Their marriage proved a happy one. Fanny was as amiable as she had

appeared, and in the conduct of the commoner affairs of life,

good-feeling with her supplied in a great measure any deficiency of

strong sense. Philip did perhaps occasionally heave a gentle sigh, and

think for a moment of Emily Sherwood, when he found how incapable his

wife was of responding to a lofty or poetic thought, or of appreciating

the points of an argument, unless it were upon some such subject as the

merits of a new dress or the seasoning of a pudding. But he quickly

checked the rising discontent, for Fanny was so pure in heart, and so

unselfish in disposition, that it was impossible not to respect as well

as to love her. In short, Philip Hayforth was a fortunate man, and what

is more surprising, knew himself to be so. And when, after twenty years

of married life, he saw his faithful, gentle Fanny laid in her grave, he

felt bereaved indeed. It seemed to him then, as perhaps, at such a time,

it always does to a tender heart, that he had never done her justice,

never loved her as her surpassing goodness deserved. And yet a kinder

husband never lived than he had been; and Fanny had died blessing him,

and thanking him, as she said, "for twenty years of happiness." "How

infinitely superior," he now daily and hourly thought, "was her sweet

temper and loving disposition to all the intellect and all the poetry

that ever were enshrined in the most beautiful form." And yet Philip

Hayforth certainly was not sorry that his eldest daughter--his pretty,

lively Fanny--should have turned out not only amiable and affectionate,

but clever and witty. He was, in truth, very proud of Fanny. He loved

all his children most dearly; but Fanny was the apple of his eye--the

very delight of his existence. He had now almost forgotten Emily

Sherwood; but when he did think of her, it was with indifference rather

than forgiveness. He had not heard of her since his marriage, having,

some time previous to that event, completely broken off the slight

acquaintance he had formed with her relations; while a short absence

abroad, at the time of her union with Mr. Beauchamp, had prevented him

from seeing its announcement in the papers.

Meanwhile poor Emily's married life had not been so happy as that of her

former lover. Mr. Beauchamp was of a pompous, tyrannical disposition,

and had a small, mean mind. He was constantly worrying about trifles,

perpetually taking offence with nothing, and would spend whole days in

discussing some trivial point of etiquette, in the breach of which, he

conceived himself aggrieved. A very miserable woman was his wife amid

all the cold magnificence of her stately home. Often, very often, in

her hours of loneliness and depression, her thoughts would revert to the

brief, bright days of her early love, and her spirit would be rapt away

by the recollection of that scene on the balcony, when Philip Hayforth

and she had stood with locked hands and full hearts gazing at the

sinking star and the sweetly breaking day, and loving, feeling,

thinking, as if they had but one mind between them, till the present

seemed all a fevered dream, and the past alone reality. She could not

have been deceived then: then, at least, he had loved her. Oh, had she

not wronged him? had there not been a mistake--some incident

unexplained? He had warned her that his temper was proud and jealous,

and she felt now that she ought to have written and asked an

explanation. She had thrown away her happiness, and deserved her fate.

Then she recollected that such thoughts in her, the wife of Mr.

Beauchamp, were worse than foolish--they were sinful; and the

upbraidings of her conscience added to her misery.

But Emily had a strong mind, and a lofty sense of right; and in those

solitary struggles was first developed the depth and strength of her

character. Partly to divert her thoughts from subjects dangerous to her

peace, and partly from the natural bent of her inclinations, she sought

assiduously to cultivate the powers of her mind, while her affections

found ample scope for their exercise in the love of her infant son, and

in considerate care for her many dependants, by all of whom she was

loved and reverenced in no common degree. She learned thus the grand

lessons--'to suffer and be strong,' and to make the best of destiny; and

she felt that if she were a sadder woman, she was also a wiser one, and

at any price wisdom, she knew, is a purchase not to be despised.

Mrs. Beauchamp had been married little more than five years when her

husband died. His will showed, that however unhappy he had made her

during his life, he had not been insensible to her merit, for he left

her the sole guardian of their only son, and, while she should remain

unmarried, the mistress of Woodthorpe Hall. In the childish affection

and opening mind of her little boy poor Emily at last found

happiness--unspeakable happiness, although it was of course qualified by

the anxiety inseparable from parental love. She doted upon him; but her

love was of too wise and unselfish a nature to permit her to spoil him,

while her maternal affection furnished her with another motive for the

cultivation of her own mind and the improvement of her own character.

She was fired with the noble ambition of being the mother of her child's

mind, as well as of that mind's mere perishable shrine.

II.

Twenty-five years have passed away, with all their changes--their many

changes; and now,

'Gone are the heads of silvery hair,

And the young that were have a brow of care:'

And the babe of twenty-five years ago is now a man, ready to rush into

the thickest and the hottest of the great battle of life.

It was Christmas time; the trees were bare on Woodthorpe Chase; the

lawns were whitened by a recent shower of snow, and crisped by a sharp

frost; the stars were coming out in the cold cloudless sky; and two

enormous fires, high piled with Christmas logs, blazed, crackled, and

roared in the huge oaken chimneys of the great oak hall. Mrs. Beauchamp

and her son sat together in the drawing-room, in momentary expectation

of the arrival of their Christmas guests--a party of cousins, who lived

at about ten miles' distance from Woodthorpe Hall. Edmund Beauchamp was

now a very promising young man, having hitherto fulfilled the hopes and

answered the cares of his fond and anxious mother. He had already reaped

laurels at school and college, and his enlightened and liberal views,

and generous, enthusiastic mind, gave earnest of a career alike

honourable and useful. In person and features, though both were

agreeable, he did not much resemble his mother; but he had the same

large, soft, thoughtful eyes, the same outward tranquillity of demeanour

hiding the same earnest spirit. At present he was silent, and seemed

meditative. Mrs. Beauchamp gazed at him long and fondly, and as she

gazed, her mother's heart swelled with love and pride, and her eyes

glistened with heartfelt joy. At last she remarked, "I hope the

Sharpes's new governess is as nice a person as the old one."

"Oh, much nicer!" cried Edmund suddenly, and as if awakening from a

reverie.

"Indeed! I used to think Miss Smith a very nice person."

"Oh, so she was--very good-natured and obliging; but Miss Dalton is

altogether a different sort of person."

"I wonder you never told me you found her so agreeable."

"I--Oh, I did not----That is, you never asked me."

"Is she young?"

"Yes--not much above twenty I should think."

"Is she pretty?"

"I--I don't exactly know," he said, hesitating and colouring; "I

suppose--most persons----I should think she is." "How foolish I am!"

thought Edmund. "What will my mother think of all this?" He then

continued in a more composed manner--"She is a very excellent girl at

least. She is the daughter of a London merchant--a remarkably honourable

man--who has been ruined by these bad times; and though brought up in

luxury, and with the expectation of large fortune, she has conformed to

her circumstances in the most cheerful manner, and supports, it seems,

with the fruits of her talents and industry, two little sisters at

school. The Sharpes are all so fond of her, and she is the greatest

favorite imaginable with the children." Edmund spoke with unwonted

warmth. His mother looked at him half-sympathisingly, half-anxiously.

She seemed about to speak, when the sound of carriage wheels, and the

loud knock of a footman at the hall-door, announced the arrival of the

Sharpes, and Mrs. Beauchamp and her son hastened into the hall to

welcome their guests. Mrs. Beauchamp's eye sought for the stranger,

partly because she was a stranger, and partly from the interest in her

her son's conversation had created. But Miss Dalton was the last to

enter.

Edmund had not erred in saying she was a pretty girl. Even beneath the

cumbrous load of cloaks and furs in which she was now enveloped, you

could detect the exquisite proportions of her _petite_ figure, and the

sprightly grace of her carriage; while a pretty winter bonnet set off to

advantage a face remarkable for the intelligence and vivacity of its

expression. Her features, though not regular, were small, while the

brilliancy of her colour, though her complexion was that of a brunette,

lent a yet brighter glow to her sparkling dark eyes, and contrasted well

with the glossy black ringlets which shaded her animated countenance. At

this moment, however, her little head was carried somewhat haughtily,

and there was a sort of something not unlike bashfulness or awkwardness

in her manner which seemed hardly natural to it. The truth was, Miss

Dalton had come very unwillingly to share in the festivities of

Woodthorpe Hall. She was not acquainted with Mrs. Beauchamp, and report

said she was a very dignified lady, which Fanny Dalton interpreted to

mean a very proud one; and from her change of circumstances, rendered

unduly sensitive, she dreaded in her hostess the haughty neglect or

still haughtier condescension by which vulgar and shallow minds mark out

their sense of another's social inferiority. And therefore it was that

she held her head so high, and exhibited the constraint of manner to

which I have alluded. But all her pride and shyness quickly melted

before the benign presence and true heart-politeness of Mrs. Beauchamp.

Dignified the latter certainly was; but her dignity was tempered with

the utmost benevolence of expression, and the most winning sweetness of

manner; and when she took the hand of her little stranger-guest between

both of hers, and holding it kindly, said, "You are the only stranger

here, Miss Dalton; but for my sake you must try to feel at home," an

affection for Mrs. Beauchamp entered into the heart of the young girl,

which has continued ever since steadily to increase. That she should

conceive such an affection was not unnatural, for there was something in

the appearance and manners of Mrs. Beauchamp, combined with her position

in life, calculated to strike the imagination and touch the feelings of

a warm-hearted and romantic girl such as Fanny Dalton, more especially

one circumstanced as she was. Even her previous prejudice, with the

reaction natural to a generous mind, was likely to heighten her

subsequent admiration. But it is not so easy to account for the sudden

interest the pretty governess created at first sight in the heart of her

hostess. Many girls as pretty and as intelligent looking as Miss Dalton

she had seen before, without their having inspired a spark of the

tenderness she felt towards this unknown stranger. She could not

comprehend it herself. She was not prone "to take fancies," as the

phrase is; and yet, whatever might be the case, certain it was that

there was a nameless something about this girl, which seemed to touch

one of the deepest chords of her nature, and to cause her heart to yearn

towards her with something like a mother's love. She felt that if Miss

Dalton were all that she had heard, and that if she should really prove

her son's choice, he should not be gainsaid by her.

