The Project Gutenberg eBook, Idols in the Heart, by A. L. O. E.

THE SICK-CHAMBER.
Page [131].

IDOLS
IN THE HEART.

A Tale.

BY

A. L. O. E.,

AUTHOR OF “THE GIANT-KILLER,” “PRIDE AND HIS PRISONERS,”

ETC. ETC.

“Keep yourselves from idols.” —1 John v. 21.

“Covetousness, which is idolatry.” —Col. iii. 5.

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” —Col. iii. 2.

London:

T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.

EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

1883.

Contents.

IDOLS IN THE HEART.

CHAPTER I
THE ARRIVAL.

“My dear girls, I can indeed enter into your feelings,” said Lady Selina Mountjoy in a tone of sympathy; “it is trying to have to welcome a stranger to your home, to see her take the place once occupied by your dear departed mother.”

“It is not so much that,” interrupted Arabella with some abruptness, “but—”

“I understand—I understand perfectly,” said Lady Selina, with an expressive movement of the head; “if your dear papa had chosen differently—some one whom you knew, valued, could confide in—some one, in short, of your mother’s position in life, to whom you could look up as to a second parent, it would have been very different; but the orphan of a country doctor—so young, so inexperienced—to have her placed at the head of an establishment like this, is—But I ought not to speak thus; of course your dear papa has chosen very well, very wisely; no doubt Mrs. Effingham is a very charming creature;” and the lady leaned back on her cushioned chair, folded her hands, and looked into the fire with an air of melancholy meditation.

Vincent, the youngest of the party, a boy about eleven years of age, had been sitting at the table with a book before him, but had never turned over a leaf, drinking in eagerly every word uttered by his aunt on the subject of the step-mother whose arrival with her husband was now hourly expected in Belgrave Square. He was a bright, intelligent boy, in whose blue eyes every passing emotion was mirrored as in a glass, whether the feeling were good or evil. The expression of those eyes was neither kind nor gentle as he said abruptly, “Didn’t you tell us that her grandmother was a Frenchwoman? I do hate and detest everything French!”

“Her own name—Clemence—is French,” observed Louisa, the younger of the two girls who sat, with embroidery in their hands, before the fire, with their feet resting on the bright fender for the sake of warmth, as the month was November, and the weather cold.

“Yes,” sighed Lady Selina, “it is true. Her grandmother was a French refugee,—of course a Papist; and, no doubt, her descendant is tinctured with Romish errors. No fault of hers, poor thing!”

“She’s not a Roman Catholic,” said Vincent quickly. “Don’t you remember that papa said that she was a great friend of the clergyman at Stoneby, and helped him in the schools and with the poor? He would not have let a Papist do that.”

“My dear child,” replied Lady Selina, languidly stirring the fire, “I never for a moment imagined that your papa would marry one who was avowedly a Papist; but, depend upon it, there will be a leaning, a dangerous leaning. We shall require to be on our guard, there is such a natural tendency in the human heart towards idolatry. As to her having helped Mr. Gray, that was very natural—very natural indeed. She was glad to make friends, and the clergyman and his wife were probably her only neighbours. Besides, in a dull country place there is such a lack of occupation, that young ladies take to district visiting to save themselves from dying of ennui.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Louisa, “after such a dismal life, what a change it will be to her to come to London! How she will delight in all its amusements! I hope that she’ll be as mad after the opera as I am; and that from week’s end to week’s end we may never have the penance of an evening at home, except when we entertain company ourselves! I can forgive anything in her but being dull, sober, and solemn.”

“Giddy child!” lisped Lady Selina, with uplifted finger and affected smile, “you sadly need some one to keep you in order—some one to hold the rein with a firmer hand than your poor indulgent aunt ever has done.”

“Hold the rein!” repeated Arabella with indignant pride, the blood mounting to her forehead as she spoke. “I hope that Mrs. Effingham will make no attempt of that kind with us. There’s but five years’ difference between her age and mine; and as regards knowledge of the world, I suppose that the difference lies all the other way. I have no idea of being governed by an apothecary’s daughter!”

“Nor I!” exclaimed Louisa, shaking her pretty ringlets with a contemptuous toss of the head.

“Nor I!” echoed Vincent, shutting his book, and joining his sisters by the fire.

“Little rebels!—fy! fy!” said their aunt, with a smile on her lips that contradicted her words. Lady Selina saw that she had succeeded in her aim. She had prejudiced the minds of her sister’s children against the young bride of their father; she had created a party against Clemence in the home which she was about to enter as its mistress. Arabella, Louisa, and their brother, would be on the watch to find out defects in the character, manners, and education of their step-mother; they would regard her rather in the light of a usurper, from whom any assertion of power would be an encroachment on their rights, than as a friend united to them by a close and tender tie.

It was not, perhaps, surprising that Lady Selina should contemplate with little satisfaction a marriage which dethroned her from the position in Mr. Effingham’s house which she had held for seven years. Lady Selina had enjoyed more of the luxuries of life and the pleasures of society in the dwelling of her brother-in-law, than her small capital of ten thousand pounds could have secured for her anywhere else. To Vincent Effingham it had been a satisfaction to have at the head of his household a lady of position and intelligence, who would take a general super-intendence of the education of his three motherless children. How far Lady Selina was fitted to do justice to the charge, is a different question. She was one who passed well in the world when viewed only in its candle-light glare—one to whom had been applied the various epithets of “a sensible woman,” “an amiable creature,” and “a very desirable acquaintance.”

Lady Selina had acquired the reputation for sense, from those whose opinions resembled her own, for her tact in steering clear of every theological difficulty. Her religion, if religion it could be called, was of the simplest and most easy description. To her the path to heaven was so wide that its boundaries were scarcely visible. There was, of course, a decent attendance to forms, for that the laws of society demanded; nay more, Lady Selina had about half-a-dozen cut and dried religious phrases, to be brought forward before clergymen and serious visitors, and put back again immediately upon their departure: these were, perhaps, satisfactory evidence to herself that her condition, as regards spiritual things, was one of the most perfect security. Enthusiasm on any subject regarding a future state appeared to the “woman of sense” a weak and childish folly. She could understand a politician’s strong interest in his party, a landlord’s in his estate, a lady’s in raising her position by a single step in the social circle; but the longing of an immortal soul for peace, pardon, and purity, was a matter completely foreign to her experience, and beyond her comprehension. Lady Selina wore her religion as she did her mantle; it was becoming, fashionable, and commodious, and it could be laid aside at a moment’s notice if it occasioned the slightest inconvenience.

And Lady Selina was called “an amiable creature” by such as are easily won by a polished manner and courteous address. She possessed the art of being censorious without appearing so. She seldom openly expressed an unfavourable opinion of any one; but conveyed more sarcastic meaning in a word of faint praise or disparaging pity, a shake of the head, a hesitating tone, or a soft, compassionating sigh, than might have been expressed by severe vituperation. None of her strokes were direct strokes—she never appeared to take aim; but her balls ever glanced off at some delicate angle, and effected her object without visible effort of her own. She had a secret pride in her power of influencing others, never considering that her ingenuity simply consisted in the art of gratifying malice at the expense of generosity and candour.

Lady Selina was “a very desirable acquaintance” to those who only knew her as an acquaintance. Her kindliness was as the blue tint on the distant mountain, which vanishes as we approach nearer towards the barren height. Whoever might rest upon her friendship, would lean, indeed, upon a broken reed. But, in the exchange of ordinary courtesies, in the art of simulating cordiality and sympathy, Lady Selina was a perfect adept. Few left her presence without a feeling of self-satisfaction and gratified vanity, which caused both the visit and her to whom it had been made to be remembered with pleasure.

The woman of the world’s ideas of education were the reflection and counterpart of her views on religion. To her, the first object in life was to shine in the world; and, accordingly, so far as young people were trained to accomplish this object, so far she deemed their education complete. Arabella and Louisa were provided with a French governess, and the first masters in music and drawing; and their aunt, with the air of one who feels that she has conscientiously performed an arduous duty, spoke to her acquaintance of her anxious and indefatigable efforts to do full justice to her motherless charge. It is true, that occasionally a moral maxim or religious precept dropped from the lips of Lady Selina for the benefit of her sister’s children; such was the caution against the heart’s tendency to idolatry uttered in the preceding conversation. The words had been lightly spoken, and their meaning weighed neither by speaker nor listeners; but whether they might not with advantage have been applied to the consciences of all, will be seen in the following narrative.

The marriage of Mr. Effingham with Clemence Fairburne, a young lady whom he had met in Cornwall while on a visit to a clerical friend, was to Lady Selina an unwelcome event. Notwithstanding, however, the complaint that she rather insinuated than expressed to her numerous acquaintance, that her wealthy brother-in-law had united himself to one possessing neither fortune nor high position, it is probable that Lady Selina would have been far more annoyed had his second wife been equal in rank to his first. Clemence was young and unacquainted with the world. She would probably enter into society with the diffidence of one to whom its usages were not familiar. Lady Selina, like some astute politician of old, foresaw an extension of her own regency under the minority of the rightful sovereign. She determined that Clemence should be a mere cipher in her own house, and follow instead of leading; she should occupy as low a position as possible in the eyes of those over whom circumstances had placed her. Artfully and successfully Lady Selina impressed the family, and even the household, with the idea that Clemence was some low-born, half-educated girl, whom Mr. Effingham had had the weakness to marry, because she possessed a few personal attractions! On the few hints thrown out by Lady Selina others enlarged—they filled up her lightly sketched outlines. The French governess, Mademoiselle Lafleur, shrugged her shoulders in the school-room, ventured to breathe the word mésalliance even in the presence of her pupils, and directed the flow of her conversation perpetually on the theme of the miseries inflicted by tyrannical step-mothers. Arabella and Louisa began almost to look upon themselves in the light of injured parties, because their father, still in the vigour of life, had sought to add to his domestic happiness! Their prejudices would have been still more strong and bitter but for the young wife’s letters, which reached them from time to time, and which breathed such a kindly spirit, such a desire to know and to love the children of her dear husband, that even Lady Selina’s insinuations could scarcely destroy their effect.

