They rose steadily, on the whole, with occasional drawbacks. There were more children; there was a larger business. At last, on Saturday nights there was a respectable shop-front to close and a considerable stock to arrange for Monday morning. On Sundays a group of children came out to walk hand-in-hand to chapel, with their father in good broad cloth, and their mother in black silk behind them. The Barclays left the city long ago; but when one of them pays an occasional visit in the neighborhood, the brisk little woman in black silk, is sure to be seen presently coming up to the house; her innocent face looks in eagerly at the window, and the chirping voice is heard in the hall. There was nothing in her young days so impetuous as the grasp of the hand that the Barclays have from her when they meet at intervals of years.
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.
(Continued from page 263.)
Book III.—Initial Chapter:—Showing how my novel came to be called "My Novel."
"I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone," said my father graciously; "though as for The Sermon—"
Here I trembled; but the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special protection; and, observing that my father was puckering up his brows critically, they rushed boldly forward in defense of The Sermon, and Mr. Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skillful general, he renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is not my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity of cavilers to discover the places at which the Author of Human Error directed his great guns.
"But," said the Captain, "you are a lad of too much spirit, Pisistratus, to keep us always in the obscure country quarters of Hazeldean—you will march us out into open service before you have done with us?"
Pisistratus, magisterially, for he has been somewhat nettled by Mr. Caxton's remarks—and he puts on an air of dignity, in order to awe away minor assailants.—"Yes, Captain Roland—not yet awhile, but all in good time. I have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose, hereafter, to open some lengthened perspective of the varieties of English life—"
Mr. Caxton.—"Hum!"