She did not inquire if Lady Falkingham was at home, but sending in her

card, she desired the servant to take it at once to his lady, and to

ask if she could see her for a few minutes.

By this means she effected her entrance; but Lady Falkingham was

exceedingly annoyed at what she deemed an unwarrantable intrusion, and

was disposed to think Lady Cumberworth, who was the most humble and the

meekest of her sex, a pushing, obtrusive person.

Lady Cumberworth was somewhat abashed when she entered; for although

she had worked up her courage to take this step by reminding herself

that Lady Falkingham was universally allowed to be a most exemplary

mother, and that therefore she must surely understand, and sympathize

with the maternal feelings of another, she could not quite shake off

the impression produced by Lady Falkingham's constant avoidance of

herself.

Lady Falkingham was alone, and received her with the most awful

perfection of good-breeding. The gentle, the kind, the unsuspicious

Lady Cumberworth felt chilled; but she thought of her son's care-worn

face, and she found resolution to open the subject. "She was sure

that Lady Falkingham's own tenderness for her daughter would plead

her excuse for intruding upon her: that her son's peace of mind was

so completely involved in the event which was then pending, that she

could not withstand the temptation of seeking Lady Falkingham, and

of pleading his cause. She was fully aware that her Frank was by no

means worthy in point of fortune and situation to match with Lady

Blanche; but that still, in point of character and disposition, he was

so perfect, so kind--so dutiful a son! so affectionate a brother! so

excellent in all the relationships of life!--that if personal qualities

could make up for the absence of worldly advantages, he was not

unworthy of any good fortune."

Lady Falkingham listened with stately politeness, and when Lady

Cumberworth paused, she answered: "that she had no doubt his mother's

account of his moral perfections was perfectly just, but she feared

these qualities would not provide the conveniences of life. She

regretted, as much as Lady Cumberworth herself could do, the necessity

of attending to such paltry considerations; yet, as the world was now

constituted, it was impossible to disregard them."

"But, dear Lady Falkingham, surely anything is better than that two

young creatures should die of broken hearts!"

"If young people regulated their feelings, we should not hear of such

unreasonable proceedings."

"But in youth the feelings are strong, and the reason is not matured.

We have all been young; we all know----"

"Certainly--I also have been young; and therefore I know that in youth,

as well as in maturity, it is possible to take reason, rather than

impulse, for our guide."

Lady Falkingham had never deviated for a moment, in principle,

inclination, or practice, from the strictest line of prudence and

propriety. Lady Cumberworth thought of her own early love, and of its

tragic ending, and ardently wished to preserve her child, and the

object of his love, from the blight which had passed over her own young

days. In the warmth of her feelings she could not help saying: "You

have been a fortunate woman, Lady Falkingham! If you had known what

it is to give the whole treasure of your young affections to one only

object, and to be deprived of that object for ever, you would pause

before you doomed anything you loved to such a fate! It is hard to bear

when the deprivation comes from the hand of Heaven; how much more hard

if from the hand of man!"

Lady Falkingham did not reply. The deep tone of emotion with which

Lady Cumberworth spoke, made her unwilling to maintain her own side of

the argument; neither could she be brought to allow the expediency of

Blanche's marrying Captain De Molton.

At this moment, Blanche accidentally entered the room. She started

at seeing Lady Cumberworth, but approached her with a glowing,

blushing countenance. Lady Cumberworth, whose feelings were excited

by her previous conversation, received her with open arms, embraced

her tenderly, and burst into tears. Blanche, surprised, delighted,

overpowered, returned her caresses with corresponding emotion. Lady

Falkingham sat by, provoked to see how everything conspired to bring

about the dreaded union, and somewhat jealous of her daughter's sudden

tenderness for a stranger.

The following day a second interview took place between the fathers, in

which Lord Falkingham ascertained, through a profusion of fine words,

that Lord Cumberworth either could not, or would not, do anything more

to assist his son in making up an income; and Lord Falkingham thought

it his duty to inform his daughter, that she must in good earnest exert

herself to conquer her attachment,--that the marriage was impossible.

Lady Falkingham looked triumphant. Lady Blanche gave way to utter

despair. She wept, she was in hysterics; she would not leave her

room; she fretted herself really ill; physicians were sent for,

draughts prescribed. Even Lady Falkingham began to be alarmed, and was

unremitting in her attentions. But these attentions did not relieve

or soothe Blanche's perturbed spirit. Her mother had never attempted

by kindness to win her from her imprudent attachment, and she had

completely failed in ridiculing her out of it. The consequence was,

that she had lost all influence over her mind, and much of that which

she had possessed over her affections.

De Molton of course heard of Blanche's illness. He wandered about the

neighbouring streets; he inquired twenty times a day at the door; and

at length, upon hearing that Lady Blanche was considered worse, and

that a new physician had been called in to a consultation, he sent a

message to Lord Falkingham, to implore one moment's conversation.

Lord Falkingham was uneasy and confounded at the serious aspect of

his daughter's illness, and was beginning to think anything was

preferable to the present state of affairs. De Molton was admitted, and

a passionate appeal on his part did not meet with an absolute refusal.

The matter was again renewed; Blanche was allowed to hope--her health

rallied surprisingly, and in the course of three or four days she was

able to descend to the drawing-room, and there to receive De Molton as

her plighted lover, her affianced husband.

And now did they at length enjoy many delightful tête-à-têtes; and so

fully were they engaged in detailing to each other all the sorrows and

fears, doubts, anxieties and sufferings of their years of separation,

that they had little time to talk over, or to arrange their plans for

the future. They had both been duly warned what were their prospects.

Even the tender Lady Cumberworth had told them that they must not

expect to possess all the blessings of this world; that as they would

be rich in that which seemed to her the greatest of all earthly ones,

mutual affection, they must make up their minds to be happy without

others. Lord Cumberworth repeated, "Remember, Frank, there are twelve

of you: I cannot rob my other children:"--which meant, "I do not mean

to give up any of my own comforts for you." Lord Falkingham said

everything that was reasonable and kind, and at the same time provided

them with a plain travelling-carriage, with all that is useful and

necessary in the way of plate, and with as much household linen as

would be advisable for people who must change their abode as often as

their regiment changed its quarters. Lady Falkingham, who had been too

much terrified by Blanche's despair and her illness actively to oppose

the marriage, contented herself with shaking her head mournfully, and

with secretly detesting her future son-in-law: but she spared Blanche

many of the home truths and useful severities, which might have been

of much service had they been duly attended to, but which, under the

present circumstances, might have been productive of no good effect.

Blanche and De Molton, however, acquiesced in the truth of all that

was urged by their other relations and friends, and declared, with

the utmost sincerity, their contempt for filthy lucre; a contempt

unconditionally expressed by Blanche, but by De Molton in more measured

terms, as considering it unworthy to be put into a competition with the

affections of the heart.

Immediately after their marriage, they were to repair to a very pretty

villa belonging to a friend of Lord Cumberworth's; after which they

were to pay several visits; and towards the autumn they were to join De

Molton's regiment, which was quartered in one of the most lovely parts

of Devonshire.

As they had no house of their own, there was no need to procure

furniture. Lord Falkingham had already provided plate and linen; Lady

Falkingham of course selected the _trousseau_; presents of all kinds

flocked in from the numerous connexions of both families,--presents

which, as they were known to be poor, were all intended to be useful:

china ink-stands--Sèvres ornaments for chimneypieces--buhl clocks, and

beautiful dressing boxes, with cut-glass bottles, mounted in silver

gilt!

Nothing could exceed the happiness of the lovers,--nothing could exceed

their gratitude to their friends for their considerate kindness; and

Blanche felt how preferable were these tokens of affection, to the

Glenrith diamonds, which she had received so coldly.

CHAPTER XIV.

Lordly gallants, tell me this:

Though my safe content you weigh not,

In your greatness what one bliss

Have you gain'd, that I enjoy not?

You have honours, you have wealth,--

I have peace, and I have health;

All the day I merry make,

And at night no care I take.

George Wither.

The honeymoon was spent at Sir Frederick Vyneton's villa; whose

man-cook and whole establishment were devoted to the new-married

couple, while the good-natured proprietor was making a tour in the Low

Countries.

When Captain and Lady Blanche De Molton entered the dark-green

travelling chariot which Lord Falkingham had given them, and drove from

the portico of Sir Frederick Vyneton's villa, on their way to Cransley

to pass a fortnight with the Westhopes, Lady Blanche exclaimed, "How

strange it is that there should exist people who can sell themselves

for money, or for an establishment! Should we be happier, Frank, if

we possessed the mines of Golconda, than we are now?" She threw her

beaming eyes upon him with an expression of joyous tenderness which

made him indeed feel himself the happiest of men; yet he trembled to

think how little she knew the details of that poverty with which he was

already acquainted, although only in the limited degree experienced

by a single man, whose wants, and consequently whose privations, are

merely personal.

"Dearest Blanche," he replied, "you know nothing of poverty yet. Repeat

what you have just said, two years hence, and I shall indeed esteem

myself the most blessed of human beings. I hold it a matter of duty

and of conscience to live within one's means whatever they may be; and

if, when you really have learned what is the life of a soldier's wife,

you still say you despise worldly wealth, I shall be happier--yes,

still happier--than I am at this moment; for I now feel as if you had

engaged yourself in a fate you are not prepared for. But I have warned

you, dearest Blanche--I have not won you under false pretences!"

"We shall see," replied Blanche, smilingly. "I think I am made for

a poor man's wife; for nobody can more heartily detest everything

appertaining to pomp and splendour, and that odious thing called money."

Blanche expected a rapturous glance of gratitude from De Molton, and

was surprised at hearing him sigh. The truth was, they knew little

of each other's dispositions when they became irrevocably engaged.

Blanche was warm, enthusiastic, inconsiderate; she followed her

impulses, without looking forward beyond the present moment. De

Molton was not without enthusiasm, but his was of a more thoughtful

and serious cast. A high notion of honour was in him paramount to all

other considerations. It enabled him to leave Paris when he found his

friend was in love with Blanche,--it enabled him to quit England when

he discovered that she was in love with himself,--it enabled him to

stay in India while there was any military duty to be performed,--it

prompted him to throw himself at her feet when he found her still free,

although by so doing he scarcely hoped for anything but a contemptuous

refusal on the part of her parents. It now made him resolve that his

love for his beautiful wife should not lead him into any expenses which

his limited income could not meet; and that, however painful he might

find it to see her deprived of the luxuries to which she had been

accustomed, he would never be tempted to run into debt, or to be a

burthen upon his father, who was neither able nor willing to assist him.

But when he made this resolution, he did not look forward with unmixed

pleasure to installing her in the temporary home which he should

be able to procure for her, near M * * *. She watched the serious

expression of his countenance; and she admired that expression, though

she wished at this moment to dispel it;--nor was it long before she

succeeded in driving away all traces of care from his countenance.

Several agreeable visits succeeded that to Cransley; and at last, when

they approached the neighbourhood of M * * *, he left her for a few

days at the house of a cousin, while he preceded her to his quarters,

for the purpose of preparing some comfortable habitation for her

reception.

He was fortunate enough to find a very pretty cottage, with a veranda

and a garden, to be let, within a mile of the town. He arranged the

furniture so as to make it look as little like a lodging-house as

possible; he unpacked all the presents which had, at a considerable

expense, been forwarded to M * * *; and before Blanche joined him, he

had so disposed the buhl clock, the ink-stands, the paper-cutters, the

letter-pressers, the Persian table-covers, and the low, luxurious,

well-cushioned arm-chair which Lady Cumberworth insisted should form

part of the camp equipage, as to give the room a look of home.

De Molton hastened to receive Blanche at the door, and ushered her,

with more complacency and satisfaction than he had anticipated, through

the narrow entrance, into the treillaged drawing-room.

It was a lovely evening! The flowers had not yet all faded,--the little

garden was bright in the western sun. The view was enchanting!--rich

varieties of luxuriant trees clothed the undulating slope to the

sea-shore, and the clear blue sea, at a little distance, which from

their elevated situation reflected to their eye the azure of the

heavens, formed as it were a background to the wooded bank.

Blanche was enchanted. "How lovely, how beautiful! Oh, what are

castles, halls, abbeys, parks, or palaces, to such a home as this, with

the person one loves?"

