My Novel; Or, Varieties in English Life

Chapter VII.

LEONARD had been about six weeks with his uncle, and those weeks were well spent. Mr. Richard had taken him to his counting-house, and initiated him into the business and the mysteries of double entry; and, in return, for the young man's readiness and zeal in matters which the acute trader instinctively felt were not exactly to his tastes, Richard engaged the best master the town afforded to read with his nephew in the evening. This gentleman was the head-usher of a large school—who had his hours to himself after eight o'clock—and was pleased to vary the dull routine of enforced lessons by instructions to a pupil who took delightedly—even to the Latin grammar. Leonard made rapid strides, and learned more in those six weeks than many a cleverish boy does in twice as many months. These hours which Leonard devoted to study Richard usually spent from home—sometimes at the houses of his grand acquaintances in the Abbey Gardens, sometimes in the Reading-room appropriated to those aristocrats. If he staid at home, it was in company with his head-clerk, and for the purpose of checking his account-books, or looking over the names of doubtful electors.

Leonard had naturally wished to communicate his altered prospects to his old friends, that they in turn might rejoice his mother with such good tidings. But he had not been two days in the house before Richard had strictly forbidden all such correspondence.

"Look you," said he, "at present we are on an experiment—we must see if we like each other. Suppose we don't, you will only have raised expectations in your mother which must end in bitter disappointment; and suppose we do, it will be time enough to write when something definite is settled."

"But my mother will be so anxious—"

"Make your mind easy on that score. I will write regularly to Mr. Dale, and he can tell her that you are well and thriving. No more words, my man—when I say a thing, I say it." Then, observing that Leonard looked blank and dissatisfied, Richard added, with a good-humored smile, "I have my reasons for all this—you shall know them later. And I tell you what, if you do as I bid you, it is my intention to settle something handsome on your mother; but if you don't, devil a penny she'll get from me."

With that Richard turned on his heel, and in a few moments his voice was heard loud in objurgation with some of his people.

About the fourth week of Leonard's residence at Mr. Avenel's, his host began to evince a certain change of manner. He was no longer quite so cordial with Leonard, nor did he take the same interest in his progress. About the same period he was frequently caught by the London butler before the looking-glass. He had always been a smart man in his dress, but he was now more particular. He would spoil three white cravats when he went out of an evening, before he could satisfy himself as to a tie. He also bought a peerage, and it became his favorite study at odd quarters of an hour. All these symptoms proceeded from a cause, and that cause was—Woman.

Chapter VIII.

The first people at Screwstown were indisputably the Pompleys. Colonel Pompley was grand, but Mrs. Pompley was grander. The Colonel was stately in right of his military rank and his services in India; Mrs. Pompley was majestic in right of her connections. Indeed, Colonel Pompley himself would have been crushed under the weight of the dignities which his lady heaped upon him, if he had not been enabled to prop his position with a "connection" of his own. He would never have held his own, nor been permitted to have an independent opinion on matters aristocratic, but for the well-sounding name of his relations, "the Digbies." Perhaps on the principle that obscurity increases the natural size of objects, and is an element of the Sublime, the Colonel did not too accurately define his relations "the Digbies;" he let it be casually understood that they were the Digbies to be found in Debrett. But if some indiscreet Vulgarian (a favorite word with both the Pompleys) asked point-blank if he meant "my Lord Digby," the Colonel, with a lofty air, answered—"The elder branch, sir." No one at Screwstown had ever seen these Digbies: they lay amidst the Far—the Recondite—even to the wife of Colonel Pompley's bosom. Now and then, when the Colonel referred to the lapse of years, and the uncertainty of human affections, he would say—"When young Digby and I were boys together," and then add with a sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interest secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part of the British dominions." Mrs Pompley was always rather cowed by the Digbies. She could not be skeptical as to this connection, for the Colonel's mother was certainly a Digby, and the Colonel impaled the Digby arms. En revanche, as the French say, for these marital connections, Mrs. Pompley had her own favorite affinity, which she specially selected from all others when she most desired to produce effect; nay, even upon ordinary occasions the name rose spontaneously to her lips—the name of the Honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. Was the fashion of a gown or cap admired, her cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had just sent to her the pattern from Paris. Was it a question whether the Ministry would stand, Mrs. M'Catchley was in the secret, but Mrs. Pompley had been requested not to say. Did it freeze, "my cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had written word that the icebergs at the Pole were supposed to be coming this way." Did the sun glow with more than usual fervor, Mrs. M'Catchley had informed her "that it was Sir Henry Halford's decided opinion that it was on account of the cholera." The good people knew all that was doing at London, at court, in this world—nay, almost in the other—through the medium of the Honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. Mrs. M'Catchley was, moreover, the most elegant of women, the wittiest creature, the dearest. King George the Fourth had presumed to admire Mrs. M'Catchley, but Mrs. M'Catchley, though no prude, let him see that she was proof against the corruptions of a throne. So long had the ears of Mrs. Pompley's friends been filled with the renown of Mrs. M'Catchley, that at last Mrs. M'Catchley was secretly supposed to be a myth, a creature of the elements, a poetic fiction of Mrs. Pompley's. Richard Avenel, however, though by no means a credulous man, was an implicit believer in Mrs. M'Catchley. He had learned that she was a widow—an honorable by birth, an honorable by marriage—living on her handsome jointure, and refusing offers every day that she so lived. Somehow or other, whenever Richard Avenel thought of a wife, he thought of the Honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. Perhaps that romantic attachment to the fair invisible preserved him heart-whole among the temptations of Screwstown. Suddenly, to the astonishment of the Abbey Gardens, Mrs. M'Catchley proved her identity, and arrived at Col. Pompley's in a handsome traveling-carriage, attended by her maid and footman. She had come to stay some weeks—a tea-party was given in her honor. Mr. Avenel and his nephew were invited. Colonel Pompley, who kept his head clear in the midst of the greatest excitement, had a desire to get from the Corporation a lease of a piece of ground adjoining his garden, and he no sooner saw Richard Avenel enter, than he caught him by the button, and drew him into a quiet corner in order to secure his interest. Leonard, meanwhile, was borne on by the stream, till his progress was arrested by a sofa table at which sat Mrs. M'Catchley herself, with Mrs. Pompley by her side. For on this great occasion the hostess had abandoned her proper post at the entrance, and, whether to show her respect to Mrs. M'Catchley, or to show Mrs. M'Catchley her well-bred contempt for the people of Screwstown, remained in state by her friend, honoring only the élite of the town with introductions to the illustrious visitor.

Mrs. M'Catchley was a very fine woman—a woman who justified Mrs. Pompley's pride in her. Her cheek-bones were rather high, it is true, but that proved the purity of her Caledonian descent; for the rest, she had a brilliant complexion, heightened by a soupçon of rouge—good eyes and teeth, a showy figure, and all the ladies of Screwstown pronounced her dress to be perfect. She might have arriven at that age at which one intends to stop for the next ten years, but even a Frenchman would not have called her passée—that is, for a widow. For a spinster, it would have been different.

Looking round her with a glass, which Mrs. Pompley was in the habit of declaring that "Mrs. M'Catchley used like an angel," this lady suddenly perceived Leonard Avenel; and his quiet, simple, thoughtful air and looks so contrasted with the stiff beaux to whom she had been presented, that experienced in fashion as so fine a personage must be supposed to be, she was nevertheless deceived into whispering to Mrs. Pompley—

"That young man has really an air distingué—who is he?"

"Oh," said Mrs. Pompley, in unaffected surprise, "that is the nephew of the rich Vulgarian I was telling you of this morning."

"Ah! and you say that he is Mr. Arundel's heir?"

"Avenel—not Arundel—my sweet friend."

"Avenel is not a bad name," said Mrs. M'Catchley. "But is the uncle really so rich?"

"The Colonel was trying this very day to guess what he is worth; but he says it is impossible to guess it."

"And the young man is his heir?"

"It is thought so: and reading for College, I hear. They say he is clever."

"Present him, my love; I like clever people," said Mrs. M'Catchley, falling back, languidly.

About ten minutes afterward, Richard Avenel, having effected his escape from the Colonel, and his gaze being attracted toward the sofa table by the buzz of the admiring crowd, beheld his nephew in animated conversation with the long-cherished idol of his dreams. A fierce pang of jealousy shot through his breast. His nephew had never looked so handsome and so intelligent; in fact, poor Leonard had never before been drawn out by a woman of the world, who had learned how to make the most of what little she knew. And, as jealousy operates like a pair of bellows on incipient flames, so, at first sight of the smile which the fair widow bestowed upon Leonard, the heart of Mr. Avenel felt in a blaze.

He approached with a step less assured than usual, and, overhearing Leonard's talk, marveled much at the boy's audacity. Mrs. M'Catchley had been speaking of Scotland and the Waverley Novels, about which Leonard knew nothing. But he knew Burns, and on Burns he grew artlessly eloquent. Burns the poet and peasant; Leonard might well be eloquent on him. Mrs. M'Catchley was amused and pleased with his freshness and naïveté, so unlike any thing she had ever heard or seen, and she drew him on and on, till Leonard fell to quoting: and Richard heard, with less respect for the sentiment than might be supposed, that

"Rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that."

"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel. "Pretty piece of politeness to tell that to a lady like the Honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. You'll excuse him, ma'am."

"Sir!" said Mrs. M'Catchley, startled, and lifting her glass. Leonard, rather confused, rose, and offered his chair to Richard, who dropped into it. The lady, without waiting for formal introduction, guessed that she saw the rich uncle.

