1-'/^.:r-:i^ih*jk:^ UCSB HBRARY ^b'iiO^TisriiEfriEo <^ ^^^ A T A L t ^ P BTMAMY MO^WITT ^>^^ WHO SHALL BE GREATEST! BY MARY HOWITT, ATTTBOIt OF '• STRIVE AND THBIVl." " HO?E ON ' HOPE BVEB ! " eOWINO AND BEaPINO," ETC. ETC NEW-YORK: APPLETON & COMPANY, 443 & 445 BROADWAY. IS 63. WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? CHAPTER I. T"WO OF MISS WYNDHAm's YOUNG LADIES. Gloucester, Dec. 29th, 179 — My adorable Elvira — I am sure you will giie me credit for all the delight I feel in leaving " Misa Wyndham's Establishment for Young Ladies." I dism.iss all thoughts of school and its annoyances for ever ! Madame and her French exercises, Monsieur Pirouette and his chasse, thank Heaven, I have heard the last of them ! Oh, how I pity you, that have twelve months of endurance yet before you ! Poor little soul ! I can see you, in my mind's eye, frowning defiance to all the horrid creatures ! But, my dearest Elvira, do not be utterly miserable. Time flies fast. Only think! it is but six months, this very day, since we had the supreme happiness of meeting — of forming that friendship which will be enduring as the stars! Oh, my sweet friend, think not that in absence your Miranda can forget you. Your beloved image is ever present with me. I dream of you by night, and think of you by day ; and, though I am released from the hateful rule of Wyndham 2 TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM S YOUNG LADIES. House, I am but half myself, for my heart remaim with you! There is no one here that can understand me. You, and you only, my Elvira, penetrated the recesses of my heart, and did me justice! Oh tlie sweet moonlight walks on the flags, when out fond souls commingled, and poured out their eternal vows! Do you not remember them? No« my Elvira, you have not forgotten those sweet times] And one night, of all others to be remembered, has registered itself in my heart's core; you remember it too! — there was a nightingale in Mr. Smith's chestnut at the moment, the sweet Philo- mela — you have not forgotten it! Oh, pardan me for hinting of such treason — to forget is impos- sible ! For oh, how vast a memory has love ! There is to be an Infirmary Ball next month, and the Misses Curtis, my cousins, about whom I told you that odd story about the calamanco petti- coat, are to come out of the country to go wuth us ; my father insisted upon it, or I should never have proposed it, for they are a couple of complete frights, and dress so ill. I have not decided whether to go in pink or lemon-colour. I have a lemon-cqloured chambray, which my godmother gave me — a very sweet thing, and it is divinely made ; and I have a pink silk slip ; but lemon-colour, you know, is a bad candle-light colour, and I have worn my pink slip, so I am quite undetermined ; I want the benefit of your sweet taste. Pray write by the return of post, and give my love to Anne Ward. Poor thing ! how good-natured she is ! Do you know, I called at her uncle's before we left the TWO OF KISS WYNDHAM S YOUNG LADIES. 9 town, for we were an hour too soon for the coach, and she took me into her bed-room. I do believe they are poor ; they have only one litUe back par- lour, quite small and mean, and only one servani — quite a scrub of a girl — although, I must say, she was much neater than one might have ex- pected, and very civil and obliging to me. I am sure that chain of Anne Ward's is not gold, from something I saw: but I forget what I am doing ; for this letter, of course, goes to her care; but then, I think she would scorn to do a dishonourable action : and, after all, I should not care if she saw every word I have written. I always speak my mind, you know ; 1 am open as the day, and I love Anne Ward. I foresee that she and you, my sweet friend, will be consolation to each other. Anne Ward and I were very near being dear friends, if you had not come. Sister of my soul, we should have been so ; but Anne Ward would never have been all that the amiable Elvira is, to her devoted and attached -.r Miranda. P.S. — I have bought a locket to put your sweet hair in; I shall wear it next mji- heart. Where you are, I ever will be. Adieu ! Such was the letter which Sarah Gibson ad- dressed to her friend, Rebecca Wells, the week after their sorrowful parting in the school-room of " Miss Wyndham's Establishment for Young Ladies," when, with weeping sensibility, they pro- tested that they never should be happy till they met again. Sarah Gibson, otherwise '* Miranda," was the 4 TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM S YOUNG LADIES. daughter of a wealthy grocer in the city of Glou« cester. Her mother, an excellent and sensible woman, died in her infancy. A distant relation, a most precipe person as to dress and demeanour, the very pink of housewives, as far as methodical routine and the sharp managjement of servants went, supplied, after Mrs. Gibson's death, her place as female head of the family. Cousin Judith, for so she was called, was spoken of by all her acquaintance as an inimitable woman ; so exact in her housekeeping; so rigid a discipli- narian of servants ; so never-failing in her attend- ance on Wednesday morning prayers, and three services on the Sunday ! She was, every body said, a good woman ; and so she believed herself, thinking, as every body thought, that it was for- tunate for Mr. Gibson to have such a relative at his service. In one thing, however. Cousin Judith failed — she had no skill in the management of the child ; this was the part of her cousin's establish- ment in which she professed no interest. It is true, that the little girl was well fed, and well clothed — that came into the general house-keeping ; but the forming her mind and manners was left to fate. Little Sarah Gibson ran wild about the house ; she sate upon the kitchen dresser, of a morning, to watch the cook ; or, with her hair powdered with dust, helped the housemaid to make the beds; or, which was best of all, played behind the counter with shopmen and apprentices, and rode down into the lower warehouses in the empty crane rope, until ordered into the house by her father, who wondered, good, easy man, " what all tho TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM S YOUNG LADIES. ft women could be about, that they did not look after the child." Cousin Judith, on such occasions, never failed to cuff her ears and send her to the housemaid to have her hands and face washed, and a clean pinafore put on; remarking, that " it really was one person's work to look after her."' In process of time she went to a day-school; learned to read and write and cypher : (the church catechism she had been taught by cousin Judith,) to work a sampler, and to do plain sewing, which included button-hole-stitch, back-stitching, and change-stitch; and in twelve months made her father four shirts. In the course of the next three years she worked a hearth-rug, in which was a hen and chickens ; two foot-stools' — they were not called ottomans in those days; two pair of kettle-holders, and the parting of Tippoo Saib an'l his children, in embroidery of bright-coloured silks upon white satin; which was duly framed and glazed, and hung up in the parlour at home. Her works were manifold, and Cousin Judith declared that she bade fair to be a very accomplished and well-behaved young lady, quite a credit to them all. By this time, of course, she had left off playing with the shopmen, or riding in the crane-rope. She began to eschcM' the shop, and made her entries and exits invariably by the street-door. She was now thirteen, and full of budding sensi- bilities and gentilities. She had read all the love stories in a long series of the Ladies' Magazine ; which, with Ready-Reckoners, old Dictionaries, and Almanacs, well-worn Cookery Books, two Bibles and three Prayer Books, covered with green baize, filled the shelves of the book-case at home. O TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM S YOUNG LADIE9. A new world was opened; Sarah grew romantic and sentimental, carried her head on one side, wor^ long ringlets, and sighed deeply and often. But as, with all this, she contrived to keep out of every- body's way — either in her own chamber, or in a little wooden booth, otherwise alcove, which, in for- mer years, had been pea-green, but now was drab with age, which stood in a corner of the quadrangle behind the warehouses, misnamed the garden, where she undisturbedly read her favourite litera- ture — nobody within thought about her, or con- cerned themselves with her occupation. Or, if she were spoken of, it was with commendation ; she was so improved, gave so little trouble, and was so fond of reading, said Cousin Judith; and her father was too busy with his worldly affairs to think of inquiring what she read, or whence came the books, seeing there were so few at home. All seemed to be going on quite right; and Sarah, in the meantime, had read every book she could borrow, either from servant, shopman, or school- fellow, and was growing rather tall and good- looking, and had began to think it vulgar to be a grocer's daughter, and to wish the family name had been Belville, or Melville, or Seymour, or Belmont, or anything more interesting than the common name of Gibson. Of course^ no girl's education could be complete who had not been to a boarding-school, and Cousin Judith was desired by Mr. Gibson to inquire among her acquaintance for a finishing school, where Sarah might be placed for a year, and thus gain that polish which, staying at home, she coifld not be expected to acquire. TWO OF MISS WYKDHAM S YOUNG LADIES. ? Cousin Judith failed not to make inquiries; and the *' Estahlishment for Young Ladies" at Wyndham House, being the largest, and most expensive, and the farthest off — for people always think best of those schools of which they have the least means of gaining correct information — Wyndham House was accordingly selected. No young lady ever entered Miss Wyndham's Establishment better provided with wardrobe, money, and all extras, than Miss Gibson. Cousin Judith took her in a post-chaise ; and, as she herself wore a rich silk dress, a well-furred cloak and velvet hat, and ensconced her arms up to the elbows in an expensive muff, and altogether assumed a very dignified air. Miss Wyndham and all her establishment paid her the profoundest respect, and received the new pupil from her hands as if she had been an angel come from heaven. Sarah Gibson professed herself wretched at school; she had to begin French; to learn to dance ; to learn to play upon two or three instru- ments ; and she looked back to the idle days spent in the old alcove, over the beloved romances, with a regret that refused to be allayed. She declared herself " the most -vvTetched of created beings;" she was sure twelve months at Wyndham House would kill her ! She even wished she were dead — thought of a sharp pen -knife, or a leap into a well, and worked herself into an agony of weeping, in the thought of the newspaper paragraph, and the elegy in the *' poet's corner," on " the death of an unfortunate young lady aged fifteen." But grief did not kill her; and, at the close of the first half year, when she returned home, spite of all her protesta- 8 TWO OF MISS WYNDHAm's YOUNG LADIES. tions about her school miseries, her father, seconded by Cousin Judith, was arbitrary as to her return. Before tlie close of the twelve months, j\Iiss Wynd- ham had solicited, by letter, a second term of twelve months, assuring her father, and excellent Mrs. Judith, that she was her favourite pupil, and was making such astonishing progress in her studies, that it would be a pity to interrupt them. Mr. Gibson gave consent; and, to Sarah's chagrin, she was returned to Wyndham House for another twelve months. But she took with her means of defence against the annoyances of the place. She furnished herself with all the love- histories, dream-books, valentine- writers, books of fate, and affecting narratives of unhappy wives, and maidens crossed in love — some stitched in paper covers, and others bound volumes; some borrowed, and some bought; which were stowed in the bottom of her play-box, into which the prying eyes of i\Iiss Wyndham, nor even the teacher, could enter. With the help of these, Sarah got through the first half-year. Similarly provided, she returned to school for the last term ; but fate had great things in store for her — the pleasures and solacements of friendship — the union of a sister-mind, as she herself would have said. Rebecca Wells, the "Elvira" of our opening epistle, was a new boarder, who came to school three days before Sarah Gibson's return for the last half-year; and, according to these young ladies, " their souls melted into one at the first moment." Rebecca was not less sentimental than her new friend ; but in some respects she was TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM S YOUNG LADIES. 9 rather different. She was fhe eldest child of a large family, whose mother had lately married a second husband. They lived in that part of York- shire called Craven, and the step-father was a large grazier — " a well-to-do man," hut of rough nature, who thought his wife, spite of her seven children, " the very jewel of womankind — the cleverest woman in the universe." " Why, she could keep his books better than he could; nothing was above her hand; she had even judgment in fat cattle!" Such was Mr. Hackett's protestation respecting his new wife. She was, emphatically, "a manager;" she had been so all her days ; and, so admirably had things prospered under her luind, that during the life-time of Mr. Wells, her first husband, Mr. Hackett, her second, declared he was keeping himself single for her sake. Rebecca, the eldest of Mrs. Wells's seven children, was, at the time of her mother's second marriage, in her fifteenth year. Her youth had been one of hardship and drudgery; not that her mother had treated her- with cruelty, or stinted her in food, or been niggard of clothing ; but she was of a hard screwing nature: work was the object of life, in her eyes, and management was genius. It was wonderful what an amount of work she did herself, and what an amount also she extracted from every one about her. Her one servant did as much as other people's three or four; and yet that said servant looked always neat and clean. " It is all management," said Mrs. Wells; " idle- ness is my abhorrence! ' and then she backed her opinion and practice by innumerable wise saws and sayings, all tending to prove, that from the 10 TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM*S YOUNG LADIES. days of Solomon downwards, '* the slothful man never gets rich." Mrs. Wells's house was the pattern of order: no child ever dared to soil the clean passages with a dirty foot-print, or to litter even a thread upon the spotless carpet : care and exactitude were the rule of everything. No spot of gravy ever defiled her table-cloths; and if John Wesley, and his brothers and sisters, had lear;ied at six months old to cry suftly and to fear the rod, so did all the little Wellses learn to eat their bread and milk without spilling, in the shuddering sensation of a whipping. " She was a clever woman ! " avowed many a man to his less exact wife; "an incomparably clever woman ! " Poor Mr. Wells, however, never had commended her so warmly. He had had bad health, and was of a nervous, timid temper ; and, after he had worn a flannel night-cap by the fire for upwards of three years, and had learned to be patient, even in witnessing the rigid discipline to which his children were subjected, he took to his bed, and in a few months was wrapped in a flannel shroud and carried to his last home. "Poor Wells!" his wife would say, "I don't know what would have come of me and the children, if I had not kept things together! and I am sure I have nothing to charge myself with as regards him. I never let him have the trouble of looking after even a shoe-tie ; nor would I let the children racket about to disturb him. T have nothing to reproach myself with as regards him, and that's a comfort!" Comfort came easily to the widow. " There was TWO OF MISS WYNDHAm's YOUNG LADIES. II nothing like employment," she said, " for curing grief; and, now that she had seven fatherless children to care for, it behoved her to keep her senses about hej:." What a managing woman she was ! Every pair of old stockings was cut into socks for the lesser children ; not a gown was put away till it had been turned and turned again, and dyed after all. There was no end to the patching, and darning, and mending of old clothes. Uncostly substitutes for everything that cost money, were in request. Every scrap of paper wa« hoarded up, and cut into strips for paper pillows; and even a paper carpet was made, to save the common Kidderminster: and when poor Rebecca, who, at the time of her father's death, was fourteen, had completed her task-work of mending and making, of dusting and putting by, and would take a little pastime of her own, she was invariably asked by her mother " what she was idling for?" and bade to " go on with that knitting," or to " fetch the patchwork basket ; for no good ever came of folding the hands together! " "VMiat made Rebecca's fate particularly hard was, that she possessed her father's temperament, and was naturally of a quiet, sensitive turn of mind; upon which the bustling, unwearying dis- position of her mother operated like the working of a file. She had, unfortunately for herself, a turn for poetry ; carried a book of poems always in her pocket, which she read and studied in secret. Never did miser keep his golden treasures more jealously under lock and key than did she keep certain " addresses to the moon," " odes to 2 12 TWO OF MISS WYNDHAm's YOUNG LADIES. melancholy," and " love elegies," of her own com* posing, from the knowledge of her mother. Some- times they were hidden under her linen, in the farthest recesses of her chest oC drawers ; and sometimes even between the mattress and sacking of her bed: but as her mother, like all managers, was in the habit of paying visits, at uncertain periods, to every drawer and box in the house, and turned over mattresses and feather-beds also, to see that all was clean and in right order, the poor girl was in a state of constant excitement, lest these pre- cious labours of her brain should meet the eye of her mother, which was more prying than that cf Argus, and more severe than that of Zoilus. In process of time Mrs. Wells bestowed upon herself a second mate — Mr. Hackett, the rich grazier, of whom we have before spoken. This circumstance in some degree bettered the con- dition of poor Rebecca; not that her step-father was at all addicted to poetry himself, or could have sympathized with the morbid sensibilities of her nature ; but Mr. Hackett was accustomed to the sight of fat, sleek, and comfortable cattle, and the anxious, harassed looks of Rebecca quite troubled him. He declared that " there was no necessity for his wife, or her children, to slave themselves as they did to save a penny, for they had plenty, and so had he ; and he would put an end to it!" He accordingly forbade any more old gowns to be dyed; put a paper pillow on the back of the fire; and declared that " Becky should no longer sit moping over patchwork, but should go for a couple of years to a * finishing school,' and learn to enjoy herself!" TWO OF MISS WYNDHAM's YOUNG LADIES 13 Mr. Hackett was not a timid man, like poor Mr. Wells ; he had a loud voice, and a loud laugh ; and, occasionally, could be vehemently angry, especially if anybody opposed his wishes; so his wife, judging that retreat was the better part of valour in all contests matrimonial, at least, made a merit of necessity, and turned over the Morning Post newspaper, for school-advertisements, since her husband allowed her the choice of a school for her own daughter. Why she chose Miss Wyndham's Establishment, in preference to the hundred and fifty other schools, advertisements of which met her eye at the same time, is not for us to say; for Wyndham House had no especial claim to superior cheapness, nor otherwise recommended itself to t^ie eye of a manager, unless it were, that it professed to instruct its pupils in a greater variety of know- ledge, and thus seemed to give more for the money. However, to Wyndham House it was decided that Miss Wells should be sent ; and again the more liberal spirit of the step-father befriended her. He insisted upon her having a sufficient and respectable wardrobe, minus all her former mended garments and dyed frocks ; and poor Rebecca felt wonderfully grateful. But, to have obtained the full- ness of Rebecca's gratitude, her father should have allowed her to remain at home, and have ensured herthere the uninterrupted indulgenceofherpoetic sensibilities. She had a shrinking dread of new faces ; and, to go to a school of which she only knew the name, which was seventy miles from her own home, was as fearful as transportation. There was no one but, a young woman employed 14- tfCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. in the family as seamstress — an unheard-of thing before the days of Mr. Hackett — and who had won her heart by repeating Alcanza and Zaida, as they sat together one day at work, to whom she could unbosom her grief. But the time at length came, when all her new clothes were made and packed up, and when, to use her own phrase, she was to be severed from all she loved ; and then, weeping till her eyes were red, and then washing her face to remove the effects of weeping, she found herself seated i-n the large gig beside her step-father, with one of her brothers between them, and ner black leather trunk strapped on behind, on her way to Wynd- ham House. CHAPTER IT. SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. Three days of inconsolable weeping ushered in Rebecca Wells's school campaign. For the first day her lessons were remitted, and she was allowed to retire to bed as soon as tea was over — " a great favour," INIiss Wyndham assured her, adding, in an audible sotto voce, that she " had never seen such a fright as that girl, with her red eyes and bleared countenance."* No way consoled by this disparaging observa- tion, Rebecca sate down at the foot of the bed, * Miss Wyndham and her Establishment, it must be remembered, existed fifty years ago: we cannot beUeve a lady of the present day would violate good feeling and good breeding to an equal extent. SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. 