PREFACE.

Some of my correspondents will not be surprised at the notice I find

myself compelled to give, that I shall henceforward take in no unpaid

letters, directed in an unknown handwriting, which have not the name of

the writer superscribed. The tax of postage for anonymous flattery or

abuse is one to which I cannot be expected to submit.

As for the other tax,--on time,--thus imposed on myself and others, it

may supersede some of it to declare, once for all, that no appeals to

me, whether made in print or by letter, anonymous or avowed, have or

shall have any effect upon me, unless they are addressed to my reason.

If my arguments are open to refutation, I shall be thankful to have them

refuted. If my views are founded on a false or narrow induction, the

most acceptable as well as the truest kindness will be to show me where

lies the error or deficiency. As an illustrator of truth, it behoves me

to listen, with the utmost respect, to applications like these; but, as

a vowed servant of the people, I am not at liberty to attend to appeals

to my individual interests, whether presented in the form of evil

prognostications, of friendly cautions, or of flattery, gross or

refined.

What I have just said is applicable to only a few individuals, to some

of whom I owe gratitude for kind intentions, and towards others of whom

I feel more concern than resentment. To those to whom my work has been,

in my own heart, dedicated from the beginning,--the people,--I have only

to say that their generous appreciation of my object is so effective a

support and stimulus, that nothing troubles me but a sense of the

imperfection of my service; and that the most precious of my hopes is,

that I may become capable of serving them with an ability which may bear

some proportion to the respect with which I regard their interests.

H. M.

THE

LOOM AND THE LUGGER.

PART II.

------------------------------------

CHAPTER I.

THE COOPERS AT HOME.

A fine spring shower was falling one May morning, in 1826, when Mrs.

Cooper, the weaver's wife, was busily engaged in dusting her husband's

loom, taking advantage of the interval between the finishing of the

piece with which he was now gone to his employer, and the beginning of

the new one which he expected to bring home. Many weavers are as averse

to dusting and cleaning taking place in their peculiar department as the

most slovenly bookworm. They appear to believe that a canopy of cobwebs

sheds as important an influence on their work as the student expects

from the midnight lamp. Old Short was one of these, and Mrs. Cooper,

therefore, thought herself fortunate in his absence at the same time,

and on the same errand with her husband. She might not only clean her

husband's loom in peace, but have a touch at the old man's, in the hope

that the removal of some ells of cobweb, and an ample measure of dust,

might escape his notice. Having opened the windows wide to admit the air

freshened by the pattering shower, she sang to her baby,--still so

called, though now nearly three years old,--encouraging, from time to

time, the imperfect imitations of the child as he stood pulling

buttercups to pieces at a chair, and cramming the remains through holes

in its rush bottom. There were hopes that the child would, at some

future day, be perfect in this song, for Short sang it from morning till

night; and, when he was absent, Mrs. Cooper unconsciously took it up as

often as she looked towards his end of the room. She was very tired of

hearing it, too; but it was such a good exchange for the grumblings of

former years, that she never found fault with the melody, and made up

her mind to hear it hourly for the few years old Short might have to

live.

But why had he left off grumbling? For a reason which does not prevail

with all grumblers,--that he had nothing to complain of. For two years

Mr. Culver had given him constant employment, and paid him well; and he

heard so much on all sides of the great relief to the manufacturers from

the reduction of the duties on raw silk,--a reduction permitted in order

to prepare the manufacturers for a fair competition with the French when

the prohibition of foreign silks should cease,--that he became less

confident in his predictions that the trade would be found to be ruined;

that the French would carry all before them; and that the last days of

Spitalfields' industry were approaching. He had so often emphatically

taken his neighbours to witness that he was weaving his last piece, and

been presently found weaving another, that he had now let the subject

drop, and adopted the more cheerful saying, "Sufficient unto the day is

the evil thereof." This served his purpose very well, though he would

have found it difficult, if questioned, to point out what evil he

proposed thus philosophically to endure. In summer, to be sure, it was

sometimes hot; and the days went on to grow dark early in winter; but

the Coopers were kind to him, and able, through their own prosperity, to

take good care of him. The child was readily admitted to be any thing

but a plague; and with fifteen shillings a-week wherewith to answer his

own small wants, the old man was not only abundantly supplied for the

present, but had been able to accomplish one or two objects which he had

long had at heart. His burial money was safely laid by; and he had

bought a venerable Bible, which had been discovered by a neighbour lying

on a book-stall, with his grandmother's birth entered on the fly-leaf.

Short could not read; but he was uneasy as long as this Bible lay on the

stall, liable to be tossed about without any pretence of consideration

for his grandmother's name. Here it was now, deposited on the highest

shelf of the cupboard, so that there was no fear of the child getting to

it before he should be sixteen, unless on a Sunday morning, when it was

regularly taken down to be dusted. As it was immediately replaced,

however, being far too valuable to be read out of, it was not likely to

receive any harm at the hands of the baby. With all present needs amply

supplied, and provision being made for his body and his Bible being

disposed of as they ought to be, it was certainly much more reasonable

that Short should sing than grumble.

"Look, look, Ichabod! See how the rain pours down! Look at the shining

bright raindrops, my pretty one!" said Mrs. Cooper, as she threw open

another lattice, and cast a glance into the morsel of garden-ground

behind.--"Cock-a-doodle-do! How the cock shakes off the wet. Come, my

pet, come and see the cocks and hens in the shower; and the tulips! O,

the fine tulips! How soon they will blow after this rain. Come, Ichabod,

come, see the tulips!"

Instead of toddling across the room in answer to his mother's call, as

usual, the child set up a cry of terror, not without cause. In thrusting

his green and yellow leaves into the holes of the rush-bottomed chair,

he had pushed his hand through, and was a fast prisoner till his mother

released him. When this was done, and it only remained to appease him,

he was taken to the window to call for the gipsyman to come and mend the

poor chair. Long did mother and child call, in mimickry of each other,

and no gipsyman appeared; but instead of him, old Short and the two

neighbours, who also wove in this room, all seeming very angry.

"Make haste in from the wet, Mr. Short," cried the house-wife from the

window, "and bring the neighbours in with you for shelter till the

shower is over. 'Tis a fine pelting spring shower."

And Mrs. Cooper set down the child at a chair which had no holes, while

she hastily put out of sight her duster and brush, that Short's evident

ill-humour might not be increased by the appearance of any preparation

for cleaning.

"You are welcome, neighbours," said she to one after another, as their

heads emerged from the darkness of the winding staircase. "Plenty of

room: room for twice as many, the looms being all empty at this time.

'Tis a curious chance that the looms should be all four quiet at once;

but----"

"It will be a more curious chance when they are all going again,"

observed Rogers, one of the neighbours.

"Aye, aye," replied old Short, "I, for one, have wove my last piece."

"Why, dear me, Mr. Short, have you got to saying that again? Only think

how often you have said that, and, bless God! it has never come true."

"'Tis true enough now, however," he replied. "There is hardly a master

that will give out a cane to-day. There's nothing doing, nor never will

be, while those cursed French are on the face of the earth."

"I thought you told me there was no more fear of them? I thought you

were delighted at what the government ordered about the lengths of their

pieces,--that none should come here of the lengths that we knew they had

woven? I remember you rubbed your hands over that news till the child

laughed again."

"Aye, that sounded all very well; but government can't, or won't,

prevent those goods coming, though they are prohibited. The French are

as hard at work as ever, weaving silks of the new lengths, and the other

goods are pouring in all along the coast, by means of the smugglers.

There is more smuggled silk in the market now than ever was known

before, and----"

"But it will soon be all sold and gone; and besides, in two months the

law will let them in, so as to allow people to buy them fairly; and then

there will be an end of the smuggling, they say."

"Never tell me! By that time, the new goods that are now on their looms

will be ready. No, no; it will just be as it has always been with the

Spitalfields weaver. Heaven and earth try together which can spite him

most."

"Well, now, Mr. Short, I must think it is hardly right to say so. We

have had our share of troubles, to be sure; but every thing that could

be done seems to me to have been thought of. You should remember how

long we were especially favoured as to wages."

"And much good it did us! Can you deny that at that very time all our

best orders went to Paisley and Macclesfield, while we ought to have had

our hands full, as not being such mushroom folks as they? Can you deny,

that people next took it into their heads to wear cottons, so that in

one winter four thousand looms stood idle? You may not remember the

winter of seventy-three: 'twas before your time, I fancy; but there was

the hand of God upon the people, if anywhere: poor starving creatures

lying about on the door-sills, too weak to get home, when they had been

out for the chance of an alms. But even that was nothing to the distress

of fifteen and sixteen, which I suppose you do not pretend to forget."

"Forget it! no," replied Mrs. Cooper, with a mournful shake of the head.

"That was the year my poor father died; and mother and I thought he

might have lived longer (though he had worn himself out at his loom) if

we could have nourished him better, and let him hear the cheerful sound

of the loom. Then it was that he advised me to set to work and qualify

myself for a service, instead of remaining a weaver; he repenting, as he

said, that he had brought me up to an occupation that wears the spirits

by its changes as much as the body by its toils. No; I do not forget

that winter; but I should be sorry to say any thing about spiting the

Spitalfields weavers, for I am sure every thing was done for us that

charity could do."

"Well, but I don't like charity, for my part; it is not the same thing

as earning, and being beholden to no man."

"Why, that's true; but you have been beholden to no man of late. You

have earned to your heart's content for a long time past, without

interruption from God or man, Mr. Short."

"Not without spite from man, mistress. Do you forget my being forbidden

to keep pigeons these last eighteen months? There was nothing in the

world I cared about like my pigeons: and now, since these many new

houses, with wonderful good windows, have been built, I must send away

my birds, lest they should break a pane."

"You should forgive that, in consideration of your neighbours having

more air and light. Yon very houses, new and with sashed windows, should

show you that times are improved, Mr. Short."

"Lake, the builder, will hardly tell you that they are," observed

Dickens, the weaver. "You should have seen him just now, holding forth

to us about how we have all been deceived. When every thing looked so

bright two years ago, he began to build, thinking there could never be

houses enough for all the weavers that would be wanted; and now, Culver

gives out scarcely a cane, and where is Lake to get his rents?"

"Has not my husband got a cane?" asked Mrs. Cooper, with a faltering

voice.

"Not he, I warrant," replied Short; "and neither Dickens nor I want our

looms; so there is six shillings a week, besides work, struck off from

you at once. And now, mistress, I suppose you will leave off being

thankful for nothing, as you are so ready to be."

Mrs. Cooper made no other answer than taking up little Ichabod, who was

holding up his forefinger, and saying "hark!" to a noise in the street.

