“OUR CONTINENT” LIBRARY.

D U S T:
A NOVEL

BY
Julian Hawthorne,
Author of “Bressant,” “Sebastian Strome,” “Idolatry,”
“Garth,” etc.

NEW YORK:
FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT
1883

ILLUSTRATIONS.

“Only the Actions of the Just
Smell Sweet and Blossom in the Dust.”

DUST.

CHAPTER I.

THE time at which this story begins was a time of many beginnings and many endings. The Eighteenth Century had expired the better part of a score of years before, and everything was in confusion. Youth—tumultuous, hearty, reckless, showy, slangy, insolent, kindly, savage—was the genius of the hour. The Iron Duke had thrashed the Corsican Ogre, England was the Queen of nations, and Englishmen thought so much of themselves and of one another that society, for all its caste, became well-nigh republican. Gentlemen were bruisers and bruisers were gentlemen. At Ranelagh and Vauxhall fine ladies rubbed shoulders with actresses, magistrates foregathered with jockeys and sharpers, and the guardians of public order had more to fear from young bloods and sprigs of nobility than from professional thieves and blacklegs. Costumes were grotesque and irrational, but were worn with a dash and effrontery that made them becoming. There were cocked hats and steeple-crowned hats; yards of neck-cloth and mountains of coat-collar; green coats and blue coats, claret coats and white coats; four or five great coats, one on top of another; small clothes and tight breeches, corduroys, hessians and pumps. Beards were shaved smooth, and hair grew long. Young ladies wore drab josephs and flat-crowned beaver bonnets, and rode to balls on pillions with their ball clothes in bandboxes. The lowest of necks were compensated by the shortest of waists; and the gleam of garter-buckles showed through the filmy skirts that scarcely reached to the ankle. Coral necklaces were the fashion, and silvery twilled silks and lace tuckers; and these fine things were laid up in lavender and rose leaves. Hair was cropped short behind and dressed with flat curls in front. Mob-caps and top-knotted caps, skull-caps and fronts, turbans and muslin kerchiefs, and puffed yellow satins—these things were a trifle antiquated, and belonged to the elder generation. Gentlemen said “Dammy, sir!” “Doosid,” “Egad,” “Stifle me!” “Monstrous fine,” “Faith!” and “S’blood!” The ladies said, “Thank God!” “God A’mighty!” and “Law!” and everybody said “Genteel.” Stage-coaches and post-horses occupied the place of railways and telegraphs, and driving was a fine art, and five hours from Brighton to London was monstrous slow going. Stage-coachmen were among the potentates of the day; they could do but one thing, but that they did perfectly; they were clannish among themselves, bullies to the poor, comrades to gentlemen, lickspittles to lords, and the high-priests of horse-flesh, which was at that epoch one of the most influential religions in England; pugilism being another, caste a third, and drunkenness the fourth. A snuff-box was still the universal wear, blue-pill was the specific for liver complaint, shopping was done in Cheape and Cornhill; fashionable bloods lodged in High Holborn, lounged at Bennet’s and the Piazza Coffee-House, made calls in Grosvenor Square, looked in at a dog-fight, or to see Kemble, Siddons or Kean in the evening, and finished the night over rack-punch and cards at the club. Literature was not much in vogue, though most people had read “Birron” and the “Monk,” and many were familiar with the “Dialogues of Devils,” the “Arabian Nights,” and “Zadkiel’s Prophetic Almanac;” while the “Dairyman’s Daughter” either had been written or soon was to be. Royalty and nobility showed themselves much more freely than they do now. George the Third was still King of England, and George, his son, was still the first gentleman and foremost blackguard of Europe; and everything, in short, was outwardly very different from what it is at the present day. Nevertheless, underneath all appearances, flowed then, as now, the mighty current of human nature. Then, as now, mothers groaned that infants might be born; poverty and wealth were married in every human soul, so that beggars were rich in some things and princes poor in others; young men and women fell in love, and either fell out again, or wedded, or took the law into their own hands, or jilted one another, just as they do now. Men in power were tyrannous or just, pompous or simple, wise or foolish, and men in subjection were faithful or dishonest, servile or self-respectful, scheming or contented, then as now. Then, no less than now, some men broke one Commandment, some another, and some broke all; and the young looked forward to a good time coming and the old prophesied misfortune. At that epoch, as in this, Death plied his trade after his well-known fashion, which seems so cruel and arbitrary, and is so merciful and wise. And finally—to make an end of this summary—the human race was predestined to good, and the individual human being was free to choose either good or evil, the same then as now and always. And—to leave generalities and begin upon particulars—it was at this time that Mrs. Lockhart (who, seven-and-forty years ago, as lovely Fanny Pell, had cherished a passing ideal passion for Handsome Tom Grantley, and had got over it and married honest young Lieutenant Lockhart)—that Mrs. Lockhart, we say, having lost her beloved Major at Waterloo, and finding herself in somewhat narrow circumstances, had made up her mind to a new departure in life, and had, in accordance with this determination, caused her daughter Marion to write “Lodgings to Let” on a card, and to hang the same up in the window of the front drawing-room. This event occurred on the morning of the third of May, Eighteen hundred and sixteen.

CHAPTER II.

THAT same day the Brighton coach was bowling along the road to London at the rate of something over five minutes to the mile, a burly, much be-caped Jehu on the box and a couple of passengers on the seat on either side of him. The four horses, on whose glistening coats the sunshine shifted pleasantly, seemed dwarfed by the blundering structure which trundled at their heels, and which occasionally swayed top-heavily from side to side like a vessel riding the seas. Jehu had for the time being surrendered the reins to the young gentleman who sat beside him. The youth in question was fashionably dressed, so far as could be judged from the glimpses of his attire that showed beneath the layers of benjamins in which his rather diminutive person was enveloped. His narrow face wore a rakish but supercilious expression, which was enhanced by his manner of wearing a hat shaped like a truncated cone with a curled brim. He sat erect and square, with an exaggerated dignity, as if the importance of the whole coach-and-four were concentrated in himself.

“You can do it, Mr. Bendibow—you can do it, sir,” remarked Jehu, in a tone half-way between subservience and patronage. “You’ve got it in you, sir, and do you know why?”

“Well, to be sure, I’ve had some practice,” said Mr. Bendibow, conscious of his worth and pleased to have it commended, but with the modesty of true genius, forbearing to admit himself miraculous.

Jehu shook his head solemnly. “Practice be damned, sir! What’s practice, I ask, to a man what hadn’t got it in him beforehand? It was in your blood, Mr. Bendibow, afore ever you was out of your cradle, sir. Because why? Because your father, Sir Francis, as fine a gen’lman and as open-handed as ever sat on a box, was as good a whip as might be this side o’ London, and I makes no doubt but what he is so to this day. That’s what I say, and if any says different why I’m ready to back it.” In uttering this challenge Jehu stared about him with a hectoring air, but without meeting any one’s eye, as if defying things in general but no one in particular.

“Is Sir Francis Bendibow living still? Pardon me the question; I formerly had some slight acquaintance with the gentleman, but for a good many years past I have lived out of the country.”

These were the first words that the speaker of them had uttered. He was a meagre, elderly man, rather shabbily dressed, and sat second from the coachman on the left. While speaking he leaned forward, allowing his visage to emerge from the bulwark of coat collar that rose on either side of it. It was a remarkable face, though at first sight not altogether a winning one. The nose was an abrupt aquiline, thin at the bridge, but with distended nostrils; the mouth was straight, the lips seeming thin, rather from a constant habit of pressing them together than from natural conformation. The bony chin slanted forward aggressively, increasing the uncompromising aspect of the entire countenance. The eyebrows, of a pale auburn hue, were sharply arched, and the eyes beneath were so widely opened that the whole circle of the iris was visible. The complexion of this person, judging from the color of the hair, should have been blonde; but either owing to exposure to the air or from some other cause it was of a deep reddish-brown tint. His voice was his most attractive feature, being well modulated and of an agreeable though penetrating quality, and to some ears it might have been a guarantee of the speaker’s gentility strong enough to outweigh the indications of his somewhat threadbare costume.

“My father is in good health, to the best of my knowledge,” said young Mr. Bendibow, glancing at the other and speaking curtly. Then he added: “You have the advantage of me, sir.”

“I call myself Grant,” returned the elderly man.

“Never heard my father mention the name,” said Mr. Bendibow loftily.

“I dare say not,” replied Mr. Grant, relapsing into his coat collar.

“Some folks,” observed Jehu in a meditative tone, yet loud enough to be heard by all—“some folks thinks to gain credit by speaking the names of those superior to them in station. Other folks thinks that fine names don’t mend ragged breeches. I speaks my opinion, because why? Because I backs it.”

“You’d better mind your horses,” said the gentleman who sat between the coachman and Mr. Grant. “There!—catch hold of my arm, sir!”

The last words were spoken to Mr. Grant just as the coach lurched heavily to one side and toppled over. The off leader had shied at a tall white mile-stone that stood conspicuous at a corner of the road, and before Mr. Bendibow could gather up his reins the right wheels of the vehicle had entered the ditch and the whole machine was hurled off its balance into the hedge-row. The outside passengers, with the exception of one or two who clung to their seats, were projected into the field beyond, together with a number of boxes and portmanteaux. The wheelers lost their footing and floundered in the ditch, while the leaders, struggling furiously, snapped their harness and careered down the road. From within the coach meanwhile proceeded the sound of feminine screams and lamentation.

The first thing clearly perceptible amidst the confusion was the tremendous oath of which the coachman delivered himself, as he upreared his ponderous bulk from the half-inanimate figure of young Mr. Bendibow, upon whom he had fallen, having himself received at the same time a smart blow on the ear from a flying carpet-bag. The next person to arise was Mr. Grant, who appeared to have escaped unhurt, and after a moment the gentleman who, by interposing himself between the other and danger, had broken his fall, also got to his feet, looking a trifle pale about the lips.

“I much fear, sir,” said the elder man, with an accent of grave concern in his voice, “that I have been the occasion of your doing yourself an injury. You have saved my bones at the cost of your own. I am a bit of a surgeon; let me look at your arm.”

“Not much harm done, I fancy,” returned the other, forcing a smile. “There’s something awkward here, though,” he added the next moment. “A joint out of kilter, perhaps.”

“I apprehend as much,” said Mr. Grant. He passed his hand underneath the young man’s coat. “Ay, there’s a dislocation here,” he continued; “but if you can bear a minute’s pain I can put it right again. We must get your coat off, and then—”

“Better get the ladies out of their cage first; that’s not so much courtesy on my part as that I wish to put off the painful minute you speak of as long as may be. I’m a damnable coward—should sit down and cry if I were alone. Ladies first, for my sake!”

“You laugh, sir; but if that shoulder is not in place immediately it may prove no laughing matter. The ladies are doing very well—they have found a rescuer already. Your coat off, if you please. What fools

fashion makes of men! Where I come from none wear coats save Englishmen, and even they are satisfied with one. Ah! that was a twinge; it were best to cut the sleeve perhaps?”

