geological periods of the earth's formation. Washington Otis Lafayette was soon pronounced a fossil, and shelved accordingly. On the occasion of his last stump speech against England, his happiest efforts fell utterly dead on the ears of the assembly; and when he showed symptoms of disgust and indignation, he narrowly escaped gouging and even lynching, and was forced to make an ignominious exit. In vain did he make—it must be owned in an intellectual point of view—a most successful effort to adopt the style and sentiment of the great Cincinnatus Chopper Hogg, and tell his hearers that he could run a better and bigger island than Britain from a spoonful of melted metal into a wash-hand basin of dirty water. In vain did he facetiously remark that the country was so small, that a man could not safely get out of bed in the morning without danger of stepping over the side of the island. In vain did he denounce Queen, Commons, and institutions. The temper of the mob was different; and he was denounced for his pains in libelling our beloved and respected Sovereign as a mean-spirited skunk and scoundrel. True it is that he had attempted an "operation" in American notions, especially in revolvers and torpedoes, for the purposes of invasion; and another in Catawba wine and peach-brandy, with the avowed determination of forcing on the haughty islander the products of the Western hemisphere, so soon as a Republican Proclamation should be dated from St. James's. True it is, that he had contracted for ten thousand hickory handles to furnish bill-hooks for cutting down the hedges of Kent and Surrey, and dislodging the defenders of those petty counties; but the game was soon up, and his hotel bill had become unpleasantly proportionate to the colossal characteristics of the favoured abiding-place of the bird of freedom. So Manvers "sloped," and tried billiards down South; but it didn't answer. He migrated to California; but was unsuccessful at the diggings. He then returned northward, and actually for some time existed as touter in an establishment for the plunder of poor emigrants on their landing. At last, however, he joined a spirit-rapping confraternity in the capacity of bully, and picked up a tolerable livelihood.

Here let us leave him at present, having already somewhat anticipated the present date of our narrative. Throughout all his vicissitudes there was something which he clung to and cherished—something in the shape of a soiled deed or lease, which he would occasionally unfold from its resting-place near his gorilla-like bosom, and look at with mingled passion and exultation. Then, after a coarse onion-flavoured supper, he would breathe curses in the supposed direction of England, and shake his clenched fist with malignant spite and triumph. For whatever it was, he seemed under the impression that it could only be made use of to his own benefit, were he to return to the Old Country, which did not exactly lie within the sphere of his calculations. As it was, it sufficed to feed revenge, and soothe his tortured spirit with the feeling that some one whom he hated suffered through his possession of that mysterious document.

Clever as Manvers was in a certain line, he found Yankee smartness on its own ground more than a match for him; and he longed to get back to England to make use of his new observation and acquirements. Had the epoch of his expatriation been a few years later, he might have shone as a Fenian leader with brilliant success. But in that respect he lived before his time, like other heroes who have not made their mark in their generation.

If, however, Fortune was so far cruel to John Swindles Manvers, alias Washington Otis Lafayette Shofel Winch, alias Dr. Mordred Orfila Grinder, she has not been niggardly in her after-supply of a sufficient crop of rascaldom to meet the exigencies of the demand and the occasion.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A DIGRESSION AND A DEFENCE.

The earliest story-telling we are acquainted with is undoubtedly of Eastern origin. Of this, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments may be taken as the best known popular and meritorious example. These may be considered in one respect as essentially digressive; since story is included within story, like the ivory balls in a Chinese puzzle. This example has been followed by some of the best modern writers; not only so far as story-telling is concerned, but in actual digressions of the author. Whether this be regarded as an insidious attempt on a writer's part to introduce his own sentiments and opinions, tacked on to his legitimate narrative like a parcel of superabundant trimmings or embroidery, or as the mere exhibition of a rambling and loquacious propensity, it is not our intention even to attempt to determine. But if a romance may aspire sometimes to accomplish a higher mission, than merely to impair the memory and weaken the understanding by peopling the brain with characters without reflection—mere clothed lay figures and painted puppets set in motion through an ingenious tourbillon of events—to end most commonly in the commonest catastrophe of marriage, then the author may justly be allowed occasionally to ride his own hobbies as best he may. And this even at the peril of bringing down upon his head the stern censure of the Genius of criticism, who either condemns his style, or has been hit in the eye by some chance date-stone flung at random from the speculative attic-window among the crowd of passers-by.—ARBELLINUS. Philosophic Inquiries, vol. ii. chap. viii. pp. 93-4.

OUR fantoccini are put to bed for a time, and consequently we, in the capacity of showman, having our hands temporarily disengaged, feel inclined to embrace the opportunity, and make a speech on behalf of our story and ourselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, be kind enough not to walk down and refresh yourself just at present, although the drop-scene has just fallen on Act I., and the entr'acte has in reality commenced. We shall not plead profit and expediency as our excuse for anything that we may have uttered, or made our characters utter, to offend the delicate susceptibilities of the "world." This we leave to the fast authors and authoresses of the period, who write up or down to the depravity and false taste which they recognise as their market, and increase the craving by pandering to its demands. We could, had we been so minded, have far more easily have shunted ourselves into the recognised grooves of fiction. Nay, as the critics cannot put us either into the confessional or the witness-box, we are not disposed to confess what we may have already done in this line. A "great thing" was open in dashing ritualistic romance, seasoned with bigamy, and husband-poisoning quan. suff. A slashing financial bubble story of the day has, we admit, suggested itself to our humble capacities, illustrated by some well-known characters. But we felt that we should have been treading on too dangerous ground. We could not easily have steered clear of personality; for in depicting this style of roguery, who could have escaped—we mean, of course, in the great commercial world? Of the resentment of the mere minority of detected rogues, we, of course, should have not felt so much apprehension, at least for periods varying from five to fifteen years to come.

But of the vast and powerful body of the unconvicted rich and unscrupulous, united in the common instincts and interests of self-protection, we must own we stand in wholesome apprehension and fear. What deadly enmity might we not have incurred at the hands of the righteous who are not yet forsaken! No, we are not distinguished for prudence; but we cannot afford to excite the anger of the larger half of this prosperous commercial community. Look at all the clever schemers and swindlers who have sold out in time, or settled money on their wives, or whom the law can't catch, or refuses to tackle. The other day we inquired after the health of a financier of some celebrity, whose utter smash and exposure we looked for every morning in our daily paper.

"Just done the neatest thing I've heard for many a day," was the answer from a friend of an appreciative turn and faculty. "Don't you remember hearing of his return for Sneaksborough?"

We answered that we did perfectly well, but that he would never take his seat; as there was a valid and powerful petition for corruption and bribery cut and dried.

"Ho! ho!" laughed our informant, "is there? That's all you know about it. The petition is quashed, that you may rest assured of; and what is more Jobkins has pocketed a thousand pounds clear gain by his election, after paying all his expenses."

We looked our astonishment.

"What do you mean?" we said.

"Most people pay something to get into Parliament, don't they?" asked our friend; "more or less one way or the other, especially for such a cursed rotten place as Sneaksborough, where every vote is counted and valued. Let me see, it was done last time for just treble the money he made; but it turned out a good investment for the scamp who got in then. Well, you see, our friend Jobkins cast a wolf's eye upon Sneaksborough, where there was a great depreciation in the staple trade of the town just then—and is now, for that matter—and he accordingly went in for a large foreign contract in coloured shirtings—twenty-eight thousand pounds was the figure. He managed to get rid of this for thirty-three thousand pounds, thereby clearing five thousand pounds. It cost him two thousand pounds to get in, and another neat two thousand pounds to bribe the petitioners to squash their virtuous endeavour. So that you see, as I said, he got his seat clear, and a thousand pounds in the bargain. Decidedly the cleverest thing of the day, and I've known a few smart ones, and no mistake, old fellow."

Now, the fact is, there is another great difficulty in holding up the mirror to the financial world. When almost every one is, and must necessarily be, a rogue, in order to succeed in acquiring position and fortune, how is the novelist to distinguish and select his materials? It is a perfect embarras de richesses, or, more properly, des riches. One wants lights as well as shadows in painting every view of life. There are honest men still with money, made or inherited by their fathers, and there are many more honest without it. There are honourable professional men, even of eminence, rari nantes in gurgite vasio. There are poor rogues with feelings and a conscience. There are noblemen like Lord Egbert, and noble women like Blanche. There are good-natured, well-meaning personages like Madeiraville, and worthy and zealous crotchet-mongers like Mr. De Lolme. There are mixed characters like Arthur Aubrey, whose follies and vices do not originate from the heart. Then there is a large and safe choice of model villains in every profession and walk of life, whence one may pick out examples without personality, or peril of incurring the pleasant penalties of libel, true or false. One does not impeach all the profession, in branding the professional villainies of Grinderby and Cousens; nor render oneself liable for a breach of privilege in sketching the portraiture of the Right Honourable Felix Sowerface, M.P. In painting a brace of lawyer's clerks, we have not injured a large and deserving body of our fellow-citizens; and in our picture of the Escurial and its frequenters, although we are thereby conscious of running a tilt against a huge demoralising institution of the age, we are certain that no one can pretend to recognise the exact specimen or locality which has furnished our materials. As for the general and particular reflections on men and manners, on fashions and frivolities, the freaks of our puppets, and the showman's running commentary on them and their surroundings; as to our political and social diatribes, and the evils that we see, or seem to see, spreading and festering like a gangrene around, we beg to apologise most particularly to every one who feels hurt by anything that we have said. It shows, at least, that there is some conscience and self-appreciation extant.

And depend upon it that those who affect to be offended on behalf of others are tarred by the same brush which we have flourished so sacrilegiously—at least, in their imagination. If that be sound, which our sense and feeling, rightly or wrongly, teach us to denounce as rotten; if we are deluded in our conclusion that her commercial prosperity, and the former proud success of her arms, have led to the waste of England's elements of strength, the selfish neglect of her industrious poor, the insecurity of her shores, the diminution of her power and prestige, and the insincerity of her statesmen and public men, then we are also willing to apologise for a delusion, as impotent and harmless, as it is complete. If we have endeavoured to sift the country's social relations, and found that they are all based on hollowness and wrong; that there is no sympathy between class and class; and that never in the history of the world was there an age of base metal, such as exists in Great Britain in the present era; and if our facts and theories, our deductions and conclusions, are alike false and uncalled for, then we must plead our want of penetration and our ignorance of right living.

If human flesh and blood are not held cheaper here than the hunter's game in a boundless wilderness teeming with life; more worthless than the carcasses of wolf or rat, while the luxury of the few boils down the essence of millions of their fellow-creatures' bones, with a cynicism more atrocious than that of the Roman gluttons who cast their slaves into their eel-stews to fatten and flavour the slimy luxury to the correct patrician taste, then our fancy is mistaken; unless, indeed, it should be conceded that such things do exist, and that it is essential they should be as they are.

Possibly Moloch and the Minotaur of Crete do not demand their yearly tribute of maidens sacrificed in street and in mill to lust of man and greed of gold! And the ladies of England, they combine their forces, do they not, in virgin cohort and matronly phalanx, to rescue and defend their doomed or erring sisters?—"sisters," did we say? we ask pardon for the mistake. These ladies of wealth, and beauty, and rank, they do not rather excuse Moloch for his fantasy, and pat Minotaur on the back. "Naughty demon," and "funny monster," they do not say. Of course, the poor foreigner, or the denationalised Englishman who suggests such a libel, is worthy of the pillory, and of the stones which furnished St. Stephen's cairn. Out, blasphemous rascal! Hit him on the mouth, young hero of the Escurial and the Lady's Ride, "darling fellow" of your sister, and "dear boy" of the night-house keeper, and your other "friends." Hitherto, ingenuus puer of the double face, and habitation, and language—no, not quite language; since the drawing-room rather patronises the argot of the casino and the slum—hither! and pronounce our condemnation in your "awfullest" style. We are not "awfully jolly;" do not, therefore, commend us to your present Hetaira, or your destined bride. Here is a gentleman of fortune, who shall assist you in denouncing us. Non olet. His money does not smell. True, he is a felon; but an unconvicted one—what is that to you or us? He gives first-rate spreads, and has a vote in Parliament, interest without principle, dear boy! He might get you appointed to a commissionership to examine into the crowded state of the charnel-houses of the poor. Think of that, and honour his success! He has built his domestic edifice of respectability on the ruin of a thousand shareholders, and got clear of the meshes of the financial snare in time. We are only supposed to be writing on a second floor for bread and fame. You had better take a lesson from his book than ours. Here is a clergyman. What was his text on Sunday? "Go, and sin no more." He preached from it an excellent sermon, written by a needy contributor to a sporting paper, who is secretary to a casino, and has a large family to bring up in sin, prosperously if he can. He paid for it, and preached it too. What more do you expect from him? He left his sermon in the vestry-room; its precepts and practice at the church door. He will condemn us to his lady admirers in terms of the strongest reprobation. What is that book of poems, reverend sir, that you hold in your hand? "Hermaphroditus, a Classical Drama," and "Lays of Sapphic Love." These are only semi-imaginative pruriencies, the lacquered filth of Greece and Rome, the "nude and the antique," and the sensually "sublime." That which the age should reject and condemn is Truth, in modern garb of broadcloth, in crinoline or in rags. This is what it likes not; dares not listen to. Conceal your moral ulcers, Respectability! Beggar! hide your sores in the street.

And now, ere the curtain rises on other and different scenes, we once more bid you, dear reader, pause, ere you question the reality and vraisemblance of our personages, or the conduct of our tale. Our moral you will not—cannot—condemn. You, sir, are a father and a husband; you, madam, a sister, a mother, or a wife. Be you what you may, you are human in your sympathies. You love virtue—at least, in the abstract—do you not? You would roll back the tide of reproach that threatens to overwhelm England; if you could do it by a wish, by a thought, apart from your own passions and prejudices, and the circumstances which benefit you, or hem you in? And you, young lady or gentleman, if you are not too pure and innocent to enter a theatre, or read a newspaper, or walk by daylight in our public streets, neither parent nor guardian, neither lover nor brother, need fear that you will suffer any diminution of your innocence and purity by the perusal of these pages. Would that the pages of real life, the panorama of breathing forms and beings around you, were better and purer for your sakes!

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON:
C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, DUKE STEEET, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS.

VOLUME II.

SO VERY HUMAN.

————

CHAPTER I.

A JEWEL IN A ROUGH SETTING.

The old merchant took from a worn and greasy purse a small packet of folded linen of such dingy hue and unwholesome aspect, that it looked like a shred which had escaped the flames in the sweepings of a leper's hut, or a decayed fragment of dress detached in the last shiver of an expiring pauper, and left at some closed workhouse door in the night, a contribution to the huge rag-mill of civilised greed. Carefully unfolding this uninviting cover, the hoary trafficker in gems exhibited a diamond of such surpassing lustre, that it would have made the mouth of ducal Brunswick water, while worthy of being pawned by the princely hand of an Esterhazy himself. "Ha!" he cried, as the jewel flashed the brighter for his trembling grasp, "you Christians judge everyting by his outward dress, but vere sall you find soche a treasure in a monarch's heart? Ven you find him, listen to old Posnäi—keep him and sherish him ash your lifes. He is more precious dan dis stone, vorn in de scimitar-hilt of de caliphs, more rare dan your fatal 'Mountain of Light,' baptised, as you call it, in de plood of dusky tousands—tyrants mit deir soldiers, ploonderers mit deir slafes."—Stories of Unlettered Graves. Story III., chap i.

"YOU'RE a spicy hinwestment, you air," observed a curious-looking individual, apparently addressing a new street besom, as he threw it down, with an air of great exasperation, in the centre of a clean crossing nearly opposite St. George's Church, Hanover-square, about three p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, just three years after the events which we have narrated in the preceding volume. "Not a drop of blessed rain 'as fell, since I took to this ere bis'ness," he continued. "It couldn't be wus, hif I'd bin and prayed agen vet veather, like the Harchbishop of Middlesex hisself, hassisted by the hunited clargy of Hengland; not that I never saw no good cum of their hinterference vith the veather horfice. As if they wos humpires of wot the correct card orter be, and could work the horacle hever so much better than Natur. It's wot I calls cheek, and no mistake, to be heverlastin' axing Providenx for sumthin'; and findin' fault with this, and worritin' about t'other. It's wot the nobs don't take from we. Jest think, hif I was to ring the Prime Minister's airey bell, much less cum a double knock at his front door, and ax him jest to stop his huniwersal tackses, 'cos I vanted to keep a brace of bull-pups, or vun either, for that matter. I expex I should werry soon find my road to quod special. Holloa! here's a swell a comin'! Now then, show yer muscle, will yer, and wot yer could do, hif the streets wos muddy."

And with this injunction to himself, the individual picked up his besom and began to sweep the clean road with a series of flourishes, that would have done justice to the most talented pantomimist, about a yard in front of a portly and well-to-do personage. The latter said, somewhat good-humouredly:

"Confound you, don't raise the dust in that manner."

"Ax yer pardin. I wish yer honour'd come down with it," was the ready rejoinder. "It's very dry, sir."

"Yes, you idle rascal, and that's why you've no business here," observed the other.

"No bis'ness?" was the reply, "ven I bought the goodwill of this ere harrystocratic station for 'arf a couter and a pint of rum honly last Vensday!"

"You've no business here on a fine day like this, I tell you," rejoined the gentleman.

"If you'd written to say you wos a comin', I'd a looked at my barromyter," replied the incorrigible crossing-sweeper. The gentleman laughed and tossed him a penny, which he caught, spit on, and pocketed, calling out after his patron, "Thank ye, sir; it's the first 'arf-pint I've raised this blessed arternoon. If you'll send a tellygraf the next hout-and-hout vet mornin', I'll lay down some red carpeting for yer, and bring my very best silk humbereler vith the mother-o'-pearl 'andle."

So saying, the individual abandoned himself to a fresh ebullition of sweeping, as if it were a matter of conscience quite essential to his peace of mind.

We shall now attempt to describe the appearance of the "Downy;" for such was the appellation by which he was known to the circle of his private and public acquaintance, to which some added the patronymic of "Cove," making his total nomenclature the "Downy Cove," or, as he would frequently insist upon it, "Downy Cove, Eskvire, gent at large, and of nowheres else pertickler." He was a thin, very pale, and, if one could possibly use such a term, fair young man, of any age from twenty-four to thirty, or upwards. He looked as if he had been rained upon all his life, until all the colour had been washed out of him, and then well ingrained with dirt during a particularly dry summer. He gave you the idea also of being in the last stage of inanition and consumption, whereas his constitution was in reality of iron, and his strength enormous. He would shoulder weights, and carry them with ease, under which men of herculean build would stagger. As for wet or cold, he could apparently defy the elements. He very seldom enjoyed an opportunity of taking off his clothes; and no amount of generosity on the part of any one had ever been known to improve his dress, for the reason that he invariably turned any contribution of this kind into money with the utmost despatch. To this man comfort was utterly unknown—we mean in the sense usually attached to it. He had his little comforts; but they were chiefly connected with the delights afforded by a tenth-rate public-house. Gin was his weakness, and skittles his forte. He was not a drunkard—partly from necessity and partly from choice. But if he took one glass of gin, which he was not always prevailed upon to indulge in, and could get more, the desire of which was an inevitable consequence, then he would become

O'er all the ills of life victorious.

So thoroughly jolly, so supremely happy, and so superlatively good-natured, though disposed to be argumentative and patronising on such occasions, was he, that policemen have been known to abstain from taking him into custody, while stern and sullen landlords would relax occasionally from the severe discipline regulating their public department, and allow him to remain after all his money was expended, and even sleep on a bench in the tap-room, instead of turning him out into the street on a rainy or foggy night. Nor was this altogether disinterested on their part; for his "company" was so much esteemed, on account of his conviviality and humour, that he frequently greatly increased the demand for " 'arf-pints" and "two-pennorths." Deeply impressed with the conviction that honesty is not the best policy in this world, according to his experience, he yet possessed the merit of being scrupulously honest.

Just before the period of our introduction to him, the "Cove" had lost what he called a "reg'lar hincome" derived from window-cleaning and carpet-beating in the Temple, owing to the new police regulations of the Inn, and the introduction of a more pretentious rival, so that he was in a very forlorn and dilapidated condition, even for him.

His birth and parentage were mysteries which he never revealed. Probably he could not. We do not believe that he ever enjoyed even the advantage of a workhouse baptism. He had escaped registration and dodged the Census. It must be owned that he was an exceedingly clever and handy fellow. He was a carpenter, locksmith, whitesmith, and blacksmith; he could put down a carpet or put up blinds and curtains against any man. His chief glory, however, lay in moving furniture, especially if the job was what he called "special;" that is, one which required secrecy and despatch—in short, a flitting. We are afraid that our honest friend's sympathies were rather on the side of tenant than Landlord, on these occasions; but this was mere sympathy with the poorer and weaker side. Yet this pariah of civilisation, this Arab of the streets, had done things, for which he was virtually entitled to the Victoria Cross and the Royal Humane Society's gold medal. Once, at the imminent risk of his life, he saved half a dozen human beings, chiefly children, from being burnt to death, and the praises of the firemen, very gallant fellows, no doubt, but not the right recipients of praise or bounty on this occasion, were duly recorded in the papers. As for the Downy, all that he got was hearty abuse, and the threat of being locked up by an active and intelligent "officer" of the C Division, who displayed remarkable energy in endeavouring to prevent any life from being saved at all. This useful guardian of the public peace and morals was possessed of a leading idea, namely, that no one, save a fireman, ought to enter a house in flames, though its inmates were screaming for aid from a top window; and as no one save the Downy seemed inclined to enter, he was for some time thrust back by the active and intelligent officer, whereby three lives were actually lost. The policeman was rather complimented than otherwise on the inquest; and the absent Downy was described as a young man somewhat active on the occasion; but, as the policeman roundly declared, a well-known associate of thieves. The poor fellow was laid up, severely burnt, for at least three weeks in the hospital. He had saved many persons from drowning, especially in winter, in Hyde Park, where he was a distinguished character for sweeping, sliding, skate-fitting, and facetiousness. Once he plunged in when a wholesale immersion had taken place; and some wretched urchin stole his coat, cap, and waistcoat, which happened to be a little better than usual. It may be thought that, after saving no less than five persons on this occasion, and for a time actually losing the free use of his limbs in consequence, from which he miraculously recovered, something would have been done for him. No! the "active and intelligent officers," who were ready to take the drowning persons into custody, if they could have got at them, and a brace of officials of the Rescue Society, who would neither stir themselves nor let any one else have the use of their ropes and appliances, divided all the honour and profit among themselves. We beg pardon, not all, for Bumbledom had its share. The master and matron of the workhouse where the bodies were laid out got one hundred guineas and a handsome tea-service for acting respectably under the public gaze on the occasion, on the day that the crippled Downy got a sovereign out of the poor-box from the "worthy and benevolent magistrate" to whom his case was made known. There was some vague talk started by disinterested spectators of procuring him the bronze medal of the R.H.S.; but the Downy "didn't seem to see it," to use his own expression. In fact, he looked upon the proposition rather in the light of an insult than otherwise. Had Her Most Gracious Majesty been made acquainted with the circumstances through a proper channel, it is probable that be would have received another pound, but she was not. It may be thought that all this would have embittered his disposition, and made him cynical and morose. Not a bit of it. He was as ready to dash into a burning house, or plunge amidst broken ice into sixteen feet of water, as ever. It imbued him with some degree of contempt for the institutions of his country, that was all, and about these at times he would express himself somewhat strongly.

"Holloa!" quoth this remarkable individual to a wretched-looking girl with a few bunches of faded flowers in her hands. "Whose garden was you robbin' last Friday was a fortnight? Surely you don't hexpect to find hany vun green enough to buy that lot, do yer? They looks as hif they'd been worn by the female patients in Bedlam, and then been slep upon by a workus hundertaker's man as died in a fit of blue ruin."

The girl looked at him vacantly; but replied nothing, as she feverishly and nervously sorted and twisted her faded store.

"Come, young woman," continued the Downy, "I didn't mean no reflexshuns upon yer bis'ness. It ain't no wusser nor mine, I'll lay a penny. There, I didn't mean to hurt yer feelinx. Stop them water-works."

"Mother's a dying, and I haven't taken a farthing to-day," sobbed the girl. "The doctor said she was to have wine, and we haven't a bit of food to give her, and I'm that tired I don't believe I can get home—indeed I don't."

"You're a honfeelink brute, Downy, that's wot you air," said the Cove, addressing himself, as was his wont sometimes. "If I'd got it, vich I haven't, you should 'ave sumthink to take 'ome, my dear," he said; "and if you'll wait here now, till I gets a stroke of luck, blowed if yer shan't go 'arves, that's all about it. Set down on them steps; here's a gent a comin' in a precious hurry, and no mistake."

As he said this, no less a personage than the amiable Mr. Grinderby came up "at the double," much in the style of an elderly Volunteer as depicted in the French "Charivari."

"Here, you fellow," he said, as soon as he could get breath enough to speak, "is there a cab-stand hereabouts?"

"Get you vun in a brace of jiffies, guv'nor, if you'll wait, and put yer bag down a minnit," was the reply.

Mr. Grinderby gruffly assented, and did as he was recommended, and the Downy laid down his besom, and ran off rapidly towards Regent-street.

"Buy a flower from a poor girl, sir?" said the young female, rising from the steps of the church and approaching Mr. Grinderby. "I haven't taken a penny to-day, and my mother is sick and starving for want of bread."

"Ugh!" cried Grinderby, flourishing his umbrella; "keep off, or I'll give you in charge, you slut, you. D'ye think I want to catch a fever from your beastly flowers? Here, policeman! Take this female into custody for begging," he said, addressing one of the Force, who just came up.

"Now, then, move on, will yer? or I'll make yer!" was that worthy's address to the girl. "Ah! you want a night's lodging, do yer?"

And with that he made towards her, and seized her by the wrist, so that her flowers fell on the pavement, where they lay like withered hopes on the letterless gravestone of an unknown despair.

"Oh, good sir, kind sir, let me go, my mother's dying!" she screamed out.

At this moment a four-wheeled cab drove up with the Downy on the box. He opened the door, and Grinderby got in, shouting:

"To Paddington Station, as fast as you can drive."

"Ax yer parding, ain't yer goin' to give me nothink for fetchin' it?" cried the Downy.

"No!" bellowed Grinderby. "Here, policeman, look after this man and woman. Drive on you; will you?"—to the cabman—"d'ye hear?"

"I ain't deaf," said "cabby;" evidently trying to give an opportunity for the reward due to his summoner.

"Policeman," cried Grinderby, "do your duty. I ordered this fellow to drive on, and he is loitering here."

The policeman seized the reins of the horse with one of his red and horny hands by way of answer, and pushed him on his haunches, and then kicked him in the ribs.

"Do you hear the gentleman?" he said. "Drive off, or it will be the worse for yer. What! yer won't go on, won't yer? I've got yer number, and I'll summon yer to-morrer, I will."

The unfortunate driver thought of his wife and children, and said:

"No, offence, sir, I hope. I couldn't start no sooner."

The "officer" was somewhat pacified: officers of the Force like to be called "sir." It is a tribute which they exact from the harried costermonger and street stall-keeper. Under their distinguished chiefs, they affect the military style, and as they are drilled with the sabre, and put through military evolutions in the barrack-yards of the Guards, there is some little reason for it; and perhaps this is why they affect the style and manner of an Austrian army of occupation in an Italian town in this particularly free and independent country of Britons.

As Grinderby drove off without giving him sixpence, our specimen of the Force felt inclined to be savage at the expense of some one; and so he turned round very fiercely on the girl and the Downy. For some reason or other—probably because he was lazy, and didn't see that anything could be made out of the pair—he contented himself with a warning and a few menacing gestures, and walked on.

"Hi, Bobby!" shouted the fearless Downy, when he had got some paces off; "leave us a slice or two of yer carrots, will yer?" alluding to the colour of the "officer's" hair, which would have done credit to a modern chignon; "I see yer sniffin' the cold meat along hall them aireys," and other expressions of the kind, which caused the policeman to face round, and regard him in a threatening manner more than once, before he had proceeded fifty yards on his beat.

But the Downy in this instance showed more valour than prudence; for it chanced that a young fellow of dashing exterior passing rapidly by, and observing the forlorn appearance of the girl, tossed a shining sixpence in her lap, just at one of the very moments when an unusually successful sarcasm of the Downy caused the "Bobby" fully to face round, as if hesitating whether to return or not. In a moment he arrived at a decision. Rapidly retracing his steps, he approached the shrinking girl, and seizing her a second time by the arm, he dragged her up and shook her violently.

"Now, then," he said; "I told yer to move on, didn't I? Come along quiet, or I'll give yer something to make yer."

The girl screamed and cried:

"I must go home, I tell you. I won't come. My mother will die!"

"Oh, yer won't, won't yer?" was the rejoinder; "then we'll see."

"Here, take this," shrieked the girl, giving him the sixpence; "it's all I have, but let me go."

It was well for some one, perhaps for himself temporarily, but certainly for the Downy, in the contingent perspective of a broken head, hard swearing on the part of the "officer," and the other active and intelligent fraction of the Force within sound of his rattle, that the policeman did let the girl go at that precise moment. A street besom is not a handy weapon for a sudden row. The twigs are not efficacious either to floor your antagonist or to grasp as a handle. But such as it was, it was brandished in the air, and had already executed a preliminary flourish in the strong thin arms of the washed-out young man, when the policemen pocketed the ransom and released his Briseis. He then confronted the Downy, hardly able to credit the possibility of a meditated attack. The latter did not fear the newspapers of the next morning; nor had a "month" any particular terrors for him. Respectability must witness such outrages committed in a "free country," and content itself with writing to Scotland-yard or the Home Office; a mode of proceeding which is a complete waste of time, paper, ink, and a postage-stamp or two, as the Yard pitches it into the waste-paper basket, and the Office refers it back to the Yard. But the Downy's passion was aroused, and he didn't care "wot cum of it." Probably the "officer" on his part did not much care to push matters to extremities, and was in haste to expend the ransom; since the day was cold and dry and his complexion and occupation thirsty. So he eyed the other as a glutted hyena about to drink at a convenient stream might regard the intrusion in his path of a starved jackal, and merely indulging in a brace of scowls, turned on his heel with a hand adroitly slipped upon the head of his staff, in anticipation of the encounter which he was content to shun. Perhaps he was not very brave, that "officer." As a human hyena, women and children were his natural prey. We have spoken of the Downy's imperturbable good humour. So thoroughly accustomed was he to such scenes and events, so utterly contrary to his experience was anything else, that after a few expressive grimaces, he quite acquiesced in the abject necessity of the situation. Like the conquered but unconquerable Prometheus, he had long been known,

τὸ τἢς ̓'ανάγκης ἔστ' 'αδήριτον σθένος.

"Vell," was his reflection, half uttered to himself and half to the girl, "I wouldn't be in his beadle-crushers when he's wanted by his Chief Commissioner." And he pointed significantly downward in a direction which was not that of Scotland-yard nor that of the residence of any earthly authority, unless it might be at the antipodes, which certainly at that moment did not enter into his calculations. "I vish I'd got him someveres handy in a good carpet-beatin' ground werry secluded and priwate; I'd fetch the dust hout of his huniform for him. Come, don't be down-'arted, young 'ooman, I'm blessed if I don't earn a bob for yer, afore yer a quarter of an hour holder. I never was here afore vithout collaring vun, and I don't mean to begin to-day, I can tell you. As for that Bobby, let me ketch him in Hyde Park the first Reform Meetin', and if I don't mark him my name's not Downy."

The girl sat shivering and moaning. She hardly noticed what he said. She had not even picked up her scattered flowers. Grown in a crowded nursery ground for purposes of gain, in the mould brought from a desecrated churchyard, cut by rude hands, and left to be trampled into dust or mire by the heedless passers, their brief existence seemed an epitome of her own. Did she think all this? Not a bit of it. She was thinking only of the hopeless poverty of her East-end dwelling, and the face of her sick mother turned towards the door in the faint agony of expectation, perhaps of death itself.

The quick eye of the Downy, in the mean time, scanned the few persons who approached and passed by, with the practised gaze of an expert. Now and then, he would burst into a sudden activity of sweeping, in proportion as his hopes of coin were more or less excited. Shy men, without coppers to spare, would avoid his crossing, others would make for him, as if they wished to run him down. Shabby and seedy persons would pause, and make an excuse, "I haven't a copper about me, my good fellow;" or, "I'll give you something next time," were their most frequent remarks. To these he always respectfully touched his cap, and honoured them by one or two slight flourishes of the "hinwestment." At length his patience was rewarded. In full dinner costume, with spotless white tie, and his last pair of soiled evening gloves on his broad fat hands, the gloves of the day being carefully stowed in the pocket of his paletot, came our old friend Mr. Stingray, with appetite sharpened by a glass of absinthe just quaffed at Véry's. He looked at his watch and he looked at the church clock.

"Hem!" he said to himself, "I shall be late; and I never keep my worst enemies waiting for dinner, when I am going to dine with them myself. It spoils the cook's temper, and endangers both the fish and the sauce. Things are apt to be cold enough when one is punctual. Here, you sir" (to the Downy), "can you fetch me a cab?"

"That I can," replied the latter, too earnest to waste a word in his usual style of conversation.

"Be quick, then! Mind, if you don't return with it in five minutes, I shall not wait."

The Downy merely nodded, and ran up the street, where we have already seen him disappear on a similar errand. This time the girl was silent. Perhaps it was because she had no flowers to offer—perhaps she did not consider Mr. Stingray's face sympathetic. There is no disciple of Lavater equal to your beggar. We don't believe that Sir Robert Hardun is ever importuned in the street by a real professional cadger. We think it probable that the Marquis of Gravesend, a really benevolent man, though sometimes eccentric in his mode of showing it, may have imposed upon the hopes of many of his poorer fellow-citizens. Stingray observed the girl sitting with her head almost bent down upon her knees, and a desire to see if she was pretty in her rags impelled that great cynical philosopher to address her.

"What is the matter with you, my girl?" he inquired, in tones as little harsh and grating as he could, without very much trouble, make them.

The girl looked up with a blear and blank expression of pain.

"Oh!" grunted the philanthropical satirist.

The fact is, he had seen enough; and felt rather angry with the poor wretch for disappointing his vague expectation, that she might be pretty.

"You had better be off," he growled. "The police don't do their duty, or you wouldn't be allowed to sit there in that manner. It's disgraceful in a civilised community."

Alas! the police had done their duty, in the person at least of one of them, who was at that moment smacking his lips in a neighbouring public-house over the drops, as it were, of blood wrung from his victim's veins.

"My mother is sinking—dying for want of food, sir," uttered the girl at last; "will you bestow a trifle on me in Heaven's name? She is ill of a fever."

"The devil she is," interrupted the startled "satyr"-ist, retreating several paces. "How dare you bring contagion into the streets? If I could only see a policeman," he added; "but they're all down the areas, of course. Couldn't you invent something a little newer than that eternal sick mother of yours?" he asked brutally. "I dare say you have made a pretty harvest of it. Got a pocket full of pence? Wouldn't take broken victuals, eh? Come, I'll wager this half-crown you wouldn't."

And he balanced one he had taken a minute or so before from his trouser-pocket, as if to mock her with the coin.

"I assure you, sir," said the girl, "I haven't taken a penny besides the one that good young man gave me—him that's gone for the cab."

"I don't think he's coming back with the cab,"

muttered Stingray. "But, I say, how about this generous rogue in tatters? Has he been making love to you?" The girl looked up inquiringly. "Very shocking!" quoth Stingray: "cheap immorality of our London beggar population. Must make a note of that. Reminds me of one of Burns's poems—let me see. Will do for an after-dinner anecdote, with a little embellishment à la Balzac. 'Cupid en haillons!' good title for an article in the 'Rye-mount.' Do better for the 'Babylon Diary'—call it the 'Romance of a Doorstep,' or the 'Crossing-sweeper's Bride.' Ha! ha! It's as well for you" (sternly to the girl) "that I don't see a policeman. Ah! here's the cab at last."

The Downy at this moment made his appearance, mounted on the box as before.

"So you've been an infernal time about it, sirrah!" he said to the Downy.

"Couldn't help it nohow," replied that worthy. "There was not a blessed vun on the stand, shofel or four-vheeler, and consekently I had to hook it as far as the Circus. The fact is," added the Downy, in a confidential tone, "there's a werry mellancolly waterman on that stand as is handy here, and it's my hopinion that his 'ead's turned vith too much prosperity, and he's took the last cab hisself, on haccount of its slowness, and gone to dround hisself in the Serpentine, or to wisit his wife's relations."

"So, so! you're a humorist, my man," remarked Stingray, who had already taken out his note-book from force of habit; "but I'm already late, and so here, my fine fellow, take this to spend with your young lady friend—here, no thanks! Drive fast, cabman. Notting-hill. I'll direct you."

"Vell," quoth the Downy, "hif hever I judge of a job agen by the hugliness of his mug, I'm jolly vell blessed, and I hopes he'll henjoy his wittles, that I do. Here, young 'ooman, here's luck. Didn't I say so? Come along, vill yer! till I melts the shiner? I'll stand a pot of sixpenny, and give yer a bob, s'elp me Californy."

And he tossed the half-crown so high that he missed catching it, and it fell flat on the pavement with a sound that seemed to excite the Downy to a fresh phase of emotion. As he picked it up, which he did instantly, he placed it between his teeth, to which it seemed to convey a galvanic shock. In a moment he started at top-speed, flinging the hinwestment (his besom) twenty yards before him the way he took, which was the same direction in which Stingray had vanished rapidly from sight, comfortably reclining in the four-wheeler with his legs on the back cushions.

"Hi! stop the cab! It's a bad un! It's a bad un!" shouted the poor fellow.

Full fifty yards the Downy ran, and then stopped short, like a schoolboy who has pretended to start for a race in order to "sell" a companion, whom he allows to get a-head and run on. Ruefully did he scratch bis head, and mournfully did he retrace his steps to his sad companion's side.

"Look, here's a duffer!" he observed, showing her the half-crown bent nearly double with his teeth.

"The wicious, aggerawatin' old willain, to come this game over me, and I know he knowed it hall at the time. And I might a' knowed it, if I'd honly believed my heyes. With a face fit to frighten a child into fits, and to think I couldn't reckon him hup, and let him walk hover me, as hif I was vun of them born and heddicated hidiots as is meant to be done as round as hoops hall their blessed lives, and don't know a half-couter from a new brass farden."

And as if to relieve the violence of his feelings, the Downy took his besom and went through the ceremony of sweeping the crossing briskly for full half a minute. As for the girl, she fairly burst into a fit of tears, and cried as if her heart would break. She had already spent her fifteenpence, after her own wish—for she determined to compound with the Downy for a penn'orth of spruce for her own drinking, and then there was the penny he had already given her. She would not have deemed it grateful or lady-like to refuse to take anything with her benefactor. She had bought, in imagination, an ounce of "tea," a quarter of a pound of sugar, a loaf of bread, two ounces of butter, a halfpennyworth of milk, fourteen pounds of coal, and a penny candle, and expended the remaining twopence—would it be twopence or twopence halfpenny?—in half a quartern of gin. Or could she make it threepence, and so get threepenn'orth of brandy? And all this was shattered—and not to be! It was too much. A vision of a rapidly flowing stream lipping the arches of a dismal and dingy bridge actually took possession of the poor creature's fancy. Oh! if the rich could enter for a brief while the inner world of the every-day life of the poor, could think with their jaded brains, feel with their aching hearts, crave with their entrails, see with their eyes, speculate with their thoughts, and add figure by figure their daily sum of miseries and wants—would or could prosperous humanity remain colder than stone or marble, more diabolical in inflicting torture than the Arch-ministers of evil themselves?—would not the mandate of the Great Teacher be done, and not mocked with lying lips and deceitful phrases?—would not the West meet the East with waggon-loads of abundance?—would not waste be uprooted from our hearths, and riot and profligacy rush dishevelled from our mansions, never to return?—would not the hosts of the united armies of Charity gird up their loins for the grand crusade of practical benevolence, and the Queen of all the land lead them on?

The Downy looked downcast and puzzled. He gazed at the girl, whose hopes he had fed and entertained so delusively; and the honest fellow felt "beat," as he called it, and at a loss how he could venture further on a little encouraging chaff and the assurance that his luck would turn. The fact is, he didn't quite believe in it himself.

"Blest if my sweet little cheerup that sits hup aloft," he observed to himself, "ain't dropt clean hoff his perch. As for myself, it's no pertickler consikenx; I'm used to it. But ven I've made a gal, like this vun here, believe as I'm goin' to see her through it, and things turns hout so howdacious bad, it gets over me haltogether—that's wot it does."

And for want of any resource he began to whistle; ever and anon stealing a look at his disconsolate companion, and wishing for various sums, some very limited, and others sufficiently extensive, as people are apt to do under similar circumstances. He thought if he had a pound—if he had five pounds; he never had five pounds in one lump in his life. And strange to say, so simple and generous are some of the despised poor, this chance acquaintance of his, this miserable being introduced to poverty by wretchedness, figured largely in all his schemes of extravagant expenditure, if he had but the "shiners" and the "flimsies." He thought of something he had heard of the National Debt, of the gilt on the Lord Mayor's coach, and what was its probable worth, of the plate he had seen through windows in Park-lane and elsewhere, where Dives sat at dinner with his guests late on summer evenings, before the blinds were drawn down; he thought and thought and envied, like Sinbad's guest, the porter of Bagdad; but he might have thought, until all London, present and future, sank into the grave of buried empires, no travelled alderman of Cripplegate or Bishopsgate Within or Without would have asked him to enter and sit down at his board and entertained him with food and wine, and with tale and song. The chief charity and brotherhood of civilisation, like fairyland, lives only in the fiction which amuses the idle. We are all so good in our plays and our novels, our poems and songs—i.e., our sympathies and feelings are so catholic, so natural and grand. People sit in a play-house and see a representation of Charing Cross covered with snow. There is a dying girl, or a fainting boy. Is it possible for well-dressed persons to pass by and not relieve such misery? Monsters in human shape! Of course the angelic somebody comes at length. Let those who have wept over the mimic scene leave the doors of the theatre and meet with its reality. Would ninety-nine out of a hundred pause, if they saw a fellow-creature lying stiff and stark on a doorstep? Not they. Where are the police? Is there not the workhouse? Do they not pay poor-rates and subscribe to charities? A man without money is no longer a man, save in song. The song is as popular as ever, but where is the man who is reverenced as a man for himself alone?

To return to the Downy. We verily believe that at that moment he was capable of robbing a bishop in order to relieve that girl, black-hearted scoundrel and garotter as he would have been, whom justice would have sentenced to be flogged with a new cat-o'-nine-tails, whilst his agonies would have been gloated over by men whose whole lives are one series of extortions and cruel robberies of poorer men, of widows and orphans, and beggared outcasts, as they sit in their prosperity, reading their newspapers at their breakfast-tables, groaning with the luxuries of life.

Six, seven, and nearly eight o'clock, and no luck had yet fallen to the Downy's share. The girl sat still waiting, ever and anon dropping into an uneasy doze, while the sweeper's besom was still plied with occasional bursts of vehemence, succeeded by longer and longer intervals of languor, if not motionless despair. At length a tall and good-looking gentleman approached, and pausing half-way across the street, eyed the Downy with a scrutinising air. When, as the latter expressed it, he had completed his "portray for the R'yal Hacademy, size of life and twice as nattyrel," he appeared satisfied with the scrutiny.

"My good fellow," said he, "I like your appearance. You look honest, and I believe you are. I want you to undertake a little job for me, and you shall be handsomely rewarded. It is a very simple matter indeed. It is merely to deliver this note in Park-street, and to ascertain whether the lady to whom it is addressed is at home, whether she acts at the Thespis Theatre to-night; and, if you can, who has been there to-day. I will furnish you with the means to drink and treat any one whom you may get hold of to give you the information I require. The first part you may ask at the house when you deliver the note—I mean as to whether the lady is at home, and whether she plays this evening; the remainder, as to whether any guests are dining there, and who they are, I must leave to your ingenuity. You look sharp enough. You can meet me at eleven o'clock exactly opposite the Thespis. Here are five shillings. I will give you five more when I meet you."

Once more did the Downy fling the "hinwestment" on the ground, but this time with a very different feeling.

"And hif I'm axed by any one, ven I'm making t'other henquiries, who sent me, sir——"

"As you don't happen to know me," interrupted the gentleman, "you can't very well tell."

"Exactually," said the Downy. "I suppose I may say it was a short, white-haired party, or a stout, helderly gent, or the bishop of hanyveres, or a furren prince? It von't matter, so as I don't discribe the party as did send me."

The gentleman nodded assent.

"You're just the fellow I wanted," he said. "It is a matter on which I can't employ any of my own people."

"Of course not," replied the Downy.

"Now then, be off!" said his employer. "But wash your hands and face first, like a good fellow, will you?"

"None of my clubs is in that direxion; but to oblige you, I'll make free with the pump-'andle. I jest vant to say a vord to this poor creetur afore startin'—her business is pressin'—shan't be a blessed minnit. You may depend on me, guv'nor, to be there in time."

And touching his cap to Arthur Aubrey; for it was he, looking, however, somewhat changed from what he was the last time we saw him, the Downy stooped down over the girl, and, whispering two or three words of rough and hasty encouragement, put half of the money he had just received into her hands and rapidly ran off.

The action was not lost on Aubrey. Approaching the girl, he soon gathered from her what had passed, and was greatly struck by the generous conduct of the Downy. As we shall not meet her again, we may as well mention that she was made happy for at least some time to come. Nor had the Downy much cause to complain of the liberality of his patron. On meeting him again, and proving that he had well and faithfully executed his duties, he was presented with an amount utterly incommensurate with the service rendered. To use his own language, such treatment as he received made quite a "feller-creetur" of him.

"Arter all, if honesty ain't the best policy, it's werry satisfactory to the feelinx to be told yer honest, hespecial ven vun ain't squared by good fortin in a gineral pint of view. Sartainly I wosn't brought hup in a pertickler relligious fammily, and consekently escaped the sartainty of turnin' hout a hout-and-hout bad lot. As for this young nob, he's a right-sorted vun, and I honly hopes as he can afford it. But if he's spoony on her——" Here the Downy whistled long and low. "If there's anythink that licks me," he continued, "it's the chice sum of these swells makes of a fancy gal. They wants vun as hall the rest of the lot is arter. But there's no reconcilin' their fashins. Hall I can say is that it vouldn't be the style of courtin' as vould suit the book of the Honnerabel Downy Cove, Eskvire, if he was a nob. Not exactually the vay as he'd bestow his young affexions. But wot can jot hexpect from them poor creeturs, as is forced to inwent their wants, as never knows any henjyment as isn't hartificial, that goes to the mounseers for their cookin', and drinks winegar for wine; acos, I s'pose, they gets tired of findin' heverythink so precious sweet for 'em. There's times," added the Downy, with an air of profound philosophical reflection, "ven I vishes with the mokes that I hadn't been born at all. There's times, ven I've vished as I'd been growed a dook or a hemperor. But ven I've done a good haction by a feller-creetur, and got the price of a day's wittles and a night's lodgin' in advance, not to speak of a few kevarterns of comfort besides, I don't know as I vould change with a good many as don't seem to be content with the best of everythink ven they've got it. It would do a many of 'em a sight of good if they was forced about vunce a veek to sweep a crossin', and to get hup about four o'clock in the mornin', say another day a veek, to beat carpets—all Turkeys, and werry dusty, like some of them in the Temple, as is honly taken up vunce a year in the long wacation. My heyes! how they'd walk into their hartificial Frenchified grub the day arter, as that genelman's servant hout of place was telling us of t'other night at the Goat and Bootjack. And now I'll jest go and 'ave a tidy blow-out, or my name ain't Downy Cove, Eskvire, of the Lodge, Bedfordbury; that is, ven the funs is heasy, and a joey ain't no hobject."

And so saying, he betook himself to Clare Market for a pound of pork-chops, and thence to a public-house to cook them, and wound up the evening by taking the chair at a free-and-easy in a cabman's night-house, into which, after giving a few specimens of his convivial talents, he found himself suddenly voted by universal acclamation.

There he inaugurated the proceedings by proposing a fine of one halfpenny to the general drinking fund for every profane oath, which was looked upon as vastly comical, and carried with great applause. The result at first was highly in favour of morality. But in spite of the guard which every one endeavoured to set on his tongue, the accumulation of liquor was so great, that the chairman was called upon by an arbitrary exercise of his power to rescind the rule of the evening. This being done, it was moved by a distinguished Hansom cabman, who wore moustaches, and had formerly been an undergraduate of Oxford, and seconded by a veteran 'bus-driver, a man of capes, asthma, rheumatism, and experience, that a fine should be imposed upon any member or stranger present who should not include an oath in every sentence he uttered.

We are sorry to record that this new dispensation barely realised fourpence halfpenny during the whole remainder of the symposium. And a dispute about fine number ten resulted in such sparring and bickering, both verbal and physical, coupled with language of such an awful description, that even the Downy, accustomed as he was to a great deal, got disgusted and vacated the throne.

"A joke's a joke," he observed to a friend after retiring, "but this beats the literariest lot as even I ever heerd on. There's a gent as I've only heerd speak of, for I never see him, which writes religious harticles in the newspapers, and they do say is the hout-and-houtest foul-mouthed vun in London. But as for most of these cabbies, I should think the werry hanimals they drive vould be ashamed of their langvidge. Vell, harter all, who can vunder? They never gets a kind vord from no vun; nor ain't believed in, nor hencouraged, ven they does hact proper. It's hard lines to be on the box in all vethers, and to be treated aforehand as hif you wos livin' by cheatin', instead of drivin' hall sorts heveryveres."

"I'll tell you what it is, young feller," said his companion, a very quiet and respectable man in his way, with a large family, and a patch in his great-coat for every one of his thirteen children, which made his upper Benjamin, like Joseph's, a coat of many colours, though probably rather dingier in hue and coarser in texture than that of the Israelitish worthy—"I'll tell you what it is, there's no knowing how drivers is put upon by the public. Why, there's a pal of mine as is summoned reg'lar from the stand to take up at the Reform Club. There's three members of Parliament, and one of 'em weighs nigh upon eighteen stone, if he weighs a farden, as clubs together to be driven to the House reg'lar for a shilling. Ain't it enough to make any man swear when he sees that stout member coming down them steps, after keeping him within half a minute of the quarter of an hour a-talking to the other two? And he calls himself a friend of the people, and says it's all owing to him that bread is cheaper. But if ever I see tyranny writ plain on a man's face, it's writ on hisn. And if some of them have made bread cheaper, haven't they took it out of us in fares, as if men and 'osses could be found to do it? Swearing, indeed! 1 should like to know who wouldn't swear, if he was forced to drive them three members close on a mile for sixpence, and the extra sitter. I know where I'd drive 'em fast enough, if I had the job, as soon as look at 'em. And what's more, I wouldn't charge anything for doing of it."

As the cabman with a large family did not name the locality to which he was willing to drive the stout member of Parliament and his two friends on such advantageous terms, we must leave it to the conjectures of our readers.

CHAPTER II.

THE LITERARY DINER-OUT.

There is no better passport to Society than ill-nature cleverly expressing itself.

THE act of Mr. Stingray, recorded in the previous chapter, may appear too fantastic in its wickedness. But are there not individuals, whose very Joviality at a time when "all man's best feelings" are said to "possess him," induces them to fling red-hot halfpence to mud-larks and beggars, or to distribute loathsome capsules resembling bonbons to ragged little children in the street from the window or balcony of a sumptuous dining-room at Greenwich or Black wall?

After all, there was nothing so uncommon in Mr. Stingray's conduct. Doubtless, to pass counterfeit coin knowingly is criminal enough; yet how many say, "Well, it was given to me." And these invariably select a poor person as most likely to take it, utterly oblivious or careless of the fact that it may ruin an innocent fellow-creature in a humble sphere of life. "It will do for a 'cabby,' " we have heard a man worth his thousands a-year say of a bad shilling which he had received. "You had better throw that half-crown away," we have ourselves observed to one who had just discovered a counterfeit coin in his change. "Not I, it will do for a cabman; he'll manage to pass it, I'll warrant," was the answer.

The great satirist chuckled, as he extracted from a different pocket, before drawing on his clean white gloves, the well-calculated fare for the cabman, who had all the way been nursing great expectations from a party who gave half a crown for fetching his cab. Let us leave him to connect himself by inference with some story of the most sentimental benevolence in his conversation with the lady whom he sat next at dinner, no other than the wealthy Miss Debrett Stumpey,* of whom mention has been made. Their chief talk was about the spiritual destitution of Spitalfields. The worthy Archbishop of Middlesex, whose Notes on the Epicene Creed had, when a younger man, made such a sensation in the religious world, was then collecting a large amount of money for the purpose of building churches in the poorest district of his diocese. Strange that it never occurred to the worthy archbishop that the hearers of Christ were physically fed by Him who preached the doctrines of charity and love.

[*A reviewer has kindly observed: "What shall we say of sneers directed at the benevolent and charitable lady whom he describes under a flimsy disguise—as Miss Debrett Stumpey?" The lady whom the reviewer probably means is only known to the author by fame for deeds of munificent charity and goodness. He could not caricature her, if he would, simply because he lacks the knowledge and materials, and certainly would not, if he could. Which, then, is to blame—author or reviewer?]

The miracles of the present day are moral and not physical. It seems miraculous that enlightened benevolence should remain so completely blind to the real requirements of the poor.

"What beautiful flowers!" remarked Stingray to one of his fair neighbours; "yet, does it not seem almost a barbarity to cull these floral darlings of nature for a single evening's entertainment?"

"Oh, I dote on flowers!" was the young lady's response. "Were you at the flower-show yesterday? No! Dear me! We were. The Prince and Princess were there. To-day is the first of the half-guinea days."

"I shall wait until it comes down to a shilling," said Stingray. "An author can't afford more."

"Oh, you amusing creature!" lisped the young lady, who was not in her first, nor yet in her second season.

"I don't think we ought to be allowed to use real flowers on the dinner-table" said Stingray. "We should encourage the artificial trade, and Rimmel could scent them, you know."

"How very funny!" said the young lady. "Mamma," to a lady across the table, "do you know what Mr. Stingray says? He says that people ought only to have artificial flowers on the dinner-table, because of the artificial flower-makers."

"I thought it was a most unhealthy employment," observed a middle-aged gentleman of a vaguely inquiring turn of mind, who was in the habit of saying "indeed!" after every answer to a question that he elicited.

"It depends upon the manufacture." replied Stingray.

"Now, the green used in ladies' dresses is very deadly both to the maker and wearer."

"Oh, you odious thing, you want to frighten one," said the young lady: "but I don't believe there can be any harm in this beautiful colour."

"Ah," quoth Stingray, who had now got the conversation round to the proper point, and obtained his cue, "I remember once meeting a poor creature engaged in this sort of work. She was dying fast of consumption, the result of her efforts to sustain a dying mother. In the course of my inquiries, I visited the manufactory and saw the process." (The old rascal had read it all up in that week's "Lancet.") "It was like a factory, where the labour was carried on by ghosts."

And he then launched into an eloquent description of all that he had read that morning, considerably embroidered for the occasion.

"And the young girl whom you relieved?" asked the inquiring gentleman, "what became of her?"

"I did not say that I relieved her; I am not rich enough to indulge in such delightful caprices."

"Oh, Mr. Stingray, how can you say so?" observed the young lady next him. "We know better. But tell us about the poor girl."

"I—that is, I mean, some friends of mine—got her into Brompton Hospital; but it was too late," said Stingray.

"How charming of you!" was the ladies' chorus.

"Pooh, pooh!" rejoined Stingray, "you don't think I did such a thing; you don't know what a hard-hearted, unfeeling old fellow I am!"

And they certainly did not, although more than one guest at the table had formed a by no means flattering estimate of his character. But the idle, empty, gossiping, and contemptible part of the world, as well as a great many who took what others said for granted, deemed Mr. Stingray to be a man of the finest feeling and most gushing benevolence.

"That dear Sting," they said, "what a noble creature, eccentric and severe in his satire; but such a heart!"

Thus the world deceives and is deceived, ever mistaking self-assertion for merit, and unscrupulousness for power.

"Are you going to Chalkstoneville's on Tuesday?" asked Mr. Stingray of Miss Debrett Stumpey.

Oh, the dear old duke—yes, I would not miss it for anything; besides, one meets everybody who is anybody there."

"Then I shall meet you," said Stingray.

"How can you find time to write all your dear delightful books," said the lady, "and go out as you do?"

"It is part of my vocation," replied the great writer. "I pick up materials, you know. If, for instance, I want a model of magnificent Charity, am I not fortunate if I can gaze on the very lineaments of her expressive face, and hear with my own ears those silvery accents, which have carried comfort, and especially spiritual requirements, to the homes of so many?"

The lady blushed even a deeper yellow than her wonted hue, and smiled a wealthy smile on the audacious flatterer, who paused to give his sally due effect.

"They do say," she rejoined, "that you are so naughty as to caricature all your friends in your wicked, delightful, charming novels."

"At any rate, I do not caricature those whom I honour and revere, dear Miss Debrett Stumpey," said Stingray, in the most insinuating accents he could muster, which greatly resembled, we should imagine, the tones of the frog who "would a-wooing go." "And I have met one, ere now," he continued, "whose virtues it would be as impossible to portray, even in earnest, as to do them sufficient justice in one's heart."

And the monster actually pressed his serviette, as if involuntarily, over the exact spot where his watch was tick, ticking, and recording on its honest dial the moments which were insensibly bringing him nearer and nearer to the verge of his hypocritical career.

"But I own," he said, "I am tempted, entre nous now and then to pin a few real beetles, wasps, and butterflies for my museum."

"I declare, you dreadful creature, I feel quite afraid of you," said the young lady on the other side, who overheard this last sentence uttered in rather a louder tone than Mr. Stingray's immediately previous remarks. "Are you not sometimes afraid lest the wasps should sting you in turn?"

Mr. Stingray slightly frowned. The fact is he had a few days before received some very severe personal affronts from a clever young journalist and author, in retaliation for an outrage of the most heinous kind. He had by no means the hide of a rhinoceros, so far as his own feelings were concerned; and like some political bullies of the present day, could not endure even the slightest criticism on his own character, conduct, or motives.

"My sweet young friend," he whispered to the young lady, "if I could catch you in my net, I would not injure the delicate texture of your beautiful wings for a thousand a-year. I spoke of butterflies, and not Peris, you know."

As he often dined with that young lady's father, we will not question his truth.

"But only fancy, my dear Miss Stumpey, what temptation one is sometimes subjected to! This morning I had a visit from Mr. Snobbington. I dare say you have seen him; drives a gorgeous curricle in the Park. What do you think he came for?"

"Really," answered Miss Stumpey, "I cannot imagine. A subscription, I suppose?"

"Pas si bête! Only an invitation to Chalkstoneville's next grand ball."

"What impertinence!" cried the lady. "And what did you say?"

"The fellow will expect me to bring him to a reception at Debrett House next," said Stingray, with admirable flattery.

"Do tell me what you answered. I am dying to know," rejoined Miss Stumpey.

"I told him that I would on one condition. But you'll be shocked, if I tell you what it was."

"Nonsense," rejoined Miss Stumpey; "do, do tell me, there's a good creature."

"I counselled him to commit a dreadful crime as the price of acceding to his request," said Stingray, gravely.

"A crime! What can you mean, you dear, delightful thing?" cried Miss Stumpey.

"Yes, a crime," returned Stingray; "one so dreadful that the ancient Romans excluded it from the programme of possibility in their code of punishments."

"I declare you quite frighten me," said the lady. "I don't know that I shall allow you to go on."

"You must know that the fellow has a father, as most of us have, or have had," pursued Stingray.

Miss Stumpey bowed her acquiescence.

"Well!" she said.

"No! It is not well; that's just the point," said Stingray. "It's ill enough with him. Fancy having a living progenitor who is a large general dealer in Houndsditch, supplies half the paper mills in England with rags!"

"You don't say so! How dreadful!" was the rejoinder.

"It's a sad thing for poor Snob," continued Stingray, who inwardly wished that he had such a father to supply him with luxuries. "But he couldn't help it, you know. Only, why should he want to know us?"

"Ah! why indeed!" quoth Miss Stumpey. "But people never do know what is good for them."

"Well," said Stingray, "I said to him, 'This is the ambition of your life, is it not; to have the entrée of Chalkstoneville House?' 'I'd do anything to obtain it,' he replied. 'Then,' said I, 'nothing is easier. Murder your father! If undiscovered, so much the better. That will amazingly simplify the affair. Should, however, the parricide be discovered, consider the éclat you will gain. You can furnish bail in any amount out of the old boy's coffers, on condition that when you surrender, your friends who are bail for you can keep the amounts you have furnished them for the occasion——' "

"But, excuse me,? interrupted Miss Stumpey, "I thought murder was not a bailable offence."

"No more it is," replied Stingray, "but what of that? Well, I proceeded to tell Snobbington that if he did this, he would be quite a lion, and that no party at Chalkstoneville House should be considered complete without him, before trial, and that after trial and execution, he should be as near as possible to George the Fourth's effigy and coronation robes at Madame Tussaud's."

"Good gracious!" cried Miss Stumpey; "and did you really say all this?"

"Did I not?" was the answer. "And, what is more, I really thought at first he was almost tempted by the grandeur of the reward to undertake a more than Roman action. If he had, what genius could have celebrated the deed? Macaulay would be quite unequal to the task. I am not so sure about Bon Gaultier."

"How absurd! you ridiculous man!" said Miss

Stumpey, hardly knowing whether to take it in earnest or not. "You don't mean to say that the man really thought of murdering his father?"

"Don't I?" replied Stingray. "Depend upon it, he would have annihilated the old rag-picker to get an invitation to our dear duke's parties, could he have done so safely. And he would disown his mother, too, to get invited by you."

"You may depend upon it, I shall never tempt him. It's astonishing what these low people will do, is it not, Mr. Stingray?"

That gentleman answered that it undoubtedly was; and he cited some rare instances of toadyism; but forbore to mention his own performances in this line, we may be sure.

They then talked about Patti, and Turner's pictures, and croquet, and the last Horticultural Fête. Miss Stumpey imparted the information that there was but one frame-maker in England who could make a frame for a Turner. As we do not intend to advertise a single tradesman in these volumes, we shall not give the name of the inspired artist in frames, who had so successfully imposed upon Miss Stumpey's credulity, or been so fortunate as to inspire a whim in that wealthy virgin's head. Why should not Miss Stumpey talk nonsense about the pictures which she purchased? It is a wonderful thing to hear wealth prattle about high art; but possibly not so instructive to record it, as it would be difficult. Perhaps, after all, your great Manchester manufacturer is the least objectionable patron of art. He buys his pictures from accredited middlemen, like the illustrious Flake of Wardour-street, who tells you, "S'elp, me—that 'ere is the best bit of stuff Danby ever painted," or the great Pasticcio, who was a courier, and farms rising artists. He only states the price that he gave, and then shows you the certificate of the picture's authenticity. To him a Stanfield is a Stan Held, and nothing more. He does not affect to criticise. His admiring friends are spared at least that ordeal.

Mr. Stingray was dining with the editor of a powerful literary journal—one of the most insufferable coxcombs and humbugs of his country and period—who wore a cloak with a pose, as if he were a bad style of statue descended from a supposititious pedestal; and who walked down the Strand as if his aim were to strike the top of his unpleasant cranium against an imaginary ceiling at every step. This man, by some inconceivable freak of fortune, had got his round, undistinguished person thrust into a distinguished square hole, as one of the intellectual sign-posts of the age. He probably did more to check genius and choke merit, while fostering pretence and mediocrity, than any other loud-voiced vulgar charlatan of his day. His vanity and malignity were well known and widely appreciated, but still he sat in judgment, and could make or mar a reputation. The ponderous dulness of his organ crushed with elephantine weight the struggling wretch against whom the tyrant directed its malignant fury. Like the elephant, he never forgot the smallest provocation or offence. But unhappily it was not always necessary to offend him, to draw on you the full weight of his malice. If you were poor or unknown, or had not been recommended to him; if you were truthful or earnest—nay, if you were original—it was enough to excite his wrath and provoke his instinctive condemnation. On the other hand, the shallowest "priggism" was sure to find in him a patron and a friend. The verdict of the "Centipede" was a Hall Mark. Never mind if it passed fraud current, branded an honest man with ignominy, or destroyed a Keats. If some unfortunate victim appealed to a law court against a more monstrous act of injustice than usual, his own counsel would throw up his brief with a hypocritical appeal to respectability, and the judge would compliment him. A British jury believes in a paper with twenty-four pages of advertisements. No amount of fact as to the particular assassination in question could disturb their minds. They would as soon convict of kleptomania a bishop with twenty thousand pounds a-year, and as many aristocratical witnesses to character as would furnish an Anti-Reform Demonstration reaching from the Carlton to Apsley House. If the journal said a man's French or Latin was bad, it was bad. No matter whether he were a teacher of languages or not, doctus utriusque linguœ. No matter what errors its own writers made in their "æsthetic" twaddlings or "esoteric" strainings after fine writing. A Corsican vendetta was nothing to the resentments of this cynical and finical print, which would stab and poison to the fifteenth cousinship of a chronic feud. Sometimes a base instinct and a coarse judgment would alone suffice to dictate a "slashing cut up." There were two or three men of intellect connected with it; but they were well paid, and sealed the bond, which delivered them up body and soul to the guidance of the man in the cloak, mask, and poniard. The "Satirist" in its worst days never inflicted a tithe of the real mischief done by this arbiter of literary taste. For whose existence did it embitter—whose hopes did it shatter—whose steps did its bravoes and bloodhounds track to the grave? The struggling, friendless author, the earnest writer and poet, the man who either could not or would not scribble in its grooves, or bow down before the idol which it had set up. If the literary Gregory did not levy black-mail, his prosperity demanded its victims, and pursued them as unscrupulously. To blast an author's reputation basely and unfairly is surely as prejudicial to Society as to threaten to calumniate the domestic relations of a duke. Nor was any expedient too small and too vile to accomplish the purpose in hand. Misquotation was a common mode of attack. Who cared for the author's indignant denial if, which was not always the case, he could get it inserted in another journal? He was only set down as some poor disappointed wretch smarting under an adverse criticism. "Criticism!" One smiles bitterly at the name. It meant in those columns an atrocious conspiracy or a panegyrical job.

Mr. Stingray stood well with this individual. They were flamens of the same unholy temple, priests of the same Juggernaut. They both studied the religion of prosperity, the piety of success.

"Capital affair!" observed Mr. Hugag Thugly, the gentleman in question, to Mr. Stingray across the table, "that of the Honourable Captain Helshot in the Pacific!"

"Didn't notice it particularly," was the reply. "What was it? Shelled a nest of pirates, or something of that kind?"

"Yes. There is a capital sketch of it in the 'Illustrious,' done by young Fussell of the Devastator, on the spot."

"Indeed! What was it about?" inquired the mild and vaguely informed gentleman whom we mentioned just now.

"Well, you see," said Mr. Hugag, "we had a squadron there, the same which had been so long cruising during the war in search of the Russians, who kept so wonderfully out of their way, when a British missionary came on board the Devastator, and represented that he had received some insult from a petty chief in one of the Friendly Isles. I think the natives objected to his efforts to Christianise the chiefs youngest daughter, or something of that kind. Of course the thing was not to be tolerated. So Helshot went in and shelled half a dozen villages, and the missionary stood on the paddle-box and assisted in guiding the vessel up the creeks. The natives threw javelins from their canoes, but they all fell short, and then the missionary went below, and the steamer ran them down like fun."

" Ὥστε θύννους," put in Stingray, who had received a college education.

"Just so," replied Mr. Hugag, who thought it was a nautical phrase in which Stingray had indulged, relating to the tonnage of the vessel employed.

"They killed fifteen hundred men, women, and children of these piratical cannibals; but the missionary nobly saved the life of one little girl, whom a midshipman pulled out of the water, and christened her on the spot after Her Most Gracious Majesty. He has brought little Victoria to England, and placed her at an orphan school—charming trait, was it not?"

"That man ought to be made a bishop," observed Miss Stumpey.

"You have only to say so," said Stingray, "and the thing is done."

"But is there any evidence that these people are pirates and cannibals?" asked the mild gentleman.

"I should think there was," said Mr. Hugag. "They roast hogs entire in holes dug in the ground, and bake them with red-hot stones. You may depend upon it that wretches who do this would not be very particular if they had the opportunity."

"Indeed," said the mild gentleman, "I don't quite see——"

"You may depend upon it our people knew what they were about. It is this sort of doubt and sickly sentimentality which leads to so much mischief."

"But how came Captain Helshot, who, I see, is made an admiral and has got the Cross of the Bath, to let the Russians slip from between his fingers as he did?" inquired another of the party.

"Perhaps," said a young gentleman who had shown some symptoms of impatience during the conversation, "the Russian javelins don't fall short——"

The look which the two despots of the dinner-table levelled at that daring youth did not fall short. Nothing abashed, however, he returned to the charge.

"It appears," he said, "that the missionary had resided there three years, and been well and even kindly treated. I don't quite understand——"

"I don't think you do, sir," interrupted Mr. Hugag. It is quite a mistake to suppose that rudeness is not an element in modern polite conversation. "I rather imagine," he continued, in a voice which utterly precluded any other from making itself heard, "that the Spanish difficulty is nearing a happy solution."

"Indeed!" said the vague gentleman. "I should have thought that something would have been done, considering what England has submitted to."

"Yes," said the indignant youth, who had not the fear of the "Centipede" and literary assassination before his eyes, "I don't know what we shall submit to next. Our ships fired into, our people imprisoned, our Church forbidden and anathematised, and the graves of Protestants desecrated, and dead bodies actually flung into the river——"

"After what we did for them," said the vague gentleman; "first in driving the French out, and then expelling Don Carlos——"

"A most unlawful act," interposed the irreverent young man.

"And putting their present queen on the throne," said the vague gentleman.

"You may depend upon it," observed Hugag, "that Lord Yieldingham knows what he is about. He said in the House the other night that it was not in accordance either with the feelings or wishes of the British Government, or those of our illustrious ally, to interfere with the internal regulations of Spain, especially those relating to so delicate a matter as religion; and in relation to the alleged attacks upon British ships, he had ascertained that the vessels were within three miles of the Spanish coast, and that it had been represented to him that the Spanish Admiral, Rascaillos, under whose orders the ships had been fired upon, was extremely short-sighted. As to the crews, they had the ordinary Spanish legal mode at their disposal for obtaining liberty and redress."

The vague gentleman shook his head.

"I don't quite see," he said, "why France should dictate terms to us."

"I consider it a most fortunate thing," was the remark of Mr. Hugag. "The Emperor is one of the most enlightened men of the age. He is devoted to England, sir. I was one of the late deputation which had the honour of waiting upon him. Nothing could be more flattering than our—I may say, my reception. The Emperor inquired after Mrs. Hugag, and of the services which, he was pleased to say, I had rendered to France and to civilisation by assisting the French representative, M. Vaurien, during the Great Exhibition of 1851. That man, sir, is the glory of the age."

"Well," said the vague gentleman, "I don't quite see it—that is, I should like England to be better prepared—I mean her navy and all that."

"Pooh-pooh!" said Stingray; "our defence is our increased market for French goods. What did Mr.

Sowerface say to his constituents the other day? 'Let every English labourer and mechanic consume his pint of vin ordinaire a day, a consummation which I devoutly hope to see realised, and war will become impossible.' And so it will."

"We have happily put down duelling," said Mr. Hugag, "and shall ultimately make war, which is merely duelling on a larger scale, impracticable. As that great man, Mr. Chimpanzee, said the other day in reply to a letter addressed to him by his brother Moses, of Ogreton, another great European war is simply an impossibility—as impossible as a war on the North American Continent, where there is a standing army of only nine thousand men."

"Ha! ha!" shouted Stingray; "not much danger there, I should think."

"But I don't see that France is disarming," interposed the reckless young man.

"That will come, sir," said Mr. Hugag, authoritatively. "The Emperor has privately intimated as much to Mr. Chimpanzee, with whom he has been frequently closeted of late. All that France wants is coal and iron—steam-coal to develop her mercantile marine, and steel for fancy articles and scissors."

"Scissors!" exclaimed the vague gentleman. "Indeed! How very odd! To think that the entente cordiale should depend upon scissors and sour wine! I should have thought—— But I wish that Mr. Chimpanzee would take the opportunity to say something about Cayenne."

"A mere penal settlement for the brigands who would disturb the public peace," said Mr. Hugag, authoritatively. "Portland Island with alligators, nothing more."

"Why should not every country have a similar penal settlement?" asked Stingray. "I wish we were as sensible. It would be a wholesome check upon our predatory classes. Our system is far too expensive."

"Good Heavens!" cried the younger disputant; "would you defend that horrible tyranny?"

"I defend the cause of order, sir," said Mr. Hugag; "and if Cayenne assists to maintain order, I don't see what it has to do with us. We are bound, if anything, to sympathise with our illustrious ally."

"No such crocodile sympathies for me," said the incorrigible young man. "And I can't see why we should interfere to massacre a set of poor, weak, ignorant natives in the Pacific, and endure these outrages at the hands of stronger states. Why should we not have shelled Cadiz or Malaga on the same principle? I think that the British Government is far more short-sighted than the Spanish admiral. And I believe we shall all be obliged, before very long, to arm in defence of our own liberties, property, and lives."

"Absurd!" said Mr. Stingray.

"Ridiculous!" added Mr. Hugag. "Depend upon it, England will never arm again."

"Then she will lose her colonies, and sink to the condition of a fifth-rate power."

"She is better without her colonies," said Mr. Hugag.

"She will become the industrial workshop of the universe," said Mr. Stingray.

"She will become an island of emasculated chimpanzees," said the young gentleman.

"Indeed, I really must say," said the vague gentleman, "that these doctrines are new to me, and, if I might hazard a remark, it would be to the effect that if the agricultural interest is destroyed, and the manufacturing interest is dependent on the will of our armed friends, I apprehend that the latter might decline under the effects of a hostile competition, and we should no longer be able to continue to purchase food supplies, and then——"

"Coffee, gentlemen," said the butler, saving England by his opportune entrance from her fate.

"Rank protection!" growled Mr. Hugag.

"Obsolete twaddle!" sneered Mr. Stingray.

"I must put a black mark against this young springald's name," muttered Mr. Hugag, fumbling for his note-book. "He will be publishing a pamphlet one of these days, or a volume of poetry entitled 'The Sword and the Lyre,' or some such rubbish, and then——"

The critical assassin grimly smiled; he was already misquoting his late antagonist by anticipation, like an expectant cannibal gloating over a promised repast.

CHAPTER III.

SWELL AND SNOB.

And so doth seek
Gilding by vain attrition with the great,
And thus he, with small perseverance, gains
Their vices, not their virtues:

* * * * *

He is a type
Of those whom I abhor—intruders vile,
That like a troop of chattering apes, let loose
Within the precincts of Jove's temple, grin
On Fortune's worthier giftless votaries:
Giving false names to things, false pride to names.
Risen from nought, enriched by basest means,
He hath more shame to call his father, "sire"
(Though he were honest, which the son is not),
Than without trembling to blaspheme high Jove,
And scoff at Heaven's great thunders.

"IT was a doosid select thing, I can tell you, Snob," said Cornet Swellingham to Mr. Sidney Snobbington "of that ilk," which meant a villa at Clapham Rise and part of a small house in Piccadilly, as the pair were breakfasting together one morning in the latter locality. "And doosid slow, too," he drawled, after a yawn. "Thought you were to be there?"

"No," said the other, "went to the Opera instead. A fellah can't be everywhere, you know."

"Come now, no lies with me, Snob, old fellah. You know you would have given your eyes to be invited. I thought Sting was to have done the needful for you?"

"Not he," replied the other. "Not but what he's prwomised often enough. I will say, that when you say a thing, you do it; the difficulty is to get you to prwomise."

"You should not ask too much. Snob," said Mr. Swellingham. "I'm always open to anything in rweason. Have you seen Aubrway himself lately?"

"Saw him in the Park yesterday, driving splendid crweechure," was the answer.

"Gwacious! What, one horse! Not a gig?"

"No!" said Mr. Snobbington. "I mean a woman."

"Not his wife?" asked Swellingham.

"Should say not," replied the other, "unless the fellah has two."

"By-the-bye," said Mr. Swellingham, "that puts me in mind. I heard Stingway say, last Thursday, in the Park, when Lord Fitznoodle drove by in his curwicle with Mrs. Bouncer as his side, that it was rank bigamy, and two fellahs from Oxford seemed awfully amused. Can't see it, can you?"

"Can't say I do," answered Mr. Snobbington. "Fitznoodle is a widower, and he hasn't marwied Mrs. Bouncer."

"These clayver fellahs," continued Swellingham, with an air of reflection, "are like the judges in the law courts. They say the stoopidest things, and the barwisters immediately laugh, and then all the attorneys, until the whole Court joins, including the very usher, except the parties to the suit, you know; and when they've all exhausted themselves, the judge cries 'Order!' himself, like a blessed old hypocritical Punch. But, I say, isn't this fellah Aubrway going the pace a few?"

"Well, I must say," said Snobbington, "I think it is very bad taste not to keep things a little darker. He needn't pay such open and undisguised attention to other women, and drive them in the Park. I'm no moralist, but there are two ways of doing everything. I really feel very much for his wife."

"Why, what next?" said his friend. "Are you coming out in the sentimental line? What would Stingway say?"

"He may say what he likes," returned Mr. Snobbington, "but she is a splendid crweechure, and I should like——"

"To console her, doubtless," interrupted the other. "Well, why don't you try? But I hear that her sight is going. You had better make haste, or your manly attractions will be lost upon her."

"Now, don't chaff a fellah," rejoined Mr. Snobbington, "but intrwoduce me, as you prwomised."

"Who?—I? Do you mean to say that I promised you?"

"Well, you did nearly," was the answer.

"Hem!" said Swellingham. "You see the thing is not easy. Their house is so small, and they know so many good people, they can afford to be so very exclusive. But I'll try one of these days. In the mean time, Snob, you must let me have that money I spoke about, I tell you. The fact is, I can't do without it."

Let us pause to describe these worthies. In the first place, they were about the same age, some thirty years. Swellingham was tall, dark, and decidedly aristocratic. Snobbington was fair, florid, and by no means unprepossessing. Although their circumstances were very unlike, their habits were similar, for this reason, that Snobbington endeavoured to imitate Swellingham in everything that he did. They lived together in chambers in the same house in Piccadilly, and as their alliance was mutually convenient and desirable to both, we need express no wonder at its oddity. It was shrewdly suspected that Snob, as he was called for the sake of brevity, paid "Swell Fits'," which was Swellingham's nickname, share of the rent as well as his own, and that he lent him money, and was generally conducive to his comfort and luxury in this world. For Fits was the fifth son of a selfish old baronet of the clubs and coulisses, and had very little besides his pay as cornet in the Third Blues upon which to live on the very best of everything the world could afford; and Snob was the only son of a wealthy tradesman, whose calling he, Snob, fondly trusted that nobody knew. Like Sir Piercie Shafton, Snob was a plucky fellow, and accomplished in the science of small arms; and therefore no one ventured plainly to allude to his origin in his presence, although indirectly and obscurely he was greatly chaffed and ridiculed, on account of his absurd proclivities and mania for being considered an appurtenance of the haut ton of London. There was, however, one man who roasted him openly without the slightest reticence or remorse, and this man poor Snob reverenced and feared to a childish extent. This arbiter of his fate and happiness was Mr. Stingray, who, for his own reasons, however, allowed him to exist, but in a state of constant torture. It suited Stingray to keep him alive; but constantly impaled, as an ardent entomologist would a gilded beetle, or a butterfly, a Coleopterus metropolitanus magnificus, or a Camberwell beauty, as the case might be. After all, Snob was not half so bad as Stingray himself in doing "kotoo" to those above him in social rank, but the manner was different. Poor Snob's propensities were so undisguised and open, a child might have read him, whereas Stingray affected to hate and despise the gods, before whom in secret he bowed down, and whose worship was the chief object of his life. As for Fits, he allowed Snob to imitate him in everything, save dress; and in his objection to this he was absolute. "No, Snob, my boy," he would say, "I don't mind riding your horses, or going anywhere with you; and as for Pond, my sufferer, he may make your clothes, and you can pay him for both, but you shan't wear the same things as myself at the same time." For the rest, Fits never quizzed his friend openly in public, nor, to his credit be it said, did he allow him to be ridiculed behind his back. With all the folly, and laxity, and absurdity, and, must we say so, dissipation and profligacy in which the pair indulged, they had both redeeming traits of character. They were neither cowards nor cold-blooded seducers, neither blacklegs nor hypocrites. They were men of fashion of the period, spoilt by the period, aping all the fantastic and frivolous manners of their age; and even sometimes superficially, from mere want of head, or head training, imitating superficially and exoterically the heartless and libertine expression of a vicious habit of thought and conduct. Let us add, that Fits actually talked like the men of his class in "Punch," and that Snob did his best to excel his patron; and that the latter had a permanent liaison with a very pretty, and otherwise well-conducted, but uneducated young woman, who had been a housemaid in his father's establishment, and by whom he had already four or five children. This was an affair that Snob kept quite in the dark. Not, we blush to record it, that he was ashamed of its immorality, far from it. The fact is, it was scarcely immoral enough; and the girl's antecedents (she was still young) were not such as Snob felt socially proud of, whilst he would not have been seen in Bond-street with his small family for a trifle. But there were stories and legends current, like that of the appearance of the sea-serpent, of Snob being seen by one or other of his fast friends driving down to Snaresbrook, or some such retreat, on Sunday, with a string of merry little creatures holding on to his coat-tails, and a young creature all curls and smiles proudly hanging on to his arm. Nay, there was a story of his being seen in the act of propelling a perambulator, a double one, trebly occupied, in a very out-of-the-way part of the suburbs. But, as one story founded on fact sometimes begets a young family of myths, we will not vouch for the truth of that humiliating narrative.

For some time after Swellingham's announcement, the pair puffed their cigars, which they had just lit.

"Who is it," inquired Snob, as we shall call him for the sake of brevity, "that Aubrway is running after now?"

"Why," replied his friend, "that girl who has just come out at the Thespis, and plays such tricks with the manager and the rest of them."

"What Dareall?"

"Yaas!"

"Oh!"

"And the best part of the joke is, that she can't endure the sight of the fellah, and is pawsitively helping to wuin him out of sheer contempt," said Fits.

"I heard yesterday that Aubrway is nearly cleaned out," rejoined Snob.

"I should think he is," was the reply. "Levy Moss told me last night that he has got lots of his paper, and don't mean to renew a single oblong."

"And to think that his parties should be among the best in London. It says in the 'Post' here, that there were three dukes, and let me see, nine peers there in that little place of theirs at their last night's 'thé.' Do, my dear Swellingham, try and get me a card for their Sunday nights, if you can. See about it while there is time, my dear fellah!"

"Quite impawsible!" was the answer of Fits, delivered with a cloud of smoke.

"And Levy Moss won't renew his bills. What a shockingly unequal world we live in!"

"Ha! ha! so I say," cried his friend. "Why haven't I half your money? I could spare you a very decent aristocratic connexion in return. Come, come, I dine there to-morrow, and I'll do what I can for you. But it stwikes me that Levy Moss is your man."

"Levy Moss," cried Snob. "Why he doesn't visit there surely?"

"No!" quoth Fits; "but he soon will. You can follow the sherwiff's officers when they take possession. Stingway says he dines there in constant expectation of seeing them come in, like the man who always went to Van Amburgh's performances in the hope of seeing him devoured by the wild beasts. Poor Aubrway! Ha! ha!"

"Ha! ha! pore Aubrway," echoed Snob; "but do get me a card, before it is too late."

"Get me that two hundred, and I'll do the best I can," returned his friend. "But you see when a fellah, or a fellah's father has been in a wetail trwade, it is veway difficult to take him anywhere, that is, where any one goes. It would be far easier if you were a needy nobleman, suspected of having poisoned your own nieces for their money, especially if you'd got it, I should say. Talking of poisoning, it wouldn't so much matter if you were a brwewer. Society is doosid odd. It don't mind brwewers and bankers, and people in the coal-line, if they're only in a sufficiently large way of business. A brute of an ironmaster will pass muster, where a brassfounder or a tinman stands no chance. I must say I can't see why brwewing beer should be thought more corrwect than baking brwead, or killing sheep. Why wasn't your governor a brwewer, my dear Snob, instead of a——"

"Hush! my dear fellah!" interrupted Snob. "I wish you would be more cautious."

"There's no one within hearing," said Fits. "I wish you would afford me some prwetext besides mere money. If you were an amateur artist, for example, or belonged to the 'Melodious Vagrants,' or could assist in charwades, or cut out paper figures. You don't even bet! Can't you manage to lose a few ponies to Lord Sevensthemayne or Colonel Nobbleham! But I'll see what's to be done, and you must let me have fifty out of the two hundred down now."

Neither shabbiness nor thrift were among Snob's failings. He really liked Swellingham; partly because he was proud of knowing him, and being allowed to call him by his baptismal name, or its abbreviation Fits, and partly because Swellingham was a man any one might have liked, when divested of his outward affectation and nonsense. As for Snob altogether, his heart was right enough, when he was not intent upon imitating Swellingham's worst absurdities and peculiarities, and especially his pretended libertinism and worldliness. These two men were mere puppets of the period, creatures of the era in which they lived. It was the fashion to appear selfish and heartless, and they sought to be no better than their superiors. Had it been the rage to visit hospitals and attend soirées at Bedlam and Colney Hatch, they would probably have done it with the utmost vigour and delight. You can't blame a man, who is born in the nineteenth century, if in some degree he comports himself accordingly. If he does not, he is pretty sure to come to grief, or at least is not likely to be a successful personage, a "man of the time." Suppose that a man speaks the truth in Parliament, such truth as every one feels, but judges it inconvenient to say aloud, what is his fate? He is extinguished by clamour, and becomes the butt of the House. If you brand a great and powerful man in public with the infamy for which he is notorious, in that second world of modern daily life, the world of conversational masonry in which truth is occasionally spoken—what is your fate? It would seem as if the crimes of the denouncee infected you, the denouncer. The mischief lies in the publication of such things. They may be as notorious as Scandal can make them, only Libel must beware. This is the safe-guard of every prosperous sinner, whose vices are undivulged before any public tribunal, and only furnish pleasant small-talk at the clubs and private dinner-tables of men. But human nature is not so universally bad after all; and there is a good deal of sterling virtue about, which might assert itself, if men were not ashamed of it, and if it were not old-fashioned, inconvenient, and absurd.

When Cervantes ridiculed the extreme follies and excesses of chivalry, he doubtless did not anticipate an epoch of lawyers, when the unselfish assertion and maintenance of all truth and honour, and the unpaid rescue of all innocence and virtue should be termed "Quixotism," and dealt with like the aberrations of La Mancha's knight. Had he done so, he would possibly have preserved the memoirs of Amadis and Don Galaor, and burnt, in the interests of posterity, the lucubrations of Cide Hamete Benengeli in their stead.

CHAPTER IV.

MATRIMONIAL NEGLECT.

There is no cruelty greater than that of a heartless woman towards a man who adores her, but for whom she has no regard, save that of your "man of feeling" towards a woman whom he is forced to live with, when his affections have grown slack.—From the Note-book of the late Solomon Trustall, LL.D.

IT was noon in Queen's-square. The domestics of the Aubrey family had been astir some two or three hours. The great Binsby had aired himself on the clean door-steps, and taken in a whiff of fresh air, and a drink of the glorious sunshine of a fine morning, and then retired with dignified seriousness to the discharge of his daily duties. Tops, the groom, had called for orders, but hearing that "master" had sent a note to "missus" the previous evening, and had not returned home all night, profited by the opportunity to remain below, and endeavour to obtain an interview for the purposes of courtship with Mrs. Susan, the lady's-maid. Blanche Aubrey, tired and anxious, had not yet made her appearance. In due time, Mrs. Susan came down, and Mr. Tops, under the pretence of asking if her mistress would want the carriage, which he knew perfectly well she would not, followed her into the drawing-room, where the following conversation took place:

"Now stop a minute, do, can't yer? What's the hurry?" quoth Mr. Tops. "Wait till the bell rings. You air such a bolter, you air. Never quiet a minute, like——"

"There, that will do," replied Mrs. Susan. "I don't want any of your comparisons to brute animals, if you please. Besides" (tossing her head), "I'm not yet in harness, you see; no, nor likely to be for that matter, neither."

"Now, don't say that, Susan, when you've promised me so often."

"Promises, Mr. Tops, are nothing on a lady's part before marriage, as they don't seem to be on the side of your treacherous sex after. I wonder you can have the impudence to ask me, considering how your master goes on. I couldn't expect you to behave decently with such an example."

"Masters," returned Tops, oracularly, "is one thing, and grooms is another, and——"

"I hope for the sake of the poor deluded creatures who marry them, that they are," said Susan; "but I'm not disposed to make the trial. But is your precious master ever coming home? Wherever is he got to?"

"You see, my dear," replied the knight of the curry-comb, "a man must be somewheres. The governor is hout hall night, and hain't said where he is? Well, as he hain't ere, he must be there."

"Where?" cried Susan.

"Why somewheres else, of course," was Mr. Tops's unsatisfactory answer.

"You know where he is," said Susan, "well enough. Cannot you give a plain answer to a plain question?"

"Not to sech a pretty gal as you air, as would win the Beauty Stakes heasy in a canter," was the gallant reply.

"None of your flattery, sir. Is the governor, as you call him, coming home this morning or not?"

"I should think he was," answered the incorrigible Tops, "for his home ain't likely to go to him, like the mountain to the Turkish gent, as I read of in the 'Sporting Life' yesterday. Talking of him, I can put you on to a cheesy thing for the 'Chester.' A young man in Sir Joseph's stable has give me the tip. Now do let me put a quarter's celery for you on to Mahomet. Its ten to one, and the hevent's sartain."

"Not I, indeed!" returned Mrs. Susan. "It may do for the Duchess of Marylebone and the Honourable Miss Fitz-gent to send their coachmen on such errands. They have no characters to lose."

"Marry come up!" exclaimed Tops, with energy.

"Marry, indeed!" said Mrs. Susan. "I'm in no such hurry. This is only my third season, I'd have you know, Mr. Tops."

" 'Marry,' Susan," replied that worthy, "is an expreshun used at the Spring's Theayter, Pentonwill, in Elizabeth Ann's drayma, as the great Mr. Stingray says."

"And pray," inquired Mrs. Susan, with an indignant toss of her head, which, as Tops afterwards said, put him in mind of a chesnut filly with tasselled nets shaking off the flies on a summer day; "who is Elizabeth Ann? One of your girls, I suppose. But tell me, whatever does make master go on so, fretting that poor dear creature's heart out as he does? Tell me this, and I'll go with you to Kew Gardens, my very first Sunday out, I promise."

"No bribery!" cried Tops. "Don't think to come old Sairey over me. Purity of helection and huniversal sufferin', is my mottar. Why I'd sooner rob master than tell on him, and hif I was a genelman, I know which I'd excuse fust. The fact is, me and master is in training for Parlimint, besides which, we're a writing a book on the gory liar, the great story-telling babboon of Afrikey. Now, suppose me and you was married?"

"Well, Mr. Tops," replied the lady, "just for a moment, for the sake of argument, I'll entertain so ridiculous an idea."

"Pink tops, white cords, real orange-blossoms, and sech a blow out! Kew Gardens and 'everlasting devotion,' as I heerd master say to missus when they was fust married."

"Yes," said Susan, "and if I was fool enough to have you, you'd be just such another."

"That," observed Tops, gravely, "is a event scratched clean out of the book of time."

"You mean the marriage?" asked Susan.

"No!" he replied; "I mean that hever I should be sech another as master, arter the event. As hif you didn't know what I mean!"

"Well, but what is your master after?" rejoined Susan. "Is it only gambling, or is it some designing wretch of a woman? Let me only come near her. I'd tear her eyes out; I'd spoil her looks for her, the creature, the female, the thing——" And here she seized Tops by the arm.

"Jest pinch a trifle softer—jest a trifle!" said that individual. "You're a reckoning some one up finely, you air. What's the caper?"

"Caper, indeed!" retorted the indignant Abigail. "A caper, you call it, you wretch! Here's my poor dear lamb of a mistress deserted for some brazen hussy. Hi! hi!"

"Jest pull up, will yer?" said Tops. "I can't stand them waterworks."

"You're no better than your master," rejoined the weeping lady's-maid.

"No better nor master!" exclaimed Tops. "That's coming it rayther too strong. Ajew, young woman, ajew!" and he pretended that he was about to depart.

"There! go along with you," said Susan. "I'm sure you're not wanted here."

"I'm going fast enough," answered Tops, reapproaching the object of his affections.

"If that is what you call going, I say 'stop!' " said Susan.

"It hain't no use axing me to let out on the governor; that's what I've come back to tell yer," observed Tops. "When I follows master, I sees nothink, I hears nothink, and I knows nothink, and if I did, I tells nothink. If I was to deceive him, I should deceive you, afore I'd got well down to my work in the collar of materimony, shouldn't I?"

"Oh, Tops, Tops!" literally cried the equally faithful soubrette. "Think of that poor creature in her affliction. Were it not that I should have to leave her in it, I would never take so much as a cup of tea in this unhappy house again."

"There hain't a groom, nor a coachman for that matter," replied he of the stable, "no, not in hall this ere village of London, as likes his young missis better nor I do ourn. To please her I'd wait at table in Berlin gloves, and look arter a garden and a one 'oss chay. But for all that, I tells no tales on master, Susan: as a man, I don't split on a man."

"Go, then," replied Susan, indignantly, "and help him to deceive a poor lady like her. Go, sir, to your master and welcome for me; but never breathe an odious syllable of love to me again;" and with that Mrs. Susan flounced angrily out of the room.

Mr. Tops gave suppressed utterance to a long whistle, which it must be owned expressed a good deal. "Kicked clean over the traces!" he said. "What a power of chaff she do cut, surely. Shall I turn master up, or not? I must say he don't behave according, as that old pictur' card of a Binsby calls it. Hallo! here he is. Let hisself in with a door-key at twelve o'clock!"

As he said this, Mr. Tops endeavoured to make his escape before the "governor," as he styled him, could get up-stairs; but meeting him on the landing, touched his forelock, and said:

"I've just come in to know what horders there is to day, sir?"

"You here, Tops?" said his master. "Put the chesnut four-year-olds into the mail-phaeton, and come round at two o'clock to Wilton-place, you know. Look sharp! What are you waiting for?"

"The near chesnut 'oss is lame, sir, in his hoff fore-leg," replied the groom.

"Confound you!" said his master. "How did he get lamed, eh?"

"He shan't drive her in our trap, if I can 'elp it," quoth Tops to himself. (Aloud.) "He's very badly bruised in the frog—picked up a stone on Saturday."

"Well, put the mare in," said Aubrey.

"What! missus's mare?" asked Tops.

"Yes, you fool," was the ungracious answer. "You know your mistress will not ride again, and she goes beautifully in double harness."

"I've jest give her a dose of physic, sir," replied Tops, doggedly.

"Dash it!" cried his master. "This is too bad; with seven horses in my stable, I have never one to ride or drive."

"I beg pardon, sir," said Tops, "if I can't please you——"

"What! you rascal! say no more. You can leave when you please," said Aubrey. "This comes," he added to himself, "of putting confidence in a groom; yet I thought he was faithful and attached to me. I suppose I ought to have raised the scamp's wages, when I trusted him."

"Well, sir," said Tops with some emotion, "I hope you'll find one as will sarve you as true as I've done, and take care of the 'osses. I've lived with yer since I was a bwy (boy), and a better master I shan't see, that's sartain, but——"

"But what, sir?" inquired Aubrey.

"Oh, Mister Aubrey, sir, if I dared say. I was so happy, when you and missus used to drive out together, and now——"

"And now, sir?" was Aubrey's interrogation.

"There is one has 'as took her place, as hain't fit——"

"Stop! you confounded rascal!" thundered his master. "Lectured by my groom? Ha! ha! I suppose, sir, that you think I ought to have raised your wages—you fancy that I have not tipped you sufficiently, eh? Look you, you will leave this house to-night. Not another word. Begone! Send Thomas to me. I will see if he can harness the lame horse—eh! and the one in physic. Be off, sir! No, stay, and listen. Go and put the chesnuts in harness, in the phaeton, do you hear?"

"Yes, Mr. Arthur, sir," almost blubbered poor Tops, "but I can't see missus——" and the honest fellow fairly burst into tears, and ran down stairs to hide his emotion in the stable, so soon as he could get there, and to impart his sorrow to the horses.

"So!" said Aubrey to himself, "a pretty state of things! I hope I did not speak too loud. Ha! here comes my wife, with that precious maid of hers, Madam Susan. If I could find a way to get rid of her too, it wouldn't be amiss. I hate the sight of the confounded prying fool. These sort of people are always making mischief with their pretended interest and sympathy. But the women set up such a howl, when their privileges are attacked; and I suppose it is one of them to keep an idle, curious, impertinent minx like that."

During this muttered soliloquy, Mrs. Aubrey had slowly descended the stairs, and now stood before her savage and indignant husband.

"Is that you, Arthur?" she said, in accents that might have melted a Cheyenne Indian, had he been less infatuated.

"Yes," replied Aubrey. "Who else should it be?"

"You forget my infirmity, dear Arthur," said the poor lady.

"Nonsense!" was the rough rejoinder.

As he spoke their eyes seemed to meet, but, alas! it was not so. There was no speculation in her beautiful orbs. She was blind, stone blind; and yet he could answer her thus!

"Dear Arthur," she said, "I am so glad you have returned. I heard your footsteps half down the street."

"Did you indeed?" he said carelessly.

They entered while speaking the room where Aubrey had just held his brief conversation with Tops.

"Alas!" she replied, "it were better were it not so. Every change of tone reaches my heart through these unwilling portals" (pressing her hands on her ears),

"and sometimes I wish I were deaf as well as blind, Arthur."

"Oh! for Heaven's sake, Blanche, do not give me a dose of the sentimental. One would think you were dreadfully treated," was the semi-brutal response.

"Nay, Arthur, when have I complained? But to-day——" she urged.

"Well, well, to-day—what of it? Last night I was kept out, but I explained it all in my note. We played at whist at the club till five, and I went home to Swellingham's chambers, rather than disturb you and the house."

"Disturb me? Do you think, then, that I slept?"

"I should hope so," was the careless answer. "Look here, Blanche," said her husband. "Do not be so dreadfully querulous. I own that yours is a sad trial and affliction; and I am sure I do all that I can under the circumstances. Is there anything I can do to please you?"

One would have thought, from the manner in which he spoke this, that he was the most attentive of husbands, quite a marital martyr, in fact.

A ray of pleasure shot across the face of Blanche, and for a moment the old sweet flush returned to her cheek. Her eyes had lost but little of their beauty, although there was a kind of cloudy indistinctness in their regard. They looked more like the eyes of a saint in some picture mellowed by time. She had not grown old; but she looked as if an age had swept over her, and carried with it all the brightness and freshness of her young life.

"Oh, Arthur!" she said, "come home early, and give me one entire evening. I have had such a strange dream this morning about us both. I know it is dull for you; and yet you said, when this terrible affliction first threatened me, that you cared not, if I could reconcile myself to my fate, since you could never know a jealous pang, never find your home deserted. And yet, dear, before I became blind, you had not much cause to blame the truant disposition of your wife."

"I suppose," returned her husband, "you mean to say that I am a truant. Pray cease for once to allude to your affliction, as you call it. I am sure I never speak of it more than is absolutely necessary. Of course, I am very grieved that you cannot come out and accompany me as you did before; but you can hardly expect me to remain at home always."

"Cannot come out!" breathed poor Blanche to herself. "Oh, Heavens! does he ever ask me?" (Aloud.) "Nay, dear Arthur, though I cannot ride out on horseback, I could go with you in the carriage sometimes. Oh! do, dear, take me out with you in the phaeton to-day. I should so like it."

The guilty conscience of Aubrey here touched him to the quick. What was the meaning of this? Did she suspect anything? Had Tops really betrayed him? No, no! Her manner was far too affectionate for that. So he said aloud:

"I am sorry I cannot to-day. Your faithful groom has made a hospital of the stables, and I have just discharged him in consequence."

"Discharged Tops?" exclaimed Blanche.

"Yes," answered her husband, "and why not, I pray?"

"Poor Tops!" she said. "Oh, Arthur, how changed you are!"

"Changed!" vociferated Aubrey. "It is time to change, when a man has no peace at home for tears, and reproaches, and sentiment, and that sort of thing. I tell you, I hate this snivelling and crying. What have I done? What do I do, to merit it? Is there anything in the world you want? Did I not send to Paris last Tuesday for Doctor De Latour for your eyes? Do I not load you with presents and luxuries? Do I not put up, for your sake, with the insolence of your maid? Have I not given up my intention to shoot this year in Scotland! Good God! Mrs. Aubrey, what would you have?"

"Yourself—your heart, Arthur," was the reply. "I was a poor governess, I know, when you married me. Nay, do not frown and be impatient. You saw me accidentally and courted me, and I refused you, left the kind people who then sheltered me—for your sake, not for mine, Arthur, for I loved you from the first. You followed me, and discovered me in my new situation, where I was treated like a menial, in the great contractor's service, weeping over an insult just received from one of his purse-proud daughters. You claimed me, and I was yours, because you willed it— yours by a love whose pride rose to the level of your impassioned generosity."

"Well, well, dear! it is all quite true. It is not I who remind you of all these things. What have you to complain of? Are you sorry that you accepted my hand?"

"For your sake, I am. For myself, I grieve as little as I may. You fancied that you loved me. You did love me for awhile; and now I were far happier and better back again in the sordid coal-owner's family, than living here a burden and an annoyance to you."

"Nonsense, nonsense, Blanche!" said Aubrey, softened by her appeal, "you are no burden to me, love. How can you talk so? There, don't cry. You drive me away from you, I declare. Do you mean to say that I neglect you, because of your unfortunate calamity?"

"No, no, Arthur!" she replied, eagerly, "you are too generous for that. You cannot help it, dearest! Other eyes, not darkened like these poor orbs, flash on your path—others can participate better in your pleasures and your amusements. I no longer attract others—I who cared not to attract any, save you alone, and you have grown careless of one so entirely your own. But let me say no more. I thought not to have said this. In the long weary hours of the night, I think that if I could only talk to you, you would love me again as of old. But it is not so. I only weary you. Forgive me. You are going out, are you not, dearest? Do not let me keep you, but come home earlier for the sake of your health. I could have wished that to-day—but no matter."

"What of to-day in particular?" asked Aubrey.

"It is an anniversary," she replied.

"An anniversary? Of what?"

"Of the day," answered Blanche, "when you married an orphan girl, who brought you no dowry, save her heart."

"And a dear good little heart it is," he replied. "There, love, don't be so dismal. I declare you make me quite miserable. There, I will stop at home all day; though I had promised—that is, I will come home at four, in time to take you out before dinner. I want to bring you a little present—a bracelet. It was to have been a surprise."

"A surprise!" thought Blanche, "and he did not even remember the anniversary of our wedding-day. If you knew how happy you make me, dearest," she said aloud, "you would often be thus kind to me; indeed you would."

"There, good-bye, God bless you, dear!" said her husband, who felt at that moment what a scoundrel and hypocrite he was, and determined to buy the costliest bracelet that he could obtain on credit. Such presents often resemble the "conscience money," which a superstitious rogue pays to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the astonishment of poorer and honester men. We knew a rakish husband once who never omitted to take a handsome present home, whenever he deceived his wife.

Arthur Aubrey imprinted a hasty kiss on the fair brow that pillowed itself a moment in renewed hope and happiness on his breast, and then hurried off, saying:

"I'll be back at half-past four punctually. There'll be lots of time, as we dine at seven, you know, dear."

Blanche sighed involuntarily at the loss even of the half-hour thus carelessly intimated; but, on the whole, she felt more joyful and contented than she had done for weeks; and when Susan entered, in a quarter of an hour, she found her still standing where Aubrey had left her, with a smile on her face so radiant, that as that faithful attendant described it soon afterwards to Tops, it put her in mind of a saint on a painted window in one of those foreign Catholic churches in France.

"Come," said her mistress, "I want you to take in my green silk-fluted dress with the purple trimmings that I had from Paris last month. I don't want to look thin, you know, and I mean to wear it to-day. Don't you remember how your master admired it, the day I first put it on?"

"Yes, mum!" said Mrs. Susan, aloud, "it does become you beautiful;" and to herself, "I'd see him far enough before I put on anything he admired, that I would, the nasty, unfeeling, selfish brute. I should like to know whose fault it is, the dear angel has grown thinner. Ugh! I should like to strangle him in it, I should, and all such wretches. Well, I wish him no worse than to see himself as I see his wicked conduct at this blessed minute."

CHAPTER V.

RED LAMPS AHEAD!

My heart is ice, my brain is hot,
He loves me not, he loves me not;
He for whom my wild eyes grew
Daily softer and more true;
He for whom I would have given
All the debt I owe to Heaven,
Tramples on this aching breast—
Let me, let me be at rest!

The Plaint of the Forsaken.

AN explanation is due of the change which had come over the dream of the Aubreys' domestic bliss. But three years before, we saw them "loving and being loved," to borrow the title of a charming novel by Mrs. A. Maillard. How was it that Blanche had thus realised the awful affliction which we have thus incidentally described? How came it that the very nature and character of Aubrey had undergone such fatal transformation in so short a time? The truth is, to answer the last interrogation first, that Aubrey had lately fallen into evil ways. Surfeited with his wife's affection; subjected to the worst influences, and the most pernicious examples; growing desperate in the face of ruin, that seemed approaching him with gigantic strides; living a dissipated and useless life; constantly under the exciting influence of wine, though far from being a tippler or a drunkard; stifling thought, and hating himself for what he was when he did think, Mr. Aubrey was a changed man—the victim of frivolity, bad habits, idleness, and enduring "le pénible fardeau de n'avoir rien à faire." Blanche's affliction at first alarmed and shocked, and then bored him. It is a hopeless case when a man comes to say of the dearest tie of life, "What a bore!" There was something unutterably mean and cowardly in his conduct, and he knew it; but yet persisted in his course. If it were possible to sustain a single mitigating plea for him, a single "circonstance extenuante," as the French are apt to do for their worst criminals, it was that his union had not been blessed with offspring, and he had at first longed deeply and tenderly for a child. Now, he had ceased to regret this deprivation, and was rather inclined to look upon it as a piece of luck. So selfish, so hardened and blinded, had this man become; the spoiled child of fortune, deaf to sense and reason, squandering his last resources and means of redemption in heartless extravagance, borrowing money at ruinous rates of interest—in short, leading just that life which astonishes us now and then in the revelations of our Bankruptcy and Divorce Courts; when we can only refer the actions of such a man, who has spurned every blessing, and embraced ruin and disgrace with open arms, to the restless promptings and unaccountable caprices of a disordered brain.

The commencement of Aubrey's neglect of the being whom he had so ardently wooed and won took place about a year before the period of the conduct which we are now reluctantly compelled to describe. For six months or so, it had been very gradual, and his angelic partner had herself unselfishly encouraged him to seek amusement and distraction from home. Poor thing! She said to herself, "I must not tire him of home;" and not only accorded him unquestioned liberty, but would say to him playfully, "I must not pin you to my apron-strings," and "you see, dear, what a sensible little wife I am." So he went about shooting and yachting with his friends, and visited Doncaster and Newmarket, and at last actually went to Paris for a fortnight alone. From that visit, which she at least in appearance cheerfully permitted, though, to speak the truth, it cost her many secret tears, might be dated the actual era of neglect and even harshness. Then Blanche began to pine and fade. She became visibly thinner and lost her beautiful wild-rose tint. One would have thought this might have reclaimed her husband's truant and fickle heart. At first he displayed some sympathy and regret. But in place of telling her that he must remain more constantly at home, he continually told her that she did not go out sufficiently often. Why did she not visit this friend, or that? Why did she not go to balls, or concerts, without him? There was the carriage, why did she not drive out oftener? There was her horse, why did she not ride it unattended, save by her groom? Other ladies do it. Besides, did she not know plenty of ladies, who rode on horseback in the Park? Then he was always engaged in affairs—business with the lawyers. This was his frequent excuse for being fretful and short in his answers. Other wives would be delighted to have so much liberty. There was one odious phase of married selfishness on the part of a husband, in which he certainly did not indulge. He never grudged her any expense; never denied her any amount of money. Alas! he had no occasion; for she was as economical, as he was thriftless. Not mean; for she had her little charities, and no household was ever better administered; but though she little knew their real position, she easily divined that Aubrey was overstepping the bounds of prudence, and living above his income. And besides, she never forgot in her own mind that she brought him no dowry, no accession of fortune. When they were married, she had persistently refused a settlement, much to the regret and annoyance of Lady Courcy, who held such a disposition to be at once a prudent and a necessary thing.

Poor Blanche! Could she have gone out cheerfully without her husband; could she have indulged in ever so slight a platonic flirtation; could she have contrived to make Aubrey feel the slightest insecurity in the tenure of her devoted affections, how much might she have been spared! We are inclined to think that, even had she known "the way to keep him," she would not have acted otherwise; could not have played a part; could not have sullied the virgin purity of her soul by even the passing shadow which a plot to retain her husband's affections must necessarily have reflected upon it. For that shadow must have been cast by some other man. Certain it is that Aubrey's jealousy would not have been very easily aroused. And, to enhance all, she was left, by the sudden death of Lady Courcy, without either counsellor or true friend. That estimable lady saw, with inexpressible grief and pain, the blight which threatened her young protégée's happiness, and she was on the point of warning her, when she was unhappily removed from the scene by the stern summons of death. Latterly Blanche had fallen into a sickly and nervous state. Still she complained not; and her faithful maid, Susan, with that young person's confidant and admirer, Tops, were the only individuals who really knew the sum of her suffering and its real cause. True, a physician had been called in. On this Aubrey insisted. Perhaps he thought to repair through medicine the ravages which his own neglect was making with such cruel and effective haste. The physician prescribed air and exercise, and change; and these, apart from her husband, Blanche mildly refused to take. She did not say why; but she neglected the doctor's commonplace injunctions, with an uncomplaining resolution which her husband called obstinacy, and which sometimes made him very angry and unkind. At length, one night, when he returned home and found her sitting up, to his great annoyance and disgust, he observed a peculiar expression in her face, which caused him a pang of alarm and self-reproach.

"I wish to Heaven," he said, "Blanche, that you would go to bed, like a sensible woman, and take more care of your health. Why do you go on like this?"

"Oh, Arthur!" she replied, "you know how ill and nervous I have been lately. It is not my fault, dearest, indeed it is not."

"Your fault?" observed Aubrey, "why no, not exactly, though I do think you are very obstinate in not going out more, and taking better care of yourself. You remain at home, until you get your head full of sick fancies."

"Fancies!" said Blanche, meekly; "I wish they were fancies. Are the dreadful shooting pains in my head, fancies? Oh, Arthur! you would not say so if you knew; and now, this very evening," she said, "you don't know what a fright I have had. Do you know, dear!" she continued, rising and trembling in every limb, whilst an ashy pallor spread over her beautiful face; "do you know," she uttered very slowly, "I believe that I am becoming blind!"

"Pooh, pooh!" said her husband. "Mere fancy!" But he was forced to admit the dread truth of the fact, when Blanche staggered into his arms with a shriek, and cried with shrill, small voice, that seemed torn from the inmost depths of an agonising breast, "I cannot see you, husband, dear. I cannot see you," and then burst into a passionate fit of sobbing, which could not be controlled.

"Not see me?" cried Arthur; "nay, look again. This lamp does not give the best of light. You are tired, dear. It is a passing cloud of indigestion. It is something floating before your vision. 'Muscæ volitantes,' the doctors call it. Why I have had it myself more than once," he added, cheerfully. "Come, look at me now. Don't you see me smiling at your foolish fears?"

"I hear your voice—I feel the pressure of your arms," replied Blanche, still sobbing, and panting like a wounded bird; "but I am blind, stone blind. I saw darkly, as it were in shadows, before you came; and now I see nothing, nothing at all."

Aubrey felt her weight suddenly press heavily upon him, and perceived she had fainted in his arms. He rang up the household, and sent for a physician, who prescribed remedies, and ordered the room to be darkened, and said that her sight would soon be restored.

But it was not. And what is more, the cause of it seemed to baffle all the faculty. There was no cataract formed or forming, no spot, no film; but those large and beautiful eyes suddenly became deprived of sight, and for three months Blanche Aubrey had been totally blind. For awhile, Aubrey's attentions had been incessant; but they soon fell off, and at the time we have again raised the curtain on our dramatis personæ, his neglect was as complete and cruel, as it was unstudied. On the very night when the mantle of darkness fell on his devoted partner, he had, by some strange coincidence, been introduced to a fascinating creature, who now already occupied all his spare time and thoughts. He had never received the slightest encouragement from her; and this, if anything, made his conduct more despicable and unpardonable. Were it not strictly true, such folly and wickedness would seem impossible. Alas! of what is human nature not capable? Our motives are as varied and various in their intricate workings as our countenances and their expressions, and more mysterious, because they are unseen.

Each breast a whirring clock whose dial lies,
Each face false dial to that plotting breast;
Each heart the weight its brief sad task that plies,
Till the vext puppet gasping sinks to rest.

There are plenty of Nature's curled darlings as bad as Arthur Aubrey, and many worse. He was vain, imaginative, idle, and pampered. But the man was not really bad at heart.

"Impossible!" cry our fair readers. "The wretch, the unfeeling brute, the monster!"

"My dear madam," we reply to one, "what shall we say about a certain affair in which your respectable husband was involved, when he married you?"

There was a poor girl committed suicide in the Hoxton Canal a few days after the wedding, who——But you know all about it, and considered him, we believe, rather in the light of the victim on that occasion, although he was not drowned, nor put even to the cost of a cheap funeral, when the violent, and, as you are assured, scheming and drunken girl of eighteen, the daughter of a diabolical small farmer in Huntingdonshire, met her end. Shall we explain to you, mademoiselle, how your affianced lover has just quietly put an end to his domestic felicity in the Regent's Park—fair girl, pony-carriage, love-birds, Java sparrows, Newfoundland dog, cottage piano, and all? After nine years' domestication there, it seemed rather hard; and so that good-for-nothing hussy doubtless thought it, when the furniture was sold up. Ah, we see you know it already; and yet you will marry dear Charles, and not be very angry with him, so that you are certain it is all ended, all over with her. A man must sow his wild oats, you know.

All we say is, that there are plenty of worse instances of heartlessness than that of Aubrey, of which no one takes any account at all. We do not mean to defend or palliate his offence for one moment. We should like to kick such a fellow down-stairs, to upset his phaeton, break his leg or arm, and otherwise punish him for his criminal folly, his stupid sin. All we mean to say is, that Society frequently condones, if it may not be accused of patronising, worse conduct than that of Aubrey towards his hapless and beautiful wife. Look at that tawny officer and gentleman, who deliberately wins the foolish affections of a friend's wife, to leave her within a few short months lost and blighted, to die, or worse. Yet such men are received in almost every house; mothers fling their daughters at their heads, if they are rich; and fathers invite them to dinner. They have been a little "wild," that is the term. Some people call it "gay." He is a "gay" deceiver, a Lothario, the ladies say; whilst shrinking from the contact of the less criminal partner of his guilt, as if she were a leper, or smitten with the plague. This is, of course, when they are legally found out. We know how Lycisca would have blamed Valeria in the Roman tale, had the alleged misdeeds of the latter been mentioned in the drawing-room of the former. But does not this kind of thing extend throughout all classes? The policeman bears loud witness against the ticket-of-leave man; the attorney-at-law denounces the thief. Justice is an excellent thing, when it is well administered; only unfortunately that is so rarely the case, one begins to doubt the abstract existence of such a phenomenon in human affairs. "Tomkins is an excellent fellow when he is sober," said an Irish panegyrist; "the mischief of it is that he is always drunk."

CHAPTER VI.

THE SIREN IN HER CAVE.

Aha! pious sir or virtuous madam, do you deny it? Must you shut your eyes to it? Does it not exist? Is it not a sufficiently marked portion of modern existence? Do you ever drive in the Park, madam? Do you read your daily paper, sir? Have you never seen the "Saturday Review" on this and kindred subjects, such as French manners, and the female attire of the period? I think you will find the matter—treated seriously, of course—in one or other even of the "Quarterlies." Ha! young lady, what is that which you asked your brother just now? Whether the "belle Impéria" has not changed the colour of her hair? You, at any rate, folle mignonne! know what is going on around you, in this doll-show of a female fashionable world. You are well versed in the equipages of the demi-monde, and can tell whom Lais and Phryne have entangled in the false meshes of their yellow tresses, or on whom the dark-browed Rhodope, hight Cora, smiles with the fascination of a Succube, unscathed of the Inquisition and "Maistre Johan de la Haye." You talk of it, think of it, and sometimes envy and imitate the style, do you not? Truly, when you pass these Sirens, you put no cotton in your ears!—From the Note-book of Solomon Trustall, LL.D.

SEATED in a moderately sized drawing-room, furnished richly, but with exquisite taste, in a small but aristocratic-looking house in Wilton-place, the day after the events which we have just narrated, was a young lady, who might have numbered some two and three and twenty summers. Her form was slight, but rounded; her head small, and placed on her slender throat with admirable poise; and her hands and feet, the latter cased in a small pair of white moccasins, embroidered with moose-hair, by Indian skill, were of the most delicate proportions and shape. Her mass of light-brown hair, which was shot, silk-like, with a golden hue, was thrown off the face, and formed into a roll behind, confined by a simple stiletto of gold, in a style which a sea-nymph's toilette could not have surpassed in perfect but unstudied grace. The expression of her large grey eyes was most peculiar. At one moment they had an almost animal-like vivacity and brightness, reminding the gazer involuntarily of those of a beautiful tawny pard; at another, they had a soft and beseeching look, which might have been worn by Helen, when she besought favour and forgiveness at old Priam's hands. Then there were rare moments, when an intense melancholy which shadowed her whole aspect filled those grey orbs with an undefinable tenderness, so sympathetic and so sorrowful, that you could not help thinking of what Beatrice Cenci might have been, had her young life been spared, when dreamily gazing in some conventual retreat at the dark cypresses and pines bordering her garden walk in the glowing sunset of an Italian eve. But these moments were rare indeed, and those who were privileged to witness them were few. Her general expression was one of extreme archness and gaiety, mingled with mutinerie and daring. The shape of her nose was quite suited to give effect to this expression. It was a Greek nose spoiled for the purposes of classical sculpture by being slightly retroussé; but we can venture to say that no one would have wished it to have preserved a severer regularity of outline. Her mouth, too, was a trifle wide, at least, so it seemed by the breadth and fulness of her lower lip. It was, perhaps, a slightly sensual mouth; but curved with the sweetest good-nature. Her teeth were exquisitely pearly and regular; her brow wide, but by no means lofty. This arose from no want of intellectual development, but from the simple fact that her hair grew low. Her complexion was clear, but not dazzingly white. If we were to search for a poetical comparison, we should prefer calling it ivory, rather than alabaster in its hue. But the colour of her cheeks, which never increased much, though it might and did vanish sometimes, leaving a forlorn wanness in its place, was like that of a winter rose, or the pink inside of a sea-shell. Perhaps we have been most forcibly reminded of her by one of those statuettes en biscuit which we see now so often in the shop-windows—one of a girl with head thrown back and arms stretched behind her; a saucy, provoking, mischievous, laughing demoiselle, infinitely more attractive than Joan of Arc, and other statuettes without turned-up noses and bewitching coquetry of attitude and expression.

We have been at all these pains to describe this young lady, because it is necessary to state that she could not be called either handsome or beautiful. Imagine her plainly and unbecomingly attired, and carrying a parcel or a bandbox in the street, and you might pass her a dozen times without particular notice. You would never say, "What a handsome, what a striking girl!" But if you ever happened to be placed for a brief time in her society, if she once attracted your attention, if you noticed her espièglerie, her wit, her humour, her singularity of ideas and expressions, her playfulness and rapid elegance of movement, startling but never boisterous, abrupt but never angular, wayward, capricious, shifting as Undine, but Undine with a soul, it is certain that your very prejudices would be disarmed and captivated, and if you did not come away her lover, you would, at least, her friend.

She was dressed in white muslin, with a light blue tunic in points. Round her waist was a blue-and-gold cord, with tassels of the same colours. The only ornament she wore was a gold crucifix, with four turquoises of remarkable magnitude, and turquoise ear-rings, each a single stone, mounted in plain gold, in ears which seemed even smaller by the contrast with a certain massiveness in these ornaments.

Shall we describe the furniture of the room? We will simply say that it was chiefly of white and gold. There was not a single mirror or looking-glass around. But the pictures were chiefly representations of the fair occupant herself, and they were certainly curious in their variety of costume and style. There was one, a kit-cat, life-size, which represented her leaning out of an opera-box, dressed in a rose-coloured domino, with the hood thrown back and a mask in her hand. In one water-colour, she was depicted driving a pair of grey horses in a phaeton with marvellous ease and dash. In another, she was mounted, and in the act of taking a fence and some four or five yards of water at a flying leap, with a gentleman in scarlet and his steed half-immersed beneath her horse's feet. Half a dozen prints of her in various theatrical costumes, and a variety of photographs, next engaged the attention, and a set of crayons completed the series. One of these represented her leaning back, dressed as an Odalisque, and smoking a cigarette. In another, she was attired in a species of Bloomer costume, and appeared with a small double-barrelled gun in her hand, at what was apparently a pigeon-match, with—alas! that we should record such bad taste—a very pronounced bull-dog at her feet. The third was a woodland sketch, and in this she was seen accompanied by a brace of spaniels and a terrier, brushing the early dew, in a tunic of Lincoln green and with a golden baldric, at the "pheasant hunt," as our neighbours would call it. A grim forester a few yards behind—keeper we should call him now-a-days—attested, by a leash of slain "long-tails" and a hare which he carried, her Amazonian prowess. A billiard sketch, a skating party, and a river scene, in which a young lady in a blue Garibaldi, pulling in an outrigger, whom, without much difficulty, we might easily conclude to be the same versatile and ubiquitous divinity, completed the series.

Seated on an embroidered ottoman, which was certainly not her own work—for the needle was not this young lady's forte, and a sewing-machine was about the only thing, as one of her admirers said, in which she could not be backed to distance any one of her sex, age and weight, in a canter—and leaning upon a table, covered with nick-nacks—among which was a jewelled riding-whip under a glass-case, won in a steeple-chase, as was duly recorded on an accompanying gold horse-shoe—the fair subject of our somewhat elaborated description was engaged in looking over a number of cards and notes, to some of which she accorded but slight interest, while with others she seemed amused, or pleased. At length, she opened one, which evidently caused her no little annoyance, if not disgust. She bit her lip and frowned; and then, rising, tore it into minute fragments, and flung it into the grate. Then her look of displeasure deepened and softened into that twilight gloom of retrospective thought which we have before touched upon and endeavoured to describe. It was as if the contents of the note had reminded her of some dark mystery, some forgotten trouble.

"I must put an end to this," she mused. "It suits neither me nor him. It recals things I would forget—do forget, save for these obtrusive annoyances. I hate that man for the very kindness which he once conferred on me, when I couple it with this odious persecution now. Ah! if he only knew. Let me see—what shall I do? I have tried to disgust him with vulgarity and caprice, with the extravagance of my demands, and the insolence of my slights. Yet he comes fawning like a spaniel to my feet again. And then, to think of his cruelty to that poor creature, his wife! I have ordered my door to be shut in his face, in vain, I am sure to meet him somewhere—he knows all my set. Come what will, I will put an end to it this very day, if I have to insult him publicly, if I strike him with my whip in the Park. No, no, I could not do that, when I think how he once—— Well, no matter, it must and shall be done. He is my bête noire, a shadow in the path of my career. How late Luckless is. Poor Harry, he can't keep an appointment even with me. I believe that he was even born late; and married he certainly never can be, as he would not be in time for the ceremony. Of all my crowd of flatterers and admirers, the only one whom I am perfectly at ease with, is Harry. I let him see me, even in my black fits, my moments of shuddering depression. He executes all my little commissions, even those of charity, which any one, save he, would make fun of, or treat with ridicule and contempt. He is the only one before whom I can be entirely natural, and need never act. And yet I do believe that there is no one else for whose opinion I really care. Dear Harry, how well his very faults become him, fit him like an unpaid-for coat; while the selfish vices of others disfigure them like the costumes of an English masquerade, which they never can carry bravely or at ease. Let me see, where have I shot him off this morning? I said to him yesterday, 'I wonder you don't get tired of these commissions. Some day I shall fire you off as usual, and you will not return.' 'Ah!' he answered, 'I am just a boomerang in your hands, you cruel creature! It matters not how you throw me about, I am sure to return to your feet.' Heigho! I really do think if ever I were silly enough to marry, I should choose Luckless for a husband. Nobody ever did take care of him, I'm sure; and I believe I could manage him to perfection, without a touch of whip or spur. Ah! there he is at last. Now if it were any one else at the door, I should rush off to put my hair straight, or to see how I look, or keep him waiting just for mischief, or form's sake, or send my dear old stupid sheep-dog, Lacy, to mind him, until I had read my new part, or tried on a dress, or done anything, save hurry myself to grant an audience, whoever the visitor might be."

Such were the real sentiments of the fascinating young actress, to whom half of the roués and coxcombs of London were paying their homage at this period, not to mention a good number of respectable wealthy hypocrites, and a few earnest fools besides. For she had lately taken the town by storm, and her appearance at the Theatre Royal Thespis, as the goddess of burlesque, was the theme of universal comment, admiration, and delight.

Among her more prominent admirers was Sir Harry Luckless, whom she knew previous to her début, and who was popularly supposed to have introduced her to the great manager, actor, and playwright, Methusalem Wigster. Also the Duke of Chalkstoneville, whose conquest she achieved attired as Apollo, on her first appearance in the burlesque of "Marsyas," in which the puns were so plentiful, and yet so indistinct, that it was like a milky-way of wit, or, as the author would have doubtless written, "whey." No one could discern a separate star or constellation of cleverness in its composition; but the whole was pronounced, in the words of a modern critic, to be "scintillating with the brightest coruscations of genius." The fact is, the author was himself a dramatic critic, the surest way in these days to get a footing on the stage. "You should read it in italics, my boy," said one of the successful playwright's admirers. "By Jove, sir, there is a pun in every line, only these confounded actors and actresses won't italicise in their delivery, as they ought."

We must own that the difficulty of the burlesque interpreter was great. Conceive such lines as the following put in Cupid's mouth, to a tune founded on "Lesbia hath a beaming Eye." It must be understood, as a matter of course, that Marsyas was represented as an Ethiopean serenader with a banjo.

Ma's eye has (Marsyas) a glance of fire
To frizzle this unhappy nigger, oh!
When great Sol his truthful lyre (liar)
Twangs, in mangrove thicket twig her, oh!
Sitting with her doves at play,
That cooey, cooey, o'er his failure,
All the long Algerian day (dey),
On Afric's shore in South Australia.

(CHORUS, with dance.)
Ri tum chokee, Tantia Topee tight;
For he's got no friends, and it sarves him right.

Notwithstanding all that sense might urge, and possibly did urge—only no one listened to it—against this astounding rubbish, the burlesque was pronounced a "screaming" success; and when the fascinating actress to whom we have just introduced our readers, in her private bower, appeared in blue satin trunk-hose, and seemed to play on a gilded "testudo," the sounds which were rendered by the fat thumb of the leading violinist in the orchestra, the applause was tremendous, and all London was set humming, whistling, and singing, not only "Ri tum chokee Tantia Topee tight," but the charming songs of "Buskins and Garters," and "Skin him alive, oh!" with which Apollo himself, or rather herself, enraptured the audiences of the Thespis. If, on the one hand, it may he said that folly and bad taste could go no further, it must be admitted on the other, that they were charmingly embellished by the archness and elegance of the débutante, who certainly could not be held answerable for the style of entertainment in vogue. Nay, her acting and appearance on the boards of the Thespis Theatre would really have redeemed even worse stuff than that of which we have just given a sample. Be that as it may, Miss Dareall soon became the "rage," and was at that moment, in spite of Exeter Hall and morality, the most popular woman in London. Exeter Hall, did we say? Why "la belle Impéria" herself, of whom we have made mention in the heading to this chapter, was not more run after by the Church, of course merely to see her act, and condemn the follies of the day, than was our bewitching actress. Who did not go to see her? Who that had been once, could help going a second time, and a third? What critiques were lavished on her by the Press! Every one was enamoured of her, more or less, after his several fashion. As for Methusalem Wigster, she could do just what she pleased with him. She actually made him appear charitable and good-natured. He gave a benefit, at her suggestion, for the wife of his stage-manager, who had run away with another woman, and left her with his three children to starve. He increased the salary of the ballet-girls and "soups" under her threat to leave such a miserly hole, if he refused to comply. The great Drivel of the "Daily Blight" wrote a column and a half about her, under the heading of "Realistic Pulchritude of the Modern Stage."

There was but one dramatic critic whose comments were an exception to the rule. This gentleman feigned the most virtuous indignation at her success. We need hardly say that he was one of the most distinguished moral guardians of social ethics in his generation. At the same time, it is only fair to state that he did it solely in the interests of a music-hall, in which he had privately invested some fifteen years' earnings on a highly moral and religious serial, and the proceeds of a pen, which had been also for a still longer period devoted to writing a certain species of biographical works and social sketches for the book-sellers in Holywell-street, Strand. It must be said for him that he did everything with an eye to business. He had no heart, no feeling, no sympathy, and apparently no bias. Literature to him was mere copy furnished by a facile talent, according to price and demand. Nor is this the only remarkable instance of literary versatility which has come under our notice, although in its peculiar phase of depravity and successful hypocrisy, it stood perhaps alone.

We once knew a gentleman who wrote an account of prize-fights for a well-known sporting paper, and the most orthodox articles for a Church Review of ponderous celebrity, at one and the same time. He kept a rusty black suit and a relay of "white chokers" at the office of the sporting paper, wherewith to indue his outer man for the discharge of his more sacred calling. He was the first specimen of "muscular Christianity" with whom it fell to our lot to become acquainted, and a very worthy fellow he was, with a large wife and small family dependent upon his intellectual exertions. A bishop in the grooves of prosperity is one thing, and a dog-stealer out of luck is another, and there is a great worldly, if not unworldly difference between them; but if they have both of them children whom they maintain, wives whom they love, and parents whom after their individual fashion they cherish or honour, there is a wonderful magnetic chain of sympathy which unites their hearts. None can say where the bishop ends and the poodle-abstracter begins, and vice versâ. Which is the greater libeller, ourselves thus generalising, or a modern novelist of a different school describing the minutest thoughts and incidents of the episcopal inner life? Strip the earthly mean and great to the buff, and what are they? Let all mankind bathe together, and scramble for the clothes!

When the British public is entertained by an actress, or for some reason or other more especially a great vocalist of the fair sex, it is singularly tolerant of scandal. It actually deifies immorality, personified in a songstress. If she happens to be a foreigner, her very vices enter into household conversational stock, from a bishop's palace to a back parlour in Bloomsbury. Materfamilias, who would drive away a servant-girl to perish in the streets for the slightest exhibition of levity, thinks nothing of asking if "la diva" is still living with the last nobleman or male dancer she "ran away" with, while that model of propriety, Miss Clementina Popham, of Cadogan-place, Belgravia, and Bournemouth (it was formerly Gravesend which she patronised) inquires if that dear, wicked, handsome Pollio, the primo tenore of the season, has broken the last amourette—in which the upper and middle circles of Society take such a lively interest.

Some such thoughts as these may have passed through the little racer-like head of the petted young actress, as she looked at the timepiece, which represented an unlucky Cupid just caught in the clutches of the fell Destroyer, while chasing a butterfly lit upon a full-blown rose with malachite leaves. "How late he is," she poutingly murmured; "but it is no use being angry with him. I dare say his excuses will be as amusing as ever. That man could not be in time, if he were intrusted with a reprieve for his dearest friend, who was left for execution." At that moment the door opened, and the servant announced Sir Harry Luckless.

That individual approached with a comic expression of regret on his handsome Irish face.

"Upon my honour——" he began.

"Upon your honour, sir, I really don't know if I shall accept your apologies. Come, shall I make your excuses for you? You were on your way, when you met an old friend who just wanted your name for a month to a bill, an 'oblong' as you foolish creatures call it, to save his credit, as if he had any to save, and you couldn't help obliging him, and there was not a place where they sell stamps handy, and then you just went into the 'Rag' for five minutes to write it, and met young Snaffles of the 141st, who wanted you to look at his new mare, and then you got talking about racing, and made a bet or two, and you forgot to wind up your watch, and didn't know the time—of course there are no clocks in the club—and then you took the very slowest cab that you ever rode in. There, you see I know all about it. Don't say a word more. I forgive you. You can't help it. Now, have you seen to all my little affairs? Not one I dare say."

"Indeed, I have!" said Sir Harry; "the man says he must keep Topsy a fortnight longer at least. He thinks it is distemper."

"And the harness?" inquired the lady.

"Will be ready on Tuesday. Wheeler and Biffin had to send to Paris for the bells."

"And the opera box?" she rejoined.

"Sams has kept his word. He could have had double the money this morning."

"Very well, sir, and did you give the money I told you to those poor people?"

Sir Harry assented.

"Yourself?" she continued.

"Never was in such a place in my life—wasn't comfortable till I had a bath after, and changed my clothes—gave them to my groom, 'pon honour. What a strange girl you are, to send a fellow on such an errand. How do you know I will not get a fever? But you are such a dear insinuating creature that I couldn't refuse you, if you asked me to live a week in the Seven Dials."

A shade passed over the lady's face. "What did the old man say?" she asked.

"Egad!" cried the baronet, "he was so astonished that he said nothing at first. He cried like a child, and then kissed a lot of little dirty imps that came running in to his call from all the surrounding gutters. You told me on no account to say whence the money and things came, and so he called me an angel sent by a saint of heaven, or a saint sent by an angel, I forget which. Faith! if I'm a saint, I'm the first Luckless that was ever canonised. But you are an angel, you know, and I expect some night or other to see you fly right away, to that old rascal Methusalem's astonishment, through the ceiling of the theatre, leaving nothing but unpaid milliners bills and broken hearts behind you."

"I'll have you to know, sir, that I don't owe a milliners bill in London. What do you mean?"

"Then," quoth Sir Harry, "they give longer credit in Paris than I fancied, that's all."

"Bless the man! I don't believe he ever paid ready money for anything in his life," said the lady; "unless, indeed, it might be a tavern dinner or a turnpike. But, tell me, did you not feel happier for the good you did, and the enjoyment you bestowed on that old man and those poor children? Did you not feel that you had done something in this world better than winning a match at billiards, or a bet on the Derby?"

"Well, upon my word," said Sir Harry, "I did feel a kind of satisfaction as I came away; and I really think if I had the money, I should like to do that sort of thing, now and then, you know. I never saw an old fellow in such ecstasies for a 'fiver.' "

"Five pounds! You did not give him five? I only told you two," she said.

"Well," said Sir Harry, "didn't you? I forgot. But I hadn't change, and, upon my word, I thought if you gave something, I might as well do the same, you know. I was deucedly lucky the other day—won fifty on Charity."

"Then I've half a mind not to pay my two pounds," rejoined the actress. "Here they are, however. Nay, I insist; and what is more, I shall not make you my almoner again, if you do such extravagant things. Look after your own poor people, sir, and don't interfere with mine. I've half a mind to be very angry with you."

"You are the oddest girl in the world, and I don't care where the other comes from." observed Sir Harry, twirling his moustache. "But what could a fellow do, if you will send him to such places? It's all very well for Mademoiselle Floret to tell you of them, but you should just see once for yourself."

"Did you see to the fresh groundsel for the birds?" asked the deity of the Thespis, quite suddenly.

"The people in Covent Garden will send an old man whom they know, regularly. Now, there's a fancy! As if your servants couldn't get it any hour in the streets."

"Oh! if you think so much of the trouble, I won't ask you another time. I tell you I'm very fond of my birds. When I was a poor girl, I would walk miles on a Sunday to fetch something green for my feathered prisoner, to whom I could not afford a comfortable cage."

"That was when you were at school, I suppose?" asked Sir Harry.

"At school! yes, at school with a very stern mistress. We did not have too much to eat, I can tell you," was the remark of the actress.

