ROSE, BLANCHE,
AND
VIOLET.

BY

G. H. LEWES, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF "RANTHORPE,"
"BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC. ETC.

Il n'y a point de vertu proprement dite, sans victoire sur
nous-mêmes, et tout ce qui ne nous coûte rien, ne vaut rien.

DE MAISTRE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
——
1848.

London:
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
Old Bailey.

DÉDICACE.

——

A MONSIEUR BENJAMIN MOREL

(DE DUNKERQUE),

COMME UN
AFFECTUEUX SOUVENIR
DE L' AUTEUR,

G. H. LEWES.

PREFACE.

When a distinct Moral presides over the composition of a work of fiction, there is great danger of its so shaping the story to suit a purpose, that human nature is falsified by being coerced within the sharply defined limits of some small dogma.

So conscious of this did I become in the progress of my story, that I was forced to abandon my original intention, in favour of a more natural evolution of incident and character; accordingly, the Moral has been left to shift for itself. It was a choice between truth of passion and character, on the one hand, and on the other, didactic clearness. I could not hesitate in choosing the former.

And yet, as Hegel truly says, "in every work of Art there is a Moral; but it depends on him who draws it." If, therefore, the reader insists upon a Moral, he may draw one from the passions here exhibited; and the value of it will depend upon his own sagacity.

From Life itself I draw one great moral, which I may be permitted to say is illustrated in various ways by the present work; and it is this:—

Strength of Will is the quality most needing cultivation in mankind. Will is the central force which gives strength and greatness to character. We over-estimate the value of Talent, because it dazzles us; and we are apt to underrate the importance of Will, because its works are less shining. Talent gracefully adorns life; but it is Will which carries us victoriously through the struggle. Intellect is the torch which lights us on our way; Will, the strong arm which rough hews the path for us. The clever, weak man sees all the obstacles on his path; the very torch he carries, being brighter than that of most men, enables him, perhaps, to see that the path before him may be directest, the best,—yet it also enables him to see the crooked turnings by which he may, as he fancies, reach the goal without encountering difficulties. If, indeed, Intellect were a sun, instead of a torch,—if it irradiated every corner and crevice—then would man see how, in spite of every obstacle, the direct path was the only safe one, and he would cut his way through by manful labour. But constituted as we are, it is the clever, weak men who stumble most—the strong men who are most virtuous and happy. In this world, there cannot be virtue without strong Will; the weak "know the right, and yet the wrong pursue."

No one, I suppose, will accuse me of deifying Obstinacy, or even mere brute Will; nor of depreciating Intellect. But we have had too many dithyrambs in honour of mere Intelligence; and the older I grow, the clearer I see that Intellect is not the highest faculty in man, although the most brilliant. Knowledge, after all, is not the greatest thing in life: it is not the "be-all and the end-all here." Life is not Science. The light of Intellect is truly a precious light; but its aim and end is simply to shine. The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced—that without intelligence we should be brutes—but it is the tendency of our gaping wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.

KENSINGTON, March 1848.

[Transcriber's note: In the Book II section of the Contents, there was no entry for Chapter IX, nor was there a chapter by that number in the source book. The book's actual text appears to be complete.]

CONTENTS.

[PROLOGUE]

BOOK I.

CHAPTER

I.—[Four Years Later]
II.—[Rose Writes to Violet]
III.—[The Happy School-days]
IV.—[Rose and Blanche at Home]
V.—[Marmaduke meets Mrs. Vyner]
VI.—[How Rose became acquainted with our Ugly Hero]
VII.—[Rose Vyner Writes to Fanny Worsley]
VIII.—[Mrs. Langley Turner, and her Friends]
IX.—[Two Portraits]
X.—[Declaration of War]
XI.—[One of our Heroes]

BOOK II.

CHAPTER

I.—[Cecil Chamberlayne to Frank Forrester]
II.—[Rose to Fanny Worsley]
III.—[Cecil is Smitten]
IV.—[Cecil Exhibits Himself]
V.—[A Trait of Julius St. John]
VI.—[Hidden Meanings]
VII.—[Mutual Self-Examination]
VIII.—[The Disadvantages of Ugliness]
X.—[The Great Commentator]
XI.—[Cecil again Writes to Frank]
XII.—[Cecil put to the Test]
XIII.—[How a Lover Vacillates]
XIV.—[Jealousy]
XV.—[The Lovers Meet]
XVI.—[The Discovery]
XVII.—[The Sacrifice]
XVIII.—[Cecil in his True Colours]
XIX.—[The Perils of One Night]
XX.—[Captain Heath Watches over Blanche]

ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.

PROLOGUE.

1835.

It was a sultry day in July, and the sun was pouring down from a cloudless heaven intense rays upon the High-street of * * * * * The heat made the place a desert; more indeed of a desert than even High-streets of country towns usually are. There was a burnt odour in the atmosphere, arising from the scorched pavement, and rayed forth from the garish brick houses. Silence and noon-day heat reigned over the scene. The deep stillness was brought out into stronger relief by the occasional bark of a dog, or rumbling of a solitary cart.

A few human beings dotted the street, at wide intervals. There was a groom standing at the stable-yard entrance of the Royal George, indolently chewing a blade of grass. The clergyman's wife, hot, dusty, and demure, was shopping. A farmer had just dismounted from a robust white cob, which he left standing at the door of a dismal red-brick house, on the wire blinds of which was painted the word—BANK. Higher up, three ragged urchins were plotting mischief, or arranging some game. A proud young mother was dandling her infant at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware of the important fact of her maternity—to be sure, there never was such a beautiful baby before! In the window of that shop—it was a grocer's—a large black cat was luxuriously sleeping on a bed of moist sugar, sunning herself there, too lazy even to disturb the flies which crowded to the spot.

To one who, a stranger to the place, merely cast his eyes down that street, nothing could appear more lifeless—more devoid of all human interest—more unchequered by the vicissitudes of passion. It had the calm of the desert, without the grandeur. In such a place, the current of life would seem monotonously placid; existence itself scarcely better than vegetation. It is not so, however. To those who inhabited the place, it was known that beneath the stillness a stratum of boiling lava was ever ready to burst forth. Every house was really the theatre of some sad comedy, or of some grotesque tragedy. The shop which to an unfamiliar eye was but the depository of retail goods, with John Smith as the retailer, was to an inhabitant the well-known scene of some humble heroism, or ridiculous pretension. John Smith, smirking behind his counter, is not simply an instrument of commerce; he is a husband, a father, and a citizen; he has his follies, his passions, his hopes, and his opinions; he is the object of unreckoned scandals.

To the eye of the stranger who now leisurely paced the street, the town was dull and lifeless, because it had not the incessant noise of a capital, and because he knew nothing of the dramas which were being enacted within its walls. Yet even he was soon to learn that sorrow, "not loud but deep," was weeping ineffectually over a tragedy which touched him nearly.

He was a man of about thirty years of age, with the unmistakeable look of a gentleman, and, to judge from his moustaches and erect bearing, an officer in the army. As he passed her, the proud young mother ceased for a moment to think only of her child, and followed with admiring eyes his retreating form. The echo of his sharp, decisive tread rang through the silent street; and soon he disappeared, turning up towards a large house which fronted the sea.

He knocked at the door, and with an unconscious coquetry smoothed his dark moustache while waiting. The door was opened by a grey-haired butler.

"How d' ye do, Wilson? Are they at home—eh! what's this? you in mourning?"

"Yes, sir. What! don't you know, sir?"

"Good God! what has happened? Is Mrs. Vyner——?"

"Yes, sir, yes," replied the butler, shaking his head sorrowfully. "It has been a dreadful blow, sir, to master, and to the young ladies. She was buried Monday week."

The stranger was almost stupefied by this sudden shock.

"Dead!" he exclaimed; "dead! Good God!—So young, so young.—Dead!—So beautiful and good.—Dead!"

"Ah, sir, master will never get over it. He does take on so. I never saw any one, never; and the young ladies——"

"Dead!"

"Will you please to walk up, sir? Master would like to see you."

"No, no, no."

"It will comfort him; indeed, sir, it will. He likes to talk to any one, sir, about the party that's gone."

The tears came into the old man's eyes as he thus alluded to his lost mistress, and the stranger was too much affected to notice the singular language in which the butler spoke of "the party."

After a few moments' consideration, the stranger walked up into the drawing-room, while the servant went to inform Mr. Vyner of the visit. Left to himself, and to the undisturbed indulgence of those feelings of solemn sadness by which we are always affected at the sudden death of those we know, especially of the young—shaking us as it does in the midst of our own security, and bringing terribly home the conviction of that fact which health and confidence keep in a dim obscurity, that "in the midst of life we are in death"—the stranger, whom we shall now name as Captain Heath, walked up to a miniature of the deceased, and gazed upon it in melancholy curiosity.