"Such a sweet poet—Burns!" said she, dropping her glass. "And it is so refreshing to find so much youthful enthusiasm," she added, pointing her fan toward Leonard, who was receding fast among the crowd.

"Well, he is youthful, my nephew—rather green!"

"Don't say green!" said Mrs. M'Catchley. Richard blushed scarlet. He was afraid he had committed himself to some expression low and shocking. The lady resumed, "Say unsophisticated."

"A tarnation long word," thought Richard; but he prudently bowed, and held his tongue.

"Young men nowadays," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, resettling herself on the sofa, "affect to be so old. They don't dance, and they don't read, and they don't talk much; and a great many of them wear toupets before they are two-and-twenty!"

Richard mechanically passed his hand through his thick curls. But he was still mute; he was still ruefully chewing the cud of the epithet green. What occult horrid meaning did the word convey to ears polite? Why should he not say "green?"

"A very fine young man your nephew, sir," resumed Mrs. M'Catchley.

Richard grunted.

"And seems full of talent. Not yet at the University? Will he go to Oxford or Cambridge?"

"I have not made up my mind yet, if I shall send him to the University at all."

"A young man of his expectations!" exclaimed Mrs. M'Catchley, artfully.

"Expectations!" repeated Richard, firing up. "Has the boy been talking to you of his expectations?"

"No, indeed, sir. But the nephew of the rich Mr. Avenel. Ah, one hears a great deal, you know, of rich people; it is the penalty of wealth, Mr. Avenel!"

Richard was very much flattered. His crest rose.

"And they say," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, dropping out her words very slowly, as she adjusted her blonde scarf, "that Mr. Avenel has resolved not to marry."

"The devil they do, ma'am!" bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then, ashamed of his lapsus linguæ, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of indignant fire.

Mrs. M'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard turned abruptly, and she withdrew her eyes modestly, and raised the fan.

"She's a real beauty," said Richard, between his teeth.

The fan fluttered.

Five minutes afterward, the widow and the bachelor seemed so much at their ease that Mrs. Pompley—who had been forced to leave her friend, in order to receive the Dean's lady—could scarcely believe her eyes when she returned to the sofa.

Now, it was from that evening that Mr. Richard Avenel exhibited the change of mood which I have described. And from that evening he abstained from taking Leonard with him to any of the parties in the Abbey Gardens.

Chapter IX.

Some days after this memorable soirée, Colonel Pompley sat alone in his drawing-room (which opened pleasantly on an old-fashioned garden) absorbed in the house-bills. For Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care to his lady—perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley, with his own sonorous voice, ordered the joints, and with his own heroic hand dispensed the stores. In justice to the Colonel, I must add—at whatever risk of offense to the fair sex—that there was not a house at Screwstown so well managed as the Pompleys'; none which so successfully achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I should despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to which Colonel Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a year; and many a family contrive to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had, they spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas—just met, and no more.

Colonel Pompley sat at his desk. He was in his well-brushed blue coat—buttoned across his breast—his gray trowsers fitted tight to his limbs, and fastened under his boots with a link chain. He saved a great deal of money in straps. No one ever saw Colonel Pompley in dressing-gown and slippers. He and his house were alike in order—always fit to be seen—

"From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve."

The Colonel was a short compact man, inclined to be stout—with a very red face, that seemed not only shaved, but rasped. He wore his hair cropped close, except just in front where it formed what the hair-dresser called a feather; but it seemed a feather of iron, so stiff and so strong was it. Firmness and precision were emphatically marked on the Colonel's countenance. There was a resolute strain on his features, as if he was always employed in making the two ends meet!

So he sat before his house-book, with his steel pen in his hand, and making crosses here and notes of interrogation there. "Mrs. M'Catchley's maid," said the Colonel to himself, "must be put upon rations. The tea that she drinks! Good Heavens!—tea again!"

There was a modest ring at the outer door. "Too early for a visitor!" thought the Colonel. "Perhaps it is the Water-rates."

The neat man-servant—never seen, beyond the offices, save in grande tenue, plushed and powdered—entered, and bowed.

"A gentleman, sir, wishes to see you."

"A gentleman," repeated the Colonel, glancing toward the clock. "Are you sure it is a gentleman?"

The man hesitated. "Why, sir, I ben't exactly sure; but he speaks like a gentleman. He do say he comes from London to see you, sir."

A long and interesting correspondence was then being held between the Colonel and one of his wife's trustees, touching the investment of Mrs. Pompley's fortune. It might be the trustee—nay, it must be. The trustee had talked of running down to see him.

"Let him come in," said the Colonel; "and when I ring—sandwiches and sherry."

"Beef, sir?"

"Ham."

The Colonel put aside his house-book, and wiped his pen.

In another minute the door opened, and the servant announced—"Mr. Digby."

The Colonel's face fell, and he staggered back.

The door closed, and Mr. Digby stood in the middle of the room, leaning on the great writing-table for support. The poor soldier looked sicklier and shabbier, and nearer the end of all things in life and fortune, than when Lord L'Estrange had thrust the pocket-book into his hands. But still the servant showed knowledge of the world in calling him gentleman; there was no other word to apply to him.

"Sir," began Colonel Pompley, recovering himself, and with great solemnity, "I did not expect this pleasure."

The poor visitor stared round him dizzily, and sank into a chair, breathing hard. The Colonel looked as a man only looks upon a poor relation, and buttoned up first one trowser-pocket and then the other.

"I thought you were in Canada," said the Colonel at last.

Mr. Digby had now got breath to speak, and he said meekly, "The climate would have killed my child, and it is two years since I returned."

"You ought to have found a very good place in England, to make it worth your while to leave Canada."

"She could not have lived through another winter in Canada—the doctor said so."

"Pooh," quoth the Colonel.

Mr. Digby drew a long breath. "I would not come to you, Colonel Pompley, while you could think that I came as a beggar for myself."

The Colonel's brow relaxed. "A very honorable sentiment, Mr. Digby."

"No: I have gone through a great deal: but you see, Colonel," added the poor relation, with a faint smile, "the campaign is well-nigh over, and peace is at hand."

The Colonel seemed touched.

"Don't talk so, Digby—I don't like it. You are younger than I am—nothing more disagreeable than these gloomy views of things. You have got enough to live upon, you say—at least so I understand you. I am very glad to hear it; and, indeed, I could not assist you, so many claims on me. So it is all very well, Digby."

"Oh, Colonel Pompley," cried the soldier, clasping his hands, and with feverish energy, "I am a suppliant, not for myself, but my child! I have but one—only one—a girl. She has been so good to me. She will cost you little. Take her when I die; promise her a shelter—a home. I ask no more. You are my nearest relative. I have no other to look to. You have no children of your own. She will be a blessing to you, as she has been all upon earth to me!"

If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, no epithet sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express its color at this appeal. "The man's mad," he said at last, with a tone of astonishment that almost concealed his wrath, "stark mad! I take his child!—lodge and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''Tis a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children—never make both ends meet.' Child—the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the world—a child!"

"She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh, Colonel, let me see your wife. Her heart I can touch—she is a woman."

Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could not have put into his lips.

Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the Colonel's grand connections! The Colonel would never have been his own man again. At the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the door, with the intention of locking it. Good heavens, if Mrs. Pompley should come in! And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have learned already that a Digby was with her husband—she might be actually dressing to receive him worthily—there was not a moment to lose.

The Colonel exploded. "Sir, I wonder at your impudence. See Mrs. Pompley! Hush, sir, hush!—hold your tongue. I have disowned your connection. I will not have my wife—a woman, sir, of the first family—disgraced by it. Yes; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not a man to be bullied in his own house. I say disgraced. Did not you run into debt, and spend your fortune? Did not you marry a low creature—a vulgarian—a tradesman's daughter? and your poor father such a respectable man—a beneficed clergyman! Did not you sell your commission? Heaven knows what became of the money! Did not you turn (I shudder to say it) a common stage-player, sir? And then, when you were on your last legs, did I not give you £200 out of my own purse to go to Canada? And now here you are again—and ask me, with a coolness that—that takes away my breath—takes away—my breath, sir—to provide for the child you have thought proper to have; a child, whose connections on the mother's side are of the most abject and discreditable condition. Leave my house, leave it—good heavens, sir, not that way—this." And the Colonel opened the glass-door that led into the garden. "I will let you out this way. If Mrs. Pompley should see you!" And with that thought the Colonel absolutely hooked his arm into his poor relation's, and hurried him into the garden.

Mr. Digby said not a word, but he struggled ineffectually to escape from the Colonel's arm; and his color went and came, came and went, with a quickness that showed that in those shrunken veins there were still some drops of a soldier's blood.

But the Colonel had now reached a little postern-door in the garden wall. He opened the latch, and thrust out his poor cousin. Then, looking down the lane, which was long, straight, and narrow, and seeing it was quite solitary, his eye fell upon the forlorn man, and remorse shot through his heart. For a moment the hardest of all kinds of avarice, that of the genteel, relaxed its gripe. For a moment the most intolerant of all forms of pride, that which is based upon false pretenses, hushed its voice, and the Colonel hastily drew out his purse. "There," said he—"that is all I can do for you. Do leave the town as quick as you can, and don't mention your name to any one. Your father was such a respectable man—beneficed clergyman!"

"And paid for your commission, Mr. Pompley. My name!—I am not ashamed of it. But do not fear I shall claim your relationship. No; I am ashamed of you!"

The poor cousin put aside the purse, still stretched toward him, with a scornful hand, and walked firmly down the lane.

Colonel Pompley stood irresolute. At that moment a window in his house was thrown open. He heard the noise, turned round, and saw his wife looking out.

