Kissing the Rod: A Novel. (Vol. 1 of 3)

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(Oxford University)

KISSING THE ROD.

LONDON:
HOBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.

KISSING THE ROD.

A Novel.

BY

EDMUND YATES,

AUTHOR OF "BROKEN TO HARNESS," "RUNNING THE GAUNTLET,"
"LAND AT LAST," ETC.

"The heart knoweth its own bitterness."

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1866.

[All rights of translation and reproduction reserved.]

Inscribed to
THE COUNTESS OF FIFE.

KISSING THE ROD.

[CHAPTER I.]

DAZZLED

There was no name on the doorposts, nothing beyond the number--"48"--to serve as a guide; and yet it may be doubted whether any firm in the City was better known to the postman, the bankers'-clerks, and all who had regular business to transact with them, than that of Streightley and Son. The firm had been Streightley and Son, and it had been located at 48 Bullion Lane, for the last hundred and fifty years. They were money-brokers and scrip-sellers at the time of the South-Sea bubble, and were among the very few who were not ruined by that disastrous swindle. So little ruined were they that they prospered by it, and in the next generation extended their business and enlarged their profits; both of which, however, were consider curtailed by rash speculations during the French Revolution and the American War. Within the first quarter of the present century the business of Streightley and Son recovered itself; and, under the careful management of old Sam Streightley and his head clerk, Mr. Fowler, the house became highly esteemed as one of the safest bill-broking establishments in the City. It was not, however, until young Mr. Robert, following the bounden career of all the eldest sons of that family, joined the business, and, after close application, had thoroughly mastered its details, that fortune could be said to have smiled steadily on the firm. Young Mr. Robert's views were so large and his daring so great, that his father, old Mr. Sam, at first stood aghast, and had to be perpetually supplicated before he gave permission to experiment on the least hazardous of all the young man's suggestions; but after the son had been about two years a partner in the firm it happened that the father was laid up with such a terrible attack of gout as to be incapable of attending to business for months; and when he at length obtained the physician's grudging assent to his visiting the City he found things so prosperous, but withal so totally changed, that the old gentleman was content to jog down to Bullion Lane about three times a month until his death, which was not long in overtaking him.

Prosperous and changed! Yes; no doubt about that. Up that staircase, hitherto untrodden save by merchants'-clerks leaving bills for acceptance or notices of bills due; by stags with sham prospectuses of never-to-be-brought-out companies; or by third-rate City solicitors giving the quasi-respectability of their names to impotent semi-swindles, which, though they would never see the light, yet afforded the means for creating an indisputable and meaty bill of costs;--up that staircase now came heavy magnates of the City, directors of the Bank of England, with short ill-made Oxford-mixture trousers, and puckered coats, and alpaca umbrellas; or natty stockbrokers, most of them a trifle horsy in garb, all with undeniable linen, and good though large jewelry, carefully-cultivated whiskers, and glossy boots. In the little waiting-room might be found an Irish member of Parliament; the managing director of a great steam-shipping company; a West-end dandy, with a letter of introduction from some club acquaintance with a handle to his name, who idiotically imagined that that handle would serve as a lever to raise money out of Robert Streightley; a lawyer or two; and, occasionally the bronzed captain of a steamer arrived with news from the Pacific; or some burnt and bearded engineer fresh from the inspection of a silver mine in Central America. A long purgatory, for the most part, did these gentlemen spend in the little waiting-room, or in the clerk's room beyond it, where they were exposed to the sharp fusillade of Mr. Fowler's eyes and the keen glances of the two young men who assisted him. The only people who were shown by the messenger at once into Mr. Streightley's presence were the City editors of the various newspapers, and a very prettily-appointed young gentleman, wise withal beyond his years, who occasionally drove down to Bullion Lane from Downing Street in a hansom cab, and who was private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Robert Streightley had done all this by his own talent and exertion--"on his own hook," as the Stock Exchange men phrased it. The keenness of his business intellect was astounding. He seemed to sift a proposition as it was being laid before him; and as soon as the proposer ceased speaking, Robert Streightley closed with or pooh-poohed the offer, with incontrovertible reasons for his decision. He spoke out plainly and boldly before the oldest and the youngest who sought his advice; he was neither deferential nor patronising; and never sought to please--simply for the sake of pleasing--any of his clients. The young men looked up to him in wonder, and spoke of him over mid-day chops and sherry as a "cool card," a "long-headed chap," "just about one," and in other complimentary slangisms. The older men scarcely knew what to make of him; they hated him for his daring and success, for the dashing manner in which he was passing them all in the race for wealth and distinction; and they would have well liked to have shrugged their shoulders and hinted about his being "fast," and "going ahead," and finally making a grand smash of it; but they had no pretext. So long as Robert Streightley's business relations were thoroughly sound and wholesome it would have been against that esprit de corps which largely prevails among City men to breathe a word against him; and as for his private life, they could scarcely bring a charge of reckless extravagance against a man who went home to a seventy-pound-a-year house at Brixton in the "Paragon" omnibus, and there indulged in the dissipation of a "meat-tea" in the society of his mother and sister. So they found another vent for their spleen, and talked of him as a "doosid close-fisted fellow," a "mean narrow-minded hunks," and a "niggardly screw." He merited none of these appellations. He was a straightforward, honourable business-man, bred in a narrow circle, which his own innate business habits were narrowing year by year. As a boy he had had instilled into him the value of money and the secret of money-getting; as a young man the whole scope of his faculties had been directed to this end. Such little fancy as he possessed--and with such a father the smallness of that fancy could be easily divined--had been ruthlessly eradicated, and all the nascent tendencies of his mind had been directed into one strong channel of fact. That Jack had ever found giants to slay, that glass slippers were ever worn by cinder-wenches, or pumpkins could by any possibility become carriages, were fictions not to be found in Bonnycastle and ignored by Walkinghame; but that two and two made four, or that a talent of silver hid in a napkin remained an unproductive talent of silver, whereas a hundred pounds invested in Consols produced yearly three pounds as interest to its holder, were as demonstrable as the light and heat of the sun at noonday.

He lived but for his business, nothing else. He was in his office at ten o'clock, and he never left it, save on some business errand, until six. He never took a holiday except on Christmas-day and Good Friday, when the newspapers proclaimed all business suspended; he never dined out save twice or thrice a-year at the anniversary banquets of the directors of some of those companies in which his stake was large. His enemies wronged him when they said he had no heart. He had sincerely grieved for the old father who had brought him up and loved him deeply in his own peculiar way; his purse-strings were always at the command of those good Samaritans on the Stock Exchange who do so much in such a quiet and unassuming manner; and the clergyman at Brixton knew he might always count upon Mr. Streightley for a handsome subscription to any charity brought under his notice. His manner was odd and brusque, arising partly from his preoccupation, partly from his having never mixed in society; but there was nothing pretentious or vulgar, fast or underbred in him: he might have been thought an oddity; he never could have been set down for a snob.

See him now as he sits at his desk, poring over his diary, a tall strongly-built man, with long limbs lacking in due amount of muscular development from want of exercise. With a high forehead, a head prematurely bald, but surrounded with a thick fringe of brown hair, with sharp gray eyes looking out from overhanging brows, a thinly-cut aquiline nose, and rather full lips. He has a full whisker, after the ordinary respectable "mutton-chop" outline, and might, if he so pleased, have a large beard, as you can tell by the dark-blue outline round his chin; but Robert Streightley would as soon think of coming up to town outside the Paragon omnibus in a turban as of committing any such unbusiness-like atrocity as growing a beard. One other person is in the room with him just now--Mr. Fowler, his chief clerk, known in the City as Downy Fowler; an old gentleman, who is looked upon as the essence of knowingness, and to whom the fortunes of Streightley and Son are not a little attributable. When this is hinted at, old Mr. Fowler smiles enigmatically; but only in strictest confidence, and to one or two very old friends, declares that, whatever he might have been to the old gentleman, he does not pretend to hold a candle to Mr. Robert, "whose head, my dear sir, is something won-der-ful!" A short sleek gray-headed man, Mr. Fowler; with a high-collared coat much too long in the sleeves, a waistcoat with traces of bygone snuff-pinches lingering in the creases, gray trousers, and gaiter boots. A silent little man, rarely speaking, but in the habit of calling his principal's attention to matters under consideration, such as letters, invoices, and share-lists, with his pointed forefinger. That forefinger was at work at the very moment when they are first presented to reader. It rested on an entry in the diary, and Mr. Fowler looked up into his principal's face inquiringly.

"Well?" said Robert Streightley, "I see. Markwell, 1350l.; Baxter, 870l.; Currie and Tull, 340l.; Guyon, 180l. 17s. 3d.; Banks, 97l. 6s. Total, 2888l. 3s. 3d.--paid to us by Davidson--due to-day--what of that?"

Mr. Fowler did not answer, but placed his forefinger more decidedly on one of the items of the account.

"O, I see," said Streightley; "Guyon's acceptance! Ay, ay; I recollect now. You called my attention to that, and declared that it was doubtful at the time that Davidson paid it in. Of course you made inquiries?"

Mr. Fowler nodded.

"And they were unsatisfactory? Well, that's no matter to us. The usual notice has been served, of course? Very well, we look to Davidson; but let Boswell's people have the usual instructions to proceed. So Tierra del Fuegos stand the same, do they? All right then; hold on. Ocean Marine have gone up; so that advance to Walton and Pycroft is well covered. Let Brattle step round to--well, what is it, Brattle?" this to the junior clerk, who, after knocking at the door, entered the room.

"A lady, sir, to speak with you," said Mr. Brattle, in whom his brother lunch-convives at the Bay Tree would scarcely have recognised the youth who now stood blushing before his principal.

"A lady to speak with me?"

"With Messrs. Streightley and Son, sir, she said, and in private, sir."

"Must be some mistake," said Robert Streightley. "Never mind. Show the lady in through the private door, Mr. Brattle. Leave me, Fowler, and don't let any one in till I ring."

If Mr. Fowler could have expressed astonishment, he would have done so, for never had woman entered that sanctum since he had been connected with Streightley and Son. But his training did not admit of any such vagary; so he retired without a word, and the door closed behind him as Mr. Brattle admitted the visitor into Robert Streightley's presence.

Robert Streightley, who had been pretending to be absorbed in the diary, looked up, and carefully scrutinised his visitor. She was a girl of about twenty, above the ordinary height, slightly and gracefully built. She threw up her veil as she entered, without the smallest sign of coquetry, and showed a strikingly-handsome face, very pale, with greenish-gray eyes, delicate Grecian nose, small white forehead, over which her dark-brown hair was drawn in flat bands, short upper lip, and small rounded chin. She was dressed in a dark-brown silk, with a black-lace cloak; and Streightley--usually unobservant of such things--noticed the wonderful fit of her lavender gloves. Streightley rose as she entered, and pointing to the usual client's chair, begged her to be seated. She bowed, and seated herself. Then there was a little pause, and Robert said, "You wished to see me, I believe?"

"You are Messrs. Streightley and Son?" said the lady interrogatively, in a musical but slightly timid voice.

"I am Mr. Streightley, the representative of the firm."

"That is what I wished to know," she replied a little haughtily. "Of course I--what I would ask is--I am not accustomed to business terms--You are the--the person--who sent this?"

She laid her parasol on the table as she spoke, and took from the purse which she carried in her hand a small printed paper. Glancing at it, Robert Streightley saw that it was an ordinary commercial document, intimating to Edward Scrope Guyon, of 110 Queen Anne Street, that a bill for 180l. 17s. 3d., drawn on him by Davidson Brothers, lay due at Streightley and Son's, 48 Bullion Court, Lombard Street. As he returned it to her he said, "It is quite right; it was sent out by this house. It is the usual notice given in such cases, stating where the money is to be paid."

She was very pale as she said, "It means then that money--that the amount named--must be paid?"

"It does indeed."

"And at once?"

"This is the day for payment," said Streightley. Then noticing her deadly pallor, and the trembling of her lips, he said: "May I ask how this came into your hands?"

With a visible effort at self-control, the young lady replied: "I--I should have mentioned it before. I am Miss Guyon, daughter of Mr. Guyon, to whom that paper is addressed."

She hesitated for a minute, and Streightley, whose eyes were fixed intently on her face, said:

"Ye-es! I think I understand; and he has sent you here to----"

"My father is not in the habit of sending me about on his business-errands, sir!" interrupted Miss Guyon, flushing scarlet (Robert thought that in his life he had never seen any thing so lovely as she looked, with heightened colour, swelling nostril, and curved lip.) "Mr. Guyon is out of town on--on very important and pressing business; and as he will not be back until late at night, I thought it best to come here to explain his absence, which will account for the money not being ready."

"Which will account for the money not being ready!" repeated Mr. Streightley absently. "O, of course, of course. Pray do not say another word about it, Miss Guyon. I am very sorry that you should have had the trouble of coming here, except that it--it has procured me the--the great pleasure of seeing you!" (Robert had never before paid a woman a compliment, and was horribly awkward in his first attempt) "I'll call on Mr. Guyon to-morrow morning about eleven, and----"

"And you'll bring your bill with you, will you?" said Miss Guyon with supreme hauteur.

The word "bill" was in itself always disagreeable to her; but she had no idea but that this was an ordinary tradesman's account, and thought Robert Streightley was the tradesman to whom it was owing.

"Ye-es!" said he; "I'll bring the bill with me, and----"

"There is nothing more to be said, I think," interrupted Miss Guyon. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Miss Guyon. Permit me to see you downstairs."

She did not speak; but he construed a very slight bow into a gesture of assent, and proceeded down the staircase. Arrived at the door he called the cabman, who was slumbering on his box; but the man's movements being slow, Streightley opened the cab-door himself, and bareheaded held it as Miss Guyon, with just the style of acknowledgment that she would have given to the shop-walker who handed her a chair at a linendraper's, passed in. Old Mr. Pommylow, chairman of the West India Plantation Company, who was crossing the street at the time, gave him a great nod and a sly wink; and made them all laugh at the Board five minutes afterwards, by telling them he'd seen Bob Streightley "doing the polite to a doosid fine gal."

She was gone; but Robert Streightley still stood on the pavement, gazing after the cab that had carried her off. Then, after a minute, he turned slowly round and retraced his steps up the staircase, pondering over the interview.

After remaining for about half-an-hour in a brown study, he touched the small handbell by which he was accustomed to summon Mr. Fowler, and, without raising his head, said to that worthy gentleman when he entered:

"Give me that acceptance we were speaking of, please."

"Guyon's acceptance do you men, sir?"

"Mr. Guyon's, if you please," said Streightley rather sternly, the familiarity jarring on his ear.

"Will you want the others, sir?" asked the old man. "Markwell's and Banks's are paid; but they haven't sent about the others yet."

"Only Mr. Guyon's, thank you, Fowler. I--I want to make a few inquiries about it."

"I don't expect you'll hear much good of the acceptor, sir," said old Fowler with twinkling eyes. "I suspect it's one of Davidson's private discounts, and we know what they are--he, he!" and the old gentleman laughed quietly.

"Let me have the letters, if you please, Mr. Fowler, and any thing else there may be for signature. I shall be going soon."

"Going, sir!" said old Fowler in the greatest astonishment. He had never known Mr. Robert leave before six o'clock since he had been in the business, and now it was only four.

"Yes! I'm not very well. I think I want a little fresh air, so I shall go and get it. And I shall probably not be here till twelve to-morrow, Mr. Fowler."

"Very well, sir." He said it most mechanically. If the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington had descended from its pedestal and cantered up Threadneedle Street, Mr. Fowler would have been scarcely more astonished.

Mr. Robert Streightley went in search of fresh air through Holborn and Oxford Street to the West-end. He so rarely quitted the City, he was so seldom out any where in the daylight, that the bright sun and the splendid shops, the pleasure-seeking crowds idling through the streets, the handsome carriages, and the general life and bustle amazed, and under any other circumstances would have amused him. Even now he felt that he was wasting his life, letting his days pass by without any adequate enjoyment, and he determined that to a certain extent he would remedy that for the future by curtailing the hours devoted to his business, which had hitherto had his every energy. At the Regent Circus he paused and asked his way to Queen Anne Street; for he had determined to see the house where dwelt his lovely visitor of the morning. How lovely she was, and how confused and ridiculous she must have thought him; how different in manner to those with whom she was in the habit of associating; and how delightfully ignorant she was of all business-matters! He wondered whether he should see her the next day when he called on her father. He would like to see her again, he thought; and what would he not give to be able to talk to her, and to get her to talk to him unreservedly, as no doubt she did to--to those of her own class! Yes, there was some good in his money and his business, after all. They had brought him in contact with this lovely girl; and in his transactions with her father he might perhaps be able to get to know her on other terms than those of mere business acquaintance. That was the house, No. 110, with traces of her presence in the lovely flowers in the balcony, and in the splendid Indian work-box standing on the gilt table in the drawing-room window. A handsome house, looking like the expenditure of two thousand a-year at least, Streightley thought to himself; the expenditure, mind, not the income,--his business education had taught him to look at those matters in their right light; and he remembered what Fowler had said about Mr. Guyon, and knew that the old clerk never spoke at random. A carriage was at the door of No. 110; and a footman standing by it said to his mistress as Streightley passed, "Not at home, my lady. Ridin' with Miss Wentworths and the Major in the Park." Not at home! that of course meant the lady of the house. But was there a Mrs. Guyon, or did the young lady whom he had seen do the honours of her father's house? He should imagine so; for she had come alone, and mentioned nothing of her mother. Riding in the Park, eh? Then he might have a chance of seeing her again! The Park was free to all, any one might go there, and--and the Major! who was the Major? Robert Streightley's spirits fell to zero again, as he remembered Miss Guyon's manner to him that morning, and reflected how wide was the gulf between them.

He asked his way to the Park, and took up his position by the railings near the Achilles statue, gazing round him in wonder at all he saw and heard. The easy familiarity of the conversation between the ladies in the carriages, or on the chairs, and the gentlemen attendant on them was very different from the prim politeness of Peckham, or the boisterous bonhomie of Brixton; and he was particularly struck with the general acquaintance that nine-tenths of the people lounging about seemed to have with each other. Robert felt painfully out of his sphere; he imagined that he was stared at as an interloper. For a long time he could not muster up courage to take his place at the railings, until he saw two carpenters returning from work in their flannel jackets, stop for a minute to look at the passing pageant, and take up their position at the railings, next to an old gentleman with a very blue coat; and a very red face, who turned round and muttered something about "d--d impudence," which delighted the carpenters immensely. When they moved off, with grins at the old gentleman which reduced him to the verge of apoplexy, Robert slipped into the place they had left vacant, and remained there for some time, gazing in wonder at all he saw, and wishing--O, how fervently wishing!--to see her again.

At last his perseverance was rewarded. In the midst of a large cavalcade which came sweeping out of the Row, turning their horses' heads towards the Marble Arch, sat Miss Guyon, looking, in her neat hat, with her hair drawn off her face and gathered into a large knot behind, even more lovely than she had looked in the morning. Streightley's heart beat hard, and his mouth grew dry as he recognised her. As she rode past, her glance fell upon him, but she did not take the smallest notice of him; merely shifting her whip as she held out her pretty little gauntleted hand to a young man riding between her and the railings, and who, as he lifted his hat in adieu, said, "Will you be at the Opera to-night?"

She replied, "At the Opera! O yes; box No. 70. Shall we see you?"

"Delighted!" he replied, bowing low, and turning his horse's head. "Good day, Major!" and as the old gentleman on the other side of Miss Guyon acknowledged his salute, the young man turned his horse's head and rode away.

"At the Opera! she was going to the Opera!" Robert Streightley found himself vaguely repeating these words as he hurried down Piccadilly. He left the Park so soon as the cavalcade of which Miss Guyon formed part had passed out of sight. Good heavens, how lovely she was! how unlike any thing he had ever seen before! how elegant and graceful! He remembered noticing how closely her dark-blue riding-habit fitted her, and he could see the pretty dogskin gauntlet as she put out her hand to--Ay, who was that she shook hands with? Not the Major; he was the old gentleman. Who was that who asked her if she were going to the Opera and--? What on earth was it to him? he was nothing to Miss Guyon; very probably he should never see her again, and--Yes. He stopped suddenly in his hurried walk. Yes; he would see her again, and that night too. He had never been to the Opera; but any one could go there by paying; and, if he could not speak to her, he should at least be able to gaze upon her lovely face. He was a fool, and was losing his senses. What would they say in the City if they knew of this egregious folly? Here was a man of six-and-thirty running about, like a schoolboy in his calf-love, after a girl whom he had only seen that morning, and had scarcely spoken to! It was very ridiculous, he acknowledged, and he would give it up. He would just call on Mr. Guyon in the way of business in the morning because he had promised to do so, and the affair would be at an end. But he thought he would go to the Opera that night. You see, he had never been there, and had often wanted to know what the place was like.

He went into a well-known dining establishment and had some dinner, and--an unusual thing with him--drank a pint of wine. He had learned of the waiter what time the Opera commenced; and as soon as the clock-hands reached half-past seven he hurried off and presented himself at the pit entrance, where, on account of his morning costume, he was refused admittance. He was told, however, that there would be no obstacle to his admission into the amphitheatre; and he accordingly climbed into that wild region, and there secured a front seat. He had hired a glass from the check-taker, and with it he now proceeded to scan the house, as yet cold and nearly, empty. Miss Guyon was not there. The opera commenced, and still she did not arrive. Streightley, plying his glass at two minutes' intervals, at length saw her advance to the front of a box on the first tier and take the seat with her back to the stage. With her was the lady whom he had seen in the carriage at the door in Queen Anne Street; and they had scarcely been seated ten minutes before they were joined by the young man who had been of Miss Guyon's party in the Park. Streightley recognised him in an instant, and hated him for his easy manners and his good looks; for he was a good-looking young fellow of six-and-twenty, with fair hair parted in the middle, regular features, and brilliant teeth. Other men visited the box during the evening, but this young fellow only went away once, and then Streightley saw him in the stalls with his glass rivetted on Miss Guyon, who, as he also remarked, attracted a great deal of attention. Then he returned to the box and remained there during the rest of the evening, until nearly the close of the opera, indeed, when Streightley saw the party preparing to move. Robert instantly seized his hat, and rushing downstairs arrived at the door in time to hear loud shouts of "Lady Henmarsh's carriage stops the way!" and to see the visitor of the morning on the arm of an old gentleman, and Miss Guyon closely escorted by the fair-haired equestrian. As she stepped into the carriage Miss Guyon looked up at her attendant cavalier with a smile that Robert Streightley would at that instant have sacrificed all his wealth to have had directed at him. He was mad with rage and jealousy, and could have struck down the simpering fool, who muttered something inaudible under his breath, and raised his hat as the carriage drove off.

What had he said in return for that look? That Robert Streightley could never know. Who was he who created the first pang of jealousy that had ever rankled in Streightley's heart? That he would learn at once; he would follow the man, and see where he lived, and learn who he was.

The young man lit a cigar and strolled leisurely eastward. Following him at a little distance, Streightley never took his eyes from him, saw him stop at the Temple gate, and reached the door as it closed behind him. To the porter Mr. Streightley gave the name of an acquaintance who resided in Brick Court, and on being admitted saw his quarry just ahead of him. He needed caution now, for theirs were the only footsteps that echoed through the courts; but the young man, without looking round, made his way to Crown-Office Row, and entered one of the end houses nearest the river. Streightley entered after him, and remained at the bottom of the staircase listening to his ascending footsteps, which paused when they reached the topmost story; and then the listener heard the grating of a key in a lock, and afterwards the clanging of a closing door. He waited a few minutes, and then crept softly to the highest story, where were two sets of chambers. One set, as announced by a painted tin placard, was to let; over the other were painted the names of Mr. Gordon Frere and Mr. Charles Yeldham.

[CHAPTER II.]

A MORNING CALL.

At nine o'clock the next morning, an hour later than his usual time, Robert Streightley entered his little dining-room and sat down to breakfast. He looked pale and fatigued; and there was an unnatural and unusual brightness in his eyes that at once attracted the notice of old Alice, who had been the nurse of his childhood, and was now the housekeeper and confidential servant of the little family. The old lady was jealously careful of the health of "her boy," as she always spoke of him, and was accustomed to use the license of tongue allowed her in many caustic remarks. She came into the room just as Robert seated himself at the table, and at once commenced to address him in her least conciliatory manner.

"O, you have got down at last, have you, Master Robert? I thought you was never coming, and there you might have lied before I'd have come up to help you! That's what I say, and what I mean."

"What's the matter, Alice? you don't seem pleased this morning."

"Pleased? Who should be pleased, and a lovely steak and mushrooms left to burn itself away to a cinder, and you never coming home to dinner. To dinner, indeed!--not coming home till all hours of the night. I heard your key in the lock, though you thought I was asleep, as all good Christians ought to have been at such an hour--but I heard you. And not foreign-post night either, nor West Indy mail, nor one of them City dinners, else you'd have been home to dress or took your bag with you to the office. Well, it's not for an old woman like me to say, but there's no doubt you're doing too much, slaving like no blackamoor that ever I read of, and all for what? All for---- It's as good bacon as ever was cured, though you do push your plate away in that fashion. Try a bit, Master Robert--come now!"

"I can't, Alice. My mouth's out of taste. I've no appetite this morning; give me a cup of tea,--there's a dear soul,--and let me be quiet."

"Let you be quiet! You don't think I'd bother you, do you? Cup of tea, indeed. You'll want more than a cup of tea if you go on in this way, sitting up till all hours and fagging yourself over your business. I'm sure your 'ma and Miss Ellen will think you looking quite ill, when they come back from York; and it's all that dratted office as is doing it. I should like to see any body else who sticks to it as you do, and all for what--that's what I want to know? All for what? If you was a struggling on with nine children to educate and do for, you couldn't grind at it harder than you do; and you'll find it out sooner than you expect. Ah, Robert!" exclaimed the old woman, suddenly softening in her tone, and coming up close to him, "Robert, my own dear boy, don't be so headstrong, deary; don't work your life away in this fashion. There's no one knows you so well as I do, and I see you're doing too much, and you're beginning to show it. Don't work so hard, my boy, my own dear boy!"

Robert Streightley put up his big arm and pulled down the old woman's head, and pressed her hard rough cheek, down which the tears were flowing silently, close to his own. Then, with an affectation of cheerfulness, he said:

"Why, Alice! why, nurse! you must not fancy such foolish things, old lady. I am perfectly well and hearty; only a little done-up this morning, perhaps, after an extra pressure of business yesterday, which kept me up rather later than usual, but otherwise all right."

"I'm a foolish old woman, I know, Robert; but I love you very dearly, and you're all I've left to love; and when you don't come home, I get frightened and nervous, and fancy you're doing too much, and, that you ought to be here, in the dining-room, reading your newspaper or having your little nap, as usual, in the evenings, instead of working away at that horrible office to all hours. And you won't be home to-day again, I suppose?"

"O yes, indeed I shall! What made you think that?"

"Why, you've got on that blue frock-coat, and a white waistcoat, and your best cravat; just for all as you dress yourself when you go to them ship-launches, or Greenwich dinners of your companies, or other places which keep you away from where you're best--at your own home."

Streightley smiled, rather a ghastly smile, as he said: "O no I'm only going to call on some rather particular people who--it's best to--at all events--I mean who are accustomed to something different from us--City fellows, you know!"

It was feebly said, and feebly received by old Alice, who looked very grim, and only remarked: "Ay, ay--ay, ay!"

He made but a very poor apology for a breakfast, and said not a great deal more to his old friend, who stood by, vainly hoping for that "chat" with her boy which was the prime event of her day. But this morning Robert Streightley was preoccupied; he sat over the table long after he had finished eating, idly playing with the crumbs, and evidently buried in thought. At length he roused himself, and after referring several times nervously to his watch, he started for town.

It was his habit to go by omnibus; and from his long residence at Brixton he was known to all the coachmen on the road, each of whom on passing gave him a semi-respectful semi-inviting salutation. But Robert Streightley was not inclined for an omnibus-ride this morning; he felt somehow that such a mode of conveyance would not accord with the world a glimpse of which he had had on the previous day, nor with the errand on which he was proceeding; so he hailed the first disengaged hansom, and was driven rapidly to Queen Anne Street. So rapidly, that when he alighted from the cab at the corner of the street he found it yet wanted twelve minutes of eleven, the hour he had named for his interview with Mr. Guyon. He could not be before his time; that would be as much against the strict business rule in which he had been brought up as being behind it would argue either leisure or a strong interest in the matter then on hand, and neither supposition he thought advisable in respect to him. So he determined to eke out the time; and for that purpose strolled up a side street, and found himself gazing vacantly on the dressing and exercising of horses and the washing of carriages, in a mews, at the entrance to which he stood for some little time. After walking round and round, and circling a very narrowed square, he found that the back part of Mr. Guyon's house looked into this mews; and then he busied himself with wondering which was Miss Guyon's room, and whether she were there at that time, and whether she had thought of him since the interview in the City, and what she had thought of him, and---- And then looking at his watch, he found the eventful hour had arrived; so he walked boldly round, and, ringing the bell, demanded to see Mr. Guyon.

A colourless footman with light hair and weak eyes, in a very washed-out lilac-striped jacket and dusty gray trousers, answered the bell, and showed Streightley into the dining-room. This was a cheerless apartment, painted salmon-colour, with a dozen Cromwell chairs in faded American cloth and spurious oak ranged round the room, but with some genuine ancestors, a Lely, a couple of Knellers, a Reynolds--such a conception of female childish purity and grace!--and a Lawrence, hanging on the walls. The Turkey carpet was faded and patched; the green table-cover was stained and torn; the window-blinds were yellow, and damp-stained; and every where there was a laissez aller which generally bespeaks the absence of female government. The mantelpiece was covered with purple velvet blurred with sticky rings made by overflowing glasses; in the centre of it lay an oxydised-silver cigar-ash holder in the form of an open spread leaf, in which still remained the ends of a couple of half-smoked cigars; and in the looking-glass, between the glass and the frame, were invitation-cards, photographs of boxers, and ladies of the Parisian theatres, all wearing the same scanty drapery and leering the selfsame leer,--applications for payment of queen's taxes, and notices that the "collector had called" for the water-rate. Robert Streightley had gazed round him; and with the power of appreciation innate in him had remarked these various objects and indications when the door opened quickly, and Mr. Guyon entered the room.

Mr. Guyon, none but he; no mistaking him. In the bold face that flashed upon him Streightley recognised a coarser and stronger rendering of Miss Guyon's every feature: the delicately-cut slightly aquiline nose, the small rounded chin, the vivacious green-gray eye. Mr. Guyon's hair, which was rather sparse and thin, was of a different colour from his daughter's; was indeed in itself of two distinct hues, being very black and glossy in certain lights, and very purple and lustreless in others. His complexion, too, was peculiar,--mottled and speckled, something like a plover's egg, save just under the eyes, on the top of the cheekbones, where it had a very roseate hue. He was dressed in a loose blue-silk jacket with a red collar and red sleeve-linings, and wore a pair of Turkish trousers, tied round the waist with a cord like a bell-rope. His turn-down collar was cut very low, showing a great deal of bony throat; his wristbands were long, fastened with elaborate carbuncle studs, and coming far down over his white, well-shaped hands. He wore striped-silk socks of the rather loud pattern,--which, seen at the theatre under the loose garb of the mandarin, enables us to make a tolerably accurate guess at the identity of the person in the pantomime who is to be "afterwards clown,"--and natty red-morocco slippers. He came into the room with a rush, had Robert Streightley by the hand in an instant, and forced him into a chair as he said,

"Mr. Streightley, this is kind indeed! This is an honour I can never forget!"

Streightley, rather taken aback at the warmth of his reception, said, "it is nothing, Mr. Guyon. I can assure you I merely called because----"

"I know, my dear sir, I know. My daughter explained to me what she did yesterday, and how generously you received her." Robert's eyes brightened as he listened. "Women, you know, my dear sir, are all impulse. You are a married man, my dear Mr. Streightley? No! well, still, my dear sir, I daresay--ha, ha!--that you have thorough experience of the other sex. When a man is young, and pleasing, and rich--O yes, by George, rich ha, ha!--he has opportunities of studying the other sex, even if he be not married. Not married? Let me see, what was I saying? O, my daughter--who is the prop and sunshine of my life, the dearest and most devoted creature in the world--my daughter has told me of the document which caused her such fright. It was--it was merely the--usual notice, I suppose?"

"It was the usual notice."

As Streightley said this, a loud peal at the door-bell attracted his attention.

"And the amount?"

"A hundred and eighty pounds odd--stay, I have the bill with me;" and drawing out his pocketbook, Robert produced the document. As he did this, he heard the street-door opened, and the sound of a man's footsteps passing the dining-room and going upstairs. His heart sank within him. He would swear to that footfall--swear to it any where; had he not heard it twelve hours before echoing up the hollow staircase in Crown Office Row? It was that man; and he was going upstairs to see Miss Guyon, doubtless in fulfilment of some appointment made during the exchange of bows and glances at the carriage-door last night. He turned deadly pale, and his lips trembled.

"Will you allow me to look at that bill?" said Mr. Guyon in his most mellifluous tones. "Thank you. How your hand trembles!--a little chill perhaps. Draw closer to the fire. We seem to have begun the cold weather already. For my own part, I could always endure a fire--O, this is really very bad of Davidson; very bad indeed!" He had been surveying the document which Streightley had handed to him through a pair of gold double eyeglasses perched on the bridge of his nose; and he now looked over them at Streightley as he repeated, "Very bad indeed!"

"I--I beg your pardon--my attention was diverted. What did you say?"

"I said, Mr. Streightley," said Mr. Guyon with increased sternness, "that this is a very bad business of Davidson's. I gave him this acceptance, sir, to help him in--the what do you call it?--the hour of need, under the full understanding that he would meet it. It was for his convenience, not for mine. I never had a shilling of the produce; and now he leaves me to discharge it at a time when he knows that----"

"That it will be inconvenient to meet it?"

"You anticipate my words, sir. What with paying calls on shares, and investments in certain other affairs which I have authority--almost as good as yours, my dear sir--for believing in, my balance at my banker's is at its lowest permissible ebb."

"If it will be any accommodation to you, Mr. Guyon, I'll send my cheque to meet this acceptance; and I'll take another from you at three months," said Streightley nervously. If he were ever to be received upstairs, it must be through the father's influence.

"My dear sir, a thousand thanks! I'm really very much obliged to you--very much obliged. I'm sure any terms which----"

"I think the Bank rate is three and a half just now," interrupted Streightley with a slight smile; "we money-brokers charge one per cent in advance of that. So that you see I make something of you after all."

"My dear sir," said Mr. Guyon, advancing towards him with outstretched hand, "you endeavour to make light of an obligation; but I'm too much of an old soldier not to know the service you have rendered me. And I thank you for it--I thank you for it! In these levelling days, when a gentleman meets a gentleman, they should close ranks and march together, by George! Give me your hand, sir. I'm proud to make your acquaintance. I hope to renew it. There are not many that Ned Guyon sees at his table, because, perhaps, he's infernally particular, and does not choose to mix with cads. But those who come are of the right sort; and he'll be proud to see you among them."

"You're very good, I'm sure," said Streightley. "Perhaps you'll give me a call in the City in a day or two, and we'll put this matter on a business footing. And now I must be off. I shall be delighted to come whenever you ask me--and--my compliments to Miss Guyon. Good-day!" and with a warm shake of his new acquaintance's hand--a shake which was enthusiastically returned--Robert Streightley took his departure.

Left to himself, Mr. Guyon plunged his hands into the pockets of his Turkish trousers and strode several times up and down the room, finally stopping in front of the looking-glass and soliloquising: "A rum start,--a devilish rum start! I thought I'd seen every variety of discounters, but I never met one who behaved like that before. What the devil was his motive? he had one, of course; but what the devil was it?"

Meanwhile a very different scene was being enacted in the drawing-room. Robert Streightley's prescience had not deceived him. The ring at the bell, which acted with such electrical effect on Streightley's nerves, was given by the young man whom he had followed to his chambers on the previous evening; the footstep passing up the staircase was his footstep; and the colourless footman, throwing open the drawing-room door, announced him as "Mr. Gordon Frere." Miss Guyon looked up from the flowers she was tending, and her cheek slightly flushed. The flush was very becoming to Miss Guyon--at least Mr. Frere approved of it highly, as he did of her high-cut mouse-coloured plush dress, her neat linen collar fastened with a handsome dead-gold brooch, her long cuffs, and her simply-arranged hair.

"You are early, Mr. Frere," said Miss Guyon, as she extended her hand to her visitor; but she made the remark in a tone which marked her approval of the circumstance.

"Yes," he replied; "I feared you might have gone to the Park, if I came later."

"I don't ride to-day," said Katharine with a bright smile; "papa is busy, and I did not make any other arrangements."

She moved away from the table over which she had been bending as she spoke, and seated herself in a low chair, happily placed in the shade of the window-curtain. Gordon Frere took his seat upon an ottoman near her, and contemplated the lining of his hat with close attention. Not that he was at all awkward--awkwardness was not in Mr. Frere's nature, certainly not in his habits--but he was not a particularly ready talker, and under the circumstances this seemed the correct thing to do. Katharine Guyon's manners were, in certain respects, perfect; they were, indeed, rather too perfect and independent; she presented too complete a contrast to the drooping-lily style of girl; and she never suffered from a sense of embarrassment. It was not, therefore, shyness which lent her downy cheek that beautiful flush it had worn at the entrance of her visitor, and continued to wear, or that softened glance which darkened the colour and deepened the expression of her eyes. She was very glad to see him, and she showed her gladness; and there was a pleasant gleeful ring in the tone in which she talked to him of the various but trivial events of the preceding day, of their common acquaintances, and of the delights of last night's opera.

Her voice and accent were remarkably refined, and the tone of her conversation, though its matter was only of the ordinary kind, was far removed from the commonplace. She touched her topics lightly and easily, let them go without too much handling, and gradually infused into her companion some of the brightness and buoyancy which animated herself. Gordon Frere had seen her sufficiently often to be familiar with most of her moods, and with all the variations of her appearance, for hers was by no means the "beauty for ever unchangingly bright," which is also undeniably uninteresting; but he began to think that he had never seen her to so much advantage as on this occasion, and to discover new charms in her, as she sat and talked to him, in her clear fresh voice, and her low happy laughter broke every now and then the tenor of their dialogue.

What did they talk about? That would be difficult to tell; and the discourse, written down, which suffices to charm and engross two young persons, already very well disposed to regard each other as the most bewitching and delightful individuals in the world, would have singularly little attraction for a third party outside that enchanted pale, which encloses within a magic circle the sayings and doings of those under the spell. The pleasantest "talks" are those which have the least in them; the best-remembered interviews are frequently those in which there have been no salient features, of which it would be hardest to render an account,--those in which acquaintance passes into knowledge, and grows into friendship after a strange fashion, distinctly felt, but not to be described. When the transition is not from acquaintance to friendship, but from liking to love, the process is even more difficult of description; and a transition of this kind was taking place in the pretty, if not particularly neat, drawing-room which formed so striking a contrast to the apartment beneath it, in which Mr. Guyon and Robert Streightley had held a parley, destined to influence the future fate of Katharine and her visitor very materially.

What did they not talk of? that is to say, within the wide range of topics possessing interest for their young light hearts. The festivities performed during the past week, and anticipated for that to come; the prospects of a charitable bazaar, at which Miss Guyon had kindly consented to take a stall (Mr. Frere was very happy in his anticipation of the unqualified success of the speculation); the Opera répertoires for the season; the last new varieties of flowers at the Botanical (Miss Guyon loved flowers and understood them); the last new novel, and the forthcoming poem by the Laureate. Then they discussed Tennyson in general, and Katharine quoted him in particular--an achievement in which Gordon Frere could not imitate her, his appreciation being vague, though genuine; and Katharine "tried over" one or two of the airs which they agreed to prefer among those in fashion just then; and time flew, and the young people felt decidedly happy.

Miss Guyon played brilliantly; her music had a great deal of the "dash" about it which characterised her appearance and her general demeanour. She was one of those women who do every thing well which they undertake at all, and the finish of her manner extended to all she did. She had another peculiarity; perhaps not a safe or advantageous one in the end, but pleasant and effective then. She could do certain things with impunity which girls in her position, however effectually "come out," could not have attempted. She set conventionality aside when it suited her to do so; but the boldest and most ill-natured critic would never have accused her of outraging it. The men who tempt women into departure from the rules, made and appointed for their conduct and customs by a society more remarkable for suspicion than for intelligence, are precisely those who most severely condemn them for yielding to the temptation. But there was neither guidance nor following in Miss Guyon's case. She was an exceptional woman, placed in circumstances which are, fortunately, not very common; and she went her own way, and kept, to it unmolested; and if not uncriticised, criticised as little as any one possessing youth, beauty, talent, and individuality of character, could expect to be.

So Miss Guyon talked to Gordon Frere, and played for his delectation, and quoted poetry to him, and made herself most agreeable; and his stay prolonged itself much beyond the customary limits of a morning visit; and yet she never felt that this was any thing unusual, or was conscious that her self-possession was beyond that of other girls, or her manner more assured than theirs. She never thought about it at all; she enjoyed the present time and the young man's society; she accredited him with all sorts of social talents and bright congenial tastes; and no suspicion ever occurred to her that he was merely reflecting some of her own readiness, brilliancy, and versatility. And Gordon Frere, was not "he too in Arcadia"? Over the girl's whole bearing an indescribable softness, a winning grace was thrown,--the subtle, all-powerful charm created by the desire of pleasing; perhaps the most potent, and frequently the most unconscious, in a woman's possession. She looked her best, she talked her best, the animation of her manner never passing the bounds of perfect refinement, but ever spontaneous and unsubdued; the simple grace of her figure, the sensitive beauty of her face must have touched and warmed a duller man than Gordon Frere. There was a delicious flattery in her undisguised pleasure in his society which he felt with a subtler sense than he had ever before experienced; for there was no one to share it here. She was shining, she was sparkling for him alone. This was something different, something much more delightful than the ride in the Row, or the dance in the ball-room, to which he was tolerably well accustomed, and which he might have gone on enjoying for some time longer without being inspired by the intense admiration which began to possess him as he looked at her, and listened to her, as he recognised the genuine charm of her manner, unspoiled by the faintest tinge of self-consciousness or coquetry.

"Do you know much of the City?" Katharine said, after a slight pause in their conversation; "do you often go there?"

"No, indeed," said Frere; "I seldom have occasion; and my rambles eastwards rarely extend beyond the Temple. But why do you ask? Do you take an interest in the City?"

"I do," she returned thoughtfully; "I should like to explore it thoroughly for the sake of its present and its past. I have never seen any thing of it since I was a child, and they took me to the Tower, and Guildhall, and the Thames Tunnel all on the same day; and I remember nothing but a hideous figure of Queen Elizabeth, the block--which frightened me--Gog and Magog, and my own fatigue. I was horribly tired when I came home; and when, on another holiday, they wanted to take me to St. Paul's, and told me about the winding stairs and the whispering gallery, I positively declined the proposed diversion. So I have never really seen the City. I drove through a part of it yesterday, and a very dingy part it was too; and I thought how much I should like to see it all and think over it all."

"I don't suppose many people think of it in that way," said Mr. Frere; "to the world at large it's only a huge counting-house, a busy beehive, a crowd of places where money is to be made, and of men intent on making it."

"But even in that aspect it is very interesting," said Katharine; "and in that aspect I was considering it when I looked at the great warehouses and offices, and saw the names whose very sound is golden, the names famous all over the world. But, after all, these people must lead horribly stupid lives, for ever toiling at money-getting. I don't suppose they have time to enjoy spending it when it is made. Only fancy how dreadful to have to go to these dingy places every day, and stay there all day long."

"That is true," said Gordon Frere. "The lives of City men do not seem very enviable, or indeed bearable to us; but there must be a compensation in them. Some of them must absolutely like plodding, for they go on with it long after they need not, as a matter of choice."

"Do they?" asked Katharine in a tone of surprise. "I saw a 'City man' when I was there,--I had a little business to attend to for papa, as he was not at home,--and he had such a settled, business-like look, though he was not at all old. I could not fancy him ever taking any pleasure or amusement, or being like other people--of course, I mean," she added explanatorily, "any of the pleasures of his class."

"O, I suppose not," said Frere; "a regular grub, who will be what he will be content to call rich when he's gray and gouty. But they have one consolation, Miss Guyon: as their business and their pleasure alike consist in money-getting, the one is not purchased at the expense of the other."

"Like ours," she said with a laugh, "when we have any business." Then she went on again, thoughtfully as before: "I should like to go all through the City. Not for the sake of seeing the places where all the money that I have nothing to do with is made; but because so much of our old history was acted out there. I suppose in the City one can get a sight of the old landmarks; and they are certainly not to be found outside it. It is rather odd that every thing that is most dignified connects itself in one's mind with City places, and every thing that is most vulgar with City people. If one could only see it after all the money-grubbers are gone away, and when it is still and quiet in the evenings, as they say it is----"

"And when, accordingly, the most ingenious and charmingly-sensational robberies are perpetrated," said Gordon Frere, laughing. "Well, that is a wish easily gratified. Who was the man who always said, when any place was mentioned, 'Let's make a party and go'? No matter, we will echo him. I know a man who knows lots of City men, who would be delighted to show you every thing worth seeing; and then there are books, you know, which tell one the history--I was going to say the pedigree--of every place. But I suppose Mr. Guyon has City acquaintances also?"

Gordon Frere asked the question inadvertently, and felt rather guilty when he had done so; for he had heard certain rumours which left him in no doubt at all as to the nature of Mr. Guyon's acquaintance with the far east.

"I daresay he has," replied Katharine carelessly; "but I don't know any thing of them. My business was only with a tradesman, a person named Streightley, and I have never heard papa mention his business friends."

And then the conversation drifted to other topics, and Gordon Frere shortly after took his leave. This morning visit had been unlike the ordinary events of his days, and he felt towards Katharine Guyon as he left her as he had never felt before. And Katharine? She had reseated herself at the piano as he left the room, and her fingers had strayed for a few momenta over the keys; then her hands fell idly into her lap, and, in the sunshine of the summer day, unbroken by the stir and noise in the street, there came upon the fair young girl that wonderful waking trance whose vision is "love's young dream."

The trance was broken by the entrance of her father. Mr. Guyon's manner, always light and airy, was on this occasion lighter and airier than usual. He walked up to the piano, bent over his daughter, and giving her a paternal kiss, said, "Who was your visitor, Kate?"

Not without a repetition of the blush, Katharine said, "Mr. Frere, papa."

"Mr. Frere!" repeated Mr. Guyon,--"ay, ay, a good fellow, Gordon Frere,--a good fellow! Wants ballast perhaps!" added he reflectively, as though he himself were provided with more than an average amount of that commodity,--"wants ballast; but that will come. By the way, Kate, I've had your City friend of yesterday with me,--Mr. Streightley."

"Indeed, papa!" said Katharine carelessly. It was a great descent from Gordon Frere to the City man, Mr. Streightley. She rose from the piano as she spoke, and crossed to the mantel-shelf, on which she leaned her arm.

"Indeed, papa! Yes, and indeed, papa, and no mistake. It's a most remarkable thing, and I can't make it out. You don't understand business matters in detail, but you'll be able to follow me when I tell you that this Streightley, who has the name of being a deuced sharp man of business, has behaved to me in a deuced liberal and gentlemanly way--a deuced liberal and gentlemanly way! And what on earth can have been his motive--for of course he had a motive--what on earth can have induced him to show me any special favour, I can't divine."

"Can't you, papa?" said Miss Guyon. She was looking at herself in the glass, pushing back the hair from off her temples. A slight smile curved her lip, and she looked splendidly handsome. Mr. Guyon, glancing at her, caught the expression reflected in the glass and sprang to his feet.

"By George, Kate, I've hit it! the man's in love with you!"

"Is he?" said Katharine simply. "I noticed him in the Park yesterday afternoon, and standing outside the Opera last night."

"You're an angel!" said Mr. Guyon, again performing the paternal salute. "What are you going to do to-morrow?"

"I thought of going to the Botanical Gardens in the afternoon--it's the last fête of the season."

"You shall go! I'll take you myself! You--you have not asked young Frere to call again, have you?"

"No, papa. I----"

"Of course. I only wanted to know. Don't, until I tell you. And now I must be off. God bless you, my child!"

But though Mr. Guyon took farewell of his daughter he was not "off" yet; for he spent half an hour in his dressing-room, his head resting on his hand, and his busy mind full of thought.

[CHAPTER III.]

WITHIN THE PALE.

Three days had elapsed since the interview between Katharine Guyon and Gordon Frere, which had gone so far towards deciding the destiny of both, when that haughty young lady learned, with some astonishment and more disdain, that her father had it in contemplation to invite Mr. Streightley, the "tradesman" on whom she had called "in the City," to one of his quiet and limited, but very recherché dinners. She heard the announcement with such surprise that her father actually took the trouble of observing the expression of her face, and laughed quite spontaneously at it.

"That person, papa?" asked Katharine.

"Yes, my dear, 'that person,' as you call him, with the pretty insolence which is more becoming than reasonable. And more than that, Kate, you must make yourself agreeable to that person, and we must have pleasant people to meet him, for he has done me a great service, and is likely to do me several good turns, and to be a very useful acquaintance."

"But, papa," pursued Katharine, who was accustomed to hold her ground in words, as well as to have her way in actions, "he is not in our set, or in any set, I should think. A City person, a tradesman! I really cannot see----"

"I daresay not, Kate," said her father, with a perceptible knitting of the delicately-traced eyebrows over the fine eyes, which indicated that this exquisite gentleman was not precisely the soul of patience and good temper. "I daresay not, but I can; and that is the chief matter just now. I daresay Mr. Streightley is not in any 'set,' as you say; but when you talk of him as a 'tradesman' you make a very silly and an ignorant mistake. Yes you do," he continued, in reply to an indignant look from his daughter, "though you are very clever, Katie,--almost as clever as you are handsome, my dear. Mr. Streightley is a very rich and a very influential man, and no more a tradesman than I am."

"Well then, papa," asked Katharine, "what did he mean by sending in a bill in that extraordinary way? If he is not a tradesman, what dealings with him had you, and what services has he done you?"

Mr. Guyon smiled. His daughter's naïveté amused him. "Never mind, Kate," he said. "Men have money transactions outside their household bills, my dear, or even their tailors and bootmakers; but women do not need to understand these things, and I should only bore you if I explained them. Mr. Streightley's 'bill' was a very different thing to what you imagine, and his position is, I assure you, a most respectable one. Take my word for that, Kate, and don't trouble your pretty little head about the matter. I hope we shall see a good deal of Mr. Streightley, and I wish this dinner-party to be a success; so make out your list, and see Watkins about it at once."

"Do you wish any people in particular to be asked to meet this new friend, papa?" asked Katharine, in a tone which was a little sullen, and just the least in the world impertinent, "or shall I take them, as usual, from the visiting-book?"

Mr. Guyon ignored the tone of his daughter's question, but replied to its matter by saying: "No, no one in particular; either Lady Henmarsh or Mrs. Stanbourne, of course; but you need not have any girls. I fancy Streightley knows very few people; they'll all be new to him."

"Bar, Bench, or Bishop, like Mrs. Merdle,--eh, papa?" said Katharine, as she rose from the breakfast-table, at which this dialogue had taken place. "Very well, I'll let you see my list when it's done. And now, the day?"

This point was fixed, after a little discussion; and then Katharine went to talk with her housekeeper, Mrs. Watkins, to write her notes, to dawdle over her flowers, until the horses came round; and she started for the Park with the reasonable expectation of seeing Gordon Frere--an expectation which was fulfilled before she had been five minutes in the Row.

During the days which intervened before that named for the dinner-party, Katharine never gave a passing thought to the subject of her father's strange and incongruous guest; but when the day came, she felt rather ill-humoured about the whole thing.

"What on earth can papa want with him?" she thought, impatiently; "and I am to make myself agreeable to him! Well, that generally comes easy to me; but not in this case. I can't even talk to him about the City, which I really should like, because that would be talking shop, though he's not a tradesman. However, it will soon be over," she thought, brightening up, and with an exquisite smile of happy anticipation lighting up her face, moody till then; "and the ball can't fail to be delightful."

Miss Guyon was going to a ball in the evening, after her dinner-party at home; and her toilet was made with a view to that festivity. An ornament or two, and a magical touch added to her head-dress, were all she would require for the perfect brilliancy of her appearance, in addition to the white dress, arrayed in which she appeared to the enchanted gaze of Robert Streightley, when he was ushered into her drawing-room, like a vision from another world. And it was quite true that he had never seen so beautiful, so graceful, so elegant a woman as the girl-hostess, who played her part with perfect self-possession, while he felt miserably embarrassed in his.

Katharine was seated on an ottoman, placed between the long narrow windows of the front drawing-room, talking to an elderly lady, whom Robert Streightley's quick eye recognised, as he advanced from the door. Mr. Guyon left the group with whom he was talking, on the announcement of Robert's name; and went forward to meet him with a decided empressement of manner which had its effect on the other guests assembled. He led Robert up to Katharine, and presented him to her. She bent her graceful head, said a gracious word or two, and resumed her conversation with the lady--whom Robert had recognised, and who was Lady Henmarsh--with well-bred imperturbability. Did she remember him? Robert thought. Had she ever thought of him since that day which had meant to him so much, but to her so little? So little! nothing! and yet not nothing, if she had only known it, for he had discovered things about her father since. Robert found himself thinking these rambling thoughts, and gazing helplessly at Katharine, unheeding the smooth flow of Mr. Guyon's talk, as that gentleman, in his very best and airiest manner, addressed himself to the entertainment of his new and useful guest, and to the task of putting him at his ease in this strange sphere. With a sudden consciousness of his absence of mind came self-command to Robert, and before long he began to examine the other guests with much more of attention and curiosity than they were at all likely to bestow on him. To the dozen persons assembled in Mr. Guyon's drawing-room Robert Streightley was merely a stranger,--well-dressed, well-looking, and though deficient in the air of fashion, which more or less marked themselves, a gentleman in whom there was nothing to provoke any adverse or sneering criticism. To Robert they were all interesting. These were Katharine's friends,--the people she lived amongst, the people who could influence her by their tastes and opinions, the people whose manners, and dress, and conversation she liked. In every man in the room Robert saw a possible rival, in every woman a possible enemy. He was very foolish, not only in the ordinary sense in which every man who is in love is foolish, but in an extraordinary sense,--the result of his peculiar position, and the isolation of his life. He was possessed by his one idea; and he allowed it to become a centre round which every thing revolved. When the announcement of dinner told him that the party was complete, and relieved him from the apprehension of seeing Gordon Frere's handsome face amongst the number, he actually sighed audibly with the sense of relief. He listened eagerly, as Mr. Guyon or Katharine addressed their guests, and learned with absurd satisfaction that three of the six gentlemen who composed the male portion of the company were married to three of the six ladies who composed the female portion.

Robert Streightley was a very clever man, but there was a dangerously weak side to his intellect, all the more perilous that he had never suspected it, and did not suspect it now; and that weak side was about to be stormed by a strong passion, all the more ungovernable because it attacked him for the first time. He had never played with this dangerous enemy; he had not known any of the feints, the mock-surprises of love, and he was hopelessly at its mercy. Mingled happiness and misery,--the happiness of this delicious, unexpected excess to Katharine's presence, the misery of his uncertainty as to her relations with others, with one terrible other in particular--the sense of his strangeness in the scene familiar to her,--ravaged and divided his heart between them. For a time the misery was predominant; and then Robert, an impressionable man, and one in whom social tastes were not non-existent, only dormant, yielded to the charm of the present, and gave himself up to admiration of Katharine, who never showed to greater advantage than on such occasions. The aplomb of her manner, the brilliancy of her conversation, the taste, elegance, and fashion of her dress, the easy and pleasant grace with which she made the dinner-party "go off" with a success utterly beyond his experience of any festal occasion whatever, were full of a marvellous charm for the man who looked at this girl through the glorified medium of a first and overmastering passion.

Robert took little heed of the other guests, except as one or other of them engaged Katharine's attention, and so divided his. He had the good fortune to be seated near Miss Guyon; and but that Lady Henmarsh directed much of her conversation to the young hostess, and so won Streightley's enthusiastic gratitude, she would probably have found her neighbour rather a dull companion. But Lady Henmarsh was never dull, and never suffered from other people's dulness. In the first place, she dearly liked and thoroughly understood a good dinner; and Mr. Guyon's dinners were invariably and remarkably good. She made it a practice to eat systematically and steadily through all the courses, and to do justice to all the wines. She was too fashionable and too impervious to other people's opinions to care what any body thought; and so she ate and drank precisely as much as she pleased, and gave her opinion of the comestibles with perfect candour. She was intimate with every one there, except that good-looking new man, who was probably clever in something, but whom nobody knew, and who did not seem to want to talk much or to be talked to; and she therefore joined in all the general conversation, and did not mind him particularly, thereby increasing Robert's gratitude. Lady Henmarsh talked remarkably well. She was naturally quick and intelligent--well-informed too, for a woman of fashion, with, of course, no time for improving her mind; and as she knew every one and had been every where, and probably had a more extensive epistolary correspondence than any other woman in London who did not play at either literature or politics, she was never at a loss for news to communicate or subjects to discuss.

With the exception of Mr. Guyon, whose like was not quite unknown within the circle of Robert's experience, every type there was a novel one to him. Few were interesting after a little,--after a cursory examination extending to their personal appearance and the grooves in which their conversation ran. There was a new member, who talked "House" a good deal, and his wife--pretty and well-dressed--who talked "Ladies' Gallery," who hoped her husband would soon "speak" on the great topic of the day, and who seemed to regard every one not "in the House" as in the "butterfly of fashion" and general inutility line. There was a country gentleman, not at all stupid and not in the least fat; and a country lady, almost as sprightly as Miss Guyon herself, though by no means so handsome. The country lady and gentleman were also going to Mrs. Pendarvis's ball; and from their talk about it at dinner Robert learned that Katharine was going to another entertainment that evening, and the tortures of his infatuated state recommenced. She would disappear, then, after dinner, and he should see no more of her, thought Robert in his innocent ignorance of fashionable hours; and she would go and glitter among a crowd of happy people, and that handsome fellow with the light hair would be one of them. And so Robert once more stretched himself upon the rack, and gave himself an excruciating twist. He was miserable from the time the ball was mentioned. Did he wish that he could go there too? Hardly; he felt he would be too much out of place in such a scene; and where could he be more hopelessly parted from her? No, he did not wish to be going to Mrs. Pendarvis's house; he only wished she were not going.

"Have you a card, Mr. Mostyn?" he heard Katharine say in a charming accent of interest to a gentleman seated near her, whom Robert had already regarded with some surprise and amusement.

"Yes," returned Mr. Mostyn in a supremely languid tone, at the same time permitting his eyes to raise themselves towards Katharine, as if in slow acknowledgment of the complimentary accent. "I think I shall look in for an hour very late. Will you give me a dance, Miss Guyon?" He said this as if he felt bound to make a concession to a wish of hers. Robert Streightley had very quick eyes, and he saw her steal a glance of sly, mischievous amusement at Lady Henmarsh as she replied,

"I don't see how I can, Mr. Mostyn, if you only look in for an hour very late, for I mean to do my looking in rather early."

"Very sorry, I'm sure," said Mr. Mostyn in a slow, measured, would-be modulated tone, which sounded to Robert's ears like the very voice of fatuity. "But one has so much to do of an evening just now. It's Lady Ismaeli's night, and I promised to look in and----"

"Of course, of course," said Miss Guyon, and her eyes danced with mischievous glee; "who would for the world interfere with Mr. Mostyn's gaieties? We all know they are but gravities in disguise. He is the slave of the season only to be its satirist, the pet of society to requite its indulgence by his teachings as a philosopher and his dulcet lays as a poet. Who would lay a tax on time spent in the service of society like Mr. Mostyn's, studying character in a cotillion, piercing the thin disguises of intrigue at a picnic, and reading the female soul in the evening lounge on a balcony? Ah, Mr. Mostyn, what triflers are we all beside you, the poètephilosophe, not only sous les toits, but of our dinner- and toilet-tables!"

Lady Henmarsh was listening, pleasure in her face. There was something under this lively talk, this seeming compliment; and Robert would have liked well to know what it was. It was something that amused Katharine, therefore interesting to him.

"Come, Mr. Mostyn," she went on, "you might tell me--I am a friend, you know. When is the new novel coming out? And what and who is it to be about? Only intimate friends this time, or have outsiders any chance?"

She paused for a reply, and an expression of candid curiosity was all her face betrayed. Mr. Mostyn did not look perfectly comfortable; a dawning doubt showed itself in his smooth features. It was only momentary, though. It cleared away, and he replied,

"Really, Miss Guyon, you embarrass me. I was not prepared to find you so much interested in my humble performances. I shall not publish again, for some little time. I regard the writing of a poem or a novel as a serious undertaking, and I undertake it in a serious spirit. I wait for the inspiration, Miss Guyon; I wait until a favourable moment when my mind is attuned----"

"And when you have got some very good models, Mr. Mostyn; isn't that so? Your acquaintance is so large, it must be quite delightful and not at all difficult. Don't be shocked, please, by my talking of such a little thing as difficulty in the case of such a grand thing as inspiration; but it must be so easy and pleasant just to sit down and put your friends in a book. People hardly expect it, do they? They let you see them as they are, and then that is charming; for you find out all about them, and they never suspect it; and all their circle recognise the portrait, and every one talks about it. I have quite a woman's curiosity about writers, you must know, Mr. Mostyn,--I quite admire and envy them,--and I should like to know all about them; and I have heard that even a totally worthless book will be read if it is very personal indeed. What a comfort that must be, Mr. Mostyn I--of course I mean to the persons who write worthless books; shouldn't you think so?"

Katharine threw a perfect tone of interrogation into her voice, and deliberately awaited an answer. Once more a shadow of doubt came over Mr. Mostyn's face, and once more a beam from the never-setting sun of his vanity dispelled it.

"I cannot imagine there being any consolation in or for writing a worthless book, Miss Guyon," replied Mr. Mostyn with even increased sententiousness. "For my part, I could only be satisfied with doing the very best----"

"The very best, or your very best?" said Katharine with undisguised sauciness. Then recollecting herself, she dropped her voice to the serious tone again, and went on: "Of course no one is easily satisfied with his own work; but you really must not be too modest, Mr. Mostyn,--you mustn't indeed. Every one says your portraits are wonderful; and what can be more interesting than to depict accurately persons who are very widely known, and place them in the most trying situations? The popular authoress, for instance, who makes love to your last hero--dear, what an exquisite creature he is!--how odd she must feel it to be 'put in a book' and recognised by every body! Ah! you are a dangerous man, Mr. Mostyn; perhaps you'll put me in a book some day, if I am good enough, or bad enough, or ask you here sufficiently often to do all my sittings properly--but--Lady Henmarsh looks as if I ought to have moved before this;" and so saying Katharine rose, and, like "fair Inez," took all the sunshine and light of every description with her, so far as Robert Streightley was concerned. Whether Mr. Mostyn was quite so sorry for her departure was another question. Robert looked at this gentleman with some curiosity and a little dawning compassion, for it struck him that Katharine had not spoken altogether de bonne foi, and he was curious to ascertain whether he too was aware of the fact.

Robert had little experience of persiflage, and was not behind the scenes on this occasion; but two or three of the other guests were, and they enjoyed the quiet little performance which had just been enacted greatly. As for Mr. Mostyn, his momentary discomfiture passed off with the characteristic reflection, that jealousy made all women spiteful, and Miss Guyon had really not had so much of his attention lately as she deserved,--he must be more considerate of her feelings for the future. The ladies gone, the gentlemen drew up into the usual cluster, and commenced the ordinary after-dinner conversation; and Robert would probably have found the affair very wearisome on its own account, not to mention that he was longing to be in Katharine's presence again, had not Mr. Guyon exerted himself to the utmost to draw 'him out, and to give the conversation a general turn, so as to include him, and to make it evident to the whole party that the "new man" was one whom he delighted to honour.

When the ladies were passing through the hall, Lady Henmarsh had said laughingly to Katharine, "For shame, Kate; you were too hard on the young author."

"Nonsense!" replied Katharine. "You enjoyed it immensely, and he deserved it richly."

When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room at Mr. Guyon's that night, Katharine was seated at the piano. Had any portion of Robert Streightley's heart remained unvanquished, she would have conquered it by her music: but he was already as much in love as he could be. Soon the business of leave-taking commenced. Robert was reluctantly advancing to make his adieux, when Mr. Guyon took him familiarly by the arm and said,

"Don't go just yet, Streightley. We'll see the ladies to the carriage, and then have a chat and a cigar in my room."

Miss Guyon left the room with Lady Henmarsh, but returned in a few minutes, wrapped in a soft white mantle. Every alteration in her appearance made her more beautiful in Robert's eyes. He had the felicity of taking her downstairs; and as she bowed and smiled from the corner of the carriage in which she had ensconced herself, and was then borne rapidly away, Robert needed Mr. Guyon's "Come along, Streightley; don't stand there in the cold," to rouse him from a sort of trance of admiration.

The ball at Mrs. Pendarvis's was crowded and brilliant, and Katharine's hopes were realised. Gordon Frere had waited her arrival on the staircase, and claimed her for the first dance. The hours passed like a dream to them both; and when Mr. Alured Mostyn "looked in," and at length succeeded in finding Miss Guyon, he saw her so radiant with beauty, so sparkling with animation, that he was quite touched at the idea of the effect produced by her pleasure in seeing him.

Another person noticed the unusual beauty and the increased animation of Katharine Guyon that night, and formed a truer estimate of its origin. This was Lady Henmarsh. She made certain observations, drew certain conclusions, and determined on a line of conduct which will develop itself in the course of events.

And Robert? Well, Robert had his chat and his cigar with Mr. Guyon, and then he went home--home to the house which he had never before thought vulgar or insignificant, which he had never thought about at all indeed, and which was in truth much more solidly comfortable than the gaudier abode which had suddenly been converted into a shrine to his fancy. He shrunk from it now as he thought, "I wonder what she would say to this, and our mode of life here?" and he returned the old nurse's greeting with grudging ill-humour, being inclined to resent her sitting up for him, though it was not an abnormally late hour, and her opening the door for him, which, though not her business, was, as he well knew, her pleasure.

"Any news, nurse? any letters?" he asked, in a tone wholly devoid of interest in the reply.

"No, Master Robert," said the old woman; "there's no letters, and there's nobody been but Miss Hester Gould, a-wantin' to know when Miss Ellen's comin' home."

[CHAPTER IV.]

MR. GUYON'S FRIEND.

The astonishment of Mr. Guyon at the liberal treatment which he had received at the hands of his new creditor was by no means feigned. That worthy gentleman, in the course of a long career of impecuniosity, had become acquainted with all the various plans of all the leading discounters of the city of London; knew what he called their "whole bag of tricks;" understood the different ways of getting time or obtaining renewal, according to the various idiosyncrasies of the holders of his stamped paper; and gave to the subject an amount of talent, industry, and attention which, otherwise employed, might have brought him in a very fair income. A very fair income was not a thing to be despised by a gentleman in Mr. Guyon's position, whose actually reliable income was represented by one figure, and that a round one. A sum of five thousand pounds indeed stood in the Consols in Edward Guyon's name; but on that pleasantly-sounding amount was laid a distringas, a horrible legal instrument preventing its withdrawal by the said Edward Guyon, while the annual interest, which would at least have kept him in cigars and gloves, found its way into the clutches of Messrs. Sharkey and Maw, attorneys-at-law, who had a few years previously advanced a sufficient sum to free Mr. Guyon from an unpleasant incarceration in the Queen's Bench, leaving him a few pounds over to convey himself to the Newmarket Spring Meeting, whither he proceeded immediately on his release. All that pleasant estate known as Bedingfield, in the county of Cheshire, with its three thousand acres of arable land, its salt- and coal-mines, its since-made railway bit, its punctually-paying tenant, and its various sources of revenue; which belonged to the Honourable Piers Rankley, and which every one thought he would bequeath to his cousin, Edward Guyon, had been left to a distant relative of Piers Rankley's childless dead wife, one Jacob Long, a member of the Plymouth Brethren, and originally a hide-dresser in Bermondsey, who under the influence of qualms of conscience agreed to allow his reprobate connection Edward Guyon a sum of a thousand a-year, "at his pleasure." It had been a matter of acute annoyance to Ned Guyon that he had no legal claim or hold on this allowance; so that it was impossible for him to mortgage or anticipate it in any way, save by a three months' acceptance for the amount of the quarterly instalment--less commission and discount--payable on the day that instalment was due; but in reality it enabled him to pay renewal fees, to have occasional ready-money for certain menus plaisirs of his own and little treats for Kate, and to give such an air of respectability as it possessed to that old house in Queen Anne Street, the lease of which, with its dingy furniture and ten pounds for a mourning ring, had been his sole legacy from Piers Rankley.

But no income, however fair, would have tempted Mr. Guyon to undertake any honest work, or, as he phrased it, any "d--d low ungentlemanlike slavery;" and the consequence was that, what with an accumulation of gambling-table (he was a member of the Nob and Heels Club, where they play whist for twenty-four hours at a sitting, pound points and a tenner on the rub) and turf debts, he was just at the time of his introduction into this story in a really desperate condition. It had been an unlucky season with him. His racing information had been bad throughout. Commencing ill last Chester, he had been hard hit at Epsom, had dropped more money at Ascot, and could only pull off a stake at the coming Doncaster by a most unlikely fluke. He had had frightful ill-luck at cards. Acknowledged to be one of the best whist-players of the day, he had scarcely held a trump since the winter, and had been beaten by the merest tyros. That very acceptance, which his new acquaintance Streightley held, had been given to Davidson for a card debt; and Guyon had forgotten all about it, having, contrary to his usual custom, omitted to enter it in his book. However, that was staved off for the present; and the few words which he had had with his daughter on the subject had opened a new well-spring of life in Mr. Guyon's breast. If what Kate surmised, or rather half hinted at, were true--and, with all her pride and wilfulness, she had wonderful common-sense and shrewdness--it might, with judicious management, be turned to wondrous advantage. It was but in embryo yet, to be sure; but, with Kate's beauty and his own tact, it could be brought off at any moment, and the value of it would be--well, he would see at once what the value of it would be by representing it as a certainty to his chief creditor and principal discount-agent, Mr. Daniel Thacker.

Who was Mr. Daniel Thacker? If you had been heir to an entailed estate, with as large a taste for pleasure and as limited resources as such heirs usually possess; if you had been an officer in either of the Guards regiments, or any of the crack corps; if you had been a member of any of the West-end government offices, with fast tendencies; or an author; or an actor frequenting fast society; or a theatrical manager; or a pretty coryphée fond of suppers and admiration,--you would not have had to ask the question; for without doubt you would have possessed Mr. Thacker's acquaintance. A man combining the sharpest practice (in a gentlemanly way) as a bill-discounter with the keenest pursuit of pleasure of a strong, full-flavoured, not to say of a gross kind, was Mr. Thacker. A man who made cent per cent of his money by judicious investment, and who at the same time "parted" freely; living in capital chambers in St. James's Street, keeping horses and carriages, entertaining frequently and well, having an Opera-stall for himself and frequently an Opera-box for a female friend, visiting the theatres, riding to hounds, and carrying out every thing he attempted in very excellent style. Life seemed a broad and pleasantly-turfed path for Mr. Daniel Thacker, down which he could stroll in his easy polished boots without the smallest stumbling-block to cause him annoyance. But there was one thing which wrung and chafed him, which he could never shut out from his happiest hour, which proclaimed itself whenever he looked in the glass (which was not seldom), which lay like a hideous pitfall for Mr. Thacker's friends, into which they were perpetually tumbling and coming out covered with inarticulate excuses, which pointed the sarcasm of little boys in the streets at first overwhelmed by his splendour, and edged the repartee of insolent cabmen, to whom he called to clear the way for his high-stepping steeds,--a fact which nothing could hide, a brand which no money could obliterate;--Mr. Daniel Thacker was an unmistakable Jew. Unmistakable! as unmistakable as if he had retained his old family name of Hart; as if he had remained in his old family neighbourhood of St. Mary Axe; as if he had continued his old family occupation of contracting with the government for the supply of rum and lemons for the navy, and uniforms for the postmen. In that choice neighbourhood, and out of those apparently not very meaty contracts, had old Simeon Hart, Daniel's uncle, made all the wealth which he bequeathed to his nephew; and when, long before the old gentleman's decease, the young man's aspirations led him to declare to his senior that he thought the Hebraic name stood in their way in certain matters of business, and that he had some idea of taking some less-recognisable cognomen,--the old gentleman remarked, not without a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "Do ath you like, Daniel, ma tear; do ath you like. You're a threwd lad, and are thure to turn out right; but underthand one thing, ma tear,--you may change your name if you like, but you'll never be able to change your nothe." Mr. Simeon Hart was right; nothing short of cutting off that feature could have disguised Mr. Daniel Thacker's nationality. He was as distinctly marked as is the African; and though, with the addition of splendid sparkling black eyes, bright scarlet lips, a quantity of tightly-curling hair, and a fine flowing beard, he passed for a handsome man among certain of the other sex, there was no man to whom he had ever rendered a service--and he was in the main a kindly-disposed fellow so far as his profession permitted--but set him down for a "d--d Jew."

He never forgot this, it was never absent from his thoughts. If he saw any one regarding him attentively, he felt at once what they were thinking about; it haunted him in the theatre, in society, wherever there was a chance of casual mention of his forsworn race. He had tried to laugh it over in his business discount-dealings with money-borrowers, asking them in a light and airy manner "why they came to the Jews," of whom they must have had such serious warnings: but the raillery always fell flat and heavy; and sometimes, from cubs of fashion, produced unintentional clumsy sarcasms which stung him to the quick. The renegade paid the penalty of his cowardice. With the blunted notions of an unrefined mind, he thought that the prejudice was levelled at his race, not at the character which the dealings of some of his nation had won for it, and which he himself was supporting. In his blindness he ignored the fact that amongst all those whose good word was worth having, the prejudice had died out; that the names of certain proud old Jewish families, who could trace their pedigree far beyond the barber-surgeon or border-robber founders of Norman or Scottish families, were honoured amongst the honoured; and that in any case a man who, brought into contact with a set socially superior to his own, took up his position calmly on the strength of his own acquirements, be these what they might, was received with a courtesy and a kindness which were naturally refused to the most glowing impostor. With Mr. Guyon Thacker had long had extensive dealings--dealings which had extended over a long course of years; but of late he had been a little doubtful of his client's solvency, a little delicate in the matter of renewals and holdings-over; and with a clouded brow he heard from his clerk the announcement that Mr. Guyon was waiting to see him in the ante-room. He reflected for a moment, and seemed half disposed to deny himself to his visitor; then carefully shutting the right-hand drawer of his desk, in which he kept his checkbook, and placing the morocco-bound volume, which was a ledger, but looked like a diary, close by him, he said, "Show Mr. Guyon in, James; I've just five minutes at his disposal."

Dressed in the most perfect manner, with all the latest improvements of fashion sufficiently tempered to his time of life, calm, collected, bland, and airy, yet with a certain amount of anxiety visible about his eyes and in the shifting corners of his mouth, Mr. Guyon entered the apartment and shook hands warmly with his friend.

Mr. Thacker received him civilly but not cordially, and expressed his hope that he saw Mr. Guyon well.

"Thanks, my dear Thacker," said that sprightly gentleman; "I think I may say, never in better case. I was getting a little pulled with the gaieties of the season--we old fellows can't carry it through like you young ones, you know--and I was, to tell truth, knocking up a bit; but last week I went down for a couple of days to Maidenhead--Orkney Arms, Skindle's, you know--where there was a particularly jolly party, all of them friends of yours, by the way,--Bob Affington and Adèle, and Dalrymple and O'Dwyer, and Hattenheim and the Marchesa--a droll lot of people of the right sort--and we had great fun; and it quite set me up. Every body said they wished you'd been down there."

"Every body's very good," replied Thacker, sufficiently grimly. He hated hearing of any pleasure which he had not shared. "Every body's very good; but every body seems to forget that I've my business to attend to."

"Business, my dear boy," said Mr. Guyon, stretching out his legs and clasping his lavender-gloves in front of him; "and have we not all business to transact? I know, for one, that my time is nearly entirely devoted to business. Case in point, what brings me here to-day?"

"That's exactly what I can't understand," said Thacker with a rather sardonic smile; "if it had been this day week," he continued, referring to his ledger, "I should have known at once; because on that day your acceptance for three hundred and fifty pounds falls due, and you would have come down to take it up."

"Or to get you to renew," said Guyon insinuatingly.

"O, in that case you would have wasted your visit," replied Thacker; "that bill has been renewed once, and it is the rule of my house, as you know very well, never to do these things a second time."

He looked more than serious as he said this; but Mr. Guyon met his frown with a cheery laugh, and said in his most off-hand manner, "Well, my dear fellow, then it will be paid. Gad! you look as black as though thirty thousand instead of three hundred pounds were coming due from me next week. It's not for three hundred pounds that Ned Guyon, who has weathered one or two storms in his time, is going to pieces."

"N-no," said Thacker slowly; "but you see, though only three hundred and fifty are due next week, I hold a great deal of your paper, Mr. Guyon, in addition to other mortgages and advances on securities impossible to realise at once, and altogether I--in fact I----"

"Don't hesitate, sir," said Mr. Guyon, rising with a flushed face and buttoning the lavender glove with a trembling hand, "don't make any favour of it, I beg. It's been a pure matter of business hitherto, Mr. Thacker--a pure matter of business, convenient to both of us, though I'm sure out of respect for you I've endeavoured to import a friendly element into our negotiations; a friendly element which, I may say, and indeed was one of the causes of my visit to you to-day; which might have been the means of--however, since you choose to look upon Ned Guyon with suspicion, Ned Guyon wishes you good morning." And Mr. Guyon settled his hat on his head, and was starting off in his usual easy swagger when he was stopped by the touch of Mr. Thacker's hand on his arm.

"Stay one minute, my good sir. Don't misunderstand me, if you please. I simply tell you that an acceptance of yours will be due next week, an acceptance which you avow your perfect readiness to meet, and you talk about my looking on you with suspicion. I am perfectly ready to allow that our relations have been of a business nature; but I thought that I might take credit for having introduced into them some of the elements of private friendship. You have done me the honour of dining with me, and----"

"I have," murmured Guyon absently; "and doosid good dinners they were."

"And yet you talk about suspicion. This is not fair, Mr. Guyon; this is any thing but fair."

"'Pon my soul, I didn't mean any harm; didn't, 'pon my life," said Mr. Gluon; "always found you doosid good fellow, Thacker, and that kind of thing----"

"And yet you were going away without telling me of something which, if I understand you rightly, might be to our mutual benefit, and which you came down expressly to submit to me? Is that so?"

"Dev'lish stoopid and childish of me to take affront so easily, more particklerly from good feller," said Mr. Guyon. "Yes, I did want to say word to you upon matter of importance.--matter on which I think you'll congratulate me."

"Sit down quietly, then, and let's talk it over.--The dry sherry, Evans, and a biscuit.--Any thing which benefits you interests me, Mr. Guyon--though all between us is 'pure matter of business,' eh? O, unkind, sir; very unkind!"

"There! forget that, Thacker, and listen to what I've got to tell you. You know my daughter,--at least you've seen her," added Mr. Guyon, with a rather painful recollection of several broad hints which Thacker had given of his wish for an introduction to Katharine--hints which Mr. Guyon had always carefully ignored.

"I have seen Miss Guyon," was the cold reply.

"Yes, of course, yes. Strange girl, very reserved, and--afraid of society."

"Indeed?"

"O very been a great drawback to her; but at last she has consented to come out, and--well, I don't know that I ought to say it to any one, but you're a man not likely to break confidence--she's going to make a splendid match."

"A splendid match, eh? A title?"

"A title? Pooh much better than that! A millionaire! one of the merchant princes of the City! A man whose name is good on 'Change for I don't know how much. What do you say to that, Thacker? Ned Guyon's in luck at last, eh?"

"It sounds very well, so far," said Mr. Thacker quietly, "Might one venture to ask the name of the modern Croesus?"

"To any one else I should decline, peremptorily decline to give it; but it's different with you, Thacker; you're an old friend. The gentleman's name is Streightley--of the firm of Streightley and Son."

"Is it, by Jove!" cried Mr. Thacker, startled out of his usual quiescence. "Bullion Lane?--I know him well--by repute, that is to say, not personally. If you've hooked--I beg your pardon--if Mr. Streightley is going to marry Miss Guyon, you've done a splendid stroke of business."

"You think so?"

"Think so--I'm sure of it. They say that there's no more far-seeing man in the City, and his profits must be tre-mendous."

"Well, that's the man. Now look here, Thacker, I'm open and aboveboard with you, as two men of the world, or rather two men of honour. Not the same thing, eh?" and the old man's eye twinkled; "should be. This thing is well on, a little more will bring it to completion. One mustn't, as they say, spoil the ship for a pennor'th of tar, eh? One mustn't let a fine chance slip through one's fingers for want of a little gold-dust to put on one's hands to render the grip secure, eh?"

"I see your drift," said Thacker; "but you must speak more plainly."

"More plainly to you?" said Mr. Guyon in a whisper--unconsciously each man had lowered his voice. "Well, what I mean is this. If this scheme turns out well, as it will undoubtedly, if it be only properly carried out,--well--Katharine is devoted to me, she will rule her husband--O, never fear, she has the spirit of a dozen women!--and I shall be in clover once more, with all my arrears cleared off, and a handsome annuity! But the thing must be properly managed. Streightley must not take fright at any aspect of poverty, or want of means rather; he must not for an instant imagine that I am in any way hampered" (the thought of the 180l. bill flashed across him, but he never changed countenance); "and he must be properly entertained; and Katharine must have a proper trousseau. He's not the man to speak about settlements," added Mr. Guyon; "and if he did, he must be told that there would be nothing until my death."

"And how is 'the thing to be properly managed,' and all the rest of it done?"

"I only know one way--and that is----"

"Speak out; you're not generally reticent on the score of modesty, Mr. Guyon."

"Well--that is--by you're holding over the three hundred and fifty due next week, and making me a further advance of--say a thousand, payable three months after my daughter's wedding-day."

Mr. Thacker was silent for a few minutes, nor could Mr. Guyon, intently scanning his face, derive the smallest idea from its expression. Then he made a few rapid calculations on the blotting-pad in front of him, and said:

"You play for a big stake, Mr. Guyon, and don't stick at asking trifles from your friends. Now, I like a big game; it at once invests any scheme with an interest for me which I cannot give to mere pottering petty hazards. And I don't say that I won't help you in this--on certain terms--only----"

"Your terms will be your own, my good fellow," cried Guyon, his eye sparkling at the thought of success. "But I don't like that 'only.' What is it? Only what?"

"Only that I should like to be introduced to Mr. Streightley, and have a little talk with him; of course not on the subject under consideration, but on general topics, just to get an idea of him, you know. It's a large sum to advance, in addition to outstanding matters; and I'm a man of business, you know, Guyon, and like to see my way in these things."

"All right. Come down with me to the City, and we'll hunt him up in his den."

"No; I think not. We business-men don't like being hunted up in our dens, as you call them, unless our visitors bring us a carcass or two to growl over. You go over and see Streightley, and bring him here to lunch to-morrow at two. I leave you to find the excuse; your ready wit serves you always in such matters."

There was a tinge of sarcasm in Mr. Thacker's voice as he uttered these last words, but Mr. Guyon was in far too excited a state to perceive it. So he took his leave with much exuberant hand-shaking, and started off with much self-complacency. After his departure Mr. Thacker sat for some little time, leaning his head on his hands and his elbows on the desk, immersed in thought. "He's an unscrupulous vagabond, is Guyon!" said he to himself after a pause. "He's going to sell that handsome daughter of his, as he would a bit of land, or a diamond-ring, or a reversion under a will, or any thing that would bring him money. A determined heartless dog! But he seems to have either played his cards well or to have had great luck in hooking so big a fish as Streightley. Robert Streightley! Yes, yes; they say he pulled the Ocean Marine through when Overend Gurneys had given them up and the knowing ones looked for an immediate windup, and now their shares are at 13 premium, and there are no end of the clever things he's done. He might be useful to me, might put me up to two or three wrinkles in the City, where all is big and where one's own natural talent has some chance of showing itself. Hitherto I've been pottering on with hard-up swells, and men of the Guyon stamp--safe business enough, and remunerative so far as it goes; pleasant too in its introductions to good people; but I know enough people now, and must look to making money as the chief thing. And this Streightley is the very man who could help me in such a matter. If I now see him, I'll back myself to read him like a book, and then I'll see how far this investment of Guyon's is worth my backing."

A telegram found by Mr. Thacker on his arrival at business the next morning announced that Mr. Guyon and Mr. Streightley would lunch with him that day; and at two o'clock the meal was on the table and the convives were assembled. In addition to Guyon, Streightley, and the host, there were Lord Bollindar, a pleasant old nobleman, younger brother of a deceased and uncle to a live duke, who had a limited income of two hundred a-year and lived at the rate of two thousand--never owing a penny--on the strength of the handles to his name and a perennial flow of small talk; Sir Harvey Falmer, a lieutenant in the 2d Life Guards, who had dealings with Mr. Thacker, and who was kept to lunch on the strength of a recently negotiated bill; Mr. Wuff of the Theatre Royal, Hatton Garden; and Mr. Tocsin, Q.C., the celebrated Old Bailey barrister. The lunch was admirable in itself and admirably served; and after the champagne had circulated freely, the conversation, which at first had been rather slow, improved considerably.

"Doosid good champagne!" said Sir Harvey Falmer, tossing off his glassful; "that's what I always say about you, Thacker; when you give a man a drink, it's a good drink, and you give it him; don't stick it in--swipes and gooseberry, you know--as part of your balance."

Mr. Thacker smiled somewhat ghastlily at this witticism; but Lord Bollindar came to the rescue by saying, "Good, good! devilish smart, Falmer! but you fellas are in clover now. Why, I reckleckt the Dook--you reckleckt the Dook, Mr. Streightley?"

"I--I beg your pardon--the Duke?"

"Dook of Wellington I mean. He used to say, 'Hang your still champagne!'--only his Grace used a stronger term--'Hang your still champagne! Champagne without froth is like man without woman!' Said so indeed, begad!"

"Did he indeed?" said Mr. Tocsin in his strident voice: "I should have liked to have had his Grace under cross-examination to prove that."

"I don't think you'd have made much of him, Tocsin," said Mr. Thacker, "What do you think, Mr. Streightley?"

"I? I can't say, of course, so far as my knowledge of his Grace was concerned; but I'm sure--that--the presence of ladies elevates--and refines--and----"

"Of course it does," cried Mr. Wuff. "Put on a fellow--I mean a male fellow--to dance, and see where you are. Patron of mine--noble lord who shall be nameless--said to me the other night, 'Never again, Wuff; never again. Many petticoats as you like; but if ever I see again a fellow in a low-necked dress with grapes in his hair dancing at your theatre, damme, I leave the house.'"

"The sentiment did him honour, whoever he was," said Mr. Tocsin. "I don't want to pry into your secrets, Wuff, but the man was right, and spoke like--a man. What is it nerves to our best efforts? What is it makes us exert ourselves? Not the thought of the jury--I speak for myself--not the thought that we are--are--bending the minds of a few stupid men in--in a box; but the feeling that we are looked up to and gaining renown in the eyes of--of--those bright eyes which we wish to shine in delight upon our labours."

"Bravo!" cried Sir Harvey Falmer, who was rapidly falling into a maudlin state.

"Look at our friend here," said Lord Bollindar, pointing to Streightley; "one of--as I'm given to understand; never had the pleasure of meeting him before--pillars of British commerce. Ask him what prompts his men--Jack Tars and all that kind of thing--to brave storms and billows and typhoons, and whatever they're called, and carry British commerce from pole to pole. Is it the mere paltry gain, wages, advance-rate, whatever it is? No; the poet, what's his name?--Dibdin--has told us different: Jack's delight is lovely Nan,--And the wind that blows,--And mill that goes,--And lass that loves a sailor--and all that."

"There can, I think," said Streightley, "be little doubt that the influence of a--a wife--can scarcely be overrated. I--I think," he added in a lower tone to Mr. Guyon, who was his next neighbour, "that I've not sufficiently appreciated feminine influence; but that is a fault which can be remedied, eh?" And he said this rather nervously.

"To a man with your advantages, my dear boy," said Guyon, "delay, instead of being dangerous, has been, I may say, a safeguard. I was making this very remark--for, curiously enough, I've taken a strong interest in you--to my daughter this morning, and she perfectly agreed with me."

This for a sample of the conversation. When his guests had gone, Mr. Thacker stood looking at but not seeing the débris of the banquet. He was calmly feeling his chin with his hand, and saying to himself, "So far so good. The man is weak as water, and seems inclined to mould himself as old Guyon pleases. But I must have a look at the girl before I throw myself into the scales."

[CHAPTER V.]

HESTER GOULD.

"No one but Miss Hester Gould," the old nurse had answered, in reply to Robert Streightley's question; and he had never bestowed a thought upon the answer. What was Hester Gould to him, or he to Hester Gould? To the first section of this inquiry the present chapter will furnish a reply; to the second, time only; time, just then busy with the beginning of many complications in the life of a man whose career had been singularly even, uneventful, and interesting only so far as it had developed his abilities and the results of their employment.

The young lady, whose brief parley with Alice had simply consisted of the words reported to her master and darling by the old nurse, had known the unpretending little family at Brixton for several years, and had been, for the chief of that number, intimate with Mrs. Streightley and her daughter Ellen. This intimacy, however, was one-sided; Hester Gould was completely in the harmless and unimportant confidence of the two ladies, but they were not in hers. This was no treacherous, insidious distinction, no deliberate preference of other friends, on Hester Gould's part; for she was a woman who gave her confidence to no one; a woman of a self-sufficing nature, and the safest possible confidante, because she never felt sufficiently interested in any one person to betray another for his or her sake. No one could justly accuse Hester Gould of flattery or fawning, yet she induced her acquaintances to conceive enthusiastic friendships for her, and to tell her their most intimate concerns, to discover that she was indispensable to their comfort, and the dearest creature in the world; to declare that they did not know what they should do without her, and that her advice was always the best. How did the girl, without descending to the despicable meanness of toadyism, achieve popularity in her narrow sphere, though she was undeniably handsome, and that too after a fashion that was capable of development into downright beauty of a high type, if circumstances had been more favourable to her? She achieved it by "masterly inactivity." Whether she had thought over the life that lay before her, had formed a philosophy of her own, and decided upon a line of conduct as the result of her meditations, before she left the second-rate boarding-school at Peckham, where she had acquired all the technical education she possessed, it would be impossible to say, and the supposition that she had done so appears unnatural and far-fetched. It was probably partly by the instinct of native shrewdness, and partly by the exercise of precocious powers of observation, that Hester Gould discovered that the great art of making herself agreeable consisted in letting her friends talk to her of themselves, without claiming a reciprocal right. However that may have been, she observed as a rule strict reticence concerning her own affairs, and endured with smiling patience, paying her friends that subtlest of compliments, undivided attention; and displaying interest, which if not demonstrative was practical, in the fullest details concerning theirs. She was of a cold, silent, repressed nature, not exactly unamiable or false; but a woman who might become either under circumstances more disadvantageous than hers were at present, or might expand under favourable and fostering influences into a higher type of womanhood than she either physically or intellectually indicated now.

Hester Gould was a handsome woman at twenty, a period of life which she had reached only a few days before that on which she had made affectionate inquiries for Ellen Streightley; but she would probably be a handsomer woman at thirty, and if she then fulfilled the latent promise of beauty, would have a fair chance of retaining it long past the period at which the loveliness of women, in all but very exceptional cases, ceases to be a fact, and becomes a memory. She was tall and full-formed; but as yet she wanted gracefulness. She had handsome features and fine keen dark eyes; but her face had not sufficient colour, and her eyes had too little depth; they lacked intensity; not that they were shifty and uncertain, but that they bore the vague, absent expression which tells of discontent, not particular but general. Looking attentively at Hester Gould, one given to studying character in faces would know that there was incongruity between the actual and the potential position of the girl. Without restlessness, without impatience, always ruled by common sense, she seemed to be a person who had something in view, which if not a firm resolve, was at least a cherished purpose. The tenor of her life was even and simple enough, and there was nothing remarkable in her history. Her parents had been plain people: her father, secretary to an old-established insurance office, had patronised the concern to the extent of securing a decent sum for the maintenance of his sister and only child. Her mother, who had "disobliged her family," as the phrase is, by her marriage, had died when Hester was a baby; and the only member of the disobliged family now living was a wealthy shipowner, who had declined to take any notice of the sister who had disgraced herself by wedding a poor man. Mr. Gould came of parents quite as well-born as his wife's: they were all of the respectable tradesman class; but their standard was one of money value, and he did not come up to it. They might have helped him to approach it, without inconveniencing themselves; but they did not consider or care about that, and the breach had been complete; indeed it had soon become irremediable; for Mrs. Gould had survived her marriage only four years, and had died, taking her infant son with her away from all family quarrels and human affairs. Hester grew up, under the kindly, timid, narrow-minded charge of her aunt; a meek spinster given to the perusal and distribution of tracts, and to the frequentation of meeting-houses where the doctrine was strong and the preaching unctuous. The child became "too much" for her timid aunt and her depressed father at an early period of her existence, and even rebelled against the vicarious authority of Miss Gould's favourite "ministers;" so she was sent to school, and there also she gave no little trouble for a time. But common sense was always Hester's strong point; and it came to her assistance. School was far from pleasant, she reflected, but home was worse; and as she had no power to provide herself with a third alternative at present, she would abide by the lesser of two evils, and turn it to all the advantage she could. The result of this rational conclusion was that Hester Gould profited to the utmost by the limited quantity and mediocre quality of the education administered at Laburnum Lodge, and acquired at least a foundation on which to build afterwards according to her taste.

The discretion evinced by the schoolgirl was a clue to her character. No one was more popular among the small and far from distinguished community; but only the girls whose social position was a little higher than her own could claim Hester as an intimate friend. The gushing nonsense of school friendships had little attraction for her, and she contracted none that she did not contemplate maintaining when the association which had produced them should have ceased. Hester was not brilliantly clever, there was not the least soupçon of genius about her; but she was certainly a superior person in intellect, in manners, and in appearance, to the companions of her studies, the sharers of her school life, in that most unbearable kind of intimacy which means contact without companionship. When she went home for the holidays, things were not much better. She had been fond of her father in a quiet way, though she had taken his intellectual measure pretty accurately, and almost as as soon as she had arrived at the conclusion that their life was on a dull mean scale, had recognised his inability to elevate or enliven it.

"We should grub on like this all our lives, if it depended on him," the girl had said to herself in emphatic, if not elegant soliloquy; and there had been no wilful disrespect to the honest, humdrum, unobservant father in the remark, only Hester's unclouded perception and resolute custom of telling herself the truth. When she was a little over fifteen years old her father died, and she had to endure, in addition to her natural grief, which was unfeigned and sore, a declension in position, and a narrowing of the narrow income, which at its best she had regarded with impatience, very keen though never expressed, or permitted to escape her by so much as a gesture. Her aunt moved into a smaller house in an inferior situation, discharged one of the two female servants who had composed their modest establishment, and told Hester she hoped she had profited sufficiently by her music and singing lessons to go on without a master, for she could no longer afford to continue them.

Hester bore the alteration with apparent equanimity, but she took a resolution and acted upon it. She was a musician by nature, and music was the one branch of study to which she had taken with avidity, and which she had pursued with unrelaxed industry. She went to the schoolmistress (the establishment had not yet attained to the distinction of possessing a "lady principal"), and asked her to put her in the immediately-to-be-vacated place of a pupil-teacher, allowing her to continue her own music and singing lessons as an equivalent for her services. The proposition took Miss Nickson by surprise; but she knew Hester Gould's abilities and popularity, and though she did not like the girl particularly, she trusted her fully. It never occurred to the schoolmistress--a simple woman, and a favourable specimen of a generally disagreeable class--that Hester had not made the proposition at her aunt's suggestion, while that young lady contented herself with informing Miss Lavinia Gould by letter of what she had done. "I don't lose caste by it here, where they all know me and I have been on equal terms with them," thought Hester; "and my only chance of getting out of our odious mean existence is by making all I can of such education as I can get. I shall have to teach anyhow, and I can fit myself for teaching a better class of people here." It was not a stupid calculation for so young a head, and it turned out perfectly correct. Hester did not lose caste when her schoolfellows became her pupils, and her teachers in their turn took additional pains with her when they knew the object with which she was learning.

Among Hester's intimates for several of her school years was Ellen Streightley, a girl who loved and worshipped one who was in most respects her opposite with a kind of enthusiasm not rare among unworldly natures, in which the intellect is much less powerful than the feelings. The boarding-school at Peckham was not altogether such an establishment as Miss Streightley should have been kept at beyond the period of primary instruction; but her mother was a shy, gentle, unworldly woman, who did not understand any thing about social ambition, and provided she found her daughter brought up in sound morals and good manners would not have considered for a moment whether her associates were of a higher class than her own, or came of richer or poorer people. Mrs. Streightley had never changed her mode of life in accordance with her increased means; she had but a narrow circle, which was, however, quite satisfactory to her, and she regarded the commercial and financial magnates with whom her son associated on the rare occasions of his "going into society," as completely out of the sphere of herself and her daughter. This daughter was very dear to her; a tranquil, gentle, congenial companion, a child who had never given her an hour's true anxiety in her life, and had even had the measles and the whooping-cough much more lightly and favourably than other children. Ellen Streightley was short, slight, and extremely fair. She was not exactly pretty, but the calm sweetness of her face was very winning, and the perfect candour and gentleness which sat upon her smooth forehead and looked out of her full blue eyes had an unwearying charm for those who knew how true these indications were of the mind and heart within. Ellen Streightley loved her mother and her brother Robert with all the devotion and dutifulness of her nature; but Hester Gould she loved with enthusiasm in addition. From the first Hester's strong mind had charmed and swayed her, and the imagination of the girl, not very vivid and but rarely awakened, had surrounded her with a halo of its weaving. Had Hester's moral nature been much or openly defective, she never would have won this tribute of love and worship from Ellen Streightley, who had good sense to come in aid of her high principle, and her perfect purity of heart, but who succumbed to the superiority of Hester with a delighted submission. When they were children together, Hester's word had been the other's law, and had any thing been needed to perfect her love and admiration, Hester's conduct in voluntarily assuming the position of pupil-teacher in order that her aunt might suffer as little as possible from their narrow circumstances would have supplied their complement. There was no falsehood in this statement, made by Hester to her friend. It was quite true, only it was not the whole of her motive, but a part, and not the chief part of it.

And Hester--what was her share in this strict and loving alliance? Decidedly she liked Ellen Streightley very much, and she prized highly, without comprehending it altogether, the enthusiastic affection of which she was the object, the unreserved confidence of which she was the recipient. She liked the Saturdays and Sundays which she passed at Mrs. Streightley's house at Brixton, when Ellen's schooldays had come to a conclusion, and her friend coaxed Miss Lavinia Gould to spare Hester to her; a request that lady did not hesitate to grant, as she had very little need of her niece's society; her "Sabbaths," as she punctiliously called them, being passed in hot untiring chase of popular preachers, according to her notions of popularity and estimate of preachers. She declined to join the family party on Sundays, firstly on Sabbatarian principles, secondly because the Streightleys were "Church of England," and she hated that persuasion only a little less than the Roman Communion, and the opposition chapel which set itself against the ministrations of her own particular pastor and saint, the Rev. Malachy Farrell, a powerful controversialist, and a convert from the Romish heresy and abomination of desolation. Ellen had enjoined her mother to exert herself to "make a connection" for Hester, when her days of pupil-teachership came to a conclusion; that lady had obediently exerted herself; Miss Nickson had done as much for the girl, with whom she had never had occasion to find a fault, but who, she rather remorsefully admitted to herself, had never "gained on her" in all the years of their association; and Hester, at twenty years old, when we meet her first, was established as a teacher of music, with a respectable connection, and occupied with her aunt a pretty small house near the Brixton Villa, which, in elegance and habitableness was a considerable improvement on that in which her father had lived and died.

Ellen Streightley had never cooled or wavered in her love for Hester; and her mother liked the girl very much, though she sometimes had an uncomfortable sort of feeling that she did not understand her perfectly, that Hester might perhaps be "too much" for her and Ellen, if she should think it worth her while to be so. But the kind lady was little given to mental exercises of any troublesome description, and never thought of analysing her sensations. That she was an exceptional person, singularly unsuspicious, and unlike mothers in general, may surely be conceded, when it is stated that it never occurred to her to think that Hester might possibly be a dangerous intimate for Robert, her beloved and precious son, or could cherish any design or idea whereof he made part. Mrs. Streightley loved her son better than she loved Ellen; a preference which the girl accepted as a matter of course, and believed to be perfectly just and well founded. He was Robert, their Robert, the most important, the most beloved of men, and of course it was all right; and the two women did but follow the example of thousands of their sex, whose perceptions and ideas are confined within a small circle, and whose social sphere and enjoyments resemble a mill, and the going round therein performed by patient and tolerably well-fed beasts. Robert was an amiable man on the whole; he gave no more trouble in the household than was inseparable from the circumstance that he was a man and "didn't understand things," as the household phrase has it, and he loved his mother devotedly, and Ellen very much indeed. It had never occurred to him that her life was a dull one, and that he was rich enough to make it a very different life, if he would but waken up and look away from his counting-house, learn sympathy, and consider what was the real meaning and worth of money. He had never thought of the light and colour, the stir and healthful pleasure he might diffuse through the decorous, comfortable, neutral-tinted existence of the Brixton Villa; he had never noticed their absence; and as he had no notion of the life led by other girls, on whom money was lavishly expended, and for whose delectation whole household systems were organised, there was no standard of comparison in his mind. He was so much older than his sister, so much nearer his mother's age than hers, that while perfect affection had always subsisted between them, it had not been accompanied with much intimacy, and his confidences, which were wholly confined to business matters, had been restricted to his mother, on whose mind it had never dawned that any improvement in their household affairs could be desirable, who had never looked or desired to look outside the circle in which she moved, and who would have received any suggestion of an increase of Ellen's social opportunities and enjoyments with entire incredulity. To her Ellen was as yet little more than a child; and though if he had been asked what was her age, and had paused to think the matter over, Robert would have perceived the absurdity of so regarding a girl of nineteen, by no means childish of her years, though simple and unworldly as few children are in these progressive days, he practically shared her delusion.

Robert was almost as much accustomed to see Hester Gould as he was to see Ellen. The girls were together as much as possible, due consideration being had to Hester's occupations, and the social duties and privileges of her "connection," which she never neglected. She led an infinitely pleasanter life than did Ellen; for she was very popular among her pupils, and many of their number contrived to extend to her their own amusements and pleasures. She had not much leisure, but she was under no painful necessity to overwork herself; her occupation need never degenerate into slavery, and such hours as she could devote to recreation she could always find recreation to fill. She possessed perfect health and an even temper; not according to the cynical saying, "A good digestion and a bad heart,"--not yet, at least. Up to the present time nothing in Hester's conduct had indicated badness of heart; a little coldness perhaps, but unperceived, and resolution whose inflexibility might have been suspected, but that her resolves had all been in the direction of right and duty. If any body had asked Robert Streightley whether he was acquainted with Miss Hester Gould, he would have unhesitatingly replied that he knew her most intimately--as well as his own sister; and he would have made such an answer in perfectly good faith. It would not have been true, nevertheless. If any one had asked Hester Gould whether she knew Robert Streightley, she would have replied that he was an acquaintance of hers, being the brother of one of her dearest friends--(Hester would not have said her "dearest friend," for such a sweeping phrase might have been repeated to her detriment); and she would have said it in a tone calculated to convince the questioner that her acquaintance with Mr. Streightley was of the most formal and conventional kind. In this instance the reply would only have had the exterior of truth, for no one in the world--certainly not the man himself--knew Robert Streightley as well, as thoroughly as Hester Gould knew him. Not his sister, who would talk cheerily about her brother, and extol his genius, his temper, and his personal appearance; not his mother, who would tell Hester a dozen times in a week that he had never caused her an hour's anxiety, and who never admitted that he had a fault, except his tiresome-objection to sitting for his photograph; not the old nurse, who would scold Robert freely enough herself, but in whose hearing no one would have had the boldness to declare him subject to the faults, the misfortunes, or the maladies of humanity. It was a fortunate circumstance that Hester Gould had perfectly read Robert Streightley's character, and had, without any thing like impertinent inquisitiveness, acquired a thorough knowledge of the family history and his personal antecedents; for, some time before the period of her friend's visit to Yorkshire, Hester Gould had made up her mind that she would marry Robert Streightley if possible, and Ellen's last letter had induced her to think of doing so at an earlier period than she had previously contemplated.

"I don't know that Ellen's marriage will not be the best thing that could possibly happen for me," said Hester to herself as she walked briskly away from Robert Streightley's house, after her parley with old Alice. "Of course her brother won't oppose it,--though the girl is a greater fool than I thought her, to marry a man with no greater ambition than to spend his life among filthy savages, teaching them a religion entirely unsuitable to their condition of life and status in creation. I hope they won't eat him--at least I hope they won't eat her; but she will be better away--I should never succeed in curing her of Brixton ways, and she has really no tastes to be developed. It will be a good opportunity, when she will be divided between love for her Decimus--what a name to be in love with!--and distress at leaving her mother, to furnish her with a suggestion concerning a substitute: it must come entirely from her, of course."

Thus thinking, Hester Gould reached home. She greeted aunt Lavinia kindly; she was scrupulously dutiful and attentive to her wishes, except in respect to meetings and ministers;--sat down cheerfully to her tea, during which meal she quite enlivened the pensive spinster by her gaiety, and then went to her piano for what she called a "real good practice." Hour after hour she sat there, filling the room and the house with music; and at length she sang, at her aunt's request, the very same song--of a trifling kind, which Hester rather despised, but sang because it was popular--with which Katherine Guyon was at the selfsame hour achieving the "final pulverisation" of Robert Streightley's heart.

[CHAPTER VI.]

IN CHAMBERS.

The summer sun, bright, warm, and cheering, only just past the zenith of his annual glory, illumined the Temple Gardens; still further withering the turf, which had been worn by the promenaders of the season into a very bald and ragged state; gladdening the hearts of country-bred nursemaids with reminiscences of their earlier days, when their virgin hearts were yet untouched by the charms of deceivers in military or police uniforms; loved and cherished by the valetudinarians, poor and old, to whom this city garden was the nearest imitation of God's country which they were able to afford, and who, secluded during the winter in Strand side-street lodging-houses, ventured thither for their daily meed of light and air; glancing merrily on the turbid Thames; and even throwing enlivening glances into the topmost story of the house in Crown-Office Row, which Robert Streightley had visited one memorable night, and wherein one of its joint tenants now sat hard at work.

And indeed, let him come when he might, in his spring weakness, in his summer glory, in his autumn grandeur, in the feeble struggles which he made during winter, the sun would never have found Charles Yeldham in any other condition. Work was his life, his idol. As a very young man, when he first quitted Oxford, he had prayed to be successful in the profession which he had chosen, and which he had gone into heart and soul. He had vowed that if his labours were only rewarded with success, there should be scarcely any end to them; and now, when he had no rival as a conveyancing barrister among his coevals and very few superiors among his seniors, he still kept grinding on. Not intended by nature for such slavery, as you can tell in one glance at his physique, at his broad chest, long sinewy arms and legs, and big white hands; not destitute of an appreciation of fun, as you can see in his bright blue eyes, his large happy mouth, and the deep dimples of his cheeks; what would be generally called a "jolly man," with thick brown curling hair, and a clear skin, and a great hearty laugh, breaking out whenever it had the chance.

Which was not very often. There is nothing very humorous in conveyancing, and in conveyancing Charles Yeldham's life was passed. Gordon Frere, returning from a ball, a supper, or one of his "outings," would hear the roar of Yeldham's shower-bath as he came up the stairs, or would see him, bright and rosy, deep in his books or scratching away with his pen, as he, Frere, with his gibus hat on one side, his collars danced down into a state of limp despondency, and with a faded camellia in his button-hole, peered into the common sitting-room before he crawled to bed. Five in the summer, six in the winter,--these were Charles Yeldham's hours of rising. Then, after his cold bath and his hurried toilette, what he called "treadmill" till eight. A sharp run five times round the Temple Gardens, no matter what the weather, a hurried breakfast--chop, bacon, eggs, what-not, and at it again, "treadmill" till two. Bread-and-cheese, a pint-bottle of Allsopp, a pipe--generally smoked as he leaned out of the window looking on to the river--and "treadmill" till half-past six. Old shooting-coat changed for more presentable garment, hands washed, and Mr. Yeldham walked to the Oxford and Cambridge Club, where he would eat a light dinner, take a very small quantity of wine, and walk back to the Temple to have a final turn of "treadmill" until half-past eleven, when he would turn into bed. He had reduced sleep to a minimum, ascertained that five and a half hours were exactly sufficient for a man, and never wasted a wink.

There was no absolute occasion for Charles Yeldham to slave in this manner; but when he commenced his work he had had a powerful incentive to industry, and he had found the work grow on him until he absolutely took delight in it. He was the only son of the Honourable and Reverend Stratford Yeldham, a cadet of the Aylmer family, who had been content to marry the daughter of the clergyman with whom he read during one long vacation, and afterwards to go into orders and take up the family living in Norfolk. The living was not a very rich one, and Charley, who loved his father after a fashion not very common now amongst young men, and who knew that the old gentleman had somewhat pinched and straitened himself to send his son to college with a proper allowance, had made up his mind not only that all that had been spent on him should be repaid, but that his sister Constance--his own dear little sister--should have such a dowry as would enable her to decline any offer whose advantages were merely pecuniary, and at the same time to bring an adequate income to the man of whom her heart should approve. The hope of accomplishing this end lightened Charles Yeldham's labour, mid kept him at his desk and among his law-books without an idea of repining, generally indeed with a sense of positive pleasure.

He was at his desk that pleasant summer afternoon, when all nature outside was so bright and gay, so deeply engaged, that he paid not the slightest attention to the sound of the key in the outer door, and only looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Gordon Frere standing beside him.

"Grinding away, Charley," said that young gentleman; "hard at it as usual."

"Just the same as ever, old boy," replied Yeldham; "but just as ready as ever to knock off for five minutes--exactly five minutes, mind--and have a chat with you. So there!"--laying down his pen--"now then, let's begin. Where have you been all the morning? I say, you're rather a greater swell than usual, are you not, Gordon?"

"Eh--swell? no, I don't think so. Emerged just a little bit from the chrysalis state perhaps, but not much. But the least bit of colour lights up tremendously and looks radiant beside your old blacks and grays. What a fellow you are, Charley! I wish you'd go in for another style of toggery, and just go to Poole."

"Go to Poole? God forbid!" said Yeldham with ludicrous energy. "Why, my dear fellow, if I were to be seen in a coat of that sort"--touching the silk-lined skirts of Frere's frock--"or in a pair of trousers that fitted me like those, there's not an attorney in London would give me any more employment. No, sir! In Store Street, Tottenham-Court Road, resides the artificer who for years has built my garments on what he assures me are sound mathematical principles, and I shall continue to employ him until one of us is removed to a sphere where clothes are unnecessary. And now, once more, where have you been all this morning?"

"Ah! that's exactly what I came home to talk to you about. I've been calling on a deuced pretty girl, Master Charley, and I want to tell you all about it."

"A very pretty girl, eh?" said Yeldham in rather a hard tone of voice. "A very pretty girl! All right, my boy; tell away."

"I think I've mentioned her before, Charley," said Frere; "Miss Guyon--Kate Guyon, daughter of old Guyon, whom you've heard me speak of; a member of the club, you know; fellow who plays a deuced good game of whist, and that kind of thing. And the girl's really wonderful; very handsome, and with a regular well-bred look about her. None of your dumpy, dowdy, slummakin women--I hate that style--but tall and elegant; carries herself well, and has plenty to say for herself--when she chooses."

"When she chooses, eh!" said Yeldham, with a slight smile; "and I suppose she does choose--to you."

"Well, you know, that's not for a fellow to say. She's always been very civil; and I rode with her yesterday in the Park, and was in her box at the Opera last night--when I say her box I mean Lady Henmarsh's, the old cat who is her principal chaperone--and we got on capitally together, and I think it was all right. I should have told you of it when I got home, but I looked into your room, and you were sound as a top; or this morning, but you were closeted in the office with some fellow on business. So I went off to call on her--there was a kind of tacit arrangement that I should do so--and, by George, I really think I'm hit this time, and that I mean more than ever I did before."

"Mean more! In what way, Gordon?"

"In the way of marriage, of course, you old idiot. Mean that if I were to ask her, I think she'd have me. And she'd be a deuced creditable wife to have about with one; and the governor must just stir himself, and use his influence and get me a consulship, or a commissionership, or something where there's a decent income, and not very much to do for it. There are such things, of course."

"I don't know, Gordon. Recollect these are the days when every thing is won by merit, and not won without a competitive examination."

"O yes; competitive examination be hanged! I'm not going in for any thing of that sort. If a man who's sat for the same borough for five-and-twenty-years, and never voted against his party except once, by mistake, when he'd been dining out and strolled into the wrong lobby--if such a patriot as this can't get a decent berth for his son without any bother about examination and all that kind of thing, where are our privileges as citizens? O no; that'll come all square, of course. But what do you advise me about the girl?"

"It's difficult to give such advice off-hand, Gordon, more especially as I have never seen the young lady, and have scarcely heard of her. But though you're not particularly learned, young un, you've plenty of knowledge of the world, and are one of the last men likely to be entrapped into a silly marriage, or to let yourself be made miserable for life by giving in to a mere passing fancy. So if you and the young lady are really fond of each other, and if your father can be persuaded to give himself the trouble to get some tolerably decent Government appointment for you, I should say, 'Propose to her like an honourable man; and God speed you!' I--I think I should see my father first, Gordon, and make sure of what he would do; for, from all I've heard, I don't think Mr. Guyon is a man of resources--I mean pecuniary resources."

"N-no," said Frere; "I should not think he was. He's a remarkably chirpy old boy, tells very good stories, and is always well got-up; but I shouldn't think his balance at his banker's was very satisfactory. However, Kate's simply charming; stands out from all the ruck of girls one knows, and is in the habit of meeting and dancing with, like a star. I'll write down to the governor and sound him about what he'd be inclined to do; and I'll just go round before dinner to Queen Anne Street; not to go in, you know,--of course not; but there's the last Botanical Fête to-morrow in the Regent's Park, and Kate asked me if I was going, and I said I'd go if she went, and she said she'd try and get some one to take her. I suppose the old woman who's always about with her doesn't care for dissipation by daylight. I say, Charley, fancy if it comes off all straight! Fancy me a married man!"

Yeldham smiled, but said nothing. There was scarcely any occasion for him to speak; for Frere was full of his subject, and rattled on.

"How astonished your people will be! I can see the Vicar reading your letter announcing the news through his double eyeglass, and then handing it over to little Constance and exclaiming, 'Won-derful!' And Constance with her large solemn gray eyes, and her pert nose, and her fresh little mouth; Constance, whom I used to call 'my little wife' when I was grinding away with the Vicar in those jolly days--ah what a glorious old fellow he is!--won't she be surprised when she finds I've got a real wife! And you,--you'll be left alone in chambers, Charley, old boy; all alone!--though you don't see much of me as it is, do you, old fellow?"

"No, Gordon; not much," said Yeldham rising; "not so much as I should wish. But it's pleasant to me to look forward to your coming, to bring a little of the outside world's life and light into these dreary old rooms, and to prove to me that I am not actually part and parcel of these musty old books and parchments, as I'm sometimes half inclined to believe. However, I could not expect to have you always with me, any more than I could expect it to be always summer; and indeed, if you were always here, I should not know what to do with you. Come, my five minutes' rest has been prolonged into a perfect idleness. Out with you, and let me get to work again!"

"No, no; not yet, Charley. It's so seldom I have the chance of getting you to take your nose off the paper, and to open your ears to any thing that is not law-jargon, that I'm not going to give in so soon. Besides, I've been talking all this time, and now it's your turn. I want your advice, and you're going to give it me; and that's all about it."

"It's a great pity you don't stick to your profession, Gordon," said Yeldham, half laughingly, half in earnest; "you would have made a great success at the Old Bailey. You've all the characteristics of that style of practice charmingly developed; plenty of cheek, plenty of volubility, and supreme self-reliance. If you had done me the honour of listening to me instead of thinking what you were going to say next, you would have heard me advise you half an hour ago."

"Stuff! I heard you fast enough. Propose to the girl, and all that; very honourable and straightforward, you know, Charley, but a little old-fashioned, you know,--at least you don't know; how should you, shut up in this old hole? But what I mean to say is, fellows don't propose to girls nowadays, old fellow, except in books and on the stage, and that sort of thing. You understand each other, you know, without going on your knees, or 'plighting troth,' or any rubbish of that kind. But what I want to know is, what is my line towards the old party--Guyon père?"

"Hold on a minute, Gordon," said Charles Yeldham rising from his chair, plunging his hands into his trousers' pockets, and taking up his position of vantage on the hearthrug. "Granted all you say about my being old-fashioned, you yet seem to think that there is a phase of courtship sufficiently unchanged--I was going to say sufficiently natural--for me to be able to advise you upon."

"He-ar, he-ar!" said Mr. Frere, knocking the table on which he was seated.