Captain Heath had lost a dear friend in Mrs. Vyner, with whom he had been a great favourite. To his credit be it said, that, although the handsome wife of a man much older than herself, he had never for an instant misinterpreted her kindness towards him; and this, too, although he was an officer in the Hussars. Theirs was truly and strictly a friendship between man and woman, as pure as it was firm; founded upon mutual esteem and sympathy. Some malicious whispers were, indeed, from time to time ventured on—for who can entirely escape them?—but they never gained much credence. Mrs. Vyner's whole life was an answer to calumny.

Meredith Vyner, of Wytton Hall, Devonshire, was the kindest if not the most fascinating of husbands. A book-worm and pedant, he had the follies of his tribe, and was as open to ridicule as the worst of them; but, with all his foibles, he was a kind, gentle, weak, indolent creature, who made many friends, and, what is more, retained them.

There was something remarkable though not engaging in his appearance. He looked like a dirty bishop. In his pale puffy face there was an ecclesiastical mildness, which assorted well with a large forehead and weak chin, though it brought into stronger contrast the pugnacity of a short blunt nose, the nostrils of which were somewhat elevated and garnished with long black hairs. A physiognomist would at once have pronounced him obstinate, but weak; loud in the assertion of his intentions, vacillating in their execution. His large person was curiously encased in invariable black; a tail-coat with enormous skirts, in which were pockets capacious enough to contain a stout volume; the waistcoat of black silk, liberally sprinkled with grains of snuff, reached below the waist, and almost concealed the watch-chain and its indefinite number of gold seals which dangled from the fob; of his legs he was as proud as men usually are who have an ungraceful development of calf; and hence, perhaps, the reason of his adhering to the black tights of our fathers. Shoes, large, square, and roomy, with broad silver buckles, completed his invariable and somewhat anachronical attire.

People laughed at Meredith Vyner for his dirty nails and his love of Horace (whom he was always quoting, without regard to the probability of his hearers understanding Latin—for the practice seemed involuntary); but they respected him for his integrity and goodness, and for his great, though ill-assorted, erudition. In a word, he was laughed at, but there was no malice in the laughter.

As Captain Heath stood gazing on the miniature of his lost friend, a heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder; and on turning round he beheld Meredith Vyner, on whose large, pale face sorrow had deepened the lines: his eyes were bloodshot and swollen with crying. In silence, they pressed each other's hands for some moments, both unable to speak. At last, in a trembling voice, Vyner said, "Gone, gone! She's gone from us."

Heath responded by a fervent pressure of the hand.

"Only three weeks ill," continued the wretched widower; "and so unexpected!"

"She died without pain," he added, after a pause; "sweetly resigned. She is in heaven now. I shall follow her soon: I feel I shall. I cannot survive her loss."

"Do not forget your children."

"I do not; I will not. Is not one of them her child? I will struggle for its sake. So young to be cut off!"

There was another pause, in which each pursued the train of his sad thoughts. The hot air puffed through the blinds of the darkened room, and the muffled sounds of distant waves breaking upon the shore were faintly heard.

"Come with me," said Vyner, rising.

He led the captain into the bed-room.

"There she lay," he said, pointing to the bed: "you see the mark of the coffin on the coverlet? I would not have it disturbed. It is the last trace she left."

The tears rolled down his cheek as he gazed upon this frightful memento.

"In this room I sat up a whole night when they laid her in the coffin, and all night as I gazed upon those loved features, placid in their eternal repose, I was constantly fancying that she breathed, and that her bosom heaved again with life. Alas! it was but the mockery of my love. She remained cold to my kiss—insensible to the tenderness which watched over her. Yet I could not leave her. It was foolish, perhaps, but it was all that remained to me. To gaze upon her was painful, yet there was pleasure in that pain. The face which had smiled such sunshine on me, which had so often looked up to mine in love, that face was now cold, lifeless—but it was hers, and I could not leave it. My poor, poor girl!"

His sobs interrupted him. Captain Heath had no disposition to check a grief which would evidently wear itself away much more rapidly by thus dwelling on the subject, than by any effort to drive it from the mind. To say the truth, Heath was himself too much moved to speak. The long, sharply-defined trace of the coffin on the coverlet was to him more terrible than the sight of the corpse could have been; it was so painfully suggestive.

"The second night," continued Vyner, "they prevailed on me to go to bed; but I could not sleep. No sooner did I drop into an uneasy doze, than some horrible dream aroused me. My waking thoughts were worse. I was continually fancying the rats would—would—ugh! At last, I got up and went into the room. Who should be there, but Violet! The dear child was in her night-dress, praying by the side of the bed! She did not move when I came in. I knelt down with her. We both offered up our feeble prayers to Him who had been pleased to take her from us. We prayed together, we wept together. We kissed gently the pale rigid face, and then the dear child suffered me to lead her away without a word. It was only then that I suspected the depth of Violet's grief. She had not cried so much as Rose and Blanche. I thought she was too young to feel the loss. But from that moment I understood the strange light which plays in her eyes when she speaks of her mother."

He stooped over the bed and kissed it; and then, quite overcome, he threw himself upon a chair, and buried his face in his hands. The ceaseless wash of the distant waves was now distinctly heard, and it gave a deeper melancholy to the scene. Captain Heath's feelings were so wound up, that the room was becoming insupportable to him, and desirous of shaking off these impressions, he endeavoured to console his friend.

"I ought to be more firm," said Vyner, rising, "but I cannot help it. I am not ashamed of these tears—

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?

But I ought not to distress others by them."

He led the way down stairs, and, as the children were out, made Heath promise to return to dinner; "it would help to make them all more cheerful."

Captain Heath departed somewhat shocked at the pedantry which in such a moment could think of Horace; and by that very pedantry he was awakened to a sense of the ludicrous figure which sorrow had made of Vyner.

We are so constituted that, while scarcely anything disturbs our hilarity, the least incongruity which seems to lessen the earnestness of grief, chills our sympathy at once. Vyner's quotation introduced into the mind of his friend an undefined suspicion of the sincerity of that grief which could admit of such incongruity. But the suspicion was unjust. It was not pedantry which dictated that quotation. Pedantry is the pride and ostentation of learning, and at that moment Vyner was assuredly not thinking of displaying an acquaintance with the Latin poet. He was simply obeying a habit; he gave utterance to a sentence which his too faithful memory presented.

Captain Heath walked on the sands musing. He had not gone far before his eye was caught by the appearance of two girls in deep mourning; a second glance assured him they were Vyner's daughters. Walking rapidly towards them, he was received with affectionate interest.

Quickly recovering from the depression which the sight of him at first awakened, they began with the happy volatility of childhood, to ask him all sorts of questions.

"But where is my little Violet?" asked the captain.

"Oh! she's sitting on the ledge of a rock yonder, listening to the sea," said Blanche.

"Yes," added Rose, "it is very extraordinary—she says the sea has voices in it which speak to her. She cannot tell us what it says, but it makes her happy. But she cries a great deal, and that doesn't look like happiness, does it, Captain Heath?"

"No, Rosebud, not very. But let me go to her."

"Yes, do; come along."

The three moved on together, and presently came to the rock, on a ledge of which a little girl was lounging. Her hat was off, and her long dark brown hair was scattered over her shoulders by the wind. Her face was towards the horizon, and she seemed intently watching.

From the two little traits of her drawn by her father and her sisters, Captain Heath, who had not seen her since she was a merry little thing of seven, anticipated a sickly precocious child, in whom reading or conversation had engendered some of that spiritual exaltation, which is mostly three parts affectation to one part disease. He was agreeably disappointed. She had not noticed their arrival, but on being spoken to, embraced the captain with warmth, and received him in a perfectly natural manner.

To set his doubts at rest, he said:—

"Well, Violet, has the sea been eloquent to-day, or is it too calm?"

She looked up at him, then at her sisters, and coloured. "I see they have been making fun of me," she said; "but that's not fair. I love to sit by the sea because—" she hesitated, "mama loved it. It isn't foolish of me, is it Captain Heath?"

"No, my dear, not at all—not at all."

"Oh, Captain Heath!" exclaimed Rose, "you said just now it was."

He pinched her little cheek playfully, and was about to reply, when Blanche said:—

"Look, there is Mary Hardcastle walking with Mrs. Henley. Let us go and speak to them. I will introduce you, Captain Heath; she's very pretty."

"Another time," replied he; "they seem to be talking very earnestly together."

"That they are."

"I hate Mary Hardcastle," said Violet.

"Why?"

"I don't know, but I hate her."

"Silly child!" said Rose; "she's always saying kind things to you."

"And always doing unkind ones," rejoined Violet, sharply.

"Hate is a strong word, Violet," said Blanche.

