ROSE, BLANCHE,

  AND

  VIOLET.


  BY

  G. H. LEWES, ESQ.

  AUTHOR OF "RANTHORPE,"
  "BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC. ETC.



  Il n'y a point de vertu proprement dite, sans victoire sur
  nous-mêmes, et tout ce qui ne nous coûte rien, ne vaut rien.

  DE MAISTRE.



  IN THREE VOLUMES.

  VOL. I.



  LONDON:
  SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
  ----
  1848.




  London:
  Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
  Old Bailey.




  DÉDICACE.

  ----

  A MONSIEUR BENJAMIN MOREL

  (DE DUNKERQUE),


  COMME UN

  AFFECTUEUX SOUVENIR

  DE L' AUTEUR,


  G. H. LEWES.




PREFACE.

When a distinct Moral presides over the composition of a work of
fiction, there is great danger of its so shaping the story to suit a
purpose, that human nature is falsified by being coerced within the
sharply defined limits of some small dogma.

So conscious of this did I become in the progress of my story, that I
was forced to abandon my original intention, in favour of a more
natural evolution of incident and character; accordingly, the Moral
has been left to shift for itself.  It was a choice between truth of
passion and character, on the one hand, and on the other, didactic
clearness.  I could not hesitate in choosing the former.

And yet, as Hegel truly says, "in every work of Art there is a Moral;
but it depends on him who draws it."  If, therefore, the reader
insists upon a Moral, he may draw one from the passions here
exhibited; and the value of it will depend upon his own sagacity.

From Life itself I draw one great moral, which I may be permitted to
say is illustrated in various ways by the present work; and it is
this:--

Strength of Will is the quality most needing cultivation in mankind.
Will is the central force which gives strength and greatness to
character.  We over-estimate the value of Talent, because it dazzles
us; and we are apt to underrate the importance of Will, because its
works are less shining.  Talent gracefully adorns life; but it is
Will which carries us victoriously through the struggle.  Intellect
is the torch which lights us on our way; Will, the strong arm which
rough hews the path for us.  The clever, weak man sees all the
obstacles on his path; the very torch he carries, being brighter than
that of most men, enables him, perhaps, to see that the path before
him may be directest, the best,--yet it also enables him to see the
crooked turnings by which he may, as he fancies, reach the goal
without encountering difficulties.  If, indeed, Intellect were a sun,
instead of a torch,--if it irradiated every corner and crevice--then
would man see how, in spite of every obstacle, the direct path was
the only safe one, and he would cut his way through by manful labour.
But constituted as we are, it is the clever, weak men who stumble
most--the strong men who are most virtuous and happy.  In this world,
there cannot be virtue without strong Will; the weak "know the right,
and yet the wrong pursue."

No one, I suppose, will accuse me of deifying Obstinacy, or even mere
brute Will; nor of depreciating Intellect.  But we have had too many
dithyrambs in honour of mere Intelligence; and the older I grow, the
clearer I see that Intellect is not the highest faculty in man,
although the most brilliant.  Knowledge, after all, is not the
greatest thing in life: it is not the "be-all and the end-all here."
Life is not Science.  The light of Intellect is truly a precious
light; but its aim and end is simply to shine.  The moral nature of
man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature.  I know
they cannot be divorced--that without intelligence we should be
brutes--but it is the tendency of our gaping wondering dispositions
to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us.
Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness,
lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in
the world.

KENSINGTON, _March_ 1848.




[Transcriber's note: In the Book II section of the Contents, there
was no entry for Chapter IX, nor was there a chapter by that number
in the source book.  The book's actual text appears to be complete.]


CONTENTS.


PROLOGUE


BOOK I.

CHAPTER

  I.--Four Years Later
  II.--Rose Writes to Violet
  III.--The Happy School-days
  IV.--Rose and Blanche at Home
  V.--Marmaduke meets Mrs. Vyner
  VI.--How Rose became acquainted with our Ugly Hero
  VII.--Rose Vyner Writes to Fanny Worsley
  VIII.--Mrs. Langley Turner, and her Friends
  IX.--Two Portraits
  X.--Declaration of War
  XI.--One of our Heroes


BOOK II.

CHAPTER

  I.--Cecil Chamberlayne to Frank Forrester
  II.--Rose to Fanny Worsley
  III.--Cecil is Smitten
  IV.--Cecil Exhibits Himself
  V.--A Trait of Julius St. John
  VI.--Hidden Meanings
  VII.--Mutual Self-Examination
  VIII.--The Disadvantages of Ugliness
  X.--The Great Commentator
  XI.--Cecil again Writes to Frank
  XII.--Cecil put to the Test
  XIII.--How a Lover Vacillates
  XIV.--Jealousy
  XV.--The Lovers Meet
  XVI.--The Discovery
  XVII.--The Sacrifice
  XVIII.--Cecil in his True Colours
  XIX.--The Perils of One Night
  XX.--Captain Heath Watches over Blanche




ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.



PROLOGUE.

1835.

It was a sultry day in July, and the sun was pouring down from a
cloudless heaven intense rays upon the High-street of * * * * * The
heat made the place a desert; more indeed of a desert than even
High-streets of country towns usually are.  There was a burnt odour
in the atmosphere, arising from the scorched pavement, and rayed
forth from the garish brick houses.  Silence and noon-day heat
reigned over the scene.  The deep stillness was brought out into
stronger relief by the occasional bark of a dog, or rumbling of a
solitary cart.

A few human beings dotted the street, at wide intervals.  There was a
groom standing at the stable-yard entrance of the Royal George,
indolently chewing a blade of grass.  The clergyman's wife, hot,
dusty, and demure, was shopping.  A farmer had just dismounted from a
robust white cob, which he left standing at the door of a dismal
red-brick house, on the wire blinds of which was painted the
word--BANK.  Higher up, three ragged urchins were plotting mischief,
or arranging some game.  A proud young mother was dandling her infant
at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware
of the important fact of her maternity--to be sure, there never was
such a beautiful baby before!  In the window of that shop--it was a
grocer's--a large black cat was luxuriously sleeping on a bed of
moist sugar, sunning herself there, too lazy even to disturb the
flies which crowded to the spot.

To one who, a stranger to the place, merely cast his eyes down that
street, nothing could appear more lifeless--more devoid of all human
interest--more unchequered by the vicissitudes of passion.  It had
the calm of the desert, without the grandeur.  In such a place, the
current of life would seem monotonously placid; existence itself
scarcely better than vegetation.  It is not so, however.  To those
who inhabited the place, it was known that beneath the stillness a
stratum of boiling lava was ever ready to burst forth.  Every house
was really the theatre of some sad comedy, or of some grotesque
tragedy.  The shop which to an unfamiliar eye was but the depository
of retail goods, with John Smith as the retailer, was to an
inhabitant the well-known scene of some humble heroism, or ridiculous
pretension.  John Smith, smirking behind his counter, is not simply
an instrument of commerce; he is a husband, a father, and a citizen;
he has his follies, his passions, his hopes, and his opinions; he is
the object of unreckoned scandals.

To the eye of the stranger who now leisurely paced the street, the
town was dull and lifeless, because it had not the incessant noise of
a capital, and because he knew nothing of the dramas which were being
enacted within its walls.  Yet even he was soon to learn that sorrow,
"not loud but deep," was weeping ineffectually over a tragedy which
touched him nearly.

He was a man of about thirty years of age, with the unmistakeable
look of a gentleman, and, to judge from his moustaches and erect
bearing, an officer in the army.  As he passed her, the proud young
mother ceased for a moment to think only of her child, and followed
with admiring eyes his retreating form.  The echo of his sharp,
decisive tread rang through the silent street; and soon he
disappeared, turning up towards a large house which fronted the sea.

He knocked at the door, and with an unconscious coquetry smoothed his
dark moustache while waiting.  The door was opened by a grey-haired
butler.

"How d' ye do, Wilson?  Are they at home--eh! what's this? you in
mourning?"

"Yes, sir.  What! don't you know, sir?"

"Good God! what has happened?  Is Mrs. Vyner----?"

"Yes, sir, yes," replied the butler, shaking his head sorrowfully.
"It has been a dreadful blow, sir, to master, and to the young
ladies.  She was buried Monday week."

The stranger was almost stupefied by this sudden shock.

"Dead!" he exclaimed; "dead!  Good God!--So young, so
young.--Dead!--So beautiful and good.--Dead!"

"Ah, sir, master will never get over it.  He does take on so.  I
never saw any one, never; and the young ladies----"

"Dead!"

"Will you please to walk up, sir?  Master would like to see you."

"No, no, no."

"It will comfort him; indeed, sir, it will.  He likes to talk to any
one, sir, about the party that's gone."

The tears came into the old man's eyes as he thus alluded to his lost
mistress, and the stranger was too much affected to notice the
singular language in which the butler spoke of "the party."

After a few moments' consideration, the stranger walked up into the
drawing-room, while the servant went to inform Mr. Vyner of the
visit.  Left to himself, and to the undisturbed indulgence of those
feelings of solemn sadness by which we are always affected at the
sudden death of those we know, especially of the young--shaking us as
it does in the midst of our own security, and bringing terribly home
the conviction of that fact which health and confidence keep in a dim
obscurity, that "in the midst of life we are in death"--the stranger,
whom we shall now name as Captain Heath, walked up to a miniature of
the deceased, and gazed upon it in melancholy curiosity.

Captain Heath had lost a dear friend in Mrs. Vyner, with whom he had
been a great favourite.  To his credit be it said, that, although the
handsome wife of a man much older than herself, he had never for an
instant misinterpreted her kindness towards him; and this, too,
although he was an officer in the Hussars.  Theirs was truly and
strictly a friendship between man and woman, as pure as it was firm;
founded upon mutual esteem and sympathy.  Some malicious whispers
were, indeed, from time to time ventured on--for who can entirely
escape them?--but they never gained much credence.  Mrs. Vyner's
whole life was an answer to calumny.

Meredith Vyner, of Wytton Hall, Devonshire, was the kindest if not
the most fascinating of husbands.  A book-worm and pedant, he had the
follies of his tribe, and was as open to ridicule as the worst of
them; but, with all his foibles, he was a kind, gentle, weak,
indolent creature, who made many friends, and, what is more, retained
them.

There was something remarkable though not engaging in his appearance.
He looked like a dirty bishop.  In his pale puffy face there was an
ecclesiastical mildness, which assorted well with a large forehead
and weak chin, though it brought into stronger contrast the pugnacity
of a short blunt nose, the nostrils of which were somewhat elevated
and garnished with long black hairs.  A physiognomist would at once
have pronounced him obstinate, but weak; loud in the assertion of his
intentions, vacillating in their execution.  His large person was
curiously encased in invariable black; a tail-coat with enormous
skirts, in which were pockets capacious enough to contain a stout
volume; the waistcoat of black silk, liberally sprinkled with grains
of snuff, reached below the waist, and almost concealed the
watch-chain and its indefinite number of gold seals which dangled
from the fob; of his legs he was as proud as men usually are who have
an ungraceful development of calf; and hence, perhaps, the reason of
his adhering to the black tights of our fathers.  Shoes, large,
square, and roomy, with broad silver buckles, completed his
invariable and somewhat anachronical attire.

People laughed at Meredith Vyner for his dirty nails and his love of
Horace (whom he was always quoting, without regard to the probability
of his hearers understanding Latin--for the practice seemed
involuntary); but they respected him for his integrity and goodness,
and for his great, though ill-assorted, erudition.  In a word, he was
laughed at, but there was no malice in the laughter.

As Captain Heath stood gazing on the miniature of his lost friend, a
heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder; and on turning round he
beheld Meredith Vyner, on whose large, pale face sorrow had deepened
the lines: his eyes were bloodshot and swollen with crying.  In
silence, they pressed each other's hands for some moments, both
unable to speak.  At last, in a trembling voice, Vyner said, "Gone,
gone!  She's gone from us."

Heath responded by a fervent pressure of the hand.

"Only three weeks ill," continued the wretched widower; "and so
unexpected!"

"She died without pain," he added, after a pause; "sweetly resigned.
She is in heaven now.  I shall follow her soon: I feel I shall.  I
cannot survive her loss."

"Do not forget your children."

"I do not; I will not.  Is not one of them her child?  I will
struggle for its sake.  So young to be cut off!"

There was another pause, in which each pursued the train of his sad
thoughts.  The hot air puffed through the blinds of the darkened
room, and the muffled sounds of distant waves breaking upon the shore
were faintly heard.

"Come with me," said Vyner, rising.

He led the captain into the bed-room.

"There she lay," he said, pointing to the bed: "you see the mark of
the coffin on the coverlet?  I would not have it disturbed.  It is
the last trace she left."

The tears rolled down his cheek as he gazed upon this frightful
memento.

"In this room I sat up a whole night when they laid her in the
coffin, and all night as I gazed upon those loved features, placid in
their eternal repose, I was constantly fancying that she breathed,
and that her bosom heaved again with life.  Alas! it was but the
mockery of my love.  She remained cold to my kiss--insensible to the
tenderness which watched over her.  Yet I _could_ not leave her.  It
was foolish, perhaps, but it was all that remained to me.  To gaze
upon her was painful, yet there was pleasure in that pain.  The face
which had smiled such sunshine on me, which had so often looked up to
mine in love, that face was now cold, lifeless--but it was _hers_,
and I could not leave it.  My poor, poor girl!"

His sobs interrupted him.  Captain Heath had no disposition to check
a grief which would evidently wear itself away much more rapidly by
thus dwelling on the subject, than by any effort to drive it from the
mind.  To say the truth, Heath was himself too much moved to speak.
The long, sharply-defined trace of the coffin on the coverlet was to
him more terrible than the sight of the corpse could have been; it
was so painfully suggestive.

"The second night," continued Vyner, "they prevailed on me to go to
bed; but I could not sleep.  No sooner did I drop into an uneasy
doze, than some horrible dream aroused me.  My waking thoughts were
worse.  I was continually fancying the rats would--would--ugh!  At
last, I got up and went into the room.  Who should be there, but
Violet!  The dear child was in her night-dress, praying by the side
of the bed!  She did not move when I came in.  I knelt down with her.
We both offered up our feeble prayers to Him who had been pleased to
take her from us.  We prayed together, we wept together.  We kissed
gently the pale rigid face, and then the dear child suffered me to
lead her away without a word.  It was only then that I suspected the
depth of Violet's grief.  She had not cried so much as Rose and
Blanche.  I thought she was too young to feel the loss.  But from
that moment I understood the strange light which plays in her eyes
when she speaks of her mother."

He stooped over the bed and kissed it; and then, quite overcome, he
threw himself upon a chair, and buried his face in his hands.  The
ceaseless wash of the distant waves was now distinctly heard, and it
gave a deeper melancholy to the scene.  Captain Heath's feelings were
so wound up, that the room was becoming insupportable to him, and
desirous of shaking off these impressions, he endeavoured to console
his friend.

"I ought to be more firm," said Vyner, rising, "but I cannot help it.
I am not ashamed of these tears--

  Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
  Tam cari capitis?

But I ought not to distress others by them."

He led the way down stairs, and, as the children were out, made Heath
promise to return to dinner; "it would help to make them all more
cheerful."

Captain Heath departed somewhat shocked at the pedantry which in such
a moment could think of Horace; and by that very pedantry he was
awakened to a sense of the ludicrous figure which sorrow had made of
Vyner.

We are so constituted that, while scarcely anything disturbs our
hilarity, the least incongruity which seems to lessen the earnestness
of grief, chills our sympathy at once.  Vyner's quotation introduced
into the mind of his friend an undefined suspicion of the sincerity
of that grief which could admit of such incongruity.  But the
suspicion was unjust.  It was not pedantry which dictated that
quotation.  Pedantry is the pride and ostentation of learning, and at
that moment Vyner was assuredly not thinking of displaying an
acquaintance with the Latin poet.  He was simply obeying a habit; he
gave utterance to a sentence which his too faithful memory presented.

Captain Heath walked on the sands musing.  He had not gone far before
his eye was caught by the appearance of two girls in deep mourning; a
second glance assured him they were Vyner's daughters.  Walking
rapidly towards them, he was received with affectionate interest.

Quickly recovering from the depression which the sight of him at
first awakened, they began with the happy volatility of childhood, to
ask him all sorts of questions.

"But where is my little Violet?" asked the captain.

"Oh! she's sitting on the ledge of a rock yonder, listening to the
sea," said Blanche.

"Yes," added Rose, "it is very extraordinary--she says the sea has
voices in it which speak to her.  She cannot tell us what it says,
but it makes her happy.  But she cries a great deal, and that doesn't
look like happiness, does it, Captain Heath?"

"No, Rosebud, not very.  But let me go to her."

"Yes, do; come along."

The three moved on together, and presently came to the rock, on a
ledge of which a little girl was lounging.  Her hat was off, and her
long dark brown hair was scattered over her shoulders by the wind.
Her face was towards the horizon, and she seemed intently watching.

From the two little traits of her drawn by her father and her
sisters, Captain Heath, who had not seen her since she was a merry
little thing of seven, anticipated a sickly precocious child, in whom
reading or conversation had engendered some of that spiritual
exaltation, which is mostly three parts affectation to one part
disease.  He was agreeably disappointed.  She had not noticed their
arrival, but on being spoken to, embraced the captain with warmth,
and received him in a perfectly natural manner.

To set his doubts at rest, he said:--

"Well, Violet, has the sea been eloquent to-day, or is it too calm?"

She looked up at him, then at her sisters, and coloured.  "I see they
have been making fun of me," she said; "but that's not fair.  I love
to sit by the sea because--" she hesitated, "mama loved it.  It isn't
foolish of me, is it Captain Heath?"

"No, my dear, not at all--not at all."

"Oh, Captain Heath!" exclaimed Rose, "you said just now it was."

He pinched her little cheek playfully, and was about to reply, when
Blanche said:--

"Look, there is Mary Hardcastle walking with Mrs. Henley.  Let us go
and speak to them.  I will introduce you, Captain Heath; she's very
pretty."

"Another time," replied he; "they seem to be talking very earnestly
together."

"That they are."

"I hate Mary Hardcastle," said Violet.

"Why?"

"I don't know, but I hate her."

"Silly child!" said Rose; "she's always saying kind things to you."

"And always doing unkind ones," rejoined Violet, sharply.

"Hate is a strong word, Violet," said Blanche.

"Not stronger than I want," replied the high-spirited little girl.

All this while the captain was following with his eye the retreating
form of the said Mary Hardcastle.

Let us follow also.

"It is hopeless for me to expect my guardian will allow him to come,"
said that young lady, with great emphasis, to her companion; "you
know how much he dislikes Marmaduke.  So, unless you consent--you
will, won't you?"

"I cannot resist you, Mary.  But how is this interview to be
arranged?"

"It _is_ arranged.  I was so sure of your goodness--I knew you would
not let him leave England without seeing me once more, to say
farewell; so I told him to call on you this very afternoon, because I
was to spend the day with you.  Thus, you see, it will all happen in
the most natural manner."

Mrs. Henley smiled, shook her forefinger at her young friend; so they
walked on, both satisfied.

Having gained this point, it soon occurred to Mary, that Marmaduke
might be asked to dine and spend the evening; but as this would
expose Mrs. Henley to the chance of some one dropping in, and she was
very averse to be supposed to favour these clandestine meetings, a
steady refusal was given.  Mary inwardly resolved that she would have
a farewell meeting with her lover, and alone; but said nothing more
on the subject.  To have a lover about to sail for Brazil, and to
part with him coldly before others, was an idea no young girl could
entertain, and least of all Mary Hardcastle.  She was too well read
in romance to think of such a thing.

It does not occur to every girl, in our unromantic days, to have a
stern guardian who dislikes her lover, and forbids him the house.
Mary, therefore, might consider herself as greatly favoured by
misfortune; her misery was as perfectly select as even her wish could
frame, and the great, the thrilling climax--the parting--was at hand.
That it should be moonlight was a matter of course--moonlight on the
sea-shore.

Mary Hardcastle was just nineteen.  There was something wonderfully
attractive about her, though it puzzled you to say wherein lay the
precise attraction.  Very diminutive, and slightly humpbacked, she
had somewhat the air of a sprite--so tiny, so agile, so fragile, and
cunning did she appear; and this appearance was further aided by the
amazing luxuriance of her golden hair, which hung in curls, drooping
to her waist.  The mixture of deformity and grace in her figure was
almost unearthly.  She had a skin of exquisite texture and whiteness,
and the blood came and went in her face with the most charming
mobility.  All her features were alive, and all had their peculiar
character.  The great defects of her face were, the thinness of her
lips, and the cat-like cruelty sometimes visible in her small, grey
eyes.  I find it impossible to convey, in words, the effect of her
personal charms.  The impression was so mixed up of the graceful and
diabolic, of the attractive and repulsive, that I know of no better
description of her than is given in Marmaduke's favourite names for
her: he called her his "fascinating panther," and his "tiger-eyed
sylph."

She had completely enslaved Marmaduke Ashley.  With the blood of the
tropics in his veins, he had much of the instinct of the savage, and
as when a boy he had felt a peculiar passion for snakes and tigers,
so in his manhood were there certain fibres which the implacable eyes
of Mary Hardcastle made vibrate with a delight no other woman had
roused.  He was then only twenty-four, and in all the credulity of
youth.

Everything transpired according to Mary's wish, and at nine o'clock
she contrived to slip away in the evening, unnoticed, to meet her
lover on the sands.  True it was not moonlight.  She had forgotten
that the moon would not rise; but, after the first disappointment,
she was consoled by the muttering of distant thunder, and the dark
and stormy appearance of the night; a storm would have been a more
romantic parting scene than any moonlight could afford.  So when
Marmaduke joined her, she was in a proper state of excitement, and
felt as miserable as the most exacting school-girl could require.
The sea, as it broke sullenly upon the shore, heaved not its bosom
with a heavier sigh, than that with which she greeted her lover, and
nestled in his arms.  She wept bitterly, reproached her fate, and
wished to die that moment.  Marmaduke, who had never before seen such
a display of her affection, was intensely gratified, and with
passionate protestations of his undying love, endeavoured to console
her.

But she did not want to be consoled.  As she could not be happy with
him, her only relief was to be miserable.  Self-pity was the balm for
her wounds.  By making herself thoroughly wretched, she stood well in
her own opinion.  In fact, without her being aware of it, her love
sprang not from the heart, but from the head.  She was acting a part
in her own drama, and naturally chose the most romantic part.

The storm threatened, but did not burst.  The heavens continued dark;
and the white streaks of foam cresting the dark waves were almost the
only things the eye could discern.  The lovers did not venture far
from the house, but paced up and down, occasionally pausing in the
earnestness of talk.

Their conversation need not be recorded here; the more so as it was
but a repetition of one or two themes, such as the misery of their
situation, the constancy of their affection, and their sanguineness
of his speedy return and their happy union.

"Marmaduke," she said at last, "it is getting late; Mrs. Henley will
miss me; I must go."

"A moment longer; one moment."

"Only a moment.  Dearest Marmaduke, will you never forget me?  Will
you think of me always?  Will you write as often as you can?  Let us
every night at twelve look at the moon; it will be so sweet to know
that at that moment each is doing the same thing, and each thinking
of the other.  You will not lose my locket?  But, stay; you have
never given me a lock of your hair.  Do so now."

He took a penknife from his pocket, and, with noble disregard to his
appearance, cut off a large lock of his black hair, which he folded
in a piece of paper and gave to her.  She kissed it many times, and
vowed its place should be upon her heart.  Then, after throwing
herself into his arms, in one last embrace of despair, she broke from
him and darted into the house, rushed up into a bed-room, threw
herself outside the bed, and gave way to so vehement a fit of crying,
that when Mrs. Henley came in to look for her, she found her in
hysterics.

_Nota bene_.--Sixteen months afterwards, Mary Hardcastle became Mrs.
Meredith Vyner.




BOOK I.



CHAPTER I.

FOUR YEARS LATER.

  Messire Bon l'a prise en mariage,
  Quoiqu'il n'ait plus que quatre cheveux gris;
  Mais comme il est le premier du pays
  Son bien supplée au défaut de son age.

  LAFONTAINE.


My heroines have grown up into young women since we last saw them
idling on the sands; and it is proper I should at once give some idea
of their appearance.  Rose and Blanche, children by the first wife,
are very unlike their sister Violet, the only child of the second
Mrs. Vyner: they are fair as Englishwomen only are fair; she is dark
as the children of the south are dark.  They are plump and
middle-sized; she is thin and very tall.  They are settling into
rounded womanhood; she is at that undeveloped "awkward age" when the
beauty of womanhood has not yet come to fill the place of the
vanished grace of childhood.

Two prettier creatures than Rose and Blanche, it would be impossible
to find.  There were sisterly resemblances peeping out amidst the
most charming differences.  I know not which deserved the palm; Rose,
with her bright grey eyes swimming in mirth, her little piquant nose
with its nostrils so delicately cut, her ruddy pouting lips which
Firenzuola would with justice have called 'fontana de tutte le
amorose dolcezze,' her dimpled cheeks; and the whole face, in short,
radiant with lovingness and enjoyment.  Shakspeare, who has said so
many exquisite things of women, has painted Rose in one line:--

  Pretty and witty, wild, and yet, too, gentle.

But then Blanche, with her long dreamy eyes, loving mouth, and
general expression of meekness and devotion, was in her way quite as
bewitching.  As for poor Violet, she was almost plain: it was only
those lustrous eyes, so unlike the eyes of ordinary mortals, which
redeemed her thin sallow face.  If plain, however, it has already
great energy, great character, and a strange mixture of the most
womanly caressing gentleness, with haughtiness and wilfulness that
are quite startling.  Those who remember her as a lovely child,
prophesy that she will become a splendid woman.

From the three girls, let us turn our eyes to the strange stepmother
which fate--or rather foolishness and cunning--had given them.

Mary Hardcastle, at the age of twenty, was placed in perhaps the most
critical position which can await a young woman, viz. that of
stepmother to girls very little younger than herself.  In that
situation, she exhibited uncommon skill; the very difficulties of it
were calculated to draw out her strategetical science in the
disposition of her troops; and certainly few women have ever arranged
circumstances with more adroitness than herself.  She was a
stepmother indeed, and the reader anticipates what kind of
stepmother; but she was too cunning to fall into the ordinary mistake
of ostensibly assuming the reins of government.  Apparently, she did
nothing; she was not the mistress of her own house; she never
undertook the management of a single detail.  A meek, submissive
wife, anxious to gain the affection of her 'dear girls;' trembling
before the responsibilities of her situation, she not only deluded
the world, but she even deceived Captain Heath, and almost reconciled
him to the marriage.  Nay, what was more remarkable, she deceived the
girls--at least, the two elder girls.  They were her companions--her
pets.  Before people, she adored them; in private, she gave them
pretty clearly to understand that all their indulgences came from
her; and all their privations from their father.  It was her wish,
indeed, that her dear girls should want for nothing, but papa was so
obstinate--he could not be persuaded.

Strange discrepancies between word and deed would sometimes show
themselves, but how was it possible to doubt the sincerity of one
whose language and sentiments were so kind and liberal?  She herself
trembled before her husband, and often got the girls to intercede for
her.  The natural consequence was that they soon became convinced
that papa was very much altered, and that as he grew older he grew
less kind.

Altered he was.  Formerly he had secluded himself in his study,
interfering scarcely at all in family arrangements, making few
observations upon what his children did; and if not taking any great
interest in them, at least behaving with pretty uniform kindness.
Now he was for ever interfering to forbid this, to put a stop to
that; discovering that he "really could not afford" that which
hitherto he had always allowed them; and, above all, discovering that
his daughters were always trying to "govern" in his house.

Violet alone was undeceived.  She had always hated Mary Hardcastle,
without precisely knowing why; now she hated her because occupying
the place which her dear mother had occupied, and that, too, in a
spirit of hypocrisy evident in her eyes.  Violet, therefore, at once
fixed the change in her father upon her stepmother.  How it was
accomplished, she knew not; but she was certain of the fact.

The mystery was simple.  Meredith Vyner, like all weak men, had an
irresistible tendency to conceal his weakness from himself, by what
he called some act of firmness.  He would have his own way, he said.
He would not be governed.  He would be master in his own house.  Mrs.
Vyner saw through him at a glance.  Wishing to separate him from his
children, and so preserve undisputed sway over him, she artfully
contrived to persuade him that he had always suffered himself to be
governed by his children, and that he had not a will of his own.
Thus prompted, he was easily moved to exert his authority with some
asperity whenever his wife insinuated that it was disregarded; and he
established a character for firmness in his own eyes, by thwarting
his daughters, and depriving them of indulgences.

Moreover, Mrs. Vyner was, or affected to be, excessively jealous of
his affection for the girls.  He neglected her for them, she said; of
course she could not expect it to be otherwise, were they not his
children? were they not accustomed to have everything give way to
them?  What was she? an interloper.  Yet she loved him--foolishly,
perhaps, but she loved him--and love would be jealous, would feel
hurt at neglect.

Vyner, delighted and annoyed at this jealousy, assured her that it
was groundless; but the only assurance she would accept was acts, not
words; accordingly, the poor old man was gradually forced to shut his
heart against his girls; or, at any rate, to cease his demonstrations
of affection, merely to get peace.

In a few sentences I convey the result of months of artful struggle;
but the reader can understand the process by which this result was
obtained, especially if I indicate the nature of the empire Mrs.
Vyner had established.

Vyner was completely fascinated by the little coquette.  It was not
only his senses, but his mind, that was subdued.  She had early
impressed him with two convictions: one, the extreme delicacy of her
nerves; the other, her immense superiority to himself.  The first
conviction was impressed upon him by the alarming hysterics into
which contradiction, or any other mental affliction, threw her.  If
any thing went wrong--if the girls resisted her authority--if her own
wishes were not gratified, she did not command, she did not storm;
she wept silently, retired to her room, and was found there lifeless,
or in an alarming state, by the first person who went in.

The second conviction took more time to establish, but she
established it by perpetually dinning into his ear that he could not
"understand her."  Nor, in truth, could he.  She had a lively
imagination, and was fond of the most imaginative poetry;--the less
disposition he manifested towards it, the more she insinuated how
necessary a part it was of all exalted minds.  In her views of art,
of life, and of religion, she was always exaggerated, and what the
Germans call _schwärmerisch_.  Vyner was as prosaic as prose, and
owned his incapacity for "those higher raptures" which were said to
result from "an exalted ideal."  What we do not understand, we always
admire or despise.  Vyner admired.

One admirable specimen of her tactics was to make him feel that,
although she loved him, she did not love him with all the ardour of
her passionate nature; and a hope was adroitly held out, that upon
him only depended whether she should one day acknowledge that he had
her entire affections.  To gain this end, what man would not have
made himself a slave?  If any man could resist such an attraction,
Vyner was not that man; and he submitted to every caprice, in the
deluded hope of seeing his submission crowned with its reward.

In effect, Mrs. Vyner's will was law; yet so dexterously did she
contrive matters, that it always seemed as if Vyner was the sole
ordainer of everything.  He was the puppet, moving as she pulled the
wires, and gaining all the odium for her acts.

Violet, as I said, was the only one who saw this.  She read her
stepmother's character aright; and by her Mrs. Vyner knew that she
was judged.  She used her best arts to gain Violet's good opinion,
tried to pet her in every way, but nothing availed: the haughty girl
was neither to be blinded nor cajoled.

One day Vyner found his wife in tears.  He inquired the cause.  She
wept on, and could not be induced to speak.  He entreated her to
confide her sorrows to him, which, after long pressing, she did as
follows:--

"Oh! it is very natural," she said, sobbing; "very--I have no right
to complain: none.  I ought never to have married."

"Dearest Mary, _what_ is the matter?"

"I have no right to be afflicted.  I ought to have been prepared for
it.  Of course, it must be so.  Yet I did hope to make them love me.
I love them so.  I tried all I could; but I am a stepmother--every
one will tell them that a stepmother is unkind."

"The ungrateful things!"

Vyner was really incensed against his daughters before he knew what
they had done, simply because they were the cause of his conjugal
peace being disturbed.

"Rose and Blanche, indeed," sobbed his wife, "do give me credit
sometimes, but Violet hates me--hates me because I married you.  She
is jealous of your regard for me.  She says you ought never to have
married again--perhaps she is right, but it is cruel for me to hear
it."

"The wretched girl!"

"She will never forget I am not her mother--she looks upon our
marriage as a crime, I believe!"

A spasm, short but sharp, was visible on his face; but the touch of
remorse quickly gave way to anger.  He felt, indeed, that he had
acted wrongly in marrying again, especially in marrying one so young.
He knew that well enough, knew what the world must think of it; but
nothing, as she knew, made him so angry as any allusion to it.  The
sense of his fault exasperated his sense of the impertinence of those
who ventured to speak of it.  He had surely a right to do as he
pleased.  He loved a charming, a "most superior" woman, and he
"supposed _he_ was to be considered, no less than his children."  It
was very strange that he should be expected to sacrifice everything
to them.  Other fathers were not so complaisant.

And yet, through all the arguments which irritated self-love could
suggest, there pierced the consciousness of his error.  That Violet
should resent his marriage was no more than natural; but his wife
well knew the tender chord she touched, when she thus alluded to his
daughter's feelings.

That day she said no more.  She allowed herself to be consoled.  But
by bringing up the subject again from time to time, she contrived to
instil into his mind a mingled fear and dislike of his favourite
child.

