THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK

By Pierce Egan

Author Of “The Poor Girl,” &c., &c.

In Three Volumes.

Vol. I.

London: Published By W. S. Johnson & Co.

1865

CONTENTS
[ THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK
]
[ CHAPTER I.—THE SHADOW IN THE SUNSHINE. ]
[ CHAPTER II.—THE WORM UPON THE LEAF. ]
[ CHAPTER III.—POSSESSION DISTURBED. ]
[ CHAPTER IV.—THE FORGERY. ]
[ CHAPTER V.—THE CONFLAGRATION. ]
[ CHAPTER VI.—THE NOBLE GUESTS. ]
[ CHAPTER VII.—LOVE AWAKENING. ]
[ CHAPTER VIII.—THE PRISON. ]
[ CHAPTER IX.—THE MYSTERY. ]
[ CHAPTER X.—THE INEXPLICABLE LIBERATION. ]
[ CHAPTER XI.—SHADOWS. ]
[ CHAPTER XII.—A LIFE STRUGGLE. ]
[ CHAPTER XIII.—THE FORGED DEED. ]
[ CHAPTER XIV.—LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. ]
[ CHAPTER XV.—THE PROPOSITION. ]
[ CHAPTER XVI.—SELFISHNESS AND SORROW. ]

THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK

CHAPTER I.—THE SHADOW IN THE SUNSHINE.

And the sunlight clasps the earth.
—Shelley.
From her chamber window he would catch
Her beauty faster than the falcon spies;
And constant as her vespers would he watch,
Because her face was turned to the same skies.
—Keats

A bright sunny morning, at the end of June, in busy, restless London. The overarching vault of heaven was filled with an atmosphere of golden hue. Sunshine was glowing upon cathedral turrets and upon the church spires, upon the pinnacles of lofty buildings, and the crowns of tall factory shafts. The bronzed and tarnished ball and cross of St. Paul’s, and the shaggy-crested Monument, which “like a tall bully lifts its head,” shone as if they had been newly gilded. There was sunshine upon chimney-pots and housetops, golden beams permeating the confined air in close garrets, through their narrow, half-closed windows; flooding wide streets, and illuminating pestiferous courts, where riotous hilarity sometimes, but joy never came.

Sunshine blazed upon the broad and winding Thames, over whose flowing surface lazy barges dawdled, and panting river steamers raced, leaving in their sinuous paths myriads of scintillations—and rather an unpleasant odour as well. Sunshine was on the footways, and in the roadways, and in the gutters, making mirrors of small muddy pools.

Sunshine there was for the ragged and the richly dressed; for the beggar and the prince alike; for the robust and, happily, for the sickly invalid.

Sunshine everywhere, making brilliant the parks and open places, and interpenetrating all the foulest recesses of this huge city. Giving light where it was rarely seen, and rousing to a glad activity the teeming life already in its first throes of daily labour.

Beautiful in this, the bright sunshine! but oh, yet more enchanting in the glory with which it invested the fair face of a young girl, peering out of the upper window of a house situated in one of the City’s closest streets.

She stood there, gazing heavenward, her mild blue eyes bending beneath the influence of the golden glare of sunny-waves of light, yet seeming to revel in their luxuriance as though they spoke to her in fairy language of other and happier times and places now far away.

Upon the opposite side of the street, in the shop of a working goldsmith, one John Harper, there stood a youth, an apprentice to the noble art of working in gold. The beauty and the clearness of the fair morning had elevated and refreshed his youthful spirits, but ah! how much greater their exhilaration when his upturned eyes were gladdened by the sight of that beautiful young girl, whose radiant face, and delicately modelled form, were brought out in brilliant relief by the dazzling sunbeams.

It seemed to him that his brightest conceptions of the beautiful, his dreamy fashionings of a faultless ideal, combined with all his native and his acquired skill, had never yet enabled him to realise “a thing of beauty” to rival the perfect excellence and marvellous charms of that young face upon which his eager eyes were now fastened.

Raphael, in his rarest art-performance had not in his belief attained the sentiment of angelic purity beaming in her features, nor had Carlo Dolci, in the loveliest Madonna he ever painted, anticipated it.

Motionless he stood, and with suspended breath gazed upon her as though she were one lone bright star, shining unaccompanied in the vast field of the deep blue heavens, in the silent night, his mind the while lost in a maze of rapture and of wonder.

Yet he had seen it often for years!

And now he had a consciousness that a saddening gloom overspread the earth far and near. What made the surrounding space in a moment so sombre? Had a huge cloud suddenly sprung up from its sullen rest, and spreading itself enviously over the broad sky, absorbed the sunlight? Was the sunshine which had converted smoky London into a city of golden palaces abruptly withdrawn? No! sunbeams yet glanced upon the buildings, and danced upon the rippling waters, but the young maiden had disappeared from her window. She had suddenly fled from it, as a startled fawn would spring into a covert at the sound of the approaching footsteps of a hunter bent upon its destruction.

So, though the sunshine was as brilliant as before—the whole universe, in the eyes of Harry Vivian, the young goldsmith, seemed plunged into a profound and solemn gloom—for she was no longer where he yet gazed.

He felt oppressed in this glittering sunshine, which had no light for him, and he drew towards the outer door, that in the free fresh air he might breathe more freely. As he gained the threshold, he started, and an exclamation of surprise escaped his lips.

Opposite, at the door of the house in which dwelt the young girl upon whom his eyes had gazed so fondly, stood a man who in costume and manner was the reverse of prepossessing. Who was he, and what could he want there? were questions which Harry at once put to himself. He had come on business—most disagreeable business—that was beyond a doubt, for there was nothing either in his garb or in his manner which betrayed the idle visitor. Harry, therefore, conceived it to be his especial duty—with rather questionable propriety, however—to observe his movements.

He saw the man examine the house from the scraper at the door, to the parapet below the roof, and then make a peculiar sign to some person or persons, who lying perdu, prevented Harry from catching a glimpse of them. Then he gave a treble knock at the door, facing which he was standing. Young Vivian did not like that knock. It was not a peal of three distinct knocks for a third-floor lodger, nor was it the easy rat-tat-tat of a genteel visitor. No; it was a bad imitation of a postman’s knock, followed by a faltering, sneaking tap.

Had any embarrassed individual, accustomed to visits from rent-distrainers or process-servers, heard that knock and caught sight of that man at his door, he would have instantly implored some other inmate of the house to tell the visitor that he had sailed to the furthest extremity of the Hudson Bay territory, and would never be home again.

The fact was, it was not alone that the knock was a tell-tale, but the man’s dress also loudly proclaimed the purport of the visits he paid. Upon his head, slinking down to his eyebrows, was a hat which had long endured severe stress of weather, to its disadvantage. Upon his body—and that was his mark—he wore a loose brown great coat, styled by advertising tailors, “the sack,” It was dirty, discoloured, much worn at the pockets, and strongly impregnated with the odour of the cheapest and rankest tobacco.