15 and cried more than ever ; and so she might have sate and cried all night, had she not shrunk from encountering the curious eyes of the young ladies, which, to her, seemed much like running the gantlet among savage Indians. She therefore slowly undressed herself, and, having fortunately been informed which among the eight beds that filled this room, was half designed for her use, crept into it, and, with heavy sighs and hysterical sobs, laid her head upon the hard bolster. The second day w^as no better than the first ; nay, in reality it was worse, for lessons had to be learned and said ; and it seemed to her excited mind as if all the school business was suspended to listen to her agitated voice. The third day was worse than the second, for her head ached vio- lently, and she perceived that she was openly ridiculed. In the evening she was again permitted to retire early to bed, with the comfortable as- surance, that in the morning she must take a dose of medicine to remove her head-ache. She had hitherto slept alone, as her destined bedfellow had not arrived — a certain Miss Gibson, of whom much was said, but nothing favourable, and of whom she had conceived dislike and dread. At bed-time, when the young ladies entered the chamber, the first word she heard in the chamber- whisper, was the name of Miss Gibson, and a strange voice in reply. Miss Gibson had then arrived. She shrunk into the smallest possible space in bed, and pretended to be asleep. Not a word passed between them ; and, from pretending to be asleep, she at length sunk into real slumber, and was woke next morning by her companion 16 SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. lightly raising her head on the bolster, and settling herself so as to throw the light of the window, near which their bed stood, upon the pac;es of a book she was reading. Rebecca still cour.terfeited sleep, and then cautiously surveyed lier com- panion. She was a round-faced girl with a dark complexion, and eyes that appeared to 1)^ large and dark, but the lids and lashes of which she could only yet see; but the book she was reading was poetry. What a joyful circumstance! Miss Gibson, the dreaded bedfellow, then was fond of poetry— perhaps wrote poetry ! Rebecca remembered her own compositions, hidden under the bed from the eyes of her mother; she" remembered how she had carried a copy of Waller's Poems and Hammond's Love Elegies in her pocket for weeks, reading a secret page now and then. It was wonderful how all the annoyances and vexations of her home rose up at once before her. School, with the poetical Miss Gibson for a bedfellow, seemed endurable; and, with a palpitating heart, she opened her eyes wide, and fixed them on her companion in a sort of desperation to know what her fate would be. Their eyes met; and, to use their own phrase, their souls melted into one at the first glance. It was the Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard that Miss Gibson was reading : from that moment they were sworn friends. Who does not know how romantic school girls are in their friendships. Our Sarah and Rebecca were the most romantic of school girls. They copied out in little books every encomium on SCHOOL FRIEK1>*HIP. 1/ friendship; the more extravagant the better. They exchanged locks of hair, tied with true-love knots of blue silk, and wore them round their necks. They confided profound secrets to each other; they invented a secret way of conversing, and new characters in which they wrote to each other, not a day passing in which sundry little notes were not slipped into each other's hands, with an air of most interesting mystery. This exclusiveness made them greatly disliked by their schoolfellows: but that very dislike was only an additional bond of union — they endured persecu- tion for each other's sake. One young lady, however, the former half-year's friend of Sarah Gibson, and a day scholar, was admitted into the porch of the temple of friend- ship — this was the Anne Ward of whom Miss Gibson spoke in the letter we have already given. As a day scholar, Anne Ward was a very conve- nient person. She made purchases for them in the town ; obtained books for them secretly from the circulating library, and promised to put Miss Wells's letters in the post-office, and receive the answers under cover to herself, when the half-year was ended which was to be the period of Miss Gibson's school life. It will readily be believed that names so unro- mantic and unpoetical as Sarah and Rebecca, would not suit the elevated tastes of these young ladies. One of the first acts of their friendship, therefore, was to select names more in accordance with their notions, and which would sound well in their epistolary intercourse. Amanda, and Delia, and Sophonisba, and Sigismunda, and Jesse, 18 SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. were duly tliought of, and tried even with such tests as *' my sweet Amanda;" " Delia, sister of my soul;" " my gentle Sophonisba;" "the ami-* able Sigismunda;" " the too-sensitive Jesse;" but, none of them exactly coming up to the mark, for two weeks Rebecca Wells bore the name of Sapph», and Sarah Gibson of Eloisa ; but these were, in the end, abandoned for those of Elvira and Miranda, taken, we believe, from Mrs. Rowe's " Letters from the Dead to the Living." a volume wonderfully admired by them, particularly where any ghostly correspondent expatiates on the eter- nity and tenderness of friendship. This extravagant friendship did not, as might have been expected, die either a speedy natural death, or gradually fade away of itself; on the contrary, after five or six years we find the same style of letters passing between them; one of which, being of more than ordinary importance, we must be allowed to lay before our readers ; yet, before we do so, a word or two must be permitted on the states of their respective families. Mr. Gibson, the rich grocer, had had during three years many losses in trade, and many people began to suspect that he was not quite as rich as had been imagined. He had, moreover, been visited by an apo\)lectic fit, and was thought to be gra- dually breaking. He had taken his foreman into partnership, and, people imagined, intended to marry him to his daughter. Cousin Judith counselled such a step, as one of convenience and prudence ; but the high-spirited. Miranda had not spent her youth in romantic visions, to end by becoming the wife of a grocer! She looked SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. 19 haughty and indignant at the proposal, and Loth her father and Cousin Judith were dumb-fcundered with wonder as to what was come of her senses. Miss Gibson, however, spite of the suggested idea that her father's purse was not as full as it had been, vowed that she would marry nothing less than a professional man. She studied the fashions in the pocket-books and newspapers; dressed expensively ; carried her head loftily, both lite- rally and metaphorically ; attended the assize- balls* and races, and looked out for a husband of her own choosing. Rebecca Wells, otherwise " the gentle Elvira," on her half-yearly returns home had found things gradually assuming a different, and certainly not a more comfortable character. When she left school she had ceased to write poetry — her sensi- bilities found an outlet in the letters she penned to her beloved Miranda; but she had not become less romantic nor sentimental than formerly. At home, however, although things were gradually changed, there was still no sympathy for romance or sentiment; Mr. Hackett had now become per- fectly lord of the ascendant; yet, notwithstanding this, his wife — not a whit less careful and exact than formerly — made never-ending efforts to re- gain her power. The house was as elaborately clean as ever; but then Mr. Hackett chose to make it dirty, to prove that he was master of his own establishment. Oh, how unlike the former good man, who dared hardly to say that his soul was his own. Mr. Hackett even smoked in the best parlour! Poor Rebecca, she had cried for three whole so SCHOOL FRIENDSniP. days when she first went to school ; she had quitf as good reason to cry for three likewise, on he? final return home. She soon found how cheerles? was the prospect before her ; year after year went on, and it was no better. Her own brothers and sisters, it is true, were all at home with her; but they were neither loveable nor kindly affectionate among themselves. Love had never been a ruling sentiment of the household; it had been a go- vernment of force and fear; and, now that they saw the power of her who had hitherto been the domestic tyrant wavering, each thought there was a chance for him or for her, and all were at strife together; while Rebecca, the only gentle and malleable one of the family, was by turns the confidant and slave of all. It was, indeed, a miserable home; and, to add to its other discomforts, a young family of Hacketts was springing up, as boisterous, even in theii infancy, as their father. No wonder was it, there- fore, that Rebecca felt eternally grateful to hei friend for two invitations to Gloucester, for a month each time. The first visit, however, was cut suddenly short by a summons home during the first week, on account of her step-father having been thrown from his horse, and her mother being laid up with a bilious attack. The second, how- ever, was more fortunate, and the month's visit ex- tended itself to two months. Those two months were bright spots in the desert of her life. They were heaven, she averred; they were elysium! they were paradise! There was no end to the epithets that were bestowed upon them. There was no end either to the closettings and confiden- SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP. 21 tial communings of the two friends, which con- tinued through every day of the two months, yet were as mysterious and as important on the last day as on the first. The cruel design of marrying the " sweet Miranda" to the young grocer was, of course, a fertile topic of conversation. Rebecca thought in her inmost mind, but she did not even confide it to her friend, that, were the young grocer to make proposals for her hand, she should not hesitate a moment in accepting; but assuredly it was no match for Miranda, her sweet friend, for whom no peer in the land were too good. Worthy ^Ir. Gibson, and Cousin Judith, and even Mr. Samford, the young grocer himself, looked frowningly on Rebecca, who, they judged rightly, had strengthened Sarah's opposition to their wishes; but Sarah was too important and authoritative a person in her father's house, not to have her own way. Her visit, therefore, w'as protracted week after week. It was in vain that she was willing to gain Mr. Samford's good opinion by many a little innocent civility; the young man was as obdurate as a stone, and poor Rebecca, at the end of the tenth week, returned without any prospects in life, to the comfortless home of her childhood. Having premised thus much, we will give a letter, written by Miss Gibson to her friend, a full twelvemonth after the happy visit we have just described; but, as it announces a most im- portant event, it is quite worthy to open a new chapter. 22 CHAPTER III. A WEDDING. MISS GIBSON TO MISS WELLS. Gloucester, March 24, 1802. I HAVE not my sweet Elvira at hand, or I should fiy to her at tliis moment, and with blissful tears and crimson blushes pour out to her the secret of my full heart ; but Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid; They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; The virgin's wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart, Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul. And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole. Therefore, I seize upon the ready pen, my own Elvira, and despatch "a paper messenger of love," to bid your generous heart rejoice with me. Yes, my sweet friend, rejoice with me, for I am su- premely happy ! But why should I defraud your amiable bosom by concealing aught from you? Know then, my sweet friend, that your Miranda is beloved! Is beloved by — you guess whom ! Oh, my Elvira, Mr. Browne revealed his sentiments towards your friend last evening. But you are impatient to know all, and you have a right to know it — you who have held the key of my heart so long. Listen, then, and if I can be calm, I -will pen A WVrDING. 29 down a sober narrative. In vny last I told you that the dear assize-ball was approaching. How littie did I tfc'ik that very ball was to seal my fate ! You know how interesting the assize-ball would be to me> for it was there we first met — this very time last year. 1 went with Mrs. Cot- terel Warwick; we were a party of five — Adeliza Jemima, Mr. Foster, Mr. Cotterel Warwick, and myself. I went in high spirits, for my heart beat with a strong emotion at the very name of the assize-ball. You remember my description of his person last year; he looked even more fasci- nating this year than last. He is, as I then told you, a young solicitor, of Woodburn in Cheshire. My father, who thinks a deal of pounds, shillings, and pence, is quite satisfied. What! is it come to that? I hear you say. Yes, my sweet love, it is. My father and he had a closetting this morn- ing. I could not help peeping in at the key-hole ; but I was sure all would go on right. Cousin Judith, poor soul, is angry — I am sure she is, for I know her spiteful eyes so well — that I have got a lover of my own choosing, and that Samford may go hang! But I must tell you, for I know your dear little beart will be unsatisfied, if 1 do not give you all particulars, how I was dressed at the ball, and how my dear Browne was dressed also. I had on a white poplin skirt and green satin body, and a wreath of ivy leaves in my hair. I know I was looking my very best, for, the moment I entered the room, he came up to me, and com- plimented me on my looks. You know that we had met last year, and had danced together then, so 3 i» A WEDDING. that we were old acquaintance ; and he said some things, which I could not misunderstand, about a vacuum of soul which had endured twelve months. But oh, if you could only hear how delightfully he pays a compliment! I never heard anybody speak so well before ; and, do you know, he was complimented by the judge, in open court, for the way in which he gave his evidence about some law business. He is so clever! and, to my taste, so handsome! I grant that he is not a giant in size; but. then, you know, I never admired giants. No Samfords for me ! Apropos of Samford : I must tell you some- thing about him before I have done; but I must not omit to tell you how Browne was dressed. He had on a blue coat, white waistcoat, and black pantaloons; there is quite a style about him. I never was at such a delightful ball ; but then, you will say, even a desert with love would be a para- dise! Ah! I know your sentiments — do I not? And now, my sweet friend, are you not filled with envy of my great happiness? No; you are too amiable — too generous to be envious! But I must claim the fulfilment of an old promise from you, that you will be my bridesmaid, and that you will go with me to Woodburn. What a hap- piness to have the sister of my soul with me, under my own roof, and that the home of my dear Browne! Now, you will not be faithless about the old promise. I told him about you, and that he must not be jealous, if I give him only half my heart. I'll tell you what he said — " Whoever you love comes recommended by the sweetest claim to my heart!" A WEDDING, 25 Was it not prettily said? and he laid his hand on his heart. I was sure he felt it. You would doat upon him. You must not let there be any difficulty about your being my bridesmaid ; it is an old promise, and I shall not let you off. I will write to Mr. and jNIrs. Hackett about it, if you like, for we shall be married in the autumn; he declares he will not wait any longer. Write to me by return of post, for he leaves to-morrow, and I shall be wretched when he is gone. Adieu, my sweet Elvira, and believe me ever your own faithful and most happy Miranda. y P.S. — But I have forgotten to tell you about Samford. They say he pays his addresses to Jemima Warwick; and, I am sure, if he do she will have him, for she is made for a tradesman's wife. She is a pattern-person, in Cousin Judith's eyes. 1 told Browne what w^ere our names; he thought them very pretty, but persisted in calling me Amanda, because it had something to do with love. Was not that a pretty way of compli- menting? The " sweet Elvira" did unquestionably feel her pulse quicken when she read of her friend's new prospects. Whether, however, her heart was filled with unalloyed happiness is more than we can say ; something like the feeling that all good fell to the lot of the happy Miranda, while she had no joy in which to bless herself, crossed her mind. Vd a wedding. Miranda was a whole year younger than herself and had already refused a lover whom she would gladly have accepted, and was now about to be united to the very man, who, if it had been given her to choose, she would have selected from all the world. Poor Rebecca! she felt as if her lot was all of a piece. She certainly was made any- thing but happy by her friend's letter. Still there was, after all, a bright side which, after the first influence of the letter had ceased, she could by no means pass over; " her own Miranda' was a faithful friend, who, in the midst of all this new happiness, did not forget her. The old bridesmaid- promise was claimed; and, to Rebecca, whose home was so uninviting, any prospect of change, and especially of a visit which promised to resemble the elysium of ten weeks, was like a prospect into a golden paradise. " And who knows," whispered the heart of Rebecca, " but my fate may unfold itself at Woodburn?" She glanced at the mirror before her, with a sentiment natural to every female heart, because founded on the desire to please and to be loved; she saw the face and form she had seen thousands of times before, and felt the comfortable assurance that the face was pass- ingly agreeable, and the form good. Why, then, should she not please? — why should not she meet with some James Browne of her own, as well as her friend? There was a delightful flutter in her spirits at once ; she saw herself, as the bridesmaid, well-dressed and cheerful — for she could be cheerful, or sentimental, for either character suited her — an object of interest and curiosity, and to the single even more interesting A WEDDING. 27 than the bride. She felt at once as if a happy destiny lay before her; the little town of Wood- burn, the existence of which she had hardly been aware of before, seemed big with her fate ; and, ten minutes after, she was turning over the old school-books in her closet, to find the Gazetteer, that she might read what was said of so interesting a town. She possessed herself of the important knowledge, that Woodburn stood on the river, over which it had a bridge of seven arches; that its population was 8000, without any staple manu- factures that it had two fairs in the year, and its market was held on the Wednesday. It was but little, but it was enough. W^oodburn lay before her in her life's future, like the goal to wands which her destinies pointed. A moment's cloud came over her spirit, in the question, Would her mother and step-father con- sent to the visit? They might oppose it; it was very probable they would ; but she resolved with herself, that in that case she would for ever take the law into her own hands. She was now mistress of the income of her own little fortune, and, though she had not hitherto acted in opposition to the heads of the family, she determined on this occa- sion, which was so interesting, and might be so momentous, to please herself, and ask favour from no one. We need not give her reply to her amiable Miranda ; it was such as may readily be imagined — full of sentiment and poetic flights, and professions of the most eternal friendship ; but we will go on to the autumn, to the time fixed for the wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Hackett threw no insuperable 28 A WEDDING. impediment in the way of Rebecca's visit, so that no heroism on her part seemed likely to be re- quired ; nor did he fall from his horse and break his leg, nor did she find herself invalided, or likely to be so, by a bilious attack ; so that Rebecca looked on in wonder at the facility of things. The day had been fixed upon, a month before, for her journey ; and on that very day, she was conveyed away in the coach with a large pormanteau of well-conditioned clothes, sufficient of themselves to stand a long visit: and sundry five and ten pound bills in her pocket-book beside, wherewith to buy bridesmaid apparel, and to figure as a young lady of substance. Rebecca, seeing that the coach did not break down, nor other misad- ventures occur during the two first stages of her journey, began to have pleasant hopes that for- tune's wheel was taking a turn in her favour. She almost questioned whether, after all, she might not do as well as her friend ; and, the nearer she came to Gloucester, the better was she pleased that she and Mr. Samford were only just on speaking terms. The meeting of the friends was the most rap- turous in the world; there was no end to the kissing?, and the hand-shakings, for they had not met for near two years ; and now, a blissful event was about to unite them closer than ever. It seemed like the highest felicity of human existence, and they blessed themselves because they were such a pair of devoted friends. The bridal habiliments were now all prepared ; 'or, while we have been writing of friendship, three •jreeks have been passing on, in which milliners and A WEDDING. Wf dress-makers have been hard at work. And now the garments of the bride-elect lay opened out on one bed in the double-bedded room, and those of the bridesmaid-elect on the other: gowns, scarfs, veils, gloves, and bonnets — the bridesmaid's just one degree inferior to the bride's. " Well, it will be your turn next, my sweet girl," said Sarah Gibson, while they were sur\'eying, with ineffable pleasure, all the silken pomp that lay before them; and she kissed her as she spoke. Rebecca shook her head, and said she did not know when; but she wished in her heart — which was a most natural and proper wish at such a time — " that it might, and that soon too!" The two young ladies then went into the back parlour, where ^Mr. Gibson sate in his high-backed leather chair, looking very well pleased, and Cousin Judith was busied about tea, leaving all the glory of the next day's garments to be sur- veyed by the cook and oharwoman, who, with their hands folded in their aprons, stole in quietly, to take a leisurely survey not only of them, but of the two great bride-cakes which stood on " the great tea-tray" on the chest of drawers, and which were to be cut up in the evening. Tea was delayed an hour after the usual time, to wait the arrival of the coach by which the hus- band-elect was expected. He came ; and Rebecca, who, from her friend's description, expected at least an Apollo in brown clothes, was greatly disappointed at his appearance — a short, mean- looking young man, with a sallow complexion, and thin drab hair. He might be professional; he was, no doubt, a prosperous and very clevef 80 A WEDDING. lawyer — one to elicit compliments from the judge on the bench — but he was not quite such as her excited imagination expected : why, in point of exterior, Samford, with his shop-apron wound round his body, was more of a man to look at. All these, however, were observations to be thought, not to be spoken. The bride-elect, it was evident, saw nothing to object to : he called her his " sweet Amanda; " begged to salute her friend, *' the amiable Elvira; " laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed very low, evidently possessed with the idea of being a most accomplished person. The wedding-morning rose with all that bril- liancy peculiar to autumnal mornings. That old street of Gloucester in which !Mr. Gibson's house stood, with its picturesque gables and projecting porches, seemed to wear quite a holiday aspect. Rebecca, at seven o'clock, half-opened her window curtains, and glanced up the street and down ; and, as she saw the strong lights and shadows that stretched athwart the narrow street, and the brilliant atmosphere, all one burst of dewy sunshine, felt as if it were the most beauti- ful sight she had ever seen, and ran to her friend's bed-side, with the announcement that " Nature herself was wearing her brightest aspect, in honour of her nuptials." The youngest apprentice, the porter, and the errand-boy, had been up and busy since before day- light, in the business-regions of the house. The brass-mouldings of the shop-windows, Mr. Sam- ford's modern innovation, polished to their utmost, were now dazzling the eyes of the early passers- by, as the slant rays of the sun were redected in A WEDDING. St them. ITie shop-windows, emptied over night, had been cleaned and rubbed up ; and all the show-goods ; japanned tea-cheets ; nodding man- darins ; boxes of raisins ; baskets of figs ; and black Indians, smoking long pipes; with little cones of sample-sugar, were all newly and neatly arranged. The shop-floor had been carefully swept and watered ; the flags before the whole length of the front, and even many yards beyond, on either hand, had been swept and watered likewise * the knocker of the street-door was polished to an extraordinary lustre ; and the door-step was as white as hands could make it. Anybody, with half an eye, who had never heard of Mr. Gibson in all their life, might have known, on passing the house that morning, that something important was about to take place. Mr. Samford, however, although his proper do- main, the shop, was thus wearing its best exterior, seemed himself in no holiday humour. He stood with his e very-day coat on, and his apron '^ore him, weighing up pounds and half-pounds ui raw sugar, with his eyes occupied by his employment, as though nothing beside in the whole world was worth a grown man's attention. At half-past eight o'clock, idle men and women might be seen standing in little groups and knots, within sight of the grocer's house ; the tanner's men were standing at the tan-yard gate, with their sleeves rolled up above their elbows, and with them stood the two dyers from over the way ; while three carpenters, carrying deal planks, joined them also, thinking it would not be long before they went to church, especially as, in 32 A WEDDING, passing the Black Bull, they had seen the two chaises out, and one pair of horses ; and Jack, the ostler, had said that " the other pair would be out in a jiffy." The milliner's young women, who, on this morning, had been punctual to their time, and who thought it fortunate that the work- room window had such a good view, had taken down the blinds, and sat down on the look-out, reacW to jump up at the first moment. The baroer's shop was full of people, all waiting to be shaved, but each refusing to submit to the opera- tion, lest his chin should be veiled in suds at the critical moment. There was not a servant within view of the Gibsons, who had not found some excuse to be up stairs, and, with duster in hand, under pretence of being very busy, came ever and anon to the windows; while others, with more leisure or less conscience, leaned out, resting their arms on the stone window-sills. There were women, and big boys, standing with jugs and buckets about the pump, all deferring to move off, till they had seen Miss Gibson go to be married. At a quarter before nine, the milliner's young women all rushed to the windows, for one of them had given information that the bride was dressed, for she had seen her, in bonnet and veil, pass the bed-room window : she knew the bonnet, for she had helped to make it. " And now, there she was again!" And then came a disputa- tion as to whether it was the bride or the bride's- maid ; whether her bonnet had orange flowers in it, or white ribbon: the fair milliners were just getting vehement on this important topic, when a A WEnniNO. 