Whenever Violet and her stepmother had any "difference"--which was
not unfrequent--Vyner always sided against his daughter; and his
wife's demeanour being one of exasperating meekness, as if she were
terrified at Violet's vehemence, he always told people that "his
youngest daughter was unfortunately such a devil, there was no living
with her, and that his wife was tyrannized over in a way that was
quite pitiable."

At last, Violet was sent away from home--that she might not corrupt
her sisters, it was said--in reality, that she might be got out of
the way.  Vyner thereby secured peace, and his wife got rid of an
unfavourable judge.  The poor girl was placed under the care of two
"strong-minded" women, who had been duly prejudiced against her, and
whose cue it was to work upon her religious feelings, and awaken her
to a sense of the duty she owed her parents.  She soon detected their
object, and rebelled.  Disagreeable scenes took place, which ended in
Violet escaping from their odious care, and flying to her fox-hunting
uncle's, in Worcestershire, where she was received with open arms.
Being very fond of his niece, he wrote to Vyner, requesting
permission to be allowed to keep her with him for some time,
promising she should not want masters, and that her education should
be carefully attended to.  The permission was granted, after some
difficulty, and Violet was happily settled in Worcestershire, while
her two sisters, grown too handsome and too old to be kept longer at
home, were despatched to the establishment kept by Mrs. Wirrelston
and Miss Smith, at Brighton.

Before accompanying them, I have one more point to dwell on, and that
was the sudden fit of economy which had seized Mrs. Vyner.  The
estate, though large, was greatly encumbered, and it was, moreover,
entailed.  Vyner, always "going" to make some provision for his
girls, had never done so; he had,--weak, vacillating, procrastinating
man as he was,--"put it off," and trusted, perhaps, to the girls
marrying well.  Mrs. Vyner determined to economize; to save yearly a
large sum, which was to be set aside.  In pursuance of this plan, she
began the most extraordinary retrenchments, and dressed the girls in
a style of plainness and economy by no means in accordance with their
feelings.  In justice, I should add, that she dressed herself in the
same style.  People were loud in their praises at her generous
self-sacrifice; but, as she sentimentally observed, "for her dear
girls she could do anything."  Perhaps, of all her efforts at
securing the reputation of an exemplary stepmother, none met with
such universal approbation as this economical fit.  I am sorry to be
forced to add, that while economizing even to meanness, in some
departments, she was so lavish in her expenditure in others, as, in
effect, to plunge Vyner deeper into debt than ever.




CHAPTER II.

ROSE WRITES TO VIOLET.

DEAREST Vi.,

Your letter amused us very much; and we have both for a long while
been going to answer it, but have not found time.  Don't be angry at
our silence.

We left home rather low spirited.  Home, indeed, was no longer the
happy place it had been, though mama, say what you will, is not to
blame for that; but, nevertheless, leaving it made us unhappy.
Having grown up into young women without being sent to school, we did
not like the idea of going at last.

The snow was falling fast when we arrived; and a dreary January day
by no means enlivened our prospects.  We looked wistfully out of the
carriage-windows, and saw the steady descent of the countless
snow-flakes darkening the air, and making the day miserable.  Nothing
met our eyes but the same endless expanse of snow-covered
ground,--cheerless, cold, and desolate--the uncomfort of winter
without its picturesqueness.  But, cold and cheerless as the day was,
it was nothing to the cheerlessness of the frigid politeness and
patronizing servility of Miss Smith and Mrs. Wirrelston, our
school-mistresses.  I am a physiognomist, you know, and from the
first moment, I disliked them.  Blanche thought them very kind and
attentive.  I thought them too attentive: the humbugs!

They froze me.  I foresaw the mistresses they would make, and that is
why I instinctively felt that the miserable day was more genial and
clement than they.  The snow would cease; in a few hours, gleams of
sunshine would make it sparkle; in a few weeks, it would disappear.
But the wintry frost of their politeness would deepen and deepen into
sterner cold; there was no hope of sunshine under that insincere
manner.

I hope you admire that paragraph!  But for fear you should imagine I
am about to turn authoress, I must let you into the secret: it is an
application to my situation of a passage I met with yesterday in a
novel one of the girls has smuggled in.

It was about four o'clock when we arrived.  We were shown into the
school-room, where we found about nine other girls, from twelve to
seventeen years old, with whom we soon made acquaintance.  We first
asked each other's names; then communicated our parentage; then
followed questions as to previous schools, and as to what sort of
place this was.  Accounts varied considerably.  Some thought it very
well, and liked Mrs. Wirrelston.  Some thought it detestable, and
detested Mrs. Wirrelston.  One and all detested Miss Smith.

The elder girls seemed very nice; but, from always having been at
school I suppose, they struck me as excessively ignorant of the
world, compared with us, and still more ignorant of books.  They were
children to us.  Our superior knowledge, which was quickly
discovered, made us looked up to, and we were assailed with
questions.  But if we were for a moment looked up to on that account,
we speedily lost our supremacy on another.  One of the younger girls
asked me how much pocket-money we had brought?

"Twenty shillings each."

"Twenty shillings! what only twenty shillings!  Why I brought five
pounds."

"And I, ten," proudly ejaculated another.

I felt deeply ashamed; the more so as I observed the girls
interchange certain looks, which were but too intelligible.  Next day
we had the mortification of hearing each new comer informed, and in a
tone of disgusted astonishment, that "the Vyners had only brought
twenty shillings each.  Only think!"

I instantly wrote home to papa.  But his answer was, that we must
learn to be economical, that he was learning it himself, and that
mama thinks it highly necessary we should early learn to submit to
small privations.  I hate economy!

To return to our school, however.  The first afternoon was spent in
chat and games.  Lessons were not to commence till the morrow.  And
as the morrow was very much like other days, I may sketch our
routine.  While dressing, we have to learn a verse of scripture out
of a book called "Daily Bread."  (I got punished the other day for
saying it was "very dry bread, too."  That odious, little, pimply
Miss Pinkerton told Miss Smith of it.)  This verse we all repeat one
after the other when prayers are finished; and as I seldom know my
verse when we come down, I contrive to sit at the end of the table
and learn it by hearing all the others say it before me.  One of the
elder and one of the little girls then collect the bibles and put
them away; while the rest of us, rank and file, begin to march, heads
up, chests expanded, toes out.  This military exercise is not, I
believe, to fashion us into a regiment of grenadiers--the
Drawing-room Invincibles--because, when I suggested that we ought to
have moustachios and muskets, I received a severe reprimand for my
levity.  Besides, we vary the march with little operations scarcely
to be called military: touching, or trying to touch, the floor with
the tips of our fingers without bending our knees, making our elbows
meet behind our backs, &c.  We then go into breakfast, and are
allowed to exchange our merciless slaughter of French idiom, for the
freely flowing idiom of our mother tongue.  I have not had the French
mark yet, except for speaking English; my French, I am happy to say,
is beyond the criticism of the girls: what _their_ mastery of the
language is, you may guess by that!  You may also gain a faint idea
of it from these specimens.  I passed the mark to little Miss
Pinkerton only yesterday, because she asked me for my penknife in
this elegant style: "_Madle. voulez vous pretez moi votre COUTEAU?_"
Whereupon I whipped the mark into her hands with a generous "_Le
voilà._"  Last week she said, "_Je n'ai pas encore FAIT_;" for "I have
not done (finished) yet"--and pointed out to me, "_Comme vous avez
mal coupé vos CLOUS_"--meaning, that I had not cut my finger nails
well!

At meals, we are permitted to speak like Christians.  After breakfast
we have half an hour's recreation.  We play, or read, or work, or,
twining an arm round our confidant's waist, interchange confidences
respecting the loves we have had, and the husbands we intend to have.
Then come lessons.  There are five pianos--and five unhappy girls are
always practising on them.  We arrange our lessons so as to take the
pianos in turns, and by this means, we all get our practice, and the
thumping never ceases.  What a life those pianos lead!  How I wish
Miss Smith were one of them!

The drawing-master comes at eleven.  We don't learn.  Papa allows no
extras, except dancing,--he says they're "so foolish."  I am sorry we
don't learn, for Mr. Hibbert, our master, is a perfect duck!--such a
nice face, with glossy hair, turned into a sweet little curl on his
forehead; large whiskers, rosy complexion, and we all say he is
consumptive.  Then he draws so well--so boldly!  His strokes are as
straight, and as broad and black as--I haven't got a simile, But you
should see the copies he sets; boats on the sea-shore, turned on
their sides, with handsome fishermen standing by, occupied with their
nets, and pretty, fat children dotting the sands; or nice little
cottages, with smoke (so natural!) coming from the chimneys, and
large trees by them, and a dog or a cow, or else a splendid castle,
with turrets, and drawbridges, and knights in armour on horseback.
Mr. Hibbert ought to be an academician!*


* This last sentence makes me suspect that the whole paragraph is a
bit of the saucy Rose's irony, and that she is quizzing the
admiration of her schoolfellows for Mr. Hibbert.  But school girls
have such strange idols, that she may be serious here.--_Author's
Note_.


At twelve, when the weather permits, we go out for a walk.  In
formidable files of twos and twos, we gravely tread the esplanade and
_circumambient_ streets (isn't that a nice word?--I got it from Miss
Smith).  We there see withered old Indians, invalids in chairs,
wheeled about in search of Hygeia, dowagers, and some officers, with
such moustachios--the darlings!  We quiz the passers-by, and
sometimes discuss their attractions.  Some of the men look so
_impudent_!  And one always blows a kiss to us as we pass--that is,
he blows it to me.  I'm sure he's a rake.

At half-past two, we dress for dinner.  At three, we dine.  The food
is plain, but good, and abundant.  After dinner we have more lessons,
till six.  Then tea; then we amuse ourselves, if we have learned all
our lessons and tasks, either with books or fancy-work.  At eight, to
bed.

All the days are like this, except Sunday; and oh!  what a dreary day
is Sunday!  What with twice church, Collects to learn, explanations
of the Psalms and Catechism, our day is pretty well occupied.  We
take no walk--we are allowed no recreation.  "Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress," and a few religious tales, are the only things allowed to
those who have said Collect and Catechism, and have time to spare.  I
hate Bunyan!

But this is not all.  If any one has had the three bad marks during
the week, the punishment is to sit in the corner all Sunday, and
learn a sermon: she is not allowed to speak all day, except to the
governesses.  Miss Smith has more than once punished me in that way,
and you may imagine how it increases my love for her!

Well, after this long dreary day, comes evening lecture.  Oh, Vi.!
if anything could make school more odious than it is, that evening
lecture would be the thing!  Picture to yourself eighteen weary
girls, after a day's absence from any recreation, having swallowed
their tea, and then forced to sit in the school-room on hard benches,
without backs, in prim silence, awaiting the arrival of the Rev.
Josiah Dutton, who sometimes keeps us waiting for at least an hour.
We are not allowed to speak.  We are not allowed to read.  We sit
there in silent expectation; which a figuratively historical pen
would liken (by way of a new simile) to the senators of Rome awaiting
the Gauls.  We sit and look at the candles, look at the ceiling, look
at the governesses, and look at each other.  At last the door opens,
and the reverend Dutton appears.  He takes his place at a desk, and
begins in a droning voice, meant to be impressive, a lecture or
sermon which we do not attend to.  I sit opposite to him, and am
forced to keep my eyes fixed upon him, because I know Miss Smith's
are fixed upon me.  There I sit, my back aching from want of support,
my eyes drawing straws in the candles, till I feel as if I should
grow blind, weaned with the unvaried occupation of the day, and still
more wearied by the effort to keep up my attention to what I cannot
interest myself in, what indeed, for the most part, I cannot
comprehend.

There, my dear Vi., you have a return for your long letter, and an
encouragement to write again.  I'm literally at the end of my paper,
for this is the last sheet I have in the world.  Blanche is to write
to you to-morrow.


P.S.--Unless you have an opportunity of getting your letter delivered
by private hand, mind what you say!  All ours are opened.  This will
be put in the post, in London, by one of my companions, who goes
there for a couple of days; otherwise, I dare not have sent it.




CHAPTER III.

THE HAPPY SCHOOL-DAYS.

Rose and Blanche remained three years at Mrs. Wirrelston's.

Rose's letter has disclosed to us a sufficiently detailed account of
their school existence; but she has omitted one very important
point--for the very excellent reason that, at the time she wrote, it
had not shown itself.  She speaks, indeed, of the surprise and
contempt of the girls when they learned how scantily her purse was
furnished; but the full effects of that were only developed some time
afterwards.

A school is an image of the world in miniature, and represents it,
perhaps, in its least amiable aspect.  The child is not only father
to the man, but the father, before experience has engendered
tolerance, before suffering has extended sympathy.  The child is
horribly selfish, because unreflectingly so.  Its base instincts have
not been softened or corrected.  All its vices are not only
unrestrained, but unconcealed.  Its egotism and vanity are allowed
full play.

Rose's schoolfellows were quite aware of the beauty and mental
superiority which distinguished her and Blanche; and envied them for
it.  But they were also fully aware of the scantiness of their
allowance, and the inferiority of their dress; and despised them
heartily, undisguisedly.  Poverty, which is an inexcusable offence in
the great world, becomes a sort of crime at school.  The love of
tyranny implanted in the human breast, and always flourishing in
children, gratified itself by subjecting Rose and Blanche to endless
sarcasms on that score.  The little irritations which arose, in the
natural course of things, between them and their schoolfellows, were
sure to instigate some sarcasm on "mean little creatures"--"vulgar
things"--"penniless people," &c.  It was a safe and ready source of
annoyance: a weapon always at hand, adapted to the meanest capacity,
and certain to wound.

Beyond the indignities which it drew down upon them, the absence of
pocket-money was a serious inconvenience.  They had only two
shillings a week each as an allowance; out of which they had to find
their own pens, pencils, paper, india-rubber, sealing-wax, and
trifles--indispensable trifles of that kind; besides having to put
sixpence every fortnight into the poor-box.  The hardship of this was
really terrible.  The word may seem a strong one, but if we measure
the importance of things by the effects they produce, it will not
seem too strong.  To men and women, all this inconvenience may seem
petty.  It was not petty to the unhappy girls: it was the cause of
constant humiliation and bitter sorrow.

Parents little imagine the extent of their cruelty, when, to gratify
their own ambition, they send children to expensive schools, and
refuse to furnish them with the means of being on a footing of
equality with their school-fellows.  The effects of such conditions
are felt throughout the after life.  The misery children endure from
the taunting superiority of their companions, is only half the evil;
the greater half is in the moral effects of such positions.

Upon natures less generous, healthy, and good than those of Rose and
Blanche, the evil would have been incalculable.  Even upon them, it
was not insignificant.  It over-developed the spirit of opposition in
Rose; it crushed the meek spirit of Blanche.  Rose with her vivacity
and elasticity could best counteract and forget it; but it sank
deeply into the quiet, submissive soul of Blanche, and made her
singularly unfitted to cope with the world; as the sequel of this
story will show.

I do not wish to exaggerate the influence of this school experience;
I am well aware of the ineradicable propensities and dispositions of
human beings; but surely it is right to assume that certain
dispositions are fostered or misdirected by certain powerful
conditions; and no disposition could be otherwise than damaged by
being subjected to distressing humiliation from companions, and on
grounds over which the victim had no earthly control.

A miserable life Rose and Blanche led.  Disliked by Mrs. Wirrelston
and Miss Smith, because they learned no extras--that fruitful source
of profit--and because they were so ill-dressed as to be "no credit
to the establishment;" they were taunted by their school-fellows,
because unable to join in any subscription which was set on foot.  To
any one who knows the female mind, I need not expatiate on the
contempt which frowned upon their shabby attire.  To be ill dressed;
to have none of the novelties; to continue wearing frocks out of the
season, and which were out-grown; to be shivering in white muslin in
the beginning of December.

Yes, reader, in December; for winter clothing they had none, and
their parents were abroad.

Mrs. Vyner's neglect is perhaps excusable when we reflect how young
she was, and how unfit for the position she occupied; but the effects
of that neglect were very important.

"Poor things!" exclaimed Letitia Hoskins, a citizen's daughter, in
all the insolence engendered by consols; "their father can't afford
to clothe them."

"Yet why doesn't he send them to a cheaper school?" suggests Amelia
Wingfield.

"Vulgar pride.  I dare say he's some shop-keeper.  He wishes his
daughters to be educated with ladies."

"Meant for governesses, I shouldn't wonder."

"Most likely, poor things!"

In vain did Rose and Blanche repeatedly answer such assertions, by
declaring their father's family was one of the most ancient in
England (Miss Hoskins gave an exasperating chuckle of ridicule at
that), and was worth twelve thousand a year.  A derisive shout was
the only answer.  The girls _would_ not have believed it, however
credible; and it was on the face of it a very incredible statement,
coming from girls who, as Letty Hoskins once observed, "had the
meanness to come there with a sovereign each, and one pot of bears'
grease between them.  Girls who were never dressed half so genteelly
as her mama's maid."

"And learn no extras," added little Miss Pinkerton, with a toss of
her head.  "When I told Rose that I had got on so well with my
drawing (especially the _shading_!) that Mr. Hibbert said I might
soon begin drawing with _Creoles_, she burst out laughing, and said
she had never heard of that branch of the art before.  Fancy a girl
of nineteen never having heard of drawing with Creoles!"

"With _crayons_, I suppose you mean," suggested Amelia Wingfield,
contemptuously.

"Well, it's all the same; she had never heard of it."

Rose was witty enough to take fearful reprisals on those who offended
her; but, although she thus avenged herself, she was always sure to
be worsted in the war of words.  Nothing she could say cut so deep as
the most stupid reflection on her dress or poverty.  No sarcasm she
could frame told like the old--but never too old--reference to
governesses.  Nevertheless, her vivacity and humour in some measure
softened the ill impression created by her poverty.  She amused the
girls so much, that they never allowed their insolence to be more
than a passing thing.  Often would she make the whole school merry
with some exquisitely ludicrous parody of Mrs. Wirrelston or Miss
Smith.  The latter was her especial butt.  She revelled in quizzing
her.  She knew well enough that the laughers, with the treachery of
children, first enjoyed the joke, and then repeated it to Miss Smith,
to enjoy the joker's punishment, and to curry favour with the
governess.  No matter; Rose knew she was sure to be betrayed, yet her
daring animal spirits were constantly inciting her to make fun of her
ridiculous mistress.

Miss Smith was a starch virago.  Bred to the profession of governess,
she had considerable acquirements--of which she was very vain--and
great sense of the "responsibility" of her situation, which showed
itself in a morbid watchfulness over the "morals of her young
charges."  Her modesty was delicate and easily alarmed; nothing, for
instance, would induce her to mention sparrows before
gentlemen--those birds having rather a libertine reputation in
natural history--she called them "little warblers."  Again: the word
_belly_ was carefully erased from Goldsmith's History of England, and
_stomach_ substituted in the margin.  Rose once pointed this out to
the girl standing next to her at class, and was duly punished for her
"impropriety."

Miss Smith was not handsome.  Her complexion was of a bilious brown,
mottled with pimples.  Her nose was thin and pointed; the nostrils
pinched up, as if she were always smelling her own breath, and that
breath stronger but not sweeter than the rose.  Her lips thin and
colourless.  Her figure tall and fleshless.  There was a rigidity and
primness in her whole appearance, which lent itself but too easily to
caricature; and Rose, whose good nature would have spared a kinder
person, had no remorse in ridiculing the ungenerous mistress, who
visited upon her and her sister the sins of their father.

On the day selected for our glimpse into this school, Rose was
shivering over a long task, which had been given her for the
following audacity.  Miss Smith had been "reviling in good set terms"
the character of Meredith Vyner.  Rose's blood had mounted to her
cheek, but she was silent, conscious that any retort would only
indulge her mistress, by showing that the abuse of her father was a
sore subject.  She affected to have lost her copy of Goldsmith, and
to be in great concern about it.  As it was only a common schoolbook,
bound in mottled calf, Miss Pinkerton could not understand her
anxiety about it, sarcastically adding, "_My_ papa doesn't care how
many books I have.  He can afford it."  "Oh, it isn't the book,"
replied Rose confidentially, "it's the _binding_!  Real _Smithskin_!"

Blanche and Miss Pinkerton both laughed; and the latter immediately
informed Miss Smith of the joke, and of Blanche's participation.  For
this offence they were both punished; but the name remained: to this
day the mottled calf binding is by the girls called Smithskin.

It was near the breaking up, and the elder girls, with the horrible
servility of children of both sexes when at school, had set on foot a
subscription to present Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith with some
token of their regard.  Miss Hoskins had put her name down for thirty
shillings.  Others had subscribed a pound, and others ten shillings;
even the younger girls had put down five shillings each.  When the
list was brought to Rose and Blanche, they said they had no money.

"Of course not," said Miss Hoskins; "what's the use of asking them?
You will ask the servants next."

Blanche raised her mild face, and said,--

"I would subscribe if I could; but how is it possible?  You girls
come to school with ten pounds or more in your pockets, and you have
other presents besides.  Papa refuses to allow us pocket-money--says
we can have no use for it."

"All that is true," added Rose; "but if we had money I would not
subscribe.  I have no regard for them, and the only token I would
offer them is a copy of 'Temper,' bound in Smithskin."

"Oh!" ejaculated several, pretending to be very much shocked.

"Or 'Don Juan,'" pursued Rose, "binding ditto.  I'm sure Miss Smith
reads it, because it's called improper."

The girls were so much shocked at this that they moved away; but they
did not dare repeat it, so fearful did it seem!

Mrs. Wirrelston entered.  Anger darkened her brow, though she
endeavoured to be calm and dignified.  They all read what was
underneath that calmness, and awaited in silence till she should
speak.  She held in her hand an open letter, which she passed to Miss
Smith, who, having read it, looked starcher and more bilious than
ever.

The letter was from Meredith Vyner to his children, and this was the
postscript:--

"As you are to leave school at Christmas, mind you don't forget to
bring away with you your spoons and forks."

It was the custom at Mrs. Wirrelston's, as at most schools, to exact
from each pupil, that she should bring her own silver spoons and
fork, also her sheets and towels; a very satisfactory arrangement,
which saved the school-mistress from an expense, and, as the pupils
always left them behind, was the foundation of a respectable stock of
plate when the mistress should retire into private life.  But the
enormity of a pupil taking away her own spoons and fork, had hitherto
been unheard of; and the _meanness_ of a parent who could remind his
children of their property, appeared to Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss
Smith something exceeding even what they had anticipated from
Meredith Vyner.  And yet they had formed an exalted view of his
capacity in that way, from the odious criticisms which he permitted
himself on certain charges in the half-yearly accounts--charges which
had always been admitted by the parents of other pupils, and which,
if difficult to justify, no man of "common liberality" would
question.  This "tradesmanlike spirit" of examining accounts had
greatly irritated the two ladies, and they paid off, in ill treatment
to Rose and Blanche, the annoyance caused by their father's pedantic
accuracy.

The way in which this postscript was received may be readily
imagined.  It was the climax of a series of insults.  'One would
imagine that Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith wanted to _keep_ the
paltry spoons--which were very light after all.  As if it were the
custom at that establishment to retain the young ladies' property.'

"But be careful, young ladies," said Mrs. Wirrelston, with great
sarcasm in her tone; "be careful that the Misses Vyner leave nothing
behind them.  It might be awkward.  We might be called upon.
Everything is of some value.  Be sure that the ends of their lead
pencils are packed up."

"Yes," interposed Miss Smith, "and don't forget their curl papers.
The Misses Vyner will certainly like to pack up their curl papers."

Blanche, unable to endure these unjust taunts, burst into tears.  But
Rose, greatly incensed, said--

"All that should be said to papa, not to us; since he is to blame, if
there _is_ any blame."

"You are insolent.  Go to your room, Miss Vyner!" exclaimed Mrs.
Wirrelston.

Miss Smith lifted up her eyes in amazement at such audacity.

"I do not see," pursued the undaunted Rose, "why we are to be
taunted, because papa wishes to see his own property."

"You don't see, you impertinent girl!"

"No, I do not, unless our taking home our own spoons should be a
ruinous precedent."

The sarcasm cut deeply.  Both mistresses were roused to vehemence by
it; and, vowing that such insolence was altogether insupportable,
ordered her boxes to be packed up, and expelled her that very
afternoon.

Rose was by no means affected at the expulsion; but poor Blanche, who
was now left alone to bear the spite and malice of two mistresses for
three weeks longer, greatly felt the loss of her sister's company,
the more so because the other girls, at all times distant, had now
sided with their mistresses, and actually refused to associate in any
way with her.

But the three weeks passed.  Breaking up arrived.  It is needless to
say how many prizes were adjudged to Blanche Vyner at the
distribution.  She only thought of the joy of being once more at home.




CHAPTER IV.

ROSE AND BLANCHE AT HOME.

No doating mother could have seemed kinder to her daughters than was
Mrs. Meredith Vyner to Rose and Blanche, for the first three weeks
after their arrival from school.  She insisted upon their each having
a separate allowance; but contrived that it should be totally
inadequate to the necessary expenses.  She shopped with them, but
recommended, in a tone which was almost an insistance, colours which
neither suited their complexions, nor assorted well with each other.
She made them numberless little presents, and was always saying
charming things to them.  If they thought her pleasant before, they
now declared her quite loveable.  They looked up to her, not only as
one having a mother's authority, but also as a superior being, for
she had made a decided impression on them of that kind, by always
condemning or ridiculing their own tastes and opinions as "girlish,"
and by carefully repeating (with what amount of embroidery I will not
say) all the compliments which men paid her on her own supreme taste.
The latter were not few.  Partly because a pretty, lively woman never
is in want of them: the more so, because Mrs. Meredith Vyner not only
courted admiration, but demanded it.  What more natural, therefore,
that two girls, hearing from their father, who was so learned, such
praises of their step-mother's talents, and observing such submission
from other men to her taste, should blindly acknowledge a superiority
so proclaimed?

As if to make "assurance doubly sure," Mrs. Meredith Vyner would
occasionally repeat to them, with strong disclaimers, as
"unwarrantably satirical," certain depreciatory comments which had
been made to her, she said, by men, the gist of which was, that they
were not admired.  After a while, the poor girls actually believed
they were wanting in attractions.  Rose's brilliant colour was a
milkmaid's coarseness, and Blanche's retiring manners were owing to a
want of grace and style.  Rose, who was merry, was given to
understand that she was loud and vulgar.  Blanche, who was all
gentleness, had learned to consider herself as an uninteresting,
apathetic, awkward girl.

To effect such impressions was only half a victory.  The real triumph
was to manage that the admiration which such beauty and such manners
as theirs were sure to call forth, should not efface these
impressions.  This was done by a very simple, but ingenious
contrivance.  Mrs. Meredith Vyner never gave balls, seldom accepted
invitations to them, or to any dancing fêtes.  She went out a great
deal, and often received company.  But her society was limited to
dinners and conversaziones.  The men were almost exclusively
scientific, or members of Parliament, or celebrities.  No specimen of
the genus "Dancing Young Man" was ever asked.  Nothing could suit
Meredith Vyner better; neither his age nor his habits accorded with
balls, while literary and scientific men were always welcome guests;
so that he applauded his wife's wisdom in giving up the
"frivolities," and hoped his girls would gladly follow her example.

By such and similar means she had got them, as the vulgar phrase
goes, "completely under her thumb;" and that, too, without in any
instance giving the world anything to lay hold of which looked like a
stepmother's unkindness.  Indeed, the girls themselves, though they
at last began to suspect something, could make no specific
accusation.  Mrs. Meredith Vyner might occasionally be said to err,
but never to do anything that could be interpreted into wilful
unkindness.

It may, perhaps, be wondered that considering how much it was her
desire to gain the golden opinions of the world as an exemplary
stepmother in a peculiarly trying situation, she did not see the
simplest plan would have been real, not pretended, kindness.

But by her line of conduct she secured all she wanted--the
appearances; and she secured two objects of more importance to her.
One of interest, and one of _amour propre_.  The first object was the
complete separation of the children from their father.  Determined to
have undisputed sway over her husband, she isolated him from the
affection of every one else, by a calculation as cruel as it was
ingenious.  The second object was the complete triumph she obtained
over her daughters, whose age and beauty made them dreaded rivals.
If mothers cannot resist the diabolical suggestions of envy, but must
often present the sad spectacle of a jealousy of their own children,
how much more keenly must the rivalry be felt with their
stepdaughters, especially in England, where the unmarried women have
the advantage?  And the pretty little tiger-eyed Mrs. Vyner was too
painfully conscious of her humpback, not to dread a comparison with
the lovely Rose and Blanche.

I have to observe also, that the economical fit no longer troubled
Mrs. Vyner; she had launched into the extravagances of London
society, with the same thorough-going impetuosity characteristic of
all her actions.  No fit ever lasted long with her; this of economy
had endured an incredible time, and was now put aside, never again to
be mentioned.




CHAPTER V.

MARMADUKE MEETS MRS.  VYNER.

Everybody was at Dr. Whiston's, as the phrase goes, on one of his
Saturday evenings.  Dr. Whiston was a scientific man, whose great
reputation was founded upon what his friends thought him capable of
doing, rather than upon anything he had actually done.  He was rich,
and knew "everybody."  His Saturday evenings formed an integral part
of London society.  They were an institution.  No one who pretended
to any acquaintance with the aristocracy of science, or with the
scientific members of the aristocracy, could dispense with being
invited to Dr. Whiston's.  There were crowded lions of all countries,
pretty women, bony women, elderly women, strong-minded women, and
mathematical women; a sprinkling of noblemen, a bishop or two, many
clergymen, barristers, and endless nobodies with bald foreheads and
spectacles, all very profound in one or more "ologies," but cruelly
stupid in everything else--abounding in "information," and alarmingly
dull.  Dr. Whiston himself was a man of varied knowledge, great
original power, and a good talker.  He passed from lions to doctors,
from beauties to bores, with restless equanimity: a word for each,
adapted to each; and every one was pleased.

The rooms were rapidly filling.  The office of announcing the
visitors had become a sinecure, for the very staircase was beginning
to be invaded.  Through the dense crowd of rustling dresses and
formidable spectacles, adventurous persons on the search for friends
made feeble way; but the majority stood still gazing at the lions, or
endeavouring by uneasy fitful conversation to seem interested.
Groups were formed in the crowd and about the doorways, in which
something like animated conversation went on.

In the centre of the third room, standing by a table on which were
ranged some new inventions that occupied the attention of the bald
foreheads and bony women, stood a young and striking-looking man of
eight and twenty.  A melancholy listlessness overspread his swarthy
face, and dimmed the fire of his large eyes.  The careless grace of
his attitude admirably displayed the fine proportions of his almost
gigantic form, which was so striking as to triumph over the miserable
angularity and meanness of our modern costume.

All the women, the instant they saw him, asked who he was.  He
interested everybody except the bald foreheads and the strong-minded
women; but most he excited the curiosity of the girls dragged there
by scientific papas or mathematical mamas.  Who could he be?  It was
quite evident he was not an ologist.  He was too gentlemanly for a
lion; too fresh-looking for a student.

"My dear Mrs. Meredith Vyner, how d'ye do?  Rose, my dear, you look
charming; and you too, Blanche.  And where's papa?"

"Talking to Professor Forbes in the first room," replied Mrs.
Meredith Vyner, to her questioner: one of the inspectors of Dr.
Whiston's inventions.

"I am trying to get a seat for my girls," said Mrs. Vyner peering
about, as well as her diminutive form would allow in so crowded a
room.

"I dare say you will find one in the next room.  Oh, come in; perhaps
you can tell us who is that handsome foreigner in there; nobody knows
him, and I can't get at Dr. Whiston to ask."

They all four moved into the third room, and the lady directed Mrs.
Vyner's attention to the mysterious stranger.

It was Marmaduke Ashley.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner did not swoon, she did not even scream; though, I
believe, both are expected of ladies under such circumstances, in
novels.  In real life, it is somewhat different.  Mrs. Vyner only
blushed deeply, and felt a throbbing at her temples--felt, as people
say, as if the earth were about to sink under her--but had too much
self-command to betray anything.  One observing her would, of course,
have noticed the change; but there happened to be no one looking at
her just then, so she recovered her self-possession before her
acquaintance had finished her panegyric on his beauty.

She had not seen Marmaduke since that night on which she parted from
him, in a transport of grief, on the sands behind Mrs. Henley's
house, when the thunder muttered in the distance, and the heavy,
swelling sea threw up its sprawling lines of silvery foam,--the night
when he had hacked off a lock of his raven hair for her to treasure.

She had not seen him since that night, when the wretchedness of
parting from him seemed the climax of human suffering, from which
death--and only death--could bring release.

She had not seen him since she had become the wife of Meredith Vyner;
and as that wife she was to meet him now.

What her thoughts would have been at that moment, had she ever really
loved him, the reader may imagine; but as her love had sprung from
the head, and not the heart, she felt no greater pangs at seeing him,
than were suggested by the sight of one she had deceived, and whom
she would deceive again, were the past to be recalled.  Not that she
cared for her husband; she fully appreciated the difference between
him and Marmaduke; at the same time she also appreciated the
differences in their fortunes, and that reconciled her.

The appearance of Marmaduke at Dr. Whiston's rather flurried than
pained her.  She dreaded "a scene."  She knew the awful vehemence of
his temper; and although believing that in an interview she could
tame the savage, and bring him submissive to her feet yet that could
only be done by the ruse and fascination of a woman; and a soirée was
by no means the theatre for it.

