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 LIBRARY 
 
 NivgRs(Ty ot
 
 " sir, you are mocking me, you shall marry the girl. — Kenklm Chillingly.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY: 
 
 HIS 
 
 ADVENTURES AND OPINIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ^^ LOJlDo LITTON / ^ y 
 
 (SIR EDWARD^BULWER-LYTTON, BART) 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK : 
 
 BELFOKD, CLARKE & COIMPANY, 
 Publishers.
 
 TROW'9 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 
 NEW YORK.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 BOOK FIRST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Sir Peter Chillingly, of Exmundham, Baronet, F.R.S. 
 and F.A.S., was the representative of an ancient family, and 
 a landed proprietor of some importance. He had married 
 young, not from any ardent inclination for the connubial 
 state, but in compliance with the request of his parents. 
 They took the pains to select his bride ; and if they might 
 have chosen better they might have chosen worse, which 
 is more than can be said for many men who choose wives 
 for themselves. Miss Caroline Brotherton was in all re- 
 spects a suitable connection. She had a pretty fortune, 
 which was of much use in buying a couple of farms, long 
 desiderated by the Chillinglys as necessary for the round- 
 ing of their property into a ring-fence. She was highly 
 connected, and brought into the county that experience 
 of fashionable life acquired by a young lady Avho has 
 attended a course of balls for three seasons, and gone out 
 in matrimonial honors, with credit to herself and her chaperon. 
 She was handsome enough to satisfy a husband's pride, but 
 not so handsome as to keep perpetually on the qui vive a 
 husband's jealousy. vShe was considered highly accom- 
 plished ; that is, she played upon the pianoforte so that any 
 musician would say she "was very well taught;" but no 
 musician would go out of his way to hear her a second time. 
 Slie painted in water-colors — well enough to amuse herself. 
 She knew French and Italian with an elegance so lady-like, 
 that, without having read more than selected extracts from 
 authors in those languages, she spoke them both with an
 
 4 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 accent more correct than wc have any reason to attribute 
 to Rousseau or Arioslo. What else a young lady may 
 acquire in order to be styled higlily accomplished I do not 
 pretend to know, but I am sure that the young lady in 
 question fulfilled that requirement in the opinion of the 
 best masters. It was not only an eligible match for Sir 
 Peter Chillingly, — it was a brilliant match. It was also a 
 very unexceptionable match for Miss Caroline Brotherton. 
 This excellent couple got on together as most excellent 
 'couples do. A short time after marriage, Sir Peter, by the 
 death of his parents— who, having married their heir, had 
 nothing left in life worth the trouble of living for- — succeeded 
 to the iiereditary estates ; he lived for nine months of the 
 year at Exmundham, going to town for the other three 
 months. Lady Chillingly and himself were both very glad 
 to go to town, being bored at Exmxmdham ; and vcrv glad 
 to go back to Exmundham, being bored in town. With one 
 exception it was an exceedingly happy marriage, as mar- 
 riages go. Lady Chillingly had her way in small things; 
 Sir Peter his way in great. vSmall things happen every day,, 
 great things once in three years. Once in three years Lady 
 Chillingly gave way to Sir Peter ; households so managed 
 go on regularly. The exception to their connul)ial happi- 
 ness was, after all, but of a negative description. Their 
 affection was such that they sighed for a pledge of it ; four- 
 teen years had he and Lady Chillingly remained unvisited 
 by the little stranger. 
 
 Now, in default of male issue, Sir Peter's estates passed 
 to a distant cousin as heir-at-law ; and during tlie last four 
 years this heir-at-law had evinced his belief that, practically 
 speaking, he was already heir-apparent ; and (though vSir 
 Peter was a much younger man than himself, and as healthy 
 as any man well can be) had made his expectations of a 
 speedy succession unpleasantly conspicuous. He had re- 
 fused his consent to a small exchange of lands with a neigh- 
 boring squire, by which Sir Peter would have obtained 
 some good arable land for an outlying luiprofitable wxK'd 
 that produced nothing but fagots and rabbits, with the blunt 
 declaration that he, the heir-at-law, was fond of rabbit- 
 shooting, and that the wood would be convenient to him 
 next season if he came into the property by that time, 
 which he very possibly might. He disputed Sir Peter's 
 right to make his customary fall of timber, and had even 
 threatened him with a bill in Chancery on that subject.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 5 
 
 In short, tliis heir-at-law was exactly one of those persons 
 to spite whom a landed proprietor would, if single, marry 
 at the age of eighty in the hope of a family. 
 
 Nor was it only on account of his very natural wish to 
 frustrate the expectations of this unamiable relation that 
 Sir Peter Chillingly lamented the absence of the little 
 stranger. Although belonging to that class of country 
 gentlemen to whom certain political reasoners deny the in- 
 telligence vouchsafed to other members of the community, 
 Sir Peter was not without a considerable degree of book- 
 learning, and a great taste for speculative philosophy. 
 He sighed for a legitimate inheritor to the stores of his 
 erudition, and, being a very benevolent man, for a more 
 active and useful dispenser of those benefits to the human 
 race which philosophers confer by striking hard against 
 each other ; just as, how full soever of sparks a flint may be, 
 they might lurk concealed in the flint till doomsday, if the 
 flint were not hit by the steel. Sir Peter, in short, longed 
 for a son amply endowed with the combative quality, in 
 which he himself was deficient, but which is the first essen- 
 tial to all seekers after renown, and especially to benevolent 
 philosophers. 
 
 Under these circumstances one may well conceive the 
 joy that filled the household of Exmundham and extended 
 to all the tenantry on that venerable estate, by whom the 
 present possessor was much beloved, and the prospect of 
 an heir-at-law with a special eye to the preservation of rab- 
 bits much detested, when the medical attendant of the 
 Chillinglys declared that "her ladyship was in an interest- 
 ing way ;" and to what height that joy culminated when, in 
 due course of time, a male baby Avas safely enthroned in 
 his cradle. To that cradle Sir Peter was summoned. Pic 
 entered the room with a lively bound and a radiant counte- 
 nance : he quitted it with a musing step and an overclouded 
 brow. 
 
 Yet the baby was no monster. It did not come into the 
 world with two heads, as some babies are said to have done ; 
 it was formed as babies are in general — was on the whole a 
 thriving baby, a fine baby. Nevertheless, its aspect awed 
 the father as already it had awed the nurse. The creature 
 looked so unutterably solemn. It fixed its eyes upon Sir 
 Peter with a melancholy reproachful stare ; its lips were 
 compressed and drawn downward, as if discontentedly 
 meditating its future destinies. The nurse declared in a
 
 6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 frightened whisper tliat it had uttered no cry on facing the 
 ight. It had taken possession of its cradle in all the dignity 
 of silent sorrow. A more saddened and a more thoughtful 
 countenance a human being could not exhibit if he were 
 leaving the world instead of entering it. 
 
 " Hem ! " said Sir Peter to himself on regaining the soli- 
 tude of his library ; "a philosopher who contributes a new 
 inhabitant to this vale of tears takes upon himself very 
 anxious responsibilities " 
 
 At that moment the joy-bells rang out from the neigh- 
 boring church tower, the summer sun shone into the win- 
 dows, the bees hummed among the flowers on the lawn ; 
 Sir Peter roused himself and looked forth. " After all," 
 said he, cheerily, " the vale of tears is not without a smile." 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 A FAMILY council was held at Exmundham Hall to de- 
 liberate on the name by which this remarkable infant 
 should be admitted into the Christian comnuuiity. The 
 junior branches of that ancient house consisted, first, of the 
 obnoxious heir-at-law — a Scotch branch — named Chillingly 
 Gordon. He was the widowed father of one son, now of the 
 age of three, and hap[)ily unconscious of the injury inflicted 
 on his future prospects by the advent of the new-born ; 
 which could not be truthfully said of his Caledonian father. 
 Mr. Chillingly Gordon was one of those men who get on in 
 the world without our being able to discover why. His 
 parents died in his infancy, and left him nothing; but the 
 family interest procured him an admission into the Charter 
 House School, at which illustrious academy he obtained no 
 remarkable distinction. Nevertheless, as soon as he left it 
 the state took him under its special care, and appointed 
 him to a clerkship in a public office. From that moment 
 he continued to get on in the world, and was now a com- 
 missioner of customs, with a salary of ^1500 a year. As 
 soon as he had been thus enabled to maintain a wife, he 
 selected a wife who assisted to maintain himself. She was 
 an Irish peer's widow, with a jointure of _^2ooo a year. 
 
 A few months after his marriage. Chillingly Gordon
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 7 
 
 effected insurances on his wife's life, so as to secure himself 
 an annuity of ^1000 a year in case of her decease. As she 
 appeared to be a fine healthy woman, some years younger 
 than her husband, the deduction from his income effected 
 by the annual payments for the insurance seemed an over- 
 sacrifice of present enjoyment to future contingencies. The 
 result bore witness to his reputation for sagacity, as the lady 
 died in the secood year of their wedding, a few months after 
 the birth of her only child, and of a heart-disease which had 
 been latent to the doctors, but which, no doubt, Gordon had 
 affectionately discovered before he had insured a life too valu- 
 able not to need some compensation for its loss. He was 
 now, then, in the possession of ^2500 a year, and was there- 
 fore very well off, in the pecuniary sense of the phrase. He 
 had, moreover, acquired a reputation which gave him a social 
 rank beyond that accorded to him by a discerning state. He 
 was considered a man of solid judgment, and his opinion 
 upon all matters, private and public, carried weight. The 
 opinion itself, critically examined, was not worth much, but 
 the way he announced it was imposing. Mr. Fox said that 
 " No one ever was so wise as Lord ThurloAv looked." Lord 
 Thurlow could not have looked wiser than Mr. Chillingly 
 Gordon. He had a square jaw and large red bushy eye- 
 brows, which he lowered down with great effect when he 
 delivered judgment. He had another advantage for acquir- 
 ing grave reputation. He was a very unpleasant man. He 
 could be rude if you contradicted him ; and as few persons 
 wish to provoke rudeness, so he was seldom contradicted. 
 
 Mr. Chillingly Mivers, another cadet of the house, was 
 also distinguished, but in a different way. He was a bache- 
 lor, now about the age of thirty-five. He was eminent for a 
 supreme well-bred contempt for everybody and everything. 
 He was the originator and chief proprietor of a public jour- 
 nal called "The Londoner," which had lately been setup on 
 that principle of contempt, and, wc need not say, was ex- 
 ceedingly popular with those leading members of the com- 
 munity who admire nobody and believe in nothing. Mr. 
 Cliillingly Mivers was regarded by himself and by others as 
 a man who might have achieved the highest success in any 
 branch of literature, if he had deigned to exhibit his talents 
 therein. But he did not so deign, and therefore he had full 
 right to imply that, if he had written an epic, a drama, a 
 novel, a history, a metaphysical treatise, Milton, Shake^ 
 speare, Cervantes, Hume, Berkeley would have been no-
 
 8- KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 where. He held greatly to the dignity of tlic anonymous ; 
 and even in the journal wliich he originated, nobody could 
 ever ascertain what he wrote. But, at all events, Mr. Chill- 
 ingly Mi vers was what Mr. Chillingly Gordon Avas not — 
 viz., a very clever man, and by no means an luipleasant 
 one in general society. 
 
 The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly was a decided adhe- 
 rent to the creed of what is called " musculfir Christianity," 
 and a very fine specimen of it too. A tall stout man with 
 broad shoulders, and that division of lower limb which inter- 
 venes between the knee and the ankle powerfully developed. 
 He would have knocked down a deist as soon as looked at 
 him. It is told by the Sieur de Joinville, in liis INIemoir of 
 Louis, the sainted king, that an assembly of divines and 
 theologians convened the Jews of an oriental city for the 
 purpose of arguing with them on tlie truths of Christianity, 
 and a certain knight, who was at that time crippled, and 
 supporting himself on crutches, asked and obtained permis- 
 sion to be present at the debate. The Jews flocked to the 
 summons, when a prelate, selecting a learned rabbi, mildly 
 put to him the leading question whether he owned the di- 
 vine conception of our Lord. " Certainly not," replied the 
 rabbi ; whereon the pious knight, shocked by such blas- 
 phemy, uplifted his crutcli and felled tlie rabbi, and then 
 Hung himself among the otlier misbelievers, whom he soon 
 dispersed in ignominious flight and in a very belabored con- 
 dition. The conduct of the knight was reported to the sain- 
 ted king, with a request that it should be properly repri- 
 manded ; but the sainted king delivered himself of this wise 
 judgment : 
 
 " If a pious knight is a very learned clerk, and can meet 
 in fair argument the doctrines of the misbeliever, by all 
 means let him argue fairly ; but if a pious knight is not a 
 learned clerk, and the argument goes against him, tlicn let 
 the pious knight cut the discussion short by the edge of his 
 gojd sword." 
 
 The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly was of the same 
 opinion as St. Louis ; otherwise, he was a mild and amiable 
 man. He encouraged cricket and other manly sports among 
 his parishioners. He was a skilful and bold rider, but he 
 did not hunt ; a convivial man — and took his bottle freely. 
 But liis tastes in literature wer.c of a refined and peaceful 
 character, contrasting therein the tendencies one might have 
 expected from his muscular development of Christianity.
 
 KEMELM CHILLINGLY. 9 
 
 He was a great reader of poetry, but lie disliked Scott and 
 Byron, whom he considered flashy and noisy : he maintained 
 that Pope was only a versifier, and that the greatest poet 
 in the language was Wordsworth ; he did not care much for 
 the ancient classics ; he refused all merit to the French 
 poets ; he knew nothing of the Italian, but he dabbled in 
 German, and was inclined to bore one about the Hermann 
 and Dorothea of Goethe. He was married to a homely little 
 wife, who revered him in silence, and thought there would 
 be no schism in the Church if he were in his right place as 
 Archbishop of Canterbury : in this opinion he entirely 
 agreed with his wife. 
 
 Besides these three male specimens of the Chillingly 
 race, the fairer sex was represented, in the absence of her 
 ladyship, who still kept her room, by three female Chillinglys 
 — sisters of Sir Peter — and all three spinsters. Perhaps one 
 reason why they had remained single was, that externally 
 they were so like each other that a suitor must have 
 bfeen puzzled which to choose, and may have been afraid 
 that if he did choose one, he should be caught next day 
 kissing another one in mistake. They were all tall, all thin, 
 with long throats — and beneath the throats a fine develop- 
 ment of bone. They had all pale hair, pale eyelids, pale 
 eyes, and pale complexions. They all dressed exactly alike, 
 and their favorite color was a vivid green : they were so 
 dressed on this occasion. 
 
 As there was such similitude in their persons, so, to an 
 ordinary observer, they were exactly the same in character 
 and mind. Very well behaved, with proper notions of 
 female decorum — very distant and reserved in manner to 
 strangers — very affectionate to each other and their relations 
 or favorites — very good to the poor, whom they looked 
 upon as a different order of creation, and treated with that 
 sort of benevolence which humane people bestow upon 
 dumb animals. Their minds had been nourished on the 
 same books — what one read the others had read. The books 
 were mainly divided into two classes — novels, and what they 
 called "good books." They had a habit of taking a speci- 
 men of each alternatelv — one day a novel, then a good book, 
 then a novel again, and so on. Thus if the imagination was 
 overwarmed on Monday, on Tuesday it was cooled down to 
 a proper temperature ; and if frost-bitten on Tuesday, it 
 took a tepid bath on Wednesday. The novels they chose 
 were indeed rarelv of a nature to raise tlie intellectual ther-
 
 lo KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 mometer into blood lieat : the heroes and heroines were 
 models of correct conchict. Mr. James's novels were then 
 in vogue, and they united in saying that those " were novels 
 a lather might allow his daughters to read." But though 
 an ordinary observer might iiave failed to recognize any 
 distinction between these three ladies, and, finding them 
 habitually dressed in green, would have said they were as 
 much alike as one pea is to another, they had their idiosyn- 
 cratic differences, when duly examined. Miss Margaret, the 
 eldest, was the commanding one of the three ; it Avas she 
 who regulated their household (they all lived together), kept 
 the joint purse, and decided every doubtful point tliat arose, 
 — whether they should or should not ask Mrs. So-and-so to 
 tea — whether Mary should or should nut be discharged — 
 whether or not they should go to Broadstairs or to Sandgate 
 for the' month of October. In fact, Miss Margaret was the 
 WILL of the body corporate. 
 
 Miss Sibyl was of milder nature and more melancholic 
 temperament ; she had a poetic turn of mind, and occasion- 
 ally wrote verses. Some of these had been printed on satin 
 paper, and sold for objects of beneficence at charity bazaars. 
 The county newspapers said that the verses "were charac- 
 terized by all the elegance of a cultured and feminine mind." 
 The other two sisters agreed that Sibyl was the genius of the 
 household, but, like all geniuses, not sufficiently practical 
 for the world. Miss Sarah Chillingly, the youngest of the 
 three, and now just in her fcn-ty-fourth year, was looked 
 upon by the others as '*a dear thing, inclined to be naughty, 
 but such a darling that nobody could have the heart to 
 scold her." Miss Margaret said " she was a giddy creature." 
 Miss Sibyl wrote a poem on her, entitled — 
 
 "Warning to a young Lady against the Pleasures of the 
 World." 
 
 They all called her Sally ; the other two sisters had no di- 
 minutive synonyms. vSally is a name indicative of fastness. 
 But this Sally would not have been thought fast in another 
 household, and she was now little likely to sally out of tlie 
 one she belonged to. These sisters, who were all many years 
 older than Sir Peter, lived in a handsome old-fashioned red- 
 brick house, with a large garden at the back, in the princi- 
 pal street of the capital of their native county. They had 
 each ^10,000 for porticm ; and if he could have married all 
 three, the heir-at-law would have married them, and settled
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. II 
 
 the aggregate ^/^3o,ooo on himself. But we have not yet 
 come to recognize Mormonisni as legal, though, if our 
 social progress continues to slide in the same grooves as at 
 present, heaven only knows what triumphs over the preju- 
 dice of our ancestors may not be achieved by the wisdom of 
 our descendants ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Sir Peter stood on his hearthstone, surveyed the guests 
 seated in semicircle, and said : " Friends, — in Parliament, 
 before anything affecting the fate of a Bill is discussed, it is, 
 I believe, necessary to introduce the Bill." He paused a 
 moment, rang the bell, and said to the servant who entered, 
 ''Tell nurse to bring in the Baby." 
 
 Mr. Gordon Chillingly. — " I don't see the necessity 
 for that, Sir Peter. We may take the existence of the Baby 
 for granted." 
 
 Mr. Mivers. — " It is an advantage to the reputation of 
 Sir Peter's work to preserve the incognito. Omne igmtum 
 pro magnifico." 
 
 The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly. — "T don't ap- 
 prove the cynical levity of such remarks. Of course we 
 must all be anxious to see, in the earliest stage of being, the 
 future representative of our name and race. Who would 
 not wish to contemplate the source, however small, of the 
 Tigris or the Nile ! " 
 
 Miss Sally (tittering). — " He ! he ! " 
 
 Miss Margaret. — " P'or shame, you giddy thing ! " 
 
 The Baby enters in the nurse's arms. AH rise and gather 
 round the Baby, with one exception — Mr. Gordon, who has 
 ceased to be heir-at-law. 
 
 The Baby returned the gaze of its relations with the 
 most contemptuous indifference. Miss Sibyl was the first 
 to pronounce an opinion on the Baby's attributes. Said 
 she, in a solemn whisper — "What a heavenly mournful ex- 
 pression ! it seems so grieved to have left the angels ! " 
 
 The Rev. John. — " That is prettily said, cousin Sibyl ; but 
 the infant must pluck up courage and fight its way among 
 mortals with a good heart, if it wants to get back to the
 
 12 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 angels again. And I think it will ; a fine child." He took 
 it from the nurse, and moving it deliberately up and down, 
 as if to weigh it, said cheerfully, " Monstrous heavy ! by the 
 time it is twenty it will be a match for a prize-fighter of 
 fifteen stone ! " 
 
 Therewith he strode to Gordon, w^ho, as if to show that 
 he now considered himself wholly apart from all interest in 
 the affairs of a family that had so ill-treated him in the birth 
 of that Baby, had taken up the " Times " newspaper and 
 concealed liis countenance beneath the ample sheet. The 
 Parson abruptly snatched away the " Times " with one hand, 
 and, with the other substituting to the indignant eyes of the 
 ci-devant heir-at-law the spectacle of the Baby, said, " Kiss it." 
 
 "Kiss it ! " echoed Chillingly Gordon, pushing back his 
 chair — " kiss it ! pooh, sir, stand off! I never kissed my 
 own baby ; I shall not kiss another man's. Take the thing 
 away, sir ; it is ugly ; it has black eyes." 
 
 Sir Peter, who w^as near-sighted, put on his spectacles 
 and examined the face of the new-born. "True," said he, 
 " it has black eyes — very extraordinary — portentous ; the 
 first Chillingly that ever had black eyes." 
 
 "Its mamma has black eyes," said Miss Margaret; "it 
 takes after its mamma ; it has not the fair beauty of the 
 Chijlinglys, but it is not ugly." 
 
 '* Sweet infant ! " sighed Sibyl ; " and so good — does not 
 cry." 
 
 "It has neither cried nor crowed since it was born," said 
 the nurse ; " bless its little heart ! " 
 
 She took the Baby from the Parson's arms, and smoothed 
 back the frill of its cap, which had got ruffled. 
 "You may go now, nurse," said Sir Peter. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " I AGREE witli Mr. Shandy," said vSir Peter, resuming his 
 stand on the liearthstone, "that among the responsibilities 
 of a parent the choice of a name which his child is to bear 
 for life is one of the gravest. And this is especially so with 
 those who behmg to the order of baronets. In the case of 
 a peer, his Christian name, fused in his titular designation, 
 disappears. In the case of a Mister, if his baptismal be
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 13 
 
 cacophonous or provocative of ridicule, he need not osten- 
 tatiously parade it ; he may drop it altogether on his visit- 
 ing cards, and may be imprinted as Mr. Jones instead of 
 Mr. Ebenezer .Jones. In his signature, save where the forms 
 of the law demand Ebenezer in full, he may only use an in- 
 itial, and be your obedient servant E. Jones, leaving it to be 
 conjectured that E. stands for Edward or Ernest — names in- 
 ofifensive, and not suggestive of a Dissenting Chapel, like 
 Ebenezer. If a man called Edward or Ernest be detected in 
 some youthful indiscretion, there is no indelible stain on his 
 moral character ; but if an Ebenezer be so detected, he is 
 set down as a hypocrite — it produces that shock on the 
 public mind which is felt when a professed saint is proved 
 to be a bit of a sinner. But a baronet never can escape from 
 his baptismal — it cannot \\q perdu, it cannot shrink into an 
 initial, it stands forth glaringl}^ in the light of day ; christen 
 him Ebenezer, and he is Sir Ebenezer in full, with all its 
 perilous consequences if he ever succomb to those tempta- 
 tions to which even baronets are exposed. But, my friends, 
 it is not only the efifect that the sound of a name has upon 
 others which is to be thoughtfully considered ; the effect 
 that his name produces on the man himself is perhaps still 
 more important. Some names stimulate and encourage the 
 owner, others deject and paralyze him ; I am a melancholy 
 instance of that truth. Peter has been for many genera- 
 tions, as you are aware, the baptismal to which the eldest- 
 born of our family has been devoted. On the altar of that 
 name I have been sacrificed. Never has there been a Sir 
 Peter Chillingly who has, in any way, distinguished himself 
 above his fellows. That name lias been a dead weight on 
 my intellectual energies. In the catalogue of illustrious 
 Englishmen there is, I think, no immortal Sir Peter, except 
 Sir Peter Teazle, and he only exists on the comic stage." 
 
 Miss Sibyl.—" Sir Peter Lely ? " 
 
 Sir Peter Chillingly. — "That painter was not an Eng- 
 lishman. He was born in Westphalia, famous for hams. 
 I confine my remarks to the children of our native land. I 
 am aware that in foreign countries the name is not an extin- 
 guisher to the genius of its owner. But why ? In other 
 countries its sound is modified. Pierre Corneille Avas a 
 great man ; but I put it to you w^iether, had he been an 
 Englishman, he could have been the father of European 
 tragedy as Peter Crow ? " 
 
 Miss Sibyl. — " Impossible !"
 
 14 KEN ELM CJIILLINGLY. 
 
 Miss Sally.— " He ! he!" 
 
 Miss Margaret. — " Tliere is nothing to laugh at, vou 
 giddy child ! " 
 
 Sir Peter. — "My son shall not be petrified into Peter." 
 
 Mr. Gordon Chillingly. — ^" If a man is such a fool — 
 and I don't say your son will not be a fool, cousin Peter — as 
 to be influenced by the sound of his own name, and you 
 want the booby to turn the world topsy-turvy, you had bet- 
 ter call iiim Julias Caesar, or Hannibal, or Attila, or Char- 
 lemagne." 
 
 Sir Peter (who excels mankind in imperturbability of 
 temper). — " On the contrary, if you inflict upon a man the 
 burden of one of those names, the glory of which he cannot 
 reasonably expect to eclipse or even to equal, you crush 
 him beneath the weight. If a poet were calied John Milton 
 or William Shakespeare, he could not dare to publish even 
 a sonnet. No ; the choice of a name lies between the two 
 extremes of ludicrous insignificance and oppressive renown. 
 For this reason I have ordered the family pedigree to be sus- 
 pended on yonder wall. Let us examine it with care, and 
 see whether, among the Chillinglys themselves or their alli- 
 ances we can discover a name that can be borne with be- 
 coming dignity by the destined head of our house — a name 
 neither too liglit nor too heavy." 
 
 Sir Peter here led the way to the family tree — a goodly 
 roll of parchment, with the arms of the family emblazoned 
 at the top. Those arms were simple, as ancient heraldic 
 coats are — three fishes argent on a field azur ; the crest a 
 mermaid's head. All flocked to inspect the pedigree, except 
 Mr. Gordon, who resumed the "Times" newspaper. 
 
 " I never could quite make out what kind of fishes these 
 are," said the Rev. John Stalworth. " They are certainly 
 not pike, which formed the emblematic blazon of the Ho- 
 tofts, and are still grim enough to frighten future Shake- 
 speares, on the scutcheon of tlie Warwickshire Lucys." 
 
 "I believe they are tenches," said Mr. Mivers. "The 
 tench is a fish that knows how to keep itself safe, by a phil- 
 osophical taste for an obscure existence in deep holes and 
 slush." 
 
 Sir Peter. — " No, Mivers ; the fishes are dace, a fish that, 
 once introduced into any pond, never can be got out again. 
 You may drag the water — you may let off the water — you 
 may say ' Those dace are extirpated,' — vain thought ! — the 
 dace reappear as before ; and in this respect the arms are
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 15 
 
 really cmblamatic of the family. All the disorders and revo- 
 lutions that have occurred in England since the Heptarchy 
 have left the Chillinglys the same race in the same place. 
 Somehow or other the Norman Conquest did not despoil 
 tliem ; they held fiefs under Eudo Dapifer as peacefully as 
 they had held them under King Harold ; they took no part 
 in the Crusades, nor the Wars of the Roses, nor the Civil 
 AVars between Charles I. and the Parliament. As the dace 
 sticks to the water, and the water sticks by the dace, so 
 the Chillinglys stuck to the land and the land stuck by 
 the Chillinglys. Perhaps I am wrong to wish that the new 
 Chillingly may be a little less like a dace." 
 
 "Oh!" cried INliss Margaret, who, mounted on a chair, 
 had been inspecting the pedigree through an eyeglass, " I 
 don't sec a fine Christian name from the beginning, except 
 Oliver." 
 
 Sir Peter. — "That Chillingly was born in Oliver Crom- 
 well's Protectorate, and named Oliver in compliment to him, 
 as his father, born in the reign of James I., was christened 
 James. The three fishes always swam with the stream. 
 Oliver ! — Oliver not a bad name, but significant of radical 
 doctrines." 
 
 Mr. Mivers. — " I don't think so. Oliver Cromwell made 
 short work of radicals and their doctrines ; but perhaps we 
 can find a name less awful and revolutionary." / 
 
 *' I have it— I have it," cried the Parson. "Here is a 
 descent from Sir Kenelm Digby and Venetia Stanley. Sir 
 Kenelm Digby ! No finer specimen of muscular Christian- 
 ity. He fought as well as he wrote ; — eccentric, it is true, 
 but always a gentleman. Call the boy Kenelm ! " 
 
 "A sweet name," said Miss Sibyl — "it breathes of ro- 
 mance." 
 
 "Sir Kenelm Chillingly ! It sounds well — imposing!" 
 said Miss Margaret. 
 
 "And," remarked Mr. Mivers, "it has this advantage- 
 that while it has sufficient association with honorable^ dis- 
 tinction to affect the mind of the namesake and rouse his 
 emulation, it is not that of so stupendous a personage as to 
 defy rivalry. Sir Kenelm Digby was certainly an accom-. 
 plished and gallant gentleman ; but what with his silly super- 
 stition about sympathetic powders, etc., any man nowadays 
 might be clever in comparison without being a prodigy. 
 Yes, let us decide on Kenelm." 
 
 Sir Peter meditated. "Ccrtainlv." said he. afteraDausc
 
 i6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 — *' certainly the name of Kenelm carries with it very 
 crotchety associations ; and I am afraid that Sir Kenelm 
 Digby did not make a prudent choice in marriage. The 
 fair Venetiawas no better than she should be; and I should 
 wish my heir not to be led away by beauty, but wed a woman 
 of respectable character and decorous conduct." 
 Miss Margaret. — " A British matron, of course." 
 Three Sisters (in chorus). — " Of course — of course ! " 
 " But," resumed Sir Peter, " I am crotchety myself, and 
 crochets are innocent things enough ; and as for marriage, 
 the Baby cannot marry to-morrow, so that we have ample 
 time to consider that matter. Kenelm Digby was a man 
 any family might be proud of ; and, as you say, sister Mar- 
 garet, Kenelm Chillingly does not sound amiss — Kenelm 
 Chillingly it shall be ! " 
 
 The Baby was accordingly christened Kenelm, after 
 which ceremony its face grew longer than before. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Before his relations dispersed. Sir Peter summoned Mr. 
 Gordon into his library. 
 
 "Cousin," said he, kindly, " I do not blame you for the 
 want of family affection, or even of humane interest, which 
 you exhibit towards the New-born." 
 
 " Blame me, cousin Peter ! I should think not. I ex- 
 hibit as much family affection and humane interest as could 
 be expected from me — circumstances considered." 
 
 "I own," said Sir Peter, with all his wonted mildness, 
 " that after remaining childless for fourteen years of wedded 
 life, the advent of this little stranger must have occasioned 
 you,a disagreeble surprise. But, after all, as I am many 
 years younger than you, and, in the course of nature, shall 
 outlive you, the loss is less to yourself than to your son, 
 and upon that I wish to say a few words. You know tco 
 well the conditions on which I hold my estate not to be 
 aware that I have not legally the power to saddle it with 
 any bequest to your boy. The New-born succeeds to the 
 fee-simple as last in tail. But I intend, from this moment, 
 to lay by something every year for your sou out of my in-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 17 
 
 come ; and, fond as I am of London for a part of the year, 
 I shall now give up my town-Iiouse. If I live to the years 
 the Psalmist allots to man, I shall thus accumulate some- 
 thing handsome for your son, which may be taken in the 
 way of compensation." 
 
 Mr. Gordon was by no means softened by this generous 
 speech. However, he answered more politely than was his 
 wont, "My son will be very much obliged to you, should 
 he ever need your intended bequest." Pausing a moment, 
 he added, with a cheerful smile, '' A large percentage of in- 
 fants die before attaining the age of twenty-one." 
 
 "Nay, but I am told your son is an uncommonly fine 
 healthy child." 
 
 " My son, cousin Peter ! I was not thinking of my son, 
 but of yours. Yours has a big head. I should not wonder 
 if he had water in it. I don't wish to alarm you, but he 
 may go off any day, and in that case it is not likely that 
 Lady Chillingly will condescend to replace him. So you 
 will excuse me if I still keep a watchful eye on my rights ; 
 and, however painful to my feelings, I must still dispute 
 your right to cut a stick of the field timbei"." 
 
 "That is nonsense, Gordon. I am tenant for life with- 
 out impeachment of waste, and can cut down all timber not 
 ornamental." 
 
 "I advise you not, cousin Peter. I have told you before 
 that I shall try the question at law, should you provoke it, — 
 amicably, of course. Rights are rights ; and if I am driven 
 to maintain mine, I trust that you are of a mind too liberal 
 to allow your family affection to me and mine to be influ- 
 enced by a decree of the Court of Chancery. But my fly 
 is waiting. I must not miss the train." 
 
 "Well, good-bye, Gordon. Shake hands." 
 
 " Shake hands ! — of course — of course. By the by, as I 
 came through the lodge, it seemed to me sadly out of repair. 
 I believe you are liable for dilapidations. Good-bye." 
 
 " The man is a hog in armor," soliloquized Sir Peter, when \ 
 his cousin was gone ; " and if it be hard to drive a common 
 pig in the way he don't choose to go, a hog in armor is indeed 
 undrivable. But his boy ought not to suffer for his father's 
 hoggishness ; and I shall begin at once to see what I can lay 
 by for him. After all, it is hard upon Gordon. Poor Gor- 
 don ! — poor fellow — poor fellow ! Still I hope he will not go 
 to law with me. I hate law. And a worm will turn — espe- 
 cially a worm that is put into Chancery."
 
 l8 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Despite the sinister semi-predictions of the ci-devant heir- 
 at-law, the youthful Chillingly passed with safety, and indeed 
 with dignity, through the infant stages of existence. He 
 took his measles and whooping-cough with philosophical 
 equanimity. He gradually acquired the use of speech, but 
 he did not too lavishly exercise that special attribute of hu- 
 manity. During the earlier years of childhood he spoke as 
 little as if he had been prematurely trained in the school of 
 Pythagoras. But he evidently spoke the less in order to 
 reflect the more. He observed closely and pondered deeply 
 over what he observed. At the age of eight he began to 
 convei'se more freely, and it was in that year that he startled 
 his mother with the question — " Mamma, are you not some- 
 times overpowered by the sense of your own identity?" 
 
 Lady Chillingly — I was about to say rushed, but Lady 
 Chillingly never rushed — Lady Chillingly glided less sedate- 
 ly than her wont to Sir Peter, and, repeating her son's ques- 
 tion, said, "The boy is growing troublesome, too wise for 
 any woman ; he must go to school." 
 
 Sir Peter was of the same opinion. But where on earth 
 did the child get hold of so long a word as " identity," and 
 how did so extraordinary and puzzling a metaphysical ques- 
 tion come into his head ? Sir Peter summoned Kenelm, and 
 ascertained that the boy, having free access to the library, 
 had fastened upon Locke on the Human Understanding, and 
 was prepared to dispute with that philosopher upon the 
 doctrine of innate ideas. Quoth Kenelm, gravely — " A want 
 is an idea ; and if, as soon as I was born, I felt the want of 
 food and knew at once where to turn for it, without being 
 taught, surely I came into the world with an 'innate idea.' " 
 
 Sir Peter, though he dabbled in metaphysics, was posed, 
 and scratched his head without getting out a proper answer 
 as to the distinction between ideas and instincts. " My 
 child," he said at last, "you don't know what you are talking 
 about ; go and take a good gallop on your black pony ; and I 
 forbid you to read a.ny books that are not given to you by 
 myself or your mamma. Stick to Puss in Boots."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 19 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Sir Peter ordered his carriage and drove to the house of 
 the stout Parson. That doughty ecclesiastic held a family 
 living a few miles distant from the Hall, and was the only 
 one of the cousins with whom Sir Peter habitually com- 
 muned on his domestic affairs. 
 
 He found the Parson in his study, which exhibited tastes 
 other than clerical. Over the chimney-piece were ranged 
 fencing-foils, boxing-gloves, and staffs for the athletic exer- 
 cise of single-stick ; cricket-bats and fishing-rods filled up 
 the angles. There were sundry prints on the walls : one of 
 Mr. Wordsworth, flanked by two of distinguished race- 
 horses ; one of a Leicestershire short-horn, with which the 
 Parson, who farmed his own glebe and bred cattle in its 
 rich pastures, had won a prize at the county show ; and on 
 either side of that animal were the portraits of Hooker and 
 Jeremy Taylor. There were dwarf bookcases containing 
 miscellaneous works very handsomely bound. At the open 
 window, a stand of flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom. 
 The Parson's flowers were famous. 
 
 The appearance of the whole room was that of a man 
 who is tidy and neat in his habits. 
 
 "Cousin," said Sir Peter, " I have come to consult you." 
 And therewith he related the marvellous precocity of Ken- 
 elm Chillingly. "You see the name begins to work on him 
 rather too much. He must go to school ; and now what 
 school shall it be ? Private or public ? " 
 
 The Rev. John Stalworth. — "There is a great deal to 
 be said for or against either. At a public school the 
 chances are that Kenelm will no longer be overpowered by 
 a sense of his own identity ; he will more probably lose 
 identity altogether. The worst of a public school is that a 
 sort of common character is substituted for individual char- 
 acter. The master, of course, can't attend to the separate 
 development of each boy's idiosyncrasy. All minds are 
 thrown into one great mould, and come out of it more or 
 less in the same form. An Etonian may be clever or stu- 
 pid, but, as either, he remains emphatically Etonian. A 
 public school ripens talent, but its tendency is to slifle ge- 
 nius. Then, too, a public school for an only son, heir to a
 
 20 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 good estate, which will be entirely at his own disposal, is 
 apt to encourage reckless and extravagant habits ; and your 
 estate requires careful management, and leaves no margin 
 for an heir's notes of hand and post-obits. Un the whole, 
 I am against a public school for Kenelm." 
 
 " Weil, then, we will decide on a private one." 
 
 " Hold !" said the Parson; "a private school has its 
 drawbacks. You can seldom produce large fishes in small 
 ponds. In private schools the competition is narrowed, 
 the energi(?s stinted. The schoolmaster's wife interferes, 
 and generally coddles the boys. There is not manliness 
 enough in those academies ; no fagging, and very little 
 fighting. A clever boy turns out a prig ; a boy of feebler 
 intellect turns out a wcU-beliaved young lady in trousers. 
 Nothing muscular in the system. Decidedly, the namesake 
 and descendant of Kenelm Digby should not go to a private 
 seminary." 
 
 " So far as I gather from your reasoning," said Sir Peter 
 with characteristic placidity, " Kenelm Chillingly is not to 
 go to school at all." 
 
 " It does look like it," said the Parson, candidly ; " but, 
 on consideration, there is a medium. There are schools 
 which unite the best qualities of public and private schools, 
 large enough to stimulate and develop energies mental and 
 physical, yet not so framed as to melt all character in one 
 crucible. For instance, there is a school which has at this 
 moment one of the first scholars in Europe for head-master 
 — a school which has turned out some of the most remark- 
 able men of the rising- generation. The master sees at a 
 glance if a boy be clever, and takes pains wnth him accord- 
 ingly. He is not a mere teacher of hexameters and Sap- 
 phics. His learning embraces all literature, ancient and 
 modern. He is a good writer and a fine critic — admires 
 Wordsworth. He winks at fighting, his boys know how to 
 use their fists, and they are not in the habit of signing post- 
 obits before they are fifteen. Merton School is the place 
 for Kenelm." 
 
 " Thank you," said Sir Peter. " It is a great comfort in 
 life to find somebody who can decide for one. I am an 
 irresolute man myself, and in ordinary matters willingly let 
 Lady Chillingly govern me." 
 
 "I should like to see a wife govern w^,"said the stoutParson. 
 
 " But you are not married to Lady Chillingly. And now 
 let us go into the garden and look at your dahlias."
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 21 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The youthful confuter of Locke was despatched to Mer- 
 ton School, and ranked, according to his merits, as lag of 
 the penultimate form. When he came home for the Christ- 
 mas holidays he was more saturnine than ever— in fact, his 
 countenance bore the impression of some absoring grief. 
 He said, however, that he liked school very well, and eluded 
 all other questions. But early the next morning he mount- 
 ed his black pony and rode to the Parson's rectory._ The 
 reverend gentleman was in his farmyard examining his bul- 
 locks when Kenelm accosted him thus briefly : 
 
 " Sir, I am disgraced, and I shall die of it if you cannot 
 help to set me right in my own eyes." 
 
 ''My dear boy, don't talk in that way. Come into my 
 study." 
 
 As soon as they entered that room, and the Parson had 
 carefully closed the door, he took the boy's arm, turned him 
 round to the light, and saw at once that there was some- 
 thing very grave on his mind. Chucking him under the 
 chin, the Parson said cheerily, " Hold up your head, Ken- 
 elm. I am sure you have done nothing unworthy of a gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 " I don't know that. I fought a boy very little^ bigger 
 than myself, and I have been licked. I did not give in, 
 though ; but the other boys picked me up, for I could not 
 stand any longer— and the"^ fellow is a great bully— and his 
 name is Butt — and he's the son of a lawyer— and he got my 
 head into chancery — and I have challenged him to fight 
 again next half — and unless you can help me to lick him, I 
 shall never be good for anything in the world — never. It 
 will break my heart." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear you have had the pluck to chal- 
 lenge him. just let me see how you double your fist. 
 Well, that's not amiss. Now, put yourself into a fighting 
 attitude, and hit out at me — hard— harder ! Pooh ! that 
 will never do. You should make your blows as straight as 
 an arrow. And that's not the way to stand. Stop — so ; well 
 orT your haunches — weight on your left leg — good ! Now, 
 put on these gloves, and I'll give you a lesson in boxing."
 
 22 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards Mrs. John Cliillingly, entering 
 the room to summon her husband to breakfast, stood as- 
 tounded to sec him witli his coat off, and parrying the blows 
 of Kenclm, who flew at him like a young tiger. The good 
 pastor at that moment might certainly have appeared a fine 
 type of muscular Christianity, but not of that kind of Chris- 
 tianity out of which one makes Archbishops of Canterbury. 
 
 "Good gracious me!" faltered Mrs. John Chillingly; 
 and then, wife-like, flying to the protection of her husband, 
 she seized Kenelm by the shoulders, and gave him a good 
 shaking. The Parson, who was sadly out of breath, was 
 not displeased at the interruption, but took that opportu- 
 nity to put on his coat, and said, "We'll begin again to- 
 morrow. Now, come to breakfast." But during breakfast 
 Kenelm's face still betrayed dejection, and he talked little, 
 and ate less. 
 
 As soon as the meal was over, he drew^ the Parson into 
 the garden and said, " I have been thinking, sir, that per- 
 haps it is not fair to Butt, that I should be taking these 
 lessons ; and if it is not fair, Pd rather not " 
 
 " Give me your hand, my boy ! " cried the Parson, trans- 
 ported. " The name of Kenelm is not thrown away upon 
 you. The natural desire of man in his attribute of fighting 
 animal (an attribute in which, I believe, he excels all other 
 animated beings, except a quail and a gamecock), is to beat 
 his adversary. But the natural desire of that culmination 
 of man which we call gentleman, is to beat his adversary 
 fairly. ^A gentleman would rather be beaten fairly than 
 beat unfairly. Is not that your thought?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Kenelm, firmly; and then, beginning to 
 philosophize, he added, — " And it stands to reason ; be- 
 cause if I beat a fellow imfairly, I don't really beat him at 
 all." 
 
 " Excellent ! But suppose that you and another boy go 
 into examination upon Caesar's Commentaries or the multi- 
 plication-table, and the other boy is cleverer than you, but 
 you have taken the trouble to learn the subject and he has 
 not ; should you say you beat him unfairly ? " 
 
 Kenelm meditated a moment, and then said decidedly, 
 "No." 
 
 "That which applies to the use of your brains applies 
 equally to the use of your fists. Do you comprehend me ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir ; I do now." 
 
 " In the time of your namesake, Sir Kenelm Digby, gen-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 23 
 
 tlemeii wore swords, and they learned how to use them, be- 
 cause, in case of quarrel, they had to fight with them. 
 Nobody, at least in England, fights with swords now. It is 
 a democratic age, and if you fight at all, you are reduced to 
 fists ; and if Kenelm Digby learned to fence, so Kenelm 
 Chillingly must learn to box ; and if a gentleman thrashes a 
 drayman twice his size, who has not learned to box, it is not 
 imfair ; it is but an exemplification of the truth, that knowl- 
 edge is power. Come and take another lesson on boxing 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Kenelm remounted his pony and returned home. He 
 found his father sauntering in the garden with a book in his 
 hand. " Papa," said Kenelm, " how does one gentleman 
 write to another with whom he has a quarrel, and he don't 
 want to make it up, but he has something to say about 
 the quarrel which it is fair the other gentleman should 
 know ? " 
 
 "I don't understand what you mean." 
 
 "Well, just before I went to school I remember hearing 
 you say that you had a quarrel with Lord Hautfort, and that 
 he was an ass, and you would write and tell him so. When 
 you wrote did you say, ' You are an ass ' ? Is that the way 
 one gentleman writes to another ? " 
 
 " Upon my honor, Kenelm, you ask very odd questions. 
 But you cannot learn too early this fact, that ii^ony is to the 
 high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar ; and when one 
 gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say 
 it point-blank — he implies it in the politest terras he can 
 invent. Lord Hautfort denies my right of free warren over 
 a trout-stream that runs through his lands. I don't care a 
 rush about the trout-stream, but there is no doubt of my 
 right to fish in it. He was an ass to raise the question ; for, 
 if he had not, I should not have exercised the right. As he 
 did raise the question, I was obliged to catch histi-out." 
 
 " And you wrote a letter to him ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " How did you write, papa? What did you say ? " 
 
 " Something like this. ' Sir Peter Chillingly presents his 
 compliments to Lord Hautfort, and thinks it fair to his lord- 
 ship to say that he has taken the best legal advice with re- 
 gard to his rights of free warren, and trusts to be forgiven 
 if he presumes to suggest that Lord Hautfort might do well 
 to consult his own lawyer before he decides on disputing 
 them.' "
 
 24 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "Thank you, papa. I see " 
 
 That evening Kenelm wrote the following letter : 
 
 " Mr. Chillingly presents his compliments to Mr. Butt, and tliinks it fair 
 to Mr. Butt to say, tliat lie is taking lessons in boxing, and trusts to be for- 
 given if he presumes to suggest that Mr. Butt miglit do well to take lessons 
 himself before fighting with Mr. Chillingly next half." 
 
 " Papa," said Kenelm the next morning, " I want to write 
 to a schoolfellow whose name is Butt ; he is the son of a 
 lawyer who is called a Serjeant. I don't know where to 
 direct to him." 
 
 " That is easily ascertained," said Sir Peter. " Serjeant 
 Butt is an eminent man, and his address will be in tlie 
 Coiu't Guide." The address . was found — Bloomsbury 
 Square, and Kenelm directed his letter accordingly. In 
 due course he received this answer : 
 
 "You are an insolent little fool, and I'll thrash you within an inch of 
 your life. 
 
 " Robert Butt." 
 
 After the receipt of that polite epistle, Kenelm Chilling- 
 ly's scruples vanished, and he took daily lessons in muscu- 
 lar Christianity. 
 
 Kenelm returned to school with a brow cleared from 
 care, and three days after his return he wrote to the Rev. 
 John : 
 
 "Dear Sir, — I have licked Butt. Knowledge is power. Your affec- 
 tionate 
 
 " Kenelm. 
 
 "/'. S. — Now that I have licked Butt, I have made it up with him." 
 
 Froiu that time Kenelm prospered. Eulogistic letters 
 from the illustrious head-master showered in upon Sir Peter. 
 At the age of sixteen Kenelm Chillingly was the head of the 
 scliool, and quitting it finally, brought home the following 
 letter from his Orbilius to Sir Peter, marked " confidential " : 
 
 " Dear Sir Peter Ciiii.i ivm.v, — I have never felt more anxious for the 
 future career of any of my p'.i|ids than I do for tliat of your son. He is so 
 clever that, with ease to liimself, he may become a great man. lie is so pecu- 
 liar, that it is quite as likely that he may only make himself known to the 
 world as a great oddity. That distinguished teacher, Dr. Arnold, said that 
 the difference between one boy and another was not so much talent as energy. 
 Your sou lias talent, has energy, — yet he wants something for success in life ;
 
 KENEL2I CHILLINGLY. 25 
 
 he wants the faculty of amalgamation. He is of a melancholic and therefore 
 imsocial temperament. He will not act in concert with others. He is lovable 
 enough ; the other boys like him, especially the smaller ones, with whom he 
 he is a sort of hero ; but he has not one intimate friend. So far as school 
 learning is concerned, he might go to college at once, and with the certainty 
 of distinction, provided he chose to exert himself. But if I may venture to 
 offer an advice, I should say employ the next two years in letting him see a 
 little more of real life and acquire a due sense of its practical objects. Send 
 him to a private tutor who is not a pedant, but a man of letters or a man of 
 the world, and if in the metropolis 30 much the better. In a word, my your." 
 friend is unlike other people; and, with qualities that might do anything in 
 life, I fear, unless you can get him to be like other people, that he will do 
 nothing. Excuse the freedom with which I write, and ascribe it to the sin- 
 gular interest with which your son has inspired me. I have the honor to be, 
 dear Sir Peter, yours truly, 
 
 " William Horton." 
 
 Upon the strength of this letter Sir Peter did not indeed 
 suinmon another family council ; for he did not consider 
 that his three maiden sisters could offer any practical ad- 
 vice on the matter. And as to Mr. Gordon, that gentleman 
 having gone to law on the great timber question, and hav- 
 ing been signally beaten thereon, had informed Sir Peter 
 that he disowned him as a cousin and despised him as a man 
 — not exactly in those words — more covertly, and therefore 
 more stingingly. But Sir Peter invited Mr. Mivers for a 
 week's shooting, and requested the Rev. John to meet him. 
 
 Mr. Mivers arrived. The sixteen years that had elapsed 
 since he was first introduced to the reader, had made no 
 perceptible change in his appearance. It was one of his 
 maxims that in youth a man of the world should appear 
 older than he is ; and in middle age, and thence to his dy- 
 ing day, younger. And he announced one secret for attain- 
 ing that art in these words : " Begin your wig early, thus 
 you never become gray." 
 
 Unlike most philosophers, Mivers made his practice con- 
 form to his precepts ; and while in the prime of youth in- 
 augurated a wig in a fashion that defied the flight of time, 
 not curly and hyacinthine, but straight-haired and unassum- 
 ing. He looked five-and-thirty from the day he put on that 
 wig at the age of twenty-five. He looked five-and-thirty 
 now at the age of fifty-one. 
 
 " I mean," said he, " to remain thirty-five all my life. No 
 better age to stick at. People may choose to say I am more, 
 but I shall not own it. No one is bound to criminate him- 
 self." 
 
 Mr. Mivers had some other aphorisms on this important
 
 26 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 subject. One was, " Refuse to be ill. Never tell people 
 you are ill ; never own it yourself. Illness is one of those 
 things which a man should resist on principle at the onset. 
 It should never be allowed to get in the thin end of the 
 wedge. But take care of your constitution, and, having 
 ascertained the best habits for it, keep to them like clock- 
 work." Mr. Mivers would not have missed his constitutional 
 walk in the Park before breakfast, if, by going in a cab to 
 St. Giles's, he could have saved the city of London from 
 conflagration. 
 
 Another aphorism of his was, " If you want to keep 
 young, live in a metropolis ; never stay above a few weeks 
 at a time in the country. Take two men of similar constitu- 
 tion at the age of twenty-five ; let one live in London and 
 enjoy a regular sort of club-life ; send the other to some 
 rural district, preposterously called ' salul)rious.' Look at 
 these men when they have both reached the age of forty- 
 five. The London man has preserved his figure, the rural 
 man has a paunch. Tlie London man has an interesting 
 delicacy of complexion ; the face of the rural man is coarse- 
 grained and perhaps jowly." 
 
 A third axiom was, " Don't be a family man ; nothing 
 ages one like matrimonial felicity and paternal tics. Never 
 multiply cares, and pack up your life in the briefest compass 
 you can. Why add to your carpet-bag of troubles the con- 
 tents of a lady's imperials and bonnet-boxes, and the travel- 
 ing /(f^/zrifi^-';/ required by the nursery? Shun ambition — it is 
 so gouty. It takes a great deal out of a man's life, and 
 gives him nothing worth having till he has ceased to enjoy 
 it." 
 
 Another of his aphorisms was this, "A fresh mind keeps 
 the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off 
 those of yesterday. As to the morrow, time enough to con- 
 sider it when it becomes to-day." 
 
 Preserving himself by attention to these rules, Mr. Mivers 
 appeared at Exmundham iotiis^ teres, but not rotundns — a 
 man of middle height, slender, upright, with well-cut, small, 
 slight features, thin lips, enclosing an excellent set of teeth, 
 even, white, and not indebted to the dentist. For the sake 
 of those teeth he shunned acid wines, especially hock in all 
 its varieties, culinary sweets, and hot drinks. He drank 
 even his tea cold. "There are," he said, "two things in life 
 that a sage must preserve at every sacrifice, the coats of his 
 stomach and the enamel of his teeth. Some evils admit of
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. '27 
 
 consolations : there are no comforters for dyspepsia and 
 toothache." A man of letters, but a man of the world, he 
 had so cultivated his mind as both, that he was feared as 
 the one, and liked as the other. As a man of letters he 
 despised the world ; as a man of the world he despised let- 
 ters. As a representative of both he revered himself. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 On the evening of the third day from the arrival of Mr. 
 Mivers, he, the Parson, and Sir Peter were seated in the 
 host's parlor, the Parson in an arm-chair by the ingle, 
 smoking a short cutty-pipe ; Mivers at length on the couch, 
 slowly inhaling the perfumes of one of his own choice 
 trakucos. Sir Peter never smoked. There were spirits and 
 hot water and lemons on the table. The Parson was famed 
 for skill in the composition of toddy. From time to time the 
 Parson sipped his glass, and Sir Peter, less frequently, did 
 the same. It is needless to say tliat Mr. Mivers eschewed 
 toddy ; but beside him, on a chair, was a tumbler and large 
 carafe of iced water. 
 
 Sir Peter. — " Cousin Mivers, you have now had time to 
 study Kenelm, and to compare his character with that as- 
 signed to him in tlie Doctor's letter." 
 
 Mivers (languidly). — "Ay." 
 
 Sir Peter. — " I ask you, as a man of the world, what you 
 think I had best do with the boy. Shall I send him to 
 such a tutor as the Doctor suggests ? Cousin John is not 
 of the same mind as the Doctor, and thinks that Kenelm's 
 oddities are fine things in their way, and sliould not be pre- 
 maturely ground out of him by contact with worldly tutors 
 and London pavements." 
 
 "Ay," repeated Mr. Mivers, more languidly than before. 
 After a pause he added, " Parson John, let us hear you." 
 
 The Parson laid aside his cutty-pipe, and emptied his 
 fourth tumbler of toddy, then, throwing back his head in 
 the dreamy fasliion of the great Coleridge when he indulged 
 in a monologue, he thus began, speaking somewhat through 
 his nose : 
 
 "At the morning of life "
 
 28 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Here Mivcrs shrugged his shoulders, turned round on 
 his couch, and closed his eyes with the sigh of a man resign- 
 ing himself to a homily. 
 
 "At the morning of life, when the dews " 
 
 "I knew the dews were coming," said Mivers. "Dry 
 them, if you please ; nothing so unwholesome. We anticipate 
 what you mean to say, which is plainly this — When a fellow 
 is sixteen he is very fresh ; so he is. Pass on— what then ?" 
 
 " If you mean to interrupt me with your habitual cyni- 
 cism," said the Parson, " why did you ask to hear me ? " 
 
 "That was a mistake, I grant ; but who on earth could 
 conceive that you were going to commence in that florid 
 style ? Morning of life indeed ! — bosh !" 
 
 "Cousin Mivers," said Sir Peter, "you are not reviewing 
 John's style in ' The I,ondo:ier ; ' and I will beg you to 
 remember that my son's morning of life is a serious thing to 
 his father, and not to be nipped in its bud by a cousin. Pro- 
 ceed, John ! " 
 
 Quoth the Parson, good-humoredly, " I will adapt my 
 style to the taste of my critic. When a fellow is at the age 
 of sixteen, and very fresh to life, the question is whether he 
 should begin thus prematurely to exchange the ideas that 
 belong to youth for the ideas that properly belong to mid- 
 dle age, — whether he should begin to acquire that knowl- 
 edge of the world which middle-aged men have acquired and 
 can teach. I think not. I would rather have him yet 
 awhile in the company of the poets — in the indulgence of 
 glorious hopes and beautiful dreams, forming to himself 
 some type of the Heroic, which he will keep before his eyes 
 as a standard when he goes into the world as man. There 
 are two schools of thought fcjr the formation of character — 
 the Real and Ideal. I would form the character in the Ideal 
 school, in order to make it boldere and grander and lovelier 
 when it takes place in that every-day life which is called 
 the Real. And therefore I am not for placing the descendant 
 of Sir Kenelm Digby, in the interval between school and 
 college, with a man of the world, probably as cynical as 
 cousin Mivers, and living in the stony thoroughfares of 
 London." 
 
 Mr. Mivers (rousing himself). — " Before we plunge into 
 that Serbonian bog — the controversy between the Realistic 
 and the Idealistic academicians — I think the first thins; to 
 decide is what you want Kenelm to be hereafter. When I 
 order a pair of shoes, I decide beforehand what kind of shoes
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. "29 
 
 they arc to be — court pumps or strong walking-shoes ; and 
 I don't ask the shoemaker to give me a preliminary lecture 
 upon tlie different purposes of locomotion to which leather 
 can be applied. If, Sir Peter, you want Kenelm to scribble 
 lackadaisical poems, listen to Parson John ; if you want to 
 fill his head with pastoral rubbisli about innocent love, which 
 may end in marrying the Miller's Daughter, listen to Parson 
 John ; if you want him to enter life a soft-headed greenhorn, 
 who will sign any bill carrying fifty per cent, to which a 
 young scamp asks him to be security, listen to Parson John : 
 in fine, if you wish a clever lad to become either a pigeon or 
 a ring-dove, a credulous booby or a sentimental milksop, 
 Parson John is the best adviser you can have." 
 
 " But I don't want my son to ripen into either of those 
 imbecile developments of species." 
 
 " Then don't listen to Parson John ; and there's an end 
 of the discussion." 
 
 " No, there is not. I have not heard your advice what to 
 do if John's advice is not to be taken." 
 
 Mr. Mivers hesitated. He seemed puzzled. 
 
 "The fact is," said the Parson, "that Mivers got up 
 'The Londoner' upon a principle that regulates his own 
 mind, — find fault with the way everything is done, but never 
 commit yourself by saying how anything can be done 
 better." 
 
 " That is true," said Mivers, candidly. "The destructive 
 order of mind is seldom allied to the constructive. I and 
 'The Londoner ' are destructive by nature and by policy. 
 We can reduce a building into rubbish, but we don't profess 
 to turn rubbish into a building. We are critics, and, as you 
 say, not such fools as to commit ourselves to the proposition 
 of amendments that can be criticised by others. Neverthe- 
 less, for your sake, cousin Peter, and on the condition that if 
 I give my advice you will never say that I gave it, and if you 
 take it, that you will never reproach me if it turns out, as 
 most advice does, very ill — I will depart from my custom 
 and hazard my opinion." 
 
 " I accept the conditions." 
 
 " Well, then, witli every new generation there springs 
 up a new order of ideas. The earlier the age at Avhich a 
 man seizes the ideas that will influence his own generation, 
 the more he has a start in the race with his contemporaries. 
 If Kenelm comprehends at sixteen those intellectual signs 
 of the time which, when he goes up to college, he will find
 
 3o' KENELM C/nLLLVGLY. 
 
 young men of eighteen or twenty only \n%X. prepared Xo com- 
 ])reliend, he will produce a deep impression of his powers 
 for reasoning, and their adaptation to actual life, which will 
 be of great service to him later. Now the ideas that in- 
 fluence the mass of the rising generation never have their 
 well-head in the generation itself. They have their source 
 in the generation before them, generally in a small minor- 
 ity, neglected or contemned by the great majority which 
 adopt them later. Tliercfore a lad at the age of sixteen, if 
 he wants to get at such ideas, must come into close contact 
 with sonic superior mind in which they were conceived 
 twenty or thirty years before. I am consequently for plac- 
 ing Kenelm with a person from whom the new ideas can be 
 learned. I am also for his being placed in the metropolis 
 during the process of this initiation. With such introduc- 
 tions as are at our command, he may come in contact not 
 only with new ideas, but Avith eminent men in all vocations. 
 It is a great thing to mix betimes with clever people. One 
 picks their brains unconsciously. There is another advan- 
 tage, and not a small one, in this early entrance into g(^od 
 society. A youth learns manners, self-possession, readiness 
 of resource ; and he is much less likely to get into scrapes 
 and contract tastes for low vices and mean dissipation, when 
 he comes into life wholly his own master, after having 
 acqviired a predilection for refined companionship, under 
 the guidance of those competent to select it. There, I have 
 talked myself out of breath. And you had better decide at 
 once in favor of my advice ; for as I am of a contradictory 
 temperament, myself of to-morrow may probably contradict 
 myself of to-day." 
 
 Sir Peter was greatly impressed with his cousin's argu- 
 mentative eloquence. 
 
 The Parson smoked his cutty-pipe in silence until ap- 
 pealed to by Sir Peter, and he then said, " In this pro- 
 gramme of education for a Christian gentleman, tlic> part of 
 Christian seems to me left out." 
 
 *' The tendency of the age," observed Mr. Mivers, calmly, 
 "is towards that omission. Secular education is the neces- 
 sary reaction from the special theological training which 
 arose in the dislike of one set of Christians to the teaching 
 of another set ; and as these antagonists will not agree how 
 religion is to be taught, either there must be no teaching at 
 all, or religion must be eliminated from the tuition." 
 
 " That may do very well for some liuge system of national
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 31 
 
 education," said Sir Peter, " but it does not apply to Kenelm, 
 as one of a family all of whose members belong to the Estab- 
 lished Church. He may be taught tlie creed of his forefa- 
 thers without offending a Dissenter." 
 
 " Which Established Church is he to belong to ? " asked 
 Mr. Mivers, — " High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, 
 Puseyite Church, Ritualistic Church, or any other Estab- 
 lished Church that may be coming into fashion ?" 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said the Parson. " That sneer is out of place. 
 You know very well that one merit of our Church is the 
 spirit of toleration, which does not magnify every variety of 
 opinion into a heresy or a schism. But if Sir Peter sends 
 his son at the age of sixteen to a tutor who eliminates the 
 religion of Christianity from his teaching, he deserves to be 
 thrashed within an inch of his life ; and," continued the 
 Parson, eyeing Sir Peter sternly, and mechanically turning 
 up his cuffs, "I should /ike to thrash him." 
 
 "Gently, John," said Peter, recoiling; "gently, my dear 
 kinsman. My heir shall not be educated as a heathen, and 
 Mivers is only bantering us. Come, Mivers, do you happen 
 to know among your London friends some man who, though 
 a scholar and a man of the world, is still a Christian ? " 
 
 "A Christian as by law established?" 
 
 "Well- yes." 
 
 "And who will receive Kenelm as a pupil ?" 
 
 "Of course I am not putting such questions to you out 
 of idle curiosity." 
 
 " I know exactly the man. He was originally intended 
 for orders, and is a very learned theologian. He relin- 
 quished the thought of the clerical profession on succeed- 
 ing to a small landed estate by the sudden death of an elder 
 brother. He then came to London and bought experience : 
 that is, he was naturally generous — he became easily taken 
 in — got into difficulties — the estate was transferred to trus- 
 tees for the benefit of creditors, and on the payment of ^"400 
 a year to himself. By this time he was married and had 
 tw^o children. He found the necessity of employing his pen 
 in order to add to his income, and is one of the ablest con- 
 tributors to the periodical press. He is an elegant scholar, 
 an effective writer, much courted by public men, a thorough 
 gentleman, has a pleasant house, and receives the best so- 
 ciety. Having been once taken in, he defies any one to take 
 him in again. His experience was not bought too dearly. 
 No more acute and accomplished man of the world. The
 
 32 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 three hundred a year or so that you would pay for Kenelm 
 would suit him very well. His name is Wclby, and he lives 
 in Chester Square." 
 
 " No doubt he is a contributor to ' The Londoner,' " said 
 the Parson, sarcastically. 
 
 " True. He writes our classical, theological, and meta- 
 physical articles. Suppose I invite him to come here for a 
 day or two, and you can see him and judge for yourself. Sir 
 Peter ? " 
 
 " Do." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mr. Welby arrived and pleased everybody. A man of 
 the happiest manners, easy and courteous. There was no 
 pedantry in him, yet you could soon see that his reading 
 covered an extensive surface, and here and there had dived 
 deeply. He enchanted the Parson by his comments on St. 
 Chrysostom ; he dazzled Sir Peter with his lore in the an- 
 tiquities of ancient Britain ; he captivated Kenelm by his 
 readiness to enter into that most disputatious of sciences 
 called metaphysics ; while for Lady Chillingly, and the three 
 sisters who were invited t(j meet him, he was more entertain- 
 ing, but not less instructive. Equally at home in novels and 
 in good books, he gave to tlie spinsters a list of innocent 
 works in either ; while for Lady Chillingly he sparkled with 
 anecdotes of fashionable life, the newest bons mots, the latest 
 scandals, hi fact, Mr. Welby was one of those brilliant per- 
 sons who adorn any society amidst which they are thrown. 
 It at heart he was a disappointed man, the disappointment 
 was concealed by an even serenity of spirits ; he had enter- 
 tained high and justifiable hopes of a brilliant career and a 
 lasting reputation as a theologian and a preacher ; the suc- 
 cession to his estate at the age of twenty-three had changed 
 the nature of his ambition. The charm of his manner was 
 such that he sprang at once into the fashion, and became 
 beguiled by his own genial temperament into that lesser 
 but pleasanter kind of ambition which contents itself with 
 social successes and enjoys the present hour. When his 
 circumstances compelled him tp eke out his income by lit- 
 erary profits, he slid into the grooves of periodical composi- 
 tion, and resigned all ihoutrhts of the labor required for any
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 33 
 
 complete work, which might take much time and be attend- 
 ed with scanty profits. He still remained very popular in 
 society, and perhaps his general reputation for ability made 
 him fearful to hazard it by any great undertaking. He was 
 not, like Mivers, a despiser of all men and all things ; but 
 he regarded men and things as an indifferent though good- 
 natured spectator regards the thronging streets from a 
 drawing-room window. He could not be called blasc^ but 
 he was thoroughly dcsilliisionne. Once over-romantic, his 
 character now was so entirely imbued with the neutral tints 
 of life that romance offended his taste as an obtrusion of 
 violent color into a sober woof. He was become a thorough 
 Realist in his code of criticism, and in his worldly mode of 
 action and thought. But Parson John did not perceive this, 
 for Welby listened to that gentleman's eulogies on the Ideal 
 school without troubling himself to contradict them. He 
 had grown too indolent to be combative in conversation, and 
 only as a critic betrayed such pugnacity as remained to him 
 by the polished cruelty of sarcasm. 
 
 He came off with flying colors through an examination 
 into his Church orthodoxy instituted by the Parson and Sir 
 Peter. Amid a cloud of ecclesiastical erudition, his own 
 opinions vanished in those of the Fathers. In truth, he was 
 a Realist in religion as in everything else. He regarded 
 Christianity as a type of existent civilization, which ought 
 to be reverenced, as one might recognize the other types of 
 that civilization — such as the liberty of the press, the repre- 
 sentative system, white neckcloths and black coats of an 
 evening, etc. He belonged, therefore, to what he himself 
 called the school of Eclectical Christiology, and accommo- 
 dated the reasonings of Deism to the doctrines of the 
 Church, if not as a creed, at least as an institution. Finally, 
 he united all the Chillingly votes in liis favor ; and when he 
 departed from the Hall, carried off Kenelm for his initiation 
 into the new ideas that were to govern his generation. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Kenelm remained a year and a half with this distinguish- 
 ed preceptor. During that time he learned much in book- 
 lore ; he saw much, too, of the eminent men of the day, in
 
 34 KEiYELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 liter.ature, the law, and the senate. He saw, also, a s;ood 
 deal of the fashionable world. Fine ladies, Avho bad been 
 friends of his mother in her youth, took him up, counseled 
 and petted him. One in especial, the Marchioness of Glen- 
 alvon, to whom he was endeared by grateful association. 
 For her youngest son had been a fellow-pupil of Kenelm's 
 at Merton School, and Kenelm had saved his life from drown- 
 ing. The poor boy died of consumption later, and her grief 
 for his loss made her affection for Kenelm vet more tender. 
 Lady Glenalvon was one of the queens of the London world. 
 Though in her fiftieth year, she was still veiy handsome : 
 she was also very accomplished, very clever, and very kind- 
 hearted, as some of such queens are ; just one of those 
 women invaluable in forming the manners and elevating 
 the character of young men destined to make a figure in 
 after-life. But she was very angry with herself in thinking 
 that she failed to arouse any such ambition in the heir of 
 the Chillinglys. 
 
 It may here be said that Kenelm was not without great 
 advantages of form and countenance. He was tall, and the 
 youthful grace of his proportions concealed his physical 
 strength, which was extraordinary rather from the iron text- 
 ure than the bidk of his thews and sinews. His face, though 
 it certainly lacked the roundness of youth, had a grave, som- 
 bre, haunting sort of beauty, not artistically regular, but 
 picturesque, peculiar, with large dark expressive eyes, and 
 a certain indescribable combination of sweetness and melan- 
 choly in his quiet smile. He never laughed audibly, but he 
 had a quick sense of the comic, and his eye would laugh 
 when his lips were silent. He would say queer, droll, unex- 
 pected things, which passed for humor ; but, save for that 
 gleam in the eye, he could not have said them with more 
 seeming innocence of intentional joke if he had been a monk 
 of La Trappe looking up from the grave he was digging in 
 order to utter "memento mori." 
 
 That face of his was a great " take in." Women thought 
 it full of romantic sentiment— the face of one easily moved 
 to love, and whose love would be replete alike with poetry 
 and passion. But he remained as proof as the youthful 
 Hippolytus to all female attraction. He delighted the Par- 
 son by keeping up his practice in athletic pursuits, and ob- 
 tained a reputation at the pugilistic school, which he attend- 
 ed regularly, as the best gentleman boxer about town. 
 
 He made many acquaintances, but still formed no friend-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 35 
 
 ships. Yet every one wlio saw him much conceived affection 
 for him. If lie did not return that affection, he did not 
 repel it. He was exceedingly gentle in voice and manner, 
 and had all his father's placidity of temper — children and 
 dogs took to him as by instinct. 
 
 On leaving Mr. Welby's, Kenelm carried to Cambridge 
 a mind largely stocked with the new ideas that were bud- 
 ding into leaf. He certainly astonished the other freshmen, 
 and occasionally puzzled the mighty Fellows of Trinity and 
 St. John's. But he gradually withdrew himself much from 
 general society. In fact, he was too old in mind for his 
 years ; and after having mixed in the choicest circles of a 
 metropolis, college suppers and wine parties had little charm 
 for him. He maintained his pugilistic renown ; and on cer- 
 tain occasions, when some delicate undergraduate had been 
 bullied by some gigantic bargeman, his muscular Christian- 
 ity nobly developed itself. He did not do as much as he 
 might have done in the more intellectual ways of academical 
 distinction. Still, he was always among the first in the col- 
 lege examinations ; he won two university prizes^ and took 
 a very creditable degree, after which he returned home, more 
 odd, more saturnine — in short, less like other people — than 
 when he had left Merton School. He had woven a solitude 
 round him out of his own heart, and in that solitude he sate 
 still and watchful as a spider sits in his web. 
 
 Whether from natural temperament, or from his educa- 
 tional training under such teachers as Mr. Mivers, who car- 
 ried out the new ideas of reform by revering nothing in the 
 past, and Mr. Welby, who accepted the routine of the pre- 
 sent as realistic, and pooh-poohed all visions of the future 
 as idealistic, Kenelm's chief mental characteristic was a kind 
 of tranquil indifferentism. It was difficult to detect in him 
 either of those ordinary incentives to action — vanity or am- 
 bition, the yearning for applause or the desire of power. 
 To all female fascinations he had been hitherto star-proof. 
 He had never experienced love, but he had read a good deal 
 about it, and that passion seemed to him an unaccountable 
 aberration of human reason, and an ignominious surrender 
 of the equanimity of thought which it should be the object 
 of masculine natures to maintain undisturbed. A very elo- 
 quent book in praise of celibacy, and entitled "The Ap- 
 proach to the Angels," written by that eminent Oxford schol- 
 ar, Decimus Roach, had produced so remarkable an effect 
 upon his youthful mind, that, had he been a Roman Catholic,
 
 36 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 he might have become a monk. Where lie most evinced 
 firdor, it was a Icjgician's ardor for abstract tnitii — tliat is, 
 for wliat lie considered truth ; and as wliat seems truth to 
 one man is sure to seem falsehood to some other man, this 
 predilection of his was not without its inconveniences and 
 dangers, as may probably be seen in the following chapter. 
 Meanwhile, rightly to appreciate his conduct therein, I 
 entreat thee, O candid Reader (not that any Reader ever is 
 candid), to remember that he is brimful of new ideas, which, 
 met by a deep and hostile undercurrent of old ideas, become 
 more provocatively billowy and surging. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 There had been great festivities at Exmundham, in cele- 
 bration of the honor bestowed upon the Avorld by the fact 
 that Kenclm Chillingly had lived twenty-one years in it. 
 
 The young heir had made a speech to the assembled 
 tenants and other admitted revellers, which had by no means 
 added to the exhilaration of the proceedings. He spoke 
 with a fluency and self-possession which were surprising in a 
 youth addressing a multitude for the first time. But his 
 speech was not cheerful. 
 
 The principal tenant on the estate, in proposing his 
 health, had naturally referred to the long line of his ances- 
 tors. His father's merits as a man and landlord had been 
 enthusiastically commemorated, and manv happy auguries 
 for his own future career had been drawn, partly from the 
 excellences of his parentage, partly from his own youthful 
 promise in the honors achieved at the universitv. 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly in reply largely availed himself of 
 those new ideas which were to influence the rising genera- 
 tion, and with Avhich he had been rendered familiar by the 
 journal of Mr. Mivers and the conversation of Mr. Welby. 
 
 He brieflv disposed of the ancestral part of the question. 
 He observed that it was singidar to note how long any given 
 family or dynasty could continue to flourish in any given 
 nook of matter in creation, without anv exhibition of intel- 
 lectual powers beyond those displayed by a succession of 
 vegetable crops. "It is certainly true," he said, "that the
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 37 
 
 Chillinglys have lived in this place from father to son for 
 about a fourth part of the history of the world, since the date 
 Avhich Sir Isaac Newton assigns to the Deluge. But, so far 
 as can be judged by existent records, the world has not been 
 in any way wiser or better for their existence. They were 
 born to cat as long ar they could eat, and when they could 
 eat no longer they died. Not that in this respect they were 
 a whit less insignificant than the generality of their fellow- 
 creatures. Most of us now present," continued the youthful 
 orator, "are only born in order to die ; and the chief con- 
 solation of our wounded pride in admitting this fact, is in 
 the probability that our posterity will not be of more conse- 
 quence to the scheme of nature than w^e ourselves are." 
 Passing from that philosophical view of his own ancestors 
 in particular, and of the human race in general, Kenelm 
 Chillingly then touched with serene analysis on the eulogies 
 lavished on his father as man and landlord. 
 
 "As man," he said, "my father no doubt deserves all 
 that can be- said by man in favor of man. But what, at the 
 best, is man ? A crude, struggling, imdeveloped embryo, of 
 whom it is the highest attribute that he feels a vague con- 
 sciousness that he is only an embryo, and cannot complete 
 himself till he ceases to be a man ; that is, until he becomes 
 another being in another form of existence. We can praise a 
 dog as a dog, because a dog is a completed ens, and not an em- 
 bryo. But to praise a man as man, forgetting that he is only 
 a germ out of which a form wholly different is ultimately to 
 spring, is equally opposed to Scriptural belief in his present 
 crudity and imperfection, and to psychological or metaphys- 
 ical examination of a mental construction evidently design- 
 ed for purposes that he can never fulfil as man. That my 
 father is an embryo not more incomplete than any present, 
 is quite true ; but that, you will see on reflection, is saying 
 very little on his behalf. Even in the boasted physical form- 
 ation of us men, you are aware that the best-shaped amongst 
 us, according to the last scientific discoveries, is only a de- 
 velopment of some hideous hairy animal, such as a gorilla ; 
 and the ancestral gorilla itself had its own aboriginal fore- 
 father in a small marine animal shaped like a two-necked 
 bottle. The probability is that, some day or other, we shall 
 be exterminated by a new development of species. 
 
 "As for the merits assigned to my father as landlord, I 
 must respectfully dissent from the panegyrics so rashly be- 
 stowed r.o him. For all sound reasoners must concur in
 
 33 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 this, that the first duty of an owner of land is not to the oc- 
 cupiers to whom he leases it, but to the nation at large. It 
 is his duty to see that the land yields to the community the 
 utmost it can yield. In order to effect this object a landlord 
 should put up his farms to competition, exacting the highest 
 rent he can possibly get from responsible competitors. 
 Competitive examination is the enlightened order of the 
 day, even in professions in which the best men would have 
 qualities that defy examination. In agriculture, happily, 
 the principle of competitive examination is nut so hostile to 
 the choice of the best man as it must be, for instance, in 
 diplomacy, where a Talleyrand would be excluded for 
 knowing no language but his own ; and still more in the 
 army, wliere promotion would be denied to an officer who, 
 like Marlborough, could not spell. But in agriculture a 
 landlord has only to inciuire who can give the highest rent, 
 having the largest capital, subject by the strictest penalties 
 of law to the conditions of a lease dictated by the most sci- 
 entific agriculturists under penalties fixed by the most cau- 
 tious conveyancers. By this mode of procedure, reccm- 
 mended by the most liberal economists of our age — barring 
 those still more liberal who deny that property in land is 
 any property at all — by this mode of procedure, I say, a 
 landlord does his duty to his country. He secures tenants 
 who can produce the most to the community by their capi- 
 tal, tested through competitive examination into their 
 bankers' accoimts and the security they can give, and 
 through the rigidity of covenants suggested by a Liebig 
 and reduced into law by a Chitty. But on my father's land 
 I see a great many tenants with little skill and less capital, 
 ignorant of a Liebig and revolting from a Chitty, and no 
 filial enthusiasm can induce mc honestly to say that my 
 father is a good landlord. He has preferred his affection 
 for individuals to his duties to the community. It is not, my 
 friends, a question whether a handful of farmers like your- 
 selves go to the workhouse or not. It is a consumer's ques- 
 tion. Do you produce the maximum of corn to the con- 
 sumer ? 
 
 " With respect to myself," continued the orator, warm- 
 ing, as the cold he had engendered in his audience became 
 more freezingly felt — "with respect to myself, I do not 
 deny that, owing to the accident of training for a very faulty 
 and contracted course of education, I have obtained what 
 are called ' honors ' ai llie University of Cambridge; but
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 39 
 
 vou must not regard that fact as a promise of any worth in 
 my future passage through life. Some of the most useless 
 persons — especially narrow-minded and bigoted — have ac- 
 quired far higher honors at the university than have fallen 
 to my lot. 
 
 " I thank you no less for the civil things you have said 
 of me and my family ; but I shall endeavor to walk to that 
 grave to which we are all bound with a tranquil indifference 
 as to what people may say of me in so short a journey. And 
 the sooner, my friends, we get to our journey's end, the 
 better our chance of escaping a great many pains, troubles, 
 sins, and diseases. So that when I drink to your good 
 healths, you must feel that in reality I wish you an early 
 deliverance from the ills to which flesh is exposed, and 
 which so generally increase with our years, that good health 
 is scarcely compatible with the decaying faculties of old 
 age. Gentlemen, your good healths ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The morning after these birthday rejoicings, Sir Peter 
 and Lady Chillingly held a long consultation on the pecu- 
 liarities of their heir, and the best mode of instilling into his 
 mind the expediency either of entertaining more pleasing 
 views, or at least of professing less unpopular sentiments — 
 compatibly of course, though they did not say it, with the 
 new ideas that were to govern his century. Having come to 
 an agreement on this delicate subject, they went forth, arm 
 in arm, in search of their heir. Kenelm seldom met them 
 at breakfast. He was an early riser, and accustomed to soV 
 itary rambles before his parents were out of bed. 
 
 The worthy pair found Kenelm seated on the banks of a 
 trout-stream that meandered through Chillingly Park, dip- 
 ping his line into the water, and yawning, with apparent 
 relief in that operation. 
 
 "Does fishing amuse you, my boy?" said Sir Peter, 
 heartilv. 
 
 " Not in the least, sir," answered Kenelm. 
 
 " Then why do you do it ? " asked Lady Chillingly. 
 
 " Because I know nothing else fhat amuses me mqre."
 
 40 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "Ah! that is it," said Sir Peter; "the Avhole secret of 
 Kenehii's oddities is to be found in tliese words, my dear ; 
 he needs amusement. Voltaire says truly, 'amusement is 
 one of the wants of man.' And if Kenelm could be amused 
 like other people, he would be like other people." 
 
 " In tiiat case," said Kenelm, gravely, and extracting 
 from the water a small but lively trout, which settled itself 
 in Lady Chillingly's lap — " in that case I would rather not 
 be amused. I have no interest in the absurdities of other 
 people. The instinct of self-preservation compels me to 
 have some interest in my own." 
 
 "Kenelm, sir," exclaimed Lady Chillingly, with an ani- 
 mation into which her tranciuii ladyship was very rarely 
 betrayed, "take away that horrid damp thing! Put down 
 your rod and attend to what your father says. Your strange 
 conduct gives us cause of serious anxiety." 
 
 Kenelm imhooked the trout, deposited the fish in his 
 basket, and raising his large eyes to his father's face, said, 
 " What is there in my conduct that occasions you displea- 
 sure ? " 
 
 "Not displeasure, Kenelm," said Sir Peter, kindly, "but 
 anxiety ; your mother has hit upon the right Avord. You 
 see, my dear son, it is my wish that you should distinguish 
 yourself in the world. You might represent this county, as 
 your ancestors have done before. I had looked forward to 
 the proceedings of yesterday as an admirable occasion for 
 your introduction to your future constituents. Oratory is 
 the talent most appreciated in a free country, and why 
 should you not be an orator ? Demosthenes says that de- 
 livery, delivery, delivery, is the art of oratory ; and your 
 delivery is excellent, graceful, self-possessed, classical." 
 
 " Pardon me, my dear father, Demosthenes does not 
 say delivery, nor action, as the word is commonly rendered ; 
 he says, * acting or stage-play ' — vtt6xput1% ; the art by which 
 a man delivers a speech in a feigned character — whence we 
 get the word hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy ! 
 is, according to Demosthenes, the triple art of the orator. 
 Do you wish me to become triply a hypocrite ?" 
 
 "Kenelm, I am ashamed of you. You know as well as 
 \ do that it is only by metaphor that you can twist the word 
 ascribed to the great Athenian into the sense of hypocrisy. 
 But assuming it, as you sav, to mean not delivery, but act- 
 ing, I understand why your debut as an orator was not suc- 
 cessful. Your delivery was excellent, your acting defective.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 41 
 
 An orator should please, conciliate, persuade, prepossess. 
 You did the reverse of all this ; and though you produced 
 a great effect, the effect was so decidedly to your disadvan- 
 tage, that it would have lost you an election on any hustings 
 in England."' 
 
 "Am I to understand, my dear father," said Kenelm, in 
 the moiu'nful and compassionate tones with which a pious 
 minister of the Church reproves some abandoned and hoary 
 sinner — "am I to understand that you would commend to 
 your son the adoption of deliberate falsehood for the gain 
 of a selfish advantage ?" 
 
 "Deliberate falsehood ! you impertinent puppy !" 
 
 " Puppv ! " repeated Kenelm, not indignantly but mus- 
 ingly — " puppy ! — a well-bred puppy takes after its parents." 
 
 Sir Peter burst out laughing. 
 
 Lady Chillingly rose with dignity, shook her gown, un- 
 folded her parasol, and stalked away speechless. 
 
 " Now, look you, Kenelm," said Sir Peter, as soon as he 
 had composed himself. " These quips and humors of yours 
 are amusing enough to an eccentric man like myself, but 
 they will not do for the world ; and how at your age, and 
 with the rare advantages you have had in an early introduc- 
 tion to the best intellectual society, under the guidance of a 
 tutor acquainted with the new ideas which are to influence 
 the conduct of statismen, you could have made so silly a 
 speech as you did yesterday, I cannot understand." 
 
 " My dear father, allow me to assure you that the ideas 
 I expressed are the new ideas most in vogue — ideas ex- 
 pressed in still plainer, or, if you prefer the epithet, still 
 sillier terms than I employed. You will find them instilled 
 into the public mind by 'The Londoner,' and by most intel- 
 lectual journals of a lilDeral character." 
 
 " Kenelm, Kenelm, such ideas would turn the world 
 topsy-turvy." 
 
 " New ideas always do tend to turn old ideas topsy-turvy. 
 And the world, after all, is only an idea, which is turned 
 topsy-turvy with every successive century." 
 
 "You make me sick of the word ideas. Leave off your 
 metaphysics and study real life." 
 
 " It is real life which I did study under Mr. Welby. He 
 is the Archimandrite of Realism. It is sham life which you 
 wish m:." to studv. To oblige you I am willing to com- 
 mence it. I daresav it is verv pleasant. Real life is not; 
 on the c-op.trary — (lull." And Keuehn yawned again.
 
 42 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Have you no young friends among your fellow-colle- 
 gians ? " 
 
 " Friends ! certainly not, sir. But I believe I have some 
 enemies, who answer the same purpose as friends, only 
 they don't hurt one so much." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you lived alone at Cam- 
 bridge ? " 
 
 " No, I lived a good deal with Aristophanes, and a lit- 
 tle with Conic Sections and Hydrostatics." 
 
 "Books. Dry company." 
 
 " More innocent, at least, than moist company." 
 
 " Did you ever get drunk, sir?" 
 
 " Drunk ! I tried to do so once with the young compan- 
 ions whom you would commend to me as friends. I don't 
 think I succeeded, but I woke with a headache. Real life 
 at college abounds with headache." 
 
 " Kenelm, my boy, one thing is clear — you must travel." 
 
 "As you please, sir. Marcus Antoninus says that it is 
 all one to a stone whether it be throwm upwards or down- 
 wards. When shall I start ? " 
 
 "Very soon. Of course, there are preparations to 
 make ; you should have a travelling companion. I don't 
 mean a tutor — you are too clever and too steady to need 
 one — but a pleasant, sensible, well-mannered young person 
 of your own age." 
 
 " My own age — male or female ? " 
 
 Sir Peter tried hard to frown. The utmost he could do 
 was to reply gravely, " Female ! If I said you were too 
 steady to need a tutor, it was because you have hitherto 
 seemed less likely to be led out of your way by female al- 
 lurements. Among your other studies may I inquire if 
 you liave included that which no man has ever yet thor- 
 oughly mastered — the study of woman ? " 
 
 "Certainly. Do you object to my catching another trout? " 
 
 "Trout be blest, or the reverse. So you have studied 
 
 woman. I should never have thought it. Wliere and when 
 did you commence that department of science ?" 
 
 "When? ever since I was ten years old. Where? first 
 in your own house, then at college. Hush ! — a bite ! " And 
 another trout left its native element and alighted on Sir 
 Peter's nose, whence it was solemnly transferred to the bas- 
 ket. 
 
 " At ten years old, and in my own house. That flaunt- 
 ing hussy Jane, the under-housemaid "
 
 KENELM CIIILLINGL Y. 
 
 43 
 
 *' Jane ! No, sir. Pamela, Miss Byron, Clarissa — 
 females in Richardson, who, according to Dr. Johnson, 
 'taught the passions to move at the command of virtue.' I 
 trust for your sake that Dr. Johnson did not err in that 
 assertion ; for I found all these females at night in your own 
 private apartments." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Sir Peter, " that's all." 
 
 " All I remember at ten years old," replied Kenelm. 
 
 " And at Mr. Welby's or at college," proceeded Sir Peter, 
 timorously, "was your acquaintance with females of the 
 same kind ?" 
 
 Kenelm shook his head. " Much worse ; they were very 
 naughty indeed at college." 
 
 " I should think so, with such a lot of young fellows run- 
 ning after them." 
 
 " Very few fellows run after the females I mean — rather 
 avoid them." 
 
 " So much the better." 
 
 " No, my father, so much the worse ; without an intimate 
 knowledge of those females there is little use going to col- 
 lege at all." 
 
 " Explain yourself." 
 
 "Every one who receives a classical education is intro- 
 duced into their society — Pyrrha and Lydia, Glycera and 
 Corinna, and many more all of the same sort ; and then the 
 females in Aristophanes, what do you say to them, sir ? " 
 
 " Is it only females who lived two thousand or three thou- 
 sand years ago, or more probably never lived at all, whose 
 intimacy you have cultivated ? Have you never admired 
 any real women ?" 
 
 " Real women ! I never met one. Never met a woman 
 who was not a sham, a sham from the moment she is told to 
 be pretty-behaved, conceal her sentiments, and look fibs 
 when she does not speak them. But if I am to learn sham 
 life, I suppose I must put up with sham women." 
 
 " Have you been crossed in love, that you speak so bit- 
 terly of the sex ? " 
 
 " I don't speak bitterly of the sex. Examine any woman 
 on her oath, and she'll own she is a sham, always has been, 
 and always will be, and is proud of it." 
 
 " I am glad your mother is not by to hear you. You will 
 think differently one of these days. Meanwhile, to turn to 
 the other sex, is there no young man of your own rank with 
 whom you would like to travel ? "
 
 44 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "Certainly not. I hate quarrelling." 
 
 " As you please. But you cannot go quite alone ; I will 
 find you a good travelling servant. I nuist write to town to- 
 day about your preparations, and in another weeli or so I 
 hope all will be ready. Your allowance will be whatever 
 you like to fix it at ; you have never been extravagant, and 
 — boy — I love you. Amuse yourself, enjoy yourself, and 
 come back cured of your oddities, but preserving your 
 honor." 
 
 Sir Peter bent down and kissed his son's brow. Kenelm 
 was moved ; he rose, put his arm round his father's shoulder, 
 and lovingly said, in an undertone, "If ever I am tempted 
 to do a base thing, may I remember whose son I am— I 
 shall be safe then." He withdrew his arm as he said this, 
 and took his solitary way along the banks of the stream, for- 
 getful of rod and line. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The young man continued to skirt the side of the stream, 
 until he reached the boundary pale of the park. Here, 
 placed on a rough grass mound, some former proprietor, of 
 a social temperament, had built a kind of belvedere, so as 
 to command a cheerful view of tlie high-road below. Me- 
 chanically the heir of the Chillinglys ascended the mound, 
 seated himself within the belvedere, and leant his chin on 
 his hand in a thoughtful attitude. It was rarely that the 
 building was honored by a human visitor — its habitual oc- 
 cupants were spiders. Of those industrious insects it was a 
 well-populated colony. Their webs, darkened with dust, 
 and ornamented with the wings, and legs, and skeletons of 
 many an unfortunate traveller, clung thick to angle and win- 
 dow-sill, festooned the rickety table on which the young 
 man leant his elbow, and described geometrical circles and 
 rJKjmboids between the gaping rails that formed the backs 
 of venerable chairs. One large black spider — who was prob- 
 ably the oldest inhabitant, and held possession of the best 
 place by the window, ready to offer perfidious Avelcome to 
 every winged itinor.vnt who might be tempted to turn aside 
 fi\j:n tb.e high road for the sake of a little cool and repose —
 
 KEN ELM CinLLINGLY^ . 45 
 
 rushed from its innermost penetralia at the entrance of Ken- 
 elm, and remained motionless in the centre of its meshes, 
 staring at him. It did not seem quite sure whether the 
 stranger was too big or not. 
 
 " It is a wonderful proof of the wisdom of Providence," 
 said Kenelm, "that whenever any large number of its crea- 
 tures forms a community or class, a secret element of dis- 
 union enters into the hearts of the individuals foiming the 
 congregation, and prevents their co-operating heartily and 
 effectually for their common interest. ' The fleas would 
 have dragged me out of bed if they had been unanimous,' 
 said the great Mr. Curran ; and there can be no doubt that 
 if all the spiders in this commonwealth would unite to attack 
 me in a body, I should fall a victim to their combined nip- 
 pers. But spiders, though inhabiting the same region, con- 
 stituting the same race, animated by the same instincts, do 
 not combine even against a butterlly ; each seeks his own 
 special advantage, and not that of the community at large. 
 And how completely the life of each thing resembles a cir- 
 cle in this respect, that it can never touch another circle at 
 more than one point. Nay, I doubt if it quite touches it 
 even there, — there is a space between every atom — self is 
 always selfish ; and yet there are eminent masters in the 
 Academe of New Ideas who wish to make us believe that all 
 the working classes of a civilized world could merge every dif- 
 ference of race, creed, intellect, individual propensities and 
 interests, into tlae construction of a single web, stocked as a 
 larder in common ! " Here the soliloquist came to a dead 
 stop, and, leaning out of the window^ contemplated the high- 
 road. It was a very fine high-road — straight and level, kept 
 in excellent order 'by turn-pikes at every eight miles. A 
 pleasant greensward bordered it on either side, and under the 
 belvedere the benevolence of some mediaeval Chillingly had 
 placed a little drinking-fountain for the refreshment of w^ay- 
 farers. Close to the fountain stood a rude stone bench, over- 
 shadowed by a large willow, and commanding from the high 
 table-ground on which it was placed a wide view of corn- 
 fields, meadows, and distant hills, suffused in the mellow light 
 of the summer sun. Along that road there came successively 
 a wagon filled with passengers seated on straw — an old wo- 
 man, a pretty girl, two children ; then a stout farmer going 
 to market in his dog-cart ; then three flies carrying fares to 
 the nearest railway station ; then a handsome young man on 
 horseback, a handsome young lady by his side, a groom be-
 
 46 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 hind. It was easy to see that the young man and young lady 
 were lovers. See it in his ardent looks and serious lips parted 
 but for whispers only to be heard by her ; — see it in her down- 
 cast eyes and heightened color. " 'Alas! regardless of their 
 doom,' " muttered Kenelm, " what trouble those 'little victims' 
 are preparing fur themselves and their progeny! Would 1 
 could lend tliem Decimus Roach's ' Approach to the An- 
 gels '! " The road now for some minutes became solitary 
 and still, when there was heard to the right a sprightly sort 
 of carol, half sung, half recited, in musical voice, with a 
 singularly clear enunciation, so that the words reached Ken- 
 elm's ear distinctly. They ran thus : 
 
 " Black Karl looked forth from his cottage-door, 
 
 He looked on liie forest green ; 
 And down the path, with his dogs before, 
 
 Came the Ritter of Neirestein : 
 Singmg — singing — lustily singing, 
 
 Down the path, with his dogs before, 
 Came the Ritter of Neirestein." 
 
 At a voice so English, attuned to a strain so Germanic, Ken- 
 elm pricked up attentive ears, and, turning his eyes down 
 the road, beheld, emerging from the shade of beeches that 
 overhung the park pales, a figure that did not altogether har- 
 monize with the idea of a Ritter of Neirestein. It was, 
 nevertheless, a picturesque figure enough. The man was 
 attired in a somewhat threadbare suit of Lincoln green, with 
 a high-crowned Tyrolese hat ; a knapsack was slung behind 
 his shoulders, and he was attended by a white Pomeranian- 
 dog, evidently foot-sore, but doing his best to appear pro- 
 ficient in the chase bv limping some yards in advance of his 
 master and sniffing into the hedges for rats and mice and 
 such small deer. 
 
 By the time the pedestrian had reached to the close of 
 his refrain he had gained the fountain, and greeted it with 
 an exclamation of pleasure. Slipping the knapsack from 
 his shoulder, he filled the iron ladle attached to the basin. 
 He then called to the dog by the name of Max, and held the 
 ladle for him to drink. Not till the animal had satisfied his 
 thirst did the master assuage his own. Then lifting his hat 
 and bathing his temples and face, the pedestrian seated 
 himself on the bench, and the dog nestled on the turf at his 
 feet. After a little pause the wayfarer began again, though 
 in a lower and slower tone, to chant his refrain, and pro-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 47 
 
 ceeded, with abrupt snatches, to link the verse on to 
 another stanza. It was evident that he was either endeavor- 
 inc- to remember or to invent, and it seemed ratlier like the 
 latter and more laborious operation of the mind. 
 
 '• ' Why on foot, why on foot, Ritter Karl,' quoth he, 
 ' And not on thy palfrey gray ? ' 
 
 Palfrey gray — hum — gray. 
 
 ' Tlie run of ill luck was too strong for me, 
 And has galloped my steed away.' 
 
 That will do— good ! " 
 
 " Good indeed ! He is easily satisfied," muttered Kenelm. 
 " But such pedestrians don't pass the road every day. Let 
 us talk to him." So saying, he slipped quietly out of the 
 window, descended the mound, and, letting himself into the 
 road by a screened wicket-gate, took his noiseless stand be- 
 hind the wayfarer and beneath the bowery willow. 
 
 The man had now sunk into silence. Perhaps he had 
 tired himself of rhymes ; or perhaps the mechanism of verse- 
 making had been replaced by that kind of sentiment, or that 
 kind of reverie, which is common to the temperaments of 
 those who indulge in verse-making. But the loveliness of 
 the scene before him had caught his eye and fixed it into an 
 intent gaze upon wooded landscapes stretching farther and 
 farther to the rano-e of hills on which the heaven seemed to 
 rest. 
 
 " I should like to hear the rest of that German ballad," 
 said a voice, abruptly. 
 
 The wayfarer started, and, turning round, presented to 
 Kenelm's view a countenance in the ripest noon of manhood, 
 with locks and beard of a deep rich auburn, bright blue eyes, 
 and a wonderful nameless charm both of feature and ex- 
 pression, verv cheerful, very frank, and not without a certain 
 nobleness of character which seemed to exact respect. 
 
 " I beg your pardon for my interruption," said Kenelm, 
 lifting his hat ; " but I overheard you reciting ; and thougli 
 I suppose vour verses are a translation from the German, I 
 don't remember anything like them in such popular German 
 poets as I happen to have read." 
 
 " It is not a translation, sir," replied the itinerant. " I 
 was onlv trying to string together some ideas that came into 
 my head this fine morning."
 
 48 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "You are a poet, then ?" said Kenelm, seating himself on 
 the bench. 
 
 " I dare not say poet. I am a verse- maker." 
 
 "Sir, 1 know there is a distinction. Many poets of the 
 present day, considered very good, arc uncommonly bad 
 verse-makers. For my part, I could more readily imagine 
 them to be good poets if they did not make verses at all. 
 But can I not hear the rest of the ballad ?" 
 
 "Alas! the rest of the ballad is not yet made. It is 
 rather a long subject, and my tlights are very brief." 
 
 "That is much in their favor, and very unlike the poetry 
 in fashion. You do not belong, I think, to this neighbor- 
 hood. Are you and your dog travelling far?" 
 
 "It is my holiday time, and I ramble on through the 
 summer. I am travelling far, for I travel till September. 
 Life amid summer fields is a very joyous thing." 
 
 "Is it indeed?" said Kenelm, with much nai'veU. "I 
 should have thought that, long before September, you would 
 have got very much bored with the fields and the dog and 
 yourself altogether. But, to be sure, you have tlie resource 
 of verse-making, and that seems a very pleasant and absorb- 
 ing occupation to those who practise it — from our old friend 
 Horace, kneading labored Alcaics into honey in his summer 
 rambles among the watered woodlands of Tibur, to Cardinal 
 Richelieu, employing himself on French rhymes in tlie in- 
 tervals between chopping off noblemen's heads. It does not 
 seem to signify much whether the verses be good or bad, 
 so far as the pleasure of tlie verse-maker himself is con- 
 cerned ; for Richelieu was as much cliarmed with his occu- 
 pation as Horace was, and his verses were certainly not 
 Horatian." 
 
 " Surely at your age, sir, and with your evident educa- 
 tion " 
 
 " Sav culture ; that's the word in fasliion nowadays." 
 
 " — Well, your evident culture — you must have made 
 verses. 
 
 " Latin verses — yes — and occasionally Greek. I was 
 obliged to do so at school. It did not amuse me." 
 
 " Try English." 
 
 Kenelm shook his head. "Not I. Every cobbler should 
 stick to his last." 
 
 "Well, put aside tlic verse-making: don't you find a 
 sensible enjoyment in those solitary summer walks, when 
 you have Nature all to ycmrsclf — enjoyment in marking all
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 45 
 
 the mobile, evanescent changes in her face — her laugh, her 
 smile, her tears, her very frown ? " 
 
 " Assuming that by Nature you mean a mechanical series 
 of external phenomena, I object to your speaking of a ma- 
 chinery as if it were a person of the feminine gender — her 
 laugh, her smile, etc. As well talk of the laugh and smile 
 of a steam-engine. But to descend to common-sense. I 
 grant there is some pleasure in solitary rambles in fine 
 weather and amid varying scenery. You say that it is a 
 holiday excursion that you are enjoying : I presume, there- 
 fore, that you have some practical occupation which con- 
 sumes the time that you do not devote to a holiday ? " 
 
 "Yes; I am not altogether an idler. I work sometimes, 
 though not so hard as I ought. 'Life is earnest,' as the poet 
 says. But I and my dog are rested now, and as I have still 
 a long walk before me, I must wish you good-day." 
 
 " I fear," said Kenelm, with a grave and sweet politeness 
 of tone and manner, which he could command at times, and 
 which, in its difference from merely conventional urbanity, 
 was not without fascination — " I fear that I have offended 
 you by a question that must have seemed to you inquisitive 
 — perhaps impertinent ; accept my excuse ; it is very rarely 
 that I meet any one who interests me ; and you do." As he 
 spoke he offered his hand, which the wayfarer shook very 
 cordially. 
 
 " I should be a churl indeed if yovn- question could have 
 given me offence. It is rather perhaps I who am guilty of 
 impertinence, if I take advantage of my seniority in years, 
 and tender you a counsel. Do not despise Nature, or re- 
 gard her as a steam-engine ; you will find in her a very 
 agreeable and conversable friend, if you will cultivate her 
 intimacy. And I don't know^ a better mode of doing so at 
 your age, and with your strong limbs, than putting a knap- 
 sack on your shoulders, and turning foot-traveller, like my- 
 self." 
 
 "Sir, I thank you for your counsel ; and I trust we may 
 meet again, and interchange ideas as to the thing you call 
 Nature — a thing which science and art never appear to see 
 with the same eyes. If to an artist Nature has a soul, why, 
 so has a steam-engine. Art gifts with soul all matter that 
 it contemplates ; science turns all that is already gifted with 
 soul into matter. Good-day, sir." 
 
 Here Kenelm turned back abruptly, and the traveller 
 went his w^ay, silently and thoughtfully. 
 
 3
 
 50 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Kenelm retraced his steps homeward under the shade of 
 his " old hereditary trees." One might have tliought his 
 path along the greenswards, and by the side of the babbling 
 rivulet, was pleasantcr and more conducive to peaceful 
 thoughts than tlie broad, dusty thoroughfare along which 
 plodded the wanderer he had quitted. But the man ad- 
 dicted to reverie forms his own landscapes and colors his 
 own skies. 
 
 "It is," soliloquized Kenelm Chillingly, "a strange 
 yearning I have long felt — to get out of myself — to get, as 
 it were, into another man's skin — and have a little variety of 
 thought and emotion. One's self is always the same self ; 
 and that is why I yawn so often. But if I can't get into an- 
 other man's skin, the next best thing is to get as unlike 
 myself as I possibly can do. Let me see what is myself. My- 
 self is Kenelm Chillingly, son and heir to a rich gentleman. 
 But a fellow with a knapsack on his back, sleeping at way- 
 side inns, is not at all like Kenelm Chillingly —especially if 
 he is very short of money, and may come to want a dinner. 
 Perhaps that sort of fellow may take a livelier view of 
 things : he can't take a duller one. Courage, Myself, — you 
 and I can but try." 
 
 For the next two days Kenelm was observed to be un- 
 usually pleasant. lie yawned much less frequently, walked 
 with his father, played piquet with his mother, was more 
 like other people. Sir Peter was charmed ; he ascribed this 
 happy change to the preparations he was making for Ken- 
 elm's travelling in style. The proud father was in active 
 correspondence with his great London friends, seeking let- 
 ters of introduction to Kenelm for all the courts of Europe. 
 Portmanteaus, with every modern convenience, were or- 
 dered ; an experienced courier, who could talk all languages 
 — and cook French dishes if required — was'invited to name 
 his terms. In short, every arrangement worthy a young 
 patrician's entrance into the great world was in rapid pro- 
 gress, when suddenly Kenelm Chillingly disappeared, leav- 
 ing behind him on Sir Peter's library-table tire following
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 s« 
 
 «• My very dear Father,— Obedient to your desire, I depart in search 
 of real life and real persons, or of the best imitations of them. Forgive me, 
 I beseech you, if I commence that search in my own way. I have seen enough 
 of ladies and gentlemen for the present— they must be all very much alike in 
 every part of the world. You desired me to be amused. I go to try if that 
 be possible. Ladies and gentlemen are not amusing ; the more lady-like or 
 gentleman-like they are, the more insipid I find them. My dear father, I go 
 in quest of adventure like Amadis of Gaul, like Don Qui.xote, like Gil Bias, 
 like Roderick Random — like, in short, the only real people seeking real life— 
 the people who never existed except in books. I go on foot, I go alone. I 
 have provided myself with a larger amount of money than I ought to spend, 
 because every man must buy experience, and the first fees are lieavy. In fact, 
 I have put fifty pounds into my pocket-book and into my purse five sovereigns 
 and seventetn shillmgs. This sum ought to last me a year, but I daresay in- 
 experience will do me out of it in a month, so we will count it as nothing. 
 Since you have asked me to fix my own allowance, I will beg you kindly to 
 commence it this day in advance, by an order to your banker to cash my 
 cheques to the amount of five pounds, and to the same amount monthly — 
 viz., at the rate of sixty pounds a year. With that sum I can't starve, and if 
 I want more it may be amusing to work for it. Pray don't send after me, or 
 institute inquiries, or disturb the household, and set all the neighborhood 
 talking, by any mention either of my jinject or of your surprise at it. I will 
 not fail to write to you from time to time. 
 
 " You wiil judge best what to say to my dear mother. If you tell her 
 the truth, which of course I should do did I tell her anything, my request is 
 virtually frustrated, and I shall be the talk of the county. You, I know, 
 don't think telling fibs is immoral, when it happens to be convenient, as it 
 would be in this case. 
 
 " I expect to be absent a year or eighteen months ; if I prolong my trav:ls 
 it shall be in the way you proposed. I will then take my place in polite 
 society, call upon you to pay all expenses, and fib on my own account to any 
 extent required by that world of fiction which is peopled by illusions and 
 governed by shams. 
 
 •' Heaven bless you, my dear father, and be quite sure that if I get into 
 any trouble requiring a friend, it is to you I shall turn. As yet I have no 
 other friend on earth, and with prudence and good-luck I may escape the in- 
 fliction of any other friend. — Yours ever affectionately, KeiNELM. 
 
 ** P.S. — Dear father, I open my letter in your library to say again ' Bless 
 you,' and to tell you how fondly I kissed your old beaver gloves, which I 
 found on the table." 
 
 When Sir Peter came to that postscript he took off his 
 spectacles and wiped them — they were very moist. 
 
 Then he fell into a profound meditation. Sir Peter was, 
 as I have said, a learned man ; he was also in some things a 
 sensible inan ; and he had a strong sympathy with the hum- 
 orovis side of his son's crotchety character. What was to be 
 said to Lady Chillingly ? That matron was quite guiltless 
 of any crime which should deprive her of a husband's con- 
 fidence in a matter relating to her only son. She was a vir-
 
 52 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 tiious matron — morals irreproachable — manners dignified, 
 and she-baronety. Any one seeing her for the first time 
 would intuitively say, " Your ladyship." Was this a matron 
 to be suppressed in any well-ordered domestic circle ? Sir 
 Peter's conscience loudly answered, " No ; " but when, put- 
 ting conscience into his pocket, he regarded the question 
 at issue as a man of the world. Sir Peter felt that to com- 
 municate the contents of his son's letter to Lady Chillingly 
 would be tlie foolishest thing he could possibly do. Did she 
 know that Kenelrn had absconded with the family dignity 
 invested in his very name, no marital authority, short of 
 such abuses of power as constitute the offence of cruelty in 
 a wife's action for divorce from social board and nuptial 
 bed, could prevent Lady Chillingly from summoning all the 
 grooms, sending them in all directions, with strict orders to 
 bring back the runaway dead or alive — the walls would be 
 placarded with handbills, "Strayed from bis home," etc, — 
 the police would be telegraphing private instructions from 
 town to town — the scandal would stick to Kenelm Chillingly 
 for life, accompanied with vague hints of criminal propen- 
 sities and insane hallucinations — he would be ever after- 
 wards pointed out as "the man who had disappeared." 
 And to disappear and to turn up again, instead of being 
 murdered, is the most hateful thing a man can do ; all the 
 newspapers bark at him, "Tray, Blanche, Sweetheart, and 
 all;" strict explanations of the imseemly fact of his safe 
 existence are demanded in the name of public decorum, and 
 no explanations are accepted — it is life saved, character lost. 
 
 Sir Peter seized his hat and walked forth, not to delib- 
 erate whether to fib or not to fib to the wife of his bosom, 
 but to consider what kind of fib would the most quickly 
 sink into the bosom of his wife. 
 
 A few turns to and fro the terrace sufficed for the con- 
 ception and maturing of the fib selected ; a pi'oof that Sir 
 Peter was a practised fibber. Me re-entered the house, 
 passed into her ladyship's habitual sitting-room, and said, 
 with careless gayety, " My old friend the TJukeof Clareville 
 is just setting off on a tour to Switzerland with his family. 
 His youngest daughter, Lady Jane, is a pretty girl, and 
 would not be a bad match for Kenelm." 
 
 " Lady Jane, the youngest daughter with fair hair, whom 
 I saw last as a very charming child, nursing a lovely doll 
 presented to her by the Empress Eugenie. A good match 
 indeed for Kenelm."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 53 
 
 " I am glad you agree with me. Would it not be a favor- 
 able step towards that alliance, and an excellent thing for 
 Kenelm generally, if he were to visit the Continent as one 
 of the Duke's travelling party ?" 
 
 " Of course it would." 
 
 " Then you approve what I have done — the Duke starts 
 the day after to-morrow, and I have packed Kenelm off 
 to town, with a letter to my old friend. You will excuse 
 all leave-taking. You know that though the best of sons he 
 is an odd fellow ; and seeing that I had talked him into it, 
 I struck while the iron was hot, and sent him off by the ex- 
 press at nine o'clock this morning, for fear that if I allowed 
 any delay he would talk himself out of it." 
 
 " Do you mean to say Kenelm is actually gone ? Good 
 gracious ! " 
 
 Sir Peter stole softly from the room, and, summoning his 
 valet, said, " I have sent Mr. Chillingly to London. Pack 
 up the clothes he is likely to want, so that he can have them 
 sent at once, whenever he writes for them." 
 
 And thus, by a judicious violation of truth on the part of 
 his father, that exemplary truth-teller Kenelm Chillingly 
 saved the honor of his house and his own reputation from 
 the breath of scandal and the inquisition of the police. He 
 was not "the man who had disappeared."
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly had quitted the paternal home at 
 daybreak, before any of the household was astir. 
 
 " Unquestionably," said he, as he walked along the soli- 
 tarv lanes — " unquestionably I begin the world as poets be- 
 gin poetry, an imitator and a plagiarist. 1 am imitating an 
 itinerant verse-maker, as, no doubt, he began by imitating 
 some other maker of. verse. But if there be anything in 
 me, it wiil work itself out in original form. And, after 
 all, the verse-maker is not the inventor of ideas. Adventure 
 on foot is a notion that remounts to the age of fable. Her- 
 cules, for instance, — that was the way in which he got to 
 heaven, as a foot-traveller. How solitary the world is at this 
 hour ! Is it not for that reason that this is of all hours the 
 most beautiful ? " 
 
 Here he paused, and looked around and above. It was the 
 very height of summer. The sun was just rising over gentle 
 sloping uplands. All the dews on the hedgerows sparkled. 
 There was not a cloud in the heavens. Uprose from the 
 green blades of the corn a solitary skylark. His voice woke 
 up the other birds. A few minutes more, and the joyous 
 concert began. Kenelm reverently doffed his hat and bowed 
 his head in mute homage and thanksgiving. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 About nine o'clock Kenelm entered a town some twelve 
 miles distant from his father's house, and towards which he 
 had designedly made his way, because in that town he was 
 scarcely if at all known by sight, and he might there make 
 the purchases he required without attracting any marked ob- 
 servation. He had selected for his travelling costume a
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 5.5 
 
 shooting-dress, as the simplest and least likely to belong to 
 his rank as a gentleman. But still in its very cut there was 
 an air of distinction, and every laborer he had met on the 
 way had touched his hat to hirn. Besides, who wears a 
 shooting-dress in the middle of June, or a shooting-dress at 
 all, unless he be either a gamekeeper or a gentleman 
 licensed to shoot ? 
 
 Kenelm entered a large store-shop for ready-made clothes, 
 and purchased a suit, such as might be worn on Sundays by 
 a small country yeoman or tenant-farmer of a petty holding, 
 ■ — a stout coarse broadcloth upper garment, half coat, half 
 jacket, with waistcoat to match, strong corduroy trousers, a 
 smart Belcher neckcloth, with a small stock of linen and 
 woollen socks in harmony with the other raiment. He bought 
 also a leathern knapsack, just big enough to contain this 
 wardrobe, and a couple of books, which, with his combs and 
 brushes, he had brought away in his pockets. For among 
 all his trunks at home tliere was no knapsack. 
 
 These purchases made and paid for, he passed quickly 
 through the town, and stopped at a humble inn at the out- 
 skirts, to which he was attracted by the notice, " Refresh- 
 ment for man and beast." He entered a little sanded 
 parlor, which at that hour he had all to himself, called for 
 breakfast, and devoured the best part of a fourpenny loaf, 
 with a couple of hard eggs. 
 
 Thus recruited, he again sallied forth, and deviating into 
 a thick wood by the roadside, he exchanged the habiliments 
 with which he had left home for those he had purchased, and 
 by the help of one or two big stones sunk the relinquished 
 garments into a small but deep pool which he was lucky 
 enough to find in a bush-grown dell much haunted by snipes 
 in the winter. 
 
 " Now," said Kenelm, " I really begin to think I have 
 got out of myself. I am in another man's skin ; for what, 
 after all, is a skin bufa soul's clothing, and what is clothing 
 but a decenter skin ? Of its own natiu-al skin every civi- 
 lized soul is ashamed. It is the height of impropriety for 
 anyone but the lowest kind of savage to show it. If the 
 purest soul now existent upon earth, the Pope of Rome's 
 or the Archbishop of Canterbury's, were to pass down the 
 Strand with the skin which nature gave to it bare to the 
 eye, it would be brought up before a magistrate, prosecuted 
 by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and committed 
 to jail as a public nuisance.
 
 56 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Decidedly I am now in another man's skin. Kenelm 
 Chillingly, I no longer 
 
 Remain 
 
 Yours faithfully ; 
 But am, 
 
 With profound consideration. 
 
 Your obedient humble Servant." 
 
 With light step and elated crest, the wanderer, thus trans- 
 formed, sprang from the wood into the dusty thorough- 
 fare. 
 
 He had travelled on for about an hour, meeting but few 
 other passengers, when he heard to the right a loud shrill 
 young voice, " Help, help ! — I will not go — I tell you, I will 
 not ! " Just before him stood, by a high five-barred gate, a 
 pensive gray cob attached to a neat-looking gig. The bridle 
 was loose on the cob's neck. The animal was evidently 
 accustomed to stand quietly when ordered to do so, and glad 
 of the opportunity. 
 
 The cries, " Help, help ! " were renewed, mingled wiih 
 louder tones in a rougher voice, tones of wrath and menace. 
 Evidently these sounds did not come from the cob. Kenelm 
 looked over the gate, and saw a few yards distant, in a grass- 
 field, a well-dressed boy struggling violently against a stout 
 middle-aged man who was rudely hauling him along by the 
 arm. 
 
 The chivalry natural to a namesake of the valiant Sir 
 Kenelm Digby was instantly aroused. He vaulted over the 
 gate, seized the man by the collar, and exclaimed, " For 
 shame, wliat are you doing to that poor boy ? — let him go ! " 
 
 "Why the devil do you interfere ?" cried the stout man 
 — his eyes glaring and his lips foaming with rage. ''Ah, 
 are you the villain ? — yes, no doubt of it. I'll give it to vou, 
 jackanapes ! " And still grasping the boy with one hand, 
 with the other the stout man darted a blow at Kenelm, from 
 which nothing less than the practised pugilistic skill and 
 natural alertness of the youth thus suddenly assaidted could 
 have saved his eyes and nose. As it was, the stout man 
 had the worst of it ; the blow was parried, returned with a 
 dexterous manoeuvre of Kenelm's riijht f6ot in Cornish 
 fashion, and procunibit humibos, — the stout man lay sprawling 
 on his back. The boy, thus released, seized hold of Kenelm 
 by the arm, and hurrying him along up the field, cried, 
 " Come, come before he gets up ! save me ! save me ! " Ere
 
 R'ENEIM CHILLINGLY. 57 
 
 he had recovered his own surprise, the boy had dragged 
 Kenehn to the gate, and jumped into the gig, sobbing forth, 
 "Get in, get in. I can't drive; get in, and drive— you. 
 Quick ! quick ! " 
 
 " But," began Kenelm. 
 
 "Get in, or I shall go mad." Kenelm obeyed, the boy 
 gave him the reins, and seizing the whip himself, applied it 
 lustily to the cob. On sprang the cob. " Stop — stop — 
 stop, thief ! — villain ! — Halloa ! — thieves — thieves — thieves ! 
 — stop ! " cried a voice behind. Kenelm involuntarily turned 
 his head and beheld the stout man perched upon the gate 
 and gesticulating furiously. It was but a glimpse ; again 
 the whip was plied, the cob frantically broke into a gallop, 
 the gig jolted and bumped and swerved, and it was not till 
 they had put a good mile between themselves and the stout 
 man that Kenelm succeeded in obtaining possession of the 
 whip, and calming the cob into a rational trot. 
 
 "Young gentleman," then said Kenelm, " perhaps you 
 will have the goodness to explain." 
 
 " By-and-by ; get on, that's a good fellow ; you shall be 
 well paid for it — well and handsomely." 
 
 Quoth Kenelm, gravely, " I know that in real life pay- 
 ment and service naturally go together. But we will put 
 aside the payment till you tell me what is to be the service. 
 And first, whither am I to drive you ? We are coming to a 
 place where three roads meet ; which of the three shall I 
 take ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ; there is a finger-post. I want to 
 get to — but it is a secret ; you'll not betray me. Promise 
 — swear." 
 
 " I don't swear except when I am in a passion, which, I 
 am sorry to say, is very seldom ; and I don't promise till I 
 know what I promise ; neither do I go on driving runaway 
 boys in other men's gigs unless I know that I am taking 
 them to a safe place, where their papas and mammas can 
 get at them." 
 
 "I have no papa, no mamma," said the boy dolefully, 
 and with quivering lips. 
 
 " Poor boy ! I suppose that burly brute is your school- 
 master, and you are running away home for fear of a flog- 
 
 gins:-" 
 
 The boy burst out laughing ; a pretty silvery merry laugh, 
 it thrilled througli Kenelm Chillinglv. " No, he would not 
 flog me ; he is not a schoolmaster ; he is worse than that." 
 
 3*
 
 58 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Is it possible ? What is he ?" 
 
 "An uncle." 
 
 " Hum ! uncles are proverbial for cruelty ; were so in the 
 classical days, and Richard III. was the only scholar in his 
 family." 
 
 "Eh ! classical, and Richard III. ! " said the boy, startled, 
 and looking attentively at the pensive driver. " Who are 
 you !* you talk like a gentleman." 
 
 "I beg pardon. I'll not do so again if I can help it." 
 *• Decidedly," thought Kenelm, " I am beginning to be 
 amused. What a blessing it is to get into another man's 
 skin, and another man's gig too ! " Aloud, " Here we are at 
 the finger-post. If you are running away from your uncle, 
 it is time to inform me where you are running to." 
 
 Here the boy leaned over the gig and examined the fin- 
 ger-post. I'hen he clapped his hands joyfully. 
 
 " All right ! I thought so — 'To Tor-Hadham, eighteen 
 miles.' Tiiat's tlie road to Tor-Hadham." 
 
 " Do you mean to say I am to drive you all that way — 
 eighteen miles ? " 
 ' "Yes." 
 
 " And to whom are you going ? " 
 
 " I will tell you by-and-by. Do go on — do, pray. I 
 can't drive — never drove in my life — or I would not ask you. 
 Pray, pray, don't desert me ! If you are a gentleman, you 
 will not ; and if you are not a gentleman, 1 have got ;^io 
 in my purse, which you shall have when I am safe at Tor- 
 Hadham. Dont hesitate ; my whole life is at stake ! " And 
 the boy began once more to sob. 
 
 Kenelm directed the pony's head towards Tor-Hadham, 
 and the boy ceased to sob. 
 
 " You are a good, dear fellow," said the boy, wiping his 
 eyes. " I am afraid I am taking you very much out of your 
 road." 
 
 "I have no road in particular, and would as soon go to 
 Tor-Hadham, wliich I have never seen, as anywhere else. 
 I am but a wanderer on the face of the earth." 
 
 *' Have you lost your papa and mamma too ? Why, you 
 are not much older than I am." 
 
 "Little gentleman," said Kenelm, gravely, "I am just 
 of age ; and you, I suppose, are about fourteen." 
 
 "What fu'n ! " cried the boy, abruptly. " Isn't it fum ?" 
 
 " It will not be fun if I am sentenced to penal servitude 
 for stealing your uncle's gig, and robbing his little nephew
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 59 
 
 of ^10. By the by, tliat choleric relation of yours meant 
 to knock down somebody else when he struck at me. He 
 asked, 'Are you the villain ?" Pray who is the villain? he 
 is evidently in your confidence." 
 
 "Villain ! he is the most honorable, high-minded But 
 
 no matter now^ ; I'll introduce you to him when we reach 
 Tor-Hadham. Whip that pony; he is crawling." 
 
 " It is up-hill ; a good man spares his beast." 
 
 No art and no eloquence could extort from his young 
 companion any further explanation than Kenelm had yet 
 received ; and indeed, as the journey advanced, and they 
 approached their destination, both parties sank into silence. 
 Kenelm Avas seriously considering that his first day's experi- 
 ence of real life in the skin of another had placed in some 
 peril his own. He had knocked down a man evidently re- 
 spectable and well-to-do, had carried off that man's nephew, 
 and made free with that man's goods and chattels — /.<?., his 
 gig and horse. All this might be explained satisfactorily to 
 a justice of the peace, but how ? By returning to his former 
 skin ; by avowing himself to be Kenelm Chillingly, a dis- 
 tinguished university medalist, heir to no ignoble name and 
 some ^10,000 a year. But then what a scandal ! he who 
 abhorred scandal ; in vulgar parlance, what a " row ! " he who 
 denied that the very word " row " was sanctioned by any 
 classic authorities in the English language. He would have 
 to explain how he came to be found disguised, carefully dis- 
 guised, in garments such as no baronet's eldest son — even 
 thougli that baronet be the least ancestral man of mark whom 
 it suits the convenience of a First Minister to recommend to 
 the Sovereign for exaltation over the rank of Mister — was 
 ever beheld in, unless he had taken flight to the gold-dig- 
 gings. Was this a position in which the heir of the Chill- 
 inglys, a distinguished family, whose coat of arms dated 
 from the earliest authenticated period of English heraldry 
 under Edward III. as Three Fishes azur, could be placed 
 without grievous slur on the cold and ancient blood of the 
 Three Fishes ? 
 
 And then individually to himself, Kenelm, irrespectively 
 of the Three Fishes. What a humiliation ! He had put 
 aside his respected father's deliberate preparations for his 
 entrance into real life ; he had perversely chosen his own 
 walk on his own responsibility ; and here, before half the 
 first day Avas over, what an infernal scrape he had walked 
 himself into ! And what was his excuse ? A wretched little
 
 6o KENELM CHILLTNGLY. 
 
 boy, sobbing and chuckling by turns, and yet who was clevei 
 enougli t(j twist Kcnelin Chillingly round his finger; twist 
 /liin — ii man who thought himself so much wiser than his 
 parents— a man who had gained honors at the University 
 — a man of the gravest temperament — a man of so nicely a 
 critical turn of mind that there was not a law of art or 
 nature in which he did not detect a flaw, — tliat he should 
 get himself into this mess was, to say the least of it, an 
 uncomfortable reflection. 
 
 The boy himself, as Kenelm glanced at him from time to 
 time, became impish and Will-of-the-Wisp-ish. Sometimes 
 he laughed to himself loudly, sometimes he wept to himself 
 quietly ; sometimes, neither laughing nor Aveeping, he 
 seemed absorbed in reflection. Twice as they came nearer 
 to the town of Tor-Hadham, Kenelm nudged the boy, and 
 said, " My boy, I must talk with you ; " and twice the boy, 
 withdrawing his arm from the nudge, had answered dream- 
 
 " Hush ! I am thinking." 
 
 And so they entered the town of Tor-Hadham ; the cob 
 very much done up. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 "Now, young sir," said Kenelm, in a tone calm, but 
 peremptory — "now we are in the town, where am I to 
 take you ? and wherever it be, there to say good-bye." 
 
 " No, not good-bye. Stay with me a little bit. I begin to 
 feel frightened, and I am so friendless ; " and the boy, who 
 had before resented the slightest nudge on the part of 
 Kenelm, now wound his arm into Kenelm's, and clung to 
 him caressingly. 
 
 I don't know what my readers have hitherto thought 
 of Kenelm Chillingly, but amid all the curves and windings 
 of his whimsical humor there was one way that went straight 
 to his heart — you had only to be weaker than himself, and 
 ask his protection. 
 
 He turned roimd abruptly ; he forgot all the strangeness 
 of his position, and replied, "Little brute that you are, I'll 
 be shot if I forsake you if in trouble. But some compassion 
 is also due to the cob — for his sake say where we are to stop."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 6i 
 
 " I'm sure I can't say ; I never was here before. Let us 
 go to a nice quiet inn. Drive slowly — we'll lookout for one." 
 
 Tor-Hadiiani was a large town, not nominally the capital 
 of the county, but in point of trade, and bustle, and life, 
 virtually the capital. The straight street, through which 
 the cob went as slowly as if he had been drawing a Tri- 
 umphal Car up the Sacred Hill, presented an animated ap- 
 pearance. The shops had handsome fac^ades and plate-glass 
 windows ; the pavements exhibited a lively concourse, evi- 
 dently not merely of business, but of pleasure, for a large 
 proportion of the passers-by was composed of the fair sex, 
 smartly dressed, many of them young, and some pretty. In 
 fact, a regiment of Her Majesty's — the Hussars had been 
 sent into the town two days before, and between the officers 
 of that fortunate regiment, and the fair sex in that hospitable 
 town, there was a natural emulation which should make the 
 greater number of slain and wounded. The advent of these 
 heroes, professional subtracters from hostile, and multipliers 
 of friendly, populations, gave a stimulus to the caterers for 
 those amusements which bring young folks together — arch- 
 ery-meetings, rifle-shootings, concerts, balls, announced in 
 bills attached to boards and walls, and exposed at shop- 
 windows. 
 
 The boy looked eagerly forth from the gig, scanning 
 especially these advertisements, till at length he uttered an 
 excited exclamation, "Ah, I was right — there it is ! " 
 
 " There what is ? " asked Kenelm. " The Inn ? " His 
 companion did not answer, but Kenelm following the boy's 
 eyes perceived an immense hand-bill : 
 
 "To-MORRow Night Theatre opens, 
 Richard III. Mr. Compton." 
 
 " Do just ask where the 'theatre is," said the boy, in a 
 whisper, turning away his head. 
 
 Kenelm stopped the cob, made the inquiry, and was di- 
 rected to take the next turning to the right. In a few min- 
 utes the compo portico of an ugly dilapidated building, 
 dedicated to the Dramatic Muses, presented itself at the 
 angle of a dreary deserted lane. The walls were placarded 
 with play-bills, in which the name of Compton stood forth 
 as gigantic as capitals could make it. The boy di^ew a sigh. 
 " Now," said he, " let us look out for an inn near here — the 
 nearest."
 
 62 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 No inn, however, beyond the rank of a small and ques- 
 tionable-looking public-house, was apparent, until at a dis- 
 tance somewhat remote from the theatre, and in a quaint, 
 old-fashioned, deserted square, a neat newly-whitewashed 
 house displayed upon its frontispiece, in large black letters 
 of funereal aspect, "Temperance Hotel." 
 
 " Stop," said the boy ; " don't you think that would suit 
 us ? it looks quiet." 
 
 " Could not look more quiet if it were a tombstone," re- 
 plied Kenelm. 
 
 The boy put his hand upon the reins and stopped the 
 cob. The cob was in that condition that the slightest touch 
 sufficed to stop him, though he turned his head somewhat 
 ruefully, as if in doubt whether hay and corn would be 
 within the regulations of a Temperance Hotel. Kenelm 
 descended and entered the house. A tidy woman emerged 
 from a sort of glass cupboard which constituted the bar, 
 minus the comforting drinks associated with the beau ideal 
 of a bar, but which displayed instead two large decanters of 
 <X)ld water with tumblers a discretion, and sundry plates of 
 thin biscuits and sponge-cakes. This tidy woman politely 
 inquired what was his " pleasure." 
 
 " Pleasure," answered Kenelm, with his usual gravity, 
 " is not the word I should myself have chosen. But could 
 you oblige my horse^I mean that horse — with a stall and a 
 feed of oats, and that young gentleman and myself with a 
 private room and a dinner ? " 
 
 " Dinner ! " echoed the hostess — " dinner ! " 
 
 ** A thousand pardons, ma'am. But if the word ' dinner * 
 shock you I retract it, and would say instead, 'something to 
 eat and drink.' " 
 
 " Drink ! This is strictly a Temperance Hotel, sir." 
 