"Not stronger than I want," replied the high-spirited little girl.

All this while the captain was following with his eye the retreating form of the said Mary Hardcastle.

Let us follow also.

"It is hopeless for me to expect my guardian will allow him to come," said that young lady, with great emphasis, to her companion; "you know how much he dislikes Marmaduke. So, unless you consent—you will, won't you?"

"I cannot resist you, Mary. But how is this interview to be arranged?"

"It is arranged. I was so sure of your goodness—I knew you would not let him leave England without seeing me once more, to say farewell; so I told him to call on you this very afternoon, because I was to spend the day with you. Thus, you see, it will all happen in the most natural manner."

Mrs. Henley smiled, shook her forefinger at her young friend; so they walked on, both satisfied.

Having gained this point, it soon occurred to Mary, that Marmaduke might be asked to dine and spend the evening; but as this would expose Mrs. Henley to the chance of some one dropping in, and she was very averse to be supposed to favour these clandestine meetings, a steady refusal was given. Mary inwardly resolved that she would have a farewell meeting with her lover, and alone; but said nothing more on the subject. To have a lover about to sail for Brazil, and to part with him coldly before others, was an idea no young girl could entertain, and least of all Mary Hardcastle. She was too well read in romance to think of such a thing.

It does not occur to every girl, in our unromantic days, to have a stern guardian who dislikes her lover, and forbids him the house. Mary, therefore, might consider herself as greatly favoured by misfortune; her misery was as perfectly select as even her wish could frame, and the great, the thrilling climax—the parting—was at hand. That it should be moonlight was a matter of course—moonlight on the sea-shore.

Mary Hardcastle was just nineteen. There was something wonderfully attractive about her, though it puzzled you to say wherein lay the precise attraction. Very diminutive, and slightly humpbacked, she had somewhat the air of a sprite—so tiny, so agile, so fragile, and cunning did she appear; and this appearance was further aided by the amazing luxuriance of her golden hair, which hung in curls, drooping to her waist. The mixture of deformity and grace in her figure was almost unearthly. She had a skin of exquisite texture and whiteness, and the blood came and went in her face with the most charming mobility. All her features were alive, and all had their peculiar character. The great defects of her face were, the thinness of her lips, and the cat-like cruelty sometimes visible in her small, grey eyes. I find it impossible to convey, in words, the effect of her personal charms. The impression was so mixed up of the graceful and diabolic, of the attractive and repulsive, that I know of no better description of her than is given in Marmaduke's favourite names for her: he called her his "fascinating panther," and his "tiger-eyed sylph."

She had completely enslaved Marmaduke Ashley. With the blood of the tropics in his veins, he had much of the instinct of the savage, and as when a boy he had felt a peculiar passion for snakes and tigers, so in his manhood were there certain fibres which the implacable eyes of Mary Hardcastle made vibrate with a delight no other woman had roused. He was then only twenty-four, and in all the credulity of youth.

Everything transpired according to Mary's wish, and at nine o'clock she contrived to slip away in the evening, unnoticed, to meet her lover on the sands. True it was not moonlight. She had forgotten that the moon would not rise; but, after the first disappointment, she was consoled by the muttering of distant thunder, and the dark and stormy appearance of the night; a storm would have been a more romantic parting scene than any moonlight could afford. So when Marmaduke joined her, she was in a proper state of excitement, and felt as miserable as the most exacting school-girl could require. The sea, as it broke sullenly upon the shore, heaved not its bosom with a heavier sigh, than that with which she greeted her lover, and nestled in his arms. She wept bitterly, reproached her fate, and wished to die that moment. Marmaduke, who had never before seen such a display of her affection, was intensely gratified, and with passionate protestations of his undying love, endeavoured to console her.

But she did not want to be consoled. As she could not be happy with him, her only relief was to be miserable. Self-pity was the balm for her wounds. By making herself thoroughly wretched, she stood well in her own opinion. In fact, without her being aware of it, her love sprang not from the heart, but from the head. She was acting a part in her own drama, and naturally chose the most romantic part.

The storm threatened, but did not burst. The heavens continued dark; and the white streaks of foam cresting the dark waves were almost the only things the eye could discern. The lovers did not venture far from the house, but paced up and down, occasionally pausing in the earnestness of talk.

Their conversation need not be recorded here; the more so as it was but a repetition of one or two themes, such as the misery of their situation, the constancy of their affection, and their sanguineness of his speedy return and their happy union.

"Marmaduke," she said at last, "it is getting late; Mrs. Henley will miss me; I must go."

"A moment longer; one moment."

"Only a moment. Dearest Marmaduke, will you never forget me? Will you think of me always? Will you write as often as you can? Let us every night at twelve look at the moon; it will be so sweet to know that at that moment each is doing the same thing, and each thinking of the other. You will not lose my locket? But, stay; you have never given me a lock of your hair. Do so now."

He took a penknife from his pocket, and, with noble disregard to his appearance, cut off a large lock of his black hair, which he folded in a piece of paper and gave to her. She kissed it many times, and vowed its place should be upon her heart. Then, after throwing herself into his arms, in one last embrace of despair, she broke from him and darted into the house, rushed up into a bed-room, threw herself outside the bed, and gave way to so vehement a fit of crying, that when Mrs. Henley came in to look for her, she found her in hysterics.

Nota bene.—Sixteen months afterwards, Mary Hardcastle became Mrs. Meredith Vyner.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.
FOUR YEARS LATER.

Messire Bon l'a prise en mariage,
Quoiqu'il n'ait plus que quatre cheveux gris;
Mais comme il est le premier du pays
Son bien supplée au défaut de son age.

LAFONTAINE.

My heroines have grown up into young women since we last saw them idling on the sands; and it is proper I should at once give some idea of their appearance. Rose and Blanche, children by the first wife, are very unlike their sister Violet, the only child of the second Mrs. Vyner: they are fair as Englishwomen only are fair; she is dark as the children of the south are dark. They are plump and middle-sized; she is thin and very tall. They are settling into rounded womanhood; she is at that undeveloped "awkward age" when the beauty of womanhood has not yet come to fill the place of the vanished grace of childhood.

Two prettier creatures than Rose and Blanche, it would be impossible to find. There were sisterly resemblances peeping out amidst the most charming differences. I know not which deserved the palm; Rose, with her bright grey eyes swimming in mirth, her little piquant nose with its nostrils so delicately cut, her ruddy pouting lips which Firenzuola would with justice have called 'fontana de tutte le amorose dolcezze,' her dimpled cheeks; and the whole face, in short, radiant with lovingness and enjoyment. Shakspeare, who has said so many exquisite things of women, has painted Rose in one line:—

Pretty and witty, wild, and yet, too, gentle.

But then Blanche, with her long dreamy eyes, loving mouth, and general expression of meekness and devotion, was in her way quite as bewitching. As for poor Violet, she was almost plain: it was only those lustrous eyes, so unlike the eyes of ordinary mortals, which redeemed her thin sallow face. If plain, however, it has already great energy, great character, and a strange mixture of the most womanly caressing gentleness, with haughtiness and wilfulness that are quite startling. Those who remember her as a lovely child, prophesy that she will become a splendid woman.

From the three girls, let us turn our eyes to the strange stepmother which fate—or rather foolishness and cunning—had given them.

Mary Hardcastle, at the age of twenty, was placed in perhaps the most critical position which can await a young woman, viz. that of stepmother to girls very little younger than herself. In that situation, she exhibited uncommon skill; the very difficulties of it were calculated to draw out her strategetical science in the disposition of her troops; and certainly few women have ever arranged circumstances with more adroitness than herself. She was a stepmother indeed, and the reader anticipates what kind of stepmother; but she was too cunning to fall into the ordinary mistake of ostensibly assuming the reins of government. Apparently, she did nothing; she was not the mistress of her own house; she never undertook the management of a single detail. A meek, submissive wife, anxious to gain the affection of her 'dear girls;' trembling before the responsibilities of her situation, she not only deluded the world, but she even deceived Captain Heath, and almost reconciled him to the marriage. Nay, what was more remarkable, she deceived the girls—at least, the two elder girls. They were her companions—her pets. Before people, she adored them; in private, she gave them pretty clearly to understand that all their indulgences came from her; and all their privations from their father. It was her wish, indeed, that her dear girls should want for nothing, but papa was so obstinate—he could not be persuaded.

Strange discrepancies between word and deed would sometimes show themselves, but how was it possible to doubt the sincerity of one whose language and sentiments were so kind and liberal? She herself trembled before her husband, and often got the girls to intercede for her. The natural consequence was that they soon became convinced that papa was very much altered, and that as he grew older he grew less kind.