"You had an excellent French master, at any rate," said Luckless. "Count Adolphe de Mareuse tells me that your accent is perfect."

"Oh!" she said, with a little laugh, "I learnt that entirely at a finishing school. I was speaking of my early days."

"What was the name of the place where you were treated so badly; was it an old-fashioned establishment?"

"Very," she replied, answering the last question first. "We called it the Rookery."

"In Yorkshire?"

"No! no! in Middlesex. But come," she added, "I hate talking of my school-days. You have done pretty well, sir, and may stay half an hour longer, and talk with me, before the bears and monkeys are out. My animals of the Zoological Gardens come to see me, instead of my going to visit them, except on Sundays, you know, when an especial ticket is required."

Let us change the style of our dialogue. As we have not introduced the lady by name, we will call them, after a late example, Lui et Elle.

LUI. And pray, what animal am I?

ELLE. Oh, you? None at all; a sort of Irish stag-hound, only they don't fetch and carry, you know.

LUI. I suppose I must take that for a compliment.

ELLE. I should think so, indeed. You should hear what some of them are in my catalogue.

LUI. Tell me.

ELLE. Not now. Let's think of anything else. Tell me some news.

LUI. Well, the whole town is ringing with your exploits; but you know that.

ELLE. The town is easily astonished.

LUI. You are more and more the rage, I can assure you. Royalty itself does not name a larger medley of articles—hats, cloaks, boots, carriages, and harness, parasols, driving-whips, toast-racks, soap and perfumery, jackets, crimping machines for the hair, crinolines, cotelettes—they are all called by your name. And there is a new photographic portrait out every morning.

ELLE. Have you seen that one of me on the white Arab?

LUI. I should rather think I have. It is as répandu as "Mappin Brothers," which nearly drives me distracted, in the Hansom cabs. But how do you manage so many escapades in a week?

ELLE. Why, my dear friend, only one-half has any foundation in truth, as you must know, and that half is pretty sufficiently embroidered, and then I never contradict the on dits.

LUI. You would have enough to do, though I'm not sure if people wouldn't believe them all the more readily.

ELLE. When I read in the "Court Twaddler," that I horsewhipped a coal-heaver and a brace of noblemen, broke a bank at Baden, passed myself off as a bishop's daughter, and ended by throwing a Jew millionaire out of the window—what does it matter? That moral humbug, the Public, is by turns shocked and amused, and the daughters of propriety and decorum wear their dresses higher or lower, and trim their dresses according to any whim and fancy, with greater zeal and industry than ever. I think of coming out as a Quakeress next, and I will wager a dinner at Richmond, that half a score of duchesses, fifty peeresses, and commoners without end, will appear in drab and poke bonnets within a week.

LUI. Ha! ha! why don't you ally yourself with the wholesale houses in the City, and get five per cent, on the profits of every new fashion?

ELLE. Such a suggestion is worthy of Manchester.

LUI. Positively you are a wonder—the marvel of the age. Oh! if you were only——

ELLE. What?

LUI (Confused). Nothing, nothing, I assure you. I don't know what I was about to say.

ELLE. Don't be mean, Sir Harry; speak the truth. I know what you would have said.

LUI. I meant as careful of your reputation, as you are fascinating.

ELLE. What then?

LUI. You might marry any one you pleased.

ELLE (With flashing eyes). Listen! Had any one else dared to insinuate what you so nearly said just now, I would have served him as I am reputed to have done the Jew millionaire. Do you think I can't marry whom I please? Do you think reputation, as you call it, necessary to enable a woman like me to marry? Why, it is just my reputation, such as it is, that I should marry on. I am supposed to be a Siren, who ruins fools. And yet my secrets and my sins are only known to myself. Society furnishes me even with vices out of its decorous imagination. Ha! ha! And do you think I could not make one fool the more, if I pleased? And suppose, sir, for the sake of argument, that I am not virtuous? Suppose that I despise virtue? Why do these prim gentlewomen imitate me? Why is vice, as you are pleased to call it—yes, you, reckless libertine as you are—their study and their model? I tell you that I only know and recognise virtue as the selfish institution of you men, whose very contact ought to be spurned by true innocence. I only know it, I say, by the awkward imitation of my follies, and by the cant and uncharitableness that it evokes.

LUI. Don't be so vehement: one would think you were acting something.

ELLE. Virtue! Yes, in forced marriages and prudential motives. Suppose I were to speak, as many a girl in my position doubtless could. Suppose I said to you, "Man, I never was virtuous. I never knew virtue, never saw it, never felt it. It was not in the workhouse where I was born, possibly of a 'noble' father and an erring mother. It was not in my academy of the gutter, or the low lodging-houses where I was dragged up. It was not in the bricklayer's field, where I first listened to the voice of a rustic betrayer. Ha! ha! Not in the gaol to which I was once consigned, ignorant at least of the imputed offence which sent me thither. What do I owe virtue? Plenty of cheap tracts, and a Bible, which I could not even pawn; but not bread, nor care, nor clothes, not love, nor Christian sympathy, nor a home." How dare you talk to me of virtue, wretched libertine that you are? Away! Do not pollute the air with your false breath prating to me of virtue, I say.

LUI. I did not say a word about it. Pray, are you coming out as a tragédienne? Is this out of a new sensation play? What a strange, funny girl you are!

ELLE. Yes, yes! Old Methusalem of the Thespis declares that melodrama is my forte. I thought I would give you a specimen of my powers. Changeons tout celà. Has my Lord Cheltenham given up his little Agapemone in the Grove of the Evangelist, since he took the chair at the anniversary dinner of the Society for the Promotion of Morality among the Feejees?

LUI. Come, come. There is one thing quite sure. You have much more good in you than you like to own. Don't pretend any wickedness to me. I don't believe in it. My opinion is that you are the best and noblest little creature in the world. And talking of that, I want especially to appeal to your better nature. Do you know you are doing sad mischief in a certain quarter?

ELLE. I should rather think I am, in a good many. To destroy the peace of families is the reparation I ask for giving my inventive faculties such constant exercise. Look at this! (Puts on a flower-pot hat.) Is this a stroke of genius?

LUI. Most bewitchingly frightful, indeed. Rotten Row will look as if its fair visitants had made a razzia on the Botanical Gardens, and robbed their exotic beauties of their temporary dwelling-places, the earthen pots. It only wants a green veil and a hole in the top for ventilation. Why the women's brains will actually sprout. But do be quiet for one moment. You know Arthur Aubrey?

ELLE. Know him? I promised to drive his horses in the Park this very afternoon; but he shows such desperate eagerness to keep his appointments that I invariably break mine.

LUI. Well, now. I want you to cut him altogether.

ELLE. Upon my word, sir. Ha! ha! If you are coming out in the jealous line, I shall positively be denied to you altogether.

LUI. Nonsense! Listen. This man, who is acting so absurd a part, has an angel for his wife. If she hears of his running after you it will break her heart.

ELLE. Break what?

LUI. Her heart, I said.

ELLE. More idiot she. Why, the man follows me like a shadow.

LUI. Call her what you please; you do not, cannot think it. And though I may provoke your laughter, I will appeal to your friendship for myself. I love her myself.

ELLE. YOU? (With darkening face and apart to herself.) And he tells me this!

LUI. With a love of which you can form no possible conception.

ELLE. Of which I can form no possible conception! (With a small shrill laugh.) Of course not. How should I? Except on the stage, you know. Well, so you want me to lure this person's husband more completely into my toils? Well, well, for so great a friend as you are, Harry, I will do it.

LUI. No! no! You mistake me utterly. I want you, on the contrary, to decline his lightest attentions, to repel him with scorn, never to suffer him to speak to you again. But do not, I implore you, mistake me. Were he dead, she could never be mine; never belong to any one save to the man who is so utterly unworthy of her, and who now follows you with such desperate infatuation.

ELLE. What bad taste! To desert this paragon, and to follow me. Don't you wonder at his choice? But I say, Harry, what fun! Only fancy you sentimentally in love. What confidence you must have in my honour and principle, to feel assured I shall not tell such an excellent joke to all our acquaintance.

LUI. Do you know that accomplished, exquisitely beautiful as she is, this deserted wife, is blind? Yes, within this last few weeks, that calamity has overtaken her. She weeps at home in darkness.

ELLE. There, there, that will do. Am I to keep virtuous folks straight? Am I to restore married couples to their duty, and snivel out, "Bless you, be happy!" What is this Mrs. Aubrey to me? As for him, all I know is that I dislike the fellow, and that he bores me. It seems that he is a mean, heartless scamp. I suppose, therefore, that I ought to love him. But I have no power to send him to the penitentiary, or what might be worse, to the loving arms of his precious wife. And what claim has she on me? Would she move her little finger to save me from the grave, or worse? Besides, you silly fellow, do you think he would not find some one else to make love to, if I declined his precious homage? I tell you I hate her, I hate him, I hate you, and all your selfish sex.

LUI. Now do be quiet, there's a dear good girl.

ELLE. I will trouble you to ring the bell. I want my lunch. I am not like these artificial minxes who gormandise in their bed-chambers, and can eat no dinner, poor things! I am as hungry as a hunter. (Aside.) I thought if there was any one in the world whom he loved it was myself. (Sighs.) But no matter! (Aloud.) You are spoony on a blind woman, are you? You shall take me to the Park, and point her out. She can't see us, you know.

LUI (Shaking his head). She is never there. Don't be a monster, Kitty!

ELLE. I am determined to see her somehow; and when I am determined, you know—— By-the-bye, is this your forty-ninth or fiftieth pure attachment, Harry? (Dancing a few steps and humming a popular air.) Do you know what Madame Claudine says of my dancing? Oh! I wanted to tell you of my answer to that odious young wretch, Master Robert Dupe Postobit. Because, forsooth, I am on the stage, he thought he might insult me by the offer of an "establishment," as it is called; whereupon he came here, the ignorant, impudent young monkey, and laid his heart and fortune at my feet. I was considering what I should do—whether I should horsewhip him myself or not—when he wound up by saying that he is very short of ready money just now; but will have twenty thousand pounds a-year when his old dad, Sir Robert, is turfed; an event which he strongly suggested would come off very speedily. This gave me the cue. I heard him out with the most polite attention, and then rang the bell. "Floret," said I, "show the young gentleman to the door, and mind you don't admit him again, until his father dies."

LUI. I heard, in addition, that you threw his hat out of the window.

ELLE. The inventive faculties of Society are decidedly slow.

Here the pair were interrupted by the entrance of Floret, who announced "Mr. Aubrey."

"It's the gentleman," she said, "who has called so many times lately, and he says that you expect him by appointment."

"Do I, indeed?" said her mistress. "Then I suppose he must come in. Oh! pray, don't go away. Sir Harry. We have no secrets."

"I don't know whether you have or not," was the somewhat sullen reply; "but I can't endure the fellow, and wish to go."

"Stay five minutes, I tell you," said the actress. "Here, Floret, tell Lacy to come in shortly. My sheep-dog, you know. Her attendance is a homage which I pay to propriety, in return for the many which propriety bestows on me, you observe."

"Incorrigible girl!" said Sir Harry, after a pause, when Floret had left the room. "I cannot think you are in earnest, after what I have told you."

"Indeed! Then you shall see," was the lady's rejoinder, as Floret re-entered and announced Mr. Arthur Aubrey.

Sir Harry took up his hat, and bit his lip in silence.

CHAPTER VII.

WHO SHE WAS.

Elle était de ce monde.

MALESHERBES.

She was no girl, round whose young life had shone
The vestal halo of a cherished name:
No father prayed to God to look on her;
No mother smoothed her hair; no brother fired
With pride to hear her praised; no pious priest
Came near to bless her.

"In curses was I reared
As in a tonguèd atmosphere of flame.
Threats, blows, and kicks were all my heritage;
Rain soaked my scanty crusts. A stepmother
Plucked back my infant soul, when 'twould have soared
Tow'rds the bright strip of blue which sometimes roofed
Even our dingy court;—her name was WANT;
Grim, scolding, tattered beldam; leprous hag.
And ask you how I fell? I tell you that
She would have soiled a wilderness of doves,
Could she have breathed on them."

WHO and what was this débutante on the boards of the Thespis, this Siren who entranced the jeunesse and the vieillesse dorée of London with her follies and fascinations, her feats of horsewomanship and reckless escapades? Who was this creature of the demimonde, who set fashions to peeresses and their daughters, whom duchesses sought to imitate, and whose mode of dress and even deportment panting Respectability laboured always at a respectable distance to attain? We can only impart such knowledge, as a random collection of on dits and anecdotes picked up at the Clubs and across the railings in Hyde Park, enables us to furnish. She was known to the world as Kitty Dareall; and her appearance driving a pair of thoroughbreds in the Park, first attracted attention, rather less than a year before the period we introduced our readers to her in the last chapter. Since then her career had been brilliant and wonderful, rapid as the pace of her coursers, meteoric as the gleam of her tresses floating in the wind, as she dashed past the admiring crowd of men, not women, who were loud in her praises; for her own sex copied, but did not praise or admire her. It was known that she had been en pension at a somewhat expensive seminary in Paris, and that she had some aristocratic friends during the eighteen months or thereabouts which she passed there, including two or three ladies of high rank.

The eccentric Mrs. Grewsome, wife of the great Latin historian and M.P., was wont to patronise her, and took Sir Bullfrog Leapfrog there, to admire the progress she made. He was profuse in his admiration of her small classical head; and would soon have exhausted all the capital letters in a moderately-sized printing establishment, had it been called on suddenly to set up in type the expressions of his extravagant encomia. Then there was the strong-minded but good and pure-hearted Lady Tredarno, who called her a "gifted being," and an "intellectual marvel." "Full of feeling and talent," she would say, "and so natural. Quite a study, my dear."

Once, and once only, when our young friend had been in Paris some ten months, a lady and gentleman called, who evidently took a great interest in her fate. They had just arrived from the West Indies, and the gentleman seemed deeply suffering from ill health. He appeared in the capacity of her guardian. Young, noble, and amiable, this couple seemed to lavish on her every attention, which was met with an earnest respect and dutiful homage by the mysterious young stranger, who evidently entertained towards them the strongest sentiments of veneration and love. After a few weeks, however, the young lord and his wife—for such was their rank—returned to England: thence, as it was said, to sail again for the West Indian colony, of which he was governor. They wrote every week; and then at last there came a pause, and then a letter with a black seal, and an enclosure, not from him or from her. They and their infant child had died within a week; he of consumption, and the wife of fatigue and fever consequent upon watching and grief. The young lady at the seminary assumed a garb of the deepest mourning, which did not belie her feelings and her heart. She mourned over their loss intensely for a short time, and then suddenly her whole demeanour changed. She who had been so gentle and retiring became brusque, reckless, and undisciplined in her manner and behaviour. She seemed as if she had suddenly thrown off a mask of piety and decorum, and was careless of opinion or remark. Though, in one sense, her conduct was irreproachable, as she did not give the slightest cause for scandal with any one of the opposite sex; yet she not only utterly disregarded her religious duties and observances, to which she had been wedded before, but seemed to lose, together with faith and hope, all care for worldly approbation or censure. Cold and reserved as she had previously been, she now grew flighty and talkative. A sort of perilous desperation seemed to have seized upon her. Both teachers and pupils were amazed at the change which came over the reserved and silent English girl. Her masters of music and dancing, who had before only noted her amazing progress, and set it down to her studious habits as well as natural genius, were now perfectly amazed by the airs which she assumed.

Amongst other things, since the death of her beloved guardian and his wife, she took the utmost interest in theatrical matters. About ten months more passed thus, when she suddenly announced her determination to leave and proceed to England. As no one appeared to exercise any control over her, there was no opposition offered. The music-master made her a declaration of love, and the dancing-master offered her his hand and name. She laughed at both alike. From the remittances she received, she paid the amount which she was indebted to the mistress of the seminary, and took her departure alone, deeply regretted by some, an object of hatred to others, and of wonder and speculation to all.

Who was this young girl, thus launched upon the world alone; so self-possessed and confident, so delicate in appearance and yet so strong, so shadowed by grief and yet so gay and almost defiant in manner? It was an enigma which none there could solve. The young Englishwoman had made no bosom friends, no confidantes, at the finishing institution at Le Valois, Paris. When she arrived there, no one could make her out at all. She had more the air of a nun who had passed through her novitiate, than of a young parlour-boarder who had still to make her way in the world. Her progress in mental culture was, as we have intimated, something marvellous. But the oddest part was that in the short time she spent there, she seemed to grow so much younger that it fairly puzzled them all. She evidently throve on the new diet and climate, and to the most remarkable extent. Instead of making her pale, constant study seemed to impart bloom to her cheek. M. Théophile Maillard, the handsome young drawing-master, from whom she did not take lessons, declared that she devoured the roses in the garden, where she used to walk for hours intent upon her books. Being a lady-killer, he once ventured to slip a billet into her hand. She took it, and read it, and said:

"But what is this, then, sir? I have no maid-servant; if I had, I scarcely know if I could permit the addresses of a bad subject. As it is, I shall not be very angry at a jest this one time."

And she returned his scented billet with a low, mocking révérence, which nearly drove M. Théophile to a supper at the Maison d'Or, regardless of expense, and "charcoal for one" afterwards.

But what was the mystery of this young person?

Why was the almost religious enthusiast, the amateur nun of the establishment, transformed into a creature of wayward worldliness and wild insouciance thus suddenly, on the death of those to whom she was apparently so ardently attached? It was as if with their funeral obsequies, the tragedy of her life had ended and its comedy begun. We do not speak of the first month or six weeks of absolute prostration and sorrow. But was this real? Or was she a demure sinner, a sly hypocrite suddenly emancipated from thraldom by their unexpected demise?

Let us follow her to the solitude of her chamber; let us hear what she says at night to herself, as she sits looking vacantly into the past, or questions herself of the present and future. She has evidently lost some great end and object of existence. She is like a vessel adrift, dragging her anchor and n earing a mighty quicksand.

"They are dead and gone," she cried; "for whose sakes I believed in all—the justice of Providence and the goodness of mankind. What have I to live for now? They have perished in their beautiful youth; he so noble, so calm, so brave, and generous; she so lovely and devoted to him. Even their little child too. All are gone. There is no trace left of them in this world. What should I do, who only lived through and for them, whose sole recompense was in their smiles of approval, whose sole encouragement was in their kind and sympathetic words? I should go mad, if I were to live this dull life of discipline long, without object or reward. Nor have I the means. Sainted angels! look down and forgive me; for I was not worthy of your care!"

Then she would weep, but not pray, as had been her wont; and sit thinking far into the night, until her brain was nearly crazed with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Gradually, however, these wailings of a tortured spirit became less frequent; and more worldly longings and fancies re-entered and took possession of her soul. She became, if possible, more than ever devoted to her studies.

"I have but a short time to remain," she mused; "my money will but barely last out till midsummer here, and then give me a fair start in London, say of a twelvemonth, to obtain a footing on the stage—yes, that must be my career. Mrs. Grewsome and Lady Tredarno will assist me, I know. I must never be poor again. No, I would rather die than endure that horrible, that loathsome poverty! I could not now. I wonder what would have been my fate, had my benefactors lived. But I never seemed to think or to care, whilst they were alive: I only cared to satisfy them. And now I am alone, utterly alone. But I will triumph; I will be rich and powerful. Pardon me, ye bright angels!" (And she would fling open her window and lean out; gazing on the glittering heraldry of Time, as if the stars were interested parties in the troubled repentance or resolve of every murky little human brain.) "Pardon me, you know what I was and am! For you, I would have been anything that you wished or thought fit. But you are gone, and what does it matter now?

You will never smile on me any more; never reward me with even a look. Heaven knows how little worthy I ever was of your pains. But I would have laid down my worthless life for yours, could I have done so, and shown at least that the poor girl whom you rescued from want was not ungrateful. I would die now, if I knew it would please you; but forgive me if I seek to fight the world again with its own weapons. Some day, for your sakes, I may do some good action, who knows? I may help some miserable creatures, if I become rich. 'Rich!' yes, that is it. Sir Bullfrog said that I was born for the stage; and he is a great man. And Mrs. Grewsome, too, she has great influence. In my sleep last night, I dreamt I was poor again. I thought a lank and ghastly Form seized me, and shrieked in my ears, 'I am WANT, and I come to claim my prey. You are mine!' I thought he dragged me through filthy streets and alleys into a dreadful house with broken windows; for all the world like those in the corner of Stamford-street, in the Blackfriars-road. Up a dusty staircase with cobwebs that clung round me like bits of floating crape hanging from the ceilings and walls, into a squalid garret with a pallet bed and a broken chair, where he left me shivering with cold and fright, until I awoke screaming aloud, 'Want! Want!' It was once no dream. Anything, anything, save that! I dare not, will not be poor again. I have money enough to maintain me, until I can carry out my plans. If I fail, I will die; but never be poor again!"

A few months after, a young lady, richly but elegantly attired, took her departure in the Boulogne packet for Folkestone. Strangely enough, there was no less a personage on board than the great Methusalem Wigster, on his return from Paris to his theatrical duties, with two or three of the latest and most successful French dramas duly adapted for the English stage in his portmanteau, a cigar in his mouth, a glass of brandy-and-water in his hand, and mighty thoughts revolving in his brain, as to the precise amount of indecency, immorality, and blasphemy, that a British audience would not only stand, but applaud, and the exact shape in which it should be administered. As the shores of France receded, an occasional grin intensified the perpetual smile which he wore off the stage, as naturally as, and even more constantly than, his wig or false teeth, since we believe that he left off these to sleep. He was thinking of his forthcoming announcement in large posters of "La Dame Potiphar," a piece which had just created a great sensation in the French capital. In this drama the character of Joseph assumed a completely novel and French complexion. He was not only guilty, as any co-respondent of the Divorce Court need be; but he cherished a sublime affection for Pharaoh's only daughter. It was to conceal the evidence of her mother's guilt that he sacrificed the chief butler of his royal master. "La Dame Potiphar" turned out a great success; while the astute Methusalem duly at times, when returning thanks at a dramatic dinner, or making a beautiful speech about almshouses for decayed actors, lamented the decline of the British drama with a vicious twinkle in either optic, which was delightful to observe. There, however, he was, like a jolly old dramatic bagman chuckling over the proceeds of a successful trip, with "La Dame Potiphar" in his valise, cheaply translated by a dramatic (!) newspaper critic, and a charming piece besides, ready cut and dried, in which a heroic brother sacrifices the reputation of his sister in order to save the credit of his adored one with her rich husband. She has a husband, of course, or it would not do for a moral audience.

Before the packet reached Folkestone, our adventuress—for such we must call her—made such an impression upon Methusalem, that he actually promised her an engagement on their arrival in town. It was found, however, necessary, that she should devote at least a year to study; for which purpose she took apartments in Soho-square, which soon became the scene of fashionable reunions, where the number of gentlemen greatly predominated over that of ladies. For a time Mrs. Grewsome and Lady Tredarno continued to patronise the young actress, and the former actually planned a match or two for her intellectual wonder; one with a middle-aged baronet, and the other with a rising barrister in the Temple. If these matches fell through, it was not in either instance the gentleman's fault. This greatly annoyed Mrs. Grewsome, who ceased to visit her protegée; and in turn Lady Tredarno found that her "strange girl" was becoming far too conspicuous and too fast. No one could breathe a word of actual slander, and probably there was no reason for it. Sir Harry Luckless was the only gentleman visitor admitted to anything like familiarity. But the "world" could not explain how an actress in posse could have horses, and equipages, and jewellery, and an apparently inexhaustible wardrobe. So her female acquaintances were confined to third and fourth rate actresses, and the companionship of her "sheep dog," as she called her, the discreet Lacy, a gentlewoman who was said to be the widow of an officer, and she was too, and of a sheriff to boot, i.e., a sheriff's officer, who left her a very small income and an "honourable" name. Gradually, Miss Dareall's vivacity outstepped all bounds of decorum; she became the most celebrated, or at least notorious, demirep in the metropolis. But let it, again and again, be fully understood that no one had any positive charge to make against her conduct. A very Diana in the chase, it must be owned that she did not merit a reputation quite as spotless as that of the goddess. She courted and defied calumny; and not a woman in London but was ready to return a verdict of guilty against her, and to state cases without end. Only a few men, and these among the most profligate on town, recorded their belief in her innocence. Mr. Stingray declared that she lived on the testimonials to virtue volunteered by her eager crowd of rich and aristocratic admirers. Certain it is, that any wealthy old, or young fellow, was only too proud to be her banker. Noblemen and commoners vied with each other in their anxiety to anticipate her most extravagant fancies, and execute her costliest commissions. It was generally considered that, as soon as she had been a sufficient time on the stage to be married from it, she intended to make a brilliant alliance and enter the ranks of the ennobled actresses of England. There is no doubt that she need not have waited for this. Had her actions been flagrantly immoral, it would scarcely have diminished her chance of "marrying well." A Criminal Court and an accusation of murder have furnished an interesting young lady prisoner with an excellent matrimonial advertisement, ere now. The wonderful assurance and exploits of Miss Kate Darrell, which caused her to be called "Kitty Dareall," her dress, her style, her racy "sayings and doings," including some repartees and practical jokes which convulsed all London with laughter; the new fashions which she set, and the old which she put down, with imperious, if not imperial, authority, rendered the sketch which Sir Harry Luckless submitted to her own view, and which we recorded in the previous chapter of this eventful history, by no means either a caricature or an exaggeration.

And is it possible that this being, gifted as she undoubtedly was for good or for evil, could, within the short space of three years, have risen from the lowest depths of human degradation to her questionable pre-eminence? All that we can say is, that it was not only possible, but true. Nor does the case stand by any means alone. We know of a more recent one at this moment, which strikingly resembles in many of its details that which we have endeavoured to narrate in these pages.

CHAPTER VIII.

A DUCAL PHILANTHROPIST.

Never since "the year one" of modern fashionable life was such an audience gathered in the pit of this elegant little Parisian theatre. Duke shouldered marquis, and ambassadors trod on the toes of royal and imperial princes. The lovely débutante appeared as Danäe, in the "Proverbe" of Alphonse de Crapaudet, "Père qui perd et fille qui file," since adapted by one of our most popular burlesque writers, and about to be produced at the Theatre Royal St. Holywell, under the title of "A Crisis in the Affairs of Acrisius." Her costume nearly approached that of Innocence itself. The Duke of * * * offered fifty thousand francs the next day for the satin boots she wore on the occasion.—From the Fashionable Intelligence (for British wives and daughters) of the "Court Twaddler."

WE left Miss Dareall and Sir Harry Luckless expecting the entrance of Mr. Aubrey. That gentleman and Mrs. Lacy very speedily made their appearance.

"Ah, dear Mr. Aubrey," said Miss Dareall; "I'm so delighted to see you. You called before, I think; both yesterday and the day before?"

"Yes," replied Arthur, between whom and Sir Harry a very stiff salute had passed, "I have called several times, but not been fortunate enough to find you; you are so very much occupied with your various engagements."

"I am very busy indeed," she said. "I have to attend a rehearsal every other day now."

"Indeed! And what, may I ask, is the name of the new piece?" inquired Aubrey. "I presume it is a burlesque?"

"Yes," answered the actress. "It is called 'Fayre Rosamond.' "

"I need not ask what part you take," said Aubrey.

"Oh! I am the charming favourite, of course," she replied. "The scene is laid at Rosherville Gardens, and I am poisoned with South African sherry, after a pas de deux with Queen Eleanor, and an egg-dance to myself. If I don't break an egg, my jealous rival agrees to spare my life, on condition that I am apprenticed to a religious sewing-machine establishment at Haggerstone, and consent to leave off crinoline and cut off my back hair. A wily page in the King's service boils the eggs hard, and I am on the point of embracing the alternative, when the Queen unluckily takes it into her head to make some egg-flip on the spot, and discovers the ruse. Furious at the discovery, she rushes at me with a carving-knife and a wine-glass of the dreadful mixture. I drink it, and sink insensible on the stage, as the King comes in disguised as a market-gardener. There is a grand pas d'éclaircissement, during which I recover, join in a Scotch reel, and the King proposes to abdicate, and that all three should emigrate to Utah. An exquisite scene of the valley of the Great Salt Lake succeeds. The forty wives of Brigham Young are discovered wheeling forty double perambulators, with an advertisement of an establishment for the sale of those street nuisances in Soho-square. The perambulators are all doubled up, and turn into models of Chinese baby-towers, and a general dance of the whole corps de ballet concludes the piece. What do you think of that? Isn't it charming?"

"Very," said Aubrey, dryly. "I know not whether to admire most, the good taste or sense of such a performance. I believe a burlesque writer of the present day would parody the Massacre of St. Bartholomew or the Crucifixion itself, or even that of the Innocents."

"Have you seen the opera of the 'Flood,' by the great French composer, what's his name?" asked Sir Harry. "Shem's wife has a lover, who follows the slow-sailing ark by means of a swimming-belt, and is hidden in the hold. He finally escapes in the disguise of a male ape whom he killed on board, and so lost a whole branch of the great Simian family to the world."

"Not I," said Miss Dareall. "I am told that there is a wonderful rain effect produced in the overture by pouring sackfuls of dry peas on the big drum. The first scene is an umbrella dance; is it not?"

Sir Harry nodded assent. "Then," he continued, "there is a comic under-writer of a sort of antediluvian Lloyd's, limited—a bubble Company, of course—who is found in the fork of a hollow fir-tree on Ararat, and who duns Noah for a heavy amount. The ark encounters a yacht from Babylon, and a heavy swell describes the whole thing as a smartish shower. Ham lays down the principle of negro emancipation in a duet with his mother, and the rest of the dramatis personæ are made up of a kind of nautical mythology, consisting of Neptune, the Tritons and Nereids, the Sea-serpent, and a French Davy Jones, who is a cross between a Breton boatswain and a marine Devil on two Sticks."

"I don't know what we are coming to," said Aubrey; "but, upon my word, I should think the stage before the Flood, if there were any, must have greatly resembled our present style of dramatic and operatic productions. But how does the author account for a full corps de ballet on board of the ark?"

"Well, considering that there is one on board of the Spanish Armada in a late popular production, I don't see much harm in that," observed Miss Dareall. "Perhaps they were all drowned afterwards, or caught cold and died of consumption before the world was properly aired again."

"Have you got the greys or the bays, or whatever they are, at the door, Mr. Aubrey?" she continued, after a slight pause.

"The chesnuts," answered Aubrey, with some little hesitation, before Luckless. "Yes, they are at your service."

"I will not be a minute getting ready," said the lady.

"Stop!" cried Mrs. Lacy. "Have you forgotten, dear, that you told the duke to call at three to take you to the Horticultural?"

"I have changed my mind," was the answer; "and now I'm going to change my dress, which is much more important. I shall not be a minute getting ready."

And she ran out of the room, followed by Lacy.

"May I ask after the health of Mrs. Aubrey?" inquired Sir Harry of his companion, so soon as they were alone together.

"Oh! yes, very well, thank you; that is, not very well, I mean. You know what a terrible calamity, poor thing! so sad for me. I am forced, you know, to seek a little relief, a little distraction, and that sort of thing. Very sad, is it not?"

"Yes," replied Sir Harry; "so I have been telling Miss Dareall. Confound the rascal!" he muttered between his teeth, "I would shoot him, if that were any use. Yes (aloud), I said your generous devotion was wearing you out. (Aside.) Selfish scoundrel! (Aloud.) Certainly a man who could neglect such a woman under such circumstances must be a brute indeed!"

"Sir!" began Aubrey.

"Ah!" broke in the other, "I see you feel the same indignation that I do at the bare thought of it. How different is your conduct! Forced to seek relief from your incessant care and sedulous watch over one so beautiful and amiable visited by such a calamity! You are indeed a wonder, a very phœnix. I trust, sir, that you may meet with your desert."

"Does he dare?" said Aubrey to himself. (Aloud.) "What do you mean, may I ask? I do not quite understand."

"Mean?" was the reply—"mean? Why, that Mrs. Aubrey may not remain blind. What should I mean? What would any one wish who knew her and you?"

"Sir," said Aubrey, colouring deeply, "if you intend——"

At this moment they were interrupted by Kitty, attired in a rich, plain black velvet dress, which set off her slender form to the utmost advantage. A row of gold buttons of a classical design, from Etruscan models, just sent over by Castellani of Rome, ornamented the dress, beginning small at the throat and gradually increasing in size, till the lowest on the border of her skirt was as large as a crown-piece. A hat of minx-fur, with a single eagle's feather fastened by a coral aigrette, completed her toilet, which was certainly of a most piquant description.

"Show me a woman in Society," she said, "who can dress thus in the time. Novel wager! The celebrated Kitty Dareall, née Martha Grub, will dress against any woman, catch-weights, for a thousand pounds. As, of course, it would be the fashion to imitate me, I should be presented with a testimonial by husbands. A votre disposition, monsieur," she added, giving her arm to Aubrey. "Bye, bye, Luckless!"

"Stop, dear!" interposed Lacy. "Whatever shall I say to the Duke of Chalkstoneville? There is the doublest of knocks at the door."

"Come out this way, Mr. Aubrey," said Miss Dareall, running to another door. "Tell the duke to smother himself in his strawberry-leaves, or hang himself with his own garter."

And she ran out laughing, followed by Aubrey; but leaving Sir Harry Luckless, who had not time to make his exit before the door opened, and the duke appeared, ear-trumpet in hand.

"Ah, Sir Harry Luckless, you here?" said his grace. "Where is our fair friend? Where is she? Where is the charming Kitty?"

Here he was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which gave Mrs. Lacy time to implore Sir Harry, in a whisper, not to contradict her.

"Oh dear!" said the duke. "It's nothing but the dust in the streets. I never was better in my life." And he coughed again so violently that he grew purple in the face, and Sir Harry good-naturedly assisted him to a chair. "Oh dear!" he resumed; "I beg pardon, I declare. Tell Miss Dareall that I have kept my word, although I had to quit the levée early on purpose. Ask her to come down directly, if she can. I have brought the diamonds and the vouchers for the ball, which she was so anxious about."

"Indeed, your grace!" said Lacy, curtsying; "Miss Dareall will be delighted, I am sure."

Upon which the faithful attendant received a jewel-case and a sealed envelope from the duke, and left the room.

"Plague on it!" said the duke to Sir Harry, who was an amused spectator of the whole proceeding, "I wish she would be content with diamonds without vouchers. Between ourselves, I shall get into a scrape some day; I know I shall. I don't mind telling you, but I am sadly afraid this may reach the ears of—— Eh? But I am too useful to the Government and too much courted by the Opposition to feel much alarm. Oh dear! Oh! this cough."

"Indeed, duke," said Sir Harry—who was a great favourite with many exalted personages who could appreciate his really gentlemanly though libertine qualities—"indeed, I am aware you can do almost anything. Look at that affair of the review at Bumpkingham and the postmaster's two daughters."

"Ah," quoth his grace, whose deafness often caused him to reply à tort et à travers, "so you've read my speech in the 'Morning Post,' have you? I am told that Wilberforce and the rest of them are delighted with it."

Here Mrs. Lacy re-entered.

"Your grace," she said, with the deepest reverence, "I was not aware that Miss Dareall had gone out. She left her kindest regards with her maid, and she waited until past three; and as she thought your grace would be detained, by your official duties, she is gone to see a lady friend, who is very ill, at Barnet, and she will see your grace to-morrow, or any day your grace is pleased to appoint, at two o'clock; she will be so sorry when she knows your grace has done her the honour of this visit."

"Did she leave no message for me?" inquired Sir Harry, who could scarcely control his inclination to laugh outright.

"La, Sir Harry!" answered Lacy, with a slight dip, "to be sure she did. She said if you would be kind enough to look at poor Fido, who has eaten nothing since yesterday afternoon, and see to him, she should be so much obliged, and you can look in again as soon as ever you please."

The Duke of Chalkstoneville, who did not fail to catch the sense of the duenna's shrill tones through his ear-trumpet, seemed at first somewhat puzzled, and not a little angry; but being very good-natured in his way, especially where ladies were concerned, his anger, as Mrs. Lacy well knew, was not likely to be very durable.

"Confound it, madam!" he began; "why she knew I was going to Bumpkinghamshire this very evening. To-morrow," he continued, addressing Sir Harry, "is the great agricultural dinner; and I have to give the first prize, consisting of a smock-frock and a guinea, to the labourer who has set the best example for morality for sixty years out of three parishes. My dear madam, will you kindly return those vouchers to me. I would rather present them myself. You can give her the diamonds, of course. At any rate I shall get out of that scrape. Eh? eh? what do you think?"

His grace was, after so prolonged a speech, seized with such a violent fit of coughing, that at one time it seemed as if Bumpkinghamshire would lose one of its noblest pillars of morality, so shaky did the ducal rewarder of virtue appear to be on his legs.

"Indeed, my lord duke," rejoined Mrs. Lacy, as soon as he could be spoken to with safety; "I wish it was in my power to obey your grace's commands."

"Heyday, madam! What! what!" said his grace, "I presume you are not like a post-office, where a man can't get his own letter back when it is once put in the box?"

"I can send a messenger, if your grace wishes it," whimpered Lacy.

"A messenger!" cried the duke. "What do you mean, madam? Have you not got my letter?"

"I never was so vexed in all my life. I hope your grace will not be angry." (Here she pretended to cry.) "But the truth is, I knew that my dear, kind Miss Dareall was so anxious to know about the ball, and I was so anxious to tell her of—of—your grace's kindness, that—that—I despatched her groom instantly with your grace's letter and the parcel to Barnet after her. Hi! hi! But," she added, with vivacity, "I will take a cab instantly and go after him."

"No, no, my dear madam, I could not wait, I assure you. Was ever anything so unfortunate?" said the duke. "Give her my kind regards when she returns, and tell her not to injure her health by watching over her sick friend. Good girl! good girl!" And his grace bowed to Mrs. Lacy, nodded to Sir Harry, and toddled towards the door, where he paused. "Nothing infections, I hope?" he inquired; "not scarlet fever?"

"No—o—o, your grace," returned the confidante, nearly choking herself with her handkerchief; "only a baby, and Miss Dareall is to be godmother. Such a fine boy, your grace—one of her dearest and oldest friends. Bless his little heart!"

"Stop!" said his grace to himself, and feeling in his pocket; "no, it's not mine, certainly; but, let me see; you are a very good lady; eh, ma'am, oblige me." And he put a bank-note in her hand. "Lay it out for the little stranger—eh? eh? That's it—thank you—good afternoon."

And his grace toddled out, as Lacy flew to the bell, and thence to the head of the stairs, and then followed him to the street-door, reappearing a minute or two after with a remarkably amiable expression of countenance, which almost seemed to justify the duke's compliment to her good-nature.

"Infection! scarlet fever!" cried Sir Harry. "Do you know the consequences might have been serious? I never was so near bursting a blood-vessel in my life. You beat little Toole at the Adelphi. You haven't sent the groom, of course not; didn't I know that she is gone to Richmond? Ha! ha! let's have a look at the sparklers." Mrs. Lacy quietly took the case from her pocket, and displayed them with great composure. "But, I say, there's a flaw in this big one in the middle, and the rest are not—what do you call it?—rose-cut, or whatever it is—I mean, not so valuable as they look. I know Kitty's taste well. She won't care for these."

"I shouldn't wonder if she sent them back," said the lady. "She will, as soon as look at them, if she doesn't like them. She will be pleased with the vouchers, though, I know. I wouldn't have let him have them back for a trifle."

"But about poor Fido?" inquired Sir Harry, laughing. "I thought you had lost him?"

"So we did, a month ago," said the faithful Lacy.

"Well," rejoined Sir Harry, "I think I stood godfather to that Barnet baby uncommonly well. I am glad, however, that you did not appeal to me to corroborate your tale, because that would have been awkward."

"La, Sir Harry!" said Mrs. Lacy, "of course I knew such a gentleman as you wouldn't betray a lady's secret; nor yet like to be found out in a fib."

"Found out?" said Sir Harry; "that is the last thing I should think of."

This was beyond Mrs. Lacy's powers of appreciation. To her fib-telling was a virtue, if undetected.

"Dear me, Sir Harry," she responded; "how odd you gentlemen are! But what would you be if the ladies didn't deceive you a little sometimes? I am sure you would not like to know all."

"Faith, not I!" answered the baronet. "It would destroy a good many pleasing delusions; wouldn't it?"

"Well, it might," was the reply. "Look at the dear old gouty duke. I am sure I wouldn't hurt his feelings, if I could help it, by telling him that Miss Dareall had gone out with that fellow for a drive."

"Putting aside the christening present for the baby at Barnet," said Sir Harry.

"Well," she said, "what is a baby more or less in a town like Barnet? Besides, if the truth must be spoken, I do know a lady there which has just got a beautiful baby, and a finer boy the duke himself couldn't wish for. But they say he doesn't wish for any; as I dare say you've heard, Sir Harry. Well, if

I was a duke, I shouldn't like to be without chick nor child."

"I'd rather have a dozen than the gout," said Sir Harry.

"Go along with you!" was Mrs. Lacy's response.

"To Barnet?" asked Sir Harry. "But I say, do you think it possible that Kitty can really mean to encourage the attentions of this man Aubrey?"

"I don't think she encourages anybody much," said Mrs. Lacy. "But I did think till this morning, that if there was any one in this world that was poison to her, as one might say, it was this very Aubrey. Why, she has never let him put foot in this house, since the first time he came here with Mr. Stingray, till this very morning. But then she is so contrary. She is not like any one else. I never know what she will do the next moment, and I don't think that she knows herself. The only thing she has kept to at all is this theatre business, and it wouldn't surprise me if she was to turn that up to-morrow."

"Ha! ha!" cried Sir Harry, "and leave all the folks at the Thespis, pit, boxes, and gallery, waiting for her at night, while she is off to Paris, or the Isle of Wight, or Brighton."

"That's just what I've expected for the last fortnight," said Lacy. "Only let any piece she is in have a long run, and see how she'll bolt. It's only the constant change of parts and dresses that will keep her, and so I made bold to tell Methusalem Wigster, Esquire. What a dear, nice, old, merry gentleman he is. 'Mrs. Lacy,' he says, 'there's always a private box for you and any of your friends whom you like to ask; and be sure and let me know if Miss Dareall gets any nonsense into her head, in time to prevent it, if possible.' And that I will, you may be sure, though for that matter it mightn't be much use neither; but I do love to see her on the stage, and who knows what it will lead to?"

"All this puts me in mind," said Sir Harry, "that I quite forgot to ask her to speak to Wigster about a girl I want to get on in the ballet. She's both pretty and clever; only there's been illness at her home, and she couldn't keep her engagement at the Escurial, while she nursed her little brothers and sisters. That brute Slimy Cash dismissed her with a volley of oaths, and I've sworn never to enter the place again."

Mrs. Lacy shook her head. "You're a sad fellow," she said, "with your girls."

"I assure you," said Sir Harry, "she is as good and virtuous a creature as exists in the world."

"Though she knows you?" retorted Lacy.

"Though she knows me," was the reply.

"And very poor?"

"Very poor."

"Then you've only to tell some one we know," said Mrs. Lacy, "and she'll see her righted. There isn't a tenderer-hearted, sweeterer dispositioned girl than Kitty Dareall in the world, and I don't care where the other comes from, with all her fancies and funny ways; and, what's more, if you like to leave the particulars with me, I'll see it done, if I have to——"

"Send a special messenger to Barnet," interrupted Sir Harry, laughing.

"La, Sir Harry! How you do reckon a person up! I hope you don't think there was any harm in it."

"Who, I, dear Mrs. Lacy? It's no affair of mine, but I can't help laughing when I think of it." And Sir Harry began to cough and imitate the duke. "You're a good (cough), kind creature (cough), ma'am."

"There's one thing you haven't done, as he did," said Lacy.

"Oh, I understand," said Sir Harry; and he took out his pocket-book. "Only I haven't a hundred thousand pounds a-year, you know."

"I wish you had," said Lacy, "that I do; there's none I should like to see better with it. Bless your good heart! I was only joking like yourself. I wouldn't touch a penny of your money. I'd sooner burn my fingers off. There, put it back again. What do you take me for?"

"Nay," said Sir Harry, "you'll offend me, if you don't."

"Then offended you must be. No! I won't, I tell you, there!" cried Mrs. Lacy. "Come, I must be off; I've got all the dresses to look after. She plays to-morrow."

"Then," said Sir Harry, "if you are such a dear, obstinate creature, I must——"

And he actually snatched a kiss from the cheek of the middle-aged duenna.

"Go away, do, you audacious, impudent fellow!

I am sure you have no kisses to spare," said Lacy, smiling most graciously. "Dear me, it's past four o'clock, I declare."

Sir Harry kissed the tips of his fingers, and made a courtly bow, as he departed.

"Well," said Lacy, "if I was a young lady like Kitty, I know I'd rather stitch my fingers off for a man like him, than be mistress of a duke's mansion with twenty thousand a-year."

CHAPTER IX.

THE DRIVE TO RICHMOND.

Isora. I loved you, till you spoke to me of love;
Nor feared you, till your passion bade me fear.
You were my brother till you flung the name
Away, and found no other that I like—
When shall we land?

Antonio. Sangre de Dios—Never!

Isora. Is this your promise?

The Pirate of Genoa, Act i. Scene ii.

WE must now accompany the triumphant Aubrey and the dashing actress in their drive. Infatuated as was that reckless, and in this respect heartless, profligate, he was hardly prepared to face the fashionable crowd in the Park, considering his social and domestic ties. At least there was a struggle between shame and vanity in his mind. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of the men about town would have given much for such a chance as to be seen steering the inimitable and irrepressible Kitty Dareall through the double row of carriages by the Serpentine; and a very large percentage of married libertines would have jumped still more eagerly at the chance. But there were circumstances connected with Aubrey's appearance in public with so celebrated a character as Kitty, which invested the act with peculiar drawbacks. It was, doubtless, in the worst sense, a triumph; for Miss Dareall had never shown such a marked preference for any one before. She always drove her own horses, and rode alone, attended by a groom; seldom encouraging any one to ride by her side for more than a minute or two, just to exchange courtesies, and, possibly, communicate a stray on dit. Therefore, to appear driving her in his own carriage was, as he knew, a thing that would immediately furnish scandal and conjecture to all London. Only a week before, she had actually laid her whip smartly across the shoulders of a noble lord, supposed to be inspired by a wager, who had been so devoid of manners as to persevere in riding alongside of her pony carriage, and in boring her with his impertinent remarks. The public on that occasion sided with her, and condemned the discomfited Lord Charles with the verdict of "Served him right." But Aubrey well knew that there was something in his own case beyond common imprudence or folly. His triumph was a lâcheté—an act of cowardly baseness. He was, at least, cowardly enough to feel that it was base, without possessing the self-control to avoid it. So, when he approached the Park by Constitution Hill, he felt anything but comfortable. What if the news should reach Blanche! He felt as if the eyes which envied would condemn him, and that those which utterly condemned would blister him. It was, therefore, with a great sensation of relief that, just as they passed St. George's Hospital, Miss Dareall intimated that she would prefer a short drive in the country, avoiding the Park.

As they dashed along the road, he regained his spirits and self-possession, whilst his fair companion listened in silence to his endeavours to amuse her. She appeared to be in a thoughtful and pettish mood; but, sooth to say, the truant husband attributed this to some annoyance she had received that morning. Perhaps she did not like her new part; perhaps that odious, impertinent Luckless had annoyed her. On Aubrey alluding to the duke's visit and disappointment, and contrasting it with his own felicity, the lady laughed aloud so abruptly and sharply, as to cause her admirer to turn round and look at her, and thereby endanger the safety of the mail-phaeton by grazing the wheel of a waggon in the narrow part of Kensington, where the road turns abruptly to the left. A shout of opprobrium and derision greeted him, such as the lower order of the British cockney is apt to indulge in on such occasions. One would think, to hear the expressions of drivers and coachmen, on the slightest possible provocation, and frequently with none at all, that driving must be the most ill-conditioned pursuit in the world. It is only necessary for two men to be driving opposite ways, or to get blocked up together, through circumstances for which neither is at fault, to create in a moment the deadliest enmity towards each other in their breasts. Could they leave their respective charges, they would take each other's lives, like a pair of Corsicans, or partisans in an old Scottish feud. Aubrey uttered an apology for his bad driving, which he garnished with a somewhat commonplace compliment to his fair companion's charms.

"Oh!" she replied, rudely enough, "don't make any excuses for your awkwardness; I don't mind a spill in the least. I thought you were not much of a whip."

Aubrey bit his lip; but his vanity whispered that this was either badinage or coquetry. Perhaps she wanted to try his temper. So he answered, gaily enough, that he should be glad to take lessons from the queen of horsewomen and charioteers.

"And now, whither shall we drive?" he asked.

"You may go to Richmond, if you like," she answered. "So that I'm in town at eight, I don't care. I don't play to-night, and so I have made up a party to go to the Surrey Theatre, of all places in the world, to see some transpontine celebrity tear a passion to tatters. I have not ordered dinner at home; and so, if you please, we can get something there. We actresses have good appetites. We don't live on air, I promise you. But don't let me interfere with your arrangements. You may be expected home to dinner, you know."

"Oh, no! not in the least," stammered Aubrey.

The fact is, at that moment he recollected not only that he was expected home, but his promise to his wife, and the anniversary. Did his conscience not give him a severe twinge as he thought of her, so young, so beautiful, and so afflicted, and of his own base neglect and faithless behaviour? We believe that it did; but still he hardened his heart.

At any rate, he did not suffer his thoughts of home and Blanche to interfere much with the attention which he lavished on the unappreciative Miss Dareall. That young lady became every minute more defiant and disagreeable in her mode of repelling his courtesies. Any one would have thought that her object was not to fascinate, but to disgust her admirer. Strange to say, Aubrey, usually rather refined in his ideas, did not at all appear to take that view. Her undisguised vulgarity passed current for natural wit. He compared her in his mind with Peg Woffington and Mrs. Bracegirdle. He did not observe the contempt and sarcasm with which she received his advances. Probably, she understood thoroughly how to deal with a lover of this stamp. A votary of false love is like a votary of Bacchus. He sees neither the repulsive lineaments of his idol, nor the absurd and revolting antics of which he himself is guilty. Or, rather, he is like a fanatic who has imbibed the Indian cannabis sativa, or bhang. He cares not for wounds or blows; he clasps insults and injuries to his bleeding breast. He shouts "Evöe! evöe!" or whatever is equivalent to that classical expression of drunkenness; he wallows in mire, and dreams that it is a nectarean current whose golden waves bear him along in a delirium of sunshine and joy. He is in short a lunatic crowned as it were with the broken straws of sherry-cobblers trodden in the dust and mud of a mental Cremorne. Throughout all this delusion, however, surgit amari aliquid; there is a wrong flavour in every dish. A Scotch madman declared that every delicacy of which he fancied that he partook tasted of porridge; and there was very good reason why it should, considering that it was his standing dish. There is a vein of unpleasant reality running through our Berserkar's frenzy, which he cannot get rid of. The picturesque scenery will look like pasteboard every now and then, and the enchanted carbuncle will resolve itself into the aspect of common glass. Is it a pity or a gain that false pleasures have still their drawback, even while the demon continues loyal and the delusion lasts? We have always doubted whether Faust could be supposed actually to believe in the reality of the mock Helen, whom he saw. Certain it is, that as the fair débutante of the Thespis rattled on with the most unequivocal bad taste, and displayed all the exaggerated humours of her sex, Aubrey did not feel quite at his ease. Perhaps the thought occurred to him, "What if this irrepressible Siren were really mine? What if I were the guardian and possessor of these mercurial charms?" Perhaps he trembled on the threshold of so much happiness. Perhaps the pale image of the suffering Blanche arose occasionally, as the phantom of Gretchen on the Brocken smote the senses of the dazzled and bewildered Faust. Then the fascination seized him again. Was not the fair creature at his side, whom all London—i.e., all the London he knew, and a good deal besides—admired and adored? Certainly the divinity was loud in her voice, and somewhat coarse and unlady-like in her ideas. Twice she had called him a fool, by way of answer to some observation he had made. When he talked of love, and music, of poetry, and flowers, she laughed outright in his face. When he asked her if she admired Tennyson, not exactly in such prosaic phraseology, but endeavoured to lead her to display her aesthetic perceptions of the chief of the modern poetic school of song, all that he elicited was "Combien?" accompanied by a yawn. When he spoke of the exquisite new old style of painting of which Rossetti is king, the drawings and portraits of Sandys, and such topics of enlightened talk, she asked him whom he thought the best "photo-grifer" to take a woman on horseback, and expatiated on the fast beauties of a low-crowned round man's hat as the most becoming equestrian covering for a lady's head. Then she declared she was dying of thirst, and must have a glass of "pale." So they actually had to pull up at a roadside public, to the infinite horror of Tops, who, however he might affect such a proceeding on his own account, when waiting with the trap anywhere for his master on the road or in town, by no means approved of it under present circumstances. But then, was not all this, in Aubrey's mind, a delightful contrast to the staid hypocritical humbug of polite life? Perhaps it was. At all events his gratified excitement and vanity received no serious check. As they approached Richmond, Miss Dareall became even more outrageous in her open warfare against propriety and decorum. She insisted upon changing places with Aubrey and driving the "trap." She struck the near chesnut a smart stroke with the whip, against Aubrey's earnest caution and entreaty, and endangered the safety of the party, the horses actually bolting for half a mile along the road, which, to judge by her shrieks of laughter, afforded her infinite pleasure and delight. She accused Aubrey of being afraid, and finished by being sullen and savage, in which mood she arrived at Richmond, at the inevitable "Comet and Stay-lace," where a collation was immediately ordered by Aubrey, in obedience to the loudly expressed wishes of the lady, who jumped down so suddenly as nearly to knock over a brace of waiters and an aged and attendant groom.

"Well!" said Tops to himself, "whatever can the governor be about? I am glad it's the last time I'm likely to be one of sech a party of escaped loonàtics. If I hadn't already turned the governor up this morning, I'd do it when we got home. As for her——" Here the feelings of Mr. Tops found vent in a prolonged whistle; after which he followed the horses into the stable to see that they were properly done, and to examine into the quality of the Richmond oats, or at least that sample of them afforded by the resources of the "Comet and Stay-lace." During the drive to this chosen retreat of metropolitan recreation, Mr. Tops had displayed a demeanour something between that of a Roman freedman mourning over some patrician disgrace, and the cynical ease of haughty indifference which modern servitude assumes, when regarding with serene contempt the pretensions or follies of its temporary employer. Mr. Tops had sat in the phaeton with folded arms, as much as possible on one side, and behind his master. His countenance was as unmoved and inscrutable as that of the Sphinx. The severest criticism of bystander or passer-by would not have elicited a spark of anger or intelligence from his eyes; much less a gesture of impatience from his person, or a comment from his lips. A Sphinx with a turned-up nose, and a cockade in its hat, and bearing the slightest resemblance to a London groom, might be a curiosity; and yet the expression of Mr. Tops was at least as fixed as that of the Egyptian deity. Let it not be understood that he by any means despised or hated Miss Dareall. Strange to say, he rather at that moment coveted the post of groom to that lady. He admired her horsemanship, her style, and her daring. "She is a rare plucked un," he would say, "and no mistake." The relation, however, which he held towards his own "missus," whom he respected more than any human being, utterly precluded the realisation of the idea which had certainly presented itself to his fancy. He saw that she treated his master with utter contempt and derision, and he liked her for it. He did not like her in "our pheayton." His indignation was colossal when Aubrey, some few days before, had sent Grey Leila, his dear mistress's own mare, round to Miss Dareall's house, for that young lady to try her paces in the Park. Indeed, so strongly did he object to such a sacrilege, that he would not take the animal round himself, nor even saddle and bridle her. He deputed "a young man" whom he knew, to do a thing which he found so distasteful. Had Aubrey ordered him to ride after her, he would have given warning that instant. But to say that he disliked Miss Dareall on private and personal grounds would be far from true. Had Susan known what was going on, how she would have hated her—her good qualities in all probability more than her bad. How she would have derided her dress, horsemanship, dancing, swimming, skating, everything in which she excelled. Probably she would have found most fault with the only redeeming part of Kitty's reputation. "Oh, she's a nice modest dear," she would have cried; "the hypocritical Jezebel!" But men do not judge of the opposite sex thus. Had Aubrey been unmarried, Tops would have greatly commended his taste in paying attention to a young lady so much after his own heart as Miss Dareall. In a word, he condemned his master, and not the enchantress.

On entering the "Comet and Stay-lace," Miss Dareall declared herself dying of hunger. She and Aubrey were shown into a room looking upon the river, over a pleasant garden, and when the waiter submitted the bill of fare, she was so fanciful and capricious that it was with difficulty any conclusion could be arrived at, at all. The order, however, once given, was speedily attended to; but when the repast made its appearance, she declared she could not touch a morsel of anything, declined all or any of the wines specially demanded by Aubrey, and in which she had the chief voice, sulked, pouted, frowned, and suddenly rising, protested she could not stay an instant longer, and desired that the horses might be put to immediately. When Aubrey demurred to this, and begged her to take a morsel of refreshment and remain an hour—one short hour longer, she turned upon him almost fiercely.

"Well," she said, "here I am, and what have you to say? You have been very anxious to entertain me, and I have given you the opportunity. It appears to me that you have not exactly succeeded. And now let me ask you to what precise idea I am indebted for all this constant attention, this exceedingly demonstrative solicitude" (and she made a most provoking curtsy). "If you have any idea of coming out as a burlesque writer, certainly I will do the civil thing with Wigster; but I must not encourage your hopes. He is overstocked with pieces. In fact, I told him the other day, that the best thing he could do would be to make a bargain with a waste-paper merchant; five pounds a ton is not to be despised in these days. Dramas weigh heavily, especially when in five acts, and farces tell up in number. There, don't look angry. Your piece is not sent in yet, is it?"

"Indeed," replied Arthur, not knowing whether to pretend to look amused or not, "though I plead guilty to have written more than one play, I have not flung myself upon the tender mercies of your impresario."

"What do you want, then?" asked Miss Dareall, assuming a look of stolid inquiry.

"Can you ask me?" returned Aubrey.

"I do ask you," said the lady. "I have asked you, I believe. Do you wish me to repeat the question?"

Aubrey was what is called a lady's man, very popular amongst women in all ranks; but he felt rather disconcerted by the abrupt manner of the actress.

"You must long have seen—have known," he began, "my too evident admiration of—of—qualities so admirable, so adorable—that—ah, dear Miss Dareall! who can, who would resist charms that——"

Here she interrupted him, so that we cannot exactly say how his declaration might have terminated. During these few words she had been impatiently beating a sort of tattoo with one of her small feet; but as if disinclined to hear more, she rose, drew herself up, and advanced a pace towards him.

"Ha! ha!" she began, with an indefinable taunting regard, "and have you brought me to Richmond to hear this sort of rubbish, of which I am sickened every day of my life? Do you want to rehearse burlesque here with me? If so, you are guilty of a presumption, a conceit, an insolence, that I confess I did not think was in you. I really must compliment you upon the sublimity of your impertinence. So, sir, you thought, I suppose, that you had won a simple girl's heart by your bouquets and your grimaces."

"Oh, Miss Dareall! listen, I beseech, I entreat you!" recommenced our hero, feeling, it must be owned, excessively foolish.

"No!" she answered, "I request, I command you to listen to me. But first, there is something to be done, a little act of restitution. Here, sir, are sundry trifles which have gone astray." And she produced a packet from a small reticule which she had brought with her. "Your letters and notes," she said, "I need not and cannot return. They were burnt; sometimes partly read, and sometimes, I must confess, unperused; unless my maid has a taste for such light literature. There is no knowing what rubbish may entertain a servant-girl or a milliner, especially when the theme is love. Love! did I say? It is a commodity of which I must profess my ignorance; unless, as some good-natured folks might say, it may be the market value of the thing. Well, if there is such a reality as love, I profane it in connexion with your audacious vanity."

"Miss Dareall!" began Aubrey, "if you wish only to insult me——"

"Sir," she interrupted, "have you not sufficiently insulted me? You have brought this on your own head. You brought me to this place, you have arranged this tête-à-tête, and you shall hear me. When you have heard all I have to say on this matter, it will then be a question how far I may pardon you for the insult you have offered me; on one condition."

"If there is a condition I can offer to gain your regard," cried Aubrey, "name it, I pray. Unfortunately as I am situated, if——"

"Silence!" she cried. "In the first place oblige me by taking back these baubles, which I never meant to keep. The flowers which you sent were invariably, by my orders, thrown away. This cross," she said, "is a pretty thing enough. I must compliment you on your taste in jewellery. I wish I could do as much in matters more important. Take these where you should take them; take this, where it may grace a purer bosom and a fairer throat. Not a word. Take them, I say, or I will fling them at you!"

Aubrey obeyed in silence. The truth is, he was fairly embarrassed and overawed. There was something equally beautiful and terrible in the aspect of this young girl, so suddenly transformed from frivolity and vulgarity to the majesty of rebuke. He had never seen her attired in a tithe of the fascination which she now wore. She looked like some graceful denizen of the forest; a female panther or puma, aroused in defence of her young. Her lithe and supple form fell into every attitude of natural grace as she spoke; a bright colour glowed in place of the usual soft and delicate bloom of her cheeks, and her large grey eyes seemed to dilate and expand with light. As we have said, she owed more to expression than to strict beauty; and certainly on this occasion, her varied expression conveyed a charm often wanting to features of a more classic and regular turn. It must be owned that Aubrey's position was exceedingly absurd, and that he most richly deserved it. Ashamed, irritated, and still more fascinated than ever by the object of his guilty and insane passion, he stood very much like a schoolboy detected and arrested in some flagitious act, disappointed and afraid, yet full of impotent rage.

"Sit down, I beg of you," said Miss Dareall.

Aubrey mechanically obeyed her, and awaited what further she might say. Still he was not without a hope that she had merely been trying his temper and patience, or had been playing a part, and would alter her tone. She advanced to the window and looked out upon the fair garden and the bright river which flowed past its bounds.

"It is early in the year," she said; "but how beautiful that gleam of sunshine on the water. Why," she cried, turning round fiercely upon him, "did you bring me into the country? I tell you that I hate it; the beauty of nature maddens me; the sunshine and green fields stir all the gall within my breast. I would only be brought amidst fields and trees and flowers to die—do you hear me? to die!"

"Are you ill, Miss Dareall?" inquired Aubrey, "or have you lost your senses?"

"Listen, sir," she replied, "you are, I believe, a gentleman. I know little or nothing of your private character; for I have never cared to inquire. I never liked you, nor in truth disliked you. I only see in you one out of a herd of selfish men who flatter a woman, out of mingled vanity and fashion, and tell her, with the nauseating professions which it were a charity to imagine they themselves believe, they cherish for her the passion of love. But for two reasons, I would treat you as I would any other out of the herd. I would encourage you for interested motives, or spurn you for the choice of a wealthier rival and dupe; deceive and disappoint you if I encouraged you, and hate and scorn you in either case alike."

"To what does this tend? What reasons do you mean?" asked Aubrey, with increasing surprise.

"It once fell to your lot to do me a kindness. The act and the motive were perhaps scarcely worthy of each other, but into that I will not inquire. I will give you credit for both alike."

"A kindness? May I ask what it was?" said Aubrey. "Believe me, when I say that I have not the slightest idea——"

"Nor ever will have," was the reply. "Suffice it to say that it was done. But for that we should probably at this moment not be—here. But for that, and another reason, I certainly had not taken the trouble to accompany you to Richmond this afternoon."

"I adjure you, if you have any feeling, any kindness in return, since you say I had the good fortune to do you a favour, tell me at least some motive," said Aubrey, "some reason for conduct so extraordinary, and language so strange."

"Feeling? Ought I to indulge in such a luxury?" she answered. "Is not that a monopoly of the aristocratic and the virtuous heart? What if I tell you, then, that somewhere here" (placing her hand upon her heart), "very deeply hidden and known only lately even to myself, and to myself alone, is something which, had it the opportunity of expansion, could it live in the atmosphere of falsehood and deception around, might make me loathe myself almost as thoroughly and deservedly as I despise you!"

"What can she mean?" exclaimed Aubrey. "Is she mad, or is it——?"

"You are mistaken in all that you would surmise. You cannot imagine the truth," was the reply. "But if you have a heart, a soul; if you have ever known the love and care of a mother, which I have not; the affection of a sister, pure and gentle, as I have only known the sisterhood of frailty and shame, you will not seek to misunderstand that which I am about to say, and you will, at least with these advantages, attempt to rival me in the common attributes of humanity which are supposed to raise us above the level of the brutes."

"To what can all this tend?" uttered Aubrey.

"I suppose," she continued, "that there is a great moral distinction between such a being as you would make me—nay, such as I am—and yourself. You would, and could, return to Society and decorum, to sister and mother, to your wife, into company to which I might not aspire, forsooth! whence I should be thrust forth, if I intruded myself. What is this difference which exists between you and the frailest of my sex? I tell you that, compared with your present conduct, the darkest error—sin if you like—of my history is innocence itself."

"What do you mean?" inquired Aubrey, hesitatingly.

"Can you ask me?" she replied. "Man, if I were to name it, if there be justice, it should strike you—blind!"

"Stop! stop!" he exclaimed.

"You have a wife—have you not?" she continued. "Her name is Blanche!"

"Silence! silence! I insist upon it!" cried Aubrey.

"What! Do I sully her name by pronouncing it?" resumed Miss Dareall. "A wife! I say again, young and beautiful in spite of her affliction, and who loves you in proportion to the contempt which you merit at her hands. Oh, I know all! You are breaking her heart to follow me who despise you, and you are even offended that I should mention her name, miserable impostor and hypocrite that you are!"

At this last insult, Aubrey could contain himself no longer. He sprang to his feet and looked towards the door, as if for escape. The look was not lost upon her, who continued:

"Be seated, sir, I pray. Well, then, shall I tell you that I am not fit to breathe her name? Oh, I am speaking truth. Shall I disenchant you further? Shall I tell you the whole story of my life? Nay, 'twould be safe with you; for the sake of your own vanity—one of the strongest holds upon a selfish man. Shall I tell you the story of the last three months, the last fortnight, while you have been besetting my door—the lies and the pretences, the woman's artifices, the flattery of the old, the cajolery of the young? Shall I tell you how I was fished up by the hair with a chance drag, ha! ha! from the mud and filth of London streets—how I was lost in drunkenness, in penury, and sin? You start, do you? You shrink—how dare you shrink, man, from me?"

She paused awhile, as if to collect herself; and then resumed, whilst Aubrey stood as if rooted to the floor in a deprecating attitude, but uttered not a word. The truth is, that he was shocked as well as ashamed. There was a terrible earnestness about this creature, which could not leave him in doubt as to the truth of what she said. The fact is, when a man meets a beautiful woman who is the centre of adoration, he does not at first trouble himself to consider how she came there. Miss Dareall's antecedents were the last thing into which it had as yet occurred to Aubrey to inquire.

"Well," she continued, "I was taken, and redeemed from penury and its attendant horrors by a Saint in Heaven, whose memory I reverence too much to tell you more than that I owe him life, education, and such prosperity as I now enjoy. Had he lived—— But why do I prate about myself? Only to tell you what it is that you approach with your fade flatteries, your sickening daily dose of admiration. Never approach my door again, I tell you, or my male friends shall hound you from it, my female acquaintance jeer at you; until your name becomes a byword for spurned and rejected pretensions—menial love. But no, no; I will not continue thus. Sir, I beg and implore you to return to her who pines for your presence in your home—who may be dying for all that you know at this very moment, deserted and alone."

Aubrey started with conscious horror that it might be so. The tones of the strange being who thus rebuked him had suddenly changed. Her accents were the spoken contralto of pathos itself.

"They tell me," she continued, almost in a breath, "that her eyes are beautiful as ever. Is it so? Oh, shame on you! shame on you! to deprive her, so stricken, of the daily and hourly solace of a loved voice, of words of tenderness and affection. Believe me, you love her still. You are playing with your choicest blessing, like a child. You are not utterly bad and heartless. If another were at her feet now, would it not madden you? It would! it would! You start at the very thought."

"Oh, this is too much!" cried Aubrey, moved and repentant.

"Hear me!" resumed the actress, from whose face every vestige of colour had flown, and whose eyes were now misty and clouded, as if unseen tears had gathered behind them, that waited a signal to break forth. "I have never had any real happiness in this world. Let me owe to you at least one good action in my life. If I cannot love you, let me, at least, honour and respect your memory as a friend. Let me think of you kindly and gratefully in the few moments when I do think, and perhaps I shall sometimes owe to you better and happier thoughts. See! I implore you, with clasped hands, to do this." And here she suited the action to the word. "You will go to her—will you not?—who loves you so well, who is so worthy of the best man's love? I have heard of her actions at a distance, her noble charity, her benevolent heart. You will go to her, will you not, and abandon for ever this mad infatuation, which must seem to you like a hideous dream?"

Aubrey made no answer, but turned away, and covered his eyes with his hands.

"Yes!" she cried, "I have conquered. I see that you are deeply moved. You will go to her——"

"I will, I will," he answered, huskily. "I swear it!"

"I need no oath," she said, in accents of bitter melancholy; "I have heard too many—known too many broken. But I believe your word. I have marked your every gesture. I know that you have only neglected her, because you felt so secure of her love. But bethink you always, should you trifle further with that love, a rival may step in whom Purity herself may not baffle—the skeleton seducer, Death!"

"Villain! blind and selfish villain that I have been!" was all that Aubrey could utter.

"I was speaking the other day," resumed the actress, "with one who knows her well, and who loves her with all the devotion of a generous heart."

"Ha! who is he?" exclaimed Aubrey. "I will chastise him, be he who he may."

"How like a man!" she returned. "You have not the right, even were he only less culpable than you have been yourself. But, believe me, your anger is without cause. He is too noble to take such an advantage, even were he cursed with the chance. I tell you he respects her, as she deserves and commands respect."

"Tell me, at least, who he is," said Aubrey. "You may do so safely, if it be as you say, and I believe your every word."

"One whom I once thought—— But that weakness is past," she answered; "although it may have wrung my heart silently; more than I have dared to acknowledge, even to myself. Nay, do not ask me. It is a woman's secret, though never to be told. Go, Mr. Aubrey, to your beautiful and confiding wife. I have a presentiment that I shall see her soon, although at a distance, and unknown. For between us there is a gulf deeper than yon darkening stream. And now, farewell!"

"And will you not give me your hand?" he asked, as she moved towards the door.

"In token of this compact alone," she answered; giving it to him, with a calm and sad dignity, which contrasted strikingly with the impetuosity of her previous address.

"Stay, stay!" he exclaimed, as she would have passed him on her way out. "And you, yourself, singular and gifted being, what of yourself, your own career? You are not happy. I seem to have read a world of sorrow in your eyes just now, when you ceased to upbraid me so bitterly, and appealed only to my better feelings; to a soul that is not dead to repentance for my folly. Tell me, are you really devoted to your present life; and this wild, exciting career, does it fill your heart? Something tells me that it will not last. Some day you may need a friend in the true sense of the term, one whom you have rescued from evil and won to good. If ever you need assistance, you will come to me for it, will you not? Henceforth, I promise to live a new life, to abandon the associates with whom I have too long vied, and to devote myself to her whom I have treated with such cruel neglect. You, too, will change, will you not? And then, believe that in him to whom you have read to-day a lesson which he has so well merited, you will find a brother, a friend!"

"Do not trouble yourself about me," replied Miss

Dareall. "I know not what I may do yet. I am changeable as my career, fickle as my involuntary fate. But order your horses round, and hasten home. How strangely dark it has grown. We are about to have a storm. There! Did you see that flash? The day has been unusually close and oppressive. There again! Pray make haste, or you may be detained here for hours."

"No, no! I fear no storm," said Aubrey. "But you? Am I to leave you here? How are you to get home? Let me see you at least to town."

"Nay," said Miss Dareall, smiling; "that would be a bad beginning. Consider what remarks might be made. They might even reach her ears; and then—— I think you have run sufficient risk already in driving me here. Order your carriage round. Must I insist?"

Aubrey left the room, and returned in a minute. "I have obeyed you," he said; "and now, I suppose, I must bid you farewell."

"Yes," she answered, "and for ever! Cease, I beg of you, to think of me at all; unless a thought of what I have been, nay, am, cause you to cling closer and more fondly to her by whose pure affection you are blest."

"It may sound like an impertinence under the circumstances," said Aubrey: "but once more remember, that if I can ever be of any service to you, I implore you not to forget me then."

"I will not forget, Mr. Aubrey," she returned hurriedly, but kindly; "but pray do not prolong this interview; good-bye, and may you be happy."

Aubrey bowed very low, and left the room hastily.

"How little he thought," mused Miss Dareall to herself, "of the service that he once rendered me. And it is only three years ago. Heavens! what a flash!" she exclaimed, as the lightning quivered along the black arch of the storm-cloud whose summit already reached the zenith, illuminating the dark landscape and the winding river beneath. "Well, I must see about getting back to town. I feel quite faint for want of refreshment. I wish that tiresome waiter had not taken everything away. I declare I really felt nearly all that I said. I must make haste and get rid of all this goodness, or else I shall be quite unfitted for the theatrical world of spite. I am sure that even old Wigster would make love to me, if he dared, with his affectionate and paternal style. Well, considering the youthful parts he plays on the stage, one need not wonder much, if he forgets himself sometimes off it. After all, why should he not, when Juliets over fifty are in vogue? And that burlesque the other day which looked as if it was played by the inmates of dramatic almshouses returned again to visit the scenes of their former career! As for Luckless, I don't believe half that he said about his love for Aubrey's wife. Poor Harry! he is always in love with some one, and latterly I thought that if ever he was earnestly smitten, it was with poor little me. Some women would hate her for it; I do not. Gracious me, what a storm! I should like to see this Mrs. Aubrey, just once. When Harry told me of her blindness, I recollected all about her. It was she who succoured that poor girl, who worked for my maid, Floret. The poor thing was betrayed and deserted—all in the regular and approved style of such things. Mrs. Aubrey—it was before she was blind—heard of it through her maid, and actually went to see her, without a tract or a sermon. She took her child in her arms, spoke to her like a sister, got her out of her troubles, and never so much as spoke a word of condemnation or reproof. Floret almost cried when she told me of it. Well, I hope I have done her some good in return."

After thus uttering her thoughts aloud, Miss Dareall looked out of the window, shook her head, rang the bell, and ordered, to the waiter's intense surprise, a glass of wine and a biscuit.

"Well," said that worthy to another gentleman of the same cloth, as he went out to execute the command. "This is the finest start that I ever see. Here's a couple come here; gent orders first-rate dinner—female party quite the lady, and seems as if nothing would please her—and they finish by touching nothing, not so much as a spoonful of soup. Gent pays for everything just the same, and I clapped in a bottle of wine as he didn't order along with them as he did, but didn't drink; but he never so much as looked at the bill. Now, there's folks as comes here, as eat and drink everything they've ordered, and then question everything in the bill. 'Waiter,' they say, 'was there three glasses of curassoey? I thought there was only two.' But, lawk, I know my customers in a minute. I can tell

'em—ah! by the way they wear their gloves, if that was all. If a gent don't put on his right-hand glove, and squeezes it all up like, though it's new French kid, I guess he won't add up the hitems of his bill, no, nor count his change neither for that matter. But for a regular out-and-out mean hunks, give me a rich earl, like that old Tipton and Wednesbury, or the Markis of Spitalfields. It's lucky that there ain't many of such a scaly lot. There's the earl, he never pays waiter nor driver; and as for the markis, he'll step into the bar about one o'clock, and he says to the missus quite gracious, 'What have you got for dinner, to-day?' says he; so they tell him roast leg of mutton, or pork, as the case may be, for they're up to his little ways. 'Ah!' he says, 'I think I could eat a bit, if you was to cut me plateful, and send it up-stairs.' Then they say, just for form's sake, 'We've everything in the 'ouse, my lord. Your lordship can have whatever your lordship pleases.' 'You're very good,' he says, 'but I wouldn't have you take the trouble of cooking for me. If you do 'appen to 'ave such a thing as a nice potato,' he'll say, as if he didn't know there was. Then by-and-bye he comes into the bar again, and asks what he has to pay. 'I can't think of charging you anything, except the beer, my lord,' says the governor. 'I assure your lordship, we feel so honoured,' he says. 'I can't hear of such a thing,' says the markis. 'I only hope your lordship could make shift to eat it?' says the missus, smiling. 'Never enjoyed anything so much in my life, ma'am,' he says, quite politely; and he hands her a shilling, out of which she takes twopence, or fourpence, or whatever it may be for the beer. 'Well,' he says to the governor, 'my esteemed and worthy friend Tomkins,' he says, 'I suppose I must let you 'ave your own way, but it's only on one condition, you know.' 'And what may that be, my lord,' says the missus. 'Why, that when my friend here,' says the markis, condescendingly, ' 'appens to come by Pinchin Castle, he shall come and dine with me.' 'Ah! my lord,' says the governor, quite overcome, 'you're too good,' he says. As if he didn't know all the time that the servants at the castle, which is nine miles off, without counting the havenue, is all on board wages, ever since the markis prosecuted his cook for stealing the dripping, at Mumboro' Spring Sizes, just three years ago this very month. But as I heard old Rumford of the 'Angel and Umbrella' say, 'I wish I had a few of the same sort to drop in here. I'd stand 'em vittles, ah, and drink too,' says he. 'Look at the custom the haiystocracy brings with 'em, wherever they go,' he says. And it's true. A lord who comes reglar, is worth his weight in silver, except to waiters. But then, if he brings them to the house that do pay us, why I suppose, in the end, he may be said to benefit we. As for the markis, I will say he is very pleasant and well-spoken—he'll talk to any one by the hour, and always calls every one by his name. But I never did see any one hated like that Lord Tipton. You should hear his own servants reckon him up. He don't grudge himself anything, nothing isn't good enough for him; but he is as proud as he is mean, and that's saying a good deal—that is, a deal more than I should like to have said of me, if I'd got as much in a year, as they say he has in a day."

During the garrulous old waiter's talk, which was partly to himself, and partly to any one he could get to listen to him, Miss Dareall had finished her biscuit and her toilet, and was hurrying through the hall to gain the fly which was waiting to convey her to the station, when an exclamation of surprise and delight arrested her steps, and turning round she saw Sir Harry Luckless in the act of taking off his great-coat, and accompanied by a lady and gentleman, who were being ushered into the very room she had left.

"Good Heavens! Kitty, how fortunate!" cried Sir Harry; "that is if you are alone, as you seem to be. Here I am, a wretched 'third party' with Swellingham (you know Swellingham?) and Ada Montmorency, of the Hesperides. Do take pity on me and join us. But whatever brought you here? Are you really alone?"

"Very much, indeed," she replied.

"I thought you went out with that fellow Aubrey," said Sir Harry; "of course, just because I asked you not."

"So I did," she answered; "but not as you are pleased to imagine, in order to annoy you. For once I have been in earnest. I have done all; more than you asked me. I came here with him, and he has returned home, alone, full of repentance, and determined never again to neglect his afflicted wife."

"You are a dear, good girl," said Sir Harry; "but come, do tell me all about it. I was quite puzzled to know what on earth you meant; what induced you to drive out here with him? I met Stingray, as we came through Knightsbridge, and I pulled up a moment! 'Whom do you think I saw just now?' he said, and then he told me about you and Aubrey driving past. He said you were so busy talking that you didn't see him, though he was crossing the road. Didn't the horses shy at anything? For I am sure he is ugly enough. 'A pretty scandal there'll be to-morrow,' he said; 'I only hope it won't come to Mrs. Aubrey's ears.' And then he said something, for which I could have struck him; only that it would be so ridiculous a thing to have an affair with a literary celebrity, you know."

"What was it?" asked Miss Dareall; "I detest that man, for his utter badness of heart. Society photographs him as a kind of virtuous sage, hiding his kindness under an eccentric mask. But I know him," she said.

"A brutal allusion to her blindness," replied Sir Harry, "worthy of the man. But he has learnt to pass current his most diabolical remarks and suggestions by a sort of sugared confectionery of poisoned words, as, for instance, 'Have you heard that Wiggins is about to be sold up, poor dear old boy!' or 'Isn't it a sad affair that of Lord Fitzpavin and his wife? Poor thing! poor thing! It was not her fault after all, considering the circumstances—was it?' But we must not stand talking here in this manner.

Join our party, and let me escort you back to town in the train. Didn't you say you were going to the Surrey Theatre this evening?"

"I had some idea of it, I believe," she replied.

"Well, then," said Sir Harry, "what can be better? We'll all go together, get out at Waterloo, and set the elements at defiance. Have you dined? No; that's capital. Come in, and let me introduce you to Montmorency. Swellingham is not half such a fool as he affects to be, I assure you. I rather like the man. I knew him do a fine thing once; and do you know he has always pretended ever since that it was a mistake, and he didn't mean it. He saved a man and his wife from drowning in a canal: and when they turned out to be small tradespeople in the City, Swell declared that he himself fell in, and that the drowning people caught hold of him whether he would or no, and that it took nearly the whole of Price and Gosling's stock of perfumery to cleanse him from their touch. And the best joke is that he himself is a tradesman's son. But come in, there's a dear Kitty."

Miss Dareall signified her acquiescence.

"I never required a little cheerful conversation more than I do now to restore me to the delights of this sinful world," she said. "Do you know, Harry, I have preached such a sermon that I ended by almost converting myself. If goodness is only half as infectious as wickedness, I advise you not to come near me; unless you want to reform and take to out-door preaching, or build a little Bethel all your own, and become a second Burgeon. What a lot of braces and slippers you would get from the female part of your congregation! Here, tell them to send that conveyance back to the stable. The driver is getting quite wet."

So saying, she entered the room, and introduced herself to Sir Harry's companions with all the nonchalance in the world.

CHAPTER X.

A CAB HOME.

Haste! Devour the ground!
Play not with good intentions, lest they aid
To pave thy road below. Remember, Fate
Owes thee her blackest grudge, as one who late
Despised her choicest gifts.

Thou'rt neck and neck
With swift Misfortune. Pause not on the way,
But spur and whip. Thou yet may'st be in time.
He sleeps! Will no good angel in his ear
Shout, trumpet-tongued, of fire and mad alarms?
And dress his heels with wings like Mercury,
And send him breathless home? No angel good
Attends him now. Gross sense doth weigh him down.
One half-hour late! 'Tis done; and nought remains,
Save the dark vista of remorseful Woe.

WE must now follow Aubrey, who drove rapidly back to town, heedless of the gathering storm. Behind him the Sphinx-like Tops, chuckling inwardly at the manifest symptoms of a quarrel between his master and Miss Dareall, which he plainly read. Since his marriage, Aubrey had not thought so deeply and seriously as he did now, subsequently to his interview with the actress. The scales had fallen from his eyes. "It is I; it is I," he said, "who have been blind. But I will make amends for all.

We will quit this hated and pernicious atmosphere of London life. We will go to Switzerland and Italy. I must economise for a year or two, and then we will take a pretty seaside house, and I will devote myself to literary pursuits, and perhaps—who knows?—become famous as a writer. This, with a little boating, shooting, and fishing, will afford me sufficient occupation. If my dear, noble Blanche should not recover her sight, I will show that I am worthy of her love. Bless her, poor darling! how brutally I have behaved to her of late!" Strange to say, he had never felt such warm, earnest, nay, even passionate love for his beautiful partner in life, as at that moment. The words of Miss Dareall had not only disenchanted him of his penchant for that eccentric young lady herself; but they had restored to him the real and abiding sentiment of his heart. Her suggestion that he might in any way, or from any cause, lose Blanche, pierced his very soul with a vague sense of dread. Lose her? No! He felt that, without her, life would be a blank! And by his own folly, cruelty, and neglect! It was not to be thought of. He would rush to her, clasp her in his arms, avow in general terms the senseless conduct of which he had been guilty, and promise never to leave her fair side unguarded any more.

"Yes," he said, "coward! unfeeling brute that I have been! But I will make ample amends. And, oh! if aught on earth can bring back the sight to her sweet eyes, it shall be done!" Yet as he approached town, strange to say, Aubrey felt a disinclination to return home immediately. True, she expected him; but if she waited an hour or two longer, it would be the last time he would keep her waiting in anxiety, or break an appointment with her. So he drove to one of his clubs, and told Tops to return, and to tell his mistress, with his best love, not to wait dinner, but to expect him for certain before ten.

If we must analyse the mixed motives which led to this conclusion, they were as follows:—In the first place he was flushed, sick, and excited; he did not like to rush straight into her presence from that of the Siren who had just voluntarily broken the spell of her enchantments. He wished to collect his thoughts, to regain his moral equilibrium, before meeting her whom he had wronged. Besides, he had a little design. There were all these presents he had received back from Miss Dareall. He would take them to the jeweller, who should exchange them on his own terms; and he would purchase a magnificent present for his wife on the anniversary evening of their wedding-day. The price allowed he would remit anonymously to the actress. It must be owned, that for a man involved in debt, if not hopelessly embarrassed, Aubrey was most magnificent and princely in his ideas. He would do all this, dine alone at the club, smoke a single cigar, and then, calm in his virtuous resolve, seek Blanche, never, never to neglect and desert her again! How happy she would be to travel, to visit Italy—it had been one of her fondest wishes, her most favourite desires. He sighed as he thought that she could not see those blue skies, those lilac mountains, those golden sunsets and brief purple twilights; but, at least, he thought, I will be her interpreter, her link of communication with the outer world. And she will be happy, yes, she will be happy; for she loves me as I do not deserve to be loved. And so, thus thinking of plans for future happiness, he betook himself to the jeweller's shop, which occupied an hour or so, and thence returned to his club, where he partook of a simple dinner alone, with an appetite sharpened by a mental ease and comfort which he had not known for some time. It was about half-past eight, when he sauntered up from the coffee-room to the smoking-room, which he found empty, and then with one of those large full-flavoured cigars, which are so grateful to a smoker now and then, when he devotes himself systematically to the full enjoyment of a "weed," Arthur Aubrey sat down, and gave himself up to the sober contemplation of the new life which he promised himself. And then, he thought, if we should have a child, a boy! or a little girl with Blanche's great soft eyes, and long silky hair. And so the time passed, and another hour crept on, as the timepiece over the mantelpiece kept up its monotonous tick, tick, until he began to think about returning home, and just as he thought he really must move, his head drooped, the remnant of his second cigar fell from the releasing grasp of his finger and thumb, and Arthur Aubrey slept. It was a quarter-past ten when he awoke from a confused dream, and endeavoured to recal the varied incidents of the day. As he stretched himself and looked around, a gleam of blue light illuminated the circular skylight of the smoking-room, followed by a crash of thunder so startling and instantaneous that it thoroughly finished the awakening process and restored him to his full consciousness of all that had passed, why he was there, and where he ought to have been at that hour. "Good Heavens!" he muttered, "the storm has returned with a vengeance. What tremendous rain—nay? surely it is hail, by the sound." Another and another flash and peal followed. He then remembered, as he hurriedly descended the stairs, that he had dreamt of a military execution, which was somehow mixed up with Blanche, whose white and agonising face he saw through the smoke of the musketry staring with the glazed orbs of Death.

"I am afraid there is no cab on the stand in the square, sir," said the grey-headed porter, "but I'll see," and he stepped outside in the storm, and blew his whistle. Aubrey waited two or three minutes with ill-concealed impatience. "It's a dreadful night, sir," said the porter; "I thought it wasn't all over this afternoon. I don't think I ever saw the lightning more vivid. Hadn't you better wait, sir? There's sure to be a cab return just now."

"No, Williams," replied Aubrey, "I don't mind getting wet. I am anxious to get home. Mrs. Aubrey is so very nervous in a thunder-storm, especially at night."

The porter looked grave, and bowed respectfully. He had heard of Aubrey's delinquencies as a husband. How little do such men as Aubrey think who is taking stock of their offences. How ashamed would he have been, had he known that he was the subject of discussion among those decorous flunkies, when off duty, or in their leisure moments at the club. Aubrey rushed out and rapidly pursued his way out of the square towards his house. A very few instants sufficed to soak him to the skin. There was something in the elemental strife which seemed in unison with his thoughts. It was a little penance he was paying for his neglect. He would tell Blanche how he had fallen asleep, and the eagerness with which he sought to repair his error. With what fond solicitude she would receive him, dear, dear girl!

"Hum!" quoth the old porter, as he scratched out Mr. Aubrey's name in the hall day-book. "It's no wife that's taking him out like that. Folks like him can wait for cabs, when it's wives that is waiting for them. It's all very well for him to say so, and I don't object to the crammer; for I am one of those that like to see a gentleman keep up appearances, but still for all that he don't come over me. If his wife sees him atween this and four in the morning, I've not been hall-porter of this club these four-and-twenty year. She's a nice lady is Mrs. Aubrey, too. Well, it is not always the nicest as is run after most, leastways by them that has the best right. Let's see, there was one of them pink notes again this morning, scented till the place smelt like a doctor's shop. What was it the butler told me yesterday he heard one of our gents say about Mrs. Aubrey? Oh! I know; he said she was gone blind. Well, she'd need to be blind to his goings on, poor thing; that's all I have to say about it. I wonder some folks ain't afraid of being struck blind, or dead either for that matter, in such a storm as this, when they're deceiving their own flesh and blood: and going to church, too, on a Sunday, looking as solemn as undertakers. But their wives is as bad mostly, if all's true as I've heard spoken. There's that old Chalkstoneville visits these Aubreys, and the very sight of him ought to be enough to make a modest woman fly the country. I've been a married man these seven-and-twenty years; but if he was to come a sniffing and a coughing about my premises, me and the lady that owns me would be two in a jiffy, if she was to put up with it. But perhaps he don't mind it, seeing as the duke could come down heavy with damages. Such wretches don't ought to be husbands, and if I had my way they should never touch a penny of the money. I'd give it towards an asylum for some of them poor creatures walking about the streets to-night. It's mostly married men, and men that get married after all they've been and done, that brings girls to shame and want. The law wants altering, like a many other laws in England. Why, as I was saying to Mrs. Williams yesterday, don't some of these religious humbugs, that are so very anxious about the souls of the poor, that they wouldn't let them buy so much as a red-herring or a bunch of radishes on Sunday, give us poor club servants a holiday? Perhaps they think, by denying the lower classes, as they call them, everything in this world, they make them more sure of going to heaven. But the system don't work, in my opinion, according to their notion of compensation. It's more likely to end in neither rich nor poor being saved; for if the rich begin by being selfish, they drive the poor into being vicious, and so the old gentleman gets the best of both sides." How long Mr. Williams's soliloquy might have lasted we cannot say, but just then another member of the club drove up in a Hansom to get his pink notes, besides which he wanted a cheque changed. At the great club of Civil and Religious Progress, they don't change cheques. Possibly the Committee consider it would be too tempting to some of the Irish members, whose sanguine temperament might lead them to overdraw their accounts, especially at a late hour of the evening. For the "Progress" boasted a large representation of those legislative patriots, who, some say, are ever seeking to exact that justice in personal instalments, which they are willing to forego for Ireland as a whole. Graft the vices of a trading Saxon community upon Celtic necessities and corruption, and the result is prejudicial to both nations alike. Nothing of their country remains to such men, but her eloquence without fire, and her brogue without grace. Well may the countrymen of Grattan, of Curran, and of Burke, desire the restoration of that local self-government which it was equally a blunder and a crime to disturb!

CHAPTER XI.

THE COBRA ON THE HEARTH-RUG.

But great and varied as was the genius of this gifted writer, that for which the nineteenth century will chiefly prize him was the geniality of his disposition and the overflowing tenderness of his heart. While scathing with his fiery satire the littlenesses and the basenesses with which he saw the circles he mixed in teem; while watering the flowers of the mock Eden of fashionable society with a can of vitriol, in which one might imagine that scorpions were dissolved, he has been known to arrest the progress of a whole party of his admirers in the street, to purchase the freedom of a lark or thrush from its small prison in the possession of a street urchin; to make a "circumbendibus," as he called it, to avoid crushing a snail, or to relieve the necessity of a beggar woman with a half-crown, which he would pleasantly borrow from the richest and meanest of the satellites who revolved around the mighty planet of his social career. He was emphatically a good and great creature in the best sense of the word.—From the future Epitaph of Mr. Stingray, written by his bitterest enemy in life, to accompany a cartoon in the "Weekly Bosh."

AS soon as Mr. Tops had made his horses comfortable after their rapid drive, and seen the "pheayton" extra-carefully cleaned and put into the coach-house, he repaired to the Maison Aubrey, in order, if possible, to obtain an interview with Susan, and acquaint her with the decided step he had taken. He knew that so long as Blanche needed her services, it was not very likely that Susan would be induced to leave her by marriage or anything else; and, to tell the truth, Mr. Tops did not feel over comfortable at the thought of the separation that would ensue between him and his charmer.

It was quite nine o'clock before Susan came down, and she looked both sad and cross, when she did make her appearance. At first, she was evidently about to treat Tops to a little "trainin' for materimony," as he somewhat technically called it. But when he met her at the top of the kitchen stairs and implored her in his simple fashion to pull up and listen, for he had something very particular to say, Mrs. Susan condescended to lend him her best attention. The truth is, she saw at a glance that something extraordinary had happened, and flattered herself that at last the fidelity of Tops was shaken, either through the strength of his attachment to her, or owing to some new and flagrant misconduct of his master.

"Well," she said, "Mr. Tops, what have you got to say so very particular? I dare say it would have kept very well until to-morrow; or for ever, I dare say, if the truth was told, as far, at least, as I am concerned;" and she tossed her head scornfully. "But, perhaps, first you'll have the kindness to inform me where you left your brute of a master?"

"Certainly," replied Tops; "I left him at the club. Didn't Mr. Binsby give you the message I left for your missus?"

"And a pretty one it was, like the rest," replied Susan. "I wonder you're not ashamed to carry such messages. I'll tell you what, Mr. Tops, there'll soon be an end to this. That poor angel up-stairs is dying as fast as she can—dying of his neglect and unkindness.

Oh!" she cried, as a tremendous peal of thunder burst over the house, "I wonder he isn't afraid to be out such a night. Here, come up into the front drawing-room a moment, if your boots is clean. I shall be nearer to missus, if she should want me sudden. I wonder she hasn't rung before this; she's so mortal afraid of tempest."

"Susan," said Tops, slowly, when the pair had arrived in the pretty and elegant little room so often desecrated by the fashionable world; "I've been and done it. That's what I've got to say; now you knows it."

"What do you mean, Mr. Tops?" asked Susan. "Do you mean that you have given notice?"

"There ain't no notice about it," replied Tops. "Me and master had some words. I told him I didn't happrove exactually of his goings on, and the wheels of his temper took fire, that's hall; and I told him he could suit hisself."

"You won't leave for a month, at any rate?" inquired Susan, looking rather alarmed.

"To-morrow morning," replied Tops, "when I've fed and watered the 'osses, I takes leave of them and master for hever. I dessay old Binsby will settle hall hup between me and the guv'nor, as I don't want no words about it. He's been a very good master to me, and I never had a sitiation as was more comfortable. I'm not one as'll say different, though we can't hit it together hany longer."

"Bless me. Tops," said Mrs. Susan, "I'd no idea you were going to be so sudden."

"Nor I neither," was the response. "But when things breaks down, and nothink you can do can mend 'em, what's the use of looking on and making yourself unhappy? I never see a pair run better in harness than master and missus, hup to the last stage or two."

"Well," rejoined Susan, "though you don't express yourself very clearly, I know what you mean. Go on, and tell me who's caused the stage-coach, or family carriage, or whatever it is, to run so uneven."

"There never was a pair run better," resumed Tops, "nor them two creeturs for a couple of years and hupwards. And if this misfortin has overtook her, as it can't be doubted that it 'ave done, what of it? Them as is blind ain't so likely to shy, and requires a trifle more tender 'andling. That's where it is and what it is; and you couldn't say more, hif you was to talk for a fortnight."

"And so you're going to leave us so sudden?" said Susan, with some little indication of feeling, and a slight tremor in her not unmusical voice, which Mr. Binsby was once heard to say he had taken for the young madam's. "And it's all my doing. Don't shake your head, sir, like that. I know it is. It's owing to what I said this morning. Well, we shall see each other sometimes, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Tops, "if I don't accept a hoffer to take a lot of 'osses over to Rooshy."

"But you never will?" said Susan, showing more concern than she had yet indicated.

"I don't know," replied Tops; "it depends, you see."

"Upon what?" was the rejoinder.

"Upon the voice of my charmer," replied Tops; "whether she tells me to stop or not. That's where it is, you see."

"Really," said Susan, "you're talking hiroglyphics. I didn't know charmers had anything to do with the plans of grooms. But I suppose it's some of your betting phraseology."

"I think it's you are trying to puzzle a feller," said Tops, "as is yourn, and yourn honly, if you'll honly say the word. And as I'm going to-morrow, I thought you would——" And here Tops fairly broke down, and his voice trembled with uneducated pathos, quite as effective in its way as the lisp of the most elegant votary of the little blind god.

"Well," said Susan, "I don't know but what—— We shall see each other sometimes, and I don't know but that some day, I may even consent to——"

"Be Mrs. Tops!" exclaimed that personage. "Hooray!" and he threw his hat up and caught it, and then seized Susan round the waist, and imprinted a chaste salute upon her lips.

"There, go along with you, that'll do! What a cap I shall have! What is the man about! One would think I was a 'oss, as you call it. But you really must mend your grammar."

"Grammar be blowed!" cried Tops; "you've got larning enough for a four-'oss coach, let alone two. We don't want larning in the public line. I can chalk hup the beer with crosses, and you can keep the books, and hedicate the babbies as much as you please. I'll give you your 'ead, Susan; I'll give you your 'ead, and I know you'll bowl along the tarnpike-road of life like a—like a butterfly. I'll give you the box-seat, and what can any young 'ooman wish for more?"

"And when do you think you will return from Russia?" asked Susan very demurely, smoothing her apron.

" 'Tain't likely I'd go now, if the Hemperor was to ax me hisself," was the answer. "Do you think I'm going to bolt clean off the course arter a start like this?"

"Upon my word," replied Susan, "you do snatch a body up quick. But I suppose I must have you, if it's only out of compassion. Have you heard of any situation near?"

Tops executed a series of nods and winks, ending with a face somewhat expressive of disgust. "I'm going to let myself down, Susan, very low; but a few score of them kisses of yourn, once or twice a week, will pull me hup agen all right. I've thought of living with hold Lawyer Grinderby, if master'll give me a note of reckymindation, which he can't very well be off doing of; it's unkimmon low, and hold Binsby will turn his nose hup as hif he smelt pison; but it's hall for your sake, Susan, and since you've said the word, I'll live with Old Scratch hisself to be anywheres near you."

"Thank you for the compliment," said Mrs. Susan; "but Mr. Grinderby is quite bad enough to show me that you really do care for me a little."

"I should recken he were," rejoined Tops. "Why, he honly keeps two 'osses, and they're forty year hold, if they're a day."

"Forty years old, Mr. Tops?"

"Yes," he replied; "between 'em, I'll pound it; and a landau, as they calls it, which the springs is so stiff, and the leather so musty, that when it is opened, it puts me in mind of a grin on his own blessed parchment face."

"Well," said Susan, "I suppose I am in for it. But there is one great obstacle to our union;" and she accomplished a very sentimental sigh.

"Hobstacle?" eagerly inquired Tops in a fright. "Whatever do you mean?"

"The name!" answered Susan. "However can I be called 'Mrs. Tops?' "

"Go along with you. How can you skeer a feller like that?" asked the owner of that monosyllabic patronymic.

"It's the name that 'skeers' me, as you call it," she answered.

"I knowed a young man," observed Tops, "as lived at Epsom, as changed hisn to Plant-a-jenny; and if I don't hendanger the fammerly hestates, I ain't pertickler. Look here!" he added, pulling out a "Racing Calendar," "what do you say to 'Caracticus,' or 'Heclipse?' They was both on 'em winners."

"We'll see about it by-and-bye. But now that I've been so stupidly good-natured, and that master has discharged you, besides insulting your feelings, you won't mind telling me a little—just ever so little, of his goings on. Won't you, dear James?"

"Is that the voice of my Susan, as I hear a tempting me to sech a hact? Say you're only a trying it on."

"Is this your confidence?" asked the lady. "Do you call this giving me the box-seat, or whatever nonsense you were talking just now?"

"But there ain't no seats yet," replied Tops; "the carridge ain't only jest hordered."

"Besides, you stupid fellow," resumed the insidious Susan, "do you think I would do missus, or master either for that, any harm?"

"That's not the pint," replied Tops.

"Which is?" she inquired.

"The honner of J. Tops, Esqvire, which he has never suffered to grow yaller yet, and don't mean to neither, which pison honly cleans, as it does real tops—the most beautiful hobjict in Natur', Susan, when they air cleaned proper."

"Now, do go away," responded Susan; "I shall have missus here directly."

"Besides," added Tops; "say what you like of master, he halways knowed what 'osses is, and how things should be done. Come, don't be angry with a feller, when you know he can't help hisself;" and he again embraced the not unwilling object of his affections.

"Help himself?" returned Susan; "I think you do help yourself, and rather freely too. But since it is the last time you will have the opportunity in this house, I suppose I must put up with it. Good-night, Tops. I'm not angry."

"I'm as 'appy as a sand-boy, and wouldn't change places with the lad as'll win the Derby, or the stud-groom of the Hemperor of Rooshy, though I'm going to live with that hold limb of Satan at Peckham, and drive them pair of twenty-year-hold hanimals of hisn with noses like the Duke of Wellington," cried Tops, as, with a variety of pantomimic gestures of an amorous description, he left the room.

"I can't say," soliloquised Susan, "but what I like him better for his obstinacy. There's the bell at last. Then master is returned;" and she went to the door and listened. "That's not his step," she said, after awhile; "who can it be at this time of night? A quarter to ten, I declare. I hope there's nothing wrong. Oh, lor!" she said, as Mr. Stingray made his appearance, "it's that old wretch of an author. Whatever can he want at this hour?"

"A very late call, Mrs. Susan, this," observed that individual, seating himself very deliberately, "and on such a night too, though I think the storm is breaking. I hear that Mr. Aubrey is out. I wanted most particularly to see him. Is he generally away from home at this hour?"

"No, sir," replied Susan, "that is, not always."

"Not always! hem!" observed the philosopher. "And your mistress is gone to bed unwell, is she?"

"No, not gone to bed. But she is not very well. Do you wish to see her, sir?" replied Susan.

"By no means," was the answer; "I will stay here. Don't go away, my dear; I don't bite. Your master and mistress ought to be very happy together?"

"Yes, sir," said Susan, "certainly."

"But it's very sad!" rejoined Stingray, pathetically.

"They say he knows everybody's business," quoth Susan to herself. "Perhaps I may learn all about master's goings on, if I'm only sharp enough. Did you want anything, sir," she asked aloud, "before I go to missus?"

Mr. Stingray beckoned her to him, and finding that she did not approach him, he walked close up to her. As he did so, possibly he caught sight of a form slowly entering the room, through the already open door. It was that of Blanche Aubrey. Noiselessly she felt her way, till she reached the table, and then she felt about, until she put her hand upon a tall high-backed chair, one of the two she had herself worked in embroidery with flowers and birds. In this she sat down unperceived by Susan, and with her face turned away from them.

"What was you pleased to say, sir?" asked Susan.

Blanche half raised herself, as she became aware that there were others in the room. Nay, she was on the very point of asking who it was, when Stingray said:

"What a pity it is, my dear, is it not?"

"Yes, sir," replied Susan at a venture.

"To think that your master should neglect his wife for such a woman," rejoined Stingray. "So distressing! Some people think it will all come right, when he has sown his wild oats. But it's too late, I think, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," responded poor Susan, whose curiosity, it must be owned, was far exceeded by her anxious dread.

"The doctors give no hope of Mrs. Aubrey's sight being restored—do they?" pursued Stingray.

"No, sir," uttered Susan.

"Poor thing! I felt sure of it. Never is restored in such cases. How fortunate could she always remain blind in another sense—I mean to your master's incomprehensible infatuation for that good-for-nothing hussy, with whom, doubtless, he is at this moment; and who, between ourselves, laughs at him all the time."

"There is, then——" exclaimed Susan, but checking herself, she said, merely; "yes, sir, indeed, it would be quite a mercy."

"Yes," continued Stingray, "there he lingers, chained to her triumphal car by the multiplicity of his rivals. Would you believe that a man could be so utterly absurd as to be jealous of such a woman?"

"Yes, no—that is——" replied Susan, "just what I was thinking of."

"And to think that the whole world is laughing at the farce, and that his wife should be the only one not to know it," continued Stingray. "Of course, you don't ever drop a hint, eh?"

"Me, sir?" replied Susan; "oh dear no, not for the universe."

"Very proper. I respect your principle, although a revelation might lead to good. Your mistress might bring him to his senses, threaten him with Sir Crossbill Crossbill. Besides, it is impossible that she should remain ignorant much longer—not very likely, with such a rival as Kitty Dareall, whom I saw the day before yesterday riding your mistress's white Arab in the Park."

"Kitty Dareall! My mistress's white Arab!" stammered poor Susan. "Impossible! that is, yes, sir, of course, just so."

Mr. Stingray chuckled, and glowered through his spectacles, which looked like danger-signals on a railway line, as the light from Susan's candle fell upon them. "She actually didn't know a word about it," he said to himself. "It is too bad, isn't it?" he continued, addressing Susan rather more loudly than one would have thought necessary, considering how close they were to each other: but then Stingray was in the habit of speaking loudly. "He might do it more quietly, eh? Awful character, that Kitty! Of course, child, you know all about her. Can't tell you much you don't know." And the playful man chucked Mrs. Susan under the chin. "Oh, you wicked little creature!"

As Mrs. Susan often declared afterwards, she could have run a carving-fork into him at that moment for daring to lay so much as a finger on her; but at the time she saw fit to dissemble.

"Don't, if you please, sir," she said, with a curtsy. "I dare say I've heard a good deal more than I ought; but if you'd please to tell me a little more."

"Delightful human nature!" quoth Stingray, half aloud. "Well, my dear," he continued, "Kitty, whom, as you know, your master follows with a devotion worthy of a better object, as he doubtless did your poor mistress before marriage; Kitty, of whom my foolish friend Aubrey is the greatest of the deluded victims and adorers—Kitty is a sleek tigress, a fascinating monster. You have heard how she knocks folks about like ninepins, and sets half the fashions in London; how she horsewhipped Lord Eppingforest, fought three policemen, and hoaxed the Archbishop of Middlesex, all in a single afternoon: and then appeared in the stage-box of the Thespis Theatre, looking as demure and glossy as if nothing had happened. Of course, you know that the Duke of Chalkstoneville, and Sir Harry Luckless, and half a score more, are the constant supporters and ministers of her extravagance and absurdity. It is, indeed, to be lamented that amid these your poor master, my friend Aubrey, should be the chief, as he is the most deluded of her victims. But, considering the example set him by others, perhaps he is not so much to blame as everybody says he is; and even now, could he be brought to a full sense of the wrong he is inflicting on his beautiful and accomplished wife, he might still, if not too late, make a tolerably exemplary and attentive husband; that is, as the world goes, my dear!"

Here Mr. Stingray helped himself to a considerable pinch of snuff; and Susan, no longer able to restrain herself, burst into a fit of crying.

"Why, how now?" exclaimed the great philanthropical satirist. "What have we here? You're not really crying, are you?"

"Not too late! not to blame!" cried Susan, repeating his words. "Oh, oh!"

"Dear me!" said Stingray, "considering you knew all before——"

"It is false. I knew nothing, save that my poor, dear mistress is neglected by a monster. Oh, oh!" rejoined Susan, still weeping. "And you," she added, turning sharply round upon Mr. Stingray, "are a brute to tell me."

"Hoity-toity!" said that gentleman. "We are in our tantrums. Well, as your master doesn't seem to be coming home quite so soon as your mistress expected him, I think I won't wait any longer. There, good-bye, my dear." And Mr. Stingray made a clumsy and ineffectual effort to pat her on the cheek, which was returned by a slap delivered with no little energy that narrowly missed his face, for which it was intended, and was delivered somewhere between his ear and the collar of his coat.

"So, so, pretty pussy!" he cried, "you're getting dangerous. Now, mind you don't repeat a word that I have told you to any one, though it is known to all the world, I say, all the world!"

With this cheerful piece of information Mr. Stingray put on his hat, and walked briskly to the door. "Mind and tell your master that I called, when he does return," he said. "I shall be at the Kemble Club to-morrow at two o'clock. It's about a dramatic charity I want to see him, and the arrangements for poor dear Bob Diltrees' funeral at Kensal Green."

With this Mr. Stingray kissed his huge paw, by way of adieu to Susan, and left the poison which he had so carefully distilled into her ears to work as it might. Did he observe that other occupant of the room? Had he caught a glimpse of her white dress and that pale cameo-like face, gleaming brighter for its dark surrounding of tumultuous hair? Had he beheld her, as she glided across the apartment with her brief blind gaze turned a few moments towards them, ere she sank trembling and convulsed into the gorgeous high-backed chair? Had he seen her, as she rose up once, and once only, during his conversation with Susan, and showed a countenance so wan and ghastly, with the tips of her slender fingers pressed on her brow, like props to a fallen gable, like supports to a reeling brain? Had he seen that wild, distracted and appealing stare into vacancy? It is charity to suppose that he had not. It is a question that had better, for the credit of human nature, remain unsolved.

As his heavy tread was heard descending the stairs, Susan cast a glance of mingled hatred and relief at his departure after him.

"Yes," she said, "I should think your friends' burials were just what you delight in, you ill-omened old raven, you! It just suits you to see your ugly name in the newspapers along with a lot of humbugs like yourself. You never thought of helping the poor gentleman when he was alive, and now you make a rare pretence with your private theatricals and rubbish, just to make a fuss about your own names. I should like to know how much the widow and children, poor things, are likely to get out of it, when you've had your dinners and speeches out of the fund, as you call it. I wonder whether Tops is gone. I should like to let him know what I've heard, and whether it is possible to keep it from coming to her." And the kind-hearted girl dried her eyes as well as she could, and hastily left the room.

CHAPTER XII.

NEVER ANY MORE.

A broken lute on a darkened floor,
A faded token of love long o'er,
The sound of a footstep to a door
Which once came often, but comes no more.

BLANCHE, who had sunk down in the chair with her throbbing temples pressed between her hands, remained for some minutes perfectly still and motionless. There was no sound to be heard in the room, save the monotonous ticking of the large French timepiece, though the heavy mutterings of the retreating storm ever and anon caused the windows to rattle slightly. Suddenly, with a sharp, piercing, but stifled cry, like that of a wounded creature in a brake, Blanche once more rose, and tottered a step or two from her chair, till she reached the table, which she grasped convulsively by the edge. There she stood awhile, with dilated nostrils and heaving bosom. Then she steadied herself, undid the bracelets from her still beautiful arms, and laid them carefully on the table. Her watch, set with brilliants, her chain, her magnificent rings, and even her diamond ear-rings followed. Listen! she is talking, with low and husky voice.

Hush! what is it she says? There is something in the tone of her voice that speaks of accents nearly numbered on this earth, of a life about to be cut short—her words sound like echoes from the ante-chamber of Death!

"I have had a terrible dream, Arthur, dearest Arthur!" she said. "Where are you? Ah, where? What was it that voice said, whose every accent burnt into my brain, until I could hear no more? My husband faithless? And with whom? Blind, blind, oh, so blind, and deserted, betrayed! On the anniversary of our wedding-day, too! He spoke so kindly when he went out. Can it be true, all which that dreadful man spoke about, and said that everybody knows, save one alone, myself? Yes, yes; I have felt it long, dreamt of it, all but known it, and now I know. What hour is it?" As she said this, she felt for the watch she had laid down on the table, and pressed a repeater. "Ten o'clock!" she continued. "Ten! His last gift, his last! It was a cruel gift; for it told me the hours of his absence. It will do so no more. When he comes home, he will be spared one sin, one falsehood more, and then he will be free—free as he could desire. What is that noise? 'Tis the storm and the wind without." She listened a few moments, and then continued: "There is no one here to witness my despair. He will come here and find the trinkets, the presents, with which he thought to lull the dark suspicions of my heart. But he will see the blind, neglected wife no more. He can give them to her. I left the cloak and hood, which I sometimes put on to watch for him, when it grows cold late into the night, in the corner behind my harp. Let me get it, and then——" Whilst uttering these last words she felt her way with incredible skill and patience, until she found the articles of which she was in search, and then guided herself by the wall to the door. "The storm outside rages. And now, without a tear, I go forth blind into the night. But I cannot stay here any more—no, no, not here!"

She left the room-door ajar, and felt her way down-stairs into the hall. Anon came the brief patter and dripping of the rain and the noise of the wheels of a passing cab, as she opened the street-door. Then the door closed harshly and reluctantly, as if conscious upon whom it shut. The noise of the closing door was heard by Susan as she came to the top of the kitchen-stairs, very red about her cheeks and eyes. She knew all the servants were below. "Who can it be?" she thought. Then the idea of thieves possessed her violently. So she ran down again, and called Mr. Binsby, who listened to her story with an air of patronising incredulity, which at any other time would have roused Susan's ire. At last, he condescended to look through the rooms on the ground-floor, through motives of politeness; but in a manner which would have tempted any looker-on to wish that a thief might bolt from underneath the table between his legs and upset so much importance, which was, at least, equal to that of an acting member of the Court of Lieutenancy of the City of London about to sign the commission of an ensign of Volunteers. The page, however, at Mrs. Susan's suggestion, peeped under various articles of furniture, and the footman looked into the closets and cupboards. Mr. Binsby at length shook his head in token that further search was not to be made.

"I don't care," said Susan; "I am as certain that some one opened and shut that street-door as that I stand here; and whoever it was went out, or else they must have been in the hall directly after."

"The hats and coats is hall right," said Mr. Binsby, conclusively, and the search was ended.

Susan, still in dread, went up-stairs, accompanied by the under-housemaid, whom she requested to go with her. They looked into the drawing-room together, before going up to Mrs. Aubrey's room.

"Missus said she would lie down nearly two hours agone," said Susan, "but she can't be asleep; at least, if she is, it's the first time I've known her do such a thing, while that cruel brute stayed out as usual. But either she or some one has been here; for I shut the drawing-room door, after old Stingray had gone, I'm as sure as—— Lor! whatever's this?"

The two girls had entered the drawing-room together, and Susan's eye had fallen upon the little heap of jewellery on the table. For a moment she appeared stupefied, and then rushed out of the room and darted up-stairs. She came down again pale and breathless.

"The door! the door!" she gasped, and then ran to the top of the stairs, and shrieked out, "Missus! Mrs. Aubrey! missus! She's run away—gone such a night as this! and she blind, too! Here, don't stand staring there," she cried to the housemaid;

"run down and tell them. We must all go after her."

Then she rang the bell furiously, while the housemaid hurried down-stairs.

"Whatever can be the meaning of this? Ah!" she cried, "if she heard what that old wretch was saying. He spoke loud enough, and the door was open. Oh, my dear mistress, I shall never see her any more!"

So saying, she ran down-stairs, in order to send all the domestics in pursuit, and found Mr. Binsby looking up from his chair with the same look of incredulity with which he had listened to the story of the street-door.

"Have you looked in her bed as well as elsewhere?" he inquired, putting down his newspaper, and looking over his spectacles at Susan, as she entered with a face and manner which caused him to drop his jaw slightly, and finish his sentence more abruptly than he would otherwise have done.

"Make haste! all of you, and go after her!" screamed Susan. "I tell you she's gone out, and such a night as this, too. It was her I heard shut the street-door. She's heard—Mr. Stingray talking—she's gone out—I shouldn't wonder—to destroy—herself. Oh! my dear, dear mistress, we shall never see her any more!"

And the faithful creature wrung her hands in an agony of tears. A change came over Mr. Binsby's whole deportment. His face grew so fixed and serious, that as the page was after heard to say, "It was horful to see him. He looked just like 'Amlet in the play, honly hever so much holder, you know." Then Mr. Binsby lost his self-possession, and grasping a candlestick, although the lamps outside were all lighted—a circumstance which he was often wont to narrate afterwards—he hurried up-stairs, followed by them all, and opened the street-door. All was silent outside. The pale blue lightning gleamed on the wet pavement, and lit up the architectural varieties of the neighbouring houses, converting shadows into lights, and lights into shadows, showing a desperate tom-cat springing with arched back across the road outward or homeward bound on the first opportunity after the storm, and revealing the shining oilskin cape and ungainly form of a distant policeman turning a corner. But nothing else was to be seen.

"Here!" said Binsby, with energy; for, strange to say, he had surrendered his incredulity instantaneously, and accepted Mrs. Aubrey's departure as a fact on Susan's last revelation. "Here, my boy," addressing the page, "you go with them," pointing to the cook and housemaid, "that way; and you," he said to Susan and the footman, "foller hup the street. I'll go and speak to the perlice. You two," he said, to the scullery-maid and second housemaid, "stop here. Some one must be left in the 'ouse."

No one would have recognised Binsby at that moment. He looked a third less large, and all his importance had vanished. For he dearly loved and respected his young lady; though he did say some weeks after, that if she had been in a different position before marriage, such a dreadful thing couldn't have happened.

"And why so?" asked Mr. Binsby. "The reasons is hobvious. If people of rank was to give in to jealousy, there'd be an end to all their marridges."

But Mr. Binsby, at least for one night of his life, neither sought the repose needed by his weighty frame, nor uttered a single pompous or unnecessary phrase.

The whole party had scarcely disappeared on their search, and the plaintive cries of Susan had only just become inaudible from the steps of the Maison Aubrey, as she looked in search of a white, prostrate form down the gloom of a neighbouring street, when some one hurriedly opened, with a latch-key, the door which they had just quitted, and bounded up the familiar steps into the brilliantly illuminated drawing-room of his tasteful and luxurious home.

"Blanche! dearest Blanche!" cried that ever-welcome intruder—before his eyes grew accustomed to the light, and he saw that he addressed only the inanimate furniture of the room—"forgive me this last unkindness, and I will never, never come home late any more."

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR SENSATION-HEADER.

The Republic of Venice had its one Bridge of Sighs; the limited monarchy of Great Britain its half-dozen, and that in its chief metropolis alone.

IT may seem impossible that Blanche could have got clear away from the house that night, but she did so in a very short space of time. Had she been asked how, she could not have told; nor did she ever remember distinctly how the first half-hour passed. She fell repeatedly, and heard once or twice, without regarding them, the hoarse challenges of the drivers of vehicles, probably cabs, from which she must have had a narrow escape. The first thing of which she had a distinct recollection, was the voices of children surrounding her, probably in the entrance of some narrow court or alley, where the neglected little wretches were playing, if it could be called play, at that hour, while their parents, if they had any, were possibly thieving, or perhaps working hard and late to eke out their miserable existence. She heard a girl's voice calling her "lady," and pleading hard for a halfpenny.

"I will give you this," said Blanche, with hollow accents, feeling in her pocket for some loose silver which she happened to have there, "if you will lead me to Westminster Bridge; for I am blind."

"Let me go! No, I'll take the lady! I knows the shortest way! Get out, will yer! I was fust!" and similar cries surrounded her on all sides.

"It's me as spoke first," said the voice that first begged from her; "I'm Nelly Brown; father's dead and mother's out charing. Please, I know the way."

"Give me your hand," replied Blanche, in husky tones; "you shall go with me and guide me!"

The news soon spread that a young lady, "drest, oh, so beautiful!" and blind as Sal Tomkins's old man, who had a board hung round his neck, and a little dog to lead him, and who earned an excellent living, with the connivance of the police, somewhere in the West-end, had chartered little Nelly Brown to lead her to Westminster Bridge: the consequence was, that for some time Blanche and her guide were followed by a crowd of small children, asking the former to chuck a ha'penny, and jeering the latter unmercifully; but Blanche heeded them not. Ere long, however, the appearance of a policeman fluttered the ragged tribe of young Volscians; and the pair pursued their way unmolested, at least by the juvenile gathering of little ragamuffins which at first dogged their steps. More than one policeman hesitated on his beat, as if irresolute whether or not to challenge their future progress. But these apparently saw nothing to justify such a proceeding, and certainly there was not. Twice they were subjected to the attentions of amatory prowlers, struck by the figure, dress, and beauty of as much of the countenance of Blanche as they could discern. But each gallant, after a look at the fixed stare and strange expression of the mysterious lady, thus led along by a dirty beggar-girl, slackened his pace and dropped off; nor was Blanche in the slightest degree aware of the fact of their scrutiny or baffled chase. A hag-like old woman hung on their skirts some time with villainous intent of plunder; but as Blanche had left every object of jewellry behind her, the prospect did not seem sufficiently tempting to induce perseverance in such nefarious project or attempt. A drunken navvy did actually seize her in his arms, when they neared the bridge just opposite the venerable old Abbey, which loomed grand and indistinct against the dark pile of thunder-clouds beyond. The beggar child beat him with her small dirty paws, and cried "Let the blind lady alone!" and he relinquished his hold and staggered away muttering to a companion, "I say, Bill, here's a go. S'elp me ——! I got hold of a blind woman for a fancy gal."

At length they were on the bridge.

"Lead me to the side," said Blanche, "and let me lean upon the parapet. I can hear the water beneath. Tell me exactly where we are." The child described to her as well as she could where they stood. It was on the Houses of Parliament side, just clear of the terrace. The bridge was very silent and nearly deserted. In fact the other end was completely blocked by works and scaffolding, and the passage of vehicles was entirely interrupted. Every now and then a distant flash of lightning illuminated the river over towards Lambeth and Chelsea. "Thank you!" said Blanche very softly to the girl, "that will do. Here is your reward. Run away home and make yourself happy with it. It is honestly earned. Good night!"

The girl paused, and looked at the money under a lamp. She had never had so much; and she longed to run home and acquaint her mother, who must be back, she thought, by that time. But she did not like to leave that kind afflicted lady on the bridge alone. Young as she was, there was something which alarmed her instincts.

"I can stay, lady, if you like, and take you back," she said; "mother don't mind my being out late, and Betsy Staples will tell her what I'm a doing of."

"I am not going back," said Blanche. "Go home as fast as you can; I assure you I have no need of you more. Take the money to your mother. Farewell!"

The child eyed Blanche with a puzzled expression; but she was too young to appreciate the situation, and the temptation to get home with the money was great. So she curtsied in the dark to her blind charge, and said "Good-bye, kind lady;" and started off at a rapid walk, which, after she had ineffectually looked round to see what Blanche was doing once or twice, soon quickened into a run.

Blanche Aubrey stood in the shadow of the great filagree-palace of British misrepresentation, as Big

Ben dismally told out eleven o'clock. She could not see

Where the lights quiver
So far in the river
From garret to basement;
but she could hear the rush of the broad and bubbling river, and her full heart and burning head throbbed to be at rest. The low parapet was so tempting; besides she could not live. She had no home left, no husband, no wish, no world. She was impatient to be released from trouble and pain; and to free him from a clog, a burden. She had lived only for him; and to her he was more than dead. All the principal scenes of her life crowded through her troubled brain, and with them some of the most trivial. She thought of a dress she had not finished, and what would become of it, and whether it would be trimmed in anything like the fashion she had designed. She thought of a walk by the river-side when she was a child, and made chains out of dandelion stalks. She thought of a white hat which her husband had worn the first time she ever saw him, and how becoming it was to his clear, dark complexion. But the predominating thought was extreme weariness and disgust of everything. She had once dreamt that she was drowned, and it was not painful. On the contrary, the water bore her along with a delicious murmur, between fragrant and flowery banks unto a broad expanse of ocean, when gradually recollection was lost, and then she awoke. She longed to dream that dream over again. And then her lips moved mechanically in a simple prayer. Poor creature! on the brink of that fearful crime, she dared to address the Creator on behalf of another, and that other, him who had so cruelly wronged her, and who was now to be to her no more.

Strange to say no resentment mingled that night with her feelings towards Aubrey. She seemed to accept everything as a natural result of her calamity. But while she still stands there, pausing but not irresolute, ere the round black guilty world slips globe-like from her numb feet, and the last fatal plunge into eternal gloom is taken, we must beg our readers to observe a strange, dim figure of a man, at no great distance from her, and to listen to a very different soliloquy from a very different style of human being, before he became conscious of the propinquity of Blanche Aubrey on the bridge.

This mortal, whoever he was, had approached within a few paces, coming from the Lambeth side of the water, just as the little girl disappeared in the dark on the other side.

"Blest if that 'ere lightnin' ain't put my pipe out," he remarked aloud to himself, as he hitched round a piece of sacking from his shoulders, and banged it a few times against the stone parapet in order to get rid of the superfluous wet. "Reyther a damp night this for a hout-door lodger vith the key of the street. Vell, I suppose Sir Richard Mayne know'd I was a goin' to sleep here to night, and so he has 'ad a barrier put up this werry arternoon at t'other end of the bridge, that I may not be vakened by the homnibuses. Werry kind and thoughtful that of the Chief Commissioner of the 'Bobbies.' Now, here's a piece o' scaffoldin' werry 'andy. I likes my boards dry, and as for softness, vy ain't I myself 'downy'? Says I to myself, 'Cove! don't be a wictim to too much luxury; you 'ad tripe and inions for supper last night, and was cut down this mornin' at seven in a fourpenny lodgin'. Your feller-citizens is werry considyrate of you, Downy; they know too much sleep ain't good for your constitooshun. So down you comes with a run on the floor, and gets turned hall at vunce into a parlour-boarder. I pities them folks in feather-beds as is afraid o' lightnin'. Let's consider my kimmershal transackshuns a little, afore I retires for the night. I opened and shut seven cabs this arternoon, and 'eld vun 'oss, and showed vun gent the vay to the Cross, and collered honly threepence ha'penny. If it hadn't been for a good-natured cabby, I should have gone vithout a blessed drain of anythink this blessed night. I'll jest turn it afore I sees another Bobby. I never could sleep comfortable in the cage, and as for 'movin' on,' the Cove ain't hambitious, and he don't feel novays hanxious to himmortalise himself by diskiverin' the secret of perpetival motion."

So saying, he laid himself very carefully down on some covered boarding, supplied by an unfinished workman's hut.

As he did so, a policeman came by and turned his bulls'-eye full upon him. The Downy seemed at first doubtful whether he should counterfeit sleep or not. But on second thoughts, he opened his eyes, nodded, and executed an unmistakable wink.

"Good night!" he said, "I hopes Mrs. Robert is vell, and the fammerly."

The only reply made by the "officer" whom he thus addressed, was a shake of the head, as he continued on his dreary beat.

"Now that's wot I calls kind," remarked the Downy to himself, "and desarves a large lump o' cold meat at the very next airey he comes to." With that he partly rose up, in order to shift his position and make himself more "comfortable," before addressing himself to sleep. At that very moment a distant flash of lightning revealed to his astonished gaze a tall white female form leaning over the parapet about thirty yards off, on the other side of the bridge. The Cove was not superstitious—he was not versed in the supernatural lore of his country; and therefore he did not for a moment think that it was a ghost that he had seen, however spectral and apparition-like the figure of Blanche appeared.

"Holloa!" he said, "another of them poor creeturs as is tired of a merry life. I dessay it would be a mercy not to hinterfere vith her, but I can't see it done and sleep here 'appy. No, I can't see it done; nor wot's more, I von't, not if I can 'elp it." And so saying, he stealthily approached Blanche, until he could hear her passionate murmurs of distress.

"The poor child led me faithfully," she said. "The money I gave her will make some poor creatures happy. All the treasures of the world could not reconcile me to life. How, as I came here, I wished some vehicle would crush me, and spare me the commission of this crime!"

"Ah! there it is!" whispered the Downy, "jest wot I thought, crime and soocide. I vish I'd got some of them as caused it here."

"I have not been very wicked," continued Blanche; "unless it was in loving him so dearly and so well. I noticed how low this parapet is, as I passed here blithe and happy, just before my poor sight fled, and he ceased to love me. Oh, Arthur, Arthur! I forgive you!"

"I vish I'd the 'andling of him, that's all," muttered the Downy.

"Oh, Arthur!" she resumed, "we shall meet again. Merciful Spirit of Eternal Love, forgive me, as I do him! The water rushes beneath. I hear it plashing. The distant thunder sounds my knell. The unseen lightnings have scorched my brain, which all the rain could not cool or moisten. Now, now! Farewell, world! Arthur! Love! Forgive him, Heaven!"

"Not if I knows it, young 'ooman!" shouted the Downy, making a dash at her. But he was a moment too late. She had thrown herself over the parapet.

She was gone! So desperate was the bound he had made to reach her, that he narrowly escaped pitching headforemost over the parapet, and, as it was, he fell forward sprawling upon it; for the next half second grasping the wet stone with his hands and arms to save himself. In a moment he recovered his balance, and with a hoarse shout for help, he dashed round to the steps of the bridge, which fortunately were not very far.

"Help! A woman over the bridge!" he shouted once again, ere he flung his coat off and plunged into the stream. As we have said, he was a strong and bold swimmer, accustomed to emergencies such as the present one; and well for him was it that he was so, besides being gifted with an eye keen as that of hawk or hound. The tide bore Blanche up awhile; and her white dress rendered her floating form visible to the Downy's keen and practised sight. But it was long before he reached her, and then came the terrible struggle to get back. Fortunately, there were several floating rafts and barges moored along the terrace-side, and two or three steamers with chains hung round. Meanwhile, a boatman, who expected an early fare, a gentleman in training whom he rowed down to Chelsea to get into his outrigger every morning, and who had accordingly moored his boat somewhere near the bridge, had got alarmed about its safety at high-water, and had come down to look after it just then. He speedily got in and rowed towards the struggling pair, amid the acclamations of the three or four persons already congregated on the bridge.

"He's got 'em safe enough," cried one of them. "I see 'em by the lightning, quite plain. Down there, all of you, to the right by the steps."

It had already recommenced raining heavily, which accounted for so few being on the bridge, where the sole person remaining near the scene of the catastrophe was a benighted orange-girl, who looked with less excitement and eagerness than might have been expected, over the parapet, at that portion of what was going on beneath, which the darkness allowed to be seen. As she looked, she rested on the parapet her basket of swelled oranges, which had remained unsold, possibly on account of the rainy and tempestuous day. While thus employed, a party of four persons, two male, and two female, approached her. They had come from the Surrey side of the water, but were fashionably dressed.

"Only think," said one of the party to another, a lady, as they approached the orange-girl. "Only think of there being no cab to be got, and such a night, too. It's enough to give one bwonchitis, or diptheywia."

"And such a low part of the town to pass through!" said the lady. "I never was so frightened. And there's Miss Dareall, as usual, making fun of it all. What spirits and courage that girl has!"

"Yaas," replied Mr. Swellingham, for that was the worthy's name; "she goes through life like a steeple-chase. I own I can't keep up with her."

Here, with the prevailing idea which besets street vendors, that every one must be in want under all or any circumstances of the article which they may happen to sell, the orange-girl slung round her basket, and addressed them with the usual drawl.

"Any oranges, fine St. Mikils, two a penny, sir: won't you buy any, ma'am?"

"I say," quoth Mr. Swellingham, "what's the wow? I heard a shout as if some one was being dwowned."

"What is the matter, young woman?" said the elder of the two ladies to the girl.

"It's a girl they're a trying to get out of the water," replied that individual. "Do buy some oranges; they're only two a penny."

"How howwid!" cried Swellingham; "but we weally can't help her, 'pon honour. Can we?"

"Where? Where is the poor creature?" cried the younger lady, whom we may as well inform our readers at once was no other than Miss Kate Dareall, on her way home from the Surrey Theatre. The orange-girl pointed with her finger towards the steps.

"There, by this time, if they've got her. But I don't think she'd a chance; let alone the likelihood of her having struck agen somethink in the fall."

Miss Dareall did not wait for her to finish, but ran on towards the steps, followed closely by Sir Harry Luckless, the fourth of the party.

"Do, kind lady, buy some oranges, they're fourteen for sixpence. Do ma'am! I haven't sold one to-day," continued the persevering huckster, addressing the remaining lady.

"Go away, creature, you'll soil my dress!" cried Miss Ada Montmorency, of the Hesperides corps de ballet, whose mother had been, up to within the previous eight years, a priestess of the soi-disant "real St. Michael," herself.

"A curse on you with your finery!" cried the girl, who was really a good-looking specimen of her class. "My oranges are cleaner than your hands, ay, or heart either, I'll warrant. It's the likes of you that makes poor creaturs drown theirselves."

Mr. Swellingham raised his attenuated umbrella.

Let us do him justice, it was not to strike; for he was a good-hearted fellow enough; but the girl interpreted the movement differently.

"You hit me?" she cried, "you brute; I'll scratch your eyes out."

Mr. Swellingham prudently declined the combat; and hurried on with his fair convoy as quickly as he could, pursued by a volley of abuse from the girl who followed close on their steps.

"Police! police!" cried the Montmorency.

"Cab! cab!" shouted Swellingham. "Wherever can Sir Harry and that madcap girl have got to?"

"Depend upon it," said the ballerina, "they have not waited for us, or perhaps they have secured a cab at the stand by the House of Commons there, and are waiting for us. Do pray let us hasten on."

And the twain did accordingly hasten on, passing the steps down which Miss Dareall, followed by Sir Harry, had run; the latter pair just arriving when the boatman, assisted by the four or five persons who had found their way thither, was in the act of lifting the form of the insensible Blanche out of his skiff, while the dripping Downy stood shaking himself on the stair like a lean and famished Newfoundland dog, whose wet coat clinging close to his ribs, shows the real attenuation of his shape.

"Is she saved?" cried the actress. "Oh! only tell me that the poor creature breathes." And she shuddered as the leaden-hued water swirled through the dusky piles, and came close, with a lapping, eager sound, to her feet, as she stood gazing at the now ascending group, while they bore their inanimate burden to the first platform of the stairs.

"She's safe enough to come round," answered the Downy, who was too exhausted to assist them as yet; "that is," he added, "if she ain't took pison as well, as vun on 'em did vunce as I saved from drowndin' afore."

"Believe me, my brave fellow," said Sir Harry, "you shall be handsomely rewarded for this."

"So I'm allers told," replied the Downy, drily; if such a term could possibly be applied to him at that moment. "But, mind yer, I don't look for more than a kivarten of gin, and may be a trifle for baccy. Somehow I generally saves them as has no money for theirselves, and vot's more, don't thank no vun for a doin' of it. But the Downy Cove ain't noways pertikler to a trifle. As for the duckin', I've been vet enough these four hours, and this is honly goin' into it a little in the wholesale line, arter takin' of it in instalments. As to the Royal Humane Society's gold medal, I may be perwailed upon to accept that ven I gets it, along with the freedom of the City of London. Meanwhile, I ain't a goin' to ax the Lord Mayor to dinner to meet the Prince of Wales, until I gets my new dinin'-room furnitur French polished, and all the faramerly plate back from Hadmiral Poppem, my wenerable and respected huncle."

During this speech, the others had been busy in chafing the hands of Blanche, and endeavouring to restore animation to her insensible frame. Among these Kate Dareall was the most active and sensible in her proceedings. "Look, Harry!" she cried,

"she breathes! she moves! Never mind her wet cloak. Leave it for one of these poor creatures. I will see that she has all that she wants. She looks like a lady. But the story is plain enough. There is not a ring or ornament about her. Get a cab handy, some one. Take off your great-coat, Harry. Thank you, that will do. I will reward all handsomely. Stop! I will do it now. Here, my good man," she said to the boatman, "take this five-pound note, you deserve it. And here is a sovereign a piece for the rest."

One of the party quickly ran up for the cab.

"Look, Harry," continued Miss Dareall, "how beautiful she is!" And she pointed to the alabaster face that lay pillowed on her knee, while the long dark tresses of the rescued sufferer swept the dank and dripping stairs. "Help me to wring her long hair," she continued.

"Great Heaven!" cried Sir Harry, turning as pale as Blanche herself. "What do I see?" And he staggered back, and possibly might have fallen into the water, had it not been for the ever-ready Downey, who had finished his brief toilet, and already performed a little double-shuffle on the stairs, to restore the circulation of the vital fluid within.

"Hold hup, guvernor," he shouted, "hunless you're good for a swim. Blest if I could save any more of yer this turn; no, not if you was to hoffer to set me up in the public line, and give me the deckerashun of the Bath."

Sir Harry stared about him wildly; and grasping Miss Dareall by the arm, hoarsely muttered something in her ear, which caused that young lady to let Blanche's head fall from her knee upon the sharp edge of the granite stair.

"It is Mrs. Aubrey!" were his words. "God in heaven! What can have happened. What has done this?"

