Rose, Blanche, and Violet, Volume 2 (of 3)

by George Henry Lewes

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.
THE BOARDING-HOUSE.

Mathew. Now trust me you have an exceeding fine lodging here, very neat and private.

Boladil. Ay, sir: sit down, I pray you. Master Mathew, in any case possess no gentlemen of our acquaintance with notice of my lodging. Not that I need to care who know it, for the cabin is convenient; but in regard I would not be too popular and generally visited as some are.

BEN JONSON.—Every Man in his Humour.

Returned from their honeymoon, Blanche and Cecil began to look about them, and examine the state of their prospects. Her father had refused, as we have seen, to countenance the match; so that from him neither patronage nor money could be expected. Cecil called upon several of his influential friends, to see if any "gentlemanly situation" was open to his acceptance. I need not say how fruitless were those applications.

Yet "something must be done," he constantly observed. A wife was a responsibility which made him serious; and despairing of—for the present at least—obtaining any consul-ship or government office suitable to his pretensions, he determined to make a name in literature or art. That name would either be the means of enriching him, as an admiring public enriches a favourite, or else would give him a greater "claim" on patrons.

Cecil was vain and ambitious, and from his boyhood upwards had been desirous of creating for himself a reputation equal if not surpassing those whose names he heard sounded in every society. But, although he was very clever and unusually accomplished, he had as yet taken no serious steps towards that lofty object. He wanted that energetic will which must nerve every man who attempts to do great things; "to scorn delights and live laborious days." He was unequal to the perpetually-renewing sacrifice which lies at the bottom of all great achievements in art, literature, or science; the sacrifice, not of one temptation, not of one advantage, but of constant temptations. The artist is as one who, spending day after day in a luxuriant garden, must resist the temptation of culling the flowers that grow to his hand, of fruits that glisten before his eyes, and subduing the natural desire of man for instant fruition, consent to pass by these temptations, and, with spade and hoe, proceed to that work which, after much stedfast labour, much watchful care, will in due season produce fruits and flowers equal to those around him. The delight of seeing his labour crowned with such results; of watching the nursling of his care thus growing up into matchless beauty, is a delight more rapturous than the enjoyment of all the other fruit could have given him. But, nevertheless, that delight is purchased by a sacrifice of present small enjoyments for future pleasures of a higher kind; and the sacrifice of the present to the future is that which ordinary men are perhaps least able to accomplish.

Cecil wanted the animal energy and resolution necessary for empire over himself. Much as he wished for reputation, he could not nerve himself to the labour of creating it. He was conscious of a certain power, and flattered himself that he could at any time succeed, whenever he chose to make an effort. But he could not make the effort. Parties of pleasure could not be refused; pleasant books could not be left unread; concerts and musical societies could not be declined. In short, one way and another, he "never found time" to devote himself to any work. There were so many "calls upon his time;" he had so many engagements; his days were so broken in upon.

Thus had he gone on idling and dreaming; coveting reputation, but shrinking from the means; dissipating his talent in album sketches, fancy portraits, album verses, and drawing-room ballads. His sketches were greatly admired; his verses were in request; his music was sung; and everybody said, "How amazingly clever he is! What he might do, if he chose!"

But now poverty came as a stimulus to exertion. It was now a matter of necessity that he should work; and with cheerful confidence he sketched out the plan of his career.

His first step was to advertise in the Times for board and lodging on moderate terms, as their income was too small for an establishment of their own; and Blanche had never been initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping. To judge from the number of answers he received, one would imagine that a certain class of the English people were bitten with a singular mania—that of taking houses "too large for them," and the consequent desire "to part with the upper portion" to a genteel married couple, or a quiet bachelor. Why will people thus shirk the truth? Why not say at once that they are poor, and want their rent and taxes paid?

Well, among these answers there was one which particularly struck Cecil. It was from a widow living at Notting Hill. Omnibuses passing the door every ten minutes; the quiet, unpretending comforts of a home; strictest attention to the respectability of the inmates, and sixty pounds a year for a married couple's board and lodging, were the inestimable advantages offered to the advertiser. The situation and the terms so well suited Cecil's present position, that he determined to look at the place.

The boarding-houses of London are of every possible description; from splendour to pinching, almost squalid poverty. That kept by Mrs. Tring was a type of its class, and merits a fuller description than I shall be able to give of it. The first aspect of it produced a chill upon Cecil. He had taken Blanche with him; and on arriving they were shown into the front parlour, with the information that Mrs. Tring would be "down directly."

It must be a beautiful room, indeed, which can be agreeable in such moments. I know few things more unsatisfactory than that of waiting for a stranger in a strange house. But the cold, cheerless, rigid, poverty-stricken appearance of Mrs. Tring's parlour, would at all times have made Cecil uncomfortable: how much more so now that he was contemplating living there! The drab who officiated as maid, with flaunting cap-ribands, slip-shod feet, and fiery hands,—a synthesis of rags and dirt,—came in to light the fire; a proceeding which only made the room colder and more uncomfortable than before, besides the addition of smoke.

The parlour had a desolate appearance. All the chairs were ranged in order against the wainscot, as if no one had sat in them for months. Not a book, not a bit of needlework, not even a cat betrayed habitation. The settled gloom seemed to have driven away all animated beings from its prosaic solitude. The furniture was old, dingy, scrupulously clean, invalided, melancholy; it did not seem as if it had been worn to its present dinginess, but as if it had darkened under years of silence and neglect.

The Kidderminster carpet was of a plain, dark pattern, selected for its non-betrayal of stains and dirt; it was faded indeed, but in nowise worn. The hearth rug was rolled up before the fender. In the centre of the room was a square table, covered with a dark-green cloth, on which some ancient ink spots told of days when it had been used. Six black horse-hair chairs with mahogany backs, and one footstool retiring into a corner—a portrait of a gentleman, executed in a style of stern art, dark red curtains, and two large shells upon the mantelpiece, complete the inventory of this parlour, which in Mrs. Tring's establishment was set apart for the reception of visitors, and those who came to treat with her for board and lodging.

The want of comfort of this room did not arise from its appearance of poverty so much as from its cold pinched look. It was a poverty which had no poetry in it—nothing picturesque, nor careless and hearty. Between it and the parlour of poor people in general, there was just the difference between a woman dressed in a silk dress which has been dyed, then has faded, and is now worn with a bonnet which was once new, and a woman dressed in plain, common, but fresh wholesome-looking gingham, which she wears with as much ease as if it were of the costliest material. It had the musty smell of an uninhabited room, and the melancholy aspect of a room that was uninhabitable. A sordid meanness was plainly marked upon it, together with an attempt at "appearances," which showed that it was as ostentatious as the means allowed. It was genteel and desolate.

Cecil looked at Blanche to see what impression it had made upon her; but the mild eyes of his beloved seemed to have noticed nothing but his presence, which was sufficient for her happiness. It suddenly occurred to him, that the more wretched the appearance of his home, the more likely would Vyner be to relent when he heard of it; and this thought dissipated his objections to the place.

Mrs. Tring shortly entered, with very evident marks of having just attired herself to receive them. Her presence was necessary to complete the picture; or rather, the room formed a fitting frame for the portrait of the mistress.

Mrs. Tring was the widow of a curate, who, astounding and paradoxical as the fact may appear, had not left her with an indefinite number of destitute children. No: for the benefit of the Statistical Society the fact shall be recorded. Mrs. Tring, though a curate's wife, had never borne a child; she had been left penniless but childless. When I say penniless, I use, of course, merely a well-sounding word. The literal truth is, that although he left her no money, he had left her the means of earning a subsistence, by opening her house as one in which single ladies, single gentlemen, and married people could be lodged and boarded at a very moderate sum. The furniture was her own. Her boarders paid her rent, taxes, dress, and little expenses; and thus Mrs. Tring contrived to live, but not without a hard struggle! It was barely a subsistence, and even that was precarious.

Her personal appearance was not pleasantly prepossessing. She was horribly thin: with a yellow withered face, which seemed to have been sharpened by constant struggles to gain farthings, and constant sorrows at disbursing pence. She wore a black net cap, and a black silk dress, white at the seams from age, the shape of which had outlived a thousand fashions, and taxed the most retentive memory to specify when it had been the mode. It was a low dress, and a piece of net fastened by a large brooch served to conceal her yellow shoulders.

In manner she was stiff, uneasy, and yet servile. She spoke with a sort of retention of her breath, and an intensity of mildness, as if she feared, that unless a strong restraint were exercised, she should burst forth into vehemence; she agreed, unreservedly, to everything said, as if, had she ventured to contradict a word, it would have infallibly betrayed her temper.

To her visitors she displayed all her amiability, and acceded to every proposition with such good-humoured alacrity, that terms were soon agreed upon. For the sum of sixty pounds per annum, payable monthly in advance, they were to have the back bed-room on the second floor, unfurnished, and their meals with the family: these meals to consist of a breakfast at nine, luncheon at one, dinner at five, and tea at eight.

"We live plainly," said Mrs. Tring, "but wholesomely; luxuries are, of course, out of the question, yet my inmates have always been satisfied."

"As I have not the slightest doubt we shall be," replied Cecil; "I like simple food. What other inmates are there, pray?"

"The front bed-room on the second floor is occupied by an old gentleman who was in a government office, and is now living on his pension: a charming person, though a little deaf. The room next to his belongs to an Irish widow, a Mrs. Merryweather—I don't know whether you are acquainted with her, sir?"

Cecil smilingly replied, that he had not that honour.

"I thought you might, sir; she has seen a great deal of society, and is a very lively lady. In the room above hers, we have a Miss Bachelor, a maiden lady—very gifted, sir. She teaches music in some of the best families. The third back is let to a Mr. Roberts, a young gentleman in the city, who only breakfasts with us."

Cecil bowed on receiving this information, which promised him that the fellow-boarders would, at least, afford some amusement to make up for the dreariness of the house. He announced his intention of taking up his abode there on the morrow. Accordingly, having moved what furniture he possessed, with some necessary additions, into the room he was now to call his own, and having hired in town a painting-room, which he fitted up for writing as well as painting, and moved his piano into it, he took his young bride to Mrs. Tring's house, and there they installed themselves, with some merriment at the shifts to which the want of space forced them.