When it came nearer, he did not like it, and his under lip began to

project, and his innocent chin to wrinkle for a cry. His mother

chattered to him to send away his fears, though she did not like what

she heard any better than he.

Tramp, tramp, came many feet, and the buzz of voices rose and sank. Some

hundreds must have passed, before every casement in the house was opened

for the inmates to peep out. A sudden gleam of sun which came out

diverted the child's attention; and when he stretched out his hand, with

an impatient cry, to snatch the raindrops that trembled and glistened

from the eaves, every man of the crowd below looked up as he passed.

They might any where have been known for weavers by the projecting eyes

and narrow shoulders which distinguish the tribe, and yet more by the

shuffling step with which they slopped through the pools, with feet

whose accustomed motion was on the treadles of the loom. The pallid

gloom which sat on their faces was a less peculiar characteristic; it

belongs equally to the sinewy miner, the stout ploughman, and the

withered operative, when want is at their heels, and they believe,

rightly or wrongly, that it is the word of tyrants which has set it on

to dog them.

"Holla, there! where are you marching?" cried Dickens from the window.

"Where is Cooper?" he inquired, perceiving that Mrs. Cooper's glance was

wandering over the crowd, and that she had checked herself when about to

ask for him, fearing, no doubt, that he might not like to be called out

from among his companions by a woman's voice. Every man looked round

him, and no Cooper came out.

"He is not there, my mistress," said Dickens, seizing his hat, and

clattering down the narrow stairs to join the mob. "I must just go and

see what is doing; and you will get news from your husband before I come

back, I'll be bound."

There seemed to be a halt at the end of the street, and Short and Mrs.

Cooper, who were now left to their mutual conjectures, emulated each

other in leaning out of the window, to see what was to happen next.

"Dad, dad, dad," said young Ichabod presently, kissing the palm of his

hand, as was his wont when his father came in sight from abroad.

"Why, there's my husband! and I never saw him all this time," cried Mrs.

Cooper, hastening to go down to him as he stood with folded arms,

leaning against the door-post below.--All he could tell was that he

feared some mischief would happen. There had been discontent for some

little time; the worst hands being turned off one week, and more and

more by degrees, till now, when many of the best had been sent home

without the expected employment. There was great anger against the

masters, and, above all, against the Frenchman. Cooper fancied they were

about to call him to account, from the stand the crowd seemed to be

making near his house.

"But, John, what are _we_ to do?"

"Why, we must get on without that six shillings a-week, till our

neighbours have work again. I must work a little harder, that is all."

To her surprise and delight, Mrs. Cooper now perceived that her husband

had lodged just within the door the cane that she had been assured had

been denied him. He, happier than his neighbours in being a better

workman, had employment; and his wife could spare a good-natured smile

at Short's propensity to make the worst of everything, and also some

sympathy for the Frenchman.--She should be sorry if any harm came to

him, far away as the young ladies, his sisters, were from their friends.

It was a pity they came, to be sure, interfering with English-men's

proper business; but they seemed to conduct themselves very well----

"Except in the point of his picking out the best weavers, and getting

them from the other manufacturers," observed Cooper. "He would fain have

had me; but I told Mr. Culver he might depend upon me, as I have too

much spirit to leave an English master for a foreign one."

"Besides that, you would hardly know what to make of his new sorts of

looms and patterns. They would not come easy to your hand."

"For that matter," replied Cooper, "I am not above learning anything

new, even from a Frenchman; and I have some curiosity to find out how

they manage a certain thing that I have been trying after these two

years. I shall try and try again, for I don't want to come out at last a

worse weaver than Cook."

"You a worse weaver than Cook!" exclaimed the wife. "I should like to

see the day when that will happen, John Cooper."

Cooper smiled and reminded his wife how much easier it is to improve

one's craft when put in the way by a knowing person, than when one has

to find it out for one's self. Nevertheless, as Culver had been a good

master to him, he would continue to work for him, if the Frenchman

offered him the weight of his first piece in gold.

"This much," continued Cooper, "I am willing to do for Culver: but as to

anything more, I am for letting a man have fair play, be he French or be

he English. I would not persecute any man for choosing to settle in one

place rather than another, whatever I might think about its being better

for him to remain in his own country."

"Do you think Culver encourages the people against the Frenchman?"

"Not one of the masters likes him; and indeed he does steal their trade

very fast."

"Aye, just at present; but his secrets will soon get abroad; and others

will manufacture as well as he; and then they ought to thank him for

teaching them."

"May be they will then: but they don't now. Not that Culver would lift

his hand and say, 'Burn down that man's house;' but he would rather not

hear him praised as his own weavers praise him."

"They praise everything about him but his odd speech. What a misfortune

'tis that he cannot speak English as we do!"

M. Gaubion, the gentleman in question, daily thought so too. He could

make his way, as to language, very well with educated persons; but the

dialect of his weavers puzzled him perpetually. His foreman acted as

interpreter; but in his absence, M. Gaubion, who at Lyons had been

thought to be very accomplished in the English language, found that he

could not understand one word in ten that was said to him. The case was

made worse by his being a timid man, and fully alive to all the

peculiarities of his situation, without being able to make light of them

as some of the gayer tempered of his countrymen would have done.

On the present occasion, M. Gaubion was taken by surprise; and

unintelligible as the yells of an English mob were likely to be to him

at any time, there was no chance of his understanding them amidst the

conflict of feelings under which he now listened to them. The word

"Macclesfield" alone struck his ear as familiar, and he comprehended

from it that the people disapproved of the proceedings of his firm in

that place, where he believed he had been doing what must be acceptable

in employing some hundreds of people in throwing and manufacturing silk.

He knew that building had been going on, through the stimulus given by

his demand for labour, and that which had arisen in other quarters,

partly through rivalship of himself, partly from an uncontrolled spirit

of speculation, and, yet more, because the silk trade was really, on the

whole, in an improving condition. He wanted to explain to the crowd that

one thousand new houses had been demanded by advertisement in

Macclesfield, the year before, and that from four to five thousand

apprentices had been wanted about the same time; and that if, after this

tremendous state of activity, manufacturers found their business slack

for a time, it was hard to lay the blame on him of what had resulted

from their own extravagant speculations. It was wronging him to suppose

that his concern, however flourishing, could swallow up all others, or

that he had any more to do with the temporary distress at Macclesfield

or in Spitalfields than at Coventry, where there were thousands out of

employment at this very time.--M. Gaubion could find no words, however,

at the critical moment; and if he had, they could scarcely have been

heard while the builder, who could not get his rents, was haranguing,

and the disappointed weavers were shouting, and the envious

manufacturers on the outskirts of the mob were grumbling about the

favour shown to Frenchmen by an unpatriotic government. There was

nothing to be done but to throw down among the crowd the newspaper

containing the advertisements about houses and apprentices, and to trust

to the sense of the people to discover what it was that they were to

make out from the proceeding.

The constables now arrived and inspired him with more confidence in

their staves than he had in the good sense of the people. Stragglers

fell off from the main body in all directions, till nobody chose to stay

to be marked as disposed for a riot. They left the foreigner wondering

in himself.

"What is it that these people would have? I employ hundreds of them, and

they complain. I teach them my superior art, and they are jealous. If I

were to employ but twenty where I employ a hundred, they would complain

yet more. If we Frenchmen kept the secrets of our manufacture, these

English would nourish a still stronger jealousy. What is it that they

would have?"

This was just the question which Mrs. Cooper had ready for her husband

to answer, when he returned, newspaper in hand, from M. Gaubion's house.

"They want a steady, uniform demand," was his reply; "which neither M.

Gaubion, nor any one else, can ensure them, unless they could give them

masters with cool and sound heads, and find some broom that would sweep

away the mischiefs that remain from old bad plans. How is M. Gaubion, or

any one else, to prevent the slackness which comes of building a

thousand new houses to hold five thousand new apprentices in one

town?--of which you may read in this paper. And if we are so jealous of

the French goods as by law to declare all of a wrong length which are

made ready to be sold here as soon as they are allowed to be brought in,

how is Gaubion, or any one else, to prevent the smuggling of those

goods? What we want is a little prudence on the part of the government

and the masters, and a little patience on that of the men."

"Aye, patience!" cried Short. "Patience enough wanted to hear you talk!

Here you have been preaching prudence and patience these ten years; and

all for what? Can anything make the silk trade prosper?"

"It has prospered, for two years past, only rather too vehemently,"

replied Cooper. "If the masters had let it grow a little more gradually,

all would have been right: and all will be right yet, if we have but a

little patience, as I said before."

"You have no reason for saying that, in the face of all experience."

"I have reason;--and that from experience. The demand for thrown silk is

greater than ever it was; and if that is not a good sign, I don't know

what is. Nearly twice as much thrown silk is imported now as there was

when the trade was most protected; and our throwsters at home find a

demand for a million of pounds more than was needed two years ago. Now

what is this silk all wanted for but to be woven? and, depend upon it,

Mr. Short, you will have your share."

"Aye, when, I wonder? You talk as if I were a young man, instead of an

old fellow who can't wait for his bread till new-fashioned schemes are

tried, and the old ones found to be best. When, I say?"

"When we make trial of fair play between nation and nation; which will

be after next July."

"And here is May now," observed Mrs. Cooper. "If no more silk is to be

smuggled after July, Mr. Short, you will soon be at your loom again. I

wish I could think that the French gentleman would be comfortable after

that time; but I fear the feeling against him is too strong to go down

so soon."

"That is the worst of such feelings ever being allowed to grow up,"

replied her husband. "However we may talk about being on free, and fair,

and friendly terms of competition with the French after July, I doubt

whether we shall be willing to make the experiment really a fair one, as

if we belonged all to one country."

"Why, John," said his wife, "even you would not work for the foreigner

so soon as for your old employer. You were saying so this very morning."

John muttered something about its being a different thing countenancing

Frenchmen in their proper country and in one's own neighbourhood; but he

could not give a very satisfactory account of what he meant. He ended by

hoping that there would be room in the world of production for

everybody; and that all would find out where it was easiest to get what

all wanted, that each, whether English, French, or Chinese, might be

employed to furnish what he could provide most easily and cheaply, and

all help one another. If this were done, all might perhaps be well

furnished with necessaries and comforts; and, if not, their privations

would not be made more bitter by the jealousies which God's children now

nourished against one another.

Short was sure the only way to have peace and quiet was to go on in the

old way.

"What shall we make of you, my boy?" cried Cooper, catching up the child

for a romp, before beginning the arduous task of putting his new piece

into the loom. "What shall we make of you, child? Will you be a little

weaver?"

The boy immediately began stamping with his tiny foot, and reaching out

his hand for the shuttle.

"Why, look!" cried his delighted mother. "He is pretending to weave

already. Aye; that is the way, my boy. Tread, tread! That is the way.