That coat, worn at the hottest end of June, betrayed him. It was his sign-board. A child brought up in that neighbourhood would have told you, by that coat, worn in the height of summer heats, the nature of his profession.

The young goldsmith, on seeing him, held his breath; he had a conviction that the man’s errand would of necessity prove an unpleasant one; and, after a moment’s reflection, he stepped over the threshold of the shop-door, apparently engaged in looking up and down the street, but he never took his eye for an instant off the man in the dingy brown coat.

That individual had just raised his extremely dirty fingers to repeat the offensive knock, when the street-door slowly opened, and an elderly, wan-faced man presented himself.

“It is her father,” muttered the young goldsmith, retiring within his shop, yet only a few paces, for—though uninfluenced by any meanly inquisitive motives—he felt constrained to watch the proceedings of the shabby, brown-coated personage.

He observed the wan old man and his visitor engaged in rather a vigorous colloquy, conducted with brutal coarseness on the part of the man in the brown coat, and on the other side with the air of one upon whom some heavy and startling demand is made, which he is wholly unprepared or unable to meet.

After some extravagant gestures had been exhibited by both persons, the individual in the dingy brown sack abruptly terminated it, by thrusting rudely back the pale-faced old man, springing past him, and ascending the stairs. Wringing his hands, with a distracted aspect, the old man staggered after him.

The quick eye of Harry Vivian had detected the agonised bearing of the old man during the whole time he was in conversation with his unwelcome visitor. He had with pain perceived the emotion of horror which seemed to paralyse his limbs as he tottered up the stairs after the dusky fellow, and, with nervous apprehension, he wondered what scene was then being enacted in the apartments above.

Was that fair young creature present? In all human probability she was. Possibly subjected to the coarse insults of the unprepossessing individual who had forced his way into her presence. The teeth of the youth set firmly together as the thought intruded itself, and he felt that it would prove an infinite comfort to him, if he detected the vulgar rascal in any act of insolence addressed to her, to grip him by the nape of the neck, and fling him out of the window into the street.

At this moment, old Harper, the goldsmith, his master, and his uncle too, made his appearance from an inner workshop. Young Vivian, who was racking his brain for a scheme which should enable him to make one of the party opposite, turned quickly to him and said—

“Oh, sir, I am glad you have come in! There is the silver race cup from Rixon’s, which ought to have been sent to the chaser’s; it has been overlooked. It is wanted home quickly. Don’t you think I had better run over with it at once to old Wilton?”

“Wilton! No, Hal!”

“No, sir. Why not?”

“He was so slow over the last things we gave him to chase. You ought to remember that, Hal, for you used to run over there constantly to urge him on, you know.”

Hal turned suddenly scarlet.

“That won’t do,” continued the goldsmith; “so in future, I think we had better send all these jobs to old Verity, at the back of the Sessions House.”

The perspiration stood in small globes on the forehead of young Vivian.

“You forget, sir,” he said, with a pleading tone, “that Wilton has been long in failing health, that it is not so long since he lost his wife. Oh! sir, this is not a time to take his work away.”

Mr. Harper gently stroked his chin.

“Well, no, Hal, it is not,” he said, after a short pause; “but, at the same time, his unfortunate position is not an excuse we can offer to the firms who employ us for delay in the work with which we are entrusted; and it would be unfair to ourselves to allow the shortcomings of others to prove the occasion of loss of custom to us.”

“But I will answer for Wilton’s punctuality this time,” urged Hal, eagerly; “and you know he is our best chaser. Shall I run over with it, and impress upon him that it is wanted as soon as it can be done?”

“Well you may, Hal,” said the goldsmith; “but remember to point out to him the necessity for punctuality. Assure him that if there be any delay over the completion of this job, he may reckon it as the last he will have from us.”

The apprentice, with a pleased smile, nodded his head, caught up the cup, which bore upon it a rare example of his own skill, and ran out of the shop.

A moment more, and a sharp ringing knock was heard at the door of the house in which dwelt old Wilton the gold chaser.

Another moment, and the apprentice stood within the chamber he had so longed to enter, and he became at once a spectator and a participator in a painful scene.

The sounds of angry altercation caught his ear as he reached the room door, the gruff tone of voice of the unwelcome guest preponderating. Acting upon and animated by an impulse which he perhaps would not have cared to acknowledge even to himself, he did not pause to crave admission, but entered the room without displaying the courtesy of a preliminary knock.

He saw before him old Wilton, and facing him the terror-dealing man in brown. They were at high words. On the appearance of Hal, both men became silent, and fixed their eyes intently and inquiringly upon him. They waited for him to speak.

The apprentice cast his eyes quickly round the room, but the maiden he hoped to see was not there, and he drew breath. He perceived that he was expected to commence the conversation, and, clearing his voice, he said, hurriedly—

“Mr. Wilton, I have some work here for you.” He put the silver cup upon the table. It will require your nicest skill, and the instructions are therefore rather elaborate, so, if you please, I will wait until you are disengaged before I”——

“No! no! no!” exclaimed old Wilton, interrupting him, Snatching up the cup, he thrust it back into the arms of young Vivian—“take it away—take it away!” he added, almost frantically, “it must not remain here now. No! no! no!”

“Why not?” asked the individual in the loose great coat, sharply.

“Silence! speak not,” cried Wilton, hoarsely, glaring at him; and then turning to the apprentice, he ejaculated, with great excitement, “Go—go; I beg—I entreat you to go away. Pray, young sir, go!”

“But I interposes a objection,” intervened the former speaker, and, turning to Vivian, he said, with an assumption of authority—“You’ll be so kind as to put that ’ere piece o’ plate down where you put it jes’ now.”

“Suppose I do not?” rejoined Vivian, sharply, turning his bright eye full upon the speaker, with an expression that savoured very strongly of a disposition to resist. The dirty man did not like the language it spake, but he affected not to be influenced by the threat it conveyed. He answered, temperately yet impressively—

“That is jes’ what I don’t suppose. Look here, young genl’man, you don’t know me—my name’s Jukes!”

It might have been Snooks, or Wiggins, or any other name not down in the category of the young man’s acquaintances or friends. The indifference he displayed on hearing it could not be greater if it had. He so expressed himself, for which Mr. Jukes rewarded him with a stare of astonishment, and whistled. Then he chuckled—

“You’re in luck, you are,” he continued; “but then you are young, you’ll werry likely know me better some day. I’m a sheriff’s officer.”

Certainly the youth recognised the office if he did not the man’s name. A thrill ran through his frame as the fellow hissed the words between his teeth, and a sound like a low wail burst from the lips of old Wilton.

The youth turned towards him, his bosom swelling with the generous impulses natural to his age, and, in tones of earnest sincerity, he exclaimed, “Can I, in any way, aid you, Mr. Wilton?”

