"No," said the vagrant.

"Well," said Rugge, sullenly; "let her speak for herself."

"Speak, child. You don't wish to return to Mr. Rugge,—and without me, too,—do you, Sophy?"

"Without you, Grandy! I'd rather die first."

"You hear her; all is settled between us. You have had our services up to last night; you have paid us up to last night; and so good morning to you, Mr. Rugge."

"My dear child," said the manager, softening his voice as much as he could, "do consider. You shall be so made of without that stupid old man. You think me cross, but 't is he who irritates and puts me out of temper. I 'm uncommon fond of children. I had a babe of my own once,—upon my honour, I had,—and if it had not been for convulsions, caused by teething, I should be a father still. Supply to me the place of that beloved babe. You shall have such fine dresses; all new,—choose 'em yourself,—minced veal and raspberry tarts for dinner every Sunday. In three years, under my care, you will become a great actress, and make your fortune, and marry a lord,—lords go out of their wits for great actresses,—whereas, with him, what will you do? drudge and rot and starve; and he can't live long, and then where will you be? 'T is a shame to hold her so, you idle old vagabond."

"I don't hold her," said Waife, trying to push her away. "There's something in what the man says. Choose for yourself, Sophy."

SOPHY (suppressing a sob).—"How can you have the heart to talk so, Grandy? I tell you, Mr. Rugge, you are a bad man, and I hate you, and all about you; and I'll stay with Grandfather; and I don't care if I do starve: he sha'n't!"

MR. RUGGE (clapping both hands on the crown of his hat, and striding to the door).—"William Waife, beware 't is done. I'm your enemy. As for you, too dear but abandoned infant, stay with him: you'll find out very soon who and what he is; your pride will have a fall, when—"

Waife sprang forward, despite his lameness,—both his fists clenched, his one eye ablaze; his broad burly torso confronted and daunted the stormy manager. Taller and younger though Rugge was, he cowered before the cripple he had so long taunted and humbled. The words stood arrested on his tongue. "Leave the room instantly!" thundered the actor, in a voice no longer broken. "Blacken my name before that child by one word, and I will dash the next down your throat." Rugge rushed to the door, and keeping it ajar between Waife and himself, he then thrust in his head, hissing forth,

"Fly, caitiff, fly! my revenge shall track your secret and place you in my power. Juliet Araminta shall yet be mine." With these awful words the Remorseless Baron cleared the stairs in two bounds, and was out of the house.

Waife smiled contemptuously. But as the street-door clanged on the form of the angry manager, the colour faded from the old man's face. Exhausted by the excitement he had gone through, he sank on a chair, and, with one quick gasp as for breath, fainted away.



CHAPTER XI.

Progress of the Fine Arts.—Biographical anecdotes.—Fluctuations in the value of money.—Speculative tendencies of the time.

Whatever the shock which the brutality of the Remorseless Baron inflicted on the nervous system of the persecuted but triumphant Bandit, it had certainly subsided by the time Vance and Lionel entered Waife's apartment; for they found grandfather and grandchild seated near the open window, at the corner of the table (on which they had made room for their operations by the removal of the carved cocoanut, the crystal egg, and the two flower-pots), eagerly engaged, with many a silvery laugh from the lips of Sophy, in the game of dominos.

Mr. Waife had been devoting himself, for the last hour and more, to the instruction of Sophy in the mysteries of that intellectual amusement; and such pains did he take, and so impressive were his exhortations, that his happy pupil could not help thinking to herself that this was the new art upon which Waife depended for their future livelihood. She sprang up, however, at the entrance of the visitors, her face beaming with grateful smiles; and, running to Lionel and taking him by the hand, while she courtesied with more respect to Vance, she exclaimed, "We are free! thanks to you, thanks to you both! He is gone! Mr. Rugge is gone!"

"So I saw on passing the green; stage and all," said Vance, while Lionel kissed the child and pressed her to his side. It is astonishing how paternal he felt,—how much she had crept into his heart.

"Pray, sir," asked Sophy, timidly, glancing to Vance, "has the Norfolk Giant gone too?"

VANCE.—"I fancy so—all the shows were either gone or going."

SOPHY.—"The Calf with Two Heads?"

VANCE.—"Do you regret it?"

SOPHY.—"Oh, dear, no."

Waife, who after a profound bow, and a cheery "Good day, gentlemen," had hitherto remained silent, putting away the dominoes, now said, "I suppose, sir, you would like at once to begin your sketch?"

VANCE.—"Yes; I have brought all my tools; see, even the canvas. I wish it were larger, but it is all I have with me of that material: 't is already stretched; just let me arrange the light."

WAIFE.—"If you don't want me, gentlemen, I will take the air for half-an-hour or so. In fact, I may now feel free to look after my investment."

SOPHY (whispering Lionel).—"You are sure the Calf has gone as well as the Norfolk Giant?"

Lionel wonderingly replied that he thought so; and Waife disappeared into his room, whence he soon emerged, having doffed his dressing-gown for a black coat, by no means threadbare, and well brushed. Hat, stick, and gloves in hand, he really seemed respectable,—more than respectable,—Gentleman Waife every inch of him; and saying, "Look your best, Sophy, and sit still, if you can," nodded pleasantly to the three, and hobbled down the stairs. Sophy—whom Vance had just settled into a chair, with her head bent partially down (three-quarters), as the artist had released

"The loose train of her amber-dropping hair,"

and was contemplating aspect and position with a painter's meditative eye-started up, to his great discomposure, and rushed to the window. She returned to her seat with her mind much relieved. Waife was walking in an opposite direction to that which led towards the whilolm quarters of the Norfolk Giant and the Two-headed Calf.

"Come, come," said Vance, impatiently, "you have broken an idea in half. I beg you will not stir till I have placed you; and then, if all else of you be still, you may exercise your tongue. I give you leave to talk."

SOPHY (penitentially).—"I am so sorry—I beg pardon. Will that do, sir?"

VANCE.—"Head a little more to the right,—so, Titania watching Bottom asleep. Will you lie on the floor, Lionel, and do Bottom?"

LIONEL (indignantly).—"Bottom! Have I an ass's head?"

VANCE.—"Immaterial! I can easily imagine that you have one. I want merely an outline of figure,—something sprawling and ungainly."

LIONEL (sulkily).—"Much obliged to you; imagine that too."

VANCE.—"Don't be so disobliging. It is necessary that she should look fondly at something,—expression in the eye." Lionel at once reclined himself incumbent in a position as little sprawling and ungainly as he could well contrive.

VANCE.—"Fancy, Miss Sophy, that this young gentleman is very dear to you. Have you got a brother?"

SOPHY.—"Ah, no, sir."

VANCE.—"Hum. But you have, or have had, a doll?"

SOPHY.—"Oh, yes; Grandfather gave me one."

VANCE.—"And you were fond of that doll?"

SOPHY.—"Very."

VANCE.—"Fancy that young gentleman is your doll grown big, that it is asleep, and you are watching that no one hurts it; Mr. Rugge, for instance. Throw your whole soul into that thought,—love for doll, apprehension of Rugge. Lionel, keep still, and shut your eyes; do."

LIONEL (grumbling).—"I did not come here to be made a doll of."

VANCE.—"Coax him to be quiet, Miss Sophy, and sleep peaceably, or I shall do him a mischief. I can be a Rugge, too, if I am put out."

SOPHY (in the softest tones).—"Do try and sleep, sir: shall I get you a pillow?"

LIONEL.—"No, thank you: I'm very comfortable now," settling his head upon his arm; and after one upward glance towards Sophy, the lids closed reluctantly over his softened eyes. A ray of sunshine came aslant through the half-shut window, and played along the boy's clustering hair and smooth pale cheek. Sophy's gaze rested on him most benignly.

"Just so," said Vance; "and now be silent till I have got the attitude and fixed the look."

The artist sketched away rapidly with a bold practised hand, and all was silent for about half-an-hour, when he said, "You May get up, Lionel; I have done with you for the present."

SOPHY.—"And me too—may I see?"

VANCE.—"No, but you may talk now. So you had a doll? What has become of it?"

SOPHY.—"I left it behind, sir. Grandfather thought it would distract me from attending to his lessons and learning my part."

VANCE.—"You love your grandfather more than the doll?"

SOPHY.—"Oh! a thousand million million times more."

VANCE.—"He brought you up, I suppose? Have you no father,—no mother?"

SOPHY.—"I have only Grandfather."

LIONEL.—"Have you always lived with him?"

SOPHY.—"Dear me, no; I was with Mrs. Crane till Grandfather came from abroad, and took me away, and put me with some very kind people; and then, when Grandfather had that bad accident, I came to stay with him, and we have been together ever since."

LIONEL.—"Was Mrs. Crane no relation of yours?"

SOPHY.—"No, I suppose not, for she was not kind; I was so miserable: but don't talk of it; I forget that now. I only wish to remember from the time Grandfather took me in his lap, and told me to be a good child and love him; and I have been happy ever since."

"You are a dear good child," said Lionel, emphatically, "and I wish I had you for my sister."

VANCE.—"When your grandfather has received from me that exorbitant—not that I grudge it—sum, I should like to ask, What will he do with it? As he said it was a secret, I must not pump you."

SOPHY.—"What will he do with it? I should like to know, too, sir; but whatever it is I don't care, so long as I and Grandfather are together."

Here Waife re-entered. "Well, how goes on the picture?"

VANCE.—"Tolerably, for the first sitting; I require two more."

WAIFE.—"Certainly; only—only" (he drew aside Vance, and whispered), "only the day after to-morrow, I fear I shall want the money. It is an occasion that never will occur again: I would seize it."

VANCE.—"Take the money now."

WAIFE.—"Well, thank you, sir; you are sure now that we shall not run away; and I accept your kindness; it will make all safe."