The actress uttered a single exclamation of surprise; and then instantly regaining her self-possession, "Hush, hush! Calm yourself, Harry!" she whispered. "Not a word! not a word!"

At that instant the man who had run for the cab returned to say that one awaited them above.

Fortunately for the success of Miss Dareall's friendly design, the few persons present, besides the boatman, and the Downy, and themselves, were all of the humblest class of persons, and none had the desire to busy themselves more than was needed, or, now that they were recompensed so generously, to remain upon the scene at all.

"Here you brave man," said Kitty, addressing the Downy, "where do you live? Is it anywhere near here?"

"Live?" replied that individual; "uncommon handy, to be sure. Vestminster Bridge scaffoldin' is vere I hangs out at present. Wery harrystocratic neighbourhood, spacious premises, and well wentilated too. It's no use writin'. There ain't no number on the door at present."

"I see," said Miss Dareall; "I might have known, had I thought a moment. Then you can come with us."

The Downy nodded his acquiescence.

"Can you help me to bear her up these stairs? There! there! gently—that's right; run and open the cab-door ready for us, will you, Harry, if you're not utterly dumbfounded? Not to be wondered at, if he is," she said, as Sir Harry mechanically sprung forward to obey her. "There, there—so, gently—gently," and then the party quickly ascended the stairs. Under the guidance of the actress, Blanche was safely placed inside, having once or twice opened her blind eyes with a dreary, languid stare; and Sir Harry and Miss Dareall supported her between them, while the Downy was instructed to mount the box, and stop at a public-house at a sufficient distance from the scene; for the twofold purpose of avoiding the mention of any address, and of getting some restorative both for Blanche and her preserver, a proposition to which the latter had probably as little objection as if he had been listening to a two hours' sermon on temperance on the hottest Sunday in the State of Maine.

The cab had just turned the corner, and the four bystanders were wending their way over the bridge to the nearest public on their side of the water, near "Hashley's Theáyter," as they termed that place, long sacred to equestrian delight, when the poor orange-girl came shuffling back, after her vain pursuit of Swellingham and the Montmorency, to learn what had come of the drowned woman; for such she had decided she must be. At the top of the steps she saw something lying. It was Blanche's cloak, which Sir Harry had taken possession of, and let fall in his agitation, as he well might.

She stooped and picked it up, and then laying her tray on the ground, commenced folding it up. "Poor creetur," she said to herself. "It ain't no more use to her, whoever she was."

"Holloa!" cried the active and intelligent officer, who had been on a little visit in his turn to a public, to get his accustomed half pint with a drop of something warm. "What are you doing of there?" and he snatched the mantle roughly from her hands. "Who have you been a robbin' of, eh?"

"There's a woman been and drownded herself," said the girl. "Indeed, sir, I didn't steal it. I picked it up just here."

"Picked it up, did yer?" shouted the "active and intelligent officer." "A likely tale! A woman drownding is there? Here! help! fire! murder! theives! Here!" and he sprung his rattle, which speedily brought a brace of confreres to his side, besides a little mob of the unwashed, or rather, to speak more correctly, the washed, as it happened that stormy afternoon and night.

"Here, Bill! she says there's a woman drownding somewheres. I knows her well enough. She's been a begging here all the week."

And with that he dealt a kick to her basket, which sent her oranges rolling into the mud of the street, and down the bridge-stairs, where they were speedily chased by sundry of the pauper population of our merry island home.

"A drownded woman, eh? Come along to the station, my beauty, and I'll give you a night's lodging for nothing."

"Oh, pray, sir, let me go!" shrieked the girl.

"What! you won't come, won't yer? then I'll make yer," was the answer. "What! prigging a drownded woman's clothes by your own confession, which is wanted for hevidence of felony? I'll lock yer up, that's what I will. Here, Bill, lend a hand!"

In vain did the luckless orange-girl fight and struggle. With torn hair and dress, and shoulders pinched black and blue by the fierce grasp of three stout policemen, and, we regret to say, not without a severe blow or two on her bare head administered by a zealous young Irishman recently affiliated to the Force, she was borne off, with cries and resistance growing fainter and fainter, until she was finally flung, wet, muddy, bleeding, and nearly senseless, in the cold and reeking cell, where half a dozen "unfortunates," whose chief crime was abject poverty, and homeless want, were already incarcerated before her, awaiting the solemn farce of beadledom in the morning, when the comfortable Rhadamanthus of the day should have breakfasted, and be ready to furnish the newest legal paraphrase of the story of Dives and Lazarus to the full satisfaction of a Christian land.

Reader! Is this sketch exaggerated? No, it is far below the average cruelty of such nightly events. The victim should have had a sickly baby in her arms, and three more vainly awaiting her return home to their squalid den in helpless hunger and dirty tears. She should not even have suggested the appropriation of anything not her own, but have had nothing save the rags on herself and child, and a copper coin in her clammy clutch dropped into her lap by some passing stranger unsolicited even by an imploring look. Then the picture would have been more perfect, we own; and the wisdom and mercy of the Court might have manifested itself either by giving her "a month," or discharging her, according to the temper and digestion of the "worthy magistrate," or the zeal of the "active and intelligent officers," who had marked her as their own.

Again the ponderous bridge was cleared of the actors in the second little sensation scene which had enlivened its monotony that night. But the news had somehow spread that a woman had jumped over, or been pushed into the water, and a British crowd quickly assembled, as only a British crowd can.

"There she is!" cried one. "I see her floating ever so far up. She's 'arf way to Vauxhall by now. I tell you I see her plain, just opposite that chimbly."

The excitement became great; and so remarkable were some of its consequences, that various trifles were magnetically affected by it, including a snuff-box, three pocket-handkerchiefs, and a purse containing one pound ten shillings, so as to cause them to vacate their owners' pockets in a most remarkable way, and be transferred to those of two or three of the crowd apparently most interested in the fate of the drowning person "half way to Vauxhall." And not a policeman was in sight! What is that chorus borne along by the wind? "We won't go home till morning till daylight doth appear." Presently, a dozen young fellows came along, arm-in-arm and in line, singing, shouting, and yelling at the top of their discordant voices; they bonnetted, abused, and insulted every one, especially females, in their path. They saw a garotted man lying insensible in the street, but as one of the party suggested that he was "drunk, —— drunk, by ——!" and appeared quite capable of forming a correct judgment, no one attempted to ascertain its correctness. Presently Big Ben boomed forth the midnight hour, and the bridge again became silent, and the river rushed back towards ocean, and the shadowy panorama twinkled with innumerable lights, and the stars shone out in the sky cleared from the last driving storm-cloud, and mingled with the earthly gleams reflected in the broad bosom of the river, as the true mingles with the false.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FEELINGS OF THE FIRM.

He shall be as benevolent as a lawyer who sits nursing his leg and listening to the tales of one whom his own client oppresses. You shall touch his feelings as readily as a baby fumbling a cocoa-nut extracts thence the milk of sustenance. Your freedom shall be like that of a rabbit in the cage of a serpent, before he is ready for the act of deglutition. You shall hardly stir the devil within him to malice, so surely has he marked you for his prey.

IT was Monday morning in Webb's Fields, and the Law might be said to be generally refreshed and renovated by its varied observance of the Sabbath-day. Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens sat, three years older in legal practice and worldly experience, in their chambers in Spider-court. The former was a little more troubled with dyspepsia; the latter suffered from a slightly increased periodical attack of king's evil, a weak chest, and corns. His bootmaker had philanthropically forgotten to make the necessary arrangement for them on his last, when furnishing him with his latest supply of inevitable patent leathers. After all, there is a great unseen compensating power ever at work in human affairs. A ruined litigant had just left their office in perfect health. The ways of Providence none can dare to arraign, who believes in another world; but even here below the golden cup of prosperity does not always overbrim with sweetness; the iron ladle of poverty sometimes assuages a wholesome and honest thirst. Mr. Grinderby's eldest son could scarcely be termed his hope, and occasioned him a great deal of disquietude. He did not accommodate himself to his father's views and ways of life; a circumstance which did not emanate from an ungrateful disposition or a barren heart. Mr. Cousens had bestowed his affections, such as they were, upon a worthless and disreputable woman, whom he had cleverly tempted, as he thought, from her allegiance to his own chief associate and "friend," whereas she cared for neither, and had long since bestowed her liking upon a grocer's apprentice in Tottenham Court-road, unknown to both. The friend had displayed a great deal of very inconvenient jealousy; and the knowing Phil had merely been made use of at a moment, when she could no longer hope to divert suspicion from her misdeeds, and avoid being thrown upon her own resources and the doubtful chivalry of the gay young dispenser of figs. Moreover, delightful to relate, the astute Mr. Cousens was actually so far infatuated by this Casino-frequenting Dalilah of thirty, that he was on the point of entering secretly into the holy bonds of matrimony with her. Yes, she was on the point of making an honest man of him at last. All this may have been exciting as it was strange; but it did not tend to happiness. Phil laughed as usual, "but not merry." Moreover, the circumstances under which the éclaircissement took place between Mr. Cousens and his injured friend were not of a proud and gratifying character. The friend was a West-end client of the firm, and up to a certain period Mr. Cousens had been an upright counsellor, so far as to lose no occasion to influence his "fidus Achates" against an extravagant expenditure on the lady in question. All at once, his tone changed, and as he was general referee and arbitrator of their frequent quarrels, Orestes took advantage of the situation to urge Pylades, to the great surprise of the latter, to bestow a round sum of money down upon the lady, and act generously in the matter. Unfortunately, Orestes' reasons for giving this advice were hardly so plausible as they ought to have been, in order to carry conviction to the bosom of Pylades.

"If I were you, old fellow," said the former, "I'd settle it one way or another. She's so fond of you, you see, that she can't bear you to show a want of confidence in her. 'Let him only treat me as a woman ought to be treated,' she said to me last Wednesday, 'and he'll soon see whether I care for him or not.' And it's worth trying, in my opinion," added Phil, "with a woman like that. She has such a high spirit, you see."

"True," returned Pylades, who had especial reason to know it, dating no further back than that morning; "and what would you advise me to do?"

"Give her one thousand pounds down and the furniture of the house in the Grove," replied Phil, cheerily and decisively. "That's what I should do. Look here, old fellow! you can't expect that woman's affections, without showing confidence in her. She's full of pride, and she said to me, 'Let him do something for me, and then he'll see what I am.' Of course it's no business of mine; but since you ask my advice," said Phil (which the other had not done), "I give it, that's all." And the friendly man of law balanced himself on his chair between the desk and wall, and threw up a small ruler a little way, which he caught, as if he were practising honest sleight of hand.

"And suppose, if I did, she was to bolt?" inquired the other.

"Let her!" magnanimously returned Mr. Cousens. "Let her, I say. And if you're the man I take you to be, you wouldn't regret the outlay, that's all."

"Hem!" said the other, "it's all very well to talk; but a man don't like to be done."

"It's my opinion," quoth Phil, still throwing up his ruler, and speaking very slowly, as if the occupation were of much more moment than the advice, "that she'll no more bolt from you, old fellow, than—than—this ruler." At this moment he nearly overbalanced himself, and the ruler came down with some violence on the floor.

"Then you really advise me?" said the other.

"I advise—nothing!" said Phil, recommencing to "toss the caber," as he facetiously called it. "I certainly believe the woman loves you" (here he narrowly escaped being hit on the head); "and she thinks you don't really care for her. Women are strange beings," added Phil. "Look at Joan of Arc, and Mary Queen of Scots, and the Maid of Saragossa.

By-the-bye, did you ever see such a likeness as there is between a certain party and that print?"

"Well, now you say so," replied Pylades, rather flattered by the idea, "I rather think there is. I wonder I never noticed it before. The fact is, Phil, I don't mind telling you, that Mabel has grown very queer-tempered of late, and if I thought any little thing I could do would do any good, you see, why I wouldn't much mind risking a little, eh?"

"You know best," replied Phil; "but perhaps you'd better wait a month or two, and see about it."

"And the Derby so near?" said Pylades, reflectingly; "and Cremorne just going to open?"

What these events had to do with the matter, probably the speaker could best explain himself; but Mr. Cousens understood him for all that.

The fish had swallowed the bait, and the troller could very well afford to slacken his line now. So he merely remarked that he was a "dear old fellow," knew his own affairs best, and that all he had to say was, that he, Orestes, should not be in a hurry, if he were Pylades, "you know." The consequence of all this was that Mr. Cousens received implicit instructions immediately to prepare the papers settling the one thousand pounds, and bestowing the furniture of No. 64, Lorrimore Villas, upon this faithless Circe, who wore a gipsy hat in the rural vicinity of the Haymarket.

But it chanced that Pylades, who made over the furniture the very next day, and who was to complete the gift of the thousand pounds, which necessitated a transfer of stock, on the following Monday, received information of such a startling character on the Saturday following his interview with Orestes, that he called at that worthy's chambers on Sunday, and put the matter to him in an ingenious and most inconvenient form. He wanted, he said, to ask his friend Phil's advice on behalf of another friend, who was suffering a shameful wrong at the hands of a man whom he trusted, and who was bound to him by every tie of gratitude.

Mr. Cousens was all attention. "You know, old fellow, I'll give you or any friend of yours the best advice I can," he said.

The fact was he scented a new client.

"It's a very delicate affair," said the other; "because it won't bear publicity, you see. But what should you think of a fellow who behaved as follows?" He then gave a sketch of his own position and Cousens's advice, without naming amounts, names, or particulars. "And all the while," he said, "this lying, pettifogging rascal, this fair-spoken, treacherous scoundrel, was intriguing with the wretched woman himself. Now, would you advise my friend," he continued, "to kick and horsewhip him, as he deserves, and thereby to publish his own folly and absurdity, as well as the whole affair; or to treat him with silent abhorrence and contempt, and never speak to him, or have anything to do with him again?"

Mr. Cousens tried to laugh, but the effort was hysterical, and produced only a slight rattling in his throat.

"What do you advise?" said the other, staring him in the face, not in the eyes; for his own were fixed on the pattern in the carpet; and the ghastly hues of a chameleon altogether in a bad and unhealthy way, were chasing each other over his mottled face, ordinarily rather highly coloured with a sort of scrofulous flush.

"All's fair in love, you know," he began at length.

"What!" cried the other, "and in friendship too. No, no! my kind, disinterested, considerate friend, it is a lie, a foul lie, to say that all is fair in love. It is the pretext of the seducer and swindler in one—the basest insult he can offer to the deity whose very mention his lying lips profane." The poor fellow had actually become eloquent in his wrongs. "It is a lie, I tell you, at the best, friend Cousens, and you know it. There is nothing fair in love but truth, and no love without it." He was thinking of all the falsehoods which had imposed upon his own foolish passion. "And at the worst," he shouted, "at the worst, in such a case as this, there is no dock bad enough in which to place a man who dares to offer such plea; no punishment sufficiently degrading; no criminal of the ordinary stamp, thief, forger, murderer though he be, bad enough to be consigned to the same cell—for he has stolen, forged, and murdered the only attributes which make us better than beasts that prey on each other, better than the skunk, or the rat, the crawling, noisome reptiles of the sewer. Excuse my heat," he said, "my dear friend Phil, but don't you agree with me? I can't think of it with patience; and whatever you say out of friendship to keep me cool and calm, I know you must think as I do. Why, you look quite agitated and moved yourself. No! I can't stop and smoke to-day, dear old boy!" (Mr. Cousens had made an abortive effort to put a cigar in his own mouth.) "I need not have asked your advice. I knew you would feel indignant; but don't be anxious about my friend. I shall tell him to cut the blackguard, that is all, never to speak to him, nor to shake hands with him" (and here he went through the process of wiping his hand with his handkerchief) "again; to shut the door on him, as I am going to shut this, and leave him to his own thoughts and conscience, eh? Good-bye, my dear friend. Thank you, thank you! Good-bye!" And Pylades left Orestes looking not only as if a bomb-shell had exploded at his feet, but as if he should like one to explode at that moment.

Gradually his injured feelings took the form of wrath. "The cursed idiot!" he said to himself; "as if one could help it; as if any one could have loved him." And here Mr. Cousens rose, and adjusted his shirt-collar in the glass over his chimney-piece. His eye thence fell on his Sunday pair of patent boots. "It's lucky," he muttered to himself, "that the fool hadn't the pluck to speak out what he meant, or I might have had to kick him down-stairs." As there was no one present to hear him, this little piece of brag presented a curious psychological phenomenon. The taste of the day is, as we are informed by some publishers, minute mental analysis. The novel-reading public delight in the minutest dissection of a country curate's heart, under such circumstances as guilty love for his married cousin, or they are interested in the motives of the Bishop of Boreham's lady, when she invited Mr. Squabchick, the radical independent preacher, to her most select conversazione. The warmest fancies of an unhealthy girl's mind articulately developing themselves are at a premium, providing that the said heroine is sufficiently plain; and isolated—say in a Cornwall vicarage. It might, therefore, be worth our while to dissect and expose Mr. Cousens's inmost thoughts and metaphysical condition. He had no more idea of kicking the stalwart Graham, for such was his "friend's" name, than of engaging in single combat with Mace. Why, then, did he talk about kicking him to himself? Of course men like to deceive themselves, and be deceived sometimes, against the convictions of their own reason; but why indulge in such tremendous and groundless bounce as this, when the other mental half of Mr. Cousens—and considerably the bigger half—was only congratulating that gentleman on the turn which his friend's resentment had taken? "After all it might have been worse," thought that portion of the reasoning Mr. Cousens. It is a contradiction which we are unable to explain. He deemed himself lucky to have escaped personal chastisement at the hands or feet of Graham, and yet talked to himself aloud about the necessity which might have arisen of kicking him. Perhaps he addressed this deceitful soliloquy to his boots.

Mr. Cousens next proceeded to consider matters generally in relation to the offended client of the firm.

"I must tell Grinderby something or other to account for his leaving us, which won't be difficult, as his affairs are in my hands. I must put him up to retouching his last bill of costs, as we shall get no more out of him. Confound him! How did he find it all out? Let's see, she's got the furniture, and to-morrow would have had the 'thou.' besides. Well, it can't be helped. I must see her this evening."

Mr. Cousens did call at No. 64, Lorrimore Villas, that evening, and had a stormy interview with its fair occupant, who accused him of ruining her prospects. Many savage and bitter things passed; and finally the astute, worldly Mr. Cousens, under the influence of sundry vinous and spirituous potations, actually promised marriage to the vulgar and violent Circe, who hated and despised him in her heart. But she had long nourished the ambition of being Mrs. Cousens, and her mingled reproaches and allurements were eminently successful on the night in question. The fact is that Mr. Cousens had long been immersed in the "wretchlessness of unclean living, which is no less perilous than desperation." Not only does such a man's taste become more vitiated by indulgence; but even his worldly intelligence deserts him at his utmost need. The way of a man stricken by the fascinations of a depraved woman, is as wonderful and incomprehensible as anything that Solomon declared his inability to solve. Mr. Cousens knew that he was about to do a foolish, if not a fatal thing: moreover, he was thoroughly ashamed of it; but still he had no power to resist. He had at first triumphed in his successful baseness, and then in turn it swallowed him up.

He had entered the serpent's haunt, in a pleasant and jaunty manner, and was encircled in the pestiferous folds of the constrictor, while rejoicing in his criminal success.

It may easily be conceived that with this weight of consciousness on his mind, and the recollection of the biting sarcasms of Graham festering in his breast, Mr. Cousens, in spite of his double stimulant of pale ale, like the Irishman in Lover's charming song, was "not himself at all," on the Monday morning to which we have drawn our readers' attention in the beginning of this chapter.

To use his own expression, "Phil was far from being alive." The subject which occupied the two members of the firm was the distressing and ruinous state of Mr. Aubrey's affairs, and the terrible catastrophe which had occurred to his wife. No one had seen Blanche since. It was openly stated and noised abroad that Mrs. Aubrey had committed suicide. There was the police case of the orange-girl and the wet cloak found in her possession, which she said had belonged to a "drownded" person, and it was recognised by the frantic Susan as having been worn by her mistress. Strange to say, Mr. Cousens had not heard a word of it, previous to his arrival at the office that day. He had heard, "Awful suicide of a lady!" cried in the streets. He had seen, "Distressing suicide!" on the newspaper placards; but he had not looked at any paper that morning, nor made any inquiry as to the person to whom these announcements referred. To say that even he was not shocked, in the common acceptation of the term, when Mr. Grinderby imparted the intelligence of Mrs. Aubrey's supposed dreadful end, would be almost condemnatory even of his shallow feelings and heartless disposition; but he was too full of his own affairs and troubles to dwell upon it, after a few moments devoted to astonishment, except so far as it might be regarded in a business point of view. Again, other feelings supervened. Mr. Cousens had always hated Mrs. Aubrey. He knew that she fully understood him and disliked him. All this he remembered. The coldness and formality of her tones, her frigid and condescending politeness, and the early check she had given to the genteel freedom of his address—all this occurred to him: until ere long he began to regard her tragical end with a sort of savage complacency and approval. Mingled with this was the rancour he had lately felt towards Aubrey, who had been anything but friendly or familiar with him of late. As for Grinderby, he was anything but chagrined at the occurrence. It was a deadly social blow to Aubrey, and consequently suited his book well. The ruined client was to him as a stranded vessel to a wrecker. Not a plank must be left to hold together; and if the doomed ship could be branded as a pirate or slaver—why, so much the better. Everything that tended to sink Aubrey in the estimation of the world would diminish sympathy and inquiry as to how the firm had assisted in and profited by his ruin. The suicide of blind Mrs. Aubrey, occasioned by her husband's disreputable escapades, was a finishing stroke to that client's reputation, beyond anything which Mr. Grinderby could possibly have anticipated. But he did not think it necessary to state his real sentiments to Mr. Cousens, any more than that gentleman felt inclined to reveal his secret notions unreservedly to him.

They had accordingly together duly deplored the calamity which the senior partner had narrated to the junior. We shall pass over all that portion of their conversation, before they came to the consideration of the event in a business point of view.

"As you say," observed Mr. Grinderby, after the preliminary tribute to decency had been paid, and there had been a considerable pause, "as you say, a most distressing event; but the firm must not be prejudiced by your feelings, Mr. Cousens."

It is due to that professional gentleman's reputation to mention that Mr. Cousens had not rendered this observation necessary by exhibiting any very alarming degree of emotion.

"Mrs. Aubrey was no friend of mine," replied Cousens; "and as for the firm, she never evinced any respect or partiality for it whatsoever. Quite the contrary; but we cannot help our feelings, sir."

"Oh, Mr. Cousens," said Grinderby, with a hideous contortion, "think of the frightful wickedness of the act!" And he rose and walked up and down, as if the idea overpowered him. "As for our client, Mr. Aubrey, quite independently of this, he is a ruined man, sir, a ruined man.

"It is a bad job for him," continued the senior partner, after a pause, "that he is so tied up by the clauses of anticipation in his father's will; he can't raise a penny on the estate."

We will continue the conversation that ensued between the pair in the first person, so that it may lose nothing by the interpolations which would otherwise be necessary.

GRINDERBY. The firm, Mr. Cousens, the firm must not suffer by this break up. (And he rubbed his hands, as if in anticipation of the salvage.)

COUSENS. Bingley's Wharf sold badly enough.

GRIN. Had our client waited a month longer than he did, it would have realised fifty thousand pounds at least.

COUS. Yes, the railway came right through the warehouses. And you knew it for at least six months before.

GRIN. Hush! It suited the firm to place no impediment in the way of the sale. I am sure we did not recommend so imprudent and hasty a step. At least, I can speak for myself; and I hope, I may say I sincerely trust, that you did not. No! I thought not. None can impeach the conduct of the firm. I burnt Mr. Pettingall's letter informing us of the fact. That letter was marked "private." I really do not consider that we were bound, even in equity, to take twenty-eight thousand pounds out of the railway directors' pockets, to put them into those of our client. It would have been a public robbery, sir. As I said, I burnt that letter. Never keep such things by you, Mr. Cousens. There is no saying when they may turn up. Your health has been far from satisfactory, lately. I hope you don't keep anything that might compromise the firm. I wish you were a trifle, just a trifle, more cautious. I admit your good qualities—excellent touter for West-end business, and as unblushing as——

COUS. Yourself.

GRIN. The devil! Don't interrupt me, pray. Well, I was going to say, that by the default of his father's confidential managing clerk and cashier, Manvers, at present, I believe I may say, a distinguished citizen of the United States, our client lost at least ten thousand pounds to commence with.

COUS. Have you heard then from Manvers lately?

GRIN. Do, pray, hear me out. You are so very impetuous, Mr. Cousens. I was about to observe that the firm did its duty there. I said to our client: "Prosecute, sir, prosecute. You owe it to Society. It is true that you have known him since you were a child, and were taught to venerate him, when he dispensed the weekly trifle which your late lamented father allowed you, his only son, in order to teach economy and habits of business. It is true," added I, "that you find it difficult to divest your mind of a sort of traditional reverence for those colossal piles of figures, which were his boast in your father's counting-house, and to which he, this defaulting clerk, used to point so complacently, telling you that he could not endure to be a halfpenny wrong in his balances, and that he sat up all night upon one occasion in order to find out and rectify a mistake of that very trifling amount."

COUS. Yes, yes. They were minute calculations to defraud, extending over a period of years.

GRIN. A period of five years only, Mr. Cousens; if I remember aright. Well, the discovery of the embezzlement was remarkable enough. His impunity had made Manvers reckless. A natural disposition of the criminal mind! Let's see. It was just about the time that you picked your client up, nailed the business, ha, ha! of the "Aubrey Estates, entailed," in your very neatest slap-dash manner. I am content to work here in gaiters; you are the roving partner in patent leather boots. I toiled and moiled; while you went yachting with our rich client in the Mediterranean. I think you were consumptive about that time. I do hope it is not now the case. You don't take sufficient care of yourself, indeed you don't. Well, you were an interesting invalid then—chest weak, eh? How agreeable you must have made yourself! You nursed him in his illness, rode his horses, drank his wine, borrowed his money, without any inconvenient documents passing between "gentlemen and friends," called his yacht yours, on shore, when he was not present, spouted his poetry—wonderful self-sacrifice that—and made love to his mistresses, who made love to you in return, in order to keep in with the second self, ha! ha! the lawyer and the man of the world.

COUS. Really, Mr. Grinderby, this is a most extraordinary display of facetiousness, which I am at a loss to appreciate or comprehend. When you have done——

GRIN. The subject is so tempting, Mr. Cousens, that I have lost the thread of my narrative, got back into the recitals, as it were. Ha, ha! I was saying—what was I saying?—Ah! that I urged our client to prosecute Manvers. It was all of no use. Our client nobly permitted Manvers to emigrate to America; where, but for an unfortunate restriction in the laws of that enlightened country, he might yet become President of the United States, and receive an autograph letter from the Queen, without the little formalities he was accustomed to here, such as, "Victoria, by the grace of God, greeting," &c. Do you take? It suited the firm very well that Manvers escaped the penalties of the British law, and found a wider scope and area for the exercise of too great daring for this old-fashioned country. (Here Mr. Grinderby helped himself plentifully to his accustomed stimulant.)

COUS. Yes; but he did not go then. There was a suspicion afterwards——

GRIN. Of a darker crime, of a more dangerous error. True, but he baffled his pursuers. I know, of course, what you allude to. Yes, he returned from Jersey or Guernsey, whither he betook himself at first, and succeeded, previous to the murder business, in corrupting Pettingall, the other remaining confidential clerk. Then came Pettingall's detection. I urged our client still more strongly to prosecute him. "This man," said I, "has a wife and seven children." Was it seven or nine? I really am not quite certain. "Do not let your too generous heart be influenced by this circumstance," I remarked. "The parish will take care of them. His wife," I added, "may waylay you and bathe your feet with her tears. She is actually in this office at this moment for that purpose." Or, let me see, it was you, I think, who told him that, with your usual inadvertence. I have often wondered how you could be so thoughtless, Mr. Cousens. Then we heard a sob from yonder room. I presume that you had left the door ajar by accident; but I will not be on oath that it was. If it was, all I can say is, that it was very careless of you, Mr. Cousens. That sob was well timed for Pettingall. Our foolish and now ruined client insisted on seeing her. It was all over in five minutes. Pettingall is now manager of a flourishing Company, raised on the very business connexion of our client's late father. I dined with him on Sunday. He has some superb pictures and port wine. I often think of the disinterested conduct of the firm on that occasion, in urging the adoption of the severest measures; for it certainly would not have suited us that Pettingall should have been prosecuted any more than Manvers.

COUS. All this is so exceedingly well known to me, that I wonder you should take the trouble to repeat it. May I ask what you are driving at?

GRIN. If I could only school your mind, Mr. Cousens, into more painstaking habits, more categorical precision!

COUS. You would die happy, I suppose. But pray continue your amusement.

GRIN. I was never more in earnest. Seriously, I wish to bring the whole matter clearly before you; and to do so necessitates a little patience on your part, and prolixity on mine. Where was I?

COUS. You were remarking that it did not suit the firm, that Pettingall should be prosecuted any more than Manvers.

GRIN. Just so. (Takes snuff.) Allow me to congratulate you on your attention. Well, then, Pettingall, who had control over everything after Manvers had left, was supposed to have informed our client of his exact position, of the purport of the will, of the value of the property, assets, liabilities, and so forth, besides the fact that our client's Life Estate is liable; and not, as appears to have been supposed by him until now, the whole estates, including that portion entailed upon his cousin, for the very heavy annuities paid out of them. Otherwise, it would have been our duty to inform our client of this trifling circumstance. I must say that his carelessness and ignorance of business were unparalleled; but the firm, sir, the firm could not help that. I wonder, however, that you never apprised him of the fact, Mr. Cousens. He is your special client, you know. Then, what with the burning down of his family mansion, uninsured—very deplorable event that—the lowering of his rents by the flexibility of his country agents, the absconding of the tenant on his largest farm, leaving a year's rent unpaid, and the land greatly impoverished, and his weak and absurd direction of the will of an aged aunt who was devoted to him in favour of a female cousin, thereby making her a present of a sum of nearly twelve thousand pounds, a portion of which he actually owes, and for which he is about to be vicariously sued by that pious and business-like woman, who has cleverly transferred the debt—all this, sir, coupled with his own ridiculous expenditure, has, I deeply regret to say, brought our client to the veryge of ruin by the forfeiture of his estate.

COUS. I thought there was a chance of raising the whole amount from the "Albatross," or some other large insurance office, on a policy to cover all?

GRIN. That is his own preposterous notion. I am surprised, Mr. Cousens, that you should have encouraged such an obvious delusion. Pray, sir, what security could he give for payment of the premiums?

COUS. Then you mean to say that it is all U.P. with him?

GRIN. He has not the ghost of a chance, sir. At this moment he is not really worth the price of a dinner at an eating-house.

COUS. And you gave a cheque for ten guineas on his account to a charity-school last Tuesday!

GRIN. Hem! Possibly I was wrong there. But I was not quite prepared until this morning for the final stoppage—the winding-up order, as I may say, Mr. Cousens.

COUS. And he is not yet aware of the real state of his affairs?

GRIN. Um! I thought it only just to prepare him a little the other day. You were not here—some private business, I think—assignment of furniture re Graham and lady, if I am not mistaken—was it not? I conveyed a faint foreshadowing of the truth. But, I must say, I don't think that he realised it at all perfectly. You see he is still surrounded by certain substantial tokens of wealth—houses, furniture, horses, and the like. A little string has to be pulled yet, and then——

COUS. The shadows alone remain. A pretty dissolving picture, as one may say. I should think that all this, coupled with Mrs. Aubrey's suicide, will bring down his pride at last with a run.

GRIN. Pride goes before a fall, Mr. Cousens. You must feel for him deeply, who have been so intimate with him. I never was. I am happy to say, sir, that he never was a personal friend of mine.

COUS. If you mean to wound my feelings unnecessarily, Mr. Grinderby, all I can say is, that I suppose I must put up with it! But I must remind you that much even of my undoubted intimacy with Mr. Aubrey was a mere matter of business.

GRIN. So much the better, sir, so much the better. There is less chance of sentiment interfering with duty. Oblige me by a sight of the ledger. Thank you! Hem! hem! (reading it). You must make our bill of costs heavier.

COUS. It can't be done; I believe we have charged him even for acknowledging a basket of game. I have debited him a guinea a day and expenses, even for my most friendly visits. I met him in Chancery-lane the day after the intelligence of the wreck of his yacht, the vessel in which I made that trip to which you have been pleased so facetiously to allude. You will see entered: "To conference with you, when you stated the loss of your pleasure-vessel, thirteen shillings and fourpence." I mention this to show you that I have done my duty scrupulously by the firm (with emotion), sinking the feelings of a friend utterly in my treatment.

GRIN. I thought he had rather dropped your friendship of late?

COUS. No, Mr. Grinderby, no, sir; on the other hand, I have rather dropped his. The fact is, I could not bear to witness such extravagance, and—certainly he has behaved ill, sir, very ill; but I referred only to the past. Unfortunately, Mr. Grinderby, I am burdened with a heart, yes, sir, a heart! (And here Mr. Cousens lightly and airily tapped the left side of his somewhat contracted pectoral department.)

GRIN. You haven't been butcher enough to charge that in the bill, have you? Listen, Mr. Cousens. Always, as a "principle," put down double to a poor client, but treble to one in difficulties. In a case like this, it is a principle which admits of almost unlimited extension. But be careful how you make your bill out against a rich client to whom the transfer of his business is not only a possible, but an easy undertaking.

COUS. Really, Mr. Grinderby, you talk to me as if I were a child, a boy scarcely out of my articles. But it is your pleasure to insult me this morning. Continue, sir, I beg.

GRIN. Old Dick Scrimpshire, to whom I was articled in the country, the best lawyer I ever knew, who would have charged his own mother's executors for attending her funeral, if he had been able; a man who never had a feeling in his life, and always acted on principle to the last, once handed me a silver bed-candlestick, on which was a complimentary inscription to himself from the Lord Lieutenant of his county, also a man of principle, and the most pedantic hypocrite of his day, a nobleman who took honours at the university without talent, and bored all Cidershire successfully on the strength of it during his whole lifetime, a man who gained a reputation for charity without ever giving away a penny, and set the most delightful example of goodness to his neighbours that possibly could be conceived. Well, I naturally observed to old Scrimpshire, that it was no wonder he was so rich, and able to live up to the requirements of a splendid Elizabethan country mansion, with such clients as his lordship. "Stop," he said, "my boy, there's no hurry. What did you think of the sentiment I uttered at family prayers this very evening?" I was obliged to own I didn't know: for I had been looking at a pretty housemaid between my fingers as I was kneeling, and didn't notice exactly what old Scrimpshire was saying. I was a brand, sir, then, a brand, since saved out of the burning. "I never got out of Lord Mortington," said he, "anything but the value of that candlestick. And what's more," he said, "I've got five noble lords for clients; and I never made a penny by the whole lot." "Then, sir," said I, "I don't understand anything at all; for I should have thought that was what made you rich." "That!" replied old Scrimpshire, "that be blowed;" and he suited the action to the word, blowing his own candle out. Not that, if all was true, he much liked the dark, didn't old Scrimpshire. "I'll tell you what, young man," he continued, "I never made a penny directly by the whole lot, and you may throw old Sir Phipson Feckenham," naming a well-known wealthy country baronet who was his client, "into the bargain. Not but what this sort of thing is worth money," he added; "for when you've got the rich and titled for your clients, you can do as you like with the rest. Never make out a heavy bill against a man that can take his own part, lad Grinderby," he said. "There, take thy light, and don't forget thy lesson. It will make a rich man of thee some day when I'm dead and buried. I loved him as a father, Mr. Cousens, which don't mean more than a proper respect for the inheritance, and I've acted up to his saying ever since."

Mr. Cousens was somewhat surprised at his partner's garrulity; but he said nothing more, save to ask whether or not he should make Mr. Aubrey any more advances, if they were requested.

"Mr. Cousens, sir!" answered Grinderby. "How can you ask such a question! Yes, certainly, on the valid security of two friends, and I think it would puzzle him to find one in the world. Otherwise not a penny, sir, not a penny. We have all his deeds and papers, I think?"

"Everything," said Cousens, "including the maps of his estates, and his own deeds of gift to half a dozen small annuitants, including his late father's coachman and butler, the half-yearly dividends of which are due, by-the-bye, to-morrow. I suppose I may pay these?"

"Pay nothing, sir," returned the senior; "but receive everything. We shall have, as it is, to forego a portion of our bill of costs, though I have kept it down from time to time, in anticipation of his ruin.

"Is the declaration out in Aubrey v. Flitter?" asked Grinderby.

"No," answered Cousens.

"Then stop it!" said his partner. "We cannot afford to carry on litigation any further for a fellow like him."

"But we are certain to recover heavy damages," interposed Cousens.

"Fie, Mr. Cousens," retorted Grinderby, "I thought you knew better than that. There never was a case yet came into Court of which the issue was certain; that is, unless either plaintiff or defendant should happen to be unable to fight it out for want of money. And even then there is always the dread of bankruptcy. Don't talk to me about the rights of a case. I'm proud to say, sir, that the law is above such paltry trammels. 'The better the case the less chance of a verdict,' is my motto. I thought you knew better than talk such sentimental rubbish, Mr. Cousens."

"As you please, sir," replied Cousens; "I wish to be guided entirely by you in this matter."

"We are ready for the painful event," returned Grinderby, taking a prolonged pinch of snuff. "Of course we shall speak with great consideration, and in a style due to the character and feelings of the firm. He will be at first enraged, and then astounded; and will finally seek out a respectable firm to attack us, and tax our bill. So much the better. A sharp practitioner might give us trouble, if he saw his way. It is no use concealing that such a man as old Scrimpshire could put the worst construction on our conduct and motives. There is no saying, unfortunately, what some members of the profession will do. Are you attending, Mr. Cousens?"

That gentleman implied his assent; but the fact was, his thoughts had really wandered off to Lorrimore Villas.

"The state of the case is as follows," resumed Grinderby. "Our client owes one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four pounds sixteen shillings and ninepence halfpenny, arrears of interest on the mortgage effected by his late father, and which he ought to have paid out of the personalty on the demise. I think you persuaded him to invest in Ecuador Bonds or Paraguay Securities, or something of that kind, at the time?"

"You are quite mistaken, I assure you," interrupted Cousens. "I did nothing of the kind."

"Not the least consequence," said Grinderby; "the advice was not written, I suppose. Now, I must contrive to alarm the mortgagees suddenly, who still believe our client to be a rich, extravagant young dog. I think we had better not apprise the other creditors as yet. Then, if we put an execution at once into the house, and force a sale of the settled property through the assignment by Aubrey's cousin, which I spoke of, and in which matter the assignees, a country firm, only await a hint from me, I think we shall have managed the business pretty well, Mr. Cousens, pretty well."

"But I can't quite see the ultimate advantage you are driving at," said Cousens. "Might we not have made more in the end by saving our client—mind I speak entirely without feeling in the matter—and wouldn't it have been a safer game?"

Mr. Grinderby cast a curious glance at his partner, as if he would have read his inmost thoughts, even had they fled for concealment down into the very toes of his patent-leather boots. The scrutiny seemed to reassure him. The fact is, Mr. Grinderby had a much deeper, and darker, and blacker design, and one in which both partners of the firm were not intended by him to participate.

"No, sir," he replied, "it would not. It was my earnest desire to have saved Mr. Aubrey from absolute ruin, if it had been only for your sake, who are his friend. Ahem! stop! an idea strikes me. Don't you think, as you are so shocked by this deplorable and afflicting event, you had better go out of town for awhile, and leave the present painful duty which devolves on us, on me? Suppose you took the feelings of the firm down with you to the Isle of Wight, or Boulogne—what do you say to Boulogne for a week or so? You can come back before there is any chance of meeting our client there, you know. But between ourselves, I think that Whitecross-street will be the outside limit of his excursions this year. A trip to the East! eh? Not so bad, that. Won't entitle him to membership in the Travellers' Club though, will it?"

The proposition suited Mr. Cousens extremely well at the moment, for more reasons than one. The fact is, he did not want, on mature reflection, to be obliged to kick Graham; nor, to say the truth, did he care much to meet the first violence of Aubrey's wrath. So he assented with a mere formal expression that he had no desire to shirk work. How long this already long conversation would have extended even then, it is impossible to say; for Grinderby was evidently in the mood to talk. Like all reserved men, when he did break out, there was no stopping him. When any one wanted him to converse, he would be unpleasantly taciturn. He was like the singers commemorated by Horace:

Ut nunquam inducant animum cantare rogati;
Injussi, nunquam desistant.

A knock at the door, however, relieved Mr. Cousens from any further penance; for however interesting the subject Mr. Grinderby had ventilated, the junior partner felt he had had enough of it. Besides, his nerves were unstrung, and he wanted another glass of "bitter."

"Come in!" croaked the harsh voice of Grinderby.

A shy-looking individual, we mean in personal appearance, not manners, entered. He looked like a cross between a waiter at a fifth-rate tavern, and a billiard-marker in the City. He wore a monkey-jacket, of which the blue edges were grown whitish with use, and the left sleeve presented the appearance of a pen-wiper; and why shouldn't it, since it had done good service in that capacity? His black hair was parted and plastered down the middle, and his face resembled one of the Lipari islands, subject to continual eruption.

"The writ for the widow Tomkins is ready, sir," said this individual.

"Very distressing, Mr. Slurker, indeed I may say a painful necessity; but the firm must do its duty, sir, irrespective of its feelings."

There was a slight earthquake, a suppressed upheaving of the surface, visible in the seat of the eruption. Mr. Shirker would have grinned, but dared not. The fact is, he had heard the remark before, and was prepared for it.

"Hark ye, Mr. Slurker," continued Grinderby. "If Mr. Aubrey should call, I will see him, as Mr. Cousens is going to Boulogne for his health. He is greatly shocked, sir, by intelligence which has reached him this morning. As I shall be very busy, you can let Mr. Aubrey wait for half an hour in the clerks' office when he comes. Do you understand, Mr. Slurker?"

"Yes, sir," replied that worthy; "offer him 'The Times'?"

"Hem!" said Grinderby, "why no, not exactly to-day. That might be inconvenient, Mr. Slurker."

"Yes, sir, it might, certainly," replied Slurker. "Then I'm not to offer him 'The Times'?"

"Pooh, pooh! get along with you. Do as you like. After all, the firm has not time to study feelings."

Mr. Slurker looked puzzled, and made his exit. He remained in perfect ignorance of Mr. Grinderby's meaning till lunch-time, when he took a spell at the police reports. As he did so, the eruption grew a trifle paler.

"The infernal old vampire!" he said, "if he's got a heart at all, which I very much doubt, it's a precious sight harder than a grindstone. Poor thing! poor thing! And such a beauty! I remember she quite took my breath away the day she called at the office.

I never saw a woman to compare with her for looks; no, not even in the Argyll Rooms." And Mr. Slurker fell into a reverie, in which he figured as a red-cross knight, slew Aubrey in single combat, consigned Grinderby to the deepest dungeon under his castle moat, and as a reward, married Blanche, whom he saved from the foaming waters by grasping her with one arm round her waist, and holding on with the other to a weeping willow, such as he had seen somewhere between Cremorne and Mortlake. And they say that chivalry is dead in the human mind!

"Good Heavens, sir!" said Cousens to Grinderby, as soon as Mr. Slurker had vanished, "you surely don't think, do you, that Aubrey will come here to-day?"

"Why not?" returned the other; "where else should he go? What fitter place can there be, than a solicitor's office under such circumstances? Besides, he could not have cared for her much, if all tales are true. As far as he is concerned, I think it is about the only good thing that could happen to him. What could he have done, sir? And what could she have done? I don't suppose she would have liked being a governess again!"

"Nay," replied Cousens, "he must feel it."

"Feel a fiddlestick!" quoth Grinderby. "What did he cause her to drown herself for, then? But if he does, I should like to know where so wholesome a check upon feeling is to be found, as here? For the solace of misery by counter-irritation, I'll back Webb's Fields against all the world, especially in the case of a ruined client."

Mr. Cousens said no more. Of the precise nature of Aubrey's domestic offences, perhaps he was a better judge than Grinderby, who, though an offender in that way himself, was not so from idleness or vanity. He also knew better how to estimate the nature of the terrible chastisements that had fallen upon his client and quondam friend. He knew that that day, ay, and for weeks, and probably months, it was highly improbable the shadow of Arthur Aubrey would darken the doorway of the firm in Webb's Fields—ruin or no ruin, threat or no threat, advantage or disadvantage. But, on the whole, he favoured the notion of getting away. He preferred to escape the immediate chance of meeting anywhere, or anyhow, the ruined client and the betrayed patron and injured friend. Besides, there was the Graham business, as we have said. So he merely asked Grinderby, if he should want to see him again before his departure, which that gentleman answered in the negative.

"But," he added, "I should be glad if you could meet me at the 'Ferret and Blue Bag' to lunch, at two o'clock. I am going home thence. The fact is, I have promised my girls a walk. I am shortly going to send Mrs. G. and the young people down to Herne Bay for a month. I shall come up to town every day by railway. Ah! Mr. Cousens, what an opportunity for religious study that affords. When I live out of town, I always bring up my Bible and a volume of sermons in the train. I wish I could prevail on you to do the same," he added. "We busy lawyers are too apt to lose sight of our immortal reversions in the unremitting prosecution of our mundane affairs. For my part, I never think that business prospers during the week, if I neglect my religious duties on a Sunday. You are a sad heathen, Mr. Cousens, a sad heathen, sir. It looks ill even in a worldly point of view. I wish you would attend church regularly."

The heathen partner duly promised to meet his pious associate at the tavern he had mentioned, and the pair separated, Mr. Cousens to purchase a yachting-jacket and glazed hat of nautical pretensions for his trip, and Mr. Grinderby to his own especial den to knit the final meshes of Aubrey's doom.

They had barely left the room, when the sandy head of their junior common-law clerk, whom some would have termed an errand-boy, was thrust in. Approaching Mr. Cousens's table, he laid thereon a copy of the "Law Times," which had just come in, peeped about to discover if he could pick up any information from an open letter, picked up some scraps of torn papers from the floor, put them together, before consigning them to the waste-basket, to see if there was any secret he might glean, and then indulged in the following remarks, accompanied by a series of winks and grimaces which would have done credit to the late eminent comedian Mr. Robson, or that most promising chip of the old block and living likeness of him, his son. "Ritooral-looral-loo!" said this worthy to himself. "Ain't the governors agoing to have a jolly flare-up with our swell client, Mr. Aubrey! We shall quite miss him, I declare. Such prime cigars he smokes! Quite an ornament to our office. And then the tin boxes, all lettered so conspikuous—the 'Estate of John Aubrey, deceased,' 'Life Estate of Arthur Aubrey, Eskvir,' 'Aubrey's Trustees,' which the other two resigned immediate, and never did nothing, as I've heard say, that he might ruin hisself more easier under the directions of this gallus firm of ourn. They've got a precious firm hold of him. Ha, ha! and a personal friend, too, of Phil Cousens, honest Phil, gentleman by Act of Parlyment! I should like to have such a friend as him, I should. Don't I wish Aubrey would kick our senior pardner all round the Fields. And if he was to, wouldn't I like 'em to be a sight bigger than they are? And wouldn't I wish all the porters and perlice fur enough whilst he was doing of it, that's all?"

CHAPTER XV.

THE SMOKING-ROOM OF THE KEMBLE CLUB.

Here, wit and affluence gather; "snob" and "swell,"
In conclave meet, their empty secrets tell;
The playwright "button-holds" the actor here;
Small poets quaff their Helicon of beer:
Great (?) authors dine and sup like other men,
And brighter shine with tooth-pick than with pen;
Coxcombs and lords the field of art adorn,
Like poppies seen mid Linnel's ripening corn;
As close as mortar unto brick doth lie,
The blatant "Umbra" to his god cleaves nigh:
Here, sneaking scribes purloin their daily scrawl;
While jealous Scandal holds her Court midst all;
Sour Mediocrity in hose of blue
Proclaims her empire o'er the dwarfish crew.
Let genius die unpublished and unread—
"Mute Miltons? Pshaw! when scores can rhyme instead,
So safely and so cleverly obscure,
The Sphinx could scarce an equal test endure.
What is a poet worth, who sings so clear,
That in his rhymes some meaning will appear?
In this fast age 'bloke' Shakespeare wouldn't pay;
He lacked construction for a modern play."
Thus, the tenth Muse, whom shuddering Phœbus flies,
To join the other nine in farthest skies;
Such the drear babble of the godless gang,
Who raise the altar, true worth lacks, to slang.

The Modern Baviad, Canto IX.

IN the lofty and well-ventilated apartment devoted to the "weed" in that semi-aristocratic, demi-plebeian, literary, dramatic, and artistic establishment, the Kemble Club, were assembled, after dinner, some six members and a brace of strangers, among whom, for some little time previous to the moment we have invited our readers to look in upon them, there had prevailed a truly British silence, combined with that effort to appear unconscious of the presence of others, which is so characteristic of the manners of the unintroduced Englishman. We do not mean to say that they were all unacquainted with each other, seeing that the two strangers had each severally dined with a member; but it is awkward for any two out of a party not generally acquainted with each other to carry on a conversation before all the rest. It is odd how forced and unnatural such talk usually seems to the rest of the company. It generally sounds like bragging, or indiscretion, or bad taste, or impertinence. So the fellows in the smoking-room of the Kemble apparently thought, as they sat and glared occasionally at each other, and sipped their brandy-and-seltzer, or coffee, and puffed their cigars, and looked at their boots and the ceiling, and felt if their white neck-ties were all straight and right.

"What's your idea about the Ministry—think they will go out?" ventured to remark a member to his stranger.

"I really don't know; I suppose they must," was the reply.

"Well, I don't know," was the rejoinder. "I should hardly think they will. Wonderful old fellow, Pam!"

"Very," said the other, apparently not over strong in politics. "Have you heard what the Admiral has decided about Kafoozelum?"

"No—have you?"

"No!"

"Going to the Warwickshire?"

"I think I shall."

There were two fellows present who knew that the bets on Kafoozelum were decided to be void, on account of an "error" in his age; but they contented themselves with severally looking superior to the speakers, and did not impart the information.

Said the other stranger to his entertainer:

"Awfully good cook yours. I shouldn't think there is a better anywhere; except, perhaps, at the Windham. Do you know what they give him?"

"Well, not exactly. I should think three hundred."

"That's not much, is it?"

"No! I suppose not."

"We give ours four, but we are going to give him five. Old Lord Belleford offered him six to leave the club, but he said, 'No! he had made the club, and he wouldn't leave it.' "

"What a brick! He deserves a thousand."

"What I wonder at is," rejoined the other, "how a man can ever reconcile himself to what you may call a domestic feed afterwards."

"True," replied his entertainer. "I dined with Toppington Somers not long ago—splendid house—only eight guests—no hens, except Mrs. Topp, who is rather fast. Would you believe it, I was nearly poisoned by the smell of the dinner as I went in?—put me in mind of a burnt-offering; ha, ha! thought what was coming. Dinner rather late, guests all waiting, Mrs. T. smiling, evidently uneasy. Host looking carving-knives, because he was using none. Well, I told them a lively story about a Russian dinner-party, at which every one was poisoned with the soup, by the cook, whose daughter had been ill-treated by a noble—a cook with any amour-propre would have done it after dinner in the coffee—saw by expression of Toppington's face, that his cook was a mauvais sujet. Well, just as I had finished describing agonies of Russian party, in we went to dinner. Some one had asked me what soup it was that was poisoned, and I answered at a shot bisque d'écrevisse. Only fancy my delight when I found that was the very identical potage at the head of the table."

"Capital!" said the other; "but you don't mean to say that anybody shied at it?"

"Didn't they? But to tell you the truth, no poisoner of any talent would have doctored such rubbish. It was cold and sticky as glue, and salted! ugh! The next thing remarkable was a splendid Severn salmon; cost ten shillings a pound, if it cost a penny; raw, sir, raw. If I had dined, I should positively have enjoyed Toppington's dismay. The rest of the dinner was equally bad—the 'burnt-offering' turned out to be a saddle of mutton, which might have been baked in Pompeii. As for the wood-cocks—don't mention them. Topp completely lost his temper, and everything was as dull as ditch-water or his confounded claret, which I believe costs the fellow eight pounds a dozen. It finished, however, by his asking us all to dine next day at his club.

"Awful sell!" said the other, rather wearied by the story.

"Wasn't it? But the best of the fun is, that dinner had cost Topp ten thousand pounds, if it cost him a penny."

"Ten thousand pounds!" repeated the other.

"Yes! You must know that he had a snug little place, before he came into a lot of money by his uncle's death, and his little dinners then were as jolly and unpretending as possible. There isn't a nicer creature than his wife in London. But when he got the 'tin,' he declared he should never rest until he had a more commodious dining-room. So he went into bricks and mortar, and built a house—and there it is all gilt, and glare and gas, and French clocks, and modern decoration. This was his first dinner there."

"I'll tell you what," said the other, "there are very few private houses in London, where one does get a decent dinner; and now as it is the fashion to go into flowers and fruit and gimcracks on the table all dinner-time, one might as well go through a Barmecide feast at a florist's from Covent Garden."

"Last summer," said his friend, "the smell of the pines and strawberries under one's nose was enough to take away any appetite short of a navvy's."

"We rush into such absurd extremes in England. Everything is sacrificed to fashion. Only fancy Briggs or Tomkins, or Clark, the retired vermin-powder man, dining à la Russe at 'Ighgate or 'Olloway, with substantial posies in cheap glass contrivances, and hired plants in gaudily decorated flower-pots all up and down the table, and the hired waiter and occasional undertaker's mute with his cotton gloves handing the everlasting flabby brill which does duty for turbot, and the tough boiled fowls, round to the vestrymen and churchwardens, the suburban house-agent, and apothecary from the corner-house of De Beauvoir-terrace, in that exceedingly new neighbourhood. For my part, I don't care what the style is, so that the viands are tolerable; but depend upon it whenever there is pretension, there is discomfort and cold plates. May I offer you another weed? Waiter, the cigars!"

Encouraged by this sustained effort at small-talk, three of the four members of the club, who were on speaking terms, had indulged in a little spasmodic babble about the Opera, and kindred topics. One of these gentlemen was a well-known member of Parliament, an upholder of flogging in the Army, and a strenuous advocate for preventing the sale of small necessaries on Sunday. He had lately brought in a bill to shut up all public-houses, and even coffee-shops, on the Lord's Day, and his speech on that occasion was printed in the form of a tract, and circulated "gratis" by the Exeter Hallites. Yet, he knew well that billiards were played on the Sabbath in the Progress Club, of which he was a member, and his small-talk was worse than that of any book sold in Holywell-street, because of the horrible cynicism that he mingled with its pruriency. He regaled his hearers with some very spicy anecdotes with an unctuous gusto, which contrasted almost diabolically with the ghastly and gelid selfishness of a soul in which all charity was dead, if, indeed, it had ever existed there at all, which we more than question. He described how he had cut a cast-off mistress, who was getting her living as a chorus-singer at Her Majesty's, and who had accosted him, when he had gone behind the scenes in the prosecution of some fresh unholy amour, which was far more a question of cruel bargain and sale than any consignment of Circassian slave-girls to the Turk. Yet you should have heard him denounce all sympathy with Schamyl, and the tribes of the Caucasus, and uphold the execrable aggression and cruelties of Russia, because of this inhuman and un-christian traffic! He was in the middle of a story, by which he stood self-condemned of an act of cold-blooded atrocity towards a poor seamstress, which ought to have excited the manly indignation, had they possessed any, of his admiring and applauding auditors, to kick him out of the room, and break his Vitellius-like neck down the nearest flight of steps, when a fresh couple of "Nicotians" entered the room. In one our readers will recognise the Honourable Fitz-Eustace Swellingham, of the 3rd Blues, and in the other his friend Sidney Snobbington, barrister (not) at law.

Swellingham, or Fits, as we have already learnt to call him, entered the smoking-room with the easy air of a man at home with himself and his position, and nodded carelessly to three or four of the party. He flung a successive glance at each of the strangers, which canoned off them to the wall behind, seated himself with a kind of apathetic nonchalance, and called to a waiter who happened to be in the room for cigars. Snobbington, who closely followed him, and in whose manner a keen observer would have detected a want of ease and a certain display of consciousness resembling that of a bad actor on the stage, also took an empty seat and a full-flavoured "Habana," as soon as his friend and patron had helped himself.

"Coffee, Snob?" said Fits.

"Yaas," replied that individual. "Can't do without my caffy, you know."

"Thought you'd have preferred a gin-sling," said Fits. "They make capital gin-slings here. I'm going to have one."

"Then I'll have a gin-sling too," quoth Snob. "It's a tip-top thing when you're thirsty."

"Are you thirsty?" asked the other, as if he didn't care to know. "Shouldn't have thought it."

The pair had just finished their second bottle of Lafitte.

"Well, not exactly," said the other; "but a fellah can always dwink a sling, you know, especially when one isn't quite up to the mark."

"Why there's nothing the matter with you, is there?" drawled Fits. "Shouldn't have thought so by the way you walked into the sole á la Cleopatre, and nearly finished that wild duck, by Jove."

SNOB. Awfully seedy, my dear fellah. It's veway odd, do you know, but I always eat most when I'm not quite the thing.

Fits looked at his friend with an expression of calm doubt, mingled with a sort of "permissiveness," as much as to say, "Say what you like. It doesn't in the least matter." And the twain puffed their weeds in silence.

"In the Park to-day, Swell?" asked one of his friends.

FITS. Yaas; were you?

FRIEND. Yes; nothing talked of but the affair of those wretched Aubreys. I should think the fellow will never show here again.

FITS. Why not? I should imagine he will come oftener than ever, now that his wife is dead.

SNOB. Ha! ha! capital. Just what I was thinking.

FITS (frowning slightly). Do ring the bell, that's a good cweechur. It's close by you.

The truth is, Fits considered it hard that what little thoughts he indulged in should be claimed by his friend; but he had too much good taste to reprove him, save by a tone of voice which the other perfectly understood, and he asked him to ring the bell, in order to convey his disapproval.

FRIEND. Oh! it's not the wife's affair alone, though that's bad enough; but I am told that he is hit devilish hard; gone to the dogs, in short, altogether.

FITS. I didn't know that "tin" was any qualification for this place.

CYNICAL M.P. Deuced considerate of the wife to drown herself, anyhow! They generally stick to a man in difficulties with all the delightful obstinacy for which women are distinguished. They like to remind him of better days, and bore him with their lackadaisical sympathies, which means reminding him of being better off, like a perpetual skeleton of the past—a sort of affectionate ghost of other days. If this Aubrey is ruined, it is a piece of luck to get rid of his wife; and if not, why perhaps he's luckier still, that's all.

After delivering himself of this club sentiment, the advocate of the negro, and apologist of the Czar, a pirate at heart, but philanthropist by profession, nodded to Fits, and stalked out of the room, either to bully the shrinking mother of his progeny, or to betake himself to some more Malthusian haunt. Pleasure and free-trade before duty and protection was the code of ethics which he practised in this world. He was shortly followed by the others, after they had sufficiently stretched themselves and yawned, leaving Fits and Snob together to their cigars and sling, and such reciprocal advantages as they might enjoy from each other's society.

"I say," inquired Snob of his friend, before any one, save the M.P., had gone, "when are you going out of town? I'm off for a few days' hunting to-morrow at the dook's." This was not altogether false, for Snob had got introduced to the good-natured Chalkstoneville after all, and the result was a gracious command to bring his horses down to one of his grace's hunting-boxes, and have a week's hunting with the Highflyer fox-hounds. Snob would have risked breaking his neck fifty times over for such an invitation, and he had invested in a wonderful silver dressing-case for the occasion.

FITS. I'm going to Parwis on Wednesday; can't exist any longer in London. (And he yawned as if at the bare thought of such a punishment.)

SNOB. What a doosed bad affair, though, of that fellah Aubrey! Always thought him rather low, eh?

FITS. Never saw such twousers as he waw. Saw him once do a most extwaordinary thing.

SNOB. What was that?

FITS. Horwid old woman carwying bundle and baby acrwoss stweet, dwopped her bundle in mud, omnibus coming by. What do you think he did?

SNOB. Can't think.

FITS. Must!

SNOB. Can't!

FITS. Guess!

SNOB (with sudden animation). Kicked it?

FITS. No!

SNOB. Poked it with umbwella?

FITS. No!

SNOB. Dem it! Fell over it?

FITS. Try again.

SNOB. Pawsitively can't think what a man who waw such twousers, as you say, would do.

FITS. Give it up?

SNOB. Yaas.

FITS. He picked it up!

SNOB. No?

FITS. And carwid it acwoss the stweet.

SNOB. Oh!

FITS. He did weally. I thought you would be shocked. Didn't get over it myself till I had dwank a glass of curaçoa. Never liked to shake hands with him after. Always fancied he might have something the matter with his hands, you know.

SNOB. I don't wonder. But I say, Fits, in spite of what that brutal Manchester fellow said just now, wern't you shocked at that horrid suicide of his wife?

We ought, perhaps, to mention that when our friend Snob was very much in earnest he often forgot his kakophemy, if we may use such a word.

FITS. Awful affair! Some fellahs thought her handsome.

SNOB. I never did. Did you?

FITS. Not my style. Besides, she had a catawact, or some such thing, in her eyes.

SNOB. Did you know who she was before he marwied her?

FITS. Not I!

SNOB. A governess; that's all.

FITS. Gwacious me! Then no wonder that she jumped off the brwidge. It's just what they do.

SNOB. So I thought.

FITS. No, you didn't.

SNOB. What do you mean?

FITS. My dear Snob, you've a bad habit, and it's my duty as a fwiend to cawwect it. You're always saying that you thought something I thought. Now, if you do think something I think, there's no occasion to say it. It's very hard if a fellah can't have an idea of his own.

SNOB. Don't be so sharp on a fellow. But, I say, didn't you narrowly miss seeing the catastrophe? How was that?

FITS. Well, I don't mind telling you, but rather not talk about it in future. Had been dining at Richmond with little Montmowency of the ballet, Kitty Dareall, and Harry Luckless. Went to Surwey Theatre after, to please Kitty, who is stage-mad. Horwid place! never go again; drweadful vulgar wrant—put me in mind of little prints of actors spangled with coloured tinfoil in the windows of sweet-shops, when I was a boy—"Alonzo the Bwave" and "Pizarro," with their legs astwaddle, and that sort of thing, you know. Suppose you were a boy once—some people never could have been; simply impawsible, like old Stingway, you know. Well, when we came out, it wained and lightened awfully. There wasn't a cab to be had, and we had to walk. Kitty put her hood over her head, and skipped along like a two-year-old—said she enjoyed it; can't say I did—and the Montmowency was as much afraid of wetting her feet as a female feline party without pattens. Well, on we twotted till we got to the brwidge, which was all boarding and scaffolding, with a narwow footpath just fit for wobbers. Saw crwowd at the other end; narwowly escaped being wobbed by a drweadful person—a female garwotter should say. Sensation-header just over; of course, didn't know who it was—lost Kitty and Luckless. Got a cab at last, and got home. Veway ill all night, and nervous system upset all day; you know a fellah can't help feeling something sometimes. Dined with Aubrway only last week, and saw his wife; didn't think she was so very unhappy; remember a look now. Snob, ring the bell for some brwandy, old boy. Thank you.

SNOB. Have they found her yet—found the body, I mean?

FITS. Can't say. Haven't seen evening paper— don't want to see it. Oh! here's the veway man I was speaking of. Ask him—he knows everything.

As he spoke the portly form of Mr. Stingray appeared at the open door. We shall continue the conversation that ensued in the first person, as before.

STING. Good evening, Swellingham. Ah, Snob! you here too, of course. How's yourself? as the cads say. Do you know nothing has struck me more forcibly than the quaint expressions of the lower orders. I should think you must have noticed it formerly, Snob?

FITS. Stingway, my dear fellah! aw, aw! we were just talking of the melancholy sooicide of little Aubrway. If a fellah will marwy a governess, what can he expect, you know, eh? My friend Snob here wants to know if the body is found yet?

STING. Not up to twenty-five minutes past six, at any rate. But these high tides, you know.

FITS. Stingway, my dear fellah! why haven't they a Morgue in London? Capital institution, Morgue in Parwis.

SNOB. Just what the dook said this afternoon—the Dook of Chalkstoneville, you know. "Snob, my boy," remarked his grace, "I wish we had a Morgue here, and we'd go after breakfast to-morrow morning and see the body."

STING. They must first find it. I fancy the Morgue is not quite in accordance with the general English taste. We are so squeamish, you know. The British idler, Mr. Swellingham, must content himself for the present with such excitement as prize-fights, and fires, and executions can furnish?

FITS. Do you dine here to-morrow?

STING. No, not to-morrow.

SNOB. Nor I. I'm invited to Lord Phallusby de Haut Ton's dinner.

STING. Indeed; then I shall see you there. That's where I am going.

SNOB. No, I can't go. The truth is, I am asked, but owing to my, aw, dear father's, aw, severe indisposition, I am going to send an excuse to-morwow morning. Awkward, isn't it? Think his lordship will take offence?

STING. Can't say; but pray leave it to me. I have to see his lordship at twelve o'clock to-morrow about a leading article he wants in a certain journal. I'll do it for you. I'll explain to him your filial devotion, eh? and he will, doubtless, soon invite you again. Good evening, Swellingham. Bye-bye, Snob! (He salutes them, and is apparently going.)

SNOB (frantically). No, no! Mr. Stingray! Don't say a word to his lordship, for very particular and private reasons, which I can't explain just now. Don't breathe a syllable, I implore you.

STING. Oh! leave it to me. I will see that you have full justice done to your excellent motive in not accepting the invitation. Was it to-day that your father was taken ill—I think you said rheumatic gout? Ta-ta!

SNOB (rushing after him). For Heaven's sake, don't, don't, you'll ruin me!

STING. Eh? What? What is the matter? I'm in a hurry. I don't understand you.

SNOB. For Heaven's sake, don't mention me to his lordship. 'Tis a mistake, that is, a sort of mistake. The fact is, I am not asked exactly—that is, to-day; but I expect an invitation soon through a friend, and I wanted to know—that is, I thought if my father should be ill, what .... what excuse a .... I could make, you know. You understand, dear Mr. Stingray, don't you?

STING. Hem! yes, I fancy I do. Well, then, to oblige you I won't say a word to his lordship; the more so (very loudly and deliberately) because, Mr. Snobbington . . . because, sir, I don't happen to be invited there to-morrow myself—that's all. Good evening!

SNOB (following him aside and whispering). My dear Mr. Stingray, don't tell any one of this little joke of mine; and you know that carved oak book-case you admired so much? I ordered it to be sent to you to-morrow—indeed I did!

STING. Nay, if you would bribe me to silence——

SNOB. Hush! don't use such awfully strong expressions, my dear friend.

STING. As a point of friendship——

SNOB. Enough! a thousand thanks. I can assure you it has been immensely admired. It came from an old moated grange in our family.

STING. If it did, I'm a Montenegrin. I have seen it in Wardour-street for eighteen months at least. I could have had it for thirty-five pounds.

SNOB. I gave fifty pounds, on my honour.

STING. (aside). What a lying rascal it is. (Aloud.) My dear old boy, to please you——

FITS. Stingway, my dear fellah, before you go, can you tell us any more about these unfortunate Aubrways?

STING. Don't know what you have heard already. I was at the police-office this morning—thence, as Pepys would have had it, to Scotland-yard, where I saw the cloak said to have been stolen by the orange-girl, alleged to be a desperate vagrant and beggar, known to the Force. Poor devil! she got six months for it. Shows activity on the part of our precious guardians, to lock somebody up. She said she only picked the cloak up, and I've no doubt she spoke the truth, though doubtless she was capable of stealing it, had it not lain at her feet.

FITS. Don't believe it, Stingway, my dear fellah; believe she did steal it. She's a female garwotter—nearly garwotted me.

STING. To be sure, you were there! Yes, I heard all that. Well, Aubrey has got a brain fever, which is likely enough to settle his hash. It seems that he opened his wife's desk, and read her letters. Rash thing on the part of any man who wants to live happily with his spouse. He first penned a challenge to Luckless, and then attempted to cut his own throat; but was stopped by a faithful servant, whose wages were not paid up. It took four men to hold him, and in despite of all their efforts, he smashed a marble washing-stand, and four china cups. Struck with sudden remorse, the unhappy and guilty woman, instead of packing up her jewels, and flying to the Continent, where she might have sued him first, or at least brought a cross action, which, entre nous, would not have been a very difficult task, drank a bottle of cyanide of potassium, which had been got for amateur photography, and took a cab to the river. You know the rest.

FITS. This comes of marrying beneath you, just as I said. There never is anything like gwatitude on the part of these low people.

STING. It was no great mésalliance. He is only the son of a corn-merchant in the City.

FITS. A pwetty fellah to be so proud!

SNOB. I remember he was once quite wude to me in the Park.

STING. The fool is utterly ruined into the bargain.

FITS. Is that pawsitively a fact?

STING. You know Phil Cousens, the solicitor; wide-awake, kind-hearted Phil?

FITS. Only a little, just to nod to. Snob, here, is intimate with him, I believe.

SNOB. Not I, indeed.

STING. Well, he told me, of course quite confidentially, that it is all up with Aubrey, not a feather left.

FITS. The deyvil, you don't say so!

STING. Don't I? The bailiffs will be in the house to-morrow, if they're not there already.

FITS. Confound it, and he owes me two ponies on Flatcatcher.

SNOB. These upstart fellahs always come to grwief in the end.

STING. (aside). That's pretty well for the son of a rag and bottle merchant.

FITS (aside). I wonder what his chesnut horses will fetch. I must set some one on to them. (Aloud.) I suppose everything will go to the hammer?

STING. To the plate-warmer and the bottle-rack, a leaky watering-pot and a garden besom. There are no children's toys—no family rocking-horse, minus tail and mane. Poor Phil Cousens nearly cried when he told me. Fancy scrofulous Phil in tears. You know why he sometimes wears white kid gloves at dinner, don't you? It's to hide king's evil, though he'll tell you he has just met with an accident and burnt his fingers. That's what his clients do—ha, ha! But you know he was an intimate personal friend of Aubrey's, by whose ruin the firm will be hit hard, doubtless.

SNOB. I should think that ought to touch Phil a precious deal nearer than his friendship for such a confounded low fellow as this Aubrway.

FITS. I used to say it never did pay to be fwiends with your lawyer, but it seems it don't do to be fwiends even with your fwiend.

STING. By-the-bye, what has become of Kitty Dareall? I saw the shutters up at her house to-day.

FITS. She was close by, you know, on Saturday night, when poor Mrs. Aubrway drowned herself?

STING. I am told she has gone into the country in deep mourning, and flung up her engagement at the Thespis. A new surprise. What a clever jade it is!

FITS. Ha, ha! capital.

STING. The truth of the matter is, she has gone into retirement before marrying.

FITS AND SNOB. Whom? Luckless?

STING. No! (Places his finger on his lips.) The Duke!

FITS. What! Chalkstoneville and Acres? Is it possible? Well, I always said it would come to that.

STING. Don't you know that's what she came out at the Thespis for? Well, a man may have a worse mother-in-law than that convenient matron the British Drama.

FITS. I always thought she was fond of Luckless.

STING. Celà n'empêche pas!

FITS. To be sure! The duke is only out on parole from his coffin. And then——

STING. Luckless may be in luck! The old boy can leave four hundred thousand pounds to any one he pleases, or who pleases him.

SNOB (aside). I wish I had been a little more attentive to either Luckless or his bride in reversion. But I shall know how to play my cards down at Malcourt Spinnies. (Aloud.) As for Aubrway, I shall cut him dead when I meet him.

STING. Mind he don't shoot you dead. He's the best pistol shot I ever saw.

SNOB. That wouldn't influence me, if the fellah's a low fellah. Besides, I never was intimate with him.

STING. No! I believe he fought rather shy of you.

Why, I don't believe you knew him at all; not even a bowing acquaintance. Confess, now. It's too bad to talk of cutting a man you don't know. It's almost as bad as excusing yourself to Phallusby.

FITS. Stingway, my dear fellah, you two fellahs are always chaffing. Can't you leave Snob alone? I'm sure he never hurts any one, and isn't half such an artful old plotter as you are. Are you, Snob? Now don't look so spiteful. Let's look in at the "Wag" together, and hear the last news from India, and if there's any chance of my wegiment being sent out, I shouldn't half mind it; for I'm tired of this sort of life, demmed tired of you, Sting, and Snob here, and all the lot of you. 'Pon honour, I don't believe the niggers are half such a bad lot as some of you London fellahs, after all. (After delivering himself of this unusually long speech, Mr. Swellingham pulls Snobbington towards the door.) Stingway, my dear fellah, come along.

STING. Why don't you belong to the "Rag," Snobbington; surely you are eligible? Ha, ha! (Swell. and Snob. go out.) It's as well he is out of hearing, for I do believe if he had heard what was at the tip of my tongue, the fellow would have struck me. Why his father was a rag-merchant. Ho! ho! Now who would think, to hear him talk, that he dotes on his old fat greasy mother, whom he surrounds with every luxury, and would do anything in the world for save walk out with her at the West-end; and that, moreover, he is beyond a doubt privately married to that girl of his, and is the exemplary parent of about five or six of the ugliest little cubs in existence, all with light hair and blue eyes like himself, which some folks would call cherubs? Ha, ha, ha! I must jot down some of this for my next novel. This is the only repayment which I exact from my stupid friends and acquaintances as a compensation for eating their indifferent dinners and being generally bored by themselves. Shall I follow them to the "Rag?" I hate the Army as I do the Irish. No, I'll drop in at the "Dust-hole," and hear what more is said about this affair of the Aubreys. How that woman shied me, to be sure! And I suppose some fools abuse me, because I'm not sorry that she has come to grief.

And the old wretch buttoned himself up as carefully, as if his existence were a blessing to Society, and introduced a story of his own benevolence with such consummate skill at the "Dust-hole," that young Lord Alicompane told his friend, the Hon. Everton Toffey, in confidence, he didn't believe there was such another dear old kind buffer as Stingray in the world, by Jove! he didn't.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MAN IN POSSESSION.

A Familiar of the Inquisition is a joke to him. He is a coarse fiend smelling of tobacco-smoke worse than brimstone. His civilities are insults; his efforts to be comfortable more atrocious than the license of a gorilla let loose in your home. Yet he may have a heart, a conscience, and a family of small children; he may have been the victim of legal iniquity himself, and probably compared with the respectable Harpies of the Law who sent him thither, he is an angel sitting by your fireside.—Characters in Crayon. By Blank Lottery, Esquire.

WE must now look in again at the Maisonette in Queen's-square. Alas! the light of the house, the ὂμμα δόμων παρουσία as the Greek tragedian has it, blind as she was, had departed, and nothing was left behind but confusion, terror, and despair. Mr. Binsby had requested leave to go away suddenly; and, in default of permission, we believe that he would actually have taken French leave, as the kind-hearted cook did. "How," said the latter, "wish you that I should remain? But it is impossible, I tell you. Let us see. There is two months of benefice due. Then, I shall give it to him, to this master, the cruel, the perfidious, who has assassinated an angel, I tell you, an angel. Ah! I should like to fight myself against him with swords, and avenge that poor angel. Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Quelle lâcheté." And he packed up his things, and left the house with tears and maledictions, mingled with salutations to the domestic circle. Mr. Binsby, on the contrary, gravely requested to know if his services could be dispensed with. They were, without objection or hindrance. Strange to say, Tops, who was dismissed, remained. Aubrey did not notice it; or, at least, said nothing, if he did. In fact, he kept his room, and when called forth spoke and moved mechanically, as in a dream. For three days he took no sustenance beyond a cup of tea or a drink of water. On the fourth, there came a heavy missive from Spider's-court, Webb's Fields, the perusal of which seemed, in some degree, to wake him up from his lethargic state. At all events, he wrote some answer to it, which was duly sent. It was then the fourth day since the catastrophe, and Susan and Tops were conversing together in the dining-room, where a third person sat in an arm-chair, in the shape of a strange and singularly hoarse young man, with light hair, and of very questionable appearance, who had called about an hour before, in company with a Jewish-looking gentleman, in a light taxed cart. These individuals had driven up to the door, and rung the bell, after first directing a very dirty young Israelite, who sat between them on the trap, to hold the horse's head. The moment the door was opened, they walked in so suddenly, that Susan, who admitted them, was on the point of calling out for assistance, thinking them to be thieves. The older and darker, if not dirtier, man quickly undeceived her, for he dived into a capacious gulf in his velveteen coat, and brought out thence a huge black greasy pocket-book, whence he in turn extracted a folded paper, which he opened with horny finger and thumb. This was an execution on the goods of Mr. Arthur Aubrey.

"I s'pose it's all right, miss," he said to the frightened and astonished Susan. "Me and this young man, as you'll find werry civil and obligin', will take the hinwentory this arternoon a little later, if you please." Here he whispered to the dirty pale man, who was attired in a dress-coat and corduroys, and wore an emaciated cloth cap, with a long cloth peak, which was somehow connected with a bow of rusty black ribbon, and which gave his head a kind of "snipey" appearance, if we may coin such a word. "I'm agoing round" (nod) "there to the coachus" (wink) "and stablin' " (nod) "as soon as I've picked up Jem Bosky. It's a job as'll suit him. He's so desperate oncivil." (Nod.) "He ain't fit for our business, he ain't. There's no call to be oncivil, cos folks is down in the world. And I have know'd them as has been tip-toppers again, after a little affair of this kind." (Extra double and prolonged wink.) "There, my dear" (to Susan), "don't take on. It's not as if we was goin' to take him, and even that," he said, cheerily, "ain't halways sech a fatal go. Lor' bless yer, yer should see wot I've seen."

"If it warn't for the fammerly misfortin," suddenly cut in the dirty, pale young man, "I should say it was part of a swell's hedication to go through summut of this 'ere."

"Lor' bless hall yer innersent 'arts, yes," said the dirty dark man to the assembled knot of servants, which now included Tops, the housemaid, page, &c., in fact, all the household, with the exception of Binsby, Monsieur Isidore, and the housekeeper, who was ill in bed with a dreadful nervous attack. "There's a gent as has guv me many a gold sufferin many a time since, as I was put into vith jest sech a job as this. Only it was in chambers, and he warn't a married gent, leastways not then. I shall never forget what a spree we had. Fust of all, he was goin' to show fight. But a friend of hisn put him hup to that being a serious affair, yer see. So his lordship he changed his tone quite sudden. 'Let's 'ave grilled bones,' ses he, 'and lashins of mulled claret, and friend Heiron here,' that was me, yer see, 'shall spin yarns about his hexperience.' There was three young ladies come in from the bally arterwards, and a precious spree it was haltogether. I told him a lot that he never heerd before, you may be sartain; and now that he's a great man in the world, he never forgets to pass a civil word when we meets. Vy, I told him vun story, as cost him a hundred pound to relieve a fammerly, as had a distress in at the werry same time as he had; and he told me t'other day, the werry last time we met, 'Heiron,' says he, 'them stories of yourn are likely to lead to ax of remedgial ledgehislation.' 'I hopes,' I ses, 'my lord, that it's nothin' that'll hinterfere with my business.' 'If it does, Heiron,' ses he, 'come to me, and I'll see that ye're compensated,' says he. So, votever it is, it's hall right, yer see; and that's all along of bein' reasonable and good-natured. My mate here" (pointing to the dirty, pale young man) "he's werry good-natured, and he'll smoke his pipe vere he's told, and hinterfere with nothin' and nobody, 'xcept in the way o' business."

So saying, Mr. Heiron politely nodded and winked all round, and rapidly betook himself to the tax-cart, which drove off, "like a flash," as Susan afterwards said, and left them all standing there in statu quo, plus the dirty pale young man, who had seated himself on the edge of a chair, after partially going through the pantomime of dusting it with the tail of his coat. As it was his coat which required cleaning, and not the chair, the precise meaning and intention of this process were by no means obvious. The question now arose who should acquaint Mr. Aubrey with this state of things. Poor Susan, who, to do her justice, was plunged in the deepest grief, and whose face was as white, and whose eyes were as swelled and red, as those of Niobe might have been prior to actual liquefaction, burst into a new channel of grief. Tops drew the back of his hand across his eyes, and said he would as "lief never look a 'oss in the face again." The rest, one and all, declared they couldn't and wouldn't go for to tell him on no account—"Not," said the scullery-maid, "as it 'ud matter what you tell him of now, in a manner of speaking." Gradually they all melted away to their various duties, leaving Tops, Susan, and the dirty pale young man, who seemed by his manner rather a genial individual than otherwise.

"I'll tell yer wot it is," he remarked; "it's hall werry creditable to this 'ere little society in the way of feelinx, but the guvernor must be told wot's up, and that's hall about it."

"Then you'd better tell him," said Tops; with a degree of hoarseness in his throat which sounded as if he had swallowed a woollen stocking.

"Jest wot I was about to perpose, friend drabs," said the other with an air of ineffable patronage. "Let 'buttins' knock at his door, and say there's a party as must speak to him a moment. It'll do him good in the present state o' matters."

At any other time the sole answer which Tops was likely to have vouchsafed would have been to place himself in an attitude of self-defence, and request the dirty pale young man to "come on." But he was too much "beat," to use his own expression, to resent the impertinence of the intruder.

"All right, mate," he responded. "I reckon that's about the way of it."

So "buttins" was summoned and sent up to announce the pale young man, who followed him pretty closely.

Mr. Aubrey heard what the unwelcome visitant said, which he did after his own rude way, but with as much rough kindness as he knew how to infuse into such an announcement. "Werry sorry, sir, for this 'ere job, but somebody's got to do it, and it might be in wuss hands, you see. I'll keep as much as possible hout of yer way, bein' honly in 'ere on the 'special.' "

"Take this person down-stairs," said Aubrey to the boy, "and see that he is made comfortable." The pale young man, who had taken off his

"snipey" head-piece, and was twisting it into a variety of shapes, pulled a dust-coloured curl of tangled hair lower over his forehead, and disappeared with "buttins."

"How is poor master?" inquired Tops of the latter, when they had re-entered the dining-room, where he had remained with Susan.

"Don't speak of him! Don't inquire about him!" she vociferated; "he deserves to die—that he does."

"Jest guv us a light for my pipe, mate, vill yer?" said the broker's man. "Now I'll jest tell yer wot my opinion of this 'ere job is. It's about the best thing as could happen to your master that he is ruinated entirely, 'cos he'll 'ave to vork for his livin', and as I've vorked for my livin', vy, I knows pretty vell wot it is. You're a pair of right-sorted vuns, you air, and if your master vants any little think in pertickler, vy the Downy vill be werry short-sighted for vunce, seein' as how he knows vot misfortin' is. This 'ere job ain't in my reg'lar line of bis'ness!"

"Ain't it now?" inquired Tops, with only partially aroused interest.

"No, it ain't," replied the Downy Cove; for the dirty pale young man was no other than our old acquaintance. "I'm 'put in 'ere special,' yer see. Now supposin' you wos jest to fetch a pot of 'arf-and-'arf."

"Well," said Tops, "I don't care if I do. You don't seem 'arf a bad lot, you don't; considerin' the herrand you're come on. I reckoned you and your pal up, the hinstant you set foot in this house."

"Did yer, now?" said the other. "Vell, I shouldn't a' thought it. I'm sure I'm werry much obliged by your good hopinion." (To Susan.) "Oughtn't I to be, my dear?"

Susan didn't notice the remark. She was thinking at that moment, whether all her late mistress's little nick-nacks, the screens she had painted, and the chairs and ottomans she had worked, would be sold, and into whose hands they might pass.

Tops nodded towards Susan, shook his head at the Downy, pointed with his thumb in the direction of his own left side, as much as to say, "Anything you like, but no nonsense in that direction." "Her and me," he thought fit to add aloud, "is a-keeping company together. You understand?"

The Downy looked a perfect encyclopædia of intelligence at his new acquaintance. "Don't be afeard of me," he said. "Bless you, I've knowed it this 'arf-hour. As for callin' any young creetur o' the female secks, 'my dear,' it's a way I've got; cos they're hall dear to me, hespecial them as is good-lookin'. But if you're a trifle pertickler, vy I'll put the skid on to please yer, and be as sairymonious as a Jew butcher, or a Lord Mayor's footman on Show Day."

This speech appeared to afford perfect satisfaction to Mr. Tops. As he said afterwards, he was not afraid of any gentleman's attentions, especially in that line of business; but he didn't choose any liberties to be taken, if he could prevent it, which might cause unpleasantness after. Had he observed the proceedings of the Downy immediately after his departure for the beer, it is probable that the unpleasantness would have preceded any effort at explanation that might have been attempted. For no sooner had the door shut on Tops, than the "man in possession" advanced close up to Susan, and said, with a degree of familiarity, which deprived that young lady of the power of remonstrance,

"I say, young woman, I've summut very pertickler to say to you."

"Sir!" was all that she could get out.

"I've got horders," he continued, "to hintrust you with a secret, vich I considers rayther a green haction myself."

"I don't want any of your secrets, I'm sure," said Susan; "and I'll trouble you to keep them to yourself."

"Then," responded the Downy, "you're a paragram of your secks, that's all. Now, don't be boltin' away as if I was goin' to bite yer. I ain't got no sich hintentions. Suppose," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "suppose that this 'ere missus of yourn ain't drownded at all, and vot's more is likely to rekiver her blessed eyesight into the bargain."

Susan staggered, and would have fallen; but the dirty pale young man caught her round the waist with infinite dexterity. It was perhaps as well for all parties that Tops did not return at that moment. Susan, however, recovered and disengaged herself in a very rapid manner.

"It is false," she cried. "You are jesting. You shall be punished for this."

"Go on!" said the Downy; "keep it hup by hall means. I'm used to it, I am; but perhaps you'll listen to reason, afore that respectable young man, whose acquaintance I'm proud on, comes back with the beer."

"Did you say," cried Susan, "that my dear mistress, Mrs. Aubrey, is not drowned—not dead?"

"I tell yer, I ought to know," rejoined the Downy, "for I took her out of the vorter last Satterday myself, vich haccounts for this 'ere cold I got. Vy, I'm as hoarse as if I'd left the door and vinder vide hopen hall night, and gone to bed in the hempty fire-grate vith somebody else's vet umberella."

"Oh!" cried Susan, "where is she? Let me fly to her!"

"Hush!" said the Downy, "that's wot I'm a comin' to. She's vell took care of; and don't mean him, her husband, to know nothink at all, leastvays for the present. But bless your bright eyes, we knows wot that amounts to. Howsumever this 'ere is her own vishes, and 'ere's the haddress."

"I will go to her instantly," cried Susan.

"Mind!" repeated the Downy. "Dark is the vord! or you'll spile everythink!"

"And is she well, my dear angel mistress?" inquired Susan, as well as she could for sobbing.

"All serene!" replied the Downy; "that is, the medical gent says she's out of hall danger. I see her on the sofey in a dark room like; for she's took the vorter-cure for blindness, vich it's a werry good imitashun of a myrakle, accordin' to the sawbone's own noshun. And she's kvite sensible, hall hexcept in trustin' another voman vith the secret; for there's vun of 'em in it halready. And a hout-and-hout stunner she is, fit to make any cove poeticle. I honly vish I wos a rich young nobilman for her sake, that's wot I do." And the Downy gave vent to something between a whistle and a sigh.

"Who can she be?" asked Susan. "What is her name, do, pray tell me?"

"There you air, halready," said her informant. "How should I know her name. Besides, that's not in my hinstruckshuns. I knowed how it vould be."

"You may, indeed, trust me," said Susan. "Not a word shall escape my lips. But, however did you come in here?"

"Vy, hearin' as there was a hexecution agoin' to be put in, I knowed some vun must 'ave the job, you see, and vith the haid of my bankers and the reekymendashun of Her Majesty's Ministers, the dodge was heasy enough to the Downy. Do I look like a man as vould disgrace his hancestry by such a job, if it warn't on the special?"

At this moment Tops re-entered with a pot of beer in his hand.

"Hush!" whispered the Downy. "Not a vord to him, till you've seen her."

Susan had no difficulty in beating her retreat, without exciting the suspicions of Tops in any way. There was, indeed, nothing very remarkable in her agitated appearance, considering that she had been in and out of hysterics every hour or so ever since the disappearance of her mistress.

"Nice gal, yourn!" said the Downy, nodding towards the door, as she shut it.

"Rare good un!" was the answer. "Take a drain, mate!" and he handed the beer to the Downy. The latter blew the froth dexterously into the fireplace, drank, and handed the pot to Tops, who took a long pull in turn.

"I say, young fellow!" he asked, "wot's your opinion of Socierty?"

"Is she a two-year-old filly?" was that worthy's reply. "Don't know the 'oss."

"A werry spavined old hack, I should say," rejoined the Downy. "No! I means fashionerble folk, and hall their surroundins—them as hangs out in 'ouses like this."

"I can't say," replied Mr. Tops, languidly, "that it troubles me much to think about it. There was a party 'ere, but he hooked it yesterday morning, as would 'ave talked to you by the hour about things of that sort. He was our guv'nor down below, and I do believe he thought somethink of this kind was goin' to 'appen. And it's jest as well he is an orf un, for if he had chanced to open the door to your lot this mornin', he'd 'ave had a fit, that's sartain. But you're welcome to your say, jest as well as if he was here."

"My noshun is," said the Downy, as soon as he had finished the beer, for which purpose he waited with great politeness until the other had finished speaking, "my noshun is that Socierty is a kind of huniwersal plant among the nobs to make everythink uncomfortable, and as full of lies as a dog's back is of fleas. And what's more aggrawatin' than Socierty, I should like to know? Jest now I vanted to spit. D'yer think I ha' wentured to ax that young 'ooman for a spittoon? My eyes! vouldn't she ha' looked at me, that's all? There's no sech thing in the hinwentory of this 'ouse, I'll pound it. Now, bein' a genelman as is hout of Socierty, I didn't take adwantage of my persition and spit on this beewtiful carpet, acos I ain't spiteful, and I cares for hothers as vell as myself. Socierty is spiteful, though it don't demean itself to spittoons, and is allers a spittin' on hother people's carpets, and the more wallyable they is, the more Socierty likes it, and, wot is more, it spits nasty wenomous pison, instead of good wholesome tobacker juice. How's yer master been haltogether like, since the haccident, young man?"

"Quiet as a lamb, and don't say nothing to nobody," replied Tops; "and considering he havn't had so much as a ounce of grub nor a drop of gruel for three days and hover, it ain't so much to be wondered at."

"Socierty," replied the Downy, "said he had been ravin' mad, and had broke hall the lookin'-glasses."

At this moment the door opened, and Aubrey himself appeared. He walked slowly, and apparently with difficulty. His eyes looked glazed and feverish, and his face was as pale as death itself; but he had made his toilet, and was dressed with care.

"Hush!" whispered Tops. "Who would have thought he was coming down, and we here too?"

The faithful fellow stepped back two or three paces, and saluted his master in a very different fashion from his usual off-hand style.

The latter said, very gravely, "Ah! Tops, my good friend. Good day!" bowed to the Downy, and passed on to a writing-table, where he sat down.

Tops, fully understanding that he was not required to remain where he certainly had no business to be, as quickly as possible shuffled, crab-like, out of the room, and shut the door very carefully after him.

The Downy remained in the room; but retired to the farthest possible corner, where he seated himself in an arm-chair, and continued smoking with great deliberation, until he apparently went to sleep quite suddenly. It is more than probable that it occurred to him all at once that smoking was not quite the correct thing in that apartment.

For some minutes Aubrey remained deeply buried in thought, with his head between his hands. At length he looked up and around him with a semi-vacant stare, apparently unconscious of the presence of any one in the room. Then he muttered to himself, and finally spoke aloud as follows:

"It was here," he said, "that she last sat. That mirror reflected her pale, despairing face. Fool! villain! madman! that I have been. And where is she now—she so fond, so gifted, so impassioned? Oh, Blanche!" (looking round) "ruined too! Ha, ha! I am glad of it. There sits the bailiff in possession. He sleeps. Let me look at him." He advanced towards the Downy, and gazed at him awhile. "How happy he seems! I wonder if he has a wife at home, and is true to her!" Saying this, he walked back to the other end of the room, and paused for three or four minutes. "One short half-hour longer,

Blanche—nay, less than that, perhaps—and we had been happy. I should never have deceived thee again—never! never! And it is now too late—too late!" Here he pulled out a glove from his breast. "I picked this up the night she left. It was warm, as she will never be again. It has not yet lost the mould of her delicate fingers. And they, perchance, are clutched—filled with the slimy ooze and black mud of the icy river, or stretched accusing from the centre of some dank and marshy flat, towards Heaven, in mute witness of my dastardly desertion and idiotic cruelty! Why do I not go mad, or die? It is too terrible to think of! It cannot, cannot be!"

After a few minutes of silence, the Downy rubbed his eyes, and looked up. He then approached Aubrey on tip-toe.

"Guvernor!" he exclaimed. "Ahem!"

Aubrey looked up at him, but did not speak, or resent the intrusion.

The Downy gave a kind of scrape, and continued: "Werry sorry as I ain't allowed to make myself scarce. Don't vish to hintrude. Can't help it."

"If it is any kindness to tell you so, my good man," said Aubrey, "neither your presence nor your mission affects me in the least."

The Downy looked at the wretched being before him, and started. "This is enough to take a cove off his beer, this is," he said to himself. "I'm blest if it ain't the werry hidentical gent as guv me sech a sight o' money for goin' a message not a fortnight agone, the day I fell in vith hall that rum chapter of accidinx. He's a real game un, arter hall, he is, and if I hadn't sworn to that hangel in creenolean that I vouldn't split, wotever come of this bis'ness, I'd werry soon make his mind heasy. But there's no fear but they'll be all right enough agen afore long. Vy couldn't they settle it with a jolly good row and a kivartern arterwards, like hordinary folks. But the nobs don't 'ave it out in our fashion."

"Do you wish to say anything to me?" asked Aubrey at last.

"Nothink pertickler, sir, at least novays nothink sartain, acos vy, nothink is sartain; but if there's no hoffence in vun like me a speakin' to a genelman about wot don't consarn him, I should like to say a vord or two, that's hall."

"Say anything you please," said Aubrey, "you can't wound my feelings, were you to try, friend."

"Vell," said the Downy. "In course I've heerd all about this 'ere bis'ness "—Aubrey started to his feet—"and wot I've got to say is, that you're a reckonin' of it hall up vithout hevidence, that's hall. Vile there's life there's 'ope, and has for hall the searchin' and draggin', there ain't nothink proved to the contrairy; vy I'd live in 'ope if I wos in your place, vich I means vithout hoffence on vun side or t'other."

As he spoke Aubrey's face showed a variety of emotions—anger, doubt, curiosity—and then relapsed into a vacant stare.

"He means well," he muttered, and then clutching the Downy by the arm, he cried: "Tell me! do you know anything, that makes you venture to say this?"

How far the Downy would have been taken aback by this sudden appeal remains a mystery unsolved. So deeply was the honest fellow impressed with admiration of Aubrey's lavish generosity, and pity for the agony under which every fibre of his late benefactor's existence was evidently writhing, that we are inclined to think he would have let out the secret there and then, but for an interruption which, either happily or unhappily, occurred at that very moment.

"Arter all," as he subsequently reflected, "I never knew no good come of meddlin' and tattlin'. She'll come round soon enough, and it'll give him a lesson, I dessay, as'll keep him on the keyviet for many a long day to come. Pr'aps I should spile hall by hinterferin' vith her little game."

So it came to pass that the Downy did not reveal the secret of Blanche's rescue.

The interruption which stopped any further revelations on the part of the Downy, at least for a time, was the sudden entrance of a most vulgar apparition, without any premonitory knock or warning. Apparition, said we; it was the substantial identity of Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens's clerk, Mr. Snap, who, with his hat partly cocked on one side of the shiny and pomatumed pimple which he called his head, advanced straight up to Aubrey, who resumed his seat with an expression of pain and exhaustion, and looked at him inquiringly without a word.

"Ahem! ahem!" barked the little lawyer's clerk. "I come from Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens. Mr. Grinderby said I was to bring a hanswer."

And he threw down a thick sealed packet on the table before Aubrey.

"I am unwell, sir," said the latter, with an air of languor, "and at present you must excuse me. You can leave the papers, to which I will attend as soon as I am able."

"Mr. Grinderby said I was not to come away without a hanswer," rejoined Snap, in a rude tone.

"Mr. Grinderby," replied Aubrey, "can hardly be aware—— Pray tell him that I am ill. Good morning, sir."

"Oh! I ain't in no particular hurry. I'll take a seat, till you're ready," rejoined Mr. Snap; as if he had been addressing a decayed law-writer, whose work was overdue.

"Sir," said Aubrey, haughtily, "this rudeness can scarcely be premeditated. Must I repeat to you that I am ill—suffering affliction? To be short" (sternly) "I must request you to withdraw."

"Mr. Grinderby," reiterated the clerk, "said I was not to go back without a hanswer."

"The matter must be pressing, indeed," said Aubrey, wearily. "I will open your parcel."

And he accordingly tore open the envelope, and read a letter enclosed within, as follows:

"DEAR SIR,

"We beg to enclose you our balance of bill of costs, extending, as you will perceive, over a period of four years, and, as the firm has heavy expenses to meet, request your immediate settlement of the same.

"We are, dear sir,
"Your obedient servants,
"GRINDERBY AND COUSENS.

"P.S. On the other side we beg to annex copy of letter just received from mortgagee's solicitor, and advise you that unless you at once pay the amount, immediate foreclosure will take place. What answer are we to make?"

"What! the interest on the mortgage not paid? I never heard a word of this?"

As Aubrey uttered these words, Mr. Snap indulged in a little feat of whistling, accompanied by sundry kicks against the leg of the table, on the corner of which he had perched himself.

Aubrey, without noticing him, tore open the bill of costs. "Balance!" he said, "three thousand four hundred and seventy-five pounds six shillings and eightpence halfpenny! Impossible! Pray, sir——"

The clerk continued his musical performance, not seeming to hear that he was addressed.

"Do you hear me, sir?" said Aubrey.

"I should think I did," was the answer. "I ain't deaf." And he took up a photographic album from the table, and began carelessly to turn over the pages. As he did so a portrait fell out.

"Insolent rascal!" cried Aubrey. "How dare you pollute that book with your touch?"

"Well I'm sure," cried Mr. Snap, "we air proud, with a broker's man, too, in possession. Why the book ain't yours, no more than it's mine, which it is perhaps in right of my governors. What am I to say to Mr. Grinderby?"

"Scoundrel!" shouted Aubrey, seizing him by the throat, and shaking him with violence till with one effort he flung him reeling half across the room, where he fell close at the feet of the Downy, who could not resist the temptation of a slight accidental kick.

"Oh! oh!" bellowed Snap. "Help! I call you to witness. He said 'scoundrel!' It's actionable, besides the assault. I'm bruised all over. I take you to witness that he has torn my shirt, and I've lost a stud."

"Tell your master," said Aubrey, "that, were he somewhat less base than he is, I would lash him within an inch of his life. Tell him that if he stole a handkerchief from a hedge, he would be transported as he deserves—ay, fifty times more than the petty thief who preys not on friend or client, but on Society, that spurns him from its breast. Tell him and his partner in iniquity, that not even contempt shall save them, if they dare to annoy me by other means than the law affords them, its meanest and most wretched instruments. Tell them—but I waste words on them, and on you." As he said this he cast a glance of scorn on the still semi-prostrate Snap, and left the room.

"Yah! yah! yah!" cried that personage, as he gathered himself up. "Who are you? Beggar! pauper! yah!" and he was about to execute a little war-dance of defiance, when an unexpected assailant gave him pause. This was no other than the Downy, who suddenly advanced upon him in a pugilistic attitude with a succession of the most approved feints. Mr. Snap retreated rather more quickly than the other took ground, and gained the door, out of which he made a most unceremonious exit, thereby escaping a kick, about the intention of which there was no nonsense, but which just fell short of the clerk's retreating figure.

"He was never nearer Chancery in his life, I reckon," quoth the Downy. "Blest if ever I keeps a running account with my fammerly solicitor agen." And he seated himself in his arm-chair again, and relighting his pipe, puffed the smoke towards the ceiling in an attitude of contemplation and reflection.

CHAPTER XVII.

SIR HARRY LUCKLESS'S LUCK.

With the exception of the genus Testamentary, there is no body or class of persons in the world about whose approval or good opinion a man need care so little as that of his own relations, except, perhaps, those of his wife. If he is prosperous, he does not want them, although they may him, which does not prevent, though it may conceal and check all the envy and malice which his prosperity, especially if coupled with merit, inspires so pre-eminently in their breasts. If he is needy, their mildest form of malignity and disgust is to disown him entirely, and to ignore his existence. If he is winning fame, they speak of him with derision and contempt; if he has won it, they are the last to yield to what "all the world" has said. If you are eccentric, a relation takes out a commission of lunacy against you; if you don't require it, he sends you baskets of game; if you are in trouble, he disowns you, and furnishes the public with the history of your early indiscretions and bad traits. He is a perpetual witness against your character; and if you have cut him all your life, he intrudes himself at your funeral, if he deems it due to propriety, or imagines you have anything to leave. And frequently the moral intimidation exercised by the mere existence of relations prevents a man from following his own bent, and he sacrifices his happiness on the barren and lugubrious altar of family pride.—From the Note-book of Solomon Trustall, Esq., LL.D.

ON a sofa in the back drawing-room of a small but genteel house in Ebury-street, Pimlico, reclined the victim of Aubrey's weakness and wickedness, lately rescued from a suicidal doom. The apartment was partially darkened, and as she lay motionless, with closed eyelids, and clasped hands, her long dark hair streaming on either side of her, and making her face seem more ghostly pale, and her white dress more white by the contrast, she looked not unlike the monumental effigy of a recumbent queen in some old cathedral nook or corner. Blanche Aubrey had indeed passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Deeply was her conscience impressed with the awful nature of the crime, from the commission of which she had been snatched in so wonderful a manner. The violence of her late excitement was subdued and toned down to melancholy. It seemed to her, as if a long period had elapsed since she left home. She seemed to be born to new ideas, new reflections on life. She felt the utmost indignation, not unmingled with scorn, for the conduct of her husband. But it was something she did not wish to think of, and she sought studiously to banish it from her mind. This was, perhaps, but an effort at mental self-deception, as in reality she thought of nothing or very little else; yet the very exercise was insensibly doing her good. Before her attempt at suicide, she had no idea, no instinct of resistance—now she had a mixed feeling of resentment, disgust, wounded dignity, and a vague desire to "live to see him repent it," as the phrase is. Again, wonderful to relate, her eyesight had been almost miraculously restored! From the first, her loss of sight had puzzled the faculty. There was no cataract, no blemish, no apparent disease in her eyes. The affection appeared to be a nervous one, and one of the most eminent doctors had declared that her sight might be restored any hour, as mysteriously as it had failed. The very day after her rescue from the death she had sought after, she became conscious of a limited power of vision, accompanied by excruciating pains, when the light reached her eyes. From that time—about ten days had now elapsed since her plunge into the river—the improvement had been rapid, and the medical man called in by Kate Dareall declared that he entertained no doubt of her ultimate and total recovery. The worthy doctor did not know all; and yet he had discovered a fact which no one else had suspected, and which very much influenced the judgment which he pronounced. He had been simply told that she was a married woman separated from her husband by reason of his misconduct, that she had been blind for some months, and had undergone a great mental and physical shock. Dr. Miller was one of those first-rate men who never emerge from comparative professional obscurity, either owing to want of opportunity, or the absence of all humbug and self-assertion. Had he been suddenly called upon to display his vast knowledge and power of applying it in some celebrated case, his fortune would have been made. As it was, he had a small practice, and it often fell to his lot to do duty for the busy neighbouring medical men, who knew his skill, talents, unassuming character, and strictly honourable conduct. Let it not be thought that Dr. Miller wanted practice. No, he had plenty of that among the poor. As he would say smilingly to his wife, he had as many, if not more, "paid," than paying patients. He would rise and dress as rapidly at the call of a cabman's wife, as he would have done at the summons of an archbishop's lady. He was a bad hand at making out a bill, or sending it in; and when sometimes a poor but honest patient would timidly offer him his fee, he would return it like a blessing, replacing it in the hand that gave it, which he would close with both of his, saying with a gentle smile, "No, not this time, thank you! I think we must get out of town for a day or two, eh? Let me feel your pulse again," or some such words, thereby changing the conversation, and avoiding thanks. Moreover, the doctor had occasion to prescribe a great deal of good port wine with his bark and other tonics; and as his patients were not port wine drinkers, and, consequently, were not likely to get "good" port wine, the doctor would frequently insist upon furnishing his own prescriptions.

"My dear lady!" he said once to a poor creature, who had known better days, and who muttered something about its being too expensive, "expense is not the question, the difficulty is to get it good at any price in these days; and, by-the-bye, singularly enough, I have a little stock at my disposal, which I am enjoined by a gouty patient, who must not drink it himself, to place at the service of my other patients who can; and I can't do better than send you half a dozen of it immediately I get home."

The poor lady began to cry. She read the kind-hearted fiction at a glance.

"Hoot, hoot! ma'am, this won't do," replies the doctor. "I didn't prescribe water with that port wine. Must stop this sort of thing. It's a very dry wine, I assure you—won't bear water. I never could endure tears; won't come again, ma'am, if you cry; bad compliment to my treatment! must go and see Toole at the play." And he then dexterously got into a description of the last piece at the Adelphi Theatre.

Such was Dr. Miller, of Middle Belgrave-street, Belgravia, though his practice lay in Pimlico, as he often told Mrs. Miller. As he had no family, he could afford these eccentricities, by means of his other "practice," which was that of strict economy.

"Don't you ever get out of town yourself, doctor?" said a gentleman of his acquaintance once.

"Oh, yes!" he said, "I was telegraphed for last summer all the way from Gravesend. It was one of the most distinguished incidents of my professional career."

On the memorable night when Blanche disappeared from the fashionable world and her own domestic circle, and very nearly from this sublunary scene altogether, Miss Dareall had conveyed her, after a brief council with Sir Harry, to the apartments of Sir Harry Luckless, in Duke-street, St. James's, which he surrendered for the occasion, and where the actress sat up with her all night. Sir Harry brought in Dr. Miller, whose admirable character Miss Dareall knew, through a friend of hers. Neither Sir Harry nor Kitty, as we will for the present call her, thought of restoring Mrs. Aubrey to her home, until she should be in a state to decide for herself. They knew too well the reason of her rash act. The next morning Blanche declared her positive intention never to return home again. Whilst she slept, under the influence of some soothing anodyne administered by the doctor, Kitty betook herself to her own abode, and thence to a costumier, and reappeared in an eccentric and dismal garb, very unlike that which she had worn on the previous evening. She then despatched Sir Harry to find apartments, which he very soon did; and, as soon as it got dark the next evening, our new Sister of Charity, aided by Sir Harry, tenderly assisted poor homeless Blanche into a cab, and drove to the retreat they had provided. When the affair of the supposed suicide first got into the papers, without names, Miss Dareall and Sir Harry agreed to endeavour to persuade Mrs. Aubrey to return to her home, or at least communicate with her husband, in time to avoid the full development of the scandal. But they found they might as well talk to a marble "Italy," or any other statue expressing griefs and wrongs. She thanked her kind friends, to whom she said she would not be a burden long. She knew the full consequences of the step she had taken, and was deeply conscious of the offence she had committed in the eyes of Heaven; but rather than return to her husband's roof, she would repeat it. On these occasions she became so alarmingly agitated, that after two or three attempts made by Kitty, they judged it fit not to press the matter further, at least for the present. During the next four or five days the whole matter got fully into the newspapers, names and all, and Aubrey's difficulties were the subject of common conversation.

Blanche said little—whatever she might have felt—at hearing of her husband's threatened ruin. "Ah!" she observed, "he will miss me now!" And that was the whole expression of her concern. She inquired, however, after Susan with some interest: and when Kitty proposed to bring her to see her, under the strictest bond of secrecy, she did not object. Consequently, the Downy was intrusted with that delicate mission, and we have seen how he performed it. On Susan's appearance, Blanche never said a word about her husband. She hoped that her birds would be fed and cared for; and seemed pleased when Susan told her that Mr. Aubrey had behaved very liberally to an old pensioner, who was accustomed to call for a weekly dole, and who had called, and was terribly shocked to hear of the disappearance of her kind patroness. With the selfishness—let us rather say the bitter necessity of extreme age and poverty—the old woman mingled in her sad "wirrasthrue" the thought of her own sudden deprivation of means. Mr. Aubrey, who had taken to wandering about the house without any precise object, heard her loud wailing, and called her into the library, and talked with her, as he had done with no other person since his loss; and on her getting up, shaking with palsy and excitement, with her rusty black bonnet-ribbons damp with tears, he placed a twenty-pound note in her meagre old talons, and told her that Mr. Binsby would get it changed for her, apparently quite forgetful of the departure of that worthy. "Yes, yes," cried Blanche, "he could be kind and considerate to every one save me."

When Susan arrived, and, after a brief disappearance, reappeared with her boxes, having requested Mr. Aubrey to allow her to leave suddenly on the plea of nervous inability to remain, refusing at the same time to accept anything beyond the balance of her bare wages to that day, Kitty began to relax in her attendance, and for two days previous to the day on which the events took place which we are now describing, and about to describe, she had not looked in at all. In fact, Susan had barely, as she called it, "had a single spy at her." Of course, the attached waiting-woman was much prepossessed in the strange lady's favour; although she appeared in a costume which she couldn't "abear," encouraged no conversation, preferred speaking to her mistress alone, and altogether glided about "as mysterious and unsatisfactory as a ghostess." Amongst other things, it very speedily occurred to Blanche, that she was utterly unprovided with money. Sir Harry had, of course, been entirely kept out of the way, and, indeed, it must be said to his honour, that he had manifested no sort of inclination to intrude himself. As to the romantic passion for Mrs. Aubrey which he had confided to Kitty, it seemed to have evaporated in the most satisfactory manner. The fact is, it had never really existed, save in fancy; for Sir Harry had mistaken sympathy and admiration for love, and from the moment that he saw Blanche in that miserable situation, pity had usurped the place of every other feeling.

It was to Miss Dareall that Blanche was indebted for the trifling expenses which she had already incurred, including a slender outfit of clothes and the moderate bill of the doctor. But this was a state of things which manifestly could not last; and already Kitty had experienced some difficulty in reconciling her patient and protégée to the acceptance of a bounty, which the former pretended came out of some charitable and religious trust-fund, with which she was connected as dispenser. In vain did Sir Harry press Kitty to allow him the pleasure of furnishing the present means to enable Blanche to carry out her intentions. Concerning this he and the actress had many little friendly arguments and disputes. On one of these occasions, Kitty referred to his declared passion for the lady.

"Ah, now!" he observed to her; "I could not have known what I was saying; for much as I respect and admire her, and sorry as I am for her sad situation, there's no love at all in the matter. I like you better than any one in the world, I do believe," he added; "for there isn't a thing in the world I wouldn't do for you, and I'm never happy the day I don't see you."

"Dear me!" said Kitty, arranging her bonnet-strings in the glass of a little fancy screen on the chimney-piece, "how affectionate you are becoming! You'll be wanting to marry me next."

"Faith! and so I would!" he said, "if it wasn't for my relations. But what would the world say, my darling?"

Miss Dareall made no reply. It would seem that her bonnet-strings were very obstinate at that moment. Sir Harry did not notice how pale her face looked, as she turned round and said gaily, "Well, I suppose I must have that silly old Chalkstoneville after all. I shall cut your acquaintance then, and all your friends into the bargain, and take to visiting the poor, and patronising pet parsons. What a dear, old respectable duchess I shall make. Why you don't think I should be such a fool as to have you, do you?"—and she laughed harshly—"if all your precious relations were to go on their knees to me together, like the maimed, halt, and blind beggars in a French Catholic church, where the poor and old alone act the part of the devout. Ha! ha! But what could the world say that would injure your character?" It was Sir Harry's turn now to grow pale with anger, and fear—fear of having given offence to Kitty, and anger at her remark. But that young lady hummed a tune, and gave him her arm quite gaily. "Come!" she said, "I want you to escort me to Pimlico, but mind and steer clear of your relations. They are not a very moral lot, are they? and won't deprive you of their valuable countenance for flirting and walking with an actress, so long as you are not in danger of marrying her? Ha! ha! my poor Harry! I'll protect you. I'll take care you don't forget yourself; or if you do, I promise at least not to take advantage of your rashness."

Sir Harry tried to respond in a similar vein; but the attempt was a failure. He felt that he had made a mistake, and did not know how to rectify it. Two or three times in the course of that walk, and several times after, whilst he continued on familiar terms with Kitty, he very nearly made up his mind to set his relations and the world at defiance, and ask her plainly if she would become Lady Luckless. And, had it not been for his debts and difficulties, he would certainly have done it; but this weighed him down, and kept him silent.

"If I'd only come into the Kiltroon and Bogmahony property, I'd do it in a moment," he said to himself. "But I can't ask her to marry a bare title, and perhaps have to come and visit me in Whitecross-street, and be searched at the door to see if she was carrying any whisky to her needy Irish husband. No, that wouldn't do at all, at all."

Somehow or other, from the day of that unfortunate conversation with Kitty, the intimacy between them decreased. Sometimes, she was out at unaccustomed hours, and left no message for Sir Harry to follow her. Sometimes, she was surrounded by adorers, and made no distinction, as heretofore, in his favour. And, at last, she actually was denied to him, though he could hear the sound of her laughter up-stairs. Poor Sir Harry! he could have fairly cried with vexation, as he turned from the door, and remembered his fatal speech about his relations; for not one of whom he cared a pin, nor with one of whom was he on friendly terms. He felt as if he could have called them all out, i.e., the males, and shot them one by one with the greatest satisfaction.

"I've offended her pride, and she will never forgive me," he said. Alas! if Kitty could have known what he felt at that moment. But with all her acuteness and wonderful instinct, that was exactly what she did not know. So she flirted with the Duke of Chalkstoneville, with an aching head and heart, and gradually banished Sir Harry from her door with unflinching resolution, not through pride or anger, but out of regard to her own saddened feelings, into which a higher and nobler consideration entered largely.

"Yes," she said, "he was right. How could he ally his name and fate with one like me? I might, perhaps, marry him, if I continued to encourage his attentions; for I believe he loves me a little. But I love him too well to degrade him by such an alliance."

At that very instant the object of her thoughts was indulging in a day-dream of emigration, in which the cultivation of a farm in Nova Scotia, and the management of a sheep-walk in Australia, engaged his preference by turns. But over both the same Divinity presided, and both the North American and Australian Egeria wore the espiègle expression of Kitty Dareall in her sunniest and happiest moments. Sir Harry was an excellent farmer and stock-breeder spoilt. Such a career is certainly preferable to one phase of human existence in this world, and that is the worthless, godless, loveless and useless existence of an idle man on town, that Βίος αβίωτος of the Greek moralist which fools call par excellence "life."

We may here observe that whilst it is sufficiently evident that two persons could hardly have been found even as partners in a modern wedding more utterly unsuited to each other than Blanche and Sir Harry, between whom there was no link of tastes, habits, thoughts, and feelings, it is by no means so apparent that a match between Kitty and that reckless young Irishman would not have been productive of mutual happiness. They both hated all the common proprieties, conventionalities, and ceremonies of social domestic life. They were neither of them in the least degree regular in any one thing; not even in that most important matter of human consideration, the hours of dinner, lunch, breakfast, or supper. Then, they were both fond of dogs and horses, and out-door exercises. As for Kitty, though, at that period, she undoubtedly set the chief fashions of dress in London, she would have been perfectly happy to get up at four o'clock in the morning to go duck-shooting in the winter, or to preside over a haymaking party in the dog-days, without the slightest concern for her complexion. She knew the Stud Book and the Racing Calendar better than Sir Harry himself, though he would sit smoking and poring over them for hours; moreover, he had a most profound reverence for her genius, and believed there never had been another such a woman in the world; whilst she felt that perfect ease in his presence, and comfort in his society, which she had never experienced in that of any other human being. The fact is, that Sir Harry was the best-natured fellow imaginable, and there wasn't such a thing as an arrière pensée in his whole composition. Lastly, she liked him better than any one whom she had ever met. Had Sir Harry told any one of his associates that he was in love with Kitty, whatever else such a one might have thought of it, he would have deemed it the most natural thing in the world. On the other hand, had he seriously imparted his secret passion for

Blanche, as he did to Kate, to the best friend he had in the world, that friend would have laughed outright in his face, just as if he had avowed a hopeless attachment to one of the Royal Family, or to the incarnation of charity and feminine heroism who shares the Imperial throne of France. It was not in the "eternal fitness of things," to use an American expression, that Sir Harry should adore Mrs. Aubrey; it was that he should be "sweet" on Kitty Dareall. But somehow Sir Harry did not see how the matter really lay at first, himself. He wanted to shoot Aubrey, partly for his cruel treatment of his wife, and partly, had he analysed his own feelings, on account of his pretensions to Miss Dareall; and he thought he must be in love with the injured wife, whom he panted, with all the peculiar chivalry of the Lucklesses, to avenge. There was a great deal of simplicity in Sir Harry's character. He was just sufficiently educated to pass current as a gentleman; but books and polite information were by no means his forte. He was, however, an accomplished sportsman, danced "like an angel," had an elegant figure, and a handsome, naturally rakish-looking face. When you were most inclined to be angry with him for some Celtic blunder, or gross instance of unpunctuality, for which latter quality he was so noted, that some one said of him, he could not even have been born at the time expected, there was something in the tone of his voice, and the look of his blue eyes, that disarmed you of all resentment. Sir Harry had been a victim in his time to many a designing rogue; but his good-natured, easy credulity was as great as ever. He had, however, the strongest aversion to lawyers, and everything connected with the execution of the law. His whole sympathies were with debtors and not creditors. He would have shot a bum-bailiff without any remorse, or a registrar of the Sheriff's Court, or "any such blackguard," as he would have called that necessary functionary, with positive delight. His father and grandfather had been great duellists in their day, and the latter had challenged the former, and posted him as a coward for not fighting his own father!

Such was the stock from which Sir Hany Luckless came, and if he was not a man of business it is hardly to be wondered at. He inherited the famous saw-handles and all the taste of his ancestors for polite duelling, with a remarkable tenderness of heart and a gentle disposition, which caused but few to suspect what a hero at ten paces was lost, owing to the degenerate manners of the age, in that effeminate-looking young man, whose career remained, perforce, unembellished with a single "affair." Had he known the state of his own heart, we suspect he would have discovered there a considerable amount of devotion to Miss Dareall about that time, and certainly, as we have more than hinted, he was by no means indifferent to that eccentric young lady. But Sir Harry was famous for never knowing anything very correctly, not immediately connected with dogs, horses, the "Racing Calendar," and field sports, and consequently he did not become aware of the depth of affection of which he was capable, until the opportunity was lost. But we must not anticipate our tale.

CHAPTER XVIII.

KATE DAREALL SWOONS.

A very pitiful lady, very young,
Exceeding rich in human sympathies,
Stood by, what time I clamoured upon Death;
And at the wild words wandering on my tongue,
And at the piteous look within mine eyes
She was affrighted, that sobs choked her breath.

La Vita Nuova. Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

WE left Blanche lying on a sofa in the small dark back drawing-room in Ebury-street, Pimlico. Sad and tender fancies were chased in succession through her brain by bitter and resentful thoughts, like wounded deer pursued by fierce wolves or relentless hounds. All the dread reality of her hopeless position occupied her mind. What should she do—how repay her kind benefactress? Yes, she must again eat the bitterest bread of servitude, that which is earned by the educated and intellectual poor from the sordid and soulless rich. She shuddered as she thought of the Grimshaw family, and what she had endured at their place. Poor Blanche recalled her happiness in leaving that abode with Lady Courcy, a beloved and blooming fiancée, soon to be the bride of the man whom she worshipped with all the fervour of a virgin heart. Surely never was so bright a prospect darkened, clouded, and ruined, and in so short a time! And for what and how? Not by the stern mandate of Death. If worldly ruin had come to her husband, it had come self-sought; and had he been stripped of everything in the world, would that have destroyed her happiness, her love? No! As it was, he had simply ceased to love her, and shown it with every aggravation of insult and contempt. Why had he sought out and wooed her, to deal with her thus? And now, with shattered and enfeebled frame, and without hope, she must begin that fearful struggle again. Moreover, she had another anxiety, another drawback; one that would interfere with her wherever she went. The blessing she had once so earnestly prayed for, had arrived, changed by circumstances into a curse. Poor Blanche! There are thousands in this world who have felt all that you did, and more—the victims of pitiless circumstance and chance. As we write, what stories we could unfold! What fair women are trodden down in the mud and mire of the world—what noble men struggle and starve and die; unpitied, save by those who cannot aid them. If their circumstances were only known to the rich and idle—but they cannot be! This is called in modern mechanical slang getting "out of the grooves." This is a mechanical age, and there are not sufficient grooves for all, at least in England under the legislation of our political economists, who have knowledge but no wisdom. Of the numbers "out of the grooves" in this, and we suppose in every "civilised" country, we pity most those who can boast many rich relations:

because the latter are careful not to let them starve or die without an ill word. They say of such a one, that it is no wonder he has come to a sad end, and of another who has battled hard with destiny, that no one could have expected it to be otherwise.

Poor Blanche! It is indeed a hard fate to have known prosperity, and to have remained unspoilt by it, and to be suddenly thrown again upon your own resources to earn the crust of dependence, or to starve. At this moment, how many share your fate, with even less power, less chance, and less experience than yours? How many widows and orphans of brave soldiers who have died for their country, have been mercilessly plunged into ruin by the machinations of scoundrels, who laugh at the impotency of our laws to punish them, and triumph in the reluctance of Society to reject them, or to cast them forth, because they are rich? Some of these malefactors may even have purchased seats in Parliament with a portion of the proceeds of their plunder. They, at any rate, are not very likely to legislate against the financial speculator, the fraudulent director, or the religious contractor, who has ruined thousands and made himself safe. Blanche Aubrey was not thus cast upon the world. She was the victim of one man's folly and perfidy. She had known poverty before; but it was when she had hope, and heart, and youth. She was still young in years; but she had undergone a mental and physical blight.

Still something, she felt, must be done. She did not fear toil in one sense; because she had now nothing more to fear. She had endured all; yea, even to the bitterness of death. So she thought of all things she could do, or might do—she would advertise in the newspapers. Yes, she would ask her kind friend and protectress to do that for her, and perhaps, ere very long, she might be able to repay all. Since she had been there, every luxury had been supplied to her with a lavish hand—fruit, flowers, even a piano had been sent in—all this very much against her will, and her entreaty that no expense which could be spared, should be incurred. Yes, she would consult her and ask her to advertise, not for a situation as a governess or companion, but for pupils. She would teach music, vocal and instrumental. What if she were recognised as Mrs. Aubrey! She would disguise herself, cut off and dye her hair, and in the plain unbecoming dress she would wear, she trusted none would know her. Oh! if she could only go abroad, or even to some provincial town, and thus avoid the terrible ordeal of revisiting places and seeing persons familiar to her during her brief career of fashion. Amidst all this, was not Blanche grateful to Providence for the restoration of her sight? How had she welcomed that inestimable boon? Yes, on her knees she had thanked the Almighty for His gracious mercy. Her restored vision had been baptised with tears of gratitude and thankfulness to Heaven. She had even reproached herself for the want of the extreme joyous fervour with which such a blessing should have been received. Without it, she must have been lost—must have lived in abject misery during the short time she would have burdened the world, supported by some public charity, an inmate, perhaps, of the workhouse. It was too terrible to think of. But out of that great and unexpected mercy, no art of which she was mistress could conjure a thought of happiness, a dream of joy. Thus lost in sad reflection lay Blanche, gazing almost as blindly on the ceiling, through her eyes ever and anon suffused by tears, as when she was deprived of actual sight. There are geysers in Iceland, that isle of wondrous phenomena, deep and sullen shafts piercing the bowels of the earth, which are dead and silent when unprovoked and unchallenged by the curious traveller or idle passer-by. Let, however, only a pebble or a bit of wood be flung into the mysterious depth, and then far down a troubled groaning, like the throes of some mortal agony, is heard, until ere long the boiling torrent surges forth, and scalds and blisters all within the reach of its spray. Thus it is with the buried existence of a great and hidden grief. The slightest token, the most trifling memorial, awakens all its violence. A sound, a scent, a dead leaf, a written scrap, a chance word, an unbidden thought, and the secret springs of sorrow are touched. Then the long sigh and the convulsive sob, the thrill of agony, the suppressed shriek of a quickened remembrance, until the fountains of visible tears fill and overflow, and the pent-up feelings of misery are relieved. At length the heaving bosom subsides, the chords and sinews of contention slacken, and the exhausted frame sinks into forgetfulness and rests for awhile, until some new and possibly trifling event creates at once the remembrance, the agony, and the relief.

Blanche had thought and wept, and wept and thought, until she had fairly exhausted herself, and her eyelids closed in sleep. We are fond of alluding to the dreams of the actors and actresses in this drama of real life. He who at some time in his existence has not bent with trembling and reverential wonder before the ivory portals of Dreamland, is a man of figs or figures, with a soul worthy of a grocer, and the imagination of a petty arithmetician. He has no romance, no poetry in his composition; nor has he been the hero of adventure, nor the toy of fate. A romantic soul is as necessary for the experience of adventure as a plodding disposition for the small felicities of a retail trade. It is as inherent in one man to meet with strange events, as in another to do common things. Thus a man's temperament is in one sense the creator, not the moulder of his fate. We do not profess an absolute belief in supernatural visitations, nor do we withhold our belief. And why should we withhold it, since we can account for nothing? All our wisdom cannot fathom the instincts of a savage, nor gauge the sagacity of a dog. Everything is a phenomenon, if rightly considered. We can preach sermons on life and death, philosophise on a cabbage, and distil the rose's scent; we have our Polytechnic Institution, our Rosse's telescope, our Pharaoh's serpents, and we can resolve mortality into its chemical components. But we cannot see before the cradle or beyond the grave. Our vision opens on the firmament in which we measure the distances of the stars; we tread on a round globe, and shoot electric sparks of conversation under the ocean that divides the land, over the mountains and valleys of the once populous Atlantic, of which a dim and confused tradition remains; but we live between two curtains, two veils, which no mental projectile has penetrated, and which no mortal eye has pierced—the veil of birth and the veil of death—clouds that have never rolled aside at the bidding of any enchanter's wand, before which the imagination of a thousand mortal ages has sunk confused and baffled, died and lived, and lived and died again, as wise as yesterday and the day before, no wiser to-morrow perchance; but of this none can predicate—for if we could, we might know all. "Give me a fulcrum," said the great old materialist, Archimedes, "and I will place a lever that shall move the world." "Grant me a single premise," says the latest metaphysician, "and I will account for all." If eternity be a truth, there is no beginning, and can be no time. For if we start from beyond a beginning, the beginning can never be overtaken even in thought.

All this commonplace—for we do not affect the shallow incomprehensibility of the great philosophers of the age—has arisen out of our suggestion that the dreams of sleep may have a connexion and a purpose in relation with our one great waking dream. That the supernatural or transnatural dream is of rare occurrence, proves nothing against our theory or supposition. For after all, it does not amount to a theory, which would infer a mathematical basis or support. We only start a fact. Let others shoot and stuff it, or cook and swallow it, if they please. There are gross and common dreams, if anything is common; for even an onion is a wondrous bulb, especially when preserved in the mummy of a crocodile or ibis, after having been worshipped at Ombos or Tentyra. There are dreams arising evidently out of material effects upon the sleeping body. Thus a dream may be produced by a secret sound or touch. This has been reduced in some degree to practice. We mean by way of experiment, and are not alluding to penny or sixpenny dream-books, and the practice of the ancient or modem Egyptians. But we allude to those fantastic and partial revelations of troubles and joys to come—seldom, alas! the latter, and of things concurrently and contemporaneously happening far or near, and without visible or material communication, such as we have known, and such as many of the more highly-wrought and imaginative and spiritual of our fellow-creatures can testify to have occurred within the sphere of their own experience.

As Susan entered the room tip-toe, she actually found her mistress smiling with an expression of that which is called "seraphic" content. It is clear that in the popular conception, at least, the seraphs are not bored by the constant repetition of a good thing. At that moment Blanche imagined herself to be leading her husband, who seemed quite naturally to be blind, and whose sightless orbs were turned to her with confiding affection, out for a walk in the warm sunshine among crowds of people. Everywhere she saw flowers and kind faces. She thought Lady Courcy came by, radiant and joyful, and placed something in her hands. It was Arthur's wedding gift of diamonds and pearls. Then she fancied they were in Paris. Suddenly they met the Emperor and Empress, who stopped and spoke such kind and touching words she felt she should never forget them in her dream; but the little she remembered when she awoke resembled a fragment of the "Lily and the Bee," or half a sentence on the traditional memory of music by Mr. Beresford Hope. The Emperor detached an order from his uniform, and, borrowing a pin from Eugenie, fastened it on her husband's coat. It was the Japanese order of the "bons maris"—and this her own, her adored blind Arthur had deserved! She would have responded, but words failed her. Then the magnificent music of the united bands of the French army pealed forth, around the Exhibition organ of 1851 the strains of "Partant pour la Syrie," which, without any apparent stop or audible transition, changed to "Villikins and his Dinah," and so undoubtedly it did, for with a deep-drawn sigh she burst the bonds of sleep, and saw Susan bending over her with affectionate solicitude, and heard a street musician grinding the very melody that had been magnified and sublimated, not altered, in her dream.

"Oh, Susan!" she cried, before she had quite collected her ideas, "I was so happy; but tell me, have you any news of your master? I have had such a singular dream.

Encouraged by this permission to speak of a hitherto forbidden topic, Susan went ahead.

"Lor', mum," she said, "I saw Mr. Tops this morning, and he says master is so changed, so pale, and in such a state of desperation, we're afraid he'll do himself a mischief, if you don't forgive him, and go home. He thinks he's been and caused your death, and it quite preys on his mind like; as for that matter, it's natural it should. Oh! do forgive him, and I'm sure he'll never behave wrong again."

"He will never have the opportunity," said Blanche, coldly; "so far as I am concerned. I trust that his depravity will not carry him so far as to cause him to deceive any other poor victim. But I think at present he is more likely to be deceived himself."

"Dear me, mum," rejoined Susan, "suppose he was to marry some other woman, and you not dead after all, why you'd be guilty of causing bigamy."

The idea of her husband marrying again was a home thrust; and for a moment Blanche quivered under it. But in a moment she regained her apparent calmness.

"If Mr. Aubrey were to contract a second marriage," she said, "I should never interfere. I am dead to him."

"You make me quite shudder, I declare, mum," rejoined Susan, who was determined not to lose the opportunity of talking on a topic hitherto forbidden to her. "You may say so now, and no wonder, considering all. But it's my opinion you'd be very sorry some day, for all that's been done."

"Never!" simply rejoined Blanche.

"Not if master really repents?" asked Susan.

"Repentance! what is that?" asked Blanche.

"If I am not now that which I dare not think of, much less mention, was it not through the bravery and devotion of a poor creature who owed me no love or care, and yet perilled his life to save mine? And if I were now a disfigured corpse, as I might be, but for that gallant act of one whom, a fortnight ago and less, he would have spurned from his horse's bridle, or his street door, whose deed would it have been but my husband's, of him on whom I bestowed all my affection, all my heart? Speak no more of it, I beg of you."

"But, mum," persisted Susan, "you know what the doctor said; and would you have your child without a father, and him married, perhaps, to some one else? That's what I've been thinking of ever since."

Blanche crimsoned to the ears, and then became as suddenly pale; and her face grew like the twilight sky, when the sun has suddenly disappeared behind a bank of clouds, so cold, and grey, and ghastly in its sternness.

"If I have a child born into this world," she said, slowly, "it shall never call him father. I will work for it, live for it, die for it, if need be; but it shall never know him, nor be called by his name. I tell you I could never believe, never trust him again; his oaths would seem like dicers' falsehoods, even were they true; his repentance like meanness added to crime. If he could give me reparation, full reparation, I might listen to duty, could I choke the loathing which sickens my very soul. But he could not, I tell you, he could not. There is no way, no method, no possibility; and I do not wish that there should be. And now I order you to be silent on this topic; that is, if you still regard me as your mistress."

"Oh, mum!" cried Susan, who had been sobbing during these last words, "don't be angry; but Tops and me was talking, and we were saying how happy you might both be yet. Couldn't you live, now master's ruined right out, in a little cottage, ever so small? Don't you remember that one we saw at Merton, last summer, quite smothered with white roses, which master said looked as if it was just married to the farm-house close by? Master would work at writing, and we should want for nothing, and Tops would dig in the garden without a farthing of wages; and if he didn't, I would never speak to him again."

"Do not cause me to appear harsh and ungrateful, Susan," replied Blanche; "but if you wish to continue to visit me in this humble abode, never speak to me of your master again. I tell you once for all, that I am, and I wish to be, nothing to him. I tell you that he cares for another—why do you force me to speak of it? Do you not know it as well as I? Be silent on the subject, if you have any regard for me, henceforth, I tell you, and for ever."

"I'm sure," whimpered poor Susan, "I meant all for the best. I don't believe—he'll ever go—after that—wretch again. I know he hasn't since—you left—and all men—that is, all gentlemen—are apt to forget themselves some time or another—at least so—I have heard say. I'm sure—he loved you best—only he didn't think of it as he had ought to have done—all the time—— Oh! how that knock at the door startled me. I declare I'm that nervous! Shall I see who it is, mum?"

Mrs. Aubrey nodded assent, and Susan left the room.

"She means well," said Blanche, musing aloud; "but cannot see that she only inflames my wound. I wonder if this is my kind protectress who has called."

Here Susan reappeared.

"The strange lady, mum," she said, "wishes to know if she may come in?"

"I should think so, indeed," replied Blanche. "Pray, beg of her to enter at once."

Susan obeyed her mistress, and at once ushered in a veiled and cloaked figure, in whom the reader will, as her most particular friends and admirers would not have done, at once recognise the airy and volatile debutante on the boards of the Thespis Theatre; the plague and worry of the managerial existence of Methusalem Wigster, Esq., comedian and sole lessee; the ruling divinity of the Duke of Chalkstoneville; the chastiser of Lord Eppingforest; the model of fashion, but not the pink of propriety; the thorn in the side—if all tales were true—of the Archbishop of Middlesex; in short, that irrepressible, eccentric, and perverse young lady, whose vocation it was by turns to charm and shock the world, and who rejoiced in the popular sobriquet of Kitty Dareall, actress and lady at large. Had she acted only half as well at the Thespis, as she commenced the interview on this occasion, we may fairly assume that she would have had a great career on the stage.

As she entered, Blanche, still weak and tottering, advanced to meet her, and would have clasped her with outstretched arms, or kissed her hand had it been extended. But the mysterious visitor drew somewhat coldly back. As she did so, she cast a quick look, or, rather indicated a look by a gesture, towards Susan.

"Leave us, dear Susan, kindly, for awhile alone," said Blanche.

The waiting-maid obeyed with an alacrity she would not have shown towards the richest and proudest lady in the land. Alone with Blanche, our novel Sister of Charity, or whatever she called herself, entreated Blanche to recline again on the sofa, while she drew a chair to her side. We shall now proceed to narrate the conversation that ensued in the first person, a plan which we have before adopted in the course of this history.

KITTY. I have ventured to intrude this last time to offer what poor counsel and services I may.

BLANCHE. Oh! madam, you are indeed my guardian angel. Will you not tell me at length by what name I may call one to whom I owe so much?

KITTY (in measured accents). I have no name. I am one of a community who seek to repair their faults by acts of charity towards their fellow-creatures of the same frail sex. The debt you owe me is one which I have long owed to others and to Heaven! (Withdraws her hand from the attempted clasp of

Blanche.) Do not be offended, lady; we do not give our hands; we try to offer our hearts to the unfortunate, in the atonement of our own misdeeds. (With a more brisk and cheerful utterance.) Your physician tells me that your sight, so miraculously restored, is now greatly improved. He assures me that the cure will be both lasting and complete. And, now, may I venture to speak freely to you, and explain the full purport of this visit?

BLANCHE. If not, dear madam, I were indeed unworthy of all that you have done. I trust that my strength may soon be sufficiently restored to enable me to do something for myself; it will not be for the first time. Before I married, I was a governess, one of a sad and often heart-weary class. It was in this capacity that I met him whose faith was pledged to mine.