The tone, the look, the gesture of the warm-hearted youth needed nothing to commend them to the keen appreciation of the old gold-worker, and his eyes filled with tears as the generous proffer fell upon his ears, but he shook his head sorrowfully.

“I thank you, Master Vivian,” he said; “but you cannot help me. No, you cannot aid me.”

“You do not know, Mr. Wilton, what I might be able to accomplish, if you would give me the opportunity,” he urged.

“No, no,” replied the old man, “leave me to battle it out with this man as best I may.”

“And jes’ leave that cup afore you go,” exclaimed Mr. Jukes, addressing Vivian. “It’ll help the hassets.”

“I do not intend to go yet,” said Hal Vivian; “but when I do, believe me I shall take no instructions from you about the destination of this cup.”

Mr. Jukes whistled shrilly by the united aid of his first and third fingers, and instantly the room door opened. A couple of yet shabbier and much dirtier personages than Mr. Jukes made their appearance. That individual waved his hand towards them, and performed the ceremony of introduction.

“Mr. Nutty and Mr. Sudds, genl’men,” he said. “One on ’em, Mr. Nutty, I shall leave here in possession on a fi. fa., and Mr. Sudds will assist me in arresting Eustace Wilton on a ca. sa. and in taking on him a country walk to a spunging house.”

Old Wilton turned as pale as death, and groaned in bitter anguish. Young Vivian felt a flush of heat pass over his frame.

“Can nothing be done?” he asked of Jukes, earnestly.

Mr. Jukes raised his dirty hand to his mouth, and recklessly bit his foul thumb-nail. He plunged into a fit of reflection. Suddenly he raised his head, and said to his companions—

“Go outside a moment.”

They obeyed him, and quitted the room. Then he said to the youth—

“I hold warrants on two judgments against Wilton for one thousand pounds each. On the one I takes his traps, on the other I takes his body. So you see as he can’t satisfy ’em, young mister, he’ll be cleaned out, and become a reg’lar pauper, on the poor side, in quod; and he must rot in quod, for he can’t take the benefit of the hact, that I knows. That’s bad enuff, ain’t it?”

“It is horrible!” ejaculated Hal, with a glance of commiseration at the old man, who, with downcast eyes and set teeth, was listening to every word that fell from the man’s lips.

“Of course it is,” repeated Mr. Jukes, with an air of triumph. “Now he may save himself from all this, and like the princesses and queen’s children in fairy tales, live happy ever arterwards, if he chooses not to be hobstinate.” Mr. Jukes spoke with emphasis. “I wants him jes’ to sign a little bit o’ paper. He has only to make a flourish with a pen, and there he is a free man agin with all his traps about him.”

Mr. Jukes paused. Young Vivian approached old Wilton.

“Your position is a grave one, Mr. Wilton,” he said: “let me respectfully suggest that if a simple signature will free you from two heavy claims”——

“Two thousand pounds, two thousand pounds!” interposed Jukes, elevating his voice as he repeated the amount of the sum.

“Simple signature!—simple signature!” almost screamed the old man. “You do not know what you ask, young sir. Sign it. Never! I will starve, rot, die, first.”

“Then you must starve, die, and rot,” roared Mr. Jukes, entirely losing his previous equanimity. “We’ll have no more o’ your nonsense. Hallo there! Sudds and Nutty, come in here, and let’s go to business; ketch ’old of Eustace Wilton there, Sudds; and you, Nutty, begin to take a hinventory of these ’ere chattels.”

Had the men thus summoned to appear, indulged themselves while outside the door with the pastime of listening at the keyhole, they could hardly have made a quicker response, than they did to the call of Jukes.

But as they entered the room by one door, a young girl ran into it by another, and cast her arms about the old gold-worker’s neck, saying, in an affrighted tone—

“Dear, dear father, who and why are these men here? why are you, in such grief?”

The old man sank upon a seat; bowing his face upon the table and burying his hands in his gray hair, he sobbed with agony.

The girl only tightened her loving embrace, and turned her face towards the ruffians who were about to jest at the situation.

It was the young Madonna-faced maiden Vivian had seen at the window, seeming like a golden seraph in the sunshine.

When Jukes perceived the exquisite countenance of Wilton’s daughter turned with an aspect of distressed inquiry towards him, he instinctively removed the hat of many showers from his dusty head, and made her a slight bow. His satellites also approached as near as they could to an imitation of his action, and stood still, instead of displaying, as they had intended, a vast amount of unnecessary activity.

This respect was an instinctive tribute to her innocent loveliness. Purity commands reverence even as beauty does admiration.

Vivian felt, with a rising in the throat, a sudden desire to produce from his pocket—which contained but a very few shillings—several thousand pounds, with which to pay off the debt, and then an almost irresistible inclination to trundle down the stairs, and out of the house, the three fellows whose presence created so much misery.

He could do nothing, however, but clear his voice, and, addressing the young lady, say—

“This is a most unhappy affair, Miss Wilton; and I regret very sincerely that it is in my power to do little either in the way of assistance or advice; but, with your permission, I will fetch over my uncle, Mr. Harper; he possesses vast experience, and no doubt he will show us a way out of this maze of difficulty and affliction.”

He did not wait for her permission, but running across the road, returned the silver cup to its former place; and, in a few hurried, passionate words, explained to his uncle what had occurred. He succeeded in prevailing on him to return with him to Wilton’s apartments, in some vague hope that he would be able to suggest a mode by which the old man might be saved from destruction.

A most painful scene followed the appearance of Mr. Harper. By pertinent questions, he elicited that, under circumstances which could not then be explained, Wilton had given bonds to the amount of two thousand pounds; that those bonds were over-due; that he had been sued for the recovery of the amount; that judgment had been obtained against him, and that execution had issued; but, withal, the man Jukes was empowered to withdraw arrest and execution, on the condition that Wilton signed a certain document which Jukes then had in his possession. This signature Wilton sternly and inflexibly refused to give; and when it was urged upon him to do so, for the sake of her who was wholly dependent upon him, he grew frenzied, and vowed that he would submit to death rather than comply. Mr. Harper, the goldsmith, finding that reasoning, expostulations, suggestions, and pleadings, were alike in vain, said there was no way to save him, and matters must take their course. Like a vulture pouncing upon its prey, Jukes seized upon the almost lifeless old man, and proceeded to drag him away. His daughter clung in horrified agony to him—in truth, it was a sad and painful sight. It was scarcely more than a year since death had ruthlessly torn her mother from this fair young child, and now it seemed as though the grim tyrant, in the person of Jukes, was robbing her of her father also.