She began to move away, having seated Rose and Blanche, trusting that
her tiny person would not be detected in the crowd.  But Marmaduke's
height gave him command of the room.  His eye was first arrested by a
head of golden hair, the drooping luxuriance of which was but too
well known to him: another glance, and the slightly deformed figure
confirmed his suspicion.  His pulses throbbed violently, his eyes and
nostrils dilated, and his breathing became hard; but he had
sufficient self-command not to betray himself, although his feelings,
at the sight of her whom he had loved so ardently, and who had jilted
him so basely, were poignant and bitter.  He also moved away; not to
follow her, but to hide his emotion.

Little did the company suspect what elements of a tragedy were
working amidst the dull prosiness of that soirée.  Amidst all the
science that was gabbled, all the statistics quoted, all the small
talk of the scientific scandal-mongers (perhaps the very smallest of
small talk!), all the profundities that escaped from the bald
foreheads and the strong-minded women, all the listlessness and ennui
of the majority, there were a few souls who, by the earnestness and
the sincerity of their passions, vindicated the human race--souls
belonging to human beings, and not to mere _gubemouches_ and
ologists.  These have some interest to the novelist and his public;
so while the gabble and the twaddle are in triumphant career, let us
cast our eyes only in those corners of the rooms where we may find
materials.

To begin with Marmaduke.  What a world of emotion is in the breast of
that apparently unoccupied young man, carelessly passing from room to
room!  What thoughts hurry across his brain: thoughts of wrong, of
vengeance, of former love, and present hate!  Then Mrs. Meredith
Vyner, all smiles and kind words, passing from group to group,
throwing in a word of criticism here, a quotation there, listening to
the account of some new discovery, as if she understood it and cared
about it--who could suppose that a thousand rapid plans were
presenting themselves to her fertile ingenuity, and all quickly
discarded as too dangerous?  It was indeed a question of some moment,
how was she to meet Marmaduke?  Should she give him the cut direct?
Should she be sentimental?  Should she be haughty?

Her resolution was still unformed when Marmaduke stood before her.
Accidentally as they had approached, they were both too much occupied
with each other to be in the least surprised.  With a sudden impulse,
she held out her hand to him.  He affected not to see the charming
frankness of her greeting, and when she said,--

"I hope I must not recall myself to your recollection, Mr. Ashley!"

He replied with exquisite ease,--

"I know not what will be thought of my gallantry, madam, but, indeed,
I must own the impeachment."

"Then how must I be changed!  To be forgotten in so short a time.
Oh, you terrible man!  I can never forgive you."

"I can never forgive myself; but so it is."

So perfectly was this epigram delivered, that those standing around
could never have suspected he had said anything but a common-place.
She was deeply wounded by his manner, and he read it in her cruel
eyes; but the smile never left her face, and she introduced herself
as Mrs. Meredith Vyner, with playfulness, throwing his forgetfulness
on the lapse of time since they had met.

"You have the more reason to forgive me," said Marmaduke, "as my
memory is so very bad, that, under the circumstances, I should have
almost forgotten my own sister."

She winced, but laughingly replied,--

"Well, well, there are many virtues in a bad memory.  I suppose you
forget injuries with the same Christian alacrity."

He laughed, and said,--

"Oh, no!  I have not the virtues of bad memory: do not invest me with
them.  If I easily forget faces, I never forget injuries."

She winced again, and this time felt a vague terror at the diabolical
calmness and ease with which he could envelope a terrible threat in
the slight laugh of affected modesty.  Confusion, even bitterness,
would have been more encouraging to her.  She felt that she was in
the presence of an enemy, and of one as self-possessed as herself.

"Have you been long in England?"

This was to get off the perilous ground on which they stood.

"A few months only."

"And do you intend remaining?"

"Yes; I fancy so.  I have one or two affairs which will keep me here
an indefinite time."

"I suppose it would be proper to assume that one of those is an
_affaire de cœur_?"

"Well," he replied, laughing gently, "that depends upon how the word
is used."

"I must not be indiscreet, but a mutual friend of ours told me there
was a lady in the case."

She said this with a peculiarly significant intonation, as if to give
him to understand that jealousy had driven her into marrying Meredith
Vyner.  He did not understand her meaning, but saw that she meant
something, and replied,--

"I confess to so much.  In fact, one of the affairs I spoke about is
the conclusion of a little comic drama, the commencement of which
dates before I left England.  Ah, Cecil!  how d'ye do?"

This last sentence was addressed to Cecil Chamberlayne, an old
acquaintance of Marmaduke's.  During their conversation, Mrs.
Meredith Vyner was enabled to pass on, and to reach the third room,
where, with more agitation in her manner than the girls had ever
remarked before, she summoned them to accompany her, saying that she
felt too unwell to remain longer.

Blanche arose hastily, and with great sympathy inquired about the
nature of her illness; to which she only received vague replies.
Rose was evidently less willing to leave.  Though why she was
unwilling was not at first so apparent.  By a retrospective glance at
another little group in Dr. Whiston's salons, we shall be able to
understand this.




CHAPTER VI.

HOW ROSE BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR UGLY HERO.

About three quarters of an hour before, Rose and Blanche were seated
on an ottoman, between two elderly women, ugly enough to be erudite,
and repulsive enough to forbid any attempt at conversation.  Silent
the girls sat, occasionally interchanging a remark respecting the
dress of some lady; and as a witticism was sure to follow from Rose,
which Blanche was afraid might be overheard, even this sort of
conversation was sparing, though so much food was offered.  Not a
soul spoke to them.  They knew scarcely any one, for their stepmother
studiously avoided introducing them.  The consequence was, that many
habitual visitors at their father's knew them by sight, but had no
idea who they were; and many were the invitations in which they were
not included, simply because their existence as young ladies who were
"out" was not suspected.

While they sat thus alone, it was some relief to them to espy Mrs.
St. John, whom they knew slightly, and who had recently purchased the
Grange, an estate adjoining Wytton Hall.  She came towards them,
leaning on the arm of a young man, whom she introduced as her son;
and one of the erudite women rising at that moment to go, Mrs. St.
John took possession of her seat, next to Blanche, leaving her son
standing talking to Rose.  In a very few minutes, a withered little
man in large gold spectacles came up, and offering his arm to the
other erudite female, carried her off, thus leaving a place, which
Mr. St. John at once seized upon.

Julius St. John had not a person corresponding to the beauty of his
name.  Do not, my pretty reader, turn away your head; do not shrug
your shoulders; do not skip the next page or so, because truth bids
me inform you Julius was remarkably plain.  I would have him handsome
if I could.  You may believe me, for I am perhaps a greater
worshipper of beauty than you are; but it is, nevertheless, true,
that I am now going to demand your admiration for a young man, who is
undisguisedly, unequivocally plain.  Not ugly--ugliness implies
meanness, or moral deformity--yet absolutely without any feature
which could redeem him from being familiarly called "a fright."
Strikingly plain is the proper expression; so striking as, perhaps,
to be the next best thing to beauty, from the force of the impression
created.  No one ever forgot his face.  No one could casually
perceive it without having the gaze arrested for a moment.  Let me
hasten to add, that the effect was almost repulsive, it was so
powerful.  I add this, lest you should suppose that I am going to
trifle with the truth, and to soften my description by certain
intimations of an expression of such exquisite sweetness and such
delicate sensibility--such ideality--or such intellectual fire
illuminating his face, that to all intents and purposes, my plain
hero becomes a handsome man.  No, reader, no; while I am perfectly
aware that some plain features are rendered handsome by the
expression, I am also aware that some faces--and the faces of very
noble creatures--are irredeemably plain; and such was Julius St.
John's.  Judge:--

A head of enormous size was set upon the miserable shoulders of a
diminutive body, which, though not deformed, was so thin and small,
that an energetic deformity would have been preferable.  This head
was covered with a mass of black, crisp, curly hair, which fell
carelessly over a massive but irregular forehead, ornamented with two
thick eyebrows, which, meeting over the nose, formed but one dark
line.  The eyes that looked underneath these were bright, but small.
They looked through you; but what they expressed themselves it was
seldom easy to guess.  The nose was insignificant; the mobility of
the nostrils alone attracted attention to it.  The mouth was
large--not ill-cut--but the lips full and sensual.  The chin large;
firmly, boldly cut.  The complexion dark and spotted.

These features were not even redeemed by the look of a gentleman, or
the look of an artist.  Common he did not look, nor vulgar, but
striking; and, on the whole, repulsive.  The best point about him was
his consciousness of his ill looks, and the freedom from any
coxcombical effort to disguise it.  He did not bring out his ugliness
into relief by a foolish attention to dress, as most ugly men do.  He
was neither a dandy nor a sloven.  That he was a "fright" he knew,
and accepted his fate with manliness.

"Have you been looking at those?" he said to Rose, as he sank into
the chair by her side, and pointed to the table on which the
inventions were laid.  "Perhaps you can explain them to me?"

"No, indeed, not I.  I never understand anything of that sort."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously!  it's very stupid, I know; but I am stupid.  What I am
able to understand it would, perhaps, be difficult to say; but there
can be no hesitation in excluding everything like science or
manufactures.  They are my detestation."

"Whisper it not in Gath!" he said, with mock horror.  "Only conceive
where you are!"

"Very much out of place; but mama has a fancy for coming here, and we
are obliged to like it."

"Well, it is a comfort for me to find some one as ignorant as myself.
Everybody here is so alarmingly instructive.  I find nobody ignorant
of anything but their own ignorance.  Even the young ladies have
attended Faraday, and the Friday evenings at the Royal Institution,
till----"

She held up her finger threateningly, and said, "Now don't be severe,
I am one of those young ladies: I never miss a Faraday, and am never
allowed to miss a Friday evening.  Oh!  you need not look astonished.
I sleep very comfortably there, believe me."

He laughed, and continued,--

"Then I can forgive your attendance.  Science ought to be quite
content with female votaries of dubious ages.  I am sure if it has
the _bogies_, it may leave us idlers the beauties for our comfort.  I
quite sympathize with you in your aversion to manufactures.  They are
very wonderful, doubtless; but as I am not going to set up a mill or
a factory of my own, the processes are superlatively uninteresting."

"And if I may be so bold as to ask it, why do I see you _here_?"

"Upon my word, I can hardly tell.  Why does one go anywhere?  Mere
idleness and imitation.  Wherever I go, it is almost always dull, and
this house is duller than most; but one occasionally meets with a
recompense, as I have this evening."

"In sitting next to me, eh?  I accept the compliment, though it might
have been newer."

"Well, at any rate, it bears out my confession of ignorance.  I know
not even how to turn a compliment!"

"Is not that Dr. Lindley?"

"I believe so.  You are a disciple of his of course?  One may know
botany without being formidable."

"I am glad of that, because I am supposed to be learned in that
department."

"Then you have not the claim I set up for the new degree of C.I.D."

"Pray, what is that?"

"Doctor of crass ignorance, for which my pretensions are better than
yours, as I scarcely know a rose from a rhododendron."

"But I only told you I was _supposed_ to be learned, not that I am
so.  My reputation is very simply acquired.  Whenever people are
puzzling their memories about some flower, I boldly call it a
something _spirans_, if it is of the twirligig kind, or else a
something _elegans_, or if it is bright-coloured, a something
_splendens_.  My name is instantly adopted, and my wisdom meets with
respect.  Many other reputations are no better founded.  Impudence
may always reckon on the ignorance of an audience."

He laughed at this, and then said--

"Am I to presume you know something of Latin, then?"

"About as much as of botany.  Papa, you know, is a great scholar, and
has tried to teach us all Latin, though with mediocre success.  But
mind, it is a secret that I know even the little I do.  Think of the
injury it would do me.  Who would waltz with a girl who was known to
understand Latin?"

"True, true.  Men don't like it.  They are proud of their wives or
lovers speaking all the continental languages, but a tinge of Latin
is pronounced too _blue_.  The secret of this male outcry is this:
all men are supposed to understand Latin, and very few do;
accordingly they resent any attempt to invade their prescriptive
superiority.  I remember my noble friend Leopardi used to say that
only in a woman's mouth could the true beauty of Latin be properly
recognised."

"Do you know Leopardi, then?"

"I did know him, poor fellow; but he has been dead these two years.
He was a grand creature.  Have you read his poems?  I have never
before met with any English who had heard of him."

"Read them, no.  He is too difficult."

"Difficult?"

"Why, we girls, as you are perhaps aware, are taught to distinguish
_sospiri_ from _ardiri_, and _lagrime_ from _affanni_, after which we
sing Bellini, and are said to know Italian.  But when a poet a little
more difficult than Metastasio is placed into our hands, we are at a
stand-still."

In this way they chatted merrily enough.  Julius was eloquent in his
praise of Leopardi, from whom he went to Dante, to Byron, to Bulwer,
Scott, and Miss Austen.  Rose was delighted to find so many tastes
and opinions shared in common with this pleasant young man, and could
have sat all night talking to him.  She had forgotten his ugliness in
the charm of his conversation; but he had not forgotten her beauty,
which was shown to greater advantage by the liveliness of her manner.

It was a delicious _tête-à-tête_.  One of those accidental enjoyments
which from time to time redeem the monotony of soirées, and for the
chance of which one consents to be bored through a whole season.  Not
_what_ was said, but _how_ it was said, made the talk so delightful.
The charm of sympathy, the comfort of finding yourself, as it were,
mirrored in the soul of another, the easy unaffected flow of words
dictated by no wish to shine, but simply suggested by the feeling,
made Rose and Julius as intimate in that brief period, as if they had
known each other many months.

Cannot Rose's unwillingness to leave now be appreciated?  Cannot the
reader understand her impatience at having such a _tête-à-tête_
disturbed?  But there was no help for it.  She was forced to say
adieu, and she held out her hand to him with a frankness which almost
compensated him for the pain of seeing her depart.  He went home and
dreamt all night of her.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner, followed by her daughters, sought her husband,
who was listening to a humorous narrative given him by Cecil
Chamberlayne, of the elopement of the wife of a distinguished
professor, with an officer almost young enough to be her son.
Meredith Vyner laughed mildly, brushing the grains of snuff from his
waistcoat with the back of his hand, and observed:--

"Egad!  I always suspected it would end in that way.  Such an
ill-assorted match!  Well, well, as Horace says, you know,

  "Felices ter et amplius
  Quos ...."


Here he was interrupted by the appearance of his wife, who, hurriedly
intimating that she felt the rooms too hot, desired him to take her
home.

"Directly, my dear, directly," he said, and then turned to Cecil, to
finish his quotation.

  "Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis
  Divulsus querimoniis
  Suprema citius solvet amor die."


"Good-evening.....  Now, my dear," offering his arm to his wife, "I
am at your service."

"_He_ talks of ill-assorted marriages!" said Cecil Chamberlayne to
himself, as they left the room.

The ride home was performed in silence.  Meredith Vyner was trying to
recollect a passage in Horace, which would have enabled him to make a
felicitous pun on something Professor Forbes had said to him, and his
forgetfulness of which had teazed him all the evening.  His wife was
meditating on the words, looks, and manner of her jilted lover,
astonished at his calmness, and alarmed at his threats.  The calmness
of vehement men is always more terrible than their rage; and the
vagueness of Marmaduke's threat made it more formidable, because it
suggested a thousand things, and intimated none.  What _would_ he do?
What _could_ he do?

Rose was thinking of Julius St. John, and her charming _tête-à-tête_.
Blanche was weary and sleepy.

Marmaduke, as he jumped into his cab, and drove to the club,
reproached himself for having been led away by his anger so far as to
threaten.  He had put her on her guard, and thereby rendered his
vengeance more difficult.  It was, indeed, a proof of the violence of
his agitation, that he should have so far forgotten himself; and he
determined, if possible, to recover that false step.

Marmaduke Ashley was one of those

  "Children of the sun whose blood is fire;"

and looked upon the treachery of his mistress with very different
feelings from those of a calmer-blooded northern.  His transports of
rage and anguish when he heard of her infidelity almost killed him,
and they only settled down into a fierce lust for vengeance.  His
father dying bequeathed to him a small fortune, which, instead of
endeavouring to increase, he brought with him to England, and there
awaited, with all the patience of an Indian, the hour when he should
be able to wreak full vengeance on her who had humbled his pride,
shattered his illusions, and lacerated his heart.

He had formed no plan.  Time would, he doubted not, bring forth some
opportunity, and for that he waited; enjoying himself, meanwhile, as
a young man about town, with time on his hands and money in his
pocket, best can enjoy himself.  He was no moody Zanga, with one
fixed idea.  He did not go scowling through society like the villain
of a tragedy, solacing himself with saturnine monologues, and talking
of nothing, thinking of nothing, but of his wrongs and his revenge.
Such monomaniacs may exist, but they are rare, and he was not of
them.  His heart swelled, and his temples throbbed, whenever he
thought of his hated mistress, and the thirst for vengeance was not
slaked by thinking of it.  But this dark spot was only a spot in his
life, other thoughts occupied him, other interests attracted him,
throwing this quite into the background.




CHAPTER VII.

ROSE VYNER WRITES TO FANNY WORSLEY.

"Oh!  about gaieties, I assure you I have little to tell.  We go to
very few parties.  Mama says dancing is so frivolous: though I
observe she dances all the evening when we do by chance go to a ball.
Papa sides with her, and says _he_ cannot conceive what pleasure
people take in it.  Perhaps not; but we can!  However, we dare not
complain, and mama is so kind to us that, on the whole, we get on
very well, though I long to be in the country.  Last Saturday week,
we were invited to Dr. Whiston's; a wise place where every one looks
like an oracle, where there are few young men, and those generally
sickly, fewer nice men, and scarcely any one Blanche and I know to
speak to.  Mama likes these sort of places.  She is so clever, and
manages to talk with all the oracles upon their separate sciences,
though she never opens a scientific book from one month to another;
but somehow she can dispense with knowledge, and yet contrive that
people should believe her deeply-read.  But then she is so strange!
I must interrupt my narrative to tell you something which I can't
make out in her.  She gets more admiration, in spite of her
deformity, than we could ever pretend to; and her style of beauty
seems to be exactly what men delight in.

"How she manages to persuade us, I don't know, but the result is, we
never look well when we go out to a party.  This, and our not being
overwise, prevents our finding much enjoyment at Dr. Whiston's; so we
went on that memorable evening prepared for a yawn.  Mama quickly got
us seats, and then sailed about the room talking to her friends.
This she does invariably.  It is called chaperoning.  Though what
protection young girls need at such places, and how this can be
considered as protection, are two things I have not yet comprehended.
Well, I seem as if I were never coming to the point, eh?  And yet all
this preparation is to usher in no adorably handsome young man with
bushy whiskers and sleepy eyes, like him we used to see at church
when we were at Mrs. Wirrelston's, and when you persuaded me I was in
love with that little humpbacked lawyer, in nankeens, who used to
ogle us so (do you remember?)--but, on the contrary, to tell you my
evening was rendered perfectly delightful by a certain Julius St.
John, who sat by my side and chatted away so pleasantly, that my
evening fled as rapidly as Cinderella's.  And it was his
conversation--nothing else; for I declare he was unreasonably
hideous...

"I am almost ashamed of that last line.  Why should I say he was
hideous?  He wasn't.  He was _adorably ugly_.  I never cared for
beauty, as you know, or you would not have persuaded me into a little
sentiment for my nankeened humpback; and it is very foolish in us all
to make such a fuss about it: the plainest men are certainly the most
agreeable!  But, however, it is no use preaching to you on this
subject; you who refuse to dance with every man whom you don't think
good-looking!

"Enough for you to know that my dear, little, ugly man was
unaffectedly chatty, and very clever; and that our conversation was
so pleasant, I was quite impatient for yesterday, the second Saturday
for which we were invited to Dr. Whiston's,--expecting to see him
there and to renew our tête-à-tête.  I had arranged all sorts of
topics.  In my mind's eye, I prefigured his animated pleasure at
espying me, and then his coming up and securing a seat, and chatting
more charmingly than before.  Some of my replies were so clever that
they astonished me.  How brilliantly I _did_ talk!  How many little
scenes of this kind were rehearsed in my imagination, I leave you to
guess, if you have ever been impatient for any meeting.  They were
delicious; but they made the reality only more cruel.

"Conceive my disappointment: he was there, yet never came to sit
beside me!  When first he saw me, his welcome was so warm that it was
the realization of what I had expected; but he suffered us to pass on
into the last room without once thinking of accompanying us.  I was
mortified, I confess.  I expected to find him as anxious to renew our
tête-à-tête as myself, and began to be ashamed of having thought so
much of him, when it was clear he had not bestowed a thought on me.

"We sat in our sullen seats, and looked on in no very amiable mood;
that is, I was cross; Blanche, dear creature, had nothing to ruffle
her sweet equanimity.  It then occurred to me that he would assuredly
soon find us out; but he did not.  I sat there in vain.  The people
never before seemed so dull and stupid.  The rooms never were so hot.
I longed for mama to fetch us away.

"At last he did condescend to approach us and ask us some trivial
questions, which irritated me so much that I hardly deigned to answer
him.  He did not seem in the least surprised by my behaviour; and
that made me angrier.  It was quite a relief to me when he turned
round to speak to some one and went away.

"I don't understand it at all.  I suppose I have been making a little
fool of myself; yet, in spite of his rudeness--no, not rudeness,
but--what shall I call it?--I should like to see him again.  His
mother has purchased the Grange, so when we are at Wyton, we shall
perhaps see a good deal of him, and I shall then be able to
understand him."




CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. LANGLEY TURNER, AND HER FRIENDS.

While Rose was writing the foregoing letter, Mr. and Mrs. Meredith
Vyner were driving towards Eaton-square, on a visit to the well-known
and well-worth-knowing lively widow, Mrs. Langley Turner.

London society abounds in subjects curious to the observer; and, in
spite of its general uniformity, is so split up into opposite and
opposing sections, that a painter of manners, whose observation had
been confined to a few of those sections, would be accused of
ignorance or of caricature by nine-tenths of the English public.
This is the reason of the numerous failures in the attempt to
describe English society, both by natives and foreigners.  To
foreigners, indeed, the task must be hopeless.  How should they avoid
taking their standard of the whole from the circle in which they
move?  They see the interior of houses where wealth, talent,
political influence, and sounding names meet together in habitual and
familiar intercourse: how can they imagine that what they see there
are not the acknowledged manners of the "upper classes?"  Yet nothing
can be more erroneous.  Portland-place differs as much from
Belgravia, as Regent-street does from Bond-street.  What a world is
that of Belgravia, and what a variety of worlds within it!  Things
are there done, and accepted as matters of course, which would make
the rest of England incredulously stare; and we may safely affirm
that any sketch of English society taken from the pleasant circles of
Belgravia, would seem quite as preposterous as any Frenchman's
"impressions" of England taken from Leicester-square.

These few remarks were necessary to prevent the reader's indignant
rejection of the description of Mrs. Langley Turner as a
caricature,--as opposed to the whole constitution of English society.
And we beg him therefore, if he have not travelled so far as Pimlico,
to retire into his ignorance, and, while staring as much as he
pleases, to believe it.

Mrs. Langley Turner's set was one of the small orbs within the
greater sphere of Belgravia, and her house was one of the gayest, if
not the most exemplary, in it.  Her Sunday evenings were celebrated.
Her picnics, her breakfasts, her snug dinners, and multitudinous
parties, were each and all agreeable enough; but the Sunday evening
was her _cheval de bataille_--therein she distanced all competitors.

There was something piquant in the audacity of the thing in
puritanical England, where, unlike all other Protestant countries,
the Sunday is a day on which all amusement, except plethoric dinners,
is supposed to be a sin; and, in 1839, such a thing was more unusual
than it has since become.  This saucy defiance thrown in the face of
Puritanism, was joyfully accepted by all those whose residence abroad
had made it familiar, as well as by those whose opinions were in
favour of a less rigid adherence to a code which other Protestant
nations repugned.  And though many women went to Mrs. Langley
Turner's Sunday evenings, and enjoyed them greatly, yet very few had
the courage to imitate her.

Never were pleasanter parties than hers.  The rooms were always
crowded with pretty women and _somebodies_.  Foreigners abounded;
literary men and artists of celebrity, Italian singers, travellers,
diners out, guardsmen, wits, and roués, formed the heterogeneous and
amusing society.  People with "slurs" upon their reputation were to
be met there; and they were not the least amusing of the set.  I know
not whether it is that the women whose virtue is not absolutely
intact, and the men whose conduct is of the same easy class, are
really more amusing and better natured than the incorruptibly
virtuous and the sternly conscientious; or that public envy more
readily pounces upon any slips made by the clever, amusing,
good-natured people; but the social fact is indisputable, that the
pleasantest companions are not always the most "respectable."

Mrs. Langley Turner had a sneaking regard for those black sheep; and
Cecil Chamberlayne once laughingly declared, that she never took any
notice of a person until his or her reputation had been damaged.  "In
her paradise," he said, "all the angels will be fallen angels."

With all due allowance for the exaggeration here, certain it is that
the truth of the _bon-mot_ gave it its success.  Everybody said it
was "_so_ good!"  And she did not disown it.

"I like people for themselves," she would say; "and, as their virtue
does not affect me, so long as I like them and see nothing
dishonourable in them, I will open my doors to them."

This un-Britannic audacity of thinking for herself, without reference
to the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, and of actually "receiving" women
about whom scandal had been busy, very naturally gave scandal a sort
of licence with her; but it never rose above whispers.  Mrs. Langley
Turner herself was a prodigious favourite with all classes of men.
The wits liked her, she was so lively; the guardsmen, she was "so
larky;" the talkers, she was so chatty; the authors, she was so
clever, without ink on her thumb, and knew so much of the world; and
everybody, because she was so quiet and good-natured.  A genuine
woman; frank, hearty, gossipy, flirty, kind, forgiving--in a word,
loveable.

It was to her house that the Vyners were driving, Sunday afternoon
being a sort of levée with her.  When the Vyners arrived the little
drawing-room was tolerably full.  First on the sofa, by Mrs. Langley
Turner, sat a dowager-countess with her young, handsome, and
uninteresting daughter.  Opposite them, in an easy chair, sat the
broken, gouty, but still charming Sir Frederick Winter; a name
celebrated in the annals of gallantry, and one of the now almost
extinct species of _roués_, in whom exquisite manner and courtly
elegance made vice the very chivalry of vice, so that, in losing all
its grossness, it did really seem to lose half its deformity.  By his
side sat Cecil Chamberlayne, and next to him the pedantic and bony
Miss Harridale and her mother; the former seemed to have absorbed the
dregs of her ancient family for several generations, so cruelly
vulgar was every look and movement.  She was talking atrocious French
to a bearded dandy, whom Cecil called "some very foreign count;"
occasionally entrapping young Lord Boodle into the conversation by an
appeal to his judgment, which, after smoothing his blonde moustache
with the ivory handle of his riding-cane, he reluctantly drawled out.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner, in her very affectionate and sprightly greeting
of Mrs. Langley Turner, had time to perceive that Marmaduke, for whom
she came, was not there.  It was her first appearance in Eaton-square
on a Sunday, for Mrs. Meredith Vyner never missed afternoon service,
and nothing but the hope of seeing Marmaduke, whom she was told was a
constant visitor, would have induced her to break in thus upon her
habits.  She comforted herself with the expectation that he might
still come.

"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Langley Turner, when they were seated,
"is giving us an enthusiastic account of a new tragic actress, whom,
he says, the Duchesnois, the Dorval, and the Mars--three single
ladies rolled into one--would not equal."

"Who is that?" said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, restlessly turning upon
Cecil.

"A little Jewess they call Rachel, quite a girl, picked up from the
streets, but an empress on the stage.  Till I had seen her, I did not
believe the human voice capable, in mere speech, of expressing such
unutterable sadness, such sobs of woe."

"And you have seen Edmund Kean?"

"Yes, Edmund Kean; but Rachel is something quite incomparable."

"That is true," said the very foreign count; "her acting is not
acting."

"No," replied Cecil, "it is _suffering_."

The bony Miss Harridale nodded approval of the epigram, and then
informed the company that for her part she saw nothing in French
tragedy.

"Surely," said Cecil, "Racine is an exquisite writer."

"No," replied the confident young lady, "he has no _ideas_!"

There was something so vague yet so crushing in this dictum, which
was delivered with amazing _aplomb_, that no one replied for a few
seconds.

"I fancy," said Sir Frederick Winter, "we are scarcely inclined to do
justice to French tragedy, because we always compare it with that
which it least resembles--our own."

"For my part, I never presume to have an opinion on so delicate a
subject," said Mrs. Vyner, who hated Miss Harridale, and never lost
an opportunity of saying something disagreeable; "because I feel we
English do not understand the language sufficiently to judge of that
which depends upon the grace and beauty of language.  I do not, of
course, mean to imply Miss Harridale in that observation--she is
_such_ a Frenchwoman!"

Miss Harridale looked daggers, and said, "I do not pretend to feel
the graces of Racine, about which they talk so much.  I dare say they
are all very well.  I only speak of the substance: he has no ideas;
and what is a poet without profound ideas?  I am for ideas above
everything."

"But how Racine understood the heart--especially woman's heart!" said
the count.  "What insight into the passions!  what tenderness!  what
subtlety!  what sublimity!"

"I never saw them," dogmatically pronounced Miss Harridale.

"Then Corneille," added the count; "le grand Corneille, there is a
genius!  Has he not painted Romans?"

"Not to my apprehension," said Cecil.  "His Romans are Gascons.  The
old Horace, for example, who is so much admired, seems to me to have
more rhodomontade than grandeur.  He is not a man, but a figment!"

Miss Harridale smiled her approbation of this, and declared that the
celebrated _qu'il mourût_ was not an "idea."

The count failing to understand that profound objection, asked if she
did not regard the _qu'il mourût_ as sublime?

"Not at all."

"Well, I suppose I am a heretic," said Meredith Vyner; "but to speak
the honest truth, French sublimity always seems to me to fall very
wide of the mark."

"Surely, not _very_," said Cecil; "only a _step_."

A general laugh greeted this sally, which made Mrs. Vyner remark
Cecil, whom she now remembered as the young man Marmaduke spoke to at
Dr. Winston's.  She resolved to invite him.

"Is this Rachel--I think you call her--handsome?" asked Lord Boodle,
tapping his lips with his cane.

"Yes, and no--the beauty of mind."

"The only beauty worthy of the name," said Miss Harridale,
sententiously.

It was the only style of beauty to which she could lay claim.

"She is beautiful enough," continued Cecil, "for the parts she
plays--you never feel any contradiction between the poet's idea and
her representation of it.  You should see her in Phèdre.  I think I
never can forget the desolation in her utterance of the four grand
opening lines; or the fine horror of her 'C'est Vénus tout entière à
sa proie attachée;' which by the way," he added, turning to Vyner,
"is only a magnificent paraphrase of what your favourite Horace says
in his ode to Glycera--

  "In me tota ruens Venus
  Cyprum deseruit."


Meredith Vyner, who had a high opinion of any man who could quote
Horace appositely, suspended a pinch of snuff which he had for some
minutes been heaping up between his thumb and forefinger, to assure
Cecil that he was perfectly correct in his conjecture, and as no
commentator had noticed it, he should certainly do so in his
forthcoming edition--"the work of twenty years' labour, sir!" Vyner
added, clenching the observation with a sonorous pinch.

In a few seconds, Cecil and Vyner were engaged together upon the
nullity of commentators in general, and those on Horace in
particular.  Talk of contempt!  there is no scorn like the scorn of
one commentator for another.

Vyner wound up a tirade against Burmann, Dacier, Sanadon, and
Bentley, by saying, "If you will do me the pleasure of calling, Mr.
Chamberlayne, I will show you my edition, together with some of my
marginal corrections.  Bentley boasted that he had made eight hundred
corrections of the text,--sir, I have made more than a thousand in
Bentley's edition.  You shall see it: it will delight you."

Cecil thought that few things would delight him less, but he was glad
to have an invitation to the Vyners upon any pretext.

During this talk, Miss Harridale was harassing Lord Boodle with her
criticisms on modern English literature, which she found deplorably
deficient in "ideas."

Mrs. Vyner was paying great court to the old roué, Sir Frederick--his
opinion being a verdict.

A knock at the door made her heart beat a little faster.  To her
disappointment, however, it was only Julius St. John's name she heard
announced.  She shortly overheard Julius informing Mrs. Langley
Turner, that he had left Mr. Ashley stretched on his sofa, devouring
_Ruy Blas_, just received.

"And I am to be neglected for Victor Hugo, I presume!" said Mrs.
Langley Turner.

Julius shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"I shall scold him well for it."

"Not when you hear his excuse.  He told me that no attraction could
drag him from _Ruy Blas_ till he had finished it; it was such a
splendid tale of vengeance."

A cold shiver ran over Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as she heard St. John
carelessly and laughingly let fall those words full of terrible
significance to her.

"But he will be here this evening, I hope?" inquired Mrs. Langley
Turner.

"Yes."

Finding it was useless waiting any longer, Mrs. Vyner rose to
withdraw.

"Do come round this evening, dear," said Mrs. Langley Turner; "only a
few friends, and Pellegrini is to give us some recitations from
Alfieri--will you?"

"With pleasure."

"That's a dear little woman, I'm so glad."

Meredith Vyner handed Cecil his card, and repeated how glad he should
be to show him all his notes on Horace.

"A very clever fellow, that young Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith to
his wife, as they got into their carriage, "with remarkably sound
ideas on the subject of commentators."

"Charming person--so witty.  I am glad you gave him your card.  By
the way, I have said we would go to Mrs. Turner's this evening, to
hear Pellegrini recite from Alfieri."

"Very well, my dear," said the astonished Vyner, not venturing to
make any further remark on so singular a communication.