Vance, with surprising alacrity, slipped the sovereigns into the old man's hand; for truth to say, though thrifty, the artist was really generous. His organ of caution was large, but that of acquisitiveness moderate. Moreover, in those moments when his soul expanded with his art, he was insensibly less alive to the value of money. And strange it is that, though States strive to fix for that commodity the most abiding standards, yet the value of money to the individual who regards it shifts and fluctuates, goes up and down half-a-dozen times a day. For any part, I honestly declare that there are hours in the twenty-four—such, for instance, as that just before breakfast, or that succeeding a page of this History in which I have been put out of temper with my performance and myself—when any one in want of five shillings at my disposal would find my value of that sum put it quite out of his reach; while at other times—just after dinner, for instance, or when I have effected what seems to me a happy stroke, or a good bit of colour, in this historical composition—the value of those five shillings is so much depreciated that I might be,—I think so, at least,—I might be almost tempted to give them away for nothing. Under some such mysterious influences in the money-market, Vance therefore felt not the loss of his three sovereigns; and returning to his easel, drove away Lionel and Sophy, who had taken that opportunity to gaze on the canvas.

"Don't do her justice at all," quoth Lionel; "all the features exaggerated."

"And you pretend to paint!" returned Vance, in great scorn, and throwing a cloth over his canvas. "To-morrow, Mr. Waife, the same hour. Now, Lionel, get your hat, and come away."

Vance carried off the canvas, and Lionel followed slowly. Sophy gazed at their departing forms from the open window; Waife stumped about the room, rubbing his hands, "He'll do; he 'll do: I always thought so." Sophy turned: "Who'll do?—the young gentleman? Do what?"

WAIFE.-"The young gentleman?-as if I was thinking of him! Our new companion; I have been with him this last hour. Wonderful natural gifts."

SOPHY (ruefully).—"It is alive, then?"

WAIFE.—"Alive! yes, I should think so."

SOPHY (half-crying.)—"I am very sorry; I know I shall hate it."

WAIFF.—"Tut, darling: get me my pipe; I'm happy."

SOPHY (cutting short her fit of ill-humour).—"Are you? then I am, and I will not hate it."



CHAPTER XII.

In which it is shown that a man does this or declines to do that for reasons best known to himself,—a reserve which is extremely conducive to the social interests of a community, since the conjecture into the origin and nature of those reasons stimulates the inquiring faculties, and furnishes the staple of modern conversation. And as it is not to be denied that, if their neighbours left them nothing to guess at, three-fourths of civilized humankind, male or female, would have nothing to talk about; so we cannot too gratefully encourage that needful curiosity termed by the inconsiderate tittle-tattle or scandal, which saves the vast majority of our species from being reduced to the degraded condition of dumb animals.

The next day the sitting was renewed: but Waife did not go out, and the conversation was a little more restrained; or rather, Waife had the larger share in it. The Comedian, when he pleased, could certainly be very entertaining. It was not so much in what he said as his manner of saying it. He was a strange combination of sudden extremes, at one while on a tone of easy but not undignified familiarity with his visitors, as if their equal in position, their superior in years; then abruptly, humble, deprecating, almost obsequious, almost servile; and then again, jerked as it were into pride and stiffness, falling back, as if the effort were impossible, into meek dejection. Still the prevalent character of the man's mood and talk was social, quaint, cheerful. Evidently he was by original temperament a droll and joyous humourist, with high animal spirits; and, withal, an infantine simplicity at times, like the clever man who never learns the world and is always taken in.

A circumstance, trifling in itself, but suggestive of speculation either as to the character or antecedent circumstances of Gentleman Waife, did not escape Vance's observation. Since his rupture with Mr. Rugge, there was a considerable amelioration in that affection of the trachea, which, while his engagement with Rugge lasted, had rendered the Comedian's dramatic talents unavailable on the stage. He now expressed himself without the pathetic hoarseness or cavernous wheeze which had previously thrown a wet blanket over his efforts at discourse. But Vance put no very stern construction on the dissimulation which his change seemed to denote. Since Waife was still one-eyed and a cripple, he might very excusably shrink from reappearance on the stage, and affect a third infirmity to save his pride from the exhibition of the two infirmities that were genuine.

That which most puzzled Vance was that which had most puzzled the Cobbler,—What could the man once have been? how fallen so low?—for fall it was, that was clear. The painter, though not himself of patrician extraction, had been much in the best society. He had been a petted favourite in great houses. He had travelled. He had seen the world. He had the habits and instincts of good society.

Now, in what the French term the beau monde, there are little traits that reveal those who have entered it,—certain tricks of phrase, certain modes of expression,—even the pronunciation of familiar words, even the modulation of an accent. A man of the most refined bearing may not have these peculiarities; a man, otherwise coarse and brusque in his manner, may. The slang of the beau monde is quite apart from the code of high breeding. Now and then, something in Waife's talk seemed to show that he had lighted on that beau-world; now and then, that something wholly vanished. So that Vance might have said, "He has been admitted there, not inhabited it."

Yet Vance could not feel sure, after all; comedians are such takes in. But was the man, by the profession of his earlier life, a comedian? Vance asked the question adroitly.

"You must have taken to the stage young?" said he.

"The stage!" said Waife; "if you mean the public stage, no. I have acted pretty often in youth, even in childhood, to amuse others, never professionally to support myself, till Mr. Rugge civilly engaged me four years ago."

"Is it possible,—with your excellent education! But pardon me; I have hinted my surprise at your late vocation before, and it displeased you."

"Displeased me!" said Waife, with an abject, depressed manner; "I hope I said nothing that would have misbecome a poor broken vagabond like me. I am no prince in disguise,—a good-for-nothing varlet who should be too grateful to have something to keep himself from a dunghill."

LIONEL.—"Don't talk so. And but for your accident you might now be the great attraction on the metropolitan stage. Who does not respect a really fine actor?"

WAIFE (gloomily).—"The metropolitan stage! I was talked into it: I am glad even of the accident that saved me; say no more of that, no more of that. But I have spoiled your sitting. Sophy, you see, has left her chair."

"I have done for to-day," said Vance; "to-morrow, and my task is ended."

Lionel came up to Vance and whispered him; the painter, after a pause, nodded silently, and then said to Waife,

"We are going to enjoy the fine weather on the Thames (after I have put away these things), and shall return to our inn—not far hence—to sup, at eight o'clock. Supper is our principal meal; we rarely spoil our days by the ceremonial of a formal dinner. Will you do us the favour to sup with us? Our host has a wonderful whiskey, which when raw is Glenlivat, but refined into toddy is nectar. Bring your pipe, and let us hear John Kemble again."

Waife's face lighted up. "You are most kind; nothing I should like so much. But—" and the light fled, the face darkened—"but no; I cannot—you don't know—that is—I—I have made a vow to myself to decline all such temptations. I humbly beg you'll excuse me."

VANCE.—"Temptations! of what kind,—the whiskey toddy?"

WAIFE (puffing away a sigh).—"Ah, yes; whiskey toddy, if you please. Perhaps I once loved a glass too well, and could not resist a glass too much now; and if I once broke the rule and became a tippler, what would happen to Juliet Araminta? For her sake don't press me."

"Oh, do go, Grandy; he never drinks,—never anything stronger than tea, I assure you, sir: it can't be that."

"It is, silly child, and nothing else," said Waife, positively, drawing himself up,—"excuse me."

Lionel began brushing his hat with his sleeve, and his face worked; at last he said, "Well, sir, then may I ask another favour? Mr. Vance and I are going to-morrow, after the sitting, to see Hampton Court; we have kept that excursion to the last before leaving these parts. Would you and little Sophy come with us in the boat? We will have no whiskey toddy, and we will bring you both safe home."

WAIFE.—"What—I! what—I! You are very young, sir,—a gentleman born and bred, I'll swear; and you to be seen, perhaps by some of your friends or family, with an old vagrant like me, in the Queen's palace,—the public gardens! I should be the vilest wretch if I took such advantage of your goodness. 'Pretty company,' they would say, 'you had got into.' With me! with me! Don't be alarmed, Mr. Vance not to be thought of."

The young men were deeply affected.

"I can't accept that reason," said Lionel, tremulously, "though I must not presume to derange your habits. But she may go with us, mayn't she? We'll take care of her, and she is dressed so plainly and neatly, and looks such a little lady" (turning to Vance).

"Yes, let her come with us," said the artist, benevolently; though he by no means shared in Lionel's enthusiastic desire for her company. He thought she would be greatly in their way.

"Heaven bless you both!" answered Waife; "and she wants a holiday; she shall have it."

"I'd rather stay with you, Grandy: you'll be so lone."

"No, I wish to be out all to-morrow,-the investment! I shall not be alone; making friends with our future companion, Sophy."

"And can do without me already? heigh-ho!"

VANCE.—"So that's settled; good-by to you."



CHAPTER XIII.

Inspiring effect of the Fine Arts: the vulgar are moved by their exhibition into generous impulses and flights of fancy, checked by the ungracious severities of their superiors, as exemplified in the instance of Cobbler Merle and his servant of-all-work.

The next day, perhaps with the idea of removing all scruple from Sophy's mind, Waife had already gone after his investment when the friends arrived. Sophy at first was dull and dispirited, but by degrees she brightened up; and when, the sitting over and the picture done (save such final touches as Vance reserved for solitary study), she was permitted to gaze at her own effigy, she burst into exclamations of frank delight. "Am I like that! is it possible? Oh, how beautiful! Mr. Merle, Mr. Merle, Mr. Merle!" and running out of the room before Vance could stop her, she returned with the Cobbler, followed, too, by a thin gaunt girl, whom he pompously called his housekeeper, but who in sober truth was servant-of-all-work. Wife he had none: his horoscope, he said, having Saturn in square to the Seventh House, forbade him to venture upon matrimony. All gathered round the picture; all admired, and with justice: it was a chef-d'oeuvre. Vance in his maturest day never painted more charmingly. The three pounds proved to be the best outlay of capital he had ever made. Pleased with his work, he was pleased even with that unsophisticated applause.

"You must have Mercury and Venus very strongly aspected," quoth the Cobbler; "and if you have the Dragon's Head in the Tenth House, you may count on being much talked of after you are dead."

"After I am dead!—sinister omen!" said Vance, discomposed. "I have no faith in artists who count on being talked of after they are dead. Never knew a dauber who did not! But stand back: time flies; tie up your hair; put on your bonnet, Titania. You have a shawl?—not tinsel, I hope! quieter the better. You stay and see to her, Lionel."

Said the gaunt servant-of-all-work to Mr. Merle, "I'd let the gentleman paint me, if he likes: shall I tell him, master?"