De Molton was indeed happy--too happy for utterance. A tear gathered

in his eye, which he was almost ashamed should be seen even by his

wife,--and yet he could not avert his eyes from hers when she looked

up so tenderly in his face. He gently drew her arm within his own, and

they walked forth to enjoy in the fulness of their hearts the beauties

of nature, and the delight of enjoying them together.

Thanks to the snow-white table-cloth, the handsome plate, the

presents of Lord Falkingham; the pretty dinner service, that of Lord

Cumberworth; the lovely dessert service, that of Lady Cumberworth; the

cut-glass bottles, that of the eldest Miss De Molton; the tea-things,

that of Miss M. De Molton; the breakfast-things, that of Miss J. De

Molton; the silver urn, that of one of Blanche's married sisters; and

the silver coffee-pot, that of another; the first four-and-twenty

hours of Blanche's life as the mistress of her own house, passed in a

state of rapture and of constant exclamations at the uselessness and

contemptibility of money.

She forgot that she was all this time enjoying money's worth, and

that indifference to worldly advantages is not put to the test while

a person possesses every luxury, every elegance, though on a small

scale,--at the moment of all others, too, when married lovers wish only

for the enjoyment of each other's society.

One of the soldiers, who had been trained by De Molton to act as his

valet, served as footman. His horses were, of course, taken care of in

the barracks; and as he had a gig, they were able to drive every day

in different directions, exploring new parts of the delightful country

around. Blanche's life was a day-dream of delight--her rich hazel

eyes sparkled with feeling and gaiety--her rosy lips smiled joyously

whenever De Molton entered the room: to her

"This earth was all one beautiful dream."

Still, De Molton felt that Blanche had not steadily and dispassionately

weighed the advantages and disadvantages of their present situation,

and that it was not with a thorough knowledge of what she was

undertaking that she had made choice of poverty with him.

Too much reliance must not be placed on those who, having never had a

wish ungratified in the way of worldly conveniences, profess to despise

them. If those who have already experienced privation deliberately

form a poor marriage, we may conclude that they will know how to abide

by the selection they have made, and we need not anticipate for them

mortification and disappointment.

De Molton, from his early youth, had had many opportunities of seeing

the real details of a married officer's life; and though, for the sake

of the woman he loved, he gladly encountered the difficulties which

he knew awaited him, he was thoroughly aware what they were, and he

regretted that she should be exposed to them. He almost trembled at her

exuberant happiness, knowing that he might not always procure for her

a pretty cottage orné in the neighbourhood of his barracks, and that

they should not always be quartered in so cheap a country as Devonshire.

He would rather have seen her more soberly contented; and when she,

proud as it were of being so happy, looked towards him for applause,

she was half-mortified at the flatness with which her unworldly

sentiments were received.

These sentiments were not so frequently expressed as the season

advanced. The flowers were all gone; the little garden was very damp;

the veranda kept out the sun, and the windows did not keep out the

wind; the roof did not always exclude the rain; and black beetles

abounded on the ground floor, and sometimes a stray one mounted to the

bed-rooms. The walks were muddy, the drives were windy, the trees had

lost their foliage, and the chimneys smoked.

One evening, as they left the little dining-room, and entered the small

drawing-room, they were half-stifled with smoke.--"Oh, dearest Frank!

make haste and open the window, or we shall be smothered." But the

window was a French window, and the wind set that way. There was no

fastening it open so as not to run the risk of breaking it, or letting

in a perfect hurricane. They agreed to open door, and window, and to

return to the dining-room till the atmosphere was once more fit for

respiration.

This desirable result was soon accomplished, as small rooms are

soon filled with smoke, soon cleared, soon warmed, and soon cooled.

Accordingly, when they re-entered their snug apartment, they might as

well have established themselves under the veranda, for any benefit

they derived from the fire, which was only now beginning to burn. "This

is the only objection to small rooms!" exclaimed Lady Blanche. "If one

keeps the doors shut, they become oppressively hot; and if one opens a

door or a window, they are as cold as if they had never been inhabited."

"It is very true indeed," rejoined De Molton: "shall I fetch you a

shawl, dearest Blanche?"

"Thank you, dearest Frank, I think it would be comfortable:" and she

drew her chair close to the fire, and placed her feet upon the fender,

when a great puff of black smoke turned back from the chimney, as if to

fly in her face. She quickly pushed back her chair. "How stupid that

Devonshire girl is--she always will heap the grate with small coals.

Surely a housemaid's business is to know how to light a fire!"

"It is, indeed; but I am afraid a raw Devonshire girl is not likely to

be an accomplished housemaid." And De Molton hastened out of the room

to seek his dear Blanche's shawl.

"Now, Frank, you must read to me while I work: that will be so

comfortable! and I have a great deal of work to do. I shall show you

what a good poor man's wife I am!" She took out of her delicate ivory

work-box a small cap of tiny dimensions, which she was beginning to

embroider with the most intricate patterns.

De Molton looked really pleased, and smiled upon her with the gentle

sentimental smile which had always appeared so bewitching.

The room became warmer, the fire clearer; the shawl was very tenderly

arranged by De Molton himself; and they sat down to pass a comfortable,

domestic, and rational evening.

"What book shall I read to you?" inquired De Molton. "Some of your own

youthful library, which your mother so kindly sent after us?"

"Oh no! I know all those books by heart; but you have some of your own

upon that shelf. I dare say they will be quite new to me."

"I dare say they will, dearest, for they are all upon military tactics,

engineering, and fortification,--Vauban, Coehorn, and Jomini, &c."

"Oh, that will never do," rejoined Blanche. "But there are some novels

from the circulating library at M * * *, which I have not yet looked

at. I dare say that you will find something to amuse, though it may not

instruct us."

He turned over the volumes--the usual trash of a country town

library--Lady Evelinas and Altendorfs, and Cecilias and Mortimers,

Albertinas and Ildelheims, Eleanoras and Miraldinis, by the dozen. They

attempted one or two, but could not proceed beyond the first three

pages.

"Dearest Frank, why would you not subscribe to a London library, as I

begged you to do? You see these books are not readable."

"The expense of the carriage, dear Blanche, as well as that of the

original subscription, made me very unwilling to do so. Moreover, even

the London libraries do not supply one with very good books, when one

is at such a distance in the country."

"Well! we will return these horrors, and you shall see what you can

procure to-morrow. By the by, do send for the mason, or the bricklayer,

or whoever the man may be, who does chimneys, and let him try to

prevent the smoke. Look, again! now we have had fresh coals."

"I will send about it to-morrow; but I am afraid we shall not be able

to effect much good in a lodging-house."

The next day "the man who did chimneys" came, and he proposed new

setting the grate, contracting the sides, and altering the flue.

Blanche said, by all means, if these measures would secure the absence

of smoke. De Molton inquired what would be the cost of the alteration,

and found that it would be nearly a third of the house-rent for the

year. He paused, dismissed the man, and explained to Blanche, that as

they were to pay her father and mother a visit in the spring, and as

a great part of the winter was over, and as they would probably be

quartered in some different part of the world the following winter, it

would not be wise to spend much money upon this chimney; and he advised

their sitting in the dining-room when the wind happened to blow from

the smoky quarter.

To this she assented, but it was with an effort; and she evidently

did so, to prove that she was indeed the good poor man's wife she had

professed to be.

Colonel Jones, the colonel of the regiment, and his wife, on their

return from a short absence among their friends, waited upon Lady

Blanche. As she could not, in this remote corner of the world, enjoy

the best society, Blanche would much have preferred living in complete

seclusion. But De Molton, who thought any slackness on their part would

be a want of attention from an inferior to a superior officer, did not

allow her to put off the visit of propriety.

The weather was fine, though cold; and they walked to call on Colonel

and Mrs. Jones, who lived in the town, close to the barracks.

As they entered the door, their noses were assailed by the smell of

roast mutton and rice pudding; and they were ushered into a dark

two-windowed country-town drawing-room, with a dirty green paper, and

a high dado, which had once been painted white; while remarkably smart

bell-ropes rendered the dinginess of the rest more conspicuous from the

contrast.

Nine rosy children and the governess were seated at dinner; Mrs. Jones

officiating as carver, and the head nurse assisting the youngest to

guide its food safely to its mouth. A smell of pudding and of small

beer pervaded the apartment, and greatly annoyed Lady Blanche.

De Molton introduced her to the Colonel's lady, who, relinquishing the

carving knife to the governess, retired from the scene of action to the

sofa with Lady Blanche, and apologised for her children being so late

at dinner, saying, "The colonel had taken the boys out with him to see

the itinerant menagerie in the market-place, and had kept them beyond

their usual dinner-hour; or else," she continued, "I always make it a

point to be fit to be seen at visiting hours, for when one lives in the

world, one can never tell who may drop in."

The little Joneses, who, having always lived "in the world," were

not shy, and were not more awed by the De Moltons than by Mr. and

Mrs. M'Vining, or Mr. and Mrs. Green, or any of the other misters and

mistresses who "dropped in," proceeded with their repast somewhat

noisily: they were healthy, and there were nine of them!

Blanche could hardly hear herself speak, but she was too well-bred to

be fine; and she contrived to look as if she heard all Mrs. Jones said,

and as if she was quite accustomed to noisy children and clattering

plates.

Dinner was over; grace was said in French by the eldest girl; they rose

simultaneously; and, after being kissed by their mamma, were dismissed

to have their faces washed, and their brown holland pinafores taken

off, preparatory to the afternoon walk.

Mrs. Jones was an excellent woman, who was devoted to her domestic

duties, and she considered the whole proceeding as so completely in the

common course of things, that she made no apologies; and was so far

from being distressed or annoyed by the bustle, the ferment, and the

clatter, that she was scarcely aware a noise had existed, or that when

the door closed upon the last child a calm succeeded to the storm.

When the De Moltons took their leave, Mrs. Jones good-humouredly

ran to the top of the stairs and called aloud for John, at the same

time complaining how troublesome it was that neither of the bells in

the drawing-room would ring. John was not forthcoming; and a dirty

housemaid appeared in his stead, hastily tying a clean apron over

the very dirty one beneath: she opened the street-door, and Blanche

squeezed past her into the welcome open air.

"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed, "how can people submit to live in so

wretched and vulgar a manner! Mrs. Jones is not so dreadful herself,

but her _entourage_!"

"My dear Blanche, Colonel Jones is very poor: and he has nine children."

"But there is no occasion to have things about one so dirty, so untidy,

so uncomfortable. We are poor, but how different!"

"Our cottage would not contain one ninth of Colonel Jones's children."

"But why have no bell? And why such bell-ropes?"

"Poor people cannot afford to furnish every temporary lodging-house

with elegancies."

"But why have all the Master and Miss Joneses dine in one's

drawing-room?"

"I dare say all the other rooms are pre-occupied as sleeping apartments

for said Master and Miss Joneses."

"Now you are resolved to be provoking, and I could beat you for not

agreeing with me."

"I am afraid, Blanche, that poverty is not a pretty thing in reality,

though it sounds pretty in a book."

De Molton looked serious; he could not joke upon the subject. Blanche

also looked serious, for she thought he was rather over solemn, and she

firmly resolved she would not be poor after Mrs. Jones's fashion.

Blanche worked very diligently at the little cap; and when she had

finished the cap, she embroidered the body of a little frock, and

showed them exultingly to her husband. Still these preparations did not

go far towards providing the expected scion of the house of De Molton

with the necessary wardrobe, and Blanche feared she should be obliged

to procure many articles ready-made in the town.

"Why should not your maid work at them, my dear?" suggested De Molton,

as he found her considering, and wondering, and calculating what plan

she had best pursue.

"Why, perhaps she would undertake the caps for me; but she has never

been used to anything but dress-making. Mamma never expected her to do

anything else."

"You have been working so much yourself, surely you must have done a

great deal."

"Oh yes!--this cap and this body. Look, how beautiful they are!"

Blanche's distresses on this score were however soon relieved by

learning from Lady Cumberworth that her good-natured sisters-in-law

had amused themselves by making and providing everything she could

want, and that a lovely set of baby-linen would meet her at Lord

Falkingham's, where she was to pass some time previous to her

confinement, in order that she might be under her mother's eye.