The Christmas party at Woodthorpe Hall was generally a merry one; and

this year it was even merrier than usual. Fanny Dalton was the life of

the party; her disposition was naturally a lively one, and this hour of

sunshine in her clouded day called forth all its vivacity. But Fanny was

not only clever, lively, and amiable; her conduct and manners

occasionally displayed traits of spirit--nay, of pride; the latter,

however, of a generous rather than an egotistical description. Nothing

was so certain to call it forth as any tale of meanness or oppression.

One morning Miss Sharpe had been relating an anecdote of a gentleman in

the neighborhood who had jilted (odious word!) an amiable and highly

estimable young lady, to whom he had long been engaged, in order to

marry a wealthy and titled widow. There were many aggravating

circumstances attending the whole affair, which had contributed to

excite still more against the offender the indignation of all

right-thinking persons. The unfortunate young lady was reported to be

dying of a broken heart.

Fanny, who had been all along listening to the narration with an eager

and interested countenance, now exclaimed--"Dying of a broken heart!

Poor thing! But if I were she, _I_ would not break my heart--I would

scorn him as something far beneath me, poor and unimportant as I am. No,

I might break my heart for the loss of a true lover, but never for the

loss of a false one!" As Fanny's eyes shone, and her lip curled with a

lofty contempt, as her naturally clear, merry tones grew deeper and

stronger with the indignation she expressed, a mist seemed suddenly to

be cleared away from the eyes of Mrs. Beauchamp, and in that slight

young girl she beheld the breathing image of one whom she had once

intimately known and dearly loved--in those indignant accents she seemed

to recognize the tones of a voice long since heard, but the echoes of

which yet lingered in her heart. Why she had so loved Fanny Dalton was

no mystery now--she saw in her but the gentler type of him whom she had

once believed the master of her destiny--even of Philip Hayforth, long

unheard of, but never forgotten. But what connection could there be

between Philip Hayforth and Fanny Dalton? and whence this strange

resemblance, which lay not so much in form or in feature, as in that

nameless, intangible similarity of expression, gesture, manner, and

voice, so frequently exhibited by members of the same family.

As soon as Mrs. Beauchamp could quit the table, she withdrew to her own

room, where she remained for some time in deep meditation, the result of

which was a determination to fathom the mystery, if mystery there was.

It was just possible, too, that the attempt might assist her to find a

key to the riddle of her own destiny.

Accordingly, on the afternoon of the same day, she took an opportunity

of being alone with Miss Dalton and her son, to say to the former--"I

think you told me, my dear, that your father was alive?"

"Oh yes, thank God, _he_ is alive! How I wish you knew him, Mrs.

Beauchamp! I think you would like him, and I am _sure_ he would like and

admire you."

"Does your father at all resemble you in appearance?"

"I am not sure. I have been told that I was like him, and I always

consider it a great compliment; for papa is still a very handsome man,

and was of course even handsomer when he was young, and before his hair

became grey. I have a miniature likeness of him, taken before his

marriage, which I have with me, and will show you, if you will so far

indulge my vanity."

Mrs. Beauchamp having replied that she should like exceedingly to see

it, Fanny tripped away, and returned in a few minutes, carrying in her

hand a handsome, but old-fashioned, morocco case. Mrs. Beauchamp had

never seen it before, but she well remembered having given directions

for the making of a case of that very size, shape, and color, for a

miniature which was to have been painted for her. Her heart began to

beat. She seemed upon the brink of a discovery. Fanny now opened the

case, and placing it before Mrs. Beauchamp, exclaimed, "Now, isn't he a

handsome man?" But Mrs. Beauchamp could not answer. One glance had been

sufficient. A cold mist gathered before her eyes, and she was obliged to

lean for support, upon the back of a chair.

"Dear Mrs. Beauchamp, are you ill?"

"My dear mother!" cried Edmund.

"It is nothing," she answered, quickly recovering herself; "only a

little faintness." And then with the self-command which long habit had

made easy, she sat down and continued with her usual calm sweetness--"I

could almost fancy I had seen your father; but I do not remember ever

knowing any one of the name of Dalton but yourself."

"Oh, but perhaps you might have seen him before he changed his name; and

yet it seems hardly likely. His name used to be Hayforth; but by the

will of his former partner, who, dying without near relations, left papa

all his money, he took the name of Dalton. The money is all gone now, to

be sure," she continued with the faintest possible sigh; "but we all

loved the dear old man, and so we still keep his name."

Fanny had seated herself beside Mrs. Beauchamp, and as she finished

speaking, the latter, obeying the impulse of her heart, drew her towards

her and kissed her. Fanny, whose feelings were not only easily touched,

and very strong, but even unusually demonstrative, threw her arms round

Mrs. Beauchamp, and cried, with tears in her eyes, "How kind you are to

me, Mrs. Beauchamp! You could hardly be kinder, if you were my mother."

"Dear Fanny," she answered in a low and affectionate tone, "I wish,

indeed, I were your mother!"

As she spoke, Edmund, who had been standing in a window apart, made a

sudden movement towards the two ladies, but as suddenly checked himself.

At this moment his eyes encountered those of his mother, and colouring

violently, he abruptly quitted the room. This little scene passed quite

unnoticed by Fanny, who at the instant was thinking only of Mrs.

Beauchamp, and of her own gentle mother, now beneath the sod.

The daughter of Philip Hayforth became a frequent guest at Woodthorpe

Hall, spending most of her Sundays with Mrs. Beauchamp, who would

frequently drive over to the Sharpes's for her of a Saturday afternoon,

and send her back on the Monday morning. She was invited to spend the

Easter holidays at the Hall--a most welcome invitation, as she was not

to return home till the midsummer vacation. A most agreeable time were

these Easter holidays! Never had Fanny seemed more bright and joyous.

Her presence operated as perpetual sunshine on the more pensive natures

of the mother and son. It was therefore a great surprise to Mrs.

Beauchamp when, one day at luncheon, about a week before the time fixed

for the termination of her visit, Fanny announced her intention of

leaving Woodthorpe that afternoon, if her friend could spare her the

carriage.

"I can certainly spare it, Fanny; but I should like to know the reason

of this sudden determination?"

"You must excuse my telling you, Mrs. Beauchamp; but I hope you will

believe me when I say that it is from a sense of duty." As she spoke,

she raised her head with a proud look, her eyes flashed, and she spoke

in the haughty tone which always brought before Mrs. Beauchamp the image

of her early lover; for it was in her proud moments that Fanny most

resembled her father.

"Far be it from me, Fanny," she replied, with her wonted sweetness and

benignity, "to ask any one to tamper with duty; but, my child, our

faults, our _pride_ frequently mislead us. You shall go to-night, if you

please; but I wish, for my sake, you could stay at least till to-morrow

morning. I have not offended you, Fanny?"

"Oh, dearest Mrs. Beauchamp!" and the poor girl burst into tears. "I

wish--I _wish_ I could only show you how I love you--how grateful I am

for all your goodness; but you will never, never know."

Mrs. Beauchamp looked anxiously at her, and began, "Fanny"----But

suddenly stopped, as if she knew not how to proceed. Immediately

afterwards the young girl left the room, silently and passionately

kissing Mrs. Beauchamp's hand as she passed her on her way to the door.

A few hours later in the day, as Mrs. Beauchamp sat reading in her

boudoir, according to her custom at that particular hour, Edmund

abruptly entered the little room in a state of agitation quite foreign

to his ordinary disposition and habits.

"Mother!" he cried.

"My love! what is the matter?"

"Mother! I love Fanny Dalton--I love her with all my soul. I think her

not only the loveliest and most charming of women, but the best and

truest! I feel that she might make my life not only happier, but better.

Oh, mother! is not love as real a thing as either wealth or station? Is

it not as sufficient for all noble works? Is it not in some shape the

only motive for all real improvement? It seems to me that such is the

lesson I have been learning from you all my life long."

"And in that you have learned it I am deeply grateful, and far more than

repaid for all my care and anxiety on your account; and now thank you

for your confidence, my dear Edmund, though I think you might have

bestowed it after a calmer fashion. It would have been better, I think,

to have said all those violent things to Fanny than to me."

"I _have_ said more than all these to Fanny, and--she has rejected me!"

"Rejected you! my dearest Edmund! I am grieved indeed; but I do not see

how I can help you."

"And yet I should not be quite hopeless if you would plead my cause.

Miss Dalton says that you have loaded her with kindness which she can

never repay; that she values your affection beyond all expression; and

that she is determined not to prove herself unworthy of it by being the

means of disappointing the expectations you may have formed for your

son, for whom, she says, she is no match either in wealth or station.

She would not listen to me when I attempted to speak to her but this

instant in the Laurel Walk, but actually _ran_ away, positively

commanding me not to follow; and yet, I do think, if she had decidedly

disliked me, she would have given me to understand so at once, without

mentioning you. Mother! what do _you_--what _do_ you think?"

"You shall hear presently, Edmund; but in the first place let us find

Miss Dalton."

They went out together, and had not sought her long, when they

discovered her pacing perturbedly up and down a broad walk of

closely-shaven grass, inclosed on both sides by a tall impenetrable

fence of evergreens. As soon as she saw them, she advanced quickly to

meet them, her face covered with blushes, but her bearing open and

proud. Ere Mrs. Beauchamp had time to speak, she exclaimed, "Mrs.