It was late in the evening when they took possession, and they preferred not presenting themselves to their fellow boarders until the morning.

"This is a sorry home to bring you to, dearest," he said, as the servant, having lighted his candles and asked if he had any orders to give, left the room.

Blanche twined her arms round his neck, and said tenderly to him: "Can that be a sorry home where love resides?"

"No, Blanche, no," he replied, kissing her forehead, "I was wrong. Love creates its own palaces; and we shall be as happy here, as if we had a splendid seat. We are starting anew in the world—it is well to start from low ground, because the smallest ascent has then its proper value. Here will I build myself a name that shall make you an envied wife."

"I am already enviable—ought I to wish for more?"

What a delightful evening they spent, arranging their property in the most convenient places, and then sitting over the fire discussing future plans radiant in the far-off sunshine of Hope. That little room—what a world it was! In the corner stood their bed,—in the centre a round table,—in another corner a small bookcase—by the window a toilet table. Nothing could be more cozy, they said.

O, 'tis a paradise the heaven of earth;
Didst thou but know the comfort of two hearts
In one delicious harmony united,
As to joy one joy, and think both one thought,
Live both one life, and therein double life;
To see their souls meet at an interview
In their bright eyes, at parley in their lips,
Their language kisses.*

* Chapman.--All Fools.

CHAPTER II.
INMATES OF A SUBURBAN BOARDING-HOUSE.

Next morning at breakfast Mrs. Tring's inmates assembled, and the new comers were duly introduced to their future companions. The breakfast was plain, and passed off rather uncomfortably, a feeling of restraint checking merriment. As the boarders descended one by one, and were presented to Cecil and his wife, an unanimity in commonplaces formed the staple of remark, and every one seemed unwilling to unbend before having closely scrutinized the new comers. Small communications respecting the state of the health, and of the good or bad night's rest, were confidentially whispered in corners; while daring prophecies on the subject of the weather were more audibly pronounced.

Mr. Revell, the ex-official, ate in solemn silence; Mrs. Merryweather, the lively Irish lady, was patronizing and polite; Miss Bachelor, as demure as a well-fed cat; Mr. Roberts, a dapper clerk with a rosy face and well-oiled hair, was the only person apparently undaunted by the presence of strangers, and rattled on with more confidence than wit, until the half hour warned him of the approach of his omnibus, when he buttoned his single-breasted frock-coat up to the neck, passed on to his red fingers a close-fitting pair of doe-skin gloves, rolled the silk of his umbrella into the smallest possible compass, and departed with the indelible conviction of being "about the neatest dressed man to be met in a day's walk."

Breakfast did not last long. Mr. Revell then engaged himself in assiduous study of the second day's Times, the only vestige of a paper which found its way into that forlorn place. Mrs. Tring departed to look after her household concerns, leaving her boarders to their usual chat in the back parlour, until their bed-rooms were ready for their reception.

Mrs. Merryweather began to unbend, and Cecil feared that her liveliness might prove more tiresome than her reserve. She was a great talker of inconceivable small talk; launched upon the endless sea of personal reminiscence, she told stories with all the minute detail of a professed conteur, excited attention by the ample paraphernalia of an anecdote, and baulked it by ending without a point. Of all bores, this species is the worst: it is the bore obtrusive and inevitable. Other bores can, with some adroitness, be managed, they do not unchain your attention; but the story-teller fastens upon your attention by artful preparations, and though you have been disappointed a hundred times, experience is of no use, for your interest is involuntarily accorded on every succeeding occasion.

To escape from the torrent of talk which was thus loosened upon him, Cecil sat down to the piano, and ran his fingers over the keys, after which he begged Miss Bachelor to favour the company with a taste of her quality. After the necessary hesitation and apologies, she sat down. From a teacher of music he anticipated a sort of railway rattle; but Miss Bachelor agreeably disappointed him by the modest execution of a sonata by Dussek: it was a mild, feeble, performance, unpretending as the performer, and infinitely preferable to Mrs. Merryweather's stories. He then sang a duet with Blanche, then a solo, and then another duet. This concluded, he observed that Mrs. Merryweather had retired, and he followed her example.

"I can't say much for our society," he said to his wife, as they went out for a stroll.

"We shall not see much of it, you know. We have our own room," replied Blanche.

"True; but while I am at work?"

"I can think of you!"

There was no reply to this, but to press the arm that leaned on his, closer to his side, and to look fondly in her loving face.

During their walk, they discussed their plans again with that inexhaustible interest which the future always has to the young and struggling; and they returned to dinner with a good appetite.

A significant smile was exchanged between Mrs. Merryweather and Miss Bachelor, and then between the ladies and Mr. Revell, as a handsome piece of ribs of beef was placed upon the table. Cecil noticed it, but failed to comprehend its meaning. He observed also that the hostess carved, and would by no means consent to his relieving her of the trouble; a procedure which the exiguity of the single slice placed upon each plate fully explained.

"May I trouble you for a little horse-radish?" he suddenly asked.

Mrs. Merryweather and Miss Bachelor—astonishment snatching up their eyebrows—simultaneously ceased eating. Mr. Revell, whose deafness prevented his astonishment, ate on. Ask for horse-radish! There was something bewildering in the very extravagance of the expectation.

In silence, they awaited Mrs. Tring's reply.

"Horse-radish!" said that lady, with intense suavity. "Dear me! how very forgetful of me. But we never eat it ourselves; and it never occurred to me that you might like it. Very forgetful; very forgetful, indeed."

"Pray, do not say a word about it. I care very little for it—only a matter of habit."

Emboldened by this audacity in the newcomer, Miss Bachelor ventured to think she could eat another cut of beef. Mrs. Tring, scowlingly, and in the most repressed tone, suggested the propriety of keeping a corner for the second course; to which Miss Bachelor assented, now fairly unable to conceive the immensity of the revolution which the appearance of the Chamberlaynes had created. A second course! Visions of pheasants—perhaps even grouse—darkened her bewildered brain.

Mr. Revell, as usual, had heard nothing, but sent up his plate for a second help; to all Mrs. Tring's shouts about "keeping a corner," imperturbably answering, "Yes, rather well done; and a bit of fat."

Mrs. Merryweather remembered how on one occasion she was dining at Colonel James's who had married an old schoolfellow of hers, the daughter of the man who for so many years kept the What's-the-name hotel in Jermyn Street, where the Polish count stayed so many weeks, and was so like Thaddeus of Warsaw, only his name was Winsky, and he came from Cracow, and about whom there was that tragical story; how one night as he was walking down Regent Street, when he was suddenly felled by a blow on the head, and was taken senseless to his hotel. It was a most extraordinary occurrence, and excited a great deal of talk at the time; but Mrs. Merryweather could not at that instant remember the exact circumstances. But, however, that was neither here nor there. What she was going to say was, that her old school-fellow had married Colonel James—quite the gentleman—and often invited her to dinner; very good dinners they were too; plenty of wine and delicacies of the season—peas when they first came in, and all that sort of thing; well, one day—she never could forget it, live as long as she might—she had eaten so plentifully of the first course, a delicious saddle of mutton, that when the game arrived—she had not anticipated game—she was scarcely able to touch it; and Colonel James, with his usual affability, observed, "Ah, Mrs. Merryweather, you should have kept a corner for the second course."

This thrilling anecdote being ended, the beef was removed. Cecil was not a little amused when he saw that an apple pudding constituted this famous second course. But as, in the memory of man and boarder, no precedent for such an extravagance as pudding with hot meat had been known at Mrs. Tring's, the ladies were quite satisfied that such a second course should appear at all. The only misgiving in their minds, was whether such cheer was to become habitual; or was it simply an illusive and treacherous display for that occasion only?

A Dutch cheese followed the pudding, and there the dinner terminated.

Accustomed as Blanche and Cecil had been to the luxuries and refinements of their station, it may be supposed that this ignoble boarding-house was very repugnant to them, and that they suffered bitterly from the change. It was not so, however. Change is so pleasant to every human being, that, provided it be abrupt and striking enough to produce a vivid sense of contrast, it is eminently agreeable. The man who most enjoys a well-appointed table, whose pride it is to have his dinners served with the care and splendour bestowed upon banquets, will also enjoy "roughing it," and picking the leg of a fowl with no fork but his fingers, no plate but a hunch of bread. We like from time to time to feel ourselves superior to conveniences, superior to our wealth and its advantages.

The change was quite abrupt enough to make Cecil and his wife enjoy it; and on retiring to rest that night, they were as happy as affection could make them.

CHAPTER III.
HAPPY LABOUR, HAPPY LIFE.

Si modo dignum aliquid elaborare et efficere velint, relinquenda conversatio amicorum et jucunditas urbis, deserenda cetera officia, utque ipsi dicunt, in nemora et lucos, id est, in solitudinem recedendum est.

TACITUS.—De Oratoribus.

The splendours of the first day were never renewed. Exhausted munificence sank quietly back into ancient close-fistedness. Mrs. Tring had given one banquet, but every day was not to be a holiday, as Mrs. Merryweather and Miss Bachelor mournfully confessed, when, on the succeeding morning, they found themselves returned to the salt butter, drenched tea, and implacable coffee, from which they had been one morning released. Still more dolorous was the aspect of the dinner. A return was made to the primitive allowance of one potato for each person, and the bread was as stale as before.

Cecil was of course chary of making complaints, but as he could not eat salt butter, quietly contented himself with dry toast: a proceeding which gained him the respect of Mrs. Tring, as it saved just so much butter. It was an ill-advised act, however, as it gave her the courage to make several other petty retrenchments—too petty for him to speak about—yet, nevertheless, annoying. He had not been there a fortnight before he determined on not staying beyond the three months for which he had taken his room. Having thus made up his mind that the annoyances were but temporary, he was enabled to bear them with tolerable stoicism.