Altered he was. Formerly he had secluded himself in his study, interfering scarcely at all in family arrangements, making few observations upon what his children did; and if not taking any great interest in them, at least behaving with pretty uniform kindness. Now he was for ever interfering to forbid this, to put a stop to that; discovering that he "really could not afford" that which hitherto he had always allowed them; and, above all, discovering that his daughters were always trying to "govern" in his house.

Violet alone was undeceived. She had always hated Mary Hardcastle, without precisely knowing why; now she hated her because occupying the place which her dear mother had occupied, and that, too, in a spirit of hypocrisy evident in her eyes. Violet, therefore, at once fixed the change in her father upon her stepmother. How it was accomplished, she knew not; but she was certain of the fact.

The mystery was simple. Meredith Vyner, like all weak men, had an irresistible tendency to conceal his weakness from himself, by what he called some act of firmness. He would have his own way, he said. He would not be governed. He would be master in his own house. Mrs. Vyner saw through him at a glance. Wishing to separate him from his children, and so preserve undisputed sway over him, she artfully contrived to persuade him that he had always suffered himself to be governed by his children, and that he had not a will of his own. Thus prompted, he was easily moved to exert his authority with some asperity whenever his wife insinuated that it was disregarded; and he established a character for firmness in his own eyes, by thwarting his daughters, and depriving them of indulgences.

Moreover, Mrs. Vyner was, or affected to be, excessively jealous of his affection for the girls. He neglected her for them, she said; of course she could not expect it to be otherwise, were they not his children? were they not accustomed to have everything give way to them? What was she? an interloper. Yet she loved him—foolishly, perhaps, but she loved him—and love would be jealous, would feel hurt at neglect.

Vyner, delighted and annoyed at this jealousy, assured her that it was groundless; but the only assurance she would accept was acts, not words; accordingly, the poor old man was gradually forced to shut his heart against his girls; or, at any rate, to cease his demonstrations of affection, merely to get peace.

In a few sentences I convey the result of months of artful struggle; but the reader can understand the process by which this result was obtained, especially if I indicate the nature of the empire Mrs. Vyner had established.

Vyner was completely fascinated by the little coquette. It was not only his senses, but his mind, that was subdued. She had early impressed him with two convictions: one, the extreme delicacy of her nerves; the other, her immense superiority to himself. The first conviction was impressed upon him by the alarming hysterics into which contradiction, or any other mental affliction, threw her. If any thing went wrong—if the girls resisted her authority—if her own wishes were not gratified, she did not command, she did not storm; she wept silently, retired to her room, and was found there lifeless, or in an alarming state, by the first person who went in.

The second conviction took more time to establish, but she established it by perpetually dinning into his ear that he could not "understand her." Nor, in truth, could he. She had a lively imagination, and was fond of the most imaginative poetry;—the less disposition he manifested towards it, the more she insinuated how necessary a part it was of all exalted minds. In her views of art, of life, and of religion, she was always exaggerated, and what the Germans call schwärmerisch. Vyner was as prosaic as prose, and owned his incapacity for "those higher raptures" which were said to result from "an exalted ideal." What we do not understand, we always admire or despise. Vyner admired.

One admirable specimen of her tactics was to make him feel that, although she loved him, she did not love him with all the ardour of her passionate nature; and a hope was adroitly held out, that upon him only depended whether she should one day acknowledge that he had her entire affections. To gain this end, what man would not have made himself a slave? If any man could resist such an attraction, Vyner was not that man; and he submitted to every caprice, in the deluded hope of seeing his submission crowned with its reward.

In effect, Mrs. Vyner's will was law; yet so dexterously did she contrive matters, that it always seemed as if Vyner was the sole ordainer of everything. He was the puppet, moving as she pulled the wires, and gaining all the odium for her acts.

Violet, as I said, was the only one who saw this. She read her stepmother's character aright; and by her Mrs. Vyner knew that she was judged. She used her best arts to gain Violet's good opinion, tried to pet her in every way, but nothing availed: the haughty girl was neither to be blinded nor cajoled.

One day Vyner found his wife in tears. He inquired the cause. She wept on, and could not be induced to speak. He entreated her to confide her sorrows to him, which, after long pressing, she did as follows:—

"Oh! it is very natural," she said, sobbing; "very—I have no right to complain: none. I ought never to have married."

"Dearest Mary, what is the matter?"

"I have no right to be afflicted. I ought to have been prepared for it. Of course, it must be so. Yet I did hope to make them love me. I love them so. I tried all I could; but I am a stepmother—every one will tell them that a stepmother is unkind."

"The ungrateful things!"

Vyner was really incensed against his daughters before he knew what they had done, simply because they were the cause of his conjugal peace being disturbed.

"Rose and Blanche, indeed," sobbed his wife, "do give me credit sometimes, but Violet hates me—hates me because I married you. She is jealous of your regard for me. She says you ought never to have married again—perhaps she is right, but it is cruel for me to hear it."

"The wretched girl!"

"She will never forget I am not her mother—she looks upon our marriage as a crime, I believe!"

A spasm, short but sharp, was visible on his face; but the touch of remorse quickly gave way to anger. He felt, indeed, that he had acted wrongly in marrying again, especially in marrying one so young. He knew that well enough, knew what the world must think of it; but nothing, as she knew, made him so angry as any allusion to it. The sense of his fault exasperated his sense of the impertinence of those who ventured to speak of it. He had surely a right to do as he pleased. He loved a charming, a "most superior" woman, and he "supposed he was to be considered, no less than his children." It was very strange that he should be expected to sacrifice everything to them. Other fathers were not so complaisant.

And yet, through all the arguments which irritated self-love could suggest, there pierced the consciousness of his error. That Violet should resent his marriage was no more than natural; but his wife well knew the tender chord she touched, when she thus alluded to his daughter's feelings.

That day she said no more. She allowed herself to be consoled. But by bringing up the subject again from time to time, she contrived to instil into his mind a mingled fear and dislike of his favourite child.

Whenever Violet and her stepmother had any "difference"—which was not unfrequent—Vyner always sided against his daughter; and his wife's demeanour being one of exasperating meekness, as if she were terrified at Violet's vehemence, he always told people that "his youngest daughter was unfortunately such a devil, there was no living with her, and that his wife was tyrannized over in a way that was quite pitiable."

At last, Violet was sent away from home—that she might not corrupt her sisters, it was said—in reality, that she might be got out of the way. Vyner thereby secured peace, and his wife got rid of an unfavourable judge. The poor girl was placed under the care of two "strong-minded" women, who had been duly prejudiced against her, and whose cue it was to work upon her religious feelings, and awaken her to a sense of the duty she owed her parents. She soon detected their object, and rebelled. Disagreeable scenes took place, which ended in Violet escaping from their odious care, and flying to her fox-hunting uncle's, in Worcestershire, where she was received with open arms. Being very fond of his niece, he wrote to Vyner, requesting permission to be allowed to keep her with him for some time, promising she should not want masters, and that her education should be carefully attended to. The permission was granted, after some difficulty, and Violet was happily settled in Worcestershire, while her two sisters, grown too handsome and too old to be kept longer at home, were despatched to the establishment kept by Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith, at Brighton.

Before accompanying them, I have one more point to dwell on, and that was the sudden fit of economy which had seized Mrs. Vyner. The estate, though large, was greatly encumbered, and it was, moreover, entailed. Vyner, always "going" to make some provision for his girls, had never done so; he had,—weak, vacillating, procrastinating man as he was,—"put it off," and trusted, perhaps, to the girls marrying well. Mrs. Vyner determined to economize; to save yearly a large sum, which was to be set aside. In pursuance of this plan, she began the most extraordinary retrenchments, and dressed the girls in a style of plainness and economy by no means in accordance with their feelings. In justice, I should add, that she dressed herself in the same style. People were loud in their praises at her generous self-sacrifice; but, as she sentimentally observed, "for her dear girls she could do anything." Perhaps, of all her efforts at securing the reputation of an exemplary stepmother, none met with such universal approbation as this economical fit. I am sorry to be forced to add, that while economizing even to meanness, in some departments, she was so lavish in her expenditure in others, as, in effect, to plunge Vyner deeper into debt than ever.

CHAPTER II.
ROSE WRITES TO VIOLET.

DEAREST Vi.,

Your letter amused us very much; and we have both for a long while been going to answer it, but have not found time. Don't be angry at our silence.

We left home rather low spirited. Home, indeed, was no longer the happy place it had been, though mama, say what you will, is not to blame for that; but, nevertheless, leaving it made us unhappy. Having grown up into young women without being sent to school, we did not like the idea of going at last.