"Go back to the bacon, foolish woman. Why, he gave L3 for her likeness, 'cause of her Benefics! But you'd have to give him three years' wages afore he'd look you straight in the face, 'cause, you see, your Aspects are crooked. And," added the Cobbler, philosophizing, "when the Malefics are dead agin a girl's mug, man is so constituted by natur' that he can't take to that mug unless it has a golden handle. Don't fret, 't is not your fault: born under Scorpio,—coarse-limbed,—dull complexion; and the Head of the Dragon aspected of Infortunes in all your Angles."



CHAPTER XIV.

The historian takes advantage of the summer hours vouchsafed to the present life of Mr. Waife's grandchild, in order to throw a few gleams of light on her past.—He leads her into the palace of our kings, and moralizes thereon; and, entering the Royal Gardens, shows the uncertainty of human events, and the insecurity of British laws, by the abrupt seizure and constrained deportation of an innocent and unforeboding Englishman.

Such a glorious afternoon! The capricious English summer was so kind that day to the child and her new friends! When Sophy's small foot once trod the sward, had she been really Queen of the Green People, sward and footstep could not more joyously have met together. The grasshopper bounded in fearless trust upon the hem of her frock; she threw herself down on the grass and caught him, but, oh, so tenderly! and the gay insect, dear to poet and fairy, seemed to look at her from that quaint sharp face of his with sagacious recognition, resting calmly on the palm of her pretty hand; then when he sprang off, little moth-like butterflies peculiar to the margins of running waters quivered up from the herbage, fluttering round her. And there, in front, lay the Thames, glittering through the willows, Vance getting ready the boat, Lionel seated by her side, a child like herself, his pride of incipient manhood all forgotten; happy in her glee; she loving him for the joy she felt, and blending his image evermore in her remembrance with her first summer holiday,—with sunny beams, glistening leaves, warbling birds, fairy wings, sparkling waves. Oh, to live so in a child's heart,—innocent, blessed, angel-like,—better, better than the troubled reflection upon woman's later thoughts, better than that mournful illusion, over which tears so bitter are daily shed,—better than First Love! They entered the boat. Sophy had never, to the best of her recollection, been in a boat before. All was new to her: the lifelike speed of the little vessel; that world of cool green weeds, with the fish darting to and fro; the musical chime of oars; those distant stately swans. She was silent now—her heart was very full.

"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked Lionel, resting on the oar.

"Thinking!—I was not thinking."

"What then?"

"I don't know,—feeling, I suppose."

"Feeling what?"

"As if between sleeping and waking; as the water perhaps feels, with the sunlight on it!"

"Poetical," said Vance, who, somewhat of a poet himself, naturally sneered at poetical tendencies in others; "but not so bad in its way. Ah, have I hurt your vanity? there are tears in your eyes."

"No, sir," said Sophy, falteringly. "But I was thinking then."

"Ah," said the artist, "that's the worst of it; after feeling ever comes thought; what was yours?"

"I was sorry poor Grandfather was not here, that's all."

"It was not our fault: we pressed him cordially," said Lionel.

"You did indeed, sir, thank you! And I don't know why he refused you." The young men exchanged compassionate glances.

Lionel then sought to make her talk of her past life, tell him more of Mrs. Crane. Who and what was she?

Sophy could not or would not tell. The remembrances were painful; she had evidently tried to forget them. And the people with whom Waife had placed her, and who had been kind?

The Misses Burton; and they kept a day-school, and taught Sophy to read, write, and cipher. They lived near London, in a lane opening on a great common, with a green rail before the house, and had a good many pupils, and kept a tortoise shell cat and a canary. Not much to enlighten her listener did Sophy impart here.

And now they neared that stately palace, rich in associations of storm and splendour,—of the grand Cardinal; the iron-clad Protector; Dutch William of the immortal memory, whom we tried so hard to like, and in spite of the great Whig historian, that Titian of English prose, can only frigidly respect. Hard task for us Britons to like a Dutchman who dethrones his father-in-law, and drinks schnaps! Prejudice certainly; but so it is. Harder still to like Dutch William's unfilial Fran! Like Queen Mary! I could as soon like Queen Goneril! Romance flies from the prosperous phlegmatic AEneas; flies from his plump Lavinia, his "fidus Achates," Bentinck; flies to follow the poor deserted fugitive Stuart, with all his sins upon his head. Kings have no rights divine, except when deposed and fallen; they are then invested with the awe that belongs to each solemn image of mortal vicissitude,—vicissitude that startles the Epicurean, "insanientis sapientiae consultus," and strikes from his careless lyre the notes that attest a god! Some proud shadow chases another from the throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thunder the rush of Diespiter, and identifies Providence with the Fortune that snatches off the diadem in her whirring swoop. But fronts discrowned take a new majesty to generous natures: in all sleek prosperity there is something commonplace; in all grand adversity, something royal.

The boat shot to the shore; the young people landed, and entered the arch of the desolate palace. They gazed on the great hall and the presence-chamber, and the long suite of rooms with faded portraits; Vance as an artist, Lionel as an enthusiastic, well-read boy, Sophy as a wondering, bewildered, ignorant child. And then they emerged into the noble garden, with its regal trees. Groups were there of well dressed persons. Vance heard himself called by name. He had forgotten the London world,—forgotten, amidst his midsummer ramblings, that the London season was still ablaze; and there, stragglers from the great focus, fine people, with languid tones and artificial jaded smiles, caught him in his wanderer's dress, and walking side by side with the infant wonder of Mr. Rugge's show, exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a coloured print, of a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it is "selling off." The artist stopped, coloured, bowed, answered the listless questions put to him with shy haste: he then attempted to escape; they would not let him.

"You MUST come back and dine with us at the Star and Garter," said Lady Selina Vipont. "A pleasant party,—you know most of them,—the Dudley Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pretty Ladies Prymme, Janet and Wilhelmina."

"We can't let you off," said, sleepily, Mr. Crampe, a fashionable wit, who rarely made more than one bon mot in the twenty-four hours, and spent the rest of his time in a torpid state.

VANCE.—"Really you are too kind, but I am not even dressed for—"

LADY SELINA.—"So charmingly dressed-so picturesque! Besides, what matters? Every one knows who you are. Where on earth have you been?"

VANCE.—"Rambling about, taking sketches."

LADY SELINA (directing her eyeglass towards Lionel and Sophy, who stood aloof).—"But your companions, your brother? and that pretty little girl,—your sister, I suppose?"

VANCE (shuddering).—"No, not relations. I took charge of the boy,—clever young fellow; and the little girl is—"

LADY SELINA.—"Yes. The little girl is—"

VANCE.—"A little girl, as you see: and very pretty, as you say,—subject for a picture."

LADY SELINA (indifferently).—"Oh, let the children go and amuse themselves somewhere. Now we have found you; positively you are our prisoner."

Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of London; she had with her that habit of command natural to such royalties. Frank Vance was no tuft-hunter, but once under social influences, they had their effect on him, as on most men who are blest with noses in the air. Those great ladies, it is true, never bought his pictures; but they gave him the position which induced others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his art needed its career. Its career was certainly brightened and quickened by the help of rank and fashion.

In short, Lady Selina triumphed, and the painter stepped back to Lionel. "I must go to Richmond with these people. I know you'll excuse me. I shall be back to-night somehow. By the by, as you are going to the post-office here for the letter you expect from your mother, ask for my letters too. You will take care of little Sophy, and [in a whisper] hurry her out of the garden, or that Grand Mogul feminine, Lady Selina, whose condescension would crush the Andes, will be stopping her as my protege, falling in raptures with that horrid coloured print, saying, 'Dear, what pretty sprigs! where can such things be got?' and learning perhaps how Frank Vance saved the Bandit's Child from the Remorseless Baron. 'T is your turn now. Save your friend. The Baron was a lamb compared to a fine lady." He pressed Lionel's unresponding hand, and was off to join the polite merrymaking of the Frosts, Slowes, and Prymmes.

Lionel's pride ran up to the fever-heat of its thermometer; more roused, though, on behalf of the unconscious Sophy than himself.

"Let us come into the town, lady-bird, and choose a doll. You may have one now, without fear of distracting you from what I hate to think you ever stooped to perform."

As Lionel, his crest erect and nostril dilated, and holding Sophy firmly by the hand, took his way out from the gardens, he was obliged to pass the patrician party, of whom Vance now made one.

His countenance and air, as he swept by, struck them all, especially Lady Selina. "A very distinguished-looking boy," said she. "What a fine face! Who did you say he was, Mr. Vance?"

VANCE.—"His name is Haughton,—Lionel Haughton."

LADY SELINA.—"Haughton! Haughton! Any relation to poor dear Captain Haughton,—Charlie Haughton, as he was generally called?"

Vance, knowing little more of his young friend's parentage than that his mother let lodgings, at which, once domiciliated himself, he had made the boy's acquaintance, and that she enjoyed the pension of a captain's widow, replied carelessly,—

"His father was a captain, but I don't know whether he was a Charlie."

MR. CRAMPE (the wit).—"Charlies are extinct! I have the last in a fossil,—box and all."

General laugh. Wit shut up again.

LADY SELINA.—"He has a great look of Charlie Haughton. Do you know if he is connected with that extraordinary man, Mr. Darrell?"

VANCE.—"Upon my word, I do not. What Mr. Darrell do you mean?"

Lady Selina, with one of those sublime looks of celestial pity with which personages in the great world forgive ignorance of names and genealogies in those not born within its orbit, replied, "Oh, to be sure. It is not exactly in the way of your delightful art to know Mr. Darrell, one of the first men in Parliament, a connection of mine."

LADY FROST (nippingly).—"You mean Guy Darrell, the lawyer."

LADY SELINA.—"Lawyer—true; now I think of it, he was a lawyer. But his chief fame was in the House of Commons. All parties agreed that he might have commanded any station; but he was too rich perhaps to care sufficiently about office. At all events, Parliament was dissolved when he was at the height of his reputation, and he refused to be re-elected."

One SIR GREGORY STOLLHEAD (a member of the House of Commons, young, wealthy, a constant attendant, of great promise, with speeches that were filled with facts, and emptied the benches).—"I have heard of him. Before my time; lawyers not much weight in the House now."

LADY SELINA.—"I am told that Mr. Darrell did not speak like a lawyer. But his career is over; lives in the country, and sees nobody; a thousand pities; a connection of mine, too; great loss to the country. Ask your young friend, Mr. Vance, if Mr. Darrell is not his relation. I hope so, for his sake. Now that our party is in power, Mr. Darrell could command anything for others, though he has ceased to act with us. Our party is not forgetful of talent."