Mrs. Tring had to make a living out of her boarders, and as she accepted such very low terms, the reader may imagine what nice calculations and minute economies were necessary. The house was, indeed, a field of battle, wherein, by adroit generalship, she every day gained a victory. The living was pitiable, and Cecil was forced, in self-defence, to keep a small provision in a store closet, from which he and his wife satisfied the appetite which Mrs. Tring's fare had stimulated, not appeased. It sometimes went so far as his sending out for a chop, which he cooked in his little room, over his dwarf fire. Nevertheless, with all the extra expenses into which scanty fare forced him, the place was remarkably convenient from its cheapness; and they both supported the little discomforts with happy light-heartedness.

Cecil was full of projects. He had begun a picture of considerable pretensions, the conception of which was not without grandeur: it was Nero playing while he gazed upon the blazing city of Rome. He had also sketched the libretto of a comic opera, of which he was to write both words and music. Gay and lighthearted as the hopeful and employed always are, the best qualities of his nature were brought out, and Blanche adored him, if possible, more than ever. Work—which was given to man that he might learn to know his excellence, and to know the pleasure which attends the full development of every faculty—work crowded the hours with significance, and gave to life a purpose; and Love illumined with its sunshine the difficult path which stretched itself before him. Never, no never, had Cecil known happiness till that time. He had squandered the riches of his nature as he had squandered the heritage of his parents; and now he came to know the value of what he had lost. A serious ambition occupied him, a happy affection blessed him.

Oh! who shall paint the luminous picture of their quiet life, which, to ordinary eyes, was so prosaic and insignificant! In that miserable house, where meanness hourly struggled with adversity, there was a small room, which was parlour, bed-room, and sometimes kitchen, all in one; and from the contemplation of which, when you were told that in it lived a pair who had been reared in luxury and refinement, you would have turned away with painful pity. Yet were the secret history of that seemingly unfortunate pair known, your pity would change into envy, as those four miserable walls changed into a temple of Love, Youth, and Hope.

Poverty—a word of terror—is only terrible to the rich. The poor are not really the unhappy, for happiness is wholly independent of our worldly goods and chattels. If poverty has its hardships, wealth has its annoyances. If wealth can satisfy caprices, when satisfied they do not give the same delight as the cheap enjoyments from time to time indulged in by the poor. All things are precious in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining them, and the very facilities of wealth take from enjoyments their zest.

What makes poverty terrible is its proximity to want. And as want itself is often a thing of degree, the rich imagine that any deprivation of their accustomed indulgences must necessarily be a serious evil. But, in truth, the human mind is so constituted as to adapt itself to every condition, and to draw from its own health the requisites of happiness.

Blanche and Cecil were poor, but they had visions of future wealth and prosperity; meanwhile they had the glorious certainty of mutual affection, which irradiated their humble home, and made each hour of their lives worth more than all Peru could purchase.

CHAPTER IV.
HOW MRS. VYNER WAS BENEFICENT.

One morning while Cecil was in his studio, smoking a cigar and contemplating the sketch of his picture on the easel, with the air of a man who profoundly meditates on the details of a great conception, Blanche was in her room at Notting-hill, making the essence of coffee with a French machine, which they had purchased (unable to drink the incomprehensible mixture Mrs. Tring set before them) when a carriage drove up to the door. Blanche did not hear it, as her room was situated at the back. It was with great surprise, therefore, that she saw her mother and Rose rush into the room, and bound into her arms.

After the first hearty embraces and inquiries were over, Blanche became aware of the condition in which she was found, and blushed. It was not that she herself felt ashamed of her poverty, but she was hurt at the reflections which must necessarily arise in their minds respecting the folly of her marriage; so she hastened, in rather a precipitate and clumsy manner, to assure them how exquisitely happy she was.

"Thank God for that!" exclaimed Mrs. Meredith Vyner. "Then I have nothing to reproach myself with for not having interfered—for not putting a stop to Cecil's attentions—which I very early noticed, let me tell you. The only thing I now desire is to bring your papa round; but he is so obstinate! I do my utmost—but I almost begin to fear that my intercession only makes him more resolved; and I suspect if we were never to mention the subject to him, he would relent very speedily. But depend upon me, my dear, for looking after your interests."

"Dearest mama!" said Blanche, gratefully kissing her.

"As soon as I see him relenting, I will contrive to throw him in your way—and you can then manage him yourself—but do not attempt to see him till I give you the word."

"I will be guided by you."

Rose was unusually grave and silent. Blanche noticed it, and noticed also that she looked ill.

"I have been unwell," Rose said; "but I am getting better now. A slight fever, that is all."

"And how is Marmaduke Ashley?" asked Blanche.

"Very well; we saw him yesterday; in fact we see him very often now," Mrs. Vyner answered; "somehow or other he has always some commission to execute for one of us, and as he is an agreeable companion, we make much of him."

"And how gets on the flirtation with Violet?"

"Why—pretty much as usual. I suspect it is only a flirtation just yet; or else he is kept at a respectful distance, for you know dear Violet is not the most affable of beauties."

"And Julius, Rose, how is he?"

"Indeed, I cannot tell you," quietly answered Rose.

"You can't! What! do you mean to say, Rose, that——."

"He is in Italy, I believe," she said, interrupting her sister, but showing no more emotion on her face than if she were speaking of the most indifferent person.

Blanche was not deceived, however; she knew her sister's love for Julius, and divined a quarrel.

"That is the slight fever!" she mentally exclaimed; and then comparing her lot with that of her two sisters, felt it was infinitely preferable.

After a two hours' chat, they rose to depart. The real purpose of Mrs. Vyner's visit was to give Blanche fifty pounds, which her father had sent her, in accordance with the arranged plan that she was to suppose it came from her mother.

"And now before I go, dear Blanche," said Mrs. Vyner, "I have to give you an earnest of your not being forgotten by me, however your father may act. Money from him, he vows, is out of the question; he will not give a sixpence. But out of my own privy purse, I shall from time to time take care of you. There, dear girl, take that;

The gift is sma', but love is a'.

I have set aside this fifty pounds——"

She was interrupted by Blanche throwing her arms round her neck, and hugging her tightly, while tears of gratitude stood in her eyes, and she murmured "Dearest, kindest, mama!"

Rose, who was equally taken by surprise at this coup-de-theatre, also sprang up and kissed her mother, exclaiming,—

"Oh! I wish Violet were here!"

Mrs. Vyner understood the wish, and looked delighted.

"One day," she said, with the meekness of a martyr, "she will learn to know me."

It was an exciting scene. Blanche and Rose were affected, as kind hearts always are at any action which bears the stamp of kindness; and Mrs. Vyner was affected, as most people are when they have done a generous action, with a certain inward glow of noble pleasure.

For do not suppose that she remembered at this moment whence the money actually came. Not she. In her excitable mind, the means were lost in the end. She had given the money, she had aroused the gratitude of the two girls, and as far as her feeling of the matter went, she felt just as if the money had been hers. Indeed, so truly was she possessed with this idea, so actually generous did she feel in that moment of excitement, that on opening her purse to take out the notes, she found another ten-pound note beside it, really her own, and taking it also out she said as she presented it,—

"There, you may as well have that too—you will find plenty of use for it—and I shall not miss it. There. Only be happy, and trust in me."

The sudden impulse which led her to do this—to complete as it were the action which she had begun with such applause—to redouble the effect of what had already been created—will be understood by all who have known, and knowing have analyzed, such characters as Mrs. Vyner; to others it will appear a gross inconsistency.

CHAPTER V.
THE CURSE OF IDLENESS.

Or fia dunque giammai, che tu, Ozio, possi esser grato veramente, se non quando succedi a degne occupazioni. L'ozio vile et inerte voglio, che ad un animo generoso sia la maggior fatica, che aver egli possa, se non gli rappresenta dopo lodabile esercizio e lavoro.

GIORDANO BRUNO.—Spaccio.

The consequences of this little scene were manifold.

"Papa," said Violet to her father on the following day, "you have done what I knew you would do, and what I accept as a presage for the future."

"And what is that, my dear?"

"Sent Blanche some money."

"Who told you so?" exclaimed he, greatly surprised.

"I divined it," she answered, with a quiet smile.

"You ... you are mistaken, Violet, ... I send ... I have renounced her."

"Yes, but your heart speaks for her in secret, and in secret you send money. Though I question whether sixty pounds..."

"Fifty," interrupted her father.

"Oh, then, you did know of it?" she said, archly.

Meredith Vyner bit his lip.

"Sixty was the sum Mama gave, at any rate, because Rose, who was present, told me so."

"Kind, generous creature!" ejaculated Vyner. "She must have added the other ten from her own purse. Violet, you have guessed aright, but keep the secret, unless you wish me to withhold even my underhand charity from your wretched sister."

Violet promised to do so; but how great was her scorn of her mother's hypocrisy, when she thus found her suspicions verified! From her knowledge of her father and mother, she had at once guessed the real state of the case, and confusedly, but strongly, suspected the motive of the latter.

This was the way in which their mutual hatred was nourished. Violet was not a dupe, and her mother saw that she was not.

On Cecil, the influence of this gift was fatal.

"This comes most fortunately," he said; "for not only do I now begin to see that our income is barely sufficient to meet our scanty expenditure, but the more I advance in my 'Nero,' the more am I impressed with the necessity for not hurrying it. All great works demand time and labour. Were I to hurry the execution I should spoil it, and too much depends upon success for me to be precipitate."

He was sincere in saying so; he was his own dupe in asserting that what he most needed was ample leisure in which to elaborate his conception. He caught at the excuse offered to his idleness, and like all men, covered his weakness in the imposing folds of an aphorism. The brain is singularly fertile in inventing plausible reasons to excuse weaknesses.

Labour is a sublime necessity: it is beneficence under a rude aspect. But although so beneficent to man, it is radically antipathetic to his nature. All men are constrained to work. Poverty or ambition are the invariable taskmasters, and it is only by dint of the strong stimulus of want, or the stronger dictates of indomitable will, that human nature, vagabond as are its tendencies, can be made to persevere in the tasks set before it.