It was indeed enough to make him silent.  It was something so
enormous, so unexpected, that it sounded like a mystification.  She
had always pretended to be very strict on religious subjects; without
affecting fanaticism, she was as rigid as was compatible with her
being a woman of the world.  This relaxation from her usual rigidity,
therefore, was the more surprising, because it seemed motiveless.

Her husband at last thought that the temptation was Pellegrini's
recitations.  He knew she was a great student of poetry, which she
always declared he knew very little about, and had the naïveté to
believe, that to hear poetry well recited would be as great a
temptation to her, as a new edition of Horace would be to him.

Her motive really was an anxiety to come to an "explanation" with
Marmaduke, whose threats terrified her the longer she thought of
them.  She wished at least to know his game, if she could not look
over his cards; and as the sooner she knew that the better for her
own defence, she was restless till she had seen him.




CHAPTER IX.

TWO PORTRAITS.

  "Look on this picture, and on that."
                        SHAKSPEARE.


It was no small gratification to Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as, leaning on
the arm of her ponderous husband, she glided into Mrs. Langley
Turner's rooms that evening, to distinguish amongst the first group
that met her eye, Marmaduke Ashley, resting against the doorway of
the second salon, talking to Cecil Chamberlayne and Julius St. John.
He was, indeed, a figure not to escape even an indifferent eye.
There was lion-like grace about him; a certain indefinable something
in his attitudes and movements, which, in their oriental _laisser
aller_, were in sharp contrast to the stiffness and artificiality of
even the least awkward of our northern dandies.  When our young men
are careless, they have a slouching, sprawling manner, which is more
offensive to the eye than stiffness.  It is only the children of
warmer climates who can afford to let their limbs fall naturally, and
be graceful.  Marmaduke, whose prodigious chest and back betokened
the strength of a bull, seemed to have united with it the agility of
a deer, and was the very model of manly grace.

He was well dressed, without overdress; but he had committed one
error in taste, which might, perhaps, be set down to coxcombry, in
wearing a white waistcoat, somewhat larger than the fashion
permitted.  His chest was so expansive, and he was so tall, that this
vast expanse of staring white, while it fixed all eyes upon him, made
them remark how much too large the chest was for symmetry.  It was
_trop voyant_, to adopt the jargon of the French dandies.  The effect
was further increased by his wearing a white cravat, which at that
time had only just began to replace the black, introduced by that
puffy potentate, so wittily characterized by Douglas Jerrold as the
"most finished gent. in Europe."

How many women sighed for him on that evening, I cannot tell; but
certain it is, that a shadow of regret fell on Mary's heart as she
remarked the beauty of her former lover, and silently compared him
with her heavy, snuffy husband.  Nor did he gaze on her unmoved.  She
was a striking figure, and would have been so even in an assembly of
beauties.  Perhaps the most striking part about her was her neck and
bosom, with the whiteness and firmness of marble,--with its coldness
too; beautiful it was, and yet repulsive; hard, cold, immodest,
unvoluptuous; no blood seemed to beat in its delicate, blue veins--no
heart seemed to move its rise and fall; this, the most womanly beauty
of a woman, was in her unwomanly; it arrested the eye, without
charming it.  There was something about her whole appearance which
was singularly fantastic: her golden hair, drooping in ringlets to
her waist, and her dazzling skin and tiny figure gave her the
appearance of a little fairy; nor did her deformity destroy this
impression.  She was so pretty, or rather so _piquante_, and unlike
other women, that her crooked shoulder only gave a piquancy the more
by the sort of compassionate feeling it raised.  "What a pity such a
sweet creature should be deformed!" was the universal exclamation;
and this very exclamation made people think more of the charms which
redeemed that deformity.

In truth, the great deformity was not in the back--it never is--but
in the eyes and mouth.  Theoretically, we may all declaim against
faults of proportion and of outline, but, practically, it is the eyes
and mouth that carry the day: according as they look and they smile,
do we feel that people are beautiful or ugly; because in them lies
the expression of the heart and soul.  This I take to be the secret
of those astounding differences in taste upon a subject of which
there is a distinct standard--beauty.  True, there is a standard of
form and colour.  We are all agreed upon the face that would make the
handsomest picture; but the best part of beauty is that which the
painter can never express, because he is condemned to one expression;
and the beauty of the loving heart and noble soul is visible in the
changing lustre of a thousand smiles and glances.  Now, although we
might all agree that a certain face has exquisite purity of outline,
and gratifies the æsthetical sense of proportion, yet we should feel
and say that some less perfect face has charmed us more.
Why?--because we are indifferent to perfection?  No: but because in
some less harmoniously proportioned face, we have read a more
loveable soul--a soul with which we can better enter into communion.
Thus it is that men get distractedly enamoured of women, whose beauty
is more than problematical, because without having had many
opportunities of knowing their characters, but mostly from what the
faces express, they read there the signs of unalterable goodness and
lovingness, of high nobility of soul, or, perhaps, only of some
voluptuous and passionate tendencies; and all these are qualities
more fascinating than purity of outline.  In support of my argument,
let me mention the fact, that the women most celebrated as beauties
have seldom, if ever, been picture-beauties.  It is impossible from
any picture of Mary Queen of Scots, for example, to imagine wherein
lay the enchantment of her beauty.

Therefore, my ill-favoured reader, take courage; if your mind is
honest, and your heart loving, you will have true beauty--yes, the
positive effect of beauty on all those who can read the signs of
honesty and loveliness.

These signs were not legible in the eyes and mouth of Mrs. Meredith
Vyner; and there, as I said, lay her real deformity, though people
did not call it so.  Those light, grey eyes, so destitute of
voluptuousness, but so full of light--so cunning, so cruel, so
uncomfortable to look upon; and that small mouth, with its thin,
irritable, selfish lips, which a perpetual smile endeavoured to make
amiable, created a far more repulsive impression, when first you saw
her, than any hump could have created: and yet she fancied that her
hump was her only deformity.

She was, as I said, repulsive at first sight; but most people got
over that impression after a while, as they generally do when
familiarity has blunted their perceptions.  It was not necessary to
be a great physiognomist to see at once the nature of the soul her
eyes expressed; and yet, when people heard her amiable sentiments,
and noticed the meekness of her manner, they yielded to the popular
sophism of its being "unjust to judge from first impressions," and
they believed in her _professions_ rather than in her
_expressions_--that is, in her calculated utterances rather than her
instinctive and unconquerable emotions.

"But," objects the reader, "first impressions are so often false,
that it would be madness to rely on them."  I answer: first
impressions--at least those of a broad and simple kind--are rarely,
if ever, false; though often _incomplete_.  The observer should not
rely on them; but he should never absolutely reject them.  They may
be modified--greatly modified--but not contradicted.  Human character
is marvellously complex, and this very complexity serves to confound
the observer, if he have not a clue; and that clue is best attained
on a first interview, because then the perceptions are least biassed
by the opinions.  If he understand human nature, he will soon be able
to modify his first impressions, and complete the general outline of
a character.

Physiognomy is very fallacious, I know, in its details; but in its
broad principles, which almost all human beings instinctively employ,
there is no more infallible guide.  The mistake physiognomists
commit, is in not leaving sufficient margin for education.  A man may
have cruelty or bad temper very legible in his face, and yet not in
his acts be cruel or bad-tempered; but if you interrogate his
boyhood, you will find that, however he may have subdued the demon
within him, he once had the quality which his face expresses, and, in
the depths of his nature, he has it still: the wild beast lies
chained within him, but may at any time break loose.

If physiognomy betrays us into rash judgments, far more erroneous are
those into which we are betrayed by an observation of conduct or of
speech, if we have not previously a clue to the character: because it
is a tendency in us all to attribute importance only to important
acts--only to great occasions, when as we say, a man's true nature is
called forth.  Nothing can be more false.  Trifles are the things by
which men are to be judged.  If we would know them _as they are_, we
should observe them in their unguarded moments, in the routine of
daily and familiar life, when no man's eyes, as it were, are on them.
If we would know them _as they wish to be considered_, then we may
observe them when the importance of the occasion turns men's eyes
upon them.  Taking the most liberal view of the question, one can
only say that great occasions show what men are capable of in
extraordinary circumstances, not what the men are.

I am tempted to quote the remarkable words of a remarkable writer on
this very point: "In our judgment of men," says Henry Taylor, "we are
to beware of giving any importance to occasional acts.  By acts of
occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their
own estimation, vain men endeavour to exalt themselves in that of
mankind.  It may be observed, that there are no men more worthless
and selfish, in the general tenor of their lives, than some who from
time to time perform feats of generosity.  Sentimental selfishness
will commonly vary its indulgences in this way, and vain-glorious
selfishness will break out into acts of munificence.  But
self-government and self-denial are not to be relied on for any real
strength, except in so far as they are found to be exercised in
detail."*


* "The Statesman."


The first impression Mrs. Meredith Vyner made, was that of a cold,
cunning, cruel woman; with plenty of nervous energy and sensibility,
but no affection.  If you disregarded that, and attended only to her
conduct, and to the sentiments she generally expressed, you thought
her an enthusiastic, affectionate, child-like creature, whose very
faults sprang from an excess of warmth and impulsiveness; and so good
an actress was she, that it required a keen observer, or a long
intimacy with her, to detect her real character.

It has been remarked that deformed people are singularly noble,
delicate, and generous in their natures; or singularly mean, cunning,
and malicious.  The scorn of the world so powerfully influences them,
that it brings out into greater relief the features of that moral
physiognomy with which nature has endowed them, making them much
better or much worse than their fellows.  Mrs. Meredith Vyner
belonged to the latter class; but so cunning was she, that most
people were entirely deceived by her; and if they were occasionally
startled by some great contradiction, they got over it with the usual
remark, "Oh, she is such a very strange woman!"




CHAPTER X.

DECLARATION OF WAR.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner had not long been in the room before she had
spoken to Marmaduke, who, perfectly on his guard, replied with
respectful politeness to the observations she from time to time
addressed to him.  It was impossible for the acutest observer to have
suspected there was any _arrière pensée_ in her slightly flurried
manner (she was always restless), or in his dignified ease.  Two
gladiators in the arena never faced each other with greater
watchfulness, than this tiny, lively woman--confident in her
skill--and this self-possessed magnificent Brazilian.

Pellegrini placed himself with his back to the fire and coughed as he
thrust one hand into his breast, previously to beginning his
recitations.  The guests crowded from the other rooms, and disposed
themselves to listen, as if they were to understand and greatly
relish Alfieri.  Mrs. Vyner, taking advantage of this movement,
beckoned Marmaduke to follow her, and seating herself at a small
table in the inner room, began turning over the leaves of the
Keepsake, and then addressing him in an under tone, said:--

"So you wanted to cut me the other night?"

"I did.  Surely it was the best thing I could do."  As he said this,
he sat down on an ottoman opposite her.

"What!  before any explanation?" she inquired, endeavouring to throw
a tenderness into her tone, which she could not throw into her eyes.

"All explanation is useless when the facts are so eloquent.  I
neither ask for explanation, nor would I accept one."

"And you think me----"  She could not proceed.

"A woman," he said, gravely.

"And what motives do you attribute?"

"Very natural and powerful motives, or they would not have influenced
you.  I know not what they were.  I do not desire to know.  Either
you love me----"

"Mr. Ashley, remember I am a married woman, and this language----"

"I was only putting an hypothetical case: your conduct and the
present interruption convince me it was unnecessary to put such a
case."

He rose, but she motioned to him to be reseated.  She sighed, and
continued hurriedly turning over the leaves of the book she held.
Expecting every moment that she was going to speak, he watched her in
silence.  This was exactly what she wished; confident in the
influence of her beauty over him, she thought it more effective than
any argument; besides, it did not inculpate her in any way.

She miscalculated.  The contemplation only served to irritate him the
more.  If his temples throbbed at the mere recollection of her having
jilted him, the sight of her called up bygone scenes of tenderness,
which made her inconstancy the more odious.

"Do you not hate me?" she said at last, keeping her eyes fixed on the
book, not daring to look at him.

"I do," he replied, in a whisper, like the hiss of a serpent.

She started at the sound, and raised her terrified head to see if his
face contradicted or confirmed the words.  But she could read nothing
there.  The light which for a moment had flashed from his dark eyes
had passed away, like the flush which had burnt his cheek.  He had
been unable to repress that movement of anger; but no sooner were the
words escaped than he repented them, and endeavoured to do away with
their effect, by adding,--

"That is, I _did_; now hate has given place to contempt.  When I
hated you, it was because I still felt a lingering of that love which
you had outraged; but I soon overcame that weakness, and now I think
only of you as one who _sold herself for money_."

At this very bitter speech, made the more galling from the tone of
superb contempt in which it was uttered, she shook back her golden
ringlets, and bent on him her tiger eyes with an expression which
would have made most men tremble, but which to Marmaduke had a savage
fascination, stirring strange feelings within him, and making him
almost clutch her in a fierce embrace.  She looked perfectly lovely
in his eyes at that moment; and it is impossible to say what might
have been the result of this scene, had not her husband appeared.  He
had just missed her, and astonished at not finding her listening to
Pellegrini's recitations, for which alone he supposed her to have
come there, he began fidgeting about, till he espied her in earnest
conversation with the handsome Marmaduke.

"My dear," said he, preparing a pinch with slow dignity, "won't you
come into the next room, to hear Alfieri?"

"No; I came away, unable to listen to Pellegrini's affected
declamation."

Meredith Vyner stood there somewhat puzzled what to say.  He
flattered his nose with a series of gentle taps, and in his
abstraction, let fall more of the snuff than usual.  Not even his
pinch, however, could clear his ideas.  He felt something like
jealousy, though the handsome young man was a perfect stranger to
him; and wished to get his wife away, without exactly knowing how it
was to be done.

He was relieved from his perplexity by an influx of the company from
the other room at the conclusion of the recitation.  The tête-à-tête
was broken up.  Mrs. Vyner took her husband's arm, and moved away,
not without a parting smile at Marmaduke, who received it with
supreme indifference.




CHAPTER XI.

ONE OF OUR HEROES.

On the following morning, Cecil Chamberlayne was busy over his
edition of Horace, "cramming" for his interview with Meredith Vyner,
whose acquaintance he was the more anxious to cultivate, now he knew
that he had three marriageable daughters.

Cecil has been introduced once or twice before, but I have not yet
had an opportunity of sketching his portrait, so let me attempt it
now.

He was a social favourite.  He had considerable vivacity, which
sometimes amounted to wit, and always passed for it.  He drew well,
composed well, sang well, dressed well, rode well, wrote charming
verses and agreeable prose, played the piano and the guitar, and
waltzed to perfection: in a word, was a _cavalier accompli_.

But with all these accomplishments there was no genius.  He could do
many things well, but nothing like a master.  He painted better than
an amateur, but not well enough for a professed artist.

Indeed, there was in him, both physically and morally, a sort of
faltering greatness which arrested the attention of the observer.
The head and bust were those of a large man, but the body and legs
were small and neatly made.  In his face there was the same
contradiction: a boldness of outline, with a delicacy amounting to
weakness in the details.  His brow was broad and high, without being
massive.  His eyes were blue and gentle.  His nose aquiline, and
handsomely cut.  The mouth would have been pretty had it not been too
small.  In appearance he was somewhat over neat--dapper.

At school, the boys called him "Fanny."

It is not often that the physical corresponds so well with the moral,
as in Cecil Chamberlayne; but in him the accordance was perfect.  You
could not look at his white hand without at once divining, from its
conical fingers, and the absence of strongly marked knuckles, that it
belonged to one in whom the emotions predominated, and in whom the
intellect tended naturally to art; it was, in truth, an artistic
hand, the largeness of which showed a love of details, as the broad
palm and small thumb showed an energetic sensuality and a wavering
will.

Lively, good-natured, and accomplished, he was a great favourite with
most people, and, indeed, the very attractiveness of his manners had
been the obstacle to his advancement in life.  His time and talents,
instead of being devoted to any honourable or useful pursuit, were
frittered away in the endless nothings which society demanded, and he
had reached the age of seven and twenty, without fortune and without
a profession.  He flattered himself that he should be made consul
somewhere, by one among his powerful friends, or that some sinecure
would fall in his way; and on this hope he refrained from applying
himself to the study of any profession, and only thought of
sustaining his reputation as an amusing fellow.  Meanwhile his small
patrimony had dwindled down to the interest of four thousand pounds,
which was preserved only because he could not touch the capital: a
misfortune which he had frequently declaimed against, and to which he
now owed the means of keeping a decent coat on his back.

He went to Vyner, listened to his remarks on Horace, sympathized with
his hatred of editors, wondered at the beauty and rarity of his
editions, expressed strong and lively interest in his commentary,
and, in short, so ingratiated himself with the old pedant, that he
was invited down to Wytton Hall, whither the family was about to go.




BOOK II.



CHAPTER I.

CECIL CHAMBERLAYNE TO FRANK FORRESTER.

MY DEAR FRANK,

I am alone in the house; everybody is gone somewhere, except that
prosy, respectable gentleman, Captain Heath, who is in the library,
reading Seneca or Hannah More, I dare say; and in consequence of this
solitude I obey the call of friendship, and devote my unoccupied time
to you.

I have been here three days without a yawn.  That is enough to tell
you how different the place is from what I expected.  On the other
hand, I must confide to you my suspicions, that I shall return to
town perfectly heart-whole.  There are only the two elder girls at
home; and, though very pretty, they are not at all my style.  Rose,
the eldest, is satirical, and far too lively to get up any sentiment
with.  She makes the place ring with her merry, musical laugh; but I
never get on with laughing women.  Her sister Blanche is better; but
she is shy, and, I suspect, stupid.  Violet, the youngest, is
expected home in a few days; but both her father and stepmother give
fearful accounts of her temper; and, without making any positive
charge, Mrs. Vyner has, from time to time, said things which convey a
very unfavourable impression of the girl's disposition.

As this is the case, I must look at Wytton Hall from a totally
different point of view.  It is now only a country house to me, and I
must criticize its attractions accordingly.

My first impression was anything but favourable.  I arrived here
about half-past six, and was received by--the butler!  He showed me
to my room in silence, and I did not feel disposed to question him.
As he asked me whether I wanted anything, I inquired after the
dinner-hour.

"Dinner will be ready, sir, as soon as you are dressed," he replied,
and left me.

The house seemed very quiet, but I dressed myself with care, all the
time speculating on the cause of my singular reception, or rather,
nonreception.  By the time I was ready, I had made up my mind that
everybody must have been dressing for dinner on my arrival, and that
perhaps I had been keeping them waiting half an hour.

I rang, and the servant lighted me down a complicated course of
corridors and oak staircases; very sombre, very rococo, but very
superb.  The wind shook mysterious tapestries.  Banners drooped by
the side of complete sets of steel armour, looking like prodigiously
uncomfortable knights, stiff as steel and the middle ages could make
them.  Formidable griffins of finely-carved oak glared at me, with
heraldic fury, from the balustrades; and endless ancestors, of
unheard-of bravery and incorruptibility, looked stiffly at me from
their dim canvass; each and all haughtily eyeing me, as if my
intrusion on the scene was one of the inexplicable facts of modern
progress.  In short, I could have fancied myself in a _Castle of
Otranto_ some centuries ago, instead of in a gentleman's country
house, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty.  And I
assure you, as the solemn flunky strode before me, his candle
throwing but a dubious light amidst all this sombre splendour, I felt
quite romantic, and should not have started if, in some gusty
movement, the tapestry had opened, and one of the faded-visaged
ferocious ancestors had stepped from his frame.

At length I reached the dining-room: there the silent butler
condescended to explain to me that the family and visitors were all
out at a pic-nic.  I was to dine by myself.  And never did I sit down
to a stranger or more uncomfortable dinner.  You know the dinner hour
is the period at which I shine; my best stories are inspired by the
cheerful scene, the lights, the clatter of glasses, and the sparkle
of the champagne.  It is then I feel myself possessed of all my
faculties.  Well, then, fancy me seated at a solitary silent meal,
without even the advantages of solitude and silence.  The vast
saloon, with its carved oak-panels, its high and vaulted roof, its
heavy antique furniture, required all its three chandeliers to be
properly lighted; instead of which, a massive candelabra threw light
just on the table and its immediate neighbourhood, but left the
greater part of the room in deep obscurity.  In this Rembrandtish
picture, which I could have painted with greater gusto had it not
disagreeably affected me, you are to fancy me in the light silently
eating, and in the surrounding shadows two silent flunkies, silently
bringing and taking away the various dishes which represented dinner;
as if dining consisted solely in eating.

You often laugh at me, Frank, for my gourmandize--and you, too, such
a perfect gourmand--but if you had seen me on that occasion, you
would have credited my fundamental maxim, which Brillat Savarin has
omitted in his _Physiologié du Gout_, viz., What the _chef de
cuisine_ is to the raw materials, that is the company to the _chef de
cuisine_.

I never ate less, nor with such profound contempt for the process of
eating, reduced to the mere satisfaction of hunger.  Besides, the
sombreness and silence of the scene oppressed me.

I was shown into the drawing-room; a handsome, well lighted,
comfortable-looking place, which quite cheered me.  A log was blazing
joyously in the fire-place, for the autumnal nights down here are
keen; and, altogether, the contrast with the dark, grandiose,
majestically-uncomfortable dining-room, made this drawing-room
delightful.

I threw myself on an ottoman, and tried to amuse myself with a book;
but you know, I dare say, how impossible it is to read in such
uncertain moments.  Expecting the family to arrive every minute, it
was in vain I tried to fix my interest in anything I read.

I threw down the book, and gazed thoughtfully at the crackling log.
The wind sighed mournfully without, the clock on the mantel-piece
ticked with a sort of lively monotony, the embers fell with a cozy
familiar sound, and I sank into one of those exquisite reveries
wherein the past is curiously enwoven with the future, and, treading
the imaginary stage, we play such brilliant parts.

I must have passed from these waking dreams into dreams of a less
coherent kind, and have fallen asleep, for I was aroused by the
barking of a dog, and noise of considerable bustle in the hall, which
was quickly followed by the entrance of Meredith Vyner, his wife, his
daughters, and his guests.  He apologized for being absent on my
arrival, but had accepted the engagement before my note reached him
to say I should be down on that day.  His welcome was warm enough;
but the others seemed to me disagreeably cold and constrained.  They
were all very tired, and went early to bed, except Vyner, who sat up
with me discussing Horace; and Captain Heath, who was reading the
paper.

I retired to bed somewhat disgusted, and resolved to receive a letter
which should call me up to town on urgent business; I felt so lonely
in that great house full of uncongenial people.  Sleeping in a
strange house is always rather unpleasant to me.  I am bothered by
unfamiliarity in familiar things.  I could sleep in a wigwam
comfortably enough; but in a bedroom which is substantially the same
as all other bedrooms, and which, nevertheless, wears an air of
strangeness, I feel out of my _assiette ordinaire_.  This was
peculiarly so on the night I speak of, from my unpleasant impression
of the people I was thrown among.

It happened, however, that my impression of the people was similar to
my impression of the place--at first repulsive, afterwards
attractive.  What the well-lighted drawing-room was to the
dining-room, that was the next morning's hilarity to the over night's
frigidity.  Breakfast was charming.  Everybody seemed in high
spirits--the first freshness of morning--and my opinion was
completely changed.  You know how intimate one becomes after having
spent a night under the same roof: it seems as if you breakfasted
only with old friends.  I felt myself at home; and kept the table in
a roar of laughter.  This success operated favourably on my own
spirits; and in consequence, I have established myself as a general
favourite.

Now for my companions, Vyner himself promises to be more of a bore
than I anticipated.  His wife is very charming, and seems to agree
wonderfully in all my views, which I, of course, regard as a sign of
excellent taste and judgment.  The daughters I have already spoken
of.  Captain Heath is handsome, gentlemanly, but confoundedly
"sensible," and, though a guardsman, has no idea of "life."  I can't
say I like him; though _why_, I don't know; as Martial says,

  Non amo te Sabidi: nee possum dicere quare;
  Hoc tantum possum dicere: Non amo te.

(I hope you remember enough Latin to understand that, eh, Frank?  The
truth is, I charmed Vyner yesterday with it, by quoting it as the
original of "I do not love thee, Dr. Fell," which he quoted to me.
He was so pleased, that I would wager he introduces it into his
commentary on Horace, which already amounts to nearly three octavos!)

To return to Heath, I think something of my dislike may be the mere
re-action against the immense liking, I almost said veneration, which
every one feels for him here.  They are always telling some story of
his goodness.  "Goodness!" and in a guardsman!

Mrs. Langley Turner, who arrived yesterday, Sir Harry Johnstone, and
Tom Wincot, I need not describe to you.  But there is a young fellow
named Lufton who ought to be under your hands; he would be an
admirable fellow if "formed."  To convey to you his stupendous
innocence, he told me yesterday at billiards, when I asked him what
was his usual stake, that "he had never played for money."  Is not
this something fabulous--a myth?  Let me add, however, that he had
enough _savoir vivre_, to propose that I should name the stakes, as
he was quite willing to do what I did.  That re-established him in my
opinion.  He won a pony from me, which I am not likely to regain, as
he plays decidedly better than I do.

I must also not forget George Maxwell, a saturnine, stupid, fanatical
individual, in love with Mrs. Vyner, or I am vastly mistaken,
savagely jealous of every one she notices, but by no means rewarded
by any notice from her.  I can't tell whether she observes his
passion; but she certainly does not return it.  Nobody likes _him_.

There are, besides, a merry little widow, a Mrs. Broughton, and her
niece, an inoffensive girl with a happy simpering visage, radiant
with foolishness.

This is our party: rather mixed, but very agreeable.  I can't tell
you now how we pass our time, for here am I at the end of my paper
and patience.

  Good-bye, Frank,
    Ever yours,
       CECIL.




CHAPTER II.

ROSE TO FANNY WORSLEY.

News, my dearest Fanny--news is an article as rare with us as with
the morning papers.  We see nobody, hear nothing, do nothing, but
amuse ourselves as we best can, and that is not adapted to a letter,
it would require such endless explanations.

In answer to your first question, Yes; Julius is here, or rather, he
is with his mother at the Grange, and very frequently walks over.  As
to his being my slave, don't think it!  He is evidently not
indifferent to me, but as evidently not in love.  The vainest of our
sex (are we so vain?) in my place could not imagine him in love.  I'm
rather glad of it, for I certainly _don't_ love _him_, and should be
sorry to lose a _friend_.

But let me tell you of another new acquaintance in the _jeune
premier_ line,--a Mr. Cecil Chamberlayne, whom papa has invited here
for a week.  He is handsome, witty, good-natured, and clever--all
very excellent qualities; but there is a levity about him which
somewhat disturbs my liking for him.  I could never fancy myself
sentimental with him for a moment.  His gaiety makes me laugh, but
does not, somehow, make me gay.  Everybody sides against me here,
except Captain Heath, who says he feels as I do in that respect.
They all swear by Mr. Chamberlayne; but, to my taste, Julius St.
John's gaiety is far more exhilarating, perhaps because it is
tempered with a manly seriousness; you feel that his laugh is as
_hearty_ (in the real primitive sense of the word) as his earnestness
is sincere.

Violet is to be home at the end of this week.  Papa has written for
her, as mama says that she is only being spoiled at my uncle's.  The
real secret is, I believe, that mama has heard how Violet speaks of
her down in Worcestershire, and that the character there given of her
comes up to London.  Now, though Violet is, I believe, unjust to
mama, yet people are only too willing, as mama says, to believe
everything ill of a stepmother.  I fear Violet won't be comfortable.
Suppose Julius St. John should fall in love with her?  It would be a
capital match.  They would suit so well: I should like it above all
things.

I am reading Leopardi's poems; they are very beautiful, and very
mournful.  Julius St. John says that they are the finest productions
of modern Italy.  By the way, though you will accuse me of filling my
letter with Julius, I must tell you of something that occurred
_àpropos_ of Leopardi:--the first evening I met him--it was at Dr.
Whiston's, and I wrote you a long account of it--he spoke to me of
Leopardi, whom I had not heard so highly praised before.  Papa had
brought a copy with him from Italy, and I had looked into it from
curiosity, but finding it difficult to read, my Italian being
somewhat flimsy, I took no further trouble with it, till Julius spoke
so enthusiastically about him.  I then set doggedly to work, and
mastered the poems; having done so, I read them over again with great
pleasure, and am now a sworn admirer of this strange unhappy being.

Well, one evening, shortly after we had come down here, Julius took
up my copy of Leopardi, which happened to be lying on the table.  It
was pencilled all over.  He asked whose marks those were.  I told him
mine.  "You seem to have been a careful reader," he said.  "Your
praises," I replied, "taught me to be."

He looked up for a moment, to read in one full, rapid gaze, the
expression of my countenance, and then dropped his eyes once more
upon the book, but not before I had noticed that his cheek was
flushed.  Whether in anger or in pleasure I know not, for his eyes
are so shadowed by his dark, straight eyebrows, which meet across the
nose, that it is only in certain aspects you can read what is passing
in them.  What there could be in my reply either to anger or to
please him, I cannot guess; but he changed the subject, and I could
not interrogate him, as mama came up at that moment, nor have I dared
since.  All I can say is, that if he was angry he had quite forgotten
it; and if he was pleased he is perfectly ungrateful.

This little incident is all I have to relate.  Imagine what our life
must be when that is an incident; and yet, as Julius says, "it is not
events but emotions which make life important; and events are only
prized inasmuch as they excite emotions."

  Your affectionate friend,
    ROSE VYNER.

_P.S._--Now, don't you _misinterpret_ a fact which strikes me in
reading this letter over, namely, that one name occurs very
frequently.  It is purely owing to the want of any subject to write
about.  Don't imagine it otherwise.




CHAPTER III.

CECIL IS SMITTEN.

MY DEAR FRANK,

Your complaint respecting the omissions of my letter was not very
generous, considering the length of the aforesaid letter.  However, I
will now tell you what I didn't tell you then--that there is endless
fishing and famous preserves; so you may cultivate Vyner with perfect
safety, though excuse me if I doubt your success.

The hall is, as I told you, formidably rococo, or rather _moyen age_;
but handsome of the kind, and spacious.  The Italian terrace in front
of the house has the trim beauty of such things, but is spoiled by a
want of "keeping;" the balustrades are _griffinesque_, and yet there
are copies of the Greek statues in the garden!

A rich embowering shrubbery leads you down to the river, which brawls
through the property; beyond, on the other side, there is a lovely
wood, which skirts the banks of the river, and affords a most
romantic promenade.  I should have certainly been most poetically
touched the first day I went there, had it not been for the saucy
merriment of that liveliest of girls, Rose; but she drove all
seriousness out of me.  I could have kissed her ruddy lips to close
them, and put a stop to her merciless merriment.  I have since
visited the wood alone, but one cannot be sentimental alone--at least
I cannot.  The river runs through rich meadows, on which the sleek
cattle browse in philosophic calmness: it forms an endless source of
amusement.  I have sat for hours in the boat gently dropping down the
stream, lulled by the soft ripple, and yielding myself to dreamy
listlessness.  The broad leaves of the water-lily that float upon the
stream supporting the delicate-shaped yellow flower, and the rich
colours of the luxuriant loosestrife and other wild flowers, whose
names I know not, together with the windings of the river, and its
undulating meadows on one side, and many-tinted wood on the other,
make up a picture of which I cannot tire.

But the charms of this place are nothing to those of one of its
inmates, about whom I will now endeavour to convey my impressions.
If they are somewhat confused, attribute it to the effect of an
apparition, which has left me very little command over my ideas.

I told you that the youngest daughter was expected to arrive.  I had
consented to prolong my stay another week, and was not sorry to have
an opportunity of judging for myself.  It happened that one morning
before breakfast I was looking over the paper, waiting, with that
intolerance which only hungry men can appreciate, till the others
should descend; when in bounded a magnificent Scotch deer-hound, who
sprang over the chairs and sofas, in a riotous manner, and came up to
me, thrusting his shaggy head in my hand to be caressed.

"Down, Shot, down!" exclaimed a sweetly imperative voice.

I looked up, and surely never did mortal eyes behold a more
bewitching apparition.  A young girl of more than ordinary height,
dressed in a blue riding-habit, which set off the budding beauty of a
graceful figure, stood before me.  She wore a black straw hat, whose
broad brim sheltered her face from the sun, and which, with a simple
blue ribband, made a head-dress ten times more picturesque and
becoming than the odious man's hat which amazons put on; from under
it escaped ringlets of dark brown hair, tipped with a golden hue.
Her brow was low, but broad--perhaps too massive for beauty.  Her
eyes large, long, almond-shaped, and inconceivably lustrous--the sort
of eye which _looks you down_, which, even if you meet its gaze in
passing, seems to project such indomitable will and energy, that
involuntarily you avert your glance.  I am not easily stared out of
countenance, and am rather apt to look into women's eyes, but I find
myself unable to withstand Violet's gaze--for you must have already
divined that my apparition was Violet Vyner.  Do not, however,
suppose that because all eyes droop beneath the intolerable lustre of
her glance, that she is otherwise than bewitching.  Her eyes are not
fierce; though doubtless they could be.  It is the astonishing energy
and imperious will which look out at you, and make you feel your
inferiority.  And this effect is heightened by a certain impetuous
haughtiness of demeanour which I never observed before.  Haughtiness
generally implies coldness, reserve, restraint.  But in Violet,
although the haughtiness is unmistakeable, the fire and passion are
still more so.  With the airs and carriage of the most imperial of
her sex, she unites an appearance of _abandon_, of impetuosity, of
lofty passion, which belongs more to the southern women than to any I
have before seen in England.  To complete my feeble sketch, let me
add that her nose is a trifle too large and aquiline, her mouth also
too large, though handsomely cut, her complexion of that luminous
brown which Titian so well knew how to paint, and the form of her
face a perfect oval.  Handsomer women may be seen every day in the
park, or at the opera; but a woman with more character in her face--a
woman more irresistibly fascinating, I never saw.  Critically, there
are many defects; but, taken in the ensemble, they only seem to
heighten the one effect of a queenly beauty, half sad half voluptuous.