Beauchamp, I do not deserve your reproaches. Never till this morning was

I aware of Mr. Beauchamp's sentiments towards me. Dear, kind friend, I

would have suffered any tortures rather than that this should have

happened."

Fanny was violently agitated; while Mrs. Beauchamp, on the contrary,

preserved a calm exterior. She took one of the young girl's hands

between both of hers, and answered soothingly, "Compose yourself, my

dear Fanny, I entreat you. Believe me, I do not blame you for the

affection my son has conceived for you."

"Oh thank you! Indeed you only do me justice."

"But, Fanny, I blame you very much for another reason."

"For what reason, then, madam?"

"For the same reason which now causes your eye to flash, and makes you

call your friend by a ceremonious title. I blame you for your _pride_,

which has made you think of me harshly and unjustly. Unkind Fanny! What

reason have I ever given you to think me heartless or worldly? Do you

not know that those who love are equals? and that if it be a more

blessed thing to give, yet to a generous heart, for that very reason, it

ought to be a pleasure to receive? Are you too proud, Fanny, to take any

thing from us, or is it because my son's affection is displeasing to you

that you have rejected him?"

Fanny was now in tears, and even sobbing aloud. "Oh, forgive me," she

cried, "forgive me! I acknowledge my fault. I see that what I believed

to be a sense of duty was at least partly pride. Oh, Mrs. Beauchamp, you

would forgive me if you only knew how miserable I was making myself

too!"

"Were you--were you indeed making _yourself_ miserable?" cried Edmund.

"Oh say so again, dearest Fanny; and say you are happy now!"

Mrs. Beauchamp smiled fondly as she answered, "I will do more than

forgive you, my poor Fanny, if you will only love my son. Will you make

us both so happy?"

Fanny only replied by a rapid glance at Edmund, and by throwing herself

into the arms of Mrs. Beauchamp, which were extended to receive her. And

as she was pressed to that fond, maternal heart, she whispered audibly,

"My mother!--our mother!"

Mrs. Beauchamp then taking her hand, and placing it in that of her son,

said with evident emotion, "Only make Edmund happy, Fanny, and all the

gratitude between us will be due on my side; and oh, my children, as you

value your future peace, believe in each other through light and

darkness. And may Heaven bless you both!" She had turned towards the

house, when she looked back to ask, "Shall I countermand the carriage,

Fanny?" And Edmund added, half-tenderly, half-slyly, "Shall you go

to-morrow?"

Fanny's tears were scarcely dry, and her blushes were deeper than ever,

but she answered immediately, with her usual lively promptitude, "That

depends upon the sort of entertainment you may provide as an inducement

to prolong my visit."

And Edmund, finding that he had no chance with Fanny where repartee or

badinage was in question, had recourse again to the serious vein, and

rejoined, "If my power to induce you to prolong your visit were at all

equal to my will, you would remain for ever, my own dearest Fanny."

We must now pass over a few months. The early freshness and verdure of

spring had passed away, and the bloom and the glory of summer had

departed. The apple-trees were now laden with their rosy treasures, the

peach was ripe on the sunny wall, and the summer darkness of the woods

had but just begun to be varied by the appearance of a few yellow

leaves. It was on a September afternoon, when the soft light of the

autumn sunset was bathing in its pale golden rays the grey turrets of

Woodthorpe Hall, and resting like a parting smile on the summits of the

ancestral oaks and elms, while it cast deep shadows, crossed with bright

gleams, on the spreading lawns, or glanced back from the antlers of the

deer, as they ever and anon appeared in the hollows of the park or

between the trees, that a travelling carriage passed under the old

Gothic archway which formed the entrance to Woodthorpe Park, and drove

rapidly towards the Hall. It contained Edmund and Fanny, the

newly-married pair, who had just returned from a wedding trip to Paris.

They were not, however, the only occupants of the carriage. With them

was Mr. Dalton, whom we knew in former days as Philip Hayforth, and who

had been specially invited by Mrs. Beauchamp to accompany the bride and

bridegroom on their return to Woodthorpe Hall.

And now the carriage stops beneath the porch, and in the arched doorway

stands a noble and graceful figure--the lady of the mansion. The

slanting sunbeams, streaming through the stained windows at the upper

end of the oak hall, played upon her dress of dark and shining silk,

which was partly covered by a shawl or mantle of black lace, while her

sweet pale face was lighted up with affection, and her eyes were full of

a grave gladness. Her fair hair, just beginning to be streaked with

silver, was parted over her serene forehead, and above it rested a

simple matronly cap of finest lace. Emily Beauchamp was still a

beautiful woman--beautiful even as when in the early prime of youth and

love she had stood in the light of the new-born day, clad in her robes

of vestal whiteness. The change in her was but the change from morning

to evening--from spring to autumn; and to some hearts the waning light

and the fading leaves have a charm which sunshine and spring-time cannot

boast. Having fondly but hastily embraced her son and daughter, she

turned to Mr. Dalton, and with cordial warmth bade him welcome to

Woodthorpe Hall. He started at the sound of the gentle, earnest tones

which, as if by magic, brought palpably before him scenes and images

which lay far remote, down the dim vista of years, obscured, almost

hidden, by later interest and more pressing cares. He looked in Mrs.

Beauchamp's face, and a new wonder met him in the glance of her large

brown eyes, so full of seriousness and benignity, while the smooth white

hand which yet held his in its calm friendly clasp seemed strangely like

one he had often pressed, but which had always trembled as he held it.

What could all this mean? Was he dreaming? He was aroused from the

reverie into which he had fallen by the same voice which had at first

arrested his attention.

"We must try to become acquainted as quickly as possible, Mr. Dalton,"

said Mrs. Beauchamp, "and learn to be friends for our children's sake."

Bowing low, he replied, "I have already learned from my daughter to know

and to esteem Mrs. Beauchamp."

The more Mr. Dalton saw of Mrs. Beauchamp, the more bewildered he

became. He fancied what appeared to him the strangest impossibilities,

and yet he found it impossible to believe that there was no ground for

his vague conjectures. His life had been one of incessant toil, lately

one of heavy distress and anxious cares, which had frequently sent him

to a sleepless pillow; but never had he spent a more wakeful night than

this, his first under the stately roof which his daughter--his darling

Fanny--called that of her home. He felt that he could not endure another

day of this uncertainty. He must be satisfied at all hazards, and he

resolved to make an opportunity, should such not spontaneously present

itself. But he was spared the necessity; for after breakfast the

following morning his hostess offered to show him the grounds--an offer

which, with his desired end in view, he eagerly accepted. They commenced

their walk in silence, and seemed as if both were suddenly under the

influence of some secret spell. At last, in a hoarse voice and a

constrained manner, Mr. Dalton abruptly inquired, "Pray, madam, may I

ask--though I fear the question may seem an unceremonious, perhaps a

strange one--if you have any relations of the name of Sherwood?"

He saw her start, as she answered with forced composure, "Yes, Mr.

Dalton, I have. It was indeed my own name before I married."

As she made this avowal, both stood still, it would seem by a sort of

tacit, mutual consent, and earnestly looked at each other.

Philip Hayforth Dalton was now a man past the meridian of life; his once

handsome and still striking countenance was deeply marked with lines of

sorrow and care, and his dark luxuriant locks were thinned and grizzled,

while his features, which had long been schooled to betray no sign of

emotion of a transient or superficial nature, were now, as his eyes met

those of Mrs. Beauchamp's, convulsed as by the working of a strong

passion. A slight blush tinged Emily's usually pale cheek; she drew a

rapid breath, and her voice faltered perceptibly as she said at last,

"Yes, Philip Hayforth, I am Emily Sherwood!"

Not immediately did he reply either by word or look--not till she had

asked somewhat eagerly, "We are friends, Mr. Dalton--are we not?"

Pride wrestled for a minute with the better nature of Philip Hayforth;

but whether it were that his self-command was now greater than in the

fiery and impassioned season of youth, or that it was difficult to

maintain anger and resentment in the gentle, soothing, and dignified

presence in which he now found himself, I undertake not to tell; but

certain it is that this time at least he crushed the old demon down, and

forced himself to answer, though with a formal manner and somewhat harsh

tone, "Friends, Mrs. Beauchamp! Certainly, we are friends, if _you_ wish

it. Your goodness to my poor motherless Fanny has completely cancelled

all wrongs ever done to Fanny's father. Let the past be forgotten!"

"Not so, if you please," she answered gently, "rather let it be

explained. Mr. Dalton, we are neither of us young now, and have both, I

trust, outlived the rashness of youth. Never till our mutual truth is

made mutually clear, can we be the friends we ought to be--the friends I

wish we were for Edmund's and Fanny's sake. Let us both speak plainly

and boldly, and without fear of offence on either side. I promise, on

mine, to take none at the truth, whatever it may be."

Mr. Dalton, as she spoke, regarded her earnestly and wonderingly,

saying, as she finished, half in reverie, half addressing her, it would

seem, "The same clear good sense, the same sweet good temper, which I

had persuaded myself was but the effect of a delusive imagination! But I

entreat your pardon, madam, and I promise as you have done."

"Tell me then, truly, Mr. Dalton, why you never answered the last letter

I wrote to you, or acknowledged the receipt of the purse I sent?"

He started, as if he had received a pistol-shot; the formal, distant Mr.

Dalton had disappeared, and the eager, vehement Philip Hayforth stood

before her once more. "I did answer it, Emily. Out of the fulness of my

heart--and how full it was I cannot tell you now--I answered your

letter; but you, Emily, you never answered mine."

"Indeed I never received it."