“In the name of decency, no! To avoid trouble, I have long carried my wardrobe on my back, and ’twould never do to enter London with a shirt only. Better a broken bone than a wounded coat sleeve—ha! well, this is for my sins, I suppose. I wish Providence would keep the punishment till all the sins are done—this piecemeal retribution is the devil. Well, now for it! Sir, I wish you were less humane—my flesh and bones cry out against your humanity. Dryden was wrong, confound him! Pity is akin to—to—whew!—to the Inquisition. God Apollo! shall I ever write poetry after this? And ’tis only a left arm, after all!—not to be left alone, however—ah!... A thousand thanks, sir; but you leave me ten years older than you found me. Our acquaintance has been a long and (candor compels me to say) a confoundedly painful one. To be serious, I am heartily indebted to you.”

“Take a pull at this flask, young gentleman; ’tis good cognac that I got as I came through France. I recollect to have read, when I was a boy in school, that Nero fiddled whilst Rome was burning: you seem to have a measure of his humor, since you can jest while the framework of your mortal dwelling-place is in jeopardy. As for your indebtedness—my neck may be worth much or little, but, such as it is, you saved it. The balance is still against me.”

“Leave balances to bankers: otherwise we might have to express our obligations to Mr. Bendibow, there, for introducing us to each other. Does no one here, besides myself, need your skill?”

“It appears not, to judge by the noise they make,” replied the old gentleman dryly. “That blackguard of a coachman should lose his place for this. The manners of these fellows have changed for the worse since I saw England last. How do you find yourself, Mr.—— I beg your pardon?”

“Lancaster is my name; and I feel very much like myself again,” returned the other, getting up from the bank against which he had been reclining while the shoulder-setting operation had been going on, and stretching out his arms tentatively.

As he stood there, Mr. Grant looked at him with the eye of a man accustomed to judge of men. With his costume reduced to shirt, small-clothes and hessians, young Lancaster showed to advantage. He was above the medium height, and strongly made, deep in the chest and elastic in the loins. A tall and massive white throat supported a head that seemed small, but was of remarkably fine proportions and character. The contours of the face were, in some places, so refined as to appear feminine, yet the expression of the principal features was eminently masculine and almost bold. Large black eyes answered to the movements of a sensitive and rather sensuous mouth; the chin was round and resolute. The young man’s hair was black and wavy, and of a length that, in our day, would be called effeminate; it fell apart at the temple in a way to show the unusual height and fineness of the forehead. The different parts of the face were fitted together compactly and smoothly, without creases, as if all had been moulded from one motive and idea—not as if composed of a number of inharmonious ancestral prototypes: yet the range of expression was large and vivid. The general aspect in repose indicated gravity and reticence; but as soon as a smile began, then appeared gleams and curves of a humorous gayety. And there was a brilliance and concentration in the whole presence of the man which was within and distinct from his physical conformation, and which rendered him conspicuous and memorable.

“Lancaster—the name is not unknown to me,” remarked Mr. Grant, but in an indrawn tone, characteristic of a man accustomed to communing with himself.

During this episode, the other travelers had been noisily and confusedly engaged in pulling themselves together and discussing the magnitude of their disaster. Some laborers, whom the accident had attracted from a neighboring field, were pressed into service to help in setting matters to rights. One was sent after the escaped horses; others lent their hands and shoulders to the task of getting the coach out of the ditch and replacing the luggage upon it. Mr. Bendibow, seated upon his portmanteau, his fashionable attire much outraged by the clayey soil into which he had fallen, maintained a demeanor of sullen indignation; being apparently of the opinion that the whole catastrophe was the result of a conspiracy between the rest of the passengers against his own person. The coachman, in a semi-apoplectic condition from the combined effects of dismay, suppressed profanity, and a bloody jaw, was striving with hasty and shaking fingers to mend the broken harness; the ladies were grouped together in the roadway in a shrill-complaining and hysteric cluster, protesting by turns that nothing should induce them ever to enter the vehicle again, and that unless it started at once their prospects of reaching London before dark would be at an end. Lancaster glanced at his companion with an arch smile.

“My human sympathies can’t keep abreast of so much distress,” said he. “I shall take myself off. Hammersmith cannot be more than three or four miles distant, and my legs will be all the better for a little stretching. If you put up at the ‘Plough and Harrow’ to-night, we may meet again in an hour or two; meantime I will bid you good-day; and, once more, many thanks for your surgery.”

He held out his hand, into which Mr. Grant put his own. “A brisk walk will perhaps be the best thing for you,” he remarked. “Guard against a sudden check of perspiration when you arrive; and bathe the shoulder with a lotion ... by-the-by, would you object to a fellow-pedestrian? I was held to be a fair walker in my younger days, and I have not altogether lost the habit of it.”

“It will give me much pleasure,” returned the other, cordially.

“Then I am with you,” rejoined the elder man.

They gave directions that their luggage should be put down at the “Plough and Harrow,” and set off together along the road without more ado.

CHAPTER III.

THEY had not made more than a quarter of a mile, when the tramp of hoofs and trundle of wheels caused them to turn round with an exclamation of surprise that the coach should so speedily have recovered itself. A first glance showed them, however, that the vehicle advancing toward them was a private carriage. Two of the horses carried postilions; the carriage was painted red and black; and as it drew near a coat of arms was seen emblazoned on the door-panel. The turn-out evidently belonged to a person of quality, and there was something in its aspect which suggested a foreign nationality. The two gentlemen stood on one side to let it pass. As it did so, Mr. Grant said, “The lady looked at you as if she knew you.”

“Me! a lady?” returned Lancaster, who had been so occupied in watching the fine action of one of the leaders, as to have had no eyes for the occupants of the carriage.

As he spoke the carriage stopped a few rods beyond them, and a lady, who was neither young nor beautiful, put her head out of the window and motioned to Lancaster with her lifted finger. Muttering an apology to his companion, the young man strode forward, wondering what new adventure might be in store for him. But on reaching the carriage-door his wonder came to an end. There were two ladies inside, and only one of them was unbeautiful. The other was young and in every way attractive. Her appearance and manner were those of a personage of distinction, but her fair visage was alive with a subtle luminousness and mobility of expression which made formality in her seem a playful grace rather than an artificial habit. The margin of her face was swathed in the soft folds of a silken hood, but a strand of reddish hair curled across her white forehead, and a pair of dark, swift-moving and very penetrating eyes met with a laughing sparkle the eyes of Lancaster. He doffed his hat.

“Madame la Marquise! In England! Where is Monsieur?—”

“Hush! You are the same as ever—you meet me after six months, and instead of saying you are glad to see me, you ask where is the Marquis! Ma foi! don’t know where he is.”

“Surely Madame la Marquise does not need to be told how glad I am—”

“Pshaw! Don’t ‘Madame la Marquise’ me, Philip Lancaster! Are we not old friends—old enough, eh? Tell me what you were doing walking along this road with that shabby old man?”

“Old gentleman, Madame la Marquise. The coach was upset—”

“What! You were on that coach that we passed just now in the ditch? You were not hurt?”

“If it had not been for this shabby old gentleman I might have been a cripple for life.”

“Oh! I beg his pardon. Where do you go, then? To London?”

“Not so far. I shall look for lodgings in Hammersmith.”

“Nonsense! Hammersmith? I never heard of such a place. What should you do there? You will live in London—near me—n’est-ce pas?”

“I have work to do. I must keep out of society for the present. You—”

“Listen! For the present, I keep out of society also. I am incognito. No one knows I am here; no one will know till the time comes. We shall keep each other’s secrets. But we cannot converse here. Get in here beside me, and on the way I will tell you ... something! Come.”

“You are very kind, but I have made my arrangements; and, besides, I am engaged to walk with this gentleman. If you will tell me where I may pay my respects to you and Monsieur le Marquis—”

“You are very stupid! I shall tell you nothing unless you come into the carriage. Monsieur le Marquis is not here—he never will be here. I am ... well you need not stare so. What do you suppose I am, then?”

“You are very mysterious.”

“I am nothing of the sort. I am ... a widow. There!”

Philip Lancaster lifted his eyebrows and bowed.

“What does that mean?” demanded the Marquise sharply; “that you congratulate me?”

“By no means, Madame.”

She drew herself up haughtily, and eyed him for a moment. “It appears that your coach has upset you in more ways than one. I apologize for interrupting you in your walk. Beyond doubt, your friend there is very charming. You are impatient to say farewell to me.”

“Nothing more than ‘au revoir,’ I hope.”

She let her haughtiness slip from her like a garment, and, leaning forward, she touched with her soft fingers his hand which rested upon the carriage door.

“You will come here and sit beside me, Philip? Yes?” Her eyes dwelt upon his with an expectation that was almost a command.

“You force me to seem discourteous,” he said, biting his lips, “but—”

“There! do not distress yourself,” she exclaimed with a laugh, and leaning back in her seat. “Adieu! I do not recognize you in England: in Paris you were not so much an Englishman. If we meet in Paris perhaps we shall know each other again. Madame Cabot, have the goodness to tell the coachman to drive on.” These words were spoken in French.

Madame Cabot, the elderly and unbeautiful lady already alluded to, who had sat during this colloquy with a face as unmoved as if English were to her the same as Choctaw, gave the order desired, the horses started, and Philip Lancaster, left alone by the roadside, put on his hat, with a curve of his lip that was not either a smile or a sneer.

Mr. Grant, meanwhile, had strolled onward, and was now some distance down the road. He waited for Lancaster to rejoin him, holding his open snuff-box in his hand; and when the young man came up, he offered him a pinch, which the latter declined. The two walked on together for several minutes in silence, Lancaster only having said, “I am sorry to have kept you waiting—an acquaintance whom I met abroad;” to which Mr. Grant had replied by a mere nod of the head. By-and-by, however, he said, in resumption of the conversation which had been going on previous to the Marquise’s interruption:

“Is it many years then since you left England?”

“Seven or eight—long enough for a man of my age. But you have been absent even longer?”

“Yes; much has been changed since my time. It has been a period of changes. Now that Bonaparte is gone, we may hope for repose. England needs repose: so do I—though my vicissitudes have not been involved in hers. I have lived apart from the political imbroglio. But you must have been in the midst of it. Did you see Waterloo?”

“Only the remains of it: I was a non-combatant. Major Lockhart—a gentleman I met in Paris about three years ago, a fine fellow and a good soldier—we ran across each other again in Brussels, a few days before the battle. Lockhart was killed. He was a man of over sixty; was married, and had a grown-up daughter, I believe. He had been living at home with his family since ’13, and had hoped to see no more fighting. When he did not come back with his regiment, I rode out to look for him, and found his body. That’s all I know of Waterloo.”

“You never bore arms yourself?”