KITTY. Your husband has suffered deeply; he is expiating his folly by anguish so intense, remorse so exquisite, that even a heart like mine, closed as it is to love, blunted to sensibility, and dead to the world, pities the horror of that remorse, the intensity of that anguish. Dear lady! extend that forgiveness to him which Providence has bestowed upon yourself. You have regained your sight—believe me the scales have fallen from his eyes also. He loves you and will devote his future life to repair the wrong.

BLANCHE. Spare me, I pray you. There can be no love between us now. To repay your kindness, what would I not endure? But this. Ah! pardon me, I implore you. If you knew the loathing that the very thought inspires!

KITTY. It will pass away as easily as false love. But you loved him truly, fondly. Nay, I know it well. And now, too, there is something else that should plead for the offender, that makes reconciliation more necessary and imperative. Will you deprive your unborn child of a father's care and love? Never! You will forgive him, and return to him again.

BLANCHE (who has risen, and with passionate gesticulation). Never! My whole soul rebels against the thought. Believe me, my forgiveness is his. In the wildest moments of my delirium, when I approached the parapet of the bridge, with the love of my whole being flung back upon my heart, with my brain on fire, and every nerve quivering, like those of a wounded animal escaping from its torturers, then, even then, I forgave him freely, and my last prayer to Heaven was not for my own trembling soul, but for him. I forgive him now; would work for him, pray for him, die for him if need were; but not live with him. Seek not to probe offended womanhood, to conquer revolted love. I tell you that there are mountains between us. Seas might not wash the remembrance away. Knowing that we shall be apart, I can think calmly, even affectionately, of him. But when I entertain for a moment the thought of reunion, it chokes me, and I cry aloud, "No, no! Death rather! the bridge again rather! the cold river and the rushing tide!"

KITTY. I implore you, do not distress yourself thus. As a woman, I understand your pride; but should not a wife forgive? Think not that I would palliate an offence which the world allows us to condone so readily, but never pardons on our side. Yet there is happiness linked with forgiveness in your path. Do not spurn it, but stoop, I entreat you. It is a husband who, prostrate with remorse and grief, implores you from his solitude to return and to forgive.

BLANCHE. I have stooped—have bowed my head in daily neglect and nightly sorrow. Oaths, blows, cruelty I would have endured; possibly smiled under. You do not know all. Listen! Had he been lured astray by some accomplished siren, who, meeting him in society, had momentarily flattered his vanity by her simulated devotion, and dazzled him with her accomplishments and her charms—there are such beings, are there not? vampires in the guise of angels, who start up on the path of married life!—had this been so, I might have forgiven, might have tried to forget it in the renewed vows of a second courtship. I might, I say; I do not know. But this! this! To leave me for a wretch, a monster, steeped in infamy, emblazoned in profligacy, an incarnate plague-spot in the shameless forehead of the town. Madam, madam! you do not know. The insult doubled—trebled—by his choice of a rival. "Rival!" the word sickens me. The degradation superlatived, embellished before the world. Oh I it is too much—too much! Listen! I was deserted day by day for one branded, posted in capital letters; known to all, through an effrontery rare even in beings of her degraded calling, as that which my lips refuse to repeat. I see you shudder and start. Well may you do so!

KITTY (much agitated, and with a great effort). Continue—continue!

BLANCHE. In the affliction with which I was visited, he left me, to shower gifts at the feet of this foul idol, this vulgar and unfeminine Circe of the swinish and brutal throng. Shame on him! Shame on him! I had a favourite horse; I could not ride her lately, because I was blind, and could not see the falsehood in my husband's eyes, when he deceived me with stories which grew stale in repetition, and excuses whose invention became monotonous in wrong. It pleased the neglected wife sometimes to caress the horse she could no longer ride. But he placed that—that—woman, on poor Leila's back, and doubtless she looked well, and he admired her; for her accomplishments (sarcastically) are all masculine. Yes, I am told that she rides boldly. I think I see her jewelled whip striking my unconscious horse. The noble creature did not fling that fair burden into the mud. No! no! I am not jealous. I could not be jealous of such a rival. She has not even the attraction of outward beauty, they tell me; but what of that? Well, madam, do you now ask me—abandoning all the dignity of womanhood, all the sanctity of love, all that which even man respects, or pretends to honour, when he is pleased to assume virtue—to sink into that husband's arms again? No! no! it cannot be. It is not jealousy—it is not anger—it is not revenge. It is justice, life, existence—it is glory to remain apart! But I have shocked you too much with this narrative, so repugnant to your feelings, so detestable to your heart. Pardon! pardon! I have heard your sobs; you are touched, indeed, with the recital of my wrongs. Let me aid you! You are ill—faint.

KITTY (who has dropped her veil, falls back in a swoon. Blanche aids her with tenderness, and puts a glass of water to her lips. She partially recovers). I will have no more wine, your grace. I will go home. Take me hence.

BLANCHE (looking fixedly at her). She is very youthful. Yet I see traces of suffering in that delicate face. She said, "your grace;" who can she be? She is patrician in every movement and feature.

KITTY (regaining her consciousness). Where am I? (To Blanche, who has left her a moment to get some restorative, and who is about to support her again.) Touch me not with a finger, if you would not have me die. (With a great effort.) I am subject to attacks like this. Our mission is a trying one, sometimes. My poor head is aching sadly, and my heart, too, aches—for you, so innocent and so unhappy. I thought that marriage—you are married, you know—made it a duty to a wife—a wife, Mrs. Aubrey—to forgive much, very much. You have, indeed, much to forgive. But do not measure your husband's offence by the character of her, who—who—I am not well to-day—perhaps did not seek to allure—no matter. I hardly know what I am saying. Nay, leave me to myself. I shall be better very soon.

BLANCHE (aside). Poor lady! How wrong, how selfish I have been. Doubtless, she, too, has had some trials—perhaps a husband—who knows?—who has deceived her also.

KITTY (who has recovered her self-possession). Well, let us think what I can do to serve you. How do you propose to live? for we cannot eat and drink our wrongs, or exist upon our own sufferings.

BLANCHE. I studied in Italy nearly two years. I was once intended for the opera. As a young girl I shrank from the publicity, the dazzling foot-lights; the very thought of gaining the applause so coveted by all, appalled and frightened me. Now it is different. Should my sight be perfectly restored, as the doctor assures me it will, my heart tells me I shall not fail—my will assures me of success. True, I have not the means to study at once, or even to repay you these expenses. I propose, therefore, at once to seek employment as a teacher of music. Can you add to the benefits already conferred by your generous aid and true-hearted sympathy in assisting me to get a pupil or two, to start? If I fail in this, I know not what will become of me. If in a year or two, I can, with the most rigid economy, the hardest toil, lay by enough to study a brief time, I will, I must succeed. Yes, something here (presses her hand on her heart) tells me that I shall!

KITTY (aside). 'Twas once my own dream. She is beautiful and virtuous. Ah! how much that last enters into the composition of the true artiste, the realisation of a glorious ambition. Yet she is his wife, and I would they could be reconciled instead. And she loved him—loves him still. What can compensate for that? But 'tis in vain! How placidly beautiful she looks now. If she knew who it is that speaks to her, how those nostrils would dilate, those eyes kindle into flame! It would be her death. I must depart—must not come here again. The risk is too great. (Aloud.) Lady, I have the power to fulfil your wishes. From a fund, a pure and sacred fund, believe my solemn word, I can supply you with ample means. You need not shrink; need not hesitate to accept it, I assure you. The necessary introduction for your purpose I can also manage, through my connexion with the outer world, which is still great and varied, and will be hallowed by the purpose, for which—probably for the last time—it will be used. In the mean time, your secret is safe. You shall hear from me very soon. Adieu! Nay, no thanks, not a word—no embrace—no hand. I am the mere instrument of a duty. I would bless you, but must not. Our community does not bless! (Gazes at her very earnestly for a moment.) You will succeed, and some day be happy. Farewell! (She goes out.)

BLANCHE (alone). Mysterious being! generous and kind friend, whose very features have been but once fully revealed to my aching sight, yet whom I love as a sister! Were I not bound to her by the sacred ties of gratitude—were I not indebted to her for existence, and hope—such hope as is left to me in this world—I could have loved her for the sweet fascination of her voice alone.

Re-enter SUSAN.

SUSAN. Oh! mum, the strange lady is gone. I met her sobbing quite dreadful-like on the stairs. I would have stopped her, but she put me aside, and was gone out in an instant into the street.

BLANCHE. May Heaven for ever bless and comfort her, Susan; for she has known some bitter wrong!

CHAPTER XIX.

A PRESENT OF NAPLES SOAP.

During my brief incarceration, I was much struck by the kind attention of an under-gaoler, with red hair. This man supplied me with a coarse napkin, whilst I partook of the greasy messes brought to me for food. He pressed me to put on a rough sheep-skin overcoat, which he said I should sleep in much more comfortably than in my tight uniform. As the nights were cold, I thankfully acquiesced. He cleaned my accoutrements, scraped the mud off my boots, regarding them afterwards with great apparent satisfaction, and brushed me as carefully as a Parisian valet. I felt grateful to the fellow, until the order for my release, through an exchange of prisoners, having arrived, the cause was duly explained. It appeared that, after my intended execution, this amiable Judas was to have inherited my clothes.—Reminiscence of Count —— during the Italian War of Independence.

ARTHUR AUBREY sat alone in the little library of his house in Queen's-square. Torn letters and papers strewed the ground at his feet. The "man in possession" allowed him every license in his power, and intimated that he "wasn't pertickler to a shade, with a gent as was a gent." Aubrey was too honest, too proud, and too indifferent, to take advantage of this license, which strict probity might condemn. He satisfied himself with his desk, containing papers of no value save to the owner, a portrait of his wife, the photographic album which Snap, the lawyer's clerk, had desecrated, and one or two trifles endeared to him by memory. These he had conveyed to a lodging which he took in Percy-street, Tottenham Court-road, where he intended to take up his abode in the course of a day or two. There, once resided a hearty and right genial soul, for some time the favourite of the public, a prince of good fellows in his way, whom every one liked, who never said or did an unkind thing, and who exercised the high and beneficent privilege of amusing the multitude with straws. Poor, dear Albert Smith! England could better have spared a more profound thinker, a more utilitarian philosopher than thou wast in thy brief day. What if thou didst only chronicle the lighter follies of the hour—what if thou didst extract fun from out of a solemn mountain, snow-capped, and glaciered and crevassed within its cloudy robe—what if thou didst somewhat vulgarise Mont Blanc? What if thou wert only the great chronicler of the harmless race of "gents," whose name thou didst popularise, if thou didst not originate the term? A man who innocently and harmlessly amuses us is a benefactor to his fellow-creatures. It was more than an ordinary loss when lately Artemus Ward faded untimely from sight, and the inimitable Bruton's jests were silenced in the grave. The genuine dealer in mirth, like the comic actor, is the friend of all. There is a bond of universal sympathy in laughter, as well as tears. Would it be any disrespect to thy memory, O Smithest of the great family of Smiths! to tell here one of the best classical bons-mots we have heard, which was made apropos of one of thine own smart dodges to tickle the fancy of the British public? We think not. Well, then, this most rollicking genius of Mont Blanc, upon one occasion, presented a small silver coin bearing his own effigy, looking somewhat like the bust of a Roman emperor, thereon, to all the visitors present at the opening of one of his entertainment seasons. On the reverse was merely an announcement by way of advertisement of the Egyptian Hall. Upon which this inscription was suggested in our hearing:

ALBERTUS MAGNUS REX GENT-IUM.

And so he was, and a right merrie monarch too, beloved not only by his own people, but by those who did not acknowledge his sway. He was historian, high-priest, and king of a new race—a class not possessed of much refinement, taste, or manners, but still very distinct from the race of "snobs." For a "gent" may have the best of hearts and the kindest of dispositions; he may have the courage of a lion, in spite of his vulgar or comic exterior—his manners may be all wrong, but his heart may be in the right place; not so with the "snob," i.e., in our understanding of these modern slang terms. The "gent" in our apprehension is merely the plebeian "swell," the "snob" is always a "cad," but he may be an aristocratic cad.

From Queen's-square to Percy-street, Tottenham Court-road; from the height of fashion to the depths of disgrace; from at least the appearance and all the enjoyment of prosperity to penury and strife with want! And this, too, unarmed and unequal to the contest! Such was the future which Aubrey had to look in the face. He happened to have a small balance at his bankers, when the distress was put in, just five hundred and sixty pounds. This he immediately drew out, when he saw the truth staring him in the face, that he would shortly have no means left. He saw partly through Mr. Grinderby's game. That worthy had determined to avoid a sale, at least, at present, though he hoped yet by a clever manipulation of the affair to purchase the property in conjunction with a "friend" and capitalist. He had an immense idea of its value and mineral wealth. En attendant, should that scheme fail, he had so arranged matters with the persons named in the entail of the estate in case of Aubrey's forfeiture or death without issue, that he had got them to consent to a suit in Chancery, whereby he should be appointed legal representative of them all, and receiver to the estate. His intention was so to depreciate the property and accumulate charges, that it should eventually come to the hammer, when his friend would step in and purchase on their joint behalf. But even if this daring stroke of genius could not be effected, he saw his way to a very pretty income out of the property. Besides, he hated, and, according to his view of things, despised Aubrey. We cannot say that his client was entitled to any honest man's respect; but still he was not so lost, so low and degraded, as really to merit the contempt of Grinderby. Imagine a centipede which had crawled up the pitfall into which some maimed creature infinitely superior to itself had been betrayed by folly or rashness, and we have some idea of the relative positions of the lawyer and his ruined client.

Grinderby could afford and did afford a great deal of heavy sentiment and bitter condemnation about poor Blanche Aubrey's supposed fate. He was never tired of shaking his wicked old iron-grey poll like a venerable moral jackdaw, whilst uttering with harsh reiteration: "Sad thing, sad business, very!" Then he would say: "Of course we could not continue to conduct the business after poor Mrs. Aubrey's shocking death. Some persons imagine that we lawyers are devoid of feeling, and so perhaps we ought to be, but there are limits even to legal duty. Our loss may be heavy, but the reputation of the firm must not be endangered, and, thank Heaven! we can afford to be still men." Here the snuff-box would come into active play.

And what did Aubrey, the ruined client, the man at whom the finger of scorn and hatred was pointed on every side, mean to do? The most bitter of his denouncers had been the most profligate of his associates and advisers; the men who had sought to entice him away from purity and bliss to the haunts of sensual depravity; who had laughed among themselves at his domestic devotion, whilst it still existed; who would have poisoned, if they could, by their brutal sneers and insinuations, alike the wife's confidence and the husband's content; who would have betrayed her and shot him, if they had dared, and if they could: in fact, the most vicious and depraved of the set who had crowded his rooms and extolled his cook, who had flattered his gentle partner's beauty and his own taste and spirit—these were the persons who now wagged their tongues longest and loudest in moral acrimony and virtuous disgust. Then the women—how they discovered that "there had always been something very odd about that wretched Mrs. Aubrey!" It was amusing to hear a hideous old hag, the widow of an Indian general, who wore a gipsy-hat at the seaside, and whose scraggy shoulders and green flowery adornments at evening parties in town caused Mr. Stingray to compare her to a shoulder-of-mutton bone half smothered in parsley. This lady declared, with a leer of ineffable affectation, there was something in Mr. Aubrey's eyes, that she had always noticed when he looked at her, which no modest woman could endure. As this was a suggestion that he had cast an amorous glance on her conscious charms, those to whom she addressed it tittered at the notion, whilst by no means entirely exonerating him. There was, doubtless, "something in it," they thought, or said. There was a Scotch woman, of some forty autumns, a M'Taggart of M'Turk, who declared that he ought to be hanged for having murdered that "puir young thing." "If I'd been his wife," she said, "I'd have taught him a lesson," and doubtless she would. Yet this very woman, so respectable and religious, had actually at one time, utterly unable as she was to fathom the deep love or comprehend the purity of Blanche, conceived the notable project of a little dinner at her house in Clarges-street, whereat the Duke of Chalkstoneville and Mrs. Aubrey should be thrown very much together indeed. It was to be on a day when Aubrey attended a race, or was otherwise absent from town. What could have been that worthy dame's precise intention? It was somehow connected with a fifty-guinea diamond brooch and a very handsome Genoa velvet dress, in which she fancied she saw herself arrayed as a consequence of this little exercise of hospitality and friendship. The duke told her that he should be very happy to meet Mrs. Aubrey whenever Mrs. M'Taggart pleased; but somehow Blanche had no particular fancy for the Scotch lady's voluble brogue; and, without the slightest suspicion, constantly declined the overtures "just to dine in a freendly way, ye ken, some day when you are left alone, my dear, which I'm thinking you are a wheen too often; but it's like a' the men, as ye'll be feending out some time or ither, when a' your braw youth and good looks are gone, my puir dear young leddy."

But all the malignity and triumph of Aubrey's worst enemies and ci-devant friends were nothing to the exultant hatred of Mrs. Pushforte, his aunt by marriage, whose manœuvres we have before chronicled. There was not an insinuation or a calumny that this woman and Mrs. Blewbore did not invent and circulate. The husband of the latter, who held a Government situation, and who was a small poet of some popularity, the author of a "Dirge to Ocean," which might have been composed on the steps of a bathing-machine at Margate, and which had been set to music by an "eminent composer," had been a great admirer of Blanche, and had written two songs, one called the "Blighted Lily," and the other the "Blind Wife of Babylon," which were supposed to allude to her. The poor bardling was greatly horrified by her untimely death, and was about to plunge himself remorselessly into the agonies of composition, to produce a "Dramatic Fragment" on the event, when his poor little soul was suddenly nearly shaken out of him by his wife's terrific denunciation of the "Lost One," which was the intended title of the fragment. Poor man! he was actually confined to his own room for a whole week after, and we shrewdly suspect cruelly deprived of pen and ink all the time. Mrs. Blewbore declared to all the frequenters of her soirées that the "governess," meaning Mrs. Aubrey, had been no better than she should be, when she was a governess, and had lived with that profligate Arthur Aubrey, before they were married. You should have heard that sallow and slimy woman tell this over and over again to all her particular pets, from the gaunt female Egyptian traveller, Miss Peagrim, who had once been prisoner among the Arabs, but whose reputation* was as unsullied thereby as a thistle of the Hebrides is unwithered by the Eastern simoom, to the red and freckled young Scotch poet, M'Crawlery, who wrote such sweet aesthetic songs on the invisible slum-life of Whitechapel. Our readers will, doubtless, recollect those beautiful poems of his, the "Crackit Flower-pot," and "Battersea Park, a Reverie," which were so justly extolled in the "Centipede," in an article placing the author on the same pedestal with Burns in regard to genius and style, but far superior to him as a moral teacher.

[*So, doubtless, the Arabs would eagerly have affirmed, even had she herself accused them of rudeness.

A latronibus esse te fututam
Dicis, Senia: sed negant latrones.]

On the other hand, Mrs. Pushforte, whose true antecedents we have had occasion to mention in the preceding volume, informed her associates that Aubrey had been one of the worst characters in early life she had ever known. As an instance, she mentioned that he had actually smoked a cigar on the afternoon of his mother's funeral! This, we believe, was strictly true; but she did not add that smoking was such a habit with that heartless libertine, whose attachment to his mother was one of the best traits in his youthful character, that he would probably have done as much on the road to his own execution, if he had been able to procure the means. But the horror of the amiable twaddlers whom she acquainted with the fact, was none the less poignant.

Had Mrs. Aubrey died, as she was supposed to have done, the victim of her husband's libertine heartlessness, and had he remained rich, or become rich by some suddenly inherited wealth, what a different verdict would have been given by Society, and his friends! We do not hesitate to say that he would have been exonerated by the majority of Society from every charge. We have known a far worse case, in which singularly enough Profligacy has alone withheld its consent from the general verdict of acquittal, whilst the severely moral and decorous have been the first to rally round the polluted and sensual Crœsus, and to stand his sponsors openly in the eyes of the world. Extremes meet socially as well as politically, and the ultra-saint and sinner find a bond of alliance, just as the ultra-democrat and despot cotton together in their hatred of the intelligent institutions which limit the power of the tyrant and restrain the fury of the mob. The model country nobleman and the Rhadamanthus of Quarter Sessions, and their wives and families, unite to rehabilitate in county estimation the heartless and godless voluptuary who has exhausted his passions, but retained his colossal fortune. The most exemplary father and mother offer him their daughter, as some benighted heathens proffer their children to the blood-stained idols of a hideous superstition, or as virgins have been offered to monsters, according to the traditions of the classical world. After all, what more hideous superstition ever existed than the reverence paid by mankind to wealth? Men, who worshipped Garibaldi, when he came over here, begin to talk of him with an air of patronising pity, because he refused the substantial gifts of Fortune and remained in poverty; because he would not accept the "wages" of respectability and the pompous alms of aristocratic sensation-mongers—"The poor dear old General," they say: "it is a pity that he will speak and write." They forget how little he writes and speaks, and how gloriously consistent his utterances are. They hear that he keeps a cow or a donkey the less, and they touch their foreheads and say, "After all, there was something wrong here!" How can they continue to bestow their worship on a man in a red shirt, who grows his own vegetables! They do not, it is true, apply this to Cincinnatus, nor to the disciples of the

Saviour. If they did, they would necessarily conceive Judas to have been at least a commonly prudent and worldly man; one whom modern appreciation would prefer for a partner in the City, a bank director, or a clerk—a man of business and figures—and not a poet, a dreamer, or a fool. If the hero who has survived Aspromonte should happen to live too long; to survive the new-born liberty of Italy, or to be put aside and forgotten in the triumphs of commercial regeneration; if Italy should suddenly become a great business country, is it too wild a speculation to imagine him lacking bread in his extreme old age, a second Belisarius in all save the quest of charity! The forgetfulness of a nation is so easy; because how is any one to know that a hero is dying of want, unless newspapers announce the fact; and somehow dying heroes do not write to the "Times" to proclaim their wants, and the Deus ex machinâ generally proclaims them too late. Had even the case of Lady Hamilton been ventilated in the contemporary Press, we do not suppose that she would have been left to perish in want of the common necessaries of life. It is a dangerous experiment for any one to be without money in this world. How much more true and stringent is this in its application to private individuals, mere broken spendthrifts, whose only hold (God help them I) is on relations and "friends," and on those whom they have feasted and benefited in former days! Had Arthur Aubrey been rich, he would have been able to set truth and scandal at defiance; since he had committed no crime punishable by the law. As he was poor, a conscience void of reproach, a career unstained by a single vice or folly, would not have saved him from blame. Under the circumstances, he had a double crop of bitterness to reap. Yet it was this which saved him. The desperation of a hunted animal caused him to accept the struggle for existence. He felt that his punishment was in living, and he lived on.

During the brief time that he remained in the house in Queen-square, he underwent two remarkable visits, among those of a host of duns, curiosity-mongers, and pretended friends by whom he was beset. Strange to say, he received most of these. For it was one of Aubrey's peculiarities of disposition to dislike being denied to any one who sought him. It was only when a penny-a-liner, a sort of outsider and hanger-on of the Press, who disgraced the noble profession to which he belonged by a multitude of little cadging and disreputable acts, had gained access to him, and asked half a dozen questions, each of which was as a stab, before Aubrey discovered his drift, that he determined to subject himself to this distressing ordeal no more. But we are bound to describe the two visitations to which we have referred, because one is so characteristic in its truthfulness, and the other is essential to the development of our narrative.

When Aubrey owned the magnificent yacht which had come to grief, after a brief career of inutility and expense, he also owned a solemn, respectful, and respectable steward, who had never sailed with any one under the rank of a baronet before. In the short space of two years, he realised in Aubrey's service such an addition to his capital, that he would then have retired into "public" life; that is, taken a first-rate hotel in a sea-port town, had he not been tempted by a very agreeable and lucrative offer from a nobleman to proceed to the Mediterranean for a cruise. In this capacity he had remained a considerable time, and had at length commenced business at Brighton on a substantial scale. Aubrey had always considered this man in the light of a rather confidential and trustworthy servitor, capable of defending his master's interests from the attacks of others on sea and land, while thoroughly taking care of himself. He looked upon him, it is true, as a very expensive servant; but then he had accepted him as such. He believed that he would take large percentages, and even defraud him, according to respectable usage and precedent, after the manner of his "cloth." He had ruled supreme over the yacht establishment. He was a sort of man who did not put a bottle of wine on the table twice, if it did not suit him to do so; and who treated all ideas of economy with an air of such superb contempt, that you could not possibly have imagined all the time that he sold even the candle-ends when in port with the most exemplary regularity. There was nothing too grand for his master's loss; nothing too small for his own benefit. Cakeman, for such was his name, was eminently respectable, and pre-eminently a gentleman's servant in his deportment. The manner in which he said, "I think, sir, we are running short of champagne. There is not more than ten dozen left. If you will permit me to suggest that it would be as well to lay in a fresh stock," was sublime. Or, for instance, "Are you aware, sir, that we have only six silver salts? It looks very bad at a full table. Lord Dunsinane never had less than twelve in use." For the rest, Cakeman was an admirable valet when on shore, and the way in which he would regulate and lay out his master's wardrobe was delightful to see. He did not, certainly, abstract articles of dress, when he considered that they had done sufficient duty to their first owner; but he said, calmly, "I've removed the blue frock-coat," or "I've put away the last dress suit, sir. It wasn't fit for you to wear. The other which I ordered from Pond's came home last night." There was no withstanding this coolness, after a man had once yielded to it, and Aubrey had done so, and continued it to the end of the chapter. For the rest, Cakeman was an excellent sailor in every sense, cool in storm and danger, serene and self-satisfied, bland, and altogether a most creditable personage at all times. That man would have shaved clean between the shocks of an earthquake, and laid the cloth for dinner with an unmoved countenance by the light of a general conflagration, so long as his own arrangements remained undisturbed. When Aubrey gave up yachting, or when yachting gave him up, he parted with this treasure of a steward. Had Cakeman been on board his vessel at the time, it is possible that she would never have been wrecked. But he was in London with his master, when the sailors, one by one, following the example of the captain, slunk on shore, and left the vessel exposed to the fury of a chance storm, and a storm did chance, with only a single anchor and about thirty fathoms of cable out.

He expressed himself with such respectful regret on leaving, that Aubrey gave him an extra ten-pound note. He thought Cakeman's voice trembled as he bade him adieu; and when the steward, smoothing his long-shore hat, as if to allay the itching of his respectable palm, said he had a request to prefer, Aubrey listened with the utmost condescension and interest to that somewhat bald and very prosperous-looking man. Cakeman respectfully intimated that he should like to become the proud possessor of a fine oil-painting of his master, which used to adorn the saloon of the yacht, and which had been saved from the wreck. He hoped he should not be considered bold and presuming, but Lord Dunsinane and Sir John Skyscraper had both given him their portraits on leaving—he did not state that the one was a crayon sketch, and the other a duplicate silhouette, done on Brighton Pier—and he should always hang it up whilst he had a humble place of his own in the best room in the house, in recollection of the many happy days he had spent in Mr. Aubrey's service, with pleasure to himself and, he trusted, with satisfaction to his employer. To be brief, Aubrey felt flattered; and Cakeman gained a good furniture picture for the hotel, besides a valuable evidence of the esteem in which he had been held whilst enjoying so excellent and lucrative a berth.

Soon after the hotel was opened, he had occasion to come up to town, in order to lay in a large stock of Cape wine, in order to form the basis of his extensive and varied cellar. So the faithful fellow thought he would take the opportunity of calling on one or two of his old patrons, and among them on his former master, Mr. Aubrey. He soon found out the bearings of that gentleman's affairs, and felt chagrined, though by no means surprised. For Mr. Cakeman had often told his wife, the sole depositary of his most important observations and secrets, that somehow he didn't think Aubrey's career would be a prosperous one very long. "It's my belief," he would say to that elderly and grasping female, "that he's spending his capital, and he's got a rare bad lot about him."

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Robert, that's what you oughter," observed the lady.

"Perhaps you'll tell me for why, Mrs. Cakeman," responded this chrysolite of stewards.

"You don't make half enough out of him," she said. "Look at your family; look at the boots and shoes the girls want, and the clothes the boys wear out. And you might do almost anything you please."

"I tell you, Mrs. Cakeman," quoth Respectability, glowing with honest emotion, "that I've a character to lose, and I can't sail nearer to the wind than I do at present. Why I've took away coats, as I may say have scarce been worn; and look at the wines and groceries I've brought ashore in the marketing-baskets, and with the dirty table-linen, this very week. I've made more in a week out of him, plain mister as he is, than I've made in a month out of his lordship, and it isn't many that could work the oracle as I did with him. I believe you wouldn't be content, if I was to fetch home a waggon loaded with the plate, and would blow me up if a mustard-spoon was missing out of the list. You'd like to send me back for it, wouldn't you, now?"

And Cakeman indulged in a sort of laugh which he never allowed himself out of the privacy of his domestic home. It was an article, that laugh, which he might be said never to take out with him at all.

"It's my opinion, Mr. C," said his better half, sharply, "that you're no better than a fool."

"Thank you, my love," returned the gentleman; "I suppose that's gratitude for getting leave yesterday to change all the blue satin sofa-coverings and what not in the after-cabin, after dirtying them near the joinings with the least possible loss of material when they come to be worked up again."

A mollified expression immediately took possession of the lady's ample face.

"You don't mean to say it?" she rejoined.

"Don't I?" replied her lord and master. "I tell you what, Mrs. C, that job is as good as a twenty-pound note to us any day, and all straight and serene, and without the slightest possible risk. There's one thing I won't do; not for you, no, nor the children neither, and that is to get into trouble, when there isn't any call for it, Mrs. C."

"Well," replied the lady, "all I've got to say is, that it's very aggravating to hear how a paltry humbugging lot like his friends are cutting it fat, when we are obliged to earn our money with such trouble and difficulty. But of course I don't want you to put yourself in any danger."

"And I'll take care I don't," said Mr. C, as he filled a yacht wine-glass with yacht port. "Anything in reason that I can do, I'm sure I don't grudge the trouble, and I don't see what more you've a right to expect."

It was the afternoon of the third day of the distress, when Aubrey was informed that his old steward, Cakeman, was below, and had expressed a strong wish to see him. "Let him come up," said Aubrey; and accordingly Mr. Cakeman made his distinguished appearance. He was a trifle fatter, balder and greyer than he was some three years and a half ago, but looked in "excellent health and spirits," and as much weather-beaten and bronzed as he was capable of becoming, even under a tropical sun.

"Well, Cakeman," said Aubrey, "what is it? I fear there is nothing that I can do for you. You have heard, I suppose, of my—misfortunes. Take a seat!"

"No, sir, thank you," said Cakeman; "I've just returned from a long cruise, sir; been at a many places, where we was, sir, in the Mediterranean and all along the coast of Spain. I've been in Sir Charles Filey Bart's schooner, Pelican, only ninety-five tons; nothing like your vessel, sir, but very roomy forward. Sir Charles's two daughters was with us, sir, very nice young ladies. We went as far as Naples.

We were six weeks at Naples at our old anchorage, sir, and it made me think of you and the vessel, I can assure you, very often. I'm sorry to hear things are not going on quite right, sir; but I hope it's only a bit of a gale, and that you'll come all right again under double-reefed topsails, sir; excuse me for being so bold."

"No, Cakeman," said Aubrey, mournfully; "things will never come right again."

"Don't say so, sir," said Cakeman. "I've known many a gentleman taken aback, and they always came right again. When I was with young Lord Sevensthemayne, we were actually boarded by a 'silver arrow,' and his lordship was locked up at Gravesend; but it all come right again."

Aubrey shook his head. "You are a good fellow, Cakeman, and you mean well," he said, wearily; "but what is it I can do for you?"

"Nothing, sir," said Cakeman; "I only called to see how you were, sir; I've heard all from Mr. Tops. I've set up in the hotel line, and if you should come to Brighton, I hope we shall be able to make you comfortable. This is the card, sir, if you'll allow me. When I was in Naples, sir, I bought a little trifle of soap, sir, and if you'd be so condescending as to accept some, I should feel very proud." Here he fumbled in his coat-pocket, and brought out a white jar, apparently a shilling jam-pot, converted to this Neapolitan use. "I thought of you when I was there, sir, as I said, and knowing how remarkable partial you used to be to this sort of soap, I thought I would bring some over for you, sir, that's all."

So saying, Mr. Cakeman deposited his burden on the table, bowed, smoothed his hat again, and turned to leave the room. Aubrey did not even pause to wonder at his own pronounced predilection for Naples soap. He felt touched at this little remembrance, and said in a husky voice:

"Stop, Cakeman! I'm sure I'm much obliged to you for this remembrance of me. It is very creditable of you. I thank you much."

Cakeman had the door-handle in his hand. He turned round and said:

"Oh! I beg your pardon, sir, there was a little matter, a mere trifle, sir, which I may as well take the opportunity of mentioning, as I am sure—indeed—you would wish." The hesitation was caused by a search in his waistcoat-pocket. "I shouldn't have done so, sir, I assure you; but Mrs. Cakeman said she knew you would be angry, if I didn't. It's a little bill for repairing the saloon chairs after the wreck: I paid it, sir, at the time. It's a mere nothing, only eight pounds eighteen and six. It's receipted all right, Messrs. Sawder and Stickem, in the High-street, if you recollect. Of course, sir, any time will do to suit your convenience, and I shouldn't have mentioned it now, but that I'm short of money to go back." Here Mr. Cakeman looked steadily at Aubrey, and continuously smoothed his hat.

We remember in our youth being shown over a beautiful little church in Wales by a dean's lady, in the month of July. We had, of course, doffed a white silk hat which graced our brow in those days, and we were gently smoothing the same with ungloved hand, whilst admiring a particular painted window, on the beauties of which the dean's lady dwelt. Suddenly we felt a little roughness and consequent obstruction to the smoothing process. We pressed our hand over it more forcibly. At once a sting was darted into our flesh! It was, O ye tutelary deities of the ancient Britons! a wasp which had settled on our head-covering. Never shall we forget the look of horror cast on us by the dean's lady, on hearing the involuntary expression which escaped our lips. It was——; but no! the remembrance of the sting will hardly excuse the repetition of the words which caused that churchman's better half to recoil with terror and affright.

There are some men who would endure even a hornet's sting without an alteration of countenance under similar circumstances. Cakeman was one of these. The look which Aubrey flung at him was utterly lost. "If it's not convenient, sir," he began to resume with the most perfect deference; but Aubrey had already taken out a ten-pound note.

"You can send the change up by my servant," he said. "That will do. Good afternoon. I am obliged to you for this visit;" and he turned his back to walk up and down the room.

The grey eyes of Cakeman twinkled with pleasure. He had scarcely hoped for the money, since he had heard the narrative of Tops. It was, therefore, an unexpected haul. He paused a moment, to think if he could claim anything else; and then said in the softest, clearest tone, as if he had been announcing luncheon to an invalid:

"You'll find the soap excellent, sir, quite genuine, I assure you. I bought it in the Toledo at Ricordi's myself." And he bowed very respectfully and went.

In paying the rascal, Aubrey had acted semi-forgetfully and mechanically, as it were. He had been so accustomed to honour all Cakeman's bills. The meanness and trickery of his attached old steward occurred to him instantly; but in his indignation he forgot his circumstances for the moment. Swallowing his resentment, however, he rang the bell, and Tops appeared.

"Is that scoundrel gone?" he said; "if not show him to the door instantly."

"He let hisself out, sir, by the hall-door," replied Tops. "I didn't think he meant no good," he muttered to himself, "the moment I set heyes on him. He said he'd brought master a present of some soft-soap. It's jest the very hidentical article I should 'ave thought he dealt in."

"Tops!" said his master, "I don't wish to see any one else, whilst I remain here, and to-morrow I am determined to go. I wish to pay you your wages; I can only afford to give you a month in addition. I am afraid that any character—I can give—just now—will be of little use—you understand; but go to Sir Harry Luckless—he is a kind-hearted man, and will do all that is necessary."

"Beg your parding, sir," said Tops; "but I've saved a little money in your sarvice, and I was goin' to ax you to take care of it for me jest at present, till things changes a little."

"Pooh! pooh! you silly fellow, what do you mean? Here, I insist. Not a word, if you don't wish to hurt and offend me."

In vain Mr. Tops tried to resist. The fact is, he couldn't express himself; and he went down fairly blubbering with sixteen pounds ten shillings in his rough hand, and left his master crying up-stairs.

"I shall have to look arter him afore long," quoth Tops to the Downy, "or I'm blamed, if I wouldn't throw this 'ere money into the misken, or giv' it to a horfan in the street."

Just then, Aubrey, as men in deep grief will often think over minute trifles, remembered the history of those very chairs for which Cakeman had made that interesting charge. He had given them to the steward himself after the wreck, on his representation that they were not worth removing from the shop, where he had sent them, in common with the remainder of the salvage from the wreck, to be repaired. We are in a position to state that they looked uncommonly well in the coffee-room of the new hotel.

"What a fool I am!" cried Aubrey, "to be duped thus to the last." At this moment another visitor was announced, this time a lady deeply veiled. "Tell her I can see no one—no one!" thundered Aubrey. "Tell her to write, if she has anything to say."

Tops touched his forelock and retired. Presently he came up again with a note.

"The lady says, sir, that if you read this you will be sure to see her," he said, handing a note to Aubrey. "She looks like one of them women as is took pious, and goes about collecting money to build churches for the poor," he added, sotto voce. "It's a sort I shouldn't let in anywheres, if I'd a choice in the matter. As for this one, she looks like own sister to a stick of black sealing-wax, she's so straight and thin. There ain't no bend in her whatever. That rum cove below he peeps out and says, 'Blest if she ain't a walking hadvertisement for Jay's Mourning Wareus.' "

During this soliloquy of Tops, Aubrey opened and read the letter. It was couched in the following terms:

"I am come to ask you to redeem a promise made to me at Richmond by the water-side. Do not refuse to see me now. I come as a suppliant, and I rely on your word. You told me you would assist me then, and I am now in the deepest need of it.

"Yours,
"K. D."

"See her—now? What is the meaning of this? The very thought of her is hateful to me. She is a remorse rising from the river—a dark recollection from the grave!" He breathed heavily and clutched the table for support. "What does she want? Who has set her on? Is she impelled by some devilish curiosity? Or has she come to reproach me with my folly—with being too late? Let me think—let me remember. She never encouraged my insane folly—she spoke truth to me. I will see her. I will not play the coward. There is no punishment too great for me. Here, tell her I will see her. Show her up at once."

Tops immediately went on his errand; not without a certain look of apprehension which might be explained by his informing the Downy directly after, that his master had certainly gone out of his senses.

" 'Tain't onlikely," observed that worthy in answer to that remark, "considerin' wot I've knowed 'appen to a cove in distress. To be sure he was honly a homlibus driver. Remind me as I tells yer hof it over a pipe and a drop of summut warm this werry night."

CHAPTER XX.

ALL HE COULD DO.

Poverty, by thee the soul is wrapp'd
With hate, with envy, dolefulness, and doubt:
Even so be thou cast out,
And even so he that speaks thee otherwise;
I name thee now, because my mood is apt
To curse thee, bride of every lost estate,
Through whom are desolate
On earth all honourable things and wise;
Within thy power, each blest condition dies:
By thee, men's minds with sore mistrust are made
Fantastic and afraid:—
Thou, hated worse than Death, by just accord,
And with the loathing of all hearts abhorred.

Guido Cavalcanti. Translated by G. D. Rossetti.

ACCORDINGLY, the interview between Aubrey and his lady visitor, who, we need hardly say, was Kate Dareall, took place.

"I am sorry," she said, on entering the room, "to intrude upon your privacy, to come here at all, to enter a house doubly sacred in my eyes; but I have no choice. You once promised me your assistance. I have need of it—very sudden need now. I want a certain sum of money immediately; will you give it to me?"

Aubrey started, and remained for a moment silent. It was evident that she did not know all. Should he tell her? Nay, perhaps he had no choice. What amount would she require? Probably a sum beyond his means to give.

"Sit down, pray sit down, Miss Dareall," he replied. "I am not very rich just at present, you know. What is the amount which you need?"

"Five hundred pounds!" she replied, in a calm, clear voice; and, as we might say, with the utmost coolness.

The old spirit of generosity came strongly upon Arthur, mingled with a certain feeling of desperation. There was also some little surprise, not to say a stronger emotion, elicited by this appeal. But he did not stay to analyse his feelings. Five hundred pounds! It was nearly every penny he had at his command in the world. He was about to be thrown upon his own resources. No matter; he would take a place under Government—the librarianship of the House of Commons, or something of that kind, suited to his taste. He had warm friends in the Government and Opposition also. Or he would fall back on literature and the drama. He had talked to Blanche some months before, about their being poor together, and she had seemed rather to approve of it in her beautiful enthusiasm. But then she was gone—gone, and how? Well, he could die too. He did not care how soon. What right had he to live? At any rate, utter poverty was some expiation. All these thoughts rushed through his disordered head; for, in truth, he was overwrought, and acting like a man in a dream, ever since the disappearance of Blanche. Had he not starved himself, and abstained from all exciting beverages, he would, in all probability, have committed suicide.

Aubrey took out his pocket-book and counted five notes. They were for one hundred pounds each. He placed them in an envelope, which he closed, and then presented to Miss Dareall. She looked at him with a strange expression, which often struck him after. It was one of mingled pity, interest, and admiration. She spoke partly to herself and partly to him—

"This merits forgiveness. Thank you, Mr. Aubrey. Something tells me that you will not repent this hereafter. It is, believe me, for a sacred object, this money. It is not for me—for my use. Do you know I would rather beg in the streets—no, I mean," she said with a shudder, "rather die, than have asked you such a thing for myself. Poor fellow! you look very ill. Do take care of yourself. There may be some happiness in store for you yet. Your wife!——"

Aubrey started, and waved his hand impatiently.

She continued, "I was going to say, Mr. Aubrey, that she may yet be restored to you. Who knows? You have no evidence of her death. Nay, listen!"

"This is cruel!" cried Aubrey. "I must implore you to spare me this. Excuse me. Leave me to myself. I am happy to have rendered you a trifling service. I quite understand that it is some charitable object you have in hand. Good-bye, Miss Dareall!

We shall never meet again." And he opened the door, and bowed low to the actress. She paused irresolute and confused. Her allegiance to Blanche was shaken. Might she not spare them both a life of misery and despair? She stood in the doorway.

"If, Mr. Aubrey, I should place in you a great, great confidence, and ask you——" Here she hesitated.

Aubrey entirely misunderstood her meaning, and spoke coldly and haughtily. "It would be utterly in vain. I have done all that I possibly can. I have kept my word to the full. It is not in my power to do more—— I assure you; not in my power."

Miss Dareall's face flushed with an angry glow of shame. With a strong effort she repressed the inclination to return the money he had given her, at a cost she was far from suspecting. She looked at the expression of his face. His brow was knitted, and his lips pale and compressed.

Nothing, save the knowledge of the use she intended to make of that money, prevented her from flinging it on the floor. She could not explain her need, and she fancied that she was utterly misunderstood. As for Aubrey, poor fellow, in reality no mean and ungenerous thought entered his head. He only thought of the reality of his position, and acted as if she knew it nearly as well as himself. Whereas, it never occurred to her that he was not at least still master of thousands. Then the full appreciation of the wounded feeling and stern determination of Blanche recurred to her mind. She walked up to

Aubrey, and placed her small ungloved hand in his. He shuddered at the contact. The action and the touch reminded him of Blanche. So he did not return the warm pressure of her fingers.

"Good-bye, Mr. Aubrey," she said; "I will not thank you again. I don't mean to ask you for more money, I assure you. This is ample for my purpose. I don't mean ever to encroach on you any more. I know you are not so rich as you were. At least, I have heard so. You have behaved most generously, and you will not repent it. It is for a sacred purpose, I assure you."

Aubrey muttered something in return, and mechanically accompanied her to the street-door. In giving the money so needed by himself, he had obeyed rather a habit, an old instinct of his nature, when he was still comparatively rich. His act resembled Timon's profuseness at his penultimate banquet, before he sent out to borrow a little cash from his toadies and parasites. He had not realised his position. What man knows poverty, till he tries it? He may see it daily and all its evil effects, its curses, sorrows, contumely, and squalor. He may inquire into it, fill a Blue Book with the result of his researches, pen a beautiful essay upon it, dramatise it, or write a novel upon it, but he must feel it, before he can know it. The imagination may easily picture the delights of wealth; but utterly fails to sound the infinite depths of want. No man knows the world thoroughly, who has not been poor. A doctor might as well say that he knew the pains of childbirth, or a sound and healthy lithotomist that he was perfectly acquainted with the agony of the disease called the stone, as an essayist or philosopher profess to be acquainted with the personal humiliations, miseries, and deprivations of poverty. We see a beggar in the street, and if we have ever known what it is to be cold and hungry, we can form some idea of what he suffers in that respect; but if he has seen better days, can we realise the fierce crowd of resentments gnawing his heart like rats, his mistrust of Providence, his hatred of his fellow-men; as he obeys the stern edict of "move on;" as he experiences the dreadful condemnation of "hit him hard, he has no friends;" as he crawls forth a moral leper in the great and busy world, without even a friend in the same condition as himself? For there is no fellowship for the broken-down man. Thieves have their consorts, cadgers their associates, impostors their mates; but the human being struck off the roll of prosperity is alone; i.e., unless his misery is enhanced, and his affliction multiplied and intensified by the haggard looks of a family sinking in the cold and remorseless waters around. We say, that he who has not personally felt the abandonment and condemnation, the kicks and cuffs, and oaths and sneers of the world, knows absolutely nothing of the pangs of want. If Shakespeare himself knew them, there must have been a period when he was penniless and in despair.

The great and absorbing sorrow of Arthur Aubrey as yet kept him from the thought or appreciation of minor cares. Nor had the time come for him to know poverty, to read the wrinkled anguish of her face in the reflection of his own countenance mirrored in passing some gilder's shop. When, therefore, the street-door had shut upon the philanthropical Miss Dareall, and he exclaimed—somewhat theatrically, it will be said—"Now, Blanche, thou are avenged! Now, Ruin! I look thee in the face, without the means to fly from shame, degradation, torture. I have nought save myself to rely on—these shattered energies and neglected talents to begin life anew, and to support existence"—it meant in reality very little, i.e., he meant a great deal; but was not in a position to realise and appreciate what he said. He thought that he was entering upon a stern campaign, that he was vowed to labour and high resolve, that he was henceforth doomed to work honourably, and it might be struggle hard for a maintenance. But he did not at all contemplate the ragged necessity, the forlorn despair, the squalid break-down, the seedy pauperism which might be his doom. The Nemesis he invoked upon his own head was not even threadbare—much less arrayed from a rag-shop; wearing the likeness of the blear-eyed hag known to the pawnbroker, who snatches the unfinished shirt and the flat-iron from the trembling hands of impoverished toil—his was a genteel Nemesis, holding an official position, writing successful dramas in an interesting way, penning stories for magazines, and publishing the poetry of grief at a guinea and a half a page—not the spectre of the dark arch, the beldam of the casual ward. If he had been able to pierce through the cold and misty veil of the future, and to recognise the features of the Nemesis who awaited him, it is not very probable that he would have accepted the wager of battle with a new life, but rather have yielded the contest at once and ended a misspent existence by a guilty death. But we must not anticipate our tale. This much is certain. If a man could apportion his own punishment in this world, he would often pronounce a very impressive condemnation, ending with a sentence quite inadequate to the burden of his speech. His judicial performance would resemble that of the late celebrated Mr. Justice Maule, when addressing a poor man who had been found guilty of the crime of bigamy, under the old divorce laws. That gifted judge spoke something to the following effect:

"Prisoner at the bar! you have been found guilty by a jury of your countrymen of a dire and grievous offence against morality, society, and the laws of the land. I am here to represent the majesty of the law, which you have violated. You may plead poverty, ignorance, provocation, temptation, and even necessity—I have nothing to do with that. You say that your first wife was drunken, and a thief; that she pawned your property, neglected and beat your children, assaulted and disgraced you, made a hell of your home, and finally abandoned you for another man. All this the law does not consider in the slightest degree. You should have sought the remedies which the law provides. You should have brought an action for crim. con., which might have cost you a thousand pounds. You should then have had recourse to the Ecclesiastical Court, where you might have succeeded, probably, at the cost of another thousand pounds. Thence, you had the option of appealing to the highest tribunal in the country, the House of Lords, in order to free you entirely from the meshes of the drunken, thievish, and adulterous shrew, whom you had the folly or misfortune to make your wife. This might have cost you some three thousand pounds more. Thus, for five thousand pounds you might have obtained a divorce by the legal means which the justice of England places at your disposal. True, you are a labouring man, and I understand your wages amount to an average of eighteen shillings a week, out of which you maintain in a clean and creditable manner, as you are bound to do, the issue of your first and legal marriage, as well as the offspring of the wicked and adulterous connexion which you have formed. Prisoner at the bar! you have broken the laws of your country, and have been found guilty very properly of a heinous and atrocious offence, striking, as I may say, at the root of everything that is sacred in the social relations of Christian and civilised life. You have committed a crime, which, were it to become general, would rend every domestic relation and tie, and in so doing you have scorned to avail yourself of the opportunity of legal emancipation provided by the merciful consideration of the great lawgivers and makers of the land. I shall, therefore, sentence you with that due severity, and the exercise of that impartial justice, which I am here to interpret and uphold, and which the monstrous nature of your offence demands. The sentence of the Court is, that you be imprisoned for one day!"

Justly or unjustly, in the spirit of the learned judge, or in that of a blind and selfish condonation of guilt, we apprehend that were men to pronounce their own condemnation and sentence in this world, there would be a similar discrepancy between their language and their acts.

CHAPTER XXI.

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

There are no "extenuating circumstances" in English "Law" and "Justice." There are, perhaps, too many in French. The English girl who spends five shillings of her paramour's money, the man with whom she has lived as wife, and who is given by the ruffian in charge, gets eight months' hard labour, is utterly disowned by her own prosperous kindred, though she has been cast upon the world in childhood, and is told by the "worthy" judge, that within his recollection she would have been hanged for such an offence. No folly of the heart, no offence of the passions, is lightly dealt with; but the cunning guilt of the brain finds friends and apologists everywhere. There is, at this moment, a subscription set afloat for a vendor of spurious curiosities, twice convicted of theft, to enable him to turn his "abilities" to a better account! A woman prosecutes her betrayer, the father of her five children, who is rich, and is told that her punishment is the fruit of her immoral connexion with him. We are only surprised that he was not accommodated with a seat on the bench. No one breathes a word of admonition to him.—Modern Observations. By an old Law Student.

IN the evening Tops and the "man in possession," who had become strict allies, had their promised pipe and glass of hot gin-and-water together in the now vacated pantry of the illustrious Binsby. Alas! Could that great man have known to what base uses that sanctum of crested silver and armorial lore would shortly come, he would have been more shocked in anticipation, than ever he was by the ruin to which his "parveynoo chief," as he called him, had come. "It's my hown fault," he would say, "for entering into such a connexion. To be sure, I thought he was one of the Aubreys of Yorkshire—and his father was honly a merchant in the City!" To do him justice, he never said a word against Blanche. But then in all the noble families of his acquaintance, there had been "hinstances of females ennobled by marridge," as he said. On this very evening, Mr. Binsby called to inquire after something he had left behind; and his horror at beholding the Downy seated on a stool smoking a short clay in the place so lately sacred to Binsbian dignity and aspirations was commensurate with his magnificent proportions. That worthy "twigged him," to use his own expression, at a glance.

"Vell, hold Banting!" he said, "wot's your horders? The Collidge of Phisichuns has sent you hout for a constitooshinal precious late this evenink."

The sole answer vouchsafed was a look which fell far short of its intention. It was as if Jove had hurled some sheet lightning supplied in place of the real forked article by an official mistake of his War Department, at some uncommonly petty offender. There sat the Downy still grinning, and perfectly unabashed.

"I was not aweer," said Mr. Binsby, "that the streets was turned inside of this hestablishment."

"I shouldn't think it was much as you did know," answered the Downy. "There ain't room for it. You're stuffed too full of himportance, hold feller!"

"I shall be obleeged to you, whoever you are, to keep your remarks, until they are called for," retorted Binsby.

"Didn't yer call?" asked the Downy. "Then perhaps it was a homlibus as I heerd a rumblin'. Come, don't bust till yer wanted, vich is wot the horphan drummer-boy said to the unhexploded shell, ven he poured a bottle of fish sarce into it."

Mr. Binsby proceeded to tie up a small bundle of the property which he had left behind him, consisting of a clothes-brush, a shilling "Peerage," a cotton night-cap, and a few other similar articles, in a large yellow silk "handkercher," as he himself would have called it.

" 'Ave a winkle?" said the Downy. "Do, hold chap, and make yerself at home. Yer don't 'appen to 'ave a largish-sized pin among them miscyllanious hodds and hends of yourn, do you?"

And he rolled a specimen of that plebeian "fruit of the sea" along the pantry dresser to the great man, who allowed it to drop on the floor, and then kicked it slowly back towards the Downy.

"That's wot yer calls perliteness, I suppose," continued his remorseless tormentor. "Your parients never paid nothink to teach you manners. I'll jest tell yer wot it is. I've a great mind not to let you take them things hout of this house, just to teach yer to be civil."

And the Downy suiting the action to the word, actually walked up to Mr. Binsby, snatched the parcel from his fubsy hands, and threw it on the floor by the rejected winkle. What might have occurred we are unable to state; but fortunately at that moment Tops entered the pantry, and made peace between the representatives of outward and inward vulgarity, which he achieved with considerable adroitness. Yet for a butler, Mr. Binsby was in reality much more of a gentleman than many a person with a banker's account, who would make but a dishonest and disreputable butler. Look at that bloated and pompous pest "Major" Bragman, whose chief triumph in life was to break up a West-end club to which he unfortunately belonged, and who endeavoured to perform a similar service to a Volunteer corps, in which he got a commission by carefully disguising his real temper and antecedents. Some years ago he was a noted black-leg and card-sharper, and after a "prosperous" career of swindling at home and abroad, reappeared in "Society," where, by the most patient toadyism, he got a sort of footing, and talked about his friend Lord Fitzfoodle, and "my bankers the Robinsons," to every one whom he met. What odious vulgarity of this kind will not Society endure, when it "smells" of real or assumed property! Besides, few like to meddle with malignity and miscrupulousness, and so every one goes on wondering why some one else does not "kick the fellow out of the club, sir, by Jove." Yes, there are plenty of Major Bragmans about, better tolerated than men of true courage and far higher pretensions, who are not gifted with the attributes of the skunk and the jackal, the cowardly hyena, and the venomous snake.

"Now then," said Tops, after Mr. Binsby had departed on friendly terms, actually smiling a lofty smile, when the Downy asked him for a song, and listening with apparent complacency to the admonitions bestowed on him to be sure and button up his coat and take care of his precious health for the sake of his fellow-creatures and an admiring public—"now then, let's have one of them stories of yourn as yer was a telling me of, when that lady in a veil called to see master."

The Downy seemed awhile plunged in deep reflection.

"Does that chap ever go in the water? I mean, does he hever take a bath?"

"Well, I can't say exactly," replied Tops; "I fancy he do sometimes. Whatever do you want to know that for?"

"Vy," replied the Downy, very gravely, as if the subject demanded it, "if he do, there might be a wacancy when the hipperpotamouse can't come to time. It's my hopinion a hungrateful country don't know that man's desserts. He oughter 'ave nothink wotever to do but to 'elp the Speaker of the 'Ouse of Commins to port wine. That's my noshun of his nateral horfice, and the werry next time there's a Cabynit Council, I means to speak about it, that's hall."

"Well," said Tops, "for my part, I don't see why he shouldn't be Speaker hisself, and pour out his own port wine. I dessay there's been a many not so good-looking; and a many as couldn't do the dooties half so well. But I want to hear this story, as soon as I've lit this pipe."

"Vell," said the Downy, "I knowed a man vunce as drove a bus for fifteen year, as cum hinto a matter of four hundred pound, as he'd bin hexpectin' of all that time, through the death of a hannuitant, as might have been backed heavy to die the werry fust year as the money was left in rewersion, as the lawyers said. Vell, she went on a living out of sheer spite, and he went on a driving like a monyment of patience in a drab coat on the box, till she was so weak, you'd have thought she hadn't strength left in her to go through the sairymony of dying. Vell, that man was werry reg'lar in his habits, and he said werry little to any one; and all he did was to put a bit of crape on his whip, the day of the funeral, and he give notice to his employers to leave in a month. The last Saturday night of the month he finished up as usual, and made a present of his capes to a waterman as was a pertickler friend, and give his rug to another coachman on the road, and treated hall on the line he travelled, as could come, to a supper and drink, and went home, and found his wife had bolted with a Bobby, and gone clean off to Amerikey, with hall the money, and sold the furniture besides. No vun see him on the Sunday; but on the Monday he come back and asked to be put on the road again; but the properiators said they wos werry sorry his place was filled hup. It was a pouring wet day, and old George Adams, as used to drive the Liverpool mail, asked him to take a drop of something warm, for his teeth were a chattering in his head. 'Bill,' says the conductor of his own bus, who come in for three-pennorth, 'whatever 'ave yon done with your hair? You've been a powdering it, sure-ly!' 'No,' says he, 'I han't; but,' he says, whispering quite loud, 'I've been a dying of it these fifteen year, that's what I 'ave, and last Saturday night the dye come off.' George winked at the conductor, and the conductor looked werry grave at him. 'It's my opinion,' says he, 'that he's hoff his 'ead. It's hall along of that money;' for they didn't know what 'ad happened to him then. Vell, they left him there, and he went out talking about the world coming to a hend, as if he'd been a hearing the Reverend Spurgin, the celibrated preacher as keeps a private shofel, which is worry likely wot he'd been a doing of on the Sunday, you see. And hoff his 'ead he were; for he mistook the canal for the wet road on his way someveres that night in a hopposite direction from home, and a coroner's jury brought in a werdict of haccidental 'omicide through grief at his wife's miscondict."

"There's a sight of rum things even in the bus line," resumed the Downy after a brief pause. "I knowed a coachman as druv a bus to Norwood, as wos fell in love with by a real tip-top lady, and ven he'd knowed her some time, she broke an happintment, and he never clapped heyes on her for seventeen year. He was a werry fine stout man, and grew quite melincolly, and ven the passingers thought he wos lookin' for fares, he wos a lookin' for vun sure enough. Vell, he pulls hup vun day at the 'Pig and Tinderbox,' and there she wos, and a nice-lookin' youth standin' by her side. He throws the reins down in a jiffy, and hoff he gets. 'You've been a long time keepin' that happintment, ma'am,' says he, werry respectful. 'Yes, I 'ave, coachman,' says she. With that she inwited him in werry perlitely, and hordered a bottle of port wine, and sends the youth hout to smoke a Cuba, and look at the bill of the play. 'Coachman,' says she, 'I've a secret to tell you.' 'Thank ye, ma'am,' says he. 'You've been a long time a thinkin' on it.' 'That boy is your son,' says she, takin' no notice of his hobserwation, no more than if he hadn't made it. He wos a werry strong man; but, as he said arterwards, 'he was never nearer faintin' in his life.' Vell, she told him that the young gent was heir to a large fortin', and she made him a 'andsome present, and promised to meet him next week; but he never set eyes on her agen; and he grew more stout and melincolly every day, and took to drink, ven he'd tell this 'ere story of hisn to any vun as vould listen to him; and venever he see a perticlarly fine-drest middle-aged female, he'd drive on quite sudden, vether a passinger wos gettin' in or hout, it didn't matter to him. Till vun day he got more hexcited than usual, and fell hoff the box in a fit of appleplexy, just vere he fust met that party as 'ad been his ruin like hentirely."

This is but humble romance in real life. For romance in all its phases, but without poetical utterance, was there ever anything like the tangled skein of the nineteenth century, wherein lords become beggars, and even Sir Bernard Burke loses their identification and history in the backwood, the sheep-walk, the kennel, and the slum; wherein "shoddy" and "villainy" rise to sudden pre-eminence among men; wherein the great mob of a great city opens and closes upon the living, as the waves close over the dead; wherein no commercial house or bank is safe, and there is scarcely a character above suspicion; wherein there is opportunity for every woman to deceive her lover or her husband; every rogue to succeed in life, if he be only rogue enough and fortune smile—an age of heroism among the small, and littleness among the great; an age so mixed, confused, so alloyed with every metal, that it is neither gold nor iron, brass, nickel, nor even tin; an age which falsehood and hypocrisy have marked for their own to such an extent, that the multitude follow a false cry and worship a false idol, knowing them to be false, and despising in their inmost souls that which they openly profess to reverence and adore? "But have we not the Press?" cries one. "Is it not," may be answered, "the safety-valve of indignation, rather than the guardian of public morality?" In these days we satisfy ourselves with calling names. We suffer a minister to be accused of ignominy and treason, and then pronounce him a necessity to the State, as if the nation could not possibly survive him when he is dead. The lawyers thrust their tongues in their cheeks, whilst they tell anecdotes affecting the probity of a judge, yet he continues to dispense justice or injustice over the land. Some of our generals and admirals wear decorations as a reward of their diplomatic discretion, rather than their valorous deeds; and journalism is not silent thereon, and thereby only enhances the disgrace. We have seen the whole force of public opinion brought to bear against a nobleman or a contractor in vain. There are cases when the gold armour-plates are sufficient to resist the heaviest cannonade, and when the smoke dies away the vessel floats uninjured, with the signal of piety at the fore.

In the midst of all, a spasmodic jubilee hails the completion of a telegraphic cable, as if the instantaneous transmission of a lie were worth the slowest truth that ever sailed in a three-decker from land to land. After all, is it a better or a worse age than any that has gone before? It would be difficult to answer. Probably the world, represented by its leading nations—those that make and leave the history of the period—is good, bad, or indifferent, by turns. We are not so depraved now as the Romans under the Empire! Instead of torturing thousands of human beings and animals in an Amphitheatre, we starve thousands of men, women, and children, or allow them to starve in our streets and fields, ditches and byways, and we keep our wild beasts on excellent fare in our Zoological Gardens. There is a refuge for homeless dogs, where no labour is exacted in return, and no questions asked; and enlightened humanity, in the most popular of our newspapers, writing up to the demand and spirit of the period, weeps tears of ink over the sufferings of a rat, worried by a terrier, and invokes legislation to put an end to such cruel sport. Yet the omnibus driver works fifteen or even sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, unpitied, to die of acute rheumatism, or end his uncomfortable days in the workhouse. The bones of the English child are literally ground to supply the luxuries of the rich. There is no pity for poverty, no mercy on want-compelled crime. Look at the ostentatious livery of charity worn by those yellow-legged, bare-headed schoolboys. The close-cropped little fellows wear neither caps nor hats; because they are poor, the children of poverty, and ought to be humble.

They are in a chronic state of reverence for the magnificent bounty of their superiors, and suffer ear-ache and consequent deafness in after life. Sometimes it hardens, and sometimes it kills. We believe that the ugliness of the dress prescribed by a noble Charity, actually influences the physical looks of the wearers, and makes the poor youths ugly, awkward, and angular. Lately, one of these lads got as far as Paris by means of a cheap excursion, and was taken for a Japanese. We saw a couple of hundred this afternoon on their way to return thanks somewhere for the blessings heaped upon them. Poor lads, they could not uncover their heads on entering the church! All the thanksgiving must have been taken out of them long before. We can fancy what hard unforgiving wretches those of them who grow up and succeed in life must become. We know the case of a girl brought up at an orphan school, where, she said, the sickly ones died and were buried. That is the least expensive way of providing for orphans, next to a Chinese baby tower. This girl was of a strong and robust constitution, and so escaped the cheaper alternative; but she did not look healthy, when she came out. Her body was like a huge corn, or chilblain; her soul was a cowering wild-beast driven in by the spiritual hunters to gnash its teeth in darkness among thorns. When she came out of the asylum, she was a liar and a thief, a sceptic as to all good, and somewhat of an actuary in contemplated evil. She would calculate to a nicety all the chances of being found out. This creature by chance went to live with an eccentric couple who believed in the Supreme Being, but who were not formalists in their mode of worship. They were kind to her; and at first she was puzzled, then dubious, then astonished, and finally a sensation stole into her heart. From that time, she became humanised. She ceased to torture flies, and pinch the baby. She found herself abstaining from drinking the beer, on her way from the public-house. She no longer cut tid-bits from the meat and stole the gravy, and defiled the dishes out of spite. She ceased to make faces on the stairs before she came in, and told something very like the truth one evening when she stayed out late. This went on, until one day on being reproved, she cried. Upon this her master said to her mistress, "My dear, I have hopes of that girl."

One day her mistress encouraged a little confidence, and the girl said,

"If you please, mum, I've tried very hard to be good, and I think I am beginning to like it a little. I was very wicked, when I came here. It was all along of the asylum. All the good girls died there, and I wanted to live; and you see, mum, I was always very strong. They never spoke a kind word, and the prayers seemed so long and harsh. I hated everybody when I came out, and even my health and spirits was beginning to give in. I used to think how wicked I should like to be, when I was put out to service. It was all along of too much Christian teaching, and no Christian kindness. 'If this is goodness,' I used to say to the biggest girls, 'let's be wicked,' and so we were. There was hardly a girl that came out of that school but has turned out bad, and so should I, if I hadn't come here."

All this is characteristic and true. We put the livery of servitude and degradation on orphan boys; and what person gifted with a generous nature ever looked at an orphan girls' school out for a walk, whom the sight did not depress and make sad? So small, and pale, and bony, and "humble," and clean. No making of mud pies there! No joyous laughter, no dirty pinafores, no tangled hair! Hair? It is all cut short. What should they do with that ornament of girlhood? They couldn't raise a laugh among the lot. They would eat plum-cake as if it were a duty, and carry an orange like a sampler, without even smelling at it. Is it possible that so many children can be ugly; that so many have large ears and coarse arms, when they are not lean and scraggy? And what is the consequence? When they grow up, the large majority become pilferers and dishonest servants; and the small minority, who are not frightful, in spite of everything, take to the streets.

The tender and the sensitive perish under the utilitarian grindstone; their souls will not fit into the dry, little arithmetical posture-frames assigned to them. They cease to be numbers, and become, let us hope, angels with names. They die, one by one, and do not walk two and two in Heaven!

How the survivors must hate somehow and somewhere, in the deepest recesses of their little twilight understandings, their pastors, and masters, and mistresses, and the clergy, and the Bible, and the Prayer Book. For these books are made especially terrible to them—the one means punishment, and the other restraint. Yet the Divine Teacher of Teachers said, "Suffer little children to come unto me!" Alas! he meant children, and not little old men and women, whose separate identities are lost in the uniformity of barren rule, who all awake together at six, and step out of bed like automata, and have the same square inch of appetite, the same gill measure of thirst; the breathing mannikins of a toy Noah's Ark; a very serious toy, not exactly meant for play, but grimmest earnest.

We once knew a brute in human shape, who took a kitten and cut off its ears and tail, and put a collar on it, and gave it gin in its milk, and called it by a comical name. When the human brute was in his cups, he would sit and laugh at the quaint antics of this perverted creature. No one even laughs at charity children. The very comicality of their dress is serious enough in the accustomed British eye. A foreigner might laugh at the yellow legs of a Blue-coat boy, or the Quaker-like appearance of female children taught that the very air which they breathe is composed of charitable oxygen, and who never had a doll among them in their existences; but his laugh soon subsides into a smile of derision or pity—according to the heart of the man.

"A magnificent charitable institution, sir," cries John Bull, who has just eaten the dinner of an ogre, over which the shortest possible grace has been said.

After all, consider the street children, the infant population of the alley and back slum, the "caten-wheeling" Arab, the orphan with both parents alive, the offspring of incest, who "never had no mother," because he is the child of "aunt." Is not "order" an improvement on this? We can hardly pronounce. It is the choice between the surviving hypocrite and the surviving ruffian, between Jacob and Esau, between the man who lives to adulterate food and swindle with legal precautions, and the predatory vagabond, who probably would not rob, if he could manage to live comfortably without it. Again, if one thing is wrong, it does not always necessarily make another right.

The thief in the dock may deserve his sentence—say two years' imprisonment—but the Counsel who prosecuted him may merit ten, the Attorney who prepared the brief fifteen, and the Judge penal servitude for life. There might be a case, easily imagined, where such an apportionment would be in strict accordance with true justice.

CHAPTER XXII.

FACILIS DESCENSUS.

A lass coom wooing to my undoing
(The red cow kicks the pail);
Thee may'st churn till the morrow wi' pain and wi' sorrow—
Waarm thoonder it turns strong yale.
Get out, Madame Ruin, there's mischief a brewin'—
"I'm Miss Fortune, sir," she zaid:
"Then I wish thee'd marry, nor here longer tarry,
And I'll tak Goody Luck in thy stead."

Country Song.

If all the sumptuous dinners given by a former favourite of prosperity, now out of luck and out at elbows, could furnish him with one cheap dinner in the Strand—if the recollection of all the turtle and venison which he has bestowed on a numerous circle of admiring friends, could pay for a single tough chop without "a follow" in the dingiest of Fleet-street dens—if Gratitude for past benefits, in the form of a friendly Genius, could or would lend five shillings or eighteenpence to a modern Timon, as he slinks wearily and hungrily through the streets, and thinks of the champagne which he has poured down the throats of extinct parasites, as in a former geological period, and of the solid luxuries which he has provided for those who are now no more to him than the chill Phantoms of the remembrance of the Past—then one might still find an infinitesimal set-off against the frantic excesses of boyish Amphitryonism, and even the lavish absurdities of a maturer but not wiser age. Alas! how easily is he, who has befriended others, but forgotten himself, kicked by remorseless Fate 'EIΣ'AΦÁNEIAN, "into the unseen." He who forgets "Number One" is apt to become a cipher in this world, and the abuse of the selfish hunts his shadow into gloom.—From the Note-book of Solomon Trustall, Esq. LL.D., Chapter last.

IT is not our intention, at present, to trace the ruined fortunes of Arthur Aubrey for any long period. He disappeared at once from Society. Those of his great friends who did not cut him, he himself cut, either from pride or the apprehension that they would take the initiative. One day he met the good-natured Lord Madeiraville, who would have got him a post had he been applied to, and who was about to shake him by the hand. But Aubrey had already, within two or three months, become shabby in his apparel; and he looked at the nobleman with the aspect of a scared wolf, and crossed the street. Shabbiness in the first degree, when a man begins with truth to think that he is not altogether well dressed, does not at all interfere with the aspirations of literature, and Aubrey had already become a literary man. Of this anon. We must first tell how he fared when he left Queen's-square. It suited Mr. Grinderby, for certain reasons of his own, that Aubrey should escape the Insolvent Court, and as he happened to owe very few small debts this was easily effected. The fact is, that Grinderby had summoned the few tradesmen who were Aubrey's personal creditors, and had represented to them the state of his affairs. Their claims did not amount to more than two thousand pounds.

"Our client," said Grinderby, impressively, "is a ruined man. He is no longer entitled to receive the rents of his estates. The mortgagee has foreclosed, and the whole property will be administered by Chancery. If the estate can be preserved without a sale, it will be done on behalf of the heirs of the entail. The whole income will be applied to the discharge of the debts, which are secured upon the estate, and the gradual extinction of the mortgage, which our client ought to have paid off out of the personalty on his father's demise." (This was not true, as counsel had stated a contrary opinion.) "There is not a farthing available out of the estate for him. Our own claim on him for costs will barely be satisfied out of the sale that is announced to take place. In this state of things I have consulted my partner, and we have come to the determination to do what may be termed a very Quixotic thing. We propose to be satisfied with only the part liquidation of our own claim, and to offer eighteenpence in the pound to the whole body of the creditors. My partner, Mr. Cousens, was, as you may some of you be aware, Mr. Aubrey's personal friend, and has insisted upon this liberal course. It is a gift of one hundred and fifty pounds from the pockets of the firm."

There was at first an angry murmur of surprise and disgust at the state of affairs, then a period of doubt, and finally approval of, and even applause at the generous conduct of the firm. It ended in a composition on the terms offered by Grinderby. There then remained a sum of fifteen hundred pounds, or thereabouts, due on bills which Aubrey had got discounted. These Grinderby refused to include, and informed the holders that they would get nothing by suing Aubrey. But ere long, when two or three writs had been issued and judgments obtained, Mr. Grinderby, with a vast show of generosity, purchased the bills at about one-sixth of the nominal value, and so held his late client in his power, to proceed to execution when he pleased.

It did not suit Mr. Grinderby to lock Aubrey up then, or to make him insolvent. Perhaps he did not wish that everything should become public; perhaps he did not wish the management of Aubrey's affairs by the firm to be ventilated too much. It was through a female first cousin of Arthur Aubrey that the bill was filed in Chancery, which dispossessed him of his life estate.

The late Mr. Aubrey, in order acquire the fee-simple of a property adjoining his own, which belonged to his maternal aunt, and which brought her in about five hundred pounds a-year, granted her an annuity on his whole property of one thousand pounds a-year for her life as an equivalent for a deed of gift of the land, which he managed for her, and which she always intended to leave him by will. This he did some years before his own death, and at a time when it was not considered likely that the old lady would survive him—in fact, when her life was not worth a month's purchase, much less a year's. She lived, however, to a considerable age, and only died a few months before the disappearance of Blanche, and consequently of the events which we are now endeavouring to narrate. The old lady never spent more than four hundred pounds a-year in her life; and thus Arthur Aubrey owed a very heavy sum for the unpaid arrears of this annuity. Had the original disposition of the old lady's property remained undisturbed, Arthur would have owed these arrears to himself; but on inheriting his father's property, one of his cousins represented to him that, owing to her husband's speculations and extravagance, she and her children had nothing to live on but the interest of that sum, and suggested to him what a boon it would be to her as well as an act of justice, if her name were substituted instead of his own, in the will of this aged lady, who would obey any dictate that came from him, her favourite and the darling of her bed-ridden old age. To this Arthur, in his usual Quixotic mood, at once assented, and a new will was at once prepared and signed by the old lady, who had only to be made to understand that it was his wish, to execute it without hesitation.

"No one can now say, at any rate," said Arthur, "that my attentions to my dear auntie are actuated by mercenary views."

But it turned out a bad arrangement for him. The old lady soon after fell into a state of complete imbecility, and lived on merely in a sort of vegetable existence. During her remaining life another old lady, a sister of hers, and also her husband, died and left her all their property, which would otherwise have come to Arthur, but was now irrevocably willed away from him at his own dictation, and, as it were, by his own act. About this he never expressed or felt any regret. But when the invalid at length ceased to exhibit any vital sign, and the poor shrunken atomy, which was all that remained of her small frame, had been lifted from her bed of feathers in her pretty little house to her bed of mould in the country churchyard, then the consequences of Arthur's act became very unpleasantly conspicuous in the following manner. The arrears of the annuity which he had not paid up, and which he ought to have invested, amounted to a considerable sum. To tell the truth, he had never thought much about them, and when the matter did occur to him, he dismissed it with the reflection that he could always pay the interest at five per cent., which would no doubt suit his cousin just as well as if he paid the money down. The fact is, he had never realised his true position, and refused to look it in the face, until it forced itself upon him as a very disagreeable fact. His monstrous infatuation for Miss Dareall, his idle habits and companions, his libertine recklessness, and blind, unaccountable folly, had paralysed all proper thought and action. He had never known the value and importance of money—never reflected, never reckoned, never kept accounts, never asked himself, "Where will this end?" Such men pay a fearful penalty, when the evil day comes. They appear to reserve all their appreciation of the realities of life until it is too late to be of any avail.

When the old lady, Miss Clementina Aubrey, died, there was, as we said, a considerable arrear due to Mrs. Wilkinson, Aubrey's cousin, in respect of the arrears of the annuity of one thousand pounds a-year secured by a bond upon the property, which did not pass through Aubrey's hands. Whether Mrs. Wilkinson thought, and perhaps rightly, and with a sound exercise of discretion, that if Aubrey were not forced to pay the principal, the interest would not accrue very regularly, or whether, as she declared more than once with tears, she never thought of the possible consequences of the act which we are about to record, is what we shall not pretend to determine. It would be only gallant not to doubt any lady's word, and only charitable to believe the affirmation of one who read prayers with such becoming unction every morning and evening to her assembled household, with the exception of Thomas, the coachman and gardener, the only person exempt from this tribute to salvation, because he smelt so of the stable, and his shoes were necessarily thick and dirty. It was a delightful thing to see the four maid-servants and a country boy in buttons, with immense worsted gloves, which he was ordered to keep in a drawer in the hall-table, listening to the instructive genealogies of the Hebrew race, and how one unpronounceable name begot another throughout a lengthy chapter, or how the said Hebrew people killed man, woman, and child in city after city of the tribes whom they successively attacked. This mild mother of a family would dwell with gushing fervour on the destruction of every breathing thing, in reading these catalogues of old-world horror. Some chapters thus read were edifying in a different way. But the prayers put up by this exemplary matron, and the earnestness of their delivery, afforded the strongest contrast to the inner thoughts, and feelings, and language of that model family. Surely this mere form of daily worship, this lip-service, which has no source in the heart, this modulated phraseology, which means so much less than nothing, is in reality but an insult to the Great Being who sees all, even the self-deception of the uncharitable soul. Poor Tummas! A pair of slippers and an occasional bottle of eau-de-cologne might have included thee in those blessings so touchingly invoked—might have made thee fit to hear how Israel smote all the souls in Hazor with the edge of the sword, and houghed the horses, and burnt all the chariots thereof!

Under these circumstances, we feel persuaded that Mrs. Wilkinson told the truth, when she affirmed in the most solemn manner that she had no idea, in assigning the bond debt owed to her by her cousin and benefactor for a consideration to the country solicitors, of whom we have before made mention, that it would not only endanger that cousin's life interest in the property, but actually cause his ruin. These solicitors in due time demanded the money. This led to a correspondence with Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens. They, of course, made a great fuss about the interests of their client, but declined to give any undertaking that the interest on the bond debt should be paid out of the rents of the life estate. They named every contingency which might arise, such as all the farms being untenanted at once, and the possible general depreciation of land, then greatly rising in value, and the amount of repairs that might be needed in one year. Then there was always the possibility of an act of forfeiture on the part of their client. Of course the country firm knew their own interests best. There might arise a question as to the validity of that bond debt if not affirmed by Chancery, it was true. Still, if the others would wait, it would save their client. After all this harpy-like coquetry and grim rapacious dalliance, during which the two representatives of the town and country firms perfectly understood each other's real intentions, the bill was finally drawn, and Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens appointed by general consent receivers for the Court, on the understanding that the country firm should have certain local pickings and emoluments.

Mrs. Wilkinson wrote a beautiful letter to her cousin, deploring her evil fate.

"I assure you," she said, "I would rather pay the money out of my own pocket, were it in my power, but unfortunately I cannot. You know how I am situated. William's expenses at college have quite crippled us of late, and John's commission money has to be paid next year, and I am sure I don't know how we shall manage; and clothing for the girls is so expensive, besides dear Selina's music and German lessons. I am sure, my dear Arthur, I would help you if I could. With your talents, you cannot fail to get some permanent employment. I should think you could get a consulship, if you were only to ask, and we would do anything in our power to help you then. But at present it is impossible. If I had only another thousand a-year, I would assist you with pleasure. But His will be done!" &c. &c. &c.

Arthur Aubrey saw no more of his kinswoman; and she occasionally shed tears to all her friends on account of her poor misguided cousin, with an equal lachrymal apportionment of feeling truly gratifying to witness, during a period of at least six months: after which she only sighed and turned up her eyes devotionally at the rare mention of his name.

And what became of Aubrey, as autumn came and passed away, and the leaves fell and vanished, the days shortened in the dreary November of that year?

He did not stay long in Percy-street, where for six weeks he lay on a bed of sickness hovering between life and death, and nursed by the rough hands of the devoted Tops, from whom Susan had parted to take service, as she said, with a foreign lady going to Milan and Rome. All the savings of Tops were soon expended, diminished as they were by some unfortunate turf speculations, into which the poor fellow plunged headlong, in the vain desire that he might thereby set his old master on his legs. When Aubrey got better, he tried hard to get literary employment. But he was out of the "grooves," and couldn't succeed. In the days of his prosperity, he had contributed several unpaid communications to a morning journal, which had created some little sensation at the time. So he called on the editor, but was coldly and sternly informed that the staff was complete. Then he tried to get a play acted. It was full of originality and power. In vain did he seek to recover a copy which he enclosed to his old friend Methusalem Wigster, of the Royal Thespis Theatre.

One weary night he received a note with that manager's regrets to say that the piece was mislaid. By the time he had recopied it, the principal incidents had made their appearance at another theatre. He could scarcely believe his own eyes and ears, when, having strolled into the pit of one of the smaller theatres, where a new and original drama had been announced by an experienced playwright, he recognised all the chief points, and much of the dialogue of his own play. A choking sense of indignation oppressed him, and he felt inclined to get up and denounce the theft to the audience aloud. But he was depressed by want of money, and accepted the utter helplessness of his situation, and went home determined to take some proper action the next day. He consulted a literary friend, an outsider, whose acquaintance he had made in the parlour of a public-house in the Strand. That worthy inquired into the circumstances, and said,

"I don't see what you can do. You tell me that the dialogue is altered and the plot only partially used. The piece, you say, is not published at Lacy's, and I suppose it will not be. You must, therefore, employ a shorthand writer, if you go to law, to take down the exact words, and you can then see how close the plagiarism is. But then, you tell me, you did not keep a perfect copy. It is of no use to write to the newspapers. If any of them, which is doubtful, inserted your letter, who would care for, or believe you? Why this very man, who has cribbed from your play, has stolen in some way or other every single piece which he has had represented. The first was a well-known operetta, written by a school friend of his own, who was then going into the Church, and which was sent to this clever and unscrupulous writer from the Continent to get it placed anonymously on the stage. This he stole holus-bolus. The real author could not well expose him, you see. Then there was poor Bob Brown's famous drama, which came out at the Parnassus. He was another old school chum of Prigley's, and I read every line of his piece, before

Dick Prigley got him into his clutches. Prigley persuaded him to let him touch it up, do a little stage business for it, you know, and it was to be brought out under his auspices. Somehow Brown, a nervous fellow, who drank very hard, but who was full of genius, was persuaded not to go near the theatre on the first night. I believe Prigley got some one to entice him away and make him drunk. At any rate, when the author was called for, Prigley bowed his sole acknowledgment from a private box. The next day Brown swore he would take his life; but somehow he didn't. The spurious authorship was partially contradicted in the newspapers, but all in vain. Brown got delirium tremens soon after, and then, Prigley managed to square the matter; for Brown was desperately hard up. Why, sir, the whole reputation of that man is built up on similar transactions. How he has escaped personal chastisement I don't know—perhaps he has not. Look at the career of Bustincraft Bouncer."

"Stop!" cried Arthur. "Bustincraft did at least write the 'Rogue's March of Intellect,' which you will allow is a standard play in the language."

"So, I admit, it is generally thought," was the reply, "and very few know the real history of that. But I am one of those few, and I will tell you. Yes, it is an admirable play; and I owned it puzzled me to know how he had done it, though I had my doubts. You remember old Judge Richardson, of the 'Hole in the Wall,' do you not?"

"Certainly," said Arthur; "but surely you don't mean to say that he was the author?"

"I might fix on a less likely man," was the answer. "Richardson was a very clever fellow, full of wit and humour, ay, and possessed of a very good heart. He was one of the strange productions of these times."

"I have heard," rejoined Arthur, "many excellent traits of him; and yet he lived by pandering to obscenity and ribaldry, and prostituted his undoubted talents in a shameless way."

"You mean he presided over the mock trials, which were once so popular an entertainment. Well, I don't know that they were conducted in a manner much more reprehensible than our real Courts, and then they were minus all the injustice, real and false swearing, bullying, and Mammon-worship which characterise the latter. Well, sir, I have known the Judge perform some kind, and even noble actions. No man was at times more sensible of the misery of his career than he. But what would you have in these days? I tell you that some of our managers have done far more harm to the public morals than he? Look at the broughams at the stage-door of the ——; the ladies who are engaged at the ——; the performances at the ——, where the manager sails as near the wind as he dares; the dresses of the ballet at the ——, &c. &c. At any rate, poor old Richardson did not attempt to demoralise the minds of our wives, and sisters, and daughters. Mind, I don't attempt to defend his métier; nor did he."

"But about the authorship of the play?" inquired Arthur.

"Well," was the answer. "I met poor old Richardson in the Strand one day apparently in a great state of excitement. 'Holloa!' I said, 'what's the matter now?'

" 'Has Heaven no special thunderbolts?' he answered, in his usual exaggerated tone.

" 'Come, come, old boy!' I replied, 'I think you ought to be the last to complain.'

" 'Stuff!' he said, 'whom have we robbed and plundered? Don't talk to me; I tell you I am in earnest. You know I am sometimes. I cannot bear to see such rascality flourish!'

"I soon perceived that he was not jesting, and I asked him what had offended him so much.

" 'You know Bustincraft Bouncer?' he said. 'Well, I was standing at the corner of Wellington-street, when a carriage-and-pair—yes, sir, pair—passed me and splashed me, as you see, from head to foot. Look at this mud, sir. Look at my shirt-front, sir—it's all dickey with it, and I had not donned it a half-hour. I looked up, as the vehicle of luxury passed, and whom do you think I saw in it? Bustincraft, sir—the wretch Bustincraft, that ghoul, that vampire, who lives on dead men's brains, ay, and the brains of the living, when he can suck them with impunity.'

" 'That's what you mean by calling him a vampire as well as a ghoul, I presume,' said I.

" 'Precisely, young man,' was the answer. 'I thought of my poor friend Wimple, sir, dead and buried; and if a look could have killed that wretch

Bustincraft, he would have been taken out of his brougham as deaf to time as his victim——'

"And the judge relieved his feelings by an oath of comic intensity.

" 'But what has Bustincraft done to this Wimple?' I asked.

" 'Listen,' replied the judge. 'Wimple wrote two or three successful trifles for the stage. He then threw all he knew into the "Rogue's March," and gave it to Bustincraft to read. He never was able to get it back again, and Bustincraft at length declared he had lost it in a cab. Poor Wimple had kept no copy, and was dreadfully cut up. "I don't believe he has lost it," he said to me one day. "Why did he not say so at first?" Well, sir, Wimple lived too fast, and got into sad trouble in the Government office where he was employed. In fact, he made a mistake, bolted, and went over to Boulogne. The sum was so small, that if the foolish fellow had kept out of the way, he would not have been wanted. But he must needs come back to look after Bustincraft and the play, on which he counted much. He thought Bustincraft would be moved by his distress and need. The day after his interview, he was arrested and committed to Newgate. I don't say that Bustincraft gave the information; but I feel as certain of it, as I do that Judas Iscariot adapted "Mysteries" for the Jewish stage. Well, sir, poor little Wimple took cold, and a rapid consumption set in. He was but a sickly fellow at best. He managed to see me, and begged me—knowing, as he was pleased to say, that I had a good heart, to see Bustincraft and get the play for him, if possible. "I have tried to write it again," he said, "and can't. If I could only get a hundred pounds for it," he said, "I could be properly defended, and there are many extenuating circumstances in my case." He then told me that he had returned nearly all the money before the warrant was out for his apprehension. I saw Bustincraft, but I need not tell you that my mission was vain. Little Wimple died in gaol before his trial came on, and before six months were over, Bustincraft produced the piece as his own with triumphant success. Do you wonder now at my rage when I was splashed by such a transcendent villain, and that I should ask why the bolts of Heaven sleep?'

"I owned that I did not. Now, my young friend, this is the way in which dramatic success is too often attained in the present day. Give up your original authorship, if you want success on the stage, and take to French adaptation and English annexation—that's my advice."

"But, good Heavens!" cried Arthur, "you don't mean to say that this is the general state of things?"

"Pretty nearly," replied the other. "I know a case where a young fellow sent a play to a manager founded on a celebrated French drama, by no less than three French authors. They do that sort of thing in France, you know. Well, as usual, he couldn't get it returned. The manager himself brought it out fifteen years after, slightly transmogrified, and considerably spoilt by his own vulgarity and ignorance, as a perfectly new and original drama by himself. He was not aware of the French authorship, you see. The Press, of course, laughed at his assertions when they found it out, as they soon did, and the piece was withdrawn from the London boards; but the honest man acted it frequently in the provinces, and is now starring with it in Australia, as I read in the 'Period' the other day."

"You astonish me," cried Arthur, with an accent of despair. "But, come, there are some original plays acted in the names of their bonâ fide authors!"

"Of course," said the other; "if Bulwer, or Dickens, or Disraeli chose to write a play, any of those well-known authors could insure its being placed on the stage. There are three or four men who cannot write fast enough, as it is. But look at the sort of stuff that goes down with the aid of the scene-painter! What I say is this, that the difficulties in the way of an outsider are almost insuperable. Are you a dramatic critic for a daily paper? No! If you were, you would have a chance. As it is, the more genius and originality you can boast, the less your chance of success, and the greater the probability that you will only furnish stuff and suggestions for some daring playwright to work up into a flagrant sensation piece. If your play is good, the odds are that it will be completely worked out, and if ever you should be enabled to produce it long hereafter, through some means wholly irrespective of your deserts, you will have to fight charges of plagiarism from your own piece. When your playwrights get hold of a good idea, they don't leave it in a hurry, I can tell you. When that new and original French drama, stolen from my friend's adaptation was produced, the first criticism that appeared in the 'Thunderbolt' was to the effect that a well-known favourite English drama had suggested its situations. No wonder, since that English play of twenty years' standing was originally founded on the French piece of 1837, or thereabouts. I tell you the whole thing is rotten. It is a combination of dishonesty, petty talent of approbation, cliquism, and ignorance on the one side, and of bad taste and want of appreciation on the other. If a thing is outrageously bad, the critics condemn it privately and applaud it in whole columns of spasmodic eulogy in the journals for which they write. Sometimes a manager will thrust half a dozen manuscripts into the hands of an acknowledged manufacturer, and say, 'Write me a sensation piece for such and such actors, and scenery.' But, stop! You told me that your play touches earnestly and morally on the 'Social Evil,' one of the great newspaper topics of the day, a thing our wives and daughters talk of familiarly when they ask what 'Skittles' had on yesterday, and the latest colour of 'Anonyma's' hair. You say that it is written with a high moral purpose. It won't do, I tell you. No manager will touch it!"

"Surely," replied Arthur, "this is to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel."

"I see," observed the other, lighting a fresh pipe, "that you don't understand the peculiar modesty of the British public, nor the peculiar scruples of its caterers; and, faith, I don't think they understand it themselves. The thing to be most avoided is an earnest delineation of manners as they exist; and, above all, you must never touch on dangerous topics with a high purpose and a moral. You may say and do what you please in a certain way; but be sure, above all, that your object is to demoralise and pollute the minds of the young, and pander to the wickedness of the old in an airy and facetious style. If you want to introduce the worst of harlots on the stage, be sure that she is at the same time a wife. Shock every sense in the promotion of vicious knowledge and ideas, but do not outrage a conventionality in the sacred cause of virtue, otherwise you will alarm your manager and horrify your public alike. Not that I think so much harm of the public," he said, musingly, "as I do of those who furnish the entertainment. It is astonishing what will go down if the scenery is good. I expect that by-and-by it will come to writing for the scene-painters, and I am not sure that the ingenuity of plots will lose by the change."

"It is a sad state of things," said Aubrey, with a sigh. "Why, I sent a five-act play only last week to the very man, Prigley, of whom you have given such an account. I knew him once. He used to visit at a house where—I—was quite at home."

"I hope you kept a copy of it," said the other. "If so, I advise you to get it cheaply printed, if you set store by it, and get it entered at Stationers' Hall; not that even such a step would be a complete protection, as he would swear he wrote it twenty years before; and, what is more, the majority of the public, who are fools and rogues, would believe him and not you. It is astonishing what sympathy does in this world."

"But this is infamous!" cried Arthur.

"Still it is true," rejoined the other. "This is not the age of assassination in a physical sense; nor is the mail stopped on Blackheath—to be sure, there is none to stop. Villainy is spread fine; very fine, now-a-days. We shall return home to-night safer than our forefathers did from robbers and murderers. There is very little danger, if one gives a wide berth to the Police."

"You take a dark view of things," was all poor Arthur could get out.

"Why, sir," returned the other, "there are plenty of actions which men openly avow in private among friends, for which they ought to be hanged, sir, hanged. To recur to managers. Look at that enterprising specimen, Mo Twitterly; who is no better and no worse than the others. T'other night I was sitting at Timpson's taking my solitary glass of grog in the next box to him and two or three of his friends. Little rosy-gilled Firkin, about the only thoroughly manly, good-natured, straight-forward fellow among them all, who holds his place by sheer force of wit and intellect, and the drollery which makes him such a delightful companion, was urging Twitterly to produce a certain piece.

" 'Come,' he said, 'you have had it these three years; as I have told you, it is full of talent; it will suit your company to a T. You know I have no motive in recommending it, since, thank Heaven! I don't care a dump for any of you managers or your theatres, which might be burnt down to-morrow for all I care. Come, come, Mo, give the poor devil a chance, as soon as that last filthy French adaptation, or abortion, you have brought over has failed, as everything you produce does now. I say, old fellow, how do you manage to keep your theatre open at all? I tell you this drama of poor Whitmore's is the best thing I have read these ten years. It will positively patch up the reputation of the Apollo to produce it; and besides, as I told you, the poor fellow who has written it is in a consumption and starving in a garret.'

" 'I tell you I do mean to produce it,' growled the great man, testily.

" 'Bravo!' cried little Firkin; 'that will be good news for Whitmore. I'll step over and tell him to-night.'

" 'No, it won't. Stay where you are, and finish your claret,' chuckled Twitterly. 'I didn't tell you when I should do it. The fact is I am keeping it till he dies!'

"And so he is, sir. What he said in jest, he meant in earnest. When the time comes—that is, if he does not ruin himself by greedy speculation before Whitmore shuffles off this mortal coil—you'll see what an amount of benevolent capital he'll make out of the widow and four children, in connexion with the performance of this very piece. There never was a more gushing old humbug than he is sometimes. Why, he'll talk about the genius of 'our immortal Will, gentlemen,' at a theatrical dinner, till he cries. And the fellow, like the rest of his class, has not the slightest appreciation of a poetical or a dramatical idea. He is positively ignorant, illiterate, and is just up to the interchange of the current commonplaces of stage slang and the stage requirements of the day. But education is not of so much consequence, if men in his position were possessed only of the instincts of art."

"May I ask," inquired Aubrey, "if you have ever written a play?"

"You want to know if I am a disappointed author," replied the other, smiling. "I can assure you that, on the contrary, I have had a wonderful success. I have written the pantomimes for the Apollo these five-and-twenty years. I am dramatic critic for the 'Weekly Regenerator' and—as, perhaps, you know—law reporter in the Insolvent Court; besides which I do an occasional article for a High Church Review, and have chronicled the fights for the 'Sporting Register' these fourteen years. But the last is worth next to nothing now. The Ring, sir, like the Stage and the Turf, is at its lowest ebb—on the borders of extinction, I may say. Had I consulted my own aspirations, I should not have gone into any of these things; but it was a case of bread, sir; bread for a large family. Besides, no one would be ass enough to attempt to write for a lasting reputation in the present day. Why, what were the Dark Ages compared with an age of universal mediocrity? I'll tell you what, the reputation of Shakespeare himself may not be able to stand against it. A lot of young fellows are discovering that he is a mistake, a traditional fluke. They speak with pity of him. The fact is, they can make no more out of him for the purposes of burlesque; and they say that they wish he and his works could be buried by Act of Parliament for fifty years to come. They laugh at the idea of a tercentenary, and vote him a bore. It is my opinion that Shakespeare will be extinguished by a legion of literary gents. How beautifully everything is rounded in this world! As you know, many, if not most of his plots and stories were founded on the doggerel ballads of previous times. If you go to the low music-halls, you will find them again reverting to something like that use. Macbeth is transformed into the Highlander of a tobacconist's shop, stabbing Duncan with an umbrella, or a pane of glass. Shylock becomes a denizen of the Minories or Houndsditch, with a daughter of low habits, who 'prigs' his tea-spoons to bestow them on an omnibus cad. Othello is, of course, a nigger minstrel, who commits a murder according to the popular perception and taste, and would expiate it at the Old Bailey, if the lady did not come to life, and dance 'Dusty Bob and Sal' with her lord. All the subtle imagination, the delicate thoughts, the finest creations of the Bard, are degraded into familiar filth and slang; the pillage of the Huns and Goths, the desecration of myriads of barbarians, the very profanation of swine let loose in the Temple of Apollo and the boudoir of the Muse, were as nothing to this."

And the speaker dashed down his pipe on the table and broke it; as if in corroboration of his judgment.

Arthur Aubrey shook hands with the cynic of the

"Blue Lion," and went home to his miserable lodging a sadder and a wiser man. His route was nearly the same as that trodden some three years before by Lord Egbert and his companion, after the rencontre at the Escurial. The descent of Aubrey to absolute poverty was very rapid; so rapid that our description of it may appear scarcely natural to our readers. But it must be remembered that he was not like a fraudulent bankrupt—he had made no mysterious provision for his fall. He was stripped in a month, nay, in a week, of everything. He had taken away scarcely anything from the house. A portmanteau full of clothes, his gold watch and chain, a diamond ring, and one or two other less valuable trinkets, his studs and pencil-case, and a few trifles chiefly connected with his wife, were literally all that he had in the world. He had not feared poverty; because he did not know it—had not felt it. He was rapidly acquiring a lesson, which it is not well to learn late in life—which it is not pleasant ever to learn. He was still a member of the clubs to which he had belonged, and would be so until the end of the year. This was only of use to him, so far that letters still reached him at the Kemble. But oh! that dreary correspondence. He had a couple of pensioners on his bounty, when his income vanished, and these persons agonised him with their appeals, their importunities and reproaches. There was an old servant of the family and his wife, who had both carried him in their arms when a child. These gently reminded him once or twice that there was an arrear of some months due to them; for Arthur was never a very regular paymaster. Poor souls! they did not know the catastrophe that had befallen him. And Aubrey manfully parted with his diamond ring, and sent them fifteen pounds out of the proceeds, which was half a year's allowance up to the Christmas of that year. Every day, and sometimes twice a day, there was a note from one of the other pensioners. This was a different sort of an affair, in which Aubrey had suffered his easy good-nature to be imposed upon by an artful and designing woman, who had professed a romantic attachment for him some years before, and who had worried, and bullied, and written him into a sort of compromise, by which he purchased immunity from her persecution by a small annuity. This wretched creature, who was maintained by three or four such contributors, and who alternated between hysterics and violent threats, when under the influence of gin, beset her contributaries' clubs and chambers with female friends, and sometimes children bearing notes, who waited for an answer to applications for immediate aid. She was periodically very ill, and in a dying state. Imagine the notes which she poured in upon Arthur, to whom she always wrote, as if he had seduced her from the path of virtue, and cruelly abandoned her. Sometimes the postage of her notes was not paid. Then she wrote, "I have not a penny in the world to buy bread." At that time, her attention would, perhaps, be divided between her epistle and basting a goose. Her notes were always written in a detestably regular female hand. The superscription could not be mistaken for a moment, and they were so scented with patchouli that Arthur could tell, before he opened the envelope in which the porter enclosed them to a post-office in Oxford-street, that there was one of those hated documents within. As long as he could, he sent something even to her. As if by some strange fatality, pressing and piteous applications for charity and aid poured in upon him in the first hours of his own distress. A dear old professor of German, whom he loved, and who had taught him to read Schiller and Goethe, wrote to tell him of a fire by which he had lost his all. A sick ballet-girl, whom he had known in the days of her prosperity and pride, sent him a heart-rending appeal. She was rheumatic and starving.

"You would not know me, were you to see me," she said; "but think of me in your kind and generous heart as I once was, and I know my appeal will not be in vain.

"P.S. My sister Phœbe is dead. She married a scoundrel who broke her heart, and I am all alone."

Aubrey remembered these two beings, not so very long ago, radiant with youth and beauty—creatures who ought to have been in reality that which they represented on the stage.

A bootmaker turned up, to whom Arthur owed about twenty pounds in his father's lifetime, and who had suddenly been forced to give np his business and disappear, having entered into heavy security for a friend. At the time, this man had written to say he would call upon Mr. Aubrey for the money; but, somehow, he never did, till the present time.

Now, if Mr. Aubrey would kindly leave him a cheque for the amount, it would be his salvation. Of course he had no legal claim, as it was more than six years ago, but he knew that was all right enough, &c. &c.

All this was dreadfully galling to Aubrey. Why had not this man applied for his money, when he, Aubrey, was rich and could pay him? To be short, there was no end to these painful contretemps. Why does it happen so? Why does a rich man find it so difficult to meet with cases of touching and real distress. We verily believe that one of the firm of Rothschild, or Peabody, might go about London all the evening with his pockets stuffed with gold, in quest of deserving objects of charity and find none; whereas a ruined gentleman is constantly stumbling against families in affliction whom it lacerates his heart to be unable to relieve—a broken honest tradesman in the sick ward of a workhouse; a pallid girl working herself to death for a bedridden father, who has known better days; a starving family of orphans; a talented artist pledging his little scarce-finished "pot-boilers," to procure a meal, whom it would be a luxury to assist, whom it is torture to be unable to aid. What is the reason of it? Is it the mere perversity of Fate? Does like draw to like? Certain it is that it is only the poor that know how the poor suffer, and who sympathise, if they cannot relieve.

It was wonderful how completely and suddenly Aubrey dropped out of the society in which he had moved. It was marvellous how soon he came down to poverty, which was anything but genteel; to wear frayed linen and garments white at the seams, and greasy in cuffs, collars, and braiding; to neglect his personal appearance; to become acquainted with fried-fish suppers as a luxury, and sometimes to go supperless to bed. Before six months had passed, a "swell" on horseback asked him to ring a door-bell, and addressed him as "My good man!" He did not look up. If he had, he would have recognised a former flatterer and guest. He scowled and slunk on. The equestrian said to himself, "This comes of the incendiary, Bright. Some day we shall have barricades." It must be added that Aubrey carefully avoided the West-end.

"I cannot go through that street," said an extravagant Irishman one day. "The fact is, there is a poor fellow, a tradesman there, who owes me money, and I don't like to hurt his feelings."

We wonder whether Aubrey did not like to hurt the feelings of his old acquaintances. He might certainly have done so, had he spoken to any of them in Bond-street, or the Park. A gentleman out of luck looks far worse than even an unprosperous mechanic, or a tattered day labourer. As for Aubrey, who had been so smart and dashing, a thoroughly well-dressed young fellow in fact, he very shortly acquired an appearance something between that of a billiard-marker, at least a year out of place, and a German trombone-player, who had belonged to a minor theatre lately burnt down. The truth is, he did not know how to make the best of his slender means. When he attempted to cook a chop, he would cover himself with grease, which he did not understand how to remove. His hat was never carefully brushed, like that of one who has served an apprenticeship to poverty. When the spring of the next year came, he would only prowl forth in the evening. When summer came, his hours became even later. He still remitted something occasionally to his noisy annuitant—the old servant had, happily for them both, been summoned to the still-room of death by a friendly notice of paralysis. With a feeling of mixed justice and pride, Aubrey gave the slip to Tops soon after Christmas, leaving him a letter at his old lodgings, over which the faithful fellow blubbered like a child. This time the broken-down gentleman obtained a lodging in Meard's-court, Dean-street, Soho, at four shillings a-week, quite as much as his resources could provide. Here he began a life of penury in earnest. His slender stock of money had gone, long before his illness was over. He never knew what Tops did for him at that period, until that stud jewel of the human race had ceased to minister to him in the manner we have narrated. He took a base advantage of his master's ignorance of the price of commodities—such as fowls, and mutton-chops, bread and coals, groceries and potatoes—to cheat him in precisely an inverse manner to that which servants, from the Temple laundress to such personages as the great Cakeman, are in the habit of adopting when they do cheat. But Tops, to use his own phraseology, was "beat" at last. In vain had he added his own remaining slender stock of money to the sum lent by the pawnbroker on Arthur's gold repeater: the combined amount did not last long; for Tops would persist in purveying well for his master. "He's used to it, and must have it," he would say. This was all very fine, could the watch have been pledged again, and could the money of Tops have been constantly added. All at once Arthur found him out, and put an end to the matter, as we have related. This time he paid a visit to the "uncle" himself, and left a ten-pound note in his farewell letter of thanks and blessings.

Tops searched everywhere for him, whilst a shilling of the money was left; and then took service as general out-door servant with lawyer Grinderby, a place which Susan had suggested to him on her departure.

Tops became wonderfully subdued ere long, in that situation.

"It's a lesson to vanity," he used to say. "Besides, it's my dear Susan's fancy that I should 'ave this innings in vice in a rellygious fammerly, while she's gone furren. Honly I never thought I should wear a second-hand uniform like this, with the tails of the great-coat actially reaching down to my heels. I'm to try and find out what I can about old Grinderby's games with the propperty. I honly wish I could find out something as would be of use to my poor guvernor as was; but it ain't very likely, unless this 'ere Grinderby was to leave his special hagreemint with his guvemor below, in one of the pockets of this mouldy old trap of hisn. I wonder the wheels don't take fire, that's what I do."

And Mr. Grinderby's coachman would dash a bucket of water over them with a violence which seemed to express a conviction that nothing save the utmost energy on his part could avert such a catastrophe.

And how did Aubrey live? From a tragedy and a first-class novel, he had come down to try tales and padding for serials; he had sought literary employment of almost every kind, in vain. His efforts were indefatigable—their results contemptible. There were so many acknowledged padders at work. There were scores of educated, half-educated, and uneducated hacks, busy in the Museum, doing cheap articles out of forgotten books, or scribbling tales and stories filched from that prolific source, American journalism, which is decidedly inventive and original, chiefly in a fifth-rate sort of way. Now and then he would pick up a guinea or a guinea and a half from "Twice a Fortnight," or "All the Week Old." But such success was very rare indeed. His articles, to tell the truth, were generally far above the mark. He was quite capable of writing for "Blackwood," or any of the Quarterlies; only he could not get a hand in. He was an outsider, and an unlucky one. In literature, there are a few Tritons and many minnows. Every man of genius does not necessarily become a Triton. But when half a dozen names are told, the rest are not worth much. The demand is very great for inferior stuff. The fact is that the spread of information and education is in favour of the lowest class of authors. Our literature is becoming Americanised, without even the recommendation of American smartness. A commercial class of scribblers has sprung up. When you meet them in a body, you would fancy that you were in company with bagmen, not scholars. Arthur Aubrey served no apprenticeship to this. He saw men, for whom, intellectually and socially, as scholars, gentlemen, and writers, he had the utmost contempt, making their four or five hundred a-year, and a little ephemeral fame of a certain kind. In practical cleverness and successful trickery, he was forced to confess they beat him hollow. No one would read his novel. He had not made, and could not make, a lucky hit. For a short time, he got on a weekly paper, and did the books for a pound a week. But one evening he wrote so clever an article on a novel by a popular authoress of the day, with whom the proprietor was on intimate terms, that he received his dismissal in no very courtly phrase. The lady's tale was more immoral than a story of Boccaccio, more vulgar in style than a retired West-end butcher's drawing-room furniture in his suburban mansion, or the pretensions of our old friend Mrs. Grimshaw and the Misses Grimshaw (two); whilst its best parts were the spoilt spoil of a manuscript left by a needy author with the newspaper proprietor to whom we have alluded, which was returned after a twelve-month to its owner imperfect, and without thanks or comment. But the book in question was spicy, sensational, and slangy, and had accordingly made its mark. How was Aubrey to know that the newspaper proprietor had married the sister of the authoress? Your true literary hack would have been better posted, than thus to cut his own throat. So Aubrey did not flourish.

One evening he met a musician, who had played at his own house, and who recognised him, and with infinite kindness and good taste concealed the fact, and the pity which he felt. The pair fraternised, and the fiddler procured the ci-devant dilettante some permanent but humbly paid work. It was to copy scores for the theatre where the former was engaged. Here we shall leave him for awhile—a waif and stray in the mighty City, whose great roaring tide deafened his uncomplaining groans. One Saturday night, when he prowled forth to buy sustenance, that he might eat and not die—it was in Tottenham Court-road—he came upon one man whom he had known well, and who recognised him with a heartiness which approached the rude confines of glee. This was Mr. Stingray of all men!

"What! Aubrey?" he cried. "Why, we all thought you were dead. How very unkind of you to cut all your old friends. Where are you living now, eh? Sir Harry told me you were in America. Heard of you last at the 'Blue Lion'. Literary, eh? Been out marketing for the Muses?" (looking at Aubrey's ill-concealed purchases). "Shall be delighted to tell all our circle I found you so well employed. I say, dear old boy, where do you buy your bloaters? I never can get them good."

"Mr. Stingray," said Aubrey, "I don't know what you mean by this; but I wrote to you a letter asking for some literary employment on your magazine about eight months ago, and you never condescended to answer it, and now I believe that you are merely prying into my misfortunes with excessively bad taste."

"My dear fellow!" said Stingray, "friendship is one thing, and the magazine which I have the honour to edit, another. I didn't suppose that fashionable insolvency—I mean, misfortune—is exactly the path to literary remuneration and fame; and judging by appearances, my opinion has been justified by the British public at large. But, upon my soul, if you'll accompany me to the nearest tavern, I'll stand the price of an article with pleasure, if you'll only tell me your history since I had the pleasure of meeting you last, and where you get such herrings as these."

The answer was a gesture and look so fierce and determined, that Mr. Stingray started back a couple of paces at least.

"You infernal scoundrel!" said Aubrey, as soon as he could speak. "Stand out of my way, or I'll strike you in the mouth. How dare you insult me thus?"

And he passed rapidly on.

"Hoity-toity! we are proud," said Stingray. "Here, policeman, look after that man. He is either a dangerous lunatic or a thief. What fun this will be for the club! Our exquisite friend down on his luck to such a degree, and as proud as ever. Confound his insolence! What a seedy brute he looked, and yet I spotted him in a moment. And think of the affectation of his dinners in Queen's-square. Pah! And the blind governess too, who ought to have been buried in a cross-road, if they had found her," added Mr. Stingray, reflectively. "How that woman hated me, because I saw through their upstart pretensions, and now the male beauty has come to this—a hole in the elbow of his sleeve, and a red herring for supper and dinner too, I shouldn't wonder! Some day he will be buried—if he is buried at all—at the parish expense. I should like to know when he does go off the hooks, and then I'll work the story up in a novel. I declare I never felt more disgusted in my life to think that I should actually have been once on friendly terms with a disreputable cadger in Tottenham Court-road. And the beggar refused my bounty! I really would have stood a sovereign to hear how he contrived to come down in the world so rapidly. He'll never get such another chance. If he had a wife or children to maintain, he wouldn't be quite so impertinent, I fancy. That's what fetches all the nonsense out of a scamp like that. This precious fellow used, when he had the money, to spoil cabmen by giving them more than their fares. He was the organ-grinder's friend, and liked to encourage street-begging. I should think he must have had a prophetic eye to his own future. Only to think that a year ago this beggar and his wife gave themselves airs of exclusiveness. And now where are they? Ha! ha! It's positively delicious. Whatever did that rogue Cousens mean by saying that he had died in a printing-house in New York? What a story for the 'Kemble!' Ho! ho!"

Thus talking to himself, the "great, good, and genial philanthropist," as he has been called, stalked on chuckling over Aubrey's fall.

"Facilissimus descensus," he said, as he ran down a small pleasure craft with his bulky hull.

"Mind where yer goin' to, you ugly old beast!" was the fair one's angry remark.

"I beg your pardon, my dear," said the philosopher, bowing with mock courtesy.

"Look how you've tore my dress. You must give me and my friend a glass of wine."

"With pleasure," said the cynic.

"I say, Jem," said one of four gents, passing arm-in-arm, to one of his friends, "d'ye know who that cove is? He's the President of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. I say, guv'nor, mind what you're after, you know."

A shower of jeers followed Mr. Stingray and his convoy to the nearest public-house. This was a kind of thing in which the cynic often indulged with impunity. He was only studying "life." Does any one think it is cruelty, or bare curiosity, which leads the great and gushing Mr. Granville Smith to an execution? Certainly not. It is in order to describe the horrors of the scene with due effect, and in a chef d'œuvre of Dutch word-painting, culminating in melodramatic maudlin, to recommend the abolition of capital punishment, and put a premium upon murder. By mixing freely with a certain class of society. Stingray had been enabled to pen his celebrated "Haymarket Gleanings," which led to the transference of more arbitrary power to the coarse hands of a brutal Police. Any low Irish ruffian in uniform was thereby enabled to maul and despitefully abuse a shrinking and delicate female, to bruise her body, tear her clothes, dislocate her fingers, wrists, or arms, fracture her skull, lock her up, and even kill her with impunity; for no offence whatever, save one of which magistrates, legislators, ministers of state, and even royal personages of the male sex are equally, if not far more guilty, in the sight at least of Heaven. If, occasionally, a respectable young woman falls a victim to this brutality, constant remands and hard swearing, a magisterial Lord Angelo and forged evidence, at least assure the impunity of the assailants.

Stingray had jested and drunk his champagne with the incumbent of a saloon in the Haymarket—nay, paid his full tribute of compliments and gallantries over the bar-counter to the presiding dame, and the next day written a sensational article in a daily journal, branding the whole concern as a terrible haunt of iniquity, to be put down with the strong arm of the law. This was not the act even of a gentlemanly fiend! It was a sample of the satire, the honour, the principle, the chivalry of the nineteenth century, the age of false success, the reign of moral and physical adulteration, when a myriad Mammon rises everywhere and pushes Simplicity and Truth from their stools, strips the fillet from the eyes of Justice to discover the hideous squint behind, and makes earth a rogue's paradise and gilded pleasure-garden, when villainy and vice hold a continual masked carnival of unimpassioned ruffianism and commercial crime!

Any petty Pontius Pilate of a police court will call this senseless raving. So is every truth, according to the fiat of the day. The Cervantes to restore chivalry has yet to appear. We do not now call a windmill a giant; but we call a factory "progress," and a great slop-selling establishment "integrity."

A successful swindle is "eminent respectability." A man of enormous wealth may ruin a regiment of honest men's daughters, and yet, if he will but lay the stone of a new church, Morality grasps him by the hand and salutes him as a beneficent Genius of modern life. What were the delusions of him of "La Mancha" compared with the sober enchantments and transformations of a utilitarian age? At least a nobler delusion, a wiser folly, a braver stupidity, a grander mistake!

Aubrey was in the act of entering his miserable abode, when a sickly, delicate creature accosted him with a piteous tale. She had a child in her arms. It looked well, and had a fresh colour, which contrasted with her deadly pallor. As it lay folded in her shawl, it reminded one of a bud half shrouded by a yellow leaf on the stem of a blighted flower.

"I have no money, or I would give it to you," he said, hoarsely and almost angrily.

There is something irritating in the importunity of a beggar, when you cannot relieve the distress which rends a heart acquainted with penury and want to its inmost core. The woman bowed her head over her child, and moved away as if rebuked by a sterner grief. Aubrey turned. He had been accustomed all his life to give, and the mute action of the woman touched him deeply. He beckoned her back.

"Here," he said, "take this; I can do without it." And he gave her all the little marketings he had bought for that night and the Sunday as well. "Stop!" he said, and went up-stairs.

In a few moments he returned. He gave her a few pence; they comprised every coin he had in the world, and shut the door to avoid her thanks.

Let us look at him in his little attic. The moon shone brightly into the room. It was cold; but he did not attempt to light a fire. There was a pallet-bed, on which a rug and some clothes were spread to eke out the scanty allowance of a single blanket and counterpane. There was a deal table and a very humble tea-service for one. There were two chairs, a washhand-stand, a box and portmanteau, a print or two on the walls, and a few books and papers scattered about. He sat down on the bed, with his face hidden in his hands. Then he arose and opened a cupboard in the wall, and took out a fragment of bread and ate, and poured out a glass of water from a jug and drank.

"I shall have nothing," he thought, "to-morrow, nothing. Well, it is not much to suffer." The idea seemed to amuse him, for he laughed a short bitter laugh. "The scoundrel; the wicked old heartless reprobate to stab me thus with his gibes! To think of my being caught by him like a clown at a pantomime who has just plundered a fish-stall! What does it matter? He can but say that I am destitute. At any rate, I ask for assistance from none. Now, then, to work. I must finish that score by Monday." Accordingly, he sat down and worked until his candle got low, when he extinguished it, and looked out upon the innumerable leads, and tiles, and chimney-pots which stretched far away beyond, "It is something like a cemetery," he mused, "only that the living and not the dead sleep beneath." Then he lit his pipe, and smoked it sadly and thoughtfully, if we can apply such expressions to such an act. What bitter remembrances passed in review! "Is it possible," he groaned, "that I was that man, that idiot, that thrice-sodden fool? I began as others would end, with all that human wishes could desire, and I have lost all. But for the daily struggle, which does not give me time to think, I should end this coil. Had I not met that man, I should hardly have paused to think to-night. I should have been busy with small, mean cares, like a civilised Robinson Crusoe in a crowd. To-morrow, I have but two hours' work. I shall lie in bed: it stops hunger. I remember an Italian exile, a man with a big voice and a figure like Lablache, one whom Nature never meant to grow thin. His remittances failed, or he said so. They always do. I suppose they are intercepted by foreign lawyers or unjust relations. I think he said it was a sister in his case, who had married a Neapolitan count. Nothing could be more natural, than that an exile should cease to receive money. So he ceased to dine. He had run up a score at Cesarini's, and even the maccaroni due to him from Nature became an impossibility at last. He used to make wonderful cuttings in black paper, and to teach Italian where he could. But somehow all failed together, remittances, sale of cuttings, and lessons. A lady sent me in search of him. I found him in bed in a lodging close to this very place—Frith-street, I think it was—hollow-eyed, and crying like a huge baby, with a bass voice that shook the room. I asked him what was the matter. He said he had fever. As I spoke to him he flung aside the coverlet, and displayed his huge torso. He had a wide, red leather belt tightly buckled round his waist.

" 'Look here, caro signor,' he said, as he drew it in, 'how I am rovinato!'

"I saw it all at a glance.

" 'I want you,' I said, 'to take me to one of your Italian restaurants. I have a fancy for maccaroni à l'Italienne.'

"Before I could prevent it, my huge acquaintance seized my hand and pressed it to his bearded lips, which annoyed me dreadfully at the time.

" 'I have understood,' he said. 'You have a good heart, signor. My countryman is not rich; he can give me no more credit. The day before yesterday he said, "Here is your note;" and yesterday I could not return. You are an Englishman! you do not like our maccaroni, I know it, but you are an angel for me. Wait!'

"And he put on his capacious garments, and still looked immense, like a mountain with hollow sides, or an elephant in grief. It ended in my sitting down with a strange lot. There was a silent bearded man, since famous for an act of assassination, a third-rate singer at the Opera, a courier, a violoncello player, a family of acrobats, husband, two brothers, wife, and children, a group of photographic artists, a mysterious elderly foreigner whom I had known for ten years as a frequenter of Regent-street, and had christened 'the marquis,' and three vociferous French exiles of the barricades. My poor Signor Ravenna outdid a juggler in eating his maccaroni, and I watched for him to loosen his broad red belt. There was a dandelion salad, I remember, which amused me much; and the dessert placed before each guest reminded me of the sort of mock banquet which children like to make. When Signor Ravenna had got his cup of coffee, and rolled a pinch of tobacco in a small strip of prepared paper out of a little book, between his huge finger and thumb, with a dexterity and fineness of touch that were part and parcel of his vast idiosyncrasy, he was as happy as any foreign gentleman could be in this climate of fog.

" 'You are my protector, my saviour,' he said. 'When I get my album returned, which is now with your milord Poggins in the City, a youth most genteel, say I, then I will pray you to accept one, my most beautiful design, the "Judgment of Brutus," a copy of that which I have presented to the Empress of the French.'

"I remember that a fierce gesture and a muttered remark from the other side of the table interrupted us; and shortly after I paid Signor Ravenna's two months' dinner score with the bill. It was not much; and he insisted in a few days on presenting me with some really beautiful things, which must have cost him no end of time and trouble. I wonder what has become of him. I shouldn't mind reversing the order of things, and being his guest now."

It was a humiliating and melancholy fact; but Aubrey by no means for the first time felt the pangs of absolute hunger. It seemed impossible for a man who had so lately entertained persons of fortune and title at his own sumptuous table to be reduced to such straits. He might actually at that moment have walked into his West-end club and ordered a luxurious supper. He was still on the books. There were many persons who would have lent or given him a five-pound note, if it were only to purchase future avoidance. But there was a moral barrier which he never attempted to break, even before his clothes grew shabby, and he became a scarecrow in his own thought. The fact, we say, may appear startling and astonishing; but it is no less true. Had he been a fraudulent bankrupt on a large or small scale, it would not have happened. There are contractors whose bills have remained dishonoured, and who have scattered ruin around, who still give their musical parties, and shine magnates of the debatable land between vulgarity and fashion. But then they have settled thousands a year on their wives. There are tradesmen who are ruined periodically, and rise again tricked with new bankruptcy, and flourish in the advertisements of the "Morning Day." There is the insolvent nobleman in Parliament, whose bills are still blown about, and are occasionally discounted after a fashion, in which principal seems to have changed place with interest; and whose small cheques are now and then cashed by some new victim or unwitting admirer of a lord. There are men overwhelmed with debt, and with no ostensible means, who still manage somehow to live on the fat of the land, and to dress with the best, by the aid of fresh relays of long-suffering West-end tailors and bootmakers. How do they manage it? We know not. It would have puzzled Solomon; it may be clear enough to Phinny Moses, the bill discounter of Bond-street. But Arthur Aubrey was none of these. He was unconditionally ruined. He had near relations enormously rich; but they were very far off from him. These gilded his decline about as usefully and ornamentally, as the rays of Sirius might the shell of a pauper in its rapid progress to the grave.

But, it may be asked, had Aubrey applied to any relative, or friend? If he had not, he could hardly complain; since it is easy in this world to slip out of sight and remembrance, and besides how could they know his situation and need? On one occasion, after writing sixteen hours a-day, i.e., out of the twenty-four, for upwards of a week; after thirty calls at a theatre about a play, which he never had returned to him, and which was subsequently pirated by one of the "dramatic" gang; after incredible exertions to get rid of a literary nugget which no Jew, or Gentile worse than Jew, would purchase; after heart-breaking experiences and disappointments; after seeking in vain any employment, however humble, almost menial, as clerk, secretary, amanuensis, anything by which he might live, he did write three letters to two kinsmen and a ci-devant friend. One of the two former never answered him, and the other, whose income was fifty thousand a-year, declined on the plea of the numerous calls upon his purse. The "friend," who, when a minor, Aubrey had assisted with a loan of a thousand pounds, subsequently repaid, three years after, without interest, enclosed him a Post-office order for five pounds, and said that he would assist him with a small addition to his income, when he, the "friend," could hear that he was in any small permanent employment, and seeking to aid himself in a reputable and solid way. As if he had not sought, poor fellow! The friend in question was a generous man; but he consulted one or two of Aubrey's relatives, and took what he thought was a kind and common-sense view of the matter. He was at first inclined to write a very kindly letter, and to offer to allow him sixty pounds a-year. But the relatives said:

"Depend upon it, so long as he gets any one to assist him, he will do nothing for himself. He will never work, so long as he can manage without it. Let him get an appointment—let us see him doing anything in a regular way, and we will join in aiding him ourselves. You could not do that man a greater unkindness than in sending him money. He always spent and anticipated all he got."

In England people never think of setting a fallen man on his legs. They always wait, for his sake, until he is past the necessity of help or need. They will bestow money on his remains when dead, which they would not give him on principle while living. "Learn to swim!" they say to the drowning wretch. "A plank would be thrown away upon you. It would only encourage you to fall overboard again. When you can swim, we will subscibe for a full-rigged boat." They never think of the petty miseries which occupy the time and thoughts of the man in difficulties, of his shabby attire which prevents him from getting if not seeking the employment which they so kindly and thoughtfully recommend. They never think of giving him a chance in life. This is sometimes the excuse of meanness, sometimes the blindness of well-meaning stupidity:

But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart!

Arthur Aubrey sat gazing out of his attic window, until the chimney-pots seemed to dance a gavotte or fandango, to which a little demon fiddler in his brain played the tune. Then he pressed his forehead against a cold pane of glass, and rose to undress himself before seeking the oblivion of sleep. As he did so, he cried out aloud—"Blanche! Blanche! thou art avenged!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

A POCKETFUL OF SOUP.

"Don't tell me," ses I, "as if I wer' a ignoramus and knowed nothink. It's prallysis as you're a-drivin' at. Appleplexy, indeed! and the party still alive and kickin'! Appleplexy is a single-knock customer, and don't call agen, 'xcept the patient is bled on the spot. Wherever there's appleplexy tellegrafed on the line, you should keep a carvin' knife handy, for leeches is no use; no, no more nor than if they was winkles, though the last is stunners for a decline. But as for prallysis, it sometimes only trifles with its wictim, as poor Stevy Greening observed, when his wife's steel busk was melted with lightnin', leavin' her unhurt, and he hadn't to wear no mournin' after all. Prallysis takes a man by the arm, or the leg, or it'll seize a whole side of him, jest as if you could turn one side of a live hog into bacon without killing the rest of the hanimal. It'll make a clean sweep of memory, or leave any one deaf or speechless, which might be a reckymendation to some married folks as I've met with. It'll double up the strongest man like a pramberlator, and you may knock down a prizefiter as has 'ad it with a full growed baby's coral, or the wind of a parlour bellows hangin' by a clean swep' grate. It'll pull down one side of your mouth, like a guttapershore idiot, which them wagabones pretend to make squeak, with their own noises, in the street, and when you've bought 'em, you're sold; for they've no whistle in 'em at all, and them as sells 'em ought to be took up by the perlice. I tell yer, it'll leave your face like a battered old street cab with one spring broken in the middle of the road, and the winders so tight closed that the party inside can't open 'em to holler out—that's what it'll do," ses I, "as sure as this glass of ale is a-goin' down my throat. As for appleplexy, it's a fool to prallysis. It's no more nor simple hangin' computed with the torters of the Spanish Inkisition."—Leaves from a Bar Parlour, No. IV.

WE left Aubrey in bed hungry and forlorn, about the small hours of a cold and dreary Sabbath morning, wondering what the morrow would bring forth, and whether he should receive a small trifle which he expected, or be obliged to pawn some necessary trifle, in order to obtain a meal. He lay there, occasionally dozing, and sometimes painfully awake to his situation, and to the cravings of hunger, until about the fashionable hour of dinner that Sunday evening, when he rose languidly and lighted a fire and made a weak cup of tea without milk, and steeped in it a mouldy crust which he fortunately managed to find, such as any servant would have thrown away, and the proffer of which would not have extracted a wag of the tail from a well-fed hound. About that time a very different scene was being acted at the Bedford Hotel, Brighton, where the great Mr. Grimshaw had taken up his abode for the nonce, or where, to speak more strictly, his abode had been taken for him. In the midst of his greatest success—whilst his colossal fortune was almost doubling itself without assistance in the course of that single year—the great projector and calculator, the man of steel head and iron frame and feet of coal, like the mighty golden idol with clay extremities which Nebuchadnezzar the king set up, over-calculated himself after a plethoric dinner, and was touched on the shoulder by Paralysis, one of the greffiers of the Almighty Creditor, to Whom everything is owed which is lent them to set up in business on the slippery leasehold or tenancy at will of life. Paralysis might have whispered in his ear, had he had the time accorded him to listen,

"I arrest you at the suit of your dead partner whom you robbed, of the poor you have neglected, and the victims you have swindled. Quick! Come with me to the sponging-house of sickness, where you will remain, until your final imprisonment in the tomb, on which a flattering inscription will record your profession of a Christian faith." But Paralysis was silent on the occasion, and so was Grimshaw ever more. His lips seemed constantly to calculate; and doubtless they did, after a fashion, in polite deference to the habit of his life.

Mrs. Grimshaw had settled her last housekeeper's account, and run up her last milliner's bill for tawdry finery, about a year before. She died of acute fussiness, terminating in carbuncle, on the occasion of the coming of age of the youngest Grimshaw son. The Grimshaws had endeavoured to set up as a county family by virtue of the most overpowering festivities on such occasions, whereat and whereupon the haughty rebuffs which they received from their prouder neighbours only seemed to dispose them to incur fresh insults, in spite of the pain and rage which each successive refusal imposed upon their parvenu pride. Still they had made great progress. Grimshaw could always latterly bring down a lord from town, and he had got into his clutches a county baronet of Norman descent; to whom he had lent money, with the double view of securing such an aristocratic visitor, and getting hold of a valuable royalty on starvation terms. At the marriage of the eldest and plainest Miss Grimshaw to a healthy but needy squire, whose courage at least merited a pleasanter fate, the services of an honourable and reverend clergyman of most disreputable character were engaged. What mattered his character? He was honourable and reverend in the newspapers and "Court Guide." During his fortnight's stay at the Hall, there was no little scandal incurred—almost too strong for the parvenu family to sustain. A very young visitor at the Hall, son of one of Grimshaw's numerous partners, was pursuing his tender studies under the auspices of a governess. On one occasion the following copy in excellent round-text was found in the child's writing-book, and no one could tell how it came there:

Steam communication corrupts good manners, 1, 2, 3.

We suspect that the honourable and reverend, who was a bit of a wag in his way, could have laid the odds that he would name the writer of the above sentence, which is not altogether unintelligible and devoid of truth, much more easily than he could predict the winner of the ensuing Derby.

As we said, Mrs. Grimshaw died, and was buried with more pomp and ceremony, than had accompanied the death of her mother, or any of her family within the power of tradition to record, if we except her great grandfather, who was said to have been hanged for stealing a donkey. Hence, it was whispered that the Heralds' College had supplied a device for her arms, which were quartered with those of her husband, not without some appropriate facetiousness of design. The crest of Mrs. Grimshaw was a wild ass escaping from a lasso, with the motto "Libertas et Justitia," which meant, as some said, that her grandsire was executed, whilst the ass escaped. It must be owned that the crest looked something like a pictorial rebus in a penny print. We know one man who explained his own crest, which consisted of an arm and hand holding a torch, by saying that he supposed that one of his ancestors had once fired a hayrick, as the crowning achievement of his life.

Mrs. Grimshaw being thus laid in the "fammerly" vault, as she called it, a maiden sister of Mr. Grimshaw presided at his table and over the deportment of his unmarried daughters, with a severe precision, to which a species of palsy, which caused her continually to nod her head, contributed in a manner "awfully funny," as we once heard a youngster call it, after his first interview with that spinster. And well might he have said so. Mrs. Grimshaw's own hair was red; but red hair continued an abhorred thing long after she was forty. She had at that age, therefore, adopted a wig, the precise fashion of which she had never since seen fit to alter. The style of chevelure being at that period remarkably ugly, it followed that she was unfortunate in the pattern she had chosen. It was a wonderful combination of roll upon roll of large stiff brown curls, which presented the same appearance, as a male "fine 'ead of 'air," as the hairdressers call it, which has just undergone the embellishing infliction of the irons, before it is combed out. Upon this was placed a wonderful superstructure in the shape of a cap, which was graced with such an abundance of bows of ribbons, quillings of blonde and flowers, that it was constantly fluttered with the shaking of the old lady's head. When she wore, on grand occasions, a bird of paradise nestled on the loftiest summit of her charms, you might have fancied that the bird had lighted on the topmost branches of some lightning-blasted tropical tree—a sort of Eastern elder-berry, if there be such an arboreal eccentricity of vegetation. Imagine all this placed upon a long and scraggy neck, which reminded the beholder of the dirty-white grandmother of all the flamingo tribe, and you have some idea of the appearance to which our schoolboy friend applied the epithet of "awfully funny," in the modern slang of the period.

This ancient Juno, or rather Diana, we ask pardon of her single state, loved her brother, so far as she could love, and revered him as so great and wealthy an individual merited. When he first succumbed to the stroke, her nods became so rapid and violent, that they seemed to threaten the dislocation of the vertebrae of that elongated neck. When, however, her brother, the head of the family, as she called him with truth, developed the sad symptoms of hopeless imbecility, all the better part of the woman came out, and she nursed and watched over him with untiring tenderness and devotion, not destitute of a certain pathetic dignity in its way. She was altogether the best of the Grimshaw lot; and the only lady-like female, with the exception of the youngest niece, little Violet, that the whole of the two generations could boast. She had carried her brother to Brighton, in the vain hope of benefit accruing to him from the sea air. He slept well, and his appetite was good, and the pair drove out together in a splendid equipage. The vulgar millionaire looked much better, after his calamity with his placid countenance and white hair, the latter an immediate consequence of the stroke, than ever he had done before.

"What an interesting-looking old gentleman!" the passers-by would say.

The pair are seated opposite to each other at dinner, at the Bedford Hotel. The elder daughters were on a visit, and poor little Violet at school. The table was magnificently furnished, and a butler (no less a personage than the great Binsby himself) and a tall footman stood on either side of his chair on guard, while the hotel servants waited generally at table with noiseless ease. The dull moaning of the sea sounded outside the lofty crimsoned-curtained windows, like the far-off thunder of an approaching host. But a more prosaic and altogether different sort of host presently enters the spacious apartment, in the person of the landlord of the hotel. He bows to the lady, who endeavours to make a distinctive nod, very difficult for her to accomplish, as, with bland and urbane accents, he hopes that everything is served to his distinguished guests' satisfaction, and expresses his anxiety lest their drive on the west cliff should have proved too cold for the invalid. He leaves with a deep reverence, as he entered, and the service of the dinner begins. The lady nods like a mandarin. "Thank you, no soup, I'm obleeged." The invalid moves his lips as if in continual calculation of fresh gain, or is it in expectation of his dinner? for, to tell the truth, he was both hungry and cold. Mr. Binsby solemnly arranges a napkin for him under his chin, as a nurse would place a bib round a baby's neck—a process by no means unneeded—for Paralysis had left a familiar behind him as custodian of the plutocrat in the person of premature Old Age, and to speak the truth, he drivelled, and his eyes wept involuntarily tears. Then the tall footman lifts the cover off the steaming silver tureen, and stands at attention, and Binsby ladles out a plateful of delicious golden-coloured soup. The invalid sits awhile, moving his lips with a little increased motion, and the old lady nods opposite, attentively regarding every motion of his feeble frame.

"It is too hot, I fear," she says, in her usual subdued and slightly husky accents.

"It is reyther hot, ma'am," replies proximious flunkydom in a tone of gentle alarm.

Her brother steals an artful and parrot-like look around. It would be superlatively droll, were it not supremely melancholy to behold. Then he manages to unbutton a pocket of his left trouser, and holds it open with one hand, whilst he takes a spoonful of the hot soup with the other, and endeavours to pour it into the receptacle, which it had been the unceasing toil and object of his life to fill, at least figuratively, with gold. The tall footman turns round, and nearly chokes himself with a napkin. You might have imagined that the hot soup had been, by some mysterious process of magic, conveyed presto into his throat.

The hotel servants turn to the sideboard, and are suddenly very busy with the glasses and spoons. The head-dress of poor Miss Grimshaw is agitated, as if genteel Palsy had suddenly become a ruffian of tremendous violence, and was seeking to twist her neck off, without further extension of leave. Then she half rises from her seat, and two great drops, which might have been tears, roll heavily down her parchment face, as if to water her arid neck. Mr. Binsby alone is equal to the occasion. His face expresses a dignified condolence, which would have become an ancient lord mayor on the announcement of the death of his favourite fool. He gently guides his master's hands one by one to their proper position, and then holds a fresh spoonful of soup to its proper receptacle, where it is duly received. Ancient torture is said to have poured molten gold down the throats of great criminals who had sinned through avaricious greed. The punishment which Grimshaw inflicted on himself was a parody on that practice, as unconscious as it was suggestive. On that day, he had relations actually wanting bread. At that very hour, there was a human being dying just a hundred and fifty yards and ten inches distant, measured by a tape, had it been drawn from the button of his left trouser-pocket to the fluttering heart of the expiring wretch on a heap of straw in the back yard of a neighbouring narrow street. This creature, a woman, had walked from London during the three days previous in search of a person named Smith, at Brighton, whom she could not find. Three days after, a coroner's inquest was held over what had seemed a heap of rags and grey hair to a man who kept a fish-barrow in that yard; and on his entrance to fetch it out, the "body," which had been that of a once stout woman, weighed less than fifty pounds.