33 new object diverted all attention — a chaise from the Black Bull, with white horses, dashed up to the house-door — and the next moment, as if by- magic, four young girls in white, and with baskets of flowers in their hands, stood, two on each side, between the steps of the chaise and the house- door. The house-door was thrown open with a loud sound ; another chaise then dashed up in the rear ; the bride, habited in white from head to foot, leaning on her father's arm, came forth ; the young girls scattered their flowers — by the bye, this was a device of Rebecca's; — the^haise moved off"; the second was in its place in an instant; as instantly the bridegroom and bridesmaid had entered it, and the two chaises rattled off" down the street, across the market-place, and up to the church-gate, drawing a hundred admiring eyes after them. The tanners and the dyers returned to their respective places; the carpenters carried off* their deal planks; the young milliners sat down to await the return; the barber's customers sat down to be shaved ; and Mr. Samford went into the back parlour to take his breakfast with the appren- tices; while Mrs. Judith was busied with all her handmaidens, in preparing the grand breakfast up stairs, that all might be ready when the h^pf people returned from church. M CHAPTER IV. ANOTHER WEDDING. There is something very interesting to us in a wedding. From that of the Queen of England, the lace of whose marriage-dress cost a thousand pounds, down to that of the poor servant girl who leaves her place with her last year's wages in her pocket, and all her worldly goods contained in a papered trunft, to be married to her fellow- servant; ay, even down to the poor, cottagers, who have scraped together five pounds wherewith to furnish their cottage, and begin life with a single groat between them ; still, as a crisis in human life, as the hinge upon which the future momentously turns for good or for evil, for happiness or for misery, a wedding is always interesting. We hope, therefore, our readers will not think all the little detail which we have given in our last chapter as unimportant, nor yet will be undesirous of knowing how, as is not unfrequently the case, one wedding brought about another. Mr. and Mrs. Browne spent, not a honeymoon, but a honey- week, in the pleasant neighbourhood of Warwick. It was before the days of the Waverly Novels ; still it was quite customary, if not fashionable, to visit the ruins of Kenilworth, as well as to admire the stately castle of Warwick and its fine pictures. It is generally understood, that nothing is so uninteresting as to be the com- panion of a new- married couple. They are so taken up by each other, as to have neither time noi ANOTHER WEDDING. 99 attention for anybody else; anybody else is, m fact, in their way. But poor Rebecca, glad to have any change from the monotony and annoy- ances of her home, and filled with hopes of all kind and pleasant visions for herself, thought the six days of the honey-week almost as delightful as the bride thought them herself. Moreover, from being accustomed to him and his little polite civilities, she had come to think Mr. Browne one of the most delightful of men, and to marvel at her own want of taste when first they met. Had Rebecca had any other correspondent beside her " sweet Miranda," she would have in- dited long sentimental epistles, in which " Hymen's blissful chains," and other similar figures of speech, would have been conspicuous; but, as it was, all those flourishes of rhetoric were kept in her own breast, and she contented herself with knowing that they were a very interesting trio; and with thinking it a thousand pities that all the gay parties, young and old, that they encountered in each day's ramble, did not know who and what they were. In a little town like AVoodburn it was known in every house, in every street and lane, that Mr. Browne, the lawyer, went the last Wednesday to Gloucester to be married, and would, on the next Thursday evening, bring home his wife. Accord- ingly, everybody was on the look-out ; and a very- satisfactory account was rendered to those who had not an opportunity of witnessing the arrival of the post-chariot which had been hired for the occasion, even to the smart shade of the bride's travelling pelisse, and the fur with which it waa 4 M ANOTHER WEDDING. trimmed. By nine o'clock, not an individual of the town but was apprized of the circumstance, for the ringers had received a couple of guineas, and the little church tower rocked with a peal of joyous welcome. Mrs. Browne made two discoveries respecting her new position, very soon after she became an inhabitant of Woodburn, which were the first causes of her chagrin. Their house was small, in a bad situation, and only of third or fourth-rate rank, and her husband was by no means the first solicitor of the place : he did not even visit with the grandees of the place; and, ten to one, she would not be called upon by them. She became nervously sensitive, therefore, as to her former connexion with trade, and extremely solicitous that her first appearance should not compromise her claim to the notice of the first people of the neighbourhood. Nobody, however, of superior pretensions made it the rage to visit the bride. Mr. Browne's own acquaintance and friends, and a few clients and their wives, and one or two other families, whose position in society was a sort of debateable ground between the higher and the middle classes, called only to pay them compli- ments on the occasion — to criticise the bride, in fact, while they ate the cake and drank health and happiness to the new-married couple. Among Mr. Browne's friends was a Mr. Greg- son, a rheese-factor, a very prosperous young man, who lived in a respectable old house, inherited, with his trade, from his father, and which, with its substantial warehouses, larger even than the House itself, stood in Bridge-street, one of the AKOTHER WEDDING. 87 best streets in Woodbum, with a large walled garden behind it. Gregson was unquestionably a man of great respectability; he understood hu business, and was no way ashamed of it; he bought more cheese than any other man in the county, and had ready money always at command. There was not a gentleman farmer, for many and many miles round, with whom he was not greatly in favour, both for his own personal qualities, and for his easy circumstances. He was, according to his own account of himself, " a plain, down- right, good sort of fellow, who looked for no better bread than could be made of wheat, and had always a good appetite to give it a relish withal." Gregson had been an acquaintance of Browne's, from the very day when he first came as an humble writer to the office of Peake and Mordan, the great solicitors of the place; and, now that Browne, to use an American phrase, was " going a-head," Gregson was no less his friend; for he had a pleasure, he said, in seeing an industrious fellow making his way in the world. Gregson looked in at the office on Friday morning, to wish his friend happiness, and was invited to come in and sup with them on Sunday night, quite in a friendly way. Mrs. Browne, now that she was a solicitor's wife, had, as we have already said, in this early stage of her married life, no very serious intentions of patronising people in trade, further than by the purchase of their goods; therefore, she held herself somewhat lofty when her husband, on Sunday evening, presented to her his friend; and more especially so, as she was then hoping that all the grandees of the town and 38 ANOTHER WEDDING. neighbourhood would be thronging the doors during the three following days. Gregson was a hale, robust, ruddy -com- plexioned man, on whom good air and exercise, riding to fairs and markets, and looking after a prosperous concern, had bestowed sound health and good spirits. Mrs. Browne declared him to be " horridly vulgar, and a great bore," and pro- tested that, if he came often, she would always leave the room. This was the first point of difference between herself and her husband; and, as Rebecca declared, with Mr. Browne, that she thought his friend not only passingly agreeable, but very good-looking, the fair bride grew seriously angry, and that evening closed upon their first disunion. Mrs. Browne had made up her mind to dislike Gregson : he was vulgar, and a cheese-factor — - she was sure, she said, that he smelt of cheese; and, who would visit them if he were to be seen in their drawing-room, with his hands in his pockets, at the windows, just as if he were at home, and lolling in the chair, and leaning back on its hind legs, as he did, talking so loud and freely all the while — she would not endure it: and, besides, it was right for them to respect their standing in society ; there certainly was no need for them to associate with cheese-factors, and such- like people ! Such were the arguments she used the next morning at breakfast, when the subject was again introduced. Her husband laughed at her, and talked of Gregson's good heart and full purse ; but the lady had made up her mind, and would not be convinced. Time, however, brings about changes which wy arguments ever could; ANOTHER WEDDING. 89 and as, spite of all the hopes the lawyer's lady entertained of the "carriage-people" who would call upon them, a few weeks convinced her that, in this particular, fortune had nothing very tri- umphant in store for her, she began, by degrees, to see less objection to Mr. Gregson, notwith- standing his unabated spirits, and his free and easy way of sitting in her drawing-room. The very marked attention, too, which he had of late been paying to her dear friend, had some influence on her mind ; at all events, Mr. Gregson was, and had been, the accustomed daily v'sitor for upwards of three weeks; the lady of the house being no way -behind the others in kindness of welcome. " Well, Browne, what do you think," said she, one morning in the fifth week of their marriage, " of Rebecca's and Mr. Gregson's prodigious civility to each other ? " " I think," replied he, " that Gregson has made proposals to her." " Has made! " returned the lady. *' Yes," replied he, " that he made proposals this very morning: he told me he should." " I ought not to be surprised, perhaps," said she; " and yet I must confess that I am, for, someway, I always expected that Rebecca would marry a man of refinement — a real gentleman." " He is a good fellow," returned Browne, " and I am sure he is not disagreeable to Rebecca." After this little conversation, Mrs. Bro^vne hastened to her friend, and, according to their ovm. phraseology, " threw herself into her arms, and received into her faithful bosom the secret of her soul." 40 ANOTHER WEDDINO Rebecca Wells did not quarrel with her fate, because it had given her a lover who was con- nected with trade. Gregson was a man whom it was easy lor her to love ; and the happiness and satisfaction she evinced, was infectious through the household. All the old sentimentality was more than renewed, and the two ladies vowed, again and again, " eternal friendship," and be- lieved themselves favourites of the gods. Rebecca's visit was prolonged ^four months, and then she returned home only to make preparations for her wedding, and to be married from the house of her step-fathei. In less than six months from the day of Sarah Gibson's marriage, she was, one certain evening in February, taking a general oversight of the arrangements of everything, from garret to cellar, in the comfortable and well-furnished, though old- fashioned house in Bridge-street, preparatory to the arrival of the bride. Her own and her hus- band's presents of the silver tea and coffee pots, were placed on a conspicuous shelf of the parlour cupboard, with the neatly-folded three-cornered billet of congratulation ; and her mind was all a flutter of the most extravagant and uncalled-for devotion of friendship. " She could defy now," she said to herself, " all the purse-proud, aristo- cratic people, who held themselves as too select and elevated to visit with her — she defied and despised rank — there was nothing in all the world like love and friendship — a dry crust with a friend was better than a feast with those who were in- different to her. She loved her Elvira better than all the world, with the exception of Iver deaf AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. 41 Browne. Gregson," she said, " was a fine, manly fellow, worthy of her friend — she was proud ol them, and she would show all the world she was so ; and that, although he was a cheese-factor, yet that she considered him a gentleman for all that! " She was quite heroic in her friendship, and re- joiced that there was something which demanded a sacrifice on her part, which would prove the strength of her attachment. The bride came. The bells that had rung a merry peal to welcome Mr. Browne and his wife, sent forth their metallic voices with a no less merry welcome, announcing to all the gossips of Woodburn, that Mr. and Mrs. Gregson had arrived. Scarcely had the Gregsons time to cast their eyes round the sitting-room, in the cupboard of which they found their friends' presents, and read the note that accompanied them, when Mrs. Browjie made her appearance, " being impatient," she said, " to welcome her dear friend to her new home, and to prove the intense delight she felt in witnessing her happiness." CHAPTER V. AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. The same set that had visited Mr. and Mrs. Browne, visited also Mr. and Mrs. Gregson. The two young wives dealt at the same shops, and invariably went shopping together; and, by the same rule, Mrs. Browne always looked in on !Mrs. Gregson every Wednesday morning, the first thing after breakfast, on her way to the market, and 42 AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. always found Mrs. Gregson, bonnetted and shawled, waiting for her; and the two, followed by their respective maid-servants, basket in hand, pro- gressed slowly in the market, making purchases; and then down again in their way to the shambles, only deviating from each other in their respective purchases, so as to suit their husbands' tastes. Gregson preferred gooseberry tart to currant; Browne vice versa. Browne would not give a fig for new potatoes, when he could get pease ; Greg- son said, that potatoes, the year round, were bettei than pease, unless eaten to ducks ; so, unless Mrs. Gregson bought ducks, ten to one she would purchase potatoes, while her friend purchased pease to lamb, or veal, or anything else, and so on: an amiable difference this, which just pre- vented the unanimity and uniformity of the two friends growing insipid. There was a story, how- ever, current in Woodburn, but, whether true or false, we cannot vouch, of the two young wives having, in the beginning of their career, insisted upon the tables of their respective houses being furnished with precisely the same dishes as the other, thoughout the year; and that a vigorous rebeillon on the part of the two husbands ensued, in which the stronger powers had the victory, as was only right in this case, seeing plain good sense was on their side; and that, henceforward, the two ladies agreed to make the needful differ- ence in their husbands' tastes, an additional bond of amity between themselves. In the important business of dress also, the two husbands exercised a salutary influence. It was all very well, while the one lived at Gloucester, AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. 43 ind the other in Craven, and they had nohody to please but themselves, that they should both dress alike — that both should wear the green silk pelisse, and the chip hat, trimmed with green gauze — both wear the blue silk, and the garnet necklaces — the canary-coloured chambray, or the lavender Nor- wich-crape. They did not think that what suited the one, might not suit the other; for i\Iiss Gibson was dark and florid, while Miss Wells was fair and pale ; but they were satisfied with a reflec- tion, in their eyes far superior to mere taste, that, at one and the same time, both might be walking out in green pelisses, and with gauze upon their chip hats ; or, seeing company in blue silk, canarj'- coloured poplin, or lavender Norwich-crape ; but, now that they had the felicity of being dwellers in the same town, this monotony of taste was some- what interrupted ; and beneficially too, by the respective husbands. Gregson could not bear to see his wife in green ; " it might suit Mrs. Browne," he said, " but it did not suit her." He liked white muslin, and pink ribbons ; and he declared his wife never looked so well as in the peach-blossom taflety he brought her from Not- tingham goose-fair, where he had gone to buy cheese, the first autumn after their marriage, Browne, on the contrary, had an exclusive pre- ference for all rich dark colours, clear greens, maroons, purpl^es, and even black. He gave his wife five guineas to buy a dark-blue satin, and de- clared that, as soon as he could afibrd it, she should have a crimson velvet. In this way, with these permitted difi^erences, tverything went on in the most amicable manner 44 AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP, possible. On Sundays they called at eacb other's houses after church, and sate an hour or two together, unlqiss, as it happened now and then, they both chanced to be knocking at each other's doors at the same moment, having missed as they came out of church; in which case, they would both wait, the one for the other, till their patience was fairly worn out, and then have a chance of meeting midway in the street. In the course of the first year, however, Browne, who, like most professional gentlemen, was but in indifferent church-goer, fell, in this respect, into his former bachelor-habits, and was generally deep in his papers, in his undress, when his neighbours were all wending their way to church. To save " dear Mrs. Browne," therefore, the ignominy of going to church all alone, Mr. and Mrs. Gregson took the lawyer's house in their way ; which was easy for them to do, seeing it was in Church-street, and escorted his wife to the very pew-door. It was, no doubt, a very edifying sight to all the world of Woodburn, to witness this friendship between the two houses. Many people, the middle-aged espe- cially, declared it could not last; that excess always led to its own destruction, and that it was quite possible to have too much even of a good thing, and so on — illustrating their arguments by established truisms, as middle-aged people are very apt to do. Others again, who might be dis- posed to visit with the Brownes, but who ** cared not a button about the Gregsons,'' asserted this domestic alliance to be foolish and ridiculous, ** for how," said they, " could one spend even a». evening with them, without being dragged inta AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. 4fl an acquaintance with their friends?" And those who were similarly disposed towards the Gregsons, made precisely the same complaint. *' I like Gregson," some good, respectable father of a family would say ; " I have known him ever since a boy. I like his wife very well too ; but I've no notion of being compelled into civility to that fellow Browne. I saw too much of him when he lost me my cause !" All this, however, mattered very little to the allied houses themselves. " The Miranda and £lvira friendship" was in no danger of being weakened by anything which the " well-fed wits" of "Woodburn could say ; and so we wilj leave '* the everlasting friendship," to talk of other matters. The fates had decreed Mr. Browne to be the great man of a little town ; the elements of such greatness were in him, and his wife was a fitting helpmate. But in life, as in the common every- day affair of climbing a wall, a person, however he may be destined to clim.b, often needs a shove upwards — a helping hand, just to reach that par- ticular crack, in which the toe may be insinuated, and then he will make the ascent triumphantly by himself. It was just so with James Browne. He kept his eye fixed on the top of the wall; he meant to climl3 it long enough before he was an old man. He only waited now for the shove upwards; in other words, he was poor — that is, he was poor for a lawyer. "VN'hen he married Miss Gibson, the only daughter of the rich grocer of Gloucester, he expected that her large fortune would raise him at once. She 46 AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. received, however, only one thousand pounds as her marriage portion, and that would do no more than pay certain furniture bills, and keep ali straight and handsome till other money came in, or till the old gentleman died. The whispered surmise among the Gloucester people, that old Gibson was not as rich as had been imagined, was, within the first year of his daughter's marriage, proved to be the fact. He died; and, after all borrowed monies and debts were paid, between three and four hundred pounds alone remained, even though Samford, now married to Miss Jemima Warwick, had paid a considerable sum for the good-will of the business, only a few weeks before the old gentleman's death. It was a terrible surprise to Mr. and Mrs. Browne; and Samford was charged by him with embezzlement* and all kind of malpractices. Samford brought an action for defamation against Browne, and made public the state of the old tradesman's books ; by which he most clearly proved, that he had not only honestly served his employer, but actually saved the concern from bankruptcy. He came off not only triumphantly, as far as his character went, but with fifty pounds damages. All this was the most galling thing that could happen to the Brown es. It was like publishing to the whole world the meagreness of the lady's* fortune, as well as her exact connexion with trade ; and, as the lawyer himself was known not to be rich, nor to have either a rich or an exten- sive practice, nothing could be easier than U* calculate what might be the amount of his income " The very children of Woodburn, who have AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. 