Colonel Pompley sneaked back through the shrubbery, hiding himself among the trees.

Chapter X.

"Ill-luck is a bêtise," said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and on the long run, I fear, his eminence was right. If you could drop Dick Avenel and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxford-street—Dick in a fustian jacket, Digby in a suit of superfine—Dick with five shillings in his pocket, Digby with a thousand pounds—and if, at the end of ten years, you looked up your two men, Dick would be on his road to fortune, Digby—what we have seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink, nor gamble. What was he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son—a spoiled child—brought up as "a gentleman;" that is, as a man who was not expected to be able to turn his hand to any thing. He entered, as we have seen, a very expensive regiment, wherein he found himself, at his father's death, with £4000 and the incapacity to say "No." Not naturally extravagant, but without an idea of the value of money—the easiest, gentlest, best-tempered man whom example ever led astray. This part of his career comprised a very common history—the poor man living on equal terms with the rich. Debt; recourse to usurers; bills signed sometimes for others, renewed at twenty per cent.; the £4000 melted like snow; pathetic appeal to relations; relations have children of their own; small help given grudgingly, eked out by much advice, and coupled with conditions. Among the conditions there was a very proper and prudent one—exchange into a less expensive regiment. Exchange effected; peace; obscure country quarters; ennui, flute-playing and idleness. Mr. Digby had no resources on a rainy day—except flute-playing; pretty girl of inferior rank; all the officers after her; Digby smitten; pretty girl very virtuous; Digby forms honorable intentions; excellent sentiments; imprudent marriage. Digby falls in life; colonel's lady will not associate with Mrs. Digby; Digby cut by his whole kith and kin; many disagreeable circumstances in regimental life; Digby sells out; love in a cottage; execution in ditto. Digby had been much applauded as an amateur actor; thinks of the stage; genteel comedy—a gentlemanlike profession. Tries in a provincial town, under another name; unhappily succeeds; life of an actor; hand-to-mouth life; illness; chest affected; Digby's voice becomes hoarse and feeble; not aware of it; attributes failing success to ignorant provincial public; appears in London; is hissed; returns to provinces; sinks into very small parts; prison; despair; wife dies; appeal again to relations; a subscription made to get rid of him; send him out of the country; place in Canada—superintendent to an estate, £150 a year; pursued by ill-luck; never before fit for business, not fit now; honest as the day, but keeps slovenly accounts; child can not bear the winter of Canada; Digby wrapped up in the child; return home; mysterious life for two years; child patient, thoughtful, loving; has learned to work; manages for father; often supports him; constitution rapidly breaking; thought of what will become of this child—worst disease of all. Poor Digby! Never did a base, cruel, unkind thing in his life; and here he is, walking down the lane from Colonel Pompley's house! Now, if Digby had but learned a little of the world's cunning, I think he would have succeeded even with Colonel Pompley. Had he spent the £100 received from Lord Estrange with a view to effect—had he bestowed a fitting wardrobe on himself and his pretty Ellen; had he stopped at the last stage, taken thence a smart chaise and pair, and presented himself at Colonel Pompley's in a way that would not have discredited the Colonel's connection, and then, instead of praying for home and shelter, asked the Colonel to become guardian to his child in case of his death, I have a strong notion that the Colonel, in spite of his avarice, would have stretched both ends so as to take in Helen Digby. But our poor friend had no such arts. Indeed, of the £100, he had already very little left, for before leaving town he had committed what Sheridan considered the extreme of extravagance—frittered away his money in paying his debts; and as for dressing up Helen and himself—if that thought had ever occurred to him, he would have rejected it as foolish. He would have thought that the more he showed his poverty, the more he would be pitied—the worst mistake a poor cousin can commit. According to Theophrastus, the partridge of Paphlagonia has two hearts; so have most men: it is the common mistake of the unlucky to knock at the wrong one.

Chapter XI.

Mr. Digby entered the room of the inn in which he had left Helen. She was seated by the window, and looking out wistfully on the narrow street, perhaps at the children at play. There had never been a playtime for Helen Digby. She sprang forward as her father came in. His coming was her holiday.

"We must go back to London," said Mr. Digby, sinking helplessly on the chair. Then with his sort of sickly smile—for he was bland even to his child—"Will you kindly inquire when the first coach leaves?"

All the active cares of their careful life devolved upon that quiet child. She kissed her father, placed before him a cough mixture which he had brought from London, and went out silently to make the necessary inquiries, and prepare for the journey back.

At eight o'clock the father and child were seated in the night-coach, with one other passenger—a man muffled up to the chin. After the first mile, the man let down one of the windows. Though it was summer, the air was chill and raw. Digby shivered and coughed.

Helen placed her hand on the window, and, leaning toward the passenger, whispered softly.

"Eh!" said the passenger, "draw up the windows? You have got your own window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is the breath of life. Cott, child!" he continued, with suppressed choler, and a Welsh pronunciation, "Cott! let us breathe and live."

Helen was frightened, and recoiled.

Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded this colloquy, retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed again.

"It is cold, my dear," said he languidly to Helen.

The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if soliloquizing—

"Cold—ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at their four-post beds?—all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board before the chimney—not a house with a ventilator! Cold—ugh!"

The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame.

"There is a sad draught," said the invalid.

Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the chinks of the window with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window. The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveler's spleen.

"Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I don't interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with mine."

"Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby meekly.

"But Miss here did."

"Ah, sir!" said Helen plaintively, "if you knew how papa suffers!" And her hand again moved toward the obnoxious window.

"No, my dear: the gentleman is in his right," said Mr. Digby; and, bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, "Excuse her, sir. She thinks a great deal too much of me."

The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and strove to screen him from the air.

The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort, "air is air, and right is right; but here goes"—and he hastily drew up the window.

Helen turned her face full toward the passenger with a grateful expression, visible even in the dim light.

"You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby: "I am ashamed to"—his cough choked the rest of the sentence.

The passenger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man felt as if he were stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero.

Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand on his wrist.

"You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St!—one—two. Cott! you should not travel; you are not fit for it!"

Mr. Digby shook his head; he was too feeble to reply.

The passenger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drew out what seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a leathern repertory, containing a variety of minute vials, from one of these vials he extracted two tiny globules. "There," said he; "open your mouth—put those on the tip of your tongue. They will lower the pulse—check the fever. Be better presently—but should not travel—want rest—you should be in bed. Aconite!—Henbane!—hum! Your papa is of fair complexion—a timid character, I should say—a horror of work, perhaps. Eh, child?"

"Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed—Was the man a conjurer?

"A case for phosphor!" cried the passenger; "that fool Browne would have said arsenic. Don't be persuaded to take arsenic."

"Arsenic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No; however unfortunate a man may be, I think, sir, that suicide is—tempting, perhaps, but highly criminal."

"Suicide," said the passenger tranquilly—"suicide is my hobby! You have no symptom of that kind, you say?"

"Good heavens! No, sir."

"If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, take pulsatilla. But if you feel a preference toward blowing out your brains, accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss of appetite, dry cough, and bad corns—sulphuret of antimony. Don't forget."

Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the gentleman was out of his mind, yet he tried politely to say "that he was much obliged, and would be sure to remember;" but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas grew perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a silence which seemed that of sleep.

The traveler looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew her father's head on her shoulder, and there pillowed it with a tenderness which was more that of mother than child.

"Moral affections—soft—compassionate!—a good child, and would go well with—pulsatilla."

Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father to the traveler, and then to her father again.

"Certainly—pulsatilla!" muttered the homeopathist: and, ensconcing himself in his own corner, he also sought to sleep. But after vain efforts, accompanied by restless gestures and movements, he suddenly started up, and again extracted his vial-book.

"What the deuce are they to me?" he muttered. "Morbid sensibility of character—coffee?? No!—accompanied by vivacity and violence—nux!" He brought his book to the window, contrived to read the label on a pigmy bottle. "Nux! that's it," he said—and he swallowed a globule!

"Now," quoth he, after a pause, "I don't care a straw for the misfortunes of other people; nay, I have half a mind to let down the window."

Helen looked up.

"But I won't," he added, resolutely; and this time he fell fairly asleep.

Chapter XII.

The coach stopped at eleven o'clock, to allow the passengers to sup. The homeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the fresh air into his vigorous lungs, with an evident sensation of delight. He then turned and looked into the coach:

"Let your father get out, my dear," said he, with a tone more gentle than usual. "I should like to see him in-doors—perhaps I can do him good."

But what was Helen's terror when she found that her father did not stir. He was in a deep swoon, and still quite insensible when they lifted him from the carriage. When he recovered his senses, his cough returned, and the effort brought up blood.

It was impossible for him to proceed further. The homeopathist assisted to undress and put him into bed. And having administered another of his mysterious globules, he inquired of the landlady how far it was to the nearest doctor—for the inn stood by itself in a small hamlet. There was the parish apothecary three miles off. But on hearing that the gentlefolks employed Dr. Dosewell, and it was a good seven miles to his house, the homeopathist fetched a deep breath. The coach only stopped a quarter of an hour.

"Cott!" said he angrily to himself—"the nux was a failure. My sensibility is chronic. I must go through a long course to get rid of it. Hallo, guard! get out my carpet-bag. I shan't go on to-night."

And the good man, after a very slight supper, went up-stairs again to the sufferer.

"Shall I send for Dr. Dosewell, sir?" asked the landlady, stopping him at the door.

"Hum! At what hour to-morrow does the next coach to London pass?"

"Not before eight, sir."

"Well, send for the doctor to be here at seven. That leaves us at least some hours free from allopathy and murder," grunted the disciple of Hahnemann, as he entered the room.

