The girls were two lovely creatures; they seemed to excuse, if any

thing could, the expenses thus incurred on their behalf. So said the

mother, and so thought the father. The love he felt for his daughters

was perhaps the only tender feeling he had ever experienced in his

life; for, in general, he might be said to love nothing, not even

himself.

It might have been the dawn of a better life, this well-spring of pure

affections, could he have worthily indulged them. But neither his own

nor his wife's habits admitted of that.

Mrs. Winstanley would have thought it a disgrace if she had been one

single evening disengaged whilst they were in London. Even in the dead

winter she managed to keep up the ball; what with little parties and

concerts, the opera, the French plays, and so forth, she contrived to

escape the horror of a domestic evening. As for Mr. Winstanley, he

seldom or never dined at home; except when there was a dinner-party. He

spent his evenings at his clubs, engaged--he too well knew how.

The two girls presented a striking contrast to each other.

Clementina was fair and delicate, with soft hair, and those tender

blue eyes, which to me are the most charming of all eyes. Ella

was a noble creature; a figure and form the most perfect that I

ever beheld--features of matchless symmetry--eyes dark, large, and

lustrous--hair in floods of rich brown waves--a hand that was a model,

from which statuaries contested to be allowed to copy--and a spirit,

energy, and feeling in her gestures and countenance, that won your

heart before you were aware.

It was upon her that Julian Winstanley doted. The other girl he

thought, and called, a sweet girl, but his Ella was his darling.

Nothing was too good for Ella; nothing was to be spared that could

please or adorn Ella. To ride with her in the Park; to visit the box

where she sat at the opera; sometimes in a party to hear her sing;

seemed to give him a new pleasure.

Yet there was nothing in all this, unhappily, to rouse him to a better

life; to break the chain of evil habits in which he was involved.

Ella was a child of this world; an impetuous, proud, haughty beauty;

a contemptuous disregarder of the weak, the wanting, and, above all,

the low, or the ugly;--living for the day, as her father lived for the

day--she for the day of vanity and pleasure; he for the day of vanity

and sin. There was that difference, indeed, and it was a vast one; but

he did not feel it.

There was no pure and holy influence of a higher and nobler life,

diffused from the beautiful being. She was no angel of light. She was

merely, to all appearance, a very fine, fashionable girl.

And Clementina, in her gentleness and softness, was little more. The

good seed which Matty had sown, had fructified at first, but the briars

and thorns were gathering fast around it. The pleasures of life were

choking it up. It was in danger of being altogether lost.

Matty had long been gone. She had married a respectable tradesman, and

was in a flourishing, though small, way of business. She would have

been altogether forgotten long ago, only that she would not suffer

this. She found herself still welcomed when she did come; for both the

girls loved her, and she perfectly adored them. So she came, bringing

her little offerings, from time to time--little matters such as she

dealt in, in her shop--humble, but, for her sake, welcome. These two

girls had both hearts. Where they got them I don't know.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

"Oh, Ella! Ella!--what's the use of your turning your head from

me?--Why, I can see you are coloring crimson--as if I had no eyes! Oh!

he _is_ charming, is not he?"

"How tiresome you can be, Clementina! I am sure I don't care. No,

not.... Besides, he's your flirt, not mine."

"Is he? I wish he were! But I know better. He loves you, Ella; and

what's more, you love him. And if _you_ don't know it--which perhaps

you don't--_I_ do, and _he_ does."

"_He_ does!--I like that!--_he_ does!--Upon my word! _I_ like him, and

_he_ knows it! I do no such thing."

"Take care what you say. Walls have ears."

"Pooh!--nonsense! And if they have, I tell you I don't care."

"You don't?--you are sure you don't? Oh, very well! If that be really

so, then I had better keep my message to myself."

"Message!--what message?"

"You know a man does not like to be refused; and so, if you really

do _not_ care for him, why, I had better hold my peace. He is

young, and he is volatile enough.... And, indeed, I have wondered,

Ella, sometimes, how you ever came to take a fancy to him; but I am

forgetting. It was my mistake. You never _have_ taken a fancy to him."

"How you do run on!" she said, taking the last rose out of her hair;

for she was standing before the glass, undoing her braids; the

sisters, having dismissed their attendant, that they might have a

comfortable chat together. And then the hair came all tumbling over her

shoulders, and upon her white muslin dressing-gown, and she looked most

beautiful--half pleasant, half angry--as she turned round; and, trying

to frown with her eyes, whilst her lips smiled, said--

"Cle., you _are_ the most intolerable girl in the world."

Cle. smiled, looked down, and said nothing.

"You may as well tell me, though."

"No, I won't, unless you will be a true girl--own what you ought to

own--say what you ought to say--that you do not _quite_ hate him. You

really may say that--and then we will see about it."

"Hate him! Did I say I hated him?"

"Or, pretended you did. Or, that he was indifferent to you."

"Well, well; I don't hate him, then."

"Then come here, and sit down by me, and I will tell you that Lionel

loves you, and adores you--and all that. Very easily said. But far more

than that--and with great difficulty said--he wishes to make you his

wife!"

"Ah me!"--and again the color flashed into her face, and such an

expression was visible in her eyes!

Suddenly she threw her arms around her sister, and embraced her

tenderly.

"You dear, dear girl," she whispered--"Oh, I am so--so happy! But tell

me--tell me--all, from the beginning. Lionel!--is it possible?"

"You thought we were very busy talking together to-night, at Mrs.

White's ball, didn't you?--You were a little jealous, were you not, you

silly thing? Ah, my Ella! My proud--proud Ella! To have made such a

tumble into love!"

"Nonsense!--how you talk! But tell me all he said. Every single word of

it!"

"He said he loved you more than his life, and all that sort of thing;

and that I must tell you so to-night; and, if you would give him the

least atom of encouragement, I was to take no notice, and he would

speak to papa and mamma immediately; but, if you hated him as much as I

said I was sure you did...."

"How could you say such a stupid thing?"

"I thought that was what I ought to say."

"How foolish you are, Cle.! Well?"

"Well, in _that_ case, I was to write. Shall I write?"

She did not write.

And from this time the existence of Ella was changed.

She loved, with all the fervor and energy of her nature; and life took

at once a new color. True love is of the infinite. None can have deeply

loved--when or how in other respects it may have been--but they have

entered into the unseen world; have breathed a new breath of life; have

tasted of the true existence.

What is often called love, may do nothing of all this--but I am

speaking of _true_ love.

Lionel seemed at that time scarcely worthy of the passion he had

inspired. Yet he had many excellent qualities. He was warm-hearted,

generous to excess, had good parts, a brilliant way of talking, and was

a favorite with all the world.

He had not the splendid gifts which nature had bestowed upon Julian

Winstanley. By the side of her father, even in the eyes of Ella, the

bright halo which surrounded her lover would seem somewhat to pale.

The young man even appeared to feel this, in some degree, himself. He

always, yet with a certain grace, took the second place, when in her

father's presence. Ella loved her father, and seemed to like that it

should be so.

"Oh, my sister! oh, my friend! what--what shall we do? Oh, misery!

misery! what is to become of us all?"

Clementina's eyes were swimming with tears; but she would not give way.

In passive endurance she excelled her sister.

She held her arms clapped closely round her; whilst Ella poured a

torrent of tears upon her bosom.

"My father! my beautiful, clever, indulgent father, that I was so proud

of--that I loved so--who spared nothing upon either of us--alas! alas!

how little, little did I guess whence the money came!"

Clementina trembled and shivered as her sister poured forth these

passionate lamentations; but she neither wept nor spoke for some time.

At last she said:

"Ella, I have been uneasy about things for some time. We are young, and

we have not much experience in the ways of the world; but since our

poor mother died, and I have had in some degree to manage the house, I

have been every day becoming more uncomfortable."

"You have?" said Ella, lifting up her head: "and you never told me!"

"Why should I have told you? why should I have disturbed your dream

of happiness, my dear Ella? Besides, I hoped that it concerned me

alone--that things might hold on a little while longer--at least, till

you were provided for, and safe."

"Safe! and what was to become of you?"

"I did not much think of that. I had a firm friend, I knew, in you,

Ella; and then, lately, since mamma's death; since you have been

engaged to dear Lionel, and I have been much alone, I have thought

of old things--old things that good Matty used to talk about. I have

been endeavoring to look beyond myself, and this world; and it has

strengthened me."

"You are an excellent creature, Cle.!"

She shook her head.

"But, my father! what is to be done? Can any thing be done?"

"No, my love. I fear nothing can be done."

"He loves me!" said Ella, raising up her head again, her eyes beaming

with a new hope. "I will try--I will venture. It is perhaps great

presumption in a child; but my father loves me, and I love him...."

Again Clementina shook her head.

"You are so faint-hearted--you are so discouraging. You give up every

thing without an attempt to save yourself or others. That is your way!"

cried Ella, with her own impetuosity, and some of her old injustice.

Then, seeing sorrow and pain working upon her sister's face as she

spoke thus, she stopped herself, and cried--"Oh! I am a brute--worse

than a brute--to say this. Dear Cle., forgive me; but don't, pray don't

discourage me, when I want all my courage. I will go--I will go this

moment, and speak to my father...."

Clementina pressed her sister's hand as she started up to go. She

feared the effort would be vain,--vain as those she had herself made;

yet there was no knowing. Ella was so beautiful, so correct, so

eloquent, so prevailing!