“No. My father was a clergyman; not that that would make much difference; besides, he was not of the bookworm sort, and didn’t object to a little fox-hunting and sparring. But I have never believed in anything enough to fight for it. I am like the Duke in ‘Measure for Measure’—a looker-on at life.”

“Ah! I can conceive that such an occupation may be not less arduous than any. But do you confine yourself to that? Do you never record your impressions?—cultivate literature, for example?”

Lancaster’s face flushed a little, and he turned his head toward his companion with a quick, inquiring look. “How came you to think of that?” he asked.

The old gentleman passed his hand down over his mouth and chin, as if to correct an impulse to smile. “It was but a chance word of your own, while I was at work upon your shoulder-joint,” he replied. “You let fall some word implying that you had written poetry. I am very slightly acquainted with modern English literature, and could not speak from personal knowledge of your works were you the most renowned poet of the day. Pardon me the liberty.”

Lancaster looked annoyed for a moment; but the next moment he laughed. “You cannot do me a better service than to show me that I’m a fool,” he said. “I’m apt to forget it. In theory, I care not a penny whether what I write is read or not; but I do care all the same. I pretend to be a looker-on at life from philosophical motives; but, in fact, it’s nothing but laziness. I try to justify myself by scribbling poetry, and am pleased when I find that any one has discovered my justification. But if I were really satisfied with myself, I should leave justification to whom it might concern.”

“My existence has been passed in what are called practical affairs,” Mr. Grant returned; “but I am not ready to say that, considered in themselves, they have as much real life in them as a single verse of true poetry. Poetry and music are things beyond my power to achieve, but not to enjoy. The experience of life which cannot be translated into poetry or music is a lifeless and profitless experience.” He checked himself, and added in his usual tone: “I mean to say that, man of business though I am, I am not unacquainted with the writings of poets, and I take great delight in them. The wisest thing a man can do is, I apprehend, to augment the enjoyment of other men. Commerce and politics aim to develop our own wealth and power at the cost of others; but poetry, like love, gives to all, and asks for nothing except to be received.”

“Have a care, or you will undo the service I have just thanked you for. Besides, as a matter of fact, poetry in our days not only asks to be received, but to be received by publishers, and paid for!”

Something in the young man’s manner of saying this, rather than the saying itself, seemed to strike Mr. Grant, for he glanced at the other with a momentary keenness of scrutiny, and presently said:

“Your father, I think you mentioned, was a clergyman?”

“He was Herbert Lancaster.”

Mr. Grant halted for a moment in his walk to extract his snuff-box from his pocket. After having taken a pinch, he again gave a sharp look at his companion, and observed as he walked on:

“My prolonged absence from my native land has made my recollection of such matters a little rusty, but am I mistaken in supposing there is a title in the family?”

“My uncle is Lord Croftus—the fifth baron.”

“Ah! precisely; yes, yes. Then was it not your father who married a daughter of the Earl of Seabridge? or am I confounding him with another?”

“You are quite right. He married the youngest daughter, Alice; and I am their only child, for lack of a better.”

“Ah! Very singular,” returned Mr. Grant; but he did not explain in what the singularity consisted.

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. LOCKHART’S house at Hammersmith had been considered a good house in its day, and was still decent and comfortable. It stood on a small side street which branched off from the main road in the direction of the river, and was built of dark red brick, with plain white-sashed windows. It occupied the centre of an oblong plot of ground about half an acre in extent, with a high brick wall all round it, except in front, where space was left for a wrought-iron gate, hung between two posts, with an heraldic animal of ambiguous species sitting upright on each of them. The straight path which led from this gate to the front door of the house was paved with broad square flagstones, kept very clean. In the midst of the grass-plot on the left, as you entered, was a dark-hued cedar of Lebanon, whose flattened layers of foliage looked out of keeping with the English climate and the character of English trees. At the back of the house was an orchard, comprising three ancient apple-trees and the lifeless stump of the fourth; some sunflowers and hollyhocks, alternating with gooseberry bushes, were planted along the walls, which, for the most part, were draped in ivy. The interior of the building showed a wide hall, giving access to a staircase, which, after attaining a broad landing, used as a sort of an open sitting-room, and looking out through a window upon the back garden, mounted to the region of bed-rooms. The ground floor was divided into three rooms and a kitchen, all of comfortable dimensions, and containing sober and presentable furniture. In the drawing-room, moreover, hung a portrait, taken in 1805, of the deceased master of the establishment; and a miniature of the same gentleman, in a gold-rimmed oval frame, reposed upon Mrs. Lockhart’s work-table. The sideboard in the dining-room supported a salver and some other articles of plate which had belonged to Mrs. Lockhart’s family, and which, when she surrendered her maiden name of Fanny Pell, had been included in her modest dowry. For the rest, there was a small collection of books, ranged on some shelves sunk into the wall on either side of the drawing-room mantel-piece; and fastened against the walls were sundry spoils of war, such as swords, helmets and flint-lock muskets, which the Major had brought home from his campaigns. Their stern and battle-worn aspect contrasted markedly with the gentle and quiet demeanor of the dignified old lady who sat at the little table by the window, with her sewing in her hands.

Mrs. Lockhart, as has been already intimated, had been a very lovely girl, and, allowing for the modifications wrought by age, she had not, at sixty-six, lost the essential charm which had distinguished her at sixteen. Her social success had, during four London seasons, been especially brilliant; and, although her fortune was at no time great, she had received many highly eligible offers of marriage; and his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had declared her to be “a doosid sweet little creature.” She had kept the citadel of her heart through many sieges, and, save on one occasion, it had never known the throb of passion up to the period of her marriage with Lieutenant Lockhart. But, two years previous to that event, being then in her eighteenth year, she had crossed the path of the famous Tom Grantley, who, at four-and-thirty years of age, had not yet passed the meridian of his renown. He was of Irish family and birth, daring, fascinating, generous and dangerous with both men and women; accounted one of the handsomest men in Europe, a fatal duelist, a reckless yet fortunate gambler, a well-nigh irresistible wooer in love, and in political debate an orator of impetuous and captivating eloquence. His presence and bearing were lofty and superb; and he was one of those whose fiat in manners of fashion was law. When only twenty-one years old, he had astonished society by eloping with Edith, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Seabridge, a girl not less remarkable for beauty than for a spirit and courage which were a match for Tom Grantley’s own. The Earl had never forgiven this wild marriage, and Tom having already seriously diminished his patrimony by extravagance, the young couple were fain to make a more than passing acquaintance with the seamy side of life. But loss of fortune did not, for them, mean loss either of heart or of mutual love, and during five years of their wedded existence there was nowhere to be found a more devoted husband than Tom Grantley, or a wife more affectionate and loyal than Lady Edith. And when she died, leaving him an only child, it was for some time a question whether Tom would not actually break his heart.

He survived his loss, however, and, having inherited a fresh fortune from a relative, he entered the world again and dazzled it once more. But he was never quite the same man as previously; there was a sternness and bitterness underlying his character which had not formerly been perceptible. During the ensuing ten years he was engaged in no fewer than thirteen duels, in which it was generally understood that the honor of some unlucky lady or other was at stake, and in most of these encounters he either wounded or killed his man. In his thirteenth affair he was himself severely wounded, the rapier of his antagonist penetrating the right lung; the wound healed badly, and probably shortened his life by many years, though he did not die until after reaching the age of forty. At the time of his meeting with Fanny Pell he was moving about London, a magnificent wreck of a man, with great melancholy blue eyes, a voice sonorously musical, a manner and address of grave and exquisite courtesy. Gazing upon that face, whose noble beauty was only deepened by the traces it bore of passion and pain, Fanny Pell needed not the stimulus of his ominous reputation to yield him first her awed homage, and afterwards her heart. But Tom, on this occasion, acted in a manner which, we may suppose, did something toward wiping away the stains of his many sins. He had been attracted by the gentle charm of the girl, and for a while he made no scruple about attracting her in turn. There was a maidenly dignity and straightforwardness about Fanny Pell, however, which, while it won upon Grantley far more than did the deliberate and self-conscious fascinations of other women, inspired at the same time an unwonted relenting in his heart. Feeling that here was one who might afford him something vastly deeper and more valuable than the idle pride of conquest and possession with which he was only too familiar, he bethought himself to show his recognition of the worth of that gift in the only way that was open to him—by rejecting it. So, one day, looking down from his majestic height into her lovely girlish face, he said with great gentleness, “My dear Miss Fanny, it has been very kind of you to show so much goodness to a broken-down old scamp like myself, who’s old enough to be your father; and faith! I feel like a father to ye, too! Why, if I’d had a little girl instead of a boy, she might have had just such a sweet face as yours, my dear. So you’ll not take it ill of me—will ye now!—if I just give you a kiss on the forehead before I go away. Many a woman have I seen and forgotten, who’ll maybe not forget me in a hurry; but your fair eyes and tender voice I never will forget, for they’ve done more for me than ever a father confessor of ’em all! Good-by, dear child; and if ever any man would do ye wrong—though, sure, no man that has as much heart as a fish would do that—tell him to ’ware Tom Grantley! and as true as there’s a God in heaven, and a Tom Grantley on earth, I’ll put my bullet through the false skull of him. That’s all, my child: only, when ye come to marry some fine honest chap, as soon ye will, don’t forget to send for your old friend Tom to come and dance at your wedding.”

Poor Fanny felt as if her heart were being taken out of her innocent bosom; but she was by nature so quiet in all her ways that all she did was to stand with her glistening eyes uplifted toward the splendid gentleman, her lips tremulous, and her little hands hanging folded before her. And Tom, who was but human after all, and had begun to fear that he had undertaken at least as much as he was capable of performing, kissed her, not on her forehead, but on her mouth, and therewith took his leave hurriedly, and without much ceremony. And Fanny never saw him again; but she never forgot him, nor he her; though two years afterwards she married Lieutenant Lockhart, and was a faithful and loving wife to him for five-and-forty years. The honest soldier never thought of asking why she named their first child Tom; and when the child died, and Mrs. Lockhart put on mourning, it never occurred to him that Tom Grantley’s having died in the same month of the same year had deepened the folds of his wife’s crape. But so it is that the best of us have our secrets, and those who are nearest to us suspect it not.