Whether it was the globule that the homeopathist had administered, or the effect of nature, aided by repose, that checked the effusion of blood, and restored some temporary strength to the poor sufferer, is more than it becomes one not of the Faculty to opine. But certainly Mr. Digby seemed better, and he gradually fell into a profound sleep, but not till the doctor had put his ear to his chest, tapped it with his hand, and asked several questions; after which the homeopathist retired into a corner of the room, and, leaning his face on his hand, seemed to meditate. From his thoughts he was disturbed by a gentle touch. Helen was kneeling at his feet.

"Is he very ill—very?" said she; and her fond wistful eyes were fixed on the physician's with all the earnestness of despair.

"Your father is very ill," replied the doctor, after a short pause. "He can not move hence for some days at least. I am going to London—shall I call on your relations, and tell some of them to join you?"

"No, thank you, sir," answered Helen, coloring. "But do not fear; I can nurse papa. I think he has been worse before—that is, he has complained more."

The homeopathist rose and took two strides across the room, then he paused by the bed, and listened to the breathing of the sleeping man.

He stole back to the child, who was still kneeling, took her in his arms, and kissed her. "Tamm it," said he, angrily, and putting her down, "go to bed now—you are not wanted any more."

"Please, sir," said Helen, "I can not leave him so. If he wakes he would miss me."

The doctor's hand trembled; he had recourse to his globules. "Anxiety, grief suppressed," muttered he. "Don't you want to cry, my dear? Cry—do!"

"I can't," murmured Helen.

"Pulsatilla!" said the doctor, almost with triumph. "I said so from the first. Open your mouth—here! Good night. My room is opposite—No. 6; call me if he wakes."

Chapter XIII.

At seven o'clock Dr. Dosewell arrived, and was shown into the room of the homeopathist, who, already up and dressed, had visited his patient.

"My name is Morgan," said the homeopathist—"I am a physician. I leave in your hands a patient whom, I fear, neither I nor you can restore. Come and look at him."

The two doctors went into the sick-room. Mr. Digby was very feeble, but he had recovered his consciousness, and inclined his head courteously.

"I am sorry to cause so much trouble," said he. The homeopathist drew away Helen; the allopathist seated himself by the bedside and put his questions, felt the pulse, sounded the lungs, and looked at the tongue of the patient. Helen's eye was fixed on the strange doctor, and her color rose, and her eye sparkled when he got up cheerfully, and said in a pleasant voice, "You may have a little tea."

"Tea!" growled the homeopathist—"barbarian!"

"He is better, then, sir?" said Helen, creeping to the allopathist.

"Oh, yes, my dear—certainly; and we shall do very well, I hope."

The two doctors then withdrew.

"Last about a week!" said Dr. Dosewell, smiling pleasantly, and showing a very white set of teeth.

"I should have said a month; but our systems are different," replied Dr. Morgan, drily.

Dr. Dosewell (courteously).—"We country doctors bow to our metropolitan superiors; what would you advise? You would venture, perhaps, the experiment of bleeding."

Dr. Morgan (spluttering and growing Welsh, which he never did but in excitement).—"Pleed! Cott in heaven! do you think I am a butcher—an executioner? Plead! Never."

Dr. Dosewell.—"I don't find it answer myself, when both lungs are gone! But perhaps you are for inhaling."

Dr. Morgan.—"Fiddledee!"

Dr. Dosewell (with some displeasure).—"What would you advise, then, in order to prolong our patient's life for a month?"

Dr. Morgan.—"Stop the hæmoptysis—give him Rhus!"

Dr. Dosewell.—"Rhus, sir! Rhus! I don't know that medicine. Rhus!"

Dr. Morgan.—"Rhus Toxicodendron."

The length of the last word excited Dr. Dosewell's respect. A word of five syllables—this was something like! He bowed deferentially, but still looked puzzled. At last he said, smiling frankly, "You great London practitioners have so many new medicines; may I ask what Rhus toxico—toxico—"

"Dendron."

"Is?"

"The juice of the Upas—vulgarly called the Poison-tree."

Dr. Dosewell started.

"Upas—poison-tree—little birds that come under the shade fall down dead! You give upas juice in hæmoptysis—what's the dose?"

Dr. Morgan grinned maliciously, and produced a globule the size of a small pin's head.

Dr. Dosewell recoiled in disgust.

"Oh!" said he, very coldly, and assuming at once an air of superb superiority, "I see, a homeopathist, sir!"

"A homeopathist!"

"Um!"

"Um!"

"A strange system, Dr. Morgan," said Dr. Dosewell, recovering his cheerful smile, but with a curl of contempt in it, "and would soon do for the druggists."

"Serve 'em right. The druggists soon do for the patients."

"Sir!"

"Sir!"

Dr. Dosewell (with dignity).—"You don't know, perhaps, Dr. Morgan, that I am an apothecary as well as a surgeon. In fact," he added, with a certain grand humility, "I have not yet taken a diploma, and am but Doctor by courtesy."

Dr. Morgan.—"All one, sir! Doctor signs the death warrant—'pothecary does the deed!"

Dr. Dosewell. (with a withering sneer).—"Certainly we don't profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree."

Dr. Morgan (complacently).—"Of course you don't. There are no poisons with us. That's just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell!"

Dr. Dosewell (pointing to the homeopathist's traveling pharmacopœia, and with affected candor).—"Indeed, I have always said that if you can do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals."

Dr. Morgan, who had been obtuse to the insinuation of poisoning, fires up violently at the charge of doing no harm.

"You know nothing about it! I could kill quite as many people as you, if I chose it; but I don't choose."

Dr. Dosewell (shrugging up his shoulders).—"Sir! 'tis no use arguing; the thing's against common sense. In short, it is my firm belief that it is—is a complete—"

Dr. Morgan.—"A complete what?"

Dr. Dosewell (provoked to the utmost).—"Humbug!"

Dr. Morgan.—"Humbug! Cott in heaven! You old—"

Dr. Dosewell.—"Old what, sir?"

Dr. Morgan (at home in a series of alliteral vowels, which none but a Cymbrian could have uttered without gasping).—"Old allopathical anthropophagite!"

Dr. Dosewell (starting up, seizing by the back the chair on which he had sat, and bringing it down violently on its four legs).—"Sir!"

Dr. Morgan, (imitating the action with his own chair).—"Sir!"

Dr. Dosewell.—"You're abusive."

Dr. Morgan.—"You're impertinent."

Dr. Dosewell.—"Sir!"

Dr. Morgan.—"Sir!"

The two rivals fronted each other.

They were both athletic men, and fiery men. Dr. Dosewell was the taller, but Dr. Morgan was the stouter. Dr. Dosewell on the mother's side was Irish; but Dr. Morgan on both sides was Welsh. All things considered, I would have backed Dr. Morgan if it had come to blows. But, luckily for the honor of science, here the chamber-maid knocked at the door, and said, "The coach is coming, sir."

Dr. Morgan recovered his temper and his manners at that announcement. "Dr. Dosewell," said he, "I have been too hot—I apologize."

"Dr. Morgan," answered the allopathist, "I forgot myself. Your hand, sir."

Dr. Morgan.—"We are both devoted to humanity, though with different opinions. We should respect each other."

Dr. Dosewell.—"Where look for liberality, if men of science are illiberal to their brethren?"

Dr. Morgan (aside).—"The old hypocrite! He would pound me in a mortar if the law would let him."

Dr. Dosewell (aside).—"The wretched charlatan! I should like to pound him in a mortar."

Dr. Morgan.—"Good-by, my esteemed and worthy brother."

Dr. Dosewell.—"My excellent friend, good-by."

Dr. Morgan (returning in haste).—"I forgot. I don't think our poor patient is very rich. I confide him to your disinterested benevolence."—(Hurries away.)

Dr. Dosewell (in a rage).—"Seven miles at six o'clock in the morning, and perhaps done out of my fee! Quack! Villain!"

Meanwhile, Dr. Morgan had returned to the sick-room.

"I must wish you farewell," said he to poor Mr. Digby, who was languidly sipping his tea. "But you are in the hands of a—of a—gentleman in the profession."

"You have been too kind—I am shocked," said Mr. Digby. "Helen, where's my purse?"

Dr. Morgan paused.

He paused, first, because it must be owned that his practice was restricted, and a fee gratified the vanity natural to unappreciated talent, and had the charm of novelty, which is sweet to human nature itself. Secondly, he was a man "Who knew his rights, and, knowing, dared maintain." He had resigned a coach fare—staid a night—and thought he had relieved his patient. He had a right to his fee.

On the other hand he paused, because, though he had small practice, he was tolerably well off, and did not care for money itself, and he suspected his patient to be no Crœsus.

Meanwhile, the purse was in Helen's hand. He took it from her, and saw but a few sovereigns within the well-worn net-work. He drew the child a little aside.

"Answer me, my dear, frankly—is your papa rich?" And he glanced at the shabby clothes strewed on the chair, and Helen's faded frock.

"Alas, no!" said Helen, hanging her head.

"Is that all you have?"

"All."

"I am ashamed to offer you two guineas," said Mr. Digby's hollow voice from the bed.

"And I should be still more ashamed to take them. Good-by, sir. Come here, my child. Keep your money, and don't waste it on the other doctor more than you can help. His medicines can do your father no good. But I suppose you must have some. He's no physician, therefore there's no fee. He'll send a bill—it can't be much. You understand. And now, God bless you."