She followed her with her eyes, to the door, with feelings of mingled

hope and apprehension.

Down the splendid stairs, with their gilded balustrades, and carpets

of the richest hue and texture, rushed the impetuous Ella. Through

the hall--all marbles and guilding--and her hand was upon the lock of

the library door. She was about to turn it, without reflection: but a

sudden fear of intruding came over her--she paused and knocked.

"Who is there?" exclaimed an irritated voice from within; "go away--I

can see no one just now."

"It is I, papa--Ella; pray let me come in."

And she opened the door.

He was standing in the middle of the lofty and magnificent apartment,

which was adorned on every side with pictures in gorgeous frames; with

busts, vases, and highly ornamented bookcases fitted with splendidly

bound books--seldom, if ever, opened. His pale, wan, haggard face

and degraded figure, formed a fearful contrast to the splendid scene

around him, showing like a mockery of his misery. A small table, richly

inlaid, stood beside him; in one hand he held a delicate cup of fine

china; in the other, a small chemist's phial.

He started as she entered, and turned to her an angry and confused

countenance, now rapidly suffused with a deep crimson flush; but, as if

electrified by a sudden and horrid suspicion, she rushed forward, and

impetuously seized his shaking arm.

The cup fell to the floor, and was broken to atoms; but he clenched the

phial still faster in his trembling hand, as he angrily uttered the

words:

"How dare you come in here?"

"Oh! papa--papa!"--she had lost all other terror before that of

horrible suspicion which had seized her--"what are you about? what is

that?" stretching out her arms passionately, and endeavouring to wrench

the phial from his fingers.

"What are you about? what do you mean?" he cried, endeavouring to

extricate his hand. "Let me alone--leave me alone! what are you about?

Be quiet, I say, or by...." And with the disengaged hand he tore her

fingers from his, and thrust her violently away.

She staggered, and fell, but caught herself upon her knees, and

flinging her arms round his, lifted up her earnest imploring face,

crying, "Father--father! papa-papa! for my sake--for your sake--for all

our sakes; oh, give it me! give it to me!"

"Give you what? what do you mean? what are you thinking about?"

endeavouring to escape from her clasping arms. "Have done, and let me

alone. Will you have done? will you let me alone?" fiercely, angrily

endeavoring again to push her away.

"No! never--never--never! till you give me--"

"What?"

"That!"

"That!" he cried. Then as if recollecting himself, he endeavored, as

it seemed, to master his agitation, and said more calmly, "Let me

be, Ella! and if it will be any satisfaction to you, I will thrust

the bottle into the fire. But, you foolish girl, what do you gain by

closing one exit, when there are open ten thousand as good?"

Disengaging himself from her relaxing arms, he walked up to the

fire-place, and thrust the phial between the bars. It broke as he did

so, and there was a strong smell of bitter almonds. She had risen

from her knees. She followed him, and again laid that hand upon his

arm--that soft, fair hand, of whose beauty he was wont to be so

proud. It trembled violently now; but as if impelled with unwonted

courage, and an energy inspired by the occasion, she ventured upon that

which it was long since anyone ever had presumed to offer to Julian

Winstanley--upon a plain-spoken remonstrance.

"Papa," she said, "promise me that you will never--never--never

again----"

"Do what?"

"Make an attempt upon your life--if I must speak out," she said, with a

spirit that astonished him.

"Attempt my life? What should I attempt my life for?" said he, and

he glanced round the scene of luxury which surrounded him. He was

continuing, in a tone of irony--but it would not do. He sank upon a

sofa, and covering his face with his hands, groaned--"Yes--yes, Ella!

all you say is true. I am a wretch who is unworthy to--and more--who

_will_ not live." He burst forth at last with a loud voice; and his

hands falling from his face, displayed a countenance dark with a sort

of resolute despair. "No--no--no!--death, death!--annihilation--and

forgetfulness! Why did you come in to interrupt me, girl?" he added,

roughly seizing her by the arm.

"Because--I know not--something--Oh! it was the good God, surely, who

impelled me," she cried, bursting into tears. "Oh, papa! papa! Do not!

do not! Think of us all--your girls--Cle. and I. You used to love us,

papa----"

"Do you know what has happened?"

"Yes--no. I believe you have lost a great deal of money at cards."

"Cards--was it? Let it be. It may as well be cards. Yes, child, I

_have_ lost a large sum of money at cards--and more," he added, setting

his teeth, and speaking in a sort of hissing whisper--"more than I can

exactly pay."

"Oh, papa! don't say so. Consider--only look round you. Surely you have

the means to pay! We can sell--we can make any sacrifice--any sacrifice

on earth to pay. Only think, there are all these things. There is all

the plate--my mother's diamonds--there is----"

He let her run on a little while; then, in a cool, almost mocking tone,

he said--

"I have given a bill of sale for all that, long ago."

"A bill of sale! What is a bill of sale?"

"Well! It's a thing which passes one man's property into the hands of

another man, to make what he can of it. And the poor dupe who took my

bill of sale, took it for twice as much as the things would really

bring; but the rascal thought he had no alternative. I was a fool to

give it to him, for the dice were loaded. If it were the last word I

had to speak, I would say it--the dice were loaded----"

"But--but----"

"What! you want to hear all about it, do you? Well it's a bad business.

I thought I had a right to a run of luck--after all my ill fortune. I

calculated the chances; they were overwhelmingly in my favor. I staked

my zero against another man's thousands--never mind how many--and I

lost, and have only my zero to offer in payment. That is to say, my

note of hand; and how much do you think that is worth, my girl? I would

rather--I would rather," he added, passionately, changing his tone of

levity for one of the bitterest despair--"I would rather be dead--dead,

dead--than----"

"Oh, papa! papa! say it not! say it not! It is real. Such things are

not mere words. They are real, father, father!--Die! You must not die."

"I have little cause to wish to die," he said, relapsing again into a

sort of gloomy carelessness; "so that I could see any other way out of

it. To be sure, one might run--one might play the part of a cowardly,

dishonorable rascal, and run for it, Ella, if you like that better.

Between suicide and the escapade of a defaulter, there is not much to

choose; but I will do as you like."

"I would not willingly choose your dishonor," said she, shuddering;

"but between the dishonor of the one course or the other, there seems

little to choose. Only--only--if you lived, in time you might be able

to pay. Men have lived, and labored, until they have paid all."

"Live and labor--very like me! Live, and labor, until I have paid

all--extremely like me! Lower a mountain by spadefuls."

"Even spadefuls," she said; her understanding and her heart seemed

both suddenly ripened in this fearful extremity--"even spadefuls at

a time have done something--have lowered mountains, where there was

determination and perseverance.

"But suppose there was neither. Suppose there was neither courage, nor

goodness, nor determination, nor perseverance. Suppose the man had

lived a life of indolent self-indulgence, until, squeeze him as you

would, there was not one drop of virtue left in him. Crush him, as fate

is crushing me at this moment; and I tell you, you will get nothing out

of him. Nothing--nothing. He is more worthless than the most degraded

beast. Better to die as a beast, and go where the beasts go."

She turned ghastly pale at this terrible speech--but, "No," she

faltered out--"no--no!"

"You will not have me die, then?" he said, pursuing the same heartless

tone; but it was forced, if that were any excuse for him. "Then you

prefer the other scheme? I thought, he went on, "to have supped with

Pluto to-night; but you prefer that it should be on board an American

steamer."

"I do," she gasped, rather than uttered.

"You do--you are sure you do?" said he, suddenly assuming a tone of

greater seriousness. "You wish, Ella, to preserve this worthless life?

Have you considered at what expense?"

"Expense! How! Who could think of that?" she answered.

"Oh! not the expense of money, child--at the expense of the little

thing called 'honor.' Listen to me, Ella,"--and again he took her arm,

and turned her poor distracted face, to his. "You see I am ready to

die--at least, was ready to die--but I have no wish to die. Worthless

as this wretched life of mine it, it has its excitements, and its

enjoyments, to me. When I made up my mind to end it, I assure you,

child, I did the one only generous thing I ever was guilty of in my

life; for I did it for you girls' sakes, as much or more than for my

own. Suicide, some think a wicked thing--I don't. How I got my life, I

don't know; the power of getting rid of it is mine, and I hold myself

at liberty to make use of it or not, at my own good pleasure. As for

my ever living to pay my debt, it's folly to talk of it. I have not,

and never shall acquire, the means. I have neither the virtue nor the

industry. I tell you, I am utterly good for nothing. I am a rascal--a

scoundrel, and a despicable knave. I played for a large sum--meaning to

take it if I won it--and not being able to pay, I lost it--and that, I

have still sense of honor enough left to call a rascally proceeding.

Now there is one way, and one way only, of cancelling all this in the

eye of the world. When a man destroys himself, the world is sorry for

him--half inclined to forgive him--to say the least of it, absolves

his family. But--if he turn tail--and sneak away to America, and has

so little sense"--he went on, passionately and earnestly--"of all that

is noble, and faithful, and honorable, that he can bear to drag on a

disgraced, contemptible existence, like a mean, pitiful, cowardly,

selfish wretch, as he is--why, then--then--he is utterly blasted,

and blackened over with infamy! Nobody feels for him, nobody pities

him--the world speaks out, and curses the rascal as heartily as he

deserves--and all his family perish with him. Now, Ella, choose which

you will."

"I choose America," she said with firmness.