I rose as she entered, but was so absorbed by her beauty that I stood
gaping at her like a cockney at a covey of partridges, suddenly
whirring up before him.

She bowed quietly, I thought haughtily, and did not even pay me the
compliment of a little embarrassment.  I recovered from my surprise,
and ventured on a commonplace about the weather.  She had already
been out for a morning scamper; and we soon got upon the subject of
horses and hunting, which she understood a great deal better than I
did.  Her attention was, however, soon diverted to her dog.

"Down, Shot; down, sir!  Do you hear me?  Down!" she said.

The hound was at this moment resting his front paws on the table, and
taking an inquiring survey of the books and flowers on it.
Disregarding the command of his mistress, he continued to twitch his
nose interrogatively, till a smart cut from the riding whip she held
in her hand, made him spring away with a howl; and then, obedient to
a gesture of command, he came and crouched at her feet.

This little incident disagreeably affected me.  I am rather
tender-hearted, and particularly fond of dogs; so that to see one
beaten by anybody is extremely unpleasant to me, but by a woman, a
young and lovely woman, it is odious.  Besides, I thought the
punishment needlessly severe.  She seemed quite unconscious of having
done anything out of the way, and continued a lively conversation
with me on dogs and animals in general, all the time caressing Shot,
who remained at her side; and in this conversation displaying a love
for animals, which rendered her recent act of severity more wanton in
my eyes.

I have since found out that she is anything but cruel; but upon the
principle of spare the rod and spoil the dog, she exacts implicit
obedience.  It gives her as much pain to correct her animals as it
does a mother to punish her children; but like a courageous mother,
she knows it is to save them from more pain and sorrow, and,
therefore, unhesitatingly punishes them.

To tell you that I am fast falling over head and ears in love with
this adorable creature, will be only to tell you what my description
must have betrayed.  To tell you that she seems no less inclined to
follow my example will be more like news.  We generally ride
together; we sing duets, and our voices harmonize charmingly; in a
word, young Lufton has begun to joke me about her.

Unfortunately my visit draws to a close, and unless I can make a
tolerably deep impression before I leave, she will have forgotten me
by next season.  She is only sixteen; but to look at her you would
say she was twenty; and to talk to her you would say, much more.  She
is one of the precocious, and has been bred up in a queer way.
Adieu!  We shall meet at the club next week.


_P.S._--I open this to tell you that they will not part with me here,
and that I have promised to remain till the shooting begins, though I
told them I had no longer any pleasure in shooting.  But I was too
happy for any excuse to remain under the same roof with the
enchanting Violet.




CHAPTER IV.

CECIL EXHIBITS HIMSELF.

The three letters, just given, will save me a great deal of
explanation and description and, as the horses are at the door, we
have no time to waste.

Mrs. Langley Turner, Sir Harry Johnstone, young Lufton, Cecil, and
Violet are preparing to ride out, and afterwards to lunch at the
Grange.

Cecil rode remarkably well, and was proud of it; besides, he looked
handsomer on horseback, as then his head and bust were seen to full
advantage, of which he was also aware; and Violet, who had of late
been accustomed to follow the hounds, and spend the greater part of
every day on horseback, looked upon him with fresh admiration, as she
marked the graceful mastery of his bearing.  With a more than womanly
contempt for effeminate men, she had at first imagined Cecil one,
from the delicacy and dapperness she noticed in him.  But finding
that he was an excellent shot with the rifle, that he even excelled
her with pistols, that he fenced well, and rode boldly, she gave him
her esteem,--and was nearly giving him her heart; but that was not
gone as yet.  She was charmed with Cecil's manner--she admired him,
and saw his admiration for her; but she loved him not as yet, however
fast she might be galloping on the road to it.

Off they started, Shot barking and leaping up at the nose of his
playfellow, Violet's bay mare, Jessy, while a sedater hound trotted
slowly behind.  Mrs. Langley Turner, Sir Harry, and Lufton rode
abreast, discussing the proposition which had just been started, of
getting up private theatricals at the hall.  Violet and Cecil
followed, talking of favourite books and favourite composers,
comparing sentiments, and looking into each other's handsome faces,
suffused with the bright flush of excitement.

"Here we are at the Grange," said Violet, as they cantered within
sight of the lodge gates.

"Alas, yes!" replied Cecil.

He sighed at the thought of his delicious _tête-à-tête_ being broken
up; and, though he consoled himself with the idea that, since he was
to remain at the hall, many other opportunities must occur, yet he
knew by experience that there is no such thing as the repetition of a
scene in which emotion plays the principal part.  You cannot command
such things.  They spring out of the moment.  They are dependent upon
a thousand circumstances, over which you have no control.  The mood
of mind, the state of the atmosphere, the accident of association,
all concur in investing some ordinary occasion with a magic charm,
which may never be felt again.  "I was a fool not to have declared
myself.  She would certainly have accepted me," he said to himself,
as he dismounted, and passed into the drawing-room, where he found
Mrs. St. John, Julius, the clergyman's wife, and Marmaduke Ashley,
who had just come down on a visit at the Grange.  Maxwell, with Mr.
and Mrs. Meredith Vyner arrived shortly afterwards, and the whole
party sat down to a merry luncheon.

"I'm delighted to learn that you are going to prolong your stay down
here, Mr. Chamberlayne," said Julius St. John; "and hope you will not
confine your shooting to Wyton.  The Grange, they tell me, is famous
for its game."

"You are very kind," replied Cecil; "but I shall scarcely avail
myself of your offer.  I am no sportsman."

Violet, turning suddenly round upon him, with a look of incredulity,
said,--

"No sportsman?--and such an excellent shot!"

"Don't confess it before her," said Vyner, laughing; "or you will be
lost in her estimation.  She is a true descendant of Diana; and, like
her mythic ancestress,--

      Sævis inimica Virgo
  Belluis...."


"I'm grieved, indeed!" replied Cecil; "but treat me as a cockney;
shower contempt upon me for the confession; but, the truth is, I
never found much pleasure in any sport, except hunting; and the
little pleasure I used to find in shooting was destroyed five years
ago."

"How was that?"

"The anecdote is almost childish, but I am not such a child as to be
ashamed of relating it.  I was one day rambling over the wood at
Rushfield Park, with my rifle in my hand tired of shooting at a mark.
There started a hare at a tempting distance from me, I fired.  A
slight appearance of ruffled fur alone told me that he was hit.  He
ran leisurely away, and described a circle round me, till approaching
within a few paces he lay meekly down, and died.  I know not
wherefore, but the death of this hare was indescribably touching to
me.  It was not the mere death: I had killed hundreds before, and
often had to despatch by a blow those only wounded.  But this one had
died so meekly, without a cry, without a struggle, and had come to
die so piteously at the feet of him who had shot it, that I took a
sudden disgust to the sport, and have never fired a gun since at
either hare or partridge."

There was a slight pause.  The emotion of the speaker communicated
itself to the audience, and Mrs. Meredith Vyner, with tears in her
eyes, declared, that for her part she so well understood what his
feelings must have been, that she must have hated him (hated was said
with the prettiest accent in the world), if he had not relinquished
shooting on the spot.

Violet would have said the same, but her mother having volunteered
the observation, closed her mouth.  She really felt what her mother
only spoke; but the intuitive knowledge of her mother's
insincerity--the thorough appreciation of the tear which so
sentimentally sparkled on that mother's eyelid--made her dread lest
any expression of her own sentiments should be confounded with such
affectation, and she was silent.

Cecil was hurt at her silence.  The more so as she did not even look
at him, but kept her eyes fixed upon her plate.

Meredith Vyner, who had been vainly beating his brains for a pat
quotation, now gave up the attempt and said,--

"But then, my dear, _you_ have so much sensibility!  Why, I vow if
the story hasn't brought tears into her eyes--

      Humor et in genas
  Furtim labitur.

Certainly, there never was a more tender-hearted creature--nor one
shrinking so much from the infliction of even the smallest pain."

Vyner, as he finished his sentence, turned aside his head to fill his
nose with a pinch of snuff adequate to the occasion--as if it was
only in some vociferous demonstration of the kind that he could
supply eloquence capable of properly setting forth his wife's
sensibility.

At the mention of her tender-heartedness, both Marmaduke and Violet,
involuntarily looked at her, and as they withdrew their eyes, their
gaze met.  No words can translate the language which passed in that
gaze: it was but a second in duration, and yet in that second each
soul was laid bare to the eyes of each.  The ironical smile which had
stolen over their eyes changed, like the glancing hues on a dove's
neck, from irony to surprise, from surprise to mutual assent, from
assent to superb contempt.  Marmaduke and Violet had never met
before, yet in that one glance each said to the other, "So, you know
this woman!  You appreciate her sincerity!  You know what a cruel
hypocrite she is!"

Mrs. Wyner did not observe that look.  She had felt Marmaduke's eyes
were upon her, and affecting not to know it, threw an extra
expression of sensibility into her face.

When Cecil fairly caught a sight of Violet's face, he saw on it the
last faint traces of that contempt which she had expressed for her
mother, but which he attributed to her unfeminine delight in
field-sports, and her contempt for his sensibility.

He was glad when luncheon was concluded, and the party rose to ramble
about the grounds.  As they were walking through the garden, he
managed to bring up the subject, and frankly asked her if she did not
feel something like disdain at his chicken-heartedness.

"Disdain!" she exclaimed, "how could you imagine it?  Knowing you to
be so little effeminate that it could not spring but from a kind and
affectionate nature, I assure you I look upon it as the very best
feather you have stuck in your cap--at least in my presence.  I have
only contempt for the _affectation_ of sensibility."

"It was what your father said----"

"My poor father understands me about as little as he understands
mama.  Less he could not.  Fond as I am of hunting and everything
like exercise in the open air, I have seen too much of the mere
Nimrods not to value them at their just ratio.  Good in the field:
detestable everywhere else."

"I'm delighted to hear you say it."

"I must confess to prizing _manliness_ so high, that I prefer even
brutality to cowardice.  There is nothing to me so contemptible in a
man or woman as moral weakness, and therefore I prefer even the
outrages of strength to the questionable virtues of a weak, yielding,
coddling mind."

"What do you mean by the questionable virtues of such a mind?" he
asked.

"They are questionable, because not stable: the ground from which
they spring being treacherous.  A man who is weak will yield to good
arguments; but he will also yield to bad arguments; and he will,
moreover, yield against his conviction.  A man who is timid will be
cruel out of his very timidity, for there is nothing so cruel as
cowardice."

By this time they had left the garden, and joined the others, who had
disposed themselves in groups, which permitted their _tête-à-tête_ to
continue.  Meredith Vyner, Mrs. St. John, and the clergyman's wife
were in advance.  Mrs. Langley Turner and young Lufton followed,
conning over London acquaintance and London gossip.  Marmaduke, Sir
Harry, and Mrs. Vyner were very lively, talking on an infinite
variety of topics--Mrs. Vyner making herself excessively engaging to
Marmaduke, whom she had not seen since that Sunday night when his
last words had been so contemptuous, his look so strange and
voluptuous.  She did not doubt that the great motive of his visit at
the Grange was to put his threat of vengeance in execution; and
determined either to soften him, or to learn his plans, the better to
combat them.

George Maxwell walked behind them, scowling.

Julius remained in doors; so Violet and Cecil had only to lag a
little behind, to enjoy a perfect _tête-à-tête_.  Shot walked gravely
at their heels.

The ramble about the grounds lasted all the afternoon.  There only
occurred one incident worth relating, as bearing upon the fortunes of
two of the actors.

Cecil and Violet, in stopping to pick many flowers, had been left so
far behind the others, that they determined to take a shorter cut to
the house through a meadow lying alongside of the shrubbery.  They
had not gone many steps across the meadow before a bull seemed to
resent their intrusion.  He began tearing up the ground, and tossing
about his head in anger.

"I don't like the look of that animal," said Cecil.  "Let us return."

She only laughed, and said:--

"Return!  No, no.  He won't interfere with us.  Besides, when you
live in the country you must take your choice, either never to enter
a field where there are cattle, or never to turn aside from your
path, should the field be full of bulls.  I made my choice long ago."

This was said with a sort of mock heroic air, which quite set Cecil's
misgivings aside.  He thought she must certainly be perfectly aware
the bull was harmless, or she would not have spoken in that tone; and
above all, would not have so completely disregarded what seemed to
him rather formidable demonstrations on the part of the animal.  They
continued, therefore, to walk leisurely along the meadow, the bull
bellowing at them, and following at a little distance.  He was
evidently lashing himself into the stupid rage peculiar to his kind,
and Shot showed considerable alarm.

"For God's sake, Miss Vyner!  let us away from this," said Cecil,
agitated.

"He doesn't like Shot's appearance here," she calmly replied, as the
dog slunk through the iron hurdles which fenced off the shrubbery.

She turned round to watch the bull, and her heart beat as she saw him
close his dull fierce eye--the certain sign that he was about to make
a rush.

Cecil saw it too, and placing his hand upon the iron hurdle, vaulted
on the other side, obeying the rapid suggestion of danger as quickly
as it was suggested.

No sooner was his own safety accomplished, than almost in the same
instant that his feet touched the ground, the defenceless position of
Violet rushed horribly across his mind.

"Good God!" he said to himself; "what have I done?  How can I ever
explain this?"

He vaulted back again to rush to her succour; but he was too late.
His hesitation had not lasted two seconds, but they were two
irrevocable seconds; during which Violet, partly out of bravado and
contempt for the cowardice of her lover, and partly out of that
virile energy and promptitude which on all occasions made her front
the danger and subdue it, sprang forwards at the animal about to
rush, and with her riding-whip cut him sharply twice across the nose.
Startled by this attack, and stinging with acute pain--the nose being
his most sensitive part--the brute ran off bellowing, tail in air.

He had already relinquished the fight when Cecil came up.  The
coincidence was cruel.  He felt it so.  Violet, pale and trembling,
passed her hand across her brow, but turning from Cecil, called to
her dog.

"Shot!  Shot!  come here, you foolish fellow.  He won't hurt you."

This speech was crushing.  Cecil felt that he had slunk away from
danger like the dog, and that Violet's words were levelled at him.
Never was man placed in a more humiliating position.  To have left a
young girl to shift for herself on such an occasion, and to see her
vanquish the enemy in his presence; to appear before a brave girl as
a despicable coward, and to feel that he could not by any means
explain his action, except to make himself more odious; for if he
were not himself too terrified to face the danger, what utter
selfishness would it appear for him to have so secured his own safety!

Cecil felt the difficulty of his position, and that chained his
tongue.  Violet, who was suffering morally as well as physically, was
also unable to speak.  The shock given to her frame by the recent
peril was in itself considerable; and she trembled now it was past,
almost as much as another would have trembled at the moment.  But,
perhaps, the moral shock was as great.  She had begun to consider
Cecil in the light of a lover, and was almost in love with him
herself.  What she had just witnessed turned all her feelings against
him.  Deep and bitter scorn uprooted all her previous regard, and she
was angry with herself for having ever thought of him kindly.

They joined the rest of the party, without uttering a word.  "My dear
Violet," exclaimed Mrs. Vyner, "how pale you look!  Has anything
happened?  Are you ill?"

Cecil's temples throbbed fearfully.  He expected to hear himself
exposed before them all, and was trying to muster courage to endure
either their scorn, or Violet's sarcastic irony in her description.
She only said,--

"Oh, nothing; only a little fright.  There was a bull in the meadow
who took offence at Shot, and began to threaten us.  It is very
foolish to be so agitated; but I can't help it."

"Very natural, too, my dear," said Mrs. St. John.  "Come and let me
give you a glass of wine: that will restore you."

"No, thank you," she replied; "it's not worth making a fuss about.
It will go off in a minute or two.  Well, Mrs. Langley Turner, have
you settled anything about the theatricals?"

"Settled nothing, my dear, but projected an immense deal.  Let us lay
our heads together a little."

Mrs. Langley Turner twined her arm round Violet's waist, and moved
away with her.

Cecil was intent upon the structure of a dahlia.

Nothing more was said on the subject of the fright; and amidst his
poignant sense of shame, there was a feeling of grateful reverence to
Violet for having spared him.  He knew her well enough to be certain
that, as she had not revealed his conduct then, she would not whisper
it in private.  He knew her capable of crushing him in her scorn by
some epigram, such as she had uttered in the meadow, but incapable of
a spiteful innuendo, or sarcastic narration, in private.

Nevertheless, _she_ knew it.  How could he again face her?  How could
he dwell under the same roof with her?  He would not.  He would set
off on the morrow.  He would invent some pretext; anything, so that
he had not to encounter the scorn of those haughty features.

The ride home was a painful contrast to the setting out; at least for
the two lovers.  The rest were as gay and chatty as before; the
horses pranced, and shook their heads; Shot leaped up at Jessy's
nose, and the sedater hound trotted calmly behind.  The ring of
laughter, the clatter of hoofs, and the barking of Shot, only made
Cecil more conscious of the change.  He rode on in sullen silence.
Violet had taken her mother's place in the carriage, not feeling
quite recovered: her mother mounted Jessy.

It would fill a volume to tell all that passed in the minds of Violet
and Cecil during that ride.  Her thoughts were all thoughts of
unutterable scorn; his thoughts were of overwhelming humiliation.
There was an oppressive, moody, suffocating sense of remorse and rage
weighing down his spirits.  He cursed himself for that unreflecting
action as deeply, perhaps more deeply, than if he had murdered a man.
In his impotent rage, he asked himself how it was that he had so
utterly forgotten her to think solely of himself; and cursed his ill
fortune that had placed the fence so close to him.  Had it been only
half a dozen paces removed, he should have thought of her before
reaching it, and then he could have been spared this galling shame.

Violet tried to find excuses for him, but could not.  As he rode
past, rapt in gloomy thought, crest-fallen, shame-stricken, she
wondered that she had ever thought him handsome.  The scales had
fallen from her eyes.

Who has not experienced some such revulsion of feeling?  Who has not
looked with astonishment upon some delusion, and asked himself, "Was
it, then, really so?  Was this the person I believed so great and
good?"  Alas!  no; not _this_, but another.  It was your ideal that
you loved, and mistook for the reality.  Seen in the bright colours
of your fancy, that man appeared admirable whom now you see to be
contemptible.

The other day I took up a common pebble from the shore; washed by the
advancing waves, and glittering in the summer sun, it looked like a
gem.  I carried it home; arrived there, I took it from my pocket: the
pebble was dry, its splendour had vanished, and I held it for what it
was--a pebble.

Such is life, with and without its illusions.




CHAPTER V.

A TRAIT OF JULIUS ST.  JOHN.

As Cecil was dressing for dinner that day, he asked himself whether
he really loved Violet; the answer was a decided negative.  He had
loved her till that afternoon: but that one fatal incident as
completely turned his love into dislike, as it had turned Violet's
into scorn.  He disliked her, as we dislike those who have humiliated
us, or who have witnessed some action which we know must appear
contemptible in their eyes, but which we feel is not really so
contemptible.  He resented her superior courage; called her coarse
and unwomanly, reckless and cruel.  He remembered her beating Shot on
the morning of their first interview, and it now seemed to him, as
then, an act of wanton severity.  He remembered what her father and
mother said of her temper.  They were right; she was a devil!

He went down to dinner quite satisfied that she was not at all the
woman he should choose.

She was seated on the sofa, talking to Mrs. Broughton, and caressing
the head of her favourite Shot.  Marmaduke stood by her side, gazing
enraptured upon her beauty.

Never was there a more adorably imperial creature than Violet.  If in
her riding habit, the prompt decision and energy of her manner
conveyed the impression of her being somewhat masculine; directly she
doffed it for the dress of her sex, she became at once a lovely,
loveable woman.

I have a particular distaste to masculine women, and am therefore
anxious that you should not imagine Violet one.  She had, indeed, the
virile energy and strength of will, which nature seems to have
appointed to our sex; but all, who had any penetration, at once
acknowledged that she was exquisitely feminine.  Her manner had such
grace, dignity, softness, and lovingness, tempering its energy and
independence.  She had grandeur without hardness, and gentleness
without weakness.  Her murderous eyes, whose flashing beauty few
could withstand--there was something domineering in their splendour
and fulness of life--had, at the same time, a certain tenderness, the
effect of which I know not how better to describe, than in the bold
felicitous comparison used by Goethe's mother, when she wrote to
Bettina thus: "a violoncello was played, and I thought of thee; _it
sounded so exactly like thy brown eyes_."

I dwell with some gusto on the beauty of this creature; she was so
beautiful!  Majesty generally implies a certain stiffness: dignified
women are detestable; but there was such majesty in Violet--such
commanding grace--accompanied by such soft, winning manners, that, in
the midst of the sort of awe she inspired, you felt a yearning
towards her.  Firenzuola would have said of her, and said truly, that
"getta quasi un odor di regina," and yet, withal, no one was more
simple and womanly.

As Cecil entered the room, he just caught this conclusion of Violet's
speech:--

"Besides, had it come to the worst--had the bull made his rush, I was
in very good hands.  Mr. Chamberlayne and Shot were with me."

This was uttered before she saw Cecil.  She coloured slightly as he
came in, but continued her conversation in an unaltered tone.  He
felt no gratitude to her for sparing him, as, by this account of the
affair, it was evidently her intention of doing; his self-love was so
deeply wounded, that he only perceived the covert sarcasm of again
coupling him with Shot.  It made him congratulate himself on being no
longer in danger of offering her his hand.

"What a wife!" he mentally exclaimed, as he walked up to Rose and
Julius, and broke in upon their _tête-à-tête_, for which neither
thanked him.

At dinner he sat between Mrs. Broughton and her niece, who, regarding
him as a wit, giggled at whatever he said.  He was in high spirits.
His gaiety was forced, indeed, but it inspired some brilliant things,
which I do not chronicle here for two reasons.  First, they had no
influence whatever on subsequent events.  Secondly, very few
repartées bear transplantation; they have an _àpropos_ which gives
them their zest, and are singularly tame without it.

"By the way, Mr. St. John, Wincot has a mysterious story about you
which ought to be cleared up."

"Pray, what is it?"

"Oh!  something impossible, grotesque, inconceivable, but true; at
least, he swears to it," said Cecil.

"Let's hear it," said Mrs. Langley Turner.

"By all means," added Mrs. Broughton.

"By all means," echoed Julius.  "I find myself the hero of a romance
before I was aware of it."

All eyes were turned upon Tom Wincot.

He was not averse to be looked at, so neither blushed, nor let fall
the glass suspended to his eye.

Wincot is young, good-looking, well-dressed; rides well, waltzes
well; gains his livelihood at whist and écarté; pays debts of honour;
has no ideas; knows nothing beyond the sphere of a club or a
drawing-room, and has no power over the consonant _r_.

"I consider this vewy t_w_aite_w_ous," he said; "when I told
Chamberlayne the stowy it was under strict secrecy."

"That is to say," rejoined Cecil, "that you wished me particularly to
divulge it."

"Not at all, not at all, a secwet is a secwet."

"You excite our curiosity to the highest pitch," said Mrs. Langley
Turner.

"Quite thrilling," said Rose.

"Tell us the story yourself, Mr. Chamberlayne," said young Lufton.

"No, no; it is Wincot's story."

"Well; if your cuwiosity is excited, I must gwatify it.  Besides, Mr.
St. John has pewhaps some explanation.  Yesterday, as I was wambling
along the woad to town I saw him wide down by the wiver.  Well, would
you cwedit it?  he was cawying, its twue I vow, cawying a side of
bacon!!!"

"Is that all?" asked Violet.

"All!" exclaimed the astonished dandy; "All!  why Miss Violet, I
pledge you my vewacity that I wefused to believe it, it was so
twemendous an appawition!  Fancy, widing acwoss countwy with a side
of bacon on your saddle!  It must have been a wager.  It must.  Why,
I would as soon have dwiven my gwandmother down Wegent-stweet; dwank
clawet at an inn; gone to a soiwee in shoes; or anything equally
atwocious!"

"But let Mr. St. John explain," said Cecil gaily.  "This is a serious
imputation on his dandyism.  Unless he can clear himself of the
charge, he will be utterly lost."

"What was it Julius, my dear?" said Mrs. St. John.

"One of those things which he alone is capable of," interposed
Marmaduke, warmly.  "I will ask the ladies present to judge.
Happening to meet Julius with that same side of bacon, I naturally
asked him how he came to have it, and he told me the story with his
usual simplicity.  This it is.  He was riding through Little Aston on
his way home, he stopped opposite a broker's shop where an auction
was going on.  A side of bacon was knocked down to him, much to his
astonishment, but he paid for it, threw it across his saddle, and
carried it twelve miles as a present to one of his poor cottagers.
The poor woman was as much shocked as Mr. Wincot, to see the young
squire so equipped, but her gratitude was unbounded.  I could have
hugged him for it; the more so, as, with all my admiration for the
simple goodness and courage of the act, I doubt whether even now I
should have courage to imitate it, and certainly should never have
had such an idea come unassisted into my head."

"You are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, Marmaduke,"
said Julius.  "The thing was quite simple.  I had to pay for the
bacon; why should not one of my cottagers benefit by it?"

"Yes, yes; but carrying it yourself."

"I had not my servant with me.  It was no trouble.  As to what people
thought, that never troubled me.  Those who knew me knew what I was;
those who knew me not did not bestow a thought about me."

Every one declared that it was an act of great kindness and
philosophy; except Tom Wincot, who pronounced it vewy extwaowdinawy,
and seemed to think nothing could justify such a forgetfulness of
what was due to oneself.  But of all present, no one was more proud,
more pleased than Rose, who looked at her "dear, little, ugly man,"
as she called him, with fresh admiration all the evening afterwards.
It was a trait to have won her heart; if, indeed, her heart had not
been won before.




CHAPTER VI.

HIDDEN MEANINGS.

The subject of private theatricals was again started that evening,
when all were assembled in the drawing-room; and as the conversation
happened by chance to be one of those underneath which there runs a
current of deep significance to certain parties, while to the
apprehension of the rest there is nothing whatever meant beyond what
is expressed; I shall detail some portions of it.

But first to dispose of the scene, as it is rather crowded.  In the
right-hand corner there is a rubber of whist played between Meredith
Vyner and Mrs. Broughton, against Sir Harry Johnstone and Mrs. St.
John.

Seated on the music-stool is Rose, who has just ceased playing, and
by her stands Julius, who, having turned over her leaves, is now
talking to her.

At the round table in the centre, Mrs. Meredith Vyner, Mrs. Langley
Turner, Miss Broughton, and Violet are disposed among Marmaduke,
Maxwell, Tom Wincot, Captain Heath, and young Lufton; the ladies
knitting purses, and engaged on tambour work: the gentlemen making
occasional remarks thereon, and rendering bungling assistance in the
winding of silk.

To the left, Blanche and Cecil, the latter with his guitar in his
hand.

The fire blazes cheerfully.  The room is brilliant with light.  Mrs.
Meredith Vyner is applauding herself secretly at her increasing
success with Marmaduke, who she doubts not will soon have lost all
his anger towards her.  Maxwell looks blacker than ever, but is
silent.  Violet is recovering from her disappointment, and settling
into calm contempt of Cecil.  Marmaduke laughs in his sleeve at Mrs.
Vyner's attempts, but is too much struck with Violet, not to be glad
of anything which seems likely to smooth the path of acquaintance
with her.  Captain Heath is rather annoyed at having lost his
accustomed seat next to Blanche, with whom he best likes to converse.
Cecil has completely shaken off his depression, and is wondering he
never before discovered what incomparable eyes Blanche has.

"But about these theatricals," said Mrs. Langley Turner.  "I am dying
to have something settled.  You, Mrs. Vyner, are the cleverest of the
party, do you suggest some play.  What do you say to _Othello_?"

"Oh!" said Mrs. Broughton, "don't think of tragedy."

"No, no," rejoined Mrs. Vyner; "if the audience must laugh, let it at
least be with us."

"By all means," said Vyner, shuffling the cards; "remember, too,

      Male si mandata loqueris
  Aut dormitabo aut ridebo.


"At the same time," observed Mrs. Vyner; "Mr. Ashley would make a
superb Othello."

"I rather think," replied Marmaduke, slightly veiling his eyes with
the long lashes; "Iago would suit me better."

Mrs. Vyner affected not to understand the allusion.

"You would not _look_ the villain," she said.

"Perhaps not," he replied, laughing; "but I could _act_ it."

"By the way," interposed Julius, "surely that's a very false and
un-Shakespearian notion current, respecting Iago's appearance: people
associate moral with physical deformity, though as Shakespeare
himself says--

  There is no art
  To find the mind's construction in the face.

The critics, I observe, in speaking of an actor, as Iago, are careful
to say, 'he _looked_ the villain.'  Now, if he looked the villain, I
venture to say he did not look Iago."

"Mr. St. John is right," said Cecil.  "Had Iago 'worn his heart upon
his sleeve,' no one could have been duped by him.  Whereas everybody
places implicit confidence in him.  He is 'honest Iago'--a 'fellow of
exceeding honesty;' and he is this, not only to the gull Roderigo,
and the royal Othello, but equally so to the gentle Desdemona, and
his companion in arms, the 'arithmetician' Cassio."

"So you see," said Marmaduke, turning to Mrs. Vyner, "in spite of
your handsome compliment, I might have the _physique de l'emploi_.
Then Cecil would be a famous Cassio,

  Framed to make women false."


Mrs. Vyner asked herself, "Is he showing me his cards?  Does he mean
to play Iago here, and to select Cecil as his tool?  No; he can't be
such a blockhead; but what does he mean then?"

"If we are not to play tragedy," observed Mrs. Broughton; "what use
is there in wasting argument on it.  Let us think of a comedy."

"_The Rivals_," suggested Captain Heath; "it has so many good parts,
and that I take to be the grand thing in private theatricals, where
every one is ambitious of playing _primo violino_."

"Very natural too!" said Julius.

"_Very!_" rejoined Heath, sarcastically.

"When people laugh," said Julius, "at the vanity displayed by amateur
actors, in their reluctance to play bad parts, it is forgotten that
there is a wide distinction between playing for your amusement, and
playing for your bread.  Every actor on the stage would refuse
indifferent parts, were it possible for him to do so.  And when
gentlemen and ladies wish to try their skill at acting, they very
naturally seek to play such parts as will give their talents most
scope."

"We really ought to thank Mr. St. John," said Mrs. Vyner, "for the
ingenious excuse he has afforded our vanity, and he must have a good
part himself as reward."

"You are very kind," said Julius; "but I have no notion whatever of
acting, and must beg you to pass me over entirely, unless you want a
servant, or something of that kind."

"I am sure," said Rose, in a low tone, "you would act beautifully."

"Indeed, no."

"Did you ever try?"

"Never.  I have no _vis comica_; and as to tragedy, my person
excludes me from that."

Rose was silent and uncomfortable; all people are when others allude
to their own personal deficiencies.

"Will you play Sir Anthony, Sir Harry?"

"Two by cards ...  I beg your pardon, Mrs. Vyner ....  Sir Anthony
Absolute?  Yes, yes, you may put me down for that."

"And who is to be Captain Absolute?  You, Mr. Ashley?"

"Perhaps Mr. Ashley would play Falkland," suggested Mrs. Broughton.

"No, no, Falkland is cut out for Mr. Maxwell--he is the most tragic
amongst us."

Maxwell answered with a grim smile.

"At any rate," said Mrs. Langley Turner, "let me play Mrs. Malaprop.
I quite long to be an allegory on the banks of the Nile."

"And Violet," said Mrs. Vyner, with the slightest possible accent of
sarcasm, "can be Lydia Languish."

"No, mama," replied Violet, "you ought to play that--it would suit
you."

"_I_ play?  ...  my _dear_ child!"

"Do you not intend to take a part?"

"My dear Violet, how could you suppose such a thing?"

"I imagined," replied Violet, with exquisite naturalness, "that you
were an accomplished actress."

"So I should have said, from the little I have the pleasure of
knowing of Mrs. Vyner," observed Marmaduke.

The two arrows went home; but Mrs. Vyner's face was impassive.

"How imprudent Violet is!" said Blanche, in a whisper, to Cecil.

"Do you understand that?" said Rose to Julius.

"What?"

"Nothing, if you did not catch it."

"But who is to be Sir Lucius, we haven't settled that," said Mrs.
Broughton.

"I wather think I should play Sir Lucius O'Twigger, as my bwogue is
genewally pwonounced so vewy Iwish."

"But," interposed Marmaduke, "we have forgotten Cecil ...  Oh!  there
is Acres--a famous part!"

"Surely, Captain Absolute would be better," suggested Violet.

"Is that a sarcasm?" Cecil asked himself.

"Anybody," rejoined Marmaduke, "can play the Captain, whereas Acres
is a difficult part.  It is not easy to play cowardice naturally."

This is one of those observations, which, seeming to have nothing in
them, yet fall with strange acrimony on the ears of certain of the
parties.  It made Violet and Cecil uncomfortable.

"Besides," pursued Marmaduke, "it is a rule in acting, that we always
best play the part most unlike our own; and as Cecil happens to be
the coolest of the cool in a duel, he ought to play the duel scene to
perfection."

