Dr. Wainwright's Patient: A Novel

DR. WAINWRIGHT'S PATIENT.

A Novel

By

EDMUND YATES

AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP."

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?"

SHAKESPEARE.

LONDON
GEORGE RUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET
1878

EDMUND YATES'S NOVELS

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
KISSING THE ROD.
A ROCK AHEAD.
BLACK SHEEP.
A RIGHTED WRONG.
THE YELLOW FLAG.
THE IMPENDING SWORD.
A WAITING RACE.
BROKEN TO HARNESS.
TWO BY TRICKS.
A SILENT WITNESS.
NOBODY'S FORTUNE.
DR. WAINWRIGHT'S PATIENT.
WRECKED IN PORT.

DR. WAINWRIGHT'S PATIENT.

[CHAPTER I.]

CAPTAIN DERINZY'S RETREAT.

Beachborough, where, in obedience to the strident voice of the railway porter--voice combining the hardness of the Dorset with the drawl of the Devon dialect--you, if you be so disposed, "Change for Sandington Cove and Waverley," is a very different place from what it was even ten years ago. To be sure the sea is there, and the beach, and the fishing-luggers with the red sails; but in everything else what changes! Now there is, as has been said, a railway-station, a forlorn little oasis of white planking in a desert of sandy heath, inhabited by a clerk--a London young man, who "went too fast" in the metropolis, and has been relegated to Beachborough as a good healthy place where there is no chance of temptation--and a porter, a native of the place, a muscular person great at wrestling, who is always inviting the male passers-by of his acquaintance to "come on," and supplying them, on their doing so, with a very ugly throw known as a "back-fall." There are not many passers-by, for the newly-formed road leads to no where in particular, and those who tramp through its winter slush, or struggle through its summer dust, are generally either tradesmen of the place anxious about overdue parcels, or servants, sent to make inquiries about the trains, from some of the houses on the Esplanade.

The Esplanade! Heavens! if old Miss Gollop, who lived at the Baths, and who used to supply very hot water and very damp towels, and the greatest number of draughts ever known to be got together into one small room, to the half-dozen county families to whom Beachborough was then known as a watering-place--if old Miss Gollop could revisit the glimpses of the moon, and by its light look upon the Esplanade, it would, I am certain, be impossible for that worthy old lady to recognise it as Mussared's Meadow, where she picked cowslips and sucked sorrel when she was a girl, and which was utterly untainted by the merest suspicion of brick and mortar when she died twenty years ago. She would not recognise it any more than in The Dingo Arms--that great white-faced establishment, with its suites of apartments, its coffee-room, wine-office, private bar, and great range of stabling, patronised by, and in its sanctum sanctorum bearing an heraldic emblazonment of the arms of, Sir Hercules Dingo Dingo, Bart., bloody hand, four-quartered shield and all--she would have recognised The Hoy, a tiny "public" where they used to sell the hardest beer and the most stomach-ache-provoking cider, and which in her day was the best tavern in the village. The white-faced terrace has sprung up in Mussared's Meadow; the Esplanade in front of it is a seawall and a delightful promenade for the Misses Gimp's young ladies, who are the admiration of Dingo Terrace, and who have deadly rivals in Madame de Flahault's demoiselles, whose piano-playing is at once the delight and the curse of Powler Square; the cliffs, once so gaunt and barren and forlorn, are dotted over with cottages and villakins, all green porch and plate-glass windows; the old barn-like church has had a fresh tower put on to him, and a fresh minister--one with his ecclesiastical millinery of the newest cut, and up to the latest thing in genuflexions--put into him; there is a Roman Catholic chapel close to the old Wesleyan meeting-house; and they have modernised and spoiled the picturesque tower where Captain Derinzy wore away a portion of his days. Great improvements, no doubt. Pavement and gas, and two policemen, and a railway, and a ritualistic incumbent, and shops with plate-glass windows, where you can get Holloway's pills and Horniman's teas, and all the things without which no gentleman's table is complete. But the events of my story happened ten years ago, when the inhabitants of Beachborough--shopkeepers, fisher-people, villagers, and lace-makers--were like one family, and loved and hated and reviled and back-bit each other as the members of one family only can.

We shall get a little insight into the village politics if we drop in for a few minutes at Mrs. Powler's long one-storied, thatched-roof cottage, standing by itself in the middle of the little High Street. Mrs. Powler is a rich and childless old widow, Powler deceased having done a little in the vending of home-manufactured lace, and a great deal in the importing, duty-free, of French lace and brandy. It was Powler's run when Bill Gollop, the black sheep of the Gollop family, was shot by the revenue-officer down by Wastewater Hole, a matter which Powler is scarcely thought to have compromised by giving a new organ to Bedminster church. However, he has been dead some years, and his widow is very rich and tolerably hospitable; and her little thatched cottage--she never lived in any other house--is the centre and focus of Beachborough gossip.

It is just about Mrs. Powler's supper-time, which is very early in the summer, and she has guests to supper. There is no linen in all Beachborough so white as Mrs. Powler's, no such real silver plate, no such good china or glass. The Beachborough glass generally consists of fat thick goblets on one stump-leg, or dumpy heavy wineglasses with a pattern known as "the pretty" halfway up their middle, which, like the decanters, are heavy and squat, and require a strong wrist to lift them. But Mrs. Powler had thin, blown, delicate glasses, and elegant goblets with curling snakes for their handles, and drinking-cups in amber and green colours, all of which were understood to have come from "abroad," and were prized by her and respected by her neighbours accordingly. There never was a bad lobster known in Beachborough; and it is probable that Mrs. Powler's were no better than her neighbours', but she certainly had a wondrous knack of showing them off to the best advantage, setting-off the milk-white of the inside and the deepred of the shell with layers of crisp curling parsley, as a modern belle sets off her complexion with artfully-arranged bits of tulle and blonde. Nor was her boiled beef to be matched within ten miles round. "I du 'low that other passons' biled beef to Mrs. Fowler's is sallt as brine and soft as butter," Mrs. Jupp would confess; and Mrs. Jupp was a notable housewife, and what the vulgar call "nuts" on her own cooking. There is a splendid proof of it on the table now, cold and firm and solid. Mr. Jupp has just helped himself to a slice, and it is his muttered praise that has called forth the tribute of general admiration from his better-half. Mr. Hallibut, the fish-factor and lace-dealer from Bedminster, is still occupied with the lobster; for he has a ten-mile drive home before him, and any fear of indigestion he laughs to scorn, knowing how he can "settle" that demon with two or three raw "nips" and one or two steaming tumblers of some of that famous brandy which the deceased Powler imported duty-free from abroad, and a bottle of which is always to be found for special friends in the old oak armoire, which stands under the Lord's-Prayer sampler which Mrs. Powler worked when she was a little girl.

Mrs. Powler is in the place of honour opposite the window. A little woman, with a dark-skinned deeply-lined face, and small sparkling black eyes, the fire in which remains undimmed by the seventy years through which they have looked upon the world, though their sight is somewhat failing. She wears a fierce black front, and a closely-fitting white lace cap over it, and an open raspberry-tart-like miniature of her deceased lord--a rather black and steelly-looking daguerreotype--gleams on her chest. Mrs. Powler likes her drinks, as she does not scruple to confess, and has been sipping from a small silver tankard of cider.

"Who was that just went passt the windor, Jupp?" she said, after a short period of tankard abstraction. "My eyes isn't what they was, and I du 'low I couldn't see, though I'm settin' right oppo-site like."

"Heart alive!" struck in Mrs. Jupp, after a moment's silence, and seeing it was perfectly impossible her better-half could sufficiently masticate the piece of cold beef on which he was engaged in anything like time for a reply--"heart alive! to hear you talk of your eyes, Mrs. Powler! Why, there's many a young gal would give anythin' for such a pair in her head, either for show or for use, either!"

"I should think so," said Mr. Jupp, who had by this time cleared his mouth and moistened his palate with the contents of the cider-tankard--"I should think so!" and Mr. Jupp, who was of a convivial turn, began to troll, "Eyes black--as sloes, and--bo-o-oo-som rounded----"

"Mr. Jupp," interrupted Mrs. Jupp, a tall, thin, horse-faced woman, with projecting buck-teeth, and three little sausage curls of iron-gray hair flattened down on either side her forehead, "reck'lect where you are, if you please, and keep your ditties to yourself."

"Well, niver mind my eyes," said Mrs. Powler; she desired to make peace, but she was a rich woman and in her own house, and consequently spoke in a dictatorial way--"niver mind my eyes, nor anything else for the matter of that, but tell who it was that went passt."

"It was the Captain, my dear madam, the Captain," replied Mr. Jupp, freshly attacking the cold beef, and consoling himself for his snubbing with his supper. "You had no great loss in not seeing him, ma'am: it was only the Captain."

"What! Prinsy, Drinsy, what's his name?" said Mr. Hallibut, taking a clean plate, and delicately clearing his lips and fingers from lobster remains on the corner of the tablecloth. "I'll trouble you, Jupp!--Is he still here?"

"His name's Derinzy, Mr. Hollybut," said Mrs. Jupp--"De-rin-zy; it's a French name." Mrs. Jupp had been a lady's-maid once on a time, and prided herself on her manners and education.

"And mine's Hallibut, and not Hollybut, Mrs. Jupp," said the fish-factor jocosely; "and I'll trouble J-u double p--which I take it is an English name--for some of the inside fat--next the marrer-bone there!"

"Dear heart!" interrupted Mrs. Powler, feeling her position as hostess and richest of the company was being made scarcely sufficient of; "how you do jangle, all of you! Not but what," added the old lady, with singular inconsequence--"not but what I'm no scholard, and don't see the use of French names, while English is good enough for me."

"Ah, but some things is better French, as you and I, and one or two more of us could tell," said jocose Mr. Hallibut, feeling it was time for a "nip," and availing himself of the turn in the conversation to point with his elbow to the cellaret, where the special brandy was kept.

"Well, help yourself, and put the bottle on the table," said the old lady, somewhat mollified. "Ah, that was among the spoils of the brave, in the good old times when men was men!" she added, in a half-melancholy tone. She was accustomed to think and speak of her deceased husband as though he had been the boldest of buccaneers, the Captain Kyd of the Dorsetshire coast; whereas he, in his lifetime, was a worthy man in a Welsh wig, who never went to sea, or was present at the "running" of a keg.