She was not sorry when the time came for leaving the pretty smoky

cottage. The March winds did not agree with the chimney, and she was

not well enough to be able to roam among the dells and dingles, the

shaws and the banks, in search of violets and primroses; and she

thought it would certainly be more desirable to enact the invalid, with

all appliances and means to boot, in her father's luxurious mansion,

than in the windy, smoky, creaking lath and plaster cottage, which

looked so pretty in the beginning of September.

In London, Blanche would have been perfectly happy with her kind

father,--her mother who loved her, though not with the usual melting

tenderness of a mother,--with her husband, who was as handsome and

interesting in appearance, and if possible more affectionate in his

attentions than ever,--and with her husband's family doting upon

her,--if it had not been that Lady Falkingham treated De Molton with a

shade of superciliousness. She always spoke of her daughter as "poor

Blanche," wondered to see her look so well after the terrible winter

she had passed in a house scarcely weather-tight, alluded constantly

to the great change that had taken place in her situation, and almost

ridiculed the notion of the Miss Be Moltons having presented her with

such pretty worked caps and embroidered frocks for the "poor little

creature" that was expected!

These speeches, although they contained some undeniable truths, were

extremely galling to De Molton, and very unpleasant to Blanche, for his

sake, as well as for her own.

Blanche found herself infinitely happier with her husband's family,

where, instead of being treated as a person who was now to be looked

down upon by those who were once her compeers, she was considered the

most charming of her sex; adored by Lady Cumberworth for having loved

her son so disinterestedly; made a fuss with by the Miss De Moltons

because they were good-humoured girls, by nature inclined to like

rather than dislike any fine, natural, affectionate creature of their

own age; and very much admired by Lord Cumberworth, who thought she

was an exceedingly fine woman, and that Frank was a very lucky fellow,

for the present at least, however the marriage might turn out in the

long-run.

CHAPTER XV.

There little love or canty cheer can come

Frae duddy doublets and a pantry toom.

Allan Ramsay.

As De Molton expected, the quarters of his regiment were changed;

and soon after Blanche's confinement, he left her to superintend the

removal of their goods and chattels, and the arrangement of them in

some other temporary domicile.

Unfortunately, the regiment was sent to a small town, built principally

of red brick, situated in one of the midland counties,--ugly, bare,

and bleak. There were no pretty cottages with nice gardens in the

neighbourhood; not even a retired farm house, with a few rooms to be

let; for the rustic inconveniences and rural inelegancies of a rambling

farm house are infinitely preferable to the pert vulgarity of a red

house in a street.

To this last alternative De Molton was most unwillingly reduced, and

all he could accomplish was the acquisition of one of the few tenements

to which was affixed a bright light-green balcony, which formed a

brilliant contrast to the vermilion of the walls; at least, the

untarnished freshness of the colouring gave promise of new furniture

and cleanliness within.

He returned to London for his wife and child, and his delight at seeing

them was somewhat alloyed by finding that, during his absence, Blanche

and her father had ascertained that Turton was very little out of the

way to Temple Loseley, and that, consequently, he and her mother would

pass a night or two with Blanche on their way into the country.

If his heart had sunk within him at the thoughts of introducing his

wife to the vulgar abode which he had been obliged to provide for her,

how much more did it sink at the thoughts of exhibiting to her parents

their graceful, their beautiful, their high-born daughter, as mistress

of this same abode. Moreover, the house was not calculated to receive

an influx of company.

Still every one ought to be proud and happy to receive their father

and mother-in-law under their roof; and he was determined to be so.

He reminded himself that, though he was poor, he had never pretended

to be otherwise, he never would pretend to be otherwise: there was no

disgrace in poverty; he had presented himself under no false colours;

he knew his own situation, and he would not throw a ridicule over it by

seeming ashamed of it.

Blanche had pictured to herself another cottage, of the same stamp as

that in Devonshire: and as the country was now in full beauty, and as

there was no occasion to put the chimneys to the test, she anticipated

with pleasure showing her mother how happy and how pretty an humble

home might be; how dignified De Molton could look, though employed in

working in his garden; and how little she deserved the pity that had

been lavished upon her.

She was extremely vexed when her dear Frank broke to her the nature of

the country, the situation of the town, the sort of house he had been

compelled to hire.

"Is there nothing else to be procured for love or money?"

"For money, yes; for love, not!" he replied.

"But if something else is to be got, for Heaven's sake make any

sacrifice!"

"There is one house much larger than we require, which has been fitted

up with every luxury by a retired brewer, who now wishes to travel, and

would gladly let it."

"Oh, that will be just the thing!"

"My dear! the rent is far, far beyond our means."

"Oh! but for one year, dearest Frank!"

"With a limited income, one year's extravagance unavoidably entails

many, many years of real distress. I will not run the risk of being

unable to answer the just demands of my tradesmen. I never sent a

creditor away without his money, and I never will."

De Molton spoke with seriousness, and something approaching harshness;

for he suffered under the mortification of his wife, and the tone was

meant to confirm his own determination, not to be unkind to her. She

thought him stern.

"We had much better put off papa and mamma, and say at once we cannot

receive them."

Her tone was a little pettish. De Molton's task was no longer so

difficult; he dreaded seeing her unhappy, but the moment he perceived

there was temper mixed with her sorrow, his fortitude returned, and

he replied, "By no means: such as it is, our home is ever open to our

parents; and we have only to regret that it is not in our power to make

them more comfortable."

"I had a thousand times rather mamma did not come at all, than that she

should see me in such a hole as you describe."

Her voice was half choked with rising emotion: she had led her mother

to expect something so very different! The Devonshire cottage had grown

under her glowing descriptions into a miniature terrestrial paradise.

"Blanche, this is not kind by your parents; you should wish to see them

for their own sakes." Certainly De Molton did not wish to see them, but

he would not have pleaded guilty to such a weakness for the world.

"I do not know how I can wish to be exposed to mamma's taunting

expressions and contemptuous looks;" and partly from vexation, and

partly from bodily weakness, she burst into tears.

"Blanche, this is childish! You chose to marry a poor man, and you must

abide by it."

"You should not be the person to speak so coldly and unkindly. You know

the thing I mind most of all is, that mamma always seems to despise

you; and I had hoped to show her that, though we were poor, we did not

deserve pity." Her sobs here interrupted her words. In addition to her

other mortifications, she felt injured by the husband whose dignity she

was so anxious to uphold.

De Molton was quite overcome by finding it was for him her feelings

were so strongly excited. "Blanche, dearest Blanche!" he exclaimed,

"you do not think me ungrateful for all you have given up for my sake!

Oh no! you cannot think that!" And he soothed her by every attention

and kindness in his power.

The effervescence of her mortification and vexation had exhausted

itself, and she was sorry to have wounded him; he was also annoyed at

having allowed an unkind word to escape his lips; and they were still

sufficiently lovers for their little quarrel to be almost a renewal

of love: almost,--but not quite. Blanche could not forget that he had

said, "You have married a poor man, and you must abide by it;" and De

Molton remembered that she had said, "She should be ashamed to be seen

in such a hole" as the only home he could take her to.

These words recurred to his mind more and more frequently as they

drew near the small town of Turton. He felt quite angry with the

Horse-guards for having built any barracks in so frightful a country

as that which they were approaching. It was all arable: but there

were no enclosures, no hedges, no hill, no dale, no woods, no copses;

merely a succession of fields; in the highest state of cultivation it

is true, but that circumstance did not add to their beauty in Blanche's

eyes. She would gladly have seen the wheat enlivened by some brilliant

scarlet poppies, some beautiful old-fashioned blue corn-flowers, now

almost exploded by the improvements in agriculture; she would gladly

have been greeted with the fragrance of a distant field of charlock.

They had a good view of Turton long before they reached it; for it was

placed in the midst of a large basin of land, divided into squares

by the various crops, though by no other visible mark. From the last

hill, as they looked down into the broad vale below, De Molton felt

responsible for its ugliness, and tried to carry off a sensation

something resembling shame, by remarking that, though such scenery

was not to our English eyes picturesque, it was very like "la belle

France." The day was grey and colourless: there were no gleams of

sunshine, no passing shadows, which will invest any extensive view with

a certain degree of beauty. The wheat was all green, the barley was

green, the oats were green, the tares were green, the clover was green;

there was no variety of hue, except where, here and there, a field lay

fallow, or had been newly ploughed up.

De Molton looked cheerlessly upon Blanche's spiritless face, and fairly

wished the first evening in their new domicile come and gone. Blanche

wished, upon her arrival, to be able to say she found it better than

she expected, but the words died away upon her lips. She walked to

the window, and looked up and down the straight street. There was the

lawyer's house opposite, with a brass knocker well polished; then came

the Sun Inn, all new, and red, and staring; then a paltry shop; and

then the apothecary's door, surmounted by a gilt pestle and mortar. The

road was dusty, and the cut lime-trees before the houses on the other

side of the lawyer's were rather whitish-brown, than green. The street

ran north, and south; a gust of wind drove down it from the north,

which gave the poor leaves a fresh coating before her eyes.

It was as cold as days sometimes are in June: she turned from the

window, and proposed a fire; they both dreaded the attempt, but it

succeeded, and there was no smoke.

Blanche wished the days had not been so long, that they might sooner

have let down the green Venetian blinds (there were no shutters), drawn

the short and scanty white curtains, and shut out the dismal prospect.

She tried to place the furniture in such positions as to give the room

an inhabited appearance, but she only succeeded in making it look

untidy. The little dimity covered _chaise-longue_ was wheeled out from

the wall, and placed between the fire and the window, till they found

that so sharp a draught cut across from the ill-closed sashes, that it

was quickly wheeled back to its original situation. A card-table was

set open, and made to enact the part of a stand for _petits objets_.

Blanche collected all her baskets and boxes, in hopes of making the

apartment look comfortable, but her efforts were not as yet crowned

with success.

The next day she bought a square of dark red cloth, and she bound it

with gold-coloured binding, and with it concealed a great portion of

the card-table, and set off to better advantage the _chef-d'œuvres_

of art and the _souvenirs_ of sentiment. The arm-chair, the dear

arm-chair, was unpacked; and the buhl clock, it was hoped by both of

them, would be a redeeming object.

Alas! there was no part of the room in which the buhl clock could

be safely and advantageously placed! The little chimney-piece was

infinitely too narrow; the card-table was already filled; and the

one other table which was not in constant requisition was by far too

rickety to be entrusted with so precious an article.

At length the small _souvenirs_ were removed to the rickety table, and

the clock was established upon the card-table; and De Molton, when he

looked upon his wife with her child upon her knee, saw no fault in the

arrangement of the room.

There was, however, one misfortune to which even De Molton could not

close his eyes or bar his senses,--a misfortune, too, which was utterly

irremediable.

A kind of fixture,--half cupboard, half bookcase,--the lower part of

which opened like a cupboard while the top finished in shelves, adorned

each side of the fire place. Now, in the lower part of one of these

nondescript things there was every reason to believe the predecessors

of the De Moltons had been in the habit of keeping apples. When the

room was closed, this dire smell of apples assailed their noses, and at

length it was traced home to the guilty spot.

Chloruret of lime, eau de Cologne, every sort of fumigation was tried,

but the indomitable smell was only quelled for the time: it returned

with fresh vigour! Blanche was in utter despair, for Lady Falkingham

was expected in a day or two, and she was renowned for the extreme

acuteness of her olfactory nerves! Blanche had repressed any expression

of her feelings, till this last blow quite over-came her fortitude.

"Can nothing be done about this smell, Frank? It will distract mamma!"

"Upon my word I do not know what more to recommend. Let us wash it

again with chloruret of lime just before your mother comes."

"I would not mind all the rest if we could but get rid of this smell of

apples!"

That expression--"all the rest," spoke volumes. De Molton was fully

aware how much it implied of discomfort.

Love in a cottage is a thing very frequently met with in books, and

not unfrequently in actual life; but love in a red-brick house in the

street of a country town can never exist in poetry, and seldom in

reality.

"There is one other thing I would fain alter, Frank, and I think it

might be accomplished without much expense."

Blanche spoke timidly, for she had learned to be afraid of proposing

anything which he might deem extravagant. "Could we not get rid of the

knocker on the door? It looks dreadful; but the horrid vulgar sound is

worse than the appearance. It is impossible to forget where one is,

when one hears that rap-a-tap!"

De Molton sighed to think she should so wish to forget that she was

in her home, with her husband and her child; and Blanche, two years

before, would not have believed she could ever have been otherwise than

contented, when certain of De Moltan's constancy, of his undivided

affection, and when united to him by the holiest ties.