What wonder, then, if men under all conditions avidly seize upon every occasion which enables them for a moment to escape from the tyranny of work? What wonder if this weak, wayward, susceptible Cecil, who had laboured cheerily under the impulsion of necessity, now forgot the sweet delights of his daily task, and relapsed into his old habits of dreaming idleness?

There was no longer any remarkable hurry. His daily existence did not depend upon the immediate accomplishment of his task. He could wait, he could mature his plans, he could work only when the inspiration came to him; there was no need to harass an unwilling; brain, he could bide his time. To any one who knew him, it would be easy to foresee that from the moment he was released from the immediate necessity of labour, his time would be frittered away in sterile efforts. It is only genius, which, goaded by an irresistible inward impulse to transmute into art all that it has felt, labours with courageous love, and sings because it cannot choose but sing. Talent of every kind needs an external stimulus, and Cecil was a man of talent, not a man of genius.

Blanche confirmed him in his opinions; partly, perhaps, out of sincere belief in him and in all he said, which made her think he could not be in error; partly, also, out of a little egotism of love which made her rejoice in every hour that he could snatch from labour to spend at her side. He was so loveable, that she would deserve pardon, even if her sex's ignorance of life had not concealed from her the enormity of her fault. There was something so caressing in his manner, that few people withstood it; and to her he was the perfection of tenderness, delicacy and amiability. Persons of his lively, susceptible organization, are usually fascinating in their manners—there is a laisser aller (which in him was tempered with perfect good breeding), a frankness, a gaiety, and a general consideration for the feelings and opinions of others, founded on a desire of universal approbation, which create more regard than great qualities in a less agreeable exterior. If he was charming to others, what was he to the wife he loved!

She wished to have him with her, and he was but too glad to gratify her wish. A little excursion to Richmond occupied one day; a visit to some Exhibition broke in upon another. There were always pleasant walks and satisfactory excuses. He was not idle, he said; his brain was working, his ideas were gradually becoming clearer; the details stood out more distinctly in his imagination; and 'Nero' would benefit by this delay.

The effect of alms is always enervating, however it may relieve a present want; and the contributions of Mrs. Vyner were a species of alms. This was the case with Cecil. His sense of independence—his healthy confidence in his own powers—becomes destroyed. Had Vyner made a distinct allowance to his daughter, it would have then formed a certain part of their income, and Cecil would have no more relaxed his efforts than he did when his own small but definite income was all he could rely on. But this uncertain charity—this indefinite alms-giving which Mrs. Vyner's first gift seemed to indicate, had the injurious effect of all unascertained indeterminate assistance: it made Cecil rely on it as on a fund.

In this mental analysis I am exhibiting motives in all their nudity, but the reader will not suppose that because I drag them into the light of day, they were as clear to Cecil, in whose breast they were enveloped in the sophisms and obscurities with which men hide from themselves their own infirmities.

As Cecil sat after breakfast smoking his cigars, and watching the graceful involutions of the clouds he puffed before him, he honestly believed that he was not wasting his time. Because he occasionally arrested his wandering thoughts, and fixed them on his plans for 'Nero,' or for his Comic Opera, he fancied he was maturing them. He mistook reveries for meditation. And because in those hours of pensive idleness he made but trifling progress in the elaboration of his plans, he imagined that elaboration must necessarily be slow, and demanded more time. Thus his very infirmity was alimented, and each day's error only made the original mistake more plausible.

Who has indulged in all the enchantment of the world of reverie, wherein materials are so plastic, and triumphs are so easy,—when man seems to be endowed with the god-like privilege of creation, and his thoughts take shape without an effort, passing from the creative mind into the created act, without the hard obstacle of a medium,—who is there, I say, that, having known such intellectual triumph, has not felt humbled and discouraged when, descending from the region of reverie and intention, to that of reality and execution, he has become aware of the immensity of labour, of hard resolute labour to be undergone before he can incarnate his ideas into works? The unwritten poems—the unpainted pictures—the unnoted melodies are, it is often said, transcendantly superior to those poems, pictures, and melodies which artists succeed in producing. Perhaps so; but the world justly takes no account of unaccomplished promises, of unfought victories. What it applauds is the actual victory won in earnest struggle with difficulty; the heroes it crowns are those who have enriched them with trophies, not those who might have done so.

But Cecil was content to dream of victory—to "dally with the faint surmise" of beauty—to plan, to hope, to dream—but not to act. He would stand before his easel, looking at his canvass, or playing listlessly with the colours on his palette, but never boldly using his pencil; and because "ideas" did not come to him in that irresolute mood, he threw the palette down, lighted a cigar, and declared himself unfit for work that day.

He then would seat himself at the piano to try if Euterpe were more propitious. His fingers running over the keys would naturally suggest to him some melody that he liked; it was played, of course, or a fragment of it—then another fragment; then he began to sing—his voice was good, and it pleased him to hear it. In this way another hour or so would pass, and he would then take up his hat and stroll out. Day after day was this miserable farce of "awaiting inspiration" played with the same success.

Enthusiastic artists and critics will assuredly award him their esteem, and proclaim him a genuine artist—a real genius—when they hear that Cecil had a profound contempt for "mechanical fellows," who sat down to their work whether under "inspiration," or under the mere impulse to finish what they have begun. He was really eloquent in his scorn of the "drudges." Genius, in his eyes, was a divine caprice. It came and went in moments of excitement: a sort of intermittent phrenzy. Being a scholar, he entirely approved of Plato's theory to that effect, as developed in the dialogue of Ion. The business of an artist was consequently to await those moments, and then to set himself to work, when his soul was stung to ecstacy by overpowering visions of beauty.

There is, in the present day, an overplus of raving about genius, and its prescriptive rights of vagabondage, its irresponsibility, and its insubordination to all the laws of common sense. Common sense is so prosaic! Yet it appears from the history of art that the real men of genius did not rave about anything of the kind. They were resolute workers, not idle dreamers. They knew that their genius was not a phrenzy, not a supernatural thing at all, but simply the colossal proportions of faculties which in a lesser degree, the meanest of mankind shared with them. They knew that whatever it was, it would not enable them to accomplish with success the things they undertook, unless they devoted their whole energies to the task.

Would Michael Angelo have built St. Peter's, sculptured the Moses, and made the walls of the Vatican sacred with the presence of his gigantic pencil, had he awaited inspiration while his works were in progress. Would Rubens have dazzled all the galleries of Europe, had he allowed his brush to hesitate? would Beethoven and Mozart have poured out their souls into such abundant melodies? would Göthe have written the sixty volumes of his works,—had they not often, very often, sat down like drudges to an unwilling task, and found themselves speedily engrossed with that to which they were so averse?

"Use the pen," says a thoughtful and subtle author, "there is no magic in it; but it keeps the mind from staggering about!"* This is an aphorism which should be printed in letters of gold over the studio door of every artist. Use the pen or the brush; do not pause, do not trifle, have no misgivings; but keep your mind from staggering about by fixing it resolutely on the matter before you, and then all that you can do you will do: inspiration will not enable you to do more. Write or paint: act, do not hesitate. If what you have written or painted should turn out imperfect, you can correct it, and the correction will be more efficient than that correction which takes place in the shifting thoughts of hesitation. You will learn from your failures infinitely more than from the vague wandering reflections of a mind loosened from its moorings; because the failure is absolute, it is precise, it stands bodily before you, your eyes and judgment cannot be juggled with, you know whether a certain verse is harmonious, whether the rhyme is there or not there; but in the other case you not only can juggle with yourself but do so, the very indeterminateness of your thoughts makes you do so; as long as the idea is not positively clothed in its artistic form, it is impossible accurately to say what it will be. The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one object. Let your pen fall, begin to trifle with blotting-paper, look at the ceiling, bite your nails, and otherwise dally with your purpose, and you waste your time, scatter your thoughts, and repress the nervous energy necessary for your task. Some men dally and dally, hesitate and trifle until the last possible moment, and when the printer's boy is knocking at the door, they begin: necessity goading them, they write with singular rapidity, and with singular success; they are astonished at themselves. What is the secret? Simply this; they have had no time to hesitate. Concentrating their powers upon the one object before them, they have done what they could do.

* Essays written during the intervals of business.

Impatient reader! if I am tedious, forgive me. These lines may meet the eyes of some to whom they are specially addressed, and may awaken thoughts in their minds not unimportant to their future career.

Forgive me, if only because I have taken what is called the prosaic side! I have not flattered the shallow sophisms which would give a gloss to idleness and incapacity. I have not availed myself of the splendid tirades, so easy to write, about the glorious privileges of genius. My "preaching" may be very ineffectual, but at any rate it advocates the honest dignity of labour; let my cause excuse my tediousness.

CHAPTER VI.
A SKETCH OF FRANK FORRESTER.

These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres
Into brief yards—bring sterling pounds to farthings,
Credit to infamy; and the poor gull,
Who might have lived an honoured easy life,
To ruin and an unregarded grave.
Beaumont and Fletcher.

Cecil was rattling away on his piano one afternoon, fancying he was composing, when the door opened, and in walked a gentleman enveloped in a pea-coat, whom Cecil saluted warmly as Frank Forrester; and after endless questions and vociferous laughter on both sides, they both sat down to indulge in rapid biographical reminiscences from the time of their last meeting.

Frank Forrester was, in every sense of the word, a man about town. He was tall and well-made, and when young must have been handsome. Although not yet forty, he looked much older, from the effects of constant debauchery. You could not look at him without misgivings. His well-shaped head was bald from the forehead to the crown, and this baldness he vainly endeavoured to conceal by carefully combing the thin long hair over it which grew at the sides, and which he allowed to grow very long for that purpose. I don't know why, but there is always something particularly unpleasant in this endeavour to conceal baldness: it is a subterfuge which deceives no one, but which is resented as an attempt to deceive. In Forrester's case, perhaps, there was mingled a disagreeable conviction that he was too young to be bald in the ordinary course of things; and those thin straggling hairs were all that had withstood the midnight fevers and the morning headaches of his reckless life. His deep-lined brow and finely arched eyebrows surmounted two light greenish-grey eyes, not unlike those of a fox in expression. A dark rim, encircling those eyes, spoke plainly in confirmation of the bald head, and was further strengthened by the sallow complexion, stained by a hundred orgies. His mouth was large, (the upper lip adorned with a manly moustache carefully trimmed and combed,) and displayed teeth which a shark might not have disowned. His nose was high and haughty—curved like those of the race of Israel—a nose that commanded the other features, and which sounded like a trumpet when he blew it.