Dr. Morgan was off. But as he paid the landlady his bill he said, considerately, "The poor people up-stairs can pay you, but not that doctor—and he's of no use. Be kind to the little girl, and get the doctor to tell his patient (quietly, of course) to write to his friends—soon—you understand. Somebody must take charge of the poor child. And stop—hold your hand; take care—these globules for the little girl when her father dies—(here the Doctor muttered to himself, 'grief;—aconite')—and if she cries too much afterward—these (don't mistake). Tears;—caustic!"

"Come, sir," cried the coachman.

"Coming;—tears—caustic," repeated the homeopathist, pulling out his handkerchief and his vial-book together as he got into the coach. And he hastily swallowed his anti-lachrymal.

Chapter XIV.

Richard Avenel was in a state of great nervous excitement. He proposed to give an entertainment of a kind wholly new to the experience of Screwstown. Mrs. M'Catchley had described with much eloquence the déjeûnés dansants of her fashionable friends residing in the elegant suburbs of Wimbledon and Fulham. She declared that nothing was so agreeable. She had even said point-blank to Mr. Avenel, "Why don't you give a déjeûné dansant?" And, therewith, a déjeûné dansant Mr. Avenel resolved to give.

The day was fixed, and Mr. Avenel entered into all the requisite preparations with the energy of a man and the providence of a woman.

One morning as he stood musing on the lawn, irresolute as to the best site for the tents, Leonard came up to him with an open letter in his hand.

"My dear uncle," said he, softly.

"Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel, with a start. "Ha—well—what now?"

"I have just received a letter from Mr. Dale. He tells me that my poor mother is very restless and uneasy, because he can not assure her that he has heard from me; and his letter requires an answer. Indeed, I shall seem very ungrateful to him—to all—if I do not write."

Richard Avenel's brows met. He uttered an impatient "pish!" and turned away. Then coming back, he fixed his clear, hawk-like eye on Leonard's ingenuous countenance, linked his arm in his nephew's, and drew him into the shrubbery.

"Well, Leonard," said he, after a pause, "it is time that I should give you some idea of my plans with regard to you. You have seen my manner of living—some difference from what you ever saw before, I calculate! Now I have given you, what no one gave me, a lift in the world; and where I place you, there you must help yourself."

"Such is my duty, and my desire," said Leonard, heartily.

"Good. You are a clever lad, and a genteel lad, and will do me credit. I have had doubts of what is best for you. At one time I thought of sending you to College. That, I know, is Mr. Dale's wish; perhaps it is your own. But I have given up that idea; I have something better for you. You have a clear head for business, and are a capital arithmetician. I think of bringing you up to superintend my business; by-and-by I will admit you into partnership; and before you are thirty you will be a rich man. Come, does that suit you?"

"My dear uncle," said Leonard, frankly, but much touched by this generosity, "it is not for me to have a choice. I should have preferred going to College, because there I might gain independence for myself, and cease to be a burden on you. Moreover, my heart moves me to studies more congenial with the college than the counting-house. But all this is nothing compared with my wish to be of use to you, and to prove in any way, however feebly, my gratitude for all your kindness."

"You're a good, grateful, sensible lad," exclaimed Richard, heartily; "and believe me, though I'm a rough diamond, I have your true interest at heart. You can be of use to me, and in being so you will best serve yourself. To tell you the truth, I have some idea of changing my condition. There's a lady of fashion and quality who, I think, may condescend to become Mrs. Avenel; and if so, I shall probably reside a great part of the year in London. I don't want to give up my business. No other investment will yield the same interest. But you can soon learn to superintend it for me, as some day or other I may retire, and then you can step in. Once a member of our great commercial class, and with your talents, you may be any thing—member of parliament, and after that, minister of state, for what I know. And my wife—hem!—that is to be—has great connections, and you shall marry well; and—oh, the Avenels will hold their heads with the highest, after all! Damn the aristocracy—we clever fellows will be the aristocrats—eh!" Richard rubbed his hands.

Certainly, as we have seen, Leonard, especially in his earlier steps to knowledge, had repined at his position in the many degrees of life—certainly he was still ambitious—certainly he could not now have returned contentedly to the humble occupation he had left; and woe to the young man who does not hear with a quickened pulse, and brightening eye, words that promise independence, and flatter with the hope of distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of chill and mournful disappointment that Leonard, a few hours after this dialogue with his uncle, found himself alone in the fields, and pondering over the prospects before him. He had set his heart upon completing his intellectual education, upon developing those powers within him which yearned for an arena of literature, and revolted from the routine of trade. But to his credit be it said that he vigorously resisted this natural disappointment, and by degrees schooled himself to look cheerfully on the path imposed on his duty, and sanctioned by the manly sense that was at the core of his character.

I believe that this self-conquest showed that the boy had true genius. The false genius would have written sonnets and despaired.

But still Richard Avenel left his nephew sadly perplexed as to the knotty question from which their talk on the future had diverged—viz., should he write to the Parson; and assure the fears of his mother? How do so without Richard's consent, when Richard had on a former occasion so imperiously declared that, if he did, it would lose his mother all that Richard intended to settle on her. While he was debating this matter with his conscience, leaning against a stile that interrupted a path to the town, Leonard Fairfield was startled by an exclamation. He looked up, and beheld Mr. Sprott the tinker.

Chapter XV.

The tinker, blacker and grimmer than ever, stared hard at the altered person of his old acquaintance, and extended his sable fingers, as if inclined to convince himself by the sense of touch, that it was Leonard in the flesh that he beheld, under vestments so marvelously elegant and preternaturally spruce.

Leonard shrank mechanically from the contact, while in great surprise he faltered—

"You here, Mr. Sprott! What could bring you so far from home?"

"'Ome!" echoed the tinker, "I 'as no 'ome! or rayther, d'ye see, Muster Fairfilt, I makes myself at 'ome verever I goes! Lor' love ye, I ben't settled on no parridge. I vanders here and I vanders there, and that's my 'ome verever I can mend my kettles, and sell my tracks!"

So saying the tinker slid his paniers on the ground, gave a grunt of release and satisfaction, and seated himself with great composure on the stile, from which Leonard had retreated.

"But, dash my vig," resumed Mr. Sprott, as he once more surveyed Leonard, "vy, you bees a rale gentleman now, surely! Vot's the dodge—eh?"—

"Dodge!" repeated Leonard mechanically—"I don't understand you." Then, thinking that it was neither necessary nor expedient to keep up his acquaintance with Mr. Sprott, nor prudent to expose himself to the battery of questions which he foresaw that further parley would bring upon him, he extended a crown-piece to the tinker; and saying with a half smile, "You must excuse me for leaving you—I have business in the town; and do me the favor to accept this trifle," he walked briskly off.

The tinker looked long at the crown-piece, and then sliding it into his pocket, said to himself—

"Ho—'ush-money! No go, my swell cove."

After venting that brief soliloquy he sat silent a little while, till Leonard was nearly out of sight, then rose, resumed his fardel, and, creeping quick along the hedgerows, followed Leonard toward the town. Just in the last field, as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard accosted by a gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling loud, up the path, and straight toward the tinker. Mr. Sprott looked round, but the hedge was too neat to allow of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold front on it, and stepped forth like a man. But, alas for him! before he got into the public path, the proprietor of the land, Mr. Richard Avenel (for the gentleman was no less a personage), had spied out the trespasser, and called to him with a "Hillo, fellow," that bespoke all the dignity of a man who owns acres, and all the wrath of a man who beholds those acres impudently invaded.

The tinker stopped, and Mr. Avenel stalked up to him.

"What the devil are you doing on my property, lurking by my hedge? I suspect you are an incendiary!"

"I be a tinker," quoth Mr. Sprott, not louting low (for a sturdy republican was Mr. Sprott), but like a lord of humankind,

"Pride in his port, defiance in his eye."

Mr. Avenel's fingers itched to knock the tinker's villainous hat off his Jacobinical head, but he repressed the undignified impulse by thrusting both hands deep into his trowsers' pockets.

"A tinker!" he cried—"that's a vagrant, and I'm a magistrate, and I've a great mind to send you to the treadmill—that I have. What do you do here, I say? You have not answered my question?"

"What does I do 'ere?" said Mr. Sprott. "Vy, you had better ax my crakter of the young gent I saw you talking with just now; he knows me!"

"What! my nephew know you?"

"W—hew," whistled the tinker, "your nephew is it, sir? I have a great respek for your family. I've knowed Mrs. Fairfilt, the vasher-voman, this many a year. I 'umbly ax your pardon." And he took off his hat this time.

Mr. Avenel turned red and white in a breath. He growled out something inaudible, turned on his heel, and strode off. The tinker watched him as he had watched Leonard, and then dogged the uncle as he had dogged the nephew. I don't presume to say that there was cause and effect in what happened that night, but it was what is called "a curious coincidence" that that night one of Richard Avenel's ricks was set on fire; and that that day he had called Mr. Sprott an incendiary. Mr. Sprott was a man of very high spirit and did not forgive an insult easily. His nature was inflammatory, and so was that of the lucifers which he always carried about him, with his tracts and glue-pots.

The next morning there was an inquiry made for the tinker, but he had disappeared from the neighborhood.

Chapter XVI.