"And how am I to got to America? and how am I to live there when I am

there? To be sure, there are your mother's diamonds," he added.

"Those are included in the bill of sale. Did you not say so?" she asked.

"Well, perhaps I did. But if a man is to live, he must have something

to live upon. If he is to take flight, he must have wings to fly with."

"I will provide both."

"You will?"

"I am of age. What I have--which was not your gift--is at least my own.

Lionel has been generous; I have the means to pay your passage."

"Aye, aye--Lionel! But afterwards, how am I to live? He will not

like--no man would like--to have to maintain a wife's father, and that

man a defaulter too. You should think of that, Ella."

"I do! I will never ask him."

"Then who is to maintain me? I tell you, I shall never manage to do it

myself."

"I will."

"My poor child!" he cried--one short touch of nature had reached him at

last--"what are you talking of?"

"I hope, and believe, that I shall be able to do it."

"I stood with my household gods shattered around me," is the energetic

expression of that erring man, who had brought the fell catastrophe

upon himself.

And so stood Ella now--in the centre of her own sitting-room, like some

noble figure of ruin and despair; yet with a light, the light divine,

kindling in an eye cast upward.

Yes! all her household gods--all the idols she had too dearly loved

and cherished, were shattered around her, and she felt that she stood

alone, to confront the dreadful fate which had involved all she loved.

What a spectacle presented itself to her imagination, as drearily she

looked round! On one side, defaced and disfigured, soiled, degraded,

was the once beautiful and animated figure of her father,--the man so

brilliant, and to her so splendid a specimen of what human nature, in

the full affluence of nature's finest gifts, might be. Upon another

side her lover!--her husband! who was to have been her heart's best

treasure! who never was to be hers now. No! upon that her high spirit

had at once resolved; never. Impoverished and degraded, as she felt

herself to be, never would she be Lionel's wife. The name which would,

in a few hours' time, be blackened by irremediable dishonor, should

never be linked to his. One swell of tender feeling, and it was over!

All that is wrong, and all that is right, in woman's pride, had risen

in arms at once against this.

The last figure that presented itself, was that of her delicate and

gentle sister. But here there was comfort. Clementina was of a most

frail and susceptible temperament, and eminently formed to suffer

severely from adverse external circumstances; but she had a true and

faithful heart; and if to Ella she would be obliged to cling for

support, she would give consolation in return.

Ella looked upward--she looked up to God!

That holy name was not a stranger to her lips. It had been once, until

the child of charity had taught the rich man's daughter some little

knowledge of it. But such ideas had never been thoroughly realized by

her mind; and now, when in the extremity of her destitution, she looked

up--when, "out of the depths she cried unto Him,"--alas! He seemed so

far, far off, and her distresses were so terribly near!

Yet even then, imperfect as all was, a beginning was made. The thick

darkness of her soul seemed a little broken,--communion with the

better and higher world was at least begun. There was a light--dim

and shadowy--but still a light. There was a strength, vacillating and

uncertain, but still a strength, coming over her soul.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

And now that wretched man, broken with disease and misery, sat there,

with the lady, who, patient and pitying even to the worst of her

fellow-creatures, had been moved by the sincerity of his distress. The

extremity of his misery had raised so much compassion in her heart, as

to overcome the resentment and indignation which she had at first felt,

on recognizing him.

He had entreated her to tell him every thing she knew of the fate of

one whom he had that morning followed to the grave. For wretched as

was his attire, defiled with dirt, and worn with travel, he had left

the house, and had followed, a tearless, but heartbroken mourner, the

simple procession which attended the once lovely and glorious creature

whom he had called daughter to her resting-place.

He had stood by, at her funeral, whilst ill-taught children stared and

scoffed, until the busy mercenaries had pushed and elbowed him aside.

He had seen his best and loveliest one consigned, ashes to ashes, dust

to dust; he had waited quietly until all had dispersed, and every one

was gone home. He had no home--and he yet stood by, and watched the

sexton completing his work and cheerfully whistling as he proceeded

with it.

For it was now a gleaming bright day, and the sun had burst forth,

and beamed upon the lofty tower of the church-steeple. It gilded the

church-vane and weathercock; it sparkled from the windows of the houses

around the graveyard; it glistened on the lowly graves.

Cheerfulness was around him, for the bright sun of heaven cheers and

ennobles every thing upon which his beams fall. And there was a soft

wind, too, which stirred among the leaves of a few poplars, that stood

hard by, whispering sweet secrets of nature, even in that dismal spot.

He stood there, motionless and tearless, until the sexton had finished

his task, had shouldered his spade, and, still whistling, had walked

away. Then he sat down upon the little mound, and hid his face in his

hands. He sat there for some time--for a long, long time--and then

slowly arose, and with feeble and uncertain steps retraced the way he

had come, and found himself at the door of the handsome house, whence

he had followed the funeral in the morning.

He made his way to the lady, who happened to be still there, and who

now (as I have said), indignation having yielded to compassion, was

prepared to satisfy the yearning anxiety he had expressed to hear all

she could tell him of his once proud and beautiful child.

"You know where you are, and what I am, and what I and the other ladies

whom you have seen with me employ ourselves upon when we come here."

"No," he said, looking round. "It never struck me to inquire, or even

to reflect upon what I saw."

"This house is a kind of hospital."

He started--and a faint flush passed over his face.

"Yes," he said, "it was natural--as things had gone on--a consequence

inevitable. Then she died at last in the hospital?"

"Not exactly that--as you would interpret the word. This house is,

indeed, a species of hospital; it is intended as a refuge for the

sick and dying, who have nowhere else to go; but it does not exactly

resemble an ordinary hospital. In the first place, the services

performed are not altogether gratuitous; in the second, every

patient has a room to herself. We are only women, except the medical

attendants: and we admit none but women--and those women of a higher

class, of gentle breeding, and refined habits, who have fallen into

poverty, and yet who have not been hardened in their sensations by

habits, so as that the edge of privation is blunted; or what, perhaps,

is still more difficult to bear, that painful sense of publicity

unfelt, which renders shelter in an ordinary hospital a source of

suffering to them--which--God be thanked!--it does not necessarily

prove to those for whom such places of refuge were intended. This house

would have been more justly called an asylum than a hospital, for it is

intended as a shelter for the sick and destitute; but yet those who are

received into it are expected to contribute to their own support."

He made no answer to this explanation. After all, it, interested

him little now to know that his Ella had not been a mere object of

the charity which is extended to paupers. His pride had died within

him, for his nature had been much changed; but, only as such natures

change. His faults had withered away, but no good qualities seemed as

yet to burst forth to flourish in their stead. The soul had been so

utterly ruined and devastated, the portion of living waters had been so

completely dried up, that he seemed merely to have lost the inclination

to do wrong--that was all.

"We are a small party of friends," the lady went on; "some of us in the

heyday of prosperity, but who, amid all the triumphs of youth, wealth,

and beauty, have not quite forgotten the poor, the sick, and the

miserable: others, who, like myself, are fallen into the yellow leaf of

life--whose years cannot of necessity be many--may be very few--and who

would fain do something in the great vineyard before they are called

away. It is our practice for some of us to visit this place every day,

to see our patients, attend to their wants and comforts, and, where it

is desired, administer by our conversation such helps and solace as

we can. I come here pretty often, for I am not one who is very much

occupied upon this earth; and, as I love to sit with the sufferers, and

am more aged than the majority of them, they seem to lean upon me a

good deal. They love to have me with them; and many of the younger ones

have treated me with a confidence, which has excited, I can scarcely

say whether more satisfaction or pain."

He still spoke not, but listened with deep attention.

"A few months ago," she continued, "the matron of the establishment

came to me one morning, and said that a young lady had been received

here some days ago, whom she wished me very much to visit. I had

but the day before returned from an excursion into the country, and

had been absent from my post about a fortnight. I asked, at whose

recommendation the patient had been received. She said--that of Lady

R., but that Lady R. knew nothing about her. It was at the earnest

solicitation of the wife of the baker who supplied her family with

bread, that Lady R. had given the order; the woman, who was a very

plain sort of person, but highly respectable in her way, having assured

her that it was a case of the most urgent necessity: that the young

lady was utterly penniless and destitute, and in an almost hopeless

state of health. She had brought on a decline by over-exertion to

maintain a sick sister, and pay some debts of that sister's, which she

thought herself bound in honor to discharge--'and other expenses,' she

added, somewhat mysteriously,--promising that she would advance the

required guinea a week; for, as for the young lady, she did not believe

that she had five shillings left in the world."

He struck his hand flat at the top of his head, and held it there,

leaning his elbow upon the table, so that his arm covered in part

his face, which was painfully contracted; but he neither spoke, nor

groaned, nor even sighed.

"I went up to the young lady's room immediately. Our rooms are each

provided with a single bed, a sofa, an easy chair, a table, and

such other requisites as make a chamber at once a bedroom and a

sitting-room.

"The matron knocked gently at the door; but no one answered it; she

therefore gently turned the handle of the lock, and we went in.

"The window was open. Hers looked upon those green trees you see at

the back of the house, and the fresh air came pleasantly in: but it

seemed unheeded by the sufferer. She was clothed in a long white

sleeping-gown. One arm was thrown above her head; her hair had gotten

from her comb, and fell in waves and curls of the utmost beauty and

luxuriance almost to her feet. She lay with her face upward, resting

upon the back of her head, almost as motionless as a corpse: her

features were fixed; her eyes rested upon the top of the bed. She

seemed lost in thought. Never in my life have I seen any thing so

supremely beautiful."