The old man’s knees trembled, and his under-jaw quivered, as though he had been smitten with the palsy. He embraced his daughter with frenzied emotion, and in tones of passionate grief, cried—

“Flo’! Flo’! my own, my beautiful darling, I leave you but for a brief time. Bear up against this dreadful visitation as bravely as you can, my girl. It is for the sake of your brother and for you, darling, that I endure this misery; but have trust, my child, in an all-righteous Creator—happiness will come to us again some day, my child—some day.”

“I will do my best, dear father, if you will take me with you,” murmured Flora, through her blinding tears: “I will strive to be brave, and to endure patiently and calmly; but oh! indeed, indeed it will terrible to be left here alone.”

She flung herself upon his neck, and sobbed bitterly.

Mr. Harper coughed, a watery mist shrouded everything from the sight of young Vivian, but Mr. Jukes, declaring that he had no warrant of arrest against any “gals,” turned spitefully on old Wilton, tore him from the agonised embrace of his weeping child, and bore him away. Mr. Harper followed them down the stairs, to see that no unnecessary harshness was employed in conveying the trembling prisoner into the street.

When they were gone, Flora Wilton sank, half-fainting, into a chair, Hal approached her, and, in a gentle voice, he said to her—

“Your brother Mark and I were intimate friends, Miss Wilton, before he went abroad—will you not also look upon me as a friend? It is not in my power to do much, yet all that I can do to serve you shall be done with my whole heart. Pray believe me. I will not obtrude upon the very natural grief which now so heavily weighs you down, but I entreat you, when you may need aid not to forget me.”

Flora rose up. She turned her large, beautiful eyes—yet more lustrous from the tears which filled them—upon him, and with a quivering lip, murmured—

“Oh, Mr. Vivian, kindness at a moment like this is doubly valuable. It has a language which of late has been very, very strange in our ears; and now that—that he—he is gone, I—I”—

Her voice gradually became inaudible, as her features were overspread with a death-like paleness. She stretched out her small white hand, as though to feel for some place to lean upon for support. She appeared at a moment to have been stricken with blindness; she tottered, swayed, to and fro, and would have fallen heavily upon the ground but that Hal, with a sudden cry, caught her in his strong arms and saved her.

The exclamation uttered by Vivian attracted the attention of Mr. Nutty. He was making out an inventory of the furniture in the room, and had just written down in a penny memorandum book, “4 ’orsaire cheers, 1 tabbel,” when he heard the same voice cry—“Run for some water! Quick! Run!”

He responded instantly:

“Water be blowed; I can’t go for no water; I’m the man in possession.”

CHAPTER II.—THE WORM UPON THE LEAF.

I’ll tell thee what, my friend,
He is a very serpent in my way;
And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread
He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
—Shakspere.

Sunshine still!

Sunbeams making a golden palace of a Gothic mansion in the Regent’s Park, gilding its fretted roof, its traceries, and its triple arched and ornamented windows, tinting the graceful trees which gently waved in the gardens before and behind it, scattering golden stars upon the lake, and investing the flowers and shrubs with a beauty which rendered the place around little less than an earthly paradise.

Sunshine and sunbeams in all places without the walls of the mansion—shadows within.

In a room, magnificently furnished, containing every appliance a morbid attention to personal comfort could need, or the invention of luxurious imagination could devise, were seated an elderly gentleman, his wife and three daughters.

One of these girls was a beauty—all had pretensions to good looks, but she was strikingly handsome.

The name of the owner of this mansion was Grahame. He was a pale, stern-looking man. A dress suit of black, and a white cravat, which seemed to have the effect of being unpleasantly and rather dangerously tight about his neck, added to the austerity of his aspect.

His wife, an intensely proud woman, whose pride was apparent in her air, her dress, her features, sat like an imperious creature whose foible had no other quality than the worst species of haughtiness.

Like the very frankest person in the world, she wore—
Her heart upon her sleeve,

and displayed its entire sentiment in the material of which her attire was made, in its fashion, and in the style in which it was worn. The jewellery upon her wrists, her arms, her fingers, about her neck, and at her waist, betrayed the only feeling of which she was capable. She lived, moved, breathed in an atmosphere of inordinate, unreasoning pride—no other; and the “people” who came in contact with her felt it before she uttered a word to or glanced at them. In her eyes they were pottery of the commonest earthen material, whilst the clay of which she was herself formed, produced a porcelain of the rarest kind. So she sat; to be looked at, not touched.

Her husband, outwardly was of the same stamp.

Within, he was begrimed with cowardly meanness, granite selfishness, a cringing obsequiousness to the wealthy and the powerful, and an icy haughtiness to all whom he understood to be his inferiors in position. By his standard, pride was measured as honour and nobility of soul, gold as the essence of all virtue.

His daughters, brought up under such guidance, could hardly fail to be impregnated with the principles—or, rather, lack of principle—by which their parents were governed. Yet exercised upon the youngest, their influence failed to win a proselyte. Her organisation had not been adapted by nature to receive the impressions the authors of her being laboured to create, and, therefore, when she hazarded an opinion favourable to the purest sympathies of a kindly nature, or displayed an emotion which betrayed that she had a heart, she was called a fool, and treated as a pariah by the whole family. She had been christened Evangeline, but her imperial mamma frequently informed her it was a misnomer—that, in truth, her name should have been Gosling, which she had somewhere heard, meant a young goose, truly a young silly goose.

The second daughter resembled her mother in all things—was, in fact, her counterpart; she even bore her dualistic name, Margaret Claverhouse, and like her maternal parent, was supremely proud and hateful in all her characteristics.

The eldest girl, the beauty of the family, was composed of somewhat discordant elements. In person she was eminently attractive, her figure was tall and commanding, and its outline was as graceful as its air was majestic. Her face, as we have said, was extremely beautiful, but he must have a bold heart, who, falling in love with it, would woo her in the expectation that he could win her with ease and retain her by indifference. Her features were regular, her eyes large, glittering, and of that deep brown which is often mistaken for black; her eyelids were full, and her eyelashes so long as really to form a fringe to the lid. Her eyebrows were arched, her hair was darker than her eyes, and not less brilliant. Her mouth was small, yet it had a sensual fulness, no less apparent then the scornful curl which ever seemed to keep it in a state of unrest. As the hand of her maid was skilled, and incessantly in requisition, the arrangement of her tresses—that wondrous ornament to woman—may be said to have been faultless. Her attire was admirably chosen to assist her beauty, and its fit was a triumph of the modiste’s art. Her mother had instilled into her a belief that she was a queen of beauty, and she looked, thought, moved, as though she were an empress.

As yet it was supposed that her affections had not been touched; from infancy she had been tutored to believe that to be human in feeling was to descend to the level of the common herd—that the world and what it contained were made for her, not she for the world. She was gifted with all the elements of which energy and passion are composed, and she was capable of loving with a force not often allotted even to woman; but her passions, her energies, her tenderness, had been rendered dormant by the counsels of worldly pride, as the warm, gushing, health-giving stream is converted by a slow frost into a silent, motionless block of ice.