For the rest, Mrs. Lockhart’s life was a sufficiently adventurous and diversified one. War was a busy and a glorious profession in those days; and the sweet-faced lady accompanied her husband on several of his campaigns, cheerfully enduring any hardships; or awaited his return at home, amidst the more trying hardships of suspense and fear. During that time when the nations paused for a moment to watch France cut off her own head as a preliminary to entering upon a new life, Captain Lockhart (as he was then) and his wife happened to be on that side of the Channel, and saw many terrible historical sights; and the Captain, who was no friend to revolution in any shape, improved an opportunity for doing a vital service for a distinguished French nobleman, bringing the latter safely to England at some risk to his own life. A year or two later Mrs. Lockhart’s second child was born, this time a daughter; and then followed a few summers and winters of comparative calm, the monotony of which was only partially relieved by such domestic events as the trial of Warren Hastings, the acting of Kemble and the classic buffoonery of Grimaldi. Then the star of Nelson began to kindle, and Captain Lockhart, reading the news, kindled also, and secretly glanced at his honorable sword hanging upon the wall; yet not so secretly but that his wife detected and interpreted the glance, and kissed her little daughter with a sigh. And it was not long before Arthur Wellesley went to Spain, and Captain Lockhart, along with many thousand other loyal Englishmen, followed him thither; and Mrs. Lockhart and little Marion stayed behind and waited for news. The news that chiefly interested her was that her husband was promoted to be Major for gallant conduct on the field of battle; then that he was wounded; and, finally, that he was coming home. Home he came, accordingly, a glorious invalid; but even this was not to be the end of trouble and glory. England still had need of her best men, and Major Lockhart was among those who were responsible for the imprisonment of the Corsican Ogre in St. Helena. It was between this period and the sudden storm that culminated at Waterloo, that the happiest time of all the married life of the Lockharts was passed. He had saved a fair sum of money, with part of which he bought the house in Hammersmith; and upon the interest of the remainder, in addition to his half-pay, he was able to carry on existence with comfort and respectability. Marion was no longer the odd little creature in short skirts that she had been when the Major kissed her good-by on his departure for the Peninsular War, but a well-grown and high-spirited young lady, with the features of her father, and a character of her own. She was passionately devoted to the gray-haired veteran, and was never tired of listening to his famous histories; of cooking his favorite dishes; of cutting tobacco for his pipe; of sitting on the arm of his chair, with her arm about his neck, and her cheek against his. “Marion has the stuff of a soldier in her,” the Major used to declare; whereupon the mother would silently thank Providence that Marion was not a boy. It had only been within the last five or six years that Marion had really believed that she was not, or might not become, a boy after all; a not uncommon hallucination with those who are destined to become more than ordinarily womanly.

When the event occurred which widowed France of her Emperor and Mrs. Lockhart of her husband (much the worst catastrophe of the two, in that lady’s opinion), the prospects of the household in Hammersmith seemed in no respect bright. The Major’s half-pay ceased with the Major, and the widow’s pension was easier to get in theory than in practice. The interest of the small capital was not sufficient by itself to meet the current expenses, though these were conducted upon the most economical scale; and Marion, upon whose shoulders all domestic cares devolved, was presently at her wit’s end how to get on. She did all the cooking herself, and much of the washing, though Mrs. Lockhart strongly protested against the latter, because Marion’s hands were of remarkably fine shape and texture, being, in fact, her chief beauty from the conventional point of view, and washing would make them red and ugly. Marion affirmed, with more sincerity than is commonly predicable of such sayings, that her hands were made to use, and that she did not care about them except as they were useful; and she went on with her washing in spite of protestations. But even this did not cover deficiencies; and then there was the wardrobe question. Marion, however, pointed out that, in the first place, she had enough clothes on hand to last her for a long time, especially as she had done growing; and, secondly, that she could easily manage all necessary repairs and additions herself. To this Mrs. Lockhart replied that young ladies must be dressed like young ladies; that good clothes were a necessary tribute to good society; and that in order to be happily and genteelly married, a girl must make the most of her good points, and subdue her bad ones, by the adornments of costume. This was, no doubt, very true; but marriage was a thing which Marion never could hear proposed, even by her own mother, with any patience; and, as a consequence, to use marriage as an argument in support of dress, was to insure the rejection of the argument. Marriage, said Marion, was, to begin with, a thing to which her whole character and temperament were utterly opposed. She was herself too much like a man ever to care for a man, or not to despise him. In the next place, if a girl had not enough in her to win an honest man’s love, in spite of any external disadvantages, then the best thing for her would be not to be loved at all. Love, this young dissenter would go on to observe, is something sacred, if it is anything; and so pure and sensitive, that it were infinitely better to forego it altogether than to run the least risk of getting it mixed up with any temporal or expedient considerations. And since, she would add, it seems to be impossible nowadays ever to get love in that unsullied and virginal condition, she for her part intended to give it a wide berth if ever it came in her way—which she was quite sure it never would; because it takes two to make a bargain, and not only would she never be one of the two, but, if she were to be so, she thanked God that she had so ugly a face and so unconciliating a temper that no man would venture to put up with her; unless, perhaps, she were possessed of five or ten thousand a year; from which misfortune it was manifestly the beneficent purpose of Providence to secure her. The upshot of this diatribe was that she did not care how shabby and ungenteel her clothes were, so long as they were clean and covered her; and that even if she could afford to hire a dressmaker, she would still prefer to do her making and mending herself; because no one so well as herself could comprehend what she wanted.

“You should not call yourself ugly, Marion,” her mother would reply: “at any rate, you should not think yourself ugly. A girl generally appears to others like what she is in the habit of thinking herself to be. Half the women who are called beauties are not really beautiful; but they have persuaded themselves that they are so, and then other people believe it. People in this world so seldom take the pains to think or to judge for themselves; they take what is given to them. Besides, to think a thing, really does a great deal toward making it come true. If you think you are pretty, you will grow prettier every day. And if you keep on talking about being ugly.... You have a very striking, intelligent face, my dear, and your smile is very charming indeed.”

Marion laughed scornfully. “Believing a lie is not the way to invent truth,” she said. “All the imagination in England won’t make me different from what I am. Whether I am ugly or not, I’m not a fool, and I shan’t give anybody the right to call me one by behaving as if I fancied I were somebody else. I am very well as I am,” she continued, wringing out a towel and spreading it out on the clothes-horse to dry. “I should be too jealous and suspicious to make a man happy, and I don’t mean to try it. You don’t understand that; but you were made to be married, and I wasn’t, and that’s the reason.”

Nevertheless, the income continued to be insufficient, and inroads continued to be made on the capital, much to the friendly distress of Sir Francis Bendibow, the head of the great banking-house of Bendibow Brothers, to whose care the funds of the late Major Lockhart had been intrusted “The first guinea you withdraw from your capital, my dear madam,” he had assured Mrs. Lockhart, with his usual manner of impressive courtesy, “represents your first step on the road that leads to bankruptcy.” The widow admitted the truth of the maxim; but misfortunes are not always curable in proportion as they are undeniable; though that seemed to be Sir Francis’ assumption. Mrs. Lockhart began to suffer from her anxieties. Marion saw this, and was in despair. “What a good-for-nothing thing a woman is!” she exclaimed bitterly. “If I were a man I would earn our living.” She understood something of music, and sang and played with great refinement and expression: but her talent in this direction was natural, not acquired, and she was not sufficiently grounded in the science of the accomplishment to have any chance of succeeding as a teacher. What was to be done?

“What do you say to selling the house and grounds, and going into lodgings?” she said one day.

“It would help us for a time, but not for always,” the mother replied. “Lodgings are so expensive.”

“The house is a great deal bigger than we need,” said Marion.

“We should be no better off if it were smaller,” said Mrs. Lockhart.

There was a long pause. Suddenly Marion jumped to her feet, while the light of inspiration brightened over her face. “Why, mother, what is to prevent us letting our spare rooms to lodgers?” she cried out.

“Oh, that would be impossible!” returned the mother in dismay. “The rooms that your dear father used to live in!”

“That is what we must do,” answered Marion firmly; and in the end, as we have seen, that was what they did.

CHAPTER V.

THE third of May passed away, and, beyond the hanging up in the window of the card with “Lodgings to Let” written on it, nothing new had happened in the house at Hammersmith. But the exhibition of that card had been to Mrs. Lockhart an event of such momentous and tragic importance, that she did not know whether she were most astonished, relieved, or disappointed that it had produced no perceptible effect upon the outer universe.

“It seems to be of no use,” she said to her daughter, while the latter was assisting her in her morning toilet. “Had we not better take down the card, and try to think of something else. Couldn’t we keep half-a-dozen fowls, and sell the eggs?”

“How faint-hearted you are, mother!”

“Besides, even if somebody were to pass here who wanted lodgings, they could never think of looking through the gate; and if they did, I doubt whether they could see the card.”

“I have thought of that; and when I got up this morning I tied the card to the gate itself. Nobody can fail to see it there.”

“Oh, Marion! It is almost as if we were setting up a shop.”

“Everybody is more or less a shopkeeper,” replied Marion philosophically. “Some people sell rank, others beauty, others cleverness, others their souls to the devil: we might do worse than sell house-room to those who want it.”

“Oh, my dear!”

“Bless your dear heart! you’ll think nothing of it, once the lodgers are in the house,” rejoined the girl, kissing her mother’s cheek.

They went down to breakfast: it was a pleasant morning; the sky was a tender blue, and the eastern sunshine shot through the dark limbs of the cedar of Lebanon, and fell in cheerful patches on the floor of the dining-room, and sent a golden shaft across the white breakfast cloth, and sparkled on the silver teapot—the same teapot in which Fanny Pell had once made tea for handsome Tom Grantley in the year 1768. Marion was in high spirits: at all events, she adopted a lightsome tone, in contrast to her usual somewhat grave preoccupation. She was determined to make her mother smile.

“This is our last solitary breakfast,” she declared. “To-morrow morning we shall sit down four to table. There will be a fine old gentleman for me, and a handsome young man for you; for anybody would take you to be the younger of us two. The old gentleman will be impressed with my masculine understanding and knowledge of the world; we shall talk philosophy, and history, and politics; he will finally confess to a more than friendly interest in me; but I shall stop him there, and remind him that, for persons of our age, it is most prudent not to marry. He will allow himself to be persuaded on that point; but he has a vast fortune, and he will secretly make his will in my favor. Your young gentleman will be of gentle blood, a sentimentalist and an artist; his father will have been in love with you; the son will have the good taste to inherit the passion; he will entreat you to let him paint your portrait; but, if he becomes too pressing in his attentions, I shall feel it my duty to take him aside, and admonish him like a mother. He will be so mortally afraid of me, that I shall have no difficulty in managing him. In the course of a year or two—”

“Is not that somebody? I’m sure I heard—”

“La, mother, don’t look so scared!” cried Marion, laughing, but coloring vividly: “it can’t be anything worse than an executioner with a warrant for our arrest.” She turned in her chair, and looked through the window and across the grass-plot to the gate.

“There is somebody—two gentlemen—just as I said: one old and the other young.”

“Are you serious, Marion?” said the widow, interlacing her fingers across her breast, while her lips trembled.

“They are reading the card: the old one is holding a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses across his nose. Now they are looking through the gate at the house: the young one is saying something, and the other is smiling and taking snuff. The young one has a small head, but his eyes are big, and he has broad shoulders: he looks like an artist, just as I said. The old one stoops a little and is ugly; but I like his face—it’s honest. He doesn’t seem to be very rich, though; his coat is very old-fashioned. Oh, they are going away!”

“Oh, I am so glad!” exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart fervently.