LADY FROST (with icy crispness).—"I should think not: it has so little of that kind to remember."

SIR GREGORY.—"Talent is not wanted in the House of Commons now; don't go down, in fact. Business assembly."

LADY SELINA (suppressing a yawn).—"Beautiful day! We had better think of going back to Richmond."

General assent, and slow retreat.



CHAPTER XV.

The historian records the attachment to public business which distinguishes the British legislator.—Touching instance of the regret which ever in patriotic bosoms attends the neglect of a public duty.

From the dusty height of a rumble-tumble affixed to Lady Selina Vipont's barouche, and by the animated side of Sir Gregory Stollhead, Vance caught sight of Lionel and Sophy at a corner of the spacious green near the Palace. He sighed; he envied them. He thought of the boat, the water, the honeysuckle arbour at the little inn,—pleasures he had denied himself,—pleasures all in his own way. They seemed still more alluring by contrast with the prospect before him; formal dinner at the Star and Garter, with titled Prymmes, Slowes, and Frosts, a couple of guineas a head, including light wines, which he did not drink, and the expense of a chaise back by himself. But such are life and its social duties,—such, above all, ambition and a career. Who that would leave a name on his tombstone can say to his own heart, "Perish Stars and Garters: my existence shall pass from day to day in honeysuckle arbours!"

Sir Gregory Stollhead interrupted Vance's revery by an impassioned sneeze. "Dreadful smell of hay!" said the legislator, with watery eyes. "Are you subject to the hay fever? I am! A-tisha-tisha-tisha [sneezing]—country frightfully unwholesome at this time of year. And to think that I ought now to be in the House,—in my committee-room; no smell of hay there; most important committee."

VANCE (rousing himself).—"Ah—on what?"

SIR GREGORY (regretfully).—"Sewers."



CHAPTER XVI.

Signs of an impending revolution, which, like all revolutions, seems to come of a sudden, though its causes have long been at work; and to go off in a tantrum, though its effects must run on to the end of a history.

Lionel could not find in the toy-shops of the village a doll good enough to satisfy his liberal inclinations, but he bought one which amply contented the humbler aspirations of Sophy. He then strolled to the post-office. There were several letters for Vance; one for himself in his mother's handwriting. He delayed opening it for the moment. The day was far advanced Sophy must be hungry. In vain she declared she was not. They passed by a fruiterer's stall. The strawberries and cherries were temptingly fresh; the sun still very powerful. At the back of the fruiterer's was a small garden, or rather orchard, smiling cool through the open door; little tables laid out there. The good woman who kept the shop was accustomed to the wants and tastes of humble metropolitan visitors. But the garden was luckily now empty: it was before the usual hour for tea-parties; so the young folks had the pleasantest table under an apple-tree, and the choice of the freshest fruit. Milk and cakes were added to the fare. It was a banquet, in Sophy's eyes, worthy that happy day. And when Lionel had finished his share of the feast, eating fast, as spirited, impatient boys formed to push on in life and spoil their digestion are apt to do; and while Sophy was still lingering over the last of the strawberries, he threw himself back on his chair and drew forth his letter. Lionel was extremely fond of his mother, but her letters were not often those which a boy is over-eager to read. It is not all mothers who understand what boys are,—their quick susceptibilities, their precocious manliness, all their mystical ways and oddities. A letter from Mrs. Haughton generally somewhat fretted and irritated Lionel's high-strung nerves, and he had instinctively put off the task of reading the one he held, till satisfied hunger and cool-breathing shadows, and rest from the dusty road, had lent their soothing aid to his undeveloped philosophy.

He broke the seal slowly; another letter was enclosed within. At the first few words his countenance changed; he uttered a slight exclamation, read on eagerly; then, before concluding his mother's epistle, hastily tore open that which it had contained, ran his eye over its contents, and, dropping both letters on the turf below, rested his face on his hand in agitated thought. Thus ran his mother's letter:

MY DEAR BOY,—How could you! Do it slyly!! Unknown to your own mother!! I could not believe it of you!!!! Take advantage of my confidence in showing you the letters of your father's cousin, to write to himself—clandestinely!—you, who I thought had such an open character, and who ought to appreciate mine. Every one who knows me says I am a woman in ten thousand,—not for beauty and talent (though I have had my admirers for them too), but for GOODNESS I As a wife and mother, I may say I have been exemplary. I had sore trials with the dear captain—and IMMENSE temptations. But he said on his death-bed, "Jessica, you are an angel." And I have had offers since,—IMMENSE offers,—but I devoted myself to my child, as you know. And what I have put up with, letting the first floor, nobody can tell; and only a widow's pension,—going before a magistrate to get it paid! And to think my own child, for whom I have borne so much, should behave so cruelly to me! Clandestine! that is that which stabs me. Mrs. Inman found me crying, and said, "What is the matter?—you who are such an angel, crying like a baby!" And I could not help saying, "'T is the serpent's tooth, Mrs. L" What you wrote to your benefactor (and I had hoped patron) I don't care to guess; something very rude and imprudent it must be, judging by the few lines he addressed to me. I don't mind copying them for you to read. All my acts are aboveboard, as often and often Captain H. used to say, "Your heart is in a glass case, Jessica;" and so it is! but my son keeps his under lock and key.

"Madam [this is what he writes to me], your son has thought fit to infringe the condition upon which I agreed to assist you on his behalf. I enclose a reply to himself, which I beg you will give to his own hands without breaking the seal. Since it did not seem to you indiscreet to communicate to a boy of his years letters written solely to yourself, you cannot blame me if I take your implied estimate of his capacity to judge for himself of the nature of a correspondence, and of the views and temper of, madam, your very obedient servant." And that's all to me.

I send his letter to you,—seal unbroken. I conclude he has done with you forever, and your CAREER is lost! But if it be so, oh, my poor, poor child I at that thought I have not the heart to scold you further. If it be so, come home to me, and I 'll work and slave for you, and you shall keep up your head and be a gentleman still, as you are, every inch of you. Don't mind what I've said at the beginning, dear: don't you know I'm hasty; and I was hurt. But you could not mean to be sly and underhand: 'twas only your high spirit, and it was my fault; I should not have shown you the letters. I hope you are well, and have quite lost that nasty cough, and that Mr. Vance treats you with proper respect. I think him rather too pushing and familiar, though a pleasant young man on the whole. But, after all, he is only a painter Bless you, my child, and don't have secrets again from your poor mother.

JESSICA HAUGHTON.

The enclosed letter was as follows:—

LIONEL HAUGHTON,—Some men might be displeased at receiving such a letter as you have addressed to me; I am not. At your years, and under the same circumstances, I might have written a letter much in the same spirit. Relieve your mind: as yet you owe me no obligations; you have only received back a debt due to you. My father was poor; your grandfather, Robert Haughton, assisted him in the cost of my education. I have assisted your father's son; we are quits. Before, however, we decide on having done with each other for the future, I suggest to you to pay me a short visit. Probably I shall not like you, nor you me. But we are both gentlemen, and need not show dislike too coarsely. If you decide on coming, come at once, or possibly you may not find me here. If you refuse, I shall have a poor opinion of your sense and temper, and in a week I shall have forgotten your existence. I ought to add that your father and I were once warm friends, and that by descent I am the head not only of my own race, which ends with me, but of the Haughton family, of which, though your line assumed the name, it was but a younger branch. Nowadays young men are probably not brought up to care for these things: I was. Yours,

GUY HAUGHTON DARRELL.

MANOR HOUSE, FAWLEY.

Sophy picked up the fallen letters, placed them on Lionel's lap, and looked into his face wistfully. He smiled, resumed his mother's epistle, and read the concluding passages, which he had before omitted. Their sudden turn from reproof to tenderness melted him. He began to feel that his mother had a right to blame him for an act of concealment. Still she never would have consented to his writing such a letter; and had that letter been attended with so ill a result? Again he read Mr. Darrell's blunt but not offensive lines. His pride was soothed: why should he not now love his father's friend? He rose briskly, paid for the fruit, and went his way back to the boat with Sophy. As his oars cut the wave he talked gayly, but he ceased to interrogate Sophy on her past. Energetic, sanguine, ambitious, his own future entered now into his thoughts. Still, when the sun sank as the inn came partially into view from the winding of the banks and the fringe of the willows, his mind again settled on the patient, quiet little girl, who had not ventured to ask him one question in return for all he had put so unceremoniously to her. Indeed, she was silently musing over words he had inconsiderately let fall,—"What I hate to think you had ever stooped to perform." Little could Lionel guess the unquiet thoughts which those words might hereafter call forth from the brooding deepening meditations of lonely childhood! At length said the boy abruptly, as he had said once before,

"I wish, Sophy, you were my sister." He added in a saddened tone, "I never had a sister: I have so longed for one! However, surely we shall meet again. You go to-morrow so must I."

Sophy's tears flowed softly, noiselessly.

"Cheer up, lady-bird, I wish you liked me half as much as I like you!"

"I do like you: oh, so much!" cried Soppy, passionately. "Well, then, you can write, you say?"

"A little."

"You shall write to me now and then, and I to you. I'll talk to your grandfather about it. Ah, there he is, surely!" The boat now ran into the shelving creek, and by the honeysuckle arbour stood Gentleman Waife, leaning on his stick.

"You are late," said the actor, as they landed, and Sophy sprang into his arms. "I began to be uneasy, and came here to inquire after you. You have not caught cold, child?"

SOPHY.—"Oh, no."

LIONEL.—"She is the best of children. Pray, come into the inn, Mr. Waife; no toddy, but some refreshment."

WAIFE.—"I thank you,—no, sir; I wish to get home at once. I walk slowly; it will be dark soon."

Lionel tried in vain to detain him. There was a certain change in Mr. Waife's manner to him: it was much more distant; it was even pettish, if not surly. Lionel could not account for it; thought it mere whim at first: but as he walked part of the way back with them towards the village, this asperity continued, nay increased. Lionel was hurt; he arrested his steps.

"I see you wish to have your grandchild to yourself now. May I call early to-morrow? Sophy will tell you that I hope we may not altogether lose sight of each other. I will give you my address when I call."

"What time to-morrow, sir?"

"About nine."