The snow was falling fast when we arrived; and a dreary January day by no means enlivened our prospects. We looked wistfully out of the carriage-windows, and saw the steady descent of the countless snow-flakes darkening the air, and making the day miserable. Nothing met our eyes but the same endless expanse of snow-covered ground,—cheerless, cold, and desolate—the uncomfort of winter without its picturesqueness. But, cold and cheerless as the day was, it was nothing to the cheerlessness of the frigid politeness and patronizing servility of Miss Smith and Mrs. Wirrelston, our school-mistresses. I am a physiognomist, you know, and from the first moment, I disliked them. Blanche thought them very kind and attentive. I thought them too attentive: the humbugs!

They froze me. I foresaw the mistresses they would make, and that is why I instinctively felt that the miserable day was more genial and clement than they. The snow would cease; in a few hours, gleams of sunshine would make it sparkle; in a few weeks, it would disappear. But the wintry frost of their politeness would deepen and deepen into sterner cold; there was no hope of sunshine under that insincere manner.

I hope you admire that paragraph! But for fear you should imagine I am about to turn authoress, I must let you into the secret: it is an application to my situation of a passage I met with yesterday in a novel one of the girls has smuggled in.

It was about four o'clock when we arrived. We were shown into the school-room, where we found about nine other girls, from twelve to seventeen years old, with whom we soon made acquaintance. We first asked each other's names; then communicated our parentage; then followed questions as to previous schools, and as to what sort of place this was. Accounts varied considerably. Some thought it very well, and liked Mrs. Wirrelston. Some thought it detestable, and detested Mrs. Wirrelston. One and all detested Miss Smith.

The elder girls seemed very nice; but, from always having been at school I suppose, they struck me as excessively ignorant of the world, compared with us, and still more ignorant of books. They were children to us. Our superior knowledge, which was quickly discovered, made us looked up to, and we were assailed with questions. But if we were for a moment looked up to on that account, we speedily lost our supremacy on another. One of the younger girls asked me how much pocket-money we had brought?

"Twenty shillings each."

"Twenty shillings! what only twenty shillings! Why I brought five pounds."

"And I, ten," proudly ejaculated another.

I felt deeply ashamed; the more so as I observed the girls interchange certain looks, which were but too intelligible. Next day we had the mortification of hearing each new comer informed, and in a tone of disgusted astonishment, that "the Vyners had only brought twenty shillings each. Only think!"

I instantly wrote home to papa. But his answer was, that we must learn to be economical, that he was learning it himself, and that mama thinks it highly necessary we should early learn to submit to small privations. I hate economy!

To return to our school, however. The first afternoon was spent in chat and games. Lessons were not to commence till the morrow. And as the morrow was very much like other days, I may sketch our routine. While dressing, we have to learn a verse of scripture out of a book called "Daily Bread." (I got punished the other day for saying it was "very dry bread, too." That odious, little, pimply Miss Pinkerton told Miss Smith of it.) This verse we all repeat one after the other when prayers are finished; and as I seldom know my verse when we come down, I contrive to sit at the end of the table and learn it by hearing all the others say it before me. One of the elder and one of the little girls then collect the bibles and put them away; while the rest of us, rank and file, begin to march, heads up, chests expanded, toes out. This military exercise is not, I believe, to fashion us into a regiment of grenadiers—the Drawing-room Invincibles—because, when I suggested that we ought to have moustachios and muskets, I received a severe reprimand for my levity. Besides, we vary the march with little operations scarcely to be called military: touching, or trying to touch, the floor with the tips of our fingers without bending our knees, making our elbows meet behind our backs, &c. We then go into breakfast, and are allowed to exchange our merciless slaughter of French idiom, for the freely flowing idiom of our mother tongue. I have not had the French mark yet, except for speaking English; my French, I am happy to say, is beyond the criticism of the girls: what their mastery of the language is, you may guess by that! You may also gain a faint idea of it from these specimens. I passed the mark to little Miss Pinkerton only yesterday, because she asked me for my penknife in this elegant style: "Madle. voulez vous pretez moi votre COUTEAU?" Whereupon I whipped the mark into her hands with a generous "Le voilà." Last week she said, "Je n'ai pas encore FAIT;" for "I have not done (finished) yet"—and pointed out to me, "Comme vous avez mal coupé vos CLOUS"—meaning, that I had not cut my finger nails well!

At meals, we are permitted to speak like Christians. After breakfast we have half an hour's recreation. We play, or read, or work, or, twining an arm round our confidant's waist, interchange confidences respecting the loves we have had, and the husbands we intend to have. Then come lessons. There are five pianos—and five unhappy girls are always practising on them. We arrange our lessons so as to take the pianos in turns, and by this means, we all get our practice, and the thumping never ceases. What a life those pianos lead! How I wish Miss Smith were one of them!

The drawing-master comes at eleven. We don't learn. Papa allows no extras, except dancing,—he says they're "so foolish." I am sorry we don't learn, for Mr. Hibbert, our master, is a perfect duck!—such a nice face, with glossy hair, turned into a sweet little curl on his forehead; large whiskers, rosy complexion, and we all say he is consumptive. Then he draws so well—so boldly! His strokes are as straight, and as broad and black as—I haven't got a simile, But you should see the copies he sets; boats on the sea-shore, turned on their sides, with handsome fishermen standing by, occupied with their nets, and pretty, fat children dotting the sands; or nice little cottages, with smoke (so natural!) coming from the chimneys, and large trees by them, and a dog or a cow, or else a splendid castle, with turrets, and drawbridges, and knights in armour on horseback. Mr. Hibbert ought to be an academician!*

* This last sentence makes me suspect that the whole paragraph is a bit of the saucy Rose's irony, and that she is quizzing the admiration of her schoolfellows for Mr. Hibbert. But school girls have such strange idols, that she may be serious here.—Author's Note.

At twelve, when the weather permits, we go out for a walk. In formidable files of twos and twos, we gravely tread the esplanade and circumambient streets (isn't that a nice word?—I got it from Miss Smith). We there see withered old Indians, invalids in chairs, wheeled about in search of Hygeia, dowagers, and some officers, with such moustachios—the darlings! We quiz the passers-by, and sometimes discuss their attractions. Some of the men look so impudent! And one always blows a kiss to us as we pass—that is, he blows it to me. I'm sure he's a rake.

At half-past two, we dress for dinner. At three, we dine. The food is plain, but good, and abundant. After dinner we have more lessons, till six. Then tea; then we amuse ourselves, if we have learned all our lessons and tasks, either with books or fancy-work. At eight, to bed.

All the days are like this, except Sunday; and oh! what a dreary day is Sunday! What with twice church, Collects to learn, explanations of the Psalms and Catechism, our day is pretty well occupied. We take no walk—we are allowed no recreation. "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress," and a few religious tales, are the only things allowed to those who have said Collect and Catechism, and have time to spare. I hate Bunyan!

But this is not all. If any one has had the three bad marks during the week, the punishment is to sit in the corner all Sunday, and learn a sermon: she is not allowed to speak all day, except to the governesses. Miss Smith has more than once punished me in that way, and you may imagine how it increases my love for her!

Well, after this long dreary day, comes evening lecture. Oh, Vi.! if anything could make school more odious than it is, that evening lecture would be the thing! Picture to yourself eighteen weary girls, after a day's absence from any recreation, having swallowed their tea, and then forced to sit in the school-room on hard benches, without backs, in prim silence, awaiting the arrival of the Rev. Josiah Dutton, who sometimes keeps us waiting for at least an hour. We are not allowed to speak. We are not allowed to read. We sit there in silent expectation; which a figuratively historical pen would liken (by way of a new simile) to the senators of Rome awaiting the Gauls. We sit and look at the candles, look at the ceiling, look at the governesses, and look at each other. At last the door opens, and the reverend Dutton appears. He takes his place at a desk, and begins in a droning voice, meant to be impressive, a lecture or sermon which we do not attend to. I sit opposite to him, and am forced to keep my eyes fixed upon him, because I know Miss Smith's are fixed upon me. There I sit, my back aching from want of support, my eyes drawing straws in the candles, till I feel as if I should grow blind, weaned with the unvaried occupation of the day, and still more wearied by the effort to keep up my attention to what I cannot interest myself in, what indeed, for the most part, I cannot comprehend.

There, my dear Vi., you have a return for your long letter, and an encouragement to write again. I'm literally at the end of my paper, for this is the last sheet I have in the world. Blanche is to write to you to-morrow.

P.S.—Unless you have an opportunity of getting your letter delivered by private hand, mind what you say! All ours are opened. This will be put in the post, in London, by one of my companions, who goes there for a couple of days; otherwise, I dare not have sent it.

CHAPTER III.
THE HAPPY SCHOOL-DAYS.

Rose and Blanche remained three years at Mrs. Wirrelston's.

Rose's letter has disclosed to us a sufficiently detailed account of their school existence; but she has omitted one very important point—for the very excellent reason that, at the time she wrote, it had not shown itself. She speaks, indeed, of the surprise and contempt of the girls when they learned how scantily her purse was furnished; but the full effects of that were only developed some time afterwards.