Will Ichabod be a weaver, like father?"

"In steadier times than his father lived in, I hope," said Cooper. "Hey,

boy? Will you weave like a Frenchman, Ichabod, so that your loom may be

as busy as a Frenchman's?"

"And carry an English heart in your breast, dear, all the time?" added

old Short.

"Without hating the foreigners," observed Mrs. Cooper. "We must teach

him, John, that there is room in the wide world for all."

CHAPTER II.

MATTERS OF TASTE.

Though M. Gaubion was himself too shy to be very eager about the society

of his neighbours, he had no wish to place any restraint upon the

inclination of his household for intercourse, not only with the families

to whom they had brought special introductions, but with those whose

near residence tempted to an acquaintance. Mr. Culver and he merely

exchanged bows and slight greetings when they passed; but that was no

reason why Mr. Culver's daughters, who met his little sister Adèle at

children's parties, should not be her companions at other times; nor why

Mademoiselle Gaubion, the elder sister, and his housekeeper, should not

indulge her hospitable disposition, and make as many friends as she

could.

It was a great mortification to this lady to see her brother looked

coldly upon by those who ought, she believed, to be capable of

appreciating his manifold merits: but she conceived that this coldness

would only be increased by her becoming reserved also; and that the best

justice and kindness to him was to endeavour to interest those whom he

could not exert himself to propitiate. She made herself popular for his

sake, and earnestly hoped in time to see her own popularity merge in

his. Mr. Culver already pronounced her a very amiable and accomplished

young person, and declared himself happy in allowing Charlotte and Lucy

to visit Adèle, though nurse was somewhat lofty in her way of talking

about the freedom which the foreigners were so ready to use with her

young ladies.--The time had been when a sentence from nurse would have

settled the matter any way she chose; but the girls were growing up now

to an age when it was proper to consult them about their undertakings

and pleasures; and nurse had never been what she once was since the loss

of her son. She was more prejudiced and more peevish than ever, and had,

therefore, lost much of her authority over her master as well as her

charges. As she did not choose herself to lift the knocker of a

Frenchman's door, there was nothing for it but to order Susan to go with

the girls instead.

Before Charlotte and Lucy had been long seated, they were observed to be

exchanging looks and whispering about something which stood on a table

at one end of the room.

"My flowers! You envy me my flowers," said Mademoiselle Gaubion. "Smell

them then. Are they not sweet as they are full blown?"

Not all the politeness which Charlotte could muster enabled her to say

that the smell was very sweet. Instead of white-thorn, mignionette, and

carnation, the perfume was rather that of musk. She caught Mademoiselle

Gaubion's hand in the midst of its flourishes to and from her nostrils,

and obtained a close view of the bouquet. It was artificial.--Lucy

agreed with her that neither had ever before seen such artificial

flowers; and it was long before they were tired of placing them in

various lights, and trying how easy it would be to deceive nurse and

their youngest sister as they had themselves been deceived. Harriet

Breme would hardly wear her lily of the valley any more if she could see

these. She might look through her father's stock many times before she

would find any so fresh looking,--so very natural.

In a little while, Mademoiselle Gaubion observed, such flowers as these

might be had in every shop in London where such goods were sold. In

July----

"O, that is when French silks may be had, papa says. But these flowers

cannot be made of silk."

Mademoiselle Gaubion explained that the cocoons of silk-worms were used

for these flowers, and showed how they were painted and embroidered into

the semblance of real flowers. She offered to teach Charlotte how to

make them, if it was thought worth while. Charlotte thought it would be

well worth while, as all flowers except such coarse-daubed bunches as

she did not like to wear, cost a great deal of money.

Adèle also had yet to learn. She had had plenty of flowers for her

doll's robe and turban at Lyons; but she had bought them, as they cost

next to nothing there.

"Ah," said Lucy, "we were wondering how some French things can be made

so cheap. Nurse has a beautiful box that her son got somehow from

France, and it cost only a shilling. He told her so, for fear she should

think he had done an extravagant thing. There is a glass at the bottom;

and the sides are of pink paper, beautifully plaited; and there is an

enamelled picture of the Virgin and St. Somebody; and round the picture,

the prettiest wreath of flowers;--tiny roses and forget-me-not, and

yellow buds and green leaves between. It is a large box,--as large as my

hand; and it cost only a shilling. The flowers alone would cost two,

papa says, if we ordered such to be made here."

"We would show you that box," said Charlotte, "but that we do not like

to ask nurse now for anything that her poor son gave her. She can think

of nothing but him all the day after, if we do."

"Poor nurse! has her son left her?" asked Mademoiselle Gaubion.

"O, he died,--and so shockingly! It is more than two years ago now; but

nurse is as grieved as ever when anything puts her in mind of it. It was

so dreadful for the first few days,--before it was known exactly what

had become of him! Nurse would not believe he was dead; and she was

always saying that the smugglers had carried him out to sea, and sold

him for a sailor, like somebody she once heard about. She was sure he

would come back one day, either a rich India merchant, or begging at the

door,--or somehow. And then, when the next letter came----"

"Did it tell? Was he dead?"

"O yes. Papa would not let us tell Maria, for fear of its making her

afraid to go to bed; and I believe he did not mean us elder ones to

know; but nurse set us to ask my brother Robert; for she never believed

that papa had told her everything. Do you know, when they had shot him

dead, they put his body into a cavern in the cliff, on the top of a

flight of steps, and sitting up so that he looked as if he was alive,

the first moment they found him."

"But O, what do you think put it into their heads to look for him

there?" interrupted Lucy. "They saw two cliff-ravens fly out when

somebody went near the cavern; and then they knew that there must be a

body there."

Lucy stopped short at a sign from her sister, who thought the rest of

the story too horrible to be told. Since Adèle could not make out by any

mode of cross-questioning, what these further particulars were, she

wanted next to know what caused Nicholas to be murdered. Her sister

explained to her, with so much feeling, the nature of the service on

which he had been engaged, and showed so much concern at his fate, that

Lucy said, half to herself, and looking wistfully at Mademoiselle

Gaubion,

"I shall tell nurse how sorry you are."

"Tell her, if it can comfort her to have the sympathy of a stranger."

"A stranger,--a foreigner," repeated Lucy, still half to herself.

"I said a stranger, not a foreigner," replied Mademoiselle, smiling. "As

long as it is a stranger who sympathizes, what matters it whether she be

native or foreign?"

"Nurse thinks," replied Charlotte, "that French people are not sorry

when any harm comes to those who try to prevent their smuggling. She was

saying this morning----"

Another sign from Charlotte.

"Tell me what she said," replied Mademoiselle, smiling in a way which

emboldened Lucy to proceed.

"She said she did not want to have anybody in the neighbourhood that had

helped to murder her son; and that every French person had helped to

murder him, because it was the trying to get in French goods that made

all the mischief."

"Nurse does not know, perhaps, that the French suffer no less than the

English in this kind of struggle. Frenchmen are sometimes thrown

overboard into the sea, or shot on the shore. Frenchmen run the risk of

losing their goods; and in such a contention, I am afraid it sometimes

happens that a Frenchman hates an Englishman."

"What! for smuggling each others' goods? If they want each others'

goods, why do not they buy and sell them at once, without loss and

fighting and cheating and murder?"

"Are you French really sorry about smuggling?" asked Lucy. "Because, if

you are----"

"You may see in a moment that my brother is sorry. Why else should he

leave his country, and come to live here? He comes to make silk here

which may be sold without cheating and fighting."

"And if papa went to Lyons, would the people there be glad or sorry to

see him?"

"If he went to make silks, they would not be either particularly glad or

sorry, because the people at Lyons make silks better than your papa, or

any other Englishman, knows how to make them yet. But if your papa went

to make cotton goods, or knives and scissors, or if he set up iron

works, they would be very glad to have him; for all these things are

made by the English better than by the French."

"Then you would get artificial flowers so cheap that you need not make

them yourselves," added Adèle: "and you would have silk frocks, like the

Bremes; for the prettiest silk frocks cost twelve or fourteen shillings

less there than here."

Charlotte thought she should like to go to Lyons; it would be such a

saving of money; and she thought the Lyons people must like coming to

London, if they could get things made of iron, and steel, and cotton,

cheaper than in France. Adèle proposed that there should be a general

change; that all the Lyons people should come to London, and as many

Londoners go to Lyons. As it was plain, however, that this would leave

matters just where they were at first, as the French could not bring

their silk-worms from the south with them, nor the English carry their

iron mines on their backs, the simple expedient occurred to the young

ladies of the inhabitants sending their produce freely to one another,

instead of wandering from home to produce it.

"If the French would send me my silk," observed Charlotte, "I might save

my fourteen shillings here just as well as at Lyons; and if I had to pay

a little for the bringing, some Lyons girl would pay papa for the

sending of the cotton gowns she would buy of him. What a capital bargain

it would be for us both! Do not you think so, Mademoiselle?"

"I do; but there are many who do not. When some of our French rulers

wished that our people should save their money by buying your cottons

where they could be had cheapest, our people were frightened. They sent

and told the king that France was ready to bathe his throne with her

tears in agony at the idea of buying English goods so easily: and now,

you know, some of you English are just as much alarmed at being allowed

to get silks cheaper than you can make them."

"But it is so very silly!" exclaimed Charlotte. "Such people might as

well prefer paying five shillings for a bad bouquet to paying

half-a-crown for a pretty one, like that. I do not see why they should

give away money to bad flower-makers at that rate."

"Especially when the bad flower-makers might get more money still by

doing something which they could do much better. Yet this is just the

way that Buonaparte made his people waste their money, some time ago. He

would not let them have sugar and coffee from the places where they

could be had best and cheapest, but would try to produce them at home.

He made people press out the juice of carrots and beet-root, and

whatever tasted sweet, as the sugar cane will not grow in France; and,

with a world of trouble, they made a little sugar; but it was far too

dear for many people to buy. They tried to make tea of many kinds of

herbs, and coffee of bitter and burnt roots; while, all this time, there

was plenty of tea in China, and sugar and coffee in the West Indies."

"I would have left off all those things, if I might not have had them

properly," said Charlotte.

Lucy thought it would be very hard to be so stinted by any man's caprice

and jealousy; and she saw that the saving would be only in one way,

after all. The French might save the money they were bidden to spend on

dear sugar and bad tea, but they would still lose the opportunity of

selling the goods of their own manufacture which the Chinese and the

West Indians would have taken in return for their tea and sugar. It was

very odd of Buonaparte not to see that his plan caused a loss in every

way.--Mademoiselle thought that he did see this; but that he did not

mind the loss to his own people, provided he made the English suffer.