"Ella--Ella!" he just muttered.

"When we approached the side of the bed, she first perceived us, gave

a little start, glanced at the matron, and then, with a look of rather

displeased surprise at me--

"'I beg your pardon if I intrude upon you,' I said. 'Mrs. Penrose asked

me to pay you a visit. I am but just returned from the country. I spend

a good deal of my time when in town with the sick ladies here, and they

seem to like to have me; but if you do not I will go away directly.'

"She made an impatient and half-contemptuous motion of the head as

I used the words 'sick ladies;' but she fixed her large, lustrous

eyes upon me as I went on speaking--saying nothing, however, when I

concluded, but keeping those large dark eyes fixed upon my face.

"'Shall I go?' I said, after a little time thus spent.

"She made a gesture as if to stop me--but without moving those large

mournful eyes, in which I could see that tears were slowly gathering.

"Mrs. Penrose had already left the room. I said no more; but took a

chair, sat down by the bedside, and laid mine upon her thin, fevered,

but most exquisitely-formed hand.

"I gave a gentle, gentle pressure; it was faintly, very faintly

returned; and then the tears, which had so slowly gathered into her

eyes, fell in a few large drops over her faded cheeks.

"'This is lonely, desolate work, do what we will,' I said, as a sort

of answer to these few large tears, falling so quietly and still, and

without convulsion of features--the tears of a strong but softened

mind. 'To be sick, and without familiar faces--to be sick and among

strangers--is a sorrowful, sorrowful thing--but we do our best.'

"'O, you are good--very good,' she said.

"'There is nothing _I_ feel so much myself as this destitution of

the heart; solitude in sickness is to me almost more than I can

bear; and, therefore, it is, perhaps, that I am almost troublesome

in offering my society to those here who have not many friends and

visitors--especially to the young. I can bear solitude myself better

now, badly as I do bear it, than when I was young. Society seems, to

the young, like the vital air upon which they exist.'

"'Yes, perhaps so,' she said, after musing a little--'yes. So long

as there was one near me whom I loved, I could get on--better or

worse--but I could get on. But she is gone. Others whom I have loved

are far--far away. The solitude of the heart! yes, that kills one at

last.'

"'Then will you try to make a friend of me? A new friend can never be

like an old friend. Yet, when the old wine is drawn down to the dregs,

we accept the new, although we still say the old is better.'

"'How very kindly you speak to me! You have none of the pride of

compassion,' she said, fixing her lovely eyes, filled with an earnest,

intelligent expression, full upon mine. 'You will not humble me, whilst

you serve me.'

"'Humble you! My dear young lady! That, I hope, indeed, would be far

from me--from every one of us.'

"'I dare say so--as you say it. I have seen none of the ladies, only

the matron, Mrs. Penrose, and a friend of mine, to whom I owe much;

but they are both so inferior to myself in habits and education, that

I don't think they could humble me if they tried. The insolence of my

inferiors, I can defy--the condescensions of my superiors, are what I

dread.'

"I saw in this little speech something that opened to me, as I thought,

one side of her character. All the notice of it, however, which I took,

was to say, 'We must not exact too much from each other. A person may

have a very single-hearted and sincere desire to serve us, and yet be

somewhat awkward in conferring benefits. We must not be unreasonable.

Where people do their best to be kind, we must accept the will for the

deed, and besides....'

"'You mean to say that benefits may be _accepted_ ungraciously,'--and

she laid her hand upon mine, and pressed it with some fervor. Yes, that

is true. We may, in the pride of our unsubdued and unregulated hearts,

be captious, exacting and unjust. We may be very, very ungrateful.'

"Do I tire you with relating these things?" said the lady, breaking

off, and addressing the fallen man. "Shall I pass on to others? Yet

there are few events to relate. The history of this life of a few

months is comprised in conversations. I thought you would probably like

to hear them.

"I _do_ like to hear them. I adjure you, solemnly, to omit nothing that

you can remember of them. She was a noble creature." And he burst forth

with a bitter cry.

"She _was_ a noble creature!

"I sat with her some time that day, and learned some little of her

history; but she was very reserved as to details and explanations. She

told me that she had once lived in great affluence; but that a sudden

reverse of fortune had ruined her father, who had been obliged to

quit the country; and that she and her sister had found it necessary

immediately to set about getting their own livelihood. Only one course

was open to either of them--that of becoming governesses in private

families, or teachers at schools. They had wished to adopt the latter

course, which would have enabled them to keep together, but had not

been able to provide themselves with situations; so they had been

compelled to separate.

"'My sister,' she said, 'took a situation in London; I was obliged to

accept one that offered in a distant county, so that we were entirely

parted; but in such cases one cannot choose. My dear Clementina's

accomplishments were such as the family in London wanted; mine suited

those who offered me the place in the country, or I would have

exchanged with her. But it was not to be. Things in this miserable

world are strangely ordered.'

"'For the _best_,' I said, 'when the issues are known.'

"'Who shall assure us of that? and when are their issues known?' she

asked, with some bitterness. 'It would need great faith when one

receives a heavy injury, to believe it was fraught with good, and well

intended.'

"'It would, indeed! Yet, we must have that faith. We ought to have

that faith in Him, the All-wise, Merciful, and Good. We should have

it,--should we not?--whatever appearances might be, in an earthly

friend of this description.'

"'Ah! but we see and know such a friend.'

"'We ought to _know_, though we cannot see, that other friend.'

"'Ah! well--it is so, I dare say. But, oh, there are moments in life

when the cruel blow is so real, and the consolation so illusory!'

"'Seems so real--seems so illusory! Ah! my dear young lady, have you

drank so deep of the cup of sorrow? And have you not found the great,

the only true reality, at the bottom?'

"She had loosed her hold of my hand, and turned her head coldly away,

as I uttered the last speech.

"I asked her why she did so.

"'Because you talk like all the rest. At ease yourselves, religious

faith is an easy matter to you. It is easy to give these every-day

religious consolations, when we have nothing else to give. But they are

things of a peculiar character. If the soul does not put them within

itself, none upon earth can bestow them. They are only given of God;

and it has not pleased Him to give them to me. No,' she went on, with

much emotion. 'If there be light in darkness, it shines not for me. If

out of the depths they call, and He listens, He has not listened to

me. My prayers have been vain, and I have wearied myself with offering

them. There was no help in them.'

"I was grieved and shocked to hear her speak thus. I, however, ventured

to urge my point a little further.

"'But you did find help, somewhere?'

"'Not such as I wanted; not health and strength to my poor darkened

spirit.'

"'And why? Because they sought it not in faith ...'

"'Ah! faith! but who can command this faith?'

"'Everybody.'

"'Everybody! If it has pleased God to darken our understandings so

that we do not know him at all, it may be as you say. But if we know

him--not to trust in him--_that_ worst of faith must be our own fault.'

"She was silent, and seemed to sink into a reverie, which I would not

disturb. At last she shook it off, and turning suddenly to me, said,

'Clementina had got nearer this truth than I had, or have. Yes, that

it was--that it must have been--which supported her in circumstances

far worse than mine. She was patient, composed, resigned, and, in spite

of her natural feebleness, showed a strength which I ever wanted. She

endured better than I do, when she lay low as I do now, and suffered

worse, far worse. How was it?'

"'My strength is made perfect in weakness'--'Is not that said?'

"Again she fixed her eyes with a searching, earnest expression upon

mine.

"'But, tell me,' I continued, 'how it fared with you? I fear badly.'

"'Perhaps you are not aware, Madam, how much strength, both of body and

spirit, it requires to make a governess.'

"'I think I am aware of it, in good measure.'

"'There seems nothing very onerous in the task of teaching children

during a certain number of hours every day, and living with them

during the rest. But those who have tried it alone know how irksome,

how exhausting is the wearisome routine of ungrateful labor. My

situation was tiresome enough. They were a family of high-spirited

children, as wild as the hills in which they had been bred, and whose

greatest pleasure was to torment their young governess; though I was

rather excited than depressed by our frequent struggles for mastery.

Then the mother, when she did interfere, was sensible and just; and

she supported me when she thought me right, through every thing. If

she disapproved, too, I could be hot and unreasonable in my turn,

and she gently told me of my fault in private, so as to never impair

my authority. She was a wise and excellent woman. A good mother,

and a true friend, even to her governess. But it was different with

Clementina. Shut up in London, with a family of cold-hearted, proud

children, already spoiled by the world, and never finding it possible

to satisfy an exacting mother, do what she would, the task was soon

too hard for her. The more languid her health and spirits became,

the feebler her voice, the paler her cheek, the greater was the

dissatisfaction of the lady whom she served. When the family doctor was

at last called in, he pronounced her to be in so critical a state of

health, that rest and change of air were indispensable. So she left,

with fifteen pounds--a half-year's salary.

"'Consumption had set in when I saw her. What was to become of her? We

knew of no such place as this, then.

"'The lady whom I served was kind and considerate. When I came to her

in tears, she bade me fly to my sister, and not return until I had

settled her somewhere in comfort. But where was that to be? We had not

a friend in the world except one. She had been our under nursery-maid.

She was now a baker's wife; but she had always loved us. She had such a

heart! And she did not fail us now.