47 the least turn for figures, may cast up, on their fingers, how much I am exactly worth!" Such was Mr. Browne's unpleasant observation one certain Saturday evening to his wife, who was sitting with him, and who was looking no better pleased than he. " But, my dear," said she, " sinking under one's misfortunes does no good! Rise we must, by some means — that's certain!" *' But the deuce of it is," said Ler husband, " that all this has been made so public! — why, old Mordan fairly laughed in my face to-day ! — and there's an end of our getting the house in Wilton- street." Wilton-street, our readers must know, was the St. James's of Woodburn; and the house of which Mr. Browne now spoke, was one of the aristocratic houses of the place — none but such people, and people of family, had hitherto lived in it ; and to live in it would alone confer some degree of distinction. It had now been vacant six months, and Mr. and Mrs. Brown had, during that time, been casting longing looks towards it. Imme- diately on the death of I\Ir. Gibson, before the disastrous state of his affairs was known, they resolved to have it, and had even entered into negotiation with the landlord for a long lease ; had given notice to leave their humbler house in Church-street, and thus made it known to all the town. It was, therefore, a most mortifying thing, not only to hear the whole town ridiculing the defeated lawyer in his suit with Samford, but also to know that all ideas of inhabiting the great house must be given up, and that for reasons which 48 AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. everybody must understand — the most unpleasan* reasons of all — the not being able to afford it" " I wish to Heaven the house had never been to let!" exclaimed Mrs. Browne. " Or that we had never said a word about it to any creature," added her husband ** I never spoke of it to any living soul, ex- cepting dear Rebecca," said Mrs. Browne; "and you know she and Gregson are only like part of our own family." " It was known all over Woodburn, the first day we spoke of it," returned he ; " people con- gratulated me on the removal : it would be the establishing me at once, everv'body said : and that small house adjoining would be turned into offices at such a small expense!" Mr. Browne became quite agitated as he thought of all these desirable considerations which must now, prudence argued, be given up. " James, dear," said his wife, " if it really would do you so much good in your profession, to live in a better house, and in a better style, why not do it, as a matter of simple policy ? It would be worth while even to borrow the money for such a purpose — it would soon clear itself off, you know. And now I have said so much, I will make one confession which I never made before, not even to Rebecca. I was surprised at first to find you living in such a third-rate house as this. Eveiy- body knows that people are looked upon just as they seem to estimate themselves. You may de- pend upon it, James, modesty and timidity are the iurest preventions to a man's success in life. It seems/' continued she, getting quite warm in her AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. 49 argument, "as if you thought yourself a very third-rate sort of lawyer, to live in such a house as this! I really do not wonder that nobody visited us ; and, what we should have dene without Gregson and Rebecca, I'm sure I don't know." " It is all true — every word — there's no doubt of it," replied Browne; " but then, what can a man do more than he can ? It was a bold stroke, let me tell you, for me at first to take even this house. I furnished my office handsomely, and managed any way in the house, for not a soul came near me but Gregson; and I declare, that the handsome Brussels carpet, and my smart fender and iire-irons, and my new desks, and my clerk, who, because he had nothing to do, I set to engross an old act of parliament, in order that he might look busy, set me up at once. There's a deal in what you say; we must give the world its due for their estimate of us." "And that always is," interrupted Mrs. Browne, " according to the show we make; for the world dearly loves to be dazzled," said she, laughing. " I do believe," said jVIr. Browne, " that, if we could get that house in Wilton-street, and look decidedly prosperous, I might command half the county business: just give me a start, and I would snap my fingers any day at Peake and iSIordan, although Mordan laughed in my face! I declare I could have knocked the fellow down!" " It was unpardonable," returned his wife; " but I tell you what, James, we really must take this house; we must manage it some way. Have you no means of raising the money? It would •con be cleared off again, you know." 50 AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. Browne knit his brows, glanced up to the comef of the room, and declared that he could think of no other way than asking Gregson. Gregson had plenty of money, he said ; old Gregson was rich, and his son had been making money since he was onc-and-twenty ; he dared to say he would lend liim some. *' That he will," exclaimed his wife — " I am sure he will; for he is a sensible man, and very much your friend; and, even if he were to make any difficulty about it, Rebecca would persuade him ; she would do anything in the world for me!" It was now, therefore, decided that no stop whatever should be put to the negotiation re- specting the good house in Wilton-street. The world of Woodburn should see, they said, that, although Mr. Gibson had not died rich, and although Browne had lost his suit with Samford, yet, that these things could not affect circumstances so flourishing as his. He could afford, in the very face of a loss, to take a large house and live handsomely; the inference, therefore, must be, that his profession alone was making a handsome present income. Gregson, although he was not much addicted to lending money, made no more objection than even good-natured men commonly make on lend- ing a thousand pounds; which was the sum his friend requested from him. He said something about sureties ; on which Browne declared that sureties were out of the question ; and if his friend were not satisfied with his own bond, he would at once drop the idea, give up the house in Wilton-street, and stay where he was, although it AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. 51 was so seriously against his interest to do so: that he was sorry he had asked the favour from anybody, because, although Mr. Gibson's death, contrary to expectation, had produced next to nothing, in one other year's time his own pro- fessional returns would have enabled him to make the removal on his own resources, without thanks to anybody; only by that time the house in Wilton-street would have been let, fur such houses as that seldom remained long \n the market. At this stage of the business Mrs. Greg- son came into the room; she knew the subject upon which her husband and Browne were talking, for she had been plied on the same subject by Mrs. Browne; and she was even now returned home, full of the enthusiasm of friendship, im- patient even to make a sacrifice for her dear Mrs. Browne's sake; " and especially," said she, *' at a moment so interesting to us all; for I have set my mind on Sarah's child being born in Wilton-street. It is a dreary house, that of your's, Mr. Browne, in Church -street; I am sure I would not have said as much before ; but it is not exactly the right home either for you or dear Sarah! And I am sure," continued she, " that if either I or Gregson could do anything for you, even at a sacrifice of our own advantage, we ought to do it, seeing how much we owe to you : but th.ere really would be no sacrifice required from us ; you would be able to pay us back the money in twelve months, for I am quite sure, when people see you living in that good house, and making such a dash, they will think ten times as well of you, and think you have twenty times the business you have." 62 AN ACT OF FRIENDSHIP. There were two particulars in this fluent speech, which fixed the attention of Mr. Gregson : his wife said they were under such obligations to the Brownes : he wondered what all those obligations were, but he did not inquire, of course ; the other was, that if their friends seemed to be prosperous, the world would help to make them so, and speedily enable them to return the money. He liked Browne, reasoned he with himself, and their wives were old friends ; he himself had money lying unemployed in the bank, which was paying but light interest; Browne offered him five per cent. ; there could not, surely, be any great ob- jection to lending it. In short, he yielded. One thousand pounds was drawn out of the county bank, and handed over to Browne. A note of hand was duly made out and signed, and given in exchange. The same evening, the lease for the great house in Wilton-street was signed and witnessed. The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Browne were seen by some of their new neighbours elect, to enter the house like people greatly pleased with pos- session; and, in the course of the day, white- washing and cleaning began, and great knock- ings were heard in the adjoining small dwelling, which intimated that workmen had already commenced turning the house into offices, for him and his clerks, in readiness for the county business, Avhich was to find its way there. His old masters, Peake and Mordan, lifted up theif eyebrows, and looked knowingly out of the corners of their eyes, as if to intimate, that shrewd people like themselves knew what the end of all THE FAMILY COMPACT. 55 this would be ; and all the little town of Wood- burn blessed itself that it had so fertile a topic of gossipry as the removal of lawyer Browne out of Church-street i^^to the great house in Wilton-street. CHAPTER VI. THE FAMILY COMPACT. If you would wish apersonto profess hir/i self bound to you by " an eternal debt cf gratitude," lend him the money he wants at the very moment he asks for it; in short, do as Gregson did. Whether your friend will not consider the eternal debt of grati- tude cancelled by the first hint about the repay- ment of the money, is quite another thing: that is in the second stage of the business; we are only yet in the first; and Mr. and Mrs. Browne, there- fore, not only professed, but sincerely believed, that no other creature living would have done so much for them. Mr. Gregson was, therefore, without exception, the most generous and noble of friends, and, to the latest day of their lives they should never forget his kindness ; and that it was owing also, in part, to " dear Rebecca," whom Mrs. Browne declared " she had doted on ever since the day when she first set eyes on her at Miss Wyndham's school" With such energetic sentiments of gratitude, therefore, how could they better prove their sin- cerity than by employing the money splendidly in the purpose for which it was lent. '* Everybody knows the intimate terms on which t^ two houses •re, and therefore," said Mrs. Biowne, with en- 64l THE FAMILY COMPACT. thusiasm, *' as we rise in society, as we unques- tionably must do in Wilton-street, our friends shall rise with us. I shall be proud to introduce dear Rebecca everywhere. She is very genteel — don't you think her so, Browne?" " Yes, certainly," returned her husband. " And I'll tell you what we must certainly do," continued she; " it will be such a handosme way of showing our respect to them ; she and Mr. Greg- son must be sponsors for our little one : they must indeed ! You must drop your idea of your uncle and aunt — they will never do anything for us ; and you know I said all along that Rebecca would expect it. And, another thing," exclaimed she, growing quite animated on the subject of her gratitude, " our first boy and girl shall be brought up for each other — shall be educated for each other — you know they do so in some foreign countries, and among the Moravians, and it answers uncommonly well. It is a beautiful notion — two sweet children betrothed in infancy! Rebecca and I have often and often talked of it — and it will be such a delightful bond between us. I am quite charmed with the idea — the children shall be plighted in their very cradles!" Mr. Browne smiled at his wife's enthusiasm, and declared he should be quite as ready as her- self to prove his sense of the obligation ; and that he certainly did think the Gregsons ought to be preferred to his uncle and aunt, as sponsors for the child. " Well, after all," said the people of Wood- burn, when they saw how handsomely furnished and prosperous-looking was Mr. Browne's new THE FAMILY COMPACT. 55 house in Wilton-street, " there must be some mistake about the insolvency of Mr. Gibson. Mrs. Browne must have had some fortune, and not a small fortune either, to enable them to make such an alteration in their way of living." " Depend upon it," said •)ne, " he is getting on in his profession; everybody who has employed him says that he is a long-headed fellow : how cleverly he managed the cause for the parishioners of Wellby, against Sir George Combe, about stopping the Wellby-road!" " He is just the man to get on," said a second; " he has no objection to tnake a little business for himself occasionally." " But," argued a third, " this everybody must confess, that, unlike Peake and Mordan, you have some chance with him of getting to the end of a job. They have sadly too much to do; and, to tell you the truth, I have serious thoughts of employing him in all my lesser business ; Peake and Mordan seem so careless about minor things " " Ha! that reminds me," said a fourth speaker— *' Browne's landlord, Mr. Willis, has already trans- ferred his business to him : there has been quite a scene between Willis and his old lawyers — some- thing about a deed that was .missing. Browne was, you know, in Peake and ]\Iordan's office, and helped their memory as to the hiding-place of this said parchment." '^ Indeed! " exclaimed another, " that will be a capital thing for Browne, for Willis can throw a vast of business into his hands ; no one more ! " Such was a conversation which took place between a knot of Woodburu gentlemen, as they 66 THE FAMILY COMPACT. stood together upon the bowling-green of the Red Lion »Inn, about three months after the Brownes' removal to Wilton-street. About the same time, three ladies — two spin- sters — Miss Carr and Miss Bensley, and old Mrs. Porter, who were waiting tlie arrival of a fourth, to make up a rubber at whist, held a conversation also on this favourite topic. " Did you see j\Irs. Browne at church on Sun- day?" asked Mrs. Porter. '* No," replied both ladies. " But," said Miss Bensley, " I've heard that she was prodigiously grand." '* Really," said ]\Irs. Porter, " all eyes were turned ' on her. She was in maroon-coloured velvet, with three such feathers in her hat, as 1 never saw in my life ; and, upon my word, she looked quite handsome?" " I've heard gentlemen say," remarked Miss Carr, " that she is handsome, but, for my part, I never admired her!" "How in the world!" asked Miss Bensley, '* have they made such a start all at once? They say she had no fortune; her father was onl,v a grocer, you know, and a bankrupt, somebody said; and, as to his profession, it's ridiculous to think of its-producing him such an income!" " I am sure I do not know how it is," replied Mrs. Porter, " but they seem prodigiously well off." " They cannot be living under a thousand a year," said Miss Carr. " I should think they will drop those everlasting Gregsons now," said she, laughing. " How ridiculous they make them- selves I" THE FAMILY COMPACT. 57 ** At all events," said Mrs. Porter, " they can- not be charged with forgetting their friends as soon as they begin to hold 'jp their heads in the "vvorld ! '' " Did you hear of the christening, ladies?" inquired Miss Carr; *' it was absolutely absurd!" " No," said Mrs. Porter; *' nor have I seen the baby, but they ttll me it is a beautiful child." Yes," returned Miss Carr, " the child is well enough — but such a christening! Mr. Wilford told me about it — he was at the dJianer, and Mr. and Mrs. Gregson were the sponsors. Such ridi- culous folly, he said, he never witnessed — such kissing and crying — the ladies embracing — and, la! I don't know what — like a couple of senti- mental school-misses — and Mr. Wilford, you know, is not a person to exaggerate." " Well, that is absurd! " remarked Miss Bensley. " I am sorry to have kept you waiting, ladies," said Mrs. Robinson, laying down her bonnet, and taking the vacant chair; "but I just met with Mrs. and the Misses Jennings, and they insisted on my walking in, for they had been to call on Mrs. Browne this morning, and they wanted to tell me all about it," *' La ! " exclaimed the three ladies at once "have the Jenningses been to call on the Brownes?" " Yes, indeed!" returned Mrs. Robinson. " Upon my word!" ejaculated Miss Carr. " And what did they tell you ? " asked Miss Bensley. *' Oh, everything was exquisite," returned she, laughing; " and Mrs. Browne was in apple-pie 58 THE FAMILY COMPACT. order; — but would you believe it! — Mr. and Mrs. Sykes Willoughby's card lay conspicuously in a card-basket on the table; and j\Irs. Browne was not Ion": before she began to say, " A charming lady is Mrs. Sykes Willoughby; they did us the honour to call the other day ! " And then Mr. Browne came in, looking as if his head was full of law-business, and morning-callers were the last thing in his head; but you know, of course, he had been sent for; and presently he dragged in " my excellent friend, ]\Ir. Sykes Willoughby; he and his lady did us the honour.to call the other dav!" while poor Mrs. Browne looked ready to die, for this spoiled it all, you know; and he was such a fool that, although she kept frowning at him, he would not understand her looks. It was infinitely ridiculous ! " said she, laughing; " if you had but seen Harriet Jennings mimickin-g them, you would have died wii'h laughter!" " But what in the world made the Jenningses call on them ? " asked Miss Carr ; " and I declare I will make Mr. Wilford tell Harriet Jennings all about the christening, and the embracing of mamma and god-mamma ; it will be just the thing for her!" " Wonders never will cease, that's certain," returned Mrs. Robinson ; " and so you will all say. Mr. John Jennings was persuaded by Mr. Willis to put some law-business — something about manorial rights — into Browne's hands; and they say he has managed the business really cleverly; which so pleased Mr. John Jennings — for the cause had been tried three different terms, and lost each time — that he insisted on his mother .ind THE FAMILY COMPACT, 59 sisters calling on Mrs. Browne ; — you know when people live in the same street, they must be neighbourly." " That is the mischief of these little towns," said Mrs. Porter. " He knew that," said ^liss Carr, " when he went into Wilton-street; for he has an artful way with him, and ambition enough for a cardinal! I wish, however, that the cheese-factor's kdy had been there, when Mrs. Jennings called I" *' She ivas there!" exclaimed Mrs. Robinson, *' and that made half the joke; for there was such a ceremony of introduction — 'Pray Mrs. Jennings, allow me to introduce to you my dear friend, Mrs. Gregson! — Pray young ladies, let me present to you my beloved friend, Mrs. Gregson!' — and then, when Mrs. Gregson, who, by the bye, has most sense of the two, rose to depart, there was such a shaking of hands, and kissing, ana ' ^Vhen shall we meet again?' and adieus — oh, it was capital! It is as good as a comedy, every bit, to see Harriet Jennings mimic Mrs. Browne!" These two conversations fully explain the pro- gress of events. Mr. and Mrs. Browne had made a bold stroke for fortune, when they removed into Wilton-street. " Faint heart never wins fair lady," had been used as an illustration of his theory, by Mr. Browne himself; " faint heart never wins good fortune;" and, sure enough, fortune seemed not indifFerentl.y well pleased by the bold heart ol the Brownes; for, within six months of the time when Mr. Browne sate down in his new private room in his new offices, no less than three out of the twelve japanned deed-boxes which filled up one end 6 CO THE FAMILl COMPACT. of his office, were conspicuously labelled in gold letters, " John Jennings, Esquire ;" *' Henry Willis, Esquire ;" " Peter Thomas Denby, Esquire." His two clerks were no longer set to engross old acts of parliament, for they had full employment; besides which, he had an articled clerk of his own — no -other than the nephew of Peter Thomas Denby, Esquire; and about his own private room there lay such a satisfactory litter of engrossed folios, red tape-tied square packets of parchments, ani other professional papers, that there was no occa^ sion to lay anything about for show; while the splashes of ink on the new carpet, and on his new green cloth-covered table, gave evidence of work being done there. All this was amazingly satisfactory; and Mr. Browne began to hold his head quite as high as either Peake or Mordan, and to think, with him- self, that he should live to get the best part oi their business out of their hands. Mrs. Browne was no whit less gratified than her husband ; the Sykes Willoughbys, and the Jen- ningses, the two great families of the town and the neighbourhood, had called upon her; true, the intimacy seemed to pause there; the calls had been punctually returned, but no invitations fol- lowed, nor in the course of three months had the calls been repeated. Mrs. Browne, therefore, was fain to make use of one call, and one set of cards, and to hope that the time would come when these events would be like e very-day things. In "^^he meantime, " dear Mrs. Gregson*' was in no danger of being forgotten. Many and many B time would her friend say to her, when felici* THE FAMILY COM/ACT. 61 tated on their growing good fortune, "But, my sweet friend, we owe all this to you ! That's what Browne and I often say; and, I am sure if we had no family of our own, and should be worth millions, we ought to leave every sixpence to you and yours!" But there was a child, which, for the present at least, would prevent any unreason- able expectations in the minds of the Greg- sons. The child's christening had made no little talk in Woodbum — for the christening and the house-warming were celebrated by the same din- ner, and everything was in accordance with the implied prosperity of the family. "What the people of Woodburn said of this great christening, we have already heard. Mr. Gregson, who, as Browne had said; was a most generous-hearted fellow, rejoiced unfeignedly that his money seemed to be the lucky nest-egg to which his friend could add the golden ones ; and he and his wife accepted the office of sponsor, as one of great honour — Mr. and Mrs. Browne promising to stand in the same spiritual relation- ship towards the first young Gregson that required it ; nor was such an event likely to be distant. Furthermore, the mamma apparent, and the mamma expectant, were bent upon a yet closer and dearer family union — the marrying, at some future day, the first son and daughter of the re- spective families. The " little husband" was born, and flourishing under the name of Charles Edward, so called after the young Pretender, the songs in whose honour and memory had always been favourites with the " Miranda and Elvira" of the earlier part of our 62 THE FAMILY COMPACT. history. Charles Edward, or " Bon lie Prince Charlie," as his mother invariably called him, was the plighted husband of the first Miss Gregson that should be born to the family in- Bridge-street. Never had any romantic scheme, in the days of their early friendship, been so fostered and fondled with as this. It was the unceasing topic of con- versation and castle-building, when the ladies met, and the subject likewise of many an epistle, dispatched on the days when it was not convenient for them to meet. The same system of education, from the cradle upwards, was to be pursued in both cases. They were to be carried out together, and then to walk out together, hand in hand ; to exchange presents of toys and sweetmeats; to be drawn 'in the same little carriage ; to call each other " little husband," and " little wife," and to have no ideas, all the days of their lives, in which each other should not be blended. The ladies exchanged rings, as tokens of their troth to each other; and Mrs. Gregson, beyond her present in character of godmother, presented her young son- in-law elect with a silver drinking cup, made to order, on which were engraved the united initials of Charles Edward Browne and Lucy Gregson, such being the name the young lady was to bear when she made her appearance; and underneath was richly chased a pair of billing doves — " a very pretty conceit," said both Mrs. Browne and Mrs. Gregson, although, we must confess, it was by no means an original one. Nor was this solemn league and covenant entered into without the due consent and accordance of the respective fathers. Both declared themselves perfectly agree- BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE. 63 able, provided the consent of the parties more iinmediateiy concerned should be obtained some twenty years thereafter. There was no doubt about that, the mothers declared. And, on the night of the christening, the rest of the company being gone, they insisted upon Mr. Browne draw- ing up marriage-articles, in the names of the tvvo children, and a bond also between the respective parents, binding them to throw no impediments in the way of such a union, but, on the contrary, to further it by every means in their power. Two copies of this being signed in the presence of witnesses, by the respective parties, each mother took one into her own keeping, declaring she should only be perfectly happy when