A school is an image of the world in miniature, and represents it, perhaps, in its least amiable aspect. The child is not only father to the man, but the father, before experience has engendered tolerance, before suffering has extended sympathy. The child is horribly selfish, because unreflectingly so. Its base instincts have not been softened or corrected. All its vices are not only unrestrained, but unconcealed. Its egotism and vanity are allowed full play.

Rose's schoolfellows were quite aware of the beauty and mental superiority which distinguished her and Blanche; and envied them for it. But they were also fully aware of the scantiness of their allowance, and the inferiority of their dress; and despised them heartily, undisguisedly. Poverty, which is an inexcusable offence in the great world, becomes a sort of crime at school. The love of tyranny implanted in the human breast, and always flourishing in children, gratified itself by subjecting Rose and Blanche to endless sarcasms on that score. The little irritations which arose, in the natural course of things, between them and their schoolfellows, were sure to instigate some sarcasm on "mean little creatures"—"vulgar things"—"penniless people," &c. It was a safe and ready source of annoyance: a weapon always at hand, adapted to the meanest capacity, and certain to wound.

Beyond the indignities which it drew down upon them, the absence of pocket-money was a serious inconvenience. They had only two shillings a week each as an allowance; out of which they had to find their own pens, pencils, paper, india-rubber, sealing-wax, and trifles—indispensable trifles of that kind; besides having to put sixpence every fortnight into the poor-box. The hardship of this was really terrible. The word may seem a strong one, but if we measure the importance of things by the effects they produce, it will not seem too strong. To men and women, all this inconvenience may seem petty. It was not petty to the unhappy girls: it was the cause of constant humiliation and bitter sorrow.

Parents little imagine the extent of their cruelty, when, to gratify their own ambition, they send children to expensive schools, and refuse to furnish them with the means of being on a footing of equality with their school-fellows. The effects of such conditions are felt throughout the after life. The misery children endure from the taunting superiority of their companions, is only half the evil; the greater half is in the moral effects of such positions.

Upon natures less generous, healthy, and good than those of Rose and Blanche, the evil would have been incalculable. Even upon them, it was not insignificant. It over-developed the spirit of opposition in Rose; it crushed the meek spirit of Blanche. Rose with her vivacity and elasticity could best counteract and forget it; but it sank deeply into the quiet, submissive soul of Blanche, and made her singularly unfitted to cope with the world; as the sequel of this story will show.

I do not wish to exaggerate the influence of this school experience; I am well aware of the ineradicable propensities and dispositions of human beings; but surely it is right to assume that certain dispositions are fostered or misdirected by certain powerful conditions; and no disposition could be otherwise than damaged by being subjected to distressing humiliation from companions, and on grounds over which the victim had no earthly control.

A miserable life Rose and Blanche led. Disliked by Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith, because they learned no extras—that fruitful source of profit—and because they were so ill-dressed as to be "no credit to the establishment;" they were taunted by their school-fellows, because unable to join in any subscription which was set on foot. To any one who knows the female mind, I need not expatiate on the contempt which frowned upon their shabby attire. To be ill dressed; to have none of the novelties; to continue wearing frocks out of the season, and which were out-grown; to be shivering in white muslin in the beginning of December.

Yes, reader, in December; for winter clothing they had none, and their parents were abroad.

Mrs. Vyner's neglect is perhaps excusable when we reflect how young she was, and how unfit for the position she occupied; but the effects of that neglect were very important.

"Poor things!" exclaimed Letitia Hoskins, a citizen's daughter, in all the insolence engendered by consols; "their father can't afford to clothe them."

"Yet why doesn't he send them to a cheaper school?" suggests Amelia Wingfield.

"Vulgar pride. I dare say he's some shop-keeper. He wishes his daughters to be educated with ladies."

"Meant for governesses, I shouldn't wonder."

"Most likely, poor things!"

In vain did Rose and Blanche repeatedly answer such assertions, by declaring their father's family was one of the most ancient in England (Miss Hoskins gave an exasperating chuckle of ridicule at that), and was worth twelve thousand a year. A derisive shout was the only answer. The girls would not have believed it, however credible; and it was on the face of it a very incredible statement, coming from girls who, as Letty Hoskins once observed, "had the meanness to come there with a sovereign each, and one pot of bears' grease between them. Girls who were never dressed half so genteelly as her mama's maid."

"And learn no extras," added little Miss Pinkerton, with a toss of her head. "When I told Rose that I had got on so well with my drawing (especially the shading!) that Mr. Hibbert said I might soon begin drawing with Creoles, she burst out laughing, and said she had never heard of that branch of the art before. Fancy a girl of nineteen never having heard of drawing with Creoles!"

"With crayons, I suppose you mean," suggested Amelia Wingfield, contemptuously.

"Well, it's all the same; she had never heard of it."

Rose was witty enough to take fearful reprisals on those who offended her; but, although she thus avenged herself, she was always sure to be worsted in the war of words. Nothing she could say cut so deep as the most stupid reflection on her dress or poverty. No sarcasm she could frame told like the old—but never too old—reference to governesses. Nevertheless, her vivacity and humour in some measure softened the ill impression created by her poverty. She amused the girls so much, that they never allowed their insolence to be more than a passing thing. Often would she make the whole school merry with some exquisitely ludicrous parody of Mrs. Wirrelston or Miss Smith. The latter was her especial butt. She revelled in quizzing her. She knew well enough that the laughers, with the treachery of children, first enjoyed the joke, and then repeated it to Miss Smith, to enjoy the joker's punishment, and to curry favour with the governess. No matter; Rose knew she was sure to be betrayed, yet her daring animal spirits were constantly inciting her to make fun of her ridiculous mistress.

Miss Smith was a starch virago. Bred to the profession of governess, she had considerable acquirements—of which she was very vain—and great sense of the "responsibility" of her situation, which showed itself in a morbid watchfulness over the "morals of her young charges." Her modesty was delicate and easily alarmed; nothing, for instance, would induce her to mention sparrows before gentlemen—those birds having rather a libertine reputation in natural history—she called them "little warblers." Again: the word belly was carefully erased from Goldsmith's History of England, and stomach substituted in the margin. Rose once pointed this out to the girl standing next to her at class, and was duly punished for her "impropriety."

Miss Smith was not handsome. Her complexion was of a bilious brown, mottled with pimples. Her nose was thin and pointed; the nostrils pinched up, as if she were always smelling her own breath, and that breath stronger but not sweeter than the rose. Her lips thin and colourless. Her figure tall and fleshless. There was a rigidity and primness in her whole appearance, which lent itself but too easily to caricature; and Rose, whose good nature would have spared a kinder person, had no remorse in ridiculing the ungenerous mistress, who visited upon her and her sister the sins of their father.

On the day selected for our glimpse into this school, Rose was shivering over a long task, which had been given her for the following audacity. Miss Smith had been "reviling in good set terms" the character of Meredith Vyner. Rose's blood had mounted to her cheek, but she was silent, conscious that any retort would only indulge her mistress, by showing that the abuse of her father was a sore subject. She affected to have lost her copy of Goldsmith, and to be in great concern about it. As it was only a common schoolbook, bound in mottled calf, Miss Pinkerton could not understand her anxiety about it, sarcastically adding, "My papa doesn't care how many books I have. He can afford it." "Oh, it isn't the book," replied Rose confidentially, "it's the binding! Real Smithskin!"

Blanche and Miss Pinkerton both laughed; and the latter immediately informed Miss Smith of the joke, and of Blanche's participation. For this offence they were both punished; but the name remained: to this day the mottled calf binding is by the girls called Smithskin.

It was near the breaking up, and the elder girls, with the horrible servility of children of both sexes when at school, had set on foot a subscription to present Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith with some token of their regard. Miss Hoskins had put her name down for thirty shillings. Others had subscribed a pound, and others ten shillings; even the younger girls had put down five shillings each. When the list was brought to Rose and Blanche, they said they had no money.

"Of course not," said Miss Hoskins; "what's the use of asking them? You will ask the servants next."

Blanche raised her mild face, and said,—

"I would subscribe if I could; but how is it possible? You girls come to school with ten pounds or more in your pockets, and you have other presents besides. Papa refuses to allow us pocket-money—says we can have no use for it."

"All that is true," added Rose; "but if we had money I would not subscribe. I have no regard for them, and the only token I would offer them is a copy of 'Temper,' bound in Smithskin."

"Oh!" ejaculated several, pretending to be very much shocked.

"Or 'Don Juan,'" pursued Rose, "binding ditto. I'm sure Miss Smith reads it, because it's called improper."

The girls were so much shocked at this that they moved away; but they did not dare repeat it, so fearful did it seem!