And now the day appointed for the first meeting of Clemence with her new family had arrived; everything in the house was made ready for the reception of the master and the lady of his choice. There was the bustle of preparation in the lower regions of the dwelling; the harsh voice of Mrs. Ventner, the housekeeper, was pitched to a sharper key than usual; while in the drawing-room a restless sensation of expectation prevailed, which prevented Lady Selina and her nieces from settling to any of their usual occupations. The piano had been opened, but its keys were untouched; the needle pressed the embroidery, but not a single additional leaf gave sign of progress in the work.

The short November day was darkening into twilight; the yellow lights round the Square started one by one into view, faintly gleaming through the cold white haze. A few snow-flakes fell noiselessly upon the pavement, along which, at long intervals, a foot-passenger hurried, wrapping his cloak tightly around him to fence out the piercing north wind. Vincent took his station at the window to give earliest notice of the arrival, while Lady Selina and his sisters chatted around the blazing fire.

“Here they are at last!” exclaimed Vincent, as a chariot dashed up to the door, with dusty imperial and travel-soiled wheels, and horses from whose heated sides the steam rose into the chill evening air. “Here they are!” he repeated, and swinging himself down the stairs, he was at the hall door almost before the powdered footmen who were there in waiting had had time to open it. The ladies more slowly followed; but curiosity with Louisa getting the better of dignity, she ran lightly down the long broad flight of steps, and found Vincent returning the affectionate embrace of her who longed to find in him indeed a son.

CHAPTER II
THE YOUNG BRIDE.

What were the sensations of the fair young bride when she crossed the threshold of that lordly dwelling, when she entered the spacious and luxurious apartments which she was thenceforth to call her own? Clemence looked round her with admiration on the many beautiful things which adorned her husband’s home. She who from childhood had known little of luxury, saw, with the fresh pleasure of girlhood, inlaid tables spread with elegant specimens of the arts of many lands—mosaics from Italy, porcelain from Sevres, the delicate ivory carving of China. The exquisite paintings on the panelled wall, the grand piano with the graceful harp beside it, even the luxurious furniture, the crimson drapery of the satin curtains, and the rich softness of the velvet carpet, impressed Clemence’s mind with an idea of beauty and grandeur to which a girl not quite one and twenty years of age could scarcely be insensible. Frankly and artlessly the bride expressed her admiration, knowing that to do so would gratify her husband, who listened with a pleased smile; and yet her warm young heart was conscious of some feeling of oppression, some sensation almost resembling that of fear! The coldness with which her two step-daughters had received, not returned her kindly kiss,—the frigid courtesy of Lady Selina,—had had much the same effect upon Mrs. Effingham’s spirit as the cold November mist upon nature. Clemence could not feel at her ease, though the natural grace of her manner prevented her shyness from betraying her into awkwardness. She could not but deem it a relief when at length she could retire to her own apartment; and dismissing the maid, who pressed forward with officious offers of assistance, Clemence seated herself upon a sofa, and endeavoured to collect her scattered thoughts.

“I wish that they had been younger!” was almost the first idea which took definite shape in her mind; “little ones who would have nestled into my heart, and who would have won and returned all my love! I am afraid—but how foolish, how wrong it is to let a shadow of anxiety or fear dim the brightness of a day which should be one of the happiest of my life! We shall love one another; yes, we must—we shall! His children cannot but be dear to me, and I will earnestly try to gain their affections; and if I am weak and inexperienced, and utterly unequal to perform rightly the duties of this new, strange state of life, is not my heavenly Father as near me here as when I was in the dear old cottage?” Then, sinking on her knees, with clasped hands Clemence returned fervent thanks for the boundless blessings which Providence had lavished upon her, and implored for wisdom and aid, and for favour in the sight of those with whom she was now so nearly connected.

Clemence rose from her devotions joyous and hopeful, and proceeded at once to do that which she regarded rather as a pleasure than as a duty. Unlocking her little travelling-case, she took out writing materials, and hastily penned a note to her uncle, Captain Thistlewood, the guardian of her orphaned youth, announcing her arrival at her home. Clemence knew how impatiently the letter would be watched for, and how eagerly welcomed by the old sailor; and as she placed within the envelope an enclosure, addressed to the care of her former pastor, she smiled to think how many hearths she would warm, how many boards she would spread in Stoneby, and how many a family would bless her in the village where she counted as many friends as there were poor. “Oh! this is the luxury of being rich!” thought Clemence; and carrying the letter in her hand, with a light step and light heart she descended the staircase. The joy which she felt in sending her remittance was purer and brighter than any which merely personal gratification could have bestowed.

“She’s no more French than I am!” muttered Vincent to himself, as he gazed on her fair brow and clear blue eyes. His prejudices were fast melting away beneath the spell of that sunny smile.

The sound of the gong now summoned the family to a sumptuous repast. Notwithstanding her disposition to be pleased with everything, Clemence, at the head of the table loaded with plate and glittering with crystal, felt her timid misgiving return. It was not so much that the young wife found the unaccustomed presence of powdered servants oppressive, that her new state was irksome to her, and that it seemed as if freedom were exchanged for grandeur; but that, with intuitive perception, she had become aware that her every word and movement were watched and criticized, and that by no friendly eyes. Mr. Effingham was a silent man—that evening he was more silent than usual; Arabella and Louisa sat as if unable to open their lips; the chief burden of the conversation fell upon the young timid woman, whose heart fluttered with the excitement of her new position, and her anxiety to say nothing and do nothing that could possibly shock or offend. Lady Selina, indeed, repeatedly broke the silence which, notwithstanding the efforts of Clemence, frequently fell on the circle; but, whether by design or not, she so directed the conversation as to puzzle and embarrass the bride.

“I think that the estates of the Marquis of Bardston lie near Stoneby.”

“Very near to the village,” replied Clemence.

“Does the picture of the old marchioness by Sir Joshua Reynolds deserve its fame?” inquired Lady Selina. “I have often wished to see it; of course, you have very frequently done so!”

“I was never in the Castle,” answered Clemence; “it is not opened to the public.”

There was something disagreeable to the bride, though she scarcely knew why, in the slight bend of the head and pursing of the lip with which Lady Selina received her straightforward reply. The lady of fashion seemed determined to discourse that evening upon no subject but that of the various connections of persons of rank. Her memory appeared unusually at fault. She could not remember whom Lord Greenallen’s sister had married, or what had been the family name of the Duchess of Dinorben, and was ever referring for information to poor Clemence, who had never looked into a peerage in her life. Mrs. Effingham felt herself painfully ignorant of everything that Lady Selina seemed to think it quite necessary to know, and was heartily glad when, the tedious ceremony of dinner being ended, the party adjourned to the drawing-room.

Vincent was the only one of her new acquaintance with whom Clemence was quite at ease, and she was heartily sorry to find that he was to return to his school early on the morrow, having only come home in order to be introduced to his step-mother. She could rest her hand on his shoulder, and her kind and playful words would call up an answering smile on the face of the boy; but his sisters’ monosyllabic replies to her questions, the marked manner in which they always addressed her as “Mrs. Effingham,” chilled and discouraged the young wife, while she felt an increasing mistrust and almost dread of their polite and dignified aunt. There was, likewise, something repellent to the frank and open nature of Clemence in the flowery compliments, the exaggerated politeness, with which Mademoiselle Lafleur, who joined the circle at tea, received her courteous greeting. Clemence secretly reproached herself for foolish prejudice, but could not shake off a sensation of repulsion. Weary with her journey and the excitement of the meeting, Clemence rejoiced when the long evening closed. She was startled at the sound of her own sigh, as she sat listlessly before her toilet-table; and unconsciously raising her eyes to her mirror, saw reflected there her own pale face, marked with a thoughtful and anxious expression.

“What a child I must be!” exclaimed Clemence half aloud, “to let such trifles weigh upon me—I who have everything to enjoy, everything to be thankful for!” and she struggled, and not unsuccessfully, to throw from her spirit its burden, and to look upon the untried future before her with cheerful confidence and hope. Had Clemence fully on that evening realized the difficulties of her position, her heart would indeed have sunk within her. A youthful servant of the Lord, she stood alone in a house where faith in Him had hitherto been nothing but a name; she had entered a family where every heart had a secret idol set up in its inmost shrine. Clemence looked up to her husband as to one all wisdom and goodness. Mr. Effingham bore in the world a spotless name; he was liberal in his charities, and appeared earnest in his profession of religion. His young wife, with loving, trusting confidence, had twined her heart’s affections around him, as some fair creeper clasps with its tendrils a stately forest tree. No suspicion crossed her mind that any unworthy passion could have place in a heart that she deemed the abode of every virtue—that the tree so goodly to the eye could nourish a destroyer within. With different eyes would Clemence have surveyed all the expensive luxuries of the banker’s mansion had she known—. But we must not anticipate. Clemence was not the first woman, nor will be the last, whose affections have blinded her judgment, whose fond credulity has invested the object of her choice with the noblest and highest qualities of man. Alas! when the cold touch of experience awakens the loving spirit from such a blissful delusion!

CHAPTER III
FIRST STEPS.

“Oh, Arabella!—mademoiselle!” exclaimed Louisa on the following day, as she entered the school-room at a later hour than usual, “I have been so much diverted—I have been enjoying such a rare treat!” and she threw herself into an arm-chair, and gave way to a burst of merriment.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” inquired the governess.

“I have seen Mrs. Effingham’s trousseau!” cried Louisa. Arabella looked up from her drawing, and the exclamation of mademoiselle expressed her curiosity on a subject which is supposed to be one of some interest to the fair sex.

“I was passing the door of her dressing-room,” continued Louisa, “and as it happened to be ajar she saw me, and called to me to come in.”

“As one school-girl might another,” said Arabella contemptuously.

“And there was the bride on her knees, herself unpacking her boxes!”

“She has not been accustomed to many servants,” observed Arabella, “and finds it most convenient to wait upon herself.”