she saw that bond ratified, by the happy union of their children. It was well that all this signing and sealing was done after the guests had left the house, or Mr. Wilford would have been able to have embellished his christening narrative with yet richer material for the display of Harriet Jennings' comic powers. CHAPTER VII. BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE. The first child that was born to the Gregsons was a boy ; so was the second ; the third occasion presented twins, and both again boys. It was very disappointing, but still not without its con- solation ; for the little daughter, when she did come, would be all the more suitable in aire for the 64 BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE. ^* Bonnie Prince Charlie," who, it seemed probable, would be the only descendant of the Brownes. Prince Charlie deserved to be called " Bon\iie." Mrs. Jennings, and her witty daughter^ Harriet; Mrs. Sykes Willoughby, and even jNIiss Carr, who always declared that she could endure none of the Brownes, all and each of them allowed that Bonnie Prince Charlie was the handsomest child in Woodburn. At length, when he was in his fifth year, his little wife-elect was born, and, as had been so long before decreed, was christened Lucy — Mr. and Mrs. Browne standing sponsors, and endowing her with christening cap and robe, silver knife, fork, and spoon, and coral and silver bells the best money could buy. Perhaps our readers wonder, as we are greatly disposed to wonder ourselves, that, in five years' time, the Family Compact had not been broken. It happened, however, that neither the Jenningses, nor the Sykes -Willoughbys, nor any first-rate town or country people, had yet grown intimate with the Brownes ; so that no rival had stepped between the friends, nor had any new friends as yet taken the place of the old. Mr. Browne's profession, however, was producing every year a larger return ; he was growing quickly and surely into repute as a lawyer, and the whole twelve boxes which the office contained, and even others out of sight, were now, every one of them, gold-lettered and pad- locked, ^and contained deeds and writings of so many estates and families. Peake and Mordan had began now to sink old animosities, and had legal consultations with him, even of their own BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE. 66 especial desire. He had, moreover, three hired clerks and three articled ones, all gentlemen's sons, each sitting at their respective desks, while he himself was always busy, and needed not now to make the most of his papers to produce effect, for nobody questioned now whether he was pros- perous or not. Mr. Gregson said that he was a long-headed, far-seeing man, and knew exactly when to take fortune at the high tide ; he must be making now his two thousand a-year; he won- dered when he would think of paying the one thousand pounds which he had borrowed nearly six years before! Mrs. Gregson always grew uneasy when this borrowed money was spoken of j for, although Mrs. Browne was her dear and sworn friend, she could not help thinking it the oddest thing in the world that her husband never thought of paying it. But, though she might think this, she did not like Mr. Gregson to have the same freedom of thought. Sometimes, how- ever, he thrust the unpleasant topic upon her, which she would parry thus : — " They could not think of asking the Brownes for it — that was out of the question ! and, thank Heaven, they did not want it; besides, as Lucy and Charlie we^ e to be married, it would never signify ; it m ght be reckoned as a part of her portion laid ou for her interest ; " and what a good match it wi 1 be for our sweet little pet!" she would say. *' fou see, Charles will be the only child, and dear Sarah told me the other day, that Browne was in treaty for his house; and I expect, before he dies he will be immensely rich — lawyers have such opportu- aities of buying estates and fine places cheap!" 66 BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE. To all which her husband would reply, " We shall see in time, hut there is many a slip between the cup and the lip; and you must remember that, although Browne has one child, we have five, and four of them boys, and who want pro- viding for; and people in trade, like me, do not like a thousand pounds lying merely at dead interest." Mr. Gregson, however, did not ask for his money, and all went on smoothly. Little Lucy Gregson was brought up en the same system, physical, moral, and intellectual, which had formed the nursery code of the " Bonnie Prince Charlie." She was bathed in cold water from head to foot every morning, winter and summer; she slept upon a hair mattrass, and was drilled as soon as she could walk. She was made to put by half of all her sweetmeats, comfits, barleysugar, and buns, for her little husband ; for every doll that was given to her, a horse or whip was given to him ; three mornings in a week, the nurse-maids walked together, making " Bonnie Prince Charlie" take hold of the hand of " his little wife," and conduct her along; and three evenings in every week likewise, they spent together in play. It not unfrequently happened that the " Bonnie Prince" was wayward, and would not patronise his little wife — perhaps would quarrel with her, and pinch her black and blue — for it is the vainest attempt in the world to compel or control the affections of a child; or little Lucy would kick and scream, when ordered to kiss her " little husband," and would give the most de- cided preference to her own brothers. On such BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND IIIS WIIE. 67 untoward occasions, no pains were spared by either mammas or nurses to effect a reconciliation and preference, generally with entiie want of success, until even at length a total breach has existed between the parties-matrimonial; the Prince has beaten his wife, and she has returned his ill-will with the united energy of little foot and doubled fist. Then came the after work of pacification. Miss Lucy carried the sponge-cake to the Bonnie Prince, carefully wrapped up, however, that it might not be seen by her, with her mamma's love, and a kiss which she herself was to bestow; and in return she received the wax-doll, or the pretty basket, which his mamma assured her the Bonnie Prince Charlie had bought that very morning with his own money. The ivory counters, from which he had learned his letters, had been put by for her use ; so had " his pretty picture-books;" and the two children were bribed by their mammas to sit down to- gether on the hearth-rug, that he might teach and she learn; "for," said jMrs. Gregson, "it will be so sweet, that even her earliest remembrance of books should be connected with him !" Everybody in Woodburn knew by this time that the two children were affianced to each other, and infinite was the jesting and merriment which the circumstance occasioned. But little of all this, however, came to the knowledge of the two ladies themselves, for, as yet, they visited only with their own set, and there, whatever they thought it right to do, was considered not only respectable, but proper; and, beside this, they had still all that romantic heroism of friendship 68 BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE, which took pride in suffering together, or for tha same cause, even had they known all ^h^t was said of them. Still, difficulties and vexations did, and would occur; nursery-maids quarrelled and tittle tattled, and would have sown the seeds of deatVi in any friendship less heroic than that of their mistresses ; but the most serious cause of annoy- ance was from the two little people themselves. By the time Bonnie Prince Charlie w^s ten years old, he had vowed all kind of hatred to, and rebellion against his poor little wife. He had un- fortunately began to associate with young gentle- men of his own age, and among them he had not only found himself ridiculed for his royal appella- tion, but still more, on account of his little sposa He therefore announced to his mamma, in very plain terms, that he hated Lucy Gregson, and would never speak to her again as long as he lived! That he wished she would not talk so much about " little husband" and. " little wife," for, that the boys in the street shouted after him; and, moreover, John Porter and Harry Robinson*' had made a song about him, which Miss Harriet Jennings had set to music; and that, therefore, he would hide himself whenever Mrs. Gregson or Lucy came to the house ; and he was very glad indeed that he was going to school, because then he should be quite out of the way of any of them! INIrs. Browne could hardly believe her own ears, and was quite shocked at her son's obduracy; but he was an only son, and had long since learned that there were few points he could not gain if he were determined ; so he was only the more resolute and violent, in proportion to his mother's resistance. BONNIE IPRIKCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFE. 60 Similar causes of annoyance sprang up also in the path of Mrs. Grcgson. *' It's no manner of use, ma'am," said Lucy's nurse-maid, on one particular day, to her mistress, " my trying to dress Miss Lucy ; there she lies, all her length, kicking and screaming, on the nursery-floor, all about going to Mrs. Browne's. And I'm sure, ma'am, if I might speak my mind, I never would aforce her, for the Bonnie Prince nipped a piece out of her with his thumb and finger nail, only the last Saturday we were there ; and it a'most threw her into fits to hear his name. I'm sure, ma'am, he's a sad ruffianly boy ; and, if you only knowed what I know, you'd never think of him for our little dear's husband — bless her heart — for she's too good for twenty such as he." *' Nonsense!" replied Mrs. Gregson, quite offended at the liberty taken by her handmaiden in this implied censure; " Nonsense! you manage Miss Lucy very badly ; but go to her, she must not be screaming thus — she will rouse the whole neighbourhood! She shall go with me to Mrs. Browne's to-morrow." On the morrow the little Lucy was dressed all in her best, and promised a walk with mamma, not a word being said, however, on the intended call on the Brownes. She was taken first to two different houses, put into very good humour by compliments and cakes, and then decoyed by a back strt-et to the very front-door. No sooner did the hated three large steps and the mahogany door present themselves, than the child, who had been merrily talking, and in the height of good humour the moment before, began to scream and 70 BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE AND HIS WIFl. kick, and show such determired resistance, as brought all the grand neighbours to their windows, and almost threw the mother into fits. " Be still, naughty child," said she, shaking her violently by the arm, and knocking at the door at the same moment; "be still, or 1 will whip you!" Mrs. Browne's servants were deaf, or out of the way, for none answered the door; and, who should come up at the very moment, but Mrs. Jennings and her witty daughter, and ISIiss Carr, who all glanced at the perturbed countenance of Mrs. Gregson and her outrageous daughter, with ill- suppressed mirth. Mrs. Gregson knocked yet louder, and in half a minute more was admitted, when, vexed and mortified beyond measure, she burst into tears. Mrs. Browne did everything in her power to calm her agitated feelings; and the little Lucy being assured that the Bonnie Prince Charlie was not at home, nor should come into her presence, was persuaded to sit down on a little footstool in the drawing-room, although she reso- lutely refused to accept either plum-cake or fig, from her mother-in-law-elect. Poor child! she had been bribed and deceived so often, that she had no faith in any of them. Bonnie Prince Charlie was sent to school in a neighbouring town. It was a happy day both to him and his little wife, when they kissed and parted. The parting, however, was the only portion of the affair which had their own free good- will; to kiss, they were persuaded, on the plea that " they would not see one another, nobody could say when!" CHANGES WILL COMS. 71 "When the Bonnie Prince returned home foi the holidays, he had, even in the first half-year'f term, imbibed enough of the school-boy spirit, to maintain his own will, " in spite of his mother, or any woman whatever;" and he failed not to make it a main object to affront Mrs. Gregson herself. The first time, also, he met with his little wife, he set himself about being " as disagreeable as pos- sible." This being in the presence of her brothers — the eldest of whom was about his own age — they took up the quarrel warmly, and all w^re at feud with him. On the second time of meeting, things grew worse; George Gregson, the second brother, and he, had a fight, in which he was victor. The next time they were together, Tom, the elder, fell upon him, in the double cause of having ill-used his sister, and fought with a boy so much less than himself. The Bonnie Prince went home soundly beaten, and full of all uncha- ritableness to every one of the family, declaring that, " when the Gregsons came to his school," as was talked of, "he'd pay them off — that he would ! " CHAPTER VIII. CHANGES WILL COME. Mrs. Browne was sitting one morning in her drawing-room, handsomely dressed, and stout and comely — for she had unquestionably improved in appearance as she had increased in years and wealth — and was now a fine-looking woman, about thirty in appearance, though at least seven yean 7 72 CHANGES WILL COMB. older. The good house in Wilton-street was now their own, and Mr. Browne was, without a doubt, the first lawyer in that division of the county. He had now ceased to think of tTie time when his position in society or his fortune were doubtful. The rival firm of Peake and Mordan had ceased to be formidable. Peake was dead, and Mordan had sunk into comparative insignificance. Mrs. Browne was thinking, on this particular morning, liow respectable it looked to have a well made footman in new handsome live/y to wait upon one, and to open the door when anybody knocked. She hoped somebody particular would call this morning; it was a thousand pities that the Sykes Willoughbys had called yesterday ; she wished the Jenningses were come back from Bath, for Mrs. Jennings' livery was nothing to compare to theirs. How well it would look, too, to send the Bonnie Prince to school, driven by this new servant — for he enacted groom as well as footman — ail his schoolfellows, and the masters and all, would think so much better of him. It was so much handsomer, she thought, than to go there in one gig — the father and his two boys, as the Gregsons did. She must confess that the Gregsons were rather common sort of people, and had very com- mon notions about many things: but then, to be sure, Rebecca had not had the advantages which she had had; there was so much in being the ■wife of a i)rofessional man — that she knew years ago, when she refused Samford — for professional men are alNvays gentlemen. She remembered now, perfectly, how v;jlgar she had thought Greg- «on when she first knew him. Rebecca might CHANGES WILL COME. 78 have been different, if she had married a different sort of person ; then there were so many children — that alone made a wonderful difference; for her part, she thought crowds of children were vulgar — she was most happy in having but one ; yet, spite of the children, if she were in Rebecca's place, she was sure she could manage better; she would not be contented with things in such a tradesman-like manner — dinino; at one — taking tea at six — it really was so vulgar ; and, if it were only out of compliment to her, they might alter their hours ; for she never knew when to call, without interfering with some meal. If Mrs. Gregson, however, had only half as many callers as she had, and that kind of people too, she would be compelled to alter them. Then, again, she wished Rebecca would have done with that everlasting brown silk gown, and that scarlet shawl, and would dress altogether with more style ; for she, with all her love for her friend, could not resist certain feelings of shame and annoyance, when her great acquaint- ance, the Sykes Willoughbys, or the Jenningses, caught ]Mrs. Gregson in her drawing-room. She had, it is true, ventured to say something to her on the subject of her dress; but then, poor Mrs. Gregson had looked so hurt, and had said some- thing too, all in confidence, about her husband's losses in trade, and the money it cost to keep th© boys at school; — that she was obliged to study economy; and that she would rather by far go shabby herself, than that little Lucy should, who was designed for Prince Charlie's wife. Oh, it was rather ridiculous and inconsiderate, Mrs. Browne could not but confess, to have evei y^ CHANGES WILL COME. tu(rAIrs. Browne, nor eve» to vie with her, be- cause your husband has bought that pretty place, and may probably disconnect himself from trade." " No — that he never will," interrupted Mrs. Gregson: "I wish he would! I am sure he is^very rich; but he is so close about money-matters!" " But why should he* disconnect himself with trade?" asked her friend. "Your elder sons are now growing up to take part with him in busi- ness — to allow their father occasional leisure; but, depend upon it, a man accustomed from his youth upwards to business, is never so happy as when reasonably employed by it. Besides, Mr. Gregson is not old enough to retire yet; nor his sons old enough, or experienced enough, to conduct the business themselves. In ten or fifteen years, when they are married, and begin to under- stand what responsibility really is, then advise Mr. Gregson to retire from business, and to take to gardening or farming, or to sink down, if he like it better, into the quiet old gentleman. But for Heaven's sake, my dear friend, do not think of rivalling Mrs. Browne : the effect upon your children would be lamentable! But perhaps I have already said too much," added she, observing a change pass over Mrs. Gregson's countenance. *' If I have wounded your feelings in any way, I sincerely regret it; for I have a deep interest both in you and your children, and I earnestly wish them well — Lucy especially: she may be made a noble character 1" THE RIVAL HOUSES. 119 Mrs. Gregson laid her hand on her friend's arm, really touched by what she had said of the children. *' No, I am not offended," she said; " I Mould not be offended by anything you might say; but I would not for the world that Gregson heard all you say; he seems to have misgivings, now he has bought the place! He talks of letting it; he has let the land, you know. And, only think what a coming down that would be, not to go there after all that has been said about it; M'hat a triumph it would be to Mrs. Browne I" " Never mind Mrs. Browne," said Mrs. Bar* well, laughing; " you really make that poor lady of too much consequence I But, depend upon it, you will go to the Ehiis after all!" " I doubt it," said Mrs. Gregsoi]. " Trust me," replied her friend, " as tlie spring comes on, and your husband sees how sweet it looks when the leaves are out, and the garden in order, he will be as impatient to get there as yourself." " So I said the other day," returned she, " and we'd quite a quarrel about it." *' That was a pity! ' said Mrs. Barwell; "but, for the future, do not say too much on the subject. Leave everything to work its own course, and I shall be wonderfully deceived in Mr. Gregson if klJ be not as you wish." 11 120 % CHAPTER XL WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? The sprlnj^ came on singularly early, and with unusual beauty. The shrubbery at tlie Elms was full of spring flowers, and Mr. Gregson, who, through the winter, as his wife had said, was filled with misgivings about his bargain, and reluc- tance to give up his old habits, to assume a higher style of living, although to rank a step higher in society, no sooner saw the violet-bed sprinkled with its white and blue flowers — no sooner scented the first waft of sweet-briar odour, than he was filled witii an insatiable longing to become a dweller in the country. He walked rapidly through the grounds; he then sauntered quietly about; gathered the violets with all the eagerness of a school-boy, and peeped into the hedges and bushes of laurustinus, and into the low boughs of the young firs, to see if there were yet any birds'-nests. All at once, he thought how delighted his young people would be to be there — to live there. He had damped all their hopes in the winter; he had even been angry when they had called the Elms pleasanter than Bridge-street. It is wonderful what influence the first breaking out of spring — young, generous, genial spring — has upon our moral being. Mr. Gregson wondered he had never thought of the pleasure his children would have there before; of the pleasant relaxation it would be to the elder, after business; what a sweet and proper home for Lucy, now so womanly in her WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 121 appearance, and so very pretty too; to say nothing of the happy holidays the younj^ boys might spend there. He reproached himself fur having been selfish; he wondered no longer at his wife's reluctance to give it up ; gathered another bunch of violets ; took another whiff of sweet-briar odour, and then walked on rapidly to talk to the gardener about the green-house and vines, and tell him, that as the family would be there early in the season, he must prepare his garden-crops. He next ordered the labourer to take down the board which announced that the place wanted a tenant; and then, giving the man a shilling, rode home in good humour, botii with himself and all the world. Mrs. Gregson needed no pressing to become mistress of the Elms; her husband's impatience equalled her own : they therefore, that same evening, walked into the town to order Mr. Stirrup, a man of universal business, to meet tiiem the next morning at the Elms, to consider what was first to be done, in order that the removal might take place as early as possible. Great pleasure indeed had Mrs. Gregson in com- municating this intelligence to ]Mr. Stirrup, for thus she knew it would not be long before it reached the people in Wilton-street — Mr. Stirrup being always employed fur them, in one way or other, either to rectify Venetian blinds, to cure a smoky chimney, or to correct some new cooking apparatus, or fifty other little jobs — he being, as ^Irs. Browne had often said, her right- hand man. That very night, Mr. Stirrup having to take home a patent coffee-pot which had leaked !22 WHO SHALL be greatest? informed Mrs. Browne of tlie intended change; and, while Mr. and Mrs. Gregson, after tea, were eagerly talking it over, I\Ir. and Mrs. Browne like- wise, after their dinner, were talking it over too. " And so the Gregsons are really going to the Elms at last," said Mrs. Browne, an hour later in the same evening, to Mrs. Jennings and her daughter Harriet, now approaching the meridian of life, with w horn she was taking her coffee. " We have hitherto visited at the Elms," said Mrs. Jennings: "we knew the Jukeses intimately; and Sir Henry Forrester, who built it, was my cousin. It would make him come out of his grave, if he knew that his pet place, over which he spent so much taste and so much money, had gone to the Gregsons! Bless me, what changes there have been in Woodburn since those days!" Both Mrs. Browne and Miss Harriet Jennings thought it as well that the old lady should not particularize all the changes which Woodburn had seen in the last twenty years; therefore that subject was dropped. " Have you heard," said Mrs. Browne, " of the death of .Major Barwell, the Colonel's brother?" The ladies had, but they solicited any further particulars. " The Major," said Mrs. Browne, " has, I understand, left one daughter; but where she is I do not know; nor does anybody, that I can find. The Major, it seems, left by will forty thousand pounds, to be laid out in landed property for his daughter. She is to be such a great heiress, and will inhert, it is said, all the Coloner» property I " WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 123 " Unless," said Mrs Jennings, " it is left to that Miss Gregson; for they tell me that she is as much at Moreby Lodge as at her own home." " It's quite absurd," said jMrs. Browne, " the way they have taken to that girl. I met the carriage yesterday, and there she was, stuck up Oeside Mrs. Barwell, with feathers in her hat!" " Oh yes," said Miss Jennings, " she is quite assuming the young lady." " We shall have her corning