 " Oh, if you don't cat and drink here," exclaimed Ken- 
 elm, fiercely, for he was famished, " I wish you good- morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Stay a bit, sir. We do eat and drink here. But we are 
 very simple folks. We allow no fermented liquors." 
 
 "Not even a glass of beer?" 
 
 " Only ginger-beer. Alcohols are strictly forbidden. 
 We have tea, and coifee, and milk. But most of our cus- 
 tomers prefer the pure liquid. As for eating, sir, —anything 
 you order, in reason." 
 
 Kenelm shook his head and was retreating, when the boy, 
 who had sprung from the gig and overheard the conversa-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 63 
 
 tion, cried, petulantly, " What does it signify? Who wants 
 fermented liquors? Water will do very well. And as for 
 dinner, — anything convenient. Please, ma'am, show us into 
 a private room ; 1 am so tired." The last words were said 
 in a caressing manner, and so prettily, that the hostess at 
 once changed her tone, and muttering, " poor boy ! " and, in 
 a still more subdued mutter, "what a pretty face he has ! " 
 nodded, and led the way up a very clean old-fashioned stair- 
 case. 
 
 " But the horse and gig — where are they to go ? " said 
 Kenelm, with a pang of conscience on reflecting how ill 
 treated liitherto had been both horse and owner. 
 
 " Oh, as for the horse and gig, sir, you wall find Juke's 
 livery-stables a few yards farther down. We don't take in 
 horses ourselves — our customers seldom keep them ; but you 
 will find the best of accommodation at Jukes's." 
 
 Kenelm conducted the cob to the livery-stables thus indi- 
 cated, and waited to see him walked about to cool, well 
 rubbed down, and made comfortable over half a peck of oats 
 — for Kenelm Chillingly was a humane man to the brute 
 creation — and then, in a state of ravenous appetite, returned 
 to the Temperance Hotel, and was ushered into a small 
 drawing-room, with a small bit of carpet in the centre, six 
 small chairs with cane seats, prints on the walls descriptive 
 of the various effects of intoxicating liquors upon r.undry 
 specimens of mankind — some resembling ghosts, others 
 fiends, and all with a general aspect of beggary and perdi- 
 tion, contrasted by Happy-Family pictures — smiling wives, 
 portly husbands, rosy infants, emblematic of the beatified 
 condition of members of the Temperance Society. 
 
 A table with a spotless cloth, and knives and forks for 
 two, chiefly, however, attracted Kenelm's attention. 
 
 The boy was standing by the window, seemingly gazing 
 on a small aquarium which was there placed, and contained 
 the usual variety of small fishes, reptiles, and insects, enjoy- 
 ing the pleasures of Temperance in its native element, in- 
 cluding, of course, an occasional meal upon each other. 
 
 "What are they going to give us to eat ?" inquired Ken- 
 elm. "It must be ready by this time, I should think." 
 
 Here he gave a brisk tug at the bell-pull. The boy 
 advanced from the window, and as he did so Kenelm was 
 struck with the grace of his bearing and the improvement 
 in his looks, now that he was without his hat, and rest and 
 ablution had refreshed from heat and dust the delicate bloom
 
 64 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 of his complexion. There was no doubt about it that he 
 was an exceedingly pretty boy, and if he lived to be a man 
 would make many a lady's heart ache. It was with a cer- 
 tain air of gracious superiority such as is seldom warranted 
 bv superior rank if it be less than royal, and chiefly becomes 
 a marked seniority in years, that this young gentleman, ap- 
 proaching the solemn heir of the Chillinglys, held out his 
 hand and said : 
 
 " Sir, you have behaved extremely well, and I thank you 
 very much." 
 
 "Your Royal Highness is condescending to say so," 
 replied Kenelm Chillingly, bowing low ; " but have you 
 ordered dinner ? and what are they going to give us ? No 
 one seems to answer the bell here. As it is a Temperance 
 Hotel, probably all the servants are drunk." 
 
 " Why should they be drunk at a Temperance Hotel ? " 
 
 " Why! because, as a general rule, people who flagrantly 
 pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pre- 
 tend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sin- 
 ner, and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have 
 some feeble, maudlin, snivelling bit of saintship about him 
 which is enough to make him a humbug. Masculine hon- 
 esty, whether it be saint-like or sinner-like, does not label 
 itself either saint or sinner. Fancy St. Augustin labelling 
 himself saint, or Robert Burns sinner ; and therefore, 
 though, little boy, you have probably not read the Poems 
 of Robert Burns, and have certainly not read the Confes- 
 sions of St. Augustin, take my word for it, that both those 
 personages were very good fellows ; and with a little differ- 
 ence of training and experience, Burns might have written 
 the Confessions, and Augustin the Poems. Powers above ! 
 I am starving. What did you order for dinner, and when 
 is it to appear?" 
 
 The boy, who had opened to an enormous width a nat- 
 urally large pair of hazel eyes, while his tall companion in 
 fustian trousers and Belcher neckcloth spoke thus patroniz- 
 ingly of Robert Burns and St. Augustin, now replied with 
 rather a deprecatory and shame-faced aspect, " I am sorry 
 I was not thinking of dinner. I was not so mindful of you 
 as I ought to have been. The landlady asked me what we 
 would have. I said, 'What you like;' and the landlady 
 muttered something about " (here the boy hesitated.) 
 
 "Yes. About what? Mutton-chops?" 
 
 "No. Cauliflowers and rice-pudding.
 
 KEN ELM C/ilLL/iVGL Y. 6$ 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly never swore, never raged. Where 
 ruder beings of human mould swore or raged, he vented 
 displeasure in an expression of countenance so pathetically 
 melancholic and lugubrious that it would have melted the 
 heart of an Hyrcanian tiger. He turned his countenance 
 now on the boy, and murmuring " CauliHower ! — Starva- 
 tion ! " sank into one of the cane-bottomed chairs, and 
 added quietly, " so much for human gratitude ! " 
 
 The boy w^as evidently smitten to the heart by the bitter 
 sweetness of this reproach. There were almost tears in his 
 voice, as he said, falteringly, " Pray forgive me, I was un- 
 grateful. I'll run down and see what there is ;" and, suit- 
 ing the action to the word, he disappeared. 
 
 Kenelm remained motionless ; in fact he was plunged into 
 one of those reveries, or rather absorptions of inward and 
 spiritual being, into which it is said that the consciousness 
 of the Indian Dervish can be, by prolonged fasting, pre- 
 ternaturally resolved. The appetite of all men of povv^erful 
 muscular development is of a nature far exceeding the 
 properties of any reasonable number of caulillowers and rice- 
 puddings to satisfy. Witness Hercules himself, whose crav- 
 ings for substantial nourishment were the standing joke of 
 the classic poets. I d(jn't know that Kenelm Chillingly 
 would have beaten the Theban Hercules either in fighting 
 or in eating ; but when he wanted to fight or when he 
 wanted to eat, Hercules would have had to put forth all his 
 strength not to be beaten. 
 
 After ten minutes' absence, the boy came back radiant. 
 He tapped Kenelm on the shoulder, and said playfully, "I 
 made them cut a wliole loin int(j chops, besides the cauli- 
 flower, and such a big rice-pudding, and eggs and bacon 
 too. Cheer up ' it will be served in a minute." 
 
 " A— h ! " said Kenelm. 
 
 " They are good people ; they did not mean to stint you ; 
 but most of their customers, it seems, live upon vegetables 
 and farinaceous food. There is a society here formed upon 
 that principle ; the landlady says they are philosophers ! " 
 
 At the word "■ philosophers " Kenelm's crest rose as that 
 of a practised hunter at the cry of "Yoiks! Tally-ho!" 
 " Philosophers ! " said he — " philosophers indeed ! O igno- 
 ramuses who do not even know the structure of the human 
 tooth! Look you, little boy, if nothing were left on this 
 earth of the present race of man, as we are assured upon 
 great authority will be the case one of these days — and a
 
 66 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 mighty good riddance it will be— if nothing, I say, of man 
 were left except fossils of his teeth and his thumbs, a phil- 
 osopher of that superior race which will succeed to man 
 would at once see in those relics all his characteristics and 
 all his history; would say, comparing his thumb with the 
 talons of an eagle, the claws of a tiger, the hoof of a horse, 
 the owner of that thumb must have been lord over creatures 
 with talons and claws and hoofs. You may say the monkey 
 tribe has thumbs. True ; but compare an ape's thumb with 
 a man's, — could the biggest ape's thumb have built West- 
 minster Abbey ? But even thumbs are trivial evidence 
 of man as compared with his teeth. Look at his teeth !" — 
 here Kenelm expanded his jaws from ear to ear and dis- 
 played semicircles of iv'ory, so perfect for the purpose of 
 mastication that the most artistic dentist might have de- 
 spaired of his power to imitate tliem — "look, I say, at his 
 teeth!" The boy involuntary recoiled. "Are the teeth 
 those of a miserable cauliflower-eater ? or is it purely by 
 farinaceous food that the proprietor of teeth like man's 
 obtains the rank of the sovereign destroyer of creation > 
 No, little boy, no," continued Kenelm, closing his jaws, but 
 advancing upon the infant, who at each stride receded to- 
 wards the a(}uarium — " no ; man is the master of the world, 
 because of all created beings he devours the greatest variety 
 and the greatest number of created things. His teeth evince 
 that man can live upon every soil from the torrid to the 
 frozen zone, because man can eat everything that other 
 creatures cannot cat. And the formation of his teeth proves 
 it. A tiger can eat a deer — so can man ; but a tiger can't 
 eat an eel— man can. An elephant can eat cauliflowers and 
 rice-pudding — so can man ; but an elephant can't eat a beef- 
 steak — man can. In sum, man can live everywhere, because 
 he can eat anything, thanks to his dental formation!" con- 
 cluded Kenelm, making a prodigious stride towards the boy. 
 " Man, when everything else fails him, eats his own species." 
 
 " Don't ; you frighten me," said the boy. "Aha ! " clap- 
 ping his hands with a sensation of gleeful relief, "here come 
 the mutton-chops!" 
 
 A wonderfully clean, well-washed, indeed well-washed- 
 out, middle-aged parlor-maid now appeared, dish in hand. 
 Putting the dish on the table and taking off the cover, the 
 handmaiden said civilly, though frigidly, like one who lived 
 upon salad and cold water, " Mistress is sorry to have kept 
 you waiting, but she thought you were Vegetarians."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 67 
 
 After helping his young friend to a mutton-chop, Kenelm 
 helped himself, and replied, gravely, " Tell your mistress that 
 if she had only given us vegetables, I should have eaten you. 
 Tell her that though man is partially graminivorous, he is 
 principally carnivorous. Tell her that though a swine eats 
 cabbages and suchlike, yet where a swine can get a baby, it 
 eats the baby. Tell her," continued Kenelm (now at his 
 third chop), " that there is no animal that in digestive organs 
 more resembles man than a swine. Ask her if there is any 
 baby in the house ; if so, it would be safe for the baby to 
 send up some more chops." 
 
 As the cutest observer could rarely be quite sure when 
 Kenelm Chillingly was in jest or in earnest, the parlor-maid 
 paused a moment and attempted a pale smile. Kenelm lifted 
 his dark eyes, unspeakably sad and profound, and said, 
 mournfully, " I should be so sorry for the baby. Bring the 
 chops ! " The parlor-maid vanished. The boy laid down 
 his knife and fork, and looked fixedly and inquisitively on 
 Kenelm. Kenelm, unheeding the look, placed the last chop 
 on the boy's plate. 
 
 "No more," cried the boy, impulsively, and returned the 
 chop to the dish. " I have dined — I have had enough." 
 
 "Little boy, you lie," said Kenelm ; "you have not had 
 enough to keep body and soul together. Eat that chop, or 
 1 shall thrash you ; whatever I say, I do." 
 
 Somehow or other the boy felt quelled ; he ate the chop 
 in silence, again looked at Kenelm's face, and said to him- 
 self, " I am afraid." 
 
 The parlor-maid here entered with a fresh supply of 
 chops and a dish of bacon and eggs, soon followed by a rice- 
 pudding baked in a tin dish, and of size sufficient to have 
 nourished a charity school. When the repast was finished, 
 Kenelm seemed to forget the dangerous properties of the 
 carnivorous animal ; and stretching himself indolently out, 
 appeared to be as innocently ruminative as the most domes- 
 tic of animals graminivorous. 
 
 Then said the boy, rather timidly, " May I ask you another 
 favor ? " 
 
 " Is it to knock down another uncle, or to steal another 
 gig and cob ? " 
 
 " No, it is very simple : it is merely to find out the ad- 
 dress of a friend here ; and when fovmd to give him a note 
 from me." 
 
 " Does the commission press ? ' After dinner rest awhile,'
 
 6S KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Scaitli the proverb ; and proverbs are so wise that no one can 
 guess the author of them. They are supposed to be frag- 
 ments of the philosophy of tlae antediluvians— came to us 
 packed up in the ark." 
 
 " Really, indeed," said the boy, seriously. "How interest- 
 ing ! No, my commission does not press for an hour or so. 
 Do you think, sir, they had any drama before the Deluge ?" 
 
 " Drama ! not a doubt of it. Men who lived one or two 
 thousand years had time to invent and improve everything ; 
 and a play could have had its natural length then. It would 
 not have been necessary to crowd the whole history of Mac- 
 beth, from his youth to his old age, into an absurd epitome 
 of three hours. One cannot trace a touch of real human 
 nature in any actor's delineation of that very interesting 
 Scotchman, because the actor always comes on the stage as 
 if he were the same age when he murdered Duncan, and 
 when, in his sere and yellow leaf, he was lopped off by Mac- 
 duff." 
 
 " Do you ufunk Macbeth was young when he murdered 
 Duncan ?" 
 
 " Certainly. No man ever commits a first crime of vio- 
 lent nature, such as murder, after thirty ; if he begins before, 
 he may go on up to any age. But youth is the season for 
 commencing those wrong calculations which belong to ir- 
 rational hope and the sense of physical power. You thus 
 read in the newspapers that the persons who murder their 
 svveathearts are generally from two to six and twenty ; and 
 persons who murder from other motives than love— that is, 
 from revenge, avarice, or ambition — are generally about 
 twenty-eight — lago's age. Twenty-eight is the usual close 
 of the active season for getting rid of one's fellow-creatures 
 — a prize-fighter falls off after that age. I take it that Mac- 
 beth was about twenty-eight when he murdered Duncan, 
 and from about fifty-four to sixty when he began to whine 
 about missing the comforts of old age. But can any audi- 
 ence understand that difference of years in seeing a three- 
 hours' play ; or does any actor ever pretend to impress it on 
 the audience, and appear as twenty-eight in the first act and 
 a sexagenarian in the fifth ? " 
 
 " I never thought of that," said the boy, evidently inter- 
 ested. " But I never saw Macbeth. I have seen Richard III, 
 — is not that nice ? Don't vou dote on the Play ? I do. 
 What a glorious life an actor's must be !" 
 
 Kenelm, who had been hitherto rather talking to himself
 
 KEN ELM CHILLTNGLY. 69 
 
 than to his youthful companion, here roused his attention, 
 looked on the boy intently, and said : 
 
 " I see you are stage-stricken. You have run away from 
 home in order to turn player, and I should not wonder if this 
 note you want me to give is for the manager of the theatre 
 or one of his company." 
 
 The young face that encountered Kenelm's dark eye be- 
 came very flushed, but set and defiant in its expression. 
 
 " And what if it were — would not you give it ? " 
 
 "What! help a child of your age, run away from his 
 home, to go upon the stage against the consent of his rela- 
 tions — certainly not." 
 
 " I am not a child ; but that has nothing to do with it. 
 I don't want to go on the stage, at all events without the 
 consent of the person wdio has a right to dictate my actions. 
 My note is not to the manager of the theatre, nor to one of 
 his company, but it is to a gentleman who condescends to 
 act here for a few nights — a thorough gentleman — a great 
 actor — my friend, the only friend I have in the world. I say 
 frankly I have run away from home so that he may have that 
 note, and if you will not give it some one else will ! " 
 
 The boy had risen while he spoke, and he stood erect 
 beside the recumbent Kenelm, his lips quivering, his eyes 
 suffused with suppressed tears, but his whole aspect resolute 
 and determined. Evidently, if he did not get his own way 
 in this world, it would not be for want of will. 
 
 " I will take your note," said Kenelm. 
 
 "There it is ; give it into the hands of the person it 'S 
 addressed to, — Mr. Herbert Compton." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kenelm took his way to the theatre, and inquired of tiie 
 doorkeeper for Mr. Herbert Compton. That functionary 
 replied, " Mr. Compton does not ?.ct to-night, and is not in 
 the house." 
 
 " Where does he lodge ?" 
 
 The doorkeeper pointed to a grocer's shop on the other 
 side of the way, and said, tersely, " There, -grivate door — 
 knock and ring." 
 
 Kenelm did as he was directed. A slatternly maid-ser
 
 70 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 vant opened the door, and, in answer to his interrogatory 
 said tliat Mr. Conipton was at home, but at supper. 
 
 " I am sorry to disturb him," said Kenelm, raising his 
 voice, for he heard a chitter of knives and plates within a 
 room hard by at his left, " but my business requires to see 
 him fortliwitli ;" and, pushing the maid aside, he entered at 
 once the adjoining banquet-hall. 
 
 Before a savory stew smelling strongly of onions sat a 
 man very much at his ease, without coat or neckcloth, a de- 
 cidedly handsome man — his iiair cut short and his face close- 
 ly shaven, as befits an actor who has wigs and beards of all 
 hues and forms at his command. The man was not alone ; 
 opposite to him sat a lady, who might be a few years young- 
 er, of- a somewhat faded complexion, but still pretty, with 
 good stage features and a profusion of blonde ringlets. 
 
 " Mr. Compton, I presume," said Kenelm, with a solemn 
 bow. 
 
 " My name is Compton : any message from the theatre ? 
 or what do you want with me ?" 
 
 " I?— nothing!" replied Kenelm ;and then, deepening his 
 naturally muurnfid voice into tones ominous and tragic, con- 
 tinued — " By whom you are wanted let this explain ; " there- 
 with he placed in Mr. Compton's hand the letter with which 
 he was charged, and stretching his arms and interlacing his 
 fingers in t\\(t pose of Talma as Julius Caesar, added, "■'Qu'cn 
 dis-tu. Brute ?'" 
 
 Whether iL was from the sombre aspect and awe-inspiring 
 delivery, or ■j7ro;^p(rri?, of the messenger, or the sight of the 
 handwriting on the address of the missive, Mr. Compton's 
 countenance suddenly fell, and his hand rested irresolute, 
 as if not daring to open tlie letter. 
 
 "Never mind me, dear," said the lady with blonde ring- 
 lets, in a time of stinging affability ; " read your billet-doux ; 
 don't keep the young man waiting, love ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, Matilda, nonsense ! billet-doux, indeed ! more 
 likely a bill from Duke the tailor. Excuse me for a moment, 
 my dear. Follow me, sir," and rising, still with sliirt-.' leeves 
 uncovered, he quitted the room, closing the door after him 
 motioned Kenelm into a small parlor on the opposite side 
 of the passage, and by the light of a suspended gas-lamp ran 
 his eye hastily over the letter, which, though it seemed very 
 short, drew from him sundry exclamations. " Good 
 Heavens! how very absurd! what's to be done?" Then, 
 thrusting the letter into his trousers-pocket, fixed upon
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 71 
 
 Kenelm a very brilliant pair of dark eyes, which soon dropp- 
 ed before the steadfast look of that saturnine adventurer. 
 
 " Are you in the confidence of the writer of this letter?" 
 asked Mr. Compton, rather confusedly. 
 
 " I am not the confidant of the writer," answered Kenehn, 
 ** but for the time being I am the protector." 
 
 "Protector ?" 
 
 "■ Protector." 
 
 Mr. Compton again eyed the messenger, and, this time 
 fully realizing the gladiatorial development of that dark 
 stranger's physical form, he grew many shades paler, and 
 involuntarily retreated towards the bell-pull. 
 
 After a short pause, he said, " I am requested to call on 
 the writer. If I do so, may I understand that the interview 
 will be strictly private ?" 
 
 . " So far as I am concerned, yes— on the condition that no 
 attempt be made to withdraw the writer from the house." 
 
 " Certainly not — certainly not ; quite the contrary," ex- 
 claimed Mr. Compton, with genuine animation. " Say I 
 will call in half an hour." 
 
 "I will give your message," said Kenelm, with a polite 
 inclination of his head ; "and pray pardon me if I remind 
 you that I styled myself the protector of your correspondent, 
 and if the slightest advantage be taken of that correspondent's 
 youth and inexperience, or the smallest encouragement be 
 given to plans of abduction from home and friends, the stage 
 will lose an ornament, and Herbert Compton vanish from 
 the scene." 
 
 With those words Kenelm left the player standing aghast. 
 Gaining the street-door, a lad with a bandbox ran against 
 him and was nearly upset. 
 
 "Stupid," cried the lad, "can't you see where you are 
 going? Give this to Mrs. Compton." 
 
 " I should deserve the title you give if I did for nothing 
 the business for which you are paid," replied Kenelm, senten- 
 tiously, and striding on. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " T HAVE fulfilled my mission," said Kenehn, on rejoining 
 his travelling companion. " Mr. Compton said he would be 
 here in half an hour."
 
 72 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Yoii saw him ? " 
 
 " Of course ; I promised to give your letter into his own 
 hands." 
 
 " Was he alone ? " 
 
 " No ; at supper with his wife." 
 
 " His wile ? what do you mean, sir ? — wife ! he has no 
 wife." 
 
 " Appearances are deceitful. At least he was with a lady 
 who called him ' dear' and ' love' in as spiteful a tone of voice 
 as if she had been his wife ; and as I was coming out of his 
 street-door a lad who ran against me asked me to give a band- 
 box to Mrs. Compton." 
 
 The boy turned as white as death, staggered back a few 
 steps, and dropped into a chair. 
 
 A suspicion which, during his absence, had suggested 
 itself to Kenelm'sincjuiring mind, now t<Jok strong confirma- 
 tion. He approached softly, drew a chair close to the com- 
 panion whom fate had forced upon him, and said, in a gentle 
 whisper : 
 
 "This is no boy's agitation. If you have been deceived 
 or misled, and I can in any way advise or aid you, count on 
 me as women under the circumstances count on men and 
 gentlemen." 
 
 The boy started to his feet, and paced the room with dis- 
 ordered steps, and a countenance working with passions 
 which he attempted vainly to suppress. Suddenly arresting 
 his steps, he seized Kenelm's hand, pressed it convulsively, 
 and said, in a voice struggling against a sob : 
 
 " I thank you — I bless you. Leave me now — I would 
 be alone. Alone, too, I must face this man. There may 
 be some mistake yet; — go." 
 
 "You will promise not to leave the house till I return?" 
 
 "Yes, I promise that." 
 
 ■■ And if it be as I fear, yon will then let me counsel with 
 and advise you ? " 
 
 " Heaven help me, if so ! Whom else should I trust to ? 
 Go— go ! " 
 
 Kcnclm once more found himself in the streets, beneath 
 the mingled light <jf gas-lamps and the midsummer moon. 
 He walked on mechanically till he reached the extremity of 
 the town. There he halted, and, seating himself on " mile- 
 stcjne, indulged in these meditations : 
 
 " Kenelm, my friend, you are in a still worse scrape than 
 r thought you were an hour ago. You have evidently now
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 73 
 
 got a woman on your hands. What on earth are you to do 
 with her ? A runaway woman, who, meaning to run off with 
 somebody else — such are the crosses and contradictions in 
 human destiny — has run off with you instead. What mortal 
 can hope to be safe ? The last thing I thought could befall 
 me when I got up this morning was that I should have any 
 trouble about the other sex before the day was over. If I 
 were of an amatory temperament, the Fates might have 
 some justification for leading me into this snare, but, as it 
 is, those meddling old maids have none. Kenelm, my friend, 
 do you think you ever can be in love ? and, if you were in 
 love, do you think you could be a greater fool than you are 
 now?" 
 
 Kenelm had not decided this knotty question in the 
 conference held with himself, when a light and soft strain 
 of music came upon his ear. It was but from a stringed 
 instrument, and might have sounded thin and tinkling, but 
 for the stillness of the night, and that peculiar addition of 
 fullness which music acquires when it is borne along a 
 tranquil air. Presently a voice in song was heard from 
 the distance accompanying the instrument. It was a man's 
 voice, a mellow and rich voice, but Kenelm's ear could not 
 catch the words. Mechanically he moved on towards the 
 quarter from which the sounds came, for Kenelm Chillingly 
 had music in his soul, though he was not quite aware ot 
 it himself. He saw before him a patch of greensward, on 
 which grew a solitary elm with a seat for wayfarers beneath 
 it. From this sward the ground receded in a wide semi- 
 circle bordered partly by shops, partly by the tea-gardens 
 of a pretty coitage-like tavern. Round the tables scattered 
 throughout the gardens were grouped quiet customers, evi- 
 dently belonging to the class of small tradespeople or su- 
 perior artisans. They had an appearance of decorous 
 respectability, and were listening intently to the music. So 
 were many persons at the shop-doors, and at the windows 
 of upper rooms. On tlie sward, a little in advance of the 
 tree, but beneath its shadow, stood the musician, and in that 
 musician Kenelm recognized the wanderer from whose talk 
 he had conceived the idea of the pedestrian excursion which 
 had already brought him into a very awkward position. The 
 instrument on which the singer accompanied himself was a 
 guitar, and his song was evidently a love-song, though, as it 
 was now drawing near to its close, Kenelm could but im- 
 perfectly guess at its general meaning. He heard enough 
 
 4
 
 74 KE.yELM CIIIf.I.IXGI.Y. 
 
 to perceive that its words were at least free from the vul- 
 garilv^ wliich generally characterizes street-ballads, and were 
 yet simple enough to please a very homely audience. 
 
 When the singer ended there was no applause ; but there 
 was evident sensation among the audience — a feeling as if 
 something that had given a common enjoyment had ceased. 
 Presently the white Pomeranian dog, who had hitherto kept 
 himself out of sight under the seat of the elm-tree, advanced, 
 with a small metal tray between his teeth, and, after looking 
 round him deliberately as if to select whom of the audience 
 shcndd be honored with the commencement of a general 
 subscription, gravely approached Kenelm, stood on his hind- 
 lt^% stared at him, and presented the tray. 
 
 Kenelm dropped a shilling into that depository, and the 
 dog, loejking gratified, took his way towards the tea-gardens. 
 
 Lifting his hat, for he was, in his way, a very polite man, 
 Kenelm approached the singer, and, trusting to the altera- 
 tion in his dress for not being recognized by a stranger who 
 liad only once before encountered him, he said: 
 
 "Judging by the little I heard, you sing very well, sir. 
 May I ask who composed the words?" 
 
 "They are mine," replied the stranger. 
 
 ^'And the air?" 
 
 "Mine too." 
 
 "Accept my compliments. I hope you find these mani- 
 festations of genius lucrative ?" 
 
 The singer, who had not hitherto vouchsafed more than 
 a careless glance at the rustic garb of the questioner, now 
 fixed his eyes full upon Kenelm, and said, with a smile, 
 " Your voice betrays you, sir. We have met before." 
 
 "True ; but I did not then notice your guitar, nor, though 
 acquainted with your poetical gifts, suppose that you se- 
 lected this primitive method of making them publicly 
 known." 
 
 "Nor did I anticipate the pleasure of meeting you again 
 in the character of Hobnail. Hist ! let us keep each other's 
 secret. I am known hereabouts by no other designation 
 than that of the ' Wandering Minstrel.'" 
 
 "It is in the capacity of minstrel that I address you. If 
 it be not an impertinent question, do you know any songs 
 which take the other side of the case ?" 
 
 " What case ? I don't understand you, sir." 
 
 " The song I heard seemed in praise of that sham called 
 love. Don't you think you could say something more new
 
 KENELM CIIILLIXGLY. 75 
 
 and more true, treating that aberration from reason witli the 
 
 contempt it deserves ?" 
 
 " Not if I am to get my travelling expenses paid." 
 
 " Wliat ! the folly is so popular? " 
 
 " Does not your own heart tell you so ? " 
 
 "Not a bit of it — ^rather the contrary. Your audience 
 at present seem folks who live by work, and can have lit- 
 tle cime for such idle phantasies — for, as it is well observed 
 by Ovid, a poet who wrote much on that subject, and 
 professed the most intimate acquaintance with it, ' Idleness 
 is the parent of love.' Can't you sing something in praise 
 of a good dinner ? Everybody who w^orks hard has an ap- 
 petite for food." 
 
 The singer again fixed on Kenelm his inquiring eye, 
 but, not detecting a vestige of humor in the grave face he 
 contemplated, was rather puzzled how to reply, and there- 
 fore remained silent. 
 
 "I perceive," resumed Kenelm, "that my observations 
 surprise you : the surprise will vanish on reflection. It has 
 been said by another poet, more reflective than Ovid, ' that 
 the world is governed by love and hunger.' But hunger 
 certainly has the lion's share of the government ; and if a 
 poet is really to do what he pretends to do -viz., represent 
 nature — the greater part of his lays should be addressed to 
 the stomach." Here, warming with his subject, Kenelm fa- 
 miliarly laid his hand upon the musician's shoulder, and his 
 voice took a tone bordering on enthusiasm. " You will al- 
 low that a man, in a normal condition of health, does not 
 fall in love every day. But in the normal condition of 
 health he is hungry every day. Nay, in those early years 
 when you poets say he is most prone to love, he is so es- 
 pecially disposed to hunger that less than three meals a 
 day can scarcely satisfy his appetite. You may imprison a 
 man for months, for years, nay, for his whole life — from in- 
 fancy to any age which Sir Cornewall Lewis may allow him 
 to attain — without letting him be in love at all. But if you 
 shut him up for a week without putting something into his 
 stomach, you will find him at the end of it as dead as a 
 door-nail." 
 
 Here the singer, who had gradually retreated before the 
 energetic advance of the orator, sank into the seat by the 
 elm-tree, and said, pathetically, " Sir, you have fairly argued 
 me down. Will yoti please to come to the conclusion 
 which you deduce from your premises ?"
 
 76 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Simply this, that where you find one human being who 
 cares about love, you will find a thousand susceptible to the 
 charms of a dinner ; and if you wish to be the p()i)ular 
 minnesinger or troubadour of the age, appeal to nature, 
 sir — appeal to nature ; drop all hackneyed rhapsodies 
 about a rosy cheek, and strike your lyre to the theme of a 
 beefsteak." 
 
 The dog had for some minutes regained his master's 
 side, standing on his hind-legs, with the tray, tolerably well 
 filled with copper ccjins, between his teeth ; and now, justly 
 aggrieved by the inattention which detained him in that 
 artificial attitude, dropped the tray and growled at Kenelm. 
 
 At the same time there came an impatient sound from 
 the audience in the tea-garden. They wanted another song 
 for their money. 
 
 The singer rose, obedient to the summons. " Excuse 
 me, sir ; but I am called upon to " 
 
 " To sing again ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And on the subject I suggest?" 
 
 " No, indeed." 
 
 " What ! love again ? " 
 
 " I am afraid so." 
 
 " I wish you good-evening, then. You seem a well-edu- 
 cated man — more shame to you. Perhaps we may meet 
 once more in our rambles, when the question can be prop- 
 erly argued out." 
 
 Kenelm lifted his hat, and turned on his heel. Before he 
 reached the street, the sweet voice of the singer again smote 
 his ears ; but the only word distinguishable in the distance, 
 ringing out at the close of the refrain, was "love." 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee," said Kenelm. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As Kenelm regained the street dignified by the edifice 
 of the Temperance Hotel, a figure, dressed picturesquely in 
 a Spanish cloak, brushed hurriedly by him, but not so fast 
 as to be unrecognized as the tragedian. " Hem ! " muttered 
 Kenelm — " I don't think there is much triumph in that face. 
 I suspect he has been scolded."
 
 ; KENELM CHILLINGLY. 77 
 
 The boy — if Kenelm's travelling companion is still to be 
 so designated — -was leaning against the mantel-piece as 
 Kenelm re-entered the dinino-iooni. There was an air of 
 profound dejection about the boy's listless attitude and in 
 the drooping tearless eyes. 
 
 " My dear child," said Kenelm, in the softest tones of 
 his plaintiv'e voice, " do not honor me with any confidence 
 that may be painful. But let me hope that you have dis- 
 missed forever all thoughts of going on the stage." 
 
 "Yes," was the scarce audible answer. 
 
 " And now only remains the question, ' What is to be 
 done?'" 
 
 " I am sure I don't know, and I don't care." 
 
 " Then you leave it to me to know and to care, and as- 
 suming for the moment as a fact, that which is one of the 
 greatest lies in this mendacious world — namely, that all 
 men are brothers, you will consider me as an elder brother, 
 who will counsel and control you as he would — an impru- 
 dent young sister. I see very well how it is. Somehow 
 
 or other you, having first admired Mr. Compton as Romeo 
 or Richard III., made his acquaintance as Mr. Compton. 
 He allowed you to believe him a single man. In a roman- 
 tic moment you escaped from your home, with the design 
 of adopting the profession of the stage and of becoming 
 Mrs. Compton." 
 
 " Oh," broke out the girl, since her sex must now be de- 
 clared, — " oh," she exclaimed, with a passionate sob, "what 
 a fool I have been ! Only do not think worse of me than I 
 deserve. The man did deceive mc ; he did not think I 
 shoidd take him at his word, and follow him here, or his 
 wife would not have appeared. I should not have knoAvn 
 
 that he had one ; and — and " here her voice was choked 
 
 under her passion. 
 
 "But, now you have discovered the truth, let us thank 
 heaven that you are saved from shame and misery. I must 
 despatch a telegram to your uncle — give me his address." 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 "There is not a 'No' possible in this case, my child. 
 Your reputation and your future must be saved. Leave me 
 to explain all to your uncle. He is your guardian. I must 
 send for him ; nav, nay, there is no option. Hate me now 
 for enforcing your will, you will thank me hereafter. And 
 listen, young lady ; if it does pain you to see your uncle 
 and encounter his reproaches, every fault must undergo its
 
 78 KEN ELM CfllLLINGLY. 
 
 punishment. A brave nature undergoes it cheerfully, as a 
 part of atonement. Vou are brave. Submit, and in sub- 
 mitting rejoice ! " 
 
 There was something in Kenelm's voice and manner at 
 once so kindly and so commanding, that the wayward nature 
 he addressed fairly succumbed. She gave him her uncle's 
 address, "John Bovill, Esq., Oakdale, near Westmere," and 
 alter giving it, fi.xcd her eyes mournfully upon her young 
 adviser, and said, with a simple, dreary pathos, "Now, will 
 you esteem me more, or rather despise me less ? " 
 
 She looked so young, nay, so childlike, as she thus spoke, 
 that Kenelm felt a parental inclination to draw her on his 
 lap and kiss away her tears. But he prudently conquered 
 that impulse, and said, with a melancholy half-smile: 
 
 "If human beings despise each other for being yoimg 
 and foolish, the sooner we are exterminated by that superior 
 race which is to succeed us on earth the better it will be. 
 Adieu till your uncle comes." 
 
 " What ! you leave me here — alone ?" 
 
 " Nay, if yciur uncle found me under the same roof, now 
 that I know you are his niece, don't you think he would 
 have a right to throw me out of the window ? Allow me to 
 practise for myself the prudence I preach to you. Send for 
 the landlady to show vou your room, shut yourself in there, 
 go to bed, and don't cry more than you can help." 
 
 Kenelm shouldered the knapsack he had deposited in a 
 corner of the room, inquired for the telegraph office, des- 
 patched a telegram to Mr. Bovill, obtained a bedroom at the 
 Commercial Hotel, and fell asleep muttering these sensible 
 words : 
 
 " Rochefoucauld was perfectly right when lie said, ' Very 
 few people would fall in love if they had not heard it so 
 much talked about.'" 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly rose with the sim, according to his 
 usual custom, and took his way to the Temperance Hotel. 
 All in that sober building seemed still in the arms of Mf)r- 
 pheus. He turned towards the stables in which he had left
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 79 
 
 the gray cob, and had the pleasure to see that ill-used animal 
 in tliG healthful process ot rubbing down. 
 
 "That's riglit," said he to the ostler. "I am glad to see 
 you are so early a riser." 
 
 " Why," quoth the ostler, " the gentleman as owns the 
 pony knocked me up at two o'clock in the morning, and 
 pleased enough he was to see the creature again lying down 
 in the clean straw." 
 
 " Oh, he has arrived at the hotel, I presume ? — a stout 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 " Yes, stout enough ; and a passionate gentleman too. 
 Came in a yellow and two posters, knocked up the Temper- 
 ance, and then knocked up me to see for the pony, and was 
 much put out as he could not get any grog at the Temper- 
 ance." 
 
 " I daresay he was. I wish he had got his grog ; it might 
 have put hitn in better humor. Poor little thing ! " muttered 
 Kenelm, turning away ; " I am afraid she is in for a regular 
 vituperation. My turn next, I suppose. But he must be a 
 good fellow to have come at once for his niece in the dead 
 of the night." 
 
 About nine o'clock Kenelm presented himself again at 
 the Temperance Hotel, inquired for Mr. Bovill, and was 
 shown by the prim maid-servant into the drawing-room, 
 where he found Mr. Bovill seated amicably at breakfast with 
 his niece, who, of course, was still in boy's clothing, having 
 no other costume at hand. To Kenelm's great relief, Mr. 
 Bovill rose from the table with a beaming countenance, and, 
 extending his hand to Kenelm, said : 
 
 " Sir, you are a gentleman ; sit down, sit down, and take 
 breakfast." 
 
 Then, as soon as the maid was out of the room, the uncle 
 continued : 
 
 " I have heard all your good conduct from this young 
 simpleton. Things might have been worse, sir." 
 
 Kenelm bowed his head, and drew the loaf towards him 
 in silence. Then, considering that some apology was due 
 to liis entertainer, he said : 
 
 " I hope you forgive me for that unfortunate mistake 
 when " 
 
 "You knocked me down, or rather tripped me up. All 
 right now. Elsie, give the gentleman a cup of tea. Pretty 
 little rogue, is not she? and a good girl, in spite of her non- 
 sense. It was all my fault lettmg her go to the play and be
 
 8o A'EyELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 intimate with Miss Lockit, a stage-stricken, foolish old maid, 
 who ought to have known better than lead her into all this 
 trouble." 
 
 " No, uncle," cried the girl, resolutely ; "don't blame her, 
 nor any one but me." 
 
 Kenelm turned his dark eyes approvingly towards the girl, 
 and saw that lier lips were linnly set ; tliere was an expres- 
 sion, not of grief nor shame, but compressed resolution in her 
 countenance. But when her eyes met his they fell softly, 
 and a blush mantled over her cheeks to her very forehead. 
 
 "Ah!" said the uncle, "just like you, Elsie; always 
 ready to take everybody's fault on your own shoulders. 
 Well, well, say no more about that. Now, my young friend, 
 what brings you across the country tramping it on foot, eh ? 
 a young man's whim ? " As he spoke he eyed Kenelm very 
 closely, and his look was that of an intelligent man not mi- 
 accustomed to observe the faces of those he conversed with. 
 In fact, a more shrewd man of business than Mr. Bovill is 
 seldom met with on 'Change or in market. 
 
 "I travel on foot to please myself, sir," answered Ken- 
 elm, curtly, and uncon.sciously set on his guard. 
 
 " Of course you do," cried Mr. Bovill, with a jovial 
 laugh. " But it seems you don't object to a chaise and 
 pony whenever you can get them for nothing — ha, ha ! — 
 excuse me — a joke." 
 
 Herewith Mr. Bovill, still in excellent good-humor, 
 abruptly changed the conversation to general luatters — 
 agricultural prospects — chance of a good harvest — corn trade 
 — money market in general — politics — state of the nation. 
 Kenelm felt there was an attempt to draw him out, to sound, 
 to pump him, and replied only by monosyllables, generally 
 significant of igncjrance on the questions broached ; and at 
 the close, if the philosophical heir of the Chillinglys was in 
 the habit of allowing himself to be surprised he would cer- 
 tainly have been startled when Mr. Bovill rose, slapped him 
 on the shoulder, and said, in a tone of great satisfaction, 
 "Just as I thought, sir ; you know nothing of these matters 
 — you are a gentleman born and bred — your clothes can't 
 disguise you, sir. Elsie was right. My dear, just leave us 
 for a few minutes ; I have something to say to our young 
 friend. You can get ready meanwhile to go with me." 
 
 Elsie left the table and walked obediently towards the 
 doorway. There she halted a moment, turned round, and 
 looked timidly towards Kenelm. He had naturally risen
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 8i 
 
 from his seat as slie rose, and advanced some paces as if to 
 open the door for her. Thus their looks encountered. He 
 could not interpret that shy gaze of hers ; it was tender, it 
 was deprecating, it was humble, it was pleading ; a man 
 accustomed to female conquests might have thought it was 
 something more, something in which was the key to all. 
 But that something more was an unknown tongue to Kenelm 
 Chillingly. 
 
 When tlie two men were alone, Mr. Bovill reseated him- 
 self, and motioned to Kenelm to do the same. " Now, yoimg 
 sir," said the former, "you and I can talk at our ease. That 
 adventure of yours yesterday may be the luckiest thing that 
 could happen to you." 
 
 " It is sufficiently lucky if I have been of any service to 
 your niece. But her own good sense would have been her 
 safeguard if she had been alone, and discovered, as she 
 would have done, that Mr. Compton had, knowingly or not, 
 misled her to believe that he was a single man." 
 
 " Hang Mr. Compton ! we have done with him. I am a 
 plain man, and I come to the point. It is you who have car- 
 ried off my niece ; it is with you that she came to this hotel. 
 Now, when Elsie told me how Avell you had behaved, and 
 that your language and manners were those of a real srentle- 
 man, my mind was made up. I guess pretty well what you 
 are ; you are a gentleman's son — probably a college youth 
 — not overburdened with cash — had a quarrel with your 
 governor, and he keeps you short. Don't interrupt me. 
 Well, Elsie is a good girl and a pretty girl, and will make a 
 good wife, as wives go ; and, hark ye, she has ^20,000. So 
 just confide in me — and if you don't like your parents to 
 know about it till the thing's done, and they be only got to 
 forgive and bless you, why, you shall marry Elsie before 
 you can say Jack Robinson." 
 
 For the first time in his life Kenelm Chillingly was seized 
 with terror — terror and consternation. His jaw dropped — 
 his tongue was palsied. If hair ever stands on end, his hair 
 did. At last, with superhuman effort, he gasped out the 
 word, " Marry ! " 
 
 " Yes — marry. If you are a gentleman you are bound to 
 it. You have compromised my niece — a respectable, vir- 
 tuous girl, sir — an orphan, but not unprotected. I repeat, 
 it is you who have plucked her from my very arms, and with 
 violence and assault ; eloped with her ; and what would the 
 world say if it knew ? Would it believe in your prudent
 
 J2 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 conduct? — conduct only to be explained by the respect you 
 felt due to your future wife. And where will you find a bet- 
 ter ? Where will you find an uncle who will part with his 
 ward and ^20,000 without asking if you have a sixpence ? 
 and the girl has taken a fancy to you — I see it ; would she 
 have given up that player so easily if you had not stolen her 
 heart? Would you break that heart? No, young man — 
 you are not a villain. Shake hands on it !" 
 
 "Mr. Bovill," said Kenelm, recovering his wonted equa- 
 nimity, " I am inexpressibly flattered by the honor you pro- 
 pose to me, and I do not deny that Miss Elsie is worthy of a 
 much better man than myself. But I have inconceivable 
 prejudices against the connubial state. If it be permitted 
 to a member of the Established Church to cavil at any sen- 
 tence written by St. Paid — and I think that liberty may be 
 permitted to a simple layman, since eminent members of 
 the clergy criticise the whole Bible as freely as if it were the 
 history of Ouccn Elizabeth by Mr. Froude — I should demur 
 at the doctrine that it is better to marry than to burn ; I 
 myself should prefer burning. With these sentiments it 
 would ill become any one entitled to that distinction of 
 'gentleman' which you confer on me to lead a fellow-vic- 
 tim to the sacrificial altar. As for any reproach attached to 
 Miss Elsie, since in my telegram I directed you to ask for a 
 young gentleman at this hotel, her very sex is not knoAvn in 
 this place imless you divulge it. And " 
 
 Ilere Kenelm was interru[)ted by a violent explosion of 
 rage from the uncle. He stamped his feet ; he almost 
 foamed at the mouth ; he doubled his fist, and shook it in 
 Kenclm's face. 
 
 "Sir, you are mocking me : John Bovill is not a man to 
 be jeered in this way. You shall marry the girl. I'll not 
 have her thrust back upon me to be the plague of my life 
 witla her whims and tantrums. You have taken her, andyou 
 shall keep her, or I'll break every bone in your skin." 
 
 "Break them," said Kenelm, resignedly, but at the same 
 time falling back into a formidable attitude of defence, which 
 cooled the pugnacity of his accuser. Mr. Bovill sank into 
 his chair, and wiped his forehead. Kenelm craftily pursued 
 the advantage he had gained, and in mild accents proceeded 
 to reason : 
 
 " When you recover your habitual serenity of humor, Mr. 
 Bovill, you will see how much your very excusable desire to 
 secure your niece's happiness, and, I may add, to reward
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. C3 
 
 what you allow to have been forbearing and well-bred con- 
 duct on my part, has hurried you into an error of judgment. 
 You know nothing of me. I may be, for what you kno\y, 
 an impostor or swindler ; I may have every bad quality, and 
 yet yoij are to be contented with my assurance, or rather 
 your own assumption, that I am born a gentleman, in order 
 to give me your niece and her ^20,000. This is temporary 
 insanity on your part. Allow me to leave you to recover 
 from your excitement." 
 
 " Stop, sir," said Mr. Bovill, in a changed and sullen 
 tone ; " I am not quite the madman you think me. But I 
 daresay I have been too hasty and too rough. Nevertheless 
 the facts are as I have stated them, and I do not see how, as 
 a man of honor, you can get off marrying my niece. The 
 mistake you made in running away with her was, no doubt, 
 innocent on your part ; but still there it is ; and supposing 
 the case came before a jury, it would be an ugly one for you 
 and your family. Marriage alone could mend it. Come, 
 come, I own I was too business-like in rushing to the point 
 at once, and I no longer say, ' Marry my niece off-hand.' 
 You have only seen her disguised and in a false position. 
 Pay me a visit at Oakdale — stay with me a month — and if, 
 at the end of that time, you do not like her well enough to 
 propose, I'll let you off and say no more about it." 
 
 While Mr. Bovill thus spoke, and Kenelm listened, 
 neither saw that the door had been noiselessly opened, and 
 that Elsie stood at the threshold. Now, before Kenelm 
 could reply, she advanced into the middle of the room, and, 
 her small figure drawn up to its fullest height, her cheeks 
 glowing, hei: lips quivering, exclaimed : 
 
 *' Uncle, for shame ! " Then, addressing Kenelm in a 
 sharp tone of anguish, " Oh, do not believe I knew anything 
 of this ! " she covered her face with both hands and stood 
 mute. 
 
 All of chivalry that Kenelm had received with his bap- 
 tismal appellation was aroused. He sprang up, and, bend- 
 ing his knee as he drew one of her hands into his own, he 
 said : 
 
 " I am as convinced that your uncle's words are abhor- 
 rent to you as I am that you are a pure-hearted and high- 
 spirited woman, of whose friendship I shall be proud. We 
 meet again." Then releasing her hand, he addressed Mr. 
 Bovill : '• Sir, you are unworthy the charge of your niece. 
 Had you not been so, she would have committed no im-
 
 84 A'ENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 prudence. If she have any female relation, to that relation 
 transfer your charge." 
 
 " I have ! I have ! " cried Elsie ; " my lost mother's 
 sister— let me go to her." 
 
 " The woman who keeps a school ! " said Mr. Bovill, 
 sneeringly. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Kenelm. 
 
 " She never would go there. I proposed it to her a year 
 ago. The minx would not go into a school." 
 
 " I will now, uncle." 
 
 " Well, then, you shall at once ; and I hope you'll be put 
 on bread and water. Fool ! fool ! you have spoilt your own 
 game. Mr. Ciiillingly, now that Miss Elsie has turned her 
 back on herself, I can convince you that I am not the mad- 
 man you thought me. I was at the festive meeting held 
 wlicn you came of age — my brother is one of your father's 
 tenants. I did not recognize your face immediately in the 
 excitement of our encounter and in your change of dress ; 
 but in walking home it struck me that I had seen it before, 
 and I knew it at once when you entered the room to-d,iy. 
 It has been a tussle between us which should beat the other. 
 You have beat me ; and thanks to that idiot ! If she had 
 not put her spoke into my wheel, she should have lived to 
 be 'my lady.' Now good-day, sir." 
 
 " Mr. Bovill, you offered to shake hands : shake hands 
 now, and promise me, with the good faith of one honorable 
 combatant to another, that Miss Elsie shall go to her aunt 
 the schoolmistress at once if she wishes it. Hark ye, my 
 friend " (this in Mr. Bovill's ear) : " A man can never man- 
 age a woman. Till a woman marries, a prudent man leaves 
 lier to women ; when she does marry, she manages her hus- 
 band, and there's an end of ii." 
 
 Kenelm was gone. 
 
 " Oh, wise young man ! " murmured the uncle. " Elsie, 
 dear, how can we go to your aunt's while you are in that 
 dress ? " 
 
 Elsie started as from a trance, her eyes directed to- 
 wards the doorway througli which Kenelm had vanished. 
 " This dress," she said, contemptuously — " this dress — is not 
 that easily altered with shops in the town ? " 
 
 "Gad!" muttered Mr. Bovill, "that youngster is a 
 second Solomon ; and if I can't manage Elsie, she'll man- 
 age a husband — whenever she gets one."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 85 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " By the powers that guard innocence and celibacy," 
 soliloquized Kenelm Chillingly, "but I have had a nanow 
 escape ! and had that amphibious creature been in girl's 
 clothes instead of boy's, when she intervened like the deity 
 of the ancient drama, I might have plunged my armorial 
 Fishes into hut water. Though, indeed, it is hard to sup- 
 pose that a young lady head-over-ears in love with Mr. 
 Compton yesterday could have consigned her affections to 
 me to-day. Still she looked as if she could, which proves 
 either that one is never to trust a woman's heart, or never 
 to trust a woman's looks. Decimus Roach is right. Man 
 must never relax his flight from the women, if he strives to 
 achieve an ' Approach to the Angels. ' " 
 
 These reflections were made by Kenelm Chillingly as, 
 having turned his back upon the town in which such temp- 
 tations and trials had befallen him, he took his solitary way 
 along a footpath that wound through meads and corn-fields, 
 and shortened by three miles the distance to a cathedral 
 town at which he proposed to rest for the night. 
 
 He had travelled for some hours, and the sun was be- 
 ginning to slope towards a range of blue hills in the west, 
 when he came to the margin of afresh rivulet, overshadowed 
 by feathery willows and the quivering leaves of silvery 
 Italian poplars. Tempted by the quiet and cool of this 
 pleasant spot, he flung himself dowm on the banks, drew 
 from his knapsack some crusts of bread with which he had 
 VTisely provided himself, and dipping them into the pure 
 lymph as it rippled over its pebbly bed, enjoyed one of those 
 luxurious repasts for which epicures would exchange their 
 banquets in return for the appetite of youth. Then, re- 
 clined along the bank, and crushing the wild thyme which 
 grows best and sweetest in wooded coverts, provided they 
 be neighbored by water, no matter whether in pool or rill, 
 he resigned himself to that intermediate state between 
 thought and dream-land which we call "reverie." At a 
 little distance he heard the low still sound of the mower's 
 scythe, and the air came to his brow sweet with the fra- 
 grance of new mown hay.
 
 86 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 He was roused by a gentle tap on the shoulder, and, turn- 
 ing lazily round, saw a good-humored jovial face upon a pair 
 of massive shoulders, and heard a hearty and winning voice 
 say : 
 
 " Young man, if you are not too tired, will you lend a 
 hand to get in my hay ? We are very short of hands, and I 
 am afraid we shall have rain pretty soon." 
 
 Kenclm rose and shook himself, gravely contemplated 
 the stranger, and replied, in his customary sententious fash- 
 ion : " Man is born to help his fellow-man — especiallv to 
 get in hay while the sun shines. I am at your service." 
 
 *' That's a good felk)W, and I'm greatly obliged to you. 
 You see I had counted on a gang of roving haymakers, but 
 they were bought up by another farmer. This way." And, 
 leading on through a gap in the brushwood, he emerged, 
 followed by Kenelm, into a large meadow, one-third of which 
 was still under the scythe, the rest being occupied with 
 persons of both sexes, tossing and spreading the cut grass. 
 Among the latter, Kenelm, stripped to his shirt-sleeves, soon 
 found himself tossing and spreading like the rest, with his 
 usual melancholy resignation of mien and aspect. Though a 
 little awkward at first in the use of his unfamiliar implements, 
 his practice in all athletic accomplishments bestowed on him 
 that invaluable quality which is termed " handiness," and 
 he soon distinguished himself by the superior activitv and 
 neatness with which he performed his work. vScnncthing — 
 it might be in his countenance or in the charm of his being 
 a stranger — attracted the attention of the feminine section 
 of haymakers, and one very pretty girl, who was nearer to 
 him than the rest, attempted to commence conversation. 
 
 " This is new to you," she said, smiling. 
 
 " Nothing is new to me," answered Kenelm mournfully. 
 " But allow me to observe that to do things well you should 
 only do one thing at a time. I am here to make hay, and 
 not conversation." 
 
 " My !" said the girl, in amazed ejaculation, and turned 
 off with a toss of her pretty head. 
 
 " I wonder if that jade has got an uncle," thought Ken- 
 elm. 
 
 The farmer, who took his share of work with the men, 
 halting now and then to look round, noticed Kenelm's vigor- 
 ous application with much approval, and at the close of the 
 day's work shook him heartily by the hand, leaving a two- 
 shilling piece in his palm. The heir of the Chillinglys gazed
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 87 
 
 on tlin.t honorarium, and turned it over witli the finger and 
 tliumb of the left hand. 
 
 " Ben't it eno' ? " said the farmer, nettled. 
 
 " Pardon me," answered Kenelra. " But, to tell you 
 the truth, it is the first money I ever earned by my own 
 bodily labor ; and I regard it with equal curiosity and re- 
 spect. But, if it would not offend you, I would rather that, 
 instead of the money, you had offered me some supper ; for 
 I have tasted nothing but bread and water since the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "You shall have the money and supper both, my lad," 
 said the farmer, cheerily. " And if you will stay and help 
 till I have got in the hay, I daresay my good woman can find 
 you a better bed than you'll get at the village inn — if, indeed, 
 you can get one there at all." 
 
 " You are very kind. But, before I accept your hos- 
 pitalitv, excuse one question — have you any nieces about 
 you ? " 
 
 " Nieces ! " echoed the farmer, mechanically thrusting his 
 hands into his breeches-pockets, as if in search of something 
 there — "nieces about me ! what do you mean? Be that a 
 new-fangled word for coppers ? " 
 
 " Not for coppers, though perhaps for brass. But I spoke 
 without metaphor. I object to nieces upon abstract princi- 
 ple, confirmed by the test of experience." 
 
 The farmer stared, and thought his new friend not quite so 
 sound in his mental as he evidently was in his physical con- 
 formation, but replied, with a laugh, " Make yourself easy, 
 then. I have only one niece, and she is married to an iron- 
 monger and lives in Exeter." 
 
 On entering the farmhouse, Kenelm's host conducted him 
 straight into tlie kitchen, and cried out. in a hearty voice, to 
 a comely middle-aged dame, who, with a stout girl, was in- 
 tent on culinary operations, " Holloa ! old woman, I have 
 brought you a guest who has well earned his supper, 
 for he has done the work of two, and I have promised him 
 a bed." 
 
 The farmer's wife turned sharply round. " He is heart- 
 ily welcome to supper. As to a bed," she said, doubtfully, 
 " I don't know." But here her eyes settled on Kenelm ; and 
 there was something in his aspect so unlike what she ex- 
 pected to see in an itinerant haymaker, that she involuntarily 
 dropped a curtsv, and resumed, with a change of tone, " The 
 gentleman shall have the guest-room ; but it will take a little
 
 88 ■ KEN ELM CHIT.T.INGLY. 
 
 time to get ready — you know, John, all the furniture is cov- 
 ered up." 
 
 " Well, wife, there will be leisure eno' for that. He don't 
 want to go to roost till he has supped." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Kenelm, sniffing a very agreeable 
 odor. 
 
 " Where are the girls ? " asked the farmer. 
 
 " They have been in these five minutes, and gone upstairs 
 to tidy themselves." 
 
 " What girls ? " faltered Kenelm, retreating towards the 
 door. " I thought you said you had no nieces." 
 
 " But I did not say I had no daughters. Why, you are 
 not afraid of them, are you ? 
 
 '' Sir," replied Kenelm, with a polite and politic evasion 
 of that question, " if your daughters are like their mother, 
 you can't say that they are not dangerous." 
 
 "Come," cried the farmer, looking very much pleased, 
 while his dame smiled and blushed— "come, that's as nicely 
 said as if you were canvassing the county. ' Tis not among 
 haymakers that you learned manners, I guess ; and perhaps 
 I have been making too free with my betters." 
 
 "What!" quoth the courteous Kenelm, " do you mean 
 to implv that you were too free with your shillings ? Apol- 
 ogize for that, if you like, but I don't think you'll get back 
 the shillings. I have not seen so much of this lite as you 
 have, but, according to my experience, when a man once 
 parts with his money, Avhether to his betters or his worsers, 
 the chances arc that he'll never see it again." 
 
 At this aphorism the farmer laughed ready to kill him- 
 self, his wife chuckled, and even the maid-of-all-work 
 grinned. Kenelm, preserving his unalterable gravity, said 
 to himself: 
 
 "Wit consists in the epigrammatic expression of a com- 
 monplace truth, and the dullest remark on the worth of 
 money is almost as sure of successful appreciation as the 
 dullest remark on the worthlessness of women. Certainly 
 I am a wit without knowing it." 
 
 Here the farmer touched him on the shoulder — touched 
 it, did not slap it, as he would have done ten minutes before 
 ■ — and said : 
 
 "We must not disturb the Missis, or we shall get no sup- 
 per. I'll just go and give a look into the cow-sheds. Do 
 you know much about cows ? " 
 
 " Yes, cows produce cream and butter. The best cows
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. . 89 
 
 are those which produce at the least cost the best cream and 
 butter. But how the best cream and butter can be produced 
 at a price whicli will place them free of expense on a poor 
 man's breakfast-table, is a question to be settled by a Re- 
 formed Parliament and a Liberal Administration. In the 
 meanwhile let us not delay the supper." 
 
 The farmer and his guest quitted the kitchen and entered 
 the farmyard. 
 
 " You are quite a stranger in these parts ?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 " You don't even know my name ? " 
 
 "No, except that I heard your wife call you John." 
 
 "My name is John Saunderson."' 
 
 "Ah ! you come from the north, then ? That's why you 
 are so sensible and shrewd. Names that end in * son ' are 
 chiefly borne by the descendants of the Danes, to whom 
 King Alfred, heaven bless him, peacefully assigned no less 
 than sixteen English counties. And when a Dane was called 
 somebody's son, it is a sign that he was the son of a some- 
 body." 
 
 " By gosh ! I never heard that before." 
 
 " If I thought you had, I should not have said it." 
 
 " Now I have told you my name, what is yours ?" 
 
 "A wise man asks questions and a fool answers them. 
 Suppose for a moment that I am not a fool." 
 
 Farmer Saunderson scratched his head, and looked more 
 puzzled than became the descendant of a Dane settled by 
 King Alfred in the north of England. 
 
 " Dash it," said he at last, " but I think you are Yorkshire 
 too." 
 
 "Man, who is the most conceited of all animals, says 
 that he alone has the prerogative of thought, and condemns 
 the other animals to the meaner mechanical operation which 
 he calls instinct. But as instincts are unerring and thoughts 
 generally go wrong, man has not much to boast of accord- 
 ing to his own definition. When you say you think, and 
 take it for granted that I am Yorkshire, you err. I am not 
 \orkshire. Confining yourself to instinct, can you divine 
 when we shall sup ? The cows you are about to visit divine 
 to a moment when they shall be fed." 
 
 Said the farmer, recovering his sense of superiority to 
 the guest whom he obliged with a supper, " In ten minutes." 
 Then, after a pause, and in a tone of deprecation, as if he 
 feared he might be thought fine, he continued : "We don't
 
 9:> KllNELM CIIILLIXGLY. 
 
 sup in the kitchen. My father did, and so did I till I mar- 
 ried ; but my Bess, though she's as good a fanner's wife as 
 ever wore shoe-leather, was a tradesman's daughter, and had 
 been brought up different. You see, she was not witliout a 
 good bit of money ; but even if she had been, I should not 
 have liked her folks to say I had lowered her — so we sup in 
 the parlor." 
 
 Quoth Kenelm, "The first consideration is to sup at all. 
 Supper conceded, every man is more likely to get on in life 
 who would rather sup in his parlor than his kitchen. Mean- 
 while, I see a pump ; while you ^o to the cows I will stay 
 here and wash my hands of them." 
 
 " Hold ; you seem a sharp fellow, and certainly no fool. 
 I have a son, a good smart chap, but stuck up ; crows it 
 over us all ; thinks no small beer of himself. You'd do me 
 a service, and him too, if you'd let him down a peg or two." 
 
 Kenelm, who was now hard at work at the pump-handle, 
 only replied by a gracious nod. But, as he seldom lost an 
 opportunity for rejection, he said to himself, while he laved 
 his face in the stream from the spout, " One can't wonder 
 why every small man thinks it so pleasant to let down a big 
 one, when a father asks a stranger to let down his own son 
 for even fancying that he is not small beer. It is upon that 
 principle in human nature that criticism wisely relinquishes 
 its pretensions as an analytical science and becomes a lucra- 
 tive profession. It relies on the pleasure its readers find in 
 letting a man down." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 It was a pretty, quaint farmhouse, such as might go well 
 with two or three hundred acres of tolerably good land, tol- 
 erably well farmed by an active old-fashioned tenant, who, 
 though he did not use mowing-machines nor steam-ploughs, 
 nor dabble in chemical experiments, still brought an ade- 
 quate capital to his land, and made the capital yield a very 
 fair return of interest. The supper was laid out in a good- 
 sized though low-pitched parlor with a glazed door, now 
 wide open, as were all the latticed windows, looking into a 
 small garden, rich in those straggling old English flowers 
 which are nowadays banished from gardens more pretentious
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 91 
 
 and infinitely less fragrant. At one corner vvas an arbor 
 covered with honeysuckle, and, opposite to it, a row of bee- 
 hives. The room itself had an air of comfort, and that sort 
 of elegance which indicates the presiding genius of feminine 
 taste. There were shelves suspended to the wall by blue 
 ribbons, and filled with small books neatly bound ; there 
 were fiower-pots in all the window-sills ; there was a small 
 cottage piano ; the walls were graced partly with engraved 
 portraits of county magnates and prize oxen, partly with 
 samplers in worsted-work, comprising verses of moral char- 
 acter and the names and birthdays of the farmer's grand- 
 mother, mother, wife, and daughters. Over the chimney- 
 piece was a small mirror, and above that the trophy of a 
 fox's brush ; while niched into an angle in the room was a 
 glazed cupboard, rich with specimens of old china, Indian 
 and English. 
 
 The party consisted of the farmer, his wife, three buxom 
 daughters, and a pule faced slender lad of about twenty, the 
 only son, who did not take willingly to farming : he had 
 been educated at a superior grammar school, and had high 
 notions about the March of Intellect and the Progress of 
 the Age. 
 
 Kenelm, though among the gravest of mortals, was one 
 of the least shy. In fact shyness is the usual symptom of a 
 keen amour-propre; and of that quality the youthful Chil- 
 lingly scarcely possessed more than did the three Fishes of 
 his hereditary scutcheon. He felt himself perfectly at home 
 with his entertainers ; taking care, however, that his atten- 
 tions were so equally divided between the three daughters 
 as to prevent all suspicion of a particular preference. 
 " There is safety in numbers," thought he, " especially in odd 
 numbers. The three Graces never married, neither did the 
 nine Muses." 
 
 " I presume, young ladies, that you are fond of music," 
 said Kenelm, glancing at the piano. 
 
 " Yes, I love it dearly," said the eldest girl, speaking for 
 the others. 
 
 Quoth the farmer, as he heaped the stranger's plate with 
 boiled beef and carrots, " Things are not what they were 
 when I was a boy ; then it was only great tenant-farmers 
 who had their girls taught the piano, and sent their boys to 
 a good school. Now we small folks are for helping our 
 children a step or two higher than our own place on the 
 ladder."
 
 92 KENF.LM CHILLmCLY. 
 
 "The sclioolrnnster is abroad," said the son, with the 
 emphasis of a sage adding an original aphorism to the stores 
 of philosophy. 
 
 " There is, no doubt, a greater equality of culture than 
 there was in the last generation," said Kenelm. " People 
 of all ranks utter the same commonplace ideas in very much 
 the same arrangements of syntax. And in proportion as 
 the democracy of intelligence extends — a friend of mine, 
 who is a doctor, tells me that complaints formerly reserved 
 to what is called the aristocracy (though what that word 
 means in plain English I don't know) are equally shared by 
 the commonalty — tic-doulourcux and other neuralgic mala- 
 dies abound. And the human race, in England at least, is 
 becoming more slight and delicate. There is a fable of a 
 man who, when he became exceedingly old, was turned into 
 a grasshopper. England is very old, and is evidently ap- 
 proaching the grasshopper state of development. Perhaps 
 we don't eat as much beef as our forefathers did. May I 
 ask vou for another slice ? " 
 
 Kenelm's remarks were somewhat over the heads of his 
 audience. But the son, taking them as a slur upon the en- 
 lightened spirit of the age, colored up and said, with a 
 knitted brow, " I hope, sir, that you are not an enemy to 
 progress." 
 
 " That depends : for instance, I prefer staying here, 
 where I am well off, to going farther and faring worse." 
 
 " Well said ! " cried the farmer. 
 
 Not deigning to notice that interruption, the son took up 
 Kenelm's replv with a sneer : " I suppose you mean that it 
 is to fare worse, if you march with the time." 
 
 " I am afraid we have no option but to march with the 
 time ; but when we reach that stage when to march any far- 
 ther is to march into old age, wc should not be sorrv if time 
 would be kind cuough to stand still ; and all good doctors 
 concur in advising us to do nothing to hurry him." 
 
 " There is no sign of old age in this country, sir ; and 
 thank heaven, we are not standing still !" 
 
 " Grasshoppers never do ; they are always hopping and 
 jumping, and making what they think * progress,' till (unless 
 they hop into the water and are swallowed up prematurely 
 by a carp or a frog) they die of the exhaustion which hops and 
 jumps unremitting naturally produce. May I ask you, Mrs. 
 Sai.inderson, for some of that rice-pudding ?" 
 
 The fanner, who, though he did not quite comprehend
 
 KENELM CHILUNGLY. 93 
 
 Kcnelm's metaphorical mode of arguing, saw delightedly 
 that his wise son looked more posed than himself, cried with 
 great glee, "Bob, my boy, — Bob ! our visitor is a little too 
 much for you ! " 
 
 "Oh, no," said Kenelm, modestly. "But I honestly 
 think Mr. Bob would be a wiser man, and a weightier man, 
 and more removed from the grasshopper state, if he would 
 think less and eat more pudding." 
 
 When the supper was over, the farmer offered Kenelm 
 a clay pipe filled with shag, which that adventurer accepted 
 with his habitual resignation to the ills of life ; and the 
 whole party, excepting Mrs. Saunderson, strolled into the 
 garden. Kenelm and Mr. Saunderson seated themselves in 
 the honey-suckle arbor ; the girls and the advocate of pro- 
 gress stood wnthout among the garden flowers. It was a 
 still and lovely night, the moon at her full. The farmer, 
 seated facing his hay-fields, smoked on placidly. Kenelm, 
 at the third whiff, laid aside his pipe, and glanced furtively 
 at the three Graces. They formed a pretty group, all clus- 
 tered together near the silenced beehives, the two younger 
 seated on the grass strip that bordered the flower-beds, their 
 arms over each other's shoulders, the elder one standing be- 
 hind them, with the moonlight shining soft on her auburn 
 hair. 
 
 Young Saunderson walked restlessly by himself to and 
 fro the path of gravel. 
 
 " It is a strange thing," ruminated Kenelm, "that girls 
 are not unpleasant to look at if you take them collectively 
 — two or three bound up together ; but if you detach any 
 one of them from the bunch, the odds are that she is as 
 plain as a pike-stafit". I wonder whether that bucolical 
 grasshopper, who is so enamored of the hop and jump that 
 he calls 'progress,' classes the society of the Mormons 
 among the evidences of civilized advancement. There is a 
 good deal to be said in favor of taking a whole lot of wives 
 as one may buy a whole lot of cheap razors. For it is not 
 impossible that out of a dozen a good one may be found. 
 And then, too, a whole nosegay of variegated blooms, with 
 a faded leaf here and there, must be more agreeable to the 
 eye than the same monotonous solitary lady's smock. But 
 I fear these reflections arc naughty ; let us change them. 
 Farmer," he said aloud, " I suppose your handsome daugh- 
 ters are too fine to assist you much. I did not see them 
 among the haymakers."
 
 94 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "Oh, tlicy were there, but by themselves, in the back 
 part of the field. I did not want them to mix with all the 
 girls, many of whom are strangers from other places. I 
 don't know anything against them ; but as I don't know any- 
 thing for them, I thought it as well to keep my lasses apart." 
 
 '* But I should have supposed it wiser to keep your son 
 apart from them. I saw him in the thick of those nymphs." 
 
 "Well," said the farmer, musingly, and withdrawing his 
 pipe from his lips, " I don't th.ink lasses not quite well 
 brought up, poor things ! do as much harm to the lads as 
 they can do to proper-behaved lasses — leastways my wife 
 does not think so. ' Keep good girls from bad girls,' says 
 she, 'and good girls will never go wrong.' And you Avill 
 find there is something in that when you have girls of your 
 own to take care of.' 
 
 " Without waiting for that time — which I trust may never 
 occur— I can recognize the wisdom of your excellent wife's 
 observation. My own opinion is, that a woman can more 
 easily do mischief to her own sex than to ours, — since, of 
 course, she cannot exist without doing mischief to some- 
 body or other." 
 
 "And good, too," said the jovial farmer, thumping his 
 fist on the table. " What should we be without the women ? " 
 
 " Very much better, I take it, sir. Adam was as good as 
 gold, and never had a qualm of conscience or stomach, till 
 Eve seduced him into eating raw apples." 
 
 " Young man, thou'st been crossed in love. I see it now. 
 That's wdiy thou look'st so sorrowful." 
 
 " Sorrowful ! Did you ever know a man crossed in love 
 who looked less sorrowful when he came across a pudding ? " 
 
 " Hey! but thou canst ply a good knife and fork — that 
 I will say for thee." Here the farmer turned round, and 
 gazed on Kcnelm with deliberate scrutiny. That scrutiny 
 accomplished, his voice took a somewhat more respectful 
 tone, as he resumed, " Do you know that you puzzle me 
 somewhat ? " 
 
 " Very likely. I am sure that I puzzle myself. Say on." 
 
 " Looking at your dress and — and " 
 
 " The two shillings you gave me ? Yes- 
 
 " I took you for the son of some small farmer like my- 
 self. But now I judge from your talk that you are a college 
 chap — anyhow, a gentleman. Ben't it so ? " 
 
 " My dear Mr. Saunderson, I set out on my travels, which 
 is not long ago, with a strong dislike to telling lies. But I
 
 KENELM CHILI.IXCT.V. 95 
 
 doubt if a man can get long through this world without find- 
 ing that the faculty of lying was bestowed on him by nature 
 as a necessary means of self-preservation. If you are going 
 to ask me any questions about myself, I am sure that I shall 
 tell you lies. Perhaps, therefore, it may be best for both if 
 I. decline the bed you proffered me, and take my night's 
 rest under a hedge." 
 
 "Pooh! I don't want to know more of a man's affairs 
 than he thinks fit to tell me. Stay and finish the haymak- 
 ing. And I say, lad, I'm glad you don't seem to care for 
 the girls ; for I saw a very pretty one trying to flirt with you 
 — and if you don't mind she'll bring you into trouble." 
 
 "How ? Does she want to run away from her uncle ?" 
 
 " Uncle ! Bless you, she don't live with him ! She lives 
 with her father ; and I never knew that she wants to run 
 away. In fact, Jessie Wiles — that's her name— is, I believe, 
 a very good girl, and everybody likes her— perhaps a little too 
 much ; but tlien she knows she's a beauty, and does not ob- 
 ject to admiration." 
 
 " No woman ever does, whether she's a beauty or not. 
 But I don't yet understand why Jessie Wiles should bring 
 me into trouble." 
 
 " Because there is a big hulking fellow Avho has gone half 
 out of his wits for her ; and when he fancies he sees any 
 other chap too sweet on her he thrashes him into a jelly. So, 
 youngster, you just keep your skin out of that trap." 
 
 " Hem ! And what does the girl say to those proofs of 
 affection ? Does she like the man the better for thrashing 
 other admirers into jelly?" 
 
 " Poor child ! No ; she hates the very sight of him. But 
 he swears she shall marry nobody else, if he hangs for it. 
 And to tell you the truth, I suspect that if Jessie does seem 
 to trifle with others a little too lightly, it is to draw away 
 this bully's suspicion from the only man I think she does care 
 for — a poor sickly young fellow who was crippled by an acci- 
 dent, and whom Tom Bowles could brain with his little 
 finger." 
 
 " This is really interesting," cried Kenelm, showing some- 
 thins: like excitement. " I should like to know this terrible 
 suitor." 
 
 " That's easy eno'," said the farmer, dryly. " You have 
 only to take a stroll with Jessie Wiles after sunset, and you'll 
 know more of Tom Bowles than you are likely to forget in 
 a month."
 
 96 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "Thank yoii very much for your information," said 
 Kenehn, in a soft tone, grateful but pensive. " 1 hope to 
 profit by it." 
 
 " Do. I should be sorry if any harm came to thee ; and 
 Tom Bowles in one of his furies is as bad to cross as a mad 
 bull. So now, as we must be up early, I'll just take a look 
 round the stables, and then off to bed ; and I advise you 
 to do the same." 
 
 " Thank you for the hint. I see the young ladies have 
 already gone in. Good-night." 
 
 Passing through the garden, Kenelm encountered the 
 junior Saunderson. 
 
 "I fear," said the Votary of Progress, "that you liave 
 found the governor awful slow. What have you been talk- 
 ing about ? " 
 
 " Girls," said Kenelm, " a subject always awful, but not 
 necessarily slow." 
 
 " Girls — the governor been talking about girls. You 
 joke." 
 
 " I wish I did joke, but that is a thing I could never do 
 since I came upon earth. Even in the cradle, I felt 
 that life was a very serious matter and did not allow of 
 jokes. I remember too well my first dose of castor-oil. 
 You too, Mr. Bob have doubtless imbibed that initiatory 
 preparation to tlie sweets of existence. The corners of 
 your mouth have not recovered fr^m the downward curves 
 into which it so rigidly dragged them. I>ike myself, you 
 are of grave temperament, and not easily moved to jocu- 
 larity — nay, an enthusiast for Progress is of necessity a man 
 eminently dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. And 
 chronic dissatisfaction resents the momentary relief of a joke." 
 
 " Give off chaffing, if you please," said Bob, lowering 
 the didascalar intonations of his voice, "and just tell me 
 plainly, did not my father say anything particular about me ? " 
 
 " Not a word. The only person of the male sex of whom 
 he said anything particular was Tom Bowles." 
 
 " What, fighting Tom ! the terror of the whole neighbor- 
 hood ! Ah, I guess the old gentleman is afraid lest Tom 
 may fall foul upon me. But Jessie Wiles is not worth a 
 quarrel with that brute. It is a crying shame in the Gov- 
 ernment " 
 
 "What! has the Government failed to appreciate the 
 heroism of Tom Bowles, or rather to restrain the excesses 
 of its ardor ? "
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 97 
 
 " Stuff ! it is a shame in the Government not to have 
 compelled his father to put him to school. If education 
 were universal " 
 
 " You think there would be no brutes in particular. It 
 may be so ; but education is universal in China, and so 
 is the bastinado. I thought, however, that you said the 
 schoolmaster was abroad, and that the age of enlightenment 
 was in full progress." 
 
 "Yes, in the towns, but not in these obsolete rural dis- 
 tricts ; and that brings me to the point. I feel lost — thrown 
 away here. I have something in me, sir, and it can only 
 come out by collision with equal minds. So do me a favor, 
 will you ? " 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure." 
 
 " Give the governor a hint that he can't expect me, after 
 the education I have had, to follow the plough and fatten 
 pigs ; and that Manchester is the place for me." 
 
 '' Why Manchester ? " 
 
 " Because I have a relation in business there who will 
 give me a clerkship if the governor will consent. And Man- 
 chester rules England." 
 
 " Mr. Bob Saunderson, I will do my best to promote your 
 Avishes. This is a land of liberty, and every man should 
 choose his own walk in it, so that, at the last, if he goes to 
 the dogs, he goes to them without that disturbance of 
 temper which is naturally occasioned by the sense of being 
 driven to their jaws by another man against his own will. 
 He has then no one to blame but himself. And that, Mr. 
 Bob, is a great comfort. When, having got into a scrape, 
 we blame others, we unconsciously become imjust, spiteful, 
 uncharitable, malignant, perhaps revengeful. We indulge 
 in feelings which tend to demoralize the whole character. 
 But when we only blame ourselves, we become modest and 
 penitent. We make allowances for others. And, indeed, 
 self-blame is a salutary exercise of conscience, which a really 
 good man performs every day of his life. And now, will 
 you show me the room in which I am to sleep, and forget 
 for a few hours that I am alive at all — the best thing that 
 can happen to us in this world, my dear Mr. Bob ! There's 
 never much amiss with our days, so long as we can forget 
 all about them the moment we lav our heads on the pillow." 
 
 The two young rnen entered the house amicably, arm in 
 arm. The girls had already retired, but Mrs. Saunderson 
 was still up to conduct her visitor to the guest's chamber—-
 
 98 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 a pretty room, which had been furnished twenty-two years 
 ago, on the occasion of the farmer's marriage, at the expense 
 of Mrs. Saunderson's mother, for her own occupation when- 
 ever she paid them a visit. And with its dimity curtains 
 and trellised paper it still looked as fresh and new as if 
 decorated and furnished yesterday. 
 
 Left alone, Kenelm undressed, and, before he got into 
 bed, bared his right arm, and doubling it, gravely contem- 
 plated its muscular development, passing his left hand over 
 that prominence in the upper part which is vulgarly called 
 the ball. Satisfied apparently with the size and the firmness 
 of that pugilistic protuberance, he gently sighed forth, " I 
 fear I shall have to lick Thomas Bowles." In five minutes 
 more he was asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The next day the hay-mowing was completed, and a 
 large portion of the hay already made carted away to be 
 stacked. Kenelm acquitted himself with a credit not less 
 praiseworthy than had previously won Mr. Saunderson's ap- 
 probation. But instead of rejecting as before the acquaint- 
 ance of Miss Jessie Wiles, he contrived towards noon to 
 place himself near to that dangerous beauty, and commenced 
 conversation. " I am afraid I was rather rude to you yester- 
 day, and I want to beg pardon." 
 
 ** Oh," answered the girl, in that simple intelligible Eng- 
 lish which is more frequent among our village folks nowa- 
 days than many popular novelists would lead us into sup- 
 posing— '' oh, I ought to ask pardon for taking a liberty in 
 speaking to you. But 1 thought you'd feel strange, and I 
 intended it kindly." 
 
 " I'm sure you did," returned Kenelm, chivalrously rak- 
 ing her portion of hay as well as his own, while he spoke. 
 " And I want to be good friends with you. It is very near 
 the time when we shall leave off for dinner, and Mrs. Saun- 
 derson has filled my pockets with some excellent beef-sand- 
 wiches, which I shall be happy to share with you, if you do 
 not object to dine with me here, instead of going home for 
 your dinner," 
 
 1
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 99 
 
 The girl hesitated, and then shook her head in dissent 
 from the proposition. 
 
 ** Are you afraid that your neighbors will think it 
 wrong ? " 
 
 Jessie curled up her lip with a pretty scorn, and said, 
 *' I don't much care what other folks say ; but isn't it 
 wrong ?" 
 
 " Not in the least. Let me make your mind easy. .lam 
 here but for a day or two ; we are not likely ever to meet 
 again ; but, before I go, I should be glad if 1 could do you 
 some little service." As he spoke he had paused from his 
 work, and, leaning on his rake, fixed his eyes, for the first 
 time attentively, on the fair haymaker. 
 
 Yes, she was decidedly pretty — pretty to a rare degree — 
 luxuriant brown hair neatly tied up, under a straw hat 
 doubtless of her own plaiting ; for, as a general rule, nothing 
 more educates the village maid for the destinies of flirt than 
 the accomplishment of straw-plaiting. She had large, soft 
 blue eyes, delicate small features, and a complexion more 
 clear in its healthful bloom than rural beauties generally 
 retain against the influences of wind and sun. She smiled 
 and slightly colored as he gazed on her, and, lifting her 
 eyes, gave him one gentle, trustful glance, which might have 
 bewitched a philosopher and deceived a I'oue. And yet 
 Kenelm, by that intuitive knowledge of character which is 
 often truthfulest where it is least disturbed by the doubts 
 and cavils of acquired knowledge, felt at once that in that 
 girl's mind coquetry, perhaps unconscious, was conjoined 
 with an innocence of anything worse than coquetry as com- 
 plete as a child's. He bowed his head, in withdrawing his 
 gaze, and took her into his heart as tenderly as if she had 
 been a child appealing to it for protection. 
 
 "Certainly," he said inly — "certainly I must lick Tom 
 Bowles ; yet stay, perhaps after all she likes him." 
 
 "But," he continued aloud, "you do not see how I can 
 be of any service to you. Before I explain, let me ask 
 which of the men in the field is Tom Bowles ? " 
 
 " Tom Bowles ! " exclaimed Jessie, in a tone of surprise 
 and alarm, and turning pale as she looked hastily round ; 
 "you frightened me, sir, but he is not here; he does not 
 work in the fields. But how came you to hear of Tom Bow- 
 les ? " 
 
 " Dine with me and I'll tell you. Look, there is a quiet 
 place in yon corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of
 
 loo KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 water. See, they are leaving off work : I will go for a can 
 of beer, and then, pray, let me join yoii there." 
 
 Jessie paused fcjr a moment as if doubtful still ; then 
 again glancing at Kenelm, and assured by the grave kind- 
 ness of his countenance, uttered a scarce audible assent, and 
 moved away towards tlie thorn-trees. 
 
 As the sun now stood perpendicularly over their heads, 
 and the hand of the clock in the village church tower, soaring 
 over the hedgerows, reached the first hour after noon, all 
 work ceased in a sudden silence ; some of the girls went 
 back to their homes ; those who stayed grouped together, 
 apart from the men, who took their way to the shadows of a 
 large (jak-tree in the hedgerow, where beer-kegs and cans 
 awaited them. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " And now," said Kenelm, as the two young persons, 
 having finished their simple repast, sat under tlie thorn- 
 trees and by the side of the water, fringed at that part with 
 tall reeds through which the light summer breeze stirred 
 with a pleasant murmur, — "now I will talk to you about 
 Tom Bowles. Is it true that you don't like that brave 
 young fellow ? — I say young, as I take his youth for 
 granted." 
 
 " Like him ! I hate the sight of him." 
 
 "Did you always hate the sight of him? You must 
 surely at one time have allowed him to think that yon did 
 not?" 
 
 The girl winced, and made no answer, but plucked a 
 daffodil from the soil and tore it ruthlessly to pieces. 
 
 " I am afraid you like to serve your admirers as you do 
 that ill-fated flower," said Kenelm, with some severity of 
 tone. "But concealed in the flower you may sometimes find 
 the sting of a bee. I see by your countenance that you did 
 not tell Tom Bowles that you hated him till it was too late 
 to prevent his losing his wits for you." 
 
 " No ; I wasn't so bad as that," said Jessie, looking, 
 nevertheless, rather ashamed of herself; "but I was silly 
 and giddy-like, I own ; and, when he first took notice of 
 me, I was pleased, without thinking much of it, because.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. loi 
 
 you see, Mr. Bowles [emphasis on J/r.] is higlier up than a 
 poor girl like me. He is a tradesman, and I am only a 
 shepherd's daughter — though, indeed, father is more like 
 Mr. Saunderson's foreman than a mere shepherd. But I 
 never thought anything serious of it, and did not suppose 
 he did — that is, at first." 
 
 " So Tom Bowles is a tradesman. What trade? " 
 
 " A farrier, sir." 
 
 "And, I am told, a very fine young man." 
 
 " I don't know as to that : he is very big." 
 
 "And what made you hate him ? " 
 
 " The first thing that made me hate him w^as, that he in- 
 sulted father, who is a very quiet, timid man, and threat- 
 ened, I don't know what, if father did not make me keep 
 company with him. Make me, indeed ! But Mr. Bowles is 
 a dangerous, bad-hearted, violent man, and — don't laugh at 
 me, sir — but I dreamed one night he vvas murdering me. 
 And I think he will too, if he stays here ; and so does his 
 poor mother, who is a very nice woman, and wants him to 
 go away ; but he'll not." 
 
 "Jessie," said Kenelm, softly, " I said I wanted to make 
 friends with you. Do you think you can make a friend of 
 me ? I can never be more than friend. But I should like to 
 be that. Can you trust me as one ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl firmly, and, as she lifted her 
 eyes to him, their look was pure from all vestige of co- 
 quetry — guileless, frank, grateful. 
 
 " Is there not another young man who courts you more 
 civilly than Tom Bowles does, and whom you really could 
 find it in your heart to like ? " 
 
 Jessie looked round for anotlier daffodil, and,'not finding 
 one, contented herself with a blue-bell, which she did not 
 tear to pieces, but caressed with a tender hand. Kenelm 
 bent his eyes down on her charming face with something in 
 their gaze rarely seen there — something of that unreason- 
 ing, inexpressible human fondness, for which philosophers 
 of his school have no excuse. Had ordinary mortals, like 
 you or myself, for instance, peered through the leaves of 
 the thorn-trees, we should have sighed or frowned, accord' 
 ing to our several temperaments, but we should all have 
 said, whether spitefully or envyingly, " Happy young 
 lovers ! " and should all have blundered lamentably in so 
 saying. 
 
 Srill. there is no denvincr the fact that anrettvface has a
 
 I02 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 very unfair advantage over a plain one. And, much to the 
 discredit of Kenehri's philanthropy, it may be reasonably 
 doubted whether, had Jessie Wiles been endowed by nature 
 with a snub nose and a squint, Kenehn would have volun- 
 teered his friendly services, or meditated battle with Tom 
 Bowles on her behalf. 
 
 But there was no touch of envy or jealousy in the tone 
 with which he said : 
 
 " I see there is some one you would like well enough to 
 marr}', and that you make a great difference in the way you 
 treat a daffodil and a blue-bell. Who and what is the 
 young man whom the blue-bell represents ? Come, con- 
 fide."^ 
 
 *' We were much brought up together," said Jessie, still 
 looking down, and still smoothing the leaves of the blue- 
 bell. "His mother lived in the next cottage; and my 
 mother was very fond of him, and so was father too ; and, 
 before I was ten years old, they used to laugh when poor 
 Will called me his little wife." Here the tears which had 
 started to Jessie's eyes began to fall over the flower. " But 
 now father would not hear of it ; and it can't be. And I've 
 tried to care for some one else, and I can't, and that's the 
 truth." 
 
 " But why ? Has he turned out ill ? — taken to poaching 
 or drink ? " 
 
 " No — no — no, — he's as steady and good a lad as ever 
 lived. But— but " 
 
 " He's a cripple now — and I love him all the better for 
 it." Here Jessie fairly sobbed. 
 
 Kenelm was greatly moved, and prudently held his 
 peace till sheliad a little recovered herself ; then, in answer 
 to his gentle questionings, he learned that Will Somers — till 
 then a healthy and strong lad — had fallen from the height 
 of a scaifolding, at the age of sixteen, and been so seriously 
 injured that he was mcn-ed at once to the hospital. When 
 he came out of it — what with the fall, and what with the 
 long illness which had followed the effects of the accident — 
 he was not only crippled for life, but of health so delicate 
 and weakly that he was no longer fit for out-door labor and 
 the hard life of a peasant. He was an only son of a wid- 
 owed mother, and his sole mode of assisting her was a very 
 precarious one. He had taught himself basket-making ; 
 and though, Jessie said, his work was very ingenious and 
 clever, still there were but few customers for it in that
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 103 
 
 neighborhood. And, alas ! even if Jessie's father would 
 consent to give his daughter to the poor cripple, how could 
 the poor cripple earn enough to maintain a wife ? 
 
 " And," said Jessie, " still I was happy, walking out with 
 him on Sunday evenings, or going to sit with him and his 
 mother— for we are both young and can wait. But I daren't 
 do it any more now — for Tom Bowles has sworn that if I do 
 he will beat him before my eyes ; and Will has a high spirit, 
 and I should break n)y heart if any harm happened to him 
 on my account." 
 
 "As for Mr. Bowles, we'll not think of him at present. 
 But if Will could maintain himself and 3'ou, your father 
 would not object, nor you either, to a marriage with the 
 poor cripple ? " 
 
 " Father would not ; and as for me, if it weren't for dis- 
 obeying father, I'd marry him to-morrow. — /can work." 
 
 " They are going back to the hay now ; but after that 
 task is over, let me walk home with you, and show me Will's 
 cottage and Mr. Bowles's shop, or forge." 
 
 " But you'll not say anything to Mr. Bowles. He 
 wouldn't mind your being a gentleman, as I now see you 
 are, sir ; and he's dangerous— oh, so dangerous ! — and so 
 strong." 
 
 "Never fear," answered Kenelm, with the nearest ap- 
 proach to a laugh he had ever made since childhood ; "but 
 when we are relieved, wait for me a few minutes at yon 
 gate." 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 Kenelm spoke no more to his new friend in the hay- 
 fields ; but when the day's work was over he looked round 
 for the farmer to make an excuse for not immediately join- 
 ing the family supper. However, he did not see either Mr. 
 Saunderson or his son. Both were busied in the stackyard. 
 Well pleased to escape excuse and the questions it might 
 provoke, Kenelm therefore put on the coat he had laid aside 
 and joined Jessie, who had waited for him at the gate. They 
 entered the lane side by side, following the stream of vil- 
 lagers who were slowly wending their homeward way. It 
 was a primitive English village, not adorned on the one 
 hand with fancy or model cottages, nor on the other hand
 
 I04 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 indicating penury and squalor. The church rose before 
 them gray and Gothic, backed by the red clouds in which 
 the sun had set, and bordered by the glebe-land of the half- 
 seen parsonage. Then came the village green, with a pretty 
 schoolhouse ; and to this succeeded a long street of scat- 
 tered whitewashed cottages, in the midst of their own little 
 gardens. 
 
 As they walked, the moon rose in full splendor, silvering 
 the road before them. 
 
 "Who is the squire here?" asked Kenelm. "I should 
 guess him to be a good sort of man, and well off." 
 
 " Yes, — Squire Travers ; he is a great gentleman, and 
 they say very rich. But his place is a good way from this 
 village. You can see it if you stay, for he gives a harvest- 
 home supper on Saturday, and Mr. Saunderson and all his 
 tenants are going. It is a beautiful park, and Miss Travers 
 is a sight to look at. Oh, she is lovely !" continued Jessie, 
 with an unaffected burst of admiration ; for w^omen are more 
 sensible of the charm of each other's beauty than men give 
 them credit for. 
 
 " As pretty as yourself ? " 
 
 " Oh, pretty is not the word. She is a thousand times 
 handsomer ! " 
 
 " Humph ! " said Kenelm, incredulously. 
 
 There was a pause, broken by a qviick sigh from Jessie. 
 
 "What are you sighing for ?— tell me." 
 
 " I was thinking that a very little can make folks happy, 
 but that somehow or other that very little is as hard to get 
 as if one set one's heart on a great deal." 
 
 "That's very wisely said. Everybody covets a little 
 something for which, perhaps, nobody else would give a 
 straw. But what's the very little thing for which you are 
 siirhinsT ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Bawtrey wants to sell tliat shop of hers. She is 
 getting old, and has had fits ; and she can get nobody to 
 buy ; and if Will had that shop and I could keep it — but 'tis 
 no use thinking of that." 
 
 " What shop do you mean ? " 
 
 "There!" 
 
 "Where? I see no shop." 
 
 " But it is the shop of the village — the only one, where 
 the post-ofBce is." 
 
 "Ah ! I see something at the windows like a red cloak. 
 What do they sell ? "
 
 KEN'ELM ClllLLIMGLT. 105 
 
 " Everything — tea and sugar, and candles, and shawls, 
 and gowns, and cloaks, and mouse-traps, and letter-paper ; 
 and Mrs. Bawtrey buys poor Will's baskets, and sells tliem 
 for a good deal more than she pays." 
 
 " It seems a nice cottage, with a field and orchard at the 
 back." 
 
 " Yes. Mrs. Bawtrey pays ^8 a year for it ; but the shop 
 can well afford it." 
 
 Kenelm made no reply. They both walked on in silence, 
 and had now reached the centre of the village street, when 
 Jessie, looking up, uttered an abrupt exclamation, gave an 
 affrighted start, and then came to a dead stop. 
 
 Kenelm's eye followed the direction of hers, and saw, a 
 few yards distant, at the other side of the w\ay, a small red 
 brick house, with thatched sheds adjoining it, the whole 
 standing in a wnde yard, over the gate of which leaned a 
 man smoking a small cutty-pipe. "It is Tom Bowles," 
 whispered Jessie, and instinctively she twined her arm into 
 Kenelm's— then, as if on second thoughts, withdrew it, and 
 said, still in a whisper, " Go back now, sir — ^do." 
 
 " Not I. It is Tom Bowles whom I want to know. 
 Hush ! " 
 
 For here Tom Bowles had thrown down his pipe and was 
 coming slowly across the road towards them. 
 
 Kenelm eyed him with attention. A singularly power- 
 ful man, not so tall as Kenelm by some inches, but still 
 above the middle height, herculean shoulders and chest, the 
 lower limbs not in equal proportion — a sort of slouching, 
 shambling gait. As he advanced, the moonlight fell on his 
 face, — it was a handsome one. He wore no hat, and his hair, 
 of a light brown, curled close. His face was fresh-colored, 
 with aquiline features ; his age apparently about six or seven- 
 and-twenty. Coming nearer and nearer, whatever favorable 
 impression the first glance at his physiognomy might have 
 made on Kenelm was dispelled, for the expression of his 
 face changed and became fierce and lowering. 
 
 Kenelm was still walking on, Jessie by his side, when 
 Bowles rudely thrust himself between them, and seizing the 
 girl's arm with one hand, he turned his face full on Kenelm, 
 with a menacing wave of the other hand, and said, in a deep 
 burlv voice : 
 
 "'Who be you ? " 
 
 " Let go that young woman before I tell you." 
 
 " If you weren't a stranger," answered Bowles, seeming
 
 io6 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 as if he tried to repress a rising fit of wralh, " you'd be in 
 the kennel for tliose words. But I s'pose you don't know 
 that I'm Tom Bowles, and I don't choose the girl as Tni after 
 to keep company witii any other man. So you be off." 
 
 "And 1 clon't choose any other man to lay violent hands 
 on any girl walking by my side without telling him that he's 
 a brute, and tliat 1 only wait till he has both his hands at 
 liberty to let him know tiiat he has not a poor cripple to 
 deal with." 
 
 Tom Bowles could scarcely believe his ears. Amaze 
 swallowed up for the moment every other sentiment. Me- 
 chanically he loosened his hold of Jessie, who fled off like a 
 bird released. But evidently she thought of her new friend's 
 danger more than her own escape ; for, instead of sheltering 
 herself in her father's cottage, she ran towards a group of 
 laborers, who, near at hand, had stopped loitering before the 
 public-house, and returned with those allies towards the spot 
 in which she had left the two men. She was very popidar 
 M'ith the villagers, who, strong in the sense of numbers, o\er- 
 came their awe of Tom Bowles, and arrived at the place half 
 running, half striding, in time, they hoped, to interpose be- 
 tween his terrible arm and the bones of the unoffending 
 stranger. 
 
 Meanwhile Bowles, having recovered his first astonish- 
 ment, and scarcely noticing Jessie's escape, still left his i ight 
 arm extended towards the place she had vacated, and with a 
 quick back-stroke of the left levelled at Kenelm's face, 
 growled contemptuously, " Thou'lt find one hand enough 
 for thee." 
 
 But quick as was his aim, Kenelm caught the lifted arm 
 just above the elbow, causing the blow to waste itself on air, 
 and with a simultaneous advance of his right knee and foot 
 dexterously tripped up his bulky antagonist, and laid him 
 sprawling on his back. The movement was so sudden, and 
 the stun it occasioned so utter, morally as well as physically, 
 that a minute or more elapsed before Tom Bowles picked 
 himself up. And he then stood another n)inute glowering 
 at his antagonist with a vague sentiment of awe almost like 
 a superstitious panic. For it is noticeable that, however 
 fierce and fearless a man or even a wild beast may be, yet if 
 either has hitherto been only familiar with victory and tri- 
 umph, never yet having met with a foe that could cope with 
 its force, the first effect of a defeat, especially from a de- 
 spised adversary, unhinges and half paralyzes the whole
 
 • KENELM CHILLINGLY. 107 
 
 nervous system. But as fighting Tom gradually recovered 
 to the consciousness of his own strength, and the recollec- 
 tion that it had been only foiled by the skilful trick of a 
 wrestler, not the hand-to-hand might of a pugilist, the panic 
 vanished, and Tom Bowles was himself again. " Oh, that's 
 your sort, is it?" said he. "We don't fight with our heels 
 hereabouts, like Cornishers and donkeys ; we fight with our 
 fists, youngster ; and since you K////have about at that, why 
 you must." 
 
 " Providence," answered Kenelm, solemnly, " sent me to 
 this village for the express purpose of licking Tom Bowles. 
 It is a signal mercy vouchsafed to yourself, as you will one 
 day acknowledge." 
 
 Again a thrill of awe, something like that which the 
 demagogue in Aristophanes might have felt when braved by 
 the sausage-maker, shot through the valiant heart of Tom 
 Bowles. He did not like those ominous words, and still less 
 the lugubrious tone of voice in which they were uttered. 
 But resolved, at least, to proceed to battle with more pre- 
 paration than he had at first designed, he now deliberately 
 disencumbered himself of his heavy fustian jacket and vest, 
 rolled up his shirt sleeves, and then slowly advanced towards 
 the foe. 
 
 Kenelm had also, with still greater deliberation, taken off 
 his coat— which he folded up with care, as being both anew 
 and an only one, and deposited by the hedge-side — and bared 
 arms, lean'indeed, and almost slight, as compared with the 
 vast muscle of his adversary, but firm in sinew as the hind- 
 leg of a stag. 
 
 " By this time the laborers, led by Jessie, had arrived at 
 the spot, and were about to crowd in between the combat- 
 ants, when Kenelm waved them back, and said in a calm and 
 impressive voice : 
 
 " Stand round, my good friends, make a ring, and see 
 that it is fair play on my side. I am sure it will be fair on 
 Mr. Bowles's. He's big enough to scorn what is little. And 
 now, Mr. Bowles, just a word with you in the presence of 
 your neighbors. 1 am not going to say anything uncivil. If 
 you are rather rough and hasty, a man is not always master 
 of himself — at least so I am told— when he thinks more than 
 he ought to do about a pretty girl. But I can't look at your 
 face even by this moonlight, and though its expression at 
 this moment is rather cross, without being sure that you are
 
 io8 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 a fine fellow at bottom. And that if you give a promise as 
 man to man you will keep it. Is that so? " 
 
 One or two of the bystanders murmured assent ; the 
 others pressed round in silent wonder. 
 
 " What's all that soft-sawder about ? " said Tom Bowles, 
 somewhat falteringly. 
 
 " Simply this : if in the fight between us I beat you, I ask 
 you to promise before your neighbors that you will not by 
 word or deed molest or interfere again Avith Miss Jessie 
 Wiles." 
 
 " Eh ! " roared Tom. '* Is it that iw« are after her ? " 
 
 " Suppose I am, if that pleases you ; and, on my side, I 
 promise that, if you beat me, I quit this place as soon as you 
 leave me well enough to do so, and will never visit it again. 
 What ! do you hesitate to promise ? Are you really afraid I 
 shall lick you ? " 
 
 "You ! I'd smash a dozen of you to powder." 
 
 " In that case, you are safe to promise. Come, 'tis a fair 
 bargain. Isn't it, neighbors ?" 
 
 Won over by Kenelm's easy show of good temper, and 
 by the sense of justice, the bystanders joined in a common 
 exclamation of assent. 
 
 "Come, Tom," said an old fellow, "the gentleman can't 
 speak fairer ; and we shall all think you be afeard if you 
 hold back." 
 
 Tom's face worked; but at last he growled, "Well, I 
 promise — that is, if he beats me." 
 
 "All right," said Kenelm. "You hear, neighbors ; and 
 Tom Bowles could not show that handsome face of his 
 among you if he broke his word. Shake hands on it." 
 
 Fighting Tom sulkily shook hands. 
 
 "Well, now, that's what I call English," said Kenelm, — 
 "all pluck and no malice. Fall back, friends, and leave a 
 clear space for us." 
 
 The men all receded ; and as Kenelm took his ground, 
 there was a supple ease in his posture which at once brought 
 out into clearer evidence the nervous strength of his build, 
 and, contrasted with Tom's bulk of chest, made the latter 
 look clumsy and top-heavy. 
 
 The two men laced each other a minute, the eyes of both 
 vigilant and steadfast. Tom's blood began to fire up as he 
 gazed — nor, with all his outward calm, was Kenelm insensi- 
 ble of that proud beat of the heart which is aroused by the 
 fierce joy of combat. Tom struck out first, and a blow was
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 109 
 
 parried, but not returned ; another and another blow — still 
 parried — still unreturned. Kenelm, acting evidently on the 
 defensive, took all the advantages for that strategy which he 
 derived from superior length of arm and lighter agility of 
 frame. Perhaps he wished to ascertain the extent of his 
 adversary's skill, or to try the endurance of his wind, before 
 he ventured on the hazards of attack. Tom, galled to tlie 
 quick that blows which might have felled an ox were thus 
 warded off from their mark, and dimly aware that he was 
 encountering some mysterious skill which turned his brute 
 strength into waste force and might overmaster him in the 
 long-run, came to a rapid conclusion that the sooner he 
 brought that brute strength to bear, the better it would be 
 for him. Accordingly, after three rounds, in which, without 
 once breaking the guard of his antagonist, he had received 
 a few playful taps on the nose and mouth, he drew back, and 
 made a bull-like rush at his foe — bull-like, for it butted full 
 at him with the powerful down-bent head, and the two fists 
 doing duty as horns. The rush spent, he found himself in 
 the position of a man milled. I take it for granted that every 
 Englishman who can call himself a man — that is, every man 
 who has been an English boy, and, as such, been compelled 
 to the use of his fists — knows what "a mill " is. But I sing 
 not only "pueris"but " virginibus." Ladies, "a mill" — 
 using, with reluctance and contempt for myself, that slang 
 in which lady-writers indulge, and Girls of the Period know 
 much better than they do their Murray — " a mill " — speak- 
 ing not to lady- writers, not to Girls of the Period, but to in- 
 nocent damsels, and in explanation to those foreigners who 
 only understand the English language as taught by Addison 
 and Macaulay — "a mill," periphrastically, means this : your 
 adversary, in the noble encounter between fist and fist, has 
 so plunged his head that it gets caught, as in a vice, between 
 the side and doubled left arm of the adversary, exposing that 
 head, unprotected and helpless, to be pounded out of recog- 
 nizable shape by the right fist of the opponent. It is a sit- 
 uation in which superiority of force sometimes finds itself, 
 and is seldom spared by disciplined superiority of skill. 
 Kenelm, his right fist raised, paused for a moment, then, 
 loosening the left arm, releasing the prisoner, and giving 
 him a friendly slap on the shoulder, he turned around to the 
 spectators, and said, apologetically, " He has a handsome 
 face — it would be a shame to spoil it." 
 
 Tom's position of oeril was so obvious to all, and that
 
 no KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 good-humored abnegation of the advantage which the posi- 
 tion gave to the adversary seemed so geneious, that the la- 
 borers actually hurrahed. Tom himself felt as if treated 
 like a child ; and alas, and alas for him 1 in wheeling round, 
 and regathcring himself up, his eye rested on Jessie's face. 
 Her lips were apart with breathless terror; he fancied they 
 were apart with a smile of contempt. And now he became 
 formidable. He fought as fights the bull in presence of the 
 heifer, wlio, as he knows too well, will g<j with the conqueror. 
 
 If Tom had never yet fought with a man taught by a prize- 
 fighter, so never yet had Kenelm encountered a strength 
 which, but for the lack of that teaching, would have con- 
 quered his own. He could act no longer on the defensive; 
 he could no longer plav, like a dexterous fencer, with the 
 sledge-hammers of those mighty arms. They broke through 
 his guard — they sounded on his chest as on an anvil. He felt 
 that did they alight on his head he was a lost man. He felt 
 also that the blows spent on the chest of his adversary were 
 idle as the stroke of a cane on the hide of a rhinoceros. 
 But now his nostrils dilated, liis eyes flashed fire — Kenelm 
 Chillingly had ceas-d to be a philosopher. Crash came his 
 blow— how unlike the swinging roundabout hits of Tom 
 Bowles ! — straight to its aim as the rifle-ball of a Tyrolese, or 
 a British marksman at Aldershot — all the strength of nerve, 
 sinew, purpose, and mind concentred in its vigor, — crash just 
 at that part of the front where the eyes meet, and followed 
 up with the rapidity of lightning, flash upon flash, by a more 
 restrained but more disabling blow with the left hand just 
 where the left ear meets throat and jaw-bone. 
 
 At the first blow Tom Bowles had reeled and staggered, 
 at the second lie threw up his hands, made a jump in the air 
 as if shot through the heart, and then heavily fell forwards, 
 an inert mass. 
 
 The spectators pressed round him in terror. They thought 
 he was dead. Kenelm knelt, passed quickly his hand over 
 Tom's lips, pulse, and heart, and then rising, said, humbly and 
 with an air of apology : 
 
 " If he had been a less magnificent creature, I assure you 
 on my honor that I should never have ventured that second 
 blow. The first would have done for any man less splendidly 
 endowed by nature. Lift him gently ; take him home. Tell 
 his mother, with my kind regards, that I'll call and see her 
 and him to-morrow. And, stop, docs he ever drink too much 
 beer?"
 
 KE.VEL.'I CHILLINGLY. in 
 
 "Well," said one the villagers, "Tom can drink." 
 
 •* I thought so. Too much flesh for that muscle. Go 
 tor the nearest doctor. You, my lad .' — good — off with you 
 — quick ! No danger; but perhaps it may be a case for 
 the lancet." 
 
 Tom Bowles was lifted tenderly by four of the stoutest 
 men present and borne into his home, evincing no sign of 
 consciousness, but his face, where not clouted with blood, 
 very pale, very calm, with a slight froth at the lips. 
 
 Kenelm pulled down his shirt sleeves, put on his coat, 
 and turned to Jessie : 
 
 " Now, my young friend, show me Will's cottage." 
 
 The girl came to him white and trembling. She did not 
 drire to speak. The stranger had become a new man in her 
 eyes. Perhaps he frightened her as much as Tom Bowles 
 had done. But she quickened her pace, leaving the public- 
 house behind, till she came to the farther end of tlie village. 
 Kenelm walked beside her, muttering to himself ; and 
 though Jessie caught his words, happily she did not under- 
 stand, for they repeated one of those bitter reproaclics on 
 her sex, as the main cause of all strife, bloodshed, and mis- 
 chief in general, with Avhich the classic authors abound. 
 His spleen soothed by that recourse to the lessons of the 
 ancients, Kenelm turned at last to his silent companion, 
 and said, kindly but gravely : 
 
 " Mr. Bowles has given me his promise, and it is fair 
 that I should now ask a promise from you. It is this — just 
 consider how easily a girl so pretty as you can be the cause 
 of a man's death. Had Bowles struck me where I struck 
 him, I should have been past the help of a surgeon." 
 
 "Oh!" groaned Jessie, shuddering, and covering her 
 face with both hands. 
 
 " And, putting aside that danger, consider that a man 
 nay be hit mortally on the heart as well as on the head, and 
 that a woman has much to answer for who, no matter what 
 her excuse, forgets what misery and what guilt can be in- 
 flicted l;y a word from her lip and a glance from her eve. 
 Consider this, and promise that, whether you marry Will 
 Somers or not, you will never again give a man fair cause 
 to think you can like him unless your own heart tells you 
 that you can. Will you promise that ? " 
 
 " I will, indeed — indeed." Poor Jessie's voice died in 
 sobs. 
 
 " Tli'^re, my child, I don't ask you not to cry, because I
 
 112 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 know how much women like crying, and in this instance it 
 does you a great deal of good. But we are just at the end 
 of the vilhige. Which is Will's cottage ? " 
 
 Jessie lifted her head, and pointed to a solitary, small 
 thatched cottage. 
 
 " I would ask you to come in and introduce me ; but 
 that might look too much like crowing over poor Tom 
 Bowles. So good-night to you, Jessie, and forgive me for 
 preaching." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Kenelm knocked at the cottage door : a voice said faint- 
 ly, " Come in." 
 
 He stooped his head, and stepped over the threshold. 
 
 Since his encounter with Tom Bowles, his sympathies 
 had gone with that unfortunate lover — it is natural to like a 
 man after you have beaten him ; and he was by no means 
 predisposed to favor Jessie's preference for a sickly cripple. 
 
 Yet, when two bright, soft, dark eyes, and a pale intel- 
 lectual countenance, with that nameless aspect of refine- 
 ment which delicate health so often gives, especially to the 
 young, greeted his quiet gaze, his heart was at once Avon 
 over to the side of the rival. Will Somers was seated by the 
 hearth, on which a few live embers, despite the warmth of 
 the summer evening, still burned ; a rude little table was by 
 his side, on which were laid osier twigs and white peeled 
 chips, together with an open book. His hands, pale and 
 slender, were at work on a small basket half finished. His 
 mother w^as just clearing away the tea-things from another 
 table that stood by the window. Will rose, with the good 
 breeding that belongs to the rural peasant, as the stranger 
 entered ; the widow looked round with surprise, and dropped 
 her simple curtsy — a little thin woman, with a mild patient 
 face. 
 
 The cottage was very tidily kept, as it is in most village 
 homes where the woman has it her own way. The deal 
 dresser opposite the door had its display of humble crock- 
 ery. The whitewashed walls were relieved with colored 
 prints, chiefly Scriptural subjects from the New Testament, 
 such as the return of the Prodigal Son, in a blue coat and 
 yellow inexpressibles, with his stockings about his heels.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 113 
 
 At one corner there were piled up baskets of various 
 sizes, and at another corner was an open cupboard contain- 
 ing books — an article of decorative furniture found in cot- 
 tages much more rarely than colored prints and gleaming 
 crockery. 
 
 All this, of course, Kenelm could not at a glance com- 
 prehend in detail. But as the mind of a man accustomed 
 to generalization is marvellously quick in forming a sound 
 judgment, whereas a mind accustomed to dwell only on de- 
 tail is wonderfully slow at arriving at any judgment at all, 
 and when it does, the probability is that it will arrive at a 
 wrong one, Kenelm judged correctly when he came to this 
 conclusion : " I am among simple English peasants ; but, 
 for some reason or other, not to be explained by the rela- 
 tive amount of wages, it is a favorable specimen of that 
 class." 
 
 '' I beg your pardon for intruding at this hour, Mrs. Som- 
 ers," said Kenelm, who had been too familiar with peasants 
 from his earliest childhood not to know how quickly, when 
 in the presence of their household gods, they appreciate 
 respect, and how acutely they feel the want of it. " But 
 my stay in the village is very short, and I should not like 
 to leave without seeing your son's basket-work, of which I 
 have heard much." 
 
 "You are very good, sir," said Will, with a pleased smile 
 that wonderfully brightened up his face. " It is only just 
 a few common things that I keep by me. Any finer sort 
 of work I mostly do by order." 
 
 "You see, sir," said Mrs. Somers, "it takes so much 
 more time for pretty work-baskets, and such like ; and un- 
 less done to order, it might be a chance if he could get it 
 sold. But pray be seated, sir," and Mrs. Somers placed a 
 chair for her visitor, '-while I just run up-stairs for tlie 
 work-basket which my son has made for Miss Travers. It 
 is to go home to-morrow, and I put it away for fear of acci- 
 dents." 
 
 Kenelm seated himself, and, drawing his chair near to 
 Will's, took up the half-finished basket which the young 
 man had laid down on the table. 
 
 " This seems to me very nice and delicate workmanship," 
 said Kenelm; " and the shape, when you have finished it, 
 will be elegant enough to please the taste of a lady." 
 
 "It is for Mrs. Lethbridge," said Will; ''she wanted 
 something to hold cards and letters ; and I took the shape
 
 114 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 from a book of drawings which Mr. Lcthbridge kindly lent 
 nie. You know Mr. Lethbridge, sir ? He is a very good 
 gentleman." 
 
 " No, I don't know him. Who is he ? " 
 
 '■'■ Our clergyman, sir. This is the book." 
 
 To Kenelm's surprise, it was a work on Pompeii, and 
 contained woodcuts of the implements and ornaments, mo- 
 saics and frescoes, found in tliat memorable little city. 
 
 " I see this is your model," said Kenelm ; " what they 
 call Ti patera, and rather a famous one. You are copying it 
 much more trutlifuUv than I should have supposed it pos- 
 sible to do in substituting basket-work forbronze. But you 
 observe that much of the beauty of this shallow bowl de- 
 pends on tlie two doves perched on the brim. You can't 
 manage that ornamental addition." 
 
 " Mrs. Lethbridge thought of putting there two little 
 stuffed canary-birds." 
 
 " Did she ? Good heavens ! " exclaimed Kenelm. 
 
 " But somehow," continued Will, " I did not like that, 
 and I made bold to say so." 
 
 "Why did not you like it?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know ; but I did not think it would be the 
 right thing." 
 
 "It would have been very bad taste, and spoilt the ef- 
 fect of your basket-work ; and I'll endeavor to explain why. 
 You see here, in the next page, a drawing of a very beauti- 
 ful statue. Of course this statue is intended to be a repre- 
 sentation of nature — but nature idealized. You don't know 
 the meaning of that hard word, idealized, and very few peo- 
 ple do. But it means the performance of a something in 
 art according to the idea which a man's mind forms to it- 
 self out of a something in nature. That something in nature 
 must, of course, have been carefully studied before the man 
 can work out anything in art by which it is faithfully repre- 
 sented. The artist, for instance, who made that statue, 
 must have known the proportions (jf the human frame. He 
 must have made studies of various ])arts of it — heads and 
 liands, and arms and legs, and so forth — and, ha\'ing done 
 so, he then puts together all his various studies of details, so 
 as to form a new whole, which is intended to personate an 
 idea formed in his own mind. Do you go with me ? " 
 
 " Partly, sir ; but I am puzzled a little still." 
 
 " Of course vou are ; but vou'U puzzle yourself right if 
 you think over what I sa3'. Now if, in order to make this
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 115 
 
 statue, which is composed of metal or stone, more natural, 
 I stuck on it a wig of real hair, would not you feel at once 
 that I had spoilt the work — that, as you clearly express it, 
 'it would not be the right thing'? — and, instead of making 
 the work of art more natural, 1 should have made it laugh- 
 ably unnatural, by forcing insensibly upon the mind of 
 .him who looked at it the contrast between the real life, re- 
 presented by a wig of actual hair, and the artistic life, 
 represented by an idea embodied in stone or metal. The 
 higher the work of art (that is, the higher the idea it repre- 
 sents as a new combination of details taken from nature), 
 the more it is degraded or spoilt by an attempt to give it a 
 kind of reality which is out of keeping with the materials 
 employed. But the same rule applies to everything in art, 
 however humble. And a couple of stuffed canary-birds at 
 the brim of a basket-work imitation of a Greek drinking- 
 cup would be as bad taste as a wig from the barber's on the 
 head of a marble statue of Apollo." 
 
 " I see," said Will, his head downcast, like a man ponder- 
 ing — " at least I think I see ; and I'm very much obliged to 
 you, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Somcrs had long since returned with the work-bas- 
 ket, but stood with it in her liands, not daring to interrupt 
 the gentleman, and listening to his discourse with as much 
 patience and as little comprehension as if it had been one 
 of the controversial sermons upon Ritualism with which on 
 great occasions Mr. Lethbridge favored his congregation. 
 
 Kenelm having now exhausted his critical lecture — from 
 which certain poets and novelists, who contrive to carica- 
 ture the ideal by their attempt to put wigs of real hair upon 
 the heads of stone statues, might borrow a useful hint or two 
 if they would condescend to do so, which is not likely — per- 
 ceived Mrs. Somers standing by him, took from her the bas- 
 ket, which was really very pretty and elegant, subdivided 
 into various compartments for the implements in use among 
 ladies, and bestowed on it a well-merited eulogium. 
 
 "The young lady means to finish it herself with ribbons 
 and line it with satin," said Mrs. Somers, proudly. 
 
 " The ribbons will not be amiss, sir ? " said Will, inter- 
 rogatively. 
 
 " Not at all. Your natural sense of the fitness of things, 
 tells you that ribbons go well with straw and light straw- 
 like work such as this ; though you would not put ribbons 
 on those rude hampers and game-baskets in the corner.
 
 ii6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Like to like ; a stout cord goes suitably with them ; just as 
 a poet who understands his art employs pretty expressions 
 for poems intended to be pretty and suit a fasliionable 
 drawing-room, and carefully shuns them to substitute a 
 simple cord for poems intended to be strong and travel far, 
 despite of rough usage by the way. But you really ought 
 to make much more money by this fancy work than you 
 could as a day laborer." 
 
 Will sighed. " Not in this neighborhood, sir, I might 
 in a town." 
 
 "Why not move to a town, then ?' 
 
 The young man colored,, and shook his head. 
 
 Kenelm turned appealingly to Mrs. Somers. " I'll be 
 willing to go wherever it would be best for my bov, sir. 
 
 But " and here she checked herself, and a tear trickled 
 
 silentlv down her cheeks. 
 
 Will resumed, in a more cheerful tone, " I am get- 
 ting a little known novv^, and work will come if one waits 
 for it." 
 
 Kenelm did not deem it courteous or discreet to intrude 
 further on Will's confidence in the first interview ; and he 
 began to feel, more than he had done at first, not onlv the 
 dull pain of the bruises he had received in the recent combat, 
 but also somewhat more than the weariness which follows 
 a long summer-day's work in the open air. He therefore, 
 rather abruptly, now took his leave, saying that he should 
 be very glad of a few specimens of Will's ingenuity and skill, 
 and would call or write to give directions about them. 
 
 Just as he came in sight of Tom Bowie's house on his 
 way back to Mr. Saunderson's, Kenelm saw a man mount- 
 ing a pony that stood tied up at the gate, and exchanging a 
 few words with a respectable-looking woman before he rode 
 on. He was passing by Kenelm without notice, when that 
 philosopliical vagrant stopped him, saying, "If I am not 
 mistaken, sir, you are the doctor. There is x\kA nuich the 
 matter with Mr. Bowles ? " 
 
 The doctor shook his head. "I can't say yet. He has 
 had a very ugly blow somewhere." 
 
 " It was just under the left car. I did not aim at that 
 exact spot ; but Bowles unluckily swerved a little aside at 
 the moment, perhaps in surprise at a tap between his eyes 
 immediately preceding it ; and so, as you say, it was an ugly 
 blow that he received. But if it cures him of the habit of 
 giving ugly blows to other people who can bear them less
 
 KEN ELM CHILLIXGLY. 117 
 
 Sfifely, perhaps it may be all for his good, as, no doubt, sir, 
 your schoolmaster said when he flogged you." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! are you the man who fought with him — 
 you ? I can't believe it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Why not ! So far as I can judge by this light, though 
 you are a tall fellow, Tom Bowles must be a much heavier 
 weight than you are." 
 
 " Tom Spring was the champion of England ; and accord- 
 ing to the records of his weight, w^iich History has pre- 
 served in her archives, Tom Spring was a lighter weight 
 than I am." 
 
 " But are you a prize-fighter ? " 
 
 " I am as much that as I am anything else. But to re- 
 turn to Mr. Bowles : was it necessary to bleed him ?" 
 
 " Yes ; he was unconscious, or nearly so, when I came. 
 I took away a few ounces, and I am happy to say he is now 
 sensible, but must be kept very quiet." 
 
 " No doubt ; but I hope he will be well enough to see 
 me to-morrow." 
 
 " I hope so too ; but I can't say yet. Quarrel about a 
 girl— eh ? " 
 
 " It was not about money. And I suppose if there were 
 no money and no women in the world, there would be no 
 quarrels, and very few doctors. Good-night, sir." 
 
 " It is a strange thing to me," said Kenelm, as he now 
 ppened the garden-gate of Mr. Saunderson's homestead, 
 "that though I've had nothing to eat all day, except a few 
 pitiful sandwiches, I don't feel the least hungry. Such 
 arrest of the lawful duties of the digestive organs never hap- 
 pened to me before. There must be something weird and 
 ominous in it." 
 
 On entering the parlor, the family party, though they 
 had long since finished supper, were still seated round the 
 table. They all rose at sight of Kenelm. The fame of his 
 achievements had preceded him. He checked the congra- 
 tulations, the compliments, and the questions which the 
 hearty farmer rapidly heaped upon him, with a melancholic 
 exclamation, " But I have lost my appetite ! No honors 
 can compensate for that. Let me go to bed peaceably, and 
 perhaps in the magic land of sleep Nature may restore me 
 by a dream of supper."
 
 Ii8 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Kenelm rose betimes the next morning, somewhat stifl 
 and uneasy, but sufficiently recovered to feel ravenous. 
 Fortunatclv, one of the young ladies who attended specially 
 to the dairy was already up, and supplied the starving hero 
 with a vast bowl of bread and milk. He then strolled into 
 the hay-field, in which there was now very little left to do, 
 and but few hands besides his own were employed. Jessie 
 was nut there. Kenelm was glad of that. By nine o'clock 
 his work was over, and the farmer and his men were in the 
 yard completing the ricks. Kenelm stole away unobserved, 
 bent on a round of visits. He called first at the village shop 
 kept by Mrs. Bawtrey, which Jessie had pointed out to him, 
 on pretence of buying a gaudy neckerchief, and soon, thanks 
 to his habitual civility, made familiar acciuaintance with the 
 shop-woman. She Avasa little sickly old lady, her head shak- 
 ing, as with palsy, somewhat deaf, but still shrewd and sharp, 
 rendered mechanically so by long habits of shrewdness and 
 sharpness. She became very communicative, spoke freely 
 of her desire to give up the shop and pass the rest of her 
 days with a sister, widowed like herself, in a neighboring 
 town. Since she had lost her husband, the field and orchard^ 
 attached to the shop had ceased to be profitable, and be- 
 come a great care and trouble; and the attention the shop 
 required was wearisome. But she had twelve years unex- 
 pired of the lease granted for twenty-one years to her hus- 
 band on low terms, and she wanted a premium for its trans- 
 fer, and a purchaser for the stock of the shop. Kenelm 
 soon drew from her the amount of the sum she required for 
 
 all— ^45- 
 
 "You ben't thinking of it for yourself ?" she asked, put- 
 ting on her spectacles and examining him with care. 
 
 "Perhaps so, if one could get a decent living out of it. 
 Do you keep a book of your losses and gains ? " 
 
 " In course, sir," she said, proudly. "I kept the books 
 in mygoodman's time, and he was one who could find out 
 if there was a farthing wrong, for he had been in a lawyer's 
 office when a lad." 
 
 " Why did he leave a lawyer's office to keen a little shon?"
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 119 
 
 "Well he was born a farmer's son in this neighborhood, 
 and he always had a hankering after the country, and — and 
 besides that " 
 
 "Ye&" 
 
 " I'll tell you the truth ; he had got into a way of drinking 
 speerrits, and he was a good young man, and wanted to break 
 himself of it, and he took the temperance oath ; but it was 
 too hard on him, for he could not break himself of the com- 
 pany that led him into liquor. And so, one time wlien he 
 came into the neighborhood to see his parents for the Christ- 
 mas holiday, he took a bit of liking to me; and my father, 
 who was Squire Travers's bailiff, had just died, and left me a 
 little money. And so, somehow or other, we came together, 
 and got this house and the land from the Squire on lease 
 very reasonable ; and my goodman, being Avell eddycated, 
 and much thought of, and never being tempted to drink, 
 now that he had a missus to keep him in order, had a many 
 little things put into his way. He could help to measure 
 timber, and knew about draining, and he got some book- 
 keeping from tlie farmers about ; and we kept cows and pigs 
 and poultry, and so we did very well, specially as the Lord 
 was merciful, and sent us no children." 
 
 "And what does the shop bring in a year since your hus- 
 band died ?" 
 
 "You had best judge for yourself. Will you look at the 
 book, and take a peep at the land and apple-trees? But 
 they's been neglected since my goodman died." 
 
 In another minute the heir of the Chillinglvs was seated 
 in a neat little back parlor, with a prett}', though confined, 
 view of the orchard and grass slope behind it, and bending 
 over Mrs. Bawtrey's ledger. 
 
 Some customers for cheese and bacon coming now into 
 the shop, the old woman left him to his studies. Thougii 
 they were not of a nature familiar to him, he brought to 
 them, at least, that general clearness of head and quick seiz- 
 ure of important points which are common to most men who 
 have gone through some disciplined training of intellect 
 and been accustomed to extract the pith and marrow out of 
 many books on many subjects. The result of his examina- 
 tion was satisfactory ; there appeared to him a clear balance 
 of gain from the shop alone of somewhat over ;^40 a year, 
 taking the average of the last three years. Closing the book, 
 he then let himself out of the window into the orchard, and 
 thence into the neighboring grass field. Both were, indeed,
 
 I20 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 much neglected ; the trees wanted pruning, the field man- 
 ure. But the soil was evidently of rich loam, and the fruit- 
 trees were abundant and of ripe age, generally looking 
 healthy in spite of neglect. With the quick intuition of a 
 man born and bred in the country and picking up scraps 
 of rural knowledge unconsciously, Kenelm convinced him- 
 self that the land, properly managed, would far more than 
 cover the rent, rates, tithes, and all incidental outgoings, leav- 
 ing the profits of the shop as the clear income of the occu- 
 piers. And no doubt, Avitli clever young people to manage 
 the shop, its profits might be increased. 
 
 Not thinking it necessary to return at present to Mrs. 
 Bawtrey's, Kenelm now bent his way to Tom Bowles's. 
 
 The house-door was closed. At the summons of his 
 knock it was quickly opened by a tall, stout, remarkably 
 fine-looking woman, who might have told fifty vears and car- 
 ried them off lightly on her ample shoulders. She was 
 dressed very respectably in black, her brown hair braided 
 simply under a neat tight-fitting cap. Her features were 
 aquiline and very regular — altogether, tliere was something 
 about her majestic and Cornelia-like. Slie might have sat 
 for the model of that Roman matron, except for the fairness 
 of her Anglo-Saxon complexion. 
 
 "What's your pleasure ?" she asked, in a cold and some- 
 what stern voice. 
 
 '* Ma'am," answered Kenelm, uncovering, " I have called 
 to see Mr. Bow^les, and I sincerely hope he is well enough to 
 let me do so." 
 
 " No, sir, he is not well enough for that ; he is lying down 
 in his own room, and must be kept quiet." 
 
 " May I then ask you the favor to let me in ? I would 
 say a few words to you, who are his mother, if I mistake 
 not." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles paused a moment, as if in doubt ; but she 
 was at no loss to detect in Kenelm's manner something su- 
 perior to the fashion of his dress, and, supposing the visit 
 might refer to her son's professional business, she opened 
 the door wider, drew aside to let him pass first, and when he 
 stood midway in the parlor, requested him to take a seat, 
 and, to set him the example, seated herself. 
 
 " Ma'am ," said Kenelm, " do not regret to have admitted 
 me, and do not think hardly of me, when I inform you that 
 I am the unfortunate cause of your son's accident." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles rose with a start.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 121 
 
 "You're the iiian who beat my boy ?" 
 
 "No, ma'am, do not say I beat him. He is not beaten. 
 He is so brave and so strong that he would easily have beat- 
 en me if I had not, by good luck, knocked him down before 
 he had time to do so. Pray, ma'am, retain your seat, and 
 listen to me patiently for a few moments." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles, with an indignant heave of her Juno-like 
 bosom, and with a superbly haughty expression of counte- 
 nance, which suited well with its aquiline formation, tacitly 
 obe)'ed. 
 
 " You will allow, ma'am," recommenced Kenelm, " that 
 this is not the first time by many that Mr. Bowles has come 
 to blows with another man. Am I not right in that assump- 
 tion?" 
 
 "My son is of a hasty temper," replied Mrs. Bowles, re- 
 luctantly, " and people should not aggravate liim." 
 
 " You grant the fact, then ? " said Kenelm, imperturbably, 
 but with a polite inclination of head. " Mr. Bowles has 
 often been engaged in these encounters, and in all of them 
 it is quite clear that he provoked the battle ; for you must 
 be aware that he is not the sort of man to whom any other 
 would be disposed to give the first blow. Yet, after these 
 little incidents had occurred, and Mr. Bowles had, say, half 
 killed the person who aggravated him, you did not feel 
 anv resentment against that person, did you ? Nay, if 
 he' had wanted nursing, you would have gone and nursed 
 him." 
 
 " I don't know as to nursing," said Mrs. Bowles, begin- 
 ning to lose her dignity of mien ; " but certainly I should 
 have been very sorry for him. And as for Tom — though I 
 sav it who should not say it — he has no more malice than a 
 baby — he'd go and make it up with any man, however badly 
 he had beaten him." 
 