“And the trousseau de madame was magnifique, no doubt?” said mademoiselle, with a little irony in her tone.

“Beautiful simplicity!” laughed Louisa; “I suppose that Mrs. Effingham has met somewhere with the line, ‘Beauty when unadorned adorned the most,’ and has adopted it for her motto!”

“Perhaps,” suggested mademoiselle, “the marchande de modes at Stoneby—”

“Lived in the time of King Pharamond,” interrupted Louisa; “or the bride played marchande de modes herself; or, what is more probable still, employed her school-girls to run up her dresses, and make them true charity pattern! There’s not a flounce or a fringe in the whole set, from the white silk wedding-dress to the neat cotton-print.”

“Cotton-print! est-il possible!” exclaimed mademoiselle, lifting up her hands.

“And the dressing-case—oh!” cried Louisa, bursting into fresh laughter at the recollection.

“Quelque chose très-bizarre—very extraordinary!”

“Ordinary, certainly, without the extra! Brushes, combs, all enclosed in a simple bag, ingeniously made, with many pockets big and little, quite a curiosity of art;—I believe it was one of her wedding presents!”

Arabella and mademoiselle joined in the mirth which this idea inspired.

“I should like to have seen les cadeaux,” observed the latter.

“I saw everything—all her treasures,” cried Louisa; “I have a correct inventory of them in my head. The diamond ring which Mrs. Effingham wears is papa’s gift; so is the bracelet, and his miniature surrounded with brilliants.”

“Oh! but her own family—her own friends, what did they give?” asked mademoiselle.

“Her own family seems to consist of her old uncle, Captain Thistlewood, who presented her with—let me see! an old-fashioned locket containing her parents’ hair. It does not look like gold; I think that he must have picked it up at a pawnbroker’s. Oh! and she has some distant lady relations, who seem to enjoy a monopoly of making markers—red, pink, and blue; and that she may have no lack of books to put them into, the clergyman, Mr. Gray, has given her a Church-Service; and his wife—such a present for a bridal! it would have been much more appropriate for a funeral—Baxter’s ‘Saint’s Everlasting Rest’!”

“Anything else?” inquired Arabella with a sneer.

“The gem of the collection is to come. You should have seen Mrs. Effingham unfolding it, and the look with which she surveyed it! A huge patchwork table-cover all the colours of the rainbow. ‘My dear school-girls’ present,’ said she, as tenderly as if each ugly patch had been a love-token set in jewels!”

“I hope that she’s not going to display it in our drawing-room,” exclaimed Arabella.

“I think that madame should wear it as a shawl—bring in a new mode,” said Lafleur.

“I wish that I’d thought of recommending that!” exclaimed Louisa, clapping her hands; “she looks so unsophisticated and ready to believe. I’d lay anything that were we to tell her that the hoods of opera-cloaks are worn expressly as pockets to hold bits of bread for distribution to beggars, that such is the approved method of being charitable in London, she would say, with one of her gentle smiles, ‘What an admirable plan!’ and adopt the fashion directly. I thought of passing something of the kind upon her, but somehow I could not command my countenance when she looked at me with her inquiring blue eyes!”

“I suspect she’s sharper than you think,” said Arabella shortly.

“Well, she is going to the milliner and dressmaker to-day—she saw the necessity for that; and I’m going in the carriage with her, and Aunt Selina also, I fancy.”

“I wonder what pleasure you can find!”

“Oh! it will be the rarest fun in the world! She is such a shy, timid creature, I can see at a glance that she has an awe for my aunt, and is afraid of the sound of her own voice when the earl’s daughter is present; so what between Lady Selina, and chattering little Madame La Voye, we’ll get Mrs. Effingham into such a whirlpool of fashion, we’ll bewilder her so with our nouveautes, that she will order anything and everything that we please, and come out into the world so gay that she will not know herself when she looks in her glass!”

The visits to the fashionable dressmaker and milliner were accomplished that afternoon under the auspices of Lady Selina, who, in according her undesired presence, contrived to make Clemence very sensibly feel that she was performing an act of condescension. If Clemence was ignorant of the intricacies of the peerage, she was also entirely at fault in the mysteries of la mode; she scarcely knew moire antique and point d’Alençon even by name, and the jargon of French terms which flowed so glibly from the tongue of Madame La Voye, would have been scarcely more unintelligible to Mrs. Effingham if uttered in the Japanese language. This and that rich article of attire, to be adorned in some incomprehensible style, was recommended as absolutely indispensable, and in a manner which left the shy young wife scarcely the option of refusal. If knowledge be power, ignorance is weakness; and Clemence, dazzled, confused, painfully anxious to please, and shrinking from exposing herself to ridicule, suffered her own taste and inclination to be overborne by those of her fashionable companions.

Clemence returned home with the disagreeable conviction that she had been led into extravagance to an extent which she was unable to calculate; for in the presence of Lady Selina she had not ventured to ask the cost of anything. She felt that she had yielded with the helplessness of a child to an influence which her judgment told her was not an influence for good.

“How exceedingly weakly I have acted to-day!” such was the mortifying reflection of Clemence as soon as she had leisure for thought. “I fear that I have abused the generosity and confidence of my dear husband, and spent more in selfish indulgence in one hour than should have sufficed me for a year. True, my situation in life has been changed, and some things were really necessary; but I was carried away like a feather on the breeze, afraid to say what I liked or disliked, afraid to show that I thought money of any value except as a means of gratifying caprice. What a strange, new existence this is! I seem to be breathing quite a different atmosphere—to have entered a world where ideas of right and wrong, important and trivial, are utterly unlike those to which I have been accustomed from my childhood. Except my beloved husband, there is no one here to whom I could speak the feelings of my heart, believing that they would be even understood. I wonder if, as I become experienced in the ways of the world, I shall gradually become like those around me—if I shall ever resemble Lady Selina!” A smile passed across Clemence’s face as the idea first suggested itself to her mind; but it almost instantly faded away, and was succeeded by an expression of serious thought. “I fear that I am very unfit to meet the temptations of this new scene. The world appears to me like a petrifying stream. Some spirits, like my noble Vincent’s, can drink of it uninjured, and then rise above it on the strong wings of reason and faith; but I fear that I shall be like some weak spray, gradually losing all inward life, and growing harder and colder as the waters flow by it! These two days have shown me more of weakness and folly, yes, and vanity too, in my own heart, than I was ever sensible of before. I have felt as much ashamed of my ignorance of that which I have never had an opportunity of knowing, as if I had been charged with a serious fault. I have been tempted to equivocation, and have more than once assented with my lips, or by my silence, to that which in my heart I denied. I have felt my vanity gratified even by the silly flattery of one who probably considers flattery as a part of her trade. If I am thus on first entering these scenes, fresh from the instructions of my pious friends, full of the earnest resolutions made before God in my home, what shall I be when time may have weakened the remembrance of those instructions, the strength of those resolutions? If I stumble at the very first step, how shall I walk steadily and faithfully along a path which I foresee will for me be full of snares? O my God, help me, for I am a weak, infirm child! Let me not forget Thy warning, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. The difficulties which beset me must make me more earnest in prayer, more diligent in self-examination, more watchful over my deceitful heart!”

MRS. EFFINGHAM.

Clemence slowly paced her apartment, and wingèd thought earned her back to her childhood’s home. “How true are the words which I once heard,—Every new change in the course of our lives, like a bend in a river, brings before us new difficulties, new duties, and new dangers, and shows us our own characters in a new light! I have hitherto been gently gliding with the tide; and if the banks sometimes appeared a little flat and dull, there was nothing in outward circumstances to shut out from me the light of Heaven. In seeking to please God, I best pleased the dear ones who regarded me with such partial affection. My duties accorded with my inclinations. But now,—my duties, what are they?” Clemence paused for some minutes and reflected. “I must learn to be able to say ‘No’—a painful task, from which my cowardice shrinks; I must be content sometimes not to please, and yet in indifferent matters be as careful—even more careful than ever—not to give offence or cause displeasure. I must exercise the grave duties of a housewife, nor from indolence or timidity shift upon others the responsibilities which God made mine when I became a wife. Mine own Vincent!”—her eye rested on the miniature of her husband—“would that I were more qualified to make his home what that home ought to be! But he will cheer and encourage me in the attempt to do so; he will have indulgence on my ignorance; he will be my support, my guide, my example; and he will teach me to become more worthy to be his wife!”

CHAPTER IV
CONSULTATION.

See how the orient dew,

Shed from the bosom of the morn

Into the blowing roses,

Yet careless of its mansion new,

For the clear region where ’twas born,

Round in itself encloses;

And in its little globe’s extent

Frames as it can its native element.

How it the purple flower does slight,

Scarce touching where it lies,

But gazing back upon the skies,

Shines with a mournful light.

Like its own tear;

Because so long divided from the sphere!

Restless it rolls, and insecure,

Trembling lest it grow impure!

So the soul—that drop, that ray

Of the clear fountain of eternal day—

Could it within the human flower be seen,

Remembering still its former height,

Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,

And recollecting its own light,

Does in its pure and circling thoughts express

The greater heaven in a heaven less.

In how coy a figure wound,

Every way it turns away;

So the world excluding round,

Yet receiving in the day,—

Dark beneath, but bright above,—

Here disdaining, there in love:

How loose and easy hence to go!

How girt and ready to ascend!—

Moving but on a point below,

In all about does upward bend.

How quaintly, yet how exquisitely, in these lines has the old poet Marvell portrayed those who, in the world, are yet not of the world! How few, alas! can read their own description in that of the pure bright dew-drop! How many, instead of resting even on the flower, “loose and easy hence to go,” waiting till the warm sun “exhales it back again,” have dropped from leaf to leaf, lower and lower, till, sinking at length to earth, and mingling with its dust, they are lost for evermore!