out in the winter,'" said Mrs. Browne, " chaperoned, of course, by Mrs. Barwell." " Do you know," said Miss Jennings, " that mamma took her the other day for Miss Wilmot, Mrs. Sykes Willoughby's beautiful niece, and asked after her aunt and the young ladies !"' " Upon my word, I did," said Mrs. Jennings. '"' There she was, in Mason's shop, buying lace — dressed beautifully. And, whether it was that the bonnet gave her the look, or whether she imitates Miss Wilmot, or whether my sight is not so good as it was, I can't say; but certainly I did take her for Miss Wilmot; and a great compliment it was, for Miss Wilmot is beautiful. She was then with Mrs. Barwell," continued the old lady; " and, ' I beg your pardon,' said I, as soon as I saw Mrs. Barwell, ' I thought you were a young lady I knew: I mistook her,' said I to Mrs. Bar- well, ' for Miss Wilmot.' ' You are not the first person who has done so,' said Mrs. Barwell ; 'I myself think them very like, but Lucy Gregson has rather the advantage in height.' " " Lucy Gregson like Miss Wilmot — and taller tool" exclaimed Mrs. Browne; "I wonder what 124 WHO SHALL BE GllEATESI? we shall have next ! Lucy Gregson is a raw girl, without any style at all! But I assure you, Mrs. Barwell has the (.ddest notions and tastes I Now, I'll tell you what she herself told me I" And then Mrs. Browne edified the two ladies Avith the history of the uncle and aunt who kept the little tea-shop, and also of the early acquaintance with her as a school-girl, when she lived with her ancient grandmother. " I do not wonder at her low tastes, then,** said Mrs. Jennings. " And yet she is a perfect gentlewoman," said Miss Harriet ; " living in the world, you know, has made her that; and, for my part, I think her manners excellent." " No doubt of it," returned Mrs. Browne; "she is, as you say, a perfect gentlewoman; but what I tell you of her early days, and her peculiar tastes and predilections — for every word of what I have told you I had from her own mouth — may account for the strange mixture of good sense and ab- surdity there is in her." Many of the wise people of Woodburn, besides the Jenningses, thought it rather a strange fancy of Mrs. Barwell, to be so very intimate with the Gregsons, and to have almost, as it seemed, adopted Lucy. True, the Gregsons had by this time left their house in Bridge-street, and had assumed altogether a higher style of living: still, he bought cheese as formeily; and she, with all her striving, did not rise above the wife of a rich tradesman; and the people of Woodburn, therefore, wondered on. How often had Mrs. Gregson censured her WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 125 friend IMrs. Browne, for aping the style and bearing of a person of fashion I for hungering and thirsting, as it were, after the notice and intimacy of the county families — the Sykes Willoughbys, and the rest of them! But in censuring iier, she only did what we all, more or less, do every day — blamed her for that, from the temptation to which she herself was exempt. She had not, however, been settled many months in her new habitation, possessed at the same time of the knowledge that her husband was undoubtedly a man of prosperity and substance, than she too began to have similar aspirings. Another sentiment also governed her, no less strong than personal ambition — the desire not only to rival, but to outshine Mrs. Browne. Whilst they had lived among the cheese ware- houses in Bridge-street, whatever might have been the amount of her husband's income, or however expensive might have been the style of living they had chosen to adopt, she well knew that they must rank many degrees below the wealthy soli- citor wiio inhabited his own large house in Wilton-street; but things had now taken a little turn; their present residence was as much above the Brownes', in Wilton-street, as their former one had been below it. They seemed to have de- cidedly turned a corner in the great pathway of society; they had left their old acquaintance be- hind them, and were going forward through new prospects, and Avith new people, among whom they might naturally form connexions. Mrs. Gregson, therefore, dropped all intimacy with her less dignified acquaintance, and was " not at home" when Mrs. Mason, the draper's wife, who 126 WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? had hired a fly for the occasion, drove over totlie Elms, to make her first call ; and, in order to cut the intimacy more decidedly, went a shopping to the county-town, as many families — the Sykes Willoughbys and the rest did — on the plea that there was neither style nor variety in Mason's fancy goods. The countenance of Mrs. Barwell, a lady whose station in society was unquestionable, and who visited everybody, was a great happiness to her. Little did Mrs. Barwell know the seeds of ambition which Mere springing up to vigorous growth in her friend's heart. True, she was not long in making the discovery, that Mr. and Mrs. Greg- son, although tradespeople, were not characterised by her uncle and aunt's single-mindedness and simplicity, yet nobility of heart; and she began to fear that her search after happiness, like that of many others, would end in disappointment: yet, for the present at least, she persisted in hoping the best. Besides this, she had volunteered pub- licly, as it were — publicly, at least, as it had be- come — her friendship to Mrs. Gregson, to whom she knew that no mortification could be so cruel as the withdrawing of it. Mrs. Barwell, too, had been let into the secrets of the rival houses; she liked the Brownes no better than Mrs. Gregson liked them herself, and she would not willingly give them the least triumph over her. Still, she had a difficult part to act. Mrs. Gregson was not satisfied with her as a half and half partisan; and her moderation and good sense view of things continually threatened disunion between them. Then followed the long lef-ters of deprecation ; the bitter self-condemnation; the visit of tears; the WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 127 humility; and the gratitude — more oppressive than all. Spite, however, of all this show of attachment, and willingness to be guided, no human being ever was more perversely determined to take her own course than was poor Mrs. Gregson. Her true mode of reasoning, stripped of all its sentiment — for at this time siie tried to impose upon herself a belief of disinterested attachment to her new friend — was something like this: — "Here we are now at the Elms — a dozen steps higher in society than in Bridge-street, and I have fairly p«t an end now to all Bridge-street intimacies. Gregson after all, it seems, is very ricli — rich enough to write esquire after his name. Our house is most handsomely furnished; we have a gardener, a groom, and women servants — more than ever I kept in my life bef(jre; and, before long, I'll have a servant in livery, and a handsome piiaeton of my own. I know I can have them; for I have remarked many little tendencies to show and stylishness in Gregson, of late; and, why should we not show the world that we know how to make use of good fortune? What ivill Mrs. Browne say to ' the Gregsons' carriage I — to their gardener, and groom, and footman?' Oh, it's capital I Poor Mrs. Barwell, after all her riot about those old-fashioned tradespeople, will soon find in England, now-a-tlays, that those manners are gone by: people have not now the same miser- able notions that they had forty years ago; besides, those people were poor — so diti'erent to us, even if that way of life would satisfy one. Mrs. Barwell is a very good sort of woman; but she givea 128 WHO SIIA^LL BE GREATEST? advice on what slie knows nothing about. She, were she in our case, would do as we do — not as she advises. She is, nevertheless, an excellent person, and, as I know it mortifies the Brownes that we should be so intimate, I am dtterniined| to keep up the Marnicst iriendship with her; and I really think she is fond of Lucy, and Lucy is much improved since she has been so much at Moreby Lodge ; for there is a something about rich people, and people accustomed to society, that one cannot acquire after one's habits are formed. I fear I never shall do proper justice to our fortune ; but, if dressing well will do, I will dress well I — and I'll go into good society too — nor will I worry about the saving of sixpence, as I have done! There's one tiling, however, that does vex me; the Barwells never ask us to any of their large parties. She pretends not to like Mrs. Browne, and yet, the Brownes dined there only last week; and, what was most provoking of all, she sent Lucy home the day before, although I had got her a dress on purpose I I declare, if I had not the greatest respect for her in the world, I could have quarrelled with her about it; and, after all, much as I like her, I would far rather be invited to their great parties, and be thus treated as an equal in society, than as a humble friend, who, like a governess or an upper servant, is to leave the room the moment a guest enters. How- ever, I shall make no quarrel about it. I shall choose my own opportunities, and I'll make them all, by one means or another, the steps of the ladder by which I'll climb I" So woi*ked, day after day, the mind of poor WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 129 Mrs. Gregson; and many of the schemes she had devised, which, a few months before, would have seemed like wild chimeras, realized themselves in a manner which surprised even her; for instance, that of having a carriage which should outvie the Brownes'. But, in the first place, a word must be said about Mr. Gregson. He, as our readers may have premised, from his secret way of purchasing the Elms, and mispleading his wife with regard -to his circumstances, was not in the habit of confiding to her his intentions. He was naturally kind and indulgent ; but he was close-tempered, and liked to do everything in his own way. His wife, therefore, was not aware that a process similar to that which was going on in her mind, was operating also on his, and that he wa^ no little flattered by the attentions of Colonel and Mrs. Barwell; and that a desire to show himself to the world as a wealthy man, was beginning to take hold of him. He was begin- ning to covet the influence w hich a man possesses from being known to the rich — from being sur- rounded by that w^hich money can alone obtain. Had his wife known all these workings of his mind, she would have been wonilerfully delighted. However, she did not; and therefore a second surprise was iu store for her. When GreIrs. Harwell, "she was intrusted to the care of her mother's sister, in London, who was a lady of a large independent fortune. After Mary Anne had been three years at school, her aunt took her into France, and thence into Italy. At Florence her aunt became acquainted with a cele- brated Marquis, whom she married. He had been concerned deeply, it seems, in some rebellion against the Austrian government — has been im- prisoned, and has suffered dreadfully, I believe. He has been now restored to liberty, but on the sole condition of perpetual banishment; they are going to South America, and Mary Anne is to be restored to us. It is, as far as I am concerned, a most happy circumstance; and I doubt not of its being a fortunate one for her. Colonel Bar- well and myself set off to-morrow for Dover — we are going into Italy to fetch her. I was going to send Lucy home this afternoon, for it has taken us quite by surprise. Lucv is now with the gardener in the hot-house, selecting some plants for herself. Perhaps you would like to walk to her," said Mrs. Barwell, seeing that Mrs. Greg- son a))peared unaccountably silent. " Oh, no, no! — that is, not unless you want to get rid of me!" said she. »• No, indeed, I am most happy to see you,"^ WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 133 said Mrs. Barwell, smiling. " You will, perhaps, stay the day with me, for it will be three months before we return: we intend going on to Home." " When do you go? — to-morrow, did you say?" asked Mrs. Gregson, thinking directly, that they would not then see the new britclika at church. '' Yes, to-morrow," said Mrs. Barwell; " we are quite impatient to set off: ^Morgan has been packing since six o'clock this morning. Mary Anne was extreniely fond of us in India; she is a sweet girl, and her letter is quite affecting; you must read it: it shows a very good heart; and I love her for her devotion to her aunt. They have been in prison, you see — both of them," said she, the toars starting to her eyes, as she followed Mrs. Gregson's progress through the letter. " Poor thing I — and so young too — she must have suffered a great deal ! " " Yes, certainly!" said Mrs. Gregsop, returning the letter. " But I have to drive to ; I want to go a shopping, and came for Lucy to go with me; I am sorry, therefore, that I cannot stop the day with you. But I hope now that you will commission me with anything, in your absence; and Gregson, I am sure, will be most happy to be the Colonel's steward, or bailiff, or anything, while he is away. What can we do for you?" *' Thank you," returned Mrs. Barwell; " the Colonel is now gone down to Woodburn, to talk to your husband. He wants him to sell the carriage-horses — they do not exactly suit us — and the britchka too." *• Indeed!" said Mrs. Gregson, who determined to take this opportunity of telling her friend of 134 WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? the new acquisition ; " and do you really mean to sell the britchkaS Do you know, Gregson ad- mired it so much, that he has ordered one just like it for ourselves." Mrs. Barwell's countenance wore an Instan- taneous expression very like disgust. " Well, only see now!" thought Mrs. Gregson; " I do believe she is vexed that we should drive a britchka liketliem!" but sne still continued the topic on which she was speaking. " It is to come home on Saturday," she said; " and I want Lucy to go with me to buy new dresses; for you know we must be all of a piece!" The necessity for Mrs. Barwell to make any- observation, was prevented by Lucy coming in at that moment. " Oh, mamma, are you here?" she exclaimed; " and has Mrs. Barwell told you?" she asked, eagerly. " About the young lady coming?" inquired her mother. " No, no, not that! May I tell her, dear Mrs. Barwell?" asked Lucy of that lady. " You may," said Mrs. Barwell, but in a voice much colder than ordinary. " Then, manniia," said Lucy, " you must know that I was coming home this afternoon in the most beautiful little carriage! — so low and easy, and so well-built! — with the loveliest pair of ponies that ever you saw in your life; and it's a present to you from — whom do you think? — from Colonel Barwell!" Mrs. (jregson wished she had said nothing about the britchka; she made a hundred protesta- tions of gratitude and delight — said that she always WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 135 preferred a low carriage to a liicli one — that she was not particularly fond of britchkas — that it was all her husband's doing — that she mu^^t thank the dear Colonel herself — she must go that very instant — she would drive to Woodburn, and find him at the warehouse, with her husband." -' Do no such thing," said Mrs. Barwell, very decidedly ; " Lucy has thanked him : he hates gratitude — at least, he hates many thanks. But the best of the ponies is, that they are perfectly safe; you or Lucy may drive them; Lucy drove them fourteen miles yesterday; and, as you have to go to , you had better drive there at once — you are here so far on your way." "Do mammal" exclaimed Lucy — all anima- tion — " I will drive you ! " " But shall we not need a servant with us?" asked Mrs. Gregson; " Joseph drove me here; he has his best clothes on, and he looks respect- able." " There's no room for Joseph," said Lucy; " and, besides, as he is here with the gig, he shall take home my plants. I will go and order them to be packed;" and away she went. Mrs. Gregson, although she again spoke her thanks, could not help feeling a little mortified that no seat had been provided for a servant. *' Mrs. Barwell," thought she, " never goes out attended by less than two servants; but I suppose they think we have no business with one at all: the very ponies, I am • told, are so quiet that Lucy can drive them: and thus the present was not without its mortifying drawback. 136 CHAPTER XII. GROWING GREAT. "I AM glad we are going to Italy for three months," thought Mrs. Barwell to herself, as Lucy and her niotlier drove away in the little pony phaeton — " and tliat the britchka is going to be sold too ! How it would have vexed the Colonel to see the Greg- sons driving in such a one! What a want of good common sense there is in those people, after all I and, I begin to be very much afraid that my feelings towards her have been excited rather by enthusiasm than judgment!" Contrary to Mrs. Harwell's advice, Mrs. Greg- son, who was delijihted by the elegance of the little town-builtcarriage,and the perfectly-matched and faultless ponies, and the harness — the like of which had never been seen in Woodburn — forgot at once the want of an attendant groom, and ordered Lucy to drive into Woodburn, up Wilton- street, that Mrs. Browne might have a chance ot seeing them; and so to Bridge-street, where she might catch the Colonel before he had finished his business with her husband. Mrs. Browne, it happened, had just been calling on the Jenningses, and was walking up the street as Mrs. Gregson and her daughter drove into it. The ladies had ceased all familiar greetings since the day on which they dined together at the Barwells' ; on this particular occasion, however, Mrs. Gregson said to her daughter, " Let us stop GBOWING GREAT, 137 and speak to lier, for I know it uill half kill her to see us with this sweet equipage I" Lucv accordingly checked the speed of the ponies, as Mrs. Browne approached. Mrs. Brownt, in the meantime, had been speculating with herself who, in the world, the ladies could be: before Lucy, however, began to prepare for a halt, she had recognized them; and that, too, with a sentiment of envy and aversion. She very well divined why, on this particular occasion, the ceremony of recognition was to take place, and she determined to mortify their vanity. Assuming, therefore, a look of indifference, she passed the already pausing carriage with the coldest recog- nition, leaving them, as she hoped, to feel very foolish, especially as many people were in the street, all of whom, attracted by Mrs. Gregson in her new carriage, were looking on. " Was there ever in this world such a malicious woman?" exclaimed Mrs. Gregson to her daughter, feeling mortified, and, spite of the new carriage, a little foolish also, at the bootless halt which they had made. Fortune, however, had not deserted her. It happened that they had stopped before the only shop in Wilton-street; and, although she had never dealt there in her life, no sooner did the ponies draw up to the pavement, than the shopman, who was standing at his door, rushed forth, filled with the hope of a new customer; and, with ready wit, she resolved to avail herself of this mistake, to cover her disgrace, and alighted, following him into the shop, though she knew not what to purchase. Mrs. Browne, whose senses, in the meantime, were all alive, listened for the sound 138 GROWING GREAT. of the advancing wheels, which, not «'.oniing to her ears, hurried her to her own door-steps, that she might thus have an opportunity of looking up the street in a perfectly natural manner. Their house was not above twenty yards distant; and she had the vexation of seeing the ^shopman bowing Mrs. Gregson across the pavement; so that she entered her own door, quite undecided in her mind whether, after all, they had not been only stopping at the shop — which was a very vexatious thing! When Mrs. Gregson reached the warehouses in Bridge-street, she found that Colonel Barvvell was just gone. Her husband was looking vexed, and a new britchka was standing in the yard. *' Is that our new carriage?" said she: "well, it is handsome — and how like the Barwelis' ! But I'm in luck's way: I want you to see the present I have had made to me !" and she drew him from his desk to the counting-house window, to see the pony phaeton, in which Lucy was sitting, while one of the warehousemen and her two brothers were rapturously admiring the whole faultless equipage. " What do you think of that?" exclaimed she. " A present to me from Colonel Barwell!" " I hate those low carriages — drawn by a couple of rats!" said Gregson. " Now, really ! " said his wife. " And for what must he give you a carriage?" continued he. •' Out of kindness, to be sure," said she: " I always knew that the Barwelis liked us." " I tell you what, Rebecca," said he — " those GROWING GREAT, 139 Ban^-ells are as proud as Lucifer ! Do you know, the old Colonel looked as angry as anything when I showed him fhe new britchka." " I thought it Mas not to come till Saturday," said she. " It came home last night," returned her hus- band; " and he would hardly look at it, but said directly, that he would sell his own britchka: now, that's what I call rank pride! He was offended that we should have a britchka as well as he." ** Nothing of the kind!" said Mrs. Gregson; *' I can set you right on that score. Mrs. Barwell told me that the Colonel was come down here on purpose to ask you to sell the carriage-horses and the britchka; and she knew nothing of our having ine." " I don't know," said he, doubtfully; " but not one word did he say about mij selling anything for him — only, point blank, as rude as could be, * I shall sell mi/ britchka' — the first moment I Bpoke about mine." " 1 don't think he meant to be rude — I'm sure I don't," replied Mrs. Gregson, rather perplexed in her own mind, notwithstanding; " but perhaps I mistook Mrs. Barwell's meaning," said she, determined to preserve peace between the two houses, at all events; " I dare say I did: but of this I am sure, that she told me distinctly, that they were going to sell the carriage-horses and the britchka: she said the Colonel was come to Woodburn about it, and Wcis going to call on you, I thought she said, to ask you to sell them. But I dare say it was only to bid you good-bye, or to tell you of the present he had made me; and that 140 GROWING GREAT. woulii account for his looking vexed when you showed him that you had got a carriage. I can't help wishing that it had not come home till Saturday, and tlien they would have been gone." At that moment Lucy and her two brothers came in, full of enthusiasm about the ponies, and impatient tliat tiieir fatiier should go out to see them. Mr. Gregson reckoned himself a judge of horses, and of all that belonged to them; and he could not but confess, " that for ponies they were very fair; that the harness M'as of a good make; and that the phaeton was well built. But, ever since he was a boy," he said, " he had had a contempt for ponies and low carrikges — they were only iit for old M'omen !" " Get along with you!" said Mrs. Gregson, pushing him from her and laughing. " And now Lucy," said she, " we will just drive to the pastry-cook's and get a mouthful of something, and then drive to ." Before the next Sunday, all the world knew that the Barwells were gone abroad, and that the Colo- nel had made Mrs. Gregson a present of that beau- tiful phaeton and pair of ponies, in which she had been driving about all the week; and, as they made their appearance at church in the new britehka, Avhich resembled the Barwells' as nearly as one carriage could resemble another, no doubt was entertained but that the Colonel had either given his to Mrs* Gregson, or that Mr. Gregson had bought it. Very niortifying indeed was it to Mr. Gregson tlierefore, on the Monday morning, when Mr ©ROWING GREAT. 141 Mason, the linen-draper, wiio had stopped him in the market-place, observed, " So, you've got the Colonel's old carriage, I hear — may I ask what you gave him for it? I think of buying a second-hand one myself: only a second-iiand price, I suppose; and, between friends, got it for an old song, 1 dare say!" " My good fellow," said Mr. Gregson, very mucii piqued, " you don't know muv:;h about carriages! ^Vhy, man, mine's spic and span new ! — ot Jy came from the maker's la>t week You're thinking of my wife's pony-phaeton — that was a present to her from Colonel Barwell!" " It's a lui;ky thing to be your wife !" exclaimed Mr. Mason; but, being determined to say some- thing disagreeable, because Mrs. Gregson had cut his wife's acquaintance, as well as left his shop, he added, " But Gregson, everybody says you have got the Colonel's old carriage, for they are as like as pea to pea ! " " What an envious old scamp it is ! " muttered Mr. Gregson to himself, as he walked onward to his warehouse. And the idea that everybody thought he had got the Colonel's old carriage, haunted him all day. " Where did the Colonel sell the britchka and the horses?" asked Mrs. Gregson, fiom one of the Moreby Lodge grooms, whom she met one day near the Elms; for an unpleasant suspicion lurked in her mind, that they had given serious offence by having ordered this britchka of their own; in consequence of which, her husband had not b^sn favoured with the commission. 