 "Just as I supposed ; and if the man had sulked and 
 would not make it up, Tom would have called him a bad 
 fellow, and felt inclined to beat him again." 
 
 Mrs. Bowles's face relaxed into a stately smile. 
 
 •' Well, then," pursued Kenelm, " I do but humbly imitate 
 Mr. Bowles, and I come to make it up and shake hands with 
 him." 
 
 " No, sir— no," exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, though in a low 
 voice, and turning pale. " Don't think of it. 'Tis not the 
 blows — he'll get over those fast enough ; 'tis his pride that's 
 hurt ; and if he saw you there might be mischief. But you're
 
 122 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 a stranger, and going away ; — do go soon — do keep out of 
 his way — do ! " And the mother clasped her iiands. 
 
 " Mrs. Bowles," said Kenelm, with a change of voice and 
 aspect — a voice and aspect so earnest and impressive that 
 they stilled and awed her — "will you not help me to save 
 your son from the dangers into which that hasty temper and 
 that mischievous pride may at any moment hurry him ? Does 
 it never occur to you that tiicse are the causes of terrible 
 crime, bringing terrible punishment ; and that against brute 
 force, impelled by savage passions, society protects itself by 
 the hulks and the gallows ? " 
 
 " Sir, how dare you " 
 
 " Hush ! If one man kill another in a moment of ungov- 
 ernable wrath, that is a crime which, though heavily pun- 
 ished by the conscience, is gently dealt with by the law, 
 which calls it only manslaughter ; but if a motive to the 
 violence — such as jealousy or revenge — can be assigned, and 
 there should be no witness by to prove that the violence was 
 not premeditated, then the law does not call it manslaughter, 
 but murder. Was it not that thought which made you so 
 imploringly exclaim, ' Go soon ; keep out of his way ' .'' " 
 
 The woman made no answer, but, sinking back in her 
 chair, gasped for breath. 
 
 " Nay, madam," resumed Kenelm, mildly; "banish your 
 fears. If you will help me I feel sure that I can save your 
 son from such perils, and I only ask you to let me save him. 
 I am convinced that he has a good and noble nature, and he 
 is worth saving." As he thus said he took her hand. She 
 resigned it to him and returned the pressure, all her pride 
 softening as she began to w^eep. 
 
 At length, when she recovered voice, she said : 
 
 " It is all along of that girl. He was not so till she 
 crossed him, and made him half mad. He is not the same 
 man since then— my poor Tom ! " 
 
 " Do you know that he has given me his word, and before 
 his fellow-villagers, that if he had the worst of the fight he 
 would never molest Jessie Wiles again ?" 
 
 "Yes, he told me so himself ; and it is that which weighs 
 on him now. He broods, and broods, and mutters, and will 
 not be comforted ; and — and I do fear that he means re- 
 venge. And, again, I implore 3'ou keep out of his way." 
 
 '' It is not revenge on me that he thinks of. Suppose I 
 go and am seen no more, do you think in your own heart 
 that that girl's life is safe ?"
 
 KEXELM CHILLIXGLY. 123 
 
 "What !. My Tom kill a woman ! " 
 
 " Do you never read in your newspaper of a man who 
 kills his sweetheart, or the girl who refuses to be his sweet- 
 heart ? At all events, you yourself do not approve this 
 frantic suit of his. If I have heard rightly, you have wished 
 to get Tom out of the village for some time, till Jessie Wiles 
 is — we'll say, married, or gone elsewhere for good." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, I have wished and prayed for it many's the 
 time, both for her sake and for his. And I am sure I don't 
 know what we shall do if he stays, for he has been losing 
 custom fast. The Squire has taken away his, and so have 
 many of the farmers ; and such a trade as it was in his good 
 fatlier's time ! And if he would go, his uncle, the Veterinary 
 at Luscombe, would take him into partnership ; for he has 
 no son of his own, and he knows how clever Tom is ; — there 
 ben't a man who knows more about horses ; and cows too, 
 for the matter of that." 
 
 " And if Luscombe is a large place, the business there 
 must be more profitable than it can be here, even if Tom 
 got back his custom ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! five times as good — if he would but go ; but 
 he'll not hear of it." 
 
 " Mrs. Bowles, I am very much obliged to you for your 
 confidence, and I feel sure that all will end happily, Vlo\<i we 
 have had this talk. I'll not press farther on you at present. 
 Tom will not stir out, I suppose, till the evening." 
 
 "Ah, sir, he seems as if h? had no heart to stir out again, 
 unless for something dreadful." 
 
 " Courage ! I will call again in the evening, and then 
 you just take me up to Tom's room, and leave me there to 
 make friends with him as I have with you. Don't say a 
 word about me in the meanwhile." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " ' But,' Mrs. Bowles, is a word that cools many a warm 
 impulse, stifles many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to 
 many a brotherly deed. Nobody would ever love his neigh- 
 bor as himself if he listened to all the Buts that could be 
 said on the other side of the question."
 
 124 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Kenelm now bent his way towards the parsonage, but 
 just as he neared its glebe-lands he met a gentleman whose 
 dress was so evidently clerical that he stopped and said : 
 
 "Have I the honor to address Mr. Lethbridge ?" 
 
 " That is my name," said the clergyman, smiling pleas- 
 antly. " Anything I can do for you ? " 
 
 " Yes, a great deal, if you will let me talk to you about 
 a few of your parishioners." 
 
 " My parishioners ! 1 beg your pardon, but you are quite 
 a stranger to me, and, I should think, to the parish." 
 
 " To the parish — no, I am quite at home in it ; and I hon- 
 estly believe that it has never known a more officious busy- 
 body thrusting himself into its most private affairs." 
 
 Mr. Lethbridge stared, and, after a short pause, said, 
 " I have heard of a voung man who has been staying at Mr. 
 Saunderson's, and is indeed at this moment the talk of the 
 village. You are " 
 
 "That yoimg man. Alas ! yes." 
 
 "Nay," said Mr. Lethbridge, kindly, "I cannot myself, 
 as a minister of the gospel, approve of your profession, 
 and, if I might take the liberty, I would try and dissuade 
 you from it ; but still, as for the one act of freeing a poor 
 girl from the most scandalous persecution, and administer- 
 ing, though in a rough way, a lesson to a savage brute who 
 has long been the disgrace and terror of the neighborhood, 
 I cannot honestly say that it has my condemnation. The 
 moral sense of a community is generally a right one — you 
 have won the praise of the village. Under all the circum- 
 stances, I do not withhold mine. You woke this morning 
 and found yourself famous. Do not sigh ' Alas.' " 
 
 " Lord Byron woke one morning and found himself 
 famous, and the result was that he signed ' Alas ' for the 
 rest of his life. If there be two things which a wise man 
 sliould avoid, they are fame and love. Heaven defend me 
 from both ! " 
 
 Again the parson stared ; but being of compassionate 
 nature, and inclined to take mild views of everything that 
 belongs to humanity, he said, with a slight inclination of 
 his head ■
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 125 
 
 *' I have always heard that the Americans in general 
 enjoy the advantage of a better education than we do in 
 England, and their reading public is infinitely larger than 
 ours ; still, when I hear one of a calling not highly con- 
 sidered in this country for intellectual cultivation or ethical 
 philosophy cite Lord Byron, and utter a sentiment at vari- 
 ance with the impetuosity of inexperienced youth, but 
 which has much to commend it in the eyes of a reflective 
 Christian impressed with the nothingness of the objects 
 mostly coveted by the human heart, I am surprised, and 
 — Oh, my dear young friend, surely your education might 
 fit you for something better ! " 
 
 It was among the maxims of Kenelm Chillingly's creed 
 that a sensible man should never allow himself to be sur- 
 prised ; but here he was, to use a popular idiom, " taken 
 aback," and lowered himself to the rank of ordinary minds 
 by saying simply, " I don't understand." 
 
 " I see," resumed the clergyman, shaking his head 
 gently, " as I always suspected, that in the vaunted educa- 
 tion bestowed on Americans the elementary principles of 
 Christian right and wrong are more neglected than they 
 are among our own humble classes. Yes, my young friend, 
 you may quote poets, you " may startle me by remarks on 
 the nothingness of human fame and human love, derived 
 from tlie precepts of heathen poets, and yet not understand 
 witli what compassion, and, in the judgment of most sober- 
 minded persons, with what contempt, a human being who 
 practises your vocation is regarded." 
 
 " Have I a vocation ? " said Kenelm. " I am very glad 
 to hear it. What is my vocation ? and why must I be an 
 American ?" 
 
 " Why — surely I am not misinformed. You are the 
 American — I forget his name — who has come over to con- 
 test the belt of prize-fighting with the champion of Eng- 
 land. You are silent ; you hang your head. By your 
 appearance, your length of limb, your gravity of counte- 
 nance, your evident education, you confirm the impression 
 of your birth. Your prowess has proved your profession." 
 
 '" Reverend Sir," said Kenelm, with his unutterable 
 seriousness of aspect, " I am on my travels in search of 
 truth and in flight from shams, but so great a take-in as 
 myself I have not yet encountered. Remember me in your 
 prayers. I am not an American ; I am not a prize-fightei 
 I honor the first as the citizen of a grand republic trying
 
 126 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 his best to accomplish an experiment in government in 
 which he will find the very prosperity he tends to create 
 will sooner or later destroy his experiment. I honor the 
 last because strength, courage, and sobriety are essential to 
 the prize-fighter and are among the chiefest ornaments of 
 kings and heroes. But I am neither one nor the other. 
 And all 1 can say for myself is, that I belong to that very 
 vague class commonly called English gentlemen, and that, 
 by birth and education, I liave a right to ask you to shake 
 hands wiih me as such." 
 
 Mr. Lechbridge stared again, raised his hat, bowed, and 
 shook hands. 
 
 " You will allow me now to speak to you about your 
 parishioners. You take an interest in \Vill Somers — so do I. 
 He is clever and ingenious. But it seems there is not 
 sufficient demand here for his baskets, and he would, no 
 doubt, do better in some neighboring town. Why does he 
 object to move ?" 
 
 " I fear that poor Will would pine away to death if he 
 lost sight of that pretty girl for whom you did such 
 chivalrous battle with Tom Bowles." 
 
 " The unhappy man, then, i$ really in love with Jessie 
 Wiles ? And do you think she no less really cares for 
 him ?" 
 
 " I am sure of it." 
 
 " And would make him^ good wife — that is, as wives go?" 
 
 " A gcjod daughter generally makes a good wife. And 
 there is not a father in the place who has a better child than 
 Jessie is to hers. She really is a girl of a superior nature. 
 She was the cleverest pupil at our school, and my wife is 
 much attached to her. But slie has something better than 
 mere cleverness ; she has an excellent heart." 
 
 ''What you say confirms my own impressions. And 
 the girl's father has no other objection to Will Somers than 
 his fear that Will could not support a wife and family 
 comfortably ? " 
 
 " He can have no other objection save that which would 
 apply equallv to all suitors. I mean his fear lest Tom 
 Bowies might do her some mischief if he knew she was 
 about to marry any one else." 
 
 "You think, then, tliat Mr. Bowles is a thoroughly bad 
 and dangerous person ? " 
 
 " Thoroughly bad and dangerous, and worse since he 
 has taken to drinkinsr."
 
 KEh'ELM CHILLINGLY. 127 
 
 " I suppose lie did not take to drinking till he lost his 
 wits for Jessie Wiles ? " 
 
 "No, I don't think he did." 
 
 " But, Mr. Lethbridge, have you never used your in- 
 fluence over this dangerous man ? " 
 
 " Of course I did try, but I only got insulted. He is a 
 godless animal, and has not been inside a church for years. 
 He seems to have got a smattering of such vile learning as 
 may be found in infidel publications, and I doubt if he 
 has any religion at all." 
 
 " Poor Polyphemus ! no wonder his Galatea shuns him ! " 
 
 ''Old Wiles is terribly frightened, and asked my wife to 
 find Jessie a place as servant at a distance. But Jessie can't 
 bear the thoughts of leaving." 
 
 " For the same reason which attaches Will Somers to the 
 native soil ? " 
 
 " My wife thinks so." 
 
 " Do you believe that if Tom Bowles were out of the 
 way, and Jessie and Will were man and wife, they could earn 
 a sufficient liveliliood as successors to Mrs. Bawtrey. Will 
 adding the profits of his basket-work to those of the shop 
 and land ? " 
 
 "A sufficient livelihood! of course. They Avould be 
 quite rich. I know the shop used to turn a great deal of 
 money. The old woman, to be sure, is no longer up to busi- 
 ness, but still she retains a good custom." 
 
 " Will Somers seems in delicate health. Perhaps if he 
 had less weary struggle for a livelihood, and no fear of losing 
 Jessie, his health would improve." 
 
 " His life would be saved, sir." 
 
 " Then," said Kenelm, with a heavy sigh and a face as 
 long as an undertaker's, "though I myself entertain a pro- 
 found compassion for that disturbance to our mental equi- 
 librium which goes by the name of ' love,' and I am the last 
 person who ought to add to the cares and sorrows which 
 marriage entails upon its victims — I say nothing of the woes 
 destined to those whom marriage usually adds to a popula- 
 tion already overcrowded — I fear that I must be the means 
 of bringing these two love-birds into the same cage. I am 
 ready to purchase the shop and its appurtenances on their 
 behalf, on the condition that you will kindly obtain the con- 
 sent of Jessie's father to their union. As for my brave friend 
 Tom Bowles, I undertake to deliver them and the village 
 from that exuberant nature, which requires a larger field for
 
 128 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 its energies. Pardon me for not letting you interrupt me. 
 I have not yet finished what I liave to say. Allow me to 
 ask if Mrs. Gnindy resides in this village." 
 
 " Mrs. Grundy ! Oh, I understand. Of course ; wher- 
 ever a woman has a tongue, there Mrs. Grundy has a home." 
 
 " And seeing that Jessie is very pretty, and tliat in walk- 
 ing with her I encountered Mr. Bowles, might not Mrs. 
 Grundy say, with a toss of her head, ' that it was not out of 
 pure charity that the stranger had been so liberal to Jessie 
 Wiles ' ? But if the money for tlie shop be paid through 
 you to Mrs. Bawtrey, and you kindly undertake all the con- 
 tingent arrangements, Mrs. Grundy will have nothing to 
 say against any one." 
 
 Mr. Lethbridge gazed with amaze at the solemn counte- 
 nance before him. 
 
 " Sir," he said, after a long pause, " I scarcely know how 
 to express my admiration of a generosity so noble, so 
 thoughtful, and accompanied with a delicacy, and, indeed, 
 with a wisdom, whicii — which " 
 
 " Pray, my dear sir, do not make me still more ashamed 
 of myself than I am at present, for an interference in love- 
 matters quite alien to my own convictions as to the best 
 mode of making an 'Approach to the Angels.' To con- 
 clude this business, I think it better to deposit in your hands 
 the sum of ;^45, for which Mrs. Bawtrey has agreed to sell 
 the remainder of her lease and stock-in-hand ; but of course 
 you will not make anvthing public till I am gone, and Tom 
 Bowles tc:)o. I hope 1 may get him away to-morrow ; but I 
 shall know to-night when I can depend upon his departure 
 — and till he goes I must stay." 
 
 As he spoke, Kenelm transferred from his pocket-boc)k to 
 Mr. Lethbridge's hand bank-notes to the amount specified. 
 
 "May I at least ask the name of the gentleman who 
 honors me with his cc^nfidence, and has bestowed so mucli 
 happiness on members of my flock ? " 
 
 " There is no great reason why I should not tell you my 
 name, but I see no reason why I should. You remember 
 Talleyrand's advice — ' If you are in doubt whether to write 
 a letter or not— don't.' The advice applies to many doubts 
 ia life besides that of letter writing. Farewell, sir ! " 
 
 "A most extraordinary young man," muttered the par- 
 son, gazing at the receding form of the tall stranger ; then 
 gently shaking his head, he added, "Quite an original." He 
 was contented with that solution of the difficulties which 
 had puzzled him. May the reader be the same.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 129 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 After the family dinner, at which the farmer's guest 
 displayed more than his usual powers of appetite. Kenelm 
 followed his host towards the stackyard, and said : 
 
 " My dear Mr. Saunderson, though you have no longer 
 any work for me to do, and I ought not to trespass further 
 on your hospitality, yet if I might stay with you another 
 day or so I should be very grateful." 
 
 "My dear lad," cried the farmer, in whose estimation 
 Kenelm had risen prodigiously since the victory over Tom 
 Bowles, "you are welcome to stay as long as you like, and 
 we shall be all sorry when you go. Indeed, at all events, 
 you must stay over Saturday, for you shall go with us to the 
 Squire's harvest-supper. It will be a pretty sight, and my 
 girls are already counting on you for a dance." 
 
 " Saturday— the day after to-morrow. You are very 
 kind ; but merry-makings are not much in my way, and I 
 think I shall Idc on my road before you set off to the 
 Squire's suj^per." 
 
 " Pooh ! you shall stay ; and, I say, young un, if you 
 want more to do, I have a job for you quite in your line." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Thrash my ploughman. He has been insolent this 
 morning, and he is the biggest fellow in the county, next to 
 Tom Bowles." 
 
 Here the farmer laughed heartily, enjoying his own joke. 
 
 "Thank you for nothing," said Kenelm, rubbing his 
 bruises. "A burnt child dreads the fire." 
 
 The young man wandered alone into the fields. The 
 day was becoming overcast, and the clouds threatened rain. 
 The air was exceedingly still ; the landscape, missing the 
 sunshine, wore an aspect of gloomy solitude. Kenelm came 
 to the banks of the rivulet not far from the spot on which 
 the farmer had first found him. There he sat down, and 
 leant his cheek on his hand, with eyes fixed on the still and 
 darkened stream lapsing mournfully away ; sorrow entered 
 into his heart and tinged its musings. 
 
 " Is it then true," said he, soliloquizing, "that I am born 
 to pass through life utterly alone ; asking, indeed, for no
 
 I30 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 sister-half of myself, disbelieving its possibility, shrinking 
 Iron^ the thoiiglit of it — half scorning, half pitying- those 
 who sigh for it ? — thing unattainable — better sigh for the 
 moon ! 
 
 " Yet, if other men sigh for it, why do I stand apart from 
 them ? If the world be a stage, and all the men and women 
 in it merely players, am I to be the solitary spectator, with 
 no part in the drama and no interest in the vicissitudes of 
 its plot ? Many there are, no doubt, who covet as little as 
 I do the part of 'Lover,' 'with a woeful ballad made to his 
 mistress' eyebrow; ' but then they covet some other part in 
 the drama, such as that of Soldier 'bearded as a pard,' or 
 that of Justice ' in fair round belly with fat capon lined.' 
 But me no ambition fires — I have no longing either to rise 
 or to shine. I don't desire to be a colonel, nor an admiral, 
 nor a member of Parliament, nor an alderman ; I do not 
 yearn for the fame of a wit, or a poet, or a philosopher, or 
 a diner-out, or a crack shot at a ritle-match or a battue. De- 
 cidedly I am the one looker-on, the one bystander, and have 
 no more concern with the active world than a stone has. It 
 is a horrible phantasmal crotchet of Goethe's, that origi- 
 nally we were all monads, little segregated atoms adrift in 
 the atmosphere, and carried hither and thither by forces 
 over which we had no control, especially by the attraction 
 of other monads, so that one monad, compelled by porcine 
 monads, crystallizes into a pig ; another, hurried along by 
 heroic monads, becomes a lion or an Alexander. Now it is 
 quite clear," continued Kenclm, shifting his position and 
 crossing the right leg over the left, "that a monad intended 
 or fitted for some other planet may, on its way to that desti- 
 nation, be encountered by a current of other monads blow- 
 ing earthward, and be caught up in the stream and whirled 
 on, till, to the marring of its whole proper purpose and 
 scene of action, it settles here — conglomerated into a baby. 
 Probably that lot has befallen me : my monad, meant for 
 another region in space, has been dropped into this, where 
 it can never be at home, never amalgamate with other 
 monads nor comprehend why they are in such a perpetual 
 fidget. I declare I know no more why the minds of human 
 beings should be so restlessly agitated about things which, 
 as most of them own, give more pain than pleasure, than I 
 iniderstand why that swarm of gnats, which has such a very 
 short time to live, does not give itself a moment's repose, 
 but goes up and down, rising and falling as if it were on a
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 131 
 
 seesaw, and making as much noise about its insignificant 
 alternations of ascent and descent as if it were the hum of 
 men. And yet, perhaps, in another planet my monad would 
 have frisked, and jumped, and danced, and seesawed with 
 congenial monads, as contentedly and as sillily as do the 
 monads of men and gnats in this alien Vale of Tears." 
 
 Kenelm had just arrived at that conjectural solution of 
 his perplexities, when a voice was heard singing, or rather 
 modulated to that kind of chant between recitative and song 
 which is so pleasingly effective where the intonations are 
 pure and musical. They were so in this instance, and Ken- 
 elm's ear caught every word in the following song : 
 
 CONTENT. 
 
 There are times when the troubles of life are still; 
 
 The bees wandered lost in the depths of June, 
 And I paused where the chime of a silver rill 
 
 Sang the linnet and lark to their rest at noon. 
 
 Said my soul, " See how calmly the wavelets glide, 
 Though so narrow their way to tlieir ocean- vent: 
 
 And the world that I traverse is wide, is wide. 
 And yet is too narrow to hold content." 
 
 "O my soul, never say that the world is wide — 
 
 The rill in its banks is less closely pent ; 
 It is thou who art shoreless on every side, 
 
 And thy width will not let thee inclose content." 
 
 As the verse ceased, Kenelm lifted his head. But tlie 
 banks of the brook were so curving and so clothed with 
 brushwood that for some minutes the singer was invisible. 
 At last the boughs before him were put aside, and within a 
 few paces of himself paused the man to wliom he had com- 
 mended the praises of a beefsteak, instead of those which 
 minstrelsy, in its immemorial error, dedicates to love. 
 
 "Sir," said Kenelm, half rising, "well met once more! 
 Have you ever listened to the cuckoo ?" 
 
 "Sir," answered the minstrel, "have you ever felt the 
 presence of the summer?" 
 
 " Permit me to shake hands Avith you. I admire the 
 question by which you have countermet and rebuked my 
 own. If you are not in a hurrv, will you sit down and let 
 us talk?" 
 
 The minstrel inclined his head and seated himself. His
 
 132 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 dog — now emerged from the brushwood — gravely ap- 
 proached Kenehn, who with greater gravity regarded him ; 
 then, wagging liis tail, reposed on his haunches, intent witli 
 ear erect on a stir in the neighboring reeds, evidently con- 
 sidering whether it was caused by a fish or a water-rat. 
 
 " I asked you, sir, if you had ever listened to the cuckoo 
 — from no irrelevant curiosity ; — for often on summer days, 
 when one is talking with one's self, and, of course, puzzling 
 one's self, a voice breaks out, as it were, from the heart of 
 Nature, so far is it and yet so near ; and it says something 
 very quieting, very musical, so that one is tempted incon- 
 siderately and foolishly to exclaim, ' Nature replies to me.' 
 The cuckoo has served me that trick pretty often. Your 
 song is a better answer to a man's self-questionings than he 
 can ever get from a cuckoo." 
 
 " I doubt that," said the minstrel. " Song, at the best, 
 is but the echo of some voice from the heart of Nature. 
 And if tlie cuckoo's note seemed to you such a voice, it was 
 an answer to your questionings perhaps more simply truth- 
 ful than man can utter, if you had rightly construed the lan- 
 guage." 
 
 "My good friend," answered Kenelm, "what you say 
 sounds very prettily ; and it contains a sentiment which has 
 been amplified by certain critics into that measureless domain 
 of dunderheads which is vulgarly called Bosh. But tliough 
 Nature is never silent, though she abuses the privilege of her 
 age in being tediously gossiping andgarrulous— Nature never 
 replies to our questions — she can't understand an argimicnt 
 — she has never read Mr. Mill's work on ]^ogic. In fact, as 
 it is truly said by a great philosopher, ' Nature has no mind.* 
 Every man who addresses her is compelled to force upon 
 her for a moment the loan of his own mind. And if she 
 answers a question which his own mind puts to her, it is 
 only by such a reply as his own mind teaches to her parrot- 
 like lips. And as every man has a different mind, so every 
 man gets a different answer. Nature is a lying old humbug." 
 
 The minstrel laughed merrily ; and his laugh was as sweet 
 as his chant. 
 
 " Poets would have a great deal to unlearn if they are to 
 look upon Nature in that light." 
 
 " Bad poets would, and so much the better for them and 
 their readers." 
 
 "Are not good poets students of Nature ?" 
 
 " Students of Nature, certainly — as surgeons study
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 133 
 
 anatomy by dissecting a dead body. But the good poet, like 
 the good surgeon, is the man who considers tliat study merely 
 as the necessary ABC, and not as the all-in-all essential to 
 skill in his practice. I do not give the fame of a good sur- 
 geon to a man who fills a book with details, more or less 
 accurate, of fibres, and nerves, and muscles ; and I don't 
 give the fame of a good poet to a man who makes an in- 
 ventory of the Rhine or the Vale of Gloucester. The good 
 surgeon and the good poet are they who understand the 
 living man. What is that poetry of drama which Aristotle 
 justly ranks as the highest ? Is it not a poetry in which 
 description of inanimate Nature must of necessity be very 
 brief and general ; in which even the external form of man 
 is so indifferent a consideration that it will vary with each 
 actor who performs the part ? A Hamlet may be fair or 
 dark. A Macbeth may be short or tall. The merit of 
 dramatic poetry consists in the substituting for what is com- 
 monly cahed Nature (viz., external and material Nature) 
 creatures intellectual, emotional, but so purely immaterial 
 that they may be said to be all mind and soul, accepting 
 the temporary loans of any such bodies at hand as actors 
 may offer, in order to be made palpable and visible to the 
 audience, but needing no such bodies to be palpable and 
 visible to readers. The highest kind of poetry is therefore 
 that which has least to do with external Nature. But every 
 grade has its merit more or less genuinely great, according 
 as it instills into Nature that which is not there — .the reason 
 and the soul of man." 
 
 " I am not much disposed," said the minstrel, " to ac- 
 knowledge any one form of poetry to be practically higher 
 than another — that is, so far as to elevate the poet who culti- 
 vates what you call the highest with some success, above the 
 rank of the poet who cultivates W' hat you call a very inferior 
 school with a success much more triumphant. In theory 
 dramatic poetry may be higher than lyric, and 'Venice Pre- 
 served' is a very successful drama; but I think Burns a 
 greater poet than Otway." 
 
 " Possibly he may be ; but I know of no lyrical poet, at 
 least among the moderns, who treats less of Nature as the 
 mere outward form of things, or more passionately animates 
 her framework with his own human heart, than does Robert 
 Burns. Do you suppose when a Greek, in some perplexity 
 of reason or conscience, addressed a question to the oracular 
 oak -leaves of Dodona, that the oak-leaves answered him ?
 
 134 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Don't you rather believe that the question suggested by his 
 mind was answered by the mind of his fellow-man the priest, 
 who made the oak- leaves the mere vehicle of communication, 
 as you and I might make such vehicle in a sheet of writing- 
 paper. Is not the history of superstition a chronicle of the 
 follies of man in attempting to get answers from external 
 Nature?" 
 
 "But," said the minstrel, "have I not somewhere heard 
 or read that the experiments of Science are the answers made 
 by Nature to the questions pvit to her by man ? " 
 
 '* They are the answers which his own mind suggests to 
 her, nothing more. I lis mind studies the laws of matter, and 
 in that study makes experiments on matter ; out of those ex- 
 periments his mind, according to its previous knowledge or 
 natural acuteness, arrives at its own deductions, and hence 
 arise the sciences of mechanics and chemistry, etc. But the 
 matter itself gives no answer ; the answer varies according to 
 the mind that puts the question, and the progress of science 
 consists in the perpetual correction of the errors and false- 
 hoods which preceding minds conceived to be tlie correct 
 answers they received from Nature. It is the supernatural 
 within us— viz.. Mind— which can alone guess at the mechan- 
 ism of the natural — viz.. Matter. A stone cannot question a 
 stone." 
 
 The minstrel made no reply. And there was a long 
 silence, broken but by the hum of the insects, the ripple of 
 onward waves, and the sigli of the wind through reeds. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Said Kenelm, at last breaking silence : 
 
 " Rapiamns. amici, 
 Occasionem de die, diimquc virent genua, 
 Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus ! " 
 
 " Is not that quotation from Horace ? " asked the minstrel. 
 
 "Yes ; and I made it insidiously, in order to see if you 
 had not acquired what is called a classical education." 
 
 " I might have received such education, if mv tastes and 
 my destinies had not withdrawn me in boyhood from studies
 
 KENELM CHILLlkCLY. 135 
 
 of which I did not then comprehend the full value. But I 
 did pick up a smattering of Latin at school ; and from time 
 to time since I left school, I liave endeavored to gain some 
 little knowledge of the most popular Latin poets — chiefly, I 
 own to my shame, by the help of literal English transla- 
 tions." 
 
 "As a poet yourself, I am not sure that it would be an 
 advantage to know a dead language so well that its forms 
 and modes of thought ran, though perhaps unconsciously, 
 into those of the living one in which you compose. Horace 
 might have been a still better poet if he had not known 
 Greek better than you know Latin." 
 
 " It is at least courteous in you to say so," answered the 
 singer, with a pleased smile. 
 
 "You would be still more courteous," said Kenelm, "if 
 you Avould pardon an impertinent question, and tell me 
 whether it is for a wager that you wander through the land, 
 Homer-like, as a wandering minstrel, and allow that intel- 
 ligent quadruped, your companion, to carry a tray in his 
 mouth for the reception of pennies ? " 
 
 " No, it is not for a wager ; it is a whim of mine, whicli I 
 fancy, from the tone of your conversation, you could under- 
 stand — being, apparently, somewhat whimsical yourself." 
 
 '• So far as whim goes, be assured of my sympatliy." 
 
 " Well, then, though I follow a calling by the exercise of 
 which I secure a modest income— my passion is verse. If 
 the seasons were always summer, and life were always youth, 
 I should like to pass through the world singing. But I liave 
 never ventured to publish any verses of mine. If they fell 
 still-born, it would give me more pain than such wounds to 
 vanity ought to give to a bearded man ; and if they were 
 assailed or ridiculed, it might seriously injure me in my 
 practical vocation. That last consideration, were I quite 
 alone in the world, might not much weigh on me ; but there 
 are others for whose sake I should like to make fortune and 
 preserve station. Many years ago — it was in Germany — I 
 fell in with a German student who was very poor, and who 
 did make money by wandering about the country with lute 
 and song. He has since become a poet of no mean popular- 
 ity, and he has told me that he is sure he found the secret of 
 that popularity in habitually consulting popular tastes dur- 
 ing his roving apprenticeship to song. His example strongly 
 impressed me. So I began this experiment ; and for several 
 years my summers have been all partly spent in this way.
 
 136 ken£lm chillingly. 
 
 I am only known, n.s I think I told yoii before, in the rounds 
 I take, as 'The Wandering Minstrel.' I receive the trifling 
 moneys that are bestowed on me as proofs of a certain merit. 
 I should not be paid by poor people if I did not please ; and 
 the songs which please them best are generally those I love 
 best myself. For the rest, my time is not thrown away — not 
 only as regards bodily licalth, but hcaltiifulness of mind — all 
 the current of one's ideas becomes so freshened by months of 
 playful exercise and varied adventure." 
 
 "Yes, tlie adventure is varied enough," said Kcnclm, 
 somewhat ruefully; for he felt, in sliifting his posture, a 
 sharp twinge of his bruised muscles. " But don't you find 
 those mischief-makers, the women, always mix themselves 
 up witli adventure ? " 
 
 " Bless them ! of course," said the minstrel, with a ring- 
 ing laugh. "In life, as on llie stage, the petticoat interest 
 is always the strongest." 
 
 " I don't agree with you there," said Kenelm, dryly. 
 "And you seem to me to utter a claptrap beneath the rank 
 of your imderstanding. However, this warm weather indis- 
 poses one to disputation ; and I own that a petticoat, pro- 
 vided it be red, is not without the interest of color in a pic- 
 ture." 
 
 "Well, young gentleman," said the minstrel, rising, "the 
 day is wearing on, and I must wish you good-bye; prcjbablv, 
 if you were to ramble about tlie country as I do, you would 
 see too many pretty girls not to teach you the strength of 
 petticoat interest — not in pictures alone; and should I meet 
 you again, I may find you writing love-verses yourself." 
 
 "After a conjecture so unwarrantable, I part company 
 with you less reluctantly than I otherwise might do. But I 
 hojje we shall meet again." 
 
 " Your wish flatters me mucli, but, if we do, pray respect 
 the confidence I have placed in you, and regard my wander- 
 ing minstrelsy and my dog's tray as sacred secrets. Should 
 we not so meet, it is but a prudent reserve on my part if I 
 do not give you my right name and address." 
 
 "There you show the cautious common-sense which be- 
 longs rarely to lovers of verse and petticoat interest. What 
 have you done with your guitar ? " 
 
 " I do not pace the roads with that instrument : it is for- 
 warded to me from town to town under a borrowed name, 
 together with other raiment than this, should I have cause 
 to drop my character of wandering minstrel."
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 137 
 
 The two men here exchanged a cordial shake of the hand. 
 And as the minstrel went his way along the river-side, his 
 voice in chanting seemed to lend to the wavelets a livelier 
 murmur, to the reeds a less plaintive sigh. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 In his room, solitary and brooding, sat the defeated hero 
 of a hundred fights. It was now twilight ; but the shutters 
 had been partially closed all day, in order to exclude the sun, 
 which had never before been unwelcome to Tom Bowles, 
 and they still remained so, making the twilight doubly 
 twilight, till the harvest moon, rising early, shot its ray 
 through the crevice, and forced a silvery track amid the 
 shadows of the floor. 
 
 The man's head drooped on his breast, his strong hands 
 rested listlessly on his knees ; his attitude was that of utter 
 despondency and prostration. But in the expression of his 
 face there were the signs of some dangerous and restless 
 thought which belied, not the gloom but, the stillness of the 
 posture. His brow, which was habitually open and frank, 
 in its defying aggressive boldness, was now contracted into 
 deep furrows, and lowered darkly over his downcast, half- 
 closed eyes. His lips were so tightly compressed that the 
 face lost its roundness, and the massive bone of the jaw 
 stood out hard and salient. Now and then, indeed, the lips 
 opened, giving vent to a deep, impatient sigh, but they re- 
 closed as quickly as they had parted. It was one of those 
 crises in life which find all the elements that make up a man's 
 former self in lawless anarchy ; in which the Evil One seems 
 to enter and di'rect the storm ; in which a rude untutored 
 mind, never before harboring a thought of crime, sees the 
 crime start up from an abyss, feels it to be an enemy, yet 
 yields to it as a fate. So that when, at the last, some wretch, 
 sentenced to the gibbet, shudderingly looks back to the 
 moment " that trembled between two worlds " — the world 
 of the man guiltless, the world of the man guilty— he says 
 to the holy, highly educated, rational, passionless priest who 
 confesses him and calls him "brother," "The devil put it 
 into my head." 
 
 At that moment the door opened ; at its threshold there
 
 138 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Stood the man's mother — whom he had never allowed to 
 inrtuence his conduct, though he loved her well in his rough 
 way — and the hated fellow-man whom he longed to see dead 
 at his feet. The door reclosed, the mother was gone, with- 
 out a word, for her tears choked her ; the fellow-man was 
 alone with him. Tom Bowles looked up, recognized his 
 visitor, cleared his brow, and rubbed his mighty hands. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly drew a chair close to his antago- 
 nist's, and silently laid a hand on his. 
 
 Tom Bowles took up the hand in both his own, turned it 
 curiously towards the moonlight, gazed at it, poised it, then 
 with a sound between groan and laugh tossed it away as a 
 thing hostile but trivial, rose and locked the door, came back 
 to his seat, and said bluffly : 
 
 "What do you want with me now?" 
 
 " I want to ask you a favor." 
 
 " Favor ! " 
 
 " The greatest which man can ask from man — friendship. 
 You see, my dear Tom," continued Kenelm, making himself 
 quite at home — throwing his arm over the back of Tom's 
 chair, and stretching his legs comfortably as one docs Ijy 
 one's own fireside ; "you see, mv dear Tom, that men like 
 us — young, single, not on the whole bad-looking as men go 
 — can find sweethearts in plenty. If one does not like us, 
 another will ; sweethearts are sown everywhere like nettles 
 and thistles. But the rarest thing in life is a friend. Now, 
 tell me frankly, in the course of your wanderings did you 
 ever come into a village where you could *not have got a 
 sweetheart if you had asked for one ; and if, having got a 
 sweetheart, you had lost her, do you think you would have 
 liad any difficulty in finding another ? But have you such a 
 thing in tlie world, beyond the pale of your own family, as a 
 true friend — a man friend .'' and supposing that you had 
 such a friend — a friend who would stand by you through 
 thick and thin — who would tell you your faults to your face, 
 and praise you for your good qualities behind your back — 
 who would do all he could to save you from a danger, and 
 all he could to get you out of one, — supposing you had such
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 139 
 
 a friend, and lost him, do you believe that if you lived to the 
 age of Methuselah you could find another? You don't an- 
 swer me ; you are silent. Well, Tom, I ask you to be such 
 a friend to me, and I will be such a friend to you." 
 
 Tom was so thoroughly " taken aback " by this address 
 that he remained dumfounded. But he felt as if the clouds 
 in his soul were breaking, and a ray of sunlight were forc- 
 ing its way through the sullen darkness. At length, how- 
 ever, the receding rage within him returned, though with 
 vacillating step, and he growled between his teeth : 
 
 " A pretty friend indeed ! robbing me of my girl ! Go 
 along with you ! " 
 
 " She was not your girl any more than she was or ever 
 can be mine." 
 
 " What, you ben't after her ? " 
 
 "Certainly not ; I am going to Luscombe, and I ask you 
 to come with me. Do you think I am going to leave you 
 here?" 
 
 " What is it to you ? " 
 
 " Everything. Providence has permitted me to save you 
 from the most lifelong of all sorrows. For — think ! Can 
 any sorrow be more lasting than had been yours if you had 
 attained your wish ; if you had forced or frightened a woman 
 to be your partner till death do part — you loving her, she 
 loathing you ; you conscious, night and day, that your very 
 love had insured her misery, and that misery haunting you 
 like a ghost ? — from that sorrow I have saved you. May 
 Providence permit me to complete my work, and save you 
 also from the most irredeemable of all crimes ! Look into 
 your soul, then recall the thoughts which all day long, and 
 not least at the moment I crossed this threshold, were rising 
 up, making reason dumb and conscience blind, and then lay 
 your hand on your heart and say, ' I am guiltless of a dream 
 of murder.' " 
 
 The wretched man sprang up erect, menacing, and, 
 meeting Kenelm's calm, steadfast, pitying gaze, dropped no 
 less suddenly — dropped on the floor, covered his face with 
 his hands, and a great cry came forth between sob and 
 howl. 
 
 " Brother," said Kenelm, kneeling beside him and twin- 
 ing his arm round the man's heaving breast, " it is over 
 now ; with that cry the demon that maddened you has fled 
 forever."
 
 I40 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 When, some time after, Kcnelm quitted the room and 
 joined Mrs. Bowles below, he said cheerily, "All right ; Ton\ 
 and I are sworn friends. We are going together to Lus- 
 combe the day after to-morrow — Sunday ; just write a line 
 to his uncle to prepare him for Tom's visit, and sendthithei 
 his clothes, as we shall walk, and steal forth unobserved be- 
 times in the morning. Now go up and talk to him ; he 
 wants a mother's soothing and petting. lie is a noble fellow 
 at heart, and we shall be all proud of him some day or 
 other." 
 
 As he walked back towards the farmhouse, Kenclm en- 
 countered Mr. Lethbridge, wlio said, " I have come from 
 Mr. Saunderson's, wiiere I went in search of you. There is 
 an unexpected hitch in the negotiation iox Mrs. Bawtrcy's 
 shop. After seeing you this morning I fell in with Mr. 
 Travers's bailiff, and lie tells me that her lease does not 
 give her the power to sublet without the Squire's consent ; 
 and that as the premises were originally let on very low 
 terms to a favored and responsible tenant, Mr. Travers can- 
 not be expected to sanction the transfer of the lease to a 
 poor basket-maker : in fact, though he will accept Mrs. 
 Bawtrey's resignation, it must be in favor of an applicant 
 whom he desires to oblige. On hearing this, I rode over to 
 the Park and saw Mr. Travers himself. But. he was obdu- 
 rate to my pleadings. All I could get him to say was, ' Let 
 the stranger who interests himself in the matter come and 
 talk to me. I should like to see the man who thrashed that 
 brute Tom Bowles ; if he got the better of him perhaps he 
 may get the better of me. Bring him with you to my 
 harvest-supper to-morrow evening.' Now, will you come?" 
 
 " Nay," said Kenelm, reluctantly, "but if he only asks 
 me in order to gratify a very vulgar curiosity, I don't think 
 I have much chance of serving Will Somers. What do you 
 say ? " 
 
 "The Squire is a good man of business, and though no 
 one can call him unjust or grasping, still he is very little 
 touched bv sentiment ; and we must own that a sickly crip- 
 ple like poor Willis not a very eligible tenant. If, therefore,
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 141 
 
 it depended only on your chance with the Squire, I shovild 
 not be very sanguine. But we have an ally in his daughter. 
 She is very fond of Jessie Wiles, and she has shown great 
 kindness to Will. In fact, a sweeter, more benevolent, sym- 
 pathizing nature than that of Cecilia Travers does not exist. 
 She has great influence with her father, and through her 
 you may win him." 
 
 " I particularly dislike having anything to do with 
 women," said Kenelm, churlishly. " Parsons are accus- 
 tomed to get round them. Surely, my dear sir, you are 
 more fit for that work than I am." 
 
 " Permit me humbly to doubt that proposition ; one don't 
 get very quickly round the women when one carries the 
 weight of years on one's back. But whenever you want 
 the aid of a parson to bring your own wooing to a happy 
 conclusion, I shall be happy, in my special capacity of par- 
 son, to perform the ceremony required." 
 
 '* Dii tncliora ! " said Kenelm, gravely. " Some ills are too 
 serious to be approached even in joke. As for Miss Travers, 
 the moment you call her benevolent you inspire me witii 
 horror. I know too well what a benevolent girl is — offici- 
 ous, restless, fidgety, with a snub nose, and her pocket full 
 of tracts. I will not go to the harvest-supper." 
 
 " Hist ! " said the parson, softly. They were now passing 
 the cottage of Mrs. Somers ; and wdiile Kenelm was haran- 
 guing against benevolent girls, Mr. Lethbridge had paused 
 before it, and was furtively looking in at the window. " Hist ! 
 and come here, — gently." 
 
 Kenelm obeyed, and looked in through the window. Will 
 was seated — Jessie Wiles had nestled herself at his feet, and 
 was holding his hand in both hers, looking up into his face. 
 Her profile alone was seen, but its expression was unutter- 
 ably soft and tender. His face, bent downwards towards 
 her, wore a mournful expression ; nay, the tears were rolling 
 silently down his cheeks. Kenelm listened, and heard her 
 say, " Don't talk so. Will ! you break my heart ; it is I who 
 am not worthy of you." 
 
 " Parson," said Kenelm, as they walked on, " I must go 
 to that confounded harvest-supper. I begin to think there 
 is something true in the venerable platitude about love in a 
 cottage. And Will Somers must be married in haste, in 
 order to repent at leisure." 
 
 " I don't see why a man should repent having married a 
 good girl whom he loves." .
 
 142 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Yoii don't ? Answer me candidly. Did you never meel 
 a man who repented having married ? " 
 
 " Of course I have ; very often." 
 
 " "Well, think again, and answer as candidly. Did you 
 ever meet a man who repented not having married .-' " 
 
 The parson mused, and was silent. 
 
 " Sir," said Kenclm, " your reticence proves your honesty, 
 and I respect it." So saying, he bounded off, and left the 
 parson crying out Avildly, " But — but " 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Mr. Saundkrson and Kenelm sat in the arbor ; the 
 former sipping his grog, and smoking his pipe — the latter 
 looking forth into the summer night skies with an earnest 
 yet abstracted gaze, as if he were trying to count the stars 
 in the Milky Way. 
 
 "Ha!" said Mr. Saunderson, who was concluding an 
 argument ; " you see it now, don't you ? " 
 
 " I — not a bit of it. You tell mc that your grandfather 
 was a farmer, and your father was a farmer, and that you 
 have been afarmer for thirty years ; and from these premises 
 you deduce the illogical and irrational conclusion that there- 
 fore your son must be a farmer." 
 
 " Young man, you may think yourself very knowing, 
 'cause you have been at the 'Yarsity and swept away a head- 
 ful of book-learning." 
 
 "Stop," quoth Kenelm. "You grant that a university is 
 learned." 
 
 " Well, I suppose so." 
 
 " But how could it be learned if those who quitted it 
 brought the learning away ? We leave it all behind us in 
 the care of the tutors. But I know what you were going 
 to say — that it is not because I had read more books than 
 you have that I was to give myself airs and ])retend to have 
 more knowledge of life than a man of your years and ex- 
 perience. Agreed, as a general rule. But does not every 
 doctor, however wise and skilful, prefer taking another 
 doctor's opinion about himself, even though that other doctor 
 has just started in practice? And, seeing that doctors, tak- 
 .ing them as a body, are monstrous clever fellows, is not the
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 143 
 
 example they set us worth following ? Does it not prove 
 that no man, however wise, is a good judge of his own case ? 
 Now, your son's case is really your case — you see it through 
 the medium of your likings and dislikings — and insist upon 
 forcing a square peg into a round hole, because in a round 
 hole you, being a round peg, feel tight and comfortable. 
 Now, I call that irrational." 
 
 " I don't see why my son has any right to fancy himself a 
 square peg," said the farmer, doggedly, "when his father, 
 and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, have been 
 round pegs ; and it is agiu' nature for any creature not to 
 take after its own kind. A dog is a pointer or a sheep-dog 
 according as its forebears were pointers or sheep-dogs. 
 There," cried the farmer, triumphantly, shaking the ashes 
 out of his pipe, " I think I have posed you, young master ! " 
 
 " No ; for you have taken it for granted that the breeds 
 have not been crossed. But suppose that a sheep-dog has 
 married a pointer, are you sure that his son will not be more 
 of a pointer than a sheep-dog ? " 
 
 Mr. Saunderson arrested himself in the task of refilling 
 his pipe, and scratched his head. 
 
 "You see," continued Kenelm, " that you have crossed 
 the breed. You married a tradesman's daughter, and I dare- 
 say her grandfather and great-grandfather were tradesmen 
 too. Now, most sons take after their mothers, and therefore 
 Mr. Saunderson, junior, takes after his kind on the distaff 
 side, and comes into the world a square peg, which can only 
 be tight and comfortable in a square hole. It is no use 
 arguing, farmer : your boy must go to his uncle ; and there's 
 an end of the matter." 
 
 " By goles ! " said the farmer, "you seem to think you 
 can talk me out of my senses." 
 
 " No ; but I think if you had your own way you would 
 talk your son into the workhouse." 
 
 " What ! by sticking to the land like his father before 
 him ? Let a man stick by the land, and the land will stick 
 by him." 
 
 " Let a man stick in the mud, and the mud will stick to 
 him. You put your heart in your farm, and your son would 
 only put his foot into it. Courage ! Don't you see that Time 
 is a whirligig, and all things come round ? Every day some- 
 body leaves the land and goes off into trade. By-and-by he 
 grows rich, and then his great desire is to get back to the 
 land again. He left it the son of a farmer : he returns to it
 
 144 KENELAf CHTLLTIVGLY. 
 
 as a squire. Your son, when he gets to be fifty, will invest 
 his savings in acres, and have tenants of his own. Lord, liow 
 lie will lay down the law to them ! I would not advise you 
 to take a farm under him." 
 
 " Catch me at it ! " said the farmer. " He would turn all 
 the contents of the 'pothecary's shop into my fallows, and 
 call it ' progress.' " 
 
 " Let him physic the fallows when he has farms of his 
 own : keep yours out of his chemical clutches. Come, I 
 shall tell him to pack up and be off to his uncle's next 
 week." 
 
 "Well, well," said the farmer, in a resigned tone, "a 
 wilful man must e'en have his way." 
 
 " And the best thinaf a sensible man can do is not to cross 
 it. Mr. Saunderson, give me your honest hand. You are 
 one of those men who put the sons of good fathers in mind 
 of their own ; and I think of mine when I sav, 'God bless 
 you!'" 
 
 Quitting the farmer, Kenelm re-entered tlie house, and 
 sought Mr. Saunderson, junior, in his own room. He found 
 that young gentleman still up, and reading an eloquent tract 
 on the Emancipation of the Human Race from all Tyrannical 
 Control — Political, Social, Ecclesiastical, and Domestic. 
 
 The lad looked up sulkily, and said, on encountering 
 Kenelm's melancholic visage, "Ah! I see you have talked 
 with the old governor, and he'll not hear of it." 
 
 " In the first place," answered Kenelm, "since you value 
 yourself on a superior education, allow me to advise you to 
 study the English language as the forms of it are maintained 
 by the elder authors — whom, in spite of an Age of Progress, 
 men of superior education esteem. No one who has gone 
 through that study — no one, indeed, who has studied the Ten 
 Commandments in the vernacular — commits the mistake of 
 supposing that 'the old governor' is a synonymous expres- 
 sion for 'father.' In the second place, since you pretend to 
 the superior enlightenment which results from a superior 
 -education, learn to know better your own self before you 
 set up as a teacher of mankind. Excuse the liberty I 
 take, as your sincere well-wisher, when I tell you that you 
 are at present a conceited fool — in short, that which makes 
 one boy call another ' an ass.' But when one has a poor 
 head lie may redeem the average balance of humanity by 
 increasing the wealth of the heart. Try and increase yours. 
 Your father consents to your choice of your lot at the sacri-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 145 
 
 fice of all his own inclinations This is a sore trial to a 
 father's pride, a father's affection ; and few fathers make 
 such sacrifices with a good grace. I have thus kept my 
 promise to you, and enforced your wishes on Mr. Saunder- 
 son's judgment, because I am sure you would have been a 
 very bad farmer. It now remains for you to show that you 
 can be a very good tradesman. You are bound in honor to 
 me and to you^r father to try your best to be so ; and mean- 
 while leave the task of upsetting the world to those who have 
 no shop in it, which would go crash in the general tumble. 
 And so good-night to you." 
 
 To these admonitory words, sacro digna silentio, Saunder- 
 son junior listened with a dropping jaw and fascinated staring 
 eyes. He felt like an infant to whom the nurse has given a 
 hasty shake, and who is too stupefied by that operation to 
 know whether he is hurt or not. 
 
 A minute after Kenelm had quitted the room he reap- 
 peared at the door, and said, in a conciliatory whisper, " Don't 
 take it to heart that I called you a conceited fool and an ass. 
 These terms are no doubt just as applicable to myself. But 
 there is a more conceited fool and a greater ass than either 
 of us, and that is, the Age in which we have the misfortune 
 to be born— an Age of Progress, Mr. Saunderson, junior — 
 an Age of Prigs ! "
 
 BOOK IIL 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 If there were a woman in the world Avho might be formed 
 and fitted to reconcile Kenelm Chillingly to the sweet 
 troubles of love and tlie pleasant bickerings of wedded life, 
 one might reasonably suppose that that woman could be 
 found in Cecilia Travers. An only daughter, and losing lier 
 mother in childhood, she had been rAised to the mistress-ship 
 of a houseliold at an age in which most girls are still putting 
 their dolls to bed ; and thus had early acquired that sense 
 of responsibility, accompanied with the habits of self-reli- 
 ance, which seldom fails to give a certain nobility to char- 
 acter ; though almost as often, in the case of women, it 
 steals away the tender gentleness which constitutes the 
 charm of their sex. 
 
 It had not done so in the instance of Cecilia Travers, 
 because she was so womanlike that even the exercise of power 
 could not make her manlike. There was in the depth of her 
 nature such an instinct of sweetness, that wherever her mind 
 toiled and wandered it gathered and hoarded honey. 
 
 She had one advantage over most girls in the same rank of 
 life — she had not been taught to fritter away such capacities 
 for culture as Providence gave licr in the sterile nothing- 
 nesses which are called feminine accomplishments. She did 
 not paint figures out of drawing in meagre water-colors ; 
 she had not devoted years of her life to the inflicting on po- 
 lite audiences the boredom of Italian bravuras, which they 
 could hear better sung by a third-rate professional singer in 
 a metropolitan music-hall. I am afraid she had no other 
 female accomplishments than those by which the seamstress 
 or embroideress earns her daily bread. That sort of work 
 she loved, and she did it deftly. 
 
 But, if she had not been profitlessly plagued by masters, 
 Cecilia Travers had been singidarly favored by her father's 
 choice of a teacher, — no great merit in him either. He had
 
 KEKELM CHILLINGLY. 147 
 
 a prejudice against professional governesses, and it chanced 
 that among his own family connections was a certain Mrs. 
 Campion, a hidy of some literary distinction, whose husband 
 had held a high situation in one of our public offices, and 
 living, much to his satisfaction, up to a very handsome in- 
 come, had died, much to the astonishment of others, without 
 leaving a farthing behind him. 
 
 Fortunately, there were no children to provide for. A 
 small government pension was allotted to the widow ; and 
 as her husband's house had been made by her one of the 
 pleasantest in London, she was popular enough to be invit-' 
 ed by numerous friends to their country seats— among 
 others, by Mr. Travers. She came intending to stay a fort- 
 night. At the end of that time she had grown so attached 
 to Cecilia, and Cecilia to her, and her presence had become 
 so pleasant and so useful to her host, that the Squire entreat- 
 ed her to stay and undertake the education of his daughter. 
 Mrs. Campion, after some hesitation, gratefully consented ; 
 and thus Cecilia, from the age of eight to her present age of 
 nineteen, had the inestimable advantage of living in constant 
 companionship with a woman of richly cultivated mind, ac- 
 customed to hear the best criticisms on the best books, and 
 adding to no small accomplishment in literature the refine- 
 tnent of manners and that sort of prudent judgment which 
 result from habitual intercourse with an intellectual and 
 gracefully world-wise circle of society ; so that Cecilia her- 
 self, without being at all blue or pedantic, became one of 
 those rare young women with whom a well-educated man 
 can converse on equal terms — from whom he gains as much 
 as he can impart to her ; while a man who, not caring much 
 about books, is still gentleman enough to value good breed- 
 ing, felt a relief in exchanging the forms of liis native lan- 
 guage without the shock of hearing that a bishop was "a 
 swell," or a croquet-party " awfully jolly." 
 
 In a word, Cecilia Avas one of those women whom heaven 
 forms for man's helpmate — who, if he were born to rank and 
 wealth, would, as his partner, reflect on them a new dignity, 
 and add to their enjoyment by bringing forth their duties — 
 who, not less if the husband she chose were poor and strug- 
 gling, would encourage, sustain, and soothe him, take her 
 own share of his burdens, and temper the bitterness of life 
 with the all-recompensing sweetness of her smile. 
 
 Little, indeed, as yet had she ever thought of love or of 
 lovers. She had not even formed to herself any of those
 
 148 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 ideals which float before the eyes of most girls when they 
 enter their teens. But of two things she felt inly convinced 
 — first, that she could never wed where she did not love ; 
 and, secondly, that where she did love it would be for life. 
 
 And now I close this sketch with a picture of the girl 
 herself. She has just come into her room from inspecting 
 the preparations for the evening entertainment which her 
 father is to give to his tenants and rural neighbors. 
 
 She has thrown aside her straw hat, and put down the 
 large basket which she lias emptied of flowers. She pauses 
 before the glass, smoothing back the rufiied bands of her 
 hair — hair of a dark, soft chestnut, silky and luxuriant — 
 never polluted, and never, so long as she lives, to be pollut- 
 ed, by auricomous cosmetics : — far from that delicate dark- 
 ness, every tint of the colors traditionally dedicated to the 
 locks of Judas. 
 
 Her complexion, usually of that soft bloom which in- 
 clines to paleness, is now heightened into glow by exercise 
 and sunlight. The features arc small and feminine, the c) es 
 dark with long lashes, the mouth singularly beautiful, with 
 a dimple on either side, and parted now in a half-smile at 
 some pleasant recollection, giving a glimpse of small teeth 
 glistening as pearls. But the peculiar charm of her face is 
 in an expression of serene happiness, that sort of happiness 
 which seems as if it had never been interrupted by a sorrow, 
 had never been troubled by a sin — that holy kind of happi- 
 ness which belongs to innocence, the light reflected from a 
 heart and conscience alike at peace. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It was a lovely summer evening for the Squire's rural 
 entertainment. Mr. Travers had some guests staying with 
 him : they had dined early for the occasion, and were now 
 grouped with their host, a little before six o'clock, on the 
 lawn. The house was of irregular architecture, altered or 
 added to at various periods from the reign of Elizabeth to 
 that of Victoria : at one end, the oldest part, a gable with 
 muUion-windows ; at the other, the newest part, a flat-roofed 
 wing, with modern sashes opening to the ground, the inter- 
 mediate part much hidden by a veranda covered with creep-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 149 
 
 ers in full bloom. The lawn was a spacious table-land fac- 
 ing the west, and backed by a green and gentle hill, crowned 
 with the ruins of an ancient priory. On one side of the 
 lawn stretched a flower-garden and pleasure ground, origin- 
 ally planned by Repton ; on the opposite angles of the sward 
 were placed two large marquees — one for dancing, the other 
 for supper. Towards the south the view was left open, and 
 commanded the prospect of an old English park, not of the 
 stateliest character,— not intersected with ancient avenues, 
 nor clothed with profitless fern as lairs for deer — but the 
 park of a careful agriculturist, uniting profit with show, 
 the sward duly drained and nourished, fit to fatten bullocks 
 in an incredibly short time, and somewhat spoilt to the eye 
 by subdivisions of wire-fence. Mr. Travers was renowned 
 for skilful husbandry, and the general management of land 
 to the best advantage. He had come into the estate while 
 still in childhood, and thus enjoyed the accumulations of a 
 long minority. He had entered the Guards at the age of 
 eighteen, and having more command of money than most of 
 his contemporaries, though they might be of a higher rank 
 and the sons of richer men, he had been much courted and 
 much plundered. At the age of twenty-five he found him- 
 self one of the leaders of fashion, renowned chiefly for reck, 
 less daring wherever honor could be plucked out of the nettle 
 danger; a steeple-chaser, whose exploits made a quiet man's 
 hair stand on end ; a rider across country, taking leaps 
 Avhich a more cautious huntsman carefully avoided. Known 
 at Paris as well as in London, he had been admired by la- 
 dies whose smiles had cost him duels, the marks of which 
 still remained in glorious scars on his person. No man 
 ever seemed more likely to come to direst grief before at- 
 taining the age of thirty, for at twenty-seven all the accu- 
 mulations of his minority were gone, and his estate, which, 
 when he came of age, was scarcely three thousand a year, 
 but entirely at his own disposal, was mortgaged up to its 
 eyes. 
 
 His friends began to shake their heads and call him 
 "poor fellow ;" but, with all his wild faults, Leopold Trav- 
 ers had been wholly pure from the two vices out of which 
 a man does not often redeem himself. He had never drunk 
 and he had never gambled. His nerves were not broken, 
 his brain w^as not besotted. There was plenty of health in 
 him yet, mind and body. At the critical period of his life 
 he married for love, and his choice was a most felicitous
 
 I50 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 one. The lady had no fortune ; but, though handsome and 
 high-born, she had no taste for extravagance, and no desire 
 for other society than that of the man she loved. So when 
 he said, " Let us settle in the country and try our best to 
 live on a few hundreds, lay by, and keep the old place out 
 of the market," she consented with a joyful heart : and mar- 
 vel it was to all how this wild Leopold Travers did settle 
 down ; did take to cultivating his home farm with liis men 
 from sunrise to sunset, like a common tenant-farmer; did 
 contrive to pay the interest on the mortgages, and keep his 
 head above water. After some years of pupilage in this 
 school of thrift, during which his habits became formed and 
 his whole character braced, Leopold Travers suddenly found 
 himself again rich, through the wife whom he had so pru- 
 dently married without other dower than her love and her 
 virtues. Her only brother. Lord Eaglcton, a Scotch peer, 
 had been engaged in marriage to a young lady considered 
 to be a rare prize in the lottery of wedlock. The marriage 
 was broken off under very disastrous circumstances ; but 
 the young lord, good-looking and agreeable, was naturally 
 expected to seek speedy consolation in some other alliance. 
 Nevertheless lie did not do so ; — he became a confirmed in- 
 valid, and died single, leaving to his sister all in his power 
 to save from the distant kinsman who succeeded to his lands 
 and title, — a goodly sum, which not only sufficed to pay off 
 the mortgages on Neesdale Park, but bestowed on its 
 owner a surplus which the practical knowledge of coimtry 
 life that he had acquired enabled him to devote with extra- 
 ordinary profit to the general improvement of his estate. 
 He replaced tumble-down old farm-buildings with new 
 constructions on the most approved principles ; bought or 
 pensioned off certain slovenly incompetent tenants ; threw 
 sundry petty holdings into large farms suited to the buildings 
 he constructed ; purchased here and there small bits of land, 
 commodious to the farms they adjoined, and completing the 
 integrity of his ring-fence ; stubbed up profitless woods 
 which diminished the value of neighboring arables by ob- 
 structing sun and air and harboring legions of rabbits ; and 
 then, seeking tenants of enterprise and capital, more than 
 doubled his original yearly rental, and perhaps more than 
 tripled the market value of his property. Simultaneously 
 with this acquisition of fortune, he emerged from the in- 
 ]iospital)le and unsocial obscurity which his previous pov- 
 erty had compelled, took an active part in county business,
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 151 
 
 pioved himself an excellent speaker at public meetings, sub- 
 scribed liberally to the Hunt, and occasionally joined in it 
 — a less bold but a wiser rider than of yore. In short, as 
 Themistocles boasted that he could make a small state great, 
 so Leopold Travers might boast with equal truth that, by 
 his energies, his judgment, and the weight of his personal 
 character, he had made the owner of a property which had 
 been at his succession to it of third-rate rank in the county, 
 a personage so considerable that no knight of the shire 
 against whom he declared could have been elected, and if 
 he had determined to stand himself he would have been 
 chosen free of expense. 
 
 But he said, on being solicited to become a candidate, 
 "When a man once gives himself up to the care and im- 
 provement of a landed estate, he has no time and no heart 
 for anything else. An estate is an income or a kingdom, 
 according as the owner chooses to take it. I take it as a 
 kingdom, and I cannot be roi faineant, with a steward for 
 maire dii palais. A king does not go into the House of 
 Commons." 
 
 Three years after this rise in the social ladder, Mrs. 
 Travers was seized with congestion of the lungs, followed 
 by pleurisy, and died after less than a week's illness. Leo- 
 pold never wholly recovered her loss. Though still young, 
 and always handsome, the idea of another wife, the love of 
 another woman, were notions which he dismissed from his 
 mind with a quiet scorn. He was too masculine a creature 
 to parade grief. For some weeks, indeed, he shut himself 
 up in his own room, so rigidly secluded that he would not 
 see even his daughter. But one morning he appeared in his 
 fields as usual, and from that day resumed his old habits, 
 and gradually renewed that cordial interchange of hospital- 
 ities which had popularly distinguished him since his ac- 
 cession to wealth. Still, people felt that the man was 
 changed ; he was more taciturn, more grave : if always just 
 in his dealings, he took the harder side of justice, where in 
 his wife's time he had taken the gentler. Perhaps, to a man of 
 strong will, the habitual intercourse with an amiable woman 
 is essential for those occasions in which Will best proves 
 the fineness of its temper by the facility with which it can 
 be bent. 
 
 It may be said that Leopold Travel's miglit have found 
 such intercourse in the intimate companionship of his own 
 daughter. But slic was a mere child when his wife died,
 
 IS2 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 and she grew up to womanhood too insensibly for him to 
 note the cliange. Besides, wliere a man has found a wife 
 his all-in-all, a daughter can never supply her place. The 
 very reverence due to children precludes unrestrained con- 
 fidence ; and there is not that sense of permanent fellowship 
 in a daughter which a man has in a wife, — any day a stranger 
 may appear and carry her off from liim. At all events 
 Leopold did not own in Cecilia the softening influence to 
 which he had yielded in her mother. He was fond of her, 
 proud of her, indulgent to her ; but the indulgence had its set 
 limits. Whatever she asked solely for herself he granted ; 
 whatever she wished for matters under feminine control 
 • — the domestic household, the parish school, the alms- 
 receiving poor — obtained his gentlest consideration. But 
 when she had been solicited by some offending out-of-door 
 dependent or son'e petty defaulting tenant to use her good 
 offices in favor of the culprit, Mr. Travcrs checked her in- 
 terference by a firm "No," though uttered in a mild accent, 
 and accompanied with a masculine aphorism to the effect 
 " that there would be no such things as strict justice and dis- 
 ciplined order in the world if a man yielded to a woman's 
 pleadings in any matter of business between man and man." 
 From this it will be seen that Mr. Lethbridge had overrated 
 the value of Cecilia's alliance in the negotiation respecting 
 Mrs. Bavvtrey's premium and shop. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 If, having just perused what has thus been written on the 
 biographical antecedents and mental characteristics of Leo- 
 pold Travers, you, my dear reader, were to be personally 
 presented to that gentleman as he now stands, the central 
 figure of the group gathered round him, on his terrace, you 
 would probably be surprised, — nay, I have no doubt you 
 Avould say to yourself, "Not at all the sort of man I ex- 
 pected." In that slender form, somewhat below tlie middle 
 height ; in that fair countenance which still, at the age of 
 forty-eight, retains a delicacy of feature and of coloring 
 which is of almost woman-like beauty, and, from the quiet 
 placidity of its expression, conveys at first glance the notion 
 of almost woman-like mildness, — it would be difficult to
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 15^ 
 
 recognize a man who in youth had been renowned for reck- 
 less daring, in maturer years more honorably distinguished 
 for steadfast prudence and determined purpose, and who, 
 alike in faults or in merits, was as emphatically masculine, 
 as a biped in trousers can possibly be. 
 
 Mr. Travers is listening to a young man of about tvvo-and- 
 twenty, the eldest son of the richest nobleman of the county, 
 and who intends to start for the representation of the shire 
 at the next general election, which is close at hand. The 
 Hon. George Belvoir is tall, inclined to be stout, and will 
 look well on the hustings. He has had those pains taken 
 with his education which an English peer generally does 
 take with the son intended to succeed to the representation 
 of an honorable name and the responsibilities of high station. 
 If eldest sons do not often make as great a figure in the 
 world as their younger brothers, it is not because their 
 minds are less cultivated, but because they have less motive 
 power for action. George Belvoir was well read, especially 
 in that sort of reading which befits a future senator — history, 
 statistics, political economy, so far as that dismal science is 
 compatible with the agricultural interest. . He was also well- 
 principled, had a strong sense of discipline and duty, was 
 prepared in politics firmly to uphold as right whatever was 
 proposed by his own party, and to reject as wrong what- 
 ever was proposed by the other. At present he was rather 
 loud and noisy in the assertion of his opinions, — young men 
 fresh from the university generally are. It was the secret 
 wish of Mr. Travers that George Belvoir should become his 
 son-in-law— less because of his rank and wealth (though 
 such advantages were not of a nature to be despised by a 
 practical man like Leopold Travers) than on account of 
 those qualities in his personal character which were likely 
 to render him an excellent husband. 
 
 Seated on wire benches, just without the veranda, but 
 shaded by its fragrant festoons, were Mrs. Campion and 
 three ladies, the wives of neighboring squires. Cecilia 
 stood a little apart from them, bending over a long-backed 
 Skye terrier, whom she was teaching to stand on his hind- 
 legs. 
 
 But see, the company are arriving ! How suddenly that 
 green space, ten minutes ago so solitary, has become animated 
 and populous ! 
 
 Indeed, the Park now presented a very lively appearance : 
 fans, carts, and farmers' chaises were seen in crowded 
 7*
 
 154 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 procession along the winding road ; foot-passengers were 
 swarming towards the house in all directions. The herds 
 and tlocks in the various inclosurcs stopped grazing to 
 stare at the unwonted invaders of their pasture ; yet the 
 orderly nature of the host imparted a respect for order to 
 his ruder visitors ; not even a turbulent boy attempted to 
 scale the fences or creep through their wires ; all threaded 
 the narrow turnstiles which gave egress from one sub- 
 division of the sward to another. 
 
 Mr. Travers turned to Georoe Bclvoir : " I see old farmer 
 Steen's yellow gig. Mind how you talk to him, George. lie 
 is full of whims and crotchets, and if you once brush his 
 feathers the wrong way he will be as vindictive as a parrot. 
 But he is the man who must second you at the nomination. 
 No other tenant-farmer carries the same weight with his 
 class." 
 
 " I suppose," said George, " that if Mr. Stcen is the best 
 man to second me at the hustings, he is a good speaker." 
 
 " A good speaker ? — in one sense he is. He never says a 
 word too much. The last time he seconded the nomination 
 of the man you are to succeed, this was his speech : ' Brother 
 Electors, for twenty years I have been one of the judges at 
 our county cattle-show. I know one animal from another. 
 Looking at the specimens before us to-day, none of them 
 are as good of tlieir kind as I've seen elsewhere. But if you 
 choose Sir John Hogg you'll not get the wrong sow by the 
 ear ! ' " 
 
 " At least," said George, after a laugh at this sample of 
 eloquence unadorned, " Mr. Steen does not err on the side 
 of flattery in his commendations of a candidate. But what 
 makes him such an authority with the farmers ? Is he a 
 first-rate agriculturist ?" 
 
 " In tluift, yes ! — in spirit, no ! He says that all expensive 
 experiments should be left to gentlemen farmers. He is an 
 authority with other tenants — istly. Because he is a very 
 keen censor of their landlords ; 2dly, Because he holds him- 
 self thoroughly independent of his own ; 3dly, Because he is 
 supposed to have studied the political bearings of questions 
 that affect the landed interest, and has more than once been 
 summoned to give his opinion on such subjects to Com- 
 mittees of both Houses of Parliament. Here becomes. Ob- 
 serve, when I leave you to talk to him, istly, that you confess 
 utter ignorance of practical farming, — nothing enrages him 
 like the presumption of a gentleman farmer like myself ;
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 155 
 
 2dly, that you ask his opinion on the publication of Agri- 
 cultural Statistics, just modestly intimating that you, as at 
 present advised, think that inquisitorial researches into a 
 man's business involve principles opposed to the British 
 Constitution. And on all that he may say as to the short- 
 comings of landlords in general, and of your father in par- 
 ticular, make no reply, but listen with an air of melancholy 
 conviction. How do you do, Mr. Steen, and how's the Mis- 
 tress ? Why have you not brought her with you ?" 
 
 ** My good woman is in the straw again, Squire. Who is 
 that youngster ? " 
 
 " Hist ! let me introduce Mr. Belvoir." 
 
 Mr. Belvoir offers his hand. 
 
 " No, sir ! " vociferates Steen, putting both his own 
 hands behind him. " No offence, young gentleman. But I 
 don't give my hand at first sight to a man who wants to 
 shake a vote out of it. Not that I know anything against you. 
 But, if you be a farmer's friend, rabbits are not, and my 
 lord vour father is a great one for rabbits." 
 
 "Indeed you are mistaken there!" cries George, with 
 vehement earnestness. Mr. Travers gave him a nudge, as 
 much as to say, " Hold your tongue." George understood 
 the hint, and is carried off meekly by Mr. Steen down the 
 solitude of the plantation. 
 
 The guests now arrived fast and thick. They consisted 
 chiefly not only of Mr. Travers's tenants, but of farmers and 
 their families within the range of eight or ten miles from the 
 Park, with a few of the neighboring gentry and clergy. 
 
 It was not a supper intended to include the laboring 
 class. For Mr. Travers had an especial dislike to the cus- 
 tom of exhibiting peasants at feeding-time, as if they were 
 so many tamed animals of an inferior species. When he 
 entertained work-people, he made them comfortable in their 
 own way ; and peasants feel more comfortable when not in- 
 vited to be stared out of countenance. 
 
 "Well, Lethbridge," said Mr. Travers, "where is the 
 young gladiator you promised to bring? " 
 
 " I did bring him, and he was by my side not a minute 
 ago. He has suddenly given me the slip — abiit., cvasit, crupit. 
 I was looking round for him in vain when you accosted 
 me." 
 
 " I hope he has not seen some guest of mine whom he 
 wants to fight." 
 
 " I hope not," answered the Parson, doubtfully. " He
 
 156 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 is a strange fellow. But I think you will be pleased with 
 him — that is, if he can be found. Oh, Mr. Saunderson, how 
 do you do ? Have you seen your visitor ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I have just come. My INlistress, Squire, and 
 my three girls ; — and this is my son." 
 
 " A hearty welcome to all," said the graceful Squire ; 
 (turning to Saunderson junior) " I suppose you are fond of 
 dancing. Get yourself a partner. Wc may as well open the 
 ball." ^ 
 
 "Thank you, si", but I never dance," said Saunderson 
 junior, with an air of austere superiority to an amusement 
 which the March of Intellect had left behind. 
 
 " Then you'll have less to regret when you are grown 
 old. But the band is striking up ; we must adjourn to the 
 marquee. George " (Mr. Belvoir, escaped from Mr. Steen, 
 had just made his reappearance), ''will you give your arm to 
 Cecilia, to whom I think you are engaged for the first 
 quadrille ? " 
 
 " I hope, "said George to Cecilia, as tliey walked towards 
 tlie marquee, " that Mr. Steen is not an average specimen of 
 the electors I shall have to canvass. Whether he has been 
 brought up to honor his own father and mother I can't pre- 
 tend to say, but he seems bent upon teaching me not to 
 honor mine. Having taken away my father's moral charac- 
 ter upon the unfounded allegation that he loved rabbits 
 better than mankind, he then assailed my innocent mother 
 on the score of religion, and inquired when she was going 
 over to the Church of Rome — basing that inquiry on the 
 assertion that she had taken away her custom from a Pro 
 testant grocer and conferred it on a Papist." 
 
 " Those are favorable signs, Mr. Belvoir. Mr. Steen 
 always prefaces a kindness by a great deal of incivility. I 
 asked him once to lend me a pony, my own being suddenly 
 taken lame, and he seized that opportunity to tell me that 
 my father was an impostor in pretending to be a judge of 
 cattle ; that he was a tvrant, screwing his tenants in order to 
 indulge extravagant habits of lujspitality ; and implied that 
 it would be a great mercy if he did not live to apply to him, 
 not for a pcmy, but for parochial relief. I went away indig- 
 nant. But he sent me the i)(jny. I am sure he will give 
 you his vote." 
 
 "Meanwhile," said George, with a timid attempt at gal- 
 lantry, as they now commenced the quadrille, "I take en- 
 couragement from the belief that I have the good wishes
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 157 
 
 of Miss Travers. If ladies had votes, as Mr. Mill recom- 
 mends, why, then " 
 
 "Why, then, I should vote as papa does," said Miss 
 Travers, simply. "And if women had votes, I suspect there 
 would be very little peace in any household where they did 
 not vote as the man at the head of it wished them." 
 
 " But I believe, after all," said the aspirant to Parliament, 
 seriously, " that the advocates for female suffrage would limit 
 it to women independent of masculine control — widows and 
 spinsters voting in right of their own independent tene- 
 ments." 
 
 "In that case," said Cecilia, " I suppose they would still 
 generally go by the opinion of some man they relied on, or 
 make very silly choice if they did not." 
 
 "You underrate the good sense of your sex." 
 
 " I hope not. Do you underrate the good sense of yours, 
 if, in far more than half the things appertaining to daily life, 
 the wisest men say, 'better leave than to the ivoinen 2 But 
 you're forgetting the figure — cavalier seul." 
 
 " By the way," said George, in another interval of the 
 dance, " do you know a Mr. Chillingly, the son of Sir Peter, 
 of Exmundham, in Westshire?" 
 
 " No ; why do you ask ?" 
 
 " Because I thought I caught a glimpse of his face : it 
 was just as Mr. Steen was bearing me away down the planta- 
 tion. From what you say, I must suppose I was mistaken." 
 
 " Chillingly ! But siu-ely some persons were talking yes- 
 terday at dinner about a young gentleman of that name as 
 being' likely to stand for Westshire at the next election, but 
 whohad made a very unpopular and eccentric speech on the 
 occasion of his coming of age." 
 
 "The same man — I was at college with him — a very sin- 
 gular character. He was thought clever— won a prize or 
 two— took a good degree, but it was generally said that he 
 would have deserved a much higher one if some of his papers 
 had not contained covert jests either on the subjects or the 
 examiners. It is a dangerous thing to set up as a humorist 
 in practical life— especially public life. They say Mr. Pitt 
 had naturally a great deal of wit and humor, but he wisely 
 suppressed any evidence of those qualities in his Parliamen- 
 tary speeches. Just like Chillingly, to turn into ridicule the 
 important event of festivities in honor of his coming of age 
 —an occasion that can never occur again in the whole course 
 of his life."
 
 158 KENELM C/I/LLIXGLY. 
 
 " It was bad taste," said Cecilia, " if intentional. But 
 perhaps he was misunderstood, or taken by surprise." 
 
 "Misunderstood — possibly; but taken by surprise — no. 
 The coolest fellow I ever met. Not that I have met him very 
 often. Latterly, indeed, at Cambridge he lived much alone. 
 It was said that he read hard. I doubt that, for my rooms 
 were just over his, and I know that he was much more 
 frequently out of doors than in. He rambled a good deal 
 about the country on foot. I have seen him in by-lanes a 
 dozen miles distant from the town Avhen I have been riding 
 back from the Iliuit. He was fond of the water, and pulled 
 a mighty strong oar, but declined to belong to our Univer- 
 sity crew ; yet if ever there was a fight between undergradu- 
 ates and bargemen, he was sure to be in the midst of it. Yes, 
 a very great oddity indeed, full of contradictions, for a mild- 
 er, quieter fellow in general intercourse you could not see; 
 and as for the jests of which he was accused in his Examin- 
 ation Papers, his very face should have acquitted him of the 
 charge before any impartial jury of his countrymen." 
 
 "You sketch quite an interesting picture of him," said 
 Cecilia. "I wish we did know him ; he would be worth 
 seeing." 
 
 " And, once seen, you would not easily forget him — a dark 
 handsome face, with large melancholy eves, and with one of 
 those spare, slender figures which enable a man to disguise 
 his strength, as a fraudulent billiard-player disguises his 
 play." 
 
 The dance had ceased during this conversation, and the 
 speakers were now walking slowly to and fro the lawn amid 
 the general crowd. 
 
 " How well your father plays the part of host to these 
 rural folks ! " said George, with a secret envy. *' Do observe 
 liow quietly he puts that shy young farmer at his ease, and 
 now how kindly he deposits that lame old lady on the bench 
 and places the stool under her feet. What a canvasser he 
 would be ! and how young he still looks, and how monstrous 
 handsome ! " 
 
 This last compliment was littered as Travers, having 
 made the old lady comfortable, had joined the three Miss 
 Saundersons, dividing his pleasant smile equally between 
 them, and seemingly unconscious of the admiring glances 
 which many another rural beauty directed towards him as 
 he passed along. About the man tlicre was a certain inde- 
 scribable elegance, a natural suavity free from all that afifec-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY, 159 
 
 tation, whether of forced heartiness or condescending civil- 
 ity, which too often cliaracterizes the well-meant efforts of 
 provincial magnates to accommodate themselves to persons 
 of inferior station and breeding. It is a great advantage to a 
 man to have passed his early youth in that most equal and 
 most polished of all democracies — the best society of large 
 capitals. And to such acquired advantage Leopold Travers 
 added the inborn qualities that please. 
 
 Later in the evening, Travers, again accosting Mr. Leth- 
 bridge, said, " I have been talking much to the Saundersons 
 about that young man who did us the inestimable service of 
 punishing your ferocious parishioner, Tom Bowles ; and all 
 I hear so confirms the interest your own account inspired 
 me with, that I should really like much to make his ac- 
 quaintance. Has not he turned up yet ? "' 
 
 " No ; I fear he must have gone. But in that case I hope 
 you will take his generous desire to serve my poor basket- 
 maker into benevolent consideration." 
 
 " Do not press me ; I feel so reluctant to refuse any re- 
 quest of yours. But I have my own theory as to the man- 
 agement of an estate, and my system does not allow of favor. 
 I should wish to explain that to the young stranger himself. 
 For I hold courage in such honor that I do not like a brave 
 man to leave these parts with an impression that Leopold 
 Travers is an ungracious churl. However, he may not have 
 gone. I will go and look for him myself. Just tell Cecilia 
 that she has danced enough with the gentry, and that I 
 have told farmer Turby's son, a fine young fellow, and a 
 capital rider across country, that I expect him to show my 
 daughter tiiat he can dance as well as he rides." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Quitting Mr. Lethbridge, Travers turned with quick step 
 towards the more solitary part of the grounds. He did not 
 find the object of his search in the walks of the plantation ; 
 and, on takingthe circuit of his demesne, wound his way back 
 towards the lawn through a sequestered rocky hollow in the 
 rear of the marquee, which had been devoted to a fernery. 
 Here he came to a sudden pause ; for, seated a few yards 
 before him on a gray crag, and the moonlight full on his
 
 i6o KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 face, he saw a solitary man, looking upwards with a £lill 
 and mournful gaze, evidently absorbed in abstract coniem- 
 plation. 
 
 Recalling the description of the stranger which he had 
 heard from Mr. Lethbridge and the Saundersons, Mr. Travers 
 felt sure that he had come on him at last. He approached 
 gently ; and being much concealed by the tall ferns, Kenelm 
 (for that itinerant it was) did not see him advance, until he 
 felt a hand on his shoulder, and, tinning round, beheld a 
 winning smile and lieard a pleasant voice. 
 
 " I think I am not mistaken," said Leopcjld Travers, " in 
 assuming you to be the gentleman whom Mr. Lethbridge 
 promised to introduce to me, and who is staying with my 
 tenant Mr. Saunderson .'' " 
 
 Kenelm rose and bowed. Travers saw at once that it was 
 the bow of a man in his own world, and not in keeping with 
 the Sunday costume of a petty farmer. " Nay," said he, " let 
 us talk seated;" and, placing himself on the crag, he niade 
 room for Kenelm beside him. 
 
 " In the first place," resumed Travers, " I must thank you 
 for having done a public service in putting down the brute 
 force which has long tyrannized over the neighborhood. 
 Often in my young days I have felt the disadvantage of 
 height and sinews, whenever it Avould liave been a great con- 
 venience to terminate dispute or chastise insolence by a re- 
 sort to man's primitive weapons ; hut I never more lamented 
 my physical inferiority than on certain occasions when I 
 would have given my ears to be able to thrash Tom Bowles 
 mysf^lf. It has been as great a disgrace to my estate that 
 that bully should so long have infested it, as it is to the 
 King of Italy not to be able with all his armies to put down 
 a brigand in Calabria." 
 
 "Pardon me, Mr. Travers, but I am one of those rare 
 persons who do not like to hear ill of their friends. Mr. 
 Thomas Bowles is a particular friend of mine." 
 
 " Eh ! " cried Travers, aghast. ** ' Friend ' ! You are jok- 
 ing." 
 
 "You would not accuse me of joking if you knew me 
 better. But surely von have felt that there are few friends 
 one likes more cordially, and ought to respect more heed- 
 fully, than the enemy with whom one has just made it up." 
 
 "You say well, and I accept the rebuke," said Travers, 
 more and more surprised. "And I certainly have less right 
 to abuse Mr. Bowles than you have, since I had not the
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. i6i 
 
 courage to fight liini. To turn to another subject less provo- 
 cative. Mr. Lethbridge has told me of your amiable desire 
 to serve two of his young parishioners — Will Somers and 
 Jessie Wiles — and of your generous offer to pay the money 
 Mrs. Bavvtrey demands for the transfer of her lease. To that 
 negotiation my consent is necessary, and that consenc I 
 cannot give. Shall I tell you why ? " 
 
 *' Pray do. Your reasons may admit of argument." 
 " Every reason admits of argument," said Mr. Travers, 
 amused at the calm assurance of a youthful stranger in anti- 
 cipating argument witli a skillful proprietor on the manage- 
 ment of his own property. " I do not, however, tell you my 
 reasons for the sake of argument, but in vindication of my 
 seeming want of courtesy towards yourself. I have had a 
 very hard and a very difficult task to perform in bringing 
 the rental of my estate up to its proper value. In doing so, 
 I have been compelled to adopt one uniform system, equally 
 applied to my largest and my pettiest holdings. That system 
 consists in securing the best and safest tenants I can, at the 
 rents computed by a valuer in whom I have confidence. To 
 this system, universally adopted on my estate, though it in- 
 curred much unpopularity at first, I have at length succeeded 
 in reconciling the public opinion of my neighborhood. 
 People began by saying I was hard ; they now acknowledge 
 I am just. If I once give way to favor or sentiment, I un- 
 hinge my whole system. Every day I am subjected to mov- 
 ing solicitations. Lord Twostars — a keen politician — begs 
 me to give a vacant farm to a tenant because he is an excel- 
 lent canvasser and has alway voted straight with the Party. 
 Mrs. Fourstars, a most benevolent woman, entreats me not 
 to dismiss another tenant, because he is in distressed circum- 
 stances and has a large family — very good reasons perliaps 
 for my excusing him an arrear or allowing him a retiring 
 pension, but the worst reasons in the world for letting him 
 continue to ruin himself and my land. Now% Mrs. Bawtrcy 
 has a small holding on lease at the inadequate rent of ^8 a 
 year. She asks ^^45 for its transfer, but she can't transfer 
 the lease without my consent ; and I can get £^\2 a year as 
 a moderate rental from a large choice of competent tenants. 
 It will better answer to me to pay her the ^45 myself, which 
 I have no doubt the incoming tenant would pay me back, 
 at least in part ; and if he did not, the additional rent would 
 be good interest for my expenditure Now, you happen to 
 take a sentimental interest, as you pass through the village,
 
 1 62 KEN ELM C//ILLLYGLY. 
 
 in the loves of a needy cripple, whose utmost industry has 
 but served to save himself from parish relief, and a giddy 
 girl without a sixpence, and you ask me to accept these very 
 equivocal tenants instead of substantial ones, and at a rent 
 one-third less than the market value. Suppose that I yielded 
 to your request, what becomes of my reputation for practical, 
 business-like justice ? I shall have made an inroad into the 
 system by which my whole estate is managed, and have in- 
 vited all manner of solicitations on the part of friends and 
 neighbors, which I could no longer consistently refuse, hav- 
 ing shown how easily I can be persuaded into compliance 
 by a stranger whom I may never see again. And are you 
 sure, after all, that, if you did prevail on me, you would do 
 the individual good you aim at ? It is, no doubt, very pleas- 
 ant to think one has made a young couple happy. But if 
 that young couple fail in keeping the little shop to which 
 would transplant them (and nothing more likely — peasants 
 seldom become good shop-keepers), and find themsches, 
 with a family of children, dependent solely, not on the arm 
 of a strong laborer, but the ten fingers of a sickly cripple, 
 who makes clever baskets, for which there is but slight and 
 precarious demand in the neighborhood, may you not have 
 insured the misery of the couple you wished to render 
 happy ? " 
 
 "1 withdraw all argument," said Kcnclm. with an aspect 
 so humiliated and dejected that it would have softened a 
 Greenland bear, or a Counsel for the Prosecution. " I am 
 more and more convinced that of all the shams in the world, 
 that of benevolence is the greatest. It seems so easy to do 
 good, and it is so difficult to do it. Everywhere, in this 
 hateful civilized life, one runs one's head against a system. 
 A system, Mr. Travers, is man's servile imitation of the blind 
 tyranny of what in our ignorance we call ' Natural Laws,' a 
 mechanical something through which the world is ruled by 
 tlie cruelty of General Principles, to the utter disregard of 
 individual welfare. By Natural Laws creatures prey on each 
 other, and big fishes eat little ones upon system. It is, 
 nevertheless, a hard thing for the little fish. Every nation, 
 every town, every hamlet, every occujoation, has a system, by 
 wliich, somehow or other, the pond swarms with fishes, of 
 which a great many inferiors contribute to increase the size 
 of a superior. It is an idle benevolence to keep one solitary 
 gudgeon out of the jaws of a yixkc. Here am I doing what 
 I thought the simplest thing in the world, asking a gentle-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 163 
 
 man, evidently as good-natured as myself, to allow an old 
 woman to let her premises to a deserving young couple, and 
 paying what she asks for it out of my own money. And I 
 find that I am running against a system, and invading all 
 the laws by which a rental is increased and an estate im- 
 proved. Mr. Travers, you have no cause for regret in not 
 having beaten Tom Bowles. You have beaten his victor, 
 and I now give up all dream of further interference with the 
 Natural Laws that govern the village which I have visited 
 in vain. I had meant to remove Tom Bowles from that 
 quiet community. I shall now leave him to return to his 
 former habits — to marry Jessie Wiles— which he certainly 
 will do, and " 
 
 " Hold ! " cried Mr. Travers. " Do you mean to say that 
 you can induce Tom Bowles to leave the village ? " 
 
 " I had induced him to do it, provided Jessie Wiles 
 married the basket-maker ; but, as that is out of the question, 
 I am bound to tell him so, and he will stay." 
 
 " But if he left, what would become of his business ? His 
 mother could not keep it on ; his little place is a freehold, 
 the only house in the village that does not belong to me, or 
 I should have ejected him long ago. Would he sell the 
 premises to me ? " 
 
 " Not if he stays and marries Jessie Wiles. But if he 
 goes with me to Luscombe and settles in that town as a 
 partner to his uncle, I suppose he would be too glad to sell 
 a house of which he can have no pleasant recollection. But 
 what then ? You cannot violate your system for the sake of 
 a miserable forge." 
 
 " It would not violate my system if, instead of yielding 
 to a sentiment, I gained an advantage ; and, to say truth, I 
 should be very glad to buy that forge and the fields that go 
 with it." 
 
 '"Tis your affair now, not mine, Mr. Travers. I no long- 
 er presume to interfere. I leave the neighborhood to-mor- 
 row : see \i you can negotiate with Mr. Bowles. 1 have the 
 honor to wish you a good-evening." 
 
 " Nay, young gentleman, I cannot allow you to quit me 
 thus. You have declined apparently to join the dancers, 
 but you will at least join the supper. Come ! " 
 
 " Thank you sincerely, no. I cam.e here merely on the 
 business wliich your system has settled." 
 
 " But I am not sure that it is settled." Here Mr. Tra- 
 vers wound his arm within Kenelm's, and, looking him full
 
 1 64 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 in the face, said, " I know that T am speaking to a gentle- 
 man at least equal in rank to myself, but as I enjoy the me- 
 lancholy privilege of being the older man, do not think I 
 take an unwarrantable liberty in asking if you object to tell 
 me your name. I should like to introduce you to my 
 daughter, who is very partial to Jessie Wiles and to Will 
 Sjmers. But I can't venture to inflame her imagination by 
 designating you as a prince in disguise." 
 
 "Mr. Travers, you express yourself with exquisite deli- 
 cacy. But I am just starting in life, and I shrink from mor- 
 tifying my father by associating my name with a signal 
 failure. Suppose I were an anonymous contributor, say, to 
 'The Londoner,' and I had just brought that highly intel- 
 lectual journal into discredit by a feeble attempt at a good- 
 natured criticism or a generous sentiment, wcnild that be 
 the fitting occasion to throw off the mask and parade myself 
 to a mockina: world as the imbecile violator of an established 
 system ? Should I not, in a moment so untoward, more 
 than ever desire to merge my insignificant unit in the mys- 
 terious importance which the smallest Singular obtains 
 when he makes himself a Plural, and speaks not as *I,' but 
 as ' We ' ? \Vc are insensible to the cliarm of young ladies ; 
 We are not bribed by suppers ; We, like the witches of Mac- 
 beth, have no name on earth ; We are the greatest wisdom 
 of the greatest number ; Wc are so upon system ; We salute 
 you, Mr. Travers, and depart unassailable." 
 
 Here Kenelm rose, doffed and replaced his hat in majes- 
 tic salutation, turned towards the entrance of the fernery, 
 and found himself suddenly face to face with George Bel- 
 voir, behind whom followed, with a throng of guests, the 
 fair form of Cecilia. George Belvoir caught Kenelm by the 
 hand, and exclaimed, "Chillingly ! I thought I could not be 
 mistaken." 
 
 "Chillingly!" echoed Leopold Travers from behind. 
 " Are you the son of my old friend Sir Peter ?" 
 
 Thus discovered and environed, Kenelm did not lose his 
 wonted presence of mind ; he turned round to Leopold Tra- 
 vers, who was now close in his rear, and whispered, " If my 
 father was your friend, do not disgrace his son. Do not say 
 I am a failure. Deviate from your system, and let Will 
 Somers succeed Mrs. Bawtrey." Then reverting his face to 
 Mr. Belvoir, lie said, tranquillv, "Yes ; we have met before." 
 
 " Cecilia," said Travers, now interposing, "I am happy 
 to introduce to you as Mr. Chillingly, not only the son of
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 165 
 
 ail old friend of mine, not only the knight-errant of whose 
 gallant conduct on behalf of yowx protegee Jessie Wiles we 
 have heard so much, but the eloquent arguer who has con- 
 quered my better judgment in a matter on which I thought 
 myself infallible. Tell Mr. Lethbridge that I accept Will 
 Somers as a tenant for Mrs. Bawtrey's premises." 
 
 Kenelm grasped the Squire's hand cordially. " May it 
 be in my power to do a kind thing to you, in spite of any 
 system to the contrary !" 
 
 "Mr. Chillingly, give your arm to my daughter. You 
 will not now object to join the dancers ? " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Cecilia stole a shy glance at Kenelm as the two emerged 
 from the fernery into the open space of the lawn. His 
 countenance pleased her. She thought she discovered much 
 latent gentleness under the cold and mournful gravity of its 
 expression ; and attributing the silence he maintained to 
 some painful sense of an awkward position in the abrupt 
 betrayal of his incognito, sought wnth womanly tact to dis- 
 pel his supposed embarrassment. 
 
 "You have chosen a delightful mode of seeing the coun- 
 try this lovely summer weather, Mr. Chillingly. I believe 
 such pedestrian exercises are very common with University 
 Students during the Long Vacation." 
 
 " Very common, though they generally wander in packs 
 like wild dogs or Australian dingoes. It is only a tame dog 
 that one finds on the road traveling by himself ; and then, 
 unless he behaves very quietly, it is ten to one that he is 
 stoned as a mad dog." 
 
 " But I am afraid, from what I hear, that you have not 
 been traveling very quietly." 
 
 " You are quite right, Miss Travers, and I am a sad dog 
 if not a mad one. But pardon me, we are nearing the 
 marquee ; the band is striking up, and, alas ! I am not a 
 dancing dog." 
 
 He released Cecilia's arm, and bowed. 
 
 " Let us sit here awhile, then," said she, motioning to a 
 garden-bench. "I have no engagement for the next dance, 
 and, as I am a little tired, I shall be glad of a reprieve."
 
 i66 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Kenclm sighed, and, with the air of a martyr stretching 
 Iiimself on the rack, took liis phice beside the fairest girl in 
 the county. 
 
 "You were at college with Mr. Belvoir?" 
 
 "I was." 
 
 " He was thought clever there ? " 
 
 " I have not a doubt of it." 
 
 "You know he is convassing our county for the next 
 election. My father takes a warm interest in his success, 
 and thinks he will be a useful member of Parliament." 
 
 " Of that I am certain. For the first five years he will be 
 called pushing, noisy, and conceited, much sneered at by 
 men of his own age, and coughed down on great occasions ; 
 for the five following years he will be considered a sensible 
 man in committees, and a necessary feature in debate ; at the 
 end of those years he will be an under-secretary ; in five 
 years more he will be a Cabinet Minister, and the represen- 
 tative of an important section of opinions : he will be an ir- 
 reproachable private character, and his wife will be seen 
 wearing the family diamonds at all the great parties. She 
 will take an interest in politics and theology ; and if she die 
 before him, her husband will show his sense of wedded hap- 
 piness by clioosing another lady, equally fitted to wear the 
 family diamonds and to maintain the family consequence." 
 
 In spite of her laughter, Cecilia felt a certain awe at the 
 solemnity of voice and manner with which Kenelm deliver- 
 ed these oracular sentences, and the whole prediction seemed 
 strangely in unison with licr own impressions of the char- 
 acter whose fate was thus shadowed out. 
 
 "Are you a fortune-teller, Mr. Chillingly?" she asked, 
 falteringly, and after a pause. 
 
 "As good a one as any whose hand you could cross with 
 a shilling." 
 
 " Will you tell me my fortune ? " 
 
 "No ; I never tell tlie foi tunes of ladies, because your 
 sex is credulous, and a lady miglit believe what I tell her. 
 And when we believe such and such is to be our fate, we are 
 too apt to work out our life into the verification of the be- 
 lief. If Lady Macbetli had disbelieved in the witches, she 
 would never have persuaded her lord to murder Duncan." 
 
 " But can vou not predict me a more cheerful fortune 
 than that tragical illustration of yours seems to threaten ?" 
 
 "The future is never cheerful to those who look on the 
 dark side of the question. Mr. Gray is too good a poet for
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 167 
 
 people to read nowadays, otherwise I should refer you to his 
 lines in the Ode to Eton College — 
 
 ' See how all around us wait 
 The muiisters of human fate, 
 
 And black Misfortune's baleful train.* 
 
 Meanwhile it is something to enjoy the present. We are 
 young — we are listening to music — there is no cloud over 
 the summer stars — -our conscience is clear— our hearts un- 
 troubled : why look forward in search of happiness ? — shall 
 we ever be happier than we are at this moment ? " 
 
 Here Mr. Travers came up. " We are going to supper 
 in a few minutes," said he ; " and before we lose siglit of 
 each other, Mr. Chillingly, I wish to impress on you the 
 moral fact that one good turn deserves another. I have 
 yielded to your wish, and now you must yield to mine. 
 Come and stay a few days wnth me, and see your benevolent 
 intentions carried out." 
 
 Kenelm paused. Now that he was discovered, why 
 should he not pass a few days among his equals ? Realities 
 or shams might be studied with squires no less than with 
 farmers ; besides, he had taken a liking to Travers. That 
 graceful cidevant Wildair, wath the slight form and the deli- 
 cate face, was unlike rural squires in general. Kenelm 
 paused, and then said, frankly : 
 
 " I accept your invitation. Would the middle of next 
 week suit you ? " 
 
 " The sooner the better. Why not to-morrow ? " 
 
 " To-morrow I am pre-engaged to an excursion with Mr. 
 Bowles. That may occupy two or three days, and mean- 
 while I must write home for other garments tlian those in 
 which I am a sham." 
 
 " Come any day you like." 
 
 " Agreed." 
 
 "Agreed ; and, hark ! the supper-bell." 
 
 " Supper," said Kenelm, offering his arm to Miss Tra- 
 vers, — " supper is a word truly interesting, truly poetical. 
 It associates itself with the entertainments of the ancients 
 — with the Augustan age — with Horace and Maecenas ;— 
 with the only elegant but too fleeting period of the modern 
 world — with the nobles and wits of Paris, when Paris had 
 wits and nobles ; — with Moliere and the warm-hearted Duke 
 who is said to have been the original of Moliere's Misan-
 
 l68 JCENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 thrope; — with Madame de St'vigne and the Racine whom 
 that inimitable letter-writer denied to be a poet ; — with Swift 
 and Bolingbroke - with Johnson, Goldsmith, and Garrick. 
 Epochs are signalized by their eatings. I honor him who 
 revives the Golden Age of suppers." So saying, his face 
 brightened. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY, ESQ., TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 *' My dear Father, — I am alive and unmarried. Providence has 
 watched over me in these respects ; but I have Iiad narrow escapes. Hither- 
 to I have not accjuired much wordly wisdom in my travels. It is true that I 
 have been paid two shillings as a day-laborer, and, in fact, have fairly earned 
 at least six shillings more ; but against that additional claim I generously :-t\. 
 off, as an ecjuivalent, my board and lodging. On the other hand, I have spent 
 forty-five pounds out of ilie fifty which I devoted to the purchase of experience. 
 But I hope you will be a gainer by that investment. Send an order to Mr. 
 
 William Somers, basket-maker, Graveleigh, shire, for the hampers and 
 
 game-baskets you require, and I undertake to say that you will save twenty 
 percent, on that article (all expenses of carriage deducted), and do a good 
 action into the bargani. You know, from long habit, what a good action is 
 worth better than I do. I daresay you will be more pleased to learn, than I 
 am to record, the fact that I have been again decoyed into the society of ladies 
 and gentlemen, and have accepted an invitation to pass a few days at Neesdale 
 Park with Mr. Travers — christened Leopold — who calls you 'his old friend' 
 — a term which I take for granted belongs to that class of poetic exaggeration 
 in which the 'dears' and 'darlings' of conjugal intercourse may be catego- 
 rized. Having for that visit no suitable garments in my knapsack, kindly tell 
 Jenkes to forward me a portmanteauful of those which I habitually wore as 
 Kenelm Chillingly, directed to me at ' Neesdale Park, near Beaverston.' Let 
 me find it there on Wednesday. 
 
 " I leave this ]ilace to-morrow morning in company with a friend of the 
 name of Bowie? — no relation to the reveremi gentleman of that name who 
 held the doctrine that a ]5oet should bore us to death with fiddle-faddle minu- 
 tiae of natural objects in preference to that study of the insignificant creature 
 Man, in his relations to his species, to which Mr. Pope limited the range of 
 his inferior muse ; and who, practising as he preached, wrote some very nice 
 verses, to which the Lake school and its successors are largely indebted. My 
 Mr. Bowles has e.^ercised his faculty upon Man, and has a jiowerful inborn 
 gift in that line which only requires cultivation to render him a match for any 
 one. His more masculine nature is at present much ob>cured by that pass- 
 ing cloud which, in conventional language, is calletl " a Hopeless Attachment.' 
 But I trust, in the course of our excursion, which is to be taken on foot, that 
 this vapor may consolidate by motion, as some old-fashioned astronomers held 
 that the nebula does consolidate into a matter-of-fact world. Is it Roche-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 169 
 
 foucauld who says that a man is never more likely to form a hopeful attach- 
 ment for one than when his heart is softened by a liopeless attachment to 
 another? May it be long, my dear fatlier, before you condole wiili me on 
 the fust or congratulate me on the second. — Your affectionate son, 
 
 ''Kenelm. 
 
 "Direct to me at Mr. Travers's. Kindest love to my mother." 
 
 The answer to this letter is here subjoined as the most 
 convenient place for its insertion, though of course it was 
 not received till some days after the date of my next 
 chapter. 
 
 SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., I O KENELM CHILLINGLY, ESQ. 
 
 " My dear Boy, — With this I despatch the portmanteau you require to 
 the address that you give. I remember well Leopold Travers when he was in 
 the Guards — a very handsome and a very wild young fellow. But he had 
 much more sense than people gave him credit for, and frequented intellectual 
 society ; at least I met him very often at my friend Campion's, whose house 
 was then the favorite rendezvous of distinguished persons. He had very win- 
 nmg manners, and one could not help taking an interest in him. I was very 
 glad when I heard he had married and reformed. Here I beg to observe that 
 a man who contracts a taste for low company may indeed often marry, but he 
 seldom reforms when lie does so. And, on the whole, I should be much 
 pleased to hear that the experience which has cost you forty-five pounds had 
 convinced you that you might be better employed than earning two, or even 
 six shillings, as a day-laborer. 
 
 ''I have not given your love to your mother, as you requested. In fact, 
 you have placed me in a very false position towards that other author of your 
 eccentric being. I could only guard you from the inquisition of the police 
 and the notoriety of descriptive hand-bill--, by allowing my lady to suppose 
 that you had gone abroad with the Duke of Clairville and his family. It is 
 easy to tell a fib, but it is very difficult to untell it. However, as soon as you 
 have made up your mind to resume your normal position among ladies and 
 gentlemen, I should he greatly obliged if you would apprise me. I don't 
 wish to keep a fib on my conscience a day longer than may be necessary to 
 prevent the necessity of telling another. 
 
 " From what you say of Mr. Bowles's study of Man, and his inborn talent 
 for that scientific investigation, I suppose that he is a professed Metaphysi- 
 cian, and I should be glad of his candid opinion upon the Primary Basis of 
 Morals, a subject upon which I have for three years meditated the considera- 
 tion of a critical paper. But having lately read a controversy thereon between 
 two eminent philosophers, in which each accuses the other of not understand- 
 ing him, I have resolved for the present to leave the Basis in its unsettled 
 condition. 
 
 '• You rather alarm me when you say you have had a narrow escape from 
 marriage. Should you, in order to increase the experience you set out to 
 acquire, decide on trying the effect of a Mrs. Chillingly upon your nervous 
 system, it would be well to let me know a little beforehand, s-o I might pre- 
 pare your mother's mind for that event. Such household trifles are within
 
 I70 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 her special province; and she would be mucli put out if a Mrs. Chillingly 
 dro|ipe(l on her unawares. 
 
 *• This sul^ject, h >\vever, is too serious to admit of a jest even between two 
 persons wlio understand, so well as you and I do, the secret ciplier by whicli 
 each other's outward style of jest is to be tjravely interpreted into the irony 
 which says one thing and means another. My dear boy, you are very young 
 — you are wandering about in a very strange manner — and may, no douljt, 
 meet with many a pretty face by the way, with whicii you may fancy that you 
 fall in love. You cannot think me a barbarous tyrant if I ask you to prond-c 
 me, on your honor, that you will not propose to any young lady before you 
 come first to me and submit the case to my examination and approval. You 
 know me too well to suppose that I should unreasonal)ly withhold my con- 
 sent if convinced that your happiness was at stake. But while what a young 
 man may fancy to be love is often a trivial incident in his life, marriage is the 
 greatest event in it; if on one side it may involve his liaj^piness, on the other 
 side it may msure his misery. I)eare-t, best, and oddest of sons, give me the 
 promise I ask, and you will free my breast fiom a terribly anxious thought 
 which now sits on it like a nightmare. 
 
 " Your recommendation nf a basket-maker comes opportunely. All such 
 matters go through tlie bailiffs hands, and it was but tlie other day that Green 
 was complaining of the higli prices of the man he employed for hampers antl 
 game baskets. Green shall write to ^owx protei^c. 
 
 " Keep me informed of your proceedings as much as your anomalous char- 
 acter will permit; so that notliing may diminish my confidence that the man 
 who had the honor to be clnistened Kenclm will not disgrace his name, but 
 acquire the distinction denied to a Peter. — Your affectionate f.\t!ier." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Villagers lie abed on Sundays later than on work-days, 
 and no shutter was unclosed in a window of the rural street 
 through which Kenclm Chillingly and Tom Bowles went, 
 side by side, in the still soft air of the Sabbath morn. Side 
 bv side they went on, crossing tlie pastoral glebe-lands, 
 where the kine still drowsily reclined under the bowery 
 sliade of glinting chestnut-leaves ; and diving tlience into a 
 narrow lane or by-road, winding deep between lofty banks 
 all tangled with convolvulus and wild-rose and honeysuckle. 
 
 They walked in silence, for Kenelm, after one or two vain 
 attempts at conversation, had the tact to discover that his 
 companion was in no mood for talk ; and being himself one 
 of those creatures whose minds glide easily into the dreamy 
 monologue of reverie, he was not displeased to muse on 
 undisturbed, drinking fjuietly into his heart the subdued joy 
 of the summer morn, with the freshness of its sparkling
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. \-\ 
 
 dews, the wayward carol of its earliest birds, the serene 
 quietude of its limpid breezy air. Only when they came to 
 fresh turnings in the road that led towards the town to which 
 they were bound, Tom Bowles stepped before his companion, 
 indicating the way by a monosyllable or a gesture. Thus 
 they journeyed for hours, till the sun attained power, and a 
 little wayside inn near a hamlet invited Kenelm to the 
 thought of rest and food. 
 
 " Tom," said he then, rousing from his reverie, " what 
 do you say to breakfast ? " 
 
 Answered Tom sullenly, " I am not hungr}^ — but as you 
 like." 
 
 " Thank you, then we will stop here awhile. I find it 
 difficult to believe that you are not hungry, for you are very 
 strong, and there are two things which generally accompany 
 great physical strength : the one is a keen appetite ; the other 
 is — though you may not suppose it, and it is not commonly 
 known — a melancholic temperament." 
 
 "Eh!— a what?" 
 
 " A tendency to melancholy. Of course you have heard 
 of Hercules — you know the saying ' as strong as Hercules ' ? " 
 
 "Yes — of course." 
 
 "Well, I was first led to the connection between strength, 
 appetite, and melancholy, by reading in an old author named 
 Plutarch, that Hercules was among the most notable instan- 
 ces of melancholy temperament which the author was en- 
 abled to quote. That must have been the traditional notion of 
 the Herculean constitution ; and as for appetite, the appetite 
 of Hercules was a standard joke of the comic writers. When 
 I read that observation it set me thinking, being myself mel- 
 ancholic, and having an exceedingly good appetite. Sure 
 enough, when I began to collect evidence, I found that the 
 strongest men with whom I made acquaintance, including 
 prize-fighters and Irish draymen, were disposed to look upon 
 life more on the shady than the sunny side of the way ; in 
 short, they were melancholic. But the kindness of Provi- 
 dence allowed them to enjoy their meals, as you and I arc 
 about to do." 
 
 In the utterance of this extraordinary crotchet Kenelm 
 had halted his steps ; but now, striding briskly forward, he 
 entered the little inn, and, after a glance at its larder, ordered 
 the whole contents to be brought out and placed within a 
 honeysuckle arbor which he spied in the angle of a bowling- 
 green at the rear of the house.
 
 172 KENELM CIHLLINGLY. 
 
 In addition to the ordinary condiments of loaf, and butter, 
 and eggs, and rnill^, and tea, the board soon groaned beneath 
 the weight of pigeon-pie, cold ribs of beef and shoidder of 
 mutton, remains of a feast which the members of a monthly- 
 rustic club had held there the day before. Tom ate little at 
 first ; but example is contagious, and gradually he vied with 
 his companion in the diminution of the solid viands before 
 him. Then he called for brandy. 
 
 " No," said Kcnelm. " No, Tom ; you have promised me 
 friendship, and that is not compatible with brandy. Brandy 
 is the worst enemy a man like you can have, and would 
 make you quarrel even with me. If you want a stimulus I 
 allow you a pipe : I don't smoke myself, as a rule, but there 
 have been times in my life when I required soothing, and 
 then I have felt that a whiff of tobacco stills and softens 
 one like the kiss of a little child. Bring this gentleman a 
 pipe." 
 
 Tom grunted, but took to the pipe kindly, and in a few 
 minutes, during which Kenelm left him in silence, a lower- 
 ing furrow between his brows smoothed itself away. 
 
 Gradually he felt the sweetening influences of the day 
 and the place, of the merry sunbeams at play amid the leaves 
 of the arbor, of the frank perfume of the honeysuckle, of the 
 warble of the birds before they sank into the taciturn repose 
 of a summer noon. 
 
 It was with a reluctant sigh that he rose at last, when 
 Kenelm said, "We have yet far to go : we must push on." 
 
 The landlady, indeed, had already given them a hint tliat 
 she and the family wanted to go to church, and to shut up 
 the house in their absence. Kenelm drew out his piu'se, but 
 Tom did the same with a return of cloud cm his brow, and 
 Kenelm saw that he would be mortally offended if suffered 
 to be treated as an inferior ; so each paid his due share, and 
 the two men resumed their wandering. This time it was 
 along a by-path amid fields, wliich was a shorter cut than 
 the lane they had previously followed, to the main road to 
 Luscombe. They walked slowly till they came to a rustic 
 foot-bridge which spanned a gloomy trout-stream, not noisy, 
 but with a low, sweet murmur, doubtless the same stream 
 beside which, many miles away, Kenelm had conversed with 
 the minstrel. Just as they came to this bridge there floated 
 to their ears the distant sound of the hamlet church bell. 
 
 " Now let us sit here awhile and listen," said Kenelm, 
 seating himself on the baluster of the bridge. " I see that
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. ^ 173 
 
 you brought away your pipe from the inn, and provided your- 
 self with tobacco : refill the pipe, and listen." 
 
 Tom half smiled, and obeyed. 
 
 " O friend," said Kenelm, earnestly, and after along pause 
 of thought," do you not feel what a blessed thing it is in this 
 mortal life to be ever and anon reminded that you have a 
 soul?" 
 
 Tom, startled, withdrew the pipe from his lips, and mut- 
 tered : 
 
 " Eh ! " 
 
 Kenelm continued : 
 
 " You and I, Tom, are not so good as we ought to be — of 
 that there is no doubt; and good people would say justly 
 that we should now be within yon church itself rather than 
 listening to its bell. Granted, my friend, granted ; but still 
 it is something to hear that bell, and to feel by the train of 
 thought which began in our innocent childhood, when we 
 said our prayers at the knees of a mother, that we were lift- 
 ed beyond this visible nature, beyond these fields, and woods, 
 and waters, in which, fair though they be, you and I miss 
 something, in which neither you nor I are as happy as the 
 kine in the fields, as the birds on the bough, as the fishes in 
 the water — lifted to a consciousness of a sense vouchsafed 
 to you and to me, not vouchsafed to the kine, to the bird, 
 and the fish — a sense to comprehend that Nature has a God, 
 and Man has a life hereafter. The bell says that to you and 
 to me. Were that bell a thousand times more musical, it 
 could not say that to beast, bird, and fish. Do you under- 
 stand me, Tom ? " 
 
 Tom remains silent for a minute, and then replies : 
 
 " I never thought of it before ; but as vou put it, I under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Nature never gives to a living thing capacities not prac- 
 tically meant for its benefit and use. If Nature gives to us 
 capacities to believe that we have a Creator whom we never 
 saw, of whom we have no direct proof, who is kind and good 
 and tender beyond all that we know of kind and good and 
 tender on earth, it is because the endowment of capacities to 
 conceive such a Being must be for our benefit and use ; it 
 would not be for our benefit and use if it were a lie. Again, 
 if Nature has given to us a capacity to receive the notion that 
 we live again, no matter whether some of us refuse so to 
 believe, and argue against it, — why, the very capacity to 
 receive the idea (for unless we received it we could not argue
 
 174 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 iigainst it) proves that it is for our benefit and use ; and if 
 there were no such life hereafter, we should be governed and 
 inlhienccd, arrange our modes of life, and mature our civiliza- 
 tion, by obedience to a lie, which Nature falsified herself in 
 giving us the capacity to believe. You still understand 
 me ? " 
 
 "Yes ; it bothers me a little, for you see I am not a par- 
 son's man ; but I do understand." 
 
 " Then, my friend, study to apply — for it requires con- 
 stant study — study to apply that which you understand 
 to your own case. You are something more than Tom 
 Bowles the smith and doctor of horses ; something more 
 than the magnificent animal that rages for its mate and 
 fights every rival : the bull does that. You are a soul en- 
 dowed with the capacity to receive the idea of a Creator so 
 divinely wise and great and good that, though acting by the 
 agency of general laws, He can accommodate them to all 
 individual cases, so that— taking into account the life here- 
 after, which He grants to you the capacity to believe — all 
 that troubles you now will be proved to you wise and great 
 and good either in this life or the other. Lav that truth to 
 your heart, friend, now— before the bell stops ringing ; re- 
 call it every time you hear the church bell ring again. And 
 oh, Tom, you have such a noble nature " 
 
 "I — I ! don't jeer me — don't." 
 
 "Such a noble nature ; for you can love so passionately, 
 you can war so fiercely, and yet, when convinced that your 
 love would be misery to her you love, can resign it ; and yet, 
 when beaten in your war, can so forgive your victor that you 
 arc walking in this solitude with him as a friend, knowing 
 that you have but to drop a foot behind him in order to take 
 his life in an unguarded moment ; and rather than take his 
 life, you would defend it against an army. Do you think I 
 am so dull as not to see all that ? and is not all that a noble 
 nature ?" 
 
 Tom Bowles covered his face with his hands, and his 
 broad breast heaved. 
 
 " Well, then, to that noble nature I now trust. I myself 
 have done little good in life. I may never do much ; but let 
 me think that I have not crossed your life in vain for you 
 and for those whom your life can color for good or for bad. 
 As you are strong, be gentle ; as you can love one, be kind to 
 all ; as you have so much that is grand as Man — that is, the 
 highest of God's works on earth, — let all your acts attach
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 175 
 
 your manhood to the idea of Him to whom the voice of the 
 bell appeals. Ah ! the bell is hushed ; but not your heart, 
 Tom, — that speaks still." 
 
 Tom was weeping like a child. 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 Now when out two travellers resumed their journey the 
 relationship between them had undergone a change ; nay, 
 you might have said that their characters were also changed. 
 For Tom found liimself pouring out his turbulent heart to 
 Kenelm, confiding to this philosophical scoffer at love all 
 the passionate humanities of love — its hope, its anguish, its 
 jealousy, its wrath— the all that links the gentlest of emotions 
 to tragedy and terror. And Kenelm, listening tenderly, with 
 softened eyes, uttered not one cynic word — nay, not one play- 
 ful jest. He felt that the gravity of all he heard was too 
 solemn for mockery, too deep even for comfort. True love 
 of this sort was a thing he had never known, never wished 
 to know, never thought he could know, but he sympathized 
 in it not the less. Strange, indeed, how much we do sym- 
 pathize, on the stage, for instance, or in a book, with pas- 
 sions that have never agitated ourselves. Had Kenelm jested, 
 or reasoned, or preached, Tom would have shrunk at once 
 into dreary silence ; but Kenelm said nothing, save now and 
 then, as he rested his arm, brother-like, on the strong man's 
 shoulder, he murmured, " poor fellow ! " So, then, when Tom 
 had finished his confessions, he felt wondrously relieved and 
 comforted. He had cleansed his bosom of the perilous stuff 
 that weighed upon the heart. 
 
 Was this good result effected by Kenelm's artful diplo- 
 macy, or by that insight into human passions vouchsafed, 
 unconsciously to himself, by gleams or in flashes, to this 
 strange man who surveyed the objects and pursuits of his 
 fellows with a yearning desire to share them, murmuring to 
 himself, "I cannot— I do not stand in this world; like a 
 ghost I glide beside it, and look on " ? 
 
 Thus the two men continued their way slowly, amid soft 
 pastures and yellowing corn-fields, out at length into the 
 dusty thoroughfares of the main road. That gained, their 
 talk insensibly changed its tone— it became more common-
 
 176 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 place, and Kcnclm permitted liimself the license of those 
 crotcliets by which he extracted a sort of quaint pleasantry 
 out of commonplace itself ; so that from time to time Tom 
 was startled into the mirth of laughter. This big fellow had 
 one very agreeable gift, which is only granted, I think, to 
 men of genuine character and affectionate dispositions— a 
 spontaneous and sweet laugh, manly and frank, but not 
 boisterous, as you might have supposed it would be. But 
 that sort of laugh had not before come from his lips, since 
 the day on which his love for Jessie Wiles had made him at 
 war with himself and the world. 
 
 The sun was setting when from the brow of a hill they 
 beheld the spires of Luscombe, imbedded amid the level 
 meadows that stretched below, watered by the same stream 
 that had wound along their more rural pathway, but which 
 now expanded into stately width, and needed, to span it, a 
 miglity bridge fit for the C(Mivenience of civilized traffic. 
 The town seemed near, but it was full two miles off byroad. 
 
 " There is a short cut across the fields beyond that stile, 
 which leads straight to my uncle's house," said Tom ; "and 
 I daresay, sir, that you will be glad to escape the dirty 
 suburb by which the road passes before we get into the 
 town." 
 
 " A good thought, Tom. It is very odd that fine towns 
 always are approached by dirty suburbs — a covert symbolical 
 satire, perhaps, on the ways to success in fine towns. Avarice 
 or ambition go through very mean little streets before they 
 gain the place which they jostle the crowd to win — in the 
 Townhall or on 'Change. Happy the man who, like you, 
 Tom, finds that there is a shorter and a cleaner and a pleas- 
 anter way to goal or to resting-place than that througli the 
 dirty suburbs !" 
 
 They met but few passengers on their path through the 
 fields — a respectable, staid, elderly couple, who had the air 
 of a Dissenting minister and his wife ; a girl of fourteen 
 leading a little boy seven years younger by the hand ; a pair 
 of lovers, evidently lovers at least to the eye of Tom Bowles 
 — for, on regarding them as they passed unheeding him, he 
 winced, and his face changed. Even after they had passed, 
 Kenelm saw on the face that pain lingered there ; the lips 
 were tightly compressed, and their corners gloomily drawn 
 down. 
 
 Just at this moment a dog rushed towards them with a 
 short quick bark— a Pomeranian dog with pointed nose and
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 177 
 
 pricked ears. It hushed its bark as it neared Kenehii, 
 sniffed his trousers, and wagged its tail. 
 
 " By the sacred Nine," cried Kenelm, " thou art tlie dog 
 Avitli tlie tin tray ! wliere is tliy master ? " 
 
 The dog seemed to understand the question, for it turned 
 its head significantly, and Kenelm saw, seated under a lime- 
 tree, at a good distance from the path, a man, with book in 
 hand, evidently employed in sketching. 
 
 " Come this way," he said to Tom ; " I recognize an ac- 
 quaintance. You will like him." Tom desired no new ac- 
 quaintance at that moment, but he followed Kenelm sub- 
 missively. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "You see we are fated to meet again," said Kenelm, 
 stretching himself at his ease beside the Wandering Min- 
 strel, and motioning Tom to do the same. " But you seem 
 to add the accomplishment of drawing to that of verse-mak- 
 ing ! You sketch from what you call Nature ? " 
 " From what I call Nature ! yes, sometimes." 
 " And do you not find in drawing, as in verse-making, 
 the truth that I have before sought to din into your reluc- 
 tant ears — viz., that Nature has no voice except that which 
 man breathes into her out of his mind ? I would lay a 
 wager that the sketch you are now taking is rather an at- 
 tempt to make her embody some thought of yoiu- own, than 
 to present her outlines as they appear to any other observer. 
 Permit me to judge for myself." And he bent over the 
 sketch-book. It is often difficult for one who is not him- 
 self an artist nor a connoisseur, to judge whether the pen- 
 cilled jottings in an impromptu sketch are by the hand of a 
 professed master or a mere amateur. Kenelm was neither 
 artist nor connoisseur, but the mere pencil-work seemed to 
 him much what might be expected from any man with an 
 accurate eye, who had taken a certain number of lessons 
 from a good drawing-master. It was enough for him, how- 
 ever, that it furnished an illustration of his own theory. " I 
 was right," he cried, triumphantly. " From this height 
 there is a beautiful view, as it presents itself to me ; a beau- 
 tiful view of the town, its meadows, its river, harmonized by 
 8*
 
 1 73 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 the sunset ; for sunset, like gilding, unites conflicting col- 
 ors, and softens them in uniting. But I see nothing of that 
 view in your sketch. What I do see is to me mysterious." 
 
 " The view you suggest," said the minstrel, " is no doubt 
 very fine, but it is for a Turner or a Claude to treat it. My 
 grasp is not wide enough for such a landscape." 
 
 *' I see indeed in your sketch but one figure, a child." 
 
 "Hist ! there she stands. Hist ! while I put in this last 
 touch." 
 
 Kenelm strained his sight, and saw far ofif a solitary little 
 girl, who was tossing something in the air (he could not 
 distinguish what), and catching it as it fell. She seemed 
 standing on the very verge of the upland, backed by rose- 
 clouds gathered round the setting sun ; below lay in con- 
 fused outlines the great town. In the sketch those outlines 
 seemed infinitely more confused, being only indicated by a 
 few bold strokes ; but the figure and face of the child were 
 distinct and lovely. There was an ineffable sentiment in 
 her solitude, there was a depth of quiet enjoyment in her 
 mirthful play, and in her upturned eyes. 
 
 " But at that distance," asked Kenelm, when the wan- 
 derer had finished his last touch, and, after contemplating 
 it, silently closed his book, and turned round with a genial 
 smile — "but at that distance, how can you distinguish the 
 girl's face ? How can you discover that the dim object she 
 has just thrown up and recaught is a ball made of flowers ? 
 Do you know the child ? " 
 
 "I never saw her before this evening; but as I was 
 seated here she was straying around me alone, weaving into 
 chains some wild-tiowers which she had gathered by the 
 hedgerows yonder, next the high-road ; and as she strung 
 them she was chanting to herself some pretty nursery 
 rhymes. You can well understand that when I heard her 
 thus chanting I became interested, and as she came near 
 me I spoke to her, and we soon made friends. She told me 
 she was an orphan, and brought up by a very old man dis- 
 tantly related to her, who had been in some small trade, 
 and now lived in a crowded lane in the heart of the town. 
 He was very kind to her, and, being confined himself to the 
 house by age or ailment, he sent her out to play in the 
 fields on summer Sundays. She had no companions of her, 
 own age. She said she did not like the other little girls in 
 the lane ; and the only little girl she liked at school had a 
 grander station in life, and was not allowed to piay with her,
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. J79 
 
 SO she came out to play alone ; and as long as the sun shines 
 and the flowers bloom, she says she never wants other society." 
 
 " Tom, do you hear that ? As you will be residing in 
 Luscombe, find out this strange little girl, and be kind to 
 her, Tom, for my sake." 
 
 Tom put his large hand upon Kenelm's, making no other 
 answer ; but he looked hard at the minstrel, recognized the 
 genial charm of his voice and face, and slid along the grass 
 nearer to him. 
 
 The minstrel continued : "While the child was talking 
 to me I mechanically took the flower-chains from her hand, 
 and, not thinking what I was about, gathered them up into 
 a ball. Suddenly she saw what I had done, and instead of 
 scolding me for spoiling her pretty chains, which I richly 
 deserved, was delighted to find I had twisted them into a 
 new plaything. She ran off with the ball, tossing it about 
 till, excited with her own joy, she got to the brow of the 
 hill, and I began my sketch." 
 
 " Is that charming face you hav^e drawn like hers ? " 
 
 " No ; only in part. I was thinking of another face 
 while I sketched, but it is not like that either ; in fact, it is 
 one of those patchworks which we call ' fancy heads,' and I 
 meant it to be another version of a thought that I had just 
 put into rhyme, when the child came across me." 
 
 " May we hear the rhyme ? " 
 
 "I fear that if it did not bore yourself it would bore 
 your friend." 
 
 "I am sure not. Tom, do you sing ?" 
 
 "Well, I have sung," said Tom, hanging his head sheep- 
 ishly, " and I should like to hear this gentleman." 
 
 " But I do not know these verses, just made, well enough 
 to sing them ; it is enough if I can recall them well enough 
 to recite." Here the minstrel paused a minute or so as if 
 for recollection, and then, in the sweet clear tones, and the 
 rare purity of enunciation which characterized his utterance, 
 whether in recital or song, gave to the following verses 
 a touching and a varied expression which no one could dis- 
 cover in merely reading them. 
 
 THE FLOWER-GIRL BY THE CROSSING. 
 
 By the inuddy crossing in the crowded streets 
 
 Stands a little maid with her basket full of posies, 
 
 Proffering all who pass her choice of knitted sweets, 
 
 Tempting Age with heart'sease, courting Youth with roses.
 
 l8o KENELIM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Age disdains tlie heair.s-ease. 
 
 Love rejects the roses; 
 London life is busy — 
 Who can stop for posies ? 
 
 One man is too grave, another is too gay — 
 
 This man has his hot-house, that man not a penny ; 
 
 Flowerets too are common in the month of May, 
 And the things most common least attract the many. 
 
 Ill on London crossings 
 
 Fares the sale of posies ; 
 Age disdains the heart's- ease, 
 
 Youth rejects the roses. 
 
 When the verse-maker had done, lie did not pause for ap- 
 probation, nor look modestly down, as do most people who 
 recite their own verses, but, unaffectedly tliinking much 
 more of his art than his audience, hurried on somewhat dis- 
 consolately : 
 
 *' I see with great grief that I am better at sketching 
 than rhyming. Can you " (appealing to Kenelm) "even 
 comprehend what I mean by the verses ?" 
 
 Kenelm. — '' Do you comprehend, Tom ?" 
 
 Tom (in a whisper). — " No." 
 
 Kenelm. — " I presume that by his flower-girl our friend 
 means to represent not only Poetry, but a poetry like his 
 own, which is not at all the sort of poetry now in fashion. 
 I, however, expand his meaning, and by his flower-girl I un- 
 derstand any image of natural truth and beauty for which, 
 when we are living the artificial life of crow^ded streets, we 
 are too busy to give a penny." 
 
 "Take it as you please," said the minstrel, smiling and 
 sighing at the same time; "but I have not exi)ressed in 
 words that which I did mean half so well as I have ex- 
 pressed it in my sketch-book." 
 
 "Ah ! and how?" asked Kenelm. 
 
 "The Image of my tliouglit in the sketch, be it Poetry 
 or whatever you prefer to call it, does not stand forlorn in 
 the crowded streets — the child stands on tlie brow of the 
 green hill, witli the city stretched in confused fragments be- 
 low, and, thouglitless of pennies and passers-by, she is play- 
 ing witli the flowers she has gathered — but in play casting 
 them heavenward, and fuHowing them with heavenward 
 eyes." 
 
 "Good!" muttered Kenelm — "good!" and then, after
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 181 
 
 a long pause, he added, in a still lower mutter, " Pardon me 
 that remark of mine the other day about a beef-steak. But 
 own that I am right — what you call a sketch from Nature is 
 but a sketch of your own thought." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The child with the flower-ball had vanished from the 
 brow of the hill ; sinking down amid the streets below, the 
 rose-clouds had faded from the horizon ; and night was 
 closing round, as tlie three men entered the thick of the 
 town. Tom pressed Kenelm to accompany him to his 
 imcle's, promising him a hearty welcome and bed and 
 board, but Kenelm declined. He entertained a strong per- 
 suasion that it would be better for the desired effect on 
 Tom's mind tliat he should be left alone with his relations 
 that night, but proposed that they should spend the next 
 day together, and agreed to call at the veterinary surgeon's 
 in the morning. 
 