Mrs. Wirrelston entered. Anger darkened her brow, though she endeavoured to be calm and dignified. They all read what was underneath that calmness, and awaited in silence till she should speak. She held in her hand an open letter, which she passed to Miss Smith, who, having read it, looked starcher and more bilious than ever.

The letter was from Meredith Vyner to his children, and this was the postscript:—

"As you are to leave school at Christmas, mind you don't forget to bring away with you your spoons and forks."

It was the custom at Mrs. Wirrelston's, as at most schools, to exact from each pupil, that she should bring her own silver spoons and fork, also her sheets and towels; a very satisfactory arrangement, which saved the school-mistress from an expense, and, as the pupils always left them behind, was the foundation of a respectable stock of plate when the mistress should retire into private life. But the enormity of a pupil taking away her own spoons and fork, had hitherto been unheard of; and the meanness of a parent who could remind his children of their property, appeared to Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith something exceeding even what they had anticipated from Meredith Vyner. And yet they had formed an exalted view of his capacity in that way, from the odious criticisms which he permitted himself on certain charges in the half-yearly accounts—charges which had always been admitted by the parents of other pupils, and which, if difficult to justify, no man of "common liberality" would question. This "tradesmanlike spirit" of examining accounts had greatly irritated the two ladies, and they paid off, in ill treatment to Rose and Blanche, the annoyance caused by their father's pedantic accuracy.

The way in which this postscript was received may be readily imagined. It was the climax of a series of insults. 'One would imagine that Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith wanted to keep the paltry spoons—which were very light after all. As if it were the custom at that establishment to retain the young ladies' property.'

"But be careful, young ladies," said Mrs. Wirrelston, with great sarcasm in her tone; "be careful that the Misses Vyner leave nothing behind them. It might be awkward. We might be called upon. Everything is of some value. Be sure that the ends of their lead pencils are packed up."

"Yes," interposed Miss Smith, "and don't forget their curl papers. The Misses Vyner will certainly like to pack up their curl papers."

Blanche, unable to endure these unjust taunts, burst into tears. But Rose, greatly incensed, said—

"All that should be said to papa, not to us; since he is to blame, if there is any blame."

"You are insolent. Go to your room, Miss Vyner!" exclaimed Mrs. Wirrelston.

Miss Smith lifted up her eyes in amazement at such audacity.

"I do not see," pursued the undaunted Rose, "why we are to be taunted, because papa wishes to see his own property."

"You don't see, you impertinent girl!"

"No, I do not, unless our taking home our own spoons should be a ruinous precedent."

The sarcasm cut deeply. Both mistresses were roused to vehemence by it; and, vowing that such insolence was altogether insupportable, ordered her boxes to be packed up, and expelled her that very afternoon.

Rose was by no means affected at the expulsion; but poor Blanche, who was now left alone to bear the spite and malice of two mistresses for three weeks longer, greatly felt the loss of her sister's company, the more so because the other girls, at all times distant, had now sided with their mistresses, and actually refused to associate in any way with her.

But the three weeks passed. Breaking up arrived. It is needless to say how many prizes were adjudged to Blanche Vyner at the distribution. She only thought of the joy of being once more at home.

CHAPTER IV.
ROSE AND BLANCHE AT HOME.

No doating mother could have seemed kinder to her daughters than was Mrs. Meredith Vyner to Rose and Blanche, for the first three weeks after their arrival from school. She insisted upon their each having a separate allowance; but contrived that it should be totally inadequate to the necessary expenses. She shopped with them, but recommended, in a tone which was almost an insistance, colours which neither suited their complexions, nor assorted well with each other. She made them numberless little presents, and was always saying charming things to them. If they thought her pleasant before, they now declared her quite loveable. They looked up to her, not only as one having a mother's authority, but also as a superior being, for she had made a decided impression on them of that kind, by always condemning or ridiculing their own tastes and opinions as "girlish," and by carefully repeating (with what amount of embroidery I will not say) all the compliments which men paid her on her own supreme taste. The latter were not few. Partly because a pretty, lively woman never is in want of them: the more so, because Mrs. Meredith Vyner not only courted admiration, but demanded it. What more natural, therefore, that two girls, hearing from their father, who was so learned, such praises of their step-mother's talents, and observing such submission from other men to her taste, should blindly acknowledge a superiority so proclaimed?

As if to make "assurance doubly sure," Mrs. Meredith Vyner would occasionally repeat to them, with strong disclaimers, as "unwarrantably satirical," certain depreciatory comments which had been made to her, she said, by men, the gist of which was, that they were not admired. After a while, the poor girls actually believed they were wanting in attractions. Rose's brilliant colour was a milkmaid's coarseness, and Blanche's retiring manners were owing to a want of grace and style. Rose, who was merry, was given to understand that she was loud and vulgar. Blanche, who was all gentleness, had learned to consider herself as an uninteresting, apathetic, awkward girl.

To effect such impressions was only half a victory. The real triumph was to manage that the admiration which such beauty and such manners as theirs were sure to call forth, should not efface these impressions. This was done by a very simple, but ingenious contrivance. Mrs. Meredith Vyner never gave balls, seldom accepted invitations to them, or to any dancing fêtes. She went out a great deal, and often received company. But her society was limited to dinners and conversaziones. The men were almost exclusively scientific, or members of Parliament, or celebrities. No specimen of the genus "Dancing Young Man" was ever asked. Nothing could suit Meredith Vyner better; neither his age nor his habits accorded with balls, while literary and scientific men were always welcome guests; so that he applauded his wife's wisdom in giving up the "frivolities," and hoped his girls would gladly follow her example.

By such and similar means she had got them, as the vulgar phrase goes, "completely under her thumb;" and that, too, without in any instance giving the world anything to lay hold of which looked like a stepmother's unkindness. Indeed, the girls themselves, though they at last began to suspect something, could make no specific accusation. Mrs. Meredith Vyner might occasionally be said to err, but never to do anything that could be interpreted into wilful unkindness.

It may, perhaps, be wondered that considering how much it was her desire to gain the golden opinions of the world as an exemplary stepmother in a peculiarly trying situation, she did not see the simplest plan would have been real, not pretended, kindness.

But by her line of conduct she secured all she wanted—the appearances; and she secured two objects of more importance to her. One of interest, and one of amour propre. The first object was the complete separation of the children from their father. Determined to have undisputed sway over her husband, she isolated him from the affection of every one else, by a calculation as cruel as it was ingenious. The second object was the complete triumph she obtained over her daughters, whose age and beauty made them dreaded rivals. If mothers cannot resist the diabolical suggestions of envy, but must often present the sad spectacle of a jealousy of their own children, how much more keenly must the rivalry be felt with their stepdaughters, especially in England, where the unmarried women have the advantage? And the pretty little tiger-eyed Mrs. Vyner was too painfully conscious of her humpback, not to dread a comparison with the lovely Rose and Blanche.

I have to observe also, that the economical fit no longer troubled Mrs. Vyner; she had launched into the extravagances of London society, with the same thorough-going impetuosity characteristic of all her actions. No fit ever lasted long with her; this of economy had endured an incredible time, and was now put aside, never again to be mentioned.

CHAPTER V.
MARMADUKE MEETS MRS. VYNER.

Everybody was at Dr. Whiston's, as the phrase goes, on one of his Saturday evenings. Dr. Whiston was a scientific man, whose great reputation was founded upon what his friends thought him capable of doing, rather than upon anything he had actually done. He was rich, and knew "everybody." His Saturday evenings formed an integral part of London society. They were an institution. No one who pretended to any acquaintance with the aristocracy of science, or with the scientific members of the aristocracy, could dispense with being invited to Dr. Whiston's. There were crowded lions of all countries, pretty women, bony women, elderly women, strong-minded women, and mathematical women; a sprinkling of noblemen, a bishop or two, many clergymen, barristers, and endless nobodies with bald foreheads and spectacles, all very profound in one or more "ologies," but cruelly stupid in everything else—abounding in "information," and alarmingly dull. Dr. Whiston himself was a man of varied knowledge, great original power, and a good talker. He passed from lions to doctors, from beauties to bores, with restless equanimity: a word for each, adapted to each; and every one was pleased.

The rooms were rapidly filling. The office of announcing the visitors had become a sinecure, for the very staircase was beginning to be invaded. Through the dense crowd of rustling dresses and formidable spectacles, adventurous persons on the search for friends made feeble way; but the majority stood still gazing at the lions, or endeavouring by uneasy fitful conversation to seem interested. Groups were formed in the crowd and about the doorways, in which something like animated conversation went on.

In the centre of the third room, standing by a table on which were ranged some new inventions that occupied the attention of the bald foreheads and bony women, stood a young and striking-looking man of eight and twenty. A melancholy listlessness overspread his swarthy face, and dimmed the fire of his large eyes. The careless grace of his attitude admirably displayed the fine proportions of his almost gigantic form, which was so striking as to triumph over the miserable angularity and meanness of our modern costume.