“No, they are coming back—they are coming in: the young one is opening the gate. Here they come: that young fellow is certainly very handsome. There!”

A double knock sounded through the house.

“Say we are not at home—oh, they must not come in! Tell them to call another day. Perhaps they may not have called about the lodgings,” faltered the widow, in agitation.

Marion said nothing; being, to tell the truth, engaged in screwing her own courage to the sticking-point. After a pause of a few moments she marched to the door, with a step so measured and deliberate as to suggest stern desperation rather than easy indifference. Passing into the hall, and closing the door behind her, she threw open the outer door and faced the two intruders.

The elder gentleman stood forward as spokesman. “Good morning to you,” he said, glancing observantly at the young woman’s erect figure. “You have lodgings to let, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“This gentleman and I are in search of lodgings. Is the accommodation sufficient for two? We should require separate apartments.”

“You can come in and see.” She made way for them to enter, and conducted them into the sitting-room on the left.

“You had better speak to your mistress, my dear, or to your master, if he is at home, and say we would like to speak to him.” This was said by the younger man.

Marion looked at him with a certain glow of fierceness. “My father is not living,” she said. “There is no need to disturb my mother. I can show you over the house myself.”

“I ask your pardon sincerely. It has always been my foible to speak before I look. I took it for granted—”

“I don’t suppose you intended any harm, sir,” said Marion coldly. “If we could have afforded a servant to attend the door, we should not have been forced to take lodgers.” She turned to the elder man and added: “We have three vacant rooms on the floor above, and a smaller room on the top story. You might divide the accommodation to suit yourselves. You can come up stairs, if you like, and see whether they would suit you.”

The gentlemen assented, and followed Marion over the upper part of the house. The elder man examined the rooms and the furniture with care; but the younger kept his regards fixed rather upon the guide than upon what she showed them. Her gait, the movement of her arms, the carriage of her head, her tone and manner of speaking, all were subjected to his scrutiny. He said little, but took care that what he did say should be of a courteous and conciliatory nature. The elder man asked questions pleasantly, and seemed pleased with the answers Marion gave him. Within a short time the crudity and harshness of the first part of the interview began to vanish, and the relations of the three became more genial and humane. There was here and there a smile, and once, at least, a laugh. Marion, who was always quick to recognize the humorous aspect of a situation, already foresaw herself making her mother merry with an account of this adventure, when the heroes of it should have gone away. The party returned to the sitting-room in a very good humor with one another, therefore.

“For my part, I am more than satisfied,” remarked the elder gentleman, taking out his snuff-box. “Do you agree with me, Mr. Lancaster?”

Lancaster did not reply. He was gazing with great interest at the oil portrait that hung on the wall. At length he turned to Marion and said: “Is that—may I ask who that is?”

“My father.”

“Was he a major in the 97th regiment?”

“Did you know him?”

“I knew Major Lockhart; He—of course you know—fell at Waterloo.”

“We know that he was killed there, but we have no particulars,” said Marion, her voice faltering, and her eyes full of painful eagerness.

“And you are Miss Lockhart—the Marion he spoke of?”

“Wait a moment,” she said, in a thick voice, and turning pale. She walked to the window, and pressed her forehead against the glass. Presently she turned round and said, “I will call my mother, sir. She must hear what you have to tell us,” and left the room.

“A strange chance this!” remarked the elder man thoughtfully.

“She’s a fine girl, and looks like her father,” said Lancaster.

In a few moments Marion re-entered with her mother. Mrs. Lockhart looked from one to the other of the two men with wide-open eyes and flushed cheeks: a slight tremor pervaded the hand with which she mechanically smoothed the thick braids of gray hair that covered her graceful head. She moved with an uncertain step to a chair, and said in a voice scarcely audible, “Will you be seated, gentlemen? My daughter tells me that you—one of you—”

“The honor belongs to me, madam,” said Lancaster, with deep respect and with some evidence of emotion, “of having seen your husband the day before his death. He mentioned both of you; he said no man in the army had had so happy a life as he—such a wife and such a daughter. I shall remember other things that he said, by-and-by; but this meeting has come upon me by surprise, and.... The day after the battle I rode out to the field and found him. He had fallen most gallantly—I need not tell you that—at a moment such as all brave soldiers would wish to meet death in. He was wounded through the heart, and must have died instantly. I assumed the privilege of bringing his body to Brussels, and of seeing it buried there.” Here he paused, for both the women were crying, and, in sympathy with them, his own voice was getting husky. The elder man sat with his face downcast, and his hands folded between his knees.

“Is the grave marked?” he suddenly asked, looking up at Lancaster.

“Yes; the name, and the regiment, and the date. I brought something from him,” he went on, addressing Marion, as being the stronger of the two women; “it was fastened by a gold chain round his neck, and he wore it underneath his coat. You would have received it long ago if I had known where to find you.” He held out to her, as he spoke, a small locket with its chain. Marion took it, and held it pressed between her hands, not saying anything. After a moment, the two gentlemen exchanged a glance, and got up. The elder gentleman approached Marion with great gentleness of manner; and, when she arose and attempted to speak, he put his hand kindly on her shoulder.

“I had a little girl once, who loved me,” he said. “You must let me go without ceremony now; to-morrow I shall ask leave to come back and complete our arrangements. God bless you, my child! Are you going with me, Mr. Lancaster?”

“Shall you come back to-morrow, too?” said Marion to the latter.

“Indeed I will.”

“Then I won’t try to thank you now,” she replied. But their eyes met for a moment, and Lancaster did not feel that the recognition of his service had been postponed.

They were going out without attempting to take leave of Mrs. Lockhart; but she rose up from her chair and courtseyed to them with a grace and dignity worthy of Fanny Pell. And then, yielding to an impulse that was better than the best high breeding, the gentle widow stepped quickly up to Lancaster, and put her arms about his neck, and kissed him.

CHAPTER VI.

THE great banking-house of Bendibow Brothers, like many other great things, had a modest beginning. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a certain Mr. Abraham Bendibow in London, who kept a goldsmith’s shop in the neighborhood of Whitechapel, and supplemented the profits of that business by lending money at remunerative interest, on the security of certain kinds of personal property. To his customers and casual acquaintances he was merely a commonplace, keen, cautious, hard-headed and hard-hearted man of business; and, perhaps, till as lately as the second decade of the century, this might have fairly represented his own opinion of himself. Nevertheless, there lurked in his character, in addition to the qualities above mentioned, two others which are by no means commonplace, namely, imagination and enterprise. They might have lurked there unsuspected till the day of his death, but for the intervention of circumstances—to make use of a convenient word of which nobody has ever explained the real meaning. But, in 1711, that ingenious nobleman, the Earl of Oxford, being animated by a praiseworthy desire to relieve a nightmare of a half-score million sterling or so of indebtedness which was then oppressing the government, hit upon that famous scheme which has since entered into history under the name of the South Sea Bubble. The scheme attracted Bendibow’s attention, and he studied it for some time in his usual undemonstrative but thoroughgoing manner. Whenever occasion offered he discussed it, in an accidental and indifferent way, with all kinds of people. At the end of two or three years he probably understood more about the affair than any other man in London. Whether he believed that it was a substance or a bubble will never be known to any one except himself. All that can be affirmed is that he minded his own business, and imparted his opinion to no one. The opinion gradually gained ground that he shared the views of Sir Robert Walpole, who, in the House of Commons, was almost the only opposer of the South Sea scheme. So matters went on until the year 1720.

It was at this period that the excitement and convulsion began. The stock had risen to 330. Abraham Bendibow sat in his shop, and preserved an unruffled demeanor. The stock fell to below 300; but Abraham kept his strong box locked, and went about his business as usual. Stock mounted again to 340; but nobody perceived any change in Mr. Bendibow. For all any one could see, he might never have heard of the South Sea scheme in his life. And yet a great fortune was even then in his grasp, had he chosen to stretch out his hand to take it.

Weeks and months passed away, and the stock kept on rising. Often it would tremble and fall, but after each descent it climbed higher than before. It became the one absorbing topic of conversation with everybody except Abraham Bendibow, who composedly preferred to have no concern in the matter: it was not for small tradesmen like him to meddle with such large enterprises. And, meanwhile, the stock rose and rose, and rose higher still, until men lost their heads, and other men made colossal fortunes, and everybody expected to secure at least ten thousand a year. One day the stock touched 890, and then people held their breath and turned pale, and the most sanguine said in their hearts that this was supernatural and could not last.

On that day Abraham Bendibow went into his private room, and locked the door; and taking pen and paper he made a calculation. After having made it he sat for a long time gazing at the little array of figures in seeming abstraction. Then he leaned back in his chair, with one hand in the pocket of his small-clothes, while with the other he slowly rubbed his chin at intervals. By degrees he began to breathe more quickly, and his eyes became restless. He arose from his chair and paced up and down the room. “Eight hundred and ninety,” he kept muttering to himself, over and over again. The strong box stood in the corner of the room, and toward this Mr. Bendibow often looked. Once he approached it, and laid his hand upon the lid; then he turned away from it with an abrupt movement, compressing his lips and shaking his head. He resumed his pacing up and down the room, his head bent down in deep and troubled thought. At last an idea seemed to strike him. He unlocked and opened the door of the room, and called in a harsh, peremptory tone:

“Jacob!”

A young man appeared, about twenty years of age. In features he resembled the other, but his face was not so broad, nor was his air so commanding. Mr. Bendibow motioned to him with his head to enter. He then seated himself in his chair, and eyed Jacob for a while in silence. Jacob stood with his head stretched forward, and slowly chafing the back of one hand with the palm of the other, while his countenance wore an expression of deferential inquiry.

“Jacob,” said the elder, “what is doing out-doors to-day—eh?”

“The same as usual, father,” answered Jacob, tentatively, as being in some doubt what the question might portend. “There is plenty of excitement: same as usual.”

“Excitement; on what account?”

“Well, sir, the stocks: terrible speculation: madness—nothing less. There was a fellow, sir, this very morning, got out a prospectus of a company for prosecuting a certain undertaking not at present to be revealed: capital one million, in ten thousand shares of one hundred each: deposit two pounds, entitling to one hundred per annum, per share: particulars next week, and balance of subscription week after next. Frightful, upon my soul, sir!”

“Has anybody bitten?”

“A good many have been bitten,” returned Jacob, with a dry giggle. “Three thousand pounds were subscribed in three hours; and then the fellow decamped. Madness, upon my life!”

“You would not advise having anything to do with such speculations, eh, Jacob?”

“Me? Bless my soul, not I indeed!” exclaimed Jacob with energy.

“Why not?”

“In the first place, because you have expressed disapproval of it, father,” replied the virtuous Jacob. “And I may flatter myself I have inherited something of your sound judgment.”

“So you have never speculated at all—eh, Jacob? Never at all, eh? Never bought a shilling’s worth of stock of any kind in your life—eh? The truth, Jacob!”