It was some minutes after this announcement ere either was able to

speak, but at last Mr. Dalton exclaimed, "Oh how I have wronged you?

Emily, at this instant I catch, as it were, at the bottom of a dark gulf

a glimpse of the evil of my nature. I begin to believe that I have

cherished a devil in my bosom, and called it by the name of a good

angel. Emily, if I am not too old to improve, you will have been the

instrument of my improvement. I do not ask you to forgive me, generous

woman, because I feel that you have already done so."

Mrs. Beauchamp felt what it must have cost the proud man to make this

acknowledgment, and she honored him for the effort. "We have both been

to blame," she said, "and therefore stand in need of mutual forgiveness.

But it would be idle now to lament the past; rather let us rejoice that

our friendship, re-established on the firm basis of perfect confidence,

is cemented by the union of our dear children."

Mr. Dalton only answered by offering her his arm, with the kind and

familiar politeness of an old friend, as she looked a little fatigued,

and they walked together some distance in silence. At last Mrs.

Beauchamp inquired, "Was Fanny's mother like herself?"

"No, Emily. My poor dead Fanny," and his voice trembled slightly, "was

very sweet and amiable, but not at all like my living one."

"Your marriage was happy then? I am glad of that."

"I should have been the most ungrateful of men had it not been so; and

yours too, Emily I hope"----

He stopt, he hardly knew why, while, with her eyes fixed on the ground,

she answered slowly, "I am happy, very happy now!"

A feeling of profound respect and admiration held Mr. Dalton silent for

a few seconds, and then he said, in the tone of one who expresses an

earnest conviction, "You are the most noble minded woman I ever knew."

Mrs. Beauchamp made no answer, and it was not till they stood together

in the hall, that she said in her natural tone of kind and calm

cheerfulness, "And now, Mr. Dalton, let us look for Edmund and Fanny;

and if you please, in order that they may learn of our mistakes that

trust is the nobler part of love, we shall tell them this story of THE

LOST LETTER."

LIFE AT A WATERING-PLACE.

THE LIONNE.

By Charles Astor Bristed.

From Frazer's Magazine.

One day at Oldport Springs went off pretty much like another. There was

the same continual whirl, and flurry, and toiling after pleasure--never

an hour of repose--scarcely enough cessation for the two or three

indispensable meals. When they had walked, and flirted, and played

ten-pins, and driven, and danced all day, and all night till two in the

morning, the women retired to their rooms, and the men retired to the

gambling-house (which being an illegal establishment had, on that

account, a greater charm in their eyes), and kept it up there till broad

daylight; notwithstanding which, they always contrived to appear at

breakfast a few hours after as fresh as ever, and ready to begin the

same round of dissipation. Indeed it was said that Tom Edwards and his

most ardent followers among the boys never went to bed at all, but on

their return from "fighting the tiger," bathed, changed their linen, and

came down to the breakfast-room, taking the night's sleep for granted.

It was a perpetual scene of excitement, relieved only by the heavy and

calm figure of Sumner, who, silent and unimpassioned, largely capacious

of meat and drink, a recipient of every diversion, without being excited

by any, went through all the bowling, and riding, and polking, and

gambling, with the gravity of a _commis_ performing the national French

dance at the Mabille. There was much rivalry in equipages, especially

between Ludlow, Benson, and Loewenberg, who drove the three four-in-hands

of the place, and emulated one another in horses, harness, and

vehicles--even setting up attempts at liveries, in which they found some

imitators (for you can't do any thing in America, however unpopular,

without being imitated): and every horse, wagon, man-servant, and

livery, belonging to every one, was duly chronicled in the Oldport

correspondence of the _Sewer_ and the _Jacobin_, which journals were

wont one day to Billingsgate the "mushroom aristocracy of wealth," and

the next to play Jenkins for their glorification. Le Roi, who owned no

horses, and had given up dancing as soon as he found that there were

many of the natives who could out-dance him, and that the late hours

were bad for his complexion, attached himself to any or every married

lady who was at all distinguished for beauty or fortune; and then went

about asking, with an ostentatious air of mystery,--_"Est-ce qu' on

parle beaucoup de moi et Madame Chose?"_ Sometimes he deigned to turn

aside for an heiress; and as he was a very amusing and rather ornamental

man, the girls were always glad to have his company; but the good

speculations took care not to fall in love with him, or to give him

sufficient encouragement (although a Frenchman does not require a great

deal) to justify a declaration on his part. Perhaps the legend about the

mutual-benefit subscription club hurt his prospects, or it may have been

his limited success in dancing. The same reason--as much, at least, as

the assumed one of their vulgarity--kept Mr. Simpson, and other "birds"

of his set, out of the exclusive society. For dancing was the one great

article in the code of the fashionables to which all other amusements or

occupations were subordinate. There was a grand dress-ball once a week

at one or other of the hotels, and two undress-balls--_hops_ they were

called: but most of the exclusives went to these also in full dress, and

both balls and hops usually lasted till three or four in the morning.

Then on the off-nights "our set" got up their own little extempore balls

in the large public parlor, to the music of some volunteer pianist, and

when the weather was bad they danced in the same place all day; when it

was good these informal _matinees_ did not generally last more than two

or three hours. Then there were serenades given about day-break, by

young men who were tired of "the tiger"--nominally to some particular

ladies, but virtually, of course, to the whole hotel, or nearly so--and

the only music they could devise for these occasions were waltzes or

polkas. Ashburner made a calculation that, counting in the serenades,

the inhabitants of Oldport were edified by waltz, polka, and redowa

music (in those days the _Schottisch_ was not), eleven hours out of the

twenty-four, daily. And at last, when Mr. Monson, the Cellarius of

New-York, came down with various dancing-girls, native and imported, to

give lessons to such aspiring young men as might desire it, first Mrs.

Harrison and other women, who, though wealthy and well-known, were not

exactly "of us," used to drop in to look at the fun; and, finally, all

the exclusives, irresistibly attracted by the sound of fiddles and

revolving feet, thronged the little room up-stairs, where the dancing

class was assembled, and from looking on, proceeded to join in the

exercises. Ladies, beaux, and dancing-girls, were all mingled together,

whirling and capering about in an apartment fifteen feet square, which

hardly gave them room to pass one another. Benson was the only person

who entered his protest against the proceeding. He declared it was a

shame that his countrywomen should degrade themselves so before

foreigners; but his expostulations were only laughed at: nor could he

even persuade his wife and sister-in-law to quit the place, though he

stalked off himself in high dudgeon, and wrote a letter to the

_Episcopal Banner_, inveighing against the shameless dissipation of the

watering-places. For Harry was on very good terms with the religious

people in New-York, and was professedly a religious man, and had some

sort of idea that he mixed with the fashionables to do them good; which

was much like what we sometimes hear of a parson who follows the hounds

to keep the sportsmen from swearing, and about as successful. Trying

with all his might to serve God, and to live with the exclusives, he was

in a fair way to get a terrible fall between two stools.

Talking of religion brings us naturally to Sunday, which at Oldport was

really required as a day of rest. But whether it would have been so or

not is doubtful, only that the Puritan habits of the country made

dancing on that day impossible. It was a violation of public opinion,

and of the actual law of the land, which no one cared to attempt. The

fashionables were thus left almost without resource. The young men went

off to dine somewhere in the vicinity, not unfrequently taking with them

some of Mr. Monson's dancing-girls; the wearied men, and the women

generally, were in a sad state of listlessness. Some of them literally

went to bed and slept for the rest of the week; others, in very despair

of something to do, went to church and fell asleep there. Ashburner took

advantage of the lull to fill up his journal, and put down his

observations on the society about him, in which he had remarked some

striking peculiarities, apart from the dancing mania and other outward

and open characteristics.

The first thing that surprised him was the great number of

misunderstandings and quarrels existing among the not very large number

of people who composed the fashionable set. They seemed to quarrel with

their relatives in preference, as a matter of course; and to admit

strangers very readily to the privilege of relatives. The Robinsons were

at feud with all their cousins: Benson with most of his, except Ludlow.

Ludlow, White, Sumner, every man he knew, had his set of private

enemies, with whom he was not on speaking or bowing terms. Mrs.

Harrison, who was very friendly to most of the men, scarcely spoke to a

single woman in the place; but this was, perhaps, only carrying the war

into Africa, as the ladies of "our set" generally had intended not to

recognize her as one of them. These numberless feuds made it very

difficult to arrange an excursion, or to get up a dinner at the

_restaurant_ of a "colored gentleman," whose timely settlement in

Oldport had enabled Mr. Grabster's guests to escape in some measure the

pangs of hunger. On studying the cause of these disagreeable

hostilities, he found that, among relatives, they were often caused by

disputes upon money matters; that between persons not related they

frequently sprung from the most trivial sources--frivolous points of

etiquette, petty squabbles at cards, imaginary jealousies--but that in

both cases the majority of them could be traced to the all-pervading

spirit of scandal. His purely intellectual education, if it had not made

him somewhat of a misogynist, had at least prevented him from gaining

any accurate knowledge or appreciation of women: he set them down _en

masse_ as addicted to gossip, and was not surprised to find in the

American ladies what he assumed as a characteristic of the whole sex.

But he was surprised to find the same quality so prevalent among the

men. Not that they were in the habit of killing reputations to give

themselves _bonnes fortunes_, as Frenchmen might have done under similar

circumstances; their defamatory gossip was more about men than about

women, and seemed to arise partly from a general disbelief in virtue,

and partly from inability to maintain an interesting conversation on

other than personal topics. And though much of this evil speaking was

evidently prompted by personal enmities, much also of it seemed to

originate in no hostile feeling at all; and it was this that

particularly astonished Ashburner, to find men speaking disparagingly of

their friends--those who were so in the real sense of that much-abused

term. Thus there could be no reasonable doubt that the cousins, Benson

and Ludlow, were much attached to each other, and fond of each other's

society; that either would have been ready to take up the other's

quarrel, or endorse his notes, had circumstances required it. Yet Harry

could never refrain from laughing before third parties at Gerard's

ignorance of books, and making him the hero of all the Mrs.