She had nothing to say for the good-nature of this; but who thought of

good-nature when kings go to war, with the express purpose of ruining

one another as fast as possible, while they each boast that God is on

their side? She remembered that her father admired Buonaparte as much as

anybody could; but even her father could not thank him for making many

of the necessaries and comforts of life so dear as to prevent his

getting on in the world. She remembered the day when the news came that

foreign trading was to go on again. Her father found himself able then

to make her brother Marc a farmer. Marc had long wished to be a farmer;

but his father had not had the power to do anything for him while much

of his money was swallowed up in the consumption of things which were

only to be had dear and bad as long as the ports were shut.

"I suppose," said Charlotte, "that must have been the case with many

people besides your father. Everybody that kept house must have saved as

soon as the ports were opened. I wonder what they did with their

savings!"

"Madame Mairon began to dress her daughters in the prettiest English

muslins that ever were seen. All Lyons began to admire those girls,

though some complained that they spent their money on foreign goods. But

I am sure they laid out a great deal on native ribbons and lace at the

same time, which they could not have afforded if tea and sugar had been

as high as ever. Then there were the Carillons. They set up a hundred

more looms directly; and every body called them proud and speculative;

but the looms are still busy, I fancy."

"Ah, that is the worst of it," observed Charlotte. "While their looms

are going, ours are standing still."

"Not _because_ theirs are going. Witness my brother's. The Carillons

made silks for many countries, but not for England; for they have never

smuggled, I believe. When your father's weavers see the goods the

Carillons will send over, after next July, they may learn to weave as

well; and then your father may sell as many; for there will be more

people to wear silks every year, in proportion as more countries send us

goods, and want some in return. There is plenty of room in the world for

your father, and my brother, and the Carillons."

"I wish," said Adèle, "you would show Lucy the shells M. Carillon gave

you."

"What sort of shells?" Lucy asked: and for an answer she was shown into

a room at the rear of the house, which was unlike any room she had ever

seen before. One side of it was occupied by cases of stuffed birds, some

from all the four quarters of the world. There were other curiosities in

great abundance, less captivating to young eyes than gold-dropped

African partridges, and burnished American hummingbirds; but the shells

transcended the most brilliant of the winged creatures. Speckled,

streaked, polished, they were held before the eye. Fluted, indented,

ribbed in waving lines, they were examined by the touch. Murmuring, they

were held to the delighted ear. There was no end of admiring the pearly

hues of some, the delicate whiteness of others, and the fantastic forms

of those which lay in the centre of the cabinet.

"So M. Carillon gave you these shells!"

"Some of them. Those in the compartment that Lucy is looking at. M.

Carillon's sons have not quite all the world to themselves to trade in;

though they do sell their father's goods on many shores. When your

brothers grow up to be merchants, and sell your father's silks in many

countries, they will bring you shells as beautiful as these, if you ask

them."

"I should like a parrot better," said Lucy.

"I should like some plums and chocolate, like those that Pierre had sent

him from South America," observed Adèle.

"Well, anything you please," replied Mademoiselle. "Only let the nations

be in good humour with one another, and we may all have what we like. I

know I should never have possessed this pretty museum if Jean Carillon

had not been trading to India, and fallen in with these shells; and

there is not a museum in Paris that will not be improved, year by year,

as our ships go into new countries, and bring fresh curiosities for us

to study and admire."

"But I suppose these shells cost a great deal; and the birds, too?"

"They do at present, because it is a sort of new taste, and very little

pains have been taken to gratify it. But there are shells enough in the

deep and wide Indian seas to furnish the cabinets of the world; and

there are birds enough in the western forests and gardens to show every

child in our close cities what beautiful creatures God has made to

flutter in his hottest sunshine. The taste will be sure to spread, as it

is for the good of everybody that it should spread. Many natives of

foreign countries who now lie dozing on the burning shores, trying to

forget their hunger and not to regard the heats, will dive into the

green sea for the beautiful things that are hidden there. They will be

up and busy when they see European ships on the horizon, and sing as

they sit polishing and preparing the curiosities which are to bring them

bread for their children, and raise a roof over their own heads."

"But we must pay for these curiosities," objected Lucy. "We must pay

very high; and I think that is not fair, when birds can be had for the

catching, and shells by being just taken out of the sea."

"When those days come, my dear, we shall pay what will be a high price

to those natives, but a low one to us. People in their country will

begin to wish for our curiosities, as we wish for theirs. A savage gave

this noble shell, as large as my hand, and more finely veined than any

marble in the world, for six nails; and when that savage's children grow

a little more civilized than we are now, they will give another such

shell for a square inch of your Derbyshire lead ore, or half-a-dozen

dried English plants. Then the drying of plants here, and the diving for

shells there, will be a business which will support a family; and both

countries will be wiser and happier than they were before, by having

obtained something new to study and admire."

"I think," said Adèle, "that people will not know, till that time, all

that they might and should know of what God has made for them."

"They will certainly not know all the happiness that God has made for

them, till they share as equally as possible what He has given to each;

whether it be that which belongs to sea, air or earth, or the produce of

man's skill. Whatever any country produces best, that let it exchange

for what other countries produce best. Thus will all be best served, and

in the best humour with each other."

"If you might choose what you would have from the finest country in the

world, what should it be?" asked Lucy of Mademoiselle.

"I should like a great number of things to make our museum more

complete. Here are only a few stray treasures."

"But M. Carillon is going to send you something very strange and very

valuable," observed Adèle. "Something from Egypt, is not it?"

"Yes; and I shall be very glad of whatever he may send me; but he cannot

give me what I should like best."

"I know what you mean. You want some plants. Well, perhaps this may be a

dried lotus, or the flowering reed of the Nile. His son has been in

Egypt; and how do you know that he may not be sending you plants?"

"I should like them alive," replied Mademoiselle. "The potato was

brought alive, and it grew and flourished; and I should like to try

whether some of the American shrubs could not be made to grow here.

There are some of the Madeira mountain plants which I would rather have

than wine and oranges."

"But what would you do with them? There is no room here for such a

garden as we had by the river-side at Lyons; and even in a conservatory

the plants would get smoked."

"Why, that is true," replied Mademoiselle, sighing. "We must be content

with our little museum."

"Are you very fond of plants?" enquired Charlotte. "Then I will take you

to two or three of papa's weavers----"

She stopped short, and bit her lip, and Lucy frowned at her.

Mademoiselle asked with a smile,

"What of the weavers? Will they show me flowers?"

Charlotte answered constrainedly that the operatives of Spitalfields

were very fond of their little gardens, and succeeded in raising

beautiful tulips and auriculas.

"O, let us go! It cannot be far, and it is a very fine evening," said

the eager little lady, looking up to the yellow sunshine which streamed

in from between two opposite chimneys. Charlotte and Lucy glanced at

each other, and neither offered to move.

"Why, my children, is it possible?" cried Mademoiselle, putting a hand

on the shoulder of each, and looking them full in the face with a smile.

"You are afraid, I see, to introduce me to your father's weavers. You

are afraid to tell nurse that you have done so, because poor nurse is

jealous of the French gentleman, and his little French sister. Is it not

so?"

The girls seemed about to cry. Mademoiselle went on,

"You shall request your father to introduce me to a florist or two.

Meantime, we will ask my brother whether there are such among those whom

he employs. My girls, we are of one country now,--you and I. Why should

there be any tormenting, unworthy jealousy? Tell me why."

Charlotte only knew that some people thought,--some people feared,--it

seemed so very natural that manufacturers should get the best weavers

from one another.

"So very natural!" exclaimed Mademoiselle. "I tell you, my girl, that my

brother has it not in his nature to feel jealousy of a neighbour; and I

tell you also that my brother will in time give good weavers to your

father and to all of the same occupation in this neighbourhood. If the

suspicion you speak of were natural, it would be for my brother to feel

it; yet, I will take you among his men without fear, if we find that

they have tulips and auriculas."

Before Charlotte had quite ventured to look again in Mademoiselle's

face, M. Gaubion came in, and gave her the address of several of his men

who were as fond of flowers as herself. When she gaily asked him if he

was afraid of the Miss Culvers being admitted to intercourse with

persons who were working for him, he smiled and added the address of a

woman who was weaving velvet of a particularly curious pattern, which he

thought the young ladies might like to see. This woman might have

auriculas too, for aught M. Gaubion knew; and the party set out to

ascertain the point.

Mrs. Ellis was found at her loom, and overheard to be scolding lustily

till her visitors popped their heads through the gap by which the stairs

opened into the room. Her natural tone of voice was not immediately

recoverable, and she spoke in something between a whine and a scream,

which suited ill with the languid air with which she hung her head

aside, and fumbled with the gilt locket which hung by a worn hair-chain

round her neck. She had so much the appearance of an actress of the

lowest grade, that Mademoiselle thought there could be no mistake in

conjecturing that she had not always pursued her present occupation, nor

offence in asking how the confinement suited her health. She had sat at

the loom, she said, since she was the age of that boy,--pointing to a

lad who had evidently been the object of her wrath. Not that she had had

work all that time. O, no! She had suffered her share from want of work.

Indeed, it was hard to tell which was worst for the health;--the load on

the spirits of having no work, or the fatigue of weaving. If the ladies

would believe her, it was a killing occupation. It sat very hard upon

her stomach, and her heart turned half round; and her lungs,--O, if they

knew what lungs she had!

"You let us know that before we came up to see you," observed

Mademoiselle. "If you think your lungs weak, is it not a pity that you

should exert them as you did just now? And, this minute, you spoke much

louder than we need trouble you to do."

"Ah! ma'am, 'tis the way with my voice. When it once gets up, I can't,

somehow, get it down again."

The boy at the loom confirmed this by a sidelong look of great meaning.

His mother sighed so as to show a fine remaining capacity of lung, and

was about to proceed about her infirm head, and a weak ancle that she

had had all her life, when her visitors turned the current of her

complaints upon the times. Poor wages! very poor wages! and hard work.

It was a bad sort of employment.

"Why, then, do you bring up your children to it? Here are five looms in

this room."

"Yes, ma'am; but only three for my own family. My eldest girl is a

filler. Those two farther looms are let to neighbours."

"And both with work in them, I see. This seems a pretty piece of black

silk that your boy is about; and he seems to be doing his work well."

"Pretty well, ma'am: pretty well, for the time. I thank the Almighty,

Tom is a middling boy."

The little lad had all the appearance of being better than a middling

boy. He worked with might and main while the ladies stood by, shouting

the shortest possible answers to their questions, amidst the noise of

his machine. His mother gave him a smart rap on the head, and asked him

where his manners were, to go on with his weaving while the ladies spoke

to him. His looks conveyed his apprehension that he should have been

equally found fault with if he had quitted his grasp of his shuttle

without leave. He now related that he was twelve years old, had learned

to weave three weeks, and had in that time woven sixteen yards, for

which he was to have sixpence a-yard. The ladies thought that, in

relation to him, his mother's voice ought to be made to come down again,

to whatever pitch it might have risen.