The last words were pronounced in so stern a tone that Jacob changed color, turning his eyes first to one side of his father’s point-blank gaze, and then to the other. At last, however, their glances met, and then Jacob said:

“I might not be able to swear to a shilling or so, neither—”

“Nor to a guinea: nor to ten, nor to fifty—eh, Jacob?”

“Not more than fifty; upon my soul, sir,” said Jacob, laying his hands upon his heart in earnest deprecation. “Not a penny, sir, upon my word of honor!”

“What of the fifty then—eh?”

“It was in South Sea: I bought at 400,” said Jacob.

“At 400? And what is it to-day?”

“Eight hundred and ninety it was this morning,” said Jacob.

“Was this morning? Do you mean it has fallen since?”

“It has indeed, sir. They’ve all been selling like demons; and it’s below eight hundred at this moment.”

“What have you done—eh?”

“Sold out the first thing, sir, at four hundred and ninety per cent, clear profit,” replied Jacob, something of complacency mingling with the anxious deference of his tone.

“Therefore, instead of fifty pounds, you now have three hundred or so?”

“Two hundred, ninety and five, sir,” said the youth modestly.

“Jacob, you are a fool!”

“Sir?”

“You have thrown your money away. You are a fool! You are timid! You have neither the genius, the steadiness, nor the daring to manage and to multiply a great fortune. Were you like myself, Jacob, you or your children might have a hand in controlling the destinies of England, and thus of the world. You have behaved like a pettifogger and a coward, Jacob. I do not ask you to be honest. No man is honest when he is sure that dishonesty will enrich him. But, whatever you are, I ask you to be that thing with all your soul. Be great, or be nothing! Only fools and cowards patter about morality! I tell you that success is the only morality.” Here Mr. Bendibow, who had spoken with calmness, though by no means without emphasis, checked himself, and putting his hand in his pocket drew forth a key which he handed to his son. “Open the strong box,” he said, “and take out the papers you will find in it.”

Jacob did as he was bid. But his first glance at the papers made him start and stare in a bewildered manner at the unmoved countenance of his father. He then reverted to the papers; but, after a close inspection of them, he seemed only more bewildered than before.

“This is South Sea stock, sir,” he said at length.

“Well, Jacob?” said Mr. Bendibow, composedly.

“Nigh on fifteen thousand pounds’ worth at par, sir.”

“Yes, Jacob.”

“I see how it is; you have been buying for some one!” broke out Jacob, energetically.

“Evidently, Jacob.”

There was a pause. “On commission, of course?” hazarded Jacob.

“No commission at all, Jacob.”

Jacob’s jaws relaxed. “No commission? Whom did you buy for, sir?”

“For myself, Jacob.”

Jacob dropped the papers on the table, and leaned against it dizzily; his breath forsook him. Finally, Mr. Bendibow said: “Jacob, you are even more a fool than I took you for.”

“But how.... When did you buy, sir?” faltered Jacob.

“Eight or nine years ago,” Mr. Bendibow replied.

“Then ... why, then you must have got it at under two hundred?”

“Eighty to a hundred and twenty,” said Mr. Bendibow, curtly.

There was another pause. Jacob moistened his lips and passed his hand over his forehead. Suddenly he screamed out, “But you haven’t sold, sir!”

“Well, Jacob?”

“If you’d sold this morning you’d have been worth a hundred and thirty-five thousand sterling—one hundred and thirty-five thousand!”

“Very nearly, Jacob.”

“And stock is falling: you’ve lost fifteen thousand since ten o’clock!” shouted Jacob, now quite beside himself. He seized the papers again, and made for the door. There he was stopped by an iron grasp on his arm, and Mr. Bendibow said, in a voice as uncompromising as his grasp, “Stay where you are!”

“But it’s not too late, sir; we’ll clear a hundred thousand yet,” pleaded Jacob, in agony.

“Be silent, and hear what I say to you. When I bought this stock, and paid fifteen thousand pounds for it, I made up my mind either to lose all or to win ten times my stake. I made up my mind that my fortune should be either one hundred and fifty thousand sterling, or nothing. Through nine years I have held to my purpose. Until this hour no one has known that I have risked a penny. Men have made fortunes—I have seen it, and held to my purpose, and held my tongue. Men have gone mad with success or failure; I am the same to-day that I was ten years ago. This morning stock reached eight hundred and ninety; a thousand fools like you sold, and now it is falling, and will fall yet more. But it is my belief that it will rise again. It will rise to one thousand. When it touches one thousand, I sell; not before, and not afterward. I shall win one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. With that money I shall found a banking-house. It will be known as the banking-house of Bendibow and Son. If you and your children were men like myself, the house of Bendibow and Son would become one of the great Powers of Europe. Where now we have ten thousand, in a century we should have a million. But you are not such a man as I am. Your children and your great-grandchildren will not be such men as I am. But I have done what I could. I have written down in a book the rules which you are to obey—you, and all your descendants. If you disobey them, my curse will be upon you, and you will fail. I am not young; and no man knows the day when he shall die: therefore I have called you, Jacob, and made this known to you now; because a day or a month hence might be too late. You are not such a man as I am; but any man can obey; and if you obey the rules that I have written you will not fail. Let those rules be written upon your heart, and upon the hearts of your children’s children, even unto the latest generation. There is no power in this world so great as a great fortune, greatly used; but a fool may lose that power in a day.”

Mr. Bendibow had spoken these words standing erect, and with his eyes fixed steadfastly upon his son; and his tone was stern, solemn and impressive. He now said, in another tone: “Put the papers back in the strong box, Jacob, and do not speak of them again, either to me or to any other person, until stock is at one thousand. Come to me then, and not before. Now go.”

“But, father, what if stock never reaches one thousand?” suggested Jacob, timidly.

“Then I shall have lost fifteen thousand pounds,” returned Mr. Bendibow, composedly resuming his seat in his chair.

Jacob said no more, but replaced the papers in the strong box, handed the key to his father, and left the room, a different man from when he entered it. He could not be an original great man, but he could appreciate and reverence original greatness; and, being instructed, could faithfully carry out the behests of that greatness. Doubtless his father, who had the insight into human nature which generally characterizes men of his sort, had perceived this, and had shaped his conduct accordingly. Nor is it impossible—the greatest of men being but men after all—that Mr. Bendibow may have taken his son into his confidence as much to guard against his own human weakness as to provide against the contingency of his death or incapacity. Proudly though he asserted the staunchness of his purpose, he had that day felt the tug of temptation, and may have been unwilling to risk the strain unaided again. Be that as it may, it is certain that the confidence came none too soon. When the evening meal was ready Mr. Bendibow did not appear; his customary punctuality made the delay seem extraordinary; so, after waiting half an hour, Jacob went to summon him. He knocked at the door, but no response came. At last he made bold to open the door; and there sat Abraham Bendibow in his chair, with the key of the strong box in his hand, looking, in the dusk, very much as he had looked when Jacob left him three hours before. But Abraham Bendibow was dead.

All his affairs were found to be in order; and, among the other contents of the strong box, was the book of rules of which he had spoken to Jacob. As to the South Sea stock, it sank and sank, and Jacob’s heart sank with it; and when the stock had reached six hundred and forty, Jacob’s heart was in his boots. Nevertheless he was faithful to his trust, and held on. Soon afterward the agents of the Company bought largely, and stock rose once more, and practically for the last time. The hour came at last when it was quoted at one thousand, and then, with a trembling delight, and with a conviction of his father’s prescience and wisdom, that amounted to religious veneration, Jacob went forth and sold; and that night he deposited in the strong box bank-notes and bullion to the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Such was the beginning of the famous house of Bendibow.

CHAPTER VII.

THE history of the house of Bendibow & Son—or of Bendibow Brothers, as it came to be called—was broadly the history of the eighteenth century in England. Persons who deal in money are apt to come into relation with most of the prominent characters and events of their time, and Bendibow Brothers dealt in that commodity very extensively. The thirty years covered by the reign of George the Second was a picturesque and brilliant period. Famous personages were to be met everywhere—in London, Epsom, Bath, Tunbridge and Scarborough: York, too, was a fashionable place in those days; Shrewsbury was full of merry-making, and Newmarket attracted other people beside professed lovers of the turf. Congreve was living out the last years of his life, and Mrs. Bracegirdle was still acting his plays, when the second representative of the Brunswick line came to the throne. Addison had died a few years previously, Steele a year or two afterward; Pope, Swift, Fielding and Defoe were all in full cry and condition. Lord Bathurst was in mid-career as patron of literary celebrities, and the fascinating and romantic Earl of Peterborough was losing his heart to the sweet voice and face of Anastasia Robinson. Hogarth and Kneller were in existence, and Arbuthnot was witty and wise. Handsome Tom Grantley, destined to become one of the foremost men of fashion and intrigue of his time, was in 1732 a little squalling baby in the south of Ireland. George the First had created the earldom of Seabridge upward of fifteen years before, in consequence of assistance rendered to him by the then head of the family during the Rebellion; and it was at about the same date that Mary Lancaster, niece of Lord Croftus, first saw the light—she who was afterward to unite the two families by her marriage with the second Earl of Seabridge. Meanwhile Mary Bellenden was esteemed the loveliest, and Mary Wortley Montague the cleverest of living women. As time went on, and the century approached its middle age, Garrick began to act in London; Beau Nash, superb, autocratic and imperturbable, ruled the roast at Bath; Horace Walpole embroidered society with the brilliance of his affected and sentimental persiflage; Smollet hobnobbed with Quin, and the Great Commoner stalked about, glaring out appallingly from the jungle of his shaggy wig. Amusement was the religion of the age, and recklessness was its morality. It was the apotheosis of card playing; literature was not good form; cards and men formed the library of the Duchess of Marlborough. What are now termed the mental resources of civilization, being as yet unknown, life was so conducted as to become a constant variety and succession of condiments. Criminals were made to minister to the general entertainment by being drawn and quartered, as well as beheaded and hanged; gentlemen pistoled and skewered one another instead of being contented with calling each other names, and sueing for damages and defamation. Tempers were hot, hearts were bold, and conversation was loose on all sides. Wine was cheap, tea was dear, gluttony and drunkenness were anything but improper. The country folks were no less energetic on their own scale. They romped and shouted at village fairs and wakes; they belabored one another scientifically with cudgels; half-naked women ran races and jumped hurdles; Maypoles were hoisted on every green; and the disaffected rode out on the king’s highway with masks and pistols. Love-making, with persons of condition at least, was a matter less of hearts than of fortunes and phases: it was etiquette for everybody in small clothes to languish at the feet of everybody in petticoats. The externals of life were sumptuous and splendid, because no time and trouble were wasted upon internals. An element of savagery and brutality pervaded all classes, high and low, without which the game could not have been kept up with such unflagging plausibility and zeal.