142 GROWING GREAT. *< Master sent 'em to Tattersal's, said the man; " and the britchka Meiit to London too." " He talked of scUinjj them in this neighbour- hood," remarked Mrs. Gregson. " He altered his mind the night afore he set off"," replied the groom, " else we'd orders to take 'em to Mr. Gregson's," said he, touching his hat, Mrs. Gregson gave the man halt-a-crown, although the information was gall and wormwood to her; and he went off laughing to himself, for he knew the rumour in Woodburn of Mr. Greg- son having the old carriage; and he supposed the lady's questions had reference to this subject. It is not at all an extraordinary case, that Mhen people rise ever so little in the world, their acquaintance are filled with envy and all unchari- tableness. It seemed to the Gregsons to be especially so in their case; for all Woodburn appeared to be at feud with them since they had been noticed by the Barwells, and had removed to the Elms; but more particularly so, since they drove to church in a handsome carriage. *' Hang the britchka!" exclaimed Mr. Gregson to his M'ife, several weeks afterwards; " I wish I had never had it! I can go nowhere in Wood- burn, but people, out of sheer malice I am sure, are saying something to me about its being a second-hand affair; — as if I were in the habit of buying second-hand things! — as well ask if my coat is second-hand!" " They know well enough," said Mrs. Gregson, ** that it is not second-hand; but it is all their envy] I told you I met that Mrs. Browne, when GROWIWlr GREAT. 148 Lucy and I first dpove into the town in the pony- phaeton ; and she looked ready to cat us I Besides, how can they take the britchka for the Barwells'? — they might see that Che Colonel's crest is not on it, nor ever was." . " The mischief is," said Mr. Gregson, " that the Barwells went away just when they did. If they had only staid one Sunday longer, all would have been right." " If they had staid one Sunday longer, all would have been wrong — worse than it is," thought his wife : " they then never would have forgiven us; and even now I am frightened at the thoughts of their coming back again I " The Barwells, however, did not come back again so soon as was expected. Mrs. Gregson hoped that she might have a letter, but none came; and, at the end of three months, she and Lucy drove to Moreby Lodge, to inquire from the housekeeper when the family might be ex- pected. " Not at present," was the answer: " Mrs. Barwell liked the continent so much, that they were going a tour into Switzerland, and into Vienna, she believed; and it would certainly not be before the end of autumn that they would return; which would make it upwards of twelve instead of three months." This mformation was quite a relief. " Perhaps/* thought she, " they never will return !" It almost seemed to her more desirable they should not; for she could not help fearing that the same measure of favour would not be dealt to them as formerly. ^r, 144 CHAPTER XIII. A HELP TO GREATNESS. Though the Banvells were out of England, and Mrs. Gregson had cut all her former Woodburn acquaintance, and although no new ones had been formed with any of the higher families, either of the town or its neighbourhood, since they re- moved to their new house, yet Mr. Gregson, who loved to sit down to a table surrounded by guests, contrived that there should be no lack of visitors at the Elms. Many a rich farmer and his family, the purchase of whose dairies was an hereditary thing to Gregson, came to dine and stop all night. The young Gregsons also had their acquaintances, who came of an evening, and smoked cigars in the shrubberies, or played at bowls; whilst the clergyman of Woodburn, a Mr. Vincent, a quiet old bachelor, and the apothecary and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Dawes — the three standing dishes of every table, as Mr. Gregson called them — were always ready and willing to be entertained. Mr» Gregson, spite of his aspirings after gen- tility, which it had given his wife such satisfaction to discover, " was not," as he said, " one to reject a good thing, because it was no better." If he could not visit with the J'^nningses, and the Sykes Willoughbys, and all thai set, there was no reason why he should turn hermit. He would have such A HELP TO GREATNESS. 145 as "he could get; and, if they were not so grand, why, they were all the merrier — that was the only dift'erence. And, as for a dance, they could have one any time — for he liked young fellows that could dance in their boots, and girls that would not turn up their noses at a partner, because he had not new white kid gloves!" Thus easily satisfied, Mr. Gregsoc kept the Elms all alive ; and every Sunday, and not unfre- quently once or twice in the course of the week besides, gave a dinner, and dined out likewise ; driv- ing his wife and daughter to substantial granges, and farm-houses, and old manor-houses, that had come a little down in the world, across the country, through roads intended for taxed carts, or those with no springs at all, in his handsome britchka, very little, of course, to its improvement. Now, let it not be supposed that tiiere was any philosophy in Mr. Gregson's thus being satisfied with society merely of his own class. In the secret of his heart he wished to take a stand among the country gentry — to visit wherever the Brownes did; but, though he was striving after it by all means in his power, he never confessed as much to his wife. She, on the contrary, was always railing against farmers and farmers' wives, and was thinking, with herself, that she would give anything to know the secret by which the i3rownes managed to get the footing in society they did. At length she came to the decision, that the cause of this difference must be in the husbands. Browne never would do as her husband did; he never would make hiin3elf part and parcel with farmers. \i6 A HELP TO GREATNESS. and such like; he never would be content with tenants, while landlords were to be had. Partly on the plea, therefore, of being out of health, and partly on that of the state of the roads, which tried and injured the carriage-springs so much, she began to decline invitations, making up her mind not to compromise her claim to a higher class of society, by connecting herself entirely with this; but to wait for Mrs. Barwell's return, and trust to fortunate circumstances open- ing the way to visiting among Mrs. Barwell's friends; especially as Lucy was now growing so womanly, and so handsome. We have said before, that Mrs. Gregson seemed to be a favourite of fortune; for she seldom earnestly desired anything, which, by one means or other, was not brought about. Accordingly, the very next autumn. — about the time when the Barwells were expected to return — an accident happened, which occasioned the family to become acquainted with the Sykes Willoughbys. It occurred thus: — One fine breezy autumn afternoon, Mr. Greg- son and his eldest son were out with their dogs — for they had become great sportsmen since they lived at the Elms — and were looking out for a covey of partridges, which lay in a large plant- ation bordering a small lake which formed the extreme bound of the Willoughby estate in this direction, and which, at this point, joined Mr. Gregson's land. Young Sykes Willoughby and his sister, and that very Miss Wilmott for whom Lucy had been mistaken, were rowing about the lake; while a fine Newfoundland dog was in the A HELP TO GREATNESS. 147 water, with which all the party were amusing themselves. For frolic, or from want of thought, the young man called the dog to enter the boat — the young ladies, l?jghing and screaming, and protesting he should not; and, as he still swam nearer, and still was urged by his master to do so, one, or both of them, started up, and upset the boat. It was the act of an instant; and, in the same instant, ]Mr. Gregson, who was a strong man, and a good swimmer, threw off his coat, and sprang into the water to their rescue, not, how- ever, before he had ordered his son to run home instantly for the britchka. The sagacious creature which had been the innocent means of the acci- dent, caught hold of Miss Wilmott's dress, and drew her to land; whilst ^Ir. Gregson bore Miss Willoughby out of the water, and then returned to her brother, who, being but an indifferent swimmer, yet sustained himself from sinking, by having caught hold of the boat as it resettled itself in the water. Their peril was imminent; and nothing but Mr. Gregson's presence, and presence of mind, could have saved them all. They had not to wait long for the carriage, into which Mrs. Gregson had most thoughtfully put a quantity of cloaks and blankets — pleased beyond measure to have thus an opportunity of rendering service so essential to the Sykes \Vil- loughbys. The two young ladies, dripping wet, and frightened half out of their senses, were wrapped in blankets, and put into the carriage, together with their brother, who all the while made light of the affair; it was then closed, and youDg Gregson mounted the box beside liia 148 A HELP TO GREATNESS. father, who, although he was wet to the skin» merely wrapped a couple of great coats about him, and drove home with the utmost expedition. They found the gates set open to receive thera, and Mrs. Gregson herself at the hall door, with servants, who insisted upon carrying the young ladies up stairs to bed. It was in vain they pro- tested that they were only wet, and that there was no danger; and that, if dry clothes might but be sent for, they were able to go home. Mrs. Gregson would hear of nothing but their going to bed. A fire was burning in the chamber, and in the dressing-room likewise, where they found warm night-clothes and flannel gowns, and Lucy, full of tender anxiety and willing kindness. At length, all sorts of warm cordials had been pre- sented, and everything had been done that could be devised, and the* two were left in bed in the very best chamber; whilst young Willoughby, to whom far more attention had been offered than he was willing to accept, was left in bed also, in the second-best room, in which, likewise, a good fife was burning. By the time all this was done, and the running about of servants had pretty nearly ceased, and Mr. Gregson, who was positive about not going to bed, had changed his clothes and drank two strong glasses of hot negus, Mr. Dawes, the apothecary, for whom Mrs. Gregson had sent off express, arrived. Nothing, he de- clared, more judicious could have been suggested, had he been there himself; and then, assuring the young people that they might look upon them- selves ae having been once saved by Mr. Greg- eon, and twice by his wife, he forbade any of them A HELP TO GREATNESS. 149 to leave their rooms, or even their bods, until lie had seen them ne^t morning. He next volun- teered to take Castle Willoughby in iiis way home, that he might nullify any alarm, by the good report which he could take. Mrs. Gregson thanked him; but, the moment she had heard his report, she had, she said, sent off a servant on horseback, that Mr. and Mrs. Sykes Willoughby might be made perfectly easy. These young people could not, by any means, be called bad-hearted ; and yet, now that all danger was over, they wished anybody had saved them, rather than the Gregsons. " How vexed mamma will be," said Miss Wil- loughby to her cousin, " to have to tliank that horrid Mrs. Gregson, about whom Mrs. Browne has told such absurd things! — and him too! — did you ever see such a vulgar person?" Young Willoughby, although he had not a chamber-companion to whom he could express his sentiments, amused himself by thinking how he would amuse others, by what he called " the humours of the house." Mrs. Sykes Willoughby never thought, at the first moment, about whom she had to thank; she felt too much overjoyed "to know that they were safe, to scruple about the means by which they were saved. After a fit of hysterics, therefore, her husband being out shooting in anotlier part of the county, she ordered her close carriage, and, accompanied by her maid, drove to the Elms, although her dinner had been waiting half an hour. Never did a more welcome vision present itself to Mrs. Gregson, than that of this csirriage 150 A HELP TO O&EATNESfl. driving \ip to her door. Mr. Gregson rtevv to the carriage steps to receive her; and she entered the house, leaning upon his arm, and pouring put protestations of everlasting gratitude. She was placed ill a cushioned chair by the drawing-room fire, with the greatest possible respect; and, after Mrs. Gregson had " feared," some dozen times, " that siie was ill," or " that the fatigue would overdo her," or " that she might suifer from this excitement," she yielded to her request to see her children, and was accordingly ushered up stairs by the mistress of the house herself, who failed not, all the while, to insist upon the doctor's injunctions being attended to — that the young people should be left quiet till he had seen them next morning. A sound of laughter and merriment proceeded from the chamber which held the two young ladies, as they approached the apartment. " Nobody that hears this would believe that, two hours ago, they were just between life and death," said Mrs. Gregson, as she presented the Boftly-stepping Mrs. Sykes Willoughby to their bed-side. The young ladies protested that they were quite well ; tiiat they had had an excellent dinner — thanks to Mrs. Gregson — and that now they were quite well enough to be ducked a second time; and they hoped, therefore, the carriage was come for them, with plenty of dry clothes. Mrs. Sykes Willoughby, however, would not hear of their returning home, nor yet of their rising. She then commenced a weak lecture on boating, and on jJaying with dogs on water; and declared, that A HELP TO GREATNESS. 161 they should never sufficiently thank their good neigiibour. Pretty much the same scene took place in her son's chamber, excepting that he out-talked his mother, laughed loud at all her fears for his health, and, in the end, was per- mitted to get up, dress in the fresh clothes that had been brought, and accompany his mother home. This adventure, of course, made a great talk in Woodburn ; and Mrs. Browne, who knew Mrs. Gregson woidd be overjoyed to have a door thus opened to her acquaintance with the Sykes Wil- loughbys, lost not a moment in making a call the next morning, being resolved to depreciate the Gregsons' part of the affair. " It may be a dangerous piece of water," said she, as she sate with Mrs. Sykes Willoughby, in her morning-room; " but my son, who cannot, by any means, be reckoned a rash young man, has been there times without end; besides, considering that Mr. Henry can swim, and as the dog was with them, there w^as no danger of them being drowned — the dog alone would have saved them.' " You have such excellent spirits!" said Mrs, Sykes Willoughby, who, from alarm and excite- ment overnii^ht, was suffering this morning from a nervous attack; " I assure you I have had visions of drowning people before my eyes all night!" " Mr. Henry himself," continued Mrs. Browne, *' says that Mr. Gregson never touched him — he swam — and Neptune certainly drew Miss Wilmott to land — there are the marks of his teeth in the "tack of her dress — fine fellow I — You ought to 152 A HELP TO GREATNESS. have his picture taken. Besides, if you knew the Gregsons as well as I do!" — Here Mrs. Browne stopped abruptly, and shrugged her shoulders. ♦' I grant," observed Mrs. Sykes Wiiloughby, seeing that the otlier waited for her to speak, " that one does not like to be under obligations to that sort of people. If it had but been some poor man that one could have pensioned, and thus made comfortable for life ' — but with such as they, one has no means of returning the obligation." " Yes, you have — by visiting with them!" said Mrs. Browne, sarcastically, well knowing that to Mrs. Sykes Wiiloughby, one of the most exclu- sive, people in the whole county, this was what would be particularly unpleasant. " Impossible ! One could not do that," said she. " They are dreadfully vulgar," replied Mrs. Browne; we endured them as long as we could. She was an early humble friend of mine — a sort of companion before I married. They are under great obligations to us, and we did not wish to mortify them; but, upon my word, they are such as you could not visit." Just as these words were spoken, Mrs. Sykes Willoughby's maid knocked at the door, to say that Mrs- Gregson had brought home the young ladies. " Make my best compliments to Mrs. Gregson," said she, "•' and say I am extremely unwell this morning. You can say, Stowel, that I have not left my room, and regret I cannot see her; but I will have the honour of calling to make my ac- knowledgments, the first moment I am able to go out; — and send the young ladies to me." A HELP TO GREATNESS. 153 The message was delivered, and Mrs. Gregson was mortified; and the young ladies having offered her wine and cake, and sate and chatted with her, as a necessary mark of attention, in the absence of Mrs. Sykes Willoughby, saw her depart, and then ran up stairs to make a long history of all that had happened, and to laugh at them all, with Mrs. Browne, and to assure their mother that there really was no danger of their being drowned, considering that Henry could swim, and that they had Neptune w.th them; and that Mrs. Gregson, and even Miss Gregson, though she was so pretty, and all the family too, were the most amusing people they had ever seen; and that it was ahiiost worth another ducking to pass another such night and morning. By the time Mr. Sykes Willoughby came home, the adventure came to be considered a mere joke. No sooner, however, did he hear it related, than he treated it in a very different manner. " It was the most dangerous piece of water," he said, " he knew anywhere : that it was nonsense talking of Henry swimming — he could do no such thing; and that, supposing Neptune had saved one, or at most two, they, by that time, would have been insensible; and, who must have summoned help?" He said, in short, that they were fools and blockheads, and talked like asses I and that every one of them owed their lives to Mr. Gregson ; and that he himself should go and made his acknowledgments to that gentleman; and that he was happy to know that he had so good a neighbour, who would look after his madcaps in 154 A HELP TO GREATNESS. his absence; that he had heard many excellent things of Mr. Gregson, and lie should be proud to shake hands with him. Mrs. Sykes Willoughby, who always took her opinions from the most energetic speaker, no sooner heard her husband express himself thus, than she tiiought that certainly they had been very remiss; and that she herself, she then remem- bered, had promised to call the first time she went out. She therefore proposed to her husband, that they should drive to the Elms together, and that they should take Mrs. Gregson a present of fruit — a tine pineapple, and some of their beautiful grapes. Her husband thought nothing could be more proper; and, between three and four o'clock, just as the Gregsons had done dinner, it was announced that the Sykes Willoughbys' carriage was coming up the drive. Most happy was Mrs. Gregson to think that she and Lucy were well dressed, that there was a good fire in the drawing- room, and that she herself had swept up the hearth before dinner. " It is an excellent plan to have a hearth-brush always at hand," thouglit Mrs. Gregson, as, in a very agreeable flutter of spirits, she walked into the drawing-room. While the gentlemen were busy talking on a variety of topics, which grew out of this adventure at the little lake, the ladies likewise \yere keeping up what seemed like an animated conversation. At length Mrs. Sykes Willoughby spoke of the views from the windows, which, she said, she had always preferred to her own. *' You know this liouie, then," said Mrs. Greg- son. A HELP TO GREATNESS. 155 Mrs. Sykes Willoughby knew it well ; she liad spent, she said, many happy hours there. They knew Sir Henry Forrester, who built it; and her recollections of the place were all pleasant. " Perhaps," said Mrs. Gregson, you would then like to go over it again. 1 think you will say, that in our humble way we have made it com- fortable ; though we don't pretend to vie with Sir Henry Forrester." Mrs. Sykes Willoughby declared that nothing would give her greater pleasure; and accordingly, from kitchen and larder up to the very attics, did Mrs. Gregson take her visitor; not omitting by any means to open any drawers, or presses, or cupboards, which contained either handsome dresses, stores of linen, plate, or china, or might, m any way, give the lady of Castle Willoughby an idea of their being people of substance, and who understood, likewise, all that was needful in a handsome establishment. When they returned to the drawing-room, they found the gentlemen had also disappeared — Mr. Gregson thinking he might as well sliow his neighbour, whom he knew to be an amateur farmer and breeder of cattle, his fine brood sow; and so, from the sow to all his other out-door possessions, not forgetting his six- stalled stable, every stall of which was occupied. During the absence of all parties, Lucy had ordered in some of the best wine in the best decanters, with a heaped silver basket of ri"' cake; all of which stood upon a massy silve. waiter of great value. The fruit which Mrs. Sykes Willoughby had brought, and which, in the meantime had come in, stood also upon the H 156 A HELP TO GREATNESS. table. The ladies then sat down to await the gentlemen's return; and, while Mrs. Gregson poured forth thanks for the fruit, Mrs. Sykes Willoughby commended the cake, which she con- descended to eat. " Upon my word," said Mrs. Gregson, helping herself a second time to some of the grapes, " these are much finer flavoured than their's at Moreby Lodge." " You have seen Mrs. Barwell since her re- turn," said Mrs. Sykes Willoughby. " No I Is she returned?" asked Mrs. Gregson, hastily; and, the next moment, was sorry she had done so. " She returned three days ago," said the other. " I saw her yesterday ; she is looking remarkably well: I understand you are very intimate with her." "Extremely so," returned Mrs. Gregson, now- determined to make all right. " She is my dearest friend; but she loves to surprise one; she took me by surprise when they first came; she cannot have been out yet, or she would have called on me." " We dined with them at the Brownes', yester- day," said Mrs. Sykes Willoughby. " Wonderful people the Brownes are," said Mrs. Gregson, more mortified than she would have told, at what she had heard ; " very won- derful people! Mr. Gregson lent him" the first money he ever had; he, in fact, furnished that house for him in Wilton-street; and I knew her as a girl; her father was a small grocer. in Gloucester, and died a bankrupt!" " She is an extremely clever person," said GROWING GREATEB. 