"And whose work is this?" asked Charlotte, examining a piece of slight

French-white silk, carelessly covered with a brown-looking cloth.

"That's Peggy's," replied Tom. "She has left it for to-night, to make

the beds."

The girls had observed, as they mounted the stairs, that though there

was a green baize on the floor of the room below, a handsome mahogany

chest of drawers, a tea-tray with a tiger upon it, and above it two fine

pictures,--viz., the Duke of Wellington staring mightily upon his

companion, a Madonna, as if meditating war against her child--though all

these things testified to the means of comfort being in the house, there

existed the deplorable discomfort of unmade beds late in the evening. A

curl-papered girl, with a face grimed with dust from her loom, was

lazily undrawing the curtains, and about to let in the fresh air for the

first time that day. Mademoiselle did not know much about how far money

went in this country; but she consulted with Charlotte as to whether the

times ought to be called very bad by a family who earned respectively,

three, five, ten, and twenty shillings a-week, besides letting two looms

at three shillings per week each. Charlotte thought they must be so well

off that it would be worth while to spare the second girl from her loom,

and give her time to take her hair out of the paper with which it

bristled, to make the beds in the cool air of the morning, to new paper

the staircase, where tatters hung to gather the dust, revealing the most

snug mouse-holes possible; to brush the green baize, polish the tiger,

and dust the Duke of Wellington; and, finally, to purify the atmosphere

of the weaving-room, by certain appliances which seemed at present not

to be dreamed of. But Mrs. Ellis appeared to think that it would be time

enough to clean when days of adversity should come.

She resumed her curious velvet weaving, that the young ladies might

observe the action of the machinery; in the course of which

investigation Adèle was sensible of a descent of dust into her mouth as

she looked up, and Lucy's cheek was tickled by a floating cobweb. Seeing

the one make a grimace, and the other rub her cheek indignantly,

Charlotte asked Mrs. Ellis how often she whitewashed. The lady with the

locket smiled at the simplicity of such a question, addressed to a

weaver; and when asked whether dust did not injure her work, she reached

out her hand for a brush which lay near, gave one stroke with a skilful

flourish, and looked with a triumphant face through the cloud she had

just raised, as if to say, "You see!" Part of the gesture was, however,

lost upon her visitors; for Mademoiselle had run to the window on the

first hint of what was going to happen; Charlotte was coughing; and Lucy

and Adèle had their hands before their faces.

Mademoiselle returned, after awhile, to suggest a modest doubt whether

it was not better to be without dust, than to brush it from one place

that it might fall upon another--into Mrs. Ellis's weak lungs, among

other receptacles; but Mrs. Ellis seemed to agree with old Short, that a

loom would be nothing without cobwebs; and all that remained, therefore,

was to ask about the auriculas.

Tom brightened up at the word. The poor lad had none to show at home;

for his mother had no idea of sparing him time enough to make any use of

the small patch of soil behind the house, which presented a fine study

of cabbage-stalks and broken crockery to any painter who might happen to

be passing by the back lane. But Cooper lived at hand; and Cooper

happened to like auriculas, and to think Tom something more than "a

middling boy;" and he encouraged him to come at spare minutes, and watch

the progress of his friend's gardening; and, moreover, allowed him a

corner in which to set a root or two of his own. At the first sign of

permission from his mother, Tom now pulled down his wristbands, flung on

his coat, and stood, cap in hand, to show the ladies the way.

It was not till the Miss Culvers drew one another's attention to old

Short, as his grizzled head was seen from the garden to be moving in his

loom, that it occurred to Mademoiselle that she might be trespassing on

the premises of their father's weavers, after all. Next popped up at the

window the round face of Ichabod, kissing the palm of his hand as he saw

his father, though Charlotte flattered herself that this act of courtesy

was intended in answer to her nod.

"O dear!" said Mademoiselle, "we are in a forbidden place. Come,

Charlotte, come and hear that I am not begging to know any secrets about

weaving, but only about flowers: and, Lucy, do you keep beside Adèle;

and if she asks any questions that nurse would not like, tell me."

Cooper laughed, and said that he was the one to learn, instead of

communicating secrets to French manufacturers; and Miss Charlotte need

not fear his leaving her father's service, as he had told his wife, but

a little time ago, that Mr. Culver had been a good master to him, and he

was determined to work for him still, if all the foreigners in the world

came to settle near. He explained that he meant no incivility by this,

offering the choice of some fine roots to Mademoiselle, giving her

advice as to the cultivation of them, and inviting her to come whenever

she liked to consult him on this matter of mutual taste.

"How is it," asked Mademoiselle, smiling, "that you will treat a

foreigner, as to flowers, as if she was an Englishwoman? Do you forget

that I am French, that you thus offer me the choice of your tulips?"

Cooper replied that God had made flowers to grow in all parts of the

world as a common possession; and that for people to be jealous of one

another's methods of cultivation was a meanness that he, for one, would

be ashamed of. He knew that a neighbour of his had wrung off the head of

a pigeon of a rare kind, that he might be master of the only pair of

that kind in existence; but this was, in his opinion, making sport of

God's works, and encouraging bad feelings towards men, in a way which

was irreligious, if anything was. If he saw a party of his neighbours'

children in the fields, one taking possession of all the violets, and

another of all the primroses, and a third of all the buttercups, and

preventing those to whom only daisies were left from having any benefit

of what God's hand had scattered for all, he should get his bible, and

show them plenty of sayings in it which should make them ashamed of

themselves.

"And why not so, likewise, with that which is produced by man?" inquired

the lady. "Are not the faculties of man roots from which proceed

designs; and are not the fruits of those designs as clearly given for

common use in the end as the blossoms which are scattered over the

fields and meadows? Let him that gathers call them his; but let him be

free to impart when he meets with another who also desires to

impart,--free from the interference of authority--free from the envious

remarks of those who look on; and if one has more skill than another,

let them learn of one another."

"To be sure, madam: just as I am willing to show you my method with my

tulips."

"And as my brother is willing to improve your silk manufacture. But you

will not learn what he has to teach, because he is a foreigner."

Cooper was willing enough to learn as much as he could find out by

examining what was wrought in the Frenchman's loom; but working for him,

when English masters were to be had, was altogether a different thing.

One would think, Mademoiselle observed, that God had made the flowers of

the field, and that man had made himself, by the distinction thus set up

between those possessions which were allowed to be given for the good of

all, and those which were proposed to be kept for selfish purposes.

Clothing of silk was as much furnished by Providence as the raiment of

the field-lilies; and to forbid the transference of the one or the other

is to oppress both those who would transfer and those who would receive:

it was to condemn violet-gatherers to have nothing but violets, and

primrose-lovers to grow tired of primroses; while they would have been

made perfectly happy by the mixed garland, whose materials were all

within their reach.

Cooper observed that his little Ichabod had grown tired of buttercups

lately, and had got the habit of throwing them out of the window. It was

sometimes difficult to amuse so young a child, who had no companions at

home. He often thought of taking him to the infant school, where the

little ones had sham gardens, which it was pretty to look at.

"Let your child carry his lap full of buttercups," replied Mademoiselle,

"and he will exchange them readily for things which he will not throw

out of the window; and from this infant traffic we will go and take a

lesson in mutual confidence and mutual help."

CHAPTER III.

CHANCE CUSTOMERS.

Nurse Nicholas had met with so much sympathy and kindness from everybody

about her since the day when her misfortune was made known to her, that

she excited, at length, something like envy in the inferior servants of

Mr. Culver's family. They had, at first, offered to make up her mourning

for her, and to take the entire charge of the children for a few days,

that she might have leisure to grieve alone; and they were making slops,

or mixing brandy-and-water for her all day long for the first

week,--thinking indulgence a very consoling thing, whether earned by

illness of body or pain of mind. Moreover, they had patience with her

pettishness for a longer time than could have been expected, observing

to one another that it was certainly a very cutting thing to have an

only son shot; and that it was enough to make any temper go astray to

think of anybody that had done his best for his country being served in

such a way. In time, however, when four years had elapsed, they began to

feel that the call upon their good-nature and forbearance was more

protracted and incessant than was necessary. Nurse had really grown so

proud, that it was difficult to keep well with her; and they were tired

of seeing the very same look come over her face, and of hearing the very

same sigh, whenever there was mention of things which must be mentioned

sometimes,--people's sons, for instance, and the sea, and tobacco, and

such things. If there was any sort of dispute, in which their master or

the young ladies interfered, everybody was sure to be blamed except

nurse; and profit came out of her misfortune in other ways, too. They

wished they might ever get into such favour with any master or mistress

as to have friends to tea as often as nurse had; and all to cry over the

story of poor Nicholas, though, to be sure, time was found to talk about

plenty of other things before the evening was over. Then, though

Nicholas had been a very good son, in respect of sending presents to his

mother, out of his pay, the gifts she now had would much more than make

up for anything she had lost from that quarter. They could not conceive,

for their parts, what she could do with her wages; they only wished they

were to expect what she must have to leave. She really could not spend

anything, except for the trifles she gave the children on their

birthdays. As sure as the year came round, her master presented her with

a black gown; and the young ladies bought muslin handkerchiefs and

mourning-caps, more than she could use; and Mademoiselle had knitted her

a pair of black mits for Sundays, that were quite a curiosity for the

knitting. O yes; it was very well to wear mourning from year to

year,--longer than she had done for her husband. Nurse would always wear

mourning now, as well she might, though they doubted whether she would

have had much more comfort of her son, if he had lived, than now; for he

could not have been spared often from his duty, and he was always but a

poor hand at writing a letter. If a woman was to lose an only son, it

could hardly happen in an easier way than it had happened to nurse.

In the midst of some such speculations as these, it happened that nurse

accepted a little black shawl from one of the young ladies with

unaccountable indifference. There was nothing for it but to suppose that

she was now so accustomed to presents that she thought little of them.

But on the next Sunday the matter was differently explained. Nurse

appeared in a splendid figured brocade, which had been left her by an

aunt, and never altered in the fashion, from there being no materials

wherewith to make up any part of it afresh. By dint of a double quantity

of muslin handkerchief, and of a long and wide muslin apron, tamboured

by herself when at school, the peculiarities of the waist were in part

hidden, while enough projected on all sides to show what fine, stout

fabrics our fathers could weave. The apparition of nurse, thus attired,

appeared on the stairs time enough to allow of all the necessary

speculation being gone through before church.