But all this fun had to be fed with money, or at all events with credit; and Bendibow Brothers were always prepared, on proper security, to furnish either; wherefore a great portion of this gorgeous procession passed through their dingy office in the city, on its way to or from its debaucheries. And since the brethren (following the injunctions of their long-headed founder) aimed no less at social distinction than at the wealth which should render that distinction profitable, they frequently saw their way to accept, from certain of their customers, interest payable otherwise than in hard cash. An introduction to Lord Croftus’s drawing-room, for example, might be cheaply purchased for an advance of a thousand pounds; a sinecure post in the army for a junior member of the firm, or a foreign order for the senior, would be worth three or four times as much; while, for the hand of a daughter of the junior branch of a titled family, twenty or thirty thousand pounds down would be considered a profitable transaction. Worldly wisdom and foresight, in short, formed as important a part of the Bendibow policy as direct and literal pecuniary returns. Indeed, it was upon the profit of their innumerable small transactions that they relied for the bulk of their material wealth: with the great and haughty their dealings were uniformly liberal and dignified. The consequence was, that when the Jacobite rebellion broke out, the Government accepted a substantial loan from Bendibow Brothers, as being not only the richest but the most loyal and respectable firm of bankers in England. Mr. Joseph Bendibow, one of the partners, was, for some unexplained reason, “promoted” to the rank of colonel in the regular army; and five years later the head of the family was raised to the baronetage. Hereupon a constituency was purchased at a not too exorbitant rate, and—the Bendibows having long since abandoned their Jewish proclivities, and presented themselves to the world as immaculate Protestant Christians—for the remainder of their career the descendants of the obscure Hebrew goldsmith and money-lender were numbered among the law-givers of their country and trusty advisers of the Crown.

It was an honorable position, patiently tried for and cleverly won. None of the Bendibows, since the time of Abraham, their progenitor, had been in any sense men of genius; but, on the other hand, none of them had been destitute of common sense, prudence, steadiness, suppleness, and persistency; and they had also possessed—what perhaps was of more value to them than any of their native virtues—a private family bible, in the shape of the book of rules, written and bequeathed to them by the patriarch above mentioned. It would be interesting, and possibly edifying, to review the contents of this work. No doubt it was brimming over with human astuteness; and might be described as a translation into eighteenth-century ideas and language of the mystic injunctions of the old alchemists in reference to the Philosopher’s Stone. Be that as it may, the book went far toward achieving the end for which it was composed; and if the Bendibows were as yet not quite a hundredfold millionaires and peers of the realm, they seemed fairly on their way to be so. To that consummation the brethren themselves looked forward with justifiable confidence. Nevertheless, looking at their whole history from the vantage-ground of our own century, we can see that the accession of George the Third was the period of their actual apogee.

It was about that time that Francis Bendibow was born—he whose genius almost equaled that of Abraham, and who, indeed, carried the reputation of the bank to a point higher than any which it had before attained. But reputation does not always, nor in the long run, mean prosperity; and Sir Francis Bendibow, along with his genius, perhaps possessed some qualities which, under pressure of circumstances, were capable of doing mischief. But that shall be enlarged upon in its proper place.

Society was now becoming more intellectual, more civilized, and more depraved. That abstruse idea, which is covered by the phrase “Fine Gentleman,” now received its most complete embodiment. It was a patrician era, but also an era in which genius, of whatever kind, could force men and women from obscurity to the light. The youthful Sheridan was making a good impression at Bath by his fine figure, hearty face, and manly and unaffected bearing, even before the “Rivals” and the “School for Scandal” had been written; and he and his fellow-countryman, Tom Grantley—though the latter was more than fifteen years his senior—were on the most cordial terms; and it was said at the time that Grantley was of assistance to Sheridan in that gentleman’s elopement with the beautiful Miss Linley. Fox, with others of his kidney, were setting the fashion of colossal gambling as a means of working off their superfluous nervous vitality and the estates of their ancestors; Whattier’s and White’s, Brookes’s and Raffett’s saw such sights as will never come again; statesmen and macaronis, parsons and opera-dancers, soldiers and play-writers, fine ladies and fine females, all, according to their several natures and capacities, took the most serious interest in cock-fighting, rat-hunting, singing and dancing, betting, dicing, antique statues and old pictures, divorce and atheism. But, as the century culminated, war, and the armies which fought it, overtopped all other interests; political opinions, or professions of opinion, were at the acme of vehemence; furious pamphlets fluttered on all sides; Dibdin wrote songs to encourage Nelson’s sailors; Wilkes was synonymous with liberty; and King George, believing himself the father of his people, spent his long life in doing them all the harm in his power. And all this, too, required money, and more money than ever; and Bendibow Brothers were more than ever mixed up in it—more, indeed, than was at that time suspected; for Francis Bendibow had begun to show what was in him; and his suggestions and enterprises had begun first to astound, then to dazzle and fascinate his more methodical and humdrum partners, until it seemed likely that he might take upon himself to edit a new and improved edition of the private family bible. In truth, he was a very brilliant and popular gentleman, whom everybody knew, and whom nobody who was anybody disliked. He was the confidant of as many social secrets as a fashionable physician or lawyer, and knew more about political intrigues than any other man out of the Cabinet. It was a marvel how well, considering the weight of his multifarious responsibilities, he managed to preserve his aspect of gayety and good nature. But it often happens that precisely those persons who have most to conceal, and who deal most in mysteries, appear, in the careless eyes of their contemporaries, more frank and undisguised than anybody else. Sir Francis Bendibow, be it repeated, was a general favorite of society, as well as a special favorite of fortune; and somewhere about 1790 he confirmed his successes by allying himself with the Barons Croftus by marriage with a daughter of the then lord.

From that time forward the affairs of Bendibow Brothers went on with much ostensible smoothness and good fortune, though whether anything less serene and comfortable lay hidden beneath this fair surface, is a question the answer to which must for the moment be reserved. One or two events only need to be mentioned, in order to bring us down to the epoch at which this story properly begins. Tom Grantley, who throughout his career had always been an ample customer of the Bendibows, and who, like so many others, had insensibly allowed his business relations with them to develop into social intercourse, had, in 1771, placed his son Charles, then a boy of fifteen, in the bank in the capacity of clerk, with the understanding that he was afterward to be admitted to partnership, should he turn out to be qualified for that position. This was a good thing for Charles, in a pecuniary point of view, and his abilities, which were always remarkable, made it likely that his career would be a successful one. As for the social aspects of the affair, the Bendibows were perhaps greater gainers than Grantley, since Charles had the noble Seabridge blood in his veins. But Charles’ father, though aristocratic and imperious enough in his own practice, was theoretically liberal and even republican in his views; and possibly he was not sorry to requite the neglect which his wife’s family had shown him by embarking the grandson of the earl in a mercantile life. Charles, for his own part, was actually what his father was only in idea; that is to say, he sympathized with the enlightened and revolutionary spirit that was abroad, and which was taking palpable form in the American colonies and in France. He rebelled against the claims of caste, and, before he was twenty-one, was pretty well known as a social reformer and radical. This, of itself, would not have impaired the social popularity of one who could call an earl his kinsman; not only because extreme opinions were in those days considered rather interesting and amusing than otherwise, but because then, as at all times, a man may be or say anything he pleases, provided he will be or say it in a sufficiently graceful or skillful manner. But Charles, unfortunately, was as abrupt, unconciliating and dogmatic in his manner as he was startling and unconventional in his views. He was not only able to utter disagreeable and embarrassing truths at inconvenient moments, but he seemed actually fond of doing so; and, since he was not more prepossessing in person than adroit in behavior, society for the most part ended by giving him up as a bad job. “Charles would be very well, if he wasn’t so damned sincere,” was one of the least uncharitable judgments that those who were willing to be his friends pronounced upon him. Charles meanwhile seemed to take the situation very composedly. The social intercourse which was not to be had in fashionable drawing-rooms and coffee-houses he sought and found elsewhere—among literary men, perhaps, or others still lower in the social scale. In his chosen circle—whatever it was—he was eminent and influential. Every one respected him; many feared him a little; a few liked him heartily, or even loved him. He was of a fiery, warlike temperament, and nothing could daunt him or dishearten him. He was proud and sensitive beyond what seemed reasonable; but those who knew him well said he was full of tenderness and generosity, and that a more affectionate and self-sacrificing man never lived. Perhaps neither his friends nor his foes entirely understood him. One thing about him, at all events, no one understood, and that was how he and Francis Bendibow came to be such friends. The two young men were, it is true, nearly of the same age; their business interests were identical; and much of their time must of necessity be passed in each other’s neighborhood. But no amount of external association together will of itself suffice to make new friends: it is quite as apt to have an opposite effect. It was plain to the most careless glance that Charles and Francis were in disposition and temperament as wide asunder as the poles: and—the affairs of the bank aside—Francis was devoted to all those objects and interests for which Charles cared nothing, or less. Nevertheless, there was the fact, account for it how you will. Charles was devoted to Francis; resented any disparagement of him; and did, upon occasion, even go so far as to espouse the side of his friend in argument against the side of which he himself was the representative—for Francis’ logic was sometimes faulty, and his faculty of seeing all the best points in his own cause was not always infallible. Whether Francis’ friendship for Charles was quite so ardent and thorough as Charles’ for him may be doubted. Men who are universally friendly and popular seldom rise to the height of a vehement individual preference. But there is little doubt that he was impressed by Charles’ affection, that he reciprocated it as far as in him lay, and that, although he was wont to affect a good-humored air of patronizing his friend, chaffing him, and laughing at the intensity and seriousness of his convictions, he in reality deferred to Charles’ judgment and recognized his personal force and capacity. “We could never get on without old Charles,” was a saying often in his mouth. And when Charles fell in love with Francis’ sister, Ruth Bendibow, Francis was a hearty supporter of the match. The marriage took place when Charles was in his thirty-first year—Tom Grantley having died upward of ten years before. The following year a daughter was born, and her name was called Perdita.

When Perdita was about six years old, a mysterious calamity occurred. Society wondered, guessed, and speculated, but never found out the whole truth of the affair. All that was certain was, that Charles Grantley suddenly disappeared from London, leaving his wife and daughter behind him. There was a rumor that he had also left behind him a letter, addressed to Sir Francis Bendibow, begging him to look after the welfare of his family, whom he could not ask to share with him his exile and disgrace. What, then, was this disgrace? Sir Francis, when interrogated on the subject, preserved a melancholy and dignified silence. It was surmised that he would not accuse his friend, and he could not defend him. But had Charles Grantley, whom all the world had taken to be at least the soul of honesty and honor—could he have been guilty of a dishonest or dishonorable action? Well, human nature is weak, and the best and strongest of men have their unaccountable moments of frailty. Grantley, no doubt, had been exposed to temptation. He had for some time past been admitted a full partner in the firm; and it was known that he had latterly been building and furnishing an expensive house. Moreover, he was believed to be a member of more than one secret society; and he had perhaps been induced or compelled to advance large contributions toward their support. The coffers of the bank were open to him.... Why rehearse again a story so often told? Enough that Charles Grantley vanished from the world that knew him, and that no news ever came to tell whither he had gone. It was only charitable to suppose that he did not long survive the disgrace into which he had plunged himself.