 When Tom quitted them at his uncle's door, Kenelm 
 said to the minstrel, " I suppose you are going to some inn 
 — may I accompany you ? We can sup together, and I 
 should like to hear you talk upon poetry and Nature." 
 
 " You flatter me much ; but I have friends in the town, 
 with whom I lodge, and they are expecting me. Do you 
 not observe that I have changed my dress ? I am not 
 known here as the 'Wandering Minstrel.' " 
 
 Kenelm glanced at the man's attire, and for the first time 
 observed the change. It was still picturesque in its way, 
 but it was such as gentlemen of the highest rank frequently 
 wear in the country — the knickerbocker costume — very 
 neat, very new, and complete, to the square-toed shoes with 
 their latchets and buckles. 
 
 " I fear," said Kenelm, gravely, " that your change of 
 dress betokens the neighborhood of those pretty girls of 
 whom you spoke in an earlier meeting. According to the 
 Darwinian doctrine of selection, fine plumage goes far in 
 deciding the preference of Jenny Wren and her sex, only 
 we are told that fine-feathered birds are very seldom song- 
 sters as vv-ell. It is rather unfair to rivals when you unite 
 both attractions." «
 
 l82 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 The minstrel laughed. " There is but one girl in my 
 friend's Iiouse — liis niece ; she is very plain, and only thir- 
 teen. But to me the society of women, whether ugly or 
 pretty, is an absolute necessity ; and I have been trudging 
 witliout it for so many days that I can scarcely tell you how 
 my thoughts seemed to shake off the dust of travel when I 
 found myself again in the presence of " 
 
 "Petticoat interest," interrupted Kenelm. "Take care 
 of yourself. My poor friend witli whom you found me is a 
 grave warning against petticoat interest, from whicli I hoj^e 
 to profit. He is passing through a great sorrow ; it might 
 have been worse than sorrow. My friend is going to stay 
 in this town. If you are staying here too, pray let him see 
 something of you. It will do him a wondrous good if you 
 can beguile him from this real life into the gardens of poet- 
 land ; but do not sing nor talk of love to him." 
 
 " I honor all lovers," said the minstrel, with real tender- 
 ness in his tone, "and would willingly serve to cheer or 
 comfort your friend, if I could ; but I am bound elsewhere, 
 and must leave Lviscombe, which I visit on business — 
 money business — the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " So, too, must I. At least give us both some hours of 
 your time to-morrow." 
 
 " Certainly ; from twelve to sunset I shall be roving 
 about — a mere idler. If you will both come with me, it will 
 be a great pleasure to myself. Agreed ! Well, then, I will 
 call at your inn to-morrow at twelve ; and I recommend for 
 your inn the one facing us — the Golden Lamb. I have 
 heard it recommended for the attributes of civil people and 
 good fare." 
 
 Kenelm felt that he here received his co/igc', and well 
 comprehended the fact that the minstrel, desiring to pre- 
 serve the secret of his name, did not give the address of the 
 family with whom he was a guest. 
 
 "But one word more," said Kenelm. "Your host or 
 hostess, if resident here, can no doubt, from your descrip- 
 tion of the little girl and the old man her protector, learn 
 the child's address. If so, I should like my companion to 
 make friends with her. Petticoat interest there at least will 
 be innocent and safe. And I know nothing so likely to 
 keep a big, passionate heart like Tom's, now aching with a 
 horrible void, occupied and softened, and turned to direc- 
 tions pure and gentle, as an affectionate interest in a little 
 child." •
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 133 
 
 The minstrel changed color — he even started. 
 
 " Sir, are you a wizard, that you say that to me ?" 
 
 " I am not a wizard, but I guess from your question that 
 you liave a little child of your own. So nuich the better ; 
 the child may keep you out of much mischief, Remember 
 the little child. Good-evening." 
 
 Kenelm crossed the threshold of the Golden Lamb, en- 
 gaged his room, made his ablutions, ordered, and, with his 
 usual zest, partook of, his evening meal ; and then, feeling 
 the pressure of that melancholic temperament which he so 
 strangely associated with Herculean constitutions, roused 
 himself up, and, seeking a distraction from thought, saun- 
 tered forth into the gas-lit streets. 
 
 It was a large, handsome town — handsomer than Tor- 
 Hadham, on account of its site in a valley surrounded by 
 wooded hills and watered by the fair stream whose windings 
 we have seen as a brook — handsomer, also, because it boasted 
 a fair cathedral, well cleared to the sight, and surrounded 
 by venerable old houses, the residences of the clergy, or of 
 the quiet lay gentry with mediaeval taste. The main street 
 was thronged with passengers — some soberly returning 
 home from the evening service — some, the younger, linger- 
 ing in pleasant promenade with their sweethearts or fami- 
 lies, or arm in arm with each other and having the air of 
 bachelors or maidens unattached. Through this street Ken- 
 elm passed with inattentive eye. A turn to the right took 
 him towards the cathedral and its surroundings. There all 
 was solitary. The solitude pleased him, and he lingered 
 long, gazing on the noble church lifting its spires and tur- 
 rets into the deep-blue starry air. 
 
 Musingly, then, he strayed on, entering a labyrinth of 
 gloomy lanes, in which, though the shops were closed, many 
 a door stood open, with men of the working class lolling 
 against the threshold, idly smoking their pipes, or w^omen 
 seated on the door-steps gossiping, while noisy children 
 were playing or quarrelling in the kennel. The whole did 
 not present the indolent side of an English Sabbath in tl:c 
 pleasantest and rosiest point of view. Somewhat quicken- 
 ing his steps, he entered a broader street, attracted to it in- 
 voluntarily by a bright light in the centre. On nearing the 
 light he found that it shone forth from a gin-palace, of 
 which the mahogany doors opened and shut momently, ns 
 customers went in and out. It was the handsomest build- 
 ing he had seen in his walk, next to that of the cathedral.
 
 1 84 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " The new civilization versus the old," miirmiircd Kcnelm. 
 As he so imirmiired, a hand was laid on liis arm with a sort 
 of timid impudence. He looked down, and saw a young 
 face, but it had survived the look of youth ; it was worn 
 and hard, and the bloom on it was not that of Nature's giv- 
 ing. " Are you kind to-night ?" asked a husky voice. 
 
 " Kind ! " said Kenelm, with mournful tones and softened 
 eyes — " kind ! Alas, my poor sister mortal ! if pity be 
 kindness, who can see you and not be kind ?" 
 
 The girl released his arm, and he walked on. She stood 
 some moments gazing after him till out of sight, then she 
 drew her hand suddenly across her eyes, and, retracing her 
 steps, was, in her turn, caught hold of by a rougher hand 
 than hers, as she passed the gin-palace. She shook off the 
 grasp with a passionate scorn, and went straight home. 
 Home ! is that the right word } Poor sister mortal ! 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 And now Kenelm found himself at the extremity of the 
 town, and on the banks of the river. Small squalid houses 
 still lined the bank for some way, till, nearing the bridge, 
 they abru})tly ceased, and he passed through a broad square 
 again into the main street. On the other side of the street 
 there was a row of villa-like mansions, with gardens stretch- 
 ing towards the river. 
 
 All around in the thoroughfare was silent and deserted. 
 By this time the passengers had gone hcniie. The scent of 
 night-flowers from the villa gardens came sweet on tlie star- 
 lit air. Kenelm paused to inhale it, and then lifting his 
 eyes, hitherto downcast, as are the eyes of men in medita- 
 tive moods, he beheld, on the balcony of the nearest villa, a 
 group of well-dressed persons. The balcony was unusually 
 wide and spacious. On it was a small round table, on which 
 were placed wine and fruits. Three ladies were seated 
 round tlie table on wire-work chairs, and, on the side near- 
 est to Kenelm, one man. In that man, now slightly turning 
 his profile, as if to look towards the river, Kenelm recognized 
 the minstrel. He was still in his picturesque knickerbocker 
 dress, and his clear-cut features, with the clustering curls 
 of hair, and Rubens-like hue and shape of beard, had more
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 185 
 
 than their usual beauty, softened in the light of skies to 
 which tlie moon, just risen, added deeper and fuller radi- 
 ance. The ladies were in evening dress, but Kenelm could 
 not distinguish their faces, hidden behind the minstrel. He 
 moved softly across the street, and took his stand behind a 
 buttress in the low wall of the garden, from which he could 
 have full view of the balcony, unseen himself. In this 
 watch he had no other object than that of a vague pleasure. 
 The whole grouping had in it a kind of scenic romance, and 
 he stopped as one stops before a picture. 
 
 He then saw that of the three ladies one was old ; an- 
 other was a slight girl, of the age of twelve or thirteen ; the 
 third appeared to be somewhere about seven- or eight-and- 
 twenty. She was dressed with more elegance than the 
 others. On her neck, only partially veiled by a thin scarf, 
 there was the glitter of jewels ; and, as she now turned her 
 full face towards the moon, Kenehn saw that she was very 
 handsome — a striking kind of beauty, calculated to fascinate 
 a poet or an artist — not unlikg Raffaele's Fornarina, dark, 
 with warm tints. 
 
 Now there appeared at the open window a stout, burly, 
 middle-aged gentleman, looking every inch of him a family 
 man, a moneyed man, sleek and prosperous. He was bald, 
 fresh-colored, and with light whiskers. 
 
 " Holloa," he said, in an accent very slightly foreign, 
 and with a loud clear voice, which Kenelm heard distinctly, 
 " is it not time for you to come in ? " 
 
 " Don't be so tiresome, Fritz," said the handsome lady, 
 half petulantly, half playfully, in the way ladies address 
 the tiresome spouses whom they lord it over. " Your friend 
 has been sulking the whole evening, and is only just begin- 
 ning to be pleasant as the moon rises." 
 
 "The moon has a good effect on poets and other mad 
 folks, I daresay," said the bald man, with a good-humored 
 laugh. " But I can't have my little niece laid up again just 
 as she is on the mend. Annie, come in." 
 
 The girl obeyed reluctantly. The old lady rose too. 
 
 "Ah, mother, you are wise," said the bald man ; "and 
 a game at euchre is safer than poetizing in night air." He 
 wound his arm around the old lady with a careful fondness, 
 for she moved with some difficulty, as if rather lame. "As 
 for you two sentimentalists and moon-gazers, I give you ten 
 minutes' law — not more, mind." 
 
 " Tyrant ! " said the minstrel.
 
 iS6 KEN ELM CIIILLINCLY. 
 
 The balcony now only held two forms — the minstrel and 
 the handsome lady. The window was closed, and partially 
 veiled by muslin draperies, but Kenelm caught glimpses of 
 the room within. lie could see that the room, lit by a lamp 
 on tlie centre-table, and candles elsewhere, was decorated 
 and fitted up with cost, and in a taste nut English. He 
 could see, for instance, that the ceiling was painted, and the 
 walls Avere not papered, but painted in panels between ara- 
 besque pilasters. 
 
 "They are foreigners," thought Kcnclm, "though the 
 man does speak English so well. That accounts for playing 
 euchre of a Sunday evening, as if there were no harm in it. 
 Euchre is an American game. The man is called Fritz. Ah ! 
 I guess — Germans who have lived a good deal in America ; 
 and the verse-maker said he was at Luscombe on pecuniary 
 business. Doubtless his host is a merchant, and the verse- 
 maker in some commercial firm. That accounts for his con- 
 cealment of name, and fear of its being known that he vvas 
 addicted, in liis holiday, to fcnstes and habits so opposed to 
 his calling." 
 
 While he was thus thinking, the lady had drawn her 
 chair close to the minstrel, and was speaking to him with 
 evident earnestness, but in tones too low for Kenelm to 
 hear. Still it seemed to him, by her manner and by the 
 man's look, as if she were speaking in some sort of reproach, 
 which he sought to deprecate. Then he spoke, also in a 
 whisper, and she averted her face for a moment — then she 
 held out her hand, and the minstrel kissed it. Certainly, 
 thus seen, the two miglit well be taken for lovers ; and the 
 soft night, the fragrance of the flowers, silence and solitude, 
 stars and moonlight, all girt them as Avith an atmosphere of 
 love. Presently tlie man rose and leaned over the balcony, 
 propping his cheek on his hand, and gazing on the river. 
 1 he lady rose too, and also leaned over tlie balustrade, her 
 dark hair almost touching the auburn locks of her com- 
 panion. 
 
 Kenelm sighed. Was it from envy, from pity, from fear ? 
 I know not ; but he sighed. 
 
 After a brief pause, the lady said, still in low tones, but 
 not too low this time to escape Kenelm's fine sense of hearing: 
 
 "Tell me those verses again. I must remember every 
 word of them when vou arc gone." 
 
 The man shook his head gently, and answered, but in- 
 audibly.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 187 
 
 " Do," said the lady, " set them to music later ; and the 
 next time you come I will sing them. I have thought of a 
 title for them." 
 
 " What ? " asked the minstrel. 
 
 " Love's Quarrel." 
 
 The minstrel turned his head, and their eyes met, and, 
 in meeting, lingered long. Then he moved away, and with 
 face turned from her and towards the river, gave the melody 
 of his wondrous voice to the following lines ; 
 
 LOVE'S QUARREL. 
 
 Standing by the river, gazing on the river. 
 
 See it paved with starbeams ; heaven is at our feet. 
 
 Now the wave is troubled, now the rushes quiver ; 
 Vanished is the starlight — it was a deceit. 
 
 Comes a little cloudlet 'twixt ourselves and heaven, 
 And from all the river fades the silver track ; 
 
 Put thine arms around me, whisper low, " Forgiven !" — 
 See how on the river starlight settles back. 
 
 When he liad finished, still with face turned aside, the 
 lady did not, indeed, whisper " forgiven," nor put her arms 
 around him ; but, as if by irresistible impulse, she laid her 
 hand lightly on his shoulder. 
 
 The minstrel started. 
 
 There came to his ear — he knew not from whence, from 
 whom — 
 
 " JNIischief — mischief ! Remember the little child ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " he said, staring round. " Did you not hear a 
 voice ? " 
 
 " Only yours," said the lady. 
 
 " It was our guardian angel's, Amalie. It came in time. 
 We will go within." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The next morning betimes, Kenelm visited Tom at his 
 uncle's home. A comfortable and respectable home it was, 
 like that of an owner in easy circumstances. The veterinary 
 surgeon himself was intelligent, and apparently educated 
 beyond the range of his calling ; a childless widower, be-
 
 1 88 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 tween sixty and seventy, living with a sister, an old maid. 
 They were evidently much attached to Tom, and delighted 
 by the hope of keeping him with them. Tom liimself looked 
 rather sad, but not sullen, and his face brightened wonder- 
 fully at first sight of Kenelm. That oddity made himself as 
 pleasant and as much like other j^eople as he could in con- 
 versing with the old w'idower and the old maid, and took 
 leave, engaging Tom to be at his inn at half-past twelve and 
 spend the day with him and the minstrel. He then returned 
 to the Golden Lamb, and waited there for his fii'st visitant, 
 the minstrel. 
 
 That votary ot the muse arrived punctually at twelve 
 o'clock. His countenance was less cheerful and sunny than 
 usual. Kenelm made no allusion to the scene he had wit- 
 nessed, nor did his visitor seem to suspect that Kenelm had 
 witnessed it or been the utterer of that warning voice. 
 
 Kknelm. — " I have asked my friend Tom Bowles to come 
 a little later, because I wished you to be of use to him, ar'd, 
 in order to be so, I should suggest how : " 
 
 The Minstrel. — "Pray do." 
 
 Kenelm. — " You know that I am not a poet, and I do not 
 have much reverence for verse-making, merely as a craft." 
 
 The Minstrel. — " Neither have I." 
 
 Kenelm. — " But I have a great reverence for poetry as a 
 priesthood. I felt tliat reverence for you when you sketched 
 and talked priesthood last evening, and placed in my heart 
 — I hope forever while it beats — the image of the child on 
 the sunlit hill, high above the abodes of men, tossing her 
 tlower-ball heavenward, and with heavenward eyes." 
 
 The singer's cheek colored high, and his lip quivered ; 
 he was very sensitive to praise — most singers are. 
 
 Kenelm resumed : " I have been educated in the Realistic 
 school, and with realism I am discontented, because in realism 
 as a school there is no truth. It contains but a bit of truth, 
 and that the coldest and hardest bit of it, and he who utters 
 a bit of truth and suppresses the rest of it, tells a lie." 
 
 The Minstrel (slyly).—" Does the critic who says to 
 me, ' Sing of beef-steak, because the appetite for food is a 
 real want of dailv life, and don't sing of art and glorv and 
 love, because in daily life a man may do without such ideas,' 
 —tell a lie?" 
 
 Kenelm. — "Thank you for that rebuke. I submit to it. 
 No doubt I did tell a lie — that is, if I were quite in earnest 
 in my recommendation ; and if not in earnest, why -"
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. i8g 
 
 The Minstrel — " You belied yourself." 
 
 Kenelm. — " Very likely. I set out on my travels to 
 escape from shams, and begin to discover that I am a 
 ^Yv^iw par excellence. But I suddenly come across you, as a 
 boy dulled by his syntax and his vulgar fractions suddenly 
 comes across a pleasant poem or a picture-book and feels his 
 wits brighten up. I owe you much ; you have done me a 
 world of good." 
 
 " I cannot guess how." 
 
 " Possibly not, but you have shown me how the realism 
 of Nature herself takes color and life and soul when seen on 
 the ideal or poetic side of it. It is not exactly the words 
 that you say or sing that do me good, but they awaken 
 within me new trains of thought," which I seek to follow 
 out. The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than 
 dogmatizes, and^nspires his listener with the wish to teach 
 himself. Therefore, O singer ! whatever be the worth in 
 critical eyes of your songs, I am glad to remember that you 
 would like to go through the world always singing." 
 
 " Pardon me ; you forget that I added,' if life were always 
 young, and the seasons were always summer.'" 
 
 " I do not forget. But if youth and summer fade for 
 you, you leave youth and summer behind you as you pass 
 along — behind in hearts which mere realism would make 
 always old, ancLcounting their slothful beats under the gray 
 of a sky without sun or stars ; wherefore I pray you to con- 
 sider how magnificent a mission the singer's is — to harmonize 
 your life with your song, and toss your flowers, as your 
 child does, heavenward, with heavenward eyes. Think only 
 of this when you talk with my sorrowing friend, and you 
 will do him good, as you have done me, without being able 
 to guess how a seeker after the Beautiful, such as you, 
 carries us along with him on his way ; so that we, too, look 
 out for beauty, and see it in the wild-flowers to which we 
 had been blind before." 
 
 Here Tom entered the little sanded parlor where this dia- 
 logue had been held, and the three men sallied forth, taking 
 the shortest cut from the town into the fields and woodlands.
 
 igo KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Whether or not his spirits were raised by Kenelm's 
 praise and exhortations, the minstrel that day talked with a 
 charm that spell-bound Tom, and Kenelm was satisfied with 
 brief remarks on his side tending to draw out the principal 
 performer. 
 
 The talk was drawn from outward things, from natural 
 objects — objects that interest children, and men who, like 
 Tom Bowles, have been accustomed to view surroundings 
 more with the heart's eye than the mind's eye. This rover 
 about the country knew much of the habits of birds and 
 beasts and insects, and told anecdotes of them with a mixture 
 of humor and pathos, which fascinated Tom's attenticn, 
 made him laugh heartily, and sometimes brought tears into 
 his big blue eyes. 
 
 They dined at an inn by the wayside, and the dinner was 
 mirthful; then they wended their way slowly back. By the 
 declining daylight their talk grew somewhat graver, and 
 Kenelm took more part in it. Tom listened mute — still 
 fascinated. At length, as the town came in sight, they 
 agreed to halt awhile, in a bosky nook soft with mosses and 
 sweet with wild thyme. 
 
 There as they lay stretched at their case, the birds hymn- 
 ing vesper songs amid the boughs above, or dropping, noise- 
 less and fearless, for their evening food on the swards around 
 them, the wanderer said to Kenelm, " You tell me that you 
 are no poet, yet I am sure you have a poet's perception ; 
 you must have written poetry?" 
 
 "Not I ; as I before told you, only school verses in dead 
 languages ; but I found in my knapsack this morning a 
 copy of some rhymes, made by a fellow-collegian, which I 
 put into my pocket, meaning to read them to you both. 
 They are not verses like yours, which evidently burst from 
 vou spontaneously and are not imitated from any other poets. 
 These verses were written by a Scotchman, and smack of 
 imitation from the old ballad style. There is little to ad- 
 mire in the words themselves, but there is something in the 
 idea which struck me as original, and impressed me 
 sufficiently to keep a copy, and somehow or other it got
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 191 
 
 into the leaves of one of the two books I carried with me 
 
 from home." , 1 t -n 
 
 "What are those books ? Books of poetry both, 1 will 
 
 venture to wager " 
 
 " Wrong ! Both metaphysical, and dry as a bone, i om, 
 lio-ht your^pipe, and you, sir, lean more at ease on your 
 efbow ; I should warn you that the ballad is long. Pa- 
 tience ! " 
 
 " Attention ! " said the minstrel. 
 
 " Fire ! " added Tom. 
 
 Kenelm began to read— and he read well : 
 
 LORD RONALD'S BRIDE, 
 
 PART I. 
 
 ♦' Why gathers the crowd in the Market-place . 
 
 Ere the stars have yet left the sky? " 
 " For a holiday show and an act of grace— 
 
 At the sunrise a witch shall die." 
 
 «' What deed has she done to deserve that doom- 
 Has she blighted tlie standmg corn, 
 
 Or rifled for philters a dead min's lomb, 
 Or rid mothers of babes new-born ? " 
 
 •' Her pact with the Fiend was not thus revealed, 
 
 She taught sinners the Word to hear ; 
 The hungry she fed, and the sick she healed, 
 
 And was held as a Saint last year. 
 
 •• But a holy man, who at Rome had been, 
 
 Had discovered, by book and bell. 
 That the marvels she wrought were through arts unclean, 
 
 And the lies of the Prince of Hell. 
 
 •' And our Mother the Church, for the dame was rich. 
 
 And her husband was Lord of Clyde, 
 Would fain have been mild to this saintdike witch 
 
 If her sins she had not denied. 
 
 " But hush, and come nearer to see the sight. 
 
 Sheriff, halberds, and torchmen,— look ! 
 That's the witch, standing mute in her garb of white, 
 
 By the priest with his bell and book." 
 
 So the witch was consumed on the sacred pyre, 
 
 And the priest grew in power and pride, 
 And tlie witch left a son to succeed his sire 
 
 In tlio halls and the lauds of Clyde.
 
 192 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 And the infant waxed comely and strong and brave, 
 Rut Ills manhood liad scarce liegun, 
 
 "Wlien his vessel was launched on the northern wave, 
 To the shores which are near the sun. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Lord Ronald has come to his halls in Clyde 
 
 With a bride of some unknown race : 
 Compared with the man who would kiss that bride 
 
 Wallace wight were a coward base. 
 
 Her eyes had the glare of the mountain-cat 
 When it springs on the hunter's spear ; 
 
 At the head of the board when that lady sat 
 Hungry men could not eat for fear. 
 
 And the tones of her voice had the deadly growl 
 Of the bloodhound that scents its prey ; 
 
 No storm was so dark as that lady's scowl 
 Under tresses of wintry gray. 
 
 •' Lord Ronald ! men marry for love or gold, 
 Mickle rich must have been thy bride ! " 
 
 " Man's heart may be bought, woman's hand be sold, 
 On the banks of our northern Clyde. 
 
 *' My bride is, in sooth, mickle rich to me, 
 Though she brought not a groat in dower, 
 
 For her face, couldst thou see it as I do see, 
 Is the fairest in hall or bower ! " 
 
 Quoth the bishop one day to our lord the king, 
 
 " Satan reigns on the Clyde alway. 
 And the taint in the blood of the witch doth cling 
 
 To the child that she brought to day. 
 
 '•Lord Ronald hath come from the Paynim land 
 
 With a bride that appalls the sight ; 
 Like his dam she hath moles on her dread right hand. 
 
 And she turns to a snake at night. 
 
 " It is plain that a Scot who can blindly dote 
 
 On the face of an Eastern ghoul. 
 And a ghoul who was worth not a silver groat, 
 
 Is a Scot who has lost his soul. 
 
 " It were wise to have done with this demon tree 
 Which has teemed with such cankered fruit : 
 
 Add the soil where it stands to my holy See, 
 And consign to the flames its root,"
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 193 
 
 " Holy man ! " quotii King James, and he laughed, "we know 
 
 That thy tongue never wags in vain, 
 But tlie Church cist is full, and the king's is low, 
 
 And the Clyde is a fair domain. 
 
 *' Yet a knight that's bewitched by a laidly fere 
 
 Needs not mucli to dissolve the spell ; 
 We will summon the bride and the bridegroom here. 
 
 Be at hand with thy book and bell." 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Lord Ronald stood up in King James's court, 
 
 And his dame by his dauntless side ; 
 The barons who came in the hopes of sport 
 
 Shook vvitli fright when they saw the bride. 
 
 The bishop, though armed with his bell and book, 
 
 Grew as white as if turned to stone, 
 It was only our king who could face that look, 
 
 But he spoke with a trembling tone : 
 
 "Lord Ronald, the knights of thy race and mine 
 
 Should have mates in their own degree ; 
 What parentage, say, hath that bride of thine 
 
 Who hath come from the far countree ? 
 
 "And what was her dowry in gold or land, 
 
 Or what was the charm, I pray. 
 That a comely young gallant should woo the hand 
 
 Of the ladye we see to-day ? " 
 
 And the lords would have laughed, but that awful dame 
 Struck them dumb with her thunder-frown : 
 
 *' Saucy king, did I utter my father's name, 
 Thou wouldst kneel as his liegeman down. 
 
 " Though I brought to Lord Ronald nor lands nor gold, 
 
 Nor the bloom of a fading cheek ; 
 Yet, were I a widow, both young and old 
 
 Would my hand and my dowry seek. 
 
 " For the wi'-h that he covets the most below, 
 
 And would hide from the saints above. 
 Which he dares not to pray for in weal or woe. 
 
 Is the dowry I bring my love. 
 
 ** Let every man look in his heart and see 
 
 What the wish he mosts lusts to win, 
 And then let I'.im fasten his eyes on me 
 While he thinks of his darling sin."
 
 194 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 And every man — bishop, and lord, and king- 
 Thought of that he most wished to win, 
 
 And, fixing his eye on that gruesome thing. 
 He beheld ids own darling ^in. 
 
 No longer a ghoul in that face he saw, 
 
 It was fair as a boy's first love ; 
 The voice which had curdled liis veins with awe 
 
 Was the coo of the woodland dove. 
 
 Each heart was on flame for the peerless dame 
 
 At the price of the husband's life; 
 Bright claymores flash out, and loud voices shout, 
 
 " In thy widow shall be my wife." 
 
 Then darkness fell over the palace hall, 
 
 More dark and more dark it fell, 
 And a death-groan boomed hoarse underneath the pall. 
 
 And was drowned amid roar and yell. 
 
 When light through the lattice-pane stole once more, 
 
 It was gray as a wintry dawn, 
 And the bishop lay cold on the regal floor. 
 
 With a stain on his robes of lawn. 
 
 Lord Ronald was standing beside the dead, 
 In the scabbard he plunged his sword. 
 
 And with visage as wan as the corpse, he said, 
 " Lo ! my ladye hath kept her word. 
 
 "Now I leave her to others to woo and win, 
 
 For no longer I find her fair ; 
 Could I look on the face of my darling sin, 
 
 I should see but a dead man's there. 
 
 "And the dowry she brought me is here returned, 
 
 For the wish of my heart has died, 
 It is quenched in the blood of the jiriest who burned 
 
 My sweet mother, the Saint of Clyde." 
 
 Lord Ronald strode over the stony floor, 
 Not a hand was outstretched to stay ; 
 
 Lord Ronald has passed through the gaping door. 
 Not an eye ever traced his way. 
 
 And the ladye, left widowed, was prized above 
 
 All the maidens in liall and bower, 
 Many bartered their lives for that ladye's love. 
 
 And their souls for that ladye's dower. 
 
 God grant that the wish which I dare not pray 
 
 Be not that which I lust to win, 
 And that ever I look with my first dismay 
 
 On the face of my darling sin !
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. I9S 
 
 As he ceased, Kenelm's eye fell on Tom's face up-turned 
 to his own, witii open lips, and intent stare, and paled cheeks, 
 and a look of that higher sort of terror wliich belongs to awe 
 The man, then recovering himself, tried to speak, and at- 
 tempted a sickly smile, but neither would do. He rose ab- 
 ruptly and walked away, crept under the shadow of a dark 
 beech-tree, and stood there leaning against the trunk. 
 
 "What say you to the ballad ?" asked Kenelm of the 
 singer. 
 
 " It is not without power," answered he. 
 
 " Ay, of a certain kind." 
 
 The minstrel looked hard at Kenelm, and dropped his 
 eyes, with a heightened glow on his cheek. 
 
 " The Scotch are a thoughtful race. The Scot who wrote 
 this thing may have thought of a day when he saw beauty in 
 the face of a darling sin ; but if so, it is evident that his 
 sight recovered from that glamoury. Shall we walk on ? 
 Come, Tom." 
 
 The minstrel left them at the entrance of the town, say- 
 ing, " I regret that I cannot see more of either of you, as I 
 quit Luscombe at daybreak. Here, by the by, I forgot to 
 give it before, is the address you wanted." 
 
 Kenelm. — " Of the little child. I am glad you remem- 
 bered her." 
 
 The minstrel again looked hard at Kenelm, this time with- 
 out dropping his eyes. Kenelm's expression of face was so 
 simply quiet that it might be almost called vacant. 
 
 Kenelm and Tom continued to walk on towards the vet- 
 erinary surgeon's house, for some minutes silently. Then 
 Tom said in a whisper, " Did not you mean those rhymes to 
 hit me \\^xQ~-here V and he struck his breast. 
 
 " The rhymes were written long before I saw you, Tom ; 
 but it is well if their meaning strike us all. Of you, my 
 friend, I have no fear now. Are you not already a changed 
 man ? " 
 
 ** I feel as if I were going through a change," answered 
 Tom, in slow, dreary accents. "In hearing you and that 
 gentleman talk so much of things that I never thought of, I 
 felt something in me— you will laugh when I tell you — some- 
 thing like a bird." 
 
 " Like a bird — good ! a bird has wings." 
 
 "Just so." 
 
 " And you felt wings that you wei-e unconscious of before, 
 fluttering and beating themselves as against the wires of a
 
 196 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 cage. You were true to your instincts then, my dear fellow- 
 man — instincts of space and heaven. Courage ! — the cage- 
 door will open soon. And now, practically speaking, I give 
 you this advice in parting : you have a quick and sensitive 
 mind which you have allowed that strong body of yours to 
 incarcerate and suppress. Give that mind fair play. Attend 
 to the business of your calling diligently : the craving for 
 regluar work is the healthful appetite of mind ; but in your 
 spare hours cultivate the new ideas which your talk with men 
 who have been accustomed to cultivate the mind more than 
 the body, has sown within you. Belong to a book-club, and 
 interest yourself in books. A wise man has said, ' Books 
 widen the present by adding to it the past and the future.' 
 Seek the company of educated men, and educated women 
 too ; and when you are angry with another, reason with him 
 — don't knock him down ; and don't be knocked down your- 
 self by an enemy much stronger than yourself — Drink. Do 
 all this, and when I see you again you will be " 
 
 " Stop, sir — you will see me again ?" 
 
 "Yes, if we both live, I promise it." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "You see, Tom, we have both of us something in our old 
 selves which we must work off. You will work off your 
 something by repose, and I must work off mine, if I can, by 
 moving about. So I am on my travels. May we both have 
 new selves better than the old selves, when we again shake 
 hands. For your part try your best, dear Tom, and heaven 
 prosper you." 
 
 "And heaven bless you!" cried Tom, fervently, with 
 tears rolling unheeded from his bold blue eyes. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Though Kenelm left Luscombe on Tuesday morning, he 
 did not appear at Neesdale Park till the Wednesday, a little 
 before the dressing-bell for dinner. Ilis adventures in the 
 interim are not worth repeating. He had hoped he might 
 fall in again with the minstrel, but he did not. 
 
 His portmanteau had arrived, and he heaved a sigh as he 
 cased himself in a gentleman's evening dress, "Alas ! I have 
 soon got back again into my own skin."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 197 
 
 There were several other guests in the house, though not 
 a large party. They had been asked with an eye to tlie ap- 
 proaching election, consisting of squires and clergy from 
 remoter parts of the county. Chief among the guests in 
 rank and importance, and rendered by the occasion the cen- 
 tral object of interest, was George Belvoir. 
 
 Kenelm bore his part in this society with a resignation 
 that partook of repentance. 
 
 The first day he spoke very little, and was considered a 
 very dull young man by the lady he took in to dinner. Mr. 
 Travers in vain tried to draw him out. He had anticipated 
 much amusement from the eccentricities of his guest, who 
 had talked volubly enough in the fernery, and was sadly 
 disappointed. " I feel," he whispered to Mrs. Campion, 
 " like poor Lord Pomfret, who, charmed with Punch's lively 
 conversation, bought him, and was greatly surprised that, 
 when he had brought him home, Punch would not talk." 
 
 " But your Punch listens," said Mrs. Campion, " and he 
 observes." 
 
 George Belvoir, on the other hand, was universally de- 
 clared to be very agreeable. Though not naturally jovial, 
 he forced himself to appear so — laughing loud with the 
 squires, and entering heartily with their wives and daugh- 
 ters into such topics as county-balls and croquet-parties ; 
 and when after dinner he had, Cato-like, " warmed his vir- 
 tue with wine," the virtue came out very lustily in praise of 
 good men — viz., men of his own party — and anathema on 
 bad men — viz., men of the other party. 
 
 Now and then he appealed to Kenelm, and Kenelm al- 
 ways returned the same answer, "There is much in what 
 you say." 
 
 The first evening closed in the usual way in country- 
 houses. There was some lounging under moonlight on the 
 terrace before the house ; then there was some singing by 
 young lady amateurs, and a rubber of whist for the elders ; 
 then wine-and-water, hand-candlesticks, a smoking-room for 
 those who smoked, and beds for those who did not. 
 
 In the course of the evening, Cecilia, partly in obedience 
 to the duties of hostess, and partly from that compassion 
 for shyness which kindly and high-bred persons entertain, 
 had gone a little out of her way to allure Kenelm forth from 
 the estranged solitude he had contrived to weave around 
 him ; in vain for tlie daughter as for the father. He replied 
 to her with the quiet self-possession which should h.ve con
 
 198 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 vinced her that no man on earth was less entitled to indul- 
 gence for the gentlemanlike infirmity of shyness, and no 
 man less needed the duties of any hostess for the augmen- 
 tation of his comforts, or rather lor liis diminished sense of 
 discomfort ; but his replies were in monosyllables, and made 
 with the air of a man who says in his heart, "If this crea- 
 ture would but leave me alone ! " 
 
 Cecilia, for the first time in her life, was piqued, and, 
 strange to say, began to feel more interest about tiiis in- 
 different stranger than about the popular, animated, pleas- 
 ant George Belvoir, who she knew by womanly instinct was 
 as much in love with her as he could be. 
 
 Cecilia Travers that night, on retiring to rest, told her 
 maid, smilingly, that she was too tired to have her hair 
 done; and yet, when the maid was dismissed, she looked at 
 herself in the glass more gravely and more discontentedly 
 than she had ever looked there before, and tired though 
 she was, stood at the window gazing into the moonlit night 
 for a good hour after the maid had left her. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Kf.nelm Chillingly has now been several days a guest 
 at Neesdale Park. He has recovered speech ; the other 
 guests have gone, including George Belvoir. Leopold 
 Travers has taken a great fancy to Kenelm. Leopold was 
 one of those men, not uncommon perhaps in England, who, 
 with great mental energies, have little book-knowledge, and 
 when they come in contact with a book-reader who is not a 
 pedant, feel a pleasant excitement in his society, a source of 
 interest in comparing notes with him, a constant surprise in 
 finding by what venerable authorities the deductions which 
 their own mother-wit has drawn from life arc supported, or 
 by what cogent argiunents, derived from books, those de- 
 ductions are contravened or upset. Leopold Travers had 
 in him that sense of humor which generally accompanies a 
 strong practical understanding (no man, for instance, has 
 more practical understanding than a Scot, and no man has 
 a keener susceptibility to humor), and not only enjoyed 
 Kenelm's odd wav of expressing himself, but very often 
 mistook Kenelm's irony for opinion spoken in earnest.
 
 KENELM CHJLLINGL Y. 
 
 199 
 
 Since his early removal from the capital and his devotion 
 to agricultural pursuits, it was so seldom that Leopold 
 Travers met a man by whose conversation his mind was di- 
 verted to other subjects than those which were incidental to 
 the commonplace routine of his life, that he found in Ken- 
 elm's views of men and things a source of novel amusement, 
 and a stirring appeal to su-ch metaphysical creeds of his own 
 as had been formed unconsciously, and had long reposed un- 
 examined in the recesses of an intellect shrewd and strong, 
 but more accustomed to dictate than to argue. Kenelm, on 
 his side, saw much in his host to like and to admire ; but, 
 reversing their relative positions in point of years, he con- 
 versed with Travers as with a mind younger than his own. 
 Indeed, it was one of his crotchety theories that each gene- 
 ration is in substance mentally older than the generation 
 preceding it, especially in all that relates to science ; and, 
 as he would say, " The study of life is a science, and not 
 an art." 
 
 But Cecilia, — what impression did she create upon the 
 young visitor ? Was he alive to the charms of her rare 
 beauty, to the grace of a mind sufficiently stored for com- 
 mune with those wlio loved to think and to imagine, and 
 yet sufficiently feminine and playful to seize the sportive 
 side of realities and allow their proper place to the trifles 
 which make the sum of human things 1 An impression she 
 did make, and that impression was new to him and pleasing. 
 Nay, sometimes in her presence, and sometimes when alone, 
 he fell into abstracted consultations with himself, saying, 
 " Kenelm Chillingly, now that thou hast got back into thy 
 proper skin, dost thou not think that thou hadst better re- 
 main there ? Couldst thou not be contented with thy lot as 
 erring descendant of Adam, if thou couldst win for thy mate 
 so faultless a descendant of Eve as now flits before thee ?" 
 But he could not extract from himself any satisfactory an- 
 swer to the questions he had addressed to himself. 
 
 Once he said abruptly to Travers, as, on their return from 
 their rambles, they caught a glimpse of Cecilia's light form 
 bending over the flower-beds on the lawn, " Do you admire 
 Virgil?" 
 
 " To say truth, I have not read Virgil since I was a boy ; 
 and, between you and me, I then thought him rather monoto- 
 nous." 
 
 " Perhaps because his verse is so smooth in its beauty ? " 
 
 " Probably. When one is very young one's taste is faulty ;
 
 200 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 and if a poet is not faulty, we are apt to think he wants 
 vivacity and fire." 
 
 " Thank you for your hicid explanation," answered Ken- 
 elm, adding musingly to himself, " I am afraid I should yawn 
 very often if I were married to a Miss Virgil." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The house of Mr. Travers contained a considerable collec- 
 tion of family portraits, few of them well painted, but the 
 Squire was evidently proud of such evidences of ancestry. 
 They not only occupied a considerable space on the walls of 
 the reception-rooms, but swarmed into the principal sleeping- 
 chambers, and smiled or frowned on the beholder from daric 
 passages and remote lobbies. One morning Cecilia, on her 
 way to the China Closet, found Kenelm gazing very intently 
 upon a female portrait consigned to one of these obscure 
 receptacles by which thi-ough a back staircase he gained the 
 only approach from the hall to his chamber. 
 
 " I don't pretend to be a good judge of paintings," said 
 Kenelm, as Cecilia paused beside him ; " but it strikes me 
 that this picture is very much better than most of those to 
 which places of honor are assigned in your collection. And 
 the face itself is so lovely that it' would add an embellishment 
 to the princelicst galleries." 
 
 " Yes," said Cecelia, with a half-sigh. " The face is love- 
 ly, and the portrait is considered one of Lely's rarest master- 
 pieces. It used to hang over the chimney-piece in the draw- 
 ing-room. My father had it placed here many years ago." 
 
 '* Perhaps because he discovered it was not a familv por- 
 trait ? " 
 
 " On the contrary — because it grieves him to think it is a 
 family portrait. Hush ! I hear his footstep ; don't speak of 
 it to him ; don't let him see you looking at it. The subject 
 is very painful to him." 
 
 Here Cecilia vanished into the China Closet, and Kenelm 
 turned off to his own room. 
 
 What sin committed by the original in the time of Charles 
 II., but only discovered in the reign of Victoria, could have 
 justified Leopold Travers in removing the most pleasing por
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 20i 
 
 trait in the house from tlie honored place it had occupied, 
 and banishing it to so obscure a recess ? Kenehn said no 
 more on the subject, and indeed an hour afterwards had dis- 
 missed it from his thoughts. Tlie next day he rode out with 
 Travers and Cecilia. Their way passed through quiet shady 
 lanes without any purposed direction, when suddenly, at the 
 spot where three of those lanes met on an angle of common 
 ground, a lonely gray tow^er, in the midst of a wide space of 
 grass land which looked as if it had once been a park, with 
 huge boles of pollarded oak dotting the space here and there, 
 rose before them. 
 
 " Cissy ! " cried Travers, angrily reining in his horse and 
 stopping short in a political discussion which he had forced 
 upon Kenelm — " Cissy ! How comes this ? We have taken 
 the wrong turn! No matter: I see there," pointing to the 
 right, "the chimney-pots of old Mondell's homestead. He 
 has not yet promised his vote to George Belvoir. I'll go and 
 have a talk witli him. Turn back, you and Mr. Chillingly 
 — meet me at Turner's Green, and wait for me there till I 
 come. I need not excuse myself to you, Chillingly. A vote 
 is a vote." So saying, the Squire, whose ordinary riding- 
 horse was an old hunter, halted, turned, and, no gate being 
 visible, put the horse over a stiff fence and vanished in the di- 
 rection of old Mondell's chimney-pots. Kenelm, scarcely 
 hearing his host's instructions to Cecilia and excuses to him- 
 self, remained still and gazing on the old gray tower thus 
 abruptly obtruded on his view. 
 
 Though no learned antiquarian like his father, Kenelm 
 had a strange fascinating interest in all relics of the past ; 
 and old gray towers, where they are not church towers, are 
 very rarely to be seen in England. All around the old gray 
 tower spoke with an unutterable mournfulness of the past 
 in ruins : you could see remains of some large Gothic build- 
 ing once attached to it, rising here and there in fragments 
 of deeply-buttressed walls ; you could even see in a dry ditch, 
 between high ridges, where there had been a fortified moat ; 
 nay, you could even see where once had been the bailey hill 
 from which a baron of old had dispensed justice. Seldom in- 
 deed does the most acute of antiquarians discover that rem- 
 nant of Norman times on lands still held by the oldest of An- 
 glo Norman families. Then, the wild nature of the demesne 
 around; those ranges of sward, with those old giant oak- 
 trunks, hollowed within and pollarded at tup; all spoke, m 
 unison witli the gray tower, of a past as remote from the 
 
 9*
 
 202 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 reign of Victoria as the Pyramids are from the sway of the 
 Viceroy of Egypt. 
 
 " Let us turn back," said Miss Travers ; " my father would 
 not lil<e me'to stay liere." 
 
 " Pardon me a moment. I wish my father were here ; 
 he would stay till sunset. But wliat is the history of that 
 old tower? — a history it nuist have." 
 
 " Every home has a history — even a peasant's hut," said 
 Cecilia. But do pardon me if I ask you to comply with my 
 father's request. I at least must turn back." 
 
 Thus commanded, Kenelm reluctantly withdrew his gaze 
 from the ruin and regained Cecilia, who was already some 
 paces in return down the lane. 
 
 " I am far from a very inquisitive man by temperament," 
 said Kenelm, "so far as the affairs of the living are concerned. 
 But I should not care to open a book if I had no interest in 
 the past. Pray indulge my curiosity to learn something about 
 that old tower. It could not look more melancholy and soli- 
 tary if I had built it myself." 
 
 " Its most melancholy associations are with a very recent 
 past," answered Cecilia. " The tower, in remote times, 
 formed the keep of a castle belonging to the most ancient 
 and once the most powerful family in these parts. The 
 owners were barons who took active share in the Wars of 
 the Roses. The last of them sided with Richard III., and 
 after the battle of Bosworth the title was attainted, and the 
 larger portion of the lands were confiscated. Loyalty to 
 a Plantagenct was of course treason to a Tudor. But the 
 regeneration of the family rested with their direct descend- 
 ants, who had saved from the general wreck of their for- 
 tunes what may be called a good squire's estate — about, 
 perhaps, the same rental as my father's, but of much larger 
 acreage. These squires, however, were more looked up to 
 in the county than the wealthiest peer. They were still by 
 far the oldest family in the county ; and traced in their 
 pedigree alliances with the most illustrious houses in Eng- 
 lish history. In themselves too, for many generations, they 
 were a high-spirited, hospitable, popular race, living un- 
 ostentatiously on their income, and contented with their 
 rank of squires. The castle — ruined by time and siege — 
 they did not attempt to restore. They dwelt in a house 
 near to it, built about Elizabeth's time, which you could 
 not see, for it lies in a hollow behind the tower — a moder- 
 ate-sized, picturesque, country gentleman's house. Our
 
 KENELM CHlLLnVGLY. 203 
 
 family intermarried with them. The portrait you saw was 
 a daughter of their liouse. And very proud was any squire 
 in tlie county of intermarriage with the Fletwodes.'" 
 
 " Fietwode — that was their name ? I have a vague re- 
 collection of having heard the name connected with some 
 disastrous— oh, butit can't be the same family— pray go on.' 
 
 " I fear it is the same family. But I will finish the story 
 as I have heard it. The property descended at last to one 
 Bertram Fietwode, who, unfortunately, obtained the repu- 
 tation of being a very clever man of business. There was 
 some mining company in which, with other gentlemen in 
 the county, he took great interest ; invested largely in 
 shares ; became the head of the direction " 
 
 " I see ; and was, of course, ruined." 
 
 " No : worse than that, he became very rich ; and, un- 
 happily, became desirous of being richer still. I have heard 
 that there was a great mania for speculations just about 
 that time. He embarked in these, and prospered, till at 
 last he was induced to invest a large share of the fortune 
 thus acquired in the partnership of a bank, which enjoyed 
 a high character. Up to that time he had retained popu- 
 larity and esteem in the county ; but the squires who shared 
 in the adventures of the mining company, and kncAV little 
 or nothing about other speculations in which his name did 
 not appear, professed to be shocked at the idea of a Fiet- 
 wode, of Fietwode, being ostensibly joined in partnership 
 with a Jones, of Clapham, in a London bank." 
 
 " Slow folks, those country squires, — behind the pro- 
 gress of the age. Well ? " 
 
 " I have heard that Bertram Fietwode was liimself very 
 reluctant to take this step, but was persuaded to do so by 
 his son. This son, Alfred, was said to have still greater 
 talents for business than the father, and had been not only 
 associated with but consulted by him in all the later specu- 
 lations which had proved so fortunate. Mrs. Campion knew 
 Alfred Fietwode very well. She describes him as hand- 
 some, with quick, eager eyes ; showy and imposing in his 
 talk ; immensely ambitious — more ambitious than avari- 
 cious, — collecting money less for its own sake than for that 
 which it could give — rank and power. According to her it 
 was the dearest wish of his heart to claim the old barony, 
 but not before there could go with the barony a fortune 
 adequate to the lustre of a title so ancient, and equal to the 
 wealth of modern peers with higher nominal rank."
 
 204 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "A poor ambition at the best; of tlic two I should pre- 
 fer tliat of a poet in a garret. But I am no judge. Thank 
 heaven I have no ambition. Still, all ambition, all desire 
 to rise, is interesting to him who is ignominiously contented 
 if he does not fall. So the son had his way, and Fletwode 
 joined company with Jones on the road to wealth and the 
 peerage ? — meanwhile, did the son marry ? if so, of course 
 the daughter of a duke or a millionaire. Tuft-hunting, or 
 money-making, at the risk of degradation and the work- 
 house. Progress of the age ! " 
 
 " No," replied Cecilia, smiling at this outburst, but 
 smiling sadly, " Fletwode did not marry the daughter of a 
 duke or a millionaire ; but still liis wife belonged to a noble 
 family — very poor, but very proud. Perhaps he married 
 from motives of ambition, though not of gain. Her father 
 was of much political influence that might perhaps assist 
 his claim to the barony. The mother, a woman of the 
 Avorld ; enjoying a high social position, and nearly related to 
 a connection of ours — Lady Glenalvon." 
 
 " Lady Glenalvon, the dearest of my lady friends ! You 
 are connected with her ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Lord Glenalvon was my mother's uncle. But I 
 wish to finish my story before my father joins us. Alfred 
 Fletwode did not marry till long after the partnership in tiie 
 bank. His father, at his desire, had bought up the whole 
 business, — Mr. Jones having died. The bank was carried 
 on in the names of Fletwode and Son. But the father had 
 become merely a nominal, or what I believe is called, a 
 'sleeping' partner. He had long ceased to reside in the 
 county. The old house was not grand enough for him. 
 He had purchased a palatial residence in one of the home 
 counties ; lived there in great splendor ; was a munificent 
 patron of science and art ; and in spite pf his earlier addic 
 tion to business-like speculations, he appears to have been 
 a singularly accomplished, higli-bred gentleman. Some 
 years before his son's maTrriage, Mr. Fletwode had been 
 afflicted with partial paralysis, and his medical attendant 
 enjoined rigid abstention from business. From that time 
 he never interfered with his son's management of the bank. 
 He had an only daughter, much younger than Alfred. Lord 
 Eagleton, my mother's brother, was engaged to be married 
 to her. The wedding-day was fixed — when the world was 
 startled by the news that the great firm of Fletwode and 
 Son had stopped payment, — is that the right jihrase ?"
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 205 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " A great many people were ruined in that failure. The 
 public indignation was very great. Of course all tlie Flet- 
 wode property went to the creditors. Old Mr. Fletwode was 
 legally acciuitted of all other offence than that of over-confi- 
 dence'in his son. Alfred was convicted of fraud — of forgery. 
 I don't, of course, know the particulars, — they are very com- 
 plicated. He was sentenced to a long term of servitude, 
 but died the day he was condemned— apparently by poison, 
 which he had long secreted about his person. Now you 
 can understand why my father, who is almost gratuitously 
 sensitive on the point of honor, removed into a dark corner 
 the portrait of Arabella Fletwode, — his own ancestress, but 
 also the ancestress of a convicted felon, — you can under- 
 stand why the whole subject is so painful to him. His 
 wife's brother was to have married the felon's sister ; and 
 though, of course, that marriage was tacitly broken off by 
 the terrible disgrace that had befallen the Fletwodes, yet I 
 don't think my poor uncle ever recovered the blow to his 
 hopes. He went abroad, and died in Bladeira, of a slow 
 decline." 
 
 "And the felon's sister, did she die too ?" 
 
 " No ; not that I know of. Mrs. Campion says that she 
 saw in a newspaper the announcement of old Mr. Flctwode's 
 death, and a paragraph to the effect that after that event 
 Miss Fletwode had sailed from Liverpool for New York." 
 
 " Alfred Fletwode's wife went back, of course, to her 
 family?" 
 
 " Alas ! no, — poor thing ! She had not been many months 
 married when the bank broke ; and among his friends her 
 wretched husband appears to have forged the names of the 
 trustees to her marriage settlement, and sold out the sums 
 which would otherwise have served her as a competence. 
 Her father, too, was a great sufferer by the bankruptcy, 
 having by his son-in-law's advice placed a considerable por- 
 tion of his moderate fortune in Alfred's hands for investment, 
 all of which was involved in the general wreck. I am afraid 
 he was a very hard-hearted man ; at all events, his poor 
 daughter never returned to him. She died, I think, even 
 before the death of Bertram Fletwode. The whole story is 
 verv dismal." 
 
 '" Dismal indeed, but pregnant with salutary warnings to 
 those who live in an age of progress. Here you see a family 
 of fair fortune, living hospitably, beloved, revered, more
 
 2o6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 looked up to by their neighbors than the wealtliiest nobles 
 — no family not proud to boast alliance with it. All at once, 
 in th-e tranquil records of this happy race, appears that 
 darling of the age, that hero of progress — a clever man of 
 business. He be contented to live as his fathers ! He be 
 contented with such trilics as competence, respect, and love ! 
 Much too clever for that. The age is money-making — go 
 with the age ! He goes with the age. Born a gentleman 
 only, he exalts himself into a trader. But at least he, it 
 seems, if greedy, was not dishonest. He was born a gentle- 
 man, iDut his son was born a trader. The son is a still 
 cleverer man of business ; the son is consulted and trusted. 
 Aha ! He too goes with the age ; to greed he links ambition. 
 The trader's son wishes to return — what ? to the rank of 
 gentleman ?— gentleman ! nonsense ! everybody is a gentle- 
 man nowadays — to the title of Lord. How ends it all ? 
 Could I sit but for twelve hours in the innermost heart of 
 that Alfred Fletwode — could I see how, step by step from 
 his childhood, the dishonest son was avariciously led on by 
 the honest father to depart from the old vestigia of Fletwodes 
 of Fletwode — scorning The Enough to covet The More — 
 gaining The More to sigh it is not The Enough— I think I 
 might show that the age lives in a house of glass, and liad 
 better not for its own sake tlirow stones on the felon ! " 
 
 " Ah, but, Mr. Chillingly, surely this is a very rare ex- 
 ception in the general " 
 
 " Rare ! " interrupted Kenelm, who was excited to a 
 warmth of passion which would have startled his most inti- 
 mate friend — if indeed an intimate friend had ever been 
 vouchsafed to him—" rare ! nay, how common — I don't say 
 to the extent of forgery and fraud, but to the extent of de- 
 gradation and ruin— is the greed of a Little More to those 
 who have The Enough ; is the discontent with competence, 
 respect, and love, when catching sight of a money-bag ! 
 How many well-descended county families, cursed with an 
 heir who is called a clever man of business, have vanished 
 from the soil ! A company starts — the clever man joins it 
 — one briglit day. Pouf ! the old estates and tlie old name 
 are powder. Ascend higher. Take nobles whose ancestral 
 titles ought to be to English ears like the sound of clarions, 
 awakening the most slothfid to the scorn of money-bags and 
 the passion for renown. Lo ! in that mocking dance of 
 death called the Progress of the Age, one who did not find 
 Enough in a sovereign's revenue, and seeks the Little More
 
 KENELM CIIILLIiXGLY. 207 
 
 as a gambler on the turf by the advice of blacklegs ! Lo ! 
 another, with lands wider than his greatest ancestors ever 
 possessed, must still go in for The Little More, adding acre 
 to acre, heaping debt upon debt ! Lo ! a third, whose name, 
 borne by his ancestors, was once the terror of England's 
 foes— the landlord of a hotel ! A fourth— but why go on 
 through the list? Another and another still succeeds — each 
 on the Road to Ruin, each in the Age of Progress. Ah, 
 Miss Travers ! in the old time it was through the Temple 
 of Honor that one passed to the Temple of Fortune. In 
 this wise age the process is reversed. But here comes your 
 father." 
 
 " A thousand pardons ! " said Leopold Travers. " That 
 numskull Mondell kept me so long with his old-fashioned 
 Tory doubts whether liberal politics are favorable to agricul- 
 tural prospects. But as he owes a round sum to a Whig 
 lawyer I had to talk with his wife, a prudent woman ; con- 
 vinced her tliat his own agricultural prospects were safest 
 on the Whig side of the question ; and, after kissing the 
 baby and shaking his hand, booked his vote for George 
 Belvoir — a plumper." 
 
 " I suppose," said Kenelm to himself, and with that can- 
 dor which characterized hnn whenever he talked to himself, 
 " that Travers has taken the right road to the Temple, not 
 of Honor, but of honors, in every country, ancient or mod- 
 ern, which has adopted the system of popular suffrage.' 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Campion and Cecilia were seated 
 under the veranda. They were both ostensibly employed 
 on two several pieces of embroidery, one intended for a 
 screen, the other for a sofa-cushion. But the mind of 
 neither was on her work. 
 
 Mrs. Campion. — " Has Mr. Chillingly said when he 
 means to take leave ? " 
 
 Cecilia. — "Not to me. How much my dear fatlier en- 
 joys his conversation ! " 
 
 Mrs. Campion.—" Cynicism and mockery were not so 
 much the fashion among young men in your father's day a^ 
 I suppose they are now, and therefore they seem new to Mr.
 
 2o8 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Travcrs. To nie they are not new, because I saw more of 
 the old than the young when I lived in London, and cynic- 
 ism and mockery are more natural to men who are leaving 
 the world than to those who are entering it." 
 
 Cecilia. — " Dear Mrs. Campion, how bitter you arc, and 
 how unjust ! You take much too literally the jesting way 
 in which Mr. Chillingly expresses himself. There can be 
 no cynicism in one who goes out of his way to make others 
 
 happy." 
 
 Mrs. Campion. — "You mean in the whim of making an 
 ill-assorted marriage between a pretty village flirt and a sick- 
 ly cripple, and settling a couple of peasants in a business for 
 which they are wholly unfitted." 
 
 Cecilia. — " Jessie Wiles is not a flirt, and I am convinced 
 that she will make Will Somers a very good wife, and that 
 the shop will be a great success." 
 
 Mrs. Campion.—" We shall see. Still, if Mr. Chillingly's 
 talk belies his actions, he may be a good man, but he is a 
 very affected one." 
 
 Cecilia. — " Have I not heard you say that there are per- 
 sons so natural that they seem affected to those who do not 
 understand them ?" 
 
 Mrs. Campion raised her eyes to Cecilia's face, dropped 
 them again over her work, and said, in grave undertones, 
 
 " Take care, Cecilia." 
 
 " Take care of what ? " 
 
 " My dearest child, forgive me ; but I do not like the 
 warmth with which you defend Mr. Chillingly." 
 
 " Would not my father defend him still more warmly if 
 he had heard you ?" 
 
 " Men judge of men in their relations to men. I am a 
 woman, and judge of men in their relations to women. I 
 should tremble for the happiness of any woman who joined 
 her fate with that of Kenclm Chillingly." 
 
 "My dear friend, I do not understand you to-day." 
 
 " Nay, I did not mean to be so solemn, my love. After all, 
 it is nothing to us whom Mr. Chillingly may or may not 
 marry. He is but a passing visitor, and, once gone, the 
 chances are that we may not see him again for years." 
 
 Thus speaking, Mrs. Campion again raised her eyes from 
 her work, stealing a sidelong glance at Cecilia ; and her 
 mother-like heart' sank within her, on noticing how sudden- 
 ly pale the girl had become, and how her lips quivered. 
 Mrs. Campion had enough knowledge of life to feel aware
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 209 
 
 that she had committed a grievous blunder. In that earliest 
 stage of virgin affection when a girl is unconscious of more 
 than a certain vague interest in one man which distinguishes 
 him from others in her thouglits, — if she hears him unjustly- 
 disparaged, if some warning against him is implied, if the 
 probability that he will never be more to her than a passing 
 acquaintance is forcibly obtruded on her, — suddenly that 
 vague interest, which might otherwise have faded away with 
 many another girlish fancy, becomes arrested, consolidated ; 
 the quick pang it occasions makes her involuntarily, and for 
 the first time, question herself, and ask, "Do I love?" But 
 when a girl of a nature so delicate as that of Cecilia Travers 
 can ask herself the question, " Do I love ?" her very modes- 
 ty, her very shrinking from acknowledging that any power 
 over her thoughts for weal or for woe can be acquired by a 
 man, except through the sanction of that love which only 
 becomes divine in her eyes when it is earnest and pure and 
 self-devoted, makes her prematurely disposed to answer 
 " yes." And wlien a girl of such a nature in her own heart 
 answers " yes " to such a question, even if she deceive her- 
 self at the moment, she begins to cherish the deceit till the 
 belief in her love becomes a reality. She has adopted a re- 
 ligion, false or true, and she w^ould despise herself if she 
 could be easily converted. 
 
 Mrs. Campion had so contrived that she had forced that 
 question upon Cecilia, ^nd she feared, by the girl's change. 
 of countenance, that the girl's heart had answered "yes." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 While the conversation just narrated took place, Kenelm 
 had walked forth to pay a visit to Will Somers. All obsta- 
 cles to Will's marriage were now cleared away ; the trans- 
 fer of lease for the shop, had been signed, and the banns 
 were to be published for the first time on the following Sun- 
 day. We need not say that Will was very happy. Kenelm 
 then paid a visit to Mrs. Bowles, with whom he stayed an 
 hour. On re-entering the Park, he saw Travers, walking 
 slowly, with downcast eyes, and his hands clasped behind 
 him (his habit when in thought). He did not observe Ken- 
 elm's approach till within a few feet of him, and he then
 
 2IO KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 greeted his guest in listless accents, unlike his usual cheer- 
 ful tones. 
 
 " I have been visiting the man you have made so happy," 
 said Kenelm. 
 
 " Who can that be ? " 
 
 "Will Somers. Do you make so many people happy 
 that your reminiscence of them is lost in their number ? " 
 
 Travers smiled faintly, and shook his head. 
 
 Kenelm went on. " I have also seen Mrs. Bowles, and 
 you will be pleased to hear that Tom is satisfied with his 
 change of abode ; there is no chance of his returning to 
 Graveleigh ; and Mrs. Bowles took very kindly to my sug- 
 gestion that the little property yovi wish for should be sold 
 to you, and, in tliat case, she would remove to Luscombe to 
 be near her son." 
 
 ** I thank you much for your thought of me," said Tra- 
 vers, "and the affair shall be seen to at once, though the 
 purchase is no longer inportant to me. I ought to ha\'e 
 told you three days ago, but it slipped my memory, that a 
 neighboring squire, a young fellow just come into his prop- 
 erty, has offered to exchange a capital farm, much nearer 
 to my residence, for the lands I hold in Graveleigh, includ- 
 ing Saunderson's farm and the cottages : they are quite at 
 the outskirts of my estate, but run into his, and the exchange 
 will be advantageous to both. Still I am glad that the 
 neighborhood should be thoroughly rid of a brute like Tom 
 Bowles." 
 
 "You would not call him brute if you knew him ; but I 
 am sorry to hear that Will Somers will be under another 
 landlord." 
 
 " It does not matter, since his tenure is secured for four- 
 teen years." 
 
 " What sort of man is the new landlord ? " 
 
 "I don't know much of him. lie was in the army till 
 his father died, and has only just made his appearance in 
 the county. He has, however, already earned the charac- 
 ter of being too fond of the other sex, and it is well that 
 pretty Jessie is to be safely married." 
 
 Travers then relapsed into a moody silence from which 
 Kenelm fou.nd it difficult to rouse him. At length the lat- 
 ter said, kindly : 
 
 "My dear Mr. Travers, do not think I take a liberty if I 
 venture to guess that something has happened this morning 
 which troubles or vexes you. When that is the case, it is
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 211 
 
 often a relief to say what it is, even to a confidant so unable 
 to advise or to comfort as myself." 
 
 " You are a good fellow, Chillingly, and I know not, 
 at least in these parts, a man to whom I would unburden 
 myself more freely. I am put out, I confess ; disappointed 
 unreasonably, in a cherished wish, and," he added, with a 
 slight laugh, " it always annoys me when I don't have my 
 own way." 
 
 " So it does me." 
 
 "Don't you think that George Belvoir is a very fine 
 young man ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "/ call him handsome ; he is steadier, too, than most 
 men of his age and of his command of money ; and yet he 
 does not want spirit nor knowledge of life. To every ad- 
 vantage of rank and fortune he adds the industry and the 
 ambition which attain distinction in public life." 
 
 " Quite true. Is he going to withdraw from the election 
 after all ? " 
 
 " Good Heavens, no ! " 
 
 " Then how does he not let you have your own way ? " 
 
 " It is not he," said Travers, peevishly ; " it is Cecilia. 
 Don't you understand that George is precisely the husband 
 I would choose for her ? and this morning came a very well 
 written manly letter from him, asking my permission to 
 pay his addresses to her." 
 
 " But that is your own way so far." 
 
 "Yes, and here comes the balk. Of course I had to re- 
 fer it to Cecilia, and she positively declines, and has no 
 reasons to give ; does not deny that George is good-looking 
 and sensible, that he is a man of whose preference any 
 girl might be proud ; but she chooses to say she cannot 
 love him, and when I ask why she cannot love him, has no 
 other answer than that ' she cannot say.' It is too provok- 
 ing." 
 
 " It is provoking," answered Kenelm ; " but then Love 
 is the most dunderheaded of all the passions ; it never will 
 listen to reason. The very rudiments of logic are unknown 
 to it. ' Love has no wherefore,' says one of those Latin 
 poets who wrote love-verses called elegies — a name which 
 we moderns appropriate to funeral dirges. For my own 
 part, I can't understand how any one can be expected vol- 
 untarily to make up his mind to go out of his mind. And 
 if Miss Travers cannot go out of her mind because George
 
 212 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Belvoir does, you could not argue her into doing so if you 
 talked till doomsday." 
 
 . Travers smiled in spite of himself, but he answered 
 gravely, "Certainly I would not wish Cissy to marry any 
 man she disliked ; but she does not dislike George — no girl 
 could ; and where that is the case, a girl so sensible, so af- 
 fectionate, so well brought up, is sure to love, after marriage, 
 a thoroughly kind and estimable man, especially when she 
 has no previous attachment — which, of course, Cissy never 
 had. In fact, though I do not wish to force my daughter's 
 will, I am not yet disposed to give up my own. Do you un- 
 derstand ? " 
 
 '' Perfectly." 
 
 " I am the more inclined to a marriage so desirable in 
 every way, because when Cissy comes out in London — 
 which she has not yet done — she is sure to collect around 
 her face and her presumptive inheritance all the handsome 
 fortune-hunters and XXtX^di-vatcriens ; and if in love there is 
 no wherefore, how can 1 be sure that she may not fall in 
 love with a scamp ? " 
 
 " I think you maybe sure of that," said Kenelm. " Miss 
 Travers has too much mind." 
 
 " Yes, at present ; but did you not say that in love peo- 
 ple go out of their mind ?" 
 
 " True ! I forgot that." 
 
 " I am not then disposed to dismiss poor George's offer 
 with a decided negative ; and yet it would be unfair to mis- 
 lead him by encouragement. In fact, I'll be hanged if I 
 know how to reply." 
 
 "You think Miss Travers does not dislike George Bel- 
 voir, and if she saw more of him would like him better, and 
 it would be good for her as well as for him not to put an end 
 to that chance ? " 
 
 " Exactly so." 
 
 ''Why not then write, ' My dear George, — You have my 
 best wishes, but my daughter does not seem disposed to 
 marry at present. Let me consider your letter not written, 
 and continue on the same terms as we were before.' Per- 
 haps, as George knows Virgil, you might find your own 
 schoolboy recollections of that poet useful here, and add, 
 ' Varium et mutahile semper fetnina ; ' — hackneyed, but true." 
 
 " My dear Chillingly, your suggestion is capital. How 
 the deuce at your age have you contrived to know the world 
 so well?"
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 213 
 
 Kenelm answered in the pathetic tones so natural to his 
 voice, "By being only a looker-on ;— alas ! " 
 
 Leopold Travers felt much relieved after he had written 
 his reply to George. He had not been quite so in^^enuous 
 in his revelation to Chillingly as he may have seemed. Con- 
 scious, like all proud and fond fathers, of his daughter's at- 
 tractions, he was not without some apprehension that Ken- 
 elm himself might entertain an ambition at variance with 
 that of George Belvoir : if so, he deemed it well to put an 
 end to 3uch ambition while yet in time — partly because his 
 interest was already pledged to George ; partly because, in 
 rank and fortune, George was the better match ; partly be- 
 cause George was of the same political party as himself — 
 while Sir Peter, and probably Sir Peter's heir, espoused the 
 opposite side ; and partly also because, with all his personal 
 liking to Kenelm, Leopold Travers, as a very sensible, prac- 
 tical'man of the world, Avas not sure that a baronet's heir who 
 tramped the country on foot in the dress of a petty farmer, 
 and indulged pugilistic propensities in martial encounters 
 with stalwart farriers, was likely to make a safe husband 
 and a comfortable son-in-law. Kenelm's words, and still 
 more his manner, convinced Travers that any apprehensions 
 of rivalry that he had previously conceived were utterly 
 groundless. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The same evening, after dinner (during that lovely sum- 
 mer month they dined at Xeesdale Park at an unfashionably 
 early hour), Kenelm, in company with Travers and Cecilia, 
 ascended a gentle eminence at the back of the gardens, on 
 which there were some picturesque ivy-grown ruins of an 
 ancient priory, and commanding the best view of a glorious 
 sunset and a subject landscape of vale and wood, rivulet and 
 distant hills. 
 
 " Is the delight in scenery," said Kenelm, " really an ac- 
 quired gift, as some philosophers tell us ? is it true that 
 young children and rude savages do not feel it — that the eye 
 must be educated to comprehend its charm, and that the eye 
 can be only educated through the mind ?" 
 
 " I should think your philosophers are right," said
 
 214 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Travers. "When I was a schoolboy, T thought no scenery 
 was like the fiat of a cricket-ground ; when I hunted at 
 Melton, I thought that unpicturesque country more beauti- 
 ful than Devonshire. It is only of late years that I feel a 
 sensible pleasure in scenery for its own sake, apart from as- 
 sociations of custom or the uses to which we apply them." 
 
 " And what say you. Miss Travers ? " 
 
 " I scarcely know what to say," answered Cecilia, mus- 
 ingly. " I can remember no time in my childhood when I 
 did not feel delight in that which seemed to me beautiful in 
 scenery, but I suspect that I very vaguely distinguished one 
 kind of beauty from another. A common field with daisies 
 and buttercups was beautiful to me then, and I doubt if I 
 saw anything niore beautiful in extensive landscapes." 
 
 "True," said Kenelm : "it is not in early childhood that 
 we carry the sight into distance ; as is the mind so is the 
 eye ; in early childhood the mind revels in the present, and 
 the eye rejoices most in the things nearest to it. I don't 
 think in childhood that we 
 
 " ' Watched with wistful eyes the setting sun.' " 
 
 " Ah ! what a world of thought in that word ^-wistful ! ' " 
 murmured Cecilia, as her gaze riveted itself on the western 
 heavens, towards which Kenelm had pointed as he spoke, 
 where the enlarging orb rested half its disk on the rim of 
 the horizon. 
 
 She had seated herself on a fragment of the ruin, backed 
 by the hollows of a broken arch. The last rays of the sun 
 lingered on her young face, and then lost themselves in the 
 gloom of the arch behind. There was a silence for some 
 minutes, during which the sun had sunk. Rosy clouds in 
 thin flakes still floated, momently waning ; and the eve-star 
 stijle forth steadfast, bright, and lonely — nay, lonely not 
 now ; that sentinel has aroused a host. 
 
 Said a voice, " No sign of rain yet, Squire. What will 
 become of the turnips? " 
 
 " Real life again ! Who can escape it ? " muttered Ken. 
 'elm, as his eyes rested on the burly figure of the Squire's 
 bailiff. 
 
 "Ha! North," said Travers, "what brings you here? 
 No bad news, I hope." 
 
 "Indeed, yes, Squire. The Durham bull " 
 
 " The Diu-ham bull ! What of him ? You frighten me." 
 
 "Taken bad. Colic."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 215 
 
 " Excuse me, Chillingly," cried Travers ; " I must be off. 
 A most valuable animal, and no one I can trust to doctor 
 him but myself." 
 
 "That's true enough," said the bailiff, admiringly. 
 "There's not a veterinary in the county like the Squire." 
 
 Travers was already gone, and the panting bailiff had 
 hard work to catch him up. 
 
 Kenelm seated himself beside Cecilia on the ruined 
 fragment. 
 
 " How I envy your father ! " said he. 
 
 " Why just at this moment ? Because he knows how to 
 doctor the bull ? " said Cecilia, with a sweet low laugh. 
 
 " Well, that is something to envy. It is a pleasure to 
 relieve from pain any of God's creatures — even a Durham 
 bull." 
 
 " Indeed, yes. I am justly rebuked." 
 
 "On the contrary, you are to be justly praised. Your 
 question suggested to me an amiable sentiment in place of 
 the selfish one which was uppermost in my thoughts. I en- 
 vied your father because he creates for himself so many ob- 
 jects of interest ; because while he can appreciate the mere 
 sensuous enjoyment of a landscape and a sunset, he can find 
 mental excitement in turnip crops and bulls. Happy, Miss 
 Travers, is the Practical Man." 
 
 "When my dear father was as young as you, Mr. Chil- 
 lingly, I am sure that he had no more interest in turnips and 
 bulls than you have. I do not doubt that some day you will 
 be as practical as he is in that respect." 
 
 " Do you think so — sincerely ?" 
 
 Cecilia made no answer. 
 
 Kenelm repeated the question. 
 
 "Sincerely, then, I do not know whether you will take 
 interest in precisely the same things that interest my father; 
 but there are other things than turnips and cattle which 
 belong to what you call ' practical life,' and in these you will 
 take interest, as you took it in the fortunes of Will Somers 
 and Jessie Wiles." 
 
 " That was no practical interest. I got nothing by it. 
 But even if that interest were practical, — ^I mean productive, 
 as cattle and turnip crops are, — a succession of Somerses 
 and Wileses is not to be hoped for. History never repeats 
 itself." 
 
 " May I answer you, though very humbly?" 
 
 *' Miss Travers, the wisest man that ever existed nevel
 
 2l6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 was wise enough to know woman; but I think most men 
 ordinarily wise will agree in this, that woman is by no means 
 a humble creature, and that Avhen she says she ' answers 
 very humbly,' she does not mean what she says. Permit me 
 to entreat you to answer very loftily." 
 
 Cecilia laughed and blushed. The laugh was musical ; 
 the blusli was — what ? Let any man, seated beside a girl 
 like Cecilia at starry twilight, find the right epithet for that 
 blush. I pass it by epithetless. But she answered, firmly 
 though sweetly : 
 
 "Are there not things very practical, and affecting the 
 happiness, not of one or two individuals, but of innumerable 
 thousands, in which a man like Mr. Chillingly cannot fail to 
 feel interest, long before he is my father's age ?" 
 
 " Forgive me ; you do not answer — you question. I 
 imitate you, and what are those things as applicable to a 
 man like Mr. Chillinglv?" 
 
 Cecilia gatlicred herself up, as with the desire to express 
 a great deal in short substance, and then said : 
 
 " In the expression of thought, literature ; in the conduct 
 of action, politics." 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly stared, dumfounded. I suppose the 
 greatest enthusiast for Woman's Rights could not assert 
 more reverentially than he did the cleverness of woman ; but 
 among the things which the cleverness of woman did not 
 achieve, he had always placed " laconics." "No woman," 
 he was wont to say, " ever invented an axiom or a proverb." 
 
 "Miss Travers," he said at last, "before we proceed 
 further, vouchsafe to tell me if that very terse reply of yours 
 is spontaneous and original, or whether, you have not bor- 
 rowed it from some book which I have not chanced to read." 
 
 Cecilia pondered honestly, and then said, " I don't think 
 it is from any book ; but I owe so many of my thoughts to 
 Mrs. Campion, and she lived so much among clever men, 
 that " 
 
 " I see it all, and accept vour definition, no matter whence 
 it came. You think I might become an author or a politi- 
 cian. Did you ever read an essay by a living author called 
 'Motive Power'?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " That essay is designed to intimate that without motive 
 power a man, whatever his talents or his culture, does noth- 
 ing practical. The mainsprings of motive power are Want 
 and Ambition. They are absent from my mechanism. By
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 217 
 
 the accident of birth I do not require bread and cheese ; by 
 the accident of temperament and of philosophical culture I 
 care nothing about praise or blame. But without want of 
 bread and cheese, and with a most stolid indifference to praise 
 and blame, do you honestly think that a man will do any- 
 thing practical in literature or politics ? Ask Mrs. Campion." 
 
 " 1 Avill not ask her. Is the sense of duty nothing ? " 
 
 "Alas ! we interpret duty so variously. Of mere duty, 
 as we commonly understand the word, I do not think I shall 
 fail more than other men. But for the fair development of 
 all the good that is in us, do you believe that we should 
 adopt some line of conduct against which our whole heart 
 rebels ? Can you say to the clerk, ' Be a poet ' ? — Can you 
 say to the poet, ' Be a clerk' ? It is no more to the happi- 
 ness of a man's being to order him to take to one career when 
 his whole heart is set on another, than it is to order him to 
 marrv one woman when it is to another woman that his 
 heart will turn." 
 
 Cecilia here winced and looked away. Kenelm had more 
 tact than most men of his age — that is, a keener perception 
 of subjects to avoid ; but then Kenelm had a wretched habit 
 of forgetting the person he talked to and talking to himself. 
 Utterly oblivious of George Belvoir, he was talking to him- 
 self now. Not then observing the effect his mal-a-propos 
 dogma had produced on his listener, he went on : "Happi- 
 ness is a word very lightly used. It may mean little — it may 
 mean much. By the word happiness I would signify, not 
 the momentarv joy of a child who gets a plaything, but the 
 lasting harmonv between our inclinations and our objects; 
 and without that harmony we are a discord to ourselves, we 
 are incompletions, we are failures. Yet there are plenty of 
 advisers who say to us, ' It is a duty to be a discord.' I 
 deny it." 
 
 Here Cecilia rose, and said in a low voice, " It is getting 
 late. We must go homeward." 
 
 They descended the green eminence slowly, and at first 
 in silence. The bats, emerging from the ivied ruins they 
 left behind, flitted and skimmed before them, chasing the 
 insects of the night. A moth, escaping from its pursuer, 
 alighted on Cecilia's breast, as if for refuge. 
 
 "The bats are practical," said Kenelm : "they are hungry, 
 and their motive power to-night is strong. Their interest 
 is in the insects they chase. They have no interest in the 
 stars ; but the stars lure the moth." 
 10
 
 2i8 KEN ELM CfllLLINGLY. 
 
 Cecilia drew lier slight scarf over the moth, so that it 
 might not tiy off and become a prey to the bats. " Yet," said 
 she, "the moth is practical too." 
 
 "Ay, just now, since it has found an asylum from the 
 danger that threatened it in its course towards the stars." 
 
 Cecilia felt the beating of her heart, upon which lay the 
 moth concealed. Did she think that a deeper and more 
 tender meaning than they outwardly expressed was couched 
 in these words? If so, she erred. They now neared the 
 garden gate, and Kenclm paused as he opened it. " See," 
 he said, "the moon has just risen over those dark firs, mak- 
 ing the still night stiller. Is it not strange that we mortals, 
 placed amid perpetual agitation and tumult and strife, as if 
 our natural element, conceive a sense of holiness in the 
 images antagonistic to our real life — I mean in images of 
 repose ? I feel at the moment as if I suddenly were made 
 better, now that heaven and earth have suddenly become 
 yet more tranquil. I am now conscious 6f a purer and 
 sweeter moral than either I or you drew from the insect you 
 have sheltered. I must come to the poets to express it : 
 
 ' The desire of the motli for llie star, 
 
 Of the night for the morrow ; 
 The devotion to somcthiitg afar 
 From the sphere of ouj; sorrow.* 
 
 Oh, that something afar ! that something afar ! never to be 
 reached on this earth — never, never!" 
 
 There was such a wail in that cry from the man's heart 
 that Cecilia could not resist the impulse of a divine compas- 
 sion. She laid her hand on his, and looked on the dark 
 mildness of his upward face with eyes that heaven meant to 
 he wells of comfort to grieving man. At the light touch of 
 that hand Kenelm started, looked down, and met those 
 soothing eyes. 
 
 " I am happy to tell you that I have saved my Durham," 
 cried out Mr. Travers from the oth(;r side of the gate. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 As Kenelm that night retired to his own room, he paused 
 on the landing-place opposite to the portrait which Mr. 
 Travers had consigned to that desolate exile. This daugh-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 219 
 
 ter of a race dishonored in its extinction might well have 
 been the glory of the house she had entered as a bride. The 
 countenance was singularly beautiful, and of a character of 
 beauty eminently patrician ; there was in its expression a 
 gentleness and modesty not often found in the female por- 
 traits of Sir Peter Lely ; and in the eyes and in the smile a 
 wonderful aspect of innocent happiness. 
 
 "What a speaking homily," soliloquized Kenelm, address- 
 ing the picture, "against the ambition thy fair descendant 
 Avould awake in me, art thou, O lovely image ! For genera- 
 tions thy beauty lived in this canvas, a thing of joy, the pride 
 of the race it adorned. Owner after owner said to admiring 
 guests, ' Yes, a fine portrait, by Lely ; she was my ancestress 
 — a Fletwode of Fletwode.' Now, lest guests should remem- 
 ber that a Fletwode married a Travers, thou art thrust out 
 of sight ; not even Leiy's art can make thee of value, can 
 redeem thine innocent self from disgrace. And the last of 
 the Fletwodes, doubtless the most ambitious of all — the most 
 bent on restoring and regilding the old lordly name — dies a 
 felon ; the infamy of one living man so large that it can blot 
 out the honor of the dead." He turned his eyes from the 
 smile of the portrait, entered his own room, and, seating 
 himself by the writing-table, drew blotting-book and note- 
 paper towards him, took up the pen, and, instead of writing, 
 fell into deep reverie. There was a slight frown on his 
 brow, on which frowns were rare. He was very angry with 
 himself. 
 
 " Kenelm," he said, entering into his customary dialogue 
 with that self, "it becomes you forsooth, to moralize about 
 the honor of races which have no affinity with you. Son of 
 Sir Peter Chillingly, look at home. Are you quite sure that 
 you have not said or done or looked a something that may 
 bring trouble to the hearth on which you are received as 
 guest? What right had you to be moaning forth your ego- 
 tisms, not remembering that your words fell on compassion- 
 ate ears, and that such words, heard at moonlight by a girl 
 whose heart they move to pity, may have dangers for her 
 peace? Shame on you, Kenelm ! shame! knowing too what 
 her father's wish is ; and knowing too that you have not the 
 excuse of desiring to win that fair ci'eature for yourself. 
 What do you mean, Kenelm ! I don't hear you ; speak out. 
 Oh, ' that I am a vain coxcomb to fancy tliat she could take 
 a fancy to me ' — well, perhaps I am ; I hope so earnestly ; 
 and, at all events, there has been and shall be no time for
 
 220 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 much mischief. We are off to-morrow, Kenelm ; bestir your- 
 self and paclv up, write your letters, and then ' put out the 
 light— put out the light ! ' " 
 
 But this converser with himself did not immediately set 
 to work, as agreed upon by that twofold one. He rose and 
 walked restlessly to and fro the floor, stopping ever and 
 anon to look at the pictures on the walls. 
 
 Several of the worst painted of the family portraits had 
 been consigned to the room tenanted by Kenelm, which, 
 though both the oldest and largest bed-chamber in the house, 
 was always appropriated to a bachelor male guest, partly 
 because it was without dressing-room, remote, and only 
 approached by the small back staircase, to the landing-place 
 of which Arabella had been banislied in disgrace ; and part- 
 ly because it had the reputation of being haunted, and ladies 
 are more alarmed by that superstition than men are sup- 
 posed to be. The portraits on which Kenelm now pauserl 
 to gaze were of various dates, from the reign of Elizabeth 
 to that of George III., none of them by eminent artists, and 
 none of them the effigies of ancestors who had left names in 
 history — in short, such portraits as are often seen in the 
 country houses of well-born squires. One family type of 
 feature or expression pervaded most of these portraits — 
 features clear-cut and hardy, expression open and honest. 
 And though not one of those dead men had been famous, 
 each of them had contributed his unostentatious share, in 
 his own simple way, to the movements of his time. That wor- 
 thy in ruff and corselet had manned his own ship at his own 
 cost against the Ariuada ; never had been repaid by the thrif- 
 ty Burleigh the expenses which had harassed him and dimin- 
 islied his patrimony ; never had been even knighted. That 
 gentleman with short straight hair, which overhung his 
 forehead, leaning on his sword with one hand, and a book 
 open in the other hand, had served as representative of his 
 county town in the Long Parliament, fought under Crom- 
 well at Marstcin Moor, and resisting the Protector when he 
 removed the " bauble," was one of the patriots incarcerated 
 in " Hell-hole." He, too, had diminished his patrimony, 
 maintaining two troopers and two horses at his own charge, 
 and " Hell-hole " was all he got in return. A thii^d, with a 
 sleeker expression of countenance, and a large wig, flourish- 
 ing in the quiet times of Charles H., had only been a justice 
 of the peace, but his alert look showed tliat he had been a 
 very active one. lie had neither increased nor diminished
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 221 
 
 his ancestral fortune. A fourth, in the costume of William 
 III.'s reign, had somewhat added to the patrimony by be- 
 coming a lawyer. He must have been a successful one. 
 He is inscribed "Serjeant at law." A fifth, a lieutenant in 
 the army, was killed at Blenheim ; his portrait was that of 
 a very young and handsome man, taken the year before his 
 death. His wife's portrait is placed in the drawing-room, 
 because it was painted by Kneller. She was handsome too, 
 and married again a nobleman, whose portrait, of course, 
 was not in the family collection. Here there was a gap in 
 chronological arrangement, the lieutenant's heir being an 
 infant ; but in the time of George II. another Travers ap- 
 peared as the governor of a West India colony. His son 
 took part in a very different movement of the age. He is 
 represented old, venerable, with white hair, and underneath 
 his effigy is inscribed, " Follower of Wesley." His successor 
 completes the collection. He is in naval uniform ; he is in 
 full length, and one of his. legs is a wooden one. He is 
 Captain, R.N. ; and inscribed, " Fought under Nelson at 
 Trafalgar." That portrait would have found more dignified 
 place in the reception-rooms if the face had not been for- 
 biddingly ugly, and the picture itself a villanous daub. 
 
 " I see," said Kenelm, stopping short, " why Cecilia 
 Travers has been reared to talk of duty as a practical in- 
 terest in life. These men of a former time seem to have 
 lived to discharge a duty, and not to follow the progress of 
 the age in the chase of a money-bag — except perhaps one, 
 but then to be sure he was a lawyer. Kenelm, rouse up and 
 listen to me ; whatever we are, whether active or indolent, 
 is not my favorite maxim a just and a true one — viz., 'A 
 good man does good by living ' ? But, for that, he must be 
 a harmony, and not a discord. Kenelm, you lazy dog, we 
 must pack up." 
 
 Kenelm then refilled his portmanteau, and labelled and 
 directed it to Exmundham, after which he wrote these three 
 notes : 
 
 Note I. 
 TO THE MARCHIONESS OF GLENALVON. 
 
 "My dear Friend and Monitress,— I have left your last letter a 
 month unanswered. I could not reply to your congratulations on the event 
 of my attaining the age of twenty-one. That event is a conventional sham, 
 and you know how I abhor shams and conventions. The truth is, that I am 
 either much younger than twenty-one or much older. As to all designs on
 
 222 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 my peace in standing for our county at the next election, I wished to defeat 
 tiiem, and I liave done so ; anil now I have commenced a course of travel. 
 I had intended on starling to confine it to my nalive country. Intentions 
 are mutable. I am going abroad. You shall hear of my whereabout. I 
 write this from the house of Leopold Travers, wiio, I unilerstand from his 
 fair daughter, is a connection of yours ; — a man to be highly esteemed and 
 cordially liked. 
 
 " No, in spite of all your flattering predictions, I shall never be anything 
 in this life more distinguisiied tlian what I am now. Lady Glenalvon allows 
 me to sign myself her grateful friend, K. C." 
 
 Note 2. 
 
 "Dear Cousin Mivers, — I am going abroad. I may want money; 
 for, in order to rouse motive power within nie, 1 mean to want money if I 
 can. Wlien 1 was a boy of sixteen you offered me money to write attacks 
 upon veteran authors for 'The Londoner.' Will you give me money now 
 for a similar display of that grand New Idea of oiu- generation — viz., tliat the 
 less a man knows of a subject the better he understands it ? I am about to 
 travel into countries which I have never seen, and among races I have nevev 
 known. My arbitrary judgments on both will be invaluable to ' The Lon- 
 doner ' from a Special Correspondent who shares your respect for the anony- 
 mous, and whose name is never to be divulged. Direct your answer by 
 return to xc\t, paste restante^ Calais. — Yours truly, ' K. C." 
 
 Note 3. 
 
 " My dear Father, — I found your letter here, whence I depart to- 
 morrow. Excuse haste. I go abroad, and shall write to you from Calais. 
 
 " I admire Leopold Travers very much. After all, how mucli of self- 
 balance there is in a true English gentleman ! Toss him up and down wiiere 
 you will, and he always alights on his feet — a gentleman. He has one child, 
 a daughter named Cecilia — handsome enough to allure into wedlock any 
 mortal whom Decimus Roach had not convinced that in celibacy lay the right 
 ' Approach to the Angels.' Moreover, she is a girl whom one can talk with. 
 Even you could talk with her. Travers wishes her to marry a very respect- 
 able, good looking, promising gentleman, in every way 'suitable,' as tiiey 
 say. And if she does, she will rival that pink and perfection of polished 
 womanhood, Lady Glenalvon. I send you back my portmanteau. I have 
 ]oretty well exhausted my experience-money, but have not yet encroached on 
 my monthly allowance. I mean still to live ii]ion that, eking it out, if ne- 
 cessary, by the sweat of my brow — or iirains. Uut if any case requiring extra 
 funds should occur — a case in which that extra would do such real good to 
 another that I feel yon would do it — why, I must draw a check on your 
 bankers. But understand that is your expense, not mine, and it is you who 
 are to be repaid in heaven. Dear father, how I do love and honor you every 
 day more and more ! Promise you not to propose to any young lady till I 
 come first to you for consent ! — oh, my dear father, how could you doubt it? 
 how doubt that I could not be happy with any wife whom you could not love 
 as a daughter ? Acce]->t that promise as sacred. But I wish you had asked 
 me something in which obedience was not much too facile to be a test of 
 duty. I could not have obeyed you more cheeerfully if you had asked me to
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 223 
 
 promise never to propose to any young lady at all. Had you asked me to 
 promise that I would renounce the dignity of reason for the frenzy of love, or 
 the freedom of man for the servitude of husband, then I might have sought 
 to achieve the impossible ; but I should have died in the efiort !— and thou 
 wouldst have known that remorse which haunts the bed of the tyrant. — Your 
 affectionate son, K. C." 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The next morning Kenelm surprised the party at break- 
 fast by appearing in the coarse habiliments in which he had 
 first made his host's acquaintance. He did not glance to- 
 wards Cecilia when he announced his departure ; but, his 
 eye resting on Mrs. Campion, he smiled, perhaps a little 
 sadly, at seeing her countenance brighten up and hearing 
 her give a short sigh of relief. Travers tried hard to in- 
 duce him to stay a few days longer, but Kenelm was firm. 
 " The summer is wearing away," said he, " and I have far to 
 go before the flowers fade and the snows fall. On the third 
 night from this I shall sleep on foreign soil." 
 
 " You are going abroad, then ? " asked Mrs. Campion. 
 
 *' Yes." 
 
 " A sudden resolution, Mr. Chillingly. The other day 
 you talked of visiting the Scotch lakes." 
 
 " True ; but, on reflection, they will be crowded with 
 holiday tourists, many of whom I shall probably know. 
 Abroad I shall be free, for I shall be unknown." 
 
 " I suppose you will be back for the hunting season," 
 said Travers. 
 
 " I think not. I do not hunt foxes." 
 
 " Probably we shall at all events meet in London," said 
 Travers. " I think, after long rustication, that a season or 
 two in the bustling capital may be a salutary change for 
 mind as well as for body ; and it is time that Cecilia were 
 presented and her court-dress specially commemorated in 
 the columns of the ' Morning Post.' " 
 
 Cecilia was seemingly too busied behind the tea-urn to 
 heed this reference to her debut. 
 
 •'■ I shall miss you terribly," cried Travers, a few mo- 
 ments afterwards, with a hearty emphasis. " I declare that 
 you have quite unsettled me. Your quaint sayings will be 
 ringing in my ears long after you are gone."
 
 «24 
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 There was a rustle as of a woman's dress in sudden 
 change of movement behind the tea-urn. 
 
 "Cissy," said Mrs. Campion, "are we ever to have our 
 tea?" 
 
 " I beg pardon," answered a voice behind the urn. " I 
 hear Pompey" (tlie Skye terrier) "whining on the lawn. 
 They have shut him out. I will be back presently." 
 
 Cecilia rose and was gone. Mrs. Campion took her 
 place at the tea urn. 
 
 " It is quite absurd in Cissy to be so fond of that hideous 
 dog," said Travers, petulantly. 
 
 " Its hideousness is its beauty," returned Mrs. Campion, 
 laughing. " Mr. Belvoir selected it for her as having the 
 longest back and the shortest legs of any dog he could find 
 in Scotland." 
 
 "Ah, George gave it to her ; I forgot that," said Travers, 
 laughing pleasantly. 
 
 It was some minutes before Miss Travers returned with 
 the Skye terrier, and she seemed to have recovered her 
 spirits in regaining that ornamental accession to the party — 
 talking very quickly and gayly, and with flushed cheeks, 
 like a young person excited by her own overflow of mirth. 
 
 But when, half an hour afterwards, Kenelm took leave 
 of her and Mrs. Campion at the hall-door, the flush was 
 gone, her lips were tightly compressed, and her parting 
 words were not audible. Then, as his figure (side by side 
 with her father, who accompanied his guest to the lodge) 
 swiftly passed across the lawn and vanished amid the trees 
 beyond, Mrs. Campion wound a mother-like arm around 
 her waist and kissed her. Cecilia shivered and turned her 
 face to her friend smiling; but such a smile, — one of those 
 smiles that seem brimful of tears. 
 
 " Thank you, dear," she said, meekly ; and, gliding away 
 towards the flower-garden, lingered awhile by the gate 
 which Kcnclm had opened the night before. Then she 
 went with languid steps up the green slopes towards the 
 ruined priory.
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is somewhat more than a year and a half since 
 Kenelm Chillingly left England, and the scene now is in 
 London, during that earlier and more sociable season 
 which precedes the Easter holidays — season in which the 
 charm of intellectual companionship is not yet withered 
 away in the heated atmosphere of crowded rooms — season 
 in which parties are small, and conversation extends beyond 
 the interchange of commonplace with one's next neighbor 
 at a dinner-table — season in which you have a fair chance 
 of finding your warmest friends ncjt absorbed by the su- 
 perior claims of their chilliest acquaintances. 
 
 There was what is called a conversazione at the house of 
 one of those Whig noblemen who yet retain the graceful art 
 of bringing agreeable people together, and collecting round 
 them the true aristocracy, which combines letters and art 
 and science with the hereditary rank and political distinc- 
 tion — that art which was the happy secret of the Lans- 
 downes and Hollands of the last generation. Lord Beau- 
 manoir was himself a genial, well-read man, a good judge of 
 art, and a pleasant talker. He had a charming wife, de- 
 voted to him and to her children, but with enough love of 
 general approbation to make herself as popular in the fash- 
 ionable world as if she sought in its gayeties a refuge from 
 the dullness of domestic life. 
 
 Among the guests at the Beaumanoirs' this evening were 
 two men, seated apart in a small room, and conversing fa- 
 miliarly. The one might be about fifty-four ; he was tall, 
 strongly built, but not corpulent, somewhat bald, with black 
 eyebrows, dark eyes, bright and keen, mobile lips, round 
 which there played a shrewd and sometimes sarcastic smile. 
 This gentleman, the Right Hon. Gerard Danvers, was a very 
 influential Member of Parliament. He had, when young 
 for English public lite, attained to high office ; but — partly
 
 226 KEN ELM CJHI.LINGLY. 
 
 from a great distaste to the drudgery of administration ; 
 partly from a pride of temperament, which unfitted him for 
 the subordination that a Cabinet owes to its chief ; partly, 
 also, from a not uncommon kind of epicurean philosophy, 
 at once joyous and cynical, which sought the pleasures of 
 life and held very cheap its honors — he had obstinately de- 
 clined to re-enter office, and only spoke on rare occasions. 
 On such occasions he carried great weight, and, by the brief 
 expression of his opinions, commanded more votes than 
 many an orator infinitely more eloquent. Despite his want 
 of ambition, he was fond of power in his own way — power 
 over the people who had power ; and in the love of political 
 intrigue he found an amusement for an intellect very sub- 
 tle and very active. At this moment he was bent on a new 
 combination among the leaders of different sections in the 
 same party, by which certain veterans were to retire, and 
 certain younger men to be admitted into the Administration. 
 It was an amiable featiU'C in his cliaracter that he had a sym- 
 pathy with the young, and had helped to bring into Parlia- 
 ment, as well as into office, some of the ablest of a genera- 
 tion later than his own. He gave them sensible counsel, 
 was pleased when they succeeded, and encouraged them 
 when they failed— always provided that they had stuff 
 enough in them to redeem the failure ; if not, he gently 
 dropped them from his intimacy, but maintained sufficiently 
 familiar terms with them to be pretty sure that he could in- 
 ffuence their votes whenever he so desired. 
 
 The gentleman with whom he was now conversing was 
 young, about fivc-and-twenty— not yet in Parlianumt, but 
 with an intense desire to obtain a seat in it, and with one of 
 those reputations which a youth carries away from school 
 and ccjllcge, justified, not by honors purely academical, but 
 by an impressicm of ability and power created on the minds 
 of his contemporaries, and indorsed by his elders. He had 
 done little at the university beyond taking a fair degree — 
 except acquiring at the Debating Society the fame of an ex- 
 ceedingly ready and adroit speaker. On quitting college he 
 had written one or two political articles in a quarterly re- 
 view which created a sensation ; and though belonging to 
 no profession, and having but a small yet independent in- 
 come, society was very civil to him, as to a man who would 
 some day or other attain a position in which he could dam- 
 age his enemies and serve his friends. Something in this 
 young man's countenance and bearing tended to favor the
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 227 
 
 credit given to his ability and his promise. In his counte- 
 nance there was no beauty ; in his bearing no elegance. But 
 in tliat countenance there was vigor — there was energy — - 
 there was audacity. A forehead wide but low, protuberant 
 in those organs over the browwliich indicate the qualities 
 fitted for perception and judgment — qualities for every-day 
 life ; eyes of the clear English blue, small, somewhat sunken, 
 vigilant, sagacious, penetrating ; a long straight upper lip, 
 significant of resolute purpose ; a mouth in which a student 
 of physiognomy would have detected a dangerous charm. 
 The smile was captivating, but it was artificial, surrounded 
 by dimples, and displaying teeth white, small, strong, but 
 divided from each other. The expression of that smile would 
 have been frank and candid to all who failed to notice that 
 it was not in harmony with the brooding forehead and the 
 steely eye— that it seemed to stand distinct from the rest of 
 the face, like a feature that had learned its part. There was 
 that physical power in the back of the head which belongs to 
 men who make tlieir way in life — combative and destructive. 
 All gladiators have it ; so have great debaters and great re- 
 formers — that is, reformers who destroy, but not necessarily 
 reconstruct. So, too, in the bearing of the man there was a 
 hardy self-confidence, much too simple and unaffected for 
 his worst enemy to call it self-conceit. It was the bearing 
 of one who knew how to maintain personal dignity without 
 seeming to care about it. Never servile to the great, never 
 arrogant to the little ; so little over-refined that it was never 
 vulgar, — a popular bearing. 
 
 The room in which these gentlemen were seated was 
 separated from the general suite of apartments by a lobby 
 off the landing-place, and served for Lady Beaumanoir's 
 boudoir. Very pretty it was, but simply furnished, with 
 chintz draperies. The walls were adorned with drawings 
 in water-colors, and precious specimens of china on fanciful 
 Parian brackets. At one corner, by a window that looked 
 southward and opened on a spacious balcony glazed in and 
 filled with flowers, stood one of those hisfh trellised screen:^-, 
 first mvented, I believe, in Vienna, and along which ivy is 
 so trained as to form an arbor. 
 
 The recess thus constructed, and which was completely 
 out of sight from the rest of the room, was the hostess's 
 favorite writing-nook. The two men I have described were 
 seated near th.e screen, and had certainly no suspicion that 
 any one could be behind it.
 
 228 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Danvers, from an ottornan niched in 
 another recess of the room, '• I think tlicrc will be an open- 
 ingat Saxboro' soon. Milroy wants a cohjiiial government ; 
 and if we can reconstruct the Cabinet as I propose, he 
 would get one. Saxboro' would thus be vacant. But, my 
 dear fellow, Saxboro' is a place to be wooed through love 
 and only won through money. It demands liberalism from 
 a candidate — two kinds of liberalism seldom united ; the 
 liberalism in opinion which is natural enough to a very poor 
 man, and the liberalism in expenditure which is scarcely to 
 be obtained except from a very rich one. You may compqte 
 the cost of Saxboro' at ^3000 to get in, and about ^2000 
 more to defend your seat against a petition — the defeated 
 candidate nearly always petitions. ^5000 is a large sum ; 
 and the worst of it is, that the extreme opinions to which 
 the member for Saxboro' must pledge himself are a draw- 
 back to an official career. Violent politicians are not the 
 best raw material out of which to manufacture fortunate 
 place-men." 
 
 " The opinions do not so much matter ; the expense does. 
 I cannot afford ^5000, or even _;^3ooo." 
 
 "\Yould not Sir Peter assist ? He has, you say, only one 
 son ; and if anything happen to that one son, you are the 
 next heir." 
 
 "My father quarrelled with Sir Peter, and harassed him 
 by an imprudent and ungracious litigation. I scarcely think 
 I could apply to him for money to obtain a seat in Parliament 
 upon the democratic side of the question ; for, though I 
 know little of his politics, I take it for granted that a country 
 gentleman of old family and ^10,000 a year cannot well be 
 a democrat." 
 
 " Then I presume you would not be a democrat if, by the 
 death of your cousin, you became heir to the Chillinglys." 
 
 " I am not sure what I might be in that case. There are 
 times when a democrat of ancient lineage and good estates 
 could take a very high place amongst the aristocracy." 
 
 " Humph ! my dear Gordon, vous irez loin." 
 
 " I hope to do so. Measuring myself against the men of 
 my own dav, I do not see many who should outstrip me." 
 
 " What sort of a fellow is your cousin Kenelm ? I met 
 him once or twice when he w'as very voung, and reading 
 with \Yelby in Tondon. People then said that ho was very 
 clever ; he struck mc as very odd." 
 
 " I never saw him ; but from all I hear, whether he be
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 229 
 
 clever or whether he be odd, he is not likely to do anything 
 in life — a dreamer." 
 
 "Writes poetry, perhaps?" 
 
 "Capable of it, I daresay." 
 
 Just then some other guests came into the room, amongst 
 them a lady of an appearance at once singularly distin- 
 guished and singularly prepossessing, rather above the com- 
 mon height, and with a certain indescribable nobility of air 
 and presence. Lady Glenalvon was one of the queens of 
 the London world, and no queen of that world was ever less 
 worldly or more queen-like. Side by side with the lady was 
 Mr. Chillingly Mivers. Gordon and Mivers interchanged 
 friendly nods, and the former sauntered away and was soon 
 lost amid a crowd of other young men, with whom, as he 
 could converse well and lightly on things which interested 
 them, he was ]-ather a favorite, though he was not an inti- 
 mate associate. Mr. Danvers retired into a corner of the 
 adjcjining lobby, where he favored the French ambassador 
 with his views on the state of Europe and the reconstruction 
 of Cabinets in general. 
 
 "But," said Lady Glenalvon to Chillingly Mivers," are you 
 quite sure that my old young friend Kenelm is here ? Since 
 you told me so, I have looked everywhere for him in vain. 
 I should so much like to see him again." 
 
 " I certainly caught a glimpse of him half an hour ago ; 
 but before I could escape from a geologist, who was boring 
 me about the Silurian system, Kenelm had vanished." 
 
 "Perhaps it was his ghost !" 
 
 " Well, we certainly live in the most credulous and super- 
 stitious age upon record ; and so many people tell me that 
 they converse with the dead under the table, that it seems 
 impertinent in me to say that I don't believe in ghosts." 
 
 " Tell me some of those incomprehensible stories about 
 table-rapping," said Lady Glenalvon. " There is a charming 
 snug recess here behind the screen." 
 
 Scarcely had she entered the recess than she drew back 
 with a start and an exclamation of amaze. Seated at the 
 table within the recess, his chin resting on his hand, and his 
 face cast down in abstracted reverie, was a young man. So 
 still was his attitude, so calmly mournful the expression of 
 his face, so estranged did he seem from all the motley but 
 brilliant assemblage which circled around the solitude he 
 had made for himself, that he might well have been deemed 
 one of those visitants from another world whose secrets the
 
 230 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 intruder had wislicd to learn. Of that intruder's presence 
 lie was evidently unconscious. Recovering her surprise, 
 she stole up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and 
 uttered his name in a low gentle voice. At that sound Ken- 
 elm Chillingly looked up. 
 
 "Do you not remember me?" asked Lady Glenalvon, 
 Before he could answer, Mivers, who had followed the 
 Marchioness into the recess, interposed. 
 
 " My dear Kenelm, how are you ? When did you come 
 to London ? Why have you not called on me ? and what on 
 earth are you hiding yourself for ? " 
 
 Kenelm had now recovered the self-possession which he 
 rarely lost long in the presence of others. lie returned 
 cordially his kinsman's greeting, and kissed with his wonted 
 chivalrous grace the fair hand which the lady withdrew 
 from liis shoulder and extended to his pressure. " Remeni- 
 ber you ! " he said to Lady Glenalvon, with the kindliest ex- 
 pression of his soft dark eyes ; " I am ncjt so far advanced 
 towards the noon of life as to fcjro-et the sunshine that briofht- 
 ened its morning. My dear Mivers, your questions are easily 
 answered. I arrived in England two weeks ago, stayed at 
 Exmundham till this morning, to-day dined with Lord Thet- 
 ford, whose acquaintance I made abroad, and was persuaded 
 by him to come here and be introduced to his father and 
 mother, the Beaumanoirs. After I had undergone that cere- 
 mony, the sight of so many strange faces friglitened me into 
 shyricss. Entering this room at a moment when it was quite 
 deserted, I resolved to turn hermit behind the screen." 
 
 "Why, you must have seen your cousin Gordon as you 
 came into the room." 
 
 " But you fo get I don't know liiin by sight. However, 
 thi:re was no one in the room when I entered; a little later 
 some others came in, for I heard a faint buzz, like that of 
 persons talking in a whisper. However, I was no eaves- 
 dropper, as a person behind a screen is on the dramatic 
 stage." 
 
 This was true. Even had Gordon and Danvers talked 
 in a louder tone, Kenelm had been too absorbed in his own 
 thoughts to have heard a word of their conversation. 
 
 " You ought to know young Gordon ; he is a very clever 
 fellow, and has an ambition toenter Parliament. I hope no 
 old family quarrel between his bear of a father and dear Sir 
 Peter will make you object to meet him." 
 
 " Sir Peter is the most forgiving of men, but he would
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 231 
 
 scarcely forgive me if I declined to meet a cousin who had 
 never offended him." 
 
 "Well said. Come and meet Gordon at breakfast to- 
 morrow — ten o'clock. I am still in the old rooms." 
 
 While the kinsmen thus conversed, Lady Glenalvon had 
 seated herself on the couch beside Kenelm, and was quietly 
 observing his countenance. Now she spoke: "My dear Mr. 
 Mivers, you will have many opportunities of talking with 
 Kenelm ; do not grudge me five minutes' talk with him now. " 
 
 " I leave your ladyship alone in her hermitage. How all 
 the men in this assembly will envy the hermit 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 " I AM glad to see you once more in the Avorld," said 
 Lady Glenalvon, "and I trust that you are now prepared 
 to take that part in it, which ought to be no mean one if 
 you do justice to your talents and your nature." 
 
 Kenelm. — "When you go to the theatre, and sec one of 
 the pieces which appear now to be the fashion, which would 
 you rather be — an actor or a looker-on ?" 
 
 Lady Glenalvon. — " My dear young friend, your ques- 
 tion saddens me." (After a pause.) — " But, though I used 
 a stage metaphor when I expressed my hope that you would 
 take no mean part in the world, the world is not really a 
 theatre. Life admits of no lookers-on. Speak to me frank- 
 ly, as you used to do. Your face retains its old melancholy 
 expression. Are you not happy ? " 
 
 Kenelm. — "Happy, as mortals go, I ought to be. I do 
 not think I am unhappy. If my temper be melancholic, 
 melancholy has a happiness of its own. Milton shows that 
 there are as many charms in life to be found on the Pense- 
 roso side of it as there are on the Allegro." 
 
 Lady Glenalvon. — " Kenelm, you saved the life of my 
 poor son, and when, later, he was taken from me, I felt as if 
 he had commended you to my care. When at the age of 
 sixteen, with a boy's years and a man's heart, you came to 
 London, did I not try to be to you almost as a mother? and 
 did you not often tell me that you could confide to me the 
 secrets of your heart more readily than to any other ?" 
 
 "You were to me," said Kenelm, with emotion, "that
 
 232 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 most precious and sustainiiif^ q-ood genius which a youth 
 can find at the thresliold of life— a woman gently wise, 
 kindly sympathizing, shaming him by the spectacle of her 
 own purity from all grosser errors, elevating him from mean 
 tastes and objects by the exquisite, ineffable loftiness of soul 
 which is only found in the noblest order of womanhood. 
 Come, I will open my heart to you still. I fear it is more 
 Avayward than ever. It still feels estranged from the com- 
 panionship and pursuits natural to my age and station. 
 However, I have been seeking to brace and harden my 
 nature, for the practical ends of life, by travel and adven- 
 ture, chiefly among rougher varieties of mankind than we 
 meet in drawing-rooms. Now, in compliance with the duty 
 I owe to my dear father's wishes, I conic back to these cir- 
 cles, which under your auspices I entered in boyhood, and 
 which even then seemed to ine so inane and artificial. Take 
 a part in the world of these circles ; such is your wish. My 
 answer is brief. I iiave been doing my best to acquire a 
 motive power, and I have not succeeded. I see nothing that 
 I care to strive for, nothing that 1 care to gain. The very 
 times in which we live are to me as to Hamlet — out of joint ; 
 and 1 am not born like Hamlet to set them right. Ah ! if I 
 could look on society through the spectacles with Avhich the 
 poor hidalgo in ' Gil Bias ' looked on his meagre board — 
 spectacles liy which cherries appear the size of peaches, and 
 tomtits as large as turkeys ! The imagination which is 
 necessary to ambition is a great magnifier." 
 
 " I have known more than one man, now very eminent, 
 very active, who at your age felt the same estrangement 
 fnjiu the practical pursuits of others." 
 
 "And what rec(jnciled those men to such pursuits?" 
 " That diminished sense of individual personality, that 
 unconscious fusion of one's own being into other existen- 
 ces, which belong to home and marriage." 
 
 " I don't object to home, l)ut I do to marriage." 
 " Depend on it, there is no home for man where there is 
 no woman." 
 
 " Prettily said. In that case I resign the home." 
 "Do you mean seriously to tell me that you never sec 
 the woman you could loye enough to make her your wife, 
 and never enter any hc^pie that vou do not quit with a touch 
 of envy at the happiness of married life ? " 
 
 " Seriously, I never see such a woman ; seriously, I never 
 enter such a home."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 233 
 
 " Patience, then ; your time will come, and I hope it is 
 at hand. Listen to me. It was only yesterday that I felt 
 an indescribable longing to see you again — to know your 
 address, that I might write to you ; for yesterday, when a 
 certain young lady left my house, after a week's visit, I said, 
 this girl would make a perfect wife, and, above all, the exact 
 wife to suit Kenelm Chillingly." 
 
 " Kenelm Chillingly is very glad to hear that this young 
 lady has left your house." 
 
 " But she has not left London — she is here to-night. She 
 only stayed with me till her father came to town, and the 
 house he had taken for the season was vacant ; those events 
 happened yesterday." 
 
 " Fortunate events for me : they permit me to call on 
 you without danger." 
 
 " Have you no curiosity to know, at least, who and 
 what is the young lady who appears to me so well suited to 
 you ? 
 
 " No curiosity, but a vague sensation of alarm." 
 
 " Well, I cannot talk pleasantly with you while you are 
 in this irritating mood, and it is time to quit the hermitage. 
 Come, there are many persons here with some of whom you 
 should renew old acquaintance, and to some of whom I 
 should like to make you known." 
 
 " I am prepared to follow Lady Glenalvon wherever she 
 deigns to lead me — except to the altar with another." 
 
 CHAPTER HL 
 
 The rooms were now full — not overcrowded, but full — 
 and it was rarely even in that house that so many distin- 
 guished persons were collected together. A young man thus 
 honored by so g ramie a dame as I^ady Glenalvon, could not 
 but be cordially welcomed by all to whom she presented 
 him, Ministers and Parliamentary leaders, ball-givers and 
 beauties in vogue— even authors and artists ; and there was 
 something in Kenelm Chillingly, in his striking countenance 
 and figure, in that calm ease of manner natural to his indif- 
 ference to effect, which seemed to justify the favor shown 
 to him by the brilliant princess of fashion, and mark him 
 out for general observation.
 
 234 K'EXKLM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 That lirst evening" of liis reintrodiiction to the polite world 
 was a success which few young men of his years achieve 
 He produced a sensation. Just as the rooms were thinning, 
 Lady Glenalvon whispered to Ken(;lni : 
 
 " Come this way— there is one person I must reintroduce 
 you to — thank me for it hereafter." 
 
 Kenelm followed the Marchioness, and found himself 
 face to face with Cecilia Travers. She was leaning on her 
 father's arm, looking very handsome, and her beauty was 
 heightened by the blush which overspread her cheeks as 
 Kenelm Chillingly approached. 
 
 Travers gieeted him with great cordiality ; and Lady 
 Glenalvon asking him to escort her to the refreshment-room, 
 Kenelm had no option but to offer his arm to Cecilia. 
 
 Kenelm felt somewhat embarrassed. " Have you been 
 long in town, Miss Travers ? " 
 
 "A little more than a week, but we only settled into our 
 house yesterday." 
 
 "Ah, indeed ! were you then the young lady who " 
 
 He stopped short, and his face grew gentler and graver in 
 its expression. 
 
 "The young lady who — what?" asked Cecilia, with a 
 smile. 
 
 " Who has been staying wath Lady Glenalvon ? " 
 
 " Yes ; did she tell you ? " 
 
 " She did not mention your name, but praised that young 
 lady so justly that 1 ought to have guessed it." 
 
 Cecilia made some not very audible answer, and on en- 
 tering the refreshment-room other young men gathered 
 round her, and Lady Glenalvon and Kenelm remained 
 silent in the midst of a general small-talk. When Travers, 
 after giving his address to Kenelm, and, of course, pressing 
 him to call, left the house with Cecilia, Kenelm said to Lady 
 Glenalvon, musingly, " So that is the young lady in whom I 
 was to see my fate : you knew that we had met before? " 
 
 "Yes, she told me when and where. Besides, it is not 
 two years since you wrote to me from her father's house. 
 Do you forget ? " 
 
 "Ah," said Kenelm, so abstractedly that beseemed to be 
 dreaming, " no man with his eyes open rushes on his fate ; 
 when he does so, his sight is gone. Love is blind. They 
 say the blind are very happy, yet 1 never met a blind man 
 who would not recover his sight if he could."
 
 KENELM CIIILLINGLY. 235 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mr. Chillingly Mivers never gave a dinner at his own 
 rooms. Wiien he did give a dinner, it was at Greenwich or 
 Richmond. But he gave breakfast-parties pretty often, and 
 they were considered pleasant. He had liandsome bachelor 
 apartments in Grosvenor Street, daintily furnished, with a 
 prevalent air of exquisite neatness. A good library stored 
 with books of reference, and adorned with presentation 
 copies from authors of the day, very beautifully bound. 
 Though the room served for the study of the professed man 
 of letters, it had none of the untidy litter which generally 
 characterizes the study of one whose vocation it is to deal 
 with books and papers. Even the implements for writing 
 were not apparent, except when recjuired. They lay con- 
 cealed in a vast cylinder bureau, French made, and French 
 polished. Within that bureau were numerous pigeon-holes 
 and secret drawers, and a profound well with a separate 
 patent lock. In the well were deposited the articles intended 
 for publication in " The Londoner " — proof-sheets, etc. ; 
 pigeon-holes were devoted to ordinary correspondence ; 
 secret drawers to confidential notes, and outlines of biogra- 
 phies of eminent men now living, but intended to be com- 
 pleted for publication the day after their death. 
 
 No man wrote such funereal compositions with a livelier 
 pen than that of Chillingly Mivers ; and the large and mis- 
 cellaneous circle of his visitingacquaintances allowed him to 
 ascertain, whether by authoritative report or by personal ob- 
 servation, the signs of mortal disease in the illustrious friends 
 whose dinners he accepted, and whose failing pulses he in- 
 stinctively felt in returning the pressure of their hands, so 
 that he was often able to put the finishing-stroke to their 
 obituary memorials, days, weeks, even months, before their 
 fate took the public by stn-prise. That cylinder bureau was 
 in harmony with the secrecy in which this remarkable man 
 shrouded the productions of his brain. In his literary life 
 Mivers had no " I ; " there he was ever the inscrutable, mys- 
 terious "We." He was only "I " when you met him in the 
 world and called him Mivers. 
 
 Adjoining the library on one side was a small dining- of
 
 236 KEXELM CIIILI.IXCLY. 
 
 rather breakfast-room, hung witli valuable pictures — presents 
 from living' painters. Many of these painters had been 
 severely handled by Mr. Mivers in liis existence as " We,"— 
 not always in " The Londoner." His most pungent criticisms 
 were often contributed to other intellectual journals, con- 
 ducted by members of the same intellectual clique. Painters 
 knew not how contemptuously "We" had treated them 
 when they met Mr. Mivers. His " I " was so complimentary 
 that they sent him a tribute of their gratitude. 
 
 On the other side was his drawing-room, also enriched 
 by many gifts, chiefly from fair hands — embroidered cush- 
 ions and table-covers, bits of Slvres or old Chelsea, elegant 
 knick-knacks of all kinds. Fashionable authoresses paid 
 great court to Mr. Mivers ; and in the course of his life as a 
 single man he had other female adorers besides fashionable 
 authoresses. 
 
 Mr. Mivers had already returned from his early constitu- 
 tional walk in the Park, and was now seated by the cylinder 
 secretaire with a mild-looking man, who was one of the most 
 merciless contributors to " The Londoner," and no unim- 
 portant councillor in the oligarchy of the clique that went 
 by the name of the "Intellectuals." 
 
 " Well," said Mivers, languidly, " I can't even get through 
 the book ; it is as dull as the country in November. But 
 as you justly say, the writer is an 'Intellectual,' and a clique 
 would be anything but intellectual if it did not support its 
 members. Review the book yourself — mind and make the 
 dullness of it the signal proof of its merit. Say — 'To the 
 ordinary class of readers this -exquisite work may appear 
 less brilliant than the flippant smartness of — any other 
 author you like to name ; ' but to the well-educated and in- 
 telligent every line is pregnant with,' etc. etc. By the way, 
 when we come by-and-by to review the exhibition at Bur- 
 lington House, there is one painter whom we must try our 
 best to crush. I have not seen his pictures myself, but he 
 is a new man, and our friend, who has seen him, is terribly 
 jealous of him, and says that if the good judges do not put 
 him down at once, the villanous taste of the public will set 
 him up as a prodigy. A low-lived fellow too, I hear. There 
 is the name of the man and the subject of the pictures. 
 See to it when the time comes. Meanwhile, prepare the 
 way for onslaught on the pictures by occasional sneers at 
 the painter." Mr. Mivers here took out of his cylinder a 
 confidential note from the jealous rival, and handed it to his
 
 KENELM C/I/LL/XGLY. 237 
 
 mild-looking coufr're : then rising, he said, "I fear we must 
 suspend business till to-morrow ; I expect two young cou- 
 sins to breakfast." 
 
 As soon as the mild-looking man was gone, Mr. Mivers 
 sauntered to his drawing-ro(jm window, amiably offering a 
 Jump of sugar to a canary-bird sent him as a present the 
 day before, and who, in the gilded cage which made part of 
 the present, scanned him suspiciously, and refused the 
 sugar. 
 
 Time had remained very gentle in its dealings with Chil- 
 lingly Mivers. He scarcely looked a day older than when 
 he was first presented to the reader on the birth of his kins- 
 man Kenelm. He was reaping the fruit of his own sage 
 maxims. Free from whiskers and safe in wig, there was no 
 sign of gray — no suspicion of dye. Superiority to passion, 
 abnegation of sorrow, indulgence of amusement, avoidance 
 of excess, had kept away the crow's feet, preserved the elas- 
 ticity of his frame and the unflushed clearness of his gentle- 
 manlike complexion. The door opened, and a well-dressed 
 valet, Avho had lived long enough with Mivers to grow veiy 
 much like him, announced INIr. Chillingly Gordon. 
 
 " Good morning," said Mivers ; " I was much pleased to 
 see you talking so long and so familiarly with Danvers : 
 others, of course, observed it, and it added a step to your 
 career. It does you great good to be seen in a drawing- 
 room talking apart with a Somebody. But may I ask if the 
 talk itself was satisfactory ?" 
 
 "Not at all : Danvers throws cold water on the notion cf 
 Saxboro', and does not even hint that his party will help me 
 to any other opening. Party has few openings at its dis- 
 posal nowadays for any young man. The schoolmaster be- 
 ing abroad has swept away the school for statesmen as he 
 has swept away the school for actors — an evil, and an evil 
 of a far graver consequence to the destinies of the nation 
 than any good likely to be got from the system that suc- 
 ceeded it." 
 
 "But it is of no use railing against things that can't be 
 helped. If I were you, I would postpone all ambition of 
 Parliament, and read for the bar." 
 
 " The advice is sound, but too unpalatable to be taken. 
 I am resolved to find a seat in the House, and where there 
 is a will there is a way." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that." 
 
 "But I am."
 
 238 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Judging by \vli;U your contemporaries at the University 
 tell nie of your speeches at the Debating Society, you were 
 not then an ultra-Radical. But it is only an ultra-Radical 
 who has a chance of success at Saxboro'." 
 
 " I am no fanatic in politics. There is much to be said 
 on all sides — ccetcn's paribus, I prefer the .winning side to the 
 losing : nothing succeeds like success." 
 
 " Ay, but in politics there is always reaction. The win- 
 ning side one day may be the losing side another. The 
 losing side represents a minority, and a minority is sure to 
 comprise more intellect than a majority ; in the long-run 
 intellect will force its way, get a majority, and then lose it, 
 because with a majority it will become stujjid." 
 
 "Cousin Olivers, does not the history of the world show 
 you that a single individual can upset all theories as to the 
 comparative wisdom of the few or the many ? Take the 
 wisest few you can find, and one man of genius not a tithe 
 so wise crushes them into powder. But then that man of 
 genius, though he despises the many, must make use of 
 them. That done, he rules them. Don't you see how in 
 free countries political destinations resolve themselves into 
 individual impersonations ? At a general election it is one 
 name around which electors rally. The candidate may en- 
 large as much as he pleases on political principles, but all his 
 talk will not win him votes enougii for success, unless he says, 
 * I go with Mr. A.,' the Minister, or with Mr. Z., the chief of 
 the Opposition. It was not the Tories Avho beat the Whigs 
 when Mr. Pitt dissolved Parliament. It was Mr. Pitt who 
 beat Mr. Fox, with wdiom in general political principles- 
 slave-trade, Roman Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary 
 Reform— he certainly agreed much more than he did with 
 any man in his own Cabinet." 
 
 "Take care, my young cousin," cried Mivers, in accents 
 of alarm ; "don't set up for a man of genius. Genius is the 
 worst quality a public man can have nowadays — nobody 
 heeds it, and everybody is jealous of it." 
 
 " Pardon me, you mistake ; my remark was purely ob- 
 jective, and intended as a reply to your argument. I prefer 
 at present to go with the many because it is the winning 
 side. If we then want a man of genius to keep it the winning 
 side, by subjugating its partisans to his will, he will be sure 
 to come. The few will drive him to us, for the few are 
 always the enemies of the one man of genius. It is they who 
 distrust — it is they who are jealous — not the many. You
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 239 
 
 have aliowed your judgment, usually so clear, to be some- 
 what dimmed by your experience as a critic. The critics 
 are the few. They have infinitely more culture than the 
 many. But when a man of real genius appears and asserts 
 himself, the critics are seldom such fair judges of him as the 
 many are. If he be not one of their oligarchical clique, 
 they either abuse, or disparage, or affect to ignore him ; 
 though a time at last comes when, having gained the many, 
 the critics acknowledge him. But the difference between 
 the man of action and the author is this, that the author 
 rarely finds this acknowledgment till he is dead, and it is 
 necessary to the man of action to enforce it while he is alive. 
 But enough of this speculation •. you asked me to meet 
 Kenelm — is he not coming ? " 
 
 "Yes, but I did not ask him till ten o'clock. I asked you 
 at half-past nine, because I wished to hear about Danvers and 
 Saxboro', and also to prepare you somewhat for your intro- 
 duction to your cousin. I must be brief as to the last, for it 
 is only five' minutes to the hour, and he is a man liable to be 
 punctual. Kenelm is in all ways your opposite. I don't 
 know whether he is cleverer or less clever — there is no scale 
 of measurement between you ; but he is wholly void of am- 
 bition, and might possibly assist yours. He can do what he 
 likes with Sir Peter ; and considering how your poor father 
 — a worthy man but cantankerous — harassed and persecuted 
 Sir Peter because Kenelm came between the estate and you, 
 it is probable that Sir Peter bears you a grudge, though 
 Kenelm declares him incapable of it ; and it would be well 
 if you could annul that grudge in the father by conciliating 
 the good will of the son." 
 
 " I should be glad so to annul it ; but what is Kenelm's 
 
 weak side ?— the turf? the hunting-field? women? poetry? 
 
 One can only conciliate a man by getting on his weak side." 
 
 " Hist ! I see him from the windows. Kenelm's weak side 
 
 was, when I knew him some years ago, and I rather fancy it 
 
 still is -" 
 
 "Well, make haste ! I hear his ring at your door-bell." 
 "A passionate longing to find ideal truth in real life." 
 "Ah!" said Gordon, "as I thought — a mere dreamer."
 
 240 KENELM CHILLINGLY, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Kenelm entered tlie room. The young cousins were in- 
 troduced, shook hands, receded a step, and gazed at eacli 
 other. It is scarcely possible to conceive a greater contrast 
 outwardly than that between the two Chillingly representa- 
 tives of the rising generation. Each was silently impressed 
 by the sense of that contrast. Each felt that the contrast 
 implied antagonism, and that if they two met in the same 
 arena it must be as rival combatants ; still, by some myster- 
 ious intuition, each felt a certain respect for the other, each 
 divined in the other a power that he could not fairly estimate, 
 but against which his own power would be strongly tasked 
 to contend. So might exchange looks a thorough-bred deer- 
 hound and a half-bred mastiff : the bystander could scarce- 
 ly doubt which was the nobler animal, but he might hesitate 
 which to bet on, if the two came to deadly quarrel. Mean- 
 while the thorough-bred deer-hound and the half-bred mas- 
 tiff sniffed at each other in polite salutation. Gordon was 
 the first to give tongue. 
 
 " I have long wished to know you personally," said he, 
 throwing into his voice and manner that delicate kind of 
 deference which a well-born cadet owes to the destined head 
 of his house. " I cannot conceive how I missed you last 
 night at Lady Beaumanoir's, where Mivers tells me he met 
 you ; but I left early." 
 
 Here Mivers led the way to the breakfast-room, and, 
 there seated, the host became the principal talker, running 
 with lively glibness over the principal topics of the day -the 
 last scandal, the last new book, the reform of the army, the 
 reform of the turf, the critical state of Spain, and the debut 
 of an Italian singer. He seemed an embodied Journal, in- 
 cluding the Leading Article, the Law Reports, Foreign 
 Intelligence, the Court Circular, down to the Births, Deaths, 
 and Marriages. Gordon from time to time interrupted this 
 flow of soul with brief, trenchant remarks, which evinced his 
 own knowledge of the subjects treated, and a habit of look- 
 ing on all subjects connected with the pursuits and business 
 of mankind from n high irround aiipropriated to himself, and 
 through the medium of that blue glass which conveys a
 
 KENELM CHILLINGL Y. 241 
 
 wintry aspect to summer landscapes. Kenelm said little, but 
 listened attentively. 
 
 The conversation arrested its discursive nature, to settle 
 upon a political chief — the highest in fame and station of 
 that party to which Mivers professed — not to belong, he be- 
 longed to himself alone, — but to appropinquate. Mivers 
 spoke of this chief with the greatest distrust, and in a spirit 
 of general depreciation. Gordon acquiesced in the distrust 
 and the depreciation, adding, " But he is master of the 
 position, and must, of course, be supported through thick 
 and thin for the present." 
 
 "Yes, for the present," said Mivers ; " one has no option. 
 But you will see some clever articles in 'The Londoner' 
 towards the close of the session, which will damage him 
 greatly, by praising him in the wrong place, and deepening 
 the alarm of important followers — an alarm now at work, 
 though suppressed." 
 
 Here Kcnclm asked, in humble tones,-" Why Gordon 
 thoiieht that a Minister he considered so untrustworthv and 
 dangerous must, for the present, be supported through thick 
 and thin." 
 
 " Because at present a member elected so to support him 
 would lose his seat if he did not : needs must when the devil 
 drives." 
 
 Kenelm. — "When the devil drives, I should have thought 
 it better to resign one's seat on the coach ; perhaps one might 
 be of some use, out of it, in helping to put on the drag." 
 
 Mivers. — " Cleverly said, Kenelm. But, metaphor apart, 
 Gordon is right : a young politician must go with his party ; 
 a veteran journalist like myself is more independent. So 
 long as the journalist blames everybody, he will have plenty 
 of readers." 
 
 Kenelm made no reply, and Gordon changed the conver- 
 sation from men to measures. He spoke of some Bills be- 
 fore Parliament with remarkable ability, evincing much 
 knowledge of the subject, much critical acuteness, illustrating 
 their defects, and proving the danger of their ultimate con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Kenelm was greatly struck with the vigor of this cold, 
 clear mind, and owned to himself that the House of Com- 
 mons was a fitting: place for its development. 
 