This woman, who died on her sixty-ninth birthday, had been a crony of Grimshaw's mother, who married very young, as pit people do, and had nursed him through a dangerous fever when he was six years of age. She had sung the "Pitman's Courtship" over his cradle in his early days.

And now the rough and wintry sea-wind rattled the roof of a pig-sty over her bones. She had more than once appealed to the millionaire for aid, in the earlier days of his prosperity. It is charitable towards that carefully tended victim of paralysis to believe that somehow he had failed to recognise the identity of the applicant.

That day—it was Sunday, O ye anti-recreationists of the poor, who fare sumptuously in purple and fine linen, and sing sacred (?) songs to your grand pianos at home!—the first dawn of success lit up the expressive countenance of Blanche with a smile of enchanting grace. Her maëstro had invited a few connoisseurs to his villa in the outskirts of Rome. The modulation and power of her rich contralto astonished them all. Fat fubsy baritones kissed the tips of their fingers, and threw them open in undisguised admiration, with a gesture such as an Italian can alone master. An old bass singer, with a wonderful shirt-frill, not of the whitest it must be confessed, but that might be owing to the contrast with his hair, kissed her gracefully on both cheeks, and called her his child, and "la perla d'Inghilterra," and other pretty names. A youthful tenore woke up the lightly sleeping echoes of the streets with the air of the one English ballad which she sang, and the raptures of that individual in picturing her to his friends can better be imagined than described. An eccentric English milord, who was one of the favoured few invited, said nothing; but the next day called on the maëstro; and having as delicately as possible inquired into the circumstances of this English maraviglia, placed a thousand pounds at the disposal of the bearded instructor, who lived on something less than a hundred pounds a-year; and to his honour be it said, the gift was as sacredly applied, when his pupil left him, as if it had been intrusted to Aristides or Garibaldi himself. Not a scudo more remuneration, on her leaving him, would that foreign singing-master take on account of this influx of wealth. Yet the only condition of the trust was that she should not know it, until she had finished her course with the professor, and that then she should not be informed whence the donation came.

Verily there is some grand old honesty left in the world, though it is seldom found where it is expected, or furnished to anticipation and belief.

A lady in deep mourning and seclusion has just taken a pretty villa at Bournemouth. Even there she is known for charity and good deeds. When a boat was upset, and three poor fellows drowned, she was the angel of grace in three cottages, and prayed and knelt by the bedside of the dying mother of one, and the sick wife of another, while providing for the five children whom the third left destitute. Who can she be?

The Duke of Chalkstoneville died suddenly. It was said that he had married Miss Dareall: but we knew that could not be the case. But he left fifty thousand pounds in his will, free of legacy duty, to a young person utterly unknown, save to his confidential legal advisers, and who was named by the euphonious appellation of Martha Grubb.

A coffee-shop was opened in the Whitechapel-road on Christmas Eve, 185—, with the most discordant performance of a brass and string band perhaps ever known even in that locality. It reminded one of the joint performances of several rival orchestras during Greenwich Fair, now happily obsolete, though we cannot see that morals and manners are thereby on the whole much improved. In the pauses of the discord, a singular individual delivered a succession of the most humorous harangues from a window of a first floor, whence the frame had been removed. We will not attempt to do justice to his admired cockneyisms by our spelling, as we are convinced that the effort would be a failure. He announced himself as the benefactor of his species. He was about to bestow on them, at prices ludicrously small, the result of unbounded capital and philanthropical experience. His sherbet would cool the coppers of a salamander; his coffee came direct to him from 'Mesopotammy' from a sheik of the desert, who was his bosom friend. An express train brought him eggs from Dorking, and the fact had created quite a competition among laying hens. He had obtained a private concession from the milky-way; indeed, his milk was all cream, and as for his cream, the only thing he feared was lest the rattling of the omnibuses should turn it into butter, contrary to the desire of the establishment. Sixteen amateur duchesses made his butter in their country mansions; and the superintendence of baking his fancy rolls employed the leisure hours of an eccentric German prince. Then, like the unveiling of a work of art, a green baize cover was ever and anon drawn aside, and displayed in golden letters such as had never before been surpassed for brilliancy in Whitechapel, the magic letters, "H. Downy, Coffee and Eating-House," and in smaller letters, with flourishes, "Chops and Steaks, Ginger-beer and Soda-water. Sherbet. Beds." The facetious young proprietor—for such he appeared—was attired in a dust-coloured suit of the latest Whitechapel elegance, with a wide-awake of the same colour, ornamented by a wide ribbon of the most gaudy hues, in which half a dozen pheasant's feathers were jauntily stuck, probably to show his connexion with sporting and agricultural life. Whenever a policeman appeared in sight, he became unusually vociferous and cheerful in his remarks. "Walk in, peeler!" he would cry. "This hunique hestablishment closes at eleven, and is licensed by special Hact of Parlyment. Now then, Bobby! vy yer ain't comin' no quicker than if yer vos a lieyer goin' to 'eaven by heasy stages, 'arf a hinch hevery Good Friday, and a million o' miles backerds hevery other day, the precise vay as the badger vent to the Review—my noble connysewer in cold muttin. Valk hin! There's jints as'll be cooked special for hall the Bobbies on the beat, and hextra pretty servant-gals hired to vait on 'em, both on and hoff dooty. Sir Richard Mayne and the Lord Mayor has sent their complimints, and vill dine 'ere on Christmas Day to meet the Prince of Tick. Now, then, mu-sick!"

And then the band would strike up its horrid discord again; and the facetious proprietor would retire and reappear, glass in hand, to drink the health of a passing omnibus driver, with a perfectly ecstatic series of winks and gestures, amid the cheers of the surrounding mob. Who can this irrepressible and enterprising individual be? It was at least to be hoped that he would meet with the patronage which he deserves.

And now, once more, let us collect our scattered puppets, and shut them up for another period of four years. Or rather let us leave them at liberty to work out their own destiny in silence, and raise the curtain in due time to display the next tableau of their fate.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:
C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, DUKE STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS.

VOLUME III.

SO VERY HUMAN.

————

CHAPTER I.

SIR CROSSBILL CROSSBILL.

When the faithful mistress comes in contact with the profligate wife, the former can afford to lavish on the latter a splendid contempt.—Aphorisms of Ivan Danovskoi, formerly Imperial Historiographer to the Czar.

FOUR eventful years have passed since the circumstances narrated in our last volume, particularly eventful to the personages in whom we trust that we have interested our readers, and doubtless somewhat eventful to the rest of the world. Some had been born into this life without their being consulted on the subject, and others had taken their departure more or less unwillingly from it. Alas! to how few could the Almighty Ruler of the Universe give the flattering dismissal of "bene decessit!" How many trembled on the tremendous verge of nothingness with abject fear, and wished they might play their brief part over again, and, oh! how differently! Among the departures was the no longer wealthy Grimshaw; for he was ruined on an immense scale of deficit. True, the poor pitman—for what else was he then?—knew nothing whatever about it. Ever since he was stricken, it had been his particular delusion to fancy he was insolvent, and luxury could not have persuaded him to the contrary, had he continued to enjoy it. True, Miss Grimshaw had set aside sufficient to keep him in comfort for his few remaining days. In one sense, his imbecility was most fortunate; for the indignant howl raised against him by the multitude, whom he had led into the slough of impecuniosity, was terrific, and would have been enough to have driven any, save a rich man, say, a Member of Parliament with a Brobdingnagian nest-egg of gold which nothing could wrest from him, into a state of remorseful lunacy, if it did not frighten him out of existence altogether. Miss Grimshaw did not long survive her brother. Her curls remained brown to the end, because no wig was ever sufficiently realistic to turn white at any degree of sorrow which the wearer might suffer. But if her former head-dress was something awful to behold, what was it now? Poor thing! she looked like a mummy with hearse-plumes. All this did not deter her youngest niece, Violet, from smoothing the latter end of her declining days. Unfortunately the old lady had invested the few thousand pounds belonging to her in an annuity, in order that her brother might not perceive the great and terrible change in his financial position. So when she died, there was but little left. Antique caps, even when trimmed with real lace, are not exactly an investment in consols, nor were the aged lady's old dresses an ample fortune for a girl brought up in luxury. Poor Violet had nowhere to go to, so she advertised in the papers, and obtained the situation of a governess, just as Blanche Aubrey had done some years previously. In that promising and agreeable occupation we will for the present leave her. The eldest daughter was, as we know, married and provided for, and she allowed her other sisters the barest annuity upon which they could drag out their rapidly corroding and miserable existence. As for the sons—one became racing "tout" and billiard-marker; all knew degradation and misery. What can be imagined more miserable than the hybrid and half-educated young heirs to a parvenu's fortune, when the fortune proves a myth, and everything that can make life tolerable to them, or them tolerable to life, has vanished? Messrs. Grinderby and Cousens had dissolved partnership. The latter had retired to the provinces, that is, not exactly to his own province, which would have been a mean one, but to Norwich, the town which gave him birth. He had married the no longer very young lady, of whom we have narrated certain facts in this history—the one whom he was so anxious for a friend and client to endow with certain worldly wealth in the shape of a deed of gift, which proposal missed fire, in the manner we have already described. Why did he do this? We answer why are scoundrels weak? Why do they do anything which they do do?—an alliteration which we hope our readers will pardon. But the lady had still another "beau" to her string, in the person of a money-lender in New Burlington-street, and after she became Mrs. Cousens, her conduct was so unguarded or so reckless, that even Cousens took exceptions to her rule of three. His parents intervened, and he proceeded for a divorce under the new Act. Unfortunately for him, another party also intervened in the shape of the Queen's Proctor, and Phil had a desperate fight for liberty, which he eventually obtained as follows. Sir Crossbill Crossbill, a judge of great and peculiar experience in such matters, at first showed great hostility to our smart young lawyer, who he seemed to consider did not come into Court with clean hands, and concerning whom he indulged in some very severe remarks. The fact is, that Phil's conduct was so remarkably easy and unsuspicious for a man of the world, that it looked as if he had been actually guilty of condonement of his wife's profligate conduct. As the case went on, the astute Phil displayed himself in so unfavourable a point of view, as to puzzle the worthy judge, who surveyed him every now and then with a sort of curiosity, just as a collector of creeping things would examine a strange reptile, which he was about to bottle for his museum. At length experience and legal acumen were fairly puzzled, if not deceived.

"I thought," said Sir Crossbill, in dissolving the legal bonds which bound Phil Cousens, gentleman, attorney-at-law, to Emma his wife—"I thought, in the commencement of this suit, that the petitioner was both knave and fool; the former, probably, considering his opportunities of worldly experience, and the knowledge he might be supposed to have acquired in his profession, preponderating over the latter; that is, I thought him, if anything, more knave than fool. I have seen reason, as the case proceeded, to modify my opinion. I now consider him a greater fool than knave."

Our readers will judge for themselves whether Sir Crossbill was right in attributing less knavery than folly to Mr. Cousens. But to think that "sly Phil," "artful Phil," "Phil's alive Phil," the clever, smart London attorney, who prided himself upon his worldly astuteness, should be thus publicly characterised—it was too much!

Mr. Cousens retired to the country, and has only appeared once in London since, when he visited the Cattle Show, and hung his head when he met any one whom he recognised. He kept his father's books, and became slovenly in his apparel, in proportion to the improvement in the neatness of his handwriting. When we say that he left off wearing patent-leather boots in the morning, we feel that we have said a great deal. The only thing that we have heard of him was, that he made an offer of marriage to Miss Lambe, a well-to-do butcher's daughter of his mother's dissenting tenets, and was indignantly refused by that spirited young lady. In vain did Phil assure her that his happiness was at stake; the young lady refused her fair, but somewhat chapped hand, to the discomfited Mr. Cousens. It was evident she did not think her weal would be assured by such a bargain. "No!" she said, to a young and confidential friend and schoolmate, "my 'art must turn the scales when

I marry, and I never could become the bride of a man who, my pa says, has been so fast a liver, besides being divorced from his lawful partner. Only think of your husband's former wife being alive! I'd sooner marry a widower with ever so many children. No jointure would tempt me to such a second-hand turn-out." So Phil soon found that his attentions in the quarter of Lambe were vain. To do the young lady justice, she did not long keep him upon the hooks. "If your affections were buried in the grave, I could not give you any encouragement," she said, "to sue; it is utterly useless as it is." Phil looked sheepish enough at this; and went home feeling, as he declared afterwards, as if a knife were in him.

CHAPTER II.

EDGAR GRINDERBY DISINHERITS HIMSELF.

* * * * * *

Since the rogue builds up a fortune for the fool to waste away;
And by the son things are not done, though business still may thrive,
In the fine old evil way, as when the old "gent" was alive.

Anon.

MR. GRINDERBY still pursued his nefarious calling, the only change being that he had discharged a clerk or two, not including the illustrious Snap, who had married on a slight increase of salary, and got a family. (Solicitors' clerks do increase the population, or how could so many music-halls fill, and so many small tobacconists exist by the sale of brier-wood pipes and cabbage-leaf regalias and Pickwicks?) And this brings us, in the consideration of the eternal fitness of things, to the question of whether the British cigar was first manufactured for the consumption of the gent, or the gent for the consumption of the British cigar? This is an illiberal remark, and we apologise for our bad taste in appearing to contemn the tastes and wants of the million. We beg to state that we do not. We take a deep and earnest interest in the poor man's ounce of tea and his half-hundred of coals. In this respect, a street child's China orange is of far more consequence to us than Lombard-street. We do not care, if the whole bench of Bishops should dine without an appetite, if thereby we could fill a dozen little craving stomachs with food.

Mr. Snap, per se, was not a man whom we could have wished to pursue a strictly anti-Malthusian career on this earth. How spitefully and brutally he behaved towards Aubrey! Yet, was this altogether opposed to nature, instinct, and reason? Why does a small cur bark at the heels of a Newfoundland dog? Why should a little "gent," whose opportunities of enjoyment fate has woefully curtailed in this world, feel any particular love or admiration for one of Nature's curled darlings, especially when the darling is in distress, and rapidly going self-doomed to ruin? To us the sympathy, admiration, and fidelity, so often manifested by the "lower" towards the "upper classes," as they are called, has often proved matter of wonder and surprise. Why should a servant like his master, a clerk his employer, or a serf his lord? Why should a poor man respect a rich man, or a pauper continually touch his battered old scarecrow hat for nothing, as he does when he is breaking stones on the road, to every well-dressed passer-by, and to every carriage, shut or open, whose dust only helps to aggravate the thirst of his leathery throat? But they do. And the oddness of the matter is, that the feeling is so seldom reciprocated. We see occasionally in the obituary of the "Times," the death of Thomas Nokes or John Styles, recorded as having been for sixty years the confidential and trusted servant of Messrs. Smith or Lord Fitzbord; but we are not told that had the said Nokes or Styles lived a little longer, he would have been superannuated, and left to starve. Of course, such is not always the case. But we are not dealing with exceptions at this moment. We were defending ourselves from the possible charge of sneering at the cheap luxuries of the genus "gent," in the shape of a low or high music-hall, or of the perfidious cigar of Albion which poisons the aristocratic air. We said nothing against the coarse fumes of the bricklayer's matutinal pipe. He is no "gent," we know, and is not responsible for the "vamp" work of the contractor, who runs up those awfully insecure palaces of Aladdin, in the short summer Belgravian nights. One of the most snobbish things we ever read was apropos of cigars, in an abominable French novel which we got from a circulating library, whence it had doubtless been procured and read by many a fashionably fast young lady of the present day. The writer constantly informs us, that his hero of the moment is smoking a cigar of extravagant price—we forget how many sous. It is as if one should say, as the finishing touch to the portrait of a nobleman, after describing himself, his hair, eyes, moustache, stature, age, coat and pantaloons, boots and gloves, "and, moreover, he had a one and fourpenny cigar in his mouth." The Frenchman's exquisite of the first water of course rides "un beau cheval Anglais;" he is blasé and cynical in love, brutal in his manners towards women, a scoundrel, whom it would do one good to kick; but he smokes a cigar at a franc and a half, while planning some depraved outrage, which no healthy brain could invent. It strikes us that there is a great deal of snobbishness of late growth in France. We are afraid that the disease spreads with commerce and civilisation. Where shall we have to go to find a gentleman by-and-bye? We suppose that there will be a few left for some time to come in Hungary and Morocco, some obscure parts of Turkey, and our North-American provinces.

We were speaking of Mr. Grinderby, and the present state of his affairs. The management of the Aubrey estates had proved a very comfortable and profitable affair; but on the whole his reputation began to get into bad odour. A number of suspicious circumstances and shady transactions had more or less got wind and obtained credence. A certain Vice-Chancellor had said something, which showed that even his old-womanish perceptions had been awakened to something like an approximate apprehension of the true state of the case. Mr. Grinderby was also much troubled about his eldest son, Edgar. That young man had shown generous and honourable traits, which alarmed the hard, worldly old reprobate, his father, who, to speak the truth, had invested a good deal of paternal affection in his degenerate boy. Not only did the lad display an unconquerable dislike to legal studies, but he had, on more than one occasion, shown great disgust for some of his father's proceedings. He had actually sympathised with one or two ruined clients, and had devoted some of the money given him to expend in an embryo law library, and in furnishing his chambers in the Temple, to relieving the wants of a decayed tradesman and his family, whom Grinderby père had ruined. In process of this interference, Edgar Grinderby gained a knowledge of legal procedure and iniquities, which he would never have acquired from books or study, more particularly since he never could persuade himself to read for the law. These revelations were not purposely made by the poor tradesman, who would have spared the father a reproach for the sake of the son. But ugly facts would peep out, would intrude themselves, and could not be concealed. When the man, who had been formerly a successful newsvendor and stationer, told his two eldest children to thank their benefactor, Mr. Edgar, the second, a sharp little girl, refused to take any notice of him, and said:

"Me shan't speak to Mr. Grinderby; Mr. Grinderby wicked, bad man. Mr. Grinderby ruin my dear papa, and make little Mary hungry."

Her young brother coloured and then turned pale, and seated himself in the furthest corner, his little breast heaving with indignation.

"Come, Harry!" said the perplexed father, "and speak to this gentleman!"

The boy did not answer.

"Do you hear me, sir?" continued his parent.

A passionate burst of sobs choked the little fellow's utterance. "Didn't you say," he articulated, "that it was—him—Mr. Grinderby, that took mamma's bed—away, and k-k-k-killed her with cold? I wish I was bigger, and then I'd kill him, that I would." And the little fellow clenched his fist and shook it at

Edgar, who was dreadfully shocked and disconcerted, "Yes," continued the child, "he sent mamma away to Heaven, and we shall never see her any more."

Young Grinderby hastily grasped the hand of his father's client, and left the house. He did not return home; and the next day went to stay with a friend, and wrote thence to his father, asking his pardon, but saying that he would not be a burden to him any more, and would seek his own living. Old Grinderby was at first in a towering rage, and wrote his son a letter, which he got copied by Snap, who had now risen, or rather fallen to his confidence, telling him that he need never darken his door any more, nor expect from him a single shilling. Whatever it was that the youth answered, it perplexed the shrewd old lawyer sadly. It was something unlike anything he had known. It opened to him another view of life—one of which he had never before dreamt. His son, whom he had hoped to see Lord Chancellor, or a puisne judge at least—for Grinderby worshipped the Woolsack and the Bench with a kind of grim idolatry—his son, whom he had ruled with a rod of iron from infancy to puberty, had commenced his rebellious course by leaving the circuit, soon after he had joined; the young barrister having begun and ended his legal career at a midland county-town, where he made the most distinguished debut within the memory of the oldest member of the Bar. Old Grinderby was actually complimented by a judge before whom he happened to appear on some business of a client, upon the talent and promise displayed by Edgar. To the father's dismay, nothing would induce his son to continue afterwards on the circuit. In vain had the elder Grinderby touted and canvassed for briefs. The younger scion of that honourable house declared that the very thought of the horrid midland county-town, where he had gained his first laurels, made him ill.

"He did not know," he said, "which was worst to endure, the filth of the cases, the fetid closeness of the reeking atmosphere of the court where they were heard, or to mark the injustice of the practice and administration of the law"—that law which his father, and the majority of vulgar and inferior men of his stamp, held in such vast respect. He felt it to be the worship of a moral car of Juggernaut rolling chiefly over human distress.

About that time, occurred the death, in that very Court, of one of the best and kindliest, and most intellectual judges who ever adorned the Bench—a man whose mind was not narrowed by the sharpening process on the grindstone of the law. He died of the poison stench of foul attorneydom and its clients, in an atmosphere robbed of oxygen by the breath of provincial villainy, and the exhalation from perspiring rascality, iniquity, and meanness, augmented by the unusual crowding of the unwashed and unkempt Bœotians of the district, in order to hear the details of a more than ordinary number of cases "unfit for publication." A couple of broken window-panes might have saved the precious life of one, for whose sake we might have fancied that whole town spared by a special act of Divine mercy, in spite of its black calendar of abominable crimes. As he fell forward and died, he was in the act of addressing a solemn warning to the selfishness of the upper and middle classes; telling them that they neglected their duty as men and citizens, in erecting and maintaining an icy barrier between themselves and the lower orders. He was pointing out the want of sympathy between the rich and poor, which is the great blot of the age in this country. And in doing this, he died, as one may say, asphyxiated by the fumes of crime.

The death of this good man made a deep impression upon Edgar Grinderby. It crowned his strong inclination to abandon the law, with a final determination which nothing could break or alter. A stranger might have pitied old Grinderby, had he witnessed his disappointment, when he was acquainted with his son's resolution. And now he was defied, abandoned, insulted, not by words addressed to himself; for Edgar's language was most respectful and affectionate even in its firmness; but in the person of his cherished deity, Mammon, whom he had hugged to his heart of hearts, for whom he had lied, plundered, oppressed, and stolen. It was hard, very hard! He had been proud of Edgar—as a vulgar parent is proud of a gentlemanly son. He had educated him at Oxford, and paid his debts; with, for him, but little show of indignation. And now all his hopes were baffled by this eccentric obstinacy, this romantic nonsense, this absurd morbid mania of goodness; and finally his roof abandoned, his wealth despised, and his assistance rejected, before he had an opportunity of refusing it. We know "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child;" but what is even this, compared with the agony of feeling that a favourite child shrinks from the contemplation of parental misconduct and vice, and exhibits in return for all the affection lavished by a fond, though erring father, the disobedience of virtue, and the ingratitude of worth?

As we have spoken of the atrocity of country crimes and provincial wickedness, we must here hazard the observation, that whatever may be said about the demoralisation of London, there is nothing in it to be met with worse than, if equal to, rural atrocity and sin, when they are found in the full perfection of their unmolested fungous growth. There is nothing coarser than the courtesan, nothing rougher than the ruffian, nothing viler than the villain of your "sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," when self-planted wickedness crops out, as it will sometimes do. There are young men, ay, and women too, in the country to whom town can impart no dye of deeper hue, no obscener depravation of soul. The impure and diseased mind broods in seclusion and obscurity, and is apt to produce hideous monsters and abortions of sin, Βλαστάνειν ἀκορέστον ὀιζυν. We have known country lawyers even worse than Grinderby himself; men to whom Satan will assign the highest places on that roll from which no attorney's name will ever be struck off when once inscribed there by the illustrious Head of the Profession and Chief Examiner in evil proficiency himself.

When Mr. Grinderby, senior, found, after a few months, that Edgar did not apply to him for money, he wrote a reproachful letter to the young man, accusing him of deserting him in his old age. Upon this Edgar called, and even stayed to dinner on his father's representation that he was very unwell. When the old man had drunk his bottle of port, he told his son that, if he would return home, he might do as he pleased, and read as much poetry as he liked. He might even have a piano, and smoke in his bedroom all day. He might keep a hunter; and a mistress too, the old sinner hinted, if he wished it. Edgar was no Puritan, but he shrank from this coarse and brutal ebullition of paternal regard. He thanked his father respectfully, but said that he had chosen his path in life, and would abide by it, if his father pleased.

"But I don't please," growled old Grinderby, utterly confounded by his son's conduct and determination.

All, however, that he could gain from him was a promise to dine at home once a month. Then Edgar apart in her own room, tenderly kissed his mother, from whom he had hidden neither his motives nor his mode of life, and who sighed deeply while she approved his conduct. A very tender, good, weak woman that mother, with a strong chapel bias; but she loved her son dearly, and had imparted to him a great deal of her better nature.

And what was Edgar Grinderby's mode of life? From a newsvendor whom his father had ruined he got an introduction to a good-natured reporter on a daily paper, a man, like most of his class, of great and varied attainments, of singular shrewdness and knowledge of the world, and yet perfect simplicity of character and utter genuine unselfishness of disposition. This gentleman eked out his modest income, when Parliament was not sitting, by compiling various cheap works for publishers, for which his discursive information and extraordinary memory and intelligence eminently qualified him. He was a walking encyclopædia of dates, facts, quotation, and precedent. He knew something of everything, and not a little of a great many subjects. He was struck by Edgar's story and ingenuous deportment, and offered, not only to teach him short-hand gratis, but to give him some second-hand literary work. "I'll guarantee you a pound a-week, my boy, to start with," he said. Nor did he ever make a sixpence out of the lad; but, on the contrary, actually contributed in a very small, but not the less valuable, degree to his means of existence. Edgar, unlike Arthur Aubrey, began at the beginning of the profession he had chosen, and gradually, but surely, worked his way up. Sometimes he would look in at "Cogers' Hall," or other "halls" not of "dazzling light," but of tobacco-flavoured discussion, and there learnt to express himself in public with fluency and precision. His opening speech on "Whether it is or is not expedient to maintain the Established Church in Ireland?" was considered a masterpiece of youthful eloquence; and the illustrious Jack Grady, a descendant of the Irish kings, the most facetious orator of the Fleet-street House of Commons, whose career gave rise to unlimited speculations as to what he might, could, should, or would have done there, had he met with a constituency sufficiently tipsy at their own expense to return him, actually rose up and shook him by the hand, and offered to borrow half a crown and stand two glasses of whisky as a preliminary to proposing his health and speech. In this excellent company we must for the present leave him.

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH OLD GRINDERBY'S BOOT BEGINS TO GET TOO TIGHT.

I'll none of it!
I tell you that your money is infècte
With Curses, that your Gold sweats Blood, and chinks
Like the Fiende's Dice wherewith for Soules they play
Of Misers, Usurers, Cozeners, and the like;
Or as the rattle of the New Worlde Snake
In Act to strike. I'll none of it, I saie!
I will starve rather. The rank Cannibal
Chuses not Orphans, nor the widowed Frames
Of those worn lean with Weeping, for his Prey.
I will not suck the Marrowe out of Grief
And so grow sleek. Out! out! A legal Ghoule
To feast on Ruin he himself hath made;
Vampyre and Ghoule too. I'll not join in it;
Nor act the Dastard's part to gather Fruit
Grown in a Golgotha without Regard
Of whence it came, or how manured the Field
With Tears of Victims, and the Substance ta'en
By vilest Arts away. I tell Thee this—
'Gainst All that Thou hast done, there is a Bill
Filed in Heav'n's Chancerie. A blacke Account!
I will not answer it, if Avoidance live
In the sweete Gifte of smiling Charitie.
Contempte of that Court is too dread a Thing,
Whose sentence from the Sentence Ultimate
Of Earthly Judges dates, and deals with all
As They have dealt with others. O, repent!
With all thy Wealth endowe some Hospital
And riche thy Soul with Treasure like to mine,
Which shall not melt in the Eternal Fire
Nor jaundice Thee for ever with Remorse
For small unholy Triumphs in thy Life
Of sordid Cunning.

From the Scrivener's Heritage, A Play in Five Actes. 1690.

ALTOGETHER, the mind of Mr. Grinderby, senior, of Webb's Fields, attorney-at-law, and rogue by Act of Parliament, was sorely perplexed and troubled. His only son had blighted his views, as we have just recorded. His little establishment in the Grove of the Evangelist had died a natural death, if it might be so called, considering that his black-browed Egeria, to whom we reluctantly introduced our readers in the first volume of this history, one night indulged in an over-dose of brandy, and a coroner's inquest had been held in consequence, which caused Grinderby to tremble, lest his name should appear in the papers, which, indeed, it did in one weekly print. No less than three copies of that paper were sent to his wife by "friends" of the family; but the good dame, not boasting the best eyesight in the world, gave them all to her husband to glance over for her. Luckily, there was an account of a Dorcas meeting in the same issue, which enabled him perfectly to account for the mystery of the three papers so kindly sent. But this was not all which, about this period, disturbed the equanimity of lawyer Grinderby, and made him wince as if he had been stung by an Eastern gad-fly. One evening, about the period of the commencement of our resumed narrative, Mr. Grinderby had just finished his day's dirty work, and had also washed his legal hands physically clean, and was about to proceed home to Peckham, in the identical trap described so characteristically by Tops, drawn by another pair of old horses; for Grinderby never bought them young; when a note was placed in his hands, which the sole remaining clerk said was left by a dirty-looking man in a dust-coloured coat, with hair to match, the contents of which caused Mr. Grinderby as much trepidation and annoyance, as any writ he had issued for many a day had occasioned a poverty-stricken debtor. Mr. Grinderby sat gazing at this note, until Tops, who was waiting in the square with the trap and the eldest Miss Grinderby, fancied that the old lawyer had had a fit, and "was 'arf a mind," as he expressed it, to jump off the box and run up in search of him. At length, however, he came down looking grey in the face with illness or anxiety, and got into the old mourning-coach, as some were in the habit of styling it. Miss Adalgisa Grinderby put down her novel of "Henrietta Temple," and made some indifferent observation about her "pa" being late. Mr. Grinderby sat frowning, in fierce and moody silence. Tops, on his part, indulged in some milder meditation, and more than once burst out laughing as if in remembrance of something funny which had occurred to him in early life.

"Well, I'm blest if I don't believe it really was him I see. I've never clapped eyes on him, since about the time he opened that corfy-shop in the Whitechapel-road! What a game that was! I never laughed so much since, nor afore. I do believe it was that as kept me alive the first year in that old ——'s" (tst-tst to the horses) "service. I should like to meet him again, and to know how he managed to get out of the bis'ness. It seemed a bang-up affair, but pr'aps," said Tops, reflecting, "it was all hinvestment and no profit. I never shall forget, no, not if I were to live as long as Mythooselum, how he did carry on, when that 'sloop' hestablishment was opened. How he did chaff the folks, hespecially the perlice, from that open winder as he took the sash out of. The moment he saw a Bobby, he was down on him like a knife, inquiring whether his coat-pocket was water-tight, in case of any dampness in the pervisions; if he'd lately seen that all the meat-safes was locked careful, and taken the senses* of all the cook-maids in his districk. There was a young Irishman who'd only just joined the Force. He cut up uncommon rough, he did. We had to square him with half a pint of whisky, and he got so drunk that he locked up a working man for being sober, and only kept his place next morning by hard swearing, and the evidence of a lot more perlicemen. Vell, he was the rummest customer hever I come across, and I wish he hadn't bolted out jest now so sudden that I couldn't stop him. Whatever could he be doing on that old staircase of Grinderby's? Pr'aps it was him he's been a seeing. Come hup will yer?" And so saying Tops solemnly and deliberately applied his heavy old-fashioned whip to the pair of ancient, half-bred, Flemish coach-horses he was driving, which he had privately nicknamed "Catsmeat" and "Dogsmeat," "a distinction," as he said, "without much difference."

[*Query census.—P. D.]

Let us seize an opportunity of peeping over Mr. Grinderby's shoulder as he read and re-read the epistle which occasioned him so much concern and annoyance. It was as follows:

"OLD HOSS,

"I have come back at last to this cuss of an island of yours, just to remind you of a little affair between us, which I dare say you fancied was settled and done with long ago. 'Tain't! and what's more, 'tain't going to be just yet, unless some one chooses to fix it at my price, and not yours. As a particularly old friend, you'll be glad to hear that I am quite well and safe from throat attacks; so well you'd scarcely know me at present. I hope you're the same. Your health, I reckon, depends entirely upon mine; for if I was taken ill, you'd follow as a matter of course. Curious! Isn't it? but true.

"My speculations on the other side of the water have turned out shadily enough! The last time I was entirely ruined there, I failed somehow to recuperate. A little bird on this side of the whale-pond told me just when I was casting about for a new start in life, of our friend A. A. having got up a pretty tall financial tree. A sort of Wellingtonia gigantea, and not being likely to come down again either, without assistance. The same ornithological correspondent informed me that you are managing his property for all parties, including the young gentleman himself. Perhaps you think I've come over to congratulate him on the subject. Now there's a certain document, which you thought you saw burnt with your own eyes. You were mistaken. It was only an office copy, which, I made—a counterfeit, a 'duffer'—a notion which you ought to appreciate, I'm sure. Smart! wasn't it? Now it strikes me that it is a document written on a very incombustible sort of paper, and that it will take a considerable investment in lucifers to set a light to it.

"Your welfare was the first thing which I made the object of my inquiries on landing. This is not the season for canvas-back ducks, but I have brought over a barrel of Newtown pippins (our remarkably fine apple), and shall have the pleasure of sending you some, together with a few hickory nuts, of which I beg your acceptance. They are very hard to crack! Hoping shortly for the pleasure of an interview, at your convenience,

"I am,
"Yours truly,
"J. S. M.

"P.S. Write to these initials, P. O., Deptford. You may enclose the first half of a fifty, as I am short of cash, the remainder to follow."

Mr. Grinderby fairly writhed under the information contained in this epistle. In the first place, he had believed, as Manvers (for of course it was he) intimated in his letter, that the document referred to had indeed been burnt. It was then but a fac-simile, hurriedly substituted by a species of juggling trick, which he had seen apparently committed to the flames. Again, he never dreamt that Manvers would have dared to visit England thus, with capital punishment threatening him if detected. It was evident that no trifle would have tempted him to run such a risk; and now he, Grinderby, trembled for the safety of the ex-clerk and felon rowdy, from whom he had thought himself perfectly secure, and whose letters from America he had never replied to, and, in fact, barely glanced over when he received them.

If Manvers were taken, though without his instrumentality, and against his wishes and hopes, might not that worthy conceive that he had been betrayed by him, and peach in revenge? What? Ay, there was the rub. Even if he were taken at all, without suspicion of his lawyer accomplice, he might tell everything through mere wanton spite and malevolence. Altogether, Mr. Grinderby was never in his life before in so unenviable a frame of mind; and when he alighted at his house at Peckham, he spoke so savagely to Tops, that it nearly elicited an answer from that vivacious "whip," which would have ended his three years and a half service at the expiration of a month from that time. But Tops had his own reasons for putting up with old Grinderby's temper a little longer. It had been his Susan's sovereign pleasure, that he should enter into and remain in the lawyer's service, and Susan was expected very shortly in town. Yes, she had written to him that she was about starting for Paris en route to England from Florence, with her mistress, the distinguished foreign lady with whom she had gone abroad. During the whole period of her absence, Susan had been an excellent correspondent, and a more educated lover than Tops would have trembled for his chance of marrying a girl who, from her letters, was evidently making such progress in refinement and knowledge. But Tops, honest fellow, feared nothing of the kind, nor indeed had he any real grounds for so doing. Susan had no idea of marrying a "gentleman;" and as for those who would have trifled with her in any but an honourable sense, she entertained for the whole class an unmitigated contempt and disgust, which it would, indeed, be a blessing to see shared by the majority of girls in her position. But we will now let the reader into a secret. At Susan's earnest solicitation, Tops had been labouring hard to "complete his eddicashun," as he at first called it. And though far from perfect, he had made wonderful progress. Having imparted his wish to young Grinderby, that noble-hearted young fellow had actually for a short time devoted three or four hours a week to his tuition, under the pretence of smoking his cigar in the harness-room. Therefore, when we just now quoted a brief soliloquy of the now more erudite Tops, our readers may have noticed some little improvement. In future we shall gladly divest his language of much of its vulgarity and cockneyisms. Not that it must be supposed that his dialect had acquired anything like Attic excellence. It was merely an improved Doric.

On the days when Mr. Tops received a letter from Susan, he was in the habit of wearing a flower in his button-hole. In the winter he would compound by adorning the horses with very spicy pink rosettes, a practice which Mr. Grinderby would have put down with great severity, had it not been for the interference of his daughter. Indeed, that young lady insisted so strongly on his always using them, that he was forced to have green and yellow rosettes made for ordinary occasions.

Susan had a double motive in causing Tops to reside with Grinderby. One was that she thought it would keep him quiet and out of mischief, and the other that she had a vague notion of learning something about the progress of Aubrey's affairs. This had hitherto turned out a failure. Ever since Aubrey's sudden dissolution of his partnership in poverty with Tops, the latter had found no trace of his former master. In Grinderby's employ, indeed, he had little opportunity; but for at least two years he divided all his spare time between Susan and Lindley Murray on the one hand, and the attempt to find out Aubrey's retreat on the other. At last he came to the conclusion that Aubrey was either dead or abroad, and gave up the search, and his regret gradually yielded to the composing effect of time. There was one thing which seriously perplexed and disturbed Tops. This was a constant inclination to upset Grinderby's carriage. When it so happened that the road was bounded on either side by a very deep and particularly foul and muddy ditch, this desire became almost a monomania, and required the strongest exercise of self-restraint on the part of the unconscious attorney's coachman. This was only when Mr. Grinderby was alone inside; for Tops was far too gallant to meditate risking injury to Miss Grinderby's limbs, clothes, or nervous system.

"She's as vicious as she is ugly," said Tops, "and when she's drest out looks more like a boiled weasel in creenolyne, than a young woman as a man would leave his beer to go after. But no, no, it wouldn't wash, I say."

Persons unacquainted with the phraseology of Mr. Tops, might have imagined this to be a considerate allusion to the young lady's dress, which was not the case. The good angel of Tops, whom one might imagine a winged jockey with doll's curls and blue eyes, intervened to preserve even Grinderby from a proceeding which, however just, would have condemned Tops, in a fiduciary point of view, as a Jehu of principle and worth.

"You see this is how it was," as Tops afterwards apologetically explained to Susan; "I ate his victuals and took his money, and wore his blessed old huniform, disguise, I call it, and so I couldn't very well tip over his aged conveyance among the effets, and them wriggling bull-heads, which I believe is the souls of young lawyers learning the first rudymens of their profession in black holes and slimy corners. I couldn't do it, you see, all jolly and straightforrerd, because I was in the old limb's service! Otherways, it was very tempting!"

To say that Tops did not burn for emancipation from the lawyer's service and the "disguise," which was a brown suit, very long in the skirts, like a bad imitation of the late Lord Harrington's liveries, would be a great deviation from the truth. In fact, he was like a young street athlete in an overcoat on a hot day, longing to appear in his flesh-coloured tights and sparkling cincture before an admiring crowd of spectators. Tops felt himself in a chrysalis state. It was, he said, a case of "grub," and no mistake, but he didn't exactly mean any allusion to the entomological transformation. The fact is, that Mr. Tops somewhat rejoiced in his immunity from recognition by his ancient "pals." He had grown a large pair of whiskers, and wore his hair much longer. He never went to any of his old haunts, and upon one occasion sustained an inquiring stare from the mighty Binsby himself, with an unruffled serenity of non-avowal of his identity. But when that great personage proceeded to say: "Young man! I think we have met before somewhere," Tops utterly routed him by asking him if he had formerly been in the "Black Brigade, and been tried at Clerkenwell Sessions on suspicion of having stolen a hatchment."

There was but one person whom Tops longed very much to see in "a convivial pint of view," as he said, and this was the Downy Cove. Since that estimable person's brief and meteor-like career in the Whitechapel-road, as the spirited proprietor of the "Cabman's Pride," as it was called, a coffee-shop conducted upon entirely new principles, the Downy had utterly disappeared from the circle of society of which he was once the joy and the ornament.

It was, therefore, with no ordinary degree of excitement and interest that Tops, when perched lately on the summit of Mr. Grinderby's dingy drab hammercloth, saw the Downy issue rapidly from the doorway of Mr. Grinderby's staircase, and disappear so quickly that he in vain sought to attract his attention by alternate shouting and whistling.

"He was uncommon good company, you see," said Tops. "I wish he'd a bin more steady in bis'ness. Two hundred pound ain't to be got every day to take a house with. But he used to give away the corfy and victuals to them as couldn't pay, and them as could soon took the hint and followed such a noble example. And then he was overtook by liquor on the morning that the shop opened, and I dare say he run a dead heat with it ever after, till the evening after the shop closed. It took only three months," said Tops, reflectively, "and it might have took three years; but he must have come to grief in the end. As to setting him up in business, one might as well have started a monkey to sell nuts in a fair, and given him a cocoa-nut full of threepenny pieces for capittle, in the expectation of a large return. I only wish that angel in keeping had settled an annuity on him, paid weekly. That might have kept him in the centre of his hadmiring friends," continued Tops; "but I don't know that he'd ever have been sober again. He was born for vice-issitude, though there ain't no vice in him for that matter. I'd have given a month's celery to have been able to stop him this arternoon, if it were only to ask him, if he ever saw my poor governor again. But when Susan comes back, we must put our heads together to find them both out, leastways what has become of my poor master. I say 'master,' " added Tops, "because it were a pleasure to serve him. In spite of his behaviour to her, he was kind to every one else, a precious sight too kind and considyrate for his own interest. He was a gentleman as would give away his own living to a parcel of poor folks. I never see any one so thoughtful of others. Why, even when we were in lodgings, there was a poor old paralytic creetur used to come by every day with groundsel, and I do believe the governor went and bought a bird on purpose to have an excuse to deal with her.

"There's one thing I can't understamd," he continued, "which is, that my Susan never pitches into him now. Indeed, she left it off the very day I went to take the passage tickets in the Boulogne steamer for her and her new foreign missus to start. 'Tops!' says she, 'it's your duty never to lose sight of Mr. Aubrey. He's been a kind master to you, Tops. Don't you let him want for nothing.' And I never did whilst I could help it, leastways till he got restive and bolted clean out of sight. He said he wouldn't drag me down to poverty and starvation with him, as if I'd been a rich gent like himself, and been robbed by the lieyers."

"I'd give all I'm worth or likely to be worth in the world, except my Susan, to know what's become of him," observed Tops to his mother one Sunday afternoon, when that venerable dame had called in just to run over his linen. "My belief is he throwed himself in the river after her, or went on the ice in the Regent's Park when it wouldn't bear, along with a lot of other sooicides. It's my opinion that when a man's ruined by solicitors, he goes in for skating a purpose to avoid being a fellow-seedee, and 'seedy' enough a many of 'em are afore they do it. Then the coroner he calls it a 'watery end,' and inquires whether the drags was handy. And the perlice is instructed to take up the next lot as venture on in the same manner. And you might as well expect a tom-cat to go into the water to save a litter of drownded puppies, as a British Bobby to venture on the ice when it isn't strong enough to bear. Safe's the word with them, and then they'll go on as if they was wanted. Not that I blame them much for that neither. Then there's a row in the Sunday papers about the ranger of the parks, and letting the water be so deep, and breaking it for the water-fowl, hetsaytera, hetsaytera, hetsaytera. It's all beginning at the wrong end, that's what it is. If people was not unfortynate, they wouldn't drownd themselves. I know what I'd do, if I had the power. I'd set a lot of starving navvies to deepen the hornamental water, and I'd show 'em how to make it useful, I would. The first day's black frost, providing it wasn't too severe, I'd start every attorney in England skating there. Them as couldn't cut out six and eightpence on the ice, should slide. I'd admit no one inside the railings that day without a certificate, for fear of accidenx. And if the ice was broken round the side, and they did all go to the bottom, it would be the greatest gain that England ever see in my opinion. But," concluded Tops, with a mournful shake of the head, "these are the kind of dreams that occur to a man when he's handling the ribbons, and fancies himself a hemperor. Water is not the helement that lawyers need stand much in fear of. Why don't I wish for a four-in-hand millanyone at once?" he asked. And his mother, who paused in the act of lifting a saucerful of tea to her lips in the front-loft parlour, replied very wisely:

"Ah! why not, James?" She thought him the cleverest young man out, and had even recommended a female friend to consult him about a mythical property, which some one had said was in the family, before her great uncle went to America; "for," she said, "he's own head coachman to lawyer Grinderby, and drives him to town every morning." According to Mrs. Tops's notion, this was a species of legal education in itself.

"Bless her dear old heart!" said Tops, "I do believe if I was to drive the Rooshian ambassador, she'd think I could speak Rooshian."

And so she would have done. Oh, happy ignorance of matters legal, believing in the forms and names of things, believing in the judgments of judges and the verdicts of juries, the incorruptibility of the Bar, and the respectability of respectable and "eminent" firms of attorneys—unconscious that modern success is in itself suggestive of wrong. Oh, delightful old-womanish ignorance and credulity, believing in our statesmen, our generals, and admirals (with what old-womanish natural sympathy we pause not to declare), believing in our statues and memorials, our eulogies and threnodies, our spasmodic deifications of incapacity, treachery, connivance, imbecility, and crime. Is true fame worth having, when shared thus? Is there any true fame in, or of, this age? Are any secret historians writing the truth, we mean the true truth, la vera verità, of this period of imposture? Have preceding ages been as false and falsely recorded, and is all history a myth, or rather a tissue of falsehoods like the inscriptions chiselled by our sculptor masons now? Were all the great worthies and heroes of antiquity thieves and felons with stolen laurels, which should have graced the brows of other and unknown men? Did it happen in former times that a man of mediocre intellect did stupidly and doggedly resist all improvement and enlightenment, invention and reform, until forced to yield little by little, inch by inch, to the pressure of necessity, and that such a man was chronicled as the pioneer and founder of all that which he had in reality opposed, while the bones of the true founders and pioneers were ground to mix with the material of his lying cenotaph, the monument of his pretended virtues and fictitious fame? We are inclined to think that it was not quite so bad of old. And perhaps it will not be quite so bad in the future, when the facts of the nineteenth century shall be finally recorded in the annals of mankind. The real story of the Crimean campaign, for instance, may yet be told. It takes ten years, more or less, now-a-days, to forget what a modern hero or statesman has done, or not done, and to invent a career for him. As for works of art, it is fortunate that our tributes in brass and marble are not likely to survive. The very bricks and mortar of this epoch are not of a durable composition. That which has been fitly but vulgarly described as the "literature of bosh," will haply return to the paper-mills of the period, and perish with the paper on which it is printed to the disgust of true thinking men.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TEUTON'S TOAST.

Geben sie mir—gif me—the lof, de brod, de bread, yas, and I shall vat you call toast him, mit mein frying-pike; aber—bot—your fraulein, de yong ladies, I shall toast him mit mein augen, mine eyes, and mit your porter bier gut, sehr gut, but not so better as de Rhein wein of mine belofed faderland.—Teutonic Table-Talk in Leicester-"squar."

FROM the Theatre of La Pergola at Florence a lady is being escorted to her home in triumph. She is seated in a carriage alone, surrounded by a shouting mob of men of all ages, among whom youth predominates. They have taken the horses out of her carriage, and are drawing it along as if she were some female conqueror. And so she is, "Melpomene Victrix!" She has conquered those impressionable hearts with song. She wears a light and exquisite coronal of gold round her small and classic head. It has just been enthusiastically presented to her by her Florentine admirers. She has triumphed at Rome, Milan, and Naples. She has been honoured by imperial recognition at St. Petersburg. The blaze of the torches illuminates her pale and beautiful countenance, touched with melancholy, but serene and composed, as if all that passed around her were a natural accompaniment of her destiny, a tribute to the Royalty of Song, of which she was crowned a Queen by universal acclamation and rapturous consent. Ever and anon, as some louder plaudit or more lively demonstration greeted her, she would smile with touching sweetness, and incline her head with exquisite grace. Behold! she has reached her home. As she descends from her carriage, she is almost in danger from the pressure of her adorers, each of whom at that moment is ready to die—histrionically—at her feet. She walks over crushed violets and roses into the favoured building. When she has passed, young Italy fights for the flowers which her foot may have touched. Then the crowd disperses to refresh itself with mild potations suited to the clime. Anon it reassembles and treats the object of its adoration to a serenade; a somewhat superfluous tribute one cannot help thinking, but this is an idea of the unimpressionable sons of Albion. This is in Italy: and is not "La Diva" a daughter of Moldavia, naturalised and taught to warble in Italy; a mountain sylph, a forest nymph, a river goddess, a cantatrice of mysterious origin, as it is given out? Some, indeed, say she is the offspring of a Boyard; others declare her to be the lost child of a Pomeranian noble family captured in infancy by brigands, and found singing by a fountain, like a bird, at the age of twelve years, by her brother, who had long deemed her dead. Others held to a Georgian or Circassian theory of her extraction. At all events, there was sufficient romance talked of her to furnish a dozen stories in a Milanese "Family Herald," or penny "Florence Journal," had such a thing existed. She is known, however, as the Signora Bianca Stellini, and shouts rend the air, when she comes forward on the hotel balcony, in her chaste robe of white muslin, and leans forward, the Giulietta of thousands of rapturous Romeos; that is, in their thought and desire. At length she retires, and the effervescence subsides. A party of Germans alone continue their bacchanalian orgies at a distant restaurant, and their deep choruses ever and anon startle the stillness of the moonlight night. They are chiefly from Rome, these absurd "younkers!" Let us listen for a moment to their harmless clamour. What is that ridiculous chant about the Ponte Mole? It is something very like nursery rhymes chanted by a stentorian chorus of grown-up men. How little pleases the manly German mind! Well, they are manly after all in their way. Manly? Look at their beards, and pipes, and bronzed faces! Still it is a pity that their ceremonials should be so meaningless and childish. But, hearken! There is the silence preceding something of superior interest. A pale, wild-looking, romantic, intellectual young man has risen, and is about to address them. He is Heinrich von Weber, the most promising of the artist-students at Rome, a poet, and enthusiastic Federalist. His picture of the "Apotheosis of Margaret," in the everlasting "Faust," made a great sensation in the Exhibition at Rome last year. The King of Bavaria affected his society, and was introduced by him to Roman artist life, the

Caffé Greco, and even the Lepre, where one ate "porcospino," "agro dolce," larks, thrushes, and robins, and smoked pipes between the courses, even when ladies, chiefly British and Russian, were among the guests. Had not the illustrious Humboldt presented the young Saxon with a gold medal? He was the youth of the hour, doomed, it may be, to be but little heard of hereafter. But no matter; there he was, the leader of that German élite, the king of all their folly, as well as their captain in things more serious; such as politics and fatherland, a duel, a picture, a poem, or a serious song. With due solemnity the illustrious youth addresses his beloved countrymen as follows. He spoke, and drew forth from the capacious pocket of his trousers a bronze-coloured shoe, of small feminine proportions, which had apparently done some service to its fair owner; and pouring into it, regardless of a leak, as much red wine as it would hold, from a huge flask-shaped bottle on the table (it was cheaper than any beer those students of art could procure there), he proceeded enthusiastically, amid the frantic excitement of all present, to quaff the contents to the health of the Fraülein Bianca. The rest followed his example. As each successively reached this novel drinking-cup to his lips, regardless of the ruby stream which trickled from the unmistakable hole worn between the sole and upper-leather, the whole party shouted and yelled "Hoch!" with acclamations that seemed to gain strength as the shoe went round. "To the Goddess!" they cried. The "Queen of Song!" the "Kaiserinn of Melody!" the "Nightingale!" the

"Swan of Sound!" Then the shoe was returned to Hemrich, who kissed it and pressed it to his velvet blouse. "My brothers," he said, "this sacred by-my-heart-never-to-be-sufficiently-adored sandal, by the beautiful priestess of the lyrical drama much worn, shall for ever, a precious relic, in my Saxon home be enshrined. Yes, in the name of our dear fatherland, I for ever consecrate it to the recollection of the divinity who has this night with her divine art our ears enraptured."

Then a chair was placed on the table, and the captain of these silly fellows placed in it. Some one had borrowed the hat of a Bersagliere from the landlord, and it was forthwith placed on Von Weber's head. On each side of him stood a student-artist with a drawn sword. The rest joined hands, and danced round the table, pipe in mouth, singing a doggerel song:

Is not this Firenze fair?
Ya, this is Firenze fair.
Is not this a fairy shoe?
Ya, bei himmel, that is true.
Whence arose this star divine,
That on F'renze fair doth shine,
Was't not from our glorious Rhine?
Ya! Fill high this cup with wine (bis).
Drei mal pledge the cup around;
Here no sober calf be found! &c. &c.

When these young men were perfectly hoarse and exhausted with their enthusiasm, those who were not entirely hors de combat, headed by Von Weber, took their departure, singing en route, and ever and anon dancing a quaint measure at the corners of streets, and at length melted away into the two or three not very cleanly or commodious lodgings which had received the whole tobacco-reeking party on their arrival from the Eternal City. The rest slept where they fell, still grasping their pipes, as if they had been swords or battle-axes used in some deadly fight.

Whilst all this scene is being enacted, behold the romantic Bianca Stellini prepares to go to bed! She sits before a looking-glass in a spacious salon of the hotel, pensively regarding her own lovely features. Her long back hair is being combed and brushed by a pretty attendant of some twenty-three or twenty-four summers, whose bright grey eyes, provoking lips, and very retroussé nose, form a portrait so fresh and charming as to attract the eye of the beholder ever and anon for a few brief moments even from the transcendent charms and classical features of her mistress.

"Lor, mum," said this young person, in answer apparently to some remark of the Signora, "do you think so? Well, I know I should never feel tired of such admiration."

"I assure you, Susan," said the mysterious daughter of the Boyard, the child of the Danube or the Rhine, the Circassian or Georgian nightingale, speaking remarkably good English; "I assure you, Susan, I long for peace and quiet, for a little cottage near the seaside in dear old England, and the society only of my sweet little prattler there," and she pointed towards a cot in which a child of some three or four years of age could be discerned sleeping, "your own faithful attendance, and the company of dear Violet to help me to educate our babe. Thank Heaven! I have already acquired nearly sufficient to suffice for all our wants, and with one successful season in London, I shall be able to retire, and for ever bid adieu to the stage."

"Lor, mum!" rejoined Susan, a second time. "I declare I shall be quite sorry when it is all over; for it is so nice to have every one at your very feet, as it were, and the respect with which I'm treated is quite delightful, wherever we go. I'm sure, if I was only to cut off a lock of your hair, or to match it and say it was yours—which might be difficult seeing how fine it is, but then who'd be the wiser?—I could make a Mint of money, that I could. And as for presents, I'm sure many would make fortunes in my place, and do no harm neither. Whatever do you think happened this very night?" and Susan gave way to an irrepressible fit of laughing.

"I don't know, I'm sure," said her mistress, gravely. "I hope you have done nothing very silly."

"Me silly, mum? No, it's the German students. Such a set of madmen I never did see. A parcel of great stupid donkeys, with their rubbish! I couldn't help it, indeed! It's the first time I've done anything of the kind, and I hope you won't be angry. A saint couldn't have helped it."

"But tell me," said the Signora, for so we will call her, "what is it that you have done? I hope nothing very wrong, or foolish; nothing that will compromise——"

"Oh, mum! I am sure you needn't be afraid of me. Look at the offers I have had made for a lock of your hair, a bouquet you had worn in your bosom, an old glove, or any such trifle; and I've never so much as disobeyed you by giving a single thing, when I might just as well have made a little fortune by a parcel of withered flowers instead of throwing them away. I could have robbed even the rag-bag to some purpose, I can tell you. Only you told me not, and I'd as leave have given away any of these ornaments as disobeyed your orders. But this time, it was something of my own! and look what I've got for it." And Susan displayed a piece of gold in a jubilant and triumphant manner.

"What have you been about?" inquired La Stellini, with a little more animation than usual.

"Figgury-vous, mum," replied the maid, "just after you came in to-night, the interpreter addressed me quite politely, and said that a young gentleman was very anxious to speak with me, a Mr. Henry, he said, a great artist from Rome. I thought it was some one who knew us there, and so I said 'Wee, avec playseer, mossoo.' Well, the young gentleman came smiling and bowing, and spoke in German, which is a language I never could abide. Quite a beautiful young man he was, if it hadn't been for his beard and his smoking, which smelt all the place. Well, Mossoo Albert, that's the interpreter, explained what he wanted, and whatever do you think it was, mum? You'll never guess, no, not in a week of Sundays, which to be sure are not much account here."

"Really, Susan," said La Stellini, as we shall in future call Blanche Aubrey, "I shall not trouble myself much to guess. A flower, perhaps, or a bow from my dress. I am getting quite accustomed to this ridiculous homage."

"Not a bit of it, mum," was the answer. "You'll never guess."

"A glove, perhaps?" said Blanche, languidly.

"No, an old shoe!" replied the waiting-woman.

"How absurd!" exclaimed Blanche. "But I trust you did not give him anything of the kind. I shall be exceedingly angry."

"Lor, mum!" said Susan, "you nearly twitched the comb out of my hand. I declare you have made me quite hurt you. I have given away nothing belonging to you, and wouldn't do such a thing for all the world. But as the young gentleman wanted to buy an old shoe, I thought it very hard he shouldn't have one, and I let him have one of mine—that's all."

In spite of some degree of vexation, La Stellini could not help laughing at the ridiculous proceeding.

"If you'd seen him kiss it, and clasp it to his bosom, and turn up his eyes like a dying duck in a thunder-storm, you just would laugh, mum," said Susan. "I declare my side aches that dreadful, that I've been trying not to think of it for the last hour and more. You know those old bronze slippers that I brought from Paris last year. Well, it was one of them. It was an old one, and no mistake; but he said an old one, and so it was all right. And what do you think the interpreter explained to me that he told him to tell me he was going to do with it?"

"I don't know, indeed," said Blanche. "Perhaps to put it under a glass case, the silly young fellow?"

"To drink your health in it, along with a lot more of them mad countrymen of his. 'Mong Dew!' said I, 'hey teel posseeble?' 'Wee, mumselle,' said Mossoo Albert, 'eels ong tray beong carparble.' "

"The nasty fellows!" said Blanche, who could not help smiling; "and so you got a gold piece for that act of deception? I hope you'll never do such a thing again."

"I should think there was not such another donkey in the world," replied Susan. "But if there is, I hope he won't tempt me. I wouldn't mind taking half the money for the odd old slipper, though it is the best of the two. He said an old one, and an old one he had; and what's more, if they're going to drink out of it, it must be mended first. For there was a hole in the sewing you might have put your finger in."

"And they'll say the nasty thing was mine," said La Signora. "Do you know I have a great mind to be very cross with you. If it were not that you really have a very small foot of your own, I don't think I should look over it."

Susan put forth and gazed at her own foot with great complacency. "That's what the gentleman said. He said, 'Oh, the small, the fairy foot of the commanding figure of that divine goddess,' or something like that. My size is fours, it's true enough; but look what a mite I am compared with you."

"I hope you won't part with one of your gloves in the same manner," said the lady, gravely. "My foot is longer I dare say, and so may my hand be, but you split all my old gloves, and I don't think you could wear even my shoes very easily."

Poor Susan's hand was a little dumpy, and she knew it, as well as the remarkable tininess of her foot. The fact is she had worked more than she had walked.

"I won't do anything of the kind again, mum, you may depend upon me. But I couldn't help it this time, as the idea was so funny, and I happened to have those old slippers so handy. I should have left them behind at the hotel, if I hadn't obliged the young gentleman as I did."

"Well," said her mistress "it is a very foolish affair after all, and I am heartily tired of this sort of thing. There will be none of this nonsense in England, at any rate. But I dread going thither I own. What if I should be recognised? I cannot be so very much changed after all."

"Well, mum," said Susan, "you are not so much changed from the time that you were married, except in being stouter like, as you certainly are from that time when—things didn't go right, you know. You're not a bit like what you was four years ago. But, lor! mum, what with the different way of doing your hair, and the paint you're obliged to wear, and the difference in name, and your having been blind, and dead, and all—and not being expected, that is, folks never expecting to see you on the stage or anywhere again for that matter, who ever is to find it out? Not that I would go to any parties, or sing at concerts, or anything of that kind. I shouldn't wonder if lots were to say, 'Dear me! How like some one I have known somewhere!' or 'Doesn't she put you in mind of that Mrs. Aubrey?' I beg your pardon, mum, I didn't mean to mention the name. It came out quite unexpected like."

"But supposing," said the Signora, "that some one in particular should see me—you know what I mean. Do you pretend to say that he would not know me?"

"There's no danger," replied Susan, "from all that I hear; for no one has seen him these three years and more." And she heaved a deep sigh. Had she looked at her mistress, she would have seen a strange and sudden shade, which darkened for a moment her expressive face.

"Oh!" said the lady aloud, but what she thought was another matter, "there is no danger. I dare say he has married again long ago. Another reason why I must carefully guard my secret."

"Gentlemen," answered Susan, "don't change their names when they marry again, and master isn't to be heard of anywhere. Besides, I know better than that. It wouldn't happen—no, not if he were to live a thousand years, poor gentleman! But it's my belief he's gone home, ever so long ago."

"Do not say so, Susan," said the Signora. "I tell you I feel certain that he is alive at this moment, and God forbid that it should be otherwise. The world is wide enough for us both. I should like to be sure of it, without seeing him, and to aid him anonymously if he is in need of it. This is one of my reasons for going to England this year. I shall then retire and live in seclusion, probably in Wales, or it may be the South of France. But I shall first see you married to that faithful fellow, Tops; unless, indeed," she added, "you prefer one of your German admirers."

"Ugh!" said Susan, "none of your foreigners for me. An Englishman is quite good enough for that matter. As for Mr. Tops, I shall see how he has behaved himself. And if I did have a foreigner, it needn't be a German artist, considering I might have married a real Count and Chamberlain to the Pope himself at Rome."

The Signora could not help laughing at this reminiscence. "What!" she said. "Poor Count Greggs le Boshe, who used to show the English visitors the 'lions' of the Eternal City! Why, he was little better than a 'laquais de place,' and sixty years old, if he was a day. He always had a knife and fork and spoon at the table d'hôte of the English hotel, where Lord and Lady Madeiraville stayed so long."

"Indeed, mum," said Susan, "he was quite a gentleman, and would have made me his Countess, if I'd have had him."

"Don't you know, child, that he was an Englishman after all, a bankrupt hair-dresser from the City-road?" asked her mistress.

"Well, if he was an Englishman born, he was none the worse for that," said Susan; "and at any rate he was a foreign Count, and spoke broken English beautifully."

"He was an old rogue," observed the lady; "and what is more, has a wife living to this day, who lets lodgings at Margate, and there is a pretty story about the manner in which he obtained his patent of nobility, such as it is. For the rest, he gained his living as a kind of amateur 'cicerone.' Fancy a nobleman who would pick up a scudo by showing the Baths of Caracalla, or the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, and hiring a carriage for any queer John Bull who couldn't speak a word of Italian. Besides, he only deceived thee, girl! They say he has also an Italian wife and family—an artists' model, or something of the kind."

"I'm sure, mum," says Susan, "it was all stories and jealousy. One needn't believe half one hears in England, and as for them foreign places, where there are so many queer folks mooning about with nothing to do, but to speak ill of everybody, what chance is there of hearing as much truth as a flea could carry in his eye without winking—I mean an English flea, and not one of the monsters in this country."

"You forget," said her mistress, "that it was you yourself told me all these things about the Count, and added that he was a nasty old man; and that you boxed his ears the day we all went to Tivoli, where that handsome Signor Salvi, the innkeeper, was so polite, and told Lord Madeiraville such scandalous stories about the English ladies who went to his hotel."

"Box his ears, indeed!" cried Mrs. Susan. "Of course I did; and should have done it, too, if he'd been a prince, let alone a Count and a Pope's what's-his-name, and a Sticherony and all, if he'd tried to kiss me unbewares. But he apologised like a real nobleman as he was, and said it was the manners of his country, and the wine he'd been taking, and English roses and lilies which he wasn't used to, and he wrote a lot of poetry in Italian—such lovely writing it was, but for all that, I wouldn't have had him, if he'd been fifty times a Count. It was only 'poor passy ler tom.' "

"Upon my word," said the Signora Bianca "your French accent is something wonderful. Hush! there's that dear child awake again!"

"Bless his little darling heart, so he is," quoth Susan; "and it's no wonder neither. What with fleas and musketeers, and the like, I wonder he isn't eaten up alive, I do. I wonder what they'd do, if there was no travellers, for I don't believe they'd touch a native. If they do, it don't trouble the Italians much, that's all."

Little Arthur, a sweet flaxen-haired child of some three years and a half old, was duly taken out of his cot, and kissed and hugged, and talked to as only mothers and nurses know how. The child did not in the least resemble his mother, which was so far fortunate, that it stopped all remarks and inquiries of an annoying character. No one would believe, much less suspect, that he was the son of the Prima Donna whose dark eyes and hair presented quite a contrast to the little fellow's violet orbs and lint-white locks. It was tacitly presumed and understood that the great singer had adopted the infant of a "compatriote." At first she had repelled and combated the idea; but at length fell into it as a kind of thing that was thrust upon her, and not easily to be resisted.

When she asserted that the little Arturo was her own offspring every one smiled, and politely withheld their assent or credence. Aubrey, on the other hand, would have found some difficulty in denying the paternity of the blue-eyed darling, of whose very existence he was unconscious, even if he had not ceased to be conscious of anything, save in the spirit. Ah! who knows if or when an immortal unseen presence is near? Who can tell whether as a boon or a punishment, our souls or spirits may hover near those whom we have loved and still love in this world? And yet more, in certain conditions of mind or matter, does the anxious spirit ever take a visible form or shape through purpose or accident, or does the flesh ever see the spirit hovering near by some abnormal condition unknown to the reason and general experience of man? Where have we read that strange story of one who, travelling on a lonely road in a gig, carrying with him a heavy amount in notes and gold, suddenly became aware without surprise, and, as if it were a matter of course, that the phantasma of his dead brother was familiarly sitting by his side? Behold! two cut-throat desperadoes leap from behind a hedge to attack the solitary man as preconcerted, but quickly start back on perceiving that there are two persons to overcome, and leave their intended victim to pursue his journey, which he does so soon as he has rounded the first turning in the moonlit turnpike-road alone! Are we doomed to the invisible companionship of the dead? Do they watch us, or watch over us, protect or persecute, pity or patronise our actions and remaining lives? Do they sometimes wait for us, and hover round us for a limited period or not? In the intense solitude and silence of a desert island do the invisible and voiceless things around sometimes momentarily burst their spirit-bonds and flash into form and shape, by the mere intensity of volition on their own part, and become gifted with

Airy tongues that syllable men's names;

or is it that we see and hear differently in a clearer physical atmosphere, unclouded by mortal breath, and unpolluted by mortal passions, undeafened by the roar and din of the human crowd? Is it a privilege of solitude, a charter of the wilderness, sometimes thus to hold strange commune with the invisible world?

That night, when Blanche lay with Arthur, who had been disturbed in his sleep in his own little crib, tenderly embraced in her arms, she had a strange dream about Aubrey. She fancied that her love was strong as ever, and that nothing on his part had occurred to destroy it, only that he was removed out of her sight, and that she could not imagine how or why he was gone. Then she fancied little Arthur took her by the hand, and led her through the streets of London, saying, "Let us look for dear papa!" They passed through squalid, busy thoroughfares, but no one seemed to notice or even see them. Suddenly a tall female figure, clad in a white opera-cloak, came by, and throwing back the hood which concealed her features, displayed the stern and mournful face of Lady Courcy. "You are very late!" she breathed into her ear, and passed on. Then her father glided past, and frowned. "You are late!" he shouted, and was lost in the crowd. Then all the busy throng around, on every side, took up the word and hissed, and groaned, and murmured, and shouted the word, "Late! late! late!" Then she ran panting and crying out this sad word, "Late!" until she found herself kneeling by a pallet in an agony of grief, sobbing over a prostrate form. It was that of her husband. "Arthur! Arthur!" she cried, "it is I, Blanche! Look up; do you not see me, love?" Then he slowly turned his face round, and behold! it was of marble, without eyeballs, like that of a Pompeian statue which she had seen in the museum at Naples. Then all was changed, and she dreamt that she was lying by her husband's side, and that he had been unfaithful to her, and the thought was so terrible that she screamed out in her sleep and awoke, and found that he was gone, for ever gone! And with this she awoke, and all the truth rushed over her mind, and she clasped the little sleeping Arthur to her heart, and cried ever so bitterly in the night, as if it had all happened yesterday, and not ever so long ago, before that darling innocent was born.

CHAPTER V.

ROMAN CONQUESTS.

The "Mio Bello," addressed to him by the lovely Elena Fabiani, whispered of ecstatic passion to his soul all night; and the magic gleam of her large dark eyes haunted him, together with the faint odours of the crushed flowers of the Carnival; and all its wondrous pageantry of sight waved round him, like a tapestry, in his dreams, and the music of sweet voices rang in his ears, and he felt like a bemused Bottom, after the blandishments of the Fairy Queen. But the next day he awoke fortunately in Lent, and thought of an Italian mother-in-law, and an Italian father-in-law in a shiny cloak, smoking a paper cigarette, and all the Italian brothers and sisters whom he would have to maintain; and the fleas bit him vindictively into the full remembrance of his Anglo-Saxon birth and skin; and he looked out of the window and saw a procession of monks, and various unsavoury smells greeted him in his early walk; and when he called and saw the Fabiani, in her morning slovenliness surrounded by toute la boutique, his disenchantment was complete, and so our British Romeo bought a plentiful supply of soap and a new tooth-brush at the English apothecary's in the Piazza di Spagna, and left Rome, looking very much like Eustace Tomkinson again.—Recollections of the Eternal City, vol. ii. p. 1.

WE must now take a hurried retrospective view of the career of Blanche Aubrey, since she left her husband, and commenced the arduous study requisite to fit herself for the career of an opera-singer at Rome.

Furnished by her mysterious protectress, who bound her to inviolable secrecy as to their source, with ample and varied letters of introduction at Rome, Naples, and elsewhere, all relating to the profession she had chosen, and with five hundred pounds to draw on, she had commenced, as we have seen, under the old maëstro, and received ample assistance from the eccentric nobleman who had been so struck with her grace and beauty during the early part of her sojourn at Rome. To the maëstro she had imparted the heads of her painful story, that is, that she was separated from a faithless husband, who was not even aware of her existence, and who, in fact, believed that she was no more. Under his advice, she assumed a foreign name, and he took care to publish a romantic story of her supposed Moldavian, Wallachian, or Circassian origin, knowing that the mystery would serve to enhance her fame. Sometimes he varied the story, and thus, as we have seen, a veil of doubt and obscurity was flung over her origin and history, and even the very race from which she was supposed to have sprung. Her extraordinary acquirements as a linguist were of great use in this respect. During her residence at Rome she made but one confidante, and that, by the advice of the maëstro, was her old friend, Lady Madeiraville, a talkative, but kind-hearted personage, who could safely be intrusted with a secret involving, as it did, a fiction and romance with the entire comfort and success of one for whom she had always entertained the warmest feelings of sympathy and friendship. Of course, Lord Madeiraville was included in this confidence; and the friendship and patronage of this distinguished pair were of the greatest service to her, not only during the winter throughout which they resided at Rome, but subsequently through the period of her musical probation; and when she made her debut at the "Tordinone," as the new prima donna who was to entrance the world with a dramatic genius and finished vocalisation which bade fair to make her the first operatic singer of her time. In spite of her dazzling beauty and unprotected state, there was something in her aspect and style, as well as conduct, which kept her multitudinous admirers within bounds. She had been singularly free from insult and importunity. Once a royal personage persecuted her for a brief time; and when his overtures became annoying, and allowed of no mistake, she granted him an interview alone, for the presence of the little Arthur in his cradle could hardly be reckoned as anything. We don't know all that transpired at that interview, but we can aver that the monarch shortly afterwards sent a present of a diamond ornament to the child, and that La Signora was introduced at Court under circumstances of marked distinction, and that particular attention was paid to her by the august ladies of that sovereign's family.

We have no doubt that Blanche knew pretty well the chivalrous character of the potentate to whom she accorded an interview which might otherwise have proved fraught with peril, if not to her virtue, to her good name. There is something terrible in the earnestness of offended genius and beauty, where there is no weakness felt, no arrière pensée, no possibility of surrender; not even the alarm of virtue, but the declaration of regal Purity that the very thought of familiarity, the hope of conquest, is an insult to be pardoned to a full repentance alone. Never in her most striking histrionic pose, never in her most triumphant roulade of song, had Blanche appeared to such advantage as on this occasion; and when the royal libertine apologised, and in trembling accents asked if he might be permitted a place in her friendship and esteem, it was a man who asked pardon of a queen. From that moment, somehow or other, it became rumoured that the beautiful songstress was utterly unapproachable by the roué gang from highest to lowest. Then came offers of marriage innumerable. Half a dozen Italian princes looked upon her as a splendid source of income, and laid their titles, sans fortune, at her feet. Sir Bampton Nogs, our valuable ambassador at Naples, a little bald fellow with expediency and compromise written on his otherwise meaningless face, implored her to embellish his third era of widowhood, and restore respectability to his diplomatic palazzo. Austrian counts and barons offered her their manly "appui" in the matrimonial line, without proposing to deprive the stage of its brightest ornament. A Yankee who had "struck ile" asked her to make her home in the land of the setting sun, and grew somewhat abusive and personal at her refusal to share his dollars and partake of the pumpkin-pie of freedom under the protecting shadow of the American flag. To be rejected by a mere cuss of a "singing-girl," he felt as a personal affront from the Old World offered to him, Hon. Buffalo Humpville Slockdologer, as a representative of the New, in the face of the almighty creation; and he immediately penned an alarming article in the "New York Times," recommending instant hostilities with Europe without a declaration of war, which was hereafter destined to be known as the "great Slockdologer doctrine of conquest." Nor was France unrepresented in the competition. There was a short, podgy, and very unpleasant man of thirty, who might have walked out of a Regent-street cartoon of "Punch," with hair like the bristles of an old blacking-brush, who stripped himself to the waist when he took his fencing lessons, and displayed a chest like a door-mat, who had fought several duels, and who was an Anglophobist of the fiercest description—this valorous personage fell into a perfectly disinterested fever of adoration and frenzy of passion for our heroine. We will do him the justice to say that he had not a scintilla of sordid calculation beyond a game of dominoes in his whole composition, and he loved as a haughty chimpanzee might be supposed to regard the object of his affections with a tropical sentiment and jealousy poivrée à l'Indienne. When M. Emile de la Grenouille-Jardinière heard that the Signora was ill of fever, he watched the house for days; when she was recovering, he spent, for him, a reckless amount in purchasing the most expensive flowers with which he waylaid Susan and the child. All this was touching and tender enough. But a dangerous and tragic phase succeeded. He got introduced to her receptions by a musical friend, and insulted a young Italian, the Marchese Picchino, in the grossest manner, and ran him through the body in a hostile encounter, in a truly ferocious style. Poor little harmless Picchino, who only just managed to survive his wound, was one of those Italian nobles who, having been frivolously reared without any worthy object in life, was full of small devices and tricks, such as grown-up children amuse themselves with at a Roman soirée; and it was his ardour and familiarity in showing the Signora some slight effort of legerdemain which aroused the demoniac wrath of the inflammable son of Gaul, who called him cochon and Savoyard, and brutally spat in his face, so soon as they had left the hotel-door together. M. Emile thought he had done something to recommend him to the Signora's favour, but he soon found out his mistake. He threatened to shoot himself, and she sent for him as she did for the royal personage, and read him a lesson, which rather altered that fiery little disagreeable Frenchman's views.

"Listen," he said, soon after to a military friend, Le Capitaine Achille Billard, of the Fourteenth Regiment of the Line. "I am not poltron, I; but that woman it is an angel I tell you. She has made me shed tears like a veal. She has spoken to me of my mother, see you? She has recalled me a remembrance so soft. I had a mother so good, so tender, who loved me. Eh, well! What will you? I fight me no more in duel. I will not more cut the throats of the English. Henceforth, they are my brothers, for is she not my sister? Angel of Heaven! she will pray for me. Hold, my dear Billard. This poor Picchino! he has also a mother of whom I have withered the soul. I go to place myself at knees at her feet, to say 'Pardon, madame, pardon to this crime terrible, to this penitence enormous—pardon to him who comes from assassinating your son.' Ah! but he will re-establish himself, I swear it. The medecin me it told. God be praised, he will live. And you, my dear Achille, who go in Africa to fight you against the enemies of France, you will spare to the mothers affectionate their sons when you shall be victor, is it not? for so she wills it—she of whom I am so perditiously (éperdument) amorous, of whom I shall guard the remembrance even to the tomb," &c.

"Decidedly he is mad, this poor little Emile," said Le Capitaine Billard to his brother officers that evening. "What shall we do with him? He will make himself monk. He is capable to become devout enough to make himself voyage as missionary, to be eaten by cannibals in praying them to become good Catholics, whilst he would wish to be not so tough, for their sakes. The amiable farceur—it was a good boy, and he fenced well, my word of honour. But now, sacred name of onion soup! it is finished of him. Go, my children, and above all do not become fatally amorous of an empress, or anything of that chic, when there are so many good little women in the world."

There was one thing which really did alarm Blanche greatly, and made her very anxious to quit Rome. This was the persecution of a sallow and cadaverous priest, who followed her in her walks, whenever he had an opportunity, and uttered the most frightful maledictions and imprecations, because she would not pause and listen to his atrocious suit. This sort of thing was not quite so easily put down as in England.

Indeed, the friends whom Blanche consulted advised her to take no notice, especially as she was not a Roman Catholic. This repulsive being haunted the Pincian Hill and Villa Borghese Gardens; and if any one else came within hearing, with the exception of Susan, and Blanche's young English friend, he would change his mingled blasphemies, maledictions, and entreaties, for prayers and beatific expressions. This holy man was difficult to deal with. It would not have done to horsewhip him, and he defied the law.

Even M. Emile would have been puzzled what to do with such a rival. His sainted mother would never have counselled him to lift his hand against the Church. Altogether there was something so unholy and "uncanny" in the proceedings of this terrible priest, who would have done credit to a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe, and who did not hesitate to threaten the object of his attentions with physical assassination as well as spiritual torments, if she refused to listen to his plaint. As for Susan, she came home one day and had a fit of hysterics, about which there was no mistake. So the whole party were glad to quit Rome, and leave the priest to the enjoyment of his own society on the Pincian, until a Swiss governess was unfortunate enough to come within the radius of the tentacles of this human Pieuvre, and her mysterious and terrible death thrilled through the bosoms of all the forestieri then resident at or visiting Rome. Pauvre Mademoiselle Louise! We think we see thee now in thy dark blue dress, and "chapeau de paille," guarding thy convoy of small children of the aldermanic famille Wiggins, staying in the Via Ripetta at that time. We see that gay young Englishman leap from his horse, and run after thee with thy parasol left (was it accidentally?) on the seat where thou hadst been sitting thinking possibly of the Lake of Geneva, and thy cousin Victor, Chasseur d'Afrique, at that moment bivouacked near Constantine. We see him return the parasol, and then grasp an armful of roses which he had feloniously climbed up the lattice-work of yon Palazzetto to obtain. Then dost thou relent and smile, and then dost thou engage with him in animated conversation. The next day and the next, at that hour, I see you both, and also the children of the famille Wiggins. But Satan has entered your eight-day paradise in the likeness of that horrid priest. He follows and anathematises you. What a singularly unpleasant interruption! In vain does the young Englishman shake his fist, and tell that minister of religion to go and count his beads elsewhere. The charm is broken. The timid Louise saves herself, as the phrase runs. The priest remains master of the field. The next day Louise does not come; nor the next after that. The young Englishman goes to Naples for a month, and on his return learns that she has been foully murdered. One evening she went out alone, and was found strangled on the banks of the river. The famille Wiggins does all that it can, which is not much, to discover the assassin, and then leaves Rome, scarcely to regain its equanimity east of Clapham Park. The young Englishman sees the priest no more in the Borghese Gardens. The boa-constrictor hides himself under the sacred vestments of his order. The Englishman does not know his name. He tells his story at the sham British Consulate, and is recommended "silence." He tells it elsewhere, and is advised to quit Rome. He is very indignant, and the next night is stabbed from behind as he is descending the Piazza di Spagna through the entire cover and leaves of a Russia leather pocket-book, which was in his breast-pocket over his heart, and a note of the circumstance being thus made on every page of his diary, he determines to take the hint and the diligence together, and bid farewell to the Eternal City for a time.

CHAPTER VI.

SOME UNPLEASANT TRUTHS.

To see England as it really is, one must go to a distance, and look through another atmosphere. There is too much noise of traffic and self-laudation there, and too much moral and physical fog. Besides, if you stand still to philosophise in so crowded a country, you will very likely get tripped up, or knocked down.—Letters from the Acropolis.

THERE is slavery and slavery in this world, tyranny and tyranny, injustice and injustice, hypocrisy and hypocrisy. The conduct of the priest, described in our last chapter, was very bad, and the system which protected him worse; as the whole is greater than a part. But, let us think a little. Have we nothing to condemn here? There is the Reverend Jabez Howlingcad, say of the pleasant suburb, where the famille Wiggins deems itself at length safe and protected from harm. Of what depravity has he not been guilty. Behold! At length he is found out. Oh, the hideous wolf! Are not the hounds of justice on his track? They have caught him, and he is merely out on bail. But hear his witnesses to character, observe the impediments which legal cunning places in the road, to trip up that blind, old, besotted

British Themis of ours. Here is a witness in straitened circumstances bribed not to appear in court. There are a brace of friendless servant-girls painted as depraved monsters seeking the ruin of a godly man. One of these wretches was not even born in wedlock, and the other once stole a cake when she was four years old. Can a jury of church-going cheesemongers convict on such evidence as this? The Reverend Jabez Howlingcad is acquitted amid the cheers of a full court, and his victims are prosecuted, and sent to a Penitentiary for five years. The congregation of the Reverend Jabez present him with a silver tea-service and a new Bible, and he becomes more popular than ever, as a persecuted man. They would have done it, if he had been proved guilty of sitting in the vestry upon the face of a new-born babe. Hypocrisy thick, slab, and unctuous, and legal fiction, cunningly made use of, carry all before them in England. Surely, we are free to pretend as much as we like, and to defend iniquity, so long as our money lasts. Else what would be the use of liberty, money, and the law? It would not do to horsewhip a priest in Rome. No! But can you even threaten with impunity to chastise an attorney who has tampered with your wife and robbed you (with due legal precautions) in England? Certainly not. There, the Pope and Superstition reign. Here, Mammon and Hypocrisy are supreme. There, a confessor purrs like a tame tom-cat about your house. Here, a scaly solicitor lubricates you with his saliva, and swallows you, land, houses, hereditaments, personal property, and all, as his legitimate prey. We mentioned just now the "Pieuvre" made famous by the genius of Victor Hugo. Have we not here the great inky cuttle-fish of the law? What difference is there in the result, whether your daughter is seduced by her confessor, or whether ruin and misery, entailed by systematic fraud and villainy, drive her to something worse than death? Where are flesh and blood so cheap as in England? Where is oppression so morally ramified, coercion spread so net-like over a land? "What!" cries an optimist, "do you dare to say this of free England?" "Free!" to do what? To express opinions, and act upon them? Well, scarcely, in a state of society in which Sydney Smith declared that no one can afford an independent opinion who has not 1000l. a-year. Not free to tell the truth?—yes, a little somewhat, if you can be content without disciples or listeners; but not free to wear rags and beg. Ask that policeman! Free, then, in Heaven's name, to do what? The strong to perpetuate abuses, and the weak to starve and die, though not to commit suicide, if arrested in the act. You must not, freeman as you are, presume to cut your own throat clumsily, or it will be sewn up at the expense of the parish, and you will be condemned to hear a sermon without sympathy on the enormity of your crime, and be remanded to die properly of starvation, which a cynical coroner, with blasphemy more awful than your fate, calls the "Visitation of God." Strike off the manacles from yon cowering slave! Has he not landed at Dover, under our immortal Shakespeare's Cliff? Eh! what? That black vagrant convicted of destitution? Put him instantly in gaol! "Please, sir," said an emaciated lad, in our hearing, the other day, to a "worthy magistrate," before whom he was brought previous to emancipation, for the second time, after receiving "a month" for begging—"please, sir, what am I to do?" The lad was incapable of work—he was too weak, he was in rags, penniless, and ill. Ahem! The question was a puzzler. What could he do, save beg again, and get another month? "It is a pity," privately observed to us afterwards our stipendiary friend on the bench, "that the Government does not avail itself of this raw material of beggary and starvation, to provide the nation with sailors." "Yes," we replied, "training ships would certainly not cost much more than the costly machinery of your office, which barely serves to keep down the predatory classes to a certain level, but may not suffice always to do even that. But the fact is, that the ship of the State has grounded on her beef-bones of waste and extravagance, and cannot be got off without a 'strong pull, and a long pull, and a pull altogether.' " We don't think he quite understood the meaning of our figure. There is a sad lack of common sense as well as humanity in this free and commercial country.

For us, we are content if these pages cause one man who has the power and will to work for the national and universal good, to pause and think, whether this great country, foremost in the van of civilisation and of science, this mighty atelier of rags, and cotton, and linen, and coal, and iron, this laboratory of adulteration, this populous school of cant, this mart of imposture and commerce, of knavery and trade, this attorney-ridden community, this home of smug and satisfied corruption, this land of lordly palaces and ghastly crowded tenements, of want and crime, of churches, cathedrals, and printing-offices, of schools, and workhouses, and gaols, model gaols, and early graves—whether, in short, this Great Britain of the nineteenth century is rendering a fitting account of its national stewardship to Heaven; whether it is performing its vast mission worthily; whether it invites retribution, or is fitting to be saved! We know by whom and what we shall be condemned for that which we have written throughout this book. It is "morbid," it is "exaggerated;" "the writer is suffering from indigestion, disappointment, bile;" he is "a turgid declaimer," an "ill-conditioned enthusiast at the least." Yet, is it not true, O Heaven! And being true, shall it not be said? Any writer is allowed to describe it retail, by instalments as it were. One may paint a number of persons consisting of the 'unconvicted felons' of Society, and approach, as nearly as the genius of the author allows him, the terrible reality of the newspaper, which we read weekly or daily. A depraved parson, a villainous lawyer, a profligate nobleman, a dishonest merchant or clerk, a doctor who poisons his patients, nay, his wife and father, for that matter, are stock characters, merely admitting of variation in the portraiture of modern English life. Only one must not say, "This is English Society," and, above all, "This is England." It is nothing to speak of a seducer who battens on virtue, or of a roué who withers on vice, or even of a score of them if you please. Only do not attempt to point a legislative moral, whilst you spice your social narrative with such characters. Do not say, "Such we, or you, are, noble Britons, glorious people, chosen children of commerce,

Nation of glib hypocrites
Eating rottenness like mites,"

unless you would be figuratively stoned. Nor do we who write this utterly despair of amendment and regeneration. Only it is useless to attempt to patch the body-politic. Neither police nor punishment will put down the "social evil;" they cannot even anticipate the garotter's clutch. There are thousands of honest persons in all classes, mute mourners over the decadence of England—thousands who deplore a state of things which renders it difficult for honesty to live, thus adding unwilling neophytes to the unpublished calendar of corruption and crime. The chief need is a MAN, a single uncorrupted and incorruptible statesman, whose views are sufficiently sound and broad, and whose brain does not run to seed in empty words alone. Not a reformer sprung from abuses, to whose talent the upholders of the system have only adroitly to adjust the exact reward, so that the means of bribery are not wasted in vain. Not a drab demagogue, not a crotchet-mongering fanatic of decline. Better the Dantons and Robespierres of Revolution than these; for out of Revolution a nation may rise again, but out of the fustian cowardice of compromise and connivance, the insincere and many-sided bargain-driving "patriotism" of the day, there is no new life to be had. Better the blighted topmost branches of the aristocratical tree, whence some green leaves still put forth in semblance of delusive hope, than the rank weeds and undergrowth which rear their base heads from the polluted soil made rich with the sweat of over-taxed and over-worked labour, and the artificial manure ground by ten thousand whirring mills out of starved mechanics' and children's bones. Faugh! merchant-princes, indeed! ever striving in vain to make gentlemen out of their sons. When trade and manufacture have reached that point, that a self-made bankrupt merchant's bond is no better than his word, a prince of such creation is the most sordid of imaginable tyrants, as Mammon was the least elevated of the spirits in the Pandemonium of the poet's dream. A merchant prince's son! say rather a born black-leg, who fails only from want of wit to compete with the professional scoundrels of the Turf:

Non his juventas orta parentibus
Infecit æquor sanguine Gallico,
Hoc fonte derivata, pestis
In patriam populumque fluxit.

Let us hope, we still say, that a man, such as we have suggested, may arise for England's redemption and fame.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH THERE IS AN ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE THE PRESS.

If Heaven foredoom that in the martial field
The flashing sabre's hilt I ne'er may press,
In ink and gall be steeped the arm I wield,
Not thus, I trust, to serve mankind the less.

Translation from André Chénier.

WHO was Mr. Edgar Leslie, at present staying in Florence, where he is busy enough, at least in appearance, and what may his occupation be? And how came Miss Violet Grimshaw to be companion to the Signora Bianca Stellini? From the manner in which these young persons are conversing in a salon of the Signora's apartments, we should imagine that they will not object to being mentioned together, and their position, prospects, &c., discussed and ventilated in the same chapter of this history.

We have seen Mr. Leslie before. He has changed his name, but without any formal announcement. He has made great progress on the Press. He holds rank in the great army of the Fourth Estate. He is not a general, nor even a colonel, but he may fairly be considered to have won a field-officer's rank. He has described battles, that young man, which is as much as fighting them, and sometimes more. He is own correspondent of a daily London paper. He has even now come on a special mission to Italy; and fortune, wielding the interests of the journal with which he is connected, has detained him at Florence, that is all. It is not his Capua. There is for him a great attraction there, it is true; but he would leave at an hour's, nay, a quarter of an hour's notice, were it his duty to do so, without wishing any one good-bye. He keeps all his bills paid to the last possible instant ready to start. He has his linen washed by instalments, in case of sudden departure. He has left shirts and other articles of under-clothing all over the Continent. His name has become celebrated throughout Europe and America. When he returns to London, at least one hundred gentlemen, foremost in the ranks of information and knowledge, will invite him to a congratulatory banquet. Edgar Leslie, as we shall always call him in future, got early into the literary and journalistic grooves, which Aubrey was unable to accomplish. Leslie commenced young, was duly apprenticed to the art, learnt short-hand, which is to journalism what a knowledge of book-keeping by double entry is to a mercantile clerk: he began at the beginning and worked steadily up. He accommodated himself to the market, and wrote for a long time only to demand; consequently, after a due period of probation, anything which he may write will command a ready sale. Some day or other, perhaps, he will publish an ambitious work; will enter the lists as an original writer; a novelist, historian, dramatist, or even poet—who knows? Even should he fail in reality, his productions will not fall dead—they will command attention, and be believed in, until they are found out. We do not yet know whether he has genius, or is possessed even of a high order of talent. But he is a very clever fellow, on the high road to success. He is considered an authority upon most things—poetry, painting, the drama, the arts and sciences, moral, ethical, religious and political matters. Doubtless, he does know a great deal. But the craft of journalism is, while saying what you do know about a thing, neatly to avoid confessing or showing what you do not know. If you don't know exactly where Trebizonde is, you needn't say so; if you don't remember its name, you call it an Eastern mart. If you forget, or never knew a certain authority, you write, if you would quote a saying which you do know, "A celebrated writer has said," &c. If, on the other hand, you can call to mind the author, but cannot correctly quote the saying, you write, "Every one is familiar with the aphorism of Grotius, or the observation of Seneca," just indicating or hinting at whatever it may chance to be. Then, what opportunities you have of displaying your knowledge? You can work the exact distance of the Georgium Sidus, if you happen to know it, into an article on street-begging, the Reform Bill, or soldiers' wives. You may spin a yarn upon almost any topic, and connect it, in a wonderful manner, with the subject you have in hand in the closing sentence of your leading article. You can turn to an encyclopædia, a gazetteer, a Lemprière, or your own note-book, and illustrate a subject in the most elaborate style. There is no one to check this natural flux of information. What a marvel of erudition a man is considered who pours forth a perfect cataract of such knowledge in leaded type down a column of a daily paper upon a topic of the day! How few think of the sources of the supply. But the foreign correspondent and "commissioner" must draw largely upon his own actual resources and intelligence. True, he cannot easily be contradicted; and if he is, it is generally when the interest of the subject has died away, and nobody cares whether he was right or wrong. Still the republic of letters is the greatest and most powerful in the world, and journalism is the chief human solace, instruction, ay, and hope, of mankind. We have indulged in a smile at the cataract of pseudo-learning, the manufactured torrent of words. Hold! let us bow in wonder before the mighty roar of the steam-press, whose combined engines might drown the thunder of Niagara itself. Look! where in mystery and in darkness ten thousand flame-eyed genii work! Listen to the whirring of their wings, the snorting of their nostrils, the hiss of their fiery breath. Behold! how in a night the multitudinous thoughts of men are gathered and sown in marvellous order, and bound in iron frames, and in the dawn of the morrow the white sheets blossom covered with the magic of printed words, and are spread broadcast thick as snow-flakes, or the myriad leaves of Nature's autumnal diary tempest-blown over the land. Yet after all these are no great immortals, no Titanic flame-breathing spirits, no "lubber fiends," who are busy in this wondrous task; it is the growth and spread of daily human intelligence collected, organised, uttered, and sent forth by human means. It is only the newspaper and periodical press of civilised humanity worked by the perseverance of mortal energies, bending and using to its purposes the material agencies of fire, water, earth, and air—spelling industriously the first letters of the alphabet of the fifth and all-pervading element, electricity, in the dim vestibule of the Temple of Science, in order to achieve new triumphs and outmarvel the Present and the Past. Out, imp! avaunt, thou little ragged pest! Yet stay; what says he? " 'Times,' sir, 'Standard,' 'Telegraph,' 'Daily News,' 'Star,' or 'Post,' 'Glowworm,' sir? sixteenth edition!" Ha! ha! Come hither my intelligent little man! How many editions did you say? What! eighteen? Two more, since he last spoke! What is the last latest news? Hem! "Mr. Bright at Cottonopolis, by electric telegraph. A man's eye knocked out by his wife. Latest news—A mad bull in little Trinity-lane! Four children born in a garret in Spitalfields. Suicide of the father! Birth of an infant princess. Great rejoicings! Last job of the Admiralty. The Fleet supplied with Quaker guns by a Birmingham firm. Review of half a battery of field artillery, by H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief, at least five hundred troops on the ground. A lunatic in Parliament." Surely, child, thou wilt not palm that on me for news. "Mr. Gladstone's Irish conciliation scheme. Abortion of

Lord Nambypamby's Bill to provide for the Sabbath instruction of the monkeys in the Regent's Park."

Surely much of this intelligence might have kept a week without injury to the public or private interests of the community! We must take the evil with the good, the sham with the real, the empty with the solid, the loss with the gain, assured that there is gain and progress, enlightenment and improvement, additional freedom of thought and action, through the Press. Stop! thou blue-aproned fiend, busy torturing those meek-eyed baby beeves in that hideous, revolting way—thou greasy cattle-market Caligula! thou infernal inquisitor of the shambles. Stop! Hold thy abhorred hands, which would crimson Bethesda itself. Take off those red gloves, we say, which look as if thou hadst purchased them for the slaughter of innocence from a murderess in a fancy bazaar of Pandemonium itself. Nay, thou hast neither ruth, nor comprehension of mercy in thy suety soul. But we read our newspaper, and we will eat no more white veal. Arrest yon executioner's arm! Legally, that patriot-martyr deserves death. In the eyes of God and humanity, and State-wisdom, no! He shall not die. A hundred pens are busy writing his reprieve in the Press. The minister dares not sign that death-warrant. He has glanced over the morning journals, and sees that it cannot be. There is a copy of a newspaper blotted with tears on the breakfast-table of a palace. Were that life taken, hundreds and perhaps thousands of deaths would follow. The corpse of Emmett still bleeds. Years ago, we ourselves aided to start a newspaper agitation, which saved a hero from a felon's death. He lived to clasp us to his heart, and has lived to win name and fame, the meed of valour, and the admiration of mankind. In the mean time, a grisly troop of abuses have gone to their graves sentenced and executed by the Press. The hand of the Press shall yet burn the scourge which brands with infamy and dishonour the soldier's back, and remove the foul stain of indecency from the barrack-room, where the wife of his scarred bosom sleeps. The Press will be champion and advocate still of starved needlewomen, and unwilling Magdalens hounded on by necessity to shame; of the overworked and ill-paid mechanic; of virtuous Sabbath recreation for the poor; of the ragged school child's summer draught of fresh air; of the aged and infirm pauper, and the street pariah, who might be apprenticed to a saving and prudent State. The economies of modern State-craft are the dry crusts stolen from the cellars and garrets of the poor, and sold to the rag-picking fiend, that the rich may be more rich. The withering sarcasm and invective of the Press shall expose this heartless and hollow parsimony, and inaugurate a better state of things. Yonder minister makes a false statement in the Senate. Straightway fifty burning articles arraign him before the country, and he is driven out of office by the force of public contempt. The Press is the guardian of our liberties, the avant-garde that apprises us of danger, the beacon-light and look-out, the averter and rebuker, the warder and warner against evil in whatsoever shape. The Press will work for better homes and higher rewards for humble industry; for the honest and righteous appropriation of charities and beneficent trusts; for the unmasking and unveiling of hypocrisies, and the spread of education and Christian toleration, and sympathy over the land. And, oh! if it would raise once again the banner of St. George against the fell scaly dragon of legal iniquity that annually devours the hearts and lives and substance of so many; the pestilential brood of Chancery and attorneydom, the venomous wriggling monster of the law, and all those haunts and dens of mischief including Lincoln's Inn, and Temple, Gray's Inn, and substantial brick-house with brass knocker, in the country town, United Law and Law Clerks' Institutions and all, and give us in their place a code, and not a devil's maze, justice, and not an atrocious farce, the open, fair, and high-minded Advocate, depending for practice on his successful intelligence, unblemished integrity, and good fame, and not the corrupt mystery and bonded brotherhood of fraud, artifice, contradiction, robbery, and crime, which now makes the "law" a stinking byword in the apprehension of all honest men, then what a debt of gratitude would not England owe to her enlightened Fourth Estate, what blessing could reward the boon conferred on Britain by an independent and enlightened Press?

In point of rewards and emoluments, with rare exceptions, the newspaper Press in this country does not hold out temptations to the aspirant of a particularly solid or seducing kind. On the contrary, its pay is limited, and its honest patronage small. Nor is its anonymity very captivating to an ambitious mind. But, on the other hand, what conscious power, what glorious self-approval to lead, and mould, to improve and reprove, to influence and raise our fellow-men! What charm in the hidden hand of the leader writer—what delight in the majesty and influence of the editorial chair! What heart-felt gratification in knocking down the tottering edifice of some wretched abuse! What soul-felt pleasure in strewing the path of duty and heroism with flowers, and in shaking a tyrant's throne.* Edgar Leslie had thought out this inspiring theme, this solace of midnight toil. In early youth he had wished to be a soldier—he now preferred the intellectual ranks, to be a moral engineer of Progress, a mental pioneer of the army of freedom and thought. Long since he had addressed himself in the spirit, if not the words, of André Chénier, which we have prefixed to this chapter.

[*This, like the rest of the book, was written some five years ago, and the author has not thought fit to change the date, or bring his story down to a later period. But never in the history of the newspaper world, since Nathaniel Butter published the first English journal, the "Weekely Newes," on the 23rd of May, 1622, never since old John Walter, in 1788, issued his reasons for calling his journal the "Times," in that wonderful address of his, down to the present era of the Press, was such an arena opened out to journalism as there is now. At this juncture, the highest efforts, the noblest aims and endeavours of the Press, are claimed and called for, not by England alone, but by civilised humanity. Scores of daring correspondents have accompanied the French and Prussian armies in the field during the late portentous struggle, and the result of their perils and labours has been such a word-photograph of horror and suffering as the thoughtful, the educated and intellectual, the good, the gentle, and the humane of mankind have never before seen. The war correspondents of 1870-1 have not exaggerated—for they could not—the wickedness and wantonness, the "abomination of desolation," the cruel butchery, the pathetic sorrow, the horrifying and touching incidents of the late rapid and sanguinary campaign in the neighbouring land of France. Amid the painting of these scenes of carnage, words of solemn warning have been uttered sometimes involuntarily, and sometimes with deep meaning, and deliberate intent. These warnings have counselled preparation to England. They have solemnly abjured her to arm, not for aggressive purposes, that it is needless to say, but to protect her own soil from a visitation such as France has experienced. No Chorus of a Greek Play uttering a foregone conclusion in prophetic phrase could more clearly designate the awful catastrophe that may await this country, if she continues to grudge the requisite insurance against fire and sword. Therefore, let no one mistake the meaning of that which we are about to say. Let England be armed, and her moral backed by her physical influence; and then, let her Press join with that of other countries in the highest and holiest mission of enlightened humanity. Let its text be the Curse of Cain, and let it strive calmly and philosophically and with dignity, yet ardently and eloquently, to write down the practice of wholesale homicide and murder, in which despots and statesmen, and venerable monarchs, invoking the name of the Most High, indubitably triumph and delight. If the monarchs will not listen to reason and true religion, the peoples surely will, and their voice must in the end prevail.

Neither the people of Germany, nor the people of France desired this sanguinary war, whose daily chronicles curdle the blood with horror. Yet how little of the dread immensity of carnage can each single correspondent relate. A human marmalade of flesh and entrails, with shattered bones sticking out like cherry-stalks, and mingled and mashed with parti-coloured rags of uniform, and this ghastly sight extending for miles, and seen for hour after hour, is an epitome of a single description of the route around Sedan. Whether it was king or emperor, craft of Bismarck, or folly of Ollivier, that prepared this evil sacrifice, it was not the peoples' work! In France, or rather Paris, a few abandoned wretches hounded on Zouaves and Turcos to the work of death. In Germany, the passions of the masses have been aroused during the struggle. But the rulers decreed the war. And now, what do we behold? A scene to make the angels weep. These things should not be; and to prevent their future recurrence, must journalism labour, early and late, in the task of enlightenment and the instruction of mankind. But first the Press of England should teach the English nation the utter futility of moral opinion and of the wish to avoid war, unless prepared to command peace and dictate humanity to the world. Alas! Britannia is now unhappily only represented by her comic journals in her right guise, leaning on a cannon, with drawn sword in hand, and the martial frown of undaunted resolution to do and dare all rather than yield. For we are now yielding all to the base expediency of compromise, which will rather hurry on than defer the day of final sanguinary destruction and doom. Note, April, 1871.]

Young Leslie could never have been a mere military machine, even in his country's service, and at the bidding of her government. He must have known that the cause was good and the war just, in which he engaged. Otherwise he would have been wretched, and might have appeared even a coward. Yet in the performance of his duty of chronicler of campaigns and correspondent at the seat of war, he had more than once merited a medal for valour and humane daring in the field.

Such was Leslie—such the career he had chosen—such are many of the men who form at this moment the Advanced Guard of British journalism. Intelligent, devoted, ready, brave, and accomplished, graphic in his narrative, fertile in the imagery of the pen, modest and self-reliant, conscientious, honourable and upright, what better and nobler mission could he have chosen, what happier and more felicitous profession!

Even the correspondent of a daily paper has time—at least once in his life—to fall in love. Besides, it is a thing so soon done. Edgar Leslie, however, was not the man, had his leisure been pastoral, to fall in love more than once in his life. Let us hope, then, that his chance was good. It was certainly not prudent in a worldly sense; for the young lady had no money, and no expectations whatsoever. A newspaper writer fortunately is seldom a man of luxurious views and habits. He can, and does, marry on three or four hundred pounds a-year. Even if he goes to dinners and parties, he is not expected to give many in return. He has great opportunities of affording his wife some luxuries which much wealthier ladies cannot or do not attain. He has tickets and admissions for operas and theatres, balls and entertainments of every kind. He is generally a welcome guest. He mixes in the most intellectual and delightful society, that is, if he chooses to go into Society at all.

In placing his children out in life, he can ask many things for them, which he could not independently solicit for himself. Every one likes to oblige a journalist, if he can. But we should not recommend a vain, frivolous, extravagant woman to marry a writer dependent upon his pen. In one sense, the girl on whom Edgar Leslie had fixed his affections was admirably suited to him—not in one sense, but in all save one, the absolute impecuniosity in which she rejoiced. We say rejoiced advisedly, because she was so exceedingly happy at this time. At Rome she met the Signora Stellini, who recognised in her little Violet Grimshaw, her former pupil and favourite. Poor Violet was then what Blanche herself had been, a governess in a vulgar and upstart family of rich "snobs." They met on the Pincian Hill one afternoon; and Blanche, as we will now call her, saw at a glance her position, and determined to rescue her from it if she could. She accordingly sent her a note requesting an interview. At first the British matron, who commanded the "young person's" services, demurred. But Blanche sent Edgar Leslie, who had been introduced to her in his professional calling, and with whose intelligence and amiability she was charmed, as her ambassador, and Leslie was not to be refused. At least, he acted like an accomplished diplomatist, and bribed Mrs. Minnifey with an opera-box, and was wicked enough to pay some delicate attentions to that lady's eldest daughter,

Georgina, who was not a beauty of Giorgione, but a Gorgon of ugliness and conceit. "Miss Grimshaw," he said with truth, "knew a family in England with whom the Signora had formerly been intimate, and she wished to make some particular inquiries," which she did. Blanche had seen in an English newspaper the failure of Grimshaw's speculations recorded in some bitter remarks on his career and death. Her heart had yearned to little Violet, and she regarded their accidental meeting as a special and most providential occurrence. Having speedily arrived at the conclusion, that her ci-devant pupil was wholly unspoiled, and as ingenuous and sweet a girl as she had promised to become, Blanche determined at once to confide to her such particulars of her history, as she deemed prudent and wise. She said nothing of her attempted suicide and rescue, as Violet had never heard the tale.

"And now," she added, smiling, "if you will come to me, I will promise you that whilst I live you shall never want a home. I shall engage your services as my companion, dear child, and offer you double your present salary, without fear that I shall be guilty of an extravagant act. I am apprehensive that you will have to stay a month longer in your present abode; but if my friend Mr. Leslie and I can devise any scheme for an earlier emancipation, you may be sure that we shall do so."

Mr. Leslie did devise a scheme, which we shall narrate in the ensuing chapter, as it deserves one for itself.

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. MINNIFEY MEETS A LORD.

"I hate lords," said Bob Smith to us the other day, "because I'm not one of them. But, oh, lord! if I were, that's all! I shouldn't care for much money; one hundred pounds a-year would do just for washing bills and tolls (say eighty-five pounds, since turnpikes are now so nearly abolished). I would live, sir, on the substantial adulation of the middle-class English public—live, like a lord! I would ride tradesmen's horses, drink shopkeepers' wine, kiss their commercial daughters when pretty, get their vulgar cheques cashed, and borrow their dirty 'tin.' When I got old, and bien rangé, I would ennoble some Sarah Anne, make her my salle-à-manger, d'ye see? Not so bad, eh?—for a lord."—From the Note-book of Solomon Trustall, Esq., LL.D.

MRS. MINNIFEY was a little woman in a constant state of fuss and perspiration, and with a red nose and a profusion of false curls. What took such a woman to Rome? What takes half, nay, three parts, of the travelling British public abroad? It is a national epidemic under which we labour; one of the symptoms of the general softening of the British brain. Mr. Minnifey had made money, and had daughters. Other people went to Rome—the Browns, for example. Miss Minnifey sang in a truly first-rate style to an accompaniment on one of Erard's best pianos. At least, if she did not, her father had been swindled; for he paid a "sight of money" for the accomplishment, as he told his friends. He was the only person in the world whom that young lady refused constantly to oblige, when he would ask, after his afternoon's nap, for a tune on the "pianner." It is due to Miss Minnifey to say, that she acted under her mother's authority in this objection to gratify her paternal parent. It was part of the elder lady's system to snub her husband in all his inclinations. On this occasion she had sent him to Margate during her continental trip, and engaged the services of a courier by way of male protection. There was one droll little figure the less in the Piazza di Spagna, and one on the Pincian Hill—one English marionette the less in the foreign medley abroad. In one thing Mr. Minnifey would not have offended; at least, during his first continental trip. He would not have worn the fag-end of his wardrobe, and dressed himself in a costume between that of a cockney disciple of Izaak Walton as depicted by "Punch," and a bagman out of work. Foreigners have lately discovered why so many English rush abroad. It is to wear out their old clothes! Mr. Minnifey was much more comfortable at Margate, and Margate was much more comfortable with him, than Rome could possibly have been.

It happened that Edgar Leslie knew a lord. This was a youthful British autocrat, who drove a four-in-hand and hunted at Rome. He was very good-natured, and fond of fun. So Edgar let him into the secret of the Signora's desire for the immediate liberation of Violet from her house of bondage.

Lord Wallowby was introduced to Mrs. Minnifey in due form. He took Miss Minnifey to see St. Peter's on his arm, whilst Edgar and Mrs. Minnifey walked behind. When they entered the sacred fane, Miss Minnifey fell into raptures about the statues, the mosaic work, and the grandeur and wealth of decoration of the whole building. It was this, or any part of it, plus the attentions of a lord, which made Miss Minnifey hysterically poetical and loud on the occasion.

"Yaas," said his groomy lordship, in answer to her demand whether the "coo d'aile" was not sublime, "dollops of marble, ain't there?"

Such a remark from a nobleman who had been at Oxford, if he had not taken his degree, was not intellectual, nor elegant, nor sensible; but Miss Minnifey pressed his arm to her side, and whispered:

"Ah! see, see, my lord!" by which she meant an Italian mode of expressing her accordance with the sentiments which he had uttered.

My lord, however, did his spiriting admirably, so far as the Minnifeys were concerned. He dined with them, made outrageous love to the daughter, talked a mixture of stable slang and drawing-room commonplace to the mother, and after dinner said to the latter, suddenly:

"What a doosid pretty gal your governess is!"

"Do you think so, my lord?" was the answer. "I'm sure we never found it out."

"Dessay not; but she's devilish fine eyes for all that. Regular thorough-bred one, I should say." And his lordship actually walked over to where the governess was standing, and spoke to her, leaving Mrs. and Miss Minnifey aghast.

"Oh, you low, mean, artful, designing hussy!" she said to herself, or rather thought.

At that moment Edgar Leslie addressed her. "Ah!" he said, "Mrs. Minnifey, I am charged with a message from the Signora Stellini. You know she leaves Rome almost immediately, and that she is about to rob you of Miss Grimshaw, the daughter of her old Staffordshire friends. Well now, could you kindly manage—of course, if it occasions you no inconvenience—to dispense with Miss Grimshaw's services at once; that is, in a day or two? But, perhaps, she will see you herself at Lady Madeiraville's to-morrow night?"

"I 'ave not the honour," says Mrs. M., "of Lady Madeiraville's acquaintance, or else I'm sure——"

"Oh! the Signora is sufficiently intimate to ask you; that is, if you'll dispense with a formal invitation," was the ready reply. "Wallowby!" (to that young nobleman) "you'll be at Lady Madeiraville's to-morrow night?"

"Don't know, I'm sure, unless these ladies are going," replied that wicked young Corinthian "pillar of the State." And he strolled over to the other side of the room, where Miss Minnifey was sitting in offended dignity, enraged at the insolence of the "person," meaning Violet, and studying the bitterest insult she could offer her, so soon as the guests should be gone.

It was a strange repetition this, of a passage in Blanche Aubrey's own experience as a governess in the Grimshaw family; but both sketches we have given of the treatment these young persons received are, we fear, but too common in the families of the wealthy vulgar.

Mrs. Minnifey had now two courses before her. One was to get rid of her governess at once in the manner proposed to her, and go to Lady Madeiraville's party on the strength of it; and the other to keep Violet for the month, in which case she would take care that the impudent minx should not make her appearance before company again. The last plan included vengeance and torture. But Edgar had calculated well on the bait he had thrown out. To be invited to the reception of a peeress and ex-cabinet minister's wife! It was too much to lose.

"When," she said, in her blandest tones, those in which she had been accustomed to address the customers in her husband's ironmonger's shop, "does the Signora Stellini leave the Eternal City for 'ler beller Firencey'?" by which she meant Florence, we presume.

"Dopo domani," replied Edgar, rather maliciously. When ignorant persons affect to speak in a foreign language which they do not understand, they deserve to be answered "after their folly." As the lady merely stared at him in reply, he added, "The day after to-morrow, I believe."

"Then," said Mrs. Minnifey, "tell the Signora Stellini, with my compliments, that my governess. Miss Grimshaw, will be at her disposal early on that day, and I'll speak as to the young woman's character when I see her at Lady Madeiraville's to-morrer evening. Between you and I," she said, "I don't think she'll find her a very suitable person; but, of course, she knows her own business best. You may mention that she has twenty pound a-year with me, and finds her own washing. It's a good deal more than many ladies would like to give her for all the good she is, you know. I mention this, because I should not like her to impose on the liberality of a furrener."

It was with a strong effort that Edgar conquered his indignation and disgust. But he had learned early to check the display of his feelings in a somewhat severe school of training.

"Very good, madam!" he said, "I will acquaint the Signora with your kind determination. Come, Wallowby," he said to the young nobleman, who was languidly amusing himself by trotting out the confiding daughter of the house of Minnifey, late of the Victoria-road, Pimlico. "Come, Wallowby, I am sorry to tear you away, but I think you are scarcely aware of the hour. The time files by so rapidly, when——"

He had not the face to finish his sentence, which made it all the more effective. As for Violet, she had been banished on the first opportunity, after Lord Wallowby had spoken to her. There was no chance Edgar saw of her coming down again. So he and Wallowby bade their adieux in a most gushing manner, both to "mare and filly," as the young lord called the pair, as soon as he got outside the door.

"And a beauty she is," he said; "rather gummy about the hocks I should think. I say, old fellow what are you going to stand for this? A 'mezzo caldo' and a 'Polonia principe,' is the least I'll take. Not bad that about the principe, ay? You can put that in the next 'special' if you like."

The Principe Polonia had the monopoly of Roman cigars at that period. We are afraid that attenuated joke did find its way into the columns of the "Morning Blight." But not through Edgar Leslie; since that was not the journal to which he was attached. The fact is, that his lordship went about for a whole week asking all his English acquaintances for a cigar, in order to indulge his humour at the expense of Polonia, tobacconist and prince.

CHAPTER IX.

A STORY THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.

"Marry without love?" I never said anything of the kind, young man. But there are plenty of nice girls with money as well, whom you can love just as much, if you don't see the necessity of being a fool, sir, a fool! And I'll tell you what, sir, the love that comes after marriage is of a much more enduring quality, than most of that which goes before. The woman who runs away with a man is just as likely to run away from him, when she takes it into her head. Of course, your case is different from all others. "An angel," eh? Why, sir, they employ two hundred in the pantomime at Covent Garden alone! And what's more, they look it every night for three months at least, and yours wouldn't last out the honey-moon, no, nor a week. There, don't stare as if you would knock down a grey-headed old man. God bless you, my dear boy, I wish I could be such a happy young idiot again. "Married at Gretna Green?" Of course I was. But that's no reason why I shouldn't give you good advice, which I never knew a young man take yet, and don't expect I shall at my time of life.—Precepts and Examples.

SO Mrs. Minnifey lost the only attraction of her house either to lord or commoner, and an admirable and patient "gouvernante" and companion, or rather "help," at the low figure of twenty pounds a-year. If any one doubted to what extreme the malignity of baffled vulgarity can go, they should have heard Mrs. M. speak of Violet afterwards, that's all. Ah! if the generous, and the good, and pure-hearted only could know what is said of them, and imputed to them by the instinctive hatred and mean jealousy of sordid beings, it would sometimes astonish, even if too absurd and far-fetched to shock their minds. Yet a chance shaft will sometimes wound and rankle. A Feejee Islander, watching the operations of an astronomer, is not wider in his surmises of the truth than base souls are in their estimate of the actions, motives, and even language of those whose virtues are above their intelligence, and beyond their ken. Mrs. Minnifey knew Violet to be the daughter of a bankrupt, and vaguely attached something of dishonesty to her character. "Ah!" she would say, "it will come out some day." What that it was, it might have puzzled her to define. She actually looked upon the gentle, innocent girl as a creature of the predatory class that ought to be kept under. "Set her up, indeed!" she would say, a phrase which means, if it has any specific meaning, that if such-and-such a person were "set up," the speaker would be very happy to knock him or her down: but if once "set up" fairly out of reach, then vulgarity and malignity readily change their tone; as, for instance, after the marriage of a governess to a lord. Long after Mrs. Minnifey knew that Violet was married to an untitled individual, she intimated her belief that she was Lord Wallowby's cast-off mistress. "A very intimate friend of ours at Rome, you know," she would say, "although I have heard he was sadly gay; but you can't wonder at that, for his father was a great friend of George the Fourth, quite intimate, I assure you." This was meant to be an excuse for the modern Wallowby's peccadilloes.

"Well, if noblemen will be noblemen, it is no reason why bankrupt people's daughters should throw themselves in their way. I am sure if I had been the Countess of Poldoddery, his mother, one of the dearest old ladies I ever knew, and not a bit of pride about her—I should have been quite concerned to have seen such goings on. I should very soon have taken him out of her way, had I been in her ladyship's place, I can tell you. And that girl, who hadn't three dresses to her back, sent her salary to a riffraff brother in London, as soon as it was due. I call it shameful, that's what I do."

It is astonishing what different views different people take of the same things, and how a few paltry circumstances will guide these views. Mrs. Minnifey had one of the tenderest of hearts, as she and many of her friends said: she was an original subscriber to the "Refuge for Deserted Cats," and "them all the dissolutists of Toms," as her own housemaid, one of the most impudent girls that a workhouse ever sent forth, observed. Mrs. Minnifey would weep over Thaddeus of Warsaw, as many better people have done before her; but she would persecute a poor, unprotected, beautiful, amiable girl with the bitterness of an enraged fish-fag to the death.

Happily, however, Violet found a home, a friend, and a lover, all at once, and like the delicate flower whose name she bore, breathed the fragrance of life, and light, and joy again. The Signora did not leave Rome for a week longer than she intended, owing to the earnest prayers of the impresario of the Tordinone Opera House.

During that week, there were excursions to Tivoli and Albano. During that week, Miss Minnifey was disenchanted, and Cinderella had her innings of bliss. As for Mrs. Minnifey, she told the domestics of the hotel in the loudest tone, every morning, on the stairs, that she was not at home to Lord Wallowby, long after that horsey young patrician had ceased definitively to call; nay, we must speak the truth, after he had, to use his own polite phraseology, "cut the old girl as dead as a herring," in the Corso, twice in the same afternoon. We could not find it in our hearts to excuse such rudeness on the part of a nobleman; but for two or three little hateful traits of character which the ex-ironmonger's lady had displayed. In the first place, she condescended to cheat Violet out of nearly a quarter's miserable salary, as the last three months of her services had not been completed by a few days when she left. In the next, she sent a vindictive verbal message to the Signora's house, after she had seen Violet radiant and happy in an Opera-box, and seated by the brilliant artiste's side in her daily drives. "Mrs. Minnifey's compliments, and would be glad to know, if the young woman as was governess hadn't taken away a pearl brooch, and a valuable Hindian shawl by mistake?" Of course, these things had never been missing, but had been purposely hidden by that vulgar and vindictive matron. Of course, a suitable reply was sent back and an apology demanded and enforced. Are such things possible? Yes, we have known such a woman deliberately bring false charges of robbery against the poor servant whom she had ill treated and starved, in order to avoid payment of her wages, and out of general malignant spite, whilst her viperous daughter assisted her in the horrible treachery practised against the characters of girls dependent for their food and existence on their good name. We have known, we say, such a bloodless vampire of domestic life, who preyed in this manner on relays of hapless girls, whom an evil destiny betrayed into her unhallowed clutch.

Blanche took good care that Violet should never hear of the brutal outrage of which the enraged Mrs. Minnifey had been guilty. But, even if she had known it, we question whether such drop of vulgar poison would have mingled with the contents of that cup of joy which made her last week at Rome one exquisite holiday of delight to her young orphan soul. Just two days before the Signora left for Florence, she paid a farewell visit to Tivoli, where the whole party remained that night at the Albergo of the Signor Salvi, so well known to tourists of every land. After dinner they took a moonlight stroll, and the Signora was easily persuaded to pour forth the thrilling melody of more than one exquisite cavatina and Neapolitan barcarole. On that occasion Edgar and Violet lingered a little behind the rest, and then he passed his arm round her slender waist, and told her that oft-repeated tale, which is ever fresh as the bloom of roses, that blush in summer time anew. Has not every rose a separate beauty and a separate life? Is not every first love a fresh rose in a new world? Did anything worthy of life or its records ever exist, so far as they are concerned, before the declaration of the last young true lover to his chosen love? Was not the world made and pre-ordained for them up to that precise moment, when, in the conscious fulness of ecstatic joy, they bless all things, and unconsciously bless God? Surely to love entirely and perfectly is the supreme obedience of the soul. It is a moment of profound wisdom, for we should, indeed, be unwise to forego it, considering that it can never come again; and of profound folly, for we are never so silly in our lives, especially if a third party be witness of the ridiculous scene. It is a brief experience of such perfect bliss, that we are not sure if two human beings actually exchanging the first kiss of first love, ought not instantly to be slain. They never can be so happy again. They may live to repent, to hate each other, to repeat the emotion second-hand, and degrade it into a mere imposture and pretence. They may live to make love like the beasts of the field, and something infinitely worse, when settlements and income have to do with the surrender of maiden charms. First love has no second thought—it has nothing to do with the world, except so far as skies and stars, and seas and flowers, are concerned; the murmur of streams, the song of birds and a convenient trysting-place, where that delicious nonsense, so superior to the highest philosophy of this earth, can be talked and whispered, unobserved by all the human race—especially an angry father, or a plotting mamma. To be sure, there are a variety of first lovers and first loves. There are some who obey the great law of nature blindly and without much inspiration. There are men who waste the aroma of existence upon coquettes; or, worse still, there are girls who lavish the bloom of life upon libertines or fustian scoundrels armed with tinsel sentiment and Cupid's artificial slang. There is, alas! that we should say so, the love hight calf. He is generally slaughtered on the altar of Anteros, the false god. Your male calf of this description grows up, too, not unfrequently into dissolute maturity, or a respectable commercial animal of the domestic kind. But when the first love of two tender and impassioned beings is worthily exchanged, and fortune is propitious, when these two combine the best sentiments of Moore and Burns, and not only "climb the hill (of life) together," but "love on till they die," the Paradise of two such young persons is somewhat antedated, that is all. Such lovers were our Edgar and Violet; and when the first kiss of their love was exchanged, a serpent in the rustling foliage near them raised his scaly crest and flat head with an unnoticed hiss, and glided swiftly out of their neighbourhood into the darkness afar.

With what pity did the lovers regard the interlocutors in a conversation about love that evening round the supper-table.

The Signora herself had declared that she feared that it was almost impossible to find two persons blest either by circumstance, or themselves, with a pure and prosperous love to the end of human life.

"Perfectly impossible!" quoth Mr. Howard, an old English gentleman, who lived chiefly on the Continent, and enjoyed himself without a home. "There is no such thing. I confess it to be my notion of a possible state of happiness hereafter. There may be a sort of humdrum connubial felicity between persons without imagination. But we don't take stock of these in the High Court of Cupid."

The Signora sighed. She, at least, had found in her own experience, that the best apparently secured happiness may be destroyed by a ruthless kick at the conjugal talisman.

"Love," pursued Mr. Howard, "is Boyhood's Religion, Manhood's Doubt, and the Scepticism of Old Age." And he looked round triumphantly as if he had settled the question by an epigram, such as it was. "Your love-match is always a mistake," he continued. "You might as well attempt to light the cigar of felicity at a catharine-wheel."

"No doubt," said Edgar, laughing, "in the view of those who are content to look upon smoking and travelling by vetturino as the true solace of life. For my part, I believe that all, save love-matches, are dowered with misery. They commence with self-humiliation, and end with outrage, or a frigid compact and treaty of contempt."

"Love-matches commence with poverty very often," replied Mr. Howard, "and end with hatred and disaster. Let love—such as should be in the sensible union of sensible people—come after marriage. There is some chance then that it will last."

"No!" said the Signora, "I am convinced that among all false proverbs there is none so false as that. Love may come after marriage, but then it is seldom for the husband or the wife."

"And pray," said Mr. Howard to Edgar, "since you have spoken of travelling, what is life save a journey and an ache? A tooth-ache, an ear-ache, a stomach-ache, and a heart-ache—every sort of ache? Time is the coachman who drives faster every succeeding stage, whilst his passengers get stiffer and stiffer in their limbs. Those who travel most, see most, and thereby at least live longest in sensation. Those who remain at home, do one monotonous stage over and over again. The last inn is the sign of the 'Jolly Sexton.' At the houses of refreshment on the road, those who have money have seldom any hunger and thirst, and those who have are generally without the means. Depend upon it, man is best alone on such a journey. Who would travel with brats?"

"You wicked old bachelor!" cried Edgar. "Continue, and condemn yourself for ever in our eyes. What about friendship?"

"Friendship," replied the cynic, "is a fragile structure, built of visiting-cards, blown down by the lightest breath that frames a request to borrow ten pounds."

"And what are your views of future happiness?" rejoined Edgar. "I am inclined to think that a man who does not believe in love must be an atheist."

"A promissory note," was the reply, "drawn upon eternity, and made payable nowhere. Belief is the interest at blank per cent. In one respect it is like a railway insurance ticket. You must be destroyed, before it has a chance of being honoured. And who knows whether it will be found upon you after death?"

"Go on!" replied Edgar. "I like to know the complete notions of a man who does not believe in love."

"In love! yes, but what is love?" replied the other. "A double selfishness, a vicious tumult of the imagination. Its passion does not elevate us above any of the animal race. It is not proof against small-pox, age and poverty, nor will it survive possession. Reciprocal love is next to impossible in a permanent state. Supposing a man and woman to be created for each other, how are they likely to meet among nine hundred millions of souls. Depend upon it, a man never meets with his ideal. Ideal is the contrary to real. All the great love-stories of the world are founded upon tragedies and comedies of error. Besides, a man never knows what he really likes, until he gets too old. When the judgment becomes mature, if it ever does, it is time to die."

"Nay," said the Signora, "you do not hear of the happy marriages. It is their very essence not to court publicity, not to be known or thought of outside the domestic home. I feel that all you have said is nothing, and that you do not believe in it yourself."

"I do not, fair lady," was the gallant reply; "but I thought these young people might learn something from me" (looking at Edgar and Violet). "I wished to show them what a dreadful example a man may become who has missed his own chance of happiness, and envies that of others. Nay, I believe that at some period of their lives the worst human beings are capable of love, which is the greatest argument I know against eternal punishment."

"Then," said the Signora, "you have been imposing upon us all this time with these atrocious sentiments of yours. I hardly know what punishment to inflict."

"Alas! madam," said Mr. Howard, in a tone which set all laughing, "I was sufficiently punished when I first saw you. Then, indeed, I met at last with my ideal of perfection, and no one can pretend for a moment that my devotion met with the reciprocity which it deserved."

"Do you really think there is any truth in what that horrid old thing said?" whispered Violet to Edgar, just before they parted for the night. "Because, if there is—if you could ever—— Oh, Edgar! tell me, speak!"

"It is not worth an argument," said Edgar. "We know it is false—at least I do; do you not? But, if I must really tell you what I think——"

"Oh! yes, yes!" was the answer, as she clung imploringly to his extended arm.

"Then this is the only answer which I deign to give." And so saying he caught her to his heart, and imprinted a fervent kiss upon her lips.

It was wonderful what exuberance of style and diction, what an ecstatic réjouissance of thought pervaded a letter which appeared in the paper of which Edgar Leslie was foreign correspondent a few days after that date. He wreathed the well-worn monuments of classic Rome with laurels and roses, strewed the Appian Way with flowers, and pictured the liberation of the Eternal City by the illustrious Garibaldi in a manner truly delightful to read in the prosaic counting-houses of London merchants and City men.

CHAPTER X.

ON THE BANKS OF THE ARNO.

Nella quale dopo la dimostrazione fatta dall' Autore, perchè cagione avvenisse di doversi quelle persone che appresso si mostrano, ragunare a ragionare insieme sotto il reggimento di Bianca si ragiona quello che più aggrada a ciascheduno.

Affinities, Sympathies, Attractions, Coincidences, and Dreams have more to do with the moulding of our every-day life, than the most superstitious would like to confess. One thing is certain, which is, that the greatest men and those who have exercised the most powerful influence over their fellow-mortals have been particularly susceptible to the influences of the mysterious middle-world and of the dim and fantastic revelations of that Crepuscule of the soul half-way between the midnight of utter Knownothingism and the dawn of Eternal Light.—Œuvres de Polyanthe, tome iii. c. viii.

"WAS there more mesmerism, more subtle electric influence at work, more supernatural development, in the earlier days of the world? If there were, might it not account for many of the features of the heathen mythology, its miracles and oracles, its visions and revelations, its gods and goddesses, lares and lemures, fauns and satyrs, nymphs and dryads, and the general peopling of inanimate nature with semi-divine or demoniac existence, from the 'parting genius,' sent with sighing from his haunt at the dawn of the Christian era, to the larvae skulking about some lonesome tomb? In the Middle Ages you have it still, though in a far wilder and fainter degree. By-the-bye, have you ever read that most exquisite poem of Thomas Hood, the 'Plea of the Midsummer Fairies?' How thoroughly unappreciated was the nobler genius, the better half of that man, the last great poet, with the exception of Tennyson, whom England can boast. And Tennyson is completely sui generis, and all his host of imitators ought to be kicked."

Such was the manner in which a young and good-looking gentleman, of some twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, rambled on, to a mixed party, chiefly of English, seated at a picnic in the grounds of a villa about half-way up the mount that was crowned by the ancient city of Fiesole.

The spot had been well chosen for the purpose which had brought that goodly company together. It was a level space surrounded by marble benches, so arranged that in the sunniest day of August they were more than half in shade. A wall of live oak, with the crisp shiny leaves that distinguish that tree, rose to a height of some twenty feet, and was scored out at intervals in the shape of niches to receive statues of Ceres, Pomona, Flora, and others, which thus became silent but not inappropriate spectators of the rural feast.

The outer ridge of the platform was protected by a balustrade, also of white marble, on which appeared vases of the same stone, of the graceful Etruscan form, bearing dwarf aloes, which might have been coeval with the vases themselves, so little attention do they need in that genial atmosphere.

Although the grounds continued for some distance beyond this spot, no more of them were visible, and the eye travelled on right across the Val d'Arno, till it lighted upon the fair city—Fiorenza la bella—and the picturesque mountains on the other side of the valley.

The air was so clear that he who knew the topography of the city might have pointed with his finger to its many palaces of historic fame. But to the glance of the least learned were revealed the richly-tinted Campanile standing beside Brunelleschi's dome, the bold steeple of the Palazzo Vecchio, the square tower of the Bargello, and further to the right the rugged façade of the Palazzi Pitti. these stood out in sharp relief from the surrounding buildings; and beyond the city—forming an admirable background—appeared the heights of San Miniato, Poggio Imperiale, Bello Sguardo, and Monte Oliveto, whose very names were suggestive of the loveliness of which they possessed so large a share.

And over all was one of the clearest of Italian skies; the air was rich with the perfume of orange blossom, jessamine, and the subtle-sweet gaggier; the green-backed lizards ran swiftly in the sunshine, and from a grove hard by the nightingales poured forth a flood of song.

The conversation, commenced in the way shown, at the opening of our chapter, fell, as it is often wont to do, upon spiritualism, supernatural visitants, and such topics. No one in answer to the first speaker attempted to advocate any of the would-be copyists of the Tennysonian school, which went far to show that there were no pretenders and impostors present.

"Upon my word, Mr. Leslie," said a pleasant old gentleman, with white hair and a fresh colour, "I think we are in danger of reverting to both heathenism and its mythology at once. No superstition of the Middle Ages approaches, in my opinion, in delirious folly this mania of spirit-rapping. I can't say that I have seen anything extraordinary myself, save the credulity and imposture connected with it. Have any of you?"

The response was in the negative. Every one knew somebody who had witnessed the most marvellous things.

"All I know is," said the first speaker, "that I have assisted at two séances, one amateur, the other professional, and found both utter failures. The latter was at the chambers of a late eminent journalist, in the Temple. The chief male professor was a kind of spiritual Yankee Squeers. He had with him the most weird-looking youth I think I ever saw as a medium. He looked like an imaginary Edgar Poe's corpse stolen by resurrection-men and galvanised especially for the occasion, or Paganini's youngest brother, kept awake for a fortnight by the fiendish cruelty of his brother, who had played to him the whole time a fantasia del diavolo on one string, and wouldn't let him sleep."

"But poor Paganini himself," interrupted Miss Violet, "must have been awake all the time, too."

"Matter-of-fact young lady," cried Leslie, laughing,

"was he not a supernatural personage—at least on the violin?"

"Well, as I was about to tell you, the whole thing was a failure, and the professor's wife scornfully told us that the 'sperrits was angry with such a blasphemious and unbelieving lot,' as we were. The livid youth with long hair had only impressed us with pity for his forlorn and imbecile state. We wondered if they starved him, and whether we ought to interfere. We held a brief séance of our own in the next room, when it was put to the vote, whether the professor and another man of the party ought not to be kicked down-stairs. But the majority agreed that it would be a breach of good faith and hospitality, as he had been invited to come and show us what he could do. So we paid him and let him go, with a caution, I can tell you. The amateur affair was worse. It was at a small literary club. There was collusion at the table, and two if not three dupes. I soon saw the artifice, and at first assisted in the fraud, and then turned the proceedings to fun. There was much talk of a certain cold hand which was to appear and touch the cheek of the chief dupe. But it didn't. If it had, I should have grasped it, had I thereby upset table and all. I have no doubt that it would have turned out to be a wax hand at the end of a wire. The room was darkened. I left them about four o'clock A.M., and never felt more disgusted in my life at the wickedness and folly of the whole performance. Very soon after, the young man whom I have called the chief dupe, and who was gifted with remarkable but precocious talent, died. His whole nervous system was upset.

"Perhaps he took opium, or other stimulants," said the old gentleman.

"Very likely," responded the other.

"Well," said La Stellini, whose English was pronounced with a slightly foreign accent, which imparted a peculiar charm to the rich tones of her voice, "I for one admit that I am exceedingly superstitious, especially as regards omens and dreams. I would not sit down one of thirteen at table if I could help it."

"And I never walk under a ladder," cried Sir Robert Warkworth, a young English baronet.

"And my English maid wouldn't break a looking-glass for the world," said the Signora, looking towards Susan, who was playing at a short distance with little Arthur.

"Very proper superstition that," said Mr. Howard, the old gentleman, who had already spoken. "I wish that servants would extend it to drinking-glasses, and especially old china. Let us encourage that superstition by all means; but I'll tell you a story just now about thirteen at table, a singular coincidence which I witnessed myself."

"Let's all tell a story," cried Violet, clapping her hands; "that is, every one except me, for I don't know a single one, I declare. You shall tell one for me," she said to young Leslie. "Won't you?"

"In this light and this cheerful society, I don't mind it," said La Stellini; "but I object to ghost tales at night, especially when one is going to bed in a spacious and old-fashioned room. Allons, messieurs! Come, Signor Edgardo, you shall begin."

The party crowded round the young journalist, who, casting a look at Violet, as if to see that she was sufficiently near to insure his perfect felicity, commenced:

"Once upon a time——"

"Oh, that won't do, if you please," interrupted Violet, "it must be quite a modern story, and perfectly true."

"Well, then," said Edgar, "I will try again. My grandmother was a woman of the strong-minded school——"

"Bother your grandmother!" said the baronet, "with all due respect, I mean, but that's much too long ago."

"It must be a story," said Mr. Howard, "about something which has happened either to yourself or some one whom you know say within the last thirty years."

All laughed at this margin, extending, as it did, some five or six years beyond the age of the proposed narrator.

"Well, then," responded Edgar; "but it must be a melancholy story, you know."

"You can't easily have a funny ghost-story, if it is true," said a young lady. Thus duly admonished, Edgar Leslie commenced his tale, and told it exceedingly well. As, however, it was one of a somewhat common type of "real" ghost stories, we shall not give it here.

The usual comments were made about it, and everybody tried to explain it in the usual sensible way, with the exception of the Signora, who looked unusually pale.