Malaprop-isms he could pick up or invent; or, as we have seen, speaking

very disrespectfully of the motives which had led him to commit

matrimony; and Gerard was not slow to make corresponding comments on

various foibles of Harry. But the spirit of detraction was most fully

developed in men who were not professionally idle, but had, or professed

to have, some little business on hand. Of this class was Arthur Sedley,

an old acquaintance and groomsman of Benson, and a barrister--(they are

beginning to talk about barristers now in New-York, though it is a

division of labor not generally recognized in the country)--of some

small practice. Really well educated, well read, and naturally clever,

his cleverness and knowledge were vastly more disagreeable than almost

any amount of ignorance or stupidity could have been. When he cut up

right and left every man or woman who came on the _tapis_, his sarcasms

were so neatly pointed that it was impossible to help laughing with him;

but it was equally impossible to escape feeling that, as soon as your

back was turned, he would be laughing at you. Riches and rich people

were the commonest subject of his sneers, yet he lost no opportunity of

toadying a profitable connection, and was always supposed to be on the

look-out for some heiress.

The next thing which made Ashburner marvel was the extreme youth of the

fashionable set, particularly the male portion of it; or, to speak more

critically, the way in which the younger members of the set had

suppressed their elders, and constituted themselves _the_ society. A

middle-aged man, particularly if, like Loewenberg, he happened to be

rich, might be admitted to terms of equality, but the papas and mammas

were absolutely set aside, and became mere formulas and appendages. The

old people were nowhere; no one looked after their comfort in a crowd,

or consulted them about any arrangement till after the arrangement was

made. They had no influence and no authority. When Miss Friskin rode a

wild colt bareheaded through the streets of Oldport, or danced the

Redowa with little Robinson in so very _chateau-rouge_ a style that even

Mrs. Harrison turned away, poor Mrs. Friskin could interpose no

impediment to the young lady's amusement; and even her father, the

respected senior of the wealthy firm, Friskin & Co., who must have heard

from afar of his daughter's vagaries (for all these things were written

in the note-book of the _Sewer_), seemed never to have dreamed of the

propriety or possibility of coming up to Oldport to put a stop to them.

When Tom Edwards was squandering his fortune night after night at the

faro-table, and his health day after day in ceaseless dissipation, there

was no old friend of his family who dared to give him advice or warning,

for there was none to whose advice or warning he would have listened.

Once when Ashburner was conversing with Benson on some subject which

brought on a reference to this inverse order of things, the latter gave

his explanation of it, which was to this effect:--

"The number of foreigners among us, either travelling for pleasure or

settled for purposes of business, is so great that they become an

appreciable element in our society. It is, therefore, requisite that a

fashionable should be able to associate easily with foreigners; and for

this it is necessary that he or she should have some knowledge of

foreign customs and languages, and, in the first place, of the French

language. Now, if we go back a generation, we shall find that the men of

that day were not educated to speak French. Go into the Senate Chamber

at Washington, for instance, and you will not meet with many of the

honorable senators who can converse in the recognized language of

courts. Many of our most distinguished statesmen and _diplomats_ can

speak no tongue but their own. And to descend to private life, with

which we have more particularly to do, when a foreigner presents himself

with his letters at the dwelling of an old city merchant or professional

man, it is generally the younger branches of the family who are called

on to amuse him and play interpreters for the rest. This gives the young

people a very decided advantage over their elders, and it is not

surprising that they have become a little vain of it. And similarly with

regard to foreign dresses, dances, cookery, and habits generally. The

young men, having been the latest abroad, are the freshest and best

informed in these things. It does not require any great experience or

wisdom to master them, only some personal grace and aptitude for

imitation to start with, and an _a plomb_ to which ignorance is more

conducive than knowledge. Hence the standard of excellence has become

one of superficial accomplishment, and the man of matured mind who

enters into competition with these handsome, showy, and illiterate boys,

puts himself at a discount. Look at Loewenberg. All his literary

acquirements and artistic tastes (and he really has a great deal of

both) go for nothing. The little beaux can speak nearly as many

languages as he can, and dance and dress better. The only thing they can

appreciate about him is his money, and the horses and dinners consequent

thereon. If little Robinson, there, with his _ne plus ultra_ tie and

varnished shoes, were to have the same fortune left him to-morrow, he

would be the better man of the two, because he can polk better, and

because, being neither a married man nor the agent of a respectable

house, he can gamble and do other things which Loewenberg's position does

not allow him to do."

This was a great confession for Benson to make against the country;

nevertheless, it was not perfectly satisfactory to Ashburner, who

thought that it did not explain all the phenomena of the case. It seemed

to him that there was at work a radical spirit of insubordination, and a

principle of overturning the formerly recognized order of domestic rule.

The little children ate and drank what they liked, went to bed when they

liked, and altogether were very independent of their natural rulers.

Benson's boy rode rough-shod over his nurse, bullied his mother, and

only deigned to mind his father occasionally. The wives ruled their

husbands despotically, and acted as if they had taken out a patent for

avenging the inferiority of their sex in other parts of the world.

Benson did not like dancing: he only danced at all because he thought it

his business to know a little of every thing, and because society

thought it the duty of every young man who was not lame to understand

the polka. But his wife kept him going at every ball for six hours,

during five of which he was bored to death. Ludlow, whose luxurious

living made violent exercise necessary for his health, and who,

therefore, delighted in fencing, boxing, and "constitutionals" that

would have tired a Cantab, was made to drive about Mrs. Ludlow all day

till he hated the sight of his own horses. As to Mrs. Harrison, she

treated her husband, when he made his appearance at Oldport (which was

not very often) as unceremoniously as one would an old trunk, or any

other piece of baggage which is never alluded to or taken notice of

except when wanted for immediate use.

Ashburner first met this lady a very few days after his arrival at

Oldport; indeed, she was so conspicuous a figure in the place that one

could not be there long without taking notice of her. About mid-day

there was usually a brief interval between the ten-pin bowling and the

informal dance; and during one of these pauses he perceived on the

smoking-piazza where ladies seldom ventured, a well-dressed and rather

handsome woman smoking a cigarette, and surrounded by a group of beaux

of all sizes, from men like White and Sumner to the little huge-cravated

boys in their teens. She numbered in her train at least half-a-dozen of

these cavaliers, and was playing them off against one another and

managing them all at once, as a circus-rider does his four horses, or a

juggler his four balls. In a country where beauty is the rule rather

than the exception, she was not a remarkable beauty--at least, she did

not appear such to Ashburner, from that distance; nor was her dress,

though sufficiently elegant and becoming, quite so artistically put on

as that of Mrs. Benson and the other belles of the set; still there was

clearly something very attractive and striking about her, and he was

immediately induced to inquire her name, and, on learning that she was a

real lady (though not of "our set" of ladies), to request an

introduction to her. But Benson, to whom he first applied, instead of

jumping at the opportunity with his usual readiness to execute or

anticipate his friend's wishes, boggled exceedingly, and put off the

introduction under frivolous and evidently feigned pretences. It was so

uncommon for Benson to show any diffidence in such matters, and his

whole air said so plainly, "I will do this out of friendship for you if

you wish it, but for my own part I would rather not," that Ashburner

saw there was something in the wind, and let the subject drop. Ludlow,

to whom he next had recourse, told him, with the utmost politeness but

in very decided terms, that "his family" (he was careful not to insist

on his own personality in the affair) "had not the honor of Mrs.

Harrison's acquaintance." The next man who happened to come along was

Mr. Simpson, and to him Ashburner made application, thinking that,

perhaps, the fair smoker might more properly belong to the "second set,"

though so surrounded by the beaux of the first. But even Simpson, though

the last man in the world to be guilty of any superfluous delicacy,

hesitated very much, and made some allusion to Mrs. Simpson; and then

Ashburner began to comprehend the real state of the case,--that most of

the married women had declared war against Mrs. Harrison, that she had

retaliated upon them all, and that the husbands were drawn into their

wives' quarrels, and obliged to fight shy of her before strangers. It

was clear, then, that he must apply to a bachelor; and accordingly he

waylaid Sumner, who "was too happy" to introduce him at once in due

form.

As Ashburner came up to Mrs. Harrison she began to play off her eyes at

him, and he then perceived that they constituted her chief beauty. They

were of that deep blue which, in certain lights, passes for

black,--large, expressive, and pleasing; the sort of eyes that go right

through a man and look him down to nothing. Indeed, they had such effect

on him that he lost all distinctive idea of her other features. Her

manner, too, had something very attractive, though he could not have

defined wherein it consisted. She did not exhibit the _empressement_

with which most of her countrywomen seek to put a stranger at his ease

at once; or the _exigence_ of a spoiled lady waiting to be amused; or

the haughtiness of a great lady, who does not care if she is amused

herself and deigns no effort to amuse others. Neither did she attack him

with raillery and irony, as Mrs. Benson had done on their first meeting.

But she behaved as if she were used to seeing men like Ashburner every

day of her life, and was willing to meet them half-way and be agreeable

to them, if they were so to her, without taking any particular trouble,

for there was no appearance of effort to please, or even of any strong

desire to please, in her words and gestures; yet she _did_ please and

attract very decidedly.

"So I saw you in Mrs. Harrison's train!" said Benson, when they next

met.

"Yes, and I fancy I know why you hesitated to introduce me."