Waife bowed his head and walked on, but Sophy looked back towards her boy friend, sorrowfully, gratefully; twilight in the skies that had been so sunny,—twilight in her face that had been so glad! She looked back once, twice, thrice, as Lionel halted on the road and kissed his hand. The third time Waife said with unwonted crossness,—

"Enough of that, Sophy; looking after young men is not proper! What does he mean about 'seeing each other, and giving me his address'?"

"He wished me to write to him sometimes and he would write to me."

Waife's brow contracted; but if, in the excess of grandfatherly caution, he could have supposed that the bright-hearted boy of seventeen meditated ulterior ill to that fairy child in such a scheme for correspondence, he must have been in his dotage, and he had not hitherto evinced any signs of that.

Farewell, pretty Sophy! the evening star shines upon yon elm-tree that hides thee from view. Fading-fading grows the summer landscape; faded already from the landscape thy gentle image! So ends a holiday in life. Hallow it, Sophy; hallow it, Lionel! Life's holidays are not too many!



CHAPTER XVII.

By this chapter it appeareth that he who sets out on a career can scarcely expect to walk in perfect comfort, if he exchanges his own thick-soled shoes for dress-boots which were made for another man's measure, and that the said boots may not the less pinch for being brilliantly varnished.—It also showeth, for the instruction of Men and States, the connection between democratic opinion and wounded self-love; so that, if some Liberal statesman desire to rouse against an aristocracy the class just below it, he has only to persuade a fine lady to be exceedingly civil "to that sort of people."

Vance, returning late at night, found his friend still up in the little parlour, the windows open, pacing the floor with restless strides, stopping now and then to look at the moon upon the river.

"Such a day as I have had! and twelve shillings for the fly, 'pikes not included," said Vance, much out of humour—

"'I fly from plate, I fly from pomp,

I fly from falsehood's specious grin;' I forget the third line. I know the last is—"

'To find my welcome at an inn.'

You are silent: I annoyed you by going—could not help it—pity me, and lock up your pride."

"No, my dear Vance, I was hurt for a moment, but that's long since over!"

"Still you seem to have something on your mind," said Vance, who had now finished reading his letters, lighted his cigar, and was leaning against the window as the boy continued to walk to and fro.

"That is true: I have. I should like your advice. Read that letter. Ought I to go? Would it look mercenary, grasping? You know what I mean."

Vance approached the candles and took the letter. He glanced first at the signature. "Darrell," he exclaimed. "Oh, it is so, then!" He read with great attention, put down the letter, and shook Lionel by the hand. "I congratulate you: all is settled as it should be. Go? of course: you would be an ill-mannered lout if you did not. Is it far from hence must you return to town first?"

LIONEL.—"No, I find I can get across the country,—two hours by the railway. There is a station at the town which bears the post-mark of the letter. I shall make for that, if you advise it."

"You knew I should advise it, or you would not have tortured your intellect by those researches into Bradshaw."

"Shrewdly said," answered Lionel, laughing; "but I wished for your sanction of my crude impressions."

"You never told me your cousin's name was Darrell: not that I should have been much wiser if you had; but, thunder and lightning, Lionel! do you know that your cousin Darrell is a famous man?"

LIONEL.—"Famous!—Nonsense. I suppose he was a good lawyer, for I have heard my mother say, with a sort of contempt, that he had made a great fortune at the bar."

VANCE.—"But he was in Parliament."

LIONEL.—"Was he? I did not know."

VANCE.—"And this is senatorial fame! You never heard your schoolfellows talk of Mr. Darrell?—they would not have known his name if you had boasted of it?"

LIONEL.—"Certainly not."

VANCE.—"Would your schoolfellows have known the names of Wilkie, of Landseer, of Turner, Maclise? I speak of painters."

LIONEL.—"I should think so, indeed."

VANCE (soliloquizing).—"And yet Her Serene Sublimity-ship, Lady Selina Vipont, says to me with divine compassion, 'Not in the way of your delightful art to know such men as Mr. Darrell!' Oh, as if I did not see through it, too, when she said, a propos of my jean cap and velveteen jacket, 'What matters how you dress? Every one knows who you are!' Would she have said that to the earl of Dunder, or even to Sir Gregory Stollhead? No. I am the painter Frank Vance,—nothing more nor less; and if I stood on my head in a check shirt and a sky-coloured apron, Lady Selina Vipont would kindly murmur, 'Only Frank Vance the painter: what does it signify?' Aha!—and they think to put me to use, puppets and lay figures! it is I who put them to use! Hark ye, Lionel, you are nearer akin to these fine folks than I knew of. Promise me one thing: you may become of their set, by right of your famous Mr. Darrell; if ever you hear an artist, musician, scribbler, no matter what, ridiculed as a tuft-hunter,—seeking the great, and so forth,—before you join in the laugh, ask some great man's son, with a pedigree that dates from the Ark, 'Are you not a toad-eater too? Do you want political influence; do you stand contested elections; do you curry and fawn upon greasy Sam the butcher and grimy Tom the blacksmith for a vote? Why? useful to your career, necessary to your ambition? Aha! is it meaner to curry and fawn upon white-handed women and elegant coxcombs? Tut, tut! useful to a career, necessary to ambition!'" Vance paused, out of breath. The spoiled darling of the circles,—he, to talk such republican rubbish! Certainly he must have taken his two guineas' worth out of those light wines. Nothing so treacherous! they inflame the brain like fire, while melting on the palate like ice. All inhabitants of lightwine countries are quarrelsome and democratic.

LIONEL (astounded).—"No one, I am sure, could have meant to call you a tuft-hunter; of course, every one knows that a great painter—"

VANCE.—"Dates from Michael Angelo, if not from Zeuxis! Common individuals trace their pedigree from their own fathers! the children of Art from Art's founders!"

Oh, Vance, Vance, you are certainly drunk! If that comes from dining with fine people at the Star and Garter, you would be a happier man and as good a painter if your toddy were never sipped save in honeysuckle arbours.

"But," said Lionel, bewildered, and striving to turn his friend's thoughts, "what has all this to do with Mr. Darrell?"

VANCE.—"Mr. Darrell might have been one of the first men in the kingdom. Lady Selina Vipout says so, and she is related, I believe, to every member in the Cabinet. Mr. Darrell can push you in life, and make your fortune, without any great trouble on your own part. Bless your stars, and rejoice that you are not a painter!"

Lionel flung his arm round the artist's broad breast. "Vance, you are cruel!" It was his turn to console the painter, as the painter had three nights before a propos of the same Mr. Darrell consoled him. Vance gradually sobered down, and the young men walked forth in the moonlight. And the eternal stars had the same kind looks for Vance as they had vouchsafed to Lionel.

"When do you start?" asked the painter, as they mounted the stairs to bed.

"To-morrow evening. I miss the early train, for I must call first and take leave of Sophy. I hope I may see her again in after life."

"And I hope, for your sake, that if so, she may not be in the same coloured print, with Lady Selina Vipont's eyeglass upon her!"

"What!" said Lionel, laughing; "is Lady Selina Vipont so formidably rude?"

"Rude! nobody is rude in that delightful set. Lady Selina Vipont is excruciatingly—civil."



CHAPTER XVIII.

Being devoted exclusively to a reflection, not inapposite to the events in this history nor to those in any other which chronicles the life of men.

There is one warning lesson in life which few of us have not received, and no book that I can call to memory has noted down with an adequate emphasis. It is this: "Beware of parting!" The true sadness is not in the pain of the parting, it is in the When and the How you are to meet again with the face about to vanish from your view! From the passionate farewell to the woman who has your heart in her keeping, to the cordial good-by exchanged with pleasant companions at a watering-place, a country-house, or the close of a festive day's blithe and careless excursion,—a cord, stronger or weaker, is snapped asunder in every parting, and Time's busy fingers are not practised in re-splicing broken ties. Meet again you may; will it be in the same way?—with the same sympathies?—with the same sentiments? Will the souls, hurrying on in diverse paths, unite once more, as if the interval had been a dream? Rarely, rarely! Have you not, after even a year, even a month's absence, returned to the same place, found the same groups reassembled, and yet sighed to yourself, "But where is the charm that once breathed from the spot, and once smiled from the faces?" A poet has said, "Eternity itself cannot restore the loss struck from the minute." Are you happy in the spot on which you tarry with the persons whose voices are now melodious to your ear? beware of parting; or, if part you must, say not in insolent defiance to Time and Destiny, "What matters!—we shall soon meet again."

Alas, and alas! when we think of the lips which murmured, "Soon meet again," and remember how in heart, soul, and thought, we stood forever divided the one from the other, when, once more face to face, we each inly exclaimed, "Met again!"

The air that we breathe makes the medium through which sound is conveyed; be the instrument unchanged, be the force which is applied to it the same, still the air that thou seest not, the air to thy ear gives the music.

Ring a bell underneath an exhausted receiver, thou wilt scarce hear the sound; give the bell due vibration by free air in warm daylight, or sink it down to the heart of the ocean, where the air, all compressed, fills the vessel around it,' and the chime, heard afar, starts thy soul, checks thy footstep, unto deep calls the deep,—a voice from the ocean is borne to thy soul.

Where then the change, when thou sayest, "Lo, the same metal,—why so faint-heard the ringing?" Ask the air that thou seest not, or above thee in sky, or below thee in ocean. Art thou sure that the bell, so faint-heard, is not struck underneath an exhausted receiver?



CHAPTER XIX.

The wandering inclinations of nomad tribes not to be accounted for on the principles of action peculiar to civilized men, who are accustomed to live in good houses and able to pay the income tax.— When the money that once belonged to a man civilized vanishes into the pockets of a nomad, neither lawful art nor occult science can, with certainty, discover what he will do with it.—Mr. Vance narrowly escapes well-merited punishment from the nails of the British Fair—Lionel Haughton, in the temerity of youth, braves the dangers of a British Railway.

The morning was dull and overcast, rain gathering in the air, when Vance and Lionel walked to Waife's lodging. As Lionel placed his hand on the knocker of the private door, the Cobbler, at his place by the window in the stall beside, glanced towards him, and shook his head.

"No use knocking, gentlemen. Will you kindly step in?—this way."

"Do you mean that your lodgers are out?" asked Vance.

"Gone!" said the Cobbler, thrusting his awl with great vehemence through the leather destined to the repair of a ploughman's boot.