 "But," said Mivers, "would vou not be obliged to de- 
 fend these Bills if you were member for Saxboro' ? " 
 
 "Before T answer your question, answer me this. Dan-
 
 242 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 gcrous as the Bills arc, it is not necessary that they shall 
 pass? Have not the public so resoh'cd ? " 
 
 "There can be no doubto f that." 
 
 " Then the member for Saxboro' cannot be strong 
 enough to go against the public." 
 
 " Progress of the age ! " said Kenelm, musingly. " Do 
 you think the class of gentlemen will long last in England ? " 
 
 " What do you call gentlemen ? The aristocracy by 
 birth ? — the gcntilhoinines ? " 
 
 " Nay, I suppose no laws can take away a man's ances- 
 tors, and a class of well-born men is not to be exterminated. 
 But a class of well-born men — without duties, responsi- 
 bilities, or sentiment of that which becomes good birth in 
 devotion to coiuitry or individual honor — does no good to a 
 nation. It is a misfortune which statesmen of democratic 
 creed ought to recognize, that the class of the well-born 
 cannot be destroyed — it must remain as it remained in 
 Rome and remains in France, after all efforts to extirpate 
 it, as the most dangerous class of citizens when you deprive 
 it of the attributes which made it the most serviceable. I 
 am not speaking of that (lass ; I speak of that unclassified 
 order peculiar to England, which, no doubt, forming itself 
 originally from tlie ideal standard of honor and truth sup- 
 posed to be maintained bv tlie gcntilhoinnics, or well-born, no 
 longer requires pedigrees and acres to confer u[)on its 
 members the designation of gentlemen ; and when 1 hear a 
 'gentleman' say that he has no option but to think one 
 thing and say another, at whatever risk to his country, I 
 feel as if in the progress of the age the class of gentlemen 
 was about to be superseded by some finer development of 
 species." 
 
 Therewith Kenelm rose, and would have taken his de- 
 parture, if Gordon had not seized his hand and detained 
 him. 
 
 "My dear cousin, if I may so call you," he said, with the 
 frank manner which was usual to him, and wliicii suited 
 well the bold expression of his face and the clear ring of 
 his voice, " I am one of those who, from an over-dislike to 
 sentimentality and cant, often make those not intimately ac- 
 quainted with them think worse of their principles than 
 they deserve. It may be quite true that a man who goes 
 with his party dislikes the measures he feels bound to sup- 
 port, and says so openly when among friends and relations, 
 yet that man is not therefore devoid of loyalty and honor ;
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 243 
 
 and I trust, when you know me better, you will not think it 
 likely I should derogate from that class of gentlemen to 
 which we both belong." 
 
 " Pardon me if I seemed rude," answered Kenelm, "as- 
 cribe it to my ignorance of the necessities of public life. It 
 struck me that where a politician thought a thing evil he 
 ought not to support it as good. But I daresay I am mis- 
 taken." 
 
 " Entirely mistaken," said Mivers, " and for this reason ; 
 in politics formerly there was a direct choice between good 
 and evil. That rarely exists now. Men of high education, 
 having to choose whether to accept or reject a measure 
 forced upon their option by constituent bodies of very low 
 education, are called upon to weigh evil against evil — the 
 evil of accepting or the evil of rejecting ; and if they resolve 
 on the first, it is as the lesser evil of the two." 
 
 "Your definition is perfect," said Gordon, "and lam 
 contented to rest on it my excuse for what my cousin 
 deems insincerity." 
 
 "I suppose that is real life," said Kenelm, with a mourn- 
 ful smile. 
 
 " Of course it is," said Mivers. 
 
 "Everyday I live," sighed Kenelm, "still more confirms 
 my conviction that real life is a phantasmal sham. How 
 absurd it is in philosophers to deny the existence of appari- 
 tions ! what apparitions we, living men, must seem to the 
 ghosts ! 
 
 " ' The spirits of the wise 
 Sit ill the clouds and mock us.' " 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Chillingly Gordon did not fail to confirm his acquain- 
 tance with Kenelm. He very often looked in upon him of a 
 morning, sometimes joined him in his afternoon rides, intro- 
 duced him to men of his own set, Avho were mostly busy 
 members of Parliament, rising barristers, or political journal- 
 ists, but not without a proportion of brilliant idlers — club 
 men, sporting men, men of fashion, rank, and fortune. He 
 did so with a purpose, for these persons spoke well of him, 
 spoke well not only of his talents, but of his honorable char-
 
 244 KEN ELM CHlf-LINGL Y. 
 
 acter. His general nickname amongst tliem was " Honest 
 Gordon." Kenelm at first thought this sobriquet must be 
 ironical ; not a bit of it. It was given to him on account 
 of the candor and boldness with which he expressed opinions 
 embodying tliat sort of cynicism which is vulgarly called " the 
 absence of humbug." The man was certainlv no hypocrite ; 
 he affected no beliefs which he did not entertain. And he 
 had very few beliefs in anything, except the first half of the 
 adage, "Every man for himself, — and God for us all." 
 
 But whatever Chillingly Gordon's theoretical disbeliefs 
 in things which make the current creed of the virtuous, there 
 was nothing in his conduct which evinced predilection for 
 vices : he was strictly upright in all his dealings, and in 
 delicate matters of honor was a favorite umpire amongst 
 his coevals. Though so frankly ambitious, no one could ac- 
 cuse him of attempting to climb on the shoulders of patrons. 
 There was nothing servile in his nature, and, though he was 
 perfectly prepared to bribe electors if necessary, no money 
 could have bought himself. His one master-passion was 
 the desire of power. He sneered at patriotism as a worn-out 
 prejudice, at philanthropy as a sentimental catch-word. He 
 did not want to serve his country, but to rule it. He did not 
 want to raise mankind, but to rise himself. He was there- 
 fore unscrupulous, unprincipled, as hungerers after power 
 for itself too often are ; yet still if he got power he would 
 probably use it well, from the clearness and strength of his 
 mental perceptions. The impression he made on Kenelm 
 may be seen in the following letter : — 
 
 TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., ETC. 
 
 "My dear Father, — You and my dear motlier will he i)Ieased to hear 
 (hat London continues very polite to me : that ' arida nutrix leonum ' enrols 
 me among the pet class of lions which ladies of fashion admit into the society 
 of their lap-dogs. It is somewhere about six years since I was allowed to 
 gaze on this peep show through the loopholes of Mr. Welby's retreat. It ap- 
 jiears to me, jicrliaps erroneously, that even within tiiat short sjiace of time 
 the tone of ' society ' is j^erccptibly changed. That the change is for the 
 better is an assertion I leave to those who belong to the progresista party. 
 
 " I don't think nearly so n any y( ung ladies six years ago painted th.eir 
 eyelids and dyed their hair : a few of them there might be, imitators of the 
 slang invented by schoolboys and circulated through the medium of small 
 novelists; they might use such expressions as 'stunning,' 'cheek,' 'awfully 
 jolly,' etc. But now I find a great many who have advanced to a slang be- 
 yond that of verbal expressions, — a slang of mind, a slang of sentiment, a 
 slang ill which very little seemb left of the woman, and nothing at all of the 
 lady.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 245 
 
 " Newspaper essayists assert that the young men of the day are to hlamo 
 for this; that tlie young men like it, and the fair iuisband-an,L;ler> dress their 
 flie-;iii the colors mo^t likely to attract a nibble. Whether this excuse bj the 
 tiU2 0iie [ cannot pretend to judge. But it strikes me that the men about 
 mv own age who affect to be fa>t are a more languid race than the men from 
 ten to twenty years older, whoui they regard as slnv. The habit of dram- 
 drinking iu the morning is a very new idea, an idea greatly in fasliion at the 
 momr.it". Adonis calls for a ' pick-me up' before he has strength enough to 
 answer a billet-doux from Venus. Adonis has not the strength to get nobly 
 drunk, but his delicate constitution requires stimulants, and he is always 
 tippling. 
 
 "Tlic men of high birth or renown for social success, belonging, my dear 
 father, to y nir tinu, are still distinguished by an air of good -breeding, by a 
 style of conv^nSAtion more or le=s polished, and not without evidences of 
 literary culture, from men of the same rank in my generation, who appear to 
 pride themselves on respecting nobody and knowing nothing, not even gram- 
 mar. Still we are assured that the world goes on steadily improving. That 
 new idea is in full vijor. 
 
 "Society in the concrete has become wonderfully conceited as to its own 
 progressive excellence-, and the individuals who form the concrete entertain 
 the same complacent opinion of themselves. There are, of course, even in 
 my brief and imperfect experience, many exceptions to what appear to me 
 the prevalent characteristics of the rising generation in 'society.' Of these 
 exceptions I must content myself with naming the most remarkable. Flace 
 anx dames, the first I name is Cecilia Travers. She and her father are now 
 in town, and I meet them frequently. I can conceive no civilized era in the 
 world which a woman like Cecilia Travers would not grace and adorn, be- 
 cause she is essentially the type of woman as man likes to imagine woman — 
 viz , on the fairest side of the womanly character. And I say ' woman ' 
 rather than girl, because among ' Girls of the Period' Cecilia Travers cannot 
 be classed. You might call her damsel, virgin, maiden, but you could no more 
 call her girl than you could call a well-born French demoiselle '■ fille.'' She 
 is hands )me enough to please the eye of any man, however fastidious, but 
 not that kind of beauty which dazzles all men too much to fascinate one man ; 
 for —spe iking, thank heaven, from mere theory— I apprehen 1 that the love f.-r 
 woman has in it a strong sense of property ; that one requires to individualize 
 O'le's possession as being wholly one's own, and not a possession which all the 
 pu')lic are invited to admire. I can readily understand how a rich man, who 
 has what is callel a show place, in which the splendid rooms and the stately 
 gardens are open to all inspector:, so that he has no privacy in his own 
 demesnes, runs away to a pretty cottage which he has all to himself, and of 
 which he can say, ' This is Home — this is all mine.' 
 
 " B.it there are some kinds of beauty which are eminently show places — 
 which the public think they have as much a right to admire as the owner has ; 
 an 1 the s'low place itself would be dull, and perhaps fall out of repair, if the 
 public could be excluded from the sight of it. 
 
 " The beauty of Cecilia Travers is not that of a show place. There is a 
 feeling of safety in her. If Desdemona had been like her, Othello would not 
 have been jealous. But then Cecilia would not have deceived her father — 
 nor I think have told a blackamoor that she wished ' Heaven had made her 
 su-hamm.' Her mind harnnnizes with her person — it is a companionable 
 min 1. Her talents are not showy, but, take them altogether, they form a 
 pleasant whole : she has good sense enough in the practical affairs of life, and
 
 246 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 enough of that ineffable womanly gift called tact, to counteract the effects oi 
 whimsical natures like mine, ancl yet enough sense of tlie huniorisiic views of 
 life not to take too literally all that a whimsical man like myself may say. As 
 to temper, one never kncjws what a woman's temjicr is — till one puts lur out 
 of it. Hut I iinagine lieis, in its normal state, to be serene, ancl disposed to 
 be cheerful. Now, my dear father, if you were not one of the clevere.si men 
 you would infer from this eulogistic mention oi Cecilia Travers tliat I was in 
 love with her. Hut you no doubt will detect the truth, that a man in love 
 with a woman does not weigh her merits with so steady a hand as that which 
 guides this steel pen. I am not in love with Cecilia Travers. I wish J were. 
 When Lady Glenalvon, who remains woiiderfidly kind to me, says, day after 
 day, 'Cecilia Travers would make you a ]ierfect wife,' I liave no answer to 
 give, but I don't feel the least inclined to ask Cecilia Travers if she would 
 waste her perfection on one who so coldly concedes it. 
 
 " I find that s!ie persisted in rejecting the man whom her father wished her 
 to marry, and that he has consoled himself by marrying somebody else. No 
 doubt other suitors as worthy will soon present themselves. 
 
 " Oh, dearest of all my friends — sole friend whom I regard as a confidant 
 — shall I ever be in love ? and if not, why not ? Sometimes 1 feel as if, with 
 love as with ambition, it is because I have some impossible ideal in endi. that 
 I must always remain indifferent to the sort of love and the sort of ambition 
 which are wiihin my reach. I have an idea that if I did love, I should love as 
 intensely as Romeo, and that thought inspiresme with vague forebodii.gs of ter- 
 ror; and if I did find an object to arouse mv ainbilion, T could be as earnest in its 
 pursuit as — whom shall I name? — Caesar or Caro ? I like Cato's ambition the 
 better of the two. But peojile nowadays call aml.ition an im]iraclicable 
 crotchet, if it be invested on the losing sitle. Cato would have saved Rome 
 from the mob and the dictator; but Rome could not be saved, and Cato falls 
 on liis own sword. Had we a Cato now, the verdict at the coroner s inquest 
 would be, ' suicide while in a state of unsound mind ; ' and the verdict would 
 have been proved by his senseless resistance to a mob and a dictator ! Talking 
 of ambition, I come to the other exception to tlie youth < f the day — I have 
 named a dcvwlscllc, I now name a daiiioiseaii. Imagine a man of about five- 
 and-twenty, a. id who is morally about fifty years older than a hcaliliy man of 
 sixty, — imagine him with the brain of age and the flower of youth — with a 
 heart absorbed into the brain, and giving v\arm blood to frigid ideas — a man 
 who sneers at eveiything I call lofty, yet would do nothing that /v^ tliinks mean 
 — to whom vice and virtue are as indifferent as they were to llie /Estiietics of 
 Goethe — wlio would never jeopardize his caf-er as a]iractical reasoner by an 
 i-npriident virtue, and never sully his reputatian by a degrading vice. Imagine 
 this mm with an intellect keen, strong, ready, unscrupulous, dauntless— all 
 cleverness and no genius. Imagine this man, and then do not be astonisilied 
 when I tell you he is a Chillingly. 
 
 '* The Chillingly race culminates in him, and l)ecomes Chilliiiglyest. In 
 fact, it seems to me that we live in a day precisely suited to the Chillingly 
 idiosyncr.ifies. During the ten centuries or more that our race has held local 
 habitation and a name, it has been as airy nothings. Its representatives lived 
 in hot-blooded times, and were compelled to skulk in still water with their 
 emblematic Daces. But the times now, my dear father, are so cold-blooded 
 that you can't be too cold-blooded to prosper. What could Chillingly Mivers 
 liave been in an age when people cared two]5encehalfpenny about their relig- 
 ious creeds, and their policiial parties deemed their cause was sacred and 
 their leaders were heroes ? Chillingly Mivers would not have found five subscri-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 247 
 
 hers to ' The Londoner.' But now ' The Londoner ' is the favorite organ of the 
 intellectual public ; it sneers away all the foundations of the social sybleni, 
 without an attempt at reconstruction ; and every new journal set up, if it 
 keeps its head above water, models itself on ' The Londoner.' Chillingly 
 Mivers is a great man, and the most potent wiiter of the age, though nobody 
 knows what he has written. Chillingly Gordon is a still more notable instance 
 of the rise of the Chillingly worth in the modern market. 
 
 " There is a general impression in the most authoritative circles that Chill- 
 ingly Gordon will have high rank in the van of the coming men. His confi- 
 dence ui himself is so thoiough that it infects all with whom he comes into 
 contact — myself included. 
 
 " He said to me the other day, with a sang-froid Morthy of the iciest 
 Chillingly, ' I mean to be Prime Minister of England — it is only a question of 
 time.' Now, if Chillingly Gordon is to be Prime Minister, it will be hecaufe 
 the increasing cold of our moral and social atmosphere will exactly suit the 
 development of his talents. 
 
 " He is the man above all others to argue down the declaimers of old- 
 fashioned sentimentalities, love of country, care for its position among nations, 
 zeal for its honor, pride in its renown. (Oh, if you could hear him philosophi- 
 cally and logically sneer away the word ' prestige' !) Such nolions are fast 
 being classified as ' bosh.' And when that classification is comjilele, — when 
 England has no colonies to defend, no navy to pay for, no interest in the af- 
 fairs of other nations, and has attained to the happy condition of Holland, — 
 then Chillingly Gordon will be her Prime Minister. 
 
 " Yet while, if ever I am stung into political action, it will I'e by abne- 
 gation of the Chillingly attributes, and in opposition, however hopeless, to 
 Chillingly Gordon, I feel that this man cannot Le suppressed and ouglu to 
 have fair play ; his ambition will be infinitely more dangirous if it become 
 soured by delay. I propose, my dear father, that you should have the honor 
 of laying this clever kinsman under an oMigaticn, and enabling him to enter 
 Parliament. In our last conversation at Exmundham, you told me of the 
 frank resentment of Gordon pere when n>y coming into the woild sjiut him 
 out from the Exmundham inheritance ; you confided to me your intention at 
 that time to lay by yearly a sum that might ultimately stive as a provisif'n for 
 Gordon y?/j, and as some compensation for the loss of his expectations when 
 you realized your hope of an heir ; you told me also how this generous in'en- 
 tion on your part had been frustrated by a natural indignatiin at the elder 
 Gordon's conduct in his harassing and costly litigation, and by the addition 
 you had been tempted to make to thee-tate in a \ urchase v\hich added to its 
 acreage, but at a rate of interest which diminished your own income, and pre- 
 cluded the possibility of further savings. Now, chancing to meet your lawyer, 
 Mr. Vining, the other day, I learned from him that it had been long a wish 
 which your delicacy prevented your naming to me. that I, to whom thefee- 
 eimple descends, should join with you in cutting off th.e entail and resettling 
 the estate. He showed me what an advantage this would be to the property, 
 because it would leave your hands free for many inrprovements, in which I 
 heartily go with the progress of the age, for which, as merely tenant for life, 
 you could not raise the money except upon ruinou-; terms ; new cottages for 
 laborers, new buildings for tenants, the consolidation of some old mortgages 
 and charges on the rent-roll, etc. And allow me to add that 1 should like to 
 make a large increase to tlie jointure of my dear mother. Vining say=, too, 
 that there is a part of the outlying land which, as being near a town, could 
 be sold to considerable jn-ofit if the estate were resettled.
 
 248 KENELM CHILLIS'GLY. 
 
 " Let us hasten to complete tlie necessary deeds, and so obtain the /'20,- 
 000 retiuired for the realization of your n )l)lc and, let uie adtl, your just desire 
 to do soiiieliiing for Chillinj^ly (iortlon. In the new deeds of settlement we 
 could insure the power of wdling the e>tate as we pleased ; and I am strongly 
 against devising it to Chillingly Gordon, It may be a crotchet of mine, but 
 one which I think you share, that the owner of English soil should have a 
 son's love for the native land ; and Gordon will never have that. 1 think, 
 too. that it will lie best for his own career, and for the establishment of a 
 frank understanding between us and hnnself, that he should be fairly told that 
 he would not be benefited in the event of our deaths. Twenty thousand 
 pounds given to him now would be a greater boon to him than ten times the 
 sum twenty years later. With that at his command, he can enter Parlia- 
 ment, and have an income, added to what he now possesses, if modest, still 
 sul'ticient to make him independent of a Minister's patronage. 
 
 " Pray humor me, my dearest father, in the proposition I venture to sub- 
 mit to you. — Your affectionate son, 
 
 " Kenelm." 
 
 FROM .SIR PETER CHILLINGLY TO KENEI.M CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "My dk.\r Boy, — You are not worthy to be a Chillingly; you are de- 
 cidedly warm-blooded : never was a load lifted off a man's mind with a gen- 
 tler hand. Yes, I have wished to cut off the entail and resettle the properly ; 
 but, as it was eminently to my adv.mtage to do so, I shrank from asking it, 
 though eventually it would he almost as much to your own advantage. What 
 with the purchase I made of the Kaircleuch lands — which I could only effect 
 by money borrowed at high interest on uiy ])ersonal security and paid of by 
 yearly installments, eating largely into income — and the old mortgages, etc., 
 I own I have been pinched of late years. But what rejoices me the most is 
 the power to make homes for our honest laborers more comfortable, and 
 nearer to their work, which last is the chief point, fir the old cottages in 
 themselves are not bad ; the misft)rtunc is, when you build an extra room for 
 the children the silly people let it out to a lodger. 
 
 " My dear boy, I am very much touched by your wish to increase your 
 mother's jointure— a very projier wish, independently of filial feeling, for she 
 broui^lit to the estate a very jiretty fortune, which the trustees consented to 
 my investing in land ; and though the land completed our ring-fence, it does 
 not bring in two percent., and the conditions of the entail limited the right 
 of jointure to an amount below that which a widowed Lady Chillingly may 
 fairly expect. 
 
 " I care more about the ]-)rovision on these points than T do for the inter- 
 ests of old Chillingly Gordon's son. I had meant to iieliave very handsomely 
 to the father; and when the return for behaving h.andsomely is being put into 
 Chancery — .V Worm Will Turn. Nevertheless, I agree with you that a son 
 .should not be punished for his father's faults; and if the sacrifice of ;^20,ooo 
 makes you and myself feel that we are better Christians and truer gentlemen, 
 we shall buy that feeling very cheaply." 
 
 Sir Peter tlien proceeded, half jestingly, half seriously, 
 to combat Kenclin's declaration that he was not in love with 
 Cecilia Travers ; and, urging the advantages of marriage 
 with one who Kenelm allowed would be a perfect wife, as-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 249 
 
 tutely remarded that, unless Kenelm had a son of his own, 
 it did not seem to him quite just to the next of kin to will 
 the property from him, upon no better plea than the Avant 
 of love for his native country. " He would love his coun- 
 try fast enough if he had ten thousand acres in it." 
 
 Kenelm shook his head when he came to this sentence. 
 
 " Is even, then, love for one's country but cupboard-love 
 after all ? " said he ; and he postponed finishing the perusal 
 of his father's letter. 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 Kenelm Chillingly did not exaggerate the social posi- 
 tion he had acquired when he classed himself amongst the 
 lions of the fashionable world. I dare not count the num- 
 ber of three-cornered notes showered upon him by the fine 
 ladies who grow romantic upon any kind of celebrity ; or 
 tlie carefully-sealed envelopes, containing letters from fair 
 anonymas, who asked if he had a heart, and would be in 
 such a place in the Park at such an hour. What there was 
 in Kenelm Chillingly that should make him thus favored, 
 especially by the fair sex, it would be difficult to say, unless 
 it was the twofold reputation of being unlike other people, 
 and of being unaffectedly indifferent to the gain of any 
 reputation at all. He might, had he so pleased, have easily 
 established a proof that the prevalent though vague belief 
 in his talents was not altogether unjustified. For the arti- 
 cles he had sent from abroad to ' The Londoner,' and by 
 which his travelling expenses were defrayed, had been 
 stamped by that sort of originality in tone and treatment 
 wliich rarely fails to excite curiosity as to the author, and 
 meets with more general praise than perhaps it deserves. 
 
 But Mivers was true to his contract to preserve inviola- 
 ble the incognito of the author, and Kenelm regarded with 
 profound contempt the articles themselves, and the readers 
 who praised them. 
 
 Just as misanthropy with some persons grows out of 
 benevolence disappointed, so there are certain natures — and 
 Kenelm Chillingly's was perhaps one of them — in which in- 
 differentism grows out of earnestness baffled. 
 
 He had promised himself pleasure in renewing acquain- 
 1 1*
 
 250 KEN ELM CIllIJJXC LY. 
 
 tance witli liis old tutor, Mr. Welby — pleasure in refreshing 
 his own taste for metaphysics and casuistry and criticism. 
 But that accomplished professor of realism had retired from 
 philosophy altogether, and was now enjoying a holiday for 
 life in the business of a public office. A Minister in favor 
 of Avhom, Avhen in opposition, Mr. Welby, in a moment of 
 whim, wrote some very able articles in a leading journal, 
 had, on acceding to power, presented the realist with one 
 of those few good things still left to Ministerial patronage 
 — a place worth about ^1200 a year. His mornings thus 
 engaged in routine work, Mr. Welby enjoyed his evenings 
 in a convivial way. 
 
 " iHvciii portuui" he said 1 > Kenelm : " I plunge into no 
 troubled waters nov/. But come and dine with me to-mor- 
 row tcte-a-t'te. My wife is at St. Leonard's with my young- 
 est born for the benefit of sea-air." Kenelm accepted the 
 invitation. 
 
 The dinner would have contented a Brillat-Savarin — it 
 was faultless ; and the claret was that rare nectar, the Lafitte 
 of 1848. 
 
 "I never share this," said Welby, "with more than one 
 friend at a time." 
 
 Kenelm sought to engage his host in discussion on certain 
 new works in vogue, and which were composed according to 
 purely realistic canons of criticism. "I'lie more realistic 
 these books pretend to be, the less real they are," said Ken^ 
 elm. "I am half inclined to think that the whole school 
 you so systematically sought to build up is a mistake, and 
 that realism in art is a thing impossible." 
 
 " I daresay you are right. I took up that school in earnest 
 because I was in a passion with pretenders to the Idealistic 
 school ; and whatever one takes up in earnest is generally a 
 mistake, especially if one is in a passion. I was not in earnest 
 and I was not in a passion when I wrote those articles to 
 which I am indebted for my office." Mr Welby here luxu- 
 riously stretched his limbs, and, lifting his glass to his lips, 
 voluptuously inhaled its bouquet. 
 
 " Vou sadden mc," returned Kenelm. " It is a melan- 
 chcjly thing to find that one's mind was inthienced in youth 
 by a teacher who mocks at his own teachings." 
 
 Welby shrugged his shoulders. "Life consists in the 
 alternate process of learning and unlearning ; but it is often 
 wiser to unlearn than to learn. For the rest, as I have ceased 
 to be a critic, 1 care little whether 1 was wiong (n' right when
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 251 
 
 I played that part. I think I am right now as a placeman. 
 Let the world go its own way, provided the world lets you 
 live upon it. I drain my wine to the lees, and cut down hope 
 to the brief span of life. Reject realism in art if you please, 
 and accept realism in conduct. For the first time in my life 
 I am comfortable : my mind, having worn out its walking- 
 shoes, is now enjoying the luxury of slippers. Who can 
 deny the realism of comfort?" 
 
 " Has a man a right," Kenelm said to himself, as he en- 
 tered his brougham, " to employ all the brilliancy of a rare 
 ■vv-it — all the acquisitions of as rare a scholarship — to the 
 scaring of the young generation out of tlie safe old roads 
 which youth left to itself would take — old roads skirted by 
 romantic rivers and bowery trees— directing them into new 
 paths on long sandy flats, and then, when they are faint and 
 footsore, to tell them that he cares not a pin whether they 
 have worn out their shoes in right paths or wrong paths, for 
 that he has attained the sutnmum bonum of philosophy in the 
 comfort of easy slippers ? " 
 
 Before he could answer the question he thus put to him- 
 self, his brougham stopped at the door of the Minister whom 
 Welby had contributed to bring into power. 
 
 That night there was a crowded muster of the fashionable 
 world at the great man's house. It happened to be a very 
 critical moment for the Minister. The fate of his Cabinet 
 depended on the result of a motion about to be made the fol- 
 lowing week in the House of Commons. The great man 
 stood at the entrance of the apartments to receive his guests, 
 and among the guests were the framers of the hostile motion 
 and the leaders of the Opposition. His smile was not less 
 gracious to them than to his dearest friends and stanchest 
 supporters. 
 
 " I suppose this is realism," said Kenelm to himself ; " but 
 it is not truth, and it is not comfort." Leaning against the 
 wall near the doorway, he contemplated with grave interest 
 the striking countenance of his distinguished host. He de- 
 tected beneath that courteous smile and that urbane manner 
 the signs of care. The eye was absent, the cheek pinched, 
 the brow furrowed. Kenelm turned away his looks, and 
 glanced over the animated countenances of the idle loungers 
 along commoner thoroughfares in life. Their eyes were not 
 absent, their brows were not furrowed ; their minds seemed 
 quite at liome in exchanging nothings. Interest many of 
 them had in the approaching struggle, but it was mu(-h such
 
 252 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 an interest as betters of small sums may have on the Derby 
 day — just enough to give piquancy to the race ; nothing to 
 nialce gain a great joy, or loss a keen anguish. 
 
 " Our host is looking ill," said Mivers, accosting Kenelm. 
 "I detect symptoms of suppressed gout. You kncnv my 
 aphorism, 'nothing so gouty as ambition,' especially Parlia- 
 mentary ambition." 
 
 " You are not one of those friends who press on my choice 
 of life that source of disease ; allow me to thank ycju." 
 
 "Your thanks are misplaced. I strongly advise you to 
 devote yourself to a political career." 
 
 " Despite the gout ? " 
 
 " Despite the gout. If you could take the world as I do, 
 my advice might be different. But your mind is overcrowd- 
 ed with doubts and fantasies and crotchets, and you have no 
 choice but to give them vent in active life." 
 
 " You had something to do in making me what I am — an 
 idler; something to answer for as to my doubts, fantasies, 
 and crotchets. It was by your recommendation that I was 
 placed under the tuition of Mr. Welby, and at that critical 
 age in which the bent of the twig forms the shape of the 
 tree." 
 
 "And I pride myself on that counsel. I repeat the rea- 
 sons for which I gave it : it is an incalculable advantage for 
 a young man to start in life thoroughly initiated into the 
 New Ideas which will more or less influence his generation. 
 Welby was the ablest representative of these ideas. It is a 
 wondrous good fortune when the propagandist of the New 
 Ideas is something more than a bookish philosopher — when 
 he is a thorough ' man of the world,' and is what we emphat- 
 ically call ' practical.' Yes, you owe me much that I secured 
 to you such tuition, and saved vou from twaddle and senti- 
 ment, the poetry of Wordsworth and the muscular Chris- 
 tianity of cousin John." 
 
 " What you say that you saved me from might have done 
 me more good than all you conferred on me. I suspect that 
 when education succeeds in placing an old head upon young 
 shoulders the combination is not healthful — it clogs the 
 blood and slackens the pulse. However, I must not be un- 
 grateful ; you meant kindly. Yes, I suppose Welby is prac- 
 tical ; he has no belief, and he has got a place. But our 
 host, I presume, is also practical ; his place is a much higher 
 one than Welby's, and yet he surely is not without belief ?" 
 
 " He was bcjrn before the new ideas came into practical
 
 KRNELM CHILLINGLY. . 253 
 
 force ; but in proportion as they have done so, his beliefs 
 have necessarily disappeared. I don't suppose that he be- 
 lieves in much now, except the two propositions : firstly, 
 that if he accept the new ideas, he will have power and keep 
 it, and if he does not accef t them, power is out of the ques- 
 tion ; and secondly, that if the new ideas are to prevail, he 
 is the best man to direct them safely, — beliefs quite enough 
 for a Minister. No wise Minister should have more." 
 
 "Does he not believe that the motion he is to resist next 
 week is a bad one ? " 
 
 "A bad one of course, in its consequences, for if it suc- 
 ceed it will upset him ; a good one in itself I am sure he 
 must think it, for he would bring it on himself if he were in 
 opposition." 
 
 " I see that Pope's definition is still true, ' Party is the 
 madness of the many for the gain of the few.' " 
 
 "No, it is not true. Madness is a w^'ong word applied 
 to the many ; the many are sane enough— they know their 
 own objects, and they make use of the intellect of the few in 
 order to gain their objects. In each party it is the many 
 that control the few who nominally lead them. A man be- 
 comes Prime Minister because he seems to the many of his 
 party the fittest person to carry out their views. If he pre- 
 sume to differ from these views, they put him into a moral 
 pillory and pelt him with their dirtiest stones and their rot- 
 tenest eggs." 
 
 " Then the maxim should be reversed, and party is rather 
 the madness of the few for the gain of the many ? " 
 
 *'Of the two, that is the more correct definition." 
 
 " Let me keep my senses and decline to be one of the 
 
 few." 
 
 Kenelm moved away from his cousin's side, and, enter- 
 ing one of the less crowded rooms, saw Cecilia Travers 
 seated there in a recess with Lady Glenalvon. He joined 
 them, and, after a brief interchange of a few commonplaces, 
 Lady Glenalvon quitted her post to accost a foreign ambas- 
 sadress, and Kenelm sank into the chair she vacated. 
 
 It was a relief to his eye to contemplate Cecilia's candid 
 brow ; to his ear to hearken to tlx; soft voice that had no 
 artificial tones and uttered no cynical witticisms. 
 
 *' Don't you think it strange," said Kenelm, "that we 
 English should so mould all our habits as to make even 
 what we call pleasure as little pleasurable as possible ? We 
 are now in the beginning of June, the fresh outburst of sum-
 
 254 KEN ELM C/JILLINGLY. 
 
 nicr, when every day in the country is a delight to eye and 
 ear, and we say, ' the season for hot rooms is beginning.' 
 We alone of civilized races spend our summer in a capital, 
 and cling to the country when the trees are leafless and the 
 brooks frozen." 
 
 "Certainly that is a mistake ; but I love the country in 
 all seasons, even in winter." 
 
 " Provided the country house is full of London peo- 
 ple ? " 
 
 '* No ; that is rather a drawback. I never want com- 
 panions in the country." 
 
 "True ; I should have remembered that you differ from 
 young ladies in general, and make companions of books. 
 They arc always more conversible in the country than they 
 are in town ; or rather, we listen there to them with less dis- 
 tracted attention. Ha ! do I not recognize yonder the fair 
 whiskers of George Belvoir ? Who is the lady leaning on 
 his arm ? " 
 
 "Don't you know ? — Lady Emily Belvoir, his wife." 
 
 " Ah ! I was told that he had married. The lady is hand- 
 some. She will become the family diamonds. Does she 
 read Blue-books ?" 
 
 " I will ask her if you Avish." 
 
 "Nay, it is scarcely worth wiiile. During my rambles 
 abroad, I saw but few English newspapers. I did, however, 
 learn that George had won his election. Has he yet spoken 
 in Parliament ? " 
 
 " Yes ; he moved the answer to the address this session, 
 and was much complimented on the excellent tone and taste 
 of his speech. He spoke again a few weeks afterwards, I 
 fear not so successfully." 
 
 " Coughed down ? " 
 
 "Something like it." 
 
 " Do him good ; he will recover the cough, and fulfill my 
 prophecy of his success." 
 
 " Have you done with poor George for the present ? If 
 so, allow me to ask whether you have quite forgotten Will 
 Somers and Jessie Wiles ?" 
 
 " Forgotten them ? no," 
 
 " But you have never asked after them ? " 
 
 " I took it for granted that they were as happy as could 
 be expected. Pray assure me that they are." 
 
 " I trust so now ; but they have had trouble, and have 
 left Graveleigh."
 
 KENELM CHILI. E\'GLY. 255 
 
 "Trouble! left Graveleigh ! You make me uneasy. 
 Pray explain." 
 
 " They had not been three months married and installed 
 in the home they owed to you, when poor Will was seized 
 witli a rheumatic fever. He was confined to his bed for 
 many weeks ; and when at last he could move from it, was 
 so weak as to be still unable to do any work. During his 
 illness Jessie had no heart and little leisure to attend to the 
 shop. Of course I — that is, my dear father — gave them all 
 necessary assistance ; but " 
 
 " I understand ; they were reduced to objects of charity. 
 Brute that I am, never to have thought of the duties I owed 
 to the couple I had brought together. But pray go on." 
 
 " You are aware that just before you left us my father 
 received a proposal to exchange his property at Graveleigh 
 for some lands more desirable to him ? " 
 
 " I remember. He closed with that offer ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Captain Stavers, the new landlord of Graveleigh, 
 seems to be a very bad man ; and though he could not turn 
 the Somerses out of the cottage so long as they paid rent — 
 which we took care they did pay — yet out of a very wicked 
 spite he set up a rival shop in one of his other cottages in the 
 village, and it became impossible for these poor young peo- 
 ple to get a livelihood at Graveleigh." 
 
 "What excuse for spite against so harmless a young 
 couple could Captain Stavers find or invent ? " 
 
 Cecilia looked down and colored. " It was a revengeful 
 feeling against Jessie." 
 
 " Ah ! I comprehend." 
 
 *' But they have now left the village, and are happily set- 
 tled elsewhere. Will has recovered his health, and they are 
 prospering — much more than they could ever have done at 
 Graveleigh." 
 
 "In that change you were their benefactress, Miss 
 Travers?" said Kenelm, in a more tender voice and with 
 a softer eye than he had ever before evinced towards the 
 heiress. 
 
 " No, it is not I whom they have to thank and bless." 
 
 "Who, then, is it ? Your father?" 
 
 " No. Do not question me ; I am bound not to say. 
 They do not themselves know ; they rather believe that their 
 gratitude is due to you." 
 
 " To me ! Am I'to be forever a sham in spite of myself ? 
 My dear Miss Travers, it is essential to my honor that I
 
 256 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 should undeceive this credulous pair ; where can I find 
 them ?" 
 
 " I must not say ; but I will ask permission of their con- 
 cealed benefactor, and send you their address." 
 
 A touch was laid on Kenelm's arm, and a voice whispered, 
 " May I ask you to present me to Miss Travers ?" 
 
 "Miss Travers," said Kenelm, " I entreat you to add to 
 the list of your acquaintances a cousin of mine — Mr. Chil- 
 lingly Gordon." 
 
 While Gordon addressed to Cecilia the well-bred conven- 
 tionalisms with which acquaintance in London drawing- 
 rooms usually commences, Kenelm, obedient to a sign from 
 Lady Glenalvon, who had just re-entered the room, quitted 
 his seat, and jcnned the Marchioness. 
 
 " Is not that young man whom you left talki'ng with 
 Miss Trav'ers your clever cousin Gordon ? " 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " She is listening to him with great attention. How his 
 face brightens up as he talks ! He is positively handsome, 
 thus animated." 
 
 " Yes, I could fancy him a dangerous wooer. He has wit, 
 and liveliness, and audacity ; he could be very much in love 
 with a great fortune, and talk to the owner of it with a fervor 
 rarely exhibited by a Chillingly. Well, it is no affair of 
 mine." 
 
 " It ought to be." 
 
 " Alas and alas ! that 'ought to be ;' what depths of sor- 
 rowful meaning lie within that simple phrase ! How happy 
 would be our lives, how grand our actions, how pure our 
 souls, if all could be with us as it ought to be ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 We often form cordial intimacies in the confined society 
 of a country house, or a quiet watering-place, or a small 
 Continental town, which fade away into remote acquaint- 
 anceship in the mighty vortex of London life, neither party 
 being to blame for the estrangement. It was so with Leo- 
 pold Travers and Kenelm Chillingly. Travers, as we have 
 seen, had felt a powerful charm in the converse of the young 
 stranger, so in contrast with the routine of the rural com-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 257 
 
 panionships to which his alert intellect had for many years 
 circumscribed its range. But, on reappearing in l^ondon 
 the season before Kenelm again met him, he had renewed 
 old friendships with men of his own standing, — officers in 
 the regiment of which he had once been a popular ornament, 
 some of them still unmarried, a few of them like himself, 
 widowed ; others who had been his rivals in fashion, and 
 were still pleasant idlers about town ; and it rarely happens 
 in a metropolis that we have intimate friendships with those 
 of another generation, unless there be some common tie in 
 the cultivation of art and letters, or the action of kindred 
 sympathies in the party strife of politics. Therefore Travers 
 and Kenelm had had little familiar communication with each 
 other since they first met at the Beaumanoirs'. Now and 
 then they found themselves at the same crowded assemblies, 
 and interchanged nods and salutations. But their habits 
 were different. The houses at which they were intimate 
 were not the same ; neither did they frequent the same 
 clubs. Kenelm's chief bodily exercise was still that of long 
 and early rambles into rural suburbs ; Leopold's was that of 
 a late ride in the Row. Of the two, Leopold was much more 
 the man of pleasure. Once restored to metropolitan life, a 
 temper constitutionally eager, ardent, and convivial, took 
 kindly, as in earlier youth, to its light range of enjoyments. 
 
 Had the intercourse between the two men been as frankly 
 familiar as it had been at Neesdale Park, Kenelm would 
 probably have seen much more of Cecilia at her own home ; 
 and the admiration and esteem with which she already in- 
 spired him might have ripened into much warmer feeling, 
 had he thus been brought into clearer comprehension of the 
 soft and womanly heart, and its tender predisposition towards 
 himself. 
 
 He had said somewhat vaguely in his letter to Sir Peter 
 that " sometimes he felt as if his indifference to love, as to 
 ambition, w^as because he had some impossible ideal in each." 
 Taking that conjecture to task, he could not honestly per- 
 suade himself that he had formed any ideal of woman and 
 wife with which the reality of Cecilia Travers was at war. 
 On the contrary, the more he thought over the character- 
 istics of Cecilia, the more they seemed to correspond to any 
 ideal that had floated before him in the twilight of dreamy 
 reverie ; and yet he knew that he was not in love wnth her, 
 that his heart did not respond to his reason. And mourn- 
 fully he resigned himself to the conviction that nowhere in
 
 ;«58 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 this planet, from the normal pursuits of whose inhabitp-nts 
 he felt so estranged, was there waiting for him the smiling 
 playmate, the earnest helpmate. As this conviction strengtii- 
 ened, so an increased weariness of the artificial life of the 
 metropolis, and of all its objects and amusements, turned 
 his thoughts with an intense yearning towards the Bohemian 
 freedom and fresh excitements of his foot ramblings. He 
 often thought with envy of the wandering minstrel, and 
 wondered whether, if he again traversed the same range of 
 country, he might encounter again that vagrant singer. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 It is nearly a week since Kenelm had met Cecilia, and he 
 is sitting in his rooms with Lord Thetford at that hour of 
 three in the afternoon, which is found the most difficult to 
 dispose of \)\ idlers about town. Amongst young men of his 
 own age and class with whom Kenelm assorted in the fashion- 
 able world, perhaps the one whom he liked the best, and of 
 whom he saw the most, was this young heir of the Beau- 
 nmnoirs ; and though Lord Thetford has nothing to do with 
 the direct stream of my story, it is worth pausing a few 
 minutes to sketch an outline of one of the best whom the last 
 generation has produced for a part that, owing to accidents 
 of birth and fortune, young men like Lord Thetford must 
 play on that stage from which the curtain is not yet drawn 
 up. Destined to be the head of a family that unites with 
 princelv possessions and an historical name a keen though 
 honorable ainbition for political power. Lord Thetford has 
 been carefully educated, especially in the new ideas of his 
 time. His father, though a man of no ordinary talents, has 
 never taken a prominent part in public life. He desires his 
 eldest son to do so. The Beaumanoirs have been Whigs from 
 the time of William HI. They have shared the good and 
 the ill fortunes of a party which, whether we side with it or 
 not, no politician who dreads extremes in the government of 
 a State so pre-eminently artificial that a prevalent extreme at 
 either end of the balance would be fatal to equilibrium, can 
 desire to become extinct or feeble so long as a constitutional 
 monarchy exists in England. From the reign of George I.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 259 
 
 to the death of George IV., the Beaumanoirs were in the 
 ascendant. Visit their family portrait gallery, and you must 
 admire the eminence of a house which, during that interval 
 of less than a century, contributed so many men to the ser- 
 vice of the State or the adornment of the Coiirt — so many 
 Ministers, Ambassadors, Generals, Lord Chamberlains, and 
 Masters of the Horse. When tlie younger Pitt beat the great 
 Whig Houses, the Beaumanoirs vanish into comparative 
 obscurity ; they re-emerge with the accession of William IV., 
 and once more produce bulwarks of the State and ornaments 
 of the Crown. The present Lord of \!>Q?i,\x\\\?iWo\x, poco ciirante 
 in politics though he be, has at least held high offices at 
 Court ; and, as a matter of course, he is Lord Lieutenant of 
 his county, as well as Knight of the Garter. He is a man 
 whom the chiefs of his party have been accustomed to con- 
 sulton critical questions. Hegives hisopinionsconfidentially 
 and modestly, and when they are rejected never takes offence. 
 He thinks that a time is coming when the head of the Beau- 
 manoirs should descend into the lists and fight hand-to-hand 
 with any Hodge or Hobson in the cause of his country for 
 the benefit of the Whigs. Too lazy or too old to do this 
 himself, he says to his son, "You must do it. Without effort 
 of mine the thing may last my life : it needs effort of yours 
 that the thing may last through your own." 
 
 Lord Thetford cheerfully responds to the paternal ad- 
 monition. He curbs his natural inclinations, which are 
 neither inelegant nor unmanly ; for, on the one side, he is 
 very fond of music and painting, an accomplished amateur, 
 and deemed a sound connoisseur in both ; and, on the other 
 side, he has a passion for all field sports, and especially for 
 hunting. He allows no such attractions to interfere with 
 diligent attention to the business of the House of Commons. 
 He serves in Committees, he takes the chair at public meet- 
 ings on sanitary questions or projects for social improve- 
 ment, and acquits himself well therein. He has not yet 
 spoken in debate, but he has been only two years in Parlia- 
 ment, and he takes his father's wise advice not to speak till 
 the third. But he is not without weight among the well- 
 born youth of the party, and has in him the stuff' out of 
 which, when it becomes seasoned, the Corinthian capitals 
 of a Cabinet may be very effectively carved. In his own 
 heart he is convinced that his party are going too far and 
 too fast ; but with that party he goes on light-heartedly, 
 ai.d would continue to do so if they went to Erebus. But
 
 26o KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 he would prefer their going the other way. For the rest, a 
 pleasant bright-eyed young fellow, with vivid animal spir- 
 its ; and, in the lioliday moments of reprieve from public 
 duty, he brings sunshine into draggling hunting-fields, and 
 a fresh breeze into heated ball-rooms. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Lord Thetford, as he threw aside 
 his cigar, " I quite understand that you bore yourself — you 
 have nothing else to do." 
 
 " What can I do ? " 
 
 " Work." 
 
 " Work ! " 
 
 "Yes, you are clever enough to feel that you have a 
 mind ; and mind is a restless inmate of body — it craves oc- 
 cupation of some sort, and regular occupation too ; it needs 
 its daily constitutional exercise. Do you give your mind 
 that ? " 
 
 " I am sure I don't know, but my mind is always busyin.:^ 
 itself about something or other." 
 
 " In a desultory way — with no fixed object." 
 
 " True." 
 
 " Write a book, and then it will have its constitutional." 
 
 " Nay, my mind is always writing a book (though it may 
 not publish one), always jotting down imjiressions, or in- 
 venting incidents, or investigating chararters ; and between 
 you and me, I do not think that I do bore myself so much 
 as I did formerly. Other people bore me more than they 
 did." 
 
 " Because you will not create an object in common with 
 other people : come into Parliament, side with a party, and 
 you have that object." 
 
 " Do you mean seriously to tell mc that you are not 
 bored in the House of Commons ?" 
 
 " With the speakers very often, yes ; but with the strife 
 between the speakers, no. The Flouse of Commons life has 
 a peculiar excitement scarcely understood out of it ; but 
 you may conceive its charm when you observe that a man 
 who has once been in the thick of it feels forlorn and 
 shelved if he lose his seat, and even repines when the acci- 
 dent of birth transfers him to the serener air of the Upper 
 House. Trv that life, Chillingly." 
 
 " I might if I were an ultra-Radical, a Republican, a 
 Communist, a Socialist, and wished to upset everything ex- 
 isting, for then the strife would at least be a very earnest 
 one."
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 261 
 
 " But could rot you be equally in earnest against those 
 revolutionary gentlemen ? " 
 
 " Are you and your leaders in earnest against them ? 
 They don't appear to me so." 
 
 Thetford was silent for a minute. " Well, if you doubt 
 the principles of my side, go with the other side. For my 
 part, I and many of our party would be glad to see the 
 Conservatives stronger." 
 
 " I have no doubt they would. No sensible man likes 
 to be carried off his legs by the rush of the crowd behind 
 him ; and a crowd is less headlong when it sees a strong 
 force arrayed against it in front. But it seems to me that, 
 at present^ Conservatism can but be what it now is — a party 
 that may combine for resistance, and will not combine for 
 inventive construction. We are living in an age in which 
 the process of unsettlement is going blindly at work, as if 
 impelled by a Nemesis as blind as itself. New ideas come 
 beating in surf and surge against those Avhich former rea- 
 soners had considered as fixed banks and breakwaters ; and 
 the new ideas are so mutable, so fickle, that those which 
 were considered novel ten years ago are deemed obsolete 
 to-day, and the new ones of to-day will in their turn be ob- 
 solete to-morrow. And, in a sort of fatalism, you see states- 
 men yielding way to these successive mockeries of experi- 
 ment — for they are experiments against experience — and 
 saying to each otlier with a shrug of the shoulders, ' Bis- 
 millah, it must be so ; the country will have it, even though 
 it sends the country to the dogs.' I don't feel sure that the 
 country will not go there the sooner, if you can only 
 strengthen the Conservative element enough to set it up in 
 office, with the certainty of knocking it down again. Alas ! 
 I am too dispassionate a looker-on to be fit for a partisan ; 
 would I were not. Address yourself to my cousin Gor- 
 don." 
 
 "Ay, Chillingly Gordon is a coming man, and has all 
 the earnestness you find absent in party and in yourself." 
 
 " You call him earnest ? 
 
 "Thoroughly, in the pursuit of one object — the advance- 
 ment of Chillingly Gordon. If he gets into the House of 
 Commons, and succeed there, I hope he will never become 
 my leader ; for if he thought Christianity in the way of his 
 promotion, he would bring in a bill for its abolition." 
 
 " In that case would he still be your leader ? " 
 
 "My dear Kenelm, you don't know what is the spirit of
 
 262 KENELM CIIILLLVGLY. 
 
 party, and how easily it makes excuses for any act of its 
 leader. Of course, if Gordon brouglit in a bill for the aboli- 
 tion of Christianity, it would be on the plea that the aboli- 
 tion was good for the Christians, and his followers would 
 cheer that enlightened sentiment." 
 
 "Ah," said Kenelm, with a sigh, " I own myself the dull- 
 est of blockheads; for instead of tempting me into the field 
 of party politics, your talk leaves me in stolid amaze that 
 you do not take to your heels, where honor can only be 
 saved by flight." 
 
 " Pooh ! my dear Chillingly, we cannot run away from 
 the age in which we live — we must accept its conditions and 
 make the best of them ; and if the tlouse of Commons be 
 nothing else, it is a famous debating society and a capital 
 club. Think over it. I must leave you now. I am going 
 to see a picture at the Exhibition which has been most trucu- 
 lently criticised in 'The Londoner,' but which I am assured, 
 on good authority, is a work of remarkable merit. I can't 
 bear to see a man snarled and sneered down, no doubt by 
 jealous rivals, who have their influence in journals, so I shall 
 judge of the picture for myself. If it be really as good as I 
 am told, i shall talk about it to everybody I meet — and in 
 matters of art I fancy my word goes for something. Study 
 art, my dear Kenelm. No gentleman's education is com- 
 plete if he don't know a good picture from a bad one. 
 After the Exhibition 1 shall just have time for a canter 
 round the Paik before the debate of the session, which be- 
 gins to-night." 
 
 With a light step the young man quitted the room, hum- 
 ming an air from tlie " Figaro" as he descended the stairs. 
 Frcjui the window Kenelm watched him swinging himself 
 with careless grace into his saddle and riding briskly down 
 the street — in form and face and bearing, a very model of 
 young, high-b(jrn, high-bred manhood. "The Venetians," 
 muttered Kenelm, "decapitated Marino F'aliero fcjr conspir- 
 ing against his own order— the nobles. The Venetians 
 loved their institutions, and h;id faith in them. Is there 
 such love and such faith anion«): the KnofHsh ?" 
 
 As he thus soliloquized, he heard a shrilling sort of 
 squeak ; and a showman stationed before his window the 
 stage on which Punch satirizes the laws and moralities of 
 the world, " kills the beadle and defies the devil."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 263 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Kenelm turned from the sight of Punch and Punch's 
 friend the cur, as his servant, entering, said, "A person 
 from the country, who would not give his name, asked to 
 see him." 
 
 Thinking it might be some message from his father, 
 Kenehn ordered the stranger to be admitted, and in another 
 minute there entered a young man of handsome counte- 
 nance and powerful frame, in whom, after a surprised stare, 
 Kenelm recognized Tom Bowles. Difficult indeed would 
 have been that recognition to an unobservant beholder : 
 no trace was left of the sullen bully or the village farrier ; 
 the expression of the face was mild and intelligent — more 
 bashful than hardy ; the brute strength of the form had lost 
 its former clumsiness, the simple dress was that of a gentle- 
 man—to use an expressive idiom, the whole man was won- 
 derfully " toned down." 
 
 "I am afraid, sir, I am taking a liberty," said Tom, 
 rather nervously, twidd.ing his hat between his fingers. 
 
 " I should be a greater friend to liberty than I am if it 
 were always taken in the same way," said Kenelm, with a 
 touch of his saturnine humor ; but then, yielding at once to 
 the warmer impulse of his nature, he grasped his old antago- 
 nist's hand and exclaimed, " My dear Tom, you are so wel- 
 come. I am so glad to see you. Sit down, man — sit down ; 
 make yourself at home." 
 
 " I did not know you were back in England, sir, till with- 
 in the last few days ; for you did say that when you came 
 back I should see or hear from you," and there was a tone of 
 reproach in the last words. 
 
 " I am to blame : forgive me," said Kenelm, remorsefully. 
 " But how did you find me out ? you did not then, I think, 
 even know my name. That, however, it was easy enough 
 to discover ; but who gave vou my address in this lodging ? " 
 
 " Well, sir, it was Miss Travers ; and she bade me come 
 to you. Otherwise, as you did not send for me, it was 
 scarcely my place to call uninvited." 
 
 "But, my dear Tom, I never dreamed that you were in 
 London One don't ask a man whom one supposes to be
 
 264 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 more than a hundred miles off to pay one an afternoon call. 
 You are still with your uncle, I presume ? And I need not 
 ask if all thrives well with you — you look a prosperous man, 
 every inch of you, from crown to toe." 
 
 " Yes," said Tom ; " thank you kindly, sir, I am doing 
 well in the way of business, and my uncle is to give me up 
 the whole concern at Christmas." 
 
 While Tom thus spoke, Kenelm had summoned his ser- 
 vant, and ordered up such refreshments as could be found 
 in the larder of a bachelor in lodgings. "And what brings 
 you to town, Tom." 
 
 " Miss Travers wrote to me about a little business which 
 she was good enough to manage for me, and said you 
 wished to know about it ; and so, after turning it over in 
 my mind for a few days, I resolved to come to town : 
 "indeed," added Tom, heartily, " I did wish to see your face 
 again." 
 
 " But you talk riddles. What business of yours could 
 Miss Travers imagine I wished to know about ? " 
 
 Tom colored high, and looked very embarrassed. 
 Luckily, the servant here entering with the refreshmcnt- 
 tray allowed him time to recover himself. Kenelm helped 
 him to a liberal slice of cold pigeon-pie, pressed wine on 
 him, and did not renew the subject till he thouglit his 
 guest's tongue was likely to be more freely set loose ; then 
 he said, laying a friendly hand on Tom's shoulder, "I have 
 been thinking over what passed between me and Miss 
 Travers. I wished to have the new address of Will Somers ; 
 she promised to write to his benefactor to ask permission to 
 give it. You are that benefactor ? " 
 
 " Don't say benefactor, sir. I will tell you how it came 
 about, if you will let me. You see, I sold my little place 
 at Graveleigh to the new Squire, and when mother removed 
 to Luscombe to be near me, she told me how poor Jessie 
 had been annoyed by Captain Stavers, who seems to think 
 his purchase included the young woman on the property 
 along with the standing timber ; and I was half afraid that 
 she had given some cause for liis persecution, for you know 
 she has a blink of those soft eyes of hers that might charm 
 a wise man out of his skin, and put a fool there instead." 
 
 " But I hope she has done with those blinks since her 
 marriage." 
 
 "Well, and I honestly think she has. It is certain slie 
 did not encourage Captain Stavers, for I went over to
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 265 
 
 Graveleigh myself on the sly, and lodged concealed with 
 one of the cottagers who owed me a kindness ; and one day, 
 as I was at watch, I saw the Captain peering over the stile 
 which divides Holmwood from the glebe— you remember 
 Holmwood ? " 
 
 "I can't say I do." 
 
 " The footway from the village to Squire Travers's goes 
 through the wood which is a few hundred yards at the back 
 of Will Somers's orchard. Presently the Captain drew him- 
 self suddenly back from the stile, and disappeared among 
 the trees, and then I saw Jessie coming from the orcliard 
 with a basket over her arm, and walking quick towards the 
 wood. Then, sir, my heart sank. I felt sure she was going 
 to meet the Captain. However, I cr:pt along the hedge- 
 row, hiding myself, and got into the wood almost as soon as 
 Jessie got there, by another way. Under the cover of the 
 brusluvood I stole on till I saw the Captain come out from 
 the copse on the other side of the path and plant himself 
 just before Jessie. Then I saw at once I had wronged her. 
 She had not expected to see him, for she hastily turned 
 back, and began to run homeward ; but he caught her up, 
 and seized her by the arm. I could not hear what he said, 
 but I heard her voice quite sharp with fright and anger. 
 And then he suddenly seized her round the waist, and she 
 screamed, and I sprang forward " 
 
 " And thrashed the Captain ?" 
 
 "No, I did not," said Tom ; I had made a vow to myself 
 that I never would be violent again if I could help it. So I 
 took him with one hand by the cuff of the neck, and with 
 the other by the waistband, and just pitched him on a 
 bramble-bush— quite mildly. He soon picked himself up, 
 for he is a dapper little chap, and became very blustering 
 *and abusive. But I kept my temper, and said, civilly, 
 ' Little gentleman, hard w^ords break no bones ; but if ever 
 you molest Mrs. Somers again, I will carry you into her or- 
 chard, souse you into the duck-pond there, and call all the 
 villagers to see you scramble out of it again ; and I will do 
 it now if you are not off. I daresay you have heard of my 
 name— I am Tom Bowles.' Upon that, his face, Avhich was 
 before very red, grew very white, and muttering something 
 I did not hear, he walked away. 
 
 "Jessie — I mean Mrs. Somers — seemed at first as much 
 frightened at me as she had been at the Captain ; and 
 thouo-h I offered to walk with her to Miss Travers's, where 
 
 'S3' 
 
 12
 
 266 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 slie was going with a basket which the young lady had 
 ordered, she refused, and went back home. I felt hurt, and 
 returned to my uncle's the same evening ; and it was not 
 for months that I lieard the Captain had been spiteful 
 enough to set up an opposition shop, and that poor Will 
 had been taken ill, and his wife was confined about the 
 same time, and the talk was that they were in distress, and 
 might have to be sold up. 
 
 " When I heard all this, I thought that after all it was 
 my rough tongue that had so angered the Captain and been 
 the cause of his spite, and so it was my duty to make it up 
 to poor Will and his wife. I did not know how to set 
 about mending matters, but I thought I'd go and talk to 
 Miss Travers ; and if ever there was a kind heart in a girl's 
 breast hers is one." 
 
 *• You are right tliere,! guess. What did Miss Travers say? " 
 
 "Nay ; I hardly know what she did say, but she set'me 
 thinking, and it struck me tliat Jessie—Mrs. Somers— had 
 better move to a distance, and out of the Captain's reach, 
 and that Will would do better in a less out-of the way 
 place. And then, by good luck, I read in the newspapeV 
 that a stationery and fancy-work lausiness, with a circulating 
 library, was to be sold on moderate terms at Moleswich, the 
 other side of London. So I took the train and went to the 
 place, and thought the sliop would just suit these young 
 folks, and not be too mucli work for either ; then I went to 
 Miss Travers, and I had a lot of money lying by me from 
 the sale of the old forge and premises, which I did not know 
 what to do with ; and so, to cut short a long story, I bought 
 the business, and Will and his wife are settled at Moleswich, 
 thriving and happy, I hope, sir." 
 
 Tom's voice quivered at the last words, and he turned 
 aside quickly, passing his hands over his eyes. 
 
 Kenclin was gi'eatly moved. 
 
 "And they dcjn't know what you did for them ?" 
 
 " To be sure not. I don't tliink Will would have let him- 
 self be beholden to me. Ah ! the lad has a spirit of his own, 
 and Jessie — Mrs. Somers -would have felt pained and hum- 
 bled that I should even think of such a thing. Miss Travers 
 managed it all. They take the money as a loan which is to 
 be paid by installments. They have sent Miss Travers more 
 than one installment already, so I know they are doing 
 well." 
 
 " A loan from Miss Travers ? "
 
 KENELM CIIILIJNGLY. 267 
 
 *' No ; Miss Travers wanted to have a share in it, but I 
 begged her not. It made me happy to do what I did all my- 
 self ; and Miss Travers felt for me and did not press. They 
 perhaps think it is Squire Travers (though he is not a man 
 who would like to say it, for fear it should bring applicants 
 on him), or some other gentleman who takes an interest in 
 them." 
 
 " I always said you were a grand fellow, Tom. But you 
 are grander still than I thought you." 
 
 " If there be any good in me, I owe it to you, sir. Think 
 what a drunken, violent brute I was when I first met you. 
 Those walks with you, and I may say that other gentleman's 
 talk, and then that long kind letter I had from you, not signed 
 in your name, and written from abroad — all these changed 
 me, as the child is changed at nurse." 
 
 " You have evidently read a good deal since we parted." 
 
 " Yes ; I belong to our young men's library and institute ; 
 and when of an evening I get hold of a book, especially a 
 pleasant story-book, I don't care for other company." 
 
 " Have you never seen any other girl you could care for 
 and wish to marry ?". 
 
 " Ah, sir," answered Tom, " a man does not go so mad 
 for a girl as I did for Jessie Wiles, and when it is all over, 
 and he has come to his senses, put his heart into joint again 
 as easily as if it were onlv a broken leg. I don't say that I 
 may not live to love and to marry another woman — it is my 
 wish to do so. But I know that I shall love Jessie to my 
 dying day ; but not sinfully, sir — not sinfully. I would not 
 wrung her by a thought." 
 
 There was a long pause. 
 
 At last Kenelm said, " You promised to be kind to that 
 little girl witli the flower-ball ; wliat has become of her ?" 
 
 " She is quite well, thank you, sir. My aunt has taken a 
 great fancy to her, and so has my motlicr. Slie comes tc 
 them very often of an evening, and brings her work witli 
 her. A quick, intelligent little thing, and full of pretty 
 thoughts. On Sundays, if the weather is fine, we stroll out 
 together in the fields." 
 
 " She has been a comfort to you, Tom." 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 "And' loves you ?" 
 
 " I am sure she does ; an affectionate, grateful child. 
 
 " She will be a woman soon, Tom, and may love you as 
 a woman tlien."
 
 268 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Tom looked indignant and rather scornful at that sug- 
 gestion, and hastened to revert to the subject more imme- 
 diately at his heart. 
 
 " Miss Travers said you would like to call on Will Somers 
 and his wife ; will you ? Moleswich is not far from London, 
 you know." 
 
 "Certainly I will call." 
 
 "I do hope you will find them happy; and if so, per- 
 haps you will kindly let me know ; and— and— I wonder 
 wliether Jessie's child is like her? It is a boy — somehow 
 or other I would rather it had been a girl." 
 
 "I will WTite you full particulars. But why not come 
 with me ? " 
 
 "No, I don't think I could do that, just at present. It 
 unsettled me sadly when I did again see her sweet face at 
 Graveleigh, and she was still afraid of me too! — that was a 
 sharp pang." 
 
 " She ought to know what you have done for her, and 
 will." 
 
 "On no account, sir; promise me that. I should feel 
 mean if I humbled them — that ^^•ay." 
 
 " I understand ; though I will not as yet make you any 
 positive promise. Meanwhile, if you are staying in town, 
 lodge with nie ; my landlady can find you a room." 
 
 " Thank you heartily, sir ; but I go back by the evening 
 train ; and, bless me ! how late it is now ! I must wish you 
 good-bye. I have some commissions to do for my aunt, and 
 1 must buy a nev\^ doll for Susey." 
 
 " Susey is the name of the little girl with the flower-ball ? " 
 
 "Yes. I must run off now ; I feel quite light at heart 
 seeing you again and finding that you receive me still as 
 kindly, as if we were equals." 
 
 "Ah, Tom, I wish I was your equal — nay, half as noble 
 as heaven has made you ! " 
 
 Tom laughed incredulously, and went his way. 
 
 "This mischievous passion of love," saidKenelm to him- 
 self, " has its good side, it seems, after all. If it was nearly 
 making a wild beast of that brave fellow— nay, worse than 
 wild beast, a homicide doomed to the gibbet — so, on the other 
 hand, what a refined, delicate, chivalrous nature of gentle- 
 man it has developed out of the stormy elements of its first 
 madness ! Yes, I will go and look at this new-married couple. 
 I daresay they are already snarling and spitting at each other 
 like cat and dog. Moleswich is within reach of a walk."
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Two days after the interview recorded in the last chapter 
 of the previous Book, Travers, chancing to call at Kenelm's 
 lodgings, was told by his servant that Mr. Chillingly had 
 left London, alone, and had given no orders as to forward- 
 ing letters. The servant did not know where he had gone, 
 or when he would return. 
 
 Travers repeated this news incidentally to Cecilia, and 
 she felt somewhat hurt that he had not written her a line 
 respecting Tom's visit. She, however, guessed that he had 
 gone to see the Somerses, and would return to town in a 
 day or so. But weeks passed, the season drew to its close, 
 and of Kenehn Chillingly she saw or heard nothing : he 
 had wholly vanished from the London world. He had but 
 written a line to his servant, ordering him to repair to Ex- 
 mundham and await him there, and inclosing him a cheque 
 to pay outstanding bills. 
 
 We must now follow the devious steps of the strange be- 
 ing w^ho has grown into the hero of this story. He had left 
 his apartment at daybreak long before his servant was up, 
 with his knapsack, and a small portmanteau, into which he 
 had thrust — besides such additional articles of dress as he 
 thought he might possibly require, and which his knapsack 
 could not contain — a few of his favorite books. Driving 
 with these in a hack-cab to the Vauxhall station, he directed 
 the portmanteau to be forwarded to Moleswich, and, fling- 
 ing the knapsack on his shoulders, walked slowly along the 
 drowsy suburbs that stretched far into the landscape, be- 
 fore, breathing more freely, he found some evidences of 
 rural culture on either side of the high-road. It was not, 
 however, till he had left the roofs and trees of pleasant 
 Richmond far behind him that he began to feel he was out 
 of reach of the metropolitan disquieting influences. Finding 
 at a little inn, where he stopped to breakfast, that there was
 
 270 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 a path along fields, and in sight of the river, tTiroiigh which 
 he could gain the place of his destination, he then quitted 
 tlie high-road, and, traversing one of the loveliest districts 
 in one of our loveliest counties, he reached Moleswich 
 about noon. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On entering the main street of the pretty town, the 
 name of Somers, in gilt capitals, was sufficiently conspicu- 
 ous over the door of a very imposing shop. It boasted two 
 plate-glass windows, atone of which were tastefully exhibited 
 various articles of fine stationery, embroidery patterns, etc. ; 
 at the otlier, no less tastefully, simdry specimens of orna- 
 mental basket-work, 
 
 Kenelm crossed the threshold and recognized behind the 
 counter — fair as ever, but with an expression of face more 
 staid, and a figure more rounded and matron-like — his old 
 friend Jessie. There were two or three customers before 
 her, between whom she was dividing her attention. While 
 a handsome young lady, seated, was saying, in a somewhat 
 loud, but cheeiy and pleasant voice, ''Do not mind me, Mrs. 
 Somers — I can w^ait," Jessie's quick eye darted towards the 
 stranger, but too rapidly to distinguish his features, which, 
 indeed, he turned away, and began to examine the baskets. 
 
 In a minute or so the other customers were served and 
 had departed. And the voice of the lady was again heard 
 — "Now, Mrs. Somers, I want to see your picture-books and 
 toys. I am giving a little children's party this afternoon, 
 and I want to make them as happy as possible." 
 
 "Somewhere or other on this planet, or before my Mo- 
 nad was whisked away to it, I have heard that voice," mut- 
 tered Kenelm. While Jessie was alertly bringing forth her 
 toys and picture-books, she said, " I am sorry to keep you 
 waiting, sir ; but if it is the baskets you come about, I can 
 call my husband." 
 
 " Do," said Kenelm. 
 
 "William — William," cried Mrs. Somers; and after a 
 delay long enough to allow him to slip on his jacket, William 
 Somers emerge! from the back parlor. 
 
 His face had lost its old trace of suffering and ill health ;
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 271 
 
 it was still somewhat pale, and retained its expression of 
 iniellectual refinement. 
 
 " How you have improved in your art ! " said Kenelm, 
 heartily. 
 
 William started, and recognized Kenelm at once. He 
 sprang forward and took Kenelm's outstretched hand in both 
 his own, and, in a voice between laughing and crying, ex- 
 claimed, "Jessie, Jessie, it is he! — he whom we pray for 
 every night. God bless you ! — God bless and make you 
 as happy as He permitted you to make me." 
 
 Before this little speech was faltered out, Jessie was by 
 her husband's side, and she added in a lower voice, but 
 tremulous with deep feeling, "And me too ! " 
 
 " By your leave. Will," said Kenelm, and he saluted Jes- 
 sie's white forehead with a kiss that could not have been 
 kindlier or colder if it had been her grandfather's. 
 
 Meanwhile the lady had risen noiselessly and unobserved, 
 and, stealing u]d to Kenelm, looked him full in the face. 
 
 "You have another friend here, sir, who has also some 
 cause to thank you " 
 
 " I thought I remembered your voice," said Kenelm, 
 looking puzzled. " But pardon me if I cannot recall your 
 features. Where have we met before ? " 
 
 " Give me your arm when we go out, and I will bring 
 myself to your recollection. But no : I must not hurry 
 you away now. I will call again in half an hour. Mrs. 
 Somers, meanwhile put up the things I have selected. I 
 Avill take them away with me when I come back from the 
 vicarage, where I have left the pony-carriage." So, with a 
 parting nod and smile to Kenelm, she turned away, and 
 left him bewildered. 
 
 " But who is that lady, Will ?" 
 
 "A Mrs. Braefield. She is a new-comer." 
 
 " She may well be that, Will," said Jessie, smiling, " for 
 she has only been married six months." 
 
 " And what was her name before she m^arried ?" 
 
 " I am sure I don't know, sir. It is only three months 
 since we came here, and she has been very kind to us, and an 
 excellent customer. Everybody likes her. Mr. Braefield is 
 a city gentleman, and very rich ; and they live in the finest 
 house in the place, and see a great deal of company." 
 
 " Well, I am no wiser than I was before," said Kenelm. 
 " People who ask questions very seldom are." 
 
 " And how did you find us out, sir ?" said Jessie. " Oh !
 
 272 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 I guess," she added, with an arch glance and smile. "Of 
 course, you have seen Miss Travers, and she told you." 
 
 " You are right. I first 1 :arned your change of residence 
 from her, and thought I would c^me and see you, and be 
 introduced to the br.by — a boy, I understand ? Like you, 
 Will ? " 
 
 " No, sir — the picture of Jessie." 
 
 "Nonsense, Will; it is you all over, even to its little 
 hands." 
 
 " And your good mother, Will, how did you leave her? " 
 
 "Oh, sir 1 " cried Jessie, reproachfully ; do you think we 
 could have the heart to leave mother — so lone and rheumatic 
 too? She is tending baby now — always does while I am in 
 the shop." 
 
 Here Kenelm followed the young couple into the parlor, 
 where, seate'l by the window, they found old Mrs. Somers 
 reading the Bible and rocking the baby, who slept peace- 
 fully in its cradle. 
 
 "Will,' said Kenelm, bending his dark face over the infant, 
 "1 will tell you a pretty thought of a foreign poet's, which 
 has been thus badly translated : 
 
 •' ' Blest babe, a boundless world this bed so narrow seems to thee ; 
 
 Grow man, and narrower than this bed the boundless world shall be.'" * 
 
 *' I don't think that is true, sir," said Wdl, simply ; "for 
 a happy home is a world wide eiiougb. for any man." 
 
 Tears started into Jessie's eyes ; she bent down and kissed 
 — not the baby — but tJie cradle. "Will made it." She 
 added, blushing, "I mean the cradle, sir." 
 
 Time Hew past while Kenelm talked with Will and the old 
 mother, for Jessie was soon summoned back to the shop ; and 
 Kenelm was startled when he found the half-hour's grace 
 allowed to him was over, and Jessie put her head in at the 
 door and said, " Mrs. Braefield is waiting for you." 
 
 " Good-bye, Will ; I shall come and see you again soon ; 
 and my mother gives me a commission to buy I don't know 
 how many specimens of your craft." 
 
 ♦ Schiller.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. i^i 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SMART pony-phaeton, with a box for a driver in livery 
 equally smart, stood at the shop-door. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Chillingly," said Mrs. Braefield, " it is my 
 turn o run away with you ; get in ! " 
 
 "Eh!" murmured Kenelm, gazing at her with large 
 dreamy eyes. "Is it possible ? " 
 
 " Quite possible ; get in. Coachman, home ! Yes, Mr. 
 Chillingy, you meet again that giddy creature wh^m you 
 threatened to thrash ; it would Iiave served her right. I 
 ougli!: to feel so ashamed to recall myself to your recollection, 
 and yet I am not a bit ashamed, I am proud to show you 
 that I have turned out a steady, respectable woman, and, my 
 husband tells me, a good wife." 
 
 *' You have only been six months married, I hear," sr.id 
 Kenelm, dryly. " I hope your husband will say the same six 
 years hence." 
 
 "H? will say the same sixty years hence, if we live as 
 long." . 
 
 *' How old is he now }" 
 
 " Thirty-eight." 
 
 " When a man wants only two years of his hundredth, h6 
 probably has learned to know his own mind ; but then, in 
 most cases, very little mind is left to him to know." 
 
 " Don't be satirical, sir ; and don't talk as if you were rail- 
 ing at marriage, when you have just left as happy a young 
 couple as the sun ever shone upon, and owing — for Mrs. 
 Somers has told me all about her marriage — owing their 
 happiness to you." 
 
 " Their happiness to me ! not in the least. I helped them 
 to marry, and, in spite of marriage, they helped each other 
 to be happy." 
 
 " Vou are still unmarried yourself ? " 
 
 " Yes, thank Heaven ! " 
 
 " And are you happy ? " 
 
 "No ; I can't make myself happy — myself is a disconten- 
 ted brute." 
 
 " Then why do you say thank ' Heaven' ? " *
 
 274 KRNELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Because it is a comfort to think I am not making some- 
 body else unhappy." 
 
 " Do you believe that if you loved a wife who loved you, 
 you should make her unhappy ?" 
 
 " I am sure I don't know ; but I have not seen a woman 
 Avhom I could love as a wife. And we need not push our 
 inquiries further. What has become of that ill-treated gray 
 cob?" 
 
 " He was quite well, thank you, Avhen I last heard of him." 
 
 "And the uncle who would have ii Hicted me upon you, 
 if yo '. had not so gallantly defended yourself ? " 
 
 'He is living where he did live, and has married his 
 housekeeper. He felt a delicate scruple against taking that 
 s'ep till I was married myself, and out of the way." 
 
 Here Mrs. Braefield, beginning to speak very hurriedly, 
 as women who seek to disguise emotion often do, informed 
 Kenelm how unhappy she had felt for weeks after having 
 for id an asylum with her aunt — how she had been stung by re- 
 morse c.nd oppressed by a sense of humiliation at the thought 
 of herf( lly and the odious recollection of Mr. Compton — how 
 .he had declared to herself that she would never marry any 
 one now — never ! How Mr. Braefield happened to be on a 
 visit in the neighborhood, and saw her at church — how he 
 had sought an introduction to her — and how at first she 
 rather disi.ked him than not ; but he was so good and so kind, 
 and when at last he proposed — and she had frankly told him 
 all ;.bout her girlish flight and infatuation- — how generously 
 he had thanked her for a candor which had placed her as 
 high in his esteem as she had been before in his love. "And 
 from that moment," said Mrs. Braefield, passionately, "my 
 whole heart leapt to him. And now you know all. And 
 here we are at the Lodge." 
 
 The pony-phaeton went with great speed up a broad 
 gravel drive, bordered with rare evergreens, and stopped at 
 a handsome house with a portico in front, and a long con- 
 servatory at the garden side — one of those houses which 
 belong to "city gentlemen," and often contain more comfort 
 and exhibit more luxury tlian many a stately manorial man- 
 sion. 
 
 Mrs. Braefield evidently felt some pride as she led Ken- 
 elm through the hands(jme hall, paved with Malvern tiles 
 and adorned with vScagliola columns, and into a drawing- 
 room furnished with much taste, and opening on a spacious 
 flower-garden.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 275 
 
 " But where is Mr. Braefield ? " said Kenelm. 
 
 " Oh, he has taken the rail to his office ; but he will be 
 back long before dinner, and of course you dine with us." 
 
 " You are very hospitable, but " 
 
 "No buts ; I will take no excuse. Don't fear that you 
 shall have only mutton-chops and a rice-pudding- ; and, 
 .besides, I have a children's party coming at two o'clock, and 
 there will be all sorts of fun. You are fond of children, I 
 am sure ?" 
 
 " I rather think I am not. But I have never clearly as- 
 certained my own inclinations upon that subject." 
 
 " Well, you shall have ample opportunity to do so to-day. 
 And oh ! 1 promise you the sight of the loveliest face that 
 you can picture to yourself when you think of your future 
 wife." 
 
 " My future wife, I hope, is not yet born," said Kenelm, 
 wearily, and with much effort suppressing a yawn. " But, 
 at all events, I will stay till after two o'clock ; for two 
 o'clock, I presume, means luncheon." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield laughed. — "You retain vour appetite ?" 
 
 " Most single men do, provided they don't fall in love 
 and become doubled up." 
 
 At this abominable attempt at a pun, Mrs. Braefield dis- 
 dained to laugh ; but, turning away from its perpetrator, 
 she took off her hat and gloves and passed her hands light- 
 ly over her forehead, as if to smooth back some vagrant 
 tress in locks already sufficiently sheen and trim. She was 
 not quite so pretty in female attire as she had appeared in 
 boy's dress, nor did she look quite as young. In all other 
 respects she was wonderfully improved. There was a se- 
 rener, a more settled intelligence in her frank bright eyes, a 
 milder expression in the play of her parted lips. Kenelm 
 gazed at her with pleased admiration. And as now, turning 
 from the glass, she encountered his look, a deeper color came 
 into the clear delicacy of her cheeks, and the frank eyes 
 moistened. She came up to him as he sat, and took his 
 hand in both hers, pressing it warmly. "Ah, Mr. Chilling- 
 ly," she said, with impulsive tremulous tones, "look round, 
 look round this happy peaceful home ! — the life so free 
 from a care, the husband whom I so love and honor ; all 
 the blessings that I might have so recklessly lost forever 
 had I not met with you, had I been punished as I deserved. 
 How often I thought of your words, that 'you would be 
 proud of my friendship when we met again ' ! What
 
 276 K'EiVELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 strength they gave me in my hours of humbled self-re- 
 proach !" Her voice here died away as if in the effort to 
 suppress a sob. 
 
 She released his hand, and, before he could answer, 
 passed quickly through the open sash into the garden. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The children have come, — some thirty of them, pretty 
 as English children generally are, happy in the joy of the 
 summer sunshine, and the flower lawns, and the feast under 
 cover of an awning suspended between chestnut-trees, and 
 carpeted with sward. 
 
 No doubt Kenelm held his own at the banquet, and 
 did his best to increase the general gayety, for whenever he 
 spoke the children listened eagerly, and when he had done 
 they laughed mirthfully. 
 
 "The fair face I promised you," whispered Mrs. Brae- 
 field, " is not here yet. I have a little note from the young 
 lady to say that Mrs. Cameron does not feel very well this 
 morning, but hopes to recover sufficiently to come later in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 "And pray who is Mrs. Cameron ? " 
 
 " Ah ! I forgot that you are a stranger to the place. 
 Mrs. Cameron is the aunt with whom Lily resides. Is it 
 not a pretty name, Lily ? " 
 
 " Very ! emblematic of a spinster that docs not spin, 
 witli a white head and a thin stalk." 
 
 " Then the name belies my Lily, as you \\\\\ see." 
 
 The children now finished their feast, and bctooK 
 themselves to dancing in an alley smoothed for a croquet- 
 ground, and to the sound of a violin played by the old 
 grandfather of one of the party. While Mrs. Braefield was 
 busying herself with forming the dance, Kenelm seized the 
 occasion to escape from a young nymph of the age of 
 twelve who had sat next him at the banquet, and taken so 
 great a fancy to him that he began to fear she would vow 
 never to forsake his side, and stole away undetected. 
 
 There arc times when the mirth of others only saddens 
 us, especially the mirtli of children with high spirits, that 
 jar on our own quiet mood. Gliding through a dense
 
 KEh'ELM CHILLINGLY. 277 
 
 shrubbery, in which, though the lilacs were faded, the labur- 
 num still retained here and there the waning gold of its 
 clusters, Kenelm came into a recess which bounded his 
 steps and invited him to repose. It was a circle, so formed 
 artificially by slight trellises, to which clung parasite roses 
 heavy with leaves and flowers. In the midst played a tiny 
 fountain with a silvery murmuring sound ; at the back- 
 ground, dominating the place, rose the crests of stately 
 trees on which the sunlight shimmered, but which rampired 
 out all horizon beyond. Even as in life do the great dom- 
 inant passions — love, ambition, desire of power, or gold, or 
 fame, or knowledge— form the proud background to the 
 brief-lived flowerets of our youth, lift our eyes beyond the 
 smile of their bloom, catch the glint of a loftier sunbeam, 
 and yet, and yet, exclude our sight from the lengths and 
 the widths of the space which extends behind and beyond 
 them. 
 
 Kenelm threw himself on the turf beside the fountain. 
 From afar came the whoop and the laugh of the children in 
 their sports or their dance. At the distance their joy did 
 not sadden him — he marvelled why ; and thus, in musing 
 reverie, thought to explain the why to himself. 
 
 " The poet," so ran his lazy thinking, " has told us that 
 'distance lends enchantment to the view,' and thus com- 
 pares to the charm of distance the illusion of hope. But 
 the poet narrows the scope of liis own illustration. Dis- 
 tance lends enchantment to the ear as well as to the sight ; 
 nor to these bodily senses alone. Memory no less than 
 hope owes its charm to ' the far away.' 
 
 " I cannot imagine myself again a child when I am in 
 the midst of yon noisy children. But as their noise reaches 
 me here, subdued and mellowed, and knowing, thank 
 Heaven ! that the urchins are not within reach of me, I 
 could readilv dream myself back into childhood, and into 
 sympathy witli the lost play fields of school. 
 
 " So surely it must be with grief ; how different the ter- 
 rible agony for a beloved one just gone from earth, to the 
 soft regret for one who disappeared into heaven years ago ! 
 So with the art of poetry : how imperatively, when it deals 
 with the great emotions of tragedy, it must remove the 
 actors from us, in proportion as the emotions are to elevate, 
 and the tragedy is to please us by the tears it draws ! Im- 
 agine our shock if a poet were to place on the stage some 
 wise gentleman with whom we dined yesterday, and who
 
 278 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 was discovered to have killed his father and married his 
 mother. But when Qidipus commits those unhappy mis- 
 takes nobody is shocked. Oxford in the nineteenth century 
 is a long way off from Thebes three thousand or four thou- 
 sand years ago. 
 
 " And," continued Kenclm, plunging deeper into the 
 maze of metaphysical criticism, "even where the poet deals 
 with persons and things close upon our daily sight— if he 
 would give them poetic charm he must resort to a sort of 
 moral or psychological distance ; the nearer they are to us 
 in external circumstance, the farther they must be in some 
 internal peculiarities. Werter and Clarissa Harlowe are 
 described as contemporaries of their artistic creation, and 
 with tlie minutest details of an apparent realism ; yet they 
 are at once removed from our daily lives by their idiosyn- 
 crasies and their fates. We know that while Werter and 
 Clarissa are so near to us in much that we sympathize with 
 them as friends and kinsfolk, they are yet as much remote 
 from us in the poetic and idealized side of their natures as 
 if they belonged to the age of Homer ; and this it is that 
 invests with charm the very pain which their fate inflicts 
 on us. Thus, I suppose, it must be in love. If the love we 
 feel is to have the glamour of poetry, it must be love for 
 some one morally at a distance from our ordinary habitual 
 selves ; in short, differing from us in attributes which, how- 
 ever near we draw to the possessor, we can never approach, 
 never blend, in attributes of our own ; so that there is some- 
 thing in the loved one that alwavs remains an ideal — a mys- 
 tery — ' a sun-bright summit mingling with the sky ! ' " 
 
 Herewith the soliloquist's musings slided vaguely into 
 mere reverie. He closed his eyes drowsily, not asleep nor 
 yet quite awake : as sometimes, in bright summer days, when 
 we recline on the grass we do close our eyes, and yet dimly 
 recognize a golden light bathing the drowsy lids ; and 
 athwart that light images come and go like dreams, though 
 we know that we are not dreaming
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 279 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 From this state, half comatose, half unconscious, Kenelm 
 was roused slowly, reluctantly. Something struck softly on 
 his cheek — again a little less softly ; he opened his eyes — 
 they fell first upon two tiny rosebuds, which, on striking his 
 face, had fallen on his breast ; and then, looking up, he saw 
 before him, in an opening of the trellised circle, a female 
 child's laughing face. Her hand was still uplifted charged 
 with another rosebud, but behind the child's figure, looking 
 over her shoulder and holding back the menacing arm, was 
 a face as innocent but lovelier far — the face of a girl in her 
 first youth, framed round with the blossoms that festooned 
 the trellis. How the face became the fiovvers ! It seemed 
 the fairy spirit of them. 
 
 Kenelm started and rose to his feet. The child, the one 
 whom he had so ungallantly escaped from, ran towards him 
 through a wicket in the circle. Her companion disap- 
 peared. 
 
 "Is it you?" said Kenelm to the child — "you who 
 pelted me so cruelly ? Ungrateful creature ! E)id I not 
 give you the best strawberries in the dish and all my own 
 cream ? " 
 
 " But why did you run awav and hide yourself when you 
 ought to be dancing with me?" replied the young ladv, 
 evading, with the instinct of her sex, all answer to the re- 
 proach she had deserved. 
 
 " I did not run away, and it is clear that I did not mean 
 to hide myself, since you so easily found me out. But how 
 was the young lady with you ? I suspect she pelted me too, 
 for she seems to have run away to hide herself." 
 
 " No, she did not pelt you ; she wanted to stop me, and 
 you would have had another rosebud — oh, so much bigger ! 
 — if she had not held back mv arm. Don't you know her — 
 don't you know Lily ? " 
 
 " No ; so that is Lily ? You shall introduce me to her." 
 
 By this time they had passed out of the circle through 
 the little wicket opposite the patii by which Kenelm had 
 entered, and opening at once on the lawn. Here at some 
 distance the children were grouped, some reclined on the 
 grass, some walking to and fro, in the interval of the dance.
 
 2So KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 In the space between the group and tlic trellis, Lily was 
 walking- ahjue and quickly. The child left Kenehn's side 
 and ran after her friend, soon overtook, but did not succeed 
 in arresting her steps. Lily did not pause till she had 
 reached the grassy ballroom, and here all the children came 
 round her and shut out her delicate form from Kenelm's 
 sight. 
 
 Before he had reached the place, Mrs. Braefield met 
 him. 
 
 " Lily is come ! " 
 
 " I know it — I have seen her." 
 
 " Is not she beautiful ? " 
 
 " I must see more of her if I am to answer critically ; 
 but before you introduce me, may I be permitted to ask 
 who and what is Lily ? " 
 
 Mrs. Braefield paused a moment before she answered, 
 and yet tiie answer was brief enough not to need much con- 
 sideration. " She is a Miss Mordaunt, an orphan ; and, as I 
 before told you, resides with her aunt, Mrs. Cameron, a 
 widow. They have the prettiest cottage ycni ever saw, on 
 the banks of the river, or rather rivulet, about a mile from 
 this place. Mrs. Cameron is a very good, simple-hearted 
 woman. As to Lily, I can praise her beauty only with safe 
 conscience, for as yet she is a mere child — her mind quite 
 unformed." 
 
 " J3id you ever meet any man, much less any woman, 
 whose mind was formed ?" muttered Kcnelm. " I am sure 
 mine is not, and never will be on this earth." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield did not hear this low-voiced observation. 
 Slie was looking about for Lily ; and, perceiving her at last 
 as the children who surrounded her were dispersing to re- 
 new the dance, she took Kenelm's arm, led him to the young 
 lady, and a formal introduction took place. 
 
 Formal as it could be on those sunlit swards, amidst the 
 joy of summer and the laugh of children. In such scene and 
 such circumstance, formality does not last long. I know 
 not how it was, but in a very few minules Kenelm and Lily 
 had ceased to be strangers to each other. They found 
 themselves seated apart from the rest of the merry-makers, 
 on a bank shadowed by lime-trees ; the man listening with 
 downcast eyes, the girl with mobile shifting glances now on 
 earth now on heaven, and talking freely, gayly — like the 
 babble of a happy stream, with a silvery dulcet voice, and a 
 sparKle of rippling smiles.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 2S1 
 
 No doubt this is a reversal of the formalities of well-bred 
 life, and conventional narrating thereof. According to 
 them, no doubt, it is for the man to talk and the maid to 
 listen ; but I state the facts as they were, honestly. And 
 Lily knew no more of the formalities of drawing-room life 
 than a skylark fresh from its nest knows of the song-teacher 
 and the cage. She was still so much of a child. Mrs. 
 Braefield was right — her mind was still so unformed. 
 
 What she did talk about in that first talk between them 
 that could make the meditative Kenelm listen so mutely, so 
 intently, I know not, at least I could not jot it down on pa- 
 per. I fear it w%as very egotistical, as the talk of children 
 generally is — about herself and her aunt, and her home and 
 her friends — all her friends seemed children like herself, 
 though younger — Clemmy the chief of them. Clemmy was 
 the one who had taken a fancy to Kenelm. And amidst all 
 this ingenuous prattle there came flashes of a quick intellect, 
 a lively fancy — nay, even a poetry of expression or of senti- 
 ment. It might be the talk of a child, but certainly not of 
 a silly child. 
 
 But as soon as the dance was over, the little ones again 
 gathered round Lily. Evidently she was the prime favorite 
 of them all ; and as her companion had now become tired 
 of dancing, new sports were proposed, and Lily was carried 
 off to " Prisoner's Base." 
 
 " I am very happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Chil- 
 lingly," said a frank, pleasant voice ; and a well-dressed, 
 srood-lookinor man held out his hand to Kenelm. 
 
 " My husband," said Mrs. Braefield, with a certam pride 
 in her look. 
 
 Kenelm responded cordially to the civilities of the mas- 
 ter of the house, who had just returned from his city office 
 and left all its cares behind him. You had only to look at 
 him to see that he was prosperous, and deserved to be so. 
 There were in his countenance the signs of strong sense, of 
 good-humor— above all, of an active energetic temperament. 
 A man of broad smooth forehead, keen hazel eyes, firm lips 
 and jaw ; with a happy contentment in himself, his house, 
 the world in general, mantling over his genial smile and 
 outspoken in the metallic ring of his voice. 
 
 " You will stay and dine with us, of course," said Mr. 
 Braefield ; " and, unless you want very much to be in town 
 to-night, I hope you will take a bed here." 
 
 Kenelm hesitated.
 
 2S2 KEKELM CHILLINGLY, 
 
 " Do Stay at least till to-morrow," said Mrs. Braefield. 
 Kenelm hesitated still ; and while hesitating his eye rested 
 on Lily, leaning on the arm of a middle-aged lady, and ap- 
 proaching the hostess — evidently to take leave. 
 
 " I cannot resist so tempting an invitation," said Ken- 
 elm, and he fell back a little behind Lily and her com- 
 panion. 
 
 "Thank you much for so pleasant a day," said Mrs. 
 Cameron to the hostess. " Lily has enjoyed herself ex- 
 tremely. I only regret we could not come earlier." 
 
 " If you are walking home," said Mr. Braefield, " let me 
 accompany you. I want to speak to your gardener about 
 his heart's-ease — it is much finer than mine." 
 
 " If so," said Kenelm to Lily, "may I come too ? Of all 
 flowers that grow, heart's-ease is the one I most prize." 
 
 A few minutes afterwards Kenelm was walking by the 
 side of Lily along the banks of a little stream, tributary to 
 the Thames — Mrs. Cameron and Mr. Braefield in advance, 
 for the path only held two abreast. 
 
 Suddenly Lily left his side, allured by a rare butterfly — 
 I think it is called the Emperor of Morocco — that was sun- 
 ning its yellow wings upon a group of wild reeds. She suc- 
 ceeded in capturing this wanderer in her straw hat, over 
 which she drew her sun-veil. After this notable capture she 
 returned demurely to Kenelm's side. 
 
 " Do you collect insects ? " said that philosopher, as much 
 surprised as it was his nature to be at anything. 
 
 " Only butterflies," answered Lily ; " they are not in- 
 sects, you know ; they are souls." 
 
 " Emblems of souls, you mean — at least, so the Greeks 
 prettilv represented them to be." 
 
 " No, real souls — the soids of infants that die in their 
 cradles unbaptized ; and if they are taken care of, and not 
 eaten by birds, and live a year, then they pass into fairies." 
 
 "It is a very poetical idea. Miss Mordaunt, and founded 
 on evidence quite as rational as other assertions of the meta- 
 morphosis of one creature into another. Perhaps you can 
 do what the philosophers cannot — tell me how you learned 
 a new idea to be an incontestable fact ?" 
 
 " I don't know," replied Lily, looking very much puz- 
 zled ; " perhaps I learned it in a book, or perhaps I dreamed 
 it." 
 
 " You could not make a wiser answer if you were a phil- 
 osopher. But you talk of taking care of butterflies ; how
 
 KEKELM CHILLINGLY. 283 
 
 do vou do that ? Do you impale them on pins stuck into 
 a glass case ? " 
 
 " Impale them ! How can you talk so cruelly ? You de- 
 serve to be pinched by the Fairies." 
 
 "I am afraid," thought Kenelm, compassionately, "that 
 my companion has no mind to be formed ; what is euphoni- 
 ously called 'an Innocent.*" 
 
 He shook his head and remained silent. Lily resumed : 
 
 " I will show you my collection when we get home — they 
 seem so happy. I am sure there are some of them who 
 know me — they will feed from my hand. I have only had 
 one die since I began to collect them last summer." 
 
 " Then you have kept them a year ; they ought to have 
 turned into fairies." 
 
 " I suppose many of them have. Of course I let out all 
 those that liad been with me twelve months— they don't turn 
 to fairies in the cage, you know. Now I have only those I 
 caught this year, or last autumn ; the prettiest don't appear 
 till the autumn." 
 
 The girl here bent her uncovered head over the straw 
 hat, her tresses shadowing it, and uttered loving words to 
 the prisoner. Then again she looked up and around her, 
 and abruptly stopped, and exclaimed : 
 
 "How can people live in towns— how can people say 
 they are ever dull in the country ? Look," she continued, 
 gravely and earnestly— " look at that tall pine-tree, with its 
 long iDranch sweeping over the water; see how, as the 
 breeze catches it, it changes its shadow, and how the shadow 
 changes the play of the sunlight on the brook : — 
 
 ' Wave your tops, ye pines ; 
 Willi every plant, in bign of worship wave.' 
 
 What an interchange of music there must be between Nature 
 and a poet ! " 
 
 Kenelm was startled. This "an innocent" !— this a girl 
 who had no mind to be formed ! In that presence he could 
 not be cynical ; could not speak of Nature as a mechanism, 
 a lying humbug ; as he had done to the man poet. He re- 
 plied gravely : 
 
 "the Creator has gifted the whole universe with lan- 
 guage, but few are the hearts that can interpret it. Happy 
 those to whom it is no foreign tongue, acquired imperfectly 
 with care and pain, but rather a native language, learned
 
 2'=!4 KENELM CHILLIXGLY. 
 
 unconsciously from the lips of the great mother. To them 
 the butterfly's wing may well buoy into heaven a fairy's 
 soul ! " 
 
 When he had thus said, Lily turned, and for the first 
 time attentively looked into his dark soft eyes ; then in- 
 stinctively she laid her light hand on his arm, and said, in a 
 low voice, "Talk on— talk thus ; I like to hear you." 
 
 But Kenelm did not talk on. They had now arrived at 
 the garden-gate of Mrs. Cameron's cottage, and the elder 
 persons in advance paused at tlie gate and walked with tliem 
 to the house. 
 
 It was a long, low, irregular cottage, without pretension 
 to architectural beauty, yet exceedingly picturesque — a 
 flower-garden, large but in proportion to the house, with 
 parterres in which tlie colors were exquisitely assorted, slop- 
 ing to the grassy margin of the rivulet, where the stream 
 expanded into a lake-like basin, narrowed at either end by 
 locks, from which with gentle sound flowed shallow water- 
 falls. By the banks was a rustic seat, half overshadowed 
 by the dropping boughs of a vast willow. 
 
 The inside of the house was in harmony with the exterior 
 — cottage-like, but with an unmistakable air of refinement 
 about the rooms, even in tlie little entrance-hall, which was 
 painted in Pompeian frescoes. 
 
 " Come and see my butterfly-cage," said Lily, whisper- 
 ingly. 
 
 Kenelm followed her through the window that opened on 
 the garden ; and at one end of a small conservatory, or rather 
 greenhouse, was the habitation of these singular favorites. 
 It was as large as a small room ; three sides of it formed by 
 minute wirework, with occasional draperies of muslin or 
 other slight material, and covered at intervals, sometimes 
 within, sometimes without, by dainty creepers ; a tiny cistern 
 in the centre, from which upsprang a sparkling jet. Lily 
 cautiouslv lifted a sash door and glided in, closing it behind 
 her. Her entrance set in movement a multitude of gossamer 
 wings, some fluttering round her, some more boldly settling 
 on her hair or dress. Kenelm thought she had not vainly 
 boasted when she said that some of the creatures had learned 
 to know her. She relieved the Emperor of Morocco from her 
 hat ; it circled round her fearlessly, and then vanished amidst 
 the leaves of the creepers. Lily opened the door and came 
 out. 
 
 " I have heard of a philosopher who tamed a wasp," said
 
 KENELM CHlLLIi^GLY. 285 
 
 Kenelm, but never before of a young lady who tamed butter- 
 Hies." 
 
 " No," said Lily, proudly ; " I believe I am the first who 
 attempted it. I don't think I should have attempted it if I 
 had been told that others had succeeded before me. Not 
 that 1 have succeeded quite. No matter ; if they don't love 
 me, I love them." 
 
 They re-entered the drawing-room, and Mrs. Cameron 
 addressed Kenelm. 
 
 " Do you know much of this part of the country, Mr. 
 Chillingly ? " 
 
 " It is quite new to me, and more rural than many dis- 
 tricts farther from London." 
 
 " That is the good fortune of most of our home counties," 
 said Mr. Braefield ; '' they escape the smoke and din of manu- 
 facturing towns, and agricultural science has not demolished 
 their leafy hedgerows. The walks through our green lanes 
 are as much bordered with convolvulus and honeysuckle as 
 they were when Izaak Walton sauntered through them to 
 angle in that stream ! " 
 
 " Does tradition say that he angled in that stream ? I 
 thought his haunts were rather on the other side of London." 
 
 "Possibly ; I am not learned in Walton or in his art, but 
 there is an old summer-house, on the other side of the lock 
 yonder, on which is carved the name of Izaak Walton, but 
 whether by his own hand or another's who shall say ? Has 
 Mr. Melville been here lately, Mrs. Cameron? 
 
 "No, not for several months." 
 
 "He has had a glorious success this year. We may hope 
 that at last his genius is acknowledged by the world. I 
 meant to buy his picture, but I was not in. time — a Man- 
 chester man was before me." 
 
 " Who is Mr. Melville ? any relation to you ? " whispered 
 Kenelm to Lil)^ 
 
 "Relation! — I scarcely know. Yes, I suppose so, be- 
 cause he is my guardian. But if he were the nearest rela- 
 tion on earth, I could not love him more," said Lily, with 
 impulsive eagerness, her cheeks flushing, her eyes filling 
 with tears. 
 
 "And he is an artist— a painter?" asked Kenelm. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; no one paints such beautiful pictures — no 
 one so clever, no one so kind." 
 
 Kenelm strove to recollect if he had ever heard the name 
 of Melville as a painter, but in vain. Kenelm, however,
 
 286 KENELM CinLLINGLY. 
 
 knew but little of painters — they were not in iiis way ; and 
 he owned to himself, very humbly, that there miglu be 
 many a living painter of eminent renown whose name and 
 works would be strange to him. 
 
 He glanced round the wall. Lily interpreted his look. 
 " There are no pictures of his here," said she ; "there is one 
 in my own room. I will show it you when you come 
 again." 
 
 "And now," said Mr. Braefield, rising, "I must just 
 have a word with your gardener, and then go home. We 
 dine earlier here than in London, Mr. Chillingly." 
 
 As the two gentlemen, after taking leave, re-entered the 
 hall, Lily followed them, and said to Kenelm, " What time 
 will you come to-morrow to see the picture ?" 
 
 Kenelm averted his head, and then replied, not with his 
 wonted courtesy, but briefly and brusquely: 
 
 " I fear I cannot call to-morrow. I shall be far away by 
 sunrise." 
 
 Lily made no answer, but turned back into the room. 
 
 Mr. Braefield found the gardener watering a flower- 
 border, conferred with him about the heart's-ease, and then 
 joined Kenelm, who had halted a few yards beyond the 
 garden-gate. 
 
 "A pretty little place that," said Mr. Braefield, with a 
 sort of lordly ccjmpassion, as became the owner of Braefield- 
 ville. "What I call quaint." 
 
 " Yes, quaint," echoed Kenelm, abstractedly. 
 
 "It is always the case with houses enlarged by degrees. 
 I have heard my poor mother say that when Melville or Mrs. 
 Cameron first bought it, it was little better than a mere 
 laborer's cottage, with a field attached to it. And two or 
 three years afterwards a room or so more was built, and a 
 bit of the field taken in for a garden ; and then by degrees 
 the whole part now inhabited by the family was built, leav- 
 ing only the old cottage as a scullery and wash-house ; and 
 the wh(.ile field was turned into the garden, as you see. 
 But whether it was Melville's money or the aunt's that did 
 it, I don't know. More likely the aunt's. 1 don't see what 
 interest Melville has in the place ; he does not go there 
 often, I fancy — it is not his home." 
 
 "Mr. Melville, it seems, is a painter, and, from what I 
 heard you say, a successful one." 
 
 " I fancy he had little success before this year. But 
 surely you saw his pictures at the Exhibition ? "
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 2^7 
 
 " I am ashamed to say I have not been to the Exhi- 
 bition." 
 
 "You surprise me. However, Melville liad three pic- 
 tures there — all very good ; but the one I wished to buy 
 made much more sensation than the others, and has sud- 
 denly lifted him from obscurity into fame." 
 
 '* He appears to be a relation of Miss Mordaunt's, but 
 so distant a one that she could not even tell me what grade 
 of cousinship he could claim." 
 
 "Nor can I, He is her guardian, I know. The relation- 
 ship, if any, must, as you say, be very distant ; for Melville 
 is of humble extraction, while any one can see that Mrs. 
 Cameron is a thorough gentlewoman, and Lily Mordaunt is 
 her sister's child. I have heard my mother say that it was 
 Melville, then a very young man, who bought the cottage, 
 perhaps with Mrs. Cameron's money ; saying it was for a 
 widowed lady, whose husband had left her with very small 
 means. And when Mrs. Cameron arrived with Lily, then a 
 mere infant, she was in deep mourning, and a very young 
 woman herself, — pretty, too. If Melville had been a fre- 
 quent visitor then, of course there would have been scandal ; 
 but he very seldom came, and when he did, he lodged in a 
 cottage, Cromwell Lodge, on the other side of the brook ; 
 now and then bringing with him a fellow-lodger — some 
 other young artist, I suppose, for the sake of angling. So 
 there could be no cause for scandal, and nothing can be 
 more blameless than poor Mrs. Cameron's life. My mother, 
 who then resided at Braefieldville, took a great fancy to both 
 Lily and her aunt, and when by degrees the cottage grew into 
 a genteel sort of place, the few gentry in the neighborhood 
 followed my mother's example and were very kind to Mrs. 
 Cameron, so that she has now her place in the society about 
 here, and is much liked." 
 
 "And Mr. Melville ?— does he still very seldom come 
 here ? " 
 
 "To say truth, he has not been at all since I settled at 
 Braefieldville. The place was left to my mother for her life, 
 and I was not much there during lier occupation. In fact, 
 1 was then a junior partner in our firm, and conducted the 
 branch business in New York, coming over to England for 
 my holiday once a year or so. When my mother died, there 
 was much to arrange before I could settle personally in 
 England, and I did not come to settle at Braefieldville till I 
 married. I did see Melville on one of my visits to the place
 
 288 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 some years ago ; but, between ourselves, he is not the sort 
 of person wliose intimate acquaintance one would wish to 
 court. Mr mother told me he was an idle, dissipated man, 
 and I have heard from others that he was very unsteady. 
 
 Mr. , the great painter, told me that he was a loose fish ; 
 
 and I suppose his habits were against his getting on, till 
 this year, when, perhaps by a lucky accident, he has painted 
 a picture that raises him to the top of the tree. But is not 
 Miss Lily wondrously nice to look at ? What a pity her 
 education has been so much neglected ! " 
 
 ''Has it?" 
 
 " Have you not discovered that already ? She has not 
 had even a music-master, though my wife says she has a 
 good ear and can sing prettily enough. As for reading, I 
 don't think she has read anything but fairy-tales and poetry, 
 and such silly stuff. However, she is very young yet ; and 
 now that her guardian can sell his pictures, it is to be hoped 
 that he will do more justice to his ward. Painters and actors 
 are not so regular in their private lives as we plain men are, 
 and great allowance is to be made for them ; still, every one 
 is bound to d(^ his duty. I am sure you agree with me ?" 
 
 " Certainly," said Kenelm, with an emphasis which 
 startled the mexxhant. "That is an admirable maxim of 
 yours ; it seems a commonplace, yet how often, when it is 
 put into our heads, it strikes as a novelty ! A duty may be 
 a very difficult thing, a very disagreeable thing, and, what 
 is strange, it is often a very invisible thing. It is present — 
 close before us, and yet we don't see it ; somebody shouts 
 its name in our ear, ' Duty,' and straight it towers before us 
 a grim giant. Pardon me if I leave you — I can't stay to 
 dine. Dutv summons me elsewhere. Make my excuses to 
 Mrs. Braefi'eld." 
 
 Before Mr. Braefield could recover his self-possession, 
 Kenelm had vaulted over a stile and was gone. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Kenelm walked into the shop kept by the Somerses, and 
 found Jessie still at the counter. " Give me back my knap- 
 sack. Thank you," he said. Hinging the knapsack across his 
 shoulders. "Now, do me a favor. A portmanteau of mine
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 289 
 
 ought to be at the station. Send for it, and keep it till I give 
 further directions. I think of going to Oxford for a day or 
 two. Mrs. Somers, one more word with you. Think, answer 
 frankly, are you, as you said this morning, thoroughly hap- 
 py, and yet married to the man you loved ? " 
 
 " Oh, so happy ! " 
 
 " And wish for nothing beyond ? Do not wish Will to be 
 other than he is ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! You frighten me, sir." 
 
 " Frighten you ! Be it so. Every one who is happy 
 should be frightened, lest happiness flyaway. Do your best 
 to chain it, and you will, for you attach Duty to Happiness ; 
 and," muttered Kenelm, as he turned from the shop, " Duty 
 is sometimes not a rose-colored tie, but a heavy iron-hued 
 clog." 
 
 He strode on through the street towards the sign-post 
 with "To Oxford" inscribed thereon. And whether he 
 spoke literally of the knapsack, or metaphorically of Duty, 
 he murmured, as he strode — 
 
 "A pedlar's pack that bows the bearer down." 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 Kenelm might have reached Oxford that night, for he 
 was a rapid and untirable pedestrian ; but he halted a little 
 after the moon rose, and laid himself down to rest beneath 
 a new-mown haystack, not very far from the high-road. 
 
 He did not sleep. Meditatingly propped on his elbow, 
 he said to himself : 
 
 " It is long since I have wondered at nothing. I wonder 
 now : can this be love — really love — unmistakably love ? 
 Pooh ! it is impossible ; the very last person in the world to 
 be in love with. Let us reason upon it — you, myself, and I. 
 To begin with— face ! What is face ? In a few years the 
 most beautiful face may be very plain. Take the Venus at 
 Florence. Animate her ; sec her ten years after; a chignon, 
 front teeth (blue or artificially white), mottled complexion, 
 double chin— all that sort of plump prettiness goes into 
 double chin. Face, bah ! What man of sense— what pupil 
 of Welby, the realist — can fall in love with a face ? and even 
 
 13
 
 290 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 if I were simpleton enough to do so, pretty faces are as com- 
 mon as daisies. Cecilia Travers has more regular features; 
 Jessie Wiles a richer coloring. I was not in love with them 
 — not a bit of it. Myself, you have nothing to say there. 
 Well, then, mind ? Talk of mind, indeed ! a creature whose 
 favorite companionship is that of butterflies, and who tells 
 me that butterflies are the souls of infants unbaptized. 
 What an article for ' The Londoner,' on tl:e culture of 
 young women ! What a girl for Miss Garrett and Miss 
 Emily Faithful ! Put aside Mind as we have done Face. 
 What rests ? — the Frenchman's ideal of happy marriage ? 
 congenial circumstance of birth, fortune, tastes, habits. 
 AVorse still. Myself, answer honestly, arc you not floored ? " 
 
 Whereon " Myself " took up the parable and answered, 
 " O thou fool ! why wert thou so ineffably blest in one 
 presence ? Why, in quitting that presence, did Duty become 
 so grim ? Why dost thou address to me those inept pedan- 
 tic questionings, under the light of yon moon, which has 
 suddenly ceased to be to thy thoughts an astronomical body, 
 and has become, forever and forever, identified in thy heart's 
 dreams with romance and poesy and first love ? Why, in- 
 stead of gazing on that uncomfortable orb, art thou not 
 quickening thy steps towards a co/.y inn and a good supper 
 at Oxford ? Kenclm, my friend, thou art in for it. No dis- 
 guising the fact — thou art in love ! " 
 
 " I'll be hanged if I am," said the Second in the Dualism 
 of Kenelm's mind ; and therewith he shifted his knapsack 
 into a pillow, turned his eyes from the moon, and still could 
 not sleep. The face of Lily still haunted his eyes— the 
 voice of Lily still rang in his ears. 
 
 Oh, my reader ! dost thou here ask me to tell thee what 
 Lily was like ? — was slie dark, was she fair, was she tall, was 
 she short ? Never shalt tliou learn these secrets from me. 
 Imagine to thyself the being to which thine whole of life, 
 l)o:ly and mind and soul, moved irresistibly as the needle to 
 the pole. Let her be tall or short, dark or fair, she is that 
 which out of all womankind has suddenly become the one 
 woman for thee. Fortunate art thou, my reader, if thou 
 chance to have heard the popular song of " My Queen " sung 
 by the one lady who alone can sing it with expression wor- 
 thy the verse of the poetess and the music of the composi- 
 tion, by the sister of the exquisite songstress. But if thou 
 hast not heard the verse thus sung, to an accompaniment 
 thus composed, still the words themselves are, or ought to
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 291 
 
 be, familiar to thee, if thou art, as I take for granted, a 
 lover of the true lyrical muse. Recall then the words sup- 
 posed to be uttered by him who knows himself destined to 
 do homage to one he has not yet beheld : 
 
 *' She is standing somewhere — she I shall honor, 
 She tliat I wait for, my queen, my queen- 
 Wliether her hair be golden or raven, 
 WJiether her eyes be liazel or blue, 
 I know not now, it will be engraven 
 Some day hence as my loveliest hue. 
 
 " She may be humble or proud, my lady, 
 
 Or that sweet calm which is just between ; 
 
 But whenever she comes, she will find me ready 
 
 To do her homage, my queen, my queen." 
 
 Was it possible that the cruel boy-god " who sharpens his 
 arrows on the whetstone of the human heart " had found the 
 moment to avenge himself for the neglect of his altars and 
 the scorn of his power ! Must that redoubted knight-errant, 
 the hero of this tale, despite The Three Fishes on his charmed 
 shield, at last veil the crest and bow the knee, and murmur 
 to himself, " She has come, my queen " ! 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The next morning Kenelm arrived at Oxford — "Verum 
 secretumque Mouseion." 
 
 If there be a place in this busy island which may distract 
 the passions of youth from love to scholarship, to Ritualism, 
 to medireval associations, to that sort of poetical sentiment or 
 poetical fanaticism which a Mivers and a Welby and an advo- 
 cate of tlie Realistic School would hold in contempt — cer- 
 tainly that place is Oxford. Home, nevertheless, of great 
 thinkers and great actors in tlie practical world. 
 
 The vacation had not yet commenced, but the commence- 
 ment was near at hand. Kenelm thought he could recognize 
 the leading meii by their slower walk and more abstracted 
 expression of countenance. Among the fellows was the emi- 
 nent author of that book which had so powerfully fascinated 
 the earlier adolescence of Kenelm Chillingly, and who had 
 himself been subject to the fascination of a yet stronger
 
 292 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 spirit. The Rev. Decimus Roach had been ever an intense 
 and reverent admirer of John Henry Newman — an admirer, I 
 mean, of the pure and lofty character of the man, quite apart 
 from sympathy with liis doctrines. But althougli Roach 
 remained an unconverted Protestant of orthodox, if High 
 Church, creed, yet there was one tenet he did liold in com- 
 mon with the author of the ' Apologia.' He ranked celibacy 
 among the virtues most dear to Heaven. In that eloquent 
 treatise, ' The Approach to the Angels,' he not only main- 
 tained that the state of single blessedness was strictly incum- 
 bent on every member of a Christian priesthood, but to be 
 commended to the adoption of every conscientious layman. 
 
 It was the desire to confer with this eminent theologian 
 that had induced Kenelm to direct his steps to Oxford. 
 
 Mr. Roach was a friend of Wclby's, at whose house, when 
 a pupil, Kenelm had once or twice met him, and been even 
 more charmed by his conversation than by his treatise. 
 Kenelm called on Mr. Roach, who received him very gra- 
 ciously, and, not being a tutor or examiner, placed his time 
 at Kenelm's disposal ; took him the round of the colleges 
 and the Bodleian ; invited him to dine in his college-hall ; 
 and after dinner led him into his own rooms and gave him 
 an excellent bottle of Chateau-Margaux. 
 
 Mr. Roach was somewhere about fifty — a good-looking 
 man, and evidently thought himself so, for he wore his hair 
 long behind and parted in the middle ; which is not done by 
 men who form modest estimates of their personal appear- 
 ance. 
 
 Kenelm was not long in drawing out his host on the sub- 
 ject to which that profound thinker had devoted so much 
 meditation. 
 
 " I can scarcely convey to you," said Kenelm, " the intense 
 admiration with which I have studied your noble Avork, 
 'Approach to the Angels.' It produced a great effect on me 
 in the age between boyhood and youth. But of late some 
 doubts on the universal application of your doctrine have 
 crept into my mind." 
 
 "Ay, indeed?" said Mr. Roach, with an expression of 
 interest in his face. 
 
 "And I come to you for their solution." 
 
 Mr. Roach turned away his head, and pushed the bottle 
 to Kenelm. 
 
 "I am quite willing to concede," resumed the heir of the 
 Chillinglys, " that a priesthood should stand apart from the
 
 KENF.LM CHILLINGL Y. 293 
 
 distracting cares of a family, and pure from all carnal affec- 
 tions." 
 
 " Hem, hem," grunted Mr. Roach, taking his knee on his 
 lap and caressing it. 
 
 " I go further," continued Kenelm, "and supposing with 
 you that the Confessional has all the importance, whether in 
 its monitory or its cheering effects upon repentant sinners, 
 which is attached to it by the Roman Catholics, and that it 
 ought to be no less cultivated by the Reformed Church, it 
 seems to me essential that the Confessor should have no 
 better half to whom it can be even suspected he may, in an 
 unguarded moment, hint at the frailties of one of her female 
 acquaintances." 
 
 " I pushed that argument too far," murmured Roach. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Celibacy in the Confessor stands or 
 falls with the Confessional. Your argument there is as sound 
 as a bell. But when it comes to the layman, I think I detect 
 a difference." 
 
 Mr. Roach shook his head, and replied, stoutly, " No ; 
 if celibacy be incumbent on the one, it is equally incumbent 
 on the other. I say ' if.' " 
 
 " Permit me to deny that assertion. Do not fear that I 
 shall insult your understanding by the popular platitude — 
 viz., that if celibacy were universal, in a very few years the 
 human race would be extinct. As you have justly obsei-ved, 
 in answer to that fallacy, ' It is the duty of each human soul 
 to strive towards the highest perfection of the spiritual state 
 for itself, and leave the fate of the human race to the care of 
 the Creator.' If celibacy be necessary to spiritual perfection, 
 how do we know but that it may be the purpose and decree 
 of the All-Wise that the human race, having attained to that 
 perfection, should disappear from earth ? Universal celibacy 
 would thus be the euthanasia of mankind. On the other 
 hand, if the Creator decided that the human race, having 
 culminated to this crowning but barren flower of perfection, 
 should nevertheless continue to increase and multiply upon 
 earth, have you not victoriously exclaimed, ' Presumptuous 
 mortal ! how can'st thou presume to limit the resources of 
 the Almighty? Would it not be easy for Him to continue 
 some other mode, unexposed to trouble and sin and passion, 
 as in the nuptials of the vegetable world, by which the 
 generations will be renewed ? Can we suppose that the 
 angels — the immortal companies of heaven — are not hourly 
 increasing in number, and extending their population."
 
 294 KEMELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 throughout infinity ? and yet in heaven there is no marr}^ 
 ing nor giving in marriage.'— All this, clothed by you in 
 words which my memory only serves me to quote imper- 
 fectly — all this I unhesitatingly concede." 
 
 Mr. Roach rose and brought another bottle of the Cha- 
 teau-Margaux from his cellaret, filled Kenelm's glass, re- 
 seated himself, and took the other knee into his lap to 
 caress. 
 
 " But," resumed Kcnelm, " my doubt is this." 
 " Ha ! " cried Mr. Roach, '' Let us hear the doubt." 
 " In the first place, is celibacy essential to the highest 
 state of spiritual perfection ? and, in the second place, if it 
 were, are mortals, as at present constituted, capable of that 
 culmination ? " 
 
 "Very well put," said Mr. Roach, and he tossed off liis 
 glass with more cheerful aspect than he had hitherto ex- 
 hibited. 
 
 " You see, said Kenelm, "we are compelled in this, as in 
 other questions of philosophy, to resort to the inductive pro- 
 cess, and draw our theories from the facts within our cog- 
 nizance. Now, looking round the world, is it the fact that 
 old maids and old bachelors are so much more spiritually 
 advanced than married folks ? Do they pass their time, 
 like an Indian dervish, in serene contemplation of divine 
 excellence and beatitude ? Are they not quite as worldly 
 in their own way as persons who have been married as often 
 as the Wife of Bath, and, generally speaking, more selfish, 
 more frivolous, and more spiteful ? I am sure I don't wish 
 to speak uncharitably against old maids and old bachelors. 
 I have three aunts who are old maids, and fine specimens 
 of the genus ; but I am sure they would all three have been 
 more agreeable companions, and quite as spiritually gifted, 
 if they had been happily married, and were caressing their 
 children instead of lap-dogs. So, too, I have an old-bachelor 
 cousin, Chillingly Mivers, whom you know. As clever as a 
 man can be. But, Lord bless you ! as to being wrapt in 
 spiritual meditation, he could not be more devoted to the 
 things of earth if he had married as many wives as Solomon 
 and had as many children as Priam. ' Finally, have not 
 half the mistakes in the world arisen from a separation be- 
 tween the spiritual and the moral nature of man ? Is it not, 
 after all, through his dealings with his fellow-men that man 
 makes his safest 'approach to the angels ?' And is not the 
 moral system a very muscular system ? Does it not require
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGL V. 
 
 295 
 
 for liealthful vigor plenty of continued exercise, and dcjes it 
 not get that exercise naturally, by the relationships of fam- 
 ily, with all the wider collateral struggles with life which 
 the care of family necessitates ? 
 
 " I put these questions to you with the humblest diffi- 
 dence. I expect to hear such answers as will thoroughly 
 convince my reason, and I shall be delighted if so. For at 
 the root of the controversy lies the passion of love. And 
 love must be a very disquieting, troublesome emotion, and 
 has led many heroes and sages into wonderful weaknesses 
 and follies." 
 
 " Gently, gently, Mr. Chillingly ; don't exaggerate. Love, 
 no doubt, is — ahem — a disquieting passion. Still, every 
 emotion that changes life from a stagnant pool into the 
 freshness and play of a running stream is disquieting to the 
 pool. Not only love and its fellow-passions — such as am- 
 bition—but the exercise of the reasoning faculty, which is al- 
 ways at work in changing our ideas, is very disquieting. 
 Love, Mr. Chillingly, has its good side as well as its bad. 
 Pass the bottle." 
 
 Kenelm (passing the bottle). — " Yes, yes ; you are quite 
 right in putting the adversary's case strongly before you de- 
 molish it — all good rhetoricians do that Pardon me if I 
 am up to that trick in argument. Assume that I know all 
 that can be said in favor of the abnegation of common- 
 sense, euphoniously called ' Love,' and proceed to the de- 
 molition of the case." 
 
 The Rev. Decimus Roach (hesitatingly).-^" The demo- 
 lition of the case ? humph ! The passions are ingrafted in 
 the human system as part and parcel of it, and are not to be 
 demolished so easily as you seem to think. Love, taken ra- 
 tionally and morally by a man of good education and sound 
 principles, is — is " 
 
 Kenelm.—" Well, is what ? " 
 
 The Rev. Decimus Roach. — "A— a — a — thing not to be 
 despised. Like the sun, it is the great colorist of life, Mr. 
 Chillingly. And you are so right — the moral system does 
 require daily exercise. What can give that exercise to a 
 solitary man, when he arrives at the practical age in which 
 he cannot sit for six hours at a stretch musing on the di- 
 vine essence, and rheumatism or other ailments forbid his 
 adventure into the wilds of Africa as a missionary ? At 
 that age. Nature, which will be heard, Mr. Chillingly, de- 
 inands her rights. A sympathizing female companion by one's
 
 296 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 side ; innocent little children climbing one's knee, — lovely, 
 bewitching picture ! Who can be Goth enough to rub it 
 out, who fanatic enough to paint over it the image of a St. 
 Simon sitting alone on a pillar ! Take another glass. You 
 don't drink enough, Mr. Chillingly." 
 
 "1 have drunk enough," replied Kenelm, in a sullen 
 voice, "■ to think I see double. 1 imagined that before me 
 sat the austere adversary of the insanity of love and the 
 rniseries of wedlock. Now I fancy I listen to a puling sen- 
 timentalist uttering the platitudes which the other Decimus 
 Roach had already refuted. Certainly either I see double, 
 or you amuse yourself with mocking my appeal to your 
 wisdom." 
 
 " Not so, Mr. Chillingly. But the fact is, that when T 
 wrote that book of which you speak, I was young, and 
 youth is enthusiastic and one-sided. Now, with the same dis- 
 dain of the excesses to which love may hurry weak intel- 
 lects, I recognize its benignant effects when taken, as I be- 
 fore said, rationally — taken rationally, my young friend. At 
 that period of life when the judgment is matured, the 
 soothing companionship of an amiable female cannot but 
 cheer the mind and prevent that morose hoar-frost into 
 which solitude is chilled and made rigid by increasing years. 
 In short, Mr. Chillingly, having convinced myself that I 
 erred in the opinion once too rashly put forth, I owe it to 
 Truth, I owe it to Mankind, to make my conversion known 
 to the world. And I am about next month to enter into the 
 matrimonial state with a young lady who " 
 
 " Say no more, say no more, Mr. Roach. It must be a 
 painful subject to you. Let us drop it." 
 
 "It is not a painful subject at all!" exclaimed Mr. 
 Roach, with warmth. " I look forward to the fulfilment of 
 my duty with the pleasure which a well-trained mind always 
 ought to feel in recanting a fallacious doctrine. But you 
 do me the justice to understand that of course I do not take 
 this step I propose — for my personal satisfaction. No, sir, 
 it is the value of my example to others, which purifies my 
 motives and animates my soul." 
 
 After this concluding and noble sentence, the conversa- 
 tion drooped. Host and guest both felt they had liad 
 enough of each other. Kenelm soon rose to depart. 
 
 Mr. Roach, on taking leave of him at the door, said, 
 with marked emphasis : 
 
 " Not for my personal satisfaction— remember that,
 
 KEN ELM ClllLLlXCLY. 297 
 
 Whenever you hear my conversion discussed in the world, 
 say that from my own lips ycni heard these words — not for 
 MY PERSONAL SATISFACTION. No ! My kind regards to Welby 
 — a married man himself, and a father ; he will understand 
 me." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 On quitting Oxford, Kenelm wandered for several days 
 about the country, advancing to no definite goal, meeting 
 with no noticeable adventure. At last he found himself 
 mechanically retracing his steps. A magnetic influence he 
 could not resist drew him back towards the grassy meads 
 and the sparkling rill of Moleswich. 
 
 " There must be," said he to himself, " a mental, like an 
 optical, illusion. In the last, we fancy wx have seen a 
 spectre. If we dare not face the apparition — dare not at- 
 tempt to touch it — run superstitiously away from it— wdiat 
 happens ? We shall believe to our dying day that it was not 
 an illusion — that it was a spectre— and so we may be crazed 
 for life. But if we manfully walk up to the Phanton, 
 stretch our hands to seize it, lo ! it fades into thin air, the 
 cheat of our eyesight is dispelled, and we shall never be 
 ghost-ridden again. So it must be with this mental illusion 
 of mine. I see an image strange to my experience — it 
 seems to me, at that first sight, clothed with a supernatural 
 charm ; like an unreasoning coward, I run away from it. It 
 continues to haunt me ; I cannot shut out its apparition. It 
 pursues me by day alike in the haunts of men — alike in the 
 solitudes of nature ; it visits me by night in my dreams. 
 I begin to say this must be a real visitant from another 
 world — it must be love — the love of which I read in the 
 Poets, as in the Poets I read of witchcraft and ghosts. 
 Surely I must approach that apparition as a philosopher 
 like Sir David Brewster would approach the black cat 
 seated on a hearth-rug, which he tells us that some lady of 
 his acquaintance constantly saw till she went into a world 
 into which black cats are not held to be admitted. The 
 more I think of it, the less it appears to me possible that I 
 can be really in love with a wild, half-educated, anomalous 
 creature, merely because the apparition of her face haunts 
 
 13*
 
 298 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 me. With perfect safety, therefore, I can approach that 
 creature ; in proy3ortion as I see more of her, the illusion 
 will vanish. I will go back to Moleswich manfully." 
 Tlius said Kenelm to liimself, and himself answered : 
 "Go; for tliou canst not help it. Thinkest thou that 
 Daces can escape the net that has meshed a Roach ? No : 
 
 ' Come it will, the day decreed by fate,' 
 
 when thou must succumb to the ' nature which will be heard.' 
 Better succumb now, and with a good grace, than resist till 
 thou hast reached thy fiftieth year, and then make a rational 
 choice not for thy personal satisfaction." 
 
 Whereupon Kenelm answered to himself, indignantly, 
 "Pooh! thou flippant. My alter ego, thou knowest not 
 Avhat thou art talking about ! It is not a question of nature ; 
 it is a question of the supernatural — an illusion — a 
 phanton ! " 
 
 Thus Kenelm and himself continued to quarrel with each 
 other ; and the more they quarrelled, the nearer they ap- 
 proached to the haunted spot in which had been seen, and 
 fled from, the fatal apparition of first love.
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Sir Peter had not heard from Kenelm since a letter in- 
 forming him that his son had left town on an excursion, 
 which would probably be short, though it might last a few 
 weeks ; and the good Baronet now resolved to go to London 
 himself, take his chance of Kenelm's return, and if still ab- 
 sent, at least learn from Mivers and others how far that very- 
 eccentric planet had contrived to steer a regular course 
 amidst the fixed stars of the metropolitan system. He had 
 other reasons for his journey. He wished to make the ac- 
 quaintance of Gordon Chillingly before handing him over 
 the ^20,000 which Kenelm had released in that resettlement 
 of estates, the necessary deeds of which the young heir had 
 signed before quitting London for Moleswich. Sir Peter 
 wished still more to see Cecilia Travers, in whom Kenelm's 
 accounts of her had inspired a very strong interest. 
 
 The day after his arrival in town Sir Peter breakfasted 
 with Mivers. 
 
 " Upon my word you are very comfortable here," said 
 Sir Peter, glancing at the well-appointed table and round 
 the well-furnished rooms. 
 
 " Naturally so — there is no one to prevent my being com- 
 fortable. I am not married ; — taste that omelette." 
 
 " Some men declare they never knew comfort till the}"- 
 were married, cousin Mivers." 
 
 " Some men are reflecting bodies, and catch a pallid gleam 
 from the comfort wdiich a wnfe concentres on herself. With 
 a fortune so modest and secure, what comforts, possessed 
 by me now, would not a Mrs. Chillingly Mivers ravish from 
 my hold and appropriate to herself! Instead of these 
 pleasant rooms, where should I be lodged ? In a dingy den 
 looking on a backyard, excluded from the sun by day and 
 vocal with cats by night ; while Mrs. Mivers luxuriated in
 
 300 KEN ELM C Hn.LINGT.Y. 
 
 two drawing-rooms with southern aspect and perhaps a bou- 
 doir. My brougham would be torn from my uses and mo- 
 nopolized by ' the angel of my hearth,' clouded in her crin- 
 oline and halved by her chignon. No ! if ever I marry— a.nd 
 I never deprive myself of the civilities and needlework which 
 sing'e ladies waste upon me, by saying I shall not marry — 
 it vvill be when women have fully establisiicd their rights ; 
 for then men may have a chance of vindicating their own. 
 Then, if there are two drawing-rooms in the house, I shall 
 take one, if not, we will toss up who shall have the back 
 parlor ; if we keep a brougham, it wall be exclusively mine 
 three days in the week ; if Mrs. M. wants ^{^200 a year for 
 her wardrobe, she must be contented with one, the other 
 half will belong to my personal decoration ; if I am oppressed 
 by proof-sheets and printers' devils, half of the oppression 
 falls to her lot, while I take my holiday on the croquet- 
 ground at Wimbledon. Yes, when the present wrongs of 
 women are exchanged for equality with men, I will cheer- 
 fully marry ; and to do the thing generous, I will not oppose 
 Mrs. M.'s voting in the vestry or for Parliament. I will give 
 her my own votes with pleasure." 
 