Should there come before her eyes the man whose physical beauty and whose mental intelligence woke up her heart from its icy dream into passionate life, and that love should prove to be unrequited—woe! woe! to her! and possibly to him! She had been named Helen after a maternal relative, from whom the most exaggerated expectations were entertained, and she bore it as though she, in virtue of it, already possessed the vast inheritance it was understood to foreshadow.

This family were engaged—while the broad sunshine was gladdening the poor and the respectable, promenading in the park, into which the windows of the mansion looked—in discussing the conduct of the only son of the house of Grahame, who, instead of having obtained at college a “double first” for the honour of the family, had forwarded home a packet of tradesmen’s accounts, the gross total of which considerably exceeded the handsome allowance placed to his credit by his father. Mr. Grahame spoke with considerable dissatisfaction of the course his son must have pursued to have plunged thus largely into debt; and, though it was in accordance with his wish that his son had for his college companions and intimate acquaintances, the Duke of St. Allborne, the young Earl of Carlton, and the experienced Lord Suedmuch, yet he thought that even their intimacy, at the price his son had paid for it, or rather that which he was called upon to pay, much too dear, and he expressed himself on the subject with an emphasis which his pride rendered unusual.

Mrs. Grahame turned upon him a sidelong glance with her half-closed eyes, and, said coldly and contemptuously—

“He is a Grahame! The members of that race are not used to measure their wants, their pleasures, or even their caprices, by miserable considerations of economy. I said to Malcolm, when we parted—‘Remember, always, that you are a Grahame. If those with whom you associate act as though their wealth ran a stream whose source is inexhaustible, let your expenditure be no less illimitable than theirs, even to represent, in wealth, a river whose’”——

“Confluence is a sea of dissipation and of debt,” sharply exclaimed Mr. Grahame, taking a pinch of snuff out of a gold, diamond-studded snuff-box.

“Mr. Grahame, your sense of the dignity of your position is becoming impaired,” responded the stately lady, wholly closing her eyes.

“No, madam,” he returned, “pardon me, I simply, object to unnecessary and preposterous extravagance.”

An expression of ineffable disdain passed over the lady’s features.

“Claver’se Grahame,” she remarked, in a frigid tone, “have you, at a moment, become poor?”

The face of Mr. Grahame instantly changed to a brilliant scarlet hue, then to a purple, finally it became livid. Globules of cold perspiration gathered thickly upon his brow. He thrust his chair back a few paces, and there was something of an affrighted expression in his eyes as he gazed upon hen. Her eyelids were yet close down over her pale gray eyes as he wiped the deathly damp from his brow.

Helen Grahame turned her bright dark eyes upon him with a scornful look. In her estimation, the concentration of meanness of soul was to place a limit upon lavish expenditure. She did not utter a word, but she tried to balance in her own mind which of the two occasioned her father the most terror—her mother’s cold displeasure or Malcolm’s extravagance.

Margaret thought with her sister that economy was but another word for a despicable narrowness of soul. Not but that she was economical enough when called upon for an exercise of charity; but for any selfish purpose, a compulsory contraction of expenditure would have been regarded by her as an example of the lowest and most vulgar niggardliness. She listened with disdain to her parent, and thought that it was incumbent upon her father to give like a Grahame, in order that her brother Malcolm should lavish it like a Grahame.

Evangeline, to whom the conversation had been distressing observing that her father had become suddenly silent; raised her soft eyes and marked the expression that passed over his features. In alarm she hastily left her seat, and in a low, affectionate tone, said, as she took his hand and leaned over him—

“Dear sir, you are not well, you are agitated, can I”——

“Keep your seat, Evangeline;” he exclaimed hoarsely; as he drew his hand from her petulantly. “I am not agitated—I am well—you are obtrusive and impertinent.”

Evangeline retreated to her place at the window; she took up the embroidery on which she had been engaged, and went on with it in silence, but a tear dropped upon her work; no one heeding the “young silly goose,” it passed unnoticed.

Mrs. Grahame spoke again.

“Malcolm is coming home,” she said, “and he has invited two of his college companions—the young Duke of St. Allborne, and the Honourable Lester Vane to accompany him here on a visit. No doubt Mr. Grahame, you will not lose so valuable an opportunity to impress upon your son, in the presence of his spendthrift associates, that your narrow income forbids your meeting claims which”——

“Madam,” interrupted Mr. Grahame, tartly, “it is you who are losing a sense of your position now. Let us change the subject. I will speak with Malcolm upon his return. A proper maintenance of his position, and the honour of his House is one thing: a disreputable squandering of his income quite another. In that spirit I speak now—in that spirit will I address myself to him.”

“Who is the Honourable Lester Vane?” inquired Margaret Grahame of her mother.

“A young man of an ancient and high family,” replied Mrs. Grahame—“immensely rich.”

“And very handsome,” exclaimed Helen; adding, “so at least Malcolm writes me. He praises him highly, declares that he possesses great personal attractions, and is sure—I—we shall all like him much.”

“He did not name him in the few lines he wrote to me,” said Margaret.

“But he did to you, Eva, did he not?” remarked Helen, turning her brilliant eyes with a mocking glance upon her youngest sister.

A gush of tears came again into the eyes of Evangeline. She did not raise them from her employment, that her emotion might be seen by her sisters. She answered with a quivering lip, and in a low, faltering tone.

“I suppose Malcolm had not time to write to me. I have had no letter from him since he has been gone.”

Margaret smiled. She was not accustomed to laugh.

“You! Absurd! do you think he would write to you? what conceit!” she observed, with a gesture of contempt.

What other feeling should she entertain for a sister who possessed merely the cardinal virtues, and was utterly deficient in an appreciation of worldly pomps and vanities?

At this part of the conversation, there was a tap at the door of the apartment; it opened at the same moment, and an individual, attired in a suit of black of the most approved court dress cut, advanced into the room. The eyes of the family were turned upon him, but he scarcely appeared to be disposed to collapse under that honour. His neck was garnished with an unexceptionable cravat, which was arranged with such precision that it seemed to be wrought in alabaster and carved elaborately. His wig—for as he confessed to admiring confreres, he had dispensed with his “own ’air”—looked as though it had been subjected to a severe storm of whitewash and had been violently brushed. He approached his master, and, bending over him, said, in a confidential manner, yet with a gesture of grave but humble deference.

“Thet pesson is come, sir!”

“Who?—what person?” inquired Mr. Grahame with the air of one who denied the right of any “person” to seek an audience with him.

“The pesson concerning which you gave me hin-structions, sir—I asked ’im into the libree, sir.”

“Into my library, man?” cried Mr. Grahame, rising up, angrily. “Pray what does the fellow mean? How dare you ask any ‘person’ into my library without my instructions to that effect?”