"Gone—for good!" cried Lionel; "you cannot mean it. I call by appointment."

"Sorry, sir, for your trouble. Stop a bit; I have a letter here for you." The Cobbler dived into a drawer, and from a medley of nails and thongs drew forth a letter addressed to L. Haughton, Esq.

"Is this from Waife? How on earth did he know my surname? you never mentioned it, Vance?"

"Not that I remember. But you said you found him at the inn, and they knew it there. It is on the brass-plate of your knapsack. No matter,—what does he say?" and Vance looked over his friend's shoulder and read.

SIR,—I most respectfully thank you for your condescending kindness to me and my grandchild; and your friend, for his timely and generous aid. You will pardon me that the necessity which knows no law obliges me to leave this place some hours before the time of your proposed visit. My grandchild says you intended to ask her sometimes to write to you. Excuse me, sir—on reflection, you will perceive how different your ways of life are from those which she must tread with me. You see before you a man who—but I forget; you see him no more, and probably never will.

Your most humble and most obliged, obedient servant,

W. W.

VANCE.—"Who never more may trouble you—trouble you! Where have they gone?"

COBBLER.—"Don't know; would you like to take a peep in the crystal—perhaps you've the gift, unbeknown?"

VANCE.—"Not I—bah! Come away, Lionel."

"Did not Sophy even leave any message for me?" asked the boy, sorrowfully.

"To be sure she did; I forgot-no, not exactly a message, but this—I was to be sure to give it to you." And out of his miscellaneous receptacle the Cobbler extracted a little book. Vance looked and laughed,—"The Butterflies' Ball and the Grasshoppers' Feast."

Lionel did not share the laugh. He plucked the book to himself, and read on the fly-leaf, in a child's irregular scrawl, blistered, too, with the unmistakable trace of fallen tears, these words:—

Do not Scorn it. I have nothing else I can think of which is All Mine. Miss Jane Burton gave it me for being Goode. Grandfather says you are too high for us, and that I shall not see you More; but I shall never forget how kind you were, never—never. Sophy.

Said the Cobbler, his awl upright in the hand which rested on his knee, "What a plague did the 'Stronomers discover Herschel for? You see, sir," addressing Vance, "things odd and strange all come along o' Herschel."

"What!—Sir John?"

"No, the star he poked out. He's a awful star for females! hates 'em like poison! I suspect he's been worriting hisself into her nativity, for I got out from her the year, month, and day she was born, hour unbeknown, but, calkeiating by noon, Herschel was dead agin her in the Third and Ninth House,—Voyages, Travels, Letters, News, Church Matters, and such like. But it will all come right after he's transited. Her Jupiter must be good. But I only hope," added the Cobbler, solemnly, "that they won't go a-discovering any more stars. The world did a deal better without the new one, and they do talk of a Neptune—as bad as Saturn!"

"And this is the last of her!" said Lionel, sadly, putting the book into his breast-pocket. "Heaven shield her wherever she goes!"

VANCE.—"Don't you think Waife and the poor little girl will come back again?"

COBBLER.—"P'raps; I know he was looking hard into the county map at the stationer's over the way; that seems as if he did not mean to go very far. P'raps he may come back."

VANCE.—"Did he take all his goods with him?"

COBBLER.—"Barrin' an old box,—nothing in it, I expect, but theatre rubbish,—play-books, paints, an old wig, and sick like. He has good clothes,—always had; and so has she, but they don't make more than a bundle."

VANCE. "But surely you must know what the old fellow's project is. He has got from me a great sum: what will he do with it?"

COBBLER.—"Just what has been a-bothering me. What will he do with it? I cast a figure to know; could not make it out. Strange signs in Twelfth House. Enemies and Big Animals. Well, well, he's a marbellous man, and if he warn't a misbeliever in the crystal, I should say he was under Herschel; for you see, sir" (laying hold of Vance's button, as he saw that gentleman turning to escape),—"you see Herschel, though he be a sinister chap eno', specially in affairs connected with t' other sex, disposes the native to dive into the mysteries of natur'. I'm a Herschel man, out and outer; born in March, and—"

"As mad as its hares," muttered Vance, wrenching his button from the Cobbler's grasp, and impatiently striding off. But he did not effect his escape so easily, for, close at hand, just at the corner of the lane, a female group, headed by Merle's gaunt housekeeper, had been silently collecting from the moment the two friends had paused at the Cobbler's door. And this petticoated divan suddenly closing round the painter, one pulled him by the sleeve, another by the jacket, and a third, with a nose upon which somebody had sat in early infancy, whispered, "Please, sir, take my picter fust."

Vance stared aghast,—"Your picture, you drab!" Here another model of rustic charms, who might have furnished an ideal for the fat scullion in "Tristram Shandy," bobbing a courtesy put in her rival claim.

"Sir, if you don't objex to coming into the kitching after the family has gone to bed, I don't care if I lets you make a minnytur of me for two pounds."

"Miniature of you, porpoise!"

"Polly, sir, not Porpus,—ax pardon. I shall clean myself, and I have a butyful new cap,—Honeytun, and—"

"Let the gentleman go, will you?" said a third; "I am surprised at ye, Polly. The kitching, unbeknown! Sir, I'm in the nussery; yes, sir; and Alissus says you may take me any time, purvided you'll take the babby, in the back parlour; yes, sir, No. 5 in the High Street. Mrs. Spratt,—yes, sir. Babby has had the small-pox; in case you're a married gentleman with a family; quite safe there; yes, sir."

Vance could endure no more, and, forgetful of that gallantry which should never desert the male sex, burst through the phalanx with an anathema, blackening alike the beauty and the virtue of those on whom it fell, that would have justified a cry of shame from every manly bosom, and which at once changed into shrill wrath the supplicatory tones with which he had been hitherto addressed. Down the street he hurried and down the street followed the insulted fair. "Hiss—hiss—no gentleman, no gentleman! Aha-skulk off—do—low blaggurd!" shrieked Polly. From their counters shop-folks rushed to their doors. Stray dogs, excited by the clamour, ran wildly after the fugitive man, yelping "in madding bray"! Vance, fearing to be clawed by the females if he merely walked, sure to be bitten by the dogs if he ran, ambled on, strove to look composed, and carry his nose high in its native air, till, clearing the street, he saw a hedgerow to the right; leaped it with an agility which no stimulus less preternatural than that of self-preservation could have given to his limbs, and then shot off like an arrow, and did not stop, till, out of breath, he dropped upon the bench in the sheltering honeysuckle arbour. Here he was still fanning himself with his cap, and muttering unmentionable expletives, when he was joined by Lionel, who had tarried behind to talk more about Sophy to the Cobbler, and who, unconscious that the din which smote his ear was caused by his ill-starred friend, had been enticed to go upstairs and look after Sophy in the crystal,—vainly. When Vance had recited his misadventures, and Lionel had sufficiently condoled with him, it became time for the latter to pay his share of the bill, pack up his knapsack, and start for the train. Now, the station could only be reached by penetrating the heart of the village, and Vance swore that he had had enough of that. "Peste!" said he; "I should pass right before No. 5 in the High Street, and the nuss and the babby will be there on the threshold, like Virgil's picture of the infernal regions,

"'Infantumque anima; flentes in limine primo.'

We will take leave of each other here. I shall go by the boat to Chertsey whenever I shall have sufficiently recovered my shaken nerves. There are one or two picturesque spots to be seen in that neighbourhood. In a few days I shall be in town! write to me there, and tell me how you get on. Shake hands, and Heaven speed you. But, ah! now you have paid your moiety of the bill, have you enough left for the train?"

"Oh, yes, the fare is but a few shillings; but, to be sure, a fly to Fawley? I ought not to go on foot" (proudly); "and, too, supposing he affronts me, and I have to leave his house suddenly? May I borrow a sovereign? My mother will call and repay it."

VANCE (magnificently).—"There it is, and not much more left in my purse,—that cursed Star and Garter! and those three pounds!"

LIONEL (sighing).—"Which were so well spent! Before you sell that picture, do let me make a copy."

VANCE.—"Better take a model of your own. Village full of them; you could bargain with a porpoise for half the money which I was duped into squandering away on a chit! But don't look so grave; you may copy me if you can!"

"Time to start, and must walk brisk, sir," said the jolly landlord, looking in.

"Good-by, good-by."

And so departed Lionel Haughton upon an emprise as momentous to that youth-errant as Perilous Bridge or Dragon's Cave could have been to knight-errant of old.

"Before we decide on having done with each other, a short visit,"—so ran the challenge from him who had everything to give unto him who had everything to gain. And how did Lionel Haughton, the ambitious and aspiring, contemplate the venture in which success would admit him within the gates of the golden Carduel an equal in the lists with the sons of paladins, or throw him back to the arms of the widow who let a first floor in the back streets of Pimlico? Truth to say, as he strode musingly towards the station for starting, where the smoke-cloud now curled from the wheel-track of iron, truth to say, the anxious doubt which disturbed him was not that which his friends might have felt on his behalf. In words, it would have shaped itself thus,—"Where is that poor little Sophy! and what will become of her—what?" But when, launched on the journey, hurried on to its goal, the thought of the ordeal before him forced itself on his mind, he muttered inly to himself, "Done with each other; let it be as he pleases, so that I do not fawn on his pleasure. Better a million times enter life as a penniless gentleman, who must work his way up like a man, than as one who creeps on his knees into fortune, shaming birthright of gentleman or soiling honour of man." Therefore taking into account the poor cousin's vigilant pride on the qui vive for offence, and the rich cousin's temper (as judged by his letters) rude enough to resent it, we must own that if Lionel Haughton has at this moment what is commonly called "a chance," the question as yet is not, What is that chance? but, What will he do with it? And as the reader advances in this history, he will acknowledge that there are few questions in this world so frequently agitated, to which the solution is more important to each puzzled mortal than that upon which starts every sage's discovery, every novelist's plot,—that which applies to MAN'S LIFE, from its first sleep in the cradle, "WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?"



BOOK II.



CHAPTER I.

Primitive character of the country in certain districts of Great Britain.—Connection between the features of surrounding scenery and the mental and moral inclinations of man, after the fashion of all sound ethnological historians.—A charioteer, to whom an experience of British laws suggests an ingenious mode of arresting the progress of Roman Papacy, carries Lionel Haughton and his fortunes to a place which allows of description and invites repose.