"'She took my sister home, and insisted upon keeping her. We could not

allow this to be done without offering what compensation we could. My

sister's little purse was reserved for extraordinary expenses; and I

contrived out of my own salary to pay a little weekly stipend to our

good Matty. She would not have taken it; but she had a husband, and

upon this point we were resolved.'

"Here she paused, and raising her head from her pillow, rested it upon

her hand, and looked round the room with an expression of satisfaction

which it gave me great pleasure to see. The little apartment was

plainly furnished enough; but the walls were of a cheerful color, and

the whole furniture was scrupulously clean. The windows stood open,

looking upon a space in which a few green trees were growing. The scene

was more open, airy, and quiet than one can usually obtain in London.

The air came in fresh and pleasant; the green trees waved and bowed

their heads lovingly and soothingly.

"'It is not until we are sick that we know the value, that we feel

the necessity, of these things,' she began again. 'This I may venture

to say for us both. We had been cradled in luxury and elegancies,

surrounded by every thing that the most lavish expenditure could

bestow. We gave them all up without a sigh. So much unhappiness

had attended this unblest profusion, that it seemed almost a

relief--something like an emancipation--to have done with it, and

be restored at once to simplicity and nature. Whilst our health and

spirits lasted, we both of us took a pleasure in defying superfluity,

in being easy and content upon a pallet bed, and with a crust of

bread and a glass of water; but, oh! when sickness comes--deadly

sickness! The fever, and the languor, and, above all, the frightful

susceptibility to external influences. When upon the hard bed you

cannot sleep, though sleep is life to the exhausted frame. When

the coarse food you cannot touch--though your body is sinking for

want of nourishment--when the aching limbs get sore with the rugged

unyieldingness of that on which they lie--when you languish and sicken

for fresh air, and are shut up in a little close room in some back

street--when you want medicine and care, and can command no services at

all--or of the lowest and most inefficient description--then--O then!

we feel what it is to want--then we feel what it is to have such an

asylum prepared for us as this. Poor thing! she was not so fortunate as

I have been.'"

Here, the broken man who had until now sat listening in what might

almost be called a sullen attention, suddenly lifted up his head,

looked round the room where he sat, and through the large cheerful

window upon the branches of the trees and the blue unclouded sky; and,

suddenly, even his heart seemed reached.

He rose from his chair, he sat down again, he looked conscious, uneasy,

abashed. It was so long since he had felt or expressed any grateful

or amiable sentiment, that he was almost ashamed of what he now

experienced, as if it had been a weakness.

"Pray have the kindness to go on," he said at last.

"It was some days before I learned much more of the history of my

poor young invalid, but one day when I came to see her, I found a

very respectable looking woman, though evidently not belonging to the

higher class, sitting with her. She was a person whose appearance

would have been almost repulsive from the deep injuries her face had

received--burned when a child, I believe--if it had not been for

the sense and goodness that pervaded her expression. Her eyes were

singularly intelligent, sweet, and kind.

"I found she was the wife of the baker--she, who had once been

nursery-maid in your family. The only friend the poor young creature

seemed to have left in the world, and the only person from whom she

could bear, as it afterwards appeared, to receive an obligation. This

excellent person it was, who advanced the guinea a-week, which the laws

of the institution required should be contributed by a patient.

"When she took her leave I followed her, to inquire further particulars

about my patient. She then told me, that the sister had died about

three years before, leaving a heavy debt to be discharged by the one

remaining; consisting of her funeral expenses, which were considerable,

though every thing was conducted with all the simplicity compatible

with decency; and of the charges of the medical man who had attended

her: a low unprincipled person, who had sent in an enormous bill,

which there were no means of checking, and which, nevertheless, the

high-spirited sister resolved to pay. But the first thing she did, was

to insure her own life for a certain sum, so as to guard against the

burden under which she herself labored, being in its turn imposed upon

others.

"'So, madam,' said the good Mrs. Lacy, with simplicity, 'you must not

think that the guinea a-week is any thing more than an advance on our

part--there will be money enough to repay us--or my dear Miss Ella

would never, never have taken it. She would die in the street first,

she has such a noble spirit of her own. She told me to provide for her

sister's debts,--she had made an arrangement with a publisher to be a

regular contributor to a certain periodical,--she had likewise produced

a few rather popular novels. To effect this she had indeed labored

night and day,--the day with her pupils, half the night with her pen.

She was strong, but human nature could not support this long; and yet

labor as she did, she proceeded slowly in clearing away the debt. I

cannot quite account for that,' said Mrs. Lacy, 'she dressed plainly,

she allowed herself no expense, she made no savings, she paid the

debt very slowly by small instalments, yet she worked herself into a

decline. There seemed to be some hidden, insatiable call for money....'"

If the lady who was recounting all this, had looked at her listener at

that moment, she would have been moved, little as she liked him. A wild

horror took possession of his countenance--his lips became livid--his

cheek ghastly--he muttered a few inarticulate words between his teeth.

But she was occupied with her own reflections, and noticed him not.

"This could not go on for ever," said the lady, presently. "She was

obliged to throw up her situation; soon afterwards the possibility of

writing left her; and she was brought here, where I found her."

"And that it was--that it was, then!" cried the wretched man. 'O Ella,

my child!--my child! I was living, in indolence and indifference, upon

her hard-earned labors! I was eating into her life! And when the supply

ceased, I--I never knew what it was to have a heart!--I thought she was

tired of ministering to her father's wants, and I came to England to

upbraid her!"

"It was too late. She was gone where the wicked cease from troubling,

and where the weary are at rest," said the lady.

"You need not--you need not--my heart is hard, but the dagger has

pierced it at last. You need not drive in the steel: it has done its

work," he rather gasped than said.

The lady felt that she had been too severe. His apparent insensibility

had, it is true, irritated her almost beyond bearing, after all he had

done, and after all that had been suffered for his sake.

"I am sorry if I give you pain. I ought to be sorry for you, not angry."

"Did she never mention me?" he asked, in a tone of agony. "And there

was another, on whom her young heart doted, only too fondly. Did she

never speak of either of us?"

"She spoke of both."

"Tell me what she said."

The lady hesitated.

"I pray tell me--I can bear it."

"I am afraid I have given you too much pain already. It is over now.

Let it be over. Go home; and may God give you grace at the eleventh

hour, and bring you and yours together again at last!" she said

fervently, and the tears starting in her eyes.

"I have no home but one; and to that I shall shortly go. But let me

not depart tormented with a yearning desire to hear all. Tell me; I

ask it of you as a favor. What was her state of mind as regarded her

mother--her father--and her lover?"

"God gave her grace to find him at last. The darkness and the

doubts that had distressed her, gradually disappeared. That grace

took possession of her heart which the world can neither give nor

understand; and all was hope and tranquillity at the last hour.

"As she grew worse, her spirit became more and more composed. She told

me so one day. Then she asked me whether I thought she could recover.

"I was silent.

"She turned pale. Her lips moved as she said, 'Do I understand your

silence rightly?'

"'I am afraid you do.'

"She was silent herself for a short time; then she said,

"'And so young!'

"'It is not for us to know the times and seasons which the Father hath

kept in his own power,' said I.

"'But must I--must I die? I am not ashamed to own it,--I did so wish to

live. Did you never hear that I had a father living?' she asked in so

low a voice, that it was almost a whisper.

"'Yes,' I answered.

"'Then, you have heard his most unhappy history?'

"'Most of it, I believe, I have.'

"'He seems to you, I fear, a very--very erring man.'

"I was silent.

"'There is good in him still,' she cried; 'believe it or not who may,

there is good in him still.'

"And now her tears began to flow fast, as she went on,

"'The will of God be done! The will of God be done! But if it had been

His pleasure, I hoped to have lived! to have had that father home; to

have joined our two desolate hearts together; to have brought him to

the knowledge of One whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light. O,

was that wish wrong, that it was not granted! O, my father! who shall

seek you out now!'

"'Remember,' I said, gently, 'we are in the hands of One, wiser and

more merciful than ourselves. He would spare, surely, where we would

spare, if it were good it should be so. If means would avail, He

would provide the means. His work will not stand still because the

instruments (as we regard things) seem taken away. Your death, dear

girl, may do more for your father's soul than your life could ever have

done.'"

And now, he bowed his head--humbly--and he covered his face with his

hands, and the tears ran through his fingers.

"Thus," the lady went on, "I comforted her, as I could; and she died:

with her last breath commending her father to the mercy of God.

"Her lover was dear--but not dearer than her father. She told me that

history one day. How she had loved; how devotedly, how passionately.

But that when her name was disgraced, she had resolved never to unite

it with his. She had withdrawn herself; she had done it in a way such

as she believed would displease him. 'I thought he would feel it less

if he were angry,' she said. 'I often wished in my desolation _I_ could

feel angry.' She told me his name; and I promised to make inquiries. I

had fortunately the opportunity. I had the pleasure to tell her, that

he had made the greatest efforts to find her out, but in vain; that

he had remained unmarried and constant to her memory: that what had

happened had given a new turn to his character. Habits of dissipation,

which had been gradually acquiring power over him, had been entirely

broken through. He had accepted an office in a distant colony, where he

was leading a most useful and meritorious life. Never shall I forget

the glow of joy that illuminated her face when I told her so. She

looked already as if she had entered into the higher and more glorious

existence!

"'I shall not see him again,' said she; 'but you will write to him

and tell him all. You will say that I died true and blest, because he

was what he was; and that I bade him a fond adieu, until we should

meet again in a better world. For, O! we shall meet again; I have a

testimony within, which shall not deceive me!'