His wife died some years after his disappearance; not of a broken heart—for she had never cherished any very vital affection for her husband, and always seemed angry rather than grieved at the calamity—but from an acute attack of bilious fever. She was a beautiful and talented woman, but probably was not without certain blemishes of head or heart. Perdita was thus left—so far as could be known—an orphan. Sir Francis Bendibow, amidst general applause, formally adopted her. Certainly, to accept as your own the daughter of the man who has defrauded you, especially when that man happens to be your brother-in-law, shows a rare magnanimity. Perdita was brought up as befitted a young lady liable to hold a good position in society. For obvious reasons she was allowed to forget her unhappy father, and encouraged to regard herself as the actual offspring of her benevolent guardian. The girl throve passing well—more than fulfilling her early promise of beauty and grace. She, moreover, gave signs of possessing a strongly-marked character, hard, subtle and persistent; but, as the crudity of girlhood passed away, those harsher lineaments ceased to obtrude themselves—the young lady’s own sense of harmony doubtless prompting her to disguise them beneath a soft and seductive exterior; and she was by nature luxurious, and had the instinct of equipping herself cap-a-pie from the mystic arsenal of voluptuous artifice to which only such women have the key. Her debut in society was very effective, and she took all the other women’s admirers away from them. But her own heart seemed to remain unimpaired; and, on the other hand, there was a lack of really desirable offers of marriage; for it was thought, not unreasonably, that Perdita ought to make a great match—say an earl at the least. But the earls hung back; perhaps it was the still lingering shadow of her unfortunate parent that disqualified her. Here, however, fortune who, save for that one ill turn, was in love with Perdita almost to the end of her career, brought into the field an elderly and extremely wealthy foreign personage, who succumbed to the young lady’s fascinations at their first interview, made her an offer of his cordial and worldly effects on the following week, and was made the happiest of men in making her his wife by the end of the month. Perdita, for some unexplained reason, received little more than a bare outfit from her affectionate uncle and foster-father; but there were unexceptionable settlements on the part of her husband; and she accompanied the latter to the continent with éclat and a brilliant future before her—being still in her nineteenth year, while her husband was at least sixty, with an impaired constitution. Whether the issue of the affair was as prosperous as it bade fair to be Sir Francis Bendibow was not informed; for his adopted daughter had never since her departure troubled him with any letters or messages. For all he knew, she might be in the New World, or even in the next. The worthy baronet consoled himself for this neglect as best he might by lavishing attention upon the rearing and education of his only bona-fide child, a sickly and rather unpromising son. The result of the education was, that the young gentleman was allowed pretty much his own way; and, like other men before him who have steered in the same direction, he arrived at nothing particularly edifying. Sir Francis spoilt him, in short; and the youth was not one of those who can stand much spoiling. He could fight a cock, throw a main, hunt a rat, drive a horse, and upon occasion—as we have seen—could upset a coach. Perhaps, when the time came, he would be able to carry on the business of the great house of Bendibow Brothers; but it must be confessed that just at present probabilities looked the other way. It was not merely that young Mr. Thomas Bendibow had no practical knowledge of business; but that he had no brothers, nor even any cousins; that he was in fact the last of his family; and looked, at twenty, as if he hardly had pith in him to outlive his father, who was sixty-two; so that good Sir Francis, sitting day after day in his little private room at the rear of the banking premises, may be supposed to have found some elements of concern and anxiety mingling with the general complacency of his reflections. Surely he did not deserve to be the prey of such solicitude. He had long since forgotten the follies and vanities of his golden youth, and had settled down to be one of the handsomest, kindliest, courtliest, most immaculate elderly baronets imaginable.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE first week of May had passed by, and Sir Francis Bendibow was sitting in his private room at the bank, with one elegant leg crossed over the other, and his hands folded over his embroidered waistcoat. He appeared to be meditating, with the placid gravity that characterized him, over the results of a well-spent and profitable life. At length, with a gentle sigh, he uncrossed his legs, took his watch from his fob, and consulted its enameled face. It wanted five minutes to three. Sir Francis might, with propriety, abandon business for the day, and betake himself to his residence in Great George Street. He was just on the point of touching a bell, and ordering his carriage to be called, when the servant came to the door and said that some one was without who desired to see Sir Francis.

“Some one?” said Sir Francis, mildly and interrogatively.

“A lady, Sir Francis,” explained the servant; and something in the way he pronounced the word induced the baronet to imagine that the lady was neither old nor ugly.

“What is the lady’s name?” he inquired, sitting more erect in his chair and settling his stock.

“She gave no name, Sir Francis; she said Sir Francis would receive her.”

“Hum! I was about to ask you to order the carriage, Catnip: you may order the carriage to be ready in ten minutes; meanwhile you may admit the lady—ahem!”

“Yes, Sir Francis.”

A minute afterward the lady was admitted.

Sir Francis’ intuition had not been at fault. The lady was young and lovely. She was five feet five inches in height—as the baronet had judged, and he was an adept in women—perfectly, and rather fully formed, with a foot and ankle worthy of Titania. Her right hand was ungloved, showing a small soft wrist, taper fingers with dimpled knuckles, and a long thumb. Her movement and bearing were those of a finished woman of the world, supplemented by just physical proportions and native grace. She was dressed richly, and in the fashion, yet with such subtle art, that one remarked that her attire suited her before remarking what it was. When she came in, her face was veiled; but the silken web was not so dense as to conceal the sparkle of a pair of dark eyes, while over her small ears and at the back of her neck were discernible some short locks of bright curling hair.

She advanced into the middle of the room, and there paused, while Sir Francis presented her with a grand obeisance.

“Your humble servant, madam,” said he. “May I entreat you to be seated?”

“Thank you, sir,” she answered, placing herself in the chair he handed to her. “I shall not detain you very long. I came to you on a matter of business.”

She betrayed a slight foreign accent in speaking; but there was something in the tone of her voice that attracted the baronet’s attention. It was a full, clear, and yet lightsome voice, varying easily through changing intonations, always harmonious and perfectly under control; it evinced self-possession and a musical ear. Sir Francis was already charmed, and summoned all his graces to confront the occasion. It was not every day that destiny brought to him such customers as this.

“I shall esteem myself fortunate in being able to be of any service to you,” he said, with a manner at once impressive and deferential.

“You are extremely good, sir.”

“I protest, madam—not in the least. May I inquire, madam, whether you are familiar with London?”

“I was in London a number of years ago, sir—I think it must now be ten years—”

“In that case, madam, you must have been very young—quite a child, in fact. The town may therefore have some novelty for you. Fortunately the season is just commencing, and—”

“Alas, sir, I am not in a position to avail myself of gayeties.”

“Indeed? Egad, madam, I protest you distress me.”

“It is because I have recently met with a sad misfortune.”

“You are too young, and—if I might be permitted to say it—too fair to be the prey of misfortune, madam. The misfortune is not, I trust, irremediable?”

“I fear it is, sir. I speak of the loss of my husband.”

Sir Francis was a little puzzled. Was this lady more or less of a woman of the world than he had imagined? Was there not after all something of the ingenue about her? To be sure, a widow cannot, as a general thing, be accurately described as an ingenue; but, practically, this widow might be so. For all her polished self-possession of voice and bearing—which might as well be the result of early education as of the training of worldly experience—for all this her mind and heart might be fresh and unsophisticated. There was a flavor of artlessness, almost of innocent appeal, in what she said. The baronet felt his benevolent heart expand. The prospect of relations—business relations of course—with a young lady at once so attractive and so unprotected, enchanted him. But it was necessary to be sure of his ground—to inquire further.

“Widowhood for the young and beautiful is indeed the most pathetic of all predicaments!” he exclaimed with feeling. “I should judge, madam, that you can’t have enjoyed the married state long?”

“Not very long; though it seemed long in one way.”

“Aye, and all too short in another, no doubt. Ah, my dear madam, I can sympathize with you; I have had my bereavements, egad! and my sorrows. These are terrible times, madam; though, thank God, that Corsican monster is safe at last: but he has made many widows, in this country and elsewhere. Your husband, perhaps, fell upon the field of battle?”

“No, sir. Perhaps I should have told you that my husband was a Frenchman.”

This reply embarrassed Sir Francis. It was his intention to be agreeable to the lady, and he had unwittingly disturbed her sensibilities. But a few moments sufficed him to recover his self-possession. Not for a trifle of consistency would he forfeit the good opinion of so charming a client.

“The French,” he said, “are a brave and noble people. Now that there is no longer war between us and them we can acknowledge it. Bonaparte, after all, was a great general, and a man of genius. No one can regret more than myself, madam, the necessity which has removed him to Elba.”

“Is that your opinion, sir?” returned the lady, coldly. “My husband was a monarchist. To him Bonaparte was an usurper and a tyrant.”

Sir Francis struggled not to appear put out of countenance. “Damn these French!” he said internally; “you never know where you are with ’em.” Aloud he said: “Your husband was right, madam, from his point of view. He was loyal to his convictions and to his traditions. Every one must respect them and him—no one certainly more than I myself, who am the loyal supporter of my own king. That such a man as your husband should be cut off in the prime of his youth is a calamity to his country,” concluded Sir Francis, feeling that at all events he was safe there.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” said the lady ingenuously.

“Your husband, I say, dying in the first flush of youth—”

“Oh, my husband was not a very young man,” interposed the lady gravely. “In fact, it may be said that he died of old age. He was only a little over seventy, it is true; but he had for several years past been in very infirm health.”

“Zounds, madam, you—you surprise me!” exclaimed Sir Francis, almost losing patience. Reflecting, however, that it was unlikely a wife so youthful should have felt any passionate attachment to a husband so ancient, he plucked up courage; the task of consoling the lady would be by so much the less difficult. She sat there very quietly, with her hands resting one within another in her lap, and her dark eyes sparkling through her veil. Sir Francis conceived a strong desire to see that veil lifted. But he would proceed cautiously.

“You are, then, alone in the world,” he remarked, compassionately. “Probably, however, you may have kinsfolk in England or France who—”

“Indeed, sir, I am very unhappy,” said the lady, with a melancholy simplicity. “Such few relatives as I possess are not, I fear, kindly disposed toward me.”

“Surely they must be very unnatural persons—ahem!” cried Sir Francis, indignantly. “But let me entreat you not to be downcast, my dear madam. Providence sometimes raises up friends to us when we least expect it. If I might speak of myself—”

“Indeed, you are very good,” said the lady softly, and with a little movement of one of her hands that seemed to indicate confidence and gratitude. Sir Francis moved his chair a little nearer. The lady continued: “My husband, you must know, has left me the entire control of his property, which I believe is very large. I think his income was what you would call, in your money, ten thousand pounds—is it not?—every year; but I may be mistaken: I am so stupid in those affairs: at least it was more than three hundred thousand francs.”