About a week after her arrival in Belgrave Square we will glance again at Clemence Effingham. She is in her husband’s quiet study—her favourite retreat. The ruddy fire-light falls cheerfully on the shelves of the well-filled book-case, which occupies almost an entire side of the small but comfortable apartment. Cheerfully glances that light on the expansive brow and handsome features of Mr. Effingham, cheerfully on the locks of shaded gold of her who sits at his feet. Clemence, still girlish in manner, and glad to throw off for a brief space the wearisome formality of etiquette, has seated herself on a low footstool, and, resting her clasped hands on her husband’s knee, is looking up into his face with a look of earnest inquiry.

“You see, my Vincent, that all is so new to me,—I am so fearful of making mistakes, so conscious of my own inexperience. You must guide and assist me, dearest. Ever since you told me what large sums—to me they seem startling sums—are constantly passing through Mrs. Ventner’s hands, I cannot help imagining that there must be strange waste in some quarter.”

“There always is waste in a large establishment; there is no necessity that we should mark the expenditure of every shilling, or enter into the details of every domestic arrangement.”

“But supposing that there should be something even worse than waste,” asked Clemence in a tone of hesitation, “ought we to place temptations in the way of those who serve us, by exercising no watchfulness over them, by placing such unbounded confidence in them as may be, as is sometimes, abused?”

“Well, my love,” replied Mr. Effingham, “exercise as vigorous a superintendence as you will; keep the machinery in as perfect order as you like.”

“It is no question of liking with me,” cried Clemence, laughing a little, but not merrily; “for bills and books—tradesmen’s books, I mean—I have a horror; and, like Macbeth, I have to screw up my courage to the sticking-point before I venture on a colloquy with Mrs. Ventner. I never had a taste for governing, and the power intrusted to me is almost too heavy a weight for these poor little hands to grasp. I really need the support of my liege lord’s stronger arm! I am like a minister of state who has to manage a troublesome House of Commons, and,” she added, with a little hesitation, “rather a refractory House of Lords, and who cannot command a majority in either!” Clemence spoke gaily and lightly, but painful truth lay beneath the jest.

“Refractory House of Lords! I see—I see!” said Mr. Effingham, with a smile; “Louisa is a giddy child, and Arabella has a temper of her own. But all will come right—all will come right, with a little patience and firmness. I have the utmost confidence in your sense and judgment, my love.”

“I wish that others had,” replied Clemence, speaking at first playfully, but her voice becoming earnest and almost agitated as she proceeded. “It is doubtless my own fault, Vincent, or perhaps the fault of my youth, but it seems to me that my wishes and opinions are of very little weight in this house. I want to consult you on so many points, that I may know whether I am right or wrong. Do you think it well that Louisa should be so constantly out, especially in the society of those from whom it seems to me, as far as I can judge, that she can only learn worldliness and levity? Her studies are perpetually interrupted at an age when steady application is most valuable; and exposure to the night air really injures her health,—she could hardly sleep last night on account of her cough.”

“Forbid her, then, to go out again till she has lost it.”

“O Vincent, I shall be a dreadfully unpopular premier!” exclaimed Clemence. Then she added, drawing her husband’s hand within her own, “If you, dearest—you, whose will should be law, to whose judgment all must defer—would only say a few words yourself, both on this subject and—”

“No, no!” interrupted Mr. Effingham quickly; “these trifles do not lie within my province. I make it a rule never to interfere with these petty domestic concerns. You will consult with Lady Selina, and then decide as seems best to yourself.”

“Lady Selina!” murmured Clemence, in a tone of disappointment; “oh, she never assists me at all I should be rather inclined”—the young wife looked up playfully but timidly as she spoke—“to call her the leader of the Opposition!”

A slight frown passed across the brow of Mr. Effingham. He was by no means disposed to weaken, in any way, the connection of his family with a lady of rank and fashion, whose title gave a certain éclat to the establishment over which she so long had presided. The first time that the watchful eye of Clemence had ever perceived the slightest shade of displeasure towards her on the face of her husband was as he replied to her last observation,—

“I think, Clemence, that you do her injustice. Lady Selina is a woman of sense, and a great deal of experience in the world—one not in the least likely to be influenced by petty jealousies. I consider myself to be greatly indebted to her; and it is my wish that every member of my family should regard her in the same light that I do myself. As for little differences,” he continued, rising from his seat and standing with his back to the fire, “the thousand trifles which make up the sum of domestic life, I desire to hear nothing, know nothing, of them. My mind is occupied with affairs more important, and in my own home, at least, I look for peace and repose.”

It is possible that Mr. Effingham observed by the fire-light something like glistening moisture on the downcast lashes of his wife; for, laying his hand kindly on her shoulder, he added in a gayer tone, “As long as my watch goes well, Clemence, I do not care to examine the works. I give you unlimited authority. Dissolve your whole House of Commons, if you please it; visit your peers with fine or imprisonment; but don’t bring up appeals to me. A little time—a little judgment—they are all that is wanted; just act for the best, and take things easily.”

Act for the best, and take things easily! How many times Clemence Effingham repeated to herself these oracular words! How long she pondered over the possibility of reconciling with each other the two clauses of the sentence! She had become the mistress of a mansion where everything, beyond mere externals, was in a state of woeful neglect. Petty dishonesty was but one of the many evils which prevailed amongst the numerous members of the household; while, in the family, selfishness, worldliness, and vanity reigned uncontrolled and scarcely disguised. It was a Gordian knot, indeed, that the young wife was given to untie, and she lacked strength to wield the conqueror’s sword! Into the ear of her husband Clemence would have loved to have poured all her difficulties and trials; his sympathy and counsel might have removed many of the former, and cheered and encouraged her under the latter; but, occupied by other cares, Mr. Effingham left his young partner to bear her burden alone. Clemence made more than one attempt to avail herself of the experience of Lady Selina; but the woman of the world was cautious not to compromise herself, or in the slightest degree to share the unpopularity which is the almost inevitable fate of reformers. Nor was she inclined to own the existence of evils that had chiefly arisen from her own neglect. Lady Selina, when consulted by Clemence, listened to her with the cold, impassive smile which seemed the stereotyped expression of her unuttered opinion, “You are such a poor, inexperienced child!” Clemence was left to fight her battles quite alone.

But was it not possible to “take things easily”—to close her eyes to everything that it might be disagreeable to see; to follow the example of Lady Selina, and let affairs take their own course; to enjoy the luxury, and brightness, and gaiety of her life, without examining too closely behind the scenes? Clemence was strongly tempted to do so—strongly tempted to swim with the tide; to fling from herself the burden of responsibility, and forget care in the pleasures of the hour.

It was well for her that she had not received a kinder welcome into the family. Had the path of Clemence been strewn with nothing but flowers, it would have been a path much more fraught with peril. The unkindness and coldness which daily wounded her affectionate and sensitive spirit, were like thorny hedges which fenced her in from wandering from the narrow way. Had the cup of life been all sweetness, it is too probable that it might have intoxicated; Lady Selina and her nieces were unconsciously mixing with it a bitter but salutary medicine. Safer, far safer is it to have the worldly as enemies than as friends. Nothing, perhaps, is more calculated to make a Christian walk carefully than the unavoidable companionship of those who dislike both himself and his religion. He feels that he must not disgrace his profession—that he must give no handle to the sharp blade of detraction, no occasion for the enemy to blaspheme. His trials drive him to the footstool of grace; and while his patience and spirit of forgiveness find constant exercise, the evil from which he suffers makes him more keenly appreciate, more earnestly desire, the harmony, holiness, and happiness of heaven!

CHAPTER V
THE FIRST SKIRMISH.

The circle of Mr. Effingham’s acquaintance was large, and even in the dull wintry season Clemence found that the claims of society took up much of her time and attention. Knocks were frequent at her door; numerous visitors came to introduce themselves to the young wife of the wealthy banker. Clemence felt at first embarrassed, then amused, then wearied by that which lost its charm with its novelty. She became tired of ringing changes on the weather, the last new book, political prospects, and the movements of the court, with a succession of wearers of velvet bonnets and furred mantillas, whom she scarcely knew even by name. Clemence had not as yet much of the small change of conversation, and she had not the courage to produce her gold. Mrs. Effingham seldom entered her carriage, which was usually at the disposal of Lady Selina; Clemence being well pleased to purchase, by relinquishing the luxury of a drive, a little respite from the oppressive companionship of the earl’s daughter.

At Mr. Effingham’s desire, Clemence, early in December, issued cards of invitation for that most formal, and, to a young housewife, most formidable of entertainments—a grand dinner party. She was almost ashamed to find how much her thoughts were occupied by earthly cares, how large a share of her anxious attention was given to preparations for an event of such comparatively trivial importance. Lady Selina, indeed, regarded such arrangements as part of the chief business of life, and did her best to wind up to nervous anxiety Clemence’s desire to order all things so as to do credit to her husband’s establishment. The favourite topic of Lady Selina now appeared to be the strange mistakes, the unpardonable blunders which had occurred within, and far beyond, the limits of her experience, at parties given by the uninitiated. She also delighted to expatiate on such qualities in the expected guests as might render them formidable to their young hostess. Lord Vaughan was a connoisseur in the culinary art, and paid an unheard-of salary to his French cook; Lady Praed always detected at a glance the smallest error in matters of form; Colonel Parsons and Sir William Page were keen opponents in politics, and it would require much tact and management on the part of Mrs. Effingham to ward off any unpleasant discussion. Clemence listened, sighed, and heartily wished that the dreaded evening were over.

Then serious cares disturbed her. The more the young wife entered into the details of her establishment, the more she became aware of the difficulties which surrounded her at every step. Her servants appeared in a combination to overreach and deceive her. Every effort to introduce greater order and economy into her household was met with dogged opposition, and Mrs. Ventner resented all interference on the part of her mistress as a personal injury. The annoyance which Clemence had to endure from the members of her family was of a more painful nature. Arabella and Louisa never forgot—their aunt would never have suffered them to forget—that if Mrs. Effingham was placed above them by marriage, by birth she was not their equal. Clemence, inexperienced as she was, had sufficient natural powers of observation to detect the radical errors in the education of the daughters of her husband. But while she perceived the evil, she sought in vain for its cure; and the joyous hopes with which she had commenced her married life, like the fabled wings of Icarus melting in the sultry beams of the sun, no longer bore her buoyantly aloft!