The day arrived on which the almost dreaded parental visit was to

be paid. De Molton proposed driving to a nursery-garden at no great

distance, and buying some flowers, which would make the room look

rather more gay and countryfied. To this Blanche gladly assented;

and she took great pains to fill all the little ugly vases upon the

chimney-piece, and all the finger-glasses which were not wanted after

dinner, with such flowers as could be procured. They had arranged

everything for the accommodation of Lord and Lady Falkingham as well

as the capabilities of the house permitted. Blanche's maid was turned

out of her room, and into the nursery, for Lady Falkingham's maid; an

arrangement which by no means met with her approbation, and which had

not been accomplished without considerable difficulty.

De Molton relinquished his dressing-room to his father-in-law, and,

unknown to any one, as he hoped, performed his toilet very early in

the morning in the dining-room; the little back-parlour having been

consecrated to the ladies'-maids, and anything being more practicable

than to interfere with their morning repast.

Both Blanche and De Molton had looked repeatedly into each room, and

had ascertained that everything was as comfortable as they could make

it, and they sat waiting in some agitation for the arrival of their

guests.

Generally speaking, if there is a moment of unmixed happiness, it is

that in which parents pay their first visit to a married child, and in

which children receive the first visit from their parents.

The pretty, half-childish, half-matronly pride with which the young

wife does the honours of her domestic arrangements; the tearful joy

of the mother as she inspects and admires; the honest happiness of

the father; and the modest exultation of the bridegroom who has

installed the creature he loves in all the comforts with which she is

surrounded,--render the moment one of pleasing interest to the most

careless bystander.

But such were not the feelings which animated any of the present party.

CHAPTER XVI.

Some difference of this dangerous kind,

By which, though light, the links that bind,

The fondest hearts may soon be riven;

Some shadow in Love's summer heav'n.

Which, though a fleecy cloud at first,

May yet in awful thunders burst.

_Lalla Rookh._

The Falkinghams did not arrive till very late. Blanche knew that every

moment's delay was injurious to the repast she was so anxious should

be tolerably well dressed. She several times ran down into the kitchen

herself, to enforce upon the cook that she must contrive to keep back

the dinner without letting the meat be over-roasted.

At length they heard a great rumbling of wheels and hallooing of little

boys, and the well-known carriage with four horses drove rapidly by,

and drew up at the Sun Inn opposite. The postillions were soon directed

to the right house; the whole equipage was turned round, and at length

drew up before the little door.

All this caused a sensation; and well _crêpé_'d heads were seen popping

up above the white blinds of the lawyer's opposite, and frilled caps

appeared at the windows of the house with the cut lime-trees, and

waiters, chamber-maids, and boots thronged to the door of the inn,

hoping the coroneted carriage was going to put up at the Sun.

The first greetings were over, and Blanche was eager to show her mother

to her room, for, "on hospitable thoughts intent," she was reflecting

on the over-boiled chickens and the over-roasted beef. But their

progress was arrested by the imperial! It was stuck in the turning of

the stairs; and Lady Falkingham's tall footman, who measured six feet

two inches and a half, and De Molton's omnipresent John Benton, were

struggling, and lifting, and pushing, and shoving in vain!

This was an unlooked for misfortune; one which might have been laughed

at, among people so nearly and intimately connected, and one which

might have been an excuse for dining very merrily in travelling

costume; but with Blanche's feelings, with Lady Falkingham's, with De

Molton's feelings, the misadventure had a contrary effect. Blanche was

extremely annoyed, and led her mother back to the drawing-room; while

De Molton hastened to lend his assistance, and, with the help of his

more judicious mode of turning the imperial, it was extricated from its

inconvenient position, and was safely deposited in Lady Falkingham's

room.

All this produced some delay; then came their respective toilets; and

they were not seated in the dining-room till an hour and three quarters

after the cook had expected to "dish up."

It requires the coolness, the presence of mind, the decision of the

bolder sex, to be able to accelerate or to retard the dinner-hour. The

humble cook of the De Moltons was thoroughly feminine in her timidity,

and the consequence was, that the chickens fell to pieces in the dish,

that the beef crackled under the teeth, that the potatoes were watery

and sodden, that the greengages of the pudding had burst through their

surrounding paste, and presented a shapeless, confused, and uninviting

mass to the eye, while the maccaroni was stringy, strong, and burned.

De Molton had wished the dinner to be plain and without pretension,

and he had flattered himself that, by attempting nothing, they must be

secure from a failure. Alas! they had the mortification of seeing both

their guests scarcely able to finish what they had upon their plates,

and of perceiving that Lord Falkingham helped himself three times to

cheese, and that Lady Falkingham demolished full half the sponge-cake

at dessert! De Molton, who was habitually reserved and possessed much

self-command, maintained a calm exterior; but Blanche, who, whatever

might be her wish to do so, was never able to conceal her feelings for

any length of time, was in a fussy state of agitation, and was the

first to complain of the badness of the dinner.

Her remarks disturbed the equanimity of John Benton, who was most

anxious that all should go off well. In his eagerness, he made more

noise, jarred the plates, knocked the glasses together, clattered the

knives and forks, and placed the dishes on the table in a more fearful

undecided manner than he was ever known to do before; constantly

brushing by Lady Falkingham's cap to give a finishing touch to the

arrangement of the table. Blanche's martyrdom increased every moment!

It is very easy to be tranquil, composed, and agreeable at the head of

one's table, if one has the comfortable assurance that all will proceed

properly and decorously; but when one has no reliance that such will

be the case, it is not so easy to preserve the careless air of perfect

good-breeding; still less so, should one actually see one's guests

hungry and incommoded: such tranquillity amounts to a lofty pitch of

stoicism scarcely attainable by common mortals.

If the Falkinghams had smiled good-humouredly, it might have

been better; but the mother preserved a civil semblance of not

perceiving what was amiss, evidently treating the present, as the

best entertainment it was in the power of the De Moltons to give,

and considerately sparing their feelings. When the ladies retired

after dinner, Lady Falkingham made no allusion to the house, the

establishment, the cookery, or any part of the _ménage_, except the

baby, on whose growth she expatiated, and whom she wished to see in its

crib.

Blanche accordingly took her mother upstairs to the garret, where Lady

Falkingham was shocked at finding two beds in the small room. "My dear

Blanche, do you allow two people to sleep in such an apartment as this?

It is very bad for the baby to be so confined as to air and space."

"My maid sleeps here just now," Blanche replied; "it cannot hurt the

baby for a little while."

"The weather is so hot, I own I should dislike it very much; I always

was very particular about giving you all an airy nursery;--but I

suppose it cannot be helped," added Lady Falkingham, checking herself.

"Oh this house is horrid!" exclaimed Blanche; "if you had but come to

see us in our Devonshire cottage, mamma--!"

"I wish I had, my dear."

"But you know we have this only for a time, mamma; and next year we may

be quartered in a prettier country, and a nicer neighbourhood, and

where we can get something out of a town."

"I hope you will, my love," replied Lady Falkingham, who was resolved

to dwell as little as possible upon her daughter's present discomfort,

and who thought herself very kind and very meritorious in not saying

what she thought, felt, and looked,--viz. "I told you how it would be."

The breakfast was not more prosperous. The bread was baker's bread:

the French rolls, well rasped and very tough, were exceedingly unlike

the rolls and cakes of every variety which graced the breakfast-table

of Temple Loseley. The butter was bought at the shop; and Turton was

situated in an arable, not a grazing country: they churned every

morning at Temple Loseley. The cream was thin, colourless, and

tasteless: the Alderneys at Temple Loseley were renowned for their

perfection in beauty and breeding.

Most assuredly, urban and rural poverty are very different things.

With a pretty garden; with flowers, poultry, cream, butter, eggs,

and vegetables in profusion; vulgarity and discomfort may always be

avoided, though splendour may not be attained.

The Falkinghams went away, sincerely commiserating their daughter,

although Lady Falkingham's sincere sorrow was somewhat alleviated by

being able to remark to her husband how precisely everything had turned

out as she had foreseen and predicted.

When they had driven from the door, Blanche sat down to work at her

needle, with a sensation of depression more over-whelming than she

had ever felt before. "I am glad mamma is gone!" she exclaimed, after

having hemmed nearly a yard of muslin without uttering: "when people

are no longer young, they miss the comforts to which they have been

accustomed!"

De Molton said nothing. He also had been deeply hurt, mortified in

every way; hurt to see his wife exposed to mortification, and mortified

to see her feel it so keenly.

"Not but what mamma behaved beautifully," continued Blanche, for she

was half angry with her husband for his very silence:--she wished him

to declare how annoyed and unhappy he also was; but he was a proud man,

and when such a man does feel mortification, it does not find vent in

words. Being somewhat displeased at his silence, she did not spare

him. The feelings of the daughter got the better of those of the wife,

and she proceeded: "Mamma never complained of anything. It was only

through her maid that I heard she could not sleep a wink on account of

the baby crying over head; and the partition being so thin, she heard

her as plainly as if she had been in the same room. Mamma was very

kind, she took care to say nothing to vex me."

De Molton thought mamma would have been infinitely more kind if she

had appeared a little less miserable, and had not looked at Blanche

as if she thought her a victim. He did not feel in charity with Lady

Falkingham; he found no pleasure in hearing her praised.

"I am going to call on Colonel Jones," said De Molton; "I shall be at

home again in time to walk with you." He took his cap and his stick,

and sallied forth; but he had walked far beyond Colonel Jones's, before

he recollected his intention of calling upon him, and he had to retrace

his steps for some quarter of a mile. He found him just returning from

a long walk with some of his children, who were joyously sporting

around him; and they all together mounted the narrow staircase which

led to a drawing-room much in the same style as Blanche's, though

somewhat larger in its dimensions.

Mrs. Jones and her eldest girl were busily engaged in needle-work,

while the second daughter was reading history aloud. She cordially

greeted De Molton, and said they had been taking advantage of the

Colonel's having cleared the house of the boys to get on with the

education of the girls; "for in a small house, and with such a family,

it is difficult to find a quiet moment," added Mrs. Jones, with a

cheerfulness and good-humour which seemed to prove she found nothing

unpleasant or disgraceful in poverty.

She was the daughter of a country curate, and although well educated,

and tolerably well born, she did not feel the want of luxuries and

elegancies to which she had never been accustomed, and which none of

those with whom she associated missed any more than herself.

De Molton wished he could teach his wife to accommodate herself to

her circumstances, as Mrs. Jones did. But how many habits had she to

unlearn and to forget before she could be happy as Mrs. Jones was

happy!

He resolved to cultivate the Joneses, and he asked them to dinner that

very day, frankly bidding them come and feast upon the remains of the

provisions they had laid in for his father and mother in law. The

happy and good-humoured Joneses accepted the invitation in the same

unceremonious spirit in which it was made, and De Molton returned home

to inform his wife of the company she might expect. She detested the

thoughts of encountering another dinner in her own house; but De Molton

was not a person who would ever condescend to ask his wife's permission

before he invited a friend to dinner, and of that she was fully aware.

The Joneses arrived just five minutes before the appointed hour; and

Mrs. Jones asked Blanche's leave to take off her bonnet, and arrange

her hair at her looking-glass, as she had walked from her own house.

She shortly re-appeared with her bows and her ringlets in the most

perfect order, for she had never been in the habit of depending upon

the services of a maid. She also appeared in a smart silk gown; her

fair, fat, handsome arms uncovered, a necklace on her neck, and

ear-rings in her ears.

Blanche, on the contrary, was in a more seemly costume for a country

dinner by day-light; and Mrs. Jones wondered her hostess should wear in

the evening what seemed to her a morning dress.

The cook's nerves had not been agitated, and the dinner was very good.

Colonel Jones was gay and conversible: he had served in the Peninsula;

he, and his wife also, had been at Paris when the allied armies entered

it; they had seen many different countries, had been mixed up in many

of the events of that period, when every day brought changes which

affected empires; they had been thrown with many of the personages who

already figure as historical characters. They were delighted with De

Molton, who was an excellent listener; delighted with Lady Blanche, who

possessed the charm to which all people in all ranks are sensible,--the

real good-breeding of real high fashion; and Blanche was astonished to

find herself in better spirits than she had been in for some days.