In safety, but with naught else rare enough, in a railway train, to deserve commemoration, Lionel reached the station to which he was bound. He there inquired the distance to Fawley Manor House; it was five miles. He ordered a fly, and was soon wheeled briskly along a rough parish road, through a country strongly contrasting the gay river scenery he had so lately quitted,—quite as English, but rather the England of a former race than that which spreads round our own generation like one vast suburb of garden-ground and villas. Here, nor village nor spire, nor porter's lodge came in sight. Rare even were the cornfields; wide spaces of unenclosed common opened, solitary and primitive, on the road, bordered by large woods, chiefly of beech, closing the horizon with ridges of undulating green. In such an England, Knights Templars might have wended their way to scattered monasteries, or fugitive partisans in the bloody Wars of the Roses have found shelter under leafy coverts.

The scene had its romance, its beauty—half savage, half gentle—leading perforce the mind of any cultivated and imaginative gazer far back from the present day, waking up long-forgotten passages from old poets. The stillness of such wastes of sward, such deeps of woodland, induced the nurture of revery, gravely soft and lulling. There, Ambition might give rest to the wheel of Ixion, Avarice to the sieve of the Danaids; there, disappointed Love might muse on the brevity of all human passions, and count over the tortured hearts that have found peace in holy meditation, or are now stilled under grassy knolls. See where, at the crossing of three roads upon the waste, the landscape suddenly unfolds, an upland in the distance, and on the upland a building, the first sign of social man. What is the building? only a silenced windmill, the sails dark and sharp against the dull leaden sky.

Lionel touched the driver,—"Are we yet on Mr. Darrell's property?" Of the extent of that property he had involuntarily conceived a vast idea.

"Lord, sir, no; we be two miles from Squire Darrell's. He han't much property to speak of hereabouts. But he bought a good bit o' land, too, some years ago, ten or twelve mile t' other side o' the county. First time you are going to Fawley, sir?"

"Yes."

"Ah! I don't mind seeing you afore; and I should have known you if I had, for it is seldom indeed I have a fare to Fawley old Manor House. It must be, I take it, four or five years ago sin' I wor there with a gent, and he went away while I wor feeding the horse; did me out o' my back fare. What bisness had he to walk when he came in my fly? Shabby."

"Mr. Darrell lives very retired, then? sees few persons?" "S'pose so. I never seed him as I knows on; see'd two o' his hosses though,—rare good uns;" and the driver whipped on his own horse, took to whistling, and Lionel asked no more.

At length the chaise stopped at a carriage gate, receding from the road, and deeply shadowed by venerable trees,—no lodge. The driver, dismounting, opened the gate.

"Is this the place?"

The driver nodded assent, remounted, and drove on rapidly through what night by courtesy he called a park. The enclosure was indeed little beyond that of a good-sized paddock; its boundaries were visible on every side: but swelling uplands covered with massy foliage sloped down to its wild, irregular turf soil,—soil poor for pasturage, but pleasant to the eye; with dell and dingle, bosks of fantastic pollards; dotted oaks of vast growth; here and there a weird hollow thorn-tree; patches of fern and gorse. Hoarse and loud cawed the rooks; and deep, deep as from the innermost core of the lovely woodlands came the mellow note of the cuckoo. A few moments more a wind of the road brought the house in sight. At its rear lay a piece of water, scarcely large enough to be styled a lake; too winding in its shaggy banks, its ends too concealed by tree and islet, to be called by the dull name of pond. Such as it was it arrested the eye before the gaze turned towards the house: it had an air of tranquillity so sequestered, so solemn. A lively man of the world would have been seized with spleen at the first glimpse of it; but he who had known some great grief, some anxious care, would have drunk the calm into his weary soul like an anodyne. The house,—small, low, ancient, about the date of Edward VI., before the statelier architecture of Elizabeth. Few houses in England so old, indeed, as Fawley Manor House. A vast weight of roof, with high gables; windows on the upper story projecting far over the lower part; a covered porch with a coat of half-obliterated arms deep panelled over the oak door. Nothing grand, yet all how venerable! But what is this? Close beside the old, quiet, unassuming Manor House rises the skeleton of a superb and costly pile,—a palace uncompleted, and the work evidently suspended,—perhaps long since, perhaps now forever. No busy workmen nor animated scaffolding. The perforated battlements roofed over with visible haste,—here with slate, there with tile; the Elizabethan mullion casements unglazed; some roughly boarded across,—some with staring forlorn apertures, that showed floorless chambers, for winds to whistle through and rats to tenant. Weeds and long grass were growing over blocks of stone that lay at hand. A wallflower had forced itself into root on the sill of a giant oriel. The effect was startling. A fabric which he who conceived it must have founded for posterity,—so solid its masonry, so thick its walls,—and thus abruptly left to moulder; a palace constructed for the reception of crowding guests, the pomp of stately revels, abandoned to owl and bat. And the homely old house beside it, which that lordly hall was doubtless designed to replace, looking so safe and tranquil at the baffled presumption of its spectral neighbour.

The driver had rung the bell, and now turning back to the chaise met Lionel's inquiring eye, and said, "Yes; Squire Darrell began to build that—many years ago—when I was a boy. I heerd say it was to be the show-house of the whole county. Been stopped these ten or a dozen years."

"Why?—do you know?"

"No one knows. Squire was a laryer, I b'leve: perhaps he put it into Chancery. My wife's grandfather was put into Chancery jist as he was growing up, and never grew afterwards: never got out o' it; nout ever does. There's our churchwarden comes to me with a petition to sign agin the Pope. Says I, 'That old Pope is always in trouble: what's he bin doin' now?' Says he, 'Spreading! He's a-got into Parlyment, and he's now got a colledge, and we pays for it. I does n't know how to stop him.' Says I, 'Put the Pope into Chancery, along with wife's grandfather, and he'll never spread agin.'"

The driver had thus just disposed of the Papacy, when an elderly servant out of livery opened the door. Lionel sprang from the chaise, and paused in some confusion: for then, for the first time, there darted across him the idea that he had never written to announce his acceptance of Mr. Darrell's invitation; that he ought to have done so; that he might not be expected. Meanwhile the servant surveyed him with some surprise. "Mr. Darrell?" hesitated Lionel, inquiringly.

"Not at home, sir," replied the man, as if Lionel's business was over, and he had only to re-enter his chaise. The boy was naturally rather bold than shy, and he said, with a certain assured air, "My name is Haughton. I come here on Mr. Darrell's invitation."

The servant's face changed in a moment; he bowed respectfully. "I beg pardon, sir. I will look for my master; he is somewhere on the grounds." The servant then approached the fly, took out the knapsack, and, observing Lionel had his purse in his hand, said, "Allow me to save you that trouble, sir. Driver, round to the stable-yard." Stepping back into the house, the servant threw open a door to the left, on entrance, and advanced a chair. "If you will wait here a moment, sir, I will seek for my master."



CHAPTER II.

Guy Darrell—and Stilled Life.

The room in which Lionel now found himself was singularly quaint. An antiquarian or architect would have discovered at a glance that at some period it had formed part of the entrance-hall; and when, in Elizabeth's or James the First's day, the refinement in manners began to penetrate from baronial mansions to the homes of the gentry, and the entrance-hall ceased to be the common refectory of the owner and his dependants, this apartment had been screened off by perforated panels, which for the sake of warmth and comfort had been filled up into solid wainscot by a succeeding generation. Thus one side of the room was richly carved with geometrical designs and arabesque pilasters, while the other three sides were in small simple panels, with a deep fantastic frieze in plaster, depicting a deer-chase in relief and running be tween woodwork and ceiling. The ceiling itself was relieved by long pendants without any apparent meaning, and by the crest of the Darrells,—a heron, wreathed round with the family motto, "Ardua petit Ardea." It was a dining-room, as was shown by the character of the furniture. But there was no attempt on the part of the present owner, and there had clearly been none on the part of his predecessor, to suit the furniture to the room. The furniture, indeed, was of the heavy, graceless taste of George the First,—cumbrous chairs in walnut-tree, with a worm-eaten mosaic of the heron on their homely backs, and a faded blue worsted on their seats; a marvellously ugly sideboard to match, and on it a couple of black shagreen cases, the lids of which were flung open, and discovered the pistol-shaped handles of silver knives. The mantelpiece reached to the ceiling, in panelled compartments, with heraldic shields, and supported by rude stone Caryatides. On the walls were several pictures,—family portraits, for the names were inscribed on the frames. They varied in date from the reign of Elizabeth to that of George I. A strong family likeness pervaded them all,—high features, dark hair, grave aspects,—save indeed one, a Sir Ralph Haughton Darrell, in a dress that spoke him of the holiday date of Charles II.,—all knots, lace, and ribbons; evidently the beau of the race; and he had blue eyes, a blonde peruke, a careless profligate smile, and looked altogether as devil-me-care, rakehelly, handsome, good-for-nought, as ever swore at a drawer, beat a watchman, charmed a lady, terrified a husband, and hummed a song as he pinked his man.

Lionel was still gazing upon the effigies of this airy cavalier when the door behind him opened very noiselessly, and a man of imposing presence stood on the threshold,—stood so still, and the carved mouldings of the doorway so shadowed, and as it were cased round his figure, that Lionel, on turning quickly, might have mistaken him for a portrait brought into bold relief from its frame by a sudden fall of light. We hear it, indeed, familiarly said that such a one is like an old picture. Never could it be more appositely said than of the face on which the young visitor gazed, much startled and somewhat awed. Not such as inferior limners had painted in the portraits there, though it had something in common with those family lineaments, but such as might have looked tranquil power out of the canvas of Titian.

The man stepped forward, and the illusion passed. "I thank you," he said, holding out his hand, "for taking me at my word, and answering me thus in person." He paused a moment, surveying Lionel's countenance with a keen but not unkindly eye, and added softly, "Very like your father."

At these words Lionel involuntarily pressed the hand which he had taken. That hand did not return the pressure. It lay an instant in Lionel's warm clasp—not repelling, not responding—and was then very gently withdrawn.

"Did you come from London?"

"No, sir; I found your letter yesterday at Hampton Court. I had been staying some days in that neighbourhood. I came on this morning: I was afraid too unceremoniously; your kind welcome reassures me there."