"I see," said Edgar to her, "that you are not a sceptic; and yet I dare say there is not one of these bold unbelievers who would like to pass the night in a church, or even in a picture gallery, alone."

"Faith! I should think not, indeed," said little Major O'Reilly, an officer of the Pope's Noble Guard at Rome. "My grandfather, for his sins, once got locked up in Westminster Abbey all night. I don't know what took him there at all, seeing that he was a Catholic, unless it was a pretty girl that he had followed in, maybe to convert her; but I believe he saw a sheriffs' officer outside the door, as he was coming out, and he went back and stayed there so long, that he got fastened in."

"And what happened to him?" "Was he frightened?" "Did he see anything?" "I should have gone out of my senses." "What did he do?" were some of the various questions and remarks made by the ladies of the assembled party.

"The divil himself wouldn't have frightened Pat O'Reilly," said the major, "unless he had come in the likeness of a process-server with a writ. What did he do? Why he whistled and sang; and, as he had plenty of leisure, I dare say he tried to come to a conclusion whether he liked fair ladies or dark best—which is what I once tried myself in quarantine."

"And what conclusion did you arrive at, major?" asked the Signora.

"Well, ma'am," replied O'Reilly, "I found it depinded entirely on the complexion of the angel I saw last."

"And did nothing happen to your grandfather, then, after all?" inquired Violet, in a disappointed tone.

"Tare an' ouns! I ask your pardon, miss, for the expression; something did happen to him, that very nearly prevented my telling you the story; for it was a mercy he ever lived to marry my grandmother at all, at all."

"Do tell us, major, did he see anything?" asked Violet.

"He saw so many things, my dear young lady, that it was a miracle he ever set eyes on a sheriffs' officer again. I tell you he was chased all round the building by——"

"By spectres and hobgoblins, of course?" said Edgar, laughing at the major, who was quietly taking his snuff at this exciting point of his story.

"Spectres!" said the major, derisively. "Daymons, is it ye're after? I can tell you he'd rather have been hunted in that place by all the bailiffs in England, with the Lord Chancellor at their head, or a pack of jealous women led by Biddy Flanagan herself, to whom he promised marriage at Ballyhoolagan, than be hunted as he was."

"But what on earth was it, eh?" asked Mr. Howard.

"It was just getting dark," said the major; "and my grandfather had got tired of walking round and looking at the statues, and the inscriptions were getting too dim for him to puzzle at them any longer, and so he laid down very comfortably in a nook, said his prayers, crossed himself, wished for a pipe of tobacco, and went to slape like a Christian gentleman."

"Well?" they all said.

"He awoke, fancying something was tugging at his toes, as he said, like the ghost of the gout, and perceived the moonlight streaming in through the windows, and casting fantastic shadows around; and then he heard a strange gibbering, squeaking sound, and a number of dusky forms were scurrying and hurrying about, and darting from point to point. They were——" Here the major took another long pinch of snuff—"what do you think?"

A pause ensued, when one young lady timidly suggested "Vampires," and another, "Ghouls."

"The ghosts of departed sheriffs' officers and sponging-house keepers condemned to play at prisoners' base," suggested Edgar.

"It's not exactly there I'd look for them, anyhow," observed the major, dryly. "Can't any of ye guess?"

No one responded, and the major said, "What d'ye think of rats?"

"Rats!" cried the ladies with one breath.

"Rats! by scores, and hundreds, and thousands! for all I know," was the answer.

"How horrid!" "Whatever did the poor man do?" "I declare I should have fainted," &c. &c., were the various feminine exclamations heard.

"It wasn't my grandmother, luckily," said the major, "or it's very likely she would. My ancestor had very little time to deliberate. As far as he could judge, the enemy were mustering, or holding a council of war. Before he could well clap his hat firmly on his head, and get up, the whole body charged him in column. Helter, skelter, one over another, score over score, by sections and companies, with small shrill fierce squeaks, on they came, and off he went, round and round the building; more than once he slipped and almost fell. Then he nearly broke his neck by catching his foot in some projecting part of a recumbent effigy. Never was such a chase before or since, as a mad Irishman hunted by a legion of rats in the ould abbey that night. Now and then he felt them leap against his legs, but he couldn't stop to kick out—he hadn't breath to spare to shout, and if he had, it would have been useless. Suddenly, as he came round in the broad light of the moon opposite the side from which she shone upon that frightful but fantastic race, he perceived——"

"What!" they all cried, male as well as female listeners this time.

"That the rats had divided their forces with infernal generalship, and that he was met by a column in front."

"Good Heavens, sir!" said Mr. Howard, who had got excited, "how then did he manage to escape?"

"He was a fine young active fellow, who had taken an eagle's nest in the Kerry mountains in his day. He paused a moment, kicked out desperately with his riding-boots left and right at the foremost files of the enemy, looked around him, saw in an instant that he had stopped at the foot of a lofty and emblematical monument, made a dash at it, and in a moment was seated triumphantly with his legs firmly clutched round the neck of an effigy of Fame or Britannia rewarding some defunct hero with a stone or marble wreath. The rats came swarming up and actually reached his feet. He managed to pull off a boot and kept hitting the topmost with it, until they got tired of the game. Nor did he, I assure you, lave his perch, until early dawn. I don't like to state anything that is not perfectly true; but I was told that my ancestor having dropped the boot, after a vain effort to draw it on again, the rats carried it off as a trophy, and that he consequently cut a quare figure in the morning when the abbey doors were opened by the astonished vergers. Had he met with a sheriffs' officer then, he would have found some difficulty in retreating."

"Couldn't he have taken off the other boot?" asked Edgar, thoughtfully.

"Is it really true?" inquired a young lady of the party.

"My grandfather said so," replied the major, "and few men liked to dispute his word. He did fight one duel with a professor of natural history from Dublin on the subject."

"How was that?" asked Sir Robert.

"Well, you see the professor showed some symptoms of unbelief. He had formerly been demonstrator of anatomy at St. Thomas's, which may have had something to do with the matter. But the professor apparently gave in at last, and they were about to drink each other's health—the discussion took place in a tavern, you must know—when an unhappy incident put an end to a peaceful solution of the matter."

"And what might that be?" inquired Edgar.

"My grandfather asked the professor, who was a bit of a wag it would seem, what liquor he preferred, and he answered 'Ratafia.' That settled the matter. They met in Battersea Fields, and my grandfather, who swore his adversary should never wear both boots again, shot him in the left knee, and thus kept his promise."

"But are people—I mean other people—ever attacked in this way? Was any one ever really eaten?"

"A few choristers and charity-boys occasionally, I believe," said Edgar, "who get locked in at play; but they are supposed to have run off to sea, and no one cares to inquire about them."

"Don't be such a wretch," said a young lady.

"I did know a case," observed Mr. Howard, "where one of those miserable beings who get their living by raking the sewers in London, suffered his light to be extinguished, or had the misfortune to drop his lantern. Nothing was found of him the next day but his bones, his implements of work, and a box of Holloway's ointment. The voracity of these creatures is only equalled by their intelligence."

"It was a tacit rebuke to the memory of the deceased Lord Aldborough," remarked the incorrigible Edgar.

"Or rather a voice from the sewers," added Sir Robert. "Come, Mr. Howard, you've finished your cigar. Give us your story of the thirteen at dinner, and I'll tell you an anecdote of the Temple, for the truth of which I can vouch. I don't mean the Temple at Paris, Signora!" he said to La Stellini, "but a sort of bachelor residence of barristers, avvocati, you know, in London—a very romantic place, I assure you, where adventure abounds. Imagine the license of the barrack combined with the educated subtlety of the law, and you can form some notion of what it is. A cloister without monastic restrictions in the heart of London; quaint old edifices of the last three centuries, Anne upon Elizabeth in architecture, patched and renovated by the Georges, and rebuilt when they threaten to fall, or when a portion is burnt down by a judge, for instance, who puts his candle under his bed, even up to the present time, in any sort of style. Trees, and gardens, and a fountain, and sun-dials ornament a spot which you might people in imagination with ladies in sacques and periwigged gallants wearing swords and lace ruffles, all of the olden time. Imagine, too, the din of the streets shut out, the broad river, looking at least picturesque by night, sweeping by, with its barges, and piers, and steamers, and a glimpse of bridges, over which Commerce is ever creeping with its ant-like multitude, and their gigantic bales, and you have some idea of our London Temple, where I have the privilege to reside, when not, as at present, indulging in my annual vacation ramble."

"I have seen it," said the Signora, after a pause, "and remember well the air of what you call mouldy solitude which is so striking in the very heart of your great, and, pardon me, I think, overgrown London. Come, signor" (to Howard), "let us have your story of the Tredici. I am impatient to learn it."

"Udire ed obbedire," said that gentleman, whose Italian usually dispensed with anything like idiom, even if it ever achieved accent or grammar. "Cominciamo!" and he commenced:—

"I was invited, not long since, to dine at a certain much-frequented tavern, by Colonel C., the American, of fire-arm fame. Two of the guests, one the well-known Tom Rokely, secretary to I don't know how many institutions, and connected with science and the drama in the most wonderfully practical, and busy manner, declared their great regret at being obliged to leave very early; indeed, they feared they should not be able to remain even to the end of the substantial part of the entertainment. Suddenly it was discovered that there were thirteen at dinner, and some one foolishly said that the first person who left the table would die within three months. After a time, it became perceptible that neither Tom Rokely nor the other gentleman, whose name I forget, showed the slightest inclination to depart. No one, of course, wished them to go; but a great deal of what is vulgarly termed chaff—badinage, I mean—took place. Our host endeavoured to silence this in vain.

" 'Why, Rokely,' said one, 'it is nearly ten o'clock. I declare you'll be too late for the new piece!'

" 'I say, Smith' (for so I will call him), said another, 'you've forgotten your appointment!'

"These gentlemen, of course, declared that the company was so delightful, they could not tear themselves away. Well, it got towards the time when all must necessarily have taken their departure, and somehow no one seemed at all anxious to stir. An irrepressible individual, who sat next to me, and who had been very pointed in his remarks, had just proposed, I remember, that the whole party should rise simultaneously, and thus 'cheat the devil,' as he called it; upon which some one else facetiously asked if that would not endanger the whole party; when suddenly General M., an officer of the United States army, and a man of great scientific attainments, rose.

" 'Gentleman,' he said, 'I have heard all this foolish talk with some impatience and surprise. I do not think it worthy of this company. For myself, I am prepared to meet my Maker, when it shall please Him to call on me.'

"In this strain he continued for some ten minutes, and then solemnly bowing to his host and the company, he stalked to a side-table, placed his broad-brimmed hat upon his head, advanced to the door, faced about, bowed solemnly again, and retired. We all remained looking at each other with surprise. Never had a wet blanket been more effectually applied to the joviality of a convivial lot, except, madam" (turning to the Stellini) "perhaps in that scene in 'Lucrezia Borgia,' an opera which you have so wonderfully embellished with your exquisite performance, when the monks are heard chanting a funeral service by the doomed and startled guests. At length, Colonel C. broke the silence by requesting some one to pass the wine, and we began to talk about the General's extraordinary demeanour and speech. I should have told you that the General was a man still in the prime of life, with a colour like a rose, and ordinarily as cheerful and cheery a gentleman as you could find, full of dry humour, and exceedingly fond of a joke. On this occasion his tall and commanding person, his forbidding and almost sepulchral accents, and the strange solemnity and severity of his address, exercised an influence over us all, which we in vain tried to throw off. I remember saying to my lively neighbour, that it seemed as if the General had pronounced his own funeral oration, and that he was what the Scotch call 'fey.'

" 'I shall certainly take especial notice if he dies within the time,' whispered he whom I addressed.

"Our host got up and proposed General M.'s health, and passed a merited eulogy on his career, character, and services. 'I think,' he said, smiling, 'that he has got a tooth-ache to-day. I never saw him in such a humour before.' We could not, however, succeed in restoring the joviality of the party, which soon after broke up. It is a fact," continued Mr. Howard, "that within three months General M. died very suddenly, and, as I understood, with no premonitory sign; and, what is more, it was on the return home to join an affectionate family, and almost, if not quite, within sight of the quays of

New York. Colonel C., who was much attached to him, could not bear the slightest reference to the fact afterwards, and I don't believe there was one of the company who was not deeply impressed by the circumstance."

"Is it really a fact, Signor Lessingham?" asked the Signora, addressing a young man of a somewhat pensive and Byronic aspect, who sat near her, and who had scarcely ventured an observation during the whole afternoon—"is it really a fact, that there are, or have been, persons in Paris who earn their living by making a fourteenth at these otherwise unlucky repasts?"

"I believe so," was the reply. "At any rate, there is a novel, one of Balzac's, I think, founded on such an alleged practice."

"I fancy," observed Edgar, "that there must be a double intention in such an institution, if it exists. Such an individual, if gifted with great conversational powers and wit, and well furnished with anecdotes and the topics of the day, would, with his continued opportunities of observation, form a capital addition to an ordinary dinner-party."

"So he would," said Howard. "I dare say, if such a man ever did announce his profession, many parties of thirteen would be especially given to afford an excuse for his presence."

"It wouldn't suit English manners," said Sir Robert. "People would never treat him sufficiently as one of themselves."

The speaker was immediately called upon for his contribution to spiritualistic records.

"We were a pleasant little society in the Temple," he said, "and gave ourselves a classical name. We met once a week at each other's chambers alternately, and talked of everything, including law, politics, religion, the belles-lettres, and le beau sexe. Amongst us was a gentleman of confirmed atheistical views—in fact, a materialist—and he had the bad taste constantly to intrude his ideas on the subject. A religious enthusiast is bad enough; but an enthusiastic free-thinker, a man whose religion is utter infidelity, and who endeavours to convert others to his miserable creed, is the worst of all propagandists in this world. It is literally working gratis for the Author of Evil; at least, such is my notion. Even a godless attorney does not directly meddle with the affairs of his victim's soul, does not endeavour to get those title-deeds into his possession as a set-off against a diabolical bill; but a voluntary chaplain of Satan seeks first to make a proselyte of his friend."

"I once knew a man," observed Edgar, "who was both an attorney's clerk and an active propagandist of materialism."

"Good gracious!" said Howard; "and what became of him?"

"Nothing in particular that I know of. He is only doubly 'articled,' that is all," was the reply.

"What an attorney for future Palmers!" cried Howard. "But pray, Sir Robert, continue the story we have interrupted."

"In spite of all," resumed the baronet, "Ritson was a good fellow, and very popular. His cheerful temper and generous disposition, combined with his great fund of information, and mathematical, chemical, and general knowledge, rendered him in all other respects a desirable companion, as well as an agreeable friend. I may mention that he was about forty years of age, and in good and increasing chamber practice as a banister. His chambers were in a block of buildings forming an angle with those in which lived the founder of our little institution, the clever, brilliant, caustic and Johnsonian, Wigham Tooke, who wrote the 'History of the Last Century' at twenty-one years of age; the 'eminent Whig statesman,' as we delighted to call him, because of his avowed political principles and connexion with Holland House, and also a contested election which he had stood in early life. At every dissolution of Parliament, and on some other occasions, when a vacancy occurred in a Tory borough, our friend was in the habit of issuing an address based on the most enlightened platform of compromise and pseudo-liberalism of the Bedford type. Their chambers being thus adjoining, and Tooke's being on the second while Ritson's were on the first floor, the former could overlook the latter, as he sat at work daily at a table near the window in his private room. Frequently, after business hours, Tooke would throw open his window and hail Ritson, either to accompany him for a walk, or to proceed with him to dinner. On one occasion, on the Monday after a Saturday night meeting of the 'club,' if I may so call it, at which Ritson, to my astonishment and disgust, for I was present as a guest on the occasion, had indulged in more than his wonted blasphemies, Tooke met him near the door of the Temple Church, and expressed his surprise that he had not seen him that day from his window sitting at work as usual.

" 'Then I don't know where your eyes were,' was the reply; 'for I've only just left chambers, and I've scarcely moved from my accustomed seat since morning.'

" 'That's very odd,' replied the other, 'I declare I looked out for you a dozen times, and didn't see you. In fact,' he said, 'you couldn't have been there.'

" 'You be hanged!' replied Ritson. 'I'm always there. I'm the most regular and punctual fellow in my habits in the Temple. I don't believe I've missed being in that self-same chair at that self-same table and spot, except in vacation time, Sundays, and holidays, once these last three years; and, what is more, by ——, if God Almighty himself was to try, he couldn't prevent me, and that's all about it. Keep a better look out to-morrow, old fellow, and you'll see me fast enough.'

" 'Nonsense!' said Tooke, 'I wish you wouldn't say such things.' And so they parted.

"The next day, Tooke looked out for him, and the day after, and the day after that, in vain; and then he sent his clerk over to inquire after him. The answer was that Mr. Ritson hadn't been very well since Monday. A few days more elapsed, and then Tooke went to see him, and found him cheerful, but very unwell.

" 'I shall soon be at work again,' he said. 'Here's my poor old mother quite frightened.' He was an only and most excellent son, and lived with the old lady. 'You see,' he added, 'it's such an extraordinary thing for me to be laid up. I haven't had a day's illness, since I was a boy.'

"The next time Tooke called, he found him very bad indeed, and quite desponding about himself, though calm and collected, as usual, and even as much inclined to joke as ever. To Tooke's inquiry about his health, he answered, the old lady being present, 'Eheu! moribundus,' and then went off into the current topics of the day. Tooke never saw him again. He died about a week after, having never re-entered his chamber since that sinister conversation."

"And did he repent," asked the Signora, "and ever allude to what he had said?"

"Not he," replied Sir Robert; "I question if he ever remembered or thought of it, but Tooke did, and it very much altered his mode of thinking and expression. Tooke questioned his medical man, a friend of them both, and he said that he went off quite composedly, 'like an angel,' as the old nurse said."

"Then it is not true," said the Signora, "that such people die in frightful agonies."

"Only in tracts, madam, and sermons," said Mr. Howard. "The great Dr. Johnson, one of the chief luminaries of British literature and an eminent pietist, had a painful and degrading dread of death. Some old ladies, who are extremely devout and religious, actually go mad with apprehension of a future state, and in their delirium will take to swearing like parrots in a public-house. I certainly don't think that a bad conscience would tend to alleviate the pangs of a long illness, or smooth the lingering sufferings of dissolution, let the sinner be never be so hardened."

"Now, Mr. Lessingham," cried two or three young ladies together, clapping their hands, "it's your turn. We expect such a delightful story from you."

The gentleman appealed to started, blushed, and said, "Really ar, I have nothing to tell. My life ar, I may say, has not been without ar—but as for anything very striking or particular beyond a few—what I may call—sympathies ar;" and here he stopped.

"Oh! tell us some," said a young lady, who directly she heard her own voice, looked almost as confused as Lessingham himself.

There was a great deal of good-natured mirth expressed at poor Mr. Lessingham's expense.

"Signor Lessingham means probably some instances of those strange magnetic affinities, those mysterious revelations of the soul, which have some time or other occurred to all of us," said the Signora. "For instance, I have not seen some one for years, and I think of that person, or see some one so like, that it reminds me, and then directly after we meet. The day I saw you, dear child," she said to Violet, "I beheld in the morning a peasant girl, who resembled you, and I thought of you for hours. The moment I ceased to think of you, I met you on the Pincian Hill, with those people, you know."

"And I did not think of you at all, till we met,"

whispered Edgar; "and now I fancy I must have been dreaming of you all my life. But certainly we have met before in some other planet. Did it never occur to you," he said to the Signora aloud, "to fancy that you had done just the same thing before as if in some previous period of existence?"

"It has often," she replied. "For instance, I fancied just now that I had sat in this very place in a story-telling group like this, and seen exactly such a scene—those pines touched with gold, that boat on the river, heard even the distant melody that just now reached my ears. What made you, as it were, divine my very thoughts?"

"Had you been a married couple," said the major, "I'd have understood it in a moment; for I knew a husband and wife that were constantly thinking the same thing at the same moment, and it was sometimes a race which would get the idea out first."

"And how many have you known that don't think alike, more's the pity," asked Howard, "and haven't an idea in common?"

"That's all mighty well," said the major, "but you don't see exactly what I mane. Don't people that live together and are devoted to each other get even to look somewhat alike, to have the same expression, even if the features are different? I tell you I've known them dhrame the same dhrame, and that's something remarkable you'll own. Isn't that affinity or sympathy, if you like?"

"Fancy, a Mr. Brown saying to his wife," cried Howard, " 'My dear I dreamt last night we had roast pork for dinner to-day,' and the lady replying, 'Dear me! how odd, so did I.' What delightful harmony might ensue."

"It is the result of harmony, not the cause, according to the major," observed Edgar. "These are people evidently entitled to the Dunmow flitch."

This necessitated an explanation of the custom to the Signora.

"I for one believe implicitly in dreams," she said; "that is, not that they are reducible to rule, but that certain dreams occasionally meet with a singular realisation. Do not you?" she asked Edgar. The latter for a moment did not answer. He was thinking of something else. "Ah!" she said, "Signer Edgardo! Are you thinking of the next tale you will tell us? Do you know I have a strong presentiment that I shall find it very interesting indeed."

Edgar stammered an apology. "Indeed," he said, "I am very rude. I must plead a momentary absence of mind. I was thinking of a very remarkable dream."

"Well, you shall tell it to us as a forfeit," replied the Signora, gaily; but a strange and unaccountable shudder at the moment caused her heart to flutter, and she grew pale. "Give me half a wine-glassful of Orvieto," she said; "I felt quite a sudden chill."

"And yet how hot it is," said Sir Robert. "There is absolutely not a breath of air."

"Come, come, Lessingham," said Howard, "have it over at once. Tell your story. You can't get off.

If you don't I promise you no mercy, and the ladies will roast you to death."

Mr. Lessingham at length complied. We shall omit his story as we did Edgar Leslie's. It was somewhat sentimental and very lengthy. During the narration we are bound to confess that both Violet and Edgar were guilty of a little rudeness happily unnoticed by the narrator, as they continued ever and anon to exchange a few words sotto voce, as much as possible behind the young lady's fan.

"I wonder," Violet whispered, when the tale was ended, "that he should have made himself the hero of that singular, but, I must say, altogether very silly story."

"Dear matter-of-fact girl!" said Edgar. "Considering that I am booked to tell another silly tale, I wish you would not be so critical."

"Dear romantic youth!" said Violet. "Considering that you may tell anything you like, if you don't tell us of your love for some wicked creature who jilted you, or your love for any one at all, for that matter."

Our readers will perceive from the above the terms on which these young persons were.

The Signora cast a fond and approving eye on this fair couple. She had divined the sterling worth and great talent of Edgar, and she loved "dear little Violet," as she still called her, as if she had been her own daughter. In beauty, Violet afforded a brilliant contrast to the Signora's style—in fact, she was an excellent "foil," as ill-natured persons remarked. No one, indeed, save a lover, could compare the fair, fresh,

English loveliness of Violet with the transcendent and statuesque beauty of La Stellini. It was a blue-eyed Hebe flitting round a Juno encircled with the cestus of Venus. But the Signora, conscious as she was of her own wondrous attributes of face and form, had none of the petitesses of coquetry. She was as far above them as the ideal Genius of a nation. You might as well have imagined "Britannia," or "Columbia," or the tearful poetic incarnation of "Erin," or "Italia," indulging in the minauderies of a Parisian belle, as have connected the noble presence of La Stellini with the follies of flirtation, or the frivolities of vanity and wrong. In a word, she was a noble-hearted woman, and had loved—she was an artiste and a mother!

But, nevertheless, she was fond of trifling amusements, and some very grand and rigid folks would have called her weak and silly sometimes. On the present occasion she had got a fancy for story-telling. Not unfrequently she would have a freak of cigarette-smoking in a little divan she fitted up in her own place. This was highly improper and immoral in the eyes of some ladies. Only fortunately, the men all understood her ways, much better than did the plainer and less gifted portion of her own sex.

"We must positively have a real love-tale now," she said. "A truce to the supernatural for a time. You, Mr. Leslie, you know, are to tell a story for me, to close this first day of our Decameron."

"And for me too," said Violet.

"No!" replied Edgar, "the major shall be your proxy, your major-domo of the Grand Hotel of

Fiction, which we have reared here by the river-side."

"Ah, now," said the major, "sure, if you want a love-story, you've got the wrong pig by the ear."

This avowal was received in the manner that it merited.

"The major shall tell his own love-story," said the queen of the day.

"It's a moral impossibility," protested the major.

"I trust it will be moral, at any rate," observed Howard.

"There is no appeal," said the Signora. "Continue, Signor Maggiore, if you please, and Mr. Leslie shall commence when you have done."

The major made a droll grimace of acquiescence. "What will I tell them?" he asked Edgar.

"How should I know," said that gentleman. "Surely you know some Irish tale or other. It needn't be original you know," he whispered.

"Oh! if it needn't be original——" said O'Reilly aloud.

"Yes, yes, it must, it must."

"Here goes then," said the major, and began as follows: "I once knew three sisters, milliners, in Holies-street, Cavendish-square, and mighty purty girls they were—— Arrah! What are ye doing?" (to Edgar). "Is it pulling the skirt off me coat, ye are?"

"That story won't do," said Edgar, who it appears knew what was coming, and who was divided between laughter and annoyance on Violet's account.

"Sure, there's no harm in it at all," said the major.

"No! no! of course not; but I know it won't amuse the ladies," said Edgar.

"As you plase, Mr. Leslie. I'm thinking you're mighty particular. But sure I've just thought of a real sentimental romance of my younger days. It wasn't a milliner at all" (to Edgar), "but a real lady, an admiral's daughter."

So the major told his second tale, which restored the animation of the party, which had somewhat flagged during the previous narration.

"It is your turn, now," said the Signora, addressing a young artist, who had been chiefly employed in making one or two very happy sketches of the three or four groups seated around, which were duly looked at and commended. "Come, try if you can tell us something as laughable and amusing as the major's. Commence your story, Signor Deveral, we are all attention." Thus commanded, the young artist began as follows:

"My friend Augustus Saunter was a very promising artist indeed. So every one said, who knew him; from his Aunt Snell, to whom he had so often pledged his word to reform his mode of living, down to his colourman and washerwoman, in short the whole circle of his acquaintance. Like the generality of promising artists, Gus Saunter found his way to Rome, in order to 'study art in its glorious cradle and home.' At least, that is the account which he gave of it; and so impressed was his Aunt Snell with the reality of his intention and the general propriety of the plan, that she actually allowed him his travelling expenses and a hundred and fifty pounds a year during his sojourn. Once arrived and domiciled there, Gus Saunter fell into the habits of the place so completely, that he became quite a Roman, and did as the Romans (that is, the artistic Germans and Britons there) do. He wore a romantic costume, consisting of a sort of black sombrero, and a loose black velvet tunic, together with a wonderfully fine beard. He drew and painted Grazia, the celebrated female model, as often as most of his fellow students, and the dirty old mountain bag-piper, who sat at the foot of the Piazza di Spagna, raised a little fortune in sums of two pauls from his hands. When he entered the celebrated Caffé of the Fine Arts, the dwarf waiter Pietro would shout, in the deep bass of his stentorian voice, 'Ecco il Signor Augusto Inglese! Un mezzo-caldo subito, subito, poco aqua, molto zucchero, moltissimo rh'-um-m'-m-e!' In the morning, when not idling or love-making, he would paint from the Grazias and Terribiles, and other celebrated models of modern Rome in that day. Every night Gus played at billiards with his fellow-students, for baiocchi, like a noble Roman as he was. He constantly smoked a short pipe; indeed, he smoked eating, drinking, painting, and sometimes sleeping, for he went to bed with the everlasting pipe in his mouth. As his friend Bob Hobson said, if he had only had wings, he would have smoked flying. If this magnificent idleness did not lead to artistic greatness, what in the name of all the rubbish ever talked about the old masters and the trunks of mutilated statues by twaddling dilettanti, ever could or should? Besides, Gus, as we have hinted, did occasionally work, and work hard. You should have seen one picture, which he sent to his aunt, as a Christmas gift. It was painted all over a canvas twelve feet by eight. Poor Aunt Snell, she had no room in her house in Kentish Town large enough in which to hang it, even without a frame. Besides, when it was unpacked in her small front garden, she nearly fainted at the sight. Gus had quite forgotten that his aunt had not overcome the narrow prejudices of the British bourgeoise of the old school, and had never been abroad in her life, nor even visited the National Gallery, or any of the collections of our nobility. So he sent her his first 'great' work, which represented a Bacchic group surrounding a sleeping Nymph. Gus went for 'colour, sir, colour,' as he said; and the contest between the Red Indian hue of the principal male figure, who was in the full dress—or its equivalent—of an African king, and the flesh tint of the nymphs and cupids, however artistic, did not satisfy the maiden notions of propriety of his worthy aunt. 'Take it away!' she cried, at first. 'Take it to Moses and Son! Take it anywhere, only take it away!' She at length allowed it to be placed in her passage—after locking her two maid-servants in the kitchen—with its face to the wall, and finally contracted for its admission into the Pantheon with a reserved price. In truth, she was as much shocked as if she had suddenly come upon a group of Kentish (not Kentish Town) hop-pickers, disporting themselves 'in cuerpo.' It was some time before she listened to reason, and was reconciled to her nephew in the belief that he at least did not intend an outrage in place of an attention and a compliment. Amongst other things Gus Saunter was of a romantic temperament, and he fell violently in love with a lovely girl of high descent, but mean parentage, at Rome. When I say high descent, I do not mean to trace her to the Cæsars, but that she lived on a fifth floor in a narrow but lofty street. Nanina Giunicelli, possibly a real descendant of the celebrated poet of that name, was in reality a loving and artless girl. Her manners were primitive; but she had the 'gentle heart' sung in the exquisite canzone of her namesake:*

"Within the gentle heart Love shelters him,
As birds within the green shade of the grove;
Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme
Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.

[*GUIDO GIUNICELLI. See the admirable translation, by D. G. Rossetti, of the canzone "Of the Gentle Heart."

The sun strikes full upon the mud all day;
It remains vile, nor the sun's worth is less,
"By race, I am gentle," the proud man doth say;
He is the mud, the sun is gentleness.
Let no man predicate
That ought the name of gentleness should have
Even in a king's estate,
Except the heart there be a gentle man's.
The star-beam lights the wave,—
Heaven hold the star, and the star's radiance.

The Early Italian Poets, p. 25.]

"Well, somehow love stole into the gentle heart of Nanina, and its object was the blonde, handsome, and really kindly and generous, though scatter-brained English student. What would his aunt have said, had she lived to know the catastrophe? The thoughtless Augustus, after becoming a Roman Catholic, went through the ceremony of marriage, with a tailor's daughter at Rome. When we say a tailor, we mean a veritable 'snip,' not a gorgeous phaeton-driving, 'hands' employing, whisker-cultivating, dashing Sartor of Bond-street, who is in reality no more a tailor than my Lord Tipton and Wednesbury is a coal, coke, and potato merchant, though he sells those things wholesale. And a happy life, whilst it lasted, these young people led. Gus fancied himself a sort of Titian when he painted from the beautiful creature who 'halved his joys, doubled his sorrows, and trebled his expenses.' No, the truth is she did not treble his expenses. One pays dear for models, and Gus gave up drinking and billiards, and began to paint in earnest. I said, 'whilst it lasted.' For all I know, it lasts now, and will last to the sweet end. When I last saw Nanina, about two years ago, she was almost as beautiful as ever, but matronly instead of being slender, and Gus was the papa of three lovely little girls. His dear old auntie had left him a small independence, and I have never known a happier man. There are various views of happiness in this world. I have sometimes thought I should have liked to have married a South Sea Island princess of some coral Capua of pristine innocence myself. I knew a man who passed three years in a sort of dream of perfect felicity, paddling in a light canoe over the lakes and water-courses of British North America, towards the Far West, attended by 'one sweet spirit for his minister,' in the form of a Red Indian girl. His chief regret was the abandonment of that prolonged bridal tour in the wilderness. He shot and fished, and she cooked for him, and stitched and embroidered his hunter's garb.

"Well, there was one cloud over the early domestic bliss of my friend Augustus—one skeleton in his artistic cupboard, or closet. Nanina, before their young family was born, was subject to frantic fits of jealousy, notwithstanding her gentle heart. She could not bear her painter husband to visit any of his fair country-women in Rome. Possibly she feared that some day he would basely desert her and return to England, which to her was always a sort of dim and mist-shrouded Ultima Thule, and the very mention of which she dreaded. It so happened that an English family came to Rome, and took up a great deal more of her husband's time than she approved of, seeing that there was a fair young English cousin in the case, whom he escorted to see the 'lions.' As my friend did not care to publish his marriage during his aunt's life, poor Nanina was not one of the party on these occasions. Like a true Italian, when once her jealousy was aroused, it amounted to a species of black delirium and ungovernable frenzy. Her nature was entirely changed. All her time was spent in watching her husband. Everything which she saw unfortunately seemed to confirm her suspicions. One day, a week or so before the English family was about to leave Rome, she followed the unsuspecting Gus to a sort of out-door Hippodrome, popular among the trifling, and in some respects childish Romans. There she saw him conversing with the utmost warmth with his fair-haired cousin. He was alone with her. On their road back, they paused in their animated dialogue, and he kissed her hand! That day Nanina saw nothing any more, save shapes of fire and blood. She had no longer any doubt. He was deceiving her, and she resolved on his death. The fact is, that poor Gus had just made a confidante of his little cousin, and actually acknowledged the kindly interest which she expressed in his marriage in the manner which I have related. She had promised to visit Nanina, and to stand his friend with his Aunt Snell, if cause should arise. She was not a daughter of the old lady, who, indeed, was a maiden lady of advanced age. That evening Gus went to the Opera, still with his cousin. You are not to suppose that he did not make any excuses about this constant attendance on her. When he returned, Nanina received him with caresses, though he might have noticed that she avoided kissing his lips. He did not notice anything—not even her wild manner and dissonant laugh. He was thinking of the pleasure he had in store for her the next day—the introduction to his cousin Rosy, and how all her little jealousies would be dispersed in air. So innocent was he, that he had rather fostered and amused himself with these 'little jealousies' than not.

" 'So you've got supper for me, carina!' he said. 'What a darling little treasure of a wife!' The supper was excellent. He complained, however, a little of the flavour of the soup, to which she answered that there was too much salt, and gave him another spoonful of powdered Parmesan over it. As, however, the meal proceeded, he noticed that she ate nothing, and at length observed the wildness of her demeanour, and the livid hue of her face. Her clear olive complexion was nearly black. Suddenly she rose, and the storm burst forth.

" 'Listen!' she screamed. 'Traitor! thou hast deceived me, and I am avenged. I have—poisoned—thee, scelerato!—with these hands!' And she then burst out raving about him kissing his cousin's hand. 'But, wretch! villain! traditore! as thou art,' she exclaimed, 'I shall not survive thee to undergo the punishment of a murderess. Look!' and she snatched up a knife from the table, and would certainly have plunged it into her bosom, had not Gus wrenched it from her hand. Then she fainted, and he laid her on the floor.

" 'Poisoned! yes, there can be no doubt. There is no trick; no child's play of deception here.' Poor Gus staggered to the wall. 'To die thus!' he murmured, 'and through a cursed mistake. Unhappy? miserable, but beloved girl—what! what have you done?' 'I was always a man of quick decision,' said Gus, in telling me the story. 'I determined to try and save my life. An emetic was the thing. There was no apothecary at hand. There was a salad on the table in a huge bowl. In a moment I emptied into it the remaining contents of three or four foul pipes. I broke up and mixed in it a half-smoked cigar, one of Prince Polonia's best, at five baiocchi. I added the oil of a cresset-lamp, the remainder of a dish of tomatoes, salt, vinegar, half a bottle of Orvieto, some English gin, French mustard, &c. &c., and, without hesitation, and with surprising firmness of will, hastily swallowed, but a plusieurs reprises, the disgusting mess. What followed I need hardly repeat. Enough that I was poisoned, and it was a matter of life and death. I staggered ere long to a sofa. The room swam round, cold dews of agony burst forth, my heart fluttered and stopped, and I fainted in turn. When I came to myself, Nanina was kneeling by me, her face buried on my chest, and her long black tresses tangled by the night wind—for I had opened the window with a vague idea of calling for assistance at first—and sweeping down to the floor. She had fairly wept herself down to a few occasional broken sobs, like a child. I asked her why she had done such a thing to me whom she loved. I pass over her explanations and bitter repentance. At length, in a faint voice, I inquired what poison she had administered. It was a natural question you will admit.'

" 'The poison, the deadly English poison, which you gave me,' she said.

" 'I gave you? I never gave you anything of the kind!'

" 'Don't you remember,' she said, 'when you were once looking over the contents of your desk, before our marriage—destroying your English love-letters—I saw a small packet, and asked you what it was? "Poison," you replied, "poison of the deadliest kind, made by a terrible English witch." "Why keep it?" I asked. "To end my days," you answered, "when the illusions of life have fled—if I fail to become a great painter, if my aunt sends me no more money, and, above all, if I fail to win your love." I concealed the fatal packet, and kept it, and you never asked for it, because you have needed it not. And now I have destroyed you with it. Forgive me with your dying breath; for I swear to survive you not. See, I will take the rest.' And she took a small blue packet from her bosom. It was labelled 'Epsom Salts!'

" 'I always had a tendency to romance,' observed Gus, 'and had certainly spun her that yarn, every word of which she implicitly believed. I had to send a note to my cousin the next morning to come and see us without my escort; for I did not recover from the effects of the antidote for several days, if not weeks. It entirely cured my little Nanina of jealousy. That was one good thing.' "

"Now," said the Signora once more, "let us have your story, the last, Signer Edgardo; the one, you know, you are to tell for me by proxy. We must think of returning to the city ere long, or we shall not arrive at the Palazzetto ere sun-down."

"I feel unusually dull," observed Edgar—"that is, if it is anything unusual with me—and by no means in story-telling trim; but I will relate to you, if you please, as well as I can, some singular circumstances told me by an acquaintance whom I met casually about a year ago in London, concerning a pleasure vessel—a yacht, as we English call it—Signora, which belonged to the narrator; and as it is a tale of romantic sympathies and attractions, and that kind of thing, I expect to be unmercifully quizzed. The person who told it to me was a reduced gentleman, very badly off indeed. I met him when he was trying to pick up a few shillings occasionally on the Press, at a sort of journalistic haunt into which I had strayed to find an extra reporter or two for our paper for a special purpose. He was evidently a man who had seen better days; but dreadfully thin, seedy, and poor. I met him several times, and then lost sight of him, as I shall relate to you; but on one occasion, over a few glasses of grog, he got very communicative, and told me the disjointed story which I shall endeavour to narrate."

"I remember meeting just such a character," observed Lessingham, "at a similar place. He was miserably poor, but a perfect gentleman in his manners and conversation."

"According to his own account, and I saw no reason to doubt it," proceeded Edgar, "this almost squalid littérateur had once been a man of fortune. He told me nothing about his domestic affairs—nothing that could give me a clue to his previous history—but it appeared that he had been very well off some time or other, and amongst other things been the owner of a brigantine yacht."

At the word "brigantine," an acute observer might have noticed an unusual interest and excitement in the Signora. She began to pull some flowers to pieces rapidly but mechanically, and said:

"Did you not know his name?"

"I cannot say for certain that I did," replied Edgar. "I found out afterwards that he went by the name of Williams in the Bohemian circle in which he moved; but I felt assured that was not his real appellation. The way in which the conversation to which I refer came about was simply this. A talk had arisen in the coffee-room of the house where I met him about ships being lucky or unlucky, and sailing on a Friday, and that sort of thing. Some one quoted the line from Milton,

Built in the eclipse and rigged with curses dark;

and some one else declared it was all nonsense. I believe all this was apropos of the Great Eastern, when this person, who had been sitting bent over a table with his head upon his arms, suddenly looked up, and said that it was all quite true; that a vessel might be fated from the stocks; he was certain of it—in fact, he had witnessed it. A friend of his had been the owner of a splendid yacht (here there was a slight Bohemian laugh at the notion of any friend of his being in a position to have a vessel of the kind). He gave them, however, a brief outline of the facts, and a very remarkable dream that accompanied the loss of the vessel; and at my particular request he afterwards filled up some parts of the story, which I will now endeavour to narrate to you again."

Had any one noticed the Signora during the last part of Edgar's explanation how he heard the story, he would have been struck by her agitation. When the dream was alluded to, she turned deadly pale, and placed one hand on the ground as if to support herself from falling forward from the cushion on which she sat. Apparently recovering herself by a strong effort, she merely let her veil fall as if to shut out the glare of the sun, and turned her head slightly away from the party.

"In the first place," continued Edgar, "the vessel in question was constructed on the lines of a celebrated pirate and slaver, ordered to be broken up by the government, and taken surreptitiously by some one who had access to the dockyard. She was built by Messrs. G., the well-known firm at Blackwall, for a gentleman who died on the very day she was launched. He was a wealthy solicitor just retired from practice."

"Holy Moses!" cried the major, "what a beginning! Built for a solicitor on the lines of a pirate! and him—the lawyer, I mane—gone to blazes the day she was launched! Did they make her rudder out of a gibbet—tell me, now—and carve her figure-head in the likeness of ould Scratch?"

"Well," resumed Edgar, "it appeared that the lawyer died without a will, and Messrs. G. offered the vessel for sale on behalf of the heirs. She was a beautiful craft of some two hundred and fifty tons, with deck port-holes for fourteen guns, but actually carrying only six long brass six-pounders. My acquaintance—for I afterwards found out the astonishing fact that my coffee-house acquaintance had been himself the owner—was dining at Blackwall one day, when he was induced to look at her, and it led to his purchasing her a few days after. This broken-down gentleman had once been the possessor of a considerable fortune—enough to enable him to purchase a vessel of such dimensions, and to entertain princes and ambassadors on board. I must tell you that he was then informed that the vessel was built for a gentleman who had died; but did not know that the event took place on the very day, if not hour, of her launch. He also had heard from a kind of show Long Tom Coffin style of sailor put on board as ship-keeper, that there had been a lady concerned—in fact, that the man of law had been led to this and other extravagances by a fair Dalilah who had a sea-going fancy (possibly, she was in love with the third mate of a merchantman), and that all her hopes and machinations had been disappointed by the sudden demise of her legal protector without a will—or, at least, the discovery of one—for, as the next heir was also a lawyer, there is no saying what complex villainy had been at work."

"You seem to have a pretty idea of the profession, sir," observed Sir Robert Warkworth.

"I have seen something of it," replied Edgar, sadly. "The vessel," he continued, "showed evident tokens that she was intended for a fair occupant. There was a piano, and even a work-table, and certain gorgeous blue satin coverings and decorations utterly unfit for sea. She was named after an estate lately purchased by her defunct proprietor, the Ravenshaw. My informant had been, it appeared, to see her on the day that the purchase was completed, in company with the friend who first found her out in the docks. On their way back they got into a steam-boat at London-bridge to return to the West-end. There were scarcely any passengers on board, for the day was dull and cold. There was, however, a fashionably-dressed female sitting on deck forward, apparently immersed in the pages of a novel. The friend accompanying the new yacht owner was a gay and facetious man. He stole behind the lady, and peeped over her shoulder to see what she was reading.

" 'Guy Ravenshaw,' he exclaimed. 'Hallo, I say,' (addressing Williams), 'why, that's the name of your yacht.'

" 'What's that you say, sir?' said the woman, almost fiercely, shutting the book and rising. 'There's only one vessel of that name, I'm sure, and that is one too many.'

" 'I tell you, my dear lady,' said Philip Askew, for such, if I remember, was his name, 'that the Ravenshaw is the name of my friend's new yacht. Allow me to introduce him:—Lord Sealegs, Miss Clementina Flouncer, of the Iron Citizen Company's steam yacht Bridegroom.' What further nonsense he might have uttered was cut short by the person whom he addressed.

" 'It's a lie,' she said, stamping her foot, 'and you are a couple of impertinent snobs.'

" 'Really,' said Williams, gently, 'I don't know what I've done to deserve such an insult. I am sorry my friend has annoyed you with his nonsense; but what he said was quite true so far as the vessel is concerned, for I bought a craft called the Ravenshaw this morning, and it certainly is very odd you should be reading a book of that title, which I hope will plead an excuse for his intruding on your privacy.'

"And he bowed and turned away. As for Askew, to use his own expressive language, he was completely

'shut up' by the lady's violence. He affected a comic fear.

" 'Did you ever see such a Jezebel?' he said; 'she's a perfect lucifer-match in petticoats. I don't feel safe on the same side of the funnel.'

"It was the lady's turn now to take the initiative. Following Williams aft, she asked him to excuse her incivility.

" 'You don't know,' she said, 'what cause I have to be thus excited. Is it really true that you have bought the Ravenshaw? It is not likely that there are two vessels of that name. She lies, or did lie, in the East India Dock at Blackwall."

" 'Exactly, she is there now,' he replied; 'we have just left her.'

" 'A large vessel,' she said—'I mean, large for a yacht—with a piano and guns on board, and a ladies' cabin with blue satin furniture?'

"Williams signified his assent, and in the vanity of new ownership of such a magnificent acquisition, took some papers out of his pocket and showed them to her in corroboration.

" 'That vessel was built for me; the piano is mine,' she said. 'Do you know to whom she belonged? It was Mr. ——, the solicitor, in Lincoln's-inn-fields. We were engaged to be married. His scoundrel cousin destroyed the will.'

"Here she uttered some very unfeminine maledictions on that gentleman's spiritual and corporeal appurts.

" 'And now,' she said, 'I am ruined, left a beggar, penniless. I have not even my own house of furniture, which belonged to me before I knew him. And you are the owner of that vessel. I tell you, you have no right to it. It is mine; and I have been robbed; basely plundered, I say. But I warn you that you will have no luck with it, for all your money and your bounce. I tell you that vessel is doomed and accursed. Do you know that my Charlie—my husband that was to be only a week after—one week, I say—died in my arms the very hour she was launched? Listen,' she said, 'you are a civil-spoken fellow enough. As for that fellow there,' pointing to Askew, 'if it was his—but he's only some sponging vagabond, I suppose, who has got the length of your foot—I would not say a word to save him from grief. But you are not a bad sort. Take my advice, and get rid of that vessel as soon as you can, and don't ever sail in her, if you value your life. She is unlucky and accursed. God knows, I have cursed her enough, for it was the bother about her and a cold caught in the docks when fitting her out, that killed him, and she'll come to a bad end. That's all I have to say.'

"And with these words, the steamer having just stopped at the Temple Pier, the lady saluted Williams and walked off, to the great relief of Mr. Philip Askew, gentleman at large, late of the Queen's Bench, who expected nothing less than to have his manly beauty impaired by a sudden feline impulse on that amiable creature's part. As for Williams, he thought that the rencontre and the title of the novel involved a strange coincidence, but soon dismissed it from his mind.

"It is not my intention to tell you the whole extraordinary history which he imparted to me of his adventures in that vessel, whose purchase and possession were inaugurated in so ominous a way. How, of his three sailing masters, the first robbed him; the second deceived him, though bound by every tie of gratitude, by determining, at whatever cost, never to quit England, where he had formed a disgraceful attachment; and the third turned out a drunken, unqualified scamp, who lost all command over the crew by smuggling; and, finally, through his profligate neglect of duty suffered the vessel to be run on shore. The hairbreadth escapes of Williams from fire, shipwreck, assassination, and even marooning on a rocky island, would fill a volume, but somehow he did always manage just to escape. On three separate occasions his life was saved by distinct and most remarkable presentiments of evil. I will mention two of these, which occur to me. At Plymouth he had gone on shore one evening with some friends. The vessel was moored in the Hamoaze close to the guard-ship. The lazy sailing-master had neglected to deposit the powder, of which there was a large quantity, together with fireworks, on board, as he was bound to do, at Drake's Island, a regulation of which Williams was entirely ignorant. About nine o'clock that night he felt a great desire to go on board. It was blowing half a gale of wind, and his companions endeavoured in vain to dissuade him. No one offering to accompany him, he went off alone, and after a hard pull got put on board, and entering the main cabin, or saloon, flung himself down on the cushions and fell fast asleep. He was awakened by a crash of glass. He thought that the watch on deck had broken the glass of the skylight, and hailed him, but got no answer, and fell asleep again. He was awakened by a second crash. This time he was fairly aroused, and opening the door aft perceived a dense cloud of smoke. The sleeping berths were aft of the main saloon, and beyond that was a sumptuous ladies' cabin, with mirrors and a small brass stove. Beyond that was the sail cabin. The crew all slept forward. On opening a second door he was met by a burst of flame. The vessel was on fire. He quickly roused the hands, and the fire was with difficulty put out. That morning he had overhauled the stock of powder and fireworks, and not having finished his examination, it was crammed in a hurry into an empty sleeping berth next to the ladies' cabin, where the steward had put some linen to air round the little brass stove. The motion of the vessel had upset this. When the damage was surveyed next day, it was found that the bulk-head between the fire and the powder was charred within half an inch. Had Williams remained on shore, had he not awakened when he did—nay, had he not acted with promptitude and self-possession, not only would the vessel have been blown out of the water, but the flag-ship, and perhaps many others, would have been in all probability burnt and destroyed. Nor could he in the least explain by what mysterious impulse he was induced to go on board that night.

"On another occasion, the vessel was anchored off the Hyères, waiting to go into Brest the next day.

It was blowing scarcely a capful of wind, and all was made snug. But Williams alone could not rest in his berth. He had a strange idea when he woke that there was a kind of grating or scraping under the ship's bottom. He went on deck and talked to the watch. The man laughed at the notion of anything being wrong. Williams turned in again and again, but could not rest. He was in a state of nervous excitement. As he said, all the events of his life crowded upon his brain. At last, he awoke the sailing-master, who was not over-pleased at being disturbed. He, too, laughed at the idea of anything being wrong.

" 'There's no wind of any account,' he said, 'and the ground tackle of this vessel would hold a ship of nine hundred tons. It's as good an anchorage as any in the world.'

"Again Williams went on deck, again he turned in, and couldn't rest. So he went a second time to the captain's berth, and told him to tumble up and come on deck.

" 'I'm certain there's something wrong,' he said.

"I don't suppose he would have been flattered, if he had heard the remarks made by that surly mariner on the occasion of his night's rest being disturbed. He, however, obeyed his owner's and registered captain's orders, and stumbled and grumbled leisurely on deck, where William stood gazing over the dark expanse of sea. The master looked professionally aloft, asked the watch some nautical commonplace question, and approached Williams whilst fumbling for his pipe.

" 'I don't think there's much harm, sir,' he said.

" 'Look!' said the other; 'what is that long white line yonder astern, that gleams like phosphoric light?'

" 'Lord have mercy!' exclaimed the captain, dashing his pipe down and rushing to the after-hatch. 'All hands on deck! Tumble up! The ship will be ashore in ten minutes.' And he seized his speaking-trumpet. 'Now, then, up with the anchor, all able-bodied hands! Look alive! There's not a moment to lose. We're dragging the anchor,' he said to Williams in passing him. 'Look alive, all of you!' But the anchor resisted their utmost efforts. 'Bring a cold-chisel, carpenter. Here! you Davis, fetch an empty keg.' In five minutes the keg was attached by a long line to a link of the cable, which was cut, leaving the vessel free. All hands were then sent aloft. 'Shake out every rag of her!' cried the captain, 'She'll bear it. Now then, round with her.' After a, couple of tacks he laughed and looked silly. 'We're right enough now, sir,' he said, touching his hat respectfully; 'but, by the Lord Harry, if it hadn't been for your wakefulness, the ship would have been lost.'

"The next day the French authorities sent out a lumper to pick up the abandoned anchor. They found it no easy job. One of the flukes had caught in the fluke of an immense old barnacle-covered and generally marine-incrusted anchor of an unknown and ancient pattern, which is to be seen at this day in the dockyard at Brest. For the authorities politely offered to make no charge for the recovery of the yacht's anchor, if the owner would agree to their retention of the one it had been the means of fishing up—a request which he had certainly neither the power nor the inclination to decline."

"Decidedly it would appear that this inspired Williams was not doomed to be drowned," observed Lessingham.

"I hope he has not met with a worse fate," was Edgar's remark.

All this time the Signora kept silent, with heaving bosom and averted face.

"Mr. Williams told me," continued Edgar, "that after a cruise of some two years, he left the vessel at Marseilles, and returned to London viâ France, being summoned by important business. I forget what it was. Probably some highly respectable attorney had bolted with all his client's money, or some trifle of that kind. He told his captain to proceed at once to Southampton; but for long heard nothing of him or the vessel, and got seriously alarmed. At length he received a letter from Plymouth from the master, saying he had been forced to put into Vigo Bay through foul weather, and had again met with a gale and sprung the main boom, which caused him to put into Plymouth contrary to orders, which were to touch at Southampton. The vessel was at her old anchorage, he said, off Drake's Island (the place whence she started just two years before on her cruise). Williams was glad to get this news. As he was perusing the letter in bed, his servant came in.

" 'A shabby, short little man," he said, 'wants to see you, sir, very particular; he says his name is Pottle, and that he was once on board your yacht.'

" 'How very odd,' observed Williams. 'Show him in!'

"This Pottle was by profession a hairdresser and barber. He was an intemperate, amusing little cockney rascal, and Williams had taken a fancy to him, it appeared, and taken him with him as valet. He had sailed from the port of London, but suffered so dreadfully en route to Plymouth from sea-sickness, that a medical man there counselled Williams to send him home, as he considered his life in danger. Pottle had kept up his spirits all the cruise; but when he heard he had to quit the vessel, he was convulsed with grief, and had to be sent on shore almost forcibly. Williams good-naturedly gave him a small sum to set him up in business. He would always insist on shaving his master at sea, ill as he was, and used to poke his little pale, pasty, pea-green face up the companion hatch now and then and say, 'Have we passed any remarkable places, sir?' at which everybody laughed. Since then Williams had not seen him, and did not know either where he was, or that Pottle was acquainted with his address. On asking him why he came, he said he thought Mr. Williams might want to be waited on, and that he heard where he was from one of the servants whom he met.

" 'Have you got any news yet of the yacht, sir?' he said.

" 'Just got a letter this morning,' replied Williams. 'She is all right at the old place at Plymouth.'

"And he gave him the letter to read.

" 'God be thanked!' said the little man, in a very earnest manner.

"But as he was always quaint, Williams paid no particular attention to his remark. As, however, he proceeded with his ministration, Williams observed that his hand shook very much, and that he was trembling and very nervous.

" 'So you've been at your old tricks again,' he said; 'had a drop too much last night.'

" 'No, sir,' he replied, 'that I have not. I've taken the pledge these three months.'

" 'What is the matter with you?'

" 'Nothing, sir, nothing,' was the answer; but in a tone that meant something very plainly.

"After considerable inquiry and pressing, he said it was about the yacht.

" 'About the yacht?' said Williams. 'What do you mean?'

" 'Don't let her sail from Plymouth, pray don't!' exclaimed the little man at last; 'for if you do, she'll surely be lost.'

" 'You are drunk, sir, or mad,' cried Williams.

" 'If ever I was on board that vessel, sir, I was last night,' replied Pottle.

"Williams was glad he had finished shaving him, for he began now to think that he had in reality parted with his senses. Pottle, however, proceeded to tell him that he had gone to bed a little before twelve the preceding night, and dreamt he was on board the vessel and on deck. It was dusk, and he thought there were only three persons besides himself. Suddenly it became dark as pitch, and the vessel seemed to rush through sea and night as if they were in a railway tunnel, as he expressed it. Then there was a tremendous crash, and he fancied he was thrown forward and fell on his knees. In answer to the question whether that was all, he replied that some one brought up the twelve loaded muskets kept in a rack in the saloon and fired them. Then he saw blue lights, such as they used to burn on board, somewhere over their heads, and then he awoke.

" 'Well, what then?' asked Williams.

" 'I got up and opened the window and looked out,' he replied, 'and I heard Big Ben strike two, as the wind ceased to blow for a moment. I then went to bed again, and fell asleep. I dreamt the same dream again, only fainter like and more confused, and awoke a second time in a fright. I could not lie down again, and the room seemed to go round with me, and I felt sick. There,' he said, 'I have just the same feeling now.'

" 'The fact is,' said Williams, 'pledge or no pledge, you got very tipsy last night.'

" 'Upon my soul,' returned the little man, 'I hadn't touched a drop of anything stronger than tea, and, what's more, haven't these three months; unless it has been a drop of peppermint-water now and then.'

"In spite of his better reason, Williams could not help being somewhat struck by what he had heard.

" 'Don't, sir, don't let the vessel go to Southampton,' reiterated Pottle; 'if you do, she will certainly be lost.'

" 'Nonsense,' replied Williams.

"But the afternoon of that day, after telling the anecdote to several persons, he actually wrote to the captain at Plymouth instructing him not to sail, for that he would come down there instead.

"The next day, however, he received intelligence of the wreck of the yacht. The captain, who put into Plymouth for his own purposes, went on shore, after writing to his owner, the day that the vessel arrived. The crew, being demoralised, followed his example one by one till only three hands were left, who had been shipped at Vigo. They had no acquaintances there. The vessel had but one anchor out and thirty fathom of cable. It was a calm and beautiful afternoon. At two o'clock the next morning a terrific gale blew from the south, and the vessel dragged her anchor. The raw hands did not even contrive to remove the stopper of the cable. So she was blown in upon the rocks near the citadel, and one of those on board fired the muskets, which were answered by the coast-guard burning blue lights and boarding the vessel. This was what Williams ascertained on going down."

"Was she a total wreck?" asked Sir Robert.

"No: she was completely gutted from stem to stern, and you might have driven a cart and horse through her bottom. But Williams had her patched lip and brought round to London, where the Messrs. G. refitted her; and Williams sold her finally to an eminent Quaker firm to run as an opium clipper. She made several voyages, he said. To the end, however, she was unlucky, and to the end there was something strange and weird-like connected with her fate."

"What was it?" asked Lessingham.

"One evening Williams had a party at his rooms, and the conversation fell upon the vessel, and the dream, and her constant run of ill luck, and the narrow escapes he had when cruising with her, and the fact that she never could go anywhere or do anything right. If she started with the fairest wind for any port, she was sure to be driven in an opposite direction. Nothing connected with her prospered.

" 'It's my firm belief,' said Williams, 'that I shall hear some day or other that she is lost, and all on board with her. I should not like to bet on such a subject, or else I would offer odds.'

"The very next morning a newspaper came into his hands, directed to him by chance; that is, it was a copy of a new daily paper that lived a few days, and was sent round to people whose names were in the 'Court Guide.' The first thing he saw on opening it was the obituary, and the first name in it, upon which his eye fell, was that of a young man, to which the following brief and melancholy tale was appended:

" 'Supposed to have been on board of the —— (I forget the name, but she was re-christened when Williams bought her), which foundered in a typhoon off the Pellew Islands, when all hands were lost.'

"Williams had great difficulty in persuading one of his friends, whom he met that evening somewhere, and to whom he showed the newspaper, that he had not already seen it or heard of it, when he so distinctly prophesied the fate of the vessel the night before."

"Very singular!" said Sir Robert—"very odd indeed! Do you not think so?" he said, appealing to the Signora. But that lady did not answer at the moment. She was apparently deeply lost in thought. "But who could that poor fellow Williams be?" pursued Sir Robert. "Let me see what brigantine yacht was there——"

"And what became of him?" said Lessingham. "That's what I'm anxious to know. Did you lose sight of him altogether?"

"It couldn't be Aubrey, surely," half mused Sir Robert, aloud; "the fellow, you know, who lost his wife in that strange way. He had a large vessel I've heard, and I think she was wrecked. He was an awful cad, I believe."

Edgar shook his head.

"I gave the poor fellow a little work to do," he said, "just a trifle—more copying than anything—and he brought it back regularly enough three or four times. But the last time he didn't come any more; and as I owed him rather more than usual, for it was rather a heavy job, I feared the worst. I remembered that at our last interview, he had complained of shivering and pains in the head. I found his lodging with very great difficulty, through one of the queerest creatures I ever saw, who spoke to him one night in the bar of a public-house where we met. My worst fears were realised. The poor squalid landlady told me he had caught a fever and become delirious, and utterly beyond her control. Indeed, she was afraid he might hurt her children, of whom it appeared he was usually excessively fond. One wet night he rushed out into the streets and never returned. He told the landlady that he was going to look for his wife, though she had never seen nor heard of such a person before. As I heard of a dead body being found about that time that answered the description, I gave up the search, and—— But what on earth is the matter?"

All looked round, and Violet screamed aloud. The Signora had fallen back fainting on the grass.

CHAPTER XI.

A GENERAL CHURCH MEETING.

A herald father meets a trader sire,
And says, "You have a daughter, I a son.
An ancestor is worth a bale of goods;
My tarnished 'scutcheon wants fresh lacquering."
And so 'tis done—the hawk paired with the dove,
The peafowl with the buzzard.

A Play of Genoa, Act ii. Scene i.

Why, who would have thought of seeing you here.—Street Colloquy.

"CHIVERS!"

"Yes, my lord."

"Any letters this morning?"

"Yes, my lord."

"How many?"

"Just a dozen, my lord."

"Sort them."

"Certainly, my lord." (Period of ten minutes.)

"Chivers!"

"Yes, my lord."

"Sorted them?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Any duns?"

"Seven, my lord."

"Burn 'em."

"Yes, my lord."

"Any women?"

"Only three this morning, my lord."

"Read 'em, and tell us who they are. No, not now. They'll keep till after bweakfast. The weather is not very hot. What's the mercury in the shade?"

"Sixty-eight, my lord!"

"Bet a sovereign, 'tisn't seventy? Any other letters, Chivers?"

"One from the marquis, your lordship's father, my lord."

"Put it in the coat I shall wear to-day. The bweast-pocket. I'll read it at the Fogey Club, if I get there this afternoon. Anything else, Chivers? Stop, seven and five is eleven, ain't it? By-the-bye, got any money this morning?"

"Not a fiver in the house, my lord! We was cleaned out yesterday at the pigeon match, and your lordship finished up, if you recollect, at the 'Blue Posts' with the Duke of Ipswich and Mr. Crawler."

"So I did, Chivers, and precious good fun we had, I can tell you."

"I must go and get your lordship a new hat" (holds up a crushed hat with a doll stuck in the ribbon of it).

"All right, see if you can't get a tenner from old Tidler."

The domestic shook his head. "It's no go, my lord! You can have any amount of hats; but no money."

"Then order twelve dozen, and sell 'em at two bob each. But I say, Chivers, what's that other letter?"

"It's from Mr. Moss Lewis. He will see your lordship at twelve in the City."

"Dash it! why didn't you say so before? Give it me, quick." (Reads.) "A pony in cash. Fourteen dozen champagne. Confound his gooseberry! Seventeen pictures by celebrated Dutch masters. The unmerciful old sinner! Nine French clocks. Hurray! we'll start 'em for a sweepstakes, and see which will do the first quarter of an hour first. Here, toss over my clothes. Look sharp, Chivers. Give me some seltzer and brandy. And stop, Chivers!"

"Yes, my lord."

"Get me some cigars, a Hansom, and a stamp for three hundred. You don't mean to say you haven't enough 'pewter' for that! Then Lewis must stand the paper; and it's what he don't like, I can tell you." (Goes into next room, singing "Lord Tom Tidler is my name, doing oblongs is my game. Toodle-dum, toodle-dum, day!")

Chivers took out his money and counted it. "Three fivers and three sovs.," he said, "is eighteen, and nine and fourpence-hapenny, all saved from them precious gals and swindling friends of hisn. And they've offered him the governorship of New Zealand, to get him out of the country. I don't think the savages can teach him much. Why he nearly bit a policeman's thumb off last Sunday night. We had to find a little ready money then, and no mistake. But, bless you, he's not to be had, knows a game worth two of that. He could marry half a dozen hundred thousand pounders to-morrow, if he'd a mind. We must look out for a two hundred and fifty thousand pounder, I reckon, to get him square. And she's to be got. It's pretty nigh time to do it. I'm getting tired of these games—it don't suit a man of forty, as is of a serious turn of mind: and it don't pay half so well as it did, that's another thing. He's a borrowing far too much money, to suit my book. 'Chivers,' says I, yesterday, 'what are you doing of, Chivers? you're going too fast to be safe.' No! we must keep him a bit sober, and tie him up to a sack of money in a female form. There's the markis, he says to me very serious lately, 'Chivers,' says he, 'if you'll get my son well married, I'll stand something handsome.' And if I don't work the oracle with his creditors, a buying up his paper, why I'm a precious babe in arms, and I don't look much like one neither."

So saying, Mr. Chivers looked at himself in his lordship's glass, and arranged his lordship's aristocratic brushes on his lordship's marble dressing-table for his lordship's honourable toilet. We shall now see how Mr. Chivers kept his word.

Having now transported our readers back again to London, we must reintroduce them to some old acquaintances. The same crossing in front of St. George's, Hanover-square, shall be the scene. There has been a marriage there this morning, of course. Lord Thomas Peckham Tidler, M.P., third son of the Marquis of Hardupvery, to Miss Bettina Cruet, only daughter of old Cruet, the senior partner of Cruet, Platum, and Selloff, the great advertising cutlery, electro-plate, and japanned goods dealers, whose great philanthropical query of "why give any more?" is so well-known, wherever there is an eligible dead wall or opportunity for its publication. Lord Tidler's dishonoured cheques and bills were almost as plentiful as the advertisements of his father-in-law; but he employed agents to buy them in, as soon as the marriage was privately arranged. Lord Thomas Peckham Tidler had two or three agents besides the accomplished Chivers—one a broken down old disreputable captain of dubious antecedents—who were continually employed in changing his cheques; and his lordship could not well be arrested, because he sat in Parliament for one of his father's pocket-boroughs, a thing very snugly managed by the family solicitors, and he always bolted off salmon-fishing in Norway, or yachting in the Mediterranean, or somewhere on the Continent, or to America, just before the House broke up. As for his furniture, he had executed a bill of sale of that to his body servant, the aforesaid Mr. Chivers, who sometimes did a little business in money-lending himself, whilst his master borrowed. We do not mean to say that he lent much money to his master. The rogue knew better than that. He had no wages, save perquisites. He sold the wines and cigars which his master got on tick, and they divided the plunder. He would pay a cab occasionally for his lordship, and sometimes got him out of any petty monetary' scrape, such as affected his "honour" in a peculiarly delicate manner. In return, he now and then might have made his master jealous, had the latter been of a suspicious or observant turn of mind. But he was such a pleasant, reckless gentleman, was Lord Thomas Peckham Tidler. Sentiment, or any serious impertinence in the way of observation or reflection, no more penetrated his aristocratic outside than water a duck's back.

Lord Tom Tidler ate of the best, drank of the best, and smoked of the best. Any one who entered his rooms might quaff champagne, or sparkling moselle all day, if he liked it.

"It costs me nothing," Lord Thomas would say. "My fellow there" (meaning his valet) "is the sufferer. He paid for the stamp."

"I beg your pardon, my lord," replied the latter on one occasion, "I got it from the new stationer's in Bond-street, on your lordship's credit."

"Let's order a ton of gilt-edged note-paper," cries Tidler; "and I'll supply all my friends at seventy-five per cent, less than manufacturing prices."

His lordship has been known to leave a ten guinea watch, on the evening of the day that he obtained it, for nineteen shillings with a shabby stranger in a night-house. He was to have a pound advanced on it, and the stranger stopped a shilling, as he said, for interest on the loan for a day. Of course Tidler never saw watch or stranger again.

"What does it matter?" he said, "I shall never pay for it."

Yet tradesmen treated him with respect, whilst they would have remorsely sued any poor but honest man, who required time, through some unforeseen misfortune, to pay a bill for necessaries. And in spite of all this, Lord Thomas was a most popular man. Now and then he delivered a lecture on temperance or early closing, or a missionary undertaking. He was a great card at public dinners, especially of the philanthropic kind. He would have shone in returning thanks for the House of Commons at a Tradesman's Economic Burial Dinner, or Protection Association; it didn't matter in the least to him. Ministers of State wrote to him, "My dear Tidler"—his party was then in. If a small man wanted a small place, he came to Tidler, or more frequently to his valet; and if he didn't get it, you may depend upon it the shabbiness of the douceur was the most probable reason. Just before his marriage, he had the offer of the governorship of an important but distant Colony; but he treated the offer with scorn. You should have heard him ridicule the idea of having seven thousand pounds a-year in a place where there were no music-halls and no Opera. At length, he condescended to make his creditors happy. Sixteen brides-maids, in sixteen dresses duly described by the Court milliners who provided them, graced the marriage ceremony; the choral service was intoned, and dukes, earls, duchesses, and countesses innumerable, saw Lord Thomas Peckham Tidler "thrown off." After this amazing display, the old church looked grim as ever. There was the usual number of shabby old women in rusty black, crouching on the door-steps under the pillars, like the ghosts of ill-sorted marriages, or the battered Caryatides escaped from the architectural ornaments of a temple consecrated to repentant Hymen.

It was a fine afternoon, dusty and somewhat cold. A north-east wind was blowing, though the sun was occasionally hot, in a manner very favourable to bronchitis, especially as the previous day had been remarkably close and "muggy"—we know no other term to express it.

Any one who had happened to stand at the corner of the street opposite at the precise moment of which we are speaking, and who had been there some four years before, on the day when the Downy Cove played so conspicuous a part there as street-sweeper, could not but have expressed some surprise at seeing that individual, apparently unchanged by time or circumstances, busy in his old vocation again. Yes, there he was, as energetic as ever, sweeping away, and ever and anon indulging in a little war-dance of his own, and striking the arm which happened to be unencumbered by the besom on his chest, like an Indian fakir. Doubtless, he did not wear the same garments; but they seemed identical. Nor did he, in all probability, wield the same besom; but besoms are very much alike, especially when they are new. The man himself had scarcely changed at all. In fact, no one could have detected the slightest change in him. Let us pause and hear what he says.

"Dror it mild, Cove, dror it mild. I shall 'ave some of the nobs swearin' at me orful for kickin' up a dust. I vish they'd come down vith it a little 'andsomer, that's all. Now, here's a gent a-comin'. Vell, I'll show him wot I could do if it wos sloppy; and, pr'aps, hif he's of an himaginative turn, he'll fork out notwithstandin'."

As he spoke—unconsciously repeating almost the very words he had once used before on a similar occasion, in the very same locality—the person approached. It was Grinderby, walking slowly. Apparently he was a little lame. He stopped, and looked round. "Not here?" said that worthy—"not here? and I'm a quarter of an hour late. That looks bad, very bad; looks as if his game was quite sure. No eagerness for the money, hard up as he is." And the lawyer took off his hat, and polished his forehead with a large silk handkerchief, which he pulled out, looked anxiously round, and then slowly hobbled towards Hanover-square.

"I'm glad I twigged him in time," said the Downy. "It's that old limb of an hattorney—him as ruined them Aubreys, poor things, and as I vent that queer message for down by the river t'other day. Wot's he hup to now?"

At this moment, a man, who had been sitting on the church steps, with his head buried in his hands, and his elbows on his knees, as if sleeping, or in grief, suddenly rose up and came past the Downy.

"I've seen you afore, too, someveres," quoth that individual. "I heggspeck we've been a stayin' at the same hotel, or wos it at the Hunderground Club, in Mint-street? Let's see! You ain't the young man as comes the shivery-shaky dodge outside the cook-shops, air yer?" A shake of the head followed this inquiry to himself. "Nor you don't do Moses and the bulrushes on Vaterloo Bridge. No! nor you ain't in the groundsel line. Nor the owls ain't yours. Nor you don't come the snakes in his bussum caper. I've seen yer face afore, and yet it licks me to say vere."

At this moment the man passed again. He wore a thick and matted beard, and his hair was long and hung in elf-locks over his neck. He might have been handsome, but want or dissipation had set its seal upon his face.

Sharp misery had worn him to the bone.

He did not appear to see any one as he came by.

"I say, guv'nor," quoth the Downy. "Hem! Eh?" And he executed a series of little signs and winks, to which the other responded by a vacant stare, which expressed neither curiosity nor astonishment.

The Downy shook his head. "It's a case of genu-ine distress," he said. "I wonder the perlice haven't nobbled him yet. He don't seem 'arf wide avake. Hi! mate! I say, wot's the time o' day? Starvin', hold feller, is that the game?"

The other turned upon him a look so wolfish and yet despairing, that it staggered the equanimity of even our experienced friend.

"Here's 'arf a pint," he said, tendering him a copper, "as I meant to 'ave laid sum of this 'ere dust vith, as I've bin a swallerin' of. Vell, pr'aps Prowidence vill score it up someveres in them ewer-lastin' gardens vere there's nothink to pay, and no lieyers nor perlicemen at no price votsumever. No offence, mate," he added, after a pause.

The individual whom he addressed laughed aloud.

"My good fellow," he said, "I'm much obliged to you, but I'm not begging. Dash it! thank you, all the same."

And he laughed with a hollow and hysterical laugh, and walked rapidly away.

For once, a serious expression appeared on the visage of our volatile friend. He did not even throw down his besom; but placed it against the railing, and his finger against his nose in an attitude of deep reflection.

"It's him," he said at last, "it's him, I'll pound it. If it ain't him, it's his woice, as has bin in the country and prigged the clothes hoff a scar-crow. Of course, poor cretur', his 'air and beard 'ave grown wonderful long. Venever a swell's hout of luck, that's sure to happen. Here's old Grinderby a-comin' back. The werry lieyer as did the bis'ness. Wotever is he a schemin' of? I wish I'd follered that poor unfortynate cretur'. Well, he 'ave come down in the world, and no mistake; and wot's more, I don't think he can come down no lower vithout hookin' of it haltogether. Poverty's bad enough for them, as has never knowed nothink better. But a real gent in hout-and-hout trouble is wus hoff than a tame monkey got out of a travellin' show in a snow-storm."

"Here, fellow!" called Grinderby, who had reapproached our friend, "do you want to earn sixpence?"

"Yes, if I can do it honestly," was the answer.

"Hum!" growled Grinderby; "I shouldn't think you need trouble yourself about that."

"Pr'aps if I hadn't, guv'nor, I might be better hoff. I vunce had a chance of henterin' a hattorney's hoffice in the jewnior de-partment."

"No insolence, fellow!" replied the other, and then to himself, "Can he know?" (Aloud.) "Are you aware to whom you are speaking?"

"Can't say as I are," was the answer. "Never 'ad the pleasure afore, vich is wot the cove said when they hanged him for a hact of restitooshun."

"An act of restitution?" said Mr. Grinderby, inquiringly. "What might that be?"

"Vy, yer see, he knocked a lieyer on the 'ead vith a crowbar, and took his gold ticker from him."

"And do you call that restitution, you rascal?" said Grinderby; "you deserve to be given in charge."

"Vy, yer see, there wos two got back their hown—the devil got the lieyer hentire, and the poor a part of wot they'd been robbed of," said the Downy.

Mr. Grinderby changed the conversation. Possibly he did not wish at that precise moment to identify himself with his profession.

"Well," he said, with a scowl meant for a smile, "I see you don't care about earning a trifle. Money is so plentiful with you, I suppose."

"Oh, werry!" replied the Downy. "A large portion of the hinwisible capittle of the nation, as I heerd a helderly gent a talkin' of vunce on the knifeboard of a City bus. But wot can I do for you, sir?"

"Just run into that public-house, my good fellow, and get yourself a glass of ale with this, and see if there is a tall man there with a beard—an American gentleman, dressed in a rough blue pilot-coat. He wears glasses, and—you can't mistake him."

The Downy departed on his mission, and Grinderby paced up and down. Whilst he was waiting, two very different persons appeared on the scene, and met at the corner where he stood.

"Hallo! Swellingham," cried Stingray, as he nearly ran against that individual, who was leading a little girl by the hand, "is this the way you cut your old friends?"

"I beg pardon," replied Mr. Swellingham, "but really I did not observe—I was so preoccupied. I——"

"Just so, my dear fellow," replied the other; "I have not seen you, I don't know when. You are so altered, that I might have been well excused for not recognising you. How long is it?"

"Nearly four years, Mr. Stingray," was the answer.

"To judge by your appearance it might be ten," said Stingray. "You are positively quite grey. Large family, eh? Many of these cherubs?" pointing to the child, who was slender and pale, and had apparently somewhat outgrown her strength. "Now don't be in a hurry. I want to ask you a number of questions."

At this moment the Downy came out of the public-house and reapproached Grinderby.

STINGRAY (to SWELLINGHAM). Here, step aside one moment. I want to ask you——

GRINDERBY (to DOWNY). Well, was he there?

DOWNY. Not a crumb of him.

GRIN. Confound the fellow! He does not mean to come. Here (to DOWNY). You must take this note for me to a tavern in Deptford called the "One-Eyed Marine."

DOW. I knows. I went afore for yer, from Webb's Fields.

GRIN. The devil you did! Ha! ha! I dare say. The firm does a great deal in public-house business.

DOW. Hany answer?

GRIN. Yes—no! Leave the note. The gentleman will write by post.

DOW. Shall I call hin the Fields for—hanythink?

GRIN. Yes, to-morrow. I shall know by that time if the note be delivered all right.

DOW. (aside). Bless your himperence. D'ye take me for one of your own sort? D'yer think I'm going to make out a bill of costs without earnin' of 'em? To letters and messages vun pound vun? (Aloud.) I'll jest take a bob on haccount for hexpenses. Thank yer.

GRIN. Don't get drunk on the road. (Aside.) The impudent rascal. I must be off now. (Aloud.) Lose no time! (Aside.) I told Tops to be in the square exactly at the half-hour. It wants three minutes. I'll walk round and meet him. (Exit GRINDERBY.)

Enter TOPS driving the "mourning-coach."

TOPS. Hi! Have you seen an old gentleman? What! Why—can it be! Yes, it's the Downy himself, as I'm a sinner! Hallo, mate! is this the way you sarve an old pal?

DOW. Wot! Mister Tops! werry 'appy, I'm sure.

TOPS. You're a pretty feller never to come near a friend, you are. I've been a looking for you everywheres.

DOW. Yell, yer see, I ain't been courtin' popylarity much lately. Do these togs look like wisitin'?

TOPS. It ain't the dress, Mr. Downy, that we invites of a Sunday, it's the party that wears it. We ain't seen you, not to speak to, ever since the shutters of the model corfy-shop was put up.

DOW. (with a grimace). Don't mention it! I say, though, I'm blest if hever you tasted sich corfy. Werry's, in Regent-street, was a fool to it. Everythink was spicy and no mistake, and this is the hend on't! And the nobs tell us, "Honesty's the best pollicy." Walker! They keeps the pollicy for themselves, and leaves us hall the honesty. But, I say, what a guy you air!

TOPS. Legal huniform! Serious style. I'm living with old lawyer Grinderby.

DOW. You air! Then you're livin' with a—— but, no, I von't say nothin' agen your guvernor, young man, leastways viles he is your guvernor.

TOPS. Won't you? Then I will, at least, afore long; for I'm going to leave him. Do you see this here bucket?

DOW. Wot, them flowers? Vell, rather; there's plenty on 'em. Wot's the caper? If you wos livin' vith a Jew gent, as had a shop in Covint Garding, or an 'orticultural party down Fulham vay, I might have twigged wot you was hup to better. Has old six-and-eight took to growin' carnations?

TOPS. Not he. I don't mind telling you, that I'm wearing this nosegay in honour of her coming back to Hingland.

DOW. Her. What, Misses Susan? I never knowed she'd bin anyveres. Tell us hall about it.

TOPS. She's been gone nigh on four year, and I expect her this very evening from Paris along with her missis, a furren lady, a great Heyetalian singer.

DOW. Vell, I must hook it. I got to deliver this 'ere letter for your guvernor. He wos here jest now. (Shows letter to TOPS.)

TOPS (reads). "Captain Jonathan Bocombe Tadgers, care of Mr. Gruffem, 'The One-Eyed Marine,' Deptford." Whatever is the game, I wonder?

DOW. 'Tain't the first time I've been there, neither.

TOPS. Have you ever seen this Captain Tadgers?

DOW. Yes, and a rum lot he is too, I can tell you.

TOPS. I'd give harf a crown to clap eyes on him.

DOW. Down with it on the nail. There he is! a coming hout of that werry door—there, at that small public. He's come to meet the hold 'un, as 'ad got himpatient, and gone off without seein' of him.

TOPS. Here! Get some one to mind these 'osses' 'eads. No; you go and stop him, and get him to go in again, and give him the letter. I'll drop in accidental, and we'll reckon him up between us. Here's the needful. (Tosses him half a crown.)

The Downy went on his mission, without loss of time, and Tops soon managed to engage some one to look after the "mourning-coach," and the two old gaunt Flemish horses. We will leave them to their devices for a few minutes, while Mr. Stingray and Swellingham, with his little girl, reappear on the scene, still talking.

STING. My dear Swellingham, excuse me. Whose make are those trousers?

SWELL. A very cheap and honest fellow in the City. Are you in want of a tailor?

STING. Much obliged! (Laughs.) To tell the truth, I never did see such a cut. You are, indeed, an altered man, since the days I remember.

SWELL. Do you consider that clothes make the man? (Aside.) If so what a scoundrel his tailor ought to be; for he has clothed him in hypocrisy and baseness from head to foot.

STING. No! certainly not, but the very tone of your voice, your actual pronunciation, is quite changed.

SWELL. I dare say. The fact is, I am so busy that I can't attend to such matters. When one has a lot of these little mouths to fill (looks at the child), it does make a difference. Come, Bella, wish the gentleman good-bye.

STING. Do you call that a little mouth? A dear, good little thing; but frankly her mouth is not her best feature. You know I never flatter. She looks rather delicate.

SWELL. Delicate? Thank Heaven! she has never had a day's illness. I have not a sickly child among them all. Good day, Mr. Stingray!

STING. Stay! stay! You are not in such a hurry.

SWELL. Well, the fact is, that I have some friends coming to dinner—old Mrs. Snobbington, with her three eldest grandchildren. You remember poor Snob?

STING. Who could forget him! Talk about changes. Was ever one like that? To think, after his utter ruin, that he should have gone into the medical department in India. Few persons, save myself, knew that he had walked the hospitals in early life.

SWELL. He died, poor fellow! a victim to his exertions. What hero ever merited the cross of valour better than our old friend "Snob," as we used to call him? To have amputated the leg of a private soldier under the fire of the mutineers at Lucknow as coolly as if he were smoking a cigar! Nor was that more than an episode of his daily life. In his last letter to me thanking me for the little attention which I paid to his mother after they were so reduced in fortune, he said that nothing gave him so much pleasure as to mingle with those whom he had formerly deemed far beneath him, and whom he had studied to avoid and despise—the "soldier and the working man." "Believe me," he wrote, "the heart and brain of England are soundest among those who are not corrupted by wealth, nor enervated by luxury, whom Society has not made selfish, nor fashion hypocritical. What heroism is his, who, with the sternest valour and endurance, volunteers for the 'forlorn hope,' or breathes his last sigh without complaint in the hospital or the trenches, with the full persuasion on the one hand that, should he survive, an ungrateful country will leave him a beggar with his scars, and, on the other, that should he perish, his name, if not wholly unrecorded, will but swell the long list of the forgotten and the unknown. This is duty, indeed, far outshining the star on the decorated breast. This, if I live, it will be the object of my humble efforts to place before my country in the most forcible terms I can command; this, if I die, it is at least a consolation to have known, to have met, and in some slight decree to have shared and alleviated."

STING. Very eloquent and enthusiastic indeed, but slightly absurd. I suppose, had he not died in India, we should have had the pleasure of reading a letter on the Delhi prize money, signed "A. Snobbington," in the "Times." By-the-bye, did you see Sir Crossbill Crossbill's observations about Phil Cousens's divorce?

SWELL. I did. He said if he were not the greatest fool, he was one of the greatest rogues to whom he had ever granted the aid of the Court.

STING. Capital! wasn't it? Knowing Phil and his excellent heart as we did! Ha! ha!

SWELL. He left the firm I believe nearly four years ago.

STING. Just after the Aubrey scandal. I wonder what has become of that poor wretch. Strange that he has not turned up as chief promoter of a Limited Liability Company, nor come out with a scheme for paying off the National Debt.

SWELL. Come, Bella!

STING. Just four years ago!

(SWELLINGHAM gives some pence to his little girl for a beggar woman with a baby in her arms.)

STING. Very wrong that! I never encourage street begging. I have a great mind to give her in charge to the police.

SWELL. You had better not.

STING. Why not?

SWELL. Hem! The charge might assume a more complex character; for (sternly and defiantly) if you did—— Come, Bella!

STING. Pooh-pooh! I was only joking. Of course if you like to amuse yourself by flying in the face of the law, I should not interfere with a friend's diversions. It puts me in mind of the flower-girl on the night of the suicide—the "garwotter," eh? (Mimics SWELLINGHAM'S former style.)

SWELL. (firmly). She lives in my family, and has been the beloved nurse of my children these three years.

STING. There were a good many changes about that time. Some six months after that the Duke of Chalkstoneville and Acres ended his virtuous days, and left Kitty Dareall fifty thousand pounds, with which that exemplary and accomplished young lady turned devotee, and head matron to a sort of hybrid preventive service institution for ladies without any ostensible means of existence. Ha! ha! What a gain to religion and morality!

SWELL. I don't see any change in you, Mr. Stingray.

STING. Has this dear little cherub of yours had small-pox?

SWELL. No! Why do you ask?

STING. Oh! nothing. The woman to whom she gave those coppers just now had her child covered with it—that is all. But doubtless your darling has been vaccinated. Good-bye, my dear friend. (Seizes his hand and shakes it warmly.) I must go and secure a stall to hear the divine Bianca Stellini, who is expected here, if she has not arrived, and who makes her first appearance at the Opera on Thursday night. She has been the furore at St. Petersburg, Milan, Rome, and Naples during the past year. Nothing like her since poor dear Malibran. Her beauty and romantic history too—the widow of a young Polish officer killed in the British service in the Crimea—will insure her a splendid reception here. Ta! ta! (Goes and returns.) Now, don't distress yourself about the small-pox. It's better to have it early, you know. Bye, bye! (And Mr. Stingray walked off to the great relief of Swellingham.)

"What a horrid, wicked man, papa!" said the child. "Isn't he a wicked man?"

"Indeed he is, my dear," replied Swellingham; "and yet he has the credit of having a good heart. I would back the instincts of one innocent child," he continued, as if to himself, "against the general opinion of the world in a case like his. True enough, he is not much changed, though I dare say his vices have grown greyer with his hair. All the change is for the worse, as the critics say of his books. Still Society deems this vivisector of humanity tender-hearted, and dubs him a philanthropist and a sage. Sage and onions to stuff geese withal—the onions to draw tears over his sickly sentiment and maudlin rhodomontade. I don't believe a word about the small-pox. But we'll get outside an omnibus, darling, and purify ourselves from his contact as we can."

And with this speech Mr. Swellingham took little

Bella by the hand and led her towards Regent-street in search of an omnibus, meeting, as he did so, a trio emerging from the public-house door already mentioned. These were Captain Tadgers, the Downy, and Tops.

These individuals paused to exchange a few words before Tops remounted the box-seat of the "mourning-coach."

Captain Tadgers was a stout and tall personage, with a dark countenance, strong black beard, and apparently weak eyes, for which he wore a pair of green spectacles of the description "blinker." He was attired in rough pea-coat buttoned up high round his throat. He looked like a Yankee supercargo or stevedore, and possibly he was something of the kind.

"Waal," said this individual, addressing the Downy, "I calculate you're about as harmless a crittur as ever I see. I'll just tell you what you oughter du, and that's to jine a tribe of our Red Injins. They'd make something out of a poor half-witted cuss like you, I reckon. I tell you they'd give you free livin'."

"I suppose you mean the savages by the Injins," said Tops. "Would they take a fancy to my friend here now?"

"They'd be some pumkins on him, I tell you, strainger. The Injins always have a great respect for mad folks. I should think you air about half-baked" (to the Downy), "ain't yer?"

"The Parish allers said so," responded the Downy, meekly.

"Waal, anyhow you were sharp enough to save your legs a journey, when you saw me jest now; I dare say you'll have another letter to deliver before long at the 'One-Eyed Marine.' Don't stop on the road, or I'll tar and feather you, I will by——"

"I suppose you've bin in England before," said Tops.

"That's my consarn," said the other. "I suppose maybe I have; and I don't find it growed much since I was here when a youngster. Why, we annex a country bigger than yourn every year! We could put this island in one of our lakes, without spilling a drop of water over the sides. As for this coon, the Injins is the best speckylation for him. They'll make him a medicine-man and treat him handsome. I knew an Irishman what jined a tribe, and got drunk at their expense every day till he died. Now and then he'd give them a jig, and I've known 'em go to war on the strength of an extra fling, when he'd had a drop more than his reg'lar allowance. Waal, I reckon I'm off." And so saying Captain Tadgers suited the action to the word, and without compliment or salutation, unless spitting half across the street might be taken for such, he quietly strode out of sight.

"Whatever can old Grinderby want along with him?" said Tops to the Downy. "But you must come along with me. I've a deal to ask you. I want to hear all about the 'inwestment,' as you used to call it, and how you was wound up, and what you've been a doing of since, and all the rest of it."

"Wound hup?" said the Downy, taking his seat on the box. "I should think I were wound hup, and it would take the Court of Chance-ry to hunvind me, and I don't believe as they could do it, no not hif all the lieyers was to try for a 'undred years. They'd get me in such a precious tangle, that I'd never be hunvound no more in this vorld, and the knots vould 'ave to be took out of me in the next by a special mercy of Prowidenx. Vy I vent for three 'undred and fifty pound hover and above my capittle. Bless yer, vy I wos a bankrup' and put in the 'Gayzette.' D'ye call that nothing?"

"No, I should have called it something, if you'd owed me the money," answered Tops. "But how was it a chap like you, as I always took to be honest, got in sich a precious mess? You wasn't a 'limited lie-ability,' was you?"

"Vell," said the Downy, "I wos a doin' pretty vell, in spite of the debts owin' to me, ven a chap as took his corfy reg'lar of a mornin', he proposed to git me a pardner."

"Was he a lieyer?" asked Tops.

The Downy nodded.

"And you was soft enough to let him meddle with the consarn? I sees it all," said Tops, touching up his horses judicially.

"Vell," said the Downy, "he wos a civil-spoken sort of gent enough, and he axed me vun day about the capittle and the bis'ness, and said he shouldn't charge nothink, and he didn't neither. Forty-nine pound seventeen and fourpence ha'penny ain't exactually nothink, is it? Them lieyers never leaves out the ha'penny. It looks so werry special and pertickler.

That wos his figure, and wot's more he got it. He borrered the last fifty from me the veek afore I wos wound hup."

"And how did you get through the Court?" inquired Tops.

"There wern't no sort of difficulty," replied the other. "You see I never kep' no accounts, vich saved a sight of trouble, and the judge he larfed fit to burst hisself, ven I hexplained how it were. He said my lieyer ought to be struck hoff his rolls, and I said I believed he were, as vell as his corfy and butter and heggs, as soon as my shutters wos hup. 'He allers liked his rolls werry 'ot, my lord,' ses I, 'as vell as his corfy.' 'And didn't he pay for what he had?' axed the judge. 'No,' my lord,' ses I. 'I were to take it hout in hadwice gratis.' 'See wot you've brought this poor man to,' says his lordship to my pardner, werry sewere. 'I do believe he's not to blame,' he ses. 'You never spoke better truth,' ses I, 'in your life, vich is more nor I expected from any vun here.' Then they all larfed. 'Silence!' ses his lordship. 'I shall give him a first-class certifycate,' he ses. But didn't he come down on my pardner, and said he ought to be transported. Vell, hever since that, I've been agoin' on in the hold line. Sometimes I've a bit of grub and to spare, and sometimes nothink. If it wosn't for the vinter, I vouldn't care. Do you think there's any truth in wot that cove from Amerikey said about them there Injins, mate? I've a mind to try it on, if I thought it wos safe. But I sticks to life, as much as hif I wos a bishop."

"I don't think they'd eat you, if they did kill you," said Tops; "unless the cannibals is fond of grilled bones, and I don't think they'd ever fatten you, if they was to try."

"I say," said the Downy, as if seized by a sudden inspiration, "who d'ye think I see, jest afore I met you? I wos agoin' to tell yer, ven you sent me after that ere wot's-his-name in sich a hurry. It's about the hout-and-houtest rummy go, that I should 'ave run agen him and you too in the same arternoon that hever I did know."

"Can't say," replied Tops. "Was it the little chap as sung the song about the pleeceman the day as you opened the corfy-shop?"

"No!" said the Downy, "kvite a different sort; vun as it'll make me sad to think on, ven I turns into my four-pennorth this evenin'. Vun as you knowed vell, ven he wos a sight better hoff than he is now, and vun as I'm sorry I let go afore I'd rightly twigged as it wos him. Not that I could do anythink of hany account for him. It was your old guvernor."

Perhaps it was as well that the two old Flemish horses were worthy of the names Tops had given them; for had they been a skittish or restive pair, it is likely that the mourning-coach would have come to grief at that moment. Tops fairly let the whip and reins fall out of his hands, and turning round he seized the Downy by the throat and shook him in the excess of his emotion.

"What!" he cried, "my old master—Mister—Aubrey?"

"Loose yer hold, vill yer? D'ye vant to throttle a feller?" exclaimed the Downy. "Loose yer hold, I say."

Tops burst out laughing almost hysterically as he released his hold on his companion. He then deliberately got down and gathered up the reins.

"Here! Hold them," he said, "whilst I pick up the persuader, and so saying he ran after the whip, which a small boy had already seized, and was flourishing about the heads and legs of a number of his fellows.

"Hooray!" shouted one; "look at his coat-tails, Bill." "I say, master," cried another, "you've bin a robbin' the beadle." "Twig the cove on the box!" "Vy he's picked up Jack Ketch's nevvy." "They was a millin' like mad, jest now." "Drive hoff, muffin-face, and leave him behind!" "He'll never catch yer in that long tog of hisn." "You've been airing the hen-roost, that's wot that old trap's been used for." Presently the nearest urchin sent a potatoe just between Tops and the Downy, as the former whipped up "Dogsmeat" and "Catsmeat," and drove off, followed by the acclamations of the crowd.

"Did you say you really see Mr. Aubrey? And when was it?" asked Tops in a husky tone.

"I see him jest afore I see you," replied the Downy.

"Are you sure it was him?" inquired Tops.

"I ain't quite a fool, though I sometimes looks like vun. D'yer think I don't know him agen?"

"And is he very poor and bad off?" asked Tops.

"It's pretty nigh hall hup vith him, I'm afeard," replied the Downy. "I spoke to him, but he was hoff like a shot. I'll tell yer wot it is, I'd ha' guv him the last bob I got in the vurld, if he'd a' took it, for I never forgets a kindness; and I don't like to see a real gent down on his luck to sich a pint as never wos meant to stand it. I didn't know you would a' took on so grievious about him, or I'd a' broke it gently. I respex your feelinx, young man, but blow your hemotion! You pretty nigh strangled me, and s'pose the 'osses had bolted."

"They ain't got a bolt in 'em. They couldn't bile up a gallop atween 'em, not if they was engaged 'special,' as you call it, for the Lord Chancellor's own funeral, as was wanted very sudden below. T'other day a 'gent' said they were such a pair of old Romans, they'd have committed suicide long ago, if they only knowed how. Victuals is no use to them, no, nor grooming neither. But my time is up this day month; for I told old Grinderby to suit himself this morning. Look here, mate, you must find Mr. Aubrey for me at once. There ain't a letter in which my Susan hav'n't asked me if I hav'n't heard no news of him. If he's about, as you say, why his address must be collared—that's all. But I'm afraid your eyes have deceived you this time."

"I vish I wos as certain of twenty pound a-year," said the Downy. "If I'd honly seen him ven he wos a swell, and not knowed hanythink of him arter his misfortins, I might be mistook. But I'd svear to him anyveres, if he wos disguised as the Hemperor of Morroky, or the Chief Commissioner of Bobbies at the openin' of Parlyment; and he beats Ashley's holler, if he could honly sit his 'oss less like a sack of peas vith a cocked 'at on. Vy, I'd tell your old guvernor's woice among a thousand. He's growed a beard, and it's turned a little grey along vith his 'air. And he's a sight thinner, and stoops. But vot's the hodds to a man of hobserwation? Ven I knows a man, I knows him; and I ain't likely to be took in by haccidental ressemblance like the perlice, cos I ain't got to get up no ewidents agen a hinnocent party."

"You didn't speak to him, Mr. Downy?" asked Tops.

"In course I did," replied that gentleman.

"And he answered you?"

"He did."

"And what did he say?"

"He said he wos not beggin', and no more he wos for that matter."

"You didn't—insult him!" said Tops.

"No more than offerin' to stand 'arf a pint, afore I'd propperly hentered on his recognisinzes," said the Downy, who for once mistook the meaning of a term which he had picked up.

"And didn't you foller him?"

"Vy should I? Wot vould 'ave bin the use? If I could 'ave done him hany good, I'd 'ave follered him fast enough. And wot's more, H. Downy, Eskvire, ain't on the private hinspection lay, vich I takes to be jest about the meanest, lyingest, thievingest, humbugginest set-out in this here blessed willage of London."

"We must find him now. Me and Susan has saved up a tidy penny, but we'll spend the last farthin', sooner than not do it. She says it's my duty, and I feels it is, here," said Tops, pressing the handle of his whip across his left side. "It's got to be done, that's what it has, you see. Now, if you'll git down here, I'll put the 'osses up, and join you in about an hour. It'll take that time, for I acts just the same by these precious old screws, as if they would fetch five hundred guineas at the Corner. You shall go with me to the wharf to meet Susan and her missus, a celybrated furren singer, this evening. They prefer coming all the way by the boat, and so should I for that matter; for I'd rather be drownded right off, than be half mashed, or made a idiot of by a railway accident. Fancy sitting opposite such a customer as old Grinderby, and having his buck teeth sticking in your forehead!"

"But don't his sort go by sea jest as hoften?" asked the Downy. "How vould you like to be cotched round the neck by a drowndin' lieyer, as you cotched hold of me jest now? I'll tell yer what it is. Travellin' don't get rid of bad company, or I should 'a begun the grand tower ven I cum of age, and not pulled hup in a jiffy neither. Did yer never 'ear of the Vanderin' Jew, the boldest clothesman in the vurld? It's my hopinion that he vos vunce the senior pardner of an uncommon respectabil firm of sollycitors in Jeerusylum."

"There was no solicitors in those days, I've heard said," replied Tops. "It's a modern institooshun."

"Modern rope's-end! Is lies modern, and rattlesnakes and pison? Vere did hall the vickedness horiginally cum from? I've heerd different. There wos a chap used to preach on Primrose-'ill, and he said there wos lieyers and plenty in Jeerusylum. And wot's more, there wos vun on 'em in Pairadice as tempted Heve with a golden pippin. The firm vos Sattin, Sarpent and Co., and the bill wos made hout to Hadam on a fig-leaf, and ven he couldn't shell out, hexecution wos issued. It's bin agoin' on ever since, and there's more on 'em than hever now, owing to the hincrease of crime and poppylation."

Tops looked at his quaint companion and shook his head, and then nodded two or three times, as much as to say, "It's no use to argue the point, and perhaps you're not altogether wrong," and the pair entered another public-house, where they had another half-pint very amicably together.

"This evening," said Tops, "at eight o'clock, at the wharf below London Bridge. Ask for the Bullong boat, and you'll find me waiting."

"Hall serene, guvernor!" was the cheerful response, and the pair parted company; Tops resuming his seat with all the dignity which the long tails of his snuff-coloured "uniform" imparted to him.

"He's as right a sort," quoth the Downy, looking after him, "as I hever see, and ven ve meets sich a vun, it's enough to reckinsile us to the vickedness of the hupper classes. I don't beleeve, if he wos to come into a thousand a-year it would spile that man's disposishun. If he wos to take to the grocery line, he'd ruin hisself vith sellin' good licker, that's wot he'd do, and there's some as can't be honest on millions. It ain't in 'em. There ain't no capittle in Hingland, as vould tempt me to go into bis'ness agen, and there's a many as only looks on their certyficates of bankrupsy as tickets-of-leave to enable 'em to go in for a more howdacious swindle. Vell, I'll jest go and look arter that pore gent in trouble. I shouldn't vonder if he come back agen vere I fust see him. Ven a cove is 'omeless, he generally takes to some pertickler spot hout o' doors, as if he vanted to hold on to somethink."

So saying, the Downy hurried back to St. George's Church, and only stopped for three "two-pennorths" on the way, a token that he considered the business of importance. But he was not fated to find Aubrey, although his view as to the probability of that unfortunate being's return to the spot where he had seen him was by no means ill-founded. At the very moment when the Downy informed Tops of his chance rencontre, Aubrey had in truth revisited the portico of St. George's Church, where he leant against a pillar and half thought, half muttered, the following incoherent sentences:

"There is nothing left now—no hope—my very identity seems lost. I am a stranger in this vast, awful city. No one recognises me, no one sympathises with me, no one pities my sufferings. Pity! No, I could not brook that. I wonder if any one would recognise my corpse, if I were to put an end to this misery and die! I am utterly and entirely alone. For nearly two years I was haunted by the ghost of a fortune, and hunted by the reality of duns. For a long time after I was beggared, there were persons who wanted either to beg or borrow from me. And, now, ha! ha! I do not even create an impression in a casual ward. In the beginning the brutal officials used, I believe, to take me for an impostor in the ranks of misery, a sensational writer in disguise, or a madman. As if any one, save a madman, would essay that purgatory twice! At first, when I was poor and in difficulties, I seemed to have a talent for becoming acquainted with those who were in difficulties and poor. Now I get acquainted with no one. I have no longer a shilling to share. I used to think there was propagation in poverty. Now I see that it is leprous and epicene. At first how many broken clerks, superannuated servants, distressed beings of both sexes, cropped up as if in mockery, when I could barely earn bread myself. Forgotten debts, too, met me at every turn. Some wretched woman with a babe seemed produced or invented by the fantastic decree of Fate to ask me for a penny to cross a bridge, or to give a loaf to her child, when I had nothing, literally nothing to bestow. When I have been faint with hunger myself, I have been persecuted by the piteous iteration of want. What a terrible thing it is to be a beggar among beggars, to have empty pockets and be dunned by the ghastly shapes of woe! I feel sometimes as if I could shout aloud to awaken deafened luxury, and die content in thought that some poor creatures were better for my misery. Oh, what foul, cold-blooded, chronic massacre of helpless childhood, what worse than barbaric sacrifice of the aged and infirm, what godless, soulless, compassionless tyranny reigns around! The butcher holidays of Rome, what were they to the Christian Sabbath of starvation? The sanguinary

Moloch was sometimes gorged and appeased, the bloodless yellow spectre of Mammon never, never! Day and night the skeleton crowds expire. Tens of thousands, nay millions of priests and Levites pass by, not even 'on the other side.' They gaze coldly, or fiercely, on the misery they do not pity, much less alleviate. Every hour, every minute, a Lazarus dies. Boards and Corporations of Herods sit curiously considering how to slaughter infancy, without the plea of the fear which makes despots cruel, while they seek to attach the odium to the Divinity Whom they insult with the lie of their hypocritical worship. That poor wretch whom I met here—he was very poor—would have shared his alms with me, had I suffered him. Thank Heaven! there is an end even to sufferings like mine. A second time, there has been an execution in my wretched abode, and my means of existence are remorselessly destroyed. They would listen to no promise, no plea for time. My very papers and manuscripts are gone; I have not the heart to seek to reclaim them. And what if I could? Even the play on which I founded such hopes was stolen, as that cynical old reporter told me it would be, by my old college friend, the successful playwright of the day, and has proved in his name a brilliant success. I have not even a copy of it, and if I had, what could I do? If I take him by the throat, can I shake truth out of him? No, only lie upon lie! I should but be imprisoned; a mark and butt for obloquy, derision, and scorn. Poverty has no champion, no friend. I have often thought of that old Latin motto of my school days, 'Nihil durius in se paupertas habet, quam quod ridicules homines facit.' My health is breaking fast. Why, why did I recover from the fever which drove me forth, till I was found, as it was supposed, the victim of an accident, in the streets, bruised, and torn, and bleeding? So they took me to a hospital, and the surgeons set my broken limb. They would not have relieved mere poverty unembellished by an accident. I saw the account of it in the 'Standard'—'A poor author knocked down and run over in the streets.' Some charitable persons subscribed nearly fifty pounds, but the magistrate would only hand over ten; because he did not think that I gave a clear account of myself. My destitution and misery were not sufficient testimony for me to receive such a fortune. He talked of committing me as a vagrant and impostor! I have tried hard to live. Everything has failed. One editor thought me too ambitious. Another did not believe my efforts to be 'original,' he said; and so he mislaid my manuscript, which was afterwards used by a creature of his own, a toady who flatters him, and does the 'padding,' as it is called, of his magazine. I am homeless, roofless, and without means. What will become of me? No matter. When the rain beats on my burning breast, and the wind chills my aching limbs, I do not curse Fortune, but cry aloud in anguish, 'Blanche! dear departed angel, Blanche! thou art avenged, thou art avenged!' "

Such is an epitome of the thoughts which crowded through the brain of the unhappy Aubrey, and which sometimes his lips would, in part, mechanically utter.

In the height of bitterness and misery, men will sometimes talk aloud. It is generally so in the last stage, before madness or premature death. Surely Aubrey had suffered enough to win forgiveness for his sins. But the cup of expiation was not yet full enough to spill a libation to offended Fortune. Of remorse in this world, as of suffering worth, there is taken no visible account. Honesty is the best worldly policy, when honesty succeeds. Remorse well and piously expressed, may procure for a convicted felon indulgence, and even freedom. But were virtue always marketable, always sure of valuable appreciation, mankind would become so insufferably good, that hypocrisy would sicken with a general surfeit and die. What merit would there be in avoiding wickedness which never could by any means pay, in cutting pauper vices, and turning a deaf ear to the insolvent whine of every beggarly Sin soliciting alms from a proudly prosperous soul? No, the experience of the Psalmist is not that of the later epochs of the world's history: "I have been young and am now old, yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." Can the most venerable father of the Church lay his hand upon his heart, and say, without reservation, that this is so. If it be, is it not rather the case with those who have made religion the stalking-horse of worldly greed? "The distressed daughters of a deceased clergyman" are not altogether unknown to the advertisement sheets of the daily press. Yet who shall therefore impeach the decrees of Heaven, and say that it is not within the scope of Divine Justice that injustice reigns upon earth? The Whig party always remains longest in office; and an authority which we are inclined to believe sometimes, has declared that "the devil was the first Whig," and suggested compromise and expediency, in a word, political hypocrisy, to mankind.

CHAPTER XII.

A SISTER OF CHARITY AND HER BRETHREN.

Je iure par mon salut éternel, et par les sainctes Évangiles cy présentez soubz ma main tenir ceste femme pour un ange; vivant en toute honnesteté, pleine de vertueux advis, nullement maulvaise, aydant moult les pauouvres et souffretexix . . . . Ceste amour naïfvement unie à la repentance, ceste noblesse dedans la coulpe, cettay meslange de foiblesse et de force eussent, comme disent les anciens autheurs, muté le charactère des tigres, en les attendrissant.—Contes de Balzac.

IN a plainly furnished parlour in Guilford-street, Enssell-square, sat a lady attired in plain half-mourning, reading a volume of Essays from the "Times." The "Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton," was the subject she had chosen. As she read that wondrous tale of glory and perfidy, of light and darkness, greatness and littleness, of superb, meretricious, rose-coloured triumph, and flabby, ghastly, hideous ingratitude and narrowness of mind, indignation and horror by turns flushed and paled her expressive face. As she read the sad, sad end—the story of the lap-dog fed with delicate meats, while the soiled idol of England's best-loved hero lay starving in her miserable garret alone; as she learnt how Nelson's goddess, his Egeria, his beloved one, died, and how the corpse of her, whom monarchs and princes honoured, and whom their wives and daughters flattered and imitated, was thrust into a French pauper coffin, and flung into a pauper exile's grave, she shut the book, and the big tears gathered under her long dark lashes, and rolled heavily one by one down her cheeks.

"And I have been weak enough," she said, "sometimes to repine at the lot I have chosen, and to regret the vanities which I have cast aside! And, oh! what a lesson is here. Truly I have lost, I have sacrificed nothing; and what may I not have gained, nay, what rather have I not already won? Last night those darling little faces of the children in the school-room in Soho smiled upon me in my sleep. Let me read this letter again," she said, "that I may recover the serenity which that story has for a moment destroyed."

"Bless you, bless you, dear lady! you have saved me from worse than death. My poor father is recovering fast. Mother tells me that had I not come, he must have died. As soon as he is well enough, we are all going to Melbourne, Australia." (Good, that is well.) "No one knows anything for certain here. They think I have been in service; but I could not bear to keep up any deceit, and so we are going away. Father desires me to tell you that he remembers you night and morning in his prayers. Mother begs you will accept her duty, and the few things she has sent. She says she is sorry that the fowls are not so fine as some she has had earlier in the season. Oh, madam! what has not your angelic goodness saved me from? I should have been a murderess, but for you; his murderess, my poor dear father's, who clasped me to his heart, and who has never said an unkind word since I came back. 'Annie,' he said, 'I thought you had gone away from your old father for ever, and I have been trying to think how I could have driven thee away from home, child.' He drive me away? He never said a harsh thing to me in his life. He was only too good to an ungrateful wretch. If, dear lady! you see him who deceived me, as you said you would, say that I forgive him, and please ask him for my picture which he had done, and destroy it. It is the likeness of a wicked, heartless girl, who believed a stranger, and forgot her old father, who would have died, but for you. He is going to be married next month at St. George's Church to a rich lady, when I shall be far away at sea. I hope he will be kind to her, but doubt it, poor thing! I hear she is very plain and quite lame; but she is rich, and that may make a difference—may it not? She will have many to protect her, but never, never a friend like you. After I left, father fell down in a fit. He will always have the scar, the doctor says, to his grave. When I saw it, I could not help crying; and what do you think father pretended and tried to make me think? He said he fell off a ladder nailing up the grape-vine. And mother says it was true enough he did. But he didn't get that hurt then, though he bruised his arm bad enough. Nothing, dear lady, in this wide wicked world could ever tempt me to do wrong again, even if I had not loved him who behaved to me so false and cruel, and left me at that dreadful place to starve or worse—little he cared which! I know many say that a girl who has once done as I have is not to be trusted, and is certain to sin again. But if I had another heart, and could believe in another as I believed in him, again; and if I could forget all your words, the night when you kissed me and pressed my hand and called me sister, till I thought my heart would burst, I should only have to look at that scar on father's forehead to hate and loathe the tempter and resist every evil prompting to wrong. My eldest sister's sneers would have no terrors for me—not if the whole village turned their backs upon me, would I dream of leaving the old man again. I would delight in bearing all for his sake, and to seem happy lest he should feel sad. I shall see you once, dear friend and lady, before the vessel sails—shall I not?

"I am, ever,

"Your once lost but now saved and grateful sister, since you will have me call you so,

"ANNIE WEBBER."

"Poor child," said the lady, musing, "I do believe all that she says. But I am glad on every account that she is going away. Else she might find the revilings of the uncharitable too bitter to endure. I can just fancy that domestic Gorgon of a sister of hers talking religion at her, till the poor girl is nearly driven mad. This is what too often makes home impossible to one whose loving and confiding disposition has been betrayed. This letter has done me good."

Here a plain thin little girl, about twelve years old, entered the room. She walked up to the lady very quietly and said, "Shall I do any work now, ma'am, or will you hear me read?"

The lady patted her head and replied, "You shall do your sewing first, my dear. Have you fed that poor little dog?"

"Oh, yes, and he seemed so glad," said the child. "He did lick my hand."

Presently a servant-girl came in, after knocking timidly at the door. She was very pretty, but pale and downcast. "If you please, ma'am," she said, "my uncle is come, and wishes to know if he may see you, ma'am." And the girl coloured very deeply, as if there was something remarkable in this announcement.

"Show him in, Mary," was the answer. "My dear" (to the little girl), "take your sewing with you, and go with Mary. You shall come in again in a few minutes."

A rough, brutal, obstinate-looking man, with a lean, sharp, showily-dressed woman, was shown in by the trembling Mary.

"You wanted to see me, I've been told," said the man, rather gruffly. "I've 'ad some trouble to come here all the way from Chelsea. It's about this girl, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied the lady. "She is, I understand, a near relation of yours, and has lived with you as a sort of servant for some time."

"She's lived with us, true enough," said the man, "and assisted in the house-work, I believe; but after the manner in which she left, I don't want to 'ave nothing more to do with her."

"I'm sure," struck in the woman who had come with him, who we may presume was his wife, "that for all the use she was to us, we've never missed her; a bold, impudent, artful slut as she is, and so kind to her as we've been. To think of the wine and things I've give that girl, and there isn't a word bad enough for us in her mouth. But she couldn't keep from the fellows, and what could any one expect? The sight as she'd leave my five children in, and never a step scoured, nor a knife nor shoe cleaned, for that matter, at nine o'clock of a morning. But you see what it's come to, and she pretending to be afraid of black beedles and rats! I'm sure, if I'd had my way, I'd have sent her about her business long before; but my husband he's such a good-natured fool, you know you are, Nixon. He put up with her ways a precious sight too long. My father kep' his chaise and was quite a gentleman I can assure you, though we do take in lodgers now, more's the pity, and that lazy hussy couldn't wait on them." (The truth is that her father kept a small chandler's shop, and Nixon was his apprentice, and first seduced and then married her, or she did him).

"This is not what I want to know," replied the lady, mildly but firmly. "The girl, I understand, is under age, and you" (to the man) "are her nearest relation—is it not so? Now I am willing to take her, to clothe her, feed her, and educate her; but I must have a written authority from you, that if I do so, you will not interfere. Is it not true that you turned her out into the streets bareheaded and barefooted in the night, bearing the marks of cruel bruises?——"

"If you mean to say that me or my missus ever set fingers on the gal," interrupted the man, "it's a — lie, and I'll make you prove it. Who are you, interfering with other folk's affairs? Perhaps no better than you should be for all you are so quiet and gen-teel. I tell you, I'll have the law of you, if you dare to say a word agen me."

"And pretending to believe a parcel of lies," screamed his spouse, "about that wretch as blacked her arms a purpose, and robbed us, yes, robbed us. Didn't I find ever so many things in her box? Wasn't she always talking to the lodger's servant through the little window of their kitchen—didn't she rob them, too, as they told me of? If I was Nixon here, I'd sign a character for her, I'd let her off easy, I would! I'd sooner foller her everywhere, and let the perlice know what she is. I'd let her impose upon other people's charity, as she has on ours! Yes, with a rope's-end! And to go and disgrace my husband's fammerly as she has done, breeding parish bastards, and me the daughter of a gentleman used to very different ways, and to have my own servants to wait on me, before I married, which Nixon there knows" (that gentleman made no sign of acquiescence or dissent), "if he'd only speak hout like a man. Character, indeed! I'd character her with hoakum-picking, that's what she's fit for, with the other convicts. I'd lay a good strap about her back, and send her to gaol." Here Mrs. Nixon paused to get her breath.

"Madam," said Mrs. Wilmington (for such was the name of the benevolent lady, who had taken this poor girl's part), "I think you will find on reflection, that nothing has been said about a character for this young person. I merely want to know whether, if I provide for her in future, your husband will give me a guarantee against any interference on his part as her next of kin, and indeed, I believe, sole relation. Have you any objection to this, sir?" she asked that lowering and obstinate British shop-keeper, who was beginning to exhibit symptoms of vindictive impatience.

"If he haven't, I have," began the British matron, his wife, "I can tell you. Why shouldn't he interfere when and 'ow he chooses?"

"Hold yer tongue, will yer?" said Nixon, who was a strange compound of connubial fierceness and endurance, in his way. "Look h'yer, ma'am! If you think George Nixon is agoing to sign anything towards renouncing his rights in this or any matter, you're mistaken, and I wish you hadn't given me this trouble to come all the ways here. I've got my business to attend to, I can tell you. As for my brother's daughter there, all I can say is, that he never could earn his own living, and when he left that girl, I took her under my own roof and kep' her as long as she chose to go right, and if you've got her now, I wish you joy of her. Here, M'ria" (to his wife) "—— it, what do you stand staring there for like a stuck pig? Come along, will yer! The next tune" (to Mrs. Wilmington) "you send for G. Nixon, I wish you'd let him know what it's about aforehand, that's all." So saying, he put his hat on his head, and clutched hold of his wife's arm to drag her out.

"Stop!" said Mrs. Wilmington, "I did not wish to avail myself of any other means at my disposal, in order to obtain what I require, than an appeal to your sense of justice and better feeling——"

"Stuff; gammon!" interpolated Mr. Nixon. "Shut up! I ain't got no time to listen to such nonsense—such nonsense!" he almost shouted. "Any one can see as you are no lady. Come out of this, I say" (to his wife); "I've got my business to attend to."

"Such imperence, dear!" said Mrs. Nixon, bridling. She wanted to coax the brute to let her have her say. "Such imperence, George. Jest wait and let me tell this person, which I don't think is over respectable herself, a bit of my mind."

"You'd stand here bawling and screeching like a parrot all the arternoon, I tell yer. I know a trick worth two of that. I got my business to see to; and I wish this lady, if she is one, would pay me for my time as I've lost already. I shan't sign nothing, and you may jest look out, enticing folks away like this from their homes." (He forgot he and his wife had turned the girl out of their house a twelvemonth before.) "When you want G. Nixon, you know where to find him."

"I repeat that I didn't wish to have recourse to constraint," said Mrs. Wilmington.

"Ha! ha!" from Nixon.

"Do you know this card and writing?" handing him a letter. "Nay, read it, you are welcome."

"MY DEAR MADAM,—I believe the lease of the house in Cheyne-row expires in September. Anything I can do in furtherance of your benevolent plans, I will at all times do, you may rely on it. You may command me in everything.

"Ever, my dear madam,
"Yours most faithfully,
"TACHBROOKE."

The jaw of the delightful specimen of the British tradesman, whom we have endeavoured to depict, actually fell. No wonder; for the bully died within him. The writer of the letter was his landlord, the powerful and wealthy earl, whom he worshipped, could he be said to worship anything, with all his abject soul, if one might dignify his thinking essence with such a name. He handed the letter to his wife, who read it and returned it aghast. She was the first to come to herself.

"I'm sure, ma'am," she began, "anything that we can do, as I said to Nixon coming here—didn't I, my dear?—we should only be too 'appy. I never wished my George's niece any harm, as it wasn't likely I should, and we did all we could to keep her from going wrong. Many's the time I've said to her, which she'd tell you if she was here in this room, if she's a mite of truth in her, 'Mary, my dear girl! you're my husband's brother's child, and it's my duty to bring you up and keep you out of harm,' which I'm sure we tried to, as a many could testify, and which is Gospel truth. It wasn't our fault, if she was led astray and turned against her own 'ome and her own flesh and blood by wicked and designing folks, as ought to have knowed better" (whimpers). "I will say for her that she's not a bad-dispositioned girl of herself, though she is not a hard worker, and her constitution's not strong. But I should say she'd suit you to a T, which is what I tell my husband somebody else did him, when he married her." (Here Mrs. Nixon grinned horribly a thin and ghastly smile.) "Of course, since my husband's misfortunes, and my father's ruin, owing to his being surety for a friend, we couldn't afford to keep Mary altogether, without expecting her to work for her living, which is no more than I do myself."

How long she would have continued we cannot tell; but Mrs. Wilmington gently interrupted her. "I do not wish for any explanations," said that lady. "I believe I know all the story. All I want is a written agreement on your husband's part, not to molest the girl during the next two years and before she is of age, and a release from any claim he might bring for maintenance."

Mr. Nixon had contented himself with removing his hat, and scratching his huge head.

"I won't stand in the girl's way, my lady!" he said, "and I'll do anything in reason, you wish. I'm sure we're well shut of the girl——" Here his spouse palled his coat sleeve so hard, that he suddenly stopped.

"And I'm sure," said his wife, "I should be 'appy to take the poor baby, and bring it up with my children. I'm the mother of a family; and I dare say you won't mind allowing a trifle for its keep, which you can reduct from her wages. Blood is thicker than water, as I said to G. N., when we was coming here. You said you wouldn't mind my making the offer, George, you know you did, as we were driving through the Park."

"I am obliged to you on Mary's behalf for your benevolent intentions, but her offspring is dead," said Mrs. Wilmington, coldly. "It died, I believe, of poverty and neglect."

"Lord a' mercy! poor little angel!" cried Mrs. Nixon. "Well, she's gone to a better world."

"It was a boy," observed the lady, "and has been dead these six months."

"Well, ma'am," said Nixon, "I shan't stand in the way of anything that is reasonable. I suppose you won't mind allowing us something for her keep. We had her—let's see—four year. There's her clothes and hedication, say forty pound. Ten pound a-year ain't too much, I hope."

"A great deal too much," was the reply, "for blows, neglect, starvation, and the streets, to which you drove her. A great deal too much, for the cruel shame you have brought on your only brother's only child. Not another word! I wish to abstain from comments, which you will do well not to provoke. My terms are these; you will accept them, or not, as you please. You will sign this paper, which is a simple release of all claim on this poor child, and any clothes or property she may acquire. You will send here the box which you opened, after you turned her into the streets, with the few little articles, left her by her father, which are in this list. On my part, I shall consent not to expose you, for her sake, and not to claim the money you had for the sale of her father's goods, and the trifle in cash, something under fifty pounds, which he left you for her use."

The honest tradesman approached the table and took up a pen. He perused and signed the document without a word, scowled heavily at his wife to impose silence on her, and then advanced towards the door. "I suppose, ma'am," he said gruffly, "that now I've done what you've asked, I may depend upon your saying nothing to his lordship. I want to renew my lease, and I've a large family. I'm a hard-working chap, a little rough may be, but my rent is safe, and I pay my taxes reg'lar. 'Taint my fault if my missus and the girl couldn't agree."

"I am sure, George!" began his wife.

"Silence! you fool! D'ye want to ruin me with that tongue of yourn. It was you did all the mischief along of Mary. After all, the girl wasn't so bad, and a precious sight better than any you've picked up with since."

It was a hard struggle for his lady, but she had the sense to hold her tongue this time; for she feared the weight of her affectionate husband's arm, when his wrath was fairly aroused by a pecuniary loss.

"See that you use the poor creature, your present servant, well," was the answer, "and I promise not to interfere. His lordship shall grant you a yearly tenancy from September next." (The tradesman's evil countenance fell.) "And I will pledge myself he will not disturb you, if you do not make the treatment of your servants a scandal to the neighbourhood."

The man stood irresolute, and then muttering, "Good morning, my lady!" went out; and his wife followed him to their chaise, which was drawn by a half-starved horse. But before she went, she said,

"I wish to mention, as it's only right I should, that the girl has breakings out. I was always afraid of my children catching it. But perhaps you've got none."

It may be observed that Mrs. Nixon firmly believed she had, having caught a glimpse of the little girl. The breaking out to which she alluded arose from poverty of blood. The whole family were ill-fed, with the exception of the man himself; but not to the extent of their wretched servant-girls. The wife was drunken, and could neither market properly, nor cook, nor even superintend cooking. Now and then they would have a feast, when waste and extravagance were the order of the day. Generally, they sent to the cook-shop, or would have a boiled ham in the house.

That evening the neighbours of that amiable pair were disturbed by loud and protracted screaming and wailing, first in a small feeble treble, and afterwards in a fuller key and with a louder volume of sound. It was first of all occasioned by Mrs. Nixon beating her new or last servant-of-all-work, a child of fourteen; and then by the lady receiving some chastisement from the British fist of Mr. N. himself, which ended in violent hysterics on her part. The swearing on both sides was awful, and very edifying to the children. The next day, the new servant was thrust forth into the street, and went with a pitiful tale of hunger to the shop of the nearest baker, a kind-hearted man, who gave her some food; but who dared not interfere in the concerns of the bullying and braggart Nixon. This sort of cowardice is perhaps necessarily extended widely in the present state of the community. Every one fears publicity, an action at law, a police report, and the newspapers. Every one is busy, and has a thousand reasons for not being Quixotic. The struggle for existence makes us all selfish. Imagine any one in a forest, or a desert, finding two little children astray and leaving them there to their own devices. Does such an inhuman monster exist? Yet it is a thing that we cheerfully do in London, and scarcely retain a recollection of the fact. If any one should interfere with two little toddlers of three and four years of age astray down Holborn-hill, it would probably be some old woman bent on stripping them of their clothes, if they were worth stripping, or the police, who might roughly convey them to the station with a very bad grace. A man like Nixon, hated and feared on every side, enjoys a vast amount of impunity, and is much better treated than any worthy or honest man of his rank, whilst he is not so much cheated and makes better bargains. He lets it be known that he has a solicitor, and would bring an action against any one who gave him the slightest opportunity. He would like any one to kick him, or strike him, or call him a scoundrel. But the reptile would crawl in the mire before a lord.

Scarcely had Mr. and Mrs. Nixon taken their departure, and the little girl of whom we spoke commenced her reading under Mrs. Wilmington's patient tuition, when two gentlemen were announced, the Reverend Mr. Hindle and a friend. Mr. Hindle, an esteemed friend of Mrs. Wilmington, introduced the other, a dignified and venerable man, as the Archdeacon of Filey.

"The archdeacon, my dear lady," said Mr. Hindle, "has been anxious to make your acquaintance ever since the evening when you delivered that truly Christian and impassioned address at the Bermondsey school-room, on the want of sisterly charity in our present state of society. The archdeacon read the report, which was indeed admirably done."

"That reporter was quite accidentally there," said Mrs. Wilmington. "Had I known it, probably I should not have spoken at all."

"Nay, my dear madam," observed Mr. Hindle. "I consider it, and so does the archdeacon I am sure, a most fortunate circumstance, which thus drew out gifts so remarkable, and which I trust may yet be consecrated to the service of Heaven, as your life and fortune have for long been in so eminent a degree."

"I hope, madam, that you will deliver another lecture ere long," said the archdeacon. "I came here to suggest St. James's Hall, and I hope it will be soon; for I leave London about ten days hence, and I shall be greatly disappointed, if I do not hear you.

I am told by my friend here, that he never heard such fervid diction, such thrilling power of appeal to the better feelings of our nature. He says that your whole audience were affected to tears. And all this unstudied and improvised!"

The lady shook her head. "I am sorry, venerable sir, to act contrary to any wish expressed by you; but it is not my intention to appear in this manner in public again."

"What!" cried Mr. Hindle, "you surely cannot refuse. With such gifts, such genius, surely it is absolutely wrong to refuse to consecrate them to the service of Heaven and your fellow-creatures in the manner you have so brilliantly inaugurated."

"I am told," said the archdeacon, "that you have it at your option to do great good by the exercise of your remarkable powers. I will not, however, presume to attempt to influence you, until I have heard your reason for a determination which I must own seems strange and has taken me by surprise, after the extraordinary impression produced by your inaugural attempt."

Mrs. Wilmington sat deeply reflecting for a few moments, during which her countenance expressed varied and successive emotions. There might have been a transient glance of gratified vanity and triumph; if so, it speedily gave place to a strange look of pain, a dark and troubled shade, as if a cloud passed over a laughing and limpid stream, and the chill of autumn evening had suddenly succeeded to the reign of spring. Lastly, a soft and subdued melancholy lent an inexpressible charm to her face, and melted into a moonlit smile. She was like an ideal effigy of widowhood scattering flowers on a tomb.

"I do not think," she said, "that it is the province of my sex to address public assemblies on social or religious questions. If it be, it is not so in a case like mine. I am speaking wholly apart from my own feelings in the matter, but not from my own reason, and the instinctive monitor within. I feel that it is not right; but I say so apart from any self-sacrifice I might make. You, at least, are fully aware, and I presume that the venerable archdeacon knows something of the nature of my—my—earlier life. Shall I set up my standard as a teacher? Consider already some of the remarks elicited. It is not how they may affect me, but the high and holy object which I trust I have in view. My reparation should be as silent and secret, as my sins and errors have been public. If the truth of my repentance be doubted even by scoffers, do you not think that evil instead of good may result? Venerable sir! I forgot myself, when I upbraided Society with its Pharisaical sins and cruel coldness that night. I cannot always forget myself—and others will never forget. What will they say of me? That it is a new line of acting—a new excitement. And if my sincerity is impeached, I become a fashion, a folly, and thus even, ultimately, a disgrace. No; if women take up this great and holy cause in public, which if banded together in a charitable league they can best effect separately and at home, let them at least be those against whom hypocrisy and scandal cannot fling a stone. The mission of a Magdalen cannot be to instruct those who have never fallen, never been tempted, in their duty either to Heaven or to their fellow-creatures. If I were to lecture in public, the very fashion of my dress would be criticised—if I dressed in the ordinary costume of a lady, I should be blamed, if in the severest or simplest manner, it would be alike cavilled at. If my eloquence were all that the kind good pastor here" (turning to Mr. Hindle) "describes it and more, it would be deemed the success of an actress. In short, I feel that the whole effect would be a mistake, and its most signal triumph only the greater injury to the cause of the suffering sisterhood of shame."

The venerable archdeacon, a man of nearly eighty years of age, rose, and impressively laid his hand upon the speaker's braided hair.

"You are right, my dear child!" he said, "and our judgment is rebuked. I came here," he continued, "entertaining some lingering doubts as to your character and motives. I own it, in spite of the earnest eulogy of my old friend. I shall go away, even at my advanced age, with more elevated and broader views of humanity. You have kindled a spark of enthusiasm in the heart of an aged churchman. I thank you! My curiosity is rebuked. If I feel humbled at the thought of my suspicion and narrow ideas, you have, I repeat, elevated my conception of the innate goodness of the human heart. I thank you much. I have heard of your deeds of charity and good."

At this moment the servant announced "Father

Nelia." A little pleasant-looking man of some sixty summers or thereabouts toddled briskly in, and took both of Mrs. Wilmington's hands between his. "Come va, Signora mia carissima," he said. "Come sta ella? Bene?" and he then looked round and saluted the archdeacon and his friend.

The former, for a moment, had gathered himself up in a species of dignified alarm. He was a staunch, uncompromising Protestant. A slight shade of pain manifested itself on Mrs. Wilmington's face. The archdeacon hesitated, but for an instant. He advanced with frank courtesy and offered his hand to the little man, who held it and raised it instinctively half-way to his lips.

"I have heard of your benevolence and noble qualities, sir," said the archdeacon, "and I am glad of this opportunity of making your acquaintance."

"Here is the benevolence, my dear sir," responded the other, looking towards Mrs. Wilmington. "I do but labour in my—what you call—vocazione, yes. But she is so good. E vero. Si! sei un' angelo! Tacete! I sail tell what you 'ave done for my poor peoples, les Savoyards! Monsignor, I 'ave very poor peoples to see, and she is their ange gardien; she makes de soupes, de potage, de vermicelli, oh! so strong. Ha! ha! De leetel Domenichino, he vill say his prayer no more to de Madonna, bot to you. She is ver veeked, you know, she make herself de idol of my poverini! Si!"

The archdeacon had never met a Roman Catholic clergyman on terms of amity before; and he again felt a slight twinge, a little premonitory flying gout-like tweak of conscience. An hour ago, if any one had proposed to him to meet Father Nelia, he would have lifted his pastoral stick in anger at the very thought. He was in a new atmosphere, and succumbed to its influence. Before he left, he actually consented to visit the good little priest, and asked him to dinner, luckily not on a Friday, in Eaton-square.

Father Nelia approved highly of Mrs. Wilmington's decision not to appear again in public.

"No, no!" he said, "she sall not 'ave some fools of peoples insult her! It vould not do at all. They vould not onderstand questo cuore magnifico. She is not a cantatrice, not a singer of de teatro, she sing to de poor peoples in bed—she sing in de houses of de abbandonati, de desolati—not de gobe-mouches who sall stare her out of face. De Inglis, perdonatemi, dey vant all de charity in public, in de giornali, till dey 'ave none left for de private use. Dey fancy dat il buon Dio, he read de newspapers, de affiches, vat you call advertisements of de 'Times,' over his chocolate in de morning. Bot it is deeferent, n'est-ce pas, monsignor?"

The archdeacon had never met with religion in so lively a shape before. But he owned that evening that he had learned something even from the eccentricities of the worthy Father Nelia; had turned over a page as yet unread by him in the great folio of universal charity and the religion of the heart.

Amongst other things, Mrs. Wilmington narrated to the two clergymen the behaviour of Mr. and Mrs. Nixon to their niece Mary. She did not say how nobly she had rescued that poor young creature from despair and suicide. Sometimes this good Samaritan would put on her bonnet and shawl with a thick veil, and go out late in the evening and wander about the streets alone. In the course of her rambles, she would relieve many a suffering wretch. She had a marvellous faculty of distinguishing between real and assumed distress. She seemed familiar with the gestures of despair, and to recognise the moan of desertion and want with the subtle instincts of a Red Indian on the war-path. Only hers was a path of peace. How was this? Our readers do not need to be informed. They already recognise in Mrs. Wilmington her who has already figured so strangely in these pages, the fortunate unfortunate Kitty Dareall, the street pariah, the outcast mother, the protégée of the eccentric young nobleman, the once brilliant actress, the dictatress of the "mode" to the frivolous world of fashion, the reprover of Aubrey, the legatee of the deaf old duke, and the true-hearted woman throughout all. She did not tell the venerable clergymen, who only imagined that her antecedents were those of a modern Lais, and that she spent her large income, with the exception of her bare plain living in Guilford-street, in good deeds—she did not tell them, we say, how she had figuratively held back Mary by the hem of her torn garments from plunging beneath those dark arches, where so many young creatures, formed for love and happiness, have been

Glad to death's mystery
Swift to be hurled—
Anywhere! anywhere!
Out of the world.

She did not say how she had soothed and cherished that forlorn and faded wretch, after indignantly snatching her from the brutal grasp of one of the trained hounds, whom the rich and powerful in this civilised country employ to hunt down misery far more effectively than crime, and who do their work as thoroughly and gleefully in this free land, as any Cuban bloodhound let loose on the track of the sensational fugitive slave. Her well-filled purse had saved her from the otherwise inevitable consequences of this act of female Quixotism. She did not impart all this, or the details of the succour which she afforded to the life-weary, hunted-down girl. But she did mention the conduct of Nixon and his appropriate helpmeet.

"Can it be wondered at," she said, "that the papers are full of complaints of the misconduct and inefficiency of the lower order of domestics, when the human drudge is treated with such brutality? The servant is too often dealt with as out of the pale of humanity by vulgarians, whose meanness, vanity, folly, and wickedness it is impossible for persons of any pretensions to culture, even to imagine. The simple statement of an orphan workhouse girl is sometimes so entirely beyond the credence of those unacquainted with the details of small trading domestic life, that a 'worthy magistrate' refuses to believe her statements. Her story is 'too unlikely;' and the modern Mrs. Brownrigg, if she has stopped short of actual and apparent murder, escapes in triumph."

"I fear," said the archdeacon, "that in many, if not most cases, the mistresses are unable to teach their servants anything beneficial or useful. In my boyish days, my mother repaired to her kitchen regularly after breakfast, and my grandmother's book of receipts in her own handwriting was worth something, I can tell you. Their correspondence about a dinner or supper was as earnest as any in the modern times about the latest fashions of London or Paris. Then, economy was practicable—it is not so now. A lady has no knowledge wherewith to contend against a professed cook. In those days, waste could be in great measure checked. Now it is one of the scandals of the day."

"True," said Mr. Hindle. "I am certain that there is sufficient food actually destroyed in the houses of the great and wealthy to furnish all the poor in England. It is to me a terrible and awful reflection. Both around our large towns and in country residences, the destruction of fruit and vegetables is enormous. There is enough allowed to rot in the luxurious gardens of the rich to supply the army of Xerxes all the year round. Imagine a selfish, invalid couple with three or four acres of garden-ground, tasting a strawberry or two during the season, as Brummel once ate a pea; and this surrounded by a mining, brickmaking, or nailing district. Do these people ever think of distributing their superfluous blessings? Do they ever make a crowd of poor schoolboys or schoolgirls happy?"

"Very seldom, I fear," said Mrs. Wilmington.

"They would tell you, if they condescended to consider such a thing at all, that it would lead to idleness and thieving."

"I remember," said Father Nelia, "dat I once asked a padrone of a great hotel of de most successful, vere dere finds itself every night a crowd enormous to eat de bifteck and de choppe con patate, you know—I did ask him vat he do vid all de debris. He said it vent ai porconi, to de peegs. I say vat for you not give it ai poveri, to de poor? 'Not so green, not such sciocco,' he say. 'I vould 'ave a crowd at my door.' 'E perchè no?' I say. 'Den my servants vould rob me,' he reply; as if dey do not rob him now."