 " I fear, my dear cousin, that you have infected Kenelm 
 with your selfish ideas on the nuptial state. He does not 
 seem inclined to marry — eh ? " 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "What sort of a girl is Cecilia Travers ?" 
 
 "One of those superior girls who are not likely to tower 
 into that terrible giantess called ' a superior woman.' A 
 handsome, well-educated, sensible young lady. Not spoilt 
 by being an heiress— in fine, just the sort of a girl whom you 
 could desire to fix on for a daughter-in-law." 
 
 " And you don't think Kenelm has a fancy for her ? " 
 
 " Honestly speaking — I do not." 
 
 "Any counter-attraction? There are some things in 
 which sons do not confide in their fathers. You have never 
 heard that Kenelm has been a little wild ? " 
 
 "Wild he is, as the noble savage who ran in woods," 
 said cousin Mivers. 
 
 "You frighten me!" 
 
 " Before the noble savage ran across the squaws, and was 
 wise enough to run away from them. Kenelm has run away 
 now, somewhere." 
 
 "Yes, he does not tell me where, nor do they know at 
 his lodgings. A heap of notes on his table, and no directions
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 301 
 
 where they arc to be forwarded. On the whole, however, 
 he has held his own in London society — eh ? " 
 
 "Certainly! he has been more courted than most young 
 men, and perhaps more talked of. Oddities generally 
 are." 
 
 "You own he has talents above the average? Do you 
 not think he will make a figure in the world some day, and 
 discharge that debt to the literary stores or the political in- 
 terests of his country which, alas, I and my predecessors, 
 the other Sir Peters, failed to do, and for which I hailed his 
 birth and gave him the name of Kenelm ? " 
 
 " Upon my word," answered Mivers — who had now 
 finished his breakfast, retreated to an easy-chair, and taken 
 from the chimney-piece one of his famous trabucos, — " upon 
 my word I can't guess ; if some great reverse of fortune be- 
 fell him, and he had to work for his livelihood, or if some 
 other direful calamity gave a shock to his nervous system 
 and jolted it into a fussy fidgety direction, I daresay he might 
 make a splash in that current of life which bears men on to 
 the grave. But you see he wants, as he himself very trvdy 
 says, the two stimulants to definite action— poverty and van- 
 ity." 
 
 " Surely there have been great men who were neitlier 
 poor nor vain ?" 
 
 " I doubt it. But vanity is a rul>ng motive that takes 
 many forms and many aliases — call it ambition, call it love 
 of fame, still its substance is the same — the desire of applause 
 carried into fussiness of action." 
 
 "There may be the desire for abstract truth without care 
 fur applause." 
 
 " Certainly. A philosopher on a desert island may amuse 
 himself by meditating on the distinction between light and 
 heat. But if on returning to the world he publish the result 
 of his meditations, vanity steps in and desires to be ap- 
 plauded." 
 
 " Nonsense, cousin Mivers ! he may rather desire to be 
 of use and benefit to mankind. You don't deny that there 
 is such a thing as philanthropy ? " 
 
 " I don't deny that there is such a thing as humbug. 
 And whenever I meet a man who has the face to tell me 
 that he is taking a great deal of trouble, and putting himself 
 very much out of his wav, for a philanthropical object, 
 without the slightest idea of reward either in praise or 
 pence, I know that I have a humbug before me — a danger-
 
 302 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 ous humbug— a swindling liumbug — a fellow with his 
 pocket full of villanous prospectuses and appeals to sub- 
 scribers." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh ! leave off that affectation of cynicism ; you 
 are not a bad-hearted fellow — you must love mankind — you 
 must have an interest in the welfare of posterity." 
 
 "Love mankind? Interest in posterity? Bless my soul, 
 cousin Peter, I hope you have no prospectuses \\\ your pock- 
 ets ; no schemes for draining the Pontine Marshes out of 
 pure love to mankind ; no propositions for doubling the in- 
 come tax, as a reserve fund for posterity should our coal- 
 fields fail three thousand years hence. Love of mankind ! 
 Rubbish ! This comes of living in the country." 
 
 " But you do love the human race — you do care for the 
 generations that are to come." 
 
 " I ! Not a bit of it. On the contrary, I rather dislike 
 the human race, taking it altogether, and including the 
 Australian bushmen ; and I don't believe any man who tells 
 me that he would grieve half as much if ten millions of 
 human beings were swallowed up by an earthquake at a 
 considerable distance from his own residence, say Abyssinia, 
 as he would for a rise in his butcher's bills. As to pos- 
 terity, who would consent to have a month's fit of the gout 
 or tic-douloureux in order that in the fourth thousand year, 
 A.D., posterity should enjoy a perfect system of sewage ? " 
 
 Sir Peter, who had recently been afflicted by a very 
 sharp attack of neuralgia, shook his head, but was too con- 
 scientious not to keep silence. 
 
 "To turn the subject," said Mivers, relighting the cigar 
 which he had laid aside wdiile delivering himself of his amia- 
 ble opinions, " I think you would do well, while in town, 
 to call on your old friend Travcrs and be introduced to 
 Cecilia. If you think as favorably of her as I do, why not 
 ask father and daughter to pay you a visit at Exmundham ? 
 Girls think more about a man when they see the place 
 which he can offer to them as a home, and Exmundham is 
 an attractive place to girls — picturesque and romantic." 
 
 "A very good idea," cried Sir Peter, heartily. "And I 
 want also to make the acquaintance of Chillingly Gordon. 
 Give me his address." 
 
 " Here is his card on the chimney-piece : take it ; you 
 will always find him at home till two o'clock. He is too 
 sensible to waste the forenoon in riding out in Hyde Paik 
 with young ladies."
 
 KENELAt CHILLINGLY. 303 
 
 "Give me your frank opinion of that young kinsman. 
 Kenelm tells me that he is clever and ambitious." 
 
 " Kenelm speaks truly. He is not a man who will talk 
 stuff about love of mankind and posterity. He is of our 
 day, with large keen wide-awake eyes, that look only on 
 such portions of mankind as can be of use to him— and do 
 not spoil their sight by poring through cracked telescopes, 
 to catch a glimpse of posterity. Gordon is a man to be a 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, perhaps a Prime Minister." 
 
 *' And old Gordon's son is cleverer than my boy — than 
 the namesake of Kenelm Digby ! " and Sir Peter sighed. 
 
 " I did not say that. I am cleverer than Chillingly Gor- 
 don, and the proof of it is that I am too clever to wish to 
 be Prime Minister — very disagreeable office— hard work- 
 irregular hours for meals — much abuse and confirmed dys- 
 pepsia." 
 
 Sir Peter went away rather down-hearted. He found 
 Chillingly Gordon at home in a lodging in Jermyn Street. 
 Though prepossessed against him by all he had heard, Sir 
 Peter was soon propitiated in his favor. Gordon had a 
 frank man-of-the-world way with him, and much too fine a 
 tact to utter any sentiments likely to displease an old-fash- 
 ioned country gentleman, and a relation who might possibly 
 be of service in his career. He touched briefly, and with 
 apparent feeling, on the unhappy litigation commenced by 
 his father ; spoke with affectionate praise of Kenelm ; and 
 with a discriminating good-nature of Mivers, as a man who, 
 to parody the epigram on Charles H., 
 
 "Never says a kindly thing, 
 
 And never does a harsh one." 
 
 Then he drew Sir Peter on to talk of the country and 
 agricultural prospects ; learned that among his objects in 
 visiting town was the wish to inspect a patented hvdraulic 
 ram that might be very useful for his farmyard, which was 
 ill supplied with water ; startled the Baronet by evincing 
 some practical knowledge of mechanics ; insisted on accom- 
 panying him to the city to inspect the ram ; did so, and ap- 
 proved the purchase ; took him next to see a new American 
 reaping-machine, and did not part with him till he had ob- 
 tained Sir Peter's promise to dine with him at the Garrick, 
 — an invitation peculiarly agreeable to Sir Peter, who had a 
 natural curiosity to see some of the more recently distin-
 
 304 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 guished frequenters of that social club. As, on quitting 
 Gordon, Sir Peter took his way to the hoMse of Leopold 
 Travers, his thoughts turned with much kindliness towards 
 his young kinsman. " Mivers and Kenelm," quoth he to 
 himself, "gave me an unfavorable impression of this lad ; 
 they represent him as worldly, self-seeking, and so forth. 
 But Mivers takes such cynical views of character, and Ken- 
 elm is too eccentric to judge faiily of a sensible man of the 
 Avorld. At all events, it is not like an egotist to put himself 
 out of his way to be so civil to an old fellow like me. A 
 young man about towm must have pleasanter modes of pass- 
 ing his day than inspecting hydraulic rams and reaping- 
 machines. Clever they allow him to be. Yes, decidedly 
 clever — and not offensively clever — practical." 
 
 Sir Peter found Travers in the dining-room witli his 
 daughter, Mrs. Campion, and Lady Glenalvon. Travers 
 was one of those men, rare in middle age, who are more 
 often to be found in their drawing-room than in their private 
 study; he was fond of female society ; and perhaps it was 
 this predilection which contributed to preserve in him the 
 charm of good breeding and winning manners. The two 
 men had not met for many years ; not, indeed, since Travers 
 was at the zenith of his career of fashion, and Sir Peter was 
 one of those pleasant dilettanti and half-humoristic conversa- 
 tionalists who become popular and courted diners-out. 
 
 Sir Peter had originally been a moderate Whig because 
 his father had been one before him, but he left the Whig 
 party with the Duke of Richmond, Mr. Stanley (afterwards 
 Lord Derby), and others, when it seemed to him that that 
 party had ceased to be moderate. 
 
 Leopold Travers had, as a youth in the Guards, been a 
 high Tory, but, siding with Sir Robert Peel on the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws, remained witli the Peelites after the bulk 
 of the Tory party had renounced the guidance of their 
 former chief, and now went with these Peelites in whatever 
 direction the progress of the age might impel their strides 
 in advance of Whigs and in defiance of Tories. 
 
 However, it is not the politics of these two gentlemen 
 that are in question now. As 1 have just said, they had not 
 met for many years. Travers was very little changed. Sir 
 Peter recognized him at a glance ; Sir Peter was much 
 changf'd, and Travers hesitated before, on hearing his name 
 ann(junced, he felt quite sure that it was the right Sir Peter 
 towards whom he advanced and to whom he extended his
 
 KENELM CHlL^LmCLY. 30? 
 
 cordial hand. Travers preserved the coloi of his nair and 
 the neat proportions of his figure, and was as scrupulously 
 well dressed as in his dandy days. Sir Peter, originally very 
 thin and with fair locks and dreamy blue eyes, had now be- 
 come rather portly, at least towards the middle of him— 
 very gray — had long ago taken to spectacles — his dress, too, 
 was very old-fashioned, and made by a country tailor. He 
 looked quite as much a gentleman as Travers did ; quite 
 ])erhaps as healthy, allowing for difference of years ; quite 
 as likely to last his time. But between them was the differ- 
 ence of the nervous temperament and the lymphatic. Trav- 
 ers, with less brain than Sir Peter, had kept his brain con- 
 stantly active; Sir Peter had allowed his brain to dawdle 
 over old books and lazy delight in letting the hours slip by. 
 Therefore Travers still looked young— alert — up to his day, 
 up to anything ; while Sir Peter, entering that drawing- 
 room, seemed a sort of Rip Van Winkle who had slept 
 through the past generation and looked on the present with 
 eyes yet drowsy. Still, in those rare moments when he was 
 thoroughly roused up, there would have been found in Sir 
 Peter a glow of heart, nay, even a vigor of thought, much 
 more expressive than the constitutional alertness that charac 
 terized Leopold Travers, of the attributes we most love and 
 admire in the young. 
 
 " My dear Sir Peter, is it you ? I am so glad to see you 
 again," said Travers. " What an age since we met, and hoW 
 condescendingly kind you were then to me ; silly fop that I 
 was ! But bygones are bygones ; come to the present. Let 
 me introduce to you, first, my valued friend, Mrs. Campion, 
 whose distinguished husband you remember. Ah, what 
 pleasant meetings we had at his house ! And next, that 
 young lady of whom she takes motherly charge ; my daugh- 
 ter Cecilia. Lady Glenalvon, your wife's friend, of course 
 needs no introduction : time stands still with her." 
 
 Sir Peter lowered his spectacles, which in reality he only 
 wanted for books in small print, and gazed attentively on 
 the three ladies— at each gaze a bow. But while his eyes 
 were still lingeringly fixed on Cecilia, Lady Glenalvon ad- 
 vanced, naturally, ni right of rank and the claim of old ac- 
 quaintance, the first of the three to greet him. 
 
 " Alas, my dear Sir Peter ! time does not stand still for 
 any of us ; but what matter, if it leaves pleasant footprints ? 
 When I see you again, my youth comes before me. My 
 early friend, Caroline Brotherton, now Lady Chillingly ;
 
 3o6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 our girlish walks with each other ; wreaths and ball-dresses 
 the practical topic : prospective husbands, the dream at a 
 distance. Come and sit here : tell me aU about Caroline." 
 
 Sir Peter, who had little to say about Caroline that 
 could possibly interest anybody but himself, nevertheless 
 took his seat beside Lady Glenalvon, and, as in duty bound, 
 made the most flattering account of his She Baronet which 
 experience or invention would allow. All the while, liow- 
 ever, his thoughts were on Kenehn, and his eyes on Cecilia. 
 
 Cecilia resumes some mysterious piece of lady's work — 
 no matter what — perhaps embroidery for a music-stool, 
 perhaps a pair of slippers for her father (which, being rather 
 vain of his feet and knowing they look best in plain morocco, 
 he will certainly never wear). Cecilia appears absorbed in 
 her occupation ; but her eyes and her thoughts arc on Sir 
 Peter. Why, my lady reader may guess. And oh, so flatter- 
 ingly, so lovingly fixed ! She thinks he has a most charm- 
 ing, intelligent, benignant countenance. She admires even 
 his old-fashioned frock-coat, high neckcloth, and strapped 
 trousers. She venerates his gray hairs, pure of dye. She 
 tries to find a close resemblance between that fair, blue- 
 eyed, plumpish elderly gentleman and the lean, dark-eyed, 
 saturnine, lofty Kenelm ; she detects the likeness which 
 nobody else would. She begins to love Sir Peter, though 
 he has not said a word to her. 
 
 Ah ! on this, a word for what it is worth to you, my 
 young readers. You, sir, wishing to marry a girl who is to 
 be deeply, lastingly in love with you, and a thoroughly good 
 Avife practically, consider well how she takes to your par- 
 ents — how she attaches to them an inexpressible sentiment, 
 a disinterested reverence — even should you but dimly re- 
 cognize the sentiment, or feel the reverence, how if between 
 you and your parents some little cause of coldness arise, 
 she will charm you back to honor your father and your 
 mother, even though they are not particularly genial to her 
 — well, if you win tliat sort of girl as your wife, think you 
 have got a treasure. You have won a woman to whom 
 Heaven has given the two best attributes — intense feeling 
 of love, intense sense of duty. What, my dear lady reader, 
 I say of one sex, I say of another, though in a less degree ; 
 because a girl who marries becomes of her husband's family, 
 and the man does not become of his wife's. Still I distrust 
 the depth of any man's love to a woman, if he does not feel 
 a great degree of tenderness (and forbearance where differ-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 307 
 
 ences arise) for her parents. But the wife must not so put 
 them in the foreground as to make the husband think he is 
 cast into the cold of the shadow. Pardon tliis intolerable 
 length of digression, dear reader — it is not altogether a di- 
 gression, for it belongs to my tale that you should clearly 
 understand the sort of girl that is personified in Cecilia 
 Travers. 
 
 "What has become of Kenelm ?" asks Lady Glenalvon. 
 
 " I wish I coxdd tell you," answers Sir Peter. " He 
 wrote me word that he w%as going forth on rambles into 
 ' fresh woods and pastures new,' perhaps for some weeks. 
 I have not had a word from him since." 
 
 "You make me uneasy," said Lady Glenalvon. " I hope 
 nothing can have happened to him — he cannot have fallen 
 ill." 
 
 Cecilia stops her work, and looks up wistfully. 
 
 " Make your mind easy," said Travers with a laugh ; " I 
 am in his secret. He has challenged the champion of Eng- 
 land, and gone into the country to train." 
 
 "Very likely," said Sir Peter, quietly ; " I should not be 
 in the least surprised : should you, Miss Travers ?" 
 
 "I think it more probable that Mr. Chillingly is do- 
 ing some kindness to others which he wishes to keep con- 
 cealed." 
 
 Sir Peter was pleased with this reply, and drew his chair 
 nearer to Cecilia's. Lady Glenalvon, charmed to bring 
 those two together, soon rose and took leave. 
 
 Sir Peter remained nearly an hour, talking chiefly with 
 Cecilia, who won her w^ay into his heart with extraordinary 
 ease ; and he did not quit the house till he had engaged her 
 father, Mrs. Campion, and herself to pay him a week's visit 
 at Exmundham, towards the end of the London season, 
 which was fast approaching. 
 
 Having obtained this promise, Sir Peter went away, and 
 ten minutes after Mr. Gordon Chillingly entered the draw- 
 ing-room. He had already established a visiting acquain- 
 tance with the Traverses. Travers had taken a liking to 
 him. Mrs. Campion found him an extremely well-informed, 
 unaffected young man, very superior to young men in gen- 
 eral. Cecilia was cordially polite to Kenelm's cousin. 
 
 Altogether, that was a very happy day for Sir Peter. 
 He enjoyed greatly his dinner at the Garrick, where he met 
 some old acquaintances and was presented to some new 
 •'celebrities." He observed that Gordon btood well with
 
 3oS KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 these eminent persons. Though as yet undistinguished 
 himself, they treated him with a certain respect, as well as 
 with evident liking. The most eminent of them, at least the 
 one with the most solidly-established reputation, said in Sir 
 Peter's ear, '' You may be proud of your nephew Gor- 
 don ! " 
 
 " He is not my nephew, only the son of a very distant 
 cousin." 
 
 '' Sorry for that. Bat he will shed lustre on kinsfolk, 
 however distant. Clever fellow, yet popular ; rare combi- 
 nation — sure to rise." 
 
 Sir Peter suppressed a gulp in the throat. "Ah, if some 
 one as eminent had spoken thus of Kenelm ! " 
 
 But he was too generous to allow that half-envious sen- 
 tim>ent to last more than a moment. Why should he not be 
 proud of any member of the family who could irradiate the 
 antique obscurity of the Chillingly race ? And how agree- 
 able this clever young man made himself to Sir Peter ! 
 
 The next day Gordon insisted on accompanying him 
 to see the latest acquisitions in the British Museum, and 
 various other exhibitions, and went at night to the Princp 
 of Wales's Theatre, where Sir Peter was infinitely delighted 
 with an admirable little comedy by Mr. Robertson, admir- 
 ably placed on the stage by Marie Wilton. The day after, 
 when Gordon called on him at his hotel, he cleared his 
 throat, and thus plunged at once into the communication 
 he had hitherto delayed. 
 
 " Gordon, my boy, I owe you a debt, and I am now, 
 thanks to Kenelm, able to pay it." 
 
 Gordon gave a little start of surprise, but remained 
 silent. 
 
 " I told your father, shortly after Kenelm was born, that 
 I meant to give up my London house and lay by ^looo a 
 year for you, in compensation for your chance of succeed- 
 ing to Exmundham should I have died childless. Well, 
 your father did not seem to think much of that promise, and 
 went to law with me about certain unquestionable rights of 
 mine. How so clever a man could have made sucli a mis- 
 take, would puzzle me, if I did n(jt remember that he had a 
 quarrelsome temper. Temper is a thing that often domi- 
 nates cleverness — an uncontrollable thing ; and allowances 
 must be made for it. Not being of a quarrelsome temper 
 myself (the Chillinglys are a placid race), I did not make 
 the allowance for your father's differing, and (for a Chil-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 309 
 
 lingly) abnormal, constitution. The language and the tone 
 of his letter respecting it nettled me. I did not see why, 
 thus treated, I should pinch myself to lay by a thousand a 
 year. Facilities for buying a property most desirable for 
 the possessor of Exmundham presented themselves. I 
 bought it with borrowed money, and, though I gave up the 
 house in London, I did not lay by the thousand a year." 
 
 " My dear Sir Peter, I have always regretted that my 
 poor father was misled — perhaps out of too paternal a care 
 for my supposed interests — into that unhappy and fruitless 
 litigation, after which no one could doubt that any gener- 
 ous intentions on your part would be finally abandoned. It 
 has been a grateful surprise to me that I have been so kindly 
 and cordially received into the family by Kenelm and your- 
 self. Pray oblige me by dropping all reference to pecun- 
 iary matters : the idea of compensation to a very distant 
 relative for the loss of expectations he had no right to form, 
 is too absurd, for me at least, ever to entertain." 
 
 " But I am absurd enough to entertain it — though you 
 express yourself in a very high-minded way. To come to 
 the point, Kenelm is of age, and we have cut off the entail. 
 The estate of course remains absolutely with Kenelm to dis- 
 pose of, as it did before, and we must take it for granted 
 tliat he will marry ; at all events he cannot fall into your 
 poor father's error ; but whatever Kenelm hereafter does 
 with his property, it is nothing to you, and is not to be 
 counted upon. Even the title dies with Kenelm if he has 
 no son. On resettling the estate, however, sums of money 
 have been released which, as I stated before, enable me to 
 discharge the debt which, Kenelm heartily agrees with me, 
 is due to you. ^20,000 are now lying at my bankers' to be 
 transferred to yours ; meanwhile, if you will call on my 
 solicitor, Mr. Vining, Lincoln's-inn, you can see the new 
 deed, and give to him yoiu" receipt for the ^20,000 for 
 which he holds my cheque. Stop — stop — stop — I will not 
 hear a word — no thanks, they are not due." 
 
 Here Gordon, who had during this speech uttered 
 various brief exclamations, which Sir Peter did not heed, 
 caught hold of his kinsman's hand, and, despite of all strug- 
 gles, pressed his lips on it. " I must thank you, I must 
 give some vent to my emotions," cried Gordon. " This 
 sum, great in itself, is far more to me than you can imagine 
 — it opens my career — it assures my future." 
 
 " So Kenelm tells me ; he said that sum would be more
 
 3IO KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 use to you now than ten times the amount twenty years 
 hence." 
 
 " So it will — it will. And Kenelm consents to this sacri- 
 fice?" 
 
 " Consents — urges it ! " 
 
 Gordon turned away his face, and Sir Peter resumed : 
 "You want to get into Parliament; very natural ambition 
 for a clever young fellow. I don't presume to dictate poli- 
 tics to you. I hear you are what is called a liberal ; a man 
 may be a liberal, I suppose, without being a Jacobin." 
 
 '* I hope so, indeed. For my part, I am anything but a 
 violent man." 
 
 " V^iolent, no ! Who ever heard of a violent Chillingly ? 
 But I was reading in tlie newspaper to-day a speech ad- 
 dressed to some populous audience, in which the orator was 
 fpr dividing all the land and all the capital belonging to 
 other people among the working class, calmly and quielly, 
 without any violence, and deprecating violence ; but saying, 
 perhaps very truly, that the people to be robbed might 
 not like it, and might offer violence ; in which case Avoe be- 
 tide them — it was they who would be guilty of violence — 
 and they must take the consequences if they resisted tlie 
 reasonable propositions of himself and his friends ! That, 
 I suppose, is among tlie new ideas with which Kenelm is 
 more familiar than I am. Do you entertain those new 
 ideas ? " 
 
 " Certainly not — I despise the fools who do." 
 
 " And you will not abet revolutionary measures if you 
 get into Parliament ? " 
 
 " My dear Sir Peter, I fear you have heard very false 
 reports of my opinicnis if you put such questions. Listen," 
 and therewith (iordon launched into dissertations very 
 clever, very subtle, which committed him to nothing, be- 
 yond the wisdom of guiding popular opinion into right 
 directions ; what might be right directions he did not define, 
 he left Sir Peter to guess them. Sir Peter did guess them, 
 as Gordon meant he should, to be the directions which he. 
 Sir Peter, thought right ; and he was satisfied. 
 
 That subject disposed of, Gordon said, with much appar- 
 ent feeling, " May I ask you to complete the favors you 
 have lavished on me ? I have never seen Exmundham, 
 and the home of tlie race from which I sprang has a deep 
 interest for me. Will you allow me to spend a few days 
 with you, and under the shade of your own trees take les-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 311 
 
 sons in political science from one who has evidently reflect- 
 ed on it profoundly?" 
 
 " Profoundly — no — a little — a little, as a mere bystand- 
 er," said Sir Peter, modestly, but much flattered. " Come, 
 my dear boy, by all means ; you will have a hearty wel- 
 come. By-the-by, Travers and his handsome daughter 
 promised to visit me in about a fortnight : why not come 
 at the same time ? " 
 
 A sudden flash lit up the young man's countenance. " I 
 shall be so delighted," he cried. " I am but slightly ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Travers, but I like him much, and Mrs. 
 Campion is so well informed." 
 
 "And what say you to the girl ? " 
 
 "The girl. Miss Travers. Oh, she is very well in her way. 
 But I don't talk with yoimg ladies more than I can help." 
 
 "Then you are like your cousin Kenelm?" 
 
 "I wish I were like him in other things." 
 
 "No, one such oddity in a family is quite enough. But 
 though I would not have you change to a Kenelm, I would 
 not change Kenelm for the most perfect model of a son that 
 the world can exhibit." Delivering himself of this burst of 
 parental fondness. Sir Peter shook hands with Gordon, and 
 walked off to Mivers, who was to give him limcheon and 
 then accompany him to the station. Sir Peter was to return 
 to Exmundham by the afternoon express. 
 
 Left alone, Gordon indulged in one of those luxurious 
 guesses into the future which form the happiest moments in 
 youth, when so ambitious as his. The sum Sir Peter placed 
 at his disposal would insure his entrance into Parliament. 
 He counted with confidence on early successes there. He 
 extended the scope of his views. With such successes he 
 might calculate with certainty on a brilliant marriage, aug- 
 menting his fortune, and confirming his position. He had 
 previously fixed his thoughts on Cecilia Travers — I will do 
 him the justice to say not from mercenary motives alone, but 
 not certainly with the impetuous ardor of youthful love. He 
 thought her exactly fitted to be the wife of an eminent public 
 man, in person, acquirement, dignified yet popular manners. 
 He esteemed her, he liked her, and then her fortune would 
 add solidity to his position. In fact, he had that sort of 
 rational attachment to Cecilia which wise men, like Lord 
 Bacon and Montaigne, would command to another wise man 
 seeking a wife. What opportunities of awaking in herself a 
 similar, perhaps a warmer, attachment the visit to Exmund-
 
 312 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 ham would afford ! He had learned when he had called on 
 the Traverses that they were going thitiier, and hence that 
 burst of family sentiment which had procured the invitation 
 to himself. 
 
 But he must be cautious ; he must not prematurely 
 awaken Travers's suspicions. He was not as yet a match 
 that the squire could approve of for his heiress. And 
 though he was ignorant of Sir Peter's designs on that young 
 lady, he was much too prudent to confide his own to a kins- 
 man of whose discretion he had strong misgivings. It was 
 enough for him at present that way was opened for his own 
 resolute energies. And cheerfidly, though musingly, he 
 weighed its obstacles, and divined its goal, as he paced his 
 floor with bended head and restless strides, now quick, now 
 slow. 
 
 Sir Peter, in the meanwhile, found a very good luncheon 
 prepared for him at Mivers's rooms, which he had all to him- 
 self, for his host never "spoilt his dinner and insulted his 
 breakfast" by that intermediate meal. He remained at his 
 desk writing brief notes of business or of pleasure, while Sir 
 Peter did justice to lamb cutlets and grilled chicken. But 
 he looked up from his task, with raised eyebrows, when Sir 
 Peter, after a somewhat discursive account of his visit to the 
 Traverses, his admiration of Cecilia, and the adroitness with 
 Avhich, acting on his cousin's hint, he had engaged the family 
 to spend a few days at Exmundham, added, " And, by-the-by, 
 I have asked young Gordon to meet them." 
 
 " To meet them ; meet Mr. and Miss Travers ! you have ? 
 I thought you wished Kenelm to marry Cecilia. I w;is 
 mistaken, you meant Gordon ! " 
 
 "Gordon!" exclaimed Sir Peter, dropping his knife and 
 fork. " Nonsense ! you don't suppose that oNIiss Travers pre- 
 fers him to Kenelm, or that he has the presumption to fancy 
 that her father would sanction his addresses." 
 
 "I indulge in no suppositions of the sort. I content 
 myself with thinking that Gordon is clever, insinuating, 
 young; and it is a very good chance of bettering himself 
 that you have thrown in his wav. However, it is no affair 
 of mine ; and thou<rh on the wlujle I like Kenelm better than 
 Gordon, still I like Gordon very well, and I have an interest 
 in following his career which I can't say I have in conjectur- 
 ing what may be Kenelm's — more likely no career at all." 
 
 "Mivers, you delight in provoking me ; you do say such
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 313 
 
 uncomfortable things. But, in the first place, Gordon spoke 
 rather slightingly of Miss Travers." 
 
 "Ah, indeed ; that's a bad sign," muttered Mivers. 
 
 Sir Peter did not hear him, and went on. 
 
 " And, besides, I feel pretty sure that the dear girl has 
 already a regard for Kenelm which allows no, room for a 
 rival. However, I shall not forget your hint, but keep a 
 sliaip lookout ; and if I see the young man wants to be too 
 sweet on Cecilia, I shall cut short his visit." 
 
 " Give yourself no trouble in the matter ; it will do no 
 good. IMarriages are made in heaven. Heaven's will be 
 done. If I can get away, I will run down to you for a day 
 or two. Perhaps in that case you can ask Lady Glenalvon. 
 I like her, and she likes Kenelm. Have you finished ? I 
 see the brougham is at the door, and we have to call at your 
 hotel to take up your carpet-bag." 
 
 Mivers was deliberately sealing his notes while he thus 
 spoke. He now rang for his servant, gave orders for their 
 delivery, and then followed Sir Peter down-stairs and into 
 the brougham. Not a word would he say more about Gor- 
 don, and Sir Peter shrank from telling him about the ^^20,- 
 000. Chillingly Mivers was perhaps the'Iast person to whom 
 Sir Peter would be tempted to parade an act of generosity. 
 Mivers might not unfrequently do a generous act himself, 
 provided it was not divulged ; but he had always a sneer for 
 the generosity of others. 
 
 CFIAPTER H. 
 
 Wandering back towards Moleswich, Kenelm found 
 himself a little before sunset on the banks of the a:arrulous 
 brook, almost opposite to the house inhabited by Lily Mor- 
 daunt. He stood long and silently by the grassy margin, 
 his dark shadow falling over the stream, broken into frag- 
 ments by the eddy and strife of waves, fresh from their leap 
 down the neighboring waterfall. His eyes rested on the 
 house and the garden lawn in the front. The upper win- 
 dows were open. '' I wonder which is hers," he said to 
 himself. At last he caught a glimpse of the gardener, bend- 
 ing over a flower-border with his watering-pot, and then, 
 moving slowly through the little shrubbery, no doubt to his 
 
 14
 
 314 KEN ELM CIIILLTNGLY. 
 
 own cottage. Now the lawn was solitary, save that a couple 
 of thrushes dropped suddenly on the sward. 
 
 "Good-evening, sir," said a voice. "A capital spot for 
 trout this." 
 
 Kenelm turned his head, and beheld on the footpath, just 
 behind him, a respectable elderly man, apparently of the 
 class of a small retail tradesman, with a fishing-rod in his 
 hand and a basket belted to his side. 
 
 " For trout," replied Kenelm \ " I daresay. A strangely 
 attractive spot indeed." 
 
 " Are you an angler, sir, if I may make bold to inquire ? " 
 asked the elderly man, somewhat perhaps puzzled as to the 
 rank of the stranger ; noticing, on the one hand, his dress 
 and his mien, on the other, slung to his shoulders, the worn 
 and shabby knapsack which Kenelm had carried, at home 
 and abroad, the preceding year. 
 
 *' Ay, I am an angler." 
 
 "Then this is the best place in the whole stream. Look, 
 sir, there is Izaak Walton's summer-house ; and farther down 
 you see that white, neat-looking house. Well, that is my 
 house, sir, and I have an apartment which I let to gentle- 
 men anglers. It is generally occupied throughout the sum- 
 mer months. I expect every day to have a letter to engage 
 it, but it is vacant now. A very nice apartment, sir — sitting- 
 room and bedroom." 
 
 " Descende ccelo, ct die age tihia,'" said Kenelrn. 
 
 " Sir ! " said the elderly man. 
 
 " I beg you ten thousand i)ar(lons. I have had the mis- 
 fortune to have been at the university, and to have learned a 
 little Latin, which sometimes comes back very inoppor- 
 tunely. But, speaking in plain English, what I meant to 
 say is this : I invoked the Muse to descend from heaven 
 and bring with her — the original says a fife, but I meant — a 
 fishing-rod. I should think your apartment would suit me 
 exactly ; pray show it to me." 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure," said the elderly man. 
 " The Muse need not brina: a fishiner-rcjd ! we have all sorts 
 of tackle at your service, and a boat too, if you care for that. 
 The stream hereabouts is so shallow and narrow that a boat 
 is of little use till you get farther down." 
 
 " I don't want to get farther down ; but should I want to 
 get to the opposite bank without wading across, would the 
 boat take me, or is there a bridge ? " ■ 
 
 '"The boat can take you. It is aflat-bottomed punt, and
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 315 
 
 there is a bridge too for foot-passengers, just opposite my 
 house ; and between this and Moleswich, where the stream 
 widens, there is a ferry. The stone bridge for traffic is at 
 tlie farther end of the town." 
 
 " Good. Let us go at once to your house." 
 
 The two men walked on. 
 
 " By-the-by," said Kenehii as they walked, "do you know 
 much of the family who inhabit the pretty cottage on the 
 opposite side, which we have just left behind ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Cameron's. Yes, of course, avery good lady ; and 
 Mr. Melville, the painter. I am sure I ought to know, for 
 he has often lodged with me when he came to visit Mrs. 
 Cameron. He recommends my apartment to his friends, 
 and they are my best lodgers. I like painters, sir, though 
 I don't know much about paintings. They are pleasant 
 gentlemen, and easily contented with my humble roof and 
 fare." 
 
 "You are quite right. I don't know much about paint- 
 ings myself, but I am inclined to believe that painters, 
 judging not from what I have seen of them, for I have not 
 a single acquaintance among them personally, but from 
 what I have read of their lives, are, as a general rule, not 
 only pleasant but noble gentlemen. They form within 
 themselves desires to beautify or exalt commonplace things, 
 and they can only accomplish their desires by a constant 
 study of what is beautiful and what is exalted. A man con- 
 stantly so engaged ought to be a very noble gentleman, 
 even though he maybe the son of a shoeblack. And living 
 in a higher world than wc do, I can conceive that he i§, as 
 you say, very well contented with humble roof and fare in 
 the world we inhabit." 
 
 " Exactly, sir ; I see — I see now, though you put it in a 
 way that never struck me before." 
 
 "And yet," said Kenelm, looking benignly at the speaker, 
 ")'ou seem to me a well-educated and intelligent man ; re- 
 flective on things in general, without being unmindful of 
 your interests in particular, especially when you have lodg- 
 ings to let. Do not be offended. That sort of man is not 
 perhaps born to be a painter, but I respect him highly. The 
 world, sir, requires the vast majority of its inhabitants to live 
 in it — to live by it. ' Each for himself, and God for us all.' 
 The greatest happiness of the greatest number is best se- 
 cured by a prudent consideration for Niunber One." 
 
 Somewhat to Kenelm's surprise (allowing that he had
 
 3i6 KENELM CniT.I.INCLY. 
 
 now learned enough of life to be occasionally surprised), the 
 elderly man here made a dead halt, stretched out his hand 
 cordially, and cried "Hear, hear! I see that, like me, you 
 are a decided democrat." 
 
 " Democrat ! Pray, may I ask, not why you are one — 
 that would be a liberty, and democrats resent any liberty 
 taken with themselves — but why you suppose I am ? " 
 
 " You spoke of the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 niuiiber. That is a democratic sentiment, surely ! Besides, 
 did not you say, sir, that painters — painters, sir, painters, 
 even if they were the sons of shoeblacks, were the true gen- 
 tlemen — the true noblemen ? " 
 
 " I did not say that exactly, to the disparagement of other 
 gentlemen and nobles. But if I did, what tlien ?" 
 
 "Sir, I agree with you. I despise rank, I despise dukes, 
 and earls, and aristocrats. 'An honest man's the noblest 
 work of God.' Some poet says that. I think Shakspeare. 
 Wonderful man, Shakspeare. A tradesman's son — butcher, 
 I believe. Eh ! My uncle was a butcher, and I might have 
 been an alderman. I go along with you heartily, heartily. 
 I am a democrat, every inch of me. Shake hands, sir — shake 
 hands ; we are all equals. ' Each for himself, and God for 
 us all.'" 
 
 " I have no objection to shake hands," said Kenelm ; 
 " but don't let me owe your condescension to false pretences. 
 Though we are all equal before the law, except the rich 
 man, who has little chance of justice as against a poor man 
 when submitted to an English jury, yet I utterly deny that 
 any two men yuu select can be equals. One must beat the 
 other in something ; and when (jne man beats another, 
 democracy ceases and aristocracy begins." 
 
 " Aristocracy ! I don't see that. What do you mean by 
 aristocracy ? " 
 
 The ascendency of the better man. In a rude State the 
 better man is the stronger ; in a ccn-rupt State, perhaps the 
 more roguish ; in modern republics the jobbers get the 
 money and the lawyers get the power. In Avell-ordered 
 States alone aristocracy appears at its genuine worth : the 
 better man in birth, because respect for ancestry secures a 
 liigher standard of honor ; the l)etterman in wealth, because 
 of the immense uses to enterprise, energy, and the fine arts, 
 Avhich rich men must be if they follow their own inclina- 
 tions ; the better man in character, the better man inability, 
 for reasons too obvious to define ; and these two last will
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 317 
 
 beat the others in the government of the State, if the State 
 be flourishing and free. All tliese four classes of better men 
 constitute true aristocracy ; and when a better government 
 than a true aristocracy shall be devised by the wit of man, 
 we shall not be far off from the Millennium and the reign 
 of saints. But here we are at the house — yours, is it not ? 
 I like the look of it extremely." 
 
 The elderly man now entered the little porch, over which 
 clambered honeysuckle and ivy intertwined, and usliered 
 Kenelm into a pleasant parlor, Avith a bay window, and an 
 equally pleasant bedroom behind it. 
 
 "Will it do, sir?" 
 
 "Perfectly. I take it from this moment. My knapsack 
 contains all I shall need for the night. There is a port- 
 manteau of mine at Mr. Somers's shop, which can be sent 
 here in the morning." 
 
 "But we have not settled about the terms," said the 
 elderly man, beginning to feel rather doubtful whether he 
 ouglit thus to have installed in his home a stalwart pedes- 
 trian of whom he knew nothing, and who, though talking 
 glibly enough on other things, had preserved an ominous 
 silence on the subject of payment. 
 
 " Terms ? true. Name them." 
 
 " Including board ?" 
 
 " Certainly. Chameleons live on air. Democrats on 
 wind-bags. I have a more vulgar appetite, and require 
 mutton ! " 
 
 " Meat is very dear nowadays," said the elderly man, 
 " and I am afraid, for board and lodging, I cannot charge 
 you less than jCt, t^s. — say 3^ a week. My lodgers usually 
 pay a week in advance." 
 
 " Agreed," said Kenelm, extracting three sovereigns from 
 his purse. " I have dined already — I want nothing more 
 this evening ; let me detain you no further. Be kind 
 enough to shut the door after you." 
 
 When he was alone, Kenelm seated himself in the recess 
 of the bay window, against the casement, and looked forth 
 intently. Yes, he was right — he could see from thence the 
 home of I.ily. Not, indeed, more tlian a white gleam of the 
 house through the interstices of trees and shrubs — but the 
 gentle lawn sloping" to the brook, with the great willow at 
 the end dipping its boughs into the water and shutting out 
 all view beyond itself by its bower of tender leaves. The 
 young man bent his face on his hands and mused dreamily ;
 
 3i8 KENLLM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 the evening deepened, the stars came forth, the rays of the 
 moon now peered aslant through the arching dips of the 
 willow, silvering their way as they stole to the waves below. 
 
 " Shall I bring lights, sir ? or do you prefer a lamp or 
 candles ? " asked a voice behind ; the voice of the elderly 
 man's wife. " Do you like the shutters closed .'*" 
 
 The questions startled the dreamer. They seemed 
 mockins: his own old mockings on the romance of love. 
 Lamp or candles, practical lights for prosaic eyes, and 
 shutters closed against moon and stars ! 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am, not yet," he said ; and rising quietly 
 he placed his hand on the window-sill, swung himself 
 through the open casement, and passed slowly along the 
 margin of the rivulet by a path chequered alternately with 
 shade and starlight ; the moon yet more slowly rising above 
 the willows and lengthening its track along the wavelets. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Though Kenelm did not think it necessary at present to 
 report to his parents, or his London acquaintances, his re- 
 cent movements and his present resting-place, it never 
 entered into his head to \nY\i perdu in the immediate vicinity 
 of Lily's house and seek opportunities of meeting her clan- 
 destinely. Me walked to Mrs. Braefiield's the next morning, 
 found her at home, and said, in rather a more off-hand 
 manner than was habitual to him, "I have hired a lodging 
 in your neighborhood, on the banks of tlie brook, for the 
 sake of its trout-fishing. So you will allow me to call on 
 you sometimes, and one of these days I hope you will give 
 me the dinner that I so unceremoniously rejected some days 
 ago. I w\as then summoned away suddenly, much against 
 my will." 
 
 " Yes ; my husband said that you shot off from him with 
 a wild exclamation about duty." 
 
 " Quite true ; my reason, and I may say my conscience, 
 were greatly perplexed upon a matter extremely important 
 and altogether new to me. I went to Oxford — the place 
 above all others in which questions of reason and conscience 
 are most deeply considered, and ]3erhaps least satisfactorily 
 solved. Relieved in my mind by my visit to a distinguished
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 319 
 
 ornament of that university, I felt I might indulge in a 
 summer holiday, and here I am." 
 
 " Ah ! I luiderstand. You liad religious dovibts — thought 
 perhaps of turning Roman Catholic. I hope you are not 
 going to do so ? " 
 
 "My doubts were not necessarily of a religious nature. 
 Pagans have entertained them." 
 
 " Whatever they were, I am pleased to see they did not 
 prevent your return," said Mrs. Braefield, graciously. "But 
 where have you found a lodging — why not have come to us ? 
 My husband would have been scarcely less glad than myself 
 to receive you." 
 
 " You say that so sincerely, and so cordially, that to 
 answer by a brief ' I thank you ' seems rigid and heartless. 
 But there are times in life when one yearns to be alone — to 
 comnuuie with one's own heart, and, if possible, be still ; I 
 am in one of those moody times. Bear with me." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield looked at him with affectionate, kindly in- 
 terest. She had gone before him through the solitary land 
 of young romance. She remembered her dreamy, dangerous 
 girlhood, when she too had yearned to be alone. 
 
 "Bear with you — yes, indeed. I wish, Mr. Chillingly, 
 that I were your sister, and that you would confide in me. 
 Something troubles you." 
 
 "Troubles me — no. My thoughts are happy ones, and 
 they may sometimes perplex me, but they do not trouble." 
 Kenelm said this very softly ; and in the warmer light of his 
 musing eyes, the sweeter play of his tranquil smile, there was 
 an expression which did not belie his words. 
 
 " You have not told me where you have found a lodging," 
 said Mrs. Braefield, somewhat abruptly. 
 
 " Did I not ?" replied Kenelm, with an unconscious start, 
 as from an abstracted reverie. "With no undistinguished 
 host, I presume, for when I asked him this morning for the 
 right address of his cottage, in order to direct such luggage 
 as I have to be sent there, he gave me his card with a grand 
 air, saying, 'I am pretty well known at Moleswich, by and 
 beyond it.' I have not yet looked at his card. Oh, here it 
 is — 'Algernon Sidney Gale Jones, Cromwell Lodge.' You 
 laugh. What do you know of him ?" 
 
 " I wish my husband were here ; he would tell you more 
 about him. Mr. Jones is quite a character." 
 
 " So I perceive." 
 
 " A great radical — very talkative and troublesome af the
 
 320 KENELM CHILLINGL V. 
 
 vestry ; but our vicar, Mr. Emlyn, says there is no real harm 
 in him — that liis bark is worse than his bite — and that liis 
 republican or radical notions must be laid to the doors of his 
 godfathers ! In addition to his name of Jones, he was un- 
 happily christened Gale ; Gale Jones being a noted radical 
 orator at the time of his birth. And I suppose Algernon 
 Sidney was prefixed to Gale in ordor to devote the new-born 
 more emphatically to republican principles." 
 
 " Naturally, therefore, Algernon Sidney Gale Jones bap- 
 tizes his house Cromwell Lodge, seeing that Algernon Sidney 
 held the Protectorate in especial abhorrence, and that the 
 original Gale Jones, if an honest radical, must have done the 
 same, considering what rough usage the advocates of par- 
 liamentary reform met witli at the hands of his Highness. 
 But we must be indulgent to men who have been unfortu- 
 nately christened before they had any choice of the names 
 that were to rule their fate. I myself should have been Jess 
 whimsical had I not been named after a Kenelm wlio believed 
 in sympathetic powders. Apart from his political doctrines, 
 I like my landlord— he keeps his wife in excellent order. 
 She seems frightened at tiie sound of her own footsteps, and 
 glides to and fro, a pallid image of submissive womanliood 
 in list slippers." 
 
 " Great recommendations certainly, and Cromwell Lodge 
 is very prettily situated. By-the-by, it is very near Mrs. 
 Cameron's." 
 
 "Now I think of it, so it is," said Kenelm, innocently. 
 
 Ah ! my friend Kenelm, enemy of shams, and truth- 
 teller /dir excellence, what hast thou come to! How are the 
 mighty fallen ! " Since you say you will dine with us, sup- 
 pose we fix the day after to-morrow, and I will ask Mrs. 
 Cameron and Lily." 
 
 " The day after to-morrow — I shall be delighted." 
 
 "An early hour ? " 
 
 "The earlier the better." 
 
 " Is six o'clock too early ?" 
 
 " Too early — certainly not — on the contrary Good- 
 day — I must now go to Mrs. Somers : she has charge of my 
 portmanteau." 
 
 Then Kenelm rose. 
 
 " Poor dear Lily ! " said Mrs. Braefield ; " I wish she were 
 less of a child." 
 
 Kenelm reseated himself. 
 
 " Is she a child ? I don't think she is actually a child."
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 321 
 
 ** Not in years ; she is between seventeen and eighteen ; 
 but my husband says that she is too childish to talk to, and 
 always tells me to take her off his hands ; he would rather 
 talk with Mrs Cameron." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 " Still, I find something in her." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 "Not exactly childish, nor quite womanish." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " I can't exactly define. But you know what Mr. Melville 
 and Mrs. Cameron call her, as a pet name ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Fairy ! Fairies have no age ; fairy is neither child nor 
 woman." 
 
 " Fairy. She is called Fairy by those who know her best ? 
 Fairy ! " 
 
 "And she believes in fairies." 
 
 " Does she ? — so do I. Pardon me, I must be off. The 
 day after to-morrow — six o'clock." 
 
 "Wait one moment," said Elsie, going to her writing- 
 table. " Since you pass Grasmere on your way home, will 
 you kindly leave this note ?" 
 
 " I thought Grasmere was a lake in the north ?" 
 
 "Yes ; but Mr. Melville chose to call the cottage by the 
 name of the lake. I think the first picture he ever sold was 
 a view of Wordsworth's house there. Here is my note to 
 ask Mrs. Cameron to meet you ; but if you object to be my 
 messenger " 
 
 " Object ! my dear Mrs. Braefield. As you say, I pass 
 close by the cottage." 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 KexNelm went with somewhat rapid pace from Mrs. Brae- 
 field's to the shop in the High Street, kept by Will Somers. 
 Jessie was behind the counter, which was thronged with 
 customers. Kenelm gave her a brief direction about his 
 portmanteau, and then passed into the back parlor, where her 
 husband was employed on his baskets — with the baby's cradle 
 in the corner, and its grandmother rocking it mechanically, 
 as she read a wonderful missionary tract full of tales of 
 
 14*
 
 322 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 miraculous conversions: into what sort of Christians we 
 will not pause to inquire. 
 
 "And so you are happy, Will ?" said Kenelm, seating 
 himself between the basket-maker and the infant ; the dear 
 old mother beside him, reading the tract which linked her 
 dreams of life eternal with life just opening in the cradle 
 tliat she rocked. He not happy ! How he pitied the man 
 who could ask such a question ! 
 
 " Happy, sir ! I should think so, indeed. There is not 
 a night on which Jessie and I, and mother too, do not pray 
 that some day or other you may be as happy. By-and-by 
 the baby will learn to pray ' God bless papa, and mamma, 
 grandmamma, and Mr. Chillingly.' " 
 
 " There is some one else much more deserving of prayers 
 than I, though needing them less. You will know some 
 day — pass it by now. To return to the point ; you are 
 happy ; if 1 asked why, would you not say, * Because I have 
 married the girl I love, and have never repented' ?" 
 
 "Well, sir, that is about it ; though, begging your par- 
 don, I think it could be put more prettily somehow." 
 
 " You are right there. But perhaps love and happiness 
 never yet found any words that could fitly express them. 
 Good-bye, for the present." 
 
 Ah ! if it were as mere materialists, or as many middle- 
 aged or elderly folks, who if materialists are so without 
 knowing it, imreflcctingly say, " The main element of hap- 
 piness is bodily or animal health and strength," that ques- 
 tion which Chillingly put would appear a very unmeaning or 
 a very insulting one addressed to a pale cripple, who, how- 
 ever improved of late in health, would still be sickly and 
 ailing all his life,- — put, too, by a man of the rarest conform- 
 ation of physical powers that nature can adapt to physical 
 enjoyment — a man who, since the age in which memory- 
 commences, had never known what it was to be unwell, 
 who could scarcely miderstand you if you talked of a finger- 
 ache, and whom tliose refinements of mental culture which 
 nudtiply the delights of the senses had endowed with the 
 most exquisite conceptions of such happiness as mere nature 
 and its instincts can give ! But Will did not think the ques- 
 tion unmeaning or insulting. He, the poor cripple, felt a 
 vast superiority on the scale of joyous being over the young 
 Hercules, well-born, cultured, and wealthy, who could know 
 so little of happiness as to ask the crippled l)asket-maker if 
 he were hapj:)y — he, blessed husband and father!
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 323 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Lily was seated on the grass under a chestnut-tree on 
 the lawn. A white cat, not long emerged from kittenhood, 
 curled itself by her side. On her lap was an open volume, 
 which she was reading with the greatest delight. 
 
 Mrs. Cameron came from the house, looked round, per- 
 ceived the girl, and approached ; and either she moved so 
 gently, or Lily was so absorbed in her book, that the latter 
 was not aware of her presence till she felt a light hand on 
 her shoulder, and, looking up, recognized her aunt's gentle 
 face. 
 
 "Ah! Fairy, Fairy, that silly book, when you ought to 
 be at your French verbs. What will your guardian say 
 when he comes and finds you have so wasted time ? " 
 
 " He will say that fairies never waste their time ; and he 
 will scold you for saying so." Therewith Lily threw down 
 the book, sprang up to her feet, wound her arm round Mrs. 
 Cameron's neck, and kissed her fondly. " There ! is that 
 wasting time? I love you so, aunty. In a day like this I 
 think I love everybody and everything ! " As she said this, 
 she drew up her lithe form, looked into the blue sky, and 
 with parted lips seemed to drink in air and sunshine. Then 
 she woke up the dozing cat, and began chasing it round the 
 lawn. 
 
 Mrs. Cameron stood still, regarding her with moistened 
 eyes. Just at that moment Kenelm entered through the 
 garden gate. He, too, stood still, his eyes fixed on the 
 undulating movements of F'airy's exquisite form. She had 
 arrested her favorite, and was now at play with it, shaking 
 off her straw hat, and drawing the ribbon attached to it 
 tantalizingly along the smooth grass. Her rich hair, thus 
 released and disheveled by the exercise, fell partly over her 
 face in wavy ringlets ; and her musical laugh and words of 
 sportive endearment sounded on Kenelm's ear more joy- 
 ously than the trill of the skylark, more sweetly than the 
 coo of the ringdove. 
 
 He approached towards Mrs. Cameron. Lily turned 
 suddenly and saw him. Instinctively she smoothed back
 
 324 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 her loosened tresses, replaced the straw hat, and came up 
 demurely to his side just as he accosted her aunt. 
 
 " Pardon my intrusion, Mrs. Cameron. I am the bearer 
 of this note from Mrs. Braefield." While the aunt read the 
 note, he turned to the niece. 
 
 " You promised to show me the picture, Miss Mordaunt." 
 
 " But that was a long time ago." 
 
 " Too long to expect a lady's promise to be kept ?" 
 
 Lily seemed to ponder that question, and hesitated be- 
 fore she answered. 
 
 " I will show you the picture. I don't think I ever broke 
 a promise yet, but I shall be more careful how I make one 
 in future." 
 
 " Why so ? " 
 
 '' Because you did not value mine when I made it, and 
 that hurt me." Lily lifted up her head with a bewitching 
 stateliness, and added gravely, " I was offended." 
 
 " Mrs. Braefield is very kind," said Mrs. Cameron ; " she 
 asks us to dine the day after to-morrow. You would like to 
 go, Lily ? " 
 
 " All grown-up people, I suppose ? No, thank you, 
 dear aunt. You go alone : I would rather stay at home. 
 May I have little Clemmy to i)lay with ? She will bring 
 Juba, and Blanche is very partial to Jubn, though she does 
 scratch him." 
 
 " Very well, my dear, you shall have your playmate, and 
 I will go by myself." 
 
 Kcnelm stood aghast. "You will not go, Miss Mor- 
 daunt? Mrs. Braefield will be so disappointc-d. And if you 
 don't go, whom shall I have to talk to ? I don't like grown- 
 up people better than you do." 
 
 " You are going ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "And if. 1 go you will talk to me ? I am afraid of Mr. 
 Braefield. He is so wise." 
 
 " I will save you from him, and will not utter a grain of 
 wisdom." 
 
 " Aunty, I will go." 
 
 Here Lily made a bound and caught up Blanche, who, 
 taking her kisses resignedly, stared with evident curiosity 
 upon Kcnelm. 
 
 Here a bell within tlie house rung tlie announcement of 
 luncheon. Mrs. Cameron invited Kcnelm to partake of that 
 meal. He felt as Romulus might have felt when first in-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 325 
 
 vited to taste the ambrosia of the gods. Yet certainly that 
 hmcheon was not such as might have pleased Kenelm Chil 
 lingly in the early days of The Temperance Hotel. But 
 somehow or other of late he had lost appetite ; and on this 
 occasion a very modest share of a very slender dish of 
 chicken fricasseed, and a few cherries daintily arranged on 
 vine-leaves, which Lily selected for him, contented him — as 
 probably a very little ambrosia contented Romulus while 
 feasting his eyes on Hebe. 
 
 Luncheon over, while Mrs. Cameron wrote her reply to 
 Elsie, Kenelm was conducted by Lily into her own ^7<;7/ room, 
 in vulgar parlance her botidoir, though it did not look as if any 
 one ever bonder d there. It was exquisitely pretty — pretty 
 not as a woman's, but a child's dream of the own own room 
 she would like to have — wondrously neat and cool and 
 pure-looking ; a trellis paper, the trellis gay with roses and 
 woodbine and birds and butterflies ; draperies of muslin, 
 festooned with dainty tassels and ribbons ; a dwarf book- 
 case, that seemed well stored, at least as to bindings ; a 
 dainty little writing-table in French /nai-queterie—loo^m^ioo 
 fresh and spotless to have known hard service. The case- 
 ment was open, and in keeping with the trellis paper ; 
 ■woodbine and roses from without encroached on the win- 
 dow-sides, gently stirred by the faint summer breeze, and 
 waftincf sweet odors into the little room. Kenelm went to 
 the window, and glanced on the view beyond. " I was 
 right," he said to himself ; "I divined it." But though he 
 spoke in a low^ inward whisper, Lily, who had watched his 
 movements in surprise, overheard. 
 
 " You divined it. Divined what ? " 
 
 " Nothing, nothing ; I Avas but talking to myself." 
 
 "Tell me what you divined — I insist upon it!" and 
 Fairy petulantly stamped her tiny foot on the floor. 
 
 " Do you ? Then I obey. I have taken a lodging for a 
 short time on the other side of the brook — Cromwell Lodge 
 — and, seeing your house as I passed, I divined that your 
 room was in this part of it. How soft here is the view of 
 the water ! Ah ! yonder is Izaak Walton's summer-house." 
 
 " Don't talk about Izaak Walton, or I shall quarrel with 
 you, as I did with Lion when he wanted me to like that 
 cruel book." 
 
 " Who is Lion ? " 
 
 " Lion — of course, my guardian. I called him Lion
 
 326 KEN ELM Clin.LIXGLY. 
 
 when I was a little child. It was on seeing in one of his 
 books a prim of a Hon playing with a little child." 
 
 "Ah! I know the design well," said Kenelm, with a 
 slight sigh. " It is from an antique Greek gem. It is not 
 the lion that plays with the child, it is the child that mas- 
 ters the lion, and the Greeks called the child ' Love.' " 
 
 This idea seemed beyond Lily's perfect comprehension. 
 She paused before she answered, with the naivete of a child 
 six years old : 
 
 " I see now why I mastered Blanche, who will not make 
 friends with any one else : I love Blanche. Ah, that re- 
 minds me — come and look at the picture." 
 
 She went to the wall over the writing-table, drew a silk 
 curtain aside from a small painting in a dainty velvet frame- 
 work, and, pointing to it, cried with triumph, " Look there ! 
 is it not beautiful ?" 
 
 Kenelm had been prepared to see a landscape, or a 
 group, or anything but what he did see — it was the portrait 
 of Blanche when a kitten. - 
 
 Little elevated though the subject was, it was treated 
 with graceful fancy. The kitten had evidently ceased from 
 playing with the cotton-reel that lay between her paws, and 
 was fixing her gaze intent on a bullfinch that had lighted on 
 a spray within her reach. 
 
 " Vou understand," said Lily, placing her hand on his 
 arm and drawing him towards what she thought the best 
 light for the picture. '' It is Blanche's first sight of a bird. 
 Look well at her face ; don't you sec a sudden surprise — 
 half joy, half fear ? She ceases to play with the reel. Her 
 intellect— or, as Mr. Braefield would say, 'her instinct '—is 
 for the first time aroused. From that moment Blanche was 
 no longer a mere kitten. And it required, oh, the most 
 careful education to teach her not to kill the poor little 
 birds. She never does now, but I had such trouble with her." 
 
 " I cannot say honestly that I do see all that you do in 
 the picture ; but it seems to me very simply painted, and 
 was, no doubt, a striking likeness of Blanche at that early 
 age." 
 
 " So it was. Lion drew the first sketch from life with 
 his pencil ; and when he saw how pleased I was with it — he 
 was so good — he put it on canvas, and let me sit by him 
 while he painted it. Then he took it away, and brought it 
 back finished and framed as you see, last May, a present for 
 mv birtlidav."
 
 KENELM CinLLIKGLY. 327 
 
 "You were born in May — with the flowers." 
 
 "The best of all the flowers are born before May — 
 violets." 
 
 " But they are born in the shade, and cling to it. Surely, 
 as a child of May, you love the sun ! " 
 
 " I love the sun — it is never too bright nor too warm for 
 me. But I don't think that, though born in May, I was 
 born in sunlight. I feel more like my own native self when I 
 creep into the shade and sit down alone. I can weep then." 
 
 As she thus shyly ended, the character of her whole 
 countenance was changed — its infantine mirthfulness was 
 gone ; a grave, thoughtful, even a sad expression settled on 
 the tender eyes and the tremulous lips. 
 
 Kenelm was so touched that words failed him, and there 
 was silence for some moments between the two. iVt length 
 Kenelm said slowly : 
 
 " You say your own native self. Do you then feel, as I 
 often do, that there is a second, possibly a native, self, deep 
 hid beneath the self — not merely wdiat we show to the world 
 in common (that may be merely a mask) — but the self that 
 we ordinarily accept even when in solitude as our own ; an 
 inner innermost self ; oh, so different and so rarely com- 
 ing forth from its hiding-place ; asserting its right of sov- 
 ereignty, and putting out the other self, as the sun puts out 
 a star ?'" 
 
 Had Kenelm thus spoken to a clever man of the world 
 — to a Chillingly Mivers — to a Chillingly Gordon — they 
 certainly would not have understood him. But to such 
 men he never would have thus spoken. He had a vague 
 hope that this childlike girl, despite so much of childlike 
 talk, would understand him ; and she did, at once. 
 
 Advancing close to him, again laying her hand on his 
 arm, and looking up towards his bended face with startled 
 wondering eyes, no longer sad, yet not nurthful : 
 
 "How true ! You have felt that too ? Where is that in- 
 nermost self, so deep down — so deep ; yet when it does 
 come forth, so much higher — higher — immeasurably higher 
 than one's everyday self? It does not tame the butterflies 
 — -it longs to get to the stars. And then — and then — ah, 
 how soon it fades back again ! You have felt that. Does 
 it not puzzle you ?" 
 
 " Very much." 
 
 " Are there no wise books about it that help to ex- 
 plain?"
 
 328 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "No wise books in my very limited reading even liint 
 at the puzzle. I fancy that it is one of those insoluble 
 questions that rest between the infant and his Maker. 
 Mind and soul are not the same things, and what you and I 
 call 'wise men ' are always confounding the two " 
 
 Fortunately for all parties— especially the reader ; for 
 Kenelm had here got on the back of one of his most cher- 
 ished hobbies — the distinction between psychology and 
 metaphysics — soul and mind scientifically or logically con- 
 sidered—Mrs. Cameron here entered the room and asked 
 him how he liked the picture. 
 
 "Very much. I am no great judge of the art. But it 
 pleased me at once, and, now that Miss Mordaunt has in- 
 terpreted the intention of the painter, I admire it yet more." 
 
 " Lily chooses to interpret his intention in her own w-ay, 
 and insists that Blanche's expression of countenance con- 
 veys an idea of her capacity to restrain her destructive in- 
 stinct and be taught to believe that it is wrong to kill birds 
 for mere sport. For food she need not kill them, seeing 
 that Lily takes care that she has plenty to eat. But I don't 
 think Mr. Melville had the sliglitest suspicion that he had 
 indicated that capacity in his picture." 
 
 " He must have done so, whether he suspected it or 
 not," said Lilv, positivclv ; "otherwise he would not be 
 truthful." 
 
 " Why not trutliful?" asked Kenelm. 
 
 " Don't you see ? If you were called upon to describe 
 truthfully the character of any little child, would you only 
 speak of such naughty impulses as all children have in 
 common, and not even hint at the capacity to be made 
 better ? " 
 
 "Admirably put!" said Kenelm. "There is no doubt 
 that a much fiercer animal than a cat — a tiger, for instance, 
 or a conquering hero — may be taught to live on the kindest 
 possible terms with the creatures on which it was its natural 
 instinct to prey." 
 
 "Yes — yes ; hear that, aunty! You remember the Hap- 
 py Family that we saw, eight years ago, at Moleswich Fair, 
 with a cat not half so nice as Blanche allowing a mouse to 
 bite lier ear? Well, then, would Lion not have been shame- 
 fully false to Blanche if Lion had not " 
 
 Lily paused and looked half shyly, half archlv, at Ken- 
 elm, then added, in slow, deep-drawn tones — "given a 
 glimpse of her innermost self ?"
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 329 
 
 "Innermost self !" repeated Mrs. Cameron, perplexed, 
 and laughing gently. 
 
 Lily stole nearer to Kenehn, and whispered : 
 
 " Is not one's innermost self one's best self?" 
 
 Kenelm smiled approvingly. The fairy was rapidly 
 deepening her spell upon him. If Lily had been his sister, 
 his betrothed, his wife, how fondly he would have kissed 
 her ! She had expressed a thought over which he had 
 often inaudibly brooded, and she liad clothed it with all the 
 charm of her own infantine fancy and womanlike tender- 
 ness ! Goethe has said somewhere, or is reported to have 
 said, "There is something in every man's heart, that, if you 
 knew it, would make you hate him." What Goethe said, 
 still more what Goethe is reported to have said, is never to 
 be taken quite literally. No comprehensive genius — genius 
 at once poet and thinker — ever can be so taken. The sun 
 shines on a dungliill. But the sun has no predilection for 
 a dunghill. It only comprehends a dunghill as it does 
 a rose. Still, Kenelm had always regarded that loose ray 
 from Goethe's prodigal orb with an abhorrence most un- 
 philosophical for a philosopher so young as generally to 
 take upon oath any words of so great a master. Kenelm 
 thought that the root of all private benevolence, of all en- 
 lightened advance in social reform, lay in the adverse theo- 
 rem — that in every man's nature there lies a something 
 that, could we get at it, cleanse it, polish it, render it visibly 
 clear to our eyes, would make us love him. And in this 
 spontaneous, uncultured sympathy with the result of so 
 many laborious struggles of his own scholastic intellect 
 against the dogma of the German giant, he felt as if he had 
 found a younger — true, but, oh, how much more subduing, 
 because so much younger — sister of his own man's soul. 
 
 Then came, so strongly, the sense of her sympathy with 
 his own strange innermost self which a man will never feel 
 more than once in his life with a daughter of Eve, that he 
 dared not trust himself to speak. He somewhat hurried 
 his leave-taking. 
 
 Passing in the rear of the garden towards the bridge 
 which led to his lodging, he found on the opposite bank, at 
 the other end of the bridge, Mr. Algernon Sidney Gale 
 Jones, peacefully angling for trout. 
 
 "Will you not trv the stream to-dav, sir? Take my 
 rod." 
 
 Kenelm remembered that Lilv had called Isaak Walton's
 
 330 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 book "a cruel one," and, sliaking his head gently, went his 
 way into the house. There he seated himself silently by 
 the window, and looked towards the grassy lawn and the 
 dipping willows, and the gleam of the white walls through 
 the girdling trees, as he had looked the eve before. 
 
 "Ah!" he murmured at last, "if, as I hold, a man but 
 tolerably good does good unconsciously merely by the act 
 of living — if he can no more traverse his way from the cra- 
 dle to the grave, without letting fall, as he passes, the germs 
 of strength, fertility, and beauty, than can a reckless wind 
 or a vagrant bird, which, where it passes, leaves behind it 
 the oak, the cornsheaf, or the flower— ah, if that be so, how 
 tenfold the good must be, if the man find the gentler and 
 purer duplicate of his own being in that mysterious, unde- 
 finable union which Shakespeares and day-laborers equally 
 agree to call love ; which Newton never recognizes, and 
 which Descartes (his only rival in the realms of "thought at 
 once severe and imaginative) reduces into links of early 
 association, explaining that he loved women who squinted 
 because, when he was a boy, a girl with that infirmity 
 squinted at him from the other side of his father's garden- 
 wall ! Ah ! be tliis union between man and woman what it 
 may ; if it be really love — really the bond which embraces 
 the innermost and bettermost self of both —how, daily, 
 hourly, momently, should we bless God for having made it 
 so easy to be happy and to be good ! " 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The dinner-party at Mr. Braeficld's was not quite so 
 small as Kenelm had anticipated. When the merchant 
 heard from Ids wife that Kenelm was coming, he thought it 
 would be but civil to the young gentleman'to invite a few 
 other persons to meet him. 
 
 "You see, my dear," he said to Elsie, "Mrs. Cameron 
 is a very good, simple sort of woman, but not particularly 
 amusing ; and Lily, though a pretty girl, is so exceedingly 
 childish. We owe much," my sweet Elsie, to this Mr. Chil- 
 lingly " — here there was a deep tone of feeling in his voice 
 and look — "and we must make it as pleasant for him as we 
 can. I will bring down my friend Sir Thomas, and you ask
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 33; 
 
 Mr. Emlyn and his wife. Sir Thomas is a very sensible* 
 man, and Emlyn a very learned one. So Mr. Chillingly 
 will find people worth talking to. By-the-by, when I go to 
 town I will send down a haunch of venison from Groves'." 
 
 So when Kenelm arrived, a little before six o'clock, he 
 found in the drawing-room the Rev. Charles Emlyn, vicar 
 of Moleswich Proper, with his spouse, and a portly middle^ 
 aged man, to whom, as Sir Thomas Pratt, Kenelm was in- 
 troduced. Sir Thomas was an eminent city banker. The 
 ceremonies of introduction over, Kenelm stole to Elsie's side. 
 
 " I thought I was to meet Mrs. Cameron. I don't see 
 her." 
 
 "She will be here presently. It looks as if it might rain, 
 and I have sent the carriage for her and Lily. Ah, here 
 they are ! " 
 
 Mrs. Cameron entered, clothed in black silk. She al- 
 ways wore black ; and behind her came Lily, in the spotless 
 color that became her name ; no ornament, save a slender 
 gold chain to which was appended a simple locket, and a 
 single blush-rose in her hair. She looked wonderfully 
 lovely ; and Avith that loveliness there was a certain nameles? 
 air of distinction, possibly owing to delicacy of form and 
 coloring ; possibly to a certain grace of carriage, which was 
 not Avithout a something of pride. 
 
 Mr. Braeficld, who was a very punctual man, made a 
 sign to his servant, and in another moment or so dinnerwas 
 announced. Sir Thomas, of course, took in the hostess ; Mr. 
 Braefield, the vicar's wife (she was a dean's daughter) ; 
 Kenelm, Mrs. Cameron ; and the vicar, Lily. 
 
 On seating themselves at the table, Kenelm was on the 
 left hand, next to the hostess, and separated from Lily by 
 Mrs. Cameron and Mr. Emlyn ; and when the vicar had 
 said grace, Lily glanced behind his back and her aunt's at 
 Kenelm (who did the same thing), making at him what the 
 French call a inouc. The pledge to her had been broken. 
 She was between two men very much grown up — the vicar 
 and the host. Kenelm returned the motie with a mournful 
 smile and an involuntary shrug. 
 
 All were silent till, after his soup and his first glass of 
 sherry. Sir Thomas began : 
 
 " I think, Mr. Chillingly, we have met before, though I 
 had not tlie honor then of making your acquaintance." Sir 
 Thomas paused before he added, " Not long ago ; the last 
 State ball at Buckingham Palace."
 
 332 KENELM CHILLrNGLY. 
 
 Kenelm bent his head acquiescingly. He had been at that 
 ball. 
 
 " You were talking with a very charming woman — a friend 
 of mine — Lady Glcnalvon." 
 
 (Sir Thomas was Lady Glenalvon's banker.) 
 
 '•I remember perfectly," said Kenelm. "We were 
 seated in the picture-gallery. You came to speak to Lady 
 Glenalvon, and I yielded to you my place on the settee." 
 
 " C)uite true: and I think you joined a young lady — 
 very handsome — the great heiress, Miss Travers." 
 
 Kenelm again bowed, and, turning away as politely as 
 he could, addressed himself to Mrs. Cameron. Sir Thomas, 
 satisfied that he had impressed on his audience the facts of 
 his friendship with Lady Glenalvon and his attendance at 
 the court ball, now directed his conversational powers to- 
 wards the vicar, who, utterly foiled in the attempt to draw out 
 Lily, met the baronet's advances with the ardor of a talker 
 too long suppressed. Kenelm continued, luimolested, to 
 ripen his acquaintance with Mrs. Cameron. She did not, 
 however, seem to lend a very attentive ear to his prelimi- 
 nary commonjilace remarks about scenery or weather, but 
 at his first pause said : 
 
 " Sir Thomas spoke about a Miss Travers : is she related 
 to a gentleman who was once in the Guards — Leopold 
 Travers ? " 
 
 " She is his daughter. Did you ever know Leopold 
 Travers ?" 
 
 " I have heard him mentioned by friends of mine long ago 
 — long ago," replied Mrs. Cameron, with a sort of weary lan- 
 guor, not imwonted, in her voice and manner, and then, as 
 if dismissing the bygone reminiscence from her thoughts, 
 changed the subject. 
 
 '' Lily tells me, Mr. Chillingly, that you said you were 
 staying at Mr. Jones's, Cromwell Lodge. I hope you are 
 made comfortable there." 
 
 "Very. The situation is singularly pleasant." 
 
 "Yes, it is considered the prettiest spot on the brook- 
 side, and used to be a favorite resort for anglers ; but the 
 trout, I believe, are grown scarce : at least, now that the fish- 
 ing in the Thames is improved, poor Mr. Jones complains 
 that his old lodgers desert him. Of course you took the 
 rooms for the sake of the fishing. I hope the sport may be 
 better than it is said to be." 
 
 " It is of little consequence to me ; I do not care much
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 333 
 
 about fishing ; and since Miss Mordaunt calls the book which 
 first enticed me to take to it *a cruel one,' I feel as if the 
 trout had become as sacred as crocodiles were to the ancient 
 Egyptians." 
 
 "Lily is a foolish child on sucli matters. She cannot 
 bear the thought of giving pain to any dumb creature ; and 
 just before our garden there are a few trout which she has 
 tamed. They feed out of her hand ; she is always afraid 
 they will wander away and get caught." 
 
 " But Mr. Melville is an angler ? " 
 
 " Several years ago lie would sometimes pretend to fish, 
 but I believe it was rather an excuse for lying on the grass 
 and reading 'the cruel book,' or perhaps, rather, for sketch- 
 ing. But now he is seldom here till autumn, when it grows 
 too cold for such amusement." 
 
 Here Sir Thomas's voice was so loudly raised that it 
 stopped the conversation between Kenelm and Mrs. Cam- 
 eron. He had got into some question of politics on which 
 he and the vicar did not agree, and the discussion threatened 
 to become warm, Avhen Mrs. Braefield, with a woman's true 
 tact, broached a new topic, in which Sir Thomas was imme- 
 diately interested, relating to the construction of a conser- 
 vatory for orchids that he meditated adding to his country- 
 house, and in which frequent appeal was made to Mrs. 
 Cameron, who was considered an accomplished florist, and 
 who seemed at some time or other in her life to have ac- 
 quired a very intimate acquaintance with the costly family 
 of orchids. 
 
 When the ladies retired, Kenelm found himself seated 
 next to Mr. Emlyn, who astounded him by a complimentary 
 quotation frOm one of his own Latin prize poems at the uni- 
 versity, hoped he would make some stay at Moleswich, told 
 him of the principal places in the neighborhood worth vis- 
 iting, and offered him the run of his library, which he flat- 
 tered himself was rather rich, both in the best editions of 
 Greek and Latin classics and in early English literature. 
 Kenelm was much pleased with the scholarly vicar, especially 
 when Mr. Emlyn began to speak about Mrs. Cameron and 
 Lily. Of the first he said, " She is one of those women in 
 whom Quiet is so predominant that it is long before one 
 can know what imdercurrents of good feeling flow beneath 
 the unruffled surface. I wish, however, she was a little more 
 active in the management and education of her niece — a girl 
 in whom I feel a very anxious interest, and whom I doubt
 
 334 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 if Mrs. Cameron understands. Perhaps, liowever, only a 
 poet, and a very peculiar sort of poet, can understand her : 
 Lily Mordaunt is herself a poem." 
 
 " I like your definition of her," said Kenehn. " There is 
 certainly something about her which differs much from the 
 prose of common life." 
 
 "You probably know Wordsworth's lines: 
 
 ' . . . and she shall lean her ear 
 
 In many a secret place 
 
 Wliere rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 
 And beauty, born of murmuring sound, 
 
 Shall pass into her face.' 
 
 They are lines that many critics have found unintelligible ; 
 but Lily seems like the living key to them." 
 
 Kenelm's dark face lighted up, but he made no answer. 
 
 "Only," continued Mr. Emlyn, " how a girl of that fort, 
 left wholly to herself, untrained, undisciplined, is to grow 
 up into the practical uses of womanhood, is a c^uestion that 
 perplexes and saddens me." 
 
 " Any more wine ? " asked the host, closing a conversation 
 on commercial matters with Sir Thomas. " No ? — shall wc 
 join the ladies ?" 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The drawing-room was deserted ; the ladies were in the 
 garden. As Kenelm and Mr. Emlyn walked side by side 
 towards the group (Sir Thomas and Mr. Braeficld following 
 at a little distance), the former asked, somewhat abruptly, 
 " What sort of man is Miss Cameron's guardian, Mr. Mel- 
 ville ? " 
 
 " I can scarcely answer that question. I see little of him 
 when he comes here. Eormerl}' he used to run down pretty 
 often with a harum-scarum set of young fellows, quartered 
 at Cromwell Lodi^e — Grasmere had no accommodation for 
 them — students in the Academy, I suppose. For some years 
 he has not brouglit those persons, and when he does come 
 himself it is but for a few days. lie has the reputation of 
 being very wild." 
 
 Further conversation was here stopped. The two men, 
 while they thus talked, had been diverging from the straight
 
 K'ENELM CHILLINGLY. 335 
 
 way across the lawn towards the ladies, turning into seques- 
 tered paths through the shrubbery ; now they emerged into 
 the open sward, just before a table on which coftee was 
 served, and round which all the rest of the party were 
 gathered. 
 
 " I hope, Mr. Emlyn," said Elsie's cheery voice, "that 
 you have dissuaded Mr. Chillingly from turning papist. I 
 am sure you have taken time enough to do so." 
 
 Mr. Emlyn, protestant every inch of him, slightly recoiled 
 
 from Kenelm's side. " Do vou meditate turnincr " He 
 
 could not conclude the sentence. 
 
 " Be not alarmed, my dear sir. I did but own to Mr. 
 Braefield that I had paid a visit to Oxford in order to confer 
 with a learned man on a question that puzzled me, and as 
 abstract as that feminine pastime, theology, is nowadays. I 
 cannot convince Mrs. Braefield that Oxford admits other 
 puzzles in life than those which amuse the ladies." Here 
 Kenelm dropped into a chair by the side of Lily. 
 
 Lily half turned her back to him. 
 
 " Have I offended again ?" 
 
 Lily shrugged her shoulders slightly and would not an- 
 swer. 
 
 "I suspect, Miss Mordaunt, that among your good qual- 
 ities nature has omitted one ; the bcttermost self within you 
 should I'eplace it." 
 
 Lily here abruptly turned to him her front face — the 
 light of the skies was becoming dim, but the evening star 
 shone upon it. 
 
 " How ! what do you mean?" 
 
 " Am I to answer politely or truthfully ? " 
 
 ''Truthfully! Oh, truthfully! What is life without 
 truth ? " 
 
 "Even though one believes in fairies?" 
 
 " Fairies are truthful, in a certain way. But you are not 
 truthful. You were not thinking of fairies when you " 
 
 " When I what ? " 
 
 " Found fault with me ! " 
 
 " I am not sure of that. But I will translate to you my 
 thoughts, so far as I can read them myself, and to do so I 
 will resort to the fairies. Let us suppose that a fairy has 
 placed her changeling into the cradle of a mortal ; that into 
 the cradle she drops all manner of fairy gifts, which are not 
 bestowed on mere mortals ; but that one mortal attribute she 
 forgets. The changeling grows up, she charms those around
 
 OJ 
 
 36 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 her ; they humor, and pet, and spoil her. But there arises 
 a moment in which the omission of the one mortal gift is 
 feh by her admirers and friends. Guess what that is." 
 
 Lily pondered. " I see what you mean ; the reverse of 
 truthfulness, politeness." 
 
 " No, not exactly that, though politeness slides into it un- 
 awares ; it is a very humble quality, a very unpoetic quality ; 
 a quality that many dull people possess ; and yet without it 
 no fairy can fascinate mortals, when on the face of the fairy 
 settles the first wrinkle. Can you not guess it now ? " 
 
 "No ; you vex me, you provoke me ;" and Lily stamped 
 her foot petulantly, as in Kenelm's presence she had stamped 
 it once before. " Speak plainly, I insist." 
 
 " Miss Mordaunt, excuse me, I dare not," said Kenelm, 
 rising with the sort of bow one makes to the Queen ; arxd he 
 crossed over to Mrs. Braefield. 
 
 Lily remained, still pouting fiercely. 
 
 Sir Thomas took the chair Kenelm had vacated. 
 
 CHAPTER Vill. 
 
 The hour for parting came. Of all the guests, Sir Thomas 
 alone stayed at the house a guest for the night. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Emlyn had their own carriage. Mrs. Braeficld's car- 
 riage came to the door for Mrs. Cameron and Lily. 
 
 Said Lily, impatiently and discourteously, "Who would 
 not ratlier walk on such a night?" and she whispered to 
 her aunt. 
 
 Mrs. Cameron, listening to the whisper, and obedient to 
 every whim of Lily's, said, " You are too considerate, dear 
 Mrs. Braefield. " Lily prefers walking home ; there is no 
 chance of rain now." 
 
 Kenelm followed the steps of the aunt and niece, and 
 soon overtook them on the brookside. 
 
 "A charming night, Mr. Chillingly," said Mrs. Cameron. 
 
 "An English summer night ; nothing like it in such parts 
 of the world as I have visited. But, alas ! of English sum- 
 mer nights there arc but few." 
 
 "You have travelled much abroad?" 
 
 "Much — no. a little ; chiefly on foot "
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 337 
 
 Lily hitherto had not said a word, and had been walking 
 with downcast head. Now she looked up, and said, in the 
 mildest and most conciliatory of human voices : 
 
 " You have been abroad," then, with an acquiescence in 
 the manners of the world which to him she had never yet 
 manifested, she added his name, "Mr. Chillingly," and went 
 on, more familiarly. " What a breadth of meaning the word 
 'abroad' conveys ! Away, afar from one's self, from one's 
 everyday life. How I envy you ! you have been abroad : so 
 has Lion " — (Here drawing herself up) — " I mean my guard- 
 ian, Mr. Melville." 
 
 " Certainly, I have been abroad ; but afar from myself — 
 never. It is an old saying — all old sayings are true, most 
 new sayings are false — a man carries his native soil at the 
 sole of his foot." 
 
 Here the path somewhat narrowed. Mrs. Cameron went 
 on first, Kenelm and Lily behind ; she, of course, on the dry 
 path, he on the dewy grass. 
 
 She stopped him. "You are walking in the wet, and 
 with those thin shoes." Lily moved instinctively away from 
 the dry path. 
 
 Homely though that speech of Lily's be, and absurd as 
 said by a fragile girl to a gladiator like Kenelm, it lit up a 
 whole world of womanhood — it sliowed all that undiscover- 
 able land which was hidden to the learned Mr. Emlyn, all 
 that land which an uncomprehended girl seizes and reigns 
 over when she becomes wife and mother. 
 
 At that homely speech, and that impulsive movement, 
 Kenelm halted, in a sort of dreaming maze. He turned 
 timidly — " Can you forgive me for my rude words ? I {re- 
 sumed to find fault with you." 
 
 "And so justly. I have been thinking overall you said, 
 and I feel you were so right ; only I still do not quite under- 
 stand what you meant by the qualitv for mortals which the 
 fairy did not give to her changeling." 
 
 " If I did not dare say it before, I should still less dare to 
 say it now." 
 
 " Do." There was no longer the stamp of the foot, no 
 longer the flash from her eyes, no longer the wulfuhiess 
 which said, " I insist ;" — " Do," soothingly, sweetly, implor- 
 ingly. 
 
 Thus pushed to it, Kenelm plucked up courage, and, not 
 trusting himself to look at Lily, answered brusquely : 
 
 " The quality desirable for men, but more essential to
 
 338 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 women in proportion as they are fairy-like, though the tritest 
 thing possible, is good temper." 
 
 Lily made a sudden bound from his side, and joined her 
 aunt, walking through the wet grass. 
 
 When they reached the garden-gate, Kenelm advanced 
 and opened it. Lily passed him by haughtily ; they gained 
 the cottage-door. 
 
 " I don't ask you in at this hour," said Mrs. Cameron. 
 " It would be but a false compliment." 
 
 Kenelm bowed and retreated. Lily left her aunt's side, 
 and came towards him, extending her hand. 
 
 " I shall consider your words, Mr. Chillingly," she said, 
 with a strangely majestic air. "At present I think you are 
 not right. I am not ill-tempered ; but " — here she paused, 
 and then added, with a loftiness of mien which, had she not 
 been so exquisitely pretty, would have been rudeness — " in 
 any case I forgive you." 
 
 1 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 There were a good many pretty villas in the outskirts of 
 Moleswich, and the owners of them were generally well off ; 
 and yet there was little of what is called visiting society — 
 owing, perhaps, to the fact that, there not being among 
 these proprietors any persons belonging to what is com- 
 monly called "the aristocratic class," there was a vast deal 
 
 of aristocratic pretension. The family of Mr. A , who 
 
 had enriched himself as a stock-jobber, turned up its nose at 
 
 the family of Mr. B , who liad enriched himself still more 
 
 as a linen-draper, while the family of Mr. li showed a 
 
 very cold shoulder to the family of Mr. C , who had* be- 
 come richer than either of them as a pawnbroker, and whose 
 wife wore diamonds, but dropped her h's. England would 
 be a community so aristocratic that there would be no liv- 
 ing in it, if one could exterminate what is now called "aris- 
 tocracy." The Bracficlds were the only persons who really 
 drew together the antagonistic atoms of the Moleswich 
 society, partly because they were acknowledged to be the 
 first persons there, in right not only of old settlement (the 
 Braefields had held Braefieldville for four generations), but 
 of the wealth derived from those departments of commer'
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 339 
 
 cial enterprise which are recognized as the highest, and of 
 an establishment considered to be the most elegant in the 
 neighborhood ; principally because Elsie, while exceedingly 
 ■genial and cheerful in temper, had a certain power of will 
 (as her runaway folly had manifested), and when she got 
 people together compelled them to be civil to each other. 
 She had commenced this gracious career by inaugurating 
 children's parties, and when the children became friends the 
 parents necessarily grew closer together. Still her task had 
 only recently begun, and its effects were not in full opera- 
 tion. Thus, though it became known at Moleswich that a 
 young gentleman, the heir to a baronetcy and a high estate, 
 was sojourning at Cromwell Lodge, no overtures Avere made 
 to him on the part of the A's, B's, and C's. The vicar, who 
 called on Kenelm the day after the dinner at Braefieldville, 
 explained to him the social conditions of the place. " You 
 vmderstand," said he, "that it will be from no Avant of cour- 
 tesy on the part of my neighbors if they do not offer you 
 any relief from the pleasures of solitude. It will be simply 
 because they are shy, not because they are uncivil. And it 
 is this consideration that makes me, at the risk of seeming 
 too forward, entreat you to look into the vicarage any morn- 
 ing or evening on which you feel tired of your own com- 
 pany. Suppose you drink tea with us this evening — you 
 will find a young lady whose heart you have already won." 
 
 "Whose heart I have won !" faltered Kenelm, and the 
 warm blood rushed to his cheek. 
 
 " But," continued the vicar, smiling, "she has no matri- 
 monial designs on you at present. She is only twelve years 
 old — my little girl Clemmy." 
 
 " Clemmy ! — She is your daughter. I did not know that. 
 I very gratefully accept your invitation." 
 
 "I must not keep you longer from your amusement. 
 The' sky is just clouded enough for sport. What fly do you 
 use?" 
 
 "To say truth, I doubt if the stream has much to tempt 
 me in the way of its trout, and I prefer rambling about the 
 lanes and by-paths to 
 
 'The noiseless angler's solitary stand.' 
 
 I am an indefatigable walker, and the home scenery round 
 the place has many charms for me. Besides," added Ken- 
 elm, feeling conscious that he ought to find some more plana
 
 340 KENELM CHILLIXGLY. 
 
 ible excuse than the charms of home scenery for locating 
 himself long in Cromwell Lodge — " besides, I intend to de- 
 vote myself a good deal to reading. I have been very idle 
 of late, and the solitude of this place must be favorable to 
 study." 
 
 " Vou are not intended, I presume, for any of the learned 
 professions ? " 
 
 "The learned professions," replied Kenclm, "is an invidi- 
 ous form of speech that we are doing our best to eradicate 
 from the language. All professions nowadays are to have 
 much about the same amount of learning. The learning of 
 the military profession is to be levelled upwards— the learn- 
 ins: of the scholastic to be levelled downwards. Cabinet 
 ministers sneer at the uses of Greek and Latin. And even 
 such masculine studies as Law and Medicine are to be 
 adapted to the measurements of taste and propriety in col- 
 leges for young ladies. No, I am not intended for any pro- 
 fession ; but still an ignorant man like myself may not be 
 the worse for a little book-reading now and then." 
 
 "You seem to be badly provided with books here," said 
 the vicar, glancing round the room, in which, on a table in 
 the corner, lay half a dozen old-l(Joking volumes, evidently 
 belonging not to the lodger but the landlord. " But, as I 
 before said, my library is at your service. What branch of 
 reading do you prefer ?" 
 
 Kenelm was, and looked, puzzled. But after a pause he 
 answered : 
 
 " The more remote it be from the present day, the better 
 for me. Vou said your collection was rich in mediaeval liter- 
 ature. But the Middle Ages are so copied by the modern 
 Goths, that I might as well read translations of Chaucer, or 
 take lodgings in Wardour Street. If you have any books 
 about the manners and habits of those who, according to 
 the newest idea in science, were our semi-human progeni- 
 tors in the transition state between a marine animal and a 
 gorilla, I should be very much edified by the loan." 
 
 "Alas," said Mr. Emlyn, laughing, " no such books have 
 been left to us." 
 
 " No such books ? You must be mistaken. There must 
 be plenty of them somewhere. I grant all the wonderful 
 powers of invention bestowed on the creators of poetic ro- 
 mance ; still, not the sovereign masters in that realm of 
 literature — not Scott, not Cervantes, not Goethe, not even 
 Shakspeare — could have presumed to rebuild the past with-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 341 
 
 out such materials as they found in the books that record it. 
 And though I, no less cheerfully, grant that we have now 
 living among us a creator of poetic romance immeasurably 
 more inventive than they — appealing to our credulity in por- 
 tents the most monstrous, with a charm of style the most 
 conversationally familiar — still I cannot conceive that even 
 that unrivalled romance-writer can so bewitch our under- 
 standings as to make us believe that, if Miss Mordaunt's 
 cat dislikes to wet her feet, it is probably because in the pre- 
 historic age her ancestors lived in the dry country of Egypt ; 
 or that when some lofty orator, a Pitt or a Gladstone, rebuts 
 with a polished smile which reveals his canine teeth the rude 
 assault of an opponent, he betrays his descent from a 'semi- 
 human progenitor ' who was accustomed to snap at his en- 
 emy. Surely — surely there must be some books still extant 
 written by philosophers before the birth of Adam, in which 
 there is authority, even though but in mythic fable, for 
 such poetic inventions. Surely — surely some early chroni- 
 clers must depose that they saw, saw with their own eyes, 
 the great gorillas who scratched off their hairy coverings to 
 please the eyes of the young ladies of their species, and that 
 they noted the gradual metamorphosis of one animal into 
 another. For, if vou tell me that this illustrious romance- 
 writer is but a cautious man of science, and that we must 
 accept his inventions according to the sober laws of evidence 
 and fact, there is not the most incredible ghost-story which 
 does not better satisfy the common sense of a skeptic. How- 
 ever, if you have no such books, lend me the most unphilo- 
 sophical you possess — on magic, for instance— the philoso- 
 pher's stone " 
 
 " I have some of them," said the vicar, laughing ; **you 
 shall choose for yourself." 
 
 " If you are going homeward, let me accompany you 
 part of the way — I don't yet know where the church and 
 the vicarage are, and I ought to know before I come in the 
 evening." 
 
 Kenelm and the vicar walked side by side, very sociably, 
 across the bridge and on the side of the rivulet on which 
 stood Mrs. Cameron's cottage. As they skirted the garden 
 pale at the rear of the cottage, Kenelm suddenly stopped 
 in the middle of some sentence which had interested Mr. 
 Emlyn, and as suddenly arrested his steps on the turf that 
 bordered the lane. A little before him stood an old peasant 
 woman, with whom Lily, on the opposite side of the garden
 
 342 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 pale, was conversing. Mr. Emlyn did not at first see what 
 Kenelm saw ; turning round rather to gaze on his compan- 
 ion, surprised by his abrupt lialt and silence. The girl put 
 a small basket into the old woman's hand, wlio then dropped 
 a low curtsy, and uttered low a " God bless you." Low 
 though it was, Kenelm overheard it, and said abstractedly 
 to Mr. Emlyn, "Is there a greater link between this life and 
 the next than God's blessing on the young, breathed from 
 the lips of the old ?" 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ** And how is your good man, Mrs. Haley ? " said the 
 vicar, wlio had now readied the spot on which the old 
 woman stood — with Lily's fair face still bended down to 
 her — while Kenelm slowly followed him. 
 
 "Thank you kindlv, sir, he is better — out of his bed 
 now. The young lady has done him a power of good " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Lily, coloring. " Make haste home now ; 
 you must not keep liim waiting for his dinner." 
 
 The old woman again curtsied, and went off at a brisk 
 pace. 
 
 " Do you know, Mr. Chillingly," said Mr. Emlyn, "that 
 Miss Mordaunt is the best doctor in the j)lace ? Tlunagh if 
 she goes on making so many cures she will lind the number 
 of her patients rather burdensome." 
 
 " It was only the other day," said Lily, " that you scolded 
 me for the best cure I have yet made." 
 
 "I? — Oh! I remember; you led that silly child Madge 
 to believe there was a fairy charm in the arrowroot you 
 sent her. Own you deserved a scolding there." 
 
 "No, I did not. I dress the arrowroot, and am I not 
 Fairy ? I have just got such a pretty note from Clemmy, 
 Mr. Emlyn, asking me to come up this evening and see her 
 new magic-lantern. Will you tell her to expect me ? And 
 — mind — no scolding." 
 
 "And all magic f" said Emlyn ; "be it so." 
 
 Lily and Kenelm had not hitherto exchanged a word. 
 She had replied with a grave inclination of her head to his 
 silent bow. But now she turned to him shyly and said, " I 
 suppose you have been fishing all the morning?"
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 343 
 
 " No ; the fishes hereabout are under the protection of 
 a Fairy — whom I dare not displease." 
 
 Lily's face brightened, and she extended her hand to 
 him over the palings. " Good-day ; I hear aunty's voice — 
 those dreadful French verbs ! " 
 
 She disappeared among the shrubs, amid which they 
 heard the trill of her fresh young voice singing to herself. 
 
 " That child has a heart of gold," said Mr. Emlyn, as the 
 two men walked on. " I did not exaggerate when I said 
 she was the best doctor in the place. I believe the poor 
 really do believe that she is a Fairy. Of course we send 
 from the vicarage to our ailing parishioners who require it 
 food and wine ; but it never seems to do them the good that 
 her little dishes made by her own tiny hands do ; and I 
 don't know if you noticed the basket that old woman took 
 away — Miss Lily taught Will Somers to make the prettiest 
 little baskets ; and she puts her jellies or other savories into 
 dainty porcelain gallipots nicely fitting into the baskets, 
 which she trims with ribbons. It is the look of the thing 
 that tempts the appetite of the invalids, and certainly the 
 child may well be called Fairy at present ; but I wish Miss 
 Cameron would attend a little more strictly to her educa- 
 tion. She can't be a Fairy forever." 
 
 Kenelm sighed, but made no answer. 
 
 Mr. Emlyn then turned the conversation to erudite sub- 
 jects ; and so they came in sight of the town, when the vicar 
 stopped and pointed towards the church, of which the spire 
 rose a little to the left, with two aged yew-trees half shadow- 
 ing the burial-ground, and in the rear a glimpse of the 
 vicarage seen amid the shrubs of its giirden ground. 
 
 " You will know your way now," said the vicar ; " excuse 
 me if I quit you ; I have a few visits to make ; among others, 
 to poor Haley, husband to the old Avoman you saw. I read 
 to him a chapter in the Bible every day ; yet still I fancy 
 that he believes in fairy charms." 
 
 " Better believe too much than too little," said Kenelm ; 
 and he turned aside into the village, and spent half an hour 
 with Will, looking at the pretty baskets Lily had taught Will 
 to make. Then, as he went slowly homeward, he turned 
 aside into the churchyard. 
 
 The church, built in the thirteenth century, was not large, 
 but it probably sufficed for its congregation, since it betrayed 
 no signs of modern addition ; restoration or repair it needed 
 not. The centuries had but mellowed the tints of its solid
 
 344 KEN ELM C/ffLL/jVGL V. 
 
 walls, as little injured by the huge ivy stems that shot forth 
 their aspiring leaves to the very summit of the stately tower, 
 as by the slender roses which had been trained to climb up 
 a foot or so of the massive buttresses. The site of the 
 burial-ground was unusually picturesque ; sheltered towards 
 the north by a rising grtnind clothed with woods, sloping 
 down at the south towards tlie glebe pasture grounds, 
 through which ran the brooklet, sufficiently near for its 
 brawling gurgle to be heard on a still day. Kcnehn sat 
 himself on an antique tomb, which was evidently appro- 
 priated to some one of higher tlian common rank in bygone 
 days, but on which the sculpture was wholly obliterated. 
 
 The stillness and solitude of the place had their charm 
 for his meditative temperament ; and he remained there 
 long, forgetful of time, and scarcely hearing the boom of 
 the clock that Avarned him of its lapse. 
 
 When suddenly, a shadow — -the shadow of a human form 
 — fell on the grass on which his eyes dreamily rested. He 
 looked up with a start, and beheld Lily standing before him 
 mute and still. Her image was so present in his thoughts 
 at the moment that he felt a thrill of awe, as if the thoughts 
 had conjured up her apparition. She was the first to speak. 
 
 "You here, too?" she said very softly, almost whisperingly. 
 
 " Too ! " echoed Kenelm, rising ; " too ! 'Tis no wonder 
 that I, a stranger to the place, should find my steps attracted 
 towards its most venerable building. Even the most care- 
 less traveller, halting at some remote abodes of the living, 
 turns aside to gaze on the burial-ground of tlie dead. But 
 my surprise is tliat you. Miss Mordaunt, should be attracted 
 towards the same spot." 
 
 " It is my favorite spot," said Lily, " and always has 
 been. I have sat many an hour on that tombstone. It is 
 strange to think that no one knows who sleeps beneath it. 
 The 'Guide Book to Moleswich,' though it gives the history 
 of the church from the reign in which it was first built, can 
 only venture a guess that this tomb, the grandest and oldest 
 in the burial-ground, is tenanted by some member of a fam- 
 ily named Montfichet, that was once very powerful in the 
 county, and has become extinct since the reign of Henry the 
 Sixth. But," added Lily, "there is not a letter of the name 
 Montfichet left. I found out more than any one else has 
 done — I learned black-letter on purpose ; look here," and 
 she pointed to a small spot in which the moss had been re- 
 moved. "Do you see those figures? are they not xviii ? 
 
 \
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 345 
 
 and look again, in what was once the line above the figures, 
 ELE. It must have been an Eleanor, who died at the age of 
 eighteen " 
 
 "I rather think it more probable that the figures refer to 
 the date of the death, 13 18 perhaps ; and so far as I can de- 
 cipher black-letter, which is more in my father's line than 
 mine, I think it is a l, not e l, and that it seems as if there 
 had been a letter between l and tlie second e, which is now- 
 effaced. The tomb itself is not likely to belong to any 
 powerful family then resident at the place. Their monu- 
 ments, according to usage, would have been within the 
 church ; probably in their own mortuary chapel." 
 
 " Don't try to destroy my fancy," said Lily, shaking her 
 head; "you cannot succeed; I know Jier history too well. 
 She was young, and some one loved her, and built over her 
 the finest tomb he could afford ; and see how long the 
 epitaph must have been ! how much it must have spoken in 
 her praise; and of his grief. And then he went his way, and 
 the tomb was neglected, and her fate forgotten." 
 
 "My dear Miss Mordaunt, this is indeed a wild romance 
 to spin out of so slender a thread. But even if true, there 
 is no reason to think that a life is forgotten though a tomb 
 be nes^lected." 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Lily, thoughtfully. " But when I am 
 dead, if I can look down, I think it would please me to see 
 my grave not neglected by those who had loved me once." 
 
 She moved from him as she said this, and went to a little 
 mound that seemed not long since raised ; there was a 
 simple cross at the head, and a narrow border of flowers 
 round it. Lily knelt beside the flowers and pulled out a 
 stray weed. Then she rose, and said to Kenelm, who had 
 followed and now stood beside her : 
 
 "She was the little grandchild of poor old Mrs Hales. 
 I could not cure her, though I tried hard ; she was so fond 
 of me, and died in my arms. No, let me not say ' died : ' surely 
 there is no such thing as dying. 'Tis but a change of life ; 
 
 *' ' Less than the void between two waves of air, 
 The space between existence and a soul.' " 
 
 " Whose lines are those ? " asked Kenelm. 
 " I don't know ; I learnt them from Lion. Don't you 
 believe them to be true ? " 
 
 Yes! But the truth does not render the thought of 
 IS* 
 
 <( '
 
 346 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 quitting this scene of life for another more pleasing to most 
 of us. See how soft and gentle and bright is all that living 
 summer land beyond ; let us-find svibject for talk from that, 
 not from the graveyard on which we stand." 
 
 " But is there not a summer land fairer than that Ave see 
 now ; and which we do see, as in a dream, best when we 
 take subjects of talk from the graveyard ?" Without wait- 
 ing for a reply, Lily went on : " I planted these flowers ; 
 Mr. Eml3'n was angry with me, he said it was * popish.' 
 But he had not the heart to have them taken up ; I come 
 here very often to see to them. Do you think it wrong ? 
 Poor little Nell ! — she was so fond of flowers. And the 
 Eleanor in the great tomb, she too perhaps knew some one 
 who called her Nell ; but there are no flowers round her 
 tomb — Poor Eleanor !" 
 
 She took the nosegay she wore on her bosom, and as she 
 repassed the tomb laid it on the mouldering stone. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 They quitted the burial-ground, taking their way to 
 Grasmere. Kenelm walked by Lily's side ; not a word 
 passed between them till they came in sight of the cottage. 
 
 Then Lily stopped abruptly, and, lifting towards him her 
 charming face, said : 
 
 " I told you I would think over what you said to me last 
 night. I have done so, and feel I can thank you honestly. 
 You were very kind. I never before thought that I had a 
 bad temper ; no cnie ever told me so. But I see now what 
 you mean — sometimes I feel very quickly, and then I show 
 it. But how did I show it to you, Mr. Chillingly ? " 
 
 " Did you not turn your back to me when I seated my- 
 self next you in Mrs. Bracficld's garden, vouchsafing me no 
 reply when I asked if I had offended ?" 
 
 Lily's face became bathed in blushes, and her voice 
 faltered, as she answered : 
 
 " I was not offended ; I was not in a bad temper then : 
 it was worse than that." 
 
 " Worse— what could it possibly be ? " 
 
 *' I am afraid it was envy."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 347 
 
 " Envy of what — of wliom ? " 
 
 " I don't know how to explain ; after all, I fear aunty is 
 right, and the fairy-tales put very silly, very naughty, 
 thoughts into one's head. When Cinderella's sisters went 
 to the king's ball, and Cinderella was left alone, did not she 
 long to go too ? Did not she envy her sisters ? " 
 
 "Ah! I understand now — Sir Charles spoke of the 
 Court Ball." 
 
 " And you were there talking with handsome ladies — and 
 — oh ! I v/as so foolish and felt sore." 
 
 " You, who when we first met wondered how people who 
 could live in the countrv preferred to live in towns, do then 
 sometimes contradict yourself, and sigh for the great world 
 that lies beyond these quiet water banks. You feel that you 
 have youth and beauty, and wish to be admired ! " 
 
 " It i.s not that exactly," said Lily, with a perplexed look 
 in her ingenuous countenance, " and in my better moments, 
 when the 'bettermost self' comes forth, I know that I am 
 not made for the great world you speak of. But you see 
 
 " Here she paused again, and, as they had now entered 
 
 the garden, dropped wearily on a bench beside the path. 
 Kenelm seated himself there too, waiting for her to finish 
 her broken sentence. 
 
 " You see," she continued, looking down embarrassed, 
 and describing vague circles on the gravel with her fairy- 
 like foot, "that at home, ever since I can remember, they 
 have treated me as if, well as if I were — what shall I say ? 
 — the child of one of your great ladies. Even Lion, who is 
 so noble, -so grand, seemed to think when I was a mere in- 
 fant that I was a little queen ; once when I told a fib he did 
 not scold me, but I never saw him look so sad and so angry 
 as when he said, 'Never again forget that you are a lady.' 
 And, but I tire you " 
 
 " Tire me, indeed ! go on." 
 
 " No, I have said enough to explain why I have at times 
 proud thoughts, and vain thoughts ; and why for instance I 
 said to myself, ' Perhaps my place of right is among those 
 fine ladies whom he' — but it is all over now." She rose 
 hastily with a pretty laugh, and bounded towards Mrs. 
 Cameron, who was walking slowly along the lawn with a 
 book in her hand.
 
 348 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 It was a very merry party at the vicarage that evening. 
 Lily had not been prepared to meet Kenelm there, and her 
 face brightened wonderfully as at her entrance he turned 
 from the bookshelves to which Mr. Emlyn was directing his 
 attention. But, instead of meeting his advance, she darted 
 off to the lawn, where Clemmy and several other children 
 greeted her with a joyous shout." 
 
 " Not acquainted with Macleane's 'Juvenal ' ?" said the 
 reverend scholar ; "you will be greatly pleased with it — 
 here it is — a posthumous work, edited by George Long. I 
 can lend you Munro's Lucretius, '69. Aha ! we have some 
 scholars yet to pit against the Germans." 
 
 " I am heartily glad to hear it," said Kenelm. " It will 
 be a long time before they will ever wish to rival us in that 
 game which Miss Clemmy is now forming on the lawn, and 
 in which England has recently acquired an European repu- 
 tation." 
 
 " I don't take you. What game ? " 
 
 " Puss in the Corner. With your leave I will look out 
 and see whether it be a winning game for puss — in the long 
 run." Kenelm joined the children, amidst Avhom Lily 
 seemed not the least childlike. Resisting all overtures from 
 Clemmy to join in their play, he seated himself on a sloping 
 bank at a little distance — an idle looker-on. His eye fol- 
 lowed Lily's nimble movements, his ear drank in tlie music 
 of her joyous laugii. Could that be the same girl whom he 
 had seen tending the flower-bed amid the grave-stones ? 
 Mrs. Emlyn came across the lawn and joined him, seating 
 herself also on the bank. Mrs. Emlyn was an exceedingly 
 clever woman ; nevertheless she was not formidable, on the 
 contrary pleasing ; and though the ladies in the neighbor- 
 hood said "she talked like a book," the easy gentleness of 
 her voice carried off that offence. 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Chillingly," said she, " I ought to apolo- 
 gize for my husband's invitation to what must seem to you 
 so frivolous an entertainment as a child's party. But when 
 Mr. Emlyn asked you to come to us this evening, he was 
 not aware that Clemmy had also invited her young friends.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 349 
 
 He had looked forward to a rational conversation with you 
 on his own favorite studies." 
 
 " It is not so long since I left school but that I prefer a 
 half-holiday to lessons, even from a tutor so pleasant as Mr. 
 Emlyn — 
 
 ' Ah, happv years — once more who would not be a boy ! ' " 
 
 "Nay," said Mrs. Emlyn, with a grave smile. "Who 
 that had started so fairly as Mr. Chillingly in the career of 
 man would wish to go back and resume a place among 
 boys ? " 
 
 " But, my dear Mrs. Emlyn, the line I quoted was wrung 
 from the heart of a man who had already outstripped all 
 rivals in the raceground he had chosen, and who at that 
 moment was in the very Maytime of youth and of fame. 
 And if such a man at such an epoch in his career could sigh 
 to 'be once more a boy,' it must have been wdien he was 
 thinking of the boy's half-holiday, and recoiling from the 
 taskwork he was condemned to learn as man." 
 
 "The line you quote is, I think, from Childe Harold, and 
 surely you would not apply to mankind in general the senti- 
 ment of a poet so peculiarly self-reHecting (if I may use 
 tliat expression), and in whom sentiment is often so 
 morbid." 
 
 " You are right, Mrs. Emlyn," said Kenelm, ingenuously. 
 " Still a boy's half-holiday is a very happy thing ; and 
 among mankind in general, there must be many who would 
 be glad to have it back again. Mr. Emlyn himself, I sliould 
 think." 
 
 "Mr. Emlyn has his half-holiday now. Do you nut see 
 him standipg just outside the window ? Do you not liear 
 him laughing ? He is a child again in the mirth of his 
 children. I hope you will stay some time in the neighbor- 
 hood ; I am sure you and he will like each other. And it is 
 such a rare delitrht to him to get a scholar like vourself to 
 talk to." 
 
 " Pardon me, I am not a scholar — a verv noble title that, 
 and not to be given to a lazy trifler on the surface of book- 
 lore like myself." 
 
 " You are too modest. My husband has a copy of your 
 Cambridge prize verses, and says ' the Latinity of them is 
 cjuite beautiful.' I quote his verv words." 
 
 " Latin verse-making is a mere knack, little more than 
 a proof that one had an elegant scholar for one's tutor, as I
 
 350 
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 certainly had. But it is by special grace that a real scholar 
 can send forth another real scholar, and a Kennedy produce 
 a Munro. But to return to the more interesting question 
 of half-holidays ; I declare that Clemmy is leading off your 
 husband in triumph. He is actually going to be Puss in the 
 Corner." 
 
 " When you know more of Charles — I mean my husband 
 — you will discover that his whole life is more or less of a 
 holiday. Perhaps because he is not what you accuse your- 
 self of being — he is not lazy ; he never wishes to be a boy 
 once more ; and taskwork itself is holiday to him. He en- 
 joys shutting himself up in his study and reading — he en- 
 joys a walk with the children — he enjoys visiting the poor 
 — he enjoys his duties as a clergyman. And though I am 
 not always contented for him, though I think he should 
 have had those honors in his profession which have been 
 lavished on men with less ability and less learning, yet he 
 is never discontented himself. Shall I tell you his se- 
 cret ? •' 
 
 " Do." 
 
 " He is a Thanks-giving^ Man. You, too, must have much 
 to thank God for, Mr. Chillingly ; and in thanksgiving to 
 God does there not blend usefulness to man, and such 
 sense of pastime in the usefulness as makes each day a holi- 
 day?" 
 
 Kenelm looked up into the quiet face of this obscure 
 pastor's wife with a startled expression in his own. 
 
 " I see, ma'am," said he, "that you have devoted much 
 thought to the study of the ?csthctical philosophy as ex- 
 pounded by German thinkers, whom it is rather difficult to 
 understand." • 
 
 " I, Mr. Chillingly — good gracious ! No ! What do you 
 mean by your acsthetical philosophy ?" 
 
 "According to aesthetics, I believe man arrives at his 
 highest state of moral excellence when labor and duty lose 
 all the harshness of effort — when they become the impulse 
 and habit of life ; when, as the essential attributes of the 
 beautiful, they are, like beauty, enjoyed as pleasure ; and 
 thus, as you expressed, each day becomes a holiday. A 
 lovely doctrine, not perhaps so lofty as that of the Stoics, 
 but more bewitching. Only, very few of us can practically 
 merge our cares and our worries into so serene an atmos- 
 phere." 
 
 " Some do so without knowing anything of aesthetics
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 351 
 
 and with no pretence to be Stoics ; but, then, they are 
 Christians." 
 
 "There are some such Cliristians, no doubt, but they are 
 rarely to be met with. Take Christendom altogether, and 
 it appears to comprise the most agitated population in the 
 world ; the population in which there is the greatest grumb- 
 ling as to the quantity of labor to be done, the loudest com- 
 plaints that duty instead of a pleasure is a very hard and 
 disagreeable §truggle, and in which holidays are fewest and 
 the moral atmosphere least serene. Perhaps," added Ken- 
 elm, with a deeper shade of tliought on his brow, "it is 
 this perpetual consciousness of struggle ; this difficulty in 
 merging toil into ease, or stern duty into placid enjoyment ; 
 this refusal to ascend for one's self into the calm of an air 
 aloof from the cloud which darkens, and the hailstorm 
 which beats upon, the fellow-men we leave below; tliat 
 makes the troubled life of Christendom dearer to heaven, 
 and more conducive to heaven's design in rendering earth 
 the wrestling-ground and not the resting-place of man, than 
 is that of the Brahmin, ever seeking to abstract himself from 
 the Christian's conflicts of action and desire, and to carry 
 into its extremest practice the aesthetic theory, of basking 
 undisturbed in the contemplation of the most absolute 
 beauty human thought can reflect from its idea of divine 
 good ! " 
 
 Whatever Mrs. Emlyn might have said in reply was in- 
 terrupted by the rush of the children towards her ; they 
 were tired of play, and eager for tea and the magic-lantern. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The room is duly obscured, and the white sheet attached 
 to the wall ; the children are seated, hushed and awe-stricken. 
 And Kenelm is placed next to Lily. 
 
 The tritest things in our mortal experience are among 
 the most mysterious. There is more mystery in the growth 
 of a blade of grass than there is in the wizard's mirror or 
 the feats of a spirit medium. Most of us have known the 
 attraction that draws one human being to anotlier, and 
 makes it so exquisite a happiness to sit quiet and mute by 
 another's side ; which stills for the moment the busiest
 
 352 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 thoughts in our brain, the most turbulent desires in our 
 licarts, and renders us but conscious of a present ineffable 
 bliss. Most of us iiave known that. But who has ever 
 been satisfied with any metaphysical account of its why or 
 wherefore ? We can but say it is love, and love at that 
 earlier section of its history which has not yet escaped from 
 romance : but by what process that other person has become 
 singled out of the whole universe to attain such special 
 power over one, is a problem that, though many have at- 
 tempted to solve it, has never attained to solution. In the 
 dim light of the room Kenelm could only disitinguish the 
 outlines of Lily's delicate face, but at each new surprise in 
 the show the face intuitively turned to his, and once, when 
 the terrible image of a sheeted ghost, pursuing a guilty man, 
 I)assed along the wall, she drew closer to him in her childish 
 fright, and by an involuntary innocent movement laid her 
 hand on his. He detained it tenderly, but, alas! it was 
 withdrawn the next moment : the ghost was succeeded by a 
 couple of dancing dogs. And Tally's ready laugh— partly at 
 the dogs, partly at her own p»-evious alarm — vexed Kenelm's 
 ear. lie wished there had been a succession of ghosts each 
 more appalling than the iast. 
 
 The entertainment was over, and after a slight refresh- 
 ment of cakes and wine-and-watcr the party broke up ; the 
 children-visitors went awav attended by servant-maids who 
 had come for ihcni. Mrs. Cameron and Lily were to walk 
 home on foot. 
 
 "It is a lovely night, Mrs. Cameron," said Mr. Emlyn, 
 " and I will attend you to your gate." 
 
 '' Permit me also," said Kenelm. 
 
 "Ay," said the vicar, "it is your own way to Cromwell 
 Lodge." 
 
 The path led them through the church-yard as the nearest 
 approach to the brookside. The moonbeams shimmered 
 through the yew-trees and rested on the old tomb — playing, 
 as it were, round the flowers which Lily's hand had that 
 day dropped upon its stone. She was walking beside Ken- 
 elm — the elder two a few ])aces in front. 
 
 " How silly I was," said she, " to be so frightened at the 
 false ghost! \ don't think a real one would frighten me, 
 at least if seen here, in this loving moonlight, and on God's 
 ground ! " 
 
 " Gliosts, were they permitted to appear except in a 
 magic-laniern, could not harm the innocent. And I wonder
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 333 
 
 wh)' the idea of their apparition should always have been 
 associated with such phantasies of horror, especially by 
 sinless children, who have the least reason to dread them." 
 
 " Oh, that is true," cried Lily ; " but even when we are 
 grown up there must be times in which we should so long 
 to see a ghost, and feel what a comfort, what a joy it would 
 be." 
 
 " I understand you. If some one very dear to us had 
 vanished from our life ; if we felt the anguish of the separa- 
 tion so intensely as to efface the thought that life, as you 
 said so well, 'never dies ;' well, yes, then I can conceive 
 that the mourner would yearn to have a glimpse of the van- 
 ished one, were it but to ask the sole and only question he 
 could desire to put : ' Art thou happy ? May I hope that 
 we shall meet again, never to part — never ? ' " 
 
 Kenelm's voice trembled as he spoke ; tears stood in his 
 eyes. A melancholy, vague, unaccountable, overpowering, 
 passed across his heart, as the shadow of some dark-winged 
 bird passes over a quiet stream. 
 
 "You have never yet felt this ? " asked Lily doubtingly, 
 in a soft voice, full of tender pity, stopping short and look- 
 ing into his face. 
 
 " I ? No. I have never yet lost one whom I so loved 
 and so yearned to see again. I was but thinking that such 
 losses may befall us all ere we too vanish out of sight." 
 
 *'Lily !" called forth Mrs. Camerbn, halting at the gate 
 of the burial-ground. 
 
 " Yes, auntie ?" 
 
 "Mr. Emlyn wants to know how far you have got in 
 ' Numa Pompilius.' Come and answer for yourself." 
 
 " Oh, those tiresome grown-up people ! " whispered Lily, 
 petulantly, to Kenelm. " I do like Mr. Emlyn ; he is one 
 of the very best of men. But still he is grown up, and his 
 * Numa Pompilius ' is so stupid." 
 
 " My first French lesson-book. No, it is not stupid. 
 Read on. It has hints of the prettiest fairy-tale I know, 
 and of the fairy in especial who bewitched my fancies as a 
 boy." 
 
 By this time they had gained the gate of the burial- 
 ground. 
 
 " What fairy tale ? what fairy ?" asked Lily, speaking 
 quickly. 
 
 " She was a fairy, though in heathen language she is 
 called a nymph— Egeria. She was the link between men
 
 354 KEN ELM CIIiLLlNGLY. 
 
 and gods to wliom she loved ; she belongs to the race of 
 gods. True, she, too, may vanish, but she can never die." 
 
 "Well, Miss Lily," said the vicar, "and how far in the 
 book I lent you — ' Numa Ponipilius ' ? " 
 
 " Ask me this day next week." 
 
 " I will ; but mind you are to translate as you go on. I 
 must see the translation." 
 
 "Very well. I will do my best," answered Lily, meekly, 
 
 Lily now walked by the vicar's side, and Kenelm by Mrs. 
 Cameron's, till they reached Grasmere. 
 
 " I will go on with you to the bridge, Mr. Chillingly," 
 said the vicar, when the ladies had disappeared within their 
 garden. 
 
 " We had little time to look over my books, and, by-the- 
 by, I hope you at least took the 'Juvenal.' " 
 
 " No, Mr. Emlyn ; who can quit your house with an in- 
 clination for satire ? I must come some morning and sel ;ct 
 a volume from those works which give pleasant views of 
 life and bequeath favorable impressions of mankind. Your 
 wife, with whom I have had an interesting conversation 
 upon the principles of ?esthetical philosophy " 
 
 " My wife -Charlotte ! She knows nothing about aesthe- 
 tical philosophy." 
 
 " She calls it by another name, but she understands it 
 well enough to illustrate the principles by example. She 
 tells me that labor and duty are so taken up by you 
 
 ' In cicn lieitein Rcgionen 
 Wo die leinen Fonncii wohnen,' 
 
 that they become joy and beauty — is it so ? " 
 
 "I am sure that Charhjtte never said anything half so 
 poetical. But, in plain words, the days pass with me very 
 happily. I should be ungrateful if I were not happy. 
 Heaven has bestowed on me S(^ many sources of love — wife, 
 children, books, and the calling which, when one quits one's 
 own threshold, carries love along with it into the world be- 
 yond. A small world in itself—only a parish — but then my 
 calling links it with infinity." 
 
 " i see ; it is from the sources of love that you draw the 
 supplies for happiness." 
 
 " Surely ; without love one may be good, but one could 
 scarcely be b.appy. No one can dream of a heaven except as 
 the abode of love. What writer is it who says, ' How well
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 355 
 
 the human heart was understood by him who first called 
 God by the name of Father ' ?" 
 
 *' I do not remember, but it is beautifully said. You 
 evidently do not subscribe to the arguments in Decimus 
 Roach's 'Approach to the Angels.' " 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Chillingly ! your words teach me how lacera- 
 ted a man's happiness may be if he does not keep the claws 
 of vanity closely pared. I actually feel a keen pang when 
 you speak to me of that eloquent panegyric on celibacy, 
 ignorant that the only thing I ever published which I fan- 
 cied was not without esteem by intellectual readers is a 
 Reply to ' The Approach to the Angels ' — a 3'outhful book, 
 written in the first year of my marriage. But it obtained 
 success : I have just revised the tenth edition of it." 
 
 "That is the book I will select from your library. You 
 will be pleased to hear that Mr. Roach, whom I saw at Ox- 
 ford a few days ago, recants his opinions, and, at the age of 
 fifty, is about to be married— he begs me to add, ' not for 
 his own personal satisfaction.' " 
 
 "Going to be married !— Decimus Roach! I thought 
 my Reply would convince him at last." 
 
 '• I shall look to your Reply to remove some lingering 
 doubts in my own mind." 
 
 " Doubts in favor of celibacy ?" 
 
 "Well, if not for laymen, perhaps for a priesthood." 
 
 " The most forcible' part of my Reply is on that head : 
 read it attentively. I think that, of all sections of mankind, 
 the clergy are those to whom, not only for their own sakes, 
 but for'the sake of the community, marriage should be 
 most commended. Why, sir," continued the vicar, warm- 
 ing up into oratorical enthusiasm, " are you not aware that 
 tht-re are no homes in England from which men who have 
 served and adorned their country have issued forth in such 
 prodigal numbers as those of the clergy of our Church ? 
 What other class can produce a list so crowded with emi- 
 nent, names as we can boast in the sons we have reared and 
 sent forth into the world ? How many statesmen, soldiers, 
 sailors, lawvers, physicians, authors, men of science, have 
 been the sons of us village pastors ! Naturally— for with 
 us they receive careful education ; they acquire of necessity 
 the simple tastes and disciplined habits which lead to in- 
 dustrv and perseverance ; and, for the most part, they carry 
 with them throughout life a purer moral code, a more sys- 
 tematic reverence for things and thoughts religious asso-
 
 356 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 ciated with their earliest images ui affection and respect^ 
 than can be expected from the sons of laymen, whose pa- 
 rents are wholly temporal and worldly. Sir, I maintain tliat 
 this is a cogent argument, to be considered well by the 
 nation, not only in favor of a married clergy — for, on that 
 score, a million of Roaches could not convert public opinion 
 in this country —but in favor of the Church, the Established 
 Church; which has been so fertile a nursery of illustrious 
 laymen ; and I have often thought that one main and un- 
 detected cause of the lower tone of morality, public and 
 private, of the greater corruption of manners, of the more 
 prevalent scorn of religion which we see, for instance, in a 
 country so civilized as France, is, that its clergy can train no 
 sons to carrv into the contests of earth the steadfast belief 
 in accountability to Heaven." 
 
 " I thank vou with a full heart," said Kenelm. " I shall 
 ponder well over all that you have so earnestly said. I ;im 
 already disposed to give up all lingering crotchets as to a 
 bachelor clergy ; but, as a layman, I fear that I sliall never 
 attain to the purified philanthropy of Mr. Decimus Roach, 
 and if ever I do marry it will be very much for my personal 
 satisfaction." 
 
 Mr. Emlyn laughed good-humoredly, and, as they had 
 now reached the bridge, shook hands with Kenelm, and 
 walked homewards, along the brook-side and through the 
 burial-ground, with tlie alert step and the uplifted head of a 
 man who has joy in life and admits of no fear in death. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 For the next two weeks or so Kenelm and Lily met, not 
 indeed so often as the reader might suppose, but still fre- 
 quently ; five times at Mrs. Braefield's, once again at the 
 Vicarage, and twice when Kenelm had called at Grasmere ; 
 and, being invited to stay to tea at one of those visits, he 
 stayed the whole evening. Kenelm was more and more 
 fascinated in proportion as he saw more and more of a crea- 
 ture so exquisitely strange to his experience. She was to 
 him not only a poem, but a poem in the Sibylline Books — 
 enigmatical, pcr[)lcxing conjecture, and somehow or other 
 mysteriously blending its interest with visions of the future.
 
 KEN ELM CHIIJ.INGLY. 357 
 
 Lily was indeed an enchanting combination of opposites 
 rarely blended into harmony. Her ignorance of much that 
 girls know before they number half her years, was so re- 
 lieved by candid, innocent simplicity ; so adorned by pretty 
 fancies and sweet beliefs ; and so contrasted and lit vip by 
 gleams of a knowledge that the young ladies we call well 
 educated seldom exhibit — knovyledge derived from quick 
 obseryation of external nature, and impressionable sus- 
 ceptibility to its varying and subtle beauties. This knowl- 
 edge had been perhaps first instilled, and subsequently 
 nourished, by such poetry as she had not only learned by 
 heart, but taken up as inseparable from the healthful circu- 
 lation of her thoughts ; not the poetry of our own day — 
 most young ladies know enough of that — but selected frag- 
 ments from the verse of old, most of them from poets now 
 little read by the young of either sex, poets dear to spirits 
 like Coleridge or Charles Lamb. None of them, however, 
 so dear to her as the solemn melodies of Milton. Much of 
 such poetry she had never read in books ; it had been 
 taught her in childhood by her guardian, the painter. And 
 with all this imperfect, desultory culture, there was such 
 dainty refinement in her every look and gesture, and such 
 deep woman-tenderness of heart. Since Kenelm had com- 
 mended "Numa Pompilius " to her study, she had taken 
 very lovingly to that old-fashioned romance, and was fond 
 of talking to him about Egeria as a creature who had really 
 existed. 
 
 But what was the effect that he — the first man of years 
 correspondent to her own with whom she had ever familiarly 
 conversed— what was the effect that Kenelm Chillingly pro- 
 duced on the mind and the heart of Lily ? 
 
 This was, after all, the question that puzzled him the most 
 — not without reason : it might have puzzled the shrewdest 
 bystander. The artless candor with which she manifested 
 her liking to him was at variance with the ordinary char- 
 acter of maiden love ; it seemed more the fondness of a child 
 for a favorite brother. And it was this uncertainty that, in 
 his own thoughts, justified Kenelm for lingering on, and be- 
 lieving that it was necessary to win, or at least to learn more 
 of, her secret heart before he could venture to disclose his 
 own. He did not flatter himself with the pleasing fear that 
 he might be endangering her happiness ; it was only his own 
 that was risked. Then, in all those meetings, all those con- 
 versations to themselves, there had passed none of the words
 
 358 KEN ELM CFirLT.INGLY. 
 
 which commit our destiny to the will (jf anotlier. If in the 
 man's eyes love would force its way, Lily's frank, innocent 
 gaze chilled it back again to its inward cell. Joyously as 
 she would spring forward to meet him, there was no tell-tale 
 blush on her cheek, no self-betraying tremor in her clear, 
 sweet-toned voice. No ; there had not yet been a moment 
 when he could say to himself, " She loves me." Often he 
 said to himself, "She kncnvs not yet what love is." 
 
 In the intervals of time not passed in Lily's society, 
 Kenelm would take long rambles with Mr. Emlyn,or saunter 
 into Mrs. Braefield's drawing-room. For the former he con- 
 ceived a more cordial sentiment of friendship than he enter- 
 tained for any man of his own age — a friendship that ad- 
 mitted the noble elements of admiration and respect. 
 
 Charles Emlyn was one of those characters in which the 
 colors appear pale unless the light be brought very close to 
 them, and then each tint seems to change into a warmer and 
 richer one. The manner which, at first, you would call 
 merely gentle, becomes unaffectedly genial ; the mind you 
 at first might term inert, though well-informed, you now ac- 
 knowledge to be full of disciplined vigor. Emlyn was not, 
 however, without his little amiable foibles ; and it was, per- 
 liaps, these that made him lovable. He was a great believer 
 in human goodness, and very easily imposed upon by cun- 
 ning appeals to "his well-known benevolence." He was 
 disposed to overrate the excellence of all that he once took 
 to his heart. He thought he had the best wife in the world, 
 the best children, the best servants, the best bee hive, the 
 best pony, and the best house-dog. His parish was the most 
 virtuous, his church the most picturesque, his vicarage the 
 j^rettiest, certainly, in the whole shire — perhaps, in the whole 
 kingdom. Probably it was this philosophy of optimism 
 which ccmtributed to lift him into the serene realm of 
 aesthetic joy. 
 
 lie was not without his dislikes as well as likings. 
 Though a liberal Churchman towards Protestant dissenters, 
 lie cherished the odium theologicutn for all that savored of 
 Popery. Perhaps there was another cause for this besides 
 the purely theological one. Early in life a young sister of 
 his had been, to use his phrase, "secretly entrapped" into 
 conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and had since en- 
 tered a convent. His afifections had been deeply wounded 
 by this loss to the range of them. Mr. Emlyn had also his 
 little infirmities of self-esteem, rather than of vanity.
 
 KEl^ELM CfHLLlNGLY. 359 
 
 Though he had seen very little of any world beyond that of 
 his parish, he piqued himself on his knowledge of human 
 nature and of practical affairs in general. Certainly no man 
 had read more about them, especially in the books of the 
 ancient classics. Perhaps it was owing to this that he so 
 little understood Lily— a character to which the ancient 
 classics afforded no counterpart nor clue ; and perhaps it was 
 this also that made Lily think him " so terribly grown up." 
 Thus, despite his mild good nature, she did not get on ver^ 
 well with him. 
 
 The society of this amiable scholar pleased Kenelm the 
 more, because the scholar evidently had not the remotest 
 idea that Kenelm's sojourn at Cromwell Lodge was in- 
 fluenced by the vicinity to Grasmere. Mr. Emlyn was sure 
 that he knew human nature, and practical affairs in general, 
 too well to suppose that the heir to a rich baronet could 
 dream of taking for wife a girl without fortune or rank, the 
 orphan ward of a low-born artist only just struggling into 
 reputation ; or, indeed, that a Cambridge prizeman, who had 
 evidently read much on grave and dry subjects, and who 
 had no less evidently seen a great deal of polished society, 
 could find any other attraction in a very imperfectly educated 
 girl, who tamed butterflies and knew no more than they did 
 of fashionable life, than Mr. Emlyn himself felt in the pres- 
 ence of a pretty wayward innocent child — the companion 
 and friend of his Clemmy. 
 