“He said he were Mr. Chewkle, sir, and if you please to remember”——

The face of Mr. Grahame turned as pale as death, and then changed to an intense crimson.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes!” he cried hurriedly, altering his tone; “return to him—say I will come to him immediately.”

The man bowed, and quitted the room.

Mr. Grahame walked to the window and looked out into the sunlight. It lay upon the grassy lawn, upon the sloping meads, upon the waving trees, like gleaming gold dust. The soft breeze made the leaves flutter merrily, birds darted to and fro in the clear air, singing gaily, and brilliantly attired ladies and children moved over the open places in the broad park, animated by the beauty of the scene, and the glory of the sunshine. Mr. Grahame looked distastefully upon it, it ill-assorted with the feelings at war within his breast, and he turned from it with an impatient exclamation. He set his teeth together, drew a long breath, and, with his features more pallid than usual, strode out of the room.

Mrs. Grahame—too much occupied with visions of her own dignity, when she thought at all, which was not often—took no notice of the disturbed manner of her husband. If she had seen it, she would not have credited the evidence of her own eyes. A Grahame disturbed or agitated, the thing was impossible.

Neither did Helen, who was sketching fancy portraits of the Honourable Lester Vane; nor Margaret, who was not even troubled by an effort of imagination, observe him; but Evangeline perceived his inward perturbation, and not daring to offer a word, or breathe a hope that she might aid in alleviating it, sat sadly at her needlework, filled with a foreboding that something foreshadowed trial and affliction to the House.

Mr. Grahame descended to his library. In one corner of it, upon the edge of a chair, under which his hat was placed, sat, with his knees close together, and his toes poised on the floor, a strange looking personage, a sort of hybrid between a fast banker’s clerk, and an undertaker.

It was Mr. Chewkle.

Mr. Chewkle was an agent; a commission agent. He undertook any description of business, no matter what. He sold coals and coffee, he introduced distracted tradesmen to usurious bill-discounters. He offered two shillings and sixpence in the pound to indignant creditors for unhappy insolvents. He would supply you with a good article in tea, at two and eight. He raised money on mortgage and post obit, having a friend who did that sort of thing for spendthrifts who needed it.

He laid out money on fancy horses for fast individuals, with imaginary betting-men, though the horses he backed for them were rarely landed winners at the post. He knew all the good investments in mines, and would obtain shares for anybody, at a comparatively low price, though some day they “might” be at fabulous premiums. He—but he would undertake anything whatever, clean or dirty, if paid his commission, and “ask no questions,” when the remunerator was liberal.

He rose up as Mr. Grahame entered, and made him a bow.

“Good morning, Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame, loftily; “well, what success?”

“We’ve got our man, safe, sir,” he replied, with a feeble grin.

“Where?”

“Spunging-house, sir.”

“And the family?”

“At the apartments, sir, but we shall move the goods to-morrow, for sale by the sheriff, and then they must go out you know, sir.”

“Into the streets.”

“Into the streets, sir, or the work’us. They’ve no resources, as I sees.”

“Well, then, of course he has signed the undertaking?”

“A—a—not yet, sir.”

“But he will?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

Mr. Grahame had seated himself with the air of a Mogul emperor giving audience to a Hindoo slave. He rose to his feet as if a pistol-shot had been discharged at him.

“Not! Nonsense!” he cried with fierce astonishment; “under such pressure, the man cannot possibly refuse.”

“But he does, sir, and swears he will not sign if he has to starve and rot in prison.”

Mr. Grahame passed his hand over his mouth, and gulped as if he would choke.

“What is to be done?” he asked.

“Do without it, sir,” suggested Chewkle, mildly.

“Ridiculous! His signature must be to the deed.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Chewkle, slowly, and looking carefully round the room to see that no other person was present, “so it may be there on the deed.”

Mr. Grahame looked at him steadfastly.

“How?” he asked.

Mr. Chewkle reduced his voice to a whisper.

“You have got his name on a letter, I s’pose?”

“Well, sir?”

“Not very difficult to write like it, I fancy.”

“Chewkle!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with dilated eyes, “what do you counsel?”

“Nothing, sir. I merely suggests that if the signature must be there on the deed, no obstinate old fool should prevent its being placed there and, where money is not a hobject, it can easily be managed.”

Mr. Grahame’s teeth chattered, as if he had been suddenly transported into a frosty atmosphere.

“Chewkle,” he said, grimly, “do you know what the law declares such an act to be?”

Mr. Chewkle nodded with perfect self-possession.

“It must be done, sir,” he rejoined emphatically. “Your position depends on it. You must balance beggary, destitution, ruin, against rank, fortune, dignity”——

“Forgery!” groaned Mr. Grahame, sinking into his chair, and pressing his hands over his eyes.

CHAPTER III.—POSSESSION DISTURBED.

Duke. You are welcome: take your place.
Are you acquainted with the difference
That holds this present question in the court?
Por. I am informed thoroughly of the cause,
Which is the merchant here and which is the Jew?
—Shakspere.

In the dreams of Harry Vivian the delicate form and sweet, smiling face of Flora Wilton had appeared to him, and not unfrequently. But then she seemed ever to be some queen of faëryland, seated on a throne of gems of dazzling brilliancy, in floral realms of more exquisite beauty than mortal eye had ever beheld on earth, or waking fancy in its most gorgeous development could conceive.

In his moments of romantic imaginings, when his mind was filled with her beauty, he certainly had sketched a few scenes comprising events in which both he and Flora figured. Still his ardent imagination had not carried him beyond the presentation of a flower, and the reward for the gift with which the soft grateful look from eyes, the loveliest in the world, would enrich him.

He had never foreshadowed a time—for true love is ever subdued in action by the most genuine modesty—when he should within his arms, press to his throbbing heart the form which had in his eyes no equal, or that the face so rare in its perfection, should recline upon his shoulder, close to his lips.

Yet so it chanced to be. Circumstances he could have never shaped had come to pass, and the bliss of entwining his arms about the small, delicate waist of Flora Wilton was bestowed upon him at a moment the most unexpected, when he was unprepared to welcome it and unable to enjoy it.

Nay, rather than bliss, the emotion he experienced might be said to have been one of terror; not without its gratification, it is true, for he would not have resigned her, senseless as she was, to another for worlds. Still the deathly hue with which her features were overspread, the compressed lips, the closed eye, from which a tear had struggled, and, disengaging itself, lodged yet upon her cheek, made him fear that the frightful visitation which had so suddenly fallen upon her was a calamity greater than her gentle nature was able to sustain. He grew himself cold and faint as the supposition crossed him that, unless some sudden and energetic measures were adopted, she would pass from her swoon into the unawakening sleep of death.