"There is no country," said the archdeacon, "where there is such waste in everything as in England—waste in food, in material, in labour, in treasure, in ships, in horses, in men and women, in children, alas! in human life. Nay, we waste our coal, our manure; we enrich the sea with the vital essences of reproduction, and get in return the cholera and abundance of white-bait. Lastly, we waste intellect, invention, genius, prestige, all the gifts which Heaven has endowed us with as a nation, and too often our immortal part, in the lust and struggle for gain."

"Many of these things," observed Mrs. Wilmington, "are far beyond my province to understand; but reasoning from what I do know, I believe that you are right in all. With the various troubles of my own sex I have chiefly to deal, and when I find their state so appalling as it too frequently is, I can easily imagine that there is something very wrong with the whole community. I do not believe that woman is so degraded, in any barbarous country, as she is even in her virtuous state in the mining and manufacturing districts of England—I mean by that, her state of wife and mother. One has only to listen to the language of holiday folk in these districts, to recognise the depravation of all. Now and then a fine nature crops up. There is plenty of reckless courage among the men, and of animal fondness among the women. Nature is not yet stamped out from among them. But, oh! the story of the towns! The cry that goes up to Heaven from Birmingham and Manchester, that curdles with horror the affrighted sky! Can we wonder that even Mormonism possesses charms in the eyes of creatures whose souls and bodies are alike starved?"

"Alas!" said the archdeacon, "what can any one do to stem the tide of profligacy, of ruin, and of wrong? Preaching is vain; example profitless, did it exist; repression the mocking task of the Fiend."

"Example," said Mrs. Wilmington, "without sympathy, is, I own, of little aid. But if the daughters of affluence would combine, not only to succour, but prevent; if they would approach the lost and fallen with tenderness, and reserve their scorn and fiercest reprobation for the seducer, the profligate, the cruel libertine, the systematic debauchee, then, there might be some hope of improvement."

"That is it," said Mr. Hindle; "that is precisely what I was so anxious you should teach with the extraordinary gift of eloquence, which Providence has bestowed on you for good."

Mrs. Wilmington shook her head. "Let me labour after my own fashion," she said, "and let those lead the crusade who are born to such high emprise. I aspire to be but an unknown pioneer in the great Amazonian army marching to the emancipation of the enthralled sisterhood of frailty, necessity, and shame; that sisterhood whose shrill wail rises nightly amid the gleam of white arms and spectral faces, and the drift of dishevelled hair, from the crime-stained cities, and polluted villages of this want-smitten and wealth-ridden land. Let the triumphant march of that army pass over my unseen grave, and its angelic shout of victory will thrill through me, as it does now: thrill through my forgotten dust, were I 'earth in an earthy bed.' "

As she spoke, her features seemed to stiffen into marble, and the colour of her eyes deepened, and her mass of light-brown hair, which had accidentally been shaken somewhat loose from its simple tie, gave the slightest possible suggestion of a halo and a glory round her small head and expressive face. As she spoke, she had risen impulsively, and as she uttered the last words of the speech which we have endeavoured so imperfectly to record, the sunbeams poured a full flood of light through a breaking cloud and streamed through the heavy-curtained window of that dusky and gloomy room, illuminating her form like that of a saint pictured on the stained glass in some cathedral nave. Her three visitors rose simultaneously and in silence. The archdeacon looked on in surprise. At this moment a street organ of peculiar sweetness of tone was played a little way off.

"The music of the poor!" she said. "Even that they would cut off and take away. I have danced to that very tune, when a very small sickly child, along with a crowd of other children in a blind alley on a cool summer night. There was a blue narrow strip of sky above us and one star of pale gold, which I said was mine. Every little dirty outcast there claimed it too, I remember. It was all that we knew of Heaven. The music was our only boon on earth. The swarthy foreigner smiled on us. Perhaps he thought of other children in his own distant land. He loved us better, than did all the hard task-masters, the prosperous, smiling lords and ladies of our native country. Why do they not roof out even God's sky from the children of the poor? It encourages them to think themselves better than their fate, equal in the sight of Heaven, as they will be hereafter; but not now. Why should the tones of an instrument played by foreign hands teach their ears an acuter perception of the harshness of the accents of their more prosperous fellow-citizens at home? At home, where? In the gaol, the hospital, the workhouse, and the grave? Away with the music of the poor! Silence it! Banish it! Lock it up! Put it down with the harsh grating voice of the machinery of 'Order' and the 'Law!' It is better not to awaken thought, or hope, or love. In France an empress visits the lowest of the lost—braves contact with physical and moral contagion, and survives, protected by the wings of invisible angels, to press her child, startled by the thunder of a nation's applause, closer in joy and queen-like confidence, to her breast. The ladies of England copy the fashion of her skirt; nay, the very colour of her hair. Can they not make charity a 'fashion;' sympathy a new pattern of the heart? Send us, oh great and merciful Providence! a revolution of soul, ere a revolution of blood and flame be reflected in the clouds of wrath gathering over our heads. I know the bitterness of the strong mechanic's weary heart, the evil passions of the gaunt and wolfish throng, the felon populace of injustice and wrong, of ignorance and neglect. If ever that storm break over England, there will be no mercy shown to those who have held themselves aloof, and the innocent will perish with the guilty, and perish first. And oh! the women that will be avenged! I see the living ghosts of man's perjury and profligacy turned into ghouls and shrieking 'Death! death!' to those who have made them suffer, and those who have looked calmly and complacently on their sufferings. I see them roaming maddened over the broad pavements worn by the footsteps of the hundreds and thousands of their sex, who have died a living death during a century of woe, and their lips and arms drip with blood! There has been blood drunk from the gutters of scaffolds ere now. What can they expect who destroy and unsex?" She clasped her hands over her head, and sank back exhausted on the sofa from which she had risen. At this moment the little girl entered the door, and ran up to her benefactress, whose hand she clasped.

"Oh, my dear lady! my dear lady!" she cried.

Father Nelia made a sign to the others to withdraw; but before retiring with them, he rang the bell, and gave a few brief instructions to Mary. The three clergymen of different persuasions, and more than different ceremonial forms—for Mr. Hindle was a Unitarian minister of considerable fame—paused to exchange a few words in the street. The archdeacon owned himself deeply affected and impressed.

"Is she thus excited often?" he said.

"Very rarely," replied Mr. Hindle; "I have never witnessed her so much moved before."

"I have, once," said Father Nelia. "It is one great good reason why it cannot be that she give public letture, lecture what you call."

"Nor," said Mr. Hindle, "is the British public at all prepared for such denunciations. I believe in the truth of nearly all that she says. But she would not be understood, and her denunciations and exhortations would do more harm than good. Cassandra could not save Troy, nor Solomon Eagle avert the Plague."

"Her benevolent ministrations are, I believe, unexampled?" said the archdeacon in a tone of inquiry.

"She has an income of three thousands pounds a year; and I speak within the mark," replied Mr. Hindle, "when I say that nine-tenths of it are spent in the rescue of unfortunate women, and in charitable deeds of every kind. And all this is done without the slightest ostentation, and involves her constant personal attention and care."

"I have been told," said the archdeacon, "the source whence she derived her wealth. That is a matter greatly to be regretted; but it is well that she makes such a use of it."

"Let me assure you of one thing," rejoined Mr. Hindle, "with which it is right you should be acquainted. That her antecedents are stainless is unhappily far from being the case. This, you must have gathered from her own admissions and speech. But in the case to which you have referred, that is, the extraordinary legacy of the dissipated old nobleman who placed at her disposal the money of which she makes such pious use, I know for a certainty, and can pledge my word, that whatever may be thought or alleged to the contrary by the world, the bequest was as pure and sacred as it could be, coming from such a source. The late Duke of Chalkstoneville made her acquaintance when she was on the stage, and when he was at a very advanced period of life. He conceived a singular regard for her, and took great pleasure in her company and conversation. In fact, latterly, he could not bear her to be away from his side. The commencement of the acquaintance was probably of the nature of an ordinary one made by a man of his stamp. But about that time, she herself, from some cause or other, completely, and as I have learnt from her, for the second time in her life, altered her mode of existence and conduct. The first time, she told me, it was from feeling; the second from conviction. The duke became very ill and feeble; and she exercised over his latter days a most wonderful and purifying effect. He died a thoroughly repentant man. Before dying, he would have married her, in defiance of all obstacles, in order to leave her his vast personal property, but this she firmly and very properly refused. As you are aware, he left large sums to charities entirely through her. She might have had all the money over which he had control, had she been so inclined."

"It is a very remarkable tale," said the archdeacon; "and had I not witnessed her enthusiasm and eloquence in addition to being acquainted with some of her good actions, I might have entertained the belief that you had been deceived. There is reason then to imagine that her intimacy with the late duke was of a purely Platonic character?"

"I am convinced of it," was Mr. Hindle's reply.

"Anch' io," said the father, "I am as sure as if I had heard it under the sacred seal of confession itself."

The archdeacon involuntarily started. In what company did he find himself? A priest of the Church of Rome actually talking of the confessional. Father Nelia saw what was passing in his mind.

"Scusatemi, monsignor!" he said; "if you vish to forget dat you have by accident made de acquaintance of a poor priest of a different faith, he vill not seek to intrude upon you—perhaps it vill be for de best. He vill remember you in his prayers, and hope to meet you in anoder vorld, and vere, perhaps, it shall be found as de best religion is dat vich is de best administered in deeds of charity and love."

"Now Heaven forbid!" said the archdeacon, "that I should show the spirit of a narrow sectarian. Come and see me often, father, I beg; and that you may come often, come soon, remembering what an old man I am."

Little Father Nelia shook the hand of the tall and venerable ecclesiastic with much warmth. Certainly the spirit of that charity, without which all other professed religion is as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, was present that day among those three men. They parted greatly satisfied with each other, and pondering over what they had heard and seen.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PARK WHICH IS NOT THE PEOPLE'S.

Hyde Park, in relation to the people, reminds me of a child's toy, with which his paternal government does not allow him to play, because it is too good for him—a huge frosted plum-cake bestowed on him by his grandfather, which his pastors and masters daily devour, and of which he is lucky to get a crumb on Sundays. After all, the good-natured, busy mechanic has surrendered the Park to his "betters" so long, with perfect good humour and acquiescence, that it has passed out of his possession by custom. Only when he does want it a little, just a little now and then, to flourish the inalienable right of a free Briton to speechify, when he feels aggrieved, it seems alike harsh and impolitic, not to say ungracious and ungrateful, to question a privilege which is only dangerous when opposed. There is no more harm likely to be done to the flower-beds in the Park by a Reform meeting under the permission and with the assistance of the Government, than by a Volunteer review or illuminations for peace. Do not the remnants of aged trees invite stump oratory? When the safety and prosperity of the great State steam-ship is best insured by a moderate and dignified rate of progression, it does seem absurd for the officers to sit weeping on the safety-valve, whilst heaping on the unnecessary fuel of a nation's wrath.—Notes on Passing Events.

"IT'S a fine thing to be a wine-merchant," observed Mr. Stingray, as a gentleman gorgeously got-up drove a splendidly appointed curricle past the sage and a friend, who were both lounging near the corner of Rotten Row, by Apsley House, in the Park. To look at him, any one would have thought him a duke or marquis at least—at least any one who happened to be ignorant of modern life. "That pair of horses," said Stingray, "cost at least five hundred guineas. And the mischief of it is, there is nothing wrong or snobbish in the turn-out. Perhaps the neatest thing now-a-days in the whole lot of equipages out, is the property of a quack surgeon. Such a man formerly would have had a pair of piebald horses from Astley's, and a carriage of the gaudiest description, which he would have used as part of his stock-in-trade. No such thing now. The said quack drops the shop, I can tell you, when he comes out. He is as good-looking a fellow as was ever abonné at Truefitt's. There's no keeping money out, I can tell you. And if you meet the elegant Noses, youthful scion of the boot and shoe establishment of that name, ten to one he will insinuate that he comes of the Noseses of Devonshire, an old Spanish family settled in England at the time of the Armada. When your friend Wilkins, who himself gave up shop-keeping for the militia, introduces Noses, he whispers, 'Don't be afraid that there is any connexion with the Houndsditch folk. He is of the De Noses, or rather Nosez (you know how names are altered in the course of centuries), very talented fellow, I assure you—is likely to be in the ministry, great favourite of Pam!' As if he cared, or you cared, or any one cared, so that Noses has the talents of gold, ha! ha! and the shekels of silver; but we Britishers like to seem to care about such things."

"You don't shoot, I think," said Stingray's friend, in whose ears the sage might have been thought to have been distilling poison, seeing that he was an aristocratic parvenu of the latest type. No such danger, since it was the pleasure of the gentleman in question to affect the airs of a noble of the sangre azul, utterly forgetting that in reality that his uncle, who laid the foundations of the fortunes of the entire family, was a City alderman and linendraper, and had once been an errand-boy.

"Do I shoot?" said Stingray. "What! assist at the 'partridge-hunt,' like a mossoo, do you mean; bring down the 'long tails' and all that, and slaughter the bunny rabbit and the hare? My dear fellow, I'm thankful to say that I never fired off a gun in my life. But make a note, if you are given to that benignant sport, that I like game. Put it down in your note-book for September and October, and may 'le sport' be kind, according as you act on the remembrance."

"Well, last year," said his friend, "I accepted an invitation for two days to accompany a friend of mine, a City man, a very warm swell, to shoot at Mokeham Spinneys for a couple of days, and stay at Lord de Mokeham's house. I hadn't an idea of the arrangement before I went down—didn't know but that De Mokeham would be there himself. So I put myself in the train and down I went. I got a dog-cart at the station and joined the party at the Spinneys, who were popping away in the most approved style. A gentlemanly-looking old fellow, togged in a grey-shooting suit, said to me as I entered a ride in the wood, 'Mr. Welby's friend, I suppose?' I bowed. 'Will you stand there?' he continued, 'they are beating down this way.' I at once acquiesced. 'Who can the old fellow be?' thought I. 'Shouldn't wonder if it is De Mokeham—must be De Mokeham; wish I had called him "my lord." ' At that moment the fun began. Down came the beaters, out flew the pheasants; very pretty sport, I can tell you. There were ten guns, including myself, and we bagged nearly two hundred brace, all cocks, with a few muffish exceptions, that day, and a hundred and three hares, besides four couple and a half of wood-cocks, and five brace of birds. But you're not attending."

"My dear fellow," said Stingray, "one reads that sort of thing of all manner of shooting snobs any day in the season in the newspapers. I never care to count game, except from a basket, carriage-paid."

"Wait a bit," said the other. "After we had polished off that lot, Welby found me out. He came up with the old fellow in light grey. 'How are you?' he said. 'Allow me to introduce my friend Baggs. Baggs, Frodsham, Frodsham, Baggs!' and so on. 'Then it is not De Mokeham?' I said to Welby, as soon as I had an opportunity. 'De Mokeham, no! whatever put that into your head?' asked Welby. 'Isn't his lordship here?' I inquired. 'Not he, poor devil. Don't he wish he could be?' 'Where is he?' said I. 'Where is he? That's what a good many would like to know. Anywhere from Boulogne to Stockholm, or Queensland, for all I can tell,' replied Welby. 'I should think Queensland a very likely spot?' 'And who's Baggs?' said I. 'What! don't you know Baggs's patent goloshes?' 'To be sure,' I replied, 'had a pair last winter; got 'em now.'

'Well, he's the sole patentee. Inventor cut his throat in Whitecross-street; parted with it for a mere song.' Up sauntered a very dashing fellow just as he said this, and I was introduced to him. He had just come over from Norway in his schooner yacht, I found. He turned out to be Beddowes of the celebrated upholstery firm of Beddowes and Bolster in Bond-street. 'Thorough sportsman,' said Welby. 'No man living, not even Francis Francis, can tie a fly better; and he shot ties with Lord Nobblehall at the last Hurlingham sweep-stakes.' The next was a youthful swell in a black velvet suit and knickerbockers, who looked like a Spanish noble, and only wanted a guitar instead of a gun, and a cloak thrown negligently over his shoulder, as he leant gracefully against a gate-post at the end of a ride. He turned out to be Foulard, of the great Regent-street house, Foulard and Twichet. To cut it short, there was Binks of Binks's British Marble Emporium, and young Armlet, of Armlet and Longstick, the jewellers in Piccadilly, and, in fact, when we entered a marquee where a first-rate collation was served up, there was only one of the party left whose firm I did not know. 'I'll bet I guess who he is,' I whispered to Welby. 'He's either Mortnum or Fason for a fiver.' But he turned out to be a neighbouring squire come over for the day. You've no idea how these fellows did the thing. They had a drag at Mokeham Hall, which they rented together with the shooting, and paid two thousand pounds a-year among the lot. Two hundred pounds each. I couldn't help thinking of the poor, proud nobleman, a wanderer and exile, whilst his roof-tree rang to the shouts and jokes of these West-end tradesmen. Mais, que voulez vous? They're the boys for the moors, and the salmon-fisheries, and the deer-stalking, now-a-days. The Prince of Wales, I'm told, has been to one of Foulard's smoking symposia."

"Look there!" cried Stingray. "Do you know that lady in a white alpaca trimmed with blue, with that heavy lace fall? I mean in the britzska there, with that beautiful young girl? Who do you think that is, my boy?"

"Can't say—is it the new Lady Fitzpavin or Madame Turquoise, who has just arrived from Paris? She is handsome enough for either, as far as I can see for her veil."

"How do?" said Stingray, to a gentlemanly young fellow, who passed him rapidly by, and who returned his salutation politely, but carelessly enough. "That's Edgar Leslie of the 'Morning Gun,' one of the new sensational school of leader-writers, and war-correspondent—you know what a fuss they made about his letters—couldn't see much in them myself."

"But the ladies?" inquired his companion.

"Oh! to be sure. Well, the tall one in the veil is the celebrated Signora Bianca Stellini, who is to astonish and enrapture us all to-morrow night at Her Majesty's—the great singer of European fame. I declare they have stopped and are talking to young Leslie, fortunate dog."

"But who is the younger lady?" pursued the other.

"Oh! nobody of course. A companion or sheep-dog, you know. Not a very distinguished rôle to play. These great singers are as full of megrims and fancies as—good Heavens! what a shame to let such people into the Park!" And Mr. Stingray pointed to a gaunt and cadaverous, ill-clad looking man, with shaggy beard and hair, who raised himself from the turf, where he had been sleeping, and who looked in a dazed and stupid manner around. "What are the confounded police about?"

It must be mentioned that Mr. Stingray and his friend had been slowly making their way along the drive towards the Serpentine. Arthur Aubrey—for it was he—had slept there since early morning. Appalled at discovering himself thus environed by the fashionable world, and utterly oblivious that no one could possibly recognise him then, the unhappy man looked around in vain for the chance of making his exit. In doing so, he recognised the to him obnoxious form of Stingray. That gentleman saw an opportunity of making a little capital in his way. A short distance off, approaching him on foot, he saw the Bishop of Middlesex and his lady walking with the gravity due to their respective positions in Society and the Church. So he felt in his pocket for some halfpence, and approached the recumbent beggar as he deemed him to be. "Here, my good friend!" he said, in the most benignant tones he could assume, "take this, and the sooner you get out of the Park, the better it will be for you." Suiting the action to the words, he offered the semi-recumbent Aubrey twopence-halfpenny. That wretched being, scarcely awake, and wholly unconscious that Stingray had not the slightest idea of his identity, took it for a wanton and malignant insult, and leaping up with a cry like a wild beast, dashed his fist right in the face of the astonished alms-giver, felling him fairly to the ground. Then looking round him, and seeing the faces of the fashionable crowd turned upon him with an unendurable stare, he stood a moment or two, as if expecting Stingray to rise, a movement which that individual had not the slightest idea of exercising without assistance, and then swiftly rushed from the spot. No one around sought to arrest his flight. As, however, he crossed the carriage drive, he failed to clear the horses in the Signora's carriage, and came in contact with the fore-quarters of one of them, which reared up, and as he fell, narrowly missed trampling him under foot.

"Poor fellow!" cried the lady, rising, "what can it mean?"

In an instant Aubrey had risen, and was speeding away in the direction of the Marble Arch. Then arose shouts and cries of "Stop thief! Stop him! Knock him down! He's killed a man! Stop the garotter! Hi!" Aubrey would have distanced every one behind him, but his path was crossed. Half a dozen policemen were running at the rate of cabs engaged by the hour. Three or four flamingo-like Life-Guardsmen joined in the pursuit.

"It's no use, if he wos Deerfut himself," cried a pale man in dust-coloured garments, who rose also from a recumbent position, in a carefully selected spot where he had been taking a siesta, but not apparently after a full meal. "Mind vere yer agoin' to, Bobby."

The policeman whom he addressed ran slowly on, after aiming a deliberate kick at the speaker's head, who, however, baulked his charitable intention by rolling out of the way.

"Don't run so fast; you'll hurt yourself, arter that last lot o' cold meat," shouted the Downy; for he it certainly was. And rising up and giving a rapid glance around, he suddenly hurled a large stone which happened to be near at the policeman's head, in return for the compliment, which laid that guardian of public order at length upon the field. The Downy, amazed at the success of his missile, immediately made tracks for the nearest clump of trees. "I didn't think it would 'ave 'it him," he said, "but it ain't his fault them regulation boots of hisn didn't split my 'ead."

Strange what a difference exists in the public estimate of actions. Had the policeman kicked the Downy to death, it would have been hushed up without creating the slightest indignation or interest. The sufferer would have been dragged off to a cell, and in the morning there would have been a great difficulty in ascertaining how he came by his wound. Seven policemen at least would have sworn that he was drunk and incapable; but that they saw no marks or blood when he was locked up. Had the policeman died, in all probability our estimable friend, if caught, would have swung for it in front of the Old Bailey, and been painted as a ruffian of the most diabolical type.

It would have been nothing but an ebullition of zealous duty for the policeman to stave in the Downy's skull, as he reclined in the "people's park," but for the Downy to "heave 'arf a brick;" at him in return for his intended compliment, that was a horse of a different colour indeed.

To return to the flying Aubrey. He had already been twice headed by volunteer foes, and his escape appeared hopeless, when an accidental circumstance occurred to baffle his pursuers. During his second "double," Aubrey perceived a crowd gathered round some one mounted on a seat, who appeared to be talking and gesticulating with great fervour. Instinctively he made for the throng, which, dense enough in the middle, had many stragglers around. Suddenly as he neared them a cry of "Hurroo! down with the inimies of the Pope!" was uttered by a number of fellows armed with bludgeons, who commenced knocking down indiscriminately every decently dressed personage within their reach. Stones and brickbats produced from sacks and the pockets of the aggressive party were aimed at the crowd. It was a Garibaldian eulogist and his hearers, attacked by the partisans of the Papacy! For a moment Aubrey was succoured, that is, he escaped the attention of his own pursuers. But an Irishman born in the Seven Dials, seeing him without a hat, brought his shillelah down with admirable accuracy of aim on his unprotected head, and felled him insensible to the ground. In the mean time the Downy had climbed a tree, whence he surveyed the terrors and humours of the fight. A strong body of the police appeared on the scene and showed great activity in capturing several spectators and persons accidentally there. The unprepared Garibaldians were getting the worst of it, when a party of about twenty Life-Guardsmen joined their side. The build and size of these men seemed to awe the diminutive Patlanders of St. Giles's. The soldiers overtook them with huge strides, and in many cases snatched their weapons from their hands and soundly thrashed them therewith. When the original disturbers of the peace were thoroughly beaten, the police, who had in the mean time mustered in considerable numbers, made a savage onslaught on the victors, who having merely fought, with the exception of the soldiers, in self-defence, were by no means prepared to continue the contest, and became easy victims to "order." The police, in fact, chiefly befriended and avenged the heroes of St. Giles's, in consequence whereof the magistrate, before whom the captured and wounded were dragged, took a wholly pro-Papist and anti-Garibaldian view of the matter, and lectured, fined, and imprisoned several respectable men who had nothing to do with the matter, save getting their heads broken by a gang of the lowest desperadoes in London, impelled by the brutish fanaticism of ignorance to make the attack. Among the prisoners was Aubrey, who was carried on a stretcher from the field to the hospital. As for police constable 94 Z, the Goliath who had fallen a victim to the escaped Downy, he was especially complimented for his courage, determination, and zeal "in suppressing that which might otherwise have been a serious émeute." At least several of the papers said so, and we suppose that it was true.

The misadventure of Mr. Stingray caused a great sensation among those of the fashionable throng who were made aware of it. "Fortunately," as the papers said, the carriage of the Bishop of Middlesex was close at hand, and into it Mr. Stingray was induced to get, to consider at leisure, whilst he was driven home, whether he had not purchased the honour rather dearly, and to ponder on the best remedy for a pair of black eyes. The paragraphs headed "Mysterious outrage in the Park," afforded next day some solace to his philosophic mind, between the paroxysms of vicious swearing in which he indulged, and which would have done honour to the godly little town of Jedburgh writhing in drouthy indignation under the Forbes Mackenzie Act. It was edifying to us behind the curtain to read the comments to which this occurrence gave birth.

"We regret to state, that the atrocious perpetrator of the dastardly outrage upon the benevolent and gifted writer, Mr. Stingray, is not yet in the hands of justice. A clue, however, is stated to have been obtained by one of the most active and intelligent officers of our detective force, Superintendent Fluker of the X Division."

The Park got fuller and fuller, and then emptier and emptier. Sallow Cabinet Ministers had cantered past sallower judges mounted on stout cobs. Loobies on hired hacks took out their half-guinea's worth, to the disgust of their noble steeds. Gentlemen with tawny moustaches, and moustaches that were not tawny, occasionally hid their heads by plunging them inside various broughams, each with one fair spirit for its occupant. Chawles, the predestined of matrimony, had drawled out his last adieu to sweet Maria, and turned his horse's head on devotion and "twenty thou. down, sir, on the nail, by Jove!" The fat old couple in a barouche had finished their inevitable drive by the Serpentine—he with bushy grey whiskers, and she with a poodle, who appeared to have won the blue ribbon of wheezing fatness. So had the thin old pair shut up in their gloomy landau—he a lean and careworn invalid; she sour and ascetic, and with no poodle or pet.

Lais, with yellow chignon, had driven her pair of stepping bays home an hour ago. Rhodope, with dark ambrosial curls, followed by cockaded groom, with tongue thrust in his cheek and a leer in his gin-and-watery eye, had taken her last canter down Rotten Row. Little Captain Cockerill, horse-dealer and adjutant of Volunteers, had shown off his latest ten-pound purchase with three white hocks and a spavin, let us hope in vain; the hum of expectant bathers rose in the misty air, ready to plunge in with fleshy steam of unpleasant little bodies, so soon as the clock should strike eight; a few soldiers were busy lazily rowing the component parts of a pontoon to and fro across the watery expanse, and tiny sails neared the shore, to be hooked in by their owners for the last time that night: big Newfoundlands and yelping curs shook themselves over the muslin dresses of young and middle-aged ladies apparently devoted to religious promenades with certain puritans of the Household Brigade; Mr. Weevil, solicitor's clerk, who did not ride, seated himself by the nearest and therefore most eligible veiled vestal and switched the dust off his boots with his whip; the crowd of those who had not dined, and who meant to dine, had merged into the smoky unseen—those who had most and best dinners with least and worst appetites, and vice versâ, as the case might be. In fact, the Park had become empty of nearly all, save cads, and the females of their species, and the usual amount of mere passers through, when a figure might have been perceived dropping carefully from one of the wide-spread lower branches of a chesnut-tree. That individual took what might have been, but was not, a meteorological observation, east, west, north and south; and then commencing to whistle at the top of his powers, which were great, struck into a path which led to the nearest exit amid the greatest number of pedestrians from the Park. Joining a throng of ragamuffins outside, he listened eagerly to a discussion on the skirmish which had just taken place.

"I tell yer," said one fellow to another, "there's three on 'em has got their gruel, and the surgeon has guv 'em up for dead."

"Three!" muttered the unrepentant Downy; "he wos big enough for three. It's a dispinsashun of Prowidence that he didn't kick my nob hoff. But I hope he ain't much hurt, for all that. At any rate, he's paid for it, and they pensions the vidders of the Force. They vouldn't have pensioned my vidder, if he'd knocked the breath out of my carkis."

We are happy to be able to record that the injured man was well enough to make the most of his broken head, which went down to the general account, i.e., the account of Garibaldi and his sympathisers. Whatever may be the mysterious reason, it is certain that it is grossly intolerant to resist a Papist zealot who endeavours to break your head. It is gross indecency to translate or even allude to some Papistical works used in the colleges which are endowed by the money of a Protestant (?) State. It is an outrage to object to nunneries, which have increased tenfold in this country within the last few years. Everything is an outrage on one side, and nothing on the other. This may be compromise—it looks like something worse. We are not alluding to religious tenets, but to the temporal, social, and political bearings of that aggression which threatens England with internal convulsions and civil war again.

CHAPTER XIV.

TOPS IS LET INTO THE SECRET.

Can I keep a secret? Only try me. Tell me what it is, and I'll advertise it in the "——." And if it is ever heard of again, when once there, I'll engage to read through the entire journal. I met the proprietor the other day. "Hallo!" said I, "you ought to be obliged to me." "What for?" he said. "Why," I answered, "I've just doubled your circulation." "How do you mean?" he asked quite briskly. "Why," said I, "I bought a copy this week, and I've just torn it in two to wrap up a brace of parcels." Would you believe it, the ungrateful humbug hailed an omnibus immediately and never gave me an order for a theatre again?

"WASN'T it a rum start, Susan?" observed Mr. Tops to that young lady, who had duly arrived and exchanged new vows with her constant adorer. "You see, in course, I might have picked up fifty letters, and never so much as thought of looking at one. This 'ere——"

"Don't say this 'ere—say this letter," interrupted Susan.

"Well, this 'ere letter," continued Tops, with admirable simplicity.

"This letter," cried Susan.

"Well, I said this letter 'ere," rejoined Tops; "I was agoing to say, it was stuck behind one of the cushions of the 'mourning-coach,' as I call it. I was going to take it in to the old chap, and had put it in the harness room winder, until I had finished up, when jest as I was giving the curbs a touch of the dry leather, my eye fell quite permiscuous on the name of Arthur Aubrey, Eskvire. 'By your leave,' says I. So I made bold to read it, and a precious sight of villainy I should say I found out."

"Nothing could have justified such an act, James," said the object of his affections, "but the circumstances of the case."

"So I've said a dozen times. After all said and done, there was no seal broke, you know; and I never meant so much as looking at it, considering, of course, as I knowed to whom it belonged——"

"You 'knew,' you meant," said Susan.

"Yes, I meaned I knew," said Tops.

We shall not in future follow Susan's corrections of her admirer's language. Suffice it to say, that she did occasionally set him right.

The pair were sitting in the boudoir, kitchen, and ironing-room of Susan's future mother-in-law, Mrs. Tops, than whom a more kindly, illiterate, and vulgar, high-minded woman, there exists not in London at this moment. The magnificence of that poor old creature's soul was something astonishing. Sometimes she said that she, Martha Tops, would like to be Queen of England, in order to show foreign guests, especial royal and imperial "Hemperors, and sech like," the glorious hospitality of John Bull. "There was rubbish enough which she needn't name, she hoped she knew her dooty better, entertained princely here, and why send kings and queens as was our guests to a hinn?" Some one had told this innocent old lady the wonderful story of the groom-minister of Bavaria, and she was never tired of imagining a similar career for Tops. Add to this, that she had a great respect and regard for Susan, mingled with some awe in regard to that young person's superior attainments, and we have said all that is necessary of Mrs. Tops, who, on this occasion, had devised an errand, in some vague connexion with, or oblique relation to, certain imaginary mangling, and had in reality gone to have a little weak gin-and-water, and a gossip at her own particular bar.

"It's pretty nigh the time," said Tops, consulting the silver warming-pan which had survived his uncle in a double sense. "He's very punctual is the Downy."

"Why do you think," asked Susan, "that there is no possibility of its being Mr. Aubrey whom the Downy has seen? I should think he's too sharp to be easily mistaken."

Tops shook his head.

"I wish," he replied, "that I could believe it. But, lor bless the girl! he was too proud to live, when down on his luck like that, at least for long. I'm sadly afraid it's all up with him long ago. I don't much believe that he survived much after the time I went to live with old Grinderby. I mean when he gave me the slip so sudden. I'd give the favourite for next year's Derby, if he was mine, to know if the governor's alive or not, and what wouldn't we give to find him?"

"You'd say so, James, if you knew all," said Susan, in a slow and earnest manner, looking full in her admirer's eyes.

"If I knew all?" inquired Tops. "I know a precious sight too much, I think; more than I like to know, any ways. What do you mean by knowing all, old woman?"

"Tops," said Susan, "we are going to be married."

Tops bowed his assent.

"A wife ought to have no secrets from her husband."

"Certainly not," said Tops, looking puzzled.

"You have proved your fidelity thoroughly," said Susan, "and I would trust you with anything. Besides, I have the permission of my mistress to tell you."

"Your missus?" cried Tops. "What, that furren lady—the Seenora, as you call her?"

"Have you noticed her particularly?" inquired Susan.

"Well, I can't say I have," replied Tops. "She wears such a thick veil, as if she was afraid of the flies, like a skittish 'oss of a hot summer's day. She looks like an out-and-out fine woman; I will say that for her."

"Don't you think she is like any one you know?" resumed Susan.

"Well, I ain't took particular notice of any of her countrywomen; but I heard a gent as was at the Hopera say she was very like a party of the name of Molly Bran. I shouldn't have remembered it, but for the bran. I was jest thinking about giving our oldest 'oss a mash, you see. There is a difference even in their ages."

"Silly fellow!" quoth Susan, "I mean some one whom you knew well."

Tops shook his head again.

"Isn't she like our old mistress—Mrs. Aubrey?" cried Susan.

"Well," answered Tops, "she may be about the same height and colour; but I should say the Seenora is a matter of two stone heavier than that poor dear lady as is gone. What a light weight she was for a real genteel thorough-bred! I think I see her on her white Arab, afore she lost her eyesight, poor thing! I see the very mare last Wednesday was a week in the Park. She was bought by a lieyer feller with buck-teeth like a rat, a friend of hisn, Grinderby's, I mean." And he pronounced the name with infinite disgust.

"Listen!" said Susan. "Suppose that Mrs. Aubrey had been saved, and not drowned at all, and what is more, had recovered her eyesight, and become one of the most celebrated singers in the world! Suppose that she and the Signora Stellini are one and the same person after all!"

"What!" shouted Tops. "What! you don't, you can't go for to mean it! Don't stand looking at a feller like that! Is she? What? Eh! No, it ain't possible. Do you mean that it is her, and the t'other ain't drownded and dead after all?"

As he stood with open mouth and eyes awaiting an answer, Susan could not help laughing outright.

"Susan!" continued Tops, "you're the girl of my 'art, which I have shown it pretty plain. But if you try and come over me with any chaff about him and her, as I don't like to think of, much less name, in a permiscuous manner, I shall jib and no mistake! I tell you I shan't have it, even from you."

"Mr. Tops," said the lady, "I make every excuse for you; because you can't help being a man, and stupid as all men are. Do you think, sir, I am likely to jest on such a subject? Did it never occur to your dull comprehension that there was anything odd in my going off with a foreign lady in such a hurry, just after such a terrible affair?"

"I thought you did it for the best," replied Tops. "I wasn't going to be mean and suspicious of you—was I? What do you take me for?"

Susan felt rebuked in this simple assertion of confidence.

"My dear, dear James," she said, flinging her arms round his neck and kissing him, while she burst into tears. "You behaved like a—what are you men so fond of calling it?—a brick. There! Mrs. Aubrey was never drowned. She was saved by a brave and honest man, after she had thrown herself into the Thames. She changed her name, and went studying abroad, and I went with her. She is now the celebrated singer Bianca Stellini, about whom such a fuss is made. And she loves her husband still, as dearly as ever. She has never said it, but I know it. And, oh! if we could only find him, they may both be happy yet."

Poor Tops could only blubber out in reply: "We never shall find him. That's where it is. Here's his fortin recovered from drownding, and his wife left all afresh to him in a new will, and the double event ain't no more than if it hadn't happened. I tell you, he's scratched clean out of the race, altogether."

"I do not despair yet," said Susan. "I've great faith in our friend the Downy's positive statement, that he saw Mr. Aubrey alive within the last few days."

"Then why didn't he stop him? That's what I want to know. Does he know that she's alive? Perhaps you could trust him with the secret, though you didn't tell me all this long time. And it might have saved his life, that's what it might, just to have known that he hadn't 'murdered' her, as he called it. Not that she ever was murdered, even if she wasn't alive."

"Of course," observed Susan, "the Downy knew the secret; seeing that it was him who jumped into the water, and saved her life at the risk of his own. I would have told you twenty times over, and in fact longed to do so; but it was not my secret, and Mrs. Aubrey would not hear of any one being told. You see she had quite turned against her husband, and wouldn't allow his name even to be mentioned to her. A benevolent lady furnished her with the means to go abroad, and, I believe, set Mr. Downy up in business, in which he soon came to grief, as I have understood since our return. Now you see how it was that I couldn't tell you how matters really were."

"I see," said Tops, gloomily, "and a pretty mess you've all made of it—that is, if it is true that she has forgiven him, and is sweet on him after all. Perhaps we shall be able to find out where he's buried, though I doubt if that's an easy matter. She'd be able to take some of them flowers, which I see in the 'Morning Advertiser' they throwed to her at the Hopera so plentiful last Thursday night, and put 'em on his parish grave, that is, if the surgeons haven't had him, and made a skelington of his poor bones. I suppose she's anxious enough to find him now, and live with him, unless she's been and got married again in furren parts. Nothing would surprise me, especially now his fortin's turned up."

"I don't know that she would have him," said Susan; "and it strikes me that his fortune being turned up, as you call it, is as likely as anything to stop her, if she had any such idea in her head. And what's more she isn't married, nor ever will be, that is quite certain, at least to any one else. She's only wrapped up in her child, the dearest little darling you ever saw, and I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Tops, I don't understand any such insinuations, neither from you nor any one else, and I think you and me are very likely to quarrel."

"Child!" shouted Tops. "What child? Whose child? They never had no child. What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," replied Susan; "that a little boy was born in Rome, and he will be four years old next December, and he is as like his father as ever a child was, which in my opinion has done more to soften her heart towards one who behaved so ill to her, than anything else could have done."

"Where is the young un?" cried Tops. "Let me see him, afore there's another word said."

"I don't know that I shall let you see him at all. You have offended me very much. You choose to forget all that angel suffered, and to be inclined to abuse her; as if you'd never had any cause to be ashamed of yourselves, you and your master together."

"And I tell you," said Tops, "that I've nothing to be ashamed of; and as for the gov'nor, I should think you and your missus had been pretty well revenged agen him any time these four years past. I don't say she had no cause to be aggeravated, and do all she did at the first start. But there ought to be a hend to heverythink, and it strikes me she's waited a little too long, that's all about it."

"So you think that a woman is to be neglected, and deceived, and driven to make away with herself, and to come round in a moment, do you? Who's fault is it that she wasn't drowned? Who hindered her from dying in an asylum for the indigent blind?" asked Susan, rapidly.

"One," replied Tops, "that angry and revengeful folk is very apt to forget, when they're a reckoning others up. One as we're none of us too mindful of when——"

Susan was so struck with the sudden turn which Tops had given to their conversation, that for once she had nothing to say in answer, but put an abrupt termination to the sermon which Mr. Tops had commenced by hurriedly seizing her bonnet, and tying the strings a precious sight quicker, as Mr. Tops afterwards said, than if she'd been sent for the doctor. Throwing her light summer shawl round her with a dexterous twist, she cast a look of haughty indignation at Tops.

"You remind me," she said, "I shall be in time for the afternoon service. I don't want you to preach to me anyways. Good afternoon."

"Susan! Susan! don't be a fool!" exclaimed Tops.

"Thank you," she said, with her hand on the door-handle; when a smart knock caused her to pause, and a face, which the most astute diplomatist might have envied for its consummate serenity and assurance, was suddenly made visible.

"Ax yer pardin," said the intruder, "didn't know you wos alone. Good mornin' this evenin', werry much thank yer. How air yer to-morrer? Thought the old lady was here, or wouldn't 'ave come up vithout writin'. Two's kimpany, and three's none. Hallow me the honner!" And the Downy, for he it was, once more respectably attired in a whole suit of unpretending cut and hue, gallantly took Mrs. Susan by the hand, which he squeezed, whilst bestowing a series of the most patronising winks and nods on Tops. "Vell, you air a lucky feller," he said. "I couldn't a' thought that the air in furren parts was so fayverabble to beauty. Hallo!" he cried, as if struck by a sudden remembrance, "of course, to be sure, it's my birthday," and with that he gave Susan a chaste salute on both cheeks with such rapidity, that his purpose could hardly have been defeated.

"Well, I'm sure!" said Susan, "you're the last man I should have expected such a liberty from, Mr. Downy."

"I ax your pardin," said that gentleman, "if I've made any mistake. The fact is, I'd a twin brother as wos born this month, and I sometimes forgets which of us it air. Besides, I am so glad to see you back, and about to make my friend 'ere a 'appy man."

With any other man, at any other time. Tops would certainly have quarrelled. But the Downy was a privileged mortal, and Susan had just shown a disposition, as he thought, to jilt him; so he merely said:

"Perhaps you're mistaken in more things than one; but what I want to ask you once more most particular before we talk of any other mortal thing, is, whether or not you was mistaken in thinking you saw my old master, Mr. Arthur Aubrey, last Tuesday was a week, about seven o'clock, in front of St. George's Church, Hanover-square?"

"I see him," answered the Downy, "I tells yer agen this vunce, and no more, as sure as I see you now, and wot's more I spoke to him, and he hanswered me."

"And you know'd that Mrs. Aubrey was alive, and never so much as told him, and pr'aps saved his life. I tell you, I've found out all about his property, or at least I'm on the right line to find it out, and here you've let him go on thinking himself a murderer, or next door to it, and no better off than a beggar in the street. I tell you, I don't thank you for it, and what's more, I don't like you for it. And if I was sure it was him, I don't think I should ever care to have a drain of anything in your company again."

The Downy looked at Susan, and said: "So you've blowed the gaff at last. I'm werry glad on it, and I've vished you'd done it afore any time these four year. But I hopes you see, Mister Tops, that, yether you're pleased or not, I couldn't split, and that's jest all about it. If you'd hoffered me a thousand pound, I shouldn't 'ave told a vord, and now you know. That's special, and no mistake." Herewith, the Downy advanced towards the door. "I'm werry sorry," he said, "as things ain't turned out no better. I'd a told the poor gentleman myself at fust, hif I could 'ave had my way in the bis'ness. Mornin', miss."

"Stop," said Susan. "Mr. Tops is quite welcome to quarrel with me, if he pleases, as he seems to be inclined to do with you; but I don't see why others should suffer. I've only done my duty to my mistress, and I can remember the time when he kept his master's counsel and secrets remarkably well. I've nothing to say against that. The thing appears now to be—can you find Mr. Aubrey, and put us in communication with him? Of course, Mr. Tops will do as he pleases; but if he wants to spoil everything, as he certainly would do, he'll tell him when he is found, as God grant he may be ere long, that Mrs. Aubrey and the Signora Stellini are the same. It's true, I've got her leave to let Mr. Tops into the secret, and she has, in my belief, only come to England to see if she can find her husband. But as for any reconciliation, that must be left to her. All I know is, that I shouldn't like ever to speak of it in her hearing. This discovery about the will is quite another thing, and the sooner Mr. Aubrey knows that, the better it will be for him. And what's more," added Susan with spirit, "though fortune would make no difference to her, yet if he's half the man I take him for, he'd rather die than owe anything to his wife, who has sustained such injury at his hands. And now, Mr. Tops, perhaps you'll tell us what information you've got, and what you propose to do, in order to get hold of the papers, which must be got, as well as to find out where Mr. Aubrey is."

Mr. Tops listened to this long speech from the accomplished lady's maid with great attention. He felt that he was what he would himself have called "in the wrong box." He could not but acknowledge, on reflection, that Mrs. Aubrey had a right to act as she had done under the circumstances; and that neither Susan nor the Downy could have betrayed her, without forfeiting their respective characters for honesty and good faith. Still he wasn't inclined to knock under all at once. So he repressed a strong inclination to shake the Downy by the hand, and to ask Susan for her forgiveness; and on his mother making her appearance, which she did at that moment, he spoke quite sharply to the astonished old lady, and requested to know why she had put nothing on the table to offer their guests.

All this Susan understood perfectly; but it didn't prevent Mrs. Tops from feeling deeply aggrieved. It was the foreshadow of the daughter-in-law on her humble hearth.

"I'm sure, James," said his mother, "I didn't know that your young lady would take anything before dinner, and this young man as, he'll excuse me, I didn't know was a-coming, he has only just come in, which I met him myself atop of the mews. I'm sure, I'm very glad to see any of my son's friends." And she curtsied to the Downy. "What would you please to take, sir?" And without waiting for an answer, she put two bottles, one of stout, and one of pale ale, on the table, with an ancient spirit-stand, which had been a wedding gift to her mother just sixty-three years before.

"Come," said Tops, in a more cheerful and social tone, "give it a name. What shall it be?"

"Afore you draws a cork," replied the Downy, "I vants jest to know if you're agoin' to withdraw a hobserwation as you jest now made. It ain't accordin' to my noshuns to act parliamentary and call a man yer right honnorable friend, vile you're a makin' him out no better than the biggest thief in the vurld. Nor I don't eat and drink at the expense of hany one as don't consider as I don't hact on the square. That may suit the hairystocrisy, but it don't suit me. So you've jest got to say vich it is, and 'ow it is. No offence, mum" (to the old lady); "it ain't hoften as I troubles a respectable family like this, and I ain't agoin' to do no such a thing now, if my condick is kevestioned, as your son's bin a-doin' of it. But this needn't be in the way of bis'ness and our dooty to others. It's honly in respect of the liquor."

"Allow me to say, Mrs. Tops," said Susan in her turn. "that your son having an important communication to make respecting a family where we lived, I am only waiting in consequence of that; and you'll pardon me, if I also say that my visit must he considered now as entirely relating to the welfare and happiness of other people."

"Won't you take off your bonnet, my dear?" said the widow, who saw that her son was vexed and agitated.

"No thank you, dear Mrs. Tops," was the amiable reply; but the look which Tops fils got immediately after on his advancing a step towards her, was what a Yankee would have designated "a caution to rattlesnakes."

Tops hesitated, and then offered his hand to the Downy. "I don't see as you could have acted different," he said, "and I'm sorry I spoke."

"A drop of gin, cold, hif you please," was the Downy's answer, addressed to the old lady.

During this ceremony, in which the Downy gallantly insisted that the old lady should join, which she did with "sweet (so far as a lump of sugar was concerned) reluctant, amorous delay," Susan divided her attention between a coaching print of the old "Royal Defiance" in a snow-storm, and an elegant Geneva watch, a late gift from her mistress. Tops approached her and attempted to take her hand, which she indignantly snatched away.

"Susan!" said Tops, falteringly, "Susan, I was wrong, and I don't wish to deny it; but if you'd knowed what he suffered afore my eyes, as was always the best of masters to man and 'oss, and perhaps now, if he's alive, ain't got a roof over his head, nor a bite of vituals to eat, you wouldn't wonder that I cut up rough, thinking as you and the Downy here might have spared him the worst of it. I see now that you couldn't have done different from what you did. I see him well-nigh dead of grief and fever, afore he bolted, cos he wouldn't be a burden to me no longer. All I can say is, that I hope he'll get his own, which he will if he's alive now, and as for telling him that his wife, as was my old missus, is alive, if I should ever see him again, I leave even that to you, as I believe you know what is best, and will act according, as old Blowhard, I mean Binsby, used to say. Will you forgive me?"

Under other circumstances, it is probable that Mrs. Susan would have held out for some time. Women who give their lovers most pain and trouble during courtship, often turn out the most patient help-mates in wedded life. But this was Susan's first visit to the maternal Tops, and she really liked her intended all the more for his devotion to his master, to whom she had long eagerly desired to see Blanche reunited. So, though she again snatched her hand from the attempted grasp of Tops, she embraced his mother warmly, while bursting into a flood of tears.

"Deary me, now!" cried the old lady, "whathever have you been a-doing of, James? Come in here, my dear, and take your bonnet off." And she forthwith took Susan out of the room; but not before Tops had caught her in his arms and given her a dozen ardent kisses.

"I say young man," said the Downy, "respect the feelinx of a third party, will yer? How do yer know but that you'll be a-startin' me hoff into materimony, afore I can afford a carridge and a grand pie-anny. Dror it mild the next time yer comes out in that 'ere line in kimpany, vill yer?"

In a very short time Susan re-entered the room. "Come," she said, "let us hold our cabinet council. Tell Mr. Downy here all about the letter, or perhaps you'd better give it to me to read aloud to you."

"Well," said Tops, "the fact is this. T'other evening I drove old Grinderby home as usual in the 'mourning-coach,' and the next day very early I see this letter" (pulling it out of his pocket) "behind one of the cushions. You see, he had either stuck it there himself and forgot it, or it had come out of his pocket, which the tailors makes so very shaller now-a-days, in order, I suppose, that you might lose the receipt for your ready-made clothes. I've often found papers behind there afore. Well, I thought I would take it in at breakfast time, and I jest stuck it in the winder, for fear of forgetting of it, and I had nigh finished work, and was a-whistling like one o'clock, and a-thinking of my Susan here, when I chanced to look at the letter, which I believe I was nigh putting in my pocket and taking to the house for the old un, when I see the name of Arthur Aubrey, Eskvire, leastways without the Eskvire, but there was Arthur

Aubrey plain, as you'll see. I hope, ladies and gentleman," said Tops, with mock gravity, "that I shan't forfeit your good opinion when I tell you, that I not only read that letter through, but that I afterwards quite forgot to give it back to the owner." With this, Mr. Tops handed the letter to Susan.

"Letter put in, and read accordin'," quoth the Downy at this juncture.

"The letter," said Susan, "is dated 'Deptford, Friday,' and is as follows:

" 'You infernal old cuss!' "

"That's a perlite beginnin'," quoth the Downy.

"It's plain speaking," said Tops. "Don't you see that the letter is addressed to Grinderby by somebody as knows him? Drive on, Susey."

" 'I'm not,' " she accordingly continued, " 'going to be made a fool of by you any longer. You must either fork out the amount I named at our last interview, or I shall tell Arthur Aubrey everything, and trust rather to his coming out strong—hate him as I do—more than to the liberality and honour of a lawyer. Now I just wish to inform you that I am getting ugly, and won't stand no more darned nonsense and shuffling. Either you'll come down handsome with the dollars—I want three thousand pounds sterling, or I'll give Aubrey the will, and tell him what I have refused for it. It's a large stake, remember. You won't be long squeezing that out of the property; and how much have you nobbled already, which you'll have to disgorge, like a shark ripped up on the deck of a three-master, if I speak the word. You say Aubrey cannot be found. Can't he? Let me try to find him. If he was dead, as you say, there is the next heir would be uncommon glad of a visit from our American cousin. What do you think? Now don't come any delays with me, for I won't have it. You tried that game on at your accursed den in Webb's Fields, once too often to suit me. It wasn't quite prudent of you. Mister Grinderby, to set them young lawyer's spawn a-grinning at me for three quarters of an hour, while you were shuffling over your papers of lies up-stairs. I tell you I've put lead, ay, and cold steel, into a man for less, and I'll do it to you, if you raise my dander, I will by——' "

Here Susan stopped. "I don't quite understand what comes next," she said, "but it looks something dreadful."

"Go on with what he says about meeting him. That's the ticket," remarked Tops. "Never mind the oaths. I forgot all about them, which I hope you'll excuse, my dear."

Susan, who had been quietly finishing the letter to herself, complied at once.

" 'Now, I tell you what it is, old boss, I ain't a going to stand any more humbug, so make your choice. You'll come and see me this time, d'ye understand? There ain't no lawyers' clerks here. I shall expect you at eight o'clock on Tuesday evening with the cash—short, mind, nothing over fifties! I'll then give you the will, and this time you can see it's genuine. I shan't stay in England more than twelve hours after. It's a precious sight too hot, I can tell you. I don't half like that dirty, loping, scarecrow messenger of yours.' "

"Ha! ha!" interrupted Tops. "That's one for you, Mr. Downy. How do you like the description?"

"It's nothing but right-down wiciousness a-tryin' to describe wirtue," replied that individual.

" 'T'other day,' " continued Susan, reading, " 'when you were fool enough not to wait till I came, as if you never kept any one waiting, dash you! the beggarly skunk brought another worse-looking vagabond in the rummiest cut toggery I ever saw.' "

"That's you, Mr. Tops! You've got it handsome this time," cried the Downy. "I'm sorry to interrupt you. Pray go on, miss!"

" 'This precious pair of tripe-faced cockneys,' " continued Susan, still reading, " 'had the insolence to ask me all sorts of questions. I had some difficulty to keep from whipping the pair of sneaking, shivering, swamp-raised cusses together, I tell you, and the next time I catch them they'd best look out for squalls. I've seen the long-tailed cuss somewhere before, I guess. It was either in a thieves' kitchen, where I was hiding out of the way of the beaks, or else he was door-keeper to a copper-hell in Leicester-square. Such a hang-dog face as his isn't easy forgotten altogether. So don't send that live scarecrow again to me, if you're likely to want him any more in your garden.' "

"Upon my word," said Susan, "the writer's remarks are extremely complimentary."

Mr. Tops expressed himself rather strongly about punching heads, but the equanimity of the Downy didn't seem in the least disturbed.

Susan continued her reading with an expression of quiet amusement not altogether unmingled with an indefinite expression of alarm.

" 'To cut it short, old fellow, you'd best stump up, if you don't want to smell brimstone premature. At eight o'clock P.M., on Tuesday, mind, sharp, and the toast of the evening after our little business is settled shall be with all my heart—"May we never meet again on this side of——!"

" 'Disrespectfully yours,
" 'J. S. M.' "

It is not to be supposed that the ruffian, whose precious communication we have just transferred to these pages, left any blanks in his letter to be filled up at discretion.

"Upon my word," said Mrs. Susan, "a very pretty epistle. I hope, James, you are not so foolish as to think of having anything to do with such a person?"

"Hem!" said Tops, "we'll think about that by-and-by. What do you think this cove means about giving up the will for three thousand pounds, and threatening if the money ain't paid, and it ain't a trifle neither, to tell Mr. Arthur?"

"I see," said the Downy; "he must 'ave took this ere lieyer for pardner, and was wound up by Chancery."

"No!" said Susan; "his father, the old gentleman who made the fortune and bought the estate, left a will tying him up so strict, as I heard say, that he could only spend the income, and couldn't borrow any money at all. And when he'd overrun the constable, as they call it, the lawyers, and among them this very Grinderby, stepped in, and they got everything into Chancery on behalf of the entail, and there's nothing left for him to live on, as he's forfeited his rights."

"I said it were Chancery, but how come the old chap to make this 'ere werry spicy harrangement in favour of the lieyers?" asked the Downy.

"It was when he and Mr. Arthur were not on the best of terms," replied Susan.

"Some time afore the old un kicked the bucket, I dare say?" suggested the Downy.

"I believe it was," said Susan.

"D'ye know if they wos friends—I mean your guvenor and his father, afore the old chap died?" pursued the Downy.

"The best in the world," replied Susan. "In fact, they were quite reconciled."

"Then it's as plain as 'V. R.' of a hillumination night, there wos another vill," said the Downy, "and this 'ere chap has got it."

"But who can he be?" said Tops.

"Whoever he air," remarked the Downy, "accordin' to the descripshun, he knowed you someveres afore, at least so he says. I'm 'appy to say it wos afore I knowed yer either."

"How did you manage to get let out of the garden, afore the cherry season was over?" retorted Tops. "I think you'd best shut up."

"Look here, James," said Susan. "Don't you remember the clerk of the late Mr. Aubrey, who ran away soon after his death?"

"I see him once," replied Tops. "He was a tall, stout gent. It was the very first week that I lived with Mr. Arthur. He was in trouble then. Let's see, what was his name? It began with a M."

"Manvers, to be sure," cried Susan.

"That's the ticket," said Tops. "Then this is him, and this 'ere will is one as he has concealed and took with him to Amerikey. And now he's offered to sell it to old Grinderby for three thousand pound. Stop! what have I heard of him besides?"

"He was suspected of having committed a murder," said Susan, "and there was a reward offered for his apprehension. Oh, James, do be careful what you have to do with such a man!"

"So much the heasier job for us," said the Downy. "I s'pose there's no mistake, no danger of wrong wot's-his-name, somethink as begins vith a hi, no totherification, I means—mistakin' of him for another bloke, and all that?"

"I can swear to the man now myself," answered Tops; "for all his disguise and Yankee lingo. He'd robbed the gov'nor of a sight of money then, and was let off heasy. I'll let him off this time, when I catch him."

"The job's got to be done soon," remarked the Downy. "There ain't much time atween this and Toosday. I'll pound it old Grinderby won't be long afore he burns that 'ere vill, if hever he gets it into his vicked old fingers."

"He'll not throw away a chance this time," said Tops. "We must have the will, before it changes hands. Couldn't we manage so as to collar the three thousand as well?"

The Downy shook his head. "I should be werry sorry to try," he said.

"I didn't mean for us, you blessed garden himage out for a Sunday," said Tops; "I meant to collar it for him as it belongs to, Arthur Aubrey, Eskvire, with three cheers and a little one in. Here, fill your glasses." And so saying, he filled a bumper all round, uncorking a bottle of ginger-beer for Susan, and proposed the governor's health, and long life to him, wherever he was to be found. When the excitement of this had passed, Mr. Tops desired his mother to hurry dinner, a request that never yet occasioned anything save increased delay, with the exception of ill-temper. "For," said he, "we must tackle this Manvers this very night."

"Tacklin's all werry well," said the Downy, "purvidin' we can tackle him; but s'pose we had him safe and in the jug anyveres, 'ow air we to drop on the vill! I'm for tryin' some dodge, sech as gettin' round the landlord of the public as he uses, and droppin' in upon him jest ven hold Grinderby and him's together a squarin' of the plant."

"It's awful risky," said Tops.

"I didn't think as you'd be afeard," said the Downy. "I should fancy the pair on us could tackle him. I'm a precious sight stronger nor I look."

"Afraid!" quoth Tops, with scorn. "Whoever thought of such a thing? I'm only afraid of not getting hold of the will."

"I hope," said Susan, "you'll neither of you be such fools as to think of fighting with a low murdering ruffian like this Tadgers, or Manvers, or whatever's his name. I'm sure, for my part, I should despise any man who would condescend to such vulgarity."

"Well," retorted Tops, "I should think myself a sneak, if I was to shy at such a job."

"There are two ways of setting about it," said Susan; "and if you go blundering head-over-heels into a disgraceful affair, I'll never speak to you again."

"Do you mean to say that we are to do nothing, and suffer our old gov'nor to be robbed in this way without doing nothing?" inquired Tops.

"I don't know what you call doing 'nothing,' Mr. Tops," said the lady of his affections; "but I can't see what good you'll do by being stabbed or shot, and, perhaps, losing a limb or an eye for your pains. The proper thing to do is to communicate with the police."

The Downy whistled. "It's too wenturesome a game for them. They'd never do it."

"Nonsense!" responded Susan. "They must. What are they paid for, I should like to know?"

"So should I," said the Downy. "Pr'aps it's for hindrin' poor folks from gettin' their livin', and overturnin' horanges and happles into the streets—pr'aps it's for takin' hup little boys under six year old on a

Sunday for hollerin', and lockin' 'em up all night in a cold cell—pr'aps it's fortakin' money from a parcel of poor gals to let 'em alone, and pinchin' and dislocatin' the arms of them as don't or can't pay—pr'aps it's for drivin' cabbies and busmen wild, and takin' away their licenses for nothink—pr'aps it's for follerin' gents as is hout late and hintimadatin' 'em by tellin' 'em it's a dry night, 'till the party's glad to give 'em a shillin' to go away—pr'aps——"

"That will do, Mr. Downy," interrupted Susan; "we know your sentiments on that subject; and if you please we'll just try if we can't make the police do their duty this time. Where's that handsome friend of yours, James? I mean the inspector who was sent to America to take Clark, the poisoner——"

"Oh! you mean Lanner," said Tops; "I haven't set eyes on him these three years."

"Well, I suppose he is to be found," said Susan. "Tell him the whole affair, and put it in his hands. We'll assure him of a handsome reward if he succeeds, and pay him for his time and trouble in any case. Besides, is there not a reward already offered for this Manvers, if it is the same man?"

"Of course there is," replied Tops. "I never thought of that."

"Of course you didn't," said Susan. "When did one of your wise sex ever think of anything sensible? Find out Lanner at once, and lay your three heads together. If you want any further advice, you can all send for me."

"I should have thought," said Tops, "you wouldn't like to risk hurting the beauty of such a handsome man as Mr. Lanner."

This was rather a sore subject for Tops. In former days, Mr. Lanner had been somewhat particular in his attentions to Susan. That young lady tossed her head.

"I'm sure," she said, "I never saw anything very uncommon in him myself; only it was the fashion to say he was good-looking. I never looked at him enough, perhaps, to find it out. It's not likely, indeed—a policeman who takes up thieves and comes home with murderers. I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Tops. Perhaps I am not so particular in my choice as I might be."

"Capting Lanner," observed the Downy, "is a werry clever genelman, a werry clever genelman indeed. I wos thinkin' of them hordinary perlice as acts sentries to the larders of an approvin' country. If so be as Capting Lanner takes a hinterest in the matter, vy it's vun for our American cousin's nob. My advice is to foller your young lady's reckymindation."

"Was Captain Lanner ever in the Army or Navy?" asked Susan.

"Ve calls the inspector capting," answered the Downy, "hever since he took that carrackter, to grab a party as had broke the Henlistment Hact. He's very pleasant company is the capting, and as hartful as he is pleasant. It ain't above a week since I see him at Bow-street."

It was, therefore, finally moved by Mrs. Susan, seconded by D. Cove, Esquire, and carried by acclamation, that Mr. Lanner should forthwith be waited upon by a deputation consisting of Tops and the Downy; and requested to concert measures for the recovery of the will, which was supposed to be in the hands of Tadgers, alias Manvers, and for the discomfiture of Grinderby's nefarious designs.

"There's only one thing I can't see clear," said Tops. "How can I go in against any one whose victuals I eat and whose uniform I wear? Well, I'll eat no more of his victuals, nor take no more of his money from this very hinstant. I'll get discharged to-morrow morning at a minute's notice, when I've drove him to the office."

"Right you air," said the Downy, "I respex them feelinx of yourn. It's wot I should do myself. And as you can't werry vell be hout of it afore to-morrer, I'll hopen the case, as the lieyers call it, to the capting, and you needn't do nothink agen your conshunce."

After the little episode of a sudden burst of wailing and lamentation from the maternal Tops, who had a vague notion that something dreadful was going to happen, further discussion was set aside by the advent of a small girl with the dinner, which consisted of a shoulder of mutton baked over potatoes in a brown dish, and which it must be owned spread a most appetising fragrance in the air.

"I say," said the Downy, "is it true that some of the nobs as is allers henvious of our luxuries is agoin' to do avay with hot jints on Sunday?"

"They never can be such a set of hypocritical fools," cried Susan. "If they do, there ought to be a revolution, that's all I have to say."

"I should like to have the punishment of such a lot," remarked Tops. "I'd give their insides a holiday, till they were pretty nigh dead with hunger and thirst, and then tie 'em to postises opposite the bakers' shops of a Sunday, and let 'em smell all the dinners agoing out."

"How they can have the heart to do it, I can't tell," said Susan.

" 'Art!" cried the Downy; "their 'arts is cold cat's-meat, and wot their brains is 'twould lick the whole Collidge of Surgeons to tell—soap-suds and live maggots, I should think."

"Why can't they be quiet?" continued Tops. "They get their own hot dinners and their wine on Sundays, as well as every other day in the week; they've their kitchens at home, and their clubs to go to, and they can't be happy without being shocked at the deplorable immorality of a baked jint and potatoes on Sunday."

"I wonder their religion don't choke 'em some times," said the Downy.

"There ain't no denying." remarked Tops, "that the wickeder a rich man is, the more he keeps pegging away at the comforts of the lower orders. If their own lives was reckoned up, they'd be glad to drop the hot tater on Sunday humbug pretty sharp."

"It's my opinion," said the old lady, "that the hot-houses is all took good care of on Sunday; for my own brother is head-gardener to Lord Tipton and Wednesbury, and he don't get no holiday, as I know on, for I asked him to come this blessed day, and he said it was as much as his place was worth, and there was ever so many foreigners coming to dinner, and he'd all the grapes to cut for 'em."

"It's werry kind on 'em, I'm sure," said the Downy, "as they don't start a Parlymentairy Committee on the special to stop them himmoral cabbages from growing of a Sunday in a poor man's garding. If they could honly do it and clap the hextra power on to pine-apples, they'd werry soon try it, and no mistake."

"What an eloquent set out it would be," said Susan. "Only fancy, 'Growing depravity of the lower classes.' "

"The Harchbishop of Middlesex in the cheer," added the Downy.

"Lord Shamsbury wished to know if the Act couldn't be extended to water-creases," observed Tops.

"Professor Graveworm," continued Susan, "produced a gooseberry which would only ripen on week-days. It was a small sour kind especially adapted to cottages. He had devoted several successive Sabbaths to the minute observation of this interesting fruit."

"That's about the ticket," said the Downy. "That's just wot they'd like to be hup to, and have an extra lot of bobbies to go into the cottagers' gardings with a bull's-eye, 'arter twelve o'clock on Saturday nights, to pull hup hall that was growin' contrairy to the Hact. Talkin' of bull's-eyes, I knowed a gent at Tottenham, as never could grow no wall-fruit. It allers wanished jest afore it was ripe. Vell, he goes agen and agen to the perlice inspector, and he says it's quite impossible as strangers could do it; for, says he, our hofficers is allers on the look-out. Vun night the gent looks hoat of his bedroom vinder, and he sees a werry curious sort o' light a bobbin' up and down his peach-vall, vich he couldn't hexplain novays. It wos as dark as pitch, yer see. So he takes his rewolwer and puts on his coat vith a hanti-garotting coller, hall spikes and fish-hooks, and down he goes in his carpet shoes, and wot do yer think he found?"

"Can't say," said Tops for the company.

"A perlice sarjent turnin' his bull's-eye on to the nectarinds, a feelin' on 'em to see if they wos there all right.

" 'Good mornin', friend,' says he, for it wos close on two o'clock. 'The same to you, sir," says the bobby. 'I thought I heerd steps,' he says. 'Ah! I see,' says the gent, 'and so you're a-taking stock beforehand, to see wot's ready to be missed. Werry thoughtful,' says he. 'Pray valk into my 'ouse and 'ave a drop of summat 'ot.' 'Werry much obliged,' says the bobby, 'but I'd rather not leave my dooty,' says he. Vell the gent didn't know 'ow to nail him at first, but presently he pretends to slip and cotched hold of the bobby's coat-pockets to save himself from fallin', quite forgettin' his spiked coller, and the bobby he cotches hold of that, and then there was a pretty hullibaloo. Vell the hupshot wos that two more perlice swore the next morning they found a heap of fruit nigh the gate ready to be took hoff, and that the sarjent wos only takin' it to the station kvite correct, and the gent, who was werry fond of gardenin', sold hoff heverything and vent to live in France, and the wigilance of the perlice was thought worthy of a testymonial by the folks in Tottenham, for so nearly havin' cotched a desperate robber in the hact."

We shall now leave the Downy and Mr. Tops to go in search of Inspector Lanner. We feel it a real privilege that the events of our story enable us to introduce such a character. Being denied the opportunity of laying before our readers the subtle workings of the human heart as displayed in adultery and bigamy; not even having a golden-haired domestic female poisoner at our disposal to drug (say her twin sister previously adored by her) in child-bed, in order to indulge her incestuous passion for the husband of the above, a tall, pale solicitor with blue-black whiskers and a blue-bag containing a magnetic "power of attorney," strong enough to fascinate all the young ladies in the shire; in default, we say, of these and other requisites for modern success, it is something to have a detective officer to fall back on. Only we are afraid that our detective will be a very ordinary personage, indeed. He will not combine the qualities of a Mathews the elder, the facial powers of Herr Schultz, and the rapid disguises of Woodin, with the scent, vision, and instincts of a Red Indian.

He will not step up to the guilty baronet at the exact moment, when he is about to start for America, and whisper the number of the gold repeater which he has just nervously consulted for the last time. He will not be summoned from London by a telegram to treat a Cabinet Minister with cool contempt mingled with the pity of a superior being, and immediately spot the missing despatches on the person of the cook, who turns out to be a Russian agent in disguise, and whom the detective handcuffs in calm triumph immediately after family devotion. This is quite in accordance with the style in vogue, and hits the taste of the present age, far better than the romances of Sir Walter Scott, or anything necessitating the exercise of the higher intellectual faculties.

CHAPTER XV.

A SANDWICH WITHOUT SALT.

Though my heart-strings crack, I will not yield unto a disobedient child. Let him prove me wrong! It shall not set him right who has defied me thus. What! Is it for this that we watch over the infancy which they forget, that we hang o'er their beds in illness, and applaud their gambols in health, that we weep alike over their chastisements and rewards, that we live a new life in them, and abandon our pleasures and even our habits for their sakes? No! Rather like the strange insect that we read of, let them destroy the parent life, than rob us of our pride, our remembrance, our reward, the grace of propagation, and the honour of old age.—Reverend M. T. Kickerow's Sermons on Domestic Ties. Discourse VIII. On Parental Obstinacy.

"ARE you drunk, you rascal?" said Mr. Grinderby to his coachman the next afternoon, after the date of the little dinner at that individual's lodgings over the stable.

It must be owned that there was some reason in the inquiry; for Mr. Tops had a remarkably flushed and excited appearance, and his livery hat had apparently been lent to a conjurer, and was placed on his head in a mingled style of gaiety and defiance.

"What's that you say?" was the unceremonious answer.

"I say, are you drunk, you villain?" cried Grinderby, in a loud and angry tone.

"Not exactually," was the answer, "seeing that I've had nothing but some of your beer to drink, 'Grinderby's partickler.' "

"I discharge you this instant, you scoundrel!" was the reply.

"That's actionable," said Tops. "Here!" he cried, opening a door leading to the office where the clerks were sitting (for this interview took place in Mr. Grinderby's own room in Webb's Fields). "Here! Hi! some of you limbs of Satan, come here, will yer? I've put up with a great deal too much, and I don't mean to put up with it no longer, and after I've driven the 'osses home, I'm going to leave. This sort of life ain't respectable."

"This insolence from a servant!" cried Grinderby. "I'll have you up before a magistrate, fellow!" Then, after a moment's pause, he said, "You may take the horses home, sir, as I remain here late, and then leave my house. I shall not give you a character, and your balance of wages to this date will depend upon your conduct."

"Character from you! That's a good un," answered Tops. "After half-past five, I'm no longer in your service, and you may keep your wages to yourself." And Mr. Tops made a most unceremonious exit.

"His behaviour is very suspicious," said Grinderby to himself. "I hope he has not by any chance picked up that letter which I missed so strangely. But I am pretty sure that I tore it up by mistake with those other papers. I was tearing them, when the postman came. To-morrow I must go and see that ruffian, and try to satisfy him with the smallest possible sum. He is hard pressed, and five or six hundred pounds ought to get me that will, and then—— But somehow everything seems to have gone wrong with me of late." Here he rang a hand-bell, and our old acquaintance Snap made his appearance. "Tell the boy," said Grinderby, sharply, "to bring my lunch. I rang for him." Snap disappeared, and presently the boy made his appearance with a tray on which was a small sandwich and a glass of water. The old lawyer tasted this not too luxurious fare, and suddenly his face grew dusky and livid with passion. "Here, you sirrah!" he almost screamed to the boy. "How dare you! You young scamp, you atrocious, profligate, swindling villain, you dog, you!" And he struck him three or four heavy blows with the tray over the head.

"Oh! oh!" screamed the boy. "What have I done?"

"To bring me my sandwich without salt, after all that I have said, you imp, you! How dare you?" And he boxed the boy's ears.

"It wasn't me as cut 'em," sobbed the lad. " 'Tain't my fault."

Here Mr. Snap re-entered the room. He laid a small slip of paper before Mr. Grinderby, on which the name of a visitor was inscribed, after the manner of solicitors' offices.

"Mr. Leslie!" said Grinderby. "I don't know the name. Did he say what his business is? Is he a gentleman?"

Snap looked at his employer with a mingled glance of expectation, doubt, and malice. "I don't know whether I'm right or not, Mr. Grinderby, to mention it, but the gent looks uncommon like your son."

"My son, sir! he would not dare. Am I to understand that it is he or not? Why the devil don't you speak plain."

"It is him," said Snap. "I'd have spoken out plainer, but didn't know how you'd like it."

"And pray, sir, what business have you to think about what don't concern you? Upon my word, sir, you are getting on. You are becoming far too valuable for this office, Mr. Snap."

"Then perhaps," returned Snap, doggedly, "you won't mind increasing my salary twenty pounds a-year. I've been intending to ask you this last month."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Grinderby. "Pray proceed. Anything else?"

"Yes," said Snap; "me and the other clerks have been agoing to ask, if we can't go away at two o'clock on Saturdays, like all the other clerks."

"Yes, sir, on one condition, and that is that you don't return here, sir, on Mondays, or any other day. Leave the room, sir!" thundered Grinderby, "leave the room."

"Then perhaps you'll accept three months' notice in writing," continued Snap, perfectly unappalled.

"Leave the room, sir!" reiterated Grinderby.

"Shall I tell Mr. Edgar—Leslie, that you'll see him?"

"Show him in!" was the reply, "and don't listen at the key-hole."

"Take a seat, sir," said the old lawyer, as his son was shown in. "What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?"

"Father!" said Edgar, "believe me, I do not mean this as an intrusion; but I wish to speak to you on a matter of a most serious nature. It is not on my own account."

"Indeed!" said his father. "I thought perhaps that your precious newspaper had become bankrupt; or that your valuable services had been dispensed with, and that you had come here begging. As it happens, there is a desk vacant in this office, but I fear that your habits are scarcely suitable to any regular business. However, if you choose to cut that hair off your face, and call to-morrow at half-past nine, if your habits allow you to rise at such an early hour, I'll see what can be done."

"It is nothing of the kind, sir. It is about your own affairs I would speak," returned Edgar.

"Upon my word, sir!" said his father, "your condescension is overpowering. But as I am extremely busy" (and he began writing), "I would rather—if—you please—postpone the intended—favour," and he rang his bell for Snap. "Good afternoon, Mr. Leslie!"

Leslie took a newspaper from his pocket, and turning it so as to show a labelled paragraph, handed it to his father.

The latter took it and read it to himself. The paragraph ran as follows: "Threatened revelations.—It is stated that legal proceedings are about to be instituted, in reference to the estate of Mr. A——, a gentleman who disappeared some four years since in a most mysterious manner, immediately after a tragical event which will be fresh in the recollections of our readers. A solicitor of some eminence is said to be deeply involved."

Mr. Grinderby, senior, exhibited no outward emotion, beyond an unwonted pallor, if such it could be called.

"Well, sir," he said, "is this precious composition yours? Have you become a penny-a-liner to write unmeaning libels and enter into vague conspiracies against—no matter whom, sir? I advise you to beware of an indictment for conspiracy, should this precious innuendo be caught at by any busy fool."

"I neither wrote it—nor do I know whence it emanates. There are rumours that Mr. Aubrey is not dead; but that he has been seen about in a sad state of destitution within the last three or four months. Oh! father, if there is any—anything wrong about this unfortunate affair, that you can set right, I have come to implore you to do it, ere it is too late."

"And I request you, sir, to leave my office, ere it is too late. Go to your penny-a-lining, sir; and when you can't get your bread at that, I will listen to your repentance, your apologies, and your excuses. As for this nonsense, it matters not, I tell you, whether that profligate idiot Aubrey is alive or dead. He has not a farthing interest in the estate, or its rents, of which I am appointed receiver by the Court of Chancery, sir, the Court of Chancery, do you hear?

And, sir, he owes the late firm of Grinderby and Cousens, or rather myself, sir, for I took the debts on myself when I dissolved partnership, to save him from the exposure of the Court, a sum of nearly two thousand pounds at this moment, to which the rents are not applicable. And now, sir, what more have you to say?"

"It is whispered that there is another will," said Edgar, "which, if found, would restore this Mr. Aubrey to affluence."

"Then you'd better find it, sir," cried his father; "and when you've found it, hark ye! come here again, and not before then. And so you get your living, do you? I should hardly have thought so, at least honestly, considering that you are such a fool; yes, sir, such a fool, I repeat."

"Better be a fool," said Edgar, "than——" But he prudently stopped himself.

"Than what, sir, may I ask?" inquired his father. "Finish your dutiful sentence, by all means. It will add a feather to your honourable career. But, in the mean time, mind you don't starve, sir, starve like a writer of sonnets and what not, in a garret or on a dung-heap. There was a fellow came touting here yesterday from an Author's Benevolent Aid Society, or some such thing. I am sorry I didn't give the fellow a donation for your sake, sirrah! For that is what your scribbling will bring you to before long. Look here, sir! I've done more than most fathers would, who have been treated as you have treated me. I have left you two pounds a-week in my will, to be paid weekly, mind. It will keep you out of the workhouse, and out of want, if you don't take to drinking like others of your precious stamp. And now begone, sir! begone!"

"Oh, father!" cried Edgar, once more. "Believe me, I have not come here to insult or annoy you; but I feared there might be some truth in this thing. I never told you why I left home, and would not follow the profession which you chose for me. It was because of the cruel things I saw, the oppression and extortion, which I could not endure to witness. I knew how this very Mr. Aubrey was treated in this office—I knew——"

He stopped, for the old man had risen, shaking in every limb. "You lie! ungrateful boy. There has been nothing, save the usual—the ordinary practice of—the law, sir; yes, the law. And if I did not yield to sickly sentiment, which would have speedily brought me to ruin, yes to ruin—for whom was it, I pray? I wished to make you a gentleman and a barrister—to leave you the property which your sister will now inherit. Not another word. Go, sir, go! You have done well to change your name. I tell you I am busy. Will you have the kindness to leave this room, if you please?"

Edgar offered his hand, which his father rejected with a gesture of impatience, and unwillingly took his departure. As he went out, he met a very old clerk, a grey routinarian named Stubbs, a man who derived his sustenance from iniquity, as harmlessly as he possibly could, as a weevil or any other grub lives on rottenness, blindly. Altogether, somehow, he was not a bad old man. Indeed, he had a strange, stupid reverence for the law, and would chuckle drearily and rub his hands over the success of injustice through some legal quirk, or the astute misrepresentation of a learned counsel. There are such miserable wretches, born with a moral strabismus, who have no particular harm in themselves, stingless blind-worms, crawling in old ways, efts and newts in the polluted cistern of injustice, who believe in foulness and worship the dirt in which they move, and on which they exist. This venerable nonentity followed Edgar to the outer door.

"Ah! master Edgar," he said, in feeble, quavering accents, "I'm glad to see you, sir, amongst us again. Your father, sir, is not the same man, since you left us. I hope you are coming to study the law. We shall see you a judge, sir, yet."

"No, Mr. Stubbs," replied Edgar, "I am just the same as ever. I am not fit for the profession, nor ever shall be."

"I thought of you, sir, in the great case of Black v. White, yesterday. The speech of the Attorney-General was superb. Your respected father retained him for Black, when we hadn't in equity, no, nor apparently in anything else, the ghost of a chance. It was a case of mining under a manufactory erected by White, and you see, sir. Black had only bought up some old abandoned shafts in order to get purchased out by White. Of course, when he pumped out the water, the buildings began to give way. There was some of the hardest swearing I ever had the pleasure of hearing. Black swore he bought the mine from his knowledge, in order to win a valuable seam of coal.

and White deposed that it was notorious there was no coal there. Then Black swore that his proceedings would not damage the buildings materially, even if he continued his operations under the whole field. There was a boundary stipulation; but he swore there was none, and our side squared the vendor of the mine at the very last moment, not to produce the stipulation, which was in a separate agreement. The engineers swore point blank against each other, just like doctors. The whole case rested on Black's evidence. It was beautiful to see how he behaved in the witness-box under the examination by Mr. Serjeant Queerfish, and how the Attorney-General got out of him some of the most artistic perjury ever offered in a Court of Justice. Every one knew it was the sheerest lying, but it could not be contradicted—we had managed the case so well. You see that Shycase, the eminent Q.C., was retained, but was engaged elsewhere, and Queerfish knew nothing of the case. He actually complimented Black on his position in the mining world, whereas he ought as far as possible to have shown up some of the earlier transactions of his life. So Black got sixty thousand pounds damages, and White is a ruined man. 'Ecod!' cried old Molewarp, Black's borer in the north, to his patron, 'thee deserves thy verdict, mon, that thee dost; for I'm thinking there isn't another chap in England that could have gone safe down that shaft, an' coom up again without ever touching a soide like of the truth.' It was the greatest triumph I have seen in a Court of Justice these fifty years, because we had to fight against all the facts of the case."

"You may call it a triumph, but I call it a disgrace," said Edgar. "It appears that every principle of justice was violated, as is too often the case."

"The law is very superior to justice, I should hope, or where should we lawyers be?" said the old clerk, with a ghastly attempt at cachinnation. "Ho, ho! Hee, hee!"

"Good day, Mr. Stubbs!" said Edgar, gently. "I hope your family are well, and that the law will never deal with them harshly. How would you like your home desolated by triumphant lying, sir, on the part of some reckless opponent, who should swear that your house stood on his land, and contrived by some fiendish plot in which perjury and bribery were the lightest components, to turn white into black in your case, sir, and vice versâ?"

"Dear me," said Mr. Stubbs, "I don't see how such a thing could be. I should take care to retain the Attorney-General in time."

"But what if the perjury on the other side was too strong?" asked Edgar.

"We would nullify it," said Mr. Stubbs, "by equally strong assertions; and, if necessary, stronger on ours. The truth, sir, never suffices, when the element of perjury is introduced by the other side. It would not suit our laws of evidence, as at present constituted."

"And you ask me, why I am not a lawyer?" said Edgar, escaping.

"Fine young man, very fine young man," said Mr. Stubbs, looking after him with something very like a sigh. "But decidedly," and he touched his forehead with his forefinger, "something wrong here. Such a pity, too, with such a father and a practice made, as it were, to his hand. Don't I wish I had had such a chance!"

"I say, Stubbs, old fellow," said the athletic Thibblethwaite, the chief common-law clerk of the office, who came in at that moment from executing some dirty job or other, with his hands in his cut-away pockets and a white hat stuck on one side of his head, "did you go to see the cove hanged this morning?"

"Can't say that I did, Mr. Thibblethwaite. It's—let me see—thirty years since I saw the majesty of the law vindicated. It's nothing now-a-days. Why I've seen as many as seven hanged in one morning, four for forgery, and three, I think, for sheep-stealing. One of the forgery lot was as fine a young man as I ever set eyes on. It was worth while seeing an execution then."

"Me and Bill Smithers, the chap over at Tozer's," replied the other, "we had a rare lark—didn't go to bed all night. I wish they wouldn't hang 'em on Monday though. It's so difficult to have a proper spree on Sunday night. We were obliged to go in for Van John and unlimited Loo, till half-past three. My eyes! didn't we hear some spicy talk among the thieves and their women! Bill Smithers said he thought he knew something; but they took the shine out of him, I can tell you. What do you think of this, old boy?"

And he uttered something in the ears of the elder, so ineffably foul and blasphemous, that one could only imagine such a thing when heard to have been some unstifled echo of the sulphurous eve of doom, ere the fires of avenging Heaven were rained upon the Cities of the Plain. Such language is, alas! by no means uncommon now among the lower orders of the British people. You may hear it any Sunday evening in our crowded thoroughfares, uttered without even the grim and ghastly humour which fascinated Thibblethwaite and Bill Smithers, and caused old Stubbs to laugh, until his eyes, like those of "King Death" in the song, ran brine.

Yet these were worthy and respectable men of their class—not a quarter so bad as hundreds and thousands of their compeers. Thibblethwaite was a manly fellow enough, and a good husband to a comely young wife and a brace of brats. Bill Smithers was a kind-hearted, good-tempered fellow enough, much given to the music-hall style of entertainment and enjoyment; but what of that? We are speaking of England in the nineteenth century as it exists.

"I say, Thib," said Snap, poking his ungainly head out of his own particular den, "who do you think has just been here?"

"I was just going to tell him," said old Stubbs.

"Don't know," said that gentleman. "Old Mother Gilling, perhaps, begging as usual, as if she was likely to get anything back out of him," jerking his thumb in the direction of old Grinderby's room. "I actually gave the old girl sixpence myself the other day to get rid of her."

"Guess again," said Snap.

"That drunken vagabond Grimshaw, to see if he can get another writ out of the governor to serve. But once bit, twice shy, in that quarter."

"No," said Stubbs, "you're a long way from it."

"Well who was it, then? Tell us."

"Why, young Mr. Edgar, who cut away from home ever so long ago, and who has become such a swell on the Press."

"What, is he coming back again?" asked Thibblethwaite, who saw the prospect of a future but distant partnership visibly darken before his prophetic gaze.

Old Stubbs shook his head.

"Ain't he a fool?" he said.

"Would I have been such a duffer?" quoth Snap.

"No, but you couldn't have got your living as he has," observed Mr. Thibblethwaite. "I dare say he don't make less than five hundred a-year. None so dusty that. I don't believe the old one would have given him as much to spend, if he'd worked his head off in this office."

"It's all very fine to talk of five hundred a-year," said Mr. Stubbs; "but there ain't many of them literary chaps that make that money regular. Do they ever leave anything when they die? Ain't folks always being called upon to take tickets for the benefit of their widows and children, at private theatricals and the like? Don't tell me of five hundred a-year. I don't believe they make three hundred regular, no, not one out of ten of 'em."

"Besides," said Snap, "couldn't he have waited, until the governor hopped the twig, and then he could have done as he liked, and lived like a magnificent brick."

"Had a private skittle-ground with mahogany skittles, eh? like somebody said he should like to, if he was rich," said Thibblethwaite, "and married any barmaid in England."

"Not such a fool!" growled Snap, "if you mean me. I never said I'd marry any confounded woman."

"Hold your tongue, sir, or I'll punch your head. Do you think there are no women fit to marry; because you never knew a respectable gal?" said the chivalrous Thibblethwaite, who was thinking perhaps of his own wife at that moment, and so vindicated his manhood.

"What I was going to say," said Snap, "if you would let a fellow speak, was, that if Mr. Edgar had waited a year or two more, he might have fingered all the old boy's tin. I never saw any one look much worse than our governor's done latterly, and what's more, in a very short space of time."

"That's true enough," said Mr. Stubbs. "I've noticed he's lost flesh uncommon lately, and that's a bad sign at his time of life."

"It's thirty thousand pounds at the least, ah! I dare say fifty thousand pounds would be nigher the mark, thrown clean away into the street," resumed Snap, "and all to write a parcel of stuff in the newspapers, which nobody cares to read."

"Don't they?" said the common-law clerk. "You don't, you mean. I shouldn't think it was much reading you troubled yourself with, except the police reports."

"Look at the public dinner they gave him on his return from, where was it?—Italy or Russia, or some such place," observed Mr. Stubbs. "I heard all about it from one of the short-hand writers at the Old Bailey. There was one hundred sat down in St. James's Hall, at a guinea a head, and the speeches they made were beautiful. Why there was a nobleman in the chair, the Earl of Pongo, who's a writer himself."

"And a precious reprobate he is to be in a chair anywhere out of Bedlam or Horsemonger-lane Gaol, if all tales are true," said the incorrigible Snap; in whom the bump of veneration was apparently decidedly small, and must have been beaten in by his mother's flat-iron during his interesting babyhood.

"Never mind," said Thibblethwaite, "a lord is a lord; and what's more, this one is a regular psalm-singing swell, and goes in for the tip-top respectable, and all that."

"Well," retorted Snap, "every one to his taste, as the old woman said when she kissed her cow, but for my part I wouldn't thank a parcel of rich fools for giving me a dinner, unless, indeed, they were to give it to me alone, and content themselves with looking on. A dinner is but a dinner, and they might as well give a feller a guinea at once. I could get eight at Stimpson's, for that price. What's the good of seeing a parcel of fellows feeding away like so many pigs in your honour, when they'd much better hand you over the tin, or half of it, for that matter? It's nothing more than a testimonial to the landlord of the tavern—that's what it is. Of course, if you're rich, that's another thing, but when a cove is rich, he's a fool if he cares about such rubbish. He can always have dinners, as long as he can give 'em, at anybody's expense, and plenty of fine speeches, and flattery too; and as for testimonials, he can give himself one of them too, if he don't mind standing the loss on the plate. It's the way most of them are done. I tell you if a parcel of admirers was to give me a dinner at St. James's Hall, or anywhere else, I should grudge 'em every morsel they swallowed, that's what I should."

"Well," said Thibblethwaite, "if you ain't about the meanest, shabbiest-minded, most cantankerous little cure that ever I came across, may I never copy a declaration again. But there's deuced little chance of your ever getting a dinner, unless you should happen to be in a raffle for something handsome, and the winner had to stand a eighteenpenny blow-out to the whole boiling of unsuccessful blokes. And that wouldn't be exactly in your honour—would it, Stubbs?" appealing to that gentleman.

"I don't exactly see the probability of Mr. Snap being entertained by his friends," replied the old clerk.

"I see one way," quoth Thibblethwaite, musingly. "It strikes me, Snap, if you were to emigrate one of these days to Australia, or Nomansland, anywhere, I mean, far enough to avoid the probability of return, that those who know you might give a spread on the occasion. I am sure I should be ready for one, and

I think Stubbs here would take the chair and be eloquent—eh, old chap? Bill Smithers, I know, would take a ticket—he likes you so much—and favour us with his song of the 'Convict's Lament.' It was only last night he said, speaking of you, 'I do like that Snap, he is such an unmitigated little cad.' "

"You be hanged," said Snap. "You're always shoving your chaff into me. There isn't one of you in the office, as would have the pluck to do as I've done for the lot of you, not an hour agone, and this is what I get for it."

"What have you been and gone and done, eh, Snappy?" said his tormentor.

"Why, told old Grinderby," replied that gentleman, "that we want to leave off business at two o'clock on Saturdays, that you might get up the river earlier with your crew, that's what I've done, and I've given notice, or threatened to do it. But I know the governor ain't such a fool as to part with me, though he was in a way, I can tell you."

The artful Snap said nothing about the proposed increase of salary.

"Then you're a trump, Snappy," cried Thibblethwaite, giving him a thump on the back that brought tears into his eyes, "and you shan't be chaffed again; no, not this term, if I know it. It's all fun, you know."

"Fun or not, it hurts a fellow's feelings," whimpered Snap; "and I don't care if I do get turned away. I suppose it's because I'm not able to fight and stand up for myself. But I tell you I won't stand it any longer from Smithers, no, not if it costs me five pounds, I won't. He'd better look out, though I am but a little un."

The idea of the valorous Snap punching Mr. Smithers, who was six feet one inch high, and had put on the gloves with Ben Caunt, was too much for Thibblethwaite, who laughed so immoderately, that he nearly choked himself, and declared he must have a glass of "pale," and would stand the expense of a similar debauch for Snap.

"And I'll tell you what it is, old fellow," he said, "if we get clear of the shop at two o'clock on Saturdays this summer, through your pluckiness, we'll give you a dinner at Crimini, or anywhere else you like, that we will, by ——!"

Saying which, the muscular Thibblethwaite grasped his small companion, and dragged him round the corner to a convenient "pub," whence the pair emanated a quarter of an hour after, with their spirits cheered, and feeling quite "bang up to the work," as the former elegantly remarked.

All this time, Mr. Grinderby sat, vainly trying to get through the business of the day. Say what he would, the desertion of his son was a terrible blow to the old lawyer. For a long time he had hugged the fond belief to his breast, that Edgar would come to him some day penniless, penitent, and out at the elbows, and ask him to make him as one of his hired clerks in the office. The calf had already bled in his imagination, that was to furnish the banquet on the occasion of the young man's return, and he had actually fixed upon the identical bin of old port (some bought in at Aubrey's sale), from which he would take the wine to be drunk on that day of triumph. Scores of times had he emerged, in fancy, grimly smiling, from his cellar, with a crusted bottle in each trembling hand. He cherished that illusion no longer. As he read with a species of painful fascination the account of his son's successes in literature and journalism, he felt it as a record of so many disasters and reverses to himself. His chief hope and wish in life was crushed. What would he not have given to see Edgar, the hard, cynical, and worldly advocate, the legal Ahithophel, the forensic Pilate of the day, washing his hands of every prisoner's blood, every writhing litigant's loss, an eloquent human machine wound up with a golden key to stifle truth, and gild the specious lie; the accomplished modern counsel, without heart or conscience, ready to laugh at his own simulated emotion, so soon as a cause should be won, to mock justice with a sneer, and trump injustice with a jest.

Let not this be taken as our estimate of the Bar; it was merely Grinderby's enthusiastic aspiration of what his son should have been. Then his dismal old thoughts would revert to the lost letter again and again.

"Why did I not burn it?" he asked himself, "at once, as my habit is with such things. Why will idiots like that Manvers write such compromising trash? I have searched my pockets over twenty times, after I was sure it was not in them. Pooh! pooh! If I had dropped it anywhere, who is likely to be such a fool as to interest himself about that beggar Aubrey's affairs? Let's see. I am to meet Manvers to-morrow evening at that dingy hole in Deptford. I don't much like the job, but it must be done, and then all will be smooth. How did he get that paragraph in the papers; for of course it was he? No one else can know. He has done it to terrify me into compliance with his greedy terms. Well, I will prepare a small deed of annuity payable in New York. This, and a sum down, will be the best way of settling the matter. It will keep him still in order; for if he spent the money, he might still annoy me, even without the legal proof in his hands. Besides, he may die. Curse the fellow! What brought him back here to trouble me? There is hemp enough in America—ay, and plenty of bowie-knives and Colt's revolvers. It is a great deal to pay to stop one mouth; but then look what I shall gain in return for it?" Mr. Grinderby at length concluded his work and rang the bell, which Snap answered.

"Have you finished those papers, Mr. Snap?" he asked, quite mildly.

"Not quite, sir," was the answer.

"Well then, you may finish them to-morrow morning. By-the-by, to-morrow is a half-holiday, on account of the general illumination. The office will be closed at two. We must have a little recreation sometimes, Mr. Snap. 'All work and no play,' you know the proverb. I've been thinking that you shall have the Saturday afternoons, as you desire it so much, and we must work an hour later, if requisite, on other days."

Mr. Snap's face expressed the most intense satisfaction.

"Thank you, sir," he said; "I am sure we are all much obliged. Good afternoon, sir."

"Good afternoon, Snap," repeated Grinderby, as the door closed upon his favourite clerk. "Useful fellow that. Musn't quarrel with him—can't quarrel with everybody. How that insolent brute of a coachman upset me to-day! I am not what I used to be."

Here a knock at the door was heard, and the boy entered with some letters and papers. Mr. Grinderby opened a newspaper, and after some time uttered an exclamation. "Eh? What is this? More wolves on my track. Curse them!" (Reads.) " 'Legal on dit. The strong censure of the Lord Chief Justice lately pronounced on the conduct of a solicitor in Webb's Fields, re the affairs of a poor widow, will, it is said, lead to ulterior proceedings. His lordship, it will be remembered, regretted that the law had not been so violated that he could punish the cruelty and extortion of the solicitor in question, but hinted that he might be struck off the rolls!' What! I defy them to show I have done a single illegal act, in the case of that hag, Gilling. They can't do, it, I say. A pretty pass, when the strict practice of the law is to be commented on thus. Ha! ha! They can prove and do nothing. I'll bring an action against the 'Evening Banner' for libel. But it's growing serious. Twenty years ago, I would have paid them to do it, and snapped my fingers at them all. It is time to retire from business. How disappointed that puppy Thibblethwaite will be. A half-holiday, indeed! I'll give them a whole holiday for ever, the ungrateful lot of them. There is not one worth his salt, save Snap, and I believe he would sell me for five pounds a-year more wages, the scoundrel. But I'll retire; and my daughter shall keep my house, and I'll see what they've all got to say against fifty thousand pounds, and the management of the Aubrey estate. Ha! that spasm again. I'll take a glass of wine, before I get into a 'bus." So saying, Mr. Grinderby unlocked a cupboard and poured himself out not one glassful but two, before taking his departure en route for Peckham, a thing most unusual for him.

CHAPTER XVI.

"ON REVIENT TOUJOURS," ETC.

I that have run in Pleasure's four-mile* heats,
That now am spavined, wind-galled, broken-kneed,
In double harness fain would slow jog on,
In sober course to dusty goal of life.
Then shall I yoke me to a mate unbroken,
Fresh, unsophisticate, some filly foal
Ta'en from the mother's side, untried, untamed,
And tameless too, perchance? Methinks such match
Must end in grief, by Nature unapproved.
They say reformed rakes make of mates the best;
Old saws, I rede you, stand not newest test.

From "The Bloudie Wage Battel of Wimhorne Minster; or, A Strange Damosel atte sore Shifte." Modernised from the MS. of Simon Hexham of Shaftesbury in Dorset. 1593.

[*It need scarcely be mentioned that this line is a mere paraphrase. The original is too coarse to be literally rendered.]

THAT we do not entirely believe in the motto which we have chosen for the heading of this chapter, it is perhaps superfluous to observe. We rather incline towards the philosophy of Master Simon Hexham expressed in the above lines. But the exception which justifies so many proverbial sayings, will serve our turn. If a man returned to his calf-love, he must possess the recipe of Medea, and be able not only to renovate himself, but also the beloved object of his early adoration. A man may cherish his first love to the end, but then he never relinquishes it. The cure of love is perfect. It does not linger in the system, to break out in old age again. Therefore is the Frenchman wrong, though his saying is none the less pretty, amiable, and acceptable, for all that. Nonsense is sometimes much more agreeable, and, were we not afraid of uttering a paradox, we should say, sometimes more sensible than sense. There are even some tinsel sentiments which pass current always, and are stamped with so artistic a die, that we esteem them more than the commonplace coin with the true metallic ring of gold.

Sir Harry Luckless had become "bien rangé" since we last saw anything of that careless, but not unprincipled libertine. Really, some good-for-nothing persons are so much better, so much more estimable and loveable, than some very good and proper members of society, that we are sometimes inclined to consider whether the supreme justice of the next world will not reverse nearly all the judgments and verdicts of mankind pronounced in this. That it will do so to some extent, we have very little doubt. A glowing epitaph may prove quite a drawback to salvation in most cases; and a tombstone recording the virtues of some successful hypocrite turn to a heavy millstone round the neck of that unfortunate person, whose excellent qualities are so eloquently inscribed thereon. The bland, passionate, and religious Lady Jones whose merits were summed up by the statement that she "also painted in water-colours, and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," may find that her somewhat inconsecutive but gushing panegyrist made one mistake, and that the most important one, in his summing up of her good qualities and their desert. Nothing is more sublime than the coolness of human assurance with which we book our departed friends, relatives, or acquaintances, for redemption. To us there is something very awful in these mock passports; this familiar recommendation to Heaven. With regard to the easy, passing verdicts of the world, let us imagine a case. We see a man tall, gaunt, and haggard, enter a garret where a consumptive woman is stretched on the bare boards, and two children with still lovely hair and eyes gaze wildly on him, and, shivering, implore their father for food. He has none to give. A year ago, he was a prosperous man; but he intrusted his affairs to a lawyer and was stripped of all. He has seen those once plump darlings grow thinner day by day. They prattled to him at first of the altered circumstances which surrounded them, whilst a lump in his throat would nearly choke him as he gazed at them, and hot tears rolled down his cheeks as he turned away. Then came the next phase of stern distress, and then the mute suffering of the darlings whom he loved, that unhappy man; loved with the inexpressible yearnings of a father's heart. His wife, his partner, his consoler, has faded; until it seems a ghost that silently parts from him and receives him in silence with bloodless lips and big staring eyes. He seeks work, but finds none; and the rain wets him, till rheumatism racks his joints. He has pawned everything that he can pawn, as the winter brings holly and Christmas to the well-fed and prosperous—his own vest, his wife's under-clothing, the children's little frocks. He has pawned his razors long ago, and his beard grows stubbly and wild. One night his misery culminates. He fears, lest one of his children may die, ere the morn arrive; and if that it arrive, it will bring no hope. He is not drunk, but grief has mounted to his head and made him mad. So he clenches his fist, and rushes forth like a wild-beast to get food for his little ones and their dam by means of his fierceness and strength. He meets the man who has robbed him, he seizes him by the throat. The man has a pocket-book, money in notes and gold, a thousand pounds and more. The garotter has torn it from the respectable robber's grasp, when a policeman fells him in his turn to the ground. A crowd assembles. Justice and Law are triumphant. Who pities the garotter?—none! Who does not sympathise with and congratulate the elderly gentleman, whom the ruffian knocked down and so nearly succeeded in plundering? Read the papers the next day, read the trial and sentence of the offender. He is ordered to be flogged, and a leading article appears rejoicing in so wholesome an example, so reassuring and agreeable a fact. In the mean time a coroner's inquest has been held on the wife and one child, and the other little dazed atomy lingers in the workhouse, where it is Heaven's own mercy if she dies. The true spoilator and robber rewards the policeman with half a crown; conduct rather shabby, but prudent and wise. Besides, can he not afford to be mean?

The policeman only did his duty, and is paid for doing it. Were there no future world, one had better be a clawless crab in mid-ocean, or an atomic monster about to be swallowed by a less infinitesimal monster, the pieuvre of a rain-drop, than even witness such irrational tortures in beings of a larger and completer growth. And in that future world, how will these things be adjusted and paid?

Sir Harry Luckless was not by any means a bad man. He had never deserted a woman, nor deceived a friend. Through life we have found that he who is capable of acting falsely to a woman, would do so to a man, if he dared. The gay fellow, your unscrupulous Lothario, who promises marriage, maintenance, or uses any other deceit to a confiding girl, would steal his friend's bank-notes or diamond breast-pin, if he were not afraid of the consequences. Sir Harry was not one of these; but he had spent, lavished, or lost the greater part of his fortune, and being poor as well as having been fast, was looked upon as a very bad fellow indeed.

The truth is, Sir Harry had pulled up, ere it was quite too late. He had still a few, a very few thousands left, still a little corner of his once large estates bringing him in some four hundred pounds a-year. He had come to "know the world" rather late in life—the best dispositions naturally do. An old head on young shoulders is often index to a bad heart. Sir Harry was sick of London, sick of Society, weary of the empty round of fashionable pleasures. But not being intellectual, nor even fond of reading, he had no resource in himself. He could not afford to hunt any longer, and he could not shoot all the year round. So Sir Harry was not altogether happy, and had a great desire to emigrate, being divided between the "diggings" of California and a sheep-walk in Australia. The latter had the preference in his heart. Sir Harry's thoughts often reverted to Kitty Dareall. He had never loved any one half so much; nay, he had never loved any one else at all. He was one of the very few persons aware of the true nature of her relations with the Duke of Chalkstoneville. But he had never sought to see her since the duke's death. We verily believe that but for the large sum which Kitty inherited, Sir Harry would never have rested, till he had found her out, and made her an offer of his heart and hand. But he was too proud and sensitive to seek her now that she had become rich, and from such a source.

"It's all very well for me to know that there was no harm between them, but look what fellows would say," said Sir Harry, very truly, to himself; and yet his thoughts would frequently of late shape themselves into some such train of reflection as the following, in which he is now indulging as he saunters down Bond-street.

"Poor dear Kitty! How I have missed her! I used to fancy that I adored that cold and beautiful creature, Mrs. Aubrey, at whose rescue I assisted nearly the last time I saw Kitty. I wonder what has become of Mrs. Aubrey, and that husband of hers too. Let me see, it was about a week or so after the attempted suicide, that Kitty came to see me, and laying her hand upon my shoulder, said,

'Harry, you have a good heart, will you keep a secret?' 'Yes,' I said, 'I will do anything for you, Kitty.' I think I see her smile now, as she said, 'Why, I thought you were in raptures about some one else?' And I replied, 'I never loved any one half as much as I do you.' 'Would you marry me?' she exclaimed, quite suddenly. 'Marry you?' said I. 'Kitty, what would the world say?' She burst out laughing, and asked me if I thought she was in earnest; but it was not her usual merry laugh, and I fancied she seemed very sad and preoccupied afterwards. I have kept her secret well, though I often longed at first to tell Aubrey that his wife was living. I never saw Kitty but once again, and that was to ask me to push the fortunes of some Polish or Hungarian opera-singer; the very same who appeared on Saturday night, was it, or Thursday last, for the first time in London? What a fool I was to throw my chance away! The 'world!' what do I care for the world? I wish I had married Kitty; for if a man can't be happy without a woman, what's the use of arguing the point? She was never a twentieth part so bad at any time as people said of her, and I've never seen such another. Confound the world! What will it do for any one? Flatter him when he is rich, and abuse him when he is poor; but never make him happy, or fill a vacant space in his home or heart. After all, what right has a fellow, who has led such a life as I have done, to be so very particular? She was good enough for me; and those who did not care to visit her might have stayed away. I am sure Mrs. Filmer Dawson would have recognised her, and that dear Lady Tredarno."

Thinking thus, Sir Harry actually ran against a lady deeply veiled, who came suddenly round a corner on the very day of the events which we have recorded in the last chapter as having occurred at Mr. Grinderby's office. Sir Harry took his hat off, and made a sincere and gentlemanly apology. Both he and Aubrey were of that order of men, who always respect a woman; if old, on account perhaps of the memory of their mother; if young and handsome, from natural gallantry; if plain, from chivalrous respect to womankind; if poor, because perhaps they have hearts attuned to an old chivalric air of the Middle Ages. We must say this even of Aubrey with all his faults: he never even repulsed any wretched castaway in the streets, save with gentleness and courtesy. And rare, indeed, it is, even when the most abandoned creature does not appreciate the sad reproof conveyed in such a style and tone far more readily than she will yield to the repugnant snuffle of the "Saint," or the brutal rebuff of the stern and Pharisaical, or heartless and profligate man. In this case, there was nothing remarkable in Sir Harry's courtesy; for the veiled lady had an elegant tournure, and apparently faultless form. Whoever she was she hesitated, drew back, and then in sweet and silvery accents pronounced his name.

"Sir Harry Luckless!" she said.

"That's my name," he replied. "That voice. Is it possible?"

The lady flung back her veil, and disclosed the features of Kitty Dareall, a little paler, but perhaps more refined and enchanting than ever.

"Am I much changed, Harry?" she asked.

"Oh! Kitty! Kitty!" was the reply. "I was thinking of you at that moment, indeed I was. But that's not strange, since I'm always thinking of you."

"Indeed!" she said. "And can Sir Harry Luckless be so constant to any one thought? I could not pass you without speaking. And, indeed, I am very glad to have met you, for I want you to do me a favour."

"Anything, anything in the world," replied Sir Harry.

"Nay," said Kitty, with something like a show of her former gaiety; "it is nothing very dreadful, no mighty proof of devotion. Sir Knight."

"Kitty! dear Kitty!" said Sir Harry, very earnestly, "I have met you, thank Heaven, just in time. I have determined to go abroad, to emigrate, to leave England probably for ever. Will you be mine? Will you marry me and go with me? I have just sufficient fortune left. But I forgot, you are rich now, and——"

"That," said Kitty, interrupting him, "is nothing, and might easily be got over. I could, and probably should, give the greater part of my fortune away."

"Do! do!" cried Sir Harry; "that will remove every obstacle. It has only been that which has prevented my seeking you these three years past."

"There are other obstacles," replied Kitty, gravely. "The duties I have to perform."

"What better duty," cried Luckless, "can you have than to look after a poor fellow like me? You won't go away again, will you, Kitty. Where are you staying? Tell me everything, my own dear, dear Kitty!"

"Hush!" she replied, mournfully, but not angrily; "you must not talk like that, or we shall not meet again. And now I will tell you what I want. It is your escort to the Opera to-morrow night. You know who sings, the incomparable Bianca Stellini, the new soprano. Come, you kept a secret for me admirably once. I will intrust you with another. Do you know who she is?"

"Who she is?" said Sir Harry. "Who she is? How should I? I have been told she is not an Italian; but a Hungarian, or some such thing. But I've heard nothing particular about her."

"Can't you guess?" asked Kitty.

Sir Harry pondered. "How can I?" he said. "Besides, I don't know anything now; I'm quite out of the old set."

"A woman would have divined it long ago," resumed Kitty.

"The Luckless family were never good at riddles," replied Sir Harry; "and you always said I was remarkably stupid, you know. But come, tell me; I can't say I should feel much interest, if it were not you who ask me."

"What do you think, then, when I tell you that

Bianca Stellini, the famous singer, is no other than Mrs. Aubrey?"

"What!" cried Sir Harry, "Impossible! But Mrs. Aubrey is an Englishwoman."

"Well," said Kitty, "and haven't you heard of an Irishman being a Turk, ere now, and even a Chinese, and I don't know what besides?"

"You have astonished me!" cried Sir Harry. "And doesn't everybody know her?"

"Scarcely a soul. You wouldn't have known her to-night, if I hadn't told you. Lady Madeiraville, who was at Rome, when she was studying there, knows, and so of course does her husband, and two or three more, but that is all."

"And have you spoken to her yet?" asked Sir Harry.

"No," said Kitty, "I have not. I have seen her; but only at a distance."

"She has not cut you," cried Sir Harry, indignantly, "after all that you did?—I mean, she is not ungrateful, I hope?"

"No," replied Kitty; "it is not her fault that we have not met. Our paths in life are different. But I mean to see her and hear her too to-morrow night, and I want you to accompany me. I want to be with some one to whom I can speak of her. You will oblige me, will you not? Take a private box, and do not put it off, as you used to do, till the last moment, or I shall be disappointed indeed. Let it be tolerably near the stage, and on the second tier."

"I will go at once," said Sir Harry; "but tell me where shall we meet?"

"To-morrow evening at a quarter to eight," answered Kitty, "I will be here in a brougham. But, before you go, I want most earnestly to ask you a question. Do you know what has become of her husband, Aubrey?"

"No, indeed, I don't," was the answer. "I haven't seen him; no, not since I saw you the last time but one, the night she was rescued. I heard of him a few times, but not for long. He was sold up, and became an author, which is more than I could have done. Stingray said he met him in great distress somewhere and relieved his necessities; but you know what a one he is to make the most of a spiteful tale."

"Indeed I do!" said Kitty. "If you can learn anything about Aubrey, pray do. I kept him in sight for a short time, and sent him some small sums anonymously on two or three occasions. But I lost sight of him all at once. I fear the worst; I fear that he is dead, a prey perhaps to remorse and to want."

"I hope not!" cried Sir Harry. "Especially if you think there would be any chance of a reconciliation; for I suppose that is what you want to see, with your good, kind heart. Dear, dear Kitty! how I love you."

"If you talk like this, Harry, I won't come to-morrow evening," said Kitty.

"How this dress becomes you," said Sir Harry.

"It is not much like that I last saw you in. I remember everything you wore, even to the very ribbon on your dear little head."

"Well, dear Harry!" she replied, "I will wear that very dress once more, to-morrow night. Be punctual! And now, adieu!"

"Punctual, indeed!" quoth Sir Harry. "Punctual! And will you be sure, quite certain to come? And if I shouldn't see you to-morrow, will you not tell me where you live, where I may call, or even write?"

"I shall be sure to come, if I am alive and well," said Kitty; "and if anything did prevent me, I would write to you to your club. There, go and get the box. Farewell till to-morrow, Harry!"

"You will be sure to come?" quoth Sir Harry once more, raising her hand towards his lips.

"Go!" she said.

He raised his hat and parted from her. He walked towards the Opera House, like a man in a dream, and very nearly left the box-office without waiting for change for a twenty-pound note.

"He loves me truly," said Kitty to herself, as she pursued her way alone, once more deeply veiled, and bent on some charitable aim. "He loves me truly. Would that I might reward such affection! Reward it? Would it be a reward? Would it be true and just in one like me to bear his honourable name? Yet he of all living men knows most of my unhappy history—the best and the worst! Four years ago, had he asked me, 'twould have been different; and what might we be now—happy, or most unhappy—who knows? I never could have borne a reproach; the slightest coldness, even imagined on my part, the very superficial coolness into which married life will naturally resolve itself, even when deep and tender regard is only deeper and firmer, because it is undemonstrative and unseen, would have pierced my bosom with continual thorns. No, it cannot be, must not be, shall not be! One more night of apparent gaiety, one more glimpse at the world of fashion and frivolity, one more visit to the Opera, that scene of splendour, where the senses are dazzled by sight and sound, where all that wealth and art can furnish to fascinate the brain and heart will thrill through every fibre of my being, in companionship with him whom I love! It is a dangerous trial; but shall I shrink from it? No; it is thus that I will rebuke and chastise my soul. I will dare it this once. I must and will see her, her to whom I owe redemption, if I am to be redeemed. I must see her in her triumph, her glory, her radiance. It is at once an indulgence and a trial. I will surrender myself to the enchantment; I will enjoy, brave, suffer all, and then break the spell, and clasp the penance to my breast—cost what it may—but this once, only this once. Heaven requires not a repeated martyrdom, even from one such as I am. It must be the first, last, only time; and then I will return to the life I have appointed myself, the duties I have undertaken, again. Yet I wish—no! I will not be weak enough to wish I had not met him; for if I need it, I can and will pray for strength."

Poor Kate! We shall see if thy exalted enthusiasm will suffice to carry thee on in the narrow and thorny path which thou hast chosen, unconquered not only by the pomps and vanities of the world, but by the affections of the heart, the yearnings of a requited love, and all that could make earth to thee a foretaste of the forgiveness of Heaven!

CHAPTER XVII.

MR. STINGRAY'S RAPTURES.

The veriest pretender who has had wit enough to secure a tow-rope in the wake of the great steam-ship, "Public Opinion," on the Ocean of Life, may deride the best efforts of the independent master-mariner to buffet with the adverse winds and stormy billows which retard his onward career, even if they do not swamp him altogether, and drown his hopes, fortunes, and existence in the vortex of untimely fate.—Dr. Blokeham's "Essay on Success," chap. v.

AND what was Blanche thinking and doing? Had her sense of injury been softened by the knowledge which had reached her of Aubrey's terrible trials and humiliation? Undoubtedly it had; but scarcely to such a point, as to wish for a reconciliation with her husband. Pity, a deep interest in his fate and welfare, she undoubtedly felt; but she had really never proposed to herself such a thing as a reunion. Once or twice, when the subject had been tenderly and delicately approached by Violet and Susan, she had thought of it; but it was with a shiver of repugnance, a sensation of something almost approaching to horror and aversion. Not even, when she clasped her boy to her breast, and saw in his eyes and features the childish image of her ending and lost husband, did she ever feel a return of her old devotion, a pang of the love that was indeed dead within her. At times the insult, the neglect, the cruelty seemed as fresh as ever. She had corresponded with Kitty occasionally; but never alluded to Aubrey in her letters. Did she know who Kitty really was? Had she ever learnt that her benefactress had been the guiltless cause of her misery? We are inclined to think not. The Signora's appearance in London had been a tremendous success. Of course, it could not fail to be so, barring accidents, such as a break-down from overwrought feelings, coming accredited, as she did to John Bull, from the land of song, from Rome, Milan, Florence, and even from St. Petersburg. Had the musical portion of the British public been disappointed in her, the unmusical, and by far larger portion, who go to the Opera, because it's the thing to do, would have carried her through rapturously. But the fact is, she was a great artiste, and on her first appearance at Her Majesty's she outdid herself. It was delightful to hear Stingray, as if he were some inflated old German music-master, and she his only daughter. He affected to decline all invitations upon Opera nights. He said that he shut his eyes, and could have believed that "our dear gifted Malibran" were alive again.

"To see and hear such a woman was," he said, "his glory as a man, but his shame as an Englishman. For how immeasurably below her are our countrywomen, not only in voice but in dramatic art!"

This he said to Lady Madeiraville, who began innocently enough to think him a bit of a humbug.

But Stingray was determined to be enthusiastic—he felt it was safe and right—and enthusiastic he was. So he ran about like an old rogue elephant trumpeting her praise.

Amongst her most devoted admirers, too, was our friend the artist, whom our readers may remember "on the prowl" with Stingray and Sir Harry at an earlier date in our narrative. He was perfectly ecstatic in bad Italian, and reminiscences of Rome. He had latterly gone in for being a young old fellow, instead of an old young fellow, and took especial pride in the silvery whiteness of his hair and moustache. He had grown louder and more gushing than ever. He did not witness the debut of the Signora; but he went in evening costume to the crushing-room and said he had done so. He read all the critiques of the journals to enable him to talk unreservedly of her performance.

"I didn't see you," said an acquaintance. "Were you in the pit?"

"Not I," was the answer. "I was in a private box with a lady, a musical friend, a charming little creature, who says she adores me. Aw! I pretend to believe her. It's the best thing to do, eh? I knew her—aw!—in Rome!"

The other stared at him, and turned on his heel.

In the midst of her triumphs, the Signora instituted every possible inquiry through Edgar Leslie to find out what had become of her husband, in whose death she persistently refused to believe. "All that I wish is," she said, "to place him in comfort, if he be in want; of course anonymously, for his sake and for mine. For myself, I only hope that we may not meet again; and if I know him, he would sooner die than receive aid at my hands."

As we have seen she had allowed Susan, with some little hesitation and difficulty, to impart her secret to Tops, and promised very shortly to grace their wedding with her presence. In acceding to this, she thought it might be of assistance in finding out the whereabouts of Aubrey, and she expressed great delight, when she heard that the Downy had turned up, and looked forward to an interview with that facetious individual with no little eagerness. From Kitty she had heard nothing since her arrival in England, and was expecting a communication from her protectress, as she called her, with the utmost anxiety.

On the Monday evening, a note was placed in her hands. It was brief and laconic.

"ESTEEMED MADAM!" it ran, "I shall see you and hear you, D. V., to-morrow night, and in a few days will ask for an interview before bidding you an eternal adieu, to congratulate you on your glorious success, to tell you some things which I think you ought to hear, and perhaps to ask a great favour. Till then, adieu! Remember me in your prayers.

"THE SISTER CATHERINE."

"Who can she be?" said Leslie to Violet. "Some noble Catholic lady devoted to good works. Real, substantial, and yet romantic charity—the most 'Catholic' devotion to good deeds. Holy living, in its best and purest sense, is one thing in which I must say I think the religion of Luther is in some few instances surpassed by that of Rome. There is one other thing too," he said. "There is not in God's house that odious distinction made between the rich and the poor, which often puts a Christian church on a par with a mere place of secular amusement. But, oh! the hideous evil of the rest, as I have seen it in Italy and in Spain."

"It is very singular," said Violet. "I have asked Blanche over and over again, if she could remember anything which gave a clue to this mysterious being. She declares she can remember nothing, except that once, when she was recovering from a fainting fit, she talked quite familiarly of dukes and duchesses and lords. I hope we shall be allowed to see her, when she does make her appearance—don't you?"

"I am not usually very curious," replied Leslie; "but I confess, in this case, I am most anxious to meet this benevolent being, so interesting and, as I learn, so comparatively young. I wonder how she arrays herself, and whether she wears a huge white head-dress and black dress, and carries a large rosary and bunch of keys at her waist."

"I declare," said Violet, "I don't know, but that I shall feel a little jealous of her."

They both laughed heartily at this idea.

"What mischief are you plotting, you young folks?" said the Signora, approaching them from the next room.

Violet told her without reserve what she had said to cause their mirth.

A shade passed over the Signora's face; but she looked at them indulgently and said:

"Laugh away at your own young fancies, and may you always be light-hearted as now. I know you could not turn suffering into a jest; so may your mirth never be changed into grieving over the world's injustice and your own untoward fate. The lady to whom you have alluded is not only one of the best, but, I fear, unhappiest of beings. I trust she will allow me to make her known to those whom I love. Ah! my child," running her hand through Violet's hair; "even you do not know all my sad history, nor what this mysterious woman who has roused mirthful images in your thoughts has done for me. Suffice it to say that I owe her more than life—the desire to live—perhaps the mercy and forgiveness of Heaven."

"Forgive our thoughtlessness, dear lady," said Edgar; "we were picturing to ourselves a solemn Sister of Charity of the Bromptonian order. It was mere foolish talk. We meant no harm. I am, indeed, sorry for it; since we have hurt your feelings thus."

"Nay," replied the Signora. "It is I who am wrong. I forgot, at first, that you did know all the circumstances attending my acquaintance with this lady, this extraordinary being, to whom I, to whom we all, owe so much. Were it not for her, what might have become of this dear child? You, at any rate, would probably never have known her. See, Edgar, what you too owe to the Sister Catherine, as she calls herself."

"All the happiness of my life," murmured Edgar. "How I long to meet this good fairy, or rather this noble woman; and to press her hand with affectionate respect, and to tell her all that I owe her."

"And I, too," said Violet, "who owe her happiness—perhaps life; for you tell me," turning to the Signora, "that I should not have met you, save for her."

"She ought now to be happy," rejoined the Signora; "if the happiness and blessings of others have any effect." And she smiled affectionately, as she regarded those two young lovers, and then turned away and sighed! Was she thinking of her own brief and happy days of courtship at Lady Courcy's? We imagine that she was. She was not an angel, but a woman with a great sorrow, which had lately been wakened up in her heart.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A HANDFUL OF TENPENNY NAILS.

"They thought he'd gone out of town, you see, and he hadn't, that's all; and no one came anigh the place, at least them as did didn't think anythink of findin' his door closed, he was a man of sech very independent habits. Well, after about three months, leastways ten weeks on the Friday after he was first missed, the clerks in the office below began to complain of a gamey smell. At last they declared they couldn't stand that game no longer, so they sent a depytation to the Steward. After some inquiries and a good deal of sniffing on the stairs, the Inn sent for a locksmith to break open his door. There they found him, sure enough, a-lying all among his papers, and the bills as he'd bin a discountin' of. They was most of 'em overdue, afore he was found; but them as had given 'em didn't seem to have troubled much to find him, with the exception at first of two or three as wanted renewals. There was one come the next day, as see it in the newspapers, and said it was his salvation. He didn't seem to care in the least about the smell; but asked if the deceased had left any will or executioners. I told him as there was none found yet; and he said there was a Providence in 'Eaven. 'Yes, sir.' says I, 'but, begging your pardon, I don't think that's exactly the direction of him as is gone.' 'You've about hit it, Mrs. What's-your-name,' says he, and I never see a gent larf so hearty. 'My name is Patty Priggins,' says I, 'at your sarvice,' for I can't abear being called out of my name. 'You can larf as much as you please, sir; but wherever he's went to, as is gone—which it don't sinnify a pin's pint to us as is left, and why should it?—he's took with him four shillings a-week from a fammerly of nine children, as is down with measles and hooping-cough at this very minnit, and no one ain't very likely to take these chambers agen, which is what the unfortynite creeter might a thought of afore he was took so bad, if he'd 'ad a spark of feeling.' 'You don't mean to say that, Mrs. Priggumbob,' he answered; and gave me half a sovereign, and bolted so sudden that I hadn't time even to thank him, much less ask his name. I heard afterwards he was an Irish barrinet, and it's my opinion that he was down very heavy in them bills. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the chambers was painted and let soon after, and I got six shillings a-week to do for the gent as took 'em, besides perkisites. So I hadn't much reason to complain of the orfully sudden death in chambers, as the newspapers call it. Drat it, we must all die some time, as well as live."—Gossip of Webb's Fields.

"MORNIN', mate!" quoth the Downy to Tops, as he met that individual and his betrothed at the early hour of eight A.M., the day after, by appointment at a handy little public, in Maddox-street, Regent-street. "My sarvice to you, Mrs. Susan!" and he made a most elaborate bow.

"You've grown very polite lately, Mr. Downy," remarked that lady.

"Vy" rejoined that individual, "I've bin over in Paris, not so werry long since neither, along vith some 'osses for the Hemperor. Didn't I tell yer of it?"

"Well, I believe you did," said Susan, "but I own that I forgot it when I spoke."

"To business," said Tops, "as soon as you two have done with your fine speeches. What shall it be, Mr. Downy?"

"Vell!" replied the Downy, "I'm for a drop of cow's juice and 'arf a kevarten o' old Tom."

"And I'll take a glass of pale, miss, if you please. No, stop! I'll have three-pennorth of brandy and a little cold water."

These preliminaries being settled, the party sat down in a cosey little corner, while the barmaid continued her operations of cleaning up preparatory to the day's business.

"Now then," asked Tops, "have you squared it with Mr. Lanner?"

"Right as nails," was the answer.

"And the settling day?" continued Tops.

"This werry evenin', a course, cos of the appintment in the letter. I say, ha! ha! jest look here!" And he pulled out half a dozen tenpenny nails from his pocket.

"Whatever are those for, Mr. Downy?" inquired Susan.

"You see, Mr. Lanner he says that he don't vant the lieyer there at all. He says ve can polish hoff vun on 'em better nor two. Besides, it's Mr. Leslie's hopinion, him as has 'ad the manedgement of your lady's affairs. He see Lanner hisself, last night."

"I see," said Susan. "It's quite right. I know all about it. They don't want to mix Mr. Grinderby up, any more than they can help in the matter."

"At hall ewents," said the Downy, "the inspector, he says, 'You vant to nail that 'ere vill, don't yer? and I vant to nail this 'ere Manvers,' says he, 'and I don't vant no onnecessary trouble about the matter.' Vell, ve are to go to the rendywoo kvite permiscuous, togged out so that our own mothers vouldn't know us, that is, t'others' mothers, and not mine; for it vould 'ave puzzled her to know me at hany time, considerin' I never 'ad the honner of her acquaintance, since I wos born. Vell, the game wos to hinder old Grinderby from comin'; and Lanner, he axed me hif I could put him hup to any vay of stoppin' hup his earth. Vell, I considered a bit, and then I hit it hoff, and Lanner, he larfed so 'arty, I thort he'd 'av bust."

"And whatever is it?" asked Tops. "It hasn't anything to do with my upsetting of him, I hope. Besides, I turned him up last night. I ain't any longer in his sarvice; and so I couldn't do it if I would, which I'm altogether doubtful if I could ever have made up my mind to it at all."

"Don't you fret," said the Downy. "You've got nothink to do with it at hall. It's my plant haltogether, and I flatters myself it's reyther neat, and werry creditable to my hancestry."

"I can't see," said Tops, "unless you or some one else'll knock him down on the road, or take him into custody, as if he was an hindependent elector going to record his vote in a free country, how you are to stop him from going to the rendyvoo."

"Can't yer?" said the Downy. "Then I can, that's all. You see these nails, don't yer?"

"Well, they're big enough," returned Tops, "any how."

"I've bin a gimbletin' of old Grinderby's horfice-door this werry mornin'. Fust of hall, I was agoin' to lock him in; but ve thought if he hollered and the laundress come vith the key, as in course she yould, he might get out afore he wos yanted. That's all. Now d'yer twig?"

"But supposing," said Tops, "that any of the limbs of Satan—I mean the clerks—is there?"

"Didn't you yourself tell me yesterday as he's agoin' to give 'm a half hollerday this werry arternoon on account of the general flare-up to-night?"

"But suppose he shouldn't remain there himself," suggested Susan.

"Squared," returned the Downy. "Squared agen.

We've written a letter on the special makin' an appointment at four o'clock, and the job'll be done at three and a 'arf."

"I hope you've not had a hand in writing it, Mr. Downy," said Susan, laughing.

"Considerin' as writin' wos a part of my edicashun as wos left out by partickler rekvest," replied that gentleman, "I considers your perlite remark as good as hanswered. Mr. Lanner did that part of the job at my sur-jest-shun, and borrered a seal as big as a young cheese-plate from a Government horfice."

"But suppose you should be nailed and locked up instead, which you will be, if you're caught doing any such a job?" asked Mr. Tops.

The Downy assumed an air of mild pity and patronising rebuke.

"If I'm caught," he said, "I'll send to you for bail; but don't stop at home a purpose. In the fust place, I'm agoin' togged as a carpenter, vith a paper cap and apron, and a basket o' tools. Them there stairs in the Fields is jest suitable for sech a game. Hif any one should come by, vy I jest moves hup to another floor. Hall I vants now is a pot o' paint, the werry blackest paint as I can get. Lend us a bob, mate, vill yer, to get it, for the hinspector he von't come down vith nothin' aforehand. A course I knows vy. He's afeard I should 'ave a drop. He don't know me, and I don't vant to cause him any onnecessary alarm. Yer see he ain't po-eticle, ain't the capting, and don't make no hallowance for the little hamiable veaknesses of natur."

"Here you are," said Tops. "But hang me if I know what you're going to be up to with that paint."

"You'll know fast enough," was the reply, "ven you or your missus here 'as wrote me a letter has I vants to slip into old Grinderby's box, ven I've done the trick. I say, miss," to the barmaid, "vill you oblige this lady vith a sheet of note-paper and a pen and ink?"

The young lady immediately busied herself in getting the materials ready.

"Ha! ha!" cried Tops, who began to relish the business. "I'll tell you what it is. If you do this successful, you deserve an annuity for life, like the great Mr. Sayers, and that's the only thing that would suit your complaint. And what's more, if I know anything, you'll get it. If we could only find Mr. Arthur now!"

"You'll drop on him safe enough," said the Downy; "and afore long, I reckon."

Tops shook his head. "I only hope it is as you say; but I'm afraid you were mistaken in thinking you've seen him."

"You be blowed," was the elegant response. "Do you think I'm a fool? I don't wear a heye-glass, do I?"

"Well," said Tops, "we'll find him if he is alive. Let's advertise in Austrely."

"Better advertise here first," said Susan.

"You was always a little jibber and bolter, Sue. It's my opinion he's in Austrely. But we'll try both. Now then for the letter."

Susan sat down to write, and the Downy, with many apologies, lit a pipe, which he declared was always the practice of the Great Napoleon, when dictating his despatches.

"There's many things they don't put into books," he said; "but I heerd it from a soger as see him a-writin' his letters on a hair trunk in the Vest Injies."

"I didn't know he was ever there," ventured Susan.

"Vell," said the Downy, "arter that, wot's the use of hargymint?"

"Come," said Tops, "we are losing time. Let's have another drain and then fire away."

"No," said the Downy. "I don't vet t'other eye this mornin'. I knows what that leads to."

"Depend upon it," said Susan, "that the Great Napoleon didn't drink in the morning."

"If he did," said the Downy, " 'twas afore the Battle of Vaterloo, vich was the first time his nerves wanted settlin'."

"I'm longing to know," quoth Tops, "whatever it is you want that pot of paint for. I should like to write something on his door myself when he's locked in."

"And what might that be?" asked Susan.

" 'Gone to Westminster,' my dear," replied her lover; "which is what the young lawyers in the Temple do when they're engaged very partickler indeed—a muslin consultation, my love, as I once heard Mr. Stingray call it."

"Go along with you, with your nonsense," said

Susan, disengaging herself from Mr. Tops's arm, which he had managed to insinuate round her waist.

Under this rebuff, Tops amused himself, during the barmaid's temporary absence, by taking off his livery coat, and kicking it into the air. "This old huniform," he exclaimed, "were a killing me by inches. Come drive on, mate, will yer?"

As dictating and writing the letter of the Downy was a somewhat lengthy operation, which did eventually necessitate "wetting the other eye," for the good of the house, as Tops declared, we will leave the parties to compose and put it on paper after their own fashion, the more especially, as our readers will have the opportunity of knowing its contents in a future chapter.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE OLD FOX HAS HIS EARTH STOPPED.

"What an incorrect title to a chapter! Don't you know the Fox is outside when his earth is stopped, and you have placed the lawyer inside his hole? I should alter that if I were you." "Don't you see," we replied, "that in the first place this is a Cockney tale, and not a tale of a Fox in a sporting novel by the inimitable Mr. Jorrocks, or whoever is the author of 'Mr. Soapy Sponge's Tour.' Besides, we like the title—it has a good smack or sound. It is meant to be suggestive, rather than technically correct. Again, we are not about to hunt our Fox, but to keep him out of the poultry-yard for a single night. Finally, we don't choose to alter it."—Ourselves.

"IT'S very odd," said Mr. Grinderby, as he sat completing a private letter which he did not intend his clerks to copy, "whatever can that knocking be at this hour? Hem!" (writing) " 'Our client—is not—disposed—to give—any—more—time.' Considering 'our client' is myself, I don't think there is any mistake as to the fact. That will do. 'We are—dear sir—yours faithfully—Grinderby and Grinderby.' I wish it was Grinderby and Grinderby, as I meant it to be for a time, at least till that wretched boy was called to the Bar; but he chose to be a penny-a-liner instead. Well, let him rue it, let him rue it," added the old lawyer, fiercely. "Let me see, 'yours faithfully'—um, um—that will do. I can get execution against him—say Thursday week. His furniture is well worth all the debt and expenses, even at the broker's price. Why should I wait till he can realise? I should then barely get back my money and a paltry ten per cent. I have done pretty well, though. I gave him a fortnight, for twenty-five pounds down. That was whilst I ascertained the value of the furniture, and searched 'Stubbs's Gazette,' that fierce little enemy to the embarrassed and needy man. A good friend to us lawyers and industrious money-lenders, though; ha! ha! Confound that knocking. What can it mean? I suppose the people opposite, Screwcome and Stonehart, are having a new letter-box or plate put up, or something of the kind. It's a great nuisance at this time of day, almost as bad as a barrel-organ. Knock, knock, knock! I must copy this letter myself. 'Dear sir!' very dear, ha I ha! 'We regret to state—that your letter arrived—too late—as for us—to consult our client—Miss Bogleby—yesterday—but we have—with considerable dif—ficulty—obtained an—inter—view this after—noon!' A guinea for that, and two more days lost. I should say he'll look rather blue, with his wife and eight children, when he gets this letter. How these poor devils in difficulties do breed! Multiplication without increase, I call it! The clerks are all gone away, or I would send and complain about that knocking. It is really too much. I am nervous to-day, and——"

Here he rose, and opened the door leading to the passage. "Confound it! what does this mean?" he cried; "it's at my door. What can they be about?" (Looks at his watch.) "After four o'clock! Those people from the Institution will not come now. I must get home to dinner, and prepare for my interview with that infernal Manvers. Stop! I must see what this noise means!"

So saying, Mr. Grinderby attempted to open his outer-door, which, however, resisted all his efforts. A sound as of stifled laughter from without reached him. "What, fastened in!" he cried, as he vainly turned the key in the inner-door; for both doors had been secured by the mechanical skill of the practised Downy. "This is some practical joke; some villainous trick of a discharged clerk. None of my fellows dare do it." And he violently shook the door. "I'll have an action against everybody for this!" he screamed, foaming at the mouth with passion, and shaking his fist. "I'll bring a suit against the Society for negligence, damages five thousand pounds. I'll——" Here he ran to the window. "Hilloh!" he shouted, "murder! thieves! I am locked in. Bring a ladder! No! that is useless. I have just had those new iron stanchions put in, and I can't get my head out to shout; but I'll make them hear. Hilloh! Help! Fire! I can't see a soul belonging to the Fields. There's that old white-aproned fool Purvis, but he's deaf as a post. I'll get him discharged next week. He's not fit for his situation. Let me try the door once more."

As he seized the handle in the hope of pulling it open by main force, he saw a dirty-looking note on the floor, and stooping with some difficulty, for he trembled all over, and felt giddy with rage and vexation, he picked it up and opened it. "What is this filthy scrawl?" he said. "A woman's writing, too!" and putting on his glasses, he managed to read as follows. Our readers will probably at once guess whence it came. We must observe that Susan had most carefully endeavoured to follow the Downy's pronunciation in her spelling.

"VICKED OLD BLOKE,—You are as fast as tenpenny nails can make you. Don't holler too much, it might hinjure your constitooshun. You're safe to be loosed out, ven the clerks come in the mornin'. We've a himportant consultashun with our client, Mr. J. S. Manvers, just arrived from Amerikey." (As the Downy remarked at the time, if that don't put him in a merry key, I knows nothin' about it.) "It's werry gratifyin' to us to know you've plenty of sarmons in that 'ere blessed blue-bag of yourn, and hopes you'll ripent accordin'.