He was dressed in a style, which, though heterogeneous in its details, had a certain homogeneity of effect. A black-satin stock, the falls of which were united by two enormous turquoise pins chained together; a blue pea-jacket, such as only sailors formerly permitted themselves, covered his frock-coat. Very staring plaid trousers, cut gaiter-wise, to fit tight over the instep of his bottes vernies, completed his attire, if we add yellow kid gloves, and a resplendent gold and crystal mounted cane made out of the sword of a sword-fish. This somewhat slang costume was worn in such a manner that it did not seem slang. Forrester had the "air of a gentleman," which carried off more perilous things than his costume. He looked, indeed, something of a blackleg; but it was the nobleman turned blackleg.

Frank Forrester was not exactly a leg, he was rather a sponge. Not over scrupulous in borrowing money, he never directly cheated. To ask for a cool hundred which he was certain of never repaying, which, indeed, he never intended to repay, was not in his eyes dishonourable; but to cheat at cards or dice was a crime with which he had never even sullied his imagination. The son of an undertaker, well to do in the world, he had been brought up as most boys are brought up, with a slight infusion of religion administered in weekly doses, and a wavering code of ethics enunciated and illustrated in a random and somewhat contradictory manner. When his father died he found himself at the head of a thriving business which he detested, and in possession of a good round sum of money, which he did not class in the same category as the business. Gifted with a jovial and genial humour, great animal spirits, and the audacity of a parvenu, he very quickly "realized," i.e. disposed of the business, and began his merry career. While he was spending his money he made some acquaintances, and learned some experience, which enabled him, when all was spent, to turn his acquisitions to advantage, and make them support him. Like the noble spendthrift turned blackleg, he lost a fortune in acquiring the dexterity to gain one; or, rather, learned from those who sponged upon him how he could sponge on others.

Never was there a more agreeable sponge, and no wonder that affluent greenhorns, desirous of "seeing life," should be glad to see it under his auspices and in his company. It could not be too highly paid. It was well worth the champagne and cool hundred. If a young booby must squander away the hard-won earnings of a careful father, it was right, Frank said, that he should have some pleasure for his money, and how was that pleasure to be obtained? By money? Not a bit of it! By science; and he, Frank, understood the science of spending, and "flattered himself that he did know how to make the hours roll swiftly and smoothly, provided any one were ready to grease the wheels."

Frank knew everything, and could do everything, that a man about town is expected to know or do. He was unequalled at billiards, strong at whist and écarté, adroit at hazard, great in culinary and cellar knowledge, knew London as well as his alphabet, and, as he expressed it, could give the most knowing "a wrinkle or two on some point or other."

One of his "wrinkles" is worth specifying. He was the first who ever got into parliament by the simple and ingenious procedure which has since had several imitators. He stood for a borough (which, for weighty reasons, shall be nameless), where he was an utter stranger. It was one of those admirable boroughs where the workings of our electioneering system are shown to perfection, since almost every voter had his price. So notoriously corrupt was it, that one of the candidates unblushingly announced on his placards:—

"Electors! Remember this: those who vote for
* * * will not go unrewarded!"

It was a compact little borough, purchaseable at a price not difficult to calculate. The astonishment of Frank Forrester's friends, when they heard of his standing for * * * may be conceived. He replied that he was sure patriotism, pure unmixed British independence, was the thing voters wished for now-a-days. His placards were flaming with splendid sentences. His speeches were worthy of Cato of Utica. Not a man did he bribe; not a drop of beer did he allow.

"Lor, sir!" said an independent voter to him, "it's no use your standing if so be you're not good for a drop o' drink. We always expects a little, 'lectioneering time."

"My good friend," replied Frank, drawing himself up, magnificent in virtue, "you have utterly mistaken me. I scorn to influence any one. If my principles do not speak for me, I am content to be rejected. If the voters are desirous of having a real representative—one who reflects their passions, echoes their prejudices, advocates their interests, and argues their causes—I am the man. If they want one who will buy their votes—whose hold is not on their convictions, but on their cupidity, I am not—I say emphatically, I am not their man!"

The baffled voter shook his head dubiously, and muttered, "Well, well, it won't do, it won't do!"

"It shall do!" majestically retorted Frank.

And it came to pass as the voter said, and as Frank said.

The returning officer announced that Frank Forrester, Esq., had obtained eleven votes.

"Electors!" said Frank, with imperturbable gravity, "I thank you for the confidence you have displayed.—(A laugh.) I repeat it—I thank you! You have returned my rival, and by an overwhelming majority—I hope your confidence there has not been misplaced. For myself, I still cherish the hope of one day representing you.—(Hear! hear! and cries of Try the tin next time!) Upon what do I found that hope? Upon the sincerity of my principles! You have witnessed how little I attempted to cajole or bribe you.—(More fool you! shouted several.) I have bought no man's vote.—(Howls of contempt.) Yet you have unsought, unbought, given me eleven votes. Electors! on those eleven votes I build my hope—I may say, my certainty—of representing you. This imposing minority suffices my ambition."

Only the eleven voters, to whom he had communicated his plan of action, and one or two of his special friends, appreciated the irony which was concealed by the magnificent buffoonery of this address. But the mystery was soon revealed. Frank petitioned against his antagonist's return. The upshot was, that the liberal briber —— was convicted of corruption, his election annulled, and Frank, on the shoulders of his "imposing minority," was carried into parliament.

Frank Forrester, as an M.P., was the torment of the whigs, who were never sure of his vote. Although, therefore, his name is not to be found in Hansard; although he neither made a motion, nor seconded one during the whole of his parliamentary career; times were so "ticklish," that his vote was of importance, and he made the most of it by never absenting himself from a division, and by the impossibility of parties calculating on which side he would vote. This power he converted into patronage, and many were the little clerkships and small situations which he was enabled to bestow on deserving young men; whether he was actuated by pure philanthropy towards the young men, or by a desire for the establishment of closer commercial relations with their parents, he never disclosed; but it was observable that the young men had invariably substantial ready money fathers, and that Frank was invariably more assiduous at chicken-hazard after those acts of well-timed patronage.

Frank belonged to a stylish club, and had a numerous set of acquaintances; but they were almost exclusively males. A good fellow—a jolly dog—a knowing card—and a loose fish: those were the appellatives by which he was usually distinguished. He lived upon confiding young men, and an occasional turn of the wheel of fortune. He had always some new acquaintance—or rather, let me say, some inseparable friend, whom he introduced into the glories and pleasures of "life." This friendship was inviolable as long as the young man's property lasted; but as soon as the silly gull began to request repayment of loans, or to lower himself in his patron's eyes, by retrenchment of his expenditure, then Frank was either called away from London for a few weeks, or discovered some splendid young fellow who really never allowed him a moment's leisure. Frank seldom quarrelled with his victims—he wanted heartlessness for that: and he never "cut" them.

Frank had "formed" Cecil, and as, when completely formed, Cecil had gone abroad, leaving Frank with a richer pupil, no shadow had darkened their friendship; and on Cecil's return, he found the same jovial hearty manner, in spite of his dilapidated means. This convinced him of Frank's regard, and from that moment he had made him the chosen confidant of all his schemes.

CHAPTER VII.
CECIL'S FIRST FALSE STEP.

No man can be a great enemy, but under the name of a friend; if you are a cuckold, it is your friend only that makes you so, for your enemy is not admitted to your house; if you are cheated in your fortune, 'tis your friend that does it, for your enemy is not made your trustee; if your honour or good name is injured, 'tis your friend that does it still, for your enemy is not believed against you.

WYCHERLEY.—Plain Dealer.

"Well, Frank, and how goes the world with you?" said Cecil, after having made him acquainted with the present state of his affairs.

"Tollollish!" replied Frank. "I have an ingenious youth in training, who, I am sorry to say, is nearly trained or drained. Picked him up abroad—genus snob, very distinct! But snob's money I find quite as available as any other. I was going from Verviers to Cologne this summer, when in the deserted first-class carriage into which I ensconced myself, there stepped a flaxen-haired youth, of the unmistakeable "gent" style—the only real substitute for a "gentleman." He was soon after followed by a lathy boy, all skin and bone, with trousers either shrunk by washing, or considerably outgrown, and fastened with immeasureable straps. The swagger of this boy was worth money to see. He entered into familiar conversation at once, and favoured me with some biographical particulars, which were eminently trivial. At last he took out his cigar-case, and offering it to me, with an air of exquisite assumption said,—

"Do you do anything in this way?"

"Not so early in the day."

"Lord, it doesn't matter to me what's the time o' day, I'm always ready to blow a cloud, I can tell you."

"Indeed," said I, with perfect gravity.

"Oh, yes. Do try one. I dare say it won't disagree with you. It's all fancy."

"You seem to be a fast fellow."

"I believe you."

"Do you come from London?"

"No; I'm a Southampton boy. We do it in prime style there, I can tell you."

"Oh, you do?"

"Don't we, that's all!"

"Were those trousers built in Southampton?—they're devilish stylish—so uncommon, too!"

"Yes," replied the innocent youth, in all the verdure of his nature. "Yes, they were built at Southampton—but I don't call them anything—merely put on to travel in—you should see my fawn kerseys and my plaids!"

"What, better cut?"

"Oh, no comparison."

"I should like very much to have your Schneider's address. I am going to Southampton on my return to England. I suppose if I were to mention your name——"

"Lord, yes, that would be sure to do it. But he isn't a cheap tailor, mind you."