"Did you ever fight a duel, then?" exclaimed Miss Broughton.  "How
romantic!"

Violet was astonished.  Cecil, delighted at this opportunity of
redeeming himself in her eyes, said, "Marmaduke, who was my second,
will tell you that it was by no means romantic, Miss Broughton.  A
mere exchange of harmless shots about a very trivial circumstance."

"And," inquired Miss Broughton, with inimitable _naïveté_, "were you
not afraid?"

A general laugh followed this question, except from the whist
players, who were squabbling over some disputed point, and from
Violet, who was asking herself the same question.

"Why," rejoined Cecil, gaily, "I suppose you would hardly have me
avow it, if it were so; cowardice is so contemptible."

"Oh, I don't know," said Miss Broughton.

"If I may speak without bravado, I should say that, although I am a
coward by temperament, I do not want bravery on reflection."

"What the deuce do you mean by bwavewy on weflection?"

"Some people," interposed Rose, laughing, "have _de l'esprit après
coup_; so Mr. Chamberlayne doubtless means that he has courage when
the danger is _over_.  I had you there, Mr. Chamberlayne.  That is my
return for your uncomplimentary speech to me at dinner."

Violet blushed; Rose's jest seemed to her so cruel that she quite
felt for Cecil.  He also blushed, knowing the application Violet
would make.  The rest laughed.

"Without accepting Miss Rose's unpardonable interpretation," said
Cecil, "I may acknowledge some truth in it; and as I am thus drawn
into a sort of confession, forgive my egotism if I dwell a little
longer on the subject.  I am of a very nervous, excitable
temperament.  I shrink from anything sudden, and always tremble at
sudden danger.  Therefore am I constitutionally a coward.  My
instinct is never to front danger, but to escape it; but my reason
tells me that the surest way of escaping it, in most cases, is to
front it; and as soon as the suddenness is over, and I have
familiarized my mind with the danger, I have coolness and courage
enough to front it, whatever it may be.  This is what I call bravery
on reflection.  My first movement, which is instinctive, is cowardly;
my second, which is reflective, is courageous."

"This is so pwofoundly metaphysical that I can't appwehend it at all."

"I think I can," said Violet; "and the distinction seems to me to be
just."

Cecil was greatly relieved, and he thanked her with a smile as he
said, "I remember, some years ago, being with some ladies in a
farm-yard, when a huge mastiff rushed furiously out at us.  Before I
had time to check my first instinctive movement, I had vaulted over
the gate and was beyond his reach; but no sooner was I on the other
side than I remembered the ladies were at his mercy.  I instantly
vaulted back again; but not before the dog was wagging his tail, and
allowing them, to pat his head.  But imagine what they thought of my
gallantry!  They never forgave me.  I could offer no excuse--there
was none plausible enough to offer--and to this day they despise me
as a coward."

"Had you given them on the spot," said Violet, gravely, "the
explanation you have just given us, they would not have despised you."

"I am greatly obliged to you for the assurance."

He looked his thanks as he said this.

"Still, it must be deuced stwange to find oneself in a pwedicament,
and no cowage _àpwopos_, but only on delibewate weflection."

"It is one of the misfortunes of my temperament."

"It certainly is a misfortune," said Violet.

She became thoughtful.  Cecil was radiant.




CHAPTER VII.

MUTUAL SELF-EXAMINATION.

The entrance of tea changed the conversation, and changed also the
positions of the party.  Cecil relinquished his place by the side of
Blanche, much to her regret, and managed to get near Violet, who was
anxious to make up for her previous coldness and contempt.  She felt
that she had wronged him.  She admitted to the full his explanation
of the incident which had so changed her feelings, and, with the
warmth of a generous nature owning its error, she endeavoured to make
him understand that she had wronged him.  Two happier hearts did not
beat that night.

Could they have read aright their feelings, however, they would have
seen something feverish and unhealthy in this warmth.  It was not the
sympathy of sympathetic souls but a mutual desire to forget, and have
forgotten the feelings which had agitated them a little while ago.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner was more taciturn than was her wont.  The covert
insinuations Marmaduke had thrown out puzzled her extremely; while
they were in sufficient keeping with what had gone before, to prevent
her supposing he attached no meaning to them.

"Could he really suppose her in love with Cecil?" she asked herself;
"and was he serious in thus presenting himself in the character of an
Iago?"

Much did she vex her brain, and to little purpose.  The truth is, she
was attributing to these words a coherence and significance which
they had not in Marmaduke's mind.  She assumed them to be indications
of some deeply-laid scheme; whereas they were the mere spurts of the
moment, seized upon by him as they presented themselves, and without
any ulterior purpose.  He had no plan; but he was deeply enraged
against her, and lashed her with the first whip at hand.  Had he been
as cunning as she was, he would never have betrayed himself in this
way; but being a man of vehement passions, and accustomed to give way
to his impulses, it was only immense self-command which enabled him
to contain himself so much as he did.  Julius went home to dream of
Rose.  Marmaduke to pass a sleepless night thinking of Violet.  He
had never seen a woman he admired so much.  For the first time in his
life, he had encountered a gaze that did not bend beneath his own;
for the first time he had met with one whose will seemed as
indomitable as his own, whose soul was as passionate.  It was very
different from the effect which Mary Hardcastle had excited: it was
not so irritating, but more voluptuous.  In one word, the difference
was this: Mary excited the lower, Violet the higher qualities of his
nature.  There was reverence in his feeling for Violet; in his
feeling for Mary there had been nothing but a sensual fascination.

Maxwell was restless.  He was growing very jealous of Marmaduke--Mrs.
Vyner's interest not escaping him.  Violet was also sleepless.  She
thought of Marmaduke, and of the two interchanged glances which told
her how they had both read alike the character of her mother; and
wondered by what penetration he had discovered it.  She thought him
also a magnificent--a _manly_ man; but she thought no more.  Cecil
occupied her mind.

As I have said, her first impulse was to admit to the full Cecil's
explanation, and to revoke her sentence of contempt.  As she lay
meditating on the whole of the circumstances, and examined his
character calmly, she was forced to confess that if he did not
deserve the accusation of cowardice, yet by his own showing his first
impulse was to secure his own safety, and _then_ to think of others.
This looked like weakness and selfishness: two odious vices in her
eyes.

The result of her meditations was, that Cecil had regained some
portion of her liking, but had lost for ever all hold upon her
esteem.  Pretty much the same change took place in his mind with
regard to her.  He admitted that she was high-minded, generous,
lovely--but not loveable.  There was something in her which awed him,
and which he called repulsive.

He went to sleep thinking what a sweet loveable creature Blanche was,
and how superior to Violet.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE DISADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS.

The next day Julius was meditatively fishing in the mill-pool
adjoining the village school, and trying to decipher the character of
Rose, who alternately fascinated and repulsed him by her vivacity.

I have said that he was utterly destitute of all personal beauty.
This is so common an occurrence, that it would scarcely be worth
mentioning in any other case: beauty being the quality which, of all
others, men can best dispense with.  A charm when possessed, its
absence is not an evil.  In Julius's case, however, it happened to be
important, from the importance he attributed to it, and the excessive
importance given to it by him thus originated.

His nurse was a very irascible woman, and whenever she was angry,
taunted him with being such "an ugly, little fright."  As she never
called him ugly but when she punished him, he early began to
associate something peculiarly disagreeable with ugliness.  This
would have soon passed away at school, had not the boys early
discovered that his ugliness was a sore point with him; accordingly,
endless were the jests and sneers which, with the brutal recklessness
of boyhood, they flung at him on that score.  The climax of all, was
on one cold winter morning, when the shivering boy crept up to the
fire, and was immediately repulsed by a savage kick from one of the
elder boys there warming himself.  Crying with the pain, he demanded
why he was kicked.  The _why_ really was a simple movement of wanton
brutality and love of power, usual enough among boys; but the tyrant
chose to say, "Because you're such a beast!"

"No, I'm not," he sobbed.

"Yes, you are, though!"

"You've no business to kick me; I didn't do anything to you."

"I shall kick you as much as I like; you're so d--d ugly!"

It had never occurred to him before to be thrashed for his ugliness;
and although he deeply felt the injustice, yet he, from that day,
imagined that his appearance was a serious misfortune.

Increasing years, of course, greatly modified this impression, but
the effect was never wholly effaced.  From the constant dinning in
his ears that he was ugly, he had learned to accept it as a fact,
about which there could be no dispute, but which no more troubled him
than the consciousness that he was not six feet high.  He became
hardened to the conviction.  Sneers or slights affected him no more.
He was ugly, and knew it.  To tell him of it was to tell him of that
to which he had long made up his mind, and about which he had no
vestige of vanity.

It is remarkable how conceited plain people are of their persons.
You hear the fact mentioned and commented on in society, as if it
were surprising; and you catch yourself "wondering" at some
illustration of it, as if experience had not furnished you with
numberless examples of the same kind.  But the explanation seems to
me singularly simple.  You have only to take the reverse of the
medal, and observe that beauty is not half so solicitous of
admiration as deformity, and the solution of the question must
present itself.  Conceit--at least that which shows itself to our
ridicule, is an eager solicitation of our admiration.  Now, beauty
being that which calls forth spontaneous admiration, needs not to be
solicitous; and the more unequivocal the beauty, the less coquettish
the woman.  When, however, a woman's beauty is so equivocal that some
deny it, while others admit it, the necessity for confirmation makes
her solicitous of every one's praise; and she exhibits coquetry and
conceit--due proportion being allowed for the differences in amount
of love of approbation inherent in different individuals (a condition
which influences the whole of this argument).  Carry this further,
and arrive at positive plainness, and you have this result: the
_amour propre_ of the victim naturally softens the harsh outlines of
the face.  He sees himself in a more becoming mirror.  However, the
fact may have been forced upon him, that he is ill-looking, he never
knows the extent of his ugliness, and he is aware that people differ
immensely in their estimates of him; he has--fatal circumstance! even
been admired.  Now, admiration is such a balm to the wounded
self-love, that he craves for more--he is eager to solicit an
extension of it, and hence that desire to attract closer attention to
him manifested by audacity of dress, certain that the closer he is
observed, the more he must be admired.  He feels he is not so ugly as
people say; he knows some do not think so; he wants your confirmation
of the discerning few.  In a thousand different ways he solicits some
of your admiration.  You see his object, and smile at his conceit.

Now the effect of Julius St. John's education had been to cut out,
root and branch, that needless desire to be admired for what he knew
was not admirable.  He had made up his mind to his ugliness.  The
benefit was immense.  It saved him from the hundred tortures of
self-love to which he must otherwise have been exposed--that Tantalus
thirst for admiration which cannot be slaked; and it imparted a quiet
dignity to his manner, which was not without its charm.

The deplorable circumstance was, that he had also imbibed a notion of
the great importance of beauty in the eyes of women, which made him
consider himself incapable of being loved.  As a boy, maid-servants
had refused to be kissed by him, because he was "a fright."  As a
young man, he had often been conscious that girls said they were
engaged when he asked them to dance, because they would not dance
with one so ugly.  In the novels which he read the heroes were
invariably handsome, and great stress was laid upon their beauty;
while the villains and scoundrels were as invariably ill-favoured.
The conversation of girls ran principally upon handsome men; and
their ridicule was inexhaustible upon the unfortunates whom Nature
had treated like a stepmother.

One trait will paint the whole man.  They were one day talking about
ugliness at the Hall, when Rose exclaimed: "After all beauty is but
_skin deep_."

"True," he replied, "but opinion is no deeper."

That one word revealed to her the state of his mind on the subject.
And although he often thought of Swift, Wilkes, Mirabeau, and other
hideous men celebrated for their successes with women; he more often
thought of the bright-eyed, hump-backed, gifted, witty, humble Pope,
who so bitterly expiated his presumption in raising his thoughts to
the lovely Mary Wortley Montague.  If genius could not compensate for
want of beauty, how should he, who had no genius, not even shining
talents, succeed in making a woman pardon his ugliness?

That Julius was strangely in error you may easily suppose; but this
was perhaps the only crotchet of his honest upright mind.  A truer,
manlier creature never breathed.  He was carved from the finest clay
of humanity; and, although possessing none of those distinguished
talents which separate a few men from their contemporaries, and throw
a lustre over perhaps weak and unworthy natures, yet of no one that I
have ever known could I more truly say,--

  His life was gentle; and the elements
  So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
  And say to all the world, This was a man!


To know him was to love him; it was more, it was to revere him.
There was something ennobling in his intercourse.  You felt that all
he did and said sprang from the purest truth.  He was utterly
unaffected, and won your confidence by the simple truthfulness of his
whole being.  There was perhaps as little of what is supposed to
captivate women in his person and manner as in any man I ever knew;
but, at the same time, I never knew a man so calculated to make a
wife adore him.  In a word--he could not flirt, but he could love.

The reader will be at no loss to discover the reason of certain
doubts and hesitations on his part respecting Rose, with whom he was
greatly charmed, and of whom he was also greatly afraid.  The very
vivacity which allured, alarmed him.  She was so bright, so
brilliant, that he was afraid to trust his heart in her keeping, lest
she should be as giddy as she was gay; and, above all, lest she
should scorn the mediocrity of such a man as he knew himself to be.
His first impulse was always to seek her society, to sun himself in
her eyes, to let his soul hold unrestrained communion with hers; but,
when he came to reflect on the delicious hours he had spent by her
side, he trembled lest they should be only luring him into an abyss
from which there would be no escape.

Early in life he had suffered bitterly from such a deception.  He
fell in love with a beautiful and lively cousin of his, who, perhaps
from coquetry, perhaps from thoughtlessness, certainly exhibited such
signs of returning his affection, that he one day ventured to
overcome his timidity, and declared his passion.  She only laughed at
him; and that very evening he heard her answer her mother's
remonstrances on the giddiness of her conduct towards him by saying,
"But, dear mama, who could have supposed that he was serious; the
idea of a woman marrying _him_."

"He is an excellent creature," said the mother.

"Perhaps so, but you must confess he is very ugly."

Julius heard no more; it was a girl of sixteen in all her
thoughtlessness who spoke, but those words were never effaced from
his memory.

The truth is, Rose was as saucy as youth, beauty, and uncontrollable
spirits could make her, and the general impression she made on men
was, that of being too _flirty_ and giddy for love.

Julius was fishing that day with no sport but in the chase of his own
fantastic thoughts; which every philosophic fisherman must admit is
part of the great pleasure in throwing out the line.  People wonder
what amusement can be found in fishing, and Dr. Johnson's definition
is thought triumphant; but if they will allow one of the most
unskilful anglers that ever handled a rod to answer, I would say,
that when you have good sport, it is a pleasant excitement, and when
you catch nothing, it is a most dulcet mode of meditating.  You sit
in the boat or stand on the bank: the river runs gently and equably
before you; the float wanders with it; and the current of your
thoughts is undisturbed.

No sport did Julius have that day; not a single "run;" but as a
compensation he was joined by Rose herself, who had been to visit
Mrs. Fletcher, the schoolmistress, to encourage the children.

"How is it," said Rose, "Mr. Ashley is not with you?  Does he not
indulge in this gentle sport? or is he too tender-hearted? for it is
monstrously cruel you know!"

"Marmaduke is not calm enough in his temperament for anything so
sedate as fishing; and I doubt whether he would think much of any
sporting less exciting than a tiger hunt, or perhaps a boar hunt.
What do you think of him?"

"I don't think at all of him.  In one evening I am not able to form
an opinion of any one; at least," checking herself, "not often.  He
didn't say anything remarkably brilliant, did he?"

"Brilliant!  No."

"The only part of his conversation I remember is what he related of
you and your side of bacon.  I liked his manner of telling that.  It
was in a tone of real friendship."

"Yes, Marmaduke has a regard for me.  But don't you think him
superbly handsome?"

"I don't like handsome men."

This was said with perfect unaffectedness; but he raised his eyes
quickly, and gave her just such a look as she remembered him to have
given her once before, when they were talking of Leopardi, and it
embarrassed her.  Indeed, said to an ugly man, this had an equivocal
sound: it was either a sarcasm or a declaration.

"You are singular, then," was his quiet reply.

"Why singular, in preferring brains to beauty?  Are we women really,
do you think, the children we are said to be, and only fit to be
amused with dolls?  That is not like your usual respect for our sex!"

"Come, come, you do not state the case fairly.  The question is not,
whether you or your sex prefer beauty to brains, but whether you
prefer beauty to ugliness?  It is curious to notice how this question
is always confused in this way, by mixing up with it an element that
does not properly belong to it.  People say, 'Oh, a clever plain man
before a handsome fool!' and then argue, as if all the plain men were
necessarily clever, and all the handsome men imperatively fools."

"Well, I'm sure, handsome men generally are--not, perhaps, fools--but
certainly not clever; they think of nothing but their beauty.  Their
beauty--the frights!"

"I cannot agree with you.  Running over the list of great men you
will find the proportion greatly in favour of handsome men; which,
when you come to reflect how few handsome men there are compared to
the thousands of ugly men, is the more striking.  The reason I take
to be this: these men, from their very intellectual greatness, must
have had great beauty of expression, so that with features a little
better than ordinary they would rank among the handsome.  It may be
said, indeed, that very fine organizations include genius and beauty."

"Oh!" she replied, laughing, "if I once get into an argument with
you, you'll make out anything.  But I won't be browbeaten by logic:
'hang up philosophy!' as Benedict says.  I'm as difficult to be
reasoned out of my convictions as if I were a logician myself.  I
_don't_ like handsome men, I have said it; nor shall you reason me
into liking them."

"Very well, very well.  I certainly have no cause to wish it."

"Except the love of victory in argument, eh?"

"The victory must be on my side; it is gained already.  If two men
equal in talent and goodness, but greatly unequal in appearance, were
placed before you, the handsomer must excite the preference, and that
is all our cause of battle amounts to."

"Oh, men, men! how you _will_ argue!"

At this moment they were joined by Marmaduke, who was all anxiety
about the private theatricals; not for themselves, but because he saw
in them an excellent excuse for being constantly at the Hall, and in
Violet's society.

With his usual impetuosity Marmaduke had already settled that Violet
should be his wife.  Love at first sight, which may be a fiction with
regard to the colder children of the north, is no fiction with regard
to such passionate natures as his; and he was in love with Violet,
without seeking to disguise it.  Indeed, he spoke in such raptures of
her to Rose, that she smiled and looked significantly at Julius, who
returned her glance, and confirmed her suspicions.




CHAPTER X.

THE GREAT COMMENTATOR.

"Eccovi un de' compositor di libri bene meriti di republica,
postillatori, glosatori, construttori, additatori, scoliatori,
traduttori!..,...

... O bella etimologia, e di mio proprio Marte or ora _deprompta_!
Or dunque quindi _prope jam versus movo_ il gresso, per che voglio
notarla _majoribus literis_ nel mio _propriarum elucubrationum
libro_."--GIORDANO BRUNO.  _Candelajo_.


During this conversation between the lovers, another pair of
undeclared lovers were standing on the steps of the terrace, "talking
of lovely things that conquer death," and yielding themselves up to
the luxury of a _tête-à-tête_, wherein glances were more eloquent
than tongues, and hearts fluttered like new-caught birds, at the most
seemingly insignificant phrase.

These were Cecil and Blanche.  I call them undeclared lovers, because
not only were they ignorant of each other's feelings, but ignorant
also of their own.  Blanche's love had been of gradual growth.  The
lively, handsome, accomplished Cecil had early made a deep impression
on her, though her shy, retiring disposition gave no signs of it; and
his attentions on the evening before had been so delightful that she
was still under their influence.

That in relinquishing Violet, he should turn to her complete
opposite, Blanche, is nothing but what one may have anticipated.  Her
charms were brought into stronger relief by the contrast; and it has
always been remarked that the heart is never so susceptible to a new
impression as when it has been in any way robbed of an old affection.
Partly, no doubt, because the feelings are best attuned to love when
in that state of unsatisfied excitement; for,--

  Say that upon the altar of her beauty
  You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart,

still, the sacrifice is so sweet, that it is with difficulty we
forego it; and if the _object_ change, the _feeling_ still remains.
Partly, also, because the _amour propre_, outraged by a defeat, is
glad to be flattered by the chance of a new success.

There they stood, enchanting and enchanted, when Meredith Vyner put
his head out of the glass door of the drawing-room which opened on to
the terrace, and said, "Mr. Chamberlayne, you are not doing anything
particular, are you?"

"Not at all, sir."

"Then, if you have nothing better to amuse you, just step with me
into my study; I have a new discovery to communicate, which will, I
think, delight you."

Nothing better to amuse him! to leave Blanche for some twaddle about
Horace! was it not provoking?  But he was forced to go, there was no
escaping, If anything could have compensated him, it would have been
the expression of impatience on Blanche's face, and the look with
which she seemed to say, "Don't stay too long."

When they were in the study, Meredith Vyner placed his snuff-box on
the table, and, resting his left foot on the fender, began stroking
his protuberant calf in a very deliberate manner.  This was a certain
sign of his being at that moment struggling with some conception,
which demanded the greatest clearness and composure, adequately to
bring forth.  His mind was tottering under the weight of an unusual
burden.  As the left hand slowly descended the inner part of his leg,
from the knee to the ankle, and as slowly ascended again the same
distance, Cecil saw that he was arranging in his head something of
more consequence than a verbal criticism.  "The discovery I am about
to impart," he said at last, with a slight pomposity, "is not
perfectly elaborated in my mind, since the first gleam of it only
came to me last night.  It kept me sleepless.  I have meditated
profoundly on it since, and I am now in a condition to communicate it
to you."

In spite of the solemnity of this introduction, Cecil, whose thoughts
were on the terrace, found great difficulty in assuming a proper air
of attentive interest.  Vyner did not remark it, but continued:--

"The discovery is so simple when once mentioned--like all truly great
discoveries--that one asks oneself, is it possible that hitherto it
should have been overseen?  It goes, however, to nothing less than
the entire revolution of the Horatian Sapphic.  Look here: you must
often, I am sure, have been disagreeably affected by the absurdity of

  Labitur ripa, Jove non probante,
  _u_xorius amnis.


"This sort of caprice is very funny in Canning's

                      _U._
  -niversity of Güttingen;

but only tolerable in comic verse: in a serious ode it is detestable,
and I cannot believe so careful and fastidious a poet (who was no
innovator, recollect! none of your _école romantique!_) guilty of
it..."

"You propose a new reading?" suggested Cecil, feeling called upon to
make some remark.

"New reading! no: that is the paltry trick of a commentator, who
endeavours to escape a difficulty by denying its existence.  No, no;
my edition will have none of these trivialities.  Everything I print
shall have a solid substance.  I intend my edition _to last_.  To the
point, however; the difficulty vanishes at once if we suppose, as is
most natural to believe, that Horace's Sapphics, were not composed of
four lines but of three--the fourth line being really nothing but the
Adonic termination to the third--like the tail to an Italian
sonnet--or better still, like the lengthening of the concluding line
in the Spenserian stanza: which has a magnificent swing and sweep in
its amplitude, as if gathering up into its mighty arms the rich
redundancy of poetic inspiration.  Thus instead of

  Iliæ dum se nimium querenti
  Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra
  Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, _u_-orius amnis.

The verses read thus:--

  Iliæ dum se nimium querenti
  Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra
  Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, uxorius amnis.

And so throughout.  Does not the sweep of this last line carry a fine
harmony with it?  Is it not incomparably superior to the mean,
niggling, clipping versification as we usually receive it?  There
cannot be a question about it.  And if you come to reflect, you will
see how the error has crept in by the copyists being cramped for
room, and writing the Adonic addition below, as if it were a new
line.  But it is no more a new line, than the additional syllables in
Spenser are new lines; nevertheless, we often see printers forced to
break a line into two.  Here is an example," taking up a volume,
"which occurs in Tennyson, whom I opened this morning."  And he read
aloud:--

  "They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
  For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be
        Queen _o' the May_."


"There," throwing the book down, "now suppose a few centuries hence
all our literature to have perished, except half a dozen poets, some
noodle of a commentator will imagine that 'Queen o' the May' is a
separate verse, and will write learned twaddle on the versification
of the English!"

An ample pinch closed this triumphant peroration; and Vyner holding
his head slightly downwards to bring his nose in contact with his
finger and thumb, looked up over that finger and thumb at Cecil, who
had for some minutes ceased to hear what he was saying, having caught
a glimpse of Blanche walking on the lawn with Captain Heath.  Cecil
disliked the Captain; and now a vague sentiment of jealousy hovered
about his mind.  No wonder, then, if he paid little heed to his host,
and his host's observations on an idle point of philology.  Of late
he had become horribly bored by these consultations, and had often
wished Horace and his amateur editor buried irrecoverably beneath the
dust of Herculaneum; but never was his inattention so ill-timed as on
that occasion!

"What are you looking at?" inquired Vyner, in a tone which his
politeness could not completely subdue.

"Looking at?  Nothing," said Cecil embarrassed.  "I was
reflecting----."

"Oh! on my discovery?"

"Yes.  It occurs to me that I have met with it before somewhere."

Cecil said this by way of cutting short the discussion, perfectly
aware that Vyner was too much of a commentator to care one straw
about an opinion, unless he were the originator.

"Impossible!  Im-poss-ible!" ejaculated Vyner, much in the strain
that Dominie Sampson may have ejaculated 'prodigious!'

"It's very ingenious," said Cecil, who did not know a word about it,
"very; and true."

"Yes, yes, but you think it is not original?  Its originality is
everything with me."

"Perhaps as some compromise between your theory and the ordinary one,
you might say that the _orius amnis_ and the Adonic termination
generally is only a termination, not a new verse."

"Compromise!" exclaimed the astonished Vyner, "why that is my theory!"

Cecil was posed.  Convicted of such palpable inattention as to have
suggested as an improvement the very idea which had just been
explained to him, he could but stutter out some incoherent phrases of
excuse.

Vyner was doubly hurt.  The inattention was one offence, but that was
nothing to the careless way in which Cecil had proposed as an
indifferent modification the grand discovery he, Vyner, had made,
which was to immortalize him.  With an air of quiet dignity, which
Cecil had never seen before, the offended philologist assuring him he
was not ripe yet for such subjects, which could scarcely be a matter
of surprise at his age, he bowed him out.




CHAPTER XI.

CECIL AGAIN WRITES TO FRANK.

Although you have not answered my letters, Frank, I must write to you
once more, if only to gratify that _besoin d'epanchement_ which all
lovers feel.  Were I a century or two older, I might carve my
Blanche's name on every tree, _comme cela se pratiquait autrefois_;
but being a frock-coated-nineteenth-century prosaic creature, I am
condemned to write on unsentimental Bath post, that which should be
confided only to the trees.

You will doubtless raise those wondering eyebrows at the sight of the
name Blanche.  It is not an erratum for Violet, I assure you; I have
given up all thoughts of that high-spirited, imperial, but imperious
creature.  I looked into my heart and found I loved her not.  She is
evidently hurt at my inconstancy; but, on nearer acquaintance, I
found Blanche so infinitely preferable, that I could not help making
the comparison.  Fortunately I had not gone too far to recede, and
the haughty girl will, I dare say, soon be consoled.

I have not given you a description of Blanche.  Shakspeare has
anticipated it in these lines--

  If lusty Love should go in quest of beauty,
  Where should he find it but in Lady Blanche?


She is very fair, with a skin of dazzling loveliness, long dreamy
eyes, always moist with emotion, an exquisite smile, a low soft
voice--"an excellent thing in woman"--and a wondrous head of hair,
which has that bright golden hue which Italians prize so
highly--indeed, Firenzuola says, "_che de' capelli il proprio e vero
colore è esser biondi_."

We have all but declared our passion.  It has been declared by our
eyes, but as yet I have had no favourable opportunity of doing it in
form.  That she loves me, I am certain; still more certain that I
love her.  She is the only woman I ever met who would make me happy,
and I feel that she will change me into a quiet, domestic being.
High time too, seeing that I have squandered my patrimony.  However,
what with my four thousand pounds, and the handsome dowry Vyner will
assuredly give his daughter, we shall be able to live modestly till I
can get diplomatic employment.  Once his son-in-law, Vyner will be
forced to exert his interest in my behalf.

By the way, it is fortunate I have already captured Blanche's
affections, for I have certainly lost all Vyner's favour, at least
for the present.  He was giving me a tedious account of some
twaddling notion he had excogitated about Horace's versification, to
which I paid all the less attention, as my eyes were then following
Blanche, who was engaged in a deep conversation with Captain Heath.
Unfortunately I betrayed my inattention, and he has not forgotten it.
He is now distant and almost cold in his manner, and never mentions
Horace.  I must regain his confidence by some splendid emendation.
If not, I must trust to Blanche to purchase my forgiveness.

The house is lightened of Mrs. Broughton and her niece, and young
Lufton.  I regret the last named; he has been useful to me, in losing
seventy pounds to me after winning two ponies at billiards.

  Yours ever,
      CECIL.




CHAPTER XII.

CECIL PUT TO THE TEST.

"You think me unjust to Mr. Chamberlayne," said Captain Heath one
morning to Blanche, as they sat together in the drawing-room
discussing the character of her lover, "because you are so young and
know so little of the world, that you trust appearances, and cannot
pierce beneath them."

"But I cannot be mistaken in supposing him very good hearted, and
wonderfully clever."

"He is good tempered, not good hearted; cleverish, but not clever.
It is natural that you should mistake the characteristics of good
temper for those of a good heart--most people do so."

"And is not a good temper a sign of a good heart?"

"No, my dear Blanche, not in the least; it is very often only the
sign of a weak and indolent organization--sometimes of mere cold
selfishness.  You look indignant.  I do not say it is a sign in him
of selfishness, I only say it is no sign of goodness."

"But what makes you so illiberal towards him?"

"Illiberal!  I am merely and strictly just.  I do not like him,
because he is weak and insincere."

"Insincere!"

"Yes; he toadies your father by pretending to care about Horace and
your father's commentary, which he laughs at behind his back."

"It is your dislike," said Blanche, rising and colouring, "which
distorts your usual candid judgment.  You do not like him, and you
misinterpret everything.  I won't have him abused.  I like him very
much--very much, and I can't sit and hear you talk so of him."  She
left the room.

Captain Heath did not stir.  He had never seen such an exhibition of
temper on the part of Blanche before.  She was greatly moved, it was
evident.  And there could be but one cause for her agitation--that
cause made the captain thoughtful.

The truth is, he loved Blanche, and now seemed for the first time to
see that she loved Cecil.  He had vaguely suspected it before.  This
was a confirmation.  His lip quivered as he said, "She is perhaps
right.  My dislike may be groundless.  I will try him."

Cecil shortly afterwards sauntered in.

"Are you for a game at billiards," said the captain.

Cecil stared at such an invitation from one whom he had never seen in
the billiard-room since his arrival, but accepted, with some
curiosity as to how the "solemn prig" would play.

The dislike was mutual; and mutually did they libel each other.

"By George! you play a first-rate game," said Cecil, amazed at the
skill of his antagonist, whom he expected to find an indifferent hand.

"Yes, I play well," quietly answered the captain.  "I used to play a
great deal when with my regiment.  But you are stronger at it than I
am."

Cecil thought so, but would not acknowledge it.  Nevertheless, the
captain won three games in succession, which considerably irritated
his antagonist, who began to swear at the chalk, to abuse the table,
to change his cues frequently, and to throw the blame of his
non-success upon anything and everything except his want of skill.

The captain, who was critically observing him throughout the game to
see if his opinion was well or ill founded, smiled scornfully at all
these ebullitions.  He had judged rightly in assuming that the best
moment for observing a man's real character is during a game of
chance and skill combined.  Then it is that a man unbends, and shows
himself as he really is.  The self-love is implicated; and, as both
vanity and money are at stake, you see a mind acting under the
impulsion of two of its most powerful stimulants.  Cecil, who was
both vain and weak, was betrayed into a hundred little expressions of
his character; and, as he was also somewhat less than
delicate--without being at all dishonourable--in money matters, he
led the captain to think ill of him on that score.

Having made up his mind as to Cecil's real worth, he determined to
put him to the trial on a matter in which he was himself directly
interested.

"Have you ever played with Violet?" he asked.  "She is a wonderful
hand.  But then she does everything well.  (I doubt whether I can
make this cannon--yes, there it is.)  What a splendid creature she
is!  Isn't she?"

"Splendid, indeed!  They are all three lovely girls, though in such
different styles."

"(How stands the game?  Seven, love: good.)  What a sad thing it is,
though, to think such girls should be absolutely without fortune.
(Good stroke!)"

Cecil was chalking his cue when this bomb fell at his feet; he
suspended that operation, and said,--

"What do you mean by their having no fortune?"

"Why, the estate is entailed, and Vyner, who is already greatly in
debt, will neither have saved any money to leave them when he dies,
nor be able to give them anything but their trousseaux when they
marry."

"The devil!"

"(That's a teasing stroke: one of the worst losing hazards.  You must
take care.)"

This last remark, though applied to the game, was too applicable to
Cecil's own condition for him not to wince.  The captain's eye was
upon him.

"What a d--d shame!" exclaimed Cecil, "for a man with an entailed
estate to make no provision for his children.  It's positively
monstrous!"

"Horrible, indeed!"

"Why, what is to become of them at his death?"

"They will be penniless," gravely replied the captain, as he sent the
red ball whizzing into the pocket.

"I wonder he is not ashamed to look them in the face," said Cecil,
duly impressed with the enormity.

"He trusts, I suppose, to their marrying rich men," carelessly added
the captain.  "(Game!  I win everything!)"

Cecil declined to play any longer.  He went up into his own room, and
locked himself in, there to review his situation, the aspect of which
the recent intelligence had wonderfully altered.