It was a fortunate thing that the déjeûné dansant so absorbed Mr. Richard Avenel's thoughts, that even the conflagration of his rick could not scare away the graceful and poetic images connected with that pastoral festivity. He was even loose and careless in the questions he put to Leonard about the tinker; nor did he set justice in pursuit of that itinerant trader; for, to say truth, Richard Avenel was a man accustomed to make enemies among the lower orders; and though he suspected Mr. Sprott of destroying his rick, yet, when he once set about suspecting, he found he had quite as good cause to suspect fifty other persons. How on earth could a man puzzle himself about ricks and tinkers, when all his cares and energies were devoted to a déjeûné dansant? It was a maxim of Richard Avenel's, as it ought to be of every clever man, "to do one thing at a time;" and therefore he postponed all other considerations till the déjeûné dansant was fairly done with. Among these considerations was the letter which Leonard wished to write to the Parson. "Wait a bit, and we will both write!" said Richard good-humoredly, "the moment the déjeûné dansant is over!"

It must be owned that this fête was no ordinary provincial ceremonial. Richard Avenel was a man to do a thing well when he set about it,

"He soused the cabbage with a bounteous heart."

By little and little his first notions had expanded, till what had been meant to be only neat and elegant now embraced the costly and magnificent. Artificers accustomed to déjeûnés dansants came all the way from London to assist, to direct, to create. Hungarian singers, and Tyrolese singers, and Swiss peasant-women who were to chant the Ranz des Vaches, and milk cows, or make syllabubs, were engaged. The great marquee was decorated as a Gothic banquet hall; the breakfast itself was to consist of "all the delicacies of the season." In short, as Richard Avenel said to himself, "It is a thing once in a way; a thing on which I don't object to spend money, provided that the thing is—the thing!"

It had been a matter of grave meditation how to make the society worthy of the revel; for Richard Avenel was not contented with the mere aristocracy of the town—his ambition had grown with his expenses. "Since it will cost so much," said he, "I may as well come it strong, and get in the county."

True, that he was personally acquainted with very few of what are called county families. But still, when a man makes himself of mark in a large town, and can return one of the members whom that town sends to parliament; and when, moreover, that man proposes to give some superb and original entertainment, in which the old can eat and the young can dance, there is no county in the island that has not families enow who will be delighted by an invitation from that man. And so Richard, finding that, as the thing got talked of, the Dean's lady, and Mrs. Pompley, and various other great personages, took the liberty to suggest that Squire this, and Sir Somebody that, would be so pleased if they were asked, fairly took the bull by the horns, and sent out his cards to Park, Hall, and Rectory, within a circumference of twelve miles. He met with but few refusals, and he now counted upon five hundred guests.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," said Mr. Richard Avenel. "I wonder what Mrs. M'Catchley will say?" Indeed, if the whole truth must be known, Mr. Richard Avenel not only gave that déjeûné dansant in honor of Mrs. M'Catchley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that occasion (when surrounded by all his splendor, and assisted by the seductive arts of Terpsichore and Bacchus), to whisper to Mrs. M'Catchley those soft words which—but why not here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his own idiomatic and unsophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then," said Mr. Avenel to himself, "I shall pop the question!"

Chapter XVII.

The Great Day arrived at last; and Mr. Richard Avenel, from his dressing-room window looked on the scene below, as Hannibal or Napoleon looked from the Alps on Italy. It was a scene to gratify the thought of conquest and reward the labors of ambition. Placed on a little eminence stood the singers from the mountains of the Tyrol, their high-crowned hats and filagree buttons and gay sashes gleaming in the sun. Just seen from his place of watch, though concealed from the casual eye, the Hungarian musicians lay in ambush amidst a little belt of laurels and American shrubs. Far to the right lay what had once been called (hor resco referens) the duck-pond, where—Dulce sonant tenui gutture carmen aves. But the ruthless ingenuity of the head artificer had converted the duck-pond into a Swiss lake, despite grievous wrong and sorrow to the assuetum innocuumque genus—the familiar and harmless habitants, who had been all expatriated and banished from their native waves. Large poles twisted with fir branches, stuck thickly around the lake, gave to the waters the becoming Helvetian gloom. And here, beside three cows all bedecked with ribbons, stood the Swiss maidens destined to startle the shades with the Ranz des Vaches. To the left, full upon the sward, which it almost entirely covered, stretched the great Gothic marquee, divided into two grand sections—one for the dancing, one for the déjeûné.

The day was propitious—not a cloud in the sky. The musicians were already tuning their instruments; figures of waiters—hired of Gunter—trim and decorous, in black trowsers and white waistcoats, passed to and fro the space between the house and marquee. Richard looked and looked; and as he looked he drew mechanically his razor across the strop; and when he had looked his fill, he turned reluctantly to the glass and shaved! All that blessed morning he had been too busy, till then, to think of shaving.

There is a vast deal of character in the way that a man performs that operation of shaving! You should have seen Richard Avenel shave! You could have judged at once how he would shave his neighbors, when you saw the celerity, the completeness with which he shaved himself—a forestroke and a backstroke, and tondenti barba cadebat! Cheek and chin were as smooth as glass. You would have buttoned up your pockets instinctively if you had seen him.

But the rest of Mr. Avenel's toilet was not completed with correspondent dispatch. On his bed, and on his chairs, and on his sofa, and on his drawers, lay trowsers, and vests, and cravats, enough to distract the choice of a Stoic. And first one pair of trowsers was tried on, and then another—and one waistcoat, and then a second, and then a third. Gradually that chef d'œuvre of Civilization—a man dressed—grew into development and form; and, finally, Mr. Richard Avenel emerged into the light of day. He had been lucky in his costume—he felt it. It might not suit every one in color or cut, but it suited him.

And this was his garb. On such occasions, what epic poet would not describe the robe and tunic of a hero?

His surtout—in modern phrase, his frockcoat—was blue, a rich blue, a blue that the royal brothers of George the Fourth were wont to favor. And the surtout, single-breasted, was thrown open gallantly; and in the second button-hole thereof was a moss rose. The vest was white, and the trowsers a pearl-gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-colored kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear complexion, his keen, bright eye, and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and alertness of his character—that is to say, features bold, not large, well-defined, and regular—you might walk long through town or country before you would see a handsomer specimen of humanity than our friend Richard Avenel.

Handsome, and feeling that he was handsome; rich, and feeling that he was rich; lord of the fête, and feeling that he was lord of the fête, Richard Avenel stepped out upon his lawn.

And now the dust began to rise along the road, and carriages, and gigs, and chaises, and flies might be seen at near intervals and in quick procession. People came pretty much about the same time—as they do in the country—heaven reward them for it!

Richard Avenel was not quite at his ease at first in receiving his guests, especially those whom he did not know by sight. But when the dancing began, and he had secured the fair hand of Mrs. M'Catchley for the initiatory quadrille, his courage and presence of mind returned to him; and, seeing that many people whom he had not received at all seemed to enjoy themselves very much, he gave up the attempt to receive those who came after—and that was a great relief to all parties.

Meanwhile Leonard looked on the animated scene with a silent melancholy, which he in vain endeavored to shake off—a melancholy more common among very young men in such scenes than we are apt to suppose. Somehow or other the pleasure was not congenial to him; he had no Mrs. M'Catchley to endear it; he knew very few people; he was shy; he felt his position with his uncle was equivocal; he had not the habit of society; he heard incidentally many an ill-natured remark upon his uncle and the entertainment; he felt indignant and mortified. He had been a great deal happier eating his radishes and reading his book by the little fountain in Riccabocca's garden. He retired to a quiet part of the grounds, seated himself under a tree, leaned his cheek on his hand, and mused. He was soon far away—happy age, when, whatever the present, the future seems so fair and so infinite!

But now the déjeûné had succeeded the earlier dances; and, as champagne flowed royally, it is astonishing how the entertainment brightened.

The sun was beginning to slope toward the west, when, during a temporary cessation of the dance, all the guests had assembled in such space as the tent left on the lawn, or thickly filled the walks immediately adjoining it. The gay dresses of the ladies, the joyous laughter heard every where, and the brilliant sunlight over all, conveyed even to Leonard the notion, not of mere hypocritical pleasure, but actual healthful happiness. He was attracted from his reverie, and timidly mingled with the groups. But Richard Avenel, with the fair Mrs. M'Catchley—her complexion more vivid, and her eyes more dazzling, and her step more elastic than usual—had turned from the gayety just as Leonard had turned toward it, and was now on the very spot (remote, obscure, shaded by the few trees above five years old that Mr. Avenel's property boasted) which the young dreamer had deserted.

And then! Ah! then! moment so meet for the sweet question of questions, place so appropriate for the delicate, bashful, murmured popping thereof!—suddenly from the sward before, from the groups beyond, there floated to the ears of Richard Avenel an indescribable, mingled, ominous sound—a sound as of a general titter—a horrid, malignant, but low cacchination. And Mrs. M'Catchley, stretching forth her parasol, exclaimed, "Dear me, Mr. Avenel, what can they be all crowding there for?"

There are certain sounds and certain sights—the one indistinct, the other vaguely conjecturable—which, nevertheless, we know by an instinct, bode some diabolical agency at work in our affairs. And if any man gives an entertainment, and hears afar a general, ill-suppressed, derisive titter, and sees all his guests hurrying toward one spot, I defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him still more to take that precise occasion (however much he may have before designed it) to drop gracefully on his right knee before the handsomest Mrs. M'Catchley in the universe, and—pop the question! Richard Avenel blurted out something very like an oath; and, half guessing that something must have happened that it would not be pleasing to bring immediately under the notice of Mrs. M'Catchley, he said hastily, "Excuse me; I'll just go and see what is the matter—pray, stay till I come back." With that he sprang forth; in a minute he was in the midst of the group, that parted aside with the most obliging complacency to make way for him.

"But what's the matter?" he asked impatiently, yet fearfully. Not a voice answered. He strode on, and beheld his nephew in the arms of a woman!

"God bless my soul!" said Richard Avenel.

Chapter XVIII.