157 Mi-s. Sykes Willoughby, " nevertheless, and gives txcelleiit dinners; — Mr. Sykes Willoughby prefers dining tliere even to the bishop's." Just then came in the gentlemen. " We are making an unconscionable call, Mrs. Gregson," said Mr. Sykes Willoughby; but your good hus- band has been decoying me into his farm-yard." " It is a wonder you have found your way m at all, then," said his wife, rising; " he is so pas- sionately fond of animals," added she, addressing Mrs. Gregson. After Mr. Sykes Willoughby had taken a couple of glasses of wine, which he greatly com- mended, and said a few civil things to Lucy, and thanked Mrs. Gregson for the good care she had taken of his young people, they made their adieus and departed, leaving INlrs. Gregson much more uneasy to hear that the Barwells had returned, than pleased that the Sykes Willoughbys had called. CHAPTER XIV. GROWING GREATER. It was then too late to drive to Moreby Lodge; but the next morning Mrs. Gregson and her daughter did not fail to make their visit of welcome. She had scarcely slept the whole night, so full of anxiety was she, fearing lest they had offended past redemption ; "and if so," thought she, "what a triumph to the Brownes ! And yet, per- haps, after all, there is no need for apprehension ; it was but a small thing to give offence by — iust 158 GROWING GREATER. admiring their carriage; and, really if they are offended, they are, as Gregson says, full of rank pride! However, offended or not, all I desire is, that the Brownes should not have a triumph over us; and, now that we have begun so well with the Sykes Willoughbys, if I can but keep up anything like the old intimacy, I shall be satisfied." Full of the determination to keep up at least something like the old intimacy, she entered the drawing-room where Mrs. Barwell sate at her work, and with her a lady, a visitor, reading. Mrs. Barwell's manner was kind, was unquestion- ably kind, towards Lucy; she also expressed plea- sure in again meeting her mother. An uninterested spectator would have said any one must be satisfied by it; but Mrs. Gregson felt that it was very different to their former meeting; heart was now wanting; that very charm which hitherto had made Mrs. Barwell's lightest word so different to other people's professions of affection. She thoughtj perhaps this difference was occasioned by the presence of a stranger, and therefore she ma- noeuvered all kind of ways to send Lucy and the lady into the garden or green-house, or to go there herself with Mrs. Barwell. But none of her hints were taken, and they still sate together, talking on common topics. Towards Lucy, how- ever, as we said, much of her former cordiality remained. She regretted that her niece was not then at home; she and her uncle were gone out for a ride on horseback. " The Colonel," said she, " is so happy to have a riding companion; and Mary Anne rides admirably; but 1 must, neverthe- less, find you some amusement; you can turn over GROWING GREATER. 159 these volumes of engravings, which we collected in Germany; they are, many of them, very fine. I have some excellent Italian and German music for you. I hope you practise as nmch as you did, and that you love music even more. I did not forget you when I was abroad." Whilst Mrs. Gregson heard the kind voice of Mrs. Barweli thus speaking to her daughter, she felt as if she could throw herself on her neck, and weep and pray that they might be as formerly; but with this relenting mood came the thoughts of the old uncle and aunt who sold tea, and who had been held up to her as constant examples; and she knew that with the old intimacy musj; com* the counsels and the warnings, which were so abhorrent to her spirit; and therefore she deter- mined to let things take their own way. They talked, of course, of the adventure of the little lake, and of Mr. Gregson's heroism; and then she told of the Sykes Willoughby's call, and the present of " beautiful fruit;" and dwelt rap- turously on the " charming conversation and manners" of the whole family; adding, " what an advantage it would be to Lucy to be acquainted with them !" Had any peculiar expression passed over Mrs. Barwell's countenance whilst she was thus talking, it would instantly have stopj)ed her, or have qualified what she meant to say; but none did: she differed from her on some points, and acquiesced in others, in the most cool and natural way possible, but rather as if with an acquaint- ance than an intimate friend; and therefore, Mrs. Gregson said more than at first she intended, as if to elicit some more decided sentiment. She 160 GROWING GREATEl. told her that the Sykes Willoughbys would dine with them soon ; that Mr. Gregson had asked them, and that they had declared it would give them ])leasure; and she hoped, therefore, that Colonel and Mrs. Barwell would meet them. It might have been the most common thing in the world for the Sykes Willoughbys to dine with the Gregsons, from the manner in which Mrs. Barweh accepted the invitation, " for whatever time it might be;" adding, that " the day before, they had dined with them at Mr. Browne's." Mrs Gregson did not choose to make any observation respecting the Brownes' giving great dinners, lest even a glance might throw her observation back upon herself; but she did venture one remark, just as a sort of memento of old times, that " the Brownes were going on just as usual. She sup- posed Mrs. Barwell had heard that they had bought a great estate somewhere in the north of England." Mrs. Barwell said that she had; that a great deal was said about it the last night; it appeared to be a very fine estate; and, added she, smiling, " he is now lord of a manor, and she lady of a castle; young Browne too is up there shooting; we had moor-fowl from the estate, and fish too from the lakes." " Upon my word!" ejaculated Mrs. Gregson, with an upward jerk of her head. Now, as it happened that the Gregsons' re- moval to the Elms was the mainspring of the Brownes' possessing themselves of this estate, which lay on the borders, whilst Mrs. Gregson, therefore, is finishing her call at Moreby Lodge, we may as well say a few words on the subject. GROWING GREATER. 161 The Elms, as we before remarked, had been the place, of all others, which Mr. and Mrs. Browne had desired to possess for themselves. Sorely galling, therefore, was it, not only to see it in the hands of another, and that other, Mr. Gregson himself, but also to be conscious that he (Browne) as a lawyer, with whom the deeds, in part, had been deposited, hid been gulled out of it by a lawyer more cunning than himself. They, how- ever, were politic people; and it never was sus- pected by the world, nor even by the Gregsons, that they had had the slightest wish to possess it. To every one, therefore, they depreciated the place. " The title was not the best in the world," Browne said; " and it would be well if Gregson did not find in the end that he had a dear bargain." " The house was damp, and the v.ater was bad," Mrs. Browne said ; " she had it from excellent authority." She even persuaded old Mrs. Jen- nings that she herself had told her so; and the poor old lady, whose intellects were now none of the clearest, actually fancied that Sir Henry For- rester's housekeeper had told her so. As the Gregsons, therefore, now were landed proprietors, it was not to be expected that the Brownes could remain satisfied with merely a house in Wilton-street, to which not even half an acre of land belonged. Many were the places he turned his eye upon — becoming more and more ambitious the longer the idea dwelt with him. Perhaps, ho^vever, the circumstance of the Greg- sons having two carriages might act as a spur to his ambition; certain it is, that about that time he, too, began to drive a pair of horses, and 162 GROWING GREATER. actually set off, he and Mrs. Browne, to soirne* where in the North, with four post-horses. It made a great talk in Woodburn at the time: an old client, it was said, was on his death-bed, and Mr. Browne was sent for to make liis will; and then, it was said, that he was appointed ward to a minor of weak intellects; and, shortly afterwards, that he had purchased a vast estate in Norihum- berlaiid, to which all kinds of manorial privileges were appended; that the family house was a fine castle; and now, this very autumn, young Browne, and some of his college friends, were gone up shooting there. The Woodburn people, after this, no longer wondered at any expense that the Brownes went to; they were looked upon as among the richest people of the neighbourhood; and their dinners, and her dresses and evening parties, and young Browne's college life, and his shooting excursions in the North, to which he set out ironi Wood- burn, accompanied by a keeper, pointers, doband — stout and open-visaged, full of enjoyment as he appeared, and listened to as an oracle by a circle of country gentlemen, to whom Mr. Sykes Wil- loughby had introduced him, as a breeder of the finest pigs in England; whilst poor Mr. Browne sate in a corner of a sofa, speaking to no one, and, if addressed, looking as if roused from a reverie for a moment, and then relapsing into the same state of abstraction as before. " How dreadfully Mr. Browne looks to-night !" said she to Mrs. Barwell. " Poor man I" she replied, without glancing towards him, " he is wearing himself out" 15 168 GROWING GREATER. " By his profession you meati)'' said Mrs Gregson. " He is making haste to grow rich too fast,** observed Mrs. Barwell. Mrs. Gregson made no answer, for she felt as if a reproach were implied; and, the next moment, dinner was announced. The sight of the costly dinner-service of solid silver, all of the most exquisite workmanship, filled the heart of poor Mrs. Gregson with despair. " I never can come up to this," thought she. " I wonder what kind of dinner-service the Brownes have: 1 wish I could know!" She inadvertently glanced across the table to wlipre Mrs. Browne sate, and their eyes met. It seemed as if Mrs. Browne had divined the thought which was in her rival's mind, and she smiled as if in derision; that smile, and the consciousness of the thought, made Mrs. Gregson blush; and that blush was excessively mortifying, particularly as she felt that Mrs. Browne's eyes were still upon her : in her heart she hated her. In the course of the evening, however, her triumph came, for everybody admired Lucy ; — such a sweet countenance, and so beautiful; and she danced so well too — not even the bi autiful Miss Wilmott surpassed her. To her mother's great delight, she observed that young SykesWilloughby danced with her five times. She wished that " Bonnie Prince Charlie" had but been there, to have seen how he M'ould have gone on, and whether he would have paid her any attention. He, however, was in the North; and, spite of hef secret wish that he had been there, she fuit GROWING GREATEK. 1 6D • annoyed when everybody regretted his absence; but he will be back, said they, in time for the ball at Castle Willoughby; and then, thought she, I shall see him. Whilst Lucy was dancing with Henry Sykes Willoughby, Tom Gregson was dancing with Miss Barwell. " Do you see *how well they are matched?" whispered Mr. Gregson to his wife. His words conveyed the id^a he intended, and a new ambition a-t once took possession of her. Mr. and Mrs. Gregson went home delighted. It vv'as a great coming down, to Tom and George to go next morning to the warehouse, and n)ake pntries in the great ledger about anytliing so vulgar as cheese. Their father himself felt rather indisposed for business, and told them that he should not go down to Woodburn thai day, but that they must do double duty for him. Whether or not they did so may be a questionable thing. The great party at Castle Willoughby was now the object towards which all desires were turned. Mrs. Gregson bought brocaded satin for this occasion; Lucy, who before had worn pink satin, was now to be dressed in white, with blush roses in her hair. Her father himself took extraordinar}' interest in her appearance, while he gave to each of his sons ten pounds, that they might still farther replenish their wardrobes. " Now, boys, you must mind your p*s and q's, let me tell you," said he, " for the Bonnie Prince will be there!" All the Gregsons indeed kept this in view; and not only that the son was to be there, but that the parents were to be there also. " And 1*11 mind 170 GROWING GREATER. • and not be put out of countenance again by that woman," thought Mrs. Gregson. All those ex- pectations of meeting the Brovvnes, however, were destined to be disappointed. The Brownes were not there, and Mrs. Gregson had the mortification of hearing everybody regretting the circumstance. " I am sorry we shall not see Mrs. Browne to- night, nor yet Mr. Charles Edward," said one. " Gone into the North, did you say, Mrs. Sykes Willoughby?" asked another. " Yes," was her reply, " quite unexpectedly. I had a note only a few hours ago." " Something about a law-suit !" said a gentle- man, who carried his hands under his coat-laps, and looked very knowing: " well, if it do not lead him into Chancery." " What! something wrong about his title?" asked Mr. Gregson. chuckling, because Browne had said the title to the Elms was bad. " Can't say — can't say I" repeated the gentle- man who hid his hands; and, further than that, the Gregsons could that night get no information. Again Lucy was much admired, and again she danced with young Sykts Willoughby, and again Tom danced with Miss Barwell. Everything seemed to the Gregsons as it should be; and, in the dark of the winter morning, they drove away from Castle Willoughby, in apparent good humour with all the world. One subject, however, was about equalJy paramount with pleasure in their minds, and that was curiosity respecting the Brownes. " rU tell you what," said he to his wife, as they drove along, " that fellow has got to the end of GROWING GREATER. 171 Ills nui-.n':! 'J'here'Il be a smash up there before long! and I must look after my five hundred poundsl" " Have not you got that money yet?" asked Mrs. Gregson, in surprise. " No," returned he; and, so as I've bothered him, he'd liave paid it^ before now if he could! What a fool I have been I And now I think of it, there was a queer rumour some four months ago. Upon my word, tiiough, I'll look sharp after my money now! What must he be buying estates for, and can't pay his debts?" said he, growing angry as he thought of his probable loss. " I'm sure I would have it!" said his wife. "Never fear but I will!" said he, " if I sell him up for it." The next day, Mr. Gregson failed not to present himself at Browne's office, and, in his absence, demanded to see the confidential clerk. To him he presented his demand for five hundred pounds, borrowed money, and three years' interest. The clerk said he had no orders to pay it, but that he •would communicate Mith Mr. Browne. " When will he be back?" asked he. The clerk could not tell. " What! he's in hiding, is he?" asked Gregson. The clerk was taken a little by surprise, yet, after a moment's hesitation, he said, " No such thing!" iNIr. Browne was at Morpeth; he could give Mr. Gregson his address, if he wished it. "Now, harkee!" said Gregson, "I know much more than you are aware of. You write, there- fore, and tell Browne so; and tell him if he don't Bend me an order on his banker, by return of 172 CONCLUSION. post, for principal and interest, why, I'll send an execution into the house ! — that's all." And, strik- ing his fist upon the table, and looking very determined, as if he knew a great deal more than he chose to confess, he got up slowly from his chair, and then, drawing down his waistcoat and drawing up his person, he added, " Now, you see and tell him every word I have said I" The clerk said that he would, but he was sure Mr. Gregson was under a gross mistake, and, he must confess, had not behaved like a gentleman. Mr. Gregson did not choose to bandy words with Mr. Browne's clerk, and therefore, merely nodding, as much as to sa}', he knew what he was about, left the office. CHAPTER XV. CONCLUSION. Mrs. Barwell, whose good opinion of Lucy Gregson had been raised still higher by the modesty and propriety of her behaviour, the two evenings she had been in her company, was quite willing to make her the associate of her niece; and therefore, a few days after the party at the Willoughbys, she drove to the Elms for the purpose of inviting her to spend a few days with her. Nothing could have given Mrs. Gregson greater pleasure, nor was Lucy less pleased; but her mother had ulterior purposes to serve, of which she knew nothing. Several weeks had now pass^4 on, and two CONCLUSION. 173 ittbjects were beginning to be deeply interesting to the Gregsons. In the first place, Lucy beiug frequently at Moreby Lodge, afforded opportuni- ties for her brother Tom to go there too. Tom was reckoned handsome, and, his mother flattered herself, would be found irresistible by any young lady, let her be ever so considerable an heiress But caution and circumspection, and all kind of prudent virtues, were needful, lest the suspicions of the uncle and aunt were excited, and thus not only her hopes for her son defeated, but all inti- macy between the famiUes cut off for ever. After Lucy had paid two visits, her mother pro- posed that Miss Barwell should return them by one long visit. There was considerable demur and difficulty on Mrs. Barwell's part, but at last she consented, that " certainly she should visit them before long, but that Lucy must not object to give three visits for one." Lucy, therelore, paid another visit, and then Miss Barwell was allowed to go to the Elms for two days. '• Two days are as nothing I" said Mrs. Gregson to her husband; " however, we must make the most of them!" Tom was never at the warehouse for one single hour. He drove Miss Barwell out in his mother's pony phaeton; she and Lucy rode out together on horseback, accompanied by him; they played at chess together; he turned over the leaves of her music-book, and even sang with her; for, among his other accomplishments, Tom Gregson sang very well. His father and motiier were delighted. " Fair and softly," said Mr. Gregson, rubbing 174 CONCLUSION. his handS) " and he'll carry the day. There is nothing li-ke being first in the field ! " A few days afterwards, Mrs. Gregson met Miss Harwell in the Sykes Willoughbys' carriage: there was Mrs. Sykes Willoughby, and her son, and Miss Barwell ; and the two young people were laughing and talking together. It was a very unpleasant thing to see; and the more so, as she did not doubt but that this match would be thought desirable by all parties. She had laid out young Sykes Willoughby for her own daughter; bjit if this connexion were to be formed with the Bar- wells, there was an end to both her schemes at once. This scheme of securing the heiress for Tom was the subject first and foremost in the Gregsons* mind; but there was another subject also, which was hardly less interesting, and that was the growing rumour respecting the embarrassments of the Brownes. The family was still in the North, although, it was said, that they were daily expected; and Gregson was waiting for that daily return, to have his claim satisfied — Browne having. himself written to assure him of payment being made the first moment he came back. Week after week, how- ever, went on, without their returning, and all Woodburn began to talk; something, evidently, was wrong. There was a law-suit, some said, and that this grand estate in the North would all go to pay off law-expenses. The fact was, that this estate was the property of a certain Mr. Warrilow, a person of weak intellects, whose wardship Browne had, by some means, obtained. CONCLUSION, 175 He was pensioned witli a farmer on the estate, at small cost, and Browne had taken possession of the whole as his own. It happened, however, that Warrilow had an uncle, or cousin, a shrewd man of business, in Glasgow, of whose existence Browne had been unaware: this person had now coiye forward in his relative's behalf, and threat- ened all kind of desperate actions at law. And dis- graceful disclosures, if every penny were not refunded, and all given up as it had been received in trust, ten years before. Ten years of expendi- ture, such as the Brownes' had been, wlio never looked fur a day of reckoning, had made awful inroads into the funds of the estate; to say nothing of the ten years of rent, which had all gone. Browne knew, from the first, that there was nothing but ruin and disgrace before him, yet he clung to possession as a drowning man to a twig, and tried all means which his lawcraft could suggest, to delay, at least, the day of reckoning. It was this which had taken, and now kept, the Brownes in the North; for Browne, unlike Greg- son, in all his schemes of self-aggrandizement, made hi^ wife his confidant; nay, in ft^ct, it was believed that she w^as the mainspring of this afi'air; at least, the farmer who had poor Warrilow in keeping, declared that all his orders were received from her. Indistinct rumours of all, this reached Wood- burn, and demands of all kinds poured in upon the distracted head clerk. At. length it became necessary that the Brownes should make their appearance, to save the very household furniture 176 CONCLUSION, from the hands of the creditors, among whom Gregson was the most clamorous. We have said how haggard and anxious poor Mr. Browne looked on the night of the Barwells' party. It was with a countenance ten times more worn and anxious, that he again made his appearance in his office. Not like his, however, (vas the appearance of his wife; she looked portly, as usual; and, if some tracee of anxiety appealed in her countenance, they might easily be accounted for by the vexatious rumours which had been maliciously circulated, she said, as, on the day after their return, she drove round Woodburn in her carriage, from shop to shop, wherever a bill was owing, paying every one out of a large purse, which to the last moment seemed full. After she had thus gloriously, as she said, given the lie to all the Woodburn slander, she drove to make calls on all her IViends, and to leave, as she said to herself, a legacy for the Gregsons. Wherever she went, therefore, she did not fail to say, (which she did on speculation, although it proved to be nearer the truth than she was aware of,) " that everybody was talking of young Gregson and Miss Barwell; th?.t it was shocking to think what that artful woman, Mrs. Gregson, was capable of doing; and that every- body who had the least respect for Mrs. Barwell, ought to warn her of what was going forward." One tithe of what Mrs. Browne said would have been enough ; however, she was resolved not to do her work by halves; so she drove to the Jenningses, and to old Mrs. Robinson's, and CONCLUSION. 177 Miss Can''s, and to a dozen other houses besides , and then to Castle Willoughby, where, as if fortune would befriend her, Mrs. Sykes Willoughby said, she herself had had the sanne suspicion, and had thought seriously of mentioning it to Mrs. Barwell, but that they were under an obligation to the Gregsons — at least Mr. Sykes Willoughby thought so — and therefore she hardly knew what to do : " however," said she, *' if you will give me a seat in your carriage, I will accompany you to Moreby Lodge, and we can both speak of it ; it will thus have double effect." Nothing could have been more satisfactory to Mrs. Browne ; and, in half an hour's time, they filled Mrs. Barwell's mind with burning indigna- tion. She, however, did not seem as much in- censed as she really was, and, of course, as the two ladies thought, she ought to have been ; and, w^^at was still more, they both saw Lucy herself help- ing Miss Barwell to feed a pair of love-birds. They exchanged very intelligent glances, an^, as they drove home, nodded their heads and said, " Mrs. Barwell must take the consequences : but they were sure it would be a most disgraceful thing for a girl with such a splendid fortune to tnarry a cheese-monger !" *' And now," said Mrs. Browne to her husband, that same evening, throwing down upon the table the purse from which she had paid the bills m the morning, " I have saved your credit for one day at leas>t ! Three hundred pounds now remain in this purse ; your clothes are packed, so are mine, and all is now ready for our departure. Charles Edward writes me word that the passage money 178 CONCLUSIOir. is paid, and they, when we are on board, only will wait for fair wind. Sufficient is secured to us to keep us far above want — let them take the rest! One comfort at least I shall have to my dying day," said she triumphantly, "I have done for the Gregsons !" That same evening Lucy Gregson was sent home in Mrs. Barwell's little carriage. She was in tears as she entered the drawing-room, where her mother was sitting. "Good gracious! what is amiss child?" ex- claimed she, fjightened by her daughter's tears and her unexpected return. " I shall never go to Moreby Lodge again I" said Lucy ; " read that," and she gave her mother a letter from Mrs. Bar well. The next morning the Brownes were gone, no one knew whither. No sooner was this noised abroad than creditors, among whom was Gregson, rushed in with demands for money; mortgages and bonds of all kinds; club money; soldiers* pensions ; widows* annuities, and orphans' por- tions! And, spite of all that the so lately-satisfied tradesmen could say, one deep, if not loud, exe- cration rung through Woodburn. Such was the career of two families, who, with every means to secure and diffuse rational happi- ness, pursued only the miserable aim of outshining GAch other. THE £ND» MM iUlUM