Captain Heath shrugged his shoulders, quietly lighted a cigar, and
strolled out, well satisfied with the result of his experiment.

Then he met Blanche, who came up to him, holding out her hand, and
asking forgiveness.

"I was very naughty," she said, "but you have spoiled me so, that you
must not be astonished if I do not behave myself to you as to my best
friend.  But the truth is, I was angry with you, and now I am angry
with myself, Am I forgiven?'

He only pressed her hand, and looked the answer.  She put her arm
within his, and walked with him to the river, where they got into the
boat, and he rowed her gently down.  She prattled to him in her
prettiest style all the way, for she was quite happy at having "made
it up with her darling Captain Heath."

It should be observed that, although he was no more than five and
thirty, yet, to the girls, he was always an elderly man, they having
known him from childhood.  They were extremely fond of him, as he was
of them; but they laughed outright at one of their companions, asking
Rose if there was anything like flirtation between them.

"Flirtation!" exclaimed Rose.  "Why, he is bald!"

The hair, indeed, was somewhat worn away above the forehead; but this
was from the friction of his hussar cap, not from age.

"No, no, my dear," continued Rose, "I make no havoc with the
highly-respectable-but-eminently-unfitted-for-flirtation race of
papas and grandpapas.  My Cupid is in no need of a _toupet_; and if I
am to be shot, it shall not be with a gouty arrow.  Captain Heath is
handsome--or has been--and though his moustachios are as dark and
silky as a guardsman's need be, yet he has one _leetle_ defect--his
age makes him respectable!"

In consequence of this notion, they neither thought of falling in
love with him themselves, nor of the probability of his falling in
love with them.  They were, therefore, as unrestrained with him as
with a brother or an uncle.  Blanche was his especial favourite and
constant companion.  He knew well that she regarded him as too old to
be loved, but trusted that her eyes would be opened to the fact, that
there was really no great disparity between them.

"I have been playing billiards with Mr. Chamberlayne this morning,"
said the captain, as he rested on his oars, and allowed the stream to
float them quietly down.

"You have?  Then I hope your opinion is changed."

"So far from it, I prophesy that his attentions to you--which have
been marked of late--will visibly decrease, until they relapse into
mere insignificance.  And all because I casually remarked that your
father's estate, being entailed, and he being in debt, you and your
sisters were portionless."

"And you suppose him capable of--oh! this is too bad.  It is
ungenerous."

"My dear Blanche, I may be wrong, but I fear I am not; let me not,
however, be condemned, till the event condemns me.  Watch him!"

"You shall own you have calumniated him; the event shall prove it,"
she said with great warmth.

A dark shade passed across his brow, and he rowed rapidly on.  Not
another word passed between them.




CHAPTER XIII.

HOW A LOVER VACILLATES.

Cecil's reflections had not been cheering.  Although he felt himself
too much in love with Blanche to give her up because she was
portionless, he was, at the same time, too well aware of his own
slender resources to think of marrying upon them.  Bred to luxurious
habits, he was not one by whom poverty could be lightly treated.

The more he reflected, the more urgent it appeared to him that he
should conquer his passion, and save himself from perdition.  Could
Captain Heath have read what was passing in his rival's mind, he
would have smiled grimly at this verification of his suspicions, and
rejoiced in the success of an experiment which removed that rival
from his path.

As Cecil descended into the drawing-room that day before dinner, he
was struck painfully by the sight of Violet on the sofa in exactly
the same attitude--caressing Shot--as she had appeared to him on that
afternoon when he had relinquished all idea of her.  The coincidence
affected him.

"There is a fate against my marrying into this family," he said to
himself: "first one, and then the other."

Blanche was standing at the window, looking out.  She turned her head
towards him as he entered, and felt a little mortified to see him
throw himself into a chair by the side of Rose, with whom he began a
lively chat.

Captain Heath, who had watched this manœuvre, now looked at
Blanche; but she, conscious of his gaze, avoided it, and again
resumed her contemplation of the undulating lawn and woody distance.

Dinner was announced.  Meredith Vyner, as usual, took Mrs. Langley
Turner; Sir Harry Johnstone, Mrs. Vyner; and Tom Wincot, Violet.
Cecil, to Rose's surprise, offered her his arm, which was natural
enough, inasmuch as he had been talking to her up to that time; but
still, as for many days he had invariably managed to take Blanche,
she could not help remarking the circumstance.

Captain Heath walked up to Blanche, who remained at the window; her
heart throbbing violently, her mind distracted with contradictory
thoughts.

"Blanche," he said, tenderly, "we are the last."

"I shall not dine to-day," she said, angrily, hurt at the pity of his
tone.

"My dear Blanche, do not betray yourself; do not give him reason to
suppose his neglect can affect you."

She sighed, put her arm within his, and walked silently with him into
the dining-room.

She sat opposite Cecil, who seemed more talkative than usual.  No one
remarked her silence--she seldom spoke at dinner, except to her
neighbour.  No one asked her if she were ill, though she sent away
her plate each time untouched.  Cecil and Captain Heath observed it;
both with pain.

Keen were the pangs she suffered at this fulfilment of the captain's
cruel prophecy, and bitterly did she at that moment hate him for
having undeceived her.  That Cecil avoided her was but too evident.
That his neglect could have but the one motive Captain Heath had
ascribed was never doubted; but she threw all the blame on the
captain's officiousness in speaking about their want of fortune, and
in fact, with all the unreasonableness of suffering, hated him as the
proximate cause of her pain.

Captain Heath applauded his own sagacity as a reader of character,
and rejoiced as a lover in the success of his calculation.  But he
rejoiced too soon.  Like most men he had erred in his calculation,
because he dealt with human nature as if it were simple, instead of
being, as it really is, strangely complex; and as if one motive was
not counteracted by another.  This is the grand source of the errors
committed by cunning people: they are said to be "too cunning" when
they overreach themselves by what seems an artful and
logically-reasoned calculation; but the truth is, they have not been
cunning enough.  They have planned their plans as if the mind of man
were to be treated like a mathematical problem, not as a bundle of
motives, of prejudices, and of passions.  The plan may look admirable
on paper; but then it is constructed on the assumption that the
victim must needs be impelled by certain motives; whereas, when it
comes into execution, we find that some other motives are brought
into play, the existence of which was not allowed for in the
calculation; and these entirely subvert the plan.

Captain Heath's plan erred in precisely this way.  Judging Cecil's
character in the main aright, he justly argued that such a man would
shun poverty as a pestilence, because he was weak, and money is
power; and that he would shrink from affronting the world with no
other aid than his own right hand.  He therefore concluded that an
intimation of Vyner's affairs would be an effectual method of putting
an end to Cecil's attentions.

Now this argument would have no flaw in it, if we assume that a man
is led solely by prudential considerations: it would be perfect, were
men swayed solely by their reason.

Cecil's views were precisely such as Captain Heath had suspected.
But then Cecil had emotions, passions, senses--and these the captain
had left out of the calculation.  Yet these, which are the stronger
powers in every breast, were to overthrow the captain's plan.

Cecil in his own room, surveying his situation, was a very different
man from Cecil in the presence of his beloved, pained at the aspect
of her pain, and conscience-stricken as he gazed upon her lovely,
sorrowing face.  His heart smote him for his selfishness, and he was
asking himself whether he could give her up--whether poverty with her
were not preferable to splendour with another, when he thought he saw
something in the captain's look which betokened scornful triumph.

"Can he have deceived me?  Does he wish to get me out of the way?" he
said to himself.  "Egad!  I think so.  The game at billiards this
morning--that was mysterious.  What could induce him to propose such
a thing to me--he who never took the slightest notice of me before?
He had some motive.  And then his story about Vyner's affairs--fudge!
I won't believe it, until I have it on better authority."

The ladies rose from the table.

"I sha'n't sit long over the wine," Cecil whispered to Blanche, as
she passed him.

A sudden gleam irradiated her sweet face, as she raised it towards
him with a smile of exquisite joy and gratitude.  That one word had
rolled the heavy stone which was lying on her heart, and gave the lie
to all the "base insinuations of that odious Captain Heath."

'Twas thus she spoke of one she really loved, and who loved her more
than anything on earth!

The men drew their chairs closer together, and commenced that
onslaught on the dessert which is characteristic of such moments.

"Have you never remarked," said Cecil, "that men refuse to touch
fruit until the women retire, and then attack it as if their
appetites had been sharpened by restraint?"

"It is, I pwesume, upon the pwinciple of compensation," said Tom
Wincot.  "Depwived of the fwuit of humanity, the gwapes, apwicots,
and nectawines of life, we are thwown upon the fwuit of nature!  I
say, Cecil, isn't that vewy poetically expwessed?"

"Very.  But I don't think much of the compensation myself.  I should
like the women to remain with us as they do abroad."

"That," said Meredith Vyner, "would spoil dinners.  The pleasantest
part is the conversation after the ladies have retired."

"Besides," objected Tom Wincot, "however pleasant the society of
women, one can't be always with them.  _Toujours perdwix_!"

"Toujours _de la_ perdrix," interposed Vyner, glad of an opportunity
of setting any one right.  "If you must quote French, quote it at
least correctly."

"Isn't toujours perdwix cowect, Mr. Mewedith Vyner.  I never heard it
expwessed otherwise."

"No, sir, it is grossly incorrect.  The phrase is attributed to Louis
XV. who excused his conjugal inconstancy by saying, that although
partridges might be a dainty dish, '_Mangez toujours de la perdrix,
et vous en serez bien vite rassasié_,' was his witty but immoral
remark.  The claret is with you, Mr. Wincot."

"By the way," said Cecil, who was anxious to regain Vyner's goodwill,
by flattering his vanity, "I have a theory which I must call upon
your stores of learning, Mr. Vyner, to assist me in developing."
Vyner bowed, and with his forefinger and thumb prepared a pinch of
snuff, while Cecil continued--"It was suggested to me by Talleyrand's
witticism that language was given to man to conceal his thoughts."

"Talleyrand," said Vyner gravely, "is not the author of that joke;
though it is commonly attributed to him.  The author is a man now*
living in Paris, M. Harel, some of whose _bon mots_ are the best I
ever heard.  I remember his describing to me M. Buloz, the proprietor
of The Revue des Deux Mondes and The Revue de Paris, as a man who was
'l'âme de deux revues, avec _l'attention habile_ de n'en être jamais
l'esprit.'"


* 1840.  He died in 1846.


"_L'attention habile_," exclaimed Cecil, laughing loudly, "is
exquisite.  To my theory, however."

"No, no; none of your theowies," said Wincot, "they are always
pwepostewously exaggewated."

"You shall judge," replied Cecil, "in saying language was given to us
to conceal our thoughts, M. Harel explained the construction of a
great many words in all tongues.  Thus demonstration is evidently
derived from demon, the father of lies."

"That is vewy faw fetched.  Pass the clawet."

"Then, again, Mr. Vyner will tell you," pursued Cecil, "that the
Greek verb to govern is ανασσω, which is derived from
ανασσα, a queen, not from αναξ, a king.  Now, you
will admit, that to deduce the governing principle from the weaker
sex is only a bit of irony.  The mildest possible symbol is used for
the severest possible office, viz., government.  The soft delicious
sway of woman who leads humanity by the nose is not to be disputed.
Bearded warriors, steel-clad priests, ambitious nobles, a ragged,
mighty, and mysterious plebs, these no _single_ arm could possibly
subdue.  And yet a king is necessary.  Here the grand problem
presents itself: how to force the governed to accept a governor?"

"Oh! pass the clawet!"

"The king," said Vyner, shutting his box, "is the strongest.  König,
Könning, or _can_ning: he is the one who _can_ rule."

"But," replied Cecil, "I maintain he _can't_ rule: no man was ever
strong enough to rule men.  The true solution of the problem is,
_that the first king was a woman_."

"This is fuwiously widiculous!"

"Laugh! laugh!  I am prepared to maintain that woman is weak, and
_omnipotent because of her weakness_.  She is girt with the proof
armour of defencelessness.  A man you knock down, but who dares raise
a hand against a woman?"

"Very true," suggested Vyner, "very true.  What says Anacreon, whom
Plato calls 'the wise?'  Nature, he says, gave horns to bulls, and a
'chasm of teeth to lions;' but when she came to furnish woman with
weapons,

  τι ουν δίδωσι; κάλλοϛ

Beauty, beauty was the tremendous arm which was to surpass all
others."

"And formidably she uses it," continued Cecil.  "To man's violence
she opposes her 'defencelessness'--and nails; to his strength she
opposes her 'weakness'--and tongue."

"In support of your theory," said Vyner, "the French call a queen a
_reine_; and we say the king _reigns_."

He chuckled prodigiously at this pun, which Cecil pronounced
admirable.

"My theory of kingship is this," said Cecil.  "The first king, as I
said, was a woman.  She ruled unruly men.  She took to herself some
male subject, helplessly strong; some 'brute of a man,' docile as a
lamb; him she made her husband.  Her people she ruled with smiles and
promises, touchingly alluding, on all befitting occasions, to her
helpless state.  Her husband she ruled with scratches----"

"And _hysterics_," feelingly suggested Vyner.

"Well, a son was born--many sons if you like; but one was her
especial darling.  Growing old and infirm, she declared her son
should wield the sceptre of the state in her name.  Councillors
demurred; she cajoled; they consented.  Her son became regent.  At
her death he continued to govern--not in his name, but in hers.  The
king was symbol of the woman, and reigned vicariously.  When we say
the king reigns, we mean the king queens it."

"Bravo!" exclaimed Vyner, chuckling in anticipation of the joke; "and
this is the explanation of Thiers's celebrated aphorism, '_le roi
REGNE et ne gouverne pas_.'"

"This explains also the Salic law; a curious example of the tendency
of language to conceal the thoughts.  A decree is enacted that no
woman shall reign.  That is to say, men preferred the symbol (man) to
the reality (woman).  They dreaded the divine right of
mistresses--the autocratic absolutism of petticoats."

"And pray, Mr. Chamberlayne," asked Vyner, "how do you explain the
derivation of the French verb _tuer_, to kill, from the Latin
_tucor_, to preserve?"

"Nothing easier upon my theory of the irony of language.  What is
death but preservation?"

"Bwavo! pwoceed.  Pwove that."

"Is it not preservation from sickness and from sorrow, from debts,
diseases, dull parties, and bores?  Death preserves us, by rescuing
our frames from mortality, and wafting our souls into the bosom of
immortal life.  Then look at the irony of our use of the word
_preserves, i.e., places_ where game is kept for indiscriminate
_slaughter_; or else, _pots of luxurious sweets_, destined to bring
children to an untimely end."

"Why," said Vyner, "do we call a sycophant a _toady_?"

"I really don't know."

"Because his sycophancy has its source in το δέος, _fear_,"
replied Vyner, delighted at the joke.

"Good!" said Cecil, laughing.  "I accept the derivation: the irony is
perfect, as a toad is the very _last_ creature to accuse of
sycophancy; he spits upon the world in an unbiassed and exasperating
impartiality: hence the name.  One of the things which has most
struck me," he continued, "is the occasional urbanity of
language--instance the word _question_ for _torture_."

"Like Astyages in Herodotus," said Vyner, "politely counselling the
herdsman not to desire to proceed to necessities, εϛ ταϛ 
ανάγκαϛ, which the man perfectly understands to mean torture.
Consider, also, the _changes_ which take place in words.  'Virtue'
originally meant _manliness_.  The Greek word αρετη is
obviously derived from Ares (Mars), and meant _martialness_; it has
now degenerated into _virtù_, a taste for cameos and pictures; and
into _virtue_, woman's fairest quality, but the farthest removed from
martial excellence."

"This is all vewy ingenious, pewhaps," said Tom Wincot; "but let us
go to the ladies, and hear their theowies."

They rose from table.  Vyner in evidently better disposition towards
Cecil than he had been since the last Horatian discussion; Maxwell
dull and stupid as ever; Captain Heath silent and reflective.




CHAPTER XIV.

JEALOUSY.

  O, my lord, beware of jealousy.
  It is a green-eyed monster that doth mock
  The food it eats on.
                                  _Othello_.


A bright smile from Blanche welcomed Cecil, as he passed from the
dining-room to the drawing-room, and walked up to the piano at which
she was sitting.  He thought he had never seen her look so lovely;
perhaps the remembrance of his having contemplated giving her up made
him more sensible of her charms.

He took up her portfolio of loose music, and began turning over the
sheets, as if seeking some particular song.  She came to help him,
and as she bent over the portfolio he whispered gently,--

"Can you contrive to slip away unobserved, and meet me in the
shrubbery?  I have something of the deepest importance to
communicate."

She trembled, but it was with delight, as she whispered, "Yes."

"Plead fatigue, and retire after tea."

He then moved away, and approaching Violet asked her if she
remembered the name of a certain Neapolitan canzonette, which her
sister Blanche had sung the other night; and on receiving a negative
sat down by her side, and entered into conversation with her.

All the rest of the evening he sat by Violet, only occasionally
addressing indifferent questions to Blanche.  Captain Heath seeing
this, and noticing a strange agitation in Blanche's manner, which she
in vain endeavoured to disguise, interpreted it according to his
wishes, and sat down to a rubber at whist with great internal
satisfaction.

"I have been thinking, Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith Vyner,
shuffling the cards, "that even differences of pronunciation may
assist your theory.  Thus we English--a modest race--express our
doubt by _scepticism_, deriving it from σκέψιϛ,
deliberation.  But the Scotch--a hard dogmatic race--pronounce it
_skeepticism_, hereby deriving it from σκηψιϛ, intimating
that a man _leans upon_ his own opinion, and that his dissent from
others is not a deliberation, but a walking-stick, wherewith he
trudges onwards to the truth."

"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, "are we not to have
some music from you this evening?  Come, one of your charming Spanish
songs."

"By the way," said Vyner, while Cecil tuned his guitar, "talking of
Spanish songs reminds me of a passage I met in a Spanish play this
morning, in which the author says,

        Sin zelos amor
  Es estar sin alma el cuerpo.

What say you to that, ladies?  It means that love without jealousy is
a body without soul.  _Immane quantum discrepat_!"

"Love has nothing whatever to do with jealousy," said Violet; "and so
far from jealousy being the soul of love, I should say it was only
the contemptible part of our nature that feels jealousy, and only the
highest part of our nature that feels love."

"No one will agree with you, my dear Violet," said Mrs. Langley
Turner.  "Sir Harry, it is your deal."

"Perhaps not," said Violet.

"I should vewy much like to hear Miss Violet's pwoof of her wemark.
I have always wead that jealousy is insepewable fwom love; though, I
confess, I never expewienced jealousy myself."

"Nor love either--eh?" said Rose.

"That is sevewe, Miss Wose!  Do you pwetend that I never felt that
sensation which evewy man has felt?"

"If you mean love," replied Rose, "I say, that if you have felt it, I
imagine it has only been just the _beginning_."

"Twue, twue!"

"And like the charity of other people, your love has begun at home!"

"Miss Wose, Miss Wose!" said Tom Wincot, shaking his finger at the
laughing girl.

"So that, if you _have_ ever been jealous," she continued, "you must
have an exaggerated susceptibility."

"And why an exaggewated susceptibility?"

"Because jealous of a person no other earthly being would think of
disputing with you--your own!"

This sally produced a hearty laugh, and Tom Wincot, turning to
Violet, said,--

"I'm afwaid of your sister Wose's wepawtees, so shall not pwolong the
discussion; but pway explain your pwevious weflection on jealousy."

"I mean," said Violet, "that jealousy has its source in egotism;
love, on the contrary, has its source in sympathy: hence it is that
the manifestations of the one are always contemptible, of the other
always noble and beautiful."

"And I," said Maxwell, his dark face lighting up with a savage
expression, "think that jealousy is the most natural instinctive
feeling we possess.  The man or woman who is not jealous, does not
know what it is to love."

"That is a mere assertion, Mr. Maxwell: can you prove it?'

"Prove it! easily.  What is jealousy but a fear of losing what we
hold most dearly?  Look at a dog over a bone; if you approach him he
will growl, though you may have no intention of taking away his bone:
your presence is enough to excite his fear and anger.  If you attempt
to snatch it, though in play, then he will bite."

"You are speaking of _dogs_," said Violet, haughtily, "I spoke of
_men_."

"The feeling is the same in both," retorted Maxwell.

"Yes, when men resemble dogs.--I spoke of men who possessed the
higher qualities."

"Curiously enough," observed Vyner, "the Spaniards, whose jealousy is
proverbial, and whose great poet, Calderon, has expressed himself in
the almost diabolical manner just mentioned, these Spaniards have no
word which properly means jealousy.  _Zelos_ is only the plural of
_zelo_--zeal."

"I do not think, papa, you are quite correct," said Violet, "when you
say the Spaniards are more jealous than other nations."

"They have the character, my dear."

"I am quite aware of it.  But what one nation says of another is
seldom accurate.  If I understand jealousy, it is the sort of passion
which would be _felt_ quite as readily by northerns as by southerns,
though it would not be expressed in so vehement a manner; but because
one man uses a knife, when another man uses a court of law, that does
not make a difference in the sentiments."

"I agree with Violet," said Captain Heath, "it seems to me that
jealousy is a mean and debasing passion, whatever may be the cause
which excites it.  To suspect the woman whom you love and who loves
you, is so degrading both to her and to you, that a man who suspects,
without overwhelming evidence, must be strangely deficient in
nobility of soul; and suppose the evidence complete--suppose that she
loves another, even then a noble soul arms itself with fortitude, and
instead of wailing like a querulous child, accepts with courage the
fate which no peevishness can avert.  The love that is gone cannot be
recalled by jealousy.  A man should say with Othello,--

  I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
  And on the doubt there is no more but this--
  Away at once with love and jealousy."


He looked for Blanche as he concluded this speech, but she had
already retired to her room.

Cecil sang, but soon left off; and pleading "heartburn," caught at
the advice of Tom Wincot, who assured him that a stwong cigar was the
best wemedy for it, and strolled out into the grounds to smoke.




CHAPTER XV.

THE LOVERS MEET.

  And in my heart, fair angel, chaste and wise,
  I love you: start not, speak not, answer not.
  I love you......
      HEYWOOD.--_A Woman killed with Kindness._


It was a lovely night.  The full harvest moon shed a soft brilliance
over the far-stretching meadow-lands; the sky was dotted with small
patches of light fleecy cloud, and a few dim stars.  All was hushed
in that repose which lends a solemn grandeur to a night-scene, when
the sky, the stars, the silence--things suggestive of
infinity--become the objects of contemplation.

Cecil was not one to remain indifferent to such a scene: his
painter's eye and poet's heart were equally open to its mild
splendour.  The tall trees standing dark against the sky, and the dim
outline of the woody heights around, no more escaped his notice, than
the picturesquely grouped cattle, one of which, a dun cow, with large
white face and chest, stood motionless amidst her recumbent
companions.

Although he could not resist the first burst of admiration, Cecil was
in no mood to luxuriate in the poetry of such a scene, as he would
have done at any other time; but, striking into the thick and shadowy
shrubbery, delicately chequered with interspaces of moonlight, he
began to consider the object of this nocturnal ramble.

It would be difficult to explain the motive which impelled him to
make this assignation.  It was one of the sudden inspirations of
passion, which defeat whole months of calculated prudence.  Nothing
could have been more opposed to his calculations than anything like
an express declaration, until he had ascertained the truth of what
Captain Heath had asserted.  And although he rose from the table with
the resolution to be on his guard, and to watch closely the state of
affairs, his first act, as we have seen, was one of consummate
imprudence--one which inextricably entangled him in the very net from
which he was anxious to keep away.  Now, upon Captain Heath's view of
his character, this was little less than madness--in short, it was
unintelligible.  But it is intelligible enough upon a more
comprehensive view of human character; as every one will acknowledge
who has ever stood beside the girl he loves, in a room full of
people--the very restraint of the place sharpens desire, and makes
the timid bold.  Hence one reason why so many more declarations are
made in ball-rooms, and at parties, than in _tête-à-têtes_.

Certain it is that Cecil, standing beside Blanche looking over the
same portfolio, their hands occasionally touching, their eyes
occasionally meeting, was in no condition to listen to the dictates
of reason.  A tumult of desire beat at his heart.  He was standing
within that atmosphere (if I may use the word) which surrounds the
beloved, and which, as by a magnetic power, inconceivably stirs the
voluptuousness latent in every soul.  He was within the halo which
encircled her, and was dazzled by its lustre.  Irresistibly urged by
his passion to call this lovely creature his own, he could not forego
bringing things to a crisis; and he made the assignation.  Her
consent enchanted him.  He was in a fever of impatience for her to
retire.  He cursed the lagging time for its slowness; and, with a
thrill of delight, found himself in the open air, about to hear from
Blanche's own lips that which her eyes had so frequently expressed.

In a few minutes, all this impatience and delight subsided.  He had
gained his point.  Blanche had consented to meet him; and he had
contrived to come to the rendezvous without awakening any suspicion.
Now, for the first time, he began to consider seriously the object of
that meeting.  He was calm now; and grew calmer the more he pondered.

"What an ass I have been!" he thought.  "What the devil could induce
me to forget myself so far?  She will come, expecting to hear me
declare myself.  But I can't marry her.  I can't offer her beggary as
a return for her love.  If Heath should have told the truth.  D--n
it, he can't be such an unfeeling egotist as not to make some
provision for his children!  No, no; I'll not believe _that_.  A few
thousands he must in common decency have set aside, or he would never
be able to look honest men in the face.  Besides, Vyner doesn't
appear to be particularly selfish.  However, it _may_ be true; and if
so----

"Can I invent something of importance to communicate instead of my
love?  Let me see.  That will look so odd--to make an assignation for
any other purpose than _the_ one!  But she doesn't come.  Can she be
hesitating?  I wish her fears would get the better!

"She won't come.  That will release me from the difficulty.  It is
the best thing that could happen.

"I see a light in her room.  What is she doing?  Struggling with
herself perhaps; or perhaps waiting till the coast is clear.  D--n
the cigar, out again!"

Upon what slight foundations sometimes hang the most important events!

That is rather a profound remark; not positively new, perhaps, but
singularly true.  It has escaped from my pen, and as a pencil mark of
approbation is sure to be made against it in every copy in every
circulating library, why should I hesitate to let it go forth?

A fine essay might be written entitled, "The Philosophy of Life, as
collected from the _marked passages_ in modern novels."  And I offer
the essayist, the remark above, as his opening aphorism.

But I digress.

The situation which suggested the foregoing aphorism was curious
enough to warrant my writing it; for had Blanche appeared at the
rendezvous at this time, or a few minutes earlier, it is most likely,
from the frame of mind in which her lover then was, that he would
have made some shuffling excuse or other, and declared anything to
her but his love.  But she hesitated.  With a coyness natural to the
sex, she shrunk back from that which she most desired.  Nothing would
have given her greater pleasure than to hear Cecil swear he loved
her, and yet she trembled at the idea of meeting him to hear it said.

She kept him waiting half an hour.

Whoever has been accustomed to analyze his own feelings, will at once
foresee that Cecil, after coming to the determination that he had
acted with consummate folly in making the assignation, now began to
get uneasy at the idea of her not keeping it.  Obstacles irritate
desires.  If "the course of true love" does not "run smooth," so much
the deeper will it run.  Cecil, willing enough to blame himself for
his rashness, now began to feel piqued at her indifference.  Ten
minutes before, the sight of her coming from the house would have
been painful; now he was irritated by her absence.  He was several
times on the point of sulkily going back to the drawing-room; but the
thought "if she should come" arrested him.

She came at last, and his heart leapt as he beheld her.

"Have I kept you long?" she asked.

"Every minute away from you is an hour.  But you are with me now," he
replied, as he folded her to his breast and kissed her burning lips.

Having expressed what was in their hearts by this long eloquent
embrace, he twined his arm around her waist, clasping her hand in
his, walked slowly with her to the river-side.

While they are thus lovingly employed, I wish to make one remark on
the superiority of actions to words.  Here were two lovers morally
certain of each other's affection, but wanting the confirmation of an
oath.  They met for the express purpose of saying, in good set terms,
that which only wanted the ratification of words; and instead of
saying anything on the subject they allowed a kiss--and very eloquent
such kisses are--to settle the matter.  What could they have said
which would have so well expressed it?

Although they walked down to the river, and sat upon the trunk of a
fallen tree to admire the shimmer of moonlight upon the gently
running stream, and the cool, crisp, delightful sound of the water as
it dashed over the huge stones that formed a weir, and then fell over
in guise of a little waterfall, they made no allusion to the
"important communication" which had drawn them both out.  They had
too much to talk about.  They had to confess when it was their love
began, and to vow that it would never end.  They had the most
charming confidences to make respecting what had been done and said
by each, and what each had felt thereat; confidences which, though
full of "eloquent music" to them, may very well be spared here.

Nor did they much admire the river by moonlight, in spite of its
brilliant tracks of light, and dusky patches of shade thrown from the
overhanging trees; hand clasped in hand, they looked into each
other's eyes, from which no landscape in the world could have seduced
them.

Oh, what exquisite bliss was crowded into that brief hour!  How their
pulses throbbed, and their hearts bounded!  How their souls looked
from out their eyes as if to plunge into an indissoluble union!  A
strange fire burnt in their veins, and made them almost faint with
pleasure too intense for mortal endurance.  He crushed her hand in
his with almost savage fury, and she returned the pressure.

Love! divine delirium, exquisite pain! rich as thou art in rapture,
potent as thou art o'er the witcheries of moments which reveal to
mortal sense some glimpses of immortal bliss, thou hast no such
second moment as that which succeeds the first avowal of two
passionate natures.  Other joys thou hast in store, but no repetition
of this one thrilling ecstacy.

Love has its virginity--its bloom--its first, but perishable melody,
which sounds but once, and then is heard no more.  This melody was
now sounding in their hearts, as, seated on that fallen trunk, they
heeded the world no more than the moonlit stream which glided at
their feet.  One hour of intense, suffocating, overwhelming rapture
did they pass together; an hour never to be forgotten; an hour worth
a life.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE DISCOVERY.

  How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night!
  Like softest music to attending ears.
                                      _Romeo and Juliet._


Leaving the lovers to their rapture, let us glance in at the warm
drawing-room, and at the philosophic whist-table: Captain Heath is
standing with his back to the fire; Tom Wincot having "cut in" in his
place; Violet and Rose are knitting.

"Blanche, my dear," said Meredith Vyner.

"She has gone to bed, papa," said Rose.

"Oh, very well.  Is Mr. Chamberlayne come in?  No!  Our deal, is it
not?"

This little fragment of the conversation suddenly made Captain Heath
suspicious.  He was before aware that Blanche and Cecil were absent;
but he had not before coupled their two exits in his own mind, so as
to draw therefrom a conclusion.  "Can they have arranged this?"
flashed across his brain.  He quietly left the room, took his hat,
and walked out.  Though by no means of a jealous disposition, he
could not help commenting in his own mind on a hundred insignificant
traits of what appeared to him Blanche's passion for Cecil, and the
conclusion he drew from them was, that she not only loved him, but
studiously concealed her love.  As he said, with him "once to be in
doubt was once to be resolved;" his was none of that petty, querulous
jealousy, irritated at self-inflicted tortures, and yet too weak to
finish them by making doubts certainties.  Like a brave man, as he
was, he paused not an instant in endeavouring to arrive at certitude
in all things.  Instead, therefore, of worrying himself with doubts
and arguments, with hopes that she might not love Cecil, and fears
that she did, he determined to settle the point, and place it beyond
a doubt.

He had not gone far when his quick ears detected the indistinct
murmur of conversation.  He paused for a moment, and leaned against a
tree.  A cold perspiration stood on his brow; a feeling of sickness,
which he could not subdue, arrested him; the first spasm of despair
clutched his heart, as the murmur fell upon his ear, and told him
that what he had suspected was the truth.

That he might not be mistaken; that he might not act without thorough
conviction, he approached still closer to the spot from whence the
murmur came, and there he saw the lovers seated under the dark
branches of a gigantic larch, which served to make Blanche's white
dress more visible.

Little did that happy pair suspect with what heartbroken interest
they were contemplated.  They pressed each other's hand, and repeated
endless variations of that phrase, of all phrases most dulcet to
mortal ear, "I love you;" and if they thought at all, thought
themselves forgotten by the world they so entirely forgot.

In the midst of their dreamy bliss, a low, half-stifled sob startled
them.  They sprang up.  She clung tremblingly to him.  He looked
eagerly around, piercing through the shadowy pathways with a glance
of terror.  He could discover nothing.  All was silent.  Nothing
stirred.

"Did you not hear a groan?" he whispered.

"It seemed like a sob."

"All is silent.  I see no one.  Listen!"

They listened for some seconds; not a sound was audible.

"It must have been fancy," he said.

"No; I heard it too plainly."

"Perhaps it was a noise made by one of the cows yonder."

"At any rate, let us go in.  Do you return by the shrubbery.  I will
go round by the garden."




CHAPTER XVII.

THE SACRIFICE.

  I know I love in vain--strive against hope--
  Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
  I still pour out the waters of my love,
  And lack not to love still.
        SHAKSPEARE.--_All's Well that Ends Well._


When Cecil re-entered the drawing-room, he found it exactly as he had
left it, except that Tom Wincot was playing whist in place of Captain
Heath, who stood leaning against the mantelpiece, with his left hand
caressing the shaggy head of Shot; that favoured animal stood with
his fore-paws resting on the fender, and his face raised inquiringly,
as if to ascertain the reason of his friend's paleness.  Pale,
indeed, was the handsome face of that brave, sorrowing man; and the
keen sympathy of the hound had read in its rigidity and calmness the
signs of suffering, which escaped the notice of every one else.  True
it is that the captain somewhat shielded his face from observation
by, with his left hand, twirling his moustache, a practice too
habitual with him to call forth any remark.