"She then reverted to her father.

"'He will come back,' she said; 'you will see that he will come back,

and he will inquire what is become of me--why his child has forgotten

him and is silent. It will be the silence and forgetfulness of the

grave. Perhaps he will come back as he went; his heart yet unchanged:

defying and despairing. Tell him _not_--be patient, with him, good

kind friend, for my sake. There is good in him:--good he knows not of,

himself; that nobody knows of, but his loving child, and the God who

made him--weak and erring as he is. Tell him, he must no more be weak

and erring; tell him there is forgiveness for all who will return at

last, but that forgiveness supposes newness of life. Tell him--"

The sentence was unfinished by the lady, for he who listened fell

prostrate on his face upon the floor.

They raised him up; but his heart seemed broken. He neither moved

nor spoke. Life, however, was not extinct; for in this condition he

remained many days.

They could not keep him where he was, for this benevolent institution

was strictly devoted to women of the more refined orders. He was

carried to a Hospital. There was nowhere else to carry him.

Seven days he lay without speaking; but not absolutely senseless. The

spirit within him was at work. In his worst days he had never wanted

energy. His heart was ever strong for good or for bad. What passed

within him, in those seven days, was between his soul and the Highest.

He came out of his death-trance an altered creature.

The once handsome, dashing, profane, luxurious Julian Winstanley,

looked now a very old, old man. Quite gray, very thin, and stooping

much. From that time, he continued to earn his bread honestly, as

an attendant in the very hospital where he had been recovered. He

had a little room to himself, and it was filled with certain simple

treasures, hallowed by his recollections.

His patient and tender attendance upon the sick, his assiduous

discharge of all his duties, was beyond praise.

One day, a man who had risen to a very high post in one of our

colonies, came to visit him. The two were long together. When, they

parted, it was evident that both had wept much.

The old man, after that, faded rapidly. One morning they found him

dead in bed. His hands were clasped together, as if he had departed in

the act of prayer. He lies buried in a neighboring churchyard, under a

simple mound of earth, such as covers the humblest and the poorest.

He had left behind him a scrap of paper, earnestly imploring that so it

might be. So it was. May God forgive us all!

MY NOVEL: OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[7]

BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

BOOK VIII.--INITIAL CHAPTER.--THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT.

There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so

prodigious a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw

up our hats, and cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that,

out of that very spirit of contradiction natural to all rational

animals, one is tempted to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently;

LIGHT is noiseless; how comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter?

Meanwhile if it be not impertinent, pray, where is enlightenment

marching to?" Ask that question of any six of the loudest bawlers

in the procession, and I'll wager ten-pence to California that you

get six very unsatisfactory answers. One respectable gentleman, who,

to our great astonishment, insists upon calling himself a "slave,"

but has a remarkably free way of expressing his opinions, will

reply--"Enlightenment is marching towards the nine points of the

Charter." Another with his hair _à la jeune France_, who has taken a

fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather embarrassed with his own,

asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding towards the Rights of Women,

the reign of Social Love, and the annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice.

A third, who has the air of a man well to do in the middle class, more

modest in his hopes, because he neither wishes to have his head broken

by his errand-boy, nor his wife carried off to an Agapemone by his

apprentice, does not take Enlightenment a step farther than a siege

on Debrett, and a cannonade on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march

that he swells will soon trample _him_ under foot. No one fares so ill

in a crowd, as the man who is wedged in the middle. A fourth, looking

wild and dreamy, as if he had come out of the cave of Trophonius, and

who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks Enlightenment is in full

career towards the good old days of alchemists and necromancers. A

fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts that the march of

Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy, vegetable diet,

and the perpetuation of peace, by means of speeches, which certainly

do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of Demosthenes!

The sixth--(good fellow, without a rag on his back)--does not care a

straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and it

is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above, or

the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march,

while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company;

and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at

home with Locke and Burke, (dull dogs though they were,) than have my

thoughts set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums,

blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows that I vow to heaven I would not

trust with a five-pound note--still, if I must march, I must; and so

deuce take the hindmost. But when it comes to individual marchers upon

their own account--privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment--who

have filled their pockets with lucifer-matches, and have a sublime

contempt for their neighbours' barns and hay-ricks, I don't see why I

should throw myself into the seventh heaven of admiration and ecstasy.

[7] Continued from page 550.

If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings

that are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth,

would just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about

them, I would respectfully inquire if they have never met any very

knowing and enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means

desirable. If not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by

his own experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were

amazingly well-informed, clever fellows! From dunderheads and dunces

we can protect ourselves; but from your sharp-witted gentleman, all

enlightenment and no prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!"

It is true, that the rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually

comes to no good himself, (though not before he has done harm enough to

his neighbors.) But that only shows that the world wants something else

in those it rewards, besides intelligence _per se_ and in the abstract;

and is much too old a world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its

plums for his own personal gratification. Hence a man of very moderate

intelligence, who believes in God, suffers his heart to beat with human

sympathies, and keeps his eyes off your strong-box, will perhaps gain a

vast deal more power than knowledge ever gives to a rogue.

Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the

blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolaters of

enlightenment, and, if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill;

yet, nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with

me, that when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general

march of enlightenment, it is no reason to make ourselves a target,

because enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has, doubtless,

been already remarked by the judicious reader, that of the numerous

characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong to that

species which we call INTELLECTUAL--that through them are analyzed

and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions. So

that this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble, familiar

Epic, or, if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the varieties of

English Life in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences

most prevalent. And where more ordinary and less refined types of

the species round and complete the survey of our passing generation,

they will often suggest, by contrast, the deficiencies which mere

intellectual culture leaves in the human being. Certainly I have no

spite against intellect and enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be

such a Goth. I am only the advocate for common sense and fair play. I

don't think an able man necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart

match his head, and both proceed in the Great March under the divine

Oriflamme, he goes as near to the angel as humanity will permit; if

not, if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound of brains, I say,

"_Bon jour, mon ange?_ I see not the starry upward wings, but the

grovelling cloven-hoof." I'd rather be obfuscated by the Squire of

Hazeldean, than enlightened by Randal Leslie. Every man to his taste.

But intellect itself (not in the philosophical, but the ordinary sense

of the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed harmonious agency; it is

not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of which are often at war

with each other, and mar the concord of the whole. Few of us but have

some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but which (usurping

unseasonably dominion over the rest) shares the lot of all tyranny,

however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against disaffection

within, and invasion from without. Hence intellect maybe perverted

in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a man

of excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a

strong ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world, who

has attained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody

much cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any

reputation at all! Men, like Audley Egerton, are constantly seen in the

great positions of life; while men, like Harley l'Estrange, who could

have beaten them hollow in any thing equally striven for by both, float

away down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse the

dreamy energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and

Polonius were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of

being Chancellor of the Exchequer, though Hamlet would unquestionably

be a much more intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet?

Heaven knows! Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that

the difference between one man and another was not mere ability--it was

energy. There is a great deal of truth in that saying.

Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the

sagacious, I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see

already Randal Leslie gnawing his lip on the back ground. The German

poet observes, that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of

knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of

butter she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the

milch cow! O prostitution of the grandest desires to the basest uses!

Gaze on the goddess, Randal Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy

scales. Let us see what the butter will fetch in the market.

CHAPTER II.

A new reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the

unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings.

Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely

escaped defeat--thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his

election are said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against

such wealth as Egerton's--no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?"

said the defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London

is already full; Parliament will meet in less than a fortnight.

In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners

may discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which

foreigners must pay for it, there sat two persons, side by side,

engaged in close conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale

clear complexion and raven hair--in whose eyes, vivid with a power

of expression rarely bestowed on the beauties of the north, we

recognize Beatrice, Marchesa di Negra. Undeniably handsome as was

the Italian lady, her companion, though a man, and far advanced

into middle age, was yet more remarkable for personal advantages.

There was a strong family likeness between the two; but there was

also a striking contrast in air, manner, and all that stamps on the

physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of character. There was something

of gravity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's countenance

when carefully examined; her smile at times might be false, but it

was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, though graceful,

were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a daughter of

the south. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the fair

smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle,

something that might have passed, at first glance for the levity and

thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though

exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his

manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman.

His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce

such marvellous effects of color; and if here and there a silver thread

gleamed through the locks it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance.

His eyes were light, and his complexion though without much color, was

singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather

womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a

frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed

by an admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed

this man to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a

Parisian. He conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his

mode of thought seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchmen of

the present day--an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of

the _Marquis_ of the old _régime_--the _roué_ of the Regency.

Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history.

But as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be

a citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such

citizens!

"But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even

granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose that her father

will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature

of your kinsman?"

"_Tu te trompes, ma soeur_," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di

Peschiera, in French as usual--"_tu te trompes_; I knew it before he

had gone through exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort

yourself, my too anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent

till I have made sure of his daughter's."

"But how win that in despite of the father?"

"_Eh, mordieu?_" interrupted the Count, with true French gayety; "what

would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not

made in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very

slight compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his

chair; "look you, this is no question of ifs and buts--it is a question

of must and shall--a question of existence to you and to me. When

Danton was condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of

bread at the nose of his respectable judge--'_Mon individu sera bientôt

dans le néant_'--My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts.

I see before me, on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side,

wedlock and wealth."