As Ashburner spoke he glanced towards the parlor, where "our set"--Mrs.

Benson, of course, conspicuous among them--were engaged in their

ordinary occupation of dancing.

"Oh, I assure you, _madame_ is not disposed to be jealous, nor am I a

man to take part in women's quarrels. I don't like the lady myself, to

begin with; and were I a bachelor, should have as little to say to her

as I have now. In the first place she is too old----"

"Too old! she cannot be thirty."

"Of course a lady never _is_ thirty, until she is fifty, at least; but

at any rate I may say, without sacrilege, that Mrs. H. is pretty high up

in the twenties. Now, at that age a woman ought--not to give up society,

that would be an absurdity in the other extreme, but--to leave the

romping dances and the young men to the girls, who want them more and

whom they become better. Then I don't like her face. You must have taken

notice that all the upper part of it is fine and intellectual, and she

has glorious eyes----"

"Yes," said Ashburner.

"But all the lower part is heavy and over-sensuous. Now, not only does

this, in my opinion, entirely disfigure a woman's looks, but it suggests

unpleasant ideas of her character. A man may have that ponderous chin

and voluptuous mouth, without their disturbing the harmony of an

otherwise handsome face. I do not think a woman can; and as in the

physical so in the moral. A man can stand a much greater amount of

sensuousness in his composition than a woman. I do not mean to allude to

the different standards of morality for the two sexes admitted by

society; for I don't admit it, and think it very unjust; and I am proud

to say that our people generally entertain more virtuous as well as more

equitable views on this point than the Europeans. I mean literally that

a man having so many opportunities for leading an active life, and being

able to reason himself into or out of a great many things to or from

which a woman's only guide is her feelings, may be very sensuous without

its doing any positive harm to himself or others; but with a woman, who

is compelled to lead a comparatively idle life, such an element

predominating in her character is sure to bring her into mischief."

"Do you mean to say, then, that----" and Ashburner stopped short, but

his look implied the remainder of his interrupted question.

"Do you ask me from a personal motive?"

Ashburner colored, and was proceeding to disclaim any such motive with

an air of injured innocence.

"No, I don't mean any thing of the sort," said Benson, who felt that he

had gone rather too far, and might unintentionally have slandered his

countrywoman. "I believe the lady is as pure as--as my wife, or any one

else. The number of her beaux, and the equality with which she treats

them, prove conclusively to my mind that her flirting never runs into

any thing worse. I don't think a woman runs any danger of that kind when

she has such a lot of cavaliers; they keep watch on her and on one

another. I remember when my brother lived in town, he once was away from

home for two or three weeks, and when he came back an old maid who lived

in his street, and used to keep religious watch over the goings-out and

comings-in of every one in the vicinity, said to him, "How very gay

your wife is, Mr. Benson! she has been walking with a different

gentleman every day since you were gone.' 'Dear me!' says Carl; 'a

different man every day! How glad I am! If you had told me she was

walking with the _same_ man every day I might have been a little

scared.' But a woman may be perfectly chaste herself, and yet cause a

great deal of unchasteness in other people. Here is this Mrs. Harrison,

smoking cigarettes--and cigars, too, sometimes, in the open air;

drinking grog at night, and sometimes in the morning; letting Tom

Edwards and the foolish boys who imitate him talk slang to her without

putting them down; always ready for a walk or drive with the last

handsome young man who has arrived; and utterly ignoring her husband,

except when she makes some slighting mention of him for not sending her

money enough: what is the effect of all this upon the men? The

foreigners; there are plenty of them here every season; I wonder there

are so few this time: instead of one decent Frenchman like Le Roi, you

usually find half-a-dozen disreputable ones; Englishmen many, not always

of the best sort; Germans, Russians, and Spaniards, occasionally: they

all are inclined to look upon her--especially considering her

belligerent attitude towards the rest of the female population--as

something _tres legere_, and to attempt to go a little too far with her.

Then she puts them down fast enough, and they in spite say things about

her, the discredit of which extends to our ladies generally--in short,

she exposes the country before foreigners. Then for the natives, she

catches some poor boy just loose upon the world, dances with, flatters

him--for she has a knack of flattering people without seeming to do so,

especially by always appearing to take an interest in what is said to

her,--keeps him dangling about her for a while; then some day he says or

does something to make a fool of himself, and she extinguishes him. The

man gets a check of this sort at his entry into society that is enough

to make him a misogynist for life. And the little scenes that she used

to get up last summer with married men, just to make their wives

jealous!"

"Which, I suppose, is the reason none of your wives will let you speak

to her?" said Ashburner, who began to feel, he hardly knew why, a

sentiment of partisanship for Mrs. Harrison. "But granting that her

face, as you describe it, is an index of her character, I should draw

from that exactly the opposite inference. I believe that the women who

make mischief in the way you mention are your unsensuous and passionless

ones--that the perfect flirt, single or married, must be a perfectly

cold woman, because it is only one of such a temperament who can thus

trifle with others without danger to herself. I speak hesitatingly, for

all women are a mystery, and my experience is as yet very limited; but

such opportunities of observation as have fallen to my lot confirm me in

the theory."

Somewhat to Ashburner's surprise his friend made no attempt to

controvert his argument. He only turned it aside, saying,----

"Well, I don't like her, at any rate. If I had no other reason, the way

she talks of her husband would be enough to make me."

"Oh, there _is_ a Mr. Harrison, then? One hears so little of him----"

"And sees so nothing of him, you may say."

"Exactly--that I took him for a mythological personage--a cousin of our

Mrs. Harris."

"Nevertheless I assure you Mr. Harrison exists very decidedly--a

Wall-street speculator, and well known as such by business people, a

capital man behind a trotter, an excellent judge of wine. Probably he

will come here from the city once or twice before we leave, and I shall

find an opportunity to introduce you to him, for he is really worth

knowing and considerable of a man, as we say--no fool at all, except in

the way he lets his wife bully him."

"If he made an unsuitable match that does not show his wisdom

conspicuously."

"It was an unsuitable match enough, Heaven knows! But when he proposed

he was in the state of mind in which sensible people do the most foolish

things. He was a great man in stocks--controlled the market at one

time--had been buying largely just before the election of '44, when we

all expected Henry Clay would get in with plenty to spare. When Polk was

elected, great was the terror of all respectable citizens. My brother

caught such a fright then that I don't think he has fairly recovered

from it to this day. How the stocks did tumble down! Harrison had about

nine millions on his hands; he couldn't keep such a fund, and was forced

to sell at any price, and lost just one third. Just as he was beginning

to pick himself up after the shock and wonder, like the sailor whom the

conjurer blew up, what was to come next? Mr. Whitey of the _Jacobin_,

now the honorable Pompey Whitey--and one doesn't see why he shouldn't

be, for after all an editor is not, generally speaking, a greater

blackguard than most of our Congressmen--Whitey, I say, who for our sins

is nominally attached to the Conservative party, conceived the bright

idea of overbidding the enemy for popular favor, and proposed--no, he

didn't actually propose in so many words, but only strongly hinted at

the desirableness of the measure--that there should be no more paying

rent, and a general division of property. I am not sure but there were

some additional suggestions on the expediency of abolishing the

Christian religion and the institution of matrimony, but that has

nothing to do with politics. This last drop in the bucket quite

overflowed poor Harrison; so, as if he had said to himself, "Let us eat

and drink and get married, for to-morrow we shall have a proscription

and _novae tabulae_," he rushed off and proposed to Miss Macintyre."

"Then, if she accepted him after he lost his fortune, it shows she did

not marry for money, at any rate."

"There you have missed it. He lost the whole of _a_ fortune, but not the

whole of _his_. He must have a million of dollars left, and a man with

that is not poor in any country--certainly it was a great catch for Miss

Macintyre, without a red cent of her own. She jilted a Frenchman for

him: the unfortunate, or fortunate cast-off had ordered much jewelry and

other wedding presents, and when left in the lurch he quietly proposed

that, as he had no longer any use for the articles, Harrison, who had,

should take them off his hands; and this offer was accepted. Very French

in him to make it--don't you think so?--and rather American in the other

to take it. Well, I hope Harrison will come this way soon; I should

really like you to know him."

One or two days after this conversation Ashburner met his friend walking

up and down the interminable piazza of the Bath Hotel, arm-in-arm with a

middle-aged man, who presented as great a contrast to Benson's usual

associates, and to Benson himself, as could well be imagined. The

new-comer was short of stature and square-built, rather ugly, and any

thing but graceful; he wore very good clothes, but they were badly put

on, and looked as if they had never undergone the brush since leaving

the tailor's hands; he wore no gloves, and in short had altogether an

unfashionable appearance. But though indubitably an unfashionable man,

he did not give you the impression of a vulgar one; there was nothing

snobbish or pretentious in his ugliness, and his cavernous black eye

could have belonged only to an intelligent and able man. Benson was

joking or pressing upon him some matter which he seemed unwilling to

explain.

"But do tell me," said Harry, as they passed Ashburner, "what _have_ you

been doing to yourself? Sprained your finger by working too hard the

night before last packet day? or tumbled down from running too fast in

Wall-street, and not thinking which way you were going?" And he took in

his own delicate white hand the rough paw of the stranger, which was

partly bound up as if suffering from some recent injury.

"If you must know," said the other, stopping short his walk, "I broke my

knuckles on an Irish hackman's teeth. Last week the fellow drove me from

the North River boat to my house in Union Square, and I offered him

seventy-five cents. He was very insolent and demanded a dollar. If I had

had a dollar-note about me I might have given it to him, but it happened

that I had only the six shillings in change; and so, knowing that was

two shillings more than his legal fare, I became as positive as he. At

last he seized my trunk, and then I could not resist the temptation of

giving him a left-hander that sent him clean down the steps into the

gutter."