The "gent" was leaning his head out of window, nearly suffocated with suppressed laughter, and from time to time encouraging me with fierce winks to proceed.

"There," said my lathy patron, "I have written his address on one of my cards—just show him my name, and you'll find it all right."

"Pray, sir," I asked, as if suddenly eager in poultry, "when you left Southampton, what was the price of a young goose?"

This was too much for the "gent," who burst out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. The viridity of the Southampton youth was great, but this laughter opened his eyes. He coloured, and exclaimed,—

"Oh, you want to chaff, do you? But it won't do. I sha'n't bite. I'm not such a fool as I look."

"That's very possible—Heaven forbid you should be!" said I; whereupon a fresh burst of laughter from snob primus, who vowed that the youth was "sold."

At the next station, lath left our carriage; and "gent" instantly began expressing to me his delight at the way I had "sold the snob;" which led to his becoming in turn communicative, and informing me that he had just "sacked a little tin," which it was his intention "to spend like a brick." From that moment I took him into my confidence. I have trained him. I have taught him how to dine—which he had once imagined consisted in eating what money could procure. I have taught him to live. He is no longer a snob; at least, he doesn't betray himself. But—and, damn my whiskers! this is the sad part of the business—it is the way with so many of them—now, just as he is becoming companionable, his purse is running low."

Frank sighed as he thus finished his tale, but quickly changing the subject, he said,—

"Come, let's take a turn, and look in at the club."

"No, Frank, I must work."

"Nonsense! What's the use of puddling all day over your work—you only stupify yourself. Come."

"There's some truth in what you say, I believe; the brain gets muddled by long application. Yet my picture isn't half finished yet—half!—not a quarter."

"Never mind; leave it for to-day. Damn my whiskers! I must have you to-day."

Cecil's irresolution was soon conquered; he took his hat, and went out with his chum. They strolled down to the club, where Cecil had not shown himself since his marriage. The heartiness of his welcome greatly flattered him; he felt that he was a favourite; success cheered him; his spirits rose; he became unusually brilliant.

"You must dine with us to-day, Cis," said Frank.

"Impossible, my dear fellow."

"Don't know the word, Cis. I have said you dine with us—four—jolly party; and you dine: damn my whiskers!"

"But my wife——."

"Well? Inestimable Benedict, you are not tied to her apron-string, are you? You have not submitted to the tyranny of the weaker sex? You are master?"

"I am; certainly I am; but——."

"You have never dined from home before. You shake your head. Very well, now is the time to begin."

"My dear Frank, you must know me well enough to know that I should have no scruple in following my own wishes; and although I have not yet dined from home, I have no sort of fear that when I choose to do it, my wife will make a remark. But in the present case she will be alarmed—she has no idea of my coming down here. My hours have been very regular, and if I were not to present myself at five o'clock, she would be seriously concerned about me."

"Yes, yes, it's always by that unnecessary 'concern' that women begin. What the devil is there to be concerned about? The sooner you accustom her to the accidents of life—to the impromptu parties and unexpected absences—the smoother will your life be."

"When you are married, Frank, you can manage as you please, but for me your system won't do. I love my wife, and my constant care is to make her happy."

Frank looked at him with an indescribable mixture of astonishment, incredulity, and pity; then, as a thought seemed to occur to him said,—

"But look here, Cis, the thing is easy. Just scribble a line to tell her not to expect you, that you are dining at the club, and one of the men shall take it. Will that satisfy you?"

"Perfectly."

"Then do it."

Cecil wrote thus:—

"MY OWN SWEET PET!

"Do not wait dinner for me to-day, as I am forced to dine with some influential people at the club. But I shall hurry away as soon as possible, and be with you before ten. A hundred kisses.

"CECIL."

The dinner was excellent, and the guests in high spirits. The "influential people" of whom Cecil spoke, were the great Frank himself, young Hudson (the youth in training and the amphytrion), and Tom Chetsom, jolly Tom Chetsom. The wines were not spared; and by the time the smoking-room was sought for a quiet cigar and cup of coffee, to assist the slow elaborate digestion of those who had dined well, Cecil was in that peculiar state which I would christen moral drunkenness. He was not tipsy: nor near it. His walk was as steady, his eye as free in its movements, his vision as undisturbed as before dinner. But although neither in his gait nor conversation he betrayed the least influence of wine, yet within he felt a sort of torpor—the strong desire for a sensation which makes men reckless how they procure it, and which makes them passively adopt any plan likely to arouse them from the heavy deadening lethargy in which their faculties are enveloped.

The smoking-room soon became intolerable to him. He wanted movement—excitement. The theatre was proposed. They went. But the heat, the glare of the lights, the dazzle, and confusion of the whole place, made Cecil worse. They left the house.

"What shall we do?" said jolly Tom Chetsom, as they stood under the portico of Drury-lane.

Hudson proposed the Coal-Hole; but Frank reminding him that it was too early, he was distinctly of opinion that he should not go home till morning, till daylight did appear.

"I tell you what, Tom," said Frank, "isn't it one of Hester's soirées to-night? Suppose we go there: she'll be charmed to know Cis—he's half a literary man, and wholly a painter."

"Good idea!" said Tom. "Will you go, Chamberlayne?"

"Anywhere. Let's start."

"Come along, then."

And they drove to Cadogan-place.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE POETESS IN LONDON.

Quid enim dulcius libero et ingenuo animo et ad voluptates honestas nato quam videre plenam semper et frequentem domum suam concursu splendidissimorum hominum?

TACITUS.—De Oratoribus.

Le mariage se propose la vie, tandis que l'amour ne se propose que le plaisir.

BALZAC.—Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées.

While they are driving to Cadogan-place, let us cast a retrospective glance at the fortunes of the authoress of Gleams and Glooms, to whose soirée they are wending.

Hester Mason had achieved a part of her ambition: she held a salon in London. How she contrived and maintained that, would take long to narrate in detail, as it was only by steady perseverance and admirable ingenuity she succeeded. On first eloping with Sir Chetsom, she had the tact never once to mention a settlement; indeed when he, in a moment of tenderness, alluded to the subject, she playfully put her hand upon his mouth and said,—"Oh, don't begin to talk of money, or I shall think you have bought me. You are not going to leave me, are you?"

"Leave you, Hester?"

"Yes, leave me. It looks like it. I am poor I know; but rich in your love. Make me independent, and you will think it no hardship for me to be left; it is always so with men!"

A sigh followed this. Sir Chetsom was ravished; the dupe was fooled to the top of his bent. Hester marked the effect, and from that moment knew her power. From that moment he denied her nothing. The time would come, she foresaw, when he would be completely her slave, and that was the time to make conditions.

Meanwhile, she impressed him with the notion of the necessity for their liaison being hidden from the world. If people did not respect her, they would not envy him. If she were not something more than his mistress, he would be not better than the common herd of men who have their "follies." Appearances should be preserved for all sakes. Sir Chetsom admitted the truth of this, reserving to himself the privilege of disclosing his secret at the club, by intelligible hints and half-confidences.

He had given her a house; he had brought there the nucleus of a literary and artistic society. Hester received every Wednesday evening, and as her parties had a certain piquancy, they were well attended. The great difficulty was to get women. That is always the stumbling-block of an equivocal position. Men are willing enough to go anywhere, if they are amused, and to ask no questions, or at least to affect no prudery. With women, the case is wholly different. Accordingly, with what untiring perseverance do women in equivocal positions manœuvre to obtain the presence of virtuous women at their houses! How they pet them, how full of delicate attentions and substantial kindness! What cajoleries, what adroit insinuations, what flattering prospects they set forth to dazzle their "dear friends"! What twaddle they will listen to for hours, with the eagerness of curious interest; what confidences accept! It is one of the most amusing scenes in the comedy of society to witness the grateful attentions of a woman who is not "received," to those of her female acquaintance who shut their eyes to her real position, or are ignorant of it. You see a pretty, lively, clever, graceful, dashing woman of the world exerting all her coquetries to cajole some ugly, stupid, awkward, under-bred woman whose "countenance" she wants. She imagines that the presence of a few "modest women," no matter what their unattractiveness, will give her salon an air comme il faut. But it deceives no one. It only renders her salon a little less agreeable.

Hester managed, as others manage, to collect a few complaisant woman, and a man or two old enough, stupid enough, and respectable enough to keep them in countenance; and she had a salon.

Sir Chetsom Chetsom was rich and lavish. Without asking for it, Hester contrived to have almost everything she wished for. His vanity, at first only tickled by the conquest, was now always alive to the maintenance of that conquest. She made him feel that his position was insecure: it was done delicately, but it was done. To the dread of being left by her in favour of another, was soon added the dread of losing her for her own sake. He had become accustomed to her. She amused him, occupied him, captivated him. When she pouted, he was in despair; when she caressed him, he was in raptures. The old boy was alternately alarmed at her perception of the difference in their ages, and flattered at the conviction that, in spite of that difference, she really loved him. She was always playing upon two themes. First theme.—Why should I waste my youth and love upon a selfish old monster? Second theme.—How infinitely preferable is the love of a man who has seen the world, and lost the first illusions of youth, to the capricious tenderness of a boy!

Give those themes to a clever woman, and imagine the variations she would play upon them!

Although Hester had achieved a part of her ambitious plans, it must not be supposed that she was either satisfied or happy. She had kicked the dust of Walton from her feet. She was in the capital, and surrounded by luxury. She had a salon to which many celebrities were visitors. But neither Sir Chetsom nor her visitors could make Gleams and Glooms popular. Not a copy was sold. Not a journal of any standing took the least notice of it. Some exaggerated criticisms, bristling with notes of admiration, and sonorous with epithets of praise, did indeed appear; but they appeared in journals of no character, and bore the evident stamp of the puff direct. She sent a copy, with a flattering letter, to every author whose name rose above the herd into some distinction. From the majority, she received no acknowledgment; from a great many came letters instantaneously acknowledging the "receipt" of the volume, but not a word on its contents; from some few poets she received general and vague flatteries, together with copies "from the authors" of their last new poems. A delicate attention, expressive of this golden rule—praise me and I'll praise you.