(Signed) "J. TOPS.
"THE DOWNY COVE.
"SUSAN.

"Vitness, Job Twig,

"Late horfice herrand-boy to the above, residin' at No. 6, Ship-court, Fleet-street.

"P.S.—The D. C. presents his pertickler respex to Mister Grinderby, and begs to hannounce as he has painted hout yer wennerabel name from the door this arternoon, and bein' werry pattriotic in his phelinx, vishes as he could do as much for all the lieyers in Hingland."

"Accursed conspiracy!" yelled Grinderby. "Thieves!——thieves! May their souls—— Ha! fooled and ruined. Manvers will be caught! The blood mounts to my head. I am giddy, faint. Help! help!" and he staggered back, reeled, clutched at a chair, and fell heavily on the carpet in his own room. The blood gushed freely from his nose, a circumstance which probably prevented this being the last scene in his sordid and useless existence. There let us leave him for the present, a victim to the artful contrivance of the Downy.

CHAPTER XX.

INSPECTOR LANNER'S LITTLE PLANT.

Ils allerènt devisant de milles chouses théologicques, qui s'embrouilloyant trez-fort.—L'Heritier du Diable.

IN a small public-house, the "Cat and Cauliflower," at the back of Webb's Fields, there were a couple of individuals about the time that Mr. Grinderby discovered his situation, each of whom appeared in imminent danger of falling into a fit also, but from a very dissimilar cause.

"I knocked 'em," said the Downy, for he was one of the twain, "hinto the holes as wos ready gimbleted, as hif they'd bin so many hot knives agoin' hinto a wegetable-marrer."

"Will they hold?" said Tops, for he was the other individual in question.

"There's nine-and-twenty nail druv into that door, vich is British hoak," replied his friend, "and hevery vun on 'em vill 'ave to be cut round afore a pair o' pinchers vill bite, that's hall, and Capting Lanner he's gone round and sent hall the porters hoff hout of the Fields on distant messages, and told the perlice as is on dooty not to hinterfere. I'd give six months' hincome hout of the Three per Sents to see the hold feller, ven he's collared his humbreller and blue-bag for a start home."

"Or when he reads our 'letter of advice,' as Susan calls it," said Tops, "which she spelt according to your particular fancy."

"Hall I hopes is," returned the Downy, "that he von't take it hout of none of them pore clyints and clerks of hisn as can't help theirselves; but I fancy as how we've shut him hup hentirely in the bis'ness line. I expex he'll re-tire on his fortin, and dewote his hamiable henergies in futur' to growin' six-and-eightpenny dalilahs, or wotever you call 'em, for the chance of a thirteen-and-fourpenny prize."

So saying they both winked and laughed, and laughed and winked, until their faces looked for all the world, as the Downy said, "like a couple of wet humbrellers folded up hugly;" and Tops betook himself as a relief and sedative to the perusal of "Lloyd's Newspaper," which he found on the bar-counter.

"Wotever air you readin' hof?" said the Downy, presently.

"Why," said Tops, "there's two gory-liars escaped from Wombwell's menagerie, and a cutting about the country like a pair of lunàtic sollycitors bolted from the awful consequences of their own misdeeds."

"Wot!" cried the Downy, "a pair o' them big apes as is stuffed in the British Mew-seeum got hout of a show?"

"And hooked it along a turnpike-road near Derby," added Tops.

"You might jest as vell 'ave kept that dark," said the Downy. "Wot's the use of frightenin' this young lady? She'll be thinkin' that it's us as has got loosed out."

"Well," cried Tops, breaking out into a fresh fit of laughter, "that's a lively idear that is."

This time their mirth was so infectious, that the jolly barmaid, a fair buxom person of some thirty years of age, the wife of a policeman, could not help joining in.

"Well, you are a cure!" she said to the Downy; "if I ever see one. Whatever have you two been up to?" The Downy was attired, we omitted to say, as a working carpenter. "I should think some one had left you a small property," continued the barmaid. "I say, young man" (to Tops), "you'll do yourself an injury if you go on like that. Lend us your light heart, will you, just for a day or two, and I'll go and spend a happy day at Kosherville Gardens."

"Oh, lord! oh, lord!" cried Tops. "Whatever is old Grinderby a-saying of, surely? But it's my opinion, he's out by this time."

"Not he," quoth the Downy. "There ain't no vun left hardly hin the Fields, I tell yer. There's a rare noisy party lives above him, one as carries on no hend of games; and the porters if they hears anythink will put it hall down to him and his friends. Hall the rest as hangs out on them stairs is bis'ness parties, and has gone avay at two, I tells yer, cos of the holiday."

"Well," replied Tops, "he's sure to be out in an hour or so."

"I tell yer," answered the Downy, "it couldn't be done in two, arter he's let 'em know hall about it. First they got to send for a carpenter, and it's rare hodds if he comes within 'arf an hour; and if he gits them nails hout in an hour, I'll eat 'em atween shavins for sandviches."

"Even then he'll keep his appointment with this 'ere Manvers," said Tops, "and what will be the use of your caper?"

"He von't," replied the Downy; "he'll be shuck horful for yun thing. Besides, d'ye think he'd wenture hisself there arter our letter? He's a precious sight too vide avake for any sech a thing."

"Well," said Tops, "it's a game anyhow."

"Do tell us what the little game is?" said the woman at the bar, in her most insinuating tone.

"It's a badger, my dear," said the Downy. "He wanted to go to the Review this afternoon backerds, as them hanimals halways do, yer see, and ve vasn't minded to let him, that's hall."

"Much obliged to you for nothing, Mr. Impudence," said the lady, much offended. "I dare say your friend won't be so uncivil."

"Him?" said the Downy. "Oh! he's the hessence of perliteness, he is. He's jest had three months for beatin' his wife for forgetten the ingin sarce, a day as he had a biled rabbit for dinner. 'Rabbit arout ingins,' ses he, 'wot's the good of that?' and he larrups her accordin'. The beak was agoin' to guv him six months; but being fond of ingins hisself, he thought there wos extenyatin' sircumstrences; and he honly got three in crinsekence. Look how short is 'air is."

This being delivered with the utmost gravity the woman looked at Tops, who had just happened to have his hair cut pretty close, with a puzzled expression.

"I don't think you're either of you much account," she said. "I hope you've been doing nothing wrong, that's all. I think you may just as well go and laugh somewhere else. This is a respectable house. It's pretty near time for my husband to come in," she said, looking at the clock.

"Well," said Tops "this is the first time I ever heard there was any offence in parties enjoying their own joke."

"It's very rude before a lady, and to tell her such a parcel of stories about a badger and a boiled rabbit. It's easy to see what some folks are."

"No offence, miss," said the Downy; "the fact is we've been and chained up ugly——"

"That you haven't," retorted the lady, glad of the opportunity afforded for a retort, "or you wouldn't be here."

"You've got it there," cried Tops. "Come, don't be angry, missus. I'll tell you all about it, the next time I come."

"Thank you for nothing," was the lady's answer. "Pr'aps it mightn't be safe to know what you could tell me."

What further compliments might have passed were stopped by the entrance of Inspector Lanner and a stout policeman, who turned out to be the husband of the fair dame du comptoir. The inspector came in laughing as heartily as Tops and the Downy themselves.

"It's all serene," he said. "He's as quiet as if he'd been chloryformed. I passed by the staircase, and no one was even looking. I say, mind I'm not answerable for this little game. It's not exactly business, you know."

"Well, captain!" said the lady. "I should have thought you were the last man to go torturing a poor animal like that."

"What do you mean, missis?" said Inspector Lanner.

"Why the badger, to be sure," was the answer. "I didn't think such cruelties was permitted, leastways by the Force you belong to."

"Oh! I see, Mrs. Willum," replied Lanner, "these two parties have been chaffing you, that's all. Come, what shall it be, mates? Say the word. I'll allow you just one drop, before we start for Deptford. A little Dutch courage, my dear. These 'gents' are not in the profession, and we've an ugly job in hand."

"I'll tell yer wot it is," said the Downy; "I ain't much given to boastin'. I am but a little un, and there ain't much muscle 'ere; but as for Mr. Tops, you'd better give him summit to keep him from bilin' hover, that's my hopinion. He's a longin' to polish off that genelman from Amerikey—he is, and no mistake. 'Ave yer got anythink as is soothin', missus?"

"You may find it no joking matter, Mr. What's-his-name—Downy, or whatever you call yourself," said the good-natured detective, who was one of the best of his class. "These Yankees don't stick at a trifle, I can tell you."

"Then I 'opes they von't stick it into me," responded the Downy. "There ain't much of me, but what there is, is a trifle as I respex. Do yer think this 'ere pertickler Yankee is likely to carry a six-bladed knife now, or hany little trifle of that kind?"

"Indeed I do," was the answer. "I thought you wouldn't like it, when it came to the point."

"That pint is jest wot I don't hintend to come to," said the Downy. "Hall I 'ave to say is, that if the hindividual intends to come any of them little games, I shall do my best to sarcomwent him, that's all. Lor bless you, I'm used to handle arms."

"Indeed," replied the inspector; "I shouldn't have thought it now. I didn't know that they carried any weapons in the Shoe-black Brigade."

"Considerin' the hunconstitooshinal vay in which the bobbies is drilled, and the huniforms I see among 'em," retorted the Downy, "wich they must 'ave been bought in at Ashley's when it wos turned hinto a reglar theayter as didn't pay, vy I owns vith sorrer, that you licks me in a millingtary pint of view. But I've got my heye upon yer; I know wot yer up to; you're a makin' the peelers hinto a harmy, a Force, as you likes to call it, wich is meant to make a parcel of slaves of the Hinglish nation, ven hall their liberty is stole from 'em."

"Very likely," said Mr. Lanner; "can't say. It don't matter to me, that's all I know."

"I tell yer, it will matter to you some day, cos afore it cums to the wust, we means to make a fite for it, and we shall tackle you in a manner as you never expex."

"What may that be?" said Lanner, carelessly.

"Vy," said the Downy, "we're a svearin' in hall the cook-maids to stop your cold meat rashuns and lock the hairey gates, and I should like to know vere your army'll be then, capting."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Lanner. "I'll owe you one for that. But you haven't told us yet where you learnt the use of arms."

"Use of 'em, indeed! Wos harms hever hany use?" asked the Downy. "D'yer call hanythink useful, as is honly fit to cut folks' throats, or shoot 'em, like a parcel of wild beasts? Use of harms? I said nothink about using of 'em. I said I wos used to handle 'em and the proper vay to handle 'em is to bury 'em, as the Injins do their tommyhawks. But if yer must know, I used to run messages for Colt, him as inwented rewolwers, wich our harmy might 'ave 'ad in the Crime-ere, along vith korfy mills, but didn't. Blest if it warn't a case of crime 'ere, and no mistake."

"They should have sent you out there, Mr. Downy," said Lanner. "You'd have shown them how to manage affairs better, I dare say."

"The most ignorantest poor feller, vith 'ands and a 'ead, and a 'art in the right place, mind yer, could ha' done that, and no mistake. D'ye think I don't know nothink from hall them pore sick and wounded sojers as was cast hoff on their return, to get their livin'?"

"Ay, ay," said Lanner, "I dare say it's bad enough; but what is to be done?"

"Vy, not them as has fought their country's battles oughtn't to be done," returned the Downy; "not them as has gone through fire, and vater, and smoke, and steel and lead, or rayther them as lead and steel has gone through, and which has thought no more of it than hif it was a dinner. But I tell yer it's hall rotten haltogether and can't last; and wot's more, it ain't got no bis'ness to last. We'd better 'ave no harmy, no, nor navy, neither, than 'ave 'em sarved out as they air. D'ye think if I wos the Goverment, I'd let a parsel of pore boys run about the streets like that, and we wantin' sailors? D'ye think I vouldn't train 'em and edycate 'em, and be glad of the chance, for 'arf the money its costs for a lot of spiteful madgistrates and good-for-nothin' perlice? I ax yer pardin', capting, I don't mean no hoffence. I vish they wos hall like you, as vould let a pore man live."

"Well, my friend," said Lanner, "there's a good deal of truth in what you say. Only I don't see how we are to mend it, that's all. Those that can won't, and those that can't don't get a chance, and so there it is."

"Well, upon my word," said Mrs. Willum, "you two are having a pretty talk to yourselves. Only think of my having taken these two friends of yours to be no better than they should be."

"I haven't said that they are, Mrs. Willum. You know I have to meet some queer customers in the way of business," said Inspector Lanner. "I advise you to look out for your spoons."

"That's a good one, and you in the house," replied the lady; "but you always enjoy your joke, captain."

"Why," said Lanner, "there was one of our chiefs lost his gold watch and chain t'other evening. The man who took it pretended to be putting him on to a prig, and he was so busy watching him, he didn't take any thought for his own ticker.

"Come," said Tops, who had been out to meet Susan in a pastrycook's shop round the corner, to tell her how matters were going on "in re an attorney," "if you've done talking, I think we'd better be on the move."

"It's quite time," said Lanner. "Here, Mrs. Willum, tell your husband that we're going. I mean to have him and a couple more outside, in case of a bolt or a rescue."

"As you please," observed Tops. "You know best, I'm agreeable to anything; I should have thought that we three were more than a match for one Yankee anyhow."

"How do you know it's only one we shall have to deal with?" asked Lanner. "I dare say he's got his pals. Perhaps a lot of foreign sailors, for all we can say. It's a rum sort of place, I can tell you. But whatever there is, I hope there'll be no women concerned in it. They're the desperatest devils, a precious sight worse than men to tackle. What do you think, Mr. Downy?"

"I've knowed one, as it took eight of your harmy and a stretcher to lock up," answered the Downy. "She might a stuffed a child's pillow with the whiskers of the Force, as she pulled hout. And sarved 'em right too; for they'd no bis'ness to meddle with her. She wos earnin' an honest livin', vich wos more nor they wos a-doin', ven they took and banged and pulled her about, as they did shameful."

"I dare say, if the truth was to be told, that you were locked up along with her," said Lanner.

"I wos, and I'm proud of it," replied the Downy; "and I'd do it agen to-morrer, if I see another sech a case, vich I hopes I never shall."

"He speaks his mind out, don't he?" said Lanner.

"I dessay," replied the Downy, "that I shan't 'ave a hopportunity to do it much longer. I never could bring myself to call a constable 'sir,' as hif he wos a horficer, as they calls themselves. Vy, they'll lock a man hup soon for not touchin' his hat to 'em as he passes. That's wot it's comin' to."

"I tell you what," quoth Tops, "you two'll never a-done talking to-night."

"Don't you be so fast," answered the incorrigible Downy. "Jest becos you've left hoff sweet-heartin' for a few hours, you thinks you're heverybody. He's in sech a precious hurry to git back. Tell us wot time yer've got to meet her to-night, and then we can hact accordin'. I vunder she let him cum at all, that I do. I say, capting, mind yer don't take to courtin'.

It won't suit your bis'ness. I mean none of this 'ere earnest kind of spoonin'. Now, then, 'ere goes for the spree. I don't know as hever I was out on this sort of lay afore."

"You mayn't find it altogether so much of a spree as you reckon," said Lanner. "Remember it's murder I'm going to take him for, and not merely this will job of yours. It's a case of life and death; and I say once more to both of you, if you take my advice, you'll keep out of it, and leave it to those whose trade it is to deal with an ugly customer like this Manvers. Only say the word, mates. There's no disgrace in drawing back."

"There's no drawing back about me, I hope," said Tops.

"We're jest the sort to dror back, we air," quoth the Downy. "But I'll tell yer wot it is. If yer wait here much longer, there'll be a depytashun from the hinsurance hoffices, a-beggin' of me not to expose my walyable life too rashly."

"You're a rum card," said Lanner, approvingly.

"I say, guvernor," said the Downy, as they got into the street, after the party had duly taken leave of Mrs. Willum, who begged Mr. Lanner to take care of himself, "as there were very few of his sort about," &c. &c.—" I say, guvernor, I can't go arter hall."

"Indeed! Mr. Downy, and why not, pray?"

"Think of my unborn children, and the goose-club I've bin a subscribin' to. Besides, ain't I in a raffle for a 'armonium and a pair o' plated mustard-spoons? Ain't the ties o' property too strong? Besides vich, I got to take the cheer at the Hunited Vitechapel Watermen's Vidowers' Hassociation to-morrow hevenin.' Tripe and ingins for them as likes 'em at nine. That's a morial hobligation."

"Come," said the inspector, "that's a good one, that is. You're not a widower, Mr. Downy."

"Don't you see, they allers has a single man in the cheer to control the vatervorks."

Thus pleasantly chatting, the party proceeded to an apartment provided by Mr. Lanner, where Tops assumed the Downy's disguise as a carpenter, and the latter arrayed himself as a negro minstrel in the most wonderful garments, together with a paper shirt-collar of portentous dimensions. They then took the train for Deptford. Tops was by far the most silent of the party. The fact is, he was bent on vengeance; and thinking, though with far different feelings, both of his present mistress, Susan, and his former master, the luckless Arthur Aubrey.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CRIB AT DEPTFORD.

Advena. ἐιπὲ, φιλ', ἐιπὲ, τόπος τις, πόθεν ὄχλος ὂδε;

Hibernicus. σὸι δὲ τύχη μεγάλη, ξένε φερτάτε . . . .
ἔστι δὲ συμπόσιη θαλερὴ, κὰι μυσικὰ φύλλα
σκηπτροφορἒι δ᾽ὁ νέος, σκηπτροφερἒι τ'ὁ γέρων,
μητρὢν δ' ἀσπασμὸι, θυγατρὢν δ᾽ἄφαρ ἐισιν ἔρωτες
πάντοθεν ἐισ᾽ ὕμνοι, πάντοθεν ἐστι χορὸς.

Ad. ἐις δὲ μέσον θρώσκει τις Ἄρης . . . . . . .
κρανία δ'αμφιτέροισι καταγνύμενα στεναχίζει
ἐιπὲ τίς ἡ μἢνις; θαὒμα τι τὂυτο θὲλει.

Hib. 'Ου θἄυμ', ὁυ μἢνις——

Ad. μὴ κὰι τόδε τέρψις;

Hib. Ζἓυ, ἔχεις——

Ad. νὒνγε καλὢς ἐρίδων γἢν καλέουσιν Ἔριν.

"Nundinis Donnybricæis nomen Vernaculum Erin luculenter exponitur." Postulates and Data, No. 22.

DEPTFORD is not a pleasant suburb of London. It is not genteel, like Brixton or Peckham, nor vulgarly gay, like Islington, nor respectable in a small way, like Camden Town, nor busy but well-to-do, like Camberwell. It is crowded, poverty-stricken, dingy, disreputable, and unwholesome. In bad times, when labour is plentiful and employment slack, food dear, and wages low, it is gloomy as well as squalid. Nothing seems good in Deptford. The bread looks half-baked and dirty, the meat black and uninviting, the very fruits undersized, and either rotten or green, the bacon rancid, and even the herrings not what herrings should be. Bad smells abound; but the population, such as it is, multiplies, though it cannot be said to thrive. With the exception of the dockyard labourers, who are strong, hulking fellows enough, the inhabitants are pale, stunted, and degenerate-looking. It is a very dispiriting place. Even the muslin curtains of the milliners' shops are yellow and dirty, and there is a tendency to grow musk plants and other humble specimens of Flora within the small, and, we should imagine, unhealthy rooms. A pretty, well-dressed girl in Deptford is a kind of vision, which is probably very rarely seen. We should feel inclined to wish her well out of the High-street, or any of its narrow tributary confluents, if we saw her there. We are the last to sneer at mere poverty, wretchedness, and consequent degradation. The "unclean living no less perilous than desperation," to be found in so many outlying parts of our great metropolis, and even in the heart of the West-end itself, witness Bedfordbury near the Haymarket, is to be attributed to causes beyond the power of the sufferers to avert. We have no supercilious enmity towards Deptford. We have felt sorry to find ourselves there, and proportionately glad to escape from it, when our business has been ended. We like to see our fellow-creatures happy, smiling, healthy, and prosperous. Is it the present tendency of the administration of this great and wealthy country, in the present era of enlightenment, to make them so? There is a railway station at Deptford. It is suitable in appearance to the place. It is narrow, crowded, dirty, and depressing, except so far as it holds out a prospect of speedy departure. But then truly one arrives by the same means. The greasy spiral stairs by which the passengers ascend and descend are so dangerous that more than one accident resulting in death has occurred in consequence. But what of that? We do not apprehend that the parties sacrificed had a large status in the world; and possibly they were intoxicated, or in too great a hurry to return to Deptford. Peter the Great once lodged in Deptford. It is a pity that he ever left it. He was better employed in carving figure-heads and laying down keels, than in cutting off his subjects' heads and playing the executioner himself. There is a street named after the "gentle" Evelyn, who saw that fierce and sanguinary reaction which threatened the liberties of England, when Russell and Algernon Sidney died. London "gents" go down to the Rye House now-a-days ignorant of all that dark story of fanatical treachery and hate. The house of fine old Admiral Benbow still stands. We trust that his breed is not yet quite extinct in England. We have said that there is a railway station in Deptford. Railways are the boast of civilisation. Do they bring comfort to our doors? Not necessarily, at least judging by such a place as Deptford. We want something besides railways for happiness; something beyond electric telegraphs for truth.

After all, Deptford is not so very unhealthy, according to the bills of mortality, except in times of cholera, typhus, &c., which diseases have generally a frequent and fruitful innings in that locality. The suburb is built on quicksand, as well as mud, the latter being chiefly near the river bank. If the High-street of Deptford be unenticing in appearance, what shall we say of such localities as the Stowage, the Rope-walk, Mill-lane, and the "Green?" Does the reader suppose that there is any green there, enough to gladden the existence of a solitary duck? Doubtless, there was a "green" there about the period, when a woodcock might have been flushed where Regent-street now stands, and there was excellent snipe-shooting at Knightsbridge; but not for the double-barrels of the modern sportsman. Down the Rope-walk runs a central gutter, after the foreign fashion, choked with the foulest garbage, and with salads not only exactly "à la mayonnaise."

Mill-lane is chiefly noted for providing accommodation in the shape of lodging-houses for the lowest order of beggars and tramps. Near this, and in a part known as New Town, stood the public-house in which Manvers had located himself, and in which he expected Grinderby to call that evening. The house in question was by no means of the flaring gin-palace type so common in low neighbourhoods in the present day. It had not even any tawdry and paltry pretensions as a Temple of Bacchus. There were no brilliant chandeliers. The gas-lights did not burn amid glass vine-leaves and bunches of grapes. There were no mirrors, there was no gilding, no ornament. It was, in fact, a wretched-looking den, which no respectable person would have liked to enter, even in broad daylight. The house was not lofty; but at the back its elevation was much greater, owing to a fall in the ground. It was only two stories high, but it had the height of two stories more behind. The lane at the back was very narrow, being not more than some fourteen feet across; in fact, it was only a foot thoroughfare. The houses which ran parallel behind were only one story high. For some reason there was a sort of communication between the lower part of a window of the second story of the public-house and the top of one of these houses. It consisted of a sort of little slanting bridge of planks with a single iron rail on each side. It was suggestive of an escape; and probably had been designed, if not used, for that purpose. At the time of our narrative, the lower end, having got partly detached, in fact being entirely so at one corner, a couple of lazy workmen had been employed the day before to repair it. For some reason or other, they had not completed their task. Probably they were awaiting some necessary materials. At all events they had spent the greater part of the day in drinking at the bar, and in discussing their job. They had, however, completely detached the little bridge, and left it hanging suspended from the higher, that is, the public-house side.

The landlord of this foul ken, where the lowest votaries of Bacchus were accustomed nightly to meet, drink, argue, quarrel, and frequently fight, was grey and partly bald, stout, pale, and ill-looking. After all, what is physiognomy without circumstance?

He looked like what he was. Had his dirty white apron been a black one, had his coat been better, and his stout legs encased in silk instead of woollen stockings, had he been worth four thousand or fourteen thousand pounds a-year, instead of some four hundred pounds capital pour tout potage, he might have been a bishop. But instead of a Pharisee, he was a publican, in the modern sense, of the lowest type; a reproach and a disgrace to the worthy, manly, and thoroughly English body of men called Licensed Victuallers; for there are black sheep in that calling, as well as in every other; a fact which sour Sabbatarians and violent canting Teetotallers, who would deny God's gifts, in the shape of wholesome and sustaining liquors to their fellow-creatures, do not fail to make the most of. He had a large head, but Greek particles had never troubled his brain. He was a good father, and not a bad husband, but he would turn out a poor wretch who would not pay for more fiery gin, or filthy beer, into the street to die in the kennel, or to be locked up in the police station without the slightest compunction. Had he not done so, where would his living have been? In poor neighbourhoods, even a doctor must be hard-hearted to live, much more to support those dependent on his exertions. Mr. Gruffem was not a bad man at heart—he only did as he was obliged to do in that neighbourhood, resembling, as it did, the lowest parts of Liverpool, where a free-trade Bench of magistrates with Sabbatarian views grant licenses wholesale, in order to bring the legitimate liquor-trade into disrepute.

Mr. Gruffem was the victim of competition and slender means. If a robbery were concocted in Mr. Gruffem's parlour, he was deaf, save to orders for liquor, and these he expected of course. He was extremely amenable to the blandishments, or terrors of that army of occupation billeted on the lower orders—to wit the army of the late Sir Robert Peel. He would come round the corner with a bottle and a couple of glasses any time at night—even after eleven on Sunday night, when wanted. He would show the sergeants of the Force into his house at any hour with great affability and politeness. In fact, after his way, he tried to make things pleasant. His rum was considered the strongest, and consequently the best, to be had in that neighbourhood. On the very evening when Manvers had made his appointment with Mr. Grinderby, Gruffem had shown considerable annoyance at the bridge being left in the dangerous state we have mentioned. It certainly looked as if it were not unlikely to become detached altogether, and fall into the lane below, where crowds of children were at play. He accordingly abused the two Irish workmen who had left it in so unsatisfactory a state, after his fashion, and in no very measured terms.

"What did you begin the job for at all?" he said. "You knowed you hadn't got the new supports ready."

"It's all right, master!" said one. "Faith, it would bear your weight at the end of it anyhow."

"I don't care," replied Gruffem; "you knowed well enough you couldn't finish it. I expect I shall get a summons for leaving it in that state. And suppose it was to fall on any one's head?"

"You'd be had up for manslaughter, governor," said a pale thin man, who had once been a lawyer's clerk, and who made his living by writing women's letters, and giving legal advice to sailors.

"I suppose I should," said Gruffem; "and all on account of them two lazy beggars."

"Let's have another 'arf-pint, master," said one of them, at that moment.

"You haven't paid for the last," returned Gruffem. "This ain't a credit house."

"Sure, I'll pay it to-morrow, when I've finished the job," replied the other.

This was an indiscreet speech.

"Come, clear out!" replied Gruffem. "None of your nonsense here. It won't do, I tell you, I won't stand it;" and he pushed the intruder towards the door, or rather doors, for there were two doors, both with small windows, guarded, the outer one with iron bars, and the inner with brass wires. There were also two steep narrow steps into the street. The Irishman made some show of resistance, coupled with language which was anything but parliamentary. "Here, Jem," cried the landlord, much as he would have done to a dog. A short young man with close-cropped hair, and with his shirt-sleeves tucked up, leaped over the counter. Without waiting for further orders, he made a single feint at the nearest Irishman, and then planted a tremendous blow between his eyes. The latter staggered back, when the other butted at him and sent him down the steps into the street. His mate with but slight variation was subjected to similar treatment. Some women screamed and yelled, and a crowd of Irish gathered round the door threatening vengeance, but Mr. Gruffem took things very coolly. He pitched out the coat of one of the men, which the fellow had carried loosely thrown over his shoulder and dropped in the struggle. There was, in fact, a row, such as occurs periodically in such places as we have attempted to describe. They are like sudden disturbances, "shindies," to use an Irish term, in a monkey-cage. No, it is worse than that. There is all the fantastic passion of the ape, but there is also the ferocity of the tiger, the hyena, and the carcajou. It is a tumult or carnivora, ape-wise, or ape-fashion. There are screams and yells, howling and struggling, such as an unfortunate traveller, lost in an African forest, may perchance hear. Shut your windows, ye dwellers in a Christian city, if there is such a den near you, in the hot summer nights. Better a stifling atmosphere of quiet, than the shrieks and oaths of that midnight crew. There is a storm in the wild-beast cage. Listen! The keepers are at hand—the police appear on the scene, and the noise and oaths are redoubled for awhile. Now it is in the street. The victims are being carried off; then comes the street discussion. You hear the pros and cons of metropolitan Thyrsis and Amaryllis, of urban, but not urbane, Melibœus and Corydon, not in the shade, but the lamp-light. At length quiet supervenes, only broken by a distant shriek or yell. You hear the noise of closing the shutters. Then comes the tramp of three or four heavy pairs of regulation boots. The police have returned to talk it over with the landlord. There is a mutter of bass voices, the clink of a furtive can, the chink of the necessary fee, and the nuisance is ended for the night.

Such disturbances were too frequent in the neighbourhood of New Town to create much excitement. The Irish labourers and their sympathisers had their talk out, and withdrew at least some distance up the street.

Mr. Gruffem's pot-boy was greatly feared by these savage men. He was an ex-pugilist, whose temper had been too bad for the Ring. Such men are employed at some of our popular places of entertainment, as we have already recorded, occasionally in the cause of "order," to break the British citizen's head and rob him with impunity. This fellow's post at Gruffem's was no sinecure in the way of fighting and settling quarrels in a summary way. If two customers had a difference which threatened to culminate in a fight, Jem Nobbler, alias the "Catsmeat-man," a pocket Hercules of ten stone weight or thereabouts, would thrust himself between the intended combatants, and say, "Drop it!" or "None of that here; fight outside as much as you like." If his mandate was not attended to, he seldom gave another warning. He would at once select the least valuable customer to the house, and tackle him in the most approved style. The bigger his antagonist, the greater generally his triumph. The only man who had successfully resisted his authority was Manvers, on the night of his arrival. He had shown a disposition to quarrel with every one, and so abused Gruffem for pouring out a measure of brandy for him, instead of handing him the bottle in the American fashion, that Jem thought it necessary to interfere. Accordingly, he was making his accustomed spring over the counter, when Manvers closed with him, and after nearly throttling him, flung him with such tremendous violence to the ground, that Jem was stunned, and unable to show up for at least a week after. As soon as he recovered, he followed Manvers out one afternoon in order to have his revenge, and challenged him to "fight him like a man." The reply was a contemptuous laugh.

"Look hyar, strainger, jest mind your own business, will you? I don't 'fight like a man;' and I'm not agoin' to be made a fool of by any of them old country rules of yourn. If I fight, I fight; and by thunder! if you don't leave off them antics, I'll draw the bead on you."

So saying, he pulled out a revolver, and presented it at Jem's head. This was more than that individual bargained for. The English rough is greatly afraid of arms. Volunteering has now done something towards familiarising the masses with guns and swords. A short time ago, nine-tenths of the British male adult population knew no more about the use of a gun or pistol than so many old women, and would have handled one as timidly and as clumsily. Putting aside our sailors and soldiers—none too numerous by the way—and a few undisciplined gamekeepers, poachers, sportsmen, and sparrow-shots, there never was a nation so utterly helpless as this one, less than ten years ago from the time we write. The fact is ludicrous but true. England had no line of secondary defence whatever. Like others of his class, Jem Nobbler had a wholesome dread of implements which he did not understand. So he growled, parleyed, shook hands, and liquored up, and Manvers became king. Old Gruffem was by no means pleased at this turn of affairs; but he couldn't help it. Besides, Manvers was a good customer—at least ran up a long bill, living as he did on the premises.

"Licked by a Yankee?" said Gruffem to Jem; "well, I'd never 'a thought it. You ought to have your wages cut down one half, that's what you ought."

"He's no more a Yankee, nor I am," Jem would growl in reply to such remarks as the above, which were not unfrequent. "He may have bin over the herring pond. I don't say he haven't, mind, but he never learnt what he knows over there. No, no! he's six stone heavier nor me, and an Englishman. Besides, I offered to fight him fair, so as to give a little un a chance. But as for saying he's a Yankee, that cock won't fight for me."

Mr. Manvers occupied a back bedroom attic at the "One-Eyed Marine." On this evening he had told Gruffem that he expected a friend, and was to be called down if he came. The Irish row had just died away, when Inspector Lanner, attired somewhat in the style of a swell young captain of a Citizen steam-boat, made his appearance at Gruffem's bar. The moment was auspicious; for every one was too busy talking over the late disturbance to take much notice of a stranger. But we must reserve the evening for the ensuing chapter.

CHAPTER XXII.

SIGNOR MANVERINI'S LEAP FOR LIFE.

After which, at half-past eight, terrific ascent on the tight rope of Madame Genéve, as the Fire King's Bride. At nine precisely, Signor Smithini's leap for life over an omnibus, through a circle of revolving daggers on to the green. Grand Finale. The Siege of Delhi by the Muddlecombe Volunteers. Tremendous explosion of a petard. Tea and shrimps, ninepence. Hot water for parties supplying their own tea and sugar twopence each, children half-price. No charge for babies in arms. Kiss in the ring, tiddle-cum-torters, swings, wheels of fortune, &c. &c. Aunt Sally, as patronised by the nobility. Dancing at half-past nine in the Painted Pavilion of Past Grand Masters of the O. K. Lodge. The liquors and refreshments of the first quality.—Summer Programme for Snargate Excursionists, A.D. 1867.

THE afternoon had been singularly sultry, and the sky was dull and lowering. The air was full of electricity, and the nervous portion of the community felt that weight and oppression which precedes a tempest in an unusual degree. Still up to the hour of the rendezvous at the "One-Eyed Marine," the distant muttering of the storm was unheard in the roar and din and confused murmur of traffic, and the thunder of the omnibuses and sharp rattle of the cabs, and the shouting of their cads and drivers was the chief and usual sound heard, save in the vicinity of a railway bridge or station, throughout the East-end of commercial London. The portion of the bar of the above-mentioned hostelry intended for the public accommodation was divided into three compartments, communicating with each other by small side-doors in the partitions, of which the middle compartment was by far the largest. The arrangement was not unlike that of a pawnbroker's shop, on a somewhat larger scale. In the central and largest compartment Jem Nobbler and some dozen men and women were holding forth on the rights and wrongs of the ejectment which had just taken place. Mr. Gruffem was busy at his tap. So Lanner popped through one of the side-doors into the left side-box, or "Bottle and Jug" department, and addressed Mr. Gruffem as follows:

"A pint of ale, governor, if you please."

"You'd better go in there," said Gruffem, motioning him to the central part. "This here is private."

"Is it now?" said Lanner. "Then we'll keep it so, if you please. Do you know who I am?"

"No; nor don't want to. I ain't in no humour for chaff just now."

"But you'll come to corn," said Lanner. "Here!" and he handed him a card, whereon was printed "Inspector Lanner," and in smaller letters, the division to which he, the said inspector, belonged, and where he might be heard of.

The landlord looked at the card and at him, and apparently from what he saw of him was inclined to admit that he might be the person whom the card described.

"Well," he said, "who's wanted?"

"I'm come to arrest a party in your house," replied Lanner.

"For what?" inquired the other.

"Felony, of course," said Lanner, in a cold, hard, almost indifferent tone, but emphatic enough in its way. "Will you be on the square or not?"

Mr. Gruffem at once knew the individual for whom Lanner had come. He was in his room above, and the remembrance of the broken escape flashed at once through his mind. But he had not by any means decided how to act. He hated Manvers, who bullied, and, in vulgar parlance, sat upon him too much. The next few words of Lanner decided him.

"I want to do it on the quiet," said that worthy. "I always prefer the quiet. But I've plenty of force outside, if wanted. Besides officers, I've two 'pals' who are interested in the recovery of some papers, and who will be here in a minute or two. Now what you've got to do is to contrive an interview with this Tadgers, or whatever he calls himself, as if we were friends of yours. He don't know me, though he has seen them before. Their own mothers wouldn't know them just now;" and Lanner slightly laughed, "since I have been their valet. You see, Mr. Gruffem, you'd best oblige me, if you want to keep this respectable house of yours open. I wish to do this job neatly, and if you behave on the square, it will be the best for you. I never forget a friend, nor yet one who goes contrary to my wishes."

"You know what sort of a party he is?" asked the landlord, with a jerk of his thumb in an upward direction.

Lanner nodded cheerfully.

"Carries we'pons," continued Gruffem.

Another nod from Lanner.

"I'll do anything you wish, short of lending a hand," said Gruffem, deprecatingly; "I couldn't do that in my own house, unless I was paid very handsome indeed."

"The sentiment does you credit, Mr. What's-your-name—Gruffem—isn't it?" returned Lanner. "I don't wish you to interfere any more than to put us in the way of meeting him in a sort of friendly way. He expects a party here at eight, don't he?"

"He do," said Gruffem.

"That party was to receive some papers from him; but I don't expect he'll come. I want to collar them instead, that's all. If we made a row, even if we were to surround the house, he might destroy them, or conceal them."

"I suppose," said Gruffem, "that you couldn't accommodate the matter for the papers and something handsome besides?"

"Not to be done," said Lanner, "at any price whatsoever."

"I see," quoth the accommodating Gruffem. "It's now half-past seven. Step into my parlour, sir, and I'll ask your friends in when they come."

So saying, he lifted a flap on hinges which was cut in the counter, and the inspector passed into the sanctum. The bar-parlour was a tolerably large room, with a door leading to the staircase of the house, and another to a small court, surrounded by a high wall.

"By your leave," he said.

He then sat down. In a minute or two the landlord ushered in the Downy and Tops.

"Good evening, mate," said Tops. "It looks uncommon like tempest."

"Ve're in luck to git into sich a werry comfortable place as this," said the Downy, looking round him; "for if them blessed hillumynations ain't put out afore long, I never see the courage drownded out of a Chartist meetin'."

"Bring brandy-and-water and pipes for three," said Lanner.

Gruffem very shortly executed the order.

"What's the next move?" he said.

"Fetch that party down-stairs. Say there's three of your own particular friends here. Call me Wright; him Bones," (indicating the Downy); "and this gentleman" (namely, Tops), "Harry. When we've got him in talk, you" (to Gruffem) "go out, and as soon as you see one of my people in uniform enter the house, let him stand just inside the bar, and you come in here again. To prevent mistakes, I shall ask you the time. You answer, 'The right time,' and I shall then effect the capture. Don't let your pot-boy, or any one, interfere, and tell any females, if there are any in the house, to keep in their own rooms, and lock their doors for fear of accident."

Mr. Gruffem disappeared.

"Don't forget the rewolver," whispered the Downy; "it will be hall right, hif I can only get the 'andling of it for 'arf a minnit."

The trio sat very quiet in that dingy apartment. Presently the pot-boy came in, and laid a tray and cloth on the table, and placed thereon a cruet-stand and a loaf. This was a dodge of Gruffem's to "look natyral," as he said. It might have been noticed by a very minute observer that there was no knife or fork placed on that table.

The old Dutch clock ticked, ticked, and an accomplished grey parrot clawed her cage, and two or three times broke the silence by an emphatic interrogatory prefaced with an oath "—— you, who are you? —— you, who are you?"

We shall not give the interesting maledictory variations of the inquiring bird. Tops got up and looked at a print of the famous dog Billy, and then at a stuffed toy terrier pup, a representation of the celebrated fight between Broom and Hannan for five hundred pounds a side at Bicester, near Oxford, a stuffed bittern, ditto kingfisher, ditto squirrel, and other curiosities of the kind. There was a piece of sampler work done by Mrs. Gruffem's grandmother, introducing the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. There were also pictures of Mr. Gruffem's father and mother, the latter with her waist up to her armpits, and a turban on her head, which might have been the portraits of a celebrated actor and actress in the parts of Mr. and Mrs. Peachum in the "Beggars' Opera," but were not. The Downy turned his attention to the gas, which he was about to meddle with to improve the light, when Lanner emphatically motioned him to abstain. At last, loud voices and heavy steps were heard above, and Mr. Manvers, alias Tadgers, together with Mr. Gruffem, descended into the room.

"I'll bet any one three to two, you don't make all the five pins twice running," said Lanner to the Downy, just as the door opened.

" 'Arf-crowns or bobs?" inquired the Downy.

"Half-crowns or crowns if you like," said Lanner.

"Done with you in half-crowns, mate," cried Tops.

"You ain't got never a skittle-ground here, master, 'ave yer?" asked the Downy of Mr. Gruffem.

"No," said that individual, "there ain't room for it. But if you want a little sport, there's as good a bagatelle-board as any in England, and I don't care where t'other comes from," and he pointed to that article which stood in a corner of the room.

"Here's a gent here, I dessay, will jine in a game of four," continued Gruffem, indicating Manvers, who had entered, and had cast a scowling and uneasy glance at the strangers.

"I ain't such a darned idiot," was the amiable response. "It's about the tarnationest little-est, rottenest fool of a game out."

"You may make as big a game of it as you like, captin," said Mr. Gruffem. "You can bet on it, I suppose, and what more do you want?"

"Something that a man can play at, old 'oss," answered Manvers, "and not feel like a gal jest let loose from a Sunday school. I tell yer it's a dirty little cuss of a game. It ain't hardly fit to amuse niggers, or the loafing scallywags and parsons that take their part."

"What's dat yer say?" inquired the Downy.

"You air reckoned a smart fellow, I guess," said Manvers, "in this humbugging little island of yourn; but ef you war to show yourself in that cos-tume in our free republic, you'd be tarred and feathered, I guess, in no time."

"Or shot, pr'aps, vith vun of them repeatin' pistols, as I've heerd on, with six barrils, and more," said the Downy.

"Six barrels!" said Manvers; "you air a cute coon; six chambered, you mean, rotating cylindrical breech—Colt agin the world, sirree!"

"I never heerd of the gent," said the Downy. "Hany relashun to the old boss theer, as you called the respectable genelman as has jest left the room?"

"I guess not," replied Manvers. "You couldn't raise such an everlastin' slockdologer as our Colonel Colt, not with double all the machinery you've got in this fossil island."

"Come, that's a good un," said the Downy.

"It's good enough to have raised your country anyhow," said Mr. Lanner. "Come, what are you going to drink?"

"Waal," said Manvers, "I'm no ways particular; I'll take a smile of brandy and a drop of your Thames water. Look you, I went nigh putting six inches of my knife into one of your cusses of helps, the first time I liquored up in the old country. Pah! to think of measuring out what a gentleman is to drink, as if he didn't know what he was able to swallow."

"I don't mind standing a bottle," said Lanner. "We're on to a good thing" (whispering) "to-night, and no mistake. Will you stand in?"

Manvers shook his head. "I expect a friend on business of my own, every moment," he answered.

"So you've never been in England afore?" said Tops, ringing the bell in obedience to a sign from Lanner.

"Never!" answered the pretended Yankee; "and to tell you the truth, strainger, I don't care how soon I leave, either, as the bar said to the hollow tree, when it was struck by lightning."

"What's your pleasure, gents?" said Mr. Gruffem, entering.

"Three brandies and a gin, cold," said Lanner. "Is my chop done yet?"

"I'll see," was the answer.

"I should like to see vun of them rewolvers," quoth the Downy, "that I should, unkimmon."

"What do you say to this then?" asked Manvers, taking a Colt from his breast-pocket. "Mind, it's loaded."

The Downy took it with such a comical air of alarm, lest it should go off, that even Manvers couldn't refrain from laughing. In taking it, however, he contrived that the only person in apparent danger of being accidentally shot should be Manvers himself, who jumped up with an oath.

"Mind what the —— you're at!" he shouted this time, with no Yankee drawl or expression.

Lanner and Tops exchanged a rapid look, as he spoke in this manner. The former hardly needed any verification of the information he had received; but if he had done so, this helped to supply it. The Downy got Manvers to take the pistol to pieces and readjust it. The liquor was brought in and drunk, and the order repeated by Manvers.

"May I look at it agen?" asked the Downy, taking up the revolver from the table.

Manvers nodded carelessly. "Ef you want to try a shot, strainger, jest oblige me by shooting the boss," he said, "the widow can charge the funeral expenses in my bill. That's how we should do it in Californy."

No one laughed more heartily at this idea than the Downy. Indeed, he got up to laugh more freely, and reseated himself pistol in hand, so as to cover himself in great measure from Manvers's observation by placing Tops and Lanner—the latter sitting in the landlord's old-fashioned high-backed arm-chair, which had served the Presidents of an Odd Fellow's lodge for some fifty years—between himself and the pseudo-American.

The moment he had effected this, he became exceedingly busy; joining, however, from time to time in the ensuing conversation.

"Whar do you hail from, strainger?" said Manvers to Lanner.

"I belong to the river steam-boats," was the reply; "but I'm out of a berth just now, and come here to find a pal or two to do a little business." And Lanner winked at Manvers, as much as to say, "you know, old fellow?"

"Ah! I understand," rejoined Manvers. "And what's your business, mister?" addressing Tops.

"Hodd jobs," replied that gentleman; "respectable mechanic by trade."

"Anything on to-night?" inquired Manvers.

"Capital plant; glad if you'll go shares."

"Yes," said the Downy, "go in for glory. We're goin' to do a little job at Peckham."

"Peckham!" cried Manvers; "Peckham? why that's where——" and he checked himself. "I wonder whether that dried old alligator means to show up to-night?" he muttered. "It's time," and he looked at the old-fashioned clock.

Lanner frowned at the Downy. He had made a mistake in speaking of Peckham.

"Will yer jine in?" said the Downy.

"What for?" replied Manvers. "A few silver spoons, a ticker, a teapot, and a fogle? No! no! that's not my line of business."

"Well," said Lanner, who had strolled into the bar and back, after glancing at the clock, "I don't care for politics. Let's have a song."

The fact is he was afraid of something being said, which might give Manvers the alarm, before the constables, who were to be posted outside, should arrive.

"Come," he said to Manvers, "give us a Yankee touch—one of them nigger melodies if you like."

"Cuss me, ef I make such a darned idiot of myself,"

was the reply. "You should heer the melody I fetch out of niggers, when I've got 'em at work down South."

"Thank you, I'd rather not, Mr. Yankee!" said Lanner. "Come, I say, Bones" (to the Downy), "what are you good for, if you can't tip us a chant?"

"Oh! I'm kvite ekal to the hoccashun," replied that gentleman. "There's no sairimony about me, as the man said ven he took the furst turn at the fire-escape, leavin' his mother-in-law to foller. Wot shall it be, mates?" No one suggesting anything he resumed. "Wot d'yer say to the 'Honest Poor Man?' "

"Who's he?" growled Manvers. "I guess you'd want a better illumination than you can raise on your Mrs. Victoria's birthday to find that coon between Sunday and Sunday."

"The vords of this 'ere chant," resumed the Downy, "is my hown; the music was wrote by a werry celeybrated Jew as was called Moses Hart—Moss Hart they called him, for short, and in crinsekense rekvires a stunnin' chorius, vun as vould vake hup Hexeter 'All. You must hall jine in, or I'm run down in a minnit. Here's Mister Gruffem with a werry fine woice, as he keeps in the cellar for special hoccashuns."

As he spoke that individual entered.

"I can't have no noise here," he said. "I ain't got no license for music."

"Just this once, landlord," said Lanner; "and I'll stand glasses all round."

"Well, just this once, but dror it mild, gents, on account of the babby."

"Never mind her," said Mrs. Gruffem, a little pale, undersized woman with greasy curls, peeping in; "she's been awake this quarter of an hour. I'm sure I shall be glad of a little change; for I've heard nothing but them awful words which I can't abide, though I ought to get used to it, all this blessed evening. I am sure I can't think what folks use such language for—that I can't. It don't do 'em no good. I wish the Government would stop it, instead of worriting us about a few innocent games, such as skittles, which helps to draw folks out of the bar. Now, young man, if you're going to begin——"

Thus admonished, the Downy struck up, with a voice which was originally by no means a despicable tenor—

THE HONEST POOR MAN.

Come bile up a chant to the honest poor man,
Who dies ven he's vanted, and lives how he can;
If a joey he's got, vy a copper he'll give—
Cos he knows wot it is to be hard pinched to live.

(CHORUS.) Down, down on the table with pint pot and can,
Vilst I sings to the praise of the honest poor man;
Clink a clink—whang a bang, mates! rat-tat-ter-a-tan,
As we sings to the praise of the honest poor man!

His conshense is whole, though his togs is in tatters;
'Tain't the mud of the streets as a conshense bespatters,
And he never so much as the vickedness guesses
Of the vealthy as Prowidense 'specially blesses.
Down, &c.

Yet it ain't no great wirtue I twigs in the bloke
As has lashins of ochre and mountains of toke,
If he don't get pulled up afore Lord Mayor and beak,
Vere a harmy of nobs to his character speak.
Down, &c.

There's the swell as is born both to title and tin,
Sich a duffer in nobblin' he's allers let in;
Vile the pious old banker to thievin' has took—
'Tain't much change, arter all, from a daw to a rook.
Down, &c.

Now the cove as is poor he must starve on the square,
And hoft to look hungry is more nor he dare;
For it's wus for a copper to ax in the street,
Than the vidder and horphan of thousands to cheat.
Down, &c.

It's safer to plant a hunlimited job,
If you don't want the law to come down on your nob;
'Tis the small herbility nobody bilks,
Let your big vuns be plenty as vinkles or vilks.
Down, &c.

Then 'ere's to the poor man, for none knows his trials,
As has allers kept straight, though he lives in the Dials;
He's the angel I'll fly, for a pint or a crown,
Agen all the rich and the great in this town.
Down, &c.

The Downy's song was much applauded; and when he executed a brief, but marvellously rapid "break-down" as soon as the last expiring effort of the chorus was ended, the applause knew no bounds. Several customers had come in from the bar. During the confusion in clearing the room, in which both Gruffem and his pot-boy took a vehement part, the Downy slipped out unperceived. On his return, he sat down quite unconcernedly by Manvers.

"Waal," said that gentleman, "I guess you may as well return my Colt. I've had my eye on them front steps this five minutes, and I don't keer to continue the practice."

"I never robbed a pal in my life," returned the Downy; "and I ain't goin' to begin now. I slipped it into my pocket, ven I took that trifle of hexercise, and werry nigh forgot it for the matter of a minnit.

Here it is," and he placed it on the table. "I never see a Colt's rewolver afore. I'm werry much obliged to you for a sight on it."

Manvers examined the caps, and replaced it in his breast-pocket.

"I suppose," observed Tops, "that they don't think much of a man's life in Amerikey?"

"No more, I reckon," returned Manvers, "than they do in this darned old country about taking the life of a chicken."

"That's a pint I should like to harguy," quoth the Downy. "But fust, vith your leaf, I'll take a glass vith the kimpany. Your 'ealth, genelmen! Now vith regard to cheap lives, I'm for cheap living. Wot's a chap got more nor his life? It's hall werry vell to talk, but supposin' some vun helse took yourn? You don't 'appen to 'ave rewolvin' lives too in them parts, do yer?"

"Not exactly," replied Manvers; "but we're not such tarnation funkers as you Britishers. Why we make a fortin out there, and spend it, while you'd be mixing a drink, that is, if you knew how to mix one. I tell you, you're run out, and you'll have to squirm pretty smart, if we don't re-annex you out of kindness, and protect that old, used-up, worn-out, mangy quadruped the British lion under the banner of freedom——" Here the magnanimous speaker was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Gruffem.

"Any orders, gents?" said that personage. "I thought the bell rung."

"What's the time, Mr. Gruffem?" asked Lanner.

"The right time!" replied the Landlord. "The clock's square to a second."

"Then here goes," said Lanner, quietly taking out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, and approaching Manvers.

The latter did not notice this action of Lanner at first. He was engaged in looking at his watch.

"Jeerusalem!" he muttered. "It's an hour past the old cuss's time of meeting. He used to be punctual enough. It was his sole virtue." (Feels in his pocket.) "Yes, here it is, sure enough; but he don't know that I've left a copy in safe hands. I shan't finish with him this bout, I reckon. How natural this cursed lingo comes to me now." (To the landlord, aloud.) "I say, old hoss, a light in that black hole of mine up-stairs, will you?"

"You won't want that candle," said Lanner, coolly. "John Swindles Manvers, I arrest you in the Queen's name for murder!"

"Murder!" exclaimed Gruffem, starting back.

"Come," said Lanner, "the game's up. Out with your bunches of fives. Close in, will you," he shouted, rushing with his last words upon Manvers. But the latter tripped him up, and felled him with a terrific blow. Then pulling out his revolver, he fired at the prostrate officer, and then in turn at Tops and the Downy, and lastly at Gruffem.

"Curse you, you fat Judas! this is your doing," he said. At the last shot the cap merely exploded. All the powder had fallen out of the chamber with the concussion of the others.

"Ha! ha!" cried the Downy, "I never see a rewolver afore. Blaze away! The bullets is hall in my pocket."

The answer was the pistol itself, hurled with tremendous violence at the speaker's head. Had he not ducked with wonderful quickness, we are inclined to think that the D. C. might have ended his earthly career that evening.

"Now, mates," cried the pugnacious pot-boy, who had entered of his own accord, making a rush at Manvers like a bull-dog, an animal which he much resembled.

But the desperado hurled him from him with a violence which caused him to cannon from Tops and strike the oaken panel of the room with considerable, but abated violence.

In the mean time Lanner had partly arisen, bleeding, but undismayed. On his knees, he made an ineffectual grasp at the legs of Manvers, who seizing the pepper-box from the table, wrenched the head off and cast its contents partly in Lanner's and partly in the Downy's eyes. Then seizing and flinging Tops away from him with a sort of half-blow, half-push, which, like the pat of a lion, was twice as effective as it seemed, he darted with surprising velocity and activity for a man of his weight up the stairs, and was heard to shut and bolt a door above.

There was a pause of consternation and of pain, for the pepper, though fortunately not cayenne, was sufficiently pungent to blind those whose eyes had been its recipients.

Then there came a crash, a roar like that of a wounded buffalo, ending in a shrill yell, and a thud on the stones without, and all was still.

"Lord ha' mercy on his soul!" cried Gruffem. "He's tried to escape by the little bridge, as was left hanging half-way across this morning by them beggars of Irish workmen."

Lanner was the first to recover his presence of mind. "If he's killed, he's saved his neck another way, that's all, Mr. Landlord."

The Downy and the pot-boy rushed out of the room. Tops was too much "shuk," as he called it, to stir for a few moments; but Jem, who had received by far the worst treatment, save that administered to Mr. Lanner, was a glutton for punishment and as hard as nails.

"Well," said Lanner, "he's by far the toughest customer that ever I tackled. What a name he would have made in the Ring. Sharp, too, or he wouldn't have thought of the pepper. Stop! what's this? Something he dropped in the struggle. It looks like a will. Is this what you want, mate?" (to Tops) "Give it to me again, when you've looked at it. I'll take care that it is not mislaid."

Tops took it joyfully. "It's all right," he said. "Oh! if we could only find Mr. Arthur now!"

At this moment a policeman entered, together with the Downy, whose face looked ghastly pale even through its sooty disguise, and who appeared, what with blood, dirt, and pepper, anything rather than a cheerful nigger minstrel.

"Is it a case of stretcher, mates?" asked Lanner.

"Dead as door-nails!" was the answer. "He's broke his neck, and fractured his skull, too, for that matter. What shall we do with the body?"

"Close the house, and put it in the smoke-room. See that nothing is disturbed. Well, mates!" continued Inspector Lanner, "I hope you are none the worse for this little brush with a grizzly. It's nothing when you're used to it. Just ask your wife for a basin and water, and towels" (to Gruffem), "and a little vinegar and brown paper. I've an ugly bruise or two."

"It strikes me," said Tops to the Downy, in a half-whisper, "that we've come out of this a little shady, with all the captain's cleverness. If it hadn't been for you, there would have been a pretty story to be told to-morrow."

"Vell," said the party appealed to; "he'd got clear off as fur as ve wos consarned, and no mistake. I never thought as I could 'a drored them bullets hout as I did. If I hadn't had the right tool along with me, ve'd 'a bin sarved out all round handsome. Yer see, when I wos runnin' messages at Colt's, the gent in the retail bis'ness often axed me to draw the charges of pistils, as wos brought back by them as didn't know how to use 'em. I s'pose it's no use regrettin' his death, as is gone, but he wos the gamest cove hever I come across and no mistake. I never had no chance of getting hold on him. And wot's more," said the Downy to himself, "I ain't much haccount, ven it's four or five to vun. It may suit the police, cos it's their dooty, but not this 'ere nigger. I likes fair play and no favour." (Aloud.)

"I should like a drop o' summat short, guv'nor. Pr'aps, you'd reckymind summat as is good."

Mr. Gruffem grinned, acquiesced, and produced a bottle which he apparently kept for his own private use.

Tops and the Downy took each a couple of glasses, and the latter then divested himself of some of his "nigger" paraphernalia, and endeavoured to clean his face. But his face was unused to the treatment, and resolutely withstood it for some time. Finally, it presented a sort of parti-coloured appearance, which was highly effective and amusing.

"May I have the will with me, Mr. Lanner?" asked Tops. "You don't know how delighted some parties will be with the sight of it."

"Well," said Lanner, "you must bring it to the police office to-morrow, and must let 'em think that you found it, and then I don't so much mind. But be careful!"

"Hooray!" cried Tops. "Three cheers more, and one in for the little one." His exulting shout sounded strangely. The police were arranging the burly frame of Manvers in the next room, and carefully taking notes of the contents of his pockets. Moreover, a terrific storm, which had been threatening London and its environs all the afternoon, had burst over their heads, utterly unobserved during the fight, and now raged outside with all the fury of elemental conflict. Next to the heart of the dead man was a small leathern case attached by a faded ribbon worn round his neck. In it they found, not bank-notes, nor diamonds; but a lock of fair hair, and a letter, not too well written, in a woman's hand, beginning, "Dearest Jack!" The letter was worn and faded. It had been written years ago by a gay and worthless woman whom Manvers had loved, yes loved; but who had never cared a straw for him, and who had lured him to his ruin. A woman of the worst description, known to the Haymarket and its purlieus, and for whom he had first robbed his employer, and taken the first step in crime. Yes, when Manvers was still the prim, precise, and methodical prince of confidential clerks and cashiers in the City, he was already a kind of "Champagne Charlie" at the "Blue Posts," Bob Croft's, and other night-houses of the West-end. "Champagne Charlie!" what vulgarity of vice do not those words suggest? Years ago, we remember a song in praise of "cigars and cogni-àc" as it was pronounced by unfledged ensigns and clerklings, and the maturer crapulous fools of thirty, more or less. Both good things in their way—the former hardly equal to the pipe, that wondrous comfort, companion, and solace in care; true friend, too, of the poor. But for a youth or man to proclaim in song his adoration of cigars and brandy as divinities—'tis an infinitely base use to which to prostitute his sympathies and apprentice his vocal talents. "Cigars and cogniac" had undoubted greatly assisted in the fall of Manvers. They had dulled his conscience and inflamed his blood. It is the abuse, and not the use of them, which we denounce; but let it be remembered that it is always the abuse which is celebrated in the Bacchanalian and Cytherean lay.

Sufficient proofs of Grinderby's complicity were also found in the pockets of the unhappy man, whose violent death we have thus recorded.

"I say, landlord," said Mr. Lanner, who was greatly consoled on finding that his beauty was not likely to be impaired by the rough usage he had undergone, "could you manage a little supper—something hot—say a steak and fried onions, after all this? I think I shall sleep here to-night; for the storm is likely to last, I fancy."

"Certainly, Captain Lanner; anything you like, sir," was the reply. And he gave the order. "Get clean sheets on the lodger's bed, Mary," he said to a slipshod girl. "He won't want his room to-night."

Mr. Lanner was not troubled with nerves or refinement.

"Could I speak a word with you, captain," continued Gruffem.

"Certainly," replied Lanner. "Fire away."

"Well, I hope you think I acted right this evening, Captain Lanner. There is a case coming on at the Old Bailey about a robbery, and I've got a subpœna on it. They want to gammon the judge as how it were planned in this house. All I know is that I know nothing about it; but I expect that I shall come in for it hot and strong. I've got enemies, captain, as every honest man has, as tries to get a living and injure no one. I hope no offence; but if you could be there, and say a good word for me, it may save my license."

"I'll do it," said Lanner. "You may depend on me. I always go out of my way to serve a man who has done right by me."

"And about the money, as the stiff un there owes me for his lodging and keep? It's nigh fifteen pound. Is there any chance of my getting paid? It's all in my books quite reg'lar and correct."

"I'll do the best I can," returned Lanner. "There's a matter of fifty pound been found on him."

"He promised to pay me this very night," said Gruffem; "and it would be very hard if I lost it, seeing we must all live."

Lanner nodded carelessly, and lit a cigar. After a little pleasant chat, he bade Tops and the Downy good-night. "Don't forget, you must be at the station to-morrow morning, the pair of you. Here, I want to speak to you" (to the Downy). "I think," whispered Mr. Lanner, "I wouldn't say anything about drawing the charges of that revolver." (And he slipped a sovereign into the Downy's hand). "I'll take care of you. Don't you be afraid. You may want a friend some of these odd days. Eh?" And Mr. Lanner winked and nodded, and puffed his smoke in a series of little rings very pretty to behold.

Tops and the Downy got into a Hansom cab. "I must change these togs," said the former, "and get to the Hopera as soon as I can. I promised to fetch Susan. She's gone to hear the missus sing to-night. It's a fancy of hers jest to see how she's received in England. I say, what was it Lanner said to you jest now?"

The Downy told him.

"But how will he account for the bullets hitting none of us?" asked Tops.

"Oh! that's heasy enough," replied the Downy. "It was on account of his hactivity and hartfulness, don't yer see? We should hall 'ave been shot, if the hinspector of perlice hadn't bin there. It was him as dodged the bullets, and hindered we from bein' 'it."

"Oh! that's the game, is it?" replied Tops; "and are you going to be so soft as to oblige him?"

"Vot's the hodds?" asked the Downy. "It'll do him good, and von't hurt me. Vy, they vouldn't so much as horder me a pint of ale, if I'd ha' saved the Lord Mayor and the Harchbishop of Middlesex, and hall Her Majesty's ministers from bein' shot. They'd say it was a haxident, or say nothink about it, if it wos proved in court; and they'd give the revard to a party as wos handy at the time, and didn't vant it, the biggest svell as appeared to be vithin hearin' of the shots. As like as not, they'd 'and hover a testymonial and a barrinetcy, if he ain't got vun halready, to Sir Richard Mayne for bein' Chief Kimmishuner of the Bobbies the year as it was done."

"Well, I'm blowed, if I don't believe you're about right," said Tops.

"Arter all, this 'ere Lanner's not a bad sort; and if it'll hoblige him, I ain't pertickler to a shade," quoth the Downy.

"But you surely won't go for to say as you didn't do what you did?" asked his friend.

The Downy shook his head.

"I ain't agoin' to say nothink, but wot I'm axed. I leaves hall the lying and prewaricatin' to them as can make it hanswer. They'll make it all right enough for themselves, or I don't know 'em. Don't you be afeard."

The honest fellow had reason for what he said. How often do we see rewards lavished on humbugs and pretenders, when the claims of true and real benefactors to Society, their country, and the world are ignored and pooh-poohed with contempt! If a man is too poor to put in an appearance, to advertise himself, to give dinners and reward his adherents and supporters, he is more likely to reap abuse and ridicule for a benefit conferred upon the community, than praise. When he is dead, some one may or may not seek to make contingent capital out of his fame, and urge the bestowal of a trumpery pension on his widow and children, if haply he leave any, and they survive the wave of forgetfulness which has rolled over his grave. A leading journal may take his history for the text of a leading article, and point out how his busy brain and unpaid and unrecognised exertions saved millions or gained millions for an ungrateful country. But even this is a chance, and not a certainty, and depends upon the chapter of accidents, and whether the rich pretenders who have robbed him of his fame, if not of his substantial reward, have passed away in time.

Thus may a man labour one half of his life to launch a great enterprise conceived in his own head, and triumph in the universal recognition of the fact he has worked night and day to proclaim. He shall labour the other half to identify himself with his own work and its results, and if he cannot purchase the acknowledgment of truth with money, he shall labour in obscurity and in vain.

Nay, he is fortunate, if he does not live to reap derision for his pains, and to see his own deeds and merits commemorated, on a monument to a wealthy impostor, or an aristocratic charlatan.

The cab rolled on for some time before either Tops or the Downy opened their lips. As they passed over London Bridge, the former pulled out the will from his breast.

"We must find him," he said, "dead or alive; but it's my opinion that he lives. And if we find him, and he don't settle a hannuity on my noble friend here," clapping the Downy on the back, "I'll swallow them six bullets for pills. Have you seen the Signora? Of course not. Do you know that she has asked for you a dozen times, if she have once? She ain't one of the ungrateful sort. It's just like you. Why don't you go to see her? She'll see that you never want for anything, I'll pound it. Didn't you save her life?"

The Downy shook his head. "I ain't agoin' nigh her," he said, "and that's all about it, mate. Didn't she and t'other hangel come down vith a pot o' money, and vere is it? Sum on it was eat and drunk on the premises, and the lieyers has the rest. Wot'll she think of my kimmershial transacshuns? I ain't agoin' to appear in her blessed bright, beautiful heyes like a fool, if I knows it. Besides, jest look at wot I had for no more than I done 'arf a score o' times and never thought nothink of no more?"

Tops looked at him hard, but said nothing. The fact is, at that moment they were both startled by so vivid a flash of lightning, followed by a deafening crash of thunder, that neither spoke for a few minutes, save in reference to the storm. Its violence, however, abated just as they arrived at the lodgings in a court off Holborn, where Tops was to change his clothes.

"Well, good-night, Mister Downy," he said, "you're a trump, and no mistake; but if you don't have a hannuity, my name ain't Tops, and I ain't agoing to marry my Susan."

The Downy pursued his way towards Westminster Bridge, over which he lived, somewhere down behind Astley's Theatre, as we have understood; and where he repaired furniture, and did odd jobs, enjoying an immense popularity among all the small children in his immediate vicinity, whose toys he mended, whose balls he rescued from various lodgments and mishaps down areas and over walls and railings, and who sometimes rode on his truck or barrow, and sometimes on his back. On this particular night his road thither was not very straight, as he stopped at various low publics on the way, played three or four games of skittles, and smoked several pipes. Suffice it to say, that it was between twelve and one before he reached Westminster Bridge. For the present let us leave him to enjoy himself after his own peculiar fashion en route.

Mr. Tops put on a pair of very tight black trousers and a cut-away black coat and vest, which latter reached down far on his hips, a blue satin tie, fastened with a horse-shoe pin, and a pair of boots very square in the toes, and as resplendent as they could be made with blacking. On the summit of this gorgeous array he poised a hat, which a prince might have envied, it was so napless and low in the crown, and he felt himself fit for the "Uproar," as the Downy called it, or for a congress of the most wide-awake swells in Europe. Thus apparelled, he proceeded to the Haymarket, conscious of being half an hour too late; but radiant and triumphant, not to say defiant, in his mood and swagger. With a cigar in his mouth, a carnation in his button-hole, happiness in his heart, and the will in his pocket, which he was longing for Susan to read through and thoroughly explain, a task rather above his capacity. Tops felt, as he said, as if he had won the Derby by a neck, and positively rejoiced in his aching bones and smarting bruises.

We are convinced that no excuse, no gain, no triumph, in short, nothing will successfully plead his excuse for being late to Susan during at least the first ten minutes. Did any woman ever listen to reason pleading against wounded vanity in less than that time?

CHAPTER XXIII.

OUTCAST AND OYSTER.

Ung feuillet extorqué au gézier de la Nature et de la Vérité.

* * * * * * *

Aulcunes maulvaises gens crieroat encores de cecy. Mais treuvez ung trousson d'homme parfaictemeat content sur ceste miette de boue.

Ha! fulle mignonne . . . . Garse rieuse!

Songe à chevaulchier les mousches sans brides. Vray Dieu! elle s'y ruée comme ung cent d'escholiers dans une haye pleine de nuvions, au desbotter des vespres. Au diable le magister!—Les Contes Drolatiques de Balzac, passim.

BEFORE the entrance to the Opera, a man wild and ragged, with matted hair and beard, and sunken eyes, with a torn and threadbare coat buttoned up to the chin, not even shabbily genteel, but downright poverty-stricken, to which coat, street-charity might have been justified in offering pence—such a one pauses, and ventures to read the affiches of the luxury of Music and of Song. There had been, as we have narrated, a thunder-storm, and the man was drenched to the skin; the day had been dark, close, sultry, and lurid; the artillery of Heaven had, however, limbered up and retreated, muttering occasionally with stray shots in the distance; reverberating along the reaches of the river, it might be heard occasionally in Trafalgar-square, where there was a pause in the din of traffic. There had been reinforcements somewhere in the line of retreat, somewhere about Woolwich, and then Erith, or Purfleet; but in London the leaden skies only continued to weep in a dreary and disconsolate manner, as for a battle lost. In fact, it was a wet night after a storm. So there were not many persons, save those whose duty brought them there, hanging about the Opera House, crowded as it was; so some one said who had been in, and was speeding eastwards, without waiting for the ballet, to write his critique to appear in a daily newspaper the next morning. Arthur Aubrey, therefore, read undisturbed for a short time, reading at first mechanically, and then with a species of wild excitement approaching madness in its aspect.

What is that he says and repeats? "First appearance of the renowned singer!" (vacantly). "Ha! ha! it will be my last appearance on any stage, soon." (Continues reading.) "Bianca—Stellini—Bianca? That is Blanche!—Blanche!—my eyes are dim. Her Majesty's Theatre. Poor Queen! She cannot go to her own theatre now. It is a long time since I was at the Opera. What is the day of the month?" (Reads.) "Great Heavens! The anniversary of her death. My Bianca! my Blanche!" (Pauses and then continues reading.) "Bianca Stellini—in the celebrated opera—composed for her, expressly, and produced for the first time in this country . . . ." (Raises his voice.) " 'The Blind Bride of Sorrento!' Teresina Fabiani—Signora

Bianca Stellini. Strange! strange! My head is giving way. I have eaten nothing to-day. Is it fancy? Let me look again. No! there are the letters. I must wait and try to see this Bianca come out. If she should be like my Blanche—ha! ha! what a fancy—I am going mad. But she sleeps, sleeps under the waters. The blind bride! The blind bride!"

Here there was a commotion, the Opera being over, and several persons coming out.

"I will go to the stage-door and see her, if they do not drive me away," said Aubrey. "I remember once seeing a ragged man just like myself, as I must appear now, look into our carriage as we drove away, and I never forgot his expression. The police pushed him back. Who could he be?"

Thus wildly talking, he disappeared behind a carriage.

"It's no use scolding me, I tell you," quoth Tops, who appeared talking to a young lady under the piazza. "You wouldn't listen to a word I had to say, and now I've a mind not to tell you at all."

"There's no excuse," said Susan, for it was she to whom Mr. Tops addressed himself; "but whatever you have to say, make haste and say it; for I must be home in time to meet missus. Oh, dear! it was lovely to-night. It's a piece missus has had written for her, a story something like her own. Mr. Edgar has translated it from the 'libretter.' Only she, that is Teresina, becomes rich and gives her husband all the money, and goes into a convent, and won't see him any more. Oh! it is so beautiful, the 'no, non credo pew (più),' where she tells him she won't have anything more to say to him, and serves him right too."

"Bother Teresina!" said Tops. "Will you listen? I've got the will, I tell you. And to think you won't listen!"

"What!" cried Susan. "No! never! Got it! And is it worth anything after all, for I never believed in it?"

"I want you to see it," said Tops. "Never mind about being a little late to-night, but come over yonder and have some supper—I'm half starved—and just look at the will, and see what it is. It's a very short one, this time, that's one comfort. I've seen the date—a fortnight before poor master's father died."

"Well, I'll come for half an hour," said Susan; "for I could eat something myself, after that beautiful opera. Six times before the curtain! Think of that!"

"Six shots from a pistol!" cried Tops; "and it's a mercy me and Mr. Downy wasn't killed, let alone the captain! Think of that!"

"Nonsense!" replied Susan, "who ever heard of six shots from one pistol? I know better than that."

"This comes of living abroad," said Tops, as they seated themselves in a small, quiet-looking oyster-shop, on the other side of the Haymarket from the Opera House, about half-way up. "I suppose you never heard of a revolver?"

"Yes I have," said Susan. "To be sure. They do go off ever so many times, I believe. I forgot all about them. I was thinking of her being aimed at, as one may say, with so many bouquets."

"I tell you," said Tops, "that we was being aimed at with bullets; and this Manvers, or Tadgers, or whatever he called himself, is killed, and a-lying weltering in his gore, and it's a wonder it ain't me instead, and here you talk of your blessed Opera, as if nothing had happened."

"Killed!" exclaimed Susan. "Killed! That is dreadful, indeed. But tell me, Tops. You didn't kill him, I hope? I never could like you again if you did. There, don't touch me, if you've killed a man!"

"Suppose I have killed him, didn't he try to kill me?" answered Tops, who rather liked the notion of his prowess conveyed by the inquiry. "Perhaps you'd have liked he should have killed me instead."

Susan began to cry. "Oh, Tops!" she whimpered, "I never could marry a man whose hands were stained by a fellow-creature's gore."

"Two pints of stout, immediate," said Tops to the waiter, who appeared at that moment, napkin in hand, "and a dozen ice-eaters" (so he pronounced it), "and a small lobster—bread-and-butter for two."

"Yes, sir, directly, sir. Any salad with the lobster, sir?"

"None for me," said Susan. "They never wash it clean. I had a lettuce once that was alive."

"Beg your parding, miss," said the waiter, "it couldn't 'ave been here, we always wash our salads very perticler."

"Soft or hard soap?" asked Tops.

"Beg your parding, sir, not with no manner of soap at all, sir, but the best of pump-water. It must be Pegg's, as you mean, miss" (naming a rival establishment). "You see, sir, they've sich a custom there, which they've robbed us of, as I might say, that they haven't time to wash their salads, and folks as is drunk, as they mostly are as goes there, is not so perticler—no, sir, it stands to reason, don't it? And as for their hysters, why, I've knowed it take two people to swallow one of them."

"Two people?" cried Tops. "What do you mean?"

"Well," said the waiter, "perhaps the lady wouldn't like to hear it before supper."

"Drive on!" said Tops, "I think it's best beforehand. But I say, give us that stout, will you?"

"Suttinly, sir, yes, sir!" and the waiter disappeared and reappeared with the pewters.

Whilst he was gone on this errand, Mr. Tops gave a brief outline of the event of the evening, related in the last chapter, to Susan.

"Well," said that young lady, "I never heard of such a set of foolish harum-scarum donkeys in my life. You deserve a good whipping, every one of you. I should have thought Captain Lanner would have known better. Why, Mr. Downy was worth the whole lot of you. I forgive him, for his cleverness. Only think if you had been shot!"

"What's the matter with the girl?" cried Tops in answer. "You're as white as" (he was going to say the table-cloth, but hesitated) "as a sheet, that you are."

"Only a little faint! This place is so hot. Open the window. I shall be better for the stout," she answered.

And she was better for it directly afterwards.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MEETING ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

Il se forge en ce monde des hazards auxquels les gens de petit esperit n'accordent point de créance, pour ce que ces dictes rencontres semblent supernaturelles.

THE haggard man dodged about the carriages, as if his intentions were not honourable.

"I say, Bill," said one policeman to another, "whatever's that cove up to? He ain't any one as I know. I ain't seen him try to fetch no cabs, nor open no doors."

"He looks precious wild," said the other. "I'll attend to him directly, as soon as the Prince is gone. He wants looking arter, he does."

"You don't think he's going to shoot any one, do you?" said the first speaker.

"Not he; but jest pass the word not to let him come anigh the royal carriages. Here!" (to Arthur) "be off, will yer? or I'll precious soon make yer." But Aubrey heard him not, and disappeared at the moment.

The Royal party drove off, and at last a shout was raised, "Madame Stelleeny's car-ridge, Mad-ame Stelleeny's car-ridge stops the way!"

A neat dark brougham and pair drove up. Then came forth the great Cantatrice, surrounded by an admiring circle, lessee, manager, singers, musicians. Opera enthusiasts, et hoc genus omne, including large patrons in the way of loan, lord and Jew banker, admitted by virtue of their privilege—had it been by privilege of their virtue, they assuredly would have remained outside. There was the bloated Lord Tipton and Wednesbury. There was Sir Robert Postobit, who had arrived at the dignity of whiskers, and a seat in the House of Commons, and had inherited another great property, since he broke his father's heart and spent his own, and had learnt the wicked ways of the world, so far as a necessary portion of its selfishness and "prudence" were concerned. There was Lieutenant-Colonel Plantagenet, M.P., whose father was called old Stagglicher, late of "Germany"—Houndsditch, and who had surpassed all other knaves in a period of unexampled knavery in the history of the commercial decline of England. There was a very old felonious duke, of whom dark stories were told in conversation, now and then, but who had never been convicted, nor brought before a police court in his own name. There was Stingray, of course, and Hugag of the "Centipede," knighted at last as a reward for his gushing court sycophancy, at least so 'twas said. Why should not a man be knighted for social depravity in England, when a Paynim is admitted to the Order of the Garter, which was especially directed against his race, his religion.

and his existence on earth? There was a death's-head and skeleton figure in dress clothes, whom even Profligacy scouted from her ranks; until Morality pocketed his bribe, and took him by the hand, re-introducing him to Society, not even as a dreadful example, but as an injured and a slandered man. There were these and many more.

Through them quickly stepped Blanche, smiling and utterly unconscious, if not of their presence, yet of their character, their intentions, or their lives. Like the Lady in the Masque of Milton among the midnight crew of Comus, like a spell-girt sea-nymph gliding through a submarine chamber lined with interlacing polypi, she passed unconscious through that unholy throng, with all its passions, its cynicism, and its godless unrevealed history and attributes, and, above all, utterly heedless of the accursed magnetic power of its wealth. She saw in it but the lovers of dramatic art and amateurs of song. Nay, she smiled on it a sweet smile of pleasure and thankfulness, as she slightly inclined her small hooded head to either side as she went through. Outside, for a moment she threw back her hood, and looked around at the mirror-like pavements, as they reflected back the lamps, and saw the wet and glistening carriages and steaming horses, the eager crowd pushing, shouting, and moving under the colonnade, the grey pillars of the opposite theatre, the illuminated Haymarket cafes and their several groups before the door, the eager cab-drivers, and the shining capes of the policemen—all this she saw in a few brief moments, ere she gained her carriage, pulled up the window, which caused her to look like a "Sabrina fair" sitting "under the glassy cool translucent wave," and was driven away, with a slight cheer and clapping of hands from the crowd. As she looked around her, a hoarse scream was heard, probably from some drunken wretch; and the form of a man flitted from behind a pillar, crossed the street regardless of a pair of horses, which reared nearly over him, and disappeared in the shadows of a narrow street across the road.

"Dear me!" said Susan to Tops, as they stood under shelter in front of the Haymarket Theatre, anxiously looking for an empty cab, and feeling as comfortable as lobsters, stout, the possession of the will, which Susan declared to be all right, and the prospect of their speedy union, could make them. "Did you see that man? Whatever can he be up to?"

"No good, I should say," said Tops. "I should say it's the ghost of the chap as swallowed that ice-eater, the waiter told us of."

And they both laughed a merry little laugh. Heaven help us! From thoughtless boyhood to purblind old age, how often do the pangs of others minister to our enjoyment? The clown with starving children, the pantaloon with a painful, hopeless disease, the seamstress who stitched all night at the ball-dress trimmed with roses, the girl whose attenuated fingers wove the flowers of the bridal wreath, the figment of humanity whose gait and garb cause us merriment in the street, the anguish of those who die leaving us their heirs, the toil of those who work to leave us the means of existence when they die, the armed host, each with its Iliad of sufferings, woes, and deaths, in order that one day of triumph may be celebrated, or that one mortal name be breathed during thrice three hundred, or thrice three thousand years—what does it matter? What are days or hours in the history of the countless ocean pebbles that roll to our feet on the moaning shores? Is it not all the same story?

For some must weep and some must play.

Ay, and too often many must weep, in order that few may play.

We must change our scene. It is some two hours later, and the rain still comes down steadily, though much less heavily than before. There is an oppression in the atmosphere, in spite of the storm. Broad and massive Westminster Bridge is nearly deserted. A lengthy train hurtles across at Hungerford, probably the last, before some few brief hours of repose. The colossal Clock Tower gives forth its brazen sound. It is a quarter to two, and London sleeps, as much as ever it does sleep; for entire rest never comes to the Great City by night. Close to where yon fair and beautiful girl is sleeping in a wealthy abode, dreaming innocent dreams of paradise and love, is a grim slaughter-house, where greasy, blood-stained figures of men, and with them a nice cheerful merry lad, apprentice to the "dreadful trade," are busily slaughtering lambs. From her chamber window that young lady could see, were she to look, the shadows of the figures performing in the sacrificial rites through the grated windows and ventilating skylight, and might wonder at the redness of that glare, ruddy as the planet Mars. It is the reflection of the steaming blood of the sacrifice on the whitewashed walls. Were she to open her window, she would hear the sounds of the assassination within—bleat and gurgle, blow and thud on the reeking floor. What of it? That young lady, horrified as she would be at the scene, eats lamb. To-morrow she will enjoy for breakfast rognons d'agneau sautés au vin de Madère. The lambs suffer, that beauty as well as ugliness may eat. How many nice little boys, and girls too, would like to peep in by daytime, and see the baa-lambs killed! What other scenes are going on in London at that hour, it would need an Asmodeus to tell. A father and mother sit mourning for their lost child, a little boy of ten, who fell out of a two-story window, but a fortnight before. He has just said aloud, to console her, but she knows not what he has said, "Father! not our will, but Thine be done." It was their only child. Yonder is a light from a student's window high in the Strand. He is working early and late for his examination in surgery. He, too, has a father and mother, and the thought of them is present as he studies; for he is an affectionate son. What is it that he is poring over and turning round? It is the heart of a boy killed, as he carelessly informed two or three of his friends, by a fall from a window! O cæca mens! O dura mortalium ilia! And were it not so, where should we be? What mind could bear to be en rapport with the universal and particular tortures of humanity, or even of dogs, not to speak of the entire donkey family, and the numerous martyrs to brutality among domestic cats? One sees a battle-field, either in part, or as a panorama of the wounded and slain. Who could realise it all, in all its particulars, with all the living mourners, all the frantic scenes that shall follow, when that butcher's bill reaches home? So London did not entirely sleep, and Westminster Bridge was not altogether still, as the same ragged figure we saw at the Haymarket reeled across, and gained the pavement at the end near the Houses of Parliament, and looked out upon river and sky, gazing mechanically at houses, chimneys, barges, and motionless steamers moored for the night, and many other objects, all painted in Indian ink, and lighted by the yellow and sickly lamplights flickering near and far through the gloom.

"Mad! mad!" the figure shouted, with a hoarse voice. "For, as I live and am about to die, I would have sworn it was she herself. Do the fiends mock our despair with delusive forms and shapes, to turn all our thoughts from God, at such a time as this? Merciful Heaven! Is it a crime in me to die, who am unable longer to drag out a miserable existence? Last night I slept, oh, horror! horror! within the walls of a pitiless Gehenna itself. Tired as I was, the stench, and utterances more dreadful than the stench, awoke me, and I thought I was in Hell, whose fiends were at play. I was the mark of all their jeers, the butt of all their obscenities too gross for thought. I will not endure such a night again. Heaven cannot ask it of me; for Heaven surely decrees not the pollution of the soul. If I lie down here to die, my tortured body will be found and dragged to a dead-house, and perhaps recognised. No! no! I have no pride. I have taken alms in the street. I have eaten the refuse which menials could not sell, with the fierceness of a famished hound. A merciful Providence, a vengeful Deity, can ask no more of me than what I have endured and deserve, yes, deserve. Oh! Blanche, if by some miracle thou art alive—if it was thyself whom I saw—radiant, triumphant, beautiful—but no! no! thou wast blind when I deserted thee; blind! blind! It was a trick of sight—a delusion of the senses, before death, sent to remind me more forcibly of all that I did—the enormity of my folly and crime."

The unfortunate man paused.

" 'Tis but a leap," he said. "The water seems to grow nearer and invite me, as I gaze at it. I hear its rush beneath—its lapping tongues murmur of forgetfulness, oblivion. The tide is running down. So much the better! God in Heaven forgive me! Blanche, I come, I come. Thy name shall be the last on ray lips—Blanche!"

He took a few paces backward, and then rushed forward. As he did so, a man met him in full career, running from the Lambeth side of the river, and sent him reeling to his knees.

"Pick up the pieces!" cried the unknown individual, who had so opportunely (as it might be) interposed. "Here, old feller! You ain't a contemplatin' sooicide, air yer! Don't yer see the fire there? Come along and bear a hand, vill yer? You'll get a warmin', I can promise yer, in no time."

So saying, the Downy, for he it was, pulled Aubrey forcibly around, and pointed to a red glare just over the bridge.

"Don't yer hear 'em a-shoutin'?" he said. "There ain't a hinjin hup yet. There's the Prince of Wales and the Dook of Sutherland'll be there directly, and they'll be a axing for me like mad."

"What do you mean? A fire? Where is it?" cried the bewildered Aubrey.

"Vy, yer not awake. There! This vay! Look sharp. The great Euròpyan Limited Liability Company's Hotel's afire, that's all. Now then, this vay! This vay!" And the pair rushed off together, as the blaze increased, and the smoke rolled forth in mighty volumes, and the rattling sound of an engine was heard approaching, and the cries and shouts of the multitude rent the watery air.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CONFLAGRATION (UNLIMITED).

Did you ever see a French fire? "Mossoo" is as active and demonstrative as a whole troop of monkeys in a blazing forest. He chatters, like the poor parrots lately burnt in the Tropical Department of the Crystal Palace. He is as brave as a lion; but somehow his energies are not practical, and he can't put it out. The French authorities press the passers-by and lookers-on to assist; the English don't encourage volunteers. We dare say it is the same thing in an inundation. But let us beware of boasting. The characteristics of both nations are altering. "Mossoo" is no longer polite, and has won a Derby, and John Bull has taken to music-halls and "la danse;" while railways, steam-ships, vacation-tours, and the Great Exhibition, have taught him some vices, which untravelled and uncorrupted he would but a short time ago, have either never dreamt of, or at least believed that they were washed away with the Flood.—Diogenes Cynicus (modernus).

IF the reader ever saw a fire in London, and one in a foreign country—we will not be invidious and name any country here—but "bar one," as the betting-men say, that intelligent personage is able to appreciate at their real value the dash, energy, courage, and consummate skill of the British firemen. It is a band of heroes deserving of being chronicled in song and prose, in marble and stone "basso relievo," that rushes forth helmeted and caparisoned at the terrible cry of "fire" in this wilderness of brick. They drive like demigods, like the charioteers of old at the Olympic Games, but with ten times the difficulty, chiefly by night, over the rattling stones, and through the crowded thoroughfares! What a sight of wonder is the harnessing and the start! You are walking in a street nearly blocked with equipages. Suddenly a sound is heard, which once heard is never to be forgotten—the cry of the gallant fellows as they cluster on the engine whirling along the street. How they manage to clear all obstacles at the pace is a miracle—say, rather a triumph of their craft. Then, when arrived, what courage, what martyrdom, what coolness, what resource! The dash past of the Horse Artillery at the gallop is magnificent, exciting; but how different the mission. Yet the mission of the Fire-Brigade is danger without glory. If a fireman perishes, little is thought or said. So, indeed, with the common soldier, as he is called in this country, being the most uncommon soldier in the world. The asses get the chief part of the credit, whilst the lions rot or starve, if they survive their "glory," which is in the deed.

It was as the Downy had said. Several lords, officers, and gentlemen, had turned into most indifferent innkeepers, and a vast hotel had arisen from the ground, not quite so quickly as Pandemonium or Aladdin's Palace, but still very quickly, at the deluded shareholders' expense. But the mismanagement had not yet exploded, and the hotel took in the public at large still, as well as its own shareholders. The place was full. The stately housekeeper had refused with scorn that very day a dozen luckless or lucky voyageurs. There is no need to treat a traveller with contempt, when you can't lodge him; but town was full, and the housekeeper was ignorant and proud. In these hotels, when you are accepted, that is, when the house is not full, and the house-keeper consequently not inordinately uncivil, you are apt to merge into a number, like a convict, and your friends, who call by appointment, have a great difficulty in finding you, especially if you lodge high. A lift in the world is a desirable thing, and so is a "lift" in a Grand Hotel; but it has its disadvantages. It can scarcely be worked with success at two o'clock in the morning, when the hotel is on fire, and especially when the lift itself is a huge tunnel of flame and smoke, which was the case with the Grand European L. L. Hotel, on this particular occasion. When Aubrey and the Downy arrived on the scene of action, most of the inmates had escaped. Those on the sixth floor had a special opportunity, as there was a balustraded roof along which they trooped, and descended by a ladder on to the roof of a neighbouring house. The ground and first floor were all right; for the fire had broken out on the second, through a box of Vesuvians in the tail-pocket of a gentleman's coat, which he threw on the ground and trod on as he got into bed. All had apparently escaped, when our two ragged heroes arrived near the spot, save a lady on the fourth floor, who appeared at a window dressed, with a child in her arms, and who was in imminent danger of being burnt. A mutilated fire-escape did not quite reach her range of windows, and the flames burst out beneath, so that both it and a mason's ladder had to be removed, while the fireman directed their engines beneath. Strange to say, the top portion of the escape had been struck by lightning that very afternoon. At this sight, an indomitable force and energy seemed to have leapt into Aubrey's attenuated frame. There were cries and counter-cries. Above all rose the cry: "She'll be burnt! She'll be burnt." "A thousand guineas to the man who'll save her," cried a portly gentleman in the crowd. The offer was excusable; since it was evident that he was unable even to attempt the task himself. Then a youthful form leapt from an engine which drove up, and a cry went forth that it was the Prince of Wales, and a cheer rose from the mob (Englishmen would be loyal between the shocks of an earthquake), and the attention of the crowd, and even that of the chiefs of the Fire-Brigade and police, were divided. But for this Aubrey and the Downy would not have won their way to the foot of the escape, which they did just as a momentary slackening of the blaze allowed a brief chance. But the escape was too short. Cries of "Jump out!" "Get some beds to put underneath," and "Go to the roof and you'll get out," were heard. But the lady heard nothing, save the general howl, and din, and roar. She was praying with white lips, and her child tightly pressed in her arms.

"Let me go!" shouted Aubrey to the police, who had seized him. "I'll save her, or at least die in the attempt. Let me go, I say."

"Here, mate!" sung out the ever active Downy, who had seized a coil of thin rope, and plunged it in a fountain of water that rose some four of five feet in the street. "I'm with you."

Aubrey had just time to seize it, as the police once more collared the struggling Downy.

"What are you arter?" cried an active and intelligent officer. "I knows you. You want to rob the hot-el, do yer? Here, lock him up!"

But a cry of "Look out!" as a portion of an ornamental balcony fell caused the Downy to escape his clutch, and he darted after Aubrey, who was already, encumbered as he was with the rope, midway up the escape. Through bursts of blinding, singeing flames, the pair arrived at the top. Then the Downy unwound his companion's rope; they were but some eight feet below the window. At the first shot, he flung an end far into the room, whilst Aubrey with supernatural strength and activity, totally careless of whether he fell or not, raised himself to his full height on the giddy top of the escape, and leaping upwards caught an architectural projection, and thence an iron stanchion of the window, and gained the room.

"Lower the child to me!" yelled the Downy.

A tremendous cheer burst from the assembled mob. We believe that even Royalty, so nobly and generously urging the good work below, was completely forgotten for the next few moments. Hats and caps were actually thrown up by the mob, and strong men sobbed like babes. It was a supreme moment for a gang of pickpockets in the crowd; and Mr. Stingray lost his watch, purse, diary, and gold pencil-case, as Aubrey plunged into the room. Half a dozen respirations of the quick-breathing spectator, and the babe is in the Downy's arms, who slid down in a truly surprising manner, considering that he had but one arm disengaged, fell the last fifteen or twenty feet, luckily on a mattress, and holding the child somehow aloft, gave it to a woman who demanded it—none other than the agonised Susan, who had been dragged out, against her utmost endeavours, below, having descended for something for the child, and lost herself in the hotel. The Downy vanished in the crowd. He was somewhat exhausted, and this time fell an easy prey to his natural foes the police. Part of the child's lace clothing remained in his grasp, and he was on the point of being carried off again, when a party of gentlemen who had seen his bravery interfered and rescued him in turn. In the mean time, how fared Aubrey and the lady? He dashed the contents of a jug of water over her. Throughout he acted like an inspired man, a human machine set in motion in a dream, knowing nothing but what he was about, and doing it bravely and rapidly. Then he fastened the rope round her unresisting form, placing a pillow, so that she might not be hurt, and beckoned to the firemen below. Two stalwart fellows understood his actions, and sprung up the escape. The rope was not long enough to reach more than half-way. The engines had played all the time on the fire below.

Placing his feet against the wall under the window, and letting the rope, which was knotted every three feet, pass round one of the massive stanchions, he wound the first few feet from her body round his right arm, and lifted her gently over, holding her by the portion of it twice passed round her waist as by a cincture. If he could stand the strain at first, there was a chance. Then he lowered her down to where the firemen stood. They grasped her in their sturdy arms—she was saved! saved! Then another hearty cheer broke forth. "Brave fellow! Splendidly done!" But where is he? Why does he pause? His strength, his energy is gone. He reels, falls back, is about to swoon. There is a flask of eau-de-cologne on the lady's toilet-table. With the instinct of self-preservation, he raises it to his lips, and drinks it, as if it were a cordial. Then he looks about; he has new life in him.

All this passes much more rapidly than we can describe it. He looks out upon the surging multitude beneath. At this moment a volume of smoke and flame bursts out below, and conceals him from their sight. His only chance is to reach the top of the escape. He cannot return as he climbed up. He could not have ascended a second time. Nor at any time of his life could that surprising feat have been performed by him, as it was done that one time—none could exactly say how. Quick as thought, he tears the sheets off the bed and knots them together. One end he fastens round the stanchion, and then lowering himself, he reaches the escape. But the fire is now furious beneath. Half-way down he is wrapt in a sheet of flame. On fire! on fire! His hair is plainly seen to blaze. He is lost! lost! The mob palpitates and screams. For a moment, he appears paralysed, scorched, shrivelled up. Then he emerges, but how? His clothes are burning. He looses his hold and falls. There is a mattress held up by six or eight powerful men. They catch him on it, and fling a blanket on him, and stifle the flames, and he is carried, burnt and blackened, a little distance down the street, and thence to the shop of the nearest chemist, who has been rung open to attend to a dozen minor sufferers half an hour ago. The lady is in there, and the child, surrounded by half a dozen sympathising friends. A rumour has gone forth that she is the celebrated Italian singer, the beautiful Bianca Stellini, who is saved with her child, and the crowd are in transports of enthusiasm and joy.

"Well," quoth Mr. Stingray to Mr. Swellingham, whom he deigned to recognise in the crowd, "if ever I saw a lunatic in my life, it was that devil of a ragged fellow with the long hair. Only fancy going into a fire with hair and a beard like that. I'm glad he has saved the finest soprano in Europe for us; though it would have been something to have witnessed her performance and seen her burnt in one night, which Pepys or Horace Walpole might have envied."

"Sir!" returned Swellingham, looking him in the face, "if you address one more word to me personally, now or hereafter, I'll knock you down, I will by ——!" It was as honest an oath as any that my Uncle Toby ever swore. "You are a black-hearted dastard, a disgrace to humanity, and a reproach to the Society which tolerates you for your acrid pen and your venomous tongue. Sir! which road are you going! I wish to take an opposite one."

And Swellingham held up his walking-stick in a manner which left no doubt of his intention, had he been further provoked.

Mr. Stingray smiled as a hyena might smile, if the animal found it inconvenient to laugh aloud, but he pocketed his indignation.

"Brute! low beast!" he muttered, when out of hearing. "I wonder whether the Kemble is open yet? I'll go and be revenged on him there. I'll tell the fellows confidentially that he wants to borrow some money. Won't they all shun him then? Let's see the time. Hallo! Who's stolen my watch? My handkerchief, too, and my note-book, with my last quarter's salary. Oh! oh! oh! Here! policeman! I'm murdered, robbed, undone."

There was no policeman at hand. Mr. Stingray therefore proceeded on his way alone. He had no money to pay for a cab, and he was not certain that he should find the club open. For once, he felt what it was to be without money in the world in an extremely modified form. Impelled by the little pottering Nemesis which led Mr. Cousens into the Escurial on a certain night, and is continually dogging the footsteps of small bad men, a sort of "Retiaria" with invisible net and trident, Mr. Stingray sought to get from Whitehall to the Strand by a short cut. This led him into a lonely and deserted street. Suddenly, a woman came up to him, and asked him if he was good-natured. For once our philosopher spoke truth, in indignantly denying the fact. The woman gave a smothered scream. "He's insulting me!" she cried. A fellow marched out of a shadow in front, and asked him with an oath what he meant. Mr. Stingray was taken aback; but he collected his energies and clearing his throat would have called "Police!" in a tone which might have penetrated the deepest area, and roused some Prussian-helmeted Mars from the blandishments of a culinary Venus, when two more shadowy figures appeared behind, an arm stole round the neck of our corpulent friend, and a perfect August 10th of meteoric stars, a shower of brilliant coruscations, rushed athwart his vision. The thieves were disappointed. A professor of a lighter style of art had anticipated them. But quant à ce bon Stingray, serous apoplexy intervened. A sensation, quite equal to that for which Mr. Stingray had recently expressed a wish, gratified (?) the British Public the next day. It was too late for the morning papers; but it filled a column of the "Globe," and two of the "Standard." It is an ill wind which blows nobody good. The "Glowworm" brought out edition after edition on the strength of it. The little ragged urchins whom Stingray—always spiteful towards the poor seeking to gain an honest living—hated so, made a copper harvest out of him. His decease was described in the most gushing style. When Edgar Leslie heard it, he thought he could have spared a better man. His resentments were not worked out as he wished they should be. He would have liked Stingray to have lived to see him, Edgar, a great man. When it reached Swellingham, he was very grave and serious, and repented him of the bitter words he had used.

"Oh!" said a friend to us not very long ago, "that I could dispense 'poetic justice' in this world! Oh! that I were possessed of the powers of a Caliph Haroun Alraschid for one month, one year! How I would dissolve Parliament, change the Government, strip a few scores of the fortunate rogues and hypocrites, who are the curse of dear old England, distribute a few colossal fortunes, rebuke and amerce absenteeism, reform the police, nail the ears of adulterators big and small to their palatial gates or counters, sentence cruel and unjust magistrates to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour, turn the Serpentine through the Admiralty and Horse Guards, shut up the music-halls, proclaim real Free Trade and a Ballot, which honest Liberal Conservatives would find rather more to their interest than would the pseudo-Liberal Old Men of the Sea who have so long throttled the State, and treat the lawyers after the fashion of Peter the Great! I would play Aunt Sally to some purpose, as an honest despot should play it, and smash every dishonest sham, like clay-pipes in the mouths of a whole row of grinning idols; the mouths of Routine, Hypocrisy, Corruption, Expediency, and Betrayal, at home and abroad. The overtaxed labourer should no longer toil to fill a cullender with his thin and watery blood. How I would wake up my Lord Angelos with a block at Tower Hill! How the bow-string should be substituted for red-tape! How I would purge the nation of the red tape-worm of corruption and decline.

And as for the fellow who criticised me in the 'Centipede,' wouldn't I righteously settle him! Probably I should condescend to execute many a small revenge. But one thing I would promise, which is this—I would not indiscriminately exalt my own relations at the public cost. My wildest acts of despotism would not lead me to commit such an act. Of that a grateful and restored nation might at least feel sure! But Aristophanes himself, were he alive, could not supply words to describe the violence and severity of my actions in the cause of truth, patriotism, and justice, were I gifted with the supreme power of an Eastern potentate, to deal with the caitiffs who have depraved Society and worm-eaten the majesty and honour of the State."

πᾶιε, πᾶιε, τὸν πανοῦργον . . . . .
κὰι τελώνην, κὰι φαραγγα, κὰι χαριβδιν ἁρπαγὴς,
κὰι πανοῦργον, κὰι πανούργον, πολλάκις γὰρ ἄντ' ἐρῶ.
κὰι γὰρ οὗτος ἦν πανοῦργος, πολλάκις τῆς ἡμέρας.
ἀλλὰ παῖε, κὰι δίωκε, κὰι τάραττε, κὰι κύκα,
ευλαβοῦ δὲ, μὴ 'κφυγῃ σε κὰι γὰρ οἶδε τάς ὁδοὺς,
κ. τ. λ.
Equites, 247.

How many a poor fellow has indulged in a fancy like this! Alas! it is but the speculation of righteous folly or of inane wisdom; the dream of an Alnaschar, without even a basket of eggs; the aspiration of a petty every-day Prometheus, at whose vitals any daw can peck; but uncheered by the recollection of a boon already bestowed on humanity, the glorious sun-rape of flame. Still one may indulge in the sublime impotence, the luxury of impossibility accorded to free and fetterless Thought! "But not express it!"

cries a hideous dwarf with poisonous fangs of steel. "Ho! ho! author! look on t'other side." We did, and beheld a many-headed giant with brandished steel mace covered with gore and brains. Against the malice of Servility, and the Kakistocracy of Power, against corrupt Vendor and Purchaser in the market of adulterate souls and bodies, even the mighty masters of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, who struck the chords of human sympathy, regardless of the tyrant's frown, must have proved powerless. They would have perished, and their thoughts have died with them unpublished, unnoticed, and unknown.

What could our friend do, even could he say in the language of the same writer in another play:

ἐγὼ θεοσεβής κὰι δίκαιος ὢν ἀνήρ
κακῶς ἔπραττον, κὰι πένης ἦν.

CHAPTER XXVI.

REPARATION.

He who repairs a wrong
By some still greater sacrifice of self,
Is in his turn Love's gentle creditor.
There is such sweetness in forgiven wrong
Where Love reigned once, 'twould soothe a soul in death,
And throne triumphant Love in living breast,
True lord of its revolted citadel.
Who knows not grief, knows little—
A cloyed guest
At life's dull banquet. Mark! what transport springs
From welcome change, and blest vicissitude:
These paint wan cheeks with bloom of boisterous health,
These light the languid depths of filmy eyes
With quick intelligent flame; these rouse the soul
And with emotion fire the sleeping sense:
These to the surface of Life's current bear
Rich pearls of gratitude and thankfulness.
As when a mother hears a babe's first cry,
She hugs him for her pain that she hath borne.
"Thou hast cost me dear," she murmurs, "little one,"
And straightway all forgets, save present joy:
Thus Nature stands absolved of sufferings,
Which else were harsh indeed. There is no joy
Like that baptised with tears.

IN the back room of the apothecary's shop lies Aubrey, silent, but breathing. He is contused and fearfully burnt. A medical man bends over him and feels his pulse. It is our old friend Dr. Miller, who had been summoned during the fire to see a patient who had escaped from the hotel to a neighbouring house. In the room watching him with anxiety are Mr. Swellingham and Tops. The shop is full of people, and among them sits Blanche waiting impatiently, until she may come in. The doctor has been carefully examining his patient, and applying remedies to his poor burnt face, arms, and hands, which had all greatly suffered. One leg, too, was sadly burnt, the trouser having actually been in flames. The doctor had called for scissors and snipped away the greater portion of the singed hair and beard.

At length he speaks. "Tell the lady, if she desires it so much, that she may come in."

And Blanche enters, followed by Susan.

"Where is he?" she said, "where is my preserver, the saviour of my child? Oh! is he much hurt? Will he soon recover? Nay" (looking at him), "perhaps he is already dead, self-slain for my child and me."

"Calm yourself a little, madam," said Swellingham. "Here is the doctor. It is not so bad as you think." (To the doctor.) "Is it, sir?"

"There is nothing fatal, I think, to life, madam, and the patient will probably recover; unless the general shock to the system be too great. You see, he is in a very attenuated condition to offer much resistance; not much stamina, I should say. But even should he rally and not succumb, there is still a sad circumstance——" And the doctor looked grave.

"What! what is it? Speak! what do you mean?" rapidly uttered Blanche.

"The flames have reached his hair, you see," was the answer, "and scorched his eyes. If he should recover, which I think he will do under careful assiduity and treatment, he will be blind for life."

"Say not so!" cried Blanche. "No! not blind. It is a fearful thing to be blind. Nay, let me see him plainly—let me kneel by him and embrace him—this brave man of the people—this heroic heart, to whom I, and one dearer to me than myself—owe life—preservation from so terrible a death." So saying she approached and bent over the prostrate form of the sufferer. "He looks very poor and thin, as if he had wanted even food; and yet what courage and strength!" She knelt down by the couch, and bending over his wasted and bandaged hand, kissed it passionately. "Poor fellow! To be blind for me—blind! But I will watch over you myself. I am rich, and will reward you. You shall never want for anything again. Let me gaze at those disfigured features more glorious than——ah! what is it that I see? It is my husband! I thought his voice was beside me in the burning room. Arthur! Arthur!" and with a loud shriek, to the astonishment of those present, she fell forward fainting over the insensible form of the sufferer.

For a moment, all stood still. Then the doctor raised her gently. "She ought not to have come in," he said. "The fright and exertion have been too much for her, and the sight of this poor man has finished it. This may be serious, I fear, for the brain. Carry her into the next room, and I will see what can be done. Where is she staying for the night?"

But Tops, as soon as she was removed from the couch, stepped forward, his face pale with emotion, and tenderly lifting aside the burnt and straggling locks, looked at him long and earnestly. "It's him!" he cried at last. "It's my dear old master, Arthur Aubrey, Esquire. She knew him right enough. Here, Susan, Susan, here!" And Mr. Tops began to sob like a great girl. "Here I've got his fortin back for him, and he won't be able to see to drive his pheayton, nor to choose a 'oss agen."

"What's this I hear? What do you say?" said the doctor, who had been told the strange corroboration by Swellingham, who had stolen into the other room.

"Hum!" he said. "Truth is stranger than fiction. This alters the case. I feared a worse catastrophe than all. But it appears the poor lady has found her lost husband in this heroic outcast. And she, too, is an old patient of mine. It wouldn't be believed in a novel; though your modern writers are more unreal when they approach truth, than when they utterly eschew it. The critics would be down upon it. 'Eyes in and eyes out!' " muttered the worthy man. "It's strange enough for a sensational play."

Whilst he was talking thus, the good doctor was busying himself between his two patients. "We must have them removed," he said. "Man and wife! They ought, and ought not to be together; but I suppose the feelings of both parties must be consulted. Hallo! Whom have we here?"

A female figure had been added to the group, to use an expression à la Tussaud, and presently, too, a gentleman entered the room.

The lady was exquisitely attired. She had been at the Opera that night; and had not retired to bed, when a gentleman, who was no other than Sir Harry Luckless, came and summoned her, to the great scandal of the neighbourhood, to tell her of the fire.

"So you see what she is, after all!" said a lady of irreproachable fame, who constantly deceived her husband, and who lived in the opposite house, with a white stuccoed front—we mean the house, and not the lady.

"There's piety for you!" said Betty, cook-maid next door, to John, footman. "I always suspex them folks as is too good to live, to be no better than they should be. Did you see her fal-lals? And she preached to me only yesterday about throwing my scraps into the dust-hole, when there's so many nasty poor about. Set her up, indeed! I shall tell her a bit of my mind the next time she talks to me—the howdacious, himparent minx. Jest see if I don't."

It was a strange hour for such gossip, but, as we said, all London does not slumber even at half-past two A.M. Under Kitty's tender assiduities, Blanche soon came to herself. It seemed fated that the latter should regain life and bloom under the former's care.

Presently the doctor came in from the adjoining room.

"Now, take this restorative, dear lady," he said; "and then I think I must transform you from patient into nurse. The—the—noble fellow whom you have so strangely recognised is, I think, conscious, and I want to try the effect of your voice upon him."

They entered, and approached Aubrey's side.

"To find him thus!" said Blanche. "Him, whom so soon as my success was established I had determined to seek out, if living, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. Oh! madam, my dear benefactress! Look!" (to Kitty). " 'Tis my own Arthur, my husband, who has saved me, and at what a cost! Doctor! doctor! he will not die, will he?"

"Nay, madam, I trust—I may say, I believe not," was the answer.

"He has saved our child, saved me, who left him so long to perish with hunger, and cold, and the pangs of desertion, and at what a cost! His poor dear eyes! his sight is gone! Blind! blind!—and for me, who know so well what it is to be blind!"

"Merciful Heaven!" cried Kitty, "can it be? What retributive justice is here? But he may be, will be, restored to peace and happiness yet."

"Arthur! dearest Arthur!" cried Blanche, "do you not know me, your own wife, Blanche?"

"What voice was that?" said the prostrate man, trembling in every limb. "Whose form is it at yonder window? No matter. 'Tis a woman; I will save her! My life is forfeit, I tell you. I wish to die. Loose me, I say!" He paused, and then, after awhile, continued: "I remember now. 'Tis all over, I saw her saved—saved! I thought I heard her voice call me in a dream. There are voices round me now. Take this veil off from my eyes. I am awake, and cannot see!"

"Speak to him, madam," said the doctor, "and apprise him gently of the truth."

"Arthur, dearest Arthur, you do not dream. You have saved me, Blanche, your wife, from a dreadful death. I was not drowned, as you thought. I was stopping at the hotel when it took fire, and you saved our child, and myself, but at what a cost! No, no! I cannot tell him. Doctor, doctor! speak!"

"Our child! Blanche alive?" muttered Aubrey. "Great God! This is madness, and death!"

"Listen, my dear sir," said the doctor, taking his hand and pressing it gently where it was uninjured, "and I beseech you be calm. I am Dr. Miller, a physician. To-night you ascended a ladder, did you not, and saved a woman and child from imminent peril? By a wonderful blessing of Providence that woman is your wife, whom you supposed to have been drowned years ago. Well, she was not drowned, and has become a great singer. She had a child born to you shortly after she left your home. Her reputation is as white as snow," added the doctor, getting poetical, and yet taking a matter-of-fact view as to the strangeness of the announcement. "We must get you well, my dear sir! You have been sadly, sadly burnt, and I much fear that—that your eyesight is deeply injured; in fact, that you will not be able to see again—at least for a very long time," added the prudent and kindly doctor—"a very long time indeed. But we'll do all that can be done. And now you must be very quiet."

"Blanche! Blanche!" said the sufferer, "saved, and by me? Yes, now I recollect the fire, and the giddy height, and the shouting, and the eager upturned faces of the crowd. Then why did I not perish in the scorching flames, when I had saved her? I had nothing more to live for, save to see her once, once more, and then die. And now she is here, you say, and I cannot see her. And she is not injured—not hurt?"

"No, Arthur!" she replied, "but lives to devote her whole life to you, to renounce the hollow triumphs of the stage, to live for you, sing to you, you alone—never to leave you again—never, never!"

"Tell me," resumed Aubrey; "for my head seems confused with joy—and the terrible maddening pain—did not some one tell me of a child—a boy?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Blanche, "you have a son, born after—we parted; he is the image of you, dearest—is he not?" And she looked round, as if for corroboration as to the fact.

"I can answer for that," said Tops. "He's as like Mr. Arthur as two peas, that is, a small pea to a big one."

"Tell me his name!" said Aubrey.

"Arthur!" replied the mother. "What should he be called but that? And now, dearest, compose yourself for my sake, and we will never, never part for a single day again."

"It cannot be," he answered. "I am a beggar, an outcast. Do not touch my rags!" he said, almost fiercely. "I will never be a dependent upon the bounty of one whom my cruel selfishness drove forth upon the world. I have only repaired half the wrong. We are not equal yet; for I destroyed happiness first. I will die fifty deaths, ere I will cast a shadow over the career of her whom I have wronged, or accept more than forgiveness at her hands. But bring me my boy, that I may kiss him once ere I die. He need not know who it is. You can make the room dark if you like, if I am something very terrible to see."

"Nonsense, nonsense, my dear sir!" said the doctor. "I can't allow this sort of thing. The child is asleep in his cot in another house. You shall see him—that is, I mean he shall be brought the first thing in the morning, shall he not, madam? And now you must take a little soothing draught. It is absolutely necessary, my dear sir."

The patient shook his head feebly, and turned it slightly away.

"Mr. Aubrey, sir, master!" broke in Tops, suddenly. "I'm Tops, your old groom, sir, if you please. You ain't dependint upon no one, sir. You're richer than ever you was. We got a new will, as your father, old Mr. Aubrey made, as nobody knew nothing whatsumever about. Here, Susan, just do tell all about it. You're ready enough to speak sometimes. You can do it better than me. Hexplain, will yer, if you don't speak another word afore marridge." And he dragged Susan forward.

"It's true, indeed, sir, what he says," said that young person. "My poor stupid Tops here has recovered another will—a codicil, I think they call it—of your father's, carried off by a man named Manvers, who shot at Tops, and got killed himself this very evening instead, only there was no bullet in the pistol."

"Do hold your noise," said the brave but ungallant Tops. "I've seen a lieyer, sir, in the Temple, and he said, if the will was found, leaving everything unconditional to you, you'd be richer than ever; and we was going to hadvertise for you to-morrow, sir, in Austrely; for the will is found, and it do leave everythink unconditional, as the lieyer said."

The patient's lips quivered in prayer—a prayer of thanksgiving, it seemed; from a whisper or two which reached the listeners' ears. One large tear rolled slowly from the darkened orbit of a single eye into the hollow of his cheek, and there it might have remained glistening for some time had not Blanche knelt down and kissed it away with a kiss of love and hope, and soft and gentle ruth.

Then they all stole out of the room without a word, and shut the folded doors upon that second marriage, this time ordained of Heaven. Only the doctor ventured to stoop and whisper as he passed: "Not too long, madam, if you please—not too long!" And he held out the phial with the opiate with a meaning gesture.

Let us, too, leave them to themselves.

CHAPTER XXVII.

HER DECISION.

Si di mere trabagliati
Follià lo ti fa fare,
Lo mar protreste arrompere
Avanti a semenare,
L'abete d'esto secolo
Tutto quanto assembrare
Avere me non poteria esto mondo
Aranti li cavelli m'arritomo.

CIULLO D'ALCAMO. Lover and Lady. An. 1172—78.

BACK to Queen's-square, not in the old house, but one not far from it. Arthur Aubrey is again lying on a sofa, his arm clasped round his little boy. He is still disfigured, but not so painfully. His countenance expresses content, nay, happiness; as much happiness, perhaps, as grown-up men and women ever feel. Only children in good health are ever really quite happy. Blanche is reading the newspaper to him, a wonderfully eloquent and philosophical article on an accident in a thunder-storm, ending with the broad propositions that we are all mortal, that we are seldom killed by lightning, and that the parties killed could not have had the slightest notion of what was going to happen to them, when they got up that morning to go to a picnic under a cloudless sky. The first part of the article was learning and Lemprière, the second illustration and the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the third the reductio ad nihilum, which best befits such productions. Such articles won't do for reading to the blind, when words are weighed and meaning pondered on. They do for the busy eye rapidly to skim over, conveying no distinct purport to the mind, and leaving no clear impression on the brain.

"They are late, dear," said Aubrey.

Some friends were evidently expected. Presently there came a knock at the street door.

"It is Sir Harry," said Blanche. "I can tell, because it is such a nervous knock. Poor fellow! I hope he will not be disappointed. They would make a very happy couple, I am sure; especially if they lived abroad. Sir Harry is bent, as you know, upon going to Canada or Vancouver's Island. He says he don't much care which."

"I can't imagine" said Aubrey, "how she can hesitate for a moment to accept his offer, attached to each other as they are."

"Sir Harry Luckless!" said a maid-servant, opening the door.

Sir Harry came in with the air of a man who is in a nervous flurry, and who would certainly cut himself, if he attempted to shave, or spill the boiling water, if he sought to replenish the teapot.

"Well, Aubrey, my dear fellow, how are you? I beg pardon, Mrs. Aubrey, I am delighted to see you. How is your dear little girl? Excuse me, I mean boy. Ha! ha! I was thinking of one of Kitty's—that is, Mrs. Wilmington's—little pets—to be sure, yes."

And with this speech Sir Harry sat down; and then added that it was a very fine day, which, considering there was an east wind, drizzling rain, and fog, was not exactly the case.

"Mrs. Wilmington has not been here yet, I suppose?" said Sir Harry, after a pause.

"No, she has not. I expect her, however, very shortly."

"I—that is, you—are aware—that is, I wish to inform yon, and—to ask a little favour. Would you mind, Aubrey, if I speak with your wife alone just two minutes in the next room? It's something very important. I don't mind telling you afterwards, if Mrs. Aubrey will permit, and will leave us for two minutes together, when I've told her; but I can't speak to you both at once about it."

"Not even when the two are one?" asked Blanche, smiling.

"There, get along with you. I know what it is all about. I shan't be jealous," said Aubrey, playing with his boy's curls.

"The fact is, Mrs. Aubrey," began Sir Harry, when the folding doors were closed, "I want you to plead my cause. There is no one can do it but you, and your lightest wish has an immense weight with Kitty—I mean Mrs. Wilmington. Tell her that it is no use going on in this way, and that it's no good breaking a fellow's heart. I'm going off very soon. I've sold everything I don't want. I've got a hundred labourers from Waterford, and chartered a steamer. It's a perfect Noah's Ark, and I've got such an assortment of agricultural implements, as never were seen together before out of a show. There's spades, rakes, and hoes enough to make a second Garden of Eden. And if she must teach children their catechism, and all that sort of thing, there's plenty among the labourers' families to keep her hand in. I refused one fellow with eleven, five boys and six girls; but I'll take 'em all to please Kitty, if she'll only share a poor emigrant's lot. As for her money, she's always giving it away. Well, what's more easy than to settle it all right off on half a dozen institutions? Do, Mrs. Aubrey, persuade her to be my wife. I have loved her, as you know, long and earnestly, and I shall never care for any one else."

Sir Harry, whose voice more than once faltered in this semi-comic appeal, here came to a full stop.

"Indeed, Sir Harry," said Blanche, "you have my best, my warmest wishes. I believe you are both much attached to each other; and for my part I can see no obstacle to your happiness, save our dear friend's religious exaltation, and some notions which she has got into her very obstinate little head. But, depend upon it, nothing shall be wanting on my part."

"Tell her that she has almost promised me," resumed Sir Harry; "tell her that it is positively wicked to refuse; tell her that I would go to the ends of the earth with her, but that I have not the heart or courage to go anywhere and leave her behind. Just see what a fix I am in! Here I stand pledged to all these poor people to take them to America. I did it, Mrs. Aubrey, I pledge you my word, thinking that, after all that has passed, she must and would come with us. And she shakes her head and says, mournfully, 'No, Harry, no! It would not be acting in accordance with my duty towards you, whom I esteem, love, if you will have it so, better than any one in the world, not to speak of my duty towards others.' What others? And as for me, it's like killing a man to save his life. I'll tell you what, it's cruel, that's what it is, neither more nor less."

"Rely upon my best efforts, Sir Harry. Stop! There's a ring at the visitors' bell. There she is. Had I not better see her first? Go in to Arthur. The ship sails on the twentieth, you say?"

"Yes," replied Sir Harry. "I was going to ask Aubrey to bring you on board. I should like you to see the arrangements; but I have no heart for it, while this doubt remains."

So saying, he pressed her hand with fervour and joined Aubrey in the next room, to whom he narrated all that he had been saying to Blanche.

Mrs. Wilmington entered the room where Blanche was sitting the instant after Sir Harry had left. The latter rose, pressed her hand, kissed her, and led her to a seat. "My dear, dear preserver!" she said. An entire confidence had been established between those two beings, whose early lives and surroundings had been so chequered and so different. Mrs. Wilmington had broadly sketched her early life to Blanche, her meeting with Aubrey and with Lord Egbert; the effect which her interview with Blanche, after the rescue of the latter, had upon her, when she found herself painted in such dark colours by one for whose smile and good word she would have given so much. She told Blanche of the, in her instance, harmless munificence of the Duke of Chalkstoneville, to whom she had been a nurse and companion in his later days. She had already spoken of that which Blanche knew well. Sir Harry's reciprocated attachment. Then Blanche had pleaded his suit for him in vain, and she now prosecuted it with still greater fervour. It was still in vain. With her hand pressed upon her heart, with pale and quivering lips, but without a tear, Kate Darrell gently but firmly continued to reject Sir Harry's hand.

"No!" she said. "I love him, I will not disavow it; but I love him too dearly to bring disgrace on his name. I love him too dearly to risk even a momentary repentance, a doubt whether he had done well to marry me, which might some day occur to him, and which would wreck my peace of mind, leaving me then nothing to fall back upon and cling to for support. Besides, I have duties to perform, atonement to make to Heaven. Let him seek other climes. He has thrown away his opportunities, led a useless life here. He will go out bravely, and forget his folly with regard to me in the demands and interests of the young community which will look to him as its head. Dear lady! my mind is made up. Let me go. Let me pass away from among you like a shadow; let me be only a human being with a heart living among those who need my aid. He is one, and they are many. He will find a partner in life with no guilty remembrances of the past to cause a pang or shudder to either, when the Sabbath bells ring pleasantly in the summer air, or when some one names a creature of sin and shame in a too conscious or sensitive ear. It is no use. I would it were otherwise; but I have thought it all over, and my mind is made up.

In vain did Blanche argue, reason, and entreat her to reconsider her decision. At last she said:

"Do you know that he is here; that he wishes to see you before he sails; that he is even now in the next room? At least you will see him, will you not?"

The face of Mrs. Wilmington assumed a strange appearance. It became marble in hue and in line. Her features actually appeared to grow rigid and thin.

"I will see him, of course I will," she said, "once more; and then it is fitting that we part and for ever. In a very brief time, I shall have ceased to dwell in his thoughts; but be a visitant occasionally when his memory shall revert to his former associates as to beings of another sphere. It is oftener so, I think, with those who go away than those who remain. But every day whilst I live, I shall remember him in my prayers."

Blanche was sadly grieved; but she felt that it was useless, and that she could do no more. So she opened the door and beckoned Sir Harry in.

Poor fellow! he did not look like a man about to succeed in his wishes. He walked up to Kitty, and took her by the hand.

"I suppose," lie said, "that Mrs. Aubrey has told you that I am going to leave England, and probably for ever, next week. My happiness, going or staying, depends upon one little word from your lips. If you will marry me, I will either go or not, as you please. But I have heard you say you would prefer an entire change of scene. Tell me, Kitty, will you make a poor fellow happy, and go with me? I am lost without you. I never loved any one, save you."

"Dear Sir Harry," replied Kitty, "I will not disguise from you, that you are not, and never were, indifferent to me; and there was a time when, had you spoken as you have now, my heart would have leapt with joy. But the time has gone by for such a thing. I see my duty clearer now. I cannot be your wife."

"Kitty, dear Kitty!" persisted her suitor, "do not be so cruel as to leave me alone in the world, and to bury yourself alive in some dreadful place. Look here! give all your money to some excellent charity at once. I have enough for us both. As for my title, if that annoys you, I will drop it. Let my brother take it, if he likes, but don't abandon me, Kitty! Be my wife, my own dear, dear wife, I implore you!"

And Sir Harry covered his face with his hands, awaiting a reply.

"Dear friend," said Mrs. Aubrey, "to whom I owe life and happiness, the heart of my husband—all, all that I can call mine, may I add my prayers to his? Let this union complete our joy, and do not wreck the hopes of one who will devote all his future life, to insure your happiness and remove the thorns from your path. Come, let me join your hands together with your hearts."

"Lady," replied Kitty, "it cannot be. I love him too well to forget myself. He will learn to forget me in a little time; and then some bright and good woman will bestow on him her love, and that serenity of affection unknown to such as I have been, will bless him as he deserves. Do not think me ungrateful, not to obey your lightest wish; for if you owe me some earthly gifts, what do I not owe to you? The first utterings of the soul, the ecstatic joy alone felt in doing good. Do not think this refusal costs me nothing, for I love him—love him dearly; have loved him, long before all this. I dare not speak to him more; but tell him, tell him, that I will not ally him with shame, although the bitterness of that shame is past. Tell him that if we fled to some foreign land, and that if he gave up for me his birth-right and his name, we might still not be happy. Tell him that if he soothed me with too eager tenderness, I should think that he remembered the past. Tell him that if, without meaning it, he neglected me ever so little, I should leave him that instant or die."

Much more was said by all three; but Kitty's resolution remained unchanged. At length, Arthur Aubrey was called in; but he only said how dearly he wished such an union to take place, and shrank from pressing it on Kitty as strongly as his wife. It may be that he did not think it of any use, or perhaps he did not like to assume any responsibility. At length, Sir Harry took his departure, merely pressing Kitty's hand, and giving her a look much resembling that in the picture of the "Last Appeal." All that Blanche could extract from Kitty was, that she would write to her after reconsidering Sir Harry's offer, within the next two or three days. She did write, and the following is an extract from her letter:

"I cannot alter my decision; though it wring my heart, it will not break his. I know his disposition, and the hearts of men do not easily give way. I have a mission to perform, high and holy if accomplished by the pure and good, a simple duty of atonement at my hands. And now farewell for ever! And haply if there be some who, for my sake, may hereafter think less harshly of sisters nursed in sin and reared in sorrow, and driven by hopeless penury to do wrong, those whose hearts Nature never fashioned for their dreadful career, but whom Society, in her dainty and exclusive programme, forgot; deserted, like the cruellest of stepmothers, even when they were little innocent children with sunshine playing in their golden hair, leaving them to wander amid the pitfalls of this dreary wilderness alone; if, warned by me, some of the great and powerful of my own sex think how they might have acted, had they been similarly exposed, and are led to acknowledge the universal bond of relationship that exists amongst all, where one touch of nature still lingers in the heart, then will my sacrifice not be in vain, my mission not wholly lost. Let only a larger and more comprehensive system of charity commence, and oh, what a tide of reproach may yet be rolled back from England!

"Let not yon poor creature avert her face in the hatred of desperation, or in the darkness of the more welcome grave! Give work, give homes, give bread, but give also your hearts to the task; and, above all, banish from the sacred altar of church and dwelling him of the double face and forked tongue,—the liar and seducer, for they are one. His 'honour'? His 'word'? Trust him not, friend or associate; for he would deceive men, if he dared. Believe not in his reform. His victims may be purified, he cannot. They are the ghosts of his sins that flit in your streets at eventide and haunt your thoroughfares by night. Drive him from your presence, or you become partners in his guilt: let not his wealth or title atone for the insult he offers when he approaches you, deeming that he leaves his other existence behind, as he would change his dress, or cast his skin with the snake."

To which we say heartily "Amen!"

And thou, we add, woman, or whatever else thou shouldst be called, who hast sold thyself respectably, and in the name of "wife," either for rank or money, to a man whom thou likest not, and hast done it in all the indecency of broad day, ere the hour of noon, in the open shame and coarseness of huge bouquets and favours borne by coachmen and flunkies before the gaping, gazing crowd, with the gewgaws and the lace-trimmed dresses for night and day wear, called a "trousseau," paraded and catalogued even in the newspapers, behold! is not the mother who assisted in thy sale a worse harridan than any of the looser class; because thou art her daughter, her own flesh and blood? And what art thou? Worse, worse than any flaunting creature thou shalt meet with in Regent-street at eve, or under the lamps of the Haymarket by night; worse, because many of these were betrayed by their confiding hearts, and many were never taught any honest or saving thing in their lives; worse, because most of these have sinned—if, in comparison with thee, they have sinned at all—from want and overtoil, from lack of kind words, shelter, and bread; worse, because they have been deceived, tempted, sinned against, driven to pollution, and thou hast not; worse, by all that Providence, and culture, and education have given thee, and all that thy sister has been denied in this her life, by civilisation, humanity, and Heaven in its inscrutable ways.

Remember that Christ Himself forgave the woman taken in adultery, and said unto her, "Go, and sin no more;" but that Sapphira was stricken with death for the utterance of a venal lie—a lie which thou hast, in thy respectability, far exceeded at the altar of the Most High in His temple on the most sacred occasion of thy feminine life, when thou soldest thyself as a beast to the best bidder; soldest thy blushes, or thy pale languor to a stranger, or a mere acquaintance, more odious for thy previous knowledge of him; soldest thy bloom of maiden modesty, the fragrance of thy virgin breast, as a Madame Rachel may henceforth sell thee her enamel for a price. Go to! thou art worse than they whose shrieks of forced laughter curdle the midnight air of this great traffic mart of unholy desires; for they, perchance, had no choice, and to what base use hast thou not surrendered thyself?

Will Kitty ever alter her decision and join Sir Harry Luckless, who changed his name to Mr. Wilmington en voyage to the new and distant community of which he is the most useful, energetic, and respected member? We cannot say. All that we can answer for is, that she has bound herself by no formal and religious vows, and that at present she is untiring in her good works. Sir Harry—artful fellow—has represented in a letter to Blanche that there is great want of spiritual instruction, and of a species of good angel in his part of the world—in fact, that a schoolmistress is much needed of a very superior kind to train up the infant community, of which he is chief representative, in the way it should go. Of the importance of this to a future great branch of the Anglo-Saxon (Celtic?) race about to be grafted in the fertile and thriving township of Wilmington, he says that any just and sufficient estimation can scarcely be formed—a view which Blanche Aubrey so thoroughly shared, when she heard of the above need, want, and spiritual destitution, that she has written a long letter thereon to Kitty, in which the matter is most admirably and exhaustively set forth.

Mr. Grinderby never quite recovered from the fright and shock he received on the day he was nailed up in Webb's Fields, followed as it was by the news of the terrible death of Manvers. For long he did not know how far he might be compromised, and his iniquity punished and made public. But he is reconciled to his son, and has shown such symptoms of repentance and amendment as an old lawyer may.

Manvers being dead, the matter fell entirely into the hands of Arthur Aubrey, who had no desire to prosecute, even had his hands not been tied by his regard and friendship for Edgar Leslie, who, with his charming wife, became the constant companions of the Aubreys. As for the latter poor folks, they are quite "out of Society;" but it is their own choice. Arthur is writing a romance founded upon his experience, from which great things are expected. He has already had a play produced with extraordinary success. It was one formerly rejected by three or four London managers, but he is now rich and independent. The critics declared that some of his situations, and much even of the language of his piece, had already appeared in a dramatic form on the stage; which was unquestionably true, seeing how much had been stolen from him! But he managed to get over that, and to prove his priority of authorship, to the great disgust of some of the pirate fraternity of playwrights. Blanche, when she can spare time from the nursery, is his eager and favourite amanuensis; but Aubrey has no difficulty in that respect, as he can afford a private secretary, who is no other than the sobered and remorseful Snap, whom Leslie stumbled on in a starving condition soon after the break up of Mr. Grinderby's law establishment.

Blanche, we need hardly state, left the stage, to the great sorrow of the musical world. She has only sung in public, since her reunion with Aubrey, at a few concerts for charitable purposes.

Tops and Susan are married, and live with Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey. As they are likely to have a family, they are about to live on Aubrey's estate, where Tops will chiefly devote himself to the management of a small grass farm and the breeding of horses.

And the Downy—what has become of an individual so difficult to provide for? He is made rich with a small annuity, and is the oracle of a club of working men. He has gone into a business, which, as he says, can't hurt him much; if there is no fear, on the other hand, of his making a rapid fortune by it. He has become a bird-fancier and seller, and keeps a shop near the Seven Dials, where he has really got a very good connexion, owing to his unvarying integrity, quaint sayings, and facetious manners. He is great in fowls, pigeons, bullfinches, and canaries, and is an authority on terriers. His dogs have the reputation of being some of the cleverest ever known.

"A dorg," he was heard to say lately to a young gentleman, who thought to take a rise out of him, "is a hanimal as wants a sight of drorin' out, afore he shows wot's in him, and them as belongs to dorgs must show theirselves worthy of a dorg's confidinse, afore they can fetch hout the kevallities as is in dorgs. There's some men as wouldn't find hout wot's in a dorg, no, not if they was to be left alone vith vun on a dissolute hisland. Instink? Yes, you can call it instink if yer like. In corse, a dorg can't discount a bill any more than he can git a friend to put his name to vun. You'd like vun as could discount. I believe yer—so'd a many as I knows of. Ven I've picked up vun of that sort, I'll drop yer a line immediate. Now 'ere's a little bitch as discounts rats howdacious—as game a little thing as ever you clapped heyes on. Thank yer, yer don't vant a dorg this mornin'. Bless yer, I knew that afore yer spoke. You vanted a bit of chaff with the Downy—felt yer hedication had been neglected, and that yer wosn't vide avake. 'Dorgmatic' am I? That's a vord I don't understand. I'm kvite ready to larn hany thing you'll teach me, and make a swop vith yer, as'll benefit both parties—kimmon sense and good manners agen hard vurds. You don't know wot the bull said to the butcher ven he torsed him in the china-shop? He said 'You've more vit than beauty.' What else did he say? Vy, that he didn't mean it anyvays as a compliment, and hoffered to torse him agen for the dammidges to the crockery. Yer didn't mean to aggerawate me? Of course not. You're green enough, but not kvite so green as that comes to neither. That vould be a hact of sooicide, young feller. And wot's more, you've kep' yer honnerabel intention; for yer ain't done it. Is that bird a moultin'? Yes, it air a moultin', and, wot's more, it'll come out a beauty, and no mistake, afore long. You thought it was dyin', did yer? Vell, it's werry hexcusable as you should make that mistake. Did yer never hear tell of human beins a moultin'? I've seen a precious sight of 'em go throught it, and some as never did get through it at hall. I was a moultin' myself all my life, till I come here. Wot's human moultin'? Vy, poverty, to be sure. I said your hedication were neglected. I see a director of a bank in a moultin' state yesterday. He hadn't a feather left as I could diskiver, and, wot's more, he ain't likely to, neither. He was a prime cock canary vunce, as far as feathers vent. Birds is different from men? Yes, but there's a few pints of resemblance atween 'em for all that. Ven a bird's moultin', t'other birds pick at him wicious, yer see. So do human beins. That's human natur' and bird natur' safe. And, wot's more, there's a Prowidinse as looks arter sparrers, ain't ther'? In course there is. And the topmost bird he gits knocked hoff his perch occasionally, don't he? And they all hops the twig some time or other, don't 'em? And there's goldfinches, and titmouses, and pigeons, and butcher-birds, and heagles, and hawks, and crows, ain't there? And wot d'ye s'pose the last two is? Vy, the lieyers and the parsons, to be sure. I'm a field-officer, am I? Vell, I gets my livin' in the fields, more or less. Vot bird do I think you resembles? Vy, you vanted to be a chaffinch ven you come here. Wot do I think you're like now? You mightn't think it polite, if I wos to tell yer. I'm to fire away, all right, am I? Vell, I think yer'd win the first prize at a goose-club. Wot's that? You think I'm as imperent as a Londing sparrer? Praps you've hit the mark this time. A sparrer as has sparred agin time and trouble, and cherruped in all vethers, vet or dry, cold or brilin'—a sparrer spared through many a row to find friends and good fortin. And, wot's more," said the Downy, getting excited by his own fancy, "as queer a bird as you'll, maybe, find in a long mornin's valk, master! but vun as has never lost his faith in human natur' or larned to hate his feller-creturs, on account of their hevil vays towards the poor and 'umble—the coves and covesses as can't help it, and is dust-blind vith grief and troubbel, as the hupper classes is short-sighted vith their hown crinksequential selfishness. And if yer vant to know the reason, it's acos I never felt werry spiteful myself, and I knowed there must be a many a sight better nor me, if I could honly come across 'em. And, wot's more, I never lost my faith in Him," said the Downy, taking off his dirty cloth cap (for he still wore one), "as made human natur' wot it is, and rich and poor alike, and hall seasons and vethers. And now, as you've hintimated that you've honly come for chaff, and don't vant neither a rat tan terrier, as can do all but cipher, nor a bullfinch, as can pipe 'God Save the Prince o' Wales' and 'Rule Brightanier,' I don't mind standin' harf a pint and drinkin' tervords yer himprovement in great hintillectual sci-intses of bird-fancyin' and dorg natur'. It's my hopinion," quoth the Downy, "and I've seen a fairish few in my time, that in this 'ere life you'll find most good vere you least expex it."

THE END.

LONDON:
C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, DUKE SIBSET, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS.