Land at Last: A Novel

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LAND AT LAST.

A Novel.

BY

EDMUND YATES,

AUTHOR OF "FORLORN HOPE," "BLACK SHEEP,"
"RUNNING THE GAUNTLET," ETC., ETC.

"Post tenebras lux."

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1868.

LAND AT LAST.

[Book the First.]

[CHAPTER I.]

IN THE STREETS

It was between nine and ten oclock on a January night, and the London streets were in a state of slush. During the previous night snow had fallen heavily, and the respectable portion of the community, which, according to regular custom, had retired to bed at eleven oclock, had been astonished, on peering out from behind a corner of the window-curtain when they arose, to find the roads and the neighbouring housetops covered with a thick white incrustation. The pavements were already showing dank dabs of footmarks, which even the snow then falling failed to fill up; and the roadway speedily lost its winter-garment and became sticky with congealed mud. Then the snow ceased, and a sickly straggling bit of winter-sunlight, a mere parody on the real thing, half light and half warmth, came lurking out between the dun clouds; and under its influence the black-specked covering of the roofs melted, and the water-pipes ran with cold black liquid filth. The pavement had given it up long ago, and resumed its normal winter state of sticky slippery grease--grease which clung to the boots and roused the wildest rage of foot-passengers by causing them to slip backward when they wanted to make progress, and which accumulated in the direst manner on the landing-places and street corners,--the first bits of refuge after the perils of the crossing,--where it heaped itself in aggravating lumps and shiny rings under the heels of foot passengers just arrived, having been shaken and stamped off the soles of passengers who had just preceded them. So it had continued all day; but towards the afternoon the air had grown colder, and a whisper had run round that it froze again. Cutlers who had been gazing with a melancholy air on the placards "Skates" in their window, and had determined on removing them, as a bad joke against themselves, decided on letting them remain. Boys who had been delighted in the morning at the sight of the snow, and proportionately chopfallen towards middle-day at the sight of the thaw, had plucked up again and seen visions of snowballing matches, slides on the gutters, and, most delicious of all, omnibus-horses both down at once on the slippery road. Homeward-bound City-clerks, their day's work over, shivered in the omnibuses, and told each other how they were afraid it had come at last, and reminded each other of what the newspapers had said about the flocks of wild-geese and other signs of a hard winter, and moaned lugubriously about the advanced price of coals and the difficulties of locomotion certain to be consequent on the frost.

But when the cruel black night had set regularly in, a dim sleek soft drizzle began to fall, and all hopes or fears of frost were at an end. Slowly and gently it came down, wrapping the streets as with a damp pall; stealing quietly in under umbrellas; eating its way through the thickest broadcloth, matting the hair and hanging in dank, unwholesome beads on the beards of all unlucky enough to be exposed to it. It meant mischief, this drizzle, and it carried out its intention. Omnibus-drivers and cabmen knew it at once from long experience, donned their heavy tarpaulin-capes, and made up their minds for the worst. The professional beggars knew it too. The pavement-chalking tramp, who had selected a tolerably dry spot under the lee of a wall, no sooner felt its first damp breath than he blew out his paper-lantern, put the candle into his pocket, stamped out as much of the mackerel and the ship at sea as he had already stencilled, and made off. The man in the exemplary shirt-collar and apron, who had planted himself before the chemist's window to procure an extra death-tinge from the light reflected from the blue bottle, packed up his linen and decamped, fearing lest his stock-in-trade--his virtue and his lucifers--might be injured by damp. The brass bands which had been playing outside the public-houses shouldered their instruments and went inside; the vendors of secondhand books covered their openly-displayed stock with strips of baize and dismissed their watchful boys, conscious that no petty thief would risk the weather for so small a prey. The hot-potato men blew fiercer jets of steam out of their tin kitchens, as though calling on the public to defy dull care and comfort themselves with an antidote to the general wretchedness; and the policemen stamped solemnly and slowly round their beats, as men impressed with the full knowledge that, as there was not the remotest chance of their being relieved from their miserable fate until the morning, they might as well bear themselves with as much dignity as possible under the circumstances.

It was bad everywhere; but in no place at the West-end of London was it so bad as at the Regent Circus. There the great tide of humanity had been ebbing and flowing all day; there hapless females in shoals had struggled across the roaring sea of Oxford Street, some conveyed by the crossing-sweeper, some drifting helplessly under the poles of omnibuses and the wheels of hansom cabs. There the umbrellas of the expectant omnibus-seekers jostled each other with extra virulence; and there the edges of the pavements were thick with dark alluvial deposits kicked hither and thither by the feet of thousands. All day there had been a bustle and a roar round this spot; and at ten o'clock at night it had but little diminished. Omnibus-conductors, like kites and vultures, clawed and wrangled over the bodies of their victims, who in a miserable little flock huddled together in a corner, and dashed out helplessly and without purpose as each lumbering vehicle drew up. Intermingled with these were several vagabond boys, whose animal spirits no amount of wet or misery could quell, and who constituted themselves a kind of vedette or outpost-guard, giving warning of the approach of the different omnibuses in much pleasantly familiar speech, "Now, guv'nor, for Bayswater! Hatlas comin' up! Ready now for Nottin' 'Ill!"

At the back of the little crowd, sheltering herself under the lee of the houses, stood a slight female figure, a mere slight slip of a girl, dressed only in a clinging gown and a miserable tightly-drawn shawl. Her worn bonnet was pulled over her face, her arms were clasped before her, and she stood in a doorway almost motionless. The policeman tramping leisurely by had at first imagined her to be an omnibus-passenger waiting for a vehicle; but some twenty minutes after he had first noticed her, finding her still in the same position, he took advantage of a pretended trial of the security of various street-doors to scrutinise her appearance. To the man versed in such matters the miserable garb told its own tale--its wearer was a pauper; and a beggar the man in office surmised, although the girl had made no plaint, had uttered no word, had remained immovable and statue-like, gazing blankly before her. The policeman had been long enough in the force to know that the girl's presence in the doorway was an offence in the eyes of the law; but he was a kindly-hearted Somersetshire man, and he performed his duty in as pleasant a way as he could, by gently pulling a corner of the drabbled shawl, and saying, "You musn't stand here, lass; you must move on, please." The shawl-wearer never looked up or spoke but shivering slightly, stepped out into the dank mist, and floated, phantom-like, across the road.

Gliding up the upper part of Regent Street, keeping close to the houses, and walking with her head bent down and her arms always folded tightly across her breast, she struck off into a bystreet to the right, and, crossing Oxford Market, seemed hesitating which way to turn. For an instant she stopped before the window of an eating-house, where thick columns of steam were yet playing round the attenuated remains of joints, or casting a greasy halo round slabs of pudding. As the girl gazed at these wretched remnants of a wretched feast, she raised her head, her eyes glistened, her pinched nostrils dilated, and for an instant her breath came thick and fast; then, drawing her shawl more tightly round her, and bending her head to avoid as much as possible the rain, which came thickly scudding on the rising wind, she hurried on, and only stopped for shelter under the outstretched blind of a little chandler's shop--a wretched shelter, for the blind was soaked through, and the rain dripped from it in little pools, and the wind shook it in its frame, and eddied underneath it with a wet and gusty whirl; but there was something of comfort to the girl in the warm look of the gaslit shop, in the smug rotund appearance of the chandler, in the distant glimmer of the fire on the glazed door of the parlour at the back. Staring vacantly before him while mechanically patting a conical lump of lard, not unlike the bald cranium of an elderly gentleman, the chandler became aware of the girl's face at the window; and seeing Want legibly inscribed by Nature's never-erring hand on every feature of that face, and being a humane man, he was groping in the till for some small coin to bestow in charity, when from the back room came a sharp shrill voice, "Jim, time to shut up!" and at the sound of the voice the chandler hastily retreated, and, a small boy suddenly appearing, pulled up the overhanging blind, and having lost its shelter, the girl set forth again.

But her course was nearly at an end. To avoid a troop of boys who, arm-in-arm, came breasting up the street singing the burden of a negro-song, she turned off again into the main thoroughfare, and had barely gained the broad shadow of the sharp-steepled church in Langham Place, when she felt her legs sinking under her, her brain reeling, her heart throbbing in her breast like a ball of fire. She tottered and clung to the church-railing for support. In the next instant she was surrounded by a little crowd, in which she had a vision of painted faces and glistening silks, a dream of faint words of commiseration overborne by mocking laughter and ribald oaths, oaths made more fearful still by being uttered in foreign accents, of bitter jests and broad hints of drunkenness and shame; finally, of the strident voice of the policeman telling her again to "move on!" The dead faintness, consequent on cold and wet and weariness and starvation, passed away for the time, and she obeyed the mandate. Passively she crept away a few steps up a deserted bystreet until her tormentors had left her quite alone; then she sunk down, shivering, on a doorstep, and burying her face in her tattered shawl, felt that her end was come.

There she remained, the dead damp cold striking through her lower limbs and chilling them to stone, while her head was one blazing fire. Gradually her limbs became numbed and lost to all sensation, a sickening empty pain was round her heart, a dead apathy settling down over her mind and brain. The tramping of feet was close upon her, the noise of loud voices, the ringing shouts of loud laughter, were in her ears; but she never raised her head from the tattered shawl, nor by speech or motion did she give the smallest sign of life. Men passed her constantly, all making for one goal, the portico next to that in which she had sunk down helpless--men with kindly hearts attuned to charity, who, had they known the state of the wretched wayfarer, would have exerted themselves bravely in her succour, but whom a London life had so inured to spectacles of casual misery and vice, that a few only cast a passing glance on the stricken woman and passed on. They came singly and in twos and threes; but none spoke to her, none noticed her save by a glance and a shoulder shrug.

Then, as the icy hands of Cold and Want gradually stealing over her seemed to settle round the region of her heart, the girl gave one low faint cry, "God help me! it's come at last--God help me!" and fell back in a dead swoon.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE BRETHREN OF THE BRUSH.

The house to which all the jovial fellows who passed the girl on the doorstep with such carelessness were wending their way was almost unique in the metropolis. The rumour ran that it had originally been designed for stables, and indeed there was a certain mews-ish appearance about its architectural elevation; it had the squat, squabby, square look of those buildings from whose upper-floors clothes-lines stretch diagonally across stable-yards; and you were at first surprised at finding an imposing portico with an imposing bell in a position where you looked for the folding-doors of a coach-house. Whether there had been any truth in the report or not, it is certain that the owner of the property speedily saw his way to more money than he could have gained by the ignoble pursuit of stabling horses, and made alterations in his building, which converted it into several sets of spacious, roomy, and comfortable, if not elegant chambers. The upper rooms were duly let, and speedily became famous--thus-wise. When Parmegiano Wilkins made his first great success with his picture of "Boadicea at Breakfast,"--connoisseurs and art-critics will recollect the marvellous manner in which the chip in the porridge of the Queen of the Iceni was rendered,--Mr. Caniche, the great picture-dealer, to whom Wilkins had mortgaged himself body and soul for three years, felt it necessary that his next works should be submitted to the private inspection of the newspaper-writers and the cognoscenti previous to their going into the Academy Exhibition. On receiving a letter to this effect from Caniche, Wilkins was at his wits' end. He was living, for privacy's sake, in a little cottage on the outskirts of Epping Forest, and having made a success, had naturally alienated all his friends whose rooms in town would otherwise have been available for the display of his pictures; he thought--and there the astute picture-dealer agreed with him--that it would be unwise to send them to Caniche's shop (it was before such places were called "galleries"), as tending to make public the connection between them; and Wilkins did not know what to do. Then Caniche came to his rescue. Little Jimmy Dabb, who had been Gold-Medallist and Travelling-Student at the Academy three years beforehand, and who, for sheer sake of bread-winning, had settled down as one of Caniche's Labourers, had a big studio in the stable-like edifice near Langham Church. In it he painted those bits of domestic life,--dying children on beds, weeping mothers, small table with cut-orange, Bible and physic by bedside, and pitying angel dimly hovering between mantelpiece and ceiling,--which, originally in oil, and subsequently in engravings, had such a vast sale, and brought so much ready money to Caniche's exchequer. The situation was central; why not utilise it? No sooner thought of than done: a red cotton-velvet coverlet was spread over Jimmy Dabb's bed in the corner; a Dutch carpet, red with black flecks, was, at Caniche's expense, spread over the floor, paint-smeared and burnt with tobacco-ash; two gorgeous easels, on which were displayed Wilkins's two pictures, "The Bird in the Hand"--every feather in the bird and the dirt in the nails of the ploughboy's hand marvellously delineated--and "Crumbs of Comfort," each crumb separate, and the loaf in the background so real, that the Dowager-Countess of Rundall, a celebrated household manager, declared it at once to be a "slack-baked quartern." Invitation-cards, wonderfully illuminated in Old-English characters, and utterly illegible, were sent forth to rank, fashion, and talent, who duly attended. Crowds of gay carriages choked up the little street: Dabb in his Sunday-clothes did the honours; Caniche, bland, smiling, and polyglot, flitted here and there, his clerk took down orders for proof copies, and the fortune of the chambers was made. They were so original, so artistic, so convenient, they were just the place for a painter. Smudge, R.A., who painted portraits of the aristocracy, who wore a velvet-coat, and whose name was seen in the tail-end of the list of fashionables at evening-parties, took a vacant set at once; and Clement Walkinshaw of the Foreign Office, who passed such spare time as his country could afford him in illuminating missals, in preparing designs for stained glass, and in hanging about art-circles generally, secured the remainder of the upper-floor, and converted it into a Wardour-Street Paradise, with hanging velvet portières, old oak cabinets, Venetian-glass, marqueterie tables, Sèvres china, escutcheons of armour, and Viennese porcelain pipes.

Meanwhile, utterly uncaring for and utterly independent of what went on upstairs, the denizens of the lower story kept quietly on. Who were the denizens of the lower story? who but the well-known Titian Sketching-Club! How many men who, after struggling through Suffolk Street and the Portland Gallery, have won their way to fame and fortune, have made their coup d'essai on the walls of the chambers rented by the Titian Sketching-Club! Outsiders, who professed great love for art, but who only knew the two or three exhibitions of the season and only recognised the score of names in each vouchsafed for by the newspaper-critics, would have been astonished to learn the amount of canvas covered, pains taken, and skill brought to bear upon the work of the Members of the Titian. There are guilds, and companies of Freemasons, and brotherhoods by the score in London; but I know of none where the grand spirit of Camaraderie is so carried out as in this. It is the nearest thing to the Vie de Bohème of Paris of Henri Murger that we can show; there is more liberty of speech and thought and action, less reticence, more friendship,--when friendship is understood by purse-sharing, by sick-bedside-watching, by absence of envy, jealousy, hatred, and all uncharitableness,--more singleness of purpose, more contempt for shams and impostures and the dismal fetters of conventionality, than in any other circle of English Society with which I am acquainted.

It was a grand night with the Titians; no model was carefully posed on the "throne" that evening; no intelligent class was grouped round on the rising benches, copying from the "draped" or the "nude;" none of the wardrobe or properties of the club (and it is rich in both),--none of the coats of mail or suits of armour, hauberks and broadswords, buff boots, dinted breastplates, carved ebony crucifixes, ivory-hafted daggers, Louis-Onze caps, friars' gowns and rosaries, nor other portions of the stock-in-trade, were on view. The "sending-in" day for the approaching Exhibition of the British Institution was at hand; and the discoloured smoky old walls of the Titians, the rickety easels piled round the room, all available ledges and nooks, were covered with the works of the members of the club, which they fully intended to submit for exhibition. A very Babel, in a thick fog of tobacco-smoke, through which loomed the red face of Flexor the famous model, like the sun in November, greeted you on your entrance. Flexor pretended to take the hats, but the visitors seemed to know him too well, and contented themselves with nodding at him in a friendly manner, and retaining their property. Then you passed into the rooms, where you found yourself wedged up amongst a crowd of perhaps the most extraordinary-looking beings you ever encountered. Little men with big heads and long beards, big men with bald heads and shaved cheeks, and enormous moustaches and glowering spectacles; tall thin straggling men, who seemed all profile, and whose full face you could never catch; dirty shaggy little men, with heads of hair like red mops, and no apparent faces underneath, whose eyes flashed through their elf-locks, and who were explaining their pictures with singular pantomimic power of their sinewy hands, and notably of their ever-flashing thumbs; moon-faced solemn didactic men prosing away on their views of art to dreary discontented listeners; and foppish, smart little fellows, standing a-tiptoe to get particular lights, shading their eyes with their hands, and backing against the company generally. Moving here and there among the guests was the Titians' president, honest old Tom Wrigley, who had been "at it," as he used to say, for thirty years; without making any great mark in his profession, but who was cordially beloved for his kind-heartedness and bonhomie, and who had a word and a joke for all. As he elbowed his way through the room he spoke right and left.

"Hallo, Tom Rogers!--hallo, Tom! That's an improvement, Tom, my boy! Got rid of the heavy browns, eh? weren't good, those heavy browns; specially for a Venetian atmosphere, eh, Tom? Much better, this.--How are you, Jukes? Old story, Jukes?--hen and chickens, ducks in the pond, horse looking over the gate? Quite right, Jukes; stick to that, if it pays. Much better than the death of J. Caesar on a twenty-foot canvas, which nobody would be fool enough to buy. Stick to the ducks, Jukes, old fellow.--What's the matter, George? Why so savage, my son?"

"Here's Scumble!" said the young man addressed, in an undertone.

"And what of that, George? Mr. Scumble is a Royal Academician, it is true; and consequently a mark for your scorn and hatred, George. But it's not his fault; he never did anything to aspire to such a dignity. It's your British public, George, which is such an insensate jackass as to buy Scumble's pictures, and to tell him he's a genius."

"He was on the Hanging-Committee last year, and--"

"Ah, so he was; and your 'Aristides' was kicked out, and so was my 'Hope Deferred,' which was a deuced sight better than your big picture, Master George; but see how I shall treat him.--How do you do, Mr. Scumble? You're very welcome here, sir."

Mr. Scumble, R.A., who had a head like a tin-loaf, and a face without any earthly expression, bowed his acknowledgments and threw as much warmth into his manner as he possibly could, apparently labouring under a notion that he was marked out for speedy assassination. "This is indeed a char-ming collection! Great talent among the ri-sing men, Mr.--pardon me--President! This now, for instance, a most charming landscape!"

"Yes, old boy; you may say that," said a square-built man smoking a clay-pipe, and leaning with his elbows on the easel on which the picture was placed. "I mean the real thing,--not this; which ain't bad though, is it? Not that I should say so; 'cause for why; which I did it!" and here the square-built man removed one of his elbows from the easel, and dug it into the sacred ribs of Scumble, R.A.

"Bad, sir!" said Scumble, recoiling from the thrust, and still with the notion of a secret dagger hidden behind the square-built man's waistcoat; "it's magnificent, superb, Mr.----!"

"Meaning me? Potts!" said the square-built man "Charley Potts, artist, U.E., or unsuccessful exhibitor at every daub-show in London. That's the Via Mala, that is. I was there last autumn with Geoffrey Ludlow and Tom Bleistift. 'Show me a finer view than that,' I said to those fellows, when it burst upon us. 'If you'd a Scotchman with you,' said Tom, 'he'd say it wasn't so fine as the approach to Edinburgh.' 'Would he?'said I. 'If he said anything of that sort, I'd show him that view, and--and rub his nose in it!'"

Mr. Scumble, R.A., smiled in a sickly manner, bowed feebly, and passed on. Old Tom Wrigley laughed a great boisterous "Ha, ha!" and went on his way. Charley Potts remained before his picture, turning his back on it, and puffing out great volumes of smoke. He seemed to know everybody in the room, and to be known to and greeted by most of them. Some slapped him on the back, some poked him in the ribs, others laid their forefingers alongside their noses and winked; but all called him "Charley," and all had some pleasant word for him; and to all he had something to say in return.

"Hallo, Fred Snitterfield!" he called out to a fat man in a suit of shepherd's-plaid dittoes. "Halloa, Fred! how's your brother Bill? What's he been doing? Not here to-night, of course?"

"No; he wasn't very well," said the man addressed. "He's got--"

"Yes, yes; I know, Fred!" said Charley Potts. "Wife won't let him! That's it, isn't it, old boy? He only dined out once in his life without leave, and then he sent home a telegram to say he was engaged; and when his wife received the telegram she would not believe it, because she said it wasn't his handwriting! Poor old Bill! Did he sell that 'Revenge' to what's-his-name--that Manchester man--Prebble?"

"Lord, no! Haven't you heard? Prebble's smashed up,--all his property gone to the devil!"

"Ah, then Prebble will find it again some day, no doubt. Look out! here's Bowie!"

Mr. Bowie was the art-critic of a great daily journal. In early life he had courted art himself; but lacking executive power, he had mixed up a few theories and quaint conceits which he had learned with a great deal of acrid bile, with which he had been gifted by nature, and wrote the most pungent and malevolent art-notices of the day. A tall, light-haired, vacant-looking man, like a light-house without any light in it, peering uncomfortably over his stiff white cravat, and fumbling nervously at his watch-chain. Clinging close to him, and pointing out to him various pictures as they passed them by, was quite another style of man,--Caniche, the great picture dealer,--an under-sized lively Gascon, black-bearded from his chin, round which it was closely cut, to his beady black eyes, faultlessly dressed, sparkling in speech, affable in manner, at home with all.

"Ah, ah!" said he, stopping before the easel, "the Via Mala! Not bad--not at all bad!" he continued, with scarcely a trace of a foreign accent. "Yours, Charley Potts? yours, mon brave? De-caidedly an improvement, Charley! You go on that way, mai boy, and some day--"

"Some day you'll give me twenty pound, and sell me for a hundred! won't you, Caniche?--generous buffalo!" growled Charley, over his pipe.

The men round laughed, but Caniche was not a bit offended. "Of course," he said, simply, "I will, indeed; that is my trade! And if you could find a man who would give you thirty, you would throw me over in what you call a brace of shakes! N'est-ce pas? Meanwhile, find the man to give you thirty. He is not here; I mean coming now.--How do you do, Herr Stompff?"

Mr. Caniche (popularly known as Cannish among the artists) winced as he said this, for Herr Stompff was his great rival and bitterest enemy.

A short, bald-headed, gray-bearded man was Mr. Stompff,--a Hamburger,--who, on his first arrival in England, had been an importer of piping bullfinches at Hull; then a tobacconist in St Mary Axe; and who finally had taken up picture-selling, and did an enormous business. No one could tell that he was not an Englishman from his talk, and an Englishman with a marvellous fluency in the vernacular. He had every slang saying as soon as it was out, and by this used to triumph over his rival Caniche, who never could follow his phraseology.

"Hallo, Caniche!" he said; "how are you? What's up?--running the rig on the boys here! telling Charley Potts his daubs are first-rate? Pickles!--We know all that game, don't we, Charley? What do you want for it, Charley?--How are you, Mr. Bowie? what's fresh with you, sir? Too proud to come and have a cut of mutton with me and Mrs. S. a-Sunday, I suppose? Some good fellows coming, too; Mugger from the Cracksideum, and Talboys and Sir Paul Potter--leastways I've asked him. Well, Charley, what's the figure for this lot, eh?"

"I'll trouble you not to 'Charley' me, Mr. Stump, or whatever your infernal name is!" said Potts, folding his arms and puffing out his smoke savagely. "I don't want any Havannah cigars, nor silk handkerchiefs, nor painted canaries, nor anything else in your line, sir; and I want your confounded patronage least of all!"

"Good boy, Charley! very good boy!" said Stompff, calmly pulling his whisker through his teeth--"shouldn't lose his temper, though. Come and dine a-Sunday, Charley." Mr. Potts said something, which the historian is not bound to repeat, turned on his heel, and walked away.

Mr. Stompff was not a bit disconcerted at this treatment. He merely stuck his tongue in his cheek, and looking at the men standing round, said, "He's on the high ropes, is Master Charley! Some of you fellows have been lending him half-a-crown, or that fool Caniche has bought one of his pictures for seven-and-six! Now, has anybody anything new to show, eh?" Of course everybody had something new to show to the great Stompff, the enterprising Stompff, the liberal Stompff, whose cheques were as good as notes of the Bank of England. How they watched his progress, and how their hearts beat as he loitered before their works! Jupp, who had a bed-ridden wife, a dear pretty little woman recovering from rheumatic fever at, Adalbert Villa, Elgiva Road, St. John's Wood; Smethurst, who had a 25l. bill coming due in a fortnight, and had three-and-sevenpence wherewith to: Vogelstadt, who had been beguiled into leaving Dusseldorf for London on the rumours of English riches and English patronage, and whose capital studies of birds in the snow, and treibe-jagd's, and boar-hunts, had called forth universal laudation, but had not as yet entrapped a single purchaser, so that Vogelstadt, who had come down not discontentedly to living on bread-and-milk, had notions of mortgaging his ancestral thumb-ring to procure even those trifling necessaries,--how they al glared with expectation as the ex-singing-bird-importer passed their pictures in review! That worthy took matters very easily, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, glancing at the easels and along the walls, occasionally nodding his head in approval, or shrugging his shoulders in depreciation, but never saying a word until he stopped opposite a well-placed figure-subject to which he devoted a two-minutes' close scrutiny, and then uttered this frank though argot-tinged criticism "That'll hit 'em up! that'll open their eyelids, by Jove! Whose is it?"

The picture represented a modern ballroom, in a corner of which a man of middle age, his arms tightly folded across his breast, was intently watching the movements of a young girl, just starting off in a valse with a handsome dashing young partner. The expressions in the two faces were admirably defined: in the man's was a deep earnest devotion not unmingled with passion and with jealousy, his tightly-clenched mouth, his deep-set earnest eyes, settled in rapt adoration on the girl, showed the earnestness of his feeling, SO did the rigidly-fixed arms, and the pose of the figure, which, originally careless, had become hardened and angular through intensity of feeling. The contrast was well marked; in the girl's face which was turned toward the man while her eyes were fixed on him, was a bright saucy triumph, brightening her eyes, inflating her little nostrils, curving the corners of her mouth, while her figure was light and airy, just obedient to the first notes of the valse, balancing itself as it were on the arm of her partner before starting off down the dance. All the accessories were admirable: the dreary wallflowers ranged round the room, the chaperons nidnodding together on the rout-seats, paterfamilias despondingly consulting his watch, the wearied hostess, and the somnolently-inclined musicians,--all were there, portrayed not merely by a facile hand but by a man conversant with society. The title of the picture, "Sic vos non vobis," was written on a bit of paper stuck into the frame, on the other corner of which was a card bearing the words "Mr. Geoffrey Ludlow."

"Ah!" said Stompff, who, after carefully scanning the picture close and then from a distance, had read the card--"at last! Geoffrey Ludlow's going to fulfil the promise which he's been showing this ten years! A late birth, but a fine babby now it's born! That's the real thing and no flies! That's about as near a good thing as I've seen this long time--that; come, you'll say the same! That's a good picture, Mr. Wrigley!"

"Ah!" said old Tom, coming up at the moment, "you've made another lucky hit if you've bought that, Mr. Stompff! Geoff is so confoundedly undecided, so horribly weak in all things, that he's been all this time making up his mind whether he really would paint a good picture or not. But he's decided at last, and he has painted a clipper."

"Ye-es!" said Stompff, whose first enthusiasm had by no means died away--on the contrary, he thought so well of the picture that he had within himself determined to purchase it; but his business caution was coming over him strongly. "Yes! it's a clipper, as you say, Wrigley; but it's a picture which would take all a fellow knew to work it. Throw that into the market--where are you! Pouf! gone I no one thinking of it. Judicious advertisement, judicious squaring of those confounded fellows of the press; a little dinner at the Albion or the Star and Garter to two or three whom we know; and then the wonderful grasp of modern life, the singular manner in which the great natural feelings are rendered, the microscopic observation, and the power of detail--"

"Yes, yes," said Tom Wrigley; "for which, see Catalogue of Stompff's Gallery of Modern Painters, price 6d. Spare yourself, you unselfish encourager of talent, and spare Geoff's blushes; for here he is.--Did you hear what Stompff was saying on, Geoff?"

As he spoke, there came slouching up, shouldering his way through the crowd, a big, heavily-built man of about forty years of age, standing over six feet, and striking in appearance if not prepossessing. Striking in appearance from his height, which was even increased by his great shock head of dark-brown hair standing upright on his forehead, but curling in tight crisp waves round the back and poll of his head; from his great prominent brown eyes, which, firmly set in their large thickly-carved lids, flashed from under an overhanging pair of brows; from his large heavy nose, thick and fleshy, yet with lithe sensitive nostrils; from his short upper and protruding thick under lip; from the length of his chin and the massive heaviness of his jaw, though the heavy beard greatly concealed the formation of the lower portion of his face. A face which at once evoked attention, which no one passed by without noticing, which people at first called "odd," and "singular," and "queer," according to their vocabulary; then, following the same rule, pronounced "ugly," or "hideous," or "grotesque,"--allowing all the time that there "was something very curious in it." But a face which, when seen in animation or excitement, in reflex of the soul within, whose every thought was legibly portrayed in its every expression, in light or shade, with earnest watchful eyes, and knit brows and quivering nostrils and working lips; or, on the other hand, with its mouth full of sound big white teeth gleaming between its ruddy lips, and its eyes sparkling with pure merriment or mischief;--then a face to be preferred to all the dolly inanities of the Household Brigade, or even the matchless toga-draped dummies in Mr. Truefitt's window. This was Geoffrey Ludlow, whom everybody liked, but who was esteemed to be so weak and vacillating, so infirm of purpose, so incapable of succeeding in his art or in his life, as to have been always regarded as an object of pity rather than envy; as a man who was his own worst enemy, and of whom nothing could be said. He had apparently caught some words of the conversation, for when he arrived at the group a smile lit up his homely features, and his teeth glistened again in the gaslight.

"What are you fellows joking about?" he asked, while he roared with laughter, as if with an anticipatory relish of the fun. "Some chaff at my expense, eh? Something about my not having made up my mind to do something or not; the usual nonsense, I suppose?"

"Not at all Geoff," said Tom Wrigley. "The question asked by Mr. Stompff here was--whether you wished to sell this picture, and what you asked for it."

"Ah!" said Geoffrey Ludlow, his lips closing and the fun dying out of his eyes. "Well, you see it's of course a compliment for you, Mr. Stompff, to ask the question; but I've scarcely made up my mind--whether--and indeed as to the price--"

"Stuff, Geoff! What rubbish you talk!" said Charley Potts, who had rejoined the group. "You know well enough that you painted the picture for sale. You know equally well that the price is two hundred guineas. Are you answered, Mr. Stump?"

Ludlow started forward with a look of annoyance, but Stompff merely grinned, and said quietly, "I take it at the price, and as many more as Mr. Ludlow will paint of the same sort; stock, lock, and barrel, I'll have the whole bilin'. Must change the title though, Ludlow, my boy. None of your Sic wos non thingummy; none of your Hebrew classics for the British public. 'The Vow,' or 'the Last Farewell,' or something in that line.--Very neatly done of you, Charley, my boy; very neat bit of dealing, I call it. I ought to deduct four-and-nine from the next fifteen shillin' commission you get; but I'll make it up to you this way,--you've evidently all the qualities of a salesman; come and be my clerk, and I'll stand thirty shillings a-week and a commission on the catalogues."

Charley Potts was too delighted at his friend's success to feel annoyance at these remarks; he merely shook his fist laughingly, and was passing on, with his arm through Ludlow's; but the vivacious dealer, who had rapidly calculated where he could plant his newly-acquired purchase, and what percentage he could make on it, was not to be thus balked.

"Look here!" said he; "a bargain's a bargain, ain't it? People say your word's as good as your bond, and all that. Pickles! You drop down to my office to-morrow, Ludlow, and there'll be an agreement for you to sign--all straight and reg'lar, you know. And come and cut your mutton with me and Mrs. S. at Velasquez Villa, Nottin' 'Ill, on Sunday, at six. No sayin' no, because I won't hear it. We'll wet our connection in a glass of Sham. And bring Charley with you, if his dress-coat ain't up! You know, Charley! Tar, Tar!" And highly delighted with himself, and with the full conviction that he had rendered himself thoroughly delightful to his hearers, the great man waddled off his brougham.

Meanwhile the news of the purchase had spread through the rooms, and men were hurrying up on all sides to congratulate Ludlow on his success. The fortunate man seemed, however, a little dazed with his triumph; he shook all the outstretched hands cordially, and said a few commonplaces of thanks, intermingled with doubts as to whether he had not been too well treated; but on the first convenient opportunity he slipped away, and sliding a shilling into the palm of Flexor the model, who, being by this time very drunk, had arranged his hair in a curl on his forehead, and was sitting on the bench in the hall after his famous rendering of George the Fourth of blessed memory, Geoff seized his hat and coat and let himself out. The fresh night-air revived him wonderfully, and he was about starting off at his usual headstrong pace, when he heard a low dismal moan, and looking round, he saw a female figure cowering in a doorway. The next instant he was kneeling by her side.

[CHAPTER III.]

BLOTTED OUT.

THE strange caprices of Fashion were never more strangely illustrated than by her fixing upon St. Barnabas Square as one of her favourite localities. There are men yet living among us whose mothers had been robbed on their way from Ranelagh in crossing the spot, then a dreary swampy marsh, on which now stands the city of palaces known as Cubittopolis. For years on years it remained in its dismal condition, until an enterprising builder, seeing the army of civilisation advancing with grand strides south-westward, and perceiving at a glance the immediate realisation of an enormous profit on his outlay, bought up the entire estate, had it thoroughly cleansed and drained, and proceeded to erect thereon a series of terraces, places, and squares, each vying with the other in size, perfection of finish, and, let it be said, general ghastliness. The houses in St. Barnabas Square resemble those in Chasuble Crescent, and scarcely differ in any particular from the eligible residences in Reredos Road: they are all very tall, and rather thin; they have all enormous porticoes, over which are little conservatories, railed in with ecclesiastical ironwork; dismal little back-rooms no bigger than warm-baths, but described as "libraries" by the house-agents; gaunt drawing-rooms connected by an arch; vast landings, leading on to other little conservatories, where "blacks," old flower-pots, and a few geranium stumps, are principally conserved; and a series of gaunt towny bedrooms. In front they have Mr. Swiveller's prospect,--a delightful view of over-the-way; across the bit of square enclosure like a green pocket-handkerchief; while at the back they look immediately on to the back-premises of other eligible residences. The enterprising builder has done his best for his neighbourhood, but he has been unable to neutralise the effects of the neighbouring Thames; and the consequence is, that during the winter months a chronic fog drifts up from the pleasant Kentish marshes, and finding ample room and verge enough, settles permanently down in the St. Barnabas district; while in the summer, the new roads which intersect the locality, being mostly composed of a chalky foundation, peel off under every passing wheel, and emit enormous clouds of dust, which are generally drifting on the summer wind into the eyes and mouths of stray passengers, and in at the doors and windows of regular residents. Yet this is one of Fashion's chosen spots here in this stronghold of stucco reside scores of those whose names and doings the courtly journalist delighteth to chronicle; hither do county magnates bring, to furnished houses, their wives and daughters, leaving them to entertain those of the proper set during the three summer months, while they, the county magnates themselves, are sleeping the sleep of the just on the benches of the House of Commons, or nobly discharging their duty to their country by smoking cigars on the terrace; here reside men high up in the great West-end public offices, commissioners and secretaries, anxious to imbue themselves with the scent of the rose, and vivre près d'elle, City magnates, judges of the land, and counsel learned in the law. The situation is near to Westminster for the lawyers and politicians; and the address has quite enough of the true ring about it to make it much sought after by all those who go-in for a fashionable neighbourhood.

A few hours before the events described in the preceding chapters took place, a brougham, perfectly appointed, and drawn by a splendid horse, came dashing through the fog and driving mist, and pulled up before one of the largest houses in St. Barnabas Square. The footman jumped from the box, and was running to the door, when, in obedience to a sharp voice, he stopped, and the occupant of the vehicle, who had descended, crossed the pavement with rapid strides, and opened the door with a pass-key. He strode quickly through the hall, up the staircase, and into the drawing-room, round which he took a rapid glance. The room was empty; the gas was lit, and a fire burned brightly on the hearth; while an open piano, covered with music, on the one side of the fireplace, and a book turned down with open leaves, showed that the occupants had but recently left. The newcomer, finding himself alone, walked to the mantelpiece, and leaning his back against it, passed his hands rapidly across his forehead; then plunging both of them into his pockets, seemed lost in thought. The gaslight showed him to be a man of about sixty years of age, tall, wiry, well-proportioned; his head was bald, with a fringe of grayish hair, his forehead broad, his eyes deep-set, his mouth thin-lipped, and ascetic; he wore two little strips of whisker, but his chin was closely shaved. He was dressed in high stiff shirt-collars, a blue-silk neckerchief with white dots, in which gleamed a carbuncle pin; a gray overcoat, under which was a cutaway riding-coat, high waistcoat with onyx buttons, and tight-fitting cord-trousers. This was George Brakespere, third Earl Beauport, of whom and of whose family it behoves one to speak in detail.

They were novi homines, the Brakesperes, though they always claimed to be sprung from ancient Norman blood. Only seventy years ago old Martin Brakespere was a wool-stapler in Uttoxeter; and though highly respected for the wealth he was reported to have amassed, was very much jeered at privately, and with bated breath, for keeping an apocryphal genealogical tree hanging up in his back-shop, and for invariably boasting, after his second glass of grog at the Greyhound, about his lineage. But when, after old Martin had been some score years quietly resting in Uttoxeter churchyard, his son Sir Richard Brakespere, who had been successively solicitor and attorney general, was raised to the peerage, and took his seat on the woolsack as Baron Beauport, Lord High Chancellor of England, the Herald's College, and all the rest of the genealogical authorities, said that the line was thoroughly made out and received the revival of the ancient title with the greatest laudation. A wiry, fox-headed, thin chip of a lawyer, the first Baron Beauport, as knowing as a ferret, and not unlike one in the face. He administered the laws of his country very well, and he lent some of the money he had inherited from his father to the sovereign of his country and the first gentleman in Europe at a very high rate of interest, it is said. Rumour reports that he did not get all his money back again, taking instead thereof an increase in rank, and dying, at an advanced age, as Earl Beauport, succeeded in his title and estates by his only son, Theodore Brakespere, by courtesy Viscount Caterham.

When his father died, Lord Caterham, the second Earl Beauport, was nearly fifty years old, a prim little gentleman who loved music and wore a wig; a dried-up chip of a little man, who lived in a little house in Hans Place with an old servant, a big violoncello, and a special and peculiar breed of pug-dogs. To walk out with the pug-dogs in the morning, to be carefully dressed and tittivated and buckled and curled by the old servant in the afternoon, and either to play the violoncello in a Beethoven or Mozart selection with some other old amateur fogies, or to be present at a performance of chamber-music, or philharmonics, or oratorio-rehearsals in the evening, constituted the sole pleasure of the second Earl Beauport's life. He never married; and at his death, some fifteen years after his father's, the title and, with the exception of a few legacies to musical charities, the estates passed to his cousin George Brakespere, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxon, and then of Little Milman Street, Bedford Row, and the Northern Circuit, briefless barrister.

Just in the very nick of time came the peerage and the estates to George Brakespere, for he was surrounded by duns, and over head and ears in love. With all his hard work at Oxford, and he had worked hard, he had the reputation of being the best bowler at Bullingdon, and the hardest rider after hounds; of having the best old port and the finest cigars (it was before the days of claret and short pipes), and the best old oak furniture, library of books, and before-letter proofs in the University. All these could not be paid for out of an undergraduate's income; and the large remainder of unpaid bills hung round him and plagued him heavily long after he had left Oxford and been called to the bar. It was horribly up-hill work getting a connection among the attorneys; he tried writing for reviews, and succeeded, but earned very little money. And then, on circuit, at an assize-ball, he fell in love with Gertrude Carrington, a haughty county beauty, only daughter of Sir Joshua Carrington, Chairman of Quarter Sessions; and that nearly finished him. Gertrude Carrington was very haughty and very wilful; she admired the clever face and the bold bearing of the young barrister; but in all probability she would have thought no more of him, had not the eminent Sir Joshua, who kept his eyes very sharply about him, marked the flirtation, and immediately expressed his total disapproval of it. That was enough for Gertrude, and she at once went in for George Brakespere, heart and soul. She made no objection to a clandestine correspondence, and responded regularly and warmly to George's passionate letters. She gave him two or three secret meetings under an old oak in a secluded part of her father's park,--Homershams was a five-hours' journey from town,--and these assignations always involved George's sleeping at an inn, and put him to large expense; and when she came up to stay with her cousins in town, she let him know all the parties to which they were going, and rendered him a mendicant for invitations. When the change of fortune came, and George succeeded to the title, Sir Joshua succumbed at once, and became anxious for the match. Had George inherited money only, it is probable that from sheer wilfulness Gertrude would have thrown him over; but the notion of being a countess, of taking precedence and pas of all the neighbouring gentry, had its influence, and they were married. Two sons were born to them,--Viscount Caterham and the Hon. Lionel Brakespere,--and a daughter, who only survived her birth a few weeks. As Earl Beauport, George Brakespere retained the energy and activity of mind and body, the love of exercise and field-sports, the clear brain and singleness of purpose, which had distinguished him as a commoner: but there was a skeleton in his house, whose bony fingers touched his heart in his gayest moments, numbed his energies, and warped his usefulness; whose dread presence he could not escape from, whose chilling influence nor wine, nor work, nor medicine, nor gaiety, could palliate. It was ever present in a tangible shape; he knew his weakness and wickedness in permitting it to conquer him,--he strove against it, but vainly; and in the dead watches of the night often he lay broad awake railing against the fate which had mingled so bitter an ingredient in his cup of happiness.

The door swung open and the Countess entered, a woman nearly fifty now, but not looking her age by at least eight years. A tall handsome woman, with the charms of her former beauty mellowed but not impaired; the face was more full, but the firm chiselling of the nose and lips, the brightness of the eyes, the luxurious dark gloss of the hair, were there still. As she entered, her husband advanced to meet her; and as he touched her forehead with his lips, she laid her hand on his, and asked "What news?"

He shook his head sadly, and said, "The worst."

"The worst!" she repeated, faintly; "he's not dead? Beauport, you--you would not say it in that way--he's not dead?"

"I wish to God he were!" said Lord Beauport through his teeth. "I wish it had pleased God to take him years and years ago! No! he's not dead." Then throwing himself into a chair, and staring vacantly at the fire, he repeated, "I wish to God he were!"

"Anything but that!" said the Countess, with a sense of immense relief; "anything but that! whatever he has done may be atoned for, and repented, and--But what has he done? where is he? have you seen Mr. Farquhar?"

"I have--and I know all. Gertrude, Lionel is a scoundrel and a criminal--no, don't interrupt me! I myself have prosecuted and transported men for less crimes than he has committed; years ago he would have been hanged. He is a forger!"

"A forger!"

"He has forged the names of two of his friends--old brother officers; Lord Hinchenbrook is one, and young Latham the other--to bills for five thousand pounds. I've had the bills in my hands, and seen letters from the men denying their signatures to-night, and--"

"But Lionel--where is he? in prison?"

"No; he saw the crash coming, and fled from it. Farquhar showed me a blotted letter from him, written from Liverpool, saying in a few lines that he had disgraced us all, that he was on the point of sailing under a feigned name for Australia, and that we should never see him again."

"Never see him again! my boy, my own darling boy!" and Lady Beauport burst into an agony of tears.

"Gertrude," said her husband, when the first wild storm of grief had subsided, "calm yourself for one instant."

He rang the bell, and to the servant answering it, said:

"Tell Lord Caterham I wish to speak to him, and beg Miss Maurice to be good enough to step here."

Lady Beauport was about to speak, but the Earl said coldly:

"I wish it, if you please;" and reiterated his commands to the servant, who left the room. "I have fully decided, Gertrude, on the step I am about to take. To-morrow those forged bills will be mine. I saw young Latham at Farquhar's, and he said--" Lord Beauport's voice shook here--"said everything that was kind and noble; and Hinchenbrook has said the same to Farquhar. It--it cannot be kept quiet, of course. Every club is probably ringing with it now; but they will let me have the bills. And from this moment, Gertrude, that boy's name must never be uttered, save in our prayers--in our prayers for his forgiveness and--and repentance--by you, his mother; by me his father,--nor by any one in this house. He is dead to us for ever!"

"Beauport, for Heaven's sake--"

"I swear it, Gertrude, I swear it! and most solemnly will keep the oath. I have sent for Caterham, who must know, of course; his good sense will approve what I have done; and for Annie, she is part of our household now, and must be told. Dead to us all henceforth; dead to us all!"

He sank into a chair opposite the fire and buried his face in his hands, but roused himself at advancing footsteps. The door opened, and a servant entered, pushing before him a library-chair fitted on large wheels, in which sat a man of about thirty, of slight spare frame, with long arms and thin womanly hands--a delicately-handsome man, with a small head, soft grey eyes, and an almost feminine mouth; a man whom Nature had intended for an Apollo, whom fortune had marked for her sport, blighting his childhood with some mysterious disease for which the doctors could find neither name nor cure, sapping his marrow and causing his legs to wither into the shrunken and useless members which now hung loosely before him utterly without strength, almost without shape, incapable of bearing his weight, and rendering him maimed, crippled, blasted for life. This was Viscount Caterham, Earl Beauport's eldest son, and heir to his title and estates. His father cast one short, rapid glance at him as he entered, and then turned to the person who immediately followed him.

This was a tall girl of two-and-twenty, of rounded form and winning expression. Her features were by no means regular; her eyes were brown and sleepy; she had a pert inquisitive nose; and when she smiled, in her decidedly large mouth gleamed two rows of strong white teeth. Her dark-brown hair was simply and precisely arranged; for she had but a humble opinion of her own charms, and objected to any appearance of coquetry. She was dressed in a tight-fitting black silk, with linen collar and cuffs, and her hands and feet were small and perfectly shaped. Darling Annie Maurice, orphan daughter of a second cousin of my lord's, transplanted from a suburban curacy to be companion and humble friend of my lady, the one bright bit of sunshine and reality in that palace of ghastly stucco and sham. Even now, as she came in, Lord Beauport seemed to feel the cheering influence of her presence, and his brow relaxed for an instant as he stepped forward and offered his hand; after taking which, she, with a bow to the Countess, glided round and stood by Lord Caterham's chair.

Lord Caterham was the first to speak.

"You sent for us--for Annie and me, sir," he said in a low tremulous voice; "I trust you have no bad news of Lionel."

Lady Beauport hid her face in her hands; but the Earl, who had resumed his position against the mantelpiece, spoke firmly.

"I sent for you, Caterham, and for you, Annie, as members of my family, to tell you that Lionel Brakespere's name must never more be mentioned in this house. He has disgraced himself, and us through him; and though we cannot wipe away that disgrace, we must strive as far as possible to blot him out from our memories and our lives. You know, both of you--at least you, Caterham, know well enough,--what he has been to me--the love I had for him--the--yes, my God, the pride I had in him!"

His voice broke here, and he passed his hand across his eyes. In the momentary pause Annie Maurice glanced up at Lord Caterham, and marked his face distorted as with pain, and his head reclining on his chest. Then, gulping down the knot rising in his throat, the Earl continued:

"All that is over now; he has left the country, and the chances are that we shall never see nor even hear from him again." A moan from the Countess shook his voice for a second, but he proceeded: "It was to tell you this that I sent for you. You and I, Caterham, will have to enter upon this subject once more to-morrow, when some business arrangements have to be made. On all other occasions, recollect, it is tabooed. Let his name be blotted out from our memories, and let him be as if he had never lived."

As Earl Beauport ceased speaking he gathered himself together and walked towards the door, never trusting himself to look for an instant towards where his wife sat cowering in grief, lest his firmness should desert him. Down the stairs he went, until entering his library he shut the door behind him, locked it, and throwing himself into his chair, leant his head on the desk, and covering it with his hands gave way to a passion of sobs which shook his strong frame as though he were convulsed. Then rising, he went to the book-case, and taking out a large volume, opened it, and turned to the page immediately succeeding the cover. It was a big old-fashioned Bible, bound in calf, with a hideous ancient woodcut as a frontispiece representing the Adoration of the Wise Men; but the page to which Lord Beauport turned, yellow with age, was inscribed in various-coloured inks, many dim and faded, with the names of the old Brakespere family, and the dates of their births, marriages, and deaths. Old Martin Brakespere's headed the list; then came his son's, with "created Baron Beauport" in the lawyer's own skimpy little hand, in which also was entered the name of the musical-amateur peer, his son; then came George Brakespere's bold entry of his own name and his wife's, and of the names of their two sons. Over the last entry Lord Beauport paused for a few minutes, glaring at it with eyes which did not see it, but which had before them a chubby child, a bright handsome Eton boy, a dashing guardsman, a "swell" loved and petted by all, a fugitive skulking in an assumed name in the cabin of a sea-tossed ship; then he took up a pen and ran it through the entry backwards and forwards until the name was completely blotted out; and then he fell again into his train of thought. The family dinner-hour was long since passed; the table was laid, all was ready, and the French cook and the grave butler were in despair: but Lord Beauport still sat alone in his library with old Martin Brakespere's Bible open before him.

[CHAPTER IV]

ON THE DOORSTEP.

It is cheap philosophy to moralise on the importance of events led up to by the merest trifles; but the subject comes so frequently before us as to furnish innumerable pegs whereon the week-day preacher may hang up his little garland of reflections, his little wreath of homely truisms. If Ned Waldron had not been crossing into the Park at the exact moment when the shortsighted Godalming banker was knocked down by the hansom at the Corner, he would have still been enjoying eighty pounds a-year as a temporary extra-clerk at Whitehall, instead of groaning over the villanous extortion of the malt-tax, as a landed proprietor of some thousands of inherited acres. If Dr. Weston's red-lamp over the surgery-door had been blown out when the servant rushed off for medical advice for Master Percy Buckmaster's ear-ache, the eminent apothecary would never have had the chance of which he so skilfully availed himself--of paying dutiful attention to Mrs. Buckmaster, and finally stepping into the shoes of her late husband, the wealthy Indian indigo-planter.

If Geoffrey Ludlow, dashing impetuously onward in his career, had not heard that long low heart-breaking moan, he might have gone on leading his easy, shiftless, drifting life, with no break greater than the excitement consequent on the sale of a picture or the accomplishment of a resolution. But he did hear it, and, rare thing in him, acting at once on his first impulse, he dropped on his knees just in time to catch the fainting form in his outstretched arms. That same instant he would have shrunk back if he could; but it was too late; that same instant there came across him a horrible feeling of the ludicrousness of his position: there at midnight in a London thoroughfare holding in his arms--what! a drunken tramp, perhaps; a vagrant well known to the Mendicity Society; a gin-sodden streetwalker, who might requite his good Samaritanism with a leer and a laugh, or an oath and a blow. And yet the groan seemed to come from the lowest depths of a wrung and suffering heart; and the appearance--no, there could be no mistake about that. That thin, almost emaciated, figure; those pinched features; drawn, haggard, colourless cheeks; that brow, half hidden by the thick, damp, matted hair, yet in its deep lines and indentations revealing the bitter workings of the mind; the small thin bony hands now hanging flaccid and motionless--all these, if there were anything real in this life, were outward semblances such as mere imposters could not have brought forward in the way of trade.

Not one of them was lost on Geoffrey Ludlow, who, leaning over the prostrate figure, narrowly scanned its every feature, bent his face towards the mouth, placed his hands on the heart, and then, thoroughly alarmed, looked round and called for aid. Perhaps his excitement had something to do with it, but Geoff's voice fell flat and limp on the thick damp air, and there was no response, though he shouted again and again. But presently the door whence he had issued opened widely, and in the midst of a gush of tobacco smoke a man came out, humming a song, twirling a stick, and striding down the street. Again Geoffrey Ludlow shouted, and this time with success, for the newcomer stopped suddenly, took his pipe from his mouth, and turning hist-doo head towards the spot whence the voice proceeded, he called out, simply but earnestly, "Hallo there! what's the row?"

Ludlow recognised the speaker at once. It was Charley Potts, and Geoffrey hailed him by name.

"All right!" said Charley in return. "You've picked up my name fast enough, my pippin; but that don't go far. Better known than trusted is your obedient servant, C. P. Hallo, Geoff, old man, is it you? Why, what the deuce have you got there? an 'omeless poor, that won't move on, or a----- By George, Geoff, this is a bad case!" He had leant over the girl's prostrate body, and had rapidly felt her pulse and listened at her heart. "This woman's dying of inanition and prostration. I know it, for I was in the red-bottle and Plaster-of-Paris-horse line before I went in for Art. She must be looked to at once, or she'll slip off the hooks while we're standing by her. You hold on here, old man, while I run back and fetch the brandy out of Dabb's room; I know where he keeps it. Chafe her hands, will you, Geoff? I shan't be a second."

Charley Potts rushed off, and left Geoffrey still kneeling by the girl's side. In obedience to his friend's instructions, he began mechanically to chafe her thin worn hands; but as he rubbed his own over them to and fro, to and fro, he peered into her face, and wondered dreamily what kind of eyes were hidden behind the drooped lids, and what was the colour of the hair hanging in dank thick masses over the pallid brow. Even now there began to spring in his mind a feeling of wonder not unmixed with alarm, as to what would be thought of him, were he discovered in his then position; whether his motives would be rightly construed; whether he were not acting somewhat indiscreetly in so far committing himself: for Geoffrey Ludlow had been brought up in the strict school of dire respectability, where a lively terror of rendering yourself liable to Mrs. Grundy's remarks is amongst the doctrines most religiously inculcated. But a glance at the form before him gave him fresh assurance; and when Charley Potts returned he found his friend rubbing away with all his energy.

"Here it is," said Charley; "Dabb's particular. I know it's first-rate, for Dabb only keeps it medicinally, taking Sir Felix Booth Bart. as his ordinary tipple. I know this water-of-life-of-cognac of old, sir, and always have internal qualms of conscience when I go to see Dabb, which will not be allayed until I have had what Caniche calls a suspicion. Hold her head for a second, Geoff, while I put the flask to her mouth. There! Once more, Geoff. Ah! I thought so. Her pulse is moving now, old fellow, and she'll rouse in a bit; but it was very nearly a case of Walker."

"Look at her eyes--they're unclosing."

"Not much wonder in that, is there, my boy? though it is odd, perhaps. A glass of brandy has made many people shut their eyes before now; but as to opening them--Hallo! steady there!"

He said this as the girl, her eyes glaring straight before her, attempted to raise herself into an erect position, but after a faint struggle dropped back, exclaiming feebly:

"I cannot, I cannot."

"Of course you can't, my dear," said Charley Potts, not unkindly; "of course you can't. You musn't think of attempting it either. I say, Geoff,"--(this was said in a lower tone)--"look out for the policeman when he comes round, and give him a hail. Our young friend here must be looked after at once, and he'd better take her in a cab to the workhouse."

As he said the last words, Geoffrey Ludlow felt the girl's hand which he held thrill between his, and, bending down, thought he saw her lips move.

"What's the matter?" said Charley Potts.

"It's very strange," replied Geoffrey; "I could swear I heard her say 'Not there!' and yet--"

"Likely enough been there before, and knows the treatment. However, we must get her off at once, or she'll go to grief; so let us--"

"Look here, Charley: I don't like the notion of this woman's going to a workhouse, specially as she seems to--object, eh? Couldn't we--isn't there any one where we could--where she could lodge for a night or two, until--the doctor, you know--one might see? Confound it all, Charley, you know I never can explain exactly; can't you help me, eh?"

"What a stammering old idiot it is!" said Charley Potts, laughing. "Yes, I see what you mean--there's Flexor's wife lives close by, in Little Flotsam Street--keeps a lodging-house. If she's not full, this young party can go in there. She's all right now so far as stepping it is concerned, but she'll want a deal of looking after yet. O, by Jove! I left Rollit in at the Titians, the army-doctor, you know, who sketches so well. Let's get her into Flexor's, and I'll fetch Rollit to look at her. Easy now! Up!"

They raised her to her feet, and half-supported, half-carried her round the church and across the broad road, and down a little bystreet on the other side. There Charley Potts stopped at a door, and knocking at it, was soon confronted by a buxom middle-aged woman, who started with surprise at seeing the group.

"Lor, Mr. Potts! what can have brought you 'ere, sir? Flexor's not come in, sir, yet--at them nasty Titiums, he is, and joy go with him. If you're wanting him, sir, you'd better--"

"No, Mrs. Flexor, we don't want your husband just now. Here's Mr. Ludlow, who--"

"Lord, and so it is! but seeing nothing but the nape of your neck, sir, I did not recognise--"

"All right, Mrs. Flexor," said Geoffrey; "we want to know if your house is full. If not, here is a poor woman for whom we--at least Mr. Potts--and I myself, for the matter of that--"

"Stuttering again, Geoff! What stuff! Here, Mrs. Flexor, we want a room for this young woman to sleep in; and just help us in with her at once into your parlour, will you? and let us put her down there while I run round for the doctor."

It is probable that Mrs. Flexor might have raised objections to this proposition; but Charley Potts was a favourite with her, and Geoffrey Ludlow was a certain source of income to her husband; so she stepped back while the men caught up their burden, who all this time had been resting, half-fainting, on Geoffrey's shoulder, and carried her into the parlour. Here they placed her in a big, frayed, ragged easy-chair, with all its cushion-stuffing gone, and palpable bits of shaggy wool peering through its arms and back; and after dragging this in front of the expiring fire, and bidding Mrs. Flexor at once prepare some hot gruel, Charley Potts rushed away to catch Dr. Rollit.

And now Geoffrey Ludlow, left to himself once more (for the girl was lying back in the chair, still with unclosing eyes, and had apparently relapsed into a state of stupor), began to turn the events of the past hour in his mind, and to wonder very much at the position in which he found himself. Here he was in a room in a house which he had never before entered, shut up with a girl of whose name or condition he was as yet entirely ignorant, of whose very existence he had only just known; he, who had always shirked anything which afforded the smallest chance of adventure, was actually taking part in a romance. And yet--nonsense! here was a starving wanderer, whom he and his friend had rescued from the street; an ordinary every-day case, familiar in a thousand phases to the relieving-officers and the poor-law guardians, who, after her certain allowance of warmth, and food, and physic, would start off to go--no matter where, and do--no matter what. And yet he certainly had not been deceived in thinking of her faint protest when Charley proposed to send her to the workhouse. She had spoken then; and though the words were so few and the tone so low, there was something in the latter which suggested education and refinement. Her hands too, her poor thin hands, were long and well-shaped, with tapering fingers and filbert-nails, and bore no traces of hard work: and her face--ah, he should be better able to see her face now.

He turned, and taking the flaring candle from the table, held it above her head. Her eyes were still closed; but as he moved, they opened wide, and fixed themselves on him. Such large, deep-violet eyes, with long sweeping lashes! such a long, solemn, stedfast gaze, in which his own eyes were caught fast, and remained motionless. Then on to his hand, leaning on the arm of the chair, came the cold clammy pressure of feeble fingers; and in his ear, bent and listening, as he saw a fluttering motion of her lips, murmured very feebly the words, "Bless you!--saved me!" twice repeated. As her breath fanned his cheek, Geoffrey Ludlow's heart beat fast and audibly, his hand shook beneath the light touch of the lithe fingers; but the next instant the eyelids dropped, the touch relaxed, and a tremulousness seized on the ashy lips. Geoffrey glanced at her for an instant, and was rushing in alarm to the door, when it opened, and Charley Potts entered, followed by a tall grave man, in a long black beard, whom Potts introduced as Dr. Rollit.

"You're just in time," said Geoffrey; "I was just going to call for help. She--"

"Pardon me, please," said the doctor, calmly pushing him on one side. "Permit me to--ah!" he continued, after a glance--"I must trouble you to leave the room, Potts, please, and take your friend with you. And just send the woman of the house to me, will you? There is a woman, I suppose?"

"O yes, there is a woman, of course.--Here, Mrs. Flexor, just step up, will you?--Now, Geoff, what are you staring at, man? Do you think the doctor's going to eat the girl? Come on old fellow; we'll sit on the kitchen-stairs, and catch blackbeetles to pass the time. Come on!"

Geoff roused himself at his friend's touch, and went with him, but in a dreamy sullen manner. When they got into the passage, he remained with outstretched ear, listening eagerly; and when Charley spoke, he savagely bade him hold his tongue. Mr. Potts was so utterly astonished at this conduct, that he continued staring and motionless, and merely gave vent to his feelings in one short low whistle. When the door was opened, Geoffrey Ludlow strode down the passage at once, and confronting the doctor, asked him what news. Dr. Rollit looked his questioner steadily in the eyes for a moment; and when he spoke his tone was softer, his manner less abrupt than before. "There is no special danger, Mr. Ludlow," said he; "though the girl has had a narrow escape. She has been fighting with cold and want of proper nourishment for days, so far as I can tell."

"Did she say so?"

"She said nothing; she has not spoken a word." Dr. Rollit did not fail to notice that here Geoffrey Ludlow gave a sigh of relief. "I but judge from her appearance and symptoms. I have told this good person what to do; and I will look round early in the morning. I live close by. Now, goodnight."

"You are sure as to the absence of danger?"

"Certain."

"Goodnight; a thousand thanks!--Mrs. Flexor, mind that your patient has every thing wanted, and that I settle with you.--Now, Charley, come; what are you waiting for?"

"Eh?" said Charley. "Well, I thought that, after this little excitement, perhaps a glass out of that black bottle which I know Mrs. Flexor keeps on the second shelf in the right-hand cupboard--"

"Get along with you, Mr. Potts!" said Mrs. Flexor, grinning.

"You know you do Mrs. F.--a glass of that might cheer and not inebriate.--What do you say, Geoff?"

"I say no! You've had quite enough; and all Mrs. Flexor's attention is required elsewhere.--Goodnight, Mrs. Flexor; and"--by this time they were in the street--"goodnight, Charley."

Mr. Potts, engaged in extracting a short-pipe from the breast-pocket of his pea-jacket, looked up with an abstracted air, and said, "I beg your pardon."

"Goodnight, Charley."

"Oh, certainly, if you wish it. Goodnight, Geoffrey Ludlow, Esquire; and permit me to add, Hey no nonny! Not a very lucid remark, perhaps, but one which exactly illustrates my state of mind." And Charley Potts filled his pipe, lit it, and remained leaning against the wall, and smoking with much deliberation until his friend was out of sight.

Geoffrey Ludlow strode down the street, the pavement ringing under his firm tread, his head erect, his step elastic, his whole bearing sensibly different even to himself. As he swung along he tried to examine himself as to what was the cause of his sudden light-heartedness; and at first he ascribed it to the sale of his picture, and to the warm promises of support he had received at the hands of Mr. Stompff. But these, though a few hours since they had really afforded him the greatest delight, now paled before the transient glance of two deep-violet eyes, and the scarcely-heard murmur of a feeble voice. "'Bless you!--saved me!' that's what she said!" exclaimed Geoff, halting for a second and reflecting. "And then the touch of her hand, and the--ah! Charley was right! Hey no nonny is the only language for such an ass as I'm making of myself." So home through the quiet streets, and into his studio, thinking he would smoke one quiet pipe before turning in. There, restlessness, inability to settle to any thing, mad desire to sketch a certain face with large eyes, a certain fragile helpless figure, now prostrate, now half-reclining on a bit of manly shoulder; a carrying-out of this desire with a bit of crayon on the studio-wall, several attempts, constant failure, and consequent disgust. A feeling that ought to have been pleasure, and yet had a strong tinge of pain at his heart, and a constant ringing of one phrase, "'Bless you!--saved me!" in his ears. So to bed; where he dreamt he saw his name, Geoffrey Ludlow, in big black letters at the bottom of a gold frame, the picture in which was Keat's "Lamia;" and lo! the Lamia had the deep-violet eyes of the wanderer in the streets.

[CHAPTER V.]

THE LETTER.

The houses in St. Barnabas Square have an advantage over most other London residences in the possession of a "third room" on the ground-floor. Most people who, purposing to change their domicile, have gone in for a study of the Times Supplement or the mendacious catalogues of house-agents, have read of the "noble dining-room, snug breakfast-room, and library," and have found the said breakfast-room to be about the size and depth of a warm-bath, and the "library" a soul-depressing hole just beyond the glazed top of the kitchen-stairs, to which are eventually relegated your old boots, the bust of the friend with whom since he presented it you have had a deadly quarrel, some odd numbers of magazines, and the framework of a shower-bath which, in a moment of madness, you bought at a sale and never have been able to fit together.

But the houses in St. Barnabas Square have each, built over what in other neighbourhoods is called "leads,"--a ghastly space where the cats creep stealthily about in the daytime, and whence at night they yowl with preternatural pertinacity,--a fine large room, devoted in most instances to the purposes of billiards, but at Lord Beauport's given up entirely to Lord Caterham. It had been selected originally from its situation on the ground-floor giving the poor crippled lad easy means of exit and entrance, and preventing any necessity for his being carried--for walking was utterly impossible to him--up and down stairs. It was his room; and there, and there alone, he was absolute master; there he was allowed to carry out what his mother spoke of as his "fads," what his father called "poor Caterham's odd ways." His brother, Lionel Brakespere, had been in the habit of dropping in there twice or three times a-week, smoking his cigar, turning over the "rum things" on the table, asking advice which he never took, and lounging round the room, reading the backs of the books which he did not understand, and criticising the pictures which he knew nothing about. It would have been impossible to tell to what manner of man the room belonged from a cursory survey of its contents. Three-fourths of the walls were covered with large bookcases filled with a heterogeneous assemblage of books. Here a row of poets, a big quarto Shakespeare in six volumes, followed by Youatt on the Horse, Philip Van Artevelde, and Stanhope's Christian Martyr. In the next shelf Voltaire, all the Tennysons, Mr. Sponge's Sporting-Tour, a work on Farriery, and Blunt on the Pentateuch. So the mélange ran throughout the bookshelves; and on the fourth wall, where hung the pictures, it was not much better. For in the centre were Landseer's "Midsummer-Night's Dream," where that lovely Titania, unfairy-like if you please, but one of the most glorious specimens of pictured womanhood, pillows her fair face under the shadow of that magnificent ass's head; and Frith's "Coming of Age," and Delaroche's "Execution of Lady Jane Grey," and three or four splendid proof-engravings of untouchable Sir Joshua; and among them, dotted here and there, hunting-sketches by Alken, and coaching bits from Fores. Scattered about on tables were pieces of lava from Vesuvius, photographs from Pompeii, a collection of weeds and grasses from the Arctic regions (all duly labelled in the most precise handwriting), a horse's shoe specially adapted for ice-travelling, specimens of egg-shell china, a box of gleaming carpenter's tools, boxes of Tunbridge ware, furs of Indian manufacture, caricature statuettes by Danton, a case of shells, and another of geological specimens. Here stood an easel bearing a half-finished picture, in one corner was a sheaf of walking-sticks, against the wall a rack of whips. Before the fire was a carved-oak writing-desk, and on it, beside the ordinary blotting and writing materials, wee an aneroid barometer, a small skeleton clock, and a silver handbell. And at it sat Viscount Caterham, his head drooping, his face pale, his hands idly clasped before him.

Not an unusual position this with him, not unusual by any means when he was alone. In such society as he forced himself to keep--for with him it was more than effort to determine occasionally to shake off his love of solitude, to be present amongst his father's guests, and to receive some few special favourites in his own rooms--he was more than pleasant, he was brilliant and amusing. Big, heavy, good-natured guardsmen, who had contributed nothing to the "go" of the evening, and had nearly tugged off their tawny beards in the vain endeavour to extract something to say, would go away, and growl in deep bas voices over their cigars about "that strordinary fler Caterham. Knows a lot, you know, that f'ler, 'bout all sorts things. Can't 'ceive where picks it all up; and as jolly as old boots, by Jove!"

Old friends of Lord Beauport's, now gradually dropping into fogiedom, and clutching year by 672 year more tightly the conventional prejudices instilled into them in early life, listened with elevated eyebrows and dropping jaws to Lord Caterham's outspoken opinions, now clothed in brilliant tropes, now crackling with smart antithesis, but always fresh, earnest, liberal, and vigorous; and when they talked him over in club-windows, these old boys would say that "there was something in that deformed fellow of Beauport's, but that he was all wrong; his mind as warped as his body, by George!" And women,--ah, that was the worst of all,--women would sit and listen to him on such rare occasions as he spoke before them, sit many of them steadfast-eyed and ear-attentive, and would give him smiles and encouraging glances, and then would float away and talk to their next dancing-partner of the strange little man who had such odd ideas, and spoke so--so unlike most people, you know.

He knew it all, this fragile, colourless, delicate cripple, bound for life to his wheelchair, dependent for mere motion on the assistance of others; a something apart and almost without parallel, helpless as a little child, and yet with the brain, the heart, the passions of a man. No keener observer of outward show, no clearer reader of character than he. From out his deep-set melancholy eyes he saw the stare of astonishment, sometimes the look of disgust, which usually marked a first introduction to him; his quick ear caught the would-be compassionate inflection of the voice addressing him on the simplest matters; he knew what the old fogies were thinking of as they shifted uneasily in their chairs as he spoke; and he interpreted clearly enough the straying glances and occasional interjections of the women. He knew it all, and bore it--bore it as the cross is rarely borne.

Only three times in his life had there gone up from his lips a wail to the Father of mercies, a passionate outpouring of his heart, a wild inquiry as to why such affliction had been cast upon him. But three times, and the first of these was when he was a lad of eighteen. Lord Beauport had been educated at Charterhouse, where, as every one knows, Founder's Day is kept with annual rejoicings. To one of these celebrations Lord Beauport had gone, taking Lord Caterham with him. The speeches and recitations were over, and the crowd of spectators were filing out into the quadrangle, when Lord Caterham, whose chair was being wheeled by a servant close by his father's side, heard a cheery voice say, "What, Brakespere! Gad, Lord Beauport, I mean! I forgot. Well, how are you, my dear fellow? I haven't seen you since we sat on the same form in that old place." Lord Caterham looked up and saw his father shaking hands with a jolly-looking middle-aged man, who rattled on--"Well, and you've been in luck and are a great gun! I'm delighted to hear it. You're just the fellow to bear your honours bravely. O yes, I'm wonderfully well, thank God. And I've got my boy here at the old shop, doing just as we used to do, Brakespere--Beauport, I mean. I'll introduce you. Here, Charley!" calling to him a fine handsome lad; "this is Lord Beauport, an old schoolfellow of mine. And you, Beauport,--you've got children, eh?"

"O yes," said Lord Beauport--"two boys."

"Ah! that's right. I wish they'd been here; I should have liked to have seen them." The man rattled on, but Lord Caterham heard no more. He had heard enough. He knew that his father was ashamed to acknowledge his maimed and crippled child--ashamed of a comparison between the stalwart son of his old schoolfellow and his own blighted lad; and that night Lord Caterham's pillow was wet with tears, and he prayed to God that his life might be taken from him.

Twice since then the same feelings had been violently excited; but the sense of his position, the knowledge that he was a perpetual grief and affliction to his parents, was ever present, and pervaded his very being. To tell truth, neither his father nor his mother ever outwardly manifested their disappointment or their sorrow at the hopeless physical state of their firstborn son; but Lord Caterham read his father's trouble in thousands of covert glances thrown towards the occupant of the wheeled chair, which the elder man thought were all unmarked, in short self-suppressed sighs, in sudden shiftings of the conversation when any subject involving a question of physical activity or muscular force happened to be touched upon, in the persistent way in which his father excluded him from those regular solemn festivities of the season, held at certain special times, and at which he by right should certainly have been present.

No man knew better than Lord Beauport the horrible injustice he was committing; he felt that he was mutely rebelling against the decrees of Providence, and adding to the affliction already mysteriously dispensed to his unfortunate son by his treatment. He fought against it, but without avail; he could not bow his head and kiss the rod by which he had been smitten. Had his heir been brainless, dissipated, even bad, he could have forgiven him. He did in his heart forgive his second son when he became all three; but that he, George Brakespere, handsome Brakespere, one of the best athletes of the day, should have to own that poor misshapen man as his son and heir!--it was too much. He tried to persuade himself that he loved his son; but he never looked at him without a shudder, never spoke of him with unflushed cheeks.

As for Lady Beauport, from the time that the child's malady first was proclaimed incurable, she never took the smallest interest in him, but devoted herself, as much as devotion was compatible with perpetual attendance at ball, concert, and theatre, to her second son. As a child, Lord Caterham had, by her express commands, been studiously kept out of her sight; and now that he was a man, she saw very much less of him than of many strangers. A dozen times in the year she would enter his room and remain a few minutes, asking for his taste in a matter of fancy-costume, or something of the kind; and then she would brush his forehead with her lips, and rustle away perfectly satisfied with her manner of discharging the duties of maternity.

And Lord Caterham knew all this; read it as in a book; and suffered, and was strong. Who know most of life, discern character most readily, and read it most deeply? We who what we call "mix in the world," hurry hither and thither, buffeting our way through friends and foes, taking the rough and the smooth, smiling here, frowning there, but ever pushing onward? Or the quiet ones, who lie by in the nooks and lanes, and look on at the strife, and mark the quality and effect of the blows struck; who see not merely how, but why the battle has been undertaken; who can trace the strong and weak points of the attack and defence, see the skirmishers thrown out here, the feigned retreat there, the mine ready prepared in the far distance? How many years had that crippled man looked on at life, standing as it were at the gates and peering in at the antics and dalliances, the bowings and scrapings, the mad moppings and idiotic mowings of the puppets performing? And had he not arrived during this period at a perfect knowledge of how the wires were pulled, and what was the result?

Among them but not of them, in the midst of the whirl of London but as isolated as a hermit, with keen analytical powers, and leisure and opportunity to give them full swing, Lord Caterham passed his life in studying the lives of other people, in taking off the padding and the drapery, the paint and the tinsel, in looking behind the grins, and studying the motives for the sneers. Ah, what a life for a man to pass! situated as Lord Caterham was, he must under such circumstances have become either a Quilp or an angel. The natural tendency is to the former: but Providence had been kind in one instance to Lord Caterham, and he, like Mr. Disraeli, went in for the angel.

His flow of spirits was generally, to say the least of it, equable. When the dark hour was on him he suffered dreadfully; but this morning he was more than usually low, for he had been pondering over his brother's insane downfall, and it was with something like real pleasure that he heard his servant announce "Mr. Barford," and gave orders for that gentleman's admittance.

The Honourable Algernon Barford by prescriptive right, but "Algy Barford" to any one after two days' acquaintance with him, was one of those men whom it is impossible not to call by their Christian names; whom it is impossible not to like as an acquaintance; whom it is difficult to take into intimate friendship; but with whom no one ever quarrelled. A big, broad-chested, broad-faced, light-whiskered man, perfectly dressed, with an easy rolling walk, a pleasant presence, a way of enarming and "old boy-ing" you, without the least appearance of undue familiarity; on the contrary, with a sense of real delight in your society; with a voice which, without being in the least affected, or in the remotest degree resembling the tone of the stage-nobleman, had the real swell ring and roll in it; a kindly, sunny, chirpy, world-citizen, who, with what was supposed to be a very small income, lived in the best society, never borrowed or owed a sovereign, and was nearly always in good temper. Algy Barford was the very man to visit you when you were out of spirits. A glance at him was cheering; it revived one at once to look at his shiny bald forehead fringed with thin golden hair, at his saucy blue eyes, his big grinning mouth furnished with sparkling teeth; and when he spoke, his voice came ringing out with a cheery music of its own.

"Hallo, Caterham!" said he, coming up to the chair and placing one of his big hands on the occupant's small shoulder; "how goes it, my boy? Wanted to see you, and have a chat. How are you, old fellow, eh? Where does one put one's hat, by the way, dear old boy? Can't put it under my seat, you know, or I should think I was in church; and there's no place in this den of yours; and--ah, that'll do, on that lady's head. Who is it? O, Pallas Athené; ah, very well then, non invitâ Minervâ, she'll support my castor for me. Fancy my recollecting Latin, eh? but I think I must have seen it on somebody's crest. Well, and now, old boy, how are you?"

"Well, not very brilliant this morning, Algy. I--"

"Ah, like me, got rats, haven't you?"

"Rats?"

"Yes; whenever I'm out of spirits I think I've got rats--sometimes boiled rats. Oh, it's all very well for you to laugh, Caterham; but you know, though I'm generally pretty jolly, sometimes I have a regular file-gnawing time of it. I think I'll take a peg, dear old boy--a sherry peg--just to keep me up."

"To be sure. Just ring for Stevens, will you? he'll--"

"Not at all; I recollect where the sherry is and where the glasses live. Nourri dans le sérail, j'en connais les detours. Here they are. Have a peg, Caterham?"

"No, thanks, Algy; the doctor forbids me that sort of thing. I take no exercise to carry it off, you know; but I thought some one told me you had turned teetotaller."

"Gad, how extraordinarily things get wind, don't you know! So I did, honour!--kept to it all strictly, give you my word, for--ay, for a fortnight; but then I thought I might as well die a natural death, so I took to it again. This is the second peg I've had to-day--took number one at the Foreign Office, with my cousin Jack Lambert. You know Jack?--little fellow, short and dirty, like a winter's day."

"I know him," said Caterham, smiling; "a sharp fellow."

"O yes, deuced cute little dog--knows every thing. I wanted him to recommend me a new servant--obliged to send my man away--couldn't stand him any longer--always worrying me."

"I thought he was a capital servant?"

"Ye-es; knew too much though, and went to too many evening-parties--never would give me a chance of wearing my own black bags and dress-boots--kept 'em in constant requisition, by Jove! A greedy fellow too. I used to let him get just outside the door with the breakfast-things, and then suddenly call him back; and he never showed up without his mouth full of kidney, or whatever it was. And he always would read my letters--before I'd done with them, I mean. I'm shortsighted, you know, and obliged to get close to the light: he was in such a hurry to find out what they were about, that he used to peep in through the window, and read them over my shoulder. I found this out; and this morning I was ready for him with my fist neatly doubled-up in a thick towel. I saw his shadow come stealing across the paper, and then I turned round and let out at him slap through the glass. It was a gentle hint that I had spotted his game; and so he came in when he had got his face right, and begged me to suit myself in a month, as he had heard of a place which he thought he should like better. Now, can you tell me of any handy fellow, Caterham?"

"Not I; I'm all unlikely to know of such people. Stay, there was a man that--"

"Yes; and then you stop. Gad, you are like the rest of the world, old fellow: you have an arrière pensée which prevents your telling a fellow a good thing."

"No, not that, Algy. I was going to say that there was a man who was Lionel's servant. I don't know whether he has got another place; but Lionel, you know--" and Lord Caterham stopped with a knot in his throat and burning cheeks.

"I know, dear old boy," said Algy Barford, rising from his seat and again placing his hand on Caterham's shoulder; "of course I know. You're too much a man of the world"--(Heaven help us! Caterham a man of the world! But this was Algy Barford's pleasant way of putting it)--"not to know that the clubs rang with the whole story last night. Don't shrink, old boy. It's a bad business; but I never heard such tremendous sympathy expressed for a--for a buffer--as for Lionel. Every body says he must have been no end cornered before he--before he--well, there's no use talking of it. But what I wanted to say to you is this,--and I'm deuced glad you mentioned Lionel's name, old fellow, for I've been thinking all the time I've been here how I could bring it in. Look here! he and I were no end chums, you know; I was much older than he; but we took to each other like any thing, and--and I got a letter from him from Liverpool with--with an enclosure for you, old boy."

Algy Barford unbuttoned his coat as he said these last words, took a long breath, and seemed immensely relieved, though he still looked anxiously towards his friend.

"An enclosure for me?" said Lord Caterham, turning deadly white; "no further trouble--no further misery for--"

"On my honour, Caterham, I don't know what it is," said Algy Barford; "he doesn't hint it in his letter to me. He simply says, 'Let the enclosed be given to Caterham, and given by your own hand.' He underlines that last sentence; and so I brought it on. I'm a bungling jackass, or I should have found means to explain it myself, by Jove! But as you have helped me, so much the better."

"Have you it with you?"

"O yes; brought it on purpose," said Algy, rising and taking his coat from a chair, and his hat from the head of Pallas Athené; "here it is. I don't suppose anything from poor Lionel can be very brilliant just now; but still, I know nothing. Goodby, Caterham, old fellow; can't help me to a servant-man, eh? See you next week; meantime,--and this earnest, old boy,--if there's anything I can do to help Lionel in any shape, you'll let me know, won't you, old fellow?"

And Algy Barford handed Lord Caterham the letter, kissed his hand, and departed in his usual airy, cheery fashion.

That night Lord Caterham did not appear at the dinner-table; and his servant, on being asked, said that his master "had been more than usual queer-like," and had gone to bed very early.

[CHAPTER VI.]

THE FIRST VISIT.

Geoffrey Ludlow was in his way a recognisant and a grateful man, grateful for such mercies as he knew he enjoyed; but from never having experienced its loss, he was not sufficiently appreciative of one of the greatest of life's blessings, the faculty of sleep at will. He could have slept, had he so willed it, under the tremendous cannonading, the feu-d'enfer, before Sebastopol, or while Mr. Gladstone was speaking his best speech, or Mr. Tennyson was reading aloud his own poetry; whenever and wherever he chose he could sleep the calm peaceful sleep of an infant. Some people tell you they are too tired to sleep--that was never the case with Geoffrey; others that their minds are too full, that they are too excited, that the weather is too hot or too cold, that there is too much noise, or that the very silence is too oppressive. But, excited or comatose, hot or cold, in the rumble of London streets or the dead silence of--well, he had never tried the Desert, but let us say Walton-on-the-Naze, Geoffrey Ludlow no sooner laid his head on the pillow than he went off into a sound, glorious, healthy sleep--steady, calm, and peaceful; not one of your stertorous, heavy, growling slumbers, nor your starting, fly-catching, open-mouthed, moaning states, but a placid, regular sleep, so quiet and undisturbed that he scarcely seemed to breathe; and often as a child had caused his mother to examine with anxiety whether the motionless figure stretched upon the little bed was only sleeping naturally, or whether the last long sleep had not fallen on it.

Dreams he had, no doubt; but they by no means disturbed the refreshing, invigorating character of his repose. On the night of his adventure in the streets, he dreamt the Lamia dream without its in the least affecting his slumber; and when he opened his eyes the next morning, with the recollection of where he was, and what day it was, and what he had to do--those post-waking thoughts which come to all of us--there came upon him an indefinable sensation of something pleasurable and happy, of something bright and sunshiny, of something which made his heart feel light within him, and caused him to open his eyes and grapple with the day at once.

Some one surely must long ere this have remarked how our manner of waking from slumber is affected by our state of mind. The instant that consciousness comes upon us, the dominant object of our thoughts, be it pleasant or horrible, is before us: the absurd quarrel with the man in the black beard last night, about--what was it about? the acceptance which Smith holds, which must be met, and can't be renewed; the proposal in the conservatory to Emily Fairbairn, while she was flushed with the first valse after supper, and we with Mrs. Tresillian's champagne;--or, per contra, as they say in the City, the thrilling pressure of Flora Maitland's hand, and the low whisper in which she gave us rendezvous at the Botanical Fête this afternoon the lawyer's letter informing us of our godfather's handsome legacy;--all these, whether for good or ill, come before us with the first unclosing of our eyelids. If agreeable we rouse ourselves at once, and lie simultaneously chewing the cud of pleasant thoughts and enjoying the calm haven of our bed; if objectionable, we try and shut them out yet for a little while, and turning round court sleep once more.

What was the first thought that flashed across Geoffrey Ludlow's brain immediately on his waking, and filled him with hope and joy? Not the remembrance of the purchase of his picture by Mr. Stompff, though that certainly occurred to him, with Stompff's promises of future employment, and the kind words of his old friends at the Titians, all floating simultaneously across his mind. But with these thoughts came the recollection of a fragile form, and a thin hand with long lithe fingers wound round his own, and a low feeble voice whispering the words "Bless you!--saved me!" in his listening ear.

Beneath the flickering gas-lamps, or in the dim half-light of Mrs. Flexor's room, he had been unable to make out the colour of the eyes, or of the thick hair which hung in heavy masses over her cheeks; it was a spiritual recollection of her at the best; but he would soon change that into a material inspection. So, after settling in his own mind--that mind which coincides so readily with our wishes--that it was benevolence which prompted his every action, and which roused in him the desire to know how the patient of the previous night was getting on, he sprang from his bed, and pulled the string of his shower-bath with an energy which not even the knowledge of the water's probable temperature could mitigate. But he had not proceeded half-way through his toilet, when the old spirit of irresolution began to exercise its dominion over him. Was it not somewhat of a Quixotic adventure in which he was engaging? To succour a starving frozen girl on a wet night was merely charitable and humane; there was no man of anything like decent feeling but would have acted as he had done, and--by George!--here the hair-brushes were suspended in mid-air, just threatening a descent one on either side of his bushy head--wouldn't it have been better to have accepted Charley Pott's suggestion, and let the policeman take her to the workhouse? There she would have had every attention and--bah! every attention! the truckle-bed in a gaunt bare room, surrounded by disease in every shape; the perfunctory visits of the parish-doctor; the--O no! and, moreover, had he not heard, or at all events imagined he heard, the pallid lips mutter "Not there!" No! there was something in her which--which--at all events--well, ruat caelum, it was done, and he must take the consequences; and down came the two hair-brushes like two avalanches, and worried his unresisting scalp like two steam-harrows. The recollection of the fragile frame, and the thin hands, and the broken voice, supported by the benevolent theory, had it all their own way from that time out, until he had finished dressing, and sent him downstairs in a happy mood, pleased with what he had done, more pleased still with the notion of what he was about to do. He entered the room briskly, and striding up to an old lady sitting at the head of the breakfast-table, gave her a sounding kiss.

"Goodmorning, dearest mother.--How do, Til, dear?" turning to a young woman who was engaged in pouring out the tea. "I'm late again, I see."

"Always on sausage mornings, I notice, Geoffrey," said Mrs. Ludlow, with a little asperity. "It does not so much matter with haddock, though it becomes leathery; or eggs, for you like them hard; but sausages should be eaten hot, or not at all; and to-day, when I'd sent specially for these, knowing that nasty herb-stuffing is indigestible--let them deny it if they can--it does seem hard that--well, never mind--"

Mrs. Ludlow was a very good old lady, with one great failing: she was under the notion that she had to bear what she called "a cross," a most uncomfortable typical object, which caused all her friends the greatest annoyance, but in which, though outwardly mournful, she secretly rejoiced, as giving her a peculiar status in her circle. This cross intruded itself into all the social and domestic details of her life, and was lugged out metaphorically on all possible occasions.

"Don't mind me, mother," said Geoff; "the sausages will do splendidly. I overslept myself; I was a little late last night."

"O, at those everlasting Titians.--I declare I forgot," said the young woman who had been addressed as "Til," and who was Geoffrey's only sister. "Ah, poor fellow! studying his art till two this morning, wasn't he?" And Miss Til made a comic sympathetic moue, which made Geoff laugh.

"Two!" said Mrs. Ludlow; "nearer three, Matilda. I ought to know, for I had water running down my back all night, and my feet as cold as stone; and I had a perfect recollection of having left the key of the linen closet in the door, owing to my having been hurried down to luncheon yesterday when I was giving Martha out the clean pillowcases. However, if burglars do break into that linen-closet, it won't be for my not having mentioned it, as I call you to witness, Matilda."

"All right, mother," said Geoffrey; "we'll run the risk of that. I'm very sorry I disturbed the house, but I was late, I confess; but I did some good, though."

"O yes, Geoffrey, we know," said Matilda. "Got some new notions for a subject, or heard some aesthetic criticism; or met some wonderful lion, who's going to astonish the world, and of whom no one ever hears again! You always have done something extraordinary when you're out very late, I find."

"Well, I did something really extraordinary last night. I sold my picture the 'Ballroom,' you know; and for what do you think?--two hundred pounds."

"O, Geoff, you dear, darling old Geoff! I am so glad! Two hundred pounds! O, Geoff, Geoff! You dear, lucky old fellow!" and Miss Till flung her arms round her brother's neck and hugged him with delight. Mrs. Ludlow said never a word; but her cross melted away momentarily, her eyes filled with tears, and her lips quivered. Geoffrey noticed this, and so soon as he had returned his sister's hearty embrace, he went up to his mother, and kneeling by her side, put up his face for her kiss.

"God bless you, my son!" said the old lady reverently, as she gave it; "God bless you! This is brave news, indeed. I knew it would come in time; but--"

"Yes; but tell us all about it, Geoff. How did it come about? and however did you pluck up courage, you dear, bashful, nervous old thing, to ask such a price?"

"I--why, Til, you know that I--and you, dear mother, you know too that--not that I am bashful, as Til says; but still there's something. O, I should never have sold the picture, I believe, if I'd been let alone. It was Charley Potts sold it for me."

"Charles Potts! That ridiculous young man! Well, I should never have thought it," said Mrs. Ludlow.

Miss Matilda said nothing, but a faint flush rose on her neck and cheeks, and died away again as quickly as it came.

"O, he's a capital man of business--for anybody else, that's to say. He don't do much good for himself. He sold the picture for me, and prevented my saying a word in the whole affair. And who do you think has bought it? Mr. Stompff, the great dealer, who tells me he'll take as many more of the same style as I like to paint."

"This is great news, indeed, my boy," said the old lady. "You've only to persevere, and your fortune's made. Only one thing, Geoffrey,--never paint on Sunday, or you'll never become a great man."

"Well but, mother," said Geoff, smiling, "Sir Joshua Reynolds painted always on Sundays until Johnson's death and he was a great man."

"Ah, well, my dear," replied his mother forcibly, if not logically, "that's nothing to do with it."

Then Geoffrey, who had been hurrying through his sausage, and towards the last began to grow nervous and fidgety--accounted for by his mother and sister from his anxiety to go and see Mr. Stompff, and at once fling himself on to fresh canvases--finished his breakfast, and went out to get his hat. Mrs. Ludlow, with her "cross" rapidly coming upon her, sat down to "do the books,"--an inspection of the household brigade of tradesmen's accounts which she carried on weekly with the sternest rigour; and Matilda, who was by no means either a romantic or a strong-minded woman commenced to darn a basketful of Geoffrey's socks. Then the sock-destroyer put his head in at the door, his mouth ornamented with a large cigar, and calling out "Goodbye," departed on his way.

The fragile form, the thin hands, and the soft low voice had it all their own way with Geoffrey Ludlow now. He was going to see their owner; in less than an hour he should know the colour of the eyes and the hair; and figuratively Geoffrey walked upon air; literally, he strode along with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, swinging his stick, and, but for the necessity of clenching his cigar between his teeth, inclined to hum a tune aloud. He scarcely noticed any of the people he met; but such as he did casually glance at he pitied from the bottom of his soul: there were no thin hands or soft voices waiting for them. And it must be owned that the passers-by who noticed him returned his pity. The clerks on the omnibuses, sucking solemnly at their briar-root pipes, or immersed in their newspapers, solemn staid men going in "to business," on their regular daily routine, looked up with wonder on this buoyant figure, with its black wideawake hat and long floating beard, its jerky walk, its swinging stick, and its general air of light-hearted happiness. The cynical clerks, men with large families, whom nothing but an increase of salary could rouse, interchanged shoulder-shrugs of contempt, and the omnibus-conductor, likewise a cynic, after taking a long stare at Geoffrey, called out to his driver, "'Appy cove that! looks as if he'd found a fourpennypiece, don't he?"

Entirely ignorant of the attention he was attracting, Geoff blithely pursued his way. He lived at Brompton, and he was bound for the neighbourhood of Portland Place; so he turned in at the Albert Gate, and crossing the enclosure and the Row, made for Grosvenor Gate. In the Park he was equally the object of remark: the nurse-girls called their charges to come "to heel" out of the way of that "nasty ugly big man;" the valetudinarians taking their constitutional in the Row loathed him for swinging his stick and making their horses shy as he passed; the park-keepers watched him narrowly, as one probably with felonious intent to the plants or the ducks.

Still, utterly unconscious, Geoffrey went swinging along across Grosvenor Square, down Brook Street; and not until he turned into Bond Street did he begin to realise entirely the step he was about to take. Then he wavered, in mind and in gait; he thought he would turn back: he did turn back, irresolute, doubtful. Better have nothing more to do with it; nip it in the bud; send Charley Potts with a couple of sovereigns to Mrs. Flexor's, and tell her to set the girl on her way again, and wish her God-speed. But what if she were still ill, unable to move? people didn't gain sufficient strength in twelve hours; and Charley, though kind-hearted, was rather brusque; and then the low voice, with the "Bless you!--saved me!" came murmuring in his ear; and Geoffrey, like Whittington, turned again, and strode on towards Little Flotsam Street.

When he got near Flexor's door, he faltered again, and very nearly gave in: but looking up, saw Mrs. Flexor standing on the pavement; and perceiving by her manner that his advent had been noticed, proceeded, and was soon alongside that matron.

"Good morning, Mrs. Flexor."

"Good momin', sir; thought you'd be over early, though not lookin' for you now, but for Reg'las, my youngest plague, so called after Mr. Scumble's Wictory of the Carthageniums, who has gone for milk for some posset for our dear; who is much better this momin', the Lord a mussy! Dr. Rollix have been, and says we may sit up a little, if taking nourishment prescribed; and pleased to see you we shall be. A pretty creetur, Mr. Ludlow, though thin as thin and low as low: but what can we expect?"

"She is better, then?"

"A deal better, more herself like; though not knowing what she was before, I can't exactly say. Flexor was fine and buffy when he came home last night, after you was gone, sir. Them nasty Titiums, he always gets upset there. And now he's gone to sit to Mr. Potts for--ah, well, some Roman party whose name I never can remember."

"Is your patient up, Mrs. Flexor?"

"Gettin'. We shall be ready to see you in five minutes, sir. I'll go and see to her at once."

Mrs. Flexor retired, and Geoffrey was left to himself for a quarter of an hour standing in the street, during which time he amused himself as most people would under similar circumstances. That is to say, he stared at the houses opposite and at the people who passed; and then he beat his stick against his leg, and then he whistled a tune, and then, having looked at his watch five times, he looked at it for the sixth. Then he walked up the street, taking care to place his foot on the round iron of every coal-shoot; and then he walked down the street, carrying out a determination to step in the exact centre of every flagstone; and then, after he had pulled his beard a dozen times, and lifted his wideawake hat as many, that the air might blow upon his hot forehead, he saw Mrs. Flexor's head protrude from the doorway, and he felt very much inclined to run away. But he checked himself in time, and entered the house, and, after a ghostly admonition from Mrs. Flexor "not to hagitate her," he opened the parlour-door, which Mrs. Flexor duly shut behind him, and entered the room.

Little light ever groped its way between the closely-packed rows of houses in Little Flotsam Street, even on the brightest summer day; and on a dark and dreary winter's morning Mrs. Flexor's little front parlour was horribly dark. The worthy landlady had some wild notion, whence derived no one knew, that an immense amount of gentility was derived from keeping the light out; and consequently the bottom parts of her windows were fitted with dwarf wire-blinds, and the top parts with long linen-blinds, and across both were drawn curtains made of a kind of white fishing-net; so that even so little daylight as Little Flotsam Street enjoyed was greatly diluted in the Flexorian establishment.

But Geoffrey Ludlow saw stretched out on a miserable black horsehair sofa before him there this fragile form which had been haunting his brain for the last twelve hours. Ah, how thin and fragile it was; how small it looked, even in, its worn draggled black-merino dress! As he advanced noiselessly, he saw that the patient slept; her head was thrown back, her delicate white hands (and almost involuntarily Geoffrey remarked that she wore no wedding-ring) were clasped across her breast, and her hair, put off her dead-white face, fell in thick clusters over her shoulders.

With a professional eye Geoffrey saw at once that whatever trouble she might have taken, she could not have been more artistically posed than in this natural attitude. The expression of her eyes was wanting; and, as he sunk into a chair at her feet, her eyes opened upon him. Then he saw her face in its entirety; saw large deep-violet eyes, with dark lashes and eyebrows; a thin, slightly aquiline nose; small thin close lips, and a little chin; a complexion of the deadest white, without the smallest colour and hair, long thick rich luxuriant hair, of a deep, red-god colour--not the poetic "auburn," not the vulgar "carrots;" a rich metallic red, unmistakable, admitting of no compromise, no darkening by grease or confining by fixature--a great mass of deep-red hair, strange, weird, and oddly beautiful. The deep-violet eyes, opening slowly, fixed their regard on his face without a tremor, and with a somewhat languid gaze; then brightening slowly, while the hands were unclasped, and the voice--how well Geoff remembered its tones, and how they thrilled him again!--murmured faintly, "It is you!"

What is that wonderful something in the human voice which at once proclaims the social status of the speaker? The proletary and the roturier, Nature willing, can have as good features, grow as flowing beards, be as good in stature, grace, and agility, as the noblest patrician, or the man in whose veins flows the purest sangre azul; but they fail generally in hands, always in voice. Geoffrey Ludlow, all his weakness and irresolution notwithstanding, was necessarily by his art a student of life and character; and no sooner did he hear those three little words spoken in that tone, than all his floating ideas of shamming tramp or hypocritical streetwalker, as connected with the recipient of his last night's charity, died away, and he recognised at once the soft modulations of education, if not of birth.

But those three words, spoken in deep low quivering tones, while they set the blood dancing in Geoffrey Ludlow's veins, made him at the same time very uncomfortable. He had a dread of anything romantic; and there flashed through his mind an idea that he could only answer this remark by exclaiming, "Tis I!" or "Ay, indeed!" or something else equally absurd and ridiculous. So he contented himself with bowing his head and putting out his hand--into which the long lithe fingers came fluttering instantly. Then with burning cheeks Geoffrey bent forward, and said, "You are better to-day?"

"Oh, so much--so much better! thanks to you, thanks to you!"

"Your doctor has been?" She bowed her head in reply.

"And you have everything you wish for?" She bowed again, this time glancing up--with, O, such a light in the deep-violet eyes--into Geoffrey's face!

"Then--then I will leave you now," said he, awkwardly enough. The glance fell as he said this; but flashed again full and earnest in an instant; the lithe fingers wound round his wrist, and the voice, even lower and more tremulously than before, whispered, "You'll come to-morrow?"

Geoff flushed again, stammered, "Yes, O, by all means!" made a clumsy bow, and went out.

Now this was a short, and not a particularly satisfactory, interview; but the smallest detail of it remained in Geoffrey Ludlow's mind, and was reproduced throughout the remainder of that day and the first portion of the succeeding night, for him to ponder over. He felt the clasp of her fingers yet on his wrist, and he heard the soft voice, "You'll come to-morrow?" It must be a long distance, he thought, that he would not go to gaze into those eyes, to touch that hand, to hear that voice again!

[CHAPTER VII.]

CHEZ POTTS.

Mr. Potts lived in Berners Street, on the second floor of a rambling big old-fashioned house, which in its palmy days had been inhabited by people of distinction; and in which it was rumoured in the art-world that the great Mr. Fuseli had once lived, and painted those horrors which sprung from the nightmare consequent on heavy suppers of pork-chops. But these were the days of its decadence, and each of its floors had now a separate and distinct tenant. The ground-floor was a kind of half showroom, half shop, held by Mr. Lectern, the great church-upholsterer. Specimens of stained-glass windows, croziers, and brass instruments like exaggerated beadles'-staves, gilt sets of communion-service, and splendidly-worked altar-cloths, occupied the walls; the visitor walked up to the desk at which Mr. Lectern presided between groves of elaborately-carved pulpits and reading-desks, and brazen eagles were extending their wings in every available corner. On the first-floor Mdlle. Stetti gave lessons to the nobility, gentry, and the public in general in the fashionable dances of the day, and in the Magyar sceptre-exercises for opening the chest and improving the figure. Mdlle. Stetti had a very large connection; and as many of her pupils were adults who had never learned to dance while they were supple and tender, and as, under the persevering tuition of their little instructress, they gambolled in a cumbrous and rather elephantine manner, they earned for themselves many hearty anathemas from Mr. Potts, who found it impossible to work with anything like a steady hand while the whole house was rocking under the influence of a stout stockbroker doing the "changes," or while the walls trembled at every bound of the fourteen-stone lady from Islington, who was being initiated into the mysteries of the gavotte. But Charley Potts' pipe was the only confidant of his growled anathemas, and on the whole he got on remarkably well with his neighbours; for Mr. Lectern had lent him bits of oak furniture to paint from; and once, when he was ill, Mdlle. Stetti, who was the dearest, cheeriest, hardest-working, best-tempered little creature in existence, had made him broths and "goodies" with her own hand, and when he was well, had always a kind word and a smile for him--and, indeed, revelled in the practical humour and buffoonery of "ce farceur Pott." For Mr. Potts was nothing if not funny; the staircase leading to his rooms began to be decorated immediately after you had passed Mdlle. Stetti's apartments; an enormous hand, sketched in crayon, with an outstretched finger, directed attention to an inscription--"To the halls of Potts!" Just above the little landing you were confronted by a big beef-eater's head, out of the mouth of which floated a balloon-like legend--"Walk up, walk up, and see the great Potts!" The aperture of the letter-box in the door formed the mouth in a capital caricatured head of Charley himself; and instead of a bell-handle there hung a hare's-foot, beneath which was gummed a paper label with a written inscription "Tug the trotter."

Three days after the gathering at the Titian Sketching-Club, Mr. Potts sat in his studio, smoking a pipe, and glaring vacantly at a picture on an easel in front of him. It was not a comfortable room; its owner's warmest friend could not have asserted that. There was no carpet, and the floor was begrimed with the dirt of ages, and with spilt tobacco and trodden-in cigar-ash. The big window was half stopped-up, and had no curtain. An old oak-cabinet against the wall, surmounted by the inevitable plaster torso, and studies of hands and arms, had lost one of its supporting feet, and looked as though momentarily about to topple forward. A table in the middle of the room was crowded with litter, amongst which a pewter-pot reared itself conspicuously. Over an old sofa were thrown a big rough Inverness-cape, a wideawake hat, and a thick stick; while on a broken, ragged, but theatrically-tawdry arm-chair, by the easel, were a big palette already "set," a colour-box, and a sheaf of brushes. Mr. Potts was dressed in a shepherd's-plaid shooting coat, adorned here and there with dabs of paint, and with semi-burnt brown patches, the result of the incautious dropping of incandescent tobacco and vesuvians. He had on a pair of loose rough trousers, red-morocco slippers without heels, and he wore no neckcloth; but his big turned-down shirt-collar was open at the throat. He wore no beard, but had a large sweeping Austrian moustache, which curled fiercely at the ends; had thin brown hair, light blue eyes, and the freshest and healthiest of complexions. No amount of late hours, of drinking and smoking, could apparently have any effect on this baby-skin; and under the influence of cold water and yellow soap, both of which he used in large quantities, he seemed destined to remain--so far as his complexion was concerned--"beautiful for ever,"--or at least until long after Madame Rachel's clients had seen the worthlessness of pigments. Looking at him as he sat there--his back bent nearly double, his eyes fixed on his picture, his pipe fixed stiffly between his teeth, and his big bony hands clasped in front of him--there was no mistaking him for anything but a gentleman; ill-dressed, slatternly, if you like; but a true gentleman, every inch of him.

The "trotter" outside being tugged with tremendous violence, roused him from his reverie, and he got up and opened the door, saying, as he did so, "Why didn't you ring? I would, if I'd been you. You're in the bell-hanging line, I should think, by the way you jerked my wire. Hollo, Bowker, my boy! is it you? What's the matter? Are you chivied by a dun on the staircase, or fainting for a pull at the pewter, that you come with such a ring as that? Bring your body in, old man; there's a wind here enough to shave you."

Mr. Bowker preceded his friend into the room, looked into the pewter-pot, drained it, wiped his beard with a handkerchief; which he took out of his hat, and said, in a solemn deep voice: "Potts, my pipkin, how goes it?"

"Pretty well, old man, pretty well--considering the weather. And you?"

"Your William se porte bien. Hallo!" glancing at the easel, while he took a pipe from his pocket and filled it from a jar on the table; "hallo! something new! What's the subject? Who is the Spanish party in tights? and what's the venerable buffer in the clerical get-up of the period putting out his hand about?"

"Oh, it's a scene from Gil Blas, where the Archbishop of Grenada discharges him, you know."

"No, I don't, and I don't want to hear; your William, dear boy, has discovered that life is too short to have anything explained to him: if he don't see it at first, he let's it pass. The young party's right leg is out of drawing, my chick; just give your William a bit of chalk. There--not being a patient at the Orthopaedic Hospital--that's where his foot would come to. The crimson of the reverend gent's gown is about as bad as anything Ive seen for a long time, dear boy. Hand over the palette and brushes for two minutes. Your William is a rum old skittle; but if there's one thing he knows about, it is colour." And Charley, who knew that, with all his eccentricity, Mr. Bowker, or "your William," as he always spoke of himself; was a thorough master of his art, handed him what he required, and sat by watching him.

A fat bald-headed man with a grizzled beard, a large paunch and flat splay feet, badly dressed and not too clean, Mr. Bowker did not give one the idea of ever having been an "object of interest" to any one save the waiter at the tavern where he dined, or the tobacconist where he bought his Cavendish. But yet there had been a day when bright eyes grew brighter at his approach, tiny ears latticed with chestnut-hair had eagerly drunk in the music of his voice, gentle hands had thrilled beneath his touch. He had bright blue eyes himself then, and long hair, and a slim figure. He was young Mr. Bowker, whose first pictures exhibited at Somerset House had made such a sensation, and who was so much noticed by Sir David Wilkie, and for whom Mr. Northcote prophesied such a future, and whom Mr. Fuseli called a "coot prave poy!" He was the young Mr. Bowker who was recommended by Sir Thomas Lawrence as drawing-master to the lovely young wife of old Mr. Van Den Bosch, the Dutch banker and financier long resident in London. He was "that scoundrel Bowker, sir," who, being wildly romantic, fell head-over-ears in love with his pupil; and finding that she was cruelly ill-treated by the old ruffian her husband, ran away with her to Spain, and by that rash act smashed-up his career and finally settled himself for ever. Old Van Den Bosch got a divorce, and died, leaving all his money to his nephews; and then William Bowker and the woman he had eloped with returned to England, to find himself universally shunned and condemned. His art was as good, nay a thousand times better than ever; but they would not hear of him at the Royal Academy now; would not receive his pictures; would not allow the mention of his name. Patrons turned their backs on him, debts accumulated, the woman for whom he had sacrificed everything died,--penitent so far as she herself was concerned, but adoring her lover to the last, and calling down blessings on him with her latest breath. And then William Bowker strove no more, but accepted his position and sunk into what he was, a kindly, jolly, graceless vagabond, doing no harm, but very little good. He had a little private money on which he lived; and as time progressed, some of his patrons, who found he painted splendidly and cheaply, came back to him and gave him commissions; but he never again attempted to regain his status; and so long as he had enough to supply his simple daily wants, seemed content. He was a great favourite with some half-dozen young men of Charley Potts's set, who had a real love and regard for him, and was never so happy as when helping them with advice and manual assistance.

Charley watched him at his work, and saw with delight the archbishop's robe gradually growing all a-glow beneath the master's touch; and then, to keep him in good-humour and amused, began to talk, telling him a score of anecdotes, and finally asking him if he'd heard anything of Tommy Smalt.

"Tommy Smalt, sir?" cried Bowker, in his cheery voice; "Tommy Smalt, sir, is in clover! Your William has been able to put Tommy on to a revenue of at least thirty shillings a-week. Tommy is now the right-hand man of Jacobs of Newman Street; and the best judges say that there are no Ostades, Jan Steens, or Gerard Dows like Tommy's."

"What do you mean?--copies?"

"Copies! no, sir: originals."

"Originals!"

"Certainly! original Tenierses, of boors drinking; Wouvermanns, not forgetting the white horse; or Jan Steens, with the never-failing episode;--all carefully painted by Tommy Smalt and his fellow-labourers! Ah, Jacobs is a wonderful man! There never was such a fellow; he sticks at nothing; and when he finds a man who can do his particular work, he keeps him in constant employment."

"Well, but is the imposition never detected? Don't the pictures look new?"

"Oh, most verdant of youths, of course not! The painting is clobbered with liquorice-water; and the varnish is so prepared that it cracks at once; and the signature in the corner is always authentic; and there's a genuine look of cloudy vacancy and hopeless bankruptcy about the whole that stamps it at once to the connoisseur as the real thing. Tommy's doing a 'Youth's Head' by Rembrandt now, which ought to get him higher pay; it ought indeed. It's for a Manchester man. They're very hot about Rembrandts at Manchester."

"Well, you've put me up to a new wrinkle. And Jacobs lives by this?"

"Lives by it! ay, and lives like a prince too. Mrs. J. to fetch him every day in an open barouche, and coachman and footman in skyblue livery, and all the little J.'s hanging over the carriage-doors, rendering Newman Street dark with the shadow of their noses. Lives by it! ay, and why not? There will always be fools in the world, thank Heaven!--or how should you and I get on, Charley, my boy?--and so long as people will spend money on what they know nothing about, for the sake of cutting-out their friends, gaining a spurious reputation for taste, or cutting a swell as 'patrons of the fine-arts,'--patrons indeed! that word nearly chokes me!--it's quite right that they should be pillaged and done. No man can love art in the same manner that he can love pancakes. He must know something about it, and have some appreciation of it. Now no man with the smallest knowledge would go to Jacobs; and so I say that the lords and railway-men and cotton-men who go there simply as a piece of duff--to buy pictures as they would carpets--are deuced well served out. There! your William has not talked so much as that in one breath for many a long day. The pewter's empty. Send for some more beer, and let's have a damp; my throat's as dry as a lime-burner's wig."

Charley Potts took up the pewter-measure, and going on to the landing outside the door, threw open the staircase-window, and gave a shrill whistle. This twice repeated had some effect! for a very much-be-ribboned young lady in the bar of the opposite public-house looked up, and nodded with great complaisance; and then Charley, having made a solemn bow, waved the empty quart-pot three times round his head. Two minutes afterwards a bare-headed youth, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, crossed the road, carefully bearing a pasteboard hat-box, with which he entered the house, and which he delivered into Mr. Potts' hands.

"Good boy, Richard I never forget the hat-box; come for it this evening, and take back both the empty pewters in it.--It would never do, Bowker, my boy, to have beer--vulgar beer, sir--in its native pewter come into a respectable house like this. The pious parties, who buy their rattletraps and properties of old Lectern down below, would be scandalised; and poor little Mossoo woman Stetti would lose her swell connection. So Caroline and I--that's Caroline in the bar, with the puce-coloured ribbons--arranged this little dodge; and it answers first-rate."

"Ha--a!" said Mr. Bowker, putting down the tankard half-empty, and drawing a long breath; "beer is to your William what what's-his-name is to thingummy; which, being interpreted, means that he can't get on without it. I never take a big pull at a pewter without thinking of our Geoff. How is our Geoff?"

"Our Geoff is--hush! some one coming up stairs. What's to-day? Friday. The day I told the tailor to call. Hush!"

The footsteps came creaking up the stairs until they stopped outside Charley Potts' door, on which three peculiar blows were struck,--one very loud, then two in rapid succession.

"A friend!" said Charley, going to the door and opening it. "Pass, friend, and give the countersign! Hallo, Flexor! is it you? I forgot our appointment for this morning. Come in."

It was, indeed, the great model, who, fresh-shaved, and with his hair neatly poodled under his curly-brimmed hat, entered the room with a swagger, which, when he perceived a stranger, he allowed to subside into an elaborate bow.

"Now then, Flexor, get to work! we won't mind my friend here; he knows all this sort of game of old," said Charley; while Flexor began to arrange himself into the position of the expelled secretary of the archbishop.

"Ay, and I know M. Flexor of old, that's another thing!" said Bowker, with a deep chuckle, expelling a huge puff of smoke.

"Do you, sir?" said Flexor, still rigid in the Gil-Bias position, and never turning his head; "maybe, sir; many gents knows Flexor."

"Yes; but many gents didn't know Flexor five-and-twenty years ago, when he stood for Mercutio discoursing of Queen Mab."

"Lor' a mussy!" cried Flexor, forgetting all about his duty, parting the smoke with his hand and bending down to look into William's face. "It's Mr. Bowker, and I ought to have knowed him by the voice. And how are you, sir? hearty you look, though you'yve got a paucity of nobthatch, and what ''ir you 'ave is that gray, you might be your own grandfather. Why, I haven't seen you since you was gold-medallist at the 'cademy, 'cept once when you come with Mrs.----"

"There, that'll do, Flexor! I'm alive still, you see; and so I see are you. And your wife, is she alive?"

"O yes, sir; but, Lord, how different from what you know'd her! None of your Wenuses, nor Dalilys, nor Nell Gwyns now! she's growed stout and cumbersome, and never sits 'cept some gent wants a Mrs. Primrose in that everlastin' Wicar, or a old woman a-scoldin' a gal because she wants to marry a poor cove, or somethin' in that line; and then I says, 'Well, Jane, you may as well earn a shillin' an hour as any one else,' I says."

"And you've been a model all these years, Flexor?"

"Well, no sir--off and on; but Ive always come back to it. I was a actor for three years; did Grecian stators,--Ajax defyin' the lightnin'; Slave a-listenin' to conspirators; Boy a-sharpenin' his knife, and that game, you know, in a cirkiss. But I didn't like it; they're a low lot, them actors, with no feelin' for art. And then Iwas a gentleman's servant; but that wouldn't do; they do dam' and cuss their servants so, the gentlemen do, as I couldn't stand it; and I was a mute."

"A mute!--what, a funeral mute?"

"Yes, sir; black-job business; and wery good that is,--plenty of pleasant comp'ny and agreeable talk, and nice rides in the summer time on the 'earses to all the pleasant simmetries in the suburbs! But in the winter it's frightful! and my last job I was nearly killed. We had a job at 'Ampstead, in the debth of snow; and it was frightful cold on the top of the 'Eath. It was the party's good lady as was going to be interred, and the party himself were frightful near; in fact, a reg'lar screw. Well, me and my mate had been standin' outside the 'ouse-door with the banners in our 'ands for an hour, until we was so froze we could scarcely hold the banners. So I says, I won't stand no longer, I says; and I gev a soft rap, and told the servant we must have a drop of somethin' short, or we should be killed with cold. The servant goes and tells her master, and what do you think he says? 'Drink!' he says. 'Nonsense!' he says; 'if they're cold, let 'em jump about and warm 'emselves,' he says. Fancy a couple of mutes with their banners in their 'ands a-jumpin' about outside the door just before the party was brought out. So that disgusted me, and I gev it up, and come back to the old game agen."

"Now, Flexor," said Charley, "if you've finished your biography, get back again."

"All right, sir!" and again Flexor became rigid, as the student of Santillane.

"What were we talking of when Flexor arrived? O, I remember; I was asking you about Geoff Ludlow. What of him?"

"Well, sir, Geoff Ludlow has made a thundering coup at last. The other night at the Titians he sold a picture to Stompff for two hundred pounds; more than that, Stompff promised him no end of commissions."

"That's first-rate! Your William pledges him!" and Mr. Bowker finished the stout.

"He'll want all he can make, gentlemen," said Flexor, who, seeing the pewter emptied, became cynical; "he'll want all he can make, if he goes on as he's doin' now."

"What do you mean?" asked Bowker.

"He's in love, Mr. Ludlow is; that's wot I mean. That party--you know, Mr. Potts--as you brought to our place that night--he's been to see her every day, he has; and my missis says, from what she 'ave seen and 'eard--well, that's neither 'ere nor there," said Flexor, checking himself abruptly as he remembered that the keyhole was the place whence Mrs. Flexor's information had been derived.

Charley Potts gave a loud whistle, and said, "The devil!" then turning to Bowker, he was about to tell the story of the wet night's adventure, but William putting up his finger warningly, grunted out "Nachher!" and Charley, who understood German, ceased his chatter and went on with his painting.

When the sitting was over, and Flexor had departed, William Bowker returned to the subject, saying, "Now, Charley, tell your William all about this story of Geoff and his adventure."

Charley Potts narrated it circumstantially, Bowker sitting grimly by and puffing his pipe the while. When he had finished, Bowker never spoke for full five minutes; but his brow was knit, and his teeth clenched round his pipe. At length he said, "This is a bad business, so far as I see; a devilish bad business! If the girl were in Geoff's own station or if he were younger, it wouldn't so much matter; but Geoff must be forty now, and at that age a man's deuced hard to turn from any thing he gets into his head. Well, we must wait and see. I'd rather it were you, Charley, by a mile; one might have some chance then. But you never think of any thing of that sort, eh?"

What made Charley Potts colour as he said, "Welt--not in Geoff's line, at all events?"

William Bowker noticed the flush, and said ruefully, "Ah, I see! Always the way! Now let's go and get some beef or something to eat: I'm hungry."

[CHAPTER VIII.]

THROWING THE FLY.

Mr. Flexor was by nature mendacious; indeed his employers used pleasantly to remark, that when he did not lie, it was simply by accident; but in what he had mentioned to Charley Potts about Geoffrey Ludlow's visits to the nameless female then resident in his, Flexor's, house, he had merely spoken the truth. To be sure there had been an arrière pensée in his remark; the fact being that Flexor objected to matrimony as an institute amongst his patrons. He found that by an artist in a celibate state beer was oftener sent for, donations of cigars were more frequent, cupboards were more constantly unlocked, and irregularities of attendance on his part, consequent on the frivolities of the preceding night, were more easily overlooked, than when there was a lady to share confidence and keys, and to regard all models, both male and female, as "horrid creatures." But although Mr. Flexor had spoken somewhat disparagingly of Geoffrey's frequent visits, and had by his hints roused up a certain amount of suspicion in the breasts of Charley Potts and that grim old cynic William Bowker, he was himself far from knowing what real ground for apprehension existed, or how far matters had progressed, at least with one of the parties concerned.

For Geoffrey Ludlow was hard hit! In vain he attempted to argue with himself that all he had done, was doing, and might do, was but prompted by benevolence. A secret voice within him told him that his attempts at self-deceit were of the feeblest, and that, did he but dare to confess it, he knew that there was in this woman whom he had rescued from starvation an attraction more potent than he had ever yet submitted to. It was, it may be said, his duty to call and see how she was getting on, to learn that she wanted for nothing, to hear from her own lips that his orders for her comfort had been obeyed; but it was not his duty to sit watching jealously every glance of her eye, every turn of her head, every motion of her lithe fingers. It was not his duty to bear away with him recollections of how she sat when she said this or answered that; of the manner in which, following a habit of hers, she would push back the thick masses of her gleaming hair, and tuck them away behind her pretty ears; or, following another habit, she would drum petulantly on the floor with her little foot, when talking of any thing that annoyed her--as, for instance, Mrs. Flexor's prying curiosity.

What was it that caused him to lie awake at night, tossing from side to side on his hot pillow, ever before him the deep-violet eyes, the pallid face set in masses of deep-red hair, the slight frail figure? What was it that made his heart beat loudly, his breath come thickly, his whole being tingle with a strange sensation--now ecstatic delight, now dull blank misery? Not philanthropy, I trow. The superintendents of boys' reformatories and refuges for the houseless poor may, in thinking over what good they have achieved, enjoy a comfortable amount of self-satisfaction and proper pride; but I doubt if the feeling ever rises to this level of excitement. Not much wonder if Geoffrey himself, suffering acutely under the disease, knew not, or refused to avow to himself, any knowledge of the symptoms. Your darling child, peacefully sleeping in his little bed, shall show here and there an angry skin-spot, which you think heat or cold, or any thing else, until the experienced doctor arrives, and with a glance pronounces it scarlet-fever. Let us be thankful, in such a case, that the prostrate patient is young. Geoffrey's was as dire a malady, and one which, coming on at forty years of age, usually places the sufferer in a perilous state. It was called Love; not the ordinary sober inclination of a middle-aged man, not that thin line of fire quivering amongst a heap of ashes which betokens the faded passion of the worn and sated voluptuary; this was boy-love, calf-love, mad-spooniness--any thing by which you can express the silliest, wildest, pleasantest, most miserable phase of human existence. It never comes but once to any one. The caprices of the voluptuary are as like to each other as peas or grains of sand; the platonic attachments or the sentimental liaisons indulged in by foolish persons of both sexes with nothing to do may have some slight shade of distinction, but are equally wanting in backbone and vis. Not to man or woman is it given to be ever twice "in love"--a simple phrase, which means every thing, but needs very little explanation. My readers will comprehend what I want to convey, and will not require my feeble efforts in depicting the state. Suffice it to say, that Geoffrey Ludlow, who had hitherto gone through life scot-free, not because he was case-hardened, not because he was infection-proof, or that he had run no risks, but simply from the merest chance,--now fell a victim to the disease, and dropped powerless before its attack.

He did not even strive to make head against it much. A little of his constitutional wavering and doubtfulness came into play for a short time, suggesting that this passion--for such he must allow it--was decidedly an unworthy one; that at present he knew nothing of the girl's antecedents; and that her actual state did not promise much for all she had to tell of what had gone before. At certain times too, when things present themselves in their least roseate garb, notably on waking in the morning, for instance, he allowed, to himself, that he was making a fool of himself; but the confidence extended no farther. And then, as the day grew, and the sun came out, and he touched up his picture, and thought of the commissions Mr. Stompff had promised him, he became brighter and more hopeful, and he allowed his thoughts to feast on the figure then awaiting him in Little Flotsam Street, and he put by his sheaf of brushes and his palette, and went up and examined himself in the glass over the mantelpiece. He had caught himself doing this very frequently within the last few days, and, half-chuckling inwardly, had acknowledged that it was a bad sign. But though he laughed, he tweaked out the most prominent gray hairs in his beard, and gave his necktie a more knowing twist, and removed the dabs of stray paint from his shooting-coat. Straws thrown up show which way the wind blows, and even such little sacrifices to vanity as these were in Geoffrey Ludlow very strong signs indeed.

He had paid three visits to Little Flotsam Street; and on the fourth morning, after a very poor pretence of work, he was at the looking-glass settling himself preparatory to again setting out. Ever since that midnight adventure after the Titians meeting, Geoffrey had felt it impossible to take his usual daily spell at the easel, had not done five-pounds' worth of real work in the whole time, had sketched-in and taken out, and pottered, and smoked over his canvas, perfectly conscious that he was doing no good, utterly unable to do any better. On this fourth morning he had been even more unsuccessful than usual; he was highly nervous; he could not even set his palette properly, and by no manner of means could he apply his thoughts to his work. He had had a bad night; that is, he had woke with a feeling that this kind of penny-journal romance, wherein a man finds a starving girl in the streets and falls desperately in love with her, could go on no longer in London and in the nineteenth century. She was better now, probably strong enough to get about; he would learn her history, so much of it at least as she liked to tell; and putting her in some way of earning an honest livelihood, take his leave of her, and dismiss her from his thoughts.

He arrived at this determination in his studio; he kept it as he walked through the streets; he wavered horribly when he came within sight of the door; and by the time he knocked he had resolved to let matters take their chance, and to act as occasion might suggest. It was not Mrs. Flexor who opened the door to him, but that worthy woman's youngest plague, Reg'las, who, with a brown eruption produced by liquorice round his lips, nodded his head, and calmly invited the visitor, as he would have done any one else, to "go up 'tairs." Geoffrey entered, patted the boy's head, and stopped at the parlour-door, at which he gave a low rap, and immediately turning the handle, walked in.

She was lying as usual on the sofa, immediately opposite the door; but, what he had never seen before, her hair was freed from the confining comb, and was hanging in full luxuriance over her shoulders. Great heavens, how beautiful she looked! There had been a certain piquancy and chic in her appearance when her hair had been taken saucily off her face and behind her ears; but they were nothing as compared to the profound expression of calm holy resignation in that dead-white face set in that deep dead-gold frame of hair. Geoff started when he saw it; was it a Madonna of Raphael's, or a St. Teresa of Guido's, which flashed across his mind? And as he looked she raised her eyes, and a soft rosy flush spread over her face, and melted as quickly as it came. He seated himself on a chair by her side as usual, and took her hand as usual, the blood tingling in his fingers as he touched hers--as usual. She was the first to speak.

"You are very early this morning. I scarcely expected you so soon--as you may see;" and with a renewed flush she took up the ends of her hair, and was about to twist them up, when Geoffrey stopped her.

"Leave it as it is," said he in a low tone; "it could not be better; leave it as it is."

She looked at him as he spoke; not a full straight glance, but through half-closed lids; a prolonged gaze,--half-dreamy, half-intense; then released her hair, and let it again fall over her shoulders in a rich red cloud.

"You are much better?"

"Thanks to you, very much; thanks to you!" and her little hand came out frankly, and was speedily swallowed up in his big palm.

"No thanks at all; that is--well, you know. Let us change the subject. I came to say--that--that--"

"You hesitate because you are afraid of hurting my feelings. I think I can understand. I have learnt the world--God knows in no easy school; you came to say that I had been long enough a pensioner on your charity, and now must make my own way. Isn't that it?"

"No, indeed; not, that is not entirely what I meant. You see--our meeting--so strange--"

"Strange enough for London and this present day. You found me starving, dying, and you took care of me; and you knew nothing of me--not even my name--not even my appearance."

There was a something harsh and bitter in her tone which Geoffrey had never remarked before. It jarred on his ear; but he did not further notice it. His eyes dropped a little as he said, "No, I didn't; I do not know your name."

She looked up at him from under her eyelids; and the harshness had all faded out of her voice as she said, "My name is Margaret Dacre." She stopped, and looked at him; but his face only wore its grave honest smile. Then she suddenly raised herself on the sofa, and looking straight into his face, said hurriedly, "You are a kind man, Mr. Ludlow; a kind, generous, honourable man; there are many men would have given me food and shelter--there are very few who would have done it unquestioning, as you have."

"You were my guest, Miss Dacre, and that was enough, though the temptation was strong. How one evidently born and bred a lady could have--"

"Ah, now," said she, smiling fainting, "you are throwing off your bonds, and all man's curiosity is at work."

"No, on my honour; but--I don't know whether you know, but any one acquainted with the world would see that--gad! I scarcely know how to put it--but--fact is, that--people would scarcely understand--you must excuse me, but--but the position, Miss Dacre!" and Geoff pushed his hands through his hair, and knew that his cheeks were flaming.

"I see what you mean," said she, "and you are only explaining what I have for the last day or two felt myself; that the--the position must be altered. But you have so far been my friend, Mr. Ludlow--for I suppose the preserver of one's life is to be looked upon as a friend, at all events as one actuated by friendly motives--that I must ask you to advise me how to support it."

"It would be impossible to advise unless--I mean, unless one knew, or had some idea--what, in fact, one had been accustomed to."

The girl sat up on the sofa, and this time looked him steadily in the face for a minute or so. Then she said, in a calm unbroken voice, "You are coming to what I knew must arise, to what is always asked, but what I hitherto have always refused to tell. You, however, have a claim to know--what I suppose people would call my history." Her thin lips were tightly pressed and her nostrils curved in scorn as she said these words. Geoffrey marked the change, and spoke out at once, all his usual hesitation succumbing before his earnestness of purpose.

"I have asked nothing," said he; "please to remember that; and further, I wish to hear nothing. You are my guest for so long as it pleases you to remain in that position. When you wish to go, you will do so, regretted but certainly unquestioned." If Geoffrey Ludlow ever looked handsome, it was at this moment. He was a little nettled at being suspected of patronage, and the annoyance flushed his cheek and fired his eyes.

"Then I am to be a kind of heroine of a German fairytale; to appear, to sojourn for a while--then to fade away and never to be heard of ever after, save by the good fortune which I leave behind me to him who had entertained an angel unawares. Not the last part of the story, I fear, Mr. Ludlow; nor indeed any part of it. I have accepted your kindness; I am grateful--God knows how grateful for it--and now, being strong again--you need not raise your eyebrows; I am strong, am I not, compared with the feeble creature you found in the streets?--I will fade away, leaving gratitude and blessings behind me."

"But what do you intend to do?"

"Ah! there you probe me beyond any possibility of reply. I shall--"

"I--I have a notion, Miss Dacre, just come upon me. It was seeing you with your hair down--at least, I think it was--suggested it; but I'm sure it's a good one. To sit, you know, as a model--of course I mean your face, you know, and hair, and all that sort of thing, so much in vogue just now; and so many fellows would be delighted to get studies of you--the pre-Raphaelite fellows, you know; and it isn't much--the pay, you know: but when one gets a connexion--and I'm sure that I could recommend--O, no end of fellows." It was not that this was rather a longer speech than usual that made Geoffrey terminate it abruptly; it was the expression in Margaret Dacre's gray eyes.

"Do you think I could become a model, Mr. Ludlow--at the beck and call of every man who chose to offer me so much per hour? Would you wish to see me thus?" and as she said the last words she knit her brows, leaning forward and looking straight at him under her drooping lids.

Geoffrey's eyes fell before that peculiar glance, and he pushed his hands through his hair in sheer doubtful desperation.

"No!" he said, after a minute's pause "it wouldn't do. I hadn't thought of that. You see, I--O by Jove, another idea! You play? Yes, I knew you did by the look of your hands! and talk French and German, I daresay? Ah, I thought so! Well, you know, I give lessons in some capital families--drawing and water-colour sketching--and I'm constantly asked if I know of governesses. Now what's to prevent my recommending you?"

"What, indeed? You have known me so long! You are so thoroughly acquainted with my capabilities--so persuaded of my respectability!"

The curved lips, the petulant nostril, the harsh bitter voice again! Geoff winced under them. "I think you are a little prejudiced," he began. "A little--"

"A little nothing! Listen, Mr. Ludlow! You have saved me from death, and you are kind enough to wish me, under your auspices, to begin life again. Hear, first, what was my former life. Hear it, and then see the soundness of your well-intentioned plans. My father was an infantry captain, who was killed in the Crimea. After the news came of his death, my mother's friends, wealthy tradespeople, raised a subscription to pay her an annuity of 150l, on condition of her never troubling them again. She accepted this, and she and I went to live for cheapness at Tenby in Wales. There was no break in my life until two years since, when I was eighteen years old. Up to that time, school, constant practice at home (for I determined to be well educated), and attendance on my mother, an invalid, formed my life. Then came the usual character--without which the drama of woman's life is incomplete--a man!"

She hesitated for a moment, and looked up as Geoffrey Ludlow leaned forward, breathing thickly through his nostrils; then she continued--

"This one was a soldier, and claimed acquaintance with a dead comrade's widow; had his claim allowed, and came to us morning, noon, and night. A man of the world, they called him; could sit and talk with my mother of her husband's virtues and still-remembered name, and press my hand, and gaze into my eyes, and whisper in my ear whenever her head was turned."

"And you?"

"And I! What would a girl do, brought up at a sleepy watering-place, and seeing nobody but the curate or the doctor? I listened to his every word, I believed his every look; and when he said to me, 'On such a night fly with me,' I fled with him without remorse."

Geoffrey Ludlow must have anticipated something of this kind, and yet when he heard it, he dropped his head and shook it, as though under the effect of a staggering blow. The action was not unnoticed by Margaret.

"Ah," said she, in low tones and with a sad smile, "I saw how your schemes would melt away before my story."

This time it was his hand that came out and caught hers in its grip.

"Ah, wait until you have heard the end, now very close at hand. The old, old story: a coming marriage, which never came, protracted and deferred now for one excuse, now for another--the fear of friends, the waiting for promotion, the--ah, every note in the whole gamut of lies! And then--"

"Spare yourself and me--I know enough!"

"No; hear it out! It is due to you, it is due to me. A sojourn in Italy, a sojourn in England--gradual coolness, final flight. But such flight! One line to say that he was ruined, and would not drag me down in his degradation--no hope of a future meeting--no provision for present want. I lived for a time by the sale of what he had given me,--first jewels, then luxuries, then--clothes. And then, just as I dropped into death's jaws, you found me."

"Thank God!" said Geoffrey earnestly, still retaining the little hand within his own; "thank God! I can hear no more to-day--yes; one thing, his name?"

"His name," said she, with fixed eyes, "I have never mentioned to mortal; but to you I will tell it. His name was Leonard Brookfield."

"Leonard Brookfield," repeated Geoffrey. "I shall not forget it. Now adieu! We shall meet to-morrow."

He bowed over her hand and pressed it to his lips, then was gone; but as his figure passed the window, she raised herself upright, and ere he vanished from her sight, from between her compressed lips came the words, "At last! at last!"

[CHAPTER IX.]

SUNSHINE IN THE SHADE.

What is a dull life? In what does the enjoyment of existence consist? It is a comparative matter, after all, I fancy. A Londoner, cantering homeward down the Row, will lift his hat as he passes three horsemen abreast, the middle one of whom, comely, stout, and pleasant-looking, bows in return; or, looking after an olive-coloured brougham with a white horse, out of the window of which looms a lined leery-looking face, will say, "How well Pam holds out!" and will go home to dinner without bestowing another thought on the subject; whereas the mere fact of having seen the Prince of Wales or Lord Palmerston would give a countryman matter for reflection and conversation for a couple of days. There are even Londoners who look upon a performance of chamber-music, or a visit to the Polytechnic Institute as an excitement; while in a provincial town to attend a lecture on "Mnemonics," or the dinner of the farmers' club, is the acme of dissipation. Some lives are passed in such a whirl that even the occasional advent among their kindred of the great date-marker, Death, is scarcely noticed; others dwindle away with such unvarying pulsations that the purchase of a new bonnet, the lameness of an old horse, the doctor's visit, the curate's cough, are all duly set down as notabilia worthy to be recorded. Who does not recollect the awe and reverence with which one regarded the Bishop of Bosphorus, when, a benevolent seraph in a wig (they wore wigs in those days) and lawn sleeves, he arrived at the parish church for the confirmation-service? It was exciting to see him; it was almost too much to hear his voice; but now, if you are a member of the Athenaeum Club, you may see him, and two or three other prelates, reading the evening papers, or drinking their pint of sherry with the joint, and speaking to the waiters in voices akin to those of ordinary mortals; may even see him sitting next to Belmont the poet, whose Twilight Musings so delighted your youth, but whom you now find to be a fat man with a red face and a tendency to growl if there be not enough schalot sent up with his steak.

If there were ever a man who should have felt the influence of a dull life, it was Lord Caterham, who never repined. And yet it would be difficult to imagine any thing more terribly lonely than was that man's existence. Dressed by his servant, his breakfast over, and he wheeled up to his library-table, there was the long day before him; how was he to get through it? Who would come to see him? His father, perhaps, for five minutes, with a talk about the leading topic treated of in the Times, a remark about the change in the weather, a hope that his son would "get out into the sunshine," and as speedy a departure as could be decently managed. His mother, very rarely, and then only for a frosty peck at his cheek, and a tittered hope that he was better. His brother Lionel, when in town, when not else engaged, when not too seedy after "a night of it,"--his brother Lionel, who would throw himself into an easy-chair, and, kicking out his slippered feet, tell Caterham what a "rum fellow" he, Lionel, thought him; what a "close file;" what a "reserved, oyster-like kind of a cove!" Other visitors occasionally. Algy Barford, genial, jolly, and quaint; always welcome for his bright sunshiny face, his equable temper, his odd salted remarks on men and things. A bustling apothecary, with telescopic shoulders and twinkling eyelids, who peered down Lord Caterham's throat like a magpie looking into a bone, and who listened to the wheezings of Lord Caterham's chest with as much intentness as a foreigner in the Opera-pit to the prayer in Der Freischütz. Two or three lounging youths, fresh from school or college, who were pleased to go away afterwards and talk of their having been with him, partly because he was a lord, partly because he was a man whose name was known in town, and one with whom it was rather kudos to be thought intimate. There are people who, under such circumstances, would have taken their servants into their confidence; but Lord Caterham was not one of these. Kindly and courteous to all, he yet kept his servant at the greatest distance; and the man knew that to take the slightest liberty was more than his place was worth. There were no women to talk with this exile from his species; there were none on sufficiently intimate footing to call on him and sit with him, to talk frankly and unreservedly that pleasant chatter which gives us the keynote to their characters; and for this at least Lord and Lady Beauport were unfeignedly thankful. Lord Beauport's knowledge of the world told him that there were women against whom his son's deformity and isolated state would be no defence, to whom his rank and position would be indefinable attractions, by whom he would probably be assailed, and with whom he had no chance of coping. Not bad women, not intrigantes,--such would have set forth their charms and wasted their dalliances in vain,--but clever heartless girls, brought up by matchmaking mothers, graduates in the great school of life, skilled in the deft and dexterous use of all aggressive weapons, unscrupulous as to the mode of warfare so long as victory was to be the result. In preventing Lord Caterham from making the acquaintance of any such persons, Lord Beauport took greater pains than he had ever bestowed on anything in connection with his eldest son; and, aided by the astute generalship of his wife, he had succeeded wonderfully.

Only once did there seem a chance of an enemy's scaling the walls and entering the citadel, and then the case was really serious. It was at an Eton and Harrow match at Lord's that Lord Caterham first saw Carry Chesterton. She came up hanging on the arm of her brother, Con Chesterton, the gentleman farmer, who had the ground outside Homershams, Lady Beauport's family place, and who begged to present his sister to Lord Caterham, of whom she had heard so much. A sallow-faced girl, with deep black eyes, arched brows, and raven hair in broad bands, with a high forehead and a chiselled nose and tight thin lips, was Carry Chesterton; and as she bent over Lord Caterham's chair and expressed her delight at the introduction, she shot a glance that went through Caterham's eyes, and into his very soul.

"She was a poetess, was Carry, and all that sort of thing," said honest Con; "and had come up to town to try and get some of her writings printed, you know, and that sort of thing; and your lordship's reputation as a man of taste, you know, and that sort of thing,--if you'd only look at the stuff and give your opinion, and that sort of thing."

"That sort of thing," i.e. the compulsory conversion into a Mecaenas, Lord Caterham had had tried-on before; but only in the case of moon-struck men, never from such a pair of eyes. Never had he had the request indorsed in such a deep-toned thrilling voice; and so he acquiesced, and a meeting was arranged for the morrow, when Con was to bring Carry to St. Barnabas Square; and that night Lord Caterham lay in a pleasant state of fevered excitement, thinking of his expected visitor. Carry came next day, but not Con. Con had some arrangements to make about that dreadful yeomanry which took up so much of his time, to see Major Latchford or Lord Spurrier, the colonel, and arrange about their horrid evolutions; but Carry came, and brought her manuscript book of poems. Would she read them? she could, and did, in a deep low traînante voice, with wonderful art and pathos, illustrating them with elevations of her thick brows and with fervid glances from her black eyes. They were above the average of women's verse, had nothing namby-pamby in them, and were not merely flowing and musical, but strong and fervid; they were full of passion, which was not merely a Byronic refrain, but had a warmth and novelty of its own. Lord Caterham was charmed with the verses, was charmed with the writer; he might suggest certain improvements in them, none in her. He pointed out certain lines which might be altered; and as he pointed them out, their hands met, touched but for an instant, and on looking up, his eyes lost themselves in hers.

Ah, those hand-touches and eye-glances! The oldest worldling has some pleasure in them yet, and can recall the wild ecstatic thrill which ran through him when he first experienced them in his salad-days. But we can conceive nothing of their effect on a man who, under peculiar circumstances, had lived a reserved self-contained life until five-and-twenty years of age,--a man with keen imagination and warm passions, who had "never felt the kiss of love, nor maiden's hand in his," until his whole being glowed and tingled under the fluttering touch of Carry Chesterton's lithe fingers, and in the fiery gaze of her black eyes. She came again and again; and after every visit Lord Caterham's passion increased. She was a clever woman with a purpose, to the fulfilment of which her every word, her every action, tended. Softly, delicately, and with the greatest finesse, she held up to him the blank dreariness of his life, and showed him how it might be cheered and consoled. In a pitying rather than an accusing spirit, she pointed out the shortcomings of his own relatives, and indicated how, to a person in his position, there could be but one who should be all in all. This was all done with the utmost tact and refinement; a sharp word, an appearance of eagerness, the slightest showing of the cards, and the game would have been spoilt; but Carry Chesterton knew her work, and did it well. She had been duly presented by Lord Caterham to his father and mother, and had duly evoked first their suspicion, then their rage. At first it was thought that by short resolute measures the evil might be got rid of. So Lord Beauport spoke seriously to his son, and Lady Beauport spoke warningly; but all in vain. For the first time in his life Lord Caterham rebelled, and in his rebellion spoke his mind; and in speaking his mind he poured forth all that bitterness of spirit which had been collecting and fermenting so long. To the crippled man's heartwrung wail of contempt and neglect, to his passionate appeal for some one to love and to be loved by, the parents had no reply. They knew that he had bitter cause for complaint; but they also knew that he was now in pursuit of a shadow; that he was about to assuage his thirst for love with Dead-Sea apples; that the "set gray life and apathetic end" were better than the wild fierce conflict and the warming of a viper in the fires of one's heart. Lady Beauport read Carry Chesterton like a book, saw her ends and aims, and told Lord Caterham plainly what they were. "This girl is attracted by your title and position, Caterham,--nothing else," she said, in her hard dry voice; "and the natural result has ensued." But that voice had never been softened by any infusion of maternal love. Her opinions had no weight with her son. He made no answer, and the subject dropped.

Lionel Brakespere, duly apprised by his mother of what was going on, and urged to put a stop to it, took his turn at his brother, and spoke with his usual mess-room frankness, and in his usual engaging language. "Every body knew Carry Chesterton," he said, "all the fellows at the Rag knew her; at least all who'd been quartered in the neighbourhood of Flockborough, where she was a regular garrison hack, and had been engaged to Spoonbill of the 18th Hussars, and jilted by Slummer of the 160th Rifles, and was as well known as the town-clock, by Jove; and Caterham was a fiat and a spoon, and he'd be dashed if he'd see the fam'ly degraded; and I say, why the doose didn't Caterham listen to reason!" So far Captain the Honourable Lionel Brakespere; who, utterly failing in his purpose and intent, and having any further access to Lord Caterham's rooms strictly denied him by Lord Caterham's orders, sought out Algy Barford and confided to him the whole story, and "put him on" to save the fam'ly credit, and stop Caterham's rediklous 'fatuation.

Now if the infatuation in question had been legitimate, and likely to lead to good results, Algy Barford would have been the very last man on earth to attempt to put a stop to it, or to interfere in any way save for its advancement. But this airy, laughing philosopher, with all his apparent carelessness, was a man of the world and a shrewd reader of human character; and he had made certain inquiries, the result of which proved that Carry Chesterton was, if not all that Lionel Brakespere had made her out, at all events a heartless coquette and fortune-huntress, always rising at the largest fly. Quite recently jilted by that charming creature Captain Slummer of the Rifles, she had been heard to declare she would not merely retrieve the position hereby lost, but achieve a much greater one; and she had been weak enough to boast of her influence over Lord Caterham, and her determination to marry him in spite of all his family's opposition. Then Algy Barford joined the ranks of the conspirators, and brought his thoroughly practical worldly knowledge to their camp. It was at a council held in Lady Beauport's boudoir that he first spoke on the subject, his face radiant with good humour, his teeth gleaming in the light, and his attention impartially divided between the matter under discussion and the vagaries of a big rough terrier which accompanied him every where.

"You must pardon me, dear Lady Beauport," said he; "but you've all been harking forward on the wrong scent.--Down, Tinker! Don't let him jump on your mother, Lionel; his fleas, give you my honour, big as lobsters!--on the wrong scent! Dear old Caterham, best fellow in the world; but frets at the curb, don't you know? Put him a couple of links higher up than usual, and he rides rusty and jibs--jibs, by Jove! And that's what you've been doing now. Dear old Caterham! not much to amuse him in life, don't you know? goes on like a blessed old martyr; but at last finds something which he likes, and you don't. Quite right, dear Lady Beauport; I see it fast enough, because I'm an old lad, and have seen men and cities; but dear Caterham, who is all milk and rusks and green peas, and every thing that is innocent, don't you know, don't see it at all. And then you try to shake him by the shoulder and rouse him out of his dream, and tell him that he's not in fairyland, not in Aladdin's palace, not in a two-pair back in Craven Street, Strand. Great mistake that, Lionel, dear boy. Dear Lady Beauport, surely your experience teaches you that it is a great mistake to cross a person when they're in that state?"

"But, Mr. Barford, what is to be done?"

"Put the helm about, Lady Beauport, and--Tinker! you atrocious desperado, you shameless caitiff! will you get down?--put the helm about, and try the other tack. Weve failed with dear old Caterham: now let's try the lady. Caterham is the biggest fish she's seen yet; but my notion is that if a perch came in her way, and seemed likely to bite, she'd forget she'd ever seen a gudgeon. Now my brother Windermere came to town last week, and he's an earl, you know, and just the sort of fellow who likes nothing so much as a flirtation, and is all the time thunderingly well able to take care of himself. I think if Miss Chesterton were introduced to Windermere, she'd soon drop poor dear Caterham."

Both Lionel and his mother agreed in this notion, and an early opportunity was taken for the presentation of Lord Windermere to Miss Chesterton. An acknowledged parti; a man of thews and sinews; frank, generous, and affable: apparently candid and unsuspecting in the highest degree, he seemed the very prize for which that accomplished fortune-huntress had long been waiting; and forgetting the old fable of the shadow and the substance she at once turned a decided cold shoulder upon poor Lord Caterham, ceased visiting him, showed him no more poetry, and within a week of her making Lord Windermere's acquaintance, cut her old friend dead in Kensington Gardens, whither he had been wheeled in the hope of seeing her. Ah, in how few weeks, having discovered the sandy foundation on which she had been building, did she come back, crouching and fawning and trying all the old devices, to find the fire faded out of Caterham's eyes and the hope out of his breast, and the prospect of any love or companionship as distant from him as ever!

Yes, that was Lord Caterham's one experience of love; and after its lame and impotent conclusion he determined he would never have another. We have all of us determined that in our time; but few of us have kept to our resolution so rigidly as did Lord Caterham, possibly because opportunities have not been so wanting to us as to him. It is all that horrible opportunity which saps our strongest resolutions; it is the close proximity of the magnum of "something special" in claret which leads to the big drink; it is the shaded walk, and the setting sun behind the deep bank of purple clouds, and the solemn stillness, and the upturned eyes and the provoking mouth, which lead to all sorts of horrible mistakes. Opportunity after the Chesterton escapade was denied to Lord Caterham both by himself and his parents. He shut himself up in solitude: he would see no one save the apothecary and Algy Barford, who indeed came constantly, feeling all the while horribly treacherous and shamefaced. And then by degrees--by that blessed process of Time against which we rail so much, but which is so beneficial, of Time the anodyne and comforter, he fell back into his old ways of life; and all that little storm and commotion was as though it had never been. It left no marks of its fury on Caterham; he kept no relics of its bright burning days: all letters had been destroyed. There was not a glove nor a flower in his drawers--nothing for him to muse and shake his head over. So soon as his passion had spent itself--so soon as he could look calmly upon the doings of the few previous months, he saw how unworthy they had been, and blotted them from his memory for ever.

So until Annie Maurice had come to take up her position as his mother's companion, Lord Caterham had been entirely without female society, and since her advent he had first learned the advantages of associating with a pure, genuine healthy woman. Like Carry Chesterton, she seemed to take to the crippled man from her first introduction to him; but ah, how unlike that siren did sweet Annie Maurice show her regard! There was no more romance in her composition, so she would have told you herself, than in the statue at Charing Cross; no eyebrow elevations, no glances, no palpable demonstrations of interest. In quite a household and domestic manner did this good fairy discharge her duties. She was not the Elf, the Wili, the Giselle; in book-muslin and star-sprent hair; she was the ordinary "Brownie," the honest Troll, which shows its presence in help rather than ornament. Ever since Miss Maurice had been an inmate of the house in Barnabas Square, Caterham's books had been dusted, his books and papers arranged, his diurnal calendar set, his desk freshened with a glass of newly-gathered flowers. Never before had his personal wants been so readily understood, so deftly attended to. No one smoothed his pillows so softly, wheeled his chair so easily, his every look so quickly comprehended. To all that dreary household Annie Maurice was a sunbeam; but on no one did she shine so brightly as on that darkened spirit. The Earl felt the beaming influence of her bright nature; the Countess could not deny her meed of respect to one who was always "in her place;" the servants, horribly tenacious of interference, could find no fault with Miss Maurice; but to none appeared she in so bright a light as to Lord Caterham.

It was the morning after the receipt of the letter which Algy Barford had left with him, and which had seemingly so much upset him, that Caterham was sitting in his room, his hands clasped idly before him, his looks bent, not on the book lying open on the desk, but on the vacant space beyond it. So delicately constituted was his frame, that any mental jar was immediately succeeded by acute bodily suffering; he was hurt, not merely in spirit but in body; the machinery of his being was shaken and put out of gear, and it took comparatively some length of time for all to get into working order again. The strain on this occasion had evidently been great, his head throbbed, his eyes were surrounded with bistre rings, and the nervous tension of his clasped fingers showed the unrest of his mind. Then came a gentle tap on the door, a sound apparently instantly recognisable, for Lord Caterham raised his head, and bade the visitor "Come in." It was Annie Maurice. No one else opened the door so quickly and closed it so quietly behind her, no one came with so light and yet so firm a step, no one else would have seen that the sun was pouring in through the window on to the desk, and would have crossed the room and arranged the blind before coming up to the chair. Caterham knew her without raising his eyes, and had said, "Ah, Annie dear!" before she reached him.

"I feared you were ill, my lord," she commenced; but a deep growl from Caterham stopped her. "I feared you were ill, Arthur," she then said; "you did not show at dinner last night, nor in the evening; but I thought you might be disinclined for society--the Gervises were here, you know, and the Scrimgeours, and I know you don't care for our classical music, which is invariable on such occasions; but I met Stephens on the staircase, and he gave me such a desponding account, that I really feared you were ill."

"Only a passing dull fit, Annie; only a passing dull fit of extra heaviness, and consequently extra duration! Stephens is a croaker, you know; and having, I believe, an odd sort of Newfoundland-dog attachment to me, is frightened if I have a finger-ache. But I'm very glad you've come in, Annie, for I'm not really very bright even now, and you always help to set me straight. Well, and how goes it with you, young lady?"

"Oh, very well, Arthur, very well."

"You feel happier than you did on your first coming among us? You feel as though you were settling down into your home?"

"I should be worse than foolish if I did not, for every one tries to be kind to me."

"I did not ask you for moral sentiments, Annie, I asked you for facts. Do you feel settling down into your home?" And as Caterham said this, he shot a keen scrutinising glance at the girl.

She paused for a moment ere she answered, and when she spoke she looked at him straight out of her big brown eyes.

"Do I feel as if I were settling down into my home, Arthur? No; in all honesty, no. I have no home, as you know well enough; but I feel that--"

"Why no home?" he interrupted; "isn't--No, I understand."

"No, you do not understand; and it is for that reason I speak. You do not understand me, Lord--Arthur. You have notions which I want to combat, and set right at once, please. I know you have, for Ive heard hints of them in something you've said before. It all rises out of your gentlemanly and chivalrous feeling, I know; but, believe me, you're wrong. I fill the position of your mother's companion here, and you have fallen into the conventional notion that I'm not well treated, put upon, and all that kind of thing. On my honour, that is utterly wrong. No two people could be kinder, after their lights, than Lord and Lady Beauport are to me. Of your own conduct I need say no word. From the servants I have perfect respect; and yet--"

"And yet?"

"Well, simply you choose the wrong word; there's no homey feeling about it, and I should be false were I to pretend there were."

"But pardon me for thus pursuing the subject into detail,--my interest in you must be my excuse,--what 'homey feeling,' as you call it, had you at Ricksborough Vicarage, whence you came to us? The people there are no closer blood-relations than we are; nor did they, as far as I know--"

"Nor did they try more to make me happy. No, indeed, they could not have tried more in that way than you do. But I was much younger when I first went there, Arthur--quite a little child--and had all sorts of childish reminiscences of cow-milking, and haymaking, and harvest-homes, and all kinds of ruralities, with that great balloon-shaped shadow of St. Paul's ever present on the horizon keeping watch over the City, where dear old uncle Frank told me I should have to get my living after he was gone. Its home-influence gained on me even from the sorrow which I saw and partook of in it; from the sight of my aunt's deathbed and my uncle's meek resignation overcoming his desperate grief; from the holy comfort inspired in him by the discharge of his holy calling; by the respect and esteem in which he was held by all around, and which was never so much shown as when he wanted it most acutely. These things, among many others, made that place home to me."

"Yes," said Lord Caterham, in a harsh dry voice; "I understand easily enough. After such innocence and goodness I can fully comprehend what it must be to you to read blue-books to my father, to listen to my mother's fade nonsense about balls, operas, and dresses, or to attend to the hypochondriacal fancies of a valetudinarian like myself--"

"Lord Caterham! I don't think that even you have a right to insult me in this way!"

"Even I! thank you for the compliment, which implies--Bah! what a brute I am! You'll forgive me, Annie, won't you? I'm horribly hipped and low. Ive not been out for two days; and the mere fact of being a prisoner to the house always fills my veins with bile instead of blood. Ah, you won't keep that knit brow and those tightened lips any longer, will you? No one sees more plainly than I do that your life here wants certain--"

"Pray say no more, I--"

"Ah, Annie, for Heaven's sake don't pursue this miserable growl of mine. Have some pity for my ill-health. But I want to see you with as many surroundings natural to your age and taste as we can find in this--hospital. There's music: you play and sing very sweetly; but you can't--I know you can't--sit down with any ease or comfort to that great furniture-van of a grand-piano in that gaunt drawing-room; that's only fit for those long-haired foreigners who let off their fireworks on Lady Beauport's reception-nights. You must have a good piano of your own, in your own room or here, or somewhere where you can practise quietly. I'll see about that. And drawing--for you have a great natural talent for that; but you should have some lessons: you must keep it up; you must have a master. There's a man goes to Lady Lilford's, a capital fellow, whom I know; you must have him. What's his name? Ludlow--"

"What, Geoffrey Ludlow! dear old Geoff! He used to be papa's greatest friend when we were at Willesden, you know,--and before that dreadful bankruptcy, you know, Mr. Ludlow was always there. Ive sat on his knee a thousand times; and he used to sketch me, and call me his little elf. Oh yes, dear Arthur, I should like that,--I should like to have lessons from Mr. Ludlow! I should so like to see him again!"

"Well, Annie, you shall. I'll get his address from the Lilfords and write to him, and settle about his coming. And now, Annie, leave me, dear; I'm a little tired, and want rest."

He was tired, and wanted rest; but he did not get it just then. Long after Annie left the room he sat pondering, pondering, with a strange feeling for which he himself could not account, but which had its keynote in this: How strongly she spoke of the man Ludlow; how he disliked her earnestness on the subject; and what would he not have given, could he have thought she would have spoken so strongly of him.

[CHAPTER X.]

YOUR WILLIAM.

When you feel yourself gradually becoming enthralled, falling a victim to a fascination all-potent, but scarcely all-satisfactory, be it melancholy, or gambling, or drink, or love, there is nothing so counteracting to the horrible influence as to brace your nerves together, and go in for a grand spell of work. That remedy is always efficacious, of course. It never fails, as Geoffrey Ludlow knew very well; and that was the reason why, on the morning after his last-described interview with Margaret Dacre, he dragged out from behind a screen, where it had been turned with its face to the wall, his half-finished picture intended for the Academy, and commenced working on it with wonderful earnestness. It was a large canvas with three principal figures: a young man, a "swell" of modern days, turning away from the bold and eager glances of a somewhat brazen coquette, and suddenly struck by the modest bashful beauty of a girl of the governess-order seated at a piano. "Scylla and Charybdis" Geoff had intended calling it, with the usual Incidit in &c. motto; and when the idea first struck him he had taken pains with his composition, had sketched his figures carefully, and had painted-in the flirt and the man very successfully. The governess had as yet been a failure; he had had no ideal to work from; the model who had sat to him was a little coarse and clumsy, and irritated at not being able to carry out his notion, he had put the picture by. But he now felt that work was required of him, not merely as a distraction from thought, but as an absolute duty which he owed to himself; and as this was a subject likely to be appreciated by Mr. Stompff, he determined to work at it again, and to have it ready for submission to the Hanging Committee of the Academy. He boggled over it a little at first; he smoked two pipes, staring at the canvas, occasionally shading his eyes with one hand, and waving the other in a dreamy possessed manner in front of him. Then he took up a brush and began to lay on a bit of colour, stepping back from time to time to note the effect; and then the spirit came upon him, and he went to work with all his soul.

What a gift is that of the painter, whose whole story can be read at one glance, who puts what we require three thick volumes to narrate into a few feet of canvas, who with one touch of his brush gives an expression which we pen-and-ink workers should take pages to convey, and even then could never hope to do it half so happily!--who sees his work grow beneath his hand, and can himself judge of its effect on others;--who can sit with his pipe in his mouth, and chirp away merrily to his friend, the while his right hand is gaining him wealth and honour and fame!

The spirit was on Geoffrey Ludlow, and the result came out splendidly. He hoped to gain a good place on the Academy walls, he hoped to do justice to the commissions which Mr. Stompff had given him; but there was something beyond these two incentives which spurred his industry and nerved his touch. After all his previous failures, it seemed as though Scylla the governess would have the best of it at last. Charybdis was a splendid creature, a bold, black-eyed, raven-haired charmer, with her hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders, and with a gorgeous passion-flower hanging voluptuously among her tresses; a goddess amongst big Guardsmen, who would sit and suck their yellow moustaches and express their admiration in fragmentary ejaculations, or amongst youths from the Universities, with fluff instead of hair, and blushes in place of aplomb. But in his later work the artist's heart seemed to have gone with Scylla, who was to her rival as is a proof after Sir Joshua to a French print, as a glass of Amontillado to a petit verre of Chartreuse,--a slight delicate creature, with violet eyes and pallid complexion, and deep-red hair brought down in thick braids, and tucked away behind such dainty little ears; her modest gray dress contrasting, in its quaker-like simplicity, with the brilliant-hued robe and rich laces of her rival. His morning's work must have been successful, for--rare thing with him--Geoff himself was pleased with it; no doubt of the inspiration now, he tried to deny it to himself, but could not--the likeness came out so wonderfully. So he gave way to the charm, and as he sat before the canvas, thoughtfully gazing at it, he let his imagination run riot, and gave his pleasant memories full play.

He had worked well and manfully, and had tolerably satisfied himself, and was sitting resting, looking at what he had done, and thinking over what had prompted his work, when there came a tap at the door, and his sister Til crept noiselessly in. She entered softly, as was her wont when her brother was engaged, and took up her position behind him. But Miss Til was demonstrative by nature, and after a minute's glance could not contain herself.

"Oh, you dear old Geoff; that is charming! oh, Geoff, how you have got on! But I say, Geoff; the governess--what do you call her? I never can recollect those Latin names, or Greek is it?--you know, and it does not matter; but she is--you know, Geoff, I know you don't like me to say so, but I can't find any other word--she is stunning! Not that I think--I don't know, you know, of course, because we don't mix in that sort of society--not that--that I think that people who--well, I declare, I don't know any other word for them I--I mean swells--would allow their governess to have her hair done in that style; but she is de-licious! you've got a new model, Geoff; at least you've never attempted any thing in that style before and I declare you've made a regular hit. You don't speak, Geoff; don't you like what I'm saying?"

"My dear child, you don't give me the chance of saying any thing. You rattle on with 'I know' and 'you know' and 'don't you know,' till I can scarcely tell where I am. One thing I do manage to glean, however, and that is that you are pleased with the picture, which is the very best news that I could have. For though you're a most horrible little rattletrap, and talk nineteen to the dozen, there is some sense in what you say and always a great deal of truth."

"Specially when what I say is complimentary, eh, Geoff? Not that I think I have ever said much in any other strain to you. But you haven't told me about your new model, Geoff. Where did she come from?"

"My new model?"

"Yes, yes, for the governess, you know. That's new--I mean that hair and eyes, and all that. You've never painted any thing like that before. Where did she come from?"

There were few things that Geoffrey Ludlow would have kept from his sister, but this was one of them; so he merely said:

"O, a model, Til dear--one of the usual shilling-an-hour victims."

"Sent you by Mr. Charles Potts, I suppose," said Miss Til, with unusual asperity; "sent you for--" But here a knock at the door cut short the young lady's remarks. "O, but if that is Mr. Potts," she resumed, "don't say a word about what I said just now; don't, Geoff, there's a dear."

It was not Mr. Potts who responded to Geoffrey Ludlow's "Come in." It was Mr. Bowkees head which was thrust through the small space made by the opening of the door; and it was Mr. Bowker's deep voice which exclaimed:

"Engaged, eh? Your William will look in again."

But Til, with whom Mr. Bowker was a special favourite, from his strange unconventional manners and rough bonhomie, called out at once: "Mr. Bowker, it's only I--Geoff's sister Til;" and Geoff himself roaring out that "Bowker was growing modest in his old age," that gentleman was persuaded to come in; and closing the door lightly behind him, he went up to the young lady, and bending over her hand, made her a bow such as any preux chevalier might have envied. A meeting with a lady was a rare oasis in the desert of William Bowkees wasted life; but whenever he had the chance he showed that he had been something more than the mere pot-walloping boon-companion which most men thought him.

"Geoff's sister Til!" he repeated, looking at the tall handsome girl before him,--"Geoff's sister Til! Ah, then it's perfectly right that I should have lost all my hair, and that my beard should be grizzled, and that I have a general notion of the omnipresence of old age. I was inclined to grumble; but if 'Geoff's sister Til,' who I thought was still a little child, is to come up and greet me in this guise, I recant: Time is right; and your William is the only old fool in the matter."

"It is your own fault, Mr. Bowker, that you don't know the changes that take place in us. You know we are always glad to see you, and that mamma is always sending you messages by Geoff."

"You are all very good, and--well, I suppose it is my fault; let's say it is, at all events. What! going? There, you see the effect my presence has when I come up on a chance visit."

"Not at all," said Til; "I should have gone five minutes ago if you had not come in. I'll make a confidant of you, Mr. Bowker, and let you into a secret. Those perpetual irritable pulls at the bell are the tradespeople waiting for orders; and I must go and settle about dinner and all sorts of things. Now goodbye." She shook hands with him, nodded brightly at her brother, and was gone.

"That's a nice girl," said William Bowker, as the door closed after her; "a regular nice girl--modest, ladylike, and true; none of your infernal fal-lal affectations--honest as the day; you can see that in her eyes and in every word she says. Where do you keep your tobacco? All right. Your pipes want looking after, Geoff. Ive tried three, and each is as foul as a chimney. Ah, this will do at last; now I'm all right, and can look at your work. H--m! that seems good stuff. You must tone-down that background a little, and put a touch of light here and there on the dress, which is infernally heavy and Hamlet-like. Hallo, Geoff, are you going in for the P.-R.-B. business?"

"Not I. What do you mean?"

"What do you mean by this red-haired party, my boy? This is a new style for you, Geoff, and one which no one would have thought of your taking up. You weren't brought up to consider this the right style of thing in old Sassoon's academy, Geoff. If the old boy could rise from his grave, and see his favourite pupil painting a frizzy, red-haired, sallow-faced woman as the realisation of beauty, I think he'd be glad he'd been called away before such awful times."

There was a hesitation in Geoff's voice, and a hollowness in his smile, as he answered:

"P.-R.-B. nonsense! Old Sassoon couldn't teach everything; and as for his ideas of beauty, look how often he made us paint Mrs. S. and the Miss S.'s, who, Heaven knows, were anything but reproductions of the Venus Calipyge. The simple question, as I take it, is this--is the thing a good thing or a bad one? Tell me that."

"As a work of art?"

"Of course; as you see it. What else could I mean?"

"As a work of art, it's good--undeniably good, in tone, and treatment, and conception; as a work of prudence, it's infernally bad."

Geoff looked at him sharply for a minute, and William Bowker, calmly puffing at his pipe, did not shrink from his friend's glance. Then, with a flush, Geoff said:

"It strikes me that it is as a work of art you have to regard it. As to what you say about a work of prudence, you have the advantage of me. I don't understand you."

"Don't you?" said William. "I'm sorry for you. What model did you paint that head from?"

"From no model."

"From life?"

"N-no; from memory--from--Upon my soul, Bowker, I don't see what right you have to cross-question me in this way."

"Don't you?" said Bowker. "Give your William something to drink, please; he can't talk when he's dry. What is that? B. and soda. Yes, that'll do. Look here, Geoffrey Ludlow, when you were little more than a boy, grinding away in the Life-School, and only too pleased if the Visitor gave you an encouraging word, your William, who is ten years your senior, had done work which made him be looked upon as the coming man. He had the ball at his foot, and he had merely to kick it to send it where he chose. He does not say this out of brag--you know it?"

Geoffrey Ludlow inclined his head in acquiescence.

"Your William didn't kick the bail; something interfered just as his foot was lifted to send it flying to the goal--a woman."

Again Geoffrey Ludlow nodded in acquiescence.

"You have heard the story. Every body in town knew it, and each had his peculiar version; but I will tell you the whole truth myself. You don't know how I struggled on against that infatuation;--no, you may think you do, but I am a much stronger man than you--am, or was--and I saw what I was losing by giving way. I gave way. I knocked down the whole fabric which, from the time I had had a man's thoughts, a man's mind, a man's energy and power, I had striven to raise. I kicked it all down, as Alnaschar did his basket of eggs, and almost as soon found how vain had been my castle-building. I need scarcely go into detail with you about that story: it was published in the Sunday newspapers of the time; it echoed in every club-room; it has remained lingering about art-circles, and in them is doubtless told with great gusto at the present day, should ever my name be mentioned. I fell in love with a woman who was married to a man of more than double her age,--a woman of education, taste, and refinement; of singular beauty too--and that to a young artist was not her least charm--tied for life to an old heartless scoundrel. My passion for her sprung from the day of my first seeing her; but I choked it down. I saw as plainly as I see this glass before me now what would be the consequence of any absurd escapade on my part; how it would crush me, how, infinitely more, it would drag her down. I knew what was working in each of us; and, so help me Heaven! I tried to spare us both. I tried--and failed, dismally enough. It was for no want of arguing with myself--from no want of forethought of all the consequences that might ensue. I looked at all point-blank; for though I was young and mad with passion, I loved that woman so that I could even have crushed my own selfishness lest it should be harm to her. I could have done this: I did it until--until one night I saw a blue livid mark on her shoulder. God knows how many years that is ago, but I have the whole scene before me at this moment. It was at some fine ball (I went into what is called 'society' then), and we were standing in a conservatory, when I noticed this mark. I asked her about it, and she hesitated; I taxed her with the truth, which she first feebly denied, then admitted. He had struck her, the hound! in a fit of jealous rage,--had struck her with his clenched fist! Even as she told me this, I could see him within a few yards of us, pretending to be rapt in conversation, but obviously noting our conduct. I suppose he guessed that she had told me of what had occurred. I suppose he guessed it from my manner and the expression of my face, for a deadly pallor came over his grinning cheeks; and as we passed out of the conservatory, he whispered to her--not so low but that I caught the words--'You shall pay for this, madam--you shall pay for this!' That determined me, and that night we fled.--Give me some more brandy and soda, Geoff. Merely to tell this story drags the heart out of my breast."

Geoff pushed the bottle over to his friend, and after a gulp Bowker proceeded:

"We went to Spain, and remained there many months; and there it was all very well. That slumbering country is even now but little haunted by your infernal British tourist; but then scarcely any Englishman came there. Such as we came across were all bachelors, your fine lad can't stand the mule-travelling and the roughing it in the posadas; and they either had not heard the story, or didn't see the propriety of standing on any squeamishness, more especially when the acquaintance was all to their advantage, and we got on capitally. Nelly had seen nothing, poor child, having left school to be married; and all the travel, and the picturesque old towns, and the peasantry, and the Alhambra, and all the rest of it, made a sort of romantic dream for her. But then old Van den Bosch got his divorce; and so soon as I had heard of that, like a madman as I was, I determined to come back to England. The money was running short, to be sure; but I had made no end of sketches, and I might have sent them over and sold them; but I wanted to get back. A man can't live on love alone; and I wanted to be amongst my old set again, for the old gossip and the old camaraderie; and so back we came. I took a little place out at Ealing, and then I went into the old haunts, and saw the old fellows, and--for the first time--so help me Heaven! for the first time I saw what I had done. They cut me, sir, right and left! There were some of them--blackguards who would have hobnobbed with Greenacre, if he'd stood the drink--who accepted my invitations, and came Sunday after Sunday, and would have eaten and drunk me out of house and home, if I'd have stood it; but the best--the fellows I really cared about--pretty generally gave me the cold shoulder. Some of them had married during my absence, and of course they couldn't come; others were making their way in their art, working under the patronage of big swells in the Academy, and hoping for election there, and they daren't be mixed up with such a notoriously black sheep as your William. I felt this, Geoff, old boy. By George, it cut me to the heart; it took all the change out of me; it made me low and hipped, and, I fear, sometimes savage. And I suppose I showed it at home; for poor Nell seemed to change and wither from the day of our return. She had her own troubles, poor darling, though she thought she kept them to herself. In a case like that, Geoff, the women get it much hotter than we do. There were no friends for her, no one to whom she could tell her troubles. And then the story got known, and people used to stare and nudge each other, and whisper as she passed. The parson called when we first came, and was a good pleasant fellow; but a fortnight afterwards he'd heard all about it, and grew purple in the face as he looked straight over our heads when we met him. And once a butcher, who had to be spoken to for cheating, cheeked her and alluded to her story; but I think what I did to him prevented any repetition of that kind of conduct. But I couldn't silence the whole world by thrashing it, old fellow; and Nell drooped and withered under all the misery--drooped and--died! And I--well, I became the graceless, purposeless, spiritless brute you see me now!"

Mr. Bowker stopped and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, and gave a great cough before finishing his drink; and then Geoffrey patted him on the shoulder and said, "But you know how we all love you, old friend; how that Charley Potts, and I, and Markham, and Wallis, and all the fellows, would do anything for you."

Mr. Bowker gave his friend's hand a tight grip as he said, "I know, Geoff; I know you boys are fond of your William but it wasn't to parade my grief, or to cadge for sympathy from them, that I told you that story. I had another motive."

"And that was--"

"To set myself up as an example and a warning to--any one who might be going to take a similar step. You named yourself just now, Geoff, amongst those who cared for me. Your William is a bit of a fogy, he knows; but some of you do care for him, and you amongst them."

"Of course. You know that well enough."

"Then why not show your regard for your William, dear boy?

"Show my regard--how shall I show it?"

"By confiding in him, Geoff; by talking to him about yourself; telling him your hopes and plans; asking him for some of that advice which seeing a great many men and cities, and being a remarkably downy old skittle, qualifies him to give. Why not confide in him, Geoff?"

"Confide in you? About what? Why on earth not speak out plainly at once?"

"Well, well, I won't beat about the bush any longer. I daresay there's nothing in it; but people talk and cackle so confoundedly, and, by George, men--some men, at least--are quite as bad as women in that line; and they say you're in love, Geoff; regularly hard hit--no chance of recovery!"

"Do they?" said Geoff, flushing very red--"do they? Who are 'they,' by the way?--not that it matters, a pack of gabbling fools! But suppose I am, what then?"

"What then! Why, nothing then--only it's rather odd that you've never told your William, whom you've known so long and so intimately, any thing about it. Is that" (pointing to the picture) "a portrait of the lady?"

"There--there is a reminiscence of her--her head and general style."

"Then your William would think that her head and general style must be doosid good. Any sisters?"

"I--I think not."

"Are her people pleasant--do you get on with them?"

"I don't know them."

"Ah, Geoff, Geoff, why make me go on in this way? Don't you know me well enough to be certain that I'm not asking all these questions for impertinence and idle curiosity? Don't you see that I'm dragging bit by bit out of you because I'm coming to the only point any of your friends can care about? Is this girl a good girl; is she respectable; is she in your own sphere of life; can you bring her home and tell the old lady to throw her arms round her neck, and welcome her as a daughter? Can you introduce her to that sweet sister of yours who was here when I came in?"

There came over Geoffrey Ludlow's face a dark shadow such as William Bowker had never seen there before. He did not speak nor turn his eyes, but sat fixed and rigid as a statue.

"For God's sake think of all this, Geoff! Ive told you a thousand times that you ought to be married; that there was no man more calculated to make a woman happy, or to have his own happiness increased by a woman's love. But then she must be of your own degree in life, and one of whom you could be every where proud. I would not have you married to an ugly woman or a drabby woman, or any thing that wasn't very nice; how much less, then, to any one whom you would feel ashamed of, or who could not be received by your dear ones at home! Geoff, dear old Geoff, for heaven's sake think of all this before it is too late! Take warning by my fatal error, and see what misery you would prepare for both of you."

Geoffrey Ludlow still sat in the same attitude. He made no reply for some minutes; then he said, dreamily, "Yes--yes, you're quite right, of course,--quite right. But I don't think we'll continue the conversation now. Another time, Bowker, please--another time." Then he ceased, and Mr. Bowker rose and pressed his hand, and took his departure. As he closed the door behind him, that worthy said to himself: "Well, I've done my duty, and I know I've done right; but it's very little of Geoff's mutton that your William will cut, and very little of Geoff's wine that your William will drink, if that marriage comes off. For of course he'll tell her all I've said, and won't she love your William!"

And for hours Geoffrey Ludlow sat before his easel, gazing at the Scylla head, and revolving all the detail of Mr. Bowker's story in his mind.

[CHAPTER XI.]

PLAYING THE FISH.

When did the giver of good, sound, unpalatable, wholesome advice ever receive his due? Who does not possess, amongst the multitude of acquaintances, a friend who says, "Such and such are my difficulties: I come to you because I want advice;" and who, after having heard all that, after a long struggle with yourself, you bring yourself to say, wrings your hand, goes away thinking what an impertinent idiot you are, and does exactly the opposite of all you have suggested? All men, even the most self-opinionated and practical, are eager for advice. None, even the most hesitating and diffident, take it, unless it agrees with their own preconceived ideas. There are, of course, exceptions by which this rule is proved; but there are two subjects on which no man was ever yet known to take advice, and they are horses and women. Depreciate your friend's purchase as delicately as Agag came unto Saul; give every possible encomium to make and shape and breeding; but hint, per contra, that the animal is scarcely up to his weight, or that that cramped action looks like a possible blunder; suggest that a little more slope in the shoulder, a little less cowiness in the general build, might be desirable for riding purposes, and your friend will smile, and shake his head, and canter away, convinced of the utter shallowness of your equine knowledge. In the other matter it is much worse. You must be very much indeed a man's friend if you can venture to hint to him, even after his iterated requests for your honest candid opinion, that the lady of his love is any thing but what he thinks her. And though you iterate and reiterate, moralise as shrewdly as Ecclesiasticus, bring chapter and verse to support your text, he must be more or less than a man, and cast in very different clay from that of which we poor ordinary mortals are composed, if he accepts one of your arguments or gives way one atom before your elucidations.

Did William Bowker's forlorn story, commingled with his earnest passionate appeal, weigh one scruple with Geoffrey Ludlow? Not one. Geoff was taken aback by the story. There was a grand human interest in that laying bare before him of a man's heart, and of two persons' wasted lives, which aroused his interest and his sympathy, made him ponder over what might have been, had the principal actors in the drama been kept asunder, and sent him into a fine drowsy state of metaphysical dubiety. But while Bowker was pointing his moral, Geoff was merely turning over the various salient points which had adorned his tale.

He certainly heard Bowker drawing a parallel between his own unhappy passion and Geoff's regard for the original owner of that "Scylla head;" but as the eminent speaker was arguing on hypothetical facts, and drawing deductions from things of which he knew absolutely nothing, too much reliance was not to be placed on his arguments. In Bowker's case there had been a public scandal, a certain betrayal of trust, which was the worst feature in the whole affair, a trial and an exposé, and a denunciation of the--well, the world used hard words--the seducer; which--though Bowker was the best fellow in the world, and had obviously a dreadful time of it--was only according to English custom. Now, in his own case, Margaret (he had already accustomed himself to think of her as Margaret) had been victimised by a scoundrel, and the blame--for he supposed blame would, at least in the minds of very strait-laced people, attach to her--was mitigated by the facts. Besides--and here was his great thought--nothing would be known of her former history. Her life, so far as any one in his set could possibly know any thing about it, began on the night when he and Charley Potts found her in the street. She was destitute and starving, granted; but there was nothing criminal in destitution and starvation, which indeed would, in the eyes of a great many weak and good-natured (the terms are synonymous) persons, bind a kind of romance to the story. And as to all that had gone before, what of that? How was any thing of that love ever to become known? This Leonard Brookfield, an army swell, a man who, under any circumstances, was never likely to come across them, or to be mixed up in Geoff's artist-circle, had vanished, and with him vanished the whole dark part of the story. Vanished for ever and aye! Margaret's life would begin to date from the time when she became his wife, when he brought her home to----Ah, by the way, what was that Bowker said about her worthiness to associate with his mother and sister? Why not? He would tell them all about it. They were good women, who fully appreciated the grand doctrine of forgiveness; and yet--He hesitated; he knew his mother to be a most excellent church-going woman, bearing her "cross" womanfully, not to say rather flaunting it than otherwise; but he doubted whether she would appreciate an introduction to a Magdalen, however penitent. To subscribe to a charity for "those poor creatures;" to talk pleasantly and condescendingly to them, and to leave them a tract on visiting a "Home" or a "Refuge," is one thing; to take them to your heart as daughters-in-law is another. And his sister! Well, young girls didn't understand this kind of thing, and would put a false construction on it, and were always chattering, and a great deal of harm might be done by Til's want of reticence; and so, perhaps, the best thing to be done was to hold his tongue, decline to answer any questions about former life, and leave matters to take their course. He had already arrived at that state of mind that he felt, if any disagreements arose, he was perfectly ready to leave mother and sister, and cleave to his wife--that was to be.

So Geoffrey Ludlow, tossing like a reed upon the waters, but ever, like the same reed, drifting with the resistless current of his will, made up his mind; and all the sage experience of William Bowker, illustrated by the story of his life, failed in altering his determination. It is questionable whether a younger man might not have been swayed by, or frightened at, the council given to him. Youth is impressible in all ways; and however people may talk of the headstrong passion of youth, it is clear that--nowadays at least--there is a certain amount of selfish forethought mingled with the heat and fervour; that love--like the measles--though innocuo us in youth, is very dangerous when taken in middle life; and Geoffrey Ludlow was as weak, and withal as stubborn, an in-patient, as ever caught the disease.

And yet?--and yet?--was the chain so strong, were the links already so well riveted, as to defy every effort to break them? Or, in truth, was it that the effort was wanting? An infatuation for a woman had been painted in very black shadows by William Bowker; but it was a great question to Geoff whether there was not infinite pleasure in the mere fact of being infatuated. Since he had seen Margaret Dacre--at all events, since he had been fascinated by her--not merely was he a different man, so far as she was concerned, but all life was to him a different and infinitely more pleasurable thing. That strange doubting and hesitation which had been his bane through life seemed, if not to have entirely vanished, at all events to be greatly modified; and he had recently, in one or two matters, shown a decision which had astonished the members of his little household. He felt that he had at last--what he had wanted all through his life--a purpose; he felt that there was something for him to live for; that by his love he had learned something that he had never known before; that his soul was opened, and the whole aspect of nature intensified and beautified; that he might have said with Maud's lover in that exquisite poem of the Laureate's, which so few really appreciate--

"It seems that I am happy, that to me
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,
A purer sapphire melts into the sea."

Then he sat down at his easel again, and worked away at the Scylla head, which came out grandly, and soon grew all a-glow with Margaret Dacre's peculiar expression; and then, after contemplating it long and lovingly, the desire to see the original came madly upon him, and he threw down his palette and brushes, and went out.

He walked straight to Mrs. Flexor's, and, on his knocking, the door was opened to him by that worthy dame, who announced to him, with awful solemnity, that he'd "find a change upstairs."

"A change!" cried Geoffrey, his heart thumping audibly, and his cheek blanched; "a change!"

"O, nothin' serious, Mr. Ludlows; but she have been a worritin' herself, poor lamb, and a cryin' her very eyes out. But what it is I can't make out, though statin' put your trust in one where trust is doo, continual."

"I don't follow you yet, Mrs. Flexor. Your lodger has been in low spirits--is that it?"

"Sperrits isn't the name for it, Mr. Ludlows, when downer than dumps is what one would express. As queer as Dick's hatband have she been ever since you went away yesterday; and I says to her at tea last evening--"

"I can see her, I suppose?"

"Of course you can, sir; which all I was doing was to prepare you for the--" but here Mrs. Flexor, who had apparently taken something stronger than usual with her dinner, broke down and became inarticulate.

Geoffrey pushed past her, and, knocking at the parlour-door, entered at once. He found Margaret standing, with her arms on the mantelshelf, surveying herself in the wretched little scrap of looking-glass which adorned the wall. Her hair was arranged in two large full bands, her eyes were swollen, and her face was blurred and marked by tears. She did not turn round at the opening of the door, nor, indeed, until she had raised her head and seen in the glass Geoff's reflection; even then she moved languidly, as though in pain, and her hand, when she placed it in his, was dry with burning heat.

"That chattering idiot down stairs was right after all," said Geoff, looking alarmedly at her; "you are ill?"

"No," she said, with a faint smile; "not ill, at all events not now. I have been rather weak and silly; but I did not expect you yet. I intended to remove all traces of such folly by the time you came. It was fit I should, as I want to talk to you most seriously and soberly."

"Do we not always talk so? did we not the last time I was here--yesterday?"

"Well, generally, perhaps; but not the last time--not yesterday. If I could have thought so, I should have spared myself a night of agony and a morning of remorse."

Geoff's face grew clouded.

"I am sorry for your agony, but much more sorry for your remorse, Miss Dacre," said he.

"Ah, Mr. Ludlow," cried Margaret, passionately, "don't you be angry with me; don't you speak to me harshly, or I shall give way all together! O, I watched every change of your face; and I saw what you thought at once; but indeed, indeed it is not so. My remorse is not for having told you all that I did yesterday; for what else could I do to you who had been to me what you had? My remorse was for what I had done--not for what I had said--for the wretched folly which prompted me to yield to a wheedling tongue, and so ruin myself for ever."

Her tears burst forth again as she said this, and she stamped her foot upon the ground.

"Ruin you for ever, Margaret!" said Geoffrey, stealing his arm round her waist as she still stood by the mantelshelf; "O no, not ruin you, dearest Margaret--"

"Ah, Mr. Ludlow," she interrupted, neither withdrawing from nor yielding to his arm, "have I not reason to say ruin? Can I fail to see that you have taken an interest in me which--which--"

"Which nothing you have told me can alter--which I shall preserve, please God," said Geoff, in all simplicity and sincerity, "to the end of my life."

She looked at him as he said these words with a fixed regard, half of wonder, half of real unfeigned earnest admiration.

"I--I'm a very bad hand at talking, Margaret, and know I ought to say a great deal for which I can't find words. You see," he continued, with a grave smile, "I'm not a young man now, and I suppose one finds it more difficult to express oneself about--about such matters. But I'm going to ask you--to--to share my lot--to be my wife!"

Her heart gave one great bound within her breast, and her face was paler than ever, as she said:

"Your wife! your wife! Do you know what you are saying, Mr. Ludlow? or is it I who, as the worldling, must point out to you--"

"I know all," said Geoffrey, raising his hand deprecatingly; but she would not be silenced.

"I must point out to you what you would bring upon yourself--what you would have to endure. The story of my life is known to you and to you alone; not another living soul has ever heard it. My mother died while I was in Italy; and of--the other person--nothing has ever been heard since his flight. So far, then, I do not fear that my--my shame--we will use the accepted term--would be flung in your teeth, or that you would be made to wince under any thing that might be said about me. But you would know the facts yourself; you could not hide them from your own heart; they would be ever present to you; and in introducing me to your friends, your relatives, if you have any, you would feel that--"

"I don't think we need go into that, Margaret. I see how right and how honourable are your motives for saying all this; but I have thought it over, and do not attach one grain of importance to it. If you say 'yes' to me, we shall live for ourselves, and with a very few friends who will appreciate us for ourselves. Ah, I was going to say that to you. I'm not rich, Margaret, and your life would, I'm afraid, be dull. A small income and a small house, and--"

"It would be my home, and I should have you;" and for the first time during the interview she gave him one of her long dreamy looks out of her half-shut eyes.

"Then you will say 'yes,' dearest?" asked Geoff passionately.

"Ah, how can I refuse! how can I deny myself such happiness as you hold out to me after the misery I have zone through!"

"Ah, darling, you shall forget that--"

"But you must not act rashly--must not do in a moment what you would repent your life long. Take a week for consideration. Go over every thing in your mind, and then come back to me and tell me the result."

"I know it now. O, don't hesitate, Margaret; don't let me wait the horrid week!"

"It is right, and so we will do it. It will be more tedious to me than to you, my--my Geoffrey."

Ah, how caressingly she spoke, and what a look of love and passion glowed in her deep-violet eyes!

"And I am not to see you during this week?"

"No; you shall be free from whatever little influence my presence may possess. You shall go now. Goodbye."

"God bless you, my darling!" He bent down and kissed her upturned mouth, then was gone. She looked after him wistfully; then after some time said softly to herself: "I did not believe there lived so good a man."

[CHAPTER XII.]

UNDER THE HARROW.

Mr. Bowker was not the only one of Geoffrey Ludlow's friends to whom that gentleman's intentions towards the lodger at Flexor's occasioned much troubled thought. Charley Potts regarded his friend's intimacy in that quarter with any thing but satisfaction; and an enormous amount of bird's-eye tobacco was consumed by that rising young artist in solemn cogitation over what was best to be done in the matter. For though Geoffrey had reposed no confidence in his friend, and, indeed, had never called upon him, and abstained as much as possible from meeting him since the night of the adventure outside the Titian Sketching-Club, yet Mr. Potts was pretty accurately informed of the state of affairs, through the medium of Mr. Flexor, then perpetually sitting for the final touches to Gil Bias; and having a tolerable acquaintance with human nature,--or being, as he metaphorically expressed it, "able to reckon how many blue beans made five,"--Mr. Potts was enabled to arrive at a pretty accurate idea of how affairs stood in Little Flotsam Street. And affairs, as they existed in Little Flotsam Street, were by no means satisfactory to Mr. Charles Potts. Had it been a year ago, he would have cared but little about it. A man of the world, accustomed to take things as they were, without the remotest idea of ever setting himself up to correct abuses, or protest against a habitude of being not strictly in accordance with the views of the most strait-laced, Charley Potts had floated down the stream of life objecting to nothing, objected to by none. There were fifty ladies of his acquaintance, passing as the wives of fifty men of his acquaintance, pleasant genial creatures, capital punch-mixers,--women in whose presence you might wear your hat, smoke, talk slang, chaff, and sing; women who knew all the art-gossip, and entered into it; whom one could take to the Derby, or who would be delighted with a cheap-veal-and-ham-pie, beer-in-a-stone-jar, and bottle-of-hot-sherry picnic in Bushey Park,--the copy of whose marriage-licenses Charley never expected to see. It was nothing to him, he used to say. It might or it might not be; but he didn't think that Joe's punch would be any the stronger, or Tom's weeds any the better, or Bill's barytone voice one atom more tuneful and chirpy, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had given out the bans and performed the ceremony for the lot. There was in it, he thought, a glorious phase of the vie de Bohême, a scorn of the respectable conventionalities of society, a freedom of thought and action possessing a peculiar charm of their own; and he looked upon the persons who married and settled, and paid taxes and tradesmen's bills, and had children, and went to bed before morning, and didn't smoke clay pipes and sit in their shirt-sleeves, with that softened pity with which the man bound for Epsom Downs regards the City clerk going to business on the Clapham omnibus.

But within the last few months Mr. Potts's ideas had very considerably changed. It was not because he had attained the venerable age of thirty, though he was at first inclined to ascribe the alteration to that; it was not that his appetite for fun and pleasure had lost any of its keenness, nor that he had become "awakened," or "enlightened," or subjected to any of the preposterous revival influences of the day. It was simply that he had, in the course of his intimacy with Geoffrey Ludlow, seen a great deal of Geoffrey Ludlow's sister, Til; and that the result of his acquaintance with that young lady was the entire change of his ideas on various most important points. It was astonishing, its effect on him: how, after an evening at Mrs. Ludlow's tea-table--presided over, of course, by Miss Til--Charley Potts, going somewhere out to supper among his old set, suddenly had his eyes opened to Louie's blackened eyelids and Bella's painted cheeks; how Georgie's h-slips smote with tenfold horror on his ear, and Carry's cigarette-smoking made him wince with disgust. He had seen all these things before, and rather liked them; it was the contrast that induced the new feeling. Ah, those preachers and pedants,--well-meaning, right-thinking men,--how utterly futile are the means which they use for compassing their ends! In these sceptical times, their pulpit denunciations, their frightful stories of wrath to come, are received with polite shoulder-shrugs and grins of incredulity; their twopence coloured pictures of the Scarlet Woman, their time-worn renderings of the street-wanderer, are sneered at as utterly fictitious and untrue; and meanwhile detached villas in St. John's Wood, and first-floors in quiet Pimlico streets, command the most preposterous rents. Young men will of course be young men; but the period of young-man-ism in that sense narrows and contracts every year. The ranks of her Scarlet Ladyship's army are now filled with very young boys who do not know any better, or elderly men who cannot get into the new groove, and who still think that to be gentlemanly it is necessary to be immoral. Those writers who complain of the "levelling" tone of society, and the "fast" manners of our young ladies, scarcely reflect upon the improved morality of the age. Our girls--all the outcry about fastness and selling themselves for money notwithstanding--are as good and as domestic as when formed under the literary auspices of Mrs. Chapone; and--granting the existence of Casinos and Anonymas--our young men are infinitely more wholesome than the class for whose instruction Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, penned his delicious letters.

So Mr. Charles Potts, glowing with newly-awakened ideas of respectability, began to think that, after all, the vie de Bohême was perhaps a mistake, and not equal, in the average amount of happiness derived from it, to the vie de Camden Town. He began to think that to pay rent and taxes and tradesmen's bills was very likely no dearer, and certainly more satisfactory, than to invest in pensions for cast-off mistresses and provisions for illegitimate children. He began to think, in fact, that a snug little house in the suburbs, with his own Lares and Penates about him, and Miss Matilda Ludlow, now looking over his shoulder and encouraging him at his work, now confronting him at the domestic dinner-table, was about the pleasantest thing which his fancy could conjure up in his then frame of mind.

Thinking all this, devoutly hoping it might so fall out, and being, like most converts, infinitely more rabid in the cause of Virtue than those who had served her with tolerable fidelity for a series of years, Mr. Charley Potts heard with a dreadful amount of alarm and amazement of Geoffrey Ludlow's close connection with a person whose antecedents were not comeatable and siftable by a local committee of Grundys. A year ago, and Charley would have laughed the whole business to scorn; insisted that every man had a right to do as he liked; slashed at the doubters; mocked their shaking heads and raised shoulders and taken no heed of any thing that might have been sad. But matters were different now. Not merely was Charley a recruit in the Grundy ranks, having pinned the Grundy colours in his coat, and subscribed to the Grundy oath; but the person about to be brought before the Grundy Fehmgericht, or court-marshal, was one in whom, should his hopes be realised, he would have the greatest interest. Though he had never dared to express his hopes, though he had not the smallest actual foundation for his little air-castle, Charles Potts naturally and honestly regarded Matilda Ludlow as the purest and most honourable of her sex--as does every young fellow regard the girl he loves; and the idea that she should be associated, or intimately connected, with any one under a moral taint, was to him terrible and loathsome.

The moral taint, mind, was all hypothetical. Charles Potts had not heard one syllable of Margaret Dacre's history, had been told nothing about it, knew nothing of her except that he and Geoffrey had saved her from starvation in the streets. But when people go in for the public profession of virtue, it is astonishing to find how quickly they listen to reports of the shortcomings and backslidings of those who are not professedly in the same category. It seemed a bit of fatalism too, that this acquaintance should have occurred immediately on Geoffrey's selling his picture for a large sum to Mr. Stompff. Had he not done this, there is no doubt that the other thing would have been heard of by few, noticed by none; but in art, as in literature, and indeed in most other professions, no crime is so heavily visited as that of being successful. It is the sale of your picture, or the success of your novel, that first makes people find out how you steal from other people, how your characters are mere reproductions of your own personal friends,--for which you ought to be shunned,--how laboured is your pathos, and how poor your jokes. It is the repetition of your success that induces the criticism; not merely that you are a singular instance of the badness of the public taste, but that you have a red nose, a decided cast in one eye, and that undoubtedly your grandmother had hard labour for stealing a clock. Geoff Ludlow the struggling might have done as he liked without comment; on Geoff Ludlow the possessor of unlimited commissions from the great Stompff it was meet that every vial of virtuous wrath should be poured.

Although Charles Potts knew the loquacity of Mr. Flexor,--the story of Geoff's adventure and fascination had gone the round of the studios,--he did not think how much of what had occurred, or what was likely to occur, was actually known, inasmuch as that most men, knowing the close intimacy existing between him and Ludlow, had the decency to hold their tongues in his presence. But one day he heard a good deal more than every thing. He was painting on a fancy head which he called "Diana Vernon," but which, in truth, was merely a portrait of Miss Matilda Ludlow very slightly idealised (the "Gil Blas" had been sent for acceptance or rejection by the Academy Committee), and Bowker was sitting by smoking a sympathetic pipe, when there came a sharp tug at the bell, and Bowker, getting up to open the door, returned with a very rueful countenance, closely followed by little Tidd. Now little Tidd, though small in stature, was a great ruffian. A soured, disappointed little wretch himself, he made it the business of his life to go about maligning every one who was successful, and endeavouring, when he came across them personally, to put them out of conceit by hints and innuendoes. He was a nasty-looking little man, with an always grimy face and hands, a bald head, and a frizzled beard. He had a great savage mouth with yellow tusks at either end of it; and he gave you, generally, the sort of notion of a man that you would rather not drink after. He had been contemporary with Geoffrey Ludlow at the Academy, and had been used to say very frankly to him and others, "When I become a great man, as I'm sure to do, I shall cut all you chaps;" and he meant it. But years had passed, and Tidd had not become a great man yet; on the contrary, he had subsided from yards of high-art canvas into portrait-painting, and at that he seemed likely to remain.

"Well, how do you do, Potts?" said Mr. Tidd. "I said 'How do you do?' to our friend Mr. Bowker at the door. Looks well, don't he? His troubles seem to sit lightly on him." Here Mr. Bowker growled a bad word, and seemed as if about to spring upon the speaker.

"And what's this you're doing, Potts? A charming head! acharming--n-no! not quite so charming when you get close to it; nose a little out of drawing, and--rather spotty, eh? What do you say, Mr. Bowker?"

"I say, Mr. Tidd, that if you could paint like that, you'd give one of your ears."

"Ah, yes--well, that's not complimentary, but--soured, poor man; sad affair! Yes, well! you've sent your Gil Blas to the Academy, I suppose, Potts?"

"O yes; he's there, sir; very likely at this moment being held up by a carpenter before the Fatal Three."

"Ah! don't be surprised at its being kicked out."

"I don't intend to be."

"That's right; they're sending them back in shoals this year, I'm told--in shoals. Have you heard any thing about the pictures?"

"Nothing, except that Landseer's got something stunning."

"Landseer, ah!" said Mr. Tidd. "When I think of that man, and the prices he gets, my blood boils, sir--boils! That the British public should care about and pay for a lot of stupid horses and cattle-pieces, and be indifferent to real art, is--well, never mind!" and Mr. Tidd gave himself a great blow in the chest, and asked, "What else?"

"Nothing else--O yes! I heard from Rushworth, who's on the Council, you know, that they had been tremendously struck by Geoff Ludlow's pictures, and that one or two more of the same sort are safe to make him an Associate."

"What!" said Mr. Tidd, eagerly biting his nails. "What!--an Associate! Geoffrey Ludlow an Associate!"

"Ah, that seems strange to you, don't it, Tidd?" said Bowker, speaking for the first time. "I recollect you and Geoff together drawing from the life. You were going to do every thing in those days, Tidd; and old Geoff was as quiet and as modest as--as he is now. It's the old case of the hare and the tortoise; and you're the hare, Tidd;--though, to look at you," added Mr. Bowker under his breath, "you're a d--d sight more like the tortoise, by Jove!"

"Geoffrey Ludlow an Associate!" repeated Mr. Tidd, ignoring Mr. Bowker's remark, and still greedily biting his nails. "Well, I should hardly have thought that; though you can't tell what they won't do down in that infernal place in Trafalgar Square. Theyve treated me badly enough; and it's quite like them to make a pet of him."

"How have they treated you badly, Tidd?" asked Potts, in the hope of turning the conversation away from Ludlow and his doings.

"How!" screamed Tidd; "in a thousand ways! Theyve a personal hatred of me, sir--that's what they have! Ive tried every dodge and painted in every school, and they won't have me. The year after Smith made a hit with that miserable picture 'Measuring Heights,' from the Vicar of Wakefield, I sent in 'Mr. Burchell cries Fudge!'--kicked out! The year after, Mr. Ford got great praise for his wretched daub of 'Dr. Johnson reading Goldsmith's Manuscript.' I sent in 'Goldsmith, Johnson, and Bozzy at the Mitre Tavern'--kicked out!--a glorious bit of humour, in which I'd represented all three in different stages of drunkenness--kicked out!"

"I suppose you've not been used worse than most of us, Tidd," growled Mr. Bowker. "She's an unjust stepmother, is the R.A. of A. But she snubs pretty nearly every body alike."

"Not at all!" said Tidd. "Here's this Ludlow--"

"What of him?" interposed Potts quickly.

"Can any one say that his painting is--ah, well! poor devil! it's no good saying any thing more about him; he'll have quite enough to bear on his own shoulders soon."

"What, when he's an Associate!" said Bowker, who inwardly was highly delighted at Tidd's evident rage.

"Associate!--stuff! I mean when he's married."

"Married? Is Ludlow going to be married?"

"Of course he is. Haven't you heard it? it's all over town." And indeed it would have been strange if the story had not permeated all those parts of the town which Mr. Tidd visited, as he himself had laboured energetically for its circulation. "It's all over town--O, a horrible thing! horrible thing!"

Bowker looked across at Charley Potts, who said, "What do you mean by a horrible thing, Tidd? Speak out and tell us; don't be hinting in that way."

"Well, then, Ludlow's going to marry some dreadful bad woman. O, it's a fact; I know all about it. Ludlow was coming home from a dinner-party one night, and he saw this woman, who was drunk, nearly run over by an omnibus at the Regent Circus. He rushed into the road, and pulled her out; and finding she was so drunk she couldn't speak, he got a room for her at Flexor's and took her there, and has been to see her every day since; and at last he's so madly in love with her that he's going to marry her."

"Ah!" said Mr. Bowker; "who is she? Where did she come from?"

"Nobody knows where she came from; but she's a reg'lar bad 'un,--as common as dirt. Pity too, ain't it? for Ive heard Ludlow's mother is a nice old lady, and Ive seen his sister, who's stunnin'!" and Mr. Tidd winked his eye.

This last proceeding finished Charley Potts, and caused his wrath, which had been long simmering, to boil over. "Look here, Mr. Tidd!" he burst forth; "that story about Geoff Ludlow is all lies--all lies, do you hear! And if I find that you're going about spreading it, or if you ever mention Miss Ludlow as you did just now, I'll break your infernal neck for you!"

"Mr. Potts!" said Tidd,--"Mr. Potts, such language! Mr. Bowker, did you hear what he said?"

"I did," growled old Bowker over his pipe; "and from what I know of him, I should think he was deuced likely to do it."

Mr. Tidd seemed to be of the same opinion, for he moved towards the door, and slunk out, muttering ominously.

"There's a scoundrel for you!" said Charley, when the door shut behind the retreating Tidd; "there's a ruffian for you! Ive not the least doubt that vagabond got a sort of foundation smattering from that blabbing Flexor, and invented all that about the omnibus and the drunken state and the rest of it himself. If that story gets noised about, it will do Geoff harm."

"Of course it will," said Bowker; "and that's just what Tidd wants. However, I think your threat of breaking his neck has stopped that little brute's tongue. There are some fellows, by Jove! who'll go on lying and libelling you, and who are only checked by the idea of getting a licking, when they shut up like telescopes. I don't know what's to be done about Geoff. He seems thoroughly determined and infatuated."

"I can't understand it."

"I can," said old Bowker, sadly; "if she's any thing like the head he's painted in his second picture--and I think from his manner it must be deuced like her--I can understand a man's doing any thing for such a woman. Did she strike you as being very lovely?"

"I couldn't see much of her that night, and she was deadly white and ill; but I didn't think her as good-looking as--some that I know."

"Geoff ought to know about this story that's afloat."

"I think he ought," said Charley. "I'll walk up to his place in a day or two, and see him about it."

"See him?" said Bowker. "Ah, all right! Yesterday was not your William's natal day."

[CHAPTER XIII.]

AT THE PRIVATE VIEW.

The grand epoch of the artistic year had arrived; the tremendous Fehmgericht--appointed to decide on the merits of some hundreds of struggling men, to stamp their efforts with approval or to blight them with rejection--had issued their sentence. The Hanging-Committee had gone through their labours and eaten their dinners; every inch of space on the walls in Trafalgar Square was duly covered; the successful men had received intimation of the "varnishing day," and to the rejected had been despatched a comforting missive, stating that the amount of space at the command of the Academy was so small, that, sooner than place their works in an objectionable position, the Council had determined to ask for their withdrawal. Out of this ordeal Geoffrey Ludlow had come splendidly. There had always been a notion that he would "do something;" but he had delayed so long--near the mark, but never reaching it--that the original belief in his talents had nearly faded out. Now, when realisation came, it came with tenfold force. The old boys--men of accepted name and fame--rejoiced with extra delight in his success because it was one in their own line, and without any giving in to the doctrines of the new school, which they hated with all their hearts. They liked the "Sic vos non vobis" best (for Geoffrey had sternly held to his title, and refused all Mr. Stompff's entreaties to give it a more popular character); they looked upon it as a more thoroughly legitimate piece of work. They allowed the excellences of the "Scylla and Charybdis," and, indeed, some of them were honest enough to prefer it, as a bit of real excellence in painting; but others objected to the pre-Raphaelite tendency to exalt the white face and the dead-gold hair into a realisation of beauty. But all were agreed that Geoffrey Ludlow had taken the grand step which was always anticipated from him, and that he was, out and away, the most promising man of the day: So Geoff was hung on the line, and received letters from half-a-dozen great names congratulating him on his success, and was in the seventh heaven of happiness, principally from the fact that in all this he saw a prospect of excellent revenue, of the acquisition of money and honour to be shared with a person then resident in Mr. Flexor's lodgings, soon to be mistress of his own home.

The kind Fates had also been propitious to Mr. Charles Potts, whose picture of "Gil Blas and the Archbishop" had been well placed in the North Room. Mr. Tidd's "Boadicea in her Chariot," ten feet by six, had been rejected; but his portrait of W. Bagglehole, Esq., vestry-clerk of St. Wabash, Little Britain, looked down from the ceiling of the large room and terrified the beholders.

So at length arrived that grand day of the year to the Academicians, when they bid certain privileged persons to the private view of the pictures previous to their public exhibition. The profanum vulgus, who are odi'd and arceo'd, pine in vain hope of obtaining a ticket for this great occasion. The public press, the members of the Legislature carefully sifted, a set of old dowagers who never bought a sketch, and who scarcely know a picture from a pipkin, and a few distinguished artists,--these are the happy persons who are invited to enter the sacred precincts on this eventful day. Geoffrey Ludlow never had been inside the walls on such an occasion--never expected to be; but on the evening before, as he was sitting in his studio smoking a pipe and thinking that within twenty-four hours he would have Margaret's final decision, looking back over his short acquaintance with her in wonder, looking forward to his future life with her in hope, when a mail-phaeton dashed up to the door, and in the strident tones, "Catch hold, young 'un," shouted to the groom, Geoff recognised the voice of Mr. Stompff, and looking out saw that great capitalist descending from the vehicle.

"Hallo, Ludlow!" said Mr. Stompff, entering the studio; "how are you? Quiet pipe after the day's grind? That's your sort! What will I take, you were going to say? Well, I think a little drop of sherry, if you've got it pale and dry,--as, being a man of taste, of course you have. Well, those duffers at the Academy have hung you well, you see! Of course they have. You know how that's done, of course?"

"I had hoped that the--" Geoff began to stutter directly it became a personal question with him--"that the--I was going to say that the pictures were good enough to--"

"Pictures good enough!--all stuff! pickles! The pictures are good--no use in denying that, and it would be deuced stupid in me, whove bought 'em! But that's not why they're so well hung. My men all on the Hanging-Committee--twiggez-vous? Last year there were two of Caniche's men, and a horrible fellow who paints religious dodges, which no one buys: not one of my men on the line, and half of them turned out I determined to set that right this year, and Ive done it. Just you look where Caniche's men are to-morrow, that's all!"

"To-morrow?"

"O, ah! that's what brought me here; I forgot to tell you. Here's a ticket for the private view. I think you ought to be there,--show yourself, you know, and that kind of thing. And look here: if you see me pointing you out to people, don't you be offended. Ive lived longer in the world than you, and I know what's what. Besides, you're part of my establishment just now, and I know the way to work the oracle. So don't mind it, that's all. Very decent glass of sherry, Ludlow! I say--excuse me, but if you could wear a white waistcoat to-morrow, I think I should like it. English gentleman, you know, and all that! Some of Caniche's fellows are very seedy-looking duffers."

Geoff smiled, took the ticket, and promised to come, terribly uncomfortable at the prospect of notoriety which Mr. Stompff had opened for him. But that worthy had not done with him yet.

"After it's all over," said he, "you must come and dine with me at Blackwall. Regular business of mine, sir. I take down my men and two or three of the newspaper chaps, after the private view, and give 'em as good a dinner as money can buy. No stint! I say to Lovegrove, 'You know me! The best, and damn the expense!' and Lovegrove does it, and it's all right! It would be difficult for a fellow to pitch into any of my men with a recollection of my Moselle about him, and a hope that it'll come again next year, eh? Well--won't detain you now; see you to-morrow; and don't forget the dinner."

Do you not know this kind of man, and does he not permeate English society?--this coarse ruffian, whose apparent good-nature disarms your nascent wrath, and yet whose good-nature you know to be merely vulgar ostentatious self-assertion under the guise of bonhomie. I take the character I have drawn, but I declare he belongs to all classes. I have seen him as publisher to author, as attorney to young barrister, as patron to struggler generally. Geoffrey Ludlow shrank before him, but shrank in his old feeble hesitating way; he had not the pluck to shake off the yoke, and bid his employer go to the devil. It was a new phase of life for him--a phase which promised competence at a time when competence was required; which, moreover, rid him of any doubt or anxiety about the destination of his labour, which to a man of Ludlow's temperament was all in all. How many of us are there who will sell such wares as Providence has given us the power of producing at a much less rate than we could otherwise obtain for them, and to most objectionable people, so long as we are enabled to look for and to get a certain price, and are absorbed from the ignominy of haggling, even though by that haggling we should be tenfold enriched! So Geoffrey Ludlow took Mr. Stompff's ticket, and gave him his pale sherry, and promised to dine with him, and bowed him out; and then went back into his studio and lit a fresh pipe and sat down to think calmly over all that was about to befall him.

What came into his mind first? His love, of course. There is no man, as yet unanchored in the calm haven of marriage, who amidst contending perplexities does not first think of what storms and shoals beset his progress in that course. And who, so long as there he can see a bit of blue sky, a tolerably clear passage, does not, to a great extent, ignore the black clouds which he sees banking up to windward, the heavy swell crested with a thin, dangerous, white line of wave, which threatens his fortunes in another direction. Here Geoffrey Ludlow thought himself tolerably secure. Margaret had told him all her story, had made the worst of it, and had left him to act on her confession. Did she love him? That was a difficult question for a man of Geoff's diffidence to judge. But he thought he might unhesitatingly answer it in the affirmative. It was her own proposition that nothing should be done hurriedly; that he should take the week to calmly reflect over the position, and see whether he held by his first avowal. And to-morrow the week would be at an end, and he would have the right to ask for her decision.

That decision, if favourable, would at once settle his plans, and necessitate an immediate communication to his mother. This was a phase of the subject which Geoffrey characteristically had ignored, put by, and refrained from thinking of as long as possible. But now there was no help for it. Under any circumstances he would have endeavoured, on marrying, to set up a separate establishment for himself; but situated as he was, with Margaret Dacre as his intended wife, he saw that such a step was inevitable. For though he loved his mother with all his heart, he was not blind to her weaknesses and he knew that the "cross" would never be more triumphantly brought forward, or more loudly complained of, than when it took the form of a daughter-in-law,--a daughter-in-law, moreover, whose antecedents were not held up for the old lady's scrutinising inspection. And here, perhaps, was the greatest tribute to the weird influence of the dead-gold hair, the pallid face, and the deep-violet eyes. A year ago, and Geoff Ludlow would have told you that nothing could ever have made him alter his then style of life. It had continued too long, he would have told you; he had settled down into a certain state of routine, living with the old lady and Til: they understood his ways and wishes, and he thought he should never change. And Mrs. Ludlow used to say that Geoffrey would never marry now; he did not care for young chits of girls, who were all giggle and nonsense, my dear; a man at his time of life looked for something more than that, and where it was to come from she, for one, did not know. Miss Matilda had indeed different views on the subject; she thought that dear old Geoff would marry, but that it would probably come about in this way. Some lovely female member of the aristocracy, to whom Geoff had given drawing-lessons, or who had seen his pictures, and become imbued with the spirit of poetry in them, would say to her father, the haughty earl, "I pine for him; I cannot live without him;" and to save his darling child's health, the earl would give his consent, and bestow upon the happy couple estates of the annual value of twenty thousand pounds. But then you see Miss Matilda Ludlow was given to novel-reading, and though perfectly practical and unromantic as regards herself and her career, was apt to look upon all appertaining to her brother, whom she adored, through a surrounding halo of circulating-library.

How this great intelligence would, then, be received by his home-tenants set Geoff thinking after Stompff's departure, and between the puff of his pipe he turned the subject hither and thither in his mind, and proposed to himself all kinds of ways for meeting the difficulty; none of which, on reconsideration, appearing practicable or judicious, he reverted to an old and favourite plan of his, that of postponing any further deliberation until the next day, when, as he argued with himself; he would have "slept upon it"--a most valuable result when the subject is systematically ignored up to the time of going to sleep, and after the hour of waking--he would have been to the private view at the Academy--which had, of course, an immense deal to do with it--and he would have received the final decision from Margaret Dacre. O yes, it was useless to think any more of it that night. And fully persuaded of this, Geoff turned in and fell fast asleep.

"And there won't be a more gentlemanly-looking man in the rooms than our dear old Geoff!"

"Stuff, Til! don't be absurd!"

"No, I mean it; and you know it too, you vain old thing; else why are you perpetually looking in the glass?"

"No, but--Til, nonsense!--I suppose I'm all right, eh?"

"All right!--you're charming, Geoff! I never saw you such a--I can't help it you know--swell before! Don't frown, Geoff; there's no other word that expresses it. One would think you were going to meet a lady there. Does the Queen go, or any of the young princesses?"

"How can you be so ridiculous, Til! Now, goodbye;" and Geoff gave his sister a hearty kiss, and started off. Miss Matilda was right; he did look perfectly gentlemanly in his dark-blue coat, white waistcoat, and small-check trousers. Nature, which certainly had denied him personal beauty or regularity of feature, had given him two or three marks of distinction: his height, his bright earnest eyes, and a certain indefinable odd expression, different from the ordinary ruck of people--an expression which attracted attention, and invariably made people ask who he was.

It was three o'clock before Geoff arrived at the Academy, and the rooms were crowded. The scene was new to him, and he stared round in astonishment at the brilliancy of the toilettes, and what Charley Potts would have called the "air of swelldom" which pervaded the place. It is scarcely necessary to say that his first act was to glance at the Catalogue to see where his pictures were placed; his second, to proceed to them to see how they looked on the walls. Round each was a little host of eager inspectors, and from what Geoff caught of their conversation, the verdict was entirely favourable. But he was not long left in doubt. As he was looking on, his arm was seized by Mr. Stompff, who, scarcely waiting to carry him out of earshot, began, "Well! you've done it up brown this time, my man, and no flies! Your pictures have woke 'em up. They're talking of nothing else. Ive sold 'em both. Lord Everton--that's him over there: little man with a double eyeglass, brown coat and high velvet collar--he's bought the 'sic wos;' and Mr. Shirtings of Manchester's got the other. The price has been good, sir; I'm not above denyin' it. There's six dozen of Sham ready to go into your cellar whenever you say the word: I ain't mean with my men like some people. Power of nobs here to-day. There's the Prime Minister, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer--that's him in the dirty white hat and rumpled coat--and no end of bishops and old ladies of title. That's Shirtings, that fat man in the black satin waistcoat. Wonderful man, sir,--factory-boy in Manchester! Saved his shillin' a-week, and is now worth two hundred thousand. Fine modern collection he's got! That little man in the turn-down collar, with the gold pencil-case in his hand, is Scrunch, the art-critic of the Scourge. A bitter little beast; but Ive squared him. I gave him five-and-twenty pounds to write a short account of the Punic War, which was given away with Bliff's picture of 'Regulus,' and he's never pitched into any of my people since. He's comin' to dinner to-day. O, by the bye, don't be late! I'll drive you down."

"Thank you," said Geoff; "I--Ive got somewhere to go to. I'll find my own way to Blackwall."

"Ha!" said Stompff, "then it is true, is it? Never mind; mum's the word! I'm tiled! Look here: don't you mind me if you see me doing any thing particular. It's all good for business."

It may have been so, but it was undoubtedly trying. During the next two hours Geoff was conscious of Mr. Stompff's perpetually hovering round him, always acting as cicerone to some different man, to whom he would point out Geoff with his forefinger, then whisper in his companion's ear, indicate one of Geoff's pictures with his elbow, and finish by promenading his friend just under Geoff's nose; the stranger making a feeble pretence of looking at some highly-hung portrait, but obviously swallowing Geoff with his eyes, from his hair to his boots.

But he had also far more pleasurable experiences of his success. Three or four of the leading members of the Academy, men of world-wide fame, whom he had known by sight, and envied--so far as envy lay in his gentle disposition--for years, came up to him, and introducing themselves, spoke warmly of his picture, and complimented him in most flattering terms. By one of these, the greatest of them all, Lord Everton was subsequently brought up; and the kind old man, with that courtesy which belongs only to the highest breeding, shook hands with him, and expressed his delight at being the fortunate possessor of Mr. Ludlow's admirable picture, and hoped to have the pleasure of receiving him at Everton house, and showing him the gallery of old masters, in whose footsteps he, Mr. Ludlow, was so swiftly following.

And then, as Geoffrey was bowing his acknowledgments, he heard his name pronounced, and turning round found himself close by Lord Caterham's wheelchair, and had a hearty greeting from its occupant.

"How do you do, Mr. Ludlow? You will recollect meeting me at Lady Lilford's, I daresay. I have just been looking at your pictures, and I congratulate you most earnestly upon them. No, I never flatter. They appear to me very remarkable things, especially the evening-party scene, where you seem to have given an actual spirit of motion to the dancers in the background, so different from the ordinary stiff and angular representation.--You can leave the chair here for a minute, Stephens.--In such a crowd as this, Mr. Ludlow, it's refreshing--is it not?--to get a long look at that sheltered pool surrounded by waving trees, which Creswick has painted so charmingly. The young lady who came with me has gone roving away to search for some favourite, whose name she saw in the Catalogue; but if you don't mind waiting with me a minute, she will be back, and I know she will be glad to see you, as--ah! here she is!"

As Geoffrey looked round, a tall young lady with brown eyes, a pert inquisitive nose, an undulating figure, and a bright laughing mouth, came hurriedly up, and without noticing Geoffrey, bent over Lord Caterham's chair, and said, "I was quite right, Arthur; it is--" then, in obedience to a glance from her companion, she looked up and exclaimed, "What, Geoffrey!--Mr. Ludlow, I mean--O, how do you do? Why, you don't mean to say you don't recollect me?"

Geoff was a bad courtier at any time, and now the expression of his face at the warmth of this salutation showed how utterly he was puzzled.

"You have forgotten, then? And you don't recollect those days when--"

"Stop!" he exclaimed, a sudden light breaking upon him; "little Annie Maurice that used to live at Willesden Priory! My little fairy, that I have sketched a thousand times. Well, I ought not to have forgotten you, Miss Maurice, for I have studied your features often enough to have impressed them on my memory. But how could I recognise my little elf in such a dashing young lady?"

Lord Caterham looked up at them out of the corners of his eyes as they stood warmly shaking hands, and for a moment his face wore a pained expression; but it passed away directly, and his voice was as cheery as usual as he said, "Et nos mutamur in illis, eh, Mr. Ludlow? Little fays grow into dashing young ladies, and indolent young sketchers become the favourites of the Academy."

"Ay," said Annie; "and the dear old Priory let to other people, and many of those who made those times so pleasant are dead and gone. O, Geoffrey--Mr. Ludlow, I mean--"

"Yes," said Geoff, interrupting her; "and Geoffrey turned into Mr. Ludlow, and Annie into Miss Maurice: there's another result of the flight of time, and one which I, for my part, heartily object to."

"Ah, but, Mr. Ludlow, I must bespeak a proper amount of veneration for you on the part of this young lady," said Lord Caterham; "for I am about to ask you to do me a personal favour in which she is involved."

Geoff bowed absently; he was already thinking it was time for him to go to Margaret.

"Miss Maurice is good enough to stay with my family for the present, Mr. Ludlow; and I am very anxious that she should avail herself of the opportunity of cultivating a talent for drawing which she undoubtedly possesses."

"She used to sketch very nicely years ago," said Geoff, turning to her with a smile; and her face was radiant with good humour as she said:

"O, Geoffrey, do you recollect my attempts at cows?"

"So, in order to give her this chance, and in the hope of making her attempt at cows more creditable than it seems they used to be, I am going to ask you, Mr. Ludlow, to undertake Miss Maurice's artistic education, to give her as much of your time as you can spare, and, in fact, to give what I think I may call her genius the right inclination."

Geoffrey hesitated of course--it was his normal state--and he said doubtingly: "You're very good; but I--I'm almost afraid--"

"You are not bashful, I trust, Mr. Ludlow," said Lord Caterham; "I have seen plenty of your work at Lady Lilford's, and I know you to be perfectly competent."

"It was scarcely that, my lord; I rather think that--" but when he got thus far he looked up and saw Annie Maurice's brown eyes lifted to his in such an appealing glance that he finished his sentence by saying: "Well, I shall be very happy indeed to do all that I can--for old acquaintance-sake, Annie;" and he held out his hand frankly to her.

"You are both very good," she said; "and it will be a real pleasure to me to recommence my lessons, and to try to prove to you, Geoffrey, that I'm not so impatient or so stupid as I was. When shall we begin?"

"The sooner the better, don't you think, Mr. Ludlow?" said Lord Caterham.

Geoff felt his face flush as he said: "I--I expect to be going out of town for a week or two; but when I return I shall be delighted to commence."

"When you return we shall be delighted to see you. I can fully understand how you long for a little rest and change after your hard work, Mr. Ludlow. Now goodbye to you; I hope this is but the beginning of an intimate acquaintance." And Lord Caterham, nodding to Geoffrey, called Stephens and was wheeled away.

"I like that man, Annie," said he, when they were out of earshot; "he has a thoroughly good face, and the truth and honesty of his eyes overbalance the weakness of the mouth, which is undecided, but not shifty. His manner is honest, too; don't you think so?"

He waited an instant for an answer, but Annie did not speak.

"Didn't you hear sue, Annie? or am I not worth a reply?"

"I--I beg your pardon, Arthur. I heard you perfectly; but I was thinking. O yes, I should think Mr. Ludlow was as honest as the day."

"But what made you distraite? What were you thinking of?"

"I was thinking what a wonderful difference a few years made. I was thinking of my old ideas of Mr. Ludlow when he used to come out to dine with papa, and sleep at our house; how he had long dark hair, which he used to toss off his face, and poor papa used to laugh at him and call him an enthusiast. I saw hundreds of silver threads in his hair just now, and he seemed--well, I don't know--so much more constrained and conventional than I recollect him."

"You seem to forget that you had frocks and trousers and trundled a hoop in those days, Annie. You were a little fay then; you are a Venus now: in a few years you will be married, and then you must sit to Mr. Ludlow for a Juno. It is only your pretty flowers that change so much; your hollies and yews keep pretty much the same throughout the year."

From the tone of voice in which Lord Caterham made this last remark, Annie knew very well that he was in one of those bitter humours which, when his malady was considered, came surprisingly seldom upon him, and she knew that a reply would only have aggravated his temper, so she forbore and walked silently by his side.

No sooner did he find himself free than Geoffrey Ludlow hurried from the Academy, and jumping into a cab, drove off at once to Little Flotsam Street. Never since Margaret Dacre had been denizened at Flexor's had Geoff approached the neighbourhood without a fluttering at his heart, a sinking of his spirits, a general notion of fright and something about to happen. But now, whether it was that his success at the Academy and the kind words he had had from all his friends had given him courage, it is impossible to say, but he certainly jumped out of the hansom without the faintest feeling of disquietude, and walked hurriedly perhaps, but by no means nervously, up to Flexor's door.

Margaret was in, of course. He found her, the very perfection of neatness, watering some flowers in her window which he had sent her. She had on a tight-fitting cotton dress of a very small pattern, and her hair was neatly braided over her ears. He had seen her look more voluptuous, never more piquante and irresistible. She came across the room to him with outstretched hand and raised eyebrows.

"You have come!" she said; "that's good of you, for I scarcely expected you."

Geoff stopped suddenly. "Scarcely expected me! Yet you must know that to-day the week is ended."

"I knew that well enough; but I heard from the woman of the house here that to-day is the private view of the Academy, and I knew how much you would be engaged."

"And did you think that I should suffer any thing to keep me from coming to you to-day?"

She paused a minute, then looked him full in the face. "No; frankly and honestly I did not. I was using conventionalisms and talking society to you. I never will do so again. I knew you would come, and--and I longed for your coming, to tell you my delight at what I hear is your glorious success."

"My greatest triumph is in your appreciation of it," said Geoff. "Having said to you what I did a week ago, you must know perfectly that the end and aim of all I think, of all I undertake, is connected with you. And you must not keep me in suspense, Margaret, please. You must tell me your decision."

"My decision! Now did we not part, at my suggestion, for a week's adjournment, during which you should turn over in your mind certain positions which I had placed before you? And now, the week ended, you ask for my decision! Surely rather I ought to put the question."

"A week ago I said to you, 'Margaret, be my wife.' It was not very romantically put, I confess; but I'm not a very romantic person. You told me to wait a week, to think over all the circumstances of our acquaintance, and to see whether my determination held good. The week is over; Ive done all you said; and Ive come again to say, Margaret, be my wife."

It was rather a long speech this for Geoff; and as he uttered it his dear old face glowed with honest fervour.

"You have thoroughly made up your mind, considered every thing, and decided?"

"I have."

"Mind, in telling you the story of my past life, I spoke out freely, regardless of my own feelings and of yours. You owe me an equal candour. You have thought of all?"

"Of all."

"And you still--"

"I still repeat that one demand."

"Then I say 'Yes,' frankly and freely. Geoffrey Ludlow, I will be your wife; and by Heaven's help I will make your life happy, and atone for my past. I--"

And she did not say any more just then, for Geoff stopped her lips with a kiss.

"What can have become of Ludlow?" said Mr. Stompff for about the twentieth time, as he came back into the dining-room, after craning over the balcony and looking all round.

"Giving himself airs on account of his success," said genial Mr. Bowie, the art-critic. "I wouldn't wait any longer for him, Stompff."

"I won't," said Stompff. "Dinner!"

The dinner was excellent, the wine good and plentiful, the guests well assorted, and the conversation as racy and salted as it usually is when a hecatomb of absent friends is duly slaughtered by the company. Each man said the direst things he could about his own personal enemies; and there were but very few cases in which the rest of the convives did not join in chorus. It was during a pause in this kind of conversation--much later in the evening, when the windows had been thrown open, and most of the men were smoking in the balcony--that little Tommy Smalt, who had done full justice to the claret, took his cigar from his mouth, leaned lazily back, and looking up at the moonlit sky, felt in such a happy state of repletion and tobacco as to be momentarily charitable--the which feeling induced him to say:

"I wish Ludlow had been with us!"

"His own fault that he's not," said Mr. Stompff; "his own fault entirely. However, he's missed a pleasant evening. I rather think we've had the pull of him."

Had Geoff missed a pleasant evening? He thought otherwise. He thought he had, never had such an evening in his life; for the same cold steel-blue rays of the early spring moon which fell upon the topers in the Blackwall balcony came gleaming in through Mr. Flexor's first-floor window, lighting up a pallid face set in a frame of dead-gold hair and pillowed on Geoffrey Ludlow's breast.

[CHAPTER XIV.]

THOSE TWAIN ONE FLESH.

So it was a settled thing between Margaret Dacre and Geoffrey Ludlow. She had acceded to his earnest demand--demand thrice repeated--after due consideration and delay, and she was to become his wife forthwith. Indeed, their colloquy on that delicious moonlight evening would have been brought to a conclusion much sooner than it was, had not Geoff stalwartly declared and manfully held to his determination, spite of every protest, not to go until they had settled upon a day on which to be married. He did not see the use of waiting, he said; it would get buzzed about by the Flexors; and all sorts of impertinent remarks and congratulations would be made, which they could very well do without. Of course, as regarded herself, Margaret would want a--what do you call it?--outfit, trousseau, that was the word. But it appeared to him that all he had to do was to give her the money, And all she had to do was to go out and get the things she wanted, and that need not take any time, or hinder them from naming a day--well, let us say in next week. He himself had certain little arrangements to make; but he could very well get through them all in that time. And what did Margaret say?

Margaret did not say very much. She had been lying perfectly tranquil in Geoffrey's arms; a position which, she said, first gave her assurance that her new life had indeed begun. She should be able to realise it more fully, she thought, when she commenced in a home of her own, and in a fresh atmosphere; and as the prying curiosity of the Flexors daily increased, and as Little Flotsam Street, with its normal pavement of refuse and its high grim house-rows scarcely admitting any light, was an objectionable residence, she could urge no reason for delay. So a day at the end of the ensuing week was fixed upon; and no sooner had it been finally determined than Geoff, looking round at preparations which were absolutely necessary, was amazed at their number and magnitude.

He should be away a fortnight, he calculated, perhaps longer; and it was necessary to apprise the families and the one or two "ladies' colleges" in which he taught drawing of his absence. He would also let Stompff know that he would not find him in his studio during the next few days (for it was the habit of this great entrepreneur to pay frequent visits to his protégés, just to "give 'em a look-up," as he said; but in reality to see that they were not doing work for any opposition dealer); but he should simply tell Stompff that he was going out of town for a little change, leaving that worthy to imagine that he wanted rest after his hard work. And then came a point at which he hitched up at once, and was metaphorically thrown on his beam-ends. What was he to say to his mother and sister and to his intimate friends?

To the last, of course, there was no actual necessity to say any thing, save that he knew he must have some one to "give away" the bride, and he would have preferred one of his old friends, even at the risk of an explanation, to Flexor, hired for five shillings, and duly got up in the costume of the old English gentleman. But to his mother and sister it was absolutely necessary that some kind of notice should be given. It was necessary they should know that the little household, which, despite various small interruptions, had been carried on so long in amity and affection, would be broken up, so far as he was concerned; also necessary that they should know that his contribution to the household income would remain exactly the same as though he still partook of its benefits. He had to say all this; and he was as frightened as a child. He thought of writing at first, and of leaving a letter to be given to his mother after the ceremony was over; of giving a bare history in a letter, and an amount of affection in the postscript which would melt the stoniest maternal heart. But a little reflection caused him to think better of this notion, and determined him to seek an interview with his mother. It was due to her, and he would go through with it.

So one morning, when he had watched his sister Til safe off into a prolonged diplomatic controversy with the cook, involving the reception of divers ambassadors from the butcher and other tradespeople, Geoff made his way into his mother's room, and found her knitting something which might have been either an antimacassar for a giant or a counterpane for a child, and at once intimated his pleasure at finding her alone, as he had "something to say to her."

This was an ominous beginning in Mrs. Ludlow's ears, and her "cross" at once stood out visibly before her; Constantine himself had never seen it plainer. The mere pronunciation of the phrase made her nervous; she ought to have "dropped one and taken up two;" but her hands got complicated, and she stopped with a knitting-needle in mid-air.

"If you're alluding to the butcher's book, Geoffrey," she said, "I hold myself blameless. It was understood, thoroughly understood, that it should be eightpence a pound all round; and if Smithers chooses to charge ninepence-halfpenny for lamb, and you allow it, I don't hold myself responsible. I said to your sister at the time--I said, 'Matilda, I'm sure Geoffrey--'"

"It's not that, mother, I want to talk to you about," said Geoff, with a half-smile "it's a bigger subject than the price of butcher's meat. I want to talk to you about myself--about my future life."

"Very well, Geoffrey; that does not come upon me unawares. I am a woman of the world. I ought to be, considering the time I had with your poor father; and I suppose that now you're making a name, you'll find it necessary to entertain. He did, poor fellow, though it's little enough name or money he ever made! But if you want to see your friends round you, there must be help in the kitchen. There are certain things--jellies, and that like--that must come from the pastry-cook's; but all the rest we can do very well at home with a little help in the kitchen."

"You don't comprehend me yet, mother. I--I'm going to leave you."

"To leave us!--O, to live away! Very well, Geoffrey," said the old lady, bridling up; "if you've grown too grand to live with your mother, I can only say I'm sorry for you. Though I never saw my name in print in the Times newspaper, except among the marriages; and if that's to be the effect it has upon me, I hope I never shall."

"My dear mother, how can you imagine any thing so absurd! The truth is--"

"O yes, Geoffrey, I understand. Ive not lived or sixty years in the world for nothing. Not that there's been ever the least word said about your friends coming pipe-smoking at all times of the night, or hot water required for spirits when Emma was that dead with sleep she could scarcely move; nor about young persons--female models you call them--trolloping misses I say."

It is worthy of remark that in all business matters Mrs. Ludlow was accustomed to treat her son as a cipher, forgetting that two-thirds of the income by which the house was supported were contributed by him. There was no thought of this, however, in honest old Geoff's mind as he said,

"Mother, you won't hear me out! The fact is, I'm going to be married."

"To be married, Geoffrey!" said the old lady, in a voice that was much softer and rather tremulous; "to be married, my dear boy! Well, that is news!" Her hands trembled as she laid them on his big shoulders and put up her face to kiss him. "Well, well, to be sure! I never thought you'd marry now, Geoffrey. I looked upon you as a confirmed old bachelor. And who is it that has caught you at last? Not Miss Sanders, is it?"

Geoffrey shook his head.

"I thought not. No, that would never do. Nice kind of girl too; but if we're to hold our heads so high when all our money comes out of sugar-hogsheads in Thames Street, why where will be the end of it, I should like to know? It isn't Miss Hall?"

Geoffrey repeated his shake.

"Well, I'm glad of it; not but what I'm very fond of Emily Hall; but that half-pay father of hers! I shouldn't like some of the people about here to know that we were related to a half-pay captain with a wooden leg; and he'd be always clumping about the house, and be horrible for the carpets! Well, if it isn't Minnie Beverley, I'll give it up; for you'd never go marrying that tall Dickenson, who's more like a dromedary than a woman!"

"It is not Minnie Beverley, nor the young lady who's like a dromedary," said Geoff, laughing. "The young lady I am going to marry is a stranger to you; you have never even seen her."

"Never seen her! O Geoff!" cried the old lady, with horror in her face, "you're never going to marry one of those trolloping models, and bring her home to live with us?"

"No, no, mother; you need be under no alarm. This young lady, who is from the country, is thoroughly ladylike and well educated. But I shall not bring her home to you; we shall have a house of our own."

"And what shall we do, Til and I? O, Geoffrey, I shall never have to go into lodgings at my time of life, shall I, and after having kept house and had my own plate and linen for so many years?"

"Mother, do you imagine I should increase my own happiness at the expense of yours? Of course you'll keep this house, and all arrangements will go on just the same as usual, except that I sha'n't be here to worry you."

"You never worried me, my dear," said the old lady, as all his generosity and noble unselfishness rose before her mind; "you never worried me, but have been always the best of sons; and pray God that you may be happy, for you deserve it." She put her arms round his neck and kissed him fondly, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. "Ah, here's Til," she continued, drying her eyes; "it would never do to let her see me being so silly."

"O, here you are at last!" said Miss Til, who, as they both noticed, had a very high colour and was generally suffused about the face and neck; "what have you been conspiring about? The Mater looks as guilty as possible, doesn't she, Geoff? and you're not much better, sir. What is the matter?"

"I suspect you're simply attempting the authoritative to cover your own confusion, Til. There's something--"

"No, no! I won't be put off in that manner! What is the matter?"

"There's nothing the matter, my dear," said Mrs. Ludlow, who by this time had recovered her composure; "though there is some great news. Geoffrey's going to be married!"

"What!" exclaimed Miss Til, and then made one spring into his arms. "O, you darling old Geoff, you don't say so? O, how quiet you have kept it, you horrible hypocrite, seeing us day after day and never breathing a word about it! Now, who is it, at once? Stop, shall I guess? Is it any one I know?"

"No one that you know."

"O, I am so glad! Do you know, I think I hate most people I know--girls, I mean; and I'm sure none of them are nice enough for my Geoff. Now, what's she like, Geoff?"

"O, I don't know."

"That's what men always say--so tiresome! Is she dark or fair?"

"Well, fair, I suppose."

"And what coloured hair and eyes?"

"Eh? well, her hair is red, I think."

"Red! Lor, Geoff! what they call carrots?"

"No; deep-red, like red gold--"

"O, Geoff, I know, I know! Like the Scylla in the picture. O, you worse than fox, to deceive me in that way, telling me it was a model, and all the rest of it. Well, if she's like that, she must be wonderful to look at, and I'm dying to see her. What's her name?"

"Margaret."

"Margaret! That's very nice; I like Margaret very much. Of course you'll never let yourself be sufficiently childishly spoony to let it drop into Peggy, which is atrocious. I'm very glad she's got a nice name; for, do all I could, I'm certain I never could like a sister-in-law who was called Belinda or Keziah, or any thing dreadful."

"Have you fixed your wedding-day, Geoffrey?"

"Yes, mother; for Thursday next."

"Thursday!" exclaimed Miss Til. "Thursday next? why there'll be no time for me to get anything ready; for I suppose, as your sister, Geoff, I'm to be one of the bridesmaids?"

"There will be no bridesmaids, dear Til," said Geoffrey; "no company, no breakfast. I have always thought that, if ever I married, I should like to walk into the church with my bride, have the service gone through, and walk out again, without the least attempt at show; and I'm glad to find that Margaret thoroughly coincides with me."

"But surely, Geoffrey," said Mrs. Ludlow, "your friends will--"

"O my! Talking of friends," interrupted Miss Til, "I quite forgot in all this flurry to tell you that Mr. Charles Potts is in the drawing-room, waiting to see you, Geoffrey."

"Dear me! is he indeed? ah, that accounts for a flushed face--"

"Don't be absurd, Geoff! Shall I tell him to come here?"

"You may if you like; but don't come back with him, as I want five minutes' quiet talk with him."

So Mrs. Ludlow and her daughter left the studio, and in a few minutes Charley Potts arrived. As he walked up to Geoffrey and wrung his hand, both men seemed under some little constraint. Geoff spoke first.

"I'm glad you're here, Charley. I should have gone up to your place if you hadn't looked in to-day. I have something to tell you, and something to ask of you."

"Tell away, old boy; and as for the asking, look upon it as done,--unless it's tin, by the way; and there I'm no good just now."

"Charley, I'm going to be married next Thursday to Margaret Dacre--the girl we found fainting in the streets that night of the Titians."

Geoff expected some exclamation, but his friend only nodded his head.

"She has told me her whole life: insisted upon my hearing it before I said a word to her; made me wait a week after I had asked her to be my wife, on the chance that I should repent; behaved in the noblest way."

Geoffrey again paused, and Mr. Potts again nodded.

"We shall be married very quietly at the parish-church here; and there will be nobody present but you. I want you to come; will you?"

"Will I? Why, old man, we've been like brothers for years; and to think that I'd desert you at a time like this! I--I didn't quite mean that, you know; but if not, why not? You know what I do mean."

"Thanks, Charley. One thing more: don't talk about it until after it's over. I'm an awkward subject for chaff, particularly such chaff as this would give rise to. You may tell old Bowker, if you like; but no one else."

And Mr. Potts went away without delivering that tremendous philippic with which he had come charged. Perhaps it was his conversation with Miss Til in the drawing-room which had softened his manners and prevented him from being brutal.

They were married on the following Thursday; Margaret looking perfectly lovely in her brown-silk dress and white bonnet Charley Potts could not believe her to be the haggard creature in whose rescue he had assisted; and simple old William Bowker, peering out from between the curtains of a high pew, was amazed at her strange weird beauty. The ceremony was over; and Geoff, happy and proud, was leading his wife down the steps of the church to the fly waiting for them, when a procession of carriages, coachmen and footmen with white favours, and gaily-clad company, all betokening another wedding, drove up to the door. The bride and her bridesmaids had alighted, and the bridegroom's best-man, who with his friend had just jumped out of his cabriolet, was bowing to the bridesmaids as Geoff and Margaret passed. He was a pleasant airy fellow, and seeing a pretty woman coming down the steps, he looked hard at her. Their eyes met, and there was something in Margaret's glance which stopped him in the act of raising his hand to his hat. Geoffrey saw nothing of this; he was waving his hand to Bowker, who was standing by; and they passed on to the fly.

"Come on, Algy!" called out the impatient intended bridegroom; "they'll be waiting for us in the church. What on earth are you staring at?"

"Nothing, dear old boy!" said Algy Barford, who was the best man just named,--"nothing but a resurrection!--only a resurrection; by Jove, that's all!"

[Book the Second.]

[CHAPTER I.]

NEW RELATIONS.

The fact of her having a daughter-in-law whom she had never seen, of whose connections and antecedents she knew positively nothing, weighed a good deal on Mrs. Ludlow's mind. "If she had been an Indian, my dear," she said to her daughter Matilda, "at least, I don't mean an Indian, not black you know; of course not--ridiculous; but one of those young women who are sent out to India by their friends to pick up husbands,--it would be a different matter. Of course, then I could not have seen her until she came over to England; and as Geoff has never been in India, I don't quite see how it could have happened; but you know what I mean. But to think that she should have been living in London, within the bills of thingummy--mortality, and Geoff never to bring her to see me, is most extraordinary--most extraordinary! However, it only goes to prove what Ive said--that I have a cross to bear; and now my son's marrying himself in a most mysterious and Arabian-nights-like manner is added to the short-weight which we always get from the baker, and to the exceeding forwardness shown by that young man with the pomatumed hair and the steel heart stuck into his apron, whenever you go into the grocer's shop."

And although Miss Matilda combated this idea with great resolution, albeit by no means comfortable in her own mind as to Geoffrey's proceedings, the old lady continued in a state of mind in which indignation at a sense of what she imagined the slight put upon her was only exceeded by her curiosity to catch a glimpse of her son's intended: under the influence of which latter feeling she even proposed to Til that they should attend the church on the occasion of the marriage-ceremony. "I can put on my Maltese-lace veil, you know, my dear: and if we gave the pew-opener sixpence, she'd put us into a place in the gallery where we could hide behind a pillar, and be unseen spectators of the proceedings." But this suggestion was received with so much disfavour by her daughter that the old lady was compelled to abandon it, together with an idea, which she subsequently broached, of having Mr. Potts to supper,--giving him sprats, or tripe, or some of those odd things that men like; and then, when he was having a glass of spirits-and-water and smoking a pipe, getting him to tell us all about it, and how it went off. So Mrs. Ludlow was obliged to content herself with a line from Geoffrey,--received two or three days after his marriage, saying that he was well and happy, and that his Margaret sent her love ("She might have written that herself, I think!" said the old lady; "it would have been only respectful; but perhaps she can't write. Lord, Lord! to think we should have come to this!"),--and with a short report from Mr. Potts, whom Til had met, accidentally of course, walking one morning near the house, and who said that all had gone off capitally, and that the bride had looked perfectly lovely.

But there was balm in Gilead; and consolation came to old Mrs. Ludlow in the shape of a letter from Geoffrey at the end of the first week of his absence, requesting his mother and sister to see to the arrangement of his new house, the furniture of which was all ordered, and would be sent in on a certain day, when he wished Til and his mother to be present. Now the taking of this new house, and all in connection with it, had been a source of great disquietude and much conversation to the old lady, who had speculated upon its situation, its size, shape, conveniences, &c., with every one of her little circle of acquaintance. "Might be in the moon, my dear, for all we know about it," she used to say; "one would think that one's own son would mention where he was going to live--to his mother, at least: but Geoff is that tenacious, that--well, I suppose it's part of the cross of my life." But the information had come at last, and the old lady was to have a hand, however subordinate, in the arrangements; and she was proportionately pleased. "And now, Til, where is it, once more! Just read the letter again, will you?--for we're to be there the first thing to-morrow morning, Geoff says. What?--O, the vans will be there the first thing to-morrow morning! Yes, I know what the vans' first thing is--eleven o'clock or thereabouts; and then the men to go out for dinner at twelve, and not come back till half-past two, if somebody isn't there to hunt them up! The Elm Lodge, Lowbar! Lowbar! Why, that's Holloway and Whittington, and all that turn-again nonsense about the bells! Well, I'm sure! Talk about the poles being asunder, my dear; they're not more asunder than Brompton and Lowbar. O, of course that's done that he needn't see more of us than he chooses, though there was no occasion for that, I'm sure, at least so far as I'm concerned; I know when I'm wanted fast enough, and act accordingly."

"I don't think there was any such idea in Geoff's mind, mamma," said Til; "he always had a wish to go to the other side of town, as he found this too relaxing."

"Other side of town, indeed, my dear?--other side of England, you mean! This side has always been good enough for me; but then, you see, I never was a public character. However, if we are to go, we'd better have Brown's fly; it's no good our trapesing about in omnibuses that distance, and perhaps taking the wrong one, and I don't know what."

But the old lady's wrath (which, indeed, did not deserve the name of wrath, but would be better described as a kind of perpetual grumble, in which she delighted) melted away when, on the following morning, Brown's fly, striking off to the left soon after it commenced ascending the rise of Lowbar Hill, turned into a pretty country road, and stopped before a charming little house, bearing the name "Elm Lodge" on its gate-pillars. The house, which stood on a small eminence, was approached by a little carriage-sweep; had a little lawn in front, on which it opened from French windows, covered by a veranda, nestling under climbing clematis and jasmine; had the prettiest little rustic portico, floored with porcelain tiles; a cosy dining-room, a pretty little drawing-room with the French windows before named, and a capital painting-room. From the windows you had a splendid view over broad fields leading to Hampstead, with Harrow church fringing the distant horizon. Nobody could deny that it was a charming little place; and Mrs. Ludlow admitted the fact at once.

"Very nice, very nice indeed, my dear Til!" said she; "Geoffrey has inherited my taste--that I will say for him. Rather earwiggy, I should think, all that green stuff over the balcony; too much so for me; however, I'm not going to live here, so it don't matter. Oh! the vans have arrived! Well, my stars! all in suites! Walnut and green silk for the drawing room, black oak and dark-brown velvet for the dining-room, did you say, man? It's never--no, my dear, I thought not; it's not real velvet,--Utrecht, my dear; I just felt it. I thought Geoff would never be so insane as to have real; though, as it is, it must have cost a pretty penny. Well, he never gave us any thing of this sort at Brompton; of course not."

"O, mother, how can you talk so!" said Til; "Geoff has always been nobly generous; but recollect he's only just beginning to make money."

"Quite true, my dear, quite true; and he's been the best of sons. Only I should have liked for once to have had the chance of showing my taste in such matters. In your poor father's time every thing was so heavy and clumsy compared to what it is nowadays, and--there! I would have had none of your rubbishing Cupids like that, holding up those stupid baskets."

So the old lady chattered on, by no means allowing her energy to relax by reason of her talk, but bustling about with determined vigour. When she had tucked up her dress, and got a duster into her hand, she was happy, flying at looking-glasses and picture-frames, and rubbing off infinitesimal atoms of dirt; planting herself resolutely in every body's way, and hunting up, or, as she termed it "hinching," the upholsterer's men in the most determined manner.

"I know 'em, my dear; a pack of lazy carpet-caps; do nothing unless you hinch 'em;" and so she worried and nagged and hustled and drove the men, until the pointed inquiry of one of them as to "who was that hold cat?" suggested to Miss Til the propriety of withdrawing her mother from the scene of action. But she had done an immense deal of good, and caused such progress to be made, that before they left, the rooms had begun to assume something like a habitable appearance. They went to take one more look round the house before getting into Brown's fly; and it was while they were upstairs that Mrs. Ludlow opened a door which she had not seen before--a door leading into a charming little room, with light chintz paper and chintz hangings, with a maple writing-table in the window, and a cosy lounge-chair and a prie-dieu; and niches on either side the fireplace occupied by little bookcases, into which the foreman of the upholsterers was placing a number of handsomely-bound books, which he took from a box on the floor.

"Why, good Lord! what's this?" said the old lady, as soon as she recovered her breath.

"This is the budwaw, mum," said the foreman, thinking he had been addressed.

"The what, man? What does he say, Matilda?"

"The budwaw, mum; Mrs. Ludlow's own room as is to be. Mr. Ludlow was most partickler about this room, mum; saw all the furniture for it before he went away, mum; and give special directions as to where it was to be put."

"Ah, well, it's all right, I daresay. Come along, my dear."

But Brown's horse had scarcely been persuaded by his driver to comprehend that he was required to start off homewards with Brown's fly, when the old lady turned round to her daughter, and said solemnly:

"You mark my words, Matilda, and after I'm dead and gone don't you forget 'em--your brother's going to make a fool of himself with this wife of his. I don't care if she were an angel, he'd spoil her. Boudoir, indeed!--room all to herself, with such a light chintz as that, and maple too; there's not one woman in ten thousand could stand it; and Geoffrey's building up a pretty nest for himself, you mark my words."

Two days later a letter was received from Geoffrey to say that they had arrived home, and that by the end of the week the house would be sufficiently in order, and Margaret sufficiently rested from her fatigue, to receive them, if they would come over to Elm Lodge to lunch. As the note was read aloud by Til, this last word struck upon old Mrs. Ludlow's ear, and roused her in an instant.

"To what, my dear?" she asked. "I beg your pardon, I didn't catch the word."

"To lunch, mamma."

"O, indeed; then I did catch the word, and it wasn't your mumbling tone that deceived me. To lunch, eh? Well, upon my word! I know I'm a stupid old woman, and I begin to think I live in heathenish times; but I know in my day that a son would no more have thought of asking his mother to lunch than--well, it's good enough for us, I suppose."

"Mamma, how can you say such things! They're scarcely settled yet, and don't know any thing about their cook; and no doubt Margaret's a little frightened at first--I'm sure I should be, going into such a house as that."

"Well, my dear, different people are differently constituted. I shouldn't feel frightened to walk into Buckingham Palace as mistress to-morrow. However, I daresay you're right;" and then Mrs. Ludlow went into the momentous question of "what she was to go in." It was lucky that in this matter she had Til at her elbow; for whatever the old lady's taste may have been in houses and furniture, it was very curious in dress, leaning towards wild stripes and checks and large green leaves, with veins like caterpillars, spread over brown grounds; towards portentous bonnets, bearing cockades and bows of ribbon where such things were never seen before; to puce-coloured gloves, and parasols rescued at an alarming sacrifice from a cheap draper's sale. But under Til's supervision Mrs. Ludlow was relegated to a black-silk dress, and the bonnet which Geoffrey had presented to her on her birthday, and which Til had chosen; and to a pair of lavender gloves which fitted her exactly, and had not those caverns at the tips of the fingers and that wrinkled bagginess in the thumbs which were usually to be found in the old lady's hand-coverings; and as she took her seat in Brown's fly, the neighbours on either side, with their noses firmly pressed against their parlour-windows, were envious of her personal appearance, though both of them declared afterwards that she wanted a "little more lighting-up."

When the fly was nearing its destination, Mrs. Ludlow began to grow very nervous, a state which was exhibited by her continually tugging at her bonnet-strings and shaking out the skirt of her dress, requesting to be informed whether she was "quite straight," and endeavouring to catch the reflection of herself in the front glasses of the fly. These performances were scarcely over before the fly stopped at the gate, and Mrs. Ludlow descending was received into her son's strong arms. The old lady's maternal feelings were strongly excited at that moment, for she never uttered a word of complaint or remonstrance, though Geoff squeezed up all the silk skirt which she had taken such pains to shake out, and hugged her until her bonnet was all displaced. Then, after giving Til a hearty embrace, Geoff took his mother's hand and led her across the little lawn to the French window, at which Margaret was waiting to receive her.

Naturally enough, old Mrs. Ludlow had thought very much over this interview, and had pictured it to herself in anticipation a score of times. She had never taken any notice of the allusions to the likeness between her daughter-in-law that was to be and the Scylla-head which Geoff had painted; but had drawn entirely upon her own imagination for the sort of person who was to be presented to her. This ideal personage had at various times undergone a good deal of change. At one time she would appear as a slight girl with long fair hair and blue eyes ("what I call a wax-doll beauty," the old lady would think); then she would have large black eyes, long black hair, and languishing manners; then she would be rather plain, but with a finely-developed figure, Mrs. Ludlow having a theory that most artists thought of figure more than face; but in any case she would be some little chit of a girl, just the one to catch such a man as our Geoff, who stuck to his paintings, and had seen so little of the world.

So much for Mrs. Ludlow's ideal; the realisation was this. On the step immediately outside the window stood Margaret, a slight rose-flush tinting her usually pale cheeks just under her eyes; her deep-violet eyes wider open than usual, but still soft and dreamy; her red-gold hair in bands round her face, but twisted up at the back into one large knot at the top of her head. She was dressed in a bright-blue cambric dress, which fell naturally and gracefully round her, neither bulging out with excess of crinoline, nor sticking limply to her like a bathing-gown; across her shoulders was a large white muslin-cape, such as that which Marie Antoinette is represented as wearing in Delaroche's splendid picture; muslin-cuffs and a muslin-apron. A gleam of sun shone upon her, bathing her in light; and as the old lady stood staring at her in amazement, a recollection came across her of something which she had not seen for more than forty years, nor ever thought of since,--a reminiscence of a stained-glass figure of the Virgin in some old Belgian cathedral, pointed out to her by her husband in her honeymoon.

As this idea passed through her mind, the tears rose into Mrs. Ludlow's eyes. She was an excitable old lady and easily touched; and simultaneously with the painted figure she thought of the husband pointing it out,--the young husband then so brave and handsome, now for so many years at rest,--and she only dimly saw Margaret coming forward to meet her. But remembering that tears would be a bad omen for such an introduction, she brushed them hastily away, and looked up in undisguised admiration at the handsome creature moving gracefully towards her. Geoffrey, in a whirl of stuttering doubt, said, "My mother, Margaret; mother, this is--Margaret--my wife;" and each woman moved forward a little, and neither knew what to do. Should they shake hands or kiss? and from whom should the suggestion come? It came eventually from the old lady, who said simply, "I'm glad to see you, my dear;" and putting one hand on Margaret's shoulder, kissed her affectionately. There was no need of introduction between the others. Til's bright eyes were sparkling with admiration and delight; and Margaret, seeing the expression in them, reciprocated it at once, saying, "And this is Til!" and then they embraced, as warmly as girls under such circumstances always do. Then they went into the house, Mrs. Ludlow leaning on her son's arm, and Til and Margaret following.

"Now, mother," said Geoff, as they passed through the little hall, "Margaret will take you upstairs. You'll find things much more settled than when you were here last." And upstairs the women went accordingly.

When they were in the bedroom, Mrs. Ludlow seated herself comfortably in a chair, with her back to the light, and said to Margaret:

"Now, my dear, come here and let me have a quiet look at you. Ive thought of you a thousand times, and wondered what you were like; but I never thought of any thing like this."

"You--you are not disappointed, I hope," said Margaret. She knew it was a dull remark, and she made it in a constrained manner. But what else was she to say?

"Disappointed! no, indeed, my dear. But I won't flatter you; you'll have quite enough of that from Geoffrey. I shall always think of you in future as a saint; you're so like the pictures of the saints in the churches abroad."

"You see you flatter me at once."

"No, my dear, I don't. For you are like them, I'm sure; not that you're to wear horsehair next your skin, or be chopped up into little pieces, or made to walk on hot iron, or any thing of that sort, you know; but I can see by your face that you're a good girl, and will make my Geoff a good wife."

"I will try to do so, Mrs. Ludlow," said Margaret, earnestly.

"And you'll succeed, my dear. I knew I could always trust Geoff for that; he might marry a silly girl, one that hadn't any proper notions of keeping house or managing those nuisances of servants but I knew he would choose a good one. And don't call me 'Mrs. Ludlow,' please, my dear. I'm your mother now; and with such a daughter-in-law I'm proud of the title!" This little speech was sealed with a kiss, which drove away the cloud that was gathering on Margaret's brow, and they all went down to lunch together. The meal passed off without any particular incident to be recorded. Margaret was self-possessed, and did the honours of her table gracefully, paying particular attention to her guests, and generally conducting herself infinitely better than Geoff, who was in a flurry of nervous excitement, and was called to order by his mother several times for jumping up to fetch things when he ought to have rung the bell. "A habit that I trust you'll soon break him of, Margaret, my dear; for nothing goes to spoil a servant so quickly; and calling over the bannisters for what he wants is another trick, as though servants' legs weren't given them to answer bells." But Mrs. Ludlow did not talk much, being engaged, during the intervals of eating, in mentally appraising the articles on the table, in quietly trying the weight of the spoons, and in administering interrogative taps to the cow on the top of the butter-dish to find if she were silver or plated, in private speculations as to which quality of Romford ale Geoffrey had ordered and what he paid for it, and various other little domestic whereto her experience as a household manager prompted her. Geoffrey too was silent; but the conversation, though not loud, was very brisk between Margaret and Til, who seemed, to Geoff's intense delight, to have taken a great fancy for each other.

It was not until late in the afternoon, when the hour at which Brown's fly had been ordered was rapidly approaching, and they were all seated in the veranda enjoying the distant view, the calm stillness, and the fresh air, that the old lady, who had been looking with a full heart at Geoffrey--who, seated close behind Margaret, was playing with the ends of her hair as she still kept up her conversation with Til--said:

"Well, Geoffrey, I don't think I ought to leave you to-night without saying how much I am pleased with my new daughter. O, I don't mind her hearing me; she's too good a girl to be upset by a little truthful praise--ain't you, my dear? Come and sit by me for a minute and give me your hand, Margaret; and you, Geoff, on the other side. God bless you both, my children, and make you happy in one another! You're strange to one another, and you'll have some little worries at first; but you'll soon settle down into happiness. And that's the blessing of your both being young and fresh. I'm very glad you didn't marry poor Joe Telford's widow, Geoff, as we thought you would, ten years ago. I don't think, if I had been a man, I should have liked marrying a widow. Of course every one has their little love-affairs before they marry, but that's nothing; but with a widow it's different, you know; and she'd be always comparing you with the other one, and perhaps the comparison might not be flattering. No; it's much better to begin life both together, with no past memories to--why, Geoffrey, how your hand shakes, my dear! What's the matter? it can't be the cold, for Margaret is as steady as a rock."

Geoffrey muttered something about "a sudden shiver," and just at that moment the fly appeared at the gate So they parted with renewed embraces and promises of meeting again very shortly; Geoffrey was to bring Margaret over to Brompton, and the next time they came to Elm Lodge they must spend a long day, and perhaps sleep there; and it was not until Brown's fly turned the corner which shut the house out of sight that Mrs. Ludlow ceased stretching her head out of the window and nodding violently. Then she burst out at once with her long-pent-up questioning.

"Well, Matilda, and what do you think of your new relation? I'm sure you've been as quiet as quiet; there's been no getting a word out of you. But I suppose you don't mind telling your mother. What do you think of her?"

"She is very handsome, mamma, and seems very kind, and very fond of Geoff."

"Handsome, my dear! She's really splendid! There's a kind of je ne sais quoi about her that--and tall too, like a duchess! Well, I don't think the Wilkinsons in the Crescent will crow any longer. Why, that girl that Alfred Wilkinson married the other day, and that they all went on so about, isn't a patch upon Margaret. Did you notice her cape and cuffs, Matilda? Rather Frenchified, I thought; rather like that nurse that the Dixons brought from Boulogne last year, but very pretty. I hope she'll wear them when she comes to spend the day with us, and that some of those odious people in the Crescent will come to call. Their cook seems to have a light hand at pie-crust; and did you taste the jelly, my dear? I wonder if it was made at home; if so, the cook's a treasure, and dirt-cheap at seventeen and every thing found except beer, which Margaret tells me is all she gives! I see they didn't like my arrangement of the furniture; theyve pulled the grand-piano away from the wall, and put the ottoman in its place: nice for the people who sit on it to rub the new paper with their greasy heads!"

And so the old lady chattered on until she felt sleepy, and stumbled out at her own door in an exhausted state, from which the delicious refreshment of a little cold brandy-and-water and a particularly hard and raspy biscuit did not rouse her. But just as Til was stepping into bed her mother came into the room, perfectly bright and preternaturally sharp, to say, "Do you know, my dear, I think, after all, Geoffrey was very fond of Joe Telford's widow? You were too young then to recollect her; for when I was speaking about her to-night, and saying how much better it was that both husband and wife should come fresh to each other, Geoff s hand shook like an aspen-leaf, and his face was as pale as death."

[CHAPTER II.]

MARGARET.

Margaret had carried out what she knew would be the first part of the new programme of her life. During their short honeymoon, Geoffrey had talked so much of his mother and sister, and of his anxiety that they should be favourably impressed with her, that she had determined to put forth all the strength and tact she had to make that first meeting an agreeable one to them. That she had done so, that she had succeeded in her self-imposed task, was evident. Mrs. Ludlow, in her parting words, had expressed herself delighted with her new daughter-in-law; but by her manner, much more than by any thing she had said, Geoff knew that his mother's strong sympathies had been enlisted, if her heart had not been entirely won. For though the old lady so far gave in to the prejudices of the world as to observe a decent reticence towards objects of her displeasure--though she never compromised herself by outraging social decency in verbal attacks or disparaging remarks--a long experience had given her son a thorough appreciation of, and power of translating, certain bits of facial pantomime of a depreciatory nature, which never varied; notably among them, the uplifted eyebrow of astonishment, the prolonged stare of "wonder at her insolence," the shoulder-shrug of "I don't understand such things," and the sniff of unmitigated disgust. All these Geoff had seen brought to bear on various subjects quite often enough to rate them at their exact value; and it was, therefore, with genuine pleasure that he found them conspicuous by their absence on the occasion of his mother's first visit to Elm Lodge.

For although Geoff was not particularly apt as a student of human nature,--his want of self-confidence, and the quiet life he had pursued, being great obstacles to any such study,--he must, nevertheless, have had something of the faculty originally implanted in him, inasmuch as he had contrived completely, and almost without knowing it himself, to make himself master of the key to the characters of the two people with whom his life had been passed. It was this knowledge of his mother that made him originally propose that the first meeting between her and Margaret should take place at Brompton, where he could take his wife over as a visitor. He thought that very likely any little latent jealousy which the old lady might feel by reason of her deposition, not merely from the foremost place in her son's affections, but from the head of his table and the rulership of his house,--and it is undeniable that with the very best women these latter items jar quite as unpleasantly as the former,--whatever little jealousy Mrs. Ludlow may have felt on these accounts would be heightened by the sight of the new house and furniture in which it had pleased Geoff to have his new divinity enshrined. There is a point at which the female nature rebels; and though Geoff neither knew, nor professed to know, much about female nature, he was perfectly certain that as a young woman is naturally more likely to "take up with" another who is her inferior in personal attractions, so Mrs. Ludlow would undoubtedly be more likely to look favourably on a daughter-in-law whose status, artificially or otherwise, should not appear greater than her own. It was Margaret who dissuaded Geoff from his original intention, pitting against her husband's special acquaintance with his mother's foibles her ordinary woman's cleverness, which told her that, properly managed, the new house and furniture, and all their little luxury, could be utilised for, instead of against, them with the old lady, making her part and parcel of themselves, and speaking of all the surroundings as component parts of a common stock, in which with them she had a common interest. This scheme, talked over in a long desultory lovers' ramble over the green cliffs at Niton in the ever-lovely Isle of Wight, resulted in the letter requesting Mrs. Ludlow to superintend the furniture-people, of which mention has already been made, and in the meeting taking place at Elm Lodge, as just described.

This first successful stroke, which Geoff perhaps unduly appreciated (but any thing in which his mother was involved had great weight with him), originated by Margaret and carried out by her aid, had great effect on Geoffrey Ludlow, and brought the woman whom he had married before him in quite a new light. The phrase "the woman he had married" is purposely chosen, because the fact of having a wife, in its largest and most legitimate sense, had not yet dawned upon him. We read in works of fiction of how men weigh and balance before committing matrimony,--carefully calculate this recommendation, calmly dissect that defect; we have essay-writers, political economists, and others, who are good enough to explain these calculations, and to show us why it ought to be, and how it is to be done; but, spite of certain of my brother-fictionists and these last-named social teachers, I maintain that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a man who is a man, "with blood, bones, passion, marrow, feeling," as Byron says, marries a girl because he is smitten with the charms either of her person or her manner--because there is something simpatico, as the Italians call it, between them--because he is "in love with her," as the good old English phrase runs; but without having paid any thing but the most cursory attention to her disposition and idiosyncrasy. Is it so, or is it not? Such a state of things leads, I am perfectly aware, to the acceptance of stone for bread and scorpions for fish; but it exists, hath existed, and will continue to exist. Brown now helplessly acknowledges Mrs. B.'s "devil of a temper;" but even if he had had proof positive of it, he would have laughed it away merrily enough that summer at Margate, when Mrs. B. was Emily Clark, and he was under the thrall of her black eyes. Jones suffers under his wife's "low fits," and Robinson under Mrs. Robinson's religion, which she takes very hot and strong, with a great deal of groaning and anathematising; but though these peculiarities of both ladies might have been learned "on application" to any of the various swains who had been rejected by them, no inquiry was ever made by the more fortunate men who took them honestly on trust, and on account of their visible personal attractions: And though these instances seem drawn from a lower class of life, I contend that the axiom holds good in all states of society, save, of course, in the case of purely mercenary marriages, which, however, are by no means so common in occurrence, or at all events so fatal in their results, as many of our novel-writers wish us to believe.

It was undoubtedly the case with Geoffrey Ludlow. He was a man as free from gross passions, as unlikely to take a sudden caprice, or to give the reins to his will, as any of his kind. His intimates would as soon have thought of the bronze statue of Achilles "committing" itself as Geoff Ludlow; and yet it was for the dead-gold hair, the deep-violet eyes, and the pallid face, that he had married Margaret Dacre; and on her mental attributes he had not bestowed one single thought. He had not had much time, certainly; but however long his courtship might have been, I doubt whether he would have penetrated very far into the mysteries of her idiosyncrasy. He had a certain theory that she was "artistic;" a word which, with him, took the place of "romantic" with other people, as opposed to "practical." Geoff hated "practical" people; perhaps because he had suffered from an over-dose of practicality in his own home. He would far sooner that his wife should not have been able to make pies and puddings, and cut-out baby-linen, than that she should have excelled in those notable domestic virtues. But none of these things had entered his head when he asked Margaret Dacre to join her lot with his,--save, perhaps, an undefined notion that no woman with such hair and such eyes could be so constituted. You would have looked in vain in Guinevere for the characteristics of Mrs. Rundell, or Miss Acton.

He had thought of her as his peerless beauty, as his realisation of a thousand waking dreams; and that for the time was enough. But when he found her entering into and giving shape and colour to his schemes, he regarded her with worship increased a hundredfold. Constitutionally inert and adverse to thinking and deciding for himself,--with a wholesome doubt, moreover, of the efficacy of his own powers of judgment,--it was only the wide diversity of opinion which on nearly every subject existed between his mother and himself that had prevented him from long ago giving himself up entirely to the old lady's direction. But he now saw, readily enough, that he had found one whose guiding hand he could accept, who satisfied both his inclinations and his judgment; and he surrendered himself with more than resignation--with delight, to Margaret's control.

And she? It is paying her no great compliment to say that she was equal to the task; it is making no strong accusation against her to say that she had expected and accepted the position from the first. I am at a loss how exactly to set forth this woman's character as I feel it, fearful of enlarging on defects without showing something in their palliation--more fearful of omitting some mental ingredient which might serve to explain the twofold workings of her mind. When she left her home it was under the influence of love and pride; wild girlish adoration of the "swell:" the man with the thick moustache, the white hands, the soft voice, the well-made boots; the man so different in every respect from any thing she had previously known; and girlish pride in enslaving one in social rank far beyond the railway-clerks, merchants' book-keepers, and Custom-House agents, who were marked down as game by her friends and compeers. The step once taken, she was a girl no more; her own natural hardihood came to her aid, and enabled her to hold her own wherever she went. The man her companion,--a man of society simply from mixing with society, but naturally sheepish and stupid,--was amazed at her wondrous calmness and self-possession under all sorts of circumstances. It was an odd sort of camaraderie in which they mixed, both at home and abroad; one where the laissez-aller spirit was always predominant, and where those who said and did as they liked were generally most appreciated; but there was a something in Margaret Dacre which compelled a kind of respect even from the wildest. Where she was, the drink never degenerated into an orgie; and though the cancans and doubles entendres might ring round the room, all outward signs of decency were preserved. In the wild crew with which she was mixed she stood apart, sometimes riding the whirlwind with them, but always directing the storm; and while invariably showing herself the superior, so tempering her superiority as to gain the obedience and respect, if not the regard, of all those among whom she was thrown. How did this come about? Hear it in one sentence--that she was as cold as ice, and as heartless as a stone. She loved the man who had betrayed her with all the passion which had been vouchsafed to her. She loved him, as I have said, at first, from his difference to all her hitherto surroundings; then she loved him for having made her love him and yield to him. She had not sufficient mental power to analyse her own feelings; but she recognised that she had not much heart, was not easily moved; and therefore she gave extraordinary credit, which he did not deserve, to him who had had the power to turn her as he listed.

But still, on him, her whole powers of loving stopped--spent, used-up. Her devotion to him--inexplicable to herself--was spaniel-like in its nature. She took his reproaches, his threats, at the last his desertion, and loved him still. During the time they were together she had temptation on every side; but not merely did she continue faithful, but her fidelity was never shaken even in thought. Although in that shady demi-monde there is a queer kind of honour-code extant among the Lovelaces and the Juans, far stricter than they think themselves called upon to exercise when out of their own territory, there are of course exceptions, who hold the temptation of their friend's mistress but little less piquante than the seduction of their friend's wife; but none of these had the smallest chance with Margaret. What in such circles is systematically known by the name of a caprice never entered her mind. Even at the last, when she found herself deserted, penniless, she knew that a word would restore her to a position equivalent, apparently, to that she had occupied; but she would not have spoken that word to have saved her from the death which she was so nearly meeting.

In those very jaws of death, from which she had just been rescued, a new feeling dawned upon her. As she lay back in the arm-chair in Flexor's parlour, dimly sounding in her ears, at first like the monotonous surging of the waves, afterwards shaping itself into words, but always calm and grave and kind, came Geoff's voice. She could scarcely make out what was said, but she knew what was meant from the modulation and the tone. Then, when Mr. Potts had gone to fetch Dr. Rollit, she knew that she was left alone with the owner of the voice, and she brought all her strength together to raise her eyelids and look at him. She saw the quiet earnest face, she marked the intense gaze, and she let her light fingers fall on the outstretched hand, and muttered her "Bless you!--saved me!" with a gratitude which was not merely an expression of grateful feeling for his rescuing her from death, but partook more of the cynic's definition of the word--a recognition of benefits to come.

It sprung up in her mind like a flame. It did more towards effecting her cure, even in the outset, than all the stimulants and nourishment which Dr. Rollit administered. It was with her while consciousness remained, and flashed across her the instant consciousness returned. A home, the chances of a home--nothing but that--somewhere, with walls, and a fire, and a roof to keep off the pelting of the bitter rain. Walls with pictures and a floor with carpets; not a workhouse, not such places as she had spent the night in on her weary desolate tramp; but such as she had been accustomed to. And some one to care for her--no low whisperings, and pressed hands, and averted glances, and flight; but a shoulder to rest her head against, a strong arm round her to save her from--O God!--those awful black pitiless streets. Rest, only rest,--that was her craving. Let her once more be restored to ordinary strength, and then let her rest until she died. Ah, had she not had more than the ordinary share of trouble and disquietude, and could not a haven be found for her at last? She recollected how, in the first flush of her wildness, she had pitied all her old companions soberly settling down in life; and now how gladly would she change lots with them! Was it come? was the chance at hand? Had she drifted through the storm long enough, and was the sun now breaking through the clouds? She thought so, even as she lay nearer death than life, and through the shimmering of her eyelids caught a fleeting glimpse of Geoff Ludlow's face, and heard his voice as in a dream; she knew so after the second time of his calling on her in her convalescence; knew she might tell him the story of her life, which would only bind a man of his disposition more strongly to her; knew that such a feeling engendered in such a man at his time of life was deep and true and lasting, and that once taken to his heart, her position was secure for ever.

And what was her feeling for him who thus rose up out of the darkness, and was to give her all for which her soul had been pining? Love? Not one particle. She had no love left. She had not been by any means bounteously provided with that article at the outset, and all that she had she had expended on one person. Of love, of what we know by love, of love as he himself understood it, she had not one particle for Geoffrey. But there was a feeling which she could hardly explain to herself. It would have been respect, respect for his noble heart, his thorough uprightness, and strict sense of honour; but this respect was diluted by an appreciation of his dubiety, his vacillation, his utter impotency of saying a harsh word or doing a harsh thing; and diluted in a way which invested the cold feeling of respect with a warmer hue, and rendered him, if less perfect, certainly more interesting in her eyes. Never, even for an instant, had she thought of him with love-passion; not when she gazed dreamily at him out of the voluptuous depths of her deep-violet eyes; not when, on that night when all had been arranged between them, she had lain on his breast in the steel-blue rays of the spring moon. She had--well, feigned it, if you like,--though she would scarcely avow that, deeming rather that she had accepted the devotion which he had offered her without repelling it. Il y a toujours l'un qui baise, l'autre qui tend la joue. That axiom, unromantic, but true in most cases, was strictly fulfilled in the present instance. Margaret proffered no love, but accepted, if not willingly, at least with a thorough show of graciousness, all that was proffered to her. And in the heartfelt worship of Geoffrey Ludlow there was something inexplicably attractive to her. Attractive, probably, because of its entire novelty and utter unselfishness. She could compare it with nothing she had ever seen or known. To her first lover there had been the attraction of enchaining the first love of a very young girl, the romance of stolen meetings and secret interviews, the enchantment of an elopement, which was looked upon as a great sin by those whom he scorned, and a great triumph by those whose applause he envied; the gratification of creating the jealousy of his compeers, and of being talked about as an example to be shunned by those whom he despised. He had the satisfaction of flaunting her beauty through the world, and of gaining that world's applause for his success in having made it succumb to him. But how was it with Geoffrey? The very opposite, in every way. At the very best her early history must be shrouded in doubt and obscurity. If known it might act prejudicially against her husband with his patrons, and those on whom he was dependent for his livelihood. Even her beauty could not afford him much source of gratification, save to himself; he could seldom or never enjoy that reflected pleasure which a sensible man feels at the world's admiration of his wife; for had he not himself told her that their life would be of the quietest, and that they would mix with very few people?

No! if ever earnest, true, and unselfish love existed in the world, it was now, she felt, bestowed upon her. What in the depths of her despair she had faintly hoped for, had come to her with treble measure. Her course lay plain and straight before her. It was not a very brilliant course, but it was quiet and peaceful and safe. So away all thoughts of the past! drop the curtain on the feverish excitement, the wild dream of hectic pleasure! Shut it out; and with it the dead dull heartache, the keen sense of wrong, the desperate struggle for bare life.

So Margaret dropped that curtain on her wedding-day, with the full intention of never raising it again.

[CHAPTER III.]

ANNIE.

Lord Caterham's suggestion that Annie Maurice should cultivate her drawing-talent was made after due reflection. He saw, with his usual quickness of perception, that the girl's life was fretting away within her; that the conventional round of duties which fell to her lot as his mother's companion was discharged honestly enough, but without interest or concern. He never knew why Lady Beauport wanted a companion. So long as he had powers of judging character, he had never known her have an intimate friend; and when, at the death of the old clergyman with whom Annie had so long been domesticated, it was proposed to receive her into the mansion at St. Barnabas Square, Lord Caterham had been struck with astonishment, and could not possibly imagine what duties she would be called upon to fulfil. He heard that the lady henceforth to form a part of their establishment was young, and that mere fact was in itself a cause for wonder. There was no youth there, and it was a quality which was generally openly tabooed. Lady Beauport's woman was about fifty, a thorough mistress of her art, an artist in complexion before whom Madame Rachel might have bowed; a cunning and skilled labourer in all matters appertaining to the hair; a person whose anatomical knowledge exceeded that of many medical students, and who produced effects undreamt of by the most daring sculptors. There were no nephews or nieces to come on visits, to break up the usual solemnity reigning throughout the house, with young voices and such laughter as is only heard in youth, to tempt the old people into a temporary forgetfulness of self, and into a remembrance of days when they had hopes and fears and human interest in matters passing around them. There were sons--yes! Caterham himself, who had never had one youthful thought or one youthful aspiration, whose playmate had been the physician, whose toys the wheelchair in which he sat and the irons by which his wrecked frame was supported, who had been precocious at six and a man at twelve; and Lionel--but though of the family, Lionel was not of the house; he never used to enter it when he could make any possible excuse; and long before his final disappearance his visits had been restricted to those occasions when he thought his father could be bled or his mother cajoled. What was a girl of two-and-twenty to do in such a household, Caterham asked; but got no answer. It had been Lady Beauport's plan, who knew that Lord Beauport had been in the habit of contributing a yearly something towards Miss Maurice's support; and she thought that it would be at least no extra expense to have the young woman in the house, where she might make herself useful with her needle, and could generally sit with Mrs. Parkins the housekeeper.

But Lord Beauport would not have this. Treated as a lady, as a member of his own family in his house, or properly provided for out of it, should Annie Maurice be: my lady's companion, but my cousin always. No companionship with Mrs. Parkins, no set task or suggested assistance. Her own room, her invariable presence when the rest of the family meet together, if you please. Lady Beauport did not please at first; but Lord Beauport was firm, firm as George Brakespere used to be in the old days; and Lady Beauport succumbed with a good grace, and was glad of it ever after. For Annie Maurice not merely had the sweetest temper and the most winning ways,--not merely read in the softest voice, and had the taste to choose the most charming "bits," over which Lady Beauport would hum first with approval and then with sleep,--not merely played and sung delightfully, without ever being hoarse or disinclined,--not merely could ride with her back to the horses, and dress for the Park exactly as Lady Beauport wished--neither dowdy nor swell,--but she brought old-fashioned receipts for quaint country dishes with which she won Mrs. Parkins's heart, and she taught Hodgson, Lady Beauport's maid, a new way of gauffreing which broke down all that Abigail's icy spleen. Her bright eyes, her white teeth, her sunny smile, did all the rest for her throughout the household: the big footmen moved more quickly for her than for their mistress; the coachman, with whom she must have interchanged confidential communications, told the groom she "knowed the p'ints of an 'oss as well as he did--spotted them wind-galls in Jack's off 'ind leg, and says, 'a cold-water bandage for them,' she says;" the women-servants, more likely than any of the others to take offence, were won by the silence of her bell and her independence of toilette assistance.

Lord Caterham saw all this, and understood her popularity; but he saw too that with it all Annie Maurice was any thing but happy. Reiteration of conventionality,--the reception of the callers and the paying of the calls, the morning concerts and afternoon botanical promenades, the occasional Opera-goings, and the set dinner-parties at home,--these weighed heavily on her. She felt that her life was artificial, that she had nothing in common with the people with whom it was passed, save when she escaped to Lord Caterham's room. He was at least natural; she need talk or act no conventionality with him; might read, or work, or chat with him as she liked. But she wanted some purpose in life--that Caterham saw, and saw almost with horror; for that purpose might tend to take her away; and if she left him, he felt as though the only bright portion of his life would leave him too.

Yes; he had begun to acknowledge this to himself. He had fought against the idea, tried to laugh it off, but it had always recurred to him. For the first time in his life, he had moments of happy expectancy of an interview that was to come, hours of happy reflection over an interview that was past. Of course the Carry-Chesterton times came up in his mind; but these were very different. Then he was in a wild state of excitement and tremor, of flushed cheeks and beating heart and trembling lips; he thrilled at the sound of her voice; his blood, usually so calm, coursed through his veins at the touch of her hand; his passion was a delirium as alarming as it was intoxicating. The love of to-day had nothing in common with that bygone time. There was no similarity between Carry Chesterton's dash and aplomb and Annie Maurice's quiet domestic ways. The one scorched him with a glance; the other soothed him with a word. How sweet it was to lie back in his chair with half-shut eyes, as in a dream, and watch her moving quietly about, setting every thing in order, putting fresh flowers in his vases, dusting his writing-table, laughingly upbraiding the absent Algy Barford, and taxing him with the delinquency of a half-smoked cigar on the mantelpiece, and a pile of cigar-ash on the carpet. Then he would bid her finish her house-work, and she would wheel his chair to the table and read the newspapers to him, and listen to his quaint, shrewd, generally sarcastic comments on all she read. And he would sit, listening to the music of her voice, looking at the quiet charms of her simply-banded glossy dark-brown hair, at the play of feature illustrating every thing she read. It was a brother's love he told himself at first, and fully believed it; a brother's love for a favourite sister. He thought so until he pictured to himself her departure to some friend's or other, until he imagined the house without her, himself without her, and--and she with some one else. And then Lord Caterham confessed to himself that he loved Annie Maurice with all his soul, and simultaneously swore that by no act or word of his should she or any one else ever know it.

The Carry-Chesterton love-fever had been so sharp in its symptoms, and so prostrating in its results, that this second attack fell with comparative mildness on the sufferer. He had no night-watches now, no long feverish tossings to and fro waiting for the daylight, no wild remembrance of parting words and farewell hand-clasps. She was there; her "goodnight" had rung out sweetly and steadily without a break in the situation; her sweet smile had lit up her face; her last words had been of some projected reading or work for the morrow. It was all friend and friend or brother and sister to every one but him. The very first night after Miss Chesterton had been presented to Lady Beauport, the latter, seeing with a woman's quickness the position of affairs, had spoken of the young lady from Homersham as "that dreadful person," "that terribly-forward young woman," and thereby goaded Lord Caterham into worse love-madness. Now both father and mother were perpetually congratulating themselves and him on having found some one who seemed to be able to enter into and appreciate their eldest son's "odd ways." This immunity from parental worry and supervision was pleasant, doubtless; but did it not prove that to eyes that were not blinded by love-passion there was nothing in Miss Maurice's regard for her cousin more than was compatible with cousinly affection, and with pity for one so circumstanced? So Lord Caterham had it; and who shall say that his extreme sensitiveness had deceived him?

It was the height of the London season, and Lady Beauport was fairly in the whirl. So was Annie Maurice, whose position was already as clearly defined amongst the set as if she had been duly ticketed with birth, parentage, education, and present employment. Hitherto her experience had decidedly been pleasant, and she had found that all the companion-life, as set forth in fashionable novels, had been ridiculously exaggerated. From no one had she received any thing approaching a slight, any thing approaching an insult. The great ladies mostly ignored her, though some made a point of special politeness; the men received her as a gentlewoman, with whom flirtation might be possible on an emergency, though unremunerative as a rule. Her perpetual attendance on Lady Beauport had prevented her seeing as much as usual of Lord Caterham; and it was with a sense of relief that she found a morning at her disposal, and sent Stephens to intimate her coming to his master.

She found him as usual, sitting listlessly in his wheelchair, the newspaper folded ready to his hand, but unfolded and unread. He looked up, and smiled as she entered the room, and said: "At last, Annie at last! Ah, I knew such a nice little girl who came here from Ricksborough, and lightened my solitary hours; but we've had a fashionable lady here lately, who is always at concerts or operas, or eating ices at Gunter's, or crushing into horticultural marquees, or--"

"Arthur, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! You know, however, I won't stoop to argue with you, sir. I'll only say that the little girl from Ricksborough has come back again, and that the fashionable lady has got a holiday and gone away."

"That's good; but I say, just stand in the light, Annie."

"Well, what's the matter now?"

"What has the little girl from Ricksborough done with all her colour? Where's the brightness of her eyes?"

"Ah, you don't expect every thing at once, do you, sir? Her natural colour has gone; but she has ordered a box from Bond Street; and as for the brightness of her eyes--"

"O, there's enough left; there is indeed, especially when she fires up in that way. But you're not looking well, Annie. I'm afraid my lady's doing too much with you."

"She's very kind, and wishes me to be always with her."

"Yes; but she forgets that the vicarage of Ricksborough was scarcely good training-ground for the races in which she has entered you, however kindly you take to the running." He paused a minute as he caught Annie's upturned gaze, and said: "I don't mean that, dear Annie. I know well enough you hate it all; and I was only trying to put the best face on the matter. What else can I do?"

"I know that, Arthur; nor is it Lady Beauport's fault that she does not exactly comprehend how a series of gaieties can be any thing but agreeable to a country-bred young woman. There are hundreds of girls who would give any thing to be 'brought out' under such chaperonage and in such a manner."

"You are very sweet and good to say so, Annie, and to look at it in that light, but I would give any thing to get you more time to yourself."

"That proves more plainly than any thing, Arthur, that you don't consider me one of the aristocracy; for their greatest object in life appears to me to prevent their having any time to themselves."

"Miss Maurice," said Lord Caterham with an assumption of gravity, "these sentiments are really horrible. I thought I missed my Mill on Liberty from the bookshelves. I am afraid, madame, you have been studying the doctrines of a man who has had the frightful audacity to think for himself."

"No, indeed, Arthur; nothing of the sort. I did take down the book--though of course you had never missed it; but it seemed a dreary old thing, and so I put it back again. No, I haven't a radical thought or feeling in me--except sometimes."

"And when is the malignant influence at work, pray?"

"When I see those footmen dressed up in that ridiculous costume, with powder in their heads, I confess then to being struck with wonder at a society which permits such monstrosity, and degrades its fellow-creatures to such a level."

"O, for a stump!" cried Caterham, shaking in his chair and with the tears running down his cheeks; "this display of virtuous indignation is quite a new and hitherto undiscovered feature in the little girl from Ricksborough; though of course you are quite wrong in your logic. Your fault should be found with the creatures who permit themselves to be so reduced. That 'dreary old thing,' Mr. Mill, would tell you that if the supply ceased, the demand would cease likewise. But don't let us talk about politics, for heaven's sake, even in fun. Let us revert to our original topic."

"What was that?"

"What was that! Why you, of course! Don't you recollect that we decided that you should have some drawing-lessons?"

"I recollect you were good enough to--"

"Annie! Annie! I thought it was fully understood that my goodness was a tabooed subject. No; you remember we arranged, on the private-view day of the Exhibition, with that man who had those two capital pictures--what's his name?--Ludlow, to give you some lessons."

"Yes; but Mr. Ludlow himself told us that he could not come for some little time; he was going out of town."

"Ive had a letter from him this morning, explaining the continuance of his absence. What do you think is the reason?"

"He was knocked up, and wanted rest?"

"N-no; apparently not."

"He's not ill? O, Arthur, he's not ill?"

"Not in the least, Annie,--there's not the least occasion for you to manifest any uneasiness." Lord Caterham's voice was becoming very hard and his face very rigid. "Mr. Ludlow's return to town was delayed in order that he might enjoy the pleasures of his honeymoon in the Isle of Wight."

"His what?"

"His honeymoon; he informs me that he is just married."

"Married? Geoff married? Who to? What a very extraordinary thing! Who is he married to?"

"He has not reposed sufficient confidence in me to acquaint me with the lady's name, probably guessing rightly that I was not in the least curious upon the point, and that to know it would not have afforded me the slightest satisfaction."

"No, of course not; how very odd!" That was all Annie Maurice said, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes looking straight before her.

"What is very odd?" said Caterham, in a harsh voice. "That Mr. Ludlow should get married? Upon my honour I can't see the eccentricity. It is not, surely, his extreme youth that should provoke astonishment, nor his advanced age, for the matter of that. He's not endowed with more wisdom than most of us to prevent his making a fool of himself. What there is odd about the fact of his marriage I cannot understand."

"No, Arthur," said Annie, very quietly, utterly ignoring the querulous tone of Caterham's remarks; "very likely you can't understand it, because Mr. Ludlow is a stranger to you, and you judge him as you would any other stranger. But if you'd known him in the old days when he used to come up to us at Willesden, and papa was always teasing him about being in love with the French teacher at Minerva House, a tall old lady with a moustache; or with the vicar's daughter, a sandy-haired girl in spectacles; and then poor papa would laugh,--O, how he would laugh!--and declare that Mr. Ludlow would be a bachelor to the end of his days. And now he's married, you say? How very, very strange!"

If Lord Caterham had been going to make any further unpleasant remark, he checked himself abruptly, and looking into Annie's upturned pondering face, said, in his usual tone,

"Well, married or not married, he won't throw us over; he will hold to his engagement with us. His letter tells me he will be back in town at the end of the week, and will then settle times with us; so that we shall have our drawing-lessons after all."

But Annie, evidently thoroughly preoccupied, only answered methodically, "Yes--of course--thank you--yes." So Lord Caterham was left to chew the cud of his own reflections, which, from the manner in which he frowned to himself, and sat blankly drumming with his fingers on the desk before him, was evidently no pleasant mental pabulum. So that he was not displeased when there came a sonorous tap at the door, to which, recognising it at once, he called out, "Come in!"

[CHAPTER IV.]

ALGY BARFORD'S NEWS.

It was the Honourable Algy Barford who opened the door, and came in with his usual light and airy swing, stopping the minute he saw a lady present, to remove his hat and to give an easy bow. He recognised Annie at once, and, as she and he were great allies, he went up to her and shook hands.

"Charmed to see you, Miss Maurice. This is delightful--give you my word! Come to see this dear old boy here--how are you, Caterham, my dear fellow?--and find you in his den, lighting it up like--like--like--I'm regularly basketed, by Jove! You know what you light it up like, Miss Maurice."

Annie laughed as she said, "O, of course I know, Mr. Barford; but I'm sorry to say the illumination is about immediately to be extinguished, as I must run away. So goodbye; goodbye, Arthur. I shall see you to-morrow." And she waved her hand, and tripped lightly away.

"Gad, what a good-natured charming girl that is!" said Algy Barford, looking after her. "I always fancy that if ever I could have settled down--but I never could--impossible! I'm without exception the most horrible scoundrel that--what's the matter, Caterham, dear old boy? you seem very down this morning, floundered, by Jove, so far as flatness is concerned. What is it?"

"I--oh, I don't know, Algy; a little bored, perhaps, this morning--hipped, you know."

"Know! I should think I did. I'm up to my watch-guard myself--think I'll take a sherry peg, just to keep myself up. This is a dull world, sir; a very wearying orb. Gad, sometimes I think my cousin, poor Jack Hamilton, was right, after all."

"What did he say?" asked Caterham, not caring a bit, but for the sake of keeping up the conversation.

"Say! well, not much; he wasn't a talker, poor Jack; but what he did say was to the purpose. He was a very lazy kind of bird, and frightfully easily bored; so one day he got up, and then he wrote a letter saying that he'd lived for thirty years, and that the trouble of dressing himself every morning and undressing himself every night was so infernal that le couldn't stand it any longer; and then he blew his brains out."

"Ah," said Lord Caterham; "he got tired of himself, you see; and when you once do that, there's nobody you get so tired of."

"I daresay, dear old boy, though it's a terrific notion. Can't say I'm tired of myself quite yet, though there are times when I have a very low opinion of myself, and think seriously of cutting myself the next time we meet. What's the news with you, my dear Caterham?"

"News! what should be the news with me, Algy? Shut up in this place, like a rat in a cage, scarcely seeing any one but the doctor."

"Couldn't see a better fellow for news, my dear old boy. Doctors were always the fellows for news,--and barbers!--Figaro hé and Figaro la, and all that infernal rubbish that people laugh at when Ronconi sings it, always makes me deuced melancholy, by Jove. Well, since you've no news for me, let me think what I heard at the Club. Deuced nice club we've got now; best we've ever had since that dear old Velvet Cushion was done up."

"What's it called?"

"The Pelham; nothing to do with the Newcastle people or any thing of that sort; called after some fellow who wrote a book about swells; or was the hero of a book about swells, or something. Deuced nice place, snug and cosy; a little overdone with Aldershot, perhaps, and, to a critical mind, there might be a thought too much Plunger; but I can stand the animal tolerably well."

"I know it; at least Ive heard of it," said Caterham. "They play very high, don't they?"

"O, of course you've heard it, I forgot; dear old Lionel belonged to it. Play! n-no, I don't think so. You can if you like, you know, of course. For instance, Lampeter--Lamb Lampeter they call him; he's such a mild-looking party--won two thousand of Westonhanger the night before last at écarté--two thousand pounds, sir, in crisp bank-notes All fair and above board too. They had a corner table at first; but when Westonhanger was dropping his money and began doubling the stakes, Lampeter said, 'All right, my lord; I'm with you as far as you like to go; but when so much money's in question, it perhaps might be advisable to take one of the tables in the middle of the room, where any one can stand round and see the play.' They did, and Westonhanger's estate is worse by two thou'."

"As you say, that does not look at all as if they played there."

"What I meant was that I didn't think dear old Lionel ever dropped much there. I don't know, though; I rather think Gamson had him one night. Wonderful little fellow, Gamson!--tremendously good-looking boy!--temporary extra-clerk at two guineas a-week in the Check and Countercheck Office; hasn't got another regular rap in the world besides his pay, and plays any stakes you like to name. Seems to keep luck in a tube, like you do scent, and squeezes it out whenever he wants it. I am not a playing man myself; but I don't fancy it's very hard to win at the Pelham. These Plungers and fellows up from the Camp, they always will play; and as theyve had a very heavy dinner and a big drink afterwards, it stands to reason that any fellow with a clear head and a knowledge of the game can pick them up at once, without any sharp practice."

"Yes," said Lord Caterham, "it seems a very charming place. I suppose wheelchairs are not admitted? How sorry I am! I should have so enjoyed mixing with the delightful society which you describe, Algy. And what news had Mr. Gamson and the other gentlemen?"

"Tell you what it is, Caterham, old boy, you've got a regular wire-drawing fit on to-day. Let's see; what news had I to tell you?--not from Gamson, of course, or any of those hairy Yahoos from Aldershot, who are always tumbling about the place. O, I know! Dick French has just come up from Denne,--the next place, you know, to Eversfield, your old uncle Ampthill's house; and he says the old boy's frightfully ill--clear case of hooks, you know; and I thought it might be advisable that your people should know, in case any thing might be done towards working the testamentary oracle. The old gentleman used to be very spoony on Lionel, years ago, I think Ive heard him say."

"Well, what then?"

"Gad, you catch a fellow up like the Snapping-Turtle, Caterham. I don't know what then; but I thought if the thing were properly put to him--if there was any body to go down to Eversfield and square it with old Ampthill, he might leave his money--and there's no end of it, I hear--or some of it at least, to poor old Lionel."

"And suppose he did. Do you think, Algy Barford, after what has happened, that Lionel Brakespere could show his face in town? Do you think that a man of Lionel's spirit could face-out the cutting which he'd receive from every one?--and rightly too; I'm not denying that. I only ask you if you think he could do it?"

"My dear old Caterham, you are a perfect child!--coral and bells and blue sash, and all that sort of thing, by Jove! If Lionel came back at this instant, there are very few men who'd remember his escapade, unless he stood in their way; then, I grant you, they would bring it up as unpleasantly as they could. But if he were to appear in society as old Ampthill's heir, there's not a man in his old set that wouldn't welcome him; no, by George, not a woman of his acquaintance that wouldn't try and hook him for self or daughter, as the case might be."

"I'm sorry to hear it," was all Caterham said in reply.

What did Lord Caterham think of when his friend was gone? What effect had the communication about Mr. Ampthill's probable legacy had on him? But one thing crossed his mind. If Lionel returned free, prosperous, and happy, would he not fall in love with Annie Maurice? His experience in such matters had been but limited; but judging by his own feelings, Lord Caterham could imagine nothing more likely.

[CHAPTER V.]

SETTLING DOWN.

It was not likely that a man of Geoffrey Ludlow's temperament would for long keep himself from falling into what was to be the ordinary tenor of his life, even had his newly-espoused wife been the most exacting of brides, and delighted in showing her power by keeping him in perpetual attendance upon her. It is almost needless to say that Margaret was guilty of no weakness of this kind. If the dread truth must be told, she took far too little interest in the life to which she had devoted herself to busy herself about it in detail. She had a general notion that her whole future was to be intensely respectable; and in the minds of all those persons with whom she had hitherto been associated, respectability meant duless of the most appalling kind; meant two-o'clock-shoulder-of-mutton-and-weak-Romford-ale dinner, five o'clock tea, knitting, prayers and a glass of cold water before going to bed; meant district-visiting and tract-distributing, poke bonnets and limp skirts, a class on Sunday afternoons, and a visit to the Crystal Palace with the school-children on a summer's day. She did not think it would be quite as bad as this in her case; indeed, she had several times been amused--so far as it lay in her now to be amused--by hearing Geoffrey speak of himself, with a kind of elephantine liveliness, as a roisterer and a Bohemian. But she was perfectly prepared to accept whatever happened; and when Geoff told her, the day after his mother's visit, that he must begin work again and go on as usual, she took it as a matter of course.

So Geoff arranged his new studio, and found out his best light, and got his easel into position; and Flexor arrived with the lay-figure which had been passing its vacation in Little Flotsam Street; and the great model recognised Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow, who happened to look in, with a deferential bow, and, with what seemed best under the circumstances, a look of extreme astonishment, as though he had never seen her before, and expected to find quite a different person.

Gradually and one by one all the old accessories of Geoff's daily life seemed closing round him. A feeble ring, heard while he and his wife were at breakfast, would be followed by the servant's announcement of "the young person, sir, a-waitin' in the stujo;" and the young person--a model--would be found objurgating the distance from town, and yet appreciative of the beauty of the spot when arrived at.

And Mr. Stompff had come; of course he had. No sooner did he get Geoff's letter announcing his return than he put himself into a hansom cab, and went up to Elm Lodge. For Mr. Stompff was a man of business. His weak point was, that he judged other men by his own standard; and knowing perfectly well that if any other man had had the success which Geoffrey Ludlow had achieved that year, he (Stompff) would have worked heaven and earth to get him into his clutches, he fancied that Caniche, and all the other dealers, would be equally voracious, and that the best thing he could do would be to strike the iron while it was hot, and secure Ludlow for himself. He thought too that this was rather a good opportunity for such a proceeding, as Ludlow's exchequer was likely to be low, and he could the more easily be won over. So the hansom made its way to Elm Lodge; and its fare, under the title of "a strange gentleman, sir!" was ushered into Geoff's studio.

"Well, and how are you, Ludlow! What did she say, 'a strange gentleman'? Yes, Mary, my love! I am a strange gentleman, as you'll find out before I've done with you." Mr. Stompff laid his finger to his nose, and winked with exquisite facetiousness. "Well, and how are you? safe and sound, and all the rest of it! And how's Mrs. L.? Must introduce me before I go. And what are you about now, eh? What's this?"

He stopped before the canvas on the easel, and began examining it attentively.

"That's nothing!" said Geoffrey; "merely an outline of a notion I had of the Esplanade at Brighton. I don't think it would make a bad subject. You see, here I get the invalids in Bath-chairs, the regular London swells promenading it, the boatmen; the Indian-Mutiny man, with his bandaged foot and his arm in a sling and his big beard; some excursionists with their baskets and bottles; some Jews, and--"

"Capital! nothing could be better! Hits the taste of the day, my boy; shoots folly, and no flies, as the man said. That's your ticket! Any body else seen that!"

"Well, literally not a soul. It's only just begun, and no one has been here since I returned."

"That's all right! Now what's the figure? You're going to open your mouth, I know; you fellows always do when you've made a little success."

"Well, you see," began old Geoff, in his usual hesitating diffident manner, "it's a larger canvas than I've worked on hitherto, and there are a good many more figures, and--"

"Will five hundred suit you?"

"Ye-es! Five hundred would be a good price, for--"

"All right! shake hands on it! I'll give you five hundred for the copyright--right and away, mind!--sketch, picture, and right of engraving. We'll get it to some winter-gallery, and you'll have another ready for the Academy. Nothing like that, my boy! I know the world, and you don't. What the public likes, you give them as much of as you can. Don't you believe in over-stocking the market with Ludlows; that's all stuff! Let 'em have the Ludlows while they want 'em. In a year or two they'll fight like devils to get a Jones or a Robinson, and wonder how the deuce any body could have spent their money on such a dauber as Ludlow. Don't you be offended, my boy; I'm only speakin' the truth. I buy you because the public wants you; and I turn an honest penny in sellin' you again; not that I'm any peculiar nuts on you myself, either one way or t'other. Come, let's wet this bargain, Ludlow, my boy; some of that dry sherry you pulled out when I saw you last at Brompton, eh?"

Geoffrey rang the bell; the sherry was produced, and Mr. Stompff enjoyed it with great gusto.

"Very neat glass of sherry as ever I drank. Well, Ludlow, success to our bargain! Give it a good name, mind; that's half the battle; and, I say, I wouldn't do too much about the Jews, eh? You know what I mean; none of that d--d nose-trick, you know. There's first-rate customers among the Jews, though they know more about pictures than most people, and won't be palmed off like your Manchester coves but when they do like a thing, they will have it; and tough they always insist upon discount, yet even then, with the price one asks for a picture, it pays. Well, you'll be able to finish that and two others--O, how do you do, mam?"

This last to Margaret, who, not knowing that her husband had any one with him was entering the studio. She bowed, and was about to withdraw; but Geoff called her back, and presented Mr. Stompff to her.

"Very glad to make your acquaintance, mam," said that worthy, seizing her hand; "heard of you often, and recognise the picture of Scyllum and Something in an instant. Enjoyed yourself in the country, I 'ope. That's all right. But nothing like London; that's the place to pick up the dibs. I've been telling our friend here he must stick to it, now he's a wife to provide for; for we know what's what, don't we, Mrs. Ludlow? Three pictures a year, my boy, and good-sized 'uns too; no small canvases: that's what we must have out of you."

Geoffrey laughed as he said, "Well, no; not quite so much as that. Recollect, I intend to take my wife out occasionally; and besides, I've promised to give some drawing lessons."

"What!" shrieked Mr. Stompff; "drawing-lessons! a man in your position give drawing-lessons! I never heard such madness! You musn't do that, Ludlow."

The words were spoken so decidedly that Margaret bit her lips, and turned to look at her husband, whose face flushed a deep red, and whose voice stuttered tremendously as he gasped out, "B-but I shall! D-don't you say 'must,' please, to me, Mr. Stompff; because I don't like it; and I don't know what the d-deuce you mean by using such a word!"

Mr. Stompff glanced at Margaret, whose face expressed the deepest disgust; so clearly perceiving the mistake he had made, he said, "Well, of course I only spoke as a friend; and when one does that he needn't be in much doubt as to his reward. When I said 'must,' which seems to have riled you so, Ludlow, I said it for your own sake. However, you and I sha'n't fall out about that. Don't you give your pictures to any one else, and we shall keep square enough. Where are you going to give drawing-lessons, if one may be bold enough to ask?"

"In St. Barnabas Square, to a young lady, a very old friend of mine, and a protégée of Lord Caterham's," said Geoffrey, whose momentary ire had died out.

"O, Lord Caterham's! that queer little deformed chap. Good little fellow, too, they say he is; sharp, and all that kind of thing. Well, there's no harm in that. I thought you were going on the philanthropic dodge--to schools and working-men, and that lay. There's one rule in life,--you never lose any thing by being civil to a bigwig; and this little chap, I daresay, has influence in his way. By the way, you might ask him to give a look in at my gallery, if he's passing by. Never does any harm, that kind of thing. Well, I can't stay here all day. Men of business must always be pushing on, Mrs. Ludlow. Good day to you; and, I say, when--hem! there's any thing to renounce the world, the flesh, and the--hey, you understand? any body wanted to promise and vow, you know,--I'm ready; send for me. I've got my eye on a silver thug already. Goodbye, Ludlow; see you next week. Three before next May, recollect, and all for me. Ta-ta!" and Mr. Stompff stepped into his cab, and drove off, kissing his fat pudgy little hands, with a great belief in Geoffrey Ludlow and a holy horror of his wife.

In the course of the next few days Geoffrey wrote to Lord Caterham, telling him that he was quite ready to commence Miss Maurice's instruction; and shortly afterwards received an answer naming a day for the lessons to commence. On arriving at the house Geoff was shown into Lord Caterham's room, and there found Annie waiting to receive him. Geoff advanced, and shook hands warmly; but he thought Miss Maurice's manner was a little more reserved than on the last occasion of their meeting.

"Lord Caterham bade me make his excuses to you, Mr. Ludlow," said she. "He hopes to see you before you go; but he is not very well just now, and does not leave his room till later in the day."

Geoff was a little hurt at the "Mr. Ludlow." Like all shy men, he was absurdly sensitive; and at once thought that he saw in this mode of address a desire on Annie's part to show him his position as drawing-master. So he merely said he was "sorry for the cause of Lord Caterham's absence;" and they proceeded at once to Work.

But the ice on either side very soon melted away. Geoff had brought with him an old sketch-book, filled with scraps of landscape and figures, quaint bizarre caricatures, and little bits of every-day life, all drawn at Willesden Priory or in its neighbourhood, all having some little history of their own appealing to Annie's love of those old days and that happy home. And as she looked over them, she began to talk about the old times; and very speedily it was, "O, Geoff, don't you remember?" and "O, Geoff, will you ever forget?" and so on; and they went on sketching and talking until, to Annie at least, the present and the intervening time faded away, and she was again the petted little romp, and he was dear old Geoff, her best playmate, her earliest friend, whom she used to drive round the gravel-paths in her skipping-rope harness, and whose great shock head of hair used to cause her such infinite wonder and amusement.

As she sat watching him bending over the drawing, she remembered with what anxiety she used to await his coming at the Priory, and with what perfect good-humour he bore all her childish whims and vagaries. She remembered how he had always been her champion when her papa had been brusque or angry with her, saying, "Fairy was too small to be scolded;" how when just before that horrible bankruptcy took place and all the household were busy with their own cares she, suffering under some little childish illness, was nursed by Geoff, then staying in the house with a vague idea of being able to help Mr. Maurice in his trouble; how he carried her in his arms to and fro, to and fro, during the whole of one long night, and hushed her to sleep with the soft tenderness of a woman. She had thought of him often and often during her life at Ricksborough Vicarage, always with the same feelings of clinging regard and perfect trust; and now she had found him. Well, no, not him exactly; she doubted very much whether Mr. Ludlow the rising artist was the same as the "dear old Geoff" of the Willesden-Priory days. There was--and then, as she was thinking all this, Geoff raised his eyes from the drawing, and smiled his dear old happy smile, and put his pencil between his teeth, and slowly rubbed his hands while he looked over his sketch, so exactly as he used to do fifteen years before that she felt more than ever annoyed at that news which Arthur had told tier a few days ago about Mr. Ludlow being married.

Yes, it was annoyance she felt! there was no other word for it. In the old days he had belonged entirely to her, and why should he not now? Her papa had always said that it was impossible Geoff could ever be any thing but an old bachelor, and an old bachelor he should have remained. What a ridiculous thing for a man at his time of life to import a new element into it by marriage! It would have been so pleasant to have had him then, just in the old way; to have talked to him and teased him, and looked up to him just as she used to do, and now--O, no! it could not be the same! no married man is ever the same with the friends of his bachelorhood, especially female friends, as he was before. And Mrs. Ludlow, what was she like? what could have induced Geoff to marry her? While Geoff's head was bent over the drawing, Annie revolved all this rapidly in her mind, and came to the conclusion that it must have been for money that Geoff plunged into matrimony, and that Mrs. Ludlow was either a widow with a comfortable jointure, in which case Annie pictured her to herself as short, stout, and red-faced, with black hair in bands and a perpetual black-silk dress; or a small heiress of uncertain age, thin, with hollow cheeks and a pointed nose, ringlets of dust-coloured hair, a pinched waist, and a soured temper. And to think of Geoff's going and throwing away the rest of his life on a person of this sort, when he might have been so happy in his old bachelor way!

The more she thought of this the more she hated it. Why had he not announced to them that he was going to be married, when she first met him after that long lapse of years? To be sure, the rooms at the Royal Academy were scarcely the place in which to enter on such a matter; but then--who could she be? what was she like? It was so long since Geoff had been intimate with any one; she knew that of course his range of acquaintance might have been changed a hundred times and she not know one of them. How very strange that he did not say any thing about it now! He had been here an hour sketching and pottering about, and yet had not breathed a word about it. O, she would soon settle that!

So the next time Geoff looked up from his sketch, she said to him: "Are you longing to be gone, Geoffrey? Getting fearfully bored? Is a horrible heimweh settling down upon your soul? I suppose under the circumstances it ought to be, if it isn't."

"Under what circumstances, Annie? I'm not bored a bit, nor longing to be gone. What makes you think so?"

"Only my knowledge of a fact which I've learned, though not from you--your marriage, Geoffrey."

"Not from me! Pardon me, Annie; I begged Lord Caterham, to whom I announced it, specially to name it to you. And, if you must know, little child, I wondered you had said nothing to me about it."

He looked at her earnestly as he said this; and there was a dash of disappointment in his honest eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Geoff--so sorry! But I didn't understand it so; really I didn't," said Annie, already half-penitent. "Lord Caterham told me of the fact, but as from himself; not from you; and--and I thought it odd that, considering all our old intimacy, you hadn't--"

"Odd! why, God bless my soul! Annie, you don't think that I shouldn't; but, you see, it was all so--At all events, I'm certain I told Lord Caterham to tell you."

Geoff was in a fix here. His best chance of repudiating the idea that he had willfully neglected informing Annie of his intended marriage was the true reason, that the marriage itself was, up to within the shortest time of its fulfilment, so unlooked for; but this would throw a kind of slur on his wife; at all events, would prompt inquiries; so he got through it as best he could with the stuttering excuses above recorded.

They seemed to avail with Annie Maurice; for she only said, "O, yes; I daresay it was some bungle of yours. You always used to make the most horrible mistakes, Geoff, I've heard poor papa say a thousand times, and get out of it in the lamest manner." Then, after a moment, she said, "You must introduce me to your wife, Geoffrey;" and, almost against her inclination, added, "What is she like?"

"Introduce you, little child? Why, of course I will, and tell her how long I have known you, and how you used to sit on my knee, and be my little pet," said old Geoff, in a transport of delight. "O, I think you'll like her, Annie. She is--yes, I may say so--she is very beautiful, and--and very quiet and good."

Geoff's ignorance of the world is painfully manifested in this speech. No Woman could possibly be pleased to hear of her husband having been in the habit Of having any little pet on his knee; and in advancing her being "very beautiful" as a reason for liking his wife, Geoff showed innocence which was absolutely refreshing.

Very beautiful! Was that mere conjugal blindness or real fact? Taken in conjunction with "very quiet and good," it looked like the former; but then where beauty was concerned Geoff had always been a stern judge; and it was scarcely likely that he would suffer his judgment, founded on the strictest abstract principles to be warped by any whim or fancy. Very beautiful!--the quietude and goodness came into account,--very beautiful!

"O, yes; I must come and see Mrs. Ludlow, please. You will name a day before you go?"

"Name a day! What for, Annie?"

Lord Caterham was the speaker, sitting in his chair, and being wheeled in from his bedroom by Stephens. Ins tone was a little harsh; his temper a little sharp. He had all along determined that Annie and Geoff should not be left alone together on the occasion of her first lesson. But l'homme propose et Dieu dispose; and Caterham had been unable to raise his head from his pillow, with one of those fearful neuralgic headaches which occasionally affected him.

"What for! Why, to be introduced to Mrs. Ludlow! By the way, you seem to have left your eyes in the other room, Arthur. You have not seen Mr. Ludlow before, have you?"

"I beg Mr. Ludlow a thousand pardons!" said Caterham, who had forgotten the announcement of Geoffrey's marriage, and who hailed the recalling of the past with intense gratification. "I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Ludlow; and very grateful to you for coming to fill up so agreeably some of our young lady's blank time. If I thought you were a conventional man, I should make you a pretty Conventional speech of gratulation on your marriage; but as I'm sure you're something much better, I leave that to be inferred."

"You are very good," said Geoff. "Annie was just saying that I should introduce My wife to her, and--"

"Of course, of course!" said Caterham, a little dashed by the familiarity of the "Annie." "I hope, to see Mrs. Ludlow here; not merely as a visitor to a wretched bachelor like myself; but I'm sure my mother would be very pleased to welcome her, and will, if you please, do herself the honour of calling on Mrs. Ludlow.

"Thank you, Arthur; you are very kind, and I appreciate it," said Annie, in a low voice, crossing to his chair; "but my going will be a different thing; I mean, as an old friend of Geoff's, I may go and see his wife."

An old friend of Geoff's! Still the same bond between them, in which he had no part--an intimacy with which he had nothing to do.

"Of course," said he; "nothing could be more natural."

"Little Annie coming to be introduced to Margaret!" thought Geoff, as he walked homeward, the lesson over. This, then, was to be Margaret's first introduction to his old friend. Not much fear of their not getting on together. And yet, on reflection, Geoff was not so sure of that, after all.

[CHAPTER VI.]

AT HOME.

The people of Lowbar, lusty citizens with suburban residences--lawyers, proctors, and merchants, all warm people in money matters--did not think much of the advent into their midst of a man following an unrecognised profession, which had no ledger-and-day-book responsibility, employed no clerks, and ministered to no absolute want. It was not the first time indeed that they had heard of an artist being encamped among them; for in the summer several brethren of the brush were tempted to make a temporary sojourn in the immediate vicinity of the broad meadows and suburban prettinesses. But these were mere birds of passage, who took lodgings over some shop in the High Street, and who were never seen save by marauding schoolboys or wandering lovers, who would come suddenly upon a bearded man smoking a pipe, and sketching away under the shade of a big white umbrella. To wear a beard and, in addition to that enormity, to smoke a pipe, were in themselves sufficient, in the eyes of the worthy inhabitants of Lowbar, to prove that a man was on the high-road to destruction; but they consoled themselves with the reflection that the evil-doer was but a sojourner amongst them. Now, however, had arrived a man in the person of Geoffrey Ludlow, who not merely wore a beard and smoked a pipe, but further flew in the face of all decently-constituted society by having a beautiful wife. And this man had not come into lodgings, but had regularly established himself in poor Mrs. Pierce's house, which he had had all done up and painted and papered and furnished in a manner--so at least Mr. Brandram the doctor said--that might be described as gorgeous.

Now, as the pretty suburb of Lowbar is still a good score of years behind the world, its inhabitants could not understand this at all, and the majority of them were rather scandalised than otherwise, when they found that the vicar and his wife had called on the newcomers. Mr. Brandram the doctor had called too; but that was natural. He was a pushing man was Brandram, and a worldly man, so unlike Priestley, the other doctor, who was a retiring gentleman. So at least said Priestley's friends and Brandram's enemies. Brandram was a little man of between fifty and sixty, neat, and a little horsy in his dress, cheerful in his manner, fond of recommending good living, and fond of taking his own prescription. He was a little "fast" for Lowbar, going to the theatre once or twice in the year, and insisting upon having novels for the Book-Society; whereas Priestley's greatest dissipation was attending a "humorous lecture" at the Mechanics' Institute, and his lightest reading a book of Antipodean travel. Brandram called at Elm Lodge, of course, and saw both Geoff and Margaret, and talked of the Academy pictures,--which he had carefully got up from the catalogue and the newspaper-notices,--and on going away, left Mrs. Brandram's card. For three weeks afterwards, that visit supplied the doctor with interesting discourse for his patients: he described all the alterations which had been made in the house since Mrs. Pierce's death; he knew the patterns of the carpets, the colours of the curtains, the style of the furniture. Finally, he pronounced upon the newcomers; described Geoff as a healthy man of a sanguineous temperament, not much cut out for the Lowbar folk; and his wife as a beautiful woman, but lymphatic.

These last were scarcely the details which the Lowbar folk wanted to know. They wanted to know all about the ménage; in what style the newcomers lived; whether they kept much or any company; whether they agreed well together. This last was a point of special curiosity; for, in common with numberless other worthy, commonplace, stupid people, the Lowbar folk imagined that the private lives of "odd persons"--under which heading they included all professors of literature and art of any kind--were passed in dissipation and wrangling. How the information was to be obtained was the great point, for they knew that nothing would be extracted from the vicar, even if he had been brimful of remarks upon his new parishioners, which, indeed, he was not, as they neither of them happened to be at home when he called. It would be something to be well assured about their personal appearance, especially her personal appearance; to see whether there were really any grounds for this boast of beauty which Dr. Brandram went talking about in such a ridiculous way. The church was the first happy hunting-ground pitched upon; and during the first Sunday after Geoff's and Margaret's arrival the excitement during divine service was intense; the worshippers in the middle and side aisles, whose pews all faced the pulpit, and whose backs were consequently turned to the entrance-door, regarding with intense envy their friends whose pews confronted each other between the pulpit and the altar, and who, consequently, while chanting the responses or listening to the lesson, could steal furtive glances on every occasion of the door's opening, without outraging propriety. But when it was found that the newcomers did not attend either morning or evening service,--and unquestionably a great many members of the congregation had their dinner of cold meat and salad (it was considered sinful in Lowbar to have hot dinners on Sunday) at an abnormally early hour for the purpose of attending evening service on the chance of seeing the new arrivals,--it was considered necessary to take more urgent measures; and so the little Misses Coverdale--two dried-up little chips of spinsters with corkscrew ringlets and black-lace mittens, who kept house for their brother, old Coverdale, the red-faced, white-headed proctor, Geoffrey's next-door neighbour--had quite a little gathering the next day, the supposed object of which was to take tea and walk in the garden, but the real object to peep furtively over the wall and try and catch a glimpse of her who was already sarcastically known as "Dr. Brandram's beauty." Some of the visitors, acquainted with the peculiarities of the garden, knowing what mound to stand on and what position to take up, were successful in catching a glimpse of the top of Margaret's hair--"all taken off her face like a schoolgirl's, and leaving her cheeks as bare as bare," as they afterwards reported--as she wandered listlessly round the garden, stooping now and then to smell or gather a flower. One or two others were also rewarded by the sight of Geoffrey in his velvet painting-coat; among them, Letty Coverdale, who pronounced him a splendid man, and, O, so romantic-looking! for all ideas of matrimony had not yet left Miss Letty Coverdale, and the noun-substantive Man yet caused her heart to beat with an extra throb in her flat little chest; whereas Miss Matty Coverdale, who had a face like a horse, and who loudly boasted that she had never had an offer of marriage in her life, snorted out her wonder that Geoff did not wear a surtout like a Christian and her belief that he'd be all the cleaner after a visit to Mr. Ball, who was the Lowbar barber.

But bit by bit the personal appearance of both of them grew sufficiently familiar to many of the inhabitants, some of the most courageous of whom had actually screwed themselves up to that pitch of boldness necessary for the accomplishment of calling and leaving cards on strangers pursuing a profession unnamed in the Directory, and certainly not one of the three described in Mangnall's Questions. The calls were returned, and in some cases were succeeded by invitations to dinner. But Geoffrey cared little for these, and Margaret earnestly begged they might be declined. If she found her life insupportably dull and slow, this was not the kind of relief for which she prayed. A suburban dinner-party would be but a dull parody on what she had known; would give her trouble to dress for, without the smallest compensating amusement; would leave her at the mercy of stupid people, among whom she would probably be the only stranger, the only resource for staring eyes and questioning tongues. That they would have stared and questioned, there is little doubt; but they certainly intended hospitality. The "odd" feeling about the Ludlows prevalent on their first coming had worn off, and now the tide seemed setting the other way. Whether it was that the tradesmen's books were regularly paid, that the lights at Elm Lodge were seldom or never burning after eleven o'clock, that Geoffrey's name had been seen in the Times, as having been present at a dinner given by Lord Everton, a very grand dinner, where he was the only untitled man among the company, or for whatever other reason, there was a decided disposition to be civil to them. No doubt Margaret's beauty had a great deal to do with it, so far as the men were concerned. Old Mr. Coverdale, who had been portentously respectable for half a century, but concerning whom there was a floating legend of "Jolly dog-ism" In his youth, declared he had seen nothing like her since the Princess Charlotte; and Abbott, known as Captain Abbott, from having once been in the Commissariat, who always wore a chin-tip and a tightly-buttoned blue frock-coat and pipe-clayed buckskin gloves, made an especial point of walking past Elm Lodge every afternoon, and bestowing on Margaret, whenever he saw her, a peculiar leer which had done frightful execution amongst the nursemaids of Islington. Mrs. Abbott, a mild meek little woman, who practised potichomanie, delcomanie the art of making wax-flowers, any thing whereby to make money to pay the tradespeople and supply varnish for her husband's boots and pocket-money for his menus plaisirs, was not, it is needless to say, informed of these vagaries on the captain's part.

They were discussed every where: at the Ladies' Clothing-Club, where one need scarcely say that the opinions concerning Margaret's beauty were a little less fervid in expression; and at the Gentlemen's Book-Society, where a proposition to invite Geoff to be of their number, started by the vicar and seconded by old Mr. Coverdale, was opposed by Mr. Bryant (of Bryant and Martin, coach-builders, Long Acre), On the ground that the first Of the rules stated that this should be an association of gentlemen; and who could I say what would be done next if artists was to be received? The discussion on this point waxed very warm, and during it Mr. Cremer the curate incurred Mr. Bryant's deepest hatred for calling out to him, on his again attempting to address the meeting, "Spoke, spoke!" which Mr. Bryant looked upon as a sneer at his trade, and remembered bitterly when the subscription was got up in the parish for presenting Mr. Cremer with the silver teapot and two hundred sovereigns, with which (the teapot at least) he proceeded to the rectory of Steeple Bumstead, in a distant part of the country. They were discussed by the regulars in the nine-o'clock omnibus, most of whom, as they passed by Elm Lodge and saw Geoff through the big window just commencing to set his palette, pitied him for having to work at home, and rejoiced in their own freedom from the possibility of conjugal inroad; or, catching a glimpse of Margaret, poked each other in the ribs and told each other what a fine woman she was. They were discussed by the schoolboys going to school, who had a low opinion of art, and for the most part confined the remarks about Geoffrey to his having a "stunnin' beard," and about Margaret to her being a "regular carrots," the youthful taste being strongly anti-pre-Raffaellitic, and worshipping the raven tresses and straight noses so dear to the old romancers.

And while all these discussions and speculations were rife, the persons speculated on and discussed were leading their lives without a thought of what people were saying of them. Geoff knew that he was doing good work; he felt that intuitively as every man does feel it, quite as intuitively as when he is producing rubbish; and he knew it further from the not-too-laudatorily-inclined Mr. Stompff, who came up from time to time, and could not refuse his commendation to the progress of the pictures. And then Geoff was happy--at least, well, Margaret might have been a little more lively perhaps; but then--O, no; he was thoroughly happy! and Margaret--existed! The curtain had dropped on her wedding-day, and she had been groping in darkness ever since.

Time went on, as he does to all of us, whatever our appreciation of him may be, according to the mood we may happen to be in: swiftly to the happy and the old, slowly to the young and the wearied. There is that blessed compensation which pervades all human things, even in the flight of time. No matter how pleasant, how varied, how completely filled is the time of the young, it hangs on them somehow; they do not feel it rush past them nor melt away, the hours swallowed up in days, the days in years, as do the elder people, who have no special excitement, no particular delight. The fact still remains that the young want time to fly, the old want him to crawl; and that, fulfilling the wishes of neither, he speeds on aquo pale, grumbled at by both.

The time went on. So Margaret knew by the rising and setting of the sun, by the usual meals, her own getting up and going to bed, and all the usual domestic routine. But by what else? Nothing. She had been married now nearly six months, and from that experience she thought she might deduce something like an epitome of her life. What was it? She had a husband who doated on her; who lavished on her comforts, superfluities, luxuries; who seemed never so happy as when toiling at his easel, and who brought the products of his work to her to dispose of as she pleased. A husband who up to that hour of her thought had never in the smallest degree failed to fulfil her earliest expectations of him,--generous to a degree, kind-hearted, weak, and easily led. Weak! weak as water.--Yes, and O yes! What you, like, my dear! What you think best, my child! That is for your decision, Margaret. I--I don't know; I scarcely like to give an opinion. Don't you think you had better settle it? I'll leave it all to you, please, dearest.--Good God! if he would only say something--as opposed to her ideas as possible, the more opposed the better--some assertion of self, some trumpet-note of argument, some sign of his having a will of his own, or at least an idea from which a will might spring. Here was the man who in his own art was working out the most admirable genius, showing that he had within him more of the divine afflatus than is given to nine hundred and ninety-nine in every thousand amongst us--a man who was rapidly lifting his name for the wonder and the envy of the best portion of the civilised world, incapable of saying "no" even to a proposition of hashed mutton for dinner, shirking the responsibility of a decision on the question of the proper place for a chair.

Indeed, I fear that, so far as I have stated, the sympathies of women will go against old Geoff, who must, I fancy, have been what they are in the habit of calling "very trying." You see he brought with him to the altar a big generous old heart, full of love and adoration of his intended wife, full of resolution, in his old blunt way, to stand by her through evil and good report, and to do his duty by her in all honour and affection. He was any thing but a self-reliant man; but he knew that his love was sterling coin, truly unalloyed; and he thought that it might be taken as compensation for numerous deficiencies, the existence of which he readily allowed. You see he discovered his power of loving simultaneously almost with his power of painting; and I think that this may perhaps account for a kind of feeling that, as the latter was accepted by the world, so would the former be by the person to whom it was addressed. When he sent out the picture which first attracted Mr. Stompff's attention, he had no idea that it was better than a score others which he had painted, during the course of his life; when he first saw Margaret Dacre, he could not tell that the instinctive admiration would lead to any thing more than the admiration which he had already silently paid to half-a-hundred pretty faces. But both had come to a successful issue; and he was only to paint his pictures with all the talent of his head and hand, and to love his wife with all the affection of his heart, to discharge his duty in life.

He did this; he worshipped her with all his heart. Whatever she did was right, whatever ought to have been discussed she was called upon to settle. They were very small affairs, as I have said,--of hashed mutton and jams of the colour of a ribbon, or the fashion of a bonnet. Was there never to be any thing further than this? Was life to consist in her getting up and struggling through the day and going to bed at Elm Lodge? The short breakfast, when Geoff was evidently dying to be off into the painting-room; the long, long day,--composed of servants instruction, newspaper, lunch, sleep, little walk, toilette, dinner, utterly feeble conversation, yawns and head-droppings, and finally bed. She had pictured to herself something quiet, tranquil, without excitement, without much change; but nothing like this.

Friends?--relations? O yes! old Mrs. Ludlow came to see her now and then; and she had been several times to Brompton. The old lady was very kind in her pottering stupid way, and her daughter Matilda was kind also, but as once gushing and prudish; so Margaret thought. And they both treated her as if she were a girl; the old lady perpetually haranguing her with good advice and feeble suggestion, and Matilda--who, of course, like all girls, had, it was perfectly evident, some silly love-affair on with some youth who had not as yet declared himself--wanting to make her half-confidences, and half-asking for advice, which she never intended to take. A girl? O yes, of course, she must play out that farce, and support that terribly vague story which old Geoff; pushed into a corner on a sudden, and without any one to help him at the instant, had fabricated concerning her parentage and belongings. And she must listen to the old lady's praises of Geoff, and how she thought it not improbable, if things went on as they were going, that the happiest dream of her life would be fulfilled--that she should ride in her son's carriage. "It would be yours, of course, my dear; I know that well enough; but you'd let me ride in it sometimes, just for the honour and glory of the thing." And they talked like this to her: the old lady of the glory of a carriage; Matilda of some hawbuck wretch for whom she had a liking;--to her! who had sat on the box-seat of a drag a score of times, with half-a-score of the best men in England sitting behind her, all eager for a word or a smile.

She saw them now, frequently, whenever she came over to Brompton,--all the actors in that bygone drama of her life, save the hero himself. It was the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, indeed. But what vast proportions did she then assume compared to what she had been lately! There were Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,--the one in his mail-phaeton, the other on his matchless hack; there was old Polonius in the high-collared bottle-green coat of thirty years back, guiding his clever cob in and out among the courtiers; there was the Honourable Osric, simpering and fooling among the fops. She hurried across the Drive or the Row on her way to or from Brompton, and stood up, a little distance off, gazing at these comrades of old times. She would press her hands to her head, and wonder whether it was all true or a dream whether she was going back to the dull solemnity of Elm Lodge, when a dozen words would put her into that mail-phaeton--on to that horse! How often had Rosencrantz ogled! and was it not Guildenstern's billet that, after reading, she tore up and threw in his face? It was an awful temptation; and she was obliged, as an antidote, to picture to herself the tortures she had suffered from cold and want and starvation, to bring her round at all to a sensible line of thought.

Some one else had called upon her two or three times. O yes, a Miss Maurice, who came in a coroneted carriage, and to whom she had taken a peculiar detestation; not from any airs she had given herself--O no; there was nothing of that kind about her. She was one of those persons, don't you know, who have known your husband before his marriage, and take an interest in him, and must like you for his sake; one of those persons who are so open and honest and above-board, that you take an immediate distrust of them at first sight, which you never get over. O no, Margaret was perfectly certain she should never like Annie Maurice.

Music she had, and books; but she was not very fond of the first, and only played desultorily. Geoff was most passionately fond of music; and sometimes after dinner he would ask for "a tune," and then Margaret would sit down at the piano and let her fingers wander over the keys, gradually finding them straying into some of the brilliant dance-music of Auber and Musard, of Jullien and Koenig, with which she had been familiarised during her Continental experience. And as she played, the forms familiarly associated with the music came trooping out of the mist--Henri, so grand in the Cavalier seul, Jules and Eulalie, so unapproachable in the En avant deux. There they whirled in the hot summer evenings; the parterre, illuminated with a thousand lamps glittering like fireflies, the sensuous strains of the orchestra soaring up to the great yellow-faced moon looking down upon it; and then the cosy little supper, the sparkling iced drink, the--"Time for bed, eh, dear?" from old Geoff, already nodding with premature sleep; and away flew the bright vision at the rattle of the chamber-candlestick.

Books! yes, no lack of them. Geoff subscribed for her to the library, and every week came the due supply of novels. These Margasightret read, some in wonder, some in scorn. There was a great run upon the Magdalen just then in that style of literature; writers were beginning to be what is called "outspoken;" and young ladies familiarised with the outward life of the species, as exhibited in the Park and at the Opera, read with avidity of their diamonds and their ponies, of the interior of the ménage, and of their spirited conversations with the cream of the male aristocracy. A deference to British virtue, and a desire to stand well with the librarian's subscribers, compelled an amount of repentance in the third volume which Margaret scarcely believed to be in accordance with truth. The remembrance of childhood's days, which made the ponies pall, and rendered the diamonds disgusting,--the inherent natural goodness, which took to eschewing of crinoline and the adoption of serge, which swamped the colonel in a storm of virtuous indignation, and brought the curate safely riding over the billows,--were agreeable incidents, but scarcely, she thought, founded on fact. Her own experience at least had taught her otherwise; but it might be so after all.

So her life wore drearily on. Would there never be any change in it? Yes, one change at least Time brought in his flight. Dr. Brandram's visits were now regular; and one morning a shrill cry resounded through the house, and the doctor placed in its father's arms a strong healthy boy.

[CHAPTER VII.]

WHAT THEIR FRIENDS THOUGHT.

Geoffrey Ludlow had married and settled himself in a not-too-accessible suburb, but he had not given up such of his old companions as were on a footing of undeniable intimacy with him. These were few in number; for although Geoff was a general favourite from his urbanity and the absence of any thing like pretentiousness in his disposition, he was considered slow by most of the bolder spirits among the artist-band. He was older than many of them certainly, but that was scarcely the reason; for there were jolly old dogs whose presence never caused the smallest reticence of song or story--gray and bald-headed old boys, who held their own in scurrility and slang, and were among the latest sitters and the deepest drinkers of the set. It is needless to say that in all their popularity--and they were popular after a fashion--there was not mingled one single grain of respect; while Geoffrey was respected as much as he was liked. But his shyness, his quiet domestic habits, and his perpetual hard work gave him little time for the cultivation of acquaintance, and he had only two really intimate friends, who were Charley Potts and William Bowker.

Charley Potts had been "best man" at the marriage, and Geoffrey had caught a glimpse of old Bowker in hiding behind a pillar of the church. It was meet, then, that they--old companions of his former life--should see him under his altered circumstances, should know and be received by his wife, and should have the opportunity, if they wished for it, of keeping up at least a portion of the camaraderie of old days. Therefore after his return to London, and when he and his wife were settled down in Elm Lodge, Geoffrey wrote to each of his old friends, and said how glad he would be to see them in his new house.

This note found Mr. Charles Potts intent upon a representation of Mr. Tennyson's "Dora," sitting with the child in the cornfield, a commission which he had received from Mr. Caniche, and which was to be paid for by no less a sum than a hundred and fifty pounds. The "Gil Bias" had proved a great success in the Academy, and had been purchased by a country rector, who had won a hundred-pound prize in the Art-Union; so that Charley was altogether in very high feather and pecuniary triumph. He had not made much alteration in the style of his living or in the furniture of his apartment; but he had cleared off a long score for beer and grog standing against him in the books kept by Caroline of signal fame; he had presented Caroline herself with a cheap black-lace shawl, which had produced something like an effect at Rosherville Gardens! and he had sent a ten-pound note to the old aunt who had taken care of him after his mother's death, and who wept tears of gratified joy on its receipt, and told all Sevenoaks of the talent and the goodness of her nephew. He had paid off some other debts also, and lent a pound or two here and there among his friends, and was even after that a capitalist to the extent of having some twenty pounds in the stomach of a china sailor, originally intended as a receptacle for tobacco. His success had taken effect on Charley. He had begun to think that there was really something in him, after all; that life was, as the working-man observed, "not all beer and skittles;" and that if he worked honestly on, he might yet be able to realise a vision which had occasionally loomed through clouds of tobacco-smoke curling round his head; a vision of a pleasant cottage out at Kilburn, or better still at Cricklewood; with a bit of green lawn and a little conservatory, and two or three healthy children tumbling about; while their mother, uncommonly like Matilda Ludlow, looked on from the ivy-covered porch; and their father, uncommonly like himself, was finishing in the studio that great work which was to necessitate his election into the Academy. This vision had a peculiar charm for him; he worked away like a horse; the telegraphic signals to Caroline and the consequent supply of beer became far less frequent; he began to eschew late nights, which he found led to late mornings; and the "Dora" was growing under his hand day by day.

He was hard at work and had apparently worked himself into a knot, for he was standing a little distance from his easel, gazing vacantly at the picture and twirling his moustache with great vigour,--a sure sign of worry with him,--when the "tugging, of the trotter" was heard, and on his opening the door, Mr. Bowker presented himself and walked in.

"'Tis I! Bowker the undaunted! Ha, Ha!" and Mr. Bowker gave two short stamps, and lunged with his walking-stick at his friend. "Give your William drink; he is athirst. What! nothing of a damp nature about? Potts, virtue and industry are good things; and your William has been glad to observe that of late you have been endeavouring to practise both; but industry is not incompatible with pale ale, and nimble fingers are oft allied to a dry palate. That sounds like one of the headings of the pages from Maunders' Treasury of Knowledge.--Send for some beer!"

The usual pantomime was gone through by Mr. Potts, and while it was in process, Bowker filled a pipe and walked towards the easel. "Very good, Charley; very good indeed. Nice fresh look in that gal--not the usual burnt-umber rusticity; but something--not quite--like the real ruddy peasant bronze. Child not bad either; looks as if it had got its feet in boxing-gloves, though; you must alter that; and don't make its eyes quite so much like willow-pattern saucers. What's that on the child's head?"

"Hair, of course."

"And what stuff's that the girl's sitting in?"

"Corn! cornfield--wheat, you know, and that kind of stuff. What do you mean? why do you ask?"

"Only because it seems to your William that both substances are exactly alike. If it's hair, then the girl is sitting in a hair-field; if it's corn, then the child has got corn growing on its head."

"It'll have it growing on its feet some day, I suppose," growled Mr. Potts, with a grin. "You're quite right, though, old man; we'll alter that at once.--Well, what's new with you?"

"New? Nothing! I hear nothing, see nothing, and know nobody. I might be a hermit-crab, only I shall never creep into any body else's shell; my own--five feet ten by two feet six--will be ready quite soon enough for me. Stop! what stuff I'm talking! I very nearly forgot the object of my coming round to you this morning. Your William is asked into society! Look; here's a letter I received last night from our Geoff, asking me to come up to see his new house and be introduced to his wife."

"I had a similar one this morning."

"I thought that was on the cards, so I came round to see what you were going to do."

"Do? I shall go, of course. So will you, won't you?"

"Well, Charley, I don't know. I'm a queer old skittle, that has been knocked about in all manner of ways, and that has had no women's society for many years. So much the better, perhaps. I'm not pretty to look at; and I couldn't talk the stuff women like to have talked to them, and I should be horribly bored if I had to listen to it. So--and yet--God forgive me for growling so!--there are times when I'd give any thing for a word of counsel and comfort in a woman's voice, for the knowledge that there was any woman--good woman, mind!--no matter what--mother, sister, wife--who had an interest in what I did. There! never mind that."

Mr. Bowker stopped abruptly. Charley Potts waited for a minute; then putting his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder, said: "But our William will make an exception for our Geoff. You've known him so long, and you're so fond of him."

"Fond of him! God bless him! No one could know Geoff without loving him, at least no one whose love was worth having. But you see there's the wife to be taken into account now."

"You surely wouldn't doubt your reception by her? The mere fact of your being an old friend of her husband's would be sufficient to make you welcome."

"O, Mr. Potts, Mr. Potts! you are as innocent as a sucking-dove, dear Mr. Potts, though you have painted a decent picture! To have known a man before his marriage is to be the natural enemy of his wife. However, I'll chance that, and go and see our Geoff."

"So shall I," said Potts, "though I'm rather doubtful about my reception. You see I was with Geoff that night,--you know, when we met the--his wife, you know."

"So you were. Haven't you seen her since?"

"Only at the wedding, and that all in a hurry--just an introduction; that was all."

"Did she seem at all confused when she recognised you?"

"She couldn't have recognised me, because when we found her she was senseless, and hadn't come-to when we left. But of course Geoff had told her who I was, and she didn't seem in the least confused."

"Not she, if there's any truth in physiognomy," muttered old Bowker; "well, if she showed no annoyance at first meeting you, she's not likely to do so now, and you'll be received sweetly enough, no doubt. We may as well go together, eh?"

To this proposition Mr. Potts consented with great alacrity, for though a leader of men in his own set, he was marvellously timid, silent, and ill at ease in the society of ladies. The mere notion of having to spend a portion of time, however short, in company with members of the other sex above the rank of Caroline, and with whom he could not exchange that free and pleasant badinage of which he was so great a master, inflicted torture on him sufficient to render him an object of compassion. So on a day agreed upon, the artistic pair set out to pay their visit to Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow.

Their visit took place at about the time when public opinion in Lowbar was unsettled as to the propriety of knowing the Ludlows; and the dilatoriness of some of the inhabitants in accepting the position of the newcomers may probably be ascribed to the fact of the visitors having been encountered in the village. It is undeniable that the appearance of Mr. Potts and of Mr. Bowker was not calculated to impress the beholder with a feeling of respect, or a sense of their position in society. Holding this to be a gala-day, Mr. Potts had extracted a bank-note from the stomach of the china sailor, and expended it at the "emporium" of an outfitter in Oxford Street, in the purchase of a striking, but particularly ill-fitting, suit of checked clothes--coat, waistcoat, and trousers to match. His boots, of an unyielding leather, had very thick clump soles, which emitted curious wheezings and groanings as he walked; and his puce-coloured gloves were baggy at all the fingers' ends, and utterly impenetrable as regarded the thumbs. His white hat was a little on one side, and his moustaches were twisted with a ferocity which, however fascinating to the maid-servants at the kitchen-windows, failed to please the ruralising cits and citizenesses, who were accustomed to regard a white hat as the distinctive badge of card-sharpers, and a moustache as the outward and visible sign of swindling. Mr. Bowker had made little difference in his ordinary attire. He wore a loose shapeless brown garment which was more like a cloth dressing-gown than a paletot; a black waistcoat frayed at the pockets from constant contact with his pipe-stem, and so much too short that the ends of his white-cotton braces were in full view; also a pair of gray trousers of the cut which had been in fashion when their owner was in fashion--made very full over the boot, and having broad leather straps. Mr. Bowker also wore a soft black wideawake hat, and perfumed the fragrant air with strong cavendish tobacco, fragments of which decorated his beard. The two created a sensation as they strode up the quiet High Street; and when they rang at Elm Lodge Geoffrey's pretty servant-maid was ready to drop between admiration at Mr. Potts's appearance and a sudden apprehension that Mr. Bowker had come after the plate.

She had, however, little time for the indulgence of either feeling; for Geoffrey, who had been expecting the arrival of hi friends, with a degree of nervousness unintelligible to himself, no sooner heard the bell than he rushed out from his studio and received his old comrades with great cordiality. He shook hands heartily with Charley Potts; but a certain hesitation mingled with the warmth of his greeting of Bowker; and his talk rattled on from broken sentence to broken sentence, as though he were desirous of preventing his friend from speaking until he himself had had his say.

"How d'ye do, Charley? so glad to see you; and you, Bowker, my good old friend: it is thoroughly kind of you to come out here; and--long way, you know, and out of your usual beat, I know. Well, so you see Ive joined the noble army of martyrs,--not that I mean that of course; but--eh, you didn't expect I would do it, did you? I couldn't say, like the girl in the Scotch song, 'I'm owre young to marry yet,' could I? However, thank God, I think you'll say my wife is--what a fellow I am! keeping you fellows out here in this broiling sun; and you haven't--at least you, Bowker, haven't been introduced to her. Come along--come in!"

He preceded them to the drawing-room, where Margaret was waiting to receive them. It was a hot staring day in the middle of a hot staring summer. The turf was burnt brown; the fields spreading between Elm Lodge and Hampstead, usually so cool and verdant, were now arid wastes; the outside blinds of the house were closed to exclude the scorching light, and there was no sound save the loud chirping of grasshoppers. A great weariness was on Margaret that day; she had tried to rouse herself, but found it impossible, so had sat all through the morning staring vacantly before her, busy with old memories. Between her past and her present life there was so little in common, that these memories were seldom roused by associations. The dull never-changing domestic day, and the pretty respectability of Elm Lodge, did not recal the wild Parisian revels, the rough pleasant Bohemianism of garrison-lodgings, the sumptuous luxury of the Florentine villa. But there was something in the weather to-day--in the bright fierce glare of the sun, in the solemn utterly-unbroken stillness--which brought back to her mind one when she and Leonard and some others were cruising off the Devonshire coast in Tom Marshall's yacht; a day on which, with scarcely a breath of air to be felt, they lay becalmed in Babbicombe Bay; under an awning, of course, over which the men from time to time worked the fire-hose; and how absurdly funny Tom Marshall was when the ice ran short. Leonard said--The gate-bell rang, and her husband's voice was heard in hearty welcome of his friends.

In welcome of his friends! Yes, there at least she could do her duty; there she could give pleasure to her husband. She could not give him her love; she had tried, and found it utterly impossible; but equally impossible was it to withhold from him her respect. Day by day she honoured him more and more; as she watched his patient honesty, his indomitable energy, his thorough helplessness; as she learned--in spite of herself as it were--more of himself; for Geoff had always thought one of the chiefest pleasures of matrimony must be to have some one capable of receiving all one's confidences. As she, with a certain love of psychological analysis possessed by some women went through his character, and discovered loyalty and truth in every thought and every deed, she felt half angry with herself for her inability to regard him with that love which his qualities ought to have inspired. She had been accustomed to tell herself, and half-believed, that she had no conscience; but this theory, which she had maintained during nearly all the earlier portion of her life vanished as she learned to know and to appreciate her husband. She had a conscience, and she felt it; under its influence she made some struggles, ineffectual indeed, but greater than she at one time would have attempted. What was it that prevented her from giving this man his due, her heart's love? His appearance? No he was not a "girl's man" certainly, not the delicious military vision which sets throbbing the hearts of sweet seventeen: by no means romantic-looking, but a thoroughly manly gentleman--big, strong, and well-mannered. Had he been dwarfed or deformed, vulgar, dirty--and even in the present days of tubbing and Turkish baths, there are men who possess genius and are afraid it may come off in hot water,--had he been "common," an expressive word meaning something almost as bad as dirt and vulgarity,--Margaret could have satisfied her newly-found conscience, or at least accounted for her feelings. But he was none of these, and she admitted it; and so at the conclusion of her self-examination fell back, not without a feeling of semi-complacency, to the conviction that it was not he, but she herself who was in fault; that she did not give him her heart simply because she had no heart to give; that she had lived and loved, but that, however long she might yet live, she could never love again.

These thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, not for the first, nor even for the hundredth time, as she sat down upon the sofa and took up the first book which came to hand, not even making a pretence of reading it, but allowing it to lie listlessly on her lap. Geoffrey came first, closely followed by Charley Potts, who advanced in a sheepish way, holding out his hand. Margaret smiled slightly and gave him her hand with no particular expression, a little dignified perhaps, but even that scarcely noticeable. Then Bowker, who had kept his keen eyes upon her from the moment he entered the room, and whom she had seen and examined while exchanging civilities with Potts, was brought forward by Geoffrey, and introduced as "one of my oldest and dearest friends." Margaret advanced as Bowker approached, her face flushed a little, and her eyes wore their most earnest expression, as she said, "I am very glad to see you, Mr. Bowker. I have heard of you from Geoffrey. I am sure we shall be very good friends." She gripped his hand and looked him straight in the face as she said this, and in that instant William Bowker divined that Margaret had heard of, and knew and sympathised with, the story of his life.

She seemed tacitly to acknowledge that there was a bond of union between them. She was as polite as could be expected of her to Charley Potts; but she addressed herself especially to Bowker when any point for discussion arose. These were not very frequent, for the conversation carried on was of a very ordinary kind. How they liked their new house, and whether they had seen much of the people of the neighbourhood; how they had enjoyed their honeymoon in the Isle of Wight; and trivialities of a similar character. Charley Potts, prevented by force of circumstances from indulging in his peculiar humour, and incapable from sheer ignorance of bearing his share of general conversation when a lady was present, had several times attempted to introduce the one subject, which, in any society, he could discuss at his ease, art--"shop;" but on each occasion had found his proposition rigorously ignored both by Margaret and Bowker, who seemed to consider it out of place, and who were sufficiently interested in their own talk. So Charley fell back Upon Geoff, who, although delighted at seeing how well his wife was getting on with his friend, yet had sufficient kindness of heart to step in to Charley's rescue, and to discuss with him the impossibility of accounting for the high price obtained by Smudge; the certainty that Scumble's popularity would be merely evanescent; the disgraceful favouritism displayed by certain men "on the council;" in short, all that kind of talk which is so popular and so unfailing in the simple kindly members of the art-world. So on throughout lunch; and, indeed, until the mention of Geoffrey's pictures then in progress necessitated the generalising of the conversation, and they went away (Margaret with them) to the studio. Arrived within those walls, Mr. Potts, temporarily oblivious of the presence of a lady, became himself again. The mingled smell of turpentine and tobacco, the sight of the pictures on the easels, and Of Geoff's pipe-rack on the wall, a general air of carelessness and discomfort, all came gratefully to Mr. Potts who opened his chest, spread out his arms, shook himself as does a dog just emerged from the water--probably in his case to get rid of any clinging vestige of respectability--and said in a very hungry tone:

"Now, Geoff, let's have a smoke, old boy."

"You might as well wait until you knew whether Mrs. Ludlow made any objection, Charley," said Bowker, in a low tone.

"I beg Mrs. Ludlow's pardon," said Potts, scarlet all over; "I had no notion that she--"

"Pray don't apologise, Mr. Potts; I am thoroughly accustomed to smoke; have been for--"

"Yes, of course; ever since you married Geoff you have been thoroughly smoke-dried," interrupted Bowker, at whom Margaret shot a short quick glance, half of interrogation, half of gratitude.

They said no more on the smoke subject just then, but proceeded to a thorough examination of the picture which Charley Potts pronounced "regularly stunning," and which Mr. Bowker criticised in a much less explosive manner. He praised the drawing, the painting, the general arrangement; he allowed that Geoffrey was doing every thing requisite to obtain for himself name, fame, and wealth in the present day; but he very much doubted whether that was all that was needed. With the French judge he would very much have doubted the necessity of living, if to live implied the abnegation of the first grand principles of art, its humanising and elevated influence. Bowker saw no trace of these in the undeniable cleverness of the Brighton Esplanade; and though he was by no means sparing of his praise, his lack of enthusiasm, as compared with the full-flavoured ecstasy of Charley Potts, struck upon Margaret's ear. Shortly afterwards, while Geoffrey and Potts were deep in a discussion on colour, she turned to Mr. Bowker, and said abruptly:

"You are not satisfied with Geoffrey's picture?"

He smiled somewhat grimly as he said, "Satisfied is a very strong word, Mrs. Ludlow. There are some of us in the world who have sufficient good sense not to be satisfied with what we do ourselves--"

"That's true, Heaven knows," she interrupted involuntarily.

"And are consequently not particularly likely to be content with what's done by other people. I think Geoff's picture good, very good of its sort; but I don't--I candidly confess--like its sort. He is a man full of appreciation of nature, character, and sentiment; a min who, in the expression of his own art, is as capable of rendering poetic feeling as--By Jove, now why didn't he think of that subject that Charley Potts has got under weigh just now? That would have suited Geoff exactly."

"What is it?"

"Dora--Tennyson's Dora, you know." Margaret bowed in acquiescence. "There's a fine subject, if you like. Charley's painting it very well, so far as it goes; but he doesn't feel it. Now Geoff would. A man must have something more than facile manipulation; he must have the soul of a poet before he could depict the expression which must necessarily be on such a face. There are few who could understand, fewer still who could interpret to others, such heart-feelings of that most beautiful of Tennyson's creations as would undoubtedly show themselves in her face; the patient endurance of unrequited love, which 'loves on through all ills, and loves on till she dies;' which neither the contempt nor the death of its object can extinguish, but which then flows, in as pure, if not as strong, a current towards his widow and his child."

Margaret had spoken at first, partly for the sake of saying something, partly because her feeling for her husband admitted of great pride in his talent, which she thought Bowker had somewhat slighted. But now she was thoroughly roused, her eyes bright, her hair pushed back off her face, listening intently to him. When he ceased, she looked up strangely, and said:

"Do you believe in the existence of such love?"

"O yes," he replied; "it's rare, of course. Especially rare is the faculty of loving hopelessly without the least chance of return--loving stedfastly and honestly as Dora did, I mean. With most people unrequited love turns into particularly bitter hatred, or into that sentimental maudlin state of 'broken heart,' which is so comforting to its possessor and so wearying to his friends. But there are exceptional cases where such love exists, and in these, no matter how fought against, it can never be extinguished."

"I suppose you are right," said Margaret; "there must be such instances."

Bowker looked hard at her, but she had risen from her seat and was rejoining the others.

"What's your opinion of Mrs. Ludlow, William?" asked Charley Potts, as they walked away puffing their pipes in the calm summer night air. "Handsome woman, isn't she?"

"Very handsome!" replied Bowker; "wondrously handsome!" Then reflectively--"It's a long time since your William has seen any thing like that. All in all--face, figure, manner--wondrously perfect! She walks like a Spaniard, and--"

"Yes, Geoff's in luck; at least I suppose he is. There's something about her which is not quite to my taste. I think I like a British element, which is not to be found in her. I don't know what it is--only something--well, something less of the duchess about her. I don't think she's quite in our line--is she, Bowker, old boy?"

"That's because you're very young in the world's ways, Charley, and also because Geoff's wife is not very like Geoff's sister, I'm thinking." Whereat Mr. Potts grew very red, told his friend to "shut up!" and changed the subject.

"That night Mr. Bowker sat on the edge of his truckle-bed in his garret in Hart Street, Bloomsbury, holding in his left hand a faded portrait in a worn morocco case. He looked at it long and earnestly, while his right hand wafted aside the thick clouds of tobacco-smoke pouring over it from his pipe. He knew every line of it, every touch of colour in it; but he sat gazing at it this night as though it were an entire novelty, studying it with a new interest.

"Yes," said he at length, "she's very like you, my darling, very like you,--hair, eyes, shape, all alike; and she seems to have that same clinging, undying love which you had, my darling--that same resistless, unquenchable, undying love. But that love is not for Geoff; God help him, dear fellow! that love is not for Geoff!"

[CHAPTER VIII.]

MARGARET AND ANNIE.

The meeting between Margaret and Annie Maurice, which Geoffrey had so anxiously desired, had taken place, but could scarcely be said to have been successful in its result. With the best intention possible, and indeed with a very earnest wish that these two women should like each other very much, Geoff had said so much about the other to each, as to beget a mutual distrust and dislike before they became acquainted. Margaret could not be jealous of Geoffrey; her regard for him was not sufficiently acute to admit any such feeling. But she rebelled secretly against the constant encomiastic mention of Annie, and grew wearied at and annoyed with the perpetually-iterated stories of Miss Maurice's goodness with which Geoffrey regaled her. A good daughter! Well, what of that? She herself had been a good daughter until temptation assailed her, and probably Miss Maurice had never been tempted.--So simple, honest, and straightforward! Yes, she detested women of that kind; behind the mask of innocence and virtue they frequently carried on the most daring schemes. Annie in her turn thought she had heard quite enough about Mrs. Ludlow's hair and eyes, and wondered Geoff had never said any thing about his wife's character or disposition. It was quite right, of course, that he, an artist, should marry a pretty person; but he was essentially a man who would require something more than mere beauty in his life's companion, and as yet he had not hinted at any accomplishments which his wife possessed. There was a something in Lord Caterham's tone, when speaking to and of Geoffrey Ludlow, which had often jarred upon Annie's ear, and which she now called to mind in connection with these thoughts--a certain tinge of pity more akin to contempt than to love. Annie had noticed that Caterham never assumed this tone when he was talking to Geoffrey about his art; then he listened deferentially or argued with spirit; but when matters of ordinary life formed the topics of conversation her cousin seemed to regard Geoffrey as a kind of large-hearted boy, very generous very impulsive, but thoroughly inexperienced. Could Arthur Caterham's reading of Geoffrey Ludlow's character be the correct one? Was he, out of his art, so weak, vacillating, and easily led? and had he been caught by mere beauty of face? and had he settled himself down to pass his life with a woman of whose disposition he knew nothing? Annie Maurice put this question to herself with a full conviction that she would be able to answer it after her introduction to Mrs. Ludlow.

About a week after Geoffrey had given his first drawing-lesson in St. Barnabas Square, Annie drove off one afternoon to Elm Lodge in Lady Beauport's barouche. She had begged hard to be allowed to go in a cab, but Lord Caterham would not hear of it; and as Lady Beauport had had a touch of neuralgia (there were very few illnesses she permitted to attack her, and those only of an aristocratic nature), and had been confined to the house, no objection was made. So the barouche, with the curly-wigged coachman and silver-headed footmen on the box, went spinning through Camden and Kentish Towns, where the coachman pointed with his whip to rows of small houses bordering the roadside, and wondered what sort of people could live "in such little 'oles;" and the footman expressed his belief that the denizens were "clerks and poor coves of that kind," The children of the neighbourhood ran out in admiration of the whole turn-out, and especially of the footman's hair, which afforded them subject-matter for discussion during the evening, some contending that his head had been snowed upon; some insisting that it "grew so;" and others propounding a belief that he was a very old man, and that his white hair was merely natural. When the carriage dashed up to the gates of Elm Lodge, the Misses Coverdale next door were, as they afterwards described themselves, "in a perfect twitter of excitement;" because, though good carriages and handsome horses were by no means rare in the pretty suburb, no one had as yet ventured to ask his servant to wear hair-powder; and the coronet, immediately spied on the panels, had a wonderful effect.

The visit was not unexpected by either Margaret or Geoffrey; but the latter was at the moment closely engaged with Mr. Stompff, who had come up to make an apparently advantageous proposition; so that when Annie Maurice was shown into the drawing-room, she found Margaret there alone. At sight of her, Annie paused in sheer admiration. Margaret was dressed in a light striped muslin; her hair taken off her face and twisted into a large roll behind; her only ornaments a pair of long gold earrings. At the announcement of Miss Maurice's name, a slight flush came across her face, heightening its beauty. She rose without the smallest sign of hurry, grandly and calmly, and advanced a few paces. She saw the effect she had produced and did not intend that it should be lessened. It was Annie who spoke first, and Annie's hand was the first outstretched.

"I must introduce myself, Mrs. Ludlow," said she, "though I suppose you have heard of me from your husband. He and I are very old friends."

"O, Miss Maurice?" said Margaret, as though half doubtful to whom she was talking. "O yes; Geoffrey has mentioned your name several times. Pray sit down."

All this in the coldest tone and with the stiffest manner. Prejudiced originally, Margaret, in rising, had caught a glimpse through the blinds of the carriage, and regarded it as an assertion of dignity and superiority on her visitor's part, which must be at once counteracted.

"I should have come to see you long before, Mrs. Ludlow, but my time is not my own, as you probably know; and--"

"Yes, Mr. Ludlow told me you were Lady Beauport's companion." A hit at the carriage there.

"Yes," continued Annie with perfect composure, though she felt the blow, "I am Lady Beauport's companion, and consequently not a free agent, or, as I said, I should have called on you long ago."

Margaret had expected a hit in exchange for her own, which she saw had taken effect. A little mollified by her adversary's tolerance, she said:

"I should have been very glad to see you, Miss Maurice; and in saying so I pay no compliment; for I should have been very glad to see any body to break this fearful monotony."

"You find it dull here?"

"I find it dreary in the extreme."

"And I was only thinking how perfectly charming it is. This sense of thorough quiet is of all things the most pleasant to me. It reminds me of the place where the happiest days in my life have been passed; and now, after the fever and excitement of London, it seems doubly grateful. But perhaps you have been accustomed to gaiety."

"Yes; at least, if not to gaiety, to excitement; to having every hour of the day filled up with something to do; to finding the time flown before I scarcely knew it had arrived, instead of watching the clock and wondering that it was not later in the day."

"Ah, then of course you feel the change very greatly at first; but I think you will find it wear off. One's views of life alter so after we have tried the new phase for a little time. It seems strange my speaking to you in this way, Mrs. Ludlow; but I have had a certain amount of experience. There was my own dear home; and then I lived with my uncle at a little country parsonage, and kept house for him; and then I became--Lady Beauport's companion."

A bright red patch burned on Margaret's cheek as Annie said these words. Was it shame? Was the quiet earnestness, the simple courtesy and candour of this frank, bright-eyed girl getting over her?

"That was very difficult at first, I confess," Annie continued; "every thing was so strange to me, just as it may be to you here, but I had come from the quietude to the gaiety; and I thought at one time it would be impossible for me to continue there. But I held on, and I manage to get on quite comfortably now. They are all very kind to me; and the sight of Mr. Ludlow occasionally insures my never forgetting the old days."

"It would be strange if they were not kind to you," said Margaret, looking fixedly at her. "I understand now what Geoffrey has told me about you. We shall be friends, shall we not?" suddenly extending her hand.

"The very best of friends!" said Annie, returning the pressure; "and, dear Mrs. Ludlow, you will soon get over this feeling of dulness. These horrible household duties, which are so annoying at first, become a regular part of the day's business, and, unconsciously to ourselves, we owe a great deal to them for helping us through the day. And then you must come out with me whenever I can get the carriage,--O, Ive brought Lady Beaupores card, and she is coming herself as soon as she gets out again,--and we'll go for a drive in the Park. I can quite picture to myself the sensation you would make."

Margaret smiled--a strange hard smile--but said nothing.

"And then you must be fond of reading; and I don't know whether Mr. Ludlow has changed, but there was nothing he used to like so much as being read to while he was at work. Whenever he came to the Priory, papa and I used to sit in the little room where he painted and take it in turns to read to him. I daresay he hasn't liked to ask you, fearing it might bore you; and you haven't liked to suggest it, from an idea that you might interrupt his work."

"O yes, Ive no doubt it will come right," said Margaret, indisposed to enter into detail; "and I know I can rely on your help; only one thing--don't mention what I have said to Geoffrey, please; it might annoy him; and he is so good, that I would not do that for the world."

"He will not hear a word of it from me. It would annoy him dreadfully, I know. He is so thoroughly wrapped up in you, that to think you were not completely happy would cause him great pain. Yes, he is good. Papa used to say he did not know so good a man, and--"

The door opened as she spoke, and Geoff entered the room. His eyes brightened as he saw the two women together in close conversation; and he said with a gay laugh:

"Well, little Annie you've managed to find us out, have you?--come away from the marble halls, and brought 'vassals and serfs by your side,' and all the king's horses and all the king's men, up to our little hut. And you introduced yourself to Margaret, and you're beginning to understand one another, eh?"

"I think we understand each other perfectly; and what nonsense you talk about the vassals and king's horses, and all that! They would make me have the carriage; and no one but a horrible democrat like you would see any harm in using it."

"Democrat?--I?--the stanchest supporter of our aristocracy and our old institutions. I intend to have a card printed, with 'Instruction in drawing to the youthful nobility and gentry. References kindly permitted to the Earl of B., Lord C., &c.'--Well, my child," turning to Margaret, "you'll think your husband more venerable than ever after seeing this young lady; and remembering that he used to nurse her in his arms."

"I have been telling Miss Maurice that now I have seen her, I can fully understand all you have said about her; and she has promised to come and see me often, and to take me out with her."

"That's all right," said Geoffrey; "nothing will please me better.--It's dull for her here, Annie, all alone; and I'm tied to my easel all day."

"O, that will be all right, and we shall get on capitally together, shall we not, Annie?"

And the women kissed one another, and followed Geoffrey into the garden.

That was the brightest afternoon Margaret had spent for many a day. The carriage was dismissed to the inn, there to be the admiration of the ostlers and idlers while the coachman and footman, after beer, condescended to play skittles and to receive the undisguised compliments of the village boys. Geoffrey went back to his work; and Margaret and Annie had a long talk, in which, though it was not very serious, Annie's good sense perpetually made itself felt, and at the end of which Margaret felt calmer, happier, and more hopeful than she had felt since her marriage. After the carriage had driven away, she sat pondering over all that had been said. This, then, was the Miss Maurice against whom she had conceived such a prejudice, and whom "she was sure she could never like?" And now, here, at their very first meeting, she had given her her confidence, and listened to her as though she had been her sister! What a calm quiet winning way she had! with what thorough good sense she talked! Margaret had expected to find her a prim old-maidish kind of person, younger, of course, but very much of the same type as the Miss Coverdales next door, utterly different from the fresh pretty-looking girl full of spirits and cheerfulness. How admirably she would have suited Geoff as a wife! and yet what was there in her that she (Margaret) could not acquire? It all rested with herself; her husband's heart was hers, firmly and undoubtedly, and she only needed to look her lot resolutely in the face, to conform to the ordinary domestic routine, as Annie had suggested, and all would be well. O, if she could but lay the ghosts of that past which haunted her so incessantly, if she could but forget him, and all the associations connected with him, her life might yet be thoroughly happy!

And Annie, what did she think of her new acquaintance? Whatever her sentiments were, she kept them to herself, merely saying in answer to questions that Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen; that she could say with perfect truth and in all sincerity; but as to the rest, she did not know--she could scarcely make up her mind. During the first five minutes of their interview she hated her, at least regarded her with that feeling which Annie imagined was hate, but which was really only a mild dislike. There were few women, Annie supposed, who could in cold blood, and without the slightest provocation, have committed such an outrage as that taunt about her position in Lady Beauport's household; but then again there were few who would have so promptly though silently acknowledged the fault and endeavoured to make reparation for it. How openly she spoke! how bitterly she bemoaned the dulness of her life That did not argue well for Geoffrey's happiness; but doubtless Mrs. Ludlow had reason to feel dull, as have most brides taken from their home and friends, and left to spend the day by themselves; but if she had really loved her husband, she would have hesitated before thus complaining to a stranger--would for his sake have either endeavoured to throw some explanatory gloss over the subject, or remained silent about it. She did not seem, so far as Annie saw, to have made any attempt to please her husband, or indeed to care to do so. How different she was from what Annie had expected! how different from all her previous experience of young married women, who indeed generally "gushed" dreadfully, and were painfully extravagant in their laudations of their husbands when they were absent, and in their connubialities when they were present. Geoffrey's large eloquent eyes had melted into tenderness as he looked at her; but she had not returned the glance, had not interchanged with him one term of endearment, one chance pressure of the hand. What did it all mean? What was that past gaiety and excitement to which she said she had been accustomed? What were her antecedents? In the whole of her long talk with Annie, Margaret had spoken always of the future, never of the past. It was of what she should do that she asked counsel; never mentioning what she had done; never alluding to any person, place, or circumstance connected with her existence previously to her having become Geoffrey Ludlow's wife. What were her antecedents? Once or twice during their talk she had used an odd word, a strange phrase, which grated on Annie's ear; but her manner was that of a well-bred gentlewoman; and in all the outward and visible signs of race, she might have been the purest aristocrat.

Meantime her beauty was undeniable, was overwhelming. Such hair and eyes Annie had dreamed of, but had never seen. She raved about them until Caterham declared she must puzzle her brain to find some excuse for his going to Elm Lodge to see this wonderful woman. She described Margaret to Lady Beauport, who was good enough to express a desire to see "the young person." She mentioned her to Algy Barford, who listened and then said, "Nice! nice! Caterham, dear old boy! you and I will take our slates and go up to--what's the name of the place?--to learn drawing. Must learn on slates, dear boy. Don't you recollect the house of our childhood with the singular perspective and an enormous amount of smoke, like wool, coming out of the chimneys? Must have been a brewery by the amount of smoke, by Jove! And the man in the cocked-hat, with no stomach to speak of, and both his arms very thin with round blobs at the end growing out of one side. Delicious reminiscences of one's childhood, by Jove!"

And then Annie took to sketching after-memory portraits of Margaret, first mere pencil outlines, then more elaborate shaded attempts and finally a water-colour reminiscence, which was anything but bad. This she showed to Lord Caterham, who was immensely pleased with it, and who insisted that Barford should see it. So one morning when that pleasantest of laughing philosophers was smoking his after-breakfast cigar (at about noon) in Caterham's room, mooning about amongst the nick-nacks, and trotting out his little scraps of news in his own odd quaint fashion, Annie, who had heard from Stephens of his arrival, came in, bringing the portrait with her.

"Enter, Miss Maurice!" said Algy; "always welcome, but more especially welcome when she brings some delicious little novelty, such as I see she now holds under her arm. What would the world be without novelty?--Shakespeare. At least, if that delightful person did not make that remark, it was simply because he forgot it; for it's just one of those sort of things which he put so nicely. And what is Miss Maurice's novelty?"

"O! it's no novelty at all, Mr. Barford. Only a sketch of Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow, of whom I spoke to you the other day. You recollect?"

"Recollect! the Muse of painting! Terps--Clio--no matter! a charming person from whom we were to have instruction in drawing, and who lives at some utterly unsearchable place! Of course I recollect! And you have a sketch of her there? Now, my dear Miss Maurice, don't keep me in suspense any longer, but let me look at it at once." But when the sketch was unrolled and placed before him, it had the very singular effect of reducing Algy Barford to a state of quietude. Beyond giving one long whistle he never uttered a sound, but sat with parted lips and uplifted eyebrows gazing at the picture for full five minutes. Then he said, "This is like, of course, Miss Maurice?"

"Well, I really think I may say it is. It is far inferior to the original in beauty, of course; but I think I have preserved her most delicate features."

"Just so. Her hair is of that peculiar colour, and her eyes a curious violet, eh?"

"Yes."

"This sketch gives one the notion of a tall woman with a full figure."

"Yes; she is taller than I, and her figure is thoroughly rounded and graceful."