It is, perhaps, only those who have known little of common cares who can smile on them as a trifling burden. To the young and the sensitive, who have hitherto trodden earth almost as free from petty anxieties as the bird on the wing, or the blossom on the tree, the sudden pressure of new responsibilities is sometimes almost overwhelming. They could better endure hardship and pain; human compassion might then bring them relief, and they would more fully realize the blessed consolations of religion. And yet, is the command which embodies a precious privilege—the command to cast all our cares upon One who careth for us—limited only to that class of trials which man recognizes as afflictions? All earthly events in the sight of our Great Master must appear in themselves to be but trifles; but when connected with their effects upon immortal beings, when made a means to train and discipline souls, the merest trifles assume weight and importance. A teacher’s anxieties, a housewife’s cares, the responsibilities of the mistress of an establishment, seem of too trivial and uninteresting a nature even for the light pages of a fiction; but yet they, in the history of thousands and tens of thousands, form “the sum of human things.” A decisive battle may be fought even in the narrow limits of a home. Solomon prayed for wisdom from above to direct aright the affairs of a kingdom; the same wisdom in kind, though not in degree, is required by the humblest matron who would rule her household in the fear of God; and where Solomon sought, she must seek it.

“I could wish that I were ten years older!” said Clemence to herself, as, seated in a large arm-chair, she nervously awaited the appearance of a servant whose conduct had given just subject for displeasure, and to whom she felt it necessary to administer rebuke. “I almost think that Vincent and I would enjoy life more in some country cottage, with just one maid to attend on us, away from all this grandeur and state, contented and happy in each other. Money does not seem worth all the care and trouble that it brings. I was much merrier last Christmas time, when, with my well-filled basket on my arm, I trod over the crisp snow on my way from cottage to cottage, sure of a welcome everywhere from lips that would not flatter and hearts that would not deceive! I have, perhaps, larger means of usefulness here, but not of that kind of work which would most warm and gladden my own spirit! It is pleasanter to build up than to pull down—to do good than to oppose evil—to serve God by winning blessings from man, than to serve Him by drawing on one’s self the anger and dislike of others. But what is clear duty must be done, whether it be painful or pleasant. We are not left to choose our own work, but we must trust to be given strength to perform it bravely.”

A few days before the one fixed upon for the party, Mr. Effingham left Belgrave Square for a short period upon business. It was Clemence’s first separation from her husband since their marriage, and she felt that during his absence all the sunshine of her life would be gone. To have been left quite alone would have been less painful; it was far worse than solitude to be left with her step-daughters and Lady Selina.

The haughty shyness which Arabella and Louisa had at first displayed before Mrs. Effingham had entirely worn away. They rather now, at least while their father was absent, made a parade of their perfect ease, and on the evening preceding his return chatted together with Mademoiselle Lafleur, as if scarcely aware of their step-mother’s presence. Clemence sat quietly at her work, a pained listener to a flow of folly and gossip. Lady Selina appeared to be dozing in her arm-chair before the fire.

At length the conversation turned upon the clergyman whose ministry the family regularly attended—an earnest, good, but eccentric man. Arabella began turning him into ridicule, to the great amusement of her sister and governess, but the indignation of Mrs. Effingham.

“He ought to be elected preacher to the blind,” laughed Louisa; “it would be so much better not to be able to see him!”

“They would make him over to the deaf and dumb,” rejoined her sister; “for it would be better still not to be able to hear him!”

Clemence felt that she should no longer keep silence—she felt that she was bound to bear her witness to what was right in the presence of the children of her husband; and yet, reluctant as she was to give pain or offence, her reproof was couched in the mildest language, and uttered in the most gentle tone.

“Do you not think, dear Arabella,” said the step-mother, “that when we listen to the preaching of the Word, it is rather upon the message than the messenger that we should fix our earnest attention?”

It was the first time that Clemence Effingham had ventured on anything approaching to a rebuke to her step-daughters. Her words, so strongly contrasting with the tone of the preceding conversation, had the effect of instantaneously silencing it; and such an uncomfortable stillness succeeded that Clemence at last felt herself forced to break it.

“I think that I must propose a little sociable reading,” she said, “to make the evenings pass pleasantly while my husband is away. It will give us subjects to think of and talk over. I remember that my dear father used often to say that it is far safer and better, as a general rule, to converse about things than about persons.”

“Had his unfortunate patients to take his precepts as well as his physic?” cried Arabella, with a pert insolence which was intended to “put down” the first attempt of her step-mother to interfere with her perfect freedom.

If Lady Selina was asleep, her dreams must have been of a pleasing nature, for they called up a smile on her face. Louisa and mademoiselle glanced at each other, and then at Mrs. Effingham, to see how the insult would be taken.

A burning flush rose to the cheek of Clemence,—she had been touched in a most tender part; not that she was so keenly sensible to the allusion to her own humble parentage intended to be conveyed in the flippant remark, but anything like disrespect to the memory of her venerated father stung her to the quick. Her heart glowed with angry resentment; it was with a painful effort that she repressed the expression of it. Clemence paused for a few seconds till she could speak calmly, then, with a quiet dignity, said, “Arabella Effingham, you appear scarcely to recollect that you address yourself to the wife of your father.”

Arabella started from her seat, and hastily left the room, shutting the door violently behind her. Not another word was spoken for some time in the drawing-room, and Louisa and her governess took the first opportunity of quietly following Arabella, and leaving Mrs. Effingham to that which was ever to her most depressing—a tête-à-tête with Lady Selina.

“She has thrown down the gauntlet! she has chosen to commence the war!” exclaimed Arabella, as, pacing up and down her room, with all her proud spirit flashing from her eyes, she poured out her indignation to her sister and mademoiselle. “If she expects that she’s to rule and dictate here, she’ll find herself very much mistaken; the daughters of Lady Arabella Effingham never will bow to the control of the orphan of an apothecary!”

“We must take care, though, that we do not bring ourselves to grief,” said Louisa, who was, if not more cautious, yet less irritable by nature; “she has papa’s ear, and may set him against us. I dare say she’s as spiteful as a toad—those meek, sanctified creatures always are!”

Clemence went early to her own room, but it was very long before she retired to rest. Her spirits were fluttered and agitated. In vain had been all her efforts to conciliate, all her attempts to win for herself the affections of her husband’s daughters. She saw stretching before her, in endless perspective, a prospect of disunion and dissension, proud insolence and malicious enmity. Clemence leaned her brow on her clasped hands, and the hot tears trickled slowly down her cheeks, as she repeated to herself the words of the wise king: Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

“And how will it all end?” she murmured. “Is it not hard that I, who never willingly offended a human being, should be the object of such determined dislike, should find hatred where I proffer love, and be regarded as an enemy by those whom I would sacrifice much to serve? Is it not hard?”—the words died upon her lips, a feeling of self-reproach arose in the young wife’s breast. What was she, that she should look for exemption from the common lot of her Master’s followers? Had she any right to murmur under the pressure of a daily cross? Hard!—and had it ever been promised that life should be all softness and enjoyment? Would it not be folly to expect it? would it not be cowardice to desire it? If the Christian, overlooking second causes, fix his thoughts on an all-directing Providence, he will see how that Providence, working by earthly means, makes even the unkindness that wounds, and the malice that injures, important aids in forming the characters of the heirs of glory. It was from the elements of chaos that God drew forth a world of beauty; and some of His children’s fairest virtues spring, as it were, from the evil around them. Patience could not have birth in heaven, nor forgiveness in the society of angels; without opposition Christian firmness could not appear, nor without trials be shown resignation.

Clemence pondered over the words, If ye love them which love you, what reward have you? do not even the publicans the same? and a clearer light than had ever been granted to her before fell on the command, Love your enemies—that divine command, enforced by a divine Example, and requiring divine aid to fulfil. Her hopes of overcoming the prejudices of her husband’s family were now becoming faint; but a nobler hope had succeeded—the hope of overcoming her own feelings of resentment towards them, and of pleasing her heavenly Master by a meek endeavour to fulfil His will. Were not the hearts of all in His hands?

While Arabella and Louisa were revolving schemes of opposition, and their aunt was secretly rejoicing in the disunion, which had chiefly resulted from her own malicious efforts, Clemence knelt down and earnestly, fervently prayed in the silence of her chamber. Nor prayed she alone for herself, or the husband dearer than self, but separately and by name for each of the members of her family. If the prayer was not answered for all, was it not returned in blessings into her own bosom—the blessing of that peace in the heart which is even more priceless than peace in the home?

CHAPTER VI
A DECIDED MOVE.

Arabella marked with secret satisfaction on the following morning the weary looks of her youthful step-mother; she regarded them as a favourable token of her own success in what she called “the war of independence.” Following up what she considered to be her advantage, Arabella treated Mrs. Effingham at breakfast with marked discourtesy and neglect; would not even reply to her morning salutation, but preserved a proud silence throughout the whole of the meal. Clemence was pained by her manner, but outwardly took no notice of it.

In the afternoon, to the joy of his wife, Mr. Effingham returned to his home. The quick eye of affection soon detected that he looked graver, more thoughtful and careworn, than before he had quitted London. Doubtless he was wearied by his journey, and with tender consideration Clemence attended to everything that might promote his comfort. “I will vex him with none of my own little troubles,” was her inward resolution; “if clouds will gather without, all must be sunshine for him at least within his own little home-circle.”

So, when they were alone together, Clemence again assumed the gaiety of a child, and, shunning painful themes, amused her husband by a description of the little housewifely devices and arrangements which she had formed during his absence, especially in reference to her first dinner party. She told him how she had planned this, and discovered that, during long and serious colloquies with Mrs. Ventner; she made him laugh at her own blunders and mistakes, but assured him of her resolve that, in the face of all difficulties, her first entertainment should prove “un grand succès!”