All the women, the instant they saw him, asked who he was. He interested everybody except the bald foreheads and the strong-minded women; but most he excited the curiosity of the girls dragged there by scientific papas or mathematical mamas. Who could he be? It was quite evident he was not an ologist. He was too gentlemanly for a lion; too fresh-looking for a student.

"My dear Mrs. Meredith Vyner, how d'ye do? Rose, my dear, you look charming; and you too, Blanche. And where's papa?"

"Talking to Professor Forbes in the first room," replied Mrs. Meredith Vyner, to her questioner: one of the inspectors of Dr. Whiston's inventions.

"I am trying to get a seat for my girls," said Mrs. Vyner peering about, as well as her diminutive form would allow in so crowded a room.

"I dare say you will find one in the next room. Oh, come in; perhaps you can tell us who is that handsome foreigner in there; nobody knows him, and I can't get at Dr. Whiston to ask."

They all four moved into the third room, and the lady directed Mrs. Vyner's attention to the mysterious stranger.

It was Marmaduke Ashley.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner did not swoon, she did not even scream; though, I believe, both are expected of ladies under such circumstances, in novels. In real life, it is somewhat different. Mrs. Vyner only blushed deeply, and felt a throbbing at her temples—felt, as people say, as if the earth were about to sink under her—but had too much self-command to betray anything. One observing her would, of course, have noticed the change; but there happened to be no one looking at her just then, so she recovered her self-possession before her acquaintance had finished her panegyric on his beauty.

She had not seen Marmaduke since that night on which she parted from him, in a transport of grief, on the sands behind Mrs. Henley's house, when the thunder muttered in the distance, and the heavy, swelling sea threw up its sprawling lines of silvery foam,—the night when he had hacked off a lock of his raven hair for her to treasure.

She had not seen him since that night, when the wretchedness of parting from him seemed the climax of human suffering, from which death—and only death—could bring release.

She had not seen him since she had become the wife of Meredith Vyner; and as that wife she was to meet him now.

What her thoughts would have been at that moment, had she ever really loved him, the reader may imagine; but as her love had sprung from the head, and not the heart, she felt no greater pangs at seeing him, than were suggested by the sight of one she had deceived, and whom she would deceive again, were the past to be recalled. Not that she cared for her husband; she fully appreciated the difference between him and Marmaduke; at the same time she also appreciated the differences in their fortunes, and that reconciled her.

The appearance of Marmaduke at Dr. Whiston's rather flurried than pained her. She dreaded "a scene." She knew the awful vehemence of his temper; and although believing that in an interview she could tame the savage, and bring him submissive to her feet yet that could only be done by the ruse and fascination of a woman; and a soirée was by no means the theatre for it.

She began to move away, having seated Rose and Blanche, trusting that her tiny person would not be detected in the crowd. But Marmaduke's height gave him command of the room. His eye was first arrested by a head of golden hair, the drooping luxuriance of which was but too well known to him: another glance, and the slightly deformed figure confirmed his suspicion. His pulses throbbed violently, his eyes and nostrils dilated, and his breathing became hard; but he had sufficient self-command not to betray himself, although his feelings, at the sight of her whom he had loved so ardently, and who had jilted him so basely, were poignant and bitter. He also moved away; not to follow her, but to hide his emotion.

Little did the company suspect what elements of a tragedy were working amidst the dull prosiness of that soirée. Amidst all the science that was gabbled, all the statistics quoted, all the small talk of the scientific scandal-mongers (perhaps the very smallest of small talk!), all the profundities that escaped from the bald foreheads and the strong-minded women, all the listlessness and ennui of the majority, there were a few souls who, by the earnestness and the sincerity of their passions, vindicated the human race—souls belonging to human beings, and not to mere gubemouches and ologists. These have some interest to the novelist and his public; so while the gabble and the twaddle are in triumphant career, let us cast our eyes only in those corners of the rooms where we may find materials.

To begin with Marmaduke. What a world of emotion is in the breast of that apparently unoccupied young man, carelessly passing from room to room! What thoughts hurry across his brain: thoughts of wrong, of vengeance, of former love, and present hate! Then Mrs. Meredith Vyner, all smiles and kind words, passing from group to group, throwing in a word of criticism here, a quotation there, listening to the account of some new discovery, as if she understood it and cared about it—who could suppose that a thousand rapid plans were presenting themselves to her fertile ingenuity, and all quickly discarded as too dangerous? It was indeed a question of some moment, how was she to meet Marmaduke? Should she give him the cut direct? Should she be sentimental? Should she be haughty?

Her resolution was still unformed when Marmaduke stood before her. Accidentally as they had approached, they were both too much occupied with each other to be in the least surprised. With a sudden impulse, she held out her hand to him. He affected not to see the charming frankness of her greeting, and when she said,—

"I hope I must not recall myself to your recollection, Mr. Ashley!"

He replied with exquisite ease,—

"I know not what will be thought of my gallantry, madam, but, indeed, I must own the impeachment."

"Then how must I be changed! To be forgotten in so short a time. Oh, you terrible man! I can never forgive you."

"I can never forgive myself; but so it is."

So perfectly was this epigram delivered, that those standing around could never have suspected he had said anything but a common-place. She was deeply wounded by his manner, and he read it in her cruel eyes; but the smile never left her face, and she introduced herself as Mrs. Meredith Vyner, with playfulness, throwing his forgetfulness on the lapse of time since they had met.

"You have the more reason to forgive me," said Marmaduke, "as my memory is so very bad, that, under the circumstances, I should have almost forgotten my own sister."

She winced, but laughingly replied,—

"Well, well, there are many virtues in a bad memory. I suppose you forget injuries with the same Christian alacrity."

He laughed, and said,—

"Oh, no! I have not the virtues of bad memory: do not invest me with them. If I easily forget faces, I never forget injuries."

She winced again, and this time felt a vague terror at the diabolical calmness and ease with which he could envelope a terrible threat in the slight laugh of affected modesty. Confusion, even bitterness, would have been more encouraging to her. She felt that she was in the presence of an enemy, and of one as self-possessed as herself.

"Have you been long in England?"

This was to get off the perilous ground on which they stood.

"A few months only."

"And do you intend remaining?"

"Yes; I fancy so. I have one or two affairs which will keep me here an indefinite time."

"I suppose it would be proper to assume that one of those is an affaire de cœur?"

"Well," he replied, laughing gently, "that depends upon how the word is used."

"I must not be indiscreet, but a mutual friend of ours told me there was a lady in the case."

She said this with a peculiarly significant intonation, as if to give him to understand that jealousy had driven her into marrying Meredith Vyner. He did not understand her meaning, but saw that she meant something, and replied,—

"I confess to so much. In fact, one of the affairs I spoke about is the conclusion of a little comic drama, the commencement of which dates before I left England. Ah, Cecil! how d'ye do?"

This last sentence was addressed to Cecil Chamberlayne, an old acquaintance of Marmaduke's. During their conversation, Mrs. Meredith Vyner was enabled to pass on, and to reach the third room, where, with more agitation in her manner than the girls had ever remarked before, she summoned them to accompany her, saying that she felt too unwell to remain longer.

Blanche arose hastily, and with great sympathy inquired about the nature of her illness; to which she only received vague replies. Rose was evidently less willing to leave. Though why she was unwilling was not at first so apparent. By a retrospective glance at another little group in Dr. Whiston's salons, we shall be able to understand this.

CHAPTER VI.
HOW ROSE BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR UGLY HERO.

About three quarters of an hour before, Rose and Blanche were seated on an ottoman, between two elderly women, ugly enough to be erudite, and repulsive enough to forbid any attempt at conversation. Silent the girls sat, occasionally interchanging a remark respecting the dress of some lady; and as a witticism was sure to follow from Rose, which Blanche was afraid might be overheard, even this sort of conversation was sparing, though so much food was offered. Not a soul spoke to them. They knew scarcely any one, for their stepmother studiously avoided introducing them. The consequence was, that many habitual visitors at their father's knew them by sight, but had no idea who they were; and many were the invitations in which they were not included, simply because their existence as young ladies who were "out" was not suspected.

While they sat thus alone, it was some relief to them to espy Mrs. St. John, whom they knew slightly, and who had recently purchased the Grange, an estate adjoining Wytton Hall. She came towards them, leaning on the arm of a young man, whom she introduced as her son; and one of the erudite women rising at that moment to go, Mrs. St. John took possession of her seat, next to Blanche, leaving her son standing talking to Rose. In a very few minutes, a withered little man in large gold spectacles came up, and offering his arm to the other erudite female, carried her off, thus leaving a place, which Mr. St. John at once seized upon.