No fund of natural spirits, however inexhaustible it may be, can stand

the trial of seeing the guests under your roof, cold, abstracted, and

comfortless; whereas the phrenologists could certainly point out

some organ in the human head which takes pleasure in being developed

when you feel that those towards whom you are exercising the rites of

hospitality are really and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

There was a good deal of broad humour about Colonel Jones, and no

shyness; he was animated in his descriptions. De Molton's wine was good

of its sort; and the dinner was gay,--noisily gay. Blanche thought them

a little vulgar, but still she liked them both; and after the cheerless

restraint which had prevailed during the two preceding days between the

nearest and dearest relations, there was something which expanded the

heart in the warmth and cordiality of the Joneses.

The dinner which they gave the De Moltons in return proved less

agreeable. The astonishing clatter made by the servants, the badness

of the cookery, the multitude of children, and the friends who were

invited to make up the party, did not conduce to reconcile Blanche

to the real work-day details of poverty, as De Molton had at first

intended it should, by showing her how happy people could be in its

despite.

The summer wore away, but without any summer enjoyments; the autumn

succeeded, and winter followed in due succession. They had many

invitations from different friends, but travelling was expensive; and

having been in London for some months during the spring, they could

not obtain leave of absence for any length of time which might make it

answer to leave home.

The following year saw them removed to a fresh habitation, and saw

another olive-branch added to the parent stock.

The nurse now professed her inability to attend to two children, "both

babies as it were; she could not do justice to the dear little loves.

Miss Emma, she was just old enough to get into mischief; and she was

more work, a body might say, than the infant himself." There was no

denying the reason and truth of the nurse's statement. It was also

true, as the nurse added, "that my lady was very particular, and liked

to see the children always nice; that it was not as if she did not mind

their being just dressed in brown holland pinafores, and such like,

as the little Master Joneses were; that, for her part, she could not

a-bear to see children look so,--just like anybody's children."

De Molton, as well as Blanche, was proud of little Emma's exquisite

beauty, and they could neither of them endure the thoughts of their

children not being thoroughly well taken care of. "Could you not ask

Mrs. Green to help nurse?" suggested De Molton; "she might walk out

with Emma, and might make her clothes. Our life is such a quiet one,

surely she must have a great deal of time upon her hands."

Blanche stood rather in awe of Mrs. Green, who was a regular fine

lady, and who felt the change in her situation to the full as acutely

as Blanche herself could do, and who had not the same strong motive

for bearing it with uncomplaining fortitude, inasmuch as she was

not married to the man of her choice, neither had she any character

for consistency to maintain. In many of the minor distresses and

difficulties which had occurred, Mrs. Green had not failed to make

her mistress feel how great was her merit in submitting to them; and

Blanche knew it was utterly impossible to accomplish what De Molton

(who was not so well versed in the nice limits and boundaries of the

honourable office of lady's maid) thought could be so easily arranged.

"It is quite impossible, my dear Frank! Green has already put up with

a great deal to oblige me, and I could not ask her to wait upon the

nursery."

"I do not want her to wait upon the nursery, but she might assist the

nurse."

"I can part with her, Frank; but I cannot propose to her to attend upon

the children."

De Molton, who saw no reason why one woman should sit idle, while

another had more to do than she could well perform, was half annoyed

with Blanche, and he answered rather quickly, "All I can say is, I

cannot afford to keep another servant."

"I will tell Green what you say," replied Blanche, with the tone of a

heroine and a martyr; and accordingly she lost no time in informing

Green that she must look out for another situation unless she would

wait on Miss Emma, as Captain De Molton wished; and as, of course, Mrs.

Green declined to do.

So much separated from all former connexions, friends, and relations,

as Blanche had been of late, she naturally felt a good deal annoyed

at parting with a person whom habit had rendered agreeable to her,

who was an excellent lady's maid, and was pleasing in her manners. De

Molton could not sympathise in her annoyance at getting rid of a fine

lady, and infinitely preferred the stout good-humoured girl who came in

her stead, and who was too happy to fetch and carry, and was too much

honoured by being allowed to wait on my lady.

Unfortunately, the last remnant of Blanche's trousseau was growing very

shabby, and her wardrobe needed recruiting. Green was gone; the girl

Phœbe was no milliner; Blanche could embroider beautifully, and she

could now accomplish children's frocks with considerable success, but

she could not make her own clothes. How should she? She was obliged

therefore to have her wants supplied by the country milliners, and both

she and De Molton were appalled at the bills which were the inevitable

consequence.

Blanche wished exceedingly not to be expensive, but she knew not how to

avoid being so. She had never had any allowance when a girl: she had

been so amply supplied with every article of dress upon her marriage,

and had since led so retired a life, that little occasion to spend

money had occurred until now; and she was ignorant how miraculously,

when once the purse-strings are opened, the contents vanish as it were

of themselves.

It is a great fault in the education of girls, to omit teaching them,

in some measure, the value of money. They suddenly find themselves

at the head of an establishment, in which, if large, considerable

sums pass through their hands; if small, on them depends the comfort,

or discomfort of the _ménage_; and they are not aware, (except from

theory, which has little to say to practice) that twenty shillings make

a pound.

The loss of Green was an annoyance of daily recurrence. Blanche

could not dress her own hair; and the awkward attempts of the shy

and frightened red-fisted maid to brush and to curl, to braid and to

_crêper_, made her every morning come down to breakfast in a ruffled

and uncomfortable state. She found it necessary now and then to buy

herself a cap, and unluckily the bill for these caps came in at a

time when De Molton's finances were at a very low ebb. Blanche had no

pin-money, and she applied to him for the requisite sum.

"What nonsense, Blanche, to buy tawdry caps, when you have all that

beautiful brown hair, which is so much prettier and more becoming than

any cap that can be made."

"I never learned to dress hair; and since Green is gone, I find it

impossible to do without a cap. I have not quite made up my mind to

go about a perfect figure, yet; but I dare say I soon shall. It is

impossible to be well-dressed without a maid."

"But surely you could soon learn to arrange your hair. You told me Mrs.

Jones always dressed her own, and I am sure it is very smart--in bows,

and all kinds of things."

This was too much for Blanche to endure. To have been forced to part

with her maid! To be refused a cap! To be twitted with Mrs. Jones! To

have Mrs. Jones set up as a pattern! "Indeed I should be very sorry

to look like Mrs. Jones!" she exclaimed, with a heightened colour,

and an eye which was very beautiful in its increased brilliancy: "if

you wished to have a wife who should look and dress like Mrs. Jones,

you should not have selected me! I hope I may never arrive at such a

pitch of vulgarity as that! I had rather look like anybody in the whole

world than Mrs. Jones!" and in her anger and petulance, she spoke, as

she would not have done in a cooler moment, of a person whom she both

respected and liked.

"Mrs. Jones is a most excellent and exemplary woman," replied De

Molton, with some solemnity of manner; "one who performs the duties of

her situation in life cheerfully and admirably. I have a very great

regard for Mrs. Jones. Where is this bill?" he added, with an awful

calmness: "I am sorry to say you must buy no more caps. I have not the

means of paying for them!" He gave her the money, which she took with

pain and indignation.

It is very disagreeable to ask for money,--very disagreeable to receive

it when it is given grudgingly. Women should have, settled upon them

when they marry, the sum which, in proportion to the income of their

husband, they may in fairness spend upon their dress; otherwise, if

extravagant, there are no regular limits to their extravagance: while,

on the other hand, however economical they may be, and however liberal

the husband may wish to be, they may chance to ask for money at a

moment when it may prove inconvenient to produce a sum which the man

had not calculated would be called for at that particular moment.

An expression of annoyance will wound and distress a high-minded woman,

will anger a high-spirited one, or will induce a timid one to conceal

her bills, and to acquire the habit of contracting debts unknown to her

husband.

Blanche received the money with a swelling indignant heart, and her

feelings were not soothed when a tradesman entered with a long bill,

for which De Molton drew a draft without a remark or a murmur, and most

politely dismissed the man, pleased with his exactness and punctuality.

Blanche thought, "After all, he is not really so poor as he pretends to

be. He only talks thus to prevent my spending anything. He has money

enough for every one else."

De Molton had appointed that very morning to pay that very bill.

He had purposely reserved the requisite sum, and he remained with

scarcely enough for the weekly unavoidable expenses. But he did not

explain all this to his wife. He was resolved never to run into debt,

and he was unapproachably serious and correct upon the subject. If he

had candidly explained the state of the case to her, shown it her in

black and white, perhaps she would have joined with him in cheerfully

accommodating herself to existing circumstances; but he dealt in

general expressions of poverty and distress, and yet, at the very

moment he complained most bitterly, the money was forthcoming for those

things which must be paid for. It was exactly _because_ he would have

wherewithal to meet necessary expenses, that he so strenuously opposed

any which he deemed unnecessary.

Having once come to the conclusion that he had acquired a habit of

complaining, and that he could find money if he chose to do so, she

only felt injured when he enforced economy, and mentally accused him of

making needless difficulties.

Two more years elapsed, and their family consisted of four promising

children, when De Molton's regiment was ordered to Brighton: they were

again thrown among people of their own class, and friends of former

days.

They had been married nearly five years, and during those years words

had been spoken which could not be forgotten. Poverty had come in

at the door, and if Love had not quite flown out at the window, he

fluttered on the window-sill.

CHAPTER XVII.

And ruder words will soon rush in

To spread the breach that words begin,

And eyes forget the gentle ray

They wore in courtship's smiling day,

And voices lose the tone that shed

A tenderness round all they said;

Till, fast declining one by one,

The sweetnesses of love are gone.

_Lalla Rookh._

Among other old acquaintances, the Westhopes were established at

Brighton; and it was with mixed feelings that Blanche prepared

herself to meet the friend of her youth, the person who had most

unintentionally assisted to foster her love, by always appearing so

impressed with De Molton's attractions. Upon that subject both men and

women are more influenced by the estimation in which the object is held

by others, than they would willingly allow: they are ashamed to be so

easily pleased as to prefer a person whom no one else thinks pleasing,

and they are decidedly proud of being preferred by one whom every one

else admires.

Mingled with her desire to see her early friend, Blanche experienced

a certain dread of the scrutinizing eye of intimacy. She felt she

should never be able to echo, with the accent of truth, the romantic

sentiments in which they used once to indulge; and she did not wish

her friend to discover that the love which she had spoken of as equal

to endure any trials, had nearly sunk under the petty and undignified

vexations of pecuniary difficulty.

Time, however, had worked some changes in Lady Westhope. She had long

conquered her incipient inclination towards Mr. Wroxholme; she had

learnt that a well-regulated mind can make itself contented, if not

happy, under almost all circumstances; she had quite given up the point

of being the youngest and most admired person in her circle; and she

had convinced herself that she ought to be grateful for the worldly

comforts with which she was surrounded, for the ample means of doing

good which were within her reach, and for the circumstance of having a

very good-humoured husband, who, whatever might be his faults, was no

tyrant.

Lord Westhope, also, was somewhat altered. He was now eight years

older than when we began our story, and twenty-two years older than

when he began his infidelities. It was, indeed, time he should have

sown his wild oats, and accordingly he was become infinitely more

domestic. Although love was a feeling which could never again exist

between them, there subsisted a considerable regard, and their society

was far from disagreeable to each other.

On the morning after the arrival of the De Moltons, when Lady Westhope

called upon Blanche, one of the disputes, which were now of too

frequent occurrence, had just taken place between her and her husband.

Blanche had made a desperate effort to persuade De Molton to take a

house which was to be let at a rent, low in proportion to its size, but

still higher than he thought he could afford. Blanche shrank from being

seen by her former associates in the mean and paltry lodging which, in

so expensive a place as Brighton, was the only one he found within his

means. He persisted in his usual resolution, never to do anything which

might eventually lead to a shabby action, for the sake of avoiding a

shabby appearance. He had not long left the room, after a peremptory

refusal to accede to his wife's request, when Lady Westhope entered.

After the first greetings were over, and Lady Westhope had admired

Blanche's beautiful children, they drew their chairs to the fire,

and Lady Westhope exclaimed, "How I envy you those lovely children,

Blanche! I think, if I had four such enchanting creatures, I should

be quite happy! I should so like to have a large flourishing family

growing up around me!"