And such a woman!

She had on a cotton gown—very neat, I dare say—for an under housemaid; and such thick shoes! She had on a little black straw bonnet, and a kerchief that might have cost tenpence, pinned across her waist instead of a shawl; and she looked altogether—respectable, no doubt, but exceedingly dusty! And she was hanging upon Leonard's neck, and scolding, and caressing, and crying very loud. "God bless my soul!" said Mr. Richard Avenel.

And as he uttered that innocent self-benediction, the woman hastily turned round, and darting from Leonard, threw herself right upon Richard Avenel—burying under her embrace blue coat, moss-rose, white waistcoat and all—with a vehement sob and a loud exclamation!

"Oh! brother Dick!—dear, dear brother Dick! and I lives to see thee agin!" And then came two such kisses—you might have heard them a mile off! The situation of brother Dick was appalling! and the crowd, that had before only tittered politely, could not now resist the effect of this sudden embrace. There was a general explosion! It was a roar! That roar would have killed a weak man; but it sounded to the strong heart of Richard Avenel like the defiance of a foe, and it plucked forth in an instant from all conventional let and barrier the native spirit of the Anglo-Saxon.

He lifted abruptly his handsome masculine head, looked round the ring of his ill-bred visitors with a haughty stare of rebuke and surprise.

"Ladies and gentlemen," then said he, very coolly, "I don't see what there is to laugh at! A brother and sister meet after many years' separation, and the sister cries, poor thing. For my part, I think it very natural that she should cry; but not that you should laugh!" In an instant the whole shame was removed from Richard Avenel, and rested in full weight upon the bystanders. It is impossible to say how foolish and sheepish they all looked, nor how slinkingly each tried to creep off.

Richard Avenel seized his advantage with the promptitude of a man who had got on in America, and was therefore accustomed to make the best of things. He drew Mrs. Fairfield's arm in his, and led her into the house; but when he had got her safe into his parlor—Leonard following all the time—and the door was closed upon those three, then Richard Avenel's ire burst forth.

"You impudent, ungrateful, audacious—drab!"

Yes, drab was the word. I am shocked to say it, but the duties of a historian are stern; and the word was drab.

"Drab!" faltered poor Jane Fairfield; and she clutched hold of Leonard to save herself from falling.

"Sir!" cried Leonard, fiercely.

You might as well have cried "sir" to a mountain-torrent. Richard hurried on, for he was furious.

"You nasty, dirty, dusty dowdy! How dare you come here to disgrace me in my own house and premises, after my sending you fifty pounds? To take the very time, too, when—when—"

Richard gasped for breath; and the laugh of his guests rang in his ears, and got into his chest, and choked him. Jane Fairfield drew herself up, and her tears were dried.

"I did not come to disgrace you; I came to see my boy, and—"

"Ha!" interrupted Richard, "to see him."

He turned to Leonard: "You have written to this woman, then?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"I believe you lie."

"He does not lie; and he is as good as yourself, and better, Richard Avenel," exclaimed Mrs. Fairfield; "and I won't stand here and hear him insulted—that's what I won't. And as for your fifty pounds, there are forty-five of it; and I'll work my fingers to the bone till I pay back the other five. And don't be afeard I shall disgrace you, for I'll never look on your face agin; and you're a wicked, bad man—that's what you are."

The poor woman's voice was so raised, and so shrill, that any other and more remorseful feeling which Richard might have conceived, was drowned in his apprehension that she would be overheard by his servants or his guests—a masculine apprehension, with which females rarely sympathize; which, on the contrary, they are inclined to consider a mean and cowardly terror on the part of their male oppressors.

"Hush! hold your infernal squall—do!" said Mr. Avenel, in a tone that he meant to be soothing. "There—sit down—and don't stir till I come back again, and can talk to you calmly. Leonard, follow me, and help to explain things to our guests."

Leonard stood still, but shook his head slightly.

"What do you mean, sir?" said Richard Avenel, in a very portentous growl. "Shaking your head at me? Do you intend to disobey me? You had better take care!"

Leonard's front rose; he drew one arm round his mother, and thus he spoke:

"Sir, you have been kind to me, and generous, and that thought alone silenced my indignation, when I heard you address such language to my mother; for I felt that, if I spoke, I should say too much. Now I speak, and it is to say shortly that—"

"Hush, boy," said poor Mrs. Fairfield, frightened; "don't mind me. I did not come to make mischief, and ruin your prospex. I'll go!"

"Will you ask her pardon, Mr. Avenel?" said Leonard, firmly; and he advanced toward his uncle.

Richard, naturally hot and intolerant of contradiction, was then excited, not only by the angry emotions which it must be owned, a man so mortified, and in the very flush of triumph, might well experience, but by much more wine than he was in the habit of drinking; and when Leonard approached him, he misinterpreted the movement into one of menace and aggression. He lifted his arm: "Come a step nearer," said he, between his teeth, "and I'll knock you down." Leonard advanced that forbidden step; but as Richard caught his eye, there was something in that eye—not defying, not threatening, but bold and dauntless—which Richard recognized and respected, for that something spoke the freeman. The uncle's arm mechanically fell to his side.

"You can not strike me, Mr. Avenel," said Leonard, "for you are aware that I could not strike again my mother's brother. As her son, I once more say to you—ask her pardon."

"Ten thousand devils! Are you mad?—or do you want to drive me mad? you insolent beggar, fed and clothed by my charity. Ask her pardon! what for? That she has made me the object of jeer and ridicule with that d—d cotton gown, and those double-d—d thick shoes? I vow and protest they've got nails in them! Hark ye, sir, I've been insulted by her, but I'm not to be bullied by you. Come with me instantly, or I discard you; not a shilling of mine shall you have as long as I live. Take your choice—be a peasant, a laborer, or—"

"A base renegade to natural affection, a degraded beggar indeed!" cried Leonard, his breast heaving, and his cheeks in a glow. "Mother, mother, come away. Never fear—I have strength and youth, and we will work together as before."

But poor Mrs. Fairfield, overcome by her excitement, had sunk down into Richard's own handsome morocco leather easy-chair, and could neither speak nor stir.

"Confound you both!" muttered Richard. "You can't be seen creeping out of my house now. Keep her here, you young viper, you; keep her till I come back; and then if you choose to go, go and be—"

Not finishing his sentence, Mr. Avenel hurried out of the room, and locked the door, putting the key into his pocket. He paused for a moment in the hall, in order to collect his thoughts—drew three or four deep breaths—gave himself a great shake—and, resolved to be faithful to his principle of doing one thing at a time, shook off in that shake all disturbing recollection of his mutinous captives. Stern as Achilles when he appeared to the Trojans, Richard Avenel stalked back to his lawn.

Chapter XIX.

Brief as had been his absence, the host could see that, in the interval, a great and notable change had come over the spirit of his company. Some of those who lived in the town were evidently preparing to return home on foot; those who lived at a distance, and whose carriages (having been sent away, and ordered to return at a fixed hour) had not yet arrived, were gathered together in small knots and groups; all looked sullen and displeased, and all instinctively turned from their host as he passed them by. They felt they had been lectured, and they were more put out than Richard himself. They did not know if they might not be lectured again. This vulgar man, of what might he not be capable?

Richard's shrewd sense comprehended in an instant all the difficulties of his position; but he walked on deliberately and directly toward Mrs. M'Catchley, who was standing near the grand marquee with the Pompleys and the Dean's lady. As these personages saw him make thus boldly toward them, there was a flutter. "Hang the fellow!" said the Colonel, intrenching himself in his stock, "he is coming here. Low and shocking—what shall we do? Let us stroll on."

But Richard threw himself in the way of the retreat.

"Mrs. M'Catchley," said he, very gravely, and offering her his arm, "allow me three words with you."

The poor widow looked very much discomposed. Mrs. Pompley pulled her by the sleeve. Richard still stood gazing into her face, with his arm extended. She hesitated a minute, and then took the arm.

"Monstrous impudent!" cried the Colonel.

"Let Mrs. M'Catchley alone, my dear," responded Mrs. Pompley; "she will know how to give him a lesson!"

"Madam," said Richard, as soon as he and his companion were out of hearing, "I rely on you to do me a favor."

"On me?"

"On you, and you alone. You have influence with all those people, and a word from you will effect what I desire. Mrs. M'Catchley," added Richard, with a solemnity that was actually imposing, "I flatter myself that you have some friendship for me, which is more than I can say of any other soul in these grounds—will you do me this favor, ay or no?"

"What is it, Mr. Avenel?" asked Mrs. M'Catchley, much disturbed, and somewhat softened—for she was by no means a woman without feeling; indeed, she considered herself nervous.

"Get all your friends—all the company, in short—to come back into the tent for refreshments—for any thing. I want to say a few words to them."

"Bless me! Mr. Avenel—a few words!" cried the widow, "but that's just what they are all afraid of! You must pardon me, but you really can't ask people to a déjeûné dansant, and then—scold 'em."

"I'm not going to scold them," said Mr. Avenel, very seriously—"upon my honor, I'm not! I'm going to make all right, and I even hope afterward that the dancing may go on—and that you will honor me again with your hand. I leave you to your task; and, believe me, I'm not an ungrateful man." He spoke, and bowed—not without some dignity—and vanished within the breakfast division of the marquee. There he busied himself in re-collecting the waiters, and directing them to re-arrange the mangled remains of the table as they best could. Mrs. M'Catchley, whose curiosity and interest were aroused, executed her commission with all the ability and tact of a woman of the world, and in less than a quarter of an hour the marquee was filled—the corks flew—the champagne bounced and sparkled—people drank in silence, munched fruits and cakes, kept up their courage with the conscious sense of numbers, and felt a great desire to knew what was coming. Mr. Avenel, at the head of the table, suddenly rose—

"Ladies and Gentlemen," said he, "I have taken the liberty to invite you once more into this tent, in order to ask you to sympathize with me, upon an occasion which took us all a little by surprise to-day.