"And then?

"He made a great bawling, and was beginning to draw a crowd about the

house, when I walked off to the nearest police-station; and as it turned

out that my gentleman was known as a troublesome character, they

threatened to take away his license and have him sent to Blackwell's

Island if he didn't keep quiet; so he was too glad to make himself

scarce."

"By Jove, you deserve a testimonial from the city! I once got twenty

dollars damages from an omnibus-driver for running into my brougham,

knocking off a wheel, and dumping my wife and child into the street; and

I thought it was a great exploit, but this performance of yours throws

me into the shade."

Just then Benson caught sight of Ashburner, and excusing himself to the

other, rushed up to him.

"Let me tell you now, before I forget it. We are going over to the glen

to-morrow to dine, and in fact spend the day there. You'll come, of

course?"

"With great pleasure," said Ashburner; "but pray don't let me take you

away from your friend."

"Oh, that's only Harrison."

We meant, of course, our set, with such foreign lions as the place

afforded, foremost among whom stood Ashburner and Le Roi. Benson,

Ludlow, and some of the other married men undertook to arrange it,

always under the auspices of the Robinsons.

These Robinsons were evidently the leaders in every movement of the

fashionables, but why they were so was not so clear--at least, to

Ashburner, though he had abundant opportunities of studying the whole

family. There was a father in some kind of business, who occupied the

usual position of New-York fathers; that is to say, he made the money

for the rest of the family to spend, and showed himself at Oldport once

a fortnight or so--possibly to pay the bills. There was a mother, stout

and good-humored, rather vulgar, very fussy, and no end of a talker: she

always reminded Ashburner of an ex-lady-mayoress. There were three or

four young men, sons and cousins, with the usual amount of white tie and

the ordinary dexterity in the polka; and two daughters, both well out of

their teens. The knowing ones said that one of these young ladies was to

have six thousand a year by her grandfather's will, and the other little

or nothing; but it was not generally understood which was the heiress,

and the old lady manoeuvred with them as if _both_ were. This fact,

however, was not sufficient to account for their rank as _belles_, since

there were several other girls in their circle quite as well, or better

off. Nor had their wit or talent any share in giving them their

position; on the contrary, people used to laugh at the _betises_ of the

Robinsons, and make them the butt of real or imaginary good stories.

And, in point of birth, they were not related to the Van Hornes, the

Bensons, the Vanderlyns, or any of the old Dutch settlers; nor like

White Ludlow, and others of their set, sprung from the British families

of long standing in the city. On the very morning of the proposed

excursion Sedley was sneering at them for _parvenus_, and trying to

amuse Ashburner at their expense with some ridiculous stories about

them.

"And yet," said the Englishman, "these people are your leaders of

fashion. You can't do any thing without them. They are the head of this

excursion that we are just going upon." Benson tells me "the Robinsons

are to be there," as if that settled the propriety and desirability of

my being there also."

"As to that," replied Sedley, "fashionable society is a vast absurdity

anywhere, and it is only natural that absurd people should be at the

head of it. The Robinsons want to be fashionable--it is their only

ambition--they try hard for it; and it is generally the case that those

who devote themselves to any pursuit have some success in it, and only

right that it should be so. Then they are hopelessly good-natured folks,

that you can't insult or quarrel with." Sedley had so little of this

quality himself that he looked on the possession of it as a weakness

rather than a virtue. "Then they are very fond of good living."

"Yes, I remember hearing Benson say that he always liked to feed Mrs.

Robinson at a ball,--it was a perfect pleasure to see her eat; and that

when Loewenberg, in the pride of his heart, gave a three-days'

_dejeuner_, or lunch, or whatever it was, after his marriage, she was

seen there three times each day."

"And he might have told you that they are as liberal of their own good

things as fond of those of others. Old Robinson has some first-rate

Madeira, better by a long chalk than that Vanderlyn Sercial that Harry

Benson is always cramming down your throat--metaphorically, I mean, not

literally. The young men like to drop in there of an evening, for they

are sure to find a good supper and plenty of materials ready for punch

and polka. Then they always manage to catch the newest lions. When I

first saw you in their carriage along-side of Miss Julia, I said to

myself, "That Englishman must be somebody, or the Robinsons would not

have laid hold of him so soon." But their two seasons in Paris were the

making of them,--and the unmaking, too, in another sense; for they ate

such a hole in their fortune--or, rather, their French guests did for

them--that it has never recovered its original dimensions to this day.

They took a grand hotel, and gave magnificent balls, and filled their

rooms with the Parisian aristocracy. My uncle, who is an _habitue_ of

Paris, was at the Jockey Club one day, and heard two exquisites talking

about them. "_Connaissez-vous ce Monsieur Robinson?_" asked one.

"_Est-ce que je le connais!_" replied the other, shrugging his

shoulders. "_Je mange ses diners, je danse a ses bals; v'la tout." Voila

tout_, indeed! That is just all our people get by keeping open house for

foreigners."

Just then Benson and Ludlow came up, the former under much excitement,

and the latter in a sad state of profanity. As they both insisted on

talking at once, it was some time before either was intelligible; at

length Ashburner made out that the excursion had met with a double

check. In the first place, all the bachelors had demanded that Mrs.

Harrison should be of the party, in which they were sustained by

Loewenberg, who, though partly naturalized by his marriage, still

considered himself sufficiently a stranger to be above all spirit of

clique. All the other married men had objected, but the Harrisonites

ultimately carried their point. Of the two principal opponents, Ludlow

was fairly talked off his feet by the voluble _patois_ of Loewenberg, and

Benson completely put down by the laconic and inflexible Sumner. So far

so bad, but worse was to follow; for after the horses had been ordered,

and most of the ladies, including the Robinsons, bonneted and shawled

for the start, the _lionne_, who had, doubtless, heard of the

unsuccessful attempt to blackball her, and wished to make a further

trial of her power, suddenly professed a headache, whereupon her

partisans almost unanimously declared that, as she couldn't go, they

didn't want to go; and thus the whole affair had fallen through. Such

was the substance of their melancholy intelligence, which they had

hardly finished communicating when a _dea ex machina_ appeared in the

person of Mrs. Benson. She declared that it was "a shame," and "too

bad," and she "had never," &c.; and brought her remarks to a practical

conclusion by vowing that _she_ would go, at any rate, whoever chose to

stay with that woman; "and if no one else goes with us I'm sure Mr.

Ashburner will:" at which Ashburner was fain to express his readiness to

follow her to the end of the world, if necessary. Then she followed up

her advantage by sending a message to Sumner, which took him captive

immediately; and as she was well seconded by the Robinsons, who on their

part had brought over Le Roi, the party was soon reorganized pretty much

on its original footing. When the cause of all the trouble found herself

likely to be left in a minority her headache vanished immediately, in

time for her to secure beaux enough to fill her barouche, and Mr.

Harrison was put into a carriage with the musicians. Mrs. Benson's

vehicle was equally well filled; and Harry, who, by his wife's orders,

and much against his own will, had lent his wagon and ponies to a young

Southerner that was doing the amiable to Miss Vanderlyn, had nothing

left for it but to go on horseback; in which Ashburner undertook to join

him, having heard that there was a good bit of turf on the road to the

glen.

"If you go that way," said Mrs. Robinson, when he announced his

intention, "you will have another companion. Mr. Edwards means to ride."

Ashburner had seen Edwards driving a magnificent trotter about Oldport,

but could not exactly fancy him outside of a horse, and conjectured that

he would not make quite so good a figure as when leading the redowa down

a long ball-room. But the hero of the dance was not forthcoming for

some time, so they mounted, Benson his pet Charlie, and the Englishman

the best horse the stables of Oldport could furnish, which it is hardly

necessary to say was not too good a one, and were leaving the village

leisurely to give the carriages a good start of them, when they heard

close behind the patter of a light-stepping horse, and the next moment

Tom Edwards ranged up along side. The little man rode a bright bay mare,

rising above fifteen hands, nearly full-blooded, but stepping steadily

and evenly, without any of that fidget and constant change of gait which

renders so many blood-horses any thing but agreeable to ride, and

carrying her head and tail to perfection. He wore white cord trousers, a

buff waistcoat, and a very natty white hair-cloth cap. His coat was

something between a summer sack and a cutaway,--the color, a rich green

of some peculiar and indescribable shade. His spurs were very small, but

highly polished; and, instead of a whip, he carried a little red cane

with a carved ivory head. In his marvellously fitting white buckskin

glove he managed a rein of some mysterious substance that looked like a

compound of india-rubber and sea-weed. He sat his mare beautifully--with

a little too much aim at effect, perhaps; but gracefully and firmly at

the same time. Ashburner glanced at his own poor beast and wished for

Daredevil, whose antics he had frequently controlled with great success

at Devilshoof; and Benson could not help looking a little mortified, for

Charlie was not very well off for tail, and had recollections of his

harness days, which made him drop his head at times and pull like a

steam engine; besides which, Harry--partly, perhaps, from motives of

economy, partly, as he said, because he thought it snobbish to ride in

handsome toggery--always mounted in the oldest clothes he had, and with

a well-used bridle and saddle. But there was no help for it now, so off

the three went together at a fair trot, and soon overtook most of the

party, Edwards putting his spurs into the bay mare and showing off her

points and his horsemanship at every successive vehicle they passed.