Unacquainted with anything pertaining to fainting fits, and under a strong impression that swooning and giving up the ghost were synonymous, his calls for water and for aid merged from the vehement into the frantic; he unheeded the representations made by Mr. Nutty that men in possession never quit the sight of goods placed in their charge until the amount they represent is satisfied; he threatened him most fiercely for not flying to execute his commands; but, at the close of a paroxysm of rage and agitation, he found Flora yet senseless in his arms, and Mr. Nutty dancing and declaiming, vowing that he would take the “lor” of “any willin as strove to hinterrupt him in his duty.”

In the midst of this harangue by Mr. Nutty upon the majesty of his professional avocation, the door of the apartment opened, and a young girl glided in.

She had met old Wilton on the stairs, in custody of the officers, and had seen him borne away. She had loitered outside of the door of the apartment—she heard the low, sobbing wail of the afflicted girl, whose tears were wrung from her by the terrifying conviction that her destruction was involved in the loss of her father. She heard, too, the calls of Vivian, together with the angry colloquy between him and Nutty, and then she decided on offering her assistance.

She was only a cap-front maker, working for a wholesale house in the city, producing the fronts worn inside women’s bonnets, for sevenpence halfpenny per dozen. She rose at six in the morning, and worked until twelve at night, in order to complete two dozen per diem. Out of the sum thus realized weekly she had to live, pay her lodging, and find herself in clothes.

So she had not much time on her hands, nor much money in her pocket, and was what the every-day world calls a person of no importance.

But she had a heart—a gentle, compassionate, loving heart.

She was a very pretty girl, though her complexion was something wan, and her eyelids were rather tinged with pink; but if these appearances detracted something from her prettiness, what did they not add to the interest and the sympathy raised in the beholder? They told of early rising and midnight toil, the rapid wearing out of young and beautiful human life, so that thousands of thoughtless beings of her own sex might set off to advantage their facial attractions—CHEAPLY.

Not to lengthen this digression—for we shall know much more of this young damsel by and by—Lotte Clinton, for that was her name, hearing the cry of young Vivian for water, entered the apartment, prepared to offer her services if they were likely to be required.

She saw Flora Wilton lying in the arms of Hal Vivian, whose handsome face she recognised in an instant, for she had often observed it from her garret window upturned to the house in which she dwelt, though his look reached not so high as where she sat peering behind her mignionette and nasturtiums.

Hal knew her not, but just now she made her appearance, to his conception, as an angel newly come from Paradise.

He turned his eager eyes upon her.

“Miss Wilton is in deep affliction,” he said, quickly, “she has fainted; will you be so good as to bring some water?”

“Place her in a chair,” said Lotte, softly, “she will be better there—she will have more air. I will run for water, and my smelling salts. Sometimes at night, I grow faint and dizzy, and cannot see my work, and they relieve me then wonderfully.”

She said this as she hurried out of the room.

Poor girl! She had but too often had occasion to use the stimulant for the purpose she named.

Vivian almost unconsciously felt a reluctance to resign his beautiful burden, but he could not help seeing that the course proposed by Lotte was the proper one to be adopted; therefore he placed the yet lifeless Flora, with the tenderest carefulness, upon a chair, and supported her drooping head upon his breast.

Lotte, swift of foot, had not been a minute obtaining the ammoniacal salts and a teacup with water in it. She did not possess a tumbler, for she could not afford herself beer, and the water she took at her dinner, or supper—when she could afford to indulge in the latter luxury—was as sweet to her out of a cup as a glass.

She set to work, as a woman almost instinctively proceeds in these matters. While she had all that tender sympathy and commiseration which the condition of Flora could elicit from any one imbued with a generous susceptibility, she was endowed also with that species of calm self-possession and firm collectedness, so valuable in emergencies where human life is at stake.

She set Vivian to work bathing with the cool water the white temples from which his trembling fingers had parted the long waving hair, while she herself applied the ammonia to the nostrils of Flora, and chafed her palms when the inhalation had done its work.

Thus assaulted, nature returned to its duty, and reasserted its claims over the motionless system of the young girl, who gradually opened her eyes. Gazing wildly about her, she abruptly rose up from her seat, as though she had awakened out of some painful dream.

The faces of Vivian and Lotte seemed to confuse her; but when her large, sad eyes fell upon the unattractive countenance of Mr. Nutty, turned upon her with an aspect in which the expression was undecided—as he was not certain whether the swoon was a sham or a fact—memory returned, and her bereavement, with the future and all the horrors of its uncertainty—save that the direst poverty must attend it—burst upon her.

She wrung her hands in the fulness of her misery, and then she murmured through her blinding tears—

“Almighty Father! support me now!”

Lotte stole her arm about Flora’s waist, and whispered in her ear—

“Cheer up, Miss Wilton! you have friends who will not desert you.”

“Where?” she asked, bitterly. “I know of no relative, save my father and my brother. My father is in prison, my brother is far, far away, and I am a homeless, helpless, hopeless outcast.”

“Not hopeless!” exclaimed Vivian; “do not say that, Miss Wilton! Remember that I have told you, Mark and I were friends before he went away. I know him so well that I believe if any near and dear relative of mine were, during my absence, to fall into trouble and affliction, he would be the first to come forward and help her, and, as his friend, what he would do that ought I to do. I make no boast; but, oh! Miss Wilton, do not fear but that I will do my best, and that at least you shall not be helpless nor homeless while I can command a shilling, and have strength to work for one.”

“And you are a dear fellow, and make me foolish enough to cry, and I wish you wouldn’t,” said Lotte, her eyes suffused with tears.

“And, likewise, you are young and green—pea-green,” thought Mr. Nutty, as he put down in his inventory, “1 large spewn, 1 chimblee ornymint, and 1 arthwrugg.”

Flora, with eyes beaming with gratitude, proffered her hand to Vivian, who took it and pressed it. It would have been a dear delight to him to have kissed it, but he felt that this was not a time for such a display of gallantry or feeling.

“I know not how to thank you, Mr. Vivian,” she said, in trembling accents, “but I fear I cannot, while I sincerely appreciate your generous offers of assistance to me, avail myself of them. Your friendship for my brother gives to me no claim upon your aid, neither does it entitle me to accept it; and, guided by the precepts and counsels my dear father has implanted in my mind, I seem clearly to comprehend that it would be—may I say—an indiscretion were I to act otherwise than in most grateful terms to decline what your disinterested generosity has prompted you to propose. I confess that I have been terribly shocked and shaken by what has occurred, but the nervous tremor I at this moment endure will pass away, and I shall look with fervent faith to a brighter time.”

“Young and green, too,” thought Mr. Nutty—“sap-green,” and placed in his inventory, “1 immidge—a figgur of Oap.”

Lotte interposed, as Hal, with rather a disconcerted aspect, was about to urge her acceptance of his renewed offer.