“And yet, after all, Vincent,” she exclaimed, taking his hand within both her own, “I do not think that I was ever intended to play a distinguished part in the great world! All these elaborate preparations for a few hours’ amusement seem, to my unsophisticated mind, like making an iron strong-box to enclose a bubble. We take every precaution to prevent accident—rack invention to make our pleasure secure—fasten it in with golden padlock and key;—in a short space we look in to see what has become of it, and lo! the bubble has vanished into thin air, or,” she added, laughing, “been metamorphosed into a heap of ugly bills! If what we seek in entertaining be simply to give enjoyment, a party of children in a strawberry-bed will succeed much better, I suspect, in finding it, than all our grandee guests to-morrow over their turtle, venison, and champagne. I know that I, for one, would much rather lead the party amongst the strawberries. I should hardly find courage to sit at the head of that formidable table, between an erudite lord and a satirical baronet, but for remembering who presides at the other end. O Vincent! how little have outward circumstances to do with real, solid enjoyment! Your presence gives an interest and zest to the pleasures which wealth may procure; but that presence would suffice to make me happy even in the midst of poverty.”

The thoughts of Mr. Effingham had wandered while Clemence was speaking; his eyes were fixed, not upon her, but upon the fire, as if watching the little gas-jets which caught fire for a moment, burned vividly, and then were suddenly extinguished in smoke. But the last word which his wife had uttered struck his ear, and jarred like a discord upon it.

“Poverty!” he repeated quickly, “you never will, never can know it. I have just settled sixty thousand pounds on you, Clemence, in case—in case of anything happening to me.”

Clemence raised her head, and silently thanked him by a look of grateful love, then pressed his hand to her lips. Could Mr. Effingham have read the thought which passed through his young wife’s mind, he would have seen it instinctively form itself into a prayer that she never might survive her beloved husband to benefit by this new proof of his affection.

The long tête-à-tête held in the study filled Arabella’s mind with considerable alarm. Louisa’s warning recurred to her with unpleasant vividness, and she dwelt on the idea until she became certain that her step-mother would try to influence her father against her, and perhaps act the part of the cuckoo nestling towards the unfortunate little hedge-sparrows.

Notwithstanding the pride which made her “defy the malice of any low-born intruder,” Arabella’s relief was considerable when, on Mr. and Mrs. Effingham rejoining the family, not even her jealous suspicion could detect the slightest alteration in her father’s manner towards her. “She has not complained of me, after all,” thought Arabella. “Well, that is more than I expected.” She might have added, “More than I deserved.”

It was, perhaps, some slight feeling of obligation to Clemence for her forbearance, or, more probably, a little natural prudence, that now occasioned an improvement in the demeanour of the two girls towards Mrs. Effingham, though Arabella never dreamed of stooping to offer an apology for her former impertinence. Clemence rejoiced at the change, though she doubted its motive, and, by cordial kindness and winning attention, sought to follow up her advantage. After breakfast the next morning, Clemence, laying her hand affectionately on the shoulder of Louisa, proposed that she should accompany her to her Parnassus, as she playfully called the school-room. Mademoiselle Lafleur had gone for a few weeks to spend her Christmas holidays with some friends, and Mrs. Effingham looked upon the time of her absence as a favourable opportunity to draw her husband’s daughters more closely to her by mingling more in their occupations and amusements. Clemence was also anxious to be better acquainted with their usual routine of life; for the more she had seen and known of their governess, the more she distrusted her as a guide of youth.

“I think that this room would be more comfortable with curtains,” observed Clemence; “and you really require a nice little book-case on this table. What a delightful piano!” and she ran her fingers lightly over the keys. “Louisa, you and I must have many a duet together; I do so delight in music.”

Then the drawings of Arabella were examined; and if the praise of Clemence was less profusely garnished with superlatives than that of mademoiselle had been, it carried on it more of the stamp of sincerity. Mrs. Effingham had a correct eye, and a taste for art, though she had had little opportunity of cultivating it; and the pleasure and interest with which she looked over the portfolio were gratifying to the haughty Arabella.

“And what may this beautiful book be?” inquired Clemence, laying her hand upon a volume bound in pink and gold.

“That is my album,” replied Louisa; “it is to be filled with original poetry. I hope that you will write in it some day, Mrs. Effingham;” and as Clemence smiled and shook her head, Louisa added, “You will at least answer the three questions at the end of the book;” and she turned over rapidly to the place where, at the head of three separate columns, were written three sentences: What is happiness? What is misery? What do you much wish for?

Clemence glanced down the page with an amused eye, reading a most heterogeneous collection of descriptions of the various pleasures and pains of mankind. She needed not the initials at the end of each written opinion to guess who had penned to the three questions the following replies:—

Distinction; Obscurity; A Name.—A. E.

A Fancy-ball; Small-pox; An Opera-box.—L. E.

“I must have you write, I am so curious to know what you think!” exclaimed Louisa, dipping a pen in the bronze ink-stand which stood on the table.

Clemence had neither the affectation which requires urgent entreaties, nor the vanity which refuses to do anything which it is not certain to do well. She reflected for a few seconds, then under the questions—What is happiness? What is misery? What do you much wish for? wrote,—

Unison; Discord; Harmony.

“I see little variety in unison and harmony,” said Arabella coldly; “it is what papa would call a distinction without a difference.”

“Does it seem so to you?” replied Mrs. Effingham. “I tried to condense into three words the sentiment contained in the verse,—

‘Judge not thy differing brother, nor in aught

Condemn; his prayer and thine may rise above,

Though mingling not in unison of thought,

Yet blending in the harmony of love.’

We cannot have here below that perfect unison in all things which will form part of the happiness of heaven; but harmony, peace, concord may exist even between those whose opinions and tastes are dissimilar; and that,” she added, with a cordial smile, “is what I most ardently ‘wish for.’”

“Fire and water can never agree together,” muttered Arabella to herself, in a tone too low to reach the ear of her step-mother, though Clemence saw the expression on the proud girl’s face, which needed no words to convey its meaning. Not choosing to take open notice of the look, Mrs. Effingham turned to another part of the book, in which selections of poetry were written in various hands. One brief piece arrested her eye (it was written in the French language), and an unwonted shade of displeasure passed over her countenance as she read it.

“This is worse than levity,” observed Clemence very gravely; “how could such lines have found entrance into your book?” And turning the leaf, she marked the name “Antoinette Lafleur” at the end of the piece.

“Oh! mademoiselle calls that a jeu d’esprit! She thinks it remarkably clever; but she did not compose it herself,” added Louisa quickly, for she met Clemence’s glance of indignant surprise; “she copied it out of this book; it is a book that she raves about.”

“Have you ever read it?” inquired Mrs. Effingham.

“Just parts of it. Mademoiselle only lent it to us last week; but she says that it is the first book in the language.”

“I have heard of it, though I have never perused it, never seen it before,” said Clemence, retaining the volume in her grasp. She knew it to be the work of a famous infidel writer, who so mingled wit with blasphemy, that the brilliancy of his style, like the phosphorescent light which sometimes gleams from corruption, gave strange attraction to opinions repugnant alike to morality and religion.

Clemence made no further observation to her step-daughters on the subject while she remained in the school-room; but on quitting it she descended at once, with the book in her hand, to Mr. Effingham’s study. “This is no trifling matter,” she thought, “to be lightly passed over and forgotten; this is no little personal concern which I should forbear intruding on the attention of my husband. This unhappy woman may for years have been undermining the principles of his daughters, and I should wrong him were I to withhold from him the knowledge which I have providentially obtained.”

Mr. Effingham had not that morning gone, as was his wont, to his banking-house in the city. Clemence found him in his study, and with a few words to explain where and how she had discovered it, she placed the poisonous work of the infidel author before him.

Mr. Effingham had been a careless, although an affectionate father. With his family, as with his household, he had been content to believe that all was right, if he saw nothing very glaringly wrong. He had been imbued deeply with the idea that making money was the main business of man’s life; and the regulation of his establishment, the education of his children, the training of immortal souls, he had quietly left to others. He was, however, full of reverence for religion; he wished his children to be brought up in the same, though his efforts to secure that end had not gone far beyond the mere wish. He was as much startled at the idea of infidel doctrines being instilled into the unsuspicious minds of his young daughters, as if he had seen a serpent coiling beside the pillow on which they were sleeping. He was more aware of the perilous nature of the book than his wife could be, who had known it only by report. Mr. Effingham’s usually placid nature was roused into stern indignation.

THE FRENCH BOOK.

“Never shall that woman set her foot across my threshold again!” he exclaimed, striking his hand upon the volume. “I have never liked her—never felt confidence in her; with her soft, cat-like manner, she always gave me the impression of claws being concealed beneath the velvet! Write to her at once, Clemence, and dismiss her; I will give you a cheque to enclose. And send away that detestable book; the only fit place for it is the back of the fire!”

Clemence obeyed, and with a thankful heart. It seemed to her that by the dismissal of Mademoiselle Lafleur, one of the heaviest obstructions in her own path had been suddenly and unexpectedly removed. She had felt it almost a hopeless endeavour to influence her step-daughters for good, while her efforts were secretly, insidiously counteracted by one with whom they were in daily familiar intercourse; yet without some definite cause, some obvious reason, Clemence would have shrunk from dismissing the governess chosen by Lady Selina, and favoured by her nieces. So bold a step would be certain to raise such a storm! The imagination of the youthful step-mother now rapidly built up for itself a bright castle in the air, founded on the hope that mademoiselle’s place might be supplied by some woman of high principles and sterling worth, who would go hand in hand with herself in every plan for improvement. Clemence did not blind her eyes to the fact that her own unpopularity would almost assuredly be shared by any governess whom she might select; that Lady Selina’s penetration would be certain to discover faults in an angel; and that Arabella, if not Louisa also, would meet the stranger at first with determined dislike. But at Clemence’s age hope is strong; and one difficulty overcome seems an earnest that all others will be removed. Young Vincent, too, was expected home the next day, and Clemence looked forward with pleasure to a meeting with one in whom she saw the image of his father. Her spirit felt lighter and more joyous than it had done ever since her first cold reception in Belgrave Square.