"And so the Captain's still here," pursued Hallibut; "living in the same house, and doing much the same as usual, I suppose?"

"Jist exactly the same," replied Mr. Jupp. "Wandering about the village, molloncholly-like, and cussin' all creation."

"Mr. Jupp," broke in his better-half, "reck'lect where you are, if you please, and keep your profane swearin' to yourself."

"I wonder he don't go away," suggested Hallibut.

"He can't," said Mrs. Jupp solemnly.

"What! do you mean to say he's been running in debt here in Beachborough, or over in Bedminster?"

"He don't owe a brass farthing in either place," asserted Mrs. Powler; "if anybody ought to know, I ought;" and to do her justice she ought, for no one heard scandal sooner, or disseminated it more readily.

"Perhaps he hadn't the chance," said Mr. Jupp, stretching out his hand towards the tumbler.

"Mr. Jupp," said his wife, "what cause have you to say that? Was you ever kept waiting for the money for the meal or malt account? Is the rent paid regular for the bit of pastureland for Miss Annette's cow? Well, then, reck'lect where you are, if you please, and who you're speaking of."

"Well, but if he hates the place and cusses--I mean, does what Jupp said he did just now--what does he stop here for? Why don't he go away? He must have some reason."

"Of course he has, Mr. Hallibut," said Mrs. Jupp, with an air of dignity.

"Got the name all right this time, Mrs. Jupp; here's your health," said the jolly man, sipping his tumbler. "Well, what's the reason?"

"It's because of Miss Annette--she that we was speaking of just now."

"Oh, ah!" said Mr. Hallibut; "she's his daughter, isn't she?"

"Niece," said Mrs. Jupp.

"Oh!" said Mr. Hallibut doubtfully.

"You and I have seen the world, Hallibut," broke in Mr. Jupp, who had been paying his attentions to the French brandy. "We've heard of nieces before--priests' nieces and such-like, who----"

"Mr. Jupp, will you reck'lect where you are, if you please?--what I was goin' to say when thus interrupted, Mr. Hallibut, was, that it's on account of his niece Miss Annette that Captain Derinzy remains in this place. She's a dreadful in-val-lid, is Miss Annette, and this Dorsetsheer air suits her better than any other part of England. As to her not bein' his niece----"

"La, la, du be quiet, Harriet!" interrupted Mrs. Powler, who saw that unless she asserted herself with a dash she would be quite forgotten; "this everlastin' click-clackin', I du 'low it goes threw my head like a hot knife threw a pat of fresh butter. Av' course Miss Netty's the Captain's niece; Oh, I don't mind you men--special you, Jupp, sittin' grinnin' there like the mischief! I've lived long in the world, and in different sort of society from this; and I know what you mean fast enough, and I'm not one to pretend I don't, or to be squeamish about it."

This was a hard hit at Mrs. Jupp, who took it accordingly, and said:

"Well, but, Mrs. Powler, if Jupp were not brought up sudden, as it were----"

"Like enough, my dear, like enough; but when you're as old as I am, you'll find it's very hard to have to give up chat for fear of these kind of things, unless indeed there's young girls present, and then--well, of course!" said Mrs. Powler, with a sigh. "But, Lord, you're all wrong about why Captain Derinzy stops at Beachborough."

"Do you know why it is, Mrs. Powler?" asked Mr. Hallibut, feigning intense interest, under cover of which he mixed himself a second tumbler of brandy-and-water.

"Well, I think I do," said the old lady.

"Tell us, by all means," said the fish-factor, looking at his hostess very hard, and dropping two lumps of sugar into his tumbler.

"Well, Harriet's right so far--there's no doubt about Miss Annette being the Captain's niece; at least, there's no question of her being his daughter, as you two owdacious men--and, Jupp, you ought to know better, having been churchwarden, and your name in gold letters in front of the organ-loft, on account of the church being warmed by the hot pipes, which only made a steam and a smell, and no heat at all--as you two owdacious men hinted at. Lor' bless you, you don't know Mrs. Derinzy."

"That's what I tell 'em, Mrs. Powler," chorused Mrs. Jupp; "they don't know the Captain's wife. Why, she's as proud as proud; and he daren't say his soul's his own, let alone introducin' anyone into the house that she didn't know all about, or wish to have there."

"But still you don't know what makes them stay here," said Mrs. Powler, not at all influenced by her friend's partisanship, and determined to press her point home upon her audience.

"Well, if it isn't Miss Netty's illness, I don't," said Mrs. Jupp slowly, and with manifest reluctance at having to acknowledge herself beaten.

"Then I'll tell you," said the old lady triumphantly, smoothing her dress, looking slowly round, and pausing before she spoke. "You know Mrs. Stothard?"

"Miss Annette's servant--yes," said Mrs. Jupp.

"Servant--pouf!" said Mrs. Powler, snapping her fingers, and thereby awaking Mr. Jupp, who had just dropped asleep, and was dreaming that he was in his mill, and dared not stretch out his legs for fear of getting them entangled in the machinery. "Who ever saw her do any servant's work; did you?"

"N-no; I can't say I ever did," replied Mrs. Jupp; "but then, I have never been to the house."

"What does that matter?" asked the old lady, rather illogically; "no one ever did. No one ever saw her do a stroke of servant's work in the house: mend clothes, wash linen, darn stockings, make beds. Dear heart alive! she's no servant."

"What is she then?" asked Mrs. Jupp eagerly.

"A poor relation!" hissed Mrs. Powler, bending over the table; "a poor relation, my dear, of either his or hers, with something about her that prevents them shaking her off, and obliges them to keep her quiet."

"Do you think so--really think so?"

"I'm sure of it, my dear--certain sure."

"Lord, I remember," said Mrs. Jupp, with a sudden affectation of a mincing manner, and a lofty carriage of her head; "I remember once seeing something of the sort at the play-house: but then the poor relation was a man, a man who always went about in a large cloak, and appeared in places where he was least expected and most unwelcome. It was in Covent Garden Theatre."

"Covent Garden Theatre," said Jupp, suddenly waking up. "I remember, in the saloon----"

"Mr. Jupp, reck'lect where you are, if you please, and spare the company your reminiscences."

Here Mr. Hallibut, who, finding himself bored by the conversation about people of whom he knew nothing, had quietly betaken himself to drink, and had got through three tumblers of brandy-and-water unobserved, remarked that, as he had a long drive before him, he thought it was time for him to go; and, after making his adieux, departed to find the ostler at The Hoy, who had his rough old pony in charge. Mrs. Jupp put on her bonnet, and after a word of promise to look in next morning and hear the remainder of her hostess's suspicions about Mrs. Stothard, roused up Mr. Jupp, who, balancing himself on frail and trembling legs, which he still believed to be endangered by the proximity of his mill's machinery, staggered out into the open air, where he was bid to reck'lect himself if he pleased, and to walk steadily, so that the coastguard then passing might not see he was drunk.

[CHAPTER II]

A VISITOR EXPECTED.

It was indeed Captain Derinzy who had passed up the village street. It is needless to say that he had not heard anything of the comments which his appearance had evoked; but had he heard them, they would not have made the smallest difference to him. He was essentially a man of the world, and on persons of his class these things have very little effect. A is irretrievably involved; B has outwritten himself; C is much too intimate with Mrs. D; while D is ruining that wretched young E at écarté--so at least say Y and Z; but the earlier letters of the alphabet do not care much about it. They know that the world must be always full of shaves and cancans, and, like men versed in the great art of living, they know they must have their share of them, and know how to take them. Captain Derinzy passed up the village street without bestowing one single thought upon that street's inhabitants, or indeed upon anything or anybody within a hundred miles of Beachborough. He looked utterly incongruous to the place, and he felt utterly incongruous to it, and if he were recalled to the fact of its existence, or of his existence in it, by his accidentally slipping over one of the round knobbly stones which supplied the place of a footway, or having to step across one of the wide self-made sluices which, coming from the cottages, discharged themselves into the common kennel, all he did was to wish it heartily at the devil; an aspiration which he uttered in good round rich tones, and without any heed to the feelings of such lookers-on as might be present.

See him now, as he steps off the knobbly pavement and strikes across the road, making for the greensward of the cliff, and unconsciously becoming bathed in a halo of sunset glory in his progress. A thin man, of fifty years of age, of middle height, with a neat trim figure, and one of his legs rather lame, with a spare, sallow, fleshless face, high cheek-boned, lantern-jawed, bright black eyes, straight nose, thin lips, not overshadowed, but outlined rather, by a very small crisp black moustache. His hair is blue-black in tint and wiry in substance, so much at least of it as can be seen under a rather heavy brown sombrero hat, which he wears perched on one side of his head in rather a jaunty manner. His dress, a suit of some light-gray material, is well cut, and perfectly adapted for the man and the place; and his boots are excellently made, and fit his small natty feet to perfection. His ungloved hands are lithe and brown; in one of them he carries a crook-headed cane, with which--a noticeable peculiarity--he fences and makes passes at such posts and palings as he encounters on his way. That he was a gentleman born and bred you could have little doubt; little doubt from his carriage of himself, and an indescribable, unmistakable something, that he was, or had been, a military man; no doubt at all that he was entirely out of place in Beachborough, and that he was bored out of his existence.

Captain Derinzy passed the little road, which was ankle-deep in white sandy dust, save where the overflowings of the kennel had worked it into thick flaky mud, hopped nimbly, albeit lamely, over the objectionable parts, and when he reached the other side, and stood upon the short crisp turf leading up to the cliff, looked at the soles of his boots, shook his head, and swore aloud. Considerably relieved by this proceeding, he made his way slowly and gently up the ascent, pausing here and there, less from want of breath than from sheer absolute boredom. Rambling quietly on in his own easy-going fashion, now fencing at a handrail, now making a one, two, three sword-exercise cut, and finally demolishing a sprouting field-flower, he took some time to reach the top of the cliff. When there he looked carefully about him for a clean dry spot, and, having found one, dropped gently down at full length, and comfortably reclining his head on his arm, looked round him.