"Heavens! dear Lady Westhope! and I consider each addition to mine as

a visitation which gives me the blue devils for months! When once they

are there, and they have made themselves beloved, one would not part

with them for worlds; but if you knew what unceasing trouble they give,

and how difficult it is to do one's duty by them, you would not wish

for a large family."

"Well! perhaps there are advantages, as well as disadvantages, in

everything. I have schooled my mind, and brought myself to think

everything is for the best. I am a much more contented person, Blanche,

than when we used to talk over your love affairs in former days. Now,

tell me a little about Captain De Molton. Is he as handsome as ever?

and are you as much in love as ever? I certainly never did see such a

regular love-match as yours! The longer you were separated, and the

more you were thwarted, the more desperately constant you both were!"

"Opposition has always been supposed to have that effect: I believe it

has often turned many a passing fancy into a _grande passion_."

"Why, you are not implying such treason against yourself as to say that

opposition assisted to foster your _grande passion_?"

"Oh dear, no! I only spoke generally. But do you tell me a little

about Lord Westhope," she added, to turn the conversation from her own

affairs.

"Oh! he is grown so kind and attentive! I assure you we are settling

down into a most domestic comfortable old couple."

The entrance of Mr. Stapleford interrupted the mutual investigation of

conjugal felicity which the friends had set on foot. Mr. Stapleford

said he had just met De Molton in the street, who had told him where

he should find Lady Blanche, and he had lost no time in paying his

respects to her. "But, dear Lady Blanche, you are going to remove from

this horrid place? In such a situation too! A mile and a half from the

sea. I could scarcely believe De Molton, when he pointed out this as

your abode; and should have imagined he was playing off a practical

joke upon me, if I had not known he was not given to being facetious.

But I suppose you are only here till you can procure something in the

land of the living."

Blanche did not wish Mr. Stapleford to perceive she was not perfectly

contented with her fate, and she replied that she did not like being

within hearing of the sea,--the constant monotonous breaking of the

waves upon the shore made her melancholy.

"There is no accounting for tastes," he replied, with a polite bow, and

a glance which quickly ran over the shabby furniture, the once smart

trellised paper, (a sort of paper peculiarly in vogue at sea-bathing

places, where real flowers and real green leaves are rare,) the

little round convex mirror surmounted by an eagle with a chain in its

bill, and the other lodging-house elegancies which adorned the room,

especially the bell-ropes, which were as fine, and much more dirty,

than those at Mrs. Jones's, which, four years before, had excited such

strong feelings of horror in Blanche's mind. She saw the excursive

glance of his eye, and she saw the affectation of politeness with which

he then let it fall on the ground, while a slight smile just played

about the corners of his mouth. She always disliked him; and she now

most devoutly wished he had not fancied the sea-air bracing, and the

society of Brighton agreeable.

"You will be at Mrs. L.'s this evening, shall you not?" inquired

Stapleford.

"No!" replied Lady Blanche; "I am not acquainted with her."

"Ah! by the bye, she has come into fashion since your time. How long is

it since we lost sight of you?"

"I have been married five years."

"Married! Ah! marriage is a holy rite, synonymous with honourable

sepulture. You have, from that day, been dead to all your friends! By

the bye, I was with the Wentnors a month ago. You know your old friend

Glenrith is become Lord Wentnor now. He, however, seems determined not

to be buried alive. He is giving balls and fêtes of all descriptions;

or rather _she_ is, for he is such a doting husband, that every fancy

of hers is a law to him. It is quite pretty to see such love-making

after eight years of marriage, especially as the result of this

Arcadian conjugality generally is a splendid entertainment by which

half England profits."

Stapleford's instinct for saying the disagreeable thing had not

deserted him; and he left Blanche to ponder on the fate she had

rejected, and to compare it with that she had persisted in choosing.

Lady Westhope, too, was happy! She rejoiced that such should be the

case; but certainly the reflections she made during the rest of that

day were not unworldly ones.

De Molton had again met Stapleford in his morning walk, who, after

complimenting him upon the unimpaired beauty of his wife, attacked him

most unmercifully for having kept her so long in seclusion, and for

now burying her in such an out-of-the-way place, and implied (what

he had no right to know, but what he had guessed from the expressive

countenance of Blanche, in which her feelings might always be read as

in a mirror,) that she was an unwilling denizen in that remote suburb.

De Molton returned home somewhat displeased at having been, as he

imagined, spoken of as a tyrant and a miser. The tête-à-tête in the

evening did not promise to be agreeable.

"Mr. Stapleford called this morning," Blanche began.

"So he told me," replied De Molton.

"And Lady Westhope has been here."

"Did they tell you any news?

"Mr. Stapleford told me he had been staying at Wentnor Castle; and he

gives such a description of their happiness! They seem to be giving

splendid fêtes and beautiful entertainments, all to please her; for, he

says, that every wish of Lady Wentnor's is a law to her husband."

De Molton felt this last sentence as an implied cut at him. "It is very

fortunate for Glenrith that he has money to throw away in gratifying

every foolish whim of a fantastical woman."

Blanche felt that this was a hit at her; and forgetting that by

applying to herself what her husband said, she gave him a right to

conclude she meant to be personal in her account of Lord Wentnor as a

husband, she followed her impulse, and replied:--

"I cannot see that there is anything fantastical in wishing not to be

laughed at by all one's acquaintance, and in disliking a house one's

friends can hardly bring themselves to enter."

"Blanche, when you married me, you knew you married a poor man: if you

wished for riches and splendour, why did you not marry Glenrith?"

"I am sure, if I wished for kindness and for good-humour I had better

have married Lord Glenrith. I do not know what foolish, girlish

infatuation came over me."

"It is, indeed, unfortunate, that in consequence of this _foolish,

girlish infatuation_, which are the terms by which you designate your

attachment to your husband, you should have thrown away a situation in

which you would have been so much happier. I have but to regret that

I should have marred your fortunes--so unwittingly marred them,--for

neither Glenrith nor yourself can accuse me of having, by any arts or

underhand practices, attempted to win your affections from him."

This implied, according to Blanche's interpretation of his words,

that she had allowed them to be gained before he had made any attempt

to do so; and, as angry people usually do, answering to the sense she

chose to attribute to his speech, rather than to its plain and obvious

meaning, she replied,--

"If it was only pity for the unfortunate passion which you supposed me

to entertain for you, which induced you to profess love at Cransley,

it is indeed unfortunate that you allowed your pity so far to overcome

your prudence. If I had imagined such to have been the case, I should

most assuredly never have broken off my engagement with Lord Wentnor."

"I can only again lament that I should have been the cause of your

doing what you so much regret."

"If this is my reward for having rejected, for your sake, the best

_parti_ in England, a good man, too, and one who loved me; for

having disappointed and angered my parents; for having preserved an

undeviating constancy for three years to a person who now laments that

I did not marry his rival, and confesses he only married me out of

pity, I am indeed the most unfortunate woman in the world!" She burst

into a flood of tears of anger and vexation.

"Blanche, you wilfully pervert the meaning of all I say. When did I

imply that I married you for anything but love? But these reproaches,

this petulance, are not the right method to preserve a husband's

affection."

"If nothing but a slave,--a patient, meek Griselda,--a Mrs. Jones,--can

preserve your affection, I am afraid I have no chance of preserving

it! I do not know what I can do more than I already do. I work for my

children; I go without all the comforts I have been used to; I have

no maid; and I must refuse going to Lady Westhope's to-morrow night,

because the nursery-maid cannot dress my hair, and because I have no

gown fit to appear in."

"I am very, very sorry I have not the means of providing you with

the luxuries you regret, and I am very sorry you refuse yourself the

pleasures and amusements that so naturally fall in your way. I had

hoped that at Brighton, where people may join in society without

much expense, and where it is not necessary to keep a carriage, you

might have mixed with your friends. I should have thought the art

of hair-dressing was not so very difficult to acquire, when one

sees every attorney's daughter, every milliner's apprentice, every

shop-girl, with hair which puts to shame all the exertions of M.

Hippolite."

"I am not a shop-girl or a milliner's apprentice," answered Lady

Blanche, while all the blood of the Falkinghams mounted to her cheek,

and all the spirit of an ancient race flashed from her eye.

"But you are the wife of a poor man, although of one as nobly born as

yourself!" and all the pride of the De Moltons rendered the brow of her

husband absolutely awful.

"I know full well that I am the wife of a poor man; there is no need

to remind me so often of that truth," replied Lady Blanche, with some

bitterness in her tone; "and therefore I shall stay at home, and not

expose my poverty to the eyes of the pitying world, or to the sneers of

a Mr. Stapleford."

"You will do as is most agreeable to yourself. I shall certainly go

to Lady Westhope's, as I shall feel sincere pleasure in seeing my old

friends again."

To Lady Westhope's went De Molton; and Blanche stayed at home. She

had originally intended, for the sake of enjoying agreeable society,

to brave the slight mortification of not finding herself, as was once

the case, the best dressed woman in the room; but the conversation of

the preceding evening had left her so unhappy, so discontented, and

so indignant, that she found a certain pleasure in martyrdom. It was,

however, only in the eyes of her husband that she wished to enact the

martyr; from the world she would fain conceal that she had so misjudged

the strength of her own attachment: she meant to persuade others that

it was from choice, from bad health, or from any motive rather than the

true one, that she persisted in leading a retired life.

But with her candid disposition, and her speaking eyes, it did not

require the malicious tact of a Stapleford to read the true state of

her feelings. With Lady Westhope, especially, she could not always be

on her guard; and to her it was soon only too evident that the love

for which she had given up everything else did not repay her for the

sacrifices she had made. Lady Westhope began indeed to doubt whether

this much-vaunted love had not, when tried in the balance against

privations of every sort, been found utterly wanting.

It may be asked, should then Blanche have married Lord Glenrith?

No, certainly; for she was not in love with him. More especially no,

for she was at the time in love with another. But we would urge that

if affluence without love is insufficient to wedded happiness, so

is the most romantic love without those habitual luxuries, and that

dispensation from sordid details, which, to persons in a certain

situation, may almost be termed the necessaries of life.

Let not those who, valuing the good things of this world, are dazzled

into forming an interested marriage, anticipate the delights of

sentimental affection, nor be disappointed if one whose situation

was the attraction prove destitute of those qualities which were not

sought; and let those who are "all for love and the world well lost,"

keep in mind the latter half of the sentence, and not expect to find

both that which they prize, and that which they profess to contemn.

Above all, let not those who have an opportunity of uniting in their

choice true affection with the enjoyments of those comforts to which

they have been accustomed, be induced, by any temptation of rank,

wealth, or power, to give up virtuous happiness for heartless splendour.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown;

No traveller ever reach'd that blest abode,

Who found not thorns and briers in his road.

Cowper.

In her intercourse with the De Moltons, Lady Westhope observed that

they seldom addressed each other; and that, in speaking of her husband,

Blanche invariably called him Captain De Molton, instead of Frank, as

she had formerly done; and that De Molton also, when speaking of his

wife, added the title to her name, and even occasionally addressed her

as "Lady" Blanche.

These were trifles, but yet they indicated much. Though grieved for her

cousin's sake, Lady Westhope's reflections served to reconcile her to

her own fate, and to confirm her in her opinion that

Every black must have its white,

And every sweet its sour,

and that true wisdom consists in dwelling on the "sweets" of one's

own peculiar lot, and striving to forget the "sours;" and though for

herself she would still have chosen Blanche's trials rather than her

own, it might be that she knew her own, and was not so well versed

in Lady Blanche's. Yet her character was better fitted for Blanche's

situation: she had more decision, more strength of mind, more

pride,--not worldly pride, but pride of soul to persevere in the path

which she had once chalked out for herself.

De Molton had keenly and painfully felt the coolness which had for

months, nay almost years, been gradually increasing between them; and

he was still more deeply wounded when she nearly confessed, or at least

did not deny, her regret at having rejected Lord Glenrith for him.

He could have found excuses for anything else. The pride of man, the

tenderness of the husband, the sensitiveness of the individual, were

all touched in the tenderest point.

"Could this," he thought, "be the same creature who was such a

contemner of worldly wealth, so ardent a votary of love in a cottage,

such an enthusiast for the pleasures of nature?" Alas! for poor

Blanche! it was love in a lodging-house, not love in a cottage, that

she had tried; and as to the pleasures of nature, the dusty suburbs of

a country town are scarcely "the country" to a person brought up in the

midst of an extensive park, in a wild and woody country.