Mrs. Effingham despatched her letter to Mademoiselle Lafleur, after showing it to her husband for his approval; but it was resolved, by his advice, to say nothing on the subject to the family till the ordeal of her grand entertainment should be over.

CHAPTER VII
THE DINNER PARTY.

It still wanted twenty minutes to the hour appointed in the cards of invitation, but the toilet of Mrs. Effingham was already concluded, and after a somewhat anxious examination into what her husband would have termed “the machinery” of her establishment, now to be brought to its first formidable test, she entered her superb drawing-room, there to await her guests. The apartment was dimly lighted by a single pair of candles at the further end; the crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling, the ormolu candelabra on the mantel-piece, had not yet been kindled into sparkling constellations; but the arrangement of every article of furniture was faultless, and the young mistress glanced around her with a feeling of pleasure, not, perhaps, unmingled with a little pride.

“O Mrs. Effingham, I am so glad that you have come!” exclaimed Louisa, advancing towards her with almost a dancing step, in a flutter of muslin and lace. “Here is a little note which came for you about five minutes ago; I dare say that it is an excuse from one of the guests.”

Clemence broke the seal, and glanced over the contents. “You are right; Dr. Howard has been suddenly summoned to see a patient in the country.”

“Oh! then, dear Mrs. Effingham,” cried Louisa eagerly, laying her white-gloved hand on the arm of her step-mother, “you know that some one must fill his place; do—do let me go down to dinner!”

“Arabella is the elder,” replied Clemence.

“Arabella!” repeated Louisa, pettishly; “there is very little difference between our ages, and I am the taller of the two; besides,” she added more slowly, as if measuring her words as she spoke—“besides, after what passed the day before yesterday, I should hardly have expected you to favour Arabella.”

“I should think it very wrong to favour either,” said Clemence gravely, “and still more wrong to neglect either; for—” here she was suddenly interrupted and startled by the sound of a loud knock at the door.

“A guest already!” exclaimed Louisa, hurriedly attempting to pull on her left-hand glove.

“A guest already!” echoed Clemence, glancing uneasily at the unlighted chandelier, and laying her hand on the bell-rope.

In two minutes a loud voice was heard below in the hall. “Not see me!—going to have company! Trash and nonsense, man! she’ll see me at any hour, and in any company!” and a heavy, tramping step immediately sounded on the stair, while Clemence exclaimed, with mingled pleasure, surprise, and vexation, “Oh! can it be my dear Uncle Thistlewood?” and hastening down the long room, she met him just as he flung the door wide open.

In a moment she was in his arms! The old sea-captain kissed his niece heartily, again and again, each time making the room resound. Louisa, extremely diverted, perhaps a little maliciously so, at what she considered the inopportune appearance of one of Mrs. Effingham’s vulgar relations, advanced towards the door to have a nearer view of the meeting, and so came in for her share of it.

“Ah! one of your daughters, Clemence?” cried her old uncle, and he immediately bestowed on the astonished Louisa a fatherly salute. “Fine, well-grown girl,” he continued in his loud, cheerful voice; “must make you feel quite old, my darling, to have children as tall as yourself! But let us have a little of the fire, for it’s blowing great guns to-night, and I’ve had my feet half frozen off on the top of the omnibus!” And marching up to the grate at the end of the room, the captain spread out his coarse red hands to the warmth, after having stirred the fire to a roaring blaze, and stamped on the rug to warm his feet, leaving the impression of his boots on the velvet. “And now, let me have a better look of your sweet face, blessings on it!” cried the sea-man, turning towards Clemence, and taking hold of both her hands, while he fixed on her a gaze of fond admiration. Very lovely, indeed, looked Mrs. Effingham, with the flush of excitement on her cheek, and the sparkle of affection in her eye. Captain Thistlewood was evidently pleased with his survey, though he said,—

“You seem to me a little older and thinner than when we parted, May-blossom, and you looked just as well in your good russet gown as in that dainty blue velvet with the sparklers; but you’ll do very well—do very well! And now I dare say that you want to know what brought the old man gadding here.” He threw himself into an arm-chair to converse more at ease, perfectly regardless of the presence of the servants, now engaged in illuminating the room.

“You see, ever since you left us, Stoneby’s grown as dull as ditch-water—all the life seems gone out of it. Parson’s always busy as usual—too busy to have much time to give to a little social gossip; and his wife’s sick, and keeps her room in the cold weather. There’s nothing stirring in the village, or for ten miles round—the very windmill seems to have gone to sleep; and the robins, to my mind, don’t chirp and sing as they used to do. Susan has taken it into her silly head to marry, like her mistress, and the new girl don’t suit me—breaks my crockery, and over-roasts my mutton. The long and short of it is, that home is not home without my May-blossom. I bore it as long as I could—lonely evenings and all. At last says I to myself, ‘I’ll put up my bundle and be off to London. I know there’s some one there will be glad to see the old man; let him arrive when he may, he won’t be unwelcome!’”

Clemence felt indignant with herself for not being able more fully and cordially to respond to her uncle’s assurance. “The world must indeed have already exercised its corrupting influence over me,” was her silent reflection, “when I can experience anything but joy at the sound of that dear familiar voice! But what will my husband say?” As the thought crossed her mind, the door opened, and Mr. Effingham entered the room.

A greater contrast could scarcely be imagined than that between the tall, dignified, handsome gentleman, with his polished manner and graceful address, and the short, square-built, jovial old captain, with a face much of the shape and colouring, without the smoothness, of a rosy-cheeked apple. Mr. Effingham was aware of the arrival of Thistlewood—indeed, no one in the house, not afflicted with deafness, was likely to be altogether ignorant of it; he was therefore quite prepared for the meeting. To the unspeakable relief of Clemence, Mr. Effingham cordially held out his hand to the sailor, who shook it as he might have worked a pump handle, and then said in a kindly voice, “I am glad to see you, captain; you must take up your quarters with us.”

Thistlewood nodded in acquiescence, as one who felt an invitation to be quite an unnecessary form; but Clemence’s expressive eyes were turned on her husband with a look of gratitude, which told how much it was appreciated by her.

“We expect company this evening,” continued Mr. Effingham.

“Ay, so the white-headed chap with the gold cable told me.”

“It does not want a quarter of an hour to dinner-time,” said the gentleman, taking out his watch.

“Dinner-time! I should rather call it supper-time. Ha! ha! ha! I dined before one, but my long journey has made me rather peckish. A beefsteak wouldn’t come anyways amiss.”

“You may like to make some little alteration in your dress,” observed Mr. Effingham, glancing at the pea-jacket and muddy boots of his guest; “my servant will show you your apartment.”

The question of toilet was evidently one of supreme indifference to the honest captain; a dress good enough to walk in seemed to him to be good enough to eat in; but he made no difficulty about compliance. He was just about to quit the room, when it was entered by Arabella.

The young lady stared at the rough-looking stranger with an air of haughty inquiry which would have abashed a sensitive man; but Captain Thistlewood was as little troubled with shyness as with hypochondria—his nerves were weather-proof, as well as his constitution—his perceptions were blunt to ridicule or insult, if only directed against himself.

“Ha! another fine daughter!” he exclaimed; “we must not meet as strangers, my dear;” and he would have greeted Arabella in the same paternal style as her sister, but for the backward step and the indignant look, which might have beseemed an empress.

“Who is this man?” she exclaimed.

“Mrs. Effingham’s uncle and my friend,” was her father’s reply, uttered in a tone which effectually repressed for the time any further expression of Arabella’s scorn.

The two girls retired to the back drawing-room to converse together, Louisa full of mirth, Arabella of indignation; while Clemence, glad to be a few minutes alone with her husband, laid her hand fondly on his arm, and murmured, “How good you have been to me, Vincent!”

“I could wish that your uncle had not arrived till to-morrow,” said Mr. Effingham; “but I could not but treat with courtesy and kindness him from whose hand I received my wife. Will there be room at the table?”

“Yes; Dr. Howard has declined.”

“To which lady would you introduce Captain Thistlewood?”

“Let me consider,” said Clemence, thoughtfully; “who is most good-natured and quiet? Uncle sometimes says such strange things.”

“What say you to Miss Mildmay?”

“She would show no rudeness at least, but—” here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of servants.

When the little captain re-appeared in the drawing-room, radiant in blue coat, buff waistcoat and brass buttons, most of the guests had arrived. That semicircle of ladies had been formed which presents to the eye of a hostess as formidable a front as the unbroken square of infantry, bristling with steel, does to an opposing general. Mrs. Effingham was, as yet, entirely unskilled in the art of mixing together the various materials of society. With a shy, anxious air, she glided from one guest to another to accomplish the necessary form of introduction,—to her a serious undertaking, especially as some of her visitors were strangers to her. Clemence tried to forget that the cold, criticizing eye of Lady Selina was watching her every movement, and sought to remember only, that even in the arrangement of a party she might please her husband, and do credit to him. The entrance of Captain Thistlewood had considerable effect in breaking the ice of formality which lies like a crust upon London society, though in a manner that astonished the guests, and embarrassed the master and mistress of the house. The jovial sailor was as much at his ease in the polished circle as amidst shipmates round a cuddy table; and his loud voice and merry laugh, as he stood with his thumbs in his pockets, chatting with Louisa, created an unusual sensation.

“Who may that lively old gentleman be?” inquired Lord Vaughan of Lady Selina.

“One of Mrs. Effingham’s near relations,” was her distinctly audible reply.

Clemence hastened to introduce the captain to Miss Mildmay, in hopes that that lady’s opposite qualities might serve as a kind of compensation balance, to moderate her uncle’s boisterous mirth. Miss Mildmay was a sallow lady on the shady side of forty, attired in a pale sea-green silk, with long, lank sprays of artificial leaves drooping low on each side of her head. She was a mild, inanimate sample of gentility, whose very eyes seemed to have had the colour washed out of them, and whose prim, pursed-up lips rarely unclosed to speak, and still more rarely to smile. Miss Mildmay was one of the dead-weights of society, and was, therefore, judiciously coupled with the little, noisy, bustling captain, who, like some steam locomotive, would sturdily puff straight on his way, regardless of obstacles, unconscious of observation, ready to go over or through an obstruction, but never to turn aside for it, let it be what it might.