“Let us see, Mr. Vivian,” she said to him, “what tomorrow will bring forth. At present everything is in confusion; by to-morrow we shall know the worst; what can be done, and what there will remain to do. Then Miss Wilton will be better able to judge in what you can be of service to her, and I have no doubt she will feel less reluctance to accept the kindly aid you have offered in such a friendly and worthy manner now.”

“A sensible girl, that,” thought Mr. Nutty, “works for her livin’, an’ ’ard, too, I’ll be bound!” He put down at the same moment in his inventory, “a peece of clokk wurk wownd up and goen; 1 nutmy graytur; 1 coles scuddel.”

Hal, seeing that the advice tendered by Lotte Clinton was acceptable to Flora, resolved to follow it, and turning to the former, he said—

“You understand far better than I do the way to manage in such a matter as this. I am only anxious to be of service, and my intention is sincere. I may, by a want of tact, produce an effect entirely opposite to that which I most desire. You are intelligent and good natured——”

“Thank you!” said Lotte, with a laugh.

“You are,” he repeated, “and I fancy you interpret justly my sincerity.”

“I am sure I do,” she answered promptly.

“Then I place myself in your hands; you will not leave Miss Wilton for the present?” he added.

“Not for a minute,” she replied.

“You are all that I could hope you to be,” he rejoined, “and if I can help you, you will send for me, won’t you?”

“Indeed I will!” responded Lotte.

“Bravo!” he cried. “Farewell, Miss Wilton—keep up your spirits; ‘When matters are at their worst they mend,’ you know, and surely your affairs could hardly be in a more unhappy predicament than at this moment. Preserve your faith in the goodness of God, and do not despair of the future.”

Flora could not reply; she could only return the pressure of his hand, and then hide her face upon the neck of Lotte Clinton.

Hal then breathed a few words into the ear of Nutty to the effect that, though he was an officer of the law, engaged in one of its most unpleasant duties, it was quite possible for him to do his “spiriting gently,” but that if he should entertain a contrary opinion, and offer, or attempt to offer, to carry out in a spirit of hostility, arrogance, and coarseness, the part he had to perform, he might prepare himself for a reckoning, the settlement of which would not be in his favour.

Nutty was too old a hand at his craft not to know that it was best to be civil, when as he, in rather free terms, said—“There was summat hanging to it;” or to hesitate to be a brute when the utter poverty of the poor creatures whose goods were seized rendered even his possession money a question of doubt.

In the present case, he very sagaciously saw that if he acted in an apparently compassionate and considerate spirit to the daughter of old Wilton, and took care to let his behaviour come to the ears of young Vivian, his purse would be rendered all the heavier by it; but if he adopted an abrupt harshness of manner, terrified her, and permitted her to save no little trinket, upon which she set some priceless personal value, he might get a horse-whipping, inflicted with no light or unwilling hand. He took; therefore, the suggestion of Vivian in good part, winked his eyes significantly, jerked his thumb over his left shoulder, placed his thumb to his nose, fluttered his fingers, and otherwise bewildered the apprentice, who could only presume that these evolutions meant that his wishes should be complied with. He, therefore, thought it incumbent upon him, not only to seem to comprehend them, but to so far imitate them, by slapping his pocket, tapping the palm of his hand with one finger, and pointing to Nutty, so as to give that grubby individual to understand that if he behaved kindly, there would be something “hanging to it.”

Nutty smiled complacently, bent the most philanthropic and benevolent of glances upon Flora, nodded his head, and murmured, with a slight grin—

“I knows all about it.”

Thus assured, Harry Vivian waved his hand towards Flora.

“Keep up your spirits!” he cried; “all will go right yet.”

Then, with an effort, he quitted the room, ran lightly down the stairs, and was soon in his uncle’s private room, engaged with him in earnest conversation.

In the meantime, Lotte busied herself at the sacrifice of at least a dozen cap fronts, or rather half a dozen hours, to be replaced by six taken out of those devoted by her during the week to sleep, in conferring with Flora as to the course she would have to pursue when all the furniture was swept away, and she was left penniless and destitute.

“Have you no relations in London?” inquired Lotte; “because if you have only one or two, I will pop on my bonnet and mantle, and run to them very quickly. Let them be who they may, they would surely afford you some help.”

“I never heard my father speak even of one in London or elsewhere,” returned Flora. “We have lived very secluded while here. We have not always lived thus. I can remember dwelling in a large house, with beautiful furniture, mirrors, chandeliers, and gorgeous decorations; lovely gardens, with fountains and flowers. But that is long, long ago. I know not when, I know not why, we left it, or when or how we came here. It seems to me that I awakened from a dream of faëryland, to find myself in these poor apartments, and my poor father destroying his life by the deadly closeness of his application to his labour.”

“You know, then, of no relations you could ask to help you?” said Lotte.

“None,” replied Flora.

“Nor friends whose assistance you might ask?” Flora shook her head.

“Have you any money to go on with?”

“A little, which for safety is placed”——

“Where I want to know nothing about it,” interposed Mr. Nutty, abruptly. “See here—when I put down in my hin-vent-ory any harticle, you daren’t touch it arterwards; leastwise, you must give it up as I’ve put it down; but you know you can do as you like with anything as I don’t put down. Do you tumble?”

Mr. Nutty, having rather a mean opinion of the worldly experience of Flora, addressed his speech to Lotte, but that young lady, who had a shrewd guess at the intention sought to be conveyed in the first speech, did not comprehend quite clearly the last sentence, unless, as she conceived, the man had a notion that her professional avocation was dancing on horseback and leaping through hoops or over poles, held by colonels in the army of the Emperor of the Brazils. She, therefore, thanked him for the suggestion he offered, but at the same time mystified him by informing him that she had never been on horseback in her life.

In a few whispers she made Flora understand Nutty’s meaning, and suggested that if there happened to be any article to which she attached any particular value, now was the time to transfer it to a place of safety, beyond the jurisdiction of Mr. Nutty.

Flora hesitated to avail herself of the offer—not so Lotte.

“There is my room,” she said; “no one can enter it unless I please: I have the key. You can put anything you like within it; and I should like to see any one dare to come in and attempt to take it out.”

Still Flora hesitated.

“These people seem to have the power to take all,” she observed, “and if they are justly entitled to their claim, it would be an act of dishonesty to keep anything back from them.”

“Fiddle-de-dee, dear!” exclaimed Lotte. “You don’t know that they are justly entitled, and therefore you have the right to assume that they are not. They act, at all events, like hard-hearted brutes, and that is why I believe they have no more right to a single thing here than I have. So I should act just as if they had not. Now I will tell you what my advice is. You point out to me what you, in your heart, should like to save, and leave the rest to me.”

“That is a sensible gal,” muttered Nutty, as he entered in his inventory—“1 save-orl, a arm chare and 1 floured assik.”

At this moment there was a gentle knock at the room door, and Mr. Nutty opened it about two inches, and peered through.

“Wot d’ye want?” said he gruffly, to some one without.