"Harriet is well, and, as ever, my right hand. To see her at work over the books at night, one would think she had been born in the Brazils, and had never heard of anything but silver mines. She sends kindest regards, and is fully of my opinion as to the expediency of your staying away from London. No news of Deane; but that does not surprise me. His association with us was entirely one of concurrence, and he always talked of himself as a wanderer--a bird of passage. I suppose he did not give you any hint of his probable movements on the day of the dinner, when I had the ill-luck to offend him by not coming? No one ever knew where he lived, or how, so I can't make any inquiries. However, it's very little matter.
"And now I must make an end of this long story. Good-bye my dear George. All sorts of luck, and jollity, and happiness attend you, but in the enjoyment of them all don't forget the pecuniary proposition I have made to you, and think sometimes kindly of
"Your sincere
"Stewart Routh."
A little roll of paper had dropped from the letter when George opened it. He picked it up, and found two Bank-of-England notes for twenty pounds, and one for ten pounds.
It is no discredit to George Dallas to avow that when he had finished the perusal of this quaint epistle, and when he looked at its enclosure, he had a swelling in his throat, a quivering in the muscles of his mouth, and thick heavy tears in his eyes. He was very young, you see, and very impressionable, swaying hither and thither with the wind and the stream, unstable as water, and with very little power of adhering to any determination, however right and laudable it seemed at the first blush. There are few of us--in early youth, at all events, let us trust--who are so clear-headed, and far-seeing, and right-hearted, as to be able to do exactly what Duty prescribes to us--the shutting out all promptings of inclination! Depend upon it the good boys in the children's story-books, those juvenile patterns who went unwaveringly to the Sunday-school, shutting their eyes to the queen-cakes and toffy so temptingly displayed on the road-side, and who were adamant in the matter of telling a fib, though by so doing they might have saved their schoolfellow a flogging--depend upon it they turned out, for the most part, very bad men, who robbed the orphans and ground the faces of the widows. George Dallas was but a man, very warm-hearted, very impressionable, and when he read Stewart Routh's letter he repented of his harshness to his friend, and accused himself of having been precipitate and ungenerous. Here was the blackleg, the sharper, the gambler, actually returning some of his legitimate winnings, and placing his purse at his acquaintance's disposal, while his stepfather--But then that would not bear thinking about! Besides, his stepfather was Clare's uncle; no kindness of Routh's would ever enable him, George, to make progress in that direction, and therefore--And yet it was deuced kind in Routh to be so thoughtful. The money came so opportunely, too, just when, what with his Hague excursion and his purchases, he had spent the balance of the sum derived from the sale of the bracelet, and it would have been scarcely decent to ask for an advance from the Mercury office or the Piccadilly people. But it was a great thing that Routh advised him to keep away from England for a time--a corroboration, too, of Routh's statement that he was going into a different line of life--for of course with his new views an intimacy with Routh would be impossible, whereas, he could now let it drop quietly. He would accept the money so kindly sent him, and he would do the account of the herring fishery for the Mercury, and he would get on with the serial story for the Piccadilly, and-- Well, he would remain where he was, and see what turned up. The quiet, easy-going, dreamy life suited George to a nicety; and if he had been a little older, and had never seen Clare Carruthers, he might, on very little provocation, have accepted the Dutch far niente as the realization of human bliss.
So, having to remain in Holland for some few days longer, and needing some money for immediate spending, George Dallas bethought him of his old friend, Mr. Schaub, and strolled to the Muiderstraat in search of him. He found the old gentleman seated behind his counter, bending over an enormous volume in the Hebrew character, over the top of which he glared through the silver-rimmed spectacles at his visitor with anything but an inviting glance. When, however, he recognized George, which he did comparatively quickly, his forbidding look relaxed, he put down the book, and began nodding in a galvanized manner, rubbing the palms of his hands together, and showing the few fangs left in his mouth.
"Vat? Vart--Paul Vart! you here still? Wass you not back gone to your own land, Vart? You do no more vairks, Vart, you vaste your time in Amsterdam, Vart--Paul Vart!"
"No; not that," said George, laughing; "I have not gone home, certainly, but I've not lost my time. I've been seeing to your country and studying character. I've been to the Hague."
"Ja, ja! the Hague! and, like your countrymen, you have bought their die Japans, die dogues, and punch-bowls. Ja, ja!"