The words were well chosen and frankly said. Probably they pleased the host, for the expression of his countenance was, on the whole, propitious; but he merely inclined his head with a kind of lofty indifference, then, glancing at his watch, he rang the bell. The servant entered promptly. "Let dinner be served within an hour."

"Pray, sir," said Lionel, "do not change your hours on my account."

Mr. Darrell's brow slightly contracted. Lionel's tact was in fault there; but the great man answered quietly, "All hours are the same to me; and it were strange if a host could be deranged by consideration to his guest,—on the first day too. Are you tired? Would you like to go to your room, or look out for half an hour? The sky is clearing."

"I should so like to look out, sir."

"This way then."

Mr. Darrell, crossing the hall, threw open a door opposite to that by which Lionel entered, and the lake (we will so call it) lay before them,—separated from the house only by a shelving gradual declivity, on which were a few beds of flowers,—not the most in vogue nowadays, and disposed in rambling old-fashioned parterres. At one angle, a quaint and dilapidated sun-dial; at the other, a long bowling-alley, terminated by one of those summer-houses which the Dutch taste, following the Revolution of 1688, brought into fashion. Mr. Darrell passed down this alley (no bowls there now), and observing that Lionel looked curiously towards the summer-house, of which the doors stood open, entered it. A lofty room with coved ceiling, painted with Roman trophies of helms and fasces, alternated with crossed fifes and fiddles, painted also.

"Amsterdam manners," said Mr. Darrell, slightly shrugging his shoulders. "Here a former race heard music, sang glees, and smoked from clay pipes. That age soon passed, unsuited to English energies, which are not to be united with Holland phlegm! But the view from the window-look out there. I wonder whether men in wigs and women in hoops enjoyed that. It is a mercy they did not clip those banks into a straight canal!"

The view was indeed lovely,—the water looked so blue and so large and so limpid, woods and curving banks reflected deep on its peaceful bosom.

"How Vance would enjoy this!" cried Lionel. "It would come into a picture even better than the Thames."

"Vance? who is Vance?"

"The artist,—a great friend of mine. Surely, sir, you have heard of him or seen his pictures!"

"Himself and his pictures are since my time. Days tread down days for the recluse, and he forgets that celebrities rise with their suns, to wane with their moons,

"'Truditur dies die, Novaeque pergunt interire lunae'"

"All suns do not set; all moons do not wane!" cried Lionel, with blunt enthusiasm. "When Horace speaks elsewhere of the Julian star, he compares it to a moon—'inter ignes minores'—and surely Fame is not among the orbs which 'pergunt interire,'—hasten on to perish!"

"I am glad to see that you retain your recollections of Horace," said Mr. Darrell, frigidly, and without continuing the allusion to celebrities; "the most charming of all poets to a man of my years, and" (he very dryly added) "the most useful for popular quotation to men at any age."

Then sauntering forth carelessly, he descended the sloping turf, came to the water-side, and threw himself at length on the grass: the wild thyme which he crushed sent up its bruised fragrance. There, resting his face on his hand, Darrell gazed along the water in abstracted silence. Lionel felt that he was forgotten; but he was not hurt. By this time a strong and admiring interest for his cousin had sprung up within his breast: he would have found it difficult to explain why. But whosoever at that moment could have seen Guy Darrell's musing countenance, or whosoever, a few minutes before, could have heard the very sound of his voice, sweetly, clearly full; each slow enunciation unaffectedly, mellowly distinct,—making musical the homeliest; roughest word, would have understood and shared the interest which Lionel could not explain. There are living human faces, which, independently of mere physical beauty, charm and enthrall us more than the most perfect lineaments which Greek sculptor ever lent to a marble face; there are key-notes in the thrilling human voice, simply uttered, which can haunt the heart, rouse the passions, lull rampant multitudes, shake into dust the thrones of guarded kings, and effect more wonders than ever yet have been wrought by the most artful chorus or the deftest quill.

In a few minutes the swans from the farther end of the water came sailing swiftly towards the bank on which Darrell reclined. He had evidently made friends with them, and they rested their white breasts close on the margin, seeking to claim his notice with a low hissing salutation, which, it is to be hoped, they changed for something less sibilant in that famous song with which they depart this life.

Darrell looked up. "They come to be fed," said he, "smooth emblems of the great social union. Affection is the offspring of utility. I am useful to them: they love me." He rose, uncovered, and bowed to the birds in mock courtesy: "Friends, I have no bread to give you."

LIONEL.—"Let me run in for some. I would be useful too."

MR. DARRELL.—"Rival!—useful to my swans?"

LIONEL (tenderly).—"Or to you, sir."

He felt as if he had said too much, and without waiting for permission, ran indoors to find some one whom he could ask for the bread.

"Sonless, childless, hopeless, objectless!" said Darrell, murmuringly to himself, and sank again into revery.

By the time Lionel returned with the bread, another petted friend had joined the master. A tame doe had caught sight of him from her covert far away, came in light bounds to his side, and was pushing her delicate nostril into his drooping hand. At the sound of Lionel's hurried step, she took flight, trotted off a few paces, then turned, looking.

"I did not know you had deer here."

"Deer!—in this little paddock!—of course not; only that doe. Fairthorn introduced her here. By the by," continued Darrell, who was now throwing the bread to the swans, and had resumed his careless, unmeditative manner, "you were not aware that I have a brother hermit,—a companion be sides the swans and the doe. Dick Fairthorn is a year or two younger than myself, the son of my father's bailiff. He was the cleverest boy at his grammar-school. Unluckily he took to the flute, and unfitted himself for the present century. He condescends, however, to act as my secretary,—a fair classical scholar, plays chess, is useful to me,—I am useful to him. We have an affection for each other. I never forgive any one who laughs at him. The half-hour bell, and you will meet him at dinner. Shall we come in and dress?"

They entered the house; the same man-servant was in attendance in the hall. "Show Mr. Haughton to his room." Darrell inclined his head—I use that phrase, for the gesture was neither bow nor nod—turned down a narrow passage and disappeared.

Led up an uneven staircase of oak, black as ebony, with huge balustrades, and newel-posts supporting clumsy balls, Lionel was conducted to a small chamber, modernized a century ago by a faded Chinese paper, and a mahogany bedstead, which took up three-fourths of the space, and was crested with dingy plumes, that gave it the cheerful look of a hearse; and there the attendant said, "Have you the key of your knapsack, sir? shall I put out your things to dress?" Dress! Then for the first time the boy remembered that he had brought with him no evening dress,—nay, evening dress, properly so called, he possessed not at all in any corner of the world. It had never yet entered into his modes of existence. Call to mind when you were a boy of seventeen, "betwixt two ages hovering like a star," and imagine Lionel's sensations. He felt his cheek burn as if he had been detected in a crime. "I have no dress things," he said piteously; "only a change of linen, and this," glancing at the summer jacket. The servant was evidently a most gentleman-like man: his native sphere that of groom of the chambers. "I will mention it to Mr. Darrell; and if you will favour me with your address in London, I will send to telegraph for what you want against to-morrow."

"Many thanks," answered Lionel, recovering his presence of mind; "I will speak to Mr. Darrell myself."

"There is the hot water, sir; that is the bell. I have the honour to be placed at your commands." The door closed, and Lionel unlocked his knapsack; other trousers, other waistcoat had he,—those worn at the fair, and once white. Alas! they had not since then passed to the care of the laundress. Other shoes,—double-soled for walking. There was no help for it but to appear at dinner, attired as he had been before, in his light pedestrian jacket, morning waistcoat flowered with sprigs, and a fawn-coloured nether man. Could it signify much,—only two men? Could the grave Mr. Darrell regard such trifles?—Yes, if they intimated want of due respect.

"Durum! sed fit levius Patientia Quicquid corrigere est nefas."

On descending the stairs, the same high-bred domestic was in waiting to show him into the library. Mr. Darrell was there already, in the simple but punctilious costume of a gentleman who retains in seclusion the habits customary in the world. At the first glance Lionel thought he saw a slight cloud of displeasure on his host's brow. He went up to Mr. Darrell ingenuously, and apologized for the deficiencies of his itinerant wardrobe. "Say the truth," said his host; "you thought you were coming to an old churl, with whom ceremony was misplaced."

"Indeed no!" exclaimed Lionel. "But—but I have so lately left school."

"Your mother might have thought for you."

"I did not stay to consult her, indeed, sir; I hope you are not offended."

"No, but let me not offend you if I take advantage of my years and our relationship to remark that a young man should be careful not to let himself down below the standard of his own rank. If a king could bear to hear that he was only a ceremonial, a private gentleman may remember that there is but a ceremonial between himself and—his hatter!"

Lionel felt the colour mount his brow; but Darrell pressing the distasteful theme no further, and seemingly forgetting its purport, turned his remarks carelessly towards the weather. "It will be fair to-morrow: there is no mist on the hill yonder. Since you have a painter for a friend, perhaps you yourself are a draughtsman. There are some landscape effects here which Fairthorn shall point out to you."

"I fear, Mr. Darrell," said Lionel, looking down, "that to-morrow I must leave you."

"So soon? Well, I suppose the place must be very dull."

"Not that—not that; but I have offended you, and I would not repeat the offence. I have not the 'ceremonial' necessary to mark me as a gentleman,—either here or at home."

"So! Bold frankness and ready wit command ceremonials," returned Darrell, and for the first time his lip wore a smile. "Let me present to you Mr. Fairthorn," as the door, opening, showed a shambling awkward figure, with loose black knee-breeches and buckled shoes. The figure made a strange sidelong bow; and hurrying in a lateral course, like a crab suddenly alarmed, towards a dim recess protected by a long table, sank behind a curtain fold, and seemed to vanish as a crab does amidst the shingles.

"Three minutes yet to dinner, and two before the lettercarrier goes," said the host, glancing at his watch. "Mr. Fairthorn, will you write a note for me?" There was a mutter from behind the curtain. Darrell walked to the place, and whispered a few words, returned to the hearth, rang the bell. "Another letter for the post, Mills: Mr. Fairthorn is sealing it. You are looking at my book-shelves, Lionel. As I understand that your master spoke highly of you, I presume that you are fond of reading."

"I think so, but I am not sure," answered Lionel, whom his cousin's conciliatory words had restored to ease and good-humour.