De Molton recollected how, out of consideration for her, he had

concealed his own feelings at Paris; how scrupulously he had avoided

interfering with the more brilliant prospects which were opening before

her; how, far from taking advantage of her unguarded confession of

preference, he had banished himself from his native land; how, though

hopeless, he had remained constant to her image for three long years;

how, when he found her free, he had hastened to throw himself at her

feet; how, without murmuring or repining, he gladly endured privations,

the same that she did, and thought himself only too well rewarded if

she would cheer their humble home with a smile. He thought over all

these things, and he felt himself the most injured of men. Did he not

deny himself every indulgence? Did he not even refuse himself the

satisfaction of asking a friend to share his morsel?--the most galling

self-denial enjoined by absolute poverty! Did not the responsibility

of providing for their children weigh upon his mind? Was it not his

duty to look forward to the time when education must commence; when

boys must be sent to school, when girls must have masters? What parent

will set down contented under the notion that his children will not be

fitted by manners and education to move in the sphere in which they

were born?--None, who are not without that commonest and strongest

feeling in all created beings, parental affection--or who are not

without the power of reflection! And how were these expenses to be met?

How, but by increased economy on their part?

Such were the cares which pressed on De Molton's mind. How much better

would it have been had he fairly communicated them all to his wife; had

he frankly counselled with her upon the best plan to be pursued; had he

openly laid before her his actual income, his actual expenses! But the

constitutional reserve to which we have alluded prevented his pursuing

this course.

It was most painful to him to refuse any of her wishes, and the very

pain it gave him imparted to his manner of doing so a certain harshness

which prevented Blanche from entering into his views. Her resistance to

his views, or her martyr-like acquiescence in them, rendered him still

less communicative, when, perhaps, had he pursued a more open line of

conduct, a person who married with such good intentions as she did

(though with little knowledge of things as they are) might have been

led to suggest the very sacrifices at which she repined when they were

demanded as a right.

Each succeeding day seemed to widen the breach between them. This

result of a love-match afforded the materials for many a bad jest among

some who called themselves their friends, while others saw nothing

entertaining in the wreck of happiness to two people possessing many

amiable qualities, though neither of them might be faultless. Some

pitied Lady Blanche for having such a harsh and ungrateful tyrant for a

husband; and some felt for the noble, uncompromising De Molton, whose

home was evidently rendered miserable by a wilful, discontented wife.

Some predicted a separation: some predicted that, beautiful as was Lady

Blanche, and tired as she was of her home, the time would arrive when

she would be induced to leave it, for one more brilliant, though less

respectable;--although her manners were now so reserved, so decorous,

a few years, and people would see the difference; a woman who had once

loved so passionately, would not remain contented to pass her life from

the age of twenty-eight in a state of cold indifference, if not of

absolute dislike.

But those who thus prognosticated, proved uninspired prophets.

Affection was still deep-rooted in both their hearts. The noxious

weeds of petty grievances had choked, but not destroyed, the goodly

plant. It still retained sufficient life, when moistened by the waters

of affliction, to spring up with renewed vigour, and overcome in its

growth the weeds which had almost stifled it.

CHAPTER XIX.

And dearer seems each dawning smile

For having lost its light awhile.

_Lalla Rookh._

The illness of their children first awakened Blanche and De Molton to a

knowledge of their real feelings towards each other.

The children caught the measles, a complaint which had at that period

proved peculiarly fatal. The eldest girl, who was at that most engaging

of all ages, when, without losing the graces of infancy, the mind opens

into companionship, became alarmingly ill. In their tender assiduity by

the little bed of the sufferer, all feelings of asperity, all feelings

of coldness, were quickly forgotten.

Together they watched with intense anxiety, together they listened to

the short and frequent cough; one held the cup of cooling beverage

with which the other moistened the parched lips of their child. No!

it is not possible that parents can bend over the sick bed of their

first born,--the creature equally dear to both,--the creature whose

first accents of tenderness have been framed to utter their names,--the

creature whose first emotions of love have been for them, whose first

notions of right and wrong they have together laboured to form!--no!

they cannot bend over the sick bed of this loved creature, and harbour

any recollection of former unkindness. The impression may fade away;

new causes of irritation may subsequently arise; but, for the time

being, surely it is impossible that any but feelings of affection can

find a place in their hearts.

With Blanche and De Molton all that had ever passed was utterly wiped

away, as, with the sickening dread of hearing their worst fears

confirmed, they followed the physician from the sick chamber. They

scarcely knew in what terms to couch the dreadful question to which

they feared to receive a still more dreadful answer,--that question

which is asked in a broken and quivering voice, but sometimes with a

faint smile assumed to re-assure the questioner,--that question which

is oftener put in the form of an assertion, "You do not think there is

any danger."

"Why, certainly, our little patient is in a very uncomfortable state,"

replied the physician, who considered it his duty to prepare the

parents for the event which he thought only too probable.

The false hollow smile faded from the countenance of the agonised

father: he knit his brows, and bit his compressed lip, till the blood

almost started; but Blanche, worn out with fatigue and agitation, his

poor Blanche, unable to meet this death-blow to her hopes, staggered

towards him for support, and the husband mastered the feelings of the

father, to sustain her fainting form, to soothe her more over-whelming

agonies.

There are sufferings on which it is painful to dwell,--sufferings too

real, too true, too common,--sufferings which have been often endured,

and which, alas! many have in store for them,--sufferings which equal

in intensity any of which human nature is capable.

For two days and two nights did they watch each varying symptom, count

with trembling accuracy the minutes, the seconds, which were passed in

undisturbed repose, and listen with painful rapture to the sweet voice,

the plaintive and endearing "papa," "mamma," which the poor child often

uttered, when, in the restlessness of illness, she wanted, she knew not

what.

How sad and painful an effort was it to veil under a semblance of

playfulness the anxiety which consumed them, while they attempted to

amuse the infant sufferer! to tell her childish tales, in a gay tone

of voice, while the heart was bursting! to smooth the brow, to affect

a smile! How often during these two long days, these two interminable

nights, did Blanche reflect upon her folly and her ingratitude!--her

folly in not enjoying to the uttermost the happiness which, a few short

days before, was within her reach,--her ingratitude to Providence for

the blessings till then vouchsafed to her!

A horrible chill ran through her!--perhaps it was this very ingratitude

which had deserved so severe a chastisement. How did she now wonder

that petty annoyances should have so ruffled her! What to her were

now the sneers of Stapleford, the pity of the world, the absence of

elegancies, of comforts! Dry bread to eat, a shelter from the weather,

and her children once more healthy, now appeared to her the summit of

earthly happiness.

De Molton, too, when he beheld his still-loved Blanche bowed down with

grief, when he found her once more overflowing with tenderness to

himself, wondered how he could ever have imagined her to be estranged

from him, and he watched over her as tenderly as over his child.

On the third day the physician perceived a slight improvement. He

allowed them to hope; and the revulsion of feeling, the unbounded

joy with which this permission was hailed by Blanche, alarmed him by

its vehemence. He attempted to qualify his opinion, but it was in

vain!--she was allowed to hope; and, stronger than reason, her ardent

nature made her jump to the delightful conclusion that her child was

safe.

De Molton, fearful of a relapse, tried to subdue her raptures; but no

sooner had the physician left the room, than, throwing herself into his

arms, she exclaimed, "Our child will live, Frank! I know she will! She

will live, and we shall be happy--entirely, perfectly happy! Nothing

can ever make me unhappy again!"

Short-sighted mortals! We little know what the next week, the next day,

the next hour, the next moment, may have in store for us!

The hopes of Blanche, however, were not doomed on this occasion to be

disappointed: the little girl rapidly recovered; the other children had

the complaint mildly; and Blanche, indeed, thought herself beyond the

reach of misfortune. She felt gratitude, fervent gratitude, to Heaven

for its mercies; but affliction had not yet taught her to "rejoice in

trembling." She did not remember how, always, at all times, and in all

places, our happiness is in the hands of an all-wise, all-powerful, but

merciful Being, whose chastisements are dealt in pity.

This truth was forced upon her mind when, just as the children were

convalescent, she saw her husband become listless and oppressed: she

heard him frequently cough, and she felt some alarm on his account.

It had always been a matter of doubt whether a slight rash he had

in his boyhood was or was not the measles. He had never remembered

this doubt while attending his child, and it was not till he felt

unaccountably languid and suffering that he recollected he might

possibly have caught the infection.

The suspicion which he then hinted to Blanche shot through her frame

with the conviction of impending woe; and when the physician confirmed

the fact, the agonizing, but not uncommon dread which often overtakes

those in affliction recurred to her mind with increased intensity.

Were their sorrows the visitations of an offended Providence, called

down upon their devoted heads by their own want of submission to its

decrees?--was she unworthy of a happiness which she had failed to

value?--was the moment come when her repinings and her discontent were

to be requited with a terrible retribution?

Nothing that Doctor A. could utter was capable of reassuring her. She

shook her head mournfully, and redoubled her attentions to her husband.

When told that "she ought to place more reliance in that Power which

had raised her child from a much more desperate state of sickness," she

answered mournfully, "I do not deserve it."

"We none of us deserve the mercies we meet with," replied the

kind-hearted physician: "if we were dealt with according to our merits,

well might we all despair." For a few moments such arguments would

cheer her, but again she would relapse into despondency; and when,

after some days, Dr. A. confessed that the pulse was very high--when

his tone of encouragement changed to one of consolation and condolence,

her spirit completely sunk--hope died away within her bosom.

In what fearful array did her own faults towards him rise up against

her! How completely did she forget the little tone of harshness which

had once appeared to her to excuse and to justify her in disputing his

wishes and opposing his plans! She felt she could never do enough

to expiate her faults, that a whole life of devotion could scarcely

suffice to atone for them; and, extreme in everything, she now looked

upon herself as having been the most sinful of creatures.

De Molton, whose affection had only been suspended, not destroyed, by

the coldness he had met with, now, when he found her tender, gentle,

and indefatigable, felt for her all, and more than he had ever felt

before. One day she had been tending him with even more than her usual

solicitude, when he said, "Thank you, Blanche; you are a kind and

excellent nurse; and it grieves me when I think to what a dreary home

of sickness, penury, and drudgery, I have been the means of bringing

you. Without me, you would have been now enjoying the splendour, the

brilliancy of your father's house, even supposing you had never deigned

to adorn any of the other happy homes which courted your acceptance. I

know that you have suffered much from the privations unavoidable in our

situation; you have at times thought me harsh; but indeed, my dearest

Blanche--my dear, dear wife, you do not know how much it has cost me to

refuse you anything on earth."

"Oh, Frank! do not speak in that manner! I now know how unreasonable,

how ungrateful, I have been. Do not talk of what is past. Believe me,

you should not agitate yourself."

"It will do me good to say what is upon my mind: it is possible I may

not recover."

"Oh, Frank!" She looked at him reproachfully, as if he was unkind in

saying what it was so painful to hear.

"Nay, do not cast at me so frightened and so accusing a glance. I am

not so very ill yet; and anticipating what is possible, will not make

it more probable. Dr. A. says there are still hopes."

"Oh, Frank! I cannot bear it; indeed I cannot!"

"Dearest love, if it should please God to take me from you, you must

bear it; and, what is more, you must exert yourself. You will be left

with four young children, and, I am sorry to say, with less than ever

to support them and yourself. I have ensured my life; but that could be

but to a small amount, though to the utmost I could succeed in saving.

It was this, as I thought, indispensable duty which contributed to

render us so very poor."

"Oh! you were doing everything that was right; and, indeed, if I had

known all, I think--I believe--I should have behaved better. I think,

if you had told me----"

"I ought to have done so, perhaps. It was a kind of mistaken pride.

The whole thing was so distressing to me! I desired so ardently to

have been able to gratify every wish of your heart, that my spirit

rebelled at being able to gratify none. Still, my sense of duty and of

strong necessity made me resolve not to transgress one inch the line

of prudence I had marked out for myself. The more your notions seemed

unfitted for the fate we had embraced, the more I thought it my bounden

duty to resist them, and to impress upon you the plain naked truth of

our condition in life. I was wrong; I feel now that I was wrong. I

should have made you the partner of my thoughts and plans, as well as

of my affections."