Cecil was in such a state of excitement, that the girls remarked it.
He joked, laughed joyously at the most trivial observation, sang with
prodigious fervour, and declared there was nothing like a moonlight
ramble for the cure of the heartburn.

"It seems to have been the heart-_ache_," said Rose, "by the
exuberance of your spirits after the cure."

Cecil looked up, and seeing her saucy smile, and her eyes swimming in
laughter, knew that she was not serious, so he asked what should make
his heart ache?

"Ay, ay," said Vyner, "what, indeed? _quo beatus vulnere_?  If you
have discovered, let us hear it."

"Yes, yes, tell us his secwet by all means," said Wincot, throwing
down his last card; "two by honours, thwee by twicks--game--that
makes a single, a tweble, and the wub: six points!"

"No, no," said Rose, shaking her head, "I shall not say it now."

"Pray, don't spare me," said Cecil.  "I am quite sure it was
something satirical."

"It was; but I don't choose to say it now."

Captain Heath continued to pat Shot's head; but he neither looked up,
nor joined in the conversation.  Cecil, who had several times
endeavoured in vain to make him talk, left him at last to his
reflections, whispering to Rose,--

"He is too grave for our frivolities."

Cecil's excitement continued all the evening.  He slept well that
night, cradled in enchanting dreams.

What Blanche felt as she stole up to her own room, rapidly undressed
herself, and crept into bed, I leave to my young and pretty readers
to conjecture.

The next evening, though they had several brief snatches of
_tête-à-tête_ during the day, our lovers were again to indulge in a
moonlight ramble, hoping no doubt for a repetition of the first.
Blanche early pleaded fatigue, and declared her intention of soon
retiring for the night.

"Don't go to bed, as you did last night," said Captain Heath; "if you
are weary, take a turn with me in the shrubbery: there is a lovely
moon."

Blanche coloured deeply, and kept her eyes fixed upon her work.
Cecil looked at him, as if to read the hidden meaning of those words.

It was a moment of suspense.  The entrance of tea enabled them to
hide their emotions; and, by occasioning a change of seats, brought
the captain close to Blanche.

"How imprudent you are!" he whispered.  "Accept my offer of a walk,
and _he_ shall accompany us; when we are out of sight, I will leave
you; but by all three going out together, no suspicion will be
raised."

Blanche trembled and blushed, but made no answer.  The discovery of
her last night's interview was implied in what he said; and with that
was implied this other fact, which then for the first time flashed
across her mind: Captain Heath loved her.  It was his sob which had
startled them.

If, amidst her compassion for his unhappy love, there was mixed some
secret gratification at having excited that passion, no one will
speak harshly of her; it would be too much to expect human nature
should be insensible to the flattery of affection.  But flattered as
she was by the discovery, she was also sensible of the noble delicacy
of his conduct in the matter; and when she raised her humid eyes to
look her thanks, it was with a severe pang that she noticed the
alteration in his appearance.  One night had added ten years to his
age.

"Miss Blanche and I are going to stroll out and enjoy the harvest
moon," said Captain Heath about half an hour afterwards to Cecil,
"will you join us?"

Cecil looked amazed, and felt inclined to throw him out of the window
for his proposition, but Blanche made a sign to him to accept, and he
accepted.

"And I suppose I am not to come?" said Rose.

"Certainly--if you like," replied the captain.

"No, you may go without me.  _Three_ is company, and two is none,"
she said, parodying the popular phrase, "and if I came, we should be
two and two."

The captain did not press the matter, but offering Blanche his arm
led her out, followed by Cecil, somewhat sulky, and not at all
comprehending the affair.

"There, now I surrender her to your charge," said the captain, when
they were within hearing of the waterfall, "having saved your meeting
from suspicion.  Continue your walk, I am here as sentinel."

He seated himself upon a gate with all the quietness of the most
ordinary transaction.  Cecil, who was a good deal annoyed at this
interference of a third party, made no reply; he was not even
grateful for the service rendered.

Blanche, who knew what it must have cost the captain thus to
sacrifice his own feelings, and think only of her safety, took his
hand in hers, and kissed it silently.  A tear fell on it as he
withdrew it.

"Make the most of your time," he said.

In another instant he was alone.

The intense gratification he felt in making this sacrifice, will be
appreciated by those who know what it is to forego their own claims
in favour of another--to trample on their own egotisms, and act as
their conscience approves.  The mixture of pain only added to the
intensity of the delight; as perhaps no enjoyment is ever perfect,
physical or moral, without the keen sense of pain thrown in as a zest.

His greatest hope in life was gone, and yet he sat there not torn by
miserable jealousy, but warmed with the glow of self-sacrifice.  And
this is the meaning of virtue being its own reward: had he acted with
only ordinary meanness, had he done what hundreds and hundreds would
have done in his place, he would have suffered tortures all the more
horrible, because unavailing.  Instead of that, he looked
courageously into the grim countenance of misfortune, saw that he was
not loved, that another had received the heart he coveted, and having
seen that, he determined to stifle the mighty hunger of his heart, to
give up all futile hope, and to devote himself to her happiness in
such ways as he could forward it.

The lovers, with the selfishness of lovers, had speedily forgotten
him and every one else.  But although they sat upon the self-same
tree; although they clasped each other by the hand, and looked into
each other's eyes, their interview was cold compared with that of the
night before.

One reason might be, that on that night they talked of love; on this,
they talked of marriage.  Cecil explained to her the state of his
affairs, and asked her if she could leave her present luxurious home
to share his humbler one.

This question is always asked under those circumstances; though the
questioner knows very well that it is pre-eminently superfluous, and
that there is but one possible answer, conveyed in a look and a kiss.
The answer, however, is agreeable enough to warrant the question; is
it not?

Lovers are singularly insincere with each other, and play at
doubts--and sometimes very offensive doubts--with an air of
earnestness which would imply considerable duplicity, were it not one
of the _instincts_ of passion.  The truth is, Love loves to hear the
assurance of love; and to hear this assurance, of which it is already
sure, it pretends to have doubts, merely to have them removed.

Let us forgive Cecil his insincerity in asking Blanche that question;
and let us pass over in silence all the others which he asked, and to
which he got the same sweet answer.  They remained there a long
while; at least it seemed so to their sentinel; to them it seemed too
brief.  But they rose at a signal he gave; and when they came up with
him, he said, gravely, "Mr. Chamberlayne, I trust you will take what
I am about to say with the same candour as I say it.  I am anxious to
serve you, not to lecture you.  Although, therefore, I know nothing
of the reasons which you may have for keeping your mutual attachment
secret, I am strongly of opinion that the best and wisest thing you
can do is to make it public at once.  Ask her father's consent, but
do not be discovered in clandestine meetings.  If you desire it, I
will break the matter to Mr. Vyner, and plead your cause to the best
of my ability."

This was received in complete silence.  Cecil was alarmed; Blanche
kept her eyes fixed on him.

"Reflect upon it," added the captain, as he led the way to the house.

Some inexplicable foreboding damped Cecil's spirits at the idea of
declaring to her father his affection for Blanche; and this
foreboding was realized in the course of the evening by Vyner
casually mentioning, in his hearing, that which Captain Heath had
already informed him of, respecting the portionless state of the
girls.

"So I tell my girls," he added, "they must keep strict guard over
their hearts, to be sure they give them to no beggar.  The more so"
(here he looked at Cecil) "because, if they felt inclined to make
fools of themselves, I certainly should not allow them to do so."

The thought occurred to Cecil, "Can Heath have betrayed me? and is
that speech levelled at me?"

He looked at the captain to read the treachery on his brow; but that
calm, honest face triumphantly withstood the scrutiny; and Cecil no
longer accused him.

The truth is, Vyner did suspect that Cecil was paying too great
attention to Blanche, and had levelled his speech at him, imagining
that the hint would be taken.  Since that morning when the most
splendid discovery on the Horatian metres ever made, had been so ill
appreciated, Vyner ceased to regard him with the same pleasure as
before; and in criticizing his actions, observed his attentions to
Blanche.

"You see how fatal your counsel would be," whispered Cecil to the
captain, as he took his candle and retired for the night.




CHAPTER XVIII.

CECIL IN HIS TRUE COLOURS.

Cecil reached his own room with savage sullenness.  He had asked
Blanche if she would share his poverty, and was delighted with her
answer; but--strange paradox--he had never seriously thought of
sharing it with her; and now his perplexity was how to escape from
his present dilemma.  To marry upon his means was impossible;
impossible also to think of giving her up.  To trust for one moment
to Vyner's liberality, he felt was futile; the mere avowal of his
attachment would be sufficient to close the doors against him for
ever.

Angrily he paced up and down his room, striving in vain to detect
some means of extricating himself.  A fierce and contemptible
struggle between passion and interest agitated him: sometimes love
prevailed, and sometimes prudence.

In the midst of this self-struggle Captain Heath came in.

"I have come to speak with you," he said, "and trust you will regard
me as Blanche's elder brother, anxious to befriend you, but still
more anxious to protect her.  Will you treat with me on those terms?"

"Certainly.  You have already discovered our secret--how, I know
not--and there can be no impropriety in consulting with you; I have
perfect confidence in you."

"Your confidence is deserved.  Now, tell me; you have yourself heard
from Vyner what I told you in the billiard-room.  I told it you,
because I saw in what direction you turned your eyes, and wished you
to have a clear comprehension of the family affairs.  Had only your
fancy been touched, my warning would have been in time; as it was,
your heart was engaged, and my warning came too late.  I do not
repent it, however, the more so as it served to show me the strength
of your love.  Pardon me for having misjudged you," holding out his
hand, "but I imagined that what I said respecting Blanche's poverty
would at once put a stop to your attentions.  You have shown me how
ill I judged you.  Will this confession, while it convinces you of my
sincerity, also purchase my forgiveness?"

Cecil coloured with shame, and pressed the outstretched hand in
silence.

"Now to your affairs.  You wish to keep your attachment a secret.
For what purpose?  How can it avail you?  It must be discovered, and
then you will have lost all the advantages of openness."

"But what am I to do?  Vyner will never give his consent.  I am too
poor."

"If I may ask without indiscretion--what is your income?  What are
your prospects?"

"My income is the interest of four thousand pounds; my prospects are
vague enough.  I have some talent.  Painting and literature are open
to me; but I should prefer diplomacy."

"You cannot marry on such prospects."

"No, indeed!  But what am I to do?"

"I have but one suggestion to make.  My brother is chairman to a
railway now in course of formation.  The secretaryship is worth four
hundred a year.  If you will accept of it, I think, by exerting
myself, I could secure it for you."

"I am much obliged to you," replied Cecil, coldly; "but that is not
at all in my way."

"You refuse?" said the astonished captain.  "Refuse four hundred a
year?"

"Remember I am a gentleman's son," he said, haughtily, "and you will
appreciate my refusal."

"Upon my word, I do appreciate it, and at its real value!  Here, I
offer you what certainly I should never have thought of offering you,
had it not been for her sake, a situation which thousands of
gentlemen's sons would be delighted to accept, a situation which,
with your own small property, will enable you to live in decent
comfort, and you refuse it?"

"Really, your officious indignation," said Cecil, getting angry in
his turn, "is somewhat out of place.  You meant kindly, I dare say;
but once for all allow me to observe, that I neither am, nor ever
will be, a _quill-driver_."

"Not even for _her_ sake?"

"No; for no one will I degrade myself in my own eyes.  If I must
work, it shall be in some gentlemanly department.  I will either
paint or write for my livelihood, when I am condemned to gain it."

"And you pretend to love her?"

"I do; but I am sure she would be the first to dissuade me from such
a degradation as you propose.  She has given her heart to a
gentleman, and not to a clerk."

"Bah! you talk in the language of a century ago.  The pride which was
then, perhaps, excusable, becomes simply ridiculous now-a-days."

"And you, captain, are using language which, if it continues, I shall
demand an explanation----"

"You threaten?"

"I have no wish to do so; but the tone you adopt is such as I can no
longer permit."

"Well, I did not come to quarrel with you, so will abstain from
criticism.  Only, let me ask you what you propose to do?"

"I propose nothing, I am totally at a loss."

"You positively refuse my offer?"

"Positively."

"You do not think of marrying upon your present means?"

"Decidedly not."

"Then you have but one course: to relinquish your claim."

"I have thought of that."

As this confession escaped him, a sudden light shone in the captain's
eyes, a sparkle of unexpected triumph which did not escape his rival.

It was a double betrayal.  Cecil betrayed his selfishness--the
captain his love.

"I have thought of it," he repeated, "but I cannot make the
sacrifice.  I love her too much.  It may be selfish, but I feel it
impossible to give her up."

He watched the captain's countenance with malicious joy as he spoke
this, conscious that every phrase was an arrow to pierce his rival's
heart.

"But you must decide either to marry her, or----"

"Or," interrupted Cecil, with a sneer, "relinquish my claim in your
favour, eh?"

Captain Heath shook slightly, and then fixing his full gaze upon
Cecil, said quietly,--

"How little you know the man whom you so wantonly insult!"

He left the room.

"_He_ loves her," said Cecil to himself, bewildered at the discovery.
"Loves her!  What, then, is the meaning of his conduct?  He acts as
sentinel during our interview--takes upon himself to break the matter
to her father, if I wish it--offers me a situation to enable me to
marry.  Oh! it is preposterous!  I should be a fool indeed to believe
it!  Loves her! loves her and assists a rival!  There is some cunning
scheme in all this.  I cannot divine _what_ it is, but I am certain
_that_ it is.

"He loves her.  Let me see: first, he endeavours to frighten me away
by explaining the state of Vyner's affairs.  That is intelligible
enough: he wanted me to take the alarm and decamp.  Failing in that,
he suddenly changes tactics, and officiously thrusts himself between
us as a patron and protector.  The scoundrel!"

Yes, scoundrel! for doing that which, in its simple heroism, so
distances all ordinary actions, that it looks like a meanness.  Thus
are men judged.  If a man perform some act of ostentatious grandeur,
the town will ring with loud applause; but unless the act is
striking, and the motive clearly intelligible, he is sure to be
maligned.  Men only credit in others the kind of virtue they feel
capable of themselves; as Sallust says of the readers of
history,--"ubi de magnâ virtute et gloriâ bonorum memores quæ sibi
quisque facilia factu putat, æquo animo accipit; supra ea veluti
ficta pro falsis ducit."

Captain Heath's self-sacrifice was one demanding the greatest moral
fortitude, precisely because it had no adventitious aid from the
anticipation of applause; it required an immense effort, and could
have no éclat.  It was a victory to be gained after a fierce combat,
and to be followed by no flourish of trumpets.  Strength of mind
gained the victory; and the pleasure derived from all exercise of
strength was the reward.

Although I uphold such actions as heroic, as springing from true
moral greatness, and worthy of our deepest reverence, yet it must not
be supposed that there is anything marvellous in this
self-abnegation.  The followers of De la Rochefoucauld might find out
egotism even here, if they used their cold scalpel aright.  They
might say Captain Heath was convinced that Blanche loved another, and
all his efforts to prevent that would be useless.  Finding himself
thus completely excluded from all hope of obtaining her, he made up
his mind to the defeat, and instead of allowing himself to be made
miserable by idle regrets and idler jealousy, he gave himself the
delight of assisting her.

To Cecil, however, who was certainly so incapable of such conduct as
to be incapable of believing it, the captain was evidently a
scoundrel, whom he would first outwit and then challenge.

To outwit him, he determined to carry Blanche off.

Cecil, vacillating between his passion and his prudence, between his
love for Blanche and his horror at poverty, suddenly lost all
hesitation, the instant he was aware of a rival.  The selfishness
which had made him unwilling to encounter poverty, to rush into the
great battle of life, there to gain a footing for the sake of
Blanche, now made him ready to run all risks for the sake of
triumphing over a rival.  No suggestions assailed him now respecting
the imprudence of marriage; no horrors at bringing a family into the
world without the means of properly providing for them; no thought of
what she would suffer now disturbed him, as it had before.  And why?
because it then was only a mask under which he hid the face of his
own selfishness from himself.  The one-absorbing thought was how to
quickly call her his; how to irrevocably bind her to him.

"He thinks to dupe me, does he?  He shall find out his mistake.  I
will this instant go to her, and arrange our flight."




CHAPTER XIX.

THE PERILS OF ONE NIGHT.

  Words that weep, and tears that speak.
                                        COWLEY.


Blanche's bed-room formed the angle of the right wing at the back of
the Hall.  Her window looked upon the terrace.  Between the right
wing and the offices ran an arcade, as a sort of a connecting link.
The top of this arcade formed an open gallery with heavy balustrades,
and paved with dark iron-grey tiles.  A small side-door opened on to
it from the bed-room; and frequently, in summer, did Blanche sit out
in this gallery to enjoy the cool night-air, or, leaning against the
balustrade, gazed at the heavy curtain of clouds,--

  "While the rare stars rush'd thro' them dim and fast."

At the end of the interior of the arcade was a niche, in which were
generally kept some of the girl's gardening tools, and a slight
ladder which they used.

Blanche was still dressed, as the light in her bed-room told Cecil,
who had stolen out in pursuance of the resolution recorded in the
last chapter.  She was seated on the side of her bed in an attitude
of delicious reverie, her head slightly drooping, her hands
carelessly fallen on her lap, when the sound of a pebble striking
against the window-pane startled her.  Again that sound--and again!
She rose and went to the window.  The sky was overcast, and the night
was dark, but after a few seconds she recognised Cecil, and opened
the window.

"Are you dressed, dearest?"

"Yes."

"Then come out into the gallery.  I want to speak to you.  I can get
up by the ladder."

"Very well, but be careful."

She closed the window, and stepped out.  He placed the top of the
ladder against the pediment of the arcade and quickly ascended.

They rushed into each other's arms of course.  Lovers always do that
directly they are together, no matter what important business brings
them there.

"Blanche, my beloved, are you willing to share my fate, whatever that
may be?"

"Have you run all this risk to ask me that?" she said, reproachfully.

"No; but I must ask it you--and in saddest seriousness--before I
speak further."

Her lips sought his, and pressed them ardently.

"Our secret is discovered--your father even suspects it--we must
fly--will you be mine?--Hush! what is that?--hush!--I heard a door
shut.--Hark! yes, a footstep--do you not hear it?--a hurried
step.--It comes this way--good God! what shall we do?"

Blanche trembled with fright as the heavy sounds of an approaching
step smote upon her ears; but, with a sudden inspiration, she dragged
Cecil into her room, and opening her window leaned out as if
star-gazing, though the sky was starless.  At length the sharp ring
of the footsteps upon the stone terrace was heard, and a male figure
was dimly visible.  It came right opposite the window.

"Blanche! not yet in bed?" said Captain Heath; "and breathing the
autumnal night-air too?"

She shook slightly, but answered, "Yes.  The night-air cools me."

Cecil was greatly agitated, but held his breath and listened.
Nothing more was said for some seconds; at last Blanche asked him
what brought him out so late.

"Inability to remain in doors.  I have just had an interview with
_him_, which has greatly agitated me.  He shewed himself selfish,
foolish, and contemptible."

Cecil was on the point of starting up, but restrained himself on
remembering where he was.  Blanche was hurt, and replied, "Silence on
that subject.  Remember you are speaking of one who is to be my
husband."

"God forbid!" he exclaimed.

She closed the discussion by shutting her window.

He moved away; but had not taken four steps when the ladder caught
his eye.  The position of the ladder, coupled with Blanche at the
open window, still dressed, at that hour of the night, at once
convinced him that an elopement was meditated.  A sick faintness
overcame him for a moment; but it was only for a moment.  He rallied
immediately, and taking the ladder on his shoulder, carried it off.

Willing as he was to assist his rival in every honourable way, he
could not, after that evening's conversation with him, think of
allowing an elopement, which must not only deprive them of any chance
of assistance from her father, but also, by an unseemly
precipitation, plunge them both into a difficulty it was his care, as
Blanche's protector, to save them from.  Having carried away their
ladder, he then proceeded to the lodge-gates to see if a post-chaise
was in waiting.

Meanwhile, the lovers had recovered from their agitation, and were
arranging their plans of escape for the following night.  The first
tremor of modesty Blanche felt, on becoming aware that she had
introduced Cecil into her bed-room, was completely set aside--the
more so as, with a delicacy which often distinguished this weak,
selfish, but still in many respects, admirable man, Cecil kept
himself at a distance from her, and though holding her hand, did not
even raise it to his lips.  By that mute language which is more
eloquent than words, he had assured her that the situation only
increased his respect, and that nothing should make him take a base
advantage of her momentary forgetfulness.

There was something deeply interesting and even touching in the
situation of these two lovers.  Shut up in a bed-room with him at
midnight, she was as sacred in his eyes as she would have been in
broad daylight, and surrounded by friends.  She felt her security;
and this gave a frankness and tenderness to her manner, which plainly
spoke her thanks.

He felt also the charm of the situation, but with the charm, the
danger, and therefore dared not keep his eyes from her, dared not
look upon the bed or toilet-table, and strove by looking only at her
to forget the place.

Modest and respectful as his attitude was, there was an exquisite
feeling engendered by that situation which he had never felt before,
and which those will comprehend who have trembled with secret
pleasure at the delicious nothings--an accidental touch of the
hand--the contact of a ringlet against the cheek--nothings which love
invests with an incomparable charm.  It is like a coy lingering at
the gates of paradise, whose splendour the soul anticipates with
delicious awe.

But the time fled rapidly, and the first cold streaks of dawn,
struggling with the faint starlight, warned him that he must depart,
ere it seemed to him that he had said all there was to say.
Repeating every detail of their plan once more, they arose.  He
timidly offered her his lips, as begging but not demanding a kiss,
and she threw herself into his arms.  There was gratitude in her
embrace, though she knew not for what.  Her innocence concealed from
her the perilous situation she had gone through; but her instinct
told her confusedly that she had been spared.  He pressed her closer
to him, and felt a thousand-fold repaid.

She opened the door, and they stepped out into the gallery.  Horror
stiffened their features as they missed the ladder.  "Gone! gone!" he
hoarsely whispered.  "Then, we are lost.  It's that meddler, Heath!
... He knew I was in your room, and he took that method of ... But
I'll be revenged.  The scoundrel!"

Blanche was too terrified to weep; she did nothing but wring her
hands piteously.

What was to be done?  The arcade was too high to allow him to drop;
and yet there seemed to be no other mode of escape possible.

It was a moment of horrible suspense.

"Heath loves you, Blanche," he said presently, with a certain
fierceness in his tone.

"I know it," she said, sadly.

There was a pause.  She watched his countenance with anxiety: angry
passions seemed drifting over his soul like the clouds over a stormy
sky; and she, not understanding the tortures of jealousy, of hate, of
revenge, of fierce resolutions as quickly chased away as formed,
which then agitated him, looked with trembling at his distorted face.

"By God!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I will triumph yet."

Then seizing her by the waist, he carried her back again into the
room.

"Cecil, Cecil," she said, "let me go.  What do you mean?  Cecil, you
alarm me--set me down."

He tried to stop her mouth, but she struggled in his grasp, from
which she at length freed herself.

"Blanche," he said, "we are betrayed.  We shall be separated for
ever--for ever!  There is but one way to prevent it, but one way to
defy them."

He approached her, but she eluded his grasp, and said: "Oh! dearest,
dearest Cecil!  do not ... do not outrage the memory of this night,
hitherto so sacred ... do not lower me in your eyes, and my own."

"It must ... it shall be..."

"No, no; do not say it!"

"It is our only hope," he said, as he again clasped her in his arms.

"Cecil, Cecil, I am yours ... yours only will I be ... can you doubt
it? ... but, oh! leave me now! leave me! leave me!"

She sank at his feet, raising her hands imploringly, and wept.

He was touched.  The sight of this lovely girl, thus passionate in
her sorrow, kneeling at his feet and imploring his pity, was more
than he could withstand.  All the wild passion and gross instincts
which had been roused, were now calmed again with the rapidity which
is usual in such moments of delirious excitement, when the soul seems
not only susceptible of every influence bad or good, but also
susceptible of the most violent and rapid changes.

He threw himself upon a chair, and bade her rise.

"God bless you!  God bless you for that word!" she sobbed.  "There
spoke my own Cecil."

He was silent and humiliated.  The flaring light of the candles just
expiring in the socket, told her that they would soon be in darkness;
and she shuddered at the thought, though not daring to disturb the
sullen meditation in which he was indulging, by any prayer to him to
depart.  Each time the wayward light in its capricious action seemed
on the point of being extinguished, a thrill of horror ran over her.
The returning brightness brought returning courage.

Silent he sat,

  Still as any stone,

His eyes fixed on the floor, a prey to a sort of remorseful stupid
anger, not only at having been foiled, but at finding himself
helpless in the dilemma.

One of the candles went out.  Only a feeble vacillating glimmer was
shed by the other; but it was enough to show him that Blanche had
fainted.  The emotions of the night had so enfeebled her, that the
terror of approaching darkness made her senseless.

"I have killed her!" was the horrible thought that presented itself
to his mind.  He sprang forwards, raised her in his arms, and looked
eagerly into her ashy-pale countenance.

The second candle went out, and left them in obscurity, which the
delicate tints of early morning peering through the window-curtains
scarcely lessened.

He dragged her out into the gallery, where in a few minutes the keen
air of morning revived her.  On coming to herself, she saw the cold
grey sky above, and Cecil's anxious face bending down to catch the
first glimpse of returning life.  A sweet sigh burst from her, as she
closed her eyes again, and leaned her head upon his shoulder.  It was
like awaking from a nightmare!

In a few minutes, she was sufficiently revived to be able to stand.
Not a word passed; but her eyes were most eloquent, as in mute
thankfulness she fixed them on his agitated face.

Perhaps in all the emotions of that eventful night, there had been
none which rivalled in peculiar and indescribable delight their
present sense of subsided agitation and terror.  A heavenly calmness
had descended upon their spirits.  It was like the hushed stillness
which succeeds a storm, when the only sound is that of the gentle
dripping of rain-drops from the leaves.  Their feelings were in
harmony with the scene.  The twittering of a few early birds made
them sensible of the deep repose and quiet of the hour; and the pale
streaks of golden light, mixed with the heavy clouds which during the
night had lowered from the sky, not inaptly represented the streaks
of light which in their own souls drove away the clouds of darkness
and tempest.

While in the mute enjoyment of this scene, they were suddenly alarmed
by the appearance of a man emerging from the wood.  Another glance
assured them it was Captain Heath; and to avoid being seen they
returned to the bed-room.

"Heath is still prowling about," said Cecil to her.  "No doubt on the
watch; so if any means could be devised of my descending on to the
terrace, he would be certain to see me.  I must make a bold venture,
and go through the house.  At this early hour, no one can be awake.
I will take off my boots, and creep noiselessly along."

Captain Heath was returning, trying to persuade himself that the
ladder placed against the arcade was purely accidental.  No traces of
a post-chaise were to be seen; and, after all, was not an elopement
most improbable, when his interview with Cecil was kept in mind?

It may seem strange, that one capable of assisting his rival should
feel so hurt at the thought of an elopement.  Yet the shock had
almost unmanned him.  He roamed about, like a criminal in a condemned
cell, endeavouring to persuade himself that his doom cannot be
executed--that a reprieve must come.  The truth is--and let it not
impeach his heroism, but rather enhance it, by showing how great was
his sacrifice--he had not fortitude enough to bear the blow when it
fell.  He had made up his mind to see his beloved the wife of
another; but he had not made up his mind to see it so suddenly.
Resigned to his fate, he had not imagined his doom so near its
execution.  Perhaps, in the secret recesses of his soul, there were
vague, unexpressed hopes that _something_ might occur to prevent the
marriage--that Vyner would refuse--that Cecil would repent.  In
short, the vicissitudes of life opened to him a hope; and faint as
that hope might be, we know at what reeds the sinking man will snatch.

Rather than believe in an elopement, he made up his mind to the
position of the ladder being an accident; and resolved at length to
seek his couch in sleep to forget the troubles of his soul.

His bedroom was situated at the corner of a corridor, at the end of
which was Blanche's room.  His hand was upon the lock, and the door
ajar, when, emerging from the corridor, Cecil turned the corner and
came full upon his rival.

What a look was that darted from each startled and indignant face at
this encounter!  Both were speechless--both deadly pale; the muscles
frightfully rigid; the eyes--oh! who shall describe the lightnings of
their terrible eyes, glaring at each other like famished jaguars!

It was but a look, and they separated.

In that look of horror, of rage, of triumph, and despair, Cecil
concentrated all the hate and jealousy he felt, as well as all the
triumph in the pain he was inflicting--and Captain Heath all the
anguish at the discovery of his rival having passed the night in
Blanche's room, and despair at the irremediable destruction of all
his hopes.

Throughout the varied scenes of after life, that look was never
altogether forgotten; from time to time it would rise in the memory,
recalling with it all the poignant sensations which the emotions of
years could not efface.

Not a word passed between them.  The captain went into his room, and
closed the door.  Cecil crept to his room, and threw himself
undressed upon his bed; there, worn out with the excitement of the
last few hours, he sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Watching the flood of light gradually spreading over the sky;
watching, to use Browning's fine expression,

  Day, like a mighty river, flowing in,

Captain Heath sat forlorn at his window; sleepless, motionless,
hopeless.  Measuring, with cruel calmness, the wreck of all his
hopes; and, with stoic bitterness, the extent of his suffering.
Learning to look his misery in the face; learning to stifle every
vain regret; learning to bear with manly courage that which no
unmanly wailing could alleviate.

Before he rose, he felt with the poet, that

        Meeting what must be
  Is half commanding it.




CHAPTER XX.

CAPTAIN HEATH WATCHES OVER BLANCHE.

The next day, Blanche kept to her room, pleading illness.  Nothing
passed between Cecil and the captain; not even a look.  They
studiously avoided each other.

By mere accident, the captain overheard one of the grooms tell
another that he had seen Mr. Chamberlayne at the Crown Inn, that day.
It was a flash of light to him.  The visit to the Crown could only
have been for the purpose of securing a post-chaise.  He resolved to
watch.

During the evening, Cecil was as gay as usual, if not gayer; but he
was closely watched by the captain, and, when he retired for the
night, he made so many arrangements with Violet and Tom Wincot for
the morrow, that the captain's suspicions were confirmed:--

"They are to elope to-night," he said; and quietly stole out of the
house.

About two hundred yards from the lodge gates, beneath the shade of a
magnificent horse-chestnut, he espied, as he had anticipated, a
post-chaise in waiting.  He went up to the post-boy, and, holding up
a crown, he said,--

"Will you answer a question, if paid for it?"

"Why, sir, that depends upon the sort of question."

"You are employed by Mr. Chamberlayne ... I want to know whether you
are going towards London or Bristol.  Will you tell me?--five
shillings for you, if you tell me truly; broken bones on your return,
if you deceive me."

"Hm! you're not going to spoil my job?"

"Not I; I wish simply to know the fact."

"Well, then, hand here the money ... it's to London."

The captain trembled:--

"To London!  I thought so."

This information seemed to lend him an energy he had not felt for
some time--the energy necessary for a struggle.  Had Cecil been going
to Gretna Green, the captain would have suffered him to depart in
peace.  But certain suspicions of foul play had tormented him ever
since his meeting with Cecil at his bed-room door.

"The villain!" he said to himself.  "He has accomplished her ruin,
and now does not even intend to marry her.  But she has a protector,
thank God! ... I will shoot the reprobate this very night."

He moved away; and, retiring behind the hedge, carefully examined his
pistols, which he had brought with him, anticipating some use for
them.

Meanwhile, Cecil was placing the ladder for Blanche to descend.

"Hark ye!" said Captain Heath, again approaching the postilion.  "As
London is your route, I propose accompanying you.  There is a crown,
to ensure your blindness.  I shall get up behind.  When you arrive at
the first stage, you will promise to pass the word on to the
postilion who succeeds you; he shall have half-a-crown for his
silence; and so on, till we reach London.  Is it a bargain?"

"Ay, surely, sir."

"Well, I will walk on.  When you get beyond the village, and reach
the clump of fir trees that skirt the road to the right of Mrs. St.
John's--you know it?"

"Yes, sir."

"There some part of the harness must get out of order, and you must
dismount to set it right.  While doing so, I will get up behind, and
then you may drive on as fast as you please.  D'ye hear?"

"Yes, sir; all right."

"Let me add, by way of precaution, that, in case you should ride
past, or attempt to betray me, I am very capable of sending a bullet
through your head."

He drew out from his pocket one of his pistols, much to the
postilion's horror, and then replacing it said,--

"Now we understand each other."

He strode rapidly on, as he finished this speech, and was soon out of
sight.

The night is cold, and the postilion gets impatient; the more so as
the recent little conversation has not helped to raise his spirits.
To earn a crown by a facile blindness is tempting enough; but he has
an uneasy apprehension of something unpleasant; he dislikes the
company of one who carries pistols, and seems so determined to use
them on slight provocation.

But why tarry the lovers?  It is long past the appointed time.

Can they have been detected?--Is the elopement frustrated?

Captain Heath anxiously asks himself these questions; and perhaps the
reader shares his impatience.  He has a readier means of satisfying
his curiosity, however, than the captain had; for he has only to turn
to the next volume.



END OF VOL. I.



London: Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, Old Bailey.