"But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy

so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might

be reclaimed at your hands?"

"My sister," replied the Count, "do I look like a man who saved?

Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raise from his

Lombard domains a name and a house so illustrious as our kinsman's,

and desirous, while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward

my adherence, forbore the peremptory confiscation of those vast

possessions at which my mouth waters while we speak, but, annexing

them to the Crown during pleasure, allowed me, as the next of male

kin, to retain the revenues of one-half for the same very indefinite

period--had I not every reason to suppose, that, before long, I could

so influence his Majesty or his minister, as to obtain a decree

that might transfer the whole, unconditionally and absolutely, to

myself? And methinks I should have done so, but for this accursed,

intermeddling English Milord, who has never ceased to besiege the court

or the minister with alleged extenuations of our cousin's rebellion,

and proofless assertions that I shared it in order to entangle my

kinsman, and betrayed it in order to profit by his spoils. So that,

at last, in return for all my services, and in answer to all my

claims, I received from the minister himself this cold reply: 'Count

of Peschiera, your aid was important, and your reward has been large.

That reward, it would not be for your honor to extend, and justify the

ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by formally appropriating to

yourself all that was forfeited by the treason you denounced. A name so

noble as yours should be dearer to you than fortune itself.'"

"Ah, Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its

whole character; "those were words that might make the demon that

tempts to avarice fly from your breast in shame."

The Count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the

room and said, quietly:

"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice, talk common sense. Heroics

sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the

tone of a family conversation."

Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change

in the expression of her countenance, which had seemed to betray

susceptibility to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away.

"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one-half of those ample

revenues--why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?"

"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the

pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his

possessions?"

"There is a _probability_, then, of that pardon? When you first

employed me in your researches, you only thought there was a

_possibility_."

"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I

learned some little time since that the question of such recall had

been suggested by the Emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger

to the State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged

abilities--(abilities! bah!)--and his popular name, deferred any

decision on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with

myself must have embarrassed the ministry. But it is a mere question

of time. He cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty,

already extended to the other refugees. The person who gave me this

information is high in power, and friendly to myself; and he added a

piece of advice, on which I acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one

of the partisans of your kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage

for his loyalty in the person of his daughter and heiress; that she

had arrived at marriageable age; that if she were to wed, with the

Emperor's consent, some one whose attachment to the Austrian crown was

unquestionable, there would be a guarantee both for the faith of the

father, and for the transmission of so important a heritage to safe

and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my friend) 'apply to the Emperor

for his consent to that alliance for yourself?--you, on whom he can

depend;--you who, if the daughter should die, would be the legal heir

to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."

"You saw the Emperor?"

"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated,

that so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against

me, when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would

willingly give me the hand of his child."

"You did?" cried the Marchesa, amazed.

"And," continued the Count imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless

hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front--"and that I should thus

have the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's

loyalty--the agent for the restoration of his honors, while, in the

eyes of the envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from

all suspicion that I had wronged him."

"And the Emperor consented?"

"_Pardieu_, my dear sister. What else could his majesty do? My

proposition smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy.

It remains, therefore, only to find out, what has hitherto baffled all

our researches, the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a

welcome lover to the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I

own; but--unless your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch--I am still

a match for many a gallant of five-and-twenty."

The Count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so

pre-eminently handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words

as gracefully as if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the

grand old comedy of Parisian life.

Then interlacing his fingers, and lightly leaning his hands, thus

clasped, upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said

slowly--"And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach.

Have you not sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for

my interests? Is it not some years since you first came to England

on the mission of discovering these worthy relatives of ours? Did I

not entreat you to seduce into your toils the man whom I knew to be

my enemy, and was indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat--a

secret he has hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me,

that though he was then in England, you could find no occasion even to

meet him, but that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to

whom I directed your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet

you, whose charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the

statesman, as you see nothing of _Milord_. Nay, baffled and misled, you

actually supposed that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go

thither--you pretend to search the capital--the provinces, Switzerland,

_que sais-je_?--all in vain,--though--_foi de gentilhomme_--your police

cost me dearly,--you return to England--the same chase, and the same

result. _Palsambleu, ma soeur_, I do too much credit to your talents

not to question your zeal. In a word have you been in earnest--or have

you not had some womanly pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my

trust?"

"Giulio," answered Beatrice sadly, "you know the influence you have

exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just.

I made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to

believe that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide

us to it."

"Ah, you do!" exclaimed the Count. Beatrice did not heed the

exclamation, but hurried on.

"But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would

it not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed

me that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could

honestly aid. You naturally desired first to know if the daughter

lived; if not, you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you

desired to effect, through my mediation, some liberal compromise with

Alphonso, by which you would have sought to obtain his restoration,

provided he would leave you for life in possession of the grant you

hold from the crown. While these were your objects, I did my best,

ineffectual as it was, to obtain the information required."

"And what made me lose so important though so ineffectual an ally?"

asked the Count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot

from his eye.

"What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable

spies--the false Italians--whom you sent over, and seek to entangle

this poor exile, when found in some rash correspondence, to be revealed

to the court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count

of Peschiera, the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into

the informer, the corrupter, and the traitress! No, Giulio--then I

recoiled; and then, fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into

France. I have answered you frankly."

The Count removed his hands from the shoulders on which they had

reclined so cordially.

"And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude.

You, whose fortunes are bound up in mine--you, who subsist on my

bounty--you, who--"

"Hold," cried the Marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as

if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of

years--"Hold--gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother--what, indeed, do I

owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you

condemned me to marry against my will--against my heart--against my

prayers--and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was

pure then, Giulio--pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown.

And now--now--"

Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face.

"Now you upbraid me," said the Count, unruffled by her sudden passion,

"because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?"

"Old in vices and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had the

right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my hand.

But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the ear of

a wretched and insulted wife."

"Pardon me the remark," replied the Count, with a courtly bend of his

head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of

our country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained

them. And," continued the Count, "you were not so long a wife that the

gall of the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow--free,

childless, young, beautiful."

"And penniless."

"True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I

could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play

them."

"And my own portion? Oh, Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had

condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against

honor, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in

discharge of the debt."

"He had no other way to discharge it--a debt of honor must be paid--old

stories these. "What matters? Since then my purse has been open to you."

"Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument--your spy! Yes, your

purse has been open--with a niggard hand."

"_Un peu de conscience, ma chère_, you are so extravagant. But come, be

plain. What would you?"

"I would be free from you."

"That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich

island lords. _Ma foi_, I respect your ambition."

"It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery--to be placed

beyond dishonorable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice with

increased emotion, "I desire to re-enter the life of woman."

"Eno'!" said the Count with a visible impatience, "is there anything

in the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to

mine? You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry, as

becomes you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry.

Be it so. I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift

clutch of the Genoese--the moment that it is mine to bestow--- the

moment that I am husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice,

you imply that my former notions revolted your conscience; my present

plan should content it; for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain

his country, and repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not

an excellent husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I

have sown my wild oats. _Je suis bon prince_, when I have things a

little my own way. It is my hope and my intention, and certainly it

will be my interest, to become _digne époux et irréproachable pire de

famille_. I speak lightly--'tis my way. I mean seriously. The little

girl will be very happy with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all

resentment her father may retain. Will you aid me then--yes or no? Aid

me, and you shall indeed be free. The magician will release the fair

spirit he has bound to his will. Aid me not, _ma chère_, and mark,

I do not threaten--I do but warn--aid me not; grant that I become a

beggar, and ask yourself what is to become of you--still young, still

beautiful, and still penniless? Nay, worse than penniless; you have

done me the honor (and here the Count, looking on the table, drew a

letter from a portfolio, emblazoned with his arms and coronet), you

have done me the honor to consult me as to your debts."

"You will restore my fortune?" said the Marchesa, irresolutely--and

averting her head from an odious schedule of figures.

"When my own, with your aid, is secured."

"But do you not overrate the value of my aid?"

"Possibly," said the Count, with a caressing suavity--and he kissed his

sister's forehead. "Possibly; but by my honor, I wish to repair to you

any wrong, real or supposed, I may have done you in past times. I wish

to find again my own dear sister. I may overvalue your aid, but not the

affection from which it comes. Let us be friends, _cara Beatrice Mia_,"

added the Count, for the first time employing Italian words.

The Marchesa laid her head on his shoulder, and her tears flowed

softly. Evidently this man had great influence over her--and evidently,

whatever her cause for complaint, her affection for him was still

sisterly and strong. A nature with fine flashes of generosity, spirit,

honor, and passion, was hers--but uncultured, unguided--spoilt by

the worst social examples--easily led into wrong--not always aware

where the wrong was--letting affections good or bad whisper away her

conscience or blind her reason. Such women are often far more dangerous

when induced to wrong, than those who are thoroughly abandoned--such

women are the accomplices men like the Count of Peschiera most desire

to obtain.

"Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking up at him

through her tears, "when you speak to me thus, you know you can do with

me what you will. Fatherless and motherless, whom had my childhood to

love and obey but you?"

"Dear Beatrice," murmured the Count tenderly--and he again kissed her

forehead. "So," he continued more carelessly--"so the reconciliation

is effected, and our interests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas! to

descend to business. You say that you know some one whom you believe to

be acquainted with the lurking-place of my father-in-law--that is to

be!"

"I think so. You remind me that I have an appointment with him this

day: it is near the hour--I must leave you."