The piece of turf which Benson had promised his friend was not quite so

smooth as Newmarket heath, but it was more than three-quarters of a mile

long, and sufficiently level to be a great improvement on the heavy and

sandy road. So unaccustomed, however, are Americans to "riding on

grass," that Edwards could not be persuaded to quit the main path until

Benson had repeatedly challenged him to a trot on the green. As soon as

the two horses were fairly along-side they went off, without waiting the

signal from their riders, at a pace which kept Ashburner at a

hand-gallop. For awhile they were neck-and-neck, Benson and Charlie

hauling against each other, the rider with his weight thrown back in the

stirrups and laboring to keep his "fast crab" from breaking, while the

mare struck out beautifully with a moderate pull of the rein. Then as

Benson, who carried no whip, began to get his horse more in hand, he

raised a series of yells in true jockey fashion, to encourage his own

animal and to break up Edwards's. The mare skipped--Tom caught her in an

instant, but she fell off in her stroke from being held up, and Charlie

headed her a length; then he gave her her head, and she broke--once,

twice, three times; and every time Benson drew in his horse, who was now

well settled down to his work, and waited for Edwards to come on. At

last, his mare and he both lost their tempers at once. She started for a

run, and he dropped the reins on her back and let her go. At the same

instant Benson stuck both spurs into Charlie, who was a rare combination

of trotter and runner, and away went the two at full gallop. Ashburner's

hack was left behind at once, but he could see them going on close

together, tooling their horses capitally; Edwards's riding, being the

more graceful, and Benson's the more workmanlike; the mare leading a

trifle, as he thought, and Charlie pressing her close. Suddenly Edwards

waved his cane as in triumph, but the next moment he and his mare

disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them up, while Benson's horse

sheered off ten feet to the left.

TO ONE IN AFFLICTION.

By John R. Thompson.

From the Southern Literary Messenger.

Dear friend! if word of mine could seal

The bitter fount of all thy tears,

And, through the future's cloudy years,

Some glimpse of sunshine yet reveal--

That word I might not dare to speak:

A father's sorrow o'er his child

So sacred seems and undefiled,

To bid it cease we may not seek.

Thy little boy has passed away

From mortal sight and mortal love,

To join the shining choir above

And dwell amid the perfect day;

All robed in spotless innocence,

And fittest for celestial things,

O'ershadowed by her rustling wings

The angel softly led him hence:

As pure as if the gentle rain

Of his baptismal morn had sought

His bosom's depths, and e'ery thought

Had sweetly cleansed from earthly stain:

Such blest assurance brings, I know,

To bleeding hearts but sad relief--

The dark and troubled tide of grief

_Must_ have its ebb and flow--

And most of all when thou dost plod,

_Alone_, upon these wintry days,

Along the old familiar ways

Wherein _his_ little feet have trod.

And thou dost treasure up his words,

The fragments of his earnest talk,

On some remembered morning walk,

When, at the song of earliest birds,

He'd ask of thee, with charmed look,

And smile upon his features spread,

Whose careful hand the birds had fed,

And filled the ever-running brook?

Or viewing, from the distant glade,

The dim horizon round his home,

With simplest speech and air would come

And ask why were the mountains made?

Be strong, my friend, these days of doom

Are but the threads of darkest hue,

That daily enter to renew

The warp of the Eternal Loom.

And when to us it shall be given

In joy _to see the other side_

These threads the brightest shall abide

In the fair tapestries of Heaven!

MY NOVEL:

OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

By Pisistratus Caxton.

_Continued from page 421._

From Blackwood's Magazine

PART VI.--CHAPTER XIII.

Whatever may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs

upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian

had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily

and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the Parson's,

charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant boy to go and ask

pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was

bid, he owed an agonizing defeat and a shameful incarceration. And, to

Mrs. Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply

offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the

stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was it

without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his

lessons at school; nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his

mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though

sullenly; and the Parson thought it better to temporize as to the more

unpalatable demand. Unluckily Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that

awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though

Stirn at first kept his own counsel, the Tinker blabbed the whole

affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night,

all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So

then Stirn told his story, as the Tinker had told his own; both tales

were very unfavorable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern boy had broken

the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the

bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in

spying out the misdemeanors of his equals; therefore Leonard Fairfield,

in both capacities of degraded pattern boy and baffled spy, could expect

no mercy;--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.

It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster, and under the eye

of Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the

moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.

Some pointed and mowed at him; some cursed him for a sneak, and all

shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed

through the village at dusk, "Who was put in the stocks?--baa!" "Who got

a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?--baa!" To resist this

species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head

and a colder temper than our poor pattern boy's. He took his resolution

at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after

Dr. Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself

on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said he

to the Doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his

red silk umbrella over his head.

"Please, sir, if you'll be good enough to take me now, and give me any

hole to sleep in, I'll work for your honor night and day; and as for the

wages, mother says 'just suit yourself, sir.'"

"My child," said the Doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at

him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, "I knew you would come! and

Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them

by-and-by."

Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the

vacant chair, where he had so long sate in the place of her beloved

Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all to

itself, that she could bear it no longer.

Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny--perhaps

more so; and one morning she hailed the Steward as he was trotting his

hog-maned cob beside the door, and bade him tell the Squire that "she

would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice

for the land and premises she held--there were plenty to step into the

place at a much better rent."

"You're a fool," said the good-natured Steward; "and I'm very glad you

did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You've been doing

extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing."

"Nothin' as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feeling," said the

widow. "And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I

should like to go and live near him."

"Ah, yes--I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino--more fool

he; but, bless your heart, 'tis no distance--two miles or so. Can't he

come home every night after work?"

"No, sir," exclaimed the widow almost fiercely; "he shan't come home

here, to be called bad names and jeered at!--he whom my dead good man

was so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as I

said to Mrs. Dale, and as I will say to the Squire hisself. Not that I

don't thank him for all favors--he be a good gentleman if let alone; but

he says he won't come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin. Pardin

for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could ha' seen

his nose, sir--as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! If the Squire had

had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd been ha' axing.

But I let's the passion get the better of me--I humbly beg you'll excuse

it, sir. I'm no scollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny would have been,

if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore just get the Squire

to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit o' hay and what's on

the grounds and orchard, the new-comer will no doubt settle that."

The Steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow to

relinquish her resolution, took her message to the Squire. Mr.

Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy's obstinate refusal

to make the _amende honorable_ to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed

a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and

son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more

gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow,

he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and

_brusque_ enough on her own account, and in such business as might

especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she

never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a

herald-of-peace and mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that

she undertook this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son

were great favorites of hers. She entered the cottage with the

friendliest beam in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest

tone of her frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was

no more successful than the Steward had been. The truth is, that I don't

believe the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as

your plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and

deal with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my

own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so

sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr.

Riccabocca, as the same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely

sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank Heaven! _that_

he rarely meets with unjustly;) but to be looked down upon, and mocked,

and pointed at by his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the

soul. And if you can succeed in breaking his pride, and destroying this

sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He can never recover his

self-esteem, and you have chucked him half way--a stolid, inert, sullen

victim--to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.

Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the

honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not

have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.

But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff,

plain-spoken one--and, after all, she had some little feeling for the

son of a gentleman, and a decayed fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's

account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor

could she, with her strong common sense, attach all the importance which

Mrs. Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs,

which she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken of

it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazeldean departed--with

much chagrin and some displeasure.

Mrs. Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had

made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked--the

key left at a neighbor's to be given to the Steward; and, on farther

inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been

removed by the errand-cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had succeeded

in finding a cottage, on the road-side, not far from the Casino; and

there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother to breakfast,

and show how he had spent the night in arranging her furniture.

"Parson!" cried the Squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was

walking arm-in-arm with Mr. Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in

the Alms-house, "this is all your fault. Why did not you go and talk to

that brute of a boy, and that dolt of a woman? You've got 'soft sawder

enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang."

"As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!" said the Parson in a

tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. "But it was in vain! O

Squire, if you had taken my advice about the stocks--_quieta non

movere_!"

"Bother!" said the Squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant, a

Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having

things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed!--your friend Rickeybockey said he

was never more comfortable in his life--quite enjoyed sitting there. And

what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentlemanlike man he

is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to Master Leonard

Fairfield. But 'tis no use talking! What's to be done now? The woman

must not starve; and I'm sure she can't live out of Rickeybockey's wages

to Lenny--(by the way, I hope he don't board him upon his and Jackeymo's

leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and sticklebacks--faugh!) I'll

tell you what, Parson, now I think of it--at the back of the cottage

which she has taken there are some fields of capital land just vacant.

Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded me as to the rent when he

was at the Hall. I only half promised him the refusal. And he must give

up four or five acres of the best land round the cottage to the

widow--just enough for her to manage--and she can keep a dairy. If she

want capital, I'll lend her some in your name--only don't tell Stirn;

and as for the rent--we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on,

thankless obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the Squire, as if

he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom

he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful

servant, and so--I wish you would not stand there staring me out of

countenance, but go down to the woman at once, or Stirn will have let

the land to Rickeybockey, as sure as a gun. And hark ye, Dale, perhaps

you can contrive, if the woman is so cursedly stiff-backed, not to say

the land is mine, or that it is any favor I want to do her--or, in

short, manage it as you can for the best." Still even this charitable

message failed. The widow knew that the land was the Squire's, and worth

a good L3 an acre. "She thanked him humbly for that and all favors; but

she could not afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden

to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr.

Rickeybockey's, and coming on wonderfully in the garden way--and she did

not doubt she could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would

bring in a good bit of money, and she should do nicely, thank their

honors."

Nothing farther could be done in the direct way, but the remark about

the washing suggested some mode of indirectly benefiting the widow. And

a little time afterwards, the sole laundress in that immediate

neighborhood happening to die, a hint from the Squire obtained from the

landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as she had to

bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. And what with Lenny's

wages, (whatever that mysterious item might be,) the mother and son

contrived to live without exhibiting any of those physical signs of fast

and abstinence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously afforded to

the student in animal anatomy.