As Captain Thistlewood wanted nothing but a listener, he dashed bravely along the railway of conversation, choosing, of course, his own lines—now on country subjects, now on sea—turnips and tornadoes, calves and Cape wines,—till, on dinner being announced, he gallantly handed down his partner, and in his simplicity took his seat near the top of the table, in order to be, as he said, “within hail of my niece.”

Miss Mildmay languidly drew off her gloves; there was a pause of a few minutes in the conversation, for Captain Thistlewood, bending forward, was looking with curious eyes down the length of the table, decked out in the magnificence of modern taste. He had never seen anything like it before.

“I say!” he burst out at length, “do you call this a dinner? Nothing on the table but fruit, and flowers, and sweat-meats, that wouldn’t furnish a meal for a sparrow!”

The sailor’s exclamation overcame the gravity of several of those who sat near him; even Miss Mildmay put up her feather-tipped fan to her lips,—it is possible that it might be to conceal a smile.

“But what’s that on the dish before us?” continued the captain, surveying it with curious surprise. “Peaches in December! I never heard of such a thing!” And determined to investigate the phenomenon more closely, he suddenly plunged his fork into the nearest peach, and carried it off to his plate. In a moment his knife had divided the sugared cake into halves. “It’s all a sham!” he cried, pushing it from him; “no more a peach than I am!”—and then, for the first time in the experience of man, a little laugh was actually heard from Miss Mildmay, in which Clemence herself, who had seen the proceeding, could not refrain from joining. The captain laughed loudest of all, quite unconscious that anything excited mirth except the “sham” of the peaches.

“I did not know, Clemence,” he cried, “that you would have been up to such dodges!” and the exclamation set his end of the table in a roar. Such a merry party had perhaps never before assembled round the mahogany in Belgrave Square.

Notwithstanding the prognostications of Lady Selina, nothing glaringly wrong appeared in the arrangements of the banquet. Perhaps the sharp eye of malice detected here and there some token of inexperience in the mistress of the feast, but few were disposed to criticize harshly. Lord Vaughan did not regret the absence of his French cook; and Colonel Parsons and Sir William Page sat as contentedly on the same side of the table, as if they had never occupied opposite benches in “The House.” All would have proceeded in the most approved routine of formality and regularity, but for the presence of the merry old captain, who cut his jokes, and told his stories, and pledged his niece in a loud, jovial tone, to the great amusement of the guests, but the embarrassment of Mrs. Effingham.

Arabella and Louisa awaited the ladies in the drawing-room, where they were joined by Thistlewood and the other gentlemen. The stiff semicircle was again dashingly broken by the brave old captain, who chatted merrily with the laughing Louisa, proposed a country dance or a reel, and engaged her as his partner. But nothing so informally lively as an impromptu dance after dinner was to be thought of in Belgrave Square. The grand piano, indeed, was opened; but it was that a succession of ladies, after a due amount of declining and pressing, might give the company the benefit of their music.

Captain Thistlewood was extremely fond of music, and therefore at once planted himself by the piano, beating time like a conductor. The concert opened with a bravura song from Miss Praed, to which he listened with much of the feeling which Johnson expressed when asked if a lady’s performance were not wonderful: “Wonderful!—would it were impossible!” Then followed a languid “morceau” from Miss Mildmay, which the composer must have designed for a soporific; and then Arabella seated herself before the instrument. Her forte was rapid execution; hers was a hurry-skurry style of playing, hand over hand, the right suddenly plunging into the bass, then the left unexpectedly flourishing away in the treble—each seeming bent on invading the province of the other, and causing as much noise there as possible. As the performer finished with a crashing chord, the captain, who had been watching her fingers with great diversion, clapped Arabella on the shoulder. “Well done, my lass!” he exclaimed; “that’s what I should call a thunder-and-lightning piece, stunning in both senses of the word! But still, for my part, I like a little quiet tune;—did you ever hear your mother sing ‘Nelly Bly’?”

Arabella looked daggers as she withdrew from the piano. To be so treated, as if she were a child—she, an earl’s grand-daughter—before so many guests, and by him, the vulgar little brother-in-law of an apothecary; it was more than her proud spirit could endure! Mrs. Effingham should pay dearly for the insult!

Nothing further occurred to vary the monotony of the fashionable London entertainment. The evening wore on, much after the usual style of such evenings, till, one after another, the guests took leave of their young bright hostess; and there was cloaking in the ante-room, and bustle in the hall, and rolling of carriages from the door—till at length the lights in the drawing-room were darkened, silence settled down even on the servants’ hall, the grand entertainment was concluded, the laborious trifle ended, and that which had cost so much thought and anxious care, to say nothing of trouble and expense, passed quietly into the mass of nothings, once important, which Memory, when she takes inventory of her possessions, throws aside for ever as mere tarnished tinsel not worth the preserving.

“I am so glad that it is over!” thought Clemence.

CHAPTER VIII
A STORMY MORNING.

Mr. Effingham was always an early riser. The next morning he was earlier than usual, and had not only commenced his breakfast, but concluded it, and gone off to his business eastward, before any of the ladies, except his wife, had made their appearance in the breakfast-room. Want of punctuality in her step-daughters was one of the evils which Clemence longed, though in vain, to reform. Lady Selina’s example not only excused it, but rendered it in a certain degree fashionable in the family. “It is for slaves to be tied down to hours!” exclaimed Arabella, on a gentle hint being once ventured by Clemence; “only dull mechanics, whose time is their bread, count their minutes as they would count their coppers!”

Clemence was not, however, Mr. Effingham’s only companion at his early meal. The jovial captain, full of merriment and good-humour, and disposed to do full justice to the ham and an unlimited number of eggs, performed his part at the table. His niece would have been extremely diverted by his naïve observations on the events of the previous evening—observations which showed at once natural shrewdness and the most absolute ignorance of fashionable life—had she not feared that his boisterous heartiness of manner might be disagreeable to her husband. Mr. Effingham was perfectly polite, but did not look disposed to be amused. He appeared hardly to hear the jokes of the captain, and hurried over his breakfast with a thoughtful, pre-occupied air.

Clemence’s own mind was often wandering to the subject of Mademoiselle Lafleur, and she contemplated with some uneasiness and fear the effect which would be produced on her circle by the announcement of that lady’s dismissal. She also felt anxious as to the footing on which her dear old relative would stand in the proud family to which she had been united by marriage. In him a new and very vulnerable point seemed presented to the shafts of malice which were constantly levelled at herself. His very simplicity and unconsciousness of insult made her doubly sensitive on his account, and many a plan Clemence turned over in her mind for guarding him from the well-bred rudeness which none knew better than Lady Selina how to show to one whom she despised. Mrs. Effingham’s reflections made her more silent and grave than had been her wont. “She is not such a good talker as she used to be,” thought the old uncle; “nor such a good listener neither, for the matter of that!”

Captain Thistlewood found, however, both a ready talker and listener when Louisa entered the room. The young lady, if the truth must be confessed, regarded the merry old sailor as rather an acquisition to the circle. He noticed her much, and Louisa would rather have been censured than unnoticed; he amused her, and love of amusement was one of her ruling passions. She could laugh with him when he was present, and at him when he was absent. Louisa imagined herself a wit; and what so needful to a wit as a butt! Her morning greeting to him was given with an air of coquettish levity, which contrasted with Arabella’s sullen silence, and Lady Selina’s frigid politeness.

“And what did you think of our party, Captain Thistlewood?” inquired Louisa, as the old sailor gallantly handed to her the cup of chocolate which Clemence had prepared.

“Well, it was good enough in its way, only too many kickshaws handed about, and too many lackeys behind the table to whip off the plate from before you, if you chanced to look round at a neighbour. I must say that your London society is a stiff, formal sort of thing. It reminds one of those swindling pieces of goods which tradesmen pass off on the unwary—all dress, you see, just stiffened and smoothed to sell, and not to wear. Only give the gentility a good hearty pull, and the powder flies up in your face!”

“I suppose that yesterday was the first time that he ever sat at a gentleman’s table!” muttered Arabella inaudibly to herself; but the thought expressed itself in her face.

“If there’s any powder about that young lass it’s gunpowder!” thought the captain; “we may look out for an explosion by-and-by—I see she’s primed for a volley. But I’ll try a little conciliation for May-blossom’s sake—hang out a flag of truce. No wonder that my poor child looks grave and pale;—a pretty life she must have of it here, with an iceberg on the one side and a volcano on the other!” All the more determined to draw Arabella into conversation, from marking her haughty reserve, Captain Thistlewood rested his knife and fork perpendicularly on either side of his plate, and addressed her across the table.

“We’re coming near to Christmas now. I like the merry old season, and I shall be glad to see for once how Christmas is kept in London. I noticed many a jolly dinner hanging up in the butchers’ and poulterers’ shops as I passed along in the ’bus; quite a sight they are, those shops—turkeys strung on long lines, as though they were so many larks; and huge joints of beef, that, for their size, might have been cut from elephants! Glorious they look in the flaring gas-light, decked out with whole shrubberies of holly! Then the pretty little Christmas-trees, hung with tapers and gim-cracks—they pleased me mightily too; for, thinks I, there’ll be plenty of harmless fun, plenty of laughing young faces round those trees, when the tapers are lighted! I love to see children happy, and ’specially the children of the poor. Shall I tell you my notion of a good Christmas-tree?” Arabella looked as though she did not care to hear it, but the captain took it for granted that she did. “I’d have a tree as big as the biggest of those yonder in the Square, and invite all the ragged little urchins far and near to the lighting of the same. I’d have it hung, not with sparkling thing-a-bobs, or sugar trash in funny shapes, not even with sham peaches,” he added, laughing, “but with good solid joints of meat for blossoms, and warm winter jackets for leaves; and I’ll be bound that every child would think my tree the very finest that he ever had seen in his life. Don’t you call that uniting the ornamental with the useful?”