"To learn the secret?--Quick--quick. I have no fear of your success, if

it is by his heart that you lead him."

"You mistake; on his heart I have no hold. But he has a friend who

loves me, and honorably, and whose cause he pleads. I think here that

I have some means to control or persuade him. If not--ah, he is of a

character that perplexes me in all but his worldly ambition; and how

can we foreigners influence him through _that_?"

"Is he poor, or is he extravagant?"

"Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but dependent."

"Then we have him," said the Count composedly. "If his assistance he

worth buying, we can bid high for it. _Sur mon âme_, I never yet knew

money fail with any man who was both worldly and dependent. I put him

and myself in your hands."

Thus saying, the Count opened the door, and conducted his sister with

formal politeness to her carriage. He then returned, reseated himself,

and mused in silence. As he did so, the muscles of his countenance

relaxed. The levity of the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in

his eye, as it gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady

depth so remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist or

Venetian oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, despite all its

beauty, something that would have awed back even the fond gaze of love;

something hard, collected, inscrutable, remorseless; but this change

of countenance did not last long. Evidently thought, though intense

for the moment, was not habitual to the man. Evidently he had lived

the life which takes all things lightly--so he rose with a look of

fatigue, shook and stretched himself, as if to cast off, or grow out

of, an unwelcome and irksome mood. An hour afterwards, the Count of

Peschiera was charming all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon

of a high-born beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and

whose charms, according to that old and never-truth-speaking oracle,

Polite Scandal, were now said to have attracted to London the brilliant

foreigner.

CHAPTER III.

The Marchesa regained her house, which was in Curzon street, and

withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her

countenance all traces of the tears she had shed.

Half-an-hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed

and calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was

capable of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately

exterior, in that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished

elegance which comes alike from the arts of the toilet and the

conventional repose of rank, you could see but the woman of the world

and the great lady.

A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a

visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance--a young

man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's,

was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed

that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius,

"ought, if he can, to wear his whole mind on his forehead."[8] The

young visitor would never have committed so frank an imprudence. His

cheek was pale, and in his step and in his movements there was a

languor that spoke of fatigued nerves or delicate health. But the light

of the eye and the tone of the voice were those of a mental temperament

controlling the bodily--vigorous and energetic. For the rest, his

general appearance was distinguished by a refinement alike intellectual

and social. Once seen, you would not easily forget him. And the reader

no doubt already recognizes Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before

said, was that of intimate familiarity; yet it was given and replied

to with that unreserved openness which denotes the absence of a more

tender sentiment.

[8] I must be pardoned for annexing the original, since it loses much

by translation:--"Hominem liberum et magnificum debere, si queat, in

primori fronte, animum gestare."

Seating himself by the Marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse

on the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable,

that, while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal

of the great world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate

in return. Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit

himself, nor to have quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the

eminent. Nothing more injures the man who would rise beyond the fame

of the _salons_, than to be considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it

is always useful," thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles--the

small social and private springs by which the great are moved. Critical

occasions may arise in which such knowledge may be power." And hence,

perhaps, (besides a more private motive, soon to be perceived,) Randal

did not consider his time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's

friendship. For despite much that was whispered against her, she had

succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she had at first been

received in the London circles. Her beauty, her grace, and her high

birth, had raised her into fashion, and the homage of men of the first

station, while it perhaps injured her reputation as a woman, added to

her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though

we be, forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the native.

Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and

elegant personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord

this and the Duke of that had passed on the Marchesa's charms, Randal

laid his hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and

said--

"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily

for me, and with a generosity which no coquette could have been

capable) you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that

might else have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and

disdain to return, you told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one

speak to me of love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the

means to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant;'--since

thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and upon that

understanding our intimacy has been founded, you will pardon me for

saying that the admiration you excite amongst the _grands seigneurs_

I have named, only serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away

admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen

are unfortunately married; and they who are not belong to those

members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more than beauty and

wit--namely, connections to strengthen their political station, or

wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title."

"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the Marchesa--and a certain sadness might

be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye--"I have

lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the

falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I

see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know

that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he

talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which

she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to

youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's--"ah,

I am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a

companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the

low round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures--of a heart so new,

that it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have

seen in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which

has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to

know the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a

home, I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition."

"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not

harmonize with your former answer to me."

"To you," repeated Beatrice smiling, and regaining her lighter manner;

"to you--true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection

for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that

you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home.

And then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave

pride in her air--"and _then_, I could not have consented to share my

fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my

heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could

then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with

poverty and debt. Now it may be different. Now I may have the dowry

that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my

heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed,

and despairing."

"Ah," said Randal, interested and drawing still closer towards his fair

companion--"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to

think that you shall be--rich?"

The Marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal

relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and

rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich,

she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had

best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While

thus reflecting, Beatrice answered--

"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should

be half a million--"

"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained

himself from falling at her feet in adoration.

"Of francs!" continued the Marchesa.

"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering

from his sudden enthusiasm, "about twenty thousand pounds!--eight

hundred a-year at four per cent. A very handsome portion,

certainly--(Genteel poverty! he murmured to himself. What an escape

I have had! but I see--I see. This will smooth all difficulties in

the way of my better and earlier project. I see)--a very handsome

portion," he repeated aloud--"not for a _grand seigneur_, indeed, but

still for a gentleman of birth and expectations worthy of your choice,

if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while you spoke with such

endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a heart that was

new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to

my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your ideal.

Providentially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are found not

in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our rural

nobility--our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all your

adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see

by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?"

"Did I blush?" said the Marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think

that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I

have been touched by his honest ingenuous love--so evident, yet rather

looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honors me with the

suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant

that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is

not what--"

"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish

your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his

shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do

not allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is

true, have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen.

He has not at present--few men have. But what Cimon would not be

refined by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows

belong but to youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who

could see his sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean."

The Marchesa leant her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage

was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate

widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her

unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul--so

had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex

character been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed

position, the equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various

debasements to which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her--(not

without design on the part of the count, who, though grasping, was not

miserly, and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one

time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved her in debt in

order to retain his hold on her)--so utterly painful and humiliating to

a woman of her pride and her birth was the station that she held in the

world--that in marriage she saw liberty, life, honor, self-redemption;

and these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with the

schemes, by which the count, on securing to himself a bride, was to

bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her now to receive with favour

Randal Leslie's pleadings on behalf of his friend.

The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the

marvellous skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged

his study bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his

cause by such representations as were likely to be most effective.

With what admirable tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere

individual, and drew him rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman

in Beatrice's position might desire, in the safety, peace, and honor

of a home, in the trust, and constancy, and honest confiding love of

its partner! He did not paint an Elysium; he described a haven; he did

not glowingly delineate a hero of romance--he soberly portrayed that

Representative of the Respectable and the Real which a woman turns to

when romance begins to seem to her but delusion. Verily, if you could

have looked into the heart of the person he addressed, and heard him

speak, you would have cried admiringly, "Knowledge _is_ power; and this

man, if as able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part

in the history of his time."

Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her

as he spoke--slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said--

"Well, well, grant all you say; at least before I can listen to so

honorable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pressure

that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who woos me, 'Will you pay

the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of di Negra?'"

"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry."

"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon

her companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra

extended her hand to Randal, and said in her most winning accents, "You

are, then, truly and sincerely my friend?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance."

"Mine? How?"

"Listen; my brother has arrived in London--"

"I see that arrival announced in the papers."

"And he comes, empowered by the consent of the Emperor, to ask the hand

of a relation and countrywoman of his; an alliance that will heal long

family dissensions, and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress.

My brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law

he still owes me it would distress him to pay till this marriage be

assured."

"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?"

"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought

refuge and concealment in England."

"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and

was proscribed?"

"Exactly so; and so well has he concealed himself that he has baffled

all our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his

pardon in cementing this alliance--"

"Proceed."

"Ah Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know

that I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's

retreat--sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly

knows it--"

"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost

bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me

as to you."

"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any

secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you

know already that secret which I ask you to share with me."

"What on earth makes you think so?"

"When, some weeks ago you asked me to describe the personal appearance

and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections

of my childhood, partly from the description given to me by others,

I could not but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in

spite," said the Marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she

spoke--"in spite of your habitual self-command. And when I pressed

you to own that you had actually seen some one who tallied with that

description, your denial did not deceive me. Still more, when returning

recently, of your own accord, to the subject, you questioned me so

shrewdly as to my motives in seeking the clue to our refugees, and I

did not then answer you satisfactorily, I could detect--"

"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which

occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to

shun a merriment so natural as to be ill-bred,--"ha, ha, you have the

fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that

I may have seen some Italian exiles, (which is likely enough,) what

could be more simple than my seeking to compare your description with

their appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst

them to be the man you search for, what more simple, also, than that

I should desire to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering

his 'whereabout?' For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery, "ill

would it become me to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one

who would hide from persecution; and even if I did so--for honor itself

is a weak safeguard against your fascinations--such indiscretion might

be fatal to my future career."

"How?"

"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not

communicate?--and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an

imprudence that committed himself? My dear friend, I will tell you

more. When Audley Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you,

he said, with his usual dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you

to discontinue acquaintance with Madame di Negra--for an acquaintance

with women like her forms the manners and refines the intellect; but

charming women are dangerous, and Madame di Negra is--a charming woman."