 Mrs. Braefield was more discerning ; but she had a good 
 deal of tact, and did not as yet scare Kenelm away from her 
 house by letting him see how much she had discerned. She 
 would not even tell her husband, who, absent from the place 
 on most mornings, was too absorbed in the cares of his own 
 business to interest himself much in the affairs of others. 
 
 Now Elsie, being still of a romantic turn of mind, had 
 taken it into her head that Lily Mordaunt, if not actually 
 the princess to be found in poetic dramas whose rank was 
 for awhile kept concealed, was yet one of the higher-born 
 daughters of the ancient race whose name she bore, and in 
 that respect no derogatory alliance for Kenelm Chillingly. 
 A conclusion she had arrived at from no better evidence than 
 the well-bred appearance and manners of the aimt, and the 
 exquisite delicacy of the niece's form and features, with the 
 undefinable air of distinction which accompanied even her 
 most careless and sportive moments. But Mrs. Braefield 
 also had the wit to discover that under the infantine ways
 
 36o KENELM CI/ILLINGLY. 
 
 and phantasies of this almost sclf-taiiglit f^irl there lay, as 
 yet undeveloped, the element of a beautiful womanhood. 
 So that altogether, from the very day she first re-encountered 
 Kenelm, Elsie's thought had been that Lily was the wife to 
 suit him. Once conceiving that idea, her natural strength 
 of will made her resolve on giving all facilities to carry it 
 out silently and unobtrusively, and therefore skilfully. 
 
 " I am so glad to think," she said one day, when Kenelm 
 had joined her walk through the pleasant shrubberies in her 
 garden ground, "that you have made such friends with Mr. 
 Emlyn. Though all hereabouts like him so much for his 
 goodness, there are few who can appreciate his learning. 
 To you it must be a surprise as well as pleasure to find, in 
 this quiet humdrum place, a companion so clever and well- 
 informed ; it compensates for your disappointment in dis- 
 covering that our brook yields such bad sport." 
 
 " Don't disparage the brook ; it yiclcls the pleasantest 
 banks on whicli to lie down under old pollard oaks at noon, 
 or over which to saunter at morn and eve. Where those 
 charms are absent, even a salmon could not please. Yes ; I 
 rejoice to have made friends with Mr. Emlyn. I have learned 
 a great deal from him, and am often asking myself whether 
 I shall ever make peace with my conscience by putting what 
 I have learned into practice." 
 
 " May I ask what special branch of learning is that ?" 
 
 "I scarcely know how to define it. Suppose we call it 
 * Worth-whilcisni.' Among the New Ideas which I was 
 recommended to study as those that must govern my gener- 
 ation, the Not-worth-while Idea holds a very high rank ; and 
 being myself naturally of calm and equable constitution, that 
 new idea made the basis of my philosophical system. But 
 since I have become intimate with Charles Emlyn I think 
 there is a great deal to be said in favor of Worth-whileism, 
 old idea though it be. I see a man who, with very common- 
 place materials for interest or amusement at his command, 
 continues to be always interested or generally amused ; I ask 
 myself why and how ? And it seems to me as if the cause 
 started from fixed beliefs which settle his relations with God 
 and man, and that settlement he will not allow any specula- 
 tions to disturb. Be those beliefs questionable or not by 
 others, at least they are such as cannot displease a Deity, and 
 cannot fail to be kindly and usefid to fellow-mortals. Then 
 he plants these beliefs on the soil of a happy and genial home, 
 which tends to confirm and strengthen and call them into 
 
 1
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 361 
 
 daily practice ; and when he goes forth from home, even to 
 the farthest verge of the circle that surrounds it, he carries 
 with him the home influences of kindliness and use. Possi- 
 bly my line of life may be drawn to the verge of a wider 
 circle than his ; but so much the better for interest and 
 amusement, if it can be drawn from the same centre ; name- 
 ly, fixed beliefs daily warmed into vital action in the sunshine 
 of a congenial home." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield listened to this speech with pleased atten- 
 tion, and, as it came to its close, the name of Lily trembled 
 on her tongue, for she divined that when he spoke of home 
 Lily was in his thoughts ; but she checked the impulse, and 
 replied by a generalized platitude. 
 
 "Certainly the first thing in life is to secure a happy and 
 congenial home. It must be a terrible trial for the best of 
 us if we marry without love." 
 
 " Terrible, indeed, if the one loves and the other does not." 
 
 "That can scarcely be your case, Mr. Chillingly, for I am 
 sure vou could not marry where you did not love ; and do 
 not think I flatter you when I say that a man far less gifted 
 than you can scarcely fail to be loved by the woman he wooes 
 and wins." 
 
 Kenelm, in this respect one of the modestest of human 
 beings, shook his head doubtingly and was about to reply in 
 self-disparagement, when, lifting his eyes and looking round, 
 he halted mute and still as if rooted to the spot. They had 
 entered tlie trellised circle through the roses of which he had 
 first caught sight of the young face that had haunted him 
 ever since. 
 
 "Ah !" he said, abruptly ; "I cannot stay longer here, 
 dreaming away the work-day hours in a fairy ring. 1 am 
 going to town to-day by the next train." 
 
 " You are coming back ?" 
 
 " Of course — this evening. I left no address at my lodg- 
 ings in London. There must be a large accumulation of 
 letters — some, no doubt, from my father and mother. I am 
 only going for them. Good-bye. How kindly you have 
 listened to me ! " 
 
 " Shall we fix a day next week for seeing the remains of 
 the old Roman villa ? I will ask Mrs, Cameron and her 
 niece to be of the party." 
 
 "Any day you please," said Kenelm, joyfully. 
 16
 
 362 KENELM CHILLINGLY 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Kenelm did indeed find a huge pile of letters and notes 
 on reaching his forsaken apartment in Mayfair — many of 
 them merely invitations for days long past, none of them of 
 interest except two from Sir Peter, three from his mother, 
 and one from Tom Bowles. 
 
 Sir Peter's were sliort. In the first he gently scolded 
 Kenelm for going away without communicating any address ; 
 and stated the acquaintance he had formed with Gordon, the 
 favorable impression that young gentleman had made on 
 him, the transfer of the ^20,000, and the invitation given to 
 Gordon, the Traverses, and Lady Glenalvon. The second, 
 dated much later, noted the arrival of his invited guests, 
 dwelt with warmth unusual to Sir Peter on the attractions 
 of Cecilia, and took occasion to refer, not the less emphatic- 
 ally because as it were incidentally, to the sacred promise 
 which Kenelm had given him never to propose to a young 
 lady until the case had been submitted to the examination 
 and received the consent of Sir Peter. " Come to Exmund- 
 ham, and if I do not give my consent to propose to Cecilia 
 Travers, hold me a tyrant and rebel." _ 
 
 Lady Chillingly's letters were much longer. They dwelt 
 more complainingly on his persistence in eccentric habits 
 — so exceedingly unlike other people, quitting London at 
 the very height of the season, going without even a ser- 
 vant nobody knew where : she did not wish to wound his 
 feelings, but still those were not the ways natural to a 
 young gentleman of station. If he had no respect for him- 
 self, iie ought to have some consideration for his parents, 
 especially his poor mother. She then proceeded to com- 
 ment on the elegant manners of Leopold Travers, and the 
 good sense and pleasant conversation of Chillingly Gordon, 
 a young man of whom any mother might be proud. From 
 that subject she diverged to mildly querulous references to 
 family matters. Parson John had expressed himself very 
 rudely to Mr. Chillingly Gordon upon some books by a 
 foreigner — Comte, or Count, or some such name — in which, 
 so far as she could pretend to judge, Mr. Gordon had 
 uttered some very benevolent sentiments about humanity,
 
 KENELM C HILLING LY. 363 
 
 which, in the most insolent manner, Parson John had de- 
 nounced as an attack on religion. But really Parson John 
 was too High Church for her. Having thus disposed of 
 Parson John, she indulged some ladylike wailings on the 
 singular costume of the three Miss Chillinglys. They had 
 bee. tisked by Sir Peter, unknown to her — so like him — to 
 meet their guests ; to meet Lady Glenalvon and Miss Trav- 
 ers, whose dress was so perfect (here she described their 
 dress) — and they came in pea-green with pelerines of mock 
 blonde, and Miss Sally with corkscrew ringlets and a wreath 
 of jessamine, "which no girl after eighteen would venture 
 to wear." 
 
 -"But, my dear," added her ladyship, "your poor father's 
 family are certainly great oddities. I have more to put up 
 with than any one knows. I do my best to carry it off. I 
 know my duties, and will do them." 
 
 Family grievances thus duly recorded and lamented, 
 Lady Chillingly returned to her guests. 
 
 Evidently unconscious of her husband's designs on 
 Cecilia, she dismissed her briefly : " A very handsome 
 young lady, though rather too blonde for her taste, and cer- 
 tainly with an air distingue.'' Lastly, she enlarged on the 
 extreme pleasure she felt on meeting again the friend of her 
 youth. Lady Glenalvon. 
 
 " iSjot at all spoilt by the education of the great world, 
 which, alas ! obedient to the duties of wife and mother, 
 however little my sacrifices are appreciated, I have long 
 since relinquished. Lady Glenalvon suggests turning that 
 hideous old moat into a fernery — a great improvement. Of 
 course your poor father makes objections." 
 
 Tom's letter was written on black-edged paper, and ran 
 thus : 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Since I !iad tlie honor to see you in London I liave liad a 
 sad loss — my poor uncle is no more. He died very suddenly, after a hearty 
 supper. One doctor says it was apoplexy, another valvular disease of the 
 heart. He has left me his heir, after providing for his sister — no one had an 
 idea that he had saved so much money. I am quite a rich man nowr. And I 
 shall leave the veterinary business, which of late— since I took to reading, as 
 you kindly advised — is not much to my hking. The principal corn-mercliant 
 here has offered to take me into partnership ; and, from what I can see, it 
 will be a very good thing, and a great rise in life. But, sir, I can't settle to 
 it at present — I can't settle, as I would wish, to anything. I know you will 
 not laugh at me when I say I have a strange longing to travel for awhile. I 
 have been reading books of travels, and they get into my head more than any 
 other books. But I don't think I cnuld leave the country with a contented 
 heart, till I have had just another look at you know whom — just to see her
 
 364 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 and know she is happy. I am sure I could sliake liaiids with Will, and 
 kiss her little one vvitliout a wrong thought. What do you say to tliat, dear 
 sir? \ o\x promised to write to me ai)out Her. But I have not heard from 
 you. Susy, tlie little j;iil with the llouer ball, has had a loss too — the jioor 
 old man she lived with died witiiinafew days (jf my dear umle's decease. 
 Mother moved here, as I think you know, when the forge at IJravesleigh was 
 S'ld ; and she is going to take Susy to live with her. She is quite fond of 
 Susy, Pray let me hear from you soon, and do, dear sir, give me your ad- 
 vice about travelling — and about Her. You see, I should like Her to think 
 of me more kindly when 1 am in distant parts 
 
 *• I remain, dear sir, 
 
 " Your grateful servant, 
 
 "T. Bowles. 
 
 " P. S. — Miss Travers has sent me Will's last remittance. There is very 
 little owed me now; so they must be thriving. 1 hope She is not over- 
 worked." 
 
 On returning by the train that evening, Kenelm went 
 to the house of Will Somers. The shop wasah-eady ck-sed, 
 but he was admitted by a trusty servant-maid to the parlor, 
 where he found them all at supper, except indeed the baby, 
 who had long since retired to the cradle, and the cradle had 
 been removed iip-stairs. Will and Jessie were very proud 
 when Kenelm invited himself to share their repast, which, 
 though simple, was by no means a bad one. When the 
 meal was over and the suppcr-tliings removed, Kenelm drew 
 his chair near to the glass door which led into a little gar- 
 den very neatly kept — for it was Will's pride to attend to it 
 — before he sat down to his more professional work. The 
 door was open, and admitted the coolness of the starlit air 
 and the fragrance of the sleeping flowers. 
 
 "You have a pleasant home here, Mrs. Somers." 
 
 " We have, indeed, and know how to bless him we owe 
 it to." 
 
 " I am rejoiced to think that. IIow often when God de- 
 signs a special kindness to us He puts the kindness into 
 the heart of a fellow-man — perhaps the last fellow-man we 
 should have thought of ; but in blessing him we thank God 
 who inspired him. Now, my dear friends, I know that you 
 all three suspect me of being the agent whom God chose 
 for His benefits. You fancy that it was from me came the 
 loan which enabled you to leave Gravelcigh and settle here. 
 You arc mistaken — you look incredulous." 
 
 " It could not be the Squire," exclaimed Jessie. "Miss 
 Travers assured me that it was neither he nor herself. Oh, 
 it must be you, sir, I beg pardon, but who else could it be ? "
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 365 
 
 "Your husband shall guess. Suppose, Will, that you 
 had behaved ill to some one who was nevertheless dear to 
 yju, and on thinking over it afterwards felt very sorry and 
 much ashamed of yourself, and suppose that later you had 
 an opportunity and the power to render a service to that 
 person, do you think you would do it?" 
 
 " I should be a bad man if I did not." 
 
 " Bravo ! And supposing that when the person you thus 
 served came to know it was you who rendered the service, 
 he did not feel thankful, he did not think it handsome of 
 you thus to repair any little harm he might have done you 
 before, but became churlish, and sore, and cross-grained, 
 and with a wretclied false pride said that because he had 
 ofifended you "once he resented your taking the liberty of 
 befriending him now, would not you tliink that person an 
 ungrateful fellow — ungrateful not only to you his fellow- 
 man — that is of less moment — but ungrateful to the God 
 who put it into your heart to be His human agent in the 
 benefit received ?" 
 
 " Well, sir, yes, certainly," said Will, with all the superior 
 refinement of his intellect to that of Jessie, unaware of what 
 Kenelm was driving at ; while Jessie, pressing her hands 
 tightly together, turning pale, and with a frightened hur- 
 ried glance towards Will's face, answered impulsively : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Chillingly, I hope you are not thinking, not 
 speaking of Mr. Bowles ? " 
 
 "Whom else should I think or speak of?" 
 
 Will rose nervously from his chair, all his features writh- 
 ing. 
 
 " Sir, sir, this is a bitter blow— very bitter, very ! " 
 
 Jessie rushed to Will, flung her arms around him, and 
 sobbed. 
 
 Kenelm turned quietly to old Mrs. Somers, who had sus- 
 pended the work on which since supper she had been em- 
 ployed, knitting socks for the baby. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Somers, what is the good of being a 
 grandmother and knitting socks for baby grandchildren, if 
 you cannot assure those silly children of yours that they are 
 too happy in each other to harbor any resentment against a 
 man who would have parted them and now repents?" 
 
 Somewhat to Kenelm's admiration, I dare not say sur- 
 prise, old Mrs. Somers, thus appealed to, rose from her 
 seat, and, with a dignity of thought or of feeling no one 
 could have anticipated from the quiet peasant woman, ap-
 
 366 KEiXELM CHILLINGI.Y. 
 
 preached the wedded pair, lifted Jessie's face with one hand, 
 laid the other on Will's head, and said, " If you don't long to 
 see Mr. Bowles again and say ' the Lord bless you, sir ! ' you 
 don't deserve the Lord's blessing upon you." Therewith she 
 went back to her seat, and resumed her knitting. 
 
 "Thank Heaven, we have paid back the best part of the 
 loan," said Will, in very agitated tones, "and I tlnnk, with a 
 little pinching, and with selling off some of the stock, we 
 might pay the rest ; and then "—and then he turned to Ken- 
 elm— "and then, sir, we will" (here a gulp) "thank Mr. 
 Bowles." ■ 
 
 " This don't satisfy me at all, Will," answered Kenelm ; 
 ' and since 1 helped to bring you two together, I claim the 
 i,ght to say I would never have done so could I have guessed 
 you could have trusted your wife so little as to allow a re- 
 memL>rance of Mr. Bowles to be a thought of pain. You did 
 not feel humiliated when you imagined that it was to me you 
 owed soxne moneys which you have been honestly paying 
 off. Well, then, I will lend you whatever trifle remains to 
 discharge your whole debts to Mr. Bowles, so that you may 
 sooner be able to say to him, ' Thank you.' But, between you 
 and me. Will, 1 think you will be a finer fellow and a manlier 
 fellow if you decline to borrow that trifle of me ; if you feel 
 you would rather say 'Thank you' to Mr. Bowles, without 
 the silly notion thai when you have paid him his money you 
 owe him nothing for Ms kindness." 
 
 Will looked away, irresolutely. Kenelm Avent on : - " I 
 have received a letter from Mr. Bowles to-day. lie has come 
 into a fortune, and thinks of going abroad for a time ; but 
 before he goes, he says, he should like to shake hands with 
 Will, and be assured by Jessie that all his old rudeness is for- 
 given. He had no notion that I should blab about the loan ; 
 he wished that to remain always a secret. But between 
 friends there need be no secrets. What say you. Will ? As 
 head of this household, shall Mr. Bowles be welcomed here 
 as a friend or not .''" 
 
 " Kindly welcome," said old Mrs. Somers, looking up 
 from the socks. 
 
 "Sir," said Will, with sudden energy, "look here ; you 
 have never been in love, 1 daresay. If you had, you would 
 not be so hard on me. Mr. Bowles was in love with my wife 
 there. Mr. Bowles is a verv fine man, and 1 am a cripple." 
 
 "Oh, Will! Will!" cried Jessie. 
 
 "But I trust my wife with my whole heart and soul ; and
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 367 
 
 now that the first pang is over, Mr. Bowles shall be, as 
 mother says, kindly welcome — heartily welcome." 
 
 " Shake hands. Now you speak like a man, Will. I 
 hope to bring- Bowles here to supper before many days are 
 over." 
 
 And that night Kenelm wrote to Mr. Bowles : 
 
 "My DEAR Tom,— Come and spend a few days with meat Cromwell 
 Lodge, Moleswich. Mr. and Mrs. Somerswish much to see you and to thank 
 you. I could not remain forever degraded in order to gratify your wlnni. 
 They would have it that I bought tlieir shop, etc., and I was forced in self-de- 
 fence to say who it was. More on this and on travels when you come. 
 
 "Your true friend, 
 
 "K. C." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Mrs. Cameron was seated alone in her pretty drawing- 
 room, Avith a book lying open, but unheeded, on her lap. 
 She was looking away from its pages, seemingly into the 
 garden without, but rather into empty space. 
 
 To a very acute and practised observer, there was in her 
 countenance an expression which baffled the common eye. 
 
 To the common eye it was simply vacant ; the expression 
 of a quiet, humdrum woinan, who might have been thinking 
 of some quiet hiundrum household detail, f(jund that too 
 much for lier, and was now not thinking at all. 
 
 But to the true observer, there were in that face indica- 
 tions of a troubled past, still haunted with ghosts never to 
 be laid at rest ; indications too of a character in herself that 
 had undergone some revolutionary change ; it had not al- 
 ways been the character of a woman quiet and humdrum. 
 The delicate outlines of the lip and nostril evinced sensibil- 
 ity, and the deep and downward curve of it bespoke habitual 
 sadness. The softness of the look into space did not tell of 
 a vacant mind, but rather of a mind subdued and overbur- 
 dened by the wight of a secret sorrow. There was also 
 about her whole presence, in the very quiet which made her 
 prevalent external characteristic, the evidence of manners 
 formed in a high-bred society — the society in which quiet is 
 connected with dignity and grace. The poor understood 
 this better than her rich acquaintances at Moleswich, wheri 
 they said, " Mrs. Cameron was every inch a lady." To judge
 
 36S KENELM C/ffLLLVGLY. 
 
 by her features, she must once have been pretty, — not a 
 showy prettiness, but decidedly pretty. Now, as the features 
 wt-re small, all prettiness had faded away in cold gray color- 
 in"-s, and a sort of tamed and slumbering timidity of aspect. 
 She was not only not demonstrative, but must liave imposed 
 on herself as a duty the suppression of demonstration. Who 
 could look at the formation of those lips and not see tiiat 
 they belonged to the nervous, quick, demonstrative temper- 
 ament ? And yet, observing her again more closely, that 
 suppressionof the constitutional tendency to candid betrayal 
 of emotion would the more enlist your curiosity or interest ; 
 because, if physiognomy and phrenology have any truth in 
 them, there was little strength in her character. In the 
 womanly yieldingness of the short curved upper lip, the 
 pleading timidity of the regard, the disproportionate but ele- 
 gant slenderness of the head between the ear and the neck, 
 there were the tokens of one who cannot resist the will, per- 
 haps the whim, of another whom she either loves or trusts. 
 The book open on her lap is a serious book, on the doc- 
 trine of grace, written by a popular clergyman of what is 
 termed " the Low Church." She seldom read any but serious 
 books, except where such care as she gave to Lily's education 
 compelled her to read " Outlines of History and Geography," 
 or the elementary French books used in seminaries for young 
 ladies. Yet if any one had decoyed Mrs. Cameron into 
 familiar conversation, he would have discovered that she 
 must early have received the education given to young ladies 
 of station. She could speak and write French and Italian as 
 a native. She had read, and still remembered, such classic 
 authors in either language as are conceded to the use of 
 pupils by the well-regulated taste of orthodox governesses. 
 She had a knowledge of botany, such as botany was taught 
 twenty years ago. I am not sure that, if her memor)' had 
 been fairly aroused, she might not have come out strong in 
 divinity and political economy, as expounded by the popular 
 manuals of Mrs. Marcet. In short, you could sec in her a 
 thoroughbred English lady, who had been taught in a gen- 
 eration before Lily's, and immeasurably superior in culture 
 to the ordinary run of English young ladies taught nowadays. 
 So, in what after all are very minor accomplishments — now 
 made major accomplishments— such as music, it was impos- 
 sible that a connoisseur should hear her play on the piano 
 without remarking, " That woman has had the best masters 
 of her time." She could only play pieces that belonged to
 
 KEN ELM CHILLIXGLY. 369 
 
 her a;eneration. Slie had learned nothinof since. In short, 
 the whole intellectual culture had come to a dead stop long 
 years ago, perhaps before Lily was born. 
 
 Now, while she is gazing into space, Mrs. Braefield is an- 
 noimced. Mrs. Cameron does not start from reverie. She 
 never starts. But she makes a weary movement of annoy- 
 ance, resettles herself, and lays the serious book on the sofa 
 table. Elsie enters, young, radiant, dressed in all the per- 
 fection of the fashion, that is, as ungracefully as in the eyes 
 of an artist any gentlewoman can be ; but rich merchants 
 who are proud of their wives so insist, and their wives, in that 
 respect, submissively obey them. 
 
 The ladies interchange customary salutations, enter into 
 the customary preliminaries of talk, and, after a pause, Elsie 
 begins in earnest. 
 
 " But shan't I see Lily ? Where is she ? " 
 
 " I fear she is gone into the town. A poor little boy, who 
 did our errands, has met with an accident — fallen from a 
 cherry-tree." 
 
 " Which he was robbing ? " 
 
 " Probably." 
 
 '■'And Lily has gone to lecture him ?" 
 
 " I don't know as to that ; but he is much hurt, and Lily 
 has gone to see what is the matter with him." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield, in her frank outspoken way : " I don't 
 take much to girls of Lily's age in general, though I am pas- 
 sionately fond of children. You know how I do take to Lily ; 
 perhaps because she is so like a child. But she must be an 
 anxious charge to you." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron replied by an anxious "No. She is still 
 a child, a very good one ; why should I be anxious ? " 
 
 Mrs. Braefield, impulsively : " Why, your child must now 
 be eighteen." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron : " Eighteen — is it possible ! How time 
 flies ! though in a life so monotonous as mine, time does 
 not seem to fly : it slips on like the lapse of water. Let me 
 think — eighteen ? No, she is but seventeen — seventeen last 
 May." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield : "Seventeen ! A very anxious age for a 
 girl ; an age in which dolls cease and lovers begin." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron, not so languidly, but still quietly : " Lily 
 never cared much for dolls — never much for lifeless pets ; 
 and as to lovers, she does not dream of them." 
 
 Mrs. Braefield, briskly: "There is no age after six in
 
 370 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 wliich girls do not dream of lovers. And liere another ques- 
 tion arises. When a girl so lovely as Lily is eighteen next 
 birthday, may not a lover dream of her ? " 
 
 Mrs. Cameron, with that wintry cold tranquillity of man- 
 ner which implies that in putting such questions an inter- 
 rogator is taking a liberty : " As no lover has appeared, I 
 cannot trouble myself about his dreams." 
 
 Said Elsie, inly to herself, " This is the stupidest woman 
 I ever met!" and aloud to Mrs. Cameron: *'Do you not 
 tliink that your neighbor Mr. Chillingly is a very fine young 
 man ? " 
 
 " I suppose he would be generally considered so. He 
 is very tall." 
 
 " A handsome face ? " 
 
 " Handsome, is it ? I dare say." 
 
 "What does Lily say?" 
 
 " About what ? " 
 
 "About Mr. Chillingly. Does she not think him hand- 
 some ? " 
 
 " I never asked her." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Cameron, would it not be a very pretty 
 match for Lily ? The Chillinglys arc among the oldest fami- 
 lies in ' Burke's Landed Gentry,' and I believe his father, Sir 
 Peter, has a considerable property." 
 
 For the first time in this conversation, Mrs. Cameron be- 
 trayed emotion. A sudden flush overspread her counte- 
 nance, and then left it paler than before. After a pause she 
 recovered her accustomed composure, and replied, rudely : 
 
 " It would be no friend to Lily who could put such no- 
 tions into her head ; and there is no reason to suppose that 
 they have entered into Mr. Chillingly's." 
 
 "Would you be sorry if they did ? Surely you would like 
 your niece to marry well ; and there are few chances of her 
 doing so at Moleswicli." 
 
 "Pardon me, Mrs. Braefield, but the question of Lily's 
 marriage I have never discussed, even with her guardian. 
 Nor, considering the childlike nature of her tastes and habits, 
 rather than the years she has numbered, can I think the time 
 has yet come for discussing it at all." 
 
 Elsie, thus rebuked, changed the subject to some news- 
 paper topic which interested the public mind at the moment, 
 and very soon rose to depart. Mrs. Cameron detained the 
 hand that her visitor held out, and said in low tones, which, 
 though embarrassed, were evidently earnest, " My dear Mrs.
 
 KEh^ELM CHILLINGLY. 371 
 
 Braeficld, let me trust to your good sense and the affection 
 with which you have honored my niece, not to incur the rislc 
 of unsettling her mind by a hint of the ambitious projects 
 for her future on which you have spol<en to me. It is ex- 
 tremely improbable that a young man of Mr. Chillingly's 
 expectations would entertain any serious thoughts of mar- 
 rying out of his own sphere of life, and " 
 
 " Stop, Mrs. Cameron. I must interrupt you. Lily's per- 
 sonal attractions and grace of manner would adorn any sta- 
 tion ; and have I not rightly understood you to say that 
 though her guardian, Mr. Melville is, as we all know, a man 
 who has risen above the rank of his parents, your niece, 
 Miss Mordaunt, is, like yourself, by birth a gentlewoman ? " 
 
 " Yes, by birth a gentlewoman," said Mrs. Cameron, rais- 
 ing her head with a sudden pride. But she added, with as 
 sudden a change to a sort of freezing humility, " What does 
 that matter? A girl without fortune, without connection, 
 b.-oaght up in this little cottage, the ward of a professional 
 artist, who was the son of a city clerk, to whom she owes 
 even the home she has found, is not in the same sphere of life 
 as Mr. Chillingly, and his parents could not approve of such 
 an alliance for him. It would be most cruel to her if you 
 were to change the innocent pleasure she may take in the 
 conversation of a clever and well-informed stranger into the 
 troubled interest which, since you remind me of her age, a 
 girl even so cliildlike and beautiful as Lily might conceive in 
 one represented to her as the possible partner of her life. 
 Don't commit that cruelty ; don't — don't, I implore you!" 
 
 " Trust me," cried the warm-hearted Elsie, with tears rush- 
 ing to her eyes. " What you say so sensibly, so nobly, never 
 struck me before. I do not know much of the world knew 
 nothing of it till I married — and being very fond of Lily, and 
 having a strong regard for Mr. Chillingly, I fancied I could 
 not serve both better than — than — but I see now ; he is very 
 young, very peculiar ; his parents might object, not to Lily 
 herself, but to the circumstances you name. And you would 
 not wish her to enter any family where she was not as 
 cordially welcomed as she deserves to be. I am glad to have 
 had this talk with you. Happilv, I have done no mischief 
 as yet. I will do none. I had come to propose an excursion 
 to the remains of the Roman Villa, some miles off, and to 
 invite you and Mr. Chillingly. I will no longer try to bring 
 him and Lily together." 
 
 " Thank you. But you still misconstrue me. I do not
 
 372 KEN ELM CHILLINGL Y. 
 
 tliink lh:it I-ily cares lialf so much for Mr. Cliillingly as she 
 does for a new butterlly. I do not fear their coming to- 
 gether, as you call it, in the light in which she now regards 
 him, and in which, from all I observe, he regards her. My 
 only fear is that a hint might lead her to regard him in 
 another way, and that way impossible." 
 
 Elsie left the house, extremely bewildered, and with a 
 profound contempt for Mrs. Cameron's knowledge of what 
 may happen to two young persons *' brought together." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Now, on that very day, and about the same hour in 
 which the conversation just recorded between Elsie and Mrs. 
 Cameron took place, Kenelm, in his solitary noondav wan- 
 derings, entered the burial-ground in which Lily had, some 
 short time before, surprised him. And there he found her, 
 standing beside the flower-border which she had placed round 
 the grave of the child whom she had tended and nursed in 
 vain. 
 
 The day was clouded and sunless ; one of those days that 
 so often instill a sentiment of melancholy into the heart of 
 an English summer. 
 
 " You come here too often. Miss Mordaunt," said Kenelm 
 very softly, as he approached. 
 
 Lily turned her face to him, without any start of surprise, 
 with no brightening change in its pensive expression^an 
 expression rare to the mobile play of her feature's. 
 
 " Not too often I promised to come as often as I could ; 
 and, as I told you before, I have never broken a promise yet." 
 
 Kenelm made no answer. Presently the girl turned from 
 the spot, and Kenelm followed her silently till slie halted 
 before the old tombstone with its effaced inscription. 
 
 "See," she said, with a faint smile, "I have put fresh 
 flowers there. Since the day we met in this churchyard, I 
 have thought much of that tomb, so neglected, so forgotten, 
 and " — she paused a moment, and went on abruptly, — "do 
 you not often find that vou are much too — what is the word ? 
 ah ! too egotistical, considering, and pondering, and dream- 
 ing greatly too much about yourself ?"
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 373 
 
 "Yes, you are right there; though, till you so accused 
 me, my conscience did not detect it." 
 
 " And don't you find that you escape from being so haunt- 
 ed by the tliought of yourself, when you think of the dead ? 
 they can never have any share in your existence hci-c. When 
 you say, ' I shall do this or that to-day ;' when you dream, 
 ' I may be this or that to-morrow,' you are thinking and 
 dreaming, all by yourself, for yourself. But you are out of 
 yourself, beyond 3-ourself, when you think and dream of the 
 dead, who can have nothing to do with your to-day or your 
 to-morrow." 
 
 As we all know, Kenelm Chillingly made it one of the 
 rules of his life never to be taken by surprise. But when 
 the speech I have written down came from the lips of that 
 tamer of butterflies, he was so startled that all it occurred to 
 him to say, after a long pause, was : 
 
 " The dead are the past ; and wnth the past rests all in the 
 present or the future that can take us out of our natural 
 selves. The past decides our present. By the past we divine 
 our future. History, poetry, science, the Avelfare of states, 
 the advancement of individuals, are all connected with tomb- 
 stones of which inscriptions are effaced. You are right to 
 honor the mouldered tombstones with fresh flowers. It is 
 only in the companionship of the dead that one ceases to be 
 an egotist." 
 
 If the imperfectly educated Lily had been above the quick 
 comprehension of the academical Kenelm in her speech, so 
 Kenelm was now above the comprehension of Lily. She too 
 paused before she replied : 
 
 " If I knew you better, I think I could understand you 
 better. I wish you knew Lion. I should like to hear you 
 talk with him." 
 
 While thus conversing, they had left the burial-ground, 
 and Avere in the pathway trodden by the common wayfarer. 
 
 Lily resumed. 
 
 " Yes, I should so like to hear you talk with Lion." 
 
 "You mean your guardian, Mr. Melville." 
 
 " Yes, you know that." 
 
 " And why should you like to hear me talk to him ? " 
 
 " Because there are some things in which I doubt if he 
 was altogether right, and I would ask vou to express my 
 doubts to him ; you would, would not you ? " 
 
 '* But why can you not express them yourself to your 
 guardian ? Are you afraid of him ? "
 
 374 KEN ELM C//ILLLVGLY. 
 
 "Afraid ? no indeed ! But — ah, how many people there 
 are coming this way ! Tlierc is some tiresome public meet 
 ing in tlie town to-day. Let us talce the ferry : the other 
 side of the stream is much pleasanter, we shall have it more 
 to ourselves." 
 
 Turning aside to the right while she thus spoke, Lily 
 descended a gradual slope to the margin of the stream, on 
 which they found an old man dozily reclined in his ferry- 
 boat. 
 
 As, seated side by side, they were slowly borne over the 
 still waters under a sunless sky, Kenelm would have renewed 
 the subject which his companion had begun, but she shook 
 her head, with a significant glance at the ferryman. Evi- 
 dently what she had to say was too confidential to admit of 
 a listener, not that the old ferryman seemed likely to take 
 the trouble of listening to any talk that was not addressed 
 to him. Lily soon did address her talk to him. "So, 
 Brown, the cow has quite recovered." 
 
 ** Yes, Miss, thanks to you, and God bless you. To think 
 of your beating the old witch like that ! " 
 
 " "Tis not I who beat the witch. Brown ; 'tis the fairy. 
 Fairies, you know, are much more powerful than witches." 
 
 "So I find, Miss." 
 
 Lily here turned to Kenelm. "Mr. Brown has a very 
 nice milch cow tliat was suddenly taken very ill, and both 
 lie and his wife were convinced that the cow was bewitched " 
 
 "Of course it were; that stands to reason. Did not 
 Mother Wright tell my old woman that she would repent 
 of selling milk, and abuse her dreadful ? and was not the 
 cow taken with shivers that very night ?" 
 
 "Gently, Brown. Mother Wright did not say that your 
 wife would repent of selling milk, but of putting water into 
 it." 
 
 "And how did she know that, if she was not a witch ? 
 We have the best of customers among the gentlefolks, and 
 never an one that complained." 
 
 "And," answered Lily to Kenelm, unheeding this last ob- 
 servation, which was made in a sullen manner, "Brown had 
 a horrid notion of enticing Mother Wright into his ferry-boat 
 and throwing her into the water, in order to break the spell 
 upon the cow. But I consulted the fairies, and gave him a 
 fairy charm to tie round the cow's neck. And the cow is 
 quite well now, ycju see. So, Brown, there was no necessity 
 to tlirow Mother Wright into the water because she said you
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 375 
 
 put some ot it into the milk. But," she added, as the boat 
 now touched the opposite bank, "sliall I tell you, Brown, 
 what the fairies said to me this morning?" 
 
 '' Do, Miss." 
 
 " It was this : If Brown's cow yields milk without any 
 water in it, and if water gets into it when the milk is sold, we, 
 the fairies, will pinch Mr. Brown black and blue ; and when 
 Brown has his next fit of rheumatics he must not look to the 
 fairies to charm it away." 
 
 Herewith Lily dropped a silver groat into Brown's hand, 
 •and sprang lightly ashore, followed by Kenelm. 
 
 " You have quite converted him, not only as to the 
 existence, but as to the beneficial power, of fairies," said 
 Kenelm. 
 
 " Ah," answered Lily very gravely, " Ah, but would it not 
 (be nice if there were fairies still ? good fairies, and one could 
 ^et at them ? tell them all that troubles and puzzles us, and 
 vin from them charms against the witchcraft we practise on 
 ourselves ? " 
 
 " I doubt if it would be good for us to rely on such super- 
 latural counsellors. Our own souls are;so boundless, that 
 ^he more we explore them the more we shall find worlds 
 spreading upon worlds into infinities ; and among the worlds 
 its Fairyland." He added, inly to himself, "Am I not in 
 Fairyland now ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Lily. " Don't speak more yet 
 awhile. I am thinking over what you have just said, and 
 trying to understand it." 
 
 Thus, walking silently, they gained the little summer- 
 house which tradition dedicated to the memory of Izaak 
 Walton. 
 
 Lily entered it and seated herself. Kenelm took his place 
 beside her. It was a small octagon building, which, judg- 
 ing by its architecture, might have been built in the 
 troubled reign of Charles I. ; the walls plastered within 
 were thickly covered with names, and dates, and inscrip- 
 tions in praise of angling, in tribute to Izaak, or with quota- 
 tions from his books. On the opposite side they could see 
 the lawn of Grasmere, with its great willows dipping into 
 the water. The stillness of the place, with its associations 
 of the angler's still life, were in harmony with the quiet 
 day, its breezeless air and cloud-vested sky. 
 
 "You were to tell me vour doubts in connection with 
 your guardian, doubts if he were right in something which
 
 376 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 you left unexplained, which you could not yourself explain 
 to him." 
 
 Lily started as from thoughts alien to the subject thus 
 reintroduced. " Yes, I cannot mention my doubts to him, 
 because they relate to me, and he is so good. I owe him so 
 mucli that I could not bear to vex him by a word that might 
 seem like reproach or complaint. You remember," here 
 she drew nearer to him ; and, with that ingenuous confiding 
 look and movement which had, not unfrequently, enraptured 
 him at the moment, and saddened him on rellection — too in- 
 genuous, too confiding, for the sentiment with which he 
 yearned to inspire her — she turned towards him her frank 
 untimorous eyes, and laid her hand on his arm : "You re- 
 member that I said in the burial-ground how much I felt 
 that one is constantly thinking too much of one's self. 
 That must be wrong. In talking to you only about myself 
 I know I am wrong; but I cannot help it, I must do so. Bo 
 not think ill of me for it. You see, I have not been brought 
 lip like other girls. Was my guardian right in that ? Per- 
 haps if he had insisted upon not letting me have my own 
 wilful way, if he had made me read the books Avhich Mr. 
 and iMrs. Emlyn wanted to force on me, instead of the 
 poems and fairy-tales which he gave me, I should have had 
 so much more to think of that I should have thought less of 
 myself. You said that the dead were the past ; one forgets 
 one's self when one thinks of the dead. If I had read more 
 of the past, had more subjects of interest in the dead whose 
 history it tells, surely I should be less shut up, as it were, 
 in my own small, selfish heart. It is only very lately I have 
 thought of this, only very lately that I have felt sorrow and 
 shame in the thought that I am so ignorant of what other 
 girls know, even little Clcmmy. And I dare not say this to 
 Lion when I see him next, lest he should blame himself, 
 when he only meant to be kind, and used to say, ' I don't 
 want Fairy to be learned, it is enough for me to think she is 
 happy.' And oh, I was so hapjjy, till — till of late! " 
 
 "Because till of late you only knew yourself as a child. 
 But, now that you feel the desire of knowledge, childhood 
 is vanishing. Do not vex yourself. With the mind which 
 nature has bestowed on you, such learning as may fit you to 
 converse with those dreaded 'grown-up folks ' will come to 
 you very easily and very quickly. You will acquire more in 
 a month now than you would have acquired in a year when 
 you were a child and task-work was loathed, not courted.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 377 
 
 Your aunt is evidently well instructed, and if I might 
 venture to talk to her about tlie choice ol' books " 
 
 " No, don't do that. Lion would not like it." 
 
 " Your Q-uardian would not like you to have the educa- 
 tion common to other young ladies ? ' 
 
 " Lion forbade my aunt to teach me much that I rather 
 wished to learn. She wanted to do so, but she has given it 
 up at his wush. She only now teases me with those horrid 
 French verbs, and that I know is a mere make-belief. Of 
 course on Sunday it is different ; then I must not read any- 
 thing but the Bible and sermons. I don't care so much for 
 the sermons as I ought, but I could read the Bible all day, 
 every weekday as well as Sunday ; and it is from the Bible 
 that I learn that I ou2:ht to think less about mvself." 
 
 Kenelm involuntarily pressed the little hand that lay so 
 innocently on his arm. 
 
 "Do you know the difference between one kind of 
 poeiry and another ? " asked Lily, abruptly. 
 
 " I am not sure. I ought to know when one kind is good 
 and another kind is bad. But in that respect I find many 
 people, especially professed critics, who prefer the poetry 
 which I call bad to the poetry I think good." 
 
 " The difference between one kind of poetry and another, 
 supposing them both to be good," said Lily positively, and 
 with an air of triumph, " is this — I know, for Lion explained 
 it to me. In one kind of poetry the writer throws himself 
 entirely out of his existence ; he puts himself into other ex- 
 istences quite strange to his own. He may be a very good 
 man, and he writes his best poetry about very wicked men ; 
 lie would not hurt a fly, but he delights in describing mur- 
 derers. But in the other kind of poetry the writer does not 
 put himself into other existences ; he expresses his own joys 
 and sorrows, his own individual heart and mind. If he could 
 not hurt a fly, he certainly could not make himself at home 
 in the cruel heart of a murderer. There, Mr. Chillingly, 
 that is the difference between one kind of poetry and 
 another." 
 
 " Very true," said Kenelm, amused by the girl's critical 
 definitions. "The difference between dramatic poetry f^nd 
 lyrical. But may I ask what that definition has to do with 
 the subject into which you so suddenly introduced it?" 
 
 " Much ; for when Lion was explaining this to my aunt,- 
 he said, * A perfect woman is a poem ; but slie can never be 
 a poem of the one kind, never can make herself at home in
 
 37S KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 the hearts with which she has no connection, never feel any 
 sympathy with crime and evil; she must be a poem of the 
 other kind, weaving out poetry from her own thougiits and 
 fancies.' And turning to me, iie said, smiling, 'That is the 
 poem I wish Lily to be. Too many dry books would only 
 spoil the poem.' And yon now see why I am so ignorant 
 and so unlike other girls, and why Mr. and Mrs. Emlyn 
 look down upon nie." 
 
 "You wrong at least Mr. Emlyn, for it was he who first 
 said to me, ' Lily Mordaunt is a poem.' " 
 
 " Did he ? I shall love him for that. How pleased Lion 
 will be ! " 
 
 " Mr. Melville seems to have an extraordinarv influence 
 over your mind," said Kenelm, with a jealous pang. 
 
 " Of course. I have neither father nor mother ; Lion has 
 been both to me. Aunty has often said, 'You cannot be too 
 grateful to your guardian ; without him I should have no 
 home to shelter you, no bread to give you.' He never said 
 that — he would be very angry with aunty if he knew she had 
 said it. When he does not call me Fairy he calls me Prin- 
 cess. I would not displease him for the world." 
 
 "He is very much older than you, old enough to be your 
 father, I hear." 
 
 " I daresay. But if he were twice as old I could not love 
 him better." 
 
 Kenelm smiled — the jealousy was gone. Certainly not 
 thus could any girl, even Lily, speak of one with whom, how- 
 ever she might love him, she was likely to fall in love. 
 
 Lily now rose up, rather slowly and wearily. " It is time 
 to go home : aunty will be wondering what keeps me away. 
 Come." 
 
 They took their way towards the bridge opposite to 
 Cromwell Lodge. 
 
 It was not for some minutes that either broke silence. 
 Lily was the first to do so, and with one of those abrupt 
 changes of tcjpic which were conmion to the restless play of 
 her secret thoughts. 
 
 "You have father and mother still living, Mr. Chil- 
 lingly ? " 
 
 "Thank Heaven, yes." 
 
 " Which do you love the best ?" 
 
 " That is scarcely a fair question. I love my mother very 
 much ; l)ut my father and I understand each other better 
 than "
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 379 
 
 "I see— it is so difficult to be understood. No one 
 understands me." 
 
 "I think I do." 
 
 Lily shook her head, with an energetic movement of dis- 
 sent. 
 
 "At least as well as a man can understand a young 
 
 lady." 
 
 "What sort of young lady is Miss Cecilia Travers ? " 
 
 " Cecilia Travers ? When and how did you ever hear 
 that such a person existed ? " 
 
 " That big London man whom they called Sir Thomas 
 mentioned her name the day we dined at Braefieldville." 
 
 " I remember— as having been at the Court ball." 
 
 " He said she was very handsome." 
 
 " So she is." 
 
 " Is she a poem, too ? " 
 
 " No ; that never struck me." 
 
 " Mr. Emlyn, I suppose, would call her perfectly brought 
 tip — well educated. He would not raise his eyebrows at her 
 as he does at me, poor me, Cinderella ! " 
 
 " Ah, Miss Mordaunt, you need not envy her. Again let 
 me say that you could very soon educate yourself to the 
 level of any young ladies who adorn the Court balls." 
 
 " Ay ; but then I should not be a poem," said Lily, with 
 a shy arch side-glance at his face. 
 
 They were now on the bridge, and, before Kenelm could 
 answer Lily resumed quickly, *' You need not come any 
 farther : it is out of your way." 
 
 " I cannot be so disdainfully dismissed. Miss Mordaunt ; I 
 insist on seeing you to, at least, your garden gate." 
 
 Lily made no objection, and again spoke : 
 
 "What sort of country do you live in when at home ? is 
 it like this?" 
 
 " Not so pretty ; the features are larger, more hill and 
 dale and woodland ; yet there is one feature in our grounds 
 which reminds me a little of this landscape : a light stream, 
 somewhat wider, indeed, than your brooklet ; but here and 
 there the banks are so like those by Cromwell Lodge that I 
 sometimes start and fancy myself at home. I have a strange 
 love for rivulets and all running waters, and in my foot- 
 wanderings I find myself magnetically attracted tow^ards 
 them." 
 
 Lily listened with interest, and after a short pause said, 
 with a'half-suppressed sigh, " Your home is much finer than
 
 38o KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 any place here, even than Braefieldville, is it not ? Mrs. 
 Braefield says your father is very rich." 
 
 " I doubt if he is richer than Mr. Braefield, and though 
 his house may be larger than Braefieldville, it is not so 
 smartly furnished, and has no such luxurious hot-houses 
 and conservatories. My father's tastes are like mine, very 
 simple. Give him his library, and he would scarcely miss 
 his fortune if he lost it. He has in this one immense ad- 
 vantage over me." 
 
 "You would miss fortune ?" said Lily, quickly. 
 
 "Not that ; but my father is never tired of books. And 
 shall I own it ? there are days when books tire me almost as 
 much as they do you." 
 
 They were now at the garden gate. Lily Avith one hand 
 on the latch held out the other to Kenclm, and her smile lit 
 up the dull sky like a burst of sunshine, as she looked in his 
 face and vanished.
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Kenelm did not return home till dusk, and just as he 
 was sitting down to his solitary meal there was a ring at the 
 bell, and Mrs. Jones ushered in Mr. Thomas Bowles. 
 
 Though that gentleman had never written to announce 
 the day of his arrival, he was not the less welcome. 
 
 "Only," said Kenelm, " if you preserve the appetite I 
 have lost, I fear you will find meagre fare to-day. Sit down, 
 man." 
 
 " Thank you kindly, but I dined two hours ago in Lon' 
 don, and I really can eat nothing more." 
 
 Kenelm was too well-bred to press unwelcome hospitali- 
 ties. In a very few minutes his frugal repast was ended, the 
 cloth removed, the two men were left alone. 
 
 "Your room is here, of course, Tom ; that was engaged 
 from the day I asked you ; but you ought to have given me 
 a line to say when to expect you, so that I could have put 
 our hostess on her mettle as to dinner or supper. You 
 smoke still, of course ; light your pipe." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Chillingly, I seldom smoke now; but 
 if you will excuse a cigar," and Tom produced a very smart 
 cigar-case. 
 
 " Do as you would at home. I shall send word to Will 
 Somers that you and I sup there to-morrow. You forgive 
 me for letting out your secret. All straightforward now 
 and henceforth. You come to their hearth as a friend, who 
 will grow dearer to them both every year. Ah, Tom, this 
 for woman seems to me a very wonderful thing. It may 
 sink a man into such deeps of evil, and lift a man into such 
 heights of good." 
 
 " I don't know as to the good," said Tom, mournfully, 
 and laying aside his cigar. 
 
 " Go on smoking ; I should like to keep you company : 
 can you spare me one of your cigars ? "
 
 3S2 KENELM CIIILLIiXar.Y. 
 
 Tom offered his case. Kenelm extracted a cigar, lighted 
 it, drew a few whiffs, and, when he saw that Tom had re- 
 sumed his own cigar, recommenced conversation. 
 
 "You don't know as to the good ; but tell me honestly, 
 do you think if you had not loved Jessie Wiles you would 
 be as good a man as you arc now?" 
 
 " If I am better than 1 was, it is not because of my love 
 for the girl." 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " The loss of her," 
 
 Kenelm started, turned very pale, threw aside the cigar, 
 rose and walked the room to and fro with very quick but 
 very irregular strides. 
 
 Tom continued quietly. "Suppose I had won Jessie and 
 married her, I don't think any idea of improving myself would 
 have entered my head. My uncle would have been very 
 much offended at my marrying a day-laborer's dau,:!;hter, 
 and would not have invited me to Luscombe. I should have 
 remained at Graveleigh, with no ambition of being more 
 than a common farrier, an ignorant, noisy, quarrelsome 
 man ; and if I could not have made Jessicas fond of me 
 as I wished, I should not have broken myself of drinking; 
 and I shudder to think what a brute I might have been, 
 when I see in the newspapers an account of some drunken 
 wife-beater. How do we know but what that wife-beater 
 loved his wife dearly before marriage, and she did not care 
 for him ? His home was unhappy, and so he took to drink 
 and wife-beating." 
 
 " I was right, then," said Kenelm, halting his strides, 
 "when I told you it would be a miserable fate to be married 
 to a girl whom you loved to distraction, and whose heart 
 you could never warm to you, whose life you could never 
 render happy." 
 
 " So right ! " 
 
 " Let us drop that part of the subject at present," said 
 Kenelm, reseating himself, "and talk about your Avish to 
 travel. Though contented that you did not marry Jessie, 
 though you can now without anguish greet her as the \\'\W 
 of another, still there are some lingering thoughts of hei 
 that make you restless ; and you feel that you could mor«s 
 easily wrench yourself from these thoughts in a markea 
 change of scene and adventure, that you might bury theni 
 altogether in the soil of a strange land. Is it so ? " 
 
 "Ay, something of that, sir."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 3S3 
 
 Then Kenclm roused himself to talk of foreign lands, 
 and to map out a plan of travel that might occupy some 
 months. He was pleased to find that Tom had already 
 learned enouQ;h of French to make himself understood at 
 least upon commonplace matters, and still more pleased to 
 discover that he had been not only reading the proper 
 guide-books or manuals descriptive of the principal places 
 in Europe worth visiting, but that he had acquired an in- 
 terest in the places ; interest in the fame attached to them 
 by their history in the past, or by the treasures of art they 
 contained. 
 
 So they talked far into the night, and when Tom retired 
 to his room Kenelm let himself out of the house noiselessly, 
 and walked with slow steps towards the old summer-house 
 in wliich he had sat with Lily. The wind had risen, scatter- 
 ing the clouds that had veiled tne preceding day, so that the 
 stars were seen in far chasms of the sky beyond — seen for 
 awhile in one place, and, when the swift clouds rolled over 
 them there, shining out elsewhere. Amid the varying 
 sounds of the trees, through which swept the night gusts, 
 Kenelm fancied he could distinguish the sigh of the willow 
 on the opposite lawn of Grasmere. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Kenelm despatched a note to Will Somers early the next 
 morning, inviting himself and Mr. Bowles to supper that 
 evening. His tact was sufficient to make him aware that in 
 such social meal there wovdd be far less restraint for each 
 and all concerned than in a more formal visit from Tom 
 during the daytime, and when Jessie, too, was engaged w4th 
 customers to the shop. 
 
 But he led Tom through the town and showed him the 
 shop itself, with its pretty goods at the plate-glass windows, 
 and its general air of prosperous trade ; then he carried 
 him off into the lanes and fields of the country, drawing out 
 the mind of his companion, and impressed with great ad- 
 miration of its marked improvement in culture, and in the 
 trains of thought which culture opens out and enriches. 
 
 But throughout all their multiform range of subject, 
 Kenelm could perceive that Tom was still preoccupied and
 
 3S4 KENELM C/JILLIA'GLY. 
 
 abstracted ; the idea of the coming interview with Jessie 
 weighed upon him. 
 
 Wlien they left Cromwell Lodge at niglitfall, to repair 
 to the supper at Will's, Kenelm noticed that Bowles had 
 availed himself of the contents of his carpet-bag, to make 
 some refined alterations in his dress. The alterations be- 
 came him. 
 
 When they entered the parlor, Will rose from his chair 
 with the evidence of deep emotion on his face, advanced to 
 Tom, took his hand and grasped and dropped it without a 
 word. Jessie saluted both guests alike, with drooping eye- 
 lids and an elaborate curtsy. The old mother alone was 
 perfectly self-possessed and up to the occasion. 
 
 " I am heartily glad to see you, Mr. Bowles," said she, 
 " and so all three of us are, and ought to be ; and if baby 
 was older, there would be four." 
 
 "And wliere on earth have you hidden baby ?" cried 
 Kenelm. " Surely he might have been kept up for me to- 
 night, when I was expected ; the last time I supped here I 
 took you by surprise, and therefore had no right to complain 
 of baby's want of respect to his parents' friends." 
 
 Jessie raised the window-curtain, and pointed to the cra- 
 dle behind it. Kenelm linked his arm in Tom's, led him to 
 the cradle, and, leaving him alone to gaze on the sleeping 
 inmate, seated himself at the table, between old Mrs. 
 Somers and Will. Will's eyes were turned away towards 
 the curtain, Jessie holding its folds aside, and the formid- 
 able Tom, who had been the terror of his neighborhood, 
 bending smiling over the cradle ; till at last he laid his 
 large hand on the pillow, gently, timidly, careful not to 
 awake the helpless sleeper, and his lips moved, doubtless 
 with a blessing ; then he too came to the table, seating him- 
 self, and Jessie carried the cradle up-stairs. 
 
 Will fixed his keen intelligent eyes on his by-gone rival; 
 .and noticing the changed expression of the once aggressive 
 countenance, the changed costume in which, without tinge 
 of rustic foppery, there was the token of a certain gravity of 
 station scarcelv compatible with a return to old loves and 
 old habits in the village world, the last shadow of jealousy 
 vanished from the clear surface of Will's affectionate 
 nature. 
 
 "Mr. Bowles," he exclaimed impulsively, "you have a 
 kind heart, and a good heart, and a generous heart. And 
 your corning here to-night on this friendly visit is an honor
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 3S5 
 
 which — Avhich " — "Which," interrupted Kenelm, compas- 
 sionating Will's embarrassment, " is on the side of us single 
 men. In this free country a married man who has a male 
 baby may be father to the Lord Chancellor or the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. But — well, my friends, such a 
 meeting as we have to-night does not come often ; and after 
 supper let us celebrate it with a bowl of punch. If we have 
 headaches the next morning, none of us will grumble." 
 
 Old Mrs. Somers laughed out jovially. " Bless you, 
 sir, 1 did not think of the punch ; I will go and see about 
 it ; " and, baby's socks still in her hands, she hastened from 
 the room. 
 
 What with the supper, what with the punch, and what 
 with Kenelm's art of cheery talk on general subjects, all re- 
 serve, all awkwardness, all shyness between the convivialists, 
 rapidly disappeared. Jessie mingled in the talk ; perhaps 
 (excepting only Kenelm) she talked more than the others, 
 artlessly, gayly, no vestige of the old coquetry, but now and 
 then with a touch of genteel finery, indicative of her rise in 
 life, and of the contact of the fancy shopkeeper with noble 
 customers. It was a pleasant evening — Kenelm had re- 
 solved that it should be so. Not a hint of the obligations 
 to Mr. Bowles escaped until Will, following his visitor to 
 the door, Avhispered to Tom, "You don't want thanks, and 
 I can't express them. But when we say our prayers at 
 night, we have always asked God to bless him who brought 
 us together, and has since made us so prosperous — I mean 
 Mr. Chillingly. To-night there will be another besides him 
 for whom we shall pray, and for whom baby, when he is 
 older,, will pray too." 
 
 Therewith Will's voice thickened ; and he prude'ntly re- 
 ceded, with no unreasonable fear lest the punch might make 
 him too demonstrative of emotion if he said more. 
 
 Tom was very silent on the return to Cromwell Lodge ; 
 it did not seem the silence of depressed spirits, but rather 
 of quiet meditation, from which Kenelm did not attempt to 
 rouse him. 
 
 It was not till they reached the garden pales of Grasmere 
 that Tom, stopping short, and turning his fr.ce to Kenelm, 
 said : 
 
 " I am very grateful to you for this evening — very." 
 
 " It has revived no painful thoughts, then ? " 
 
 " No ; I feel so much calmer in mind than I ever be- 
 lieved I could have been, after seeing her again."
 
 386 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Is it possible ! " said Kenelm, to himself. " How should 
 I feel if I ever saw in Lily the wife of another man, the 
 mother of his child ?" At that question he shuddered, and 
 an involuntary groan escaped from his lips. Just then, 
 having, willingly in those precincts, arrested his steps when 
 Tom paused to address him, something softly touched the 
 arm which he had rested on the garden pale. He looked 
 and saw that it was Blanche. The creature, impelled by its 
 instincts towards night-wanderings, had, somehow or other, 
 escaped from its own bed within the house, and, hearing a 
 voice that had grown somewhat familiar to its ear, crept 
 from among the shrubs behind upon the edge of the pale. 
 There it stood, with arched back, purring low as in pleased 
 salutation. 
 
 Kenelm bent down and covered with kisses the blue rib- 
 bon which Lily's hand had bound round the favorite's neck. 
 Blanche submitted to the caress for a moment, and then, 
 catching a slight rustle among the shrubs, made by some 
 awaking bird, sprang into the thick of the quivering leaves 
 and vanished. 
 
 Kenelm moved on with a quick impatient stride, and no 
 further words were exchanged between him and his com- 
 panion till they reached their lodging and parted for the 
 night. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Thk next day, towards noon, Kenelm and his visitor, 
 walking together along the brook-side, stopped before Izaak 
 Walton's summer-house, and, at Kenelm's suggestion, en- 
 tered therein to rest, and more at their ease to continue the 
 conversation they had begun. 
 
 " You have just told me," said Kenelm, "that you feel as 
 if a load were taken off your heart, now that you have again 
 met Jessie Somers, and that you find her so changed that 
 she is no longer the woman you loved. As to the change, 
 whatever it be, I own it seems to me for the better, in person, 
 in manners, in character: of course I should not say this if 
 I were not convinced of your perfect sincerity when you as- 
 sured me that you are cured of the old wound. But I feel 
 so deeply interested in the question how a fervent love,
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 387 
 
 once entertained and enthroned in the heart of a man so 
 earnestly affectionate and so warm-blooded as yourself, can 
 be, all of a sudden, at a single interview, expelled or trans- 
 ferred into the calm sentiment of friendship, that I pray 
 you to explain." 
 
 "That is what puzzles me, sir," answered Tom, passing 
 his hand over his forehead. " And I don't know if I can 
 explain it." 
 
 "Think over it, and try." 
 
 Tom mused for some moments, and then began. " You 
 see, sir, that I was a very different man myself when I fell 
 in love with Jessie Wiles, and said, ' Come what may, that 
 girl shall be my wife. Nobody else shall have her.' " 
 
 " Agreed ; go on." 
 
 " But while I was becoming a different man, when I 
 thought of her, — and I was always thinking of her, — I still 
 pictured her to myself as the same Jessie Wiles ; and though, 
 when I did see her again at Graveleigh, after she had mar- 
 ried — the day " 
 
 " You saved her from the insolence of the squire." 
 
 *' — She was but very recently married. I did not realize 
 her as married. I did not see her husband, and the differ- 
 ence wuthm myself was only then beginning. Well, so all 
 the time I was reading and thinking, and striving to improve 
 my old self at Luscombe, still Jessie Wiles haunted me as 
 the only girl I had ever loved, ever could love ; I could not 
 believe it possible that I could ever marry any one else. 
 And lately I have been much pressed to marry some one 
 else ; all my family wish it ; but the face of Jessie rose up 
 before me, and I said to myself, ' I should be a base man if 
 I married one woman, while I could not get another Avoman 
 out of my head.' I must see Jessie once more, must learn 
 whether her face is now really the face that haunts me when 
 I sit alone ; and I have seen her, and it is not that face ; it 
 may be handsomer, but it is not a girl's face, it is the face 
 of a wife and a mother. And, last evening, while she \vas 
 talking with an open-heartedness which I had never found 
 in her before, I became strangely conscious of the difference 
 in myself that had been silently at work within the last two 
 years or so. Then, sir, when I was but an ill-conditioned, 
 uneducated, petty village farrier, there was no inequality 
 between me and a peasant girl ; or rather, in all things ex- 
 cept fortune, the peasant girl was much above me. But 
 last evening I asked myself, on watching her and listening
 
 388 KENELM CHILIJNGLY. 
 
 to her talk, ' If Jessie were now free, should I press her to 
 be my wife ? ' and I answered myself, ' No.' " 
 
 Kenelm listened with rapt attention, and exclaimed 
 briefly, but passionately, "Why?" 
 
 "It seems as if I were giving myself airs to say why. 
 But, sir, lately I have been thrown among persons, women 
 as well as men, of a higher class than I was born in ; and in 
 a wife I should want a companion up to their mark, and 
 who would keep me up to mine ; and ah, sir, I don't feel as 
 if I could find that companion in Mrs. Somers." 
 
 " I understand you now, Tom. But you are spoiling a 
 silly romance of mine. I had fancied the little girl with the 
 flower face would grow up to supply the loss of Jessie ; and, 
 I am so ignorant of the human heart, I did think it would 
 take all the years required for the little girl to open into a 
 woman, before the loss of the old love could be supplied. I 
 see now that the poor little child with the flower face has no 
 chance." 
 
 "Chance? Why, Mr. Chillingly," cried Tqm, evidently 
 much nettled, " Susy is a dear little thing, but she is scarcely 
 more than a mere charity girl. Sir, when I last saw you in 
 London you touched on tliat matter as if I were still the 
 village farrier's son who might marry a village laborer's 
 daughter. But," added Tom, softening down his irritated 
 tone of voice, "even if Susv were a lady born, I think a man 
 would make a very great mistake if he thouglit he could 
 bring up a little girl to regard him as a father, and then, 
 when she grew up, expect her to accept him as a lover." 
 
 "Ah, you think that ! " exclaimed Kenelm, eagerly, and 
 turning eyes that sparkled with joy towards the lawn of 
 Grasmere, "You think that ; it is very sensibly said — well 
 —and you have been pressed to marry, and have hung back 
 till you had seen again Mrs. Somers. Now you will be bet- 
 ter disposed to such a step ; tell me about it." 
 
 " I said, last evening, that one of the principal capitalists 
 at Luscombe, the leading corn-merchant, had offered to take 
 me into partnership. And, sir, he has an only daughter ; 
 she is a very amiable girl, has had a first-rate education, and 
 has such pleasant manners and way of talk, quite a lady. If 
 I married her I should soon be the first man at Luscombe, 
 and Luscombe, as you are no doubt aware, returns two mem- 
 bers to Parliament ; who knows but that some day the far- 
 rier's son might be " Tom stopped abruptly— abashed
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 389 
 
 at the aspiring thought which, while speaking, had deepened 
 his hardy color and Hashed from his honest eyes. 
 
 "Ah!" said Kenelm, almost mournfully. "Is it so? 
 must each man in his life play many parts ? Ambition suc- 
 ceeds to love, the reasoning brain to the passionate heart. 
 True, you are changed ; my Tom Bowles is gone." 
 
 " Not gone in his undying gratitude to you, sir," said 
 Tom, with great emotion. "Your Tom Bowles would give 
 up all his dreams of wealth or of rising in life, and go 
 through fire and water, to serve the friend who first bid him 
 be a new Tom Bowles ! Don't despise me as your own 
 work : you said to me, that terrible day when madness was 
 on my brow and crime within my heart, ' I will be to you 
 the truest friend man ever found in man.' So you have been. 
 You commanded me to read, you commanded me to think, 
 you taught me that body should be the servant of mind." 
 
 " Hush, hush ! times are altered ; it is you who can 
 teach me now. Teach me, teach me ; how does ambition 
 replace love ? How does the desire to rise in life become the 
 all-mastering passion, and, should it prosper, the all-atoning 
 consolation of our life ? We can never be as happy, though 
 we rose to the throne of the Caesars, as we dream that we 
 could have been had Heaven but permitted us to dwell in 
 the obscurest village, side by side with the woman we love." 
 
 Tom was exceedingly startled by such a burst of irrepres- 
 sible passion from the man who had told him that, though 
 friends were found only once in a life, sweethearts were as 
 plentiful as blackberries. 
 
 Again he swept his hand over his forehead, and replied 
 hesitatingly. " I can't pretend to say what may be the case 
 with others. But to judge by my own case it seems to be 
 this : a young man who, out of his own business, has noth- 
 ing to interest or excite him, finds content, interest, and ex- 
 citement when he falls in love ; and then, whether for good 
 or ill, he thinks there is nothing like love in the world ; he 
 don't care a fig for ambition then. Over and over again did 
 my poor uncle ask me to come to him at Luscombe, and re- 
 present all the worldly advantage it would be to me ; but I 
 could not leave the village in which Jessie lived, and, besides, 
 I felt myself unfit to be anything higher than I was. But 
 when I had been some time at Luscombe, and gradually got 
 accustomed to another sort of people and another sort of 
 talk, then I began to feel interest in the same objects that 
 interested those about me ; and when, partly by mixing
 
 390 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 with better-educated men, and partly by the pains I took to 
 educate myself, I felt that I might now more easily rise above 
 my uncle's rank of life than two years ago I could have risen 
 above a farrier's forge, then the ambition to rise did stir in 
 me and grew stronger every day. Sir, I don't think you 
 can wake up a man's intellect but what you wake with it 
 emulation. And, after all, emulation is ambition." 
 
 "Then I suppose I have no emulation in me, for cer- 
 tainly I have no ambition." 
 
 " That I can't believe, sir. Other thoughts may cover it 
 over and keep it down for a time ; but, sooner or later, it 
 will force its way to the top, as it has done with me. To 
 get on in life, to be respected by those who know you, more 
 and more as you grow older, I call that a manly desire. I 
 am sure it comes as naturally to an Englishman as — as " 
 
 "As the wish to knock down some other Englishman 
 who stands in his way does. I perceive nov/ that you were 
 always a very ambitious man, Tom ; the ambition has only 
 taken another direction. Caesar mig-ht have been 
 
 ^£5' 
 
 'But the first wrestler on the green.' 
 
 And now, I suppose, you abandon the idea of travel ; you 
 will return to Luscombe, cured of all regret for the loss 
 of Jessie ; you will marry the young lady you mention, and 
 rise through progressive steps of alderman and mayor into 
 the rank of member for Luscombe." 
 
 "All that may come in good time," answered Tom, not 
 resenting the tone of irony in which he was addressed, "but 
 I still intend to travel ; a year so spent must render me all 
 the more fit for any station I aim at. I shall go back to 
 Luscombe to arrange my affairs, come to terms with Mr. 
 Leland, the corn-merchant, against my return, and " 
 
 " The young lady is to wait till then." 
 
 "Emily." 
 
 "Oh, that is the name? Emily! a much more elegant 
 name than Jessie." 
 
 " Emily," continued Tom, with an unruffled placidity 
 which, considering the aggravating bitterness for which 
 Kenelm had exchanged his wonted dulcitudes of indiffer- 
 entism, was absolutely saintlike, " Emily knows that if she 
 were my wife I should be proud of her, and will esteem me 
 the more if she feels how resolved I am that she shall never 
 be ashamed of me."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 391 
 
 " Pardon me, Tom," said Kenelm, softened, and laying 
 his hand on his friend's shoulder with brother-like tender- 
 ness. " Nature has made you a thorougli gentleman ; and 
 you could not think and speak more nobly if you had come 
 into tlie world as the head of all the Howards." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Tom went away the next morning. He declined to see 
 Jessie again, saying, curtly, " I don't wish the impression 
 made on me the other evening to incur a chance of being 
 w^eakened." 
 
 Kenelm was in no mood to regret his friend's departure. 
 Despite all the improvement in Tom's manners and culture, 
 which raised him so much nearer to equality with the polite 
 and instructed heir of the Cliillinglys, Kenelm w^ould have 
 felt more in sympathy and rapport with the old disconsolate 
 fellow-wanderer who had reclined with him on the grass, 
 listening to the Minstrel's talk or verse, than he did with 
 the practical, rising citizen of Luscombe. To the young 
 lover of Lily Mordaunt there was a discord, a jar, in the 
 knowledge that the human heart admits of such w"ell-rea- 
 soned, well-justified transfers of allegiance ; a Jessie to-day, 
 or an Emily to-morrow — '■''La reine est morte ; vive la reine ! " 
 
 An hour or two after Tom had gone, Kenelm found him- 
 self almost mechanically led towards Braefieldville. He 
 had instinctively divined Elsie's secret wish with regard to 
 himself and Lily, however skilfully she thought she had 
 concealed it. 
 
 At Braefieldville he should hear talk of Lily, and in the 
 scenes where Lily had been first beheld. 
 
 He found Mrs. Braefield alone in the drawing-room, 
 seated by a table covered with flowers, which she was as- 
 sorting and intermixing for the vases to which they were 
 destined. 
 
 It struck him that her manner was more reserved than 
 usual, and somewhat embarrassed ; and when, after a few 
 preliminary matters of small talk, he rushed boldly /// 7nedias 
 res, and asked if she had seen Mrs. Cameron lately, she re- 
 plied, briefly, "Yes, I called there the other day," and im-
 
 392 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 mediately changed the conversation to the troubled state of 
 the Continent. 
 
 Kenelm was resolved not to be so put off, and presently 
 returned to the charge. 
 
 " Tlie other day you proposed an excursion to the site 
 of the Roman villa, and said you would ask Mrs. Cameron 
 to be of the party. Perhaps you have forgotten it ?" 
 
 " No ; but Mrs. Cameron declines. We can ask the Em- 
 lyns instead. He will be an excellent cicerone." 
 
 " Excellent ! Why did Mrs. Cameron decline ? " 
 
 Elsie hesitated, and then lifted her clear brown eyes to 
 his face, with a sudden determination to bring matters to a 
 crisis. 
 
 " I cannot say why Mrs. Cameron declined, but in de- 
 clining she acted very wisely and very honorably. Listen 
 to me, Mr. Cliillingly. You know how highly I esteem and 
 how cordially I like you, and judging by what I felt for 
 some w^eeks, perhaps longer, after we parted at Tor Had- 
 
 ham " Here again she hesitated, and, with a half laugh 
 
 and a slight blush, again went resolutely on. "If I were 
 Lily's aunt or elder sister, I should do as Mrs. Cameron 
 does ; decline to let Lily see much more of a young gentle- 
 man tcjo much above her in wealth and station for- " 
 
 "Stop," cried Kenelm, haughtily. "I cannot allow that 
 any man's wealth or station would warrant his presumption 
 in thinking himself above Miss Mordaunt." 
 
 "Above her in natural grace and refinement, certainly 
 not. But in the world there are other considerations, which 
 perhaps Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly might take into ac- 
 count." 
 
 " You did not think of that before you last saw Mrs. 
 Cameron." 
 
 " Honestly speaking, I did not. Assured that Miss Mor- 
 daunt was a gentlewoman by birth, I did not sufficiently re- 
 flect upon other disparities." 
 
 " You know, then, that she is by birth a gentlewoman ? " 
 
 " I only know it as all here do, by the assurance of Mrs. 
 Cameron, whom no one could suppose not to be a lady. 
 But there are different degrees of lady and of gentleman, 
 which are little heeded in the ordinary intercourse of society, 
 but become very perceptible in questions of matrimonial 
 alliance ; and Mrs. Cameron herself says very plainly that 
 she does not consider her niece to belong to that station in 
 life from which Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly would natur-
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 393 
 
 ally wish their son should select his bride. Then " (holding 
 out her hand) " pardon me if I have wounded or offended 
 you. I speak as a true friend to you and to Lily both. 
 Earnestly I advise you, if Miss Mordaunt be the cause of 
 your lingering here, earnestly I advise you to leave while 
 yet in time for her peace of mind and your own." 
 
 " Her peace of mind," said Kenelm, in low faltering 
 tones, scarcely hearing the rest of Mrs. Braefield's speech. 
 " Her peace of mind. Do you sincerely think that she 
 cares for me — could care for me — if I stayed?" 
 
 " I wish I could answer you decidedly. I am not in the 
 secrets of her heart. I can but conjecture that it might be 
 dangerous for the peace of any young girl to see too much 
 of a man like yourself, to divine that he loved her, and not 
 to be aware that lie could not, with the approval of his 
 family, ask her to become his wife." 
 
 Kenelm bent his face down, and covered it with his right 
 hand. He did not speak for some moments. Then he rose, 
 the fresh cheek very pale, and said : 
 
 "You are right. Miss Mordaunt's peace of mind must 
 be the first consideration. Excuse me if I quit you thus ab- 
 ruptly. You have given me much to think of, and I can 
 only think of it adequately when alone." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM KENELM CHILLINGLY TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY. 
 
 "My Father, my dear Father, — This is no leply to your letters. I 
 know not if ii self can he called a letter. I cannot yet decide whether it be 
 meant to reach your hands. Tired with talking to myself, I sit down to talk 
 to you. Often have I reproached myself for not seizing every fitting occasion 
 to let you distinctly know how warmly I love, how deeply I reverence 
 you; you, O friend, O father. But we Chillinglys are not a demonstrative 
 race. I don't remember that you, by words, ever expressed to me the truth 
 that you love your scjn infinitely more than he deserves. Yet, do I not know 
 that you would send all your beloved old l)ooks to the hammer, rather than I 
 should pine in vain for some untried, if sinless, delight on which I had set my 
 heart ? And do you not know, equally well, that I would part with all my 
 heritage, and turn day-laborer, rather than you should miss the beloved old 
 books ? 
 
 " That mutual knowledge is taken for granted in all that my heart yearns 
 to pour forth to your own. But, if I divine aright, a day is coming when, as 
 between you and me, there must be a sacrifice on the part of one to the other. 
 
 17*
 
 394 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 If so, I implore tliat tlie sacrifice may come from you. How is this? How 
 am 1 so ungenerous, so egotistical, so selfisli, so ungratefully unmindful of all 
 I already owe to you, ami may never repay ? I can only answer, ' It is fate, 
 it is nature, it is love ' 
 
 " Here I must break off It is midnight, tlie moon halts opposite to the 
 window at which I sit, and on the stream that runs below there is a long nar- 
 row track on wiiich every wave trembles in her liglit ; on either side of the 
 moonlit track all the other waves, running equally to their grave in the in- 
 visible deep, seem motionless and dark. I can write nu more." 
 
 ■^^■^^^^^^*^^■»^^^■|^ 
 
 Dated two days later. 
 
 "They say she is beneath us in wealth and station. Are we, my father — 
 we, two well-born gentlemen — covet ers of gold or lackeys of the great ? WJien 
 I was at College, if there were any there more heartily despised than another, 
 it was the parasite and the tuft-hunter ; the man who chose his friends accord- 
 ing as their money or their rank might be of use to liim. If so mean where 
 the clioice is so little important to the happiness and career of a man v ho has 
 something of manhood in him, how much more mean to be the parasite and 
 tuft-hunter in deciding what woman to love, what woman to select as the 
 sweetener and ennol)]er of one's every-day life ! Could she be to my life that 
 sweetener, that ennobler? I firmly I'clicve it. Already life itself has gained 
 a charm that I never even guessed in it before ; already I begin, though as yet 
 but faintly and vaguely, to recognize that interest in the objects and aspira- 
 tions of my fellow-men, which is strongest in those whom posterity ranks 
 among its ennoblers. In this quiet village it is true that I might find examples 
 enough to prove that man is not meant to meditate upon life, but to take ac- 
 tive part in it, and in that action to find iis uses. Lut I doubt if I should have 
 profited by such exam]iles, if I should not have looked on this small stage of 
 the world as I have looked on the large one, with the indifTerent eyes of a 
 spectator on a trite familiar jilay carried on by ordinary actors, had not my 
 whole being suddenly leapt out of ])hiluso]-)hy into passion, and. at once made 
 warmly human, sympathized with humanity wherever it buincd and glowed. 
 Ah, is there to be any doubt of what station, as mortal bride, is due to her — 
 her, my princess, my Fairy? If so, how contented you shall be, my father, 
 with the worldly career of your son ! how jierseveringly he will strive (and 
 when did i^erseverance fail?) to sup])ly all his deficiencies of intellect, genius, 
 knowledge, by the energy concentrated on a single objett which — more than 
 intellect, genius, knowledge, unless th.ey a'lain to equal energy equally con- 
 centrated — conmiands what the world calls honors ! 
 
 " Yes, with her, with her as the bearer of my name, with her to whom I, 
 whatever I might do of good or of great, could say, ' It is thy work,' I prom- 
 ise that you sliall bless tlie day when you took to your arms a. daughter. 
 
 " 'Thou art in contact with the beloved in all that thou fcelest elevated 
 above thee ' So it is wriiten by one of those weird Germans who search in 
 our bosoms for tlie seeds of buried truths, and conjure them into flowers be- 
 fore we ourselves were even aware of the seeds. 
 
 " Every thought that associates itself with my beloved seems to me born 
 with wings. 
 
 I have just seen her, just parted from her. Since I had been told — kindly, 
 wisely told — that I had no right to hazard her peace of mind unless I were 
 
 I
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 395 
 
 privileged to woo and to win her, I promised myself that I would shun her 
 presence until I had bared my heart to you, as I am doing now, and received 
 that privilege from yourself ; for even had I never made the promise that 
 binds my h(jnor, your consent and blessing must hallow my choice. I do not 
 feel as if I could dare to ask one so innocent and fair to wed an ungrateful, 
 disobedient son. But this evening I met her, unexpectedly, at the vicar's, an 
 excellent man, from whom I iiave learned much ; wliose precepts, whose ex- 
 ample, whose delight in his home, and his life at once active and serene, are in 
 harmony with my own dreams when I dream of her. 
 
 "I will tell you the name of the beloved — hold, it is as yet a profound 
 secret between you and me. But oil fur the day when I may hear you call 
 her by that name, and print on her forehead the only kiss by man of which I 
 should not be jealous ! 
 
 " It is Sunday, and after the evening service it is my friend's custom to 
 gather his children round him, and, without any formal sermon or discourse, 
 engage their interests in subjects harmonious to associations with the sanctity 
 of the day ; often not du'ectly bearing upon religion ; more often, indeed, 
 playfully starting from some little incident or some slight story-book which 
 had amused the children in the course of the past week, and then gradually 
 winding into reference to some sweet moral precept or illustration from 
 some divine example. It is a maxim with him that, while much that children 
 must learn they can only learn well through conscious labor and as positive 
 task-work, yet Religion should be connected in their minds, not with labor 
 and task-work, but should become insensibly infused into their habits of 
 thought, blending itself with memories and images of peace and love ; with 
 the indulgent tenderness of the earliest teachers, the sinless mirthfulness of the 
 earliest home ; with consolation in after-sorrows, support through after-trials, 
 and never parting company with its twin sister, Hope. 
 
 "I entered the vicar's room this evening just as the group had collected 
 round him. By the side of his wife sat a lady in whom I feel a keen interest. 
 Her face wears that kind of calm which speaks of the lassitude bequeathed by 
 sorrow. She is the aunt of my beloved one. Lily had nestled herself on a 
 low ottoman at the good pastor's feet, with one of his little girls, round 
 whose shoulder she had wound her arm. She is much more fond of the com- 
 panionship of children than that of girls of her own age. The vicar's wife, a 
 very clever woman, once, in my hearing, took her to task for this preference, 
 asking her why she persisted in grouping herself with mere infants who could 
 teach her nothing. Ah ! could you have seen the innocent, angel-like ex- 
 pression of her face when she answered simply, ' I suppose because with them 
 I feel safer, I mean nearer to God.' 
 
 ' ' Mr. Emlyn — that is the name of the vicar — deduced his homily this even- 
 ing from a pretty fairy-tale which Lily had been telling to his children the 
 day before, and which he drew her on to repeat. 
 
 "Take, in brief, the substance of the story : — 
 
 " Once on a time, a king and queen made themselves very unhappy be- 
 cause they had no heir to their throne ; and they prayed f jr one ; and lo, on 
 some bright summer morning, the Queen, waking from sleep, saw a cradle 
 beside her bed, and in the cradle a beautiful sleeping babe. Great day 
 throughout the kingdom ! But as the infant grew up, it became very way- 
 ward and fretful; it lost its beauty, it would not learn its lessons, it was 
 as naughty as a child could be. The parents were very sorrowful ; the heir, 
 so longed for, promised to be a great plague to themselves and their subjects. 
 At last, one day, to add to their trouble, two little bumps appeared on the
 
 396 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Prince's shoulders. All the doctors were consulted as to the cause and the 
 cure of this deformity. Of course tliey tried the effect of back-bauds and steel 
 macliines, vvluch gave llie poor little Prince great pain, ami made him more 
 unamiable tlian ever. The bumps, nevertheless, grew larger, and as they in- 
 creased, so the Prince sickened and pined away. At last a skdful surgeon 
 proposed, as the only chance of saving the Prince's life, that the bumps should 
 be cut out, and tiie next inorning was fixetl for that operation. But at night 
 the Queen saw, or dreamed she saw, a beautiful shape standing by her bedside. 
 And it said to her reproachfully, ' Ungrateful woman ! How wouldst thou 
 repay me for the precious boon that my favor bestowed on thee ? In me be- 
 hold the Queen of the Fairies. For the heir to thy kingdom, I consigned to 
 tiiy cliarge an infant from Fairyland, to become a [)lessnig to thee and to thy 
 people; and thou wouldst iidlict upon it a death of torture by the surgeon's 
 knife.' And the Queen answered ' Precious indeed thou mayest call tiie Ijoon ! 
 A miserable, sickly, feverish changeling.' 
 
 " ' Art thou so dull,' said the beautiful visitant, ' as not to comprehend 
 that the earliest instincts of the fairy child would be those of discontent at the 
 exile from its native home ? and in that discontent it would liave pined itself 
 to deatii, or grown up soured and malignant, a fairy still in its power, but a 
 fairy of wrath and evil, had not the strength of its inborn nature suffiL-ed to 
 develop the growth of its wings. That which thy blindness condemns as 
 the deformity of the human-boin, is to the fairy-horn the crowning perfection 
 of its beauty. Woe to thee if thou suffer not the wings of the fairy-child to 
 grow ! ' 
 
 '• And the next morning the Queen sent away the surgeon when he came 
 with his horrible knife, and removed tlie back-board and the steel machines 
 from the Prince's slioulders, though all the doctors predicted that the child 
 would die. And from that moment the royal heir began to recover bloom 
 and health. And when at last, out of those deforming bum[)s, budded delicate- 
 ly forth the [ihrniage of snow-white wings, the wayward peevishness of the 
 Prince gave ])lace to sweet temper. Instead of scratching his teachers, he 
 became the quickest and most docile of pupils, grew up to be the joy of his 
 parents and the pride of their people ; and tlie people said, ' In him we shall 
 have hereafter such a king as we have never yet known.' 
 
 " Here ended Lily's tale. I cannot convey to you a notion of the pretty, 
 playful manner in which it was told. Then she said, with a grave shake of 
 the head, ' lint you d ) not seem to know what happened afterwards. Do you 
 su]ipose that tlie Prince never made use of his wings ? Listen to me. It was 
 discovered by tlie courtiers who attended on his Royal lliglmcss that on cer- 
 tain nights, every week, he disapiicared. In fact, on these nights, obedient 
 to the instinct of the wings, he flew from palace hails into Fairyland ; coming 
 back thence all the more lovingly disposed towards the human home from 
 which he had escaped for awhile.' 
 
 "'Oh, my children.' interposed the preacher, earnestly, ' the wings would 
 be given to us in vain if we did not obey the instinct which alhires us to soar; 
 vain no less wou'ld be the soaring, were it not towards the lion e whence we 
 came, bearing back from its native airs a stronger health and a serener joy, 
 more reconciled to the duties of earth by every new flight into heaven.' 
 
 "As hf thus completed the moral of Lily's fairy-tale, the girl rose from 
 her low seat, took his hand, kissed it reverently, and walked away towards 
 the window. I could see that she was affected even to tears, which she sought 
 to conceal. Later in the evening when we were dispersed on the lawn for a 
 few minutes before the parly broke up, Lily came to my side timidly, and said, 
 in a low whisper :
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 397 
 
 " ' Are you angry with me ? what have I done to displease you ? ' 
 " * Angry witli you ? displeased ? How can you think of me so unjustly ? ' 
 " ' It is so many days since you have called, since I have seen you,' she 
 said, so artlessly, looking up at me with eyes in which tears still seemed to 
 tremble. 
 
 "Before I could trust myself to reply, her aunt approached, and, noticing 
 me witli a cold and distant ' Good-night,' led away her niece. 
 
 " I had calculated on walking back to their home with them, as I gener- 
 ally have done when we met at another house. But the aunt had probably 
 conjectured I might be at the Vicarage that evening, and, in order to frustrate 
 my intention, had engaged a carriage for their return. No doubt she has beeir 
 warned against permitting further intimacy with her niece. 
 
 "My father, I must come to you at once, discharge my promise, and re- 
 ceive from your own lips ) our consent to my choice ; for you will consent, 
 will you not ? But I wish you to be prepared beforehand, and 1 shall there- 
 fore put up these disjointed fragments of my commune with my own heart and 
 with yours, and post them to-morrow. Expect me to follow them, after leav- 
 ing you a day free to consider them alone— alone, my dear father ; they are 
 meant for no eye but yours. 
 
 " K. C." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The next day Kenelm walked into the town, posted his vol- 
 uminous letter to Sir Peter, and then looked in at the shop 
 of Will Somers, meaning to make some purchases of basket- 
 ' work or trifling fancy goods in Jessie's pretty store of such 
 articles, that might please the taste of his mother. 
 
 On entering the shop his heart beat quicker. He saw 
 two young forms bending over the counter, examining the 
 contents of a glass case. One of these customers was Clem- 
 my ; in the other there was no mistaking the slight graceful 
 shape of Lily Mordaunt. Clemmy was exclaiming, " Oh, it 
 is so pretty, Mrs. Somers ; but," turning her eyes from 
 the counter to a silk purse in her hand, she added, sorrow- 
 fully, " I can't buy it. I have not got enough, not by a great 
 deal." 
 
 "And what is it. Miss Clemmy?" asked Kenelm. 
 
 The two girls turned round at his voice, and Clemmy's 
 face brightened. 
 
 " Look here," she said, "is it not too lovely ?" 
 
 The object thus admired and coveted was a little gold 
 locket, enriched by a cross composed of small pearls. 
 
 " I assure you, miss," said Jessie, who had acquired all 
 the coaxing arts of her trade, " it is really a great bargain.
 
 398 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Miss Mary Burrows, who was liere just before you came, 
 bought one not nearly so pretty, and gave ten shillings more 
 for it." 
 
 Miss Mary Burrows was the same age as Miss Clementina 
 Emlyn, and there was a rivalry as to smartnes^ between those 
 youthful beauties. " Miss Burrows ! " sighed Clemmy, very 
 scornfully. 
 
 But Kenelm's attention was distracted from Clemmy's 
 locket to a little ring which Lily had been persuaded by Mrs. 
 Somers to try on, and which she now drew off and returned 
 with a shake of the head. Mrs. Somers, who saw that she 
 had small chance of selling the locket to Clemmy, was now 
 addressing herself to the elder girl, more likely to have suf- 
 ficient pocket-money, and whom, at all events, it was quite 
 safe to trust. 
 
 "The ring fits you so nicely, Miss Mordaunt, and every 
 young lady of your age wears at least one ring ; allow .me to 
 put it up ? " Slic added in a lower voice, " Though we only 
 sell the articles in this case on conunission, it is all the same 
 to us whether we are paid now or at Christmas." 
 
 " 'Tis no use tempting me, Mrs. Somers," said Lily, laugh- 
 ing ; and then, with a grave air, " I promised Lion, I mean 
 my guardian, never to run into debt ; and I never will." 
 
 Lily turned resolutelv from tlie perilous counter, taking 
 up a paper that contained a new ribbon she had bought for 
 Blanche, and Clemmy reluctantly followed her out of the 
 shop. 
 
 Kenelm lingered behind, and selected very hastily a few 
 trifles, to be sent to him that evening with some specimens 
 of basket-work left to Will's tasteful discretion ; then pur- 
 chased the locket on which Clemmy had set her heart ; but 
 all the while his thoughts were fixed on the ring which Lily 
 had tried on. It was no sin against etiquette to give the 
 locket to a child like Clemmy, but would it not be a cruel 
 impertinence to offer a gift to Lily ? 
 
 Jessie spoke : 
 
 " Miss Mordaunt took a great fancy to this ring, Mr. Chil- 
 lingly. I am sure her aunt would like her to have it. I have 
 a great mind to put it by on the chance of Mrs. Cameron's 
 calling here. It would be a pity if it were bought by some 
 one else." 
 
 ** I think," said Kenelm, " that I will take the liberty of 
 showing it to Mrs. Cameron. No doubt she will buy it for 
 her niece. Add the price of it to my bill." He seized the
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 399 
 
 ring and carried it off ; a very poor little simple ring, with 
 a single stone, shaped as a heart, not half the price of the 
 locket. 
 
 Kenelm rejoined the young ladies just where the path 
 split into two, the one leading direct to Grasmere, the other 
 through the churchyard to the Vicarage. He presented the 
 locket to Clemmy with brief kindly w^ords which easily re- 
 moved any scruple she might have had in accepting it ; and, 
 delighted with her acquisition, she bounded off to the Vicar- 
 age, impatient to show the prize to her mamma and sisters, 
 and more especially to Miss Mary Burrows, who was com- 
 ing to lunch with them. 
 
 Kenelm walked on slowly by Lily's side. 
 
 '^ You have a good heart, Mr. Chillingly," said she, some- 
 what abruptly. " How it must please you to give such 
 pleasure ! Dear little Clemmy !" 
 
 This artless praise, and the perfect absence of envy or 
 thought of self evinced by her joy that her friend's wish was 
 gratified tho;:gh her own was not, enchanted Kenelm. 
 
 " If it pleases to give pleasure," said he, " it is your turn 
 to be pleased now : you can confer such pleasure upon 
 me." 
 
 " How ? " she asked, falteringly, and with quick change of 
 color. 
 
 " By conceding to me the same right your little friend 
 has allowed." 
 
 And he drew forth the ring. 
 
 Lily reared her head with a first impulse of haughtiness. 
 But when her eyes met his the head drooped down again, 
 and a slight shiver ran through her frame. 
 
 " Miss Mordaunt," resumed Kenelm, mastering his pas- 
 sionate longing to fall at her feet and say, "But, oh ! in this 
 ring it is my love that I offer — it is my troth that I pledge ! " 
 " Miss Mordaunt, spare me the misery of thinking that I 
 have offended you ; least of all would I do so on this day, 
 for it may be some little while before I see you again. I 
 am going home for a few days upon a matter which may 
 affect the happiness of my life, and on which I should be a 
 bad son and an unworthy gentleman if I did not consult 
 him who, in all that concerns my affections, has trained me 
 to- turn to him, the father; in all that concerns my honor, 
 to him, the gentleman." 
 
 A speech more unlike that which any delineator of man- 
 ners and morals in the present day would put into the
 
 400 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 moutli of a lover, no critic in "The Londoner" could ridi- 
 cule. But, somehow or other, tliis poor little tamer of but- 
 terflies and teller of fairy-tales comprehended on the instant 
 all that this most eccentric of human beings thus frigidly left 
 untold. Into her innermost heart it sank more deeply than 
 would the most ardent declaration put into the lips of the 
 boobies or the scamps in whom delineators of manners in 
 the present day too often debase the magnificent chivalry 
 embodied in the name of "Lover." 
 
 Where these two had, while speaking, halted on the path 
 along the brook-side, there was a bench, on wliich it so hap- 
 pened that th(>y had seated themselves weeks before. A 
 few moments later, on that bench they were seated again. 
 
 And the trumpery little ring with its turquoise heart 
 was on Lily's finger, and there they continued to sit for 
 nearly half an Iumu" ; not talking much, but wondrously 
 happy; not a single vow of troth interchanged. No, not 
 even a word that ccnild be construed into " I love." And 
 yet when they rose from the bench, and went silently along 
 the brook-side, each knew that the other was beloved. 
 
 When they reached the gate that admitted into the gar- 
 den of Grasmere, Kenelm made a slight start. Mrs. Came- 
 ron was leaning over the gate. Whatever alarm at the 
 appearance Kenelm might have felt was certainly not shared 
 by Lily ; she advanced lightly before him, kissed her aunt 
 on the cheek, and passed on across the lawn with a bound 
 in her step and the carol of a song upon her lips. 
 
 Kenelm remained by the gate, face to face with Mrs. 
 Cameron. She opened the gate, put her arm in his, and 
 led him hack along the brook-side. 
 
 " I am sure, Mr. Chillingly," she said, "that you will 
 not impute to my words any meaning more grave than that 
 which I wish them to convey, when I remind you that there 
 is no place too obscure to escape from the ill-nature of gos- 
 sip ; and you must own that my niece incurs the chance of 
 its notice if she be seen walking alone in these by-paths 
 \\ith a man of your age and position, and whose sojourn in 
 the neighborhood, without any ostensible object or motive, 
 has already begun to excite conjecture. I do not for a 
 moment assume that you regard my niece in any other light 
 than that of an artless child whose originality of tastesor 
 fancy may serve to amuse you ; and still less do I suppose 
 that she is in danger of misrepresenting any attentions on 
 your part. But for her sake I am bound to consider what
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 401 
 
 Others may say. Excuse me then if I add that I think you 
 are also bound in honor and in good feeling to do the same. 
 Mr. Chillingly, it would give me a great sense of relief if it 
 suited your plans to move from the neighborhood." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Cameron," answered Keuelm, who had 
 listened to this speech wnth imperturbable calm of visage, 
 " I thank you much for your candor, and I am glad to have 
 this opportunity of informing you that I am about to move 
 from this neighborhood, with the hope of returning to it in 
 a very few days and rectifying your mistake as to the'point 
 of view in which I regard your niece. In a word," here the 
 expression of his countenance and the tone of his voice 
 underwent a sudden change, " it is the dearest wish of my 
 heart to be empowered by my parents to assure you of the 
 warmth with which they will welcome your niece as their 
 daughter, should she deign to listen to my suit and intrust 
 me with the charge of her liappiness." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron stopped short, gazing into his face with 
 a look of inexpressible dismay. 
 
 "No! Mr. Chillingly," she exclaimed, "this must not be 
 — cannot be. Put out of your mind an idea so wild. A 
 young man's senseless romance. Your parents cannot con- 
 sent to your union with my niece ; I tell 3'ou beforehand 
 they cannot." 
 
 " But why ? " said Kenelm, with a slight smile, and not 
 much impressed by the vehemence of Mrs. Cameron's adju- 
 ration. 
 
 " Why ? " she repeated, passionately ; and then recover- 
 ing something of her habitual weariness of quiet. "The 
 why is easily explained. Mr. Kenelm Chillingly is the heir 
 of a very ancient house, and, I am told, of considerable es- 
 tates. Lily Mordaunt is a nobody, an orphan, without for- 
 tune, without connection, tlie ward of a humbly born artist, 
 to whom she owes the roof that shelters her ; she is without 
 the ordinary education of a gentlewoman ; she has seen 
 nothing of the world in which you move. Your parents 
 have not the right to allow a son so young as yourself to 
 throw himself out of his proper sphere by a rash and impru- 
 dent alliance. And never would I consent, never would 
 Walter Melville consent, to her entering into any family 
 reluctant to receive her. There — that is enough. Dismiss 
 the notion so lightly entertained. And farewell." 
 
 "Madam," answered Kenelm, very earnestly, "believe 
 me, that had I not entertained the hope approaching to
 
 402 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 conviction that the reasons you urge against my prcsump. 
 tion will not have the weight with my parents which you 
 ascribe to them, I should not have spoken to you thus 
 frankly. Young though I be, still I might fairly claim the 
 right to choose for myself in marriage. But I gave to my 
 father a very binding promise that I would not formally 
 propose to any one till 1 had acquainted him with my desire 
 to do so, and obtained his approval of my choice ; and he 
 is the last man in the world who would withhold that ap- 
 proval where my heart is set on it as it is now. I want no 
 fortune with a wife, and should I ever care to advance my 
 position in the world no connection could help me like the 
 approving smile of the woman I love. There is but one 
 qualification which my parents would deem they had the 
 right to exact from my choice of one who is to bear our 
 name. I mean that she should have the appearance, the 
 manners, the principles, and — my mother at least might add 
 — the birth of a gentlewoman. Well, as to appearance and 
 manners, I have seen much of fine society from my boyhood, 
 and found no one among the highest-born who can excel 
 the exquisite refinement of every look, and the inborn del- 
 icacy of every thought, in her of whom, if mine, I shall be 
 as proud as I shall be fond. As to defects in the frippery 
 and tinsel of a boarding-school education, they are very 
 soon remedied. Remains only the last consideration — 
 birth. Mrs. Braefield informs me that you have assured her 
 that, though circumstances into which as yet I have no 
 right to inquire have made her the ward of a man of humble 
 origin. Miss Mordaunt is of gentle birth. Do you deny 
 tha\?" 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Cameron, hesitating, but with a flash 
 of pride in her eyes as she went (mi. "No. I cannot deny 
 that my niece is descended from those who, in point of 
 birth , were not unecjual to your own ancestors. But what 
 of that?" she added, with a l)itter despondency of tone. 
 " Equality of birth ceases when one falls into poverty, ob- 
 scuritv, nes^lect, nothinsifness ! ' 
 
 "Really this is a morbid habit on your part. But since 
 we have thus spoken so confidentially, will you not em- 
 power me to answer the question which will probably be 
 put to me, and the answer to which will, I doubt not, re- 
 move every obstacle in the way of my happiness ? What- 
 ever the reasons which might very sufficiently induce you to 
 preserve, whilst living so quietly in this place, a discreet
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 403 
 
 silence as to the parentage of Miss Mordaunt and your own, 
 — and I am well aware that those whom altered circum- 
 stances of fortune have compelled to altered modes of life 
 may disdain to parade to strangers the pretensions to a 
 higher station than that to which they reconcile their 
 habits, — whatever, I say, such reasons for silence to 
 strangers, should they preclude you from confiding to me, 
 an aspirant to your niece's hand, a secret which, after all, 
 cannot be concealed from her future husband ? " 
 
 " From her future husband ? of course not," answered 
 Mrs. Cameron. " But I decline to be questioned by one 
 whom I may never see again, and of whom I know so 
 little. I decline, indeed, to assist in removing any obstacle 
 to a union with my niece, which I hold to be in every way 
 unsuited to either party. I have no cause even to believe 
 that my niece would accept you if you were free to propose 
 to her. You have not, I presume, spoken to her as an as- 
 pirant to her hand. You have not addressed to her any de- 
 claration of your attachment, or sought to extract from her 
 inexperience any words that warrant you in thinking that 
 her heart will break if she never sees you again ?" 
 
 " I do not merit such cruel and taunting questions," said 
 Kenelm, indignantly. *' But I will say no more now. When 
 we again meet, let me hope you will treat me less unkindly. 
 Adieu ! " 
 
 " Stay, sir. A word or two more. You persist in ask- 
 ing your father and Lady Chillingly to consent to your pro- 
 posal to Miss Mordaunt .? " 
 
 " Certainly I do." 
 
 " And you will promise me, on your word as a gentleman, 
 to state fairly all the causes which might fairly operate 
 against their consent ; the poverty, the humble rearing, the 
 imperfect education of my niece ; so that they might not 
 hereafter say you had entrapped their consent, and avenge 
 themselves for your deceit by contempt for her ?" 
 
 "Ah, madam, madam, you really try my patience too 
 far. But take my promise, if you can hold that of value 
 from one whom you can suspect of deliberate deceit." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mr. Chillingly. Bear with my 
 rudeness. I have been so taken by surprise I scarcely know 
 what I am saying. But let us understand each other com- 
 pletely before we part. If your parents withhold their con- 
 sent you will communicate it to me ; me only, not to Lily. 
 I repeat, I know nothing of the state of her affections. But
 
 404 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 it might embitter any girl's life to be led on to love one 
 whom she could not marry." 
 
 " It shall be as you say. But if they do consent ? " 
 
 " Then you will speak to me before you seek an inter- 
 view with Lily ; for then comes another question : Will her 
 guardian consent ? — and— and " 
 
 "And what?" 
 
 " No matter. I rely on your honor in this request, as in 
 all else. Good-day." 
 
 She turned back with hurried footsteps, muttering to 
 herself, " But they will not consent. Heaven grant that 
 they will not consent, or, if they do, what — what is to be 
 said or done ? Oh, tliat Walter Melville were here, or that I 
 knew where to write to him ! " 
 
 On his way back to Cromwell Lodge, Kenelm was over- 
 taken by the vicar. 
 
 "I was coming to you, my dear Mr. Chillingly, first to 
 thank you for the very pretty present with which you have 
 gladdened the heart of my little Clemmy, and next to ask 
 
 you to come with me quietly to-day to meet Mr. , the 
 
 celebrated antiquarian, who came to Moleswich this morn- 
 ing at my request, to examine that old gothic tomb in our 
 church-yard. Only think, — though he cannot read the in- 
 scription aity better than we can, he knows all about its 
 history. It seems that a young knight, renowned for feats 
 of valor in the reign of Henry IV., married a daughter of 
 one of those great Earls of Montfichet who were then the 
 most powerful family in these parts. He was slain in de- 
 fending the church from an assault by some disorderly 
 rioters of the Lollard faction ; he fell on the very spot 
 where the tomb is now placed. That accounts for its situa- 
 tion in the churchyard, not within the fabric. Mr, dis- 
 covered this fact in an old memoir of the ancient and once 
 famous family to which the young knight Albert belonged, 
 and which came, alas ! to so shameful an end, — the Flet- 
 wodes, Barons of Fletwode and Malpas. What a triumph 
 over pretty Lily Mordaunt, who always chose to imagine 
 that the tomb must be that of some heroine of her own or- 
 
 mantic invention ! Do come to dinner; Mr. is a most 
 
 agreeable man, and full of interesting anecdote." 
 
 " I am so sorry I cannot. I am obliged to return home 
 at once for a few days. That old family of Fletwode ! I 
 think I see before me, while we speak, the gray tower in 
 which they once held sway ; and the last of the race follow-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 405 
 
 ing Mammon along the Progress of the Age — a convicted 
 felon ! What a terrible satire on the pride of birth !" 
 
 Kenelm left Cromwell Lodge that evening, but he still 
 kept on his apartments there, saying he might be back un- 
 expectedly any day in the course of the next week. 
 
 He remained two days in London, wishing all that he had 
 communicated to Sir Peter in writing to sink into his father's 
 heart before a personal appeal to it. 
 
 The more he revolved the ungracious manner in which 
 Mrs. Cameron had received his confidence, the less impor- 
 tance he attached to it. An exaggerated sense of disparities 
 of fortune in a person who appeared to him to have the pride 
 so common to those who have known better days, coupled 
 with a nervous apprehension lest his family should ascribe 
 to her any attempt to insnare a very young man of consider- 
 able worldly pretensions into a marriage with a penniless 
 niece, seemed to account for much that had at first perplexed 
 and angered him. And if, as he conjectured, Mrs. Cameron 
 had once held a much higher position in the world than she 
 did now — a conjecture warranted by a certain peculiar con- 
 ventional undeniable elegance which characterized her habit- 
 ual manner — -and was now, as she implied, actually a depend- 
 ant on the bounty of a painter who had only just acquired 
 some professional distinction she might well shrink from 
 the mortification of becoming an object of compassion to her 
 richer neighbors ; nor, Avhen he came to think of it, had he 
 any more right than those neighbors to any confidence as to 
 her own or Lily's parentage, so long as he was not formally 
 entitled to claim admission into her privity. 
 
 London seemed to him intolerably dull and wearisome. 
 He called nowhere except at Lady Glenalv^on's : he was glad 
 to hear from the servants that she was still at Exmundham. 
 He relied much on the influence of the queen of the Fashion 
 with his mother, who he knew woidd be more difficult to 
 persuade than Sir Peter, nor did he doubt that he should 
 win to his side that sympathizing and warm-hearted queen.
 
 4o6 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 It is somewhere about three weeks since the party invited 
 by Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly assembled at Exmundham, 
 and they are still there, though people invited to a country 
 house have seldom compassion enough for the dullness of its 
 owner to stay more than three days. Mr. Chillingly Mivers, 
 indeed, had not exceeded that orthodox limit. Cjuietly ob- 
 servant, during his stay, of young Gordon's manner towards 
 Cecilia, and hers towards him, he had satisfied himself that 
 there was no cause to alarm Sir Peter or induce the worthy 
 baronet to regret the invitation he had given to that clever 
 kinsman. For all the visitors remaining, Exnuuidham had 
 a charm. 
 
 To Lady Glenalvon, because in the hostess she met her 
 most familiar friend when both were young girls, and because 
 it pleased her to note the interest which Cecilia Travers took 
 in the place so, associated with memories of the man to whom 
 it was Lady Glcnalvon's hope to see her united. To Gordon 
 Chillingly, because no opportunity could be so favorable for 
 his own well-concealed designs on the hand and heart of the 
 heiress. To the heiress herself the charm needs no explan- 
 ation. 
 
 To Leopold Travers the attractions of Exmundham were 
 unquestionably less fascinating. Still, even he was well 
 pleased to prolong his stay. His active mind found amuse- 
 ment in wandcrinc: over an estate the acreage of which would 
 have warranted a much larp-er rental, and lecturinc; Sir Peter 
 on the old-fashioned system of husbandry which that good- 
 natured easy proprict<jr permitted his tenants to adopt, as 
 well as on the number of superfluous hands that were em- 
 ployed on the pleasure-grounds and in the general manage- 
 of the estate, such as carpenters, sawyers, woodmen, brick- 
 layers, and smiths. 
 
 When the Squire said, *'You could do just as well with 
 a third of those costly dependants," Sir Peter, unconsciously 
 plagiarizing the answer of the old French grand seigneur, 
 replied, "Very likely. But the question is, could the rest 
 do just as well without me ?" 
 
 Exmundham, indeed, was a very expensive place to keep
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 407 
 
 up. The house, built by some ambitious Chillingly three 
 centuries ago, would have been large for an owner of thrice 
 the revenues ; and though the flower-garden was smaller than 
 that at Braefieldville, there were paths and drives through 
 miles of young plantations and old woodlands that furnished 
 lazy occupation to an army of laborers. No wonder that, 
 despite his nominal ten thousand a year, Sir Peter was far 
 from being a rich man. Exmundham devoured at least half 
 the renial The active mind of Leopold Travers also found 
 ample occupation in the stores of his host's extensive library. 
 Travers, never much of a reader, was by no means a despiser 
 of learning, and he soon took to historical and archaeological 
 researches with the ardor of a man who must always throw 
 energy into any pursuit that occasion presents as an escape 
 from indolence. Indolent, Leopold Travers never could be. 
 But, more than either of these resources of occupation, the 
 companionship of Chillingly Gordon excited his interest and 
 quickened the current of his thoughts. Always fond of re- 
 newing his own youth in the society of the young, and of the 
 sympathizing temperament which belongs to cordial natures, 
 he had, as we have seen, entered very heartily into the ambi- 
 tion of George Belvoir, and reconciled himself very pliably to 
 the humors of Kenelm Chillingly. But the first of these two 
 was a little too commonplace, the second a little too eccen- 
 tric, to enlist the complete good-fellowship which, being alike 
 very clever and very practical, Leopold Travers established 
 with that very clever and very practical representative of the 
 rising generation. Chillingly Gordon. Between them there 
 was this meeting-ground, political and worldly, — a great con- 
 tempt for innocuous old-fashioned notions ; added to which, 
 in the mind of Leopold Travers, was a contempt — which 
 would have been complete, but that the contempt admitted 
 dread —of harmful new-fashioned notions which, interpreted 
 by his thoughts, threatened ruin to his country and downfall 
 to the follies of existent society, and which, interpreted by 
 his language, tamed itself into the man of the world's phrase, 
 " Going too far for me." Notions which, by the much more 
 cultivated intellect and the immeasurably more soaring am- 
 bition of Chillingly Gordon, might be viewed and criticized 
 thus : " Could I accept these doctrines ? I don't see my way 
 to being Prime Minister of a country in which religion and 
 capital are still powers to be consulted. And, putting aside 
 religion and capital. I don't see how, if these doctrines passed 
 into law, with a good coat on my back I should not be a suf«
 
 4o8 KENELM CIIILLINGLY. 
 
 ferer. Eitlier I, as having a good coat, should have it torn 
 off my back as a capitalist, or, if I remonstrated in the name 
 of moral honesty, be put to death as a religionist." 
 
 Therefore when Leopold Travers said, " Of course Ave 
 must go on," Chillingly Gordon smiled and answered, " Cer- 
 tainly, go on." And when Leopold Travers added, " But 
 we may go too far," Chillingly Gordon shook his head and 
 replied, " How true that is ! Certainly, too far." 
 
 Apart from the congeniality of political sentiment, there 
 were other points of friendly contact between the older and 
 younger man. Each was an exceedingly pleasant man of 
 the world ; and, though Leopold Travers could not have 
 plumbed certain deeps in Chillingly Gordon's nature — and 
 in every man's nature there are deeps which his ablest ob- 
 server cannot fathom — yet he was not wrong when he said 
 to himself, "Gordon is a gentleman." 
 
 Utterly would my readers misconceive that very clever 
 young man, if they held him to be a hypocrite like Blifd or 
 Joseph Surface. Chillingly Gordon, in every private sense 
 of the word, was a gentleman. If he had staked his whole 
 fortune on a rubber at whist, and an imdctected glance at 
 his adversary's hand would have made the difference be- 
 tween loss and gain, he would have turned away his head 
 and said, " Hold up your cards." Neither, as I have had 
 occasion to explain before, was he actuated by any motive 
 in common with the vulgar fortune-hunter in his secret 
 resolve to win the hand of the lieiress. He recognized no 
 inequality of worldly gifts between them. He said to him- 
 self, " Whatever she may give me in money, I shall amply 
 repay in worldly position if I succeed ; and succeed I cer- 
 tainly shall. If I were as rich as Lord Westminster, and 
 still caring abcMit being Prime Minister, I should select her 
 as the most fitlinu: woman I have seen for a Prime INlInis- 
 ter's wife." 
 
 It must be acknowledged that this sort of self-commune, 
 if not that of a very ardent lover, is verv much that of a 
 sensible man settins: hitrh value on himself, bent on achiev- 
 ing the prizes of a public career, and desirous of securing 
 in his wife a woman who would adorn the station to which 
 he confidently aspired. In fact, no one so able as Chillingly 
 Gordon would ever have conceived the ambition of being 
 Minister of England if, in all that in private life constitutes 
 the English gentleman, he could be fairly subject to re- 
 proach.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 409 
 
 He was but in public life what many a gentleman honest 
 in private life has been before him, an ambitious, resolute 
 egotist, by no means without personal affections, but hold- 
 ing them all subordinate to the objects of personal ambi- 
 tion, and with no more of other principle than that of ex- 
 pediency in reference to his own career, than would cover 
 a silver penny. But expediency in itself he deemed the 
 statesman's only rational principle. And to the considera- 
 tion of expediency he brought a very unprejudiced intellect, 
 quite fitted to decide whether the public opinion of a free 
 and enlightened people was for turning St. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral into an Agapemone or not. 
 
 During the summer weeks he had thus vouchsafed to the 
 turfs and groves of Exmundham, Leopold Travers was not 
 the only person whose good opinion Chillingly Gordon had 
 ingratiated. He had won the warmest approbation from 
 Mrs. Campion. His conversation reminded her of that 
 which she had enjoyed in the house of her departed spouse. 
 In talking with Cecilia she was fond of contrasting him to 
 Kenelm, not to the favor of the latter, whose humors she 
 utterly failed to understand, and whom she pertinaciously 
 described as "so affected." "A most superior young man 
 Mr. Gordon, so well informed, so sensible, above all, so 
 natural." Such was her judgment upon theunavowed can- 
 didate to Cecilia's hand, and Mrs. Campion required no 
 avowal to divine the candidature. Even Lady Glenalvon 
 had begun to take friendly interest in the fortunes of this 
 promising young man. Most women can sympathize with 
 youthful ambition. He impressed her with a deep convic- 
 tion of his abilities, and still more with respect for their 
 concentration upon practical objects of power and renown. 
 She too, like Mrs. Campion, began to draw comparisons 
 unfavorable to Kenelm between the two cousins ; the one 
 seemed so slothfully determined to hide his candle under a 
 bushel, the other so honestly disposed to set his light before 
 men. She felt also annoyed and angry that Kenelm was 
 thus absenting himself from the paternal home at the very 
 time of her first visit to it, and when he had so felicitous an 
 opportunity of seeing more of the girl in whom he knew 
 that Lady Glenalvon deemed he might win, if he would 
 properly woo, the wife that would best suit him. So that 
 when one day Mrs. Campion, walking through the gardens 
 alone with Lady Glenalvon, while from the gardens into 
 the park went Chillingly Gordon arm-in-arm with Leopold 
 18
 
 4IC KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Travers, abruptly asked, "Don't you think that Mr. Gordon 
 is smitten with Cecilia, though he, with his moderate for- 
 tune, does not dare to say so ? And don't you think that 
 any girl, if she were as rich as Cecilia will be, would be 
 more proud of such a husband as Chillingly Gordon than 
 of some silly Earl ?" 
 
 Lady Glenalvon answered curtly, but somewhat sorrow- 
 fully— 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 After a pause, she added, "There is a man with whom I 
 did once think she would have been happier than with any 
 other ; one man who ought to be dearer to me than Mr. 
 Gordon, for he saved the life of my son, and who, though 
 perhaps less clever than Mr. Gordon, still has a great deal of 
 talent within him, which might come forth and make him 
 — what shall I say ? — a useful and distinguished member of 
 society, if married to a girl so sure of raising any man she 
 marries as Cecilia Travers. But if I am to renounce that 
 hope, and look through the range of young men brought 
 imder my notice, I don't know one, putting aside considera- 
 tion of rank and ft)rtunc, I should prcfcrfor a clever daugh- 
 ter who went heart and soul with the ambition of a clever 
 man. But, Mrs. Campion, I have not yet quite renounced 
 my hope ; and, unless I do, I yet think there is one man to 
 whom I would rather give Cecilia, if she were my daughter." 
 
 Therewith Lady Glenalvon so decidedly broke off the 
 subject of conversation, that Mrs. Campion could not have 
 renewed it without such a breach of the female etiquette 
 of good breeding as Mrs. Campion was the last person to 
 adventure. 
 
 Lady Chillingly could not help being pleased with Gor- 
 don, lie was light in hand, served to amuse her guests, and 
 made up a rubber of whist in case of need. 
 
 There were two persons, however, with whom Gordon 
 made no ground, viz.. Parson John and Sir Peter. When 
 Travers praised him one day for the solidity of his parts and 
 the soundness of his judgment, the Parson replied, snap- 
 pishly, " Yes, solid and sound as one of those tables you buy 
 at a broker's : the thickness of the varnish hides the defects 
 in the joints ; the whole framework is rickety." But when 
 the Parson was indignantly urged to state the reason by 
 which he arrived at so harsh a conclusion, he could only re- 
 ply by an assertion which seemed to his questioner a de- 
 clamatory burst of parsonic intolerance.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 411 
 
 " Because," said Parson John, " he has no love for man, 
 and no reverence for God. And no character is sound and 
 solid which enlarges its surface at the expense of its sup- 
 ports." 
 
 On the other hand, the favor with wliich Sir Peter had at 
 first regarded Gordon gradually vanished, in proportion as, 
 acting on the hint Mivers had originally thrown out but did 
 not deem it necessary to repeat, he watched the pains which 
 the young man took to insinuate himself into the good graces 
 of Mr. Travers and Mrs. Campion, and the artful and half- 
 suppressed gallantry of his manner to the heiress. 
 
 Perhaps Gordon had not ventured thus " to feel his way " 
 till after Mivers had departed ; or perhaps Sir Peter's paren- 
 tal anxiety rendered him in this instance a shrewder ob- 
 server than was the man of the world, whose natural acute- 
 ness was, in matters of affection, not unfrequently rendered 
 languid by his acquired philosophy of indifferentism. 
 
 More and more ever)- day, every hour, of her sojourn 
 beneath his roof, did Cecilia become dearer to Sir Peter, 
 and stronger and stronger became his wisli to secure her for 
 his daughter-in-law. He was inexpressibly flattered by her 
 preference for his company ; ever at hand to share his cus- 
 tomary walks, his kindly visits to the cottages of peasants 
 or the homesteads of petty tenants ; wherein both were sure 
 to hear many a simple anecdote of Master Kenelm in his 
 childhood, anecdotes of whim or good nature, of considerate 
 pity or reckless courage. 
 
 Throughout all these varieties of thought or feeling in 
 the social circle around her, Lady Chillingly preserved the 
 unmoved calm of her dignified position. A very good 
 woman certainly, and very ladylike. No one could detect a 
 flaw in her character, or a fold awry in her flounce. She 
 was only, like the gods of Epicurus, too good to trouble her 
 serene existence with the cares of us simple mortals. Not 
 that she was without a placid satisfaction in the tribute 
 which the world laid upon her altars ; nor was she so su- 
 premely goddess-like as to soar above the household affec- 
 tions which humanity entails on the dwellers and denizens of 
 earth. She liked her husband as much as most elderly wives 
 like their elderly husbands. She bestowed upon Kenelm a 
 liking somewhat more warm, and mingled wuth compassion. 
 His eccentricities would have puzzled her, if she had allowed 
 herself to be puzzled : it troubled her less to pity them. She 
 did not share her husband's desire for his union with Cecilia.
 
 412 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 She thought that her son would have a higher place in the 
 county if he married Lady Jane, the Duke of Clareville's 
 daugliter ; and " that is what he ought to, do," said Lady 
 Chillingly to herself. She entertained none of the fear that 
 had induced Sir Peter to extract from Kenelm the promise 
 not to pledge his hand b(;fore he had received his father's 
 consent. That the son of Lady Chillingly should make a 
 mesalliance, however crotchety he might be in other respects, 
 was a thought tliat it would have so disturbed her to admit, 
 that she did ncjt admit it. 
 
 Such was the condition of things at Exmundham when 
 the lengthy communication of Kenelm reached Sir Peter's 
 hands. 
 
 t
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Never in his whole life had the mind of Sir Peter been 
 so agitated as it was during, and after, the perusal of Ken- 
 elm's flighty composition. He had received it at the break- 
 fast-table, and, opening it eagerly, ran his eye hastily over 
 the contents, till he very soon arrived at sentences which 
 appalled him. Lady Chillingly, who was fortunately busied 
 at the tea-urn, did not observe the dismay on his counte- 
 nance. It was visible only to Cecilia and to Gordon. 
 Neither guessed whom that letter was from. 
 
 "Not bad news, I hope ?" said Cecilia, softly. 
 
 "Bad news," echoed Sir Peter. " No, my dear, no ; a 
 letter on business. It seems terribly long," and he thrust 
 the packet into his pocket, muttering, " see to it by-and-by." 
 
 "That slovenly farmer of yours, Mr. Nostock, has failed, 
 I suppose," said Mr. Travers, looking up and observing a 
 quiver on his host's lip. " I told you he would — a fine farm 
 too. Let me choose you another tenant." 
 
 Sir Peter shook his head with a wan smile. 
 
 " Nostock will not fail There have been six genera- 
 tions of Nostocks on the farm." 
 
 "So I should guess," said Travers, dryly. 
 
 "And — and," faltered Sir Peter, "if the last of the race 
 fails, he must lean upon me, and — if one of the two break 
 down — it shall not be " 
 
 " Shall not be that cross-cropping blockhead, my dear Sir 
 Peter. This is carrying benevolence too far." 
 
 Here the tact and savoir-vivre oi Chillingly Gordon came 
 to the rescue of the host. Possessing himself of the Times 
 newspaper, he uttered an exclamation of surprise, genuine 
 or simulated, and read aloud an extract from the leading 
 article, announcing an impending change in the Cabinet. 
 
 As soon as he could quit the breakfast-table. Sir Peter 
 hurried into his library, and there gave himself up to the study
 
 414 'KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 of Kcnclm's unwelcome communication. Tlictask took him 
 long, for he stopped at intervals, overcome by the struggle 
 of his heart, now melted into sympathy with the passionate 
 eloquence of a son hitherto so free from amorous romance, 
 and now sorrowing for the ruin of his own cherished hopes. 
 This uneducated country girl would never be such a help- 
 mate to a man like Kenelm as would have been Cecilia 
 Travers. At length, having finished the letter, he buried 
 his head between his clasped hands, and tried hard to realize 
 the situation that placed the father and son into such direct 
 antagonism. 
 
 '"But," he murmured, "after all it is the boy's happiness 
 that must be consulted. If he will not be happy in my way, 
 what right have I to say that he shall not be happy in his ?" 
 
 Just then Cecilia came softly into the room. She had 
 acquired the privilege of entering his library at will, some- 
 times to choose a book of his recommendation, sometimes 
 to direct and seal his letters, — Sir Peter was grateful to any 
 one who saved him an extra trouble, — and sometimes, 
 especially at this hour, to decoy him forth into his wonted 
 constitutional walk. 
 
 He lifted his face at the sound of her approaching tread 
 and her winning voice, and the face was so sad that the tears 
 rushed to her eyes on seeing it. She laid her hand on his 
 shoulder, and said, pleadingly, " Dear Sir Peter, what is it 
 — what is it?" 
 
 "Ah — ah, my dear," said Sir Peter, gathering up the 
 scattered sheets of Kenelm's effusion with hurried, trembling 
 hands. " Don't ask — don't talk of it ; 'tis but one of the 
 disappointments that all of us must undergo, when we in- 
 vest our hopes in the luicertain will of others." 
 
 Then, observing that the toars were trickling down the 
 girl's fair, pale checks, he took her hand in both his, kissed 
 her forehead, and said, whisperingly, " Pretty one, how good 
 you have been to me ! Heaven bless you ! What a wife 
 you will be to some man I " 
 
 Thus saying, he shambled out of the room through the 
 open casement. She followed him impulsively, wondering- 
 ly ; but before she reached his side he turned round, waved 
 his hand with a gently repelling gesture, and went his way 
 alone through dense fir groves which had been planted in 
 honor of Kenelm's birth.
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 415 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Kenelm arrived at Exmundham just in time to dress for 
 dinner. His arrival was not unexpected, for the morning 
 after his father had received his communication, Sir Peter 
 had said to Lady Chillingly '* that he had heard from Ken- 
 elm to the effect that he might be down any day." 
 
 "Quite time he should come," said Lady Chillingly. 
 " Have you his letter about you ? " 
 
 "No, my dear Caroline. Of course he sends you his 
 kindest love, poor fellow." 
 
 " Why poor fellow ? Has he been ill ?" 
 
 " No ; but there seems to be something on his mind. If 
 so, we must do what we can to relieve it. He is the best of 
 sons, Caroline." 
 
 " I am sure I have nothing to say against him, except," 
 added her ladyship, reflectively, " that I do wish he were a 
 little more like other young men." 
 
 "Hum — like Chillingly Gordon, for instance .'' " 
 
 " Well, yes ; Mr. Gordon is a remarkably well-bred, sen- 
 sible young man. How different from that disagreeable, 
 bearish father of his, who went to law with you ! " 
 
 " Very different indeed, but with just as much of the 
 Chillingly blood in him. How the Chillinglys ever gave 
 birth to a Kenelm is a question much more puzzling." 
 
 "Oh. my dear Sir Peter, don't be metaphysical. You 
 know how I hate puzzles." 
 
 " And yet, Caroline, I have to thank you for a puzzle 
 which I can never interpret by my brain. There are a great 
 many puzzles in human nature which can only be interpret- 
 ed by the heart." 
 
 "Very true," said Lady Chillingly. " I suppose Kenelm 
 is to have his old room, just opposite to Mr. Gordon's." 
 
 "Ay — ay, just opposite. Opposite they will be all their 
 lives. Only think, Caroline, I have made a discovery." 
 
 " Dear me, I hope not. Your discoveries are generally 
 very expensive, and bring us in contact with such very odd 
 people." 
 
 "This discovery shall not cost us a penny, and I don't 
 know any people so odd as not to comprehend it. Briefly it
 
 4i6 KEN ELM CIIILLINGLY. 
 
 is this : To genius the first requisite is licart ; it is no requi- 
 site at all to talent. My dear Caroline, Gordon has as nuicli 
 talent as any young man I kncnv, but he wants the first 
 requisite of genius. I am not by any means sure that Ken- 
 elm has genius, but there is no doubt that he has the first 
 requisite of genius — heart. Heart is a very perplexing, way- 
 ward, irrational thing ; and that perhaps accounts for the 
 general incapacity to comprehend genius, while any fool can 
 comprehend talent. My dear Caroline, you know that it is 
 very seldom, not more than once in three years, that I pre- 
 sume to have a will of my own against a will of yours ; but 
 should there come a question in which our son's heart is 
 concerned, then (speaking between ourselves) my will must 
 govern yours." 
 
 " Sir Peter is growing more odd every day," said Lady 
 Chillingly to herself when left alone. " But he does not 
 mean ill, and there are worse husbands in the world." 
 
 Therewith she rang for her maid, gave requisite orders 
 for the preparing of Kenclm's room, which had not been 
 slept in for many months, and then consulted that function- 
 ary as to the adaptation of some dress of hers, too costly to be 
 hiid aside, to the style of some dress less costly which Lady 
 Glenalvon had imported from Paris as la dcniicrc mode. 
 
 On the very day on which Kenelm arrived at Exmund- 
 ham. Chillingly Gordon had received this letter from Mr. 
 Gerard Danvers : 
 
 " Dear Gordon, — In tlie ministerial changes announced as rumor in the 
 public papers, and wliich you may accept as certain, that sweet little cherub 
 * * * is to be sent to sit up aloft and pray there for the life of poor Jack- 
 viz., of the f^overnmcnt he leaves below. In accejiting tiie peerage, which I 
 
 persuadetl him to do, * * * creates a vacancy for the borough of , 
 
 just the place for you, far better in every way than Saxborough. * * * 
 promises to recommend you to his committee. Come to town at once. 
 
 " Yours, etc., 
 
 " G. Danvers." 
 
 Gordon showed this letter to Mr. Travers, and, on receiv- 
 ing the hearty good wishes of that gentleman, said, with 
 emotion partly genuine partly assiuned, " You cannot guess 
 all that the realization of your good wishes would be. Once 
 in the II(juse of Commons, and my motives for action are so 
 strong that — do not think me very conceited if I count 
 upon Parliamentary success." 
 
 " My dear Gordon, I am as certain of your success as I 
 am of mv own existence."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 4T7 
 
 " Should I succeed — should the great prizes of public 
 life be within my reach — should I lift myself into a position 
 that would warrant my presumption, do you think I could 
 come to you and say, 'There is an object of ambition dearer 
 tu me than power and office — the hope of attaining which 
 was the strongest of all, my motives of action ? ' And in 
 that hope shall I also have the good wishes of the father of 
 Cecilia Travers ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow^ give me your hand ; you speak man- 
 fully and candidly, as a gentleman should speak. I answer 
 in the same spirit. I don't pretend to say that I have not 
 entertained views for Cecilia which included hereditary rank 
 and established fortune in a suitor to her hand, though I 
 never should have made them imperative conditions. I am 
 neither potentate nor parvenu enough for that ; and I can 
 never forget" (here every muscle in the man's face twitched) 
 " that I myself married for love, and was so happy. How 
 happy Heaven only knows ! Still, if you had thus spoken 
 a few weeks ago, I should not have replied very favorably 
 to your question. But now that I have seen so much of 
 you, my answer is this : If you lose your election — if you 
 don't come into Parliament at all, you have my good wishes 
 all the same. If you win my daughter's heart, there is no 
 man on whom I would more willingly bestow her hand. 
 There she is, by herself too, in the garden. Go and talk to 
 her." 
 
 Gordon hesitated. He knew too well that he had not 
 won her heart, though he had no suspicion that it w^as given 
 to another. And he was much too clever not to know also 
 how much he hazards who, in affairs of courtship, is pre- 
 mature. 
 
 "Ah!" he said, "I cannot express my gratitude for 
 words so generous, encouragement so cheering. But I have 
 never yet dared to utter to Miss Travers a w^ord that would 
 prepare her even to harbor a thought of me as a suitor. 
 And I scarcely think I should have the courage to go 
 through this election with the grief of her rejection on my 
 heart." 
 
 " Well, go in and win the election first ; meanwhile, at 
 all events, take leave of Cecilia." 
 
 Gordon left his friend, and joined Miss Travers, resolved 
 not indeed to risk a formal declaration, but to sound his 
 way to his chances of acceptance. 
 
 The interview was very brief. He did sound his way
 
 4iS KEN ELM CII/LLLXGLV. 
 
 skilfully, and felt it very unsafe for his footsteps. The ad- 
 vantage of having gained the approval of the father was 
 too great to be lost altogether by one of those decided 
 answers on the part of the daughter which allow of no ap- 
 peal, especiallv to a poor gentleman who wooes an heiress. 
 
 He returned to Travers, and said, simply, " I bear with 
 me her good wishes as well as yours. That is all. I leave 
 myself in )'our kind hands." 
 
 Then he hurried away to take leave of his host and hos- 
 tess, say a few significant words to the allv he had already 
 gained in Mrs. Campion, and within an hour was on his 
 road to London, passing on his way the train that bore Ken- 
 elm to Exmundham. Gordon was in high spirits. At least 
 he felt as certain of winning Cecilia as he did of winning his 
 election. 
 
