The breakfast having been cleared away, Oldstone drew his chair up to the table and proceeded to pen a reply to his young protégé. When the letter was concluded, our antiquary reperused it, carefully dotting each i and crossing each t, until he found no more to correct.
If our reader is not more scrupulous than we are ourselves, he will join us, in imagination, in an act not generally considered respectable—viz., that of playing the spy on the old man, by peering over his shoulder, and reading what he has written, before he folds it up, seals it, and sends it to the post.
Letter from Mr. Oldstone to Mr. Vandyke McGuilp.
"My Dear Boy,
"I cannot express to you the joy and pride I felt in perusing your last letter, and I hasten to offer you my best congratulations, and I think I may add those of the rest of our members, on having achieved what I must needs call such unprecedented success. I read your letter, together with the critique from the Athenæum enclosed, aloud, before the whole club, our worthy host and his family being also present. You should have seen the blush that suffused our dear Helen's cheek at the mention of the success of her portrait. It was as if she had said, 'Lo, he has become great, and all through me. My face it was that inspired him to achieve such fame. My prayers and good wishes that buoyed him up with energy to thus distinguish himself!' Some such thoughts must have passed through her mind, if I am any reader of faces—and I think I am.
"One of the younger members seemed disposed to offer some banter, but I frowned him down. I never will sanction any unseemly levity towards that girl, or allow her to be treated as if she were a mere hackneyed barmaid, used to the coarse jokes of any Tom, Dick or Harry. To me she is something very precious, and I love her as my own child. Poor little one! She always comes to me for sympathy in her troubles. Not even to her own parents will she confide everything—much less to the other members. If you were to see the change that has come over her of late! She has lost all that raw awkwardness so common to growing girls, and has now developed into mature womanhood.
"Since your departure, young man, I could not but pity the poor child with her sunken cheek, her downcast eyes, and listless manner. I knew she had a secret that weighed upon her, and I guessed what it was. I came forward to offer her my friendship and advice, and encouraged her to open her heart to me. The poor child's gratitude was so touching! There must be an outburst when the heart is full, and she could confide in no one else.
"Ever since she found she had a true friend to lean on, I have noticed a marked change in the girl. The rose returned to her cheek, the light to her eye, an expression came into her face that I never observed before—nay, a variety of expressions which seem to chase each other with marvellous rapidity over a countenance lovely, intelligent, and pure.
"Dr. Bleedem, poor man! seeing her looking mopish, prescribed her a course of steel medicine. She declares that he only gave her one dose, which he made her take in his presence. The rest of the medicine he left her to take by herself. Now the girl insists positively that, not liking the medicine, she threw it all away.
"Dr. Bleedem, of course, is under the impression that she took it all, and naturally attributes her sudden change of health for the better to his drugs. I am of opinion that it was medicine of another sort that brought back the roses to her cheek. She is now eighteen, and by our peasantry would be considered of a marriageable age; but oh! I do begrudge her to any of these country bumpkins, who come in for their mug of ale and their chaff. There is no one for miles round anything like good enough for her. Of one thing, however, I feel quite certain, and that is, that she would never allow herself to be coaxed, cajoled, or threatened into marrying any man whom she did not love, however advantageous the match might appear in the eyes of the world. No, the girl has character, and would never give her hand where she had not set her affections. She would far sooner not marry at all. Whoever should win her affections will be a lucky man, for he will get a treasure in such a wife.