"Papa, papa!" cried Lucy, flying about the house to find her father, who

was reading his Sunday paper quietly in the back parlour. "Oh,

papa!----"

"Well, my dear. But I wish you would not slam the door."

"I thought nurse was behind, and I did not want her to come in. Oh,

papa! have you seen nurse?"

"No, my dear. Is her nose growing out of the window, and over hill and

dale, like the wonderful nose in the German story that Maria was telling

me?"

"No, no! but she does look so odd in that gay gown that she used to show

us for a sight; and just after Charlotte gave her a shawl, too,--a shawl

with a border of pretty grey and white pattern, on a black ground. She

might have worn Charlotte's shawl a little first."

"She will wear it still, I dare say; and perhaps she thinks she has been

in black long enough."

Nurse now came in, with a prim and somewhat sentimental expression of

countenance, as if thinking that she ought to change her face with her

dress, and scarcely knowing how to set about it. Her master's question

soon brought back one of her accustomed modes of looking and speaking.

"You are going out for the day, I suppose, nurse?"

"Going out, sir! where should I go to? It is for those who have friends

and relations to go out visiting; and I have none, except just the

Taylors and the Aytons, and old Mr. Martin, and Sukey Street, and a few

more. You seem to think I must be always wanting to go out visiting,

sir."

"Not at all, nurse. It was only that I saw you were dressed, and I

supposed----"

"Dressed! aye, it is time to be dressed when the very nursery-maids make

as fine a show as their mistresses did twenty years ago. Why, there is

Mrs. Mudge's nurse-maid; I curtsied to her last week, knowing the baby,

and taking the girl for Mrs. Mudge herself, as I well might do, for she

had a prettier Leghorn than ever her mistress wore, and a slate-coloured

silk, with leg of mutton sleeves. You may rely upon it, sir, with leg of

mutton sleeves, and a band the same, buckled behind, like a young lady."

"And so you put on something gayer than a slate-coloured silk to outdo

her."

"It puts one upon one's dignity, sir, to see such ways in bits of girls

sprung up but yesterday. At this girl's age I worked hard enough, I

remember, for months together, before I got a chintz, which was thought

a great thing in my day."

"And I dare say somebody scolded you for getting it; for chintzes cost

as much then as some silks do now. I dare say somebody scolded you,

nurse."

"Why, my mistress made me wear black mittens and a white apron with it,

to show that I was a servant: which was very proper, though I had no

mind to it at the time. But as to wearing silk, except on a pincushion,

I assure you, sir, I never thought of such a thing."

"Any more than Mrs. Mudge's maid now thinks of dressing in white satin.

I dare say not, indeed; for it was as much as any but rich mistresses

could do to get silk dresses in your young days."

Nurse hoped her master was not going to object to her wearing silk now,

on Sundays and the young ladies' dancing days. When servant-girls took

upon them to wear such things as their elders never aspired to, it was

time----

"I am not going to object to your wearing silk, nurse, any more than to

the nurse-maid you speak of doing the same. The more you both wear, the

better for me."

"Aye, in the sense of your being a manufacturer; but, as the master of a

family, sir, you would judge differently."

"Not at all. If there are silk-worms enough in the world to yield silk

wherewith to dress every man, woman and child, where is the harm of

every man, woman, and child wearing silk, if it pleases them to do so?"

"But the look of it, sir! Think of a girl dressing like her mistress!"

"It is an unfit thing when the girl has not money enough properly to

afford such a dress. But if the price falls to a point within her reach,

there is no more reason why she should not possess herself of such an

one than there would be if she had had money left her wherewith to buy

it. Her mistress will forthwith array herself in some more expensive

fabric, which, perhaps, none below duchesses had worn till it became

cheaper in proportion, as silk had done; and this fabric will, in its

turn, descend within the reach of servants, till Mrs. Mudge's maid may,

in her old age, be as much surprised at the array of the young girls of

that time as you now are at people of her rank wearing silk."

"But, papa," objected Lucy, "what are the ladies to do all this time?

Must duchesses go on inventing expensive things to wear, or else dress

like their maids?"

"There will be always plenty of people able and willing to save the

duchesses the trouble of inventing," replied her papa. "We have not yet

seen half of what human ingenuity may do in the way of inventing

comforts and discovering beauties. If you could pop into the world again

a few hundred years hence, you might chance to find every African

between the tropics dressed in clear muslin, and every Laplander

comfortably muffled in superfine scarlet or blue cloth."

"And what would our duchesses wear then, papa?"

"Something which we cannot guess at; and which to them would appear more

beautiful and convenient than was ever invented before."

Nurse wondered what her master could be thinking of. Instead of having

people humble and contented with their condition, he would have them be

looking up and on continually.

"Have you seen the gipsy women lately?" inquired her master. Not very

lately, nurse replied; but she probably should soon, as a great annual

gipsy feast was to be held within the month, somewhere near town; and no

doubt the Drapers would return to their old haunts for the occasion.

"Do you bid them be contented with their condition, living in tents, on

the damp ground, and eating animals that they find dead?"

Nurse thought her master more odd than ever. As if all respectable

people did not like to live under a roof, and have decent clothes, and

eat like Christians! She did not know that in old times, servants and

labourers who dwelled somewhat in gipsy style were desired to be content

with their condition; and that it was thought a piece of ineffable

presumption to wish to live in abodes at which beggars would now shrug

their shoulders. Mr. Culver would have people content without what could

not be had otherwise than by the sacrifice of what is of more

consequence than that which they wish for. He was sorry to see

maid-servants dressed in lace, because it is impossible for

maid-servants to buy lace without neglecting their parents and friends,

or omitting to provide themselves with a hundred more necessary things,

or with a fund for their own support when they must cease to earn; but

if lace should ever come to be as cheap as tape, he should like to see

every body wear lace that likes it.

"O, papa!" cried Lucy, "would you like to see little Ichabod Cooper with

lace on his shirt-collar?"

"I should like to see the Coopers, and not only the Coopers, but the

poorest of the poor, in possession of every thing that is useful and

that gives pleasure. If there was enough for every body of all that is

useful and beautiful, why should not every body have it? All would be

the happier, would not they?"

"But there never could be enough of every thing for every body, papa."

"How do you know that, my dear? I am far from being sure of that

myself."

Lucy stared, and began to think of all that she liked best;--blue

sashes, and cages of squirrels, and ice-creams, and _Rosamond_—

_Rosamond_ that she hid under her pillow that she might read it before

nurse was awake in the morning. Was it possible that there could ever be

enough of all these for every body in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America?

Her papa assured her that the experiment had never yet been tried how

many of God's good gifts can be put within the reach of God's creatures.

So many have been afraid of others possessing too much, that all have

only got a very little way in helping one another, though they have been

very clever at the work of mutual hindrance. It may be that there are

pearls enough in southern oceans to deck the whole human race; and

cotton enough on the American plains to clothe the species; and dyes

enough in the eastern woods to diversify all the habitations in the

world; and industry, and zeal, and good-will enough in men's hearts to

dispose them all to learn and to communicate whatever the wise have to

teach, and the benevolent to suggest, and the inventive to relate, from

the remotest corners of the earth. It may be that every good book will

in time be read in all countries of the globe, and then----

"And then," interrupted Lucy, "some Lapland children may read about

Rosamond's gallop down the Black Lane; and some little people in China

may be pleased at finding that she was fond of gold and silver fish.

Well, this does not seem very surprising when one thinks how many people

in America and in the East Indies know all about Rosamond already."

"I should like to be now sending my silks as far as our good books will

travel in time," observed Mr. Culver.

"And so you will, I suppose, papa, if so many people will wear silks as

you seemed to think just now."

"Your brothers may, after me; or their sons and grandsons, after them,"

replied Mr. Culver; "but it takes a long time for people to learn to

exchange freely and fairly against each other, when they have been

taught to be mutually jealous, and to fancy that if one party gains by

the exchange, the other must be a loser."

"But many more do buy silk than some time ago, papa."

"Yes, indeed," observed nurse; "when maid-servants begin, it is a pretty

good sign that silk is growing common."

"Then you will grow rich, papa. I should like you to grow rich."

Her father told her that a beginning was made by his having ceased to

grow poor. When smuggling should have ceased, and there should have been

time for the English manufacture to improve as the French had done, he

hoped he might be more in the way of growing rich than he had ever yet

been. Meanwhile, the more people wore silks, be they servant-maids or

the dames of New Zealand, the better for him; and for them, if they felt

more complacent in silk attire than in the woollen petticoats and

mantles of matting which their respective ancestors wore.

"The Bremes dance beautifully in their blue Gros-de-Naples frocks," Lucy

observed.

"Better than you in your white, my dear? Well, if all the world is to

wear more silk, it is time you and your sisters were beginning,--I

suppose you think. Hey, Lucy?"

Nurse was in possession of the young ladies ideas on this subject, and

took the present opportunity of putting her master in possession of them

likewise, together with her own.

"Well, nurse, I have no wish that my children should go on being envious

of the Bremes a moment longer than is necessary. So, silk frocks they

shall have. I shall send you in half a piece from the warehouse, which

will do very well. If you find a few blemishes in the warp, you can cut

them out in the making, I dare say; and, but for them, the fabric is

perfectly good."

The girls were a little disappointed at not having the choice of a

colour, and alarmed at the mention of blemishes; but it was a great

thing to have gained, in any way, a point which had long been aspired

to. Nurse was much vexed that she could not have the pleasure of making

the purchase at Mr. Breme's shop, giving Mr. Breme himself, if he should

be behind the counter, all possible trouble in suiting the tastes of her

young ladies. In order not to be wholly deprived of this satisfaction,

she determined that all the adjuncts of these pretty new dresses should

be purchased there. This settled, she and her charge were equally

anxious not to delay the business beyond the next day.

When they arrived near the shop, on the Monday morning, nurse still

resplendent in her figured brocade, they were mortified at finding the

house shut in by a scaffolding, and the narrow entrance between the

planks almost closed up by heaps of shavings and piles of bricks. They

slackened their pace to observe, and were silently afraid that it must

be too dark within for the proper transaction of business. While

pausing, they were saluted by a cloud of dust which rose after some

heavy blows behind the screen of planks, and which did much towards

convincing them that the present was hardly the time or place for

discharging their errand.

"We must come some other time," remarked Lucy to the unwilling nurse.

"We must go somewhere else," observed Charlotte, who saw little hope of

the scaffolding being down before the next dancing-day, beyond which it

was impossible to wait for the new silk frocks.

The workmen went on knocking, sawing, and standing in the way very

unconcernedly; but a strange-looking personage peeped out from behind

the corner of the screen of planks, saying,

"Go somewhere else, ladies? Where will you meet with such a shop as

this, now being enlarged for your convenience? You will find it light

and busy enough within. I know of one good customer, at least, that is

there."