Having consoled herself with the conviction that the age was a prosaic age averse to poetry, she began a novel, hoping to gain celebrity by that.

In noting the latent causes of her dissatisfaction, I have said nothing of Sir Chetsom. That she was not happy, while forced to act the degrading character of mistress to such a man, will be understood; she used him as the ladder by which to ascend the height which beckoned in the distance; but she thoroughly despised him, and at times despised herself.

On the Wednesday evening chosen by Frank Forrester for the introduction of Cecil to the fair muse, Hester was looking particularly well. A flush of animation gave a tint to her cheek, and additional fire to her dark eyes. In her raven hair a string of costly pearls were woven; large glittering bracelets encircled her well-shaped arms; and a black velvet dress set off to perfection her handsome bust, which was lavishly displayed. She was seated on the sofa propounding some humanitarian doctrine, when the four were announced. She rose graciously. Tom Chetsom apologized for the liberty he had taken in bringing Mr. Chamberlayne, who was very desirous of the honour, &c.

"Any friend of yours will always be welcome, Mr. Chetsom," she said, smiling, "and Mr. Chamberlayne particularly so. I have often heard his name, and always accompanied by some flattering epithet."

Cecil bowed.

Frank then presented Hudson, and Cecil noticed, that although she also received him with a gracious smile, there was a marked difference in her manner. Strange animals that we are! this flattered him exceedingly.

The rooms were full; and conversation was lively in groups. It was a curious assembly when the details were examined, and had little of that éclat which Hester had imagined in her dreams. The men for the most part were neither young nor aristocratic; they were—at least some of them—not positively unknown to fame; small reputations, current only in literary circles—scarcely heard beyond those circles; men of talent, men of worth, men of energy and of ambition, but scarcely at ease in society. Mixed with these were a few of Sir Chetsom's club-men, a few harmless respectabilities, and a few—very few women.

One of these women was requested to oblige with one of her charming performances, and her harp was wheeled into the centre of the room. It is one of the penalties attached to the condition of such women as Hester, that if their dear female friends have any little accomplishment, they must be implored to exhibit it. In any other society, Miss Blundell would no more have been asked to perform, than Gunter's waiters would be asked to dance. But to secure Miss Blundell, Hester could not avoid inviting her to play. If Hester wanted countenance, Miss Blundell wanted admiration. And it was really comic to see the mistress of the house threading the crowd of visitors, and entreating their attention to the fantasia with which Miss Blundell was about to favour them.

The hubbub of conversation was almost stilled, and Miss Blundell advanced to take possession of her harp.

"She's ugly enough for a genius," whispered Frank to Hester. Hester put her finger on her lip to command his silence.

Frank's observation was just. Miss Blundell was not handsome. Of an age so uncertain that it is denominated a "certain age," she wore her black hair in a girlish crop. On a low, square, rugged forehead sparkled a Sévigné. Wondering eyebrows overarched two sunken eyes; a graceless nose and insignificant mouth did not tempt an artist to fix them on his canvass. In accordance with the juvenility of her style, she was robed in white muslin, displaying a scraggy tawny neck, fierce and protuberant shoulder-blades, and disreputable arms. Certainly nothing but great skill could exonerate such ugliness.

She began by a rattling sweep over the strings, and an audacious display of elbows. Having thus fixed attention, she paused and sought inspiration from the ceiling. Genius always does. I know not what mystic influence there may be in a white-washed plafond; but it appears there is something of the kind, since rhymes, tropes, and melodies are drawn therefrom. Miss Blundell found music there. A few seconds of silent invocation brought down the muse, and she flogged the harp into the Gustavus galop.

There are players of no feeling, and players of too much feeling. Miss Blundell was of the latter class. She despised execution (with some private reasons for so doing), and thought music should have a soul. Feeling was all in all with her, and feeling she threw into everything. Even this mad, giggling, joyous, whirling, rattling galop was not free from her sentimental caprice. She began con spirito,—

which suddenly changed, at the fourth bar, from allegro vivace to an ad libitum rallentando, expressive of the deepest emotion, the player's eyes thrown upwards as if in rapt devotion. These notes,

died away in a "billowy ecstacy of woe," immediately succeeded by a fiery allegro, which again subsided into a pathetic rallentando:

An ironical murmur of applause followed this display, and Hester pressed her hand as she thanked, complimented, and led her back again to the sofa.

"Was it not charming?" she asked Frank, in a tone intentionally audible.

"Amazing!" replied he; then adding, in an under tone, "she is the Orpheus of private life: as witness the effect she produces on the animals here. I hope she hasn't turned the cream."'

"You are a sad man—so satirical!"

"Not I. Your friend delights me; she's original."

"Well, I am no musician myself; but I believe she is."

"Yes, as cats are musicians."

Hester laughed, and turned to Cecil; but Frank instantly recalled her attention, by saying,—

"Do tell me who is that old buffer leaning against the mantelpiece. Is it Miss Blundell's brother?"

"Yes."

"Of course—I knew it—he could be nobody else's brother. Do study him. He'll do for your novel. Look at him, Cis. Observe that blue coat, is it not immeasurably, audaciously, sublimely impossible! The short waist, the large collar, like a horse-collar, the brass buttons, and scanty skirt! When was it made? In what dim remoteness of the mythic ages was it conceived and executed? What primitive and most ancient Briton first wore it? By Jove! I must ask the address of his tailor."

"No, no, Frank, for God's sake, don't."

"Then the flaming shawl-waistcoat, the grey trousers strapped so tightly over those big many-bunioned feet, the eye-glass, the flower in his button-hole, the withered smiling face, the jaunty juvenility of this most withered individual! Really, Miss Mason, you ought to make a collection from us all, for the privilege of seeing this unedited burlesque, this fabulous curiosity! He is a mummy unembalmed!"

The drollery of Frank's manner was irresistible, and both Hester and Cecil were bursting with laughter, when the unconscious object approached them, and asked Hester whether some one else would not add to the harmony of the evening.

"I am quite sure," he added, with a gallant bow, "that to your numerous accomplishments you add the gift of song."

Hester excused herself.

"You look like a singer," said Frank to him with perfect gravity. "I see it in your manner. Is it not so?"

A withered smile and feeble shake of the head was Mr. Blundell's answer.

"Well, well, I suppose all the musical genius of the family is centred in your charming sister. What a player! What a touch—or rather what a pull!"

"Humph! yes, not bad."

"So much feeling! Feeling is the thing, sir. It is soul, passion, poetry. Feeling's the chap for me! A poet, sir?"

"No."

"You look like one."

"No; I am merely a dabbler. I follow in the wake of intellectual men. I have some humour. My friends think me a sort of 'Boz'—that certainly is my line. But I have no pretensions."

"Have you written much?"

"A good deal. I have written for 'Blackwood.'"

"Indeed!"

"Yes; but they never printed what I sent them. I don't know why. Perhaps, because I am not a Scotchman. They are very jealous of English writers. Had I been a Scotchman they would have jumped at my papers; so my friends tell me."

"The scoundrels!" said Frank; but whether he meant the Scotchmen, or the friends, remains undecided.

"My friend Mr. Donkin, the celebrated epic poet, (the author of 'Mount Horeb,' you know,) thought my papers very funny, very; but 'Blackwood' actually rejected some poems of his, as well as a 'Dissertation on the conditions of the Intellectual Epopæ.' Do you write, sir?"

"Yes; letters."

Blundell was puzzled. He could not from Frank's manner detect whether this was a naïveté or a sarcasm.

"A very literary employment too," said Cecil, "according to the landlady of one of my friends. He was looking at apartments in Brighton, and before concluding, he asked his landlady whether she had other lodgers?

"'Only one gentleman, sir,' she said, 'rather an eccentric gentleman. I suppose you know him, sir, it's Mr. Shakspeare.'

"'I have not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Shakspeare.'

"'Don't you, sir? He's the great writer!'

"'Ah, the great writer!'

"'Yes; but lor, sir, writer as he is, he has only written two letters all the time he has been in my house!'

Blundell laughed feebly, though a funny man—a sort of "Boz" his friends told him; he did not see the joke, but laughed because the others laughed.

At this moment Sir Chetsom Chetsom was announced. "How late you are!" said Hester, reproachfully; but she paid him no attention during the rest of the evening, and his manner to her was eminently respectful.

Cecil was amused. He conversed with some clever men, and was flattered by his own success; he was a really good talker, often brilliant, always amusing. Hester took a great fancy to him, and engaged him in several discussions on rather perilous topics for a young man and a young woman to discuss. In them Cecil felt uneasy. He was not on equal ground in talking to a young woman, and although she piqued him to continue, he felt himself at a disadvantage.

"You forget," he said at last, in the midst of an argument on marriage, "that I am a married man, and therefore cannot espouse your view."

"Truly, but why can you not? Because the present odious law of marriage is all in favour of the men."

"I demur to that."

"Men make the laws, and make them for their own advantage. Think of the gross injustice! Women must not only be rigorously pure, but must even be kept in ignorance as complete as watchfulness will admit of; but a man may have had a hundred low amours, and no father refuses to give him a daughter. Purity, which is supposed to be woman's greatest virtue, is never thought of in a man. Why should not a girl demand that her lover be as pure as herself? Why should woman be hopelessly disgraced for that which in a man is venial? I know what you will say; but I repeat that marriage is an unholy institution. Think of the suicides committed by women who have been seduced; did you ever hear of the seducer shooting himself? Think of the wretched wives who have died broken-hearted, of the outcasts of society—outcasts for that which disgraces no man. What is it all owing to? the law of marriage! Beside the fearful crimes and desperate acts which the law of marriage causes, look at the thousands of young, healthy, affectionate girls, who wither in unblessed virginity, who never know the joys of maternity. And mark the glorious inconsistency of men: you keep us ignorant, you keep us from equal privileges, you shut us from the world of action, and your sole argument for it is, that nature has unfitted us for it; that we are inferior creatures, whose organization is specially adapted to the bearing, rearing, and nursing of children; yet this, for which alone we were created, your barbarous law of marriage denies to a frightful number; wretched girls who wither in the hope of finding husbands."

"That the law of marriage," answered Cecil, "transmutes a desire into a crime is very true. But the law of property is open to the same objection. A man covets your money or your plate; the law of property forces him either to break into your house, perhaps to murder you, or to restrain his desires. But because men are hanged for murder, no one really wishes to abolish the law of property; because men are transported and imprisoned for frauds and felonies, it is no argument against a law of property."

"That I admit."

"Then surely you must admit, that although the law of marriage may punish those who infringe its precepts, it is not therefore to be abolished."

"No; but there is this difference: the principles of justice and moral education may control the desire of despoiling or defrauding another of his property, but human passion owns no such stern control. Love is beyond volition. The husband cannot will to love his wife, the wife cannot will not to love another. Reason is powerless against the passion, because the woman loves before she is aware of it. She does not see the danger till she is enveloped in it. Marriage is indissoluble, but passion is capricious. It is foolish, impious, for a human being to swear that he will love another eternally. Passion in its intensity always believes in its eternity. But who can answer for the continuance of love? Who can say, I will not change? Because we foresee no change, are we to shut our eyes to the experience of ages: to our own experience even, which tells too plainly of the mutability of passion? Yet marriage is indissoluble!"

"And rightly so," said Cecil, "for this one reason—whatever is inevitable soon ceases to be a hardship; the very power which human beings have of adapting themselves to almost any condition, makes them accept their fate with tranquillity, provided that fate be certain and unequivocal. Passion is, as you say, mutable, capricious. But in the generality of cases, the mere consciousness of the indissolubility of the marriage tie acts as a check upon the roving fancy."

Hester shook her head.

"This much I will grant," continued Cecil, "that as a matter of sentiment, as a mere question of love, I think you are in the main correct; but as a matter of practical civilization, as a civil institution which regards the whole framework of society, I think you—pardon me—altogether wrong."

The clock on the mantelpiece struck one as he said this, and its sharp, thin note struck like ice upon his heart, as he remembered that his beloved Blanche was sitting up awaiting him, and had been since ten o'clock. He took a hasty leave of Hester, promising to renew the conversation some other evening, and, with a whisper to Frank, withdrew.

Hester saw him depart, with a vague feeling of regret. To understand this, we must not only recall the sudden friendship all have known sometimes to spring up in one evening's intercourse, but we must also consider Hester's peculiar position. She was then just recovering from the shock her illusions had sustained with reference to men of genius. In her provincial and poetical ignorance, she had imagined that every man of remarkable powers must be captivating in appearance. Apollo in the shape of Vulcan was a monstrosity which had never distorted her dreams. I do not mean that she supposed every distinguished poet, novelist, or critic was as handsome as a guardsman. She was prepared for daring oddities of appearance; and was more likely to be captivated by the "flashing eyes and floating hair," by the wild irregularities of an inspired face, than by the lineal correctness of a beauty man. But she was prepared to find singularity and youth: a striking appearance joined to all the ardour and impetuosity of youth. In both was she deceived. The men she saw were for the most part undistinguishable in appearance from the rest of the world, and when distinguishable, not picturesquely so. Above all, they were not young.

It is rather curious at first, to one unfamiliar with the artistic world, to see how little youth is to be met with amongst the celebrities. Our young poets are middle-aged men; our rising authors are bald; our distinguished painters are passing into the "sere and yellow leaf;" our very "young Englanders" are getting gray and pursy.

The truth is, life is short and art is long; and although a privileged man does sometimes in the ardour of youth reach the summit of reputation by a bound, either from the prodigal richness of his genius, or from having hit the favour of the movement, yet, as a general rule, celebrity is slowly gained, and not without many years of toilsome effort. Mastery requires immense labour. Before the proper power over materials can be gained, the artist must have spent enormous labour; and before that power can be exerted in any striking way, the artist must have lived much, suffered much, and observed much. Celebrity is not easily gained now-a-days. The lavish abundance of talent daily, weekly, and monthly squandered upon fugitive productions, makes it no easy matter to rise above the ordinary level; while the multiplicity of works so far exceeds all reading powers to keep pace with them, that, for an author to gain more than a limited and temporary reputation, it is necessary he should either be very lucky, or very earnest, hard-working, resolute, and clever. But before he has attained sufficient mastery to command respect, the gray hairs begin to show themselves. He must have made many efforts, struck many blows, before the way is opened to him, before the world will recognise him.

What a shock then to Hester, when she found, one after the other, all were middle-aged men. The ardour and freshness in their works was but the reminiscence of a youthhood which required the mastery of manhood to mould it. The men she had admired, of whom she had made idols, when she saw them as they were, with deep-lined faces, thin hair, deficient teeth, and all the signs of premature middle age, created a feeling of disappointment almost amounting to disgust. She forgot that in straining their voices to be heard above the crowd, they had grown husky by the time they had succeeded.

Cecil was the first young handsome man whom she had seen, and who, although not yet known to fame, had a sort of drawing-room reputation; she was charmed with him; his wit, vivacity, gentlemanly manner, and handsome countenance, were all calculated to make a deep impression upon her. Without acknowledging to herself the interest she felt in him, she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon what he had said, and how he had looked, rather more than was safe for her peace of mind.

CHAPTER IX.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.

When Blanche received Cecil's note, informing her that he was to dine at the club, she felt truly glad. Ill as she could spare his company, especially in such a house as Mrs. Tring's, she felt glad. The good little thing forgot her own loss in the idea of his pleasure. She was so delighted that he was going to enjoy himself for once among his old friends. After the miserable fare of their boarding-house, how he would relish the cuisine of his club! He wanted a little change. He wanted relaxation: he overworked himself.

This was the way little Blanche accepted her husband's first absence from home. I dare say, thin-lipped madam, you wholly disapprove of her simplicity; you think she did not understand men and husbands; that she showed false generosity. You would not have taken it so quietly—not you! In her place, you would at once have seen through the selfishness and want of attention which permitted a husband, so newly married, to leave his wife in that way, and return to his vile bachelor haunts. In her place, you would have sat up for him, cowering under a huge shawl, careful that the candles should be burnt to the last inch, you having allowed the fire to go out; and you would have received him either in the sullen dignity of silence, or with hot, fast-falling tears.

In her place,—But Blanche, my dear madam, had not your thin lips and fretful organization. She was an innocent, artless, affectionate, little creature, adoring her husband, believing herself unworthy of him, and only happy in his happiness. She lived for him. If he was happy by her side, it gave her exquisite delight; if he was happy, away from her, she felt, indeed, the void of his absence; but the thought of his being amused, took from absence its pain. Jealousy she had none. Her trusting nature could not harbour it: certain of his love, to question it would be profanity.

So till ten o'clock she occupied herself cheerily enough. After that, she began to expect him. Eleven struck. "He has been kept later than he intended," she said.

A novel was on the table. She began to read it. Cecil's face was constantly dancing on the page; and, once or twice, when the author mentioned convivial dinners, she pictured to herself Cecil surrounded by admirers, the wine passing freely, no one heeding the time; and, as the clock struck twelve, she said, "He is greatly amused."

There was something of the sublime devotion of woman's love in this quiet reflection, which, as in all generosity, had its own sweet recompense. The thought made her happy, and hid from her the fact that it was twelve o'clock, and she was waiting for him.

She continued her novel.

Cecil was hurrying home, very uneasy at having stayed out so late. The stupor which wine had occasioned was quite gone, and he began to reproach himself for having accompanied Chetsom to Hester's. He had never left Blanche before. How could she have passed her evening? What would her anxiety be when ten, then eleven, then twelve, then one o'clock struck, and he not home? What excuse should he make?

Nothing can better express the difference between Cecil and Blanche, than these two thoughts:—

"He is greatly amused!"

"What excuse shall I make?"

The confidence and love of the one is not more distinctly indicated by the first, than the weakness of the other is by the second.

No excuse was needed. When he arrived home, instead of reproaches, silent or expressed, he was met with kisses and joyous questions. All she seemed curious about was, how he had been amused. For herself, she had passed the time pleasantly enough. Her work and her novel had amused her. Oh, he wasn't to think himself of such consequence: existence was not insupportable without him—for a few hours!

Cecil took both her hands in his, and, pressing his lips upon her lovely eyes, felt deeply, inexpressibly, what a treasure he had got; but he said nothing; nor was it necessary to say it. She understood him.

Cecil was careful not to whisper a word of Hester's equivocal position to Blanche, who imagined Miss Mason to be some worthy old maid.

On the following Wednesday, Cecil again went to Hester's, and again spent a pleasant evening. He there met some painters, whom he was desirous to know. This gave a colouring of business to his visits—a pretext to himself, for Blanche needed none.

The more Hester saw of Cecil, the more he engaged her fancy, and, at last, her affections. Of this he was wholly unconscious. His own love for his wife was an amulet against all Hester's coquetries. But although no harm as yet had come to his affections, through this acquaintance with Hester, who could say that it would long continue thus? Cecil must discover her affection in time, and then...

Yet into this peril did Blanche innocently urge him. She knew he was amused there; she knew he there extended his acquaintance among artists; and she was happy that he should take the relaxation of one evening in the week.

The peril was, however, twofold: it was not only that Cecil should be entangled by Hester—that was an uncertainty; it was also—and this more certain—that the poor, struggling artist, by nature indolent, and by accident now pampered in his indolence, should, in these club dinners and conversaziones, once more have the desire for luxury awakened in him, and a distaste for his present condition render it insupportable.

This latter peril was perhaps the more formidable of the two. Cecil fell into it. The oftener he went to his club—he had never ceased paying his subscription, having always had the prospect of very soon being in a condition to belong to a club with propriety—the oftener he went there, the greater his disgust at the gloomy house and niggardly fare of the home he had chosen. Unhappily he could not leave it. Partly, because his funds made its cheapness all important; partly, because he still hoped its beggary would work upon Meredith Vyner's feelings.