"Of course, you all know I am a new man—the maker of my own fortunes."

A great many heads bowed involuntarily. The words were said manfully, and there was a general feeling of respect.

"Probably, too," resumed Mr. Avenel, "you may know that I am the son of very honest tradespeople. I say honest, and they are not ashamed of me—I say tradespeople, and I'm not ashamed of them. My sister married and settled at a distance. I took her son to educate and bring up. But I did not tell her where he was, nor even that I had returned from America—I wished to choose my own time for that, when I could give her the surprise, not only of a rich brother, but of a son whom I intended to make a gentleman, so far as manners and education can make one. Well, the poor dear woman has found me out sooner than I expected, and turned the tables on me by giving me a surprise of her own invention. Pray, forgive the confusion this little family scene has created; and though I own it was very laughable at the moment, and I was wrong to say otherwise, yet I am sure I don't judge ill of your good hearts when I ask you to think what brother and sister must feel who parted from each other when they were boy and girl. To me (and Richard gave a great gulp—for he felt that a great gulp alone could swallow the abominable lie he was about to utter)—to me this has been a very happy occasion! I'm a plain man; no one can take ill what I've said. And, wishing that you may be all as happy in your family as I am in mine—humble though it be—I beg to drink your very good healths!"

There was an universal applause when Richard sat down—and so well in his plain way had he looked at the thing, and done the thing, that at least half of those present—who till then had certainly disliked and half despised him—suddenly felt that they were proud of his acquaintance. For, however aristocratic this country of ours may be, and however especially aristocratic be the genteeler classes in provincial towns and coteries—there is nothing which English folks, from the highest to the lowest, in their hearts so respect as a man who has risen from nothing, and owns it frankly! Sir Compton Delaval, an old baronet, with a pedigree as long as a Welshman's, who had been reluctantly decoyed to the feast by his three unmarried daughters—not one of whom, however, had hitherto condescended even to bow to the host—now rose. It was his right—he was the first person there in rank and station.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," quoth Sir Compton Delaval, "I am sure that I express the feelings of all present when I say that we have heard with great delight and admiration the words addressed to us by our excellent host. (Applause.) And if any of us, in what Mr. Avenel describes justly as the surprise of the moment, were betrayed into an unseemly merriment at—at—(the Dean's lady whispered 'some of the')—some of the—some of the"—repeated Sir Compton, puzzled, and coming to a dead lock—('holiest sentiments,' whispered the Dean's lady)—"ay, some of the holiest sentiments in our nature—I beg him to accept our sincerest apologies. I can only say, for my part, that I am proud to rank Mr. Avenel among the gentlemen of the county (here Sir Compton gave a sounding thump on the table), and to thank him for one of the most brilliant entertainments it has ever been my lot to witness. If he won his fortune honestly, he knows how to spend it nobly!"

Whiz went a fresh bottle of champagne.

"I am not accustomed to public speaking, but I could not repress my sentiments. And I've now only to propose to you the health of our host, Richard Avenel, Esquire; and to couple with that the health of his—very interesting sister, and long life to them both!"

The sentence was half-drowned in enthusiastic plaudits, and in three cheers for Richard Avenel, Esquire, and his very interesting sister.

"I'm a cursed humbug," thought Richard Avenel, as he wiped his forehead; "but the world is such a humbug!"

Then he glanced toward Mrs. M'Catchley, and, to his great satisfaction, saw Mrs. M'Catchley wiping her eyes.

Now, though the fair widow might certainly have contemplated the probability of accepting Mr. Avenel as a husband, she had never before felt the least bit in love with him; and now she did. There is something in courage and candor—at a word, in manliness—that all women, the most worldly, do admire in men; and Richard Avenel, humbug though his conscience said he was, seemed to Mrs. M'Catchley like a hero.

The host saw his triumph. "Now for another dance!" said he, gayly; and he was about to offer his hand to Mrs. M'Catchley, when Sir Compton Delaval, seizing it, and giving it a hearty shake, cried, "You have not yet danced with my eldest daughter; so, if you won't ask her, why, I must offer her to you as your partner. Here—Sarah."

Miss Sarah Delaval, who was five feet eight, and as stately as she was tall, bowed her head graciously; and Mr. Avenel, before he knew where he was, found her leaning on his arm. But as he passed into the next division of the tent, he had to run the gauntlet of all the gentlemen who thronged round to shake hands with him. Their warm English hearts could not be satisfied till they had so repaired the sin of their previous haughtiness and mockery. Richard Avenel might then have safely introduced his sister—gown, kerchief, thick shoes and all—to the crowd; but he had no such thought. He thanked heaven devoutly that she was safely under lock and key.

It was not till the third dance that he could secure Mrs. M'Catchley's hand, and then it was twilight. The carriages were at the door, but no one yet thought of going. People were really enjoying themselves. Mr. Avenel had had time, in the interim, to mature all his plans for completing and consummating that triumph which his tact and pluck had drawn from his momentary disgrace. Excited as he was with wine and suppressed passion, he had yet the sense to feel that, when all the halo that now surrounded him had evaporated, and Mrs. M'Catchley was redelivered up to the Pompleys, whom he felt to be the last persons his interest could desire for her advisers—the thought of his low relations would return with calm reflection. Now was the time. The iron was hot—now was the time to strike it, and forge the enduring chain.

As he led Mrs. M'Catchley after the dance, into the lawn, he therefore said tenderly—

"How shall I thank you for the favor you have done me?"

"Oh!" said Mrs. M'Catchley, warmly, "it was no favor—and I am so glad"—She stopped.

"You're not ashamed of me, then, in spite of what has happened?"

"Ashamed of you! Why, I should be so proud of you, if I were—"

"Finish the sentence, and say—'your wife!'—there it is out. My dear madam, I am rich, as you know; I love you very heartily. With your help, I think I can make a figure in a larger world than this; and that whatever my father, my grandson at least will be—But it is time enough to speak of him. What say you?—you turn away. I'll not tease you—it is not my way. I said before, ay or no; and your kindness so emboldens me that I say it again—ay or no?"

"But you take me so unawares—so—so—Lord, my dear Mr. Avenel; you are so hasty—I—I—." And the widow actually blushed, and was genuinely bashful.

"Those horrid Pompleys!" thought Richard, as he saw the Colonel bustling up with Mrs. M'Catchley's cloak on his arm.

"I press for your answer," continued the suitor, speaking very fast. "I shall leave this place to-morrow, if you will not give it."

"Leave this place—leave me?"

"Then you will be mine?"

"Ah, Mr. Avenel!" said the widow, languidly, leaving her hand in his; "who can resist you?"

Up came Colonel Pompley; Richard took the shawl: "No hurry for that now, Colonel—Mrs. M'Catchley feels already at home here."

Ten minutes afterward Richard Avenel so contrived that it was known by the whole company that their host was accepted by the Honorable Mrs. M'Catchley. And every one said, "He is a very clever man, and a very good fellow," except the Pompleys—and the Pompleys were frantic. Mr. Richard Avenel had forced his way into the aristocracy of the country. The husband of an Honorable—connected with peers!

"He will stand for our city—Vulgarian!" cried the Colonel.

"And his wife will walk out before me," cried the Colonel's lady—"nasty woman!" And she burst into tears.

The guests were gone; and Richard had now leisure to consider what course to pursue with regard to his sister and her son.

His victory over his guests had in much softened his heart toward his relations; but he still felt bitterly aggrieved at Mrs. Fairfield's unseasonable intrusion, and his pride was greatly chafed by the boldness of Leonard. He had no idea of any man whom he had served, or meant to serve, having a will of his own—having a single thought in opposition to his pleasure. He began, too, to feel that words had passed between him and Leonard which could not be well forgotten by either, and would render their close connection less pleasant than heretofore. He, the great Richard Avenel, beg pardon of Mrs. Fairfield, the washerwoman! No; she and Leonard must beg his. "That must be the first step," said Richard Avenel; "and I suppose they have come to their senses." With what expectation, he unlocked the door of his parlor, and found himself in complete solitude. The moon, lately risen, shone full into the room, and lit up every corner. He stared round, bewildered—the birds had flown. "Did they go through the key-hole?" said Mr. Avenel. "Ha! I see—the window is open!" The window reached to the ground. Mr. Avenel, in his excitement, had forgotten that easy mode of egress.

"Well," said he, throwing himself into his easy chair, "I suppose I shall soon hear from them; they'll be wanting my money fast enough, I fancy." His eye caught sight of a letter, unsealed, lying on the table. He opened it, and saw bank-notes to the amount of £50—the widow's forty-five country notes, and a new note, Bank of England, that he had lately given to Leonard. With the money were these lines, written in Leonard's bold, clear writing, though a word or two here and there showed that the hand had trembled—

"I thank you for all you have done to one whom you regarded as the object of charity. My mother and I forgive what has passed. I depart with her. You bade me make my choice, and I have made it. Leonard Fairfield."

The paper dropped from Richard's hand, and he remained mute and remorseful for a moment. He soon felt, however, that he had no help for it but working himself up into a rage. "Of all people in the world," cried Richard, stamping his foot on the floor, "there are none so disagreeable, insolent, and ungrateful as poor relations. I wash my hands of them."

(TO BE CONTINUED.)