The girls thought this odd, as the man was only a poor person who was

mending a chair-bottom, in the corner formed by the projection of the

scaffolding into the street, where he could lay his rushes beside him,

and work undisturbed by the passengers, while in full view of them. He

seemed to take upon himself the office of advertiser of Mr. Breme's

concern, as he directed to the establishment the attention of all who

stopped and peeped over the heads of the little boys who were watching

his proceedings. He let everybody know that the shop was accessible, and

was now being enlarged. Several persons lingered to see whether nurse

and her charge went in; and their safe and easy entrance, when they once

made the attempt, encouraged one or two to follow.

Charlotte looked round for the good customer spoken of by the

chair-mender, but could see no finely-dressed lady engrossing the

attention of the shop-people; no dainty gentleman pronouncing upon such

articles as he might be presumed to understand. There was only an old

woman buying nun's lace for her mob-cap; and a young woman, with a baby

in her arms, comparing remnants of common print; and a child waiting

patiently, with a hot half-penny squeezed in her hand, for a skein of

thread; and a party of gipsies in red cloaks at the further end of the

shop, with their backs turned to the new comers. Nurse was too busy

putting on her spectacles, and holding gauze ribbons in various lights,

to take any notice of what other people were doing, till the man who was

serving her leaned over the counter to whisper that the customers yonder

(nodding towards the gipsies) were choosing a very expensive dress for

their queen to wear at the next of their festivals; and that it was to

be made up by one of the first dress-makers in town. A stout country

girl, who had followed nurse and her party, and taken her seat beside

them, heard this as well as they; and from that moment her attention

seemed bent upon the wearers of the red cloaks rather than upon her own

purchases. She stepped forward a pace or two, when one of them turned at

an accidental noise, and an immediate recognition took place, to the

surprise and amusement of the shop-people.

The gipsy strode forward, holding out her brown hand, and saying,

"Why, Miss Rebecca, I thought the sea-shore was our meeting-place. So

often as I have met you there, I never dreamed of seeing you in town

parts."

"Nor I neither, Mrs. Draper: but I am not long from home."

"Only come for a little pleasure, Miss Rebecca. Well; you know I used to

tell you that there was one that would give you what pleasure you liked,

if you chose to ask. I dare say now----"

And Mrs. Draper looked round, as if for some supposed companion of

Rebecca's; but Rebecca answered,

"Now, I told you, Mrs. Draper, long ago, to talk no nonsense; and I'm

here buying things, you see----"

"Ay, my dear; I see," said Mrs. Draper, looking no graver for being told

that she talked nonsense. "I see; but how's the father?"

"Why, but middling. Father's a wonderful hearty man for his years, to be

sure, considering some things."

"Ah! the ruin of the coast, which must have hurt his feelings. And

dame,--how's the dame?"

"O, she's well, and hobbling about, as usual. And I hope she'll keep

well. Dame and me are going to keep school--a boarding-school for

girls."

Mrs. Draper laughed heartily at the idea of Rebecca teaching manners, as

she said, and walking out behind her young ladies, two and two.

"Ah! you may laugh," answered Rebecca, good-humouredly; "and I know many

people think I'm not a bit fit for it; but I don't care what pains I

take--I don't care what I do, if I could but see father smile."

Mrs. Draper was struck dumb; for to her it seemed that Mr. Pim not

smiling was not Mr. Pim at all. What could have happened to render it

difficult for Rebecca to "make father smile?"

"It is not a venture, as it would be to set up a school in a town, to

set one up in the country," observed Rebecca. "'Tis such a common thing,

you know, to send children to the sea-side when they are delicate; and

dame always took great care of our chilblains; and, for my part, I like

nursing them when they are ill better than teaching,--ever so much. And,

you know, I _can_ teach sewing. I think much of needle-work; it is so

useful! They shall do a deal of that.--And then we have the maps. I can

teach them those; and they shan't stick to them too long. I remember,

when I used to learn, how my back ached, and I used to get the fidgets,

and think, 'Well, now, shall we ever leave off?' O, they shall go out

and come in again; and we'll find them something to read that they will

get amused with; and if anything more is wanting, why, father will help

us, perhaps."

"He will help you all to run races on the downs. He is the one to say

'One, two, three, and away.' But I really hoped, Miss Rebecca, that you

were buying for a house of your own."

"And where would be the use of a house of my own, unless father was to

be in it? and then it would be all one as his. No, the old house must

do,--at least for a beginning. If better times should come, perhaps----"

"What! your father's school fell off, then. It was a fine one when my

children went; but I suppose the ruin of the coast ruined it?"

"'Tis all ruin to us. If it was only the loss of the trade to himself,

that was a great amusement. But it set the people all complaining about

not affording schooling for the children; for they had grown careless

about the fishing. And then, several went away for a time, after the

murder, for fear of the reward the government offered; and that broke up

everything. Father never got over that.--You may talk about running

races on the down. Father has never been to the down with any heart

since; for it was there that he spoke with poor Nicholas the very day

before----"

Rebecca stopped short, struck by the effect of what she was saying on

the gay ancient personage who sat near. Nurse came forward, jerking an

end of ribbon in one trembling hand, and fumbling for her handkerchief

with the other, while her countenance resumed the expression of which

her fellow-servants were tired, and which they hoped she had laid aside

with her mourning.

"My son, ma'am! I beg pardon for interrupting you, ma'am, but he was my

son. Nicholas, I heard you mention. If you knew him, perhaps you would

tell me anything you might know."

Rebecca and the gipsy looked at each other, which made nurse appeal to

Mrs. Draper, with confessions that she should not have turned her away

from the back-door so peremptorily, the last time she came to tell the

maids' fortunes, if she had thought she knew anything about the

Preventive Service and her poor son.

"We knew him very well indeed," said the plain-spoken Rebecca. "He used

to pass almost before our door twenty times in a day, when he was upon

watch; and our children used----"

"Ah, poor fellow! he was always like a child himself. He could never say

a cross word to a child," sobbed nurse.

"Nor to anybody else," feelingly observed Rebecca.

Charlotte saw that the scene was becoming such as little beseems a busy

shop, and she thought of an expedient for gratifying nurse without

exposing her feelings to observation. After a consultation with Lucy,

she asked Rebecca if she could come to tea at their house, and tell

nurse everything that she could recollect about Nicholas. This Rebecca

promised to do, though her stay in London was to be very short. She had

come only to "improve herself" for a week or two, and to provide a few

necessary additional articles for her school-keeping; and her father

began to want her at home.

While nurse was wiping her eyes, in preparation for finishing her

shopping, Mrs. Draper called upon Rebecca for an opinion respecting the

purchase the gipsies were about to make. Lucy followed, being unable to

restrain her curiosity; and impatiently did she beckon for her sister to

join her when she saw with how splendid an array the counter was spread.

Rebecca looked no less delighted.

"Yes, that will be the one," observed Mrs. Draper, seeing that Rebecca's

eye rested on a fabric of peculiar richness and beauty. "O, yes, it is

expensive; but it is worth the money; and these cheaper silks have grown

so common! Half the girls we tell fortunes to have more or less silk

about them. Our queen must not be taken for such as live by a yearly

wage. She must have of the best, and this must be the one."

"O no, sir," Rebecca replied, drawing back from the gentleman behind the

counter, when he pressed some of his goods upon her notice, "O, no,

thank you, sir; they are all too dear for me to buy to wear down by the

sea-side."

"Yet you and these ladies have seen very pretty silks down by the

sea-side," observed Mr. Breme, for it was he who was himself serving his

best customers for the hour. "We all know that very pretty silks have

been seen by the sea-side; but that day is over."

"I don't know that, indeed," replied Rebecca. "They say that Brighton

will be fuller than ever next season, and that is the place for pretty

dresses. I suppose there are not many such beauties as this sold

anywhere?"

"More than you would suppose, ma'am; particularly of late. There is no

end now to the silks that may be lawfully had; and when that is the

case, more people think of wearing."

"And yet silks are very little cheaper than they were."

"At present, not much, as you say, ma'am. But people are so pleased to

think that they may wear what has been forbidden so long, that they make

a very brisk trade, I am happy to say. This will lead to improvement and

cheapness, and then people at home and abroad will wear more still. The

more you can get of a thing, the more will be wanted. That is the rule,

ma'am; from small beer to satin dresses. The more can be had of a thing,

the more will be wanted. Could not you fancy one of these beautiful

things, ma'am?"

"Very easily," replied Rebecca, "if a fairy would come this moment and

give me money to buy one, but not else. I am keeping yonder gentleman

waiting with the brown holland, which is what I wanted. I must leave

your silk dresses in your shop till I have earned one."

On further consideration, Rebecca feared she could not spare a whole

evening to nurse. She had so much to do, and her time was so short!

Would a call do? or meeting them in their walk? A better plan than

either struck Charlotte, Would not Rebecca meet them at the

dancing-school on Wednesday? One who was about to keep school should see

some dancing; and she and nurse might have their chat in a corner,

without anybody knowing what they were talking about. This was certainly

the best plan, and Rebecca agreed to it, with grand expectations of the

sight she was to see.

CHAPTER IV.

GRIEF AND DANCING.

Rebecca was so anxious about her appointment, that she arrived at the

dancing-school some time before the party she expected to meet. A family

of pretty little children were just sashed and sandalled, and made ready

to enter the great room, when she arrived; and she drew back, with her

usual modesty, to allow them and their governess to pass. Their

dancing-school curtsey filled her with admiration; and she pulled up her

head, and began bending her knees in involuntary imitation, when she

remembered that she had better not try anything so new before so many

spectators as were assembled in the room. She went up to the

dancing-master, in her usual stumping pace, and apologized for not

making such a curtsey on her entrance as those young ladies, as she had

not been used to it. Mr. Brown condescended to give her a grin and a

nod; and, when he saw her stand as if not knowing where to turn next,

did her the further favour of pointing with his fiddle-bow to a seat

which she might be permitted to occupy.

There she sat, absorbed in what she saw, till nurse arrived with Miss

Charlotte and Miss Lucy in their new frocks, new shoes, new gloves, and

all things newer, if not handsomer, than the Miss Bremes'.

"They are not here yet," whispered the one sister to the other.

"No, not yet; but I hope they will be sure to come. Why, look! there is

Adèle, and her sister with her! Nurse, we will go and sit beside Adèle,

and then you and Miss Pim can have your talk comfortably by yourselves.

I am sure the Jenkinsons will make room for us on their bench."

The Jenkinsons made room, and it was immediately discovered that Adèle

came to learn to dance; upon hearing which, Lucy fell into a reverie

which lasted till a twang of the fiddle called her up for her first

quadrille.