It was high-tide below, and the calmest and softest of silver summer seas was breaking in the gentlest ripple on the beach, and against the base of the high chalk cliff whereon he lay. The entrance to the little bay was marked by a light line of foam-crested breakers, beyond which lay a broad stretch of heaving ocean; but the bay itself was "oily calm," its breast dotted here and there with fishing-luggers outward-bound for the night's service, their big tan sails gleaming lightly and picturesquely in the red beams of the setting sun. Faintly, very faintly, from below rose the cries of the boatmen--hoarse monotonous calls, which had accompanied such and such acts of labour for centuries, and had been taught by sire to son, and practised from time immemorial. But the silence around the man outstretched on the cliffs top was unbroken save by the occasional cry of the seafowl, wheeling round and round above his head, and swooping down into their habitation holes, with which the chalk-face was honeycombed. As he lay there idly watching, the sun, a great blood-red globe of fire, sank into the sea, leaving behind it a halo of light, in which the strips of puff-cloud hovering over the horizon--here light, thin, and vaporous, there heavy, dense, and opaque--assumed eccentric outlines, and deadened to one gorgeous depth of purple. There were very few men who would have been insensible to the loveliness of the surroundings--very few but would have been impressed under such circumstances with a sense of the beauty of Nature and the beneficence of Providence. Captain Derinzy was one of these few. He saw it all, marked it all, looked at it leisurely and critically through half-shut eyes, as though scanning some clever picture or some scene at the theatre. Then, quietly dropping his head back upon his hand, he gave a prolonged yawn, and said quietly to himself, "Oh, dam!"

"Oh, dam!" Sun and sea and sky, purple clouds, foam-crested breakwaters, tan sails sunset-gilded, yohoing boatmen, nest-seeking curlews, hoary cliff. "Oh, dam!" But that was not all. Lazily lying at full length, lazily picking blades of grass, lazily nibbling them, and lazily spitting them from his mouth, he said in a quaintly querulous tone:

"Beastly place! How I hate it! Beastly sea, and all that kind of thing; and those fellows going away in their beastly boats, smelling of fish and oil and grease, and beastliness, and wearing greasy woollen nightcaps, and smoking beastly strong tobacco in their foul pipes; and then people draw them, and write about them, and call them romantic, and all such cussed twaddle! Why the deuce ain't they clean and neat, and why don't they dance about, and sing like those fellows in Masaniello? And--Oh Lord! Masaniello! I didn't think I should even have remembered the name of anything decent in this infernal place! What's the time now?" looking at his watch. "Nearly eight. Gad! fancy having had a little dinner at the Windham, or, better still, at the Coventry, where they say that fellow--what's his name?--Francatelli, is so good, and then dropping down to the Opera to hear Cruvelli and Lablache, or the new house which Poyntz wrote me about--Covent Garden--where Grisi and Mario and the lot have gone! Fancy my never having seen the new house! Dammy! I shall become a regular fogey if I stop in this infernal hole much longer. And not as if I were stopping for myself either! If I'd been shaking a loose leg, and had outrun the constable, or anything of that sort, I can understand a fellow being compelled to pull up and live quiet for a bit; though there's Boulogne, which is much handier to town, and much jollier with the établissement, and plenty of écarté, and all that sort of thing, to go on with. But this! Pooh! that's the dam folly of a man's marrying what they call a superior woman! I suppose Gertrude's all right; I suppose it will come off all straight; but I don't see the particular pull for me when it does come off. Here am I wastin' the best years of my life--and just at a time when I haven't got too many of 'em to waste, by Jove!--just that another fellow may stand in for a good thing. To be sure, he's my son, and there's fatherly feelings, and all that sort of thing; but he's never done anything for me, and I think it's rather hard he don't come and take a little of this infernal dreariness on his own shoulders. I shall have to cut away--I know I shall; I can't stand it much longer. I shall have to tell Gertrude--and I never can do that, and I haven't got the pluck to cut away without telling her, and I know she won't even let me go to old Dingo's for the shooting in the autumn. What an ass I was ever to let myself be swindled into coming into this beastly place! and how confoundedly I hate it! Oh, dam! Oh, dam!"

As he concluded he raised himself lightly to his feet, and commenced his descent of the hill as easily and jauntily as he had ascended it. His lame leg troubled him a little, and once when he trod on a rolling stone and nearly fell, he stopped and smiled pleasantly at the erring foot, and shook his cane facetiously over it. As he entered the village, he muttered to himself: "Good heavens! du monde, how very interesting!" For the hours of toil were over, and the shopkeepers and the wives of the fishermen, and such of the fisher-boys as had not gone to sea that evening, were standing at their doors and gossiping, or playing in the street. The lace-making girls were there too--very pretty girls for the most part, with big black eyes and swarthy complexions and thick blue-black hair; their birthright these advantages, for in the old days one of the home-flying ships of the Spanish Armada had been wrecked on the Beachborough coast, and the saved mariners had intermarried with the village women, and transmitted their swarthy comeliness to their posterity. As the Captain passed by, hats were lifted and curtsies dropped, courtesy which he duly returned by touching his sombrero with his forefinger in the military style to the men, and by God-blessing the women and chin-chucking the girls with great heartiness.

So on till he arrived at his own house, where he opened the door from the outside, and entering the handsome old dining-room, was surprised to see the table laid for four persons.

"Hallo! what's this?" he said to a woman at the other end of the room with her back towards him. "Who is coming to dinner, Mrs. Stothard?"

"Have you forgotten?" said the woman addressed, without turning her head. "Dr. Wainwright."

"Oh, ah!" growled Captain Derinzy, in a subdued key. "Where's Annette?"

"In her own room."

"Why don't she come down?"

"Because she's heard Dr. Wainwright is expected, and has turned sulky, and won't move."

"Oh, dam!" said Captain Derinzy.

[CHAPTER III.]

DURING OFFICE-HOURS.

The "Office of H.M. Stannaries" is in a small back street in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. What H.M. Stannaries were was known to but very few of the initiated, and to no "externs" at all. Old Mr. Bult, who, from time immemorial had been the chief-clerk of the office, would, on being interrogated as to the meaning of the word or the duties of his position, take a large pinch of snuff, blow the scattered grains off his beautifully got-up shirt-frill, stare his querist straight in the face, and tell him that "there were certain matters of a departmental character, concerning which it was not considered advisable to involve oneself in communication with the public at large." The younger men were equally reticent. To those who tried to pump them, they replied that they "wrote things, you know; letters, and those kind of things," and "kept accounts." What of? Why, of the Stannaries, of course. But what were the Stannaries? Ah, that was going into a matter of detail which they did not feel themselves justified in explaining. Their ribald friends used to say that the men in the Stannaries Office could not tell you what they had to do, because they did nothing at all, or that they did so little that they were sworn to secrecy on receiving their appointments, lest any inquisitive Radical member, burning to distinguish himself before his constituents in the cause of Civil Service reform--a bray with which the dullest donkey can make himself heard--should rise in the House, and demand an inquiry, or a Parliamentary Commission, or some of those other dreadful inquisitions so loathsome to the official mind.

However, no matter what work was or was not done there, the Stannaries Office was a fact, and a fact for which the nation paid, and according to the entries in the Civil Service estimates, paid pretty handsomely. For there was a Lord Commissioner of Stannaries, at two thousand a-year, and a secretary at one thousand, and a private secretary at three hundred, and four-and-twenty clerks at salaries ranging from one to eight hundred, besides messengers and office-keepers. It was a well-thought-of office to; the men engaged in it went into good society, and were recognised as brother officials by the lofty bureaucrats of the Treasury and the Foreign Office--great creatures, who looked upon Somerset House and the Post Office as tenanted by the sons of peers' butlers, and who regarded the Custom House as a damp place somewhere on the Thames, where amphibious persons known as "tide-waiters" searched passengers' baggage. But it was by no means infra dig. to know men in the Stannaries; and that department of the public service annually contributed a by no means small share of the best dancers and amateur performers of the day. "Only give us gentlemen," Mr. Branwhite, the secretary, would say in his first official interview with a newly-appointed Lord Commissioner--for the patronage of his office was vested in the Lord Commissioner of the Stannaries, who was a political functionary, and came in and went out with the Government--"only give us gentlemen; that's all I ask. We don't require much brains in this place, and that's the truth; but we do want birth and breeding." And on these points Mr. Branwhite, who was the son of an auctioneer at Penrith, and who combined the grace of Dr. Johnson with the geniality of Dr. Abernethy, was inexorable. The cry was echoed everywhere throughout the office. "Let's have gentlemen, for God's sake!" little Fitzbinkie, the private secretary, would say, adding, with a look of as much horror as he could throw into his eyeglass--you never saw his eyes--"there was a fellow here the other day, came to see my lord. Worthington--you've heard about him--wonderful fellow at the Admiralty, great gun at figures, and organisation, and that kind of thing; reformed the navy almost, and so on; and--give you my honour--he had on a brown shooting-jacket, and a black-silk waistcoat, give you my word! Frightful, eh? Let's have gentlemen, at any price."

And the prayer of these great creatures was, to a large extent, answered. Most of the men in the Stannaries Office were pleasant, agreeable, sufficiently educated, well-dressed, and gentlemanly-mannered. Within the previous few years there had been a Scotch and an Irish Lord Commissioner, and each of them had left traces of his patronage in the office: the first in the importation of two or three grave men, who, not finding work enough to do, filled up their leisure by reading statistics, or working out mathematical problems; the last, by the appointment of half-a-dozen roistering blades, who did very little of the work there was to do, and required the help of a Maunders' "Treasury of Knowledge," subscribed for amongst them, to enable them to do what they did; but who were such good riders and such first-rate convivialists that they were found in mounts and supper-parties for two-thirds of the year. The Irish element was, however, decidedly unpopular with Mr. Branwhite, the secretary, a cold-blooded, fish-like man, dry and tasteless, like a human captain's biscuit, who had no animal spirits himself, and consequently hated them in others. He was a long, thin, melancholy-looking fiddle-faced sort of a man, who tried to hide his want of manner under an assumed brusquerie and bluntness of speech. He had been originally brought up as a barrister, and owed his present appointment to the fact of his having a very pretty wife, who attracted the senile attentions and won the flagging heart of the Earl of Lechmere, who happened to be Lord Commissioner of the Stannaries when Sir Francis Pongo died, after forty years' tenure of the secretaryship. Lord Lechmere having, when he called at Mrs. Branwhite's pretty villa in the Old Brompton lanes, been frequently embarrassed by the presence of Mr. Branwhite, that gentleman's barristerial practice being not sufficient to take him often to the single chamber which he rented in Quality Court, Chancery Lane, thought this a favourable opportunity to improve the Branwhite finances, in this instance at least without cost to himself, and of assuring himself of Mr. Branwhite's necessitated absence from the Old Brompton villa during certain periods of the day. Hence Mr. Branwhite's appointment as secretary to H.M. Stannaries. There was a row about it, of course. Why did not the promotion "go in the office"? That is what the Stannaries men wanted to know, and what they threatened to get several members of Parliament to inquire of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who replied on Stannaries matters in the Lower House. The Official Chronicle, that erudite and uncompromising advocate of the Government service, came out with a series of letters signed "Eraser," "Half-margin," and "Nunquam Dormio;" and a leader in which Lord Lechmere was compared to King David, and Mr. Branwhite to Uriah the Hittite, the parallel in the latter case being heightened by the writer's suggestion that each had been selected "for a very warm berth." But the authorities cared neither for official remonstrances nor press sarcasms. They had their answer to the question why the promotion did not go in the office. Who was the next in rotation? Mr. Bult, the chief-clerk. Was Mr. Bult competent in any way for the secretaryship? Would the gentlemen of the Stannaries Office like to see their department represented by Mr. Bult? Certainly not. Very well, then, as it was impossible, after Mr. Bult's lengthened service, during which his character had been stainless, to pass him by, and place any of his juniors over his head, the only course was to seek for Sir Francis's successor in some gentleman unconnected with the place. This was the way in which Mr. Branwhite obtained his appointment. Lord Lechmere's party went out of office soon after, and Lord Lechmere himself has been dead for years; but Mr. Branwhite held on through the régimes of the Duke of M'Tavish and Viscount Ballyscran, and was all-powerful as ever now while Lord Polhill of Pollington was Lord Commissioner. What was thought of him, and, indeed, what was thought and said pretty plainly about most official persons and topics, we shall learn by looking into a large room on the ground-floor of the office known as the Principal Registrar's Room.

The Principal Registrar's Room must by no means be confounded with the Registry, which was a very different, and not a very choice place, where junior clerks got their hands into Stannaries work by stamping papers and covering their fingers with printers'-ink. The Principal Registrar's Room was appropriated to the Principal Registrar, and three of the best-looking assistants he could get hold of. The gentleman seated at the writing-table in the centre of the room, and reading The Morning Post, is the Principal Registrar, Mr. Courtney. He sits habitually with his back to the light, so that you cannot see his features very distinctly--sufficiently, however, to make out that he is an old, in reality, a very old man, made up for a young one. He must have been of fair complexion and good-looking at one time, for his capitally-made wig is red in colour, and though his perfectly-shaven cheeks are mottled and pulpy, his features are well-cut and aristocratic. His throat, exposed to view through his turn-down collar, is old and wrinkled, reminding one of a fowl's neck; and his hands are soft and seemingly boneless. So much as can be seen of his legs under the table reminds one of Punch's legs, exhibited by that "godless old rebel" in front of his show: the knees knock together, and the feet turn inwards towards each other with helpless imbecility. The only time that Mr. Courtney exhibits any great signs of vitality is in the evening at the Portland Club, where he plays an admirable game of whist, and where his hand is always heavily backed. Though he confesses to being "an old fellow," and quotes "Me, nec foemina nec puer," with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders, he likes to hear the adventures of his young companions, and is by no means inconveniently straitlaced in his ideas. He has a comic horror of any "low fellows," or men who do not go into what he calls "sassiety;" he regards the Scotch division of the office as "stoopid," and contemplates the horsiness and loud tone of the Irish with great disfavour. He has, he thinks, a very good set of "boys" under him just now, and is proportionately pleasant and good-tempered. Let us look at his "boys."

That good-looking young man at the desk in the farthest window is Paul Derinzy, only son of our friend the Captain, resident at Beachborough. The likeness to his father is seen in his thin straight-cut features, small lithe figure, and blue-black hair. The beard movement had just been instituted in Government offices, and Paul Derinzy follows it so far as to have grown a thick black moustache and a small pointed beard, both very becoming to his sallow complexion and Velasquez type of face. He is about five-and-twenty years of age, and has an air of birth and breeding which finds him peculiar favour in his Chief's eyes.

In his drooping eyelids, in his pose, in his outstretched arms, and head lying lazily on one side, there was an expression of languor that argued but ill for the amount of work to be gotten out him in any way, and which proclaimed Mr. Paul Derinzy to be one of that popular regiment, "The Queen's Hard Bargains." But what of that? He certainly did his office credit by his appearance; there was very seldom much work to be done, and when there was, Paul was so popular that no one would refuse to undertake his share. That man opposite, for instance, loved Paul as his brother, and would have done anything for him.

The man opposite is George Wainwright. He is four or five years older than Paul, and of considerably longer standing in the office. In personal appearance he differs very much from his friend. George Wainwright stands six feet in height, is squarely and strongly built, has a mass of fair hair curling almost on to his shoulders, and wears a soft, thick, fair beard. His hands are very large and very white, with big blue veins standing out on them, and his broad wrists show immense power. His eyes are large and prominent, hazel in colour, and soft in expression; he has a rather long and thick nose, and a large mouth, with fresh white teeth showing when he smiles. He is smiling now, at some remark made by the third assistant to the Principal Registrar, Mr. Dunlop, commonly called "Billy Dunlop," a pleasant fellow, remarkable for two things, imperturbable good-humour, and never letting anyone know where he lived.

"What are you two fellows grinning at?" asks Paul Derinzy, lazily lifting his head and looking across at them.

"I'm grinning at Billy's last night's adventures," replies George Wainwright. "He went to the Opera, and supped at Dubourg's."

"Horrible profligate! Alone?"

"So likely!" says Billy Dunlop. "All right, though; I mean, quite correct. Only Mick O'Dwyer with me."

"Mick O'Dwyer at the Opera!" says Paul in astonishment. "Why, he always swears he has no dress-clothes."

"No more he has; but I lent him some of mine--a second suit I keep for first nights of Jullien's Concerts, and other places where it is sure to be crammed and stivy. They fitted Mick stunningly, and he looked lovely in them; but he couldn't get my boots on, and he had to go in his own. There were lots of our fellows there, and they looked astonished to see Mick clothed and in his right mind; and at the back of the pit, just by the meat-screen there, you know, we met Lannigan, the M.P. for some Irish place, who's Mick's cousin. He didn't recognise him at first; then when Mick spoke he looked him carefully all over, and said: 'You're lovely, Mick!' Then his eyes fell on the boots; he turned to me with a face of horror, and muttered: 'Ah Billy, the brogues spoil the lot!'"

The two other men laughed so loudly at this story that Mr. Courtney looked up from his newspaper, and requested to know what was the joke. When he heard it he smiled, at the same time shaking his head deprecatingly, and saying:

"For my part, I confess I cannot stand Mr. O'Dwyer. He is a perfect Goth."

"Ah Chief, that's really because you don't know him," said Wainwright. "He's really an excellent fellow; isn't he, Billy?"

"If Mick had only a little money he would be charming," said Dunlop; "but he hasn't any. He's of some use to me, however; I've had no occasion to consult the calendar since Mick's been here. He borrows half-a-crown of me every day, and five shillings on saints'-days, and----"

"Hold on a minute, Billy," said Paul Derinzy; "if you lent Mick your clothes, you must have taken him home--to where you live, I mean; so that somebody has found out your den at last. What did you do? swear Mick to secrecy?"

"Better than that, sir; I brought the clothes down here, and made Mick put 'em on in his own room. No, sir, none of you have yet struck on my trail. Far in a wild, unknown to public view, From youth to age Mr. William Dunlop grew."

"Haven't you boys solved that mystery yet?" asked Mr. Courtney smiling, and showing a set of teeth that did the dentist credit.

"Not yet, Chief; we very nearly had it out last week," replied Paul.

"When was that?"

"After that jolly little dinner you gave us down at Greenwich. You drove home, you know; we came up by rail. I suppose Quartermaine's champagne had worked the charm; but the lord of William's bosom certainly sat very lightly on its throne, and he was, in fact, what the wicked call 'tight.' At the London Bridge Station I hailed a hansom, and Billy got in with me, saying I could set him down. Knowing that Billy is popularly supposed to reside in a cellar in Short's Gardens, Drury Lane, I told the driver to take us a short cut to that pleasant locality. Billy fell asleep, but woke up just as we arrived in Drury Lane, looked round him, shouted: 'This will do!' stopped the cab, and jumped out. Now, I thought, I've got him! I told the cabman to drive slowly on, and I stepped out and dodged behind a lamp. But Billy was too much for me: in the early dawn I saw him looking straight at me, smiting his nose with his forefinger, and muttering defiantly: 'No, you don't!' So eventually I left him."

"Of course you did. No, no, Chief; William is not likely to fall a prey to such small deer. He will dissipate this mystery on one great occasion."

"And that will be----?"

"When he gets his promotion. When the edict is promulgated, elevating William to the senior class, he will bid you all welcome to a most choice, elegant, and, not to put too fine a point on it, classical repast, prepared in his own home."

"Well, if we're to wait till then, you'll enjoy your classic home, or whatever you call it, for a long time unencumbered with our society," said Derinzy. "Who's to have the next vacancy--Barlow's vacancy, I mean; who's to have it, Chief?"

"My dear boy," said Mr. Courtney, with a shoulder-shrug, "you are aware that I can scarcely be considered au mieux with the powers that be--meaning Mrs. Branwhite--and consequently I am not likely to be taken into confidence in such matters. But I understand, I have heard, quite par hazard," and the old gentleman waved his double glasses daintily in the air as he pronounced the French phrase, "that Mr. Dickson is the selected--person."

"D--n Mr. Dickson!" said Paul Derinzy.

"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dunlop; "my sentiments entirely, well and forcibly put. A job, sir, a beastly job. 'John Branwhite, Jobmaster,' ought to be written on the Secretary's door; 'neat flies' over deserving people's heads, and 'experienced drivers;' those scoundrels that he employs to spy, and sneak, and keep the fellows up to their work. No, sir, no chance for my being put up; as the party in the Psalms remarks, 'promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west.'"

"No, Billy, from the south-west this time," said Paul Derinzy. "Dickson's people have been having Branwhite and his wife to dine in Belgrave Square; and our sweet Scratchetary was so delighted with Lady Selina, and so fascinated by the swell surroundings, that he has been grovelling ever since: hence Dickson's lift."

"I have noticed," said Mr. Courtney, standing up and looking around him with that benevolent expression which he always assumed when about to give utterance to an intensely-unpleasant remark, "I have noticed that when a--point of fact, a cad--tries to get into sassiety on which he has no claim for admission, he invariably selects the wrong people. What you just said, my dear Paul, bears out my argument entirely. This man Branwhite--worthy person, official position, and that kind of thing; no more knowledge of decent people than a Hottentot--struggles to get into sassiety, and who does he get to introduce him? Dickson, brewer-man, malt and hops and drugs, and blue boards with 'Entire,' and that kind of thing. Worthy person in his way, and married Lady Selina Walkinshaw, sister of Lord Barclay; but as to sassiety--very third-rate, God bless my soul, very third-rate indeed!"

"Well, I don't know any swells," said Billy Dunlop, "and I don't think I want to. From what I've seen of 'em, they're scarcely so convivial as they might be. Not in the drinking line; I don't mean that--they're all there; but in the talking. And talking of talking, Mr. Wainwright, we've not had the pleasure of hearing your charming voice for the last quarter of an hour. Has it come off at last?"

"Has what come off, Billy?" asked George Wainwright.

"The amputation. Has our father the eminent, &c, at last performed the operation and cut off our tongue? and is it then in a choice vial, neatly preserved in spirits-of-wine, covered over with a bit of a kid-glove, tied down with packthread, and placed on a shelf between a stethoscope and a volume of 'Quain's Anatomy': is that it?"

"Funny dog!" said George Wainwright, looking across at him. "I often wonder why you stop here, Billy, at two-forty, rising to three-eighty by annual increments of ten, when there's such a splendid future awaiting you in the ring. That mug of yours is worth a pound a-week alone; and then those charming witticisms, so new, so fresh, so eminently humorous----"

"Will you shut up?"

"How they would fetch the threepenny gallery! Why don't I talk? I do sometimes in your absence; but when you're here, I feel like one of 'those meaner beauties of the night, which poorly satisfy our eyes;' and when you begin I ask myself: 'What are you when the moon shall rise?'"

"Shut up, will you? not merely your mouth, but your inkstand, blotting-book, and all the rest of the paraphernalia by which you wring an existence out of a too-easily-satisfied Government. You seem to have forgotten it's Saturday."

"By Jove, so it is!" said George Wainwright.

"Yes, sir," continued Mr. Dunlop; "like that party in Shakespeare, who drew a dial from his poke, and said it was just ten, and in an hour it would be eleven, I've just looked at my watch and find that in ten minutes it will be one o'clock, at which hour, by express permission of her Majesty's Ministers, signed and sealed at a Cabinet Council, of which Mr. Arthur Helps was clerk, the gentlemen of H.M. Stannaries are permitted on Saturdays to--to cut it. That is the reason, odd as it may seem, why I like Saturday afternoon. Mr. Tennyson, I believe, knew some parties who found out a place where it was always Saturday afternoon. Mr. W. Dunlop presents his compliments to the Laureate, and would be obliged for an introduction to the said place and parties."

"And what are you going to do with yourself to-day, Billy?"

"I am going, sir, if I may so express myself without an appearance of undue vanity, where Glory waits me. But I am prepared to promise, if it will afford any gentleman the smallest amount of satisfaction, that when Fame elates me, I will at once take the opportunity of thinking of THEE!"

"And where is Glory at the present moment on the look-out for you, William?"

"Glory, sir, in the person of Mr. Kemp, the Izaak Walton of the day, will be found awaiting me in a large punt, moored on the silver bosom of the Thames, off the pleasant village of Teddington, a vessel containing, item two rods, item groundbait and worms for fishing, item a stone-jar of--water! A most virtuous and modest way of spending the afternoon, isn't it? I wish I could think it was going to be spent equally profitably by all!" and Billy Dunlop made a comic grimace in the direction of Paul Derinzy, and then assuming a face of intense gravity, took his hat off a peg, nodded, and vanished.

"Well, goodbye, my dear boys," said Mr. Courtney, coming out from behind the partition where the washing-stand was placed--it was a point of honour among the men to ignore his performance of his toilette--with his wig tightly fixed on and poodled up under his glossy hat, with his close-fitting lavender gloves, and with a flower in the button-hole of his coat; "au revoir on Monday. I'm going down to dear Lord Lumbsden's little place at Marlow to blow this confounded dust out of me, and to get a little ozone into me, to keep me up till I get away to Scotland. Au revoir!" and the old boy kissed his fingertips, and shambled away.

"What are you going to do this afternoon, old man?" asked George Wainwright, pulling off his coat preparatory to a wash, of Paul Derinzy, who had been sitting silent for the last ten minutes, now nervously plucking at his moustache, now referring to his watch, and evidently in a highly nervous state.

"I don't know exactly, George," Paul replied, without looking up at his friend. "I haven't quite made up my mind."

"Going to play tennis?"

"No, I think not."

"Going down to the Oval, to have an hour or two with the professionals? Good day to-day, and the ground's in clipping order."

"No, I think not."

"Well, then, look here. Come along with me: we'll go for a spin as far as Hendon; come back and dine at Jack Straw's Castle at Hampstead, where the man has some wonderfully-good dry sherry, which he bought the other day at a sale up there; and then walk quietly in at night. What do you say?"

"No, I think not to-day, old fellow."

"Oh, all right," said George Wainwright, after an instant's pause; "I'm sorry I spoke."

"Don't be angry, George, old boy! You know I'm never so jolly as when I'm with you, and that there's no man on earth I care for like you," said Paul, earnestly; "but I've half-promised myself for this afternoon, and until I hear--and I expect to hear every moment--I don't know whether I'm free or not."

"All right, Paul. I daresay I bore you sometimes, old man. I often think I do. But, you know, I'm five or six years older than you, and I was the first fellow you knew when you came into the service, through your people being acquainted with mine, and so I've a natural interest in you. Besides, you're a young swell in your way, and it does good to me to hear you talk and mark your freshness, and your--well, your youth. After thirty, a London man hasn't much of either."

"At it again, are you, George? Why don't you keep a property tub on the premises? You can't do your old Diogenes business effectively without it. Or do you want no tub so long as you have me for your butt? Sold you there, I think. You intended to say that yourself."

"Mr. Derinzy," said George Wainwright gravely, "you must indeed have lost every particle of respect for me when you could imagine that I would have descended to a low verbal jest of that nature. Well, since you won't come, I'll----"

"I never said I wouldn't yet, though I can't expect you to wait any longer for my decision. I----"

At that moment a messenger entered the room with a letter in his hand.

"For you, sir," he said to Mr. Derinzy; "the boy wouldn't wait to know if there was an answer."

"All right!" said Paul, opening it hurriedly, with a flushed face.

It had an outer and an inner envelope, both sealed.

"And I may be like the boy, I suppose," said George Wainwright, eyeing his friend with a curiously mixed expression of interest and pity; "I needn't wait to know if there's an answer."

"No, dear old George; I can't come with you this afternoon," replied Paul; and then he looked at the letter again.

It was very short; only one line:

"At the usual place, at three to-day.--DAISY."

[CHAPTER IV.]

AFTER OFFICE-HOURS.

Paul Derinzy was left alone in the Principal Registrar's Room, and silence reigned in H.M. Stannaries Office. Snow does not melt away more speedily under the influence of the bright spring sun than do the clerks of that admirable department under the sound of one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Within ten minutes the place was deserted, the gentlemen had all cleared out, the messengers had closed up desks and lockers, despatched papers, and bolted, and the place was left to Mr. Derinzy and the office-keeper. The latter went to the door with the last departing messenger, looked up the street and down the street, and with something of the soreness of a man who knew he was imprisoned for at least thirty-six hours, said he thought they were going to have some rain; an idea which the messenger--who had an engagement to take the young lady with whom he was keeping company to Gravesend on the Sunday--indignantly pooh-poohed. Not to be put down by this sort of thing, the office-keeper declared that rain was wanted by the country, to which the messenger replied that he thought of himself more than the country; and as the country had done without it for three weeks, it might hold over without much bother till Monday, he should think; and nodded, and went his way. The office-messenger kicked the door viciously to, and proceeded to make his round of the various rooms to see that everything was in order, and to turn the key in each door after his inspection. When he came to the Principal Registrar's Room he went in as usual, but finding Mr. Derinzy there performing on his head with two hairbrushes, he begged pardon and retreated, wondering what the deuce possessed anyone to stop in the Office of H.M. Stannaries when he had the chance of leaving it and going anywhere else. A cynical fellow this office-keeper, only to be humanised by his release on Monday morning.

Mr. Paul Derinzy was in no special hurry, he had plenty of time before him, and he had his toilette to attend to; a business which, though he was no set dandy, he never scamped. He was very particular about the exact parting of his hair, the polish of his nails, and the set of his necktie; and between each act of dressing he went back to his writing-table, and re-read the little note lying upon, it. Once or twice he took the little note up, and whispered "darling!" to it, and kissed it before he put it down again. Poor Paul! he was evidently very hard hit, and just at the time of life, too, when these wounds fester and rankle so confoundedly. Your ci-devant jeune homme, your middle-aged gallant, viveur, coureur des dames, takes a love-affair as easily as his dinner: if it goes well, all right; if it comes to grief, equally all right; the sooner it is over the better he likes it. The great cynical philosopher of the age, whose cynicism it is now the fashion to deny--as though he could help it, or would have been in the least ashamed of it--in one of his ballads calls upon all his coevals of forty to declare:

Did not the fairest of the fair Common grow, and wearisome, ere /Ever a month had passed away?

Middle-aged man has other aims, other resources, other objects. The "court, camp, grove, the vessel and the mart," fame, business, ambition--all of these have claims upon his time, claims which he is compelled to recognise in their proper season; and, worst of all, he has recovered from the attacks of the "cruel madness of love," a youthful disorder, seldom or never taken in middle life; the glamour which steeped all surrounding objects in roseate hues no longer exists, and it is impossible to get up any spurious imitations of it. Time has taught him common sense; he has made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; and instead of wandering about the grounds begging Maud to come out to him, and singing rapturous nonsense to the flowers, he is indoors dining with the Tory squires. But the young have but one idea in the world. They are entirely of opinion, with Mr. Coleridge's hero, that all thoughts, "all passions, all delights that stir this mortal frame," are "ministers of love," and "feed his sacred flame." Perpetually to play at that sweet game of lips, to alternate between the heights of hope and the depths of despair, to pine for a glance and to be made happy by a word, to have no care for anything else, to ignore the friends in whose society you have hitherto found such delight, to shut your eyes knowingly, wilfully, and resolutely to the sight of everything but one object, and to fall down and persistently adore that object in the face of censure, contempt, and obloquy, is granted to but few men over thirty years of age. Let them not be ashamed of the weakness, rather let them congratulate themselves on its possession: it will give a zest and flavour to their middle life which but few enjoy.

Paul Derinzy, however, was just at that period of his life when everything is rose-coloured. He was even young enough to enjoy looking at himself in the glass, which is indeed a proof of youth; for there is no face or no company a man so soon gets sick of as his own. But Paul stood before the little glass behind the washing-screen settling his hat, and gazing at himself very complacently, even going so far as to fetch another little glass from his drawer, and by aid of the two ascertaining that his back parting was perfectly straight. As he replaced the glass, he took out a yellow rosebud, carefully wrapped in wool, cleared it from its envelope, and sticking it in his buttonhole, took his departure.

Paul looked up at the Horse-Guards clock as he passed by, and finding that he had plenty of time to spare, walked slowly up Whitehall. The muslin-cravated, fresh-coloured, country gentlemen at the Union Club, and the dyed and grizzled veterans at the Senior United, looked out of the window at the young man as he passed, and envied him his youth and his health and his good looks. He strolled up Waterloo Place just as the insurance-offices with which that district abounds were being closed for the half-holiday, and the insurance-clerks, young gentlemen who, for the most part, mould themselves in dress and manners upon Government officials, took mental notes of Paul's clothes, and determined to have them closely imitated so soon as the state of their salaries permitted. Quite unconscious of this sincerest flattery, Paul continued his walk, striking across into Piccadilly, and lounging leisurely along until he came to the Green Park, which he entered, and sat down for a few minutes. It was the dull time of the day--when the lower half of society was at dinner, and the upper half at luncheon--and there was scarcely anyone about. After a short rest, Paul looked at his watch, and muttering to himself, "She can't have started yet; I may just as well have the satisfaction of letting my eyes rest on her as she walks to the Gardens," he rose, and turned his steps back again. He turned up Bond Street, and off through Conduit Street into George Street, Hanover Square, and there, just by St. George's Church, he stopped.

Not to the church, however, was his attention directed, but to the house immediately opposite to it. A big, red-faced, old-fashioned house, fresh painted and pointed, with plate-glass windows in its lower stories, and bronzed knockers, and shining bell-pulls, looking like a portly dowager endeavouring to assume modern airs and graces. Carriages kept driving up, and depositing old and young ladies, and the door, on which was an enormous brass plate with "Madame Clarisse," in letters nearly half a foot long, was perpetually being flung open by a page with a very shiny face, produced by a judicious combination of yellow soap and friction--a page who, in his morning-jacket ruled with red lines, looked like a page of an account-book. Paul Derinzy knew many of these carriage-brought people--for Madame Clarisse was the fashionable milliner of London, and had none but the very greatest of fine ladies in her clientèle--and many of them knew him; but on the present occasion he carefully shrouded himself from observation behind one of the pillars of the church portico. There he remained in an agony of impatience, fidgeting about, looking at his watch, glaring up at the bright-faced house, and anathematising the customers, until the clock in the church-tower above him chimed the half-hour past two. Then he became more fidgety than ever. Before, he had taken short turns up and down the street, always returning sharply to the same spot, and looking round as though he had expected some remarkable alteration to have taken place during his ten seconds' absence; now, he stood behind the pillar, never attempting to move from the spot, but constantly peering across the way at Madame Clarisse's great hall-door.

Within five minutes of the chiming of the clock, the great hall-door was opened so quietly that it was perfectly apparent the demonstrative page was not behind it. A young woman, simply and elegantly dressed in a tight-fitting black silk gown, and a small straw bonnet trimmed with green ribbon, with a black lace shawl thrown loosely across her shoulders and hanging down behind, after a French fashion then in vogue, passed out, closing the door softly behind her, and started off in the direction of the Park. Then Paul Derinzy left his hiding-place, and, at a discreet distance, followed in pursuit.

There must have been something very odd or very attractive in the personal appearance of this young woman, for she undoubtedly attracted a vast deal of attention as she passed through the streets. It would require something special, one would imagine, to intervene between a man and the toothache; and yet a gentleman seated in a dentist's ante-room in George Street, with a face swollen to twice its natural size, and all out of drawing, and vainly endeavouring to solace himself, and to forget the coming wrench, with the pleasant pages of a ten-years'-old Bentleys Miscellany, flung the book aside as he saw the girl go by, and crammed himself into a corner of the window to look after her retreating figure. Two sporting gentlemen standing at the freshly-sanded door of Limmer's Hotel, smoking cigars, and muttering to each other in whispers of forthcoming "events," suspended their conversation and exchanged a rapid wink as she flitted by them. The old boys sunning themselves in Bond Street, pottering into Ebers' for their stalls, or pricing fish at Groves's, were very much fluttered by the girl's transient appearance among them. The little head was carried very erect, and there must have been something in the expression of the face which daunted the veterans, and prevented them from addressing her. One or two gave chase, but soon found out that the gouty feet so neatly incased in varnished boots had no chance with this modern Atalanta, who sailed away without a check, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Nor were men her only admirers; ladies sitting in their carriages at shop-doors would look at her half in wonderment, half in admiration, and whisper to each other: "What a pretty girl!" and these compliments pleased her immensely, and brought the colour to her face, adding to her beauty.

She crossed into the Park through Grosvenor Gate, and taking the path that lay immediately in front of her, went straight ahead about half-way between the Serpentine and the Bayswater Road, then through the little iron gate into Kensington Gardens, and across the turf for some distance until she came in sight of a little avenue of trees, through which glimmered the shining waters of the Round Pond, backed by the rubicund face of stout old Kensington Palace. Then she slackened her pace a little, and began to look around her. There were but few, very few people near: two or three valetudinarians sunning themselves on such of the benches as were in sufficient repair; a few children playing about while their nursemaids joined forces and abused their employers; a shabby-genteel man eating a sandwich of roll-and-sausage--obviously his dinner--in a shamefaced way, and drinking short gulps out of a tin flask under the shadow of his hat; and a vagabond dog or two, delighted at having escaped the vigilance of the park-keeper, and snapping, yelping, and performing acrobatic feats of tumbling, out of what were literally pure animal spirits. Valetudinarians, children, nursemaids, and dogs were evidently not what the girl had come to see, for she stopped, struck the stick-handle of her open parasol against her shoulder, and murmured, "How provoking!" Just at that instant Paul Derinzy, who had been following her tolerably closely, touched her arm. She started, wheeled swiftly round, and her eyes brightened and the flush rose in her cheeks as she cried:

"Oh, Mr. Douglas!"

"'Mr. Douglas,' Daisy!" said Paul Derinzy, with uplifted eyebrows; "'and why this courtesy,' as we say in Sir Walter Scott?"

"I mean Paul," said the girl; "but you startled me so, I scarcely knew what I said."

"Ah, 'Paul' is much better. The idea of your calling me anything else!"

"I don't know, I rather think you're 'Mr. Douglas' just now. You're always 'Mr. Douglas,' recollect, when I'm at all displeased with you, and I've lots of things for you to explain to-day."

"Fire away, child! Let's turn out of the path first, in amongst these trees. So--that is better. Now then, what is the first?--by Jove, pet, how stunning you look to-day!"

A vulgar but expressive term, and one in general acceptance ten years ago. One, too, by no means inexpressive of the girl's beauty, for she was beautiful, and in a style that was then uncommon. She had red hair. Nowadays red hair is by no means uncommon; it may be seen hanging in bunches in the coiffeurs' shops, and, with black roots, on the heads of most of the Dryads of the Wood. Ten years ago, to have red hair was to be subjected to chaff by the street-boys, to be called "carrots" by the vulgar, and to be pitied silently by the polite. Red hair au naturel was almost unknown--it was greased, and pomatumed, and cosmetiqued, and flattened into bandeaux, and twisted into ringlets, and deepened and darkened and disguised in every possible shape and way; it was "auburn," it was "chestnut," it was anything but red. This girl had red hair, and hated it, but was too proud to attempt to disguise it. So she wore it in a thick dry mass, heavy and crisp, and low on the forehead, and it suited her dead-white skin, creamy white, showing the rising blood on the smallest provocation, and her thin cheeks, and her pointed chin, and her gray eyes, and her long, but slightly impertinent, nose. No wonder people in the street turned round and stared at her; they had been educated up to the raven locks, and the short straight noses, and the rounded chin style of beauty, formed on the true classical model, and they could not understand this kind of thing except in a picture of Mr. Dante Rossetti, or young Mr. Millais, or some of those other new-fangled artists who, they supposed, were clever, but who were decidedly "odd."

There was no doubt about her beauty, though, and none about her style. So Paul Derinzy thought, as he looked her up and down on saying the last-recorded words, and marked her tall, svelte, lissom figure; her neatly-shod, neatly-gloved feet and hands; her light walk, so free and yet so stately; and the simple elegance of her dress.

"You are a stunner, pet, and I adore you! There, having delivered myself of those mild observations, I will suffer you to proceed. You had a lot of things to say to me? Fire away!"

"In the first place, why were you not here to meet me, Mr. Douglas?"

"Again that detestable formality! Daisy, I swear, if you call me that again, I'll kiss you,--coram publico, en plein air, here before everybody; and that child, who will not take its eyes off us, will swallow the hoopstick it is now sucking, and its death will lie at your door."

"No, but seriously--where have you been?"

"You want to know? Well, then, I don't mind telling you that I've followed you every foot of the way from George Street. Ah, you may well blush, young woman! I was the heartbroken witness of your flirtation with those youths in Bond Street."

"Horrid old things! No, but, Paul, did you really follow me from Madame's? Were you there to see me come out?"

"My child, I was there for three mortal quarters of an hour before you came out."

"That was very nice of you; bien gentil, as Mdlle. Augustine says. I wish you knew Mdlle. Augustine, she's a very great friend of Madame's."

"I wish I was Mdlle. Augustine. I say, Daisy, doesn't Madame Clarisse want a male hand in the business--something in the light-porter line? I'm sure it would suit me better than that beastly office."

"What office, Paul?"

"Why, my office, darling; where I go every day. Do you mean to say I didn't tell you about that, Daisy?"

"Certainly not; you've told me nothing about yourself."

"Well, you see, I've known you so short a time, and seen so little of you. Oh yes, I go to an office."

"Do you mean to say you're a clerk?"

"Well, yes--not to put too fine a point upon it, I suppose I am."

"What! a lawyer's clerk?"

"No, no! D--n it all, Daisy, not as bad as that, nothing of the kind. Government office, Civil servant of the Crown, and all that kind of thing, don't you understand? Her Majesty's Stannaries--one of the principal departments of the State."

"And do you go there every day, Mr.--I mean, Paul?"

"Well, I'm supposed to, my darling; point of fact, I do go there--generally."

"Why don't you let me write to you there?"

"Write to me there! at the office! My dear child, there are the most stringent rules of the service against it. Any man in the office receiving a letter from a lady at the office would be--would be had up before the House of Commons, and very probably committed to the Tower!"

"What a curious thing! I thought you had nothing to do."

"Nothing to do! My darling Daisy, no galley-slave who tugs at the what-d'ye-call-em--oar--works harder than I do, as, indeed, Lord Palmerston has often acknowledged."

"And you're well paid for it? I mean, you get lots of money?" asked the girl, looking straight up into his face.

"Ye-yes, child. Yes, statecraft is tolerably well remunerated. Besides, men in my position have generally something else to live upon, some private means, some allowances from their people."

"Their people? Oh, you mean their families. Yes, that must be very nice. Have you any--any people?"

"Yes, Daisy, my father and mother are both alive."

"They don't live with you in Hanover Street?"

"Oh no; they live down in the country, a long way off--down in the West of England."

"And they're rich, I suppose?"

"Yes, they're very fairly off."

"And how many brothers and sisters have you, Paul?"

"None, darling; I am the only child; the entire hopes of the family are centred in this charming creature. Have you finished your questions, you inquisitive puss?"

"Quite. Did it sound inquisitive? I daresay it did; I daresay my foolish chatter was boring you."

"My pet Daisy, I'd sooner hear what you call your foolish chatter than anything in the world--much sooner than Tamberlik's ut de poitrine, that all the musical people are raving about just now. See, darling, let us sit down here. Take off your glove--this right glove. No? what nonsense! I may kiss your hand; there's no one looking but that fat child in the brown-holland knickerbockers, and if he doesn't turn his eyes away, I'll make a face at him, and frighten him into convulsions. There; now tell me about yourself."

"About myself? I've nothing to tell, Paul, except that we're horribly busy, and Madame plagues our lives out."

"Had you any difficulty in getting out to-day? You thought you would have when last I saw you."

"Dreadful difficulty; Madame fussed and fumed, and declared that she could not possibly let me go; but I insisted; and as the customers like me, and always ask for me, I suppose I am too valuable for her to say much."

"By the way, Daisy, do any men ever come to your place--with the women, I mean?"

"Sometimes; the husbands or the brothers of the ladies."

"Exactly. I suppose they don't--I mean, I suppose you don't--what a fool I am! No matter. Are you going back there this evening?"

"Yes, Madame would not let me come until I promised to be back by six to see the parcels off. Madame's going to the Opera to-night, and she'll be dressing at the time, and she must have somebody there she can depend upon."

"And you are the somebody, Daisy? How deuced nice to be able to reckon upon finding you anywhere when one wanted you! No, I say; no one can see my arm, it's quite covered by your shawl, and it fits so beautifully round your waist, just as if you had been measured for it at Madame Clarisse's. Well, and what time will you be free?"

"Between eight and nine, I suppose; nearer nine."

"May I meet you when you come away, Daisy? Will you come with me to the theatre?"

"No, Paul; you know perfectly well that I will not. You know it is not of the slightest use proposing such things to me."

"Yes, I know it's of no use; I wish it were; it would be so jolly, and--then you'll go straight back to South Molton Street?"

"Yes; to my garret!" and she laughed, rather a hard laugh, as she said these words.

"Don't say that, Daisy; I hate to hear you say that word."

"It's the right word, Paul, horrid or not. However, I shall get out of it some day, I suppose."

"How?" asked Paul, withdrawing his arm from her waist, and looking fixedly at her.

"How should I know?" said the girl, with the same hard laugh. "Feet foremost, perhaps, in my coffin. Somehow, at all events."

"You're in a curious mood to-day, Daisy."

"Am I? You'll see me in many curious moods, if we continue to know each other long, Paul--which I very much doubt, by the way."

"Daisy, what makes you say that? You've not seen anyone--you've not heard--I mean, you don't intend to break with me, Daisy?"

"There is nothing to break, my poor Paul!"

"Whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that you remain in what you call your garret? Whose fault is it that you are compelled to obey Madame Clarisse, and to dance attendance on her infernal customers? Not mine, you must allow that. You know what is the dearest wish of my heart--you know how often I have proposed that----"

"Stop, sir," said Daisy, laying her ungloved hand upon his mouth; "you know how often I have forbidden you to touch upon that subject, and now you dare to disobey merely because I was foolish enough to be off my guard for a moment, and to let some grumbling escape my lips. No, no, Paul, let us be sensible; it is very well as it is. We enjoy these stolen meetings; at least, I do----"

"And you think I don't, I suppose? Oh no, certainly not!"

"You very rude bear, why do you interrupt me? I don't think anything of the sort. I know you enjoy them too. Then why should we bother ourselves about the future?"

"No; but you don't understand, Daisy. It seems so deuced hard for me to have to see you for such a short time, and then for you to have to go away, and----"

"Don't you think it is quite as hard for me?"

"But then I'm so fond of you, don't you know! I love you so much, Daisy."

"And do you imagine I don't care for you? I don't say how much, but I know it must be more than a little."

"How do you know that, darling?"

"Because my love for you has conquered my pride, Paul. That shows me at once, without anything else, that I must love you. Do you think if I didn't care for you that I would consent to all this subterfuge and mystery which always surrounds us? Do you imagine that I have no eyes and no perception? Do you think I don't notice that you have chosen this place for our meeting because it is quite quiet and secluded? That when anyone having the least appearance of belonging to your world comes near us, you are in an agony, and turn your head aside, or cover your face with your hand, lest you should be recognised? Do you think I haven't noticed all this? And do you think I don't know that all these precautions are taken, and all this fear is undergone, because you are walking with me?"

"My darling Daisy----"

"It's my own fault, Paul. Understand, I quite allow that. I am not in your rank of life. I am Madame Clarisse's show-woman; and I ought to look for my lovers amongst Messrs. Lewis and Allenby's young drapers, or the assistants at Godfrey and Cooke's, the chemists. They would be very proud to be seen with me, and would probably take me out on Sundays, along the Hammersmith Road in a four-wheel chaise. However, I hate chemists and drapers and four-wheel chaises, and prefer walking in this gloomy grove with you, Paul."

"You're a queer child," said Paul, with a sigh of relief at the subject being, as he thought, ended, and with a gratified smile at the pleasant words Daisy had last spoken.

"Yes," she said; "queer enough, Heaven knows! I suppose my dislike to those kind of people is because I was decently born and educated; and I can't forget that even now, when I'm only a milliner's shop-girl. But with all my queerness, I was right in what I said, wasn't I, Paul?"

"Why, my darling, it's a question, don't you see. I don't care for myself; I should be only too proud for people to think that I--that a girl like you would be about with me, and that kind of thing; but it's one's people, don't you know, and all that infernal cant and conventionality."

"Exactly. Now let us take a turn up and down the gloomy grove, and talk about something else."

She rose as she spoke, and passed her arm through his, and they began slowly pacing up and down among the trees. The "something else" which formed the subject of their talk it is not very difficult to divine, and though apparently deeply interesting to them, it would not be worth transcription. It was the old, old subject, which retains its glamour in all countries and in all places, and which was as entrancing in that bit of cockney paradise, with the smoke-discoloured trees waving above them, and the dirty sheep nibbling near them, as it was to OEnone on Ida, or to Desdemona in Venice.

So they strolled about, trying endless variations of the same tune, until it became time for Daisy to think of returning to her place of business. Paul, after a little inward struggle with himself, proposed to walk with her as far as the Marble Arch; there would be no one in that part of the Park, he thought, of whom he need have the slightest fear; and Daisy appearing to be delighted, they started off. Just before they reached the end of the turf by the Marble Arch they stopped to say adieux. These apparently took a long time to get over, for Daisy's delicate little glove was retained in Paul's grasp, her face was upturned, and he was looking into it with love and passion in his eyes. So that they neither of them observed a tall gentleman who had just entered the gates, and was striking across the Park when his eyes fell upon them, and who honoured them, not with a mere cursory glance, but with an intense and a prolonged stare. This gentleman was George Wainwright.

[CHAPTER V.]

FAMILY POLITICS.

"Was I a-dreamin', or did my Ann really tell me that somebody'd come down late last night in a po'-shay and driven to the Tower?" asked Mrs. Powler, the morning after her little supper-party, of Mrs. Jupp, who, whenever she could find a minute to spare from the troubles of housekeeping, was in the habit of "dropping-in" to gossip with her older and less active neighbour.

"You weren't dreamin', dear; at least, I should say not, unless you have dreams like them chief butlers and bakers, and other cur'ous pipple in the Bible one reads of, which had their dreams 'terpreted. It's quite true--not that it's made more so by your Ann having said it; for a more shameful little liar there don't talk in this parish!" said Mrs. Jupp, getting very red in the face.

"You never took kindly to that gell, Mrs. Jupp," said the old lady placidly--she was far too rich to get in a rage--"you never took kindly to that gell from the first, when I took her out of charity, owin' to her father's being throwed out of work on account of Jupp's cousin stoppin' payment."

Though said in Mrs. Fowler's calmest tones, and without a change of expression on the speaker's childish old face, this was meant to be a hard hit, and was received as such by Mrs. Jupp.

"I don't know nothin' 'bout stoppin' payment, nor Jupp's cousins," said that lady, with a redundancy of negatives and a very shrill voice; "my own fam'ly has always paid their way, and Jupp has a 'count at the Devon Bank, where his writin' is as good as gold, and will be so long as I live. But I du know that I've never liked that gell Ann Bradshaw since she told a passil o' lies about my Joey and the hen-roost!"

"Well, well, never mind Ann Bradshaw," said Mrs. Powler, who had had vast experience of Mrs. Jupp's powers of boredom in connection with the subject of her Joey and the hen-roost; "never mind about the gell; I allays kip her out o' your way, and I must ha' been main thoughtless when I let her name slip out just now before you. So someone did come in a po'-shay last night, then, and did drive to the Tower? Do you know who it was?"

"Not of my own knowledge," replied Mrs. Jupp in a softened voice--it would never have done to have quarrelled with Mrs. Powler, from whom she derived much present benefit, and from whom she expected a legacy--"but Groper, who was up there this morning wi' the sallt water for the Captain's bath, says it's the Doctor."

"Lor', now!" said Mrs. Powler, lifting up her hands in astonishment; "I can't fancy why passons go messin' wi' sallt water, and baths, and such-like. They must be main dirty, one would think, to take such a lot o' washin'. I'm sure Powler and I never did such redick'lous nonsense, and we was always well thought of, I believe. Lor', now, I've bin and forgotten who you said it was come down. Who was it, Harriet?"

"The Doctor from London--Wheelwright, or some such name; he that comes down three or four times a-year just to look at Mrs. Derinzy."

"He must be a cliver doctor, I du 'low, if his lookin' at her is enough to do her good," said Mrs. Powler, who was extremely literal in all things; "not but what she's that bad, poor soul, that anything must be a comfort to her."

"Did you ever hear tell what was ezackly the matter wi' the Captain's lady, Mrs. Powler?" asked Mrs. Jupp mysteriously.

"Innards," said the old lady in a hollow voice, laying her hand on the big mother-o'-pearl buckle by which her broad sash was kept together.

"Ah, but what sort of innards?" demanded Mrs. Jupp, who was by no means to be put off with a general answer on such an important subject.

"That I dunno," said Mrs. Powler, unwillingly confessing her ignorance. "Dr. Barton attends her in a or'nary way, but I niver heerd him say."

"It must be one of them obstinit diseases as we women has," said Mrs. Jupp, "as though--not to fly in the face of Providence--but as though child-bearin' wasn't enough to have us let off all the rest!"

"She niver takes no med'cine," said Mrs. Powler, who firmly believed in the virtues of the Pharmacopoeia, and whose pride it was that the deceased Powler, in his last illness, had swallowed "quarts and quarts." "I know that from that fair-haired young chap that mixes Barton's drugs,--his mother was a kind o' c'nexion o' Fowler's, and I had 'im up to tea a Sunday week, and asked him."

"Well, I'd like very much to know what is the matter wi' Mrs. Derinzy," said Mrs. Jupp, harking back. "I ha' my own idea on the subjick; but I'd like to know for sure."

"If you're so cur'ous, you'd better ask Dr. Barton. He's just gone passt the window, and I 'spose he'll look in;" and almost before Mrs. Powler had finished her sentence there came a soft rap at the room-door, the handle was gently turned, and Dr. Barton presented himself.

He was a short, thickset, strongly-built man of about fifty-five, with close curly gray hair, bright eyes, mottled complexion, large hooked nose. He was dressed in a black cut-away coat, stained buff waistcoat, drab riding-breeches, and top-boots. He had a way of laying his head on one side, and altogether reminded one irresistibly of Punch.

"Good-morning, ladies," said the doctor, in a squeaky, throaty little voice, which tended to heighten the resemblance; "I seem to ha' dropped in just in the nick o' time, by the looks of ye. Mayhap you were talking about me. Mrs. Jupp, you don't mean to say that----" and the little man whispered the conclusion of the sentence behind his hat to Mrs. Jupp, while he privately winked at Mrs. Powler.

"Get 'long wi' ye, du!" said Mrs. Jupp, her face suffused with crimson.

"I niver see such a man in all my born days," said old Mrs. Powler, with whom the doctor was a special favourite, laughing until the tears made watercourses of her wrinkles, and were genially irrigating her face. "No; no such luck, I tell her."

"Well, as to luck, that all a matter o' taste," said Mrs. Jupp; "we were talking about something quite different to that."

"What was it?" asked the doctor.

"'Bout Mrs. D'rinzy's health Harriet was asking," explained Mrs. Powler.

"A-h!" said the doctor, shaking his head, and looking very solemn.

"Is she so bad as all that?" asked Mrs. Jupp, who was visibly impressed by the medico's pantomime.

"Great sufferer, great sufferer!" said the little man, with a repetition of the head-shake.

"Well, but she gets about; comes down into t' village, and such-like," argued Mrs. Powler.

"Oh yes; no reason why she shouldn't; more she gets about, indeed, the better," said the doctor.

"It's innards, I suppose?" asked Mrs. Jupp, whose craving for particulars of Mrs. Derinzy's disorder was yet unsatisfied.

"Well, partially, partially," said the doctor, slowly rubbing the side of his nose with the handle of his riding-whip; "it's a complication, a mixture, which it would be difficult to get an unprofessional person to understand."

"Talkin' o' that, Barton," said Mrs. Powler, "I s'pose you know the London doctor came down last night?"

"Dr. Wainwright? Oh yes; I was up at the Tower just now to meet him. As I'm left in charge of Mrs. Derinzy, we always have a consultation whenever he comes down."

"I s'pose he's a raal cliver man, this Wheelwright, or they wouldn't have him come all this way to see her," said Mrs. Powler.

"Clever!" echoed the doctor; "the very first man of the day; the very first!"

"Then why wasn't he sent for to see Sir Herc'les when he was laid up that bad last spring?" asked Mrs. Jupp; "there was another one come down from London then."

"That was quite a different case, my dear madam. Sir Hercules Dingo was laid up with gout; Mrs. Derinzy's complaint is not gout; and Dr. Wainwright is the first man of the day in--well, in such cases as Mrs. Derinzy's."

No more specific information than this could Mrs. Jupp obtain from the doctor, who was "that close when he liked," as his friends said of him, that even the blandishments of Mrs. Barton failed to extract any of his professional secrets. So Mrs. Jupp gave it up in despair, and began talking on general topics. Be sure the conversation did not progress far without the Derinzys again cropping up in it. They were staple subjects of discussion in Beachborough, and the most preposterous stories regarding them and their origin, whence and why they came to the remote Devonshire village, and the reason for their enforced stay there, obtained, if not credence, at least circulation. What their real history was, I now propose to tell.

Five-and-twenty years before the date of this story, the firm of Derinzy and Sons was well known and highly esteemed in the City of London. They were supposed to have been originally of Polish extraction, and their name to have been Derinski; but it had been painted up as Derinzy for years on the door-posts of their warehouse in Gough Square, Fleet Street, and it was so spelt on all the invoices, bill-heads, and other commercial literature of the firm. Warehouses, invoices, and bill-heads? Yes, despite their Polish extraction and distinguished name, the Derinzys were neither more nor less than furriers--wholesale, and on a large scale, it was true, but still furriers. Their business was enormous, and their profits immense. The old father, Peter Derinzy, who had founded the firm, and whose business talent and industry were the main causes of its success, had given up active attendance, and was beginning to take life leisurely. He came down twice a week, perhaps, in a handsome carriage-and-pair, to Gough Square, just glanced over the books, and occasionally looked at some samples of skins, on which his opinion--still the most reliable in the whole trade--was requested by his son, and then went back to his mansion at Muswell Hill, where his connection with business was unknown or ignored, and where he was Squire Derinzy, dwelling in luxury, and passing his time in the superintendence of his graperies and pineries, his forcing-houses and his farm.

The affairs of the house did not suffer by the old gentleman's absence. In his eldest son Paul, on whom the command devolved in his father's absence, the senior partner had a representative possessing all the experience and tact which he had gained, combined with the youth and energy which he had lost. Men of high standing in the City of London, many years his seniors, were glad to know Paul Derinzy, eager to ask his advice, and, what is quite a different matter, frequently not unwilling to take it in regard to the great speculations of the day. The merchants from the North of Europe with whom he transacted business--and to all of whom he spoke in their own language, without the slightest betrayal of foreign accent or lack of idiom--looked upon him as an absolute wonder, more especially when contrasted with his own countrymen, who for the most part spoke nothing but English, and little of that beyond oaths, and spread his renown far and wide. He was a tall, high-shouldered, big-boned man, prematurely bald, and, being very short-sighted, wore a large pair of spectacles, which impelled his younger brother Alexis, then fresh from school, and just received into the counting-house, to be initiated into the mysteries of trade preparatory to being made a partner, to call him "Gig-lamps." Paul Derinzy was not a good-tempered man, and at any time would have disliked this impertinence; but addressed to him as it was, before the clerks, it nettled him exceedingly. He forbade its repetition under pain of summary punishment, and when it was repeated, being a big strong man, he caught his younger brother by the collar, dragged him out of the counting-house to a secluded part of the warehouse, and then and there thrashed him to his heart's content. It was, perhaps, this summary treatment, combined with a dislike for desk-work and indoor confinement, that induced Master Alexis to resign his clerical stool and to suggest to his father the propriety of purchasing for him a commission in the army. Old Derinzy was by no means disposed to act upon this idea, but his wife, who worshipped and spoiled her youngest son, urged it very strongly; and as Paul, who was of course consulted, recommended it as by far the best thing that could be done for his brother, the old gentleman at last gave way, and in a very short time young Alexis was gazetted as cornet in a hussar regiment then on its way home from India, and joined the depot at Canterbury.

After that little episode, Paul Derinzy took small heed of his brother's proceedings, or, indeed, of anything save his business, in which he seemed to be entirely absorbed. He was there early and late, taking his dinner at a tavern, and retiring to chambers in Chancery Lane, where he read philosophical treatises and abstruse foreign philosophical works until bedtime. He had no intimate friends, and never went into society. Even after his mother's death, when he spent most of his leisure time, such as it was, at Muswell Hill, with his father, then become very old and feeble, he shrank from meeting the neighbours, and was looked upon as an oddity and a recluse. In the fulness of time old Peter Derinzy died, leaving, it was said, upwards of a hundred thousand pounds. By his will he bequeathed twenty thousand pounds to his second son, Captain Alexis Derinzy, while the whole of the rest of his fortune went to his son Paul, who was left sole executor.