"No, no! it was not you who were to blame: you were all that was

admirable; yours was strict, uncompromising rectitude, firmness of

mind, everything that was manly and noble; while I!--oh, that I can

have so misjudged you!--oh, that I can have so wasted these past

years, which I now feel ought to have been years of such unmixed, such

unalloyed happiness!"

"Now, when perhaps it is too late!" he added in a low faint voice; then

perceiving the expression of her countenance, he added, "but better

late than never, my love;" and he held out his hand to her, with a

smile half playful, half sad, attempting, as sick people often do, to

familiarize their own and the minds of their friends with the idea

of a final separation. He drew her hand towards him, and placing the

other upon it, he continued with earnestness and solemnity: "We have

been both to blame--both of us. When I am gone, do not torment yourself

with useless regrets, but remember what I now say--that I am conscious

of having been to blame on my part. If I had treated you with entire

confidence and openness, I might have won on your generous nature to

submit cheerfully to any privations. But I am reserved, I am proud. I

am at length aware of these constitutional faults; and I trust, if I

should be raised from this bed of sickness--if I should be spared to

you, dear Blanche--that I shall in future know my duty better, and that

I shall pursue it resolutely, and never again allow pride and reserve

to chill our intercourse."

"Oh, Frank, if we are but spared to each other, in spite of all outward

circumstances, we will be so very, very happy! But we will rejoice in

trembling. We are now too well aware how precarious is our happiness,

and we shall prize it the more from that very consciousness. We shall

learn to be grateful for the sterling blessings we possess."

"And we shall know, my love, as I do now, that, when we meet death face

to face, those points only on which we have done our duty can afford

reflections in which there is any comfort,--those alone on which we

have failed to perform it can give unmitigated pain!"

"Alas, alas! how much have I to repent of! Instead of making your

happiness, have I not caused you vexation and disappointment? Have I

always honoured, always obeyed you?--have I been really a helpmate to

you? Oh, Frank! forgive me! Indeed, indeed, I need your forgiveness;

and even that can never reconcile me to myself!"

"Have you already forgotten my injunctions, my love? Remember what I so

earnestly wish to impress upon your mind,--that we have been both to

blame,--both."

"Thank you, my good, kind, beloved husband,--thank you; and may God in

his mercy preserve you to guide my mind, and direct me in the path I

should go!--then I shall never err again."

"A weak and erring mortal, like yourself, is a poor guide to lean upon,

dear Blanche; we must look within ourselves for the ardent and sincere

wish to do what is right, but we must seek from above the strength to

perform it. It is easy to know our duty; the difficulty is to persevere

in its performance."

"I shall be able to persevere, with you to support me!"

He looked upon her with an expression of unutterable tenderness and

pity, and pressed her hand in silence.

The more the fear that they might be for ever parted grew upon her, the

less could she admit any allusion to it, the more did she cling to the

idea that their union was indissoluble.

CHAPTER XX.

Some manne hath good, but chyldren hath he none;

Some manne hath both, but he can get none healthe.

Some hath all three, but up to honour's throne

Can he not crepe by no manner of stelth.

To some she sendeth chyldren, riches, welthe,

Honour, worship, and reverence all his lyfe,

But yet she pyncheth him with a shrewde wyfe--

Be content

With such reward as Fortune hath you sent.

Sir Thomas More.

De Molton's health remained for some weeks in a most precarious state,

during which period they had time and opportunity for opening their

whole hearts to each other.

The religious sentiments which, although never before much called

forth, were latent in both their bosoms, were more fully developed;

and in sorrow, in fear, and in distress, the communion of feeling and

interchange of thought became more complete than in the earlier years

of their marriage.

When he recovered--for he did recover,--they found themselves

thoroughly, entirely, and reasonably happy. The first time that he

came into the drawing-room, when she had arranged his arm-chair by the

fire, and drawn the narrow curtains, placed the table close to him,

and settled little Emma on a stool at his feet, she looked round with

delight, and could not help expressing that she thought the room an

exceedingly nice one, and that really a horse-hair sofa was not so very

uncomfortable.

"Take care, Blanche," replied De Molton, playfully; "we must be happy

without deceiving ourselves: we must see things as they really are.

Do not, because you are glad to see me here, fancy this little room a

splendid apartment, or a horse-hair sofa a luxurious seat, lest the

moment of disenchantment should come. No, no! we will be happy in

spite of a bad room and wretched furniture; but we will indulge in no

visions."

"How right you always are! All will go well, now you are recovering.

Yes, you will at last make me reasonable too: and you will teach me to

keep all my feelings, good as well as bad, under proper control! And

yet, I do not know how it is, the room does really look different in my

eyes; and I almost think I do not slip off the sofa as much as I used

to do!" He smiled at her again; and she laughed gaily at herself.

As he gradually recovered, some friends were admitted to see him. Lady

Westhope rejoiced, not only at the restoration of his health, but at

the restoration of confidence between them. Mr. Stapleford pathetically

lamented that De Molton should have been taken ill in this horrid

nutshell, and asked when they should move to a more habitable part of

the town.

"Not at all," answered Blanche.

"You are not in earnest? What can you find to admire in this apartment,

dear Lady Blanche?"

"Its cheapness," replied Blanche resolutely: "do you not know, Mr.

Stapleford, that we are very poor?"

The courage to utter these few words would spare many persons many

moments of doubt, and hesitation, and awkwardness, and many unavailing

efforts to make an effect.

Mr. Stapleford bowed with much respect, and a glance, which seemed

to say, "You have made a bad bargain! with your beauty, thus to have

thrown yourself away!"

But his glance met that of Lady Blanche, which seemed to answer, "I am

very poor, but I do not repent my bargain."

Blanche's object was no longer to make a decent appearance in the eyes

of others, but to render her husband's home happy. De Molton no longer

felt humbled at their poverty, when she no longer seemed affected

by it. He candidly detailed his expenditure and his plans: she took

great pains to dress her own hair, and soon acquired the proficiency

of a Mrs. Jones, or of a milliner's apprentice; she gaily sprung into

a Brighton fly with a bounding step, and willingly went into any

agreeable society that presented itself: and she found that, though no

longer the leader of fashion in point of dress, she was handsome and

agreeable enough to be equally sought and liked.

In one of her tête-à-têtes with Lady Westhope, they were both

exclaiming at the worldliness of some mutual acquaintance, who courted

a woman whom no one esteemed or loved; whom no one thought either

agreeable or handsome, solely on account of her position in the world.

"At least Frank and I have one comfort," exclaimed Blanche, in the

corner of whose heart there still lurked a remnant of vanity: "if

we are sought, it must be for our intrinsic merits. There can be no

interested motive in any attention or kindness that is shown to us; and

that is a reflection which puts one in better humour with one's self."

"Yes," answered Lady Westhope; "and if we were so inclined, we might

moralize on this subject as well as on more serious ones. 'This is a

world of compensations,' as Lady Montreville says she has learned from

her old nurse. You remember Milly Roberts, who was always toddling

after her lovely children in St. James's Square? It is quite refreshing

when one is in London to converse with Milly Roberts, and hear good

sense, good feeling, and philosophy uttered so unconsciously. Lady

Montreville says she has taught her almost all she knows of right and

wrong; and, among other things, that we must not look for perfect

happiness in this world,--that the most fortunate are not without their

troubles, as she expresses it, nor the most unfortunate without their

own peculiar blessings. I have reasoned myself into a very respectable

degree of contentment, and I only hope that the sight of you and your

husband, as you now are, may not disturb my philosophical, and, I hope

I may add, religious view of my own fate, as much as the sight of you

three months ago tended to confirm and strengthen it."

Blanche had time to prove that her cheerfulness under privation was

not the effort of a moment, but a resolution founded upon principle,

and persevered in from the same motive; and De Molton also had time

to prove that the tenderness of his wife had softened the sternness

which was the only flaw in his character; and to become as gentle as he

was firm in the performance of his duty; when an event occurred which

prevented their late-acquired virtues from being any longer put to so

severe a trial.

By the death of a very rich godfather, De Molton became possessed of

a small independence. It was very small; but it enabled him to retire

on half-pay, till he might be wanted for the active service of his

country, and to take a small cottage in the immediate vicinity of

Cransley, where Blanche was able to realise her preconceived notions

of refined poverty and elegant indigence. They kept a cow, and their

butter equalled that at Temple Loseley; their cream was no longer blue

milk; they baked at home; and instead of a knocker on the door, they

had a bell with a respectable countrified sound. They had a garden,

a small one certainly; but its flowers were as bright as those at

Cransley, and the primroses decidedly blew a week earlier! They had a

veranda, and it did not darken the room much. In short, they had all

appliances and means to boot requisite for real happiness.

They were enabled, while their children were so young, to lay by

something to assist in their education as they grew older; and they

began to think that Milly Roberts was wrong, and that some fortunate

people were without "their troubles," when Mr. Stapleford paid them a

morning visit from Cransley, and enlightened their minds as to the one

only point on which their fate might admit of amelioration.

After expressing his astonishment at their not knowing all the

innumerable pieces of scandal which he retailed to them; at their

not having read all the new novels of the last spring; at their not

having seen the new actress, heard the last singer, visited the last

exhibition, and become intimate with the last brides of the season; he

exclaimed, "Why, dear Lady Blanche, you will let the grass grow over

your intellect, as you are letting it grow over the gravel before your

door! One can see by your road and your conversation that Cransley has

been uninhabited, and that Lady Westhope has been in London, while you

have been in the country, for the last six months!"

"Oh, come and help us, Mr. Stapleford! we will soon get rid of the

weeds out of doors. Emma, fetch the gardening basket; Henry, bring your

old knife; Arthur, where is my rake? and Frank, if you will get the

roller, we will make our little bit of gravel quite nice before Lady

Westhope calls."

"Of course I am _à vos ordres_, Lady Blanche; but, I assure you, I

shall be vastly more useful in polishing your mind than your garden.

People who ruralize all the year round, and cannot therefore be _au

courant_ of what is going on in the world, should never let slip an

opportunity of instruction."

"There is some truth in what you say," replied Blanche, as she looked

up from her labours, with sparkling eyes, and a complexion dazzling

in its brightness from the warmth of the day and the nature of her

employment: then shaking back her curls, she bade him seat himself on

the bench beneath the young acacia, and tell her "everything, about

everybody."

"Well then, Lord D. did not propose, after all, to Miss C.; but set

off for Paris, just as the family was on the tip-toe of expectation,

thinking every double knock was the peer come to propose in person, and

every single knock was a special messenger bearing a written offer of

his hand and heart."

"I did not know Miss C. was grown up: does she turn out pretty?"

"Heavens! Lady Blanche, she has been out these two years! and everybody

thinks her quite gone off. She was pretty when the duke made such a

fuss with her at her first ball; but Mrs. L. thought it an insult to

her charms."

"Mrs. L's charms! I thought she was so very plain!"

"Plain! why, she has been a beauty these three years. Lady G. betted

Captain S. an amber-headed cane, to an ivory fan, that within a month

she would talk her into being a beauty: and she did so, in three

weeks and two days,--five days within the prescribed period. When

once Lady G. had given her a start, she had the ingenuity to keep it.

Her portrait now adorns the Annuals, and the Duke has worn her chains

for two years and a half.--But I must not linger here any longer,

or I shall be late at dinner. Good morning, dear Lady Blanche; your

simplicity is quite piquant, and absolutely refreshes me. You dine at

Cransley to-morrow, when I will finish rubbing the rust off your mind."

That evening Lady Blanche remarked to De Molton: "The only little

drawback to our perfect happiness is, that certainly one does grow very

dull, and very stupid, knowing nothing that goes on in the world! Yet,

after all, how much better to be like you, than like Mr. Stapleford!

Yes, notwithstanding the grass that has grown over our minds, I do

believe ours is the happiest position in life,--that we have the fewest

troubles and the greatest number of blessings. I think I may now say

with truth, and without enthusiastic nonsense, that we are happier than

if we possessed the mines of Golconda. I told you so when we left Sir

Frederick Vyneton's villa after our honeymoon; and you then declared

how happy you should be if I said the same at the end of two years.

I could not have said so then; but I can now, after eight years of

marriage." We need not add that De Molton was indeed perfectly happy,

nor that he told his wife he was so.

THE END.

LONDON:

Spottiswoodes and Shaw,

New-street Square.

Transcribers note: "Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_)."