Rebecca could not help breaking off her answers to nurse's questions to

wonder at Lucy's dancing, and admire the height of her jumps, which,

however, did not seem to please Mr. Brown quite so well.

"Gently, gently, Miss Lucy," said he. "There may be too much activity,

ma'am, as well as too little. We are not at a leaping-match, ma'am."

Lucy blushed and smiled, and still went on, sometimes nearly losing her

balance, and having already lost any grace she might have been

accustomed to display. She threw out her feet, sometimes heel foremost,

stuck her elbows in her sides to give herself more concentrated power

for a jump, and over-reached her mark in crossing, till she nearly

pulled her partner down. Mr. Brown declared, at last, that he must send

for a neighbouring builder to ascertain whether the room was strong

enough to bear Miss Lucy's dancing.

"Poor thing!" exclaimed Rebecca, "why should not they let her dance as

merrily as she likes? I will never stint my scholars in their jumps."

Nurse thought that on the sea-shore, or on the green, it was different

from the present occasion. Miss Lucy came to learn to dance, not to

practise leaping. She could not imagine what possessed the child to-day

to dance as she did. Lucy was not strong, and there was trouble enough

sometimes in getting her to do more than merely shuffle her feet.

"She just makes up when she is in spirits for what she can't do at other

times," was Rebecca's good-natured excuse, as she smiled at the

happy-looking fluttered Lucy.

Nurse beckoned the offender across the room to receive a rebuke, as soon

as the quadrille was finished; and Lucy came smiling, panting, and

fanning herself, and went away again, not at all disheartened by nurse's

lecture on manners. She was observed, as she took her seat, to look up

at Mademoiselle and Adèle, as much as to say, "What do you think of my

dancing?" Mademoiselle smiled, and Adèle looked indifferent.

"Well, ma'am," said nurse, "so the Lieutenant's lady was very sorry for

my poor son. I remember he said something of her once in a letter or a

message."

"Said something of her! Why, well he might. He seemed to think of little

but pleasing or displeasing her; and she was kind to him accordingly. I

used to think he would never put his hat on again, when he had taken it

off to be spoken to by the ladies from the station-house."

"Aye, there is another lady too. Was she kind to my poor son also?"

"All very well: but Miss Storey had always more partiality for our

people than for the Preventive men. Poor father said,--one of the last

jokes I have heard him make,--that he saw nothing for it but Miss

Elizabeth taking to drinking or smoking, as she is so partial to

smuggling and all that sort of thing, and as she must now get what she

used to have so in other ways."

"But gloves come over against the law still, do not they?"

"Very few, high as the duty is. They are not sought after as they were a

while ago, for they say the English gloves are nearly as good and as

cheap now, and there are many more made. They say at the Custom-house

that near twice as many skins come into the country as there were a few

years ago; and so there is no occasion to smuggle so many French."

"So Miss Storey does not go down to the poor people's cottages as she

used to do, my son told me, stealing out of sight of the guard?"

"Not she. She walks quite disconsolate along the beach to the east,

instead of going in and out, above and below, among the downs, as she

used to do when she had something to go out for."

"And the Lieutenant's lady too; does she go out as formerly?"

"As much as ever; but then she has something to do that makes it worth

while. She gets one of the Preventive people to carry a little light

table and her portfolio; and she paints,--never minding the wind or the

sun, or anything. If it blows much, she pins her paper down at the

corners, and puts her hair back, and paints away: and if the sun is hot,

up goes her large umbrella, and still she paints away."

"Dear me! What does she paint? I wonder whether she ever painted my poor

son."

"I think she hardly began after her marriage till the spring weather

came on, and----"

"Ah! it was March when he came by his end. The 3d of March, at half-past

one in the morning, they tell me, ma'am."

"The lady has painted a good many of the guard, though," continued

Rebecca, wishing to change the subject. "She has a number of pictures of

them, some drawing water at the wells on the downs, or sitting polishing

their arms in the martello towers, or feeding their pigs at the

station-house. We used to hear strangers call those towers very ugly

things; but she has made a world of pretty pictures of them, looking as

different as if they were not the same places."

"She must be a clever lady, then; for there is nothing to my mind so

dull and uniform as those towers. They are worse than the houses I saw

last year in the Regent's Park,--all alike, except such little

differences as don't signify."

"Mrs. Storey would make even them look different, I fancy: for, as to

these towers,--some are white, standing on a yellow sand, with a dark

blue sky behind, and the sea a darker blue still,--which you know it is

sometimes. And then she makes a shadow from a cloud come over the tower,

and the sea all streaked with different colours; and then it is the turn

of the sails at sea to be white,--and a bird, perhaps, hovering over the

dark parts. Once she went out when the moon was near the full, the

Lieutenant himself carrying her cloak and her sketch-book that time, and

she wanting nothing besides but her case of pencils. From that sketch

she made a beautiful picture of a grey sea, with the foam white in the

moonlight; and in that case, the tower was quite black on the side of

the shadow, and so was the guard on watch, as you saw him between you

and the surf."

"I wish she had painted my poor boy, ma'am; or that he had lived to

carry her table. It would have made him so proud! But you say she was

sorry for what happened to him?"

"Everybody was sorry. Father, for one, has never got over it. But the

lady was on the beach when--when----"

"I know what you mean, my dear. Go on."

"Well; she looked so,--you can't think. Father was quite pale when he

came out from among the crowd of children that had got about the mouth

of the cavern; but he was nothing to her, in the comparison."

"Indeed! Well--my dear----"

"O! so white, and so grieved, more than frightened. She beckoned father

to her, to settle what to do till some of the guard could come; and then

she called the children after her, and went away, to take them away,

though she could hardly walk."

"Dear me!" was all that escaped from nurse, who could not prevent its

being seen through her emotion that she was flattered by this tale: and

she did not attempt to conceal her gratification at hearing what a crowd

attended the funeral, and how the people gathered to read and hear read

the proclamation of reward for the detection of the murderers. And all

this interest was about her son! Nothing could ever make up to her, she

told Rebecca, for his body being hidden for a time, as it was. It would

have been such a consolation to her to know that he made as beautiful a

corpse as she had often said he would. Those who had seen how her boy

looked when he was asleep might be sure that he would look better when

he was dead than ever he did when he was alive.

While Rebecca was meditating what she could say by way of consolation

for Nicholas not having made so beautiful a corpse as might have been

expected from him, certain sounds from the other side of the room

attracted her attention, and half diverted poor nurse's.

"So the Lieutenant said of him.... O! no need to start, ma'am, at Mr.

Brown's rapping his fiddle. He is never really in a passion, though he

pretends anger, to keep the young folks in order."

"But they have done something to make him angry. Hark! what a rattling

in the fiddle!"

"But look at the corners of Mr. Brown's mouth. He does not know how to

help laughing all the time."

"As the children find out," observed Rebecca, seeing how the boys peeped

over one another's shoulders to see the effect of the old joke of

putting pease into a violin.

"And the girls are all huddled together, not a bit like young ladies,"

added nurse, moving solemnly towards her charge, patting their backs,

chucking their chins, and ascertaining that their feet were in the first

position. Alas! they were in none of the five lawful positions.

"Let us see what Adèle will make of her positions," whispered Lucy, as

she saw the little French girl led out, to take, as was supposed, her

first lesson. "She does not seem to mind it; but she will when she finds

she cannot keep her balance in the curtsey at the last."

She was surprised that Mr. Brown tuned his violin. Music was not wanted

for teaching the positions. Mr. Brown must be in an absent fit; and

Adèle must be very conceited to smile and look at her ease, on such an

occasion. When she should have learned two years, and be able to dance

the same quadrilles as Lucy, she might look at ease, and welcome: but

already----

Already Adèle showed that she knew one position at least. Before the

words "Point the toe, ma'am," had passed the dancing-master's lips, the

toe was pointed as if the whole foot was made of something as flexible

as the thin sole of the little shoe.

"I do believe Adèle can dance," burst from Lucy's lips, as the

fiddle-bow gave its last flourish before making music. There was no

further room for doubt, though much for wonder. Adèle sped away,--much

as if she was winged: round and round,--hither and thither,--up and down

and across, not half so much out of breath with the exertion as Lucy was

with witnessing it, and with some thoughts which came into her mind.

"What a silly, stupid, vain thing I have been! I hope Adèle and

Mademoiselle did not find out that I wanted to show off to them. How

very bad Adèle must think my dancing, to be sure! I did hear the windows

rattle once, when I had jumped very high; and Adele comes down as light

as a feather. I wish we could get back to two o'clock again. If I could

make them all forget this last hour, I would never show off again; at

least, not till I was sure that I could do a thing better than other

people." And Lucy held her fan to her chin to watch the rest of Adèle's

performance in mute admiration.

"Look, now, at that child of mine, with her fan at her chin, of all

places!" observed nurse, a-hemming to catch Lucy's attention, and then

bridling, and placing her knitting-needles (for nurse carried her

knitting everywhere but to church, and there fell asleep for want of it)

in the position in which she thought a fan ought to be held. Lucy, vexed

to be interrupted in her scrutiny, and so often chidden, tossed her fan

into her sister's lap, and turned to Mademoiselle to talk, and thereby

avoid the necessity of perceiving nurse's signs.

"Ay, that's the way children do," said nurse; "that was just as my poor

boy used to turn and get away from me, when I had been whipping him, all

for his good, as I used to tell him, and to make a great man of him. He

never liked it, nor saw what a great man he might be some day, guarding

his country on the top of those cliffs, and dying, and all."

"And all for nothing," added the matter-of-fact Rebecca; "which must

make it the more hurting to you. Nay, now, do not look so offended, as

if I had said that Nicholas did not do his duty. He did what he could;

but it always seems to me a great fuss about nothing."

"About nothing, ma'am? Is smuggling nothing?"

"That Coast Guard can't prevent smuggling, after all; and if they could,

is not it a much cheaper way of preventing it, to make smuggling not

worth while? Here, with all their spying, and searching, and seizing,

they can lay their hands on only 5000_l._ worth of smuggled silk in a

year, while we all know that fifty times that much comes to be worn. Is

not it a great fuss about nothing to risk men's lives for a little

matter like that? And they get no more in proportion of tobacco or

spirits, or anything else; so, as father says, they might as well put

smuggling out of our thoughts at once, or let us do it in peace and

quiet. Father has had no peace and quiet this long while, nor ever will

have till we find him something to do; and that is hard to find. There

is my brother out of the Custom-house, too, being no longer wanted now

they are reducing the business and the salaries, and even talking of

shutting up the Custom-house."

"You ought to be sorry, then, that people smuggle less than they

did,--as sorry as I fancy your father is, my dear."