 "I have never yet failed in what I desired," said he to 
 himself, " because I have ever taken pains not to fail." 
 
 The cause of Gordon's sudden departure created a great 
 excitement in that quiet circle, shared by all except Cecilia 
 and Sir Peter. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Kexelm did not see either father or mother till he ap- 
 peared at dinner. Then he was seated next to Cecilia. 
 There was but little conversation between the two ; in fact, 
 the prevalent subject of talk was general and engrossing, 
 the interest in Chillingly Gordon's election ; predictions of 
 his success, of what he would do in Parliament ; "where," 
 said Lady Glenalvon, " there is such a dearth of rising 
 young men, that if he were only half as clever as he is he 
 would be a gain." 
 
 "A gain to what?" asked Sir Peter, testily. "To his 
 country ? about which I don't believe he cares a brass 
 button." 
 
 To this assertion Leopold Travers replied w^armly, and 
 was not less warmly backed by Mrs. Campion. 
 
 " For my part," said Lady Glenalvon, in conciliatory 
 accents, " I think every able man in Parliament is a gain to 
 the country; and he may not serve his country less effec- 
 tively because he docs not boast of his love for it. The
 
 KEl^ELM CHILLINGLY. 419 
 
 politicians I dread most are those so rampant in France 
 nowadays, the bawling patriots. When Sir Robert Walpole 
 said, 'AH those men have their price,' he pointed to the 
 men who called themselves 'patriots.'" 
 
 " Bravo ! " cried Travers. 
 
 " Sir Robert Walpole showed his love for his country by 
 corrupting it. There are many ways besides bribing for 
 corrupting a country," said Kenelm, mildly ; and that was 
 Kenelm's sole contribution to the general conversation. 
 
 It was not till the rest of the party had retired to rest, 
 that the conference, longed for by Kenelm, dreaded by Sir 
 Peter, took place in the library. It lasted deep into the 
 night ; both parted with lightened hearts and a fonderaffec- 
 tion for each other. Kenelm had drawn so charming a pict- 
 ure of the Fairy, and so thoroughly convinced Sir Peter that 
 his own feelings tow^ards her were those of no passing youth- 
 ful fancy, but of that love which has its roots in the innermost 
 heart, that though it was still with a sigh, a deep sigh, that 
 he dismissed the thought of Cecilia, Sir Peter did dismiss 
 it ; and, taking comfort at last from the positive assurance 
 tliat Lily was of gentle birth, and the fact that her name of 
 Mordaunt was that of ancient and illustrious houses, said, 
 with half a smile, " It might have been worse, my dear bov. 
 I began to be afraid that, in spite of the teachings of Mi vers 
 and Welby, it was 'The Miller's Daughter,' after all. But 
 we still have a difficult task to persuade your poor mother. 
 In covering your first flight from our roof I unluckily put 
 into her head the notion of Lady Jane, a duke's daughter, 
 and the notion has never got out of it. That comes of fib- 
 bing." 
 
 " I count on Lady Glenalvon's influence on my mother 
 in support of your own," said Kenelm. " If so accepted an 
 oracle in the great world pronounce in my favor, and prom- 
 ise to present my wife at Court and bring her into fashion, 
 I think that my mother will consent to allow us to reset the 
 old family diamonds for her next re-appearance in London. 
 And then, too, you can tell her that I will stand for the 
 county. I will go into Parliament, and if I meet there our 
 clever cousin, and find that he does not care a brass button 
 for the country, take my word for it, I will lick him more 
 easily than I licked Tom Bowles." 
 
 " Tom Bowles ! Who is he ? — ah ! I remember some let- 
 ter of yours in which you spoke of a Bowles, whose favorite 
 study was mankind, a moral philosopher."
 
 420 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 " Moral philosophers," answered Kenelm, *'have so mud- 
 dled their brains with the alcohol of new ideas that their 
 moral legs have become shaky, and the humane would rather 
 help them to bed tlian give them a licking. My Tom Bow- 
 les is a muscular Christian, wlio became no less muscular, 
 but much more Christian, after he was licked." 
 
 And in this pleasant manner these two oddities settled 
 their conference, and went up to bed with arms wrapt round 
 each other's shoulder. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kenelm found it a much harder matter to win Lady Glen- 
 alvon to his side than he had anticipated. With tlie strong 
 interest she had taken in Kenelm's future, she could not but 
 revolt from the idea ot his union with an obscure portionless 
 girl whom he iiad only known a few weeks, and of whose 
 very parentage he seemed to know nothing, save an assur- 
 ance that she was his equal in birth. And, with the desire, 
 which slie had cherished almost as fondly as Sir Peter, that 
 Kenelm might win a bride in every way so worthy of his 
 choice as Cecilia Travers, she felt not less indignant than 
 regretful at the overthn)W of her plans. 
 
 At first, indeed, she was so provoked that she would not 
 listen to his pleadings. She broke away from him with a 
 rudeness she had never exhibited to any one before, refused 
 to grant him another interview in order to re-discuss the 
 matter, and said that, so far from using her influence in 
 favor of ills romantic folly, she would remonstrate well with 
 Lady Chillingly and Sir Peter against yielding their assent 
 to his "thus throwing himself away." 
 
 It was not till the third day after his arrival that, touched 
 by the grave but haughty mournfulness of his countenance, 
 she yielded to the arguments of Sir Peter in the course of a 
 private conversation with that worthy baronet. Still it was 
 reluctantly (she did not fulfil her threat of remonstrance 
 with Lady Chillingly) that she conceded the point, that a 
 son who, succeeding to the absolute fee-simple of an estate, 
 had volunteered the resettlement of it on terms singularly 
 generous to both his parents, was entitled to some sacrifice 
 of their inclinations on a question in which he deemed his
 
 KE.VELM CHILLINGLY. 421 
 
 happiness vitally concerned ; and that he was of age to 
 choose for himself, independently of their consent, but for a 
 previous promise extracted from him by his father, a prom- 
 ise which, rigidly construed, was not extended to Lady 
 Chillingly, but confined to Sir Peter as the head of the fam- 
 ily and master of the household. The father's consent was 
 already given, and, if in his reverence for b(jth parents Ken- 
 elm could not dispense with his mother's approval, surely 
 it was the part of a true friend to remove every scruple from 
 his conscience, and smooth away every obstacle to a love 
 not to be condemned because it was disinterested. 
 
 After this conversation Lady Glenalvon sought Kenelm, 
 found him gloomily musing on the banks of the trout stream, 
 took his arm, led him into the sombre glades of the fir grove, 
 and listened patiently to all he had to say. Even then her 
 woman's heart was not won to his reasonings, until he said, 
 pathetically, " You thanked me once for saving your son's 
 life ; you said then that you could never repay me ; you can 
 repay me tenfold. Could your son, who is now, we trust, in 
 heaven, look down and judge between us, do you think he 
 would approve you if you refuse ? " 
 
 Then Lady Glenalvon wept, and took his hand, kissed 
 his forehead as a mother might kiss it, and said, " You 
 triumph, I will go to Lady Chillingly at once. Marry her 
 whom you so love, on one condition : marry her from my 
 house." 
 
 Lady Glenalvon was not one of those women who serve 
 a friend by halves. She knew well how to propitiate and 
 reason down the apathetic temperament of Lady Chillingly ; 
 she did not cease till that lady herself came into Kenelm's 
 room, and said, very quietly : 
 
 "So you are going to propose to Miss Mordaunt ?— the 
 \Yarwickshire Mordaunts, I suppose. Lady Glenalvon says 
 she is a very lovely girl, and will stay with her before the wed- 
 ding. And, as the young lady is an orphan, Lady Glenalvon's 
 uncle the Duke, who is connected with the eldest branch of 
 the Mordaunts, will give her away. It will be a very bril- 
 liant affair. I am sure I wish you happy : it is time you 
 should have sown your wild oats." 
 
 Two days after the consent thus formally given, Kenelm 
 quitted Exmundham. Sir Peter would have accompanied 
 him to pay his respects to the intended, but the agitation 
 he had gone through brought on a sharp twinge of the gout, 
 which consigned his feet to flannels.
 
 422 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 After Kenelm had gone, Lady Glenalvon went into Ceci- 
 lia's room. Cecilia was seated very desolately by the open 
 window ; she had detected tliat something of an anxious 
 and painful nature had been weighing upon the minds of 
 father and son, and had connected it with the letter which 
 liad so disturbed the even mind of Sir Peter ; but she did 
 not divine what the something was, and if mortified by a 
 certain reserve, more distant than heretofore, which had 
 characterized Kenelm's manner towards herself, the morti- 
 fication was less sensibly felt than a tender sympathy fur the 
 sadness she had observed on his face, and yearned to soothe. 
 His reserve had, however, made her own manner more 
 reserved than of old, for which she was now rather chiding 
 herself than reproaching him. 
 
 Lady Glenalvon put her arms round Cecilia's neck and 
 kissed her, whispering, " That man has so disappointed me ! 
 he is so unworthy of the happiness I had once hoped for 
 him!" 
 
 "Whom do you speak of?" murmured Cecilia, turning 
 very pale. 
 
 "Kenelm Chillingly. It seems that he has conceived a 
 fancy for some penniless girl whom he has met in his wan- 
 derings, has come here to get the consent of his parents to 
 propose to her, has obtained their consent, and is gone to 
 propose." 
 
 Cecilia remained silent for a moment with her eyes clos- 
 ed, tlien she said, " He is worthy of all happiness, and he 
 would never make an unworthy choice. Heaven bless him 
 
 — and— rand " She would have added " His bride," but 
 
 her lips refused to utter the word bride. 
 
 " Cousin Gordon is worth ten of him," cried Lady Glen- 
 alvon, indignantly. 
 
 She had served Kenelm, but she had not forgiven him. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Kenelm slept in London that night, and, the next day. 
 being singularly fine for an English summer, he resolved to 
 go to Moleswich on foot. lie had no need this time to 
 encumber himself with a knapsack ; he had left sufficient 
 change of dress in his lodgings at Cromwell Lodge.
 
 kexelaI chillingly. 423 
 
 It was towards the evening when he found himself in one 
 of the prettiest rural villages by which 
 
 " Wanders the hoary Thames along 
 His silver- winding way." 
 
 It w\as not in the direct road from London to Moleswich, 
 but it was a pleasanter way for a pedestrian. And when, 
 quitting the long street of the sultry village, he came to the 
 slielving margin of the river, he was glad to rest awhile, 
 enjoy the cool of the rippling waters, and listen to their 
 placid murnuirs amid the rushes in the bordering shallows. 
 He had ample time before him. His rambles while at 
 Cromwell Lodge had made him familiar with the district for 
 miles round Moleswich, and he knew that a footpath through 
 the fields at the right would lead him, in less than an hour, 
 to the side of the tributary brook on which Cromwell Lodge 
 was placed, opposite the wooden bridge which conducted to 
 Grasmere and Moleswich. 
 
 To one who loves the romance of history, English history, 
 the whole course of the Thames is full of charm. Ah ! 
 could I go back to tlie days in w^iich younger generations 
 than that of Kenelm Chillingly were unborn, when every 
 wave of the Rhine spoke of history and romance to me, Avhat 
 fairies should meet on thy banks, O thou, our own Father 
 Thames ! Perhaps some day a German pilgrim may repay 
 tenfold to thee the tribute rendered by the English kinsman 
 to the Father Rhine. 
 
 Listening to the whispers of the reeds, Kenelm Chillingly 
 felt the haunting influence of the legendary stream. Many 
 a poetic incident or tradition in antique chronicle, many a 
 votive rhyme in song, dear to forefathers whose very names 
 liave become a poetry to us, thronged dimly and confusedly' 
 back to his memory, which had little cared to retain such 
 graceful trinkets in the treasure-house of love. But every- 
 thing that, from childhood upward, connects itself with 
 romance, revives with yet fresher bloom in the memories 
 of him who loves. 
 
 And to this man, through the first perilous season of 
 youth so abnormally safe from youth's most wonted peril, — ■ 
 to this would-be pupil of realism, this learned adept in the 
 schools of a Welby or a Mivers, — to this man, Love came at 
 last as with the fatal powers of the fabled Cyiherea, and with 
 that love all the realisms of life became ideals, all the stern
 
 424 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 lines of our commonplace destinies undulating into curves 
 of beauty, all the trite sounds of our every-day life attuned 
 into delicacies of song. How full of sanguine yet dreamy 
 bliss was his heart, — and seemed his future, — in the gentle 
 breeze and the softened glovv of that summer eve ! He should 
 see Lily the next morn, and his lips were now free to say all 
 that they had as yet suppressed. 
 
 Suddenly he was roused from the half-awake half-asleep 
 happiness that belongs to the moments in which wc trans- 
 port ourselves into l'21ysium, by the carol of a voice more 
 loudly joyous than that of his own heart: 
 
 " Singing— singing, 
 Lustily ringing, 
 
 Down the voaci, with his dogs before, 
 Came the Ritter of Neirestein." 
 
 Kenelm turned his head so quickly that he frightened 
 Max, who had for the last minute been standing behind iiim 
 inquisitively with one paw raised, and sniffing, in some doubt 
 whether he recognized an old acquaintance ; but at Ken- 
 elm's (juick movement the animal broke into a nervous bark, 
 and ran back to his master. 
 
 The Minstrel, little heeding the figure reclined on the 
 bank, would have passed on with his light tread and his 
 cheery carol, but Kene'fm rose to his feet, and holding out 
 his hand, said, " I hope you don't share Max's alarm at 
 meeting me again ? " 
 
 "Ah, my young philosopher, is it indeed you ?" 
 
 " If I am to be designated a philosopher, it is certainly 
 not I. And, honestly speaking, I am not the same. I, who 
 spent that pleasant day with you among the fields round 
 Luscombe two years ago " 
 
 " Or who advised me at Tor Hadham to string my lyre 
 to the praise of a beefsteak. I too am not (juite the same, 
 I whose dog presented you with the begging-tray." 
 
 "Yet you still go through the world singing." 
 
 "Even that vagrant singing-time is pretty well over. 
 But I disturbed you from your repose. I would rather 
 share it ; you arc probably not going my way, and, as I am 
 in no hurry, I should not like to lose the opportunity chance 
 has so happily given me of renewing acquaintance with one 
 who has often been present in rny thoughts since we last 
 met." Thus saying, the INlinstrel stretched himself at ease 
 on the bank, and Kcnclm followed his example.
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 425 
 
 There certainly was a change in the owner of the dog 
 with the begging-tray, a change in costume, in countenance, 
 in that indescribable self-evidence which we call " manner." 
 The costume w^as not that Bohemian attire in which Kenelm 
 had first encountered the Wandering Minstrel, nor the 
 studied, more graceful garb which so well became his shape- 
 ly form during his visit to Luscombe. It was now neatly 
 simple, the cool and quiet summer dress any English gentle- 
 inan might adopt in a long rural walk. And as he uncov- 
 ered his head to court the cooling breeze, there was a 
 graver dignity in the man's handsome Rubens-like face, a 
 line of more concentrated thought in the spacious forehead, 
 a thread or two of gray shimmering here and there through 
 the thick auburn curls of hair and beard. And in his man- 
 ner, though still very frank, there was just perceptible a 
 sort of self-assertion, not offensive, but manly ; such as does 
 not misbecome one of maturer years, and of some estab- 
 lished position, addressing another man much younger than 
 himself, who in all probability has achieved no position at 
 all beyond that which the accident of birth might assign to 
 him. 
 
 " Yes," said the Minstrel, with a half-suppressed sigh, 
 '■'• the last year of my vagrant holidays has come to its close. 
 I recollect that the first day we met by the roadside foun- 
 tain I advised you to do like me, seek amusement and ad- 
 venture as a foot-traveller. Now, seeing you, evidently a 
 gentleman by education and birth, still a foot-traveller, I feel 
 as if I ought to say, ' You have had enough of such ex- 
 perience ; vagabond life has its perils as well as charms ; 
 cease it and settle down.' " 
 
 " I think of doing so," replied Kenelm, laconically. 
 
 " In a profession P^army — law — medicine ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Ah, in marriage then. Right ; give me your hand on 
 that. So a petticoat indeed has at last found its charm for 
 you in the actual world as well as on the canvas of a pic- 
 ture ? " 
 
 "I conclude," said Kenelm, — evading any direct notice 
 of that playful taunt, — " I conclude from your remark that 
 it is in marriage Vi??^ are about to settle down." 
 
 " Ay, could I have done so before I should have been 
 saved from many errors, and been many years nearer to the 
 gcral which dazzled my sight through the haze of my boyish 
 dreams."
 
 426 KENELM CIIILLLVGLY. 
 
 " What is tliat goal— the grave ? " 
 
 " The grave ! Tliat which aHows of no grave — Fame." 
 
 "I see — despite of what you just now said — you still 
 mean to go through the world seeking a poet's fame." 
 
 "Alas! I resign that fancy," said the Minstrel, with 
 another half sigli. "It was not indeed wholly, but in great 
 part, the hope of the poet's fame that made me a truant in 
 the way to that which destiny and such few gifts as nature 
 conceded to me, marked out for my proper and only goal. 
 But what a strange, delusive Will-o'-the-\Visp the love of 
 verse-making is ! How rarely a man of good sense deceives 
 himself as to other things for which he is fitted, in which lie 
 can succeed ! but let him once drink into liis being the 
 charm of verse-making, how the glamour of the cliarni be- 
 witches his understanding ! how long it is before he can 
 believe that the world will not take his word for it when he 
 cries out to sun, moon, and stars, ' I too am a poet.' And 
 with what agonies, as if at the wrench of soul from life, he 
 resigns himself at last to the conviction, that whether he or 
 the world be right, it comes to the same thing ! Who can 
 plead his cause before a court that will not give him a hear- 
 
 mg? 
 
 It was with an emotion so passionately strong, and so 
 intensely painful, that the owner of the dog with the beg- 
 ging-tray thus spoke, that Kenelm felt, througli sympathy, as 
 if he himself were torn asunder by the wrench of life from 
 soul. But then Kenelm was a mortal so eccentric that, if a 
 single acute suffering endured by a fellow-mortal could be 
 brought before the evidence of his senses, I doubt whether 
 he would n<jt have suffered as nuich as that fellow-mortal. 
 So that, though if there were a thing in the world which 
 Kenelm Chillingly would care not to do, it was verse-making, 
 his mind involuntarily hastened to the arguments by which 
 lie could best mitigate the pang of the verse-maker. 
 
 Ouotli he, "According to my very scanty reading, yovi 
 share the love of verse-making with men the most illustrious 
 in careers which have achieved the goal of fame. It must, 
 then, be a very noble love — Augustus, Pollio, Varius, Maece- 
 nas — the greatest statesmen of their day ; they were verse- 
 makers. Cardinal Richelieu was a verse-maker ; Walter 
 Raleigh and Philip Sidney ; Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Warren 
 Hastings, Canning — even the grave William Pitt ; all were 
 verse-makers. Verse-making did not retard — no doubt the 
 qualities essential to verse-making accelerated — their rucj
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 427 
 
 to the goal of fame. What great painters have been verse- 
 makers ! Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator 
 Rosa" — and Heaven knows how many other great names 
 Kenelm Chillingly might have proceeded to add to his list, 
 if the Minstrel had not here interposed. 
 
 " What ! all those mighty painters were verse-makers ? " 
 
 " Verse-makers so good, especially Michael Angelo — the 
 greatest painter of all — that they would have had the fame 
 of poets, if, unfortunately for that goal ©f fame, their glory 
 in the sister art of painting did not outshine it. But, when 
 you give to your gift of song the modest title of verse-mak- 
 ing, permit me to observe that your gift is perfectly distinct 
 from that of the verse-maker. Your gift, whatever it may 
 be, could not exist without some sympathy with the non- 
 verse-making human heart. No doubt, in your foot-travels, 
 you have acquired not only observant intimacy with external 
 nature in the shifting hues at each hour of a distant moun- 
 tain, in the lengthening shadows which yon sunset casts on 
 the waters at our feet, in the habits of the thrush dropped 
 fearlessly close beside me, in that turf moistened by its 
 neighborhood to those dripping rushes, all of which I could 
 describe no less accurately than you — as a Peter Bell might 
 describe them no less accurately than a William Words- 
 worth. But in such songs of yours as you have permitted 
 me to hear, you seem to have escaped out of that elemen- 
 tary accidence of the poet's art, and to touch, no matter 
 how slightly, on the only lasting interest which the univer- 
 sal heart of man can have in the song of the poet, viz., in 
 the sound which the poet's individual sympathy draws forth, 
 from the latent chords in that universal heart. As for what 
 you call 'the world,' what is it more than the fashion of the 
 present day ? How far the judgment of that is worth a 
 poet's pain I can't pretend to say. But of one thing I am 
 sure, that while I could as easily square the circle as com- 
 pose a simple couplet addressed to the heart of a simple 
 audience with sufficient felicity to decoy their praises into 
 Max's begging-trav, I could spin out by the yard the sort 
 of verse-making which characterizes the fashion of the pres- 
 ent day." 
 
 Much flattered, and not a little amused, the Wandering 
 Minstrel turned his bright countenance, no longer dimmed 
 by a cloud, towards that of his lazily reclined consoler, and 
 answered gavly : 
 
 " You say that you could spin out by the yard verses in
 
 428 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 the fashion of the present day. I wish you would give me a 
 specimen of your skill in that handiwork." 
 
 "Very well ; on one condition, that you will repay my 
 trouble by a specimen of your own verses, not in the fashion 
 of tlie present day, — something which I can construe. I 
 defy you to construe mine."" 
 
 "Agreed." 
 
 " Well, then, let us take it for granted tliat this is the 
 Augustan age of English poetry, and that the English lan- 
 guage is dead, like the Latin. Suppose I am writing for a 
 prize medal, in English, as I wrote at college for a prize 
 medal, in Latin ; of course I shall be successful in propor- 
 tion as I introduce the verbal elegances peculiar to our Au- 
 gustan age, and also catch the prevailing poetic character- 
 istic of that classical epoch. 
 
 "Now, I think that every observant critic "will admit 
 that the striking distincticjns of the poetry most in the fash- 
 ion of tlie present day, viz., of the Augustan age, are — .first, 
 a selection of such verbal elegances as would have been 
 most repulsive to the barbaric taste of the preceding cen- 
 tury, and, secondly, a very lofty disdain of ail prosaic con- 
 descensions to common sense, and an elaborate cultivation 
 of that element of the sublime which Mr. Burke defines 
 under the head of obscurity. 
 
 " These premises conceded, I will only ask you to choose 
 the metre. Blank verse is very much in fashion just 
 now." 
 
 " Pooh, — blank verse, indeed ! I am not going so to tree 
 your experiment from the difficulties of rhyme." 
 
 " It is all one to me," said Kenelm, yawning. " Rhyme 
 be it : Heroic, or lyrical?" 
 
 " Heroics are old-fashioned ; but the Chaucer couplet, 
 as brought to perfection by our modern poets, I think the 
 best adapted to dainty leaves and uncrackable nuts." 
 
 " I accept the modern Chaucerian." 
 
 "The subject?" 
 
 "Oh, never trouble yourself about that. By whatever 
 title your Augustan verse-maker labels his poem, his genius, 
 like Pindar's, disdains to be cramped by the subject. Lis- 
 ten, and don't suffer Max to howl, if he can help it. Here 
 goes." 
 
 And in an affected, but emphatic, sing-song, Kenelm 
 began :
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 429 
 
 *' In Attica the gentle Fythias dwelt. 
 
 Youthful he was, and passing rich : he felt 
 
 As if nor youth nor riches could suffice 
 
 For bliss. Dark-eyed Sophronia was a nice 
 
 Girl : and one summer day, when Neptune drove 
 
 His sea-car slowly, and the olive grove 
 
 That skirts Jlissus, to thy shell, Harmonia, 
 
 Rippled, he said ' I love thee' to Sophronia. 
 
 Crocus and iris, when they heard him, wngg'd 
 
 Their pretty heads in glee : the honey-bagg'd 
 
 Bees became altars : and the forest dove 
 
 Her plumage smoothed. Such is the charm of love. 
 
 Of this sweet story do ye long for more? 
 
 Wait till I publish it in volumes four ; 
 
 Which certain ciitics, my good friends, will cry 
 
 Up beyond Chaucer. Take their word fur't. I 
 
 Say ' Trust them : but not read,— or you'll not buy.' " 
 
 U\Tr 
 
 'You have certainly kept your word," said the Minstrel, 
 laughing. " And if this be the Augustan age, and tlie Eng- 
 lish were a dead language, you deserve to win the prize 
 medal." 
 
 " You flatter me," said Kenelm, modestly. "But if I, 
 who never before strung two rhymes together, can impro- 
 vise so readily in the style of the present day, why should 
 not a practical rhymester like yourself dash off at a sitting 
 a volume or so in the same style, disguising coiupletely the 
 verbal elegances borrowed, adding to the delicacies of the 
 rhyme by the frequent introduction of a line that will not 
 scan, and towering yet more into the sublime by becoming 
 yet more unintelligible ? Do that, and I promise you the 
 most glowing panegyric in ' The Londoner,' for I will write 
 it myself." 
 
 '''The Londoner'!" exclaimed the Minstrel, with an 
 angry flush on his cheek and brow. " My bitter, relentless 
 enemy." 
 
 " i fear, then, you have as little studied the critical press 
 of the Augustan age as you have imbued your Muse with 
 the classic'al spirit of its verse. For the art of writing, a 
 man must cultivate himself. The art of being reviewed 
 consists in cultivating the acquaintance of reviewers. In 
 the Augustan age criticism is cliqiieism. Belong to a 
 clique, and you are Horace or TibuUus. Belong to no 
 clique, and of coiu-se you are Bavius or Maevius. 'The 
 Londoner ' is the enemy of no man---it holds all men in 
 equal contempt. But as, in order to amuse, it must abuse, 
 it compensates the praise it is compelled to bestow upon
 
 430 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 the members of its clique by lieaping additional scorn upon 
 all who are cli(jueless. Hit him hard, he has no friends." 
 
 "Ah," said the Minstrel, " 1 believe that there is much 
 truth in what you say. I never had a friend among tlie 
 cliques. And Heaven knows with what pertinacity tliose 
 from whom I, in utter ignorance of the rules which govern 
 the so-calied organs of uj)inion, had hoped, in my time of 
 struggle, for a little sympathy, — a kindly encouragement, — 
 have combined to crush me down. 1 hey succeeded long. 
 But at last I venture to hope that I am beating them. Hap- 
 pily, Nature endowed me with a sanguine, joyous, elastic 
 temperament. He who never despairs seldom completely 
 falls." 
 
 This speech rather perplexed Kenelm ; for had not the 
 Minstrel declared that his singing days were over, that he 
 had decided on the renunciation of verse-making ? What 
 other path to fame, from which the critics had not been able 
 to ejfclude his steps, was he, then, now pursuing? he whom 
 Kenelm had assumed to belong to some commercial money- 
 making firm. No doubt some less difficult prose-track ; 
 probably a novel. Everybody writes novels nowadays, and 
 as the public will read novels without being told to do so, 
 and will not read poetry unless they are told that they 
 ought, possibly novels are not quite so much at the mercy 
 of cliques as are the poems of our Augustan age. 
 
 However, Kenelm did not think of seeking for further 
 confidence on that score. His mind at that moment, not 
 unnaturally, wandered from books and critics to love and 
 wedlock. 
 
 " Our talk," said he, "has digressed into fretful courses 
 — permit me to return to the starting-point. You are going 
 to settle down into the peace of home. A peaceful home is 
 like a good conscience. The rains without do not pierce its 
 roof, the winds without do not sliake its walls. If not an 
 impertinent question, is it long since you have known your 
 intended bride ?" 
 
 "Yes, very long," 
 
 " And always loved her ? " 
 
 "Always, from her infancy. Out of all womankind, she 
 was designed to be my life's playmate and my soul's purifier. 
 I know not what might have become of me, if the thought 
 of her had not walked beside me, as my guardian angel. 
 For, like many vagrants from the beaten high-roads of the 
 world, there is in my nature something of that lawlessness
 
 KEMELM CHILLINGLY. 431 
 
 which belongs to high animal spirits, to the zest of adven- 
 ture, and tlie warm blood which runs into song, chiefly be- 
 cause song is the voice of a joy. And, no doubt, when I look 
 back on the past years I must own that I have too often 
 b^^'en led astray from the objects set before my reason, and 
 cherished at my heart, by erring impulse or wanton fancy." 
 
 " Petticoat interest, I presume," interposed Kenelm, 
 dryly. 
 
 " 1 wish I could lioncstly answer ' No,' " said the Minstrel, 
 coloring high. " But from the worst, from all that would 
 have permanently blasted the career to which I intrust my 
 fortunes, all that would have rendered me unworthy of the 
 pure love that now, I trust, awaits and crowns my dreams of 
 happiness, I have been saved by the haunting smile in a sin- 
 less infantine face. Only once was I in great peril : that 
 hour of peril I recall with a shudder. It was at Luscombe." 
 
 " At Luscombe ! " 
 
 " In the temptation of a terrible crime I thought I heard 
 a Voice say, 'Mischief! Remember the little child.' In 
 that supervention which is so readily accepted as a divine 
 warning when the imagination is morbidly excited, and 
 when the conscience, though lulled asleep for a moment, is 
 still asleep so lightly that the sigh of a breeze, the fall of a 
 leaf, can awake it with a start of terror, I took the voice for 
 that of my guardian angel. Thinking over it later, and 
 coupling the voice witli the moral of those weird lines you^ 
 repeated to me so appositely the next day, I conclude that I 
 am not mistaken when I say it was from your lips that the 
 voice which preserved me came." 
 
 " I confess the impertinence— you pardon it ! " 
 
 The Minstrel seized Kenelm's hand and pressed it earn- 
 estly. 
 
 " Pardon it ! Oh, could you but guess what cause I have 
 to be grateful, everlastingly grateful ! That sudden cry, the 
 remorse and horror of my own self that it struck into me — 
 deepened by those rugged lines which the next day made 
 me shrink in dismay from 'the face of my darling sin' ! 
 Th:n came the turning-point of my life. From that day, 
 the lawless vagabond within me was killed. I mean not, 
 ind)3d, the love of nature and of song which had first al- 
 lured the vagabond, but the hatred of steadfast habits and 
 of serious work — that was killed. I no longer trifled with 
 my calling ; I took to it as a serious duty. And when I 
 saw li?r whom Fate has reserved and reared for my bride,
 
 432 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 heii face was no longer in my eyes that of the playful 
 ciiild ; the soul of the woman was dawning into it. It is but 
 two years since that day, lo me so eventful. Yet my fortunes 
 are now secured. And if fame be not established, I am at 
 last in a position which warrants my saying to her I love, 
 * The time has come when, without fear for thy future, I can 
 ask thee to be mine.' " 
 
 Tlie man spoke with so fervent a passion that Kenelm 
 silently left him to recover his wonted self-possession, — not 
 unwilling to be silent, — not unwilling, in the softness of the 
 hour, passing from roseate sunset into starry twilight, to 
 murmur to himself, " And the time, too, has come for me." 
 
 After a few moments the Minstrel resumed lightly and 
 cheerily : 
 
 " Sir, your turn : pray, have you long known — judging 
 by our former conversation, you cannot have longed loved — 
 the lady whom you have wooed and won ?" 
 
 As Kenelm had neither as yet wooed nor won the lady 
 in question, and did not deem it necessary to enter into any 
 details on the subject of love particular to himself, he re- 
 plied by a general observation : 
 
 " It seems to me that the coming of love is like the com- 
 ing of spring — the date is not to be reckoned by the calen- 
 dar. It may be slow and gradual, it may be quick and 
 sudden. But in the morning, when we wake and recognize 
 a change in tlie world without, verdure on the trees, blos- 
 soms on the sward, warmth in the sunshine, music in the 
 air, then we say Spring has come ! " 
 
 " I like your illustration. And if it be an idle question 
 to ask a lover how long he has known the beloved one, so 
 it is almost as idle to ask if she be not beautiful. He can- 
 not but see in her face the beauty she has given to the 
 world without." 
 
 " True ; and that thought is poetic enough to make me 
 remind you that I favored you with the maiden specimen 
 of my verse-making on condition that you repaid me by a 
 specimen of your own practical skill in the art. And I 
 claim the right to suggest the theme. Let it be " 
 
 '•Of a beef-steak'?'" 
 
 " Tush ! you have worn out that tasteless joke at my ex- 
 pense. The theme must be of love, and if you could im- 
 provise a stanza or two expressive of the idea you just ut- 
 tered I shall listen with yet more pleased attention." 
 
 "Alas ! I am no improvisatore. Yet I will avenge my-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 433 
 
 self on your former neglect of my craft by chanting to you 
 a trifle somewhat in unison with the thought you ask me to 
 versify, but which you would not slay to hear at Tor Had- 
 ham (though you did drop a shilling into Max's ti-ay)— it 
 was one of the songs I sang that evening, and it was not ill 
 received by my humble audience. 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF THE MISTRESS IS IN THE LOVER' S EYE. 
 
 " Is she not pretty, my Mabel May? 
 Nobody ever yet called her so. 
 Are not lier lineaments faultless, say ? 
 If I must answer you plainly — No. 
 
 " Joy to l^lieve that the maid I love 
 
 None but myself as she is can see ; 
 Joy that she steals from her heaven above 
 And is only revealed on this earth to me ! " 
 
 As soon as he had finished this veiy artless ditty, the 
 Minstrel rose and said : 
 
 " Now 1 must bid you good-bye. My way lies through 
 those meadows, and yours, no doubt, along the high-road." 
 
 " Not so. Permit me to accompany you. I have a lodg- 
 ing not far from hence, to which the path through the fields 
 is the shortest way." 
 
 The Minstrel turned a somewhat surprised and some- 
 what inquisitive looI< towards Kenelin. But feeling, per- 
 haps, that having withheld from his fellow-traveller all con- 
 fidence as to his own name and attributes, he had no right 
 to ask any confidence from that gentleman not voluntarily 
 made to him, he courteously said that he wished the way 
 were longer, since it would be so pleasantly halved, and 
 strode forth at a brisk pace. 
 
 The twilight was now closing into the brightness of a 
 starry summer night, and the solitude of the fields was un- 
 broken. Both these men, walking side by side, felt su- 
 premely happy. But happiness is like wine ; its effect dif- 
 feringwith the differing temperaments on which it acts. In 
 this case garrulous and somewhat vaunting with the one 
 man, warm-colored, sensuous, impressionable to the in- 
 fluences of external nature, as an ^olian harp to the rise 
 or fall of a passing wind ; and, with the other man, taciturn 
 and somewhat modestly expressed, saturnine, meditative, 
 not indeed dull to the influences of external nature, but deeni- 
 iq
 
 434 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 ing them of no value save where they passed out of the do- 
 main of the sensuous into tliat of the intellectual, and tlie 
 S(^ul of man dictated to the soulless nature its own ques- 
 tions and its own replies. 
 
 The Minstrel took the talk on himself, and the talk 
 charmed his listener. It became so readily eloquent in the 
 tones of its utterance, in the frank play of its delivery, that 
 I could no more adequately describe it than a reporter, 
 however faithful to every word a true orator may say, can 
 describe that which, apart from all words, belongs to the 
 presence of the orator himself. 
 
 Not, then, venturing to report the language of this sin- 
 gular itinerant, I content myself with saying that the sub- 
 stance of it was of the nature on which it is said most men 
 can be eloquent : it was personal to himself. He spoke of 
 aspirations towards the achievement of a name, dating 
 back to the dawn of memory ; of early obstacles in lowly 
 birth, stinted fortunes ; of a sudden opening to hisambi:ion, 
 while yet in boyhood, through the generous favor of a rich 
 man, who said, "The child has genius, I will give it the dis- 
 cipline of culture, one day it shall repay to the world wliat it 
 owes to me ;" of studies passionately begun, earnestly pur- 
 sued, and mournfully suspended in early youth. He did 
 not say how or wherefore : he rushed on to dwell upon the 
 struggles for a livelihood for himself and those dependent on 
 him ; how in such struggles he was compelled to divert toil 
 and energy from the systematic pursuit of the object he had 
 once set before him ; the necessities for money were too 
 lu-gent to be postponed to the visions of fame. " But even," 
 he exclaimed, passionately, "even in such hasty and crude 
 manifestations of what is within me, as circumstances lim- 
 ited my powers, I know that I ought to have foimd from 
 those who profess to be authoritative judges the encourage- 
 ment of praise. How mucli better, then, I should have 
 done if I had found it! How a little praise warms out of a 
 man the good tliat is in him, and the sneer of a contempt 
 which he feels to be unjust chills the ardor to excel ! How- 
 ever, I forced my way, so far as was then most essential to 
 me, the sufficing bread-maker for those I loved ; and in my 
 holidays of song and ramble I found a delight that atoned 
 for all the rest. But still the desire of fame, once conceived 
 in childhood, once nourislied through youth, never dies but 
 in our grave. Foot and hoof may tread it down, bud, leaf, 
 stalk ; its root is too deep below the surface for them to
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 435 
 
 reach, and year after year stalk and leaf and bud re-emerge. 
 Love may depart from our mortal life ; Ave console ourselves 
 — the beloved will be united to us in the life to come. 
 But if he who sets his heart on fame loses it in this life, 
 what can console him ? " 
 
 "Did you not say a little while ago that fame allowed 
 .of no grave ? " 
 
 " True ; but if we do not achieve it before we ourselves 
 are in the grove, what comfort can it give to us? Love as- 
 cends to heaven, to which we hope ourselves to ascend ; but 
 fame remains on the earth, which we shall never again re- 
 visit. And it is because fame is earth-born that the desire 
 for it is the most lasting, the regret for the want of it the 
 most bitter, to tlie child of earth. But I shall achieve it 
 now ; it is already in my grasp." 
 
 By this time the travellers had arrived at the brook, fac- 
 ing the wooden bridge beside Cromwell Lodge. 
 
 Here the Minstrel halted ; and Kenelm, with a certain 
 tremble in his voice, said, "Is it not time that we should 
 make ourselves known to each other by name ? I have no 
 longer any cause to conceal mine, indeed I never had any 
 cause stronger than whim — Kenelm Chillingly, the only s.in 
 of Sir Peter, of Exmundham, shire." 
 
 " I wish your father joy of so clever a son," said the 
 Minstrel, with his wonted urbanity. "You already know 
 enough of me to be aware that I am of much humbler birth 
 and station than you ; but if you chance to have visited the 
 exhibition of the Royal Academy this year — ah! I under- 
 stand that start — you might have recognized a picture of 
 which you have seen the rudimentary sketch, ' Tlie girl with 
 the flower ball,' one of three pictures very severely handled 
 by 'The Londoner,' but, in spite of that potent enemy, in- 
 suring fortune and promising fame to the Wandering Min- 
 strel, w^hose name, if the sio-ht of the oictures had induced 
 you to inquire into that, you would have found to be Wal- 
 ter Melville. Next January I hope, thanks to that picture, 
 to add 'Associate of the Royal Academy.' The public will 
 not let them keep me out of it, in spite of 'The Londoner.' 
 You are probably an expected guest at one of the more im- 
 posing villas from which we see the distant lights. I am 
 going to a very humble cottage, in which henceforth I hope 
 to find my established home. I am .there now only for a 
 few days, but pray let me welcome you there before I leave. 
 The cottage is called Grasmere."
 
 436 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Minstrel gave a cordial parting shake of the hand 
 to the fellow-traveller whom he had advised to settle down, 
 not noticing how very cold had become tlie hand in his own 
 genial grasp. Lightly he passed over the wooden bridge, 
 preceded by Max, and merrily, when he had gained the other 
 side of the bridge, came upon Kenelm's ear, through the 
 hush of the luminous night, the verse of the uncompleted 
 love-song : 
 
 " Singing; — singing, 
 Lustily singing, 
 Down the road, with liis clogs before, 
 Came the Ritter of Neiieatein." 
 
 Love-song, uncompleted — why uncompleted ? It was not 
 given to Kenelm to divine the why. It was a love-song 
 versifying one of the prettiest fairy-tales in tlie world, 
 which was a great favorite with Lily, and which IJon had 
 promised Lily to versify, but only to complete it in her 
 presence and to her perfect satisfaction. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 If I could not venture to place upon paper the exact 
 words of an eloquent coveter of fame, the earth-born, still 
 less can I dare to place upon paper all lliat passed through 
 the voiceless heart of a coveter of love, the heaven-born. 
 
 From the hour in which Kenelm Chillingly had parted 
 from Walter Melville until somewhere between sunrise and 
 noon the next day, the summer joyousness of that external 
 nature which does now and tlicn, though for the most part 
 deceitfully, address to the soid of man questions and an- 
 swers all her soulless own, latighed away the gloom of his 
 
 miS2:ivmgs. 
 
 .—> — ^ 
 
 No doubt this Walter Melville was the beloved guardian 
 
 of Lily ; no doubt it was Lily whom he designated as re-
 
 KEiVELM CHILLINGLY. 437 
 
 served and reared to become his bride. But on that ques- 
 tion Lily herself had the sovereign voice. It remained yet 
 to be seen whether Kenelm had deceived himself in the 
 belief that had made the world so beautiful to him since the 
 hour of their last parting. At all events it was due to her, 
 due even to his rival, to assert his own claim to her choice. 
 And the more he recalled all that Lily had ever said to him 
 of her guardian, so openly, so frankly, proclaiming affection, 
 admiration, gratitude, the more convincingly his reasonings 
 allayed his fears, whispering, "So might a child speak of a 
 parent : not so does the maiden speak of the man she loves ; 
 she can scarcely trust herself to praise." 
 
 In fine, it was not in despondent mood, nor with deject- 
 ed looks, that, a little before noon, Kenelm crossed the 
 bridge and re-entered the enchanted land of Grasmere. In 
 answer to his inquiries, the servant who opened the door 
 said that neither Mr. Melville nor Miss Mordaunt were at 
 home ; they had but just gone out togetlier for a walk. He 
 was about to turn back, when Mrs. Cameron came into the 
 hall, and, rather by gesture than words, invited him to en- 
 ter. Kenelm followed her into the drawing-room, taking 
 his seat beside her. He was about to speak, when she in- 
 terrupted him in a tone of voice so unlike its usual languor, 
 so keen, so sharp, that it sounded like a cry of distress. 
 
 "I was just about to come to you. Happily, however, 
 you find me alone, and what may pass between us will be 
 soon over. But first tell me — you have seen your parents ; 
 you have asked their consent to wed a girl such as I de- 
 scribed ; tell me, oh, tell me that that consent is refused ! " 
 
 " On the contrary, I am here with their full permission 
 to ask the hand of your niece." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron sank back in her chair, rocking herself to 
 and fro in the posture of a person in great pain. 
 
 " I feared that. Walter said he had met you last even- 
 ing ; that you, like himself, entertained the thought of 
 marriage. You, of course, when you learnt his name, must 
 have known with whom his thought was connected. Hap- 
 pily, he could not divine what was the choice to which your 
 youthful fancy had been so blindly led." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Cameron," said Kenelm, very mildly, but 
 very firmly, "you were aware of the purpose for which I 
 left Moleswich a few days ago, and it seems to me that you 
 might have forestalled my intention, the intention which 
 brings me thus early to your house, I come to say to Miss
 
 43S KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Mordaunt's guardian, ' I ask the hand of your Avard. If you 
 also woo her, I have a very noble rival. With both of us no 
 consideration for our own happiness can be comparable to 
 the duty of consulting hers. Let her choose between the 
 two.'" 
 
 "Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron; "impossible! 
 You knou^ not what you say ; know not, guess not, how 
 sacred are the claims of Walter Melville to all tliat the orphan 
 whom he has protected from, her very birth can give him in 
 return. She has no right to a preference for another ; her 
 heart is too grateful to admit of one. If the choice were 
 given to her between him and you, it is he whom she would 
 choose. Solemnly I assure you of this. Do not, then, subject 
 her to the pain of such a choice. Suppose, if you will, that 
 you had attracted her fancy, and that now you proclaimed 
 your love and urged your suit, she would not, must not, the 
 less reject your hand, but you might cloud her happiness in 
 accepting Melville's. Be generous. Conquer your own 
 fancy ; it can be but a passing one. Speak not to her, not 
 to Mr. Melville, of a wish which can never be realized. Go 
 hence, silently, and at once." 
 
 The words and the manner of the pale imploring woman 
 struck a vague awe into the heart of her listener. But he 
 did not the less resolutely answer, "I cannot obey you. It 
 seems to me that my honor commands mc to prove to your 
 niece tliat, if I mistook the nature of her feelings towards 
 me, I did not, by word or look, lead her to believe mine to- 
 wards herself were less in earnest than they are ; and it 
 seems scarcely less honorable towards my worthy rival to 
 endanger his own future happiness, should he discover later 
 that his bride would have been happier with another. Why 
 be so mysteriously apprehensive ? If, as you say, with such 
 apparent conviction, there is no doubt of your niece's prefer- 
 ence for another, at a word from her own lips I depart, and 
 you will see me no more. But that word must be said by 
 her; and if you will not permit me to ask for it in your own 
 house, I will take my chance of finding her now, on her walk 
 with Mr. Melville ; and, could he deny me the right to speak 
 to her alone, that which I would say can be said in his pres- 
 ence. Ah ! madam, have you no mercy for the heart that 
 you so needlessly torture ? If I must bear the worst, let me 
 learn it, and at once." 
 
 " Learn it, then, from my lips," said Mrs. Cameron, 
 speaking with a voice unnaturally calm, and features rigidly
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 439 
 
 set into stern composure. " And I place the secret you 
 wring from me under tlie seal of that honor which you so 
 vauntingly make your excuse for imperiling tlie peace of the 
 home I ought never to have suffered you to enter. An honest 
 couple, of humble station and narrow means, had an only 
 son, who evinced in early childhood talents so remarkable 
 that they attracted the notice of the father's employer, a rich 
 man of very benevolent heart and very cultivated taste. He 
 sent the child, at his expense, to a first-rate commercial 
 school, meaning to provide for him later in his own firm. 
 The rich man was the head partner of an eminent bank ; 
 but very infirm health, and tastes much estranged from 
 business, had induced him to retire from all active share in 
 the firm, the management of which was confided to a son 
 whom he idolized. But the talents of \.\iq pi'ot:ge\^Q had sent 
 to school, there took so passionate a direction towards art, 
 and estranged from trade, and his designs in drawing when 
 shown to connoisseurs were deemed so promising of 
 future excellence, that the patron changed his original in- 
 tention, entered him as a pupil in the studio of a distinguish- 
 ed French painter, and afterwards bade him perfect his taste 
 by the study of Italian and Flemish masterpieces. 
 
 " He was still abroad, when " here Mrs. Cameron 
 
 stopped, with visible effort, suppressed a sob, and went on, 
 whisperingly, through teeth clinched together — "when a 
 thunderbolt fell on the liouse of the patron, shattering his 
 fortunes, blasting his name. The son, unknown to the father, 
 had been decoyed into speculations, which proved unfortun- 
 ate ; the loss might have been easily retrieved in the first 
 instance, unhappily he took the wrong course to retrieve it, 
 and launched into new hazards. I must be brief. One day the 
 world was startled by the news that a firm, famed for its 
 supposed wealth and solidity, was bankrupt. Dishonesty 
 was alleged, was proved, not against the father, — he went 
 forth from the trial, censured indeed for neglect, not con- 
 demned for fraud, but a penniless pauper. The — son— the 
 son — the idolized son — was removed from the prisoner's 
 dock, a convicted felon, sentenced to penal servitude. Es- 
 caped that sentence by — by — you guess— you guess. ^ How 
 could he escape except through death ? — death by his own 
 guilty deed." 
 
 Almost as much overpowered by emotion as Mrs. 
 -Cameron herself, Kenelm covered his bended face with one
 
 440 KENELM CinLLFNGLY. 
 
 hand, stretching out the other blindly to clasp her own, but 
 she would not take it. 
 
 A dreary foreboding. Again before his eyes rose the 
 old gray tower — again in his ears thrilled the tragic tale of 
 the Fletvvodes. What was yet left untold held the young 
 man in spell-bound silence. Mrs. Cameron resumed : 
 
 " I said the father was a penniless pauper ; he died 
 lingeringly bed-ridden. But one faithful friend did not de- 
 sert that bed ; the youth to whose genius his wealth had 
 ministered. lie had come from abroad with some modest 
 savings from the sale of copies or sketches made in Florence, 
 These savings kept a roof over the heads of the old man and 
 the two helpless broken-hearted women-paupers like himself, 
 —his own daughter and his son's widow. When the savings 
 were gone, the young man stooped from his destined calling, 
 found employment somehow, no matter how alien to his 
 tastes, and these three whom his toil supported never wanted 
 a home or food. Well, a few weeks after her husband's 
 terrible death, his young widow (they had not been a year 
 married) gave birth to a child — a girl. She did not survive the 
 exhausticm of her confinement many days. The shock of her 
 death snapped the feeble thread of the poor father's life. 
 Both were borne to the grave on the same day. Before 
 they died, both made the same prayer to their sole two 
 mourners, the felon's sister and tlie old man's young bene- 
 factor. The prayer was this, that the new-born infant 
 should be reared, however liumbly, in ignorance of her 
 birth, of a father's guilt and shame. She was not to pass a 
 suppliant for charity to rich and high-born kinsfolk, who 
 had vouchsafed no word even of pity to the felon's guiltless 
 father and as guiltless wife. That promise has been kept 
 till now. I am tliat daughter. The name I bear, and the 
 name which I gave to my niece, are not ours, save as we 
 may indirectly claim them through alliances centuries ago. 
 I have never married. I was to have been a bride, bringing 
 to the representative of no ignoble house what was to have 
 been a princely dower ; the wedding-day was fixed, when 
 the bolt fell. I have never again seen my betrothed. He 
 went abroad and died there. I think he loved me, he knew 
 I loved him. Who can blame him for deserting me? Who 
 could marry the felon's sister ! Who would marry the 
 felon's cliild ? Who, but one ? The man who knows her 
 secret, and will guard it ; the man who, caring little for other 
 education, has helped to instill into her spotless childhood
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 44I 
 
 SO steadfast a love of truth, so exquisite a pride of honor, 
 that did she know such ignominy rested on her birth, she 
 would pine herself away." 
 
 " Is there only one man on earth," cried Kenelm, sud- 
 denly, rearing his' face, — till then concealed and downcast, 
 — and with a loftiness of pride on its aspect, new to its won- 
 ted mildness, " Is there only one man who would deem the 
 virgin, at whose feet he desires to kneel and say, ' Deign to 
 be the queen of my life,' not far too noble in herself to be 
 debased by the sins of others before she was even born ; is 
 there only one man who does not think that the love of 
 truth and the pride of honor are rnost royal attributes of 
 woman or of man, no matter whether the fathers of the 
 woman or the man were pirates as lawless as the fathers of 
 Norman kings, or liars as unscrupulous, where their own 
 interests were concerned, as have been the crowned repre- 
 sentatives of lines as deservedly famous as Caesars and 
 Bourbons, Tudors and Stuarts ? Nobility, like genius, is 
 inborn. One man alone guard her secret ! — guard a secret 
 that if made known could trouble a heart that recoils from 
 shame ! Ah, madam, we Chillinglys are a very obscure 
 undistinguished race, but for more than a thousand years 
 we have been English gentlemen. Guard her secret rather 
 than risk the chance of discovery that could give her a 
 pang? I would pass my whole life by her side in 
 Kamtchatka, and even there I would not snatch a glimpse of 
 the secret itself with mine owm eyes, it should be so closely 
 muffled and wrapped round by the folds of reverence and 
 worship." 
 
 This burst of passion seemed to Mrs. Cameron the sense- 
 less declamation of an inexperienced, hot-headed young 
 man, and, putting it aside, much as a great lawyer dismisses 
 as balderdash the florid rhetoric of some junior counsel, 
 rhetoric in which the great lawyer had once indulged, or as 
 a woman for whom romance is over dismisses as idle ver- 
 biage some romantic sentiment that befools her young 
 daughter, Mrs. Cameron simply replied, "All this is hollow 
 talk, Mr. Chillingly ; let us come to the point. After all I 
 have said, do you mean to persist in your suit to my 
 niece ? " 
 
 "I persist." 
 
 "What!" she cried, this time indignantly, and with gen- 
 erous indignation ; " what, even were it possible that you 
 could win your parents' consent to marry the child of a man 
 
 19*
 
 443 K EX ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 condemned to penal servitude, or, consistently with the 
 duties a son owes to parents, conceal that fact from them, 
 could you, born to a station on which every gossip will ask, 
 'Wluj and what is the name of the future Lady Chillingly?' 
 believe that the who and the what will never be discovered ? 
 Have vou, a mere stranger, unknown to us a few weeks ngo, 
 a right to say to Walter Melville, ' Resign to me that wiiich 
 is your sole reward for the sublime sacrifices, for the hjyal 
 devotion, for the watchful tenderness of patient years ' ? " 
 
 "Surely, madam," cried Kcnelm, more startled, more 
 sliaken in soul by this appeal than by the previous revela- 
 tions ; " surely, when we last parted, when I confided to you 
 my love for your uiece, when you consented to my propo- 
 sal to return home and obtain my father's approval of my 
 suit ; surely then was the time U) say, ' No ; a suitor with 
 claims paramount and irresistible has come before you.' " 
 
 " I did not then know, Heaven is my witness, I did not 
 then even suspect, that Walter Melville ever dreamed of 
 seeking a wife in the child who had grown up under his 
 eyes. You must own, indeed, how much I discouraged 
 your suit ; I could not discourage it more without revealing 
 the secret of her birth, only to be revealed as an extreme 
 necessity. But my persuasion was that your father would 
 not consent to your alliance with one so far beneath the ex- 
 pectations he was entitled to form, and the refusal of that 
 consent would terminate all further acquaintance between 
 you and Lily, leaving her secret undisclosed. It was not till 
 you had left, only indeed two days ago, that I received from 
 Walter ^Melville a letter, which told me what I had never 
 before conjectured. Here is the letter ; read it, and then 
 say if you have the heart to force yourself into rivalry with 
 
 — with " She broke off, choked by her exertion, thrust 
 
 the letter into his hands, and with keen, eager, hungry stare 
 watched his countenance while he read. 
 
 Street, Bloomshury. 
 
 " Mv DEAR Frikn'D, — Joy and triumph ! My picture is conii>lcU(l ; 
 the picture on which, for so many months, I have worked night and day in 
 tliis den of a studio, without a glimpse of the green fields, concealing my ad- 
 dress from every one, even from you, lest I might he tempted to suspend my 
 labors. The picture is completed— it is sold ; guess the price ! Fifteen 
 liundred guineas, and to a dealer — a dealer ! Think of that ! It is to be 
 carried about the country, exhibited by itself. You remember those three 
 little landscapes of mine which two years ago I would gladly have sold for ten 
 pounds, only neither Lily nor you would let me. My good friend and earliest 
 patron, the German merchant at Luscombe, who called on me yesterday,.-trf-
 
 KENELM CHILLEVGLY. 443 
 
 fered to cover tliem with guineas thrice piled over the canvas. Imagine how 
 happv I felt when 1 forced him to accep- them as a present. What a leap in 
 a man's life it is when he can afford to say ' 1 give !' Now then, at last, at 
 last I am in a posuion which justifies the utterance of the hope which has for 
 eighteen years been my solace, my support ; been the sunbeam that ever shone 
 through the gloom, when my fate was at the darkest ; been the melody that 
 buoyeti me aloft as in the song of the skylark, when in the voices of men I 
 heard but the laugh of scorn. Do you remember the night on which Lily"s 
 mother besouglit us to bring up her child in iinonuice of her parentage, nut 
 evjn communicaie to unkind and disdainful relatives that such a child was 
 bjrn ? do you remember how plaintively, and yet how pioudly, she so nobly 
 born, so luxuriously nurtured, clasping my hand when I ventured to remon- 
 strate and say that'her own family could not condemn her child because of her 
 father's guilt, — she, the proudest woman I ever knew, she whose smile I can 
 at rare mjments detect in Lily, raised her head from her pillow, and gasped 
 forth : 
 
 " ' I am dying — the last words of the dying are conmiands. I command 
 you to see that my child's lot is not that of a felor's daughter transported t>) 
 the hearth of nobles. To be happy, her lut must be humble— no roof too 
 humble to shelter, no Imsband too humble to wed, the felon's daughter.' 
 
 " From that hour I formed the resolve that I would keep hand and heart 
 free, that wlien the grandchild of my princely benefactor grew up into wo- 
 manhood I might say to her, 'I am humbly born, but thy mother would have 
 given thee to me.' Tne new-born, consigned to our charge, has now ripened 
 into woman, and I have now so assured my fortune that it is no longer pov- 
 erty and struggle that I should ask her to share. I am con=cious that, were 
 her fate not so excepiionil, this hope of mine would be a vain presumplinn — 
 ctmscious that I am but the creature of her grandsire's bounty, and that from 
 it springs all 1 ever can be— conscious of tlie disparity in years — conscious of 
 many a jiast error and present fault. But, as fate so ordains, such considera- 
 tions are trivial ; I am her rightful choice. What other choice, compatible 
 ■with these necessities which weigh, dear and honored friend, immeasurably 
 more on your sense of honor than tliey do upon mine, and yet mine is not 
 dull? Granting, then, that you, her nearest and most responsible relative, 
 do not condemn me for presumption, all else seems to me clear. Lily's child- 
 like affection for me is too deep and too fond not to warm into a wife's love. 
 Happily, too, she has not been reared in the stereotyped boarding-school 
 shallownesses of knowledge and vulgarities of gentility; but educated, like 
 myself, by the free mfluences of nature; longing for no halls and palaces 
 save those that we build as we list, in fairyland ; educated to comprehend 
 and to share the fancies which are more than booklore to the worshiper of art 
 and song. In a day or two, perhaps the day after you receive thi.s, I shall be 
 able to escape from London, and most likely shall come on foot as usual. 
 How I long to see once more the woodbine on the hedge-rows, the green 
 blades of the corn-field, the sunny lapse of the river, and, dearer still, the tiny 
 f.alls of our own little noisy rill ! Meanwhile I entreat you, dearest, gentlest, 
 mo.st honored of such few friends as my life has hitherto won to itself, to con- 
 sider well the direct purport of this letter. If you. born in a grade so much 
 higher tlian mine, feel that it is unwarrantable insolence in me to asp're to 
 the hand of my patron's grandchild, say so plainly ; and I remain not less 
 grateful for your friendship, than I was to your goodness when dining for the 
 first time at your father's palace. Shy and sensitive and young, I felt that 
 his grand guests wondered why I was invited to the same board as themselves
 
 444 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 You, tlien courted, admired, you liad sympathetic compassion on the raw, 
 sullen hoy ; left tliose who then seemed to me like the gods and goddesses of 
 a heatlien Pantheon, to come and sit beside your fatiier's /;-<;/i'^/, and cheer- 
 ingly whimper to him such words as make a low-born, amliitious lad go home 
 light-hearted, saying to himself, ' Some day or other.' And what it is to an 
 ambitious lad, fancying himself lifted by the gods and goddesses of a Pan- 
 theon, to go home light-hearted, muttering to himself, ' Some day or other,' 
 I doubt if even you can divine. 
 
 " But should you be as kind to the presumjituous man as you were to the 
 bashful boy, and say, ' Realized be the dream, fulfilled be the object of your 
 life ! take from me, as her next of kin, the last descendant of your bene- 
 factor,' then I ven'ure to address to you tliis request. You are in the place 
 of motiier to your sister's child ; act for iier as a keeper now, to prepare her 
 mind and heart for the coming change in the relations between her and me. 
 When I last saw her, six months ago, she was still so playfully infantine that 
 it half seems to me I should be sinning agamst the reverence due to a child, 
 if I said too abruptly, ' You are woman, and I love you not as child but as 
 woman.' And yet, time is not allowed to me for long, cautious, and gradual 
 slide from the relationship (jf friend into that of lover. I now understand 
 what the great master of my art once said to me, ' A career is a destiny.' 
 liy one of those merchant princes who now at Manchester, as they diil once 
 at Genoa or Venice, reign alike over those two civilizers of the world which 
 to dull eyes seem antagonistic. Art and Commerce, an offer is made to me 
 for a ])icture on a subject which strikes his fancy ; an ofTer so magnificently 
 liberal that his commerce must command my art; and the nature of the sub- 
 ject compels me to seek the banks of the Rhine as soon as may be. I must 
 have all the hues of the foliage in the meridian glories of summer. I can but 
 stay at Grasmere a very few days ; but before I leave I must know this, am I 
 going to work for Lily or am I not ? On the answer to that question de- 
 pends all. If not to work for her there will be no glory in the summer, no 
 triumph in art to me : I refuse the offer If she says, ' Yes ; it is for me you 
 work,' then she becomes my destmy. She assures my career. Here I speak 
 as an artist : nobody who is not an artist can guess how sovereign over even 
 his moral being, at a certain critical epoch in his career of artist or his life of 
 man, is the success or the failure of a single work. Put I go on to speak as 
 man. My hwe for Lily is such for the last six months, that though if she 
 rejected me I should still serve art, still yearn for fame, it would be as an old 
 man might do either. The youth of my life would be gone. 
 
 "As man I say, all my thoughts all my dreams of happiness, distinct 
 from Art and fame, are summed up in the one question — ' Is Lily to be my 
 wife or not ? ' 
 
 " Yours afTectionately, 
 
 «'W. M." 
 
 Kenelm returned the letter without a word. 
 
 Enraged by his silence, Mrs. Cameron exclaimed : " Now, 
 sir, what say you ? You have scarcely known Lily five 
 weeks. What is the feverish fancy of five weeks' growth 
 to the life-long devotion of a man like this ? Do you now 
 dare to say, ' I persist ' ? " 
 
 Kenelm waved his hand very quietly, as if to dismiss all
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 445 
 
 conception of taunt and insult, and said, with his soft mel- 
 ancholy eyes fixed upon the working features of Lily's aunt, 
 " This man is more worthy of her than I. He prays you, 
 in his letter, to prepare your niece for that change of rela- 
 tionship which he dreads too abruptly to break to her him- 
 self. Have you done so ?" 
 
 " I have ; the night I got the letter." 
 
 "And — you hesitate ; speak truthfully, I implore. And 
 —she " 
 
 " She," answered Mrs. Cameron, feeling herself involun- 
 tarily compelled to obey the voice of that prayer, " she 
 seemed stunned at first, muttering, 'This is a dream — it can- 
 not be true — cannot! I Lion's wife — I — I ! I his destiny ! 
 In me his happiness!' And then she laughed her pretty 
 child's laugh, and put her arms round my neck, and said, 
 'You are jesting, aunty. He could not write thus !' So I 
 put that part of his letter under her eyes ; and when she had 
 convinced herself, her face became very grave, more like a 
 woman's face than I ever saw it ; and after a pause she 
 cried out, passionately, 'Can you think me — can I think 
 myself — so bad, so ungrateful, as to doubt wliat I should 
 answer, if Lion asked me whether I would willingly say or 
 do anything that made him unhappy ? If there be such a 
 doubt in my heart, I would tear it out by the roots, heart 
 and all !' Oh, ]Mr. Chillingly, there would be no happiness 
 for her with another, knowing that she had blighted the life 
 of him to whom she owes so much, though she never will 
 learn how much more she owes," Kenelm not replying to 
 this remark, ^Nlrs. Cameron resumed. " I will be perfectly 
 frank with you, ^Ir. Chillingly. I was not quite satisfied 
 with Lily's manner and looks the next morning, that is, yes- 
 terday. I did fear there might be some struggle in her 
 mind in which there entered a thought of yourself. And 
 when Walter, on his arrival here in the evening, spoke of 
 you as one he had met before in his rural excursions, but 
 whose name he only learned on parting at the bridge by 
 Cromwell Lodge, I saw that Lily turned pale, and shortly 
 afterwards went to her own room for the night. Fearing 
 that any interview with you, though it Avould not alter her 
 resolve, might lessen her happiness on the only choice she 
 can and ouglit to adopt, I resolved to visit you this morning, 
 and make that appeal to your reason and your heart which 
 I have done now — not, I am sure, in vain. Hush ! I hear 
 his voice I "
 
 446 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 Melville entered the room, Lilv leaning on his arm. The 
 artist's comely face was radiant witli an ineffable joyousness. 
 Leaving Lily, he reac hed Kenelm's side as with a single 
 bound, shook hiui heartily by the hand, and said, "I find 
 th.it you have already been a welcomed visitor in this house. 
 L(Mig may you be so, so say I, so (1 answer for her) says my 
 f lir betrothed, to whom I need not present you." 
 
 Lily advanced, and held out her hand very timidly. 
 Kenelm touched rather than clasped it. His own strong 
 hand trembled like a leaf. lie ventured but one glance at 
 her face. All the bloom had died out of it, but the expres- 
 sion seemed to him wondrously, cruelly tranquil. 
 
 "Your betrothed — your future bride!" he said to the 
 artist, with a mastery over his emotion rendered less difficult 
 by the single glance at that tranquil face. " I wish you joy. 
 All happiness to you, Miss Mordaunt. You have made a 
 noble choice." 
 
 He looked round for his hat ; it lay at his feet, but he did 
 not see it ; his eyes wandering away with uncertain vision, 
 like those of a sleep-walker. 
 
 Mrs. Cameron picked up the hat and gave it to him. 
 
 "Thank you," he said, meekly ; then with a smile half 
 sweet, half bitter, " I have so much to thank you for, Mrs. 
 Cameron." 
 
 " But you are not going already — just as I enter, too. 
 Hold ! Mrs. Cameron tells me you are lodging with my old 
 friend Jones. Come and stop a couple of days with us : we 
 can find you a room ; the room over your butterfly cage, eh, 
 Fairy?" 
 
 " Thank you, too. Thank you all. No ; I must be in 
 London by the first train." 
 
 Speaking thus, he had found his way to the door, bowed 
 with the quiet grace that characterized all his movements, 
 and was gone. 
 
 " Pardon his abruptness, Lily ; he tc^o loves ; he too is im- 
 patient to find a betrothed," said the artist, gayly ; " but now 
 lie knows my dearest secret, I think I have a riglit to know 
 his ; and I will try." 
 
 He had scarcely uttered the words before lie too had quit- 
 ted the room and overtaken Kcnclm just at the threshold. 
 
 " If you are going back to Cromwell Lodge— to pack up, 
 I suppose— let me walk with you as far as the bridge." 
 
 Kenelm inclined his head assentingly and tacitly as they 
 passed through the garden gate, winding backward through
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 447 
 
 the lane which skirted the garden pales ; when, at the very 
 spot in which the day after their first and only quarrel Lily's 
 face had been seen brightening through the evergreens, that 
 day on which the old woman, quitting her, said, " God bless 
 you ! " and on which the vicar, walking with KeneLm, spoke 
 of her fairy charms ; well, just in that spot Lily's face ap- 
 peared again, not this time brightening through the ever- 
 greens, unless the palest gleam of the palest moon can be 
 said to brighten. Kenelm saw, started, halted. His com- 
 panion, then in the rush of a gladsome talk of which Kenelm 
 had not heard a word, neither saw nor halted ; he walked on 
 mechanically, gladsome and talking. 
 
 Lily stretched forth her hand through the evergreens. 
 Kenelm took it reverentially. This time it was not his hand 
 that trembled. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said in a whisper, " good-bye forever in 
 this world. You understand — you do understand me. Say 
 that you do." 
 
 " I understand. Noble child — noble choice. God bless 
 you ! God comfort me ! " murmured Kenelm. Their eyes 
 met. Oh, the sadness, and, alas ! oh, the love, in the eyes 
 of botli ! 
 
 Kenelm passed on. 
 
 All said in an instant. How many Alls are said in an in- 
 stant ! Melville was in the midst of some glowing sentence, 
 begun when Kenelm dropped from his side, and the end of 
 the sentence was this : 
 
 " Words cannot say how fair seems life, how easy seems 
 conquest of fame, dating from this day — this day" — and in 
 his turn he halted, looked round on the sunlit landscape and 
 breathed deep, as if to drink into his soul all of the earth's 
 joy and beauty which his gaze could compass and the arch 
 of the horizon bound. 
 
 "They who knew her even the best," resumed the artist, 
 striding on, "even her aunt, never could guess how serious 
 and earnest, under all her infantine prettiness of fancy, is that 
 girl's real nature. We were walking along the brook-side, 
 when I began to tell her how solitary the world would be to 
 me if T could not win her to my side ; while I spoke she had 
 turned aside from the path we had taken, and it was not till 
 we were under the shadow of the church in which we shall 
 be married that she uttered the words that give to every cloud 
 in my fate the silver lining ; implying thus how solemnly
 
 448 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 connected in her mind was the thought of love with the 
 sanctity of religion." 
 
 Kenehn shuddered — the church — the burial-ground — the 
 old gothic tomb — the tlowers round the infant's grave ! 
 
 "But 1 am talking a great deal too much about myself," 
 resumed the artist. " Lovers are the most consummate of 
 all egotists, and the most garrulous of all gossips. You have 
 wished me joy on my destined nuptials, when shall I wish 
 you joy on yours ? Since we have begun to confide in each 
 other, you are in my debt as to a confidence." 
 
 They had now gained the bridge. Kenelm turned round 
 abruptly : " Good-day ; let us part here. I have nothing to 
 confide to you that might not seem to your ears a mockeiy 
 when I wish you joy." vSo saying, so obeying in spite of 
 himself the anguish of his heart, Kenelm wrung his com- 
 panion's hand with the force of an uncontrollable agony, and 
 speeded over the bridge before Melville recovered his sur- 
 prise. 
 
 The artist would have small claim to the essential attri- 
 bute of genius, viz., the intuitive sympathy of passion with 
 passion, if that secret of Kenelm's which he had so lightly 
 said "he had acquired the right to learn " was not revealed 
 to him as by an electric Hash. "Poor fellow ! " he said to 
 himself, pityingly ; " how natural that he should fall in love 
 with Fairy ! but happily he is so young, and such a philoso- 
 pher, that it is but one of those trials through which, at least 
 ten times a year, I have gone with wounds that leave not a 
 scar." 
 
 Thus soliloquizing, the warm-blooded worshipper of Na- 
 ture returned homeward, too blest in the triumph of his own 
 love to feel more than a kindly compassion for the wounded 
 heart, consigned with no doubt of the healing result to the 
 fickleness of youth and the consolations of philosophy. Not 
 for a moment did the happier rival suspect that Kenelm's 
 love was returned ; that an atom in the heart of the girl who 
 had promised to be his bride could take its light or shadow 
 from any love but his own. Yet, more from delicacy of re- 
 spect to the rival so suddenly self-betrayed, than from any 
 more prudential motive, he did not speak even to Mrs. Cam- 
 eron of Kenelm's secret and sorrow ; and certainly neither 
 she nor Lily was disposed to ask any question that concerned 
 the departed visitor. 
 
 In fact, the name of Kenelm Chillingly was scarcely, if at 
 all, mentioned in that household during the few days which
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 449 
 
 elapsed before Walter Melville quitted Grasmere for the 
 banks of the Rhine, not to return till the autumn, when his 
 marriage with Lily was to take place. During those days 
 Lily was calm and seemingly cheerful — her manner towards 
 her betrothed, if more subdued, not less affectionate than of 
 old. Mrs. Cameron congratulated herself on having so suc- 
 cessfully got rid of Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 So. then, but for that officious warning, uttered under the 
 balcony at Luscombe, Kenelm Chillingly might never have 
 had a rival in Walter Melville. But ill would any reader 
 construe the character of Kenelm, did he think that such a 
 thought increased the bitterness of his sorrow. No sorrow 
 in the thought that a noble nature had been saved from the 
 temptation to a great sin. 
 
 The good man does good merely by living. And the 
 good he does may often mar the plans he formed for his 
 own happiness. But he cannot regret that Heaven has per- 
 mitted him to do good. 
 
 What Kenelm did feel is perhaps best explained in the 
 letter to Sir Peter, which is here subioined : 
 
 " My dearest Father. — Never till my dying day shall I forget that 
 tender desire for my happiness with which, overcoming all worldly considera- 
 tions, no matter at what disappointment to your own cherished plans or am- 
 bition for the heir to your name and race, you sent me away from your roof, 
 these words ringing in my ear like the sound of joy-bells, ' Choose as you will, 
 with my blessing on your choice. I open my heart to admit anotlier child — 
 your wife shall be my daughter.' It is such an unspeakable comfort to me to 
 recall those words now. Of all human affections gratitude is surely the holiest ; 
 and it blends itself with the sweetness of religion when it is gratitude to a 
 father. And, therefore, do not grieve too much for me, when I tell you that 
 the hopes which enchanted me when we parted are not to be fulfiUerl. Her 
 hand is pledged to another — another with claims upon her preference to which 
 mine cannot be compared ; and he is himself, putting aside the accidents of 
 birth and fortune, immeasurably my superior. In that thought — I mean the 
 thought that the man she selects deserves her more than I do, and that in his 
 happiness she will blend her own — I shall find comfort, so soon as I can fairly 
 reason down the first all-engrossing selfishness that follows the sense of unex- 
 pected and irremediable loss. Meanwhile you will think it not unnatural that 
 I resort to such aids for change of heart as are afforded by change of scene. 
 I start for the Continent to-night, and shall not rest till I reach Venice, which
 
 4:o 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGL V. 
 
 I have not yet seen. I feel irresistibly attracted towards still cnnals and glid- 
 ing gondolas. I will write to you and to my dear mother the (lay I arrive. 
 And I trust to write clieerfully, with full accounts of all I see and encounter. 
 Do not, dearest father, in your letters to me revert or allude to that grief, 
 which even the tenderest word from your own tender self might but chafe into 
 pain more sensitive. After all, a disappointed love is a very common lot. And 
 we meet every day men — ay, and women too — who have known it, and are 
 thoroughly cured. 
 
 " Tlie manliest of our modern lyrical poets has said very nobly and, no 
 doubt, very justly, 
 
 ' To bear is to conquer our fate.' 
 
 " Ever your loving son, 
 
 "K. C." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Nearly a year and a half lias elapsed since the date of 
 my last chapter. Two Englishmen were — the one seated, 
 the other reclined at length — on one of the mounds that 
 furrow the ascent of Posilippo. Before them spread the 
 noiseless sea, basking in the sunshine, without visible ripple ; 
 to the left there was a distant glimpse through gaps of brush- 
 wood of the public gardens and white water of the Chiaja. 
 Thev were friends who had chanced to meet abroad, — une>'- 
 pectcdly, — joined company, and travelled together for many 
 months, chiefly in the East. They had been but a few days 
 in Naples. The elder of the two had important afTairs in 
 Enofland which ought to have summoned him back long 
 since. But he did not let his friend know this ; his affairs 
 seemed to him less important than the duties he owed to one 
 for whom he entertained that deep and noble love which is 
 something stronger than brotherly, for with brotherly affec- 
 tion it combines gratitude and reverence, lie knew, too, 
 that his friend was oppressed by a haunting sorrow, of which 
 the cause was divined by one, not revealed by the other. 
 
 To leave him, so beloved, alone with that sorrow in 
 strange lands, was a thought not to be cherished by a friend 
 so tender ; for in the friendship of this man there was that 
 sort of tenderness which completes a nature thoroughly man- 
 like, by giving it a touch of the woman's.. 
 
 It was a day which in our northern climates is that of 
 winter ; in the southern clime of Naples it was mild as an 
 English summer day lingering on the brink of autumn. The 
 sun was sloping towards the west, and already gathering
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 451 
 
 .iround it roseate and purple fleeces. Elsewhere, the deep- 
 blue sky was without a cloudlet. 
 
 Both had been for some minutes silent ; at length the 
 man reclined on the grass— it was the younger man — said 
 suddenly, and with no previous hint of the subject intro- 
 duced, " Lay your hand on your heart, Tom, and answer me 
 truly. Are your thoughts as clear from regrets as the hea- 
 vens above us are from a cloud ? Man takes regret from 
 tears that have ceased to flow, as the heaven takes cloud from 
 the rains that have ceased to fall." 
 
 " Regrets ? Ah, I understand, for the loss of the girl I 
 once loved to distraction ! No ; surely I made that clear to 
 you many, many, many months ago, when I was your guest 
 at Moleswich." 
 
 "Ay, but I have never, since then, spoken to you on that 
 subject. I did not dare. It seems to me so natural that a 
 man, in the earlier struggle between love and reason, should 
 say, 'reason shall conquer, and has conquered ;' and yet — • 
 and yet — as time glides on, feel that the conquerors who can- 
 not put down rebellion have a very uneasy reign. Answer 
 me not as at Moleswich, during the first struggle, but now, 
 in the after-day, when reaction from struggle comes." 
 
 " Upon my honor," answered the friend, " I have had no 
 reaction at all. I was cured entirely when I had once seen 
 Jessie again, another man's wife, mother to his child, happy 
 in her marriage, and — whether she was changed or not — very 
 different from the sort of wife I should like to marry, now 
 that I am no longer a village farrier." 
 
 "And, I remember, you spoke of some other girl whom 
 it would suit you to marry. You have been long abroad 
 fromx her. Do you ever think of her — think of her still as 
 your future wife ? Can you love her ? Can you, who have 
 once loved so faithfully, love again ? " 
 
 " I am sure of that. I love Emily better than I did when 
 I left England. We correspond. She writes such nice let- 
 ters." Tom hesitated, blushed, and continued timidly, " I 
 should like to show you one of her letters." 
 
 "Do." 
 
 Tom drew forth the last of such letters from his breast- 
 pocket. 
 
 Kenelm raised himself from the grass, took the letter, and 
 read slowly, carefully, while Tom watched in vain for some 
 approving smile to brighten up the dark beauty of that mel- 
 ancholy face.
 
 452 
 
 KEN EL M C///L I. LVGL V. 
 
 Certainly it was the letter a man in love might show with 
 pride to a friend ; the letter of a lady, well educated, well 
 brought up, evincing affection modestly, intelligence mod- 
 estly too ; the sort of a letter in which a niotlier who loved 
 her daughter, and approved the daughter's choice, could not 
 have suggested a correction. 
 
 As Kenelm gave back the letter, his eyes met his friend's. 
 Those were eager eyes — eyes hungering for praise. Kenclm's 
 heart smote him for that worst of sins in friendship — want of 
 sympathy ; and that \measy heart forced to his lips congrat- 
 ulations, not perhaps quite sincere, but wliich amply satisfied 
 the lover. In uttering them, Kenelm rose to his feet, threw 
 his arm round his friend's shoulder, and said, " Are you not 
 tired of this place, Tom ? I am. Let us go back to England 
 to-morrow." Tom's honest face brightened vividly. "How 
 selfish and egotistical I have been !" continued Kenelm ; " I 
 ought to have thought more of you, your career, your mar- 
 riage — pardon me " 
 
 " Pardon you — pardon ! Don't I owe to you all — owe to 
 you Emily herself? If you had never come to Graveleigh, 
 never said, ' Be my friend,' what should I have been now ? 
 what — what ? " 
 
 The next day the two friends quitted Naples, en route for 
 England, not exchanging many words by the way. The old 
 loquacious crotchety humor of Kenelm had deserted him. A 
 duller companion than he was you could not have conceived. 
 He might have been the hero of a young lady's novel. 
 
 It was only when they parted in London that Kenelm 
 evinced more secret purpose, more external emotion than 
 one of his heraldic Daces shifting from the bed to the sui>- 
 face of a waveless pond. 
 
 " If I have rightly understood you, Tom, all this change in 
 you, all this cure of torturing regret, was wrought — wrought 
 lastingly — wrought so as to leave you heart-free for the world's 
 actions and a home's peace, on that eve when you saw her 
 whose face till then had haunted you, another man's happy 
 wife, and, in so seeing her, either her face was changed, or 
 your heart became so." 
 
 "Quite true. I might express it otherwise, but the fact 
 remains the same." 
 
 " God bless you, Tom ; bless you in your career without, 
 in your home within," said Kenelm, wringing his friend's 
 hand at the door of the carriage that was to whirl to love, 
 and wealth, and station, the whilom bully of a village, along
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 453 
 
 the iron groove of that contrivance which, though now the 
 tritest of prosaic realities, seemed once too poetical for a 
 poet's wildest visions. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A winter's evening at Moleswich. Very different from 
 a winter sunset at Naples. It is intensely cold. There has 
 been a slight fall of snow, accompanied with severe, bright, 
 clear* frost, a thin sprinkling of white on the pavements. 
 Kenelm Chillingly entered the town on foot, no longer a 
 knapsack on his back. Passing through the main street, he 
 paused a moment at the door of Will Somers. The shop 
 was closed. No, he would not stay there to ask in a round- 
 about way for news. He would go in straightforwardly and 
 manfully to Grasmere. He would take the inmates there by 
 surprise. The sooner he could bring Tom's experience home 
 to himself, the better. He had schooled his heart to rely on 
 that experience, and it brought him back the old elasticity of 
 his stride. In his lofty carriage and buoyant face was again 
 visible the old haughtiness of the indifferentism that keeps 
 itself aloof from the turbulent emotions and conventional 
 frivolities of those whom its philosophy pities and scorns. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed he who, like Swift, never laughed 
 aloud, and often laughed inaudibly. " Ha ! ha ! I shall exor- 
 cise the ghost of my grief. I shall never be haunted again. 
 If that stormy creature whom love might have maddened 
 into crime, — if he were cured of love at once by a single visit 
 to the home of her w^hose face was changed to him — for the 
 smiles and the tears of it had become the property of another 
 man — how much more should I be left without a scar ! I, 
 the heir of the Chillinglys ! I, the kinsman of a Mivers ! I, 
 the pupil of a Welby ! I — I, Kenelm Chillingly, to be thus 
 
 ■ — thus " Here, in the midst of his boastful soliloquy, 
 
 the well-remembered brook rushed suddenly upon eye and 
 ear, gleaming and moaning under the wintry moon. Kenelm 
 Chillingly stopped, covered his face with his hands, and burst 
 into a passion of tears. 
 
 Recovering himself slowly, he went on along the path, 
 every step of which was haunted by the form of Lily. 
 
 He reached the garden-gate of Grasmere, lifted the latch,
 
 454 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 and entered. As he did so, a man, touching his hat, rushed 
 beside, and advanced before him — the village postman. 
 KeneJm drew back allowing the man to pass to the door, and 
 as he thus drew back he caught a side view of lighted win- 
 dows looking on the lawn — the windows of the pleasant 
 drawing-room in which he had first heard Lily speak of lier 
 guardian. 
 
 The postman left his letters, and regained the garden gate, 
 while Kenelm stood still wistfully gazing on those lighted 
 windows. He had, meanwhile, advanced along the whitened 
 sward to the light, saying to himself, " Let me just see her 
 and her happiness, and then I will knock boldly at the door 
 and say, 'Good-evening, Mrs. Melville.'" 
 
 So Kenelm stole across the lawn, and, stationing himself 
 at the angle of the wall, looked into the window. 
 
 Melville, in dressing-robe and slippers, was seated alone 
 by the fireside. His dogAvas lazily stretched on the hearfh- 
 rug. One by one the features of the room, as the scene of 
 his vanished happiness, grew out from its stillness ; the del- 
 icately-tinted walls ; the dwarf bookcase, with its feminine 
 ornaments on the upper shelf; the piano standing in- the 
 same place. Lily's own small low chair ; that was not in its 
 old place, but thrust into a remote angle, as jf it had passed 
 into disuse. Melville Avas reading a letter, no doubt one of 
 those which tlie postman had left. Surely the contents were 
 pleasant, for his fair face, always frankly expressive of emo- 
 tion, brightened wonderfully as he read on. Then he rose 
 with a quick, brisk movement, and pulled the bell hastily. 
 
 A neat maid-servant entered — a strange face to Kenelm. 
 Melville gave her some brief message. " He has had joyous 
 news," thought Kenelm. "He has sent for his wife, that 
 she may share his joy." Presently the door opened, and 
 entered, not Lily, but Mrs. Cameron. 
 
 She looked changed ; her natural quietude of mien and 
 movement the same, indeed, but with more languor in it. 
 Her hair had become gray. Melville was standing by the 
 table as she approached him. He put the letter into her 
 hands with a gay, proud smile, and looked over her shoulder 
 while slie read it, pointing with his finger as to some lines 
 that should more emphatically claim her attention. 
 
 When she had finished, her face reflected his smile. They 
 exchanged a lieartv shake of the hand, as if in congratulation. 
 " Ah," thought Kenelm, " the letter is from Lily. She is 
 abroad. Perhaps the birth of a first-born."
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY, 455 
 
 Just then Blanche, who had not been visible before, 
 emerged from under the table, and, as Melville re-seated him- 
 self by the fireside, sprang into his lap, rubbing herself 
 against his breast. The expression of his face changed ; he 
 uUered some low exclamation. Mrs. Cameron took the 
 creature from his lap, stroking it quietly, carried it across 
 the room, and put it outside the door. Then she seated her- 
 self beside the artist, placing her hand in his, and they con- 
 versed in low tones, till Melville's face again grew bright, 
 and again he took up the letter. 
 
 A few minutes later the maid-servant entered with the tea 
 things, and, after arranging them on the table, approached 
 the window. Kenelm retreated into the shade, the servant 
 closed the shutters and drew the curtains — that scene of quiet 
 home comfort vanished from the eyes of the looker-on. 
 
 Kenelm felt strangely perplexed. What had become of 
 Lily ? was she indeed absent from her home ? Had he con- 
 jectured rightly, that the letter which had evidently so glad- 
 dened Melville was from her, or was it possible — here a 
 thought of joy seized his heart and held him breathless — was 
 it possible that, after all, she had not married her guardian ; 
 had found a home elsewhere — was free? He moved on 
 farther down the lawn, towards the water, that he might 
 better bring before his sight that part of the irregular build- 
 ing in which Lilv formerly had her sleeping-chamber and 
 her "own — own room." AH was dark there; the shutters 
 inexorably closed. The place with which the childlike girl 
 had asssociated her most childlike fancies, taming and tend- 
 ing the honey-drinkers destined to pass into fairies, that 
 fragile tenement was not closed against the winds and snows ; 
 its doors were drearily open ; gaps in the delicate wire-work ; 
 of its dainty draperies a few tattered shreds hanging here 
 and there ; and on the depopulated floor the moonbeams rest- 
 ing cold and ghostly. No spray from the tiny fountain ; its 
 basin chipped and mouldering ; the scanty waters therein 
 frozen. Of all the pretty wild ones that Lily fancied she 
 could tame, not one. Ah ! yes, there was one, probably not 
 of the old familiar number ; a stranger that might have crept 
 in for shelter from the first blasts of winter, and now clung 
 to an angle in the farther wall, its wings folded — asleep, not 
 dead. But Kenelm saw it not ; he noticed only the general 
 desolation of the spot. 
 
 " Natural enough," thought lie. "She has outgrown all 
 such pretty silliness. A wife cannot remain a child. Still,
 
 4S6 KEN ELM CITILLINGLY. 
 
 if she had belonged to me. . . ." The thought choked 
 even his inward, unspoken utterance. He turned away, 
 paused a moment under the leafless boughs of the great 
 willow still dipping into the brook, and then with impatient 
 steps strode back towards the garden gate. 
 
 " No — no — no. I cannot now enter that house and ask 
 for Mrs. Melville. Trial enough for one night to stand on 
 the old ground. I will return to the town. I will call at 
 Jessie's, and there I can learn if she indeed be happy." 
 
 So lie went on by the path along the brook-side, the 
 night momently colder and colder and momently clearer 
 and clearer, while the moon noiselessly glided into loftier 
 heights. Wrapt in his abstracted thoughts, Avhen he came 
 to the spot in which the path split in twain he did not take 
 that which led more directly to the town. His steps, natur- 
 ally enough following the train of his thoughts, led him 
 along the path witl'i which the object of his thoughts was 
 associated. He foiuid himself on the burial-ground, and in 
 front of the old ruined tomb with the effaced inscription. 
 
 "Ah! child — child!" he murmured almost audibly, 
 " what depths of woman tenderness lay concealed in thee ! 
 In what loving sympathy witli the past — sympathy only 
 vouchsafed to the tenderest women and the highest poets — 
 didst thou lay thy flowers on the tomb to which thou didst 
 give a poet's history interpreted by a woman's heart, little 
 dreaming that beneath the stone slept a hero of thine own 
 fallen race." 
 
 He passed beneath the shadow of the yews, whose 
 leaves no winter wind can strew, and paused at the ruined 
 tomb — no flower now on its stone, only a sprinkling of snow 
 at the foot of it — sprinklings of snow at the foot of each 
 humbler grave-mound. Motionless in the frosty air rested 
 the pointed church spire, and through the frosty air, higher 
 and higlier up the arch of heaven, soared the unpausing 
 moon. Around, and below, and above her, the stars which 
 no science can number ; yet not less difficult to nimiber are 
 the thoughts, desires, aspirations, which, in a space of time 
 briefer than a winter's night, can pass through the infinite 
 deeps of a human soul. 
 
 From his standby the gothic tomb, Kenelm looked along 
 the churchyard for the infant's grave, which Lily's pious 
 care had bordered with votive flowers. Yes, in that direction 
 there was still a gleam of color ; could it be of flowers in 
 that biting winter-time ? — the moon is so deceptive, it silvers
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 457 
 
 into the hue of the jessamines the green of the everlast- 
 
 ings. 
 
 He passed towards the white grave-mound. His sight 
 had duped him ; no pale flower, no green " everlasting," on 
 its neglected border — only brown mould, withered stalks, 
 streaks of snow. 
 
 "And yet," he said, sadly, "she told me she had never 
 broken a promise ; and she had given a promise to the dying 
 child. Ah ! she is too happy now to think of the dead." 
 
 So murmuring, he was about to turn towards the town, 
 when close by that child's grave he saw another. Round 
 that other there were pale "everlastings," dwarfed blossoms 
 of the laurestinus ; at the four angles the drooping bud of a 
 Christmas rose ; at the head of the grave was a white stone, 
 its sharp edges cutting into the star-lit air ; and on the head, 
 in fresh letters, were inscribed these words : 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 L. M., 
 
 Aged 17, 
 
 Died October 29, a.d. 18 — . 
 
 This stone, above tlie grave to which her mortal 
 
 remains are consigned, beside tliat of an infant not 
 
 more sinless, is consecrated by those who 
 
 most mourn and miss her. 
 
 Isabel Cameron, 
 
 Walter Melvh.le. 
 
 •' Suffer little children to come unto me." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The next morning Mr. Emlyn, passing from his garden 
 to the town of Moleswich, descried a human form stretched 
 on the burial-ground, stirring restlessly but very slightly, as 
 if with an involuntary shiver, and uttering broken sounds, 
 very faintly heard, like the moans that a man in pain strives 
 to suppress and cannot. 
 
 The rector hastened to the spot. The man was lying, his 
 face downward, on a grave-mound, not dead, not asleep. 
 
 "Poor fellow ! overtaken by drink, I fear," thought the 
 gentle pastor ; and as it was the habit of his mind to com- 
 passionate error even more than grief, he accosted the sup-
 
 4^3 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 • 
 
 posed sinner in very soothing tones — trying to raise him 
 from the ground — and with very kindly words. 
 
 Tiien the man lifted his face from its pillow on the grave- 
 mound, looked round him dreamily into the gray, blank air 
 of the cheerless morn, and rose to his feet quietly and 
 slowly. 
 
 The vicar was startled ; he recognized the face of him he 
 had last seen in the magnificent affluence of health and 
 strength. But the character of the face was changed — so 
 changed ! its old serenity of expression, at once grave and 
 sweet, succeeded by a wild trouble in the heavy eyelids and 
 trembling lips. 
 
 " Mr. Chillingly — you ! Is it possible ? " 
 
 " Varus, Varus," exclaimed Kenelm, passionately, " what 
 hast thou done with my legions ?" 
 
 At that quotation of the well-known greeting of Augus- 
 tus to his unfortunate general, the scholar recoiled. Had 
 his young friend's mind deserted him — dazed, perhaps, by 
 over-study ? 
 
 He was soon reassured ; Kenelm's face settled back into 
 calm, though a dreary calm, like that of the wintry day. 
 
 " I beg pardon, Mr. Emlyn ; I had not quite shaken 
 off the hold of a strange dream. I dreamed that I was 
 worse off than Augustus ; he did not lose the world when 
 the legions he had trusted to another vanished into a 
 grave." 
 
 Here Kenelm linked his arm in that of the rector — on 
 which he leaned ratlier heavily — and drew him on from the 
 burial-ground into the open space where the two paths met 
 
 "But how long have you returned to Moleswich?" 
 asked Emlyn ; "and how come you to choose so damp a 
 bed Un your morning slumbers ?" 
 
 " The wintry cold crept into my veins when I stood in 
 the burial-ground, and I was very weary ; I had no sleep 
 at night. Do not let me take you out of your way ; I am 
 going on to Grasmere. So I see, by the record on a grave- 
 stone, that it is more than a year ago since Mr. Melville lost 
 his wife." 
 
 "Wife ? He never married." 
 
 " Wliat ! " cried Kenelm. "Whose, then, is that grave- 
 stone-* L. M.' ?" 
 
 " Alas ! it is our poor Lily's." 
 
 " And she died unmarried ?" 
 
 As Kenelm said this he looked up, and the sun broke
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 459 
 
 out from the gloomy haze of the morning. " I may claim 
 thee, then," he thought within himself — •" claim thee as 
 mine when we meet again." 
 
 " Unmarried— yes," resumed the vicar. "She was in- 
 deed betrothed to her guardian ; they were to have been 
 married in the autumn, on his return from the Rhine. He 
 went there to paint on the spot itself his great picture, 
 which is now so famous — ' Roland, the Hermit Knight, 
 looking towards the convent lattice for a sight of the Holy 
 Nun.' Melville had scarcely gone before the symptoms of 
 the disease which proved fatal to poor Lily betrayed them- 
 selves ; they baffled all medical skill — rapid decline. She 
 was always very delicate, but no one detected in her the 
 seeds of consumption. Melville only returned a day or two 
 before her death. Dear childlike Lily ! how we all mourned 
 for her!— not least the poor, who believed in her fairy 
 charms." 
 
 " And least of all, it appears, the man she was to have 
 married." 
 
 "He? — Melville? How can you wrong him so? His 
 grief was intense — overpowering — for the time." 
 
 "For the time! what time?" muttered Kenelm, in 
 tones too low for the pastor's ear. 
 
 They moved on silently. Mr. Emlyn resumed : 
 
 " You noticed the text on Lily's grave-stone — 'Suffer the 
 little children to come unto me' ? She dictated it herself 
 the day before she died. I was with her then, so I was at 
 the last." 
 
 "Were you — were you— at the last — the last? Good- 
 day, Mr. Ernlyn ; we are just in sight of the garden gate. 
 And — excuse me — I wish to see Mr. Melville alone." 
 
 " Well, then, good-day ; but if you are making any sta}) 
 in the neighborhood, \\\\\ you not be our guest ? We have 
 a room at your service." 
 
 " I thank you gratefully ! but I return to London in an 
 hour or so. Hold, a moment. You were with her at the 
 last ? She was resigned to die ? " 
 
 " Resigned ! that is scarcely the word. The smile left 
 upon her lips was not that of human resignation ; it was the 
 smile of a divine joy."
 
 46o KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "Yes, sir, Mr. Melville is at home, in his studio." 
 
 Kenelm followed the maid across the liall into a room 
 not built at tlie date of Kenelm's former visits to the house ; 
 the artist, making Grasmere his chief residence after Lily's 
 death, had added it at the back of the neglected place where- 
 in Lily had encaged "the souls of infants unbaptized." 
 
 A lofty room, with a casement, partially darkened, to the 
 bleak north ; various sketches on the walls ; gaunt speci- 
 mens of antique furniture, and of gorgeous Italian silks, 
 scattered about in confused disorder ; one large picture on 
 its easel curtained ; another as large, and half finished, before 
 which stood the painter. He turned quickly as Keneim en- 
 tered the room imannounced, let fall brush and palette, 
 came up to him eagerly, grasped his hand, drooped his head 
 on Kenelm's shoulder, and said, in a voice struggling with 
 evident and strong emotion: 
 
 " Since we parted, such grief ! such a loss !" 
 
 " I know it ; I have seen her grave. Let us not speak 
 of it. Why so needlessly revive your sorrow ? So — so — 
 your sanguine hopes are fulfilled — the world at last has done 
 you justice ? Emlyn tells me that you have painted a very 
 famous picture." 
 
 Kenelm had seated himself as he thus spoke. The paint- 
 er still stood with dejected attitude on the middle of the 
 floor, and brushed his hand over his moistened eyes once or 
 twice before he answered, " Yes : wait a moment, don't talk 
 of fame yet. Bear with me : the sudden sight of you un- 
 nerved me." 
 
 The artist here seated himself also on an old worm-eaten 
 gothic chest, rumpling and chafing the golden or tinselled 
 threads of the embroidered silk, so rare and so time-worn, 
 Hung over the gothic chest, so rare also, and so worm-eaten. 
 
 Kenelm looked through half-closed Hps at the artist, and 
 his lips, before slightly curved with a secret scorn, became 
 gravely compressed. In Melville's struggle to conceal emo- 
 tion the strong man recognized a strong man — recognized, 
 and yet only wondered ; wondered how such a man, to whom 
 Lily had pledged her hand, could so soon after the loss of
 
 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 461 
 
 Lily go on painting pictures, and care for any praise be- 
 stowed on a yard of canv^as. 
 
 In a very few minutes Melville recommenced conversa- 
 tion — no more reference to Lily than if she had never ex- 
 isted. " Yes, my last picture has been indeed a success, a 
 reward complete, if tardy, for all the bitterness of former 
 struggles made in vain, for the galling sense of injustice, the 
 anguish of which only an artist knows, when unworthy 
 rivals are ranked before him. 
 
 'Foes quick to blame, and friends afraid to praise.' 
 
 True, that I have still much to encounter, the cliques still 
 seek to disparage me, but between me and the cliques there 
 stands at last the giant form of the public, and at last critics 
 of graver weight than the cliques have deigned to accord to 
 me a higher rank than even the public yet acknowledge. 
 Ah ! Mr. Chillingly, you do not profess to be a judge of 
 paintings, but, excuse me, just look at this letter. I received 
 it only last night from the greatest connoisseur of my art, 
 certainly in England, perhaps in Europe." Here Melville 
 drew, from the side pocket of his picturesque moyen age sur- 
 tout, a letter signed by a name authoritative to all who— be- 
 ing painters themselves — acknowledge authority in one who 
 co'uld no more paint a picture himself than Addison, the 
 ablest critic of the greatest poem modern Europe has pro- 
 duced, could have written ten lines of the Paradise Lost — 
 and thrust the letter into Kenelm's hand. Kenelm read it 
 listlessly, with an increased contempt for an artist who 
 could so find in gratified vanity consolation for the life gone 
 from earth. But, listlessly as he read the letter, the sincere 
 and fervent enthusiasm of the laudatory contents impressed 
 him, and the pre-eminent authority of the signature could 
 not be denied. 
 
 The letter was written on the occasion of Melville's re- 
 cent election to the dignity of R.A., successor to a very great 
 artist whose death had created a vacancy in the Academy. 
 He returned the letter to Melville, saying, '* This is the let- 
 ter I saw you reading last night as I looked in at your win- 
 dow. Indeed, for a man who cares for the opinion of other 
 men, this letter is very flattering ; and for the painter who 
 cares for money, it must be very pleasant to know by how 
 many guineas everv inch of his canvas may be covered." 
 Unable longer to control his passions of rage, of scorn, of 
 af^onizing grief, Kenelm then burst forth, "Man, Man, whom
 
 402 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 I once accepted us a tcaclicr on iiiiman life, a teacher to 
 \varm, to brighten, to exalt mine own indifferent, dreamy, 
 slow-pLdsed self ! has not the one woman whom thou didst 
 select out of this over-crowded world to be bone of thy bone, 
 flesh of thy flesh, vanished evermore from the earth — little 
 more than a year since her voice was silenced, her heart 
 ceased to beat ? But how slight is such loss to thy life, 
 compared to the worth of a compliment that flatters thy 
 vanity! " 
 
 The artist rose to his feet with an indignant impulse. 
 But the angry flush faded from his cheek as he looked on 
 the countenance of his rebuker. He walked up to him, and 
 attempted to take his hand, but Kenelm snatched it scorn- 
 fully from his grasp. 
 
 " Poor friend," said Melville, sadly and soothingly, " I 
 did not think you loved her thus deepl}-. Pardon me." He 
 drew a chair close to Kenelm's, and after a brief pause went 
 on thus, in very earnest tones : " I am not so hearties."^, not 
 so forgetful of my loss, as you suppose. But reflect, you 
 have but just learned of her death, you arc under the first 
 shock of grief. INIore than a year has been given to me for 
 gradual submission to the decree of Heaven. Now listen to 
 me, and try to listen calmly. I am many years older than 
 you, I ought to know better the conditions on which man 
 holds the tenure of life. Life is composite, many-sided, 
 nature does not permit it to be lastingly monopolized by a 
 single passion, or, while yet in the prime of its strength, to 
 be lastingly blighted by a single sorrow. Survey the great 
 mass of our common race, engaged in the various callings, 
 some the humblest, some the loftiest, by which the business 
 of the world is carried on, — can you justly despise as heart- 
 less the poor trader, or the great statesman, when, it may be 
 but a few days after the loss of some one nearest and dear- 
 est to his heart, the trader re-cjpens his shop, the statesman 
 reappears in his office ? But in me, the votary of art, in me 
 you behold but the weakness of gratified vanity — if I feel 
 joy in the hope that my art may triumph, and my country 
 may add my name to the list of tliose who contribute to her 
 renown — where and when ever lived an artist not sustained 
 by that hope, in privation, in sickness, in the sorrows he must 
 share with his kind ? Nor is this hope that of a feminine 
 vanity, a sicklier craving for applause : it identifies itself 
 with glorious services to our land, to our race, to the chil- 
 dren of all after-time. Our art cannot triumph, our name
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 463 
 
 cannot live, unless we achieve a something that tends to 
 beautify or ennoble the world in which we accept the com- 
 mon heritage of toil and of sorrow, in order, therefrom, to 
 work out for successive multitudes a recreation and a joy." 
 
 While the artist thus spoke, Kenelm lifted towards his 
 face eyes charged with suppressed tears. And the face, 
 kindling as the artist vindicated himself from the young 
 man's bitter charge, became touchingly sweet in its grave 
 expression at the close of the not ignoble defence. 
 
 "Encugii," said Kenelm, rising. ''There is a ring of 
 truth in what you say. I can conceive the artist's, the poet's, 
 escape from this world when all therein is death and winter, 
 into the world he creates and colors at his will with the hues 
 of summer. So, too, I can conceive how the man whose life 
 is sternly fitted into the grooves of a trader's calling, or a 
 statesman's duties, is borne on by the force of custom afar 
 from such brief halting-spot as a grave. But I am no poet, 
 no artist, no trader, no statesman ; I have no calling, my life 
 is fixed into no grooves. Adieu." 
 
 " Hold a moment. Not now, but somewhat later, ask 
 yourself whether any life can be permitted to wander in 
 space, a monad detached from the lives of others. Into 
 some groove or other, sooner or later, it must settle, and be 
 borne on obedient to the laws of nature and the responsibil- 
 ity to God." 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 Kenelm went back alone, and with downcast looks, 
 through the desolate flowerless garden, when at the other 
 side of the gate a light touch was laid on his arm. He look- 
 ed up, and recognized Mrs. Cameron. 
 
 " I saw you," she said, " from my window coming to the 
 house, and I have been waiting for you here. I wished to 
 speak to you alone. Allow me to walk beside you." 
 
 Kenelm inclined his head assentingly, but made no an- 
 swer. 
 
 They were nearly midway between the cottage and the 
 burial-ground when Mrs Cameron resumed, her tones quick 
 and agitated contrasting her habitual languid quietude : 
 
 " I have a great weight on my mind ; it ought not to be 
 remorse. I acted as I thought in my conscience for the
 
 464 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 best. But oil, Mr. Chillingly, if I erred — if I judged wrongly, 
 do say you at least forgive me." She seized his liand, press- 
 ing it convulsively. Kenelm muttered inaudibly — a sort of 
 dreary stupor had succeeded to the intense excitement of 
 grief. Mrs. Cameron went on : 
 
 "You could not have married Lily — you know you could 
 not. The secret of her birtli could not, in honor, have been 
 concealed from your parents. They could not have con- 
 sented to your marriage ; and even if you had persisted, 
 without that consent and in spite of that secret, to press 
 for it — even had she been yours " 
 
 " Might she not be living now ?" cried Kenelm, fiercely. 
 
 " No — no ; the secret nuist have come out. The cruel 
 world would have discovered it ; it would have reached her 
 ears. The shame of it would have killed her. How bitter 
 then would have been her short interval of life ! As it is, 
 she passed away — resigned and happy. But I own that I 
 did not, could not, understand her, could not believe her 
 feelings for you to be so deep. I did think that, when 
 she knew her own heart, she would find that love for her 
 guardian was its strongest afifeccion. She assented, appar- 
 ently without a pang, to become his wife ; and she seemed 
 always so fond of him, and what girl would not be ? But I 
 was mistaken — deceived. P'rom the day you saw her last, 
 she began to fade away ; but then Walter left a few days 
 after, and I thought that it was his absence she mourned. 
 She never owned to me that it was yours — never till too late 
 — too late— just when my sad letter had summoned him back 
 only three days before she died. Had I known earlier, while 
 yet there was hope of recovery, I must have written to you, 
 even though the obstacles to your union with her remained 
 the same. Oli, again I implore you, sav that if I erred you 
 forgive me. She did, kissing me so tenderly. She did forgive 
 me. Will not you ? It would have been her wish." 
 
 " Her wish ? Do you think I could disobey it? I know 
 not if I have anything to forgive. If I have, how could I 
 not forgive one who loved her ? God comfort us both ! ". 
 
 He bent down and kissed Mrs. Cameron's forehead. The 
 poor woman threw her arms gratefully, lovingly round him, 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 When she had recovered her emotion, she said : 
 
 "And now, it is with so much lighter a heart that I 
 can fulfil her commission to you. But, before I place this 
 in your liands, can you make me one promise? Never tell
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 465 
 
 Melville how she loved you. She was so careful he should 
 never guess that. And if he knew it was the thought 
 of union with him which had killed her, he would never 
 smile again." 
 
 "You would not ask such a promise if you could guess 
 how sacred from all the world I hold that secret that you 
 confide to me. By that secret the grave is changed into an 
 altar. Our bridals now are only awhile deferred." 
 
 Mrs. Cameron placed a letter in Kenelm's hand, and, 
 murmuring in accents broken by a sob, " She gave it to me 
 the day before her last," left him, and with quick vacillat- 
 ing steps hurried back towards the cottage. She now un- 
 derstood hi?n, at last, too well not to feel that on opening 
 that letter he must be alone with the dead. 
 
 It is strange that we need have so little practical house- 
 hold knowledge of each other to be in love. Never till then 
 had Kenelm's eyes rested upon Lily's handwriting. And 
 he now gazed at the formal address on the envelope with a 
 sort of awe. Unknown handwriting coming to him from 
 an unknown world — delicate, tremulous handwriting — liand- 
 Avriting not of one grown up, yet not of a child who had long 
 to live. 
 
 He turned the envelope over and over — not impatiently 
 as does the lover whose heart beats at the sound of the ap- 
 proaching footstep, but lingeringly, timidly. He would not 
 break the seal. 
 
 He was now so near the burial-ground. Where should 
 the first letter ever received from her — the sole letter he ever 
 could receive — be so reverentially, lovingly read, as at her 
 grave ? 
 
 He walked on to the burial-ground, sat down by the grave, 
 broke the envelope ; a poor little ring, with a poor little 
 single turquoise, rolled out and rested at his feet. The let- 
 ter contained only these words : 
 
 " The ring comes back to you. I could not live to marry another. I 
 never knew howr I loved you — till, till I began to pray that you might not 
 love me too much. Darling ! darling ! good-bye, darling ! 
 
 "Lily. 
 
 " Don't let Lion ever see this, or ever Tcnow what it says to you. He is 
 so good, and deserves to be so happy. Do you remember the day of the ring ? 
 Darling ! darling ! " 
 
 20*
 
 466 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Somewhat more than another year has rolled away. It is 
 early spring in London. The trees in the parks and squares 
 are budding into leaf and blossom. Leopold Travers has 
 had a brief but serious conversation with his daughter, and 
 is now gone forth on horseback. Handsome and graceful 
 still, Leopold Travers when in London is pleased to find 
 himself scarcely less the fashion with the young than he 
 was when himself in youth. He is now riding along the 
 banks of the Serpentine, no one better mounted, better 
 dressed, better looking, or talking with greater iluency on 
 the topics which interest his companions. 
 
 Cecilia is in the smaller drawing-room; which is e:<clus- 
 ively appropriated to her use — alone Avith Lady Glenalvon. 
 Lady Glenalvon. — "I own, my dear, dear Cecilia, that 
 I range myself at last on the side of your father. How 
 earnestly at one time I had hoped that Kenelm Chillingly 
 might woo and win the bride that seemed to me most fitted 
 to adorn and to cheer his life, I need not say. But when at 
 Exmundham he asked me to befriend his choice of another, 
 to reconcile his mother to that choice, — evidently not a 
 suitable one, — I gave him up. And though that affair is at 
 an end, he seems little likely ever to settle down to practi- 
 cal duties and domestic habits, an idle wanderer over the 
 face of the earth, only heard of in remote places and with 
 strange companions. Perhaps he may never return to 
 England." 
 
 Cecilia. — "He is in England now, and in London." 
 
 Lady Glenalvon. — " You amaze me ! Who told you 
 so?" 
 
 Cecilia. — " His father, who is with him. Sir Peter called 
 yesterday, and spoke to me so kindly." Cecilia here turned 
 aside her face to conceal the tears that had started to her 
 eyes. 
 
 Lady Glenalvon. — " Did Mr. Travers see Sir Peter ? " 
 
 Cecilia. — "Yes ; and I think it was something that passed 
 between them which made my father speak to me — for the 
 first time — almost sternly." 
 
 Lady Glenalvon. — " In urging Gordon Chillingly's 
 suit?"
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 467 
 
 Cecilia. —"Commanding me to reconsider my rejection 
 of it. He has contrived to fascinate my father." 
 
 Lady Glenalvon. — " So he has me. Of course you might 
 choose among other candidates for your hand one of much 
 higher wordly rank, of much larger fortune ; yet, as you 
 have already rejected them, Gordon's merits become still 
 more entitled to a fair hearing. He has already leapt into 
 a position that mere rank and mere wealth cannot attain. 
 Men of all parties speak highly of his parliamentary abilities. 
 He is already marked in public opinion as a coming man 
 — a future minister of the highest grade. He has youth and 
 good looks, his moral character is without a blemish, yet 
 his manners are so free from affected austerity, so frank, so 
 genial. Any woman might be pleased with his companion- 
 ship ; and you, with your intellect, your culture ; you, so 
 born for high station ; you of all women might be proud to 
 partake the anxieties of his career and the rewards of his 
 ambition." 
 
 Cecilia (clasping her hands tightly together). — " I can- 
 not, I cannot. He may be all you say— I know nothing 
 against Mr. Chillingly Gordon — but my whole nature is an- 
 tagonistic to his ; and even were it not so " 
 
 She stopped abruptly, a deep blush warming up her fair 
 face, and retreating to leave it coldly pale. 
 
 Lady Glenalvon (tenderly kissing her). — "You have 
 not, then, even yet conquered the first maiden fancy ; the 
 ungrateful one is still remembered?" 
 
 Cecilia bowed her head on her friend's breast, and mur- 
 mured imploringly, " Don't speak against him, he has been 
 so unhappy. How much he must have loved ! " 
 
 " But it is not you whom he loved." 
 
 " Something here, something at my heart, tells mc that 
 he will love me yet ; and if not, I am contented to be hi's 
 friend." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 While the conversation just related took place between 
 Cecilia and Lady Glenalvon, Gordon Chillingly was seated 
 alone with Mivers in the comfortable apartment of the cyn- 
 ical old bachelor. Gordon had breakfasted with his kins- 
 man, but that meal was long over ; the two men having found
 
 468 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 much to talk about on matters very interesting to the younger, 
 nor without interest to the elder one. 
 
 It is true that Chillingly Gordon had, within the very 
 short space of time that had elapsed since his entrance into 
 the House of Commons, achieved one of those reputations 
 which mark out a man for early admission into the progres- 
 sive career of office — not a very showy reputation, but a very 
 solid one. He had none of the gifts of the genuine orator, 
 no enthusiasm, no imagination, no imprudent bursts of fiery 
 words from a passionate heart. But he had all the gifts of 
 an exceedingly telling speaker — a clear, metallic voice ; well- 
 bred, appropriate action, not less dignified for being some- 
 what too quiet ; readiness for extempore replies ; industry 
 and method for prepared expositions of principle or fact. 
 But his principal merit with the chiefs of the assembly was 
 in the strong good sense and worldly tact which made him 
 a safe speaker. For this merit he was largely indebted to 
 his frequent conferences with Chillingly Mivers. That gen- 
 tleman, owing to his social qualities or to the influence of 
 "The Londoner" on public opinion, enjoyed an intimate 
 acquaintance with the chiefs of all parties, and was up to his 
 ears in the wisdom of the world. " Nothing," he would say, 
 "hurts a young Parliamentary speaker like violence in opin- 
 ion, one way or the other. Shun it. Always allow that 
 much may be said on both sides. When the chiefs of your 
 own side suddenly adopt a violence, you can go Aviih them 
 or against them, according as best suits your own book." 
 
 "So," said Mivers, reclined on his sofa, and approaching 
 the end of his second trabuco (he never allowed himself 
 more than two), "so I think we have pretty well settled the 
 tone you must take in your speech to-night. It is a great 
 occasion." 
 
 " True. It is \\\c fint time in which the debate has been 
 arranged so that I may speak at ten o'clock or later. That 
 in itself is a great leap ; and it is a Cabinet minister whom 
 I am to answer — luckily, he is a very dull fellows Do you 
 think I might hazard a joke— at least a witticism ?" 
 
 "At his expense? Decidedly not. Though his office 
 compels him to introduce this measure, he was by no means 
 in its favor when it was discussed in the Cabinet ; and though, 
 as you say, he is dull, it is precisely that sort of dullness 
 which is essential to the formation of every respectable Cabi- 
 net. Joke at ///;«, indeed ! Learn that gentle dullness never 
 loves a joke — at its own expense. Vain man ! seize the oc-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 469 
 
 casion which your blame of his measure affords you to secure 
 his praise of yourself ; compliment him. Enough of poli- 
 tics. It never does to think too much over what one has 
 already decided to say. Brooding over it, one may become 
 too much in earnest, and commit an indiscretion. So Kenelm 
 has come back ? " 
 
 "Yes. I heard that news last night, at White's, from 
 Travers. Sir Peter had called on Travers." 
 
 " Travers still favors your suit to the heiress ? " 
 
 " More, I think, than ever. Success in Parliament has 
 great effect on a man who has success in fashion and respects 
 the opinion of clubs. But last night he was unusually cor- 
 dial. Between you and me, I think he is a little afraid that 
 Kenelm may yet be my rival. I gathered that from a hint 
 he let fall of the unwelcome nature of Sir Peter's talk to 
 him." 
 
 " Why has Travers conceived a dislike to poor Kenelm ? 
 He seemed partial enough to him once." 
 
 "Ay, but not as a son-in-law, even before I had a chance 
 of becoming so. And when, after Kenelm appeared at Ex- 
 mundham while Travers was staying there, Travers learned, 
 I suppose from Lady Chillingly, that Kenelm had fallen in 
 love with and wanted to marry some other girl, who it seems 
 rejected him, and still more when he heard that Kenelm had 
 been subsequently travelling on the Continent in company 
 with a low-lived fellow, the drunken, riotovis son of a farrier, 
 you may well conceive how so polished and sensible a man as 
 Leopold Travers would dislike the idea of giving his daughter 
 to one so little likely to make an agreeable son-in-law. Bah ! 
 I have no fear of Kenelm. By the way, did Sir Peter say if 
 Kenelm had quite recovered his health ? He was at death's 
 door some eighteen months ago, when Sir Peter and Lady 
 Chillingly were summoned to town by the doctors." 
 
 " My dear Gordon, I fear there is no chance of your suc- 
 cession to Exmundham. Sir Peter says that his wandering 
 Hercules is as stalwart as ever, and more equable in tempera- 
 ment, more taciturn and grave— in short, less odd. But when 
 you say you have no fear of Kenelm's rivalry, do you mean 
 only as Cecilia Travers ? " 
 
 " Neither as to that nor as to anything in life ; and as to 
 the succession to Exmundham, it is his to leave as he pleases, 
 and I have cause to think he would never leave- it tome. 
 More likely to Parson John or the parson's son — or why not 
 to yourself? I often think that for the prizes immediately
 
 470 KEN ELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 set before my ambition I am better off without land : land is 
 a great obfuscator." 
 
 " Humph, there is some truth in that. Yet the fear of 
 land and obfuscation does not seem to operate against your 
 suit to Cecilia Travers ? " 
 
 " Her father is likely enough to live till I maybe con- 
 tented to ' rest and be thankful ' in the upper house ; and I 
 should not like to be a landless peer." 
 
 "You are right there ; but I should tell you that, now 
 Kenclm has come back, Sir Peter has set his heart on his 
 son's being your rival." 
 
 "For Cecilia?" 
 
 " Perhaps ; but certainly for Parliamentary reputation. 
 The senior member for tlie county means to retire, and Sir 
 Peter has been urged to allow his son to he brought forward 
 — from what I hear, with the certainty of success." 
 
 "What ! in spite of that wonderful speech of his on com- 
 ing of age ?" 
 
 " Pooh ! that is now understood to have been but a bad 
 joke on the new ideas and their organs, including ' The 
 Londoner.' But if Kenelm does come into the House, it will 
 not be on your side of the question ; and unless I greatly 
 overrate his abilities — which very likely I do — he will not be 
 a rival to despise. Except, indeed, that he may have one 
 fault which in the present day would be enough to unfit him 
 for public life." 
 
 " And what is that fault ? " 
 
 " Treason to the blood of the Chillinglys. This is the age, 
 in England, when one cannot be too much of a Chillingly. I 
 fear that if Kenelm does become bewildered by a political 
 abstraction— call it no matter what, say, ' love of his coun- 
 try,' or some such old-fashioned crotchet — I fear — I greatly 
 fear — that he may be — in earnest." 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST. 
 
 It was a field night in the House of Commons — an ad- 
 journed debate, opened by George Belvoir, who had been, 
 the last two years, very slowly creeping on in the favor, or 
 ratiier the indulgence, of the House, and more than justify- 
 ing Kenelm's prediction of his career. Heir to a noble
 
 KEN-ELM CHILLINGLY. 471 
 
 name and vast estates, extremely hard-working, very well in- 
 formed, it was impossible that he should not creep on. That 
 night he spoke sensibly enough, assisting his memory by 
 frequent references to his notes ; listened to courteously, and 
 greeted with a faint " Hear ! hear ! " of relief when he had 
 done. 
 
 Then the House gradually thinned till nine o'clock, at 
 which hour it became very rapidly crowded. A Cabinet min- 
 ister had solemnly risen, deposited on the table before him a 
 formidable array of printed papers, including a corpulent 
 blue book. Leaning his arm on the red box, he commenced 
 with this awe-compelling sentence : 
 
 " Sir, — I join issue with the right honorable gentleman 
 opposite. He says this is not raised as a party question. I 
 deny it. Her Majesty's Government are put upon their trial." 
 
 Here there were cheers, so loud, and so rarely greeting a 
 speech from that Cabinet minister, that he was put out, and 
 had much to " hum " and to " ha," before he could recover 
 the thread of his speech. Then he went on, with unbroken 
 but lethargic fluency; read long extracts from the public 
 papers, inflicted a whole page from the blue book, wound up 
 with a peroration of respectable platitudes, glanced at the 
 clock, saw that he had completed the hour which a Cabinet 
 minister who does not profess to be oratorical is expected to 
 speak, but not to exceed, and sat down. 
 
 Up rose a crowd of eager faces, from which the Speaker, 
 as previously arranged with the party whips, selected one — 
 a young face, hardy, intelligent, emotionless. 
 
 I need not say that it was the face of Chillingly Gordon. 
 
 His position that night was one that required dexterous 
 management and delicate tact. He habitually supported the 
 Government ; his speeches had been hitherto in their favor. 
 On this occasion he differed from the Government. The 
 difference was known to the chiefs of the opposition, and 
 hence the arrangement of the whips, that he should speak 
 for the first time after ten o'clock, and for the first time in 
 reply to a Cabinet minister. It is a position in which a 
 young party man makes or mars his future. Chillingly 
 Gordon spoke from the third row behind the Government ; 
 he had been duly cautioned by Mivers not to affect a con- 
 ceited independence, or an adhesion to " violence " in ultra- 
 liberal opinions, by seating himself below the gangway. 
 Speaking thus amid the rank and file of the Ministerial sup- 
 porters, any opinion at variance with the mouth-pieces of the
 
 472 
 
 KENELM Clf/LLIXGL V. 
 
 Treasury bench would be sure to produce a more effective 
 sensation than if delivered from the ranks of the mutinous 
 Baslii Bazouks divided by the gangway from better dis- 
 ciplined forces. His first brief sentences enthralled the 
 House, conciliated the Ministerial side, kept the opposition 
 side in suspense. The whole speech was, indeed, felicit- 
 ously adroit, and especially in this, that while in opposition 
 to the Government as a whole, it expressed the opinions of 
 a powerful section of the Cabinet, which though at present 
 a minority, vet, being the most enamored of a New Idea, the 
 progress of the age would probably render a safe investment 
 for the confidence which honest Gordon reposed in its 
 chance of beating its colleagues. 
 
 It was not, however, till Gordon had concluded, that the 
 cheers of his audience — impulsive and hearty as are the 
 cheers of that assembly when the evidence of intellect is un- 
 mistakable — made manifest to the Gallery and the reporters 
 the full effect of the speech he had delivered. The chief of 
 the opposition whispered to his next neighbor, " I wish we 
 could get that man." The Cabinet minister whom Gordon 
 had answered — more pleased with a]~)ersonal compliment to 
 himself than displeased with an attack on the measure his 
 office had compelled him to advocate — whispered to his chief, 
 " That is a man we must not lose." 
 
 Two gentlemen in the Speaker's gallery, who had sat 
 there from the opening of the debate, now quitted their 
 places. Coming into the lobby, they found themselves com- 
 mingled with a crowd of members who had also quitted their 
 seats, after Gordon's speech, in order to discuss its merits, 
 as they gathered round the refreshment-table for oranges or 
 soda-water. Among them was George Belvoir, who on 
 sight of the younger of the two gentlemen issuing from the 
 Speaker's gallery, accosted him with friendly greeting : 
 
 " Ha ! Chillingly, how are you ? Did not know you were 
 in town. Been here all the evening? Yes ; very good de- 
 bate. How did you like Gordon's speech ?" 
 
 " I liked yours much better." 
 
 "Mine '."'cried George, very much flattered and very 
 much surprised. "Oh ! mine was a mere humdrum nffair, 
 a plain statement of the reasons for the vote I should give. 
 And Gordon's was anything but that. You did not like his 
 opinions ? " 
 
 " I don't know what his opinions are. But I did not like 
 his ideas."
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 473 
 
 " I don't quite understand you. What ideas?" 
 
 " The new ones ; by which it is shown how rapidly a 
 great State can be made small." 
 
 Here Mr. Belvoir was taken aside by a brother member, 
 on an important matter to be brought before the committee 
 on salmon-fisheries, on which they both served ; and Ken- 
 elm, with his companion, Sir Peter, threadedhis way through 
 the crowded lobby, and disappeared. Emerging into the 
 broad space, with its lofty clock-tower, Sir Peter halted, and, 
 pointing towards the old Abbey, half in shadow, half in 
 light, under the tranquil moonbeams, said : 
 
 " It tells much for the duration of a people, when it ac- 
 cords with the instinct of immortality in a man ; when an 
 honored tomb is deemed recompense for the toils and dan- 
 gers of a noble life. How much of the history of England 
 Nelson summed up in the simple words, ' Victory or West- 
 minster Abbey ! ' " 
 
 "Admirably expressed, my dear father," said Kenelm, 
 briefly. 
 
 " I agree with your remark, which I overheard, on Gor- 
 don's speech," resumed Sir Peter. " It was wonderfully 
 clever ; yet I should have been very sorry to hear you speak 
 it. It is notbv such sentiments that Nelsons become great. 
 If such sentiments should ever become national, the cry will 
 not be ' Victory or Westminster Abbey ! ' but ' Defeat and 
 the Three per Cents ! ' " 
 
 Pleased with his own unwonted animation, and with the 
 sympathizing half-smile on his son's taciturn lips. Sir Peter 
 then proceeded more immediately to the subjects which 
 pressed upon his heart. Gordon's success in Parliament, 
 Gordon's suit to Cecilia Travers, favored, as Sir Peter had 
 learned, by her father, rejected as yet by herself, were some- 
 how inseparably mixed up in Sir Peter's mind and his words, 
 as he sought to kindle his son's emulation. He dwelt on 
 the obligations which a country imposed on its citizens, es- 
 pecially on the young and vigorous generation to which the 
 destinies of those to follow were intrusted ; and with these 
 stern obligations he combined all the cheering and tender 
 associations which an English public man connects with an 
 English home : the wife with a smile to soothe the cares, and a 
 mind to share the aspirations, of a life that must go through 
 labor to achieve renown ; thus, in all he said, binding together, 
 as if they could not be disparted, Ambition and Cecilia. 
 
 His son did not interrupt him by a word : Sir Peter in
 
 474 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 
 
 his eagerness not noticing that Kenelm had drawn him aside 
 from the direct thorouglifare, and liad now made halt in the 
 middle of Westminster Bridge, bending over the massive 
 parapet and gazing abstractedly xipon the waves of the star- 
 lit river. On the right the stately length of the people's 
 legislative palace, so new in its date, so elaborately in each 
 detail ancient in its form, stretching on towards the lowly 
 and jagged roofs of penury and crime, Well might these 
 be so near to the halls of a people's legislative palace ; — 
 near to the heart of every legislator for a people must be 
 the mighty problem how to increase a people's splendor 
 and its virtue, and how to diminish its penury and its crime. 
 
 " How strange it is," said Kenelm, still bending over the 
 parapet, " that throughout all my desultory wanderings I 
 . have ever been attracted towards the sight and the sound 
 of running waters, even those of the humblest rill ! Of what 
 thoughts, of what dreams, of what memories, coloring i.he 
 history of my past, the waves of the humblest rill could 
 speak, were the waves themselves not such supreme phil- 
 osophers — roused indeed on their surface, vexed by a check 
 to their own course, but so indifferent to all that makes 
 gloom or death to the mortals who think and dream and feel 
 beside their banks." 
 
 " Bless me," said Sir Peter to himself, "the boy has got 
 back to his old vein of humors and melancholies. He has 
 not heard a word I have been saying. Travers is right. 
 He Avill never do anything in life. Why did I christen him 
 Kenelm? he might as well have been christened Peter." 
 Still, loath to own that his eloquence had been expended in 
 vain, and that the wish of his heart was doomed to expire 
 disappointed. Sir Peter said aloud, "You have not listened 
 to what 1 said ; Kenelm, you grieve me." 
 
 " Grieve you ! you ! do not say that, father, dear father. 
 Listen to you ! Every word you have said has simk into 
 the deepest deep of my heart. Pardon my foolish purpose- 
 less snatch of talk to myself : it is but my way, only my 
 way, dear father ! " 
 
 " Boy, boy," cried Sir Peter, with tears in his voice, " if 
 you could get out of those odd ways of yours I should be so 
 thankful. But if you cannot, nothing yon can do shall 
 grieve me. Only, let me say this : running waters have had 
 a great charm for you. With a humble rill you associate 
 thoughts, dreams, memories in your past. But now you 
 halt by the stream of the mighty river — befoi'e you the sen-
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY. 475 
 
 ate of an empire wider than Alexander's, behind you the 
 market of a commerce to which that of Tyre was a pitiful 
 trade. Look farther down, those squalid hovels, how much 
 there to redeem or to remedy ; and out of sight, but not 
 very distant, the nation's Walhalla : ' Victory or Westminster 
 Abbey ! ' The humble rill has witnessed your past. Has 
 the mighty river no effect on your future ? The rill keeps 
 no record of your past, shall the river keep no record of 
 your future ? Ah, boy, boy, I see you are dreaming still — 
 no use talking. Let us go home." 
 
 " I was not dreaming ; I was telling myself that the time 
 had come to replace the old Kenelm with the new ideas, by a 
 new Kenelm with the Ideas of Old. Ah ! perhaps we must 
 — at whatever cost to ourselves, — we must go through the 
 romance of life before we clearly detect what is grand in its 
 realities. I can no longer lament that I stand estranged 
 from the objects and pursuits of my race. I have learned 
 how much I have with them in common. I have known 
 love ; I have known sorrow." 
 
 Kenelm paused a moment, only a moment, then lifted 
 the head which, during that pause, had drooped, and stood 
 erect at the full height of his stature ; startling his father 
 by the change that had passed over his face ; lip — eye — his 
 whole aspect eloquent with a resolute enthusiasm, too grave 
 to be the flash of a passing moment., 
 
 "Ay, ay," he said, "Victory or Westminster Abbey! 
 The world is a battle-field in which the worst wounded are 
 the deserters, stricken as they seek to fly, and hushing the 
 groans that would betray the secret of their inglorious hidr- 
 ing-place. The pains of wounds received in the thick of the 
 fight is scarcely felt in the joy of service to some honored 
 cause, and is amply atoned by the reverence for noble scars. 
 My choice is made. Not that of deserter, that of soldier in 
 the ranks." 
 
 " It will not be long before you rise from the ranks, my 
 boy, if you hold fast to the Idea of Old, symbolized in the 
 English battle-cry : ' Victory or Westminster Abbey.' " 
 
 So saying, Sir Peter took his son's arm, leaning on it 
 proudly : and so, into the crowded thoroughfares, from the 
 halting-place on the modern bridge that spans the legendary 
 river, passes the Man of the Young Generation to fates be- 
 yond the verge of the horizon to wliich the eyes of my gene^ 
 ration must